From news at computercollector.com Wed Mar 1 00:59:15 2006 From: news at computercollector.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 01:59:15 -0500 Subject: David Ahl's VCF plan got even better today! Message-ID: <002e01c63cfd$a72aa4a0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Update to the previous update which was an update as well: David said that after his speech, he'll auction an original copy of the first edition of "Basic Computer Games" and also the first 12 issues of "Creative Computing" magazine, with the money going to charity. ----------------------------------------- Evan Koblentz's personal homepage: http://www.snarc.net Computer Collector Newsletter: >> http://news.computercollector.com Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists & Museum: >> http://www.marchclub.org >> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/midatlanticretro/ From innfoclassics at gmail.com Wed Mar 1 02:54:03 2006 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 00:54:03 -0800 Subject: Google Video and old computers Message-ID: Discovered on the new "Google Video" tapings of the Computer History Museum Meetings, like "An evening with Steve Wozniak" Jan 12, 2006. For more search Google Videos for Computer History Museum. Some good National Historical Archive stuff too.... like the moon landing. Found under google picks. Plays fine on my Ubuntu Linux box, too. -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From Tim at Rikers.org Wed Mar 1 03:40:26 2006 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 02:40:26 -0700 Subject: an odd PC seen in a thrift store (?) In-Reply-To: <20060226124219.12288.qmail@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060226124219.12288.qmail@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <44056C0A.4010202@Rikers.org> Chris M wrote: > the talk of a peculiar USR pc made me remember this. > There used to be a (primarily) electronic junk store > in LI called Eldies (Edlies?) on Hempstead Tnpk in > Levittown I guess. Sitting there one day was an all in > one, IIRC, NCR unit that booted up to an a:> prompt. > It struck me as a weirdish dos semi compatible. It > didnt strike me as a PC4 or the nearly identical > Decision Mate (cpm). Pretty sure it was NCR, but eh > maybe it was NEC (definately NOT an APC, not quite > that big and heavy). Anyone have a clue? The Japanese NEC PC-9800 series booted with A: as the boot drive even if it booted off a hard disk. the floppies would become the next drives. Was the text in japanese? I did software development on some of these models back around 1990. All the M$ tools were available for them, but only from Japanese dealers and only in Japanese. -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From fryers at gmail.com Wed Mar 1 04:15:40 2006 From: fryers at gmail.com (Simon Fryer) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 10:15:40 +0000 Subject: funny: write-only-memory (WOM) datasheet In-Reply-To: References: <4404A268.60303@brothom.nl> Message-ID: On 2/28/06, Tony Duell wrote: > > > > http://www.national.com/rap/Story/WOMorigin.html > > For those who/ve not seen it, it was reprinted (without comments) amongst > some genuine data sheets in the back of _The Student Manual for the Art > of Electronics_. second edition. (FWIW, there are other jokes scattered > about in that book...) I always wondered to which device /dev/null pointed. 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 vax9000 at gmail.com Wed Mar 1 07:30:04 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 08:30:04 -0500 Subject: funny: write-only-memory (WOM) datasheet In-Reply-To: References: <4404A268.60303@brothom.nl> Message-ID: On 3/1/06, Simon Fryer wrote: > On 2/28/06, Tony Duell wrote: > > > > > > http://www.national.com/rap/Story/WOMorigin.html > > > > For those who/ve not seen it, it was reprinted (without comments) amongst > > some genuine data sheets in the back of _The Student Manual for the Art > > of Electronics_. second edition. (FWIW, there are other jokes scattered > > about in that book...) > > I always wondered to which device /dev/null pointed. And in some CPU R0 is a write only register --- you always read a 0 > > 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 classiccmp at popcorn.cx Wed Mar 1 02:29:32 2006 From: classiccmp at popcorn.cx (Stephen Edmonds) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 19:29:32 +1100 Subject: FREE: 2x DECstation in Melbourne, Australia Message-ID: <44055B6C.6000000@popcorn.cx> Greetings, I have a pair of DECstations and related parts that I don't forsee doing anything with in the near (or distant) future: * Complete DECstation 5000/133 with display, mouse and keyboard that powers up but has no OS. * DECstation 2100 system unit only. Unknown condition. * Storage expansion unit with one hard drive * Three other DIGITAL mice NIB (maybe for the 2100) * Another DA-15 to keyboard/mouse cable for the 5000 * Ethernet tranceiver Photos can be found at: http://popcorn.cx/computers/digital/decstation2100/ http://popcorn.cx/computers/digital/decstation5000/ Pickup is from Glen Waverley, preferably early evening later in the week. I hope someone else can get better use out of them than I have. Thanks, Stephen From news at computercollector.com Wed Mar 1 10:59:33 2006 From: news at computercollector.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 11:59:33 -0500 Subject: Google Video and old computers In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001f01c63d51$83eadb50$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> http://computerhistory.org/events/index.php?view=previous§ion=calendar -----Original Message----- From: Paxton Hoag [mailto:innfoclassics at gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 3:54 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Google Video and old computers Discovered on the new "Google Video" tapings of the Computer History Museum Meetings, like "An evening with Steve Wozniak" Jan 12, 2006. For more search Google Videos for Computer History Museum. Some good National Historical Archive stuff too.... like the moon landing. Found under google picks. Plays fine on my Ubuntu Linux box, too. -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Wed Mar 1 11:25:42 2006 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (David Woyciesjes) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 12:25:42 -0500 Subject: URGENT: Data recovery assistance needed in New Haven, CT area (cctalk) Message-ID: <4405D916.30802@sbcglobal.net> Hopefully there is someone nearby who can help. At work here, we need to recover some old data on Canon Magneto-Optical discs. I don't have them in my hand at the moment, so I can't give model details yet, but IIRC, they are roughly the size of 5 1/4 floppies. And to make things more fun, we can't find the drive that they were used in. Does anyone have one we could buy, or borrow? Or leads on who to talk to? And no, we cannot send the discs out, due to HIPAA privacy rules. The drive would need to be used here at Yale. Reply to me directly. Thanks in advance. -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Wed Mar 1 12:36:45 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 18:36:45 -0000 Subject: funny: write-only-memory (WOM) datasheet References: Message-ID: <000601c63d5f$18480b80$0200a8c0@ntlworld.com> This was a favourite of a friend of mine who worked for British Telecom in the early 80s. He would persuade a new (usually graduate - always more gullible) engineer to save data to WOM, then switch off the machine........ Jim. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Duell" To: Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 11:48 PM Subject: Re: funny: write-only-memory (WOM) datasheet > > > > http://www.national.com/rap/Story/WOMorigin.html > > For those who/ve not seen it, it was reprinted (without comments) amongst > some genuine data sheets in the back of _The Student Manual for the Art > of Electronics_. second edition. (FWIW, there are other jokes scattered > about in that book...) > > -tony > > > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.1/271 - Release Date: 28/02/06 > > From jim.isbell at gmail.com Wed Mar 1 12:43:00 2006 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 12:43:00 -0600 Subject: funny: write-only-memory (WOM) datasheet In-Reply-To: <000601c63d5f$18480b80$0200a8c0@ntlworld.com> References: <000601c63d5f$18480b80$0200a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: I can see it as being a useful item, like an accumulator on an hydraulic line, it would smooth out the pressure on the bit bucket preventing "hammering" in the line when the down line digital switch is closed. On 3/1/06, Jim Beacon wrote: > This was a favourite of a friend of mine who worked for British Telecom in > the early 80s. > > He would persuade a new (usually graduate - always more gullible) engineer > to save data to WOM, then switch off the machine........ > > Jim. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Tony Duell" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 11:48 PM > Subject: Re: funny: write-only-memory (WOM) datasheet > > > > > > > > http://www.national.com/rap/Story/WOMorigin.html > > > > For those who/ve not seen it, it was reprinted (without comments) amongst > > some genuine data sheets in the back of _The Student Manual for the Art > > of Electronics_. second edition. (FWIW, there are other jokes scattered > > about in that book...) > > > > -tony > > > > > > > > > > -- > > No virus found in this incoming message. > > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > > Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.1/271 - Release Date: 28/02/06 > > > > > > > -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space." From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Mar 1 14:00:58 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 15:00:58 -0500 Subject: URGENT: Data recovery assistance needed in New Haven, CT area (cctalk) In-Reply-To: <4405D916.30802@sbcglobal.net> References: <4405D916.30802@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <4405FD7A.6050404@gmail.com> David Woyciesjes wrote: > Hopefully there is someone nearby who can help. > At work here, we need to recover some old data on Canon Magneto-Optical > discs. I don't have them in my hand at the moment, so I can't give model > details yet, but IIRC, they are roughly the size of 5 1/4 floppies. And > to make things more fun, we can't find the drive that they were used in. > > Does anyone have one we could buy, or borrow? Or leads on who to > talk to? And no, we cannot send the discs out, due to HIPAA privacy > rules. The drive would need to be used here at Yale. > > Reply to me directly. Thanks in advance. What kind of disks are they. Do they have any markings on them? Peace... Sridhar From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Mar 1 14:17:56 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 12:17:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: URGENT: Data recovery assistance needed in New Haven, CT area (cctalk) In-Reply-To: <4405D916.30802@sbcglobal.net> References: <4405D916.30802@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 1 Mar 2006, David Woyciesjes wrote: > Hopefully there is someone nearby who can help. > At work here, we need to recover some old data on Canon Magneto-Optical > discs. I don't have them in my hand at the moment, so I can't give model > details yet, but IIRC, they are roughly the size of 5 1/4 floppies. And > to make things more fun, we can't find the drive that they were used in. > > Does anyone have one we could buy, or borrow? Or leads on who to talk > to? And no, we cannot send the discs out, due to HIPAA privacy rules. > The drive would need to be used here at Yale. Can you photograph the discs and put the image files on some webpage? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu From allain at panix.com Wed Mar 1 14:21:45 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 15:21:45 -0500 Subject: URGENT: Data recovery assistance needed in New Haven, CT area (cctalk) References: <4405D916.30802@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <17ec01c63d6d$c39836a0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> The NeXT 256 MB MO drive was is said to have been made by Canon. Don't have one myself, but a possible lead for you. jea From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Mar 1 14:52:16 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 15:52:16 -0500 Subject: URGENT: Data recovery assistance needed in New Haven, CT area (cctalk) In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 01 Mar 2006 15:00:58 EST." <4405FD7A.6050404@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200603012052.k21KqGfk002173@mwave.heeltoe.com> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > >What kind of disks are they. Do they have any markings on them? I was thinking they might be 128mb or 256mb MO's... -brad From john at guntersville.net Wed Mar 1 15:07:33 2006 From: john at guntersville.net (John C. Ellingboe) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 15:07:33 -0600 Subject: TI Travelmate Message-ID: <44060D15.3549A1F1@guntersville.net> Does anyone have information on the TI Travelmate LT220/V. A quick Google didn't turn up anything of value. I have acquired one with a pile of other items and have no idea how useful it might be. The power source, 18V DC did not come with it and there is no indication as to whether the center pin of the power connector is the positive connection or not. TIA John From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 1 15:37:15 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 13:37:15 -0800 Subject: TI Travelmate In-Reply-To: <44060D15.3549A1F1@guntersville.net> References: <44060D15.3549A1F1@guntersville.net> Message-ID: <200603011337150311.13B9BE34@10.0.0.252> On 3/1/2006 at 3:07 PM John C. Ellingboe wrote: >Does anyone have information on the TI Travelmate LT220/V. A >quick Google didn't turn up anything of value. > >I have acquired one with a pile of other items and have no idea >how useful it might be. The power source, 18V DC did not come >with it and there is no indication as to whether the center pin >of the power connector is the positive connection or not. Any external I/O connectors on it? Things like parallel port connections will usually have their ground/return pins conected to the - side of the power supply. Last resort is popping the box open and checking the ground plane on the PCB or any of the ICs (if the ground plane is buried) against the connector. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 1 15:41:45 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 13:41:45 -0800 Subject: an odd PC seen in a thrift store (?) In-Reply-To: <44056C0A.4010202@Rikers.org> References: <20060226124219.12288.qmail@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> <44056C0A.4010202@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <200603011341450683.13BDDE55@10.0.0.252> On 3/1/2006 at 2:40 AM Tim Riker wrote: >I did software development on some of these models back around 1990. All >the M$ tools were available for them, but only from Japanese dealers and >only in Japanese. There was an outpost of NEC down in southern California that handled developer relations for the NEC 9800 series. I don't recall their name (I can find out), but it wasn't NEC, but they could get you anything you wanted (for a price). Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Mar 1 15:50:21 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 16:50:21 -0500 Subject: URGENT: Data recovery assistance needed in New Haven, CT area (cctalk) In-Reply-To: <200603012052.k21KqGfk002173@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200603012052.k21KqGfk002173@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <4406171D.1030703@gmail.com> Brad Parker wrote: > Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> What kind of disks are they. Do they have any markings on them? > > I was thinking they might be 128mb or 256mb MO's... I have a Fujitsu DynaMO somewhere, if that'll help. Peace... Sridhar From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Mar 1 15:52:56 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 15:52:56 -0600 Subject: funny: write-only-memory (WOM) datasheet In-Reply-To: <000601c63d5f$18480b80$0200a8c0@ntlworld.com> References: <000601c63d5f$18480b80$0200a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <440617B8.5050709@oldskool.org> Jim Beacon wrote: > He would persuade a new (usually graduate - always more gullible) engineer > to save data to WOM, then switch off the machine........ Hopefully the graduate would point out that switching off the machine wasn't even necessary :-) -- 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 sonnet at sols.ucl.ac.be Wed Mar 1 16:10:57 2006 From: sonnet at sols.ucl.ac.be (Philippe Sonnet) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 23:10:57 +0100 Subject: My pdp-8i problem References: <20060218223010.C9A754AFBB@xprdmxin.myway.com> Message-ID: <03ae01c63d7d$04826aa0$70276882@solssilex> Dear Tim, It is very hard to answer your question. I also spent hours fixing my pdp-8/L, in which almost all circuits had to be repaired. It took me two years. The only way : use a logic probe and have a set a spare flipchips which you know are OK. I created a system to test the flipchips using a digital acquisition card on a PC (see www.sonnet.be). Collect all possible schematics, study them, have a confortable seat, stay calm and systematic and use a card extender to have better access to all the lines. Good luck, Philippe ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim" To: Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 11:30 PM Subject: My pdp-8i problem > > I was hoping someone on this list might have some input on this. I have > also posted this to alt.sys.pdp8. I have a pdp-8i with a memory problem. > Here is the post from alt.sys.pdp8: > > Quite some time back while scoping out a problem I shorted a pin in my > 8i backplane and lost memory control. Since that time Vince and I have > been trying to figure out where the problem is to fix it. I don't know > what pin I shorted as at the time I did not realize > I had damaged anything. The +5v breaker tripped though. > > The problem is I can not deposit or read back any memory locations. > The MB is displayed correctly on a deposit. Scoping signal has shown me a > very odd signal on B FIELD 0 (1) when the machine is in run mode. It has > a wave form on it rather than just a normal > voltage. The oddest thing is the high point of the wave goes up to +6v > with a bit of the beginning of the top portion going above +6v. To me > this should not be. How can I get > +6v from a system that is using +5v as it's input voltage? We have > some theories but nothing concrete as yet. The other thing is if I remove > all 3 G228s (A36, B36, B37) the > signal goes away. I do not have parity memory so nothing is in A37. > > We believe there is a bad ground somewhere, but I have not been able to > determine where. I do not have a wiring list so I may have to trace some > signals manually. I think I have to find all the places the B30L1 (B FIELD > 0(1)) goes to. > > Any ideas or suggestions from anyone? This has been bugging me for a > long time. I look at it for awhile, and then put it down for awhile. It's > also not easy to look at this in the location it is in. It's too low to > kneel and really be comfortable. Too high to lay on my stomach. :) > > Thanks for any input on this. I should say that part of the system > still works. Examining or depositing memory while it does not appear to > load/store the data increments the PC > as it should. I can sort of run, which was my original problem. It > runs but stays at location zero. It is not an interrupt causing this. So > the front panel is mostly operational > so at least some of the machine is still working. I just have to find > the problem with the memory. > > I know most people on this list do not have a pdp-8i, nor may know > much if anything about them. Any suggestion will be taken and looked > into if it seems to have hope of leading to a solution. Also I will > answer any questions people have to help describe the problem more or > give more details into what Vince and I have looked at. > > Tim Radde > > _______________________________________________ > Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com > The most personalized portal on the Web! > > > From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Wed Mar 1 16:17:31 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 22:17:31 -0000 Subject: funny: write-only-memory (WOM) datasheet References: <000601c63d5f$18480b80$0200a8c0@ntlworld.com> <440617B8.5050709@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <07aa01c63d7d$ef3e9460$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> From: "Jim Leonard" > Jim Beacon wrote: > > He would persuade a new (usually graduate - always more gullible) engineer > > to save data to WOM, then switch off the machine........ > > Hopefully the graduate would point out that switching off the machine > wasn't even necessary :-) > -- Yeah, but it usuall took a couple of days for them to calm down first. Jim. From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Wed Mar 1 16:22:06 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 22:22:06 GMT Subject: Teletype 31? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In message William Donzelli wrote: > And someone explain the 5 level/8 level joke to Mr. Newsletter. Um, something to do with serial bit coding schemes (5-bit Baudot or 8-bit ASCII)? I don't get it either... -- 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 legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 1 16:23:35 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 15:23:35 -0700 Subject: an odd PC seen in a thrift store (?) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 01 Mar 2006 13:41:45 -0800. <200603011341450683.13BDDE55@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603011341450683.13BDDE55 at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > There was an outpost of NEC down in southern California that handled > developer relations for the NEC 9800 series. I don't recall their name (I > can find out), but it wasn't NEC, but they could get you anything you > wanted (for a price). Recently on dovebid there have been a large number of NEC in circuit emulators... however, I had no luck looking them up on NEC's web site to try and get information about them. Sometimes these units have been going unsold with their minimum bid of $50 or $25 unmet, in case anyone has interest. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Mar 1 16:28:02 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 17:28:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: Teletype 31? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > And someone explain the 5 level/8 level joke to Mr. Newsletter. > > Um, something to do with serial bit coding schemes (5-bit Baudot or 8-bit > ASCII)? > > I don't get it either... Apparently you do... William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 1 16:28:06 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 15:28:06 -0700 Subject: Teletype 31? In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 01 Mar 2006 22:22:06 +0000. Message-ID: In article , Philip Pemberton writes: > In message > William Donzelli wrote: > > > And someone explain the 5 level/8 level joke to Mr. Newsletter. > > Um, something to do with serial bit coding schemes (5-bit Baudot or 8-bit > ASCII)? > > I don't get it either... I didn't get it either, so I figure it has to either be a mighty obscure joke, or an inside one. PS: AMD databooks were entered to LibraryThing last night -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 1 16:51:07 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 14:51:07 -0800 Subject: an odd PC seen in a thrift store (?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603011451070539.13FD5F6B@10.0.0.252> On 3/1/2006 at 3:23 PM Richard wrote: >Recently on dovebid there have been a large number of NEC in circuit >emulators... however, I had no luck looking them up on NEC's web site >to try and get information about them. Sometimes these units have >been going unsold with their minimum bid of $50 or $25 unmet, in case >anyone has interest. You used to be able to find a lot of 9801-type stuff in Japanese machine tools and even in some Japanese lab equipment. If I owned a 9801, I don't know what I'd do with it--just about everything in that box is different from a PC. Different display controller conventions, different floppy controller hookup, different BIOS conventons. Somewhen, back around 1990, WDDJ had a short series on the weirdness of the 9801. We still sell the occasional 3.5" drive that's been modified to spin at 360 RPM--but not as many as we used to, since most USB floppy drives understand the 3.5" 8x1024 format--at least in DOS-V format. Cheers, Chuck From john at guntersville.net Wed Mar 1 16:59:20 2006 From: john at guntersville.net (John C. Ellingboe) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 16:59:20 -0600 Subject: TI Travelmate References: <44060D15.3549A1F1@guntersville.net> <200603011337150311.13B9BE34@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44062748.B6A86BC9@guntersville.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 3/1/2006 at 3:07 PM John C. Ellingboe wrote: > > >Does anyone have information on the TI Travelmate LT220/V. A > >quick Google didn't turn up anything of value. > > > >I have acquired one with a pile of other items and have no idea > >how useful it might be. The power source, 18V DC did not come > >with it and there is no indication as to whether the center pin > >of the power connector is the positive connection or not. > > Any external I/O connectors on it? Things like parallel port connections > will usually have their ground/return pins conected to the - side of the > power supply. > > Last resort is popping the box open and checking the ground plane on the > PCB or any of the ICs (if the ground plane is buried) against the > connector. > > Cheers, > Chuck I haven't opened it up yet but there is a 9 pin jack on the side, maybe a serial port. It also has a modular connector which may be a modem connection. The other side has a large connector behind a hinged cover that looks like it may be a bus connection for expantion or connection to some special equipment. John From dwight.elvey at amd.com Wed Mar 1 17:12:23 2006 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 15:12:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: TI Travelmate Message-ID: <200603012312.PAA03470@ca2h0430.amd.com> >From: "John C. Ellingboe" > >Chuck Guzis wrote: >> >> On 3/1/2006 at 3:07 PM John C. Ellingboe wrote: >> >> >Does anyone have information on the TI Travelmate LT220/V. A >> >quick Google didn't turn up anything of value. >> > >> >I have acquired one with a pile of other items and have no idea >> >how useful it might be. The power source, 18V DC did not come >> >with it and there is no indication as to whether the center pin >> >of the power connector is the positive connection or not. >> >> Any external I/O connectors on it? Things like parallel port connections >> will usually have their ground/return pins conected to the - side of the >> power supply. >> >> Last resort is popping the box open and checking the ground plane on the >> PCB or any of the ICs (if the ground plane is buried) against the >> connector. >> >> Cheers, >> Chuck > >I haven't opened it up yet but there is a 9 pin jack on the >side, maybe a serial port. It also has a modular connector >which may be a modem connection. The other side has a large >connector behind a hinged cover that looks like it may be a bus >connection for expantion or connection to some special >equipment. > >John Hi John The point is that it is unlikely that the 18 volts will go to one of these connectors but the ground lead will most likely be there and Ohm at zero Ohms between connectors. The other 18 volt lead will most likely be the positive. Dwight From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Wed Mar 1 17:27:51 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 23:27:51 GMT Subject: Need datasheet from HP 1989 Opto handbook Message-ID: Hi, I'm trying to track down a copy of a datasheet from the Hewlett Packard 1989 Optoelectronics Handbook. Does anyone have a copy of this databook lying around somewhere? The datasheet I'm after is the one for the Thinkjet printer head - part number believed to be 51604A, though this may be different to the one in the databook (HP have this rotten habit of 'improving' things and changing the part numbers in the process). 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 philpem at dsl.pipex.com Wed Mar 1 17:35:55 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 23:35:55 GMT Subject: Teletype 31? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In message Richard wrote: > I didn't get it either, so I figure it has to either be a mighty > obscure joke, or an inside one. The relay finally clicked on about five seconds ago... The gist of it is, IIRC most Teletypes used 5-bit Baudot code, but most modern machines use ASCII. Baudot is 5-bit (5-level), ASCII is 8-bit (8-level). OK, the question was "I googled but couldn't find any photos, could you or your friend send me one off-list?", to which Mr. Donzelli replied "Do you want it in 5-level or 8-level?" In the good-old/bad-old days of Teletype terminals wired up to timeshared mainframes, people used to print out.. you guessed it, Teletype art. The Mona Lisa was a popular one, also IIRC a Peanuts/Snoopy calendar. Send a photo -> want it in 5/8 level -> geddit? :P -- 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 rborsuk at colourfull.com Wed Mar 1 18:38:42 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 19:38:42 -0500 Subject: Teletype 31? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hahahahah. Great. Thanks for clearing that up (seriously - I'm not being sarcastic). I didn't understand the joke either, but yes I remember ASCII art. Thanks Rob ps. I have a ASR-32 5bit Baudot. On Mar 1, 2006, at 11:35 PM, Philip Pemberton wrote: > In message > Richard wrote: > >> I didn't get it either, so I figure it has to either be a mighty >> obscure joke, or an inside one. > > The relay finally clicked on about five seconds ago... > > The gist of it is, IIRC most Teletypes used 5-bit Baudot code, but > most > modern machines use ASCII. Baudot is 5-bit (5-level), ASCII is 8-bit > (8-level). > > OK, the question was "I googled but couldn't find any photos, could > you or > your friend send me one off-list?", to which Mr. Donzelli replied > "Do you > want it in 5-level or 8-level?" > > In the good-old/bad-old days of Teletype terminals wired up to > timeshared > mainframes, people used to print out.. you guessed it, Teletype > art. The Mona > Lisa was a popular one, also IIRC a Peanuts/Snoopy calendar. > > Send a photo -> want it in 5/8 level -> geddit? > > :P > > -- > 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 tradde at excite.com Wed Mar 1 19:19:37 2006 From: tradde at excite.com (Tim) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 20:19:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: My pdp-8i problem Message-ID: <20060302011937.2FFA1B6CC@xprdmailfe18.nwk.excite.com> Phillipe, I am working on a project that will allow me to test many/most of my flip chips as you did. I got the idea from seeing what you did on your web site. I am hoping mine is not quite as bad off as the one you fixed. It was fully functional, and still partially is. My main problem right now is I have no memory access. I hope as have as much luck as you did. I like my 8i system, as it's what I originally learned on and finally got one of my own. Tim R --- On Wed 03/01, Philippe Sonnet < sonnet at sols.ucl.ac.be > wrote: From: Philippe Sonnet [mailto: sonnet at sols.ucl.ac.be] To: cctech at classiccmp.org Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 23:10:57 +0100 Subject: Re: My pdp-8i problem Dear Tim,It is very hard to answer your question. I also spent hours fixing my pdp-8/L, in which almost all circuits had to be repaired. It took me two years. The only way : use a logic probe and have a set a spare flipchips which you know are OK. I created a system to test the flipchips using a digital acquisition card on a PC (see www.sonnet.be). Collect all possible schematics, study them, have a confortable seat, stay calm and systematic and use a card extender to have better access to all the lines. Good luck,Philippe _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Mar 1 19:49:03 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 20:49:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: Teletype 31? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > ps. I have a ASR-32 5bit Baudot. As do I, but it is in extremely bad shape, so I am parting it out. Anyone need a part? Before anyone asks, the plastic cover is busted. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 1 19:26:56 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 01:26:56 +0000 (GMT) Subject: TI Travelmate In-Reply-To: <200603011337150311.13B9BE34@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Mar 1, 6 01:37:15 pm Message-ID: > > On 3/1/2006 at 3:07 PM John C. Ellingboe wrote: > > >Does anyone have information on the TI Travelmate LT220/V. A > >quick Google didn't turn up anything of value. > > > >I have acquired one with a pile of other items and have no idea > >how useful it might be. The power source, 18V DC did not come > >with it and there is no indication as to whether the center pin > >of the power connector is the positive connection or not. > > Any external I/O connectors on it? Things like parallel port connections > will usually have their ground/return pins conected to the - side of the > power supply. While this is normally reliable, be warned it doesn't _always_ work. The HP48 calculator has the signal ground pin of the (minimal) serial port connected to the +ve supply line. There's an internal voltage converter which doubles the logic supply, the transmit data pin swings between this doubled supply voltage an logic ground, so about -5V to +5V wrt the logic +ve line which is the RS232 signal ground. > > Last resort is popping the box open and checking the ground plane on the > PCB or any of the ICs (if the ground plane is buried) against the > connector. That's the one I do first. Why 'as a last resort'? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 1 19:32:20 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 01:32:20 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Need datasheet from HP 1989 Opto handbook In-Reply-To: from "Philip Pemberton" at Mar 1, 6 11:27:51 pm Message-ID: > > Hi, > I'm trying to track down a copy of a datasheet from the Hewlett Packard > 1989 Optoelectronics Handbook. Does anyone have a copy of this databook > lying around somewhere? > The datasheet I'm after is the one for the Thinkjet printer head - part I have a THinkjet service manual if that would be any use. It doesn't contain much on the head, though... Surely you're not trying to make your oen inkjet printer, are you? -tony From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Mar 1 19:54:39 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 20:54:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: Teletype 31? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > In the good-old/bad-old days of Teletype terminals wired up to timeshared > mainframes, people used to print out.. you guessed it, Teletype art. The Mona > Lisa was a popular one, also IIRC a Peanuts/Snoopy calendar. > > Send a photo -> want it in 5/8 level -> geddit? ^G ^G ^G ^G He wins the prize! OK, no more Teletype jokes. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 1 19:20:22 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 01:20:22 +0000 (GMT) Subject: funny: write-only-memory (WOM) datasheet In-Reply-To: from "9000 VAX" at Mar 1, 6 08:30:04 am Message-ID: > And in some CPU R0 is a write only register --- you always read a 0 I think I once mentioned here that I have a machine -- a real, production, machioe, with 16K words of memory that can be written by the CPU, that can be excuted as a program, but which cannot be read back by the CPU as data. OK, at the hardware level, the memory can clearly be read, since the contents can be executed. But it's almost write-only memory to the programmer. -tony From trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu Wed Mar 1 20:03:48 2006 From: trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu (joe heck) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 21:03:48 -0500 Subject: Need datasheet from HP 1989 Opto handbook In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44065284.5040707@splab.cas.neu.edu> 1988-1989 Optoelectronics Designer's Catalog: Page 2-8 is the Carriage Assembly for the Thermal Inkjet print cartridge 51610A. It is used with the 92261A black cartridge, 51605B blue, 51605R Red, and 51605G Green cartridges. I have that if that is what you want... Joe Heck Philip Pemberton wrote: > Hi, > I'm trying to track down a copy of a datasheet from the Hewlett Packard > 1989 Optoelectronics Handbook. Does anyone have a copy of this databook > lying around somewhere? > The datasheet I'm after is the one for the Thinkjet printer head - part > number believed to be 51604A, though this may be different to the one in the > databook (HP have this rotten habit of 'improving' things and changing the > part numbers in the process). > > Thanks. From john at guntersville.net Wed Mar 1 20:07:31 2006 From: john at guntersville.net (John C. Ellingboe) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 20:07:31 -0600 Subject: TI Travelmate References: Message-ID: <44065363.20F71A9E@guntersville.net> Tony Duell wrote: > > > > > On 3/1/2006 at 3:07 PM John C. Ellingboe wrote: > > > > >Does anyone have information on the TI Travelmate LT220/V. A > > >quick Google didn't turn up anything of value. > > > > > >I have acquired one with a pile of other items and have no idea > > >how useful it might be. The power source, 18V DC did not come > > >with it and there is no indication as to whether the center pin > > >of the power connector is the positive connection or not. > > > > Any external I/O connectors on it? Things like parallel port connections > > will usually have their ground/return pins conected to the - side of the > > power supply. > > While this is normally reliable, be warned it doesn't _always_ work. The > HP48 calculator has the signal ground pin of the (minimal) serial port > connected to the +ve supply line. There's an internal voltage converter > which doubles the logic supply, the transmit data pin swings between > this doubled supply voltage an logic ground, so about -5V to +5V wrt the > logic +ve line which is the RS232 signal ground. > > > > > Last resort is popping the box open and checking the ground plane on the > > PCB or any of the ICs (if the ground plane is buried) against the > > connector. > > That's the one I do first. Why 'as a last resort'? > > -tony I have raised the cover to look at the LCD and keyboard, checked that the battery compartment doesn't have any battery contacts in it and that it has three diffrent connectors for io and maybe a buss extension. I haven't had time to open the case or otherwise check anything out. As I said, a quick Google didn't turn up anything as a starting point. From dittman at dittman.net Wed Mar 1 20:09:31 2006 From: dittman at dittman.net (Eric Dittman) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 20:09:31 -0600 Subject: TI Travelmate In-Reply-To: <44065363.20F71A9E@guntersville.net> References: <44065363.20F71A9E@guntersville.net> Message-ID: <440653DB.8040808@dittman.net> John C. Ellingboe wrote: > Tony Duell wrote: >>> On 3/1/2006 at 3:07 PM John C. Ellingboe wrote: >>> >>>> Does anyone have information on the TI Travelmate LT220/V. A >>>> quick Google didn't turn up anything of value. >>>> >>>> I have acquired one with a pile of other items and have no idea >>>> how useful it might be. The power source, 18V DC did not come >>>> with it and there is no indication as to whether the center pin >>>> of the power connector is the positive connection or not. >>> Any external I/O connectors on it? Things like parallel port connections >>> will usually have their ground/return pins conected to the - side of the >>> power supply. >> While this is normally reliable, be warned it doesn't _always_ work. The >> HP48 calculator has the signal ground pin of the (minimal) serial port >> connected to the +ve supply line. There's an internal voltage converter >> which doubles the logic supply, the transmit data pin swings between >> this doubled supply voltage an logic ground, so about -5V to +5V wrt the >> logic +ve line which is the RS232 signal ground. >> >>> Last resort is popping the box open and checking the ground plane on the >>> PCB or any of the ICs (if the ground plane is buried) against the >>> connector. >> That's the one I do first. Why 'as a last resort'? >> >> -tony > > I have raised the cover to look at the LCD and keyboard, checked > that the battery compartment doesn't have any battery contacts > in it and that it has three diffrent connectors for io and maybe > a buss extension. I haven't had time to open the case or > otherwise check anything out. As I said, a quick Google didn't > turn up anything as a starting point. I have an LT220 I can check tomorrow. -- Eric Dittman dittman at dittman.net From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 1 20:12:45 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 18:12:45 -0800 Subject: TI Travelmate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603011812450544.14B5F65C@10.0.0.252> On 3/2/2006 at 1:26 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >> Last resort is popping the box open and checking the ground plane on the >> PCB or any of the ICs (if the ground plane is buried) against the >> connector. > >That's the one I do first. Why 'as a last resort'? If this were a desktop system, I'd go for the screwdriver first. However, on portable systems, reassembly can sometimes get a little involved--at least for my "all thumbs" hands! Let's not forget that the original poster knows that the PSU puts out +18vdc. It's EXTREMELY unlikely that the positive side of the PSU has a direct connection with any signal pin! Cheers, Chuck From john at guntersville.net Wed Mar 1 20:21:49 2006 From: john at guntersville.net (John C. Ellingboe) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 20:21:49 -0600 Subject: TI Travelmate References: <44065363.20F71A9E@guntersville.net> Message-ID: <440656BD.872CADA6@guntersville.net> "John C. Ellingboe" wrote:Tony Duell wrote: > > > > On 3/1/2006 at 3:07 PM John C. Ellingboe wrote: > > > > >Does anyone have information on the TI Travelmate LT220/V. A > > >quick Google didn't turn up anything of value. > > > > > >I have acquired one with a pile of other items and have no idea > > >how useful it might be. The power source, 18V DC did not come > > >with it and there is no indication as to whether the center pin > > >of the power connector is the positive connection or not. > > > > Any external I/O connectors on it? Things like parallel port connections > > will usually have their ground/return pins conected to the - side of the > > power supply. > > While this is normally reliable, be warned it doesn't _always_ work. The > HP48 calculator has the signal ground pin of the (minimal) serial port > connected to the +ve supply line. There's an internal voltage converter > which doubles the logic supply, the transmit data pin swings between > this doubled supply voltage an logic ground, so about -5V to +5V wrt the > logic +ve line which is the RS232 signal ground. > > > > > Last resort is popping the box open and checking the ground plane on the > > PCB or any of the ICs (if the ground plane is buried) against the > > connector. > > That's the one I do first. Why 'as a last resort'? > > -tony I have raised the cover to look at the LCD and keyboard, checked that the battery compartment doesn't have any battery contacts in it and that it has three diffrent connectors for io and maybe a buss extension. I haven't had time to open the case or otherwise check anything out. As I said, a quick Google didn't turn up anything as a starting point. From rtellason at blazenet.net Wed Mar 1 20:25:12 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 21:25:12 -0500 Subject: funny: write-only-memory (WOM) datasheet In-Reply-To: References: <4404A268.60303@brothom.nl> Message-ID: <200603012125.12443.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Wednesday 01 March 2006 05:15 am, Simon Fryer wrote: > On 2/28/06, Tony Duell wrote: > > > http://www.national.com/rap/Story/WOMorigin.html > > > > For those who/ve not seen it, it was reprinted (without comments) amongst > > some genuine data sheets in the back of _The Student Manual for the Art > > of Electronics_. second edition. (FWIW, there are other jokes scattered > > about in that book...) > > I always wondered to which device /dev/null pointed. The Bit Bucket, of course. And heaven help those that fail to empty them periodically... -- 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 john at guntersville.net Wed Mar 1 20:30:22 2006 From: john at guntersville.net (John C. Ellingboe) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 20:30:22 -0600 Subject: TI Travelmate References: <44065363.20F71A9E@guntersville.net> <440653DB.8040808@dittman.net> Message-ID: <440658BE.E3DF04FE@guntersville.net> Eric Dittman wrote: > > John C. Ellingboe wrote: > > Tony Duell wrote: > >>> On 3/1/2006 at 3:07 PM John C. Ellingboe wrote: > >>> > >>>> Does anyone have information on the TI Travelmate LT220/V. A > >>>> quick Google didn't turn up anything of value. > >>>> > >>>> I have acquired one with a pile of other items and have no idea > >>>> how useful it might be. The power source, 18V DC did not come > >>>> with it and there is no indication as to whether the center pin > >>>> of the power connector is the positive connection or not. > >>> Any external I/O connectors on it? Things like parallel port connections > >>> will usually have their ground/return pins conected to the - side of the > >>> power supply. > >> While this is normally reliable, be warned it doesn't _always_ work. The > >> HP48 calculator has the signal ground pin of the (minimal) serial port > >> connected to the +ve supply line. There's an internal voltage converter > >> which doubles the logic supply, the transmit data pin swings between > >> this doubled supply voltage an logic ground, so about -5V to +5V wrt the > >> logic +ve line which is the RS232 signal ground. > >> > >>> Last resort is popping the box open and checking the ground plane on the > >>> PCB or any of the ICs (if the ground plane is buried) against the > >>> connector. > >> That's the one I do first. Why 'as a last resort'? > >> > >> -tony > > > > I have raised the cover to look at the LCD and keyboard, checked > > that the battery compartment doesn't have any battery contacts > > in it and that it has three diffrent connectors for io and maybe > > a buss extension. I haven't had time to open the case or > > otherwise check anything out. As I said, a quick Google didn't > > turn up anything as a starting point. > > I have an LT220 I can check tomorrow. I would appreciate it Eric. It looks like it might be a useful serial terminal if my guess is correct. It has a fairly small footprint for space limited work areas. I'm sure the small LCD has a very limited display also. John From jcwren at jcwren.com Wed Mar 1 20:37:01 2006 From: jcwren at jcwren.com (J.C. Wren) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 21:37:01 -0500 Subject: TI Travelmate In-Reply-To: <440656BD.872CADA6@guntersville.net> References: <44065363.20F71A9E@guntersville.net> <440656BD.872CADA6@guntersville.net> Message-ID: <44065A4D.400@jcwren.com> According to this page, , it is indeed center positive. "ZVC36-18-D4" appears to be the model number for the brick. --jc John C. Ellingboe wrote: > "John C. Ellingboe" wrote:Tony Duell wrote: > >> >>> On 3/1/2006 at 3:07 PM John C. Ellingboe wrote: >>> >>> >>>> Does anyone have information on the TI Travelmate LT220/V. A >>>> quick Google didn't turn up anything of value. >>>> >>>> I have acquired one with a pile of other items and have no idea >>>> how useful it might be. The power source, 18V DC did not come >>>> with it and there is no indication as to whether the center pin >>>> of the power connector is the positive connection or not. >>>> >>> Any external I/O connectors on it? Things like parallel port connections >>> will usually have their ground/return pins conected to the - side of the >>> power supply. >>> >> While this is normally reliable, be warned it doesn't _always_ work. The >> HP48 calculator has the signal ground pin of the (minimal) serial port >> connected to the +ve supply line. There's an internal voltage converter >> which doubles the logic supply, the transmit data pin swings between >> this doubled supply voltage an logic ground, so about -5V to +5V wrt the >> logic +ve line which is the RS232 signal ground. >> >> >>> Last resort is popping the box open and checking the ground plane on the >>> PCB or any of the ICs (if the ground plane is buried) against the >>> connector. >>> >> That's the one I do first. Why 'as a last resort'? >> >> -tony >> > > I have raised the cover to look at the LCD and keyboard, checked > that the battery compartment doesn't have any battery contacts > in it and that it has three diffrent connectors for io and maybe > a buss extension. I haven't had time to open the case or > otherwise check anything out. As I said, a quick Google didn't > turn up anything as a starting point. From dittman at dittman.net Wed Mar 1 20:43:23 2006 From: dittman at dittman.net (Eric Dittman) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 20:43:23 -0600 Subject: TI Travelmate In-Reply-To: <44065A4D.400@jcwren.com> References: <44065363.20F71A9E@guntersville.net> <440656BD.872CADA6@guntersville.net> <44065A4D.400@jcwren.com> Message-ID: <44065BCB.7050907@dittman.net> J.C. Wren wrote: > According to this page, http://www.pchub.com/uph/catf/BigPicture.aspx?iid=17639&PhotPath=6324217289798437502_ZVC36-18-D4.jpg > >, it is indeed center positive. "ZVC36-18-D4" appears to be the > model number for the brick. That's not the same adapter as the one that came with my LT220. -- Eric Dittman dittman at dittman.net From john at guntersville.net Wed Mar 1 20:48:19 2006 From: john at guntersville.net (John C. Ellingboe) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 20:48:19 -0600 Subject: TI Travelmate References: <44065363.20F71A9E@guntersville.net> <440656BD.872CADA6@guntersville.net> <44065A4D.400@jcwren.com> Message-ID: <44065CF3.69AD9062@guntersville.net> "J.C. Wren" wrote: > > According to this page, http://www.pchub.com/uph/catf/BigPicture.aspx?iid=17639&PhotPath=6324217289798437502_ZVC36-18-D4.jpg > >, it is indeed center positive. "ZVC36-18-D4" appears to be the > model number for the brick. > > --jc > Snip Thanks JC. That is the way most of them are polarized but I have seen enough of the others to make me leery of guessing. That may be the brick that they used but this thing only draws .5 amp per the sticker. Maybe other options would up the draw and they didn't want to have a bunch of different power modules for them. From rcini at optonline.net Wed Mar 1 20:59:12 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 21:59:12 -0500 Subject: Fixing 8" disk hubs Message-ID: <004e01c63da5$48d366f0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: I'm restoring an IMSAI system which has an Icom "Frugal Floppy" system setup (8" FD-400 drives). I've been getting CRC errors since I got it running a few weeks ago, so I decided to run it with the cover off to try to see what's going on. Tonight I noticed that the floppy disk itself wasn't spinning. The hub engages when the door closes but it must be *just* missing contacting the diskette by *this* much. What kind of tricks are people using to improve the contact between the floppy disk and the spindle hub? I remember they made "hub protectors" for 5.25" disks - is there something similar? Other ideas? As always, thanks. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ /************************************************************/ From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 1 21:07:11 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 19:07:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Fixing 8" disk hubs In-Reply-To: <004e01c63da5$48d366f0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <004e01c63da5$48d366f0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <20060301190422.V95862@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 1 Mar 2006, Richard A. Cini wrote: > What kind of tricks are people using to improve the contact > between the floppy disk and the spindle hub? I remember they made "hub > protectors" for 5.25" disks - is there something similar? Other ideas? Yes, there were hub protectors for 8" diskettes. I sold a bunch of Inmac ones at VCF a few years ago. Howzbout: take a dead 8" diskette, cut out the center, and cement it to the spindle hub, to extend it slightly? From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 1 21:48:16 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 21:48:16 Subject: Computime S-100 card docs? Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060301214816.134748ae@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Can anyone help this guy? >From: Gary E Kaufman >Subject: Computime S-100 card docs? > >A long shot - I found your old message on classiccmp.org. Any chance you >located docs for the Computime UFDC-1? I have two of the boards but have >lost the docs. > >Many thanks! > >- Gary > > From rcini at optonline.net Wed Mar 1 21:15:59 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 22:15:59 -0500 Subject: Fixing 8" disk hubs In-Reply-To: <20060301190422.V95862@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <005301c63da7$a152d1b0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> I was looking for hub protectors using Google and coming up with nada. My daughter uses this adhesive-backed high-density foam that's about 1/16" thick for various craft projects. I was going to try that before you IDed the diskette idea. I pressed down on the top hub while the spindle was spinning and the gap is somewhere between 1/32" and 1/16". How much slippage is necessary on the hub? -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Fred Cisin Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 10:07 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Fixing 8" disk hubs On Wed, 1 Mar 2006, Richard A. Cini wrote: > What kind of tricks are people using to improve the contact > between the floppy disk and the spindle hub? I remember they made "hub > protectors" for 5.25" disks - is there something similar? Other ideas? Yes, there were hub protectors for 8" diskettes. I sold a bunch of Inmac ones at VCF a few years ago. Howzbout: take a dead 8" diskette, cut out the center, and cement it to the spindle hub, to extend it slightly? From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 1 21:21:14 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 19:21:14 -0800 Subject: Fixing 8" disk hubs In-Reply-To: <004e01c63da5$48d366f0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <004e01c63da5$48d366f0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <200603011921140333.14F4A828@10.0.0.252> On 3/1/2006 at 9:59 PM Richard A. Cini wrote: > What kind of tricks are people using to improve the contact >between the floppy disk and the spindle hub? I remember they made "hub >protectors" for 5.25" disks - is there something similar? Other ideas? I don't know what hub clamping method the drive uses, but it might be worth looking to see if there's a spring as part of the clamping mechanism that's been weakened. Rather than fool with diskettes with data on them, I'd try to find the reason that the drive isn't clamping them. Cheers, Chuck From rborsuk at colourfull.com Wed Mar 1 22:06:06 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 23:06:06 -0500 Subject: Teletype 31? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I could use a couple. If I remember correctly (I haven't fooled with it in a while), I want to say only half my keys were working. How bad is yours? Does it function at all? Mines in pretty good shape, but I might be missing a spring or two. Rob On Mar 1, 2006, at 8:49 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> ps. I have a ASR-32 5bit Baudot. > > As do I, but it is in extremely bad shape, so I am parting it out. > Anyone > need a part? > > Before anyone asks, the plastic cover is busted. > > William Donzelli > aw288 at osfn.org > From lbickley at bickleywest.com Thu Mar 2 00:08:05 2006 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 22:08:05 -0800 Subject: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD on EBAY. HA! Item number: 8773655976 Message-ID: <200603012208.06157.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Being a member of the PDP-1 Restoration Team at the Computer History Museum, I can assure everyone that this vendor doesn't have a clue (or is a fraud). I thought at first that he made a typo in the title - but no, he also restated "PDP-1" in his "RARE" article description statement. Sigh. Title: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD BY EMC CORP. Item number: 8773655976 Desc: THIS IS A RARE DIGITAL EQUIPMENT PDP ONE MEG MEMORY BOARD MADE BY EMC CORP.IT IS GAURANTEED TO BE WORKING. I'm tempted to buy it and then tell him I tried it out, and I couldn't make it "fit". ;-) Nah, that's too much work... Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From waisun.chia at gmail.com Thu Mar 2 00:13:28 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 14:13:28 +0800 Subject: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD on EBAY. HA! Item number: 8773655976 In-Reply-To: <200603012208.06157.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <200603012208.06157.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: On 3/2/06, Lyle Bickley wrote: > Being a member of the PDP-1 Restoration Team at the Computer History Museum, I > can assure everyone that this vendor doesn't have a clue (or is a fraud). > > I thought at first that he made a typo in the title - but no, he also restated > "PDP-1" in his "RARE" article description statement. Sigh. > > Title: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD BY EMC CORP. Item number: 8773655976 I assumed this meant: a 1MB memory board for a PDP... From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Mar 2 00:16:08 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 01:16:08 -0500 Subject: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD on EBAY. HA! Item number: 8773655976 In-Reply-To: <200603012208.06157.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <200603012208.06157.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <200603020116.08532.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 02 March 2006 01:08, Lyle Bickley wrote: > Being a member of the PDP-1 Restoration Team at the Computer History > Museum, I can assure everyone that this vendor doesn't have a clue (or is a > fraud). > > I thought at first that he made a typo in the title - but no, he also > restated "PDP-1" in his "RARE" article description statement. Sigh. > > Title: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD BY EMC CORP. Item number: 8773655976 > > Desc: THIS IS A RARE DIGITAL EQUIPMENT PDP ONE MEG MEMORY BOARD MADE BY EMC > CORP.IT IS GAURANTEED TO BE WORKING. He nowhere says PDP-1, he says "PDP" (pause) "ONE MEG", as in a 1MB memory board for a "PDP" (though it's actually for a VAX-11/750 I believe from the looks of it). Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From wmaddox at pacbell.net Thu Mar 2 00:16:49 2006 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 22:16:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD on EBAY. HA! Item number: 8773655976 In-Reply-To: <200603012208.06157.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <20060302061649.77826.qmail@web81303.mail.mud.yahoo.com> > Title: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD BY EMC CORP. > Item number: 8773655976 I read this as a one megabyte memory board for a DEC PDP of unspecified model number. --Bill From wmaddox at pacbell.net Thu Mar 2 00:19:24 2006 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 22:19:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD on EBAY. HA! Item number: 8773655976 In-Reply-To: <200603012208.06157.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <20060302061924.61819.qmail@web81304.mail.mud.yahoo.com> > Title: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD BY EMC CORP. > Item number: 8773655976 I read this as a one megabyte memory board for a DEC PDP of unspecified model number. --Bill From lbickley at bickleywest.com Thu Mar 2 00:21:14 2006 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 22:21:14 -0800 Subject: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD on EBAY. HA! Item number: 8773655976 In-Reply-To: References: <200603012208.06157.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <200603012221.14508.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Wednesday 01 March 2006 22:13, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > On 3/2/06, Lyle Bickley wrote: > > Being a member of the PDP-1 Restoration Team at the Computer History > > Museum, I can assure everyone that this vendor doesn't have a clue (or is > > a fraud). > > > > I thought at first that he made a typo in the title - but no, he also > > restated "PDP-1" in his "RARE" article description statement. Sigh. > > > > Title: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD BY EMC CORP. Item number: > > 8773655976 > > I assumed this meant: a 1MB memory board for a PDP... It's more fun to interpret it as PDP-1 ;-) But you're probably rignt... 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 Thu Mar 2 00:21:47 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 01:21:47 -0500 (EST) Subject: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD on EBAY. HA! Item number: 8773655976 In-Reply-To: <200603012208.06157.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <200603012208.06157.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <200603020623.BAA22083@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Being a member of the PDP-1 Restoration Team at the Computer History > Museum, I can assure everyone that this vendor doesn't have a clue > (or is a fraud). > I thought at first that he made a typo in the title - but no, he also > restated "PDP-1" in his "RARE" article description statement. Sigh. > Title: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD BY EMC CORP. Item number: 8773655976 > Desc: THIS IS A RARE DIGITAL EQUIPMENT PDP ONE MEG MEMORY BOARD MADE > BY EMC CORP.IT IS GAURANTEED TO BE WORKING. Could it be that "ONE" and "1" are intended to be attached to "MEG" rather than "PDP"? That it's a one-meg board for a PDP-X for some unspecified X? /~\ 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 news at computercollector.com Thu Mar 2 00:41:24 2006 From: news at computercollector.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 01:41:24 -0500 Subject: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD on EBAY. HA! Item number: 8773655976 In-Reply-To: <200603012208.06157.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <005201c63dc4$53989230$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> I think the "1" goes with the "Meg", not the "PDP" ... i.e. it's a 1MB memory board for later, unspecified PDP versions, not a "PDP-1" part. -----Original Message----- From: Lyle Bickley [mailto:lbickley at bickleywest.com] Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 1:08 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD on EBAY. HA! Item number: 8773655976 Being a member of the PDP-1 Restoration Team at the Computer History Museum, I can assure everyone that this vendor doesn't have a clue (or is a fraud). I thought at first that he made a typo in the title - but no, he also restated "PDP-1" in his "RARE" article description statement. Sigh. Title: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD BY EMC CORP. Item number: 8773655976 Desc: THIS IS A RARE DIGITAL EQUIPMENT PDP ONE MEG MEMORY BOARD MADE BY EMC CORP.IT IS GAURANTEED TO BE WORKING. I'm tempted to buy it and then tell him I tried it out, and I couldn't make it "fit". ;-) Nah, that's too much work... Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From news at computercollector.com Thu Mar 2 00:45:40 2006 From: news at computercollector.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 01:45:40 -0500 Subject: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD on EBAY. HA! Item number:8773655976 In-Reply-To: <005201c63dc4$53989230$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <005301c63dc4$ebb0ba70$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Oops -- I should've read the other replies first! -----Original Message----- From: 'Computer Collector Newsletter' [mailto:news at computercollector.com] Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 1:41 AM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD on EBAY. HA! Item number:8773655976 I think the "1" goes with the "Meg", not the "PDP" ... i.e. it's a 1MB memory board for later, unspecified PDP versions, not a "PDP-1" part. -----Original Message----- From: Lyle Bickley [mailto:lbickley at bickleywest.com] Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 1:08 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD on EBAY. HA! Item number: 8773655976 Being a member of the PDP-1 Restoration Team at the Computer History Museum, I can assure everyone that this vendor doesn't have a clue (or is a fraud). I thought at first that he made a typo in the title - but no, he also restated "PDP-1" in his "RARE" article description statement. Sigh. Title: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD BY EMC CORP. Item number: 8773655976 Desc: THIS IS A RARE DIGITAL EQUIPMENT PDP ONE MEG MEMORY BOARD MADE BY EMC CORP.IT IS GAURANTEED TO BE WORKING. I'm tempted to buy it and then tell him I tried it out, and I couldn't make it "fit". ;-) Nah, that's too much work... Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From zap at columbus.rr.com Thu Mar 2 00:53:20 2006 From: zap at columbus.rr.com (Chris Riedl) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 01:53:20 -0500 Subject: Items for sale/trade Message-ID: Not exactly sure what they are worth, but I have a few older computers that are looking for a home. AT&T Unix PC (has internal HD, software loaded but don't have the passwords!) Vector Graphic Memorite system (with manual) - Not terribly common from what I've been told Original IBM PC & Printer (both in zip up bags) I'd be glad to chat with anyone interested in these machines (trading may be considered as well). I am located in Columbus, Ohio and could ship (but these things aren't exactly light!) I will be moving soon and I just don't have the room to take everything with me, so hopefully someone is interested! -Chris From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Thu Mar 2 02:22:03 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 08:22:03 GMT Subject: Need datasheet from HP 1989 Opto handbook In-Reply-To: <44065284.5040707@splab.cas.neu.edu> References: <44065284.5040707@splab.cas.neu.edu> Message-ID: In message <44065284.5040707 at splab.cas.neu.edu> joe heck wrote: > 1988-1989 Optoelectronics Designer's Catalog: Page 2-8 is the Carriage > Assembly for the Thermal Inkjet print cartridge 51610A. It is used > with the 92261A black cartridge, 51605B blue, 51605R Red, and 51605G > Green cartridges. I have that if that is what you want... Sounds like that might be it - is there anything else in the databook related to the thermal inkjet cartridges? 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 hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Mar 2 02:27:50 2006 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 00:27:50 -0800 Subject: funny: write-only-memory (WOM) datasheet References: <000601c63d5f$18480b80$0200a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <4406AC77.613C22F6@cs.ubc.ca> "Jim Isbell, W5JAI" wrote: > > I can see it as being a useful item, like an accumulator on an > hydraulic line, it would smooth out the pressure on the bit bucket > preventing "hammering" in the line when the down line digital switch > is closed. > Hmm, that reminds me of an occasion many years ago during a faaaaaar too long (and late) programming session. Characters being output from a program weren't being displayed on a terminal. In a semi-delusional state I started thinking of the characters as physical objects that had gotten lost moving around the hardware: "OK, if they didn't get to the terminal screen then where are they now?.. they must be in there somewhere." In a moment of lucidity I realised it was time to go home and get some sleep. >-- >Jim Isbell >"If you are not living on the edge, well then, >you are just taking up too much space." (Does the edge of sanity count?) - - - While the datasheet is amusing (I was reminded of seeing it decades ago by the dripping water tap for the drain connection on the IC block diagram.), one could argue that WOM is actually no more ludicrous a term than ROM. After all, a ROM was written to (once). An application of WOM could be said to be cockpit data recorders, where writing and overwriting is continually being done, but you only read it once, and under exceptional circumstances. From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Thu Mar 2 08:52:35 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 08:52:35 Subject: Items for sale/trade In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060302085235.47d7f57a@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 01:53 AM 3/2/06 -0500, you wrote: >Not exactly sure what they are worth, but I have a few older >computers that are looking for a home. > >AT&T Unix PC (has internal HD, software loaded but don't have the >passwords!) Try admin or install. I think the AT&T used both of those as default passwords. Joe >Vector Graphic Memorite system (with manual) - Not terribly common >from what I've been told >Original IBM PC & Printer (both in zip up bags) > >I'd be glad to chat with anyone interested in these machines (trading >may be considered as well). I am located in Columbus, Ohio and could >ship (but these things aren't exactly light!) I will be moving soon >and I just don't have the room to take everything with me, so >hopefully someone is interested! > >-Chris > From acme_ent at bellsouth.net Thu Mar 2 09:06:47 2006 From: acme_ent at bellsouth.net (Glen Goodwin) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 10:06:47 -0500 Subject: eBay bidding technique (was Re: bogus auction for Altair system on eBay) In-Reply-To: References: <43FD2006.6080707@msm.umr.edu> <003701c63824$6ee928b0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <44070A07.8070209@bellsouth.net> Maybe I'm an idiot (Jim's term), but I don't at all understand what's being expressed here: jim stephens wrote: > If you want to buy something, put in a reasonably large bid and take it. > when > someone enters a large number $10 bids on an auction that eventually closes > at 150 or so, they are either trying to run up your bill or are in cahouts > with the > seller. [snip] > When an item that should go for $40 or so sets around with your maximum > bid of say $200, and after a couple of days someone comes in and runs it > to $150, the only one who can possibly be happy is the vendor. I'm not > because the person ran up my bill, and the person is not because I got > the item. Okay, so suppose my "reasonably large bid" is $150, and I bid that amount *once.* Now I've run your bill up but that doesn't mean I'm in cahoots with anyone, especially the seller. Or, suppose I want to see if I can beat your bid, so I bid $50 to begin with, and then subsequently bid up in $10 increments. Since your max bid is $200 (and of course I don't know what your max bid is), eventually it goes over the max I want to spend ($150), and when it does that, I give up. This make me an idiot??? Maybe I am, because I don't get your point at all. Besides, if the item "should go" for $40, why did you bid $200 on it??? > So I stand on my calling those sorts idiots. I used that term to keep > this nearer to a family readable format. Well, I suppose that's better than Sellam's favorites (such as ASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS) but why you persist in name-calling simply because someone does something you don't like is beyond me. Glen 0/0 From aw288 at osfn.org Thu Mar 2 09:15:35 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 10:15:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: RARE DEC PDP 1 MEG MEMORY BOARD on EBAY. HA! Item number: 8773655976 In-Reply-To: <200603012208.06157.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: > Being a member of the PDP-1 Restoration Team at the Computer History Museum, I > can assure everyone that this vendor doesn't have a clue (or is a fraud). Turn brain on before using the F word, please. It tends to tick sellers off. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From ama at ugr.es Thu Mar 2 10:29:47 2006 From: ama at ugr.es (Angel Martin Alganza) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 17:29:47 +0100 Subject: Digital VT 1200 keyboard/mouse In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060302162947.GD1883@darwin.ugr.es> Hello, I've got a Digital VT 1200 terminal (just the box) which I want to set up. I need to find a keyboard and a mouse suitable for it. Acording to the Service Guide I've got online it uses a LK400 series keyboard. It says nothing about the mouse. As a monitor, I'm trying it out with a 17" Sony Trinitron screen (which is, of course overkilling but it does for the moment). My question is then, whether it's easy to find LK400 keyboards and mice for this terminal. Also, what type of mouse does it takes, if anybody knows? Thank you, ?ngel From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Mar 2 10:46:46 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 11:46:46 -0500 Subject: Digital VT 1200 keyboard/mouse In-Reply-To: <20060302162947.GD1883@darwin.ugr.es> References: <20060302162947.GD1883@darwin.ugr.es> Message-ID: <44072176.9010706@gmail.com> Angel Martin Alganza wrote: > Hello, > > I've got a Digital VT 1200 terminal (just the box) which I want to set > up. I need to find a keyboard and a mouse suitable for it. Acording > to the Service Guide I've got online it uses a LK400 series keyboard. > It says nothing about the mouse. As a monitor, I'm trying it out with > a 17" Sony Trinitron screen (which is, of course overkilling but it > does for the moment). I thought the monitor resolution on these was 1024x864? Don't you need to use a monitor compatible with the VR260, like a VR297? > My question is then, whether it's easy to find LK400 keyboards and mice > for this terminal. Also, what type of mouse does it takes, if anybody > knows? They're pretty common. It takes the DEC Hockey Puck, if memory serves. Peace... Sridhar From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 2 10:57:31 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 09:57:31 -0700 Subject: eBay bidding technique (was Re: bogus auction for Altair system on eBay) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 02 Mar 2006 10:06:47 -0500. <44070A07.8070209@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: All this whining about how other people bid on ebay makes me laugh. This idea that someone who bids against you must be part of a conspiracy because they didn't win the item from you is just sour grapes talking because you didn't get it "cheap". Like it or not ebay has a tendency to eliminate market inefficiencies by matching supply and demand. In "the old days", the supply was variable and often the seller had no idea how much things were actually worth to buyers because there was hardly any chance of them matching their meager supply with the geographically dispersed demand. Now a local supply can reach a global demand, with the end result being that some items are bid up higher than they would be if you were buying it form a dufus who didn't know how badly you wanted it. On the other hand, more supply reaches the market these days because even for things where the seller has no clue what it is, they say to themselves "hey, I'll throw it on ebay, maybe someone will want it and I won't have to haul it to the dump". So instead of being consigned to the scrap heap or the dump, that heavy ASR-33 ends up on ebay and someone buys it and pays freight shipping for it. Since "everyone" wants an ASR-33 for their old computer, it will command a pretty price on e-bay. Likewise for something like an ADM-3/ADM-3A, an Altair, or whatever. More obscure items can still be had for cheap, like the Megatek CAD terminal I bought from Patrick for $0.99 :-) even though the freight shipping is going to cost me about $250-275, or the PDP-11/03 + 2 RL01s + VT-100 + LA-120 + 25 disk packs that I got for $250 for local pickup in Reno. I've engaged in all sorts of ebay bidding practices, based on my whim, feeling, intuition and sometimes strategy. Never did I bid more than I was willing to pay, never have I retracted a bid, occasionally an item was not exactly as described and I withheld feedback until working it out with the seller. On those couple of occasions, the seller has worked with me in a reasonable fashion to resolve the situation to my satisfaction. If you don't like the fact that other people on ebay can bid against you and "raise the price", then don't bid more than your initial bid or better yet don't bid at all if its just going to make your blood boil and give you a coronary. Yes, there are idiots in the world and some of them bid on ebay. Whoop-dee-fuckin'-doo. Get over it, its just the way the world is. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 2 10:59:36 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 09:59:36 -0700 Subject: Digital VT 1200 keyboard/mouse In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 02 Mar 2006 17:29:47 +0100. <20060302162947.GD1883@darwin.ugr.es> Message-ID: In article <20060302162947.GD1883 at darwin.ugr.es>, Angel Martin Alganza writes: > I've got a Digital VT 1200 terminal (just the box) Is this an X Terminal? I'm unfamiliar with the model. > I need to find a keyboard and a mouse suitable for it. Acording > to the Service Guide I've got online it uses a LK400 series keyboard. I would search on ebay and the vintage computer marketplace . If you don't find one on ebay, setup a search to look for (LK400,LK-400,LK 400) and have it email you when one pops up. I see DEC terminal keyboards of various varieties show up on ebay as loose items fairly frequently. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Thu Mar 2 11:13:19 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 09:13:19 -0800 Subject: eBay (sorry I started this) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <440727AF.90804@msm.umr.edu> I thought this had run its course but obviously not. First, I apologize for my use of the word "idiot" I had no idea this was offensive. To make my reply short, I don't allege a conspiracy. I was refering to a particular behavior, not the end price. It did cost me money and there is a solution, sniping. The course language is not mine in this thread, i don't think, and I am sorry if anyone was offended by this, or worse, bored. Thanks for your comment Glen. Jim From james.rice at gmail.com Thu Mar 2 11:31:20 2006 From: james.rice at gmail.com (James Rice) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 11:31:20 -0600 Subject: eBay bidding technique (was Re: bogus auction for Altair system on eBay) In-Reply-To: References: <44070A07.8070209@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: Bravo! On 3/2/06, Richard wrote: > All this whining about how other people bid on ebay makes me laugh. > > This idea that someone who bids against you must be part of a > conspiracy because they didn't win the item from you is just sour > grapes talking because you didn't get it "cheap". > > More Meaningful Text Snipped > > If you don't like the fact that other people on ebay can bid against > you and "raise the price", then don't bid more than your initial bid > or better yet don't bid at all if its just going to make your blood > boil and give you a coronary. > > Yes, there are idiots in the world and some of them bid on ebay. > Whoop-dee-fuckin'-doo. Get over it, its just the way the world is. > -- -- www.blackcube.org - The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers www.blackcube.org/personal/index.html - Personal web page From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 2 11:34:44 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 09:34:44 -0800 Subject: eBay (sorry I started this) In-Reply-To: <440727AF.90804@msm.umr.edu> References: <440727AF.90804@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <200603020934440335.18020C9F@10.0.0.252> I've mentioned before that I think that snipe bids are the only fair bids. They turn the open auction into a blind one and eliminate "auction fever". Maybe not so good for the seller, particularly if he's looking to put in "shill" bids, but great for the buyers and completely legit. If you don't have sniping software, you can use one of several services. Cheers, Chuck From james.rice at gmail.com Thu Mar 2 11:45:02 2006 From: james.rice at gmail.com (James Rice) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 11:45:02 -0600 Subject: eBay (sorry I started this) In-Reply-To: <200603020934440335.18020C9F@10.0.0.252> References: <440727AF.90804@msm.umr.edu> <200603020934440335.18020C9F@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: I've been using eSnipe since it was a beta service. I totally agree, it also keeps a vindictive buyer who you beat on another auction from purposely running up the price in an auction to get you back for beating his price on the previous purchase. Voice of experience. James On 3/2/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I've mentioned before that I think that snipe bids are the only fair bids. > They turn the open auction into a blind one and eliminate "auction fever". > Maybe not so good for the seller, particularly if he's looking to put in > "shill" bids, but great for the buyers and completely legit. If you don't > have sniping software, you can use one of several services. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > > -- www.blackcube.org - The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers www.blackcube.org/personal/index.html - Personal web page From danny at bowers.abelgratis.com Wed Mar 1 03:41:00 2006 From: danny at bowers.abelgratis.com (Danny) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 09:41:00 -0000 Subject: floptical drives Message-ID: <000301c63d14$40a2f720$f47d063e@g1f3o8> Hi, Sorry to trouble you but I have found a 50 pin SCSI Insite I 325VM floptical drive amongst my Amiga bits. Can this read/write to Amiga 880K floppy disks please? What else can it do? Regards, Danny. From boblafleur at comcast.net Wed Mar 1 12:15:08 2006 From: boblafleur at comcast.net (Bob Lafleur) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 13:15:08 -0500 Subject: URGENT: Data recovery assistance needed in New Haven, CT area (cctalk) In-Reply-To: <4405D916.30802@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <200603011824.k21IOwMr019673@keith.ezwind.net> There were several different size & standards of magneto-optical drives used. The 5 1/4 inch ones were either 128MB or 256MB usually. I've got a 128MB drive. I haven't used it in a while, so I don't know for sure if it works. It's a SCSI drive. If you don't come up with anything better, I can probably let you borrow the drive, but I can't (a) guarantee the drive works, or (b) guarantee that it will read your disks. Also, you're probably on your own for a SCSI adapter and drivers for whatever system you want to connect it to. Not sure what kind of data you're working with, I Know you mentioned HIPAA. The company I work for (CT Renaissance) is involved with some substance abuse treatment research at Yale. - Bob -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of David Woyciesjes Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 12:26 PM To: ClassicCMP ClassicCMP Subject: URGENT: Data recovery assistance needed in New Haven,CT area (cctalk) Hopefully there is someone nearby who can help. At work here, we need to recover some old data on Canon Magneto-Optical discs. I don't have them in my hand at the moment, so I can't give model details yet, but IIRC, they are roughly the size of 5 1/4 floppies. And to make things more fun, we can't find the drive that they were used in. Does anyone have one we could buy, or borrow? Or leads on who to talk to? And no, we cannot send the discs out, due to HIPAA privacy rules. The drive would need to be used here at Yale. Reply to me directly. Thanks in advance. -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes From ADVolkov09 at aol.com Wed Mar 1 16:45:01 2006 From: ADVolkov09 at aol.com (ADVolkov09 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 17:45:01 EST Subject: Floppy-Disk-Drive ... Message-ID: <156.60c7889b.31377ded@aol.com> Hi Mr. Hoke, I saw your posting on the web about installing an old 5 1/4'' Floppy on a new PC. I got the same floppy ( TEAC FD-55GFR ) and would like to know whether you succeeded in the end, and how you jumpered your drive. I get an E/A-Error message from WindowsXP whenever I try to click on the drive in the Explorer ... but XP at least recognizes it as 5 1/4''-floppy. Regards. Alexey. Hi - I am trying to install a Teac FD-55GFR 5 1/4" drive into a Pentium 200 mhz computer. Upon trying to read the drive I get a "General Failure Trying To Read Drive A" error message. I have the drive connected to the end of the ribbon cable, and the drive is designated as drive A. Also, I noticed that there are some switches (I forgot what they are called - upright posts where you couple a pair together using a U-shaped something or another) on the bottom of the drive. How should these switches be set? Also, could my problem be that I am not using a correct BIOS? Thanks for all of your help. From paul.kowalski at siemens.com Wed Mar 1 21:41:55 2006 From: paul.kowalski at siemens.com (Kowalski, Paul (MED US)) Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 22:41:55 -0500 Subject: looking for a DT1050 Digitalker chip set Message-ID: <1FA6164B56EE5B4399855E114A33156402CEA037@USMLVV1EXCTV02.ww005.siemens.net> Hello I am a student at SJSU in CA and I am wanting to construct a talking DVM senior project. Part of the speech circuit would be using the the DT1050 kit by National semiconductor(MM54104 +ROMS for the digitalker). Do you know of any anywhere? If so,let me know.... Thanks Paul ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message and any included attachments are from Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc. and are intended only for the addressee(s). The information contained herein may include trade secrets or privileged or otherwise confidential information. Unauthorized review, forwarding, printing, copying, distributing, or using such information is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you received this message in error, or have reason to believe you are not authorized to receive it, please promptly delete this message and notify the sender by e-mail with a copy to Central.SecurityOffice at shs.siemens.com Thank you From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 2 12:19:04 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 11:19:04 -0700 Subject: eBay (sorry I started this) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 02 Mar 2006 09:34:44 -0800. <200603020934440335.18020C9F@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603020934440335.18020C9F at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > [...] If you don't > have sniping software, you can use one of several services. I'm leary of giving my username/password to some service out on the web. I have computers that are connected to the net 24/7 and I'd rather run a local program than pay a monthly fee to some service, particularly since the fees are, to me, unreasonable. They remind me of magazines that cost more to subscribe to on the web than it costs for the print edition. Any suggestions? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 2 12:21:11 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 11:21:11 -0700 Subject: Low-cost Online File Conversion Service - converts instantly between file formats In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 28 Feb 2006 22:01:38 -0500. <004e01c63cdc$7534bce0$6b01a8c0@pb200> Message-ID: um.... and how is this relevant to the list? Seems like a plain old file conversion spam, unless he's really saying he can convert my .d64 disk image into a ZIP file. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 2 12:38:44 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 10:38:44 -0800 Subject: eBay (sorry I started this) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603021038440124.183CA3A7@10.0.0.252> On 3/2/2006 at 11:19 AM Richard wrote: >I'm leary of giving my username/password to some service out on the >web. I have computers that are connected to the net 24/7 and I'd >rather run a local program than pay a monthly fee to some service, >particularly since the fees are, to me, unreasonable. I was one of the early signups on eSnipe, so I have a lifetime (according to them) fee exemption on purchases $25 and under, which constitutes a large portion of my purchases. (Okay, I'm a skinflint!). Even with high-priced items, there's a cap on charges. It's been awhile since I've used a sniping package on my own systems (although I certainly could), so I can't comment on any of the sniping software packages, though Googling for "sniping software" sure brings up a lot of candidates! Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 2 12:41:16 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 10:41:16 -0800 Subject: Low-cost Online File Conversion Service - converts instantly between file formats In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603021041160785.183EF7FA@10.0.0.252> On 3/2/2006 at 11:21 AM Richard wrote: >um.... and how is this relevant to the list? Seems like a plain old >file conversion spam, unless he's really saying he can convert my .d64 >disk image into a ZIP file. Seems to me that ACII is one of the old-time word-processor conversion software vendors. Could be that they're just trying a new tack in a business where most folks seem to use either MS Word or Wordperfect. The service isn't going to be a lot of use for those DEC WPS I diskettes, though... Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 2 12:31:58 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 18:31:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Fixing 8" disk hubs In-Reply-To: <004e01c63da5$48d366f0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> from "Richard A. Cini" at Mar 1, 6 09:59:12 pm Message-ID: > > All: > > > > I'm restoring an IMSAI system which has an Icom "Frugal Floppy" > system setup (8" FD-400 drives). I've been getting CRC errors since I got it > running a few weeks ago, so I decided to run it with the cover off to try to > see what's going on. Tonight I noticed that the floppy disk itself wasn't > spinning. The hub engages when the door closes but it must be *just* missing > contacting the diskette by *this* much. > > > > What kind of tricks are people using to improve the contact > between the floppy disk and the spindle hub? I remember they made "hub > protectors" for 5.25" disks - is there something similar? Other ideas? I think you're going about it in the wrong way. If the disks are not obviously physically damaged (and you don't mention that they are), the drive should grip them. If it doesn't, the fault is with the drive, not with the disks. And I never believe in 'curing the symptoms' For some reason your drive is not clamping the disk properly. Maybe there's a spring that's not providing enough tension. Maybe a mechanical latch is not alighned properly and the clamp is not held down far enough. I would start looking at something like that. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 2 12:28:11 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 18:28:11 +0000 (GMT) Subject: TI Travelmate In-Reply-To: <200603011812450544.14B5F65C@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Mar 1, 6 06:12:45 pm Message-ID: > If this were a desktop system, I'd go for the screwdriver first. However, > on portable systems, reassembly can sometimes get a little involved--at > least for my "all thumbs" hands! SOmetime I forget that not everyone had a mis-spent childhood re-assuembly clocks and ASR33s :-) > Let's not forget that the original poster knows that the PSU puts out > +18vdc. It's EXTREMELY unlikely that the positive side of the PSU has a > direct connection with any signal pin! I'ev got at least one cheap serial printer where the +ve side of the PSU (about 10V regulated) is connected to the +5V line. There's a 7905 regulator, the output of which is the logic ground line. Then the unregulated input formes a -5V-ish line for the (discrete transistor) RS232 driver. It's unlikely a computer would do the same thing, and it's unlikely that you'd find the +5V line on a normal serial or parallel connector. I would bet a sizeable amount that if yo u can find one side of the power connector connected to a pin you know to be ground (e.g. pin 7 on a DB25 RS232 port) then that is the -ve side of the power connector. -tony From dwight.elvey at amd.com Thu Mar 2 12:53:11 2006 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 10:53:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Fixing 8" disk hubs Message-ID: <200603021853.KAA29051@ca2h0430.amd.com> Hi Also, make sure that the disk isn't being clamped too tightly by the disk envelope. I've seen this happen a number of times by disk that were stored tightly in a bunch of disk. Things usually work OK if I manually rotate the disk in the envelope a few times but I've had to remove the disk from the envelope in a couple cases. Dwight >From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk > >> >> All: >> >> >> >> I'm restoring an IMSAI system which has an Icom "Frugal Floppy" >> system setup (8" FD-400 drives). I've been getting CRC errors since I got it >> running a few weeks ago, so I decided to run it with the cover off to try to >> see what's going on. Tonight I noticed that the floppy disk itself wasn't >> spinning. The hub engages when the door closes but it must be *just* missing >> contacting the diskette by *this* much. >> >> >> >> What kind of tricks are people using to improve the contact >> between the floppy disk and the spindle hub? I remember they made "hub >> protectors" for 5.25" disks - is there something similar? Other ideas? > >I think you're going about it in the wrong way. If the disks are not >obviously physically damaged (and you don't mention that they are), the >drive should grip them. If it doesn't, the fault is with the drive, not >with the disks. And I never believe in 'curing the symptoms' > >For some reason your drive is not clamping the disk properly. Maybe >there's a spring that's not providing enough tension. Maybe a mechanical >latch is not alighned properly and the clamp is not held down far enough. >I would start looking at something like that. > >-tony From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 2 13:00:30 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 11:00:30 -0800 Subject: TI Travelmate In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603021100300265.185091B7@10.0.0.252> On 3/2/2006 at 6:28 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >SOmetime I forget that not everyone had a mis-spent childhood >re-assuembly clocks and ASR33s :-) Oh, my childhood was misspent, alright. But "disassembling" things, not reassembling them. "Why are you going to give him that? All he'll do is take it apart." Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 2 13:22:45 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 11:22:45 -0800 Subject: URGENT: Data recovery assistance needed in New Haven, CT area (cctalk) In-Reply-To: <200603011824.k21IOwMr019673@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200603011824.k21IOwMr019673@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <200603021122450338.1864F0CA@10.0.0.252> On 3/1/2006 at 1:15 PM Bob Lafleur wrote: >There were several different size & standards of magneto-optical drives >used. The 5 1/4 inch ones were either 128MB or 256MB usually. They got bigger than that. I have some Apex carts that are 4.3GB and I believe that there is a 5GB variant. Short of knowing what was used to create these things, it's going to be a bunch of real guesswork to figure out what can read them. Cheers, Chuck From vrs at msn.com Thu Mar 2 13:29:56 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 11:29:56 -0800 Subject: OT: eBay Software (was eBay (sorry I started this) ) References: Message-ID: From: "Richard" > I'm leary of giving my username/password to some service out on the > web. I have computers that are connected to the net 24/7 and I'd > rather run a local program than pay a monthly fee to some service, > particularly since the fees are, to me, unreasonable. ... > Any suggestions? I use AuctionSentry and like it. It does get slow when I am following a lot of auctions (say 50 or so), though. I think the guy wrote it in VB, or something. But he does maintain it, which is important, as eBay keeps fiddling with things. Vince From bpope at wordstock.com Thu Mar 2 14:10:25 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 15:10:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Low-cost Online File Conversion Service - converts instantly In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060302201025.19F77580D2@mail.wordstock.com> > > > um.... and how is this relevant to the list? Seems like a plain old > file conversion spam, unless he's really saying he can convert my .d64 > disk image into a ZIP file. And don't forget to not harm any of the PETSCII characters!! :) Cheers, Bryan From melamy at earthlink.net Thu Mar 2 12:51:01 2006 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 13:51:01 -0500 (GMT-05:00) Subject: Fixing 8" disk hubs Message-ID: <27309690.1141325461812.JavaMail.root@elwamui-muscovy.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Another non-obvious possibility is that the disk jacket itself has been pinched around the edges and the extra friction is keeping the disk from spinning in the jacket. If you need the info off the disk, cut a small margin of the jacket off around the edges or you can remove the internal disk itself and put it in a known good jacket (cut just one end of the jacket for the disk to slide back into the jacket). Experiment... best regards, Steve Thatcher -----Original Message----- >From: Tony Duell >Sent: Mar 2, 2006 1:31 PM >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Subject: Re: Fixing 8" disk hubs > >> >> All: >> >> >> >> I'm restoring an IMSAI system which has an Icom "Frugal Floppy" >> system setup (8" FD-400 drives). I've been getting CRC errors since I got it >> running a few weeks ago, so I decided to run it with the cover off to try to >> see what's going on. Tonight I noticed that the floppy disk itself wasn't >> spinning. The hub engages when the door closes but it must be *just* missing >> contacting the diskette by *this* much. >> >> >> >> What kind of tricks are people using to improve the contact >> between the floppy disk and the spindle hub? I remember they made "hub >> protectors" for 5.25" disks - is there something similar? Other ideas? > >I think you're going about it in the wrong way. If the disks are not >obviously physically damaged (and you don't mention that they are), the >drive should grip them. If it doesn't, the fault is with the drive, not >with the disks. And I never believe in 'curing the symptoms' > >For some reason your drive is not clamping the disk properly. Maybe >there's a spring that's not providing enough tension. Maybe a mechanical >latch is not alighned properly and the clamp is not held down far enough. >I would start looking at something like that. > >-tony From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Thu Mar 2 15:02:58 2006 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (David Woyciesjes) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 16:02:58 -0500 Subject: URGENT: Data recovery assistance needed in New Haven, CT area (cctalk) In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060301151826.051352f0@mail.30below.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060301151826.051352f0@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <44075D82.4030203@sbcglobal.net> I'm sending this one message to everyone who replied. Thanks guys... Anyway, here is everything I know about these discs. Unfortunately, the guy who knew about these is long gone (the usual ;). They are Canon CanoFile 502M Magneto Optical discs. Double sided, 256 MB per side. Physically they are 5 1/4" x 6". They were used in a Canon document imaging system. Don't know what OS it ran on. As it stands right now, it appears that the discs with the data we need aren't here. But we still want info about what we may need, and how much it'll cost, if we do need to read these in the future. Thanks again... -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Mar 2 15:32:03 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 16:32:03 -0500 Subject: Low-cost Online File Conversion Service - converts instantly between file formats In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603021632.03869.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 02 March 2006 13:21, Richard wrote: > um.... and how is this relevant to the list? Seems like a plain old > file conversion spam, unless he's really saying he can convert my > .d64 disk image into a ZIP file. You know, it's a great idea to insult the guy who moderates non-subscriber messages onto the list... Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Thu Mar 2 15:32:17 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 21:32:17 GMT Subject: TI Travelmate In-Reply-To: <200603021100300265.185091B7@10.0.0.252> References: <200603021100300265.185091B7@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In message <200603021100300265.185091B7 at 10.0.0.252> "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > Oh, my childhood was misspent, alright. But "disassembling" things, not > reassembling them. "Why are you going to give him that? All he'll do is > take it apart." Mine was much the same. Only with a lot more "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO MY ?!" where = "Atari 2600", "tape recorder", "CD player"..... Now I've moved on to modding Linksys NSLU2s into multifunction network devices. I've got one sitting here that's getting ECIADSL installed on it. The intention is to use it to replace the ageing, power-hungry PC server. "Energy efficiency" is a great excuse for spending money. Well, that and I've always wanted a server that could (theoretically at least) be run off a couple of solar panels. -- 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 legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 2 15:41:42 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 14:41:42 -0700 Subject: eBay (sorry I started this) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 02 Mar 2006 10:38:44 -0800. <200603021038440124.183CA3A7@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603021038440124.183CA3A7 at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > I was one of the early signups on eSnipe, so I have a lifetime (according > to them) fee exemption on purchases $25 and under, which constitutes a > large portion of my purchases. (Okay, I'm a skinflint!). Even with > high-priced items, there's a cap on charges. Oh man... a sniping service that wants "a piece of the action"?! No thanks! > software packages, though Googling for "sniping software" sure brings up a > lot of candidates! Yeah, but all of them seem to be "pay me $x per month for the rest of your ebay lifetime" which I consider to be a ripoff. That's just my opinion, of course. Who else's would it be?(*) (*) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 2 15:43:09 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 14:43:09 -0700 Subject: OT: eBay Software (was eBay (sorry I started this) ) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 02 Mar 2006 11:29:56 -0800. <00a101c63e2f$b0a312a0$6700a8c0@vrs> Message-ID: In article <00a101c63e2f$b0a312a0$6700a8c0 at vrs>, "vrs" writes: > > Any suggestions? > > I use AuctionSentry and like it. It does get slow when I am following > a lot of auctions (say 50 or so), though. I think the guy wrote it in > VB, or something. But he does maintain it, which is important, as eBay > keeps fiddling with things. Are there any open source solutions, by any chance? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From james.rice at gmail.com Thu Mar 2 15:57:59 2006 From: james.rice at gmail.com (James Rice) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 15:57:59 -0600 Subject: eBay (sorry I started this) In-Reply-To: References: <200603021038440124.183CA3A7@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: eSnipe charges 1%. Most of my purchases are less that $100 so a few cents for a service that allows me to do something else instead of watching an auctio is worth it to me. To each their own. On 3/2/06, Richard wrote: > > In article <200603021038440124.183CA3A7 at 10.0.0.252>, > "Chuck Guzis" writes: > > > I was one of the early signups on eSnipe, so I have a lifetime (according > > to them) fee exemption on purchases $25 and under, which constitutes a > > large portion of my purchases. (Okay, I'm a skinflint!). Even with > > high-priced items, there's a cap on charges. > > Oh man... a sniping service that wants "a piece of the action"?! > > No thanks! > > > software packages, though Googling for "sniping software" sure brings up a > > lot of candidates! > > Yeah, but all of them seem to be "pay me $x per month for the rest of > your ebay lifetime" which I consider to be a ripoff. That's just my > opinion, of course. Who else's would it be?(*) > > (*) > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > > -- www.blackcube.org - The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers www.blackcube.org/personal/index.html - Personal web page From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 2 15:57:52 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 14:57:52 -0700 Subject: Low-cost Online File Conversion Service - converts instantly between file formats In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 02 Mar 2006 16:32:03 -0500. <200603021632.03869.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: In article <200603021632.03869.pat at computer-refuge.org>, Patrick Finnegan writes: > On Thursday 02 March 2006 13:21, Richard wrote: > > um.... and how is this relevant to the list? Seems like a plain old > > file conversion spam, unless he's really saying he can convert my > > .d64 disk image into a ZIP file. > > You know, it's a great idea to insult the guy who moderates > non-subscriber messages onto the list... Oh please, don't be so hypersensitive! I didn't insult him or anyone else, I asked how it was relevant to the list and stated that it seemed like spam to me. How you react is up to you. You could ignore my message and move on. You could reply with how you thought it relevant. (I even provided an 'out' in my message of a situation where it would seem relevant to me.) You could also disagree with my opinion that it seems like spam. All of these would be constructive replies, but to erroneously claim that I was insulting someone is just plain silly and not constructive. I guess now you can claim I'm insulting someone if you find it insulting to be called silly. Oh well. There's no right to not be insulted. I don't even know if there is or isn't someone who "moderates non-subscriber messages to the list". For all I know, like 99%+ of the mailing lists out there, non-subscriber messages are automatically treated as spam and discarded with no user intervention. That's how all my lists are setup and from talking with other list managers and being a subscriber on other mailing lists, this appears to be the norm. The "welcome" message for this list makes no mention of non-subscriber message moderating duties, nor does the web page discuss any such moderation duties or persons. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From ama at ugr.es Thu Mar 2 16:08:43 2006 From: ama at ugr.es (Angel Martin Alganza) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 23:08:43 +0100 Subject: Digital VT 1200 keyboard/mouse In-Reply-To: <44072176.9010706@gmail.com> References: <20060302162947.GD1883@darwin.ugr.es> <44072176.9010706@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060302220843.GE1883@darwin.ugr.es> On Thu, Mar 02, 2006 at 11:46:46AM -0500, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > I thought the monitor resolution on these was 1024x864? Don't you need I haven't done much with it yet, since I miss bth keyboard and mouse. But I would say it is at least 1024xsomething, maybe larger than the one you suggest. I haven't look it up in the docs, though. > to use a monitor compatible with the VR260, like a VR297? Well, I can tell you it works with this Sony monitor. It has BCN conectors and it seems to receive the signal from the terminal fine. > They're pretty common. It takes the DEC Hockey Puck, if memory serves. The plug is a small RJ connector. It's actually identical to the one that has my Amper terminal keyboard, actually, but it doesn't work with it, unfortunatelly. If they are so common I'll try to get them. I'd love to get an oriinal screen for it, also... let se... Cheers, ?ngel From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Mar 2 16:09:32 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 17:09:32 -0500 Subject: Low-cost Online File Conversion Service - converts instantly between file formats In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603021709.32585.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 02 March 2006 16:57, Richard wrote: > In article <200603021632.03869.pat at computer-refuge.org>, > > Patrick Finnegan writes: > > On Thursday 02 March 2006 13:21, Richard wrote: > > > um.... and how is this relevant to the list? Seems like a plain > > > old file conversion spam, unless he's really saying he can > > > convert my .d64 disk image into a ZIP file. > > > > You know, it's a great idea to insult the guy who moderates > > non-subscriber messages onto the list... > > Oh please, don't be so hypersensitive! > > I wasn't. I was attempting to point out that it may be better to ignore such messages - in a non-exceedingly-verbose manner. Jay is rather overworked as a list moderator (a topic which has been discussed in detail on the list a few times now, and should be findable in the archives). Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From vrs at msn.com Thu Mar 2 16:10:22 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 14:10:22 -0800 Subject: OT: eBay Software (was eBay (sorry I started this) ) References: Message-ID: > > But he does maintain it, which is important, as eBay > > keeps fiddling with things. > > Are there any open source solutions, by any chance? Not that I know of, and I'm not sure how well that would work, given that when eBay changes stuff, you likely need an update almost immediately. (If I wanted to baby-sit the thing, I could just enter my snipes manually.) Vince From ama at ugr.es Thu Mar 2 16:16:34 2006 From: ama at ugr.es (Angel Martin Alganza) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 23:16:34 +0100 Subject: Digital VT 1200 keyboard/mouse In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060302221634.GF1883@darwin.ugr.es> On Thu, Mar 02, 2006 at 09:59:36AM -0700, Richard wrote: > Is this an X Terminal? I'm unfamiliar with the model. It is. A very nice thin supersilent X terminal. Monochrome, thoug. > I would search on ebay and the vintage computer marketplace > . If you don't find one on ebay, setup a > search to look for (LK400,LK-400,LK 400) and have it email you when > one pops up. I see DEC terminal keyboards of various varieties show > up on ebay as loose items fairly frequently. Cool, I'll do that. Thanks a lot!. Regards, ?ngel From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 2 16:18:28 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 14:18:28 -0800 Subject: eBay (sorry I started this) In-Reply-To: References: <200603021038440124.183CA3A7@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603021418280056.1905CD4B@10.0.0.252> On 3/2/2006 at 3:57 PM James Rice wrote: >eSnipe charges 1%. Most of my purchases are less that $100 so a few >cents for a service that allows me to do something else instead of >watching an auctio is worth it to me. To each their own. Make that 1% of WINNING bids--nothing for losing bids. And I believe there's a cap on that. Early subscribers also don't get charged for bids under $25. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Mar 2 16:34:20 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 14:34:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: floptical drives In-Reply-To: <000301c63d14$40a2f720$f47d063e@g1f3o8> References: <000301c63d14$40a2f720$f47d063e@g1f3o8> Message-ID: <20060302143241.E74605@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 1 Mar 2006, Danny wrote: > Hi, > Sorry to trouble you but I have found a 50 pin SCSI Insite I 325VM floptical > drive amongst my Amiga bits. Can this read/write to Amiga 880K floppy disks > please? The hardware should be able to. But I have no idea what kind of support it has under AmigaDOS > What else can it do? read and write 20M floptical diskettes From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Mar 2 16:41:27 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 14:41:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT: eBay Software (was eBay (sorry I started this) ) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 2 Mar 2006, Richard wrote: > In article <00a101c63e2f$b0a312a0$6700a8c0 at vrs>, > "vrs" writes: > > > > Any suggestions? > > > > I use AuctionSentry and like it. It does get slow when I am following > > a lot of auctions (say 50 or so), though. I think the guy wrote it in > > VB, or something. But he does maintain it, which is important, as eBay > > keeps fiddling with things. > > Are there any open source solutions, by any chance? There is bidwatcher (http://sourceforge.net/projects/bidwatcher/), which is sorely in need of updating because of Ebay's constant changes. When Ebay played nice with it, it worked quite well. I rarely used it for sniping, but instead keeping an eye on my auctions. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 2 16:49:52 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 14:49:52 -0800 Subject: eBay (sorry I started this) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603021449520439.19228DCD@10.0.0.252> On 3/2/2006 at 2:41 PM Richard wrote: >In article <200603021038440124.183CA3A7 at 10.0.0.252>, > "Chuck Guzis" writes: > >> I was one of the early signups on eSnipe, so I have a lifetime (according >> to them) fee exemption on purchases $25 and under, which constitutes a >> large portion of my purchases. (Okay, I'm a skinflint!). Even with >> high-priced items, there's a cap on charges. > >Oh man... a sniping service that wants "a piece of the action"?! > >No thanks! > >> software packages, though Googling for "sniping software" sure brings up >a >> lot of candidates! > >Yeah, but all of them seem to be "pay me $x per month for the rest of >your ebay lifetime" which I consider to be a ripoff. That's just my >opinion, of course. Who else's would it be?(*) I look at it this way. These guys maintain the server farms and software and are responsible for getting my bid in within x (single-digit) seconds of auction close. 90 minutes before the auction end they check my bid against the current high bid and drop me an email if I'm sure not to be a winner. For that, they want 1% of winning bids up to I think a max of $10 for a $1000 item. For items under $25, they want nothing. They don't push spam at me and they don't fill my screen with ads. Seems pretty fair to me. I used to run someone else's sniping software and got burned a number of times when eBay changed their layout or bid mechanism. Yeah, eventually, the vendor got around to fixing things, but it was weeks, not hours to get things right again. Like anything else, you're free to participate or not. I think it's a cheap way to get what I want without worrying about the nonsense of eBay bidding. Anyone remember any of the other auction services that wouldn't close an auction until there were no bids for 5 minutes? You never knew if you had the high bid. I think OnSale was one such. Cheers, Chuck From doc at mdrconsult.com Thu Mar 2 17:03:56 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 17:03:56 -0600 Subject: TI Travelmate In-Reply-To: <200603021100300265.185091B7@10.0.0.252> References: <200603021100300265.185091B7@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <440779DC.6090503@mdrconsult.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3/2/2006 at 6:28 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: > > >>SOmetime I forget that not everyone had a mis-spent childhood >>re-assuembly clocks and ASR33s :-) > > > Oh, my childhood was misspent, alright. But "disassembling" things, not > reassembling them. "Why are you going to give him that? All he'll do is > take it apart." Was this supposed to have _changed_ at some point? Doc From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 2 18:59:24 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 00:59:24 +0000 (GMT) Subject: TI Travelmate In-Reply-To: <440779DC.6090503@mdrconsult.com> from "Doc Shipley" at Mar 2, 6 05:03:56 pm Message-ID: > > Oh, my childhood was misspent, alright. But "disassembling" things, not > > reassembling them. "Why are you going to give him that? All he'll do is > > take it apart." > > > > Was this supposed to have _changed_ at some point? All that's changed here is that I've moved on from cheap radios/tape recorders and now dismantle (and reassemble) rare-ish classic computers and peripherals, classic film cameras, and the like... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 2 16:19:44 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 22:19:44 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Fixing 8" disk hubs In-Reply-To: <27309690.1141325461812.JavaMail.root@elwamui-muscovy.atl.sa.earthlink.net> from "Steve Thatcher" at Mar 2, 6 01:51:01 pm Message-ID: > > Another non-obvious possibility is that the disk jacket itself has > been pinched around the edges and the extra friction is keeping the disk > from spinning in the jacket. If you need the info off the disk, cut a > small margin of the jacket off around the edges or you can remove the > internal disk itself and put it in a known good jacket (cut just one end > of the jacket for the disk to slide back into the jacket). Experiment... Or just _carefully_ slide the bare disk into the drive (with the drive out of the case, so you can centre it on the hub) and copy the data off. Over here this is generally called 'mounting a naked floppy' :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 2 16:20:31 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 22:20:31 +0000 (GMT) Subject: TI Travelmate In-Reply-To: <200603021100300265.185091B7@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Mar 2, 6 11:00:30 am Message-ID: > > On 3/2/2006 at 6:28 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: > > >SOmetime I forget that not everyone had a mis-spent childhood > >re-assuembly clocks and ASR33s :-) > > Oh, my childhood was misspent, alright. But "disassembling" things, not > reassembling them. "Why are you going to give him that? All he'll do is > take it apart." Oh I stated taking everything apart, then found it was even more fun to get it back together again. -tony From recycler at swbell.net Thu Mar 2 19:07:32 2006 From: recycler at swbell.net (Patrick Jankowiak) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 19:07:32 -0600 Subject: Sirius 1 (aka Victor 9000) on Ebay (UK) In-Reply-To: <20060224011422.66356.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060224011422.66356.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <440796D4.6000303@swbell.net> I have a couple of victor 9000 in questionable condition, and the manual for them. Take all, in Dallas Texas, free. Patrick Chris M wrote: > the same Victor that made the 9000 started out by > making calculators I was told (by a dude who worked at > JPL). Possibly adding machines even earlier? But I'm > extrapolating for no good reason. Is this the same > company? > > --- Chuck Guzis wrote: > > >>What tickles my sense of irony was that when it >>started up, Victor began >>harrassing small businesses that had similar names. >>IIRC, under threat of >>legal action, they actually forced a retailer who'd >>been doing business as >>Victor Electronics for 20 years to change his >>business name. Victor got a >>fair amount of press when it started up--but didn't >>last long...and then it >>fizzled. > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > From rcini at optonline.net Thu Mar 2 19:21:39 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 20:21:39 -0500 Subject: Fixing 8" disk hubs In-Reply-To: <20060301190422.V95862@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <001101c63e60$d2bd6d50$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> I have a stash of about 200 disks from this particular haul. The disk in this case is a blank one (as I'm trying to run controller diagnostics) and it appears to move freely. The spindle top is spring loaded so I'll check that out first. Thanks. -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Fred Cisin Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 10:07 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Fixing 8" disk hubs On Wed, 1 Mar 2006, Richard A. Cini wrote: > What kind of tricks are people using to improve the contact > between the floppy disk and the spindle hub? I remember they made "hub > protectors" for 5.25" disks - is there something similar? Other ideas? Yes, there were hub protectors for 8" diskettes. I sold a bunch of Inmac ones at VCF a few years ago. Howzbout: take a dead 8" diskette, cut out the center, and cement it to the spindle hub, to extend it slightly? From melamy at earthlink.net Thu Mar 2 20:15:45 2006 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 21:15:45 -0500 Subject: good online sniper In-Reply-To: References: <200603021038440124.183CA3A7@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20060302211358.021d9898@earthlink.net> check out www.bidrobot.com they charge a flat subscription fee. You can spend as little or as much and it won't cost you anything but what ever you buy. best regards, Steve Thatcher At 04:57 PM 3/2/2006, you wrote: >eSnipe charges 1%. Most of my purchases are less that $100 so a few >cents for a service that allows me to do something else instead of >watching an auctio is worth it to me. To each their own. From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Mar 2 20:38:02 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 20:38:02 -0600 Subject: eBay (sorry I started this) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4407AC0A.5010804@oldskool.org> Richard wrote: >> I was one of the early signups on eSnipe, so I have a lifetime (according >> to them) fee exemption on purchases $25 and under, which constitutes a >> large portion of my purchases. (Okay, I'm a skinflint!). Even with >> high-priced items, there's a cap on charges. > > Oh man... a sniping service that wants "a piece of the action"?! > No thanks! The cost is 1 cent per dollar of your winning bid. So if you sniped for something that you got for $50, you own them half a buck. It's definitely worth the cost, and it's never let me down. If you don't win the item, you don't pay. -- 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 legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 2 20:45:50 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 19:45:50 -0700 Subject: good online sniper In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 02 Mar 2006 21:15:45 -0500. <7.0.1.0.2.20060302211358.021d9898@earthlink.net> Message-ID: In article <7.0.1.0.2.20060302211358.021d9898 at earthlink.net>, Steve Thatcher writes: > check out www.bidrobot.com > > they charge a flat subscription fee. [...] But its still a fee that I pay in perpetuity.... Yeah, I know you're all saying but these fees are small. Well after a while all these fees add up. Paypal, ebay, "sniper fee", shipping and so-on. I don't *need* their web farm server or whatever. I don't *want* to give them my ebay signon credentials (hello! blatant security hole!). I already have multiple machines that are on the net 24/7 and could watch something on ebay to snipe for me. I'm just looking for a simple program that I can run on my machine. I don't want a subscription to some service where I have to trust them with my ebay signon credentials, where I have to pay them a piece of everything I buy through them until the end of time, or a monthly fee for their service. Hell, I could probably write a simple autoit script that would post my bid automatically in about 15 minutes (and it wouldn't depend on internals of ebay's HTML). Everyone is making a big deal out of the fact that these subscription places update their code as ebay changes the internals of their HTML, which to me sounds like they are just plain doing it the hard way. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From aw288 at osfn.org Thu Mar 2 20:56:15 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 21:56:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: good online sniper In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Everyone is making a > big deal out of the fact that these subscription places update their > code as ebay changes the internals of their HTML, which to me sounds > like they are just plain doing it the hard way. I think that hidden away in the Ebay user license is something about how external services have to pay some sort of fee in order to interface with Ebay. This is why there are not hoards of freeware versions of Power Lister, and anooyingly to me, not a good Mac version. This is also probably why free sniping programs are not forthcoming. I suppose Ebay can invalidate bids or users that use services that do not pay this fee. Time to move off Ebay, folks. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 2 21:09:03 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 19:09:03 -0800 Subject: good online sniper In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603021909030549.1A0FD669@10.0.0.252> On 3/2/2006 at 9:56 PM William Donzelli wrote: > This is also >probably why free sniping programs are not forthcoming. Have a look at http://www.bidnobble.com --Chuck From rcini at optonline.net Thu Mar 2 21:13:56 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 22:13:56 -0500 Subject: Fixing 8" disk hubs In-Reply-To: <20060301190422.V95862@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <001401c63e70$823d42f0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> I played around with the drive a bit tonight and it seems that the metal bracket that lifts the head pad when the head unloads (the one that sits opposite the head on a single-sided drive) was interfering with the hub a bit. Bending the bracket slightly fixed the problem with the disk contact. It also fixed another problem where if the drive door was snapped open, the head pad arm would come off of this bracket. -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Fred Cisin Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 10:07 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Fixing 8" disk hubs On Wed, 1 Mar 2006, Richard A. Cini wrote: > What kind of tricks are people using to improve the contact > between the floppy disk and the spindle hub? I remember they made "hub > protectors" for 5.25" disks - is there something similar? Other ideas? Yes, there were hub protectors for 8" diskettes. I sold a bunch of Inmac ones at VCF a few years ago. Howzbout: take a dead 8" diskette, cut out the center, and cement it to the spindle hub, to extend it slightly? From curt at atarimuseum.com Thu Mar 2 21:39:05 2006 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 22:39:05 -0500 Subject: good online sniper In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20060302211358.021d9898@earthlink.net> References: <200603021038440124.183CA3A7@10.0.0.252> <7.0.1.0.2.20060302211358.021d9898@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4407BA59.9010703@atarimuseum.com> I've been using auctionstealer.com for about 2 years now, its been a very reliable service and its been around for sometime now. Curt Steve Thatcher wrote: > check out www.bidrobot.com > > they charge a flat subscription fee. You can spend as little or as > much and it won't cost you anything but what ever you buy. > > best regards, Steve Thatcher > > At 04:57 PM 3/2/2006, you wrote: >> eSnipe charges 1%. Most of my purchases are less that $100 so a few >> cents for a service that allows me to do something else instead of >> watching an auctio is worth it to me. To each their own. > > > -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.1/272 - Release Date: 3/1/2006 From news at computercollector.com Thu Mar 2 21:43:31 2006 From: news at computercollector.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 22:43:31 -0500 Subject: good online sniper In-Reply-To: <4407BA59.9010703@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <003d01c63e74$a46552b0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> StealthBid is pretty good as well. -----Original Message----- From: Curt @ Atari Museum [mailto:curt at atarimuseum.com] Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 10:39 PM To: General at smtp5.suscom.net; Discussion at smtp5.suscom.net :On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: good online sniper I've been using auctionstealer.com for about 2 years now, its been a very reliable service and its been around for sometime now. Curt Steve Thatcher wrote: > check out www.bidrobot.com > > they charge a flat subscription fee. You can spend as little or as > much and it won't cost you anything but what ever you buy. > > best regards, Steve Thatcher > > At 04:57 PM 3/2/2006, you wrote: >> eSnipe charges 1%. Most of my purchases are less that $100 so a few >> cents for a service that allows me to do something else instead of >> watching an auctio is worth it to me. To each their own. > > > -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.1/272 - Release Date: 3/1/2006 From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Thu Mar 2 21:55:57 2006 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 22:55:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: Gatorbox CS Message-ID: Does anyone have a Gatorbox CS for sale? Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Mar 3 08:55:02 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 08:55:02 Subject: HP 7906 disk drives available Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060303085502.3f7fb05e@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> A friend of mine has three HP 7906 drives that he wants to get rid of. Two of the drives look complete and in very good condition, the third looks complete but is missing the front face plate. He's asking $50 each. They're in Sanford Florida and will need to be picked up in person. SHIPPING, STORAGE, DELAYS, ETC ETC ETC IS NOT AN OPTION! DON'T EVEN ASK. We've tried that before it didn't work! We'd like them gone ASAP!! If seriously interested call Art directly at (407) 402-6361. We do have a forklift, pallets, etc available so you can pack and load them but we're not going to spend our time doing it. We have too many other projects that we're already way behind on. Joe From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Mar 3 08:11:13 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 08:11:13 -0600 Subject: [UCSDPascal] ? - what is the smallest machine running the P-system In-Reply-To: <1141376934.440807a61a399@webmail.allvantage.com> References: <20060301224428.48086.qmail@web32503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1141285046.4406a0b65aa0a@webmail.allvantage.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20060302071904.04fe0d28@mail> <1141376934.440807a61a399@webmail.allvantage.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060303080718.05938c58@mail> At 03:08 AM 3/3/2006, Willi Kusche wrote: > I did all my development on a Commodore 32K PET equipped with an S-100 buss >adaptor. The S-100 buss had a 32K RAM card and a Versafloppy disk controller >card connected to two 8 inch single sided single density drives. All the >source is on 8 inch disks. I still have the disks but the question now is, did >the disks keep? The system is still set up in the den but it's been years since >I've turned it on. Now, I'm afraid of what will happen if I try to power it up. Yes, the old capacitors in the power supply may have trouble. But the disks are probably OK. They used big, long-lasting bits back then. I am sure some of the folks on the Classic Computer Collector mailing list http://classiccmp.org/ can give advice about how to read those floppies. If the PET was just handing it sectors, it's just a matter of reading the raw sectors and then reassembling it into a disk image that could be handled by some other utility. - John From geoffreythomas at onetel.com Fri Mar 3 08:31:54 2006 From: geoffreythomas at onetel.com (Geoffrey Thomas) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 14:31:54 -0000 Subject: good online sniper References: Message-ID: <004201c63ecf$4284f540$0200a8c0@geoff> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, March 03, 2006 2:45 AM Subject: Re: good online sniper I don't *want* to give them my ebay signon credentials (hello! blatant security hole!). > You're not wrong there ! The site has an outdated encryption method , I wouldn't give them my time of day. To Steve Thatcher : If they've got your details , perhaps you should get them to improve their security ! Geoff. Certificate name www.bidrobot.com www.bidrobot.com businessprofile.geotrust.com/get.jsp?GT75421889, See www.rapidssl.com/cps (c)05, Domain Control Validated - RapidSSL(R) US Issuer Equifax Secure Global eBusiness CA-1 Equifax Secure Inc. US Details https://www.bidrobot.com/style.css Connection : TLS v1.0 128 bit ARC4 (RSA/SHA) Certificate version: 3 Serial number: 196667 Not valid before: Jan 16 14:30:29 2006 GMT Not valid after: Jan 17 14:30:29 2007 GMT Fingerprint : (MD5) 15 BD E0 F9 79 11 45 44 63 33 FA F2 00 57 45 3C Fingerprint : (SHA-1) 06 C0 58 4B 94 59 C7 34 9C 33 2F 90 1C A5 C6 75 42 12 70 F9 Public key algorithm : rsaEncryption Public-Key (512 bit): Modulus: 00: 0F DD EA E4 5D D5 0A D6 7E A5 74 58 14 2B 97 E3 10: 47 40 80 A4 AC F6 2C 90 FD 1F B5 16 E6 B9 97 07 20: 4A 76 4D 65 C0 50 D7 B8 45 80 64 9C B3 EF 1D 75 30: 0C 8B 73 9D 58 3E E8 BB 55 F7 A2 AA 92 84 7F D3 Exponent: 01 00 01 Signature algorithm : md5WithRSAEncryption 00: 9D E7 FA 6C B2 53 05 24 DD 5F 4F 26 4E DD 89 DD 10: 88 19 FD 82 99 07 19 16 40 48 DA 72 4E 24 44 F5 20: B1 02 4F 69 1F E6 BD 99 0A B8 87 AB 8C 97 A5 CA 30: 4E 5D B6 E5 8F 17 4F 3A DF DF 64 EB 91 E6 C7 77 40: 9E 11 75 49 F3 45 98 01 80 A4 0E FD 35 79 9C 36 50: 3D A3 B3 91 4A 29 B2 44 95 DA B6 87 05 E4 A4 34 60: 2F 3C EE 3F 91 7E BF 47 38 35 88 34 C8 E0 93 7A 70: 0A A9 E3 78 A9 E4 13 C0 37 E9 B2 15 07 81 00 BA Extensions: X509v3 Key Usage (Critical): Digital Signature, Non Repudiation, Key Encipherment, Data Encipherment X509v3 Subject Key Identifier: CA:A9:4E:A6:89:9D:D5:2B:66:C6:ED:B2:E0:AE:B4:78:00:CA:3D:C4 X509v3 CRL Distribution Points: URI:http://crl.geotrust.com/crls/globalca1.crl X509v3 Authority Key Identifier: keyid:BE:A8:A0:74:72:50:6B:44:B7:C9:23:D8:FB:A8:FF:B3:57:6B:68:6C X509v3 Extended Key Usage: TLS Web Server Authentication, TLS Web Client Authentication X509v3 Basic Constraints (Critical): CA:FALSE From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Mar 3 09:03:14 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 10:03:14 -0500 Subject: Gatorbox CS In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 02 Mar 2006 22:55:57 EST." Message-ID: <200603031503.k23F3EWx005581@mwave.heeltoe.com> Mike Loewen wrote: > > Does anyone have a Gatorbox CS for sale? I've got a clear one and a black one I can't part with. But I might be able to wrastle up a normal white one. I assume you want to use it as it was intended... -brad From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Fri Mar 3 10:46:13 2006 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore S Bekkedal) Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 17:46:13 +0100 Subject: MSCP SCSI CD-R(W)? Message-ID: <1141404373.16067.15.camel@fortran.babel> Saw an interesting discussion about CD-ROMs with MSCP SCSI (YES, a CD-ROM ISO with XXDP would be truly awesome!) and this got me thinking about my own UC07 controller - if I've understood correctly, this controller does not support SCSI tape. I don't really know anything about MSCP or the SCSI command set that CD writers use - but could a CD-R(W) drive be used as a backup device? I know it's bad style to do backups on CD-R, but bear with me :) Also, now that I think about it, the perverse bugger that I am, could an MSCP controller send an Audio CD Play/Next Track/etc. command to the CD-ROM? Would be awesome to have a hifi controlled by the PDP-11. :) TIA, -toresbe From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Mar 3 12:00:31 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 10:00:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: MSCP SCSI CD-R(W)? In-Reply-To: <1141404373.16067.15.camel@fortran.babel> from "Tore S Bekkedal" at Mar 03, 2006 05:46:13 PM Message-ID: <200603031800.k23I0VgI025927@onyx.spiritone.com> > Saw an interesting discussion about CD-ROMs with MSCP SCSI (YES, a > CD-ROM ISO with XXDP would be truly awesome!) and this got me thinking > about my own UC07 controller - if I've understood correctly, this > controller does not support SCSI tape. > > I don't really know anything about MSCP or the SCSI command set that CD > writers use - but could a CD-R(W) drive be used as a backup device? > > I know it's bad style to do backups on CD-R, but bear with me :) I don't see why not, but you'll have to write the software to control it. You're also likely to find that it's very picky about what it will work with. At least with my Viking QDT and UDT controllers I *think* 512-byte blocks are a requirement, and I know they won't work with all 512-byte block CD-ROM drives. An easier sollution is to have the SCSI HD's in removable trays, and Have a modern Unix box with the same type SCSI tray. Plug the PDP-11 disk into the Unix box, and use 'dd' to image the disk. The resulting image can even be used under SIMH. > Also, now that I think about it, the perverse bugger that I am, could an > MSCP controller send an Audio CD Play/Next Track/etc. command to the > CD-ROM? Would be awesome to have a hifi controlled by the PDP-11. :) No clue, but I rather doubt it. Zane From dwight.elvey at amd.com Fri Mar 3 12:17:34 2006 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 10:17:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: Enigma code cracked after 60 years Message-ID: <200603031817.KAA28352@ca2h0430.amd.com> Hi I thought a few might be interested in this: http://heritage.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=973 Dwight From allain at panix.com Fri Mar 3 12:21:58 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 13:21:58 -0500 Subject: MSCP SCSI CD-R(W)? References: <200603031800.k23I0VgI025927@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <007f01c63eef$5e9a1560$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> > An easier sollution is to have the SCSI HD's in removable trays, and Have a > modern Unix box with the same type SCSI tray. For what it's worth, I'm looking for ways to make 'single drive caddy sockets' for DEC StorageWorks and Compaq Drv/Try module interconnects. This for the neatness factor of being able to take a encapsuled storage module and plug it in as a 1-off standard SCSI drive. Basically just an adaptor that goes from proprietary connector to standard, without having to take the drive back out of the container. If anybody has seen this done, send a message. (probably available somewhere for something like $475.00 Yuk.) John A. From gkicomputers at yahoo.com Fri Mar 3 12:26:52 2006 From: gkicomputers at yahoo.com (steve) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 10:26:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: good online sniper In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060303182652.73296.qmail@web51613.mail.yahoo.com> --- Richard wrote: > But its still a fee that I pay in perpetuity.... > > Yeah, I know you're all saying but these fees are > small. Well after a > while all these fees add up. Paypal, ebay, "sniper > fee", shipping and > so-on. Paypal, ebay fees? I didn't think there were any for buyers, but I only sell so I don't know off hand. I already have multiple machines > that are on the net > 24/7 and could watch something on ebay to snipe for > me. Not sure why you need multiple machines on the net 24/7, but that sounds like a much bigger money drain then any snipe software fee. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From pat at computer-refuge.org Fri Mar 3 12:38:23 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 13:38:23 -0500 Subject: good online sniper In-Reply-To: <20060303182652.73296.qmail@web51613.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060303182652.73296.qmail@web51613.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200603031338.23984.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Friday 03 March 2006 13:26, steve wrote: > --- Richard wrote: > > But its still a fee that I pay in perpetuity.... > > > > Yeah, I know you're all saying but these fees are > > small. Well after a > > while all these fees add up. Paypal, ebay, "sniper > > fee", shipping and > > so-on. > > Paypal, ebay fees? I didn't think there were any for > buyers, but I only sell so I don't know off hand. > > > I already have multiple machines > > > that are on the net > > 24/7 and could watch something on ebay to snipe for > > me. > > Not sure why you need multiple machines on the net > 24/7, but that sounds like a much bigger money drain > then any snipe software fee. Desktop, homedirectory server, media (quasi-tivo) and laptop for me... and that's at home. They each are a lot more useful to have than paying sniper fees, especially if I'm going to have them on anyways. Wait, why am I arguing with someone on cctalk about spending money running machines 24x7???? "SIGSEGV received in module unix" Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From dwight.elvey at amd.com Fri Mar 3 13:26:32 2006 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 11:26:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is www.teac.com gone? Message-ID: <200603031926.LAA30412@ca2h0430.amd.com> Hi I can't get www.teac.com. Is this gone?? Dwight From vax9000 at gmail.com Fri Mar 3 13:32:04 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 14:32:04 -0500 Subject: MSCP SCSI CD-R(W)? In-Reply-To: <1141404373.16067.15.camel@fortran.babel> References: <1141404373.16067.15.camel@fortran.babel> Message-ID: On 3/3/06, Tore S Bekkedal wrote: > Saw an interesting discussion about CD-ROMs with MSCP SCSI (YES, a > CD-ROM ISO with XXDP would be truly awesome!) and this got me thinking > about my own UC07 controller - if I've understood correctly, this > controller does not support SCSI tape. > > I don't really know anything about MSCP or the SCSI command set that CD > writers use - but could a CD-R(W) drive be used as a backup device? > > I know it's bad style to do backups on CD-R, but bear with me :) > > Also, now that I think about it, the perverse bugger that I am, could an > MSCP controller send an Audio CD Play/Next Track/etc. command to the > CD-ROM? Would be awesome to have a hifi controlled by the PDP-11. :) All of those are possible with my MSCP SCSI controller. It will not support them when it is released; but since it will be open sourced you can write those functions and burn them into the EPROM/EEPROM. vax, 9000 > > TIA, > -toresbe > > From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Mar 3 14:00:11 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 12:00:11 -0800 Subject: Commodore 64 story Message-ID: <4408A04B.5090008@msm.umr.edu> Those who haven't read the computerworld Sharktank for today, might want to. Funny as usual for that column, but more interesting here than usual. Jim From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 3 15:00:53 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 14:00:53 -0700 Subject: RSTS on a VAXserver 4000? Message-ID: Can you run RSTS on a VAXserver 4000? It just occurred to me that this might be possible. From my personal usage I had only thought of RSTS in a PDP-11 context. If it can run, am I limited to using a particular version (presumably because it would need VAX support?). PS: Recent addition to LibraryThing: VAX Systems & Options Catalog 1988. I will be scanning/uploading the pages on the VAXstation 8000 to my web area soon as this is a machine with E&S 3D graphics hardware. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 3 15:24:35 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 13:24:35 -0800 Subject: Is www.teac.com gone? In-Reply-To: <200603031926.LAA30412@ca2h0430.amd.com> References: <200603031926.LAA30412@ca2h0430.amd.com> Message-ID: <200603031324350188.1DFAD50B@10.0.0.252> On 3/3/2006 at 11:26 AM Dwight Elvey wrote: > I can't get www.teac.com. Is this gone?? Their server's probably having a bout of indigestion. The Japan site is live--and you can visit the UK site from there: http://www.teac.co.jp/indexe.html Cheers, Chuck From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Mar 3 15:31:39 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 13:31:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: MSCP SCSI CD-R(W)? In-Reply-To: <007f01c63eef$5e9a1560$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> from "John Allain" at Mar 03, 2006 01:21:58 PM Message-ID: <200603032131.k23LVdT1031637@onyx.spiritone.com> > For what it's worth, I'm looking for ways to make 'single drive caddy > sockets' for DEC StorageWorks and Compaq Drv/Try module interconnects. > This for the neatness factor of being able to take a encapsuled storage > module and plug it in as a 1-off standard SCSI drive. Basically just an > adaptor that goes from proprietary connector to standard, without having > to take the drive back out of the container. If anybody has seen this done, > send a message. > > (probably available somewhere for something like $475.00 Yuk.) > > John A. Let me see if I've got this right. You're wanting to take and plug a Storage works SBB into an adapter that then lets you plug just that single SBB into a SCSI chain? I've not seen this done, and I'd be more than a little leary of attempting it. Remember, that a standard storageworks shelf moves a sizeable amount of air through the SBB's for cooling. This is why the newer 7200RPM drives can't be used in a BA353, and why they can't be used in older BA350's without the 2x fan upgrade. Zane From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Mar 3 15:35:12 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 13:35:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: RSTS on a VAXserver 4000? In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Mar 03, 2006 02:00:53 PM Message-ID: <200603032135.k23LZCpl031770@onyx.spiritone.com> > Can you run RSTS on a VAXserver 4000? It just occurred to me that > this might be possible. From my personal usage I had only thought of > RSTS in a PDP-11 context. If it can run, am I limited to using a > particular version (presumably because it would need VAX support?). RSTS only runs on PDP-11's. You can run it on a VAX 4000, but you'll have to run it under SIMH, and I imagine that it would be quite slow to emulate a PDP-11 on a VAX. Zane From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 3 15:48:35 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 14:48:35 -0700 Subject: Thanks guys :-) Message-ID: I don't know if it was due to cctalk'ers or not, but ebay just gave me $100 gift certificate for the serial terminals guides that I wrote. If you voted my guide(s) as useful, thanks! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jelynch at stny.rr.com Fri Mar 3 15:48:33 2006 From: jelynch at stny.rr.com (James Lynch) Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 16:48:33 -0500 Subject: Random things available for trade In-Reply-To: <002a01c63b47$797b0520$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <002a01c63b47$797b0520$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <4408B9B1.30808@stny.rr.com> Hi, I have an old IBM external 5-1/4 floppy drive if you're interested. Let me know and I can forward a photo. What is the NEC 8080 evaluation kit? Jim Richard A. Cini wrote: >All: > > > > As I clean the shop a bit I've come across a few things to >trade. As I continue working, I'll pull some other things together and post >them. > > > > So far: > > > >* NEC 8080 evaluation kit "EVAKIT-8" includes board and manuals. > >* "Inside Commodore DOS" book > >* Various BYTE mags (YR:MO): > >o 75/12 > >o 76/4 > >o 77/2, 3, 10, 11 > >o 78/1-6, 9 > >o 79/1, 5-7, 9, 10, 12 > >o 80/4, 7, 1, 10 > >o 81/3-5 > >o 82/full year > >o 83/3, 8 > >o 84/3 > > > >Wanted: > >* "vintage" 5.25" external floppy drive case suitable for two drives >(preferably full-height but half-height OK) > >* CP/M boot disks/CBIOS/loader listing suitable for SD Sales >VersaFloppy controller > > > >Location: 11791 > > > > If interested, please contact me off-list. Thanks. > >Rich > >Rich Cini >Collector of classic computers >Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project >Web site: >http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ >/************************************************************/ > > > > > From mamcfadden at cmh.edu Fri Mar 3 16:11:09 2006 From: mamcfadden at cmh.edu (McFadden, Mike, A) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 16:11:09 -0600 Subject: URGENT: Data recovery assistance needed in New Haven, CT Message-ID: I actually think I saw a system like this at the local computer surplus place about a year ago. It had a display like a Microfiche viewer with a MO disk drive and a hard copy output connection to a laser printer. Somewhere I have one of the disks. *****PREPARE FOR LONGWINDED COMMENTS***** I'll bet the data is not in a standard format. The hospital where I work has lots of MO disk using systems, CT scanners, data backups for patient monitoring, Cardiology cath lab and they all use non standard data formats. The CT and cath lab are the worst they use a raw file structure that is directly read and written by the system. They also encode the data in a compressed format to pack more data on the disk. The MO disk media manufacturers are also not producing the media any more. I have several of the drives but we have never been able to read one of the disks without the drive it was originally created on. The venders consider the storage format proprietary and will not release it. Back 10-12 years in the past we reverse engineered the data structure that was on an LMSI 12" optical drive containing digital x-ray images. There was a hierarchy on the disk and the data was stored in a run length encoded format of the differences between different resolutions of the images. We made disks up with 1 image and then compared it to a blank disk, then added an additional image and repeated the process. We were eventually able to read the disks offline and purchased LMSI drive to connect to our VAX. We have this exact problem today, a SCSI MO disk from a GE CT scanner and no system to read it. We kept the drive but there is no software. GE will sell you a system with software to read the disk for $20,000 or transfer an individual disk for a fee. Mike From teoz at neo.rr.com Fri Mar 3 16:36:52 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 17:36:52 -0500 Subject: Looking for a Corel SCSI disk for a AL-7048 VLB SCSI Card References: <002a01c63b47$797b0520$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> <4408B9B1.30808@stny.rr.com> Message-ID: <002d01c63f12$faab2840$72781941@game> Anybody happen to have the Corel SCSI Driver disk that came with some of the Always Technologies AL-7048 (AL-7000) series of VLB SCSI/IDE/IO boards? From billdeg at degnanco.com Fri Mar 3 17:13:47 2006 From: billdeg at degnanco.com (B. Degnan) Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 18:13:47 -0500 Subject: good online sniper In-Reply-To: <200603031800.k23I0TAA033213@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20060303181237.02a8fdb0@mail.degnanco.net> I do it the old fashioned way, with a high-speed connection, two browser sessions, and stop watch! >I think that hidden away in the Ebay user license is something about how >external services have to pay some sort of fee in order to interface with >Ebay. This is why there are not hoards of freeware versions of Power >Lister, and anooyingly to me, not a good Mac version. This is also >probably why free sniping programs are not forthcoming. > >I suppose Ebay can invalidate bids or users that use services that do not >pay this fee. > >Time to move off Ebay, folks. > >William Donzelli >aw288 at osfn.org From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Mar 3 17:33:04 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 15:33:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 story In-Reply-To: <4408A04B.5090008@msm.umr.edu> from jim stephens at "Mar 3, 6 12:00:11 pm" Message-ID: <200603032333.PAA13130@floodgap.com> > Those who haven't read the computerworld Sharktank for today, might want > to. Funny as usual > for that column, but more interesting here than usual. LOL! For those who need a direct URL, http://www.computerworld.com/departments/opinions/sharktank/0,4885,109188,00.html -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- This manual has been carefully for errors to make sure correct. -- classiccmp From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Mar 3 17:36:38 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 17:36:38 -0600 Subject: ibm tapes available Message-ID: <000e01c63f1b$51b8cbd0$6700a8c0@PC331890042458> I found these tapes in an old warehouse today. They are with original IBM lables, but I'm offering them as scratch media. There are six tapes, labled as follows: 9404-E10 Model P/N 0421F3011 (OS?) AS/400 Control Language 1988 V1.3 IBM AS/400 System Program V3 tape 1 of 4 .... tape 2 of 4 .... tape 3 of 4 .... tape 4 of 4 (includes complete PTF's) Tapes are QIC-6525, and are available free for shipping costs. Jay From fireflyst at earthlink.net Fri Mar 3 17:40:27 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 17:40:27 -0600 Subject: 11/34a problems continue Message-ID: Well, I've been messing with the 11/34 on and off now for a few months as I feel like it. The problem right now is that I have no light on the H745 power regulator. Both lights are on, on the two H7441s in the other slots. If I need to measure draw on the backplane to solve the problem, where do I do it from? If on the power distribution board or backplane, then at what points? Secondly, do certain modules need to be installed to utilize the H745's resources? (i.e. a device that uses -15vdc) or should the light come on anyway from just being connected to the power distribution board? I've tried with both those modules in and removed from the system, and it didn't seem to make a difference. What do I need to do to diagnose this problem? It's really driving me nuts. Appreciating any help you can give, Julian From fireflyst at earthlink.net Fri Mar 3 17:43:15 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 17:43:15 -0600 Subject: 11/34a problems continue Message-ID: I forgot to note, I replaced the H745 module with a known good one, it didn't help. > -----Original Message----- > From: Julian Wolfe [mailto:fireflyst at earthlink.net] > Sent: Friday, March 03, 2006 5:40 PM > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Subject: 11/34a problems continue > > Well, I've been messing with the 11/34 on and off now for a > few months as I feel like it. > > The problem right now is that I have no light on the H745 > power regulator. Both lights are on, on the two H7441s in > the other slots. > > If I need to measure draw on the backplane to solve the > problem, where do I do it from? If on the power distribution > board or backplane, then at what points? > > Secondly, do certain modules need to be installed to utilize > the H745's resources? (i.e. a device that uses -15vdc) or > should the light come on anyway from just being connected to > the power distribution board? I've tried with both those > modules in and removed from the system, and it didn't seem to > make a difference. > > What do I need to do to diagnose this problem? It's really > driving me nuts. > > Appreciating any help you can give, > > Julian From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 3 18:00:58 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 16:00:58 -0800 Subject: Commodore 64 story In-Reply-To: <200603032333.PAA13130@floodgap.com> References: <200603032333.PAA13130@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <200603031600580544.1E8A026A@10.0.0.252> On 3/3/2006 at 3:33 PM Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> Those who haven't read the computerworld Sharktank for today, >>might want to. Funny as usual >> for that column, but more interesting here than usual. Actually, I didn't find it that funny; just sad that no one in the sales chain obviously even knew what a C-64 was... Cheers, Chuck From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Mar 3 18:06:54 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 18:06:54 -0600 Subject: dec plastic panel mounts - ordering? Message-ID: <001201c63f1f$8c0ee400$6700a8c0@PC331890042458> I was showing someone my collection, and while standing in front of my 11/45 restoration project I lamented about how those little black plastic brackets that attach to the upright rails just can't be found anymore. You know the ones... the bracket has two round knobs that always break off - these are used to mount DEC filler panels. He said he knew a plastics firm that may be able to do a short run at a reasonable price. Failing that, he felt another company he knows of may be able to make them out of metal. This gives rise to two questions... 1) Would replicas made of metal work as well as replicas made of plastic? 2) How many people would be interested in some if the price is reasonable? And how many? I know a few of my systems I'd go back and use 4 brackets on each panel instead of the 2 I skimped on. In addition, a few racks I simply couldn't mount filler panels at all because of no brackets. Of course, before the guy can quote me a price I need to give him a firm minimum count. The more in the firm count the lower the price is. I figured I'd order 40 or 50 if the price was reasonable. But I'm sure my own order would be cost prohibative unless other collectors jump in. On the other hand, if some collector has a big crate of these, I'd rather just buy pile of originals :) Jay West From dholland at woh.rr.com Fri Mar 3 18:11:56 2006 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 19:11:56 -0500 Subject: Enigma code cracked after 60 years In-Reply-To: <200603031817.KAA28352@ca2h0430.amd.com> References: <200603031817.KAA28352@ca2h0430.amd.com> Message-ID: <1141431116.12780.2.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> On Fri, 2006-03-03 at 10:17 -0800, Dwight Elvey wrote: > Hi > I thought a few might be interested in this: > > http://heritage.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=973 > > Dwight There was much further discussion about this on Slashdot a couple of days ago... http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/26/0646215 References an article here: http://www.bytereef.org.nyud.net:8080/m4_project.html David From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Mar 3 18:12:34 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 18:12:34 -0600 Subject: paging bill dawson Message-ID: <004c01c63f20$566375e0$6700a8c0@PC331890042458> Anyone have a good email address for Bill Dawson? Jay From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Mar 3 18:17:36 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 16:17:36 -0800 Subject: Commodore 64 story In-Reply-To: <200603031600580544.1E8A026A@10.0.0.252> References: <200603032333.PAA13130@floodgap.com> <200603031600580544.1E8A026A@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4408DCA0.7020603@msm.umr.edu> Chuck Guzis wrote: >On 3/3/2006 at 3:33 PM Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > > >>>Those who haven't read the computerworld Sharktank for today, >>>might want to. Funny as usual >>>for that column, but more interesting here than usual. >>> >>> > >Actually, I didn't find it that funny; just sad that no one in the sales >chain obviously even knew what a C-64 was... > > > I imagine that they may have known, and maybe some on the outsources support site thought the guy was that clueless. plenty to be sad about in the story, but I look at the bright "dilbert" side of things rather than being discouraged. This cluelessness puts the bread on my table lots of times. jim From vrs at msn.com Fri Mar 3 18:33:57 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 16:33:57 -0800 Subject: dec plastic panel mounts - ordering? References: <001201c63f1f$8c0ee400$6700a8c0@PC331890042458> Message-ID: From: "Jay West" > I was showing someone my collection, and while standing in front of my 11/45 > restoration project I lamented about how those little black plastic brackets > that attach to the upright rails just can't be found anymore. You know the > ones... the bracket has two round knobs that always break off - these are > used to mount DEC filler panels. I have had excellent success casting plastic replicas of these. They're a lot easier than the switch handles :-)! > He said he knew a plastics firm that may be able to do a short run at a > reasonable price. Failing that, he felt another company he knows of may be > able to make them out of metal. This gives rise to two questions... > > 1) Would replicas made of metal work as well as replicas made of plastic? They might, but I'd worry that they would damage the tapered plastic cylinders they mate with. That would be much worse. > 2) How many people would be interested in some if the price is reasonable? > And how many? I know a few of my systems I'd go back and use 4 brackets on > each panel instead of the 2 I skimped on. In addition, a few racks I simply > couldn't mount filler panels at all because of no brackets. Of course, > before the guy can quote me a price I need to give him a firm minimum count. > The more in the firm count the lower the price is. I figured I'd order 40 or > 50 if the price was reasonable. But I'm sure my own order would be cost > prohibative unless other collectors jump in. I'm molding them one at a time (at about an hour in the mold each), but the cost seems quite moderate. (There is a minute or two's worth of trimming for each one, too.) I'm leaving them white -- I haven't tried to dye them black, to match the DEC ones. Vince From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Mar 3 18:42:34 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 00:42:34 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 11/34a problems continue In-Reply-To: from "Julian Wolfe" at Mar 3, 6 05:40:27 pm Message-ID: > > Well, I've been messing with the 11/34 on and off now for a few months as I > feel like it. > > The problem right now is that I have no light on the H745 power regulator. > Both lights are on, on the two H7441s in the other slots. Before you go any further, have you checked the -15V rail on the backplane connectors (blue wire IIRC, black wires are the ground refeernce)? Some of the older power bricks used filament lamps, which were always burning out. > > If I need to measure draw on the backplane to solve the problem, where do I > do it from? If on the power distribution board or backplane, then at what > points? Start by checking the voltages on the 15 pin conenctors that the backplanes plug into. You should find a pioout in the processor printset, if not I'll try to find it. > > Secondly, do certain modules need to be installed to utilize the H745's > resources? (i.e. a device that uses -15vdc) or should the light come on > anyway from just being connected to the power distribution board? I've That lamp is just in parallel with the output. It'll light if the regulator is producing -15V, whether there;s a load or not, > tried with both those modules in and removed from the system, and it didn't > seem to make a difference. > > What do I need to do to diagnose this problem? It's really driving me nuts. Well, First check to make sure the -15V suppply really is missing. Then check the +15V supply -- the H745 is odd in that it needs a +15V input (at a low current) as well as the 20-30V AC input from the transformer. If there's no output and the inputs are correct you need to pull the H745 and start debugging it. It is a switcher, but a relatively friendly one. When you know the fault is in that brick, I'll talk you through it. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Mar 3 18:43:36 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 00:43:36 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 11/34a problems continue In-Reply-To: from "Julian Wolfe" at Mar 3, 6 05:43:15 pm Message-ID: > > I forgot to note, I replaced the H745 module with a known good one, it > didn't help. I now suspect the +15V supply... It's produced by that PCB under the mains transformer I think. I'll look in the prints. -tony From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Mar 3 19:18:52 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 17:18:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: dec plastic panel mounts - ordering? Message-ID: <20060304011852.B65B819C3BE@bitsavers.org> 2) How many people would be interested in some if the price is reasonable? -- probably lots if the ends were redesigned NOT to break off From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Mar 3 19:22:16 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 17:22:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: URGENT: Data recovery assistance needed in New Haven, CT Message-ID: <20060304012216.2443D19C3C2@bitsavers.org> We have this exact problem today, a SCSI MO disk from a GE CT scanner and no system to read it. -- Try contacting Phil Jones at http://www.medpacs.com From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Mar 3 19:27:38 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 19:27:38 -0600 Subject: dec plastic panel mounts - ordering? References: <20060304011852.B65B819C3BE@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <001e01c63f2a$d3394540$6700a8c0@PC331890042458> metal would fix that. And I doubt metal would cause the plastic sleves on the panels to break, I mean - the original plastic balls on the mounts are a very hard plastic, so no give. In this application, no more give than metal I would think. Jay ----- Original Message ----- From: "Al Kossow" To: Sent: Friday, March 03, 2006 7:18 PM Subject: Re: dec plastic panel mounts - ordering? > > 2) How many people would be interested in some if the price is reasonable? > > -- > > probably lots if the ends were redesigned NOT to break off > > From vrs at msn.com Fri Mar 3 19:39:16 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 17:39:16 -0800 Subject: dec plastic panel mounts - ordering? References: <20060304011852.B65B819C3BE@bitsavers.org> <001e01c63f2a$d3394540$6700a8c0@PC331890042458> Message-ID: > metal would fix that. And I doubt metal would cause the plastic sleves on > the panels to break, I mean - the original plastic balls on the mounts are a > very hard plastic, so no give. In this application, no more give than metal > I would think. The plastic that I am using is a little less brittle, and deforms a little more easily. Makes it nice and "sticky" in this application. I am sure it is possible to break them, but I haven't done it (yet?). And it doesn't matter much, unless there is a supply shortage! I think the key problem with these panels is that if one side comes loose and the other doesn't, the panel becomes a long lever arm, snapping off the plastic tabs. I have little doubt a stronger tab could lead to damage to the panel's sockets. Vince From aw288 at osfn.org Fri Mar 3 19:52:04 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 20:52:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: Teletype 31? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > I could use a couple. If I remember correctly (I haven't fooled with > it in a while), I want to say only half my keys were working. How > bad is yours? Does it function at all? Mines in pretty good shape, > but I might be missing a spring or two. Nope. No worky. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Mar 3 19:53:28 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 19:53:28 -0600 Subject: dec plastic panel mounts - ordering? References: <20060304011852.B65B819C3BE@bitsavers.org><001e01c63f2a$d3394540$6700a8c0@PC331890042458> Message-ID: <003301c63f2e$6f304e00$6700a8c0@PC331890042458> vrs wrote... > The plastic that I am using is a little less brittle, and deforms a little > more easily. Makes it nice and "sticky" in this application. I am sure > it > is possible to break them, but I haven't done it (yet?). And it doesn't > matter much, unless there is a supply shortage! Uh, hello! lol There is a supply shortage. I'll order 50 or so from you ;) Jay From vrs at msn.com Fri Mar 3 22:34:17 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 20:34:17 -0800 Subject: dec plastic panel mounts - ordering? References: <20060304011852.B65B819C3BE@bitsavers.org><001e01c63f2a$d3394540$6700a8c0@PC331890042458> <003301c63f2e$6f304e00$6700a8c0@PC331890042458> Message-ID: > vrs wrote... > > The plastic that I am using is a little less brittle, and deforms a little > > more easily. Makes it nice and "sticky" in this application. I am sure > > it > > is possible to break them, but I haven't done it (yet?). And it doesn't > > matter much, unless there is a supply shortage! > > Uh, hello! lol There is a supply shortage. Nothing that $50 or so worth of RTV silicone and fase cure polyurethane resin wouldn't cure :-). > I'll order 50 or so from you ;) That would take all the fun out of it :-)! Do you really need 50? I thought you were just trying to help get the order volume up. I only ended up needing to cast about a half dozen to get my racks put right. Vince From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Mar 3 23:10:57 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 23:10:57 -0600 Subject: Mac Plus, etc. rescue in San Diego Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060303231004.059a7380@mail> >From: "Miriam Mustain" > >We are in San Diego, California. Mir > >>Hi: >>My mother has the following equipment and would be willing to donate it if >you could pay the shipping. >> >>Macintosh Plus 2MB >>Model # M0001A >>Serial # *F745B8SM0001A* >>FCC ID # BCG9GRM0001A >>MacWrite and MacPaint discs >> >>Apple 3.5 Drive >>P/N 825-1304-A >>Serial # Y780BFJ >> >>Image Writer II Printer >>Model # A9M0310 >>Serial # 0591245 >>FCC ID # BCG9BUA9M0310 >> >>The printer is a very pale yellow color in comparison to the neutral tan of >the computer. I can't tell whether this is due to age or its original >color. From bqt at update.uu.se Sat Mar 4 01:48:23 2006 From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 08:48:23 +0100 Subject: MSCP SCSI CD-R(W)? In-Reply-To: <200603040145.k241hWTc040863@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200603040145.k241hWTc040863@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <44094647.3090901@update.uu.se> "Zane H. Healy" wrote: >>Saw an interesting discussion about CD-ROMs with MSCP SCSI (YES, a >>CD-ROM ISO with XXDP would be truly awesome!) and this got me thinking >>about my own UC07 controller - if I've understood correctly, this >>controller does not support SCSI tape. >> >>I don't really know anything about MSCP or the SCSI command set that CD >>writers use - but could a CD-R(W) drive be used as a backup device? >> >>I know it's bad style to do backups on CD-R, but bear with me :) > > I don't see why not, but you'll have to write the software to control it. I very much doubt it. Writing to a CD-R is not done the same way as writing to a disk. And MSCP-SCSI controllers only do writes as to a disk. CDs need to have lead-ins, lead-outs and whatnots in between. (Underruns, anyone?) > You're also likely to find that it's very picky about what it will work > with. At least with my Viking QDT and UDT controllers I *think* 512-byte > blocks are a requirement, and I know they won't work with all 512-byte block > CD-ROM drives. My CMD controllers have been happy with every CD drive I've tossed at them, but I admit it hasn't been that many different models, so I might have been just lucky. > An easier sollution is to have the SCSI HD's in removable trays, and Have a > modern Unix box with the same type SCSI tray. Plug the PDP-11 disk into the > Unix box, and use 'dd' to image the disk. The resulting image can even be > used under SIMH. That would definitely be easier. If you wanted backups, you could then burn that image to a CD on the Unix box. >>Also, now that I think about it, the perverse bugger that I am, could an >>MSCP controller send an Audio CD Play/Next Track/etc. command to the >>CD-ROM? Would be awesome to have a hifi controlled by the PDP-11. :) > > No clue, but I rather doubt it. Same problem. SCSI command to play around with audi CDs don't have any corresponding stuff in MSCP, so there is no way to map that. In short, MSCP can't do it. Don't matter what SCSI can. You are limited to what MSCP can do, since it is a MSCP controller. What it talks at the other end is pretty irrelevant. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at update.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From vax9000 at gmail.com Sat Mar 4 02:21:06 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 03:21:06 -0500 Subject: MSCP SCSI CD-R(W)? In-Reply-To: <44094647.3090901@update.uu.se> References: <200603040145.k241hWTc040863@dewey.classiccmp.org> <44094647.3090901@update.uu.se> Message-ID: On 3/4/06, Johnny Billquist wrote: > > Same problem. SCSI command to play around with audi CDs don't have any > corresponding stuff in MSCP, so there is no way to map that. > In short, MSCP can't do it. Don't matter what SCSI can. You are limited > to what MSCP can do, since it is a MSCP controller. What it talks at the > other end is pretty irrelevant. This is easy. Just add a port to the controller. Whenever the program writes to the port, the controller plays the CD accordingly. It is nothing related to MSCP, but it can be integrated into the same board. vax, 9000 > > Johnny > > -- > Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus > || on a psychedelic trip > email: bqt at update.uu.se || Reading murder books > pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol > From dave06a at dunfield.com Sat Mar 4 05:15:25 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 06:15:25 -0500 Subject: (Fwd) RE: Looking for an ADM-3a Message-ID: <20060304111549.VFBI17838.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> I was contacted by a gentleman who wishes to purchase an ADM-3A. He is located in Northern VA. If anyone can help, please contact Jim at: jAt {at} feeCzell {dot} Ccom [Remove the capitals and do the appropriate conversions] Or contact me and I will pass it on. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Sat Mar 4 08:29:23 2006 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore S Bekkedal) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 15:29:23 +0100 Subject: MSV11-QB woes Message-ID: <1141482563.16067.79.camel@fortran.babel> Hey, I have two MSV11-QBs here, each 2 meg parity QBUS memories. I'd like to put both in the same system, creating a 4 meg PDP-11, but I can't find the DIP switch settings for them. The PCB in the PDF has the DIP switches placed differently on the board, and the settings I try don't seem to work, I'm throwing memory errors, and the boards appear in the wrong places. the PCB revision is 5017547-01-D1-P2 while the PDF depicts a C1. I don't know if that's the problem, but the boards do look different. What I previously had was __Q22_______ _______Q/CD______ / \ / \ |Emul|DHV-|DHV-|DELQ|Gran|MSV-|PDP-| |ex S|11 |11 |A |t co| 11 |11/ | |CSI | | | |ntin| |83 | | | | | |uity| QB | | | | | | | | 0- |CPU | |----| | |----|----| 2m | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 What I've changed it to is: _______Q22_______ _______Q/CD______ / \ / \ | |TK50|DHV-|DHV-|DELQ|MSV-|MSV-|PDP-| | |Cont|11 |11 |A |11 | 11 |11/ | | | | | | | | |83 | | | | | | | QB | QB | | | | | | | | 2- | 0- |CPU | |----|----| | |----| 4m | 2m | | |RQDX|Emul| | | | | | | | 3 |ex S| | | | | | | | |CSI | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 With both memory boards in, the CPU diag ROM reports that I have small ROMs placed around the memory space and one RAM board somewhere in space of some strange size. I assume that's because the DIP switch settings are wrong. Anyone have the docs? Or know what the DIP switch settings are for setting them to 0-2M and 2-4M? Thanks very much in advance for your help! -toresbe From Bob at BRADLEE.ORG Thu Mar 2 13:06:01 2006 From: Bob at BRADLEE.ORG (Bob Bradlee) Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2006 14:06:01 -0500 Subject: Fixing 8" disk hubs In-Reply-To: <004e01c63da5$48d366f0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <200603021917.k22JHgl8046098@keith.ezwind.net> Stupid question.... Is the Diskette still good ? Do the disks still spin fee in their jackets? Or do they have stiction ? I had that problem long ago and ended up cutting the disk out of the bad disk jacket and putting it in a good diskette jacket. It spun up, I got my data off and trash both diskettes. Something got inside the diskette or just died in there that made it stick. An slit down the side worked well, to get my data out intact. I recovered a floppy that had been bent and was binding that way too. I both cases they did not spin correctly in an otherwise good drive. 8"floppies were not designed as long life, long term storage. :) BTW I had a drive do that and swapping the upper hub and spring fixed it. On close inspection the plastic cone side of the hub was cracked and did not transfer the force to the rim of the disk. Just my thoughts Good luck... Bob Bradlee From wallyc at memex.ca Thu Mar 2 16:23:15 2006 From: wallyc at memex.ca (Wally Cassell) Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 15:23:15 -0700 Subject: Old Eprom Burner Message-ID: Hi Teo, Did you get any info on the Q-920. I also have one, without manual, and would like to get a manual too. Thanks Have a fantastic day. Kind regards, Memex Electronics Inc. Wally Cassell 777 Walkers Line Burlington ON Canada L7N 2G1 ph (905) 635-3040 fax (905) 631-9640 www.memex.ca sales at memex.ca --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.443 / Virus Database: 248 - Release Date: 1/10/2003 From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 3 23:08:36 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2006 21:08:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: anyone familiar with Soft-LA Message-ID: <20060304050836.65519.qmail@web61016.mail.yahoo.com> turns your pc (286 or faster) into a logic analyzer __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sat Mar 4 10:17:28 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 11:17:28 -0500 Subject: MSCP SCSI CD-R(W)? In-Reply-To: <44094647.3090901@update.uu.se> References: <200603040145.k241hWTc040863@dewey.classiccmp.org> <44094647.3090901@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <20060304161728.AA0448C009F@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Johnny Billquist wrote: > Same problem. SCSI command to play around with audi CDs don't have any > corresponding stuff in MSCP, so there is no way to map that. > In short, MSCP can't do it. Don't matter what SCSI can. You are limited > to what MSCP can do, since it is a MSCP controller. What it talks at the > other end is pretty irrelevant. There was a special-order option for at least some CMD controllers that allowed you "raw" access to the SCSI device, all packaged up and delivered through special MSCP packets. I saw this used in the 80's with laser-disc type storage but have not seen it since. Emulex sold UC07's/UC08's with special firmware for talking to some optical-write-once SCSI things too, but I think it hid it all behind some normal-ish (not "raw SCSI over MSCP") MSCP stuff. At this point it's probably easier to just put a NCR 5380 on the Q-bus or something. Heck, that was probably easier 20 years ago :-). Tim. From jhoger at gmail.com Sat Mar 4 10:22:44 2006 From: jhoger at gmail.com (John Hogerhuis) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 08:22:44 -0800 Subject: good online sniper In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20060303181237.02a8fdb0@mail.degnanco.net> References: <200603031800.k23I0TAA033213@dewey.classiccmp.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20060303181237.02a8fdb0@mail.degnanco.net> Message-ID: There are plenty of payware snipe programs and free programs. bidwatcher is free but last time I tried it is was not working (may be better now...) Jbidwatcher, a Java program is also free. I use Auction Sentry, one of the many Windows programs (the license is $15). I run it in a Win2K session under VmWare because I use a Linux desktop. There are other emu's you could use including free emulators. I decided at some point that I was tired of Bidwatcher breaking... since there was no way to directly pay for support, and Ebay UI is just too volatile, it's hard to see how a free software project can keep up with this particular kind of problem (screen scraping a changing user interface). So I pay... -- John. From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Mar 4 10:29:40 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 08:29:40 -0800 Subject: MSCP SCSI CD-R(W)? In-Reply-To: <44094647.3090901@update.uu.se> References: <200603040145.k241hWTc040863@dewey.classiccmp.org> <44094647.3090901@update.uu.se> Message-ID: At 8:48 AM +0100 3/4/06, Johnny Billquist wrote: >"Zane H. Healy" wrote: > >>>I don't really know anything about MSCP or the SCSI command set that CD >>>writers use - but could a CD-R(W) drive be used as a backup device? >>> >>>I know it's bad style to do backups on CD-R, but bear with me :) >> >>I don't see why not, but you'll have to write the software to control it. > >I very much doubt it. Writing to a CD-R is not done the same way as >writing to a disk. And MSCP-SCSI controllers only do writes as to a >disk. >CDs need to have lead-ins, lead-outs and whatnots in between. >(Underruns, anyone?) When using CDRECORD on OpenVMS aren't you writing to a MSCP-SCSI device? Granted it's a lot more modern, and the SCSI controllers are probably more advanced. >>You're also likely to find that it's very picky about what it will work >>with. At least with my Viking QDT and UDT controllers I *think* 512-byte >>blocks are a requirement, and I know they won't work with all 512-byte block >>CD-ROM drives. > >My CMD controllers have been happy with every CD drive I've tossed >at them, but I admit it hasn't been that many different models, so I >might have been just lucky. I know I had issues with a drive that worked just fine in my AlphaStation 200 4/233. >>An easier sollution is to have the SCSI HD's in removable trays, and Have a >>modern Unix box with the same type SCSI tray. Plug the PDP-11 disk into the >>Unix box, and use 'dd' to image the disk. The resulting image can even be >>used under SIMH. > >That would definitely be easier. If you wanted backups, you could >then burn that image to a CD on the Unix box. And if you have to you can restore from CD-R. A couple of us have theorized that it should work just fine to 'dd' back to the same model drive (I can't see any reason this wouldn't work), but I don't believe anyone has attempted this with a SCSI drive (I've done it with RL01's and RL02'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 shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sat Mar 4 10:55:07 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 11:55:07 -0500 Subject: MSCP SCSI CD-R(W)? In-Reply-To: References: <200603040145.k241hWTc040863@dewey.classiccmp.org> <44094647.3090901@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <20060304165507.C0598104000E@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> "Zane H. Healy" wrote: > When using CDRECORD on OpenVMS aren't you writing to a MSCP-SCSI > device? Granted it's a lot more modern, and the SCSI controllers are > probably more advanced. In that case the driver is the DK: driver, which supports the IO_$DIAGNOSE QIO operation to do raw SCSI stuff. (I think the GK: and DQ: drivers support this after a fashion too... isn't DQ: the IDE driver or something now? I remember when it was the IDC RL02 on a 11/730!) Under VMS lots of devices that are not really MSCP can be served through MSCP-type layers (for example serving disks across a cluster is done through a MSCP interface, even if it's not a MSCP drive). In the case of CDRECORD it's more direct. (And you'll note that you cannot use it cross-machine between two machines in the same cluster...) The whole MSCP concept is really pretty powerful and most OS's do not really use it in its whole elegance and glory (or maybe "colossal inconquerable tower" is more appropriate!) But in this case CDRECORD goes through a lower level. This layering exists in the PC-clone world too: most IDE CD writers are served up by ATAPI, a SCSI-like layer "riding" on the IDE interface. (And for a while even if you had no SCSI hardware, to record to an IDE CD recorder in Linux you needed SCSI support in the kernel...) Tim. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 4 10:56:32 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 08:56:32 -0800 Subject: Where's this from? Message-ID: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> This has got to be a gag, but what's its origin? http://subjunctive.net/images/2004/rand-home-computer.jpg From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sat Mar 4 11:06:00 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 12:06:00 -0500 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060304170600.3673F8C009F@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > This has got to be a gag, but what's its origin? > > http://subjunctive.net/images/2004/rand-home-computer.jpg I don't have graphics, but I think most of the picture you're talking about is a nuclear sub's reactor/electrical/steam control panel that's on display in the Smithsonian, with a DECwriter and guy and TV screen photoshopped on top. Am I too far off? Tim. From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Mar 4 11:13:15 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 09:13:15 -0800 Subject: MSCP SCSI CD-R(W)? In-Reply-To: <20060304161728.AA0448C009F@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <200603040145.k241hWTc040863@dewey.classiccmp.org> <44094647.3090901@update.uu.se> <20060304161728.AA0448C009F@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: At 11:17 AM -0500 3/4/06, Tim Shoppa wrote: >There was a special-order option for at least some CMD controllers >that allowed you "raw" access to the SCSI device, all packaged >up and delivered through special MSCP packets. I saw this used >in the 80's with laser-disc type storage but have not seen it >since. > >Emulex sold UC07's/UC08's with special firmware for talking to >some optical-write-once SCSI things too, but I think it hid it >all behind some normal-ish (not "raw SCSI over MSCP") MSCP stuff. Alphatronix did something like this with Viking controllers (both Q-Bus and Unibus) with special firmware. 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 Mar 4 11:17:58 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 09:17:58 -0800 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: <20060304170600.3673F8C009F@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> <20060304170600.3673F8C009F@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: At 12:06 PM -0500 3/4/06, Tim Shoppa wrote: >"Chuck Guzis" wrote: >> This has got to be a gag, but what's its origin? >> > > http://subjunctive.net/images/2004/rand-home-computer.jpg > >I don't have graphics, but I think most of the picture you're >talking about is a nuclear sub's reactor/electrical/steam control >panel that's on display in the Smithsonian, with a DECwriter >and guy and TV screen photoshopped on top. Am I too far off? That's what it looks like to me. I've not seen the Smithsonian exhibit you're talking about (must have gone in after I left DC), but it definitely looks Naval. 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 Sat Mar 4 11:18:07 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 09:18:07 -0800 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: <20060304170600.3673F8C009F@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> <20060304170600.3673F8C009F@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <200603040918070148.223F8A74@10.0.0.252> On 3/4/2006 at 12:06 PM shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com wrote: >I don't have graphics, but I think most of the picture you're >talking about is a nuclear sub's reactor/electrical/steam control >panel that's on display in the Smithsonian, with a DECwriter >and guy and TV screen photoshopped on top. Am I too far off? That's it! I figure that the DECwriter was a photoshop addition, but wasn't sure about the TV. Cheers, Chuck From jfoust at threedee.com Sat Mar 4 11:18:07 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 11:18:07 -0600 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060304111745.04867088@mail> At 10:56 AM 3/4/2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: >This has got to be a gag, but what's its origin? >http://subjunctive.net/images/2004/rand-home-computer.jpg Hoax, discussed on this list in 2004: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/computer.asp - John From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sat Mar 4 11:24:56 2006 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 11:24:56 -0600 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: <20060304170600.3673F8C009F@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> <20060304170600.3673F8C009F@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <4409CD68.7080104@brutman.com> Snopes has a pretty good write-up .. http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/computer.asp Mike From legalize at xmission.com Sat Mar 4 11:46:21 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 10:46:21 -0700 Subject: anyone familiar with Soft-LA In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 03 Mar 2006 21:08:36 -0800. <20060304050836.65519.qmail@web61016.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: In article <20060304050836.65519.qmail at web61016.mail.yahoo.com>, Chris M writes: > turns your pc (286 or faster) into a logic analyzer I haven't heard of it; I assume that it is using the parallel port for the logic inputs? Or maybe it includes a card? I don't know how much bandwidth you'd get off the parallel port, maybe Trixter knows. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cfox1 at cogeco.ca Sat Mar 4 11:51:43 2006 From: cfox1 at cogeco.ca (Charles E. Fox) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 12:51:43 -0500 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <7.0.0.16.0.20060304125041.0198c8b8@cogeco.ca> At 11:56 AM 3/4/2006, you wrote: >This has got to be a gag, but what's its origin? > >http://subjunctive.net/images/2004/rand-home-computer.jpg I am very glad the scientists were not correct. Charlie Fox Charles E. Fox Video Production 793 Argyle Rd. Windsor Ontario Canada N8Y 3J8 519-254-4991 cfox1 at cogeco.ca Check out The Camcorder Kindergarten at www.chasfoxvideo.com From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 4 11:58:27 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 09:58:27 -0800 Subject: anyone familiar with Soft-LA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603040958270453.226478AC@10.0.0.252> Chris M writes: > > turns your pc (286 or faster) into a logic analyzer I've got a card that plugs into a PC's parallel port; it's basically an 8051 and a whole bunch of async FIFOs. It's not bad for what it is. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Sat Mar 4 11:48:34 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 10:48:34 -0700 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 04 Mar 2006 09:18:07 -0800. <200603040918070148.223F8A74@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603040918070148.223F8A74 at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > That's it! I figure that the DECwriter was a photoshop addition, but > wasn't sure about the TV. I think the big steering wheel is also photoshopped on :-). I can't imagine steering a nuclear reactor. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Sat Mar 4 11:50:38 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 10:50:38 -0700 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 04 Mar 2006 11:24:56 -0600. <4409CD68.7080104@brutman.com> Message-ID: Nope, looks like I'm wrong having now seen the photo of the original exhibit. What does that steering wheel do, then, I wonder? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From rtellason at blazenet.net Sat Mar 4 12:16:25 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 13:16:25 -0500 Subject: anyone familiar with Soft-LA In-Reply-To: <20060304050836.65519.qmail@web61016.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060304050836.65519.qmail@web61016.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200603041316.25784.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Saturday 04 March 2006 12:08 am, Chris M wrote: > turns your pc (286 or faster) into a logic analyzer Never heard of that one, though I'd imagine that the hardware for interfacing it to whatever you're trying to analyze would be more of an issue than the software would. Then there was an article I saw once abot somebody having done something similar with one of the 8-bit Kaypro machines... -- 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 blazenet.net Sat Mar 4 12:18:56 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 13:18:56 -0500 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603041318.56193.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Saturday 04 March 2006 11:56 am, Chuck Guzis wrote: > This has got to be a gag, but what's its origin? > > http://subjunctive.net/images/2004/rand-home-computer.jpg Dunno about its origin, but I've run across that one before. Somebody or other commented that the "control panel" with the big wheels is actually from a submarine, and that the pic was cobbled together from a bunch of differerent images... -- 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 blazenet.net Sat Mar 4 12:27:36 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 13:27:36 -0500 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603041327.36261.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Saturday 04 March 2006 12:48 pm, Richard wrote: > In article <200603040918070148.223F8A74 at 10.0.0.252>, > > "Chuck Guzis" writes: > > That's it! I figure that the DECwriter was a photoshop addition, but > > wasn't sure about the TV. > > I think the big steering wheel is also photoshopped on :-). > > I can't imagine steering a nuclear reactor. Have a look at http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/images/rand2.jpg and you'll see that it's not. -- 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 Watzman at neo.rr.com Sat Mar 4 12:54:46 2006 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 13:54:46 -0500 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: <200603041801.k24I0oi1047280@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <004101c63fbd$1b7b1da0$6501a8c0@barry> It is a gag. This photo is described in detail on snopes (a "mythbusters" site). The base setup is actually a submarine control room in a museum to which a few things have been changed and added and the description created. >> This has got to be a gag, but what's its origin? >> >> http://subjunctive.net/images/2004/rand-home-computer.jpg > >I don't have graphics, but I think most of the picture you're >talking about is a nuclear sub's reactor/electrical/steam control >panel that's on display in the Smithsonian, with a DECwriter >and guy and TV screen photoshopped on top. Am I too far off? From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sat Mar 4 13:16:31 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 14:16:31 -0500 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060304191631.D35788C0093@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Richard wrote: > Nope, looks like I'm wrong having now seen the photo of the original > exhibit. What does that steering wheel do, then, I wonder? A large steam valve is my understanding. BTW, Trains don't have steering wheels either :-). Tim. From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sat Mar 4 13:20:41 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 14:20:41 -0500 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: <7.0.0.16.0.20060304125041.0198c8b8@cogeco.ca> References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> <7.0.0.16.0.20060304125041.0198c8b8@cogeco.ca> Message-ID: <20060304192041.6AFB98C0093@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> "Charles E. Fox" wrote: > At 11:56 AM 3/4/2006, you wrote: > >This has got to be a gag, but what's its origin? > > > >http://subjunctive.net/images/2004/rand-home-computer.jpg > > I am very glad the scientists were not correct. I am actually very disappointed that computers don't have as much steam, hydraulics, or pneumatics as the typical 50's/"Tom Swift" ones did. I find it much more satisfying when the important tools needed are a socket set and chisel. Tim. From dave06a at dunfield.com Sat Mar 4 13:42:31 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 14:42:31 -0500 Subject: anyone familiar with Soft-LA In-Reply-To: References: Your message of Fri, 03 Mar 2006 21:08:36 -0800. <20060304050836.65519.qmail@web61016.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060304194257.HIRV14361.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> > > turns your pc (286 or faster) into a logic analyzer > > I haven't heard of it; I assume that it is using the parallel port for > the logic inputs? Or maybe it includes a card? I don't know how much > bandwidth you'd get off the parallel port, maybe Trixter knows. I have a simple "parallel port logic analyzer" (PCLA) that I wrote some time ago. It gives you 13 channels (assuming you have a bidirectional parallel port), and a sample rate of around 500khz (depends on the machine) Above 486ish the CPU doesn't matter much, it's the I/O setup which limits it. Allows you to set trigger conditions (0, 1 or X=Don't care), captures 255 samples before the trigger and 65536 samples after the trigger. Which you can scroll around and review. Has functions to search for data patterns and the usual stuff. Runs under DOS, I'll give it to anyone from the list that wants it - just drop me a line. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Mar 4 14:03:34 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 12:03:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: <20060304170600.3673F8C009F@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> <20060304170600.3673F8C009F@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <20060304120058.S17844@shell.lmi.net> > > This has got to be a gag, but what's its origin? > > http://subjunctive.net/images/2004/rand-home-computer.jpg > On Sat, 4 Mar 2006, Tim Shoppa wrote: > I don't have graphics, but I think most of the picture you're > talking about is a nuclear sub's reactor/electrical/steam control > panel that's on display in the Smithsonian, with a DECwriter > and guy and TV screen photoshopped on top. Am I too far off? Yeah, but it makes for a helluva game controller ISTR that Decwriters had a slot at the bottom for paper, and will tend to jam if you try to front-feed them like that. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Mar 4 14:53:01 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 13:53:01 -0700 Subject: Xenix 286? In-Reply-To: References: <43B75062.3030906@mdrconsult.com> <43BA0488.9030400@oldskool.org> <575131af0602211917y43804763q3b7c4753323dde2@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0602220416v527f9c01k48143acc8572cea4@mail.gmail.com> <1140613592.26669.6.camel@wombat.dlib.indiana.edu> <575131af0602230709i2178434ta0beb432d4c7d835@mail.gmail.com> <200602231142300865.340B5719@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4409FE2D.9050304@jetnet.ab.ca> Eric J Korpela wrote: > On 2/23/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: However, paging frees >>the programmer from worrying about organizing things in segmented fashion >>(and having to deal with selectors)--what is seen is simply a huge linear >>address space (Usually CS=DS=ES=FS=GS and nobody changes them). > > > > And we're still paying for this brain dead choice with buffer and > stack overrun exploits. Whoever was the nitwit that decided to make > data and stack pages should be accessible through the code selector > and code should be accessible through the data selector should be > tarred and feathered. > > I suspect this was to give 8080 compatable programing. From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sat Mar 4 14:59:28 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 15:59:28 -0500 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: <20060304192041.6AFB98C0093@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> <7.0.0.16.0.20060304125041.0198c8b8@cogeco.ca> <20060304192041.6AFB98C0093@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <20060304205928.017C8BA48B5@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> "Charles E. Fox" wrote: > At 11:56 AM 3/4/2006, you wrote: > >This has got to be a gag, but what's its origin? > > > >http://subjunctive.net/images/2004/rand-home-computer.jpg > > I am very glad the scientists were not correct. Oh, yeah, it also reminds me of a spot from the Simpson's last night of a much younger Prof. Frink teaching some Springfield Heights Institute of Technology students about the computer: "I predict that in 100 years that computers will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them". Apu then goes on to describe his ten years of work on his Ph.D thesis, comprising 20,000 punched cards and being a Tic-Tac-Toe program capable of beating all but the best human players :-). While the picture is obviously a fake, it's more fun that reading those old Tom Swift stories. (I grew up on 'em, do kids read them anymore?) Tim. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 4 16:10:06 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 14:10:06 -0800 Subject: History Check -- First CMOS mainframe Message-ID: <200603041410060745.234ADDB1@10.0.0.252> On my wandering around, I found the following claims on the Unisys "history" web page (http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/history/index.htm): "1993 Unisys introduces 2200/500, the first mainframe based on complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology." Wasn't the ETA-10 CMOS-based? (Not to mention the whole subject of "What's a mainframe?") "1989 Unisys introduces Micro A, the first desktop, single-chip mainframe." I don't know what to make of that claim. What's a mainframe. From what I can gather, the Micro A was pretty much a plug-in coprocessor PCB in an otherwise x86 box that booted OS/2. Comments? Anyone on the list a Blue Bell veteran who can give the real scoop on the Micro A? Cheers, Chuck From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sat Mar 4 16:55:30 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 17:55:30 -0500 Subject: History Check -- First CMOS mainframe In-Reply-To: <200603041410060745.234ADDB1@10.0.0.252> References: <200603041410060745.234ADDB1@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060304225530.85159104000E@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > On my wandering around, I found the following claims on the Unisys > "history" web page (http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/history/index.htm): > > "1993 Unisys introduces 2200/500, the first mainframe based on > complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology." > > Wasn't the ETA-10 CMOS-based? (Not to mention the whole subject of > "What's a mainframe?") But the ETA-10 was by very few standards a "mainframe". It was clearly a supercomputer. Not aimed at (for example) payroll by any means! > "1989 Unisys introduces Micro A, the first desktop, single-chip mainframe." > > I don't know what to make of that claim. What's a mainframe. From what I > can gather, the Micro A was pretty much a plug-in coprocessor PCB in an > otherwise x86 box that booted OS/2. As to "what's a mainframe", as Unisys uses the term it's a computer used for "traditional" business purposes (financial/payroll/purchasing/ invoicing), probably running dusty-deck COBOL programs. Tim. From allain at panix.com Sat Mar 4 17:10:45 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 18:10:45 -0500 Subject: History Check -- First CMOS mainframe References: <200603041410060745.234ADDB1@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <05f901c63fe0$e191f0e0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> > From what I > can gather, the Micro A was pretty much a plug-in coprocessor PCB in an > otherwise x86 box that booted OS/2. > "1989 Unisys introduces Micro A, the first desktop, single-chip mainframe." Lucky Me, somebody turned up some history on my oddity There is in fact a desktop emulator of a Unisys mainframe that boots the coprocessor from within OS/2. I have one here. Happened across it by pure luck. I'm not an expert in the MCP O/S so have been in lurkmode on this for a longnow while. John A. end of line From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 4 17:14:15 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 15:14:15 -0800 Subject: History Check -- First CMOS mainframe In-Reply-To: <20060304225530.85159104000E@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <200603041410060745.234ADDB1@10.0.0.252> <20060304225530.85159104000E@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <200603041514150237.2385967B@10.0.0.252> On 3/4/2006 at 5:55 PM shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com wrote: >As to "what's a mainframe", as Unisys uses the term it's a computer >used for "traditional" business purposes (financial/payroll/purchasing/ >invoicing), probably running dusty-deck COBOL programs. That could mean any minicomputer and quite a few micros of the same era. Certainly COBOL was available for the x80 by then and many micros were running database and the usual finiancial apps, including payroll, inventory, AR, AP and GL. But saying a supercomuter isn't a mainframe is bending things quite a bit, don't you think? Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 4 17:11:22 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 23:11:22 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Epson HX20 RS232 port from BASIC Message-ID: I've been working on some Epson laptops and their associated TF20 drive. I'll post my notes on the TF20 and the drive mechanisms (SD320) as separate messages, along with the wirelists of the various cables I've made. One other thing that might be of interest : The 34 pin connector on the back of the TF20 is not some kind of parallel host interface. It's exactly what you'd expect a 34 pin connector on a disk controller to be -- namely a SA400-compatible disk drive bus. The hardware can handle up to 4 drives which can be connected either to the intenral drive connector or to the connector on the back. I have no idea if the standard software (which is clearly CP/M based) can be made to support more than the 2 internal drives. The hardware also seems to support FM operation (unlike the QX10, which seems to be MFM only), I have no idea if the software does There is a spave for another 34 pin connector on the PCB. This is some kind of parallel interface, the missing 4 pin chip is an 8255. Again I have no idea if the software cane be made to support it. But shorting pins 33 and 34 on this connector will do a hard reset of the controller, which can be useful to know when debugging one. As is well-known, I think, the TF20 controller is really a CP/M-based computer. There's a Z80 with 64K DRAM in there. The EPROM contains something that looks suspiciously like a CP/M BIOS, it's copied to the top of RAM after reset, then the EPROM is switched out. My TF20 didn't work. It never tried to load an OS from disk, it never responded to commands from the host. The first thing to ckeck was the PSU rails (including the -12V line that's generated on the controller board), all were fine. The Z80 was clearly clocking, it was executing instructions (looked to have got trapped executing FF from loacation 38, if you see what I mean :-)). The EPROM was not swtiched out (this was interesting. The EPROM can be swtiched out in software, but can never be switched in again other than by a hardware reset. So this meant the EPROM had never been swtiched out). I looked at the start of the EPROM code. It copies the BIOS to the top of RAM, then jumps to the cold boot entry point. The first thing this does is to swtich out the EPROM. I usspected a RAM problem -- the BIOS in RAM therefore couldn't be executed correcrtly. A few chyecks showed that the address lines at the RAM (after the multipleser) were fine, so were RAS/ and CAS/. I susepcted a RAM chip. I desoldered all 8 RAMs (no easy way to run a RAM test in that unit), then put sockets in their place. Put the RAMs into an old IBM PC, it failed the POST and told me one of the RAMs was dead. I put the other 7 back in the TF20 along with a replacement. It now works fine. I have a little problem with the HX20. I've been using the RS232 port from disk BASIC (I suppose I should see if ROM BASIC behaves the same way). According to the user manual, the way to do this is to do something like OPEN "O",1,"COM0:(58N1F)" WHere ; The first "O" means open it for OUTPUT The paramters in brackets are : Baud Rate (here 5 == 2400 baud) Word length (8 bits) Parity (none) Stop bits (1) Handshake control (here F) It's the last that's giving me problems. According to the user manual, this is a single hex digit, the bits of which are used as follows Bit 3 : Is DSR enabled or masked out Bit 2 : Is CTS enabled or mashed out Bit 1 : State of RTS output Bit 0 : Is CD enabled or masked out I may have got bits 3 and 2 the wrong way round, but anyway. The problem is that bits 1 and 0 seem to do nothing. RTS is always turned on when the port is openned, CD is always ignored. DSR and CTS behave as I'd expect them to. Is this a known bug in the BASIC, or is there some very odd fault with my HX20? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 4 17:12:36 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 23:12:36 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Epson laptop cables Message-ID: HX20 RS232 Cable ---------------- DIN8 DB25-P 1 ------Bk----Gnd----------7 2-------W-----TxD----------2 3-------R-----RxD----------3 4-------Y-----RTS----------4 5-------Pu----CTS----------5 6-------Bu----DSR----------6 7-------Gn----DTR----------20 8-------Br----CS-----------8 E-------Shield-------------1 PX4 / PX8 RS232 Cable --------------------- Mini-DIN 8 DB25-P 1 -------Bk------Gnd---------7 2 -------W-------TxD---------2 3 -------R-------RxD---------3 4--------Y-------RTS---------4 5--------Pu------CTS---------5 6--------Bu------DSR---------6 7--------Gn------DTR---------20 8--------Br------CD----------8 E-------Shield---------------1 PX4 / PX8 Null Modem Adapter ---------------------------- Mini DIN 8 DB25-S 1 -------Bk------Gnd---------7 2 -------W-------TxD---------3 3 -------R-------RxD---------2 4--------Y-------RTS------+--8 5--------Pu------CTS------+ 6--------Bu------DSR---------20 7--------Gn------DTR---------6 8--------Br------CD-------+--4 +--5 E-------Shield---------------1 HX20 - TF20 ----------- DIN5 DIN6 1----Bk------Gnd-------5 2----W-------PTX-------3 3----R-------PRX-------1 5----Bu------PIN-------2 4----Gn------POUT------4 PX4 / PX8 - TF20 ---------------- Mini-DIN 8 DIN6 1------Bk----Gnd-------5 2------W-----PTX-------3 3------R-----PRX-------1 6------Bu----PIN-------2 7------Gn----POUT------4 PX4 Cassette Adapter -------------------- Note : Use Maplin PS2 extension lead, cut in half, use the plug end only, and cut off the extra pin (thus converting the plug to a mini DIN 5 Mini-DIN 5 DIN5 Socket 1 ----Br-----Gnd----2 2-----Or-----RMT----1 3-----Y------RMT----3 4-----Gn-----Mic----5 5-----Bk-----Ear----4 From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 4 17:13:06 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 23:13:06 +0000 (GMT) Subject: TF20 Notes Message-ID: TF20 disk drive notes ---------------------- Dismantling ------------ Case : Remove the 4 screws from the sides, lift off the top cover, then turn the unit over and remove the base cover Rear panel : Unplug the serial cable from the serial PCB. Undo the 2 screws under the rear of the unit. Slide the rear panel out rearwards, unplug the transformer secondary winding connector from the PSU PCB. Serial PCB : Remove the 4 retaining screws and unplug this PCB from the bus connector on the controller Controller PCB : Unplug the power harness and the internal disk drive cable from the controller PCB.. Remove the 4 retaining screws and the 4 tapped spacers (used to support the serial PCB). Remove the controller board PSU : Unplug the power connectors from the drives. Unplug the power LED connector from the PSU PCB. Unplug the controller board power harness from the PSU PCB and remove it. Undo the 2 screws holding the PSU PCB to the bracket, then the 2 screws holding the regulator hybrid module to the transformer cover. Remove the PSU PCB and recover the insulating sheet from under the hybrid module. Drives : Unplug and remove the disk drive cable. Remove the 8 screws (4 on top, 4 underneath) that retain the drives and slide the drives out from the front. Remaining chassis parts : Free the power LED cable from the clips on the chassis. Remove the 2 crews under the front of the unit and remove the front panel. Remove the 2 self-tapping screws that retain the power LED PCB to the front panel and remove it. Remove the PSU bracket, the transformer cover and the controller bracket (2 screws each). Rear panel dismantling : Unplug the transformer primary winding connector from the filter PCB. Undo this PCB's retaining screw, unplug the faston tabs from the power switch and remove the filter PCB. Remove the fishpaper insulator. Undo the 4 nuts retaining the mains transformer, remove the claw washers and the transformer. Unplug the remaining 2 faston connectors from the rear of the power switch, unscrew the earth wire from the chassis (note claw washer under the solder tag), remove the 2 retaining screws and the mains input connector. Unclip and remove the power switch. Undo the 2 retaining screws for each DIN socket and remove the serial cable harness. When reassembling, the 6 pin DIN socket is the upper one, both DIN sockets are fitted with the keyway towards the centre of the panel. ------------------------------------------ Controller PCB links : J1 : 1 : RAMVdd = 12V (16K RAM) 2 : RAMVdd = 5V (64K RAM) * J2 : 1 : Write Precompensation enabled 2 : Write Precompensation disabled * J3 : 1 : EPROM pin 21 = A11 (2732) 2 : EPROM pin 21 = +5V (2716) * 3 : EPROM pin 18 = A11 J4 : 1 : EPROM pin 18 = CS/ * 2 : EPROM pin 21 = CS/ J5 : 1 : Ready line always active * 2 : Ready line from drive J6 : 1 : 16K RAM addressing 2 : 64K RAM addressing * J7 : 1 : RA< A7 toed high (16K RAM) 2 : RA< A7 lined to address mux (64K RAM) * ------------------------------------------ Serial PCB links : J1 : Clock / 128 (2400 baud) J2 : Clock / 64 (4800 baud) J3 : Clock / 32 (9600 baud) J4 : Clock / 16 (19200 baud) J5 : Clock / 8 (38400 baud) * J6 : Clock / 4 (76800 baud) Exactly one of J1..J6 must be fitted J7 : Open : Enable oscillator round CR2 (4.1953 MHz) * Closed : Enable oscillator round CR1 (not fitted) ------------------------------------------ Controller PCB testpoints : TP1 : RAS/ TP2 : CAS/ TP3 : Rd Data TP4 : VCO control voltage TP5 : VCO output TP6 : DW TP7 : Ground ------------------------------------------ Serial PCB testpoints : TXCA : Baud Clock (*16) to serial chip TXDA : Serial data output to host RXDA : Serial data input from host TXDB : Channel B serial data output (not used) RXDB : Channel B serial data input (not used, pulled high via 10k resistor) From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 4 17:13:59 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 23:13:59 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Epson SD320 (5.25 inch floppy drive) notes Message-ID: SD320, SD321 drive dismantling ------------------------------- Remove the logic board : Undo the 4 screws fixing the logic board. The rear left is a long machine screw, rear right a short machine screw, centre right and front centre are (short) self-tapping screws. Lift the logic board to disconnect the 3 pin connector at front left (index/write protect sensors), 10 pin (positioner) and 3 pin (spindle motor) connectors at rear. Turn logic board over towards right side of the drive. Free the head cables from the clamps on the logic PCB, unplug the head connector. Set the logic board aside. On SD320 (with head load solenoid), dismantle the head load mechanism : Remove the screw and washer on top of the head load solenoid. Loosen the screw fro the rear bearing of the head load flap (this screw is on the left side of the drive chassis) until the bearing can be turned away from the pivot pin. Free the hard load flap from its front bearing, remove it, note how the compression spring fits over a peg on the base of the linear positioner. Remove the conical spring from the top of the head load solenoid, remove the solenoid armature. Remove the screw and bearing (loosened earlier). Remove the screw holding the head load solenoid to the chassis, lift out the solenoid and 'stick' it to the linear positioner magnet. When reassembling this section, note that the screw on top of the solenoid should not be fully tightened. Adjust it so that the heads load correctly when the drive is tested on an exerciser. Remove the linear positioner (voice coil assembly) : Undo the 2 screws + springs and the single countersunk screw fixing the linear positioner to the main chassis. Free the head cables from the clips on the right-hand disk guide. Place a piece of paper between the heads, lift the positioner from the rear and slide it out Remove the disk clamp : Unhook and remove the tension spring for the frontpanel button linkage. Mark the position of the index sensor on the disk clamp bridge to aid reassembly. Remove the 3 screws holding the bridge in place, lift it up and turn it over towards the left side of the drive (take care not to damage the index phototransistor wiring. Remove the 3 spacers from the slots in the disk guides. Free the index phototransistor wiring from the hooks on the bridge, remove the screw holding the phototransistor mount in place and remove the bridge completely. Remove the spindle motor and spindle : Remove the 2 screws holding the spindle motor in place. Remove the motor, slipping the belt off the pulley. Remove the belt from the idler and spindle. Remove the idler (one central screw, washer on top of bearing). Remove the central screw from the spindle hub, lift off the spindle hub and remove the bearings (crinkle washer under top bearing). If possible remove the washer from the fixed spindle in the chassis Remove the front panel : Remove the 2 screws and slide the panel out, taking care not to damage the index LED wiring. Remove the disk guides : Remove the right hand disk guide (2 screws). Remove the index LED mounting (1 screw), then remove the screw holding the left hand disk guide. Remove the guide. Undo the screw holding the sensor PCB to the guide and remove it. Dismantle the interlock lever : Unhook the tension spring from the eject linkage. Remove the E-circlip from one end of the interlock lever pivot, slide out the pivot rod and remove the lever. Recover the compression spring. --------------------------------------------------- Dismantling the spindle motor ----------------------------- Do NOT dismantle the spindle motor unless absolutely necessary. Most electronic repairs can be performed without dismantling the mechanical section. However, should it be necessary to dismantle it, proceed as follows. Clean off the silicone rubber over the FG (frequency generator) coil wires. Try to avoid damaging the wires. Desolder them from the PCB pads. Bend up the 4 tabs on the bottom of the motor and pull off the housing complete with the FG coil. Support the motor on a bench vice with the pulley between the jaws. Using a hammer and pin punch, tap the spindle downwards until it is free from the rotor. Remove the rotor from the top of the motor. Remove the spindle, washer, and lower bearing. Push out the upper bearing. If the FG wires were damaged when the cover was removed, carefully scrape away the tops of the 3 heat stakes retaining the coil former inside the housing. Pull out the former (and lower pole piece), and either unwind one turn to give a longer end of wire for reassembly, or re-wind the coil. Put the former back in place, if you have been careful in removing it, it will snap in place without further fixing. Motor Protection Circuit : The circuit round Q33 removes the drive from the motor if the control voltage from IC10 rises too high (either because the motor is overloaded, or because the FG signal is missing). If this triggers too easily (the motor stops after a few seconds), decrease R76 to 56k --------------------------------------------------- Dismantling the positioner -------------------------- On an SD-320, desolder the head load solenoid leads from the positioner connector PCB and set the solenoid aside Undo the PCB retaining screw and allow the PCB to move away from the rear of the positioner. Undo the screw holding the graticule to the carriage. Remove the clamp plate under the screw, then with the heads fully 'out', free the graticule from the carriage and slide it out of the optical block. Straighten the end 2 tabs on the underside of the unit (these retain the cover on the velocity transducer). Remove the cover. Remove the rear section of the voice coil core, which is retained by a single screw under the rear of the positioner. Remove the 2 screws holding the voice coil and velocity transducer coil to the carriage. With the heads 'out', remove the pole piece from the middle of the velocity transducer coil (this is retained by magnetism only). Retract the heads, then lift the coils off the carriage. Leave them hanging on the flexible PCB Remove the clamps from the rear end of each head rail (1 screw each). Slide out the front clamp, then lift out the head carriage and remove the rails --------------------------------------------------- Dismantling the disk-inserted levers ------------------------------------ (These are the linkages on the left-hand disk guide.) Unhook the torsion spring and slide out the eject interlock flap. Remove the spring Unhook the torsion spring on the latch lever (top rear of the guide). Remove the E-circlip, the torsion spring and the latch lever Unhook the torsion spring on the disk-present lever (under the front of the guide. Remove the E-circlip, the torsion spring and the disk-present lever. Remove the E-circlips on the mounting posts for the frontpanel button slide. Remove the 2 washers, lift off the slide and recover the following parts : 2 spacers and 2 washers from the mounting posts ; 2 rollers from the slide ; 1 reaction plate from the guide --------------------------------------------------- Dismantling the disk clamp assembly ----------------------------------- Pull the disk clamp lever away from the bridge by hand until the disk clamp cone is free of the spindle. Slide the clamp cone out of the end of the lever. Unhook the torsion spring. Remove the E-circlip from the end of the pivot spindle, slide out the spindle and remove the torsion spring. Separate the clamp lever from the bridge. Unclip the 2 halves of the disk clamp cone and remove the compression spring. Press out the bearing. Remove the circlip and slide the bush out of the centre of the bearing. --------------------------------------------------- Bearings -------- Clamp Bearing ID : 4.6mm OD : 9.5mm Thickness 3.17mm (1/8") Motor Bearings and Belt Idler ID : 3mm OD : 8mm Thickness : 4mm Spindle Bearings ID : 4.75mm OD : 9.5mm Flange OD : 10.8mm Total Thickness : 3.15mm Flange Thickness : 0.75mm --------------------------------------------------- SD320 links : SS1 (6 position DIP switch) 1 : Drive select 0 2 : Drive select 1 3 : Drive select 2 4 : Drive select 3 5 : Head load from pin 4 of interface connector * 6 : Head load from drive select SS2 : HS : Load controlled by head-load signal * MS : load controlled by motor enable SS3 : DS : In-use LED controlled by drive select HL : In-use LED controlled by head load drive * --------------------------------------------------- Testpoints : 1 : Ground 2 ) Differential outputs of read amplifier 3 ) 4 ) Differential inputs to comparator 5 ) 6 Index sensor 7 Index pulse 8 Drive Select/ From aw288 at osfn.org Sat Mar 4 17:21:45 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 18:21:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: History Check -- First CMOS mainframe In-Reply-To: <200603041514150237.2385967B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: > But saying a supercomuter isn't a mainframe is bending things quite a bit, > don't you think? They tend to fail on the R, A, and S portions of the test. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From rcini at optonline.net Sat Mar 4 17:37:58 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 18:37:58 -0500 Subject: In need of Televideo 910 terminal case Message-ID: <004e01c63fe4$ab2fd590$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: I recently received from a friend a Televideo 910 terminal that seems to have been drop-kicked off of the back of the mail truck. It was dropped keyboard first, so the entire front broke off. So far, gluing the case isn't working well, and I'm not optimistic about the ultimate success. So, I'm looking for someone with a bad terminal with a good case so I can make a Frankenstein terminal. Please contact me off-list. Thanks. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ /************************************************************/ From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sat Mar 4 18:04:21 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 19:04:21 -0500 Subject: History Check -- First CMOS mainframe In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060305000421.50098104000E@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> William Donzelli wrote: > > But saying a supercomuter isn't a mainframe is bending things quite a bit, > > don't you think? > > They tend to fail on the R, A, and S portions of the test. Gotta remind me what ALL the tests are :-). I agree with you that a super is not a mainframe, but cannot tell you all the reasons why! S = Storage maybe? Or maybe not, certainly many of the CDC and CDC-derived supers did have channel-type processors for peripherals, and in that way they were like mainframes. And on a certainly tangential subject: any good books/articles giving a historical retrospective to the "Fifth Generation" computers of the 80's? Tim. From melamy at earthlink.net Sat Mar 4 20:59:52 2006 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 21:59:52 -0500 Subject: system rescue PDP 11/53 In-Reply-To: References: <200603031800.k23I0TAA033213@dewey.classiccmp.org> <5.1.0.14.0.20060303181237.02a8fdb0@mail.degnanco.net> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20060304215242.023df158@earthlink.net> a gentleman named Steve Thompson has a PDP 11/53 "box" available for pickup in Stafford/Fredericksburg Virginia area (it is just the system cabinet - no peripherals, no manuals). He will have to dumpster it if no one wants it (he would hate to do that, but...). He needs to get it taken care of by the end of this month. I know nothing about the system, so please call him at 540-659-9906 for any additional info (he is not a computer collector as such so don't expect a lot of detailed info). Keep in mind that the phone number is Eastern Standard time, so please call before 9PM his time in the evenings (that's no later than 6PM for those of us that live on the West coast). Thanks. best regards, Steve Thatcher From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Sat Mar 4 21:04:10 2006 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 22:04:10 -0500 Subject: Help with VT320 - Is there a line 25 used as status? Message-ID: <440A552A.2010208@compsys.to> Hi All, I seem to remember that when I used a VT320 under VMS and EVE/TPU (or at least one of the DEC editors), there was status information on line 25 for the user. I think the file name under edit was displayed and perhaps even the line number and column number, although I really am doubtful about the latter. BUT I do seem to remember the file name being available on line 25. Am I correct? Please help! The VT220 was not able to support line 25 as far as I know, and certainly the VT100 was not able. What about the VT410 and VT520 terminals? Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- 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 jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Sat Mar 4 21:05:12 2006 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 22:05:12 -0500 Subject: PDP-11 Integer Divide Instruction "Div" In-Reply-To: <44015F7A.2010103@mindspring.com> References: <200602131800.k1DI04X5091506@dewey.classiccmp.org> <43F2C6BF.6010202@mindspring.com> <4401280C.3020007@compsys.to> <200602252338.16328.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <44015F7A.2010103@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <440A5568.30807@compsys.to> >Don North wrote: > I found that it is actually at .../plugins/... > > >Lyle Bickley wrote: > >> >On Saturday 25 February 2006 20:01, Jerome H. Fine wrote: >> >>> If anyone is interested, John Wilson has posted a sample "plugin" >>> for E11 at: >>> http://www.dbit.com/pub/e11/plugin/inst/ >>> in the files: inst.* >> Jerome Fine replies: Sorry about the link. The correct link is: http://www.dbit.com/pub/e11/plugins/inst/ Has anyone actually looked and tested anything? I have sent John Wilson back an updated set of options for: UDIV16 UDIV24 UDIV32 UDIV48 UMUL16 UMUL32 to provide a few options. I hope he will post them soon, but if not they are available to anyone to use and I can send an attached file if requested or include the file in the body of an e-mail. I also want to develop a few more, especially ones that use the emulated PDP-11 memory. This would require specific information on how to use a PDP-11 memory address to read and write to the emulated PDP-11 memory. I would appreciate comments!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- 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 jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Sat Mar 4 09:06:11 2006 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 10:06:11 -0500 Subject: MSCP SCSI CD-R(W)? In-Reply-To: <20060304161728.AA0448C009F@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <200603040145.k241hWTc040863@dewey.classiccmp.org> <44094647.3090901@update.uu.se> <20060304161728.AA0448C009F@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <4409ACE3.70807@compsys.to> >Tim Shoppa wrote: >There was a special-order option for at least some CMD controllers >that allowed you "raw" access to the SCSI device, all packaged >up and delivered through special MSCP packets. I saw this used >in the 80's with laser-disc type storage but have not seen it >since. > >Emulex sold UC07's/UC08's with special firmware for talking to >some optical-write-once SCSI things too, but I think it hid it >all behind some normal-ish (not "raw SCSI over MSCP") MSCP stuff. > >At this point it's probably easier to just put a NCR 5380 on the >Q-bus or something. Heck, that was probably easier 20 years ago :-). > Jerome Fine replies: About 15 years ago, I attempted to produce a WORM device driver under RT-11 called WO(X).SYS for an optical WORM drive. It split the device between the RT-11 directory at the start and the remainder of the device. I seem to remember that I used the Dialog SQ706A in the normal manner for the WORM device which had a separate off-drive controller for the drive and MFM / ESDI set of cables for the actual drive. It actually worked quite well and I still have the media I had to purchase for the test - since once it was altered it could obviously not be used again. All I am saying is that there did not seem to be anything special about the WORM drive / media except for the WRITE ONCE restriction. Otherwise, the SCSI interface acted in the normal manner and once all of the files had been written to the WORM media, the RT-11 file directory was also placed there. At that point, the media was set to be READ ONLY to be protected against accidental WRITEs and used in the normal manner as a standard SCSI drive with the standard DEC DU(X).SYS device driver. Just my experience with hardware that never seemed to catch on very well since READ / WRITE optical drives such as the Sony SMO S-501 appeared within a year or two and made the WORM technology obsolete. As for the original subject which started this thread, I use a CD-R all the time for backup, although it is actually a DVD-R since the backup image file is about 800 MBytes and just a bit too large for a CD-R. Every 4 months, I save the last backup image file of the month to the DVD-R which creates a permanent record with only 3 * DVD-R per year. In addition, if the DVD-R drives / media were not available, I would definitely have used a CD-R for a permanent backup. I have a number of 600 MByte ESDI hard disk drives on the PDP-11 backed up on Sony SMO S-501 drives / media and then transferred to DVD-R media. Since I have about 5 of these 600 MByte files and all fit nicely on just 1 DVD-R with room for a few other files, it was much easier to have the single DVD-R for everything. In general, I regard a DVD-R as just a higher capacity CD-R. Finally, because a CD was actually required and since there is only about 131 MBytes of files, I did produce a CD of RT-11 distributions which is actually able to boot RT-11 directly from the CD-R if the hardware supports 512 byte blocks. As Zane has mentioned, that is possible with some CDROM drives / SCSI host adapters for the PDP-11. In addition, the PC that I use with a Pioneer A05 DVD drive also supports 512 byte blocks with full access to the first 16 CD sectors or 64 equivalent hard disk block which is where the RT-11 directory resides for the first RT-11 partition on the CD of 32 MBytes. I have booted RT-11 as a test on the CD a number of times under E11 although it is just as simple to MOUNT the ISO file for the CD that is on the hard drives - and much faster. Note that before I had the Pioneer A05 DVD, when I attempted to use an IDE CDROM drive, I could not boot RT-11 since the driver prevented E11 from reading the first 64 blocks with the RT-11 directory. Fortunately, I was still able to complete my test of the CD by using a SCSI CDROM drive on the PC and asked E11 to MOUNT the SCSI drive instead. So a CD-R is an excellent media for permanent storage. Just how long it will last is another question. I plan to read my CD-R and DVD-R media every year and test them. In that regard, does anyone else have a regular testing period for their files permanently saved on CD-R or DVD-R and how many years seems to be reasonable? Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- 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 aw288 at osfn.org Sat Mar 4 21:52:16 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 22:52:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: History Check -- First CMOS mainframe In-Reply-To: <20060305000421.50098104000E@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: > Gotta remind me what ALL the tests are :-). I agree with > you that a super is not a mainframe, but cannot tell you > all the reasons why! The mainframe mantra is Reliability, Availability, Servicability. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 4 22:09:53 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 20:09:53 -0800 Subject: History Check -- First CMOS mainframe In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603042009530017.24943B39@10.0.0.252> On 3/4/2006 at 10:52 PM William Donzelli wrote: >The mainframe mantra is Reliability, Availability, Servicability. Well, the "let's cool it in nitrogen fog" version probably didn't qualify, but how about the air-cooled Pipers? Cheers, Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Mar 5 06:25:34 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2006 12:25:34 +0000 Subject: History Check -- First CMOS mainframe In-Reply-To: <200603041410060745.234ADDB1@10.0.0.252> References: <200603041410060745.234ADDB1@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <440AD8BE.5040205@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Wasn't the ETA-10 CMOS-based? (Not to mention the whole subject of > "What's a mainframe?") Out of interest - how did the term come into being? When was it first used and why? I don't think I've ever seen the reason given, and the actual term seems a little strange when thought about... cheers Jules From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Sun Mar 5 06:31:27 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2006 12:31:27 GMT Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: <20060304205928.017C8BA48B5@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> <7.0.0.16.0.20060304125041.0198c8b8@cogeco.ca> <20060304192041.6AFB98C0093@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <20060304205928.017C8BA48B5@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <409ed6024e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> In message <20060304205928.017C8BA48B5 at mini-me.trailing-edge.com> shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) wrote: > While the picture is obviously a fake, it's more fun that reading > those old Tom Swift stories. (I grew up on 'em, do kids read them > anymore?) Tom Swift? Never heard of 'em... It's either way before my time, or one of the many things that never managed to get across the Atlantic... -- 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 fjkraan at xs4all.nl Sun Mar 5 07:24:36 2006 From: fjkraan at xs4all.nl (Fred Jan Kraan) Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2006 14:24:36 +0100 Subject: TF20 Notes In-Reply-To: <200603051156.k25Btojp055471@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200603051156.k25Btojp055471@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <440AE694.2000102@xs4all.nl> > made. One other thing that might be of interest : The 34 pin connector on > the back of the TF20 is not some kind of parallel host interface. It's > exactly what you'd expect a 34 pin connector on a disk controller to be > -- namely a SA400-compatible disk drive bus. The hardware can handle up > If the processor board is left out of the TF-20 you could use the drives as extra drives on a QX-10. Some more info on the TF-20 and HX-20 Disk basic can be learned from the User manual: http://electrickery.xs4all.nl/comp/tf20/doc/tf-20_manual.pdf or http://oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/pub/rechner/epson/~fjkraan/comp/tf20/doc/tf-20_manual.pdf. The CP/M like OS in the TF-20 probably doesn't support the extra drives as the official way to connect more drives is daisy chaining another TF-20 to the first one. Fred Jan From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sun Mar 5 07:29:19 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2006 08:29:19 -0500 Subject: History Check -- First CMOS mainframe In-Reply-To: <440AD8BE.5040205@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200603041410060745.234ADDB1@10.0.0.252> <440AD8BE.5040205@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20060305132919.26722BA48B9@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Wasn't the ETA-10 CMOS-based? (Not to mention the whole subject of > > "What's a mainframe?") > > Out of interest - how did the term come into being? When was it first used and > why? I don't think I've ever seen the reason given, and the actual term seems > a little strange when thought about... More generically in the electronics/telco industry, a "mainframe" is the unit into which modules are plugged. In the case of the tube computers of the 50's, the modules might have half a dozen or so tubes, weigh 5 or 10 pounds, and be a foot long and a 4 inches high and a few inches wide. And it would take hundreds/thousands of the modules (each being a couple of gates or a flip-flop) to implement a computer. Different technologies have different concepts of "modules" (some will be smaller, others will be larger) but the thing they all plug into, if big enough, is the "mainframe". Sort of the same concept as a "backplane" in a 70's era mini, but the "mainframe" was spread out over many racks, used discrete wires, etc. Tim. From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Mar 5 07:53:34 2006 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2006 13:53:34 +0000 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: <20060304192041.6AFB98C0093@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> <7.0.0.16.0.20060304125041.0198c8b8@cogeco.ca> <20060304192041.6AFB98C0093@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <440AED5E.6090401@gjcp.net> Tim Shoppa wrote: > "Charles E. Fox" wrote: >> At 11:56 AM 3/4/2006, you wrote: >>> This has got to be a gag, but what's its origin? >>> >>> http://subjunctive.net/images/2004/rand-home-computer.jpg >> I am very glad the scientists were not correct. > > I am actually very disappointed that computers don't have as > much steam, hydraulics, or pneumatics as the typical 50's/"Tom Swift" > ones did. I find it much more satisfying when the important tools > needed are a socket set and chisel. What you want there is an elderly Citro?n. Sadly they're thin on the ground on the left-hand bank of the pond. Gordon. From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Mar 5 08:04:56 2006 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2006 14:04:56 +0000 Subject: Where's this from? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <440AF008.1000608@gjcp.net> Richard wrote: > Nope, looks like I'm wrong having now seen the photo of the original > exhibit. What does that steering wheel do, then, I wonder? I read that it was the attitude controller for a submarine. One wheel controls the rudder, one controls the dive planes. Gordon. From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Mar 5 12:45:11 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 10:45:11 -0800 Subject: OT Tom Swift (was: Re: Where's this from?) In-Reply-To: <409ed6024e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> <7.0.0.16.0.20060304125041.0198c8b8@cogeco.ca> <20060304192041.6AFB98C0093@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <20060304205928.017C8BA48B5@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <409ed6024e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: At 12:31 PM +0000 3/5/06, Philip Pemberton wrote: >In message <20060304205928.017C8BA48B5 at mini-me.trailing-edge.com> > shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) wrote: > >> While the picture is obviously a fake, it's more fun that reading >> those old Tom Swift stories. (I grew up on 'em, do kids read them >> anymore?) > >Tom Swift? Never heard of 'em... It's either way before my time, or one of >the many things that never managed to get across the Atlantic... It probably never made it across the Atlantic. First series 1910-1930's Second Series 1950's through 1960's (still being sold in very early 80's) Third Series 1980's Fourth Series (not sure when this came out or if it's still going). The best two series are the first two, and the third is set in the future with really no tie in. The Tom Swift of the first series, is the father in the second. Basically it's a series of "Scientific" adventure books for boys. I managed to complete my set of the second series while I was still in school, and I'm now about two-thirds, to three-quarters of the way through finishing a set of the First series. Both of the first two series would probably be considered to be very dated, and downright humorous by todays youth. Hopefully when the time comes, my kids will read my collections of Tom Swift, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Happy Hollisters, and others. I've got over a full sized bookcase of the genre packed away from when I was a kid (including two different versions of many of the original Hardy Boys stories). 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 Sun Mar 5 12:57:37 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2006 10:57:37 -0800 Subject: History Check -- First CMOS mainframe In-Reply-To: <05f901c63fe0$e191f0e0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> References: <200603041410060745.234ADDB1@10.0.0.252> <05f901c63fe0$e191f0e0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <200603051057370460.27C0F9E1@10.0.0.252> On 3/4/2006 at 6:10 PM John Allain wrote: >Lucky Me, somebody turned up some history on my oddity >There is in fact a desktop emulator of a Unisys mainframe >that boots the coprocessor from within OS/2. I have one >here. Happened across it by pure luck. I'm not an expert >in the MCP O/S so have been in lurkmode on this for a >longnow while. >From what I've been able to tell, the thing executes a superset of the old 1107 instruction set. Given the date of introduction (1989), it's got to be one of the last holdouts for non-power-of-2 word length (36 bits). An odd bird indeed--OS/2 sounds as if it was used to handle I/O for the Micro A. Cheers, Chuck From drb at msu.edu Sun Mar 5 13:15:22 2006 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2006 14:15:22 -0500 Subject: HP cables Message-ID: <200603051915.k25JFMRt029767@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Dear all, Trying to identify a box of HP cables. There are two types. One has a 50-pin centronics-style connector at one end, and a 50-pin Winchester MRAC rack-and-panel connector at the other. The other type has Winchesters at both ends. They're about 4-5 feet in length. All seem to have an metal band with the number "5060 2310". Some have HP "inspected by 7452" cards tied to them, dated 6/69. A couple have factory vinyl or poly bags. Anyone know what devices these connect? Thanks, De From ggs at shiresoft.com Sun Mar 5 13:24:31 2006 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2006 11:24:31 -0800 Subject: OT Tom Swift (was: Re: Where's this from?) In-Reply-To: References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> <7.0.0.16.0.20060304125041.0198c8b8@cogeco.ca> <20060304192041.6AFB98C0093@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <20060304205928.017C8BA48B5@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <409ed6024e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <1141586672.7232.11.camel@linux.site> On Sun, 2006-03-05 at 10:45 -0800, Zane H. Healy wrote: > It probably never made it across the Atlantic. > > First series 1910-1930's > Second Series 1950's through 1960's (still being sold in very early 80's) > Third Series 1980's > Fourth Series (not sure when this came out or if it's still going). > > The best two series are the first two, and the third is set in the > future with really no tie in. The Tom Swift of the first series, is > the father in the second. Basically it's a series of "Scientific" > adventure books for boys. I managed to complete my set of the second > series while I was still in school, and I'm now about two-thirds, to > three-quarters of the way through finishing a set of the First series. > > Both of the first two series would probably be considered to be very > dated, and downright humorous by todays youth. Hopefully when the > time comes, my kids will read my collections of Tom Swift, Hardy > Boys, Nancy Drew, Happy Hollisters, and others. I've got over a full > sized bookcase of the genre packed away from when I was a kid > (including two different versions of many of the original Hardy Boys > stories). The similarities between Tom Swift (fictional character) and Glen H. Curtiss (real person) are just too close for just coincidence. For those familiar with the early Tom Swift books (especially the first two), look at the early history of Curtiss. Curtiss, who started with Motorcycles (powerful light weight engines, established a land speed record), moved on to dirigibles and then became most famous for his contributions to aircraft design. Even some of the locations in the first few books are right from Curtiss. -- TTFN - Guy From geoffreythomas at onetel.com Sun Mar 5 13:36:09 2006 From: geoffreythomas at onetel.com (Geoffrey Thomas) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 19:36:09 -0000 Subject: OT Tom Swift (was: Re: Where's this from?) References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252><7.0.0.16.0.20060304125041.0198c8b8@cogeco.ca> <20060304192041.6AFB98C0093@mini-me.trailing-edge.com><20060304205928.017C8BA48B5@mini-me.trailing-edge.com><409ed6024e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <00db01c6408c$13619840$0200a8c0@geoff> > Both of the first two series would probably be considered to be very > dated, and downright humorous by todays youth. Hopefully when the > time comes, my kids will read my collections of Tom Swift, Hardy > Boys, Nancy Drew, Happy Hollisters, and others. I've got over a full > sized bookcase of the genre packed away from when I was a kid > (including two different versions of many of the original Hardy Boys > stories). > > Zane I thought it was Hardy Drew and the Nancy boys...... ;>) Geoff. From vp at cs.drexel.edu Sun Mar 5 13:52:57 2006 From: vp at cs.drexel.edu (Vassilis Prevelakis) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 14:52:57 -0500 Subject: Where's this from? Message-ID: <20060305195257.A3FAE20133F9@mail.cs.drexel.edu> Philip Pemberton wrote: > Tom Swift? Never heard of 'em... It's either way before my time, or one of > the many things that never managed to get across the Atlantic... actually they did, look at http://www.tomswift.info/homepage/british.html for the British version of the Tom Swift books (published by Collins). **vp From stimpy.u.idiot at gmail.com Sun Mar 5 14:03:07 2006 From: stimpy.u.idiot at gmail.com (Pete Edwards) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 20:03:07 +0000 Subject: OT Tom Swift (was: Re: Where's this from?) In-Reply-To: References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> <7.0.0.16.0.20060304125041.0198c8b8@cogeco.ca> <20060304192041.6AFB98C0093@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <20060304205928.017C8BA48B5@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <409ed6024e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <11c909eb0603051203p47f404b2o@mail.gmail.com> On 05/03/06, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > At 12:31 PM +0000 3/5/06, Philip Pemberton wrote: > >In message <20060304205928.017C8BA48B5 at mini-me.trailing-edge.com> > > shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) wrote: > > >Tom Swift? Never heard of 'em... It's either way before my time, or one > of > >the many things that never managed to get across the Atlantic... > > It probably never made it across the Atlantic. They did, I remember reading several of them from our primary school library in the mid 70's, I suppose I would have been 8 or 9. All I can remember now is he had a very cool submarine/helicopter contraption that could fly at humoungous speed and that the style, with hindsight, was E.E Smith gung-ho for a junior audience. -- Pete Edwards "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future" - Niels Bohr From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 5 14:42:44 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 20:42:44 +0000 (GMT) Subject: TF20 Notes In-Reply-To: <440AE694.2000102@xs4all.nl> from "Fred Jan Kraan" at Mar 5, 6 02:24:36 pm Message-ID: > > > > made. One other thing that might be of interest : The 34 pin connector on > > the back of the TF20 is not some kind of parallel host interface. It's > > exactly what you'd expect a 34 pin connector on a disk controller to be > > -- namely a SA400-compatible disk drive bus. The hardware can handle up > > > If the processor board is left out of the TF-20 you could use the drives > as extra drives on a QX-10. Some more info on the TF-20 and HX-20 Disk Well, yes,. they're almost the same type of drive. To be precise, the TF20 uses SD320 drives, the QX10 uses SD321s. The difference is that the former has a haad load solenoid. But if you remove the controller/processor board from a TF20, you remove that 34 pin plug on the back because it's soldered to that board. Yes, you could run a ribbon cable out through the slot, but that doesn't explain why the connector is there in a normal TF20. > basic can be learned from the User manual: > http://electrickery.xs4all.nl/comp/tf20/doc/tf-20_manual.pdf or > http://oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/pub/rechner/epson/~fjkraan/comp/tf20/doc/tf-20_manual.pdf. I haev the user manuals for the HX20 and TF20 on paper. However, the behaviour of my machine's RS232 port seems to disagree with the manual, I was wondering if anyone elase had experienced this. > The CP/M like OS in the TF-20 probably doesn't support the extra drives I think it's 'real' CPM. There are Digital Reserach copyright messages in the system image on the disk, there are srings like 'BDOS ERROR', etc. > as the official way to connect more drives is daisy chaining another > TF-20 to the first one. Sure. But the controller board _hardware_ certainly supports 4 drives. Annother odd thing. The cold-start entry in the BIOS seems to initialise channel B of the 7201 serial chip, which is not normally used (it's clocked by the same clock that clocks channel A, the TxD and RxD lines are connected to testpoints on the serial board (TTL level, of course)). I ought to see if anything ever comes out on those pins... -tony From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Mar 5 17:27:59 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 15:27:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: History Check -- First CMOS mainframe Message-ID: <20060305232759.1C4C819C854@bitsavers.org> I'm not an expert >in the MCP O/S so have been in lurkmode on this for a >longnow while. >From what I've been able to tell, the thing executes a superset of the old 1107 instruction set. --- Wrong side of the merger. MCP was from the Burroughs side. Descendent of the 5500 family. Clearpath/OS2000 are the ones-compliment 11xx family. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Mar 5 19:06:54 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2006 17:06:54 -0800 Subject: History Check -- First CMOS mainframe In-Reply-To: <20060305232759.1C4C819C854@bitsavers.org> References: <20060305232759.1C4C819C854@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <200603051706540081.29130E14@10.0.0.252> On 3/5/2006 at 3:27 PM aek at bitsavers.org wrote: Wrong side of the merger. MCP was from the Burroughs side. Descendent of >the 5500 family. That would make the Micro A very unusual indeed. 48 bit words and the interesting 5500 architectural features? Wonder what the speed of the Micro A was compared to a 6700? Cheers, Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Mar 5 20:15:15 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 18:15:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: a few micro-A references Message-ID: <20060306021515.14AF819C898@bitsavers.org> "micro A" performance unisys the first entry is doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MC.1989.10034 from 1989 which appears to be a product announcement (12 mips) The Unisys SCAMP package contains. the Micro A mainframe instruction ... Performance reputedly ranges from. 12 Whetstone MIPS for a system with a ... -- The Unisys SCAMP package conhttp://freepatentsonline.com/5113500.html appears to be a patent for it. From rborsuk at colourfull.com Sun Mar 5 20:32:21 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 21:32:21 -0500 Subject: Kaypro II In-Reply-To: <4408DCA0.7020603@msm.umr.edu> References: <200603032333.PAA13130@floodgap.com> <200603031600580544.1E8A026A@10.0.0.252> <4408DCA0.7020603@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <51EECA51-F618-45BB-8BCB-75942CAF5626@colourfull.com> Free for the taking- Kaypro II. I pulled the drives about 2 years ago. All other electronics are there, I just needed the drives. Don't remember what the status was of the unit, lets just consider it nonworking. Just pay postage (or local pickup north of the detroit area preferred). USA only please. Picture at: http://homepage.mac.com/irisworld/ebay/kaypro2.jpg Thanks Rob From rborsuk at colourfull.com Sun Mar 5 20:35:14 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 21:35:14 -0500 Subject: Vintage video game - odyssey 3000 In-Reply-To: <4408DCA0.7020603@msm.umr.edu> References: <200603032333.PAA13130@floodgap.com> <200603031600580544.1E8A026A@10.0.0.252> <4408DCA0.7020603@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <69D8423C-74E5-41A5-9A53-EE830638A018@colourfull.com> I know this is the wrong list but : Odyssey 3000 console video game free. Just pay postage. Sorry, I have never hooked the unit up to know working condition. Picture at http://homepage.mac.com/irisworld/ebay/odyssey.jpg Thanks Rob From bpope at wordstock.com Mon Mar 6 08:24:29 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 09:24:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: Do not use hammer. :) (fwd) Message-ID: <20060306142429.1F09F58199@mail.wordstock.com> This was posted a few days ago on the TI-99/4A mailing list. I thought a few people on here might get a laugh out of it! :) Cheers, Bryan > > I found this, supposedly from an IBM manual. > > "All parts should go together without forcing. You > must remember that the parts you are reassembling were > disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them > together again, there must be a reason. By all means, > do not use hammer." > > -- IBM maintenance manual, 1975 > > Now what was the line from the TI Disk Memory System > controller manual? Something like "You can break off > this tab. Then you can throw away the card." > > It was something like that in the original manual I > had, > in the section on installing the card in the PEB. > > Whatever happened to a bit of dry humor in computer > hardware manuals? :) > From kth at srv.net Mon Mar 6 12:04:29 2006 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 11:04:29 -0700 Subject: Help with VT320 - Is there a line 25 used as status? In-Reply-To: <440A552A.2010208@compsys.to> References: <440A552A.2010208@compsys.to> Message-ID: <440C79AD.7000409@srv.net> Jerome H. Fine wrote: > Hi All, > > I seem to remember that when I used a VT320 under VMS > and EVE/TPU (or at least one of the DEC editors), there was > status information on line 25 for the user. I think the file name > under edit was displayed and perhaps even the line number and > column number, although I really am doubtful about the latter. > > BUT I do seem to remember the file name being available on > line 25. Am I correct? Please help! The VT220 was not able > to support line 25 as far as I know, and certainly the VT100 > was not able. What about the VT410 and VT520 terminals? > Check the "set-up" on the terminal, in the "Display" section. (At least on the 420, and I believe the 320 also had it) There should be a item that can be toggled between: No Status Display, Host Writable Status Display, and Indicator Status Display. Host Writable Status Display allows the computer to write on that line, with the correct escape sequence. (iirc, you could move the cursor to that line via normal cursor positioning escape sequence, but you couldn't scroll to it) From kth at srv.net Mon Mar 6 12:11:02 2006 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 11:11:02 -0700 Subject: OT Tom Swift In-Reply-To: References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> <7.0.0.16.0.20060304125041.0198c8b8@cogeco.ca> <20060304192041.6AFB98C0093@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <20060304205928.017C8BA48B5@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <409ed6024e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <440C7B36.8050709@srv.net> Zane H. Healy wrote: >> >> Tom Swift? Never heard of 'em... It's either way before my time, or >> one of >> the many things that never managed to get across the Atlantic... > > > It probably never made it across the Atlantic. > > First series 1910-1930's > Second Series 1950's through 1960's (still being sold in very early 80's) > Third Series 1980's > Fourth Series (not sure when this came out or if it's still going). > > The best two series are the first two, and the third is set in the > future with really no tie in. The Tom Swift of the first series, is > the father in the second. Basically it's a series of "Scientific" > adventure books for boys. I managed to complete my set of the second > series while I was still in school, and I'm now about two-thirds, to > three-quarters of the way through finishing a set of the First series. > > Both of the first two series would probably be considered to be very > dated, and downright humorous by todays youth. Hopefully when the > time comes, my kids will read my collections of Tom Swift, Hardy Boys, > Nancy Drew, Happy Hollisters, and others. I've got over a full sized > bookcase of the genre packed away from when I was a kid (including two > different versions of many of the original Hardy Boys stories). > > For what it's worth, Project Gutenberg has a selection of Tom Swift books if anyone wants to read them. Go To http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/ And enter "Tom Swift" in the title search bar. Most are available in several formats (HTML, Text, etc...) there's probably a list of them somewhere in chronological order, but that is left as an exercise for the student... From cheri-post at web.de Mon Mar 6 12:24:33 2006 From: cheri-post at web.de (Pierre Gebhardt) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 19:24:33 +0100 Subject: My pdp-8i problem Message-ID: <1176322675@web.de> Wow Philippe, looking at your website, I got an impressive insight on the work you did to get this PDP 8/L up and running again. Keep on saving and repairing stuff! Regards, Pierre "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" schrieb am 05.03.06 12:53:14: > > Dear Tim, > > It is very hard to answer your question. I also spent hours fixing my > pdp-8/L, in which almost all circuits had to be repaired. It took me two > years. The only way : use a logic probe and have a set a spare flipchips > which you know are OK. I created a system to test the flipchips using a > digital acquisition card on a PC (see www.sonnet.be). Collect all possible > schematics, study them, have a confortable seat, stay calm and systematic > and use a card extender to have better access to all the lines. > Good luck, > > Philippe > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Tim" > To: > Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 11:30 PM > Subject: My pdp-8i problem > > > > > > I was hoping someone on this list might have some input on this. I have > > also posted this to alt.sys.pdp8. I have a pdp-8i with a memory problem. > > Here is the post from alt.sys.pdp8: > > > > Quite some time back while scoping out a problem I shorted a pin in my > > 8i backplane and lost memory control. Since that time Vince and I have > > been trying to figure out where the problem is to fix it. I don't know > > what pin I shorted as at the time I did not realize > > I had damaged anything. The +5v breaker tripped though. > > > > The problem is I can not deposit or read back any memory locations. > > The MB is displayed correctly on a deposit. Scoping signal has shown me a > > very odd signal on B FIELD 0 (1) when the machine is in run mode. It has > > a wave form on it rather than just a normal > > voltage. The oddest thing is the high point of the wave goes up to +6v > > with a bit of the beginning of the top portion going above +6v. To me > > this should not be. How can I get > > +6v from a system that is using +5v as it's input voltage? We have > > some theories but nothing concrete as yet. The other thing is if I remove > > all 3 G228s (A36, B36, B37) the > > signal goes away. I do not have parity memory so nothing is in A37. > > > > We believe there is a bad ground somewhere, but I have not been able to > > determine where. I do not have a wiring list so I may have to trace some > > signals manually. I think I have to find all the places the B30L1 (B FIELD > > 0(1)) goes to. > > > > Any ideas or suggestions from anyone? This has been bugging me for a > > long time. I look at it for awhile, and then put it down for awhile. It's > > also not easy to look at this in the location it is in. It's too low to > > kneel and really be comfortable. Too high to lay on my stomach. :) > > > > Thanks for any input on this. I should say that part of the system > > still works. Examining or depositing memory while it does not appear to > > load/store the data increments the PC > > as it should. I can sort of run, which was my original problem. It > > runs but stays at location zero. It is not an interrupt causing this. So > > the front panel is mostly operational > > so at least some of the machine is still working. I just have to find > > the problem with the memory. > > > > I know most people on this list do not have a pdp-8i, nor may know > > much if anything about them. Any suggestion will be taken and looked > > into if it seems to have hope of leading to a solution. Also I will > > answer any questions people have to help describe the problem more or > > give more details into what Vince and I have looked at. > > > > Tim Radde > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com > > The most personalized portal on the Web! > > > > > > > ______________________________________________________________________ XXL-Speicher, PC-Virenschutz, Spartarife & mehr: Nur im WEB.DE Club! Jetzt gratis testen! http://freemail.web.de/home/landingpad/?mc=021130 From arcarlini at iee.org Mon Mar 6 12:48:34 2006 From: arcarlini at iee.org (a.carlini@ntlworld.com) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 18:48:34 -0000 Subject: OT Tom Swift In-Reply-To: <440C7B36.8050709@srv.net> Message-ID: <003a01c6414e$93a3adf0$5b01a8c0@pc1> Kevin Handy wrote: > For what it's worth, Project Gutenberg has a selection of > Tom Swift books if anyone wants to read them. > > Go To > > http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/ > > And enter "Tom Swift" in the title search bar. > > Most are available in several formats (HTML, Text, etc...) > > there's probably a list of them somewhere in chronological order, but > that is left as an exercise for the student... Someone sent me the June 2005 edition of "Singing Wire" (a mag for telephone collectors) and by a curious coincidence p9 has a photo from "Tom Swift and Hist Photo Telephone" 1914. The photo appears on p125 of the original, for those of you with complete collections :-) Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Mar 6 13:16:26 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 11:16:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT Tom Swift In-Reply-To: <003a01c6414e$93a3adf0$5b01a8c0@pc1> from "a.carlini@ntlworld.com" at Mar 06, 2006 06:48:34 PM Message-ID: <200603061916.k26JGQ7L019675@onyx.spiritone.com> > Kevin Handy wrote: > > > For what it's worth, Project Gutenberg has a selection of > > Tom Swift books if anyone wants to read them. > > > > Go To > > > > http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/ > > > > And enter "Tom Swift" in the title search bar. > > > > Most are available in several formats (HTML, Text, etc...) > > > > there's probably a list of them somewhere in chronological order, but > > that is left as an exercise for the student... > > Someone sent me the June 2005 edition of "Singing Wire" (a mag > for telephone collectors) and by a curious coincidence p9 > has a photo from "Tom Swift and Hist Photo Telephone" 1914. > The photo appears on p125 of the original, for those of you > with complete collections :-) For the chronology see the following website (looks like it also has links to the books now in the public domain). http://tomswift.bobfinnan.com/ts1.htm In case anyone else is collecting them, the following page is likely to be of interest. http://www.fankhausers.com/swift/welcome.html It has 150dpi scans of the dust jackets. Now to figure out how to print them for my books that are missing the jackets :^) Zane From williams.dan at gmail.com Mon Mar 6 13:33:23 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 19:33:23 +0000 Subject: Interesting machine on ebay UK Message-ID: <26c11a640603061133t2363aa3ag@mail.gmail.com> There is a Burroughs B21 working on ebay (8774469572). If it wasn't pickup only from Newcastle I'd grab it myself. dan From jplist at kiwigeek.com Mon Mar 6 13:40:46 2006 From: jplist at kiwigeek.com (JP Hindin) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 13:40:46 -0600 (CST) Subject: OT Tom Swift - The name of another boy-adventure novel series? In-Reply-To: <200603061916.k26JGQ7L019675@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: Greetings; > > > For what it's worth, Project Gutenberg has a selection of > > > Tom Swift books if anyone wants to read them. > > > > > > Go To > > > > > > http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/ > > > > > > And enter "Tom Swift" in the title search bar. You know, while you folks happen to be on the subject of this - I was wondering if anyone could help me out with something I've been pondering on for a couple of years now. When I was a kid I used to read a series of boy adventure books that I simply cannot recall the name of. The books were older than I was (When I say "A kid", I'm talking the 80s) I'm sure of it, but I'm not sure by how much. There were three boys, I believe. The head kid was called something like "Hercules", either as a first name or a nickname. He was a "chubby" kid, and when he was a toddler was in a series of TV adverts, or perhaps a programme, which is recurringly mentioned in the books. Their clubhouse was in a junk yard one of their fathers owned, where they built things to help them go through their adventures. I remember they had a printing press they repaired from the junk in the yard. I think the clubhouse was an old trailer home, or perhaps a caravan? This has been one of those things that has been on the tip of my brain for a long time and I just can't remember what in the heck the books names were. Please, can anyone alleviate this brain rot of mine? Thanks all! JP From geoffb at vigilan.com Mon Mar 6 13:38:48 2006 From: geoffb at vigilan.com (Geoffrey Bunza) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 11:38:48 -0800 Subject: FDOS for Fluke 1720A In-Reply-To: <200603061800.k26I04ip069201@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200603061800.k26I04ip069201@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <440C8FC8.5070406@vigilan.com> Does anyone have the O/S, Applications, and Diagnostice disks for this ancient IEEE 488 bus controller (Fluke 1720A)? It used a TI 9900 processor if I remember correctly. The operating system was called FDOS- a custom effort too I think, distributed on three 5 1/4" floppies. This is no longer available from anywhere or anyone, including Fluke. Thanks for any help and/or leads. Geoff From CCTalk at catcorner.org Mon Mar 6 14:39:57 2006 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 15:39:57 -0500 Subject: TRS-80 Model IIs available for pickup Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3383F@mail.catcorner.org> I have 2 to get rid of, with keyboard and external drive units. Pickup only (or you arrange for packing and shipping), North (and I mean north, none of that Newark/Edison stuff) New Jersey. I'm looking for a Model I, an MC-10, a DT-100, a PT-210, Model 2000, and just about everything else tandy related. Make a swap offer. Kelly From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Mon Mar 6 14:42:41 2006 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 20:42:41 +0000 Subject: Interesting machine on ebay UK In-Reply-To: <26c11a640603061133t2363aa3ag@mail.gmail.com> References: <26c11a640603061133t2363aa3ag@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <440C9EC1.5040007@gjcp.net> Dan Williams wrote: > There is a Burroughs B21 working on ebay (8774469572). If it wasn't > pickup only from Newcastle I'd grab it myself. > > dan That's near Witchy. The utterly buggering thing is that I was in Gateshead, with a near-empty van, on Thursday. Maybe I'll be down again next week... Gordon. From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Mon Mar 6 15:38:03 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 15:38:03 Subject: FDOS for Fluke 1720A In-Reply-To: <440C8FC8.5070406@vigilan.com> References: <200603061800.k26I04ip069201@dewey.classiccmp.org> <200603061800.k26I04ip069201@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060306153803.3d878976@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Geoff, I have it somewhere. I also have manuals for it. I'll try to dig the stuff up and send you a list of what I have. I collected a couple of these systems and FINALLY found the SW and docs but by then I'd gotten interested in other things so I've never powered them up. If you don't hear from me in a FEW days, remind me to dig the stuff out. Joe At 11:38 AM 3/6/06 -0800, you wrote: >Does anyone have the O/S, Applications, and Diagnostice disks for this >ancient IEEE 488 bus controller (Fluke 1720A)? It used a TI 9900 >processor if I remember correctly. The operating system was called FDOS- >a custom effort too I think, distributed on three 5 1/4" floppies. This >is no longer available from anywhere or anyone, including Fluke. > >Thanks for any help and/or leads. > >Geoff > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Mon Mar 6 15:45:27 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 15:45:27 Subject: In need of Televideo 910 terminal case In-Reply-To: <004e01c63fe4$ab2fd590$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060306154527.41f7d210@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Richm Do you know how to chenge the settings in the 910 setup menu?? I managed to get into the setup menu on mine but could figure out how to change them! Joe At 06:37 PM 3/4/06 -0500, you wrote: >All: > > > > I recently received from a friend a Televideo 910 terminal that >seems to have been drop-kicked off of the back of the mail truck. It was >dropped keyboard first, so the entire front broke off. So far, gluing the >case isn't working well, and I'm not optimistic about the ultimate success. >So, I'm looking for someone with a bad terminal with a good case so I can >make a Frankenstein terminal. > > > > Please contact me off-list. Thanks. > >Rich > >Rich Cini >Collector of classic computers >Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project >Web site: >http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ >/************************************************************/ > > > From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 6 14:56:58 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 12:56:58 -0800 Subject: OT Tom Swift In-Reply-To: <003a01c6414e$93a3adf0$5b01a8c0@pc1> References: <003a01c6414e$93a3adf0$5b01a8c0@pc1> Message-ID: <200603061256580146.2D549B9B@10.0.0.252> On 3/6/2006 at 6:48 PM a.carlini at ntlworld.com wrote: >> For what it's worth, Project Gutenberg has a selection of >> Tom Swift books if anyone wants to read them. I never cared much for Tom Swift, but I really liked the "Carl and Jerry" stories in Popular Electronics by John T. Frye. Here's some: http://home.gwi.net/~jdebell/pe/cj/cnjindex.htm Cheers, Chuck From spc at conman.org Mon Mar 6 15:10:53 2006 From: spc at conman.org (Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 16:10:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: OT Tom Swift - The name of another boy-adventure novel series? In-Reply-To: from "JP Hindin" at Mar 06, 2006 01:40:46 PM Message-ID: <20060306211054.727FB7302C@linus.area51.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great JP Hindin once stated: > > There were three boys, I believe. The head kid was called something like > "Hercules", either as a first name or a nickname. He was a "chubby" kid, > and when he was a toddler was in a series of TV adverts, or perhaps a > programme, which is recurringly mentioned in the books. > Their clubhouse was in a junk yard one of their fathers owned, where they > built things to help them go through their adventures. I remember they had > a printing press they repaired from the junk in the yard. I think the > clubhouse was an old trailer home, or perhaps a caravan? The Three Investigators. You're thinking of Jupiter Jones, and the other two boys were Bob and Pete (forgot their last names). They used to be associated with Alfred Hitchcock but (I think sometime during the 90s) Alfred was removed from the books. I used to collect them, but gave away my collection to a younger cousin over a decade ago. -spc (And now wish I had kept them ... ) From marvin at rain.org Mon Mar 6 15:46:38 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 13:46:38 -0800 Subject: Stuff on VCM Message-ID: <440CADBE.7D15136D@rain.org> I am finally starting to clean up stuff ... again, and most of the stuff is being listed on VCM, http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com/. If you feel the prices are way too low, let me know :). And ditto if you think they are too high. Mostly, I am culling back my collection of most things after about 1984 or so. I would love to have the time to play with the S-100 systems, get the Polymorphic and Lobo Drives stuff cataloged and working, etc. There are probably some things that got lost in email from the VCM over the past several months, so if I've forgotten or not responded to something purchased there several months ago, please let me know. I tend to forget to change some of the posts to "sold." From jplist at kiwigeek.com Mon Mar 6 16:04:48 2006 From: jplist at kiwigeek.com (JP Hindin) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 16:04:48 -0600 (CST) Subject: OT Tom Swift - The name of another boy-adventure novel series? In-Reply-To: <20060306211054.727FB7302C@linus.area51.conman.org> Message-ID: Indeed - quite correct. Dan Veeneman caught this one first, but thanks to you both for decyphering my garbled memories to result in precisely what I was looking for! Alas, these are not on Project Gutenberg... :) Thanks! On Mon, 6 Mar 2006, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote: > It was thus said that the Great JP Hindin once stated: > > > > There were three boys, I believe. The head kid was called something like > > "Hercules", either as a first name or a nickname. He was a "chubby" kid, > > and when he was a toddler was in a series of TV adverts, or perhaps a > > programme, which is recurringly mentioned in the books. > > Their clubhouse was in a junk yard one of their fathers owned, where they > > built things to help them go through their adventures. I remember they had > > a printing press they repaired from the junk in the yard. I think the > > clubhouse was an old trailer home, or perhaps a caravan? > > The Three Investigators. You're thinking of Jupiter Jones, and the other > two boys were Bob and Pete (forgot their last names). They used to be > associated with Alfred Hitchcock but (I think sometime during the 90s) > Alfred was removed from the books. > > I used to collect them, but gave away my collection to a younger cousin > over a decade ago. > > -spc (And now wish I had kept them ... ) > > > From bpope at wordstock.com Mon Mar 6 18:00:59 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 19:00:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: VAX job - senior software engineer Message-ID: <20060307000059.D70B758166@mail.wordstock.com> Maybe this will be of interest to someone here: http://newjersey.craigslist.org/sof/138336632.html - Expert knowledge of VAX VMS operating system and VAX System administration. and more.... Cheers, Bryan From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Mar 6 18:10:30 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 00:10:30 +0000 Subject: Interesting machine on ebay UK In-Reply-To: <440C9EC1.5040007@gjcp.net> References: <26c11a640603061133t2363aa3ag@mail.gmail.com> <440C9EC1.5040007@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <440CCF76.1060300@yahoo.co.uk> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Dan Williams wrote: >> There is a Burroughs B21 working on ebay (8774469572). If it wasn't >> pickup only from Newcastle I'd grab it myself. >> >> dan > > That's near Witchy. The utterly buggering thing is that I was in > Gateshead, with a near-empty van, on Thursday. Maybe I'll be down again > next week... Not sure if he's back on the list again, so best give him a prod privately about it and see if he's interested in saving it... cheers J. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 6 18:05:12 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 00:05:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Do not use hammer. :) (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20060306142429.1F09F58199@mail.wordstock.com> from "Bryan Pope" at Mar 6, 6 09:24:29 am Message-ID: > > Whatever happened to a bit of dry humor in computer > > hardware manuals? :) Another example is in some versions of the DEC RK05 maintenance manual, in the section on cleaning the disk platter. This is from memory, so I'm mis-quoting, but here goes... 'Dry dust can be removed by blowing by mouth. Do not spit on the disk' And the Tektronix cartoons haev been mentioned many times before. My favourite is on the CRT circut for the 564 storage 'socpe. There's a cleaning lady kneeling on the screen-end of the CRT symbol, mopping up water, presumably put there by the flood guns :-) -tony From drb at msu.edu Mon Mar 6 18:17:30 2006 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 19:17:30 -0500 Subject: Do not use hammer. :) (fwd) In-Reply-To: (Your message of Mon, 06 Mar 2006 09:24:29 EST.) <20060306142429.1F09F58199@mail.wordstock.com> References: <20060306142429.1F09F58199@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: <200603070017.k270HVAl009020@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > Whatever happened to a bit of dry humor in computer > hardware manuals? :) Strike "hardware". One of my favorites is the Prime Fortran manual index vintage late 70's or early 80's, which contained (from memory) the following three entries: Circular reasoning - see proof by assumption Proof by assumption - see petitio principii Petitio principii - see circular reasoning scattered about on several pages in alphabetical order. De From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Mon Mar 6 20:05:03 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 02:05:03 GMT Subject: Do not use hammer. :) (fwd) In-Reply-To: <200603070017.k270HVAl009020@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <20060306142429.1F09F58199@mail.wordstock.com> <200603070017.k270HVAl009020@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <17f1a4034e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> In message <200603070017.k270HVAl009020 at yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Dennis Boone wrote: > Strike "hardware". One of my favorites is the Prime Fortran manual > index vintage late 70's or early 80's, which contained (from memory) > the following three entries: > > Circular reasoning - see proof by assumption > Proof by assumption - see petitio principii > Petitio principii - see circular reasoning Some of the Borland Turbo Pascal manuals allegedly had something similar: Infinite loop - see Loop, infinite Loop, infinite - see Infinite loop IIRC there were a couple more gems in there, but I can't remember any of them... -- 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 tpeters at mixcom.com Mon Mar 6 21:41:01 2006 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 21:41:01 -0600 Subject: Do not use hammer. :) (fwd) In-Reply-To: <17f1a4034e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> References: <200603070017.k270HVAl009020@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <20060306142429.1F09F58199@mail.wordstock.com> <200603070017.k270HVAl009020@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060306214035.0aca59a0@localhost> Recursive, adj., see "recursive." At 02:05 AM 3/7/2006 +0000, you wrote: >In message <200603070017.k270HVAl009020 at yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > Dennis Boone wrote: > > > Strike "hardware". One of my favorites is the Prime Fortran manual > > index vintage late 70's or early 80's, which contained (from memory) > > the following three entries: > > > > Circular reasoning - see proof by assumption > > Proof by assumption - see petitio principii > > Petitio principii - see circular reasoning > >Some of the Borland Turbo Pascal manuals allegedly had something similar: > > Infinite loop - see Loop, infinite > Loop, infinite - see Infinite loop > >IIRC there were a couple more gems in there, but I can't remember any of >them... > >-- >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 [Government]We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. --Winston Churchill --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... 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 teoz at neo.rr.com Mon Mar 6 22:32:52 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 23:32:52 -0500 Subject: Do not use hammer. :) (fwd) References: <200603070017.k270HVAl009020@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <20060306142429.1F09F58199@mail.wordstock.com> <200603070017.k270HVAl009020@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <5.1.0.14.2.20060306214035.0aca59a0@localhost> Message-ID: <000a01c641a0$33013dd0$a05d1941@game> > [Government]We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into > prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift > himself up by the handle. --Winston Churchill > --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... Nice quote BTW From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Mar 7 00:23:11 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 22:23:11 -0800 Subject: FDOS for Fluke 1720A Message-ID: <78066CEE-4466-47D3-925F-35F71A813D7A@bitsavers.org> > Does anyone have the O/S, Applications, and Diagnostice disks I'm trying to find this as well. Just picked up the manual set. It should be on bitsavers soon. From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Mar 7 00:45:22 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 22:45:22 -0800 Subject: Fluke FDOS Message-ID: Kevin Schoedel said he had a copy as of Apr,2000 > On 2000/04/28 at 9:18pm -0500, Joe wrote: >> I picked up a second FLuke 1722 today. This one does have the keyboard >>(at last)! But I still haven't found the operating system software for it. >>Can anyone help? It uses Fluke's F-DOS. I'd also like to find a manual >>for it. > > I a Fluke 1720A with F-DOS. If there are grounds to believe that the same > software would work, I can try to do something about copying or archiving > the disks soon(er than I otherwise would). I might have multiple copies > already, though I seem to recall that only one was reliably readable. I > certainly do have multiple copies of the 1720A manuals. From frustum at pacbell.net Tue Mar 7 01:13:42 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 01:13:42 -0600 Subject: Do not use hammer. :) (fwd) In-Reply-To: <000a01c641a0$33013dd0$a05d1941@game> References: <200603070017.k270HVAl009020@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <20060306142429.1F09F58199@mail.wordstock.com> <200603070017.k270HVAl009020@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <5.1.0.14.2.20060306214035.0aca59a0@localhost> <000a01c641a0$33013dd0$a05d1941@game> Message-ID: <440D32A6.8030907@pacbell.net> Teo Zenios wrote: >> [Government]We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into >> prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift >> himself up by the handle. --Winston Churchill >> --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... > > > Nice quote BTW Let's keep politics out of it, thanks. Aphorisms might be witty, but they prove nothing but what you already believe. Back on topic, Nick Tredennick, who did the microcode for the 68000 and was the architect/microcoder for a u370 implementation, wrote a book about his microcoding techniques on that u370 project. Nick is outspoken and a natural contrarian apparently. In the tail end of his book there is a glossary and there are a few funny entries. I don't have the book with me, and I only recall two of them. One was something like: Methodology: strictly speaking, the study of methods. Often misused by over educated snobs when what they really mean to say is method. The other I recall was like: Testability: things you add to the design against your will because someone important in the department said you had to. Tieing two threads together, he wasn't against testability of the system -- the u370 was big on RAS -- but rather he thought functional verification of the chip was the hard but right way to do things. From classiccmp at eco.li Tue Mar 7 05:07:56 2006 From: classiccmp at eco.li (Dan Kolb) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 11:07:56 +0000 Subject: Interesting machine on ebay UK In-Reply-To: <26c11a640603061133t2363aa3ag@mail.gmail.com> References: <26c11a640603061133t2363aa3ag@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060307110756.GC73@hades.eco.li> On Mon, Mar 06, 2006 at 07:33:23PM +0000, Dan Williams wrote: > There is a Burroughs B21 working on ebay (8774469572). If it wasn't > pickup only from Newcastle I'd grab it myself. Hm. I might ponder this. I'm in Durham, so it's only going to be a half hour drive or so. Dan -- COBOL programs are an exercise in Artificial Inelegance. From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Mar 7 06:11:36 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 07:11:36 -0500 Subject: was Re: Do not use hammer; now value of a testbench In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 07 Mar 2006 01:13:42 CST." <440D32A6.8030907@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <200603071211.k27CBab5022785@mwave.heeltoe.com> Jim Battle wrote: > >Tieing two threads together, he wasn't against testability of the system >-- the u370 was big on RAS -- but rather he thought functional >verification of the chip was the hard but right way to do things. no argument from me (I plan to go get the book - does he talk about the nano code?), but i'd add there's no substitute for good baseline simulation also. Just got done finding a problem in a fpga (bus clash) which should have been caught in simulation but instead passed all the simple functional tests and only crashed during full-up testing with the linux kernel. (and naturally everyone blamed the linux kernel :-) 'cept me) -brad From drb at msu.edu Tue Mar 7 07:33:53 2006 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 08:33:53 -0500 Subject: HP cables In-Reply-To: (Your message of Sun, 05 Mar 2006 22:16:56 MST.) <440BC5C8.2010408@Rikers.org> References: <440BC5C8.2010408@Rikers.org> <200603051915.k25JFMRt029767@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <200603071333.k27DXrmB028581@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > I've not found the number yet, but are you interested in getting > rid of them? I've got a bunch of HP hardware and could likely use > them. Some other HP cables: > > http://rikers.org/gallery/hardware/20050417_214520 > > The centronics connectors are 50 pin card edge on the other end? or > higher pin count? Same pin count, but it's centronics-to-mrac or winchester-to-mrac. Here's a pair of images showing the two types: http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/img_1848.gif http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/img_1849.gif The camera did funny things to the colors; the jacket of the cables have a silvery color, and the connector shells are metal. They're cleaner than they look. They're probably available. De From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Mar 7 08:24:15 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 08:24:15 Subject: FDOS for Fluke 1720A In-Reply-To: <78066CEE-4466-47D3-925F-35F71A813D7A@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060307082415.3df76a20@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Here's the list of the stuff that I have: Book 1. BASIC Reference Manual and Quick Reference Card for Interpreted, Compiled and Extended BASIC. Book 2. 1722A System Guide, 1722A User Information System Diagnostic Software, 1722A User Information Installing Hardware Options, 1722A Operator's Quick Reference Card. Book 3. BASIC Manual (NOT the same as the one above) and Quick Reference Card for Interpreted, Compiled and Extended BASIC. Book 4. 1722A Service Manual, OEM Service Manual for the Ball BC/BCX-200/300 CRT Data Display (Monitor), OEM Service Manual for the Shugart SA-450 DS Minifloppy Diskette Storage Drive, OEM Service Manual for the National Power Technology Power Supply, 1722A/AP Addendum. I also found two 5 1/4" disks. One is labeled Fluke 1722 FDOS 2.1 System Diagnostics, the other is labeled Fluke 1722 FDOS 2.1 System Software. I don't know if this stuff will work on the 1720 or not. Joe At 10:23 PM 3/6/06 -0800, you wrote: > > > Does anyone have the O/S, Applications, and Diagnostice disks > >I'm trying to find this as well. >Just picked up the manual set. It should be on bitsavers soon. > > From frustum at pacbell.net Tue Mar 7 08:36:52 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 08:36:52 -0600 Subject: was Re: Do not use hammer; now value of a testbench In-Reply-To: <200603071211.k27CBab5022785@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200603071211.k27CBab5022785@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <440D9A84.8040201@pacbell.net> Brad Parker wrote: > Jim Battle wrote: >> Tieing two threads together, he wasn't against testability of the system >> -- the u370 was big on RAS -- but rather he thought functional >> verification of the chip was the hard but right way to do things. > > no argument from me (I plan to go get the book - does he talk about the > nano code?), but i'd add there's no substitute for good baseline > simulation also. > > Just got done finding a problem in a fpga (bus clash) which should have > been caught in simulation but instead passed all the simple functional > tests and only crashed during full-up testing with the linux kernel. > > (and naturally everyone blamed the linux kernel :-) 'cept me) > > -brad > > A tiny bio of him: http://www.vintage.org/2004/main/bio.php?id=72 The book on amazon (out of print): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0135822971/002-4455590-2956861 The technical detail gets to a very low level, going through specific PLAs. The real value, though, is that he kept a journal as the project developed, and he divulges a lot of interesting details, such as the staffing timeline, project politics and setbacks, the reasoning behind certain design choices -- basically a lot of the whys and not just the hows. On the other hand, don't think that the book is going to give you sufficient information to clone the chip! Certain things he goes into a length, others get skimmed in order to keep the book a reasonable size. From rtellason at blazenet.net Tue Mar 7 10:40:04 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 11:40:04 -0500 Subject: OT Tom Swift In-Reply-To: <200603061256580146.2D549B9B@10.0.0.252> References: <003a01c6414e$93a3adf0$5b01a8c0@pc1> <200603061256580146.2D549B9B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603071140.05169.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Monday 06 March 2006 03:56 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3/6/2006 at 6:48 PM a.carlini at ntlworld.com wrote: > >> For what it's worth, Project Gutenberg has a selection of > >> Tom Swift books if anyone wants to read them. > > I never cared much for Tom Swift, but I really liked the "Carl and Jerry" > stories in Popular Electronics by John T. Frye. Here's some: > > http://home.gwi.net/~jdebell/pe/cj/cnjindex.htm Cool! :-) I remember a number of those, still... -- 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 gordonjcp at gjcp.net Tue Mar 7 11:06:14 2006 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 17:06:14 +0000 Subject: Do not use hammer. :) (fwd) In-Reply-To: <17f1a4034e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> References: <20060306142429.1F09F58199@mail.wordstock.com> <200603070017.k270HVAl009020@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <17f1a4034e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <440DBD86.9080807@gjcp.net> Philip Pemberton wrote: > Some of the Borland Turbo Pascal manuals allegedly had something similar: > > Infinite loop - see Loop, infinite > Loop, infinite - see Infinite loop Conditional loop - see Infinite Loop, if you haven't already. Gordon. From ericmac at swissinfo.org Tue Mar 7 11:14:23 2006 From: ericmac at swissinfo.org (ericmac at swissinfo.org) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 17:14:23 +0000 Subject: old 8088 system course Message-ID: <42E611B900050202@mail.swissinfo.org> I think it was about 15-20 years ago there was, I believe, a self-study course put out by some company for learning the hardware (and I think some aspects of software, i.e., DOS) of computing at that time. The course came with an 8088 computer that, if I recall correctly, one built and "learned by doing." I'm pretty sure it was not a Heathkit. I have searched everywhere and have not come up with anything. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Any information would be helpful. I'm trying to track one of these courses/computers down. Thanks! Gary _______________________________________________________________________ Your Site for Swiss Maps: http://www.swissinfo-geo.org/ From dwight.elvey at amd.com Tue Mar 7 11:32:56 2006 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 09:32:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: old 8088 system course Message-ID: <200603071732.JAA22700@ca2h0430.amd.com> Hi Something like NRI? Dwight >From: ericmac at swissinfo.org > >I think it was about 15-20 years ago there was, I believe, a self-study course >put out by some company for learning the hardware (and I think some aspects >of software, i.e., DOS) of computing at that time. The course came with an >8088 computer that, if I recall correctly, one built and "learned by doing." >I'm pretty sure it was not a Heathkit. I have searched everywhere and have >not come up with anything. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Any information >would be helpful. I'm trying to track one of these courses/computers down. >Thanks! > >Gary > >_______________________________________________________________________ >Your Site for Swiss Maps: http://www.swissinfo-geo.org/ > > > > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Mar 7 12:56:06 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 12:56:06 Subject: Docs for E&L Fox? was Re: old 8088 system course In-Reply-To: <200603071732.JAA22700@ca2h0430.amd.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060307125606.4197cc7c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Speaking of training courses. Does anyone have docs for the E&L Instruments MT-80Z (aka The Fox)? Also does anyone know anything about the AID-1 Analog Interface Designer made by the same company? I THINK it's for the MT-080Z but I'm not sure. Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Mar 7 12:53:12 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 12:53:12 Subject: old 8088 system course In-Reply-To: <200603071732.JAA22700@ca2h0430.amd.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060307125312.4197cb48@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 09:32 AM 3/7/06 -0800, you wrote: >Hi > Something like NRI? Or MicroProfessor, or Zenith, Bell and Howell, E&L Instruments, HP, Intel, AMD. etc. I wasn't involved with the courses after about the 8085 but I've had courses from all of the above companies. Joe >Dwight > >>From: ericmac at swissinfo.org >> >>I think it was about 15-20 years ago there was, I believe, a self-study course >>put out by some company for learning the hardware (and I think some aspects >>of software, i.e., DOS) of computing at that time. The course came with an >>8088 computer that, if I recall correctly, one built and "learned by doing." >>I'm pretty sure it was not a Heathkit. I have searched everywhere and have >>not come up with anything. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Any information >>would be helpful. I'm trying to track one of these courses/computers down. >>Thanks! >> >>Gary >> >>_______________________________________________________________________ >>Your Site for Swiss Maps: http://www.swissinfo-geo.org/ >> >> >> >> >> > > From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 7 11:57:28 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 09:57:28 -0800 Subject: OT Tom Swift In-Reply-To: <200603071140.05169.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <003a01c6414e$93a3adf0$5b01a8c0@pc1> <200603061256580146.2D549B9B@10.0.0.252> <200603071140.05169.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <200603070957280723.31D6A141@10.0.0.252> On 3/7/2006 at 11:40 AM Roy J. Tellason wrote: >> http://home.gwi.net/~jdebell/pe/cj/cnjindex.htm > >Cool! :-) > >I remember a number of those, still... > Didn't Radio-Electronics also have a regular fictional series about the adventures of a repair-shop guy? This would be back around the time of C&J. I also remember that Popular Science had a series called "The Model Garage": http://www.gus-stories.org/index.htm Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at blazenet.net Tue Mar 7 12:12:46 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 13:12:46 -0500 Subject: OT Tom Swift In-Reply-To: <200603070957280723.31D6A141@10.0.0.252> References: <003a01c6414e$93a3adf0$5b01a8c0@pc1> <200603071140.05169.rtellason@blazenet.net> <200603070957280723.31D6A141@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603071312.46296.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Tuesday 07 March 2006 12:57 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3/7/2006 at 11:40 AM Roy J. Tellason wrote: > >> http://home.gwi.net/~jdebell/pe/cj/cnjindex.htm > > > >Cool! :-) > > > >I remember a number of those, still... > > Didn't Radio-Electronics also have a regular fictional series about the > adventures of a repair-shop guy? This would be back around the time of > C&J. Now that you mention it I do remember something of the sort, though I can't recall any details at the moment. It was in one of those columns that they discussed the trend toward miniaturization, and how eventually it was going to get to the point where the "user interface" (knobs and switches and such :-) was going to be the limiting factor in things. And we can all see how the mfrs are trying to push the envelop with regard to that... > I also remember that Popular Science had a series called "The Model > Garage": http://www.gus-stories.org/index.htm I didn't read those that much, but I do vaguely recall some garage-oriented stuff of the sort. Not that those were nearly as much fun as the electronics-oriented stuff, 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 bfoley at dcs.warwick.ac.uk Tue Mar 7 18:18:50 2006 From: bfoley at dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Brian Foley) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 00:18:50 +0000 Subject: Ferranti manual on eBay Message-ID: <7B987CE1-F0D8-49C7-A8C5-4FA6BD8FE96A@dcs.warwick.ac.uk> There's a copy of the 1955 Ferranti Pegusus programing manual on eBay at the moment. (item 8774515396). I was very tempted to buy it and scan it, but then I noticed that a scan of the 1962 edition of the same manual is already available from bitsavers.org. The introduction to the 1962 version says that it adds extra information about the Pegasus 2, but it doesn't really say if anything else has changed. Does anyone happen to know if there's any useful/interesting material in the 1955 edition that *isn't* in the 1962 edition? Cheers, Brian. From rcini at optonline.net Tue Mar 7 20:59:36 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 21:59:36 -0500 Subject: Icom Frugal Floppy question Message-ID: <003301c6425c$55b04e40$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: I'm having a devil of a time getting my Icom disk system working to my satisfaction due to a flaky second floppy drive. Anyway, in the rare times that I can get the second floppy to work, I want to make a backup of my boot disk. I found the original disk from Icom and there doesn't appear to be a "format" program on it. Does anyone know if the Frugal Floppy system had and/or used a disk formatting program before SYSGENning the disk? Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ /************************************************************/ From bfoley at dcs.warwick.ac.uk Wed Mar 8 06:55:27 2006 From: bfoley at dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Brian Foley) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 12:55:27 +0000 Subject: Ferranti manual on eBay Message-ID: <63098BF2-86C1-4E01-8A59-78FE1C735495@dcs.warwick.ac.uk> There's a copy of the 1955 Ferranti Pegusus programing manual on eBay at the moment. (item 8774515396). I was very tempted to buy it and scan it, but then I noticed that a scan of the 1962 edition of the same manual is already available from bitsavers.org. The introduction to the 1962 version mentions the original document and says that it adds extra information about the Pegasus 2 to it, but it doesn't really say if anything else has changed. Does anyone happen to know if there's any useful/interesting material in the 1955 edition that *isn't* in the 1962 edition? Cheers, Brian. From aw288 at osfn.org Tue Mar 7 20:32:41 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 21:32:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: WTD: IBM 5250 terminal Message-ID: I am looking for for a working IBM 5250 terminal. Anyone have one of these big beasts, hopefully near NY? William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Mar 7 13:46:15 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 13:46:15 Subject: FREE! Corvus Transporter stuff Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060307134615.56d716e6@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> While cleaning up I found a Tektronix box with four smaller boxs in it that contain Corvus Transporter cards. There are FIVE cards with manuals (no SW). Four of the cards are about half length cards and have the mounting bracket on them. The other is about 3/4 length and doesn't have a bracket. All are 8 bit cards and all are Corvus Transporter boards. They appear to be new and unused and in the original boxs. Anybody want them for the price of shipping (and maybe some beer money :-)? I didn't see any SW but it may be stuck inside of one of the manuals. They all have a three pin male plugs on the back edge of the card. It looks like these came from the Charlotte hamfest in '94, that's all I know about them. Joe From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Wed Mar 8 09:12:52 2006 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 07:12:52 -0800 Subject: WTD: IBM 5250 terminal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1141830772.440ef474b7167@webmail.secure-wi.com> Quoting William Donzelli : > I am looking for for a working IBM 5250 terminal. Anyone have one of these > big beasts, hopefully near NY? > > William Donzelli > aw288 at osfn.org > I'd post on an AS/400 or iSeries mailing list - your chances are better. If you don't really need the physical 'dumb-head', try a 5250 emulator. There is one for Linux that works over telnet. If you go with a dumb-head, get the oldest one you can. :-) My favorites are the ancient all-in-one tubes that have the keyboard ringer. Mike From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 8 09:25:09 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 08:25:09 -0700 Subject: WTD: IBM 5250 terminal In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 07 Mar 2006 21:32:41 -0500. Message-ID: In article , William Donzelli writes: > I am looking for for a working IBM 5250 terminal. Anyone have one of these > big beasts, hopefully near NY? Didn't one of these just sell on ebay recently? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jim.beacon at ntlworld.com Sat Mar 4 16:31:19 2006 From: jim.beacon at ntlworld.com (Jim Beacon) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 22:31:19 -0000 Subject: Vaxstations in London References: <26c11a640602210949v7db62ddo@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <003701c63fdb$5d1ff140$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Hi Dan, thanks for the 300/76 - I have loaded VMS 7.3 on it, and it seems to work OK (it may be even bettter when I figure out why I can't register the license ...). If they are still available, could I trouble you for the other /76, the BA42 expansion box and the /40? Thanks again Jim. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Williams" To: Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 5:49 PM Subject: Vaxstations in London > Due to impending job change/move I need to slim down my collection > there will be quite a few machines. Some of the bigger stuff I need to > put on ebay as I really need the money. > I will be putting a 4000/500 with 9 dssi drives and a 4000/700 with 12 > dssi drives on ebay towards the end of the month. > > I have gone through some machines there will be more : > > Vaxstation 3100/30 12mb unknown drive > Vaxstation 3100/76 2xRZ74 16mb Floppy > Vaxstation 3100/30 2gb drive 8mb Floppy > Vaxstation 3100/40 3x100mb drive 32mb ram missing front flap > Microvax 3100 16mb 2xRz25 3.2gb > Vaxstation 3100/76 floppy 16mb 500mb drive > Vax storage expansion box no drives but possible with the cable if I > can find it. > > These are all free to pick up from Soho London. > > > Dan > > > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.12/265 - Release Date: 20/02/06 > > From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Mar 4 23:17:35 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 21:17:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dimension 68000 Message-ID: <20060305051735.32111.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> a vintage cohort has supplied me with a stack of floppies for this unit. With all deference to Dave and his software, would ImageDisk be the best tool for the job? Stated another way, would these disks require any special handling? Theyre quad density 800k, or single sided 400k (methinks). Possibly readable by DOS (a guess, and not a crazy one if youre familiar with the machine), in which case my concerns are unfounded. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From cleve_001 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 5 16:14:32 2006 From: cleve_001 at yahoo.com (Cleve LeClair) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 14:14:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW Message-ID: <20060305221433.40141.qmail@web54608.mail.yahoo.com> Hi, Did you every find Trainer.zip? If not I have attached it. Cleve __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 5 17:54:27 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 15:54:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: an odd PC seen in a thrift store (?) Message-ID: <20060305235427.11320.qmail@web61023.mail.yahoo.com> the 9801 was not an all in one though. I cant imagine myself confusing NEC and NCR actually, just that I was somewhat familiar with their PC4s, and it seemed a tad different IIRC. It could have been the Decision Mate, which doesnt look any different, and would also boot to a cpm a> prompt (Im thinking so anyway). The thing just somehow looked different...(I was hoping some nerd who also used to shop their might subscribe to this list). --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > Chris M wrote: > > the talk of a peculiar USR pc made me remember this. > > There used to be a (primarily) electronic junk store > > in LI called Eldies (Edlies?) on Hempstead Tnpk in > > Levittown I guess. Sitting there one day was an all in > > one, IIRC, NCR unit that booted up to an a:> prompt. > > It struck me as a weirdish dos semi compatible. It > > didnt strike me as a PC4 or the nearly identical > > Decision Mate (cpm). Pretty sure it was NCR, but eh > > maybe it was NEC (definately NOT an APC, not quite > > that big and heavy). Anyone have a clue? > > The Japanese NEC PC-9800 series booted with A: as the boot drive even if > it booted off a hard disk. the floppies would become the next drives. > > Was the text in japanese? > > I did software development on some of these models back around 1990. All > the M$ tools were available for them, but only from Japanese dealers and > only in Japanese. > > -- > Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org > Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ > BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 5 18:43:22 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 16:43:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: looking to buy/swap/extort PC Tech Journal magazines Message-ID: <20060306004322.66557.qmail@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> what a boring magazine. It really is a dull read. Not sure why I want to add to my accumulation (have 16 between 1/85 - 12/87). But alas I am. Let me know even if yer just looking for an article or two. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From andrew.f.brunet at lmco.com Mon Mar 6 07:59:00 2006 From: andrew.f.brunet at lmco.com (Brunet, Andrew F) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 08:59:00 -0500 Subject: Details of old HP Stuff Available (act now!) Message-ID: Hi, I'm looking of an HP monitor that you may have. HP35741A. Do you still have it ? Thx Andy From sergeroube at hotmail.com Sat Mar 4 17:01:39 2006 From: sergeroube at hotmail.com (Serge Roube) Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 18:01:39 -0500 Subject: Programming 1702 EPROMs, ProLog Programmer question Message-ID: Hi, Sorry to bother you, but I just saw a question you asked on classiccmp.org about programming a 1702 on a Prolog M900 machine. Did you ever get an answer or figured out how to make it work ? Cheers, Serge Roube From vitaliano.sanzi at telecomitalia.it Wed Mar 8 04:26:03 2006 From: vitaliano.sanzi at telecomitalia.it (Sanzi Vitaliano) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 11:26:03 +0100 Subject: B&C microsystems UP200 Message-ID: <1D82F6AB665B344A949FAAADF19F54230739B7@PTPEVS107BA020.idc.cww.telecomitalia.it> Have you documentation for it? Can you send me ? Thank you very much in advance. vitaliano vitaliano.sanzi at telecomitalia.it -------------------------------------------------------------------- CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE This message and its attachments are addressed solely to the persons above and may contain confidential information. If you have received the message in error, be informed that any use of the content hereof is prohibited. Please return it immediately to the sender and delete the message. Should you have any questions, please contact us by replying to webmaster at telecomitalia.it. Thank you www.telecomitalia.it -------------------------------------------------------------------- From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Mar 7 15:03:52 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 15:03:52 Subject: Sage II computer Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060307150352.2c5fd72a@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Hello Everybody, OK I finally got off my butt and took some pictures. Here's pictures of everything that I have. Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Mar 7 15:08:17 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 15:08:17 Subject: Intel iUPP PROM Programmers Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060307150817.61af1292@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> I'm finally getting around to doing something with my Intel PROM Programmers. I've taken some pictures and posted them here . Joe From waisun.chia at gmail.com Wed Mar 8 01:29:16 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 15:29:16 +0800 Subject: TENEX on emulator (simh?) Message-ID: Hello, I''ve heard a bit on TENEX, and I'd like to explore it further, and so I was wondering as to whether TENEX is available on any emulators (simh)? Does it run on any pdp11 class systems? Unibus or Qbus? (I have a 11/44 and a 11/83) From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Mar 7 19:01:08 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 19:01:08 Subject: operator's manual for Data I/O model V programmer? Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060307190108.3eefd052@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Anybody need this thing? It's for a VERY primitive programmer. I don't think it even does EPROMs, it appears to only do Biploar PROMs. It has 2101 memory ICs but no microprocessor that I can find. It appears that everything is done with a state machine using TTL logic. Joe From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 8 10:52:14 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 09:52:14 -0700 Subject: WTD: IBM 5250 terminal In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 08 Mar 2006 07:12:52 -0800. <1141830772.440ef474b7167@webmail.secure-wi.com> Message-ID: In article <1141830772.440ef474b7167 at webmail.secure-wi.com>, mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com writes: > If you go with a dumb-head, get the oldest one you can. :-) My favorites are > the ancient all-in-one tubes that have the keyboard ringer. Not really knowing anything about 5250s other than they are a terminal, what do you mean by "dumb head"? In the early 80s a Project DELTA colleague told me that IBM had made some system where the terminal was essentially a keyboard and a tube and the host computer essentially did everything. Is the 5250 that beast? If so, where can I read details about it? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 8 10:54:13 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 09:54:13 -0700 Subject: WTD: IBM 5250 terminal In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 08 Mar 2006 08:25:09 -0700. Message-ID: In article , Richard writes: > Didn't one of these just sell on ebay recently? It was a 5251, does that count? Item #8767081034, sold for $75.74 -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 8 11:00:53 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 10:00:53 -0700 Subject: FREE! Corvus Transporter stuff In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 07 Mar 2006 13:46:15. <3.0.6.16.20060307134615.56d716e6@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: What's the Corvus? Is it a tektronix mini/micro? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Mar 8 11:17:45 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 12:17:45 -0500 Subject: TENEX on emulator (simh?) In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 08 Mar 2006 15:29:16 +0800." Message-ID: <200603081717.k28HHjj5014774@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Wai-Sun Chia" wrote: >Hello, >I''ve heard a bit on TENEX, and I'd like to explore it further, and so >I was wondering as to whether TENEX is available on any emulators >(simh)? > >Does it run on any pdp11 class systems? Unibus or Qbus? (I have a >11/44 and a 11/83) If we're talking about the same thing, TENEX ran on a modified PDP-10. It was a precursor to TOPS-10 (at least I think it was). If you could find a tape image it might run on one of the many pdp-10 emulators, but I think it wants some special paging hardware BBN created and this might not be emulated. I've never seen any TENEX images. Most folks seem to run TOPS-20 and ITS on the pdp-10 emulators. You might be happier with those and there are plenty of tape & disk images. -brad From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Mar 8 11:19:42 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 12:19:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: WTD: IBM 5250 terminal In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > Didn't one of these just sell on ebay recently? > > It was a 5251, does that count? Item #8767081034, sold for $75.74 Damn coincidence. A few days ago, I finally scrapped bunch of crud, and can get at the 5320 I want to play with more, and decided I need a real tube, rather than one of the newer cheap 'n cheesy ones. Oh well, maybe next Ebay roud. Anyway, I am still looking. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Mar 8 11:24:33 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 12:24:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: WTD: IBM 5250 terminal In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > In the early 80s a Project DELTA colleague told me that IBM had made > some system where the terminal was essentially a keyboard and a tube > and the host computer essentially did everything. Is the 5250 that > beast? If so, where can I read details about it? No, the 525x were by all means smart terminals. IBM's first glass terminal, the model2mumblefoo (can't find the book right now), was indeed just a tube and keyboard, but had a big box under the desk that did all the dirty work. I want one of those. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org, From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 8 11:26:53 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 10:26:53 -0700 Subject: TENEX on emulator (simh?) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 08 Mar 2006 12:17:45 -0500. <200603081717.k28HHjj5014774@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: In article <200603081717.k28HHjj5014774 at mwave.heeltoe.com>, Brad Parker writes: > If we're talking about the same thing, TENEX ran on a modified PDP-10. > It was a precursor to TOPS-10 (at least I think it was). That's what Ivan & Bert Sutherland said (it was Bert, I think) in a Computer History Museum video on google I watched the other day. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 8 11:48:06 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 09:48:06 -0800 Subject: Icom Frugal Floppy question In-Reply-To: <003301c6425c$55b04e40$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <003301c6425c$55b04e40$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <200603080948060363.36F4658E@10.0.0.252> On 3/7/2006 at 9:59 PM Richard A. Cini wrote: > Does anyone know if the Frugal Floppy system had and/or used a >disk formatting program before SYSGENning the disk? There are a couple of Icom diagnostics in the SIG/M volume 5 archive that do perform formatting. Check out, for example, 3712DIAG.ASM. Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Mar 8 11:58:40 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 12:58:40 -0500 Subject: WTD: IBM 5250 terminal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <440F1B50.30802@gmail.com> William Donzelli wrote: > I am looking for for a working IBM 5250 terminal. Anyone have one of these > big beasts, hopefully near NY? I had a few, but I just got done selling them off. 8-( All I have left are 3278/9's. Peace... Sridhar From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 8 12:04:33 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 11:04:33 -0700 Subject: WTD: IBM 5250 terminal In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 08 Mar 2006 12:58:40 -0500. <440F1B50.30802@gmail.com> Message-ID: Speaking of IBM terminals, I'm looking for a 2741. Not the one built into the desk, but the table top model that memory recalls as being *really* deep and heavy. The one we had was a lovely turquoise color. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From kth at srv.net Wed Mar 8 12:17:56 2006 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 11:17:56 -0700 Subject: TENEX on emulator (simh?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <440F1FD4.6010106@srv.net> Wai-Sun Chia wrote: >Hello, >I''ve heard a bit on TENEX, and I'd like to explore it further, and so >I was wondering as to whether TENEX is available on any emulators >(simh)? > > As I understand it, TENEX was what became TOPS-20, after numerous modifications. TOPS-20 is known to run on numerous emulators, so you may want to try that. TENEX requires a special pager hardware, so there may not be any emulator that can handle it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenex http://www.linique.com/dlm/tenex/hbook.html >Does it run on any pdp11 class systems? Unibus or Qbus? (I have a >11/44 and a 11/83) > > No. It requires a PDP-10 of some kind. From marvin at rain.org Wed Mar 8 12:18:01 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 10:18:01 -0800 Subject: OT Tom Swift Message-ID: <440F1FD9.B561B4A2@rain.org> I don't have R-E handy, but "Mac's Radio Service Shop" shows up in the May 1955 issue of Radio & Television News. ISTR that it was a regular in the magazine. Also, wasn't Radio & Television News the predecessor of Radio-Electronics Magazine? > Didn't Radio-Electronics also have a regular fictional series about the > adventures of a repair-shop guy? This would be back around the time of > C&J. > Cheers, > Chuck From Richard.Cini at wachovia.com Wed Mar 8 12:26:31 2006 From: Richard.Cini at wachovia.com (Cini, Richard) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 13:26:31 -0500 Subject: Icom Frugal Floppy question Message-ID: Chuck: Interestingly, I've tried to use that program and it mostly reports that the drive access fails, even though the drive works fine (CP/M boots and is usable). I will give it another go however. Rich -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 12:48 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Icom Frugal Floppy question On 3/7/2006 at 9:59 PM Richard A. Cini wrote: > Does anyone know if the Frugal Floppy system had and/or used a >disk formatting program before SYSGENning the disk? There are a couple of Icom diagnostics in the SIG/M volume 5 archive that do perform formatting. Check out, for example, 3712DIAG.ASM. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 8 12:46:56 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 10:46:56 -0800 Subject: OT Tom Swift In-Reply-To: <440F1FD9.B561B4A2@rain.org> References: <440F1FD9.B561B4A2@rain.org> Message-ID: <200603081046560664.372A43A8@10.0.0.252> On 3/8/2006 at 10:18 AM Marvin Johnston wrote: >I don't have R-E handy, but "Mac's Radio Service Shop" shows up in the >May 1955 issue of Radio & Television News. ISTR that it was a regular in >the magazine. Also, wasn't Radio & Television News the predecessor of >Radio-Electronics Magazine? "Mac's Radio Service Shop" sounds right--and probably later became something like "Mac's Service Shop". It's curious that I don't remember any of the story lines from that series, but can recall several from the Popular Electronics C&J series. Does any contemporary electronics/computer magazine offer a monthly fiction series? I don't count the "Dr. Ecco" puzzlers or the "Verity Stob" satires. In the old days, the stories really did add a sense of "this is an adventure" to the subject material. Cheers, Chuck From ericmac at swissinfo.org Wed Mar 8 13:14:27 2006 From: ericmac at swissinfo.org (ericmac at swissinfo.org) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 19:14:27 +0000 Subject: old 8088 system course++ Message-ID: <42E611B9000508B2@mail.swissinfo.org> Thanks for the responses to my question. I was able to continue searching from the tips and I'm pretty sure what I was asking about must have been from NRI. From what I came up with it also looks like that is long gone. I am back to my original problem. How to learn the fundamentals of the 8088 or 8086 ... and then to continue from there to the larger chips. At the moment I'm concerned about the 8088 or 8086. I have found resources that introduce those chips in a very clear, step-by-step way and include the plans for building a trainer. But they all stop short of interfacing FDDs, HDDs, etc. Would anyone know how I could "learn-by-building" an 8088 or 8086 system complete with drive interfaces, etc., starting with the very elementary aspects of learning the chip architecture and hardware on through to systems with FDDs and HDs and video, etc.? Thanks again. Gary "I think it was about 15-20 years ago there was, I believe, a self-study course put out by some company for learning the hardware (and I think some aspects of software, i.e., DOS) of computing at that time. The course came with an 8088 computer that, if I recall correctly, one built and "learned by doing." I'm pretty sure it was not a Heathkit. I have searched everywhere and have not come up with anything. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Any information would be helpful. I'm trying to track one of these courses/computers down. Thanks!" _______________________________________________________________________ Your Site for Swiss Maps: http://www.swissinfo-geo.org/ From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 8 13:20:54 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 13:20:54 Subject: Programming 1702 EPROMs, ProLog Programmer question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060308132054.191f6428@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Hi Serge, I was probably the one that asked the question! As you already know from our direct E-mails I have a Prolog programmer and the plug-in for programming the 1702s. I've been able to use it to copy 1702 EPROMs but I haven't been able to read or alter the EPROM contents once they're in the programmer's buffer therefore I haven't been able to alter the programming in the 1702s. I don't know if I was doing something wrong or if the programmer has a problem. Like you I was looking for a manual for the Model 900. I have the manual for the 980 but it doesn't help with this problem. Joe At 06:01 PM 3/4/06 -0500, you wrote: >Hi, > >Sorry to bother you, but I just saw a question you asked on classiccmp.org >about programming a 1702 on a Prolog M900 machine. > >Did you ever get an answer or figured out how to make it work ? > >Cheers, > >Serge Roube > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 8 13:30:22 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 13:30:22 Subject: FREE! Corvus Transporter stuff In-Reply-To: References: <"07 Mar 2006 13:46:15." <3.0.6.16.20060307134615.56d716e6@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060308133022.191fd34c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> I'm no expert on the stuff but from what I've seen Corvus was an OLD time manufacturer of external hard drives and a primitive networks. I think they called the network Omninet. Send me some money and I'll send you the box of stuff and YOU can figure it out! :-) AFIK they (Corvus) never made computers. At 10:00 AM 3/8/06 -0700, you wrote: > >What's the Corvus? FWIW Corvus is Latin for Crow's Beak. It's also the name of the iron hook that was commonly used on ladders used for scaling walls and boarding ships. The hook was used to keep the defenders from throwing the ladders off and was made of iron so that it was fire proof. Joe Is it a tektronix mini/micro? >-- >"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > > From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Mar 8 13:40:33 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 11:40:33 -0800 Subject: TENEX on emulator (simh?) Message-ID: <6AAA694A-EE68-4311-8A73-5A53C6BD3EAB@bitsavers.org> > If we're talking about the same thing, TENEX ran on a modified PDP-10. > It was a precursor to TOPS-10 (at least I think it was). That's what Ivan & Bert Sutherland said (it was Bert, I think) in a Computer History Museum video on google I watched the other day. --- google for "Dan Murphy" and "TENEX" for the history. Zane will probably pop up about this at some point as well. TENEX was developed at BBN to develop a more modern operating system for the original PDP-10 (KA-10) processor. It required special hardware to support demand paging (the BBN Pager Box) TOPS-10 was the original PDP-10 operating system. DEC hired Murphy later to modify TENEX for the third generation (KL-10) processor. This became TOPS-20. A couple of other variants of TENEX were developed as well; the one used on the PARC-devoped MAXC and the Foonly (called FOONEX) Docs for the BBN pager are scanned under bbn on bitsavers. From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Mar 8 13:43:30 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 11:43:30 -0800 Subject: FREE! Corvus Transporter stuff Message-ID: <36A7E853-0A09-4832-9D37-A2C118206D1E@bitsavers.org> > AFIK they (Corvus) never made computers. They most certainly did. That's who made the Corvus Concept and various OEMed 68k workstations. They also built x86 stuff near the end. There were a couple of generations of Omninet, the ones with the pin connector was the first More docs than you care about on this stuff on bitsavers under corvus. From frustum at pacbell.net Wed Mar 8 13:47:54 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 13:47:54 -0600 Subject: Sage II computer In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060307150352.2c5fd72a@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.16.20060307150352.2c5fd72a@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <440F34EA.1060501@pacbell.net> Joe R. wrote: > Hello Everybody, > > OK I finally got off my butt and took some pictures. Here's pictures of > everything that I have. > > Joe I've scanned a lot of Sage docs and I put them online, plus a few disk images. Most of the source material came from David Erhart. http://www.thebattles.net/sage/sage.html There are copies of the docs at a much more elaborate Sage site run by David Erhart: http://www.sageandstride.org/ From williams.dan at gmail.com Wed Mar 8 13:56:11 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 19:56:11 +0000 Subject: Vaxstations in London In-Reply-To: <003701c63fdb$5d1ff140$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> References: <26c11a640602210949v7db62ddo@mail.gmail.com> <003701c63fdb$5d1ff140$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <26c11a640603081156p4b4f5ed4p@mail.gmail.com> On 04/03/06, Jim Beacon wrote: > Hi Dan, > > thanks for the 300/76 - I have loaded VMS 7.3 on it, and it seems to work OK > (it may be even bettter when I figure out why I can't register the license > ...). > > If they are still available, could I trouble you for the other /76, the > BA42 expansion box and the /40? > > Thanks again > > Jim. yes i'll dig them out. What problem do you have with licenses ? I might be able to help. Dan From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 7 14:46:25 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 12:46:25 -0800 Subject: OT Tom Swift In-Reply-To: <200603071140.05169.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <003a01c6414e$93a3adf0$5b01a8c0@pc1> <200603061256580146.2D549B9B@10.0.0.252> <200603071140.05169.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <200603071246250981.32714F85@10.0.0.252> On 3/7/2006 at 11:40 AM Roy J. Tellason wrote: >I remember a number of those, still... One that's sort of special to me (but not reproduced on the web site) was titled "The Educated Nursing Bottle", which introduced me to the fascinating subject of nuclear magnetic resonance. More of a curiosity back then, but big business today. Cheers, Chuck From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Mar 8 14:32:18 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 12:32:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: TENEX on emulator (simh?) In-Reply-To: <6AAA694A-EE68-4311-8A73-5A53C6BD3EAB@bitsavers.org> from "Al Kossow" at Mar 08, 2006 11:40:33 AM Message-ID: <200603082032.k28KWJcw022887@onyx.spiritone.com> Al Kossow wrote: > Zane will probably pop up about this at some point as well. Only if you really insist :^) I don't think there is really anything I can add in this case. For everything PDP-10 related, my webpage is a good starting point: http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/pdp10emu.html It includes links to the TENEX related material Al has up on Bitsavers, and Dan Murphy's TENEX papers. Basically it has links to all PDP-10 materialon the Internet that I'm aware of. It should provide all the info needed to choose and emulator, and start running TOPS-10, TOPS-20, or ITS. While I'm at it, I might as well add, for DEC emulation, see the following page, there are links to each of the different architectures. http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/decemu.html And for a start of a basic page on Big Iron emulation: http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/bigironemu.html Zane From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Mar 8 14:32:37 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 15:32:37 -0500 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 08 Mar 2006 12:17:45 EST." <200603081717.k28HHjj5014774@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <200603082032.k28KWcF7009468@mwave.heeltoe.com> I hate to revive this, but I've never seen this info posted before. Can anyone who really knows (i.e. data, not opinion) comment on the quotes below? These are from a (more or less) private email list. "The best technology was developed by Mitsui and is now manufactured by MAM-A, referred to as "Archival Gold". It uses a gold / gold phthalocyanine process which does not oxidize and is more resistant to the plastic failure. They have done accelerated testing and advertise the product as being good for 300 years. NIST and some university labs have been doing comparative testing and there is some belief that the life will be well beyond that. You can get a spindle of 50 for about $100. A step down from this, Taiyo Yuden makes their "silver" quality. Taiyo Yuden developed the original recordable CD/DVD technology and has remained an industry leader. Their product is advertised as 100-year. Taiyo Yuden disks can be had for under 50 cents a disk, getting to be more like 35 cents. There's really no reason to buy the cheapie stuff any more." Clearly if this is true I'm switching to the silver ones and buying some gold ones too. But I am skeptical... (300 years does meet/exceed my archival goals :-) -brad From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Wed Mar 8 14:33:59 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 20:33:59 -0000 Subject: Vaxstations in London References: <26c11a640602210949v7db62ddo@mail.gmail.com><003701c63fdb$5d1ff140$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> <26c11a640603081156p4b4f5ed4p@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <00e501c642ef$a1742c00$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Hi Dan, > > yes i'll dig them out. Thanks! >What problem do you have with licenses ? I > might be able to help. I solved the license problem. I couldn't get the license data to load using the VMS license utility (using copy/paste intomy terminal window), either on SimH with VMS 6.2, or on the Vaxstation with VMS 7.3, both gave checksum errors. However, as a last resort, I copied all the information into a single line using LICENSE REGISTER with multiple switches, and it worked perfectly. I could then got into the license utility and enable the license. I have no idea why it won't work in the utility, but I got around it in the end. Regards Jim. From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 8 14:37:47 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 13:37:47 -0700 Subject: FREE! Corvus Transporter stuff In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 08 Mar 2006 13:30:22. <3.0.6.16.20060308133022.191fd34c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: In article <3.0.6.16.20060308133022.191fd34c at pop-server.cfl.rr.com>, "Joe R." writes: > I'm no expert on the stuff but from what I've seen Corvus was an OLD time > manufacturer of external hard drives and a primitive networks. I think they > called the network Omninet. Send me some money and I'll send you the box of > stuff and YOU can figure it out! :-) Yes, Corvus Omninet rings a bell. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Mar 8 14:46:36 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 15:46:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: WTD: IBM 5250 terminal In-Reply-To: <1141830772.440ef474b7167@webmail.secure-wi.com> Message-ID: > If you go with a dumb-head, get the oldest one you can. :-) My favorites are > the ancient all-in-one tubes that have the keyboard ringer. Of course! A cheap plastic terminal is just no fun. It is like people that do not use a Teletype with an early PDP-8. I like the early all-in-one types as well, but they only ones I have are a pair of the special little 3278s used as System/3 consoles. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Wed Mar 8 14:54:41 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 20:54:41 -0000 Subject: Vaxstations in London References: <26c11a640602210949v7db62ddo@mail.gmail.com><003701c63fdb$5d1ff140$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com><26c11a640603081156p4b4f5ed4p@mail.gmail.com> <00e501c642ef$a1742c00$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <000b01c642f2$87a08280$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Apologies to everyone, this should have been off-list :( Jim. From williams.dan at gmail.com Wed Mar 8 14:56:57 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 20:56:57 +0000 Subject: Vaxstations in London In-Reply-To: <00e501c642ef$a1742c00$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> References: <26c11a640602210949v7db62ddo@mail.gmail.com> <003701c63fdb$5d1ff140$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> <26c11a640603081156p4b4f5ed4p@mail.gmail.com> <00e501c642ef$a1742c00$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <26c11a640603081256j10ae9e5do@mail.gmail.com> On 08/03/06, Jim Beacon wrote: > Hi Dan, > > > > yes i'll dig them out. > > Thanks! > > >What problem do you have with licenses ? I > > might be able to help. > > > I solved the license problem. I couldn't get the license data to load using > the VMS license utility (using copy/paste intomy terminal window), either on > SimH with VMS 6.2, or on the Vaxstation with VMS 7.3, both gave checksum > errors. However, as a last resort, I copied all the information into a > single line using LICENSE REGISTER with multiple switches, and it worked > perfectly. I could then got into the license utility and enable the license. > > I have no idea why it won't work in the utility, but I got around it in the > end. > > Regards > > Jim. > > > In the utility you have to enter the date twice for start date and expiration. For some reason it ignores it on the command line. Dan From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Mar 8 14:58:00 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 12:58:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603082032.k28KWcF7009468@mwave.heeltoe.com> from "Brad Parker" at Mar 08, 2006 03:32:37 PM Message-ID: <200603082058.k28Kw0bI023419@onyx.spiritone.com> > I hate to revive this, but I've never seen this info posted before. > > Can anyone who really knows (i.e. data, not opinion) comment on the > quotes below? These are from a (more or less) private email list. > > "The best technology was developed by Mitsui and is now manufactured by > MAM-A, referred to as "Archival Gold". It uses a gold / gold I've been wondering about these as well. The perfect person to comment on this might be Tim Shoppa, I believe he did a lot of research into this a few years ago. Of course he might have a large enough stash of the original Kodak Gold CD-R's that he's not looked into recent blanks. I've sworn by Verbatium DataLifePlus blanks for nearly 10 years, but am a little nervous about the current ones after the last two on a spindle woudln't burn for me (one that was even older burned just fine). Zane From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 8 15:03:00 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 13:03:00 -0800 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603082032.k28KWcF7009468@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200603082032.k28KWcF7009468@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <200603081303000305.37A6D48F@10.0.0.252> On 3/8/2006 at 3:32 PM Brad Parker wrote: >I hate to revive this, but I've never seen this info posted before. > >Can anyone who really knows (i.e. data, not opinion) comment on the >quotes below? These are from a (more or less) private email list. [big snip]... I think the tests and articles in question are talking about the stability of the dyes used in the MAM-A (formerly Mitsui) CD-Rs. I'd be less optimistic about the stability of the polymers used for the disc substrate, but I'm probably not going to be around in 100 years to find out. Finding CD drives to read the blasted things in 100 years is going to be enough of a challenge. That being said, when we get a data conversion job, the results go out on MAM-A Gold discs and we've never had a complaint. Since the media is such a small part of the job cost, it's immaterial. 50 for $100 is a bit on the high end. We buy ours from one of the media wholesalers and pay less than $1.00 each in quantities of 100. We also get the PVC jewel cases for CDs that survive the rigors of shipping much better than do the styrene ones. Cheers, Chuck From williams.dan at gmail.com Wed Mar 8 15:05:09 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 21:05:09 +0000 Subject: Vaxstations in London In-Reply-To: <000b01c642f2$87a08280$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> References: <26c11a640602210949v7db62ddo@mail.gmail.com> <003701c63fdb$5d1ff140$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> <26c11a640603081156p4b4f5ed4p@mail.gmail.com> <00e501c642ef$a1742c00$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> <000b01c642f2$87a08280$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <26c11a640603081305t77d46b50t@mail.gmail.com> On 08/03/06, Jim Beacon wrote: > Apologies to everyone, this should have been off-list :( > > Jim. > > So should my reply Dan From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Mar 8 15:17:55 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 13:17:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603081303000305.37A6D48F@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Mar 08, 2006 01:03:00 PM Message-ID: <200603082117.k28LHtIT024031@onyx.spiritone.com> > I think the tests and articles in question are talking about the stability > of the dyes used in the MAM-A (formerly Mitsui) CD-Rs. I'd be less > optimistic about the stability of the polymers used for the disc substrate, > but I'm probably not going to be around in 100 years to find out. Finding > CD drives to read the blasted things in 100 years is going to be enough of > a challenge. I'm guessing that most of us aren't worried about finding a CD-ROM drive in 100 years, we're concerned with the media being readable when we finally get around to moving it to whatever will be the storage medium of choice at that point. I totally agree with the stability of the polymers, I'm more than a little concerned about the suitability of DVD-R's as a result. Does anyone know of "Archival Quality" DVD-R's? I'd be happy with something that's good for 50 years at this point :^) Zane From arcarlini at iee.org Wed Mar 8 15:21:01 2006 From: arcarlini at iee.org (a.carlini@ntlworld.com) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 21:21:01 -0000 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603082058.k28Kw0bI023419@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <005901c642f6$34665eb0$5b01a8c0@pc1> Zane H. Healy wrote: > I've sworn by Verbatium DataLifePlus blanks for nearly 10 years, but > am a little nervous about the current ones after the last two on a > spindle woudln't burn for me (one that was even older burned just > fine). They're not a problem. Neither are the ones that seemingly burn and verify OK but fail when you test them in a DVD-ROM drive. (I'm assuming that if you care enough to burn it to DVD-R, you'll do a minimal amount of testing at creation!). The problem ones are those that burn and test OK and then die later. So far I've only had one DVD-R go bad (that I know of) and two CD-Rs (ditto) but I've not gone back and re-tested a representative sample, I've just retrieved data and never found a dud other than those mentioned above. Naturally for data that I truly care about, I burn it twice. I'll gather some real data when the successor to DVD-R is firmly entrenched and I move data across from CD/DVD. Of course, the problem then will be longevity of the new media format. Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From tiziano.garuti at tin.it Wed Mar 8 16:00:50 2006 From: tiziano.garuti at tin.it (Tiziano) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 23:00:50 +0100 Subject: WTD: MPF-I/88 documentation References: <200603081800.k28I03ln089179@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <002401c642fb$c35240d0$0100a8c0@MILENA> Anyone can help me ? Thank you very much. Tiziano From dwight.elvey at amd.com Wed Mar 8 16:01:14 2006 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 14:01:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Programming 1702 EPROMs, ProLog Programmer question Message-ID: <200603082201.OAA30907@ca2h0430.amd.com> Hi I'm sure you mean 1702A or 1702B. The 1702 used a different programming algorithm! Dwight >From: "Joe R." > >Hi Serge, > > I was probably the one that asked the question! As you already know from >our direct E-mails I have a Prolog programmer and the plug-in for >programming the 1702s. I've been able to use it to copy 1702 EPROMs but I >haven't been able to read or alter the EPROM contents once they're in the >programmer's buffer therefore I haven't been able to alter the programming >in the 1702s. I don't know if I was doing something wrong or if the >programmer has a problem. Like you I was looking for a manual for the Model >900. I have the manual for the 980 but it doesn't help with this problem. > > Joe > > >At 06:01 PM 3/4/06 -0500, you wrote: >>Hi, >> >>Sorry to bother you, but I just saw a question you asked on classiccmp.org >>about programming a 1702 on a Prolog M900 machine. >> >>Did you ever get an answer or figured out how to make it work ? >> >>Cheers, >> >>Serge Roube >> >> > From ak6dn at mindspring.com Wed Mar 8 16:12:06 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 14:12:06 -0800 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: <43FF6BE1.3080309@mindspring.com> References: <200602241951.k1OJpgdg014288@mwave.heeltoe.com> <43FF6BE1.3080309@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <440F56B6.2070101@mindspring.com> Currently active on eBay: http://tinyurl.com/pstwm has to be seen to be believed. If it was from the *first printing* then I shudder to think of what the price would be :) * * From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Wed Mar 8 16:17:37 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 17:17:37 -0500 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603082032.k28KWcF7009468@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200603082032.k28KWcF7009468@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <20060308221737.492548C00AE@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Brad Parker wrote: > quotes below? These are from a (more or less) private email list. > > "The best technology was developed by Mitsui and is now manufactured by > MAM-A, referred to as "Archival Gold". It uses a gold / gold > phthalocyanine process which does not oxidize and is more resistant to > the plastic failure. They have done accelerated testing and advertise > the product as being good for 300 years. NIST and some university labs > have been doing comparative testing and there is some belief that the > life will be well beyond that. You can get a spindle of 50 for about > $100. > > A step down from this, Taiyo Yuden makes their "silver" quality. Taiyo > Yuden developed the original recordable CD/DVD technology and has > remained an industry leader. Their product is advertised as 100-year. > Taiyo Yuden disks can be had for under 50 cents a disk, getting to be > more like 35 cents. There's really no reason to buy the cheapie stuff > any more." > > > Clearly if this is true I'm switching to the silver ones and buying some > gold ones too. But I am skeptical... > > (300 years does meet/exceed my archival goals :-) I think from the prices and names used in the quoted text, that these comments are less than 3 years old. This is when Mitsui became MAM-A. Five and ten years ago, Kodak and a few Japanese companies also did gold disks. They left that business behind, I'm guessing the $ to be made were pretty small for what had become a "specialty" CD-R. No matter whether you get gold or silver or whatever, the biggest risk of all is scratching the top of the CD-R. The Kodak Gold had an extra coating on top which helped there. Even then the smart thing to do is put them in a good box. I'm going to speculate that in 20 years, CD-R readers are going to be somewhat specialty items, not too different than finding a vinyl record player today. Yeah, there's probably some store in town that has one or two. 100 years, that's a lot harder to guess. Media longevity is kinda irrelevant if your descendants throw it away because they don't know what it is or how to read it. (I'm 100% sure that most kids today don't know how to play a vinyl record... much less dial a rotary dial telephone!) It doesn't matter much that readers are available as long as everyone believes they aren't easy to find. In 100 years it'll be like a cylinder record. Yeah, my dad still has cylinder records and a player, as do museums. Tim. From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 8 17:18:50 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 17:18:50 Subject: HP Test Boards?? Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060308171850.217fb6aa@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Anybody know what these boards are for? They APPEAR to be for some kind of HP tape drive. Joe From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Mar 8 16:22:39 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 14:22:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: <440F56B6.2070101@mindspring.com> from "Don North" at Mar 08, 2006 02:12:06 PM Message-ID: <200603082222.k28MMdgv029247@onyx.spiritone.com> > Currently active on eBay: http://tinyurl.com/pstwm has to be seen to > be believed. > > If it was from the *first printing* then I shudder to think of what the > price would be :) I think I can come up with a copy for the low, low price of $180, but if it is a first addition I want $500. And yes, I'm serious, if someone wants to pay that much for a copy, who am I to deny them the joy of owning one :^) Zane From fireflyst at earthlink.net Wed Mar 8 16:23:21 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 16:23:21 -0600 Subject: 11/34a problems continue In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I just replaced that unit recently, so I really don't think it's at fault. I suppose it could be. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell > Sent: Friday, March 03, 2006 6:44 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: 11/34a problems continue > > > > > I forgot to note, I replaced the H745 module with a known > good one, > > it didn't help. > > I now suspect the +15V supply... It's produced by that PCB > under the mains transformer I think. I'll look in the prints. > > -tony > From dwight.elvey at amd.com Wed Mar 8 16:31:32 2006 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 14:31:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: archival cd-r - really true? Message-ID: <200603082231.OAA31699@ca2h0430.amd.com> >From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com ---snip--- > >In 100 years it'll be like a cylinder record. Yeah, my dad still >has cylinder records and a player, as do museums. > >Tim. Hi Cylinder reecords take a lot less technology to read than does a CD-R. I have a Amborola 30 to read mine. Dwight From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 8 17:26:01 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 17:26:01 Subject: Programming 1702 EPROMs, ProLog Programmer question In-Reply-To: <200603082201.OAA30907@ca2h0430.amd.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060308172601.191fae2e@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 02:01 PM 3/8/06 -0800, you wrote: >Hi > I'm sure you mean 1702A or 1702B. The 1702 used >a different programming algorithm! I wasn't aware of that. I just checked the programmer and the plugin in it says 1702A. IIRC the EPROMs that I was using were 1702As. I don't recall ever seeing any 1702Bs. I've probably seen 1702s but I can't say for certain. Joe >Dwight > > >>From: "Joe R." >> >>Hi Serge, >> >> I was probably the one that asked the question! As you already know from >>our direct E-mails I have a Prolog programmer and the plug-in for >>programming the 1702s. I've been able to use it to copy 1702 EPROMs but I >>haven't been able to read or alter the EPROM contents once they're in the >>programmer's buffer therefore I haven't been able to alter the programming >>in the 1702s. I don't know if I was doing something wrong or if the >>programmer has a problem. Like you I was looking for a manual for the Model >>900. I have the manual for the 980 but it doesn't help with this problem. >> >> Joe >> >> >>At 06:01 PM 3/4/06 -0500, you wrote: >>>Hi, >>> >>>Sorry to bother you, but I just saw a question you asked on classiccmp.org >>>about programming a 1702 on a Prolog M900 machine. >>> >>>Did you ever get an answer or figured out how to make it work ? >>> >>>Cheers, >>> >>>Serge Roube >>> >>> >> > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 8 17:33:06 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 17:33:06 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: <440F56B6.2070101@mindspring.com> References: <43FF6BE1.3080309@mindspring.com> <200602241951.k1OJpgdg014288@mwave.heeltoe.com> <43FF6BE1.3080309@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060308173306.115fab66@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> I have one. Is it THAT rare??? BTW The same seller has a HP NSC800 Inverse Assembler Tape. I wonder what system it's is for. It's one of the OLD style tapes and isn't that style used in the HP 64000 LDS, 9845, 9825, HP-85, etc. Joe At 02:12 PM 3/8/06 -0800, you wrote: >Currently active on eBay: http://tinyurl.com/pstwm has to be seen to >be believed. > >If it was from the *first printing* then I shudder to think of what the >price would be :) > >* > >* > From marvin at rain.org Wed Mar 8 16:37:57 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 14:37:57 -0800 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) Message-ID: <440F5CC5.F1ADCC7D@rain.org> All this is late model stuff :) compared to when DEC started and that begs the question; when did DEC first begin publishing their Small Computer Handbook and other such handbooks? The earliest I have is the 1967 Small Computer Handbook. > > Currently active on eBay: http://tinyurl.com/pstwm has to be seen to > > be believed. > > > > If it was from the *first printing* then I shudder to think of what the > > price would be :) > > I think I can come up with a copy for the low, low price of $180, but if it > is a first addition I want $500. > > And yes, I'm serious, if someone wants to pay that much for a copy, who am I > to deny them the joy of owning one :^) > > Zane From dwight.elvey at amd.com Wed Mar 8 16:42:48 2006 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 14:42:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Programming 1702 EPROMs, ProLog Programmer question Message-ID: <200603082242.OAA32047@ca2h0430.amd.com> Hi Joe 'Not many 1702's made. They are truely rare. 1702A's were by the milions. 1702B's were not made by Intel that had already stopped producing them by then. I think AMD was one of the manufactures of 1702B's. I have one someplace. I don't have a 1702 but I do have a 1602 that uses the same algorythm as the 1702 does. I can program 1702's with my sim4-01 setup but I'd need to change the code a little to match. There is a hardware switch as well. Dwight >From: "Joe R." > >At 02:01 PM 3/8/06 -0800, you wrote: >>Hi >> I'm sure you mean 1702A or 1702B. The 1702 used >>a different programming algorithm! > > I wasn't aware of that. I just checked the programmer and the plugin in >it says 1702A. IIRC the EPROMs that I was using were 1702As. I don't recall >ever seeing any 1702Bs. I've probably seen 1702s but I can't say for certain. > > Joe > > >>Dwight >> >> >>>From: "Joe R." >>> >>>Hi Serge, >>> >>> I was probably the one that asked the question! As you already know from >>>our direct E-mails I have a Prolog programmer and the plug-in for >>>programming the 1702s. I've been able to use it to copy 1702 EPROMs but I >>>haven't been able to read or alter the EPROM contents once they're in the >>>programmer's buffer therefore I haven't been able to alter the programming >>>in the 1702s. I don't know if I was doing something wrong or if the >>>programmer has a problem. Like you I was looking for a manual for the Model >>>900. I have the manual for the 980 but it doesn't help with this problem. >>> >>> Joe >>> >>> >>>At 06:01 PM 3/4/06 -0500, you wrote: >>>>Hi, >>>> >>>>Sorry to bother you, but I just saw a question you asked on classiccmp.org >>>>about programming a 1702 on a Prolog M900 machine. >>>> >>>>Did you ever get an answer or figured out how to make it work ? >>>> >>>>Cheers, >>>> >>>>Serge Roube >>>> >>>> >>> >> >> > From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Mar 8 16:52:21 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 14:52:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060308173306.115fab66@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> from "Joe R." at Mar 08, 2006 05:33:06 PM Message-ID: <200603082252.k28MqM1p032557@onyx.spiritone.com> > I have one. Is it THAT rare??? Define rare. I have several, from different years, and even with different bindings. But then my collection of DEC handbooks definitely isn't the norm. Zane From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Mar 8 16:53:46 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 14:53:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: <440F5CC5.F1ADCC7D@rain.org> from "Marvin Johnston" at Mar 08, 2006 02:37:57 PM Message-ID: <200603082253.k28Mrktn032655@onyx.spiritone.com> > All this is late model stuff :) compared to when DEC started and that > begs the question; when did DEC first begin publishing their Small > Computer Handbook and other such handbooks? The earliest I have is the > 1967 Small Computer Handbook. IIRC, that is the oldest in my collection is somewhere between '65 and '67. I think I've heard of them dating back to at least '63. Zane From wbblair3 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 8 16:54:29 2006 From: wbblair3 at yahoo.com (William Blair) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 14:54:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Needed: 1.2MB 5.25" internal floppy drive In-Reply-To: <200603082229.k28MThV5093150@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20060308225429.60561.qmail@web50512.mail.yahoo.com> If anyone has one of these to sell (preferably in beige), please contact me via email. Thanks. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Wed Mar 8 16:57:34 2006 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 14:57:34 -0800 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603082117.k28LHtIT024031@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200603081303000305.37A6D48F@10.0.0.252> <200603082117.k28LHtIT024031@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: I haven't seen the original post yet, and so haven't read the article in question. On 3/8/06, Zane H. Healy wrote: > I totally agree with the stability of the polymers, I'm more than a little > concerned about the suitability of DVD-R's as a result. Does anyone know of > "Archival Quality" DVD-R's? I'd be happy with something that's good for 50 > years at this point :^) MAM-A claims 100 year expected life for their "Gold Lacquer DVD-R". Only $322 for the minimum order of 200. (Although I guess you can find them 50 for $100). Eric From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Wed Mar 8 16:57:34 2006 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 14:57:34 -0800 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603082117.k28LHtIT024031@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200603081303000305.37A6D48F@10.0.0.252> <200603082117.k28LHtIT024031@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: I haven't seen the original post yet, and so haven't read the article in question. On 3/8/06, Zane H. Healy wrote: > I totally agree with the stability of the polymers, I'm more than a little > concerned about the suitability of DVD-R's as a result. Does anyone know of > "Archival Quality" DVD-R's? I'd be happy with something that's good for 50 > years at this point :^) MAM-A claims 100 year expected life for their "Gold Lacquer DVD-R". Only $322 for the minimum order of 200. (Although I guess you can find them 50 for $100). Eric From vrs at msn.com Wed Mar 8 16:58:58 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 14:58:58 -0800 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) References: <43FF6BE1.3080309@mindspring.com><200602241951.k1OJpgdg014288@mwave.heeltoe.com><43FF6BE1.3080309@mindspring.com> <3.0.6.16.20060308173306.115fab66@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: From: "Joe R." > >Currently active on eBay: http://tinyurl.com/pstwm has to be seen to > >be believed. > > I have one. Is it THAT rare??? I don't think so. I have multiple copies of several editions. On the other hand, I don't have *any* copies of the second edition :-). Vince From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Mar 8 17:06:40 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 15:06:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: Needed: 1.2MB 5.25" internal floppy drive In-Reply-To: <20060308225429.60561.qmail@web50512.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060308225429.60561.qmail@web50512.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 8 Mar 2006, William Blair wrote: > If anyone has one of these to sell (preferably in beige), please contact > me via email. These appear on Ebay all the time. Are you sure it's not a 360k drive you want? I don't have any on hand, but I'll be happy to broker a deal for you. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu From wbblair3 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 8 17:06:59 2006 From: wbblair3 at yahoo.com (William Blair) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 15:06:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: I guess I should have asked this before asking for a 5.25" floppy drive In-Reply-To: <200603082229.k28MThV5093150@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20060308230659.92498.qmail@web50507.mail.yahoo.com> Can Apple II disks be copied using a PC 5.25" drive and/or can downloaded images of Apple II system disks be written to a PC drive? I'd suspect that because of the unusual format of the Apple II floppies that special formatting/copying software would be required to do this. Does this software exist? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 8 17:59:41 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 17:59:41 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: <200603082252.k28MqM1p032557@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <3.0.6.16.20060308173306.115fab66@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060308175941.430f4496@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 02:52 PM 3/8/06 -0800, you wrote: >> I have one. Is it THAT rare??? > >Define rare. Worth $199 (starting price!!!) I have several, from different years, and even with different >bindings. But then my collection of DEC handbooks definitely isn't the >norm. > > Zane > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 8 18:08:05 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 18:08:05 Subject: Programming 1702 EPROMs, ProLog Programmer question In-Reply-To: <200603082242.OAA32047@ca2h0430.amd.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060308180805.430f083a@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 02:42 PM 3/8/06 -0800, you wrote: >Hi Joe > 'Not many 1702's made. They are truely rare. 1702A's were >by the milions. 1702B's were not made by Intel that had >already stopped producing them by then. I think AMD was >one of the manufactures of 1702B's. I have one someplace. > I don't have a 1702 but I do have a 1602 Chuckle! I had one to but Steve the chip collector HAD to have it. I probably sold it way too cheap ($20). I found it in a prototyping shop that was closing up about 2 years ago and I had to resurrect some long dead brain cells to remember what it was! I couldn't find a dammed thing about it online. Actually I think it's the ONLY one that I've ever seen. It's barely mentioned in my old Intel data books, I doubt Intel sold very many of them. I'll have to dig out my stash of 1702?s and see if I have any straight 1702s. Joe that uses the >same algorythm as the 1702 does. I can program 1702's >with my sim4-01 setup but I'd need to change the code >a little to match. There is a hardware switch as well. >Dwight > > >>From: "Joe R." >> >>At 02:01 PM 3/8/06 -0800, you wrote: >>>Hi >>> I'm sure you mean 1702A or 1702B. The 1702 used >>>a different programming algorithm! >> >> I wasn't aware of that. I just checked the programmer and the plugin in >>it says 1702A. IIRC the EPROMs that I was using were 1702As. I don't recall >>ever seeing any 1702Bs. I've probably seen 1702s but I can't say for certain. >> >> Joe >> >> >>>Dwight >>> >>> >>>>From: "Joe R." >>>> >>>>Hi Serge, >>>> >>>> I was probably the one that asked the question! As you already know from >>>>our direct E-mails I have a Prolog programmer and the plug-in for >>>>programming the 1702s. I've been able to use it to copy 1702 EPROMs but I >>>>haven't been able to read or alter the EPROM contents once they're in the >>>>programmer's buffer therefore I haven't been able to alter the programming >>>>in the 1702s. I don't know if I was doing something wrong or if the >>>>programmer has a problem. Like you I was looking for a manual for the Model >>>>900. I have the manual for the 980 but it doesn't help with this problem. >>>> >>>> Joe >>>> >>>> >>>>At 06:01 PM 3/4/06 -0500, you wrote: >>>>>Hi, >>>>> >>>>>Sorry to bother you, but I just saw a question you asked on classiccmp.org >>>>>about programming a 1702 on a Prolog M900 machine. >>>>> >>>>>Did you ever get an answer or figured out how to make it work ? >>>>> >>>>>Cheers, >>>>> >>>>>Serge Roube >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>> >>> >> > > From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 8 17:39:07 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 15:39:07 -0800 Subject: I guess I should have asked this before asking for a 5.25" floppy drive In-Reply-To: <20060308230659.92498.qmail@web50507.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060308230659.92498.qmail@web50507.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200603081539070889.3835C414@10.0.0.252> On 3/8/2006 at 3:06 PM William Blair wrote: >Can Apple II disks be copied using a PC 5.25" drive and/or can downloaded >images of Apple II system disks be written to a PC drive? I'd suspect that because of the >unusual format of the Apple II floppies that special formatting/copying software would be >required to do this. Does this software exist? Not written with plain old PC hardware, unless you count the lash-up using the PC parallel port. The more conventional way to do this is with a CopyIIPC option card, a Catweasel card or a MatchPoint card. Cheers, Chuck From acme_ent at bellsouth.net Wed Mar 8 17:38:46 2006 From: acme_ent at bellsouth.net (Glen Goodwin) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 18:38:46 -0500 Subject: OT Tom Swift In-Reply-To: <200603070957280723.31D6A141@10.0.0.252> References: <003a01c6414e$93a3adf0$5b01a8c0@pc1> <200603061256580146.2D549B9B@10.0.0.252> <200603071140.05169.rtellason@blazenet.net> <200603070957280723.31D6A141@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <440F6B06.2050900@bellsouth.net> The Radio-Electronics column was called "Mac's Repair Shop." I have a couple of copies from the mid '50s here. Talk about corn! Glen 0/0 Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3/7/2006 at 11:40 AM Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > >>>http://home.gwi.net/~jdebell/pe/cj/cnjindex.htm >> >>Cool! :-) >> >>I remember a number of those, still... >> > > > Didn't Radio-Electronics also have a regular fictional series about the > adventures of a repair-shop guy? This would be back around the time of > C&J. > > I also remember that Popular Science had a series called "The Model > Garage": http://www.gus-stories.org/index.htm > > Cheers, > Chuck > > > From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 8 17:50:44 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 16:50:44 -0700 Subject: CatWeasel card (was: I guess I should have asked this before asking for a 5.25" floppy drive) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 08 Mar 2006 15:39:07 -0800. <200603081539070889.3835C414@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603081539070889.3835C414 at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > Not written with plain old PC hardware, unless you count the lash-up using > the PC parallel port. The more conventional way to do this is with a > CopyIIPC option card, a Catweasel card or a MatchPoint card. If someone has a CatWeasel card they'd like to sell, I'd love one. They're not currently being made (despite that the web site says it would be available "Spring 2005") and I have need of one on a semi-regular basis! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From dholland at woh.rr.com Wed Mar 8 17:51:11 2006 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 18:51:11 -0500 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603082117.k28LHtIT024031@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200603082117.k28LHtIT024031@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <1141861872.491.11.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> On Wed, 2006-03-08 at 13:17 -0800, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > I totally agree with the stability of the polymers, I'm more than a little > concerned about the suitability of DVD-R's as a result. Does anyone know of > "Archival Quality" DVD-R's? I'd be happy with something that's good for 50 > years at this point :^) > > Zane I'd be curious about this too. I've been helping a friend of mine make home DVD video's of her kids and it has been a question we've both been asking. I don't expect 100yrs out of these, but 20 would be good. The "data" doesn't have any real monetary value, but it does have a great deal of "personal" value. There's lots of sites out there that'll discuss C1, C2, and PI errors off a fresh burn, but that doesn't mean much over time as the dye's break down. (afaict) David From tradde at excite.com Wed Mar 8 17:55:58 2006 From: tradde at excite.com (Tim) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 18:55:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: 11/34a problems continue Message-ID: <20060308235558.576E6109EAE@xprdmailfe1.nwk.excite.com> That's where my problem was for my 11/34a. --- On Wed 03/08, Julian Wolfe < fireflyst at earthlink.net > wrote: From: Julian Wolfe [mailto: fireflyst at earthlink.net] To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 16:23:21 -0600 Subject: RE: 11/34a problems continue I just replaced that unit recently, so I really don't think it's at fault. I suppose it could be. > -----Original Message-----> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell> Sent: Friday, March 03, 2006 6:44 PM> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: 11/34a problems continue> > > > > I forgot to note, I replaced the H745 module with a known > good one, > > it didn't help.> > I now suspect the +15V supply... It's produced by that PCB > under the mains transformer I think. I'll look in the prints.> > -tony> _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! From acme_ent at bellsouth.net Wed Mar 8 17:57:59 2006 From: acme_ent at bellsouth.net (Glen Goodwin) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 18:57:59 -0500 Subject: OT Tom Swift In-Reply-To: <200603081046560664.372A43A8@10.0.0.252> References: <440F1FD9.B561B4A2@rain.org> <200603081046560664.372A43A8@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <440F6F87.9020506@bellsouth.net> They also added a sense of "this is a boatload of corn" ;-) I read through a few of the old Radio & Television News mags just a couple of weeks ago. It was primarily geared toward the repair trade, which is interesting to me since I deal in TV repair parts. I've been considering scanning some of the old ads and using them on my Web site just for fun (pretty cool to see Kester solder advertised in the '50s since I sell the stuff today). But "Mac's Repair Shop" has to be one of THE corniest columns ever written. Hopefully anyone considering writing a modern-day column has better literary skills . . . Glen 0/0 Chuck Guzis wrote: > In the old days, the stories really did add a sense of "this is > an adventure" to the subject material. > > Cheers, > Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 8 18:02:38 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 16:02:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: I guess I should have asked this before asking for a 5.25" floppy drive In-Reply-To: <20060308230659.92498.qmail@web50507.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060308230659.92498.qmail@web50507.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060308160001.G87574@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 8 Mar 2006, William Blair wrote: > Can Apple II disks be copied using a PC 5.25" drive and/or can downloaded images of Apple II > system disks be written to a PC drive? I'd suspect that because of the unusual format of the > Apple II floppies that special formatting/copying software would be required to do this. Does > this software exist? It would require a very loose definition of "software". The NEC 765 FDC is not happy with GCR. Hardware solutions can be created. DSK2FDI Copy-II Option board Catweasel Matchpoint Apple Turnover -- Fred Cisin cisin at xenosoft.com XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com PO Box 1236 (510) 558-9366 Berkeley, CA 94701-1236 From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 8 18:22:09 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 00:22:09 +0000 (GMT) Subject: WTD: MPF-I/88 documentation In-Reply-To: <002401c642fb$c35240d0$0100a8c0@MILENA> from "Tiziano" at Mar 8, 6 11:00:50 pm Message-ID: > > Anyone can help me ? Yes and no.... I have it, but I also have the machine, so I am not going to give up the manuals. And I don't have a scanner. There are 3 books. One contains the schematics and general hardware data. Anotehr is a sort-of user manual, the monitor commands, etc. And the last is the commented source of the ROM monitor. Is there anything particularly that uou need me to look up? Incidnetally, does anybody have the Forth ROM for this machine? I'm looking for a dump of it. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 8 18:28:36 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 00:28:36 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 11/34a problems continue In-Reply-To: from "Julian Wolfe" at Mar 8, 6 04:23:21 pm Message-ID: > > I just replaced that unit recently, so I really don't think it's at fault. > I suppose it could be. Please stop guessing and start measuring! In other words, stop swapping modules at least until you have some idea as to where the fualt is. I've suggested the 15V supply is missing. I might be right, I might be wrong. What I meant by that suggestion was that if it was my machine, I would now stick a voltmeter on the 15V supply to the backplane and see if it was correct or not. If it was, I'd check it at the -15V brick too (been caught by bad connections too many times!). If it was right there, I'd delve into the brick. If it was missing at the backplane, I'd check back to the +15V regulator PCB, etc You've swapped out a couple of parts so far I believe. Do you have any reason to believe that the replacements are good? Only last week I had 3 disk drive spindle motors behave the same way (spin up, run for a few seconds, then stop), and I thought the problem was in how I was driving them. Not so, all 3 had much the same intenral fault!. These DEC power bricks can suffer from dried-up capacitors, that could well be a problem with your 'spare' unit too. The first stages of tracing this fault properly need nothing more than a multimeter. And I can't understand how anyone can hope to maintain a minicomputer without that instrument. -tony From fireflyst at earthlink.net Wed Mar 8 18:35:42 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 18:35:42 -0600 Subject: 11/34a problems continue In-Reply-To: <20060308235558.576E6109EAE@xprdmailfe1.nwk.excite.com> Message-ID: What was yours doing? > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tim > Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 5:56 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: RE: 11/34a problems continue > > > > That's where my problem was for my 11/34a. > > --- On Wed 03/08, Julian Wolfe < fireflyst at earthlink.net > wrote: > From: Julian Wolfe [mailto: fireflyst at earthlink.net] > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 16:23:21 -0600 > Subject: RE: 11/34a problems continue > > I just replaced that unit recently, so I really don't think > it's at fault. I suppose it could be. > > > -----Original Message-----> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony > Duell> Sent: > > Friday, March 03, 2006 6:44 PM> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: > > Re: 11/34a problems continue> > > > > I forgot to note, I replaced > > the H745 module with a known > good one, > > it didn't > help.> > I now > > suspect the +15V supply... It's produced by that PCB > > under the mains > > transformer I think. I'll look in the prints.> > -tony> > > _______________________________________________ > Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com > The most personalized portal on the Web! > > > From fireflyst at earthlink.net Wed Mar 8 18:40:06 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 18:40:06 -0600 Subject: 11/34a problems continue In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Well, actually the reason I replaced that particular module is because the board blew. I got a used replacement from the DEC salvage guy I usually deal with and it came back to life - sans the H745 coming up. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell > Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 6:29 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: 11/34a problems continue > > > > > I just replaced that unit recently, so I really don't think > it's at fault. > > I suppose it could be. > > Please stop guessing and start measuring! > > In other words, stop swapping modules at least until you have > some idea as to where the fualt is. I've suggested the 15V > supply is missing. I might be right, I might be wrong. What I > meant by that suggestion was that if it was my machine, I > would now stick a voltmeter on the 15V supply to the > backplane and see if it was correct or not. If it was, I'd > check it at the -15V brick too (been caught by bad > connections too many times!). If it was right there, I'd > delve into the brick. If it was missing at the backplane, I'd > check back to the +15V regulator PCB, etc > > You've swapped out a couple of parts so far I believe. Do you > have any reason to believe that the replacements are good? > Only last week I had 3 disk drive spindle motors behave the > same way (spin up, run for a few seconds, then stop), and I > thought the problem was in how I was driving them. Not so, > all 3 had much the same intenral fault!. These DEC power > bricks can suffer from dried-up capacitors, that could well > be a problem with your 'spare' unit too. > > The first stages of tracing this fault properly need nothing > more than a multimeter. And I can't understand how anyone can > hope to maintain a minicomputer without that instrument. > > -tony > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 8 18:56:24 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 00:56:24 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 11/34a problems continue In-Reply-To: from "Julian Wolfe" at Mar 8, 6 06:40:06 pm Message-ID: > > Well, actually the reason I replaced that particular module is because the > board blew. I got a used replacement from the DEC salvage guy I usually What do you mean 'the board blew'? Did the magic smoke come out (if so, out of what?). Was there a hole burnt through the board, melted traces? FWIW, unless the board was actually burnt, I think it would be repairable. I once did something very silly to a H754 brick with the result that 4 transsitors blew apart, one ressitor totally burnt up, etc. And that brick is working again now. And the +15V board is actually very simple. It's a linear regulator... > deal with and it came back to life - sans the H745 coming up. > I will ask you once more. Have you done any actual electrical tests on this PSU? -tony From tradde at excite.com Wed Mar 8 18:59:18 2006 From: tradde at excite.com (Tim) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 19:59:18 -0500 (EST) Subject: 11/34a problems continue Message-ID: <20060309005918.A308B7E450@xprdmxin.myway.com> I don't remember which was missing, either +15v or -15v. It was a long time ago. I removed the one brick and checked that. Checked everything I could. Someone suggested it was probably in the PCB where the power switch is. I removed it, but because of the way it's installed it was hard to check. I happened to have a second one handy so tried it and it worked. It's been running fine since then. --- On Wed 03/08, Julian Wolfe < fireflyst at earthlink.net > wrote: From: Julian Wolfe [mailto: fireflyst at earthlink.net] To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 18:35:42 -0600 Subject: RE: 11/34a problems continue What was yours doing? > -----Original Message-----> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tim> Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 5:56 PM> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: RE: 11/34a problems continue> > > > That's where my problem was for my 11/34a. > > --- On Wed 03/08, Julian Wolfe < fireflyst at earthlink.net > wrote:> From: Julian Wolfe [mailto: fireflyst at earthlink.net]> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org> Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 16:23:21 -0600> Subject: RE: 11/34a problems continue> > I just replaced that unit recently, so I really don't think > it's at fault. I suppose it could be. > > > -----Original Message-----> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony > Duell> Sent: > > Friday, March 03, 2006 6:44 PM> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: > > Re: 11/34a problems continue> > > > > I forgot to note, I replaced > > the H745 module with a known > good one, > > it didn't > help.> > I now > > suspect the +15V supply... It's produced by that PCB > > under the mains > > transformer I think. I'll look in the prints.> > -tony>> > _______________________________________________> Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com> The most personalized portal on the Web!> > > _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 8 19:06:06 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 17:06:06 -0800 Subject: OT Tom Swift In-Reply-To: <440F6F87.9020506@bellsouth.net> References: <440F1FD9.B561B4A2@rain.org> <200603081046560664.372A43A8@10.0.0.252> <440F6F87.9020506@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <200603081706060391.3885640A@10.0.0.252> On 3/8/2006 at 6:57 PM Glen Goodwin wrote: >But "Mac's Repair Shop" has to be one of THE corniest >columns ever written. Hopefully anyone considering >writing a modern-day column has better literary skills . . . That probably explains why I don't recall any of the "Mac" stories--just that there was such a column. Cheers, Chuck From tradde at excite.com Wed Mar 8 19:30:05 2006 From: tradde at excite.com (Tim) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 20:30:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) Message-ID: <20060309013005.43E84BB49B@xprdmailfe25.nwk.excite.com> I sent the seller a message wishing him luck selling it at that price. And asked him why he thought that price was justified. Here is is snide and rude answer: ====== Hey PDPTIM, you do this all the time, just because you really need these parts and books to go with the PDP-8 systems that you sell. The truth is you are a bottom dweller who has been unable to win a single PDP item on ebay. you keep trying but your bids are always way too low and you've tried this trick on me before and you probably do it to others as well. Get a life. ======= As far as I know I have never had any dealings with him either via eBay or e-mail. What an ass. --- On Wed 03/08, Joe R. < rigdonj at cfl.rr.com > wrote: From: Joe R. [mailto: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com] To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 17:59:41 Subject: Re: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) At 02:52 PM 3/8/06 -0800, you wrote:>> I have one. Is it THAT rare??? >>Define rare. Worth $199 (starting price!!!) I have several, from different years, and even with different>bindings. But then my collection of DEC handbooks definitely isn't the>norm.>> Zane> _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 8 20:17:42 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 19:17:42 -0700 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 08 Mar 2006 20:30:05 -0500. <20060309013005.43E84BB49B@xprdmailfe25.nwk.excite.com> Message-ID: [story of high price asswipe exchange](*) LOL. I have a standing interest in anything "Evans & Sutherland", since I used to work there and I have a computer graphics fetish :-). So I setup a standing E&S search on ebay. Most of the time it turns up commodity E&S PCI/AGP accelerator cards -- I'd bite, but they are always sans manual, sans driver media and sans packaging, or they are ridiculously high like $100 for an outdated video card w/out any of those ephemera. At any rate, something finally shows up on ebay that isn't such a card. It was a pair of input devices: keyboard and dials box. They look like they were for a PS300 or PS390. However, they were just the input devices without the associated terminal. These devices aren't really usable with anything else, at least not without some reverse engineering (the keyboard is custom with LED labels above the function keys!). Also, I already have a dials box, so its not like these are "first of" items for me. The seller offered them for $45 "buy it now" or "best offer" (plus $25 shipping on each item). I asked the seller if he would combine for shipping and he said he would drop off some unspecified amount from the total if I won both items. Well, ok, that's kinda vague but at least its hopeful. However, I thought $45 was a bit high for items of limited utility and obscurity. Noone else made offers. I offered $30 on each, which I thought was a fair offer for these devices. My offer was rejected, with a counter offer of $80 for the pair. Gee, a whole ten dollars less than the original offer price. Both items expired with no purchase and no other offers. Now, that's certainly their right to hold out for more money if they think that's the right price, but I think it was pretty clear that there was no market interest in these items aside from myself. Now maybe he will offer them on ebay again at a lower price with the "best offer" again. If that happens, I will probably offer $20 each as a best offer. Maybe they won't be offered again at all. While I have an interest in E&S items, I also have to be realistic about what I'm willing to pay for something just because it has the E&S logo on it. I know one of you out there has a PS390 :-) and I recently learned that a collector here in Salt Lake rescued a PS300 from the scrap heap. So the things I *really* want (the actual display peripherals) are still out there in limited quantities, but I'm not going to pay through the nose for an *untested* *asis* keyboard and dials box. I have a Megatek dials box and an E&S dials box. The Megatek was offered in a similar state on ebay (untested, as-is), but for the entirely reasonable price of $28. (I think I had to outbid someone to get it as $28 is an odd number, or that might include shipping.) Anyways, like the other ebay thread the other day, some people have funny ideas about what things are worth, both buyers and sellers. I'm willing to bet that some people who stumble upon old computers at estate sales are surprised how much they fetch on ebay. (*) I should say though that its generally considered bad form to have someone's private email quoted in a public forum without their permission. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Mar 8 20:18:46 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 21:18:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <20060308221737.492548C00AE@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: > In 100 years it'll be like a cylinder record. Yeah, my dad still > has cylinder records and a player, as do museums. Lots of collectors as well. They are not all that uncommon in working condition. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Mar 8 20:25:21 2006 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 18:25:21 -0800 Subject: OT Tom Swift References: <440F1FD9.B561B4A2@rain.org> Message-ID: <440F9210.DD8C4F@cs.ubc.ca> Marvin Johnston wrote: > > Also, wasn't Radio & Television News the predecessor of > Radio-Electronics Magazine? IIRC: - Hugo Gernsback started publishing "Radio News" in the 1920s or 30s, - "Radio News" became "Radio & Television News" around the late 40s, - "Radio & Television News" became "Radio Electronics" around the late 50s or early 60s (I could find the transition dates but don't have them at hand) From rcini at optonline.net Wed Mar 8 21:08:27 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 22:08:27 -0500 Subject: Disk head pad alternatives Message-ID: <003c01c64326$bc596030$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: On one of my 8" SSSD drives I noticed that the pressure pad on the arm opposite of the disk head is worn and making marks on the disk media. What can be used to replace this pad? Thanks. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ /************************************************************/ From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 8 22:23:53 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 22:23:53 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: <20060309013005.43E84BB49B@xprdmailfe25.nwk.excite.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060308222353.3cf72e7c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> What an ass! I'd say that kills any chance that anyone on this list will bid on it! I'll be sure make note of his id and be sure NOT to bid on anything that he offers! Joe At 08:30 PM 3/8/06 -0500, you wrote: > > >I sent the seller a message wishing him luck selling it at that >price. And asked him why he thought that price was justified. >Here is is snide and rude answer: >====== >Hey PDPTIM, you do this all the time, just because you really need these parts and books to go with the PDP-8 systems that you sell. The truth is you are a bottom dweller who has been unable to win a single PDP item on ebay. you keep trying but your bids are always way too low and you've tried this trick on me before and you probably do it to others as well. Get a life. >======= >As far as I know I have never had any dealings with him either >via eBay or e-mail. What an ass. > > --- On Wed 03/08, Joe R. < rigdonj at cfl.rr.com > wrote: >From: Joe R. [mailto: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com] >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 17:59:41 >Subject: Re: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) > >At 02:52 PM 3/8/06 -0800, you wrote:>> I have one. Is it THAT rare??? >>Define rare. Worth $199 (starting price!!!) I have several, from different years, and even with different>bindings. But then my collection of DEC handbooks definitely isn't the>norm.>> Zane> > >_______________________________________________ >Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com >The most personalized portal on the Web! > > From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Mar 8 21:32:56 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 21:32:56 -0600 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060308222353.3cf72e7c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.16.20060308222353.3cf72e7c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <440FA1E8.9030605@mdrconsult.com> Joe R. wrote: > What an ass! I'd say that kills any chance that anyone on this list will > bid on it! I'll be sure make note of his id and be sure NOT to bid on > anything that he offers! But, isn't that collusion? ;^) Doc From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 8 22:01:53 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 20:01:53 -0800 Subject: Disk head pad alternatives In-Reply-To: <003c01c64326$bc596030$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <003c01c64326$bc596030$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <200603082001530728.392652EE@10.0.0.252> On 3/8/2006 at 10:08 PM Richard A. Cini wrote: > On one of my 8" SSSD drives I noticed that the pressure pad on >the arm opposite of the disk head is worn and making marks on the disk >media. What can be used to replace this pad? Got a music store in town that also has an instrument repair guy? Chances are that he's got a bunch of very nice felt in the form of pads of various thicknesses and shapes. If he's a nice guy, you might get one for the asking. Some crafts stores also carry felt, but rarely in anything but rather thin form. Otherwise, how about the tip of a billiard cue? :) Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 8 22:03:52 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 20:03:52 -0800 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: <20060309013005.43E84BB49B@xprdmailfe25.nwk.excite.com> References: <20060309013005.43E84BB49B@xprdmailfe25.nwk.excite.com> Message-ID: <200603082003520003.392820EC@10.0.0.252> I don't even know what the rules are for "best offer". I placed a "best offer" on an item and was refused, only to see that another bidder with EXACTLY THE SAME OFFER was accepted an hour later. There's so much room for abuse in that medium that I don't even bother to play anymore. Cheers, Chuck From mokuba at gmail.com Wed Mar 8 22:32:35 2006 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary Sparkes) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 23:32:35 -0500 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <20060308221737.492548C00AE@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: On 3/8/06 5:17 PM, "Tim Shoppa" wrote: > Brad Parker wrote: > I'm going to speculate that in 20 years, CD-R readers are going > to be somewhat specialty items, not too different than finding a > vinyl record player today. Yeah, there's probably some store > in town that has one or two. 100 years, that's a lot harder to > guess. Media longevity is kinda irrelevant if your descendants > throw it away because they don't know what it is or how to read > it. (I'm 100% sure that most kids today don't know how to play > a vinyl record... much less dial a rotary dial telephone!) It > doesn't matter much that readers are available as long as everyone > believes they aren't easy to find. I can do both! Can I get a cookie over here? =] :D From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 8 22:33:17 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 21:33:17 -0700 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 08 Mar 2006 20:03:52 -0800. <200603082003520003.392820EC@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603082003520003.392820EC at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > I don't even know what the rules are for "best offer". As far as I know, the only rules are: - If its an auction item, then the first "best offer" is the only one that counts and it becomes the bidding price (which means the auction can end below your initial auction price) - If its a "buy it now" item, they can refuse your offer for any reason, including "I don't like you". > There's so much room for abuse in that medium that I don't even bother to > play anymore. I'm not sure if you're referring to ebay as a whole or just the "best offer" thing. The way I figure it, if I wanted to pay $45 each for the kbd and dials box, I would have done "buy it now". When I see a BIN item with a "best offer" option, to me that implies that the seller figures that their price might be a little bit high. Otherwise, why give people the option of offering less than your BIN price? In the end, it was silly for him because by refusing my offer he went from 2/3rds what he was asking to 0/3rds of what he was asking. So he didn't sell it. Unless his whole point was NOT to sell it by listing it (which seems weird, but you never know), then it seems to me that he lost out. As I say, this is pretty fringe stuff, not many people have an interest in it and even fewer have a use for it! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Wed Mar 8 22:48:20 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 20:48:20 -0800 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: <440FA1E8.9030605@mdrconsult.com> References: <3.0.6.16.20060308222353.3cf72e7c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <440FA1E8.9030605@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <440FB394.3020103@msm.umr.edu> Doc Shipley wrote: > Joe R. wrote: > >> What an ass! I'd say that kills any chance that anyone on this list >> will >> bid on it! I'll be sure make note of his id and be sure NOT to bid on >> anything that he offers! > > > But, isn't that collusion? > > ;^) > > > Doc > > Actually collusion is when Joe R would say, let's minimize the proceeds of this auction by bidding and restricting our bidding to one bidder. This is no different than someone in the back of a real live auction, or a silent auction commenting to another potential bidder, "hope the ahole eats this, and no one bids, hope you dont" or such. I am sure that comments like that go on all the time, and there'd be little one can do about them, other than not pissing off the bidders in the first place. you cant say theres a problem if people dont buy something at an auction, but you can say theres a problem if the bidding is rigged to throw the result. I hope going to an auction doesnt require me to buy something, or telling someone else they're wasting their money, or in this case patronizeing an undesirable character, so save it is a problem. jim From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 8 22:57:28 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 20:57:28 -0800 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603082057280897.39593669@10.0.0.252> n 3/8/2006 at 9:33 PM Richard wrote: > - If its an auction item, then the first "best offer" is the only > one that counts and it becomes the bidding price (which means the > auction can end below your initial auction price) In this case, it was a piccolo. Asking price was 2250, I offered 1800. No response for days until the last hour or so, where I'd been notified that my offer had been refused, but that an offer placed the last day had been accepted--for 1800. Was this legit according eBay rules? Apparently so--what I was told was that the seller is not bound to accept the highest offer--he can elect to take any of the offers that he chooses. Heck if I want to play in that pool. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 8 23:52:15 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 21:52:15 -0800 Subject: Canon X07 on Ebay France Message-ID: <200603082152150995.398B5E20@10.0.0.252> Perhaps of interest to the HHC crowd? http://tinyurl.com/o6l3z From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Mar 8 23:50:34 2006 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 21:50:34 -0800 Subject: Programming 1702 EPROMs, ProLog Programmer question References: <3.0.6.16.20060308132054.191f6428@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <440FC224.309D2467@cs.ubc.ca> "Joe R." wrote: > > Hi Serge, > > I was probably the one that asked the question! As you already know from > our direct E-mails I have a Prolog programmer and the plug-in for > programming the 1702s. I've been able to use it to copy 1702 EPROMs but I > haven't been able to read or alter the EPROM contents once they're in the > programmer's buffer therefore I haven't been able to alter the programming > in the 1702s. I don't know if I was doing something wrong or if the > programmer has a problem. Like you I was looking for a manual for the Model > 900. I have the manual for the 980 but it doesn't help with this problem. > > Joe > > At 06:01 PM 3/4/06 -0500, you wrote: > >Hi, > > > >Sorry to bother you, but I just saw a question you asked on classiccmp.org > >about programming a 1702 on a Prolog M900 machine. > > > >Did you ever get an answer or figured out how to make it work ? > > > >Cheers, > > > >Serge Roube I have the Prolog M900B and manual. ANAICF the M900B is the M900 with the "Buffer option". (The big white silkscreened model number on my M900B still says M900, so if your's has a buffer then it probably is a M900B.) I don't have a scanner here but can look into scanning the manual sometime, just don't hold your breath. In the meantime I'm happy to attempt to answer some questions about it's operation. The user interface /is/ rather awkward. Note there are a lot of options, mostly with regards to various communication interfaces (parallel/TTY/RS232/flow control/baud rates). Some of the installed options may be listed inside the plug-in compartment, but if you want a reliable list you have to look inside the case as to what is installed in the 14 sockets for the 1702 firmware EPROMs (it's a 4004 running the show). (If you make a list I should be able to tell you what you have. Mine has the RS232 option and I have managed to transfer data to/from a computer.) From arcarlini at iee.org Thu Mar 9 01:25:42 2006 From: arcarlini at iee.org (a.carlini@ntlworld.com) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 07:25:42 -0000 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <1141861872.491.11.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> Message-ID: <008101c6434a$adb5c6d0$5b01a8c0@pc1> David Holland wrote: > There's lots of sites out there that'll discuss C1, C2, and PI errors > off a fresh burn, but that doesn't mean much over time as the dye's > break down. (afaict) Even if the MAM-A ones are good for 100 years, perhaps you've just burnt those precious memories to a dud that will fail within a few years. So you have to make multiple copies and check them on whatever regular basis seems reasonable to you. Keep one copy somewhere else so that you can cope with life's usual daily disasters (fire, flood, theft, kids with a scouring pad...) Keep the original media too - belt and braces! Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From henk.gooijen at oce.com Thu Mar 9 01:42:00 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 08:42:00 +0100 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE0668154B@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Some people don't have any decency at all. Perhaps somebody else, better versed in English than I (me?), could wite him something like: "I was tempted to open the bid at $199, but then I noticed the discoloration by the sun of the spine of the book. The spine should have the same color as the cover. I know that this color turns blue if exposed (long enough) by sunlight. I don't consider *this* book in "very good condition" as you describe in the auction. Thanks, I pass." :-) - Henk. > I sent the seller a message wishing him luck selling it at > that price. And asked him why he thought that price was justified. > Here is is snide and rude answer: > ====== > Hey PDPTIM, you do this all the time, just because you really > need these parts and books to go with the PDP-8 systems that > you sell. The truth is you are a bottom dweller who has been > unable to win a single PDP item on ebay. you keep trying but > your bids are always way too low and you've tried this trick > on me before and you probably do it to others as well. Get a life. > ======= > As far as I know I have never had any dealings with him > either via eBay or e-mail. What an ass. > > --- On Wed 03/08, Joe R. < rigdonj at cfl.rr.com > wrote: > From: Joe R. [mailto: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com] > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2006 17:59:41 > Subject: Re: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) > > At 02:52 PM 3/8/06 -0800, you wrote:>> I have one. Is it > THAT rare??? >>Define rare. Worth $199 (starting price!!!) > I have several, from different years, and even with > different>bindings. But then my collection of DEC handbooks > definitely isn't the>norm.>> Zane> This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From henk.gooijen at oce.com Thu Mar 9 01:47:59 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 08:47:59 +0100 Subject: TENEX on emulator (simh?) Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE0668154C@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Hah, still a good thing that you replied Zane! That last URL was new to me ... but then again, it is quite a new page. Thanks! If I get the 2113E or 2117F console panel working with the Blinklight board set and SIMH, I will let you know! Thanks for mentioning me on the pdp8 page :-) - Henk, PA8PDP. > Al Kossow wrote: > > Zane will probably pop up about this at some point as well. > > Only if you really insist :^) I don't think there is really > anything I can add in this case. > > For everything PDP-10 related, my webpage is a good starting point: > http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/pdp10emu.html > It includes links to the TENEX related material Al has up on > Bitsavers, and Dan Murphy's TENEX papers. Basically it has > links to all PDP-10 materialon the Internet that I'm aware > of. It should provide all the info needed to choose and > emulator, and start running TOPS-10, TOPS-20, or ITS. > > While I'm at it, I might as well add, for DEC emulation, see > the following page, there are links to each of the different > architectures. > http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/decemu.html > > And for a start of a basic page on Big Iron emulation: > http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/bigironemu.html > > Zane This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Mar 9 01:51:33 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 23:51:33 -0800 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <20060308221737.492548C00AE@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <200603082032.k28KWcF7009468@mwave.heeltoe.com> <20060308221737.492548C00AE@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: At 5:17 PM -0500 3/8/06, Tim Shoppa wrote: >I'm going to speculate that in 20 years, CD-R readers are going >to be somewhat specialty items, not too different than finding a >vinyl record player today. Yeah, there's probably some store >in town that has one or two. 100 years, that's a lot harder to Let's see, I can name 5 stores locally off the top of my head that sell turntables. Ranging from the cheap $100 Sony's at Best Buy, to well past the Rega P3 I'm using. In the last two months I've purchased two current Album's on vinyl, and can't remember when or what the last CD I purchased was :^) Oh, and I've purchased about 14 albums on vinyl in the last week, just not current music. :^) >guess. Media longevity is kinda irrelevant if your descendants >throw it away because they don't know what it is or how to read >it. (I'm 100% sure that most kids today don't know how to play >a vinyl record... much less dial a rotary dial telephone!) It >doesn't matter much that readers are available as long as everyone >believes they aren't easy to find. I've got to agree here, using your own examples, most people find it hard to believe that Vinyl is booming, sales are actually up, while sales of CD's, SA-CD's and DVD-A are all down. >In 100 years it'll be like a cylinder record. Yeah, my dad still >has cylinder records and a player, as do museums. Would you believe that you can still buy at least new model of player for Cylinder records. It isn't cheap, but it is available. All this tells me that there is a good chance you'll at least be able to get new CD-Players for music in 100 years if the disks are still readable. CD-ROM drives seem more than a little less likely. 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 Thu Mar 9 01:54:29 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 23:54:29 -0800 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 9:18 PM -0500 3/8/06, William Donzelli wrote: > > In 100 years it'll be like a cylinder record. Yeah, my dad still >> has cylinder records and a player, as do museums. > >Lots of collectors as well. They are not all that uncommon in working >condition. It's also possible to get at least some parts for them. A few years ago, I bought my Dad a horn and 3 cylinders as a gift, and then snuck into the attic and got down his player, and got it cleaned up and working. Still need to find him a belt, I had to use some rubber bands :^( 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 Thu Mar 9 02:04:27 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 00:04:27 -0800 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <008101c6434a$adb5c6d0$5b01a8c0@pc1> References: <008101c6434a$adb5c6d0$5b01a8c0@pc1> Message-ID: <200603090004270616.3A0463C8@10.0.0.252> On 3/9/2006 at 7:25 AM a.carlini at ntlworld.com wrote: >[SNIP]... Keep one >copy somewhere else so that you can cope with life's usual >daily disasters (fire, flood, theft, kids with a scouring pad...) You forgot my favorite--a microwave oven! Cheers, Chuck From henk.gooijen at oce.com Thu Mar 9 02:07:31 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 09:07:31 +0100 Subject: 11/34a problems continue Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE0668154D@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> If something "blew", there must be a major 'problem' somewhere else! Did you find out why the board "blew"? Tip on power supplies (in the 11/34): check the rectifier bridge. Often (for what's "often" worth) a diode inside is open circuit, thus the full-wave sine is used just for one half. I agree with Tony. You must do several simple voltage measurements at the power supply, distribution panel, connectors, sockets, etc. Basically everything a connection "meets" from the PSU to the backplane. Don't forget the wire itself! - Henk. > What do you mean 'the board blew'? Did the magic smoke come > out (if so, out of what?). Was there a hole burnt through the > board, melted traces? > > FWIW, unless the board was actually burnt, I think it would > be repairable. I once did something very silly to a H754 > brick with the result that 4 transsitors blew apart, one > ressitor totally burnt up, etc. > And that brick is working again now. > > And the +15V board is actually very simple. It's a linear regulator... > > > deal with and it came back to life - sans the H745 coming up. > > > > I will ask you once more. Have you done any actual electrical > tests on this PSU? > > -tony This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 9 02:13:58 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 01:13:58 -0700 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 08 Mar 2006 20:57:28 -0800. <200603082057280897.39593669@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603082057280897.39593669 at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > Was this legit according eBay rules? Yep. As I say, with "make best offer", they have the discretion of refusing your offer for any reason that suits their whim, whatever it may be. The only thing is that if its an auction format and you outbid the "best offer", then you're supposed to win, or if its a BIN format and you do BIN instead of best offer, then you're supposed to win. In this case it sounds like two equal competing best offers and they didn't pick yours. Annoying, but not against the rules. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From williams.dan at gmail.com Thu Mar 9 04:54:45 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 10:54:45 +0000 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: <440F56B6.2070101@mindspring.com> References: <200602241951.k1OJpgdg014288@mwave.heeltoe.com> <43FF6BE1.3080309@mindspring.com> <440F56B6.2070101@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <26c11a640603090254w13208c7dg@mail.gmail.com> I don't know if anyone has looked at the other auctions, he has 14" wyse monitors for ?135. The second edition of that book is only ?49. Also there are some S100 bits fdc,cpu for only ?25. The prices seem all over the place. Dan From brad at heeltoe.com Thu Mar 9 06:01:14 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 07:01:14 -0500 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 08 Mar 2006 23:32:35 EST." Message-ID: <200603091201.k29C1Egs018039@mwave.heeltoe.com> >> Media longevity is kinda irrelevant if your descendants >> throw it away because they don't know what it is or how to read >> it. Just to be clear, this comment (and other like it) missed my point. My concern is that things I record now on cd-r might not last even 5-10 years. My primary concern is the next 5-10 years. Maybe 20 at the outside. I just want media that won't degrade in *my* lifetime. I've read things which suggest that audio cd's won't last even 5 years if exposed to sunlight and that's a little scarey (for me) because cd-r's seem to be more fragile than audio cd's (but perhaps that's not true). Anyway, can anyone confirm that the gold and silver CD-R's are much much better and will last a long long time? (where long is > 10 years) -brad From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Mar 9 06:41:34 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 12:41:34 +0000 Subject: "Electronics and Computing" mag, September 1985 Message-ID: <4410227E.1080002@yahoo.co.uk> Anyone have a copy and can scan part 2 of the article on the Dragon 6809 coprocessor for the BBC micro which should be in there? I've got the August copy that has the first part of the article but haven't seen the second part that's supposed to be in the following month... ta Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Mar 9 06:44:11 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 12:44:11 +0000 Subject: Sequent Balance 8000 / Dynix Message-ID: <4410231B.20101@yahoo.co.uk> Long shot, but does anyone have system install media for one? Have been talking to someone who may have unearthed one of the machines (multi-processor Natsemi 32016's - 'rah!) but it sounds like the OS install tapes were vapourised years ago... (although in theory it still has intact disks - no idea if they'll be any good or not) cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Mar 9 06:57:43 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 12:57:43 +0000 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603091201.k29C1Egs018039@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200603091201.k29C1Egs018039@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <44102647.2020901@yahoo.co.uk> Brad Parker wrote: > Anyway, can anyone confirm that the gold and silver CD-R's are much much > better and will last a long long time? Dunno. I had some stuff on one of the old Kodak gold CDs and all the gold started falling off about 5 years ago :-) Personally I wouldn't use any flavour of CD technology for anything. cheers Jules From tshoppa at wmata.com Thu Mar 9 08:07:10 2006 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 09:07:10 -0500 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? Message-ID: > My primary concern is the next 5-10 years. Maybe 20 at the outside. I > just want media that won't degrade in *my* lifetime. The biggest risks you're looking at are losing the CD or getting the top scratched. Be careful labeling it (realistically get a good box and label the box instead, this also helps with "don't lose it" and "don't scratch it"). Check readability after you write. The Mitsui/MAM-A gold's are just fine. As are (probably) the cheap things you buy at the corner drugstore. Tim. From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Mar 9 08:14:25 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 06:14:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: turntables was Re: archival cd-r In-Reply-To: from "Zane H. Healy" at "Mar 8, 6 11:51:33 pm" Message-ID: <200603091414.GAA20184@floodgap.com> > >I'm going to speculate that in 20 years, CD-R readers are going > >to be somewhat specialty items, not too different than finding a > >vinyl record player today. Yeah, there's probably some store > >in town that has one or two. 100 years, that's a lot harder to > > Let's see, I can name 5 stores locally off the top of my head that > sell turntables. I even saw a USB turntable (!) in the last issue of MacAddict for digitizing yer LPs. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- And now for something completely different. -- Monty Python ---------------- From williams.dan at gmail.com Thu Mar 9 08:30:25 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 14:30:25 +0000 Subject: OT laser printer question Message-ID: <26c11a640603090630m72f11fb6p@mail.gmail.com> I have got a laserjet 4/MV which produces really grainy printouts. I have put a new Toner in and it seems the same. Anyone know where I can go from here ? Am I expecting too much from it, should a pure black picture print black ? thanks Dan From lcourtney at mvista.com Thu Mar 9 09:10:21 2006 From: lcourtney at mvista.com (Lee Courtney) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 07:10:21 -0800 Subject: TENEX on emulator (simh?) In-Reply-To: <200603081717.k28HHjj5014774@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <006601c6438b$9637c3f0$c901a8c0@mvista.com> A good place to start learning about Tenex is Dan Murphy's page at http://www.opost.com/dlm/tenex/ > It was a precursor to TOPS-10 (at least I think it was). Ancestor of TOPS-20. Dan's page has a great history and motivations for developing a new OS on the DECSystem-10 architecture. Lee Courtney > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Brad Parker > Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 9:18 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: TENEX on emulator (simh?) > > > "Wai-Sun Chia" wrote: > >Hello, > >I''ve heard a bit on TENEX, and I'd like to explore it > further, and so > >I was wondering as to whether TENEX is available on any emulators > >(simh)? > > > >Does it run on any pdp11 class systems? Unibus or Qbus? (I have a > >11/44 and a 11/83) > > If we're talking about the same thing, TENEX ran on a modified PDP-10. > It was a precursor to TOPS-10 (at least I think it was). > > If you could find a tape image it might run on one of the > many pdp-10 emulators, but I think it wants some special > paging hardware BBN created and this might not be emulated. > > I've never seen any TENEX images. > > Most folks seem to run TOPS-20 and ITS on the pdp-10 > emulators. You might be happier with those and there are > plenty of tape & disk images. > > -brad > From curt at atarimuseum.com Thu Mar 9 09:21:14 2006 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt - Atari Museum) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 10:21:14 -0500 Subject: OT laser printer question In-Reply-To: <26c11a640603090630m72f11fb6p@mail.gmail.com> References: <26c11a640603090630m72f11fb6p@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <441047EA.9020009@atarimuseum.com> When you say grainy printouts, is the actual text on the paper rough feeling or do you mean the actual image of for instance the letter A doesn't look solid, but looks like its done in a Draft Mode? If its the physical letters on the paper, if they are lumpy or if they are smearing if touched then your High Voltage power supply board is starting to fail. If its the actual look of the letters, they look draft mode, it could be a setting of the printer, just the preferences - advanced settings to see what the default mode is, set it back to normal, also check the RET setting as well. If the settings look correct, try doing a text printout from the control panel directly on the printer to rule out an OS issue. If the printout still looks poor, it is possible that the laser assembly may be going and usually it is recommended to replace the HV power supply board as well if you replace the laser assembly. Curt Dan Williams wrote: > I have got a laserjet 4/MV which produces really grainy printouts. I > have put a new Toner in and it seems the same. Anyone know where I can > go from here ? > Am I expecting too much from it, should a pure black picture print black ? > > thanks > Dan > > > From allain at panix.com Thu Mar 9 09:24:26 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 10:24:26 -0500 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? References: <200603081303000305.37A6D48F@10.0.0.252><200603082117.k28LHtIT024031@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <060b01c6438d$abab0740$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Looks like the list has decided that MAM-A's are the best archival meduim available. If somebody knows better, please speak up. $1.50/ea seems cheap when compared to retail gold CR-R's when they were available. Just because the retail stores seem to have given up on selling quality, dooesn't mean I have to give up looking for it. John A. From waisun.chia at gmail.com Thu Mar 9 09:54:59 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 23:54:59 +0800 Subject: IBM 8" floppy model 9331-011 vs. DEC RX01/02? Message-ID: Pardon my ignorance but, is it possible to interface the IBM 8" floppy model 9331-011 to any DEC PDPs? Specifically, can it be used to replace the RX01/02 floppies? Or must there be major hardware reconstructive surgery performed? From williams.dan at gmail.com Thu Mar 9 10:28:41 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 16:28:41 +0000 Subject: OT laser printer question In-Reply-To: <441047EA.9020009@atarimuseum.com> References: <26c11a640603090630m72f11fb6p@mail.gmail.com> <441047EA.9020009@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <26c11a640603090828n3bed578bk@mail.gmail.com> Text is fine, it is black graphic images that are not coming out black. There are thin white lines through it Dan From doc at mdrconsult.com Thu Mar 9 10:47:35 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 10:47:35 -0600 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <060b01c6438d$abab0740$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> References: <200603081303000305.37A6D48F@10.0.0.252><200603082117.k28LHtIT024031@onyx.spiritone.com> <060b01c6438d$abab0740$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <44105C27.7030502@mdrconsult.com> John Allain wrote: > Looks like the list has decided that MAM-A's are the best archival > meduim available. > > If somebody knows better, please speak up. $1.50/ea seems cheap > when compared to retail gold CR-R's when they were available. I'm not sure this will be a popular view, but *nothing* is a good archival medium if it isn't maintained. I and several other listmembers have done a lot of transcription for entities - mostly University of Texas in my case - who scrupulously archived, double-archived, and preserved critical data. Then at some point they scrapped the hardware needed to access their prescious tapes. Or lost the backup/restore application used to make the archives. Or, or, or.... My real-world job is for a company who specializes in data management and data protection, and we put it to our clients as an axiom. All archived data needs to be tested and migrated on a frequent (3-5 years max) basis. I've never seen anything on CC that implies we should follow any different principle. My point is that in no case should you rely on the quality of your medium to preserve historical data, and which meium and which format you use should be (within reason) a matter of current convenience and accessibility. You'll be migrating it before that medium is obsolete or likely to expire. Nothing says you can't keep the original sets and the original equipment and tools, but that information should frequently be copied to whatever your environment currently handles. I have a lot of DOS and UNIX OS and applications stored as original media and as "dd", Teledisk and Winimage backups on 4mm DDS1 tape. I'll be keeping all that, but I'm also migrating it all to ImageDisk, dd, and mktape sets on DLT-IV and DVDR. Doc From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 9 10:51:00 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 09:51:00 -0700 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 09 Mar 2006 07:01:14 -0500. <200603091201.k29C1Egs018039@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: In article <200603091201.k29C1Egs018039 at mwave.heeltoe.com>, Brad Parker writes: > My concern is that things I record now on cd-r might not last even 5-10 > years. I'm skeptical when someone says that CD-Rs won't last, because as you mention with sunlight, how the disc is stored and treated is probably just as important, if not more, than the media itself. For instance, film can last a really long time if stored properly (although certain stock varieties "fade to purple" and things like that), but can deteriorate rapidly if stored improperly. I have CD-Rs that I burned probably 10 years ago that are still fine. Its not a scientific sampling, but they aren't kept on the dashboard of a car, either. Does anyone know of any kind of scientific study of media lifetimes and not just something that was repeated on the reuters news wire as a bit of fear mongering? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 9 10:52:34 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 09:52:34 -0700 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 09 Mar 2006 12:57:43 +0000. <44102647.2020901@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: In article <44102647.2020901 at yahoo.co.uk>, Jules Richardson writes: > Personally I wouldn't use any flavour of CD technology for anything. What would you use, then? Some people recommend 9-track or other magnetic media (like hard drives) because the magnetic domains are supposedly more stable than CD-R pits. I just haven't seen anything more than "a friend told me" variety stories, though. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From arcarlini at iee.org Thu Mar 9 11:11:44 2006 From: arcarlini at iee.org (a.carlini@ntlworld.com) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 17:11:44 -0000 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <003d01c6439c$8be7a0d0$5b01a8c0@pc1> Richard wrote: >Does anyone know of any kind of scientific study NIST did a study into archiving on CD-R. I thought it cropped up here as recently as last year. Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Mar 9 11:15:17 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 17:15:17 +0000 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <441062A5.2090305@yahoo.co.uk> Richard wrote: > In article <44102647.2020901 at yahoo.co.uk>, > Jules Richardson writes: > >> Personally I wouldn't use any flavour of CD technology for anything. > > What would you use, then? Some people recommend 9-track or other > magnetic media (like hard drives) because the magnetic domains are > supposedly more stable than CD-R pits. I just haven't seen anything > more than "a friend told me" variety stories, though. I tend to use both hard disk and tape (DLT these days, DAT tapes seem reliable enough, but I got fed up with the drives going bad on me). The thing that bugs me about CDs is that I've seen so many incompatibilities between media and drives - I wouldn't want to get x years down the line and find that the discs that I wrote on long-dead hardware refuse to read on whatever hardware I can lay my hands on at the time. Sure, you can test discs in a few different machines - but the incompatibility rate is just too high to give me peace of mind. I've never had that problem with disks and tape drives - a tape written on one system will work happily in a drive on another from a totally different vendor IME, or a disk will happily plug into a SCSI bus on a different machine and work etc. [1] [1] Actually, I did have a problem a few months back where a Quantum disk refused to share a SCSI bus with a Seagate drive until I'd patched its firmware - but in a data restore scenario I *could* have put it on its own SCSI bus if I absolutely had to. I've just been reliving CD horrors these last few days actually, so it's something of a sore point at the moment - as I avoid CDs as much as possible I hadn't used either of my two burners in several years, but needed to burn a CD to boot on a floppy-less laptop. *both* of my burners seem to have died whilst in storage, and a borrowed laptop with a burner on it refused to burn CDs that would work in anything other than a select number of machines regardless of media tried (needless to say, it refused to write a disk that would work in the laptop I absolutely *needed* it to work in!). Luckily I sourced a couple of SCSI burners that were being thrown out locally, and one of those has done the job quite happily :) Still, served to remind me just why I don't like the darn things... I suppose if the data is critical, small enough in size, and the media is available at sufficient quality, go for the coarsest grain media you can get - e.g. 9 track or floppies, say. At least that way if something *does* happen there's more chance you can get the data off the media using recovery tools. cheers Jules From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 9 11:12:41 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 09:12:41 -0800 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603090912410626.3BFA5001@10.0.0.252> On 3/9/2006 at 9:52 AM Richard wrote: >What would you use, then? Some people recommend 9-track or other >magnetic media (like hard drives) because the magnetic domains are >supposedly more stable than CD-R pits. I just haven't seen anything >more than "a friend told me" variety stories, though. Doc's right--use whatever is a reliable medium for 3-5 years, then copy. Keep a few generations around. When I look back over the archives that I've kept of my own work, the only thing that's survived more than 20 years has been 8" floppies. I've got other archives on DC-600, DC-1000, DC-6150, DC-6250, DDS-2, 8mm (exabyte), DLT, Bernoulli, Sparq, various types of 5.25" and 3.5" disks and maybe even the odd DC-2000 or two. I haven't tried the DC tapes in awhile--they may be okay, but the 8" floppies come through at close to 100%. I've lost CD-Rs simply by dropping them and having them roll under a desk (dirt on the floor will do a number on a CD-R (or CD) if the thing gets dragged across the floor. Recently, I archived my old GCR-encoded 5.25" 980K diskettes. While I still have some 100 tpi drives kicking around, they've gone to the realm of "deteriorating"and "very hard to find". Burned files and images onto CD-R. I intend to re-burn 5-10 years from now on whatever the popular medium is. I've sometimes wondered if the DC-1000 media would still read. I've still got the drive and probably could find the software and a machine (probably an old XT would do--certainly nothing much faster than that); but there's no point to it--I've carried the important stuff along with me for some time now. Copy, then recopy. The only real solution. Cheers, Chuck From doc at mdrconsult.com Thu Mar 9 11:40:19 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 11:40:19 -0600 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603090912410626.3BFA5001@10.0.0.252> References: <200603090912410626.3BFA5001@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44106883.9080501@mdrconsult.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > through at close to 100%. I've lost CD-Rs simply by dropping them and > having them roll under a desk (dirt on the floor will do a number on a CD-R > (or CD) if the thing gets dragged across the floor. I found an interesting tidbit a couple of weeks ago: http://www.burningissues.net/how_to/scratchrepair/scratchrepair.htm and http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/scratches.html Both recommend plain ol' Brasso as the best available CD repair. The burningissues page even used some pretty good metrics for comparison. (Chuck, I expect you know all the following; I'm just tossing it in here 'cause I'm lazy) I haven't done as much with damaged data CDs as with "odd" format CDs, but I've found that Linux and NetBSD have *far* fewer issues with burned media vs reader issues than Windows or MacOS. I regularly use disks burned in Linux (on *cheap* media) in RRD42s on VAX, old 68K Macs with 300i drives, etc. I think a lot of the "CD reader" issues are really "CD writing software" issues. A lot of CD-copy software will insist that all the world's ISO9660 unlss you beat it up first. Even dd won't produce a bootable image in some formats unless you tweak the blocksize. (AIX v. and IRIX v6.5 come to mind) Do some research on the format you're copying and the software you're using, life gets much smoother. On data CDs, setting dd to a stupidly small blocksize can help recover files off a damaged or funky disk. I've gotten all the data off a CD using "dd ... bs=1" that I couldn't get trying to read the files directly. It took a while. ;) Doc From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 9 12:06:22 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 10:06:22 -0800 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <44106883.9080501@mdrconsult.com> References: <200603090912410626.3BFA5001@10.0.0.252> <44106883.9080501@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <200603091006220848.3C2B76E7@10.0.0.252> On 3/9/2006 at 11:40 AM Doc Shipley wrote: > Both recommend plain ol' Brasso as the best available CD repair. The >burningissues page even used some pretty good metrics for comparison. In this case, the CD-R fell "jelly side down" (i.e., the top of the CD got scratched through to such an extent that I could see daylight through it). I've wondered if simply using a CD label might avoid the problem--if the adhesives in the label backing didn't attack the CD-R itself after a few years... I suppose that what bothers me most about the CD-ROM format is its insistence on using the "spiral groove" audio recording layout. While this makes for nice mass production, I'dve much rather had CD-ROMs recorded in concentric rings of data like a floppy. At least that way, one could seek to a given track without worrying about what came before it. On most CD-ROM drives that I know of, if the inner tracks are damaged, the CD won't even load. That the same approach is now being used on DVDs doesn't make me rest any easier. Cheers, Chuck From dholland at woh.rr.com Thu Mar 9 12:12:27 2006 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 13:12:27 -0500 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <003d01c6439c$8be7a0d0$5b01a8c0@pc1> References: <003d01c6439c$8be7a0d0$5b01a8c0@pc1> Message-ID: <1141927948.14230.3.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> On Thu, 2006-03-09 at 17:11 +0000, a.carlini at ntlworld.com wrote: > Richard wrote: > >Does anyone know of any kind of scientific study > > NIST did a study into archiving on CD-R. I thought > it cropped up here as recently as last year. > > Antonio http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/carefordisc/index.html I believe that's the link your referring to.. David From doc at mdrconsult.com Thu Mar 9 12:19:01 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 12:19:01 -0600 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603091006220848.3C2B76E7@10.0.0.252> References: <200603090912410626.3BFA5001@10.0.0.252> <44106883.9080501@mdrconsult.com> <200603091006220848.3C2B76E7@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44107195.6020003@mdrconsult.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3/9/2006 at 11:40 AM Doc Shipley wrote: > > >> Both recommend plain ol' Brasso as the best available CD repair. The >>burningissues page even used some pretty good metrics for comparison. > > > In this case, the CD-R fell "jelly side down" (i.e., the top of the CD got > scratched through to such an extent that I could see daylight through it). > I've wondered if simply using a CD label might avoid the problem--if the > adhesives in the label backing didn't attack the CD-R itself after a few > years... Yeah, scratching the optical layer off is pretty much the end of the story. I hate labels, though. They might protect the disk, but there's no way to get them on perfectly balanced and that trashes readers in a hurry. > I suppose that what bothers me most about the CD-ROM format is its > insistence on using the "spiral groove" audio recording layout. While this > makes for nice mass production, I'dve much rather had CD-ROMs recorded in > concentric rings of data like a floppy. At least that way, one could seek > to a given track without worrying about what came before it. On most > CD-ROM drives that I know of, if the inner tracks are damaged, the CD won't > even load. Hmmm. I hadn't really looked at it in that light, but you're right. Still, "cheap and fast". I can afford to make two of everything, and I do. At least. In the DR business they say that not trusting your media is the first part of making it trustworthy. Doc From tshoppa at wmata.com Thu Mar 9 12:19:03 2006 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 13:19:03 -0500 Subject: IBM 8" floppy model 9331-011 vs. DEC RX01/02? Message-ID: > Pardon my ignorance but, is it possible to interface the IBM 8" > floppy model 9331-011 to any DEC PDPs? Specifically, can it be used > to replace the RX01/02 floppies? Nowhere in the interfaces does the IBM unit have the same interface as the DEC RX01/02 unit. Well, maybe at the 120VAC plug :-). If you want to replace a DEC RX01/02 with something else, there were a bazillion RX01/RX02 clones made with their own Q-bus/ Unibus/Omnibus interfaces. Again, not the same as the serial bus between the bus interface and the DEC drives, but actually far more generic. Usually the clones use very standard Shugart 801 type interfaces somewhere along the way. Some have a Q-bus or Unibus card that has the 50-pin floppy bus on a header connector. Others have their own serial-type bus and a "formatter" card at the drive that turns that into the Shugart floppy bus. There were probably 20 different manufacturers of 8" floppy drives using the 50-pin Shugart bus. Maybe, just maybe, the head load pads in the IBM drive will work in a DEC RX02 :-). Tim. From mamcfadden at cmh.edu Thu Mar 9 12:18:56 2006 From: mamcfadden at cmh.edu (McFadden, Mike, A) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 12:18:56 -0600 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? (pointers to references) Message-ID: Re: archival cd-r - really true? Here are some studies that may provide references. http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/gipwog/StabilityStudy.pdf http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/gipwog/Public%20SP%20500-263%20November%2 02005.pdf ***** An aside **** I have been scanning 50 year old slides and they are coming out great except for some dust particles. I have been saving both huge TIFF images and reduced versions that are JPEG's. I have created multiple copies on DVD and CD for all the kids, aunts and uncles. I also have 85 year old negatives of family pictures to eventually scan. I also still keep the originals, the digital copies are easier to display. Mike From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 9 12:52:11 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 11:52:11 -0700 Subject: Display model # for HP 1351A? Message-ID: What is the model number of the HP XY display that goes with the 1351A graphics generator? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From arcarlini at iee.org Thu Mar 9 13:02:04 2006 From: arcarlini at iee.org (a.carlini@ntlworld.com) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 19:02:04 -0000 Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: <440FB394.3020103@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <005001c643ab$f58bb440$5b01a8c0@pc1> jim stephens wrote: > Actually collusion is when Joe R would say, let's minimize the > proceeds of this auction by bidding and restricting our bidding to > one bidder. If I find a second copy of my Introduction To Programming I'll put it up at a starting price of say ?250 and you lot will be quite welcome to collude as long as at least one of you bids on it :-) Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 9 13:07:45 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 12:07:45 -0700 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 09 Mar 2006 13:12:27 -0500. <1141927948.14230.3.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> Message-ID: In article <1141927948.14230.3.camel at crusader.localdomain.home>, David Holland writes: > http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/carefordisc/index.html Unfortunately this report really says nothing specific about how long media can be expected to last. All they say is that manufacturers claim that prerecorded (i.e. silver pressings) CDs and DVDs should last 5 years. For anything else they define deteriorating characteristics and environments but don't say anything about how long things should last. There is good information about archival storage conditions, but no information about how long you should expect things to last without having to reburn them. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 9 13:13:45 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 11:13:45 -0800 Subject: Brief mention of S-100 bus in EDN Message-ID: <200603091113450211.3C692562@10.0.0.252> Tiny feature article in EDN online about S-100 bus: http://tinyurl.com/eclyo From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Mar 9 13:52:08 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 11:52:08 -0800 Subject: S-100 Article Message-ID: Nice photo - short article on S-100. http://www.edn.com/contents/images/6309129.pdf From brad at heeltoe.com Thu Mar 9 14:08:45 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 15:08:45 -0500 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? (pointers to references) In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 09 Mar 2006 12:18:56 CST." Message-ID: <200603092008.k29K8jV7032713@mwave.heeltoe.com> "McFadden, Mike, A" wrote: ... >I have been scanning 50 year old slides and they are coming out great >except for some dust particles. I have been saving both huge TIFF >images and reduced versions that are JPEG's. Can I ask what type of scanner you are using and if you are happy with it? I'd love to find something which was auto loading, but that's probably a pipe dream. -brad From bill_mcdermith at yahoo.com Thu Mar 9 14:51:14 2006 From: bill_mcdermith at yahoo.com (Bill McDermith) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 13:51:14 -0700 Subject: Display model # for HP 1351A? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44109542.5040201@yahoo.com> Richard wrote: > What is the model number of the HP XY display that goes with the 1351A > graphics generator? > You can put most any vector hp display on it, and they came in several sizes... Most had 13xx part numbers. The service manual on bitsavers mentions the HP1311B display for testing the unit... You could even drive X-Y scope inputs if you can set the channel 1 and 2 to 50ohm impedance... Bill From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 9 14:35:13 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 20:35:13 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-) In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Mar 8, 6 07:17:42 pm Message-ID: > At any rate, something finally shows up on ebay that isn't such a > card. It was a pair of input devices: keyboard and dials box. They > look like they were for a PS300 or PS390. However, they were just the > input devices without the associated terminal. These devices aren't > really usable with anything else, at least not without some reverse > engineering (the keyboard is custom with LED labels above the function They really are beautiful. A pair of HP1414 displays to label each function key (or knob on the twiddlebox). >From what I remember there are no custom chips inside the keyboard or twiddlebox, althoguh there is some kind of microcontroller or microprocessor + EPROM/ The link back to the host looked to be an ansynchronous serial link. It should be _possible_ to work it out (how I'd love a hardware tech manual for the PS390...) > I know one of you out there has a PS390 :-) and I recently learned I assuem that's mine... > Anyways, like the other ebay thread the other day, some people have > funny ideas about what things are worth, both buyers and sellers. I'm Well, in the latter category, somebody on e-bay UK this morning was offering a DEC DRV11-J card (I assume some kind of parallel interface) with an opening bid of \pounds 525.00. Maybe that's a good buy if you have one in a process control system and need a spare (although to be honest it would be cheaper to employ me to fix your existing one), but anyway... In the former category, there can be many reasons why somebody _really_ wants something. If (as has happeneed to me) you've spent 20 years looking for some obscure device and one appears on E-bay, you probably would put in a fairly high bid for it. > willing to bet that some people who stumble upon old computers at > estate sales are surprised how much they fetch on ebay. I'm constantly suprised by how much some machines fetch, machines that I personally don't think much of.... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 9 14:38:07 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 20:38:07 +0000 (GMT) Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: from "William Donzelli" at Mar 8, 6 09:18:46 pm Message-ID: > > > In 100 years it'll be like a cylinder record. Yeah, my dad still > > has cylinder records and a player, as do museums. > > Lots of collectors as well. They are not all that uncommon in working > condition. As I've said several times before, I think I could make a cylinder player (or a disk-type reocrd player) from scratch in my workshop. I doubt I could do the same for a CD or DVD of any type. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 9 14:58:37 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 20:58:37 +0000 (GMT) Subject: OT laser printer question In-Reply-To: <441047EA.9020009@atarimuseum.com> from "Curt - Atari Museum" at Mar 9, 6 10:21:14 am Message-ID: > If its the physical letters on the paper, if they are lumpy or if they > are smearing if touched then your High Voltage power supply board is > starting to fail. Can you be a little more specific? What is the _real_ cause of the problem? Intuitively, if the toner smears when touched, I'd assume it wasn't being fused properly, and would investigate the fuser and its control system first. How does a problem with the HV supply cause this fault? Getting back to the HV system, I know that in my SX (and I think in the CX before it) printer, there's an AC 'ripple' applied to the high voltage on the toner reservoir that causes the toner to come on and off the drum slightly, and thus improve the evenness of distribution. Maybe if that was malfunctioning it would cause this sort of problem. Alas I only have (my own) schematics and notes for the CX and SX engines, nothing later, so I can't really comment. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 9 15:09:11 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 21:09:11 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 11/34a problems continue In-Reply-To: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE0668154D@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> from "Gooijen, Henk" at Mar 9, 6 09:07:31 am Message-ID: > > If something "blew", there must be a major 'problem' somewhere > else! Did you find out why the board "blew"? I've not even started my normal rant about board-swapping (rather than repair) yet.... Anyway, I do feel that it is somewhat foolish to replace a part -- any part -- withoug a clear idea of what the problem is. You might be looking in totally the wrong area,. or the part might be being damaged by a fault elsewhere... The initial fault, IIRC, was that the lamp on the -15V regulator brick wasn't lit. Now that doesn't even mean that the -15V rail is missing (the lampe might have blown). I can think of many reasons why that lamp might not light, including : The lamp itself has burnt out The -15V rail is missing due to a fault in the reuglator brick The -15V rail is missing due to a shrot-circuit in on of the loads on that rail (e.g. a serial card) The input to the -15V regulator is missing due to a bad connection, open-circuit transformer secondary winding, whatever The +15V supply to the -15V regualtor is missing due to a fault on that regulator board The +15V input is missing due to a bad connection/broken wire between the +15V board and the -15V brick The +15V rail is missng due to a short in one of the loads on that rail (e.g. a serial card) The +15V rail is missing because the input to that regulator is missing (brocken connection, open-circuit transformer secondary, etc) It is pointless, IMHO, to go any further unless you know where to look, and that means doing tests to eliminate some or all of those posibilities. When you know where the fault is (e.g. you know the +15V rail is misisng, you know the inputs to that board are OK, and the load doesn't seem to be a dead short), then you can look at the next level down and find, e.g. an open-circuit power transistor. The best advice I was ever given for faultfinding (and it applies to everything, not just classic computers) was 'Measure, think, then repair'. Make measrurements and gather evidence. Think about what those measurements are telling you (it may then be necessary to make more measurements..). Then, and only them, start replacing components. This may not be the modern way to repair things, but it's not let me down yet (which is more than I can say about some other 'methods'). -tony From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 9 16:59:46 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 15:59:46 -0700 Subject: Display model # for HP 1351A? In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 09 Mar 2006 13:51:14 -0700. <44109542.5040201@yahoo.com> Message-ID: In article <44109542.5040201 at yahoo.com>, Bill McDermith writes: > Richard wrote: > > What is the model number of the HP XY display that goes with the 1351A > > graphics generator? > > > You can put most any vector hp display on it, and they came in several > sizes... > Most had 13xx part numbers. The service manual on bitsavers mentions > the HP1311B display for testing the unit... What's the model of the one that's in the picture on the front of the manual? What's the one that HP would sell you if you bought the unit from them and a suitable X-Y display at the same time? I know any X-Y display will work, but I want to look for the one that was "natural" for the unit. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From fireflyst at earthlink.net Thu Mar 9 18:06:24 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 18:06:24 -0600 Subject: 11/34a problems continue In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Well, I can tell you I am throughly confused when it comes to measuring this particular power supply system with a multimeter. I *did* do some measuring a few months ago on this, and could not for the life of me get a reading off of the backplane, nor the power distribution board. However, the only response I got was the light going out on the H7441 when I tried to measure the +15V line that was, AFAIK, working properly. I even traced down which black was the ground for what, if it mattered, and made sure I used that to measure. I'll repeat the measuring process this weekend, and write up a very detailed status report here of my findings. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell > Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2006 3:09 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: 11/34a problems continue > > > > > If something "blew", there must be a major 'problem' > somewhere else! > > Did you find out why the board "blew"? > > I've not even started my normal rant about board-swapping (rather than > repair) yet.... > > Anyway, I do feel that it is somewhat foolish to replace a > part -- any part -- withoug a clear idea of what the problem > is. You might be looking in totally the wrong area,. or the > part might be being damaged by a fault elsewhere... > > The initial fault, IIRC, was that the lamp on the -15V > regulator brick wasn't lit. Now that doesn't even mean that > the -15V rail is missing (the lampe might have blown). I can > think of many reasons why that lamp might not light, including : > > The lamp itself has burnt out > > The -15V rail is missing due to a fault in the reuglator brick > > The -15V rail is missing due to a shrot-circuit in on of the > loads on that rail (e.g. a serial card) > > The input to the -15V regulator is missing due to a bad > connection, open-circuit transformer secondary winding, whatever > > The +15V supply to the -15V regualtor is missing due to a > fault on that regulator board > > The +15V input is missing due to a bad connection/broken wire > between the > +15V board and the -15V brick > > The +15V rail is missng due to a short in one of the loads on > that rail (e.g. a serial card) > > The +15V rail is missing because the input to that regulator > is missing (brocken connection, open-circuit transformer > secondary, etc) > > It is pointless, IMHO, to go any further unless you know > where to look, and that means doing tests to eliminate some > or all of those posibilities. When you know where the fault > is (e.g. you know the +15V rail is misisng, you know the > inputs to that board are OK, and the load doesn't seem to be > a dead short), then you can look at the next level down and > find, e.g. an open-circuit power transistor. > > The best advice I was ever given for faultfinding (and it > applies to everything, not just classic computers) was > 'Measure, think, then repair'. Make measrurements and gather > evidence. Think about what those measurements are telling you > (it may then be necessary to make more measurements..). Then, > and only them, start replacing components. > > This may not be the modern way to repair things, but it's not > let me down yet (which is more than I can say about some > other 'methods'). > > -tony > From CCTalk at catcorner.org Thu Mar 9 19:54:12 2006 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 20:54:12 -0500 Subject: CatWeasel card (was: I guess I should have asked this before asking for a 5.25" floppy drive) Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33849@mail.catcorner.org> > -----Original Message----- > From: Richard [mailto:legalize at xmission.com] > Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 6:51 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: CatWeasel card (was: I guess I should have asked this before > asking for a 5.25" floppy drive) > > > > In article <200603081539070889.3835C414 at 10.0.0.252>, > "Chuck Guzis" writes: > > > Not written with plain old PC hardware, unless you count > the lash-up using > > the PC parallel port. The more conventional way to do this > is with a > > CopyIIPC option card, a Catweasel card or a MatchPoint card. > > If someone has a CatWeasel card they'd like to sell, I'd love one. > They're not currently being made (despite that the web site says it > would be available "Spring 2005") and I have need of one on a > semi-regular basis! > -- Where did you hear that they were not being made? I was able to purchase a brand new one from softhut.com in January. It was shipped over in a new batch then. Kelly From bob099 at centurytel.net Thu Mar 9 20:31:36 2006 From: bob099 at centurytel.net (Choctaw Bob) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 20:31:36 -0600 Subject: Tinkertoy computer that plays tic-tac-toe Message-ID: <4410E508.8080901@centurytel.net> http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cfs/472_html/Intro/TinkertoyComputer/TinkerToy.html Better picture http://www.cob.sfasu.edu/sbradley/tinkertoy.html This is going to be hard to top From glen.slick at gmail.com Thu Mar 9 20:42:19 2006 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 18:42:19 -0800 Subject: Tinkertoy computer that plays tic-tac-toe In-Reply-To: <4410E508.8080901@centurytel.net> References: <4410E508.8080901@centurytel.net> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90603091842n686cc017m90c2259abeffb8e3@mail.gmail.com> On 3/9/06, Choctaw Bob wrote: > http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cfs/472_html/Intro/TinkertoyComputer/TinkerToy.html > Better picture > http://www.cob.sfasu.edu/sbradley/tinkertoy.html > > This is going to be hard to top Hmm, if someone built a working replica, for how much would it sell on eBay...? :-) From bshannon at tiac.net Thu Mar 9 20:51:21 2006 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2006 21:51:21 -0500 Subject: Display model # for HP 1351A? References: Message-ID: <002201c643ed$84a3df40$0100a8c0@screamer> The 1311 was 'common'. I use 1335's, and 1331's, as well as Tektronics 420's. You cannot use Tek 611's however, you need at least 5 MHz bandwidth. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard" To: Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2006 1:52 PM Subject: Display model # for HP 1351A? > What is the model number of the HP XY display that goes with the 1351A > graphics generator? > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > > From rcini at optonline.net Thu Mar 9 20:52:21 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 21:52:21 -0500 Subject: CP/M sysgen question Message-ID: <002801c643ed$a7815920$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: When using sysgen to create a new bootable CP/M disk, does sysgen copy the cold start loader, too? I'm trying to do a single-drive sysgen with CP/M 1.4 and it reports that it has copied the system tracks but the disk won't cold boot. Also, I am looking for a disk formatting program for the iCom Frugal Floppy system.none of the disks I have contain a formatting program of any type. I've also tried the two programs in the SIGM archive and they both report "drive fail" which isn't right since the drive works. TIA! Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ /************************************************************/ From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 9 21:40:31 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 19:40:31 -0800 Subject: CP/M sysgen question In-Reply-To: <002801c643ed$a7815920$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <002801c643ed$a7815920$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <200603091940310386.3E391907@10.0.0.252> On 3/9/2006 at 9:52 PM Richard A. Cini wrote: > When using sysgen to create a new bootable CP/M disk, does >sysgen copy the cold start loader, too? I'm trying to do a single-drive >sysgen with CP/M 1.4 and it reports that it has copied the system tracks >but the disk won't cold boot. It depends on the implementation. Ideally, yes. However, I've seen CP/M systems where that detail was omitted. Sometimes, the cold start loader is copied as part of the FORMAT utility. Cheers, Chuck From news at computercollector.com Thu Mar 9 23:06:35 2006 From: news at computercollector.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 00:06:35 -0500 Subject: Important update about VCF East.... Message-ID: <003f01c64400$67dca500$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Hi everyone. All but four booths are sold, so if you're planning to exhibit and haven't signed up yet, get your binary butt in gear. :) All the details are at Sellam's http://www.vintage.org site. Email me privately with any questions. - Evan From jhoger at pobox.com Thu Mar 9 23:13:15 2006 From: jhoger at pobox.com (John R. Hogerhuis) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 21:13:15 -0800 Subject: HP 4951B connected to external monitor Message-ID: <1141967595.10568.185.camel@aragorn> Thanks to those who gave advice on hooking the BNC connector from HP 4951B serial protocol analyzer to an external monitor. I bought an adapter from Radio Shack Phono-to-BNC Adapter 278-254 and ran a regular phono cable from it to a Magnavox "Computer Monitor 80" green screen monitor. Works great, and now I can make out the characters a bit better (though the internal display is great, it's a bit small). Another possibility would be to hook the thing to the video in jack on one of my graphic cards on desktop. -- John. From kelly at catcorner.org Wed Mar 8 18:07:29 2006 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 19:07:29 -0500 Subject: CatWeasel card (was: I guess I should have asked this before asking for a 5.25" floppy drive) Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33846@mail.catcorner.org> > -----Original Message----- > From: Richard [mailto:legalize at xmission.com] > Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 6:51 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: CatWeasel card (was: I guess I should have asked this before > asking for a 5.25" floppy drive) > > > > In article <200603081539070889.3835C414 at 10.0.0.252>, > "Chuck Guzis" writes: > > > Not written with plain old PC hardware, unless you count > the lash-up using > > the PC parallel port. The more conventional way to do this > is with a > > CopyIIPC option card, a Catweasel card or a MatchPoint card. > > If someone has a CatWeasel card they'd like to sell, I'd love one. > They're not currently being made (despite that the web site says it > would be available "Spring 2005") and I have need of one on a > semi-regular basis! > -- Where did you hear that they were not being made? I was able to purchase a brand new one from softhut.com in January. It was shipped over in a new batch then. Kelly From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 8 19:47:55 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 17:47:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: old 8088 system course++ Message-ID: <20060309014755.27190.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> to ericmac at swissinfo.org: what are you trying to accomplish? I currently, and am no gewroo by any stretch, am entertaining the notion of connecting an IBM PC compatible video card to my IBM PC incompatible Tandy 2000 (in which ways is it incompatible...EVERY way). I'm studying here and there. Reading and learning a little bit. I have loads of books on the subjects. Tell me what it is you're trying to do...and it helps to be specific (i.e. focused). Then you know the right questions to aks. Of course you have to learn some basics to even know what it is you want to know... I do have schematics that I can send you also. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From zmerch at 30below.com Thu Mar 9 12:34:52 2006 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 13:34:52 -0500 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603091006220848.3C2B76E7@10.0.0.252> References: <44106883.9080501@mdrconsult.com> <200603090912410626.3BFA5001@10.0.0.252> <44106883.9080501@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060309131819.050bb120@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Chuck Guzis may have mentioned these words: [snip] >That the same approach [[ concentric data ]] is now being used on DVDs >doesn't make me rest any easier. Yea, but at least the datalayer is in the *middle* of the disk instead of on the top... ;-) I noticed at wallyworld that they had some "Toughened" CD/DVD media that was supposed to have extra-strong layering to resist scratches better... [[ Methinks it was originally designed for DVD-based camcorders ]] That might not be a bad alternative... Laterz, "Merch" -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers zmerch at 30below.com What do you do when Life gives you lemons, and you don't *like* lemonade????????????? From jsievers at nadhh.Get-on-IT.com Thu Mar 9 18:37:05 2006 From: jsievers at nadhh.Get-on-IT.com (Juergen Sievers) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 01:37:05 +0100 Subject: HP 9915B Repair Help Request Message-ID: Hi Tony Duell. Could you remember this thread below ? I have the same system and need some help to reassemble an HP tape drive. After disassembling and ultrasonic cleaning of a HP-Tape-Drive for this HP9915B two parts remaining unassembled. Two parts, small thin chromium-plated metal stripes, are droped down out of the device during dismantling. I could not find out where these have to be mounted again. Here you could see few pictures of these parts. http://www.nadhh.hanse.de/CMuseum/HP/HPTapeHilfe.htm I would be really happily if someone could help me to get out where these parts has to be placed back into that tape-drive. Could you help me ? With regrads j?rgen > > Hi, > > I have a faulty HP 9915B (the industrial version of the HP 85B). I don't I guess I should respond :-). I don't know anything about the 9915B, but I have a reverse-engineered schematic of the 9915A, and from what yuo say below the PSUs are very similar. (Incidentally, the 9915A schematic is on the HPCC scheamtics CD-ROM, should you want it) > have the right circuit diagram for it, only the ones for the HP 85A and 85B > from their service manual. Looking at the 9915B it seems to have a similar > circuit, but some of the differences I can't understand. > > So far I have checked the following: > > rectifier output = 32V DC (OK) > but none of the regulated voltages are working (eg the +12V line is at > +1.4V, similarly +5V, -12V are around 1V). Ouch! I am going to assume it _is_ the same PSU as the 9915A. From what you say there, it's clear that the crowbar (Q4) hasn't fired, since this shorts the 32V (Vin, on my diagram) line to ground. > > The power supply is based on DC-DC converters running at around 30kHz. I > found the PWM regulator (U30, equivalent to U1 in te 85B), and this is > generating pulses on pin 3 and has a 5V reference on pin 16. This part is > labelled SG9496, the 85 uses a SG3524 (datasheet on the web), the pin-out > seems to be the same. My diagram shows U30 as an SG3524, but that may be because it had a custom HP number on it, and I found it was pinout- and functionally- identical to the 3524... > > Signals on the other pins are:. > . > pin1 - OV DC (would be around 3V if ok) Should be a potted-down version of the 12V line, If that's missing, then pin 1 will be olow. > pin2 - 3V (ok, derived from %V) Potted sown from the Vref ouput (pin 16 > pin 9 = 0.5V (see below) This is called 'comp' on the 3524 datasheet. It's the output of the error amplifier and what's worth knowing at this point is that it can be pulled low exernally to shut the outputs down. > pin 7 = 0.2V to 4.5V ramp as per 85 service manual OK, so the oscillator is running (that's the timing capacitor pin). And the reference output is also present. U30 may well be good. > pins 12 & 13 = 32V DC Outputs to the chopper (collectors of the output transistors, the emitters (pins 11 and 14) are grounded). It's clear the chopper is not being driven. > > I traced pin 9, and this is connected to C20 which in turn is connected R23 That's the first compoent reference difference (or I've made a mistake). On my diagram, C20 is the dcoupling cap on the V+ (pin 15) supply input to U30. There is a compenstation network, 0.1uF in series with 8.25k between pin 0 and pin 1, though. > then pin 1 (similar to 85). pin 9 is also connected to diode CR4 which goes > into transistor Q2 (which in turn is connected to 0V). It looks like pin 9 > is being pulled down by CR4 and Q2 as these are both forward biassed. One > question is what does CR4 and Q2 do? Are they part of some protection > circuit? Ah.... Q2 is the overcurrent protection transsitor. It's turned on by U31 (LM311 comparator), which is driven from T1 (9100-0456 transformer) which measures the current through the chopper. If that current is too high, then U31 triggers, turns on Q2, and shuts the supply down. Whatever you do, don't disable this circuit. If there is a short, the results will be spectacular and expensive. > > The output on pins 12 &13 has no negative going pulses, so the psu never > gets started up. pim 12 connects to an 820 ohm resistor (number hidden) > which then goes to transistor Q5 (the main switching transistor, Q1 on the > 85). This is different to the 85 which uses an intermediate driving Watch out!. Q5 is not a simple transsitor (at least not in the 9915A). It's a PIC645, which seems to be some kind of darlington with the flyback diode, etc, in the package. It's roughly a PNP transistor, emitter to Vin via T1 primary (current sense), collector to pin 3 of T2 (12V supply transformer primary tap), base to the output of U30 via that 820R resistor. > tranhsistor. I guess this means the U30 PWM has to drive more current. No, Q5 is more than one transsitor. OK, what I'd do next is look at U31 (assumeing it's a 311 comaparator). The -ve input should be at about 2V (potted down from Vref again), the _ve input should be 0 (it comes from the sense transformer, but with no AC current flowing through the chopper, it can't be doing much). Then see if Q2 really is turned on, or shorted, or what. > > Any advice gladly received, eg source or equivalent for a SG9496 controller, > copy o9f service manual would be great too! Hope that helps -tony From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Fri Mar 10 00:41:08 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (compoobah at valleyimplants.com) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 00:41:08 -0600 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? Message-ID: > I haven't done as much with damaged data CDs as with "odd" format >CDs, but I've found that Linux and NetBSD have *far* fewer issues with >burned media vs reader issues than Windows or MacOS. I regularly use >disks burned in Linux (on *cheap* media) in RRD42s on VAX, old 68K Macs >with 300i drives, etc. > I think a lot of the "CD reader" issues are really "CD writing >software" issues. A lot of CD-copy software will insist that all the >world's ISO9660 unlss you beat it up first. Even dd won't produce a >bootable image in some formats unless you tweak the blocksize. (AIX >v. and IRIX v6.5 come to mind) Do some research on the format >you're copying and the software you're using, life gets much smoother. My first choice is XCDRoast- mindless burning/reading for pretty much anything, runs on almost all graphics-capable platforms. Sadly it only recognizes images with the extension .iso, but you can just rename .efsimg or .ods2img to .iso and vise-versa when you need to (don't know if this counts as "beating it up"). Seems to be pretty good about slowing down and rereading, too (imaged a scrached Libc5 linux distro that had been in the garage uncased for ~6 years, took a while but it worked. The CD would not read for install, but read for copy O.K.) Setup can require a bit of typing (e.g. the dd'ing required for creating SGI EFS cds.) From doc at mdrconsult.com Fri Mar 10 01:21:29 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 01:21:29 -0600 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <441128F9.10400@mdrconsult.com> compoobah at valleyimplants.com wrote: >> I haven't done as much with damaged data CDs as with "odd" format > > >CDs, but I've found that Linux and NetBSD have *far* fewer issues with > >burned media vs reader issues than Windows or MacOS. I regularly use > >disks burned in Linux (on *cheap* media) in RRD42s on VAX, old 68K Macs > >with 300i drives, etc. > > > I think a lot of the "CD reader" issues are really "CD writing > >software" issues. A lot of CD-copy software will insist that all the > >world's ISO9660 unlss you beat it up first. Even dd won't produce a > >bootable image in some formats unless you tweak the blocksize. (AIX > >v. and IRIX v6.5 come to mind) Do some research on the format > >you're copying and the software you're using, life gets much smoother. > > My first choice is XCDRoast- mindless burning/reading for pretty much anything, runs on almost all graphics-capable platforms. Sadly it only recognizes images with the extension .iso, but you can just rename .efsimg or .ods2img to .iso and vise-versa when you need to (don't know if this counts as "beating it up"). Seems to be pretty good about slowing down and rereading, too (imaged a scrached Libc5 linux distro that had been in the garage uncased for ~6 years, took a while but it worked. The CD would not read for install, but read for copy O.K.) > Setup can require a bit of typing (e.g. the dd'ing required for creating SGI EFS cds.) Yep. I use command line tools mostly, but I think XCDRoast is best-of-breed for GUIs. And you're right - its error handling is actually better than I've been able to do with CLI tools. Doc From vax9000 at gmail.com Fri Mar 10 01:21:57 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 02:21:57 -0500 Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: <42E611B9000508B2@mail.swissinfo.org> References: <42E611B9000508B2@mail.swissinfo.org> Message-ID: On 3/8/06, ericmac at swissinfo.org wrote: > Thanks for the responses to my question. I was able to continue searching > from the tips and I'm pretty sure what I was asking about must have been > from NRI. From what I came up with it also looks like that is long gone. > > I am back to my original problem. How to learn the fundamentals of the 8088 > or 8086 ... and then to continue from there to the larger chips. At the The best way to learn 8088 is to get a PC and install DOS and some software on it, including DEBUG.COM, an editor, an assembler, then you get an assembly language book and type in examples. If you want to learn FDDs, HDDs, go read FreeDOS source code. for Video coding, just google for examples. There are plenty. > moment I'm concerned about the 8088 or 8086. I have found resources that > introduce those chips in a very clear, step-by-step way and include the plans > for building a trainer. But they all stop short of interfacing FDDs, HDDs, > etc. Would anyone know how I could "learn-by-building" an 8088 or 8086 system > complete with drive interfaces, etc., starting with the very elementary aspects > of learning the chip architecture and hardware on through to systems with > FDDs and HDs and video, etc.? Thanks again. > > Gary From vax9000 at gmail.com Fri Mar 10 01:24:39 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 02:24:39 -0500 Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: <20060309014755.27190.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060309014755.27190.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 3/8/06, Chris M wrote: > to ericmac at swissinfo.org: > > what are you trying to accomplish? I currently, and am > no gewroo by any stretch, am entertaining the notion > of connecting an IBM PC compatible video card to my > IBM PC incompatible Tandy 2000 (in which ways is it Did it use ISA bus? This was the information that I didn't find from google. > incompatible...EVERY way). I'm studying here and > there. Reading and learning a little bit. I have loads > of books on the subjects. Tell me what it is you're > trying to do...and it helps to be specific (i.e. > focused). Then you know the right questions to aks. Of > course you have to learn some basics to even know what > it is you want to know... > I do have schematics that I can send you also. > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Mar 10 02:27:35 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 03:27:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060309131819.050bb120@mail.30below.com> References: <44106883.9080501@mdrconsult.com> <200603090912410626.3BFA5001@10.0.0.252> <44106883.9080501@mdrconsult.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060309131819.050bb120@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <200603100831.DAA14923@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Yea, but at least the datalayer is in the *middle* of the disk > instead of on the top... ;-) I was thinking about this, and it occurred to me-- if your drives don't mind double-thickness disks, you could get a good deal of top-side scratch resistance by gluing a dud disk to the top of a disk you want to protect. (Or you could use an unburnt blank, or for that matter a mass-pressed cd, but it seems silly to not find a use for the coasters I'm sure we all have around.) Of course, you also need to find a glue that isn't going to wreck the polycarbonate. Any materials scientists here who know enough to recommend (or disrecommend) any glues? /~\ 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 technobug at comcast.net Fri Mar 10 02:42:01 2006 From: technobug at comcast.net (CRC) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 01:42:01 -0700 Subject: HP 9915B Repair Help Request In-Reply-To: <200603100647.k2A6lCdt013086@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200603100647.k2A6lCdt013086@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <8F453AD3-29D7-4630-AB3C-4694CFF33773@comcast.net> On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 01:37:05 +0100, "Juergen Sievers" wrote: > Hi Tony Duell. > > Could you remember this thread below ? > I have the same system and need some help to reassemble an HP tape > drive. > After disassembling and ultrasonic cleaning of a HP-Tape-Drive for > this > HP9915B two parts remaining unassembled. > > Two parts, small thin chromium-plated metal stripes, are droped > down out of > the device during dismantling. > I could not find out where these have to be mounted again. > > Here you could see few pictures of these parts. > http://www.nadhh.hanse.de/CMuseum/HP/HPTapeHilfe.htm > > I would be really happily if someone could help me to get out where > these > parts has > to be placed back into that tape-drive. Could you help me ? > > With regrads > j?rgen > [...] J?rgen - Having dropped a good number of the little pieces while repairing old HP test equipment, I think you will find that they came from several of the keyboard key switches. They return the key after a press. Hope this helps... CRC From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 10 00:03:47 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 23:03:47 -0700 Subject: CatWeasel card (was: I guess I should have asked this before asking for a 5.25" floppy drive) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 09 Mar 2006 20:54:12 -0500. <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33849@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: In article <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33849 at mail.catcorner.org>, Kelly Leavitt writes: > Where did you hear that they were not being made? I was able to purchase a > brand new one from softhut.com in January. It was shipped over in a new > batch then. Hrm. Never saw softhut.com before. It just says "Catweasel", but there are several different versions of the card. Which version did they sell you? The page I was looking at is the page supposedly by the people who actually design and manufacture the catweasel. When I enquired in August of 2004 they were unavailable worldwide. Is softhut offering the "new batch" that I was told would be ready in "Spring 2005" but which never materialized at that time? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From dave06a at dunfield.com Fri Mar 10 06:08:03 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 07:08:03 -0500 Subject: CP/M sysgen question In-Reply-To: <002801c643ed$a7815920$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <20060310120835.PPWY8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> > When using sysgen to create a new bootable CP/M disk, does > sysgen copy the cold start loader, too? I'm trying to do a single-drive > sysgen with CP/M 1.4 and it reports that it has copied the system tracks but > the disk won't cold boot. CP/M provides no standardized way of reading/writing the system tracks, so the exact method used varies considerably from implementation to implementation. It might be done by sysgen, it might be done by format (or whatever the low- level init program is called - this is also not standardized), or it might be done by a separate utility. > Also, I am looking for a disk formatting program for the iCom > Frugal Floppy system.none of the disks I have contain a formatting program > of any type. I've also tried the two programs in the SIGM archive and they > both report "drive fail" which isn't right since the drive works. If these are soft-sector disks, you might be able to read/write them on a PC with an 8" drive connected. Assuming that works: - Use ImageDisk to read a disk image and write it back out (essentually copy the disk) - then delete all the files from it, and you will have an usable "blank". Read that back in with ImageDisk, and you will have an image that you can use to create "blank" disks at will. - If you want a truly blank "fresh" disk, you can try: - Create a file as big as a disk containing E5's - Use BIN2IMD to convert this to a disk image which matches your drives geometery. - Use IMDU to extract the system tracks from a bootable disk image. - Use IMDU to merge the E5's image to the system tracks image - this should give you an image of a "freshly formatted" disk with system tracks - this is assuming your system does not require any other special high-level format on the disk. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Mar 10 06:39:46 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 12:39:46 +0000 Subject: Tinkertoy computer that plays tic-tac-toe In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90603091842n686cc017m90c2259abeffb8e3@mail.gmail.com> References: <4410E508.8080901@centurytel.net> <1e1fc3e90603091842n686cc017m90c2259abeffb8e3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <44117392.2010705@yahoo.co.uk> Glen Slick wrote: > On 3/9/06, Choctaw Bob wrote: >> http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cfs/472_html/Intro/TinkertoyComputer/TinkerToy.html >> Better picture >> http://www.cob.sfasu.edu/sbradley/tinkertoy.html >> >> This is going to be hard to top > > Hmm, if someone built a working replica, for how much would it sell on eBay...? > > :-) Nah, you need someone to build a machine that assembles the machine - now *that* would be cool :-) From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Mar 10 06:43:14 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 12:43:14 +0000 Subject: Writing Apple ][ disk images... Message-ID: <44117462.9050806@yahoo.co.uk> What are the various options available for getting disk images onto media that an Apple ][ can read? Seems like there might be a few ways of doing this, involving both original hardware, later Apple hardware, and modern PCs with a Disk ][ drive grafted on... Experiences / references anyone? cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Mar 10 06:47:34 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 12:47:34 +0000 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44117566.3080003@yahoo.co.uk> Richard wrote: > In article <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33849 at mail.catcorner.org>, > Kelly Leavitt writes: > >> Where did you hear that they were not being made? I was able to purchase a >> brand new one from softhut.com in January. It was shipped over in a new >> batch then. > > Hrm. Never saw softhut.com before. Is there some central website that lists the different Catweasel models, what is and isn't available, has docs online, has software online for different OSes, has pointers to the various distributors in different countries etc.? I must say when I've looked at the various websites before I've ended up horribly confused as to which board can do what, what level of software support there actually is out there etc. From Richard.Cini at wachovia.com Fri Mar 10 06:48:00 2006 From: Richard.Cini at wachovia.com (Cini, Richard) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 07:48:00 -0500 Subject: Writing Apple ][ disk images... Message-ID: I use ADT for Windows...one source is here: http://adt.berlios.de/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 7:43 AM To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Writing Apple ][ disk images... What are the various options available for getting disk images onto media that an Apple ][ can read? Seems like there might be a few ways of doing this, involving both original hardware, later Apple hardware, and modern PCs with a Disk ][ drive grafted on... Experiences / references anyone? cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Mar 10 07:17:00 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 13:17:00 +0000 Subject: Telling (MS)DOS about a second floppy drive... Message-ID: <44117C4C.4050501@yahoo.co.uk> Can't remember if there's a way of doing this or not! I've acquired a nice compact HP PC which I had plans to use as a data recovery box - except that I've just discovered that the braindead BIOS only supports one floppy disk drive; I need a 3.5" HD drive as the first disk and a 5.25" HD drive as the second... Assuming that the FDC will work with two (I've never heard of an FDC that won't?), is there a way of telling MSDOS about the second drive even when the BIOS refuses to acknowledge its presence? If not, the whole machine's off to the tip... stoopid PCs, grrr! (actually, I'll freecycle it, which is where I got it from, but the thought of it being crushed makes me feel better right now) cheers Jules From lproven at gmail.com Fri Mar 10 07:19:26 2006 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 13:19:26 +0000 Subject: Telling (MS)DOS about a second floppy drive... In-Reply-To: <44117C4C.4050501@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44117C4C.4050501@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <575131af0603100519v5bca7c49me5676e4d12afee3f@mail.gmail.com> On 3/10/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > > > Can't remember if there's a way of doing this or not! > > I've acquired a nice compact HP PC which I had plans to use as a data recovery > box - except that I've just discovered that the braindead BIOS only supports > one floppy disk drive; I need a 3.5" HD drive as the first disk and a 5.25" HD > drive as the second... > > Assuming that the FDC will work with two (I've never heard of an FDC that > won't?), is there a way of telling MSDOS about the second drive even when the > BIOS refuses to acknowledge its presence? > > If not, the whole machine's off to the tip... stoopid PCs, grrr! (actually, > I'll freecycle it, which is where I got it from, but the thought of it being > crushed makes me feel better right now) DRIVER.SYS, isn't it? device=c:\dos\driver.sys (parms) In config.sys, where the parameters are the same as for the DRIVPARM directive in config.sys, which tells DOS about the existing floppy drive it can already see. Not that I've tried this in some 15y or so... -- Liam Proven ? http://livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=lproven AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 Gmail/Google Talk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com From Hans.Franke at siemens.com Fri Mar 10 07:44:56 2006 From: Hans.Franke at siemens.com (Hans Franke) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:44:56 +0100 Subject: Writing Apple ][ disk images... In-Reply-To: <44117462.9050806@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <441190E8.45.B280933@localhost> Am 10 Mar 2006 12:43 meinte Jules Richardson: > What are the various options available for getting disk images onto media that > an Apple ][ can read? > Seems like there might be a few ways of doing this, involving both original > hardware, later Apple hardware, and modern PCs with a Disk ][ drive grafted on... > Experiences / references anyone? Well, depends what Apple you need to get the data on. My suggestions from most easy downto would be: 1. If you got an A2gs with a 1.44 drive running GSOS, then just put it on a DOS floppy (mind 8.3) 2. If you got any Apple with a 3.5" drive (and usualy running ProDOS then) get your data via DOS Floppy, or Network onto an 68k Mac (some PowerMac will also do the trick) and copy them onto a ProDOS disk. (*1) 3. For any Apple with a SSC or CC, plus any generic PC-Box running DOS, a Null-Modem cable and ADT (Apple Disk Transfer - just do a google search) will do the trick. There's also a MacOS version. 4. Write your own little reciveing programm for the II (should be possible with some basic) and do a COPY file>COM1: on your PC. 5. Just type it in on the Apple, using a Hex-Editor :) *G* As for hardware, there have been some solutions. First to my memory is always the Turnover board, which I found a good (some particulat list member might have a different opinion:) solution back when I had a PC/XT and an Apple II. I did all programm development for the PC in Turbo-Pascal on my beloved Apple, and then just recompiled it on the PC. Just, the Turnover is a strict PX or PC/XT board. I never got it working in an AT (or above) machine. Then there is Matchpoint card, but it also requires an 8-Bit PC and a real (read 40 Track) PC-Drive, as with the Apple Turnover. Oh, and don't forget the Trackstar Board(s), basicly an Apple II or IIe on a PC-Card, a huge IC-Graveyard. It can (of course) connect A2 drives and transfer data from and to the PC. In fact, you may use Apple II utilities to do all copying. Again, you need a classic PC or AT Bus. But at least it works on 486 machines (if you keep the bus clock at less tna 7 MHz) Furthermore there's a software called Disk-to-FDI (or such) from a French guy, that allows Commodore (Amiga and C64) and Apple (3,5") drives via a parallel port to a modern PC - I have never used it, but heard some good reviews about. What you definitly need is ShrinkIt for the PC, and maybe FID (do not confuse with the IFD from Dosk disks), a PC utility to manage .DSK imiges of 5.25" Disks. Gruss H. *1 - I found that a LC III (or if you want to do more a 475) is the best companion for your Apple II. For one it can be easy connected via Appletalk, second it can read/write ProDOS disks and store ProDOS disk images on a hard drive, making it an ideal archive system for your II, and third it can house a IIe card to allow to test and run some (most) A2 soft directly. Extreme helpful -- VCF Europa 7.0 am 29/30.April und 01.Mai 2006 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/ From Hans.Franke at siemens.com Fri Mar 10 07:56:37 2006 From: Hans.Franke at siemens.com (Hans Franke) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:56:37 +0100 Subject: Writing Apple ][ disk images... In-Reply-To: <44117462.9050806@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <441193A5.5236.B32BD41@localhost> Oops, forgot two mor important informations. For the Transfer-Hitlist, before writing your worn stuff, there are two more levels: 3.1 Use Kermit on both sides ... still the best all across communications solution of all times. 3.2 Use your favoured terminal programm on the A2 and Hyperterm on the PC Side. Classic 300 Baud will always work, but I've heard about some experience, that even speeds up to 19,2 shpould be possible - but 200 is way more classic ... Hardwarewise, I forgot to mention that the Apple IIe Card for all LC-Type Macs (where virtual memory is possible) not only brings soome tools for Mac-OS, but also allows (via a Y-cable) to attach original A2 drives, includeing the Platinum 5.25 Drive. Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 7.0 am 29/30.April und 01.Mai 2006 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/ From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Mar 10 08:07:13 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:07:13 +0000 Subject: Writing Apple ][ disk images... In-Reply-To: <441193A5.5236.B32BD41@localhost> References: <441193A5.5236.B32BD41@localhost> Message-ID: <44118811.2020601@yahoo.co.uk> Hans Franke wrote: > Oops, forgot two mor important informations. For the Transfer-Hitlist, > before writing your worn stuff, there are two more levels: > > 3.1 Use Kermit on both sides ... still the best all across communications > solution of all times. > 3.2 Use your favoured terminal programm on the A2 and Hyperterm on the PC > Side. Classic 300 Baud will always work, but I've heard about some > experience, that even speeds up to 19,2 shpould be possible - but > 200 is way more classic ... Presumably that's only good for getting files onto a floppy at the A2 end - not writing a raw disk image to a floppy? That's the bit I was pondering over, as there seem to be various file transfer mechanisms about, but things are a little less clear when it comes to writing raw images (presumably with ADT the clue's in the name and that's designed for raw images rather than individual files...) I don't *think* we have access to a A2gs, so it's looking like ADT's the way to go... cheers J. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Mar 10 08:12:55 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:12:55 +0000 Subject: C Compilers for (MS)DOS In-Reply-To: <43FCF0B4.4080603@yahoo.co.uk> References: <43FCF0B4.4080603@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44118967.9030204@yahoo.co.uk> Jules Richardson wrote: > > What's the state of play regarding DOS C compilers? I might have a need > to do some DOS-based C development work - are there any good-but-free > DOS compilers about? Forgot to say thanks to everyone for their thoughts - I think Turbo C's probably the way to go then, and from memory it'll do nice stuff like inline assembler too... (I want to try to put a serial console onto Dave Dunfield's Imagedisk code so I can control it from a remote box and not need a screen/keyboard on the Imagedisk machine. Ideally Ethernet and telnet would be the way to go, but I think asking something like that of my brain is too much to expect :-) ta Jules From Hans.Franke at siemens.com Fri Mar 10 08:34:27 2006 From: Hans.Franke at siemens.com (Hans Franke) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 15:34:27 +0100 Subject: Writing Apple ][ disk images... In-Reply-To: <44118811.2020601@yahoo.co.uk> References: <441193A5.5236.B32BD41@localhost> Message-ID: <44119C83.15340.B555F19@localhost> Am 10 Mar 2006 14:07 meinte Jules Richardson: > That's the bit I was pondering over, as there seem to be various file transfer > mechanisms about, but things are a little less clear when it comes to writing > raw images (presumably with ADT the clue's in the name and that's designed for > raw images rather than individual files...) > I don't *think* we have access to a A2gs, so it's looking like ADT's the way > to go... Shure, ADT is quite widespread, allas I still prefer using an 68k Mac (or even better the LC plus the IIe Board). Less hassle. And best of all: No PC involved :)) Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 7.0 am 29/30.April und 01.Mai 2006 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/ From CCTalk at catcorner.org Fri Mar 10 08:33:56 2006 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 09:33:56 -0500 Subject: CatWeasel card (was: I guess I should have asked this before asking for a 5.25" floppy drive) Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3384A@mail.catcorner.org> It was the version 4 card. I enquired directly with Jens and that is who was suggested I purchase from in the US (softhut.com). And man, is that a nice card. I have a Version 1 card too, but I use them both. > ---------- > From: Richard > Reply To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 1:03 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: CatWeasel card (was: I guess I should have asked this > before asking for a 5.25" floppy drive) > > > In article <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33849 at mail.catcorner.org>, > Kelly Leavitt writes: > > > Where did you hear that they were not being made? I was able to purchase > a > > brand new one from softhut.com in January. It was shipped over in a new > > batch then. > > Hrm. Never saw softhut.com before. It just says "Catweasel", but > there are several different versions of the card. Which version did > they sell you? The page I was looking at is the page supposedly by > the people who actually design and manufacture the catweasel. When I > enquired in August of 2004 they were unavailable worldwide. Is > softhut offering the "new batch" that I was told would be ready in > "Spring 2005" but which never materialized at that time? > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > > From dave06a at dunfield.com Fri Mar 10 08:54:23 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 09:54:23 -0500 Subject: C Compilers for (MS)DOS In-Reply-To: <44118967.9030204@yahoo.co.uk> References: <43FCF0B4.4080603@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20060310145454.SHJT8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> > Jules Richardson wrote: > > > > What's the state of play regarding DOS C compilers? I might have a need > > to do some DOS-based C development work - are there any good-but-free > > DOS compilers about? > > Forgot to say thanks to everyone for their thoughts - I think Turbo C's > probably the way to go then, and from memory it'll do nice stuff like inline > assembler too... > > (I want to try to put a serial console onto Dave Dunfield's Imagedisk code so > I can control it from a remote box and not need a screen/keyboard on the > Imagedisk machine. Ideally Ethernet and telnet would be the way to go, but I > think asking something like that of my brain is too much to expect :-) I didn't see the original message - but if you want to work on ImageDisk, why not use the toolset that ImageDisk was developed using - The PC edition of my own DDS Micro-C compiler, available free from my commercial website (www.dunfield.com). Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From classiccmp at vintage-computer.com Fri Mar 10 08:57:01 2006 From: classiccmp at vintage-computer.com (Erik Klein) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 07:57:01 -0700 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? Message-ID: I just got the following in my mailbox: ----- I am with a documentary television company that is looking for amateurs who are able to distinguish junk from treasure, and that includes architectural and computer salvaging, dumpster divers, etc. for a pilot series for the History Channel. The show is sort of Antique Roadshow with a little bit more testosterone SO ONLY MALES 18-45. We are definitely looking for people who can share their know-how in locating discarded items "that have lost their shine and sparkle, but not their value ? or their history." In particular, we are looking for people who do this as a hobby and have a great passion for it. Our show is about the search for such items, the history of the item and the appraisal of the item's value. We would be doing an hour-long show featuring three collectors and would follow each collector on their journey for their hidden ?treasure." If you would be interested in speaking with me regarding this show, could you please contact me at the number or e-mail listed below. Thank you! -- Best Regards, Barbara Hughes Film Garden Entertainment, Inc. Phone 818-301-4551 Fax 818-301-4684 Email: bhughesNOSPAM .at. NOSPAMfilmgarden.net ------ I've previously chatted with Barbara's boss about the show and it sounds like they are getting closer to production. If you can help, please get in touch with these folks ASAP! Thanks and best of luck! Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum The Vintage Computer Forum ________________________________________________ Message sent using UebiMiau 2.7.9 From frustum at pacbell.net Fri Mar 10 09:19:34 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 09:19:34 -0600 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44119906.7080906@pacbell.net> Richard wrote: > In article <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33849 at mail.catcorner.org>, > Kelly Leavitt writes: > >> Where did you hear that they were not being made? I was able to purchase a >> brand new one from softhut.com in January. It was shipped over in a new >> batch then. > > Hrm. Never saw softhut.com before. It just says "Catweasel", but > there are several different versions of the card. Which version did > they sell you? The page I was looking at is the page supposedly by > the people who actually design and manufacture the catweasel. When I > enquired in August of 2004 they were unavailable worldwide. Is > softhut offering the "new batch" that I was told would be ready in > "Spring 2005" but which never materialized at that time? I think Jens was happy enough with version III of the catweasel, but some component (I think it was the PCI interface chip) became unavailable, and he was forced to redesign it. Since he was redesigning, he added more features, including some that make reading hard sectored disks easier and makes writing them possible. I have a mark IV version, although I haven't yet tried to use it. :-( From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Mar 10 09:50:12 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 15:50:12 +0000 Subject: Telling (MS)DOS about a second floppy drive... In-Reply-To: <575131af0603100519v5bca7c49me5676e4d12afee3f@mail.gmail.com> References: <44117C4C.4050501@yahoo.co.uk> <575131af0603100519v5bca7c49me5676e4d12afee3f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4411A034.7080306@yahoo.co.uk> Liam Proven wrote: > On 3/10/06, Jules Richardson wrote: >> >> Can't remember if there's a way of doing this or not! >> >> I've acquired a nice compact HP PC which I had plans to use as a data recovery >> box - except that I've just discovered that the braindead BIOS only supports >> one floppy disk drive; I need a 3.5" HD drive as the first disk and a 5.25" HD >> drive as the second... >> >> Assuming that the FDC will work with two (I've never heard of an FDC that >> won't?), is there a way of telling MSDOS about the second drive even when the >> BIOS refuses to acknowledge its presence? >> >> If not, the whole machine's off to the tip... stoopid PCs, grrr! (actually, >> I'll freecycle it, which is where I got it from, but the thought of it being >> crushed makes me feel better right now) > > DRIVER.SYS, isn't it? > > device=c:\dos\driver.sys (parms) Hmmm, I forgot that DOS 5 or 6 or whatever it is that I was running came with help - looks like driveparm *should* do it, except that it's not clear how the device numbering works... Instead of using drive letters, it uses drive numbers - so according to the docs 0 would be A:, but 1 could either be B: if a second drive was found, or C: if it wasn't. Got horribly confused at that point, decided that I didn't want a messed-up hard disk if the B: drive wasn't seen, and kicked the machine. :-) I've gone back to a previous system now which has a sensible BIOS (and on-board SCSI and audio, which may be handy for other data recovery stuff anyway). Shame the case is huge, but at least there's room for four 5.25" devices, and I could probably shoehorn an 8" drive on it's side in there too if needs be with a bit of hacksaw work! > Not that I've tried this in some 15y or so... No, nor me - last time was on an XT somewhere around 1990 I think... cheers J. From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Mar 10 09:56:28 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 07:56:28 -0800 Subject: CP/M sysgen question In-Reply-To: <20060310120835.PPWY8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> References: <20060310120835.PPWY8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <4411A1AC.4010808@msm.umr.edu> Dave Dunfield wrote: >> When using sysgen to create a new bootable CP/M disk, does >>sysgen copy the cold start loader, too? I'm trying to do a single-drive >>sysgen with CP/M 1.4 and it reports that it has copied the system tracks but >>the disk won't cold boot. >> >> > >CP/M provides no standardized way of reading/writing the system tracks, so the >exact method used varies considerably from implementation to implementation. >It might be done by sysgen, it might be done by format (or whatever the low- >level init program is called - this is also not standardized), or it might be done >by a separate utility. > > > > I thought that there was a command called "sys" that copied the track 0 area included in the CP/M set of programs. cp would operate on track 2 on up. From acme_ent at bellsouth.net Fri Mar 10 10:17:24 2006 From: acme_ent at bellsouth.net (Glen Goodwin) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:17:24 -0500 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4411A694.4020200@bellsouth.net> > SO ONLY MALES 18-45. What a crock! Joe Rigdon's about my age (over 45) and would be a perfect candidate for this except for the arbitrary age limitation. Whaddya say, Joe? Ya never know, might be a buck in it. Glen 0/0 Erik Klein wrote: > > I just got the following in my mailbox: > > > ----- > I am with a documentary television company that is looking for amateurs who > are able to distinguish junk from treasure, and that includes architectural > and computer salvaging, dumpster divers, etc. for a pilot series for the > History Channel. The show is sort of Antique Roadshow with a little bit more > testosterone SO ONLY MALES 18-45. > > We are definitely looking for people who can share their know-how in > locating discarded items "that have lost their shine and sparkle, but not > their value ? or their history." > In particular, we are looking for people who do this as a hobby and have a > great passion for it. > > Our show is about the search for such items, the history of the item and the > appraisal of the item's value. > We would be doing an hour-long show featuring three collectors and would > follow each collector on their journey for their hidden ?treasure." > > If you would be interested in speaking with me regarding this show, could > you please contact me at the number or e-mail listed below. > Thank you! > From paulrsm at buckeye-express.com Fri Mar 10 10:24:31 2006 From: paulrsm at buckeye-express.com (Paul R. Santa-Maria) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:24:31 -0500 Subject: Writing Apple ][ disk images... Message-ID: <380-220063510162431171@buckeye-express.com> For all Apple II questions, start with the FAQ: http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/A2FAQs1START.html > What are the various options available for > getting disk images onto media that an Apple ][ > can read? What disk images are you starting with? .SHK, .SDK, .DSK, .PO, .DO, .IMG, .HDV, .NIB, .2MG, or other disk image file? What hardware are you starting with? Apple II, II+, IIe, IIc, IIgs? PC? Macintosh? For 5.25" disks, the simplest and cheapest setup is a real Apple II to write the disk. You can get the data there via the game controller port, a serial port, or over a network. Hardware to write Apple II disks using a PC exists but is rare. The Mac hardware is an Apple IIe card. For 3.5" disks, the rules are different. Another way is a compact flash drive. You can remove the CF card and plug it into a PC to transfer files. -- Paul R. Santa-Maria Monroe, Michigan USA From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 10 10:35:07 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 08:35:07 -0800 Subject: CP/M sysgen question In-Reply-To: <4411A1AC.4010808@msm.umr.edu> References: <20060310120835.PPWY8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <4411A1AC.4010808@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <200603100835070136.40FE3F66@10.0.0.252> On 3/10/2006 at 7:56 AM jim stephens wrote: >I thought that there was a command called "sys" that copied the track 0 >area included in the CP/M set of programs. cp would operate on track 2 on up. Maybe you're thinking of MS-DOS. The OEM kit for CP/M had no such utility. Cheers, Chuck From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Fri Mar 10 10:36:04 2006 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 08:36:04 -0800 Subject: Display model # for HP 1351A In-Reply-To: <200603100647.k2A6lCdw013086@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200603100647.k2A6lCdw013086@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4411AAF4.9000002@sbcglobal.net> HP shows the 1311B (14") display with the 1351A in their 1982 catalog. The combinations is sold as the 1351S. Other displays mentioned for use with it are the 1310B (19"), 1317A (17"), and 1321B (21"). All are offered as options with the 1351S system. Bob > > > >------------------------------ > >Message: 6 >Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 11:52:11 -0700 >From: Richard >Subject: Display model # for HP 1351A? >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Message-ID: > >What is the model number of the HP XY display that goes with the 1351A >graphics generator? > > From lproven at gmail.com Fri Mar 10 10:38:43 2006 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 16:38:43 +0000 Subject: Telling (MS)DOS about a second floppy drive... In-Reply-To: <4411A034.7080306@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44117C4C.4050501@yahoo.co.uk> <575131af0603100519v5bca7c49me5676e4d12afee3f@mail.gmail.com> <4411A034.7080306@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <575131af0603100838j174c0eacj984e4c4e95d633b0@mail.gmail.com> On 3/10/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > Hmmm, I forgot that DOS 5 or 6 or whatever it is that I was running came with > help - looks like driveparm *should* do it, except that it's not clear how the > device numbering works... Oh yes indeed, and it's pretty good. > Instead of using drive letters, it uses drive numbers - so according to the > docs 0 would be A:, but 1 could either be B: if a second drive was found, or > C: if it wasn't. > > Got horribly confused at that point, decided that I didn't want a messed-up > hard disk if the B: drive wasn't seen, and kicked the machine. :-) Oh, no, it wouldn't do that. Hard drives are addressed totally differently & there'd be no confusion unless you told drivparm/driver.sys to use drive C: - not sure what would happen then! > I've gone back to a previous system now which has a sensible BIOS (and > on-board SCSI and audio, which may be handy for other data recovery stuff > anyway). Shame the case is huge, but at least there's room for four 5.25" > devices, and I could probably shoehorn an 8" drive on it's side in there too > if needs be with a bit of hacksaw work! Eeeesh. Good luck! > No, nor me - last time was on an XT somewhere around 1990 I think... How the years and decades fly by... -- Liam Proven ? http://livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=lproven AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 Gmail/Google Talk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com From lproven at gmail.com Fri Mar 10 10:41:00 2006 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 16:41:00 +0000 Subject: CP/M sysgen question In-Reply-To: <200603100835070136.40FE3F66@10.0.0.252> References: <20060310120835.PPWY8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <4411A1AC.4010808@msm.umr.edu> <200603100835070136.40FE3F66@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <575131af0603100841g4eb575daj64500905a51a268@mail.gmail.com> On 3/10/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3/10/2006 at 7:56 AM jim stephens wrote: > > >I thought that there was a command called "sys" that copied the track 0 > >area included in the CP/M set of programs. cp would operate on track 2 on > up. > > Maybe you're thinking of MS-DOS. The OEM kit for CP/M had no such utility. Agreed. It was SYSGEN - or what I did, on Amstrad kit, was just use DISCKIT to copy an existing boot disk and then edit it to suit. I kept an image of a blank-except-for-the-boot-stuff for this. With a 3?" internal secondary drive, so cheap and by CP/M standards spacious 3?" 720k media, I tended to make all my disks boot disks, just in case... -- Liam Proven ? http://livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=lproven AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 Gmail/Google Talk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com From classiccmp at vintage-computer.com Fri Mar 10 10:43:13 2006 From: classiccmp at vintage-computer.com (Erik Klein) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 09:43:13 -0700 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? Message-ID: <254e802e6ab0a94ea0db271dfe0dd383@208.46.209.254> Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the age (or gender) limits but it is their show. I'd encourage anyone, of any age or gender, to contact them if interested. I've talked to them and they are reasonable folks. They have a target demographic in mind, obviously, but I suspect they could be swayed by a particularly interesting collector. They are firm on the "active collector" aspect, though. They want folks who are in the field looking. . . ----- Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum The Vintage Computer Forum --------- Original Message -------- From: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: Re: Do you want to be on TV? Date: 10/03/06 02:24 > SO ONLY MALES 18-45. What a crock! Joe Rigdon's about my age (over 45) and would be a perfect candidate for this except for the arbitrary age limitation. Whaddya say, Joe? Ya never know, might be a buck in it. Glen 0/0 Erik Klein wrote: > > I just got the following in my mailbox: > > > ----- > I am with a documentary television company that is looking for amateurs who > are able to distinguish junk from treasure, and that includes architectural > and computer salvaging, dumpster divers, etc. for a pilot series for the > History Channel. The show is sort of Antique Roadshow with a little bit more > testosterone SO ONLY MALES 18-45. > > We are definitely looking for people who can share their know-how in > locating discarded items "that have lost their shine and sparkle, but not > their value – or their history." > In particular, we are looking for people who do this as a hobby and have a > great passion for it. > > Our show is about the search for such items, the history of the item and the > appraisal of the item's value. > We would be doing an hour-long show featuring three collectors and would > follow each collector on their journey for their hidden “treasure." > > If you would be interested in speaking with me regarding this show, could > you please contact me at the number or e-mail listed below. > Thank you! > ________________________________________________ Message sent using UebiMiau 2.7.9 From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 10 10:57:06 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 08:57:06 -0800 Subject: Telling (MS)DOS about a second floppy drive... In-Reply-To: <44117C4C.4050501@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44117C4C.4050501@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200603100857060859.4112698C@10.0.0.252> On 3/10/2006 at 1:17 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >Assuming that the FDC will work with two (I've never heard of an FDC that >won't?), is there a way of telling MSDOS about the second drive even when >the BIOS refuses to acknowledge its presence? First off, DRIVER.SYS depends on BIOS support; it's not clear if that's present in your system. But something of a bit more concern is if there's hardware support for the second floppy. In other words, you need to determine if the extra "glue" for drive select and motor control's present on that PC. Here's how to determine what the score is. Cable your second drive up, and stick a floppy in both drives. Boot DOS and start DEBUG. At the DEBUG hyphen prompt enter: -o 3f2 1c The motor and the drive select LED should activate on the A: floppy Now enter: -o 3f2 2d The LED and motor should deactivate on the first drive and the LED and motor should activate on the second drive. If it doesn't, you probably don't have hardware-level support. To quit, enter: -o 3f2 04 -q Even if the PC lacks hardware support, you can still use something like a Microsolutions Backpack parallel-port floppy to get that second drive. If your PC has hardware support, there were several third-party vendors of low-level floppy support and I can probably dig in my archives and pull a few out for you. Cheers, Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Mar 10 11:06:04 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 17:06:04 +0000 Subject: Telling (MS)DOS about a second floppy drive... In-Reply-To: <575131af0603100838j174c0eacj984e4c4e95d633b0@mail.gmail.com> References: <44117C4C.4050501@yahoo.co.uk> <575131af0603100519v5bca7c49me5676e4d12afee3f@mail.gmail.com> <4411A034.7080306@yahoo.co.uk> <575131af0603100838j174c0eacj984e4c4e95d633b0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4411B1FC.6010800@yahoo.co.uk> Liam Proven wrote: > On 3/10/06, Jules Richardson wrote: >> Instead of using drive letters, it uses drive numbers - so according to the >> docs 0 would be A:, but 1 could either be B: if a second drive was found, or >> C: if it wasn't. >> >> Got horribly confused at that point, decided that I didn't want a messed-up >> hard disk if the B: drive wasn't seen, and kicked the machine. :-) > > Oh, no, it wouldn't do that. Hard drives are addressed totally > differently & there'd be no confusion unless you told > drivparm/driver.sys to use drive C: - not sure what would happen then! Yes, it didn't say in the help how device numbers were translated to actual drives though - last thing I wanted was DOS thinking my hard disk had 80 tracks and suddenly crashing when booting :-) I'm not quite sure why it uses a device numbering scheme, when the device numbers can change depending on what hardware's attached (mind you I have no idea what happens if you were to add a second floppy controller say - whether drives 3 and 4 become devices 2 and 3, or if they follow on after and hard disks (and become say, 3 and 4 in a system with a single hard disk) The relationship between the numbering and the physical devices wasn't documented :-( >> I've gone back to a previous system now which has a sensible BIOS (and >> on-board SCSI and audio, which may be handy for other data recovery stuff >> anyway). Shame the case is huge, but at least there's room for four 5.25" >> devices, and I could probably shoehorn an 8" drive on it's side in there too >> if needs be with a bit of hacksaw work! > > Eeeesh. Good luck! Heh heh. It'll be far easier for me to hang the 8" drive outside the case - but *technically* there is room for it to fit inside providing I relocate the hard disk and don't use any large expansion cards... Ultimately I want to get rid of the hard disk anyway, and boot from something like compact flash - as control and actual storage for disk images would be external to this box with the floppy drives in, there's no need for any actual large hard disk in the machine. All I need is OS + disk + network access code to come from *somewhere* (possibly even ROM I suppose) cheers J. From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Mar 10 11:04:38 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 09:04:38 -0800 Subject: CP/M sysgen question In-Reply-To: <200603100835070136.40FE3F66@10.0.0.252> References: <20060310120835.PPWY8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <4411A1AC.4010808@msm.umr.edu> <200603100835070136.40FE3F66@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4411B1A6.5040000@msm.umr.edu> Chuck Guzis wrote: >On 3/10/2006 at 7:56 AM jim stephens wrote: > > > Tarbell had a command to write the boot tracks, and IIRC it was sys.com. Also some systems had IBM compatable 26 sector boot tracks, with high density tracks on the higher tracks, so a single program had to be multi talented to do the system vs the data tracks. I didn't recall about the standard kit, since I only worked from the Tarbell distribution for the most part. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Mar 10 11:10:06 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 17:10:06 +0000 Subject: C Compilers for (MS)DOS In-Reply-To: <20060310145454.SHJT8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> References: <43FCF0B4.4080603@yahoo.co.uk> <20060310145454.SHJT8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <4411B2EE.3080402@yahoo.co.uk> Dave Dunfield wrote: >> Jules Richardson wrote: >>> What's the state of play regarding DOS C compilers? I might have a need >>> to do some DOS-based C development work - are there any good-but-free >>> DOS compilers about? >> Forgot to say thanks to everyone for their thoughts - I think Turbo C's >> probably the way to go then, and from memory it'll do nice stuff like inline >> assembler too... >> >> (I want to try to put a serial console onto Dave Dunfield's Imagedisk code so >> I can control it from a remote box and not need a screen/keyboard on the >> Imagedisk machine. Ideally Ethernet and telnet would be the way to go, but I >> think asking something like that of my brain is too much to expect :-) > > I didn't see the original message - but if you want to work on ImageDisk, why > not use the toolset that ImageDisk was developed using - The PC edition of my > own DDS Micro-C compiler, available free from my commercial website > (www.dunfield.com). Ta, will take a look! Ultimately I'd like something that sat on the network and could be controlled remotely (and be able to say FTP or HTTP or NFS or SMB transfer data to a remote box holding disk images) - but that's a colossal amount of work to get going under DOS! Serial port control is a little easier though, and at least means the machine with the drives in doesn't need its own keyboard / display. Or I could just get a KVM, but that's no fun :-) From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Mar 10 11:12:45 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 17:12:45 +0000 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? In-Reply-To: <254e802e6ab0a94ea0db271dfe0dd383@208.46.209.254> References: <254e802e6ab0a94ea0db271dfe0dd383@208.46.209.254> Message-ID: <4411B38D.4020100@yahoo.co.uk> Erik Klein wrote: > Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the age (or gender) limits but it is their show. > > I'd encourage anyone, of any age or gender, to contact them if interested. > I've talked to them and they are reasonable folks. Although they don't really say how any such people signing up would be portrayed in the show - there's probably a fine line between making people look like knowledgeable folks and complete lunatics... From classiccmp at vintage-computer.com Fri Mar 10 11:49:15 2006 From: classiccmp at vintage-computer.com (Erik Klein) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 10:49:15 -0700 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? Message-ID: Talk to them. That's the best I can offer. I felt comfortable with their premise when I did. I'd encourage anyone interested to do their own homework. This sounds like it could be a lot of fun and it could provide a nice boost to the hobby. Honestly, I can't imagine they are trying to railroad folks into a humiliation-fest. That doesn't seem like a sustainable business model, does it? ;) I'll agree that some folks here might come off as lunatics (regardless of the medium) but I think these folks are after knowledgeable treasure hunters, not pocket-protector geeks. The blurb that I posted hardly conveys their entire plan. . . ----- Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum The Vintage Computer Forum --------- Original Message -------- From: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: Re: Do you want to be on TV? Date: 10/03/06 03:13 Erik Klein wrote: > Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the age (or gender) limits but it is their show. > > I'd encourage anyone, of any age or gender, to contact them if interested. > I've talked to them and they are reasonable folks. Although they don't really say how any such people signing up would be portrayed in the show - there's probably a fine line between making people look like knowledgeable folks and complete lunatics... ________________________________________________ Message sent using UebiMiau 2.7.9 From vrs at msn.com Fri Mar 10 12:03:55 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 10:03:55 -0800 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? References: Message-ID: From: "Erik Klein" > Honestly, I can't imagine they are trying to railroad folks into a > humiliation-fest. That doesn't seem like a sustainable business model, does > it? ;) Depends on how they get paid! Plenty of shows are well known to be humiliation fests for the people on them, but are wildly successful. (Jerry Springer comes to mind.) Sadly, people seem to love "look at the loser" shows. Vince From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 10 12:10:58 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:10:58 -0700 Subject: CatWeasel card (was: I guess I should have asked this before asking for a 5.25" floppy drive) In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 10 Mar 2006 09:33:56 -0500. <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3384A@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: In article <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3384A at mail.catcorner.org>, Kelly Leavitt writes: > It was the version 4 card. I enquired directly with Jens and that is who was > suggested I purchase from in the US (softhut.com). Sweet, I will order one! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Fri Mar 10 12:11:19 2006 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 13:11:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: Apple II Setup Disk In-Reply-To: <380-220063510162431171@buckeye-express.com> References: <380-220063510162431171@buckeye-express.com> Message-ID: I'm in the middle of getting a IIGS running System 6.0.1 talking to Netatalk running on a Linux box. While I can mount the Netatalk shares on the IIGS, I need a copy of the "Apple II Setup Disk", version 3.0 in order to boot the IIGS from the Netatalk server. The setup disk available for download on Apple's site is only version 2.2. Does anyone have version 3.0 of the setup disk, that they can image for me? Thanks. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 10 12:15:47 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 10:15:47 -0800 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? In-Reply-To: <022f01c6446c$ffff0e60$6700a8c0@vrs> References: <022f01c6446c$ffff0e60$6700a8c0@vrs> Message-ID: <200603101015470767.415A7298@10.0.0.252> Although I'm outside the age range, depending on memory rather than a collection for information, I'd advise anyone who got into this to make sure that they can be part of the editing process. Researching and opining about something is one matter if you're sitting in front of a computer and fact-checking; it's quite another kettle of fish if you're asked to think on your feet real-time. When I think back over the late 70's and 80's and all of the harebrained underfunded (and some overfunded) projects I had pitched at me by a bunch of guys with a "good idea", I'd be afraid of running into one of these "we made and delivered a couple hundred of these and then we closed down" relics. Few have any idea of how many IBM BC "near clones" there were. I think they may have outnumbered the Z80/8085-type 8 bitters. Cheers, Chuck From Hans.Franke at siemens.com Fri Mar 10 12:24:51 2006 From: Hans.Franke at siemens.com (Hans Franke) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 19:24:51 +0100 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <4411D283.12394.C284EAB@localhost> Am 10 Mar 2006 10:49 meinte Erik Klein: > Honestly, I can't imagine they are trying to railroad folks into a > humiliation-fest. That doesn't seem like a sustainable business model, does > it? ;) Hey, 85% of todays TV is based on humiliation of people ... the rest is repeated advertisement for humiliateing shows. Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 7.0 am 29/30.April und 01.Mai 2006 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/ From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 10 12:21:55 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 10:21:55 -0800 Subject: Telling (MS)DOS about a second floppy drive... In-Reply-To: <44117C4C.4050501@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44117C4C.4050501@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200603101021550646.41600F9F@10.0.0.252> On 3/10/2006 at 1:17 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >Can't remember if there's a way of doing this or not! > >I've acquired a nice compact HP PC which I had plans to use as a data >recovery box - except that I've just discovered that the braindead BIOS only >supports one floppy disk drive; I need a 3.5" HD drive as the first disk and a >5.25" HD drive as the second... Even without expansion slots, any PC with a parallel port can support additional SCSI hard drives using a parallel-to-SCSI adapter like an Adaptec 358. It's not fast, but it's adequate. Cheers, Chuck From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Fri Mar 10 12:59:06 2006 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 18:59:06 +0000 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4411CC7A.3040903@gjcp.net> Erik Klein wrote: > > I just got the following in my mailbox: > > History Channel. The show is sort of Antique Roadshow with a little bit more > testosterone SO ONLY MALES 18-45. That's not very fair, my girlfriend is fairly into PDP-11s too. Gordon. From Watzman at neo.rr.com Fri Mar 10 13:15:48 2006 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:15:48 -0500 Subject: OT laser printer question In-Reply-To: <200603101800.k2AI0OnL019197@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <008101c64477$0a6e36f0$6501a8c0@barry> Re: ********** > If its the physical letters on the paper, if they are lumpy or if they > are smearing if touched then your High Voltage power supply board is > starting to fail. Intuitively, if the toner smears when touched, I'd assume it wasn't being fused properly, and would investigate the fuser and its control system first. ********** That is correct. If the toner smears when touched, the problem is in the fuser, and it has nothing to do with the HV power supply, drum or anything else. In early laser printer (up to at least the Canon EX engine in the Laserjet 4 and, I think, 5), fusing was done with heated rollers. The upper fusing roller was an aluminum roller with a silicone (non-stick) coating, and inside the hollow roller was a high-power tubular halogen lamp (500 to 900 watts). The lamp was line-operated, thus different for 110v and 220v printers, and the cause of failure was almost always that the lamp had simply burned out (although lamp control problems are possible, but not common -- the lamp does not burn continuously, it's cycled based on the roller temperature). The lamp can be replaced ($30-ish, typically) by a technician who knows what they are doing, but it's more common to replace the entire fuser assembly ($100+ in most cases). Later models (those that have near-zero warm-up) use "thin film fusing", which is more sophisticated, much more power efficient, and also more complex and difficult to repair unless you go for the swap of the entire fusing sub-assembly. From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Mar 10 13:33:30 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:33:30 -0500 Subject: another printer question Message-ID: <200603101433.30900.rtellason@blazenet.net> Got an IBM 4019 here, and it has a postscript board in it, I'm told. I can't seem to find any info on that option. The problem is, every time you power the thing up it kicks out a page with stats and settings and whatnot on it -- which over time is a hell of a waste of paper, particularly if you're not printing much. Anybody know of a way to make it stop doing that? -- 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 cfox1 at cogeco.ca Fri Mar 10 14:26:09 2006 From: cfox1 at cogeco.ca (Charles E. Fox) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 15:26:09 -0500 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? In-Reply-To: <4411CC7A.3040903@gjcp.net> References: <4411CC7A.3040903@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <7.0.0.16.0.20060310152512.0197db18@cogeco.ca> At 01:59 PM 3/10/2006, you wrote: >Erik Klein wrote: >> >>I just got the following in my mailbox: > >>History Channel. The show is sort of Antique Roadshow with a little bit more >>testosterone SO ONLY MALES 18-45. > >That's not very fair, my girlfriend is fairly into PDP-11s too. > >Gordon. > It lets me out, I'm eighty one. Charlie Fox Charles E. Fox Video Production 793 Argyle Rd. Windsor Ontario Canada N8Y 3J8 519-254-4991 cfox1 at cogeco.ca Check out The Camcorder Kindergarten at www.chasfoxvideo.com From williams.dan at gmail.com Fri Mar 10 14:56:58 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 20:56:58 +0000 Subject: C Compilers for (MS)DOS In-Reply-To: <4411B2EE.3080402@yahoo.co.uk> References: <43FCF0B4.4080603@yahoo.co.uk> <20060310145454.SHJT8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <4411B2EE.3080402@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <26c11a640603101256v6f96206cl@mail.gmail.com> > Ultimately I'd like something that sat on the network and could be controlled > remotely (and be able to say FTP or HTTP or NFS or SMB transfer data to a > remote box holding disk images) - but that's a colossal amount of work to get > going under DOS! Serial port control is a little easier though, and at least > means the machine with the drives in doesn't need its own keyboard / display. > > Or I could just get a KVM, but that's no fun :-) > > > You can get a lan manager client from here : http://www.jacco2.dds.nl/samba/dos.html you can mount drives from windows or samba. You can access a dos machine using X with this : http://www.drdos.com/dosdoc/Tcpip/dos_util/dosutil7.htm I don't know if they will work together though Dan From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Mar 10 17:53:34 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 15:53:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: Telling (MS)DOS about a second floppy drive... In-Reply-To: <4411A034.7080306@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44117C4C.4050501@yahoo.co.uk> <575131af0603100519v5bca7c49me5676e4d12afee3f@mail.gmail.com> <4411A034.7080306@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20060310152815.J78156@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 10 Mar 2006, Jules Richardson wrote: > >> Assuming that the FDC will work with two (I've never heard of an FDC that > >> won't?), There do exist some pissy machines that do not have the second drive drive select and motor on signals on the connector! Is such a deliberately bad machine worth spending some time with a soldering iron? > > DRIVER.SYS, isn't it? > > device=c:\dos\driver.sys (parms) the parms are /D:drive number /F:drive type > Instead of using drive letters, it uses drive numbers - so according to the > docs 0 would be A:, but 1 could either be B: if a second drive was found, or > C: if it wasn't. Neither DRIVPARM nor DRIVER.SYS will affect, nor even notice the existence of your hard drive. 0 is the first physical floppy; 1 is the second physical floppy; 2 is the third physical floppy; 3 is the fourth physical floppy. Int 13h (plus its XT extensions) uses 80h for the first hard disk, 81h for the second hard disk. If you want to use more than 128 floppy drives on one machine, then your problems would be more than the BIOS numbering. DRIVER.SYS is an ordinary block device driver, so it assigns the next letter to the drive. Therefore, your second floppy will be drive D: (or more, if you have other drivers loading first). LASTDRIVE=Z: may be necessary. DRIVPARM, OTOH, changes parameters for existing drives, and does not create additional drive letters. DRIVPARM is incompatible with MOST OEM IBM BIOS's, and is therefore undocumented in PC-DOS (but IS there, and DOES work with non-IBM BIOS) DRIVER.SYS and DRIVPARM were introduced with DOS 3.20, and don't appear to have changed much over the years, other than adding additional supported drive types. > Got horribly confused at that point, decided that I didn't want a messed-up > hard disk if the B: drive wasn't seen, and kicked the machine. :-) NOTE: always wear steel toed boots around non-classic PCs. > I've gone back to a previous system now which has a sensible BIOS (and > on-board SCSI and audio, which may be handy for other data recovery stuff > anyway). Shame the case is huge, but at least there's room for four 5.25" > devices, and I could probably shoehorn an 8" drive on it's side in there too > if needs be with a bit of hacksaw work! don't forget to include 3", 3.5", (could prob'ly skip 3.25"), floptical, ZIP, ORB, JAZ, tape drives, CD, DVD, memory card readers, . . . -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 10 18:10:01 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 16:10:01 -0800 Subject: Brief mention of S-100 bus in EDN In-Reply-To: <200603091113450211.3C692562@10.0.0.252> References: <200603091113450211.3C692562@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603101610010550.429EBEAD@10.0.0.252> On 3/9/2006 at 11:13 AM Chuck Guzis wrote: >Tiny feature article in EDN online about S-100 bus: > >http://tinyurl.com/eclyo What really bothers me is the heading of the page: "Yesterday's Hype Meets Today's Reality". What's that supposed to mean? Did anyone "hype" the S-100 bus? Honestly, I understand EDN less and less... In point of fact, what's so special about the S-100 bus? Multibus is probably just as old, claims an IEEE standard (796 and 1296) and is still in use today (Multibus II anyway). Some, including yours truly, would argue that Multibus is a much better design than S-100. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 10 18:15:40 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 16:15:40 -0800 Subject: HP4145 Message-ID: <200603101615400858.42A3EC19@10.0.0.252> Don't know if this one comes up too often, but I recently acquired an HP 4145 semiconductor analyzer software diskette. It's SSSD 5.25". If anyone's interested, I can shoot out an image. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Mar 10 18:58:26 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 16:58:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Do you want to be on TV? In-Reply-To: <7.0.0.16.0.20060310152512.0197db18@cogeco.ca> References: <4411CC7A.3040903@gjcp.net> <7.0.0.16.0.20060310152512.0197db18@cogeco.ca> Message-ID: <20060310164910.X83460@shell.lmi.net> > History Channel. The show is sort of Antique Roadshow with a little bit more > testosterone SO ONLY MALES 18-45. Who, with any testosterone, would turn away somebody like Jerri Ellsworth???? From dm561 at torfree.net Fri Mar 10 19:09:35 2006 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 20:09:35 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 31, Issue 21 Message-ID: <01C6447E.B036FE80@mse-d03> No problem if you can find a copy of PCAnywhere/Carbon Copy/Freeware equivalent; Serial or parallel port connection would be trivial, NetBIOS no problem either; don't know about TCP/IP. mike -------Original Message Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 17:10:06 +0000 From: Jules Richardson Subject: Re: C Compilers for (MS)DOS Ta, will take a look! Ultimately I'd like something that sat on the network and could be controlled remotely (and be able to say FTP or HTTP or NFS or SMB transfer data to a remote box holding disk images) - but that's a colossal amount of work to get going under DOS! Serial port control is a little easier though, and at least means the machine with the drives in doesn't need its own keyboard / display. Or I could just get a KVM, but that's no fun :-) From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Mar 10 19:24:55 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 17:24:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Writing Apple ][ disk images... In-Reply-To: <441190E8.45.B280933@localhost> References: <441190E8.45.B280933@localhost> Message-ID: <20060310171912.O83460@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 10 Mar 2006, Hans Franke wrote: > As for hardware, there have been some solutions. First > to my memory is always the Turnover board, which I found > a good (some particulat list member might have a different > opinion:) solution back when I had a PC/XT and an Apple II. IFF you find a working one (high failure rate), and IF you find a drive that it works OK with (I used TM100-2), then the Turnover is OK. File system support is Apple-DOS, Apple CP/M, Apple Pascal, Pro-DOs. (BTW, it was "Apple Turnover" until Apple's lawyers visited Vertex.) > Just, the Turnover is a strict PX or PC/XT board. I never > got it working in an AT (or above) machine. I did, but not reliably. > Oh, and don't forget the Trackstar Board(s), basicly an > Apple II or IIe on a PC-Card, a huge IC-Graveyard. It can and the QuadLink from Quadram (> 70% DOA) From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 10 19:30:40 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 18:30:40 -0700 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 10 Mar 2006 09:19:34 -0600. <44119906.7080906@pacbell.net> Message-ID: In article <44119906.7080906 at pacbell.net>, Jim Battle writes: > I think Jens was happy enough with version III of the catweasel, but > some component (I think it was the PCI interface chip) became > unavailable, and he was forced to redesign it. Since he was > redesigning, he added more features, including some that make reading > hard sectored disks easier and makes writing them possible. > > I have a mark IV version, although I haven't yet tried to use it. :-( Hmm... the card offered on softhut says it is an ISA card. So is the Mk IV Catweasel ISA or PCI?!? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Mar 10 19:10:10 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 01:10:10 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Tinkertoy computer that plays tic-tac-toe In-Reply-To: <44117392.2010705@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Mar 10, 6 12:39:46 pm Message-ID: > Nah, you need someone to build a machine that assembles the machine - now > *that* would be cool :-) No, what you want to make is a tinkertoy (or Lego, or Fischertechnik, or Meccano, or...) machine that assembles an exact copy of itself. That would be truely cool.. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Mar 10 18:54:11 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 00:54:11 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 11/34a problems continue In-Reply-To: from "Julian Wolfe" at Mar 9, 6 06:06:24 pm Message-ID: > > Well, I can tell you I am throughly confused when it comes to measuring this > particular power supply system with a multimeter. I *did* do some measuring > a few months ago on this, and could not for the life of me get a reading off > of the backplane, nor the power distribution board. However, the only Right... Alas I am a lot better at diagnosing electronic faults than mindreading :-)... Let me again start with a general comment. If you get what seem to be crazy readings, then it's time to investigate. Maybe you've made a mistake. There's nothing wrong in making mistakes, I do it all the time (as does every other engineer, hacker, whatever that I know). By findout out what you're doing wrong, you learn a lot. Or maybe there's a real fault that needs to be traced and cured. In which case those seemingly odd readings will help in finding it. > response I got was the light going out on the H7441 when I tried to measure > the +15V line that was, AFAIK, working properly. Hang on a sec... Do you mean H754 (the -15V regulator) here? I assume you do mean the +15V line. Now, IIRC the +15V regulator is a very simple circuit without much overload protection other than a fuse on the regulator PCB. If you managed to short the +15V lien to ground, the most likely result would be to blow that fuse. That would kill the +15V line, and with it the -15V line. One very easy way to do that is to accidentally plug your meter leads into the current sockets on the multimeter. Some meters (including my Fluke) beep if oyu set them to a voltage range with the leads in the current soockets to warn you about this. Most don't. > > I even traced down which black was the ground for what, if it mattered, and > made sure I used that to measure. The ground is commnn throught the entire system, it's linked between the backplanes. The other power rails are not linked -- there might be, for example,. several +5V lines in the system (there are 2 in just the 11/34 CPU box) that are not linked. They both should be at about +5V wrt the common ground, but there might be slight differences. This should all be shown in the power distribution PCB schematics. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Mar 10 18:59:00 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 00:59:00 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP 9915B Repair Help Request In-Reply-To: from "Juergen Sievers" at Mar 10, 6 01:37:05 am Message-ID: > > Hi Tony Duell. > > Could you remember this thread below ? I probalby don't remember this particular thead, you must realise that I work on many machines.... But I do rememebr the 9915. I don't have a 9915B, but I do have a 9915A, which I think has the same tape drive. > I have the same system and need some help to reassemble an HP tape drive. > After disassembling and ultrasonic cleaning of a HP-Tape-Drive for this > HP9915B two parts remaining unassembled. > > Two parts, small thin chromium-plated metal stripes, are droped down out = > of > the device during dismantling. > I could not find out where these have to be mounted again. > > Here you could see few pictures of these parts. > http://www.nadhh.hanse.de/CMuseum/HP/HPTapeHilfe.htm OK, I managed to view that with some difficulty... Assuming the other think in the picture is a normal-size cotton bud, these are too small to be the buckling-strips from the front panel buttons (as somebody else suggested). I think they do, indeed, come from the tape drive. Theree are guides each side for the tape cartrdige baseplate. In these guides are little plastic rollers, similar to the pressure roller in an HP67 card reader. IIRC at least one of these rollers is spring-loaded, and those strips are the springs. They fit into slots inside the tape guide before you sxcrew it in place. IIRC, this is a somewhat painful thing to assemble, even if you did have a mis-spennt shildhood assembling watches, etc... > > I would be really happily if someone could help me to get out where these > parts has > to be placed back into that tape-drive. Could you help me ? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Mar 10 19:52:17 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 01:52:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: OT laser printer question In-Reply-To: <008101c64477$0a6e36f0$6501a8c0@barry> from "Barry Watzman" at Mar 10, 6 02:15:48 pm Message-ID: > > Re: > > ********** > > If its the physical letters on the paper, if they are lumpy or if they > > are smearing if touched then your High Voltage power supply board is > > starting to fail. > > Intuitively, if the toner smears when touched, I'd assume it wasn't being > fused properly, and would investigate the fuser and its control system > first. > > ********** > > That is correct. If the toner smears when touched, the problem is in the > fuser, and it has nothing to do with the HV power supply, drum or anything Well, it's in the fuser _or the fuser control circuit_. Cetainly on the CX and SX printers, if the fuser is totally dead (e.g. a burnt-out lamp), the control system will shut the printer down and give an erorr. The fuser temperature is measured by a thermistor in contact with the upper roller, at least on the CX and SX models. It feeds into an ADC inputer ona microcontrolelr (IIRC a 7811), one output of which controls the fuser. That output drives a fairly complex protection circuit that then drives the triac in series with the fuser lamp. If there as some problem with the thermistor or the resistors around that ADC input, the controller migth think the fuser was up to temperature when it was in fact too cold. That could cause smearable toner. Ah yes, the protection circuit. Basically, the fuser is only turned on if there's a pulse output from the microcontrolelr (I don;t think it's any kind of PWM, though). Stuck high or stuck low will make the fuser turn off (I think on the CX, stuck high will deliberatly burn out a plug-in resistor on the prtrection PCB, casuing a relay to turn off and the fuser to shut down). On the SX, there's a circuit ther turns off a protection relay if it detects a current in the fuser circuit when the triac should be off. And there's an independant thermoswitch on the fuser that opens the lamp circuit if the thing gets too hot. I've had electronic problems too. In particualr the control triac can fail. And the protection circuit can have interesting faults. One of the worst I've had to trace was in my own SX. The protection relay would drop out after a few seconds of power-on. I removeed the AC input module (which contaisn the fuser drive and protection circuitry) and powered up the protection circuit from a 24V bench supply. The darn thing still dropped out after a few seconds. Yes, the shutdown capacitor was charging, but all possible components it could charge via tested OK. Heck, even removing them didn't stop it charging. You guessed it, leakage across the PCB, due to gunge from a defective electrolytic... > else. In early laser printer (up to at least the Canon EX engine in the > Laserjet 4 and, I think, 5), fusing was done with heated rollers. The upper > fusing roller was an aluminum roller with a silicone (non-stick) coating, > and inside the hollow roller was a high-power tubular halogen lamp (500 to > 900 watts). The lamp was line-operated, thus different for 110v and 220v > printers, and the cause of failure was almost always that the lamp had > simply burned out (although lamp control problems are possible, but not > common -- the lamp does not burn continuously, it's cycled based on the > roller temperature). The lamp can be replaced ($30-ish, typically) by a > technician who knows what they are doing, but it's more common to replace I'm not a technician, I probably don't know what I am doing, but I've replaced fuser lamps with no problems. The only 'gotcha' is that it's a quartz halogen lamp, handle it by the wires or the ceramic end caps only, don't touch the 'glass'. > the entire fuser assembly ($100+ in most cases). Now would I waste money like that? > > Later models (those that have near-zero warm-up) use "thin film fusing", > which is more sophisticated, much more power efficient, and also more > complex and difficult to repair unless you go for the swap of the entire > fusing sub-assembly. What's the difficulty (having never had the chance to take one apart)? -tony From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 10 20:19:45 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 18:19:45 -0800 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> On 3/10/2006 at 6:30 PM Richard wrote: >Hmm... the card offered on softhut says it is an ISA card. So is the Mk IV Catweasel ISA or PCI?!? It's PCI--the original Catweasel was ISA. Cheers, Chuck From teoz at neo.rr.com Fri Mar 10 23:03:23 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 00:03:23 -0500 Subject: CatWeasel card References: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <002a01c644c9$20180c40$a05d1941@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 9:19 PM Subject: Re: CatWeasel card > On 3/10/2006 at 6:30 PM Richard wrote: > > >Hmm... the card offered on softhut says it is an ISA card. So is the Mk > IV Catweasel ISA or PCI?!? > > It's PCI--the original Catweasel was ISA. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > How well does the Catweasel compare with the Central Points Deluxe Option Board (hardware and software)? From gtn at mind-to-mind.com Fri Mar 10 23:09:43 2006 From: gtn at mind-to-mind.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 00:09:43 -0500 Subject: Best/Cheapest source for FPM memory (4mb/8mb) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Apart from EPay, are there any good sources for smaller-sizes of <80ns FPM memory out there? From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 10 23:47:29 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 21:47:29 -0800 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: <002a01c644c9$20180c40$a05d1941@game> References: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> <002a01c644c9$20180c40$a05d1941@game> Message-ID: <200603102147290868.43D3B313@10.0.0.252> On 3/11/2006 at 12:03 AM Teo Zenios wrote: >How well does the Catweasel compare with the Central Points Deluxe Option >Board (hardware and software)? DIfferent animals entirely. The DOB was largely a black box type of item, Central Point didn't release any sort of information on it or the workings of the software. But one could make some guesses (e.g., there's a 9216 data separator on the board). I don't know that it'll run on anything much faster than a 386. It came with utilites to read and write Mac 400K and 800K diskettes and a sort of disk editor. In a nutshell, the Catweasel is pretty much as dumb as you can get in a floppy controller. Basically a timer and a counter and a bunch of RAM. You read a disk and it reports the time between pulses on the drive read line. It's the software that figures out what the pulses mean. Reverse the procedure for writing. Heck, on the I, II and III, there wasn't even a circuit to issue head motion pulses--you did it all with software. Jens has remedied this on the IV, however. The interface is completely open. A lot of the software's been written by users. If it matters, it'll work just fine under NT and Linux. A slight irritation to me is that Jens incorporates ciruittry to support the Amiga SID chip and an extra keyboard. Seems pretty pointless to me and just adds to the price tag. If you wanted to, you could even make your own version of the Catweasel if you wanted--it's simple enough that I don't panic about it going out of production. Cheers, Chuck From Tim at Rikers.org Sat Mar 11 00:34:30 2006 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 23:34:30 -0700 Subject: HP cables In-Reply-To: <200603071333.k27DXrmB028581@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <440BC5C8.2010408@Rikers.org> <200603051915.k25JFMRt029767@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <200603071333.k27DXrmB028581@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <44126F76.6030504@Rikers.org> Dennis Boone wrote: > > I've not found the number yet, but are you interested in getting > > rid of them? I've got a bunch of HP hardware and could likely use > > them. Some other HP cables: > > > > http://rikers.org/gallery/hardware/20050417_214520 > > > > The centronics connectors are 50 pin card edge on the other end? or > > higher pin count? > > Same pin count, but it's centronics-to-mrac or winchester-to-mrac. > Here's a pair of images showing the two types: > > http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/img_1848.gif > http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/img_1849.gif > > The camera did funny things to the colors; the jacket of the cables > have a silvery color, and the connector shells are metal. They're > cleaner than they look. > > They're probably available. Hmm. It looks like the same connector on the back of my paper tape reader. I'll take em if you don't want em, but it's just to have a spare connector, cause they complete cable does not match anything I have. -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From lance.w.lyon at gmail.com Sat Mar 11 01:11:06 2006 From: lance.w.lyon at gmail.com (Lance Lyon) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 18:11:06 +1100 Subject: CatWeasel card References: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252><002a01c644c9$20180c40$a05d1941@game> <200603102147290868.43D3B313@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <002d01c644da$f8bc3100$6500a8be@pentium> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: Sent: Saturday, March 11, 2006 4:47 PM Subject: Re: CatWeasel card > A slight irritation to me is that Jens incorporates ciruittry to support > the Amiga SID chip and an extra keyboard. Seems pretty pointless to me > and > just adds to the price tag. Amigas don't have SID chips - they belong in the 64 & 128 cheers, Lance // http://landover.no-ip.com Classic machines, classic software // From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 11 11:20:39 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 09:20:39 -0800 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: <002d01c644da$f8bc3100$6500a8be@pentium> References: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> <002a01c644c9$20180c40$a05d1941@game> <200603102147290868.43D3B313@10.0.0.252> <002d01c644da$f8bc3100$6500a8be@pentium> Message-ID: <200603110920390426.464E4E44@10.0.0.252> On 3/11/2006 at 6:11 PM Lance Lyon wrote: >Amigas don't have SID chips - they belong in the 64 & 128 I stand corrected. They keyboard connector interfaces to an Amiga keyboard, but the SID is strictly C-64 and 128 territory. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Mar 11 15:18:47 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 13:18:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: CP DOB (was: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: <200603102147290868.43D3B313@10.0.0.252> References: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> <002a01c644c9$20180c40$a05d1941@game> <200603102147290868.43D3B313@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060311131540.Y18984@shell.lmi.net> > >How well does the Catweasel compare with the Central Points Deluxe Option > >Board (hardware and software)? On Fri, 10 Mar 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > DIfferent animals entirely. The DOB was largely a black box type of item, > Central Point didn't release any sort of information on it or the workings > of the software. But one could make some guesses (e.g., there's a 9216 > data separator on the board). http://retro.icequake.net/dob/transcopy.html There are a few minor discrepancies between that and disassembly of TE.COM From javickers at solutionengineers.com Sat Mar 11 15:55:54 2006 From: javickers at solutionengineers.com (Ade Vickers) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 21:55:54 -0000 Subject: MicroVAX 3400 on eBay UK Message-ID: <200603112208.k2BM82BT052069@keith.ezwind.net> I'd love it myself, but Herself would definitely kill me; plus I can't really get to Bradford to pick it up :( http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8778026608 Ends on 16 March Cheers, Ade. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.2.1/279 - Release Date: 10/03/2006 From innfoclassics at gmail.com Sat Mar 11 18:12:04 2006 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 16:12:04 -0800 Subject: Sun 2 card, others, Multibus, on ebay, last day Message-ID: I have the following early mid 1980s Multibus 1 cards that are closing Sunday on ebay. The sale number is following the item. Sun 2 Multibus 68010 CPU Card, 1983 8776175837 Sun Multibus 1/4" Tape Controller Card, 1982 8776357220 Systech Multibus Mag Tape Controller, 850/1650BPI 8776370593 Xylogics 450 Multibus One SMD Drive controller 8776228165 Or search for seller innfosale They are Sun 2 cards from a Parallel Computer in the 1980s. The tape controllers are from the same system. There has been some interest in Sun 2 lately and I finally found these. Paxton Astoria, Oregon Innfosale -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From legalize at xmission.com Sat Mar 11 18:22:49 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 17:22:49 -0700 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 10 Mar 2006 18:19:45 -0800. <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603101819450723.4315859A at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > On 3/10/2006 at 6:30 PM Richard wrote: > > >Hmm... the card offered on softhut says it is an ISA card. So is the Mk > IV Catweasel ISA or PCI?!? > > It's PCI--the original Catweasel was ISA. Softhut says their PCI card is Mk 3, not Mk 4. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jrkeys at concentric.net Sat Mar 11 18:30:09 2006 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 18:30:09 -0600 Subject: Fluke Multimeter Question Message-ID: <00a701c6456c$20f772b0$28406b43@66067007> Anyone on list have a Fluke 87 IV True RMS multimeter? I got one at auction and just downloaded the manual (96 pages) from a online website. If you have one, what do you feel about it's usefulness? thanks From CCTalk at catcorner.org Sat Mar 11 18:56:48 2006 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 19:56:48 -0500 Subject: CatWeasel card Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3384E@mail.catcorner.org> Instead of hashing it out here, call the guy. I ordered from the web site, got an immediate response that they were waiting for stock and that they'd contact me. 3 days later He contacted me that they were in stock and shipping. They were MK4s > -----Original Message----- > From: Richard [mailto:legalize at xmission.com] > Sent: Saturday, March 11, 2006 7:23 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: CatWeasel card > > > > In article <200603101819450723.4315859A at 10.0.0.252>, > "Chuck Guzis" writes: > > > On 3/10/2006 at 6:30 PM Richard wrote: > > > > >Hmm... the card offered on softhut says it is an ISA card. > So is the Mk > > IV Catweasel ISA or PCI?!? > > > > It's PCI--the original Catweasel was ISA. > > Softhut says their PCI card is Mk 3, not Mk 4. > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > > From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 11 19:14:53 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 17:14:53 -0800 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603111714530297.48007D3A@10.0.0.252> On 3/11/2006 at 5:22 PM Richard wrote: >> It's PCI--the original Catweasel was ISA. > >Softhut says their PCI card is Mk 3, not Mk 4. A little Google search will confirm beyond the faintest shadow of a doubt that the MK 4 is a PC card. Not only that, but it even conforms to compact PCI outlines! http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=206 Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 11 19:19:07 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 17:19:07 -0800 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3384E@mail.catcorner.org> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3384E@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <200603111719070517.48045E4B@10.0.0.252> Oh--and ithis site has the CW MK 4 about 13 clams cheaper than SoftHut: http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=206 Cheers, Chuck From news at computercollector.com Sat Mar 11 23:25:21 2006 From: news at computercollector.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 00:25:21 -0500 Subject: Two new replica kits, exciting stuff! Message-ID: <001101c64595$5bdd47f0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Hi everyone. I don't usually do this, but here is the current issue of Computer Collector, in its entirety -- read carefully to learn about the DigiComp 1 v.2.0 kit and, perhaps more interesting to some of you, Vince Briel's new "AltairPC" kit. ============================================== >> WELCOME TO THE COMPUTER COLLECTOR NEWSLETTER >> W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news at computercollector.com >> March 11, 2006: News/opinion, tidbits, classifieds This week's issue: 1. Build a DigiComp; 2. Another new Altair replica; 3. Plasma Pong; 4. Apple's 30th anniversary; 5. Rockwell thermal printers wanted Is this issue late from last Monday, or early for next Monday? You decide. We just know the news has been flowing in like it's high tide lately. Help us keep up the pace: what interests you in the hobby, what should we write about, what's your funniest collecting story? Share your scoop at news at computercollector.com -- we're interested! Please tell your friends about our newsletter! ************************************** NEWS & OPINION Ever feel like putting aside the complicated digital dinosaurs and getting back to binary basics? If so, the DigiComp kit from Minds-On Toys (http://www.mindsontoys.com) might be just what you need, but don't be surprised if your child is equally fascinated. The original Digi-Comp 1 was a mechanical, plastic computer made by Montclair, N.J.-based ESR Inc. starting in the mid-1960s. It sold for just $6 and now they're on eBay for hundreds. A discussion group formed in 1999 (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/friendsofdigicomp/) but things turned more exciting when Minds-On Toys last year began selling its replica kit called the Digi-Comp 1 v.2.0 for just $55. Originally the idea for a modern replica was discussed at various times in the Yahoo group, but the commercial version was the brainchild of Minds-On (a play on "hands-on") which is owned by Tim Walker. Walker has an impressive history in computers and education: he studied social psychology at Harvard, worked as a high school teacher, earned a masters degree in interactive telecommunications at New York University, studied under Seymour Papert at the MIT Media Lab (http://web.media.mit.edu/~papert/), and worked on Hypercard for a contractor to Apple Computer. Walker decided to build the replica as part of his ongoing research into the history of educational toys. His first round of 100 kits quickly sold out, so now it's in the second run. An interesting experience happened while building early prototypes out of heavy paper and similar materials -- he realized how much better it would function out of precision-cut metal -- akin to the experiences of Charles Babbage, whose ideas exceeded his technical resources. Luckily, Walker has access to modern production companies, although a large amount of reverse-engineering was required because he didn't own an original Digi-Comp while designing the replica. So what can the replica kit actually do? First, it can count from 0 to 101 (seven); if you have patience it can solve math problems and even play games. There isn't any memory, so you have to assist the machine by keeping track of values. But that's the point! Digi-Comp is for learning, not computing. You can literally view every step as it happens, and the 48-page instruction manual is simple enough for a 10- year-old, yet elegant enough for a trained programmer. After reading a few pages, it's clear why the original Digi-Comp was successful. - Evan Koblentz, editor --------------------------------------- Speaking of replicas, our inbox tonight contained an exciting message from Vince Briel, known for his Replica 1 kit version of the Apple 1 computer. Vince is making an earlier-than-expected announcement of his new replica, which is a semi-real Altair faceplate for an ordinary PC (not unlike Rich Cini's Altair32 project which we mentioned two weeks ago.) To read the details , visit http://www.brielcomputers.com or see it for yourself at the Vintage Computer Festival East 3.0 this spring (see the VCF details in our Tidbits section, below.) *************************************** BOOKS FROM THE CCN STAFF: >> Buy your copy of "Collectible Microcomputers" directly from author Michael Nadeau: http://www.classictechpub.com. This amazing book includes more than 700 computers with details and pricing. >> Christine Finn's "Artifacts: An archeologist's year in Silicon Valley" is the story of the change from farmlands to high-tech. Buy it directly from MIT Press at http://tinyurl.com/6rllz (also see Christine's blog http://traumwerk.stanford.edu:3455/ChristineFinn/9). **************************************** This week's vintage gaming news from Armchair Arcade, please visit http://www.armchairarcade.com/aamain/news.php for details: -- This. Is. Freaking. Awesome! -- Plasma Pong. I just played it and, trust me, you'll love it: http://216.120.241.243/~plasmap/ -- Coming soon: version 4 of Apple II Compact Flash: http://www.armchairarcade.com/aamain/news.php?extend.502 ... Also, the AppleWin software is now licensed under the GPL (same link) **************************************** TIDBITS -- The latest update on VCF East 3.0: there are now two live auctions, four keynote speeches, 14 exhibitors, and just two months to go! We're getting excited and you should be, too. Visit http://www.vintage.org for all the details and frequent updates. -- Over at CNET News.com, they're planning a special report for the 30th anniversary of Apple (http://tinyurl.com/o2pwl). April 1, 1976 was Day One, with the founders listed as Woz, Jobs, and Ronald Wayne -- who sold his stake two weeks later for $800. Anyway, CNET wants to know what you love(d) about Apple, so we'll do the opposite: tell us your favorite Apple horror stories. What were the company's biggest blunders, from executive strategies to customer support? Tell us what you HATE about the Cupertinians. Yes, we are serious. It'll be fun. **************************************** CLASSIFIEDS This week's classifieds are sponsored by the Vintage Computer Forum at http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/. For sale: 1. Free! IBM PC-2 for cost of shipping: http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?t=2667 2. Sharp PC5541 portable 286 computer: http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?t=2666 3. Assembled Briel Replica 1 (New Jersey): http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?t=2660 4. Commodore magazines and manuals: http://www.vintage-computer.com/commodore64.shtml 5. Full collection of Electronics Australia magazine: http://www.vintage-computer.com/magazines.shtml 6. Free! TRS-80 Model I with expansion interface for cost of shipping: http://www.vintage-computer.com/trs80mod1nk.shtml Items Wanted: 1. Early PC World magazines: http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?t=2691 2. Monochrome monitor with RCA jack: http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?t=2654 3. Thermal printers for Rockwell AIM-65: http://www.vintage-computer.com/aim65.shtml **************************************** SPONSORED LINKS: >> For more buy/sell/trade opportunities, please visit the Vintage Computer Marketplace at http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com. >> VintageTech provides services such as patent litigation support, prior art research, vintage computer consulting, movie and photography props, media and data conversion, appraisals, and sales brokering. Visit us: www.vintagetech.com. >> Special thanks to EvenLink LLC for sponsoring our domain name and e-mail hosting. Please visit http://www.evenlink.com for details. **************************************** HAPPY VINTAGE COMPUTING! From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Mar 11 23:38:58 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 21:38:58 -0800 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> References: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: >On 3/10/2006 at 6:30 PM Richard wrote: > >>Hmm... the card offered on softhut says it is an ISA card. So is the Mk >IV Catweasel ISA or PCI?!? > >It's PCI--the original Catweasel was ISA. > >Cheers, >Chuck Strange, my Amiga 3000, thinks the original was a Zorro 2 (or is it 3) board :^) 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 Mar 11 23:47:09 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 21:47:09 -0800 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: <200603111719070517.48045E4B@10.0.0.252> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3384E@mail.catcorner.org> <200603111719070517.48045E4B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: At 5:19 PM -0800 3/11/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: >Oh--and ithis site has the CW MK 4 about 13 clams cheaper than SoftHut: > >http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=206 Interesting site. I've never even heard of them, plus they don't appear to be in the US, as prices are listed in Pounds. I'd also like to say that I've always had good service from SoftHut. They're one of the few US Amiga dealers remaining (I think they're the only major one left), and well worth supporting. 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 doc at mdrconsult.com Sat Mar 11 23:55:46 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 23:55:46 -0600 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: References: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4413B7E2.1010901@mdrconsult.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: >> On 3/10/2006 at 6:30 PM Richard wrote: >> >>> Hmm... the card offered on softhut says it is an ISA card. So is the Mk >> >> IV Catweasel ISA or PCI?!? >> >> It's PCI--the original Catweasel was ISA. >> >> Cheers, >> Chuck > > > Strange, my Amiga 3000, thinks the original was a Zorro 2 (or is it 3) > board :^) I thought the original CatWeasel was an inline adapter for the 600/1200? Doc From doc at mdrconsult.com Sat Mar 11 23:57:37 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 23:57:37 -0600 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3384E@mail.catcorner.org> <200603111719070517.48045E4B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4413B851.4080701@mdrconsult.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 5:19 PM -0800 3/11/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> Oh--and ithis site has the CW MK 4 about 13 clams cheaper than SoftHut: >> >> http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=206 >> > > > Interesting site. I've never even heard of them, plus they don't appear > to be in the US, as prices are listed in Pounds. I'd also like to say > that I've always had good service from SoftHut. They're one of the few > US Amiga dealers remaining (I think they're the only major one left), > and well worth supporting. Mr. Hardware is pretty good. A little different focus from SoftHut. I've bought from both and been happy. ObOT: Did I mention I picked up a Pegasos II board last month? Doc From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 11 23:57:36 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 21:57:36 -0800 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: References: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603112157360004.49034EE2@10.0.0.252> On 3/11/2006 at 9:38 PM Zane H. Healy wrote: >Strange, my Amiga 3000, thinks the original was a Zorro 2 (or is it >3) board :^) Actually, the MK 3 is also a Zorro board--and a PCI board. Maybe with another couple of edges, Jens could have made it an EISA board and maybe a NuBus board and an S-100 board and a Multibus board. Now that he's eliminated the Zorro Flipper, I wonder if it might not be time to introduce a USB version of this thing so that the Apple folks can have some fun too--or is the Intel Mac a PCI-bus machine (I honestly haven't a clue)? Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sun Mar 12 00:00:57 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 22:00:57 -0800 Subject: Two new replica kits, exciting stuff! In-Reply-To: <001101c64595$5bdd47f0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <001101c64595$5bdd47f0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <200603112200570154.49066095@10.0.0.252> On 3/12/2006 at 12:25 AM 'Computer Collector Newsletter' wrote: >Hi everyone. I don't usually do this, but here is the current issue of >Computer Collector, in its entirety -- read carefully to learn about the >DigiComp 1 v.2.0 kit and, perhaps more interesting to some of you, Vince >Briel's new "AltairPC" kit. That Altair replica needs an additional dress panel. The nuts on the toggle switches really ruin the effect. But I'd love to know where to find one of those anodized aluminum nameplate strips. The adhesive on mine dried up and the strip got lost decades ago. Cheers, Chuck From doc at mdrconsult.com Sun Mar 12 00:07:19 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 00:07:19 -0600 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: <200603112157360004.49034EE2@10.0.0.252> References: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> <200603112157360004.49034EE2@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4413BA97.8040400@mdrconsult.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3/11/2006 at 9:38 PM Zane H. Healy wrote: > > >>Strange, my Amiga 3000, thinks the original was a Zorro 2 (or is it >>3) board :^) > > > Actually, the MK 3 is also a Zorro board--and a PCI board. Maybe with > another couple of edges, Jens could have made it an EISA board and maybe a > NuBus board and an S-100 board and a Multibus board. > > Now that he's eliminated the Zorro Flipper, I wonder if it might not be > time to introduce a USB version of this thing so that the Apple folks can > have some fun too--or is the Intel Mac a PCI-bus machine (I honestly > haven't a clue)? The Intel Macs don't have slots. Neither the Mini nor the iMac are internally upgradeable except for memory. ISTR that the MKIV is supposed to have Mac drivers in the next release, and is 3.3V compatible which makes it a player in the G5 systems. And... a quick check says yes indeedy. Doc From psand at mac.com Sun Mar 12 03:53:34 2006 From: psand at mac.com (Per Sandstrom) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 10:53:34 +0100 Subject: Sun 2 card, others, Multibus, on ebay, last day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4413EF9E.40008@mac.com> Could anyone tell us something about Parallel Computers? As they used Sun-2 Multibus cards, what made their system different from a Sun-2? Paxton Hoag wrote: > They are Sun 2 cards from a Parallel Computer in the 1980s. The tape > controllers are from the same system. There has been some interest in > Sun 2 lately and I finally found these. Some googling turned up the following snippet from misc.jobs.resumes: "PARALLEL COMPUTERS, INC. (IMP, Inc.), Santa Cruz, CA, 1985 - 1989 Vice President Sales, Americas Manufacture fault tolerant UNIX systems based on Motorola 68000 processor. * Built and managed international sales and support organization * Responsible for sales in US, Canada, Central, South America, 90% of sales revenue. * Established initial European distribution channel. * Sold multiple systems for use by IOWA Lottery. * Penetrated telephone, emergency dispatch and on-line state lottery markets." Never heard of them. How could a company like that survive until 1989? Per From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Mar 12 06:18:16 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 12:18:16 +0000 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: <200603102147290868.43D3B313@10.0.0.252> References: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> <002a01c644c9$20180c40$a05d1941@game> <200603102147290868.43D3B313@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44141188.9010301@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > In a nutshell, the Catweasel is pretty much as dumb as you can get in a > floppy controller. Basically a timer and a counter and a bunch of RAM. > You read a disk and it reports the time between pulses on the drive read > line. It's the software that figures out what the pulses mean. Although that's all you really need I suppose. I am tempted to order one, providing the Linux support is there (my last Google on this about 5 months back suggested that support was entirely by third parties, broken in 2.6 kernels, and not particularly reliable anyway. Maybe that's now changed) What I want to do is build up a box that incorporates the main drives that I need and can just be plugged into a network and talked to via that, resulting in something reasonably portable and that doesn't need a screen, keyboard, mouse etc. on the system itself. Maybe a catweasel will do that if I can find a small enough PC motherboard to plug it in to. Boot Linux on it in read-only mode via compact flash so it can just be switched off without needing any proper shutdown and doesn't have any rotating storage. Assume that there's somewhere on site to transfer disk image data to/from via various protocols.. > The interface is completely open. A lot of the software's been written by > users. If it matters, it'll work just fine under NT and Linux. It still bugs me that there doesn't seem to be a central place which documents what support / code / docs are actually out there. I don't want to spend $$ on a board without knowing what software exists to support it and what I'd need to write myself, but finding that out was difficult last time I looked... > A slight irritation to me is that Jens incorporates ciruittry to support > the Amiga SID chip and an extra keyboard. Seems pretty pointless to me and > just adds to the price tag. Yep, agreed. I just want something to read/write raw disk data on a PC - no need for other ports and frills. But I suppose given the roots of the catweasel the designer sees an obligation to keep supporting those extras - and a smaller run of two different board flavours might result in no actual cost saving to the customer. Personally I hate paying for extras that I don't want - I'm like that with any technology (e.g. it's why I haven't upgraded my phone in many years) > If you wanted to, you could even make your own version of the Catweasel if > you wanted--it's simple enough that I don't panic about it going out of > production. There's certainly been talk of it on the list before, but everyone has their own idea of how complex to make it and what components to build it around, as everyone has different parts kicking around, or ability to program PIC chips, EPROMs etc. But yeah, I'd love something that just did the track buffering side of it, providing it could be made cheaper than a catweasel. cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Mar 12 06:21:15 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 12:21:15 +0000 Subject: Tinkertoy computer that plays tic-tac-toe In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4414123B.2020503@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: >> Nah, you need someone to build a machine that assembles the machine - now >> *that* would be cool :-) > > No, what you want to make is a tinkertoy (or Lego, or Fischertechnik, or > Meccano, or...) machine that assembles an exact copy of itself. That > would be truely cool.. Ooh. Or a machine that assembles a clone of itself from a bin of parts, then starts the clone running. Clone then dismantles original to the parts bin, then reassembles it and starts it running. Process repeats... Might be quite interesting to watch it running... :) From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Sun Mar 12 07:00:16 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 13:00:16 GMT Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: <44141188.9010301@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> <200603102147290868.43D3B313@10.0.0.252> <44141188.9010301@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <9e1b74064e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> In message <44141188.9010301 at yahoo.co.uk> Jules Richardson wrote: > What I want to do is build up a box that incorporates the main drives that I > need and can just be plugged into a network and talked to via that, resulting > in something reasonably portable and that doesn't need a screen, keyboard, > mouse etc. on the system itself. Maybe a catweasel will do that if I can find > a small enough PC motherboard to plug it in to. I've been toying with the idea of building something similar around a PIC and a Xilinx CPLD. I'm leaning towards USB at the moment, but Ethernet wouldn't be far outside the realms of possibility. Time the pulses from the drive... interesting idea. Would certainly make MFM coding and decoding easier. I'd be tempted to add an Overlapped Read mode - it reads from the first index pulse to the next, but waits a few microseconds after the last index pulse before stopping. That way you can read stuff like Amiga floppies (which IIRC don't use the index pulse). You could even go as far as adding a counter so that reading didn't stop until there had been N pulses - which would enable you to read hard-sector discs as well. Mark the positions of the IPs in a buffer too (so you can figure out where you need to start looking for sync signals and such). > It still bugs me that there doesn't seem to be a central place which documents > what support / code / docs are actually out there. I don't want to spend $$ on > a board without knowing what software exists to support it and what I'd need > to write myself, but finding that out was difficult last time I looked... Same here. The Catweasel looks nice, but AFAICT there's no low-level programming documentation, just a load of source code and people screeching "UTSL! UTSL!" > Personally I hate paying for extras that I don't want - I'm like that with any > technology (e.g. it's why I haven't upgraded my phone in many years) I've given up on upgrading phones too... I've got a Samsung V200 cameraphone here, but the real annoying thing is it's locked so you can't download pictures over the infrared link. It's also got a shitty painted plastic case that after six months looked like I'd rubbed the phone on a piece of sandpaper. Just another reason to avoid Samsung stuff IMO. My Nokia 6210, OTOH, works fine and still looks reasonably presentable. Plus it doesn't have the V200's annoying habit of losing the GSM connection and refusing to reconnect. > But yeah, I'd love something that just did the track buffering side of it, > providing it could be made cheaper than a catweasel. Xilinx XC95144XL CPLD: ?15 in 1-off Support components: ~?15 USB PIC: ?5 USB connector: 30p Total: ?35.30 That good enough? -- 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 frustum at pacbell.net Sun Mar 12 09:26:55 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 09:26:55 -0600 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: <9e1b74064e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> References: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> <200603102147290868.43D3B313@10.0.0.252> <44141188.9010301@yahoo.co.uk> <9e1b74064e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <44143DBF.3090208@pacbell.net> Philip Pemberton wrote in reply to Jules Richardson: ... > Time the pulses from the drive... interesting idea. Would certainly make MFM > coding and decoding easier. I'd be tempted to add an Overlapped Read mode - > it reads from the first index pulse to the next, but waits a few microseconds > after the last index pulse before stopping. That way you can read stuff like > Amiga floppies (which IIRC don't use the index pulse). > > You could even go as far as adding a counter so that reading didn't stop > until there had been N pulses - which would enable you to read hard-sector > discs as well. Mark the positions of the IPs in a buffer too (so you can > figure out where you need to start looking for sync signals and such). > >> It still bugs me that there doesn't seem to be a central place which documents >> what support / code / docs are actually out there. I don't want to spend $$ on >> a board without knowing what software exists to support it and what I'd need >> to write myself, but finding that out was difficult last time I looked... > > Same here. The Catweasel looks nice, but AFAICT there's no low-level > programming documentation, just a load of source code and people screeching > "UTSL! UTSL!" Register level description of the MK3 card: http://www.schoenfeld.de/inside/Inside_CWMK3.txt That file is 3 to 4 years old. >> Personally I hate paying for extras that I don't want - I'm like that with any >> technology (e.g. it's why I haven't upgraded my phone in many years) ... > >> But yeah, I'd love something that just did the track buffering side of it, >> providing it could be made cheaper than a catweasel. I realize that for many people they have to watch every penny, but I would guess they would be in the minority on this list. For most I imagine the value of their time to write the software for the card is at least 10x the cost of the card. My biggest complaint with the card is that it doesn't come with a 50 pin connector. Ideally it would have a wiring block just before the 50 pin connector to accommodate the usual 8" peculiarities. I would have gladly paid another $30 to have a compact and ready solution to the problem vs having to wire up my own kludge to do this. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Mar 12 11:27:58 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 09:27:58 -0800 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: <44143DBF.3090208@pacbell.net> References: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> <200603102147290868.43D3B313@10.0.0.252> <44141188.9010301@yahoo.co.uk> <9e1b74064e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> <44143DBF.3090208@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <200603120927580075.001659A0@10.0.0.252> Having written a fair amount of software for the CW myself, I can comment on a couple of technical issues. Syncing to index is optional. You can either sync to the start of the index pulse or simply initiate your transfer anywhere. Stopping can be anywhere, up to 128K (the size of the RAM on the board) pulses later. While LInux is nice, I prefer DOS and C under a DOS extender for a platform. None of the timing uncertainty that a multitasking OS gives you. 2K/XP drivers are available for the later (MK 3) cards, but quite honestly, I find the PnP nonsense to get in the way of doing productive work (the CW software installs 8, count 'em, 8 drives for example). I run both of my CW's on Win98-equipped machines booted into real (DOS) mode. If I need networking or a GUI, I just type "win". I've not found the signal drive characteristcs of the CW to be all that robust, particularly for older drives on longer cables. Maybe Jens has fixed this on the MK 4, but right now, I run the CW signals through a separate buffer card with 7438 drivers and LS14's with 150 ohm pullups for receivers (I know I could have simplified this, but I had a pile of the chips and real estate wasn't important). I imagine that a fair amount of Jen's cost is interfacing with PCI and small production runs. AFAIK, he's still making them in Germany, which can't be cheap, compared to outsourcing them to China. I believe there's a fellow on the web who sells a 34-to-50 pin adapter with a PIC installed to count seek pulses and handle RWC after track 40. Seems like a worthwhile investment if you're going to handle a lot of 8 inchers. Cheers, Chuck From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Mar 12 11:38:26 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 09:38:26 -0800 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: <4413B851.4080701@mdrconsult.com> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3384E@mail.catcorner.org> <200603111719070517.48045E4B@10.0.0.252> <4413B851.4080701@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: At 11:57 PM -0600 3/11/06, Doc Shipley wrote: > Mr. Hardware is pretty good. A little different focus from >SoftHut. I've bought from both and been happy. I've bought from him as well, though he seemed a bit high on his prices (but at least he had what I needed). >ObOT: > Did I mention I picked up a Pegasos II board last month? Well, at least you're not telling me you picked up an Amiga One board, that's the one I *REALLY* want. I simply can't afford/justify the cost of either. How do you like it? 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 aek at bitsavers.org Sun Mar 12 11:42:08 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 09:42:08 -0800 Subject: CatWeasel card Message-ID: <0852ECF3-EC23-45E1-9867-6C23E7258E01@bitsavers.org> I believe there's a fellow on the web who sells a 34-to-50 pin adapter with a PIC installed to count seek pulses and handle RWC after track 40. -- John Wilson http://www.dbit.com/fdadap.html From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Mar 12 11:41:37 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 09:41:37 -0800 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: <4413BA97.8040400@mdrconsult.com> References: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> <200603112157360004.49034EE2@10.0.0.252> <4413BA97.8040400@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: At 12:07 AM -0600 3/12/06, Doc Shipley wrote: > ISTR that the MKIV is supposed to have Mac drivers in the next >release, and is 3.3V compatible which makes it a player in the G5 >systems. > > And... a quick check says yes indeedy. Very interesting! Though I think I'd almost prefer to setup a x86 box to run one as I suspect the software support will be better there. Still being able to plug one into my G5 makes me even more tempted to pick one up than I have been. Of course what I from them even more right now is a MMC64 :^) 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 aek at bitsavers.org Sun Mar 12 11:47:09 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 09:47:09 -0800 Subject: bidpay.com Message-ID: <835159AF-EAD6-4178-8178-8AC741294BA1@bitsavers.org> hmmmm.. bidpay.com went 'unvailable' late last week, then the domain wasn't resolving, now someone with no references to Western Union appears. Anyone heard of a buyout? -- not that I would use them anyway... they started out OK, then got to be a total PITA to use. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Mar 12 12:17:54 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 10:17:54 -0800 Subject: bidpay.com In-Reply-To: <835159AF-EAD6-4178-8178-8AC741294BA1@bitsavers.org> References: <835159AF-EAD6-4178-8178-8AC741294BA1@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <200603121017540244.00441168@10.0.0.252> On 3/12/2006 at 9:47 AM Al Kossow wrote: >Anyone heard of a buyout? Yup, bought by CyberSource for a pittance: http://www.bidpay.com/news_and_events/view.xml?page_id=1474 Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 12 12:50:16 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 18:50:16 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Wanted : Pinout of Epson E3890S LCD driver Message-ID: Does anybody haev (or know of a source) of a data sheet or pinout diagram for the Epson E3890S chip (60 pin PQFP)? I am pretty sure it's an LCD driver, it's used in the Panasonic RL H1400 handheld computer which I am currently trying to sort out. [As usual, please send only text to this address. If you have a image or pdf giving the information, I can give you another address to send it to. Thanks!] A couple of gotchas on the RL H1400. Firstly, the display window is also the front polarising filter for the display. You'll see nothing on the display with it out of the case. Secondly, the ASIC on the CPU board is also involved in driving the LCD. The 8 LCD backplane lines are connected to wires in the interconnecting cable between the CPU board and the keyboard/display PCB. -tony From JMeyer101 at aol.com Sun Mar 12 13:13:44 2006 From: JMeyer101 at aol.com (JMeyer101 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 14:13:44 EST Subject: Programming 1702 EPROMs, ProLog Programmer question Message-ID: <300.5e3cf9.3145cce8@aol.com> Hello, I don't remember if I received an answer or not. I kind of dropped the subject due to a lack of time to spend on the old computers. Thanks, Jeff From ericmac at swissinfo.org Sun Mar 12 14:35:15 2006 From: ericmac at swissinfo.org (ericmac at swissinfo.org) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 20:35:15 +0000 Subject: old 8088 system course++ Message-ID: <42E611B900051AC1@mail.swissinfo.org> Thanks to all who responded, I've got the information I need to continue. Gary "I think it was about 15-20 years ago there was, I believe, a self-study course put out by some company for learning the hardware (and I think some aspects of software, i.e., DOS) of computing at that time. The course came with an 8088 computer that, if I recall correctly, one built and "learned by doing." I'm pretty sure it was not a Heathkit. I have searched everywhere and have not come up with anything. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Any information would be helpful. I'm trying to track one of these courses/computers down. Thanks!" _______________________________________________________________________ Your Site for Swiss Maps: http://www.swissinfo-geo.org/ From doc at mdrconsult.com Sun Mar 12 15:56:23 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 15:56:23 -0600 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3384E@mail.catcorner.org> <200603111719070517.48045E4B@10.0.0.252> <4413B851.4080701@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <44149907.6010106@mdrconsult.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 11:57 PM -0600 3/11/06, Doc Shipley wrote: > >> Mr. Hardware is pretty good. A little different focus from >> SoftHut. I've bought from both and been happy. > > > I've bought from him as well, though he seemed a bit high on his prices > (but at least he had what I needed). And SoftHut's cheap? :) Yeah, Mr. Hardware does take a premium for keeping those "last little bits" around. > Well, at least you're not telling me you picked up an Amiga One board, > that's the one I *REALLY* want. I simply can't afford/justify the cost > of either. Me too, concerning the AmigaOne. But the Pegasos was under $350 shipped with the 1GHz G4 and a video card, so I snarked it. > How do you like it? Umm. MorphOS has some problems. It runs the classic Amiga software I've installed just as well as AOS v3.5 does on a "real Amiga". That is also to say that an app can take out the machine just as well as it did in the classic OS. Not much memory protection at all. There's also apparently some longstanding feud between Genesi and the original MorphOS developers. However, when I told Genesi I bought my board used and wanted access to OS updates and their support forums, they handed me a login, no questions asked. Having said all that, I like MorphOS. It seems to do exactly what it intended - provide a very fast modern platform for Classic Amiga applications and games. (I haven't tried any games yet. I have Leisure Suit Larry v5 around somewhere....) It seems to have good support among the s/w houses that are still developing Amiga-ish stuff, like AWeb and iBrowse, and has a reputedly good AOS4 emulation built in. Oh, and MorphOS is stupid quick. It boots from OpenFirmware boot command to a ready desktop in under 3 seconds. Honestly? I like the *hardware* a lot more than MorphOS. I like having a PPC Linux box that's neither Apple nor RS6k. The Pegasos-II is very very quiet, and supports up to 2GB RAM to go with the 1GHz CPU. With 512MB it's been rock-solid running Debian "testing". The onboard gigE is supported in v2.6 kernels, too. My only beefs would be the 400MB Firewire and USB1.1 onboard, but then Linux-supported FW800/USB2.0 PCI cards are a dime a dozen. Genesi's hardware and OF development seems more active, better-funded, and a lot more consistent than AmigaOne's, too. I like the idea of AmigaOS v4 better than MorphOS, but nothing I read on Hyperion or any of the AmigaOne hardware development tells me it's got legs. Doc From news at computercollector.com Sun Mar 12 21:31:28 2006 From: news at computercollector.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 22:31:28 -0500 Subject: Bruce Damer / DigiBarn on History Channel... Message-ID: <002f01c6464e$9d57d3d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> In case anyone missed it -- the History Channel tonight aired "How William Shattner Changed the World" which includes a 15-minute segment featuring Bruce Damer / DigiBarn. He's on 45 minutes into the first hour of the two-hour show. It's on again tonight at midnight EST. More details from Bruce's announcement: Dear DigiBarn News subscribers, Here is your brief Winter 2006 newsletter (#16). 2005 was a wonderful year, finishing off with our Homebrew Computer Club 30th birthday event at the Vintage Computer Festival in November. We now have some cool audio, video and pictures of the event below (including Woz telling some great stories, and Altair expert Erik Klein playing "fool on the hill" on an original 8800). Read all about this wonderful and inspiring event at: http://www.digibarn.com/history/05-VCF8-HomeBrew30/index.html (for movies, audio, pics, Altair, Woz and more!) ############## Breaking News: HOW WILLIAM SHATNER CHANGED THE WORLD (the DigiBarn is featured on this show!) Sunday March 12th (5 and 8pm) and again all week including Friday March 17th (8/7 central US time) and Saturday. Check Local Listings for your region/country or the schedule at: http://www.historychannel.com/ Starting tomorrow the DigiBarn and curator (yours truly) Bruce Damer will appear on the History Channel on a cool segment (in the first hour) of a show called "How William Shatner Changed the World". This is a 2 hour special on how Star Trek (well, Gene Roddenberry and his writers) came up with many gadgets and ways of working back in the 1960s which have become reality today. This show is Captain Kirk at his best, with Bill Shatner in an off-the-wall performance you won't forget. Details of the show including the DigiBarn excerpt are at: http://www.digibarn.com/collections/movies/05-11-DiscoveryCA-Shatner/index.h tml (originally produced by Discovery Channel Canada, video excerpted with credit). See the History Channel pages on this show at: http://www.historychannel.com/ and direct to the show: http://www.historychannel.com/space/verizon/ From rich_bramante at yahoo.com Fri Mar 10 08:48:57 2006 From: rich_bramante at yahoo.com (Rich Bramante) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 06:48:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: NEC APC boot disks CP/M-86 and DOS Message-ID: <20060310144857.10684.qmail@web51012.mail.yahoo.com> Anybody out there willing to snail mail me a couple of 8" boot disks for the original APC? I've got 2 of these sitting around with no software, wanted to test them out. If so please contact me off-list. Thanks. rich __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Fri Mar 10 20:23:59 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 18:23:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: power up a 10 year dormant MicroVax II Message-ID: <20060311022359.64717.qmail@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> of course Id take some time to poke around inside, blow out the dust, etc., but I was cautioned against even powering it up without enlisting -local help- since its been sitting for so long. Should I take such warnings seriously? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From sellam at vintagetech.com Fri Mar 10 13:47:00 2006 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:47:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: IBM System 34 available Message-ID: See below. Contact: Laura.Childers at sandersbros.com I think it's in Georgia (the US state, not the country). -- 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 ] ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:26:12 -0500 From: "Childers, Laura" To: donate at vintage.org Subject: IBM system 34 Morning, Would you be interested in an IBM system 34 and printer? Thanks for your time - Laura Laura A Childers Sanders Bros., Inc. Phone 864-487-6118 Fax 864-487-6170 Laura.Childers at sandersbros.com From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Mar 13 07:10:35 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 08:10:35 -0500 Subject: NEC APC boot disks CP/M-86 and DOS In-Reply-To: <20060310144857.10684.qmail@web51012.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060313131110.WMMO29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> > Anybody out there willing to snail mail me a couple of 8" boot disks for the > original APC? I've got 2 of these sitting around with no software, wanted to > test them out. If so please contact me off-list. I have images of MS-DOS, CP/M-86 and UCSD Pascal boot disks for the APC posted to my site (ImageDisk format). -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Mon Mar 13 08:46:18 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 08:46:18 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? In-Reply-To: <4411B38D.4020100@yahoo.co.uk> References: <254e802e6ab0a94ea0db271dfe0dd383@208.46.209.254> <254e802e6ab0a94ea0db271dfe0dd383@208.46.209.254> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060313084618.0f47c8b0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 05:12 PM 3/10/06 +0000, you wrote: > >Erik Klein wrote: >> Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the age (or gender) limits but it is their show. >> >> I'd encourage anyone, of any age or gender, to contact them if interested. >> I've talked to them and they are reasonable folks. > >Although they don't really say how any such people signing up would be >portrayed in the show - there's probably a fine line between making people >look like knowledgeable folks and complete lunatics... Hmm. You're tight. Maybe I should stay out of this one. :-/ Joe > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Mon Mar 13 08:51:47 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 08:51:47 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? In-Reply-To: <4411CC7A.3040903@gjcp.net> References: Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060313085147.0f478c78@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 06:59 PM 3/10/06 +0000, you wrote: >Erik Klein wrote: >> >> I just got the following in my mailbox: >> > >> History Channel. The show is sort of Antique Roadshow with a little bit more >> testosterone SO ONLY MALES 18-45. > >That's not very fair, my girlfriend is fairly into PDP-11s too. The fact that they're exluding women is another sign that they're looking for stero-typical geeks that they can humilate. It sounds like it might be interesting but I don't think this kind of thing will benefit the participants or this hobby in the long run. Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Mon Mar 13 08:53:52 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 08:53:52 Subject: HP4145 In-Reply-To: <200603101615400858.42A3EC19@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060313085352.0f47e48c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Chuck, FWIW I know where there's one of those analyzers that's sitting waiting for a new owner. It powers up but fails ST. I could probably be gotten relatively cheap. Joe At 04:15 PM 3/10/06 -0800, you wrote: >Don't know if this one comes up too often, but I recently acquired an HP >4145 semiconductor analyzer software diskette. It's SSSD 5.25". If >anyone's interested, I can shoot out an image. > >Cheers, >Chuck > > From aw288 at osfn.org Mon Mar 13 09:02:23 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 10:02:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: power up a 10 year dormant MicroVax II In-Reply-To: <20060311022359.64717.qmail@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > of course Id take some time to poke around inside, > blow out the dust, etc., but I was cautioned against > even powering it up without enlisting -local help- > since its been sitting for so long. Should I take such > warnings seriously? No. Just turn it on. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From allain at panix.com Mon Mar 13 09:14:06 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 10:14:06 -0500 Subject: power up a 10 year dormant MicroVax II References: <20060311022359.64717.qmail@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00cd01c646b0$c5f39060$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Let us know how it looks inside. I have a QBus load board available from a microVax 3x00 if experts on the list deem the PSU needs a test under load first. Certainly if signs of weathering are present (rust, dissolved and redried precipitates, etc.) I'd say to wait. If it looks pristene I'd just flip a coin and try it. You're going to have fun just figuring where all the access panels lead. uV's are getting pretty rare now, THX for your concerns. John A. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Mar 13 10:09:35 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 11:09:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: power up a 10 year dormant MicroVax II In-Reply-To: <20060311022359.64717.qmail@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060311022359.64717.qmail@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200603131612.LAA01828@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > of course Id take some time to poke around inside, blow out the dust, > etc., but I was cautioned against even powering it up without > enlisting -local help- since its been sitting for so long. Should I > take such warnings seriously? In general, yes. In the case of a uV2? I don't think so, though I'm sure there are better people to speak definitively about it. I've seen it said that the uV2 is recent enough that there is little-to-no chance that the electrolytics have failed sitting. My experience bears this out - I've done a few uV2 turn-ons after long years idle, with no failures - but the sample size is too small to lend any statistical validity to that. der Mouse From aw288 at osfn.org Mon Mar 13 11:42:44 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 12:42:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: power up a 10 year dormant MicroVax II In-Reply-To: <00cd01c646b0$c5f39060$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: > uV's are getting pretty rare now, Well, maybe Ebay R at RE. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 13 11:47:41 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 10:47:41 -0700 Subject: power up a 10 year dormant MicroVax II In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 13 Mar 2006 12:42:44 -0500. Message-ID: In article , William Donzelli writes: > > uV's are getting pretty rare now, > > Well, maybe Ebay R at RE. Everything's rare on ebay. It says so right in the item title! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jplist at kiwigeek.com Mon Mar 13 14:01:52 2006 From: jplist at kiwigeek.com (JP Hindin) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 14:01:52 -0600 (CST) Subject: Looking for a VAX in and around Iowa, anyone with a full basement? Message-ID: Hey there; So over the weekend I reread Cliff Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg and after reading various mentions of VAXes running VMS it occurred to me that while I've worked with RSX-11M, RT11 and even various UNIXes on DECs, I've never actually touched a VMS machine. And while it would be reasonably acceptable to run OpenVMS on a SIMH simulated VAX, it would also be quite nice to have a real VAX to do it on. Anyone around Iowa (or even up in Minnesota) have a over-full garage or basement and want to get rid of a VAX? I'm fairly open to what model, I'm not snobby. Big or small, it should run VMS fine. I do actually own one VAX, a MicroVAX 2000 - charming little thing. Unfortunately it is sitting in New Zealand, a little out of reach right now. Not expecting much - but I thought I'd ask, you never know... ;) Thanks all; JP From news at computercollector.com Mon Mar 13 14:41:12 2006 From: news at computercollector.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 15:41:12 -0500 Subject: Here's a list of VCF East exhibitors -- it's sold out now. Message-ID: <000201c646de$77459250$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> As of this morning, there are no more booths available for VCF East 3.0. We'll start a waiting list though if anyone still wants to exhibit. Obviously, questions about exhibiting and such should NOT be directed to this list, but rather to me off-list. The exhibitors are: 1. The Corestore (IBM minis): Mike Ross 2. The Warpstock OS/2 Museum: Mark Dodel 3. PDP-8/e with RK05 running OS/8: Jeffrey Katz 4. TRS-80 timeline: Kelly Leavitt 5. The Atari Museum: Curt Vendel 6. Early laptops / portables: Evan Koblentz (non-judged, obviously) 7. The Mothership Exhibit (Apple 30th anniversary): Jim O'Brien 8. Canon Cat - What the Mac Might Have Been: Andrew Molloy 9. Import Japanese Games & Computers from the 80s: Carlson Stevens 10. Ohio Scientific desktops: Bill Sudbrink 11. PDP-8: David Gesswein 12. NASA Apollo Guidance Computer: Frank O'Brien 13. Briel Computers AltairPC: Vince Briel 14. (to be determined): Andy Meyer 15. KIM-1 and friends: Jack Rubin 16. Commodore B Series Computer Lab: Bill Degnan The five guest speakers are: 1. Steve Lukasik (ARPA in the 70s) 2. David Ahl (Creative Computing mag) 3. Ray Holt (early microprocessor work) 4. Ray Borrill (50 years in computers) 5. Sol Libes (Origins of personal computers) The basic info for public attendees: - When: Saturday, May 13, 9:30AM-6:00PM - Where: Infoage Learning Center (2201 Marconi Rd.), Wall Township (a.k.a. Belmar), N.J., USA, North America, Earth. - Cost: $10 for ages 14+, $7 for ages 13 and under - Parking: free - If the event is a huge success: thank Evan :) - If the event is a huge failure: blame Sellam :) http://www.vintage.org/2006/east/index.php From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Mar 13 14:44:23 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 12:44:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for a VAX in and around Iowa, anyone with a full basement? In-Reply-To: from "JP Hindin" at Mar 13, 2006 02:01:52 PM Message-ID: <200603132044.k2DKiNcO032231@onyx.spiritone.com> > I'm fairly open to what model, I'm not snobby. Big or small, it should run > VMS fine. Do yourself a favor, and look for a MicroVAX/VAXstation 3100 series, or VAXstation 4000 series system. They're SCSI based which will make your life considerably easier. Add a VT420 instead of an actual monitor and you've got a very nice system. It might also be worth looking at Alpha's, the Itanium 2's still cost to much, as VMS runs on all three platforms. Zane From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Mar 13 16:35:47 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 22:35:47 +0000 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... Message-ID: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> Another DOS question! :) I've got a laptop that currently has Win2k and Debian Linux on it, along with a small FAT partition (it's actually FAT32 currently, but I can change that easily enough) I want to put MSDOS on the FAT partition and triple-boot the machine - but the laptop has no floppy drive on it, so I can't just boot from a DOS floppy and run SYS that way. So is there a way of putting the necessary files on there from either Windows or Linux such that DOS will boot? Can't remember how MSDOS does it's boot process now, but I assume that certain files (io.sys for one) need to be in certain locations on the FAT partition or something? At one point I would have known how to do this, but the info's long since fallen out of my brain... (Currently I'm booting Debian / Win2k from Grub - it should handle booting MSDOS too though). Before I shoot myself in the foot, are there any other gotchas (like MSDOS needing to be the first partition on the drive or anything nuts like that)? The FAT partition is about 2GB into the disk - I seem to recall that a FAT partition can't be more than 2GB in size, but presumably providing the BIOS can see the whole disk DOS won't care about the offset to the start of the partition? (All I actually want to do is put Slackware Linux on the machine there in place of Debian, but the CDROM drive's too flakey to boot from. If I can get MSDOS on there by copying from a remote machine then I can boot the Slackware installer from MSDOS and then install the rest of Slackware across the network - talk about complicated!!) Ok, long email - will shut up now! :-) cheers Jules From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Mon Mar 13 16:37:24 2006 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 22:37:24 +0000 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> References: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <4415F424.5070609@gjcp.net> Jules Richardson wrote: > (All I actually want to do is put Slackware Linux on the machine there > in place of Debian, but the CDROM drive's too flakey to boot from. If I > can get MSDOS on there by copying from a remote machine then I can boot > the Slackware installer from MSDOS and then install the rest of > Slackware across the network - talk about complicated!!) Why not mount the drive in another machine, and install slackware from there? Gordon. From drb at msu.edu Mon Mar 13 16:43:03 2006 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 17:43:03 -0500 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: (Your message of Mon, 13 Mar 2006 22:35:47 GMT.) <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> References: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200603132243.k2DMh3av032384@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > I want to put MSDOS on the FAT partition and triple-boot the machine - > but the laptop has no floppy drive on it, so I can't just boot from > a DOS floppy and run SYS that way. Three thoughts come to mind: 1. Netboot MS-DOS. Haven't done it myself, but it seems to be possible based on things I've read online. 2. Boot from a USB stick. (If your hardware is new enough.) 3. Start a debian installer from the existing partition, and create a new Linux install in the "dos" partition. Use that to bootstrap the re-install of the larger partition. 4. Carefully lick MS-DOS bits into place using mtools et al from the debian partition. All of this kind of stuff seems to require recursive approximation.* Having other machines around to use as crutches always helps. De * i.e. trial and (mostly) error From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Mar 13 17:04:06 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 23:04:06 +0000 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <4415F424.5070609@gjcp.net> References: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> <4415F424.5070609@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <4415FA66.40303@yahoo.co.uk> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: > > (All I actually want to do is put Slackware Linux on the machine there >> in place of Debian, but the CDROM drive's too flakey to boot from. If >> I can get MSDOS on there by copying from a remote machine then I can >> boot the Slackware installer from MSDOS and then install the rest of >> Slackware across the network - talk about complicated!!) > > Why not mount the drive in another machine, and install slackware from > there? Yes, that's my backup plan - if I can find a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter (or make one). I'm trying to avoid pulling apart working hardware at the moment! Hmmm, or my firewall box has a 2.5" IDE connector on board; I could stuff a SCSI card in one of the PCI slots and boot from a SCSI CDROM, but install to the 2.5" IDE disk I suppose... Dennis Boone wrote: > 2. Boot from a USB stick. (If your hardware is new enough.) Unfortunately not. CDROM, floppy (which I don't have) or hard disk only... I'm just wondering what SYS actually does - perhaps io.sys and the like *don't* actually need to be anywhere special on the drive (I think they probably need to be hidden though). Maybe SYS just sets up the MBR with the location of the necessary files - in which case, that's something that the Grub setup should also do. Hmm. So maybe I just need to copy the right DOS files to the FAT partition, run the Grub installer, and it'll all automagically work - can't hurt for me to try, anyway! cheers Jules From rtellason at blazenet.net Mon Mar 13 17:04:04 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 18:04:04 -0500 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> References: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200603131804.04238.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Monday 13 March 2006 05:35 pm, Jules Richardson wrote: > Another DOS question! :) > > I've got a laptop that currently has Win2k and Debian Linux on it, along > with a small FAT partition (it's actually FAT32 currently, but I can change > that easily enough) > > I want to put MSDOS on the FAT partition and triple-boot the machine - but > the laptop has no floppy drive on it, so I can't just boot from a DOS > floppy and run SYS that way. > > So is there a way of putting the necessary files on there from either > Windows or Linux such that DOS will boot? Can't remember how MSDOS does > it's boot process now, but I assume that certain files (io.sys for one) > need to be in certain locations on the FAT partition or something? DOS needs three files to boot, command.com, io.sys, and msdos.sys. Those last two are given different names if we're talking about IBM's version. In earlier versions of dos they needed to be the first files on the drive, but I think that this requirement went away at some point, though I couldn't say for sure when that happened. > At one point I would have known how to do this, but the info's long since > fallen out of my brain... I know what you mean. :-) > (Currently I'm booting Debian / Win2k from Grub - it should handle booting > MSDOS too though). > > Before I shoot myself in the foot, are there any other gotchas (like MSDOS > needing to be the first partition on the drive or anything nuts like that)? > The FAT partition is about 2GB into the disk - I seem to recall that a FAT > partition can't be more than 2GB in size, but presumably providing the BIOS > can see the whole disk DOS won't care about the offset to the start of the > partition? That sounds reasonable to me, but that doesn't necessarily mean much. :-) Most of what I did under dos back when was on way smaller drives... > (All I actually want to do is put Slackware Linux on the machine there in > place of Debian, but the CDROM drive's too flakey to boot from. If I can > get MSDOS on there by copying from a remote machine then I can boot the > Slackware installer from MSDOS and then install the rest of Slackware > across the network - talk about complicated!!) Hmm. There oughta be some easier way. Ever played with tomsrtbt? Worth a try, 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 cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 13 17:11:01 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 15:11:01 -0800 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> References: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200603131511010399.0676C8FF@10.0.0.252> On 3/13/2006 at 10:35 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >So is there a way of putting the necessary files on there from either >Windows >or Linux such that DOS will boot? Can't remember how MSDOS does it's boot >process now, but I assume that certain files (io.sys for one) need to be >in >certain locations on the FAT partition or something? I'll assume that you're installing a late version of MSDOS, like version 7. IIRC, the only thing about IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS entries is that they must lie in the first directory sector and should be kept as contiguous files. You can copy them over to the partition yourself, making sure that the boot sector information is correct for the partition type (FAT32 partitions use different boot code than FAT16 ones). Customarily, MSDOS.SYS and IO.SYS have the system attribute bit set, but DOS'll run just fine without that. Also, you'll need to copy COMMAND.COM over as a bare minimum to get you to a prompt. Cheers, Chuck From Useddec at aol.com Mon Mar 13 17:40:16 2006 From: Useddec at aol.com (Useddec at aol.com) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 18:40:16 EST Subject: Looking for a VAX in and around Iowa, anyone with a full basement? Message-ID: <30f.5025.31475ce0@aol.com> I'm in IL and have several to choose from. Paul From gtn at mind-to-mind.com Mon Mar 13 17:42:02 2006 From: gtn at mind-to-mind.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 18:42:02 -0500 Subject: HDD Repair Message-ID: I have a nice original NeXT machine, with an HP 660 97548sn HDD in it. This disk has some data that I wanted to rescue at some point, and between then and now, the disk had started acting up. The disk motor will spin, but once the NeXT boot process begins (or SCSI sense on a PC with a SCSI card), I hear a click, and the motor spins back down. My guess is that a head is stuck? If so... a) is there a way to resuscitate the disk, and b) is there someone that repairs older drives like this, and c) if not, can I do it myself. FWIW. The data on the disk is, I believe, one of a kind, rare, data, and the machine is overall in excellent condition. From gtn at mind-to-mind.com Mon Mar 13 17:44:45 2006 From: gtn at mind-to-mind.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 18:44:45 -0500 Subject: OT/Admin: Delay in posts? In-Reply-To: <200603132044.k2DKiNcO032231@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200603132044.k2DKiNcO032231@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: Sometime I see up to a weeks delay in email from this list. Does anyone else? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 13 16:52:53 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 22:52:53 +0000 (GMT) Subject: power up a 10 year dormant MicroVax II In-Reply-To: <20060311022359.64717.qmail@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> from "Chris M" at Mar 10, 6 06:23:59 pm Message-ID: > > of course Id take some time to poke around inside, > blow out the dust, etc., but I was cautioned against > even powering it up without enlisting -local help- > since its been sitting for so long. Should I take such > warnings seriously? IMHO there's little risk of danger to you (or to people around you), there may be a risk to the machine. And whether you need 'local help' depends on your geenral level of hardware knowledge. The main risk to the machine is that if there's a fault in the power supply that causes the 5V line to go through the roof, then it will ruin every integrated circuit in the machine. Therefore, IMHO good practice for powering up an old computer involves : 1) A vidual inspection. Check for things that are likely to short, burnt compoentns, leaking capacitors, that sort of thing. At this point you can make a note of what boards you have, DIP switch settings, etc 2) RUn the power supply on a dummy load (car bulbs, 6V and 12V, are useful for this). Make sure all the output voltages are correct. A new bulb is a lot cheaper than a complete set of ICs for _any_ computer!. To be honest, if you can't understand how to do this (with one of us talking you through the connections between the PSU and backplane, say), you are going to have real problems if you ever have a logic fault or internal PSU fault in your machines. Others here may claim that MVIIs are common and that it's not necessary to do this. Well, firstly, there are not still being made, so however common they are there will be no more, and it is therefore foolish to take unnecessary risks. And secondly, you should get into the right habits from the start. One day you might have the chance to work on something really rare, and if 'test the PSU on dummy load' is second-nature to you at that point, you'll not risk that machine. One comment from a book on repairs (actually to classic cameras, but the point applies) that I have is something like 'Do not say " This one is common/ruined anyway, it doesn't matter what I do". You must not get into bad habits' One final point. On switch-mode power supplies (which the MVII uses), it is a bad idea to run them up slowly on a variac. It can actually do damage. -tony From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Mar 13 18:34:26 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:34:26 +0000 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <200603131511010399.0676C8FF@10.0.0.252> References: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> <200603131511010399.0676C8FF@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44160F92.2040109@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > IIRC, the only thing about IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS entries is that they must > lie in the first directory sector and should be kept as contiguous files. > You can copy them over to the partition yourself, making sure that the boot > sector information is correct for the partition type (FAT32 partitions use > different boot code than FAT16 ones). Hmmm, that's the bit I'm missing - the boot sector code. And I can't figure out a way of creating it (short of hand-crafting it) without having a DOS floppy to boot from on a floppy drive that I don't have! (Unsurprisingly, Linux's FAT filesystem creation tool can't create the boot sector, and nor can Win2k's) I don't particularly feel like hand-crafting it myself; hazy memory says that there are various partition geometry details in there (rather than DOS just getting the info from the MBR) - get that wrong and I'd hose the whole disk... Time to look at other options I think! From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 13 18:32:45 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 16:32:45 -0800 Subject: HDD Repair In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603131632450770.06C19E82@10.0.0.252> On 3/13/2006 at 6:42 PM Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: >My guess is that a head is stuck? If so... a) is there a way to >resuscitate the disk, and b) is there someone that repairs older >drives like this, and c) if not, can I do it myself. It's very hard to say--suffice it to say that the HDD firmware has found something it doesn't like--could be a bad servo track or any number of other things. If the data's that important, I'd ship the drive (after calling to check) to someone like Drivesavers; I've had excellent results from them in the past. http://www.drivesavers.com/ Cheers Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Mar 13 18:33:56 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 19:33:56 -0500 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <200603131804.04238.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> <200603131804.04238.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <44160F74.2020607@gmail.com> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > DOS needs three files to boot, command.com, io.sys, and msdos.sys. Those > last two are given different names if we're talking about IBM's version. In > earlier versions of dos they needed to be the first files on the drive, but > I think that this requirement went away at some point, though I couldn't > say for sure when that happened. Instead of io.sys and msdos.sys, PC-DOS has ibmbio.com and ibmdos.com. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Mar 13 18:35:12 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 19:35:12 -0500 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <4415FA66.40303@yahoo.co.uk> References: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> <4415F424.5070609@gjcp.net> <4415FA66.40303@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44160FC0.6040200@gmail.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > Dennis Boone wrote: > > 2. Boot from a USB stick. (If your hardware is new enough.) > > Unfortunately not. CDROM, floppy (which I don't have) or hard disk only... What about USB floppy? Is there a legacy floppy mode in the USB BIOS? Peace... Sridhar From fireflyst at earthlink.net Mon Mar 13 20:50:48 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 20:50:48 -0600 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: Go here: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ It's a boot CD that creates a virtual floppy and boots from that, allowing you to install a set of MS-DOS system files for boot. You should then be able to copy the other stuff over and run a setup. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson > Sent: Monday, March 13, 2006 4:36 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: manually installing MSDOS... > > > Another DOS question! :) > > I've got a laptop that currently has Win2k and Debian Linux > on it, along with a small FAT partition (it's actually FAT32 > currently, but I can change that easily enough) > > I want to put MSDOS on the FAT partition and triple-boot the > machine - but the laptop has no floppy drive on it, so I > can't just boot from a DOS floppy and run SYS that way. > > So is there a way of putting the necessary files on there > from either Windows or Linux such that DOS will boot? Can't > remember how MSDOS does it's boot process now, but I assume > that certain files (io.sys for one) need to be in certain > locations on the FAT partition or something? > > At one point I would have known how to do this, but the > info's long since fallen out of my brain... > > (Currently I'm booting Debian / Win2k from Grub - it should > handle booting MSDOS too though). > > Before I shoot myself in the foot, are there any other > gotchas (like MSDOS needing to be the first partition on the > drive or anything nuts like that)? > The FAT partition is about 2GB into the disk - I seem to > recall that a FAT partition can't be more than 2GB in size, > but presumably providing the BIOS can see the whole disk DOS > won't care about the offset to the start of the partition? > > > (All I actually want to do is put Slackware Linux on the > machine there in place of Debian, but the CDROM drive's too > flakey to boot from. If I can get MSDOS on there by copying > from a remote machine then I can boot the Slackware installer > from MSDOS and then install the rest of Slackware across the network > - talk about complicated!!) > > > Ok, long email - will shut up now! :-) > > cheers > > Jules > > > > > From marvin at rain.org Mon Mar 13 22:15:51 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 20:15:51 -0800 Subject: $199.95 1969 DEC Handbook on Ebay Message-ID: <44164377.4D834AB7@rain.org> I kind of followed the discussion when this item was first mentioned (item #8777485423), but what makes it *really* funny is 1) the same handbook is listed on ABE for $20.00 with several other sources show the pricing between $20.00 and $157.50, and 2) the sellers email in light of these prices :). From news at computercollector.com Mon Mar 13 23:16:49 2006 From: news at computercollector.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:16:49 -0500 Subject: Computache ? Message-ID: <001d01c64726$7f625d40$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Anyone ever hear of this company? I think they were based in Chicago in the late 1970s and had a division called Computer Tech. From marvin at rain.org Tue Mar 14 00:25:46 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 22:25:46 -0800 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... Message-ID: <441661EA.BF6FEDF4@rain.org> I don't recall when it changed, but the first several versions of MS-DOS did require io.sys and msdos.sys to be the first two files on the disk. I would guess that changed at DOS 4.x or 5.x so that IIRC only io.sys had to be the first file on the disk. Being lazy, I would most likely go to machine running the version of DOS you want to install, and make a system floppy and add any other files you want/need. Then use "attrib -h -s -r" to make everything visable, and just copy them (in the same order as on the boot floppy) to the partition in question from whatever has access to that partition. I'm assuming here that you have a way of getting files to some other OS on that computer so they can be transferred to the DOS partition. ISTR that copying them to a formatted floppy would not work as something needed to be done to the boot sector, but I don't think that limitation applied to HDs. To boot from the HD, that partition needed to be made active using fdisk. I've never dealt with systems that can boot multiple OSs or the boot software that can handle that part, so I don't know the tricks of doing that part. IIRC, the maximum partition size is a function of the version of DOS you are using (33 MB or so for 3.3 and earlier.) > I want to put MSDOS on the FAT partition and triple-boot the machine - but the > laptop has no floppy drive on it, so I can't just boot from a DOS floppy and > run SYS that way. > > So is there a way of putting the necessary files on there from either Windows > or Linux such that DOS will boot? Can't remember how MSDOS does it's boot > process now, but I assume that certain files (io.sys for one) need to be in > certain locations on the FAT partition or something? > > At one point I would have known how to do this, but the info's long since > fallen out of my brain... > > (Currently I'm booting Debian / Win2k from Grub - it should handle booting > MSDOS too though). > > Before I shoot myself in the foot, are there any other gotchas (like MSDOS > needing to be the first partition on the drive or anything nuts like that)? > The FAT partition is about 2GB into the disk - I seem to recall that a FAT > partition can't be more than 2GB in size, but presumably providing the BIOS > can see the whole disk DOS won't care about the offset to the start of the > partition? > > > (All I actually want to do is put Slackware Linux on the machine there in > place of Debian, but the CDROM drive's too flakey to boot from. If I can get > MSDOS on there by copying from a remote machine then I can boot the Slackware > installer from MSDOS and then install the rest of Slackware across the network > - talk about complicated!!) > > > Ok, long email - will shut up now! :-) > > cheers > > Jules > > > > From gmanuel at gmconsulting.net Tue Mar 14 01:10:37 2006 From: gmanuel at gmconsulting.net (Greg Manuel (GMC)) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 02:10:37 -0500 Subject: old 8088 system course In-Reply-To: <42E611B900050202@mail.swissinfo.org> Message-ID: Could it have been either NRI or ICS? Greg -----Original Message----- From: ericmac at swissinfo.org [mailto:ericmac at swissinfo.org] Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 12:14 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: old 8088 system course I think it was about 15-20 years ago there was, I believe, a self-study course put out by some company for learning the hardware (and I think some aspects of software, i.e., DOS) of computing at that time. The course came with an 8088 computer that, if I recall correctly, one built and "learned by doing." I'm pretty sure it was not a Heathkit. I have searched everywhere and have not come up with anything. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Any information would be helpful. I'm trying to track one of these courses/computers down. Thanks! Gary _______________________________________________________________________ Your Site for Swiss Maps: http://www.swissinfo-geo.org/ From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Tue Mar 14 03:50:03 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 10:50:03 +0100 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> References: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20060314105003.1a05f792.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 22:35:47 +0000 Jules Richardson wrote: > I want to put MSDOS on the FAT partition and triple-boot the machine - > but the laptop has no floppy drive on it, so I can't just boot from a > DOS floppy and run SYS that way. Hmmm. Maybe you can try somthing like DOSemu or bochs, that emulates a DOS environement under Linux. Then you can use floppy disk image files instead real floppies and install to the unused partition from within the "DOS box". -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From williams.dan at gmail.com Tue Mar 14 03:56:49 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 09:56:49 +0000 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <20060314105003.1a05f792.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> <20060314105003.1a05f792.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <26c11a640603140156p2bba8385m@mail.gmail.com> On 14/03/06, Jochen Kunz wrote: > On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 22:35:47 +0000 > Jules Richardson wrote: > > > I want to put MSDOS on the FAT partition and triple-boot the machine - > > but the laptop has no floppy drive on it, so I can't just boot from a > > DOS floppy and run SYS that way. > Hmmm. Maybe you can try somthing like DOSemu or bochs, that emulates a > DOS environement under Linux. Then you can use floppy disk image files > instead real floppies and install to the unused partition from within > the "DOS box". > -- > > > tsch??, > Jochen > > Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ > > > How flakey is your cd drive, you can get most versions of dos on cd from here : http://www.allbootdisks.com/ Dan From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Mar 14 05:11:47 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 06:11:47 -0500 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: Message from "Chuck Guzis" of "Mon, 13 Mar 2006 15:11:01 PST." <200603131511010399.0676C8FF@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603141111.k2EBBlRg002816@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Chuck Guzis" wrote: >On 3/13/2006 at 10:35 PM Jules Richardson wrote: > >>So is there a way of putting the necessary files on there from either >>Windows or Linux such that DOS will boot? aside from the files themselves, you can use the "mtools" from linux to copy files to the partition. I'm not sure how to get the MBR installed, but you could "dd" a block from another disk I guess. To be honest, when I want to play with dos I use one of the nice X86 emulators like "bochs" and run with a virtual disk (i.e. a file). It's much nicer than actually booting dos. You can set up the mtools programs to allow you to copy files in/out of the disks. bochs also lets you debug things like boot tracks and peripheral eproms, which can come in handy. I once did a uboot port to an x86 chip and did 95% of the work using bochs. bochs will boot almost anything, including linux. I have run linux inside bochs - it's not bad on a fast machine. qemu is also pretty snappy. -brad From Hans.Franke at siemens.com Tue Mar 14 07:45:11 2006 From: Hans.Franke at siemens.com (Hans Franke) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 14:45:11 +0100 Subject: Apple Turnover (Was: Writing Apple ][ disk images...) In-Reply-To: <20060310171912.O83460@shell.lmi.net> References: <441190E8.45.B280933@localhost> Message-ID: <4416D6F7.25908.1FC1B38D@localhost> Am 10 Mar 2006 17:24 meinte Fred Cisin: > On Fri, 10 Mar 2006, Hans Franke wrote: > > As for hardware, there have been some solutions. First > > to my memory is always the Turnover board, which I found > > a good (some particulat list member might have a different > > opinion:) solution back when I had a PC/XT and an Apple II. > IFF you find a working one (high failure rate), and IF you find > a drive that it works OK with (I used TM100-2), then the Turnover > is OK. File system support is Apple-DOS, Apple CP/M, Apple Pascal, > Pro-DOs. > (BTW, it was "Apple Turnover" until Apple's lawyers visited Vertex.) Jup, we had this discusion at one time. I's just that I got that board as part of a test for a computer magazin back tehn, plugged in my PC compatible taiwan box (well, one of the very first 1000% rip off, and even not much cheaper than the IBM), and it worked right away. I wrote a quite enthusiastic review ... so maybe blame me for some sales over here in Germany/Austria :)) > > Just, the Turnover is a strict PX or PC/XT board. I never > > got it working in an AT (or above) machine. > I did, but not reliably. Interesting. > > Oh, and don't forget the Trackstar Board(s), basicly an > > Apple II or IIe on a PC-Card, a huge IC-Graveyard. It can > and the QuadLink from Quadram (> 70% DOA) Never heared of. You got any further information? Hans -- VCF Europa 7.0 am 29/30.April und 01.Mai 2006 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/ From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Mar 14 10:33:31 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 08:33:31 -0800 Subject: ISO Bill Yakowenko Message-ID: I'm trying to contact Bill to see if I can find out what Univac 9200 documentation he has, but didn't get a reply at the posted email adr. http://www.cs.unc.edu/~yakowenk/classiccmp/univac/news.html From CCTalk at catcorner.org Tue Mar 14 11:11:10 2006 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 12:11:10 -0500 Subject: Randy Mclaughlin Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33859@mail.catcorner.org> Anyone know where Randy is? Kelly From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 14 11:25:44 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 10:25:44 -0700 Subject: "party line" for terminals? Message-ID: I purchased an odd terminal display (no keyboard) from ebay recently and it arrived today. Its manufactured by Westinghouse Canada and has 3 ports that look like DB25 female style and 1 DB9 style female port that says "party line". I'll post more detail later, but oddly enough this terminal monitor doesn't appear to have a keyboard port, unless it connects to one of the data ports on the back. What is the "party line" port and what's it used for? A search of the cctalk archives didn't yield anything. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Tue Mar 14 12:52:24 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 18:52:24 -0000 Subject: "party line" for terminals? References: Message-ID: <006701c64798$6ec8eae0$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> > What is the "party line" port and what's it used for? A search of the > cctalk archives didn't yield anything. > -- could it be a display unit for an information system? (airline arrivals or similar). That would be display only, and may well display in many locations. I suspect if that is the case, the party line will be RS422 rather than RS232, as 422 is designed for multi-drop and long distance. Jim. From jgessling at yahoo.com Tue Mar 14 13:05:48 2006 From: jgessling at yahoo.com (James Gessling) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 11:05:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: <006701c64798$6ec8eae0$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <20060314190548.92726.qmail@web31906.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Holy cow! I (and a lot others) would like to have one of these. But at a starting bid of US$ 1,000? Too rich for me, but anyway have a look at number: 5880139320 Jim __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Mar 14 13:12:53 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 14:12:53 -0500 Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: <20060314190548.92726.qmail@web31906.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060314190548.92726.qmail@web31906.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <441715B5.6060307@gmail.com> James Gessling wrote: > Holy cow! I (and a lot others) would like to have one > of these. But at a starting bid of US$ 1,000? Too > rich for me, but anyway have a look at number: > 5880139320 Unbuilt vintage Heathkits often go for money. I wouldn't care to spend the premium just to have the device sitting on my shelf. Peace... Sridhar From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 14 13:44:05 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:44:05 -0600 Subject: OT/Admin: Delay in posts? References: <200603132044.k2DKiNcO032231@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <00f701c6479f$a8b0f7a0$6800a8c0@BILLING> Gavin wrote.... > Sometime I see up to a weeks delay in email from this list. Does anyone > else? Because the traffic for cctech (which you are subscribed to) has to be manually approved by a team of moderators who have lives occasionally outside of the hobby :) Shortly cctalk and cctech will be recombined back in to one list, with tighter/more_strict moderation of ontopic posts. Soon as I get time to approach it that is. Jay West From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 14 13:52:43 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:52:43 -0600 Subject: ISO Bill Yakowenko References: Message-ID: <010101c647a0$dbe81f80$6800a8c0@BILLING> I've been trying to contact Bill Yakowenko for well over a year, no luck. If anyone hears from him, please direct him my way. Jay West ----- Original Message ----- From: "Al Kossow" To: Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 10:33 AM Subject: ISO Bill Yakowenko > > I'm trying to contact Bill to see if I can find out what > Univac 9200 documentation he has, but didn't get a reply > at the posted email adr. > > http://www.cs.unc.edu/~yakowenk/classiccmp/univac/news.html > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 14 13:54:18 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:54:18 -0600 Subject: "party line" for terminals? References: <006701c64798$6ec8eae0$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <010601c647a1$1455ec80$6800a8c0@BILLING> >> What is the "party line" port and what's it used for? A search of the >> cctalk archives didn't yield anything. The HP264x terminals had something vaguely similar. You could daisychain terminals off eachother in a bus configuration instead of the typical star configuration (all RS232). MultiDrop I think they called it. Jay West From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Mar 14 13:58:28 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 12:58:28 -0700 Subject: OT posts In-Reply-To: <00f701c6479f$a8b0f7a0$6800a8c0@BILLING> References: <200603132044.k2DKiNcO032231@onyx.spiritone.com> <00f701c6479f$a8b0f7a0$6800a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <44172064.3010204@jetnet.ab.ca> Jay West wrote: > Gavin wrote.... > Shortly cctalk and cctech will be recombined back in to one list, with > tighter/more_strict moderation of ontopic posts. Soon as I get time to > approach it that is. I've never had problems with the on topic posts,so why moderate? :) > Jay West Other than the problem of finding and transporting the classic computers are people useing them for any constructive purposes? Also a nice compare of the instruction set formats of early machines can be found here. http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/ From jgessling at yahoo.com Tue Mar 14 14:07:49 2006 From: jgessling at yahoo.com (James Gessling) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 12:07:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: <441715B5.6060307@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060314200749.84995.qmail@web31902.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I'd build it for sure. The journey is the reward. Jim --- Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > James Gessling wrote: > > Holy cow! I (and a lot others) would like to have > one > > of these. But at a starting bid of US$ 1,000? > Too > > rich for me, but anyway have a look at number: > > 5880139320 > > Unbuilt vintage Heathkits often go for money. I > wouldn't care to spend > the premium just to have the device sitting on my > shelf. > > Peace... Sridhar > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Mar 14 14:44:47 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 15:44:47 -0500 Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: <20060314200749.84995.qmail@web31902.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060314200749.84995.qmail@web31902.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <44172B3F.60405@gmail.com> James Gessling wrote: > I'd build it for sure. The journey is the reward. The problem is that it makes very little economic sense. I'd rather get an assembled heathkit for much less money and take it apart and put it back together again repeatedly until I know it forwards and backwards. Or maybe I'd see if I could find the prints for one and try to whip one up from scratch/parts. Peace... Sridhar > --- Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > >> James Gessling wrote: >>> Holy cow! I (and a lot others) would like to have >> one >>> of these. But at a starting bid of US$ 1,000? >> Too >>> rich for me, but anyway have a look at number: >>> 5880139320 >> Unbuilt vintage Heathkits often go for money. I >> wouldn't care to spend >> the premium just to have the device sitting on my >> shelf. >> >> Peace... Sridhar >> > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 14 14:46:31 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:46:31 -0700 Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 14 Mar 2006 11:05:48 -0800. <20060314190548.92726.qmail@web31906.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: In article <20060314190548.92726.qmail at web31906.mail.mud.yahoo.com>, James Gessling writes: > Holy cow! I (and a lot others) would like to have one > of these. But at a starting bid of US$ 1,000? Too > rich for me, but anyway have a look at number: > 5880139320 The same seller has an unbuilt Heathkit RT-1 Hero Jr. starting at $2k :-) Given that H8s seem to sell for at least $300 in built, used condition (sometimes without manuals), the initial bid seems reasonable. However, if I bought it, I don't know if I'd build it as the museum / collectable value would be destroyed by that, which is mostly what you're paying for. I understand the value in building your own computer, but if you want that value then I'd recommend buying an Apple 1 replica kit or something like that. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Mar 14 14:46:49 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 15:46:49 -0500 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <4415FA66.40303@yahoo.co.uk> References: <4415F3C3.2000000@yahoo.co.uk> <4415F424.5070609@gjcp.net> <4415FA66.40303@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20060314204649.GB9252@ned.cc.purdue.edu> On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 11:04:06PM +0000, Jules Richardson wrote: > Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > >Jules Richardson wrote: > > > (All I actually want to do is put Slackware Linux on the machine there > >>in place of Debian, but the CDROM drive's too flakey to boot from. If > >>I can get MSDOS on there by copying from a remote machine then I can > >>boot the Slackware installer from MSDOS and then install the rest of > >>Slackware across the network - talk about complicated!!) > > Unfortunately not. CDROM, floppy (which I don't have) or hard disk only... Depending on what you really need, you might want to check out freedos, which has bootable cd images available to install from. Pat From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 14 15:05:57 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 14:05:57 -0700 Subject: Constructive purposes (was: OT posts) In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 14 Mar 2006 12:58:28 -0700. <44172064.3010204@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: In article <44172064.3010204 at jetnet.ab.ca>, woodelf writes: > Other than the problem of finding and transporting the classic > computers are people useing them for any constructive purposes? I try to make interesting graphics and sound hacks on the computers that I have, but alas it suffers from lack of free time. However at Pilgrimage this year, we will have a C=64 demo competition! More details will be posted to this list in the near future. > Also a nice compare of the instruction set formats of early machines > can be found here. > http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/ Well I found lots of interesting stuff there, but I didn't see the page you're talking about. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 14 15:08:23 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:08:23 -0800 Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603141308230261.0B2CD63B@10.0.0.252> On 3/14/2006 at 1:46 PM Richard wrote: >Given that H8s seem to sell for at least $300 in built, used condition >(sometimes without manuals), the initial bid seems reasonable. >However, if I bought it, I don't know if I'd build it as the museum / >collectable value would be destroyed by that, which is mostly what >you're paying for. I'm trying to recall how I felt about the H8 when it first came out, and it seems to me that it cut some corners (e.g., Molex connectors instead of card edge connectors; was the PCB solder-masked?). And the expansion interface was limited, particularly when compared to the S-100 systems. I toyed for awhile with getting an H11, but was put off by the slow speed for lotsa money and the ambiguous attitude of DEC when it came to software support. Are my feelings pretty accurate, or do I have things confused again? Today, I'd rather build a system from scratch if I wanted the experience. Good selection of components to choose from, free PCB design software, etc. makes it a little easier than it was back then. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 14 15:11:10 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 14:11:10 -0700 Subject: "party line" for terminals? In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:54:18 -0600. <010601c647a1$1455ec80$6800a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: In article <010601c647a1$1455ec80$6800a8c0 at BILLING>, "Jay West" writes: > >> What is the "party line" port and what's it used for? A search of the > >> cctalk archives didn't yield anything. > > The HP264x terminals had something vaguely similar. You could daisychain > terminals off eachother in a bus configuration instead of the typical star > configuration (all RS232). MultiDrop I think they called it. >From looking at the 264x documentation, I got the impression that this was a cheap form of networking multiple terminals to a single host. This makes sense for a 264x since they all have their own keyboards. For this Westinghouse unit, I'll have to open it up and see what the circuitry contains, that should give me some idea of how to feed it data. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 14 15:14:10 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 14:14:10 -0700 Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:08:23 -0800. <200603141308230261.0B2CD63B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603141308230261.0B2CD63B at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > Are my feelings pretty accurate, or do I have things confused again? My rememberances of being a teenager and drooling over ads in BYTE: - Everything was expensive, but Heathkit stuff was bordering on affordable for me - I looked at the H19/Z19, but it had no graphics - I wanted graphics, so gravitated to S-100 based systems (Cromemco? SWTPC? Ohio Scientific?) because I wanted a frame buffer - Eventually I bought an Amiga 1000 > Today, I'd rather build a system from scratch if I wanted the experience. > Good selection of components to choose from, free PCB design software, etc. > makes it a little easier than it was back then. Definately. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From bpope at wordstock.com Tue Mar 14 15:42:59 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 16:42:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: Amiga (was Re: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060314214259.27827581D0@mail.wordstock.com> > > > - Eventually I bought an Amiga 1000 I had wanted an Amiga 1000 (because of the separate keyboard!) but was talked an Amiga 500 by the salesperson. At the time bought my system (from a place called "Slipped Disk" in Michigan) the game Barbarian by Psygnosis had been recently release and was the demo game for their showroom computer. Cheers, Bryan From jgessling at yahoo.com Tue Mar 14 15:59:02 2006 From: jgessling at yahoo.com (James Gessling) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:59:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060314215902.64483.qmail@web31905.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- Richard wrote: > > In article <200603141308230261.0B2CD63B at 10.0.0.252>, > "Chuck Guzis" writes: > > > Are my feelings pretty accurate, or do I have > things confused again? > > My rememberances of being a teenager and drooling > over ads in BYTE: > > - Everything was expensive, but Heathkit stuff > was bordering on > affordable for me > - I looked at the H19/Z19, but it had no > graphics If you mean the H19 terminal (heathkit vt52 clone) there was an add on graphics card for it. Didn't buy one because after spending $500 for the H19 and $500 more for the Softech MicroSystems UCSD p-system for the PDT 11/150 I had gotten for free (from the DEC rep) I figured I had spent plenty already. I'm still amazed my wife let me do it. Maybe it was the hours I spent in ODT trying to figure out the bootstrap that warmed her heart... Jim __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Mar 14 16:03:15 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 14:03:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <441661EA.BF6FEDF4@rain.org> References: <441661EA.BF6FEDF4@rain.org> Message-ID: <20060314132523.I67986@shell.lmi.net> I thought that you guys would have worked that out by now. Step 1. You need a DOS bootable device, or a FAT16 partition for the first partition of the drive. It must be less than 2G. (NT is capable of having a 4G FAT16, because they finally realized the difference between a long and an unsigned long. 2. The MBR (Master Boot Record) needs to be modified for dual booting. That can be done with the modern OS. IFF you can read a floppy, and boot DOS (>4) or Windoze 95/98/ME from ANYTHING, even CD (even just for the day), then skip to PLAN B. 3. The partition needs to be formatted (setting up the DIR structures, etc.). That can be done by FORMAT. Format must be for the correct range of size, but can be done by almost any ver of the OS. 4. The Boot sector of the DOS partition needs to be written. That can be done by with certain versions of SYS, or by copying the sector from a working copy that has a comparably sized partition. The cluster size changes at powers of 2, so, for example, if the partition will be 980K, then copy the boot sector from one that is between 512K and 1G. (NOTE all numbers are "CS" binary, Mebibytes and Gibibytes, where a meg is 1048576, NOT IBM's 1024000, nor marketing 1000000.) To copy the boot sector using DEBUG: L 100 x 0 1 R CX 200 N Y:abcd W on destination machine DEBUG Y:abcd W 100 z 0 1 NOTE: if you do not already know the DEBUG commands, then the only DEBUG command that you should use right now is: Q 5. IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS (or IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM) need to be copied to the right location. ATTRIB *.* -s-h-r will unhide them. 6. COMMAND.COM needs to be copied. or PLAN B: 1. Format the new boot partition. FORMAT x: /S IF you were able to boot with the OS that you want. 2. If you were NOT able to boot with the OS that you want, but can boot SOME version of DOS (5.x - 95/98/ME), such as a bootable 98 CD, then SYS Early versions of SYS must be run on the boot device, to install THAT version of OS to the new drive. Late versions of SYS will permit an "X-Y" installation. If you can READ a DOS disk, even if not bootable (such as a DOS 5.00 diskette in an LS120 drive, ...) then SYS x:\ y: will copy the system files from drive x: to drive y:. NOTE: just to add to the fun,... no version of SYS will run on a system that was booted with some other version of OS than the one that that SYS came from. That can be subverted with DOSVER, or in DEBUG, find MOV Ah, 30 Int 21 CMP AX, ... JE . . . and replace it with JMP. All other files can just be copied. When DOS 6.00 came out, MS shipped it with an install program that was hardwired to install it on C:. The machine that I wanted it on's hard drive was E:, and I did NOT want it on a 3" SS disk (my C: drive on that machine). Microsoft said, "If you don't want it on C:, then install it on C: and then copy it to the drive that you want." Yeah. Right. Once I had made a 360K 6.00 system diskette, then the hell with their install procedure. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From aw288 at osfn.org Tue Mar 14 16:13:52 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 17:13:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: <20060314200749.84995.qmail@web31902.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > I'd build it for sure. The journey is the reward. The journey would end for you, me thinks, when they find the shallow grave...it is the blackest of sins to build a rare unbuilt kit, amongst the Heathkit religion. Best uunbuild a kit, then rebuild it. This is not as nutty as is sounds. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Mar 14 17:10:11 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 15:10:11 -0800 Subject: John Savard's comparitive architecture page Message-ID: <3C84D779-FC7C-46BE-B52E-EF3CA59DB818@bitsavers.org> > Also a nice compare of the instruction set formats of early machines > can be found here. should be: http://www.quadibloc.com/comp/cpint.htm much of this derived from the manuals on bitsavers. I was hoping someone would do something like this. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 14 18:15:58 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 00:15:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: <44172B3F.60405@gmail.com> from "Sridhar Ayengar" at Mar 14, 6 03:44:47 pm Message-ID: > > James Gessling wrote: > > I'd build it for sure. The journey is the reward. > > The problem is that it makes very little economic sense. I'd rather get So? Very little that we do with classic computers makes economic sense. Does it make economic sense for me to spend 6 months working out how to repair a scientific calculator when I could buy a 'better' one in the local supermarket for 5 quid? I did just that a few years back (the fact that the calculator in question was the HP9100 might have something to do with why I did it ;-)) > an assembled heathkit for much less money and take it apart and put it > back together again repeatedly until I know it forwards and backwards. Desoldering components from PCBs is not something I would want to do for fun. Sure I do it all the time for repair. And then there are wires that will have been cut to length, component leads that have been trimmed, etc. I don;t think you _could_ disassemble a Heathkit (or anything like that) back to the origianl state. And there;s one other reason. I hate to see machines that are not given the chance to run. A box of bits doesn't interest me at all. [The same view was mentioned by a chap called Eric Smith (not the one here :-)) in a boot on clock repairing. Clock enthusiasts hate the idea of clocks that aren't given the chance to run] -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 14 18:06:00 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 00:06:00 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: <20060314190548.92726.qmail@web31906.mail.mud.yahoo.com> from "James Gessling" at Mar 14, 6 11:05:48 am Message-ID: > > > Holy cow! I (and a lot others) would like to have one > of these. But at a starting bid of US$ 1,000? Too > rich for me, but anyway have a look at number: > 5880139320 Some of you are probalby glad that I can't afford that (and won't be bidding on it). Because if I got an unbuilt Heathkit, the first thing I would do is to ruin it by building it.... -tony From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Mar 14 18:30:16 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 16:30:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Mar 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > > Holy cow! I (and a lot others) would like to have one > > of these. But at a starting bid of US$ 1,000? Too > > rich for me, but anyway have a look at number: > > 5880139320 > > Some of you are probalby glad that I can't afford that (and won't be > bidding on it). Because if I got an unbuilt Heathkit, the first thing I > would do is to ruin it by building it.... I have some computer kits that are much cheaper and brand-new. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Mar 14 19:34:44 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 18:34:44 -0700 Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44176F34.6050301@jetnet.ab.ca> David Griffith wrote: > On Wed, 15 Mar 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > > >>>Holy cow! I (and a lot others) would like to have one >>>of these. But at a starting bid of US$ 1,000? Too >>>rich for me, but anyway have a look at number: >>>5880139320 >> >>Some of you are probalby glad that I can't afford that (and won't be >>bidding on it). Because if I got an unbuilt Heathkit, the first thing I >>would do is to ruin it by building it.... > > > I have some computer kits that are much cheaper and brand-new. > Heck at that price , doing a computer with 74LSXX seems a better deal for parts ALONE. I wanted the pdp 11 rather than the 8080 but they seem have only kept only about a year or two since the next time I saw Heathkit they were doing a PC clone. From nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com Tue Mar 14 20:21:52 2006 From: nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com (nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 18:21:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: Unbuilt kits... Re: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: <200603141308230261.0B2CD63B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060315022152.81440.qmail@web81006.mail.mud.yahoo.com> So does that mean I shouldn't finish off this partly assembled Poly 88 someone gave me? On 3/14/2006 at 1:46 PM Richard wrote: >Given that H8s seem to sell for at least $300 in built, used condition >(sometimes without manuals), the initial bid seems >reasonable. >However, if I bought it, I don't know if I'd build it as the museum / >collectable value would be destroyed by that, which >is mostly what >you're paying for. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 14 20:25:58 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 18:25:58 -0800 Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: <44176F34.6050301@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <44176F34.6050301@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200603141825580563.0C4F9700@10.0.0.252> On 3/14/2006 at 6:34 PM woodelf wrote: >Heck at that price , doing a computer with 74LSXX seems a better deal >for parts ALONE. I wanted the pdp 11 rather than the 8080 but they seem >have only kept only about a year or two since the next time I saw >Heathkit they were doing a PC clone. The Z-100/H-100? That wasn't much of a "clone", was it? So many differences from the original! Cheers, Chuck From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Mar 15 00:55:57 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 23:55:57 -0700 Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: <200603141825580563.0C4F9700@10.0.0.252> References: <44176F34.6050301@jetnet.ab.ca> <200603141825580563.0C4F9700@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4417BA7D.602@jetnet.ab.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3/14/2006 at 6:34 PM woodelf wrote: > > The Z-100/H-100? That wasn't much of a "clone", was it? So many > differences from the original! Well I did get one for a song as Z-100 seems to ring a bell,about 10 years ago but I had to toss it since it came with no DOS with it. It was a nice machine, but with no Internet to get a OS booted for it was useless. The PC clone was a much later product I was thinking about. > Cheers, > Chuck > From psand at mac.com Wed Mar 15 06:21:45 2006 From: psand at mac.com (Per Sandstrom) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:21:45 +0100 Subject: Looking for Sun-2 Multibus Memory Message-ID: <441806D9.5010902@mac.com> Does anyone have, or know where I could possibly get, a 4MB Multibus memory card for a Sun-2/120 workstation? I'm specifically looking for Sun p/n 501-1232, but would also consider any third-party upgrades (like Helios Systems 2MB, 3MB or 4MB cards). Per From tony.eros at machm.org Wed Mar 15 07:19:04 2006 From: tony.eros at machm.org (Anthony L.Eros) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 08:19:04 -0500 Subject: New Big Iron Acquisition - IBM Tabulating Equipment Message-ID: <53eb31c8211149c98e76b7bac20c1023@machm.org> The Museum of Business History and Technology in Wilmington, DE is proud to announce the arrival of its latest little bundles of joy, an IBM 405 Accounting Machine and an IBM 513 Reproducing Punch. The 405 weighed in at a hefty 1000 lbs, while the 513 is a relatively svelte 400 or so. Pictures of the blessed event are available: http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul01.jpg http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul02.jpg http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul03.jpg http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul04.jpg http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul05.jpg http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul06.jpg http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul07.jpg http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul08.jpg Birth announcement euphamisms aside, this was a pretty cool find. The systems came with 405 & 513 schematics -- blueprints, really; 405 & 513 service records and a 513 CE guide. The 405 also has five programmed plugboards (the system was originally owned by a liquor distributor in Madison, WI) with various sales reports, as well as a blank board. Both machines are in very rough condition, as you can see from the pictures. As it turns out, I spoke to a guy in Green Bay a while back (prompted by a mail list posting) whose brother was selling some property. On the property was a barn; and in the barn was, you guessed it, old IBM tabulating equipment. The plugboards even had hay on them! On the other hand, the wiring bundles actually look pretty un-nibbled by various critters, so go figure... What's next? Any retired IBM customer engineers out there with an interest in helping to restore these machines? Restoring the 405 looks to be an enormous task, but with a very high coolness factor. Does anyone know of another organization that has restored one of these? From Watzman at neo.rr.com Wed Mar 15 07:28:57 2006 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 08:28:57 -0500 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603151228.k2FCSLM8069377@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <000b01c64834$6a27a480$6d01a8c0@barry> On recordable CDs, the data is on the label side and scratches can remove the data. On DVDs, the data is inside the media, between two layers of plastic. Scratches cannot permanently destroy the data proper as they can with CDs. The risk is that DVDs can delaminate, which will destroy them. Also, air getting in between the two plastic layers laminated together (with the data between them) can destroy the data by oxidizing the dye layer. This form of failure occurs from the outside in. A logical suggestion that is often made is to not use the last 10% to 20% of the media to increase it's resistance to this form of deterioration. Also, it is critical to avoid any storage or handling that flexes the media even slightly. I don't buy the "spiral track" argument that was made against optical media. These are "random access" media, not sequential access. If you don't believe it, put a full data CD or DVD into your drive and read any file from the CD. You can hear the "seeking", and the time required to get to a file is clearly nothing like the time that would be required to read from the start of the disc to the selected file. The condition of the middle of the disc has no bearing on the readability of data at the end of the disc unless, on a particular disc, a directory or some other critical data structure just happens to fall in a defective area. I think that most of the problems that we see are really with bad burners, and this can mean marginally bad burners (no indication of a problem, but the laser is weak and the media is not heated to the proper temperature, and may subsequently "fade" as a consequence). My own experience (I repair computers and see more drives than most people) have convinced me to stay with Samsung for CDs and Pioneer for DVDs (although Pioneer had one bad model, the "09's"). Other than that, I'm convinced that well burned optical media is the best storage media we have ever had, but I think that the media is the very least of the issues. Burning, storage and handling, I think, are every bit as important as the media itself. Two very important rules: NEVER use "RW" media of any kind, and never use "packet writing" to burn your media (e.g. stick with ISO-compatible formats). From Watzman at neo.rr.com Wed Mar 15 07:41:54 2006 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 08:41:54 -0500 Subject: CP/M sysgen question In-Reply-To: <200603151228.k2FCSVkR069400@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <000c01c64836$396768b0$6d01a8c0@barry> Sysgen neither copies nor doesn't copy any specific components. Basically, the DR standard Sysgen for CP/M 2.2 copies the contents of the first two tracks (52 sectors of 128-bytes each) to and from a buffer at 900H. It doesn't know or care what components are present in those tracks, it just does a blind copy: 52 sectors (128 bytes per sector, two tracks of 26 sectors each) to and from memory at address 900 hex. [This address was different [lower] in some earlier versions of CP/M]. Now that was the standard Digital Research SYSGEN. If you are dealing with an OEM system or any system that used any flavor of 5.25" media, then all bets are off. In such systems the entire methodology for system generation, booting and copying the boot code were entirely up to the OEM and could be extremely different from the DR standard (which was both simplistic and quite restrictive). On my own implementations for the Z-100, I put the OS and the BIOS onto the data area as files OS.SYS and BIOS.SYS (which did not have to be either contiguous or located in special areas). (For MP/M-86, the OS consisted of about a half-dozen different modules.) What I put into the system tracks was an OS loader program that could actually read files using the directory and FCBs. And for writing and copying that, I created a program called "WRITLDR" (write loader). The loader had a CP/M-like boot sector and bios of it's own, but since the loader itself was relatively small, the loader's bios could be relatively huge, allowing for the complexity required to deal with systems with a large number of bootable disk formats. From Watzman at neo.rr.com Wed Mar 15 07:45:16 2006 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 08:45:16 -0500 Subject: Telling (MS)DOS about a second floppy drive... In-Reply-To: <200603151228.k2FCSVkR069400@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <000d01c64836$b15bb8d0$6d01a8c0@barry> Re: > >Assuming that the FDC will work with two (I've never heard of an FDC that >won't?) > Some late-model Asus motherboards support only a single floppy drive, period, no way around it. An example is my Asus P4T533 ... one floppy drive, neither hardware nor software support for a 2nd one. Stupid. Incredibly stupid, but that's what they did. From acme_ent at bellsouth.net Wed Mar 15 08:27:20 2006 From: acme_ent at bellsouth.net (Glen Goodwin) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:27:20 -0500 Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: <200603141825580563.0C4F9700@10.0.0.252> References: <44176F34.6050301@jetnet.ab.ca> <200603141825580563.0C4F9700@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44182448.2050709@bellsouth.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3/14/2006 at 6:34 PM woodelf wrote: > The Z-100/H-100? That wasn't much of a "clone", was it? So many > differences from the original! > > Cheers, > Chuck Yes, and so much cooler!!! Love my Z-100! CP/M-86 rocks! Glen 0/0 From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 15 08:42:17 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 14:42:17 +0000 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <000b01c64834$6a27a480$6d01a8c0@barry> References: <000b01c64834$6a27a480$6d01a8c0@barry> Message-ID: <441827C9.5010007@yahoo.co.uk> Barry Watzman wrote: > On recordable CDs, the data is on the label side and scratches can remove > the data. On DVDs, the data is inside the media, between two layers of > plastic. Scratches cannot permanently destroy the data proper as they can > with CDs. The risk is that DVDs can delaminate, which will destroy them. > Also, air getting in between the two plastic layers laminated together (with > the data between them) can destroy the data by oxidizing the dye layer. > This form of failure occurs from the outside in. I've certainly seem the same thing on data (rather than video) laserdiscs too, although on 20 year old discs the damage doesn't seem to extend in more than a centimetre or so. > I don't buy the "spiral track" argument that was made against optical media. > These are "random access" media, not sequential access. Don't the drives work by some sort of successive approximation when seeking? So in theory, sprial recording or not, an error could affect a fairly large chunk of the disc... I have a vague memory of reading something like that once somewhere. cheers Jules From acme_ent at bellsouth.net Wed Mar 15 08:38:20 2006 From: acme_ent at bellsouth.net (Glen Goodwin) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:38:20 -0500 Subject: Z-100 (was Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay) In-Reply-To: <4417BA7D.602@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <44176F34.6050301@jetnet.ab.ca> <200603141825580563.0C4F9700@10.0.0.252> <4417BA7D.602@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <441826DC.1060100@bellsouth.net> woodelf wrote: > Well I did get one for a song as Z-100 seems to ring a bell,about 10 years > ago but I had to toss it since it came with no DOS with it. It was a > nice machine, but with no Internet to get a OS booted for it was useless. Ben, that's a shame :-((( When I got mine from Joe Rigdon a few years back it had all of the OS disks except for CP/M-85, which Don Maslin (MHRIP) was kind enough to provide. I partitioned the hard drive into thirds, and set it up for dual-boot (ZDOS and CP/M-86). Unfortunately, the version of CP/M-85 Don sent me does not support a hard drive. I've never taken the time to patch it for hard drive support, since I really like CP/M-86. If I ever do, I'll install it on the third partition. I made Teledisk images for all three of the Z-100 CP/M-86 disks, so if anyone out there needs 'em I'll be glad to share. Glen 0/0 From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Mar 15 08:48:46 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 08:48:46 -0600 Subject: New Big Iron Acquisition - IBM Tabulating Equipment In-Reply-To: <53eb31c8211149c98e76b7bac20c1023@machm.org> References: <53eb31c8211149c98e76b7bac20c1023@machm.org> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060315083259.04ce80a8@mail> At 07:19 AM 3/15/2006, Anthony L.Eros wrote: >Does anyone know of another organization that has restored one of these? There was an April post by Evan regarding a rescue from a Larry Metzler of Green Bay, Wisconsin, who had an IBM 513 reproducer and a 405 accounting machine. For a moment, I thought Sellam was helping to acquire it to the CHM. Is this that system? Or a different one? Sadly, it looks so corroded that it will never tabulate again... When it comes to barns in this part of the country, just because it's not getting rained on doesn't mean it's not going to rust. - John From tony.eros at machm.org Wed Mar 15 09:03:29 2006 From: tony.eros at machm.org (Anthony L.Eros) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 10:03:29 -0500 Subject: SPAM-LOW: Re: New Big Iron Acquisition - IBM Tabulating Equipment Message-ID: Those are the systems -- Larry's brother was the guy with the barn. -- Tony ---------------------------------------- Return-Path: Wed Mar 15 09:50:43 2006 Received: from dewey.classiccmp.org [209.145.140.57] by mail34.safesecureweb.com with SMTP; Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:50:43 -0500 Received: from dewey.classiccmp.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by dewey.classiccmp.org (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k2FErBx0070946; Wed, 15 Mar 2006 08:53:12 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org) Received: from keith.ezwind.net (keith.ezwind.net [209.145.140.15]) by dewey.classiccmp.org (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k2FEr7Nu070940 for ; Wed, 15 Mar 2006 08:53:07 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from jfoust at threedee.com) Received: from pc.threedee.com (mail.threedee.com [66.84.209.228]) by keith.ezwind.net (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k2FF1IJ1016254 for ; Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:01:18 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from jfoust at threedee.com) Received: from gerber.threedee.com (gerber [192.168.5.21]) by pc.threedee.com (8.11.0/8.11.0) with ESMTP id k2FF2BW27432 for ; Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:02:11 -0600 Message-Id: <6.2.3.4.2.20060315083259.04ce80a8 at mail> X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 6.2.3.4 Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 08:48:46 -0600 To: From: John Foust In-Reply-To: <53eb31c8211149c98e76b7bac20c1023 at machm.org> References: <53eb31c8211149c98e76b7bac20c1023 at machm.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-6BB17CA6 X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV version 0.86.2, clamav-milter version 0.86 on keith.ezwind.net X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=4.0 tests=none autolearn=failed version=3.0.2 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.2 (2004-11-16) on keith.ezwind.net Subject: SPAM-LOW: Re: New Big Iron Acquisition - IBM Tabulating Equipment X-BeenThere: cctalk at classiccmp.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" List-Id: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org Errors-To: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org X-SmarterMail-Spam: BAYESIAN FILTERING, SPF_None X-Rcpt-To: At 07:19 AM 3/15/2006, Anthony L.Eros wrote: >Does anyone know of another organization that has restored one of these? There was an April post by Evan regarding a rescue from a Larry Metzler of Green Bay, Wisconsin, who had an IBM 513 reproducer and a 405 accounting machine. For a moment, I thought Sellam was helping to acquire it to the CHM. Is this that system? Or a different one? Sadly, it looks so corroded that it will never tabulate again... When it comes to barns in this part of the country, just because it's not getting rained on doesn't mean it's not going to rust. - John From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 15 11:35:35 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:35:35 -0800 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <441827C9.5010007@yahoo.co.uk> References: <000b01c64834$6a27a480$6d01a8c0@barry> <441827C9.5010007@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200603150935350257.0F9063AE@10.0.0.252> Judging from the time it takes my drive to seek to other tracks, which is nowhere as fast as the seek rate of my hard drive, I suspect there;s some sort of search algorithm being used. And regardless of the drive, if the inner tracks are damaged, there's an excellent likelihood that the drive will refuse to mount the CD. How about this as an arbitrary test of the recoverabiliy of a medium? What I call the "pinking shears" test. Maybe some remember it from an episode from "The New Detectives" TV series. Take the medium and cut it into randomly sized peices, with the mean being about the size of a postage stamp, using pinking shears. Pick up most, but not all, of the peices, throw them into an envelope and ship them across the country. How much data can you reconstruct from the fragments? You know, floppies aren't all that bad for storing data... Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 15 11:37:24 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:37:24 -0800 Subject: New Big Iron Acquisition - IBM Tabulating Equipment In-Reply-To: <53eb31c8211149c98e76b7bac20c1023@machm.org> References: <53eb31c8211149c98e76b7bac20c1023@machm.org> Message-ID: <200603150937240766.0F920F71@10.0.0.252> On 3/15/2006 at 8:19 AM Anthony L.Eros wrote: >The Museum of Business History and Technology in Wilmington, DE is proud >to announce the arrival of its latest little bundles of joy, an IBM 405 >Accounting Machine and an IBM 513 Reproducing Punch. Good luck on getting those things operating! They were cranky enough when they were in maintained condition. It's odd thinking that something I've actually used is now a rare museum item. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 15 11:42:30 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:42:30 -0800 Subject: CP/M sysgen question In-Reply-To: <000c01c64836$396768b0$6d01a8c0@barry> References: <000c01c64836$396768b0$6d01a8c0@barry> Message-ID: <200603150942300248.0F96B8B8@10.0.0.252> On 3/15/2006 at 8:41 AM Barry Watzman wrote: >Now that was the standard Digital Research SYSGEN. If you are dealing with >an OEM system or any system that used any flavor of 5.25" media, then all >bets are off. In such systems the entire methodology for system >generation, >booting and copying the boot code were entirely up to the OEM and could be >extremely different from the DR standard (which was both simplistic and >quite restrictive). I can't recall if the OEM kit gave much direction on the matter of sysgen, athough I do recall it was one of the files affected by the serial-numbering process. I'll have to check my notes and find out if DRI gave out the source to Sysgen or even included instructions for extending it. I've always wondered how many duplicate serial numbers one would find if one took a census of the CP/M 2.2 systems now running. Few even know that OEMs were required by contract to serial-number their copies of CP/M. Cheers, Chuck From lcourtney at mvista.com Wed Mar 15 11:50:41 2006 From: lcourtney at mvista.com (Lee Courtney) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:50:41 -0800 Subject: New Big Iron Acquisition - IBM Tabulating Equipment In-Reply-To: <53eb31c8211149c98e76b7bac20c1023@machm.org> Message-ID: <00a901c64858$f9dd4e30$c20a000a@mvista.com> > Does anyone know of another organization that has restored > one of these? The 1401 Project at the Computer History Museum has restored a couple of unit record peripherals that are (relatively) more recent cousins. A 1403 printer and 1402 card reader/punch. Link to the project at http://ed-thelen.org/1401Project/1401RestorationPage.html. I haven't been involved with this project, but was on the 1620 Restoration Project. Nice find, but too bad they are in such poor condition. Looks more like a recreation (as in rebuild, but could also be fun) project than a restoration. Last summers IEEE Annuals was devoted to reconstructions/restorations/recreations. See TOC at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/tocresult.jsp?isYear=2005&isnumber=32187&Subm it32=Go+To+Issues. In the early 1970s I learned FORTRAN II on an IBM 1620 w/o a printer and we used IBM unit record gear to interpret our output decks. Cool stuff. Cheers, Lee Courtney MontaVista Software, Inc. 2929 Patrick Henry Drive Santa Clara, CA. 95054-1831 408-572-7816 408-572-7020 Fax Yahoo IM: charlesleecourtney > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Anthony L.Eros > Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2006 5:19 AM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org; cctech at classiccmp.org; > midatlanticretro at yahoogroups.com > Subject: New Big Iron Acquisition - IBM Tabulating Equipment > > > > The Museum of Business History and Technology in Wilmington, > DE is proud to announce the arrival of its latest little > bundles of joy, an IBM 405 Accounting Machine and an IBM 513 > Reproducing Punch. > > The 405 weighed in at a hefty 1000 lbs, while the 513 is a > relatively svelte 400 or so. > > Pictures of the blessed event are available: > > http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul01.jpg > http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul02.jpg > http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul03.jpg > http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul04.jpg > http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul05.jpg > http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul06.jpg > http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul07.jpg > http://www.ddmx.net/ibm405/ibmHaul08.jpg > > Birth announcement euphamisms aside, this was a pretty cool > find. The systems came with 405 & 513 schematics -- > blueprints, really; 405 & 513 service records and a 513 CE > guide. The 405 also has five programmed plugboards (the > system was originally owned by a liquor distributor in > Madison, WI) with various sales reports, as well as a blank board. > > Both machines are in very rough condition, as you can see > from the pictures. As it turns out, I spoke to a guy in > Green Bay a while back (prompted by a mail list posting) > whose brother was selling some property. On the property was > a barn; and in the barn was, you guessed it, old IBM > tabulating equipment. The plugboards even had hay on them! > On the other hand, the wiring bundles actually look pretty > un-nibbled by various critters, so go figure... > > What's next? Any retired IBM customer engineers out there > with an interest in helping to restore these machines? > Restoring the 405 looks to be an enormous task, but with a > very high coolness factor. > > Does anyone know of another organization that has restored > one of these? > > From rtellason at blazenet.net Wed Mar 15 11:58:53 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 12:58:53 -0500 Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: <4417BA7D.602@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <200603141825580563.0C4F9700@10.0.0.252> <4417BA7D.602@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200603151258.53638.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Wednesday 15 March 2006 01:55 am, woodelf wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 3/14/2006 at 6:34 PM woodelf wrote: > > > > The Z-100/H-100? That wasn't much of a "clone", was it? So many > > differences from the original! > > Well I did get one for a song as Z-100 seems to ring a bell,about 10 years > ago but I had to toss it since it came with no DOS with it. It was a > nice machine, but with no Internet to get a OS booted for it was useless. > The PC clone was a much later product I was thinking about. The -100 was an S-100 bus machine, with some small number of slots. The -150s were closer to PC clones, but instead of a MB they had a backplane, and some of the plug-in cards were taller than the standard cards, so what you could or couldn't do was limited. (I have a couple of power supplies for these if anybody can use them, the machines themselves are long gone). Then they came out with stuff like the -160, a luggable, and the 148, etc. which was a low-profile box. Later -150/-160 series stuff was a bit more tightly integrated, with the whole machine on two boards instead of three, if I'm remembering right. Their -2xx machines were what they called their 286 and later boxes. At around that time Zenith (?) decided that service was not going to be handled through the local wholesaler (which had been the case for training and parts and such) and was instead going to require no less than four separate trips to Chicago, was going to cost some nontrivial money, and they also complicated the handling of warranty claims, using NARDA forms (with six or seven parts instead of the 2- or 3-part form we'd been using) and Batch Tickets required, even if the "batch" consisted of a single claim. Couple that with their responsiveness going into the toilet, an order for five power supplies coming in so late and in two separate shipments that we lost the customer, and we decided that it was time for us to stop being a ZDS service center. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I may still have manuals for a bunch of that older stuff, and think I also have an early Zenith monitor, condition unknown, sitting in storage -- it's the one that used a DB25 for an input connector, if anybody's interested. -- 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 dwight.elvey at amd.com Wed Mar 15 11:58:36 2006 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:58:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: archival cd-r - really true? Message-ID: <200603151758.JAA27218@ca2h0430.amd.com> >From: "Jules Richardson" > >Barry Watzman wrote: >> On recordable CDs, the data is on the label side and scratches can remove >> the data. On DVDs, the data is inside the media, between two layers of >> plastic. Scratches cannot permanently destroy the data proper as they can >> with CDs. The risk is that DVDs can delaminate, which will destroy them. >> Also, air getting in between the two plastic layers laminated together (with >> the data between them) can destroy the data by oxidizing the dye layer. >> This form of failure occurs from the outside in. > >I've certainly seem the same thing on data (rather than video) laserdiscs too, >although on 20 year old discs the damage doesn't seem to extend in more than a >centimetre or so. > >> I don't buy the "spiral track" argument that was made against optical media. >> These are "random access" media, not sequential access. > >Don't the drives work by some sort of successive approximation when seeking? >So in theory, sprial recording or not, an error could affect a fairly large >chunk of the disc... I have a vague memory of reading something like that once >somewhere. > Hi For files, I believe it gets the location from the directory and then calculates about how many tracks to skip. Once there it looks for the headers ( just like soft sectored ). I don't think it spends too much time doing this. Even not knowing the track spacing, a couple of header reads on a few tracks would determine the rate of change relative to the disk diameter. It is relatively easy to calculate the data block location from that ( linear equation ). No need to do a truly random search unless one doesn't know the byte/bit offset into the disk. Dwight >cheers > >Jules > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 15 13:00:13 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:00:13 Subject: Nicolet manuals and software Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060315130013.3e97d722@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> As some of you may remember I've been playing with some old Nicolet Digital Storage Scopes. I just bought a set of manuals and some of the optional software for them from a guy on E-bay. In addition to the original manuals and disks, the previous owner scanned the manuals and sent me copies of everything in PDF and EXE files. I was impressed with the scopes before I got the manuals but after reading the manuals I'M REALLY IMPRESSED with them. I'm posting the copies of everything on my website at . The files that I have are for the model 4094 DSOs but I think most of them will also work with the other Nicolet models. Just to keep this on topic the model 4094 DSO uses a 68000 CPU! Joe From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Mar 15 12:00:51 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 12:00:51 -0600 Subject: OT Tom Swift In-Reply-To: References: <200603040856320784.222BCA64@10.0.0.252> <7.0.0.16.0.20060304125041.0198c8b8@cogeco.ca> <20060304192041.6AFB98C0093@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <20060304205928.017C8BA48B5@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <409ed6024e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <44185653.4020808@oldskool.org> Zane H. Healy wrote: > Hopefully when the time > comes, my kids will read my collections of Tom Swift, Hardy Boys, Nancy I've given up on this, but I have had great success getting them to enjoy the *electronic* entertainment of my youth. My 6-yr-old loves Battlezone, and my 9-yr-old loves Shark! Shark! (Intellivision) None of them can take me in Robotron though ;-) -- 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 mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Wed Mar 15 12:01:06 2006 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:01:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: New Big Iron Acquisition - IBM Tabulating Equipment In-Reply-To: <200603150937240766.0F920F71@10.0.0.252> References: <53eb31c8211149c98e76b7bac20c1023@machm.org> <200603150937240766.0F920F71@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Mar 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Good luck on getting those things operating! They were cranky enough when > they were in maintained condition. It's odd thinking that something I've > actually used is now a rare museum item. The SAGE system was already a museum piece WHEN I was using it! :-) Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Mar 15 12:03:42 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 12:03:42 -0600 Subject: Do not use hammer. :) (fwd) In-Reply-To: <20060306142429.1F09F58199@mail.wordstock.com> References: <20060306142429.1F09F58199@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: <441856FE.1000802@oldskool.org> Bryan Pope wrote: > >> Whatever happened to a bit of dry humor in computer >> hardware manuals? :) The Coherent (unix clone) manuals had a few tidbits, most common of which were the index entries for recursion ("(see recursion)") and infinite loop ("see loop, infinite" which would reference "see infinite loop"). Unfortunately I don't recall the more subtle ones. -- 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 rtellason at blazenet.net Wed Mar 15 12:05:07 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:05:07 -0500 Subject: CP/M sysgen question In-Reply-To: <200603150942300248.0F96B8B8@10.0.0.252> References: <000c01c64836$396768b0$6d01a8c0@barry> <200603150942300248.0F96B8B8@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603151305.07339.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Wednesday 15 March 2006 12:42 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I've always wondered how many duplicate serial numbers one would find if > one took a census of the CP/M 2.2 systems now running. Few even know that > OEMs were required by contract to serial-number their copies of CP/M. This is the first I've heard of this. Where did they put 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 cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 15 12:05:54 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 10:05:54 -0800 Subject: CP/M sysgen question In-Reply-To: <200603150942300248.0F96B8B8@10.0.0.252> References: <000c01c64836$396768b0$6d01a8c0@barry> <200603150942300248.0F96B8B8@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603151005540341.0FAC2567@10.0.0.252> On 3/15/2006 at 9:42 AM Chuck Guzis wrote: >serial-numbering process. I'll have to check my notes and find out if DRI >gave out the source to Sysgen or even included instructions for extending >it. Just checked my archives and the answer is no--you just were told the pattern to search for in the .com files for sysgen and movcpm to insert a serial number. I don't even know if sysgen was a mandatory part of the distribution or if an OEM could leave that file out. Cheers, Chuck From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 15 13:08:10 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:08:10 Subject: FA: DEC A8000 Data Acquisition Module Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060315130810.1a4f10e4@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Ebay Item number: 5877617570 Ends in 2 hours! From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 15 13:09:10 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:09:10 Subject: FA: Synertek KTM-2 & KTM-2/80 Term Reference Manual Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060315130910.3f37c902@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Ebay Item number: 8777670955 From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 15 13:10:14 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:10:14 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060315131014.3a172610@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Ebay Item # 8777684169 Ends in 3 hours! From Watzman at neo.rr.com Wed Mar 15 12:10:49 2006 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:10:49 -0500 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <200603151802.k2FI2Ixr072373@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <000001c6485b$ca211f70$6d01a8c0@barry> Ok, first, the "MS-DOS" that you want to use is "MS-DOS 7", "extracted" from Windows 98SE. This is easy, just find a 98SE system and format a bootable floppy. The utilities are in C:\Windows\Command of the 98SE system. [additional MS-DOS utilities are on the Windows 98SE CD]. This version of MS-DOS ***WILL*** recognize FAT32 partitions. Also, there was an update to FDISK in May of 2000, you want to get that, it's available from the Microsoft web site. It will recognize drives up to 137 gigabytes. There is no easy way to manually install, but you can boot from a DOS bootable CD and run SYS from that. After you make the "MS-DOS 7" floppy (above), use that floppy as an "image" in making a bootable CD. That should get you where you want to go. [Note, the full set of DOS utilities won't fit on a 1.44MB floppy, so be sure to put them on the CD so that you have a place to copy them from.] From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Mar 15 12:13:28 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 12:13:28 -0600 Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: References: <42E611B9000508B2@mail.swissinfo.org> Message-ID: <44185948.7050804@oldskool.org> 9000 VAX wrote: > The best way to learn 8088 is to get a PC and install DOS and some > software on it, including DEBUG.COM, an editor, an assembler, then you > get an assembly language book and type in examples. I second this. Not to appear juvenile, but I've learned more about assembler from cracking games and rewriting 286 code to run on 8088 than I ever did while in school. What a happy day it was to load a commercial program with slow screen updating code (excessive redundant checks for retrace when only one check was necessary) and patch it so that it was swift on the 8088. :-) Working on my Athlon, I do everything in Windows and rely on utilities to get things done. Working on my 8088, I write my own utils (sometimes in assembler). It's just a different mindset. And while there are things I would never attempt on the 8088 (such as MPEG-2 compression), it is just as fast for most common-denominator tasks like writing text, programming, etc. -- 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 cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 15 12:19:03 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 10:19:03 -0800 Subject: CP/M sysgen question In-Reply-To: <200603151305.07339.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <000c01c64836$396768b0$6d01a8c0@barry> <200603150942300248.0F96B8B8@10.0.0.252> <200603151305.07339.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <200603151019030213.0FB82EE8@10.0.0.252> On 3/15/2006 at 1:05 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: >This is the first I've heard of this. Where did they put it? Take a look at the few bytes after the 'DIR ERA TYPESAVEREN USER' string--it'll be there. That's why, for example, you couldn't use another system's MOVCPM--it checked the serial numbers--that was the source of the "SYCHRONIZATION ERROR" message. Cheers, Chuck From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Mar 15 12:22:11 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 12:22:11 -0600 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44185B53.3090302@oldskool.org> Richard wrote: >> My concern is that things I record now on cd-r might not last even 5-10 >> years. > > I'm skeptical when someone says that CD-Rs won't last, because as you > mention with sunlight, how the disc is stored and treated is probably > just as important, if not more, than the media itself. I second this. I started burning CDRs in 1996 on the cheapest media I could find back then. Just now I took one out of its CD folder (a black 200-disc folder that does not let light through), which I store in my basement, and every single data file read just fine. 10 years and counting. Sometimes I get paranoid, and I archive my data using two redundant methods: 1. I take the data and split it into parts, then generate parity information for the parts. This way I can lose up to N parts as long as I have N chunks of parity info. (I use WinRAR with "recovery volumes" if you're curious.) 2. I then take the data+parity and burn it onto one disc, then do it again on another. Just in case. CPU speed and blank DVDrs are cheap enough nowadays that this adds 1% of effort to a process that gives me 3-4x more reliability. -- 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 Wed Mar 15 12:29:47 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 12:29:47 -0600 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603150935350257.0F9063AE@10.0.0.252> References: <000b01c64834$6a27a480$6d01a8c0@barry> <441827C9.5010007@yahoo.co.uk> <200603150935350257.0F9063AE@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44185D1B.1050008@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > How about this as an arbitrary test of the recoverabiliy of a medium? What > I call the "pinking shears" test. Maybe some remember it from an episode > from "The New Detectives" TV series. > > Take the medium and cut it into randomly sized peices, with the mean being > about the size of a postage stamp, using pinking shears. Pick up most, but > not all, of the peices, throw them into an envelope and ship them across > the country. How much data can you reconstruct from the fragments? > > You know, floppies aren't all that bad for storing data... Not sure I understand your point, because floppies wouldn't pass the pinking shears test either. Come to think of it, I can't think of *any* media that would survive that test except for maybe paper. The reason your 8" disks are still good after 20 years is simply the surface density ratio (meaning, less data was stored on a larger surface area). The only kind of "fading" failures I've hever had were on high-density 3.5" media, where much more data is packed more closely together. Just my experience, I could be wrong... -- 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 Wed Mar 15 12:32:49 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 12:32:49 -0600 Subject: I guess I should have asked this before asking for a 5.25" floppy drive In-Reply-To: <20060308230659.92498.qmail@web50507.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060308230659.92498.qmail@web50507.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <44185DD1.9060404@oldskool.org> William Blair wrote: > Can Apple II disks be copied using a PC 5.25" drive and/or can downloaded images of Apple II > system disks be written to a PC drive? I'd suspect that because of the unusual format of the > Apple II floppies that special formatting/copying software would be required to do this. Does > this software exist? Yes and no. It depends on what you're trying to achieve. I have successfully dumped an Apple II disk to a Transcopy image file using my Central Point Option Board, then converted that image file to a .DSK image file to be used in Apple II emulators... but that required my Option Board hardware. Along similar lines, I would imagine a Catweasel could do it, but I've never tried. Disk2FDI can read very many formats, but it has some limitations; see www.oldskool.org (follow Disk2FDI link) for more info. But if you want to *WRITE* Apple II disks... that's not usually possible. Most people have a serial cable hooked between their Apple and PC to write out stuff they download. -- 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 julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 15 12:36:40 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 18:36:40 +0000 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <44185B53.3090302@oldskool.org> References: <44185B53.3090302@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <44185EB8.5040006@yahoo.co.uk> Jim Leonard wrote: > CPU speed and blank DVDrs are cheap enough nowadays that this adds 1% of > effort to a process that gives me 3-4x more reliability. ... until you find a few years down the line that your burner was producing CDs that refuse to work in any of the hardware you can now lay your hands on. The media may be ok, but it's only as good as the thing you're trying to read it in - and experience has been that there's a huge amount of incompatibility out there :-( From bob at jfcl.com Wed Mar 15 12:21:15 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 10:21:15 -0800 Subject: Blower/airflow sensor needed for BA32 Message-ID: <007401c6485d$4369bf80$0401010a@jfcl.com> The BA32 is the baby VAX BI chassis used in the 8200/8250/8300/8350 systems - I have an 8250 (it'd be an 8350 if I could find another CPU :-) that has some problem with the cooling. The blower speed seems to vary all the time it's running, and it's constantly speeding up and slowing down. The system wil run for about an hour and then trips itself off, presumably either because of airflow or overtemp. Can anybody tell me if the blower speed is supposed to vary like that? Does anybody have any maintenance prints for the BA32 blower control? Anybody got any spare parts they're willing to sell? I spent a long time putting it back together after it'd been stripped by a scrap yard, and I've actually got it to the point where it will boot VMS now, so I'd really like to fix this last problem. Besides, it's a really cute little system - I believe it's the smallest VAX BI box around. Thanks, Bob Armstrong From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Mar 15 12:49:12 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 12:49:12 -0600 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? In-Reply-To: <4411CC7A.3040903@gjcp.net> References: <4411CC7A.3040903@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <441861A8.9040701@oldskool.org> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > That's not very fair, my girlfriend is fairly into PDP-11s too. ...which is a demographic of exactly "one". With that kind of demographic, producing the show would require the viewer to pay for each episode upfront. It's not unreasonable for them to market to 18-49yr-old males; they couldn't get funding (read: advertiser dollars) otherwise. If you can name more PDP-friendly women than fingers on your hands, I'd be astonished. -- 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 Wed Mar 15 12:56:35 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 12:56:35 -0600 Subject: CatWeasel card In-Reply-To: <200603102147290868.43D3B313@10.0.0.252> References: <200603101819450723.4315859A@10.0.0.252> <002a01c644c9$20180c40$a05d1941@game> <200603102147290868.43D3B313@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44186363.6000909@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I don't know that it'll run on anything much > faster than a 386. Confirmed; all of my option boards fail on any machine faster than a 386-40. Through some debugging, I've found the reason is two-fold, both timing-related: - Any ISA bus speed that differs significantly (ie. faster) from the norm causes the board to ignore input - The software uses loops for timing in places, so any CPU faster than a 386-40 will overflow and confuse the software. -- 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 cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 15 12:57:31 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 10:57:31 -0800 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <44185D1B.1050008@oldskool.org> References: <000b01c64834$6a27a480$6d01a8c0@barry> <441827C9.5010007@yahoo.co.uk> <200603150935350257.0F9063AE@10.0.0.252> <44185D1B.1050008@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200603151057310065.0FDB65DC@10.0.0.252> On 3/15/2006 at 12:29 PM Jim Leonard wrote: >Not sure I understand your point, because floppies wouldn't pass the >pinking shears test either. Come to think of it, I can't think of *any* >media that would survive that test except for maybe paper. Beg to differ, Jim. The "New Detectives" show I was referring to involved a military case that I was peripherally involved in. IIRC, the agency was Air Force OSI. They were given the hunks of a 5.25" diskette that had been cut into pieces by a serial murder suspect. The local cops just swept (most) of the pieces into an envelope and sent them to the OSI folks. The reconstruction was a lot of fun--and something suitable for the CSI TV show. The trick was to assmble the pieces as best as one could, replacing missing pieces with bits of new diskette media and using a low tack adhesive to glue the bits down to another cookie. Several drives got creamed in the process of reading it, but about 70% of the data was retrieved--enough to movtivate a plea bargain. The mangled floppy, obviously, had the guy's personal journal on it. Anadisk was used to read the reconstruction and then another program was written to sort the data out. Out of all of the kiddie porn and white collar prosecutions that resulted from using our tools, that's the one I'm really proud of. So, could one do the same with a CD-R? But then, 10 seconds in a microwave oven is enough to destroy that medium beyond recovery. Cheers, Chuck From marvin at rain.org Wed Mar 15 13:05:10 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 11:05:10 -0800 Subject: Z-100, was Re: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay Message-ID: <44186566.11CBE7F8@rain.org> I think I have several Z-100s, and one of them was given to me by someone who was moving out of town. In checking it out, it had a Pickles & Trout S-100 board in it (HPIB I think.) The docs didn't have any info on this board, so I called Dana Trout to ask him what this thing was. He was a bit puzzled for a bit because it didn't have a serial number on it and all of their boards were serialized. As the pieces came together, it turned out he gave this computer to the person who gave it to me with the understanding he would never see it again :). > > The Z-100/H-100? That wasn't much of a "clone", was it? So many > > differences from the original! > > > > Cheers, > > Chuck > > Yes, and so much cooler!!! Love my Z-100! CP/M-86 rocks! > > Glen > 0/0 > From bpope at wordstock.com Wed Mar 15 13:08:09 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 14:08:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603150935350257.0F9063AE@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060315190809.ABE3B580B5@mail.wordstock.com> > > Judging from the time it takes my drive to seek to other tracks, which is > nowhere as fast as the seek rate of my hard drive, I suspect there;s some > sort of search algorithm being used. And regardless of the drive, if the > inner tracks are damaged, there's an excellent likelihood that the drive > will refuse to mount the CD. > > What if took a black magic marker and blacked out the inside tracks? This method was used awhile ago to defeat copy protection on music CDs, but the outside tracks were blacked out. Cheers, Bryan From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Mar 15 13:20:14 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:20:14 -0600 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <44185EB8.5040006@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44185B53.3090302@oldskool.org> <44185EB8.5040006@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <441868EE.7050705@oldskool.org> Jules Richardson wrote: > Jim Leonard wrote: >> CPU speed and blank DVDrs are cheap enough nowadays that this adds 1% >> of effort to a process that gives me 3-4x more reliability. > > ... until you find a few years down the line that your burner was > producing CDs that refuse to work in any of the hardware you can now lay > your hands on. Not to be overtly crude, but I call bullshit on that statement. I have never had this happen, and even if I suspected such behavior, wouldn't a single test of "burn it here, test it there" dispel such a myth? > The media may be ok, but it's only as good as the thing you're trying to > read it in - and experience has been that there's a huge amount of > incompatibility out there :-( The only incompatibility that I see on a regular basis is using rewritable media. Rewritable media is touchy, I'll admit. But for write-once media (CD-R), I've had no reproducable problems except for *one* instance where my SBPRO+1X CDROM couldn't read CDs burnt at anything higher than 1X -- big deal, I take the CD back out, copy it onto another at 1X, and now the old CDROM drive reads it. -- 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 Wed Mar 15 13:23:02 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:23:02 -0600 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603151057310065.0FDB65DC@10.0.0.252> References: <000b01c64834$6a27a480$6d01a8c0@barry> <441827C9.5010007@yahoo.co.uk> <200603150935350257.0F9063AE@10.0.0.252> <44185D1B.1050008@oldskool.org> <200603151057310065.0FDB65DC@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44186996.4050104@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Not sure I understand your point, because floppies wouldn't pass the >> pinking shears test either. Come to think of it, I can't think of *any* >> media that would survive that test except for maybe paper. > > Beg to differ, Jim. The "New Detectives" show I was referring to involved You misunderstood me: I wasn't saying it wasn't possible, I was saying it was most definitely out of the hands of the layperson. -- 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 legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 15 14:07:57 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:07:57 -0700 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:10:14. <3.0.6.16.20060315131014.3a172610@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: I'm not familiar with an RF-71. What machine did it go with and what interface did it use? I didn't see any docs on bitsavers for RF discs. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 15 14:09:36 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:09:36 -0700 Subject: Screen update speed of 8088 PC (was: old 8088 system course++) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 15 Mar 2006 12:13:28 -0600. <44185948.7050804@oldskool.org> Message-ID: In article <44185948.7050804 at oldskool.org>, Jim Leonard writes: > Working on my Athlon, I do everything in Windows and rely on utilities > to get things done. Working on my 8088, I write my own utils (sometimes > in assembler). It's just a different mindset. And while there are > things I would never attempt on the 8088 (such as MPEG-2 compression), > it is just as fast for most common-denominator tasks like writing text, > programming, etc. Assuming a full 80x25 screen write, what's the maximum frames/sec that an 8088 could do on a monochrome or CGA interface? Based on "8088 corruption", I'm guessing that CGA can do at least 30 fps. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 15 15:16:06 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:16:06 Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: <44185948.7050804@oldskool.org> References: <42E611B9000508B2@mail.swissinfo.org> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060315151606.3e979946@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 12:13 PM 3/15/06 -0600, you wrote: >9000 VAX wrote: >> The best way to learn 8088 is to get a PC and install DOS and some >> software on it, including DEBUG.COM, an editor, an assembler, then you >> get an assembly language book and type in examples. > >I second this. I agree. Go find a copy of Inside the IBM PC and the other books (Assembly Language Programming??) by Peter Norton. They explain the insides of the PC very well. Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 15 15:19:51 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:19:51 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? In-Reply-To: <441861A8.9040701@oldskool.org> References: <4411CC7A.3040903@gjcp.net> <4411CC7A.3040903@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060315151951.3d37a5b4@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 12:49 PM 3/15/06 -0600, Jim wrote: >Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >> That's not very fair, my girlfriend is fairly into PDP-11s too. > >...which is a demographic of exactly "one". With that kind of >demographic, producing the show would require the viewer to pay for each >episode upfront. It's not unreasonable for them to market to >18-49yr-old males; they couldn't get funding (read: advertiser dollars) >otherwise. > >If you can name more PDP-friendly women than fingers on your hands, I'd >be astonished. I can name a couple, Megan Gentry and Alison. I'm not sure that I agree with your assertion that 18-49 year old males are only interested in seeing other 18-49 year old males digging for vintage hardware. Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 15 15:22:40 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:22:40 Subject: Z-100, was Re: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: <44186566.11CBE7F8@rain.org> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060315152240.3d376bfa@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 11:05 AM 3/15/06 -0800, Marvin wrote: > >I think I have several Z-100s, and one of them was given to me by >someone who was moving out of town. In checking it out, it had a Pickles >& Trout S-100 board in it (HPIB I think.) The docs didn't have any info >on this board, so I called Dana Trout to ask him what this thing was. He >was a bit puzzled for a bit because it didn't have a serial number on it >and all of their boards were serialized. As the pieces came together, it >turned out he gave this computer to the person who gave it to me with >the understanding he would never see it again :). Hmm. At one time I had docs for the P&T HP-IB card but no card. I haven't a clue where they are now or if I still have them. Off hand I'd say that I probably gave them to Mike Haas. Joe > >> > The Z-100/H-100? That wasn't much of a "clone", was it? So many >> > differences from the original! >> > >> > Cheers, >> > Chuck >> >> Yes, and so much cooler!!! Love my Z-100! CP/M-86 rocks! >> >> Glen >> 0/0 >> > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 15 15:24:22 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:24:22 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: References: <"15 Mar 2006 13:10:14." <3.0.6.16.20060315131014.3a172610@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060315152422.3e975dba@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> I have no idea. This is all that I found. It has a long connector on the back end with three rows of female contacts (80 contacts total). That's the only connector on it. Joe At 01:07 PM 3/15/06 -0700, you wrote: > >I'm not familiar with an RF-71. What machine did it go with and what >interface did it use? I didn't see any docs on bitsavers for RF >discs. >-- >"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > > From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Mar 15 14:24:46 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 14:24:46 -0600 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <44185EB8.5040006@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44185B53.3090302@oldskool.org> <44185EB8.5040006@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <4418780E.6070101@mdrconsult.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > Jim Leonard wrote: > >> CPU speed and blank DVDrs are cheap enough nowadays that this adds 1% >> of effort to a process that gives me 3-4x more reliability. > > > ... until you find a few years down the line that your burner was > producing CDs that refuse to work in any of the hardware you can now lay > your hands on. As I said a couple of weeks ago, there's *no* archival media that's exempt from that kind of obsolescence. Archive it, TEST IT, duplicate it on different media, test *that*, and migrate often. > The media may be ok, but it's only as good as the thing you're trying to > read it in - and experience has been that there's a huge amount of > incompatibility out there :-( It's possible to create a near-fault-proof data storage procedure. As most anything else, you do a balancing act between time, expense, and portability. If you're willing to put a lot of money in it, you can almost totally automate things. If you're willing to spend lots of hours soing the archival, you can do it nearly free. Making it platform-independent adds either time or money or both. Doc From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 15 15:07:03 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:07:03 -0800 Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060315151606.3e979946@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <42E611B9000508B2@mail.swissinfo.org> <3.0.6.16.20060315151606.3e979946@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <200603151307030208.1051FD7E@10.0.0.252> I haven''t been following this thread too closely, but a very useful book that straddles the hardware/software issue with the 8088/86 is "8086/8088 16-Bit Microprocessor Primer" by Chris Morgan and Mitch Waite, McGraw-Hill, 1982, ISBN 0-07-043109. Even has a fairly detailed section on the Great Hope of Intel at the time, the iAPX-432 chipset, as well as a brief mention of the 186 and 286. Orientation is somewhat CP/M-ish and moderately historical. It's got a section on the IBM Acorn (mentions that a 48K, one floppy system is listed at $3830, but is going for $2235 at Computerland) and is a direct competitor to Radio Shack and Apple systems. Mentions CP/M-86 extensively and says that PC-DOS is CP/M-like and treats MS-DOS as if it were a completely different animal from MS-DOS (just a few sentences on either). If you can't find one, I think I've got an extra copy I might be convinced to part with. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 15 15:22:29 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:22:29 -0800 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <4418780E.6070101@mdrconsult.com> References: <44185B53.3090302@oldskool.org> <44185EB8.5040006@yahoo.co.uk> <4418780E.6070101@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <200603151322290089.10601E2D@10.0.0.252> On 3/15/2006 at 2:24 PM Doc Shipley wrote: > It's possible to create a near-fault-proof data storage procedure. >As most anything else, you do a balancing act between time, expense, and >portability. If you're willing to put a lot of money in it, you can >almost totally automate things. If you're willing to spend lots of >hours soing the archival, you can do it nearly free. Making it >platform-independent adds either time or money or both. One of the things that I have had to pound into customers' brains is that if the data is really important, store it in a safe place onsite and a copy off-site. Securing something in a 4-hour safe on-site will rarely protect any computer storage media for very long if a fire breaks out. Cheers, Chuck From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Wed Mar 15 15:22:24 2006 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 21:22:24 +0000 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060315151951.3d37a5b4@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <4411CC7A.3040903@gjcp.net> <4411CC7A.3040903@gjcp.net> <3.0.6.16.20060315151951.3d37a5b4@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <44188590.2030804@gjcp.net> Joe R. wrote: > At 12:49 PM 3/15/06 -0600, Jim wrote: >> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >>> That's not very fair, my girlfriend is fairly into PDP-11s too. >> ...which is a demographic of exactly "one". With that kind of >> demographic, producing the show would require the viewer to pay for each >> episode upfront. It's not unreasonable for them to market to >> 18-49yr-old males; they couldn't get funding (read: advertiser dollars) >> otherwise. >> >> If you can name more PDP-friendly women than fingers on your hands, I'd >> be astonished. > > I can name a couple, Megan Gentry and Alison. Was going to say, I distinctly remember getting some incredibly clueful assistance from Megan Gentry when I got my PDP11/73 working first and was struggling a bit with RT-11. Then I saw in a copyright message "M Gentry"... > I'm not sure that I agree with your assertion that 18-49 year old males > are only interested in seeing other 18-49 year old males digging for > vintage hardware. I would have thought they'd have tried to get as many attractive young women as possible and gone for a kind of "Loaded" thing. Gordon From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 15 15:31:09 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 21:31:09 +0000 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <4418780E.6070101@mdrconsult.com> References: <44185B53.3090302@oldskool.org> <44185EB8.5040006@yahoo.co.uk> <4418780E.6070101@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <4418879D.4010505@yahoo.co.uk> Doc Shipley wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: >> Jim Leonard wrote: >> >>> CPU speed and blank DVDrs are cheap enough nowadays that this adds 1% >>> of effort to a process that gives me 3-4x more reliability. >> >> >> ... until you find a few years down the line that your burner was >> producing CDs that refuse to work in any of the hardware you can now >> lay your hands on. > > As I said a couple of weeks ago, there's *no* archival media that's > exempt from that kind of obsolescence. Absolutely. What I'm getting at is CDs seem to be at the very low end of the scale in terms of compatibility - conversely things like tape, floppy, SCSI / ATAPI devices etc. seem to have far less chance of interoperability problems. Can't comment on DVD; I don't use it for anything. I could take a SCSI disk and plug it into any old SCSI HBA, or an IDE disk on an ATAPI controller, or a 3.5" floppy in a 3.5" drive, or a DLT drive on a SCSI HBA etc. and it's *almost* certain that the system could access the media. With CDROM, those chances are a *lot* less when all possible drives are taken into account (laptop drives and 'combo' drives that read both CDROM and DVDROM seem to be notoriously bad at reading non-commercial media) So you're right, refreshing often is the sensible thing to do - but despite that I'd still rather choose media that has a high level of compatibility across hardware / systems than one that doesn't, just in case. > Archive it, TEST IT, duplicate it on different media, test *that*, and > migrate often. Yep. But testing - whilst obviously necessary - still can't of course provide any guarantees that the media will work on whatever hardware can be sourced at the time of needing to access it. The best anyone can do is use something that's *reasonably* likely to work, but there are no certainties. Of course knowing that there will be a backup prog around down the line that'll understand the contents of your media is another matter entirely :-) (which I suppose is why simple formats like tar are so useful - even if tar vanished off the face of the map, the format can really be inferred from just inspecting the data and it's trivial to knock together a reader) cheers Jules From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Mar 15 15:29:41 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:29:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: New Big Iron Acquisition - IBM Tabulating Equipment In-Reply-To: <53eb31c8211149c98e76b7bac20c1023@machm.org> Message-ID: > The Museum of Business History and Technology in Wilmington, DE is > proud to announce the arrival of its latest little bundles of joy, an > IBM 405 Accounting Machine and an IBM 513 Reproducing Punch. I am not familiar with this museum - what can you tell us about it? Those machines can work again, but it looks like a long road to travel. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From acme_ent at bellsouth.net Wed Mar 15 15:31:04 2006 From: acme_ent at bellsouth.net (Glen Goodwin) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:31:04 -0500 Subject: old 8088 system course++ Message-ID: <44188798.5020202@bellsouth.net> Joe R. wrote: > I agree. Go find a copy of Inside the IBM PC and the other books > (Assembly Language Programming??) by Peter Norton. They explain the insides > of the PC very well. > > Joe Ya know, I found the Norton book to be really disjointed -- it didn't present the information in an A to Z sort of way. IIRC he didn't write it but lent his name to a previously published book ("Assembly Language Safari on the IBM PC" by mumble and mumble). I'll check my copy tonight & verify that. OTOH, "Inside the IBM PC" is a *really* valuable tool, as well as a historical resource, and you'd have to pry my first edition copy from my cold, dead hands ;-) Glen 0/0 From bpope at wordstock.com Wed Mar 15 15:40:12 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:40:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Do you want to be on TV? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060315151951.3d37a5b4@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <20060315214012.9E453581D5@mail.wordstock.com> > > > I'm not sure that I agree with your assertion that 18-49 year old males > are only interested in seeing other 18-49 year old males digging for > vintage hardware. > Classic computing geeks and nerds like myself (who would be happily wearing his "nerd" t-shirt from the first VCF east) would be interested but the rest of that demographic would probably point and laugh because they just don't understand... Cheers, Bryan From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 15 15:54:34 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 21:54:34 +0000 Subject: New Big Iron Acquisition - IBM Tabulating Equipment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44188D1A.6040303@yahoo.co.uk> William Donzelli wrote: > Those machines can work again, but it looks like a long road to travel. Although going by the photos alone, there's no sign of missing metal or any *extensive* pitting - could be a lot worse! It'd make a fun project to get that lot running again... cheers Jules From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Mar 15 15:57:57 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:57:57 -0600 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603151322290089.10601E2D@10.0.0.252> References: <44185B53.3090302@oldskool.org> <44185EB8.5040006@yahoo.co.uk> <4418780E.6070101@mdrconsult.com> <200603151322290089.10601E2D@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060315155021.04ed8670@mail> At 03:22 PM 3/15/2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Securing something in a 4-hour safe on-site will rarely protect >any computer storage media for very long if a fire breaks out. To put it another way, the average office safe is rated as to how long it will keep paper from combusting, not for how long before a CD-R or DVD won't survive... - John From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 15 16:12:18 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 22:12:18 +0000 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060315155021.04ed8670@mail> References: <44185B53.3090302@oldskool.org> <44185EB8.5040006@yahoo.co.uk> <4418780E.6070101@mdrconsult.com> <200603151322290089.10601E2D@10.0.0.252> <6.2.3.4.2.20060315155021.04ed8670@mail> Message-ID: <44189142.4010701@yahoo.co.uk> John Foust wrote: > At 03:22 PM 3/15/2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Securing something in a 4-hour safe on-site will rarely protect >> any computer storage media for very long if a fire breaks out. > > To put it another way, the average office safe is rated as to > how long it will keep paper from combusting, not for how > long before a CD-R or DVD won't survive... That got me curious as to how long a hard disk would survive (well, at least the data surfaces such that the data could be recovered) in a fire safe - anyone know? I've never tried heating a disk platter to see what happens... cheers Jules From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Mar 15 16:25:09 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 17:25:09 -0500 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44189445.80203@gmail.com> Richard wrote: > I'm not familiar with an RF-71. What machine did it go with and what > interface did it use? I didn't see any docs on bitsavers for RF > discs. It's mostly used with VAXen. It has a DSSI interface. Peace... Sridhar From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 15 17:06:04 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:06:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <000001c6485b$ca211f70$6d01a8c0@barry> References: <000001c6485b$ca211f70$6d01a8c0@barry> Message-ID: <20060315144838.K28079@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 15 Mar 2006, Barry Watzman wrote: > Ok, first, the "MS-DOS" that you want to use is "MS-DOS 7", "extracted" from > Windows 98SE. IIRC, the original info request did NOT say what he wanted to use it for. MS-DOS 7.xx is nice, and would be the easiest to install, BUT it might not necessarily be what he wants/needs. For all that we know, maybe the DOS Command box of w2K might be all that he needs! I occasionally need to boot other versions of OS. A FAT32 partition can't be easily accessed by ANYTHING prior to 98SE. > [Note, the full set of DOS utilities won't fit on a 1.44MB floppy, so be > sure to put them on the CD so that you have a place to copy them from.] If you strip out the parts that you don't need, (such as DONKEY.BAS?), you can put the most needed items on one disk. From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 15 18:07:52 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 18:07:52 Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: <44188798.5020202@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060315180752.427f18d0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 04:31 PM 3/15/06 -0500, you wrote: >Joe R. wrote: > > > I agree. Go find a copy of Inside the IBM PC and the other books > > (Assembly Language Programming??) by Peter Norton. They explain the >insides > > of the PC very well. > > > > Joe > > >Ya know, I found the Norton book to be really disjointed -- >it didn't present the information in an A to Z sort of way. >IIRC he didn't write it but lent his name to a previously >published book ("Assembly Language Safari on the IBM PC" by >mumble and mumble). I'll check my copy tonight & verify that. > >OTOH, "Inside the IBM PC" is a *really* valuable tool, >as well as a historical resource, and you'd have to pry my >first edition copy from my cold, dead hands ;-) LOL! You know, I just found a 1st edition copy in my favorite surplus store and to me it was a REAL find. I've sealed it up and carefully packed it away with all of my other Version 1.0 software for my mint early PC. Joe > >Glen >0/0 > > From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Mar 15 17:12:09 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:12:09 -0800 Subject: New Big Iron Acquisition - IBM Tabulating Equipment Message-ID: <484441FE-3A4E-4B89-A58E-BF707E1089C0@bitsavers.org> >> The Museum of Business History and Technology in Wilmington, DE is >> proud to announce the arrival of its latest little bundles of joy, an >> IBM 405 Accounting Machine and an IBM 513 Reproducing Punch. > >I am not familiar with this museum - what can you tell us about it? Their web presence is pretty underwhelming http://www.mbht.org/ From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Mar 15 17:12:46 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 17:12:46 -0600 Subject: Screen update speed of 8088 PC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44189F6E.9040800@oldskool.org> Richard wrote: >> Working on my Athlon, I do everything in Windows and rely on utilities >> to get things done. Working on my 8088, I write my own utils (sometimes >> in assembler). It's just a different mindset. And while there are >> things I would never attempt on the 8088 (such as MPEG-2 compression), >> it is just as fast for most common-denominator tasks like writing text, >> programming, etc. > > Assuming a full 80x25 screen write, what's the maximum frames/sec that > an 8088 could do on a monochrome or CGA interface? > > Based on "8088 corruption", I'm guessing that CGA can do at least 30 > fps. If you don't care about synchronizing your updates with the display cycle, you can do more. Assuming a 4.77MHz 8088 IBM PC, REP MOVSW from regular RAM to display RAM (which is slower) is about 160KB/s. For 80x25 (4000bytes) that's roughly 40fps. REP STOSW is much faster (about 240KB/s) but that's not useful/practical in a textmode scenario so I won't go with those numbers. On monochrome, you can do this. On true CGA, you can't, because the ram isn't truly dual-ported. As a result, when you read or write display memory in an 80-column text mode, the adapter draws garbage wherever the beam is instead of the real ram contents for the duration of the user-initiated access. This is more commonly knows as "CGA snow". What especially blows is that it will still draw "snow" even if you're only reading -- even if your access is to an off-screen page! To get around this, you write to CGA RAM while the beam is *not* drawing, but retracing horizontally or vertically back to the next scanline or display cycle. You can transfer about 250 words during a vertical retrace and exactly one word during horizontal retrace, so that's 450 words per frame, so a snow-less full-screen update would take 3 frames (20fps). The obvious goal is to not be in the position of having to update the *entire* screen. 40-column modes don't have a "snow" problem (not sure why), which is why I chose 40x25 for my video program (that, and the lower data requirements). -- 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 Wed Mar 15 17:14:31 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 17:14:31 -0600 Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: <44188798.5020202@bellsouth.net> References: <44188798.5020202@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <44189FD7.20002@oldskool.org> Glen Goodwin wrote: > OTOH, "Inside the IBM PC" is a *really* valuable tool, > as well as a historical resource, and you'd have to pry my > first edition copy from my cold, dead hands ;-) Would you happen to have the exact author or ISBN number? I'd love to go hunting for this. -- 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 acme_ent at bellsouth.net Wed Mar 15 17:14:21 2006 From: acme_ent at bellsouth.net (Glen Goodwin) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 18:14:21 -0500 Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060315180752.427f18d0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.16.20060315180752.427f18d0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <44189FCD.7020304@bellsouth.net> Joe R. wrote: > At 04:31 PM 3/15/06 -0500, you wrote: >>OTOH, "Inside the IBM PC" is a *really* valuable tool, >>as well as a historical resource, and you'd have to pry my >>first edition copy from my cold, dead hands ;-) > > > > LOL! You know, I just found a 1st edition copy in my favorite surplus > store and to me it was a REAL find. I've sealed it up and carefully packed > it away with all of my other Version 1.0 software for my mint early PC. Seal it up? Pack it away??? I refer to mine about once a month -- much more often than the third edition, which I also have. Glen 0/0 From javickers at solutionengineers.com Wed Mar 15 17:18:39 2006 From: javickers at solutionengineers.com (Ade Vickers) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 23:18:39 -0000 Subject: ***** MicroVAX 3400 on eBay UK **** In-Reply-To: <200603112208.k2BM82BT052069@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <200603152330.k2FNUlul026447@keith.ezwind.net> Only 14 hours to go! No bids yet... (sorry about the asterisks) - does no-one want this thing? > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ade Vickers > Sent: 11 March 2006 21:56 > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Subject: MicroVAX 3400 on eBay UK > > I'd love it myself, but Herself would definitely kill me; > plus I can't really get to Bradford to pick it up :( > > http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8778026608 > > Ends on 16 March > > > Cheers, > Ade. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.2.3/281 - Release Date: 14/03/2006 From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Mar 15 17:20:44 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 17:20:44 -0600 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <20060315144838.K28079@shell.lmi.net> References: <000001c6485b$ca211f70$6d01a8c0@barry> <20060315144838.K28079@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4418A14C.1040800@oldskool.org> Fred Cisin wrote: > If you strip out the parts that you don't need, (such as DONKEY.BAS?), you > can put the most needed items on one disk. Hell, you can get most of the good stuff on a 360K disk if you try hard enough. One of my favorite tricks is to use ARK (K. Heidenstrom), which is a .COM archiver and execution stub, to stick all the .COM files I need into a single .EXE, then compress the .EXE with pklite or lzexe or similar. format.com, fdisk.com, and sys.com all go in there, as do a 4KB editor and other utils. COMMAND.COM is the only .com that can *not* go in there for obvious reasons. -- 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 cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 15 17:37:57 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:37:57 -0800 Subject: Screen update speed of 8088 PC In-Reply-To: <44189F6E.9040800@oldskool.org> References: <44189F6E.9040800@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200603151537570047.10DC23B2@10.0.0.252> On 3/15/2006 at 5:12 PM Jim Leonard wrote: >To get around this, you write to CGA RAM while the beam is *not* >drawing, but retracing horizontally or vertically back to the next >scanline or display cycle. You can transfer about 250 words during a >vertical retrace and exactly one word during horizontal retrace, so >that's 450 words per frame, so a snow-less full-screen update would take >3 frames (20fps). > >The obvious goal is to not be in the position of having to update the >*entire* screen. Maybe cheating a little, but: Alternatively, you can install an EGA card running in CGA compatibility mode. You can even double-buffer the thing (write to one bank while displaying the other). Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 15 17:42:10 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:42:10 -0800 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <4418A14C.1040800@oldskool.org> References: <000001c6485b$ca211f70$6d01a8c0@barry> <20060315144838.K28079@shell.lmi.net> <4418A14C.1040800@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200603151542100053.10DFFFFE@10.0.0.252> On 3/15/2006 at 5:20 PM Jim Leonard wrote: >Hell, you can get most of the good stuff on a 360K disk if you try hard >enough. One of my favorite tricks is to use ARK (K. Heidenstrom), which >is a .COM archiver and execution stub, to stick all the .COM files I >need into a single .EXE, then compress the .EXE with pklite or lzexe or >similar. format.com, fdisk.com, and sys.com all go in there, as do a >4KB editor and other utils. Many of the files can be easily compressed without archiving using LZEXE or one of its relatives. When you put your mind to it, it's amazing what will go on a single diskette. Cheers, Chuck From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Wed Mar 15 17:44:39 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 23:44:39 -0000 Subject: ***** MicroVAX 3400 on eBay UK **** References: <200603152330.k2FNUlul026447@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <001401c6488a$6d4716e0$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> I'd love it, but it's 200+ miles away, and we'll be getting rid of some at work in the next couple of years - I'll save a few L of diesel and wait....... Jim. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ade Vickers" To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2006 11:18 PM Subject: ***** MicroVAX 3400 on eBay UK **** > Only 14 hours to go! > > No bids yet... > > (sorry about the asterisks) - does no-one want this thing? > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ade Vickers > > Sent: 11 March 2006 21:56 > > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > > Subject: MicroVAX 3400 on eBay UK > > > > I'd love it myself, but Herself would definitely kill me; > > plus I can't really get to Bradford to pick it up :( > > > > http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8778026608 > > > > Ends on 16 March > > > > > > Cheers, > > Ade. > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.2.3/281 - Release Date: 14/03/2006 > > > > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.2.4/282 - Release Date: 15/03/06 > > From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Mar 15 17:51:39 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 23:51:39 +0000 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <20060315144838.K28079@shell.lmi.net> References: <000001c6485b$ca211f70$6d01a8c0@barry> <20060315144838.K28079@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4418A88B.3080908@yahoo.co.uk> Fred Cisin wrote: > On Wed, 15 Mar 2006, Barry Watzman wrote: >> Ok, first, the "MS-DOS" that you want to use is "MS-DOS 7", "extracted" from >> Windows 98SE. > > IIRC, the original info request did NOT say what he wanted to use it for. > MS-DOS 7.xx is nice, and would be the easiest to install, BUT it might not > necessarily be what he wants/needs. > For all that we know, maybe the DOS Command box of w2K might be all that > he needs! Ahhh, I only needed it for long enough to launch a Linux install from it via loadlin on a machine that has no floppy drive and a cdrom drive that won't read anything other than commercial CDs. All that I had to work with was a running install of Win2k + running install of Debian on the hard disk (both with network connectivity), so I wondered if there was a realistic way of manually installing DOS on there without any way of booting from either floppy or home-burned CD. As it turns out, I've got it sorted by putting the hard disk in an old P90 Toshiba laptop which happened to have a floppy drive on it - I could boot the floppy install disk set from there, then install everything over NFS before putting the hard disk back into the 'target' laptop and setting up the things specific to that machine (like video). Still wouldn't mind a bootable DOS partition on there sometime though as it does occasionally come in useful... It was a bit of a hassle, but all done now thankfully. (Note to self - source a Thinkpad floppy drive from somewhere!) >> [Note, the full set of DOS utilities won't fit on a 1.44MB floppy, so be >> sure to put them on the CD so that you have a place to copy them from.] > > If you strip out the parts that you don't need, (such as DONKEY.BAS?), you > can put the most needed items on one disk. Ahh, that brings back memories of trying to get everything useful onto one disk! cheers Jules From acme_ent at bellsouth.net Wed Mar 15 17:49:37 2006 From: acme_ent at bellsouth.net (Glen Goodwin) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 18:49:37 -0500 Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: <44189FD7.20002@oldskool.org> References: <44188798.5020202@bellsouth.net> <44189FD7.20002@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <4418A811.5080006@bellsouth.net> Jim Leonard wrote: > Glen Goodwin wrote: > >> OTOH, "Inside the IBM PC" is a *really* valuable tool, >> as well as a historical resource, and you'd have to pry my >> first edition copy from my cold, dead hands ;-) > > > Would you happen to have the exact author or ISBN number? I'd love to > go hunting for this. Sure -- I'll be hitting my library tonight anyway, so I'll get the info for you & post it here tomorrow. Another KILLER book is the 1st edition of "Upgrading And Repairing PCs" by Scott Mueller, ISBN 0-88022-395-2, copyright 1988 by Que Corporation. Although it's later than "Inside...", it has a ton of historical and technical data, including original pricing, on the PC, PC Convertible, PC XT, 3270 PC, XT 370, Portable PC, PC AT, 3270 AT, AT 370, XT Model 286, ans PS/2 Models 25, 30, 30-286, 50, 60, 70 and 80. REALLY comprehensive! Glen 0/0 From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 15 17:59:30 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:59:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: Screen update speed of 8088 PC In-Reply-To: <44189F6E.9040800@oldskool.org> References: <44189F6E.9040800@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <20060315155150.Y31789@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 15 Mar 2006, Jim Leonard wrote: > On monochrome, you can do this. On true CGA, you can't, because the ram > isn't truly dual-ported. As a result, when you read or write display > memory in an 80-column text mode, the adapter draws garbage wherever the > beam is instead of the real ram contents for the duration of the > user-initiated access. This is more commonly knows as "CGA snow". What > especially blows is that it will still draw "snow" even if you're only > reading -- even if your access is to an off-screen page! 20 years ago, I wrote a screen capture program for Sybex, who used it for most of their text mode books for a while. In order to get maximum compatibility with ANYTHING that they might run (including TSRs), I made the TSR for screen capture very simple. It would copy the screen RAM to a 4000 byte buffer when the "magic" key combo was pressed, and then poll for a safe time to append it to a disk file. With that large buffer there, I did not want to take up enough additional space to synchronize the screen reads. They were panicy about the CGA snow! They were worried about whether it was damaging the monitor, etc. So, I told them that it was just the "flash" from taking the picture, and that it was a "FEATURE", to show whether the image had been successfully captured. Such misstatements have a way of coming back to bite you - then they wanted me to add the "flash" to the MDA captures. From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 15 18:12:49 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 17:12:49 -0700 Subject: Do you want to be on TV? In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:40:12 -0500. <20060315214012.9E453581D5@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: In article <20060315214012.9E453581D5 at mail.wordstock.com>, bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) writes: > > I'm not sure that I agree with your assertion that 18-49 year old males > > are only interested in seeing other 18-49 year old males digging for > > vintage hardware. > > > > Classic computing geeks and nerds like myself (who would be happily > wearing his "nerd" t-shirt from the first VCF east) would be interested > but the rest of that demographic would probably point and laugh because > they just don't understand... In all fairness, the show proposal wasn't *just* about vintage computing gear, but more generally about scrounging for anything vintage. Architectural fixtures (door knobs, latches, hinges, etc.), collectible memorabilia like Coke stuff and gasoline station signs and so-on. While I think this could be interesting, its been my experience that networking with other collectors is much more productive than dumpster diving or scrounging around buildings that are about to be demolished. (Well, maybe if I was interested in the architectural stuff, it would be good to have a relationship with the local demolition company, but it would be more of a professional relationship than a random excursion.) I find that e-bay is much more productive for me than dumpster diving or scrounging, because the latter takes up so much time. Time is my scarcest resource. When I was a teenager/high school student, I had much more time for such things and we did occasionally dumpster dive, but the most we found were some interesting printouts with customer data on them :-). I think nowadays all that stuff would be sent through a shredder before being dumped in the trash, if at all. Its not a bad premise for a show, but I think its about 15-20 years too late. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 15 18:14:52 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 17:14:52 -0700 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 15 Mar 2006 17:25:09 -0500. <44189445.80203@gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <44189445.80203 at gmail.com>, Sridhar Ayengar writes: > Richard wrote: > > I'm not familiar with an RF-71. What machine did it go with and what > > interface did it use? I didn't see any docs on bitsavers for RF > > discs. > > It's mostly used with VAXen. It has a DSSI interface. Well hey, whaddya know. I have a VAX with a DSSI interface :-). I was wondering if the picture was showing the DSSI style sled on it. My DSSI slots are full, but I gather the TKZ70 tape drive isn't very useful... maybe I could put another drive in that bay? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Mar 15 19:02:30 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:02:30 -0500 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4418B926.7050707@gmail.com> Richard wrote: > In article <44189445.80203 at gmail.com>, > Sridhar Ayengar writes: > >> Richard wrote: >>> I'm not familiar with an RF-71. What machine did it go with and what >>> interface did it use? I didn't see any docs on bitsavers for RF >>> discs. >> It's mostly used with VAXen. It has a DSSI interface. > > Well hey, whaddya know. I have a VAX with a DSSI interface :-). I > was wondering if the picture was showing the DSSI style sled on it. > My DSSI slots are full, but I gather the TKZ70 tape drive isn't very > useful... maybe I could put another drive in that bay? I've done it before. It takes a bit of finagling, but it's possible. Peace... Sridhar From waisun.chia at gmail.com Wed Mar 15 19:30:48 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 09:30:48 +0800 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060315152422.3e975dba@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.16.20060315131014.3a172610@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.16.20060315152422.3e975dba@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: Here's the ugly details...enjoy! :-) disk cap. sec/trk trk/cyl cyl notes interface RF71 390M 37 16 1320 5.25" FH DSSI/MSCP On Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:24:22, Joe R. wrote: > I have no idea. This is all that I found. It has a long connector on the > back end with three rows of female contacts (80 contacts total). That's the > only connector on it. > > Joe > > From rborsuk at colourfull.com Wed Mar 15 19:39:38 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:39:38 -0500 Subject: Speaking of H8's Message-ID: Check this one out: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8781109579 Rob From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 15 20:35:28 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:35:28 Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: <44189FCD.7020304@bellsouth.net> References: <3.0.6.16.20060315180752.427f18d0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.16.20060315180752.427f18d0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060315203528.132f23d0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 06:14 PM 3/15/06 -0500, Glen wrote: >Joe R. wrote: > >> At 04:31 PM 3/15/06 -0500, you wrote: >>>OTOH, "Inside the IBM PC" is a *really* valuable tool, >>>as well as a historical resource, and you'd have to pry my >>>first edition copy from my cold, dead hands ;-) >> >> >> >> LOL! You know, I just found a 1st edition copy in my favorite surplus >> store and to me it was a REAL find. I've sealed it up and carefully packed >> it away with all of my other Version 1.0 software for my mint early PC. > >Seal it up? Pack it away??? I refer to mine about once a >month -- much more often than the third edition, which I also >have. > I seldom refer to it any more but I have a 2nd edition sitting on the bookshelf about 4 feet from me. It's been there since it was new (20+ years!) Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 15 20:39:57 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:39:57 Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: <4418A811.5080006@bellsouth.net> References: <44189FD7.20002@oldskool.org> <44188798.5020202@bellsouth.net> <44189FD7.20002@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060315203957.12d772a8@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 06:49 PM 3/15/06 -0500, you wrote: >Jim Leonard wrote: >> Glen Goodwin wrote: >> >>> OTOH, "Inside the IBM PC" is a *really* valuable tool, >>> as well as a historical resource, and you'd have to pry my >>> first edition copy from my cold, dead hands ;-) >> >> >> Would you happen to have the exact author or ISBN number? I'd love to >> go hunting for this. > >Sure -- I'll be hitting my library tonight anyway, so >I'll get the info for you & post it here tomorrow. > >Another KILLER book is the 1st edition of "Upgrading >And Repairing PCs" by Scott Mueller, ISBN 0-88022-395-2, >copyright 1988 by Que Corporation. Although it's later >than "Inside...", it has a ton of historical and technical >data, including original pricing, on the PC, PC Convertible, >PC XT, 3270 PC, XT 370, Portable PC, PC AT, 3270 AT, AT 370, >XT Model 286, ans PS/2 Models 25, 30, 30-286, 50, 60, 70 >and 80. REALLY comprehensive! I agree! This is one book that no one that has any dealings with the PC should be without! The current editions are VERY helpful and the old editions contain tons of technical details on the older machines! One of the nice things about this book is that it's extensively revised every year and the older editions are CHEAP once they're no longer current. I frequently find them in the used book stores for a dollar or two apiece. Joe > >Glen >0/0 > From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 15 20:24:14 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 18:24:14 -0800 Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060315203528.132f23d0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.16.20060315180752.427f18d0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.16.20060315180752.427f18d0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.16.20060315203528.132f23d0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <200603151824140306.11745EC6@10.0.0.252> There's another book on my shelf that might be useful: "The Indispensible PC Hardware Book" by Hans-Peter Messmer (Addison-Wesley 1993 ISBN 0-201-62424). Almost 4 times the thickness of the Morgan+Waite book, but less hardware oriented (go figure). Lots of interesting software information. In the way of "big thick square books", "The Programmer's PC Sourcebook" by Thom Hogan (Microsoft Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55615-321) is basically a book full of tables and can occasionally be quite useful--in additon to the endless Microsoft OS tables, there are pinouts for some chips, bus connector signal assignments, command sets for peripherals and BIOS calls. While we're at it, let's not forget the books from Phoenix Technologies on the subject of BIOS implementations. Cheers, Chuck From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Mar 15 20:39:26 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:39:26 -0600 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <200603151542100053.10DFFFFE@10.0.0.252> References: <000001c6485b$ca211f70$6d01a8c0@barry> <20060315144838.K28079@shell.lmi.net> <4418A14C.1040800@oldskool.org> <200603151542100053.10DFFFFE@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4418CFDE.1030408@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Hell, you can get most of the good stuff on a 360K disk if you try hard >> enough. One of my favorite tricks is to use ARK (K. Heidenstrom), which >> is a .COM archiver and execution stub, to stick all the .COM files I >> need into a single .EXE, then compress the .EXE with pklite or lzexe or >> similar. format.com, fdisk.com, and sys.com all go in there, as do a >> 4KB editor and other utils. > > Many of the files can be easily compressed without archiving using LZEXE or Yes, but you gain more space by putting them all into a single archive and compressing the entire thing; that way it's not constantly restarting the dictionary for each file. -- 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 Wed Mar 15 20:41:30 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:41:30 -0600 Subject: Screen update speed of 8088 PC In-Reply-To: <200603151537570047.10DC23B2@10.0.0.252> References: <44189F6E.9040800@oldskool.org> <200603151537570047.10DC23B2@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4418D05A.9030302@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: >> The obvious goal is to not be in the position of having to update the >> *entire* screen. > > Maybe cheating a little, but: > > Alternatively, you can install an EGA card running in CGA compatibility > mode. You can even double-buffer the thing (write to one bank while > displaying the other). A little? :-) If I had an EGA card I'd be doing all sorts of unholy text things (fonts, pixel-level panning, colors) to be worried about display update speed ;-) -- 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 Wed Mar 15 20:43:20 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:43:20 -0600 Subject: Screen update speed of 8088 PC In-Reply-To: <20060315155150.Y31789@shell.lmi.net> References: <44189F6E.9040800@oldskool.org> <20060315155150.Y31789@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4418D0C8.7000706@oldskool.org> Fred Cisin wrote: > 4000 byte buffer when the "magic" key combo was pressed, and then poll for Poll? How did you do this, and why was it necessary? I've written screen capture programs before and I just dump straight to a file... > They were panicy about the CGA snow! They were worried about whether it > was damaging the monitor, etc. > So, I told them that it was just the "flash" from taking the picture, and > that it was a "FEATURE", to show whether the image had been successfully Oh my :-) > captured. Such misstatements have a way of coming back to bite you - then > they wanted me to add the "flash" to the MDA captures. So just XOR every screen word as you read it ;-) -- 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 cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 15 20:52:57 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 18:52:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: Screen update speed of 8088 PC In-Reply-To: <4418D0C8.7000706@oldskool.org> References: <44189F6E.9040800@oldskool.org> <20060315155150.Y31789@shell.lmi.net> <4418D0C8.7000706@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <20060315184928.D39329@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 15 Mar 2006, Jim Leonard wrote: > > 4000 byte buffer when the "magic" key combo was pressed, and then poll for > > Poll? How did you do this, and why was it necessary? I've written > screen capture programs before and I just dump straight to a file... Some of the screens to be captured occured at times when file writing could not be done safely. Use of the "indos" flag, INT 28h? etc. are adequate for MOST purposes, but SOME screens can NOT be captured that way, since by the time that the system was stable, the screen contents were no longer the same. Hence "copy to RAM bufer, and THEN write once safe". For example,... you want to show the screen contents when it is halfway through XORing the bytes. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 15 21:02:17 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 19:02:17 -0800 Subject: Screen update speed of 8088 PC In-Reply-To: <4418D0C8.7000706@oldskool.org> References: <44189F6E.9040800@oldskool.org> <20060315155150.Y31789@shell.lmi.net> <4418D0C8.7000706@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200603151902170933.1197371A@10.0.0.252> On 3/15/2006 at 8:43 PM Jim Leonard wrote: >Poll? How did you do this, and why was it necessary? I've written >screen capture programs before and I just dump straight to a file... If you're working off a keypressed interrupt, you could never be sure that DOS was in a reentrant state. So you save the capture information, check the "INDOS" flag. If it's clear, go ahead and write. Otherwise, hook the timer interrupt and try again in 55 msec. >> They were panicy about the CGA snow! They were worried about whether it >> was damaging the monitor, etc. >> So, I told them that it was just the "flash" from taking the picture, and >> that it was a "FEATURE", to show whether the image had been successfully > >Oh my :-) One problem I had with my screen capture programs was seeing if they were actually doing anything. The snow would have been helpful, but you don't get that on MDA :). So I just disabled the video during the capture, resulting in a nice visible "blink". That would have also taken care of the CGA snow issue. Cheers, Chuck From dave06a at dunfield.com Wed Mar 15 21:17:15 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 22:17:15 -0500 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <4418CFDE.1030408@oldskool.org> References: <200603151542100053.10DFFFFE@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060316031753.IOTW8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> > >> Hell, you can get most of the good stuff on a 360K disk if you try hard > >> enough. One of my favorite tricks is to use ARK (K. Heidenstrom), which > >> is a .COM archiver and execution stub, to stick all the .COM files I > >> need into a single .EXE, then compress the .EXE with pklite or lzexe or > >> similar. format.com, fdisk.com, and sys.com all go in there, as do a > >> 4KB editor and other utils. > > > > Many of the files can be easily compressed without archiving using LZEXE or > > Yes, but you gain more space by putting them all into a single archive > and compressing the entire thing; that way it's not constantly > restarting the dictionary for each file. For my bootable/recovery disks etc. I wrote a little utility that scans for a RAMdisk, and when it finds it, it unpacks from the floppy to the RAMdrive and switches over to it - lets me put lots of stuff on one floppy, and gives me nice fast operation once it's up and running without having to touch the hard drive. It also has a script function which lets me enter things like network card type, address, interrupt etc. and control what gets unpacked, and auto-updates certain files as required. I can pass it along if anyone wants it - might take be a little while to throw together a TXT describing how to use it however... Dave has CD drivers, Networking, Ghost and tons of other useful recovery utilities. -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Wed Mar 15 21:39:19 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (compoobah at valleyimplants.com) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 21:39:19 -0600 Subject: FA: Dec RF-71 Disk Drive Message-ID: <2cef615987a14040b702848c284cb7f9@valleyimplants.com> > Well hey, whaddya know. I have a VAX with a DSSI interface :-). I > was wondering if the picture was showing the DSSI style sled on it. > My DSSI slots are full, but I gather the TKZ70 tape drive isn't very > useful... maybe I could put another drive in that bay? If you have one of the VAX 4000 BA4xx series machines, it's very easy - just slide out the tape drive and slide in the disk drive. Fully documented in the BA400 docs on either Manx or bitsavers, can't remember which. DEC used to sell a spacer plate to take up the extra 3/4", but you should be able to get by without it. Smaller MicroVAXen are different, haven't seen one personally so I can't comment. Does anyone know what the DEC number is for the DSSI-configured drive sled for BA4x0 (as used on ISEs? Trying to find one, but I can't give a specific model # which makes it difficult) Question 2: has anyone tried Moeller's ROM patch for KA41-43 to support >1.03 GB system drives? Looks good, but as I'd have to bribe someone with access to an EPROM burner to do it for me I want to check it out first please respond on-list, my E-mail seems to have started diverting incoming messages direct to the bit-bucket. From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Wed Mar 15 21:44:44 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (compoobah at valleyimplants.com) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 21:44:44 -0600 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive Message-ID: <495a0833351c495082ff726b953a7f5a@valleyimplants.com> Yikes- I need to remember to hit return- also forgot the Moeller patch URL: http://ftp2.de.freebsd.org/pub/vms/ka420/README.txt From gtn at mind-to-mind.com Wed Mar 15 23:50:47 2006 From: gtn at mind-to-mind.com (Gavin Thomas Nicol) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 00:50:47 -0500 Subject: Canon L10130 MO drive In-Reply-To: <44188798.5020202@bellsouth.net> References: <44188798.5020202@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: I've been looking around for any information about these drives. Apparently they were fitted into some HP units at some point in time. I'd like to know the media (size, bytes/sector) so I can get some media and test them out. From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Mon Mar 13 13:53:31 2006 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 19:53:31 -0000 Subject: SCSI disks + AlphaServer 4100 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <002f01c646d7$cf8c28e0$c901a8c0@tempname> Ebay 8776486678 Plenty of RZ28/29 disks and a free AS4100. Comes with a rack, collection only (they'd never find enough brown paper to wrap it up anyway) from London SW4. If only I had the room (and a van, and the time!) Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Tue Mar 14 18:28:32 2006 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 00:28:32 -0000 Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <003001c647c7$64cf9eb0$c901a8c0@tempname> > So? Very little that we do with classic computers makes economic sense. Surely given the choice between spending ?1000 on a kit of parts and ?300 on a built unit you'd go for the built unit? The kit of parts you would be able to put together blindfolded and with one hand behind your back; the ready-built unit is much more likely to have a fault to tax your little grey cells :-) Paying such a steep premium should surely require a reasonably good excuse and I cannot imagine that a routine soldering exercise could possibly justify losing all the other useful things that could have been done with the cash. There must be _some_ tools you need :-) Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From f2hj.p.theunis at hetnet.nl Wed Mar 15 04:13:54 2006 From: f2hj.p.theunis at hetnet.nl (Hans Theunis) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 11:13:54 +0100 Subject: MPF-1 Manuals Message-ID: <001901c64819$2a654520$9600000a@lan> Can you send me the (copy) schematics of the mpf-1 ? I will be thankfull for it. the adress is : J. P. Theunis Blokmaalder 27 1531 Pe Wormer The netherlands E-mail : j.p.theunis at freeler.nl Greetings. Hans From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 15 13:18:00 2006 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 19:18:00 -0000 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <200603151057310065.0FDB65DC@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <006a01c64865$2e1654b0$c901a8c0@tempname> > So, could one do the same with a CD-R? I imagine that a decent STM could read the individual pits on the parts that are left. Whether that is enough to reconstruct anything meaningful is debatable. I don't have access to a handy STM to try, but I'm told they're not hugely expensive. > But then, 10 seconds in a microwave oven is enough to > destroy that medium beyond recovery. Ten seconds over a gas hob should see off a floppy too :-) Antonio From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 15 14:22:36 2006 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:22:36 -0000 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <006c01c6486e$33f8bea0$c901a8c0@tempname> >I'm not familiar with an RF-71. What machine did it go > with and what interface did it use? The interface was DSSI, which appears to have been loosely based on SCSI (except more tightly specified than SCSI was at the time). It allowed a sort of "poor-man's cluster" to be built without having to purchase expensive HSCs etc. > I didn't see any docs on bitsavers for RF discs. Search for "RF7" and "RF3" on Manx (vt100.net/manx) and you'll find some stuff on the net. I've sent a load more stuff to the Manx maintainer recently so I expect a bit more will crop up soon. Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From evan947 at gmail.com Wed Mar 15 14:46:32 2006 From: evan947 at gmail.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:46:32 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: Bastard plagiarists In-Reply-To: <001301c63349$6ed01e40$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <001401c64871$8b3ad1f0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Freaking #$%^$%^@%^@ Stussy got his revenge. He posted a "review" on Amazon for a book that I co-wrote a couple years ago, just saying "I found this book unhelpful and badly written , i think i may look to get a refund." No other reviews are listed under his name, so it's obvious that he found me and posted this purely to bad-mouth me. I can't image trying to explain that to Amazon. (The other customer review gives it five stars and said it's "dead-on accurate"...) -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of 'Computer Collector Newsletter' Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2006 5:36 PM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: Slightly OT: Bastard plagiarists From glenatacme at aol.com Wed Mar 15 15:02:15 2006 From: glenatacme at aol.com (Glen Goodwin) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:02:15 -0500 Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060315151606.3e979946@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <42E611B9000508B2@mail.swissinfo.org> <3.0.6.16.20060315151606.3e979946@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <441880D7.10001@aol.com> Joe R. wrote: > I agree. Go find a copy of Inside the IBM PC and the other books > (Assembly Language Programming??) by Peter Norton. They explain the insides > of the PC very well. > > Joe Ya know, I found the Norton book to be really disjointed -- it didn't present the information in an A to Z sort of way. IIRC he didn't write it but lent his name to a previously published book ("Assembly Language Safari on the IBM PC" by mumble and mumble). I'll check my copy tonight & verify that. OTOH, "Inside the IBM PC" is a *really* valuable tool, as well as a historical resource, and you'd have to pry my first edition copy from my cold, dead hands ;-) Glen 0/0 From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 15 17:50:25 2006 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 23:50:25 -0000 Subject: ***** MicroVAX 3400 on eBay UK **** In-Reply-To: <001401c6488a$6d4716e0$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <007e01c6488b$3c3491d0$c901a8c0@tempname> >I'd love it, but it's 200+ miles away, and we'll be getting rid >of some at work in the next couple of years - >I'll save a few L of diesel and wait....... If it fails to go it might be worth offering some dosh for the cards inside and the metal covers from the front. Antonio From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 15 18:08:26 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:08:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: NEC APC boot disks CP/M-86 and DOS In-Reply-To: <20060313131110.WMMO29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <20060316000826.89285.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> if you get the little asterisk on yer screen there, you're probably alright. I recently pulled the floppy drives out of one of my APCs aiming to plug them into a pc using Dave Dunfield's instructions (those NEC drives use a 50pin plug, so I'm going to have to either etch an adapter board or do something else freaky). Once there, I presumably could not only image the disks I do have (condition unknown) - Dos, DBase II, and Autocad I think - but also create boot disks from Dave's or my images. I don't put alot of stock in old floppies, but when the golden day comes, I could mail you a disk or two, don't know if they'd work or not, but that's not going to be this week. Probably not next or the week after either. The other option is to set up a modern pc with a hd 1.2meg 5 1/4" drive, burn images to that, then plug that into your APC. Worth a try. --- Dave Dunfield wrote: > > Anybody out there willing to snail mail me a > couple of 8" boot disks for the > > original APC? I've got 2 of these sitting around > with no software, wanted to > > test them out. If so please contact me off-list. > > I have images of MS-DOS, CP/M-86 and UCSD Pascal > boot disks for the > APC posted to my site (ImageDisk format). > > > > -- > dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield > dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & > tools: www.dunfield.com > com Collector of vintage computing > equipment: > > http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 15 18:15:26 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:15:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: power up a 10 year dormant MicroVax II In-Reply-To: <00cd01c646b0$c5f39060$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <20060316001526.91622.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> --- John Allain wrote: > Let us know how it looks inside. I have a QBus load > board available from > a microVax 3x00 if experts on the list deem the PSU > needs a test under load > first. I did read the post about testing power with a dummy load. It's as simple as connecting each supply across the necessary resistance, no? I figure any orangutang could wire that up. > Certainly if signs of weathering are present > (rust, dissolved and > redried precipitates, etc.) I'd say to wait. If it > looks pristene I'd just > flip a coin and try it. You're going to have fun > just figuring where all > the access panels lead. > > uV's are getting pretty rare now, THX for your > concerns. Yes, it's been said I have a heart as big as Norway :) > John A. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 15 18:22:01 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:22:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: I guess I should have asked this before asking for a 5.25" floppy drive In-Reply-To: <20060308230659.92498.qmail@web50507.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060316002201.99931.qmail@web61016.mail.yahoo.com> I don't know anything about Apples, but if you can create images on an Apple itself, you could transfer them to a PC or whatever using a serial link. I would imagine there is software that'll run on an Apple that will accomplish this. --- William Blair wrote: > Can Apple II disks be copied using a PC 5.25" drive > and/or can downloaded images of Apple II > system disks be written to a PC drive? I'd suspect > that because of the unusual format of the > Apple II floppies that special formatting/copying > software would be required to do this. Does > this software exist? > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam > protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 15 18:38:17 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:38:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060316003817.97130.qmail@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> --- 9000 VAX wrote: >Did it use ISA bus? This was the information that I >didn't find from google. Lord no. Why would I be trying to juryrig a peecee card into an ISA bus? The Tandy 2000 use a 96 pin (3 row) "Euro" connector. I'm comparing the difference between what signals get carried out to it and the PC. Don't know exactly when (ok if) this'll happen. It's fun to dream though :). __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 15 19:06:51 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 17:06:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060316010651.86036.qmail@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> a list of texts on 80x86 hardware and software (from memory - I won't swear as to exact titles or author's names). Most of these can be had on Amazonia FOR A SONG: The only text on assembly language (as far as I'm concerned) - IBM PC Assembly Language and Programming, Peter Abel, 1st Edition The IBM Personal Computer from the Inside Out, Seargent and Shoemaker, 1st edition has ancillary coverage of the Peanut, 2nd the IBM PC/AT Inside the IBM PC, Peter Norton, the first Microprocessors and Interfacing, Douglas Hall An Introduction to the Intel Family of Microprocessors: A Hands-On Approach Utilizing the 8088 Microprocessor, James Antonakos - my edition has a blue cover, has a sbc (single board computer) project. Interfacing to the IBM Personal Computer, Eggebrecht - talks about the ISA bus and building cards for it 0521462800 - found this on Amazon just now. Interesting. there's others. Of course the IBM Tech manuals are useful, but aren't texts. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From nanoman at stny.rr.com Wed Mar 15 20:02:51 2006 From: nanoman at stny.rr.com (Jim E Neutron) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 21:02:51 -0500 Subject: Z-100 (was Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay) In-Reply-To: <441826DC.1060100@bellsouth.net> References: <44176F34.6050301@jetnet.ab.ca> <200603141825580563.0C4F9700@10.0.0.252> <4417BA7D.602@jetnet.ab.ca> <441826DC.1060100@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.0.20060315205405.01980ba8@stny.rr.com> The Z-100 computer was a great machine for its time. S-100 slots for things like A/D/A and I/O cards Harddisk controller (20 MByte ST-225 - never thought I could fill it!). Reprogram the video for 640 x 512 interlaced monochrome (of course you will need to create graphic character set). Reprogram the Disk Drive for 96 TPI Use a tether to connect a RAM chip for imaging (remove metal lid on ceramic package and etch the protective layer - play with the DRAM 256K = 512x512 refresh rate.) CPM P-System DOS I have a copy of TT-04 rev 03 Zenith Technical Training Manual, which is a great reference for 8088/86 programming. Another great reference is the PUP (Programmers Utility Pack) 8088/86 programming. ---------- At 09:38 AM 3/15/2006, you wrote: >woodelf wrote: >>Well I did get one for a song as Z-100 seems to ring a bell,about 10 years >> ago but I had to toss it since it came with no DOS with it. It >> was a nice machine, but with no Internet to get a OS booted for it was useless. > >Ben, that's a shame :-((( When I got mine from Joe Rigdon a >few years back it had all of the OS disks except for CP/M-85, >which Don Maslin (MHRIP) was kind enough to provide. > >I partitioned the hard drive into thirds, and set it up for >dual-boot (ZDOS and CP/M-86). > >Unfortunately, the version of CP/M-85 Don sent me does not >support a hard drive. I've never taken the time to patch it >for hard drive support, since I really like CP/M-86. If I >ever do, I'll install it on the third partition. > >I made Teledisk images for all three of the Z-100 CP/M-86 >disks, so if anyone out there needs 'em I'll be glad to share. > >Glen >0/0 From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 15 20:24:50 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 18:24:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: power up a 10 year dormant MicroVax II Message-ID: <20060316022450.14023.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> hmmm caps failing. Another lister powered on a puter hes going to send me. After a few hours one cap was had cooked itself to perfection...mmmmmm love that smell. Maybe then I should run the p/s under load for a few hours at least. I like my caps well toasted but not my chips! --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > > of course Id take some time to poke around inside, blow out the dust, > > etc., but I was cautioned against even powering it up without > > enlisting -local help- since its been sitting for so long. Should I > > take such warnings seriously? > > In general, yes. In the case of a uV2? I don't think so, though I'm > sure there are better people to speak definitively about it. I've seen > it said that the uV2 is recent enough that there is little-to-no chance > that the electrolytics have failed sitting. > > My experience bears this out - I've done a few uV2 turn-ons after long > years idle, with no failures - but the sample size is too small to lend > any statistical validity to that. > > der Mouse __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 15 22:42:53 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:42:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: modern media in vintage computers Message-ID: <20060316044253.78302.qmail@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> weve all seen the use of (typically) compact flash cards as mass storage in classic stuph. Are SD cards as adaptable for this purpose? I remember reading somewhere that the flash interface is essentially IDE in nature. Does this apply for all types of cards? And if anyone could point to an article/link/book on this type of crazy stuph, Id sore appreciate it. Nuts and Volts had an article on building a micro controller based mpeg player (with cflash storage) so maybe I should take a look at that. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 15 23:04:13 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 21:04:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: offlist------Re: Z-100 (was Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay) Message-ID: <20060316050413.3961.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> Hi...got a lead on a Z100. Any images you can provide would be greatly apprecited. I have other pseudo-compatible images (Tandy 2000, NEC APC III, etc.) if youre interested. --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > woodelf wrote: > > Well I did get one for a song as Z-100 seems to ring a bell,about 10 years > > ago but I had to toss it since it came with no DOS with it. It was a > > nice machine, but with no Internet to get a OS booted for it was useless. > > Ben, that's a shame :-((( When I got mine from Joe Rigdon a > few years back it had all of the OS disks except for CP/M-85, > which Don Maslin (MHRIP) was kind enough to provide. > > I partitioned the hard drive into thirds, and set it up for > dual-boot (ZDOS and CP/M-86). > > Unfortunately, the version of CP/M-85 Don sent me does not > support a hard drive. I've never taken the time to patch it > for hard drive support, since I really like CP/M-86. If I > ever do, I'll install it on the third partition. > > I made Teledisk images for all three of the Z-100 CP/M-86 > disks, so if anyone out there needs 'em I'll be glad to share. > > Glen > 0/0 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 15 23:15:51 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 21:15:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: old 8088 system course++ Message-ID: <20060316051551.7720.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> I found most books on assembly confusing. The 8088 architecture with regards to assembly programming is not exactly trivial stuph, so if yer learning on yer own, a thorough structured text is essential. The only thing I personally have seen that did the trick is the first edition of IBM PC Assembler Language and Programming by Peter Abel. --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > Joe R. wrote: > > > I agree. Go find a copy of Inside the IBM PC and the other books > > (Assembly Language Programming??) by Peter Norton. They explain the > insides > > of the PC very well. > > > > Joe > > > Ya know, I found the Norton book to be really disjointed -- > it didn't present the information in an A to Z sort of way. > IIRC he didn't write it but lent his name to a previously > published book ("Assembly Language Safari on the IBM PC" by > mumble and mumble). I'll check my copy tonight & verify that. > > OTOH, "Inside the IBM PC" is a *really* valuable tool, > as well as a historical resource, and you'd have to pry my > first edition copy from my cold, dead hands ;-) > > Glen > 0/0 > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Mar 16 01:17:49 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 20:17:49 +1300 Subject: Blower/airflow sensor needed for BA32 In-Reply-To: <007401c6485d$4369bf80$0401010a@jfcl.com> References: <007401c6485d$4369bf80$0401010a@jfcl.com> Message-ID: On 3/16/06, Robert Armstrong wrote: > > The BA32 is the baby VAX BI chassis used in the 8200/8250/8300/8350 > systems - I have an 8250 (it'd be an 8350 if I could find another CPU :-) Mine's an 8300 because I don't have any 8250 CPUs. > that has some problem with the cooling. The blower speed seems to vary all > the time it's running, and it's constantly speeding up and slowing down. > The system wil run for about an hour and then trips itself off, presumably > either because of airflow or overtemp. > > Can anybody tell me if the blower speed is supposed to vary like that? Hmm... I don't remember the fan speed varying on mine, and the airflow sensor is pretty sensitive - if you leave the lid off, it should trip the box in well under a minute. We had to make a cardboard sheild when I did VAXBI board production - to let us have our analyzer pods and ROM emulator pod stick out. > Does anybody have any maintenance prints for the BA32 blower control? > Anybody got any spare parts they're willing to sell? Unfortunately, I have no prints and no spares. > I spent a long time putting it back together after it'd been stripped by a > scrap yard, and I've actually got it to the point where it will boot VMS > now, so I'd really like to fix this last problem. Besides, it's a really > cute little system I certainly like mine. I wish I could figure out why the DWBUA won't pass onboard diagnostics - perhaps I have 3 dead UET cards (Unibus Exerciser/Terminator - it has to be present and functional for the DWBUA to report 'all clear'). If you just want to play with BI machines, it's a fun little box. The two most common ways I know of adding disks are either the KDB50 MSCP controller or stick it on an HSC50 and use clusterable disks. There _are_ VAXBI SCSI cards, but back in the day, they were like $10,000. I've never held one. > ... I believe it's the smallest VAX BI box around. That and the VAXstation 8000. No other machines that I know of are 100% VAXBI - the 85xx/87xx/88xx are Nautilus Bus based with a BI adapter, similar for the 6xxx series (XMI w/bus adapter). I used to have an 8550, but it didn't survive a move 13 years ago. The 8300 was easy to stick in the back of my VW microbus (and is in my basement now, hooked up and powered down). -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 16 01:38:54 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 23:38:54 -0800 Subject: Slightly OT: Bastard plagiarists In-Reply-To: <001401c64871$8b3ad1f0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <001401c64871$8b3ad1f0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <200603152338540088.129471D5@10.0.0.252> On 3/15/2006 at 3:46 PM 'Computer Collector Newsletter' wrote: >Freaking #$%^$%^@%^@ > >Stussy got his revenge. He posted a "review" on Amazon for a book that I >co-wrote a couple years ago, just saying "I found this book unhelpful and >badly written , i think i may look to get a refund." ... "How little it takes to make life unbearable: a pebble in the shoe, a cockroach in the spaghetti, a woman's laugh." -- H. L. Mencken Forget the idiot and walk away. He clearly is in chronic need of attention and has the emotional maturity of a 3 year old. Life is WAY too short to suffer gits like that. Have a nice dinner, enjoy a sunset with someone you love... --Chuck From spc at conman.org Thu Mar 16 02:24:23 2006 From: spc at conman.org (Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 03:24:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: Old computer advertising Message-ID: <20060316082424.1619A73029@linus.area51.conman.org> If you don't mind the snarky comments, James Lileks has posted a series of computer ads from the 60s and 70s: http://www.lileks.com/institute/compupromo/ I also found a link to a BBC commercial for a Prime Computer from the late 70s/early 80s (it needs RealPlayer) that features a rather famous scarf wearing time traveller: http://plorkwort.livejournal.com/120042.html -spc (I found them interesting ... ) From vp at cs.drexel.edu Thu Mar 16 02:49:46 2006 From: vp at cs.drexel.edu (Vassilis Prevelakis) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 03:49:46 -0500 Subject: Dead HP-9825A Message-ID: <20060316084946.1E36720135A3@mail.cs.drexel.edu> I have an HP 9825A with Opt 2 (24K RAM) which does not display the lazy T symbol on power up (dark display on power on). I have checked the PSU voltages and they are OK and have carried out the obvious tests to see if the problem is a dead display ([RESET] spc [EXECUTE] [RESET] beep [EXECUTE]) but nothing happens. Oh, the fan works fine, there are lights inside the tape drive slot and when I press the CAPS key the CAPS-LOCK LED turns on (and goes off if I press CAPS again). I would like to remove the second memory board (16K) just to be sure that its not a prob with it. The manual suggests that a dummy board was installed in the place of the 2nd memory board. Does that mean that the machine cannot work with one memory board? Also will I get a display with the tape board disconnected? Thanks **vp PS I have the 9825A Service manual, but this simply tells you how to disassemble the machine. In fact the troubleshooting flowchart essentially tells me that anything could be at fault. From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Mar 16 03:53:58 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 03:53:58 -0600 Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: <20060316010651.86036.qmail@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060316010651.86036.qmail@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <441935B6.4020402@oldskool.org> Chris M wrote: > The only text on assembly language (as far as I'm > concerned) - IBM PC Assembly Language and Programming, > Peter Abel, 1st Edition Amazon reviews disagree; who is right? Two of my favorite 8088 assembler books were one that I have misplaced and can't remember the name of, but it began by dumping you directly into DEBUG and you wrote your first assembler programs in it (even saving your work to disk and loading it back to make edits). Writing functional programs directly in debug, no source code but the binary opcodes themselves, made a few bulbs turn on in my head. The second was Abrash's Zen of Assembler. He tends to beat a point into the ground, redundantly and repeatedly, but overall it is fascinating reading and most definitely has helped my speed optimization skills. -- 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 jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Thu Mar 16 03:55:26 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 10:55:26 +0100 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: <006c01c6486e$33f8bea0$c901a8c0@tempname> References: <006c01c6486e$33f8bea0$c901a8c0@tempname> Message-ID: <20060316105526.45facc0c.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:22:36 -0000 "Antonio Carlini" wrote: > The interface was DSSI, which appears to have been loosely > based on SCSI (except more tightly specified than SCSI > was at the time). It allowed a sort of "poor-man's cluster" > to be built without having to purchase expensive HSCs etc. I may be wrong, but AFAIK: DSSI is not even loosely related to SCSI. DSSI is a complete CI implementation, but uses a parallel bus cable instead of coax cable and a star coupler as physical transport. Even the DSSI adapter is software compatible to the CI adapter. SCSI is a mass storage interface where DSSI is more some kind of a SAN. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Mar 16 03:59:23 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 03:59:23 -0600 Subject: Old computer advertising In-Reply-To: <20060316082424.1619A73029@linus.area51.conman.org> References: <20060316082424.1619A73029@linus.area51.conman.org> Message-ID: <441936FB.3070608@oldskool.org> Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote: > I also found a link to a BBC commercial for a Prime Computer from the late > 70s/early 80s (it needs RealPlayer) that features a rather famous scarf > wearing time traveller: > > http://plorkwort.livejournal.com/120042.html Now THAT was amazing -- I had no idea Dr. Who did anything commercial outside of the terrible albums. -- 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 brad at heeltoe.com Thu Mar 16 05:34:58 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 06:34:58 -0500 Subject: modern media in vintage computers In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:42:53 PST." <20060316044253.78302.qmail@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200603161134.k2GBYwXM031910@mwave.heeltoe.com> Chris M wrote: >weve all seen the use of (typically) compact flash >cards as mass storage in classic stuph. Are SD cards >as adaptable for this purpose? no, sorry. while CF cards can be run in "true ide mode" which makes them look essentially like IDE hard drives, SD & MMM cards use an entirely different interface. I could on and on but suffice to say: - mmc cards are thinner. sd won't go in an mmc slot. sd cards are thicker. sd slots can take mmc cards. - both mmc & sd cards can use a simple 4 wire spi interface to allow random block access (i.e. random access to blocks of data) - the interface is very simple. I've done DOS/FAT file system access to an MMC using PIC. I'm doing it as we speak with an Atmel SAM7S (in C). I think there are a number of SD card interface sites on the web, as well as specs for the interface. I'm working on a "vintage computer to modern media" interface right now and I've chosen CF & IDE - mostly becuase there are lots of pc based interface to these, makeing interchanging the media simple. -brad From alexeyt at freeshell.org Thu Mar 16 08:21:31 2006 From: alexeyt at freeshell.org (Alexey Toptygin) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 14:21:31 +0000 (UTC) Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <006a01c64865$2e1654b0$c901a8c0@tempname> References: <006a01c64865$2e1654b0$c901a8c0@tempname> Message-ID: On Wed, 15 Mar 2006, Antonio Carlini wrote: >> So, could one do the same with a CD-R? > > I imagine that a decent STM could read the individual pits on > the parts that are left. Whether that is enough to reconstruct > anything meaningful is debatable. I don't have access to a handy > STM to try, but I'm told they're not hugely expensive. STMs couldn't read through the substrate - you'de be reading the texture of the bottom of the disc, not the pits. You need to use a scanning optical microscope, or just a CD-like read head that can scan in 2 dimensions. Alexey From Bob.Adamson at sli-institute.ac.uk Thu Mar 16 08:43:05 2006 From: Bob.Adamson at sli-institute.ac.uk (Bob Adamson) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 14:43:05 -0000 Subject: PDP8e on Ebay Message-ID: <7D7A68F7F09DAE40AE47E55F7F601D8B8341BB@SLISERVER21.sli-institute.ac.uk> See http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RARE-EXEPTIONEL-UNIQUE-DEC-PDP8-E-accesoires_W0QQi temZ8779092789QQcategoryZ4193QQssPageNameZWD2VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem In France unfortunately or I'd be tempted Bob From acme_ent at bellsouth.net Thu Mar 16 08:42:02 2006 From: acme_ent at bellsouth.net (Glen Goodwin) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 09:42:02 -0500 Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: <441880D7.10001@aol.com> References: <42E611B9000508B2@mail.swissinfo.org> <3.0.6.16.20060315151606.3e979946@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <441880D7.10001@aol.com> Message-ID: <4419793A.2060303@bellsouth.net> Okay, here's a list of books I have found to be indispensible when working closely with IBM-type PCs (and other 8088-based systems): "Inside the IBM PC" by Peter Norton 1985, Brady Communications Co. ISBN 0-89303-583-1 and 0-13-467325-5 --> Plenty of hardware details "Advanced Assembly Language" by Steven Holzner and Peter Norton Computing 1991, Brady Communications Co. ISBN 0-13-658774-7 --> Lots of tips and tricks, includes code for Windows --> and OS/2 "Bluebook of Assembly Language Routines for the IBM PC and XT" by Christopher L. Morgan 1984, The Waite Group ISBN 0-452-25498-1 --> Very nice "cookbook" of ready-to-use routines "Assembly Language Quick Reference" by Allen L. Wyatt, Sr. 1989, Que Corp. ISBN 0-88022-428-2 --> Instructions from A to Z, with details and --> code examples HTH Glen 0/0 From Bob.Adamson at sli-institute.ac.uk Thu Mar 16 08:45:21 2006 From: Bob.Adamson at sli-institute.ac.uk (Bob Adamson) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 14:45:21 -0000 Subject: PDP8E on Ebay Message-ID: <7D7A68F7F09DAE40AE47E55F7F601D8B8341BC@SLISERVER21.sli-institute.ac.uk> http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RARE-EXEPTIONEL-UNIQUE-DEC-PDP8-E-accesoires_W0QQi temZ8779092789QQcategoryZ4193QQssPageNameZWD2VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem In France unfortunately or I'd be tempted. Didn't sell last time around a few weeks ago so might take a lesser offer. Bob From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 16 11:58:40 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 10:58:40 -0700 Subject: two piles of ASR 32/33 parts on ebay Message-ID: Item name: Minicomputer Teletype Terminal ASR 32 33 Parts Pile 1 Price: $2.50 Bids: 0 End date: Mar-22-06 19:17:34 PST Distance: View item: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8781899953&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1 Item name: Minicomputer Teletype Terminal ASR 32 33 Parts Pile 2 Price: $2.50 Bids: 0 End date: Mar-22-06 19:14:35 PST Distance: View item: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8781897024&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1 -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From vax9000 at gmail.com Thu Mar 16 13:07:44 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 14:07:44 -0500 Subject: Best book about 386 protected mode programming? Message-ID: People recommended some best 8088 books. How about 386 books? From ama at ugr.es Thu Mar 16 14:31:04 2006 From: ama at ugr.es (Angel Martin Alganza) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 21:31:04 +0100 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <200603151542100053.10DFFFFE@10.0.0.252> References: <4418A14C.1040800@oldskool.org> <200603151542100053.10DFFFFE@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060316203104.GA629@darwin.ugr.es> On Wed, Mar 15, 2006 at 03:42:10PM -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote: > one of its relatives. When you put your mind to it, it's amazing what will > go on a single diskette. Well, taking into account that Linux with X can go into one: http://modest-proposals.com/Hacklin.htm or http://www.angelfire.com/linux/floorzat/1diskxwin.htm I hardly can be impressed by what a DOS floppy can carry :-) Cheers, ?ngel From doug at blinkenlights.com Thu Mar 16 15:17:53 2006 From: doug at blinkenlights.com (Doug Salot) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 13:17:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: Best book about 386 protected mode programming? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, 9000 VAX wrote: > People recommended some best 8088 books. How about 386 books? "Programming the 80386" by John Crawford, the chief architect of the chip. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 16 15:21:59 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 13:21:59 -0800 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <20060316203104.GA629@darwin.ugr.es> References: <4418A14C.1040800@oldskool.org> <200603151542100053.10DFFFFE@10.0.0.252> <20060316203104.GA629@darwin.ugr.es> Message-ID: <200603161321590958.15860533@10.0.0.252> On 3/16/2006 at 9:31 PM Angel Martin Alganza wrote: >Well, taking into account that Linux with X can go into one: > > http://modest-proposals.com/Hacklin.htm > >or > > http://www.angelfire.com/linux/floorzat/1diskxwin.htm > >I hardly can be impressed by what a DOS floppy can carry :-) Now, there's an interesting challenge--can one get Windows (probably 3.x) to fit on a single floppy such that generic GUI functionality (640x480 video, PS/2 mouse, etc.) is preserved? Or, for that matter, could OS/2 (any version) be likewise accommodated? Cheers, Chuck From ama at ugr.es Thu Mar 16 15:49:24 2006 From: ama at ugr.es (Angel Martin Alganza) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 22:49:24 +0100 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <200603161321590958.15860533@10.0.0.252> References: <20060316203104.GA629@darwin.ugr.es> <200603161321590958.15860533@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060316214924.GB629@darwin.ugr.es> On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 01:21:59PM -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Now, there's an interesting challenge--can one get Windows (probably 3.x) > to fit on a single floppy such that generic GUI functionality (640x480 > video, PS/2 mouse, etc.) is preserved? Yes, at least one person could. He's a brazilian guy who made "MiniWin", a one floppy with Windows 3.11 on it. I got an image of it for testing purposes. He was planing to make additional floppies with extra utilities and programs but I never heard from him again. I might try to contact him again and see whether or not he did something else about that. > Or, for that matter, could OS/2 (any version) be likewise accommodated? Well, how about QNX? They had an evaluation single 1.44MB floppy with their operating system including the neutrino graphic environment. It also had some software on in (browser, web server, editor, email client, etc). Unfortubnately they took it out of their site some some ago. -- Angel Martin Alganza Tel +34 958 248 926 Departamento de Genetica Fax +34 958 244 073 Universidad de Granada mailto:ama at ugr.es C/ Fuentenueva s/n http://www.ugr.es/~ama E-18071 Granada, Spain JabberID alganza at jabber.org ------------------------------------------------------ /~\ The ASCII PGP Public key: \ / Ribbon Campaign www.ugr.es/~ama/ama-pgp-key X Against HTML Email 3EB2 967A 9404 6585 7086 / \ and MS attachments 8811 2CEC 2F81 9341 E591 Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html From bpope at wordstock.com Thu Mar 16 15:50:11 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 16:50:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <200603161321590958.15860533@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060316215012.045CD58148@mail.wordstock.com> > > On 3/16/2006 at 9:31 PM Angel Martin Alganza wrote: > > >Well, taking into account that Linux with X can go into one: > > > > http://modest-proposals.com/Hacklin.htm > > > >or > > > > http://www.angelfire.com/linux/floorzat/1diskxwin.htm > > > >I hardly can be impressed by what a DOS floppy can carry :-) > > Now, there's an interesting challenge--can one get Windows (probably 3.x) > to fit on a single floppy such that generic GUI functionality (640x480 > video, PS/2 mouse, etc.) is preserved? > > Or, for that matter, could OS/2 (any version) be likewise accommodated? > I know there was version of QNX at one time that fit on a floppy... It included the GUI and was a free download from their site. Cheers, Bryan From acme_ent at bellsouth.net Thu Mar 16 16:04:09 2006 From: acme_ent at bellsouth.net (Glen Goodwin) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 17:04:09 -0500 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <200603161321590958.15860533@10.0.0.252> References: <4418A14C.1040800@oldskool.org> <200603151542100053.10DFFFFE@10.0.0.252> <20060316203104.GA629@darwin.ugr.es> <200603161321590958.15860533@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4419E0D9.3030700@bellsouth.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Now, there's an interesting challenge--can one get Windows (probably 3.x) > to fit on a single floppy such that generic GUI functionality (640x480 > video, PS/2 mouse, etc.) is preserved? Well, at one time I had an original HP ScanJet, and the software included a "run-time" version of Windows (2.0? 3.0??) on a single 5 1/4" floppy (might have been "1.2 MB", though). Glen 0/0 From acme_ent at bellsouth.net Thu Mar 16 16:09:15 2006 From: acme_ent at bellsouth.net (Glen Goodwin) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 17:09:15 -0500 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <20060316214924.GB629@darwin.ugr.es> References: <20060316203104.GA629@darwin.ugr.es> <200603161321590958.15860533@10.0.0.252> <20060316214924.GB629@darwin.ugr.es> Message-ID: <4419E20B.2060601@bellsouth.net> Angel Martin Alganza wrote: > Well, how about QNX? They had an evaluation single 1.44MB floppy with > their operating system including the neutrino graphic environment. It > also had some software on in (browser, web server, editor, email > client, etc). Unfortubnately they took it out of their site some some > ago. Well, that's a shame. I have a copy of that diskette right here on my desk, and the qnxdemo.zip is in a directory on this hard drive (the .zip file includes the utility to create the bootable QNX diskette). If anyonme wants it drop me a note off-list and I'll email it to you. I played with it a lot once, and it includes a browser -- you can get dial-up 'Net access (assuming a serial modem device) with a GUI and multitasking on a single "1.44MB" floppy diskette. Glen (former QNX developer) From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 16 16:15:34 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 14:15:34 -0800 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <20060316214924.GB629@darwin.ugr.es> References: <20060316203104.GA629@darwin.ugr.es> <200603161321590958.15860533@10.0.0.252> <20060316214924.GB629@darwin.ugr.es> Message-ID: <200603161415340021.15B71002@10.0.0.252> On 3/16/2006 at 10:49 PM Angel Martin Alganza wrote: >Well, how about QNX? They had an evaluation single 1.44MB floppy with >their operating system including the neutrino graphic environment. It >also had some software on in (browser, web server, editor, email >client, etc). Unfortubnately they took it out of their site some some >ago. It's still wandering around the web in quite a few flavors, including with some cracks. I think the site I found included a couple of versions (one for modem, one for LAN) and some hints at adding apps to the menu, along with some sample applications. Cheers, Chuck From cheri-post at web.de Thu Mar 16 17:31:43 2006 From: cheri-post at web.de (Pierre Gebhardt) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 00:31:43 +0100 Subject: PDP8E on Ebay Message-ID: <1191104681@web.de> Don't worry Bob, this guy is just trying to make money. He didn't sell it the last *times* which is no wonder, as 3000 EUR and 2000 EUR seem a bit too much in my opinion. He said in french the he won't go below 1500 EUR. He kept on saying that for those who think that they should wait to get a cheaper price....he wouldn't do it. And as he said that he would put back his 8/e into his basement if nobody bids....not a problem for me as long as this 8 isn't being scrapped..... Regards, Pierre > http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RARE-EXEPTIONEL-UNIQUE-DEC-PDP8-E-accesoires_W0QQi > temZ8779092789QQcategoryZ4193QQssPageNameZWD2VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem > > > > In France unfortunately or I'd be tempted. > > Didn't sell last time around a few weeks ago so might take a lesser > offer. > > > > Bob > > > > > ______________________________________________________________ Verschicken Sie romantische, coole und witzige Bilder per SMS! Jetzt bei WEB.DE FreeMail: http://f.web.de/?mc=021193 From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 16 17:21:06 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 23:21:06 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Dead HP-9825A In-Reply-To: <20060316084946.1E36720135A3@mail.cs.drexel.edu> from "Vassilis Prevelakis" at Mar 16, 6 03:49:46 am Message-ID: > > I have an HP 9825A with Opt 2 (24K RAM) which does not display the > lazy T symbol on power up (dark display on power on). Virtually all faults in HP desktops give no display :-( > > I have checked the PSU voltages and they are OK and have carried out > the obvious tests to see if the problem is a dead display ([RESET] > spc [EXECUTE] [RESET] beep [EXECUTE]) but nothing happens. > > Oh, the fan works fine, there are lights inside the tape drive slot > and when I press the CAPS key the CAPS-LOCK LED turns on (and goes off if > I press CAPS again). > > I would like to remove the second memory board (16K) just to be sure > that its not a prob with it. The manual suggests that a dummy board > was installed in the place of the 2nd memory board. Does that mean > that the machine cannot work with one memory board? The machine should be fine with just one memory board, but it must be addressed correctly (I forget if it needs to be at the top or bottom of thr address space). > > Also will I get a display with the tape board disconnected? Yes. > > Thanks > > **vp > > PS I have the 9825A Service manual, but this simply tells you how to > disassemble the machine. In fact the troubleshooting flowchart essentially > tells me that anything could be at fault. I assume you also haev schematics from http://www.hpmuseum.net/ -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 16 16:59:16 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 22:59:16 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay In-Reply-To: <003001c647c7$64cf9eb0$c901a8c0@tempname> from "Antonio Carlini" at Mar 15, 6 00:28:32 am Message-ID: > Surely given the choice between spending =A31000 on a kit of parts > and =A3300 on a built unit you'd go for the built unit? The kit > of parts you would be able to put together blindfolded and with > one hand behind your back; the ready-built unit is much more > likely to have a fault to tax your little grey cells :-) There is that... Mind you, what's to say that the kit will work perfectly first time? There could be defective components in it. But then again, Heathkit spoilt the fun in many of the computer kits by supplying the CPU board pre-built. What a cheat! -tony From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Mar 16 17:43:17 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 17:43:17 -0600 Subject: modern media in vintage computers In-Reply-To: <200603161134.k2GBYwXM031910@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200603161134.k2GBYwXM031910@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <4419F815.1070900@oldskool.org> Brad Parker wrote: > I'm working on a "vintage computer to modern media" interface right now > and I've chosen CF & IDE - mostly becuase there are lots of pc based > interface to these, makeing interchanging the media simple. This is something I plan on trying next month, connecting a CF card to my PC/XT's IDE adapter. The CF-to-IDE conversion card is very cheap, like $15 + shipping. -- 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 jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Thu Mar 16 17:44:36 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 15:44:36 -0800 Subject: IBM Mainframe guy in Chile is selling of his entire stock (or offering it) Message-ID: <4419F864.8050601@msm.umr.edu> The sad thing is that he had a 360/40 (2040) cpu which he now says is in bad shape that is for sale. $25,000 gets you a 40' container of really nice stuff though. i had asked him if he had a full mainframe at one time and he said he did not. now, if it is what remains after his ebay auctions, there won't be much left, sad to say. But a 360 would probably be a steal at 25K, unless someone knows where one is for less. Maybe dkdk will swoop in and buy the parts he does not already have of the 360, and it will end up complete somewhere. Hope he is acquiring for a museum somewhere, or his pile comes to view in public, it must be quite nice by now. jim seller: alejoelectronic specific auction: 8782204551 From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Mar 16 17:46:04 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 17:46:04 -0600 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <200603161321590958.15860533@10.0.0.252> References: <4418A14C.1040800@oldskool.org> <200603151542100053.10DFFFFE@10.0.0.252> <20060316203104.GA629@darwin.ugr.es> <200603161321590958.15860533@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4419F8BC.3090903@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Now, there's an interesting challenge--can one get Windows (probably 3.x) > to fit on a single floppy such that generic GUI functionality (640x480 > video, PS/2 mouse, etc.) is preserved? Of course, but you'd be "cheating" -- one way I can think of is to format the diskette with doublespace/drivespace and store everything in the compressed volume. DOS boots up, mounts the compressed volume, et voila you have about 3MB+ to play with. -- 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 Thu Mar 16 17:49:13 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 17:49:13 -0600 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <4419F8BC.3090903@oldskool.org> References: <4418A14C.1040800@oldskool.org> <200603151542100053.10DFFFFE@10.0.0.252> <20060316203104.GA629@darwin.ugr.es> <200603161321590958.15860533@10.0.0.252> <4419F8BC.3090903@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <4419F979.6090205@oldskool.org> Jim Leonard wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Now, there's an interesting challenge--can one get Windows (probably 3.x) >> to fit on a single floppy such that generic GUI functionality (640x480 >> video, PS/2 mouse, etc.) is preserved? > > Of course, but you'd be "cheating" -- one way I can think of is to > format the diskette with doublespace/drivespace and store everything in > the compressed volume. DOS boots up, mounts the compressed volume, et > voila you have about 3MB+ to play with. ...just thought of another way to "cheat": format the larger tracks with more sectors per track to gain more space, and patch the boot code and/or BIOS to compensate. I never booted from such disks, but I have definitely screwed around with capacity successfully (for example, formatting a 360K disk to 410K, or a 1.4MB disk to 1.8MB, etc.). -- 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 Useddec at aol.com Thu Mar 16 17:49:02 2006 From: Useddec at aol.com (Useddec at aol.com) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 18:49:02 EST Subject: PDP8E on Ebay Message-ID: <2cf.5433335.314b536e@aol.com> I have several PDP8's and options here in the states if anyone is interested. I plan to start listing some of it on Ebay in the near future. Paul From bshannon at tiac.net Thu Mar 16 22:29:17 2006 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 23:29:17 -0500 Subject: Dead HP-9825A References: <20060316084946.1E36720135A3@mail.cs.drexel.edu> Message-ID: <000f01c6497b$5b742060$0100a8c0@screamer> I may have a full board set for this machine, I'll check if you wish... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Vassilis Prevelakis" To: Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 3:49 AM Subject: Dead HP-9825A >I have an HP 9825A with Opt 2 (24K RAM) which does not display the > lazy T symbol on power up (dark display on power on). > > I have checked the PSU voltages and they are OK and have carried out > the obvious tests to see if the problem is a dead display ([RESET] > spc [EXECUTE] [RESET] beep [EXECUTE]) but nothing happens. > > Oh, the fan works fine, there are lights inside the tape drive slot > and when I press the CAPS key the CAPS-LOCK LED turns on (and goes off if > I press CAPS again). > > I would like to remove the second memory board (16K) just to be sure > that its not a prob with it. The manual suggests that a dummy board > was installed in the place of the 2nd memory board. Does that mean > that the machine cannot work with one memory board? > > Also will I get a display with the tape board disconnected? > > Thanks > > **vp > > PS I have the 9825A Service manual, but this simply tells you how to > disassemble the machine. In fact the troubleshooting flowchart essentially > tells me that anything could be at fault. > > From doc at mdrconsult.com Thu Mar 16 23:32:20 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 23:32:20 -0600 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <20060316203104.GA629@darwin.ugr.es> References: <4418A14C.1040800@oldskool.org> <200603151542100053.10DFFFFE@10.0.0.252> <20060316203104.GA629@darwin.ugr.es> Message-ID: <441A49E4.1020406@mdrconsult.com> Angel Martin Alganza wrote: > On Wed, Mar 15, 2006 at 03:42:10PM -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote: > >>one of its relatives. When you put your mind to it, it's amazing what will >>go on a single diskette. > > > Well, taking into account that Linux with X can go into one: > > http://modest-proposals.com/Hacklin.htm > > or > > http://www.angelfire.com/linux/floorzat/1diskxwin.htm > > I hardly can be impressed by what a DOS floppy can carry :-) Oooh, and don't forget the infamous QNX Demo Floppy. OS, X, full network drivers and stack, browser, and a game or two. I've been trying to remember; was that Demo x86-only? ISTR there was one for PCI Macs, too, but I can't find any mention of it. Doc From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 16 23:55:28 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 21:55:28 -0800 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <441A49E4.1020406@mdrconsult.com> References: <4418A14C.1040800@oldskool.org> <200603151542100053.10DFFFFE@10.0.0.252> <20060316203104.GA629@darwin.ugr.es> <441A49E4.1020406@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <200603162155280402.175C199F@10.0.0.252> On 3/16/2006 at 11:32 PM Doc Shipley wrote: > Oooh, and don't forget the infamous QNX Demo Floppy. OS, X, full >network drivers and stack, browser, and a game or two. A good site for the demo: http://qnx.projektas.lt/qnxdemo/qnx_demo_disk.htm http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/qnx/demodisk/ The Open QNX community: http://www.openqnx.com/ But I'm not aware of a Mac QNX demo diskette. Cheers, Chuck From nanoman at stny.rr.com Thu Mar 16 06:58:09 2006 From: nanoman at stny.rr.com (Jim E Neutron) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 07:58:09 -0500 Subject: offlist------Re: Z-100 (was Heathkit H8 (new unbuilt) on ebay) In-Reply-To: <20060316050413.3961.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060316050413.3961.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.0.20060316075724.01aa7928@stny.rr.com> Hi Chris, What information on the Z-100 are you looking for. The Z-100 computer was a great machine for its time. S-100 slots for things like A/D/A and I/O cards Harddisk controller (20 MByte ST-225 - never thought I could fill it!). Reprogram the video for 640 x 512 interlaced monochrome (of course you will need to create graphic character set). Reprogram the Disk Drive for 96 TPI Use a tether to connect a RAM chip for imaging (remove metal lid on ceramic package and etch the protective layer - play with the DRAM 256K = 512x512 refresh rate.) CPM P-System DOS I have a copy of TT-04 rev 03 Zenith Technical Training Manual, which is a great reference for 8088/86 programming. Another great reference is the PUP (Programmers Utility Pack) 8088/86 programming. nanoman At 12:04 AM 3/16/2006, you wrote: >Hi...got a lead on a Z100. Any images you can provide >would be greatly apprecited. I have other >pseudo-compatible images (Tandy 2000, NEC APC III, >etc.) if youre interested. >--- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org > wrote: > > woodelf wrote: > > > Well I did get one for a song as Z-100 seems to >ring a bell,about 10 years > > > ago but I had to toss it since it came with no >DOS with it. It was a > > > nice machine, but with no Internet to get a OS >booted for it was useless. > > > > Ben, that's a shame :-((( When I got mine from Joe >Rigdon a > > few years back it had all of the OS disks except for >CP/M-85, > > which Don Maslin (MHRIP) was kind enough to provide. > > > > I partitioned the hard drive into thirds, and set it >up for > > dual-boot (ZDOS and CP/M-86). > > > > Unfortunately, the version of CP/M-85 Don sent me >does not > > support a hard drive. I've never taken the time to >patch it > > for hard drive support, since I really like CP/M-86. > If I > > ever do, I'll install it on the third partition. > > > > I made Teledisk images for all three of the Z-100 >CP/M-86 > > disks, so if anyone out there needs 'em I'll be glad >to share. > > > > Glen > > 0/0 > > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around >http://mail.yahoo.com From rich_bramante at yahoo.com Thu Mar 16 08:55:02 2006 From: rich_bramante at yahoo.com (Rich Bramante) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 06:55:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: NEC APC boot disks CP/M-86 and DOS In-Reply-To: <200603161033.k2GAXC0F086896@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20060316145502.3749.qmail@web51007.mail.yahoo.com> Yes, I found Dave's instructions for hooking the 8" drive to a PC to transfer the images awhile ago, and like you realized I would not be able to get to such a project anytime soon hence my short-circuit request. I hadn't thought about going in the other direction and hooking a 5.25" to the APC. Has anybody else tried this? rich >Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:08:26 -0800 (PST) >From: Chris M >Subject: Re: NEC APC boot disks CP/M-86 and DOS >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" >Message-ID: <20060316000826.89285.qmail at web61024.mail.yahoo.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 > >if you get the little asterisk on yer screen there, >you're probably alright. I recently pulled the floppy >drives out of one of my APCs aiming to plug them into >a pc using Dave Dunfield's instructions (those NEC >drives use a 50pin plug, so I'm going to have to >either etch an adapter board or do something else >freaky). Once there, I presumably could not only image >the disks I do have (condition unknown) - Dos, DBase >II, and Autocad I think - but also create boot disks >from Dave's or my images. I don't put alot of stock in >old floppies, but when the golden day comes, I could >mail you a disk or two, don't know if they'd work or >not, but that's not going to be this week. Probably >not next or the week after either. The other option is >to set up a modern pc with a hd 1.2meg 5 1/4" drive, >burn images to that, then plug that into your APC. >Worth a try. > >--- Dave Dunfield wrote: > >> Anybody out there willing to snail mail me a >> couple of 8" boot disks for the >> original APC? I've got 2 of these sitting around >> with no software, wanted to >> test them out. If so please contact me off-list. >> >> I have images of MS-DOS, CP/M-86 and UCSD Pascal >> boot disks for the >> APC posted to my site (ImageDisk format). >> >> -- >> dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield >> dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & >> tools: www.dunfield.com >> com Collector of vintage computing >> equipment: >> >> http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From rich_bramante at yahoo.com Thu Mar 16 08:57:32 2006 From: rich_bramante at yahoo.com (Rich Bramante) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 06:57:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: NEC APC boot disks CP/M-86 and DOS Message-ID: <20060316145732.7843.qmail@web51001.mail.yahoo.com> Yes, I found Dave's instructions for hooking the 8" drive to a PC to transfer the images awhile ago, and like you realized I would not be able to get to such a project anytime soon hence my short-circuit request. I hadn't thought about going in the other direction and hooking a 5.25" to the APC. Has anybody else tried this? rich >Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 16:08:26 -0800 (PST) >From: Chris M >Subject: Re: NEC APC boot disks CP/M-86 and DOS >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" >Message-ID: <20060316000826.89285.qmail at web61024.mail.yahoo.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 > >if you get the little asterisk on yer screen there, >you're probably alright. I recently pulled the floppy >drives out of one of my APCs aiming to plug them into >a pc using Dave Dunfield's instructions (those NEC >drives use a 50pin plug, so I'm going to have to >either etch an adapter board or do something else >freaky). Once there, I presumably could not only image >the disks I do have (condition unknown) - Dos, DBase >II, and Autocad I think - but also create boot disks >from Dave's or my images. I don't put alot of stock in >old floppies, but when the golden day comes, I could >mail you a disk or two, don't know if they'd work or >not, but that's not going to be this week. Probably >not next or the week after either. The other option is >to set up a modern pc with a hd 1.2meg 5 1/4" drive, >burn images to that, then plug that into your APC. >Worth a try. > >--- Dave Dunfield wrote: > >> Anybody out there willing to snail mail me a >> couple of 8" boot disks for the >> original APC? I've got 2 of these sitting around >> with no software, wanted to >> test them out. If so please contact me off-list. >> >> I have images of MS-DOS, CP/M-86 and UCSD Pascal >> boot disks for the >> APC posted to my site (ImageDisk format). >> >> -- >> dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield >> dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & >> tools: www.dunfield.com >> com Collector of vintage computing >> equipment: >> >> http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Thu Mar 16 12:28:09 2006 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 18:28:09 -0000 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: <20060316105526.45facc0c.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <00c301c64927$61bbfd20$c901a8c0@tempname> >DSSI is not even loosely related to SCSI. >DSSI is a complete CI implementation, but uses a parallel >bus cable instead of coax cable and a star coupler as physical >transport. The DSSI spec (or the nearest thing I have to it) says otherwise. The physical layer (bus signals, low level protocol, bus phases etc.) are all either taken directly from SCSI or are a slightly modified version. >Even the DSSI adapter is software compatible to the CI adapter. True >SCSI is a mass storage interface where DSSI is more some kind of a SAN. DSSI certainly supports SCA but if you look at the SII I'm sure you'll find that it can do both SCSI and DSSI. I'd be even more sure if I had an SII spec. Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Thu Mar 16 12:37:46 2006 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 18:37:46 -0000 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive Message-ID: <00c401c64928$b9b31a80$c901a8c0@tempname> I wrote: >DSSI certainly supports SCA but if you look at the SII I'm >sure you'll find that it can do both SCSI and DSSI. I'd be >even more sure if I had an SII spec. I found a partial spec. It has this to say: > The second port is the SCSI/DSSI bus and the required > control signals. The outputs from the SII are designed to > interface directly with the NCR 8310 Receiver/Driver chip with > no glue elements. The SII will generate and check parity and > support both the initiator and target roles. Things may have changed by the time stuff shipped, and you certainly cannot put a SCSI drive on a DSSI bus (or vice versa) but clearly the two busses are fairly close at some level. Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From glenatacme at aol.com Thu Mar 16 17:19:19 2006 From: glenatacme at aol.com (Glen Goodwin) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 18:19:19 -0500 Subject: QNX ( was Re: manually installing MSDOS...) In-Reply-To: <200603161415340021.15B71002@10.0.0.252> References: <20060316203104.GA629@darwin.ugr.es> <200603161321590958.15860533@10.0.0.252> <20060316214924.GB629@darwin.ugr.es> <200603161415340021.15B71002@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4419F277.7070807@aol.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > It's still wandering around the web in quite a few flavors, including with > some cracks. I think the site I found included a couple of versions (one > for modem, one for LAN) and some hints at adding apps to the menu, along > with some sample applications. It wouldn't be a shock to me to find out that the QNX folk were salting the 'Net with it themselves . . . great publicity for a great OS. They had a sense of humor, too. $tsk diplayed a process list $tsk tsk displayed "Have I been a bad computer?" Glen 0/0 From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Mar 16 18:33:51 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 16:33:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: old 8088 system course++ In-Reply-To: <441935B6.4020402@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <20060317003351.68099.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jim Leonard wrote: > Chris M wrote: > > The only text on assembly language (as far as I'm > > concerned) - IBM PC Assembly Language and > Programming, > > Peter Abel, 1st Edition > > Amazon reviews disagree; who is right? YO!! I wrote the review: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0134481437/ref=sr_11_1/103-8150401-5296666?%5Fencoding=UTF8 Just so happens that I'm the only one that reviewed the first edition ;). Don't know, had heard that later editions were not as good. Everything depends on the individual I guess. Some things work better for some, not so better for others. Read my review. I'm a self learner, and that book did it, when I decided to dig my heals in. Had my little tape recorder and dictated notes to myself...transcribed them to paper later (it works!). Just a suggestion... > Two of my favorite 8088 assembler books were one > that I have misplaced > and can't remember the name of, but it began by > dumping you directly > into DEBUG and you wrote your first assembler > programs in it (even > saving your work to disk and loading it back to make > edits). Writing > functional programs directly in debug, no source > code but the binary > opcodes themselves, made a few bulbs turn on in my > head. Yup, he did that in the book. Debug rocks! And as a matter of fact, if you've done nothing else but BASIC, learning the assembler mechanics itself is a little weird (again praise for Abel's handling of it). All that formatting stuph annoyed me origanally as I recall. > The second was Abrash's Zen of Assembler. He tends > to beat a point into > the ground, redundantly and repeatedly, but overall > it is fascinating > reading and most definitely has helped my speed > optimization skills. Right, optimization is what he strives to teach in his books. Also has Zen of Graphics Programming and the Graphics Programming Black Book (amongst others I presume). He used to write for PC Tech Journal also. Note, although Zen of Assembly Language has come down in price (used to be like $75, now about $45), it comes on the cd that's included with Graphics Program Black Book, and that's half the price. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From kkafka at earthlink.net Thu Mar 16 20:45:38 2006 From: kkafka at earthlink.net (Kris Kafka) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 21:45:38 -0500 Subject: TurboDOS Message-ID: <000401c6496c$dfedff50$1e11a8c0@ksgwcomputers.com> John, DO you still have the TurboDOS manuals? I found a set of messages between you and eric at brouhaha.com from October 1998. Thanks, Kris Kafka From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Mar 17 02:51:52 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 00:51:52 -0800 Subject: TurboDOS Message-ID: <7DDD4951-64C1-4624-A719-40262ED2671E@bitsavers.org> > DO you still have the TurboDOS manuals? They were scanned, and are on bitsavers.org From brad at heeltoe.com Thu Mar 16 18:39:32 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 19:39:32 -0500 Subject: Best book about 386 protected mode programming? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 16 Mar 2006 14:07:44 EST." Message-ID: <200603170039.k2H0dWaF023584@mwave.heeltoe.com> "9000 VAX" wrote: >People recommended some best 8088 books. How about 386 books? I like "extending dos" by Duncan. -brad From James at jdfogg.com Fri Mar 17 09:04:40 2006 From: James at jdfogg.com (James Fogg) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 10:04:40 -0500 Subject: "party line" for terminals? Message-ID: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A0E5D56@sbs.jdfogg.com> > I purchased an odd terminal display (no keyboard) from ebay > recently and it arrived today. Its manufactured by > Westinghouse Canada and has > 3 ports that look like DB25 female style and 1 DB9 style > female port that says "party line". I'll post more detail > later, but oddly enough this terminal monitor doesn't appear > to have a keyboard port, unless it connects to one of the > data ports on the back. > > What is the "party line" port and what's it used for? A > search of the cctalk archives didn't yield anything. There are some terminal protocols that use a daisy-chained RS232. The Burroughs/Unisys Poll Select protocol is one. It relies on the handshake lines in standard RS232. From frustum at pacbell.net Fri Mar 17 10:13:04 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 10:13:04 -0600 Subject: TurboDOS In-Reply-To: <7DDD4951-64C1-4624-A719-40262ED2671E@bitsavers.org> References: <7DDD4951-64C1-4624-A719-40262ED2671E@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <441AE010.4000501@pacbell.net> Al Kossow wrote: > > > DO you still have the TurboDOS manuals? > > They were scanned, and are on bitsavers.org Since it might not be obvious: http://www.classiccmp.org/bitsavers/pdf/ims/turboDos/ I happened to be looking for more turbodos information yesterday and found this, a configuration guide for turbodos 1.2 for some philips computer: http://oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/pub/rechner/philips/p3500/manuals/tdos_confguide.pdf I recently bought an incredibly nice IMS system running turbos (1.3) off of ebay, including one remote head. It went for $31, but shipping was double that. The only problem is it wants a login and I haven't guessed one in 10 minutes of trying. Thankfully, it tells you if the user name is wrong before it even gets to a password so that the brute force approach is perhaps tractable. My understanding is that turbodos stores the password file in plaintext, so another way to skin the cat would be to find a way to dump the disk. It is a Rodime RO 200, 10.5 MB model. This drive uses an ST406 type of interface, but IMS mounted some type of adapter board on the rear of the drive, and the disk controller plugs into this adaptor via a 40 pin ribbon cable. This system is configured with the 10.5 MB hard disk and controller that I just mentioned, plus a floppy disk controller and floppy (5.25" TEAC FC-55F), a 64 KB parity checked DRAM board, the master Z80 processor, and two slave processors (Z80 + 64 KB parity checked DRAM each). I've spent some time doing floppy disk recovery with IMD and catweasel tools, but I haven't messed with hard drives. Any recommendations on the best to dump the disk image? Thanks. From Useddec at aol.com Fri Mar 17 11:03:20 2006 From: Useddec at aol.com (Useddec at aol.com) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:03:20 EST Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive Message-ID: <2d8.493c6b9.314c45d8@aol.com> I Think I have a few of these yet, if anyone is looking for them. Maybe a few 72's and 73's also. Paul From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Fri Mar 17 11:14:39 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:14:39 -0000 Subject: VAX VMS Message-ID: <001b01c649e6$464e9a60$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Hi, I have a VMS question, I have VMS 7.3 installed on a VAX 3100 M76, and want to know how to get TCP/IP to work, and more importantly, which license in the Hobbyist PAK relates to TCP/IP - I haven't yet worked out how DEC / HP name the PAKs. Thanks Jim. Please see our website: www.g1jbg.co.uk From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 11:19:08 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 10:19:08 -0700 Subject: "party line" for terminals? In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 17 Mar 2006 10:04:40 -0500. <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A0E5D56@sbs.jdfogg.com> Message-ID: In article <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A0E5D56 at sbs.jdfogg.com>, "James Fogg" writes: > There are some terminal protocols that use a daisy-chained RS232. The > Burroughs/Unisys Poll Select protocol is one. It relies on the handshake > lines in standard RS232. This makes sense for this terminal; it apparently was used in an airline system to display flight information (hence no keyboard port). In this scenario I'd expect all the terminals to display the same information so it makes sense that there might be a daisy-chain type situation or a single set of wires that all the terminals listened to ('party line'). It seems that all kinds of special computing equipment was made for airlines in the 60s, 70s and 80s. How would one go about researching technical specifics on this equipment? Like those funky reservation terminals with all the special keys. Clearly these are not regular terminals. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From kth at srv.net Fri Mar 17 11:50:03 2006 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 10:50:03 -0700 Subject: VAX VMS In-Reply-To: <001b01c649e6$464e9a60$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> References: <001b01c649e6$464e9a60$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <441AF6CB.9010706@srv.net> Jim Beacon wrote: >Hi, > >I have a VMS question, I have VMS 7.3 installed on a VAX 3100 M76, and want >to know how to get TCP/IP to work, and more importantly, which license in >the Hobbyist PAK relates to TCP/IP - I haven't yet worked out how DEC / HP >name the PAKs. > > You are probably looking for UCX. From blairrya at msu.edu Fri Mar 17 11:41:43 2006 From: blairrya at msu.edu (Ryan Blair) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:41:43 -0500 Subject: VAX VMS In-Reply-To: <001b01c649e6$464e9a60$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> References: <001b01c649e6$464e9a60$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <20060317124143.0f0d680b.blairrya@msu.edu> On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:14:39 -0000 "Jim Beacon" wrote: > which license in the Hobbyist PAK relates to TCP/IP - I haven't yet > worked out how DEC / HP name the PAKs. You're looking for the UCX* PAKs. -Ryan From James at jdfogg.com Fri Mar 17 11:47:18 2006 From: James at jdfogg.com (James Fogg) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:47:18 -0500 Subject: "party line" for terminals? Message-ID: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A0E5D58@sbs.jdfogg.com> > It seems that all kinds of special computing equipment was > made for airlines in the 60s, 70s and 80s. How would one go > about researching technical specifics on this equipment? > Like those funky reservation terminals with all the special > keys. Clearly these are not regular terminals. Research SABRE. It was a custom RTOS project that had the spec expand greatly to include just about everything the airlines did. From classiccmp.org at irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk Fri Mar 17 12:04:00 2006 From: classiccmp.org at irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk (Rob O'Donnell) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 18:04:00 +0000 Subject: "party line" for terminals? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7.0.0.16.0.20060317175747.052166c8@irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk> At 17:19 17/03/2006, Richard wrote: >In article <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A0E5D56 at sbs.jdfogg.com>, > >It seems that all kinds of special computing equipment was made for >airlines in the 60s, 70s and 80s. How would one go about researching >technical specifics on this equipment? Like those funky reservation >terminals with all the special keys. Clearly these are not regular >terminals. I worked at Ferranti Computer Systems back in the early '80s, (as an apprentice, so I didn't have a lot of access..) and there was some very odd terminals in use for the fire brigade/police systems we made, and also in use for the internal stock system. They worked very like html forms do today - the server sent a screen image and a pile of input fields, you could mess about filling them in as much as you liked, and then you hit a "send" button on the keyboard. From seeing a whole line of them on desks during a testing session, I am fairly sure they were not normal point-to-point RS232 serial links like the VT100's we had on the VAX systems, but some sort of loop or daisy chain.. Unfortunately, after 20+ years my memory is a little rusty about that aspect.. (aside: I do remember there was some sort of adventure game on at least one of the police systems that operators could swap out into - I saw it when out at Bradford once.. ) Rob From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 17 12:15:16 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 10:15:16 -0800 Subject: Best book about 386 protected mode programming? In-Reply-To: <200603170039.k2H0dWaF023584@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200603170039.k2H0dWaF023584@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <200603171015160209.1A016755@10.0.0.252> >"9000 VAX" wrote: >>People recommended some best 8088 books. How about 386 books? For a tutorial, "Advanced 80386 Programming Techniques" by James L. Turley (Osborne-McGraw-Hill, 1988, ISBN 0-07-881342-5) is pretty good, discusses 80386 quirks, but leaves out LOADALL. For a general reference, the Intel books published by Osborne-McGraw-Hill are pretty much the horse's mouth. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 12:16:53 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 11:16:53 -0700 Subject: "party line" for terminals? In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 17 Mar 2006 18:04:00 +0000. <7.0.0.16.0.20060317175747.052166c8@irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk> Message-ID: In article <7.0.0.16.0.20060317175747.052166c8 at irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk>, "Rob O'Donnell" writes: > I worked at Ferranti Computer Systems back in the early '80s, (as an > apprentice, so I didn't have a lot of access..) and there was some > very odd terminals in use for the fire brigade/police systems we > made, and also in use for the internal stock system. They worked > very like html forms do today - the server sent a screen image and a > pile of input fields, you could mess about filling them in as much as > you liked, and then you hit a "send" button on the keyboard. This "forms" feature is pretty common on lots of serial terminals, including some of the storage scope displays from Tektronix. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From ken at seefried.com Fri Mar 17 12:31:09 2006 From: ken at seefried.com (Ken Seefried) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 13:31:09 -0500 Subject: "party line" for terminals? In-Reply-To: <200603171800.k2HI03OI000229@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200603171800.k2HI03OI000229@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20060317183109.28891.qmail@seefried.com> That brings back memories. My first consulting gig almost 20 years ago was with Delta Air Lines working on a system that would tie airline reservation terminals to Unix machines. If those terminals are indeed airline terminals, then they likely use ALC (Airline Link Control). It's a 6-bit, bisync, polled serial protocol derived from some older IBM protocol. The terminals talked to a concentrator, which then talked to the IBM mainframes running applications on top of TPF. My project was to replace the concentrators with Unix machines (which could talk to more than just IBM mainframes), with Stallion Technologies providing custom serial cards that could grok ALC. Good times... Ken From Mzthompson at aol.com Fri Mar 17 13:24:09 2006 From: Mzthompson at aol.com (Mzthompson at aol.com) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 14:24:09 EST Subject: Best/Cheapest source for FPM memory (4mb/8mb) Message-ID: <226.83108f2.314c66d9@aol.com> On Sat, 11 Mar 2006, From: Gavin Thomas Nicol wrote: > Apart from EPay, are there any good sources for smaller-sizes of > <80ns FPM memory out there? Assuming you're referring to the standard 72 pin SIMM, my best source is the roughly 6 gallon bucket out in the shop that is almost full of nothing but 4mb/8mb sticks. No doubt that some of it is EDO and there is parity as well as non-parity. I got tired of sorting anything less than 16 mb and the bucket does the trick. Mike From technobug at comcast.net Fri Mar 17 13:46:47 2006 From: technobug at comcast.net (CRC) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:46:47 -0700 Subject: VAX Cabinet Parts Available In-Reply-To: <200603171800.k2HI03OC000229@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200603171800.k2HI03OC000229@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: A local scrapper auctioned a VAX3500 system this last week and the winner asked only for the boards. They were about to junk the cabinet, so I asked them to hold off over the weekend so that I could inquire if there was any interest in parts. The card cage, power supplies, the disk interface cabling, and plastic are available. If there is any interest please let me know this weekend. CRC From ama at ugr.es Fri Mar 17 14:19:15 2006 From: ama at ugr.es (Angel Martin Alganza) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 21:19:15 +0100 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... In-Reply-To: <20060316214924.GB629@darwin.ugr.es> References: <200603161321590958.15860533@10.0.0.252> <20060316214924.GB629@darwin.ugr.es> Message-ID: <20060317201915.GC629@darwin.ugr.es> On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 10:49:24PM +0100, Angel Martin Alganza wrote: > Well, how about QNX? They had an evaluation single 1.44MB floppy with > their operating system including the neutrino graphic environment. It > also had some software on in (browser, web server, editor, email > client, etc). Unfortubnately they took it out of their site some some > ago. I have found this: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/, which seems to include both QNX floppies, acording to the info on its contents table. It says it includes: "QNX Demo Browser (network and modem version)" on the "Network Tools" section. Cheers, ?ngel From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Mar 17 14:27:44 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:27:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: NEC APC boot disks CP/M-86 and DOS In-Reply-To: <20060316145502.3749.qmail@web51007.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060316145502.3749.qmail@web51007.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060317122603.E25748@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Rich Bramante wrote: > I hadn't thought about going in the other direction and hooking a 5.25" to the > APC. Has anybody else tried this? Yes. NEC did so. A 5.25" 1.2M would be the easiest, and should be almost entirely an issue of cabling. A 3.5" 1.4M would be tempting, but the drive would have tobe modified/jumpered for 360RPM. From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 14:32:48 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 13:32:48 -0700 Subject: VAX Cabinet Parts Available In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:46:47 -0700. Message-ID: In article , CRC writes: > A local scrapper auctioned a VAX3500 system this last week and the > winner asked only for the boards. [...] Just a reminder that its very, very helpful to post your geographical location when you make such an offer :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 14:36:45 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 13:36:45 -0700 Subject: "party line" for terminals? In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 17 Mar 2006 13:31:09 -0500. <20060317183109.28891.qmail@seefried.com> Message-ID: In article <20060317183109.28891.qmail at seefried.com>, "Ken Seefried" writes: > That brings back memories. My first consulting gig almost 20 years ago was > with Delta Air Lines working on a system that would tie airline reservation > terminals to Unix machines. > > If those terminals are indeed airline terminals, They have "Alitalia" stickers on them, so yeah, I think it is most definately an airline display terminal. Pictures are here at the bottom: ; those are the pictures from the ebay auction, I don't have a photo of the ports. > then they likely use ALC > (Airline Link Control). It's a 6-bit, bisync, polled serial protocol > derived from some older IBM protocol. The terminals talked to a > concentrator, which then talked to the IBM mainframes running applications > on top of TPF. My project was to replace the concentrators with Unix > machines (which could talk to more than just IBM mainframes), with Stallion > Technologies providing custom serial cards that could grok ALC. OK, so we have a couple possibilities on comm. protocols for this puppy: - RS-232 (likely for the DB25 style connectors) - RS-422/485 (possibly for the DB9 style connector) - ALC (possibly for the DB9 style connector) When I open up the cabinet housing and look at what kinds of chips are wired to the connectors, what would be telltale indicators for the various comm. protocols? Hrm, thinking about it, maybe it would be easier if I posted the chip numbers and someone recognized what they supported? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From mokuba at gmail.com Fri Mar 17 15:14:11 2006 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary Sparkes) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:14:11 -0500 Subject: Best book about 386 protected mode programming? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <80b37ffc0603171314k67856b71p4348b98f2825dbfc@mail.gmail.com> I've got a copy of that... best damn 386 book i've ever had On 3/16/06, Doug Salot wrote: > On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, 9000 VAX wrote: > > > People recommended some best 8088 books. How about 386 books? > > "Programming the 80386" by John Crawford, the chief architect of the chip. > > > -- Gary G. Sparkes Jr. KB3HAG From CCTalk at catcorner.org Fri Mar 17 15:18:44 2006 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:18:44 -0500 Subject: Adds Computers and the Tandy 10 Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33862@mail.catcorner.org> OK, I'm trying to research the Tandy 10. This was a machine built into a desk with 8" drives. I have not been able to find much on it. I read somewhere that it was an Adds model 10. Possibly has an 8080 CPU. Does this ring a bell with anyone? This would have been around 1978. Thanks, Kelly From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Fri Mar 17 15:32:29 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 22:32:29 +0100 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: <00c301c64927$61bbfd20$c901a8c0@tempname> References: <20060316105526.45facc0c.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <00c301c64927$61bbfd20$c901a8c0@tempname> Message-ID: <20060317223229.2318f9b0.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 18:28:09 -0000 "Antonio Carlini" wrote: > >DSSI is not even loosely related to SCSI. > The DSSI spec (or the nearest thing I have to it) says otherwise. > The physical layer (bus signals, low level protocol, bus > phases etc.) are all either taken directly from SCSI or are > a slightly modified version. Interresting. I did not know this. Now I remember. I have two PCI DSSI adapters that are based on the NCR / Symbios 53C825 Wide SCSI chip. But what I had in mind when I wrote the above was... > >SCSI is a mass storage interface where DSSI is more some kind of a > >SAN. > DSSI certainly supports SCA that DSSI supports SCA. That is more remarkable then the physical layer. Sorry for the confusion. I refered to the protocol / software features and ignored the physical specifications. > but if you look at the SII I'm > sure you'll find that it can do both SCSI and DSSI. I'd be > even more sure if I had an SII spec. AFAIK SSI is a very dump device that mostly does only PIO. So everything else is done in software. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 15:41:21 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 14:41:21 -0700 Subject: $189,303.00 worth of VAX on govliquidation.com (Jacksonville, FL) Message-ID: -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From innfoclassics at gmail.com Fri Mar 17 15:45:08 2006 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 13:45:08 -0800 Subject: Adds Computers and the Tandy 10 In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33862@mail.catcorner.org> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33862@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: I had one go through my hands in the early 1990s. could take up to 4 drives, 8" floppys. the one I had came with three drives. I think it was an 8080 and sold into the business market. Other than having one I don't remember much. It could have been a rebranded Adds terminal with it. Don't remember the keyboard at all. Very heavy unit. Paxton Astoria, OR USA On 3/17/06, Kelly Leavitt wrote: > OK, I'm trying to research the Tandy 10. This was a machine built into a > desk with 8" drives. I have not been able to find much on it. > > I read somewhere that it was an Adds model 10. Possibly has an 8080 CPU. > Does this ring a bell with anyone? > > This would have been around 1978. > > Thanks, > Kelly > -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 17 16:04:58 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 14:04:58 -0800 Subject: NEC APC boot disks CP/M-86 and DOS In-Reply-To: <20060317122603.E25748@shell.lmi.net> References: <20060316145502.3749.qmail@web51007.mail.yahoo.com> <20060317122603.E25748@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200603171404580014.1AD3B1F8@10.0.0.252> On 3/17/2006 at 12:27 PM Fred Cisin wrote: >A 5.25" 1.2M would be the easiest, and should be almost entirely an issue >of cabling. >A 3.5" 1.4M would be tempting, but the drive would have tobe >modified/jumpered for 360RPM. ...and IIRC, either drive would need to provide "Drive Ready" signals. Many 5.25" 1.2M drives could do that with a jumper, but 1.44M 3.5" drives rarely have that capability, so you'd need to add it. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Mar 17 16:13:40 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:13:40 -0700 Subject: NCD firmware Message-ID: <441B3494.90307@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, I asked this on the REScUE list a week or so ago and belatedly realized *this* would be a better forum. So... Does anyone happen to have access to an NCD-19c/88K running firmware (i.e. boot ROM) more recent than 2.6.0? (this is displayed at the top of the screen during memory test/IPL; it is also visible from the NCD "console" once NCDware is loaded) Likewise, I am looking for boot ROMs newer than 2.6.1 for the NCD-19r (different beast). If so, I would love to get my hands on a copy of the ROMs (I can duplicate them if you are willing to loan them to me for 2 * mailing_time). I'd also be interested in new versions of the ROMs for the 14c (I'll have to see what the most recent version I have for these) Alternatively, if there is a repository on-line someplace that has these images... (?) I'd be willing to start archiving ROM images if there is a need (I have a few older versions -- though chasing down release notes for all of them may be a chore) Yeah, I know, they're all boat anchors... :> But, with a little TLC they seem to just keep humming... Thanks for any help! --don From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 16:17:56 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:17:56 -0700 Subject: NCD firmware In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:13:40 -0700. <441B3494.90307@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: In article <441B3494.90307 at DakotaCom.Net>, Don Y writes: > Yeah, I know, they're all boat anchors... :> But, with a little > TLC they seem to just keep humming... But we love boat anchors here :-). I love the key action on the RT-101 keyboards for the NCDs. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From dwight.elvey at amd.com Fri Mar 17 16:19:06 2006 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 14:19:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: NEC APC boot disks CP/M-86 and DOS Message-ID: <200603172219.OAA01728@ca2h0430.amd.com> >From: "Chuck Guzis" > >On 3/17/2006 at 12:27 PM Fred Cisin wrote: > >>A 5.25" 1.2M would be the easiest, and should be almost entirely an issue >>of cabling. >>A 3.5" 1.4M would be tempting, but the drive would have tobe >>modified/jumpered for 360RPM. > >...and IIRC, either drive would need to provide "Drive Ready" signals. >Many 5.25" 1.2M drives could do that with a jumper, but 1.44M 3.5" drives >rarely have that capability, so you'd need to add it. > >Cheers, >Chuck > Hi Unless the software had a problem with the final gap, I see no reason why one couldn't just leave it run at 300 RPM. We are not talking about the need to fill the entire disk surface, just putting an image on the disk. A long final gap shouldn't be an issue?? Dwight From sieler at allegro.com Fri Mar 17 16:25:43 2006 From: sieler at allegro.com (Stan Sieler) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 14:25:43 -0800 Subject: URGENT: Data recovery assistance needed in New Haven, CT area (cctalk) In-Reply-To: <4405D916.30802@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <441AC6E7.32762.154E0B1B@localhost> Re: > Does anyone have one we could buy, or borrow? Or leads on who to talk > to? And no, we cannot send the discs out, due to HIPAA privacy rules. > The drive would need to be used here at Yale. You might want to double check those "rules". HIPAA, for example, doesn't bar offsite backups ... which is an instance of sending discs "out". We've received some hard drives this year from at least one major HMO to do data recovery for them. It's not data until you can read it :) Stan -- Stan Sieler sieler at allegro.com www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html From drb at msu.edu Fri Mar 17 16:31:39 2006 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:31:39 -0500 Subject: NCD firmware In-Reply-To: (Your message of Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:13:40 MST.) <441B3494.90307@DakotaCom.Net> References: <441B3494.90307@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200603172231.k2HMVdIa017163@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > Does anyone happen to have access to an NCD-19c/88K running firmware > (i.e. boot ROM) more recent than 2.6.0? (this is displayed at the top > of the screen during memory test/IPL; it is also visible from the NCD > "console" once NCDware is loaded) > > Likewise, I am looking for boot ROMs newer than 2.6.1 for the NCD-19r > (different beast). > > I'd also be interested in new versions of the ROMs for the 14c (I'll > have to see what the most recent version I have for these) I don't think it has _firmware_, but it does have a lot of the host tools, so to make sure you know about it and it's in the archives: ftp://ftp.ncd.com/pub/ncd/Archive/ De From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Mar 17 16:34:26 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:34:26 -0500 Subject: SCSI LV-D Message-ID: <200603171734.26890.rtellason@blazenet.net> Got a box of SCSI drives a while back, and in there is one that's apparently 18G, but it's marked "LV-D" which from my understanding of things won't work with anything I have here. Can any of you guys use this? Ideal for me would be a trade for something roughly comparable in size... -- 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 dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Mar 17 16:50:54 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:50:54 -0700 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: <200603171734.26890.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <200603171734.26890.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <441B3D4E.1010800@DakotaCom.Net> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > Got a box of SCSI drives a while back, and in there is one that's apparently > 18G, but it's marked "LV-D" which from my understanding of things won't work > with anything I have here. Can any of you guys use this? > > Ideal for me would be a trade for something roughly comparable in size... Most likely Low Voltage Differential. Many LVD drives can also be run single-ended (either by autosensing the connection *or* with a strapping option on the drive). Without a model number, it's hard to tell. --don From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Mar 17 16:55:01 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:55:01 -0700 Subject: NCD firmware In-Reply-To: <200603172231.k2HMVdIa017163@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <441B3494.90307@DakotaCom.Net> <200603172231.k2HMVdIa017163@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <441B3E45.8050508@DakotaCom.Net> Dennis Boone wrote: > > Does anyone happen to have access to an NCD-19c/88K running firmware > > (i.e. boot ROM) more recent than 2.6.0? (this is displayed at the top > > of the screen during memory test/IPL; it is also visible from the NCD > > "console" once NCDware is loaded) > > > > Likewise, I am looking for boot ROMs newer than 2.6.1 for the NCD-19r > > (different beast). > > > > I'd also be interested in new versions of the ROMs for the 14c (I'll > > have to see what the most recent version I have for these) > > I don't think it has _firmware_, but it does have a lot of the host > tools, so to make sure you know about it and it's in the archives: > > ftp://ftp.ncd.com/pub/ncd/Archive/ Yes, been there. Nothing useful (for me :>). I think the only firmware they have posted is for some of the newer machines... --don From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 16:52:54 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:52:54 -0700 Subject: readtapes.com (was: URGENT: Data recovery assistance needed in New Haven, CT area (cctalk)) In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 17 Mar 2006 14:25:43 -0800. <441AC6E7.32762.154E0B1B@localhost> Message-ID: Speaking of data recovery, does anyone know what's up with readtapes.com? Their web site has lots of busted images now and there was no answer to an equiry email I sent off. Are they defunct? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 17:04:00 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:04:00 -0700 Subject: $189, 303.00 worth of VAX on govliquidation.com (Jacksonville, FL) In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 17 Mar 2006 14:41:21 -0700. Message-ID: > Oh yeah... opening bid is $50 :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From sieler at allegro.com Fri Mar 17 17:04:30 2006 From: sieler at allegro.com (Stan Sieler) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:04:30 -0800 Subject: "party line" for terminals? In-Reply-To: <010601c647a1$1455ec80$6800a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <441ACFFE.11068.15718C18@localhost> Re: > The HP264x terminals had something vaguely similar. You could daisychain > terminals off eachother in a bus configuration instead of the typical star > configuration (all RS232). MultiDrop I think they called it. Yes, but it was an option (a rarely seen option at that). I never saw one running. IIRC, it was a poll/select system, ala Burroughs early CRT terminals in the early 1970s. Stan -- Stan Sieler sieler at allegro.com www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html From sieler at allegro.com Fri Mar 17 17:08:25 2006 From: sieler at allegro.com (Stan Sieler) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:08:25 -0800 Subject: a few micro-A references In-Reply-To: <20060306021515.14AF819C898@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <441AD0E9.1762.15752404@localhost> Re: > The Unisys SCAMP package conhttp://freepatentsonline.com/5113500.html > appears to be a patent for it. Part of the summary of that 1989 (filing date) patent could have been directly lifted from the description of the internals of the HP 150: The first operating system is organized to act as the I/O and peripheral subsystem for the second computer system so that peripheral connectivity, operational and maintenance interfaces can function with a PC keyboard, screen and peripheral devices. The HP 150 shipped with the "first operating system" being "magic", which ran two tasks: I/O and MS-DOS :) What government institution is dedicated to the proposition that history never repeats? The Patent Office :( -- Stan Sieler sieler at allegro.com www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html From mtapley at swri.edu Fri Mar 17 17:25:02 2006 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:25:02 -0600 Subject: QNX, Useful applications In-Reply-To: <200603171516.k2HFGuWP098648@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200603171516.k2HFGuWP098648@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: All, regarding QNX, there must be a reasonable user base out there. The QNX on x86 guys have cranked more on the Distributed.net RC5-72 project than the NeXTSTEP/x86 crowd, and are still active. I also note the existence of a QNX on ARM client, which implies QNX ran on some ARM platform as well. Palm? To tie in a different thread, regarding "practical" applications for vintage computers, Distributed.net seems like a natural. It's not exactly Earth-shaking science at the moment, but it's a big problem that breaks naturally down into a lot of very small pieces, so it's something classic systems can actually practically contribute to. I would *love* to see a VMS/VAX client, and to my knowledge there are several VAXen on the net now doing not so much at any given moment. Do any of you VMS gurus have time and inclination to combine the VMS/Alpha and the NetBSD/VAX clients and let us put VMS/VAX on the charts? And of course, I don't know *why* no-one has put the MacOS 6-9 client back active. I actually have a copy of CodeWarrior, so let me know if you have time, ability, and inclination, but lack of CodeWarrior. We can work out a loan. Personally, I have inclination and CodeWarrior, but neither (really) time nor ability, though I'm trying to work on it. I don't suppose an 8-bit client is practical - I've never heard of a C++ compiler to 8-bit target - but it would be really cool to crack a block of keys on my Rainbow under CP/M-80. Sigh. Does anybody have any positive/negative experience with distributed.net that I should know about? http://www.distributed.net/ for more info. Hit "statistics", pick a project, and look for "mtapley at swri.edu" to see my meager contributions so far, or go straight to http://www.distributed.net/source/ to grab the public part of the source. -- - Mark NEW CELL PHONE NUMBER: 210-379-4635 2-way pager until end of March 2006: 888-733-0967 office is still: 210-522-6025 From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Mar 17 17:33:50 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:33:50 -0800 Subject: readtapes.com Message-ID: Speaking of data recovery, does anyone know what's up with readtapes.com? -- I haven't been able to contact John for over a month now by email or any of the phone numbers. I haven't checked to see if he's been posting anything on his RVHE support page. I assume he's buried on trying to keep his RVHE company going. From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 17:57:15 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:57:15 -0700 Subject: TU80 on govliquidation.com (Norfolk, VA) Message-ID: Erroneously labeled as an "FU-80" :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 18:01:23 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:01:23 -0700 Subject: Can you identify this EPROM programmer? Looks like an HP... Message-ID: Yes, I'm scouring through random stuff on govliquidation.com this afternoon... I spotted this item in this lot: where it is listed as "LOGIC DEV STA PRTBL" with no additional information. Located in Tobyhanna, PA. Does anyone recognize it? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Mar 17 18:12:21 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:12:21 -0700 Subject: Can you identify this EPROM programmer? Looks like an HP... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <441B5065.6090302@DakotaCom.Net> Richard wrote: > Yes, I'm scouring through random stuff on govliquidation.com this > afternoon... > > I spotted this item > in this > lot: > where it is listed as "LOGIC DEV STA PRTBL" with no additional > information. Located in Tobyhanna, PA. > > Does anyone recognize it? Looks like an HP development system. Maybe a 64000 relative? (it's not "just a programmer"; the pod on top is an emulation pod for an NSC800 -- a cross between a Z80 and an 8085) From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 18:11:03 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:11:03 -0700 Subject: Can you identify this EPROM programmer? Looks like an HP... In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:12:21 -0700. <441B5065.6090302@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: In article <441B5065.6090302 at DakotaCom.Net>, Don Y writes: > Looks like an HP development system. Maybe a 64000 relative? > (it's not "just a programmer"; the pod on top is an emulation > pod for an NSC800 -- a cross between a Z80 and an 8085) Yeah, when I saw the floppies I figured it was more than just a programmer station :-), but since they have no detailed information on it in the listing, it was hard to tell. I'm guessing it would be a steal for $50 :-). My experience with this place is that people bid on the more recent, commodity like items as well as test & measurement equipment. The rest of the oddball stuff tends to get ignored. I have wondered what they do with the stuff that doesn't sell when listed. I encourage someone within driving distance to snatch up this puppy if noone bids on it! They can take a long time to process the paperwork, but if you put up with all their government behavior, I think you can get some good deals. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From sb at thebackend.de Fri Mar 17 18:17:55 2006 From: sb at thebackend.de (=?ISO-8859-15?Q?Sebastian_Br=FCckner?=) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 01:17:55 +0100 Subject: PDP-8/L teletype interface Message-ID: <441B51B3.6000100@thebackend.de> Hello everyone! I wrote here about my PDP-8/L a long while ago already. This is my current status: All instructions seem to work (only tried the simplest form, i.e. 5001). Core memory is mostly untested. The places I used work and retain their content. Examining and depositing works. AC, PC work: I can execute small loops using jumps and conditional skips etc. So as far as I tried it everything seems to be alright. Now I wanted to revive the teletype interface to load and try more complex programs and that is where I am stuck now: The machine has the M452, M706 and M707 modules. W076 was missing so I got a W076X from Vince that does RS232 (thanks again :-) as well. I don't have a real teletype. I used this small program to try and send characters from the switch register: 0000 7200 CLA 0001 7404 OSR 0002 6046 TLS 0003 6041 TSF 0004 5002 JMP 003 0005 5000 JMP 000 The program loops like crazy but nothing happens to the serial output. If I connect a oscilloscope to the data lines of the M707 I can see the input bits change as I push the buttons on the front panel and step trough the program. The input clock is there as well (so I assume the M452 is working) but no data stream comes out of the module. Writing this I realize that I didn't check the device selector inputs. I'll do that tomorrow. I know how to operate an oscilloscope and I have some experience with electronics but I'm not very good at reading logic and I only ever spent a couple days with this computer so I need some help here. Is there anything I have to look for especially? Next I tried receiving characters. I hook my PC up to the W076X and start sending more or less random characters. They show up on the backplane side of the W076X module and on the input of the M706 but no data comes out either. The clock input is low all the time. Two of the select bits seem to be low all the time even if I execute the following program: 0000 6032 KCC 0001 6031 KSF 0002 5001 JMP 0001 0003 6036 KRB 0004 5001 JMP 0001 Actually the above program completely hangs the computer. I stays in "run" state and on address 0002 whatever key I press. That never occured before. As you see I don't know too much about this computer. Am I using the right commands at all? I started reading the documentation and schematics (it is truly amazing how complete they are!) but I am not sure what to look for - what the signals on all the different "clear"-inputs of the M706/707 have to look like for example. Any hint is apprechiated! Sebastian PS: It's been a long day so don't mind me if I don't make too much sense... From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 18:21:52 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:21:52 -0700 Subject: 12,000 lbs (23 pallets) of computer gear (!) (Hooks, TX) Message-ID: Unfortunately everything is listed out with non-descript terms and no details, but this looks like someone just upgraded their entire computer center, or shut it down. Current bid is $361 Pics: I can see at least 2 9-track tape drives in blue cabinets (IBM?) and I recognize a VAXserver 4000 style cabinet in picture 6. I wouldn't mind knowing the details on these items though: 2. 5895 589500TERMINA 4 EA H7 $89,472.24 TERMINAL COLOR GRAPHICS 3. 7025 702500COLORGR 1 EA A4 $350.00 COLOR GRAPHICS DISPLAY 13. 7025 702500LASERGR 1 EA H7 $4,745.00 LASER GRAPHICS 14. 7520 752000PENPLOT 1 EA A4 $25.90 PEN PLOTTER 15. 7520 752000PENPLOT 3 EA A4 $77.70 PEN PLOTTER 20. 7025 702500PLOTTER 1 EA F7 $399.50 PLOTTER GRAPHICS 21. 7025 7025PRINTER 1 EA H7 $2,400.00 READER/PRINTER 28. 6730 6730FILMSCANN 1 EA H7 $1,834.00 SCANNER 61. 7025 702500PRINTER 1 EA H7 $20,000.00 PRINTER PLOTTER 86. 7020 702000TERMINA 2 EA H7 $3,200.00 TERMINAL 87. 7035 703500TERMINA 1 EA H7 $1,500.00 TERMINAL 88. 7035 703500TERMINA 2 EA H7 $4,600.00 TERMINAL 93. 7021 702100WORKSTA 12 EA H7 $38,580.00 WORKSATIONS 105. 7020 702000TERMINA 1 EA H7 $15,134.00 TERMINAL Anyone on the list near Hooks, TX? Bidding ends Tuesday, you'd have to go look at it on Monday 7:30 AM - 2 PM. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 18:26:10 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:26:10 -0700 Subject: SA600 storage racks (Jacksonville, FL) Message-ID: Another piece of DEC equipment... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Mar 17 18:16:19 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 00:16:19 +0000 (GMT) Subject: "party line" for terminals? In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Mar 17, 6 01:36:45 pm Message-ID: > > then they likely use ALC > > (Airline Link Control). It's a 6-bit, bisync, polled serial protocol > > derived from some older IBM protocol. The terminals talked to a > > concentrator, which then talked to the IBM mainframes running applications > > on top of TPF. My project was to replace the concentrators with Unix > > machines (which could talk to more than just IBM mainframes), with Stallion > > Technologies providing custom serial cards that could grok ALC. > > OK, so we have a couple possibilities on comm. protocols for this puppy: > > - RS-232 (likely for the DB25 style connectors) > - RS-422/485 (possibly for the DB9 style connector) > - ALC (possibly for the DB9 style connector) [Surely yuo mean DE9 and not DB9?] I think you're comparing apples and oranges there. RS232 and RS422 specify the electical characteristics of the port (e.g. the voltage levels), they don't specify how the data should be formatted (you can send 5 bit baudot characters over an RS422 port if you want to, or use any number of synchronous protocols, or...) >From what I've read above (I'd never heard of it), ALC is a data encoding protocol. You could send that over an RS232 link, over an RS422 link, over a current loop, a TTL-level signal, whatever. So yes, you might have an RS232 port on this display, but there's no reason to assume it's going to be a normal 8 bit asynchronous interface using the ASCII character set (for pedants, I am well aware that ASCII is a 7 bit code!). > When I open up the cabinet housing and look at what kinds of chips are > wired to the connectors, what would be telltale indicators for the If you can identify the drives and receivers connected to the connectors, you should at least be able to work out the electrical protocol. 1488 (or 75188) is a common RS232 driver, 1489 (or 75189) is an RS232 receiver. For RS422, look for things like 26LS31, 26LS32 > various comm. protocols? Hrm, thinking about it, maybe it would be > easier if I posted the chip numbers and someone recognized what they > supported? Go ahead. I've got a number of comms databooks here. However, this will most likely not tell you the data protocol. There will probably be a standard serial chip which could be programed by the unit's microprocessor to do just about any sane format. And the higher-level stuff -- ALC itself -- is most likely done in firmware. Telling me there's a particualr seiral chip, microprocessor, ROM, etc will not let me work out that. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Mar 17 18:25:17 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 00:25:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Dead HP-9825A In-Reply-To: from "Tony Duell" at Mar 16, 6 11:21:06 pm Message-ID: > > PS I have the 9825A Service manual, but this simply tells you how to > > disassemble the machine. In fact the troubleshooting flowchart essentially > > tells me that anything could be at fault. > > I assume you also haev schematics from http://www.hpmuseum.net/ Some things I didn't say last night... Assuming you don't want to repair this as HP intended. After the PSUs, my next check would be the clock. It's on the CPU board (bottom board in the stack). Note that the CPU clock inputs are not at TTL levels, and that the clock is jittered a bit to reduce RFI (look at the circuit if you don't believe me!). I assume you know there are 2 separate buses in the machine, on separate ribbon cables. One goes from the CPU to the memory boards and ROM backaplane, and is multiplexed 16 bit address/data. The other goes from the CPU board to the I/O backplane, tape drive controller, and KDP (Keyboard/Display/Printer) board. It, of course, is 16 bit I/O data, 4 peripheral address lines, etc. There should certainly be activity on the memory bus (and on pins of the DRAMs, etc). I _think_ there should be some on the I/O bus too, the KDP board is pretty dumb, and I don't think it does display refresh on its own. -tony From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Fri Mar 17 18:26:33 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (compoobah at valleyimplants.com) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 18:26:33 -0600 Subject: HIPPA Message-ID: <69494ca180ee4056af20273dba764833@valleyimplants.com> HIPPA is really not that much of an issue- you just need to have a signed agreement from all contracting companies (and, for that matter, employees of the office) acknowledging that the data is confidential and protected and . . . etc. etc. etc. All medical/dental offices should have a form (the same one that they use for the janitors works). That said, I would never allow a disk to go to anyone without one of the forms signed, even if it is "unreadable". I like $.07 insurance. . . Scott Quinn From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 18:31:12 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:31:12 -0700 Subject: 7 RA-82 drives (Jacksonville, FL) Message-ID: Looks like a big DEC machine got dispersed into sellable pieces in Jacksonville, FL. 7 RA-82 drives (pictures also show a tape drive, so I think its not 7 drives, but 7 cabinets which have disk drives and tape drives in them) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 18:33:06 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:33:06 -0700 Subject: 19" expansion cabinets (VAX?) w/stuff (Jacsonville, FL) Message-ID: God knows what's inside. They list all these items as "Harris", but they appear to have DEC peripherals and stuff inside. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Fri Mar 17 18:32:28 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (compoobah at valleyimplants.com) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 18:32:28 -0600 Subject: VAX VMS Message-ID: UCX is what you want- it's in the "Layered products" license file 'ucx-ip-client' and 'ucx' are the base license files you need. I've heard on hearsay that Multinet and TCPware are much better, and Process has a free hobbyist license (www.process.com). I snagged Multinet at work and I'm going to try it out this weekend if I have time. repost: has anyone tried the VAXstation 3100 ROM patches that are supposed to allow safe usage of >1.03GB system drives? Do they work well? Scott Quinn From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Mar 17 20:21:33 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 20:21:33 Subject: Can you identify this EPROM programmer? Looks like an HP... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060317202133.32d7307a@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> That's a HP 64000 Logic Development system. Oops, on second thought I think it's actually a 64100 LDS. The 64000 had tape drives and this one has disk drives. Joe At 05:01 PM 3/17/06 -0700, you wrote: >Yes, I'm scouring through random stuff on govliquidation.com this >afternoon... > >I spotted this item > in this >lot: >where it is listed as "LOGIC DEV STA PRTBL" with no additional >information. Located in Tobyhanna, PA. > >Does anyone recognize it? >-- >"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > > From pcw at mesanet.com Fri Mar 17 19:53:26 2006 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:53:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: 19" expansion cabinets (VAX?) w/stuff (Jacsonville, FL) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 17 Mar 2006, Richard wrote: > God knows what's inside. They list all these items as "Harris", but > they appear to have DEC peripherals and stuff inside. The Numerix is probably a attached floating point array processor of some kind... Shame if it gets scrapped... > > > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > > Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 17 20:03:29 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 19:03:29 -0700 Subject: 19" expansion cabinets (VAX?) w/stuff (Jacsonville, FL) In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:53:26 -0800. Message-ID: In article , "Peter C. Wallace" writes: > On Fri, 17 Mar 2006, Richard wrote: > > > God knows what's inside. They list all these items as "Harris", but > > they appear to have DEC peripherals and stuff inside. > > The Numerix is probably a attached floating point array processor of some > kind... > > Shame if it gets scrapped... You have until Monday to bid on it :-) > > -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Mar 17 20:10:28 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 21:10:28 -0500 Subject: readtapes.com (was: URGENT: Data recovery assistance needed in New Haven, CT area (cctalk)) In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:52:54 MST." Message-ID: <200603180210.k2I2AS9g019648@mwave.heeltoe.com> Richard wrote: >Speaking of data recovery, does anyone know what's up with >readtapes.com? > >Their web site has lots of busted images now and there was no answer >to an equiry email I sent off. No, John is just like that. He's still there and reading tapes by the boat load. (and I *mean* boatload. Imagine an semi trailer full of 9-tracks...) I suspect if you really need to reach him you should call. -brad From technobug at comcast.net Fri Mar 17 20:22:53 2006 From: technobug at comcast.net (CRC) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 19:22:53 -0700 Subject: VAX Cabinet Parts Available In-Reply-To: <200603180013.k2I0D1T8004404@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200603180013.k2I0D1T8004404@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 13:32:48 -0700, Richard wrote: > In article , > CRC writes: > >> A local scrapper auctioned a VAX3500 system this last week and the >> winner asked only for the boards. [...] > > Just a reminder that its very, very helpful to post your geographical > location when you make such an offer :-). > -- I guess that one should not post when doing a yes sir, no sir, you want what? to a client... :-0 Item is in Tucson, Arizona Reference ePay auction: 8777558667 From vrs at msn.com Fri Mar 17 21:19:58 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 19:19:58 -0800 Subject: PDP-8/L teletype interface References: <441B51B3.6000100@thebackend.de> Message-ID: > So as far as I tried it everything seems to be alright. Now I wanted to > revive the teletype interface to load and try more complex programs and > that is where I am stuck now: > The machine has the M452, M706 and M707 modules. W076 was missing so I > got a W076X from Vince that does RS232 (thanks again :-) as well. I > don't have a real teletype. I used this small program to try and send > characters from the switch register: > > 0000 7200 CLA > 0001 7404 OSR > 0002 6046 TLS > 0003 6041 TSF > 0004 5002 JMP 003 > 0005 5000 JMP 000 Your program has a bug in location 4. That should be a 5003. That would explain your symptoms above (but not your symptoms below). > I know how to operate an oscilloscope and I have some experience with > electronics but I'm not very good at reading logic and I only ever spent > a couple days with this computer so I need some help here. Is there > anything I have to look for especially? IIRC, the clocks are fast pulses, with nothing like a 50% duty cycle. > Next I tried receiving characters. I hook my PC up to the W076X and > start sending more or less random characters. They show up on the > backplane side of the W076X module and on the input of the M706 but no > data comes out either. The clock input is low all the time. Two of the > select bits seem to be low all the time even if I execute the following > program: I've thought the clock was dead, when actually it just wasn't in the other state long enough for my 'scope and I to see it :-). If the serial data made it to the M706, then the W076X is doing it's part. Sounds like you'll need to debug the M706, or possibly the clocks, if they really are dead. The TTI clock is used to derive the TTO clock, so if you get output to work, you'll probably have a valid input clock. > 0000 6032 KCC > 0001 6031 KSF > 0002 5001 JMP 0001 > 0003 6036 KRB > 0004 5001 JMP 0001 Program looks OK. > Actually the above program completely hangs the computer. I stays in > "run" state and on address 0002 whatever key I press. That never occured > before. Not good. > As you see I don't know too much about this computer. Am I using the > right commands at all? I started reading the documentation and > schematics (it is truly amazing how complete they are!) but I am not > sure what to look for - what the signals on all the different > "clear"-inputs of the M706/707 have to look like for example. Any hint > is appreciated! Sounds like a good start. I'd fix and re-run the output test, and see if you get the same result. Vince From r_a_feldman at hotmail.com Fri Mar 17 21:38:11 2006 From: r_a_feldman at hotmail.com (Robert Feldman) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 21:38:11 -0600 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... Message-ID: I have Win 3.0 with Notepad, Write, and Solitaire, installed on my Poqet in under 1.2MB. Bob Message: 5 Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 13:21:59 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" Subject: Re: manually installing MSDOS... Now, there's an interesting challenge--can one get Windows (probably 3.x) to fit on a single floppy such that generic GUI functionality (640x480 video, PS/2 mouse, etc.) is preserved? Or, for that matter, could OS/2 (any version) be likewise accommodated? Cheers, Chuck From waisun.chia at gmail.com Fri Mar 17 21:46:37 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 11:46:37 +0800 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: <20060317223229.2318f9b0.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <20060316105526.45facc0c.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <00c301c64927$61bbfd20$c901a8c0@tempname> <20060317223229.2318f9b0.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: On 3/18/06, Jochen Kunz wrote: > Interresting. I did not know this. Now I remember. I have two PCI DSSI > adapters that are based on the NCR / Symbios 53C825 Wide SCSI chip. But > what I had in mind when I wrote the above was... Even more interesting is the existence of PCI-based DSSI adapters??!!! I didn't know this. Pray tell more. Pictures, specs, brand/model, etc. In the same vein, dare I ask: Is there a PCI-based UDA clone or a RQDX clone? From nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com Fri Mar 17 21:49:13 2006 From: nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com (nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 19:49:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: Adds Computers and the Tandy 10 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060318034913.36064.qmail@web81001.mail.mud.yahoo.com> There is a Tandy 10 sales flyer on my website at http://www.trailingedge.com/trs80/ Picked up that flyer at a Radio Shack back in 77-78. That's all I've ever seen on the system. David --- Paxton Hoag wrote: > I had one go through my hands in the early 1990s. > could take up to 4 > drives, 8" floppys. the one I had came with three > drives. I think it > was an 8080 and sold into the business market. > > Other than having one I don't remember much. It > could have been a > rebranded Adds terminal with it. Don't remember the > keyboard at all. > Very heavy unit. > > Paxton > Astoria, OR > USA > > On 3/17/06, Kelly Leavitt > wrote: > > OK, I'm trying to research the Tandy 10. This was > a machine built into a > > desk with 8" drives. I have not been able to find > much on it. > > > > I read somewhere that it was an Adds model 10. > Possibly has an 8080 CPU. > > Does this ring a bell with anyone? > > > > This would have been around 1978. > > > > Thanks, > > Kelly > > > > > -- > Paxton Hoag > Astoria, OR > USA > > From allain at panix.com Fri Mar 17 21:53:40 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 22:53:40 -0500 Subject: manually installing MSDOS... References: Message-ID: <029801c64a3f$8bb7a020$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> > I have Win 3.0 with Notepad, Write, and Solitaire, > installed on my Poqet in under 1.2MB. I beat myself trying to do that with a IBM PC convertible once. It would be interesting to see a file listing of the working system. The convertible had the added burden of being dual 720K, but there are plenty of other places that could use it. John A. From john3000 at cox.net Fri Mar 17 23:54:37 2006 From: john3000 at cox.net (John K.) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 00:54:37 -0500 Subject: "party line" for terminals? In-Reply-To: <441ACFFE.11068.15718C18@localhost> References: <010601c647a1$1455ec80$6800a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.2.20060318002454.02be3538@pop.east.cox.net> Sounds like the old HP "MultiPoint" terminal configuration we used for a while at George Mason University. I don't remember the exact years, but it was probably 1978, 1979, or 1980. IIRC used a Sync 9600 circuit between the devices. You put a sync card in the HP 2645 terminal instead of the async card and I think there was some external media adapter too. I remember working with an HP SE named Tom Benedict out of the Rockville, MD office to try to get our multipoint setup to work in a reliable fashion. The problem was that turning any terminal in the chain off shut down the entire chain, and a hard reset really messed it up as well. We eventually removed the sync cards from the 2645 terminals, went async, and used twisted pair to connect the HP 2645 terminals. Because of the "50 foot" limit on RS-232, we were an "unsupported configuration" because we had anywhere from 700+ feet to over 2500 feet of twisted pair between the HP 3000 Series III MUX ports and the HP 2645 terminals. When some years later we added a HP 3000 Series 64 with ATP ports we found that to log on we had to set the terminal speed to 2400 baud, log on, then issue a SPEED 960,960 and switch the speed to 9600. We did that for a couple of years until we installed a broadband cable system (IIRC I think it was Sytek). I don't know if Tom Benedict is still with HP, but at the time he was an expert on the MultiPoint technology. I'm sure he would have some interesting tales to tell. Going way beyond the "Party Line" topic, does anyone remember the Sytek system? The Sytek network used bidirectional CATV technology for the backbone and network interfaces that used two Z80 processors to connect RS-232 devices. One Z80 handled the RS-232 interfaces (you could have 1 to 8 19,200 bps RS-232 ports) and the other handled the modulation/demodulation of the RF carrier. A 68000 Unix box acted as the network control center (NCC). When you turned on a terminal and hit return you got the attention of the NCC and it gave you a menu of available devices (ones which you had permission to access ANDed with the devices [systems] which had available ports). I know the Sytek system was used at NASA, as it was through NASA that we found out about the Sytek "local area network" equipment sometime about 1979 or 1980. With the CATV bandwidth and the frequency spectrum divided up for various uses, the Sytek network allowed a dozen or so video channels, a few thousand phone calls, and several thousand 19.2 kbps terminal connections simultaneously on a single cable. Not bad for late 1970's technology. John At 2006-03-17 06:04 PM, you wrote: >Re: > > > The HP264x terminals had something vaguely similar. You could daisychain > > terminals off eachother in a bus configuration instead of the typical star > > configuration (all RS232). MultiDrop I think they called it. > >Yes, but it was an option (a rarely seen option at that). >I never saw one running. > >IIRC, it was a poll/select system, ala Burroughs early CRT terminals in >the early 1970s. > >Stan >-- >Stan Sieler >sieler at allegro.com >www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html John *** When replying to this message, please do not delete these *** *** signature lines. Otakon Katsucon HP3000-L @classiccmp.org *** *** DigitalCosplay.com JohnKorbPhoto.com JohnPKorb.com *** From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 17 23:58:52 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 21:58:52 -0800 Subject: Adds Computers and the Tandy 10 In-Reply-To: <20060318034913.36064.qmail@web81001.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060318034913.36064.qmail@web81001.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200603172158520977.1C858FD6@10.0.0.252> On 3/17/2006 at 7:49 PM nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com wrote: >There is a Tandy 10 sales flyer on my website at >http://www.trailingedge.com/trs80/ > >Picked up that flyer at a Radio Shack back in 77-78. >That's all I've ever seen on the system. That terminal certainly looks like an ADDS. I suspect that Tandy merely served as the market outlet; that they actually had nothing to do with production. Sadly, that's the story for a lot of microcomputer stuff from about this time. I call this the "We're already using an MPU in our (fill in the blank); if we just stuck a couple of disk drives and a printer on it, we'd have a comptuer system to sell" stage. For example, does anyone remember the Diablo Systems Merchant? Or the countless word processing systems like Artec that came out at around that time? The next stage was the marketing of systems by firms (Apple, Osborne, Kaypro, etc.) whose primary business was computers, not peripherals. And still, marketing was a tough nut: if you didn't already have a market presence--so you sacrificed a piece of the action to someone who had the necessary presence. Sometimes the marketing ideas were a little strange--as in the TI retail stores, or expecting that Sears could sell AT&T 6300's. The firm I was with around 1978 paid a good hunk of change to have their computer in one of those display cases at the San Francisco Airport. Much of the history of that first stage seems to have largely sunk into the primordial ooze. Cheers, Chuck From vax9000 at gmail.com Sat Mar 18 00:34:48 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 01:34:48 -0500 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: References: <20060316105526.45facc0c.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <00c301c64927$61bbfd20$c901a8c0@tempname> <20060317223229.2318f9b0.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: On 3/17/06, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > > On 3/18/06, Jochen Kunz wrote: > > Interresting. I did not know this. Now I remember. I have two PCI DSSI > > adapters that are based on the NCR / Symbios 53C825 Wide SCSI chip. But > > what I had in mind when I wrote the above was... > > Even more interesting is the existence of PCI-based DSSI adapters??!!! > I didn't know this. > Pray tell more. Pictures, specs, brand/model, etc. There was one with pictures on ebay not long ago. Actually there are two on ebay right now without picture. In the same vein, dare I ask: Is there a PCI-based UDA clone or a RQDX > clone? > > From waisun.chia at gmail.com Sat Mar 18 01:09:34 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:09:34 +0800 Subject: PCI DSSI adapters; was [Re: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive] Message-ID: So this is an official DEC product? KFPSA? Which modern PC-based *nix does this work on? Linux, *BSD? On 3/18/06, 9000 VAX wrote: > On 3/17/06, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > > > > On 3/18/06, Jochen Kunz wrote: > > > Interresting. I did not know this. Now I remember. I have two PCI DSSI > > > adapters that are based on the NCR / Symbios 53C825 Wide SCSI chip. But > > > what I had in mind when I wrote the above was... > > > > Even more interesting is the existence of PCI-based DSSI adapters??!!! > > I didn't know this. > > Pray tell more. Pictures, specs, brand/model, etc. > > > There was one with pictures on ebay not long ago. Actually there are two on > ebay right now without picture. > > > In the same vein, dare I ask: Is there a PCI-based UDA clone or a RQDX > > clone? > > > > > From vax9000 at gmail.com Sat Mar 18 02:41:57 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 03:41:57 -0500 Subject: PCI DSSI adapters; was [Re: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3/18/06, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > > So this is an official DEC product? KFPSA? > Which modern PC-based *nix does this work on? Linux, *BSD? They were made for Alpha computers, which use PCI bus, I believe. From sb at thebackend.de Sat Mar 18 03:45:11 2006 From: sb at thebackend.de (=?ISO-8859-15?Q?Sebastian_Br=FCckner?=) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 10:45:11 +0100 Subject: PDP-8/L teletype interface In-Reply-To: References: <441B51B3.6000100@thebackend.de> Message-ID: <441BD6A7.4000108@thebackend.de> vrs schrieb: >>I know how to operate an oscilloscope and I have some experience with >>electronics but I'm not very good at reading logic and I only ever spent >>a couple days with this computer so I need some help here. Is there >>anything I have to look for especially? > > IIRC, the clocks are fast pulses, with nothing like a 50% duty cycle. I see. I will look again. The baud rate clock coming from the M452 has a 50% duty cycle so I looked for more (much faster) similar signals. Bad idea. I got a much bigger problem now though: When I tried the programs again I realized that running progams doen't work any more at all! I can single step fine but whenever I press "run" the front panel locks up and nothing more happens. Sebastian From vrs at msn.com Sat Mar 18 09:34:19 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 07:34:19 -0800 Subject: PDP-8/L teletype interface References: <441B51B3.6000100@thebackend.de> <441BD6A7.4000108@thebackend.de> Message-ID: > I see. I will look again. The baud rate clock coming from the M452 has a > 50% duty cycle so I looked for more (much faster) similar signals. Bad idea. > > I got a much bigger problem now though: When I tried the programs again > I realized that running progams doen't work any more at all! > I can single step fine but whenever I press "run" the front panel locks > up and nothing more happens. Taking a guess, that sounds like a problem with the timing chain. (The front panel manual timing generator may be working, but not the regular timing chain?) I'd look at the delay lines that make up the chain, and see that they are working. Hope that helps! Vince From pat at computer-refuge.org Sat Mar 18 10:12:20 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 11:12:20 -0500 Subject: PCI DSSI adapters; was [Re: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060318161220.GA20178@ned.cc.purdue.edu> On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 03:41:57AM -0500, 9000 VAX wrote: > On 3/18/06, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > > > > So this is an official DEC product? KFPSA? > > Which modern PC-based *nix does this work on? Linux, *BSD? > > > > They were made for Alpha computers, which use PCI bus, I believe. Of course, they're PCI, that's right in the subject. But what OS has drivers for these things? I guess VMS probably does, and maybe Tru64... anything else? Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pcw at mesanet.com Sat Mar 18 10:19:09 2006 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 08:19:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: 19" expansion cabinets (VAX?) w/stuff (Jacsonville, FL) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 17 Mar 2006, Richard wrote: > > In article , > "Peter C. Wallace" writes: > >> On Fri, 17 Mar 2006, Richard wrote: >> >>> God knows what's inside. They list all these items as "Harris", but >>> they appear to have DEC peripherals and stuff inside. >> >> The Numerix is probably a attached floating point array processor of some >> kind... >> >> Shame if it gets scrapped... > > You have until Monday to bid on it :-) > Shipping to California might be a tad on the high side... >>> > > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > > Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics From legalize at xmission.com Sat Mar 18 12:39:10 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 11:39:10 -0700 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 18 Mar 2006 01:34:48 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "9000 VAX" writes: > There was one with pictures on ebay not long ago. Actually there are two on > ebay right now without picture. Speaking of the two on ebay, that seller has (what seems to me to be) very high prices on their items. I've had their stuff on a watch list for months and it never sells. Does anyone buy stuff from them? Their descriptions are nothing more than part numbers, they rarely have photos and the prices seem high. (They also seem determined to give me the impression that other people sell similar parts that are not "genuine parts".) Has anyone ever purchased anything from them? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Sat Mar 18 12:44:20 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 11:44:20 -0700 Subject: "party line" for terminals? In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 18 Mar 2006 00:54:37 -0500. <5.0.0.25.2.20060318002454.02be3538@pop.east.cox.net> Message-ID: In article <5.0.0.25.2.20060318002454.02be3538 at pop.east.cox.net>, "John K." writes: > Going way beyond the "Party Line" topic, does anyone remember the Sytek > system? The Sytek network used bidirectional CATV technology for the > backbone and network interfaces that used two Z80 processors to connect > RS-232 devices. One Z80 handled the RS-232 interfaces (you could have 1 to > 8 19,200 bps RS-232 ports) and the other handled the > modulation/demodulation of the RF carrier. A 68000 Unix box acted as the > network control center (NCC). When you turned on a terminal and hit return > you got the attention of the NCC and it gave you a menu of available > devices (ones which you had permission to access ANDed with the devices > [systems] which had available ports). I know the Sytek system was used at > NASA, as it was through NASA that we found out about the Sytek "local area > network" equipment sometime about 1979 or 1980. With the CATV bandwidth > and the frequency spectrum divided up for various uses, the Sytek network > allowed a dozen or so video channels, a few thousand phone calls, and > several thousand 19.2 kbps terminal connections simultaneously on a single > cable. Not bad for late 1970's technology. UDel had something similar at the same time, although it was locally referred to as the "port selector". I have a feeling it was a PDP-11 or other minicomputer locally configured with software to do the connection. Local serial terminals would connect to a remote machine by pressing digit, so 4 connected you to a PDP-11/70 running RSTS/E while 3 connected you to the Burroughs B6700, etc. I remember at least the following machines being connected: - PDP-11/70 running unix - PDP-11/70 running RSTS/E - DECsystem-10 running TOPS-10 - B6700 running whatever ran on the Burroughs :-) - HP3000 with BASIC front end I think there may have been one or two other machines that I never used. The machines themselves were located in a secure computing center building across town, so there was some sort of network between the terminal building and the computer center. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Sat Mar 18 12:45:55 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 11:45:55 -0700 Subject: 19" expansion cabinets (VAX?) w/stuff (Jacsonville, FL) In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 18 Mar 2006 08:19:09 -0800. Message-ID: In article , "Peter C. Wallace" writes: > On Fri, 17 Mar 2006, Richard wrote: > > > > In article , > > "Peter C. Wallace" writes: > > > >> On Fri, 17 Mar 2006, Richard wrote: > >> > >>> God knows what's inside. They list all these items as "Harris", but > >>> they appear to have DEC peripherals and stuff inside. > >> > >> The Numerix is probably a attached floating point array processor of some > >> kind... > >> > >> Shame if it gets scrapped... > > > > You have until Monday to bid on it :-) > > Shipping to California might be a tad on the high side... But still less than if you tried to buy one of these "NOS" :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Mar 18 12:53:24 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 10:53:24 -0800 Subject: PCI DSSI adapters; was [Re: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive] In-Reply-To: <20060318161220.GA20178@ned.cc.purdue.edu> References: <20060318161220.GA20178@ned.cc.purdue.edu> Message-ID: At 11:12 AM -0500 3/18/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 03:41:57AM -0500, 9000 VAX wrote: >> On 3/18/06, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: >> > >> > So this is an official DEC product? KFPSA? >> > Which modern PC-based *nix does this work on? Linux, *BSD? >> >> >> >> They were made for Alpha computers, which use PCI bus, I believe. > >Of course, they're PCI, that's right in the subject. But what >OS has drivers for these things? > >I guess VMS probably does, and maybe Tru64... anything else? I'm guessing that the only other OS that *might* support them would be NetBSD, though that seems a little doubtful. I think this is the first I've ever heard of a PCI DSSI controller, and I'm a little surprised that such a thing exists. The other odd-ball one would be the PCI CI controller, the thing is, that a CI controller makes far more sense. All DSSI talks to is a few hard drives, and tape drives. I don't think it can be used as a cluster interface (if it did the controller would make sense), so why bother. 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 vrs at msn.com Sat Mar 18 13:03:16 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 11:03:16 -0800 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive References: Message-ID: > Speaking of the two on ebay, that seller has (what seems to me to be) > very high prices on their items. I've had their stuff on a watch list > for months and it never sells. Does anyone buy stuff from them? > Their descriptions are nothing more than part numbers, they rarely > have photos and the prices seem high. (They also seem determined to > give me the impression that other people sell similar parts that are > not "genuine parts".) Has anyone ever purchased anything from them? Not me. Another example of why I wish eBay would let buyers filter out certain sellers :-). These guys have become a significant fraction of my "false positives" when I search eBay. I don't know if their business plan is working for them, or not. I imagine a lot of similar stock sits around in "call for price" stores for months at a time. I assume this is one of those, who is trying out online sales. (If I have to call them, I don't consider it an online sale.) Vince From rtellason at blazenet.net Sat Mar 18 13:11:13 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 14:11:13 -0500 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: <441B3D4E.1010800@DakotaCom.Net> References: <200603171734.26890.rtellason@blazenet.net> <441B3D4E.1010800@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200603181411.13168.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 17 March 2006 05:50 pm, Don Y wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > Got a box of SCSI drives a while back, and in there is one that's > > apparently 18G, but it's marked "LV-D" which from my understanding of > > things won't work with anything I have here. Can any of you guys use > > this? > > > > Ideal for me would be a trade for something roughly comparable in size... > > Most likely Low Voltage Differential. What I was thinking... > Many LVD drives can also be run single-ended (either by autosensing > the connection *or* with a strapping option on the drive). > Without a model number, it's hard to tell. I don't know why (and can't seem to lay hands on the book I was using for reference in this) I assumed that it couldn't be used single-ended. The model is IBM DNES-318350 E182115 F, and yeah, it does say "LVD/SE" on there. :-0 -- 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 jfoust at threedee.com Sat Mar 18 13:06:42 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 13:06:42 -0600 Subject: QNX, Useful applications In-Reply-To: References: <200603171516.k2HFGuWP098648@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060318125943.047ca140@mail> At 05:25 PM 3/17/2006, you wrote: > To tie in a different thread, regarding "practical" applications for vintage computers, Distributed.net seems like a natural. It's not exactly Earth-shaking science at the moment, but it's a big problem that breaks naturally down into a lot of very small pieces, so it's something classic systems can actually practically contribute to. I think it comes down to the cost of electricity. That's really what you're donating to the project. If you want to make the most cost-effective contribution, use contemporary hardware that has more horsepower at lower power consumption. For that matter, if you want to preserve your old hardware, I'm not convinced that leaving it on 7/24 is the best approach. I tend to run it on the contemporary hardware that I know will be left on. Still, more than once I've shocked myself by examining the performance graph and wondering what's sucking 100% of the CPU. Even today's hardware will run consume extra power and run hotter if you're pushing the CPU. - John From mcesari at comcast.net Sat Mar 18 13:20:58 2006 From: mcesari at comcast.net (Mike Cesari) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 12:20:58 -0700 Subject: PCI DSSI adapters; was [Re: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive] In-Reply-To: References: <20060318161220.GA20178@ned.cc.purdue.edu> Message-ID: <985D8B4F-B893-411D-A7DB-0BAC80E464F5@comcast.net> On Mar 18, 2006, at 11:53 AM, Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 11:12 AM -0500 3/18/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >> On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 03:41:57AM -0500, 9000 VAX wrote: >>> On 3/18/06, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: >>> > >>> > So this is an official DEC product? KFPSA? >>> > Which modern PC-based *nix does this work on? Linux, *BSD? >>> >>> >>> >>> They were made for Alpha computers, which use PCI bus, I believe. >> >> Of course, they're PCI, that's right in the subject. But what >> OS has drivers for these things? >> >> I guess VMS probably does, and maybe Tru64... anything else? > > I'm guessing that the only other OS that *might* support them would > be NetBSD, though that seems a little doubtful. > > I think this is the first I've ever heard of a PCI DSSI controller, > and I'm a little surprised that such a thing exists. The other odd- > ball one would be the PCI CI controller, the thing is, that a CI > controller makes far more sense. All DSSI talks to is a few hard > drives, and tape drives. I don't think it can be used as a cluster > interface (if it did the controller would make sense), so why bother. > > Zane PCI to CI interface is called CIPCA-BA. Here: http://h18002.www1.hp.com/alphaserver/options/asDS25/asds25_%20%20- cipca-ba.html Mike From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Mar 18 13:58:39 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 13:58:39 -0600 Subject: How to open 5155? Message-ID: <441C666F.9080306@oldskool.org> I must be a dolt, but I can't seem to figure out how to open up my IBM 5155 Portable. How do I crack this thing open without damaging something? I want to add some cards to it (including a hard drive which is going to be tricky since it doesn't look like there's a lot of room in there) -- 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 legalize at xmission.com Sat Mar 18 14:01:33 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 13:01:33 -0700 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 18 Mar 2006 11:03:16 -0800. <02a001c64abe$9d525c60$6700a8c0@vrs> Message-ID: In article <02a001c64abe$9d525c60$6700a8c0 at vrs>, "vrs" writes: > [...] Has anyone ever purchased anything from them? > > Not me. Another example of why I wish eBay would let buyers filter out > certain sellers :-). These guys have become a significant fraction of > my "false positives" when I search eBay. I agree. This seller comes up on several of my searches based on them adding new items to their online store. However, I can always spot them because its things like "VT100 main board, untested, $500". It would be better if they at least offered a "make best offer" option on their items, but they are all buy-it-now with really high prices. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From pat at computer-refuge.org Sat Mar 18 14:11:58 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:11:58 -0500 Subject: PCI DSSI adapters; was [Re: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive] In-Reply-To: References: <20060318161220.GA20178@ned.cc.purdue.edu> Message-ID: <20060318201158.GA9401@ned.cc.purdue.edu> On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 10:53:24AM -0800, Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 11:12 AM -0500 3/18/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > >On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 03:41:57AM -0500, 9000 VAX wrote: > >> On 3/18/06, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > >> > > >> > So this is an official DEC product? KFPSA? > >> > Which modern PC-based *nix does this work on? Linux, *BSD? > >> > >> > >> > >> They were made for Alpha computers, which use PCI bus, I believe. > > > >Of course, they're PCI, that's right in the subject. But what > >OS has drivers for these things? > > > >I guess VMS probably does, and maybe Tru64... anything else? > > I'm guessing that the only other OS that *might* support them would > be NetBSD, though that seems a little doubtful. > > I think this is the first I've ever heard of a PCI DSSI controller, > and I'm a little surprised that such a thing exists. The other > odd-ball one would be the PCI CI controller, the thing is, that a CI > controller makes far more sense. All DSSI talks to is a few hard > drives, and tape drives. I don't think it can be used as a cluster > interface (if it did the controller would make sense), so why bother. Sure it was, or at least the installation manuals Digital had for MicroVAXes with DSSI described how to cluster pairs of VAXes with it, either for the MicroVAX 3x00 QBUS machines that had DSSI on their CPU board, or VAX 4000/[2-7]00's Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ggs at shiresoft.com Sat Mar 18 14:51:03 2006 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 12:51:03 -0800 Subject: KM11 replica Message-ID: <1142715063.7699.6.camel@linux.site> I just wanted to let folks know that in addition to the KM11 replica, I now have several accessories available for it. They are a "light mask" and a set of 8 overlays. More information is available on my web site at http://www.shiresoft.com/products. For anyone who has previously purchased a KM11 from me and wants to "upgrade" to the "Delux" version, please contact me about pricing. -- TTFN - Guy From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Sat Mar 18 14:32:07 2006 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore S Bekkedal) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 21:32:07 +0100 Subject: Awesome ARPAnet documentary Message-ID: <1142713927.5712.4.camel@fortran.babel> Was surfing the web when I came across this documentary on ARPAnet - features some of the founders, including Davies, Licklider, Heart, and Khan. http://xrl.us/kg7y is a redirect to the download - it's on Google Video - this is an AVI file. Cute sightings include a PDP-10, and several seconds of a PDP-10 doing what appears to be a host list dump, with machines like MIT-AI and MIT-MULTICS appearing. If it was alphabetical, and all-inclusive, this documentary was made before 1973, as the NORSAR TIP wasn't on the list. -toresbe :) From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 18 16:30:10 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 22:30:10 +0000 (GMT) Subject: How to open 5155? In-Reply-To: <441C666F.9080306@oldskool.org> from "Jim Leonard" at Mar 18, 6 01:58:39 pm Message-ID: > > I must be a dolt, but I can't seem to figure out how to open up my IBM > 5155 Portable. How do I crack this thing open without damaging Remove the keyboard completely (that is, open it up as though you were going to use the computer, then press in the hings from the outside and take it off altogheter. Undo the 6 screws on the front of the machine (2 rows of 3, pretty obvious when you look at it). Put the machine screen-side down and lift the case up and off. Now put the machine down flat again. On most American units, there's a metal shield over the mainboard/expansion board slots. It's held on by 3 (IIRC) screws, at least one of which also holds an expansion board in place. Take these out, lift off the sheild. > something? I want to add some cards to it (including a hard drive which > is going to be tricky since it doesn't look like there's a lot of room > in there) It's very tight!. It is a nromal XT mainboard, but slot 8 is unusable (there's very little space for it, and it needs a 'special' card anyway, like slot 8 on all IBM XT,s. The async card won't fit!). Slot 1 is taken up by the CGA card, slot 3 by the floppy controller. Slot 2 is a full-length slot, slots 4-7 are short slots, I think you can fit a serial or parallel card into those. The official way to add a hard disk is to put an expansion unit card into slot 2 (the only slot it will go in) and put the hard disk and controller in the expansion unit (5161). Rather spoils the point of having a 'portable'... You can put a half-helght hard drive in one of the floppy bays, get a controller card into whichever slot it will go in, and cable it up. My 5155 came like that (I bought it second-hand), I returned it to the 'stock' configuration of 2 floppies (even got a real IBM floppy drive...) One thing that is worth doing is the 640K mod. Being a normal XT motherboard, you can put 41256s in banks 0 and 1, 4164s in banks 2 and 3, a 74S158 (or 74F158) in the empty DIL socket at the front of the board, and solder a jumper between pads E1 and E2. Set the DIP swtiches for 256K (really, all 4 banks used), and you dnn't need any memory expansion cards... -tony From williams.dan at gmail.com Sat Mar 18 17:08:12 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 23:08:12 +0000 Subject: PCI DSSI adapters; was [Re: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive] In-Reply-To: <20060318201158.GA9401@ned.cc.purdue.edu> References: <20060318161220.GA20178@ned.cc.purdue.edu> <20060318201158.GA9401@ned.cc.purdue.edu> Message-ID: <26c11a640603181508w430c966cr@mail.gmail.com> On 18/03/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 10:53:24AM -0800, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > At 11:12 AM -0500 3/18/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > >On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 03:41:57AM -0500, 9000 VAX wrote: > > >> On 3/18/06, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > > >> > > > >> > So this is an official DEC product? KFPSA? > > >> > Which modern PC-based *nix does this work on? Linux, *BSD? > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> They were made for Alpha computers, which use PCI bus, I believe. > > > > > >Of course, they're PCI, that's right in the subject. But what > > >OS has drivers for these things? > > > > > >I guess VMS probably does, and maybe Tru64... anything else? > > > > I'm guessing that the only other OS that *might* support them would > > be NetBSD, though that seems a little doubtful. > > > > I think this is the first I've ever heard of a PCI DSSI controller, > > and I'm a little surprised that such a thing exists. The other > > odd-ball one would be the PCI CI controller, the thing is, that a CI > > controller makes far more sense. All DSSI talks to is a few hard > > drives, and tape drives. I don't think it can be used as a cluster > > interface (if it did the controller would make sense), so why bother. > > Sure it was, or at least the installation manuals Digital had for > MicroVAXes with DSSI described how to cluster pairs of VAXes with it, > either for the MicroVAX 3x00 QBUS machines that had DSSI on their CPU > board, or VAX 4000/[2-7]00's > > Pat > -- > Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ > The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org > I have had two Vax 4000's clustered with dssi, they can also share drives a lot quicker this way. I would guess that the pci dssi was for people that where upgrading machines and didn't want to invest in upgrading drives as well. Dan From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Mar 18 18:31:43 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (compoobah at valleyimplants.com) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 18:31:43 -0600 Subject: PCI DSSI adapters; was [Re: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive] Message-ID: <1dccae813519434891fd2208f91f2f71@valleyimplants.com> DEC DSSI VMScluster Installation and Troubleshooting Guide (EK-410AB-MG. D01) talks about all the different ways to cluster AXPs and VAXen using DSSI (but doesn't cover PCI, only EISA + proprietary DSSA adaptors). Evidently, DSSI clusters were used often enough. Seems that by this date, they were implemented mostly with HSDs rather than DSSI drives. From micheladam at theedge.ca Sat Mar 18 18:59:26 2006 From: micheladam at theedge.ca (micheladam at theedge.ca) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 17:59:26 -0700 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: vrs Date: Saturday, March 18, 2006 12:03 pm Subject: Re: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive > > Speaking of the two on ebay, that seller has (what seems to me > to be) > > very high prices on their items. I've had their stuff on a > watch list > > for months and it never sells. Does anyone buy stuff from them? > > Their descriptions are nothing more than part numbers, they rarely > > have photos and the prices seem high. (They also seem > determined to > > give me the impression that other people sell similar parts that are > > not "genuine parts".) Has anyone ever purchased anything from them? > > Not me. Another example of why I wish eBay would let buyers > filter out > certain sellers :-). These guys have become a significant > fraction of > my "false positives" when I search eBay. > > I don't know if their business plan is working for them, or not. > I imagine > a lot of similar stock sits around in "call for price" stores for > months at > a time. I assume this is one of those, who is trying out online > sales.(If I have to call them, I don't consider it an online sale.) > > Vince > > Ebay does let you exclude sellers: Ebay main page> Advanced Search> Advanced search (which is the 'Find Item' page), and then you can exclude or include up to 10 sellers Michel From williams.dan at gmail.com Sat Mar 18 19:30:07 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 01:30:07 +0000 Subject: QNX, Useful applications In-Reply-To: References: <200603171516.k2HFGuWP098648@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <26c11a640603181730m5ebb4c11o@mail.gmail.com> > > I would *love* to see a VMS/VAX client, and to my knowledge > there are several VAXen on the net now doing not so much at any given > moment. Do any of you VMS gurus have time and inclination to combine > the VMS/Alpha and the NetBSD/VAX clients and let us put VMS/VAX on > the charts? I don't know if it's for the same reason but seti never had a Vax client because of a lack of iee floating point (from the faq). Dan From frustum at pacbell.net Sat Mar 18 19:52:41 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 19:52:41 -0600 Subject: IBM 3990 Storage Controllers, Dallas, TX $100 Message-ID: <441CB969.6050406@pacbell.net> Since I know the list has a number of collectors of IBM big iron, here is a link to an auction for *five* IBM 3990 storage controller cabinets. I know nothing about such equipment. From the picture, I can't tell if the unit has the optional ice maker and cold water dispenser. https://www.shattuck.com/auction/itemdetail.aspx?itemid=1949 Auction ends 3/23/2006. Part of the text says, in part: Removal by appointment only. Removal must be completed by no later than 3 days after close of auction. Items remaining beyond this time will be forfeited. Pick-up times are 9 to noon, and 1 to 3:30pm, Monday through Friday. Removal: Buyer is responsible for all dismantling, rigging, crating, loading: hauling at own risk and expense. THE AUCTIONEERS DO NOT FURNISH PERSONNEL OR EQUIPMENT FOR LOADING! From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Mar 18 20:04:59 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 20:04:59 -0600 Subject: How to open 5155? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <441CBC4B.7010700@oldskool.org> Tony Duell wrote: > Undo the 6 screws on the front of the machine (2 > rows of 3, pretty obvious when you look at it). Not if you've never taken off the keyboard before (/me smacks forehead) > Slot 2 is a > full-length slot Looks like my last remaining Plus Hardcard 20 is going to find a home (hope it still works). Or, I could try to find an IDE adapter and then a CF-to-IDE adapter on top of that... > One thing that is worth doing is the 640K mod. Being a normal XT > motherboard, you can put 41256s in banks 0 and 1, 4164s in banks 2 and 3, > a 74S158 (or 74F158) in the empty DIL socket at the front of the board, > and solder a jumper between pads E1 and E2. Set the DIP swtiches for 256K > (really, all 4 banks used), and you dnn't need any memory expansion cards... Good to know, thanks! You're always a help. -- 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 rborsuk at colourfull.com Sat Mar 18 21:56:44 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 22:56:44 -0500 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: <200603181411.13168.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <200603171734.26890.rtellason@blazenet.net> <441B3D4E.1010800@DakotaCom.Net> <200603181411.13168.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: I have a bunch of these drives and I use them in my SGI systems. I've never been able to find a controller that let's me use them in a PC. If you find one that works, I would appreciate hearing about. Thanks Rob On Mar 18, 2006, at 2:11 PM, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Friday 17 March 2006 05:50 pm, Don Y wrote: >> Roy J. Tellason wrote: >>> Got a box of SCSI drives a while back, and in there is one that's >>> apparently 18G, but it's marked "LV-D" which from my >>> understanding of >>> things won't work with anything I have here. Can any of you guys >>> use >>> this? >>> >>> Ideal for me would be a trade for something roughly comparable in >>> size... >> >> Most likely Low Voltage Differential. > > What I was thinking... > >> Many LVD drives can also be run single-ended (either by autosensing >> the connection *or* with a strapping option on the drive). >> Without a model number, it's hard to tell. > > I don't know why (and can't seem to lay hands on the book I was > using for > reference in this) I assumed that it couldn't be used single- > ended. The > model is IBM DNES-318350 E182115 F, and yeah, it does say "LVD/ > SE" on > there. :-0 > > -- > 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 Sat Mar 18 22:01:49 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 23:01:49 -0500 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: References: <200603171734.26890.rtellason@blazenet.net> <441B3D4E.1010800@DakotaCom.Net> <200603181411.13168.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <20060319040149.GC23112@ned.cc.purdue.edu> On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 10:56:44PM -0500, Robert Borsuk wrote: > I have a bunch of these drives and I use them in my SGI systems. > I've never been able to find a controller that let's me use them in a > PC. If you find one that works, I would appreciate hearing about. They work great with an Adaptec 2940(UW/U2W), Symbios 53c8xx controllers, and everything else I've tried in a PC. You might need a good cable though (may need to have a proper active terminator at the end). Pat > >>Many LVD drives can also be run single-ended (either by autosensing > >>the connection *or* with a strapping option on the drive). > >>Without a model number, it's hard to tell. > > On Mar 18, 2006, at 2:11 PM, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > > >I don't know why (and can't seem to lay hands on the book I was > >using for > >reference in this) I assumed that it couldn't be used single- > >ended. The > >model is IBM DNES-318350 E182115 F, and yeah, it does say "LVD/ > >SE" on > >there. :-0 -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From waisun.chia at gmail.com Sat Mar 18 22:25:06 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 12:25:06 +0800 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3/19/06, vrs wrote: > Not me. Another example of why I wish eBay would let buyers filter out > certain sellers :-). These guys have become a significant fraction of > my "false positives" when I search eBay. Tell me about it! Why, the other day I just said "Enough is enough"! I promptly sat down and had to spent some time just to figure out how to filter a particular seller from your eBay search... Hey it works! Now I am "it_equipment_xpress"-free!!! :-) From news at computercollector.com Sat Mar 18 23:01:28 2006 From: news at computercollector.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 00:01:28 -0500 Subject: Here's a list of VCF East exhibitors -- it's sold out now. In-Reply-To: <000201c646de$77459250$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <003501c64b12$2e932e90$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Hi folks, Today we found out that an interior wall of the VCF East venue is being torn down, which means we suddenly have room for a few more exhibitors. So, if you were undecided about exhibiting, then here's a great opportunity to dive in! - Evan -----Original Message----- From: 'Computer Collector Newsletter' [mailto:news at computercollector.com] Sent: Monday, March 13, 2006 3:41 PM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: Here's a list of VCF East exhibitors -- it's sold out now. As of this morning, there are no more booths available for VCF East 3.0. We'll start a waiting list though if anyone still wants to exhibit. Obviously, questions about exhibiting and such should NOT be directed to this list, but rather to me off-list. The exhibitors are: 1. The Corestore (IBM minis): Mike Ross 2. The Warpstock OS/2 Museum: Mark Dodel 3. PDP-8/e with RK05 running OS/8: Jeffrey Katz 4. TRS-80 timeline: Kelly Leavitt 5. The Atari Museum: Curt Vendel 6. Early laptops / portables: Evan Koblentz (non-judged, obviously) 7. The Mothership Exhibit (Apple 30th anniversary): Jim O'Brien 8. Canon Cat - What the Mac Might Have Been: Andrew Molloy 9. Import Japanese Games & Computers from the 80s: Carlson Stevens 10. Ohio Scientific desktops: Bill Sudbrink 11. PDP-8: David Gesswein 12. NASA Apollo Guidance Computer: Frank O'Brien 13. Briel Computers AltairPC: Vince Briel 14. (to be determined): Andy Meyer 15. KIM-1 and friends: Jack Rubin 16. Commodore B Series Computer Lab: Bill Degnan The five guest speakers are: 1. Steve Lukasik (ARPA in the 70s) 2. David Ahl (Creative Computing mag) 3. Ray Holt (early microprocessor work) 4. Ray Borrill (50 years in computers) 5. Sol Libes (Origins of personal computers) The basic info for public attendees: - When: Saturday, May 13, 9:30AM-6:00PM - Where: Infoage Learning Center (2201 Marconi Rd.), Wall Township (a.k.a. Belmar), N.J., USA, North America, Earth. - Cost: $10 for ages 14+, $7 for ages 13 and under - Parking: free - If the event is a huge success: thank Evan :) - If the event is a huge failure: blame Sellam :) http://www.vintage.org/2006/east/index.php From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com Sun Mar 19 00:35:09 2006 From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 22:35:09 -0800 Subject: S-100 Extender available Message-ID: <200603182235090451.38991542@192.168.42.129> For those who may need one: I've placed a Vector brand S-100 extender board up for grabs on That Auction Service Which Must Not Be Named. A seller search on 'bftbell' should turn it up. Happy hunting. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 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 ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Mar 19 02:00:11 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 21:00:11 +1300 Subject: KM11 replica In-Reply-To: <1142715063.7699.6.camel@linux.site> References: <1142715063.7699.6.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: On 3/19/06, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > I just wanted to let folks know that in addition to the KM11 replica, I > now have several accessories available for it. They are a "light mask" > and a set of 8 overlays. More information is available on my web site > at http://www.shiresoft.com/products. Nice overlays. I think I'll have to get the full set. From looking at them, it seems that I'll need the double set (for my 11/05). What I really need a KM11 for is restoring an RK11C that hasn't been powered on since 1983. I'm not even sure it has a full set of cards, and it spent a little too much time in a basement so I'm even concerned about backplane oxidation/corrosion. From ploopster at gmail.com Sun Mar 19 02:30:47 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 03:30:47 -0500 Subject: IBM 3990 Storage Controllers, Dallas, TX $100 In-Reply-To: <441CB969.6050406@pacbell.net> References: <441CB969.6050406@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <441D16B7.4040702@gmail.com> Jim Battle wrote: > Since I know the list has a number of collectors of IBM big iron, here > is a link to an auction for *five* IBM 3990 storage controller cabinets. > I know nothing about such equipment. From the picture, I can't tell if > the unit has the optional ice maker and cold water dispenser. > > https://www.shattuck.com/auction/itemdetail.aspx?itemid=1949 > > Auction ends 3/23/2006. Part of the text says, in part: > > Removal by appointment only. Removal must be completed by no later than > 3 days after close of auction. Items remaining beyond this time will be > forfeited. Pick-up times are 9 to noon, and 1 to 3:30pm, Monday through > Friday. > > Removal: Buyer is responsible for all dismantling, rigging, crating, > loading: hauling at own risk and expense. THE AUCTIONEERS DO NOT FURNISH > PERSONNEL OR EQUIPMENT FOR LOADING! Wow! Holy crap! It's not so much the humongous number of disk controllers, it's that I doubt I'd ever have enough room or floor-load capacity to have that much disk! Peace... Sridhar From bert at brothom.nl Sun Mar 19 07:13:18 2006 From: bert at brothom.nl (Bert Thomas) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 14:13:18 +0100 Subject: Awesome ARPAnet documentary In-Reply-To: <1142713927.5712.4.camel@fortran.babel> References: <1142713927.5712.4.camel@fortran.babel> Message-ID: <441D58EE.2000702@brothom.nl> Tore S Bekkedal wrote: > Was surfing the web when I came across this documentary on ARPAnet - > features some of the founders, including Davies, Licklider, Heart, and > Khan. > > http://xrl.us/kg7y is a redirect to the download - it's on Google Video > - this is an AVI file. > Any idea why I can't watch it using media player? Is this a trivial missing codec or any other suggestion? I would love to watch it! From kenziem at sympatico.ca Sun Mar 19 08:21:23 2006 From: kenziem at sympatico.ca (Mike) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 09:21:23 -0500 Subject: Thunderscan Message-ID: <200603190921.23855.kenziem@sympatico.ca> Just picked up an interesting piece of hardware. It's a Thunderscan, The working end replaces the ribbon cartridge in an Imagewriter, The page to be scanned is fed in to the printer and the optical sensor then scans the page. It came with a 512 Mac with the demo tape, and reset clip, and floppies still in the box. It powers up OK, but after a while goes blank, a tap to the side restores the screen. Has anyone else seen a thunderscan? -- Open Source Weekend http://www.osw.ca From legalize at xmission.com Sun Mar 19 08:57:17 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 07:57:17 -0700 Subject: IBM 3990 Storage Controllers, Dallas, TX $100 In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 19 Mar 2006 03:30:47 -0500. <441D16B7.4040702@gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <441D16B7.4040702 at gmail.com>, Sridhar Ayengar writes: > Wow! Holy crap! [...] I get the feeling that anything which makes Sridhar say "Holy Crap!" must be one big honking piece of iron :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Sun Mar 19 08:58:57 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 07:58:57 -0700 Subject: Thunderscan In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 19 Mar 2006 09:21:23 -0500. <200603190921.23855.kenziem@sympatico.ca> Message-ID: In article <200603190921.23855.kenziem at sympatico.ca>, Mike writes: > Has anyone else seen a thunderscan? Not in person, but I remember when they were introduced and I thought it a novel alternative to the expensive scanners being sold at the time. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From James at jdfogg.com Sun Mar 19 08:59:48 2006 From: James at jdfogg.com (James Fogg) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 09:59:48 -0500 Subject: Thunderscan Message-ID: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A0E5D64@sbs.jdfogg.com> > Has anyone else seen a thunderscan? Yeah, when they were new. The college newspaper I published on a Mac owned one. They were very popular as an inexpensive scanner solution. Back in the day anything that was "Mac compatible" was more expensive than the PC model, and scanners were horribly expensive to begin with. The Imagewriter provided all the transport mechanics needed and allowed for a less expensive scanning option when paired with the Thunderscan. The image quality wasn't as good as a real desktop scanner, as I recall. From rborsuk at colourfull.com Sun Mar 19 09:55:03 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 10:55:03 -0500 Subject: Thunderscan In-Reply-To: <200603190921.23855.kenziem@sympatico.ca> References: <200603190921.23855.kenziem@sympatico.ca> Message-ID: <8BEA6004-CD78-4EB5-8C35-3D59DFC74B2F@colourfull.com> This is the first I've heard of the Thunderscan. Sounds like a rip off a product I designed for the Commodore 64 umpteen years ago, called OptiScan. The unit used fiber optic cable hooked to the head of an Epson compatible printer. The software allowed scanning , enlarging, even colorizing on scan. We had some encouraging write- ups at the time, sold a couple, but just couldn't get the financing for full market penetration. Rob On Mar 19, 2006, at 9:21 AM, Mike wrote: > Just picked up an interesting piece of hardware. > > It's a Thunderscan, The working end replaces the ribbon cartridge > in an > Imagewriter, The page to be scanned is fed in to the printer and > the > optical sensor then scans the page. > > It came with a 512 Mac with the demo tape, and reset clip, and > floppies > still in the box. It powers up OK, but after a while goes blank, a > tap to > the side restores the screen. > > Has anyone else seen a thunderscan? > > > -- > Open Source Weekend http://www.osw.ca From cclist at sydex.com Sun Mar 19 11:29:16 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 09:29:16 -0800 Subject: NEC APC boot disks CP/M-86 and DOS In-Reply-To: <200603172219.OAA01728@ca2h0430.amd.com> References: <200603172219.OAA01728@ca2h0430.amd.com> Message-ID: <200603190929160487.2423FB5F@10.0.0.252> On 3/17/2006 at 2:19 PM Dwight Elvey wrote: > Unless the software had a problem with the final gap, >I see no reason why one couldn't just leave it run at 300 RPM. >We are not talking about the need to fill the entire disk surface, >just putting an image on the disk. A long final gap shouldn't >be an issue?? Should work okay. I think that Fred was referring to keeping the "native" NEC 3.5" recording format, though, which uses 360 RPM throughout the range from 8" to 3.5". Cheers, Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Mar 19 11:47:50 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 09:47:50 -0800 Subject: Thunderscan Message-ID: <10AC8D74-CD8A-48ED-9F5F-D921FEB51269@bitsavers.org> > This is the first I've heard of the Thunderscan. http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py? project=Macintosh&story=Thunderscan.txt developed by Andy Hertzfeld From ggs at shiresoft.com Sun Mar 19 11:57:02 2006 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 09:57:02 -0800 Subject: KM11 replica In-Reply-To: References: <1142715063.7699.6.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <1142791023.7699.36.camel@linux.site> On Sun, 2006-03-19 at 21:00 +1300, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 3/19/06, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > > I just wanted to let folks know that in addition to the KM11 replica, I > > now have several accessories available for it. They are a "light mask" > > and a set of 8 overlays. More information is available on my web site > > at http://www.shiresoft.com/products. Murphy strikes again! I was so excited after getting the overlays that I failed to notice that there's an error on two of them (KB11-A,D & FP11-B,C). Two of the switches are labelled S1 (the bottom one...or in the photos the one on the left) is supposed to be S2. I'm having replacements made up but it'll take a week or so to get them back. For anyone who wants to order now, I'll replace the two with errors (no cost to you) when the new ones arrive. BTW, now that the pattern exists, I can have additional overlays made up (ie those that aren't in the original 8). I don't have a cost yet so I can't tell you what the price. It'll probably be <$10/ea but don't hold me to that. -- TTFN - Guy From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 19 13:15:38 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 19:15:38 +0000 (GMT) Subject: How to open 5155? In-Reply-To: <441CBC4B.7010700@oldskool.org> from "Jim Leonard" at Mar 18, 6 08:04:59 pm Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > Undo the 6 screws on the front of the machine (2 > > rows of 3, pretty obvious when you look at it). > > Not if you've never taken off the keyboard before (/me smacks forehead) Ah... Actually, I think the keyboard was supposed to be user-removable. You could unclip it when using the machine so you could put it in a convenient location. > > > Slot 2 is a > > full-length slot > > Looks like my last remaining Plus Hardcard 20 is going to find a home > (hope it still works). Or, I could try to find an IDE adapter and then > a CF-to-IDE adapter on top of that... I feel iike the proverbial donkey who starves between 2 bales of straw. I can't decide what to put in slot 2 of my 5155. Candidates are the expansion unit interface (which would give me a lot more slots, but ruin the portability), a data acquistion card, a GPIB card, or a Transputer host interface... All would be rather nice in a portable machine. > > One thing that is worth doing is the 640K mod. Being a normal XT > > motherboard, you can put 41256s in banks 0 and 1, 4164s in banks 2 and 3, > > a 74S158 (or 74F158) in the empty DIL socket at the front of the board, > > and solder a jumper between pads E1 and E2. Set the DIP swtiches for 256K > > (really, all 4 banks used), and you dnn't need any memory expansion cards... > > Good to know, thanks! You're always a help. Thanks! What I forgot to mention last night tis that while the modification is easy, geting the motherboard out is not. Obviously you have to remvoe all the expansion cards, unplug the power cables and the keyboard DIN plug at the back. And then you have to remove the floppy drives (they come out backwards IIRC). since you get to one of the fixing screws _though_ the floppy drive aperture. The board then slides out towards the right hand side of the machine. I can look up the exact procedure if you have problems. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 19 13:19:32 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 19:19:32 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Thunderscan In-Reply-To: <200603190921.23855.kenziem@sympatico.ca> from "Mike" at Mar 19, 6 09:21:23 am Message-ID: > > Just picked up an interesting piece of hardware. > > It's a Thunderscan, The working end replaces the ribbon cartridge in an > Imagewriter, The page to be scanned is fed in to the printer and the > optical sensor then scans the page. > > It came with a 512 Mac with the demo tape, and reset clip, and floppies > still in the box. It powers up OK, but after a while goes blank, a tap to > the side restores the screen. Probably a dry joint on the 'analogue board' (PSU and monitor circuits). It's the board mouted vertically, crack the case and look for cracked joints, etc. There _are_ high voltages on this board, but I don't think anything stays charged for long after you've unpluged it from the mains. > > Has anyone else seen a thunderscan? Never seen one, but I rememebr reading about it in Byte all those years ago.. -tony From joachim.thiemann at gmail.com Sun Mar 19 13:28:33 2006 From: joachim.thiemann at gmail.com (Joachim Thiemann) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 14:28:33 -0500 Subject: To give away: Complete Intel UNIX System V Rel 3.2 package Message-ID: <4affc5e0603191128o215854aahec6d9de617038bbd@mail.gmail.com> Hello, (wow, the last time I posted here was in 1998...) I'm cleaning up a little, and figured someone here might be willing to take this off my hands (before I put this in the recycling bin, that is) This is a box from Intel Corp, around 1998, contains Bell Technologies UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2. The box contains 11 books (Introduction to System V/368, Using UNIX Vol I-IV, Software Development Vol. I-IV, Networking, and Integrated Software Development Guide (ISDG)) as well as install media: 28 5-1/4 floppies and what looks like a DC-600 tape. I have no way of testing the media. The original box says product code: UNX40PLATMNR1.0, Revision 01, build date 10/19/90. I picked this up when it was tossed out from McGill's EE department, I'm not sure if they ever used it. Contact me if you want it, but I would not ship it - it's a box o'books, effectively, quite heavy. I live in Montreal, Canada. Again, it's free for the taking, but if someone really wants to give me a C= 1571 for it, I won't say no ;-) Joe. BTW anyone heading to VCF East from Montreal? I'm tempted to go if I can hitch a ride (and contribute gas money, of course). From fernande at internet1.net Sun Mar 19 13:33:38 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 14:33:38 -0500 Subject: grease advice needed Message-ID: <441DB212.5000102@internet1.net> Hey Guys, This afternoon I'm cleaning up a Sony GDM-1602 monitor. I have the case disassembled, and have washed all but the largest pieces. The base is a very nice rotating and tilting design. The rotation taken place because the plastic tilting assembly rides on a flat sheet metal base. The contact area is a circular plastic ridge that was lubed with an clear-ish amber grease. What kind of grease should I use to re-lube this? I want to provide adequate lubrication between the plastic and steel, but I don't want something that will hurt the plastic. I was thinking about using dielectric grease, since it shouldn't harm plastic, won't melt out, and isn't too messy. However, it's designed as a moisture barrier, not really as a lubricant, I believe. Thoughts anyone? Thanks, Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Mar 19 13:41:57 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 12:41:57 -0700 Subject: Sun drive array Message-ID: <441DB405.7050004@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, I've got one of these (below) drive arrays: http://www.acc.umu.se/images/archive/20020926-RSM2000/DSC02816.t.jpg I.e. *just* the drive assembly. But, from digging around, I *think* it is not just a JBOD (like a D1000) but, rather, requires "something else" in order to make the electrons do their magic dance. Of course, I don't *have* that "something else"! :-( *But*, I would be quite happy using it as *just* a JBOD! My question(s): the box has what appears to be a HD SCSI connector on the back of it -- though it doesn't carry the expected SCSI logo (or any other similar labeling). Is this, in fact, a standard SCSI i/f? Or, is it some bastard interface intended to talk to that "other box" and coincidentally using a SCSI-ish connector? If it is a SCSI i/f, is it HVD, LVD, wide, etc.? (I ask because I have had all sorts of trouble trying to talk to a D1000). Thanks for any pointers! --don From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Mar 19 13:40:11 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 13:40:11 -0600 Subject: Qume terminal available Message-ID: <001d01c64b8c$f03ef400$6800a8c0@BILLING> Qume QVT102 available... it doesn't power up. It's getting skipped if no one wants it. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Mar 19 13:45:06 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 13:45:06 -0600 Subject: Hazeltine 1420 available Message-ID: <000801c64b8d$9fab8d90$6800a8c0@BILLING> I have a Hazeltine 1420 in very good cosmetic condition, but it does not power up. I have a working one and little desire to spend time to fix this one. I'd rather this not go to the dumpster... anyone want it for the cost of shipping? Jay From quapla at xs4all.nl Sun Mar 19 14:16:09 2006 From: quapla at xs4all.nl (Edward) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 21:16:09 +0100 (CET) Subject: Sun drive array In-Reply-To: <441DB405.7050004@DakotaCom.Net> References: <441DB405.7050004@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <23474.88.211.153.27.1142799369.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> That's an RSM 2000. A controller box with up to 5 trays. It uses differential scsi to the controller, as well as from the controller to the array's. Each array can be used as a JBOD if you like. 4.3 GB disks were used if I remember correctly. The RSM was between the SSA10x and the A3500. Regards, Ed > Hi, > > I've got one of these (below) drive arrays: > > http://www.acc.umu.se/images/archive/20020926-RSM2000/DSC02816.t.jpg > > I.e. *just* the drive assembly. But, from digging around, > I *think* it is not just a JBOD (like a D1000) but, rather, > requires "something else" in order to make the electrons > do their magic dance. > > Of course, I don't *have* that "something else"! :-( > > *But*, I would be quite happy using it as *just* a JBOD! > > My question(s): the box has what appears to be a HD SCSI connector > on the back of it -- though it doesn't carry the expected SCSI > logo (or any other similar labeling). Is this, in fact, a standard > SCSI i/f? Or, is it some bastard interface intended to talk to > that "other box" and coincidentally using a SCSI-ish connector? > If it is a SCSI i/f, is it HVD, LVD, wide, etc.? (I ask because > I have had all sorts of trouble trying to talk to a D1000). > > Thanks for any pointers! > --don > From cclist at sydex.com Sun Mar 19 14:24:44 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 12:24:44 -0800 Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: <441DB212.5000102@internet1.net> References: <441DB212.5000102@internet1.net> Message-ID: <200603191224440469.24C4A004@10.0.0.252> On 3/19/2006 at 2:33 PM C Fernandez wrote: >What kind of grease should I use to re-lube this? I want to provide >adequate lubrication between the plastic and steel, but I don't want >something that will hurt the plastic. I was thinking about using >dielectric grease, since it shouldn't harm plastic, won't melt out, and >isn't too messy. However, it's designed as a moisture barrier, not >really as a lubricant, I believe. Thoughts anyone? I'd recommend Sil-Glide--a silicone gel. Safe for use with just about anything, including rubber and nylon. Get it at an auto parts store. Cheers, Chuck From dholland at woh.rr.com Sun Mar 19 14:39:16 2006 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 15:39:16 -0500 Subject: Sun drive array In-Reply-To: <23474.88.211.153.27.1142799369.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> References: <441DB405.7050004@DakotaCom.Net> <23474.88.211.153.27.1142799369.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <1142800757.21766.4.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> Looks more like RSM 214, or 219 (IMO) http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/SSA_214_7Slot/SSA_214_7Slot.html http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/SSA_219_7Slot/SSA_219_7Slot.html Than the RSM 2000 http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/RSM2000/RSM2000.html David On Sun, 2006-03-19 at 21:16 +0100, Edward wrote: > That's an RSM 2000. > A controller box with up to 5 trays. > It uses differential scsi to the controller, as well as > from the controller to the array's. > Each array can be used as a JBOD if you like. > > 4.3 GB disks were used if I remember correctly. > > The RSM was between the SSA10x and the A3500. > > Regards, > Ed > > > Hi, > > > > I've got one of these (below) drive arrays: > > > > http://www.acc.umu.se/images/archive/20020926-RSM2000/DSC02816.t.jpg > > > > I.e. *just* the drive assembly. But, from digging around, > > I *think* it is not just a JBOD (like a D1000) but, rather, > > requires "something else" in order to make the electrons > > do their magic dance. > > > > Of course, I don't *have* that "something else"! :-( > > > > *But*, I would be quite happy using it as *just* a JBOD! > > > > My question(s): the box has what appears to be a HD SCSI connector > > on the back of it -- though it doesn't carry the expected SCSI > > logo (or any other similar labeling). Is this, in fact, a standard > > SCSI i/f? Or, is it some bastard interface intended to talk to > > that "other box" and coincidentally using a SCSI-ish connector? > > If it is a SCSI i/f, is it HVD, LVD, wide, etc.? (I ask because > > I have had all sorts of trouble trying to talk to a D1000). > > > > Thanks for any pointers! > > --don > > From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Mar 19 14:45:58 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 13:45:58 -0700 Subject: Sun drive array In-Reply-To: <23474.88.211.153.27.1142799369.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> References: <441DB405.7050004@DakotaCom.Net> <23474.88.211.153.27.1142799369.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <441DC306.2060609@DakotaCom.Net> Edward wrote: > That's an RSM 2000. > A controller box with up to 5 trays. So, what I have is a "tray" (?) > It uses differential scsi to the controller, as well as > from the controller to the array's. Yes, but is it LVD to the tray or HVD? E.g. I have found that the D1000 is *H*VD -- so my *L*VD controllers won't talk to it. :-( > Each array can be used as a JBOD if you like. Ah, thanks. > 4.3 GB disks were used if I remember correctly. These are 9's, I think. But half height so I can't just pull the drives and stuff them into something else... > The RSM was between the SSA10x and the A3500. Thanks! --don From mtapley at swri.edu Sun Mar 19 15:05:22 2006 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 15:05:22 -0600 Subject: QNX, Useful applications In-Reply-To: <200603191505.k2JF50lq004233@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200603191505.k2JF50lq004233@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: At 9:05 -0600 3/19/06, John Foust wrote: >I think it comes down to the cost of electricity. ... >... Still, more than once I've shocked myself by >examining the performance graph and wondering what's sucking 100% of the >CPU. Even today's hardware will run consume extra power and run >hotter if you're pushing the CPU. Which is of course right on the button. I have to say, there's very little way I could justify the use of kWh on either of the two projects, if the alternative is having the machine off. But for people wanting to do something with their classics, I assume the electricity has proven not to be a major consideration. And certainly for any already-running and on-line VAXen, that must be the case. Something I hadn't considered, though, is whether classic hardware burns less current "idle". I knew about sleep mode on my G4 laptop using less power; at what generation did that become prevalent? At 9:05 -0600 3/19/06, Dan wrote: >I don't know if it's for the same reason but seti never had a Vax >client because of a lack of iee floating point (from the faq). The cryptography and Optimal Golomb Ruler projects *should* be integer, but I don't know how the algorithms are implemented. -- - Mark Cell Phone: 210-379-4635 office: 210-522-6025 From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Mar 19 15:21:11 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 13:21:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Thunderscan In-Reply-To: <200603190921.23855.kenziem@sympatico.ca> References: <200603190921.23855.kenziem@sympatico.ca> Message-ID: <20060319131824.G24734@shell.lmi.net> > Has anyone else seen a thunderscan? The Thunderscan was the only commercially successful one, but there were similar devices for almost every computer. For the TRS80, there was a pen with a photocell, with a bracket for printhead mounting, software for lightpen use, and a clear suction cup to stick it on the screen as a joystick. From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Mar 19 15:25:11 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 13:25:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Thunderscan In-Reply-To: <8BEA6004-CD78-4EB5-8C35-3D59DFC74B2F@colourfull.com> References: <200603190921.23855.kenziem@sympatico.ca> <8BEA6004-CD78-4EB5-8C35-3D59DFC74B2F@colourfull.com> Message-ID: <20060319132156.P24734@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 19 Mar 2006, Robert Borsuk wrote: > This is the first I've heard of the Thunderscan. Sounds like a rip > off a product I designed for the Commodore 64 umpteen years ago, > called OptiScan. ... and one that I did for the 5150, and one that a guy in SF did for the TRS80, and one that Jim did for the Hitype I daisywheel printers, and one for the MX80, and . . . I think that that is why the PTO is s'posed to reject "obvious". From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Mar 19 15:31:22 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 14:31:22 -0700 Subject: Sun drive array In-Reply-To: <1142800757.21766.4.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> References: <441DB405.7050004@DakotaCom.Net> <23474.88.211.153.27.1142799369.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> <1142800757.21766.4.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> Message-ID: <441DCDAA.6030901@DakotaCom.Net> David Holland wrote: > Looks more like RSM 214, or 219 (IMO) > > http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/SSA_214_7Slot/SSA_214_7Slot.html > http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/SSA_219_7Slot/SSA_219_7Slot.html > > Than the RSM 2000 > > http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/RSM2000/RSM2000.html It looks like the RSM2000 is that "other box" I was alluding to (more of a *controller*) while the SSA21[49] appear to be the "drive trays" that connect to it. I pulled the I/F card and checked the P/N against the P/N listed for the 219's I/F and they agree (amusing that the silkscreen on the PCB is "UNISYS"). Likewise, pulled the fan assembly off and verified that it's P/N agrees with the one listed for the 219. The actual array has a P/N of 595-4088 and claims to be "Style OSM3000-SD2". The RSM2000 page mentions diff SCSI cables (to the arrays) and the 219 page describes a "differential interface" so this seems to confirm Edward's previous comments. But, I'd still like to know if it is LVD or HVD (I don't have a HVD SBUS card but *do* have LVD)... ? Thanks! --don From halarewich at gmail.com Sun Mar 19 16:07:55 2006 From: halarewich at gmail.com (Chris Halarewich) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 14:07:55 -0800 Subject: Awesome ARPAnet documentary In-Reply-To: <441D58EE.2000702@brothom.nl> References: <1142713927.5712.4.camel@fortran.babel> <441D58EE.2000702@brothom.nl> Message-ID: <6d6501090603191407r1af6816cod4e285eb63f18bfb@mail.gmail.com> try this link it might work better http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7426343190324622223&q=arpanet Chris On 3/19/06, Bert Thomas wrote: > > Tore S Bekkedal wrote: > > Was surfing the web when I came across this documentary on ARPAnet - > > features some of the founders, including Davies, Licklider, Heart, and > > Khan. > > > > http://xrl.us/kg7y is a redirect to the download - it's on Google Video > > - this is an AVI file. > > > > Any idea why I can't watch it using media player? Is this a trivial > missing codec or any other suggestion? I would love to watch it! > > > From patrick at vintagecomputermarketplace.com Sun Mar 19 16:15:04 2006 From: patrick at vintagecomputermarketplace.com (Patrick/VCM SysOp) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 14:15:04 -0800 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: <20060319040149.GC23112@ned.cc.purdue.edu> References: <200603171734.26890.rtellason@blazenet.net> <441B3D4E.1010800@DakotaCom.Net> <200603181411.13168.rtellason@blazenet.net> <20060319040149.GC23112@ned.cc.purdue.edu> Message-ID: <441DD7E8.6010602@vintagecomputermarketplace.com> Pat's right on (of course). I have a lot of LVD drives on Adaptec 2940UW controllers, and also on LSI MegaRAID controllers (475, etc). That's a very common interface, actually. Beware the 2944 controller however. Not the same. It's HVD, and an LVD drive and HVD controller will make short work of one, the other, or both if connected. Patrick Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 10:56:44PM -0500, Robert Borsuk wrote: > >>I have a bunch of these drives and I use them in my SGI systems. >>I've never been able to find a controller that let's me use them in a >>PC. If you find one that works, I would appreciate hearing about. From rborsuk at colourfull.com Sun Mar 19 17:02:13 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 18:02:13 -0500 Subject: Thunderscan In-Reply-To: <20060319132156.P24734@shell.lmi.net> References: <200603190921.23855.kenziem@sympatico.ca> <8BEA6004-CD78-4EB5-8C35-3D59DFC74B2F@colourfull.com> <20060319132156.P24734@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: Really Fred, what was your called? Can you point me to a link of it? There was also a similar one done for the Atari ST / Amiga. Just curious. Maybe we can post a site dedicated to scanning via printers. Sounds like you know of quite a few though. Rob On Mar 19, 2006, at 4:25 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Sun, 19 Mar 2006, Robert Borsuk wrote: >> This is the first I've heard of the Thunderscan. Sounds like a rip >> off a product I designed for the Commodore 64 umpteen years ago, >> called OptiScan. > > ... and one that I did for the 5150, and one that a guy in SF did > for the > TRS80, and one that Jim did for the Hitype I daisywheel printers, > and one > for the MX80, and . . . > I think that that is why the PTO is s'posed to reject "obvious". > > > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 19 14:56:53 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 20:56:53 +0000 (GMT) Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: <441DB212.5000102@internet1.net> from "C Fernandez" at Mar 19, 6 02:33:38 pm Message-ID: > > Hey Guys, > > This afternoon I'm cleaning up a Sony GDM-1602 monitor. I have the case > disassembled, and have washed all but the largest pieces. The base is a > very nice rotating and tilting design. The rotation taken place because > the plastic tilting assembly rides on a flat sheet metal base. The > contact area is a circular plastic ridge that was lubed with an > clear-ish amber grease. > > What kind of grease should I use to re-lube this? I want to provide > adequate lubrication between the plastic and steel, but I don't want > something that will hurt the plastic. I was thinking about using many years ago I got a tube of something that claimed to be 'Electrolube Special Plastic Greast' (Electrolube being a well-known brand of cleaning solvents, etc over here). It seems to be safe on all plastics I've tried it on so far, and it should have suitable lubriacting properties for this sort of thing (it's not exactly a high-speed mechanism!). Where you get it from is another matter, but surely plastic-safe greases still exist. -tony From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sun Mar 19 17:29:01 2006 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 23:29:01 GMT Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: C Fernandez "grease advice needed" (Mar 19, 14:33) References: <441DB212.5000102@internet1.net> Message-ID: <10603192329.ZM25855@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> On Mar 19 2006, 14:33, C Fernandez wrote: > This afternoon I'm cleaning up a Sony GDM-1602 monitor. [ ... ] > What kind of grease should I use to re-lube this? I want to provide > adequate lubrication between the plastic and steel, but I don't want > something that will hurt the plastic. I was thinking about using > dielectric grease, since it shouldn't harm plastic, won't melt out, and > isn't too messy. However, it's designed as a moisture barrier, not > really as a lubricant, I believe. Thoughts anyone? It should be OK. I've used silicon grease, even very thick types. You can get special safe-for-plastic greases; they're used in the automotive industry to prevent plastic trim from squeaking, for example. However, although I'm sure it's not what Sony et al had in mind, I've successfully used silicon-based furniture polish with great success. I have monitors which have been cleaned and then lubricated with that a decade ago, and are still perfectly happy. My advice would be not to buy anything specially, if you already have something that seems like it will do. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From rborsuk at colourfull.com Sun Mar 19 17:46:34 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 18:46:34 -0500 Subject: Thunderscan In-Reply-To: <10AC8D74-CD8A-48ED-9F5F-D921FEB51269@bitsavers.org> References: <10AC8D74-CD8A-48ED-9F5F-D921FEB51269@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <91AEF4E5-E57F-475D-B756-3510CF58E5FD@colourfull.com> Thanks for the link. Cool piece of hardware. I love the software. There's a lot to be said for your target market. Rob On Mar 19, 2006, at 12:47 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > > > This is the first I've heard of the Thunderscan. > > http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py? > project=Macintosh&story=Thunderscan.txt > > developed by Andy Hertzfeld > From tpeters at mixcom.com Sun Mar 19 18:07:12 2006 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 18:07:12 -0600 Subject: Awesome ARPAnet documentary In-Reply-To: <441D58EE.2000702@brothom.nl> References: <1142713927.5712.4.camel@fortran.babel> <1142713927.5712.4.camel@fortran.babel> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060319175458.0b000ef8@localhost> At 02:13 PM 3/19/2006 +0100, you wrote: >Tore S Bekkedal wrote: >>Was surfing the web when I came across this documentary on ARPAnet - >>features some of the founders, including Davies, Licklider, Heart, and >>Khan. >>http://xrl.us/kg7y is a redirect to the download - it's on Google Video >>- this is an AVI file. > >Any idea why I can't watch it using media player? Is this a trivial >missing codec or any other suggestion? I would love to watch it! I couldn't play it in Windoze Media Player 10 either. Stupid program, supposed to download the right codec on demand. That process works about 50/50 for me. Plays real nice on my DLink Media Lounge media player, connected to a network cable and my TV. If you want it to play on your PC, you really need the Divx player v2.6 is really sweet, and free (as in beer). Plays anything WiMP 10 can't and most of what it can too, in a smaller footprint with less impact. www.divx.com According to the AVICodec utility (search, download) it the video codec is Open Divx v4, the FourCC code for which is divx (covers a lot of ground, that). The GSpot utility says I have 6 compatible codecs installed, but I know from experience that a third of those so identified will play the file poorly or not at all. I'm somewhat a codec junkie, or used to be, so I have several. It's encocded as 25 fps, 404 kb/s, size is 480x360. A click of the Render button in GSpot produces a long pause and "Rendering failed" which I think means that the default codec is the wrong one on my machine. [Science] If I have seen farther than other men, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants. --Sir Isaac Newton --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... 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 fernande at internet1.net Sun Mar 19 18:42:39 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 19:42:39 -0500 Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <441DFA7F.8010804@internet1.net> Tony Duell wrote: > many years ago I got a tube of something that claimed to be 'Electrolube > Special Plastic Greast' (Electrolube being a well-known brand of cleaning > solvents, etc over here). It seems to be safe on all plastics I've tried > it on so far, and it should have suitable lubriacting properties for this > sort of thing (it's not exactly a high-speed mechanism!). > > Where you get it from is another matter, but surely plastic-safe greases > still exist. Tony, I think you suggested a product to me a few months back. I was able to find commercial distributors, but no retailers. I went ahead an bout the Sil-Glyde that Chuck recommended. Thanks for the suggestion, Though. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From fernande at internet1.net Sun Mar 19 18:42:37 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 19:42:37 -0500 Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: <10603192329.ZM25855@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> References: <441DB212.5000102@internet1.net> <10603192329.ZM25855@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <441DFA7D.7090504@internet1.net> Pete Turnbull wrote: > It should be OK. I've used silicon grease, even very thick types. You > can get special safe-for-plastic greases; they're used in the > automotive industry to prevent plastic trim from squeaking, for > example. This is good info..... I'd like to be able to re-apply, or apply this when I work on my vehicles. > However, although I'm sure it's not what Sony et al had in > mind, I've successfully used silicon-based furniture polish with great > success. I have monitors which have been cleaned and then lubricated > with that a decade ago, and are still perfectly happy. I briefly though about that. I didn't think ti would hold up, However. In this situation, the whole (heavy) monitor rides on this, so a thicker product seemed the way to go. > My advice would > be not to buy anything specially, if you already have something that > seems like it will do. I purchased the Sil-Glyde that Chuck recommended, but it was under $1 for a little packet, so no big deal. Besides, I like trying new products :-) Thanks for your suggestions. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From fernande at internet1.net Sun Mar 19 18:42:41 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 19:42:41 -0500 Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: <200603191224440469.24C4A004@10.0.0.252> References: <441DB212.5000102@internet1.net> <200603191224440469.24C4A004@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <441DFA81.1000003@internet1.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I'd recommend Sil-Glide--a silicone gel. Safe for use with just about > anything, including rubber and nylon. Get it at an auto parts store. Chuck, I needed to go to the parts store anyway for some wiper blades. I found the Sil-Glyde in a little packet. An employee told me they have a deal with Permatex that won't allow them to carry full tubes of AGS products. Come to find out the Sil-Glyde may have been made only a few hours from me. AGS is based out of Muskegon, MI. I've just spread the grease out on the sheet metal, and am assembling the base now. Looks like it should work great! Thanks!! Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Mar 19 19:13:09 2006 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 01:13:09 +0000 Subject: Thunderscan In-Reply-To: <200603190921.23855.kenziem@sympatico.ca> References: <200603190921.23855.kenziem@sympatico.ca> Message-ID: <441E01A5.9090006@gjcp.net> Mike wrote: > Just picked up an interesting piece of hardware. > > It's a Thunderscan, The working end replaces the ribbon cartridge in an > Imagewriter, The page to be scanned is fed in to the printer and the > optical sensor then scans the page. A friend of mine has something similar for the Amstrad PCW computers. Works pretty well, considering. Gordon. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Mar 19 19:47:09 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 17:47:09 -0800 Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: <441DFA81.1000003@internet1.net> References: <441DB212.5000102@internet1.net> <200603191224440469.24C4A004@10.0.0.252> <441DFA81.1000003@internet1.net> Message-ID: <200603191747090011.25EBCB15@10.0.0.252> On 3/19/2006 at 7:42 PM C Fernandez wrote: >I needed to go to the parts store anyway for some wiper blades. I found >the Sil-Glyde in a little packet. An employee told me they have a deal >with Permatex that won't allow them to carry full tubes of AGS products. > Come to find out the Sil-Glyde may have been made only a few hours >from me. AGS is based out of Muskegon, MI. The funny thing is that the auto-parts stores won't sell full tubes of the stuff, I picked up a tube at the local home improvement center, marketed as a sliding door lubricant! I haven't seen it sold at the same place since, so I suppose that was just a fluke. Sil-Glyde is great stuff--on autos you can use it lube everything from brake cylinders to window tracks. I've even used it as a slide lubricant on a tuba. I suspect that competing products are nothing more or less than the same material. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Mar 19 19:52:42 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 17:52:42 -0800 Subject: Redux on sound-deadening foam Message-ID: <200603191752420848.25F0E311@10.0.0.252> Just went through another printer with 1/4" of black sound-deadening foam attached to the insides of the enclosure in absolutely terrible shape. I found that warm soapy water is the easiest way to remove it--it just disintegrates into sludge when the water hits it. I'm thinking of replacing it with 1/2" styrofoam. The noise to be attenuated is high-frequency 1-3KHz from the printhead. Does anyone have any thoughts on this--leaving any sound absorption off is a little more than my ears can take. Thanks, Chuck From trixter at oldskool.org Sun Mar 19 22:08:31 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 22:08:31 -0600 Subject: How to open 5155? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <441E2ABF.7080908@oldskool.org> Tony Duell wrote: > Ah... Actually, I think the keyboard was supposed to be user-removable. > You could unclip it when using the machine so you could put it in a > convenient location. And looking at the machine from an angle LESS than 45 degrees also helps (smacks forehead yet again). >> Looks like my last remaining Plus Hardcard 20 is going to find a home >> (hope it still works). Or, I could try to find an IDE adapter and then >> a CF-to-IDE adapter on top of that... > > I feel iike the proverbial donkey who starves between 2 bales of straw. I > can't decide what to put in slot 2 of my 5155. Candidates are the > expansion unit interface (which would give me a lot more slots, but ruin > the portability), a data acquistion card, a GPIB card, or a Transputer > host interface... All would be rather nice in a portable machine. For me, a portable machine means I don't have to port around diskettes with me, so the hardcard pretty much seals the deal. The only way I could get a hard drive in there without compromising slot 2 or the original 2 drives is go with the CF->CF<>IDE->8-bit IDE adapter, something I haven't tried yet on *any* of my machines. > What I forgot to mention last night tis that while the modification is > easy, geting the motherboard out is not. Obviously you have to remvoe all > the expansion cards, unplug the power cables and the keyboard DIN plug at > the back. And then you have to remove the floppy drives (they come out > backwards IIRC). since you get to one of the fixing screws _though_ the > floppy drive aperture. The board then slides out towards the right hand > side of the machine. > > I can look up the exact procedure if you have problems. I'll keep that in mind, thanks. This particular model, even without opening it up, counts to 640 on power-up so I'll have a surprise when I open it up. -- 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 legalize at xmission.com Sun Mar 19 22:19:59 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 21:19:59 -0700 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 18 Mar 2006 23:01:49 -0500. <20060319040149.GC23112@ned.cc.purdue.edu> Message-ID: In article <20060319040149.GC23112 at ned.cc.purdue.edu>, Patrick Finnegan writes: > On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 10:56:44PM -0500, Robert Borsuk wrote: > > I have a bunch of these drives and I use them in my SGI systems. > > I've never been able to find a controller that let's me use them in a > > PC. If you find one that works, I would appreciate hearing about. > > They work great with an Adaptec 2940(UW/U2W), Symbios 53c8xx > controllers, and everything else I've tried in a PC. I have 7 Adaptec 2940W/2940UW PCI cards, if anyone wants them for the cost of shipping. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sun Mar 19 22:37:43 2006 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 22:37:43 -0600 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <441E3197.7060004@brutman.com> Richard wrote: > In article <20060319040149.GC23112 at ned.cc.purdue.edu>, > Patrick Finnegan writes: > > >>On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 10:56:44PM -0500, Robert Borsuk wrote: >> >>>I have a bunch of these drives and I use them in my SGI systems. >>>I've never been able to find a controller that let's me use them in a >>>PC. If you find one that works, I would appreciate hearing about. >> >>They work great with an Adaptec 2940(UW/U2W), Symbios 53c8xx >>controllers, and everything else I've tried in a PC. > > > I have 7 Adaptec 2940W/2940UW PCI cards, if anyone wants them for the > cost of shipping. How about one of each? I don't want to be a pig ... Also, do you still have the IBM 5161 Expansion transmitter card laying around? Our conversation kind of died out last time ... Mike From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sun Mar 19 22:38:49 2006 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 22:38:49 -0600 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <441E31D9.7040005@brutman.com> My apologies ... should have been an off-list reply. Mike From vp at cs.drexel.edu Sun Mar 19 22:47:47 2006 From: vp at cs.drexel.edu (Vassilis Prevelakis) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 23:47:47 -0500 Subject: grease advice needed Message-ID: <20060320044747.62AE52010437@mail.cs.drexel.edu> For such situations I use Radio Shack Multi Purpose Lube Gel **vp From legalize at xmission.com Sun Mar 19 22:50:15 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 21:50:15 -0700 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 18 Mar 2006 23:01:49 -0500. <20060319040149.GC23112@ned.cc.purdue.edu> Message-ID: OK, offers are already coming in for those Adaptec cards ;-). I will make good on the offer, just understand that you're in a queue behind those who asked for the PCMCIA cards that I offered. Yes, I'm finally getting to those, maybe this week. After that trixter is getting some stuff and then I can send out a list of what's left of the other cards from the big purge of 2006 at work :-). I haven't counted all of them, but I think I have about 150 cards of the ISA and PCI variety. Mostly NICs, sound and SCSI, but also a few other weird things in there. I'm happy to disperse them to cctalk'ers, just please understand that you'll need a little patience with me! :-) If there is some "I need it now to fix blah blah blah" sort of need, please make that clear in any email to me. Thanks! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Sun Mar 19 22:52:08 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 21:52:08 -0700 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 19 Mar 2006 22:37:43 -0600. <441E3197.7060004@brutman.com> Message-ID: In article <441E3197.7060004 at brutman.com>, "Michael B. Brutman" writes: > > I have 7 Adaptec 2940W/2940UW PCI cards, if anyone wants them for the > > cost of shipping. > > How about one of each? Just to clarify, this is a single card that says Adaptec 2940W/2940UW on it. It has two connectors internal and one connector external. The external connector says SCSI SE on it. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From marvin at rain.org Sun Mar 19 23:17:48 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 21:17:48 -0800 Subject: Fairchild 4880 Instrument Coupler Message-ID: <441E3AFC.7338DA06@rain.org> Our amateur radio club just got in a number of these things in various states of repair, and I haven't been able to find any information about it. The name, Fairchild, and the IEE 4888 bus caught by attenation; anyone know what these things are and if they are worth checking out? From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 20 00:41:32 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 22:41:32 -0800 Subject: Nixdorf LK-3000 on Yahoo! auctions Message-ID: <200603192241320667.26F94F99@10.0.0.252> Maybe of interest to the HHC folks? $10 right now. From news at computercollector.com Mon Mar 20 00:53:44 2006 From: news at computercollector.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 01:53:44 -0500 Subject: Nixdorf LK-3000 on Yahoo! auctions In-Reply-To: <200603192241320667.26F94F99@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <002401c64beb$07932780$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Nah, it says it's not working, and it doesn't appear to have any modules, let alone the cool ones. Working ones aren't hard to find. Blatant commercial message: the story behind the LK-3000 is explained on my site at http://www.snarc.net/pda/pda-treatise.htm -----Original Message----- From: Chuck Guzis [mailto:cclist at sydex.com] Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 1:42 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Nixdorf LK-3000 on Yahoo! auctions Maybe of interest to the HHC folks? $10 right now. From bert at brothom.nl Mon Mar 20 02:28:29 2006 From: bert at brothom.nl (Bert Thomas) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 09:28:29 +0100 Subject: Awesome ARPAnet documentary In-Reply-To: <6d6501090603191407r1af6816cod4e285eb63f18bfb@mail.gmail.com> References: <1142713927.5712.4.camel@fortran.babel> <441D58EE.2000702@brothom.nl> <6d6501090603191407r1af6816cod4e285eb63f18bfb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <441E67AD.4020700@brothom.nl> Chris Halarewich wrote: > try this link it might work better > > http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7426343190324622223&q=arpanet Yes!!! This is sooo cool!! Thanks a lot Chris and Tore! From quapla at xs4all.nl Mon Mar 20 04:03:47 2006 From: quapla at xs4all.nl (Edward) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 11:03:47 +0100 (CET) Subject: Sun drive array In-Reply-To: <441DC306.2060609@DakotaCom.Net> References: <441DB405.7050004@DakotaCom.Net> <23474.88.211.153.27.1142799369.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> <441DC306.2060609@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <5549.195.114.232.202.1142849027.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> > Edward wrote: > Yes, but is it LVD to the tray or HVD? > E.g. I have found that the D1000 is *H*VD -- so my *L*VD > controllers won't talk to it. :-( It's HVD I'm afraid. > >> Each array can be used as a JBOD if you like. > > Ah, thanks. > From brad at heeltoe.com Mon Mar 20 05:34:37 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 06:34:37 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine 1420 available In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 19 Mar 2006 13:45:06 CST." <000801c64b8d$9fab8d90$6800a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <200603201134.k2KBYbZV026204@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Jay West" wrote: >I have a Hazeltine 1420 in very good cosmetic condition, but it does not >power up. I have a working one and little desire to spend time to fix this >one. I'd love to find a 2000 some day. Are they rare? (green is my favorite color :-) -brad From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Mar 20 06:14:11 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 00:14:11 +1200 Subject: Sorting large box of 72 pin SIMMs - looking for chip ID guide Message-ID: Hi, I have a largish box of random 72-pin memory, but I can't seem to find a guide online that will help me differentiate the types of memory based on the manufacturer's chip numbers. I recall back in the day, one could look at the last couple of digits of the memory chip part number to tell FPM from EDO, etc. Unfortunately, two evenings of googlings has only found me consumer-level guides to help clueless PC owners tell SIMMs from DIMMs - nothing at the chip level. Thanks for any pointers, -ethan From lee at geekdot.com Mon Mar 20 07:36:23 2006 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:36:23 +0100 (CET) Subject: Sorting large box of 72 pin SIMMs - looking for chip ID guide Message-ID: <4364.86.139.105.174.1142861783.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> > Unfortunately, two evenings of googlings has only found me > consumer-level guides to help clueless PC owners tell SIMMs > from DIMMs - nothing at the chip level. Strange, my first google hit gets this .. http://www.chipmunk.nl/DRAM/ChipManufacturers.htm Lee. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Mar 20 07:44:14 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 01:44:14 +1200 Subject: Sorting large box of 72 pin SIMMs - looking for chip ID guide In-Reply-To: <4364.86.139.105.174.1142861783.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> References: <4364.86.139.105.174.1142861783.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> Message-ID: On 3/21/06, Lee Davison wrote: > > Unfortunately, two evenings of googlings has only found me > > consumer-level guides to help clueless PC owners tell SIMMs > > from DIMMs - nothing at the chip level. > > Strange, my first google hit gets this .. > > http://www.chipmunk.nl/DRAM/ChipManufacturers.htm That's _exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. Must have used a sub-optimal search pattern. Thanks! -ethan From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 20 08:43:30 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 07:43:30 -0700 Subject: Hazeltine 1420 available In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 20 Mar 2006 06:34:37 -0500. <200603201134.k2KBYbZV026204@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: In article <200603201134.k2KBYbZV026204 at mwave.heeltoe.com>, Brad Parker writes: > "Jay West" wrote: > >I have a Hazeltine 1420 in very good cosmetic condition, but it does not > >power up. I have a working one and little desire to spend time to fix this > >one. > > I'd love to find a 2000 some day. Are they rare? I haven't seen any Hazeltine terminals on ebay yet. Televideo terminals come up fairly often as do Heathkit terminals. DEC terminals show up regularly. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From vax at purdue.edu Mon Mar 20 09:31:51 2006 From: vax at purdue.edu (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 10:31:51 -0500 Subject: Televideo (was Re: Hazeltine 1420 available) In-Reply-To: References: <200603201134.k2KBYbZV026204@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <20060320153151.GA25417@ned.cc.purdue.edu> On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 07:43:30AM -0700, Richard wrote: > > Televideo terminals come up fairly often That is, unless you're looking for a TS800 or similar, like I am (or any TS8xx gear...) My dad used to have a TS806 at his practice, which I took apart after it broke (and which my parents threw out :(. Couple years ago, Don Maslin sent me a TS816, but I don't have any terminals to go with it now (and it seems to have a bad hard drive and tape drive...). Anyone else here collect Televideo stuff? Or, have some they want to get rid of? :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From waisun.chia at gmail.com Mon Mar 20 09:35:35 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 23:35:35 +0800 Subject: WTB: DEFTA (Turbochannel FDDI adapter) Message-ID: Anybody have some DEFTAs to spare? I'm planning to build a high performance dual ring FDDI network for my DEC3000s and DEC5000.. I need 3 of them..more if budget permitting.. Contact me offlist. From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 20 10:08:09 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 09:08:09 -0700 Subject: Televideo (was Re: Hazeltine 1420 available) In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 20 Mar 2006 10:31:51 -0500. <20060320153151.GA25417@ned.cc.purdue.edu> Message-ID: In article <20060320153151.GA25417 at ned.cc.purdue.edu>, Patrick Finnegan writes: > On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 07:43:30AM -0700, Richard wrote: > > > > Televideo terminals come up fairly often > > That is, unless you're looking for a TS800 or similar, [...] Well, I just meant the brand in general. The Televideo Personal Terminal has shown up several times lately and the 9xx series seem to show up regularly. I haven't seen other models. What's really frustrating is to buy a weird terminal and have it arrived smashed to bits because the seller packed it like a dumbshit. Now I have to fight with UPS or whoever to get the insurance on it. BUT I DON'T WANT THE MONEY, I WANT THE TERMINAL! The money isn't the point, although it does add insult to injury. I've added a big section to my "collecting serial terminals" guide explaining how to ship the beasts. > Anyone else here collect Televideo stuff? Or, have some they want to > get rid of? :) I have a 925 and a smashed Personal Terminal (which looks cute, too bad the seller botched the packing). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 20 11:30:32 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 10:30:32 -0700 Subject: Data General 3700 Aviion (Hooks, TX) Message-ID: Says it has unspecified "missing components". No bid on this yet, closes today. Speaking of items on govliquidation.com where there is no bid, I was told that they get relisted until they sell. If it doesn't sell a couple times, then they bundle it with something else they think will sell to move it outta there :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 20 11:40:31 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 10:40:31 -0700 Subject: Data General 3700 Aviion (Hooks, TX) In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 20 Mar 2006 10:30:32 -0700. Message-ID: Also -- don't you love it when the "pictures" of the lot of random stuff are pictures of the cardboard box? "ooh honey, look, its a near-mint triwall!" -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Mar 20 11:42:05 2006 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 09:42:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: grease advice needed Message-ID: <200603201742.JAA22947@ca2h0430.amd.com> >From: "Chuck Guzis" > >On 3/19/2006 at 2:33 PM C Fernandez wrote: > >>What kind of grease should I use to re-lube this? I want to provide >>adequate lubrication between the plastic and steel, but I don't want >>something that will hurt the plastic. I was thinking about using >>dielectric grease, since it shouldn't harm plastic, won't melt out, and >>isn't too messy. However, it's designed as a moisture barrier, not >>really as a lubricant, I believe. Thoughts anyone? > >I'd recommend Sil-Glide--a silicone gel. Safe for use with just about >anything, including rubber and nylon. Get it at an auto parts store. > >Cheers, >Chuck Hi Also good for improving electrical contacts on connectors. It still isn't all that good as a lubricant but better than dry. Dwight From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Mar 20 12:04:23 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 12:04:23 -0600 Subject: Data General 3700 Aviion (Hooks, TX) References: Message-ID: <001a01c64c48$b8830b70$6800a8c0@BILLING> It was written.... > Speaking of items on govliquidation.com where there is no bid, I was > told that they get relisted until they sell. If it doesn't sell a > couple times, then they bundle it with something else they think will > sell to move it outta there :-). Not in my experience at least. Maybe it's random chance, but for example there was something there I wanted to bid on about 30 days ago. I spaced out and missed the auction, no one bid. It hasn't been relisted. I dunno. Jay From fernande at internet1.net Mon Mar 20 12:11:23 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 13:11:23 -0500 Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: <200603201742.JAA22947@ca2h0430.amd.com> References: <200603201742.JAA22947@ca2h0430.amd.com> Message-ID: <441EF04B.4010206@internet1.net> Dwight Elvey wrote: >>From: "Chuck Guzis" >>I'd recommend Sil-Glide--a silicone gel. Safe for use with just about >>anything, including rubber and nylon. Get it at an auto parts store. >> >>Cheers, >>Chuck > > > Hi > Also good for improving electrical contacts on connectors. It still > isn't all that good as a lubricant but better than dry. > Dwight Are you referring to the Sil-Glyde, or dielectric grease? AGS has a dielectric grease, that is not Sil-glyde. The AGS's description of Syl-Glyde made me think it's actually not silicone. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From dwight.elvey at amd.com Mon Mar 20 12:35:11 2006 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 10:35:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: grease advice needed Message-ID: <200603201835.KAA24597@ca2h0430.amd.com> >From: "C Fernandez" > >Dwight Elvey wrote: >>>From: "Chuck Guzis" >>>I'd recommend Sil-Glide--a silicone gel. Safe for use with just about >>>anything, including rubber and nylon. Get it at an auto parts store. >>> >>>Cheers, >>>Chuck >> >> >> Hi >> Also good for improving electrical contacts on connectors. It still >> isn't all that good as a lubricant but better than dry. >> Dwight > >Are you referring to the Sil-Glyde, or dielectric grease? AGS has a >dielectric grease, that is not Sil-glyde. The AGS's description of >Syl-Glyde made me think it's actually not silicone. > >Chad Fernandez >Michigan, USA Hi My understanding is that it is silicone grease. It seem to be the same as the silicone grease that NAPA stores sell under their brand name. Many dielectric greases are not silicon based but may work as well to improve contacts of connectors. I've gotten good results from Syl-Glyde, even on connectors that have been weakened by over heating ( common in pinball machines ). I still prefer to use DC#4 but I often can't find the tube and use what is in the tool box. Dwight From tpeters at mixcom.com Mon Mar 20 12:37:58 2006 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 12:37:58 -0600 (CST) Subject: Sun drive array In-Reply-To: <5549.195.114.232.202.1142849027.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> References: <441DB405.7050004@DakotaCom.Net> <23474.88.211.153.27.1142799369.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> <441DC306.2060609@DakotaCom.Net> <5549.195.114.232.202.1142849027.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <28080.144.160.5.25.1142879878.squirrel@mail.athenet.net> >> Edward wrote: > >> Yes, but is it LVD to the tray or HVD? >> E.g. I have found that the D1000 is *H*VD -- so my *L*VD >> controllers won't talk to it. :-( > > It's HVD I'm afraid. > >> >>> Each array can be used as a JBOD if you like. >> >> Ah, thanks. Let's see, a box of old, small capacity drives, reliability unknown... why would you NOT make a RAID out of it? Why put data on them if you're not all that concerned about it going away when one of those old drives goes tango uniform (toes up) ? With that many independent drives, couldn't you make a really big RAID-5 out of it? From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 20 12:45:39 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 11:45:39 -0700 Subject: Data General 3700 Aviion (Hooks, TX) In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 20 Mar 2006 12:04:23 -0600. <001a01c64c48$b8830b70$6800a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: In article <001a01c64c48$b8830b70$6800a8c0 at BILLING>, "Jay West" writes: > It was written.... > > Speaking of items on govliquidation.com where there is no bid, I was > > told that they get relisted until they sell. If it doesn't sell a > > couple times, then they bundle it with something else they think will > > sell to move it outta there :-). > > Not in my experience at least. Maybe it's random chance, but for example > there was something there I wanted to bid on about 30 days ago. I spaced out > and missed the auction, no one bid. It hasn't been relisted. I dunno. Any chance it was bundled with something else? It could vary based on the base, but this is what the person at Hill AFB told me they do with unsold lots. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 20 12:54:29 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 10:54:29 -0800 Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: <200603201835.KAA24597@ca2h0430.amd.com> References: <200603201835.KAA24597@ca2h0430.amd.com> Message-ID: <200603201054290671.29985E37@10.0.0.252> As a brass musical instrument player, this discussion of lubricants is deja vu all over again. Brass players go on and on ad nauseum about what the best valve oil or slide grease is, with no one putting forth any convincing arguments. There are literally hundreds of products out there, petroleum-based and synthetic. I've got a couple of thse old Sony displays--and I've never done a thing to lubricate their bases--they usually just get set in a single position and left that way for years. If I had one that was getting sticky, I'd probably just zap it with some silicone aerosol. (FWIW, I lube my tuba slides with a mixture of mineral oil and anhydrous lanolin and lube the valves with triple-filtered white kerosene (odorless). It's cheap and it works.) Cheers, Chuck From doc at mdrconsult.com Mon Mar 20 13:18:29 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 13:18:29 -0600 Subject: WTB: DEFTA (Turbochannel FDDI adapter) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <441F0005.2090408@mdrconsult.com> Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > Anybody have some DEFTAs to spare? > I'm planning to build a high performance dual ring FDDI network for my > DEC3000s and DEC5000.. > I need 3 of them..more if budget permitting.. Are you in the US? Doc From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Mon Mar 20 14:36:48 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:36:48 -0600 Subject: Sun drive array Message-ID: <6e19fd1fc3ba4d1db59fa0414047851f@valleyimplants.com> DEC had a SBB module that converts HVD to SE for FWD SCSI. Can't remember what it's called now, but the block can be dissected to the board, which has standard 68-pin internal & external connectors (external for HVD, internal for SE). 3.5" form factor, standard power. Pretty convienient From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Mar 20 14:50:10 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 20:50:10 +0000 Subject: NCD firmware In-Reply-To: <441B3494.90307@DakotaCom.Net> References: <441B3494.90307@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <441F1582.9000302@yahoo.co.uk> Don Y wrote: > Hi, > > I asked this on the REScUE list a week or so ago and belatedly > realized *this* would be a better forum. So... > > Does anyone happen to have access to an NCD-19c/88K running > firmware (i.e. boot ROM) more recent than 2.6.0? Not sure what versions the ones I have access to are running, and I won't be able to check for a few months I'm afraid :-( There's a guy over on www.m88k.org who was working at replacing the stock boot firmware with their own code; you might want to contact them in case they have images of the ROMs that you need... (it looks like he probably has access to 2.7.3 at least) Oh, by the way, I seem to remember that the 88k boxes had the firmware for the whole system in sockets on the network card - so you'll presumably need firmware dumps from a machine with the same type of network board that you have, or nothing's going to work... > Yeah, I know, they're all boat anchors... :> But, with a little > TLC they seem to just keep humming... If only they'd handle 24 bit colour I'd probably still use one on the desk at home I think. Nice little boxes. cheers Jules From Tim at Rikers.org Mon Mar 20 15:29:38 2006 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:29:38 -0700 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: <441DD7E8.6010602@vintagecomputermarketplace.com> References: <200603171734.26890.rtellason@blazenet.net> <441B3D4E.1010800@DakotaCom.Net> <200603181411.13168.rtellason@blazenet.net> <20060319040149.GC23112@ned.cc.purdue.edu> <441DD7E8.6010602@vintagecomputermarketplace.com> Message-ID: <441F1EC2.7010600@Rikers.org> Patrick/VCM SysOp wrote: > Pat's right on (of course). I have a lot of LVD drives on Adaptec > 2940UW controllers, and also on LSI MegaRAID controllers (475, etc). > That's a very common interface, actually. > > Beware the 2944 controller however. Not the same. It's HVD, and an LVD > drive and HVD controller will make short work of one, the other, or both > if connected. My tape changer came with 2 2944 controllers. It's a Quantum ATL-7100 changer with 2 DLT 7000 drives in it. I'd very much like to run it on non-2944 drives. Anyone know how to get the HVD drives to interoperate with normal drives/controllers? I'm guessing that the quantum drives can be reconfigured, but I'm not sure about the changer hardware. pictures here: http://rikers.org/gallery/hardware-atl7100 play here: http://p2.rikers.org/cgi-bin/changer.cgi -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Mon Mar 20 16:18:51 2006 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:18:51 -0800 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <44185D1B.1050008@oldskool.org> References: <000b01c64834$6a27a480$6d01a8c0@barry> <441827C9.5010007@yahoo.co.uk> <200603150935350257.0F9063AE@10.0.0.252> <44185D1B.1050008@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On 3/15/06, Jim Leonard wrote: > Not sure I understand your point, because floppies wouldn't pass the > pinking shears test either. Come to think of it, I can't think of *any* > media that would survive that test except for maybe paper. There probably aren't many things that would pass the test with a bit error rate of what any archivist would consider adequate (one unrecoverable error every megabit?) aside from a holographic recording technique at low enough density. If you have assume you have a 5x5 cm medium with a native resolution of about 1Mbit per square cm, that would mean if you store 1Mbit on the whole thing, you should be able to fully recover the data from any 1 square cm piece regardless of its shape. You should be able to do that with any arbitrary medium provided you transform the data properly. Of course, no recording devices currently use this technique, so you'll need to build one of your own. From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Mon Mar 20 16:18:51 2006 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:18:51 -0800 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <44185D1B.1050008@oldskool.org> References: <000b01c64834$6a27a480$6d01a8c0@barry> <441827C9.5010007@yahoo.co.uk> <200603150935350257.0F9063AE@10.0.0.252> <44185D1B.1050008@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On 3/15/06, Jim Leonard wrote: > Not sure I understand your point, because floppies wouldn't pass the > pinking shears test either. Come to think of it, I can't think of *any* > media that would survive that test except for maybe paper. There probably aren't many things that would pass the test with a bit error rate of what any archivist would consider adequate (one unrecoverable error every megabit?) aside from a holographic recording technique at low enough density. If you have assume you have a 5x5 cm medium with a native resolution of about 1Mbit per square cm, that would mean if you store 1Mbit on the whole thing, you should be able to fully recover the data from any 1 square cm piece regardless of its shape. You should be able to do that with any arbitrary medium provided you transform the data properly. Of course, no recording devices currently use this technique, so you'll need to build one of your own. From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 20 16:25:23 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 15:25:23 -0700 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:18:51 -0800. Message-ID: In article , "Eric J Korpela" writes: > There probably aren't many things that would pass the test with a bit > error rate of what any archivist would consider adequate (one > unrecoverable error every megabit?) aside from a holographic > recording technique at low enough density. Printed bit pattern with parity bits on archival paper? Bit pattern scratched into metal plates by an engraving tip mounted in an X-Y flatbed plotter? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From stimpy.u.idiot at gmail.com Mon Mar 20 17:19:25 2006 From: stimpy.u.idiot at gmail.com (Pete Edwards) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 23:19:25 +0000 Subject: uVAX II diagnostics Message-ID: <11c909eb0603201519w446369c6t@mail.gmail.com> Can anyone help me get hold of a copy of the above? I understand there are 2 versions, 1 was shipped with the system and the field services version, which is a separately licensed product. My BA23 uVAX II is throwing machine checks, it seems like diags are the first place to start, any other suggestions? I have a TK50 on the box, is there a way of MOP booting diags? Cheers, Pete -- Pete Edwards "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future" - Niels Bohr From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 20 17:31:26 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:31:26 -0700 Subject: Awesome ARPAnet documentary In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 18 Mar 2006 21:32:07 +0100. <1142713927.5712.4.camel@fortran.babel> Message-ID: OK, so I learned something :-). TIPs! What were they made of? Anyone got one? CHM maybe? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 20 17:41:08 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:41:08 -0700 Subject: Awesome ARPAnet documentary In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 18 Mar 2006 21:32:07 +0100. <1142713927.5712.4.camel@fortran.babel> Message-ID: Does anyone recognize this terminal from the film? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Mar 20 17:50:54 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:50:54 -0700 Subject: Data General 3700 Aviion (Hooks, TX) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <441F3FDE.8020707@DakotaCom.Net> Richard wrote: > > > Says it has unspecified "missing components". No bid on this yet, > closes today. > > Speaking of items on govliquidation.com where there is no bid, I was > told that they get relisted until they sell. If it doesn't sell a > couple times, then they bundle it with something else they think will > sell to move it outta there :-). Grrrr.... I just picked up what I *thought* was a 3700 eaarlier today -- but it doesn't look like the photo above! :-( Crap! Why can't DG put model numbers on or in or ANYPLACE on their boxes? I've got another (older) AViiON -- that I *think* was a 3000? -- that also was a chore to identify. --don From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 20 16:27:33 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 22:27:33 +0000 (GMT) Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: <441DFA7F.8010804@internet1.net> from "C Fernandez" at Mar 19, 6 07:42:39 pm Message-ID: > I think you suggested a product to me a few months back. I was able to > find commercial distributors, but no retailers. I went ahead an bout Brannds and prodcuts that are common in one country might well be unobtainable in others [1]. Heck, it took me a long time to figure out what 'Krazy Glue' was, and even now I am not usre (I think it's what's commonly called supergule in the UK, that is an isocyano acryllic hydro-copolymerising adhexive). Does 'Araldite' mean anything across the Pond? In the UK, it's a common brand (and sort-of generic) for the 2-part epoxy resin adhexives? What about Avometer (== analogue multimeter, VOM)? [1] This even applies within Europe. I had some fun finding the equivalents for lubricants, thread locking compounds, etc to the ones specified in an official Citroen workshop manual. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 20 16:33:43 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 22:33:43 +0000 (GMT) Subject: How to open 5155? In-Reply-To: <441E2ABF.7080908@oldskool.org> from "Jim Leonard" at Mar 19, 6 10:08:31 pm Message-ID: > For me, a portable machine means I don't have to port around diskettes > with me, so the hardcard pretty much seals the deal. The only way I Isn't there a little slot to store a few disks in? The think that I object to having to carry around separately is the mains cable. Of course the UK plug is a lot larger than the US one, so even on machines where there is a place to stick the cable, often the UK one doesn't fit, but IBM didn't make any provision for it at all. The HP Integral (another portable I like rather a lot) has a space alongside the printer on top to store the mains cable and a few disks. But the UK cable doesn't easily fit, and I don't like keeping disks that close to a stepper motor (the carriage feed motor of the printer). I just keep the optional mouse up there, fits almost perfectly. > > What I forgot to mention last night tis that while the modification is > > easy, geting the motherboard out is not. Obviously you have to remvoe all > > the expansion cards, unplug the power cables and the keyboard DIN plug at > > the back. And then you have to remove the floppy drives (they come out > > backwards IIRC). since you get to one of the fixing screws _though_ the > > floppy drive aperture. The board then slides out towards the right hand > > side of the machine. > > > > I can look up the exact procedure if you have problems. > > I'll keep that in mind, thanks. This particular model, even without > opening it up, counts to 640 on power-up so I'll have a surprise when I > open it up. It's possible the mod has been done (if so, check _how_ it was done, some people twist wires round the pins of the (socketed) memory address decoder PROM rather than soldering in the jumper). Or you might have a memory expansion card, if you're unlucky it's a full-length one in slot 2! -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 20 16:36:38 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 22:36:38 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Nixdorf LK-3000 on Yahoo! auctions In-Reply-To: <002401c64beb$07932780$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> from "'Computer Collector Newsletter'" at Mar 20, 6 01:53:44 am Message-ID: > > Nah, it says it's not working, and it doesn't appear to have any modules, > let alone the cool ones. Working ones aren't hard to find. Is this the machine that can't work without a module because there's no processor in the main machine? Each module contains a microcontroller. Just out of curiousity, what are the 'cool modules' (and if any joker dares to suggest one for refrigeration / air conditioning calculations, I will not be responsible for my action :-)) -tony From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Mar 20 17:57:03 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:57:03 -0700 Subject: NCD firmware In-Reply-To: <441F1582.9000302@yahoo.co.uk> References: <441B3494.90307@DakotaCom.Net> <441F1582.9000302@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <441F414F.9070303@DakotaCom.Net> Jules Richardson wrote: > Don Y wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I asked this on the REScUE list a week or so ago and belatedly >> realized *this* would be a better forum. So... >> >> Does anyone happen to have access to an NCD-19c/88K running >> firmware (i.e. boot ROM) more recent than 2.6.0? > > Not sure what versions the ones I have access to are running, and I > won't be able to check for a few months I'm afraid :-( It's not a rush. :> I've been slowly upgrading all of my NCD's with memory, newer ROMs, etc. I'd *like* to get everything as (cough) "current" as possible... > There's a guy over on www.m88k.org who was working at replacing the > stock boot firmware with their own code; you might want to contact them > in case they have images of the ROMs that you need... (it looks like he > probably has access to 2.7.3 at least) Cool! Thanks! > Oh, by the way, I seem to remember that the 88k boxes had the firmware > for the whole system in sockets on the network card - so you'll > presumably need firmware dumps from a machine with the same type of > network board that you have, or nothing's going to work... All of the NCDs that I have put the firmware on the NIC (14c, 19r, 19c/88K). But, these folks appear to have "done it right": I can pull the ROMs from a 10Base2/AUI card and slap them on a 10BaseT card without any "issues". And, since the MAC is stored on the "motherboard", you can swap a NIC without having to tweak your ethers(5)! >> Yeah, I know, they're all boat anchors... :> But, with a little >> TLC they seem to just keep humming... > > If only they'd handle 24 bit colour I'd probably still use one on the > desk at home I think. Nice little boxes. Yup. I prefer the 19r's for writing code (nice crisp displays). And no (*^@#! *fans*! (though the 19c's seem to have a *tiny* fan tucked inside....) --don From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 20 17:52:25 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:52:25 -0700 Subject: Awesome ARPAnet documentary In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:31:26 -0700. Message-ID: How about this terminal? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 20 17:54:45 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:54:45 -0700 Subject: Data General 3700 Aviion (Hooks, TX) In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:50:54 -0700. <441F3FDE.8020707@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: In article <441F3FDE.8020707 at DakotaCom.Net>, Don Y writes: > Richard wrote: > > > > > > Says it has unspecified "missing components". No bid on this yet, > > closes today. > > > > Speaking of items on govliquidation.com where there is no bid, I was > > told that they get relisted until they sell. If it doesn't sell a > > couple times, then they bundle it with something else they think will > > sell to move it outta there :-). > > Grrrr.... I just picked up what I *thought* was a 3700 eaarlier > today -- but it doesn't look like the photo above! :-( Don't count on GovLiquidation.com being accurate in their descriptions. Hell, count yourself lucky if you get anything descriptive in the description! I can't tell you how many times I've seen lots in other cities with this description: "TERMINAL". Ummm, yeah... there was only one kind of terminal ever made.... > Crap! Why can't DG put model numbers on or in or ANYPLACE on > their boxes? I've got another (older) AViiON -- that I *think* > was a 3000? -- that also was a chore to identify. There's not even a nameplate affixed somewhere? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 20 18:24:41 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:24:41 -0800 Subject: Awesome ARPAnet documentary In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603201624410025.2AC6A98C@10.0.0.252> On 3/20/2006 at 4:52 PM Richard wrote: >How about this terminal? > Looks like it might be an old Beehive, from the keyboard and the slab-sided display. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Mar 20 19:03:09 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:03:09 -0700 Subject: Data General 3700 Aviion (Hooks, TX) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <441F50CD.1010902@DakotaCom.Net> Richard wrote: > In article <441F3FDE.8020707 at DakotaCom.Net>, > Don Y writes: > >> Richard wrote: >>> >>> >>> Says it has unspecified "missing components". No bid on this yet, >>> closes today. >>> >>> Speaking of items on govliquidation.com where there is no bid, I was >>> told that they get relisted until they sell. If it doesn't sell a >>> couple times, then they bundle it with something else they think will >>> sell to move it outta there :-). >> Grrrr.... I just picked up what I *thought* was a 3700 eaarlier >> today -- but it doesn't look like the photo above! :-( > > Don't count on GovLiquidation.com being accurate in their Yeah, I think I verified my box as a 3700 from some DG docs so I'd prefer to think GL is hosed... > descriptions. Hell, count yourself lucky if you get anything > descriptive in the description! I can't tell you how many times I've > seen lots in other cities with this description: "TERMINAL". Ummm, > yeah... there was only one kind of terminal ever made.... Or, "computing device"... :-( >> Crap! Why can't DG put model numbers on or in or ANYPLACE on >> their boxes? I've got another (older) AViiON -- that I *think* >> was a 3000? -- that also was a chore to identify. > > There's not even a nameplate affixed somewhere? If you take the plastic front bezel off (which ONLY says "AViiON"), you would be hard pressed to think the machine wasn't just some generic Intel server! :-( Likewise, the older "3000" suffers in the same way (the front bezel is the only thing that says anything -- "AViiON"). Pull that off and it just looks like a generic "made by intel" server. Maybe intel made these as generic MP boxes and other folks rebrand them as needed? Dunno. I'll snoop around the disks and see if there is anything else that sheds light on what it is... --don From rtellason at blazenet.net Mon Mar 20 19:17:55 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 20:17:55 -0500 Subject: Televideo (was Re: Hazeltine 1420 available) In-Reply-To: <20060320153151.GA25417@ned.cc.purdue.edu> References: <200603201134.k2KBYbZV026204@mwave.heeltoe.com> <20060320153151.GA25417@ned.cc.purdue.edu> Message-ID: <200603202017.55476.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Monday 20 March 2006 10:31 am, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 07:43:30AM -0700, Richard wrote: > > Televideo terminals come up fairly often > > That is, unless you're looking for a TS800 or similar, like I am (or any > TS8xx gear...) My dad used to have a TS806 at his practice, which I > took apart after it broke (and which my parents threw out :(. > > Couple years ago, Don Maslin sent me a TS816, but I don't have any > terminals to go with it now (and it seems to have a bad hard drive > and tape drive...). > > Anyone else here collect Televideo stuff? Or, have some they want to > get rid of? :) I have a TS816 as well, been sitting in my storage unit for quite a while. Don also sent me a belt to put on that HD, though I never did get around to installing it. The tape did work for me after I cleaned it up, but that was a bunch of years ago. I think I have a rather long cable to plug into one of those DB15 connectors, too, someplace. That's as far as I've gotten in terms of collecting that stuff. :-) -- 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 news at computercollector.com Mon Mar 20 19:24:18 2006 From: news at computercollector.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 20:24:18 -0500 Subject: Nixdorf LK-3000 on Yahoo! auctions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000201c64c86$2d641460$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> >>> Is this the machine that can't work without a module because there's no processor in the main machine? Yes. By itself, the machine is just a one-line LED screen, a chicklet keyboard, and a cartridge slot. All of the computation is done in the modules. Most of the modules are for language translation. But two of the modules are really interesting -- Electronic Notepad (#LK-3500) and Filing System (#LK-1001) which give the system primitive word processing and a flat-file database. There was a scientific calculator module as well, and the system was used by spooks as an encryption device when connected to an acoustic modem. LOL, I don't have that module... But I have almost every other module including the two PDA-like ones mentioned above. -----Original Message----- From: Tony Duell [mailto:ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk] Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 5:37 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Nixdorf LK-3000 on Yahoo! auctions > > Nah, it says it's not working, and it doesn't appear to have any > modules, let alone the cool ones. Working ones aren't hard to find. Is this the machine that can't work without a module because there's no processor in the main machine? Each module contains a microcontroller. Just out of curiousity, what are the 'cool modules' (and if any joker dares to suggest one for refrigeration / air conditioning calculations, I will not be responsible for my action :-)) -tony From rtellason at blazenet.net Mon Mar 20 19:24:17 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 20:24:17 -0500 Subject: VLB Stuff Message-ID: <200603202024.17225.rtellason@blazenet.net> I seem to be accumulating some VLB stuff, would anybody here find it useful? It's mostly I/O cards (many including floppy and IDE interfaces and the other more usual stuff) and some video cards. I'll be happy to part with it for not much more than the cost of postage. -- 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 dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Mar 20 19:42:04 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:42:04 -0700 Subject: Sun drive array In-Reply-To: <28080.144.160.5.25.1142879878.squirrel@mail.athenet.net> References: <441DB405.7050004@DakotaCom.Net> <23474.88.211.153.27.1142799369.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> <441DC306.2060609@DakotaCom.Net> <5549.195.114.232.202.1142849027.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> <28080.144.160.5.25.1142879878.squirrel@mail.athenet.net> Message-ID: <441F59EC.2010600@DakotaCom.Net> Tom Peters wrote: >>> Edward wrote: >>> Yes, but is it LVD to the tray or HVD? >>> E.g. I have found that the D1000 is *H*VD -- so my *L*VD >>> controllers won't talk to it. :-( >> It's HVD I'm afraid. >> >>>> Each array can be used as a JBOD if you like. >>> Ah, thanks. > > Let's see, a box of old, small capacity drives, reliability unknown... why The two boxes currently have seven 9G drives, each. I have a box of 18G drives that can replace these -- *IF* I can talk to the boxes! > would you NOT make a RAID out of it? Because I don't have the controller that they attach to! :> So, they are, at best, JBOD's. What I *do* with those (e.g., software RAID) is a different issue. > Why put data on them if you're not > all that concerned about it going away when one of those old drives goes > tango uniform (toes up) ? With that many independent drives, couldn't you > make a really big RAID-5 out of it? The data I want to store on them is already backed up on MO, CD-R and DLT media. Getting the data onto a drive array is just one of convenience. And, while 15x18G drives waste more electricity, BTUs and *space* than a single 300G *IDE* drive, couldn't you argue that damn near ANY of the machines discussed on this list could be more "efficiently" replaced by something newer, smaller, faster, etc.? :> --don From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Mar 20 19:44:06 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:44:06 -0700 Subject: Sun drive array In-Reply-To: <6e19fd1fc3ba4d1db59fa0414047851f@valleyimplants.com> References: <6e19fd1fc3ba4d1db59fa0414047851f@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <441F5A66.1030305@DakotaCom.Net> Scott Quinn wrote: > DEC had a SBB module that converts HVD to SE for FWD SCSI. Can't remember what it's called now, > but the block can be dissected to the board, which has standard 68-pin internal & external connectors > (external for HVD, internal for SE). 3.5" form factor, standard power. Pretty convienient The I/F on these isn't a very dense board -- not a very high level of integration. I'll have to look at the line-transceivers to see if they can be hacked... --don From waisun.chia at gmail.com Mon Mar 20 19:56:04 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 09:56:04 +0800 Subject: WTB: DEFTA (Turbochannel FDDI adapter) In-Reply-To: <441F0005.2090408@mdrconsult.com> References: <441F0005.2090408@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: On 3/21/06, Doc Shipley wrote: > Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > > Anybody have some DEFTAs to spare? > > I'm planning to build a high performance dual ring FDDI network for my > > DEC3000s and DEC5000.. > > I need 3 of them..more if budget permitting.. > > Are you in the US? No. I'm in Malaysia. From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Mon Mar 20 19:56:21 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 20:56:21 -0500 Subject: uVAX II diagnostics In-Reply-To: <11c909eb0603201519w446369c6t@mail.gmail.com> References: <11c909eb0603201519w446369c6t@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060321015621.AA272BA48AC@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> "Pete Edwards" wrote: > Can anyone help me get hold of a copy of the above? I understand there are 2 > versions, 1 was shipped with the system and > the field services version, which is a separately licensed product. > My BA23 uVAX II is throwing machine checks, it seems like diags are the > first place to start, any other suggestions? The diagnostics aren't really helpful here. At best they let you format a RD5x that is already formatted. I have NEVER seen the uVax field diagnostics (either "customer" or "field service") actually help diagnose a problem more serious than blown line drivers on a RS-232 port (and we knew that already!) Tips: #-1: Any complaints from the power-on self test? #0: Post the details of your machine check. In my experience most of them are from buggy drivers/misconfiguration. Old versions of UCX are pure crap on a network shared with modern Windows machines etc. Are you getting a crash dump? #1: Get rid of everything except the CPU and minimal memory and system disk controller. Boot VMS. Still have the same problem? If so, it's something in that subset of hardware/software. #2: Add hardware. When it starts crashing again, you found the problem. Tim. From rtellason at blazenet.net Mon Mar 20 20:08:53 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 21:08:53 -0500 Subject: Sun drive array In-Reply-To: <441F59EC.2010600@DakotaCom.Net> References: <441DB405.7050004@DakotaCom.Net> <28080.144.160.5.25.1142879878.squirrel@mail.athenet.net> <441F59EC.2010600@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200603202108.53335.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Monday 20 March 2006 08:42 pm, Don Y wrote: > Tom Peters wrote: > >>> Edward wrote: > >>> Yes, but is it LVD to the tray or HVD? > >>> E.g. I have found that the D1000 is *H*VD -- so my *L*VD > >>> controllers won't talk to it. :-( > >> > >> It's HVD I'm afraid. > >> > >>>> Each array can be used as a JBOD if you like. > >>> > >>> Ah, thanks. > > > > Let's see, a box of old, small capacity drives, reliability unknown... > > why > > The two boxes currently have seven 9G drives, each. I have a box > of 18G drives that can replace these -- *IF* I can talk to the > boxes! > > > would you NOT make a RAID out of it? > > Because I don't have the controller that they attach to! :> > So, they are, at best, JBOD's. What I *do* with those > (e.g., software RAID) is a different issue. > > > Why put data on them if you're not > > all that concerned about it going away when one of those old drives goes > > tango uniform (toes up) ? With that many independent drives, couldn't you > > make a really big RAID-5 out of it? > > The data I want to store on them is already backed up on > MO, CD-R and DLT media. Getting the data onto a drive array > is just one of convenience. And, while 15x18G drives waste > more electricity, BTUs and *space* than a single 300G *IDE* > drive, couldn't you argue that damn near ANY of the machines > discussed on this list could be more "efficiently" replaced > by something newer, smaller, faster, etc.? :> Heh... I've got a box where I'm building up a RAID array w/ 2G drives! Only because I got given a whole pile of these for free. A while back there were a whole mess of 9G SCSI-wide drives around in the surplus market, and my inclination is to eventually get a hold of some of those and upgrade the array to that size, eventually, when I can accumulate enough of them. I really can't afford to invest in them if I had to buy them, though. I'm mainly just inclined to use what I've got, I guess. -- 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 rborsuk at colourfull.com Mon Mar 20 21:51:18 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 22:51:18 -0500 Subject: Cat Weasel on the bay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <38BC780D-0577-4D83-A0EE-25686EC4514A@colourfull.com> All this talk, and like magic, one shows up. http://cgi.ebay.com/Catweasel-MK4-for-Amiga-and-PC- NEW_W0QQitemZ8784158924QQcategoryZ4598QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Rob ps. Item 8784158924 in case the link doesn't work. From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 20 22:13:08 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 21:13:08 -0700 Subject: Data General 3700 Aviion (Hooks, TX) In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:03:09 -0700. <441F50CD.1010902@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: In article <441F50CD.1010902 at DakotaCom.Net>, Don Y writes: > > Don't count on GovLiquidation.com being accurate in their > > Yeah, I think I verified my box as a 3700 from some DG docs > so I'd prefer to think GL is hosed... The only way I know to verify the govliquidation.com descriptions is if they have the full purchase chain documented. That gives the part number as issued by the manufacturer, along with address & telephone of the manufacturer as well as any 3rd-party resellers in the whole supply chain. I've seen crisis.com listed there before :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 20 22:17:29 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 21:17:29 -0700 Subject: Televideo (was Re: Hazeltine 1420 available) In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 20 Mar 2006 20:17:55 -0500. <200603202017.55476.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: In article <200603202017.55476.rtellason at blazenet.net>, "Roy J. Tellason" writes: > On Monday 20 March 2006 10:31 am, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 07:43:30AM -0700, Richard wrote: > > > Televideo terminals come up fairly often > > > > That is, unless you're looking for a TS800 or similar, like I am (or any > > TS8xx gear...) My dad used to have a TS806 at his practice, which I > > took apart after it broke (and which my parents threw out :(. > > [...] > > I have a TS816 as well, [...] I just picked up a TS-803 from ebay. What got me interested in it were two things: i) the case is funky and original, and ii) it purports to be one of the few CP/M machines that had graphics right out of the box. Amazingly it got here without the case getting smashed. That's either luck on my part (based on how it was packed) or they have sturdy cases. I think it ended up being a little bit of both. With the funky case design, I was certain that it was going to have sheared away from the main unit. I think from now on I'm going to demand that they use a professional packing service for shipping anything besides documentation. I'm tired of paying $70 for a hulk of smashed plastic to be delivered to my house :-(. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 20 22:18:55 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 21:18:55 -0700 Subject: EISA cards (was: VLB Stuff) In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 20 Mar 2006 20:24:17 -0500. <200603202024.17225.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: Speaking of odd boards, I have the following EISA boards for cost of shipping: EISA Cards ----------------- 2 ATI, Mach32, VGA, DB15F 1 Adaptec, AHA-2742AT, SCSI, 50-pin high density 1 3Com, Etherlink III EISA 10 Mbps, RJ45+AUI -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 20 22:20:13 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 21:20:13 -0700 Subject: Cat Weasel on the bay In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 20 Mar 2006 22:51:18 -0500. <38BC780D-0577-4D83-A0EE-25686EC4514A@colourfull.com> Message-ID: In article <38BC780D-0577-4D83-A0EE-25686EC4514A at colourfull.com>, Robert Borsuk writes: > All this talk, and like magic, one shows up. Hrm. $128 starting bid? For an extra $4 I might as well buy one new. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Mon Mar 20 22:23:19 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 21:23:19 -0700 Subject: Televideo (was Re: Hazeltine 1420 available) In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 20 Mar 2006 20:17:55 -0500. <200603202017.55476.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: OK, since I just got this TS-803, anyone have software for it? I haven't powered it up yet, I need to go through a basic inspection of everything first. But it didn't come with any manuals or disks, just the hardware. In particular, I'd like to see some docs on the graphics capabilities so that something could be coded on it. I see no docs or bits on bitsavers and there is nothing beyond the basic description on old-computers.com. Anyone? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 20 22:36:48 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 20:36:48 -0800 Subject: Televideo (was Re: Hazeltine 1420 available) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603202036480898.2BAD7C0F@10.0.0.252> I've got a TS803 user's manual. How do we get it onto Bitsavers? If I've got the manual, I almost certainly have boot and utilities disks for it. But I'd have to look around. Cheers, Chuck On 3/20/2006 at 9:23 PM Richard wrote: >OK, since I just got this TS-803, anyone have software for it? I >haven't powered it up yet, I need to go through a basic inspection of >everything first. But it didn't come with any manuals or disks, just >the hardware. In particular, I'd like to see some docs on the >graphics capabilities so that something could be coded on it. > >I see no docs or bits on bitsavers and there is nothing beyond the >basic description on old-computers.com. Anyone? >-- >"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > From fernande at internet1.net Mon Mar 20 23:07:31 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 00:07:31 -0500 Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <441F8A13.6070205@internet1.net> Tony Duell wrote: > Heck, it took me a long time to figure out > what 'Krazy Glue' was, and even now I am not usre (I think it's what's > commonly called supergule in the UK, that is an isocyano acryllic > hydro-copolymerising adhexive). I think Krazy Glue is a specific brand name. We call that type of glue super glue, too. > Does 'Araldite' mean anything across the > Pond? In the UK, it's a common brand (and sort-of generic) for the 2-part > epoxy resin adhexives? Sounds like some sort of mineral, rock formation, crystal type thing a geologist would study :-) No, we don't have that here :-) > What about Avometer (== analogue multimeter, VOM)? VOM, yes. Avometer, not that I've heard of.... what does the Avo mean? Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From vax9000 at gmail.com Mon Mar 20 23:20:51 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 00:20:51 -0500 Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: <441F8A13.6070205@internet1.net> References: <441F8A13.6070205@internet1.net> Message-ID: On 3/21/06, C Fernandez wrote: > > VOM, yes. Avometer, not that I've heard of.... what does the Avo mean? my guess is ampere, voltage and omega Chad Fernandez > Michigan, USA > From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 17 11:59:16 2006 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:59:16 -0000 Subject: VAX VMS In-Reply-To: <441AF6CB.9010706@srv.net> Message-ID: <003d01c649ec$8300e020$c901a8c0@tempname> Kevin Handy wrote: > Jim Beacon wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> I have a VMS question, I have VMS 7.3 installed on a VAX 3100 M76, >> and want to know how to get TCP/IP to work, and more importantly, >> which license in the Hobbyist PAK relates to TCP/IP - I haven't yet >> worked out how DEC / HP name the PAKs. >> >> > You are probably looking for UCX. And to configue it will be either @SYS$MANAGER:UCX$CONFIG or @SYS$MANAGER:TCPIP$CONFIGURE.COM (or something close to that ... mine's running V7.1 not V7.3) Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Sat Mar 18 13:15:14 2006 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 19:15:14 -0000 Subject: PCI DSSI adapters; was [Re: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <008a01c64ac0$4a15d980$c901a8c0@tempname> Zane H. Healy wrote: > I think this is the first I've ever heard of a PCI DSSI controller, > and I'm a little surprised that such a thing exists. The KFPSA definitely exists. Remember that PCI was a common interface on many Alphas. Tapping into existing DSSI clusters was obviously seen as sufficiently important by someone. There was also an EISA DSSI interface: the KFESB - in fact I think I have one of those. > The other > odd-ball one would be the PCI CI controller, the thing is, that a CI > controller makes far more sense. I have a CIPCA too, I think. I think mine is the -AA, the one that takes up a PCI slot but also needs an EISA slot so it can suck up some more power. > All DSSI talks to is a few hard > drives, and tape drives. I don't think it can be used as a cluster > interface (if it did the controller would make sense), so why bother. Some DSSI interfaces could be used for SCA (cluster) traffic and some could not. the only one I'm confident could NOT (off the top of my head) was the KFQSA (Qbus DSSI interface). I am reasonably sure that the KFPSA could be used as a DSSI cluster interface and obviously the CIPCA would be pretty useless if it could not handle cluster traffic! Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From jondjohnston at hotmail.com Sun Mar 19 16:14:40 2006 From: jondjohnston at hotmail.com (Jon Johnston) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 09:14:40 +1100 Subject: HP "Computer News" Magazine Message-ID: We are looking for old copies of Hewlett-Packard "Computer News" magazine. This magazine was printed from about 1983 through the end of the 1990s. It usually contained about 30 or 40 pages and was for HP field sales people. It was printed bi-weekly. We currently have only 3 editions. Please let me know if you know anyone who might have copies. Cheers, Jon Johnston HP Computer Museum http://www.hpmuseum.net From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 19 17:11:28 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 15:11:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: grease advice needed Message-ID: <20060319231128.81754.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> WHAT ABOUT CRISCO??? ;) ;) ;) --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > > > > Hey Guys, > > > > This afternoon I'm cleaning up a Sony GDM-1602 monitor. I have the case > > disassembled, and have washed all but the largest pieces. The base is a > > very nice rotating and tilting design. The rotation taken place because > > the plastic tilting assembly rides on a flat sheet metal base. The > > contact area is a circular plastic ridge that was lubed with an > > clear-ish amber grease. > > > > What kind of grease should I use to re-lube this? I want to provide > > adequate lubrication between the plastic and steel, but I don't want > > something that will hurt the plastic. I was thinking about using > > many years ago I got a tube of something that claimed to be 'Electrolube > Special Plastic Greast' (Electrolube being a well-known brand of cleaning > solvents, etc over here). It seems to be safe on all plastics I've tried > it on so far, and it should have suitable lubriacting properties for this > sort of thing (it's not exactly a high-speed mechanism!). > > Where you get it from is another matter, but surely plastic-safe greases > still exist. > > -tony > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Mar 19 22:28:15 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 20:28:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: another mysterious chip Message-ID: <20060320042815.79263.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> First line: circle possibly with M in it, INMOS B. Second line: IMSG170S35 (pretty sure). Third line: 8611 - obviously date of manufacture. Chip has a gold cover, and is present on a dual 8-bit graphics card made by Vermont Microsystems, 80188 on board (similar to an IBM PGA card). Works in a P166MMX DTK mobo...but not in my IBM PC/AT. And yer know what else...it emulates CGA (pretty well seemingly, but only tested it with QBasic thus far). O for the drivers to access its wild advanced modes *snifful*. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From Laura.Walker at smiths-aerospace.com Mon Mar 20 12:54:39 2006 From: Laura.Walker at smiths-aerospace.com (Walker, Laura (ACLE)) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 11:54:39 -0700 Subject: National Instruments Cards available Message-ID: <7A0969F9615F8645B93B9A6F8FCDE54C017BCE51@cossmgmbx06.EMAIL.CORP.TLD> Are these National Instrument NuBus cards still available ? Laura Walker Smiths Aerospace, LLC ****************************************** The information contained in, or attached to, this e-mail, may contain confidential information and is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed and may be subject to legal privilege. If you have received this e-mail in error you should notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail, delete the message from your system and notify your system manager. Please do not copy it for any purpose, or disclose its contents to any other person. The views or opinions presented in this e-mail are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the company. The recipient should check this e-mail and any attachments for the presence of viruses. The company accepts no liability for any damage caused, directly or indirectly, by any virus transmitted in this email. ****************************************** From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 20 18:08:31 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:08:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: NEC APC boot disks CP/M-86 and DOS In-Reply-To: <20060317122603.E25748@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20060321000831.83055.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Cisin wrote: > On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Rich Bramante wrote: > > I hadn't thought about going in the other > direction and hooking a 5.25" to the > > APC. Has anybody else tried this? > > Yes. > NEC did so. pardon? I do have an aftermarket set of (I believe) 360k drives and controller, made by Butler Flats Associates. Hopefully the driver is recoverable from the stack of 8" disks I have. Not a bootable configuration as far as I know. The controller is 1793 based IIRC. The APC uses a 765. Go figure. If anyone wants pictures of the board, I'd be happy to oblige __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Mar 20 22:14:20 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 20:14:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: the Canon Cat meow Message-ID: <20060321041420.86994.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> I just obtained a rather beautiful specimen (specimen - an Italian astronaut LOL LOL). So I hearby announce my desire to network with other owners of the same. And does anyone know if an 8088 add-on was ever offered?? It seems like the most natural thing to me. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From darryld1 at cox.net Mon Mar 20 23:53:27 2006 From: darryld1 at cox.net (Darryl) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 22:53:27 -0700 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? Message-ID: <012401c64cab$c6aa3580$46e5e444@ph.cox.net> I am looking to purchase some type of old printer/computer that will print like an old IBM printer that was used in auto manufacturing plants in the 1960s. The font is much larger than any typewriter I have seen, but even that would serve my purpose if it were available. Can you help me out or steer me in the right direction? Thanks, darryld1 at cox.net From darryld1 at cox.net Tue Mar 21 00:03:56 2006 From: darryld1 at cox.net (Darryl) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 23:03:56 -0700 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? Message-ID: <012b01c64cad$3da64d80$46e5e444@ph.cox.net> I am looking to purchase some type of old printer/computer that will print like an old IBM printer that was used in auto manufacturing plants in the 1960s. The font is much larger than any typewriter I have seen, but even that would serve my purpose if it were available. Can you help me out or steer me in the right direction? Thanks, darryld1 at cox.net From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 21 01:43:52 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 23:43:52 -0800 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: <012401c64cab$c6aa3580$46e5e444@ph.cox.net> References: <012401c64cab$c6aa3580$46e5e444@ph.cox.net> Message-ID: <200603202343520490.2C58BCCC@10.0.0.252> On 3/20/2006 at 10:53 PM Darryl wrote: >I am looking to purchase some type of old printer/computer that will >print like an old IBM printer that was used in auto manufacturing plants >in the 1960s. >The font is much larger than any typewriter I have seen, but even that >would serve my purpose if it were available. >Can you help me out or steer me in the right direction? Before the Selectric mechanism, IBM used an I/O typewriter that looked like the old IBM Model B. I remember if as the console typewriter on the 1620. Here are some photos of the Model B: http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/modelb/modelb_album.html Here's a photo of the 1620--see the resemblance? http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/1620.html It wasn't unsual to see several IBM Model B's and Executives (proportional spacing) at the priners. When you needed to do article headings, you went to the typewriter with the large typeface and typed your heading, then moved to another machine to do the text body. Anyone remember how to work the spacebars on the Executive? I used to have one in my office to type memos on. A well-adjusted Executive gave absolutely gorgeous results. Cheers, Chuck From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Tue Mar 21 02:58:28 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 09:58:28 +0100 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: <441F1EC2.7010600@Rikers.org> References: <200603171734.26890.rtellason@blazenet.net> <441B3D4E.1010800@DakotaCom.Net> <200603181411.13168.rtellason@blazenet.net> <20060319040149.GC23112@ned.cc.purdue.edu> <441DD7E8.6010602@vintagecomputermarketplace.com> <441F1EC2.7010600@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <20060321095828.6175f11c.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:29:38 -0700 Tim Riker wrote: > Anyone know how to get the HVD drives to interoperate > with normal drives/controllers? There are HVD-SE converters. E.g. DEC made them as a stand alone version and as SSB for the Storage Works shelfes. It is just a box HVD on one seide and SE on the other. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Tue Mar 21 03:03:56 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:03:56 +0100 Subject: PCI DSSI adapters; was [Re: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060321100356.292c473b.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:09:34 +0800 "Wai-Sun Chia" wrote: > Which modern PC-based *nix does this work on? Linux, *BSD? The problem is not supporting the PCI DSSI adapter, the problem is supporting the protocols spoken on DSSI / CI. I can't remember about Tru64, I think VMS was (is?) the only OS to support PCI DSSI / CI adapters. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Tue Mar 21 03:06:39 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:06:39 +0100 Subject: FA: DEC RF-71 Disk Drive In-Reply-To: References: <20060316105526.45facc0c.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <00c301c64927$61bbfd20$c901a8c0@tempname> <20060317223229.2318f9b0.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <20060321100639.30d5c89c.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Sat, 18 Mar 2006 11:46:37 +0800 "Wai-Sun Chia" wrote: > Even more interesting is the existence of PCI-based DSSI adapters??!!! Well. DSSI was still in use when PCI based Aphas had replaced VAXen. I got mine out of two AlphaServers that where VMS clustered together. They used DSSI to connect to two RAID arrays with several dozend 4 GB SCSI disks and two SCSI to DSSI RAID controllers. Some HSZ-/HSD-somthing in a BA350 like storage works shelf. In short: A "low boy" rack full of storage works shelfs filled with disks and RAID controllers. > Pray tell more. Pictures, specs, brand/model, etc. I don't have pictures. They look like an ordinary NCR / Symbios 53C825 based PCI SCSI adapter. Nothing special on that hardware. The interresting part is the software. The NCR / Symbios 53C825 has a programmable RISC (?) CPU core inside. The SCSI protocol seems to be implemented by programming this CPU with apropriate micocode. As Antonio pointed out the physical characteristics of SCSI and DSSI are similar. So all DEC needed was to programm a micocode that talks DSSI instead SCSI. And yes, it was an official DEC product. > In the same vein, dare I ask: Is there a PCI-based UDA clone or a RQDX > clone? A PCI to SDI or a PCI to MFM adapter / controller? Not that I am aware of. And I doubt that this exists. MFM and SDI where dead when PCI got comon. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From williams.dan at gmail.com Tue Mar 21 04:31:52 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:31:52 +0000 Subject: Cat Weasel on the bay In-Reply-To: References: <38BC780D-0577-4D83-A0EE-25686EC4514A@colourfull.com> Message-ID: <26c11a640603210231x83abbao@mail.gmail.com> Like buses there are 2 this one starts at 99p item no. 8784157220 Dan From geoffreythomas at onetel.com Tue Mar 21 05:14:14 2006 From: geoffreythomas at onetel.com (Geoffrey Thomas) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 11:14:14 -0000 Subject: grease advice needed References: <441F8A13.6070205@internet1.net> Message-ID: <004501c64cd8$a02712c0$0200a8c0@geoff> Amps,Volts,ohms... they also made exposure meters etc. http://www.diaxa.com/weston/avo.htm Geoff. ----- Original Message ----- From: "9000 VAX" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 5:20 AM Subject: Re: grease advice needed On 3/21/06, C Fernandez wrote: > > VOM, yes. Avometer, not that I've heard of.... what does the Avo mean? my guess is ampere, voltage and omega Chad Fernandez > Michigan, USA > -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.2.6/286 - Release Date: 20/03/06 From RMeenaks at olf.com Tue Mar 21 06:36:53 2006 From: RMeenaks at olf.com (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 07:36:53 -0500 Subject: another mysterious chip Message-ID: <9A6FF2537AEA484296A3EE4990D1855701748464@cpexchange.olf.com> That is the INMOS G170 graphics chip. Used in the IBM graphics cards. I got the datasheet somewhere in my house :-) I remember AD also made a pin-compatible version of it too... Cheers, Ram > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chris M > Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2006 11:28 PM > To: tech > Subject: another mysterious chip > > > First line: circle possibly with M in it, INMOS B. > Second line: IMSG170S35 (pretty sure). Third line: > 8611 - obviously date of manufacture. Chip has a gold > cover, and is present on a dual 8-bit graphics card > made by Vermont Microsystems, 80188 on board (similar > to an IBM PGA card). Works in a P166MMX DTK mobo...but > not in my IBM PC/AT. And yer know what else...it > emulates CGA (pretty well seemingly, but only tested > it with QBasic thus far). O for the drivers to access > its wild advanced modes *snifful*. > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > From dave06a at dunfield.com Tue Mar 21 06:38:50 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 07:38:50 -0500 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density Message-ID: <20060321123937.KJLQ8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Hi Guys, I've found about 6-7 systems around here that work fine with ImageDisk and single-density. I've also tested all of my systems using Chucks handly little TESTSD utility ** and I get an exact match - the systems that work with IMD and single-density are reported OK by TESTSD and those that don't work with IMD and single-density are reported as "failed" by TESTED. ** for those who are unfamilier with it, TESTSD formats the top 5 tracks of drive A as single-density and verifies that it can read/write it. You can easily make up a floppy that you can boot and use to test for single-density (thanks Chuck). I also have corresponded with quite a number of people who have gotten IMD and single-density to work on other systems, so I know that it is basically functioning correctly. I've been corresponding with a chap who has been trying to get IMD to work at single-density without success. I gave him the TESTSD utility to check out his systems, and also mentioned that I have heard "good things" about Adaptec controllers. This is his response: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I tried two adaptec controllers I had here. The first - an Adaptec 1542CF wasn't reported as compatible by the TESTSD program, and doesn't work. The second, a simpler Adaptec 1522A is reported as compatible, but doesn't write the Osborne SD 5.25" format using IMD. Interestingly however it will write it using Teledisk. It also will read correctly with Teledisk, but not with IMD. Strange stuff! It uses a DP8473AV as the floppy drive controller IC. For completeness I'm using DOS7.1, and a Celeron 300A system and a Qume 5.25" 360Kb floppy. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Osborne SD disks read/write OK for me in all of my IMD systems) So it would appear that I am still missing something. Perhaps it is something specific to the DP8473AV FDC, or some other PC hardware specific setting that "happens" to be set correctly by BIOS in most cases. IMD configures the FDC as per the original NEC 765 databook. It also sets the drive motor and select signals at port 3F2/372, the AT data rate at 3F7/377 as well as the DMA controller/setup... Anyone have any idea what I have missed? My main references have been the NEC databook, and the Phoenix BIOS technical reference manual ... Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Mar 21 08:37:02 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 06:37:02 -0800 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density Message-ID: <62077165-FB05-4DF2-A2D9-E4DAEE983CA6@bitsavers.org> > It uses a DP8473AV as the floppy drive controller IC. http://www.osdever.net/cottontail/#Floppy has the data sheet and a app note for the data separator, which is more sophisticated than the one normally found in a 765. I assume there's a way to deterimine if you have a 8473 in software. From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Mar 21 10:27:00 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:27:00 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: <012b01c64cad$3da64d80$46e5e444@ph.cox.net> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060321102700.18afb73c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> I find piles of Selectrics in the scrap/surplus places and I've been looking through them hoping to find one with a computer interface but I haven't seen one yet. I asked a friend of mine that REALLY into the surplus about it and he says he hasn't seen one in YEARS. :-( Joe At 11:03 PM 3/20/06 -0700, you wrote: >I am looking to purchase some type of old printer/computer that will print like an old IBM printer that was used in auto manufacturing plants in the 1960s. >The font is much larger than any typewriter I have seen, but even that would serve my purpose if it were available. >Can you help me out or steer me in the right direction? >Thanks, >darryld1 at cox.net > From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 21 10:51:49 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 09:51:49 -0700 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:27:00. <3.0.6.16.20060321102700.18afb73c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: In article <3.0.6.16.20060321102700.18afb73c at pop-server.cfl.rr.com>, "Joe R." writes: > I find piles of Selectrics in the scrap/surplus places and I've been > looking through them hoping to find one with a computer interface but I > haven't seen one yet. I asked a friend of mine that REALLY into the > surplus about it and he says he hasn't seen one in YEARS. :-( I think what you're after is the IBM 2741. It had a selectric type typewriter element and keyboard, but had a modem/comm interface built into the back. Because of this it was pretty deep, about 8-12 inches deeper than a typewriter but still sat on top of a desk. The only photo I've been able to find online shows another model I hadn't seen where the typewriter is integrated *into* its own desk. The 2741 ran at 134.5 baud and I used one in 1979/1980 to print out English papers for high school via UDel's Project Delta. Ours was a lovely shade of turquoise :-). I've had a standing ebay search for a while, but its never turned up a hit. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 21 10:54:45 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 09:54:45 -0700 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 21 Mar 2006 09:51:49 -0700. Message-ID: In article , Richard writes: > I think what you're after is the IBM 2741. It had a selectric type > typewriter element and keyboard, but had a modem/comm interface built > into the back. [...] Allow me to be more specific. It had an acoustic coupler built into the back :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From bert at brothom.nl Tue Mar 21 10:51:08 2006 From: bert at brothom.nl (Bert Thomas) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 17:51:08 +0100 (CET) Subject: OT: video signal question Message-ID: <35502.192.168.0.10.1142959868.squirrel@office.brothom.nl> Hi, Appearently something like video printers exist. They have "normal" video inputs and are somehow able to extract a command to make a hardcopy from the video signal. In my case the command is triggered by a button on an edoscope control panel. Can anyone tell me how the trigger signal is embedded in the video signal? Thanks! Bert From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Mar 21 11:16:27 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:16:27 -0700 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <442034EB.8000400@DakotaCom.Net> Richard wrote: > In article <3.0.6.16.20060321102700.18afb73c at pop-server.cfl.rr.com>, > "Joe R." writes: > >> I find piles of Selectrics in the scrap/surplus places and I've been >> looking through them hoping to find one with a computer interface but I >> haven't seen one yet. I asked a friend of mine that REALLY into the >> surplus about it and he says he hasn't seen one in YEARS. :-( > > I think what you're after is the IBM 2741. It had a selectric type > typewriter element and keyboard, but had a modem/comm interface built > into the back. Because of this it was pretty deep, about 8-12 inches > deeper than a typewriter but still sat on top of a desk. The only > photo I've been able to find online shows another model I hadn't seen > where the typewriter is integrated *into* its own desk. The 2741 ran > at 134.5 baud and I used one in 1979/1980 to print out English papers > for high school via UDel's Project Delta. Ours was a lovely shade of > turquoise :-). I've had a standing ebay search for a while, but its > never turned up a hit. The "built into a desk" model may have been Trendata's offering. I have an IBM I/O in storage (along with service manual, spare parts, etc.). Allegedly, 134.5 baud was the maximum rate the *mechanism* could run at (?) EPSCO used to make an "Edityper" (a "word processor" built around a modified selectric -- but it was the *smaller* selectric and I don't think IBM did the modifications -- and a PPT for "storage"). I had one until the typewriter service man I brought it to for a tune up decided tht all that "extra stuff" in there was getting in the way -- and he systematically removed *all* of it!! From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Mar 21 11:23:59 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:23:59 -0700 Subject: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: <35502.192.168.0.10.1142959868.squirrel@office.brothom.nl> References: <35502.192.168.0.10.1142959868.squirrel@office.brothom.nl> Message-ID: <442036AF.2060107@DakotaCom.Net> Bert Thomas wrote: > Appearently something like video printers exist. They have "normal" video > inputs and are somehow able to extract a command to make a hardcopy from > the video signal. In my case the command is triggered by a button on an > edoscope control panel. Can anyone tell me how the trigger signal is > embedded in the video signal? Hmmm... the only video printers I have seen/used were independant of the video source. That was the whole point of their design (e.g., to grab a copy of the image on a ComputerVision CAD system without having to tinker with their software in any way). I worked on such a device. The "video module" had a high speed PLL (~200MHz... fast for 1985!) that would sync to the scan rate and, from which, the sampling clock was derived. So, you just waited for a vertical sync, vertical blanking to go away and then start grabbing scan lines (and repeat if the signal was interlaced). The medical instruments I have seen work similarly -- they run 4BNC or 5BNC to the "printer" and the printer just grabs the image presented to it. I'd be curious if there is a "standard" way to encode a "capture command" in a video signal... --don From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 21 11:23:09 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:23:09 -0700 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:16:27 -0700. <442034EB.8000400@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: In article <442034EB.8000400 at DakotaCom.Net>, Don Y writes: > I have an IBM I/O in storage (along with service manual, spare parts, > etc.). What's an "IBM I/O"? > Allegedly, 134.5 baud was the maximum rate the *mechanism* could > run at (?) Yes, this sounds right based on fuzzy memory. I do remember that when it was printing full tilt it looked like it couldn't go any faster :-). > EPSCO used to make an "Edityper" (a "word processor" built around > a modified selectric -- but it was the *smaller* selectric and > I don't think IBM did the modifications -- and a PPT for > "storage"). I had one until the typewriter service man > I brought it to for a tune up decided tht all that "extra stuff" > in there was getting in the way -- and he systematically removed > *all* of it!! Err.. that's not a repair/tune up -- that's a mangling. I hope you forced him to put it all back the way it was when you brought it in? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 21 11:24:57 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:24:57 -0700 Subject: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:23:59 -0700. <442036AF.2060107@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: In article <442036AF.2060107 at DakotaCom.Net>, Don Y writes: > Hmmm... the only video printers I have seen/used were > independant of the video source. Same here. > That was the whole > point of their design (e.g., to grab a copy of the > image on a ComputerVision CAD system without having to > tinker with their software in any way). Oooh... ComputerVision. Another name I need to add to my ebay search list! Not that much is likely to turn up there, but you never know. It seems that bits and pieces of CAD workstations turn up on ebay, but I've yet to see whole machines. Anyone have a full-blown ComputerVision or Megatek CAD workstation setup? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 21 11:48:15 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 09:48:15 -0800 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060321102700.18afb73c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.16.20060321102700.18afb73c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <200603210948150860.2E82142A@10.0.0.252> On 3/21/2006 at 10:27 AM Joe R. wrote: >I find piles of Selectrics in the scrap/surplus places and I've been >looking through them hoping to find one with a computer interface but I >haven't seen one yet. I asked a friend of mine that REALLY into the >surplus about it and he says he hasn't seen one in YEARS. :-( That's true--even back in the 70's when the only real alternative for a printer for your IMSAI or Altair was an ASR-33, the Selectric I/O writers while not common, but could be found on the surplus market occasionally. I think the source was early airline reservation systems that used them to print on (tractor feed) ticket stock. IIRC, most of them had been run nearly to death and required substantial refurbing. They didn't use ASCII, but rather a "tilt and shift" code. There were a couple of articles in some of the early computing mags about interfacing them. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 21 11:52:46 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 09:52:46 -0800 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density In-Reply-To: <62077165-FB05-4DF2-A2D9-E4DAEE983CA6@bitsavers.org> References: <62077165-FB05-4DF2-A2D9-E4DAEE983CA6@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <200603210952460862.2E8636C2@10.0.0.252> On 3/21/2006 at 6:37 AM Al Kossow wrote: >I assume there's a way to deterimine if you have >a 8473 in software. Maybe so, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that neither TeleDisk nor TESTSD performs any sort of test for one. The command "MFM" bit is the only consideration (other than the data clock) that's made for FM vs. MFM recording. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 21 12:02:23 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:02:23 -0800 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: <200603210948150860.2E82142A@10.0.0.252> References: <3.0.6.16.20060321102700.18afb73c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <200603210948150860.2E82142A@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603211002230687.2E8F03F5@10.0.0.252> Not long ago, wasn't one of our posters offering a Selectric mag card unit pretty much free for the hauling? So the mechanism is still around, though you may have to locate something like the mag card or MTST office machine to get one. Cheers, Chuck From stanb at dial.pipex.com Tue Mar 21 02:55:25 2006 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 08:55:25 +0000 Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 21 Mar 2006 00:20:51 EST." Message-ID: <200603210855.IAA06953@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Chad Fernandez said: > On 3/21/06, C Fernandez wrote: > > > > > VOM, yes. Avometer, not that I've heard of.... what does the Avo mean? > > > my guess is ampere, voltage and omega Exactly. It was a trade name owned by The Automatic Coil Winder & Electrical Equipment Co. Ltd. of London. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Tue Mar 21 12:59:01 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 18:59:01 -0000 Subject: VAX VMS References: <003d01c649ec$8300e020$c901a8c0@tempname> Message-ID: <002a01c64d19$84995400$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Thanks to everyone who replied. I've found the licenses, but not managed to successfully get TCP/IP on the machine yet. I'll try again at the weekend. Jim. From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Tue Mar 21 13:02:11 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 19:02:11 -0000 Subject: Tandem terminals Message-ID: <003001c64d19$f5e0a820$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Hi, work related I'm afraid...... Does anyone have circuit diagrams for Tandem 6530 or TS530 terminals? I have several that I need to repair, as our re-seller will no longer support them. I suspect that the TS530 is a rebadged item from someone else (NCR?), but don't know for sure. Thanks Jim. Please see our website: www.g1jbg.co.uk From teoz at neo.rr.com Tue Mar 21 13:05:25 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 14:05:25 -0500 Subject: VLB Stuff References: <200603202024.17225.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <007701c64d1a$69be1070$a05d1941@game> I collect VLB cards, do you have a list of what you have? Are you in the US? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roy J. Tellason" To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 8:24 PM Subject: VLB Stuff > I seem to be accumulating some VLB stuff, would anybody here find it useful? > It's mostly I/O cards (many including floppy and IDE interfaces and the other > more usual stuff) and some video cards. > > I'll be happy to part with it for not much more than the cost of postage. > > -- > 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 legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 21 13:08:52 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 12:08:52 -0700 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 21 Mar 2006 09:48:15 -0800. <200603210948150860.2E82142A@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603210948150860.2E82142A at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > They didn't use ASCII, but rather a "tilt and shift" code. There were a > couple of articles in some of the early computing mags about interfacing > them. We must be talking about something other than the 2741 then, as it used ASCII. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From kapteynr at cboe.com Tue Mar 21 13:24:26 2006 From: kapteynr at cboe.com (Kapteyn, Rob) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 13:24:26 -0600 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? Message-ID: There was also an article in a hobbyist magazine explaining how to do a homebrew conversion of a Selectric typewriter to make a computer printer. I know, because, as a kid, we were always on the outlook for a junk Selectric that could be salvaged. I doubt that a lot were converted, because Selectric typewriters were always very expensive -- approaching the cost of "cheap" printers. -Rob -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Richard Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 1:09 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In article <200603210948150860.2E82142A at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > They didn't use ASCII, but rather a "tilt and shift" code. There were a > couple of articles in some of the early computing mags about interfacing > them. We must be talking about something other than the 2741 then, as it used ASCII. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 21 13:53:05 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 12:53:05 -0700 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 21 Mar 2006 13:24:26 -0600. Message-ID: In article , "Kapteyn, Rob" writes: > There was also an article in a hobbyist magazine explaining how to do > a homebrew conversion of a Selectric typewriter to make a computer printer. Given that I now see Selectrics in thrift stores fairly often, that would be a cool article to see. Do you have a copy still? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Mar 21 14:38:27 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 12:38:27 -0800 Subject: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: <35502.192.168.0.10.1142959868.squirrel@office.brothom.nl> References: <35502.192.168.0.10.1142959868.squirrel@office.brothom.nl> Message-ID: <44206443.60606@msm.umr.edu> Bert Thomas wrote: >Hi, > > Can anyone tell me how the trigger signal is >embedded in the video signal? > > The Sony units I have seen, are have the Sony Mavica name, and have a remote control bus that is used to trigger the prints. I would look for a control line to the printer, from the video source, unless they had a very specialized printer of some sort. There is the problem of having the print signal embedded in your video format, if you had several printers attached, having them all print. A larger system may have not only the operating suite with a printer and monitor, but might have other monitor, and printers in observation galleries. I would think that the docs would not want photos appearing on all of them if the operating surgeon hit a button. BTW the current suite goes to a cd, and the documentation is printed on regular HP printers (or whatever). I just got poked and was quite relieved not to see any surgical instruments with Microsoft logos on them. I'd have clenched myself pretty hard if that had been in evidence. I am counting hospitals and med groups now to see what the headless PC's being deployed have, and so far, I am up to three hospitals, and three med groups all running Windows 2k Profesional on their winterms. The operating room hardware in my case was HP for the patient monitor, running X (and I assume some sort of hpux underneath) and the endoscope was Philips, running some sort of embedded system, that looked more like X than any windows gui. Don't need a blue screen with a probe inside you. jim From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 21 14:43:04 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 12:43:04 -0800 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603211243040787.2F222020@10.0.0.252> On 3/21/2006 at 12:08 PM Richard wrote: >We must be talking about something other than the 2741 then, as it >used ASCII. Probably. Here's 8080 code for a driver that does the conversion: http://www.thebattles.net/sol20/ptsrc/proteus-h3/S154C%23S The setup was popular enough that TI and National sold pre-programmed ROMs to do the table lookup. The TMS2602JC converted ASCII to Selectric; the MM5230FEJ did EBCDIC-to-Selectric. There were other similar parts. Cheers, Chuck From frustum at pacbell.net Tue Mar 21 15:16:03 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 15:16:03 -0600 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: <200603211243040787.2F222020@10.0.0.252> References: <200603211243040787.2F222020@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44206D13.1080707@pacbell.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3/21/2006 at 12:08 PM Richard wrote: > >> We must be talking about something other than the 2741 then, as it >> used ASCII. > > Probably. Here's 8080 code for a driver that does the conversion: > > http://www.thebattles.net/sol20/ptsrc/proteus-h3/S154C%23S > > The setup was popular enough that TI and National sold pre-programmed ROMs > to do the table lookup. The TMS2602JC converted ASCII to Selectric; the > MM5230FEJ did EBCDIC-to-Selectric. There were other similar parts. > > Cheers, > Chuck BTW, that code came off a Helios formatted disk, recovered using a catweasel (MK3). At the time I was recovering the source, I figured there was a 1% chance anyone would ever care about any of it. The scribe who made the rosetta stone probably feels the same way. :-) From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Mar 21 15:21:18 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 13:21:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: <44206443.60606@msm.umr.edu> from jim stephens at "Mar 21, 6 12:38:27 pm" Message-ID: <200603212121.NAA13624@floodgap.com> > BTW the current suite goes to a cd, and the documentation is printed > on regular HP printers (or whatever). I just got poked and was quite > relieved not to see any surgical instruments with Microsoft logos on them. Make sure you're not being operated on with a Stryker box. I was in the OR yesterday and the Stryker case booted up into Win2K (it had a "control panel cum monitor" on the front) before entering the imaging suite. Come to think of it, the Geiger-on-steroids they use for sentinel lymph node breast biopsies boots Win98. Also, the OB ultrasound from Philips I've used recently does the same, but I've seen a few U/S devices that use X. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Evil has middle management? -- 8-bit Theatre #663 -------------------------- From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 21 15:29:09 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 14:29:09 -0700 Subject: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 21 Mar 2006 12:38:27 -0800. <44206443.60606@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: In article <44206443.60606 at msm.umr.edu>, jim stephens writes: > Don't need a blue screen with a probe inside you. No, you need a kernel panic. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From kapteynr at cboe.com Tue Mar 21 15:27:20 2006 From: kapteynr at cboe.com (Kapteyn, Rob) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 15:27:20 -0600 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? Message-ID: It would be cool ... ... but can't recall what publication it was in ... Byte, Dr. Dobbs, Computer Notes ??? I suspect that someone else on this list might have seen it... -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Richard Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 1:53 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In article , "Kapteyn, Rob" writes: > There was also an article in a hobbyist magazine explaining how to do > a homebrew conversion of a Selectric typewriter to make a computer printer. Given that I now see Selectrics in thrift stores fairly often, that would be a cool article to see. Do you have a copy still? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Mar 21 16:04:10 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 15:04:10 -0700 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4420785A.2090907@DakotaCom.Net> Richard wrote: > In article <442034EB.8000400 at DakotaCom.Net>, > Don Y writes: > >> I have an IBM I/O in storage (along with service manual, spare parts, >> etc.). > > What's an "IBM I/O"? Sorry: "IBM Selectric I/O" IIRC, the documentation refered to them as "MT/ST I/O" >> Allegedly, 134.5 baud was the maximum rate the *mechanism* could >> run at (?) > > Yes, this sounds right based on fuzzy memory. I do remember that when > it was printing full tilt it looked like it couldn't go any faster > :-). I forget the actual number of moving parts in a selectric but the number is impressive for such a small device that was routinely beaten on by secretaries, etc. Apparently they all came out of a single plant (in KY?) >> EPSCO used to make an "Edityper" (a "word processor" built around >> a modified selectric -- but it was the *smaller* selectric and >> I don't think IBM did the modifications -- and a PPT for >> "storage"). I had one until the typewriter service man >> I brought it to for a tune up decided tht all that "extra stuff" >> in there was getting in the way -- and he systematically removed >> *all* of it!! > > Err.. that's not a repair/tune up -- that's a mangling. I hope you > forced him to put it all back the way it was when you brought it in? He was a friend of the family -- quite pleased with himself for all the "free labor" he had given me. :-( Kinda hard to flame when the guy thinks he did you a favor (and you had't explicitly told him NOT to tinker with that stuff) Live and learn... From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Mar 21 16:06:55 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 15:06:55 -0700 Subject: Sun drive array In-Reply-To: <200603202108.53335.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <441DB405.7050004@DakotaCom.Net> <28080.144.160.5.25.1142879878.squirrel@mail.athenet.net> <441F59EC.2010600@DakotaCom.Net> <200603202108.53335.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <442078FF.1030407@DakotaCom.Net> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Monday 20 March 2006 08:42 pm, Don Y wrote: >> Tom Peters wrote: >>>>> Edward wrote: >>>>> Yes, but is it LVD to the tray or HVD? >>>>> E.g. I have found that the D1000 is *H*VD -- so my *L*VD >>>>> controllers won't talk to it. :-( >>>> It's HVD I'm afraid. >>>> >>>>>> Each array can be used as a JBOD if you like. >>>>> Ah, thanks. >>> Let's see, a box of old, small capacity drives, reliability unknown... >>> why >> The two boxes currently have seven 9G drives, each. I have a box >> of 18G drives that can replace these -- *IF* I can talk to the >> boxes! >> >>> would you NOT make a RAID out of it? >> Because I don't have the controller that they attach to! :> >> So, they are, at best, JBOD's. What I *do* with those >> (e.g., software RAID) is a different issue. >> >>> Why put data on them if you're not >>> all that concerned about it going away when one of those old drives goes >>> tango uniform (toes up) ? With that many independent drives, couldn't you >>> make a really big RAID-5 out of it? >> The data I want to store on them is already backed up on >> MO, CD-R and DLT media. Getting the data onto a drive array >> is just one of convenience. And, while 15x18G drives waste >> more electricity, BTUs and *space* than a single 300G *IDE* >> drive, couldn't you argue that damn near ANY of the machines >> discussed on this list could be more "efficiently" replaced >> by something newer, smaller, faster, etc.? :> > > Heh... > > I've got a box where I'm building up a RAID array w/ 2G drives! > > Only because I got given a whole pile of these for free. A while back there > were a whole mess of 9G SCSI-wide drives around in the surplus market, and my > inclination is to eventually get a hold of some of those and upgrade the > array to that size, eventually, when I can accumulate enough of them. I > really can't afford to invest in them if I had to buy them, though. > > I'm mainly just inclined to use what I've got, I guess. Yup. Unfortunately, the drive array in question has half height slots. So, I can only stuff 7 drives in it. The flip side of that is the drives that *are* in it are all half height. :-( They would have been nice to stuff in the SSA 101 (?) I have. (But, I'm not sure that array can handle 9G drives??) From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Mar 21 16:42:55 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 14:42:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060321143133.X34261@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 21 Mar 2006, Kapteyn, Rob wrote: > It would be cool ... > ... but can't recall what publication it was in ... > Byte, Dr. Dobbs, Computer Notes ??? > I suspect that someone else on this list might have seen it... I think that it may have been Kilobaud. There was an outfit in Walnut Creek that sold a conversion kit that mounted under the Selectric. Fairly complex, and required tinkering to keep it running. There were also a number of units that consisted of boxes full of solenoids that sat on top of the keyboard, such as KGS80 and Rochester Dynatyper. At the West Coast Computer Faire, around about the 5th or 6th one, there was an outfit demo'ing a unit with lots of pulleys and fishing line, that was printing on a MANUAL typewriter. From glen.slick at gmail.com Tue Mar 21 16:44:19 2006 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 14:44:19 -0800 Subject: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: <200603212121.NAA13624@floodgap.com> References: <44206443.60606@msm.umr.edu> <200603212121.NAA13624@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90603211444v732d6e58s3e2d42617049e6ea@mail.gmail.com> Patients have been killed by PDP-11 controlled medical devices: http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf (On topic too, this happened 20 years ago) From lbickley at bickleywest.com Tue Mar 21 17:00:07 2006 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 15:00:07 -0800 Subject: Tandem terminals In-Reply-To: <003001c64d19$f5e0a820$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> References: <003001c64d19$f5e0a820$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <200603211500.07957.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Tuesday 21 March 2006 11:02, Jim Beacon wrote: > Hi, > > work related I'm afraid...... > > Does anyone have circuit diagrams for Tandem 6530 or TS530 terminals? I > have several that I need to repair, as our re-seller will no longer support > them. > > I suspect that the TS530 is a rebadged item from someone else (NCR?), but > don't know for sure. I've forwarded your request to a former Tandem Senior Product Manager - who, hopefully, may be able to aim you in the right direction... Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 21 17:25:03 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 16:25:03 -0700 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 21 Mar 2006 14:42:55 -0800. <20060321143133.X34261@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: In article <20060321143133.X34261 at shell.lmi.net>, Fred Cisin writes: > At the West Coast Computer Faire, around about the 5th or 6th one, there > was an outfit demo'ing a unit with lots of pulleys and fishing line, that > was printing on a MANUAL typewriter. LOL! Does anyone have pictures of this? I bet it even *sounded* as cool as it lookd! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From molists at yahoo.com Tue Mar 21 17:32:56 2006 From: molists at yahoo.com (Mo) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 15:32:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: Televideo (was Re: Hazeltine 1420 available) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060321233256.71435.qmail@web31513.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- Richard wrote: > > What's really frustrating is to buy a weird terminal and have it > arrived smashed to bits because the seller packed it like a dumbshit. > > I've added a big section to my "collecting serial terminals" guide > explaining how to ship the beasts. I learned long ago, when dealing with potentially ignorant shippers, to have the conversation, emphasis, and packing instructions made clear before payment is rendered. I've found that competent shippers take no offense at the dialogue. With super-rare one-of-a-kind shipments, it is often better to have the seller drop the unit off at a "UPS Store" or a freight forwarder, and pay the premium for the extra handling, care, and expertise... for a terminal, this might mean a $100+ shipping charge, but some things (a VT05, anyone?) are priceless. Cheers, Mo __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From kapteynr at cboe.com Tue Mar 21 17:34:13 2006 From: kapteynr at cboe.com (Kapteyn, Rob) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 17:34:13 -0600 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? Message-ID: Kilobaud is probably a good guess. I do remember that the kit I saw had a table in PROM that looked up a "tilt" and "rotation" for the Selectric Ball. It was clunky, but a bit more elegant than "104 solenoids". -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Fred Cisin Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 4:43 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: Where have all the Selectrics gone? On Tue, 21 Mar 2006, Kapteyn, Rob wrote: > It would be cool ... > ... but can't recall what publication it was in ... > Byte, Dr. Dobbs, Computer Notes ??? > I suspect that someone else on this list might have seen it... I think that it may have been Kilobaud. There was an outfit in Walnut Creek that sold a conversion kit that mounted under the Selectric. Fairly complex, and required tinkering to keep it running. There were also a number of units that consisted of boxes full of solenoids that sat on top of the keyboard, such as KGS80 and Rochester Dynatyper. At the West Coast Computer Faire, around about the 5th or 6th one, there was an outfit demo'ing a unit with lots of pulleys and fishing line, that was printing on a MANUAL typewriter. From kapteynr at cboe.com Tue Mar 21 17:34:13 2006 From: kapteynr at cboe.com (Kapteyn, Rob) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 17:34:13 -0600 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? Message-ID: Kilobaud is probably a good guess. I do remember that the kit I saw had a table in PROM that looked up a "tilt" and "rotation" for the Selectric Ball. It was clunky, but a bit more elegant than "104 solenoids". -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Fred Cisin Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 4:43 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: Where have all the Selectrics gone? On Tue, 21 Mar 2006, Kapteyn, Rob wrote: > It would be cool ... > ... but can't recall what publication it was in ... > Byte, Dr. Dobbs, Computer Notes ??? > I suspect that someone else on this list might have seen it... I think that it may have been Kilobaud. There was an outfit in Walnut Creek that sold a conversion kit that mounted under the Selectric. Fairly complex, and required tinkering to keep it running. There were also a number of units that consisted of boxes full of solenoids that sat on top of the keyboard, such as KGS80 and Rochester Dynatyper. At the West Coast Computer Faire, around about the 5th or 6th one, there was an outfit demo'ing a unit with lots of pulleys and fishing line, that was printing on a MANUAL typewriter. From rtellason at blazenet.net Tue Mar 21 17:49:41 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 18:49:41 -0500 Subject: Fwd: The Embedded Muse 127 Message-ID: <200603211849.41967.rtellason@blazenet.net> I'm snipping this to just a bit near the beginning that I think may be of some interest to folks in here: ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: The Embedded Muse 127 Date: Tuesday 21 March 2006 04:42 pm From: Jack Ganssle To: embedded at ganssle.com The Embedded Muse --------------------------------------------------------------- Embedded Muse 127 Copyright 2006 TGG March 21, 2006 --------------------------------------------------------------- You may redistribute this newsletter for noncommercial purposes. For commercial use contact info at ganssle.com. EDITOR: Jack Ganssle, jack at ganssle.com CONTENTS: - Editor's Notes - Test Driven Development - Yet More on Tools - Jobs! - Joke for the Week - About The Embedded Muse Editor's Notes -------------- <...> This Computerworld story (http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/story/0,10801,108568,00 .html?source=x10 ) is an interview with J. Presper Eckert about the birth of Eniac. Fascinating stuff for computer history buffs. The article's author is a professor at the University of the Virgin Islands. now that's a job I want! <...> -- 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 legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 21 17:51:12 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 16:51:12 -0700 Subject: Careful Shipping (was: Televideo (was Re: Hazeltine 1420 available)) In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 21 Mar 2006 15:32:56 -0800. <20060321233256.71435.qmail@web31513.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: In article <20060321233256.71435.qmail at web31513.mail.mud.yahoo.com>, Mo writes: > I learned long ago, when dealing with potentially ignorant shippers, to > have the conversation, emphasis, and packing instructions made clear > before payment is rendered. I've found that competent shippers take > no offense at the dialogue. Yeah, I'm learning this now :-(. > With super-rare one-of-a-kind shipments, it is often better to have the > seller drop the unit off at a "UPS Store" or a freight forwarder, and > pay the premium for the extra handling, care, and expertise... for a > terminal, this might mean a $100+ shipping charge, but some things (a > VT05, anyone?) are priceless. Agreed, fortunately nothing that's been damaged was this rare or I would have been super pissed. Instead I'm just frustrated and angry at their stupidity (and my own for trusting them to do the Right Thing.) I'd appreciate feedback on the Shipping section of my guide: -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From rtellason at blazenet.net Tue Mar 21 17:59:39 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 18:59:39 -0500 Subject: old literature Message-ID: <200603211859.39792.rtellason@blazenet.net> Is there any interest in old literature? I went into a file cabinet last night looking for something else and ran across a bit. If it is of interest, I'll do some digging and see what all else I have that may be of interest, but here's one example: In a folder labeled "Digital Equipment Corporation" :-) A brochure labeled "PDP-11 Microcomputer Members of the PDP-11 Family" A smallish brochure "Introducing Fierce Competition for 8-Bit SBC's" with the inside saying"Digital's new 16-bit FALCON" and an actual-size picture of the card. A spec sheet "Falcon SBC=11/21 Single Board Computer" MRV11 Option Bulletin: "EPROM/PROM/ROM Module" PB11 Option Bulletin: "Universal PROM Programmer" Brochure: "Microcomputer Products Selection Guide" including a very nice table "Backplane Selector" Brochure: "Announcing a new dimension in microcomputers: LSI-11/2" Anybody want this stuff? Shall I keep digging? -- 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 Tue Mar 21 18:06:57 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 16:06:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: old literature In-Reply-To: <200603211859.39792.rtellason@blazenet.net> from "Roy J. Tellason" at Mar 21, 2006 06:59:39 PM Message-ID: <200603220006.k2M06vtx023425@onyx.spiritone.com> > Is there any interest in old literature? I went into a file cabinet last > night looking for something else and ran across a bit. If it is of interest, > I'll do some digging and see what all else I have that may be of interest, > but here's one example: You should check with Al about getting this up on Bitsavers.org. Zane From drb at msu.edu Tue Mar 21 18:12:07 2006 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 19:12:07 -0500 Subject: old literature In-Reply-To: (Your message of Tue, 21 Mar 2006 16:06:57 PST.) <200603220006.k2M06vtx023425@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200603220006.k2M06vtx023425@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <200603220012.k2M0C7um002692@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > Is there any interest in old literature? I went into a file cabinet > last night looking for something else and ran across a bit. If it > is of interest, I'll do some digging and see what all else I have > that may be of interest, but here's one example: If the more traditional hoarders of the community don't bite, you might try talking to Jason Scott. He's been scanning this type of stuff from his personal collection of microcomputer glossies. (Perhaps he lurks here?) De From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Tue Mar 21 18:09:34 2006 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:09:34 +0000 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <442095BE.8000609@gjcp.net> Richard wrote: > In article , > "Eric J Korpela" writes: > >> There probably aren't many things that would pass the test with a bit >> error rate of what any archivist would consider adequate (one >> unrecoverable error every megabit?) aside from a holographic >> recording technique at low enough density. > > Printed bit pattern with parity bits on archival paper? > > Bit pattern scratched into metal plates by an engraving tip mounted in > an X-Y flatbed plotter? How about laser-etching? Possibly onto small aluminium discs, maybe about 5" in diameter. Of course, if aluminium proved to be too heavy, you could probably do it with a thin aluminium coating deposited onto a clear plastic disc. Gordon. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 21 18:14:50 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 16:14:50 -0800 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603211614500612.2FE3FE84@10.0.0.252> Kilobaud is a great guess! I opened up the June 1983 Issue of Microcomputing and, on, page 138, there's an ad for a book called "The Selectric Interface":. Quoting: -------------------------------------------- Daisy wheel quality without daisy wheel expense. You need the quality print that a daisy wheel printer provides but the thought of buying one makes your wallet wilt. The Selectric(tm) Interface, a step-by-step guide to interfacing an IBM Selectric I/O writer to your microcomputer.will give you that quality for a fraction of the price. George Young, co-author of Microcomputing magazine's "Kilobaud Klassroom" series, offers a low-cost alternative to buying a daisy-wheel printer. ISBN 0-88006-051-4 $12.97 from Wayne Green, Inc. ------------------------------------------- So we know that I/O Selectrics were still plentiful enough in 1983 to warrant publishing a book on interfacing them. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 21 18:22:24 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 17:22:24 -0700 Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:09:34 +0000. <442095BE.8000609@gjcp.net> Message-ID: In article <442095BE.8000609 at gjcp.net>, Gordon JC Pearce writes: > Richard wrote: > > In article , > > "Eric J Korpela" writes: > > > >> There probably aren't many things that would pass the test with a bit > >> error rate of what any archivist would consider adequate (one > >> unrecoverable error every megabit?) aside from a holographic > >> recording technique at low enough density. > > > > Printed bit pattern with parity bits on archival paper? > > > > Bit pattern scratched into metal plates by an engraving tip mounted in > > an X-Y flatbed plotter? > > How about laser-etching? Possibly onto small aluminium discs, maybe > about 5" in diameter. Of course, if aluminium proved to be too heavy, > you could probably do it with a thin aluminium coating deposited onto a > clear plastic disc. Ah, but my solution wouldn't be harmed by 10 seconds in the microwave oven :-). Putting an aluminum sheetin your MW oven is more likely to fry your oven I think! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Tue Mar 21 18:18:47 2006 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:18:47 +0000 Subject: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <442097E7.2040504@gjcp.net> Richard wrote: > In article <44206443.60606 at msm.umr.edu>, > jim stephens writes: > >> Don't need a blue screen with a probe inside you. > > No, you need a kernel panic. Just so long as you don't dump core. Gordon. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Mar 21 18:23:24 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 19:23:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: archival cd-r - really true? In-Reply-To: <442095BE.8000609@gjcp.net> References: <442095BE.8000609@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <200603220024.TAA29961@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> Bit pattern scratched into metal plates by an engraving tip mounted >> in an X-Y flatbed plotter? > How about laser-etching? Possibly onto small aluminium discs, maybe > about 5" in diameter. Of course, if aluminium proved to be too > heavy, you could probably do it with a thin aluminium coating > deposited onto a clear plastic disc. And then cover it with another layer of plastic, for physical protection. Hmm, I bet you could fudge something with chemicals instead of the aluminum layer, so you can "etch" it after the plastic layers are all put together.... /~\ 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 fryers at gmail.com Tue Mar 21 18:32:36 2006 From: fryers at gmail.com (Simon Fryer) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:32:36 +0000 Subject: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90603211444v732d6e58s3e2d42617049e6ea@mail.gmail.com> References: <44206443.60606@msm.umr.edu> <200603212121.NAA13624@floodgap.com> <1e1fc3e90603211444v732d6e58s3e2d42617049e6ea@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: All, On 3/21/06, Glen Slick wrote: > Patients have been killed by PDP-11 controlled medical devices: > > http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf > > (On topic too, this happened 20 years ago) Not quite on topic. I work for a company that manufactures pharmaceutical drugs. A lot of the equipment now has a Windows HMI (touch screen). All Windows does it print pretty pictures on the screen and pass values to a PLC. The PLC does all the real work. And yes, we Ido a lot of testing to show that the equipment does work. 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 legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 21 18:34:20 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 17:34:20 -0700 Subject: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:18:47 +0000. <442097E7.2040504@gjcp.net> Message-ID: In article <442097E7.2040504 at gjcp.net>, Gordon JC Pearce writes: > Richard wrote: > > In article <44206443.60606 at msm.umr.edu>, > > jim stephens writes: > > > >> Don't need a blue screen with a probe inside you. > > > > No, you need a kernel panic. > > Just so long as you don't dump core. Better hope he didn't leave that null device inside you while he was poking around. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Mar 21 18:35:56 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 16:35:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060321163505.C39744@shell.lmi.net> > > At the West Coast Computer Faire, around about the 5th or 6th one, there > > was an outfit demo'ing a unit with lots of pulleys and fishing line, that > > was printing on a MANUAL typewriter. On Tue, 21 Mar 2006, Richard wrote: > LOL! Does anyone have pictures of this? I bet it even *sounded* > as cool as it lookd! There was a large crowd watching it, and cheering whenever it succeeded at a carriage return. From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Mar 21 18:43:41 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 16:43:41 -0800 Subject: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44209DBD.6040707@msm.umr.edu> Richard wrote: > >>> >>> >>>>Don't need a blue screen with a probe inside you. >>>> >>>> >>>No, you need a kernel panic. >>> >>> >>Just so long as you don't dump core. >> >> > >Better hope he didn't leave that null device inside you while he was >poking around. > > I have alerted the wife to beware the Cartman anal probe. Also the coredump took place the day before. and not due to Microsoft Sw either.... From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Tue Mar 21 18:52:30 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:52:30 -0000 Subject: grease advice needed References: <441F8A13.6070205@internet1.net> Message-ID: <00e701c64d4a$e6139700$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> From: "9000 VAX" On 3/21/06, C Fernandez wrote: > > VOM, yes. Avometer, not that I've heard of.... what does the Avo mean? >my guess is ampere, voltage and omega Amps Volts and Ohms. The product of the "Automatic Coil Winder and Electrical Company" of England, now part of the "Megger" group. The last traditional (analogue) AVO's were only made a couple of months ago, but have now been discontinued, it is rumoured, because the Bakelite mould for the cases was damaged. The AVO model 8 was considered the industry standard meter in the UK and many ex-colonies, from it's introduction in the 40's until the advent of low cost digital meters in the 90's. For reference, it is a 20k Ohms-per-volt instrument DC, and 10k OPV AC. If you need more info, I have some instruction manuals and service data on my site at: www.g1jbg.co.uk/service.htm Jim. From doc at mdrconsult.com Tue Mar 21 19:00:07 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 19:00:07 -0600 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: <200603211614500612.2FE3FE84@10.0.0.252> References: <200603211614500612.2FE3FE84@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4420A197.80207@mdrconsult.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Kilobaud is a great guess! > > I opened up the June 1983 Issue of Microcomputing and, on, page 138, > there's an ad for a book called "The Selectric Interface":. Quoting: > -------------------------------------------- > Daisy wheel quality without daisy wheel expense. > > You need the quality print that a daisy wheel printer provides but the > thought of buying one makes your wallet wilt. The Selectric(tm) Interface, > a step-by-step guide to interfacing an IBM Selectric I/O writer to your > microcomputer.will give you that quality for a fraction of the price. > George Young, co-author of Microcomputing magazine's "Kilobaud Klassroom" > series, offers a low-cost alternative to buying a daisy-wheel printer. > > ISBN 0-88006-051-4 $12.97 from Wayne Green, Inc. > ------------------------------------------- > So we know that I/O Selectrics were still plentiful enough in 1983 to > warrant publishing a book on interfacing them. And there's one used copy listed on Amazon for $35.... Doc From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 21 18:56:33 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:56:33 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: from "Kapteyn, Rob" at Mar 21, 6 03:27:20 pm Message-ID: > > It would be cool ... > ... but can't recall what publication it was in ... > Byte, Dr. Dobbs, Computer Notes ??? In the UK, there was a (2 part) article in 'Electronics, the Maplin Magazine' on doing this. But you had to byy the firmware ROM pre-programmed (no source or hex dump in the article), and I suspect it's not impossible to find anyone who has one. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 21 18:30:58 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:30:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Nixdorf LK-3000 on Yahoo! auctions In-Reply-To: <000201c64c86$2d641460$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> from "'Computer Collector Newsletter'" at Mar 20, 6 08:24:18 pm Message-ID: > > >>> Is this the machine that can't work without a module because there's no > processor in the main machine? > > Yes. By itself, the machine is just a one-line LED screen, a chicklet > keyboard, and a cartridge slot. All of the computation is done in the Right. Any chips at all ? (LED drivers, for example). I asusme this means that unrepairable faults are likely to be in the modules (e.g. a dead microcontroller, which will be custom programmed) and not in the machine itself? > modules. Most of the modules are for language translation. But two of the > modules are really interesting -- Electronic Notepad (#LK-3500) and Filing > System (#LK-1001) which give the system primitive word processing and a > flat-file database. There was a scientific calculator module as well, and Ah, nothing _that_ exciting, then. I was hoping for soemthing that was user-programmable (even a programmable calculator). I assume the calculator module is not RPN, which instantly meakes it unusable for me. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 21 18:35:54 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:35:54 +0000 (GMT) Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: <441F8A13.6070205@internet1.net> from "C Fernandez" at Mar 21, 6 00:07:31 am Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > Heck, it took me a long time to figure out > > what 'Krazy Glue' was, and even now I am not usre (I think it's what's > > commonly called supergule in the UK, that is an isocyano acryllic > > hydro-copolymerising adhexive). > > I think Krazy Glue is a specific brand name. We call that type of glue > super glue, too. At least over here, 'Super Glue' is a brand name I think. > > > Does 'Araldite' mean anything across the > > Pond? In the UK, it's a common brand (and sort-of generic) for the 2-part > > epoxy resin adhexives? > > Sounds like some sort of mineral, rock formation, crystal type thing a > geologist would study :-) No, we don't have that here :-) You must have the 2-part epoxy adhexives (both the overnight setting one and the 'five minute' one), right? > > > What about Avometer (== analogue multimeter, VOM)? > > VOM, yes. Avometer, not that I've heard of.... what does the Avo mean? 'VOM' is not commonly used in England at all. In fact most engineers over here would have to think what you were talking about. AVO is a brand name -- the company made a lot of nice test gear, inclduing valve testers (you get my Mk4 over my dead body...), transistor testers, signal generators, etc. But they are most famous for multimeters -- AVO is an acronym for Amps, Volts, Ohms. Many engineers over here will ask for 'An Avo' when they want any old multimeter. -tony From news at computercollector.com Tue Mar 21 19:19:28 2006 From: news at computercollector.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 20:19:28 -0500 Subject: Nixdorf LK-3000 on Yahoo! auctions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000c01c64d4e$aaf81250$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> That's a matter of opinion. :) I happen to think it's very exciting, because even though it's not a handheld computer in the modern sense, it was one of the most direct ancestors of what came just a couple years later. >>> Ah, nothing _that_ exciting, then. -----Original Message----- From: Tony Duell [mailto:ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk] Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 7:31 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Nixdorf LK-3000 on Yahoo! auctions > > >>> Is this the machine that can't work without a module because > >>> there's no > processor in the main machine? > > Yes. By itself, the machine is just a one-line LED screen, a chicklet > keyboard, and a cartridge slot. All of the computation is done in the Right. Any chips at all ? (LED drivers, for example). I asusme this means that unrepairable faults are likely to be in the modules (e.g. a dead microcontroller, which will be custom programmed) and not in the machine itself? > modules. Most of the modules are for language translation. But two > of the modules are really interesting -- Electronic Notepad (#LK-3500) > and Filing System (#LK-1001) which give the system primitive word > processing and a flat-file database. There was a scientific > calculator module as well, and Ah, nothing _that_ exciting, then. I was hoping for soemthing that was user-programmable (even a programmable calculator). I assume the calculator module is not RPN, which instantly meakes it unusable for me. -tony From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 21 19:21:25 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 17:21:25 -0800 Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: <00e701c64d4a$e6139700$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> References: <441F8A13.6070205@internet1.net> <00e701c64d4a$e6139700$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <200603211721250465.3020F2A2@10.0.0.252> On 3/22/2006 at 12:52 AM Jim Beacon wrote: >The AVO model 8 was considered the industry standard meter in the UK and >many ex-colonies, from it's introduction in the 40's until the advent of >low cost digital meters in the 90's. For reference, it is a 20k Ohms-per-volt >instrument DC, and 10k OPV AC. Sounds like our Simpson 260 VOM. Used as the standard for donkey's years. Cheers, Chuck From waisun.chia at gmail.com Tue Mar 21 21:34:10 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 11:34:10 +0800 Subject: PBXAG-AV (acceleragraphics) Message-ID: I have this LOOONG PCI graphics card circa 1996 (phew...just made it to be on-topic :-)) with DEC part number PCXAG-AV. It has a acceleragraphics sticker on its main GPU. Google says this was an option for the DEC Personal Workstations series... this means only on Windows NT (the 64bit version)!! *sigh* However, being an optimistic person, I'm gonna ask: Are there any other OSes out that can use this card (the ex-DECcie who gave me this told me that this was an incredibly expensive card when bought new)? Can it use in a Intel box or do I have to stick to an Alpha box? A search for manual turns up zilch.. I'd be happy to run in on any other OS than WNT; i.e. VMS, Tru64, DU, OSF, *BSD, even Linux. From davebarnes at adelphia.net Tue Mar 21 21:40:01 2006 From: davebarnes at adelphia.net (David Barnes) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 22:40:01 -0500 Subject: Powerstation 370 Message-ID: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> Hello all; I have been offered an RS/6000 Powerstation 370. Not sure of whats in it yet... can anyone shed some light on this system? Is it a decent machine for running latest AIX versions? Thanks David Barnes davebarnes AT adelphia DOT net OpenVMS , Tru64 , Solaris , Linux , OS X , SGI Irix From swtpc6800 at comcast.net Tue Mar 21 21:34:48 2006 From: swtpc6800 at comcast.net (Michael Holley) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 19:34:48 -0800 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? References: <200603220032.k2M0Vnrl039330@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <001c01c64d63$7c9553e0$0300a8c0@downstairs2> My Trendata 1000 Selectric terminal went in a garage sale years ago. Here is a picture of me at the terminal. http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/MySystem/MySystemPhoto.htm A local computer store near Seattle sold these for about $900 in 1978. Several people in the Northwest Computer Society got them. We had low cost access to time-sharing on a PDP-11/70 at night that supported the terminal. I still have the documents and software if you want to hook one up to a SWTPC 6800 computer. Here is a photo from the IBM 2741 Communication Terminal manual. http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/MySystem/IBM_2741.jpg Michael Holley www.swtpc.com/mholley From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 21 21:55:34 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 20:55:34 -0700 Subject: PBXAG-AV (acceleragraphics) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 22 Mar 2006 11:34:10 +0800. Message-ID: In article , "Wai-Sun Chia" writes: > I have this LOOONG PCI graphics card circa 1996 (phew...just made it > to be on-topic :-)) > with DEC part number PCXAG-AV. It has a acceleragraphics sticker on > its main GPU. Are you sure its "Acceleragraphics" and not "AccelGraphics"? The latter was a company that was bought by Evans & Sutherland and their accelerators were later rebranded as E&S accelerators. You might try for some drivers. I'd try plugging it into a Windows box and see if it does standard VGA first. If that's a go, then you might be able to find Windows drivers for it. Linux would probably be doubtful, though. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 21 21:59:10 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 20:59:10 -0700 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 21 Mar 2006 19:34:48 -0800. <001c01c64d63$7c9553e0$0300a8c0@downstairs2> Message-ID: In article <001c01c64d63$7c9553e0$0300a8c0 at downstairs2>, "Michael Holley" writes: > Here is a photo from the IBM 2741 Communication Terminal manual. > http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/MySystem/IBM_2741.jpg Yeah, that's the standard photo that's been around on the net for a while -- although yours is a nice high-res scan! However, the 2741 that I used had a different case than the normal typewriter case. I recall it as being not as tall as a Selectric and it was significantly deeper than a Selectric to accomodate the extra electronics and the acoustic coupler. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Mar 21 21:59:11 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 19:59:11 -0800 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> Message-ID: At 10:40 PM -0500 3/21/06, David Barnes wrote: >Hello all; > >I have been offered an RS/6000 Powerstation 370. Not sure of >whats in it yet... can anyone shed some light on this system? Is it >a decent machine for running latest AIX versions? It was *old* and slow when I had one on my desk in '96. I've a feeling you can easily pick something up more capable of running the latest versions of AIX fairly cheap. Someone else will have to comment on if it can even run current AIX versions. While it was old and slow, it was rock solid, so I actually resisted replacing it with a PC for about three years. 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 waisun.chia at gmail.com Tue Mar 21 22:00:43 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 12:00:43 +0800 Subject: PBXAG-AV (acceleragraphics) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3/22/06, Richard wrote: > Are you sure its "Acceleragraphics" and not "AccelGraphics"? You're right. AccelGraphics is correct. > > The latter was a company that was bought by Evans & Sutherland and > their accelerators were later rebranded as E&S accelerators. You > might try for some drivers. > > I'd try plugging it into a Windows box and see if it does standard VGA > first. If that's a go, then you might be able to find Windows drivers > for it. Linux would probably be doubtful, though. Thanks. I'll try that. From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 21 22:30:36 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 21:30:36 -0700 Subject: PBXAG-AV (acceleragraphics) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 22 Mar 2006 12:00:43 +0800. Message-ID: In article , "Wai-Sun Chia" writes: > > I'd try plugging it into a Windows box and see if it does standard VGA > > first. If that's a go, then you might be able to find Windows drivers > > for it. Linux would probably be doubtful, though. > > Thanks. I'll try that. Anyone needing accelgraphics drivers should get there quick and download them.... E&S sold off most of its interesting businesses and who knows how long it will survive and hence the website with the drivers is in danger of disappearing. xmission 5> nslookup www.accelgraphics.com Server: 198.60.22.2 Address: 198.60.22.2#53 Non-authoritative answer: www.accelgraphics.com canonical name = 3dcards.es.com. Name: 3dcards.es.com Address: 130.187.2.111 However, this IP address doesn't respond... death is knocking on the door! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From waisun.chia at gmail.com Tue Mar 21 23:07:57 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 13:07:57 +0800 Subject: PBXAG-AV (acceleragraphics) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3/22/06, Richard wrote: > Anyone needing accelgraphics drivers should get there quick and > download them.... E&S sold off most of its interesting businesses and > who knows how long it will survive and hence the website with the > drivers is in danger of disappearing. > > Server: 198.60.22.2 > > Address: 130.187.2.111 I get no response from the 2 address above. Perhaps if you have mirrored their drivers you could put them up on your website.... From fernande at internet1.net Tue Mar 21 23:22:42 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:22:42 -0500 Subject: grease advice needed In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4420DF22.3060606@internet1.net> Tony Duell wrote: > At least over here, 'Super Glue' is a brand name I think. Yes, I think it's a cello-tape/scotch-tape = all cellophane tape, no matter who made it, type situation. > You must have the 2-part epoxy adhexives (both the overnight setting one > and the 'five minute' one), right? We do have 2-part epoxies, but my use of them has been quite limited. I've used a product called JB-Weld, that I assume is an epoxy. I waited overnight for it to set. I've never used a 5-minute type, but that doesn't mean they aren't commonly available. I just don't use adhesives that often. Usually I'm trying to remove an adhesive :-) > 'VOM' is not commonly used in England at all. In fact most engineers over > here would have to think what you were talking about. AVO is a brand name > -- the company made a lot of nice test gear, inclduing valve testers (you > get my Mk4 over my dead body...), transistor testers, signal generators, > etc. But they are most famous for multimeters -- AVO is an acronym for > Amps, Volts, Ohms. Many engineers over here will ask for 'An Avo' when > they want any old multimeter. I'm not sure if VOM is used much over here anymore. AVO really makes more sense, since a lot of meters also measure current, besides voltage and resistance. However, AVO stands for something like "Avoid Verbal Orders", which is a piece of paper or possibly a form that is issued by an member of management to an employee. I believe it had a wide range of uses in a factory, but has fallen out of favor now.... so much so that I don't really understand exactly what an AVO is. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Mar 21 23:10:45 2006 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:10:45 -0500 Subject: OT: video signal question Message-ID: <01C64D46.EC8311A0@MSE_D03> I have a couple of Mitsubishi P60W Video printers (anybody want one?) and they have a remote jack (as well as a print button of course), so that'd be one way of printing from the Endoscope itself. Can't see much use for an embedded print signal though; seems to me that could cause all kinds of problems. mike --------------Original message: From: jim stephens Subject: Re: OT: video signal question >Bert Thomas wrote: >>Hi, >> >> Can anyone tell me how the trigger signal is >>embedded in the video signal? >> >> >The Sony units I have seen, are have the Sony Mavica name, and have >a remote control bus that is used to trigger the prints. I would look for >a control line to the printer, from the video source, unless they had >a very specialized printer of some sort. There is the problem of having >the print signal embedded in your video format, if you had several printers >attached, having them all print. From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Mar 21 23:23:11 2006 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:23:11 -0500 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? Message-ID: <01C64D46.ED8E1900@MSE_D03> Just happen to have a copy of "The Selectric Interface" in front of me; $5 &S in case anyone wants it. Note that it's _not_ about converting a normal Selectric to an I/O device, but about interfacing a 2740, 2980 & Dura models, which are already I/O devices (albeit with 24, 48, or 115V actuators) to an ASCII parallel port. Kilobaud had a pair of articles (Dec/79 & Jan/80), but that too was about converting an I/O unit (specifically, from a BCD (6 bit) code machine to Correspondence code). There were some other codes in use as well in other models; I had a couple and never could find a correct ball for them. And yes, there were certainly many Rube Goldberg approaches to interfacing a Selectric; I even recall seeing one of the solenoids-over-the-keyboard ones in action way back when... That was probably my post you referred to earlier about the Redactron mag card system; unfortunately the typewriter is long gone, and the mag card drives are spoken for. Redactron used a Selectric mechanism with a TTL level interface already built in, useful in case someone ever runs across one. While we're on the topic, a while back I sent a Selectric service manual to someone who sometimes lurks on this list and he'd promised to make it available on the Web (hint, hint... ;-) mike -----------Original message: Message: 30 Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 16:14:50 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" Subject: RE: Where have all the Selectrics gone? To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Message-ID: <200603211614500612.2FE3FE84 at 10.0.0.252> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Kilobaud is a great guess! I opened up the June 1983 Issue of Microcomputing and, on, page 138, there's an ad for a book called "The Selectric Interface":. Quoting: -------------------------------------------- Daisy wheel quality without daisy wheel expense. You need the quality print that a daisy wheel printer provides but the thought of buying one makes your wallet wilt. The Selectric(tm) Interface, a step-by-step guide to interfacing an IBM Selectric I/O writer to your microcomputer.will give you that quality for a fraction of the price. George Young, co-author of Microcomputing magazine's "Kilobaud Klassroom" series, offers a low-cost alternative to buying a daisy-wheel printer. ISBN 0-88006-051-4 $12.97 from Wayne Green, Inc. ------------------------------------------- So we know that I/O Selectrics were still plentiful enough in 1983 to warrant publishing a book on interfacing them. Cheers, Chuck From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Mar 21 23:34:59 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 21:34:59 -0800 Subject: PBXAG-AV (acceleragraphics) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 11:34 AM +0800 3/22/06, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: >I have this LOOONG PCI graphics card circa 1996 (phew...just made it >to be on-topic :-)) >with DEC part number PCXAG-AV. It has a acceleragraphics sticker on >its main GPU. > >Google says this was an option for the DEC Personal Workstations >series... this means only on Windows NT (the 64bit version)!! *sigh* > >However, being an optimistic person, I'm gonna ask: >Are there any other OSes out that can use this card (the ex-DECcie who >gave me this told me that this was an incredibly expensive card when >bought new)? Can it use in a Intel box or do I have to stick to an >Alpha box? > >A search for manual turns up zilch.. >I'd be happy to run in on any other OS than WNT; i.e. VMS, Tru64, DU, >OSF, *BSD, even Linux. Are you sure you have the part number correct? Are you sure that isn't a PCXGA-AV? The following is snipped from the "OpenVMS Hobbyist FAQ". [Stephen Hoffman] The following *should* be the list of PCI graphics controllers presently supported on various OpenVMS releases, some will require Open3D and/or ECO kits, and the minimum supported OpenVMS version will vary: PBXGA-A* (ZLXp-E1) PBXGA-B* (ZLXp-E2) PBXGA-C* (ZLXp-E3) PBXGC-A* (ZLXp-L1) PBXGC-B* (ZLXp-L2) PB2GA-A* (Compaq QVision 1024/E) PB2GA-HA (Compaq QVision 1280/P) PB2GA-FA (ATI Mach64 CX) PB2GA-FB (ATI Mach64 GX) PB2GA-JA (S3 Trio64 2MB) PB2GA-JB (S3 Trio64 1MB) PB2GA-JC (S3 Trio64V+ 1MB) PB2GA-JD (S3 Trio64V+ 2MB) PX2GA-JA (PowerStorm 3D10) PBXGB-AA (PowerStorm 3D30) PBXGB-CA (PowerStorm 4D20) PBXGB-CA (PowerStorm 4D20) 4a. What DEC/Compaq video cards for the Alpha aren't supported by OpenVMS? PBXGA-JA DEC864 PBXGI-AA PowerStorm 4D40T PBXGI-AB PowerStorm 4D50T PBXGI-AD PowerStorm 4D51T PBXGI-AC PowerStorm 4D60T -- -- | 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 ploopster at gmail.com Tue Mar 21 23:36:29 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:36:29 -0500 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> Message-ID: <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> David Barnes wrote: > Hello all; > > I have been offered an RS/6000 Powerstation 370. Not sure of whats in > it yet... can anyone shed some light on this system? Is it a decent > machine for running latest AIX versions? Pretty nice machine. 62.5MHz POWER, if I'm not quite mistaken. Won't run the latest version of AIX, but will run 5.1. Peace... Sridhar From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Mar 21 23:40:57 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 21:40:57 -0800 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> Message-ID: At 12:36 AM -0500 3/22/06, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >Pretty nice machine. 62.5MHz POWER, if I'm not quite mistaken. >Won't run the latest version of AIX, but will run 5.1. > >Peace... Sridhar That sounds about right for spec's, also it's narrow SCSI. What is the latest version of AIX? 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 doc at mdrconsult.com Tue Mar 21 23:52:41 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 23:52:41 -0600 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > David Barnes wrote: > >> Hello all; >> >> I have been offered an RS/6000 Powerstation 370. Not sure of whats >> in it yet... can anyone shed some light on this system? Is it a >> decent machine for running latest AIX versions? > > > Pretty nice machine. 62.5MHz POWER, if I'm not quite mistaken. Won't > run the latest version of AIX, but will run 5.1. Well, the 7012-370 will *walk* v5.1. Verry verry slowly. BTW, I bought a pallet of 7043-140 boxes last week at $8/ea for the graphics adapers (GXT120P) and the PCNET32 10/100 cards. I'm sure the scrapper thought he was ripping me off by burying a much older system at the bottom. It's a 7012-397 w/512MB RAM, 2 4.5GB drives, CDROM and 8505 8mm tape drive, GXT800M and a 10/100 ethernet adapter. And with the deskside "foot". I wasn't too upset about the ripoff. :) And, if anybody has a 43P-140 and needs RAM, I have a crapload of 64MB DIMMs. As far as I know, *only* the 7043-140 will run them. AIX v5.1 was the last version to support any non-CHRP platform. The 7043-150 (43P-150), F50, and B50 are the oldest systems that'll run v5.2 or v5.2. Doc From rickb at bensene.com Tue Mar 21 23:55:27 2006 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 21:55:27 -0800 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? Message-ID: Wang Laboratories had their own modifications that they did to standard Selectric Type I electric typewriters that allowed them to be automated. The automation was very complete, including the ability to set/clear tabs, and turn the unit on and off. The modifications involved making the cabinet "deeper", allowing room in the bottom of the machine for the solenoids and switches that provided the ability to actuate and report status. A "spacer" wraparound filled the gap between the upper cabinet and the base. The Model 601/701 was a standalone "deep" Selectric that would interface to Wang 600 or 700-series calculators. These were output-only devices. The Model 602/702 had further modifications which involved modifying the space mechanism so that spaces were "microspaces", and a stepper motor was connected to the platen to allow forward and reverse indexing in small steps, along with the same modifications made to the 601/701, which allowed the device to be used as a plotter, that could also do full formatted annotation and text output. Again, these were output-only devices. There was also the Model 611/711 I/O writer. This was a further modified Selectric Type I that had all of the modifications of the 601/701 Output Writers, but also allowed keypresses on the keyboard to be encoded into signals which could be communicated to the connected calculator, allowing fully interactive I/O for the calculator. Lastly, there was a "portable" version of the 601/701 and 602/702 Output Writers that provided a padded, shipping-proof carrying case that allowed the devices to be shipped around easily and safely. Some information on these can be found at the following links: http://pail.bensene.com/a-wang701.html http://pail.bensene.com/a-wang711.html http://pail.bensene.com/m-wang711.html http://pail.bensene.com/a-wang702.html I have an operational Wang 701 Output Writer, and a Wang 711 I/O Writer. Keeping these machines operational is a bit of a challenge, as they are quite temperamental keeping the linkages all in adjustment. My guess is that Wang service technicians spent a lot of time adjusting these instruments. They operate at a quoted maximum rate of 15 characters per second, but more practically, it's somewhere around 13 CPS driven by a Wang 720C calculator. I found a local guy who knows Selectrics inside and out, and had him do a complete service on the Selectric that makes up the 701 Output Writer, and he said that in "those days", he serviced a lot of the Wang-modified devices. He also said that Anderson-Jacobsen also had a similar (perhaps OEM'd from Wang) modified Selectric that could be used as a computer console or terminal. Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Web Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com Beavercreek, Oregon From doc at mdrconsult.com Tue Mar 21 23:55:46 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 23:55:46 -0600 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <4420E6E2.4090309@mdrconsult.com> Doc Shipley wrote: > AIX v5.1 was the last version to support any non-CHRP platform. The > 7043-150 (43P-150), F50, and B50 are the oldest systems that'll run v5.2 > or v5.2. Arghh. That should be "v5.2 or v5.3" v5.3 is the current release. Doc From waisun.chia at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 00:15:57 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:15:57 +0800 Subject: PBXAG-AV (acceleragraphics) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3/22/06, Zane H. Healy wrote: > Are you sure you have the part number correct? Are you sure that > isn't a PCXGA-AV? No. It's staring at me right now. PCXAG-AV 155-0189-20 2360268 RevC ACCELGRAPHICS INC. (c)1996 FALCON BOARD I think it's a DEC OEM from AccelGraphics Inc. > 4a. What DEC/Compaq video cards for the Alpha aren't supported by OpenVMS? > > PBXGA-JA DEC864 > PBXGI-AA PowerStorm 4D40T > PBXGI-AB PowerStorm 4D50T > PBXGI-AD PowerStorm 4D51T > PBXGI-AC PowerStorm 4D60T > Hey! If the above isn't supported by OVMS, then what OS supports these? Tru64? Especially the high-end PowerStorms... From waisun.chia at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 00:26:18 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:26:18 +0800 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <4420E6E2.4090309@mdrconsult.com> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> <4420E6E2.4090309@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: Hmm...what is the oldest (i.e. affordable) model to run v5.3 then? Ok. Don't even need to "run", perhaps a brisk walk will do, then. :-) (have been thinking of playing with AIX..) On 3/22/06, Doc Shipley wrote: > Doc Shipley wrote: > > AIX v5.1 was the last version to support any non-CHRP platform. The > > 7043-150 (43P-150), F50, and B50 are the oldest systems that'll run v5.2 > > or v5.2. > > Arghh. That should be "v5.2 or v5.3" > > v5.3 is the current release. > > > Doc > From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 22 00:28:04 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 22:28:04 -0800 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: <01C64D46.ED8E1900@MSE_D03> References: <01C64D46.ED8E1900@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <200603212228040637.3139AF0D@10.0.0.252> On 3/22/2006 at 12:23 AM M H Stein wrote: >That was probably my post you referred to earlier about the Redactron mag >card system; unfortunately the typewriter is long gone, and the mag card >drivesare spoken for. Redactron used a Selectric mechanism with a TTL level >interface already built in, useful in case someone ever runs across one. Nope, the guy offering that unit was named Rupert and it was an IBM Mag Card typewriter. AFAIK, there were no takers--my typewriter friend says that he'd value one at $30-40. Old Wheelwriters are apparently quite a bit more in demand. Cheers, Chuck From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Mar 22 00:39:26 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:39:26 -0600 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> <4420E6E2.4090309@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <4420F11E.8000508@mdrconsult.com> Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > Hmm...what is the oldest (i.e. affordable) model to run v5.3 then? > Ok. Don't even need to "run", perhaps a brisk walk will do, then. :-) > (have been thinking of playing with AIX..) 7043-150, aka 43P-150. That or an F50 will probably be the cheapest. the 43P is a desktop form-factor; F50 is a pretty hefty deskside. Both are likely to be able to run the next couple of releases. Doc From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Mar 22 00:48:49 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 00:48:49 -0600 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <4420F11E.8000508@mdrconsult.com> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> <4420E6E2.4090309@mdrconsult.com> <4420F11E.8000508@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <4420F351.20905@mdrconsult.com> Doc Shipley wrote: > Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > >> Hmm...what is the oldest (i.e. affordable) model to run v5.3 then? >> Ok. Don't even need to "run", perhaps a brisk walk will do, then. :-) >> (have been thinking of playing with AIX..) > > > 7043-150, aka 43P-150. That or an F50 will probably be the cheapest. > the 43P is a desktop form-factor; F50 is a pretty hefty deskside. Both > are likely to be able to run the next couple of releases. I forgot to mention that in this context, when IBM says "unsupported" they don't mean "we don't want to hear about it". They mean "This machine will not boot into AIX v5.2 or v5.3, because all support for the system bus has been removed from the kernel." Now, since I am having trouble hanging onto a thought with a lasso tonight, I'll let Sridhar have it. :) Doc From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Wed Mar 22 03:37:51 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 10:37:51 +0100 Subject: PBXAG-AV (acceleragraphics) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060322103751.5faa50bf.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:15:57 +0800 "Wai-Sun Chia" wrote: > > 4a. What DEC/Compaq video cards for the Alpha aren't supported by > > OpenVMS? > > > > PBXGA-JA DEC864 > > PBXGI-AA PowerStorm 4D40T > > PBXGI-AB PowerStorm 4D50T > > PBXGI-AD PowerStorm 4D51T > > PBXGI-AC PowerStorm 4D60T > > > > Hey! If the above isn't supported by OVMS, then what OS supports > these? Tru64? Especially the high-end PowerStorms... I used a PWS 500 au with a PowerStorm 4D50T and Tru64 5.x for about two years as a desktop machine. IIRC there where WinNT drivers also. The 4D50T is a bit odd. It is a pure GFX accelerator. It has a mezzanine PCI card stacked on top with a simple VGA chip. The VGA does all video (e.g. console text mode) until the Xserver with the right drivers is started. Then the VGA is switched off and the signal from the 4D50T is looped through to the monitor. It needs two PCI slots because of the VGA mezzanine PCI card and the large heat sinks on the GFX chips. There are DIMM slots for texture RAM... I found some GFX benchmarks that showed that the 4D50T is in par with the SGI SolidIMPACT. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From dave06a at dunfield.com Wed Mar 22 06:12:00 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 07:12:00 -0500 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density In-Reply-To: <200603210952460862.2E8636C2@10.0.0.252> References: <62077165-FB05-4DF2-A2D9-E4DAEE983CA6@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20060322121246.FGPP8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> > > It uses a DP8473AV as the floppy drive controller IC. [Al Kossow] > http://www.osdever.net/cottontail/#Floppy > has the data sheet and a app note for the data > separator, which is more sophisticated than the > one normally found in a 765. > > I assume there's a way to deterimine if you have > a 8473 in software. Thanks Al - I will check it out and see if I can determine any possible explainations... [Chuck Guzis] > Maybe so, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that neither TeleDisk nor > TESTSD performs any sort of test for one. The command "MFM" bit is the > only consideration (other than the data clock) that's made for FM vs. MFM > recording. Thats what I had assumed (thanks for confirming). I do exactly the same. I set the appropriate data rate in the register at 3F7/377, and select FM/MFM by the absense or presense of the MF bit (6 - 0x40) in all related commands. During analysis, IMD cycles through the six possible combinations (250, 300 and 500 kbps at both FM and MFM) as it tries to identify the disk. I've not seen another case yet where a disk was readable on the PC and IMD could not detect it correctly, no matter what drive type and data rate. Even if the analysis was failing, IMD configures the controller directly to the desired mode and data rate when writing, and the user reports that he cannot write my images either. If anyone has any idea as to what I might have missed or misinterpreted in the specs that could cause this, please let me know. TO ALL: Does anyone else have an Adaptec 1522A controller that you can try with my latest version of ImageDisk to see if you can read/write single-density disks? I don't have this controller to test with, and I would like to confirm that the problem is generic and not related to the one particular unit in question. Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From davebarnes at adelphia.net Wed Mar 22 07:10:47 2006 From: davebarnes at adelphia.net (David Barnes) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 08:10:47 -0500 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> Message-ID: Zane.. thats what I thought.. thanks for the info... David Barnes davebarnes AT adelphia DOT net OpenVMS , Tru64 , Solaris , Linux , OS X , SGI Irix On Mar 21, 2006, at 10:59 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 10:40 PM -0500 3/21/06, David Barnes wrote: >> Hello all; >> >> I have been offered an RS/6000 Powerstation 370. Not sure of >> whats in it yet... can anyone shed some light on this system? Is >> it a decent machine for running latest AIX versions? > > It was *old* and slow when I had one on my desk in '96. I've a > feeling you can easily pick something up more capable of running > the latest versions of AIX fairly cheap. Someone else will have to > comment on if it can even run current AIX versions. > > While it was old and slow, it was rock solid, so I actually > resisted replacing it with a PC for about three years. > > 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 ploopster at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 07:26:15 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 08:26:15 -0500 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> Message-ID: <44215077.2050006@gmail.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 12:36 AM -0500 3/22/06, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> Pretty nice machine. 62.5MHz POWER, if I'm not quite mistaken. Won't >> run the latest version of AIX, but will run 5.1. >> >> Peace... Sridhar > > That sounds about right for spec's, also it's narrow SCSI. > > What is the latest version of AIX? 5.3. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 07:28:08 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 08:28:08 -0500 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <442150E8.7080505@gmail.com> Doc Shipley wrote: > Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> David Barnes wrote: >> >>> Hello all; >>> >>> I have been offered an RS/6000 Powerstation 370. Not sure of whats >>> in it yet... can anyone shed some light on this system? Is it a >>> decent machine for running latest AIX versions? >> >> >> Pretty nice machine. 62.5MHz POWER, if I'm not quite mistaken. Won't >> run the latest version of AIX, but will run 5.1. > > Well, the 7012-370 will *walk* v5.1. Verry verry slowly. Hehehe. You have a point. > BTW, I bought a pallet of 7043-140 boxes last week at $8/ea for the > graphics adapers (GXT120P) and the PCNET32 10/100 cards. I'm sure the > scrapper thought he was ripping me off by burying a much older system at > the bottom. > > It's a 7012-397 w/512MB RAM, 2 4.5GB drives, CDROM and 8505 8mm tape > drive, GXT800M and a 10/100 ethernet adapter. And with the deskside > "foot". Nice find. > I wasn't too upset about the ripoff. :) > > And, if anybody has a 43P-140 and needs RAM, I have a crapload of > 64MB DIMMs. As far as I know, *only* the 7043-140 will run them. > > AIX v5.1 was the last version to support any non-CHRP platform. The > 7043-150 (43P-150), F50, and B50 are the oldest systems that'll run v5.2 > or v5.2. It's a shame, really. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 07:29:13 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 08:29:13 -0500 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> <4420E6E2.4090309@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <44215129.4020800@gmail.com> Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > Hmm...what is the oldest (i.e. affordable) model to run v5.3 then? > Ok. Don't even need to "run", perhaps a brisk walk will do, then. :-) > (have been thinking of playing with AIX..) Why 5.3, specifically? Unless you have a specific reason to run it, why bother? Peace... Sridhar From rborsuk at colourfull.com Wed Mar 22 07:48:04 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 08:48:04 -0500 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <4420E6E2.4090309@mdrconsult.com> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> <4420E6E2.4090309@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <5E1C1CAA-BFE5-4FE3-86C0-88735C7F7029@colourfull.com> Hey Doc, I have a couple of IBM systems that I would like to run AIX on, is there a good reference site that has this info? This is good to know so I don't waste my time. Thanks Rob On Mar 22, 2006, at 12:55 AM, Doc Shipley wrote: > Doc Shipley wrote: >> AIX v5.1 was the last version to support any non-CHRP platform. >> The 7043-150 (43P-150), F50, and B50 are the oldest systems >> that'll run v5.2 or v5.2. > > Arghh. That should be "v5.2 or v5.3" > > v5.3 is the current release. > > > Doc From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 08:01:33 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 09:01:33 -0500 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <5E1C1CAA-BFE5-4FE3-86C0-88735C7F7029@colourfull.com> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> <4420E6E2.4090309@mdrconsult.com> <5E1C1CAA-BFE5-4FE3-86C0-88735C7F7029@colourfull.com> Message-ID: <442158BD.7050708@gmail.com> Robert Borsuk wrote: > Hey Doc, > I have a couple of IBM systems that I would like to run AIX on, is > there a good reference site that has this info? This is good to know so > I don't waste my time. There used to be RSINFO-6000, but it dropped off the earth a while ago, and it isn't completely stored in the WayBack machine. Ask me anything you want about your machines. I don't mind answering. Peace... Sridhar From rborsuk at colourfull.com Wed Mar 22 08:09:08 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 09:09:08 -0500 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <5E1C1CAA-BFE5-4FE3-86C0-88735C7F7029@colourfull.com> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> <4420E6E2.4090309@mdrconsult.com> <5E1C1CAA-BFE5-4FE3-86C0-88735C7F7029@colourfull.com> Message-ID: <50D2FB85-8205-48F7-81AC-D1F272A57680@colourfull.com> Sorry. I should have said Doc and/or Sridhar. Rob On Mar 22, 2006, at 8:48 AM, Robert Borsuk wrote: > Hey Doc, > I have a couple of IBM systems that I would like to run AIX on, is > there a good reference site that has this info? This is good to > know so I don't waste my time. > > Thanks > Rob > > > On Mar 22, 2006, at 12:55 AM, Doc Shipley wrote: > >> Doc Shipley wrote: >>> AIX v5.1 was the last version to support any non-CHRP >>> platform. The 7043-150 (43P-150), F50, and B50 are the oldest >>> systems that'll run v5.2 or v5.2. >> >> Arghh. That should be "v5.2 or v5.3" >> >> v5.3 is the current release. >> >> >> Doc > From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Mar 22 08:25:05 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 08:25:05 -0600 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <50D2FB85-8205-48F7-81AC-D1F272A57680@colourfull.com> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> <4420E6E2.4090309@mdrconsult.com> <5E1C1CAA-BFE5-4FE3-86C0-88735C7F7029@colourfull.com> <50D2FB85-8205-48F7-81AC-D1F272A57680@colourfull.com> Message-ID: <44215E41.7030503@mdrconsult.com> Robert Borsuk wrote: > Sorry. I should have said Doc and/or Sridhar. And Pat Finnegan. :) I think Pat has a reasonably complete chart of the various RS/6000 and pSeries machines, with CPU type, latest version of AIX supported, etc. The easiest rule of thumb for non-rack-mount systems is that if it's black, it'll probably run AIX v5.3. If it's beige, it'll run up to v5.1, FSVO "run". Off the record, IBM is amazingly unconcerned about OS "piracy", as long as it's not for commercially-used systems. Their attitude is that the more exposure people get to AIX, the more hardware and service contracts they'll sell. What a concept, eh? Doc From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Mar 22 08:36:06 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 06:36:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <44215E41.7030503@mdrconsult.com> from Doc Shipley at "Mar 22, 6 08:25:05 am" Message-ID: <200603221436.GAA16924@floodgap.com> > Off the record, IBM is amazingly unconcerned about OS "piracy", as > long as it's not for commercially-used systems. Their attitude is that > the more exposure people get to AIX, the more hardware and service > contracts they'll sell. And I think they're right. After using AIX in a corporate environment, I've come rather to like it. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- UBAX vs lbh ybir EBG-13 ---------------------------------------------------- From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 08:47:29 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 09:47:29 -0500 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <200603221436.GAA16924@floodgap.com> References: <200603221436.GAA16924@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <44216381.40009@gmail.com> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> Off the record, IBM is amazingly unconcerned about OS "piracy", as >> long as it's not for commercially-used systems. Their attitude is that >> the more exposure people get to AIX, the more hardware and service >> contracts they'll sell. > > And I think they're right. After using AIX in a corporate environment, I've > come rather to like it. That's what I was saying for years. No one listened to me. 8-) Peace... Sridhar From waisun.chia at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 09:11:32 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 23:11:32 +0800 Subject: PBXAG-AV (acceleragraphics) In-Reply-To: <20060322103751.5faa50bf.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <20060322103751.5faa50bf.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: On 3/22/06, Jochen Kunz wrote: > I used a PWS 500 au with a PowerStorm 4D50T and Tru64 5.x for about two > years as a desktop machine. IIRC there where WinNT drivers also. The > 4D50T is a bit odd. It is a pure GFX accelerator. It has a mezzanine PCI > card stacked on top with a simple VGA chip. The VGA does all video (e.g. > console text mode) until the Xserver with the right drivers is started. What additional layered product do these high-end PowerStorms need? From pechter at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 09:24:23 2006 From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 10:24:23 -0500 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <44216381.40009@gmail.com> References: <200603221436.GAA16924@floodgap.com> <44216381.40009@gmail.com> Message-ID: There's a few of us who liked it enough to wish IBM ported it to the PC platform again. It's a bit wierd compared to Solaris or HP-UX... but it's solid as a rock. By 4.1.3 it was really well worked out. The 3.2.5 stuff was ok... earlier than that was a bit shaky. There were major changes in the earlier 4.x versions. Unfortunately, my job at IBM went away so I had to go to running Solaris, FreeBSD and Linux for a living. Bill On 3/22/06, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > > Cameron Kaiser wrote: > >> Off the record, IBM is amazingly unconcerned about OS "piracy", as > >> long as it's not for commercially-used systems. Their attitude is that > >> the more exposure people get to AIX, the more hardware and service > >> contracts they'll sell. > > > > And I think they're right. After using AIX in a corporate environment, > I've > > come rather to like it. > > That's what I was saying for years. No one listened to me. 8-) > > Peace... Sridhar > From dittman at dittman.net Wed Mar 22 09:31:57 2006 From: dittman at dittman.net (Eric Dittman) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 09:31:57 -0600 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <44215E41.7030503@mdrconsult.com> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> <4420E6E2.4090309@mdrconsult.com> <5E1C1CAA-BFE5-4FE3-86C0-88735C7F7029@colourfull.com> <50D2FB85-8205-48F7-81AC-D1F272A57680@colourfull.com> <44215E41.7030503@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <44216DED.5080303@dittman.net> Doc Shipley wrote: > Off the record, IBM is amazingly unconcerned about OS "piracy", as > long as it's not for commercially-used systems. Their attitude is that > the more exposure people get to AIX, the more hardware and service > contracts they'll sell. Don't try this with OS/390 or z/OS, though, as that side of IBM is concerned and doesn't want anyone running a copy that's not paid for and licensed. -- Eric Dittman dittman at dittman.net From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Mar 22 10:15:11 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 11:15:11 -0500 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <44215E41.7030503@mdrconsult.com> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> <4420E6E2.4090309@mdrconsult.com> <5E1C1CAA-BFE5-4FE3-86C0-88735C7F7029@colourfull.com> <50D2FB85-8205-48F7-81AC-D1F272A57680@colourfull.com> <44215E41.7030503@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <20060322161511.GB16366@ned.cc.purdue.edu> On Wed, Mar 22, 2006 at 08:25:05AM -0600, Doc Shipley wrote: > Robert Borsuk wrote: > >Sorry. I should have said Doc and/or Sridhar. > > And Pat Finnegan. :) I think Pat has a reasonably complete chart of > the various RS/6000 and pSeries machines, with CPU type, latest version > of AIX supported, etc. Unfortunately, my web site is down for the moment - I had some raid issues with the machine, and am moving it to another one now; it should be up later today or tomorrow. At least I had backups. :) > The easiest rule of thumb for non-rack-mount systems is that if it's > black, it'll probably run AIX v5.3. If it's beige, it'll run up to > v5.1, FSVO "run". Except that the 43P-150, and F50 are beige but are also CHRP (will run > 5.1), and SP nodes are all either black or silver, depending on how you look at them. :) Oh, and add the H50 to that list (it's a rackmount version of the F50 - we have a few at work). Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 22 10:15:49 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 09:15:49 -0700 Subject: PBXAG-AV (acceleragraphics) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 22 Mar 2006 13:07:57 +0800. Message-ID: In article , "Wai-Sun Chia" writes: > I get no response from the 2 address above. > Perhaps if you have mirrored their drivers you could put them up on > your website.... Right, that address (www.accelgraphics = 3dcards.es.com) doesn't respond anymore but if you go to or through the support link on they are still available. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From CCTalk at catcorner.org Wed Mar 22 10:38:50 2006 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 11:38:50 -0500 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3386D@mail.catcorner.org> > From: Dave Dunfield > Reply To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 7:12 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density > > TO ALL: > Does anyone else have an Adaptec 1522A controller that you can try with my > latest version of ImageDisk to see if you can read/write single-density disks? > I don't have this controller to test with, and I would like to confirm that the > problem is generic and not related to the one particular unit in question. This may or may not help, but I have used a 1542c with imagedisk to create mixed density floppies. Others have then used these to successfully create new images. I have at least 3 controllers that will work at SD with imagedisk. I have tried ID in single density with about 15 different floppy controllers, and have one more to test. Is there a FAQ about what controllers will write SD images? If not, I'd gladly maintain a list. Kelly From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 22 11:32:12 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 09:32:12 -0800 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density In-Reply-To: <20060322121246.FGPP8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> References: <62077165-FB05-4DF2-A2D9-E4DAEE983CA6@bitsavers.org> <20060322121246.FGPP8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <200603220932120345.3399B629@10.0.0.252> The most likely candidate is that you're running afoul of a timing issue. A good candidate is the reset delay (140 usec minimum). Since TeleDisk supports 1M/2.88MB data rates as well, it also issues CONFIGURE commands to the FDC when it changes rate--there might be something there. And a data rate change is always accompanied by a controller reset--in theory it doesn't have to be that way, but I found that some controllers gave very erratic operation if this wasn't done. While using the 765 data sheet might be good enough for most things, you should really be using the Intel 82077 as a reference--there are some differences. Cheers, Chuck From spc at conman.org Wed Mar 22 12:11:42 2006 From: spc at conman.org (Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 13:11:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <44215E41.7030503@mdrconsult.com> from "Doc Shipley" at Mar 22, 2006 08:25:05 AM Message-ID: <20060322181142.A67F47302A@linus.area51.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great Doc Shipley once stated: > > Off the record, IBM is amazingly unconcerned about OS "piracy", as > long as it's not for commercially-used systems. Their attitude is that > the more exposure people get to AIX, the more hardware and service > contracts they'll sell. > > What a concept, eh? And the fact that the hardware to run AIX is only available at IBM has nothing to do with this, right? -spc (I liked AIX when I had to work with it. Beat some of the other alternatives ... ) From lbickley at bickleywest.com Wed Mar 22 12:24:37 2006 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 10:24:37 -0800 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <44216DED.5080303@dittman.net> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <44215E41.7030503@mdrconsult.com> <44216DED.5080303@dittman.net> Message-ID: <200603221024.37839.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Wednesday 22 March 2006 07:31, Eric Dittman wrote: > Doc Shipley wrote: > > Off the record, IBM is amazingly unconcerned about OS "piracy", as > > long as it's not for commercially-used systems. Their attitude is that > > the more exposure people get to AIX, the more hardware and service > > contracts they'll sell. > > Don't try this with OS/390 or z/OS, though, as that side of IBM is > concerned and doesn't want anyone running a copy that's not paid > for and licensed. While it's true that OS/390 and z/OS are licensed products - IBM has released MVS 3.8J including JES3 for non-comercial use: http://www.bsp-gmbh.com/turnkey/ http://www.bsp-gmbh.com/turnkey/cookbook/index.html BTW: This is a great emulator. I've seen IBM demo mainframe middleware on a laptop using this "product". I've downloaded it (ISO CD) and installed it. It's a blast to play with.... VM can be downloaded here: http://www.boglob.co.uk/vmdist.html I haven't tried the VM yet... Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From stanb at dial.pipex.com Wed Mar 22 03:02:58 2006 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 09:02:58 +0000 Subject: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 21 Mar 2006 14:44:19 PST." <1e1fc3e90603211444v732d6e58s3e2d42617049e6ea@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200603220902.JAA11414@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Glen Slick said: > Patients have been killed by PDP-11 controlled medical devices: > > http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf > > (On topic too, this happened 20 years ago) When I went to have my chest checked a few years ago (they had me breathing radioactive gas...) the imaging was done by a beige cube-shaped computer, about 18 inches on a side, using 8-inch floppies (there were boxes of them on a shelf). Unfortunately I couldn't sneak round the other side to see the front panel. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Mar 22 12:41:48 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 10:41:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: <200603220902.JAA11414@citadel.metropolis.local> from Stan Barr at "Mar 22, 6 09:02:58 am" Message-ID: <200603221841.KAA18284@floodgap.com> > When I went to have my chest checked a few years ago (they had me > breathing radioactive gas...) the imaging was done by a beige > cube-shaped computer, about 18 inches on a side, using 8-inch floppies > (there were boxes of them on a shelf). Unfortunately I couldn't sneak > round the other side to see the front panel. I don't think this is what was scanning you :) but there are a lot of old Suns still out there as medical imaging devices. I think GE employed a number of them during the late 1980s-early 1990s. Many are probably still in service. I remember a few at Loma Linda. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Everyone is different. No two people are not on fire. -- Strong Bad #84 ---- From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Wed Mar 22 13:21:40 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:21:40 +0100 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <20060322161511.GB16366@ned.cc.purdue.edu> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> <4420E6E2.4090309@mdrconsult.com> <5E1C1CAA-BFE5-4FE3-86C0-88735C7F7029@colourfull.com> <50D2FB85-8205-48F7-81AC-D1F272A57680@colourfull.com> <44215E41.7030503@mdrconsult.com> <20060322161511.GB16366@ned.cc.purdue.edu> Message-ID: <20060322202140.0ffd50f1.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 11:15:11 -0500 Patrick Finnegan wrote: > Except that the 43P-150, and F50 are beige I don't know about the F50, but the 43P-150 is certainly black. I own two of them. (And two 43P-140, a 43P-100, a 40P, a C10 and a B50) The B50 is black too and BTW contains the same main board (AFAIK "planar" in IBM speak) as the 43P-150. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Wed Mar 22 13:26:38 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:26:38 +0100 Subject: PBXAG-AV (acceleragraphics) In-Reply-To: References: <20060322103751.5faa50bf.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <20060322202638.4a692912.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 23:11:32 +0800 "Wai-Sun Chia" wrote: > What additional layered product do these high-end PowerStorms need? I don't know if you need it for basic 2D X11 support, but my machine came with a OPEN3D PAK. Sorry, it is over 4 years ago that I instaled the machine and I can't remember what OS components I installed on it. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From dave06a at dunfield.com Wed Mar 22 13:53:38 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:53:38 -0500 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density In-Reply-To: <200603220932120345.3399B629@10.0.0.252> References: <20060322121246.FGPP8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <20060322195424.NTUH8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Hi Chuck, > The most likely candidate is that you're running afoul of a timing issue. Thats what I suspect as well. > A good candidate is the reset delay (140 usec minimum). Since TeleDisk I don't think it's reset - I wait 55ms (not us) with reset LOW, then 55ms with reset high before proceeding - that should be plenty of time. > supports 1M/2.88MB data rates as well, it also issues CONFIGURE commands to > the FDC when it changes rate--there might be something there. And a data Is this a 82077 related command? The uPD765 documentation does not mention a CONFIGURE command - only SPECIFY which just sets step/head-load/unload rates. > rate change is always accompanied by a controller reset--in theory it > doesn't have to be that way, but I found that some controllers gave very > erratic operation if this wasn't done. I reset and configure the FDC at the beginning of any operation, however I am currently NOT resetting it for each rate/mode attempt during the analysis phase - are you saying that I should do this? This will cause all kinds of disgusting things like the controller forgetting what track it's on... not to mention slowing down analysis substantially as the controller will have to be re-initialized and probably another whole revolution will slip by during the chaos... I'm inclined to think that this is not the problem either, because the user reports that he cannot WRITE my Osborne SD images ... During WRITE, I only setup the controller once (unless the mode/rate changes which it doesn't in the SD disks) - and the controller is reset just before the initial setup takes place. If no other solution turns up, I'll try this as a last resort, however I'd make it an option, so that the performance degradation and reseeking will not have to occur if you have a better behaved FDC (this is the first one I've seen with these problems - and we don't know that this is the cause yet). > While using the 765 data sheet might be good enough for most things, you > should really be using the Intel 82077 as a reference--there are some > differences. I guess it's too much to hope for that the manufacturers implement backward compatibility to the 765 properly ... ? Thanks for the input - I'll check out the 82077 data sheet (downloading it now) and see if comparing it to the 765 gives me any ideas. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From dave06a at dunfield.com Wed Mar 22 13:53:38 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:53:38 -0500 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3386D@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <20060322195431.NTYA8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> > This may or may not help, but I have used a 1542c with imagedisk to create > mixed density floppies. Others have then used these to successfully create > new images. Interesting - I have a 1542 which does not work with ImageDisk or TeleDisk/TESTSD at single-density - the user reporting the problems also has a 1542 which does not work with any of the three programs ... Mine is a '1542CF' - I assumed the 'F' ment "with floppy" ... Is this the same as yours? > I have at least 3 controllers that will work at SD with imagedisk. I have > tried ID in single density with about 15 different floppy controllers, and > have one more to test. Is there a FAQ about what controllers will write SD > images? If not, I'd gladly maintain a list. I've found 6-7 that work OK - and I've been adding them to the documentaion. Feedback on what other controllers do and don't work would be appreciated, however as noted here - some controllers seem to work for some people and not others (more likely, there are "minor" version variations in the controller). So far - every controller I've tried that passes Chuck's "testsd" program also works for me with ImageDisk at single-density - the case I have been discussing is the only one I am aware of where this has not been the case. Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From stanb at dial.pipex.com Wed Mar 22 14:04:39 2006 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:04:39 +0000 Subject: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 22 Mar 2006 10:41:48 PST." <200603221841.KAA18284@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <200603222004.UAA13435@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi Cameron Kaiser said: > > When I went to have my chest checked a few years ago (they had me > > breathing radioactive gas...) the imaging was done by a beige > > cube-shaped computer, about 18 inches on a side, using 8-inch floppies > > (there were boxes of them on a shelf). Unfortunately I couldn't sneak > > round the other side to see the front panel. > > I don't think this is what was scanning you :) but there are a lot of old > Suns still out there as medical imaging devices. It didn't have a Sun look, just a large painted metal cube, not quite wide enough to take rack-mounted stuff - anyway it was connected to a large, about 21-inch, white phosphor hi-res display by a thick coax cable, I could follow that back to the box, and an anonymous keyboard. It's very interesting to see your innards come up on a screen! The radiation detector was about 2 foot diameter and finished in that creamy-grey that Soviet optical equipment frequently came in - knowing how our National Health Service is always so strapped for cash I wasn't surprised it looked old and obsolete even then...(about 1999). -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From james.rice at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 14:33:41 2006 From: james.rice at gmail.com (James Rice) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:33:41 -0600 Subject: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: <200603222004.UAA13435@citadel.metropolis.local> References: <200603221841.KAA18284@floodgap.com> <200603222004.UAA13435@citadel.metropolis.local> Message-ID: Up to a couple of years ago, GE Cat Scan systems and MRI machines were using Sgi Octanes as a graphic terminal. Then about two - three years ago, they ported their software to Windows and switched to dual Xeon Dell workstations running Win2K. One of my larger customers had three GE MRI's with Octanes and when the lease was up and they switched to the newer Open MRI machines, they all came with Dell Precision Workstations. -- www.blackcube.org - The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers www.blackcube.org/personal/index.html - Personal web page From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 22 14:58:17 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 12:58:17 -0800 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density In-Reply-To: <20060322195424.NTUH8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> References: <20060322121246.FGPP8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <20060322195424.NTUH8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <200603221258170567.34566373@10.0.0.252> Hi Dave, In theory, the 82077's supposed to be compatible with the 765, but it does have a lot of extra baggage and some strange configuration modes that might get in the way--particularly if there's floppy support built into the BIOS extension ROM (I don't know if there is). I've got a floppy-only ISA controller here with an 8473 on it (40 pin DIP package, not the AV SMT) and, if you can suggest a test, I'll give it a go to determine if it might be something peculiar to the Adaptec implementation. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 22 15:00:44 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:00:44 -0700 Subject: Hospital surplus? (was: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:33:41 -0600. Message-ID: In article , "James Rice" writes: > One of my larger customers had three GE MRI's with Octanes and when > the lease was up and they switched to the newer Open MRI machines, > they all came with Dell Precision Workstations. So what do hospitals do with all that gear that they've had in pristine lab conditions for years when they upgrade and no longer need it? I've never seen any sort of surplus venue for this sort of thing. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From alexeyt at freeshell.org Wed Mar 22 15:05:49 2006 From: alexeyt at freeshell.org (Alexey Toptygin) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:05:49 +0000 (UTC) Subject: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: <200603222004.UAA13435@citadel.metropolis.local> References: <200603222004.UAA13435@citadel.metropolis.local> Message-ID: On Wed, 22 Mar 2006, Stan Barr wrote: > The radiation detector was about 2 foot diameter and finished in that > creamy-grey that Soviet optical equipment frequently came in - knowing > how our National Health Service is always so strapped for cash I wasn't > surprised it looked old and obsolete even then...(about 1999). Funny story re: soviet optical equipment: The soviet military would paint equipment "military green" to distinguish it from civillian articles and discourage theft. In the 80s, my dad worked for a Chicago based company that (among other things) exported soviet optics, much of which were purchased from the military surplus, or from military suppliers. It was nigh impossible to export an article painted "military green", since soviet customs assumed it was stolen or that exporting it was not allowed. Solution: hire minimum wage workers in Moscow to paint everything white before export :-) Alexey From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 22 15:53:03 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 13:53:03 -0800 Subject: Hospital surplus? (was: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603221353030245.34888600@10.0.0.252> On 3/22/2006 at 2:00 PM Richard wrote: >So what do hospitals do with all that gear that they've had in >pristine lab conditions for years when they upgrade and no longer need >it? > >I've never seen any sort of surplus venue for this sort of thing. They probably use the equipment for as long as practical, then pass it on for shipment out-of-country. I recently got a diskette sample from a CT scanner running CP/M 68K and very much still in use. You see the same situation in high end computer-controlled machine tools. Cheers, Chuck From frustum at pacbell.net Wed Mar 22 15:59:01 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 15:59:01 -0600 Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4421C8A5.20903@pacbell.net> Richard wrote: > In article , > "James Rice" writes: > >> One of my larger customers had three GE MRI's with Octanes and when >> the lease was up and they switched to the newer Open MRI machines, >> they all came with Dell Precision Workstations. > > So what do hospitals do with all that gear that they've had in > pristine lab conditions for years when they upgrade and no longer need > it? > > I've never seen any sort of surplus venue for this sort of thing. I keep an eye on this site since some of the items are local (austin, but dfw, san antonio, houston too) and there is some stuff of interesting to me, but never so much that I've acted on it. It seems like the bulk of what they auction is from medical/lab use: http://www.shattuck.com/ From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Wed Mar 22 16:00:58 2006 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:00:58 -0800 Subject: Apple II Setup Disk In-Reply-To: References: <380-220063510162431171@buckeye-express.com> Message-ID: On 3/10/06, Mike Loewen wrote: > > I'm in the middle of getting a IIGS running System 6.0.1 talking to > Netatalk running on a Linux box. While I can mount the Netatalk shares on > the IIGS, I need a copy of the "Apple II Setup Disk", version 3.0 in order > to boot the IIGS from the Netatalk server. The setup disk available for > download on Apple's site is only version 2.2. > > Does anyone have version 3.0 of the setup disk, that they can image for > me? Thanks. Hi Mike, Did you ever find a copy? I checked mine and it's the 2.2 version (I don't net boot). My IIgs freezes up if it sees AFS shares larger than 2GB. Are your shares smaller than that? Or did you find a way around that limitation? Eric From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Mar 22 16:10:18 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 15:10:18 -0700 Subject: Hospital surplus? (was: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question) In-Reply-To: <200603221353030245.34888600@10.0.0.252> References: <200603221353030245.34888600@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4421CB4A.1050600@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3/22/2006 at 2:00 PM Richard wrote: > >> So what do hospitals do with all that gear that they've had in >> pristine lab conditions for years when they upgrade and no longer need >> it? >> >> I've never seen any sort of surplus venue for this sort of thing. > > They probably use the equipment for as long as practical, then pass it on > for shipment out-of-country. I recently got a diskette sample from a CT Yup. A fair bit of "surplus" medical equipment here has been shipped off to tsunami-stricken areas, other parts of the world "less fortunate", etc. It's rare that things actually "wear out". Rather, someone gets an endowment/grant and opts to upgrade their equipment. Often, there are strings attached to the original purchase which prevent it from being sold, outright. So, the easy ways of disposing of it are through auctions (cumbersome -- especially if you only have a few pieces) or donations to charity (which almost always "satisfy" any original stipulations made in the purchase) You want to be wary of medical surplus since you have no idea *what* it was used for... X-( > scanner running CP/M 68K and very much still in use. You see the same > situation in high end computer-controlled machine tools. From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Wed Mar 22 16:29:07 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:29:07 -0800 Subject: Hospital surplus? (was: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question) Message-ID: Richard asks: So what do hospitals do with all that gear that they've had in pristine lab conditions for years when they upgrade and no longer need it? I've never seen any sort of surplus venue for this sort of thing. -- I can't speak for all of them, but I do have a cousin who has made a decent living for 30 years by refurbing this equipment and reselling to smaller hospitals or even off shore. He has built up a network of customers in the Pacific Northwest that contacts him any time something becomes surplus. His specialty is X-Ray and MRI, but any kind of medical electronics is fair game. The cost of medical equipment is such that even 20 year old electronics is state of the art to smaller, isolated hospitals. Billy From james.rice at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 16:32:05 2006 From: james.rice at gmail.com (James Rice) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 16:32:05 -0600 Subject: Hospital surplus? (was: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Most hospitals don't purchase equipment of that type, they lease it. Then it's returned to GE Capital, Copelco/Citibank or one of the otther medical equipment leasing specialists for disposal. I offered myself to the GE rep as a recycler of his off-lease Sgi workstations but my services were politely declined. On 3/22/06, Richard wrote: > > > > So what do hospitals do with all that gear that they've had in > pristine lab conditions for years when they upgrade and no longer need > it? > > I've never seen any sort of surplus venue for this sort of thing. > -- > -- www.blackcube.org - The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers www.blackcube.org/personal/index.html - Personal web page From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Mar 22 16:55:40 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:55:40 -0800 Subject: Hospital surplus? (was: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 2:00 PM -0700 3/22/06, Richard wrote: >I've never seen any sort of surplus venue for this sort of thing. There was a scrapper here that got a fair amount of the stuff, helped that he had contacts inside the Hospital that it was coming out of. My Dec Pro380 that I got from him came out of a Hospital IT department, though most of the stuff was medical HW. 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 fireflyst at earthlink.net Wed Mar 22 16:58:03 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 16:58:03 -0600 Subject: Frappr for PDP11 owners Message-ID: Hi everyone, I just made a frappr map for PDP11 owners. Put your machines in the shoutout, and we can see where everyone is and what we have ;) The URL is: http://www.frappr.com/pdp11owners See you there! Julian From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 22 17:05:41 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 16:05:41 -0700 Subject: Hospital surplus? (was: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 22 Mar 2006 15:10:18 -0700. <4421CB4A.1050600@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: In article <4421CB4A.1050600 at DakotaCom.Net>, Don Y writes: > You want to be wary of medical surplus since you have no idea > *what* it was used for... X-( What's the concern? A computer is a computer. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From fryers at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 17:14:35 2006 From: fryers at gmail.com (Simon Fryer) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 23:14:35 +0000 Subject: Hospital surplus? (was: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question) In-Reply-To: References: <4421CB4A.1050600@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: All, On 3/22/06, Richard wrote: > > In article <4421CB4A.1050600 at DakotaCom.Net>, > Don Y writes: > > > You want to be wary of medical surplus since you have no idea > > *what* it was used for... X-( > > What's the concern? A computer is a computer. There is somewhat of a concern. You have no idea what had left a residue in the equipment after the circulating air has been blown through it. Quite a few of the powders at the site I work at are specifically forumatled to alter your mental state - and not necessarily in a good way. 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 gkicomputers at yahoo.com Wed Mar 22 17:19:17 2006 From: gkicomputers at yahoo.com (steve) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 15:19:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: Hospital surplus? (was: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060322231917.69292.qmail@web51605.mail.yahoo.com> --- Richard wrote: > > In article > , > "James Rice" writes: > > > One of my larger customers had three GE MRI's with > Octanes and when > > the lease was up and they switched to the newer > Open MRI machines, > > they all came with Dell Precision Workstations. > > So what do hospitals do with all that gear that > they've had in > pristine lab conditions for years when they upgrade > and no longer need > it? > I read that China has the highest growth rate for MRI's purchases (curiously, in the USA the biggest medical growth rate is in herbal medicines) I assume this is where some of them end up __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Mar 22 17:44:34 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 16:44:34 -0700 Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4421E162.3080902@DakotaCom.Net> Richard wrote: > In article <4421CB4A.1050600 at DakotaCom.Net>, > Don Y writes: > >> You want to be wary of medical surplus since you have no idea >> *what* it was used for... X-( > > What's the concern? A computer is a computer. I'm thinking more in terms of *medical* equipment. You never know what it was actually used for. Doing some sort of research, etc. People aren't real diligent about labeling things as biohazards. I've seen small jars of mercury at auctions, etc. Ooops! From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Mar 22 17:51:56 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 18:51:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: Hospital surplus? (was: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question) In-Reply-To: <200603221353030245.34888600@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: > They probably use the equipment for as long as practical, then pass it on > for shipment out-of-country. "Out-of-country" are the key words - getting used equipment recertified for hospital use in the US is very costly, and mostly not worth it. A fair amount of the stuff gets destroyed, so it does not get back into circulation. Frankly, I am not that opposed to this. Remember the faulty pacemakers with flawed semiconductors that Anchor surplus sold... There is some cool stuff. At a hamfest about 15 years ago I saw a guy with a trailer FULL of IBM system/9000s. Did I get one? NOOOOOOO.... William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 22 18:03:51 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 17:03:51 -0700 Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 22 Mar 2006 16:44:34 -0700. <4421E162.3080902@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: In article <4421E162.3080902 at DakotaCom.Net>, Don Y writes: > Richard wrote: > > In article <4421CB4A.1050600 at DakotaCom.Net>, > > Don Y writes: > > > >> You want to be wary of medical surplus since you have no idea > >> *what* it was used for... X-( > > > > What's the concern? A computer is a computer. > > I'm thinking more in terms of *medical* equipment. I have no interest in medical equipment :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Mar 22 18:26:39 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 17:26:39 -0700 Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4421EB3F.4070301@DakotaCom.Net> Richard wrote: > In article <4421E162.3080902 at DakotaCom.Net>, > Don Y writes: > >> Richard wrote: >>> In article <4421CB4A.1050600 at DakotaCom.Net>, >>> Don Y writes: >>> >>>> You want to be wary of medical surplus since you have no idea >>>> *what* it was used for... X-( >>> What's the concern? A computer is a computer. >> I'm thinking more in terms of *medical* equipment. > > I have no interest in medical equipment :-) But many of these devices have lots of interesting electronics. Unfortunately, those are often in the same environment as the "field" electronics. So, whatever one was exposed to it is likely that the *other* has been, as well. E.g., I designed a device to track blood samples during assays. I'd *love* to find one to add to my personal collection. *But*, who knows *what* sorts of biohazards it was exposed to! In theory, it's been sanitized, etc. But, since you can't AUTOCLAVE the damn thing, I'm not willing to take that risk just to satisfy my own personal vanity... :-( I once inherited an air pump from "surplus". Later, discovered that the vacuum side of the pump had been used to continuously sample air from a "biological experiment". "Um, what was so *interesting* about the air that was being sampled...?" :-( The folks responsible for surplussing stuff are often clueless about the safety issues involved. They just want to move the stuff out.... From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 22 17:57:09 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 23:57:09 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Nixdorf LK-3000 on Yahoo! auctions In-Reply-To: <000c01c64d4e$aaf81250$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> from "'Computer Collector Newsletter'" at Mar 21, 6 08:19:28 pm Message-ID: > >>> Ah, nothing _that_ exciting, then. > > That's a matter of opinion. :) I happen to think it's very exciting, > because even though it's not a handheld computer in the modern sense, it was > one of the most direct ancestors of what came just a couple years later. > I was refering to the available modules, not the machine itself. I don't think any of the modules you've mentioned are particularly interesting. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 22 18:25:12 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 00:25:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Another Panasonic HHC Message-ID: A couple of weeks ago I mentioned I'd bought a Panasonic RL-H1400 handheld computer with printer/cassette interface. I've now got a second one. This one also came with a printer, but also with something labelled 'EPROM Extender' This is a tray that the computer fits into one side of, and the printer into the other side. Underneath there's a PCB with 8 EPROM sockets. The plastic housing was glued together, but I've got it apart without too much damage. The PCB also contains 10 or so TTL chips (all pin-through-hole), a voltage regulator, etc. I've not worked out the details yet. One odd thing is that these EPROM sockets, while the type that take EPROMs in plastic carriers (i.e. they're not normal DIL sockets), are 28 pin, not the 24 pins ones in the HHC itself. Is this the unit that would take the SNAP development ROMs? I also have the dual-voltage (110V/240V) mains adapter (my first machine came with the 110V-only version). This thing (for all it has 2 fuses inside. in nice little holders) is a royal pain to dismantle. It's assembled with 4 system-zero tamperproof screws (designed to be impossible to remove without the right tool), down holes too small to take the right tool. I ended up drilling out the holes slightly (8mm I think), then using the system-zero driver to get the screws out. It appears (but don't blame me too much if I'm wrong) that the HHC doesn't use the NiCd pack as a shunt regulator, there's a proper regulator circuit on the logic PCB. In which case it should be safe to connect the adapter with the NiCd removed or defective. -tony From CCTalk at catcorner.org Wed Mar 22 18:57:30 2006 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 19:57:30 -0500 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33870@mail.catcorner.org> > From: Dave Dunfield [mailto:dave06a at dunfield.com] > Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 2:54 PM > > This may or may not help, but I have used a 1542c with > > imagedisk to create mixed density floppies. Others have > > then used these to successfully create new images. > > > > Interesting - I have a 1542 which does not work with > ImageDisk or TeleDisk/TESTSD > at single-density - the user reporting the problems also has > a 1542 which does not > work with any of the three programs ... Mine is a '1542CF' - > I assumed the 'F' ment > "with floppy" ... Is this the same as yours? Sorry, my confusion. I have used an Adaptec '1542B' (no F) bios copyright is 1988 (checksum BB00) with mcode copyright 1990 (checksum F3F7). I have read and written mixed density images using the floppy portion of this controller. This is a 16-bit ISA SCSI controller with a big 50 pin centronics type connector on the bracket. > > > I have at least 3 controllers that will work at SD with > imagedisk. I have > > tried ID in single density with about 15 different floppy > controllers, and > > have one more to test. Is there a FAQ about what > controllers will write SD > > images? If not, I'd gladly maintain a list. > > I've found 6-7 that work OK - and I've been adding them to > the documentaion. > Feedback on what other controllers do and don't work would be > appreciated, > however as noted here - some controllers seem to work for > some people and > not others (more likely, there are "minor" version variations > in the controller). > Here is what has worked for me: Adaptec 1542B (as primary and secondary) BIOS: BB00 MCODE: F3F7 LCS-6625 REV:A2 copyright 1992 - This is a german made 4 floppy controller that autmatically works under 6.22 to give you 4 floppy drives. Tthe second two use the "standard" secondary floppy port and come up as E and F for me. C & D are hard drives and G is the CD-ROM drive in this machine. Works the same under Linux. I also have a scan of the manual that the maufacturer was kind enough to send along (just last year). ACER MIO-400KF - works as primary only. The jumper settings for this are available in TheRef99. > So far - every controller I've tried that passes Chuck's > "testsd" program > also works for me with ImageDisk at single-density - the case > I have been > discussing is the only one I am aware of where this has not > been the case. > I have one more to test. Are the above notes enough for you to go on? Do you want me to try "testsd" on any of them? Kelly From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 22 19:01:03 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 17:01:03 -0800 Subject: QIC02 Message-ID: <200603221701030254.3534A2F9@10.0.0.252> My memory is failing again. It's been maybe 15 years since I last fooled with QIC02-interfaced drives and I'm trying to avoid doing homework that I've probably done years ago. I've got two QIC02 drive setups. One's a Tandberg TDC3650 drive connected to a Alliance Technology ISA half-card. The other's a Cipher CP125BA connected to a Wangtek 5150. I'm guessing that the Wangtek card supports hardware compression (it's got an 8085 on it), while the Alliance looks to be pretty minimalist. So here's what I'm wondering. Without preferring any particular data format (e.g. tar), what x86 platform has the best support for these things? Linux? Xenix? MS-DOS? OS/2? Windows? I've got the distinct feeling that I've been here before, but I can't recall what I discovered. Can anyone help me slice through the mental fog? Thanks, Chuck From news at computercollector.com Wed Mar 22 19:27:41 2006 From: news at computercollector.com ('Computer Collector Newsletter') Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:27:41 -0500 Subject: Nixdorf LK-3000 on Yahoo! auctions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <002501c64e18$fb8050f0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> So was I. :) -----Original Message----- From: Tony Duell [mailto:ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk] Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 6:57 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Nixdorf LK-3000 on Yahoo! auctions > >>> Ah, nothing _that_ exciting, then. > > That's a matter of opinion. :) I happen to think it's very exciting, > because even though it's not a handheld computer in the modern sense, > it was one of the most direct ancestors of what came just a couple years later. > I was refering to the available modules, not the machine itself. I don't think any of the modules you've mentioned are particularly interesting. -tony From lee at geekdot.com Wed Mar 22 20:01:44 2006 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 03:01:44 +0100 (CET) Subject: Hospital surplus? Message-ID: <1109.86.139.105.174.1143079304.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> > I've seen small jars of mercury at auctions, etc. What's so bad about that? Mercury is about as dangerous as lead. Lee. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 22 20:02:54 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 18:02:54 -0800 Subject: QIC02 In-Reply-To: <200603221701030254.3534A2F9@10.0.0.252> References: <200603221701030254.3534A2F9@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603221802540147.356D4281@10.0.0.252> On 3/22/2006 at 5:01 PM Chuck Guzis wrote: >The other's a Cipher CP125BA connected to a Wangtek 5150. Er, no it's not--it's a Caliper CP125BA connected to a Wangtek EV-835 controller. I believe that this one is QIC36, not QIC02. That'll teach me to rely on my memory. Same question applies. Best OS and driver set for support? Cheers, Chuck From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Mar 22 20:03:47 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:03:47 -0500 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33870@mail.catcorner.org> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33870@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <20060323020347.GA3494@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> On Wed, Mar 22, 2006 at 07:57:30PM -0500, Kelly Leavitt wrote: > > From: Dave Dunfield [mailto:dave06a at dunfield.com] > > Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 2:54 PM > > > > This may or may not help, but I have used a 1542c with > > > imagedisk to create mixed density floppies. Others have > > > then used these to successfully create new images. > > > > > > > Interesting - I have a 1542 which does not work with > > ImageDisk or TeleDisk/TESTSD > > at single-density - the user reporting the problems also has > > a 1542 which does not > > work with any of the three programs ... Mine is a '1542CF' - > > I assumed the 'F' ment > > "with floppy" ... Is this the same as yours? > > > Sorry, my confusion. I have used an Adaptec '1542B' (no F) bios copyright is > 1988 (checksum BB00) with mcode copyright 1990 (checksum F3F7). I have read > and written mixed density images using the floppy portion of this > controller. This is a 16-bit ISA SCSI controller with a big 50 pin > centronics type connector on the bracket. It might be more useful to know what kind of floppy chip it uses, rather than what BIOS/uCode it has installed.. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 20:11:43 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:11:43 -0500 Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: <1109.86.139.105.174.1143079304.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> References: <1109.86.139.105.174.1143079304.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> Message-ID: <442203DF.3070608@gmail.com> Lee Davison wrote: >> I've seen small jars of mercury at auctions, etc. > > What's so bad about that? Mercury is about as dangerous as lead. But organic mercury salts are much more dangerous, and there are definitely people out there that are stupid enough to generate them. Didn't we have this discussion not too long ago? Peace... Sridhar From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Mar 22 21:30:03 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:30:03 Subject: Data IO Programmer V pictures. Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060322213003.3f0fa8e2@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> FWIW I dug these out the other day. Two of them are Programmer Vs and one is a Programmer Satellite. I took some pictures of them and posted them at . Note that the two Programmer Vs have different keypads! Anybody know what the story on the Programmer Satellite is? Joe From lee at geekdot.com Wed Mar 22 20:39:50 2006 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 03:39:50 +0100 (CET) Subject: Hospital surplus? Message-ID: <2246.86.139.105.174.1143081590.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> >> What's so bad about that? Mercury is about as dangerous as lead. > But organic mercury salts are much more dangerous, As are organic lead salts, the native metal though is most dangerous if you drop it on an extremity. > and there are definitely people out there that are stupid enough to > generate them. For them we have natural selection. 8^)= > Didn't we have this discussion not too long ago? Not me, unless decades of soldering has done for my memory. Lee. From teoz at neo.rr.com Wed Mar 22 20:40:03 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:40:03 -0500 Subject: Hospital surplus? References: <1109.86.139.105.174.1143079304.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> <442203DF.3070608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <008a01c64e23$16e97ba0$a05d1941@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sridhar Ayengar" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 9:11 PM Subject: Re: Hospital surplus? > Lee Davison wrote: > >> I've seen small jars of mercury at auctions, etc. > > > > What's so bad about that? Mercury is about as dangerous as lead. > > But organic mercury salts are much more dangerous, and there are > definitely people out there that are stupid enough to generate them. > > Didn't we have this discussion not too long ago? > > Peace... Sridhar Keep mercury away from structural aluminum, stuff eats it alive. I remember way back in the 1990's a salesguy wanted to ship mercury relays via air, that would have ended real bad for the plane if they sprung a leak. Out of curiosity why would somebody auction off small jars of mercury anyway? What do people and or companies do with the stuff anymore? From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 22 20:44:07 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 18:44:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: <2246.86.139.105.174.1143081590.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> References: <2246.86.139.105.174.1143081590.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> Message-ID: <20060322184328.H96075@shell.lmi.net> One more thing that you do not want to hear in surgery is, "Dude, you're getting a Dell." From CCTalk at catcorner.org Wed Mar 22 20:44:16 2006 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:44:16 -0500 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33871@mail.catcorner.org> > -----Original Message----- > From: Patrick Finnegan [mailto:pat at computer-refuge.org] > Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 9:04 PM > On Wed, Mar 22, 2006 at 07:57:30PM -0500, Kelly Leavitt wrote: > > > From: Dave Dunfield [mailto:dave06a at dunfield.com] > > > Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 2:54 PM > > > > > > This may or may not help, but I have used a 1542c with > > > > imagedisk to create mixed density floppies. Others have > > > > then used these to successfully create new images. > > > > > > > > > > Interesting - I have a 1542 which does not work with > > > ImageDisk or TeleDisk/TESTSD > > > at single-density - the user reporting the problems also has > > > a 1542 which does not > > > work with any of the three programs ... Mine is a '1542CF' - > > > I assumed the 'F' ment > > > "with floppy" ... Is this the same as yours? > > > > > > Sorry, my confusion. I have used an Adaptec '1542B' (no F) > bios copyright is > > 1988 (checksum BB00) with mcode copyright 1990 (checksum > F3F7). I have read > > and written mixed density images using the floppy portion of this > > controller. This is a 16-bit ISA SCSI controller with a big 50 pin > > centronics type connector on the bracket. > > It might be more useful to know what kind of floppy chip it > uses, rather > than what BIOS/uCode it has installed.. > National Semiconductor DP8473 52 pin plcc Theoretically supports 4 drives. Datasheet: http://www.ortodoxism.ro/datasheets/nationalsemiconductor/DS009384.PDF Kelly From lee at geekdot.com Wed Mar 22 20:52:01 2006 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 03:52:01 +0100 (CET) Subject: Hospital surplus? Message-ID: <2325.86.139.105.174.1143082321.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> > Keep mercury away from structural aluminum, stuff eats it alive. As does lead, so no writing on aluminium with real lead pencils. > What do people and or companies do with the stuff anymore? I use it to stop people casually stealing my big Marmite jar, it's just over 400cc in volume but now weighs over 5Kg. Lee. From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 20:51:55 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:51:55 -0500 Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: <008a01c64e23$16e97ba0$a05d1941@game> References: <1109.86.139.105.174.1143079304.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> <442203DF.3070608@gmail.com> <008a01c64e23$16e97ba0$a05d1941@game> Message-ID: <44220D4B.7000202@gmail.com> Teo Zenios wrote: > Keep mercury away from structural aluminum, stuff eats it alive. I remember > way back in the 1990's a salesguy wanted to ship mercury relays via air, > that would have ended real bad for the plane if they sprung a leak. In fact, mercury-aluminum amalgam is used in at least one method of clandestine MDMA production. > Out of curiosity why would somebody auction off small jars of mercury > anyway? What do people and or companies do with the stuff anymore? What else would one use in cold-environment tilt switches? In warm environments, gallium might be an option, but certainly not in cold (or STP) environments. Peace... Sridhar From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 22 20:57:41 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 18:57:41 -0800 Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: <2246.86.139.105.174.1143081590.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> References: <2246.86.139.105.174.1143081590.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> Message-ID: <200603221857410636.359F6BD2@10.0.0.252> On 3/23/2006 at 3:39 AM Lee Davison wrote: >Not me, unless decades of soldering has done for my memory. Yes we did--I believe I cited the story of Karen Wetterhahn: http://www.udel.edu/OHS/dartmouth/drtmtharticle.html Other researchers have noticed that when elementary mercury is put in landfills, combination with other organic compounds renders it quite a bit more toxic. Cheers, Chuck From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Mar 22 21:02:38 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 22:02:38 -0500 (EST) Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: <44220D4B.7000202@gmail.com> Message-ID: > What else would one use in cold-environment tilt switches? In warm > environments, gallium might be an option, but certainly not in cold (or > STP) environments. That would be insanely expensive. But I bet Uncle Sam tried it once. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 22 21:03:36 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 19:03:36 -0800 Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: <008a01c64e23$16e97ba0$a05d1941@game> References: <1109.86.139.105.174.1143079304.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> <442203DF.3070608@gmail.com> <008a01c64e23$16e97ba0$a05d1941@game> Message-ID: <200603221903360324.35A4D540@10.0.0.252> On 3/22/2006 at 9:40 PM Teo Zenios wrote: >Keep mercury away from structural aluminum, stuff eats it alive. I remember >way back in the 1990's a salesguy wanted to ship mercury relays via air, >that would have ended real bad for the plane if they sprung a leak. I hadn't realized this was the case for mercury. Gallium is another metal that's governed by air transport regulations because of what it will do to aluminum. >Out of curiosity why would somebody auction off small jars of mercury >anyway? What do people and or companies do with the stuff anymore? When I was in high school, I built a mercury diffusion vacuum pump that used quite a bit of mercury. All those vapors probably explains my mad-as-a-hatter personality today. Cheers, Chuck From innfoclassics at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 21:23:17 2006 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 19:23:17 -0800 Subject: Hospital surplus? (was: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question) In-Reply-To: References: <200603221353030245.34888600@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: We bought a fair amount of equipment from the hospitals in the Northwest in the 1990s. Most hospitals here have private auctions, some on a regular schedule with no advertising. You need to inquire with the property manager of the hospital about how they get rid of their surplus. Dealers usually get the pick of the bigger equipment first ( a good dealer will pay more). I got most of my HP 9825s from hospital sales (used as instrument controllers) Hospitals, especially university or large hospitals generate lots of computer, phone, office equipment, lab maintenance and supplies surplus. You can find some classic pieces inside. we once got a CO2 laser that was driven by a nice little PDP 11/23 with a qbus floppy controller with two 8 inch floppy drives attached. There are concerns about getting contaminated equipment. Mostly it is related to equipment that is processing, testing or holding blood. Good dealers are concerned about this. We also used to buy from Hanford in Eastern Washington and had to be careful to make sure we didn't get anything radioactive. I know of equipment dealers it happened to. -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Mar 22 21:33:39 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:33:39 -0600 Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: <200603221903360324.35A4D540@10.0.0.252> References: <1109.86.139.105.174.1143079304.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> <442203DF.3070608@gmail.com> <008a01c64e23$16e97ba0$a05d1941@game> <200603221903360324.35A4D540@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060322211936.0509ef18@mail> At 09:03 PM 3/22/2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: >When I was in high school, I built a mercury diffusion vacuum pump that >used quite a bit of mercury. All those vapors probably explains my >mad-as-a-hatter personality today. Apparently, it leads to an obsessive-compulsive disorder where the poisoned tries to collect as much computer junk as will fit on his property. There's plenty on the web that describes the various effects of exposure. Not all of it is unbiased. Certainly the effects of long-term low-level exposure could be different from the effects of short-term (but probably high-level) exposure of the average tinkering teen who played with the liquid metal. - John From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 22 22:03:50 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:03:50 -0800 Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060322211936.0509ef18@mail> References: <1109.86.139.105.174.1143079304.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> <442203DF.3070608@gmail.com> <008a01c64e23$16e97ba0$a05d1941@game> <200603221903360324.35A4D540@10.0.0.252> <6.2.3.4.2.20060322211936.0509ef18@mail> Message-ID: <200603222003500611.35DBFADB@10.0.0.252> On 3/22/2006 at 9:33 PM John Foust wrote: >There's plenty on the web that describes the various effects >of exposure. Not all of it is unbiased. Certainly the effects >of long-term low-level exposure could be different from the >effects of short-term (but probably high-level) exposure of >the average tinkering teen who played with the liquid metal. I get the idea that most of the mercury poisoning nowadays is due to wastes generated from burning coal, mining leachate and other industrial sources--and that very little of it is generated by consumer end-user disposal practices. About 2 years ago, I replaced a sump pump at home that was installed in 1980 and it had a really nice fat mercury float switch on it. When I worked in the steel mills as a pyrometer technician, we were still using Weston standard cells in many of the instruments (chart recorders, controllers, etc.) as well as the portable galvanometers we used to calibrate instruments with. If I said "L&N Micromax", I'd really be showing my age, huh? Back then you could still get the druggist to make up a calomel purgative if you were feeling bad. I recall that we had a big American Lead Products plant that spewed out a fair amount of pollution. The only other notable personality I can think of right now who grew up in my home town was Jean Shepherd, who was as looney as they come. Maybe the heavy metals explains that... Cheers, Chuck From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Wed Mar 22 22:07:13 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:07:13 -0800 Subject: Data IO Programmer V pictures. In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060322213003.3f0fa8e2@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.16.20060322213003.3f0fa8e2@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <44221EF1.8080606@msm.umr.edu> Joe R. wrote: >FWIW > > I dug these out the other day. Two of them are Programmer Vs and one is >a Programmer Satellite. I took some pictures of them and posted them at >. Note that the two >Programmer Vs have different keypads! > > Anybody know what the story on the Programmer Satellite is? > > Joe > > > > joe, these look like the 29B vintage system I have for the parts it takes. the programming satellite is probably just a multiplexer to allow you to gang program parts in a manufacturing setting. never had that with a 29A or 29B, but the console looks the same as I used when i was doing a lot of eprom programming and patch work. you only have the socket to program one part though. there must be more to populate out the programming satellite. jim From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Wed Mar 22 22:11:15 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:11:15 -0800 Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: <2325.86.139.105.174.1143082321.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> References: <2325.86.139.105.174.1143082321.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> Message-ID: <44221FE3.908@msm.umr.edu> Lee Davison wrote: >What do people and or companies do with the stuff anymore? > > mercury barometer comes to mind. I have two that I have filled at various times. I think they take a few pounds to fill, but are quite reliable for weather prediction, much more accurate than horse hair I had to help persuade a friend many years ago to return a cobalt camera to a clinic who had conned him into taking it. He thought he would send a really super gizmo to some third world clinic, and we explained that the paperwork outweighed the camera. We also arranged for the lab director who had given him the camera to be properly briefed in disposal of the unit, which was what he was trying to avoid. It was quite a thrill to see such a thing there, but good sense kept anyone from taking it, and now having it would be a liability of large proportions, with the scare over things high tech these days. Jim From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Wed Mar 22 22:15:01 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:15:01 -0800 Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: <200603222003500611.35DBFADB@10.0.0.252> References: <1109.86.139.105.174.1143079304.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> <442203DF.3070608@gmail.com> <008a01c64e23$16e97ba0$a05d1941@game> <200603221903360324.35A4D540@10.0.0.252> <6.2.3.4.2.20060322211936.0509ef18@mail> <200603222003500611.35DBFADB@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <442220C5.4010305@msm.umr.edu> Chuck Guzis wrote: >On 3/22/2006 at 9:33 PM John Foust wrote: > > > >> exposure of >>the average tinkering teen who played with the liquid metal. >> >> > >I get the idea that most of the mercury poisoning nowadays is due to wastes >generated from burning coal, > I remember in grade school having a blob inside the bottom of my tilt up school desk that got away from me that I chased thru 5th grade. I still don't walk and talk like Lurch. I have however succumbed to the other disease referred to, of collecting far to much old computer crap. Jim From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Wed Mar 22 22:36:45 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 22:36:45 -0600 Subject: POWERstation 370 Message-ID: <4f82d2379974406cb148dfccb8f5143d@valleyimplants.com> The 7030/3CT (why do you suppose they recycled 7030? shouldn't it have been retired after Stretch?) is even ummm pokey with AIX 5.1 My 012/370 plods along fairly well with 4.3.3, though. I went into AIX with a bit of trepidation, having heard the BSDers whisper that it really stood for Aix Isn't uniX, and that it was mostly "UNIX compatible". 4.3 (and perhaps the rest of the 4.x series) is pretty close, except for some weirdness in the /etc files (for which smit is a godsend when you first start out). After banging my head against it a while, I have grown to admire it. I should get a faster machine, however. (interesting how RS6Ks and Alphas seem to hold their value much better than SGI/Sun/HPPAs) From waisun.chia at gmail.com Wed Mar 22 23:00:54 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 13:00:54 +0800 Subject: Frappr for PDP11 owners In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hey! This is fun! :-) I seem to be the first non-US, non-Europe presence... Where are all the Aussies and Kiwis? On 3/23/06, Julian Wolfe wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I just made a frappr map for PDP11 owners. Put your machines in the > shoutout, and we can see where everyone is and what we have ;) > > The URL is: http://www.frappr.com/pdp11owners > > See you there! > > Julian > > > From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Mar 22 23:34:58 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:34:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: Hospital surplus? (was: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question) In-Reply-To: from Richard at "Mar 22, 6 04:05:41 pm" Message-ID: <200603230534.VAA14256@floodgap.com> > > You want to be wary of medical surplus since you have no idea > > *what* it was used for... X-( > > What's the concern? A computer is a computer. He means the ones with the rectal ultrasound peripherals. In this case, you *know* where they've been. (Oh, and ;) ) -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- To err is human -- to forgive is not company policy. ----------------------- From dan at ekoan.com Thu Mar 23 00:29:41 2006 From: dan at ekoan.com (Dan Veeneman) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 01:29:41 -0500 Subject: Any RCS/RI folks on the list? In-Reply-To: <000201c64c86$2d641460$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <000201c64c86$2d641460$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20060323012736.07ee7af0@mail.marcal.com> Hi, Are there any folks from The Retro-Computing Society of Rhode Island on this list? I haven't been able to raise anyone at their normal e-mail address and would like to chat with one of the curators. Please e-mail me off-list. Thanks! Cheers, Dan From zmerch at 30below.com Wed Mar 22 12:59:49 2006 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 13:59:49 -0500 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <200603221024.37839.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <44216DED.5080303@dittman.net> <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <44215E41.7030503@mdrconsult.com> <44216DED.5080303@dittman.net> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060322135519.04ba0b08@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Lyle Bickley may have mentioned these words: >While it's true that OS/390 and z/OS are licensed products - IBM has released >MVS 3.8J including JES3 for non-comercial use: > >http://www.bsp-gmbh.com/turnkey/ >http://www.bsp-gmbh.com/turnkey/cookbook/index.html ... Holy crap. If only I had time to get out my old EDS dox on that stuff... I used to use VM, MVS & OS/400 (and diddled on a few *early* suns) on various big iron back in '89-90... IBM 3090's, Amdahl 3890's and they had a few massively overworked AS/400's... Lotsa 100 MIPS boxen w/128M to 512Meg RAM there - that was when 3 MIPS in a home computer was *booming*. ;-) Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | A new truth in advertising slogan SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | for MicroSoft: "We're not the oxy... zmerch at 30below.com | ...in oxymoron!" From zmerch at 30below.com Wed Mar 22 14:20:46 2006 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 15:20:46 -0500 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density In-Reply-To: <20060322195431.NTYA8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3386D@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060322151731.04b19fd8@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Dave Dunfield may have mentioned these words: [[ I cc:ed this to you, as sometimes my emails don't go thru the cctalk list anymore or are rather delayed (days)... weird... ]] > > This may or may not help, but I have used a 1542c with imagedisk to create > > mixed density floppies. Others have then used these to successfully create > > new images. > >Interesting - I have a 1542 which does not work with ImageDisk or >TeleDisk/TESTSD >at single-density - the user reporting the problems also has a 1542 which >does not >work with any of the three programs ... Mine is a '1542CF' - I assumed the >'F' ment >"with floppy" ... Is this the same as yours? You assumed wrong, my friend. ;-) The 2 in 1542 means "with floppy" - I wonder if the F means "Fast" as in Fast SCSI - 10M/sec instead of the standard 5M/sec bus speed. Every Adaptec controller I'd seen up to the 29xx series used the last digit for floppy controller - 2 for floppy, 0 without, I don't know if there were others... For some reason, I thought there was a '4' ending as well, but I don't know what that could've stood for. Laterz, 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 chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Mar 22 20:58:18 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 18:58:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? Message-ID: <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> in all likelihood Intel is far too simplistic an answer (although I do recall seeing pictures of multibus type boxes with an Intel monniker, so things like that could possibly qualify). I suppose even a sbc could qualify, or even some sort of add-on for an established system. But sdks from Intel (or others) dont. Seattle Gazelle? What about 80186 firsts? 80286? I know the popular conception is that Compaq built the first 386 desktop, but I seem to recall ALR being numero uno (pretty sure it was ALR). __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From brentonwhite at dodo.com.au Tue Mar 21 18:12:06 2006 From: brentonwhite at dodo.com.au (Brenton White) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 11:12:06 +1100 Subject: Timeworks Data Manager vs 1.1 for Atari Message-ID: Hi I have Timeworks Data Manager vs 1.1 for Atari. I need to convert files from this format into files which can be manipulated using software available for Mac or PC. Thanks for your help. Brenton White. Sydney Australia From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 23 00:30:38 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 22:30:38 -0800 Subject: QIC02 In-Reply-To: <200603221802540147.356D4281@10.0.0.252> References: <200603221701030254.3534A2F9@10.0.0.252> <200603221802540147.356D4281@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603222230380848.3662617A@10.0.0.252> Okay, I've determined that the Alliance-Tandberg QIC-02 setup is a pretty close clone of the Wangtek PC-02. Does anyone have experience with the Linux tpqic02 driver? Any advice? Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 23 00:28:13 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 22:28:13 -0800 Subject: Hospital surplus? (was: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question) In-Reply-To: <200603230534.VAA14256@floodgap.com> References: <200603230534.VAA14256@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <200603222228130646.36602A4B@10.0.0.252> On 3/22/2006 at 9:34 PM Cameron Kaiser wrote: >He means the ones with the rectal ultrasound peripherals. In this case, you >*know* where they've been. Don't laugh--an endoscope could be a very handy thing to own, no matter where it's been. Cheers, Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Mar 23 01:13:28 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 23:13:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: Hospital surplus? (was: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question) In-Reply-To: <200603222228130646.36602A4B@10.0.0.252> from Chuck Guzis at "Mar 22, 6 10:28:13 pm" Message-ID: <200603230713.k2N7DS0P015192@floodgap.com> > > He means the ones with the rectal ultrasound peripherals. In this case, you > > *know* where they've been. > Don't laugh--an endoscope could be a very handy thing to own, no matter > where it's been. Oh, they are handy. They're also a real pain in the butt (... pun intended I guess) to maintain, particularly the ERCP scopes with the tip-mounted elevators. Those break easily. Keeping all the optics and flex material in good shape also keeps a lot of RNs and LVNs gainfully employed. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- "I don't think so," said Descartes, and he vanished. ----------------------- From vax9000 at gmail.com Thu Mar 23 01:44:17 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 02:44:17 -0500 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 3/22/06, Chris M wrote: > > in all likelihood Intel is far too simplistic an > answer (although I do recall seeing pictures of > multibus type boxes with an Intel monniker, so things > like that could possibly qualify). I suppose even a > sbc could qualify, or even some sort of add-on for an > established system. But sdks from Intel (or others) > dont. Seattle Gazelle? What about 80186 firsts? 80286? > I know the popular conception is that Compaq built the > first 386 desktop, but I seem to recall ALR being > numero uno (pretty sure it was ALR). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Megatrends_Incorporated AMI's boasts the following achievements: .First to build motherboards based on Intel's 386 and 486 processor platforms; .First to use onboard external cache designs for these boards; What I have may be the second; What I bought from ebay just know may be the first. Maybe they excluded Compaq because that was "computer" and not "motherboard". __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Thu Mar 23 02:09:33 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:09:33 +0100 Subject: QIC02 In-Reply-To: <200603222230380848.3662617A@10.0.0.252> References: <200603221701030254.3534A2F9@10.0.0.252> <200603221802540147.356D4281@10.0.0.252> <200603222230380848.3662617A@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060323090933.7bd2a42f.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 22:30:38 -0800 "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > Does anyone have experience with the Linux tpqic02 driver? Yes. Back in my Linux days I used it. Sometimes it worked, most time it didn't. If you looked to close at the drive the driver got confused and you had to reboot to get it working again. I suspect bit rot made tpqic02 completely unusable meanwhile. NetBSD had no problems with QIC-02 / QIC-36 drives. See http://netbsd.gw.com/cgi-bin/man-cgi?wt+4+NetBSD-current -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From cc at corti-net.de Thu Mar 23 03:58:19 2006 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 10:58:19 +0100 (CET) Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density In-Reply-To: <20060322121246.FGPP8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> References: <62077165-FB05-4DF2-A2D9-E4DAEE983CA6@bitsavers.org> <20060322121246.FGPP8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 22 Mar 2006, Dave Dunfield wrote: > TO ALL: > Does anyone else have an Adaptec 1522A controller that you can try with my > latest version of ImageDisk to see if you can read/write single-density disks? > I don't have this controller to test with, and I would like to confirm that the > problem is generic and not related to the one particular unit in question. I did some tests of several FDC chips found on different Multi-I/O boards and motherboards some time ago, here are my results: These work fine with single-density (reading and writing): M5105 (Acer) WD37C65 (Western Digital) i82072 (Intel) DP8473 (National Semiconductors) SMC Super I/O chip found on many motherboards (e.g. old Intel or Asus boards) These won't work at all: Winbond W83757, Intel i82077 and other modern crap. There's one unusual constellation that not many FDCs support: MFM with 128 bytes/sector. I have a Robotron A5120 computer (ex-GDR) that uses 26 sectors with 128 bytes/sector and *MFM* on a 5.25" 96tpi double-density diskette, so the layout is exactly the same as with 8" drives, but only half the data rate (250 kbits/sec.) My tests showed that the M5105 and DP8473 can read *and* write such diskettes, the other FDCs can't even reliably read them (e.g. they only read around 80 instead of 128 bytes etc.) Another thing to take care of: Some FDCs don't work reliably in FM mode at a bit rate of 150 kbits/sec. So in order to write single density minifloppies (48 or 96 tpi) you should either use a drive with dual speed (300 and 360 rpm selected via the density select input pin 2) or use a drive that is fixed to 300 rpm; in both cases use a data rate of 125 kbits/sec. (I have a CP/M system that uses an Intel 8271 FDC at 125 kbits/sec, this is a FM only chip) Hope that helps in finding usable I/O boards and FDCs. I have a multi-media PC (a PC that handles multiple medias, what else?) with 3.5" and 5.25" HD at the primary onboard FDC, and a 5.25" 96tpi DD(300rpm ) and 8" drive connected to an ISA Multi-I/O board with DP8473 set to the secondary address. This handles most of the diskette formats I have. Christian From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 23 05:33:28 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 03:33:28 -0800 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200603230333280896.37779F7C@10.0.0.252> On 3/22/2006 at 6:58 PM Chris M wrote: >in all likelihood Intel is far too simplistic an >answer (although I do recall seeing pictures of >multibus type boxes with an Intel monniker, so things >like that could possibly qualify). I suppose even a >sbc could qualify, or even some sort of add-on for an >established system. But sdks from Intel (or others) >dont. Seattle Gazelle? What about 80186 firsts? 80286? >I know the popular conception is that Compaq built the >first 386 desktop, but I seem to recall ALR being >numero uno (pretty sure it was ALR). I think the distinction for 8086 may be Altos or one of the other S-100 makers, although Intel may have had a card for the MDS even before that. Bill Godbout had his 85-88 card considerably before the PC. As for the 80186/80286, we were debugging pre-release engineering samples of both chips at Durango (I still remember the bug where DMA activity would clobber the DI register). For sure, the 80186 Poppy rolled out very early. I don't think any 80286 versions were delivered until the Xenix port got finished. But there was a socket on the board for one before that--just nothing to run on it. By the time of the 386, Mobo profiles had pretty much standardized for PCs, so I suspect someone like Mylex may have had the first motherboard, but I don't know if that counts as a "computer". The PS/2 386 boxes were also out fairly early--didn't the Model 50 have a bug that required replacement of the mobo? Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 23 05:36:25 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 03:36:25 -0800 Subject: QIC02 In-Reply-To: <20060323090933.7bd2a42f.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <200603221701030254.3534A2F9@10.0.0.252> <200603221802540147.356D4281@10.0.0.252> <200603222230380848.3662617A@10.0.0.252> <20060323090933.7bd2a42f.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <200603230336250689.377A520C@10.0.0.252> On 3/23/2006 at 9:09 AM Jochen Kunz wrote: >On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 22:30:38 -0800 >"Chuck Guzis" wrote: > >> Does anyone have experience with the Linux tpqic02 driver? >Yes. Back in my Linux days I used it. Sometimes it worked, most time it >didn't. If you looked to close at the drive the driver got confused and >you had to reboot to get it working again. I suspect bit rot made >tpqic02 completely unusable meanwhile. Yeah, I'm starting to see what you mean. I can find various kernel patches to tpqic02, but it seems that the project ran out of steam before anyone incorporated al of them into a release. I'll have a look at what NetBSD does. Thanks, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 23 05:40:54 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 03:40:54 -0800 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density In-Reply-To: References: <62077165-FB05-4DF2-A2D9-E4DAEE983CA6@bitsavers.org> <20060322121246.FGPP8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <200603230340540239.377E6B04@10.0.0.252> On 3/23/2006 at 10:58 AM Christian Corti wrote: >These won't work at all: Winbond W83757, Intel i82077 and other modern >crap. Sometimes you can find surprises. The Intel PD440TX mobo, for example, handles SD just fine--and I've found a couple of P3 boards that do likewise. I haven't been interested enough to try any P4 or later mobos. Cheers, Chuck From Richard.Cini at wachovia.com Thu Mar 23 06:43:09 2006 From: Richard.Cini at wachovia.com (Cini, Richard) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 07:43:09 -0500 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? Message-ID: I don't know where in the overall timeline this is but wasn't the Tandy 2000 based on the 80186? It was introduced in 11/83 and ran an OEM version of DOS 2.11. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 6:33 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? On 3/22/2006 at 6:58 PM Chris M wrote: >in all likelihood Intel is far too simplistic an >answer (although I do recall seeing pictures of >multibus type boxes with an Intel monniker, so things >like that could possibly qualify). I suppose even a >sbc could qualify, or even some sort of add-on for an >established system. But sdks from Intel (or others) >dont. Seattle Gazelle? What about 80186 firsts? 80286? >I know the popular conception is that Compaq built the >first 386 desktop, but I seem to recall ALR being >numero uno (pretty sure it was ALR). I think the distinction for 8086 may be Altos or one of the other S-100 makers, although Intel may have had a card for the MDS even before that. Bill Godbout had his 85-88 card considerably before the PC. As for the 80186/80286, we were debugging pre-release engineering samples of both chips at Durango (I still remember the bug where DMA activity would clobber the DI register). For sure, the 80186 Poppy rolled out very early. I don't think any 80286 versions were delivered until the Xenix port got finished. But there was a socket on the board for one before that--just nothing to run on it. By the time of the 386, Mobo profiles had pretty much standardized for PCs, so I suspect someone like Mylex may have had the first motherboard, but I don't know if that counts as a "computer". The PS/2 386 boxes were also out fairly early--didn't the Model 50 have a bug that required replacement of the mobo? Cheers, Chuck From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Mar 23 07:37:30 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 07:37:30 -0600 Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: <200603222228130646.36602A4B@10.0.0.252> References: <200603230534.VAA14256@floodgap.com> <200603222228130646.36602A4B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060323073516.055e27c8@mail> At 12:28 AM 3/23/2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: >Don't laugh--an endoscope could be a very handy thing to own, no matter >where it's been. I've got a full Zeiss surgical stereo scope on a counter-balancing stand that's quite helpful in small repairs. I've got surplus dental oral camera that's handy for looking into small spaces. The former was an amazing $100 at a surplus sale, the latter was a freebie from my dentist when he upgraded. - John From Useddec at aol.com Thu Mar 23 07:50:17 2006 From: Useddec at aol.com (Useddec at aol.com) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 08:50:17 EST Subject: Hospital surplus? Message-ID: <315.d93598.31540199@aol.com> Hi John, Interested in trading off the Zeiss scope for a different one or any DEC stuff? Thanks, Paul From waisun.chia at gmail.com Thu Mar 23 08:26:43 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 22:26:43 +0800 Subject: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215 Message-ID: It's a Fujitsu. My guess it's a SMD drive? From aw288 at osfn.org Thu Mar 23 08:54:59 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:54:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: Any RCS/RI folks on the list? In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20060323012736.07ee7af0@mail.marcal.com> Message-ID: > Are there any folks from The Retro-Computing Society of Rhode Island > on this list? I haven't been able to raise anyone at their normal e-mail > address and would like to chat with one of the curators. Typical. Sometimes one needs to get their attention with a air raid siren. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From fritz_chwolka at t-online.de Thu Mar 23 10:40:57 2006 From: fritz_chwolka at t-online.de (Fritz Chwolka) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 17:40:57 +0100 (CET) Subject: TurboDOS In-Reply-To: <441AE010.4000501@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <1FMSrp-0kpXPc0@fwd30.sul.t-online.de> On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 10:13:04 -0600, Jim Battle wrote: >Al Kossow wrote: >> >> > DO you still have the TurboDOS manuals? >> >> They were scanned, and are on bitsavers.org > >Since it might not be obvious: > > http://www.classiccmp.org/bitsavers/pdf/ims/turboDos/ > >I happened to be looking for more turbodos information yesterday and >found this, a configuration guide for turbodos 1.2 for some philips >computer: > >http://oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/pub/rechner/philips/p3500/manuals/tdos_confguide.pdf > >I recently bought an incredibly nice IMS system running turbos (1.3) off >of ebay, including one remote head. It went for $31, but shipping was >>I've spent some time doing floppy disk recovery with IMD and catweasel >tools, but I haven't messed with hard drives. Any recommendations on >the best to dump the disk image? > >Thanks. > Hi Jim.. you should take a look around.-) Look here. http://oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/pub/rechner/ims5000/info.html The hardware are for IMS8000 and 5000 nearly the same. I remember that there were different floppydiskcontrollers. The manuals should be helpfull. Sad - the olddcomputers... had a problem the last 4 day but running well now. I missed to pay the bill for the phone ..-) No comments about that please. Mit freundlichen Gruessen Fritz Chwolka From jgessling at yahoo.com Thu Mar 23 11:31:10 2006 From: jgessling at yahoo.com (James Gessling) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:31:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: MMD1 on Ebay - 8080A traner w breadboard In-Reply-To: <1FMSrp-0kpXPc0@fwd30.sul.t-online.de> Message-ID: <20060323173110.49921.qmail@web31909.mail.mud.yahoo.com> item number: 8782469851 >From E&L instruments (I believe). If I hadn't sold my Bugbook V, I'd be hot for this. That book is like the expermimenters guide to this system. Sigh. Jim __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From mamcfadden at cmh.edu Thu Mar 23 11:29:18 2006 From: mamcfadden at cmh.edu (McFadden, Mike, A) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:29:18 -0600 Subject: OT: video signal question Message-ID: We purchased a new CT scanner to match the one we currently have. The original has a SGI computer inside, running some type of UNIX, the newer one came with some type of Windows. How about a little radiation controlled by your computer? Mike From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 23 11:36:42 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:36:42 -0800 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603230936420756.38C42B8C@10.0.0.252> On 3/23/2006 at 7:43 AM Cini, Richard wrote: >I don't know where in the overall timeline this is but wasn't the Tandy >2000 based on the 80186? It was introduced in 11/83 and ran an OEM version of >DOS 2.11. Yes, and the 80186 was a marketing disaster for any company that tried to turn it into a PC. The integrated peripherals, while generally better than same facilities present on the PC aren't the least compatible. The wrong thing in a world dominated by hardware-manipulating applications, such as games, graphics utilities, backup programs, etc. I still have the Durango 80186 IO.SYS source for MS-DOS 1.25, as well as the OEM docs for 2.0. All of this was a shame, because an 80186-based PC offers a pretty substantial bang for the buck; the few NEC V40-based systems faced pretty much the same demise also. Yet, the 80186/88 found plenty of places embedded in things like modems where it was very successful. There is probably a fairly substantial list of "Almost PCs"--machines based on the x86 architecture but not 100% software compatible with the PC. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 23 11:41:02 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 10:41:02 -0700 Subject: www.dovebid.com "Electronic Manufacturing Exchange #24" Message-ID: This auction is going on right now with lots of individual boards in the asset catalog. I didn't notice it until now, but many items are expiring in the next couple of hours. Boards are things like: - Motorola VME boards - Tektronix logic analyzer boards - older IBM PC boards (all ISA so far) - Test equipment modules - Data I/O programming modules - Data acquisition boards You'll have to browse individual lots to see all the stuff that's in there. A bunch have opening bids of $5, which is the lowest opening I've seen on dovebid (most stuff opens at $50). As always, caveat emptor, but if you collect design, test or programming equipment, this looks like a good auction. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From waisun.chia at gmail.com Thu Mar 23 11:46:03 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 01:46:03 +0800 Subject: pdp-11/04 manuals? Message-ID: Looks like bitsavers are missing out on the pdp-11/04! Anybody has a copy of the processor manual/prints online? From tosteve at yahoo.com Thu Mar 23 11:49:51 2006 From: tosteve at yahoo.com (steven stengel) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:49:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: 60's GE, IBM 360 computer parts for sale, or ??? Message-ID: <20060323174951.30397.qmail@web34106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Do not contact me, this is from: Bill Gronberg - wildwillieg at msn.com "I have a CPU side panel tag for an IBM 3168, a top bar for an IBM 370, a '70s floor puller, a computer room self contained temperature gauge with a box of the circular paper discs. Lastly a never used (still in the sealed plastic bag in the original box)-from a 1961 GE210 computer-a 3/4", 7 track, pre-blocked tape weighing in at 9 pounds in the canister. There is also an extra canister." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From bpope at wordstock.com Thu Mar 23 11:50:53 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:50:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <200603230936420756.38C42B8C@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060323175053.BF7EA581AD@mail.wordstock.com> > > > Yes, and the 80186 was a marketing disaster for any company that tried to > turn it into a PC. The integrated peripherals, while generally better than > same facilities present on the PC aren't the least compatible. The wrong > thing in a world dominated by hardware-manipulating applications, such as > games, graphics utilities, backup programs, etc. I still have the Durango > 80186 IO.SYS source for MS-DOS 1.25, as well as the OEM docs for 2.0. > > All of this was a shame, because an 80186-based PC offers a pretty > substantial bang for the buck; the few NEC V40-based systems faced pretty > much the same demise also. Yet, the 80186/88 found plenty of places > embedded in things like modems where it was very successful. > > There is probably a fairly substantial list of "Almost PCs"--machines based > on the x86 architecture but not 100% software compatible with the PC. > IIRC the ICON computer used in Ontario, Canada schools was 80186 based... Cheers, Bryan From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 23 12:06:23 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:06:23 -0700 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:36:42 -0800. <200603230936420756.38C42B8C@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603230936420756.38C42B8C at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > There is probably a fairly substantial list of "Almost PCs"--machines based > on the x86 architecture but not 100% software compatible with the PC. You can add to that list the Apricot Xi and Apricot F1, which were MS-DOS compatible, but not BIOS compatible. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Thu Mar 23 12:13:36 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 10:13:36 -0800 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: References: <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4422E550.2070501@msm.umr.edu> 9000 VAX wrote: >On 3/22/06, Chris M wrote: > > >>in all likelihood Intel is far too simplistic an >>answer (although I do recall seeing pictures of >>multibus type boxes with an Intel monniker, so things >>like that could possibly qualify). >> Micro 5 built the Microstar probably 2 years before any PC came out, and it ran business basic, which they purchased. It used a 8086 and ran a home grown multi user system. They later built a 286 clone, and wrote their own bios, and support package before being bought out by Samsung. as to an 8088 clone, which would be a clone of the IBM pc, there was a company here in Orange county, actually a guy in the back of a junk shop that had a clone 8088 board that would run the IBM original PC eproms, or copies after you copied them properly, or ran with a very early AMI bios. IIRC, he was getting about $250 for a board or $450 built up. It was called Supercompter. Jim From gkicomputers at yahoo.com Thu Mar 23 12:14:44 2006 From: gkicomputers at yahoo.com (steve) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 10:14:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: www.dovebid.com "Electronic Manufacturing Exchange #24" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060323181444.85506.qmail@web51601.mail.yahoo.com> --- Richard wrote: > You'll have to browse individual lots to see all the > stuff that's in > there. I don't see any obvious way to do that __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Thu Mar 23 12:18:41 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 10:18:41 -0800 Subject: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4422E681.5070703@msm.umr.edu> Wai-Sun Chia wrote: >It's a Fujitsu. My guess it's a SMD drive? > > > > it needs a converter box to get to SMD. SMD is 26 pin radial + 60pin bus in most configurations. this bus cable has 50 pins (25 visible). I have one of these somewhere, it probably is a 40 or 80 meg drive. Jim From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 23 12:21:06 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:21:06 -0700 Subject: lot of 12 HP 12940A disc packs for 7905/7906, NIB Message-ID: opening bid of $25, no current bidders, closes in 2h18m -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Mar 23 12:25:27 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:25:27 -0600 Subject: Ebay posts References: Message-ID: <001b01c64ea7$29524400$6800a8c0@BILLING> Ok, we really do not need the list to be a running set of emails on what is on ebay. People can search ebay for themselves. I don't mind an occasion post, especially when it's a very interesting item with no bids or something. But I've noticed for a while now there's way too many posts that just announce what is on ebay. If people want to see what is on ebay they can go look. Jay From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 23 12:25:36 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:25:36 -0700 Subject: Gerber Scientific EF7.685 line tracing table and digitizer Message-ID: WOW! What a unique unit. Lot# 585 Gerber Scientific Model EF7.685 Line Tracing & Digitizing Machine, Serial No. NONE,May 1980. Thee machine package consists of four components. 1) Large-size 188" long by 89" wide plotter table. (1) 4-bay equipment rack. (1) Operator control console (with ancient CRT terminals).(4)Cabinets containing spare parts. NOTE:The machine is currently installed in a raised-floor computer room in the Bldg. The exit path requires negotiating some tight turns to get the table out of the room and into the main hallway for removal. Location: Hazelwood, MO current bid $200, ends in 1h31m Includes ADM 3A(?) terminal! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From stanb at dial.pipex.com Thu Mar 23 03:18:31 2006 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:18:31 +0000 Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:40:03 EST." <008a01c64e23$16e97ba0$a05d1941@game> Message-ID: <200603230918.JAA16231@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Teo Zenios said: > Out of curiosity why would somebody auction off small jars of mercury > anyway? What do people and or companies do with the stuff anymore? > My brother used to use _gallons_ of mercury assaying metallic ore samples. Apperently it is/was one of the main uses of mercury. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From stanb at dial.pipex.com Thu Mar 23 03:13:13 2006 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:13:13 +0000 Subject: Hospital surplus? (was: OT: Microsoft in the medical field was Re: OT: video signal question) In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 22 Mar 2006 15:10:18 MST." <4421CB4A.1050600@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200603230913.JAA16218@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Don Y said: > You want to be wary of medical surplus since you have no idea > *what* it was used for... X-( The piece of equipment I was scanned by had spent it's working life surrounded by radioactive material. Admittedly in lead containers. but even so, I suspect the hospital would be wary of disposing of it to a memeber of the public. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 23 12:34:37 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:34:37 -0700 Subject: www.dovebid.com "Electronic Manufacturing Exchange #24" In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 23 Mar 2006 10:14:44 -0800. <20060323181444.85506.qmail@web51601.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: In article <20060323181444.85506.qmail at web51601.mail.yahoo.com>, steve writes: > --- Richard wrote: > > You'll have to browse individual lots to see all the > > stuff that's in > > there. > > I don't see any obvious way to do that If all else fails, start at , drill down into the auction listing, then drill down into the asset catalog, then drill down into individual lots to see the pictures and descriptions. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From glen.slick at gmail.com Thu Mar 23 12:38:00 2006 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 10:38:00 -0800 Subject: Gerber Scientific EF7.685 line tracing table and digitizer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90603231038q6bfe707aw3375be3761ce92b3@mail.gmail.com> What's the minicomputer CPU in the middle of this rack? http://www.dovebid.com/Auctions/Auction10425/lotimagesUNIT0126/0585_2.jpg From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 23 12:38:49 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:38:49 -0700 Subject: Ebay posts In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:25:27 -0600. <001b01c64ea7$29524400$6800a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: In article <001b01c64ea7$29524400$6800a8c0 at BILLING>, "Jay West" writes: > Ok, we really do not need the list to be a running set of emails on what is > on ebay. If desired, I can cease any alerts to weird things I come across on dovebid or govliquidation. The only reason I thought it valuable to forward those was that govliquidation has a terrible search engine requiring lots of manual drill down and stuff on the asset catalog for auctions on dovebid isn't listed until right before the sale opens and they have no search agent capability. Ebay makes it really easy to find items although sometimes I find it useful to discuss the pricing of items to find out whether or not people consider the prices crazy :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 23 12:43:13 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:43:13 -0700 Subject: Gerber Scientific EF7.685 line tracing table and digitizer In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 23 Mar 2006 10:38:00 -0800. <1e1fc3e90603231038q6bfe707aw3375be3761ce92b3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <1e1fc3e90603231038q6bfe707aw3375be3761ce92b3 at mail.gmail.com>, "Glen Slick" writes: > What's the minicomputer CPU in the middle of this rack? > > http://www.dovebid.com/Auctions/Auction10425/lotimagesUNIT0126/0585_2.jpg I wondered that too -- I didn't see anything I recognized, but that's not saying much as I would only recognize PDP-11 style cabinetry. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From waisun.chia at gmail.com Thu Mar 23 12:48:33 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 02:48:33 +0800 Subject: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215 In-Reply-To: <4422E681.5070703@msm.umr.edu> References: <4422E681.5070703@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: On 3/24/06, jim stephens wrote: > Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > > >It's a Fujitsu. My guess it's a SMD drive? > > > > > > > > > it needs a converter box to get to SMD. SMD is 26 pin radial + 60pin > bus in most configurations. > > this bus cable has 50 pins (25 visible). I have one of these somewhere, > it probably is a 40 or 80 > meg drive. So, what is the exact model name/number? What systems is this drive meant for (host/adapter/interface)? From rtellason at blazenet.net Thu Mar 23 12:48:49 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 13:48:49 -0500 Subject: QIC02 In-Reply-To: <200603221802540147.356D4281@10.0.0.252> References: <200603221701030254.3534A2F9@10.0.0.252> <200603221802540147.356D4281@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603231348.49554.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Wednesday 22 March 2006 09:02 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3/22/2006 at 5:01 PM Chuck Guzis wrote: > >The other's a Cipher CP125BA connected to a Wangtek 5150. > > Er, no it's not--it's a Caliper CP125BA connected to a Wangtek EV-835 > controller. I believe that this one is QIC36, not QIC02. That'll teach me > to rely on my memory. > > Same question applies. Best OS and driver set for support? I have a QIC02 drive here that I got going under linux, figure out how to talk to it, assess its capabilities, and got to understand tar more than I'd really wanted to... I wrote a bit of data to a tape, read it back, and that was that. The thing uses a proprietary interface 8-bit card, which limits my choices when it comes to interrupts and DMA and such, which is why I eventually took it out of the box it was in. It's still sitting around here somewhere. I have an assortment of different tapes in the form factor this thing will talk to, I think the biggest ones were capable of holding 256MB (not considering compression). This hardly seemed to be worthwhile bothering with, overall. I think my biggest disappointment was that you couldn't use compression with tar and also span tapes at the same time. The thing was a bit noisy, but not nearly as bad as those floppy-tape drives with their high-pitched whine that drove me nuts some years earlier. Oh, and all of this was done under linux, back around the time I started messing with it, 1999 or 2000 or somewhere around there, probably Slackware 4.0, for whatever that's worth. -- 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 Mar 23 12:51:57 2006 From: rollerton at gmail.com (Robert Ollerton) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:51:57 -0600 Subject: Ebay posts In-Reply-To: References: <001b01c64ea7$29524400$6800a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <2789adda0603231051r4cdd9384k81a5939763e6ce0c@mail.gmail.com> I like it what someone alerts us to some ebay treasure. One person can't possibly find them all. Please keep posting! On 3/23/06, Richard wrote: > > In article <001b01c64ea7$29524400$6800a8c0 at BILLING>, > "Jay West" writes: > > > Ok, we really do not need the list to be a running set of emails on what is > > on ebay. > > If desired, I can cease any alerts to weird things I come across on > dovebid or govliquidation. > > The only reason I thought it valuable to forward those was that > govliquidation has a terrible search engine requiring lots of manual > drill down and stuff on the asset catalog for auctions on dovebid isn't > listed until right before the sale opens and they have no search agent > capability. > > Ebay makes it really easy to find items although sometimes I find it > useful to discuss the pricing of items to find out whether or not > people consider the prices crazy :-) > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > > From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Thu Mar 23 13:05:09 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:05:09 -0800 Subject: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215 In-Reply-To: References: <4422E681.5070703@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <4422F165.3080500@msm.umr.edu> Wai-Sun Chia wrote: >On 3/24/06, jim stephens wrote: > > > So, what is the exact model name/number? > >What systems is this drive meant for (host/adapter/interface)? > > > > In the 83 time frame (which I got from the drive) these drives were early samples, and in some cases were productized. I reread the posting, and note that the seller says it is 20mb, which may be true. I had sample drives which were 5 10, 20 and 40mb in that time frame. The largest size drives then other than IBM was around 100mb 14" winchester in this sort of drive. This was probably an early 8" or so form factor sample drive. As to what the inteface was. Everyone was trying to break the SMD interface mold. At the time, the main interfaces were Trident and SMD. I believe that SMD had to be licensed, but I never got into that side of the business. I know we could and did make a generic Trident and SMD controller, and didn't have to pay any license. The manufacturers would design all sorts of similar interfaces with "features" but the real thing was to put in something that would entice users to design something other than SMD. I know that for the CDC drives, we got several drives like this and all had boxes with a couple of boards that converted what ever the drive had on it to SMD. It was not economical early on to put a full SMD hardware suite on all the drives, because the manufacturers were trying to reduce the cost of these drives, as well as the size, and other interface methods would let them do that as well. We recieved at the company I worked for several drives from CDC, Fujitsu, Toshiba, as well as a couple from companies around here in Orange County, CA. there was a really nice little SMD 5 1/4" drive that came out that we had for a while too, which name escapes me too. Jim From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Thu Mar 23 13:08:06 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:08:06 -0800 Subject: Ebay posts In-Reply-To: <2789adda0603231051r4cdd9384k81a5939763e6ce0c@mail.gmail.com> References: <001b01c64ea7$29524400$6800a8c0@BILLING> <2789adda0603231051r4cdd9384k81a5939763e6ce0c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4422F216.6080808@msm.umr.edu> Robert Ollerton wrote: >I like it what someone alerts us to some ebay treasure. One person >can't possibly find them all. Please keep posting! > > > > maybe some other way to divide the postings into "theory" or function from just buying junk should be explored. Some people really like the glory of the chase to find stuff, and others have more interest in specific equipment, and are not the least bit interested in what is for sale. I do say I am more interested in the things that people do to find things on ebay, other than just good luck, and would not mind adding more search terms to both my ebay searchs, but to my google searches as they turn up. It is hard to find things, as there can be 5000 things or more in the "vintage" category, and most are crap. From waisun.chia at gmail.com Thu Mar 23 13:33:27 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 03:33:27 +0800 Subject: Ebay posts In-Reply-To: <4422F216.6080808@msm.umr.edu> References: <001b01c64ea7$29524400$6800a8c0@BILLING> <2789adda0603231051r4cdd9384k81a5939763e6ce0c@mail.gmail.com> <4422F216.6080808@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: On 3/24/06, jim stephens wrote: > I do say I am more interested in the things that people do to find > things on ebay, other I definitely agree. Most of the "new" vintage stuff that I learn comes from somebody elses eBay query. That would lead me to hit Google on what that item is all about and its history... From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 23 13:47:35 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:47:35 -0800 Subject: QIC02 In-Reply-To: <200603231348.49554.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <200603221701030254.3534A2F9@10.0.0.252> <200603221802540147.356D4281@10.0.0.252> <200603231348.49554.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <200603231147350353.393C015F@10.0.0.252> On 3/23/2006 at 1:48 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: >Oh, and all of this was done under linux, back around the time I started >messing with it, 1999 or 2000 or somewhere around there, probably >Slackware 4.0, for whatever that's worth. I've had these drives and controllers (and a couple of spares) since they were new, back in the 80's. I quit using them around 1991, when I switched to DAT and 8mm. I just don't recall a thing about what supported them and what didn't. I have a copy of Sytos Plus that supports the drive under DOS (and there is an OS/2 driver wandering around the web), but it doesn't allow low-level manipulation of data. I seem to recall that Xenix has/had limited QIC02/QIC36 support. If all else fails, I'll just write my own DOS driver for it. But I hate to reinvent the wheel. Cheers, Chuck From gerold.pauler at gmx.net Thu Mar 23 13:49:39 2006 From: gerold.pauler at gmx.net (Gerold Pauler) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 20:49:39 +0100 Subject: Frappr for pdp8 owners - was: Frappr for PDP11 owners In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4422FBD3.8050807@gmx.net> A wonderfull idea, but lacking a pdp11, I just did the same for my pdp8's. Hope I didn't misconfigure it (first try). Oh, not to forget the URL is: http://www.frappr.com/pdp8owners Hope to see some of you Gerold Julian Wolfe wrote: >Hi everyone, > >I just made a frappr map for PDP11 owners. Put your machines in the >shoutout, and we can see where everyone is and what we have ;) > >The URL is: http://www.frappr.com/pdp11owners > >See you there! > >Julian > > > > > From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 23 13:54:35 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:54:35 -0800 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <4422E550.2070501@msm.umr.edu> References: <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <4422E550.2070501@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <200603231154350778.39426BA7@10.0.0.252> I suspect the early clone award has to go to someone like Netronics R&D who offered ISA-slotted mobo kits that did not feature graphics adapters of any sort--output was intented to be RS232 to a terminal. I think I have some circuit diagrams and literature from them in my files. The first AT clone award candidate might be Faraday with their "A Tease" mobo. Featured a 6 MHz 286, but with serial and parallel ports on the mobo. I had one for a very long time before it developed serious problems. I still have the circuit diagrams. Cheers, Chuck From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Thu Mar 23 14:01:32 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 21:01:32 +0100 Subject: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215 In-Reply-To: <4422F165.3080500@msm.umr.edu> References: <4422E681.5070703@msm.umr.edu> <4422F165.3080500@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <20060323210132.384f39ac.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:05:09 -0800 jim stephens wrote: > there was a really nice little SMD 5 1/4" drive that came out that we > had for a while too, which name escapes me too. I have a 1 GB SMD 5 1/4" drive from Seagate. I should get it hooked up to my PDP-11/73. But, on the other side, the 9" NEC SMD disk is so much nicer. Especially the sound. When the heads move it sounds like someone is hiting the platers with a hamer. The backstroke from the moving head assembly is stong enough to get a DEC BA123 moving. (Disk + BA123 = 100 kg) :-) -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From uban at ubanproductions.com Thu Mar 23 14:08:18 2006 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 14:08:18 -0600 Subject: What computer is this? (was: Gerber Scientific EF7.685 line tracing table and digitizer) In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90603231038q6bfe707aw3375be3761ce92b3@mail.gmail.co m> References: Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20060323140726.04615e70@mail.ubanproductions.com> It looks to me like a Honeywell H316: http://simh.trailing-edge.com/photos/honeywel.jpg --tom At 10:38 AM 3/23/2006 -0800, Glen Slick wrote: >What's the minicomputer CPU in the middle of this rack? > >http://www.dovebid.com/Auctions/Auction10425/lotimagesUNIT0126/0585_2.jpg From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Thu Mar 23 14:17:15 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:17:15 -0500 Subject: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060323201715.87607104000D@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> "Wai-Sun Chia" wrote: > It's a Fujitsu. My guess it's a SMD drive? Looking at the PCB, it has a 50-pin and a 20-pin connector. Is that SA4000? The 50-pin connector was something like the 8" floppy bus and the 20-pin connector was radial. SMD is a 60-pin bus and a 26-pin radial connection. The HDA's from some of the 2311-series Fuji SMD drives have transparent covers and roughly the same form factor, but not a clear cover the whole length. The 228x series drives were SMD but much larger (19" wide, 30" deep,10.5" hi) and have real nice transparent covers over the works. Tim. From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 23 14:28:15 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 13:28:15 -0700 Subject: FE 200 terminal? Message-ID: Does anyone know what it is or who made it? Google isn't yielding anything helpful here... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Mar 23 14:30:08 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:30:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060322151731.04b19fd8@mail.30below.com> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3386D@mail.catcorner.org> <5.1.0.14.2.20060322151731.04b19fd8@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <20060323122852.L36473@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 22 Mar 2006, Roger Merchberger wrote: > You assumed wrong, my friend. ;-) The 2 in 1542 means "with floppy" - I > wonder if the F means "Fast" as in Fast SCSI - 10M/sec instead of the > standard 5M/sec bus speed. > Every Adaptec controller I'd seen up to the 29xx series used the last digit > for floppy controller - 2 for floppy, 0 without, I don't know if there were > others... For some reason, I thought there was a '4' ending as well, but I > don't know what that could've stood for. Perhaps FOUR flopies? (NUMBER of floppies for last digit) Do they have an '8'??? From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 23 14:33:25 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 13:33:25 -0700 Subject: What computer is this? (was: Gerber Scientific EF7.685 line tracing table and digitizer) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 23 Mar 2006 14:08:18 -0600. <5.2.0.9.0.20060323140726.04615e70@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: In article <5.2.0.9.0.20060323140726.04615e70 at mail.ubanproductions.com>, Tom Uban writes: > It looks to me like a Honeywell H316: > > http://simh.trailing-edge.com/photos/honeywel.jpg Perched next to the Kitchen Computer :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From bob_lafleur at technologist.com Thu Mar 23 14:55:42 2006 From: bob_lafleur at technologist.com (Bob Lafleur) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:55:42 -0500 Subject: Duplexer for HP Laserjet 4 Plus / 4M Message-ID: <200603232105.k2NL5XFx029597@keith.ezwind.net> I'm looking for a duplex unit that works with an HP Laserjet 4 Plus or 4M (HP C3157A). If anyone's got a dead Laserjet 4 with a duplex unit that they're willing to part with, please E-mail me off-list. Thanks. Bob_lafleur at technologist.com From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 23 14:54:51 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 12:54:51 -0800 Subject: What computer is this? (was: Gerber Scientific EF7.685 line tracing table and digitizer) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603231254510317.397996DA@10.0.0.252> On 3/23/2006 at 1:33 PM Richard wrote: >Perched next to the Kitchen Computer :-) I remember the article in Popular Science announcing it. Ah, the bright primary colors of the 1960's, eh? Cheers, Chuck From bob_lafleur at technologist.com Thu Mar 23 15:07:42 2006 From: bob_lafleur at technologist.com (Bob Lafleur) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:07:42 -0500 Subject: Looking for lower tray for HP Laserjet 4 Message-ID: <200603232117.k2NLHW1l029828@keith.ezwind.net> I could also use an optional lower tray (that sits underneath the printer) for a Laserjet 4. I've you've got one, shoot me an E-mail. Bob_lafleur at technologist.com From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 23 15:05:32 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 13:05:32 -0800 Subject: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215 In-Reply-To: <20060323201715.87607104000D@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <20060323201715.87607104000D@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <200603231305320539.39835FA0@10.0.0.252> On 3/23/2006 at 3:17 PM shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com wrote: >Looking at the PCB, it has a 50-pin and a 20-pin connector. >Is that SA4000? The 50-pin connector was something like the 8" >floppy bus and the 20-pin connector was radial. Sounds right. I could take a peek at one here if anyone's really interested. Cheers, Chuck From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Thu Mar 23 15:15:55 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:15:55 -0600 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) Message-ID: <859b4e3cbb9f4066944b3502ae51300b@valleyimplants.com> Not much use I can think of in computing, but in other things quite useful. Most obvious is gold prospecting, also used in other metalwork (tempering bath), and in a hobby that will not be named to remove lead that is stuck to steel. Also vacuum pumps for home particle accelerators. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Mar 23 15:14:57 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 21:14:57 +0000 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density In-Reply-To: <20060323122852.L36473@shell.lmi.net> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3386D@mail.catcorner.org> <5.1.0.14.2.20060322151731.04b19fd8@mail.30below.com> <20060323122852.L36473@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <44230FD1.5090909@yahoo.co.uk> Fred Cisin wrote: > On Wed, 22 Mar 2006, Roger Merchberger wrote: >> You assumed wrong, my friend. ;-) The 2 in 1542 means "with floppy" - I >> wonder if the F means "Fast" as in Fast SCSI - 10M/sec instead of the >> standard 5M/sec bus speed. >> Every Adaptec controller I'd seen up to the 29xx series used the last digit >> for floppy controller - 2 for floppy, 0 without, I don't know if there were >> others... For some reason, I thought there was a '4' ending as well, but I >> don't know what that could've stood for. > > Perhaps FOUR flopies? I always thought the ones ending in 4 denoted differential HBAs rather than single-ended, could be wrong though.... From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Thu Mar 23 15:21:44 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 21:21:44 -0000 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) References: <859b4e3cbb9f4066944b3502ae51300b@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <019e01c64ebf$c91bcc00$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> From: "Scott Quinn" > > Not much use I can think of in computing, but in other things quite useful. Most obvious is gold prospecting, > also used in other metalwork (tempering bath), and in a hobby that will not be named to remove lead that is stuck to steel. > Also vacuum pumps for home particle accelerators. > If you go back far enough, mercury was used in memories (mercury delay line in some early British machines). It is also often used in high speed relays, especially for teleprinter type circuits - we had some mainframe / telegraph interfaces with mercury wetted relays in them, in operation, until about 8 years ago Jim. From rtellason at blazenet.net Thu Mar 23 15:24:39 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:24:39 -0500 Subject: What computer is this? (was: Gerber Scientific EF7.685 line tracing table and digitizer) In-Reply-To: <200603231254510317.397996DA@10.0.0.252> References: <200603231254510317.397996DA@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603231624.39986.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Thursday 23 March 2006 03:54 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3/23/2006 at 1:33 PM Richard wrote: > >Perched next to the Kitchen Computer :-) > > I remember the article in Popular Science announcing it. Ah, the bright > primary colors of the 1960's, eh? :-) -- 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 gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Mar 23 15:23:23 2006 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 21:23:23 +0000 Subject: Frappr for PDP11 owners In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <442311CB.2010501@gjcp.net> Julian Wolfe wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I just made a frappr map for PDP11 owners. Put your machines in the > shoutout, and we can see where everyone is and what we have ;) > > The URL is: http://www.frappr.com/pdp11owners > > See you there! > > Julian Frappr is broken. It won't accept @.ath.cx I use @glasvoip.ath.cx for spamtrap addresses. Gordon. From allain at panix.com Thu Mar 23 15:39:31 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:39:31 -0500 Subject: Ebay posts References: <001b01c64ea7$29524400$6800a8c0@BILLING><2789adda0603231051r4cdd9384k81a5939763e6ce0c@mail.gmail.com><4422F216.6080808@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <052401c64ec2$52002140$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> >>> Ok, we really do not need the list to be a running set of emails on what >>> is on ebay. >> I do say I am more interested in the things that people do to find >> things on ebay, other > I definitely agree. Most of the "new" vintage stuff that I learn comes > from somebody elses eBay query. Jay's request suffers a bit from bad timing; that HDD eBay was particularly good. But personally, I'd prefer less of: 1./ Drive by URL's. Hey L@@k at this link, and the poster gives no further or maybe a two word description. 2./ Sellers who post 2 or more auctions in seperate emails, where they could be bunched together in one. From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 23 15:50:10 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 14:50:10 -0700 Subject: Ebay posts In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:39:31 -0500. <052401c64ec2$52002140$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: In article <052401c64ec2$52002140$21fe54a6 at ibm23xhr06>, "John Allain" writes: > But personally, I'd prefer less of: > 1./ Drive by URL's. Hey L@@k at this link, and the poster gives > no further or maybe a two word description. > 2./ Sellers who post 2 or more auctions in seperate emails, > where they could be bunched together in one. Well, this sort of thing is one of those "can't please anyone" scenarios. Some people will like the postings, some people won't. Some people will like concise descriptions, some people won't. As I say, I share things that took me some work beyond a simple search to find and which I think there might be interest here. However, if the consensus is for me to cease and desist, I'll stop sharing. It doesn't make any difference to me, although I share weird auction items out of a desire to tip off someone here who may be interested in acquiring that item. So shall I continue with the sorts of items I've been posting, or would the list rather I cease? I'm ok either way, my feelings won't be hurt! :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Thu Mar 23 16:31:05 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:31:05 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <200603230333280896.37779F7C@10.0.0.252> References: <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060323163105.11df2454@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 03:33 AM 3/23/06 -0800, you wrote: >On 3/22/2006 at 6:58 PM Chris M wrote: > >>in all likelihood Intel is far too simplistic an >>answer Why do you say that??? Intel developed the 8088 and 8086 so I'd find it surprising if anyone else beat them to the market with a computer based on those CPUs. Contrary to popular opinion, Intel build complete Single Board computers and even COMPLETE computers* and not just ICs and experimenter boards. The Series III MDS from Intel was a Series II MDS model 2xx with the addition of a 8086 or 8088 processor card. I STRONGLY suspect that these were THE first 8086/8088 based computers. Not only because Intel had a head start on everyone else but also because these WERE Development systems and they were intended for use in designing/building/testing other computer designs. Somewhere in my literature I amy have a date for the 8088/8088 cards for the MDS systems but I know the MDS 2xx itself definitely predates the 8088/8086 and all it would have taken Intel to do to be the first on the market would be to design one additional card. FWIW I also have another computer that probably comes CLOSE to being the first 8086 computer on the market. It's Rubicon computer and it uses an 8086 CPU with an 8089 IO Processor, a (mumble-mumble) ECC memory controller from Intel and 256k of bank-switched memory. It runs CPM-86 amd it's design appears to come straight out of the Intel data books. It's the only computer other than an Intel that I've ever seen that uses the 8089 IO processor and that ECC memory controller. *I personally have three Series III MDS machines and at least a dozen Intel 86/330 computers. the 86/330 is a complete computer and uses a 8086 CPU. Joe (although I do recall seeing pictures of >>multibus type boxes with an Intel monniker, so things >>like that could possibly qualify). I suppose even a >>sbc could qualify, or even some sort of add-on for an >>established system. But sdks from Intel (or others) >>dont. Seattle Gazelle? What about 80186 firsts? 80286? >>I know the popular conception is that Compaq built the >>first 386 desktop, but I seem to recall ALR being >>numero uno (pretty sure it was ALR). > >I think the distinction for 8086 may be Altos or one of the other S-100 >makers, although Intel may have had a card for the MDS even before that. >Bill Godbout had his 85-88 card considerably before the PC. > >As for the 80186/80286, we were debugging pre-release engineering samples >of both chips at Durango (I still remember the bug where DMA activity >would clobber the DI register). For sure, the 80186 Poppy rolled out very >early. I don't think any 80286 versions were delivered until the Xenix >port got finished. But there was a socket on the board for one before >that--just nothing to run on it. > >By the time of the 386, Mobo profiles had pretty much standardized for PCs, >so I suspect someone like Mylex may have had the first motherboard, but I >don't know if that counts as a "computer". The PS/2 386 boxes were also >out fairly early--didn't the Model 50 have a bug that required replacement >of the mobo? > >Cheers, >Chuck > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Thu Mar 23 16:41:26 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:41:26 Subject: Hospital surplus? In-Reply-To: <008a01c64e23$16e97ba0$a05d1941@game> References: <1109.86.139.105.174.1143079304.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> <442203DF.3070608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060323164126.0fc71d80@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 09:40 PM 3/22/06 -0500, you wrote: > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Sridhar Ayengar" >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 9:11 PM >Subject: Re: Hospital surplus? > > >> Lee Davison wrote: >> >> I've seen small jars of mercury at auctions, etc. >> > >> > What's so bad about that? Mercury is about as dangerous as lead. >> >> But organic mercury salts are much more dangerous, and there are >> definitely people out there that are stupid enough to generate them. >> >> Didn't we have this discussion not too long ago? >> >> Peace... Sridhar > >Keep mercury away from structural aluminum, stuff eats it alive. I remember >way back in the 1990's a salesguy wanted to ship mercury relays via air, >that would have ended real bad for the plane if they sprung a leak. > >Out of curiosity why would somebody auction off small jars of mercury >anyway? To get rid of it! I suspect it would be a real headache to get rid of it in any quantity, especailly through waste disposal or other commercail channels. What do people and or companies do with the stuff anymore? Refine gold, make mercury fulminate. It has it's uses! :-) Joe > > From waisun.chia at gmail.com Thu Mar 23 15:58:50 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 05:58:50 +0800 Subject: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215 In-Reply-To: <20060323210132.384f39ac.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <4422E681.5070703@msm.umr.edu> <4422F165.3080500@msm.umr.edu> <20060323210132.384f39ac.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: On 3/24/06, Jochen Kunz wrote: > On Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:05:09 -0800 > jim stephens wrote: > > > there was a really nice little SMD 5 1/4" drive that came out that we > > had for a while too, which name escapes me too. > I have a 1 GB SMD 5 1/4" drive from Seagate. I should get it hooked up > to my PDP-11/73. But, on the other side, the 9" NEC SMD disk is so much > nicer. Especially the sound. When the heads move it sounds like someone > is hiting the platers with a hamer. The backstroke from the moving head > assembly is stong enough to get a DEC BA123 moving. > (Disk + BA123 = 100 kg) :-) > -- > That's it! I *MUST* get a 9" disk!! :-) (just to see a BA123 "walk") :-) Heck why stop at 9"? ooh now I remember, shipping and electricity :-{ From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Thu Mar 23 17:14:24 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 17:14:24 Subject: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215 In-Reply-To: References: <20060323210132.384f39ac.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <4422E681.5070703@msm.umr.edu> <4422F165.3080500@msm.umr.edu> <20060323210132.384f39ac.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060323171424.0f5fcbac@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 05:58 AM 3/24/06 +0800, you wrote: >On 3/24/06, Jochen Kunz wrote: >> On Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:05:09 -0800 >> jim stephens wrote: >> >> > there was a really nice little SMD 5 1/4" drive that came out that we >> > had for a while too, which name escapes me too. >> I have a 1 GB SMD 5 1/4" drive from Seagate. I should get it hooked up >> to my PDP-11/73. But, on the other side, the 9" NEC SMD disk is so much >> nicer. Especially the sound. When the heads move it sounds like someone >> is hiting the platers with a hamer. The backstroke from the moving head >> assembly is stong enough to get a DEC BA123 moving. >> (Disk + BA123 = 100 kg) :-) >> -- >> >That's it! I *MUST* get a 9" disk!! :-) >(just to see a BA123 "walk") :-) > >Heck why stop at 9"? >ooh now I remember, shipping and electricity :-{ But you forgot about the free heating! :-) Joe From williams.dan at gmail.com Thu Mar 23 16:56:36 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 22:56:36 +0000 Subject: Microvax available Message-ID: <26c11a640603231456u2cd7427eg@mail.gmail.com> This was on comp.os.vms in case anyone here doesn't read it : We have some old uVAXen that have an appointment with a trash compactor unless someone can come and take them. Today is March 23, 2006, and the uVAXen have only a few days left. The address is Nazareth, PA, 18064. Call 610-746-7426 and ask for William or Frank or write williamba... at hotmail.com William From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 23 17:27:15 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:27:15 -0800 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060323163105.11df2454@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <3.0.6.16.20060323163105.11df2454@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <200603231527150746.3A051F47@10.0.0.252> On 3/23/2006 at 4:31 PM Joe R. wrote: > Why do you say that??? Intel developed the 8088 and 8086 so I'd find it >surprising if anyone else beat them to the market with a computer based on >those CPUs. Yes, the MDS with the 8086 board in it was very early, no doubt about it--and I said so (having used one when it came out). But here starts the hair-splitting. Does a development system targeted for developers count? I don't know--I didn't invent this game. Who came out with the first Z80 computer? IIRC, there were isolated S-100 cards before there were complete systems--do they count as computers? Or, to put an even finer edge on it, was the first V20 computer created by the first guy to replace the 8088 in his PC with one? In retrospect, things happened pretty quickly back then. We'd like to think that the IBM PC with 64K and one floppy was supplanted by the XT with its hard disk, but in fact, for a time, both were being advertised and sold by IBM (along with the PC Jr.). Cheers, Chuck Contrary to popular opinion, Intel build complete Single Board >computers and even COMPLETE computers* and not just ICs and experimenter >boards. The Series III MDS from Intel was a Series II MDS model 2xx with >the addition of a 8086 or 8088 processor card. I STRONGLY suspect that >these were THE first 8086/8088 based computers. Not only because Intel had >a head start on everyone else but also because these WERE Development >systems and they were intended for use in designing/building/testing other >computer designs. Somewhere in my literature I amy have a date for the >8088/8088 cards for the MDS systems but I know the MDS 2xx itself >definitely predates the 8088/8086 and all it would have taken Intel to do >to be the first on the market would be to design one additional card. > > FWIW I also have another computer that probably comes CLOSE to being the >first 8086 computer on the market. It's Rubicon computer and it uses an >8086 CPU with an 8089 IO Processor, a (mumble-mumble) ECC memory controller >from Intel and 256k of bank-switched memory. It runs CPM-86 amd it's design >appears to come straight out of the Intel data books. It's the only >computer other than an Intel that I've ever seen that uses the 8089 IO >processor and that ECC memory controller. > > *I personally have three Series III MDS machines and at least a dozen >Intel 86/330 computers. the 86/330 is a complete computer and uses a 8086 >CPU. > > Joe > > >(although I do recall seeing pictures of >>>multibus type boxes with an Intel monniker, so things >>>like that could possibly qualify). I suppose even a >>>sbc could qualify, or even some sort of add-on for an >>>established system. But sdks from Intel (or others) >>>dont. Seattle Gazelle? What about 80186 firsts? 80286? >>>I know the popular conception is that Compaq built the >>>first 386 desktop, but I seem to recall ALR being >>>numero uno (pretty sure it was ALR). >> >>I think the distinction for 8086 may be Altos or one of the other S-100 >>makers, although Intel may have had a card for the MDS even before that. >>Bill Godbout had his 85-88 card considerably before the PC. >> >>As for the 80186/80286, we were debugging pre-release engineering samples >>of both chips at Durango (I still remember the bug where DMA activity >>would clobber the DI register). For sure, the 80186 Poppy rolled out very >>early. I don't think any 80286 versions were delivered until the Xenix >>port got finished. But there was a socket on the board for one before >>that--just nothing to run on it. >> >>By the time of the 386, Mobo profiles had pretty much standardized for >PCs, >>so I suspect someone like Mylex may have had the first motherboard, but I >>don't know if that counts as a "computer". The PS/2 386 boxes were also >>out fairly early--didn't the Model 50 have a bug that required replacement >>of the mobo? >> >>Cheers, >>Chuck >> >> From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 23 17:29:35 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:29:35 -0800 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: <019e01c64ebf$c91bcc00$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> References: <859b4e3cbb9f4066944b3502ae51300b@valleyimplants.com> <019e01c64ebf$c91bcc00$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <200603231529350907.3A0742C9@10.0.0.252> On 3/23/2006 at 9:21 PM Jim Beacon wrote: >It is also often used in high speed relays, especially for teleprinter type >circuits - we had some mainframe / telegraph interfaces with mercury wetted >relays in them, in operation, until about 8 years ago And as primary cells--mercury cells have a remarkably stable voltage output over their life. Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at blazenet.net Thu Mar 23 17:47:44 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 18:47:44 -0500 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: <019e01c64ebf$c91bcc00$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> References: <859b4e3cbb9f4066944b3502ae51300b@valleyimplants.com> <019e01c64ebf$c91bcc00$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <200603231847.44075.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Thursday 23 March 2006 04:21 pm, Jim Beacon wrote: > From: "Scott Quinn" > > > Not much use I can think of in computing, but in other things quite > > useful. Most obvious is gold prospecting, also used in other metalwork > > (tempering bath), and in a hobby that will not be named to remove lead > > that is stuck to steel. > > > > Also vacuum pumps for home particle accelerators. > > If you go back far enough, mercury was used in memories (mercury delay line > in some early British machines). I remember seeing those in a book somewhere... > It is also often used in high speed relays, especially for teleprinter type > circuits - we had some mainframe / telegraph interfaces with mercury wetted > relays in them, in operation, until about 8 years ago I have a mercury-wetted relay I salvaged out of something or other. Says so right on it. :-) It also indicates that it should be used in one specific physical orientation, too. So the advantage of those is speed? -- 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 rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Thu Mar 23 18:50:39 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 18:50:39 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <200603231527150746.3A051F47@10.0.0.252> References: <3.0.6.16.20060323163105.11df2454@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <3.0.6.16.20060323163105.11df2454@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060323185039.2187e8e8@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 03:27 PM 3/23/06 -0800, you wrote: >On 3/23/2006 at 4:31 PM Joe R. wrote: > >> Why do you say that??? Intel developed the 8088 and 8086 so I'd find >it >>surprising if anyone else beat them to the market with a computer based on >>those CPUs. > >Yes, the MDS with the 8086 board in it was very early, no doubt about >it--and I said so (having used one when it came out). > >But here starts the hair-splitting. Does a development system targeted for >developers count? Since he asked what was the first 8086/8088 computer I'd say that it does count. However I noticed that the discussion quickly shifted to HOME computers and ignored development systems and other COMMERCAIL systems. I don't know--I didn't invent this game. Who came out >with the first Z80 computer? Probably the Zilog ZDS IMO. But most people have never heard of them so they'll vote for the IMSAI, Compupro or whatever they happened to have had. Speaking of Z-80s, I have a COOL Z-80 system. It's a Dolch something. It has plugins for burning EPROMs, Logic Analyzer, pattern generator and other functions. It runs MPM and has SEVEN Z-80s! It can run up to 16 processes simulatanously and pass data from one process to another. In one example that they give, you can have one operating the LA and another disassembling the data from it and another outputing the data to a printer and another operting the disk drives. It's a COOL system. I've figured out a lot of it but I'd love to find a manual for it. Joe IIRC, there were isolated S-100 cards before >there were complete systems--do they count as computers? > >Or, to put an even finer edge on it, was the first V20 computer created by >the first guy to replace the 8088 in his PC with one? > >In retrospect, things happened pretty quickly back then. We'd like to >think that the IBM PC with 64K and one floppy was supplanted by the XT with >its hard disk, but in fact, for a time, both were being advertised and sold >by IBM (along with the PC Jr.). > >Cheers, >Chuck > > > >Contrary to popular opinion, Intel build complete Single Board >>computers and even COMPLETE computers* and not just ICs and experimenter >>boards. The Series III MDS from Intel was a Series II MDS model 2xx with >>the addition of a 8086 or 8088 processor card. I STRONGLY suspect that >>these were THE first 8086/8088 based computers. Not only because Intel had >>a head start on everyone else but also because these WERE Development >>systems and they were intended for use in designing/building/testing other >>computer designs. Somewhere in my literature I amy have a date for the >>8088/8088 cards for the MDS systems but I know the MDS 2xx itself >>definitely predates the 8088/8086 and all it would have taken Intel to do >>to be the first on the market would be to design one additional card. >> >> FWIW I also have another computer that probably comes CLOSE to being >the >>first 8086 computer on the market. It's Rubicon computer and it uses an >>8086 CPU with an 8089 IO Processor, a (mumble-mumble) ECC memory >controller >>from Intel and 256k of bank-switched memory. It runs CPM-86 amd it's >design >>appears to come straight out of the Intel data books. It's the only >>computer other than an Intel that I've ever seen that uses the 8089 IO >>processor and that ECC memory controller. >> >> *I personally have three Series III MDS machines and at least a dozen >>Intel 86/330 computers. the 86/330 is a complete computer and uses a 8086 >>CPU. >> >> Joe >> >> >>(although I do recall seeing pictures of >>>>multibus type boxes with an Intel monniker, so things >>>>like that could possibly qualify). I suppose even a >>>>sbc could qualify, or even some sort of add-on for an >>>>established system. But sdks from Intel (or others) >>>>dont. Seattle Gazelle? What about 80186 firsts? 80286? >>>>I know the popular conception is that Compaq built the >>>>first 386 desktop, but I seem to recall ALR being >>>>numero uno (pretty sure it was ALR). >>> >>>I think the distinction for 8086 may be Altos or one of the other S-100 >>>makers, although Intel may have had a card for the MDS even before that. >>>Bill Godbout had his 85-88 card considerably before the PC. >>> >>>As for the 80186/80286, we were debugging pre-release engineering samples >>>of both chips at Durango (I still remember the bug where DMA activity >>>would clobber the DI register). For sure, the 80186 Poppy rolled out >very >>>early. I don't think any 80286 versions were delivered until the Xenix >>>port got finished. But there was a socket on the board for one before >>>that--just nothing to run on it. >>> >>>By the time of the 386, Mobo profiles had pretty much standardized for >>PCs, >>>so I suspect someone like Mylex may have had the first motherboard, but I >>>don't know if that counts as a "computer". The PS/2 386 boxes were also >>>out fairly early--didn't the Model 50 have a bug that required >replacement >>>of the mobo? >>> >>>Cheers, >>>Chuck >>> >>> > > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Thu Mar 23 18:54:51 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 18:54:51 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: <200603231847.44075.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <019e01c64ebf$c91bcc00$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> <859b4e3cbb9f4066944b3502ae51300b@valleyimplants.com> <019e01c64ebf$c91bcc00$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060323185451.461f30f4@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 06:47 PM 3/23/06 -0500, you wrote: >On Thursday 23 March 2006 04:21 pm, Jim Beacon wrote: >> From: "Scott Quinn" >> >> > Not much use I can think of in computing, but in other things quite >> > useful. Most obvious is gold prospecting, also used in other metalwork >> > (tempering bath), and in a hobby that will not be named to remove lead >> > that is stuck to steel. >> > >> > Also vacuum pumps for home particle accelerators. >> >> If you go back far enough, mercury was used in memories (mercury delay line >> in some early British machines). > >I remember seeing those in a book somewhere... > >> It is also often used in high speed relays, especially for teleprinter type >> circuits - we had some mainframe / telegraph interfaces with mercury wetted >> relays in them, in operation, until about 8 years ago > >I have a mercury-wetted relay I salvaged out of something or other. Says so >right on it. :-) It also indicates that it should be used in one specific >physical orientation, too. > >So the advantage of those is speed? Another advantage is that they won't weld the contacts together or burn the contacts so they're used in high current applications or in applications that have big inductive loads. I've replaced the standard relay in my AC compressor with a large dual contact mercury wetted contact relay. I pick up everyone of the things that I find and keep them for applications such as this. Joe From teoz at neo.rr.com Thu Mar 23 17:59:22 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 18:59:22 -0500 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) References: <859b4e3cbb9f4066944b3502ae51300b@valleyimplants.com> <019e01c64ebf$c91bcc00$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> <200603231847.44075.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <003501c64ed5$cef0dc90$a05d1941@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roy J. Tellason" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 6:47 PM Subject: Re: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) > On Thursday 23 March 2006 04:21 pm, Jim Beacon wrote: > > From: "Scott Quinn" >> > > It is also often used in high speed relays, especially for teleprinter type > > circuits - we had some mainframe / telegraph interfaces with mercury wetted > > relays in them, in operation, until about 8 years ago > > I have a mercury-wetted relay I salvaged out of something or other. Says so > right on it. :-) It also indicates that it should be used in one specific > physical orientation, too. > > So the advantage of those is speed? > I believe (correct me if I am wrong) that a mercury relay is faster then other mechanical type relays (the ones I used were for switching decent sized resistive loads), but much slower then solid state relays for doing the same thing (but the SSR have problems dissipating heat and need to be actively cooled). From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Mar 23 18:03:52 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:03:52 -0800 Subject: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215 Message-ID: >Looking at the PCB, it has a 50-pin and a 20-pin connector. >Is that SA4000? SA1000 SA4000 was the 14" drive. AED sold these drives in their WINC08 RL02 emulating drive product. Compupro sold them as well. There was an ANSI standard number for the interface, but I don't remember the number off hand. From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 23 18:10:38 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 17:10:38 -0700 Subject: RL01 drive connector (was: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:03:52 -0800. Message-ID: In article , Al Kossow writes: > AED sold these drives in their WINC08 RL02 emulating drive product. > Compupro sold them as well. Speaking of emulating RL0{1,2} drives, if I wanted to attach some sort of drive emulator to the big fat cable attached to the RL01 drive, where would I get specifications on the signals in the cable? (Yes, I'm still thinking of how to emulate expensive things that may die so I don't have to kill them by operating them :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 23 18:01:06 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 00:01:06 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: <859b4e3cbb9f4066944b3502ae51300b@valleyimplants.com> from "Scott Quinn" at Mar 23, 6 03:15:55 pm Message-ID: > Not much use I can think of in computing, but in other things quite Am I the only person to be thinking of EDSAC and its delay lines here? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 23 18:05:42 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 00:05:42 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: <200603231529350907.3A0742C9@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Mar 23, 6 03:29:35 pm Message-ID: > And as primary cells--mercury cells have a remarkably stable voltage output > over their life. [Looks sadly at all the classic cameras around here that are more difficult to use now that ther mercury cells for the exposure meters are unavailabe. Yes I do know of the work-arrounds...] IIRC the Weston standard cell is a mercury/cadmium couple.... Although to be fair a good bandgap voltage reference is accurate enough for anything I am likely to need, and a lot less hassle. -tony From tpeters at mixcom.com Thu Mar 23 18:09:58 2006 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 18:09:58 -0600 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060323185039.2187e8e8@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <200603231527150746.3A051F47@10.0.0.252> <3.0.6.16.20060323163105.11df2454@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <3.0.6.16.20060323163105.11df2454@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060323180510.0d117c50@localhost> At 06:50 PM 3/23/2006 +0000, you wrote: >At 03:27 PM 3/23/06 -0800, you wrote: > >On 3/23/2006 at 4:31 PM Joe R. wrote: > > > >> Why do you say that??? Intel developed the 8088 and 8086 so I'd find > >it > >>surprising if anyone else beat them to the market with a computer based on > >>those CPUs. > > > >Yes, the MDS with the 8086 board in it was very early, no doubt about > >it--and I said so (having used one when it came out). > > > >But here starts the hair-splitting. Does a development system targeted for > >developers count? > > Since he asked what was the first 8086/8088 computer I'd say that it does >count. However I noticed that the discussion quickly shifted to HOME >computers and ignored development systems and other COMMERCAIL systems. > > > I don't know--I didn't invent this game. Who came out > >with the first Z80 computer? > > Probably the Zilog ZDS IMO. But most people have never heard of them so >they'll vote for the IMSAI, Compupro or whatever they happened to have had. > Speaking of Z-80s, I have a COOL Z-80 system. It's a Dolch something. It >has plugins for burning EPROMs, Logic Analyzer, pattern generator and other >functions. It runs MPM and has SEVEN Z-80s! It can run up to 16 processes >simulatanously and pass data from one process to another. In one example >that they give, you can have one operating the LA and another disassembling >the data from it and another outputing the data to a printer and another >operting the disk drives. It's a COOL system. I've figured out a lot of it >but I'd love to find a manual for it. > > Joe Dolch musta been big on special-purpose machines. For years, a Dolch "portable" in a darth-vader's-lunchbox style was The Standard for the Network General Sniffer. Ran Win NT 4 on it, usually. Had a special NIC in it that could be put into promiscuous mode by the software, so you could sniff everything on the wire. We had one with about 3 usable PCI slots, filled with an interface for T1 work, a 10BaseT card, and a Madge Token-Ring card. I think it was about US$10k. > IIRC, there were isolated S-100 cards before > >there were complete systems--do they count as computers? > > > >Or, to put an even finer edge on it, was the first V20 computer created by > >the first guy to replace the 8088 in his PC with one? > > > >In retrospect, things happened pretty quickly back then. We'd like to > >think that the IBM PC with 64K and one floppy was supplanted by the XT with > >its hard disk, but in fact, for a time, both were being advertised and sold > >by IBM (along with the PC Jr.). > > > >Cheers, > >Chuck > > > > > > > >Contrary to popular opinion, Intel build complete Single Board > >>computers and even COMPLETE computers* and not just ICs and experimenter > >>boards. The Series III MDS from Intel was a Series II MDS model 2xx with > >>the addition of a 8086 or 8088 processor card. I STRONGLY suspect that > >>these were THE first 8086/8088 based computers. Not only because Intel had > >>a head start on everyone else but also because these WERE Development > >>systems and they were intended for use in designing/building/testing other > >>computer designs. Somewhere in my literature I amy have a date for the > >>8088/8088 cards for the MDS systems but I know the MDS 2xx itself > >>definitely predates the 8088/8086 and all it would have taken Intel to do > >>to be the first on the market would be to design one additional card. > >> > >> FWIW I also have another computer that probably comes CLOSE to being > >the > >>first 8086 computer on the market. It's Rubicon computer and it uses an > >>8086 CPU with an 8089 IO Processor, a (mumble-mumble) ECC memory > >controller > >>from Intel and 256k of bank-switched memory. It runs CPM-86 amd it's > >design > >>appears to come straight out of the Intel data books. It's the only > >>computer other than an Intel that I've ever seen that uses the 8089 IO > >>processor and that ECC memory controller. > >> > >> *I personally have three Series III MDS machines and at least a dozen > >>Intel 86/330 computers. the 86/330 is a complete computer and uses a 8086 > >>CPU. > >> > >> Joe > >> > >> > >>(although I do recall seeing pictures of > >>>>multibus type boxes with an Intel monniker, so things > >>>>like that could possibly qualify). I suppose even a > >>>>sbc could qualify, or even some sort of add-on for an > >>>>established system. But sdks from Intel (or others) > >>>>dont. Seattle Gazelle? What about 80186 firsts? 80286? > >>>>I know the popular conception is that Compaq built the > >>>>first 386 desktop, but I seem to recall ALR being > >>>>numero uno (pretty sure it was ALR). > >>> > >>>I think the distinction for 8086 may be Altos or one of the other S-100 > >>>makers, although Intel may have had a card for the MDS even before that. > >>>Bill Godbout had his 85-88 card considerably before the PC. > >>> > >>>As for the 80186/80286, we were debugging pre-release engineering samples > >>>of both chips at Durango (I still remember the bug where DMA activity > >>>would clobber the DI register). For sure, the 80186 Poppy rolled out > >very > >>>early. I don't think any 80286 versions were delivered until the Xenix > >>>port got finished. But there was a socket on the board for one before > >>>that--just nothing to run on it. > >>> > >>>By the time of the 386, Mobo profiles had pretty much standardized for > >>PCs, > >>>so I suspect someone like Mylex may have had the first motherboard, but I > >>>don't know if that counts as a "computer". The PS/2 386 boxes were also > >>>out fairly early--didn't the Model 50 have a bug that required > >replacement > >>>of the mobo? > >>> > >>>Cheers, > >>>Chuck > >>> > >>> > > > > > > [Science] This book fills a much-needed gap. --Moses Hadas when he was asked to say something nice about a fellow scientist's new book. --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... 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 Thu Mar 23 18:41:46 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:41:46 -0800 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603231641460633.3A49551B@10.0.0.252> On 3/24/2006 at 12:05 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >IIRC the Weston standard cell is a mercury/cadmium couple.... Although to >be fair a good bandgap voltage reference is accurate enough for anything >I am likely to need, and a lot less hassle. The Weston cell also has some saturated solutions of mercury and cadmium salts in addition to the metallic form. Sort of a salt bridge setup. Can source very little current, though, what, maybe 0.1 ma for the typical 4" high H-cell? So it's always used as a reference to adjust a primary source. Of course, if the primary source went kaput, there was nothing to adjust. In the mills, we'd go around periodically replacing the primary cells in the chart recorders with those big rectangular black National Union cells. My last year on the job was when Honeywell came out with solid-state voltage references that could actually source some current for their Electronik series of recorders and controllers. You got rid of the calibration helipot, primary cells and Weston cells and a bunch of other miscellaneous parts (recorders would automatically go through a calibration cycle every few hours). L&N followed somewhat later with their own version. AFAIK, the used H-cells just went into the main trash stream. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 23 18:44:09 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:44:09 -0800 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: <200603231529350907.3A0742C9@10.0.0.252> References: <859b4e3cbb9f4066944b3502ae51300b@valleyimplants.com> <019e01c64ebf$c91bcc00$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> <200603231529350907.3A0742C9@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603231644090238.3A4B8228@10.0.0.252> >On 3/23/2006 at 9:21 PM Jim Beacon wrote: > >>It is also often used in high speed relays, especially for teleprinter >type >>circuits - we had some mainframe / telegraph interfaces with mercury >wetted >>relays in them, in operation, until about 8 years ago I've still got a bunch of telco mercury-wetted sealed DPST reed relays. I think this wasn't because of current, but rather that the contacts probably stayed quiet over the life of the equipment. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 23 18:49:19 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:49:19 -0800 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603231649190454.3A503DF0@10.0.0.252> On 3/24/2006 at 12:01 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >> Not much use I can think of in computing, but in other things quite > >Am I the only person to be thinking of EDSAC and its delay lines here? My thought was of EDVAC. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 23 18:51:37 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:51:37 -0800 Subject: First drive letters? Message-ID: <200603231651370662.3A5259D1@10.0.0.252> As long as we're on the business of firsts, what was the first operating system to refer to mass storage devices by single letters, starting with "A"? Does CP/M have this distinction? ISIS, IIRC used F0: and F1: for the floppies. Think of all of the keystrokes saved! Cheers, Chuck From dwight.elvey at amd.com Thu Mar 23 18:59:43 2006 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:59:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) Message-ID: <200603240059.QAA00516@ca2h0430.amd.com> >From: "Roy J. Tellason" > >I have a mercury-wetted relay I salvaged out of something or other. Says so >right on it. :-) It also indicates that it should be used in one specific >physical orientation, too. > >So the advantage of those is speed? Hi No, it is that they don't bounce and that they don't need a minimum current to clean the contacts. They are not any faster than others. Some are designed for high current operation. These look like tubes with a coil around them. No bounce means less arcing. Dwight From r_a_feldman at hotmail.com Thu Mar 23 20:09:06 2006 From: r_a_feldman at hotmail.com (Robert Feldman) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 20:09:06 -0600 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? Message-ID: The HP LX series (95/100/200/700) palmtops were probably the most successful 80186-based computers. Several million of them were sold. Relevant to the discussion of medical equipment, there was just a discussion on the HPLX mailing list suggesting that the HP LX200 (MS-DOS 5.0) is still being sold as part of some piece of medical equipment, although no one there could say for certain. It was discontinued as a separate product in 1998. Bob Message: 13 Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:36:42 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" Subject: RE: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? To: cctalk at classiccmp.org On 3/23/2006 at 7:43 AM Cini, Richard wrote: >I don't know where in the overall timeline this is but wasn't the Tandy >2000 based on the 80186? It was introduced in 11/83 and ran an OEM version of >DOS 2.11. Yes, and the 80186 was a marketing disaster for any company that tried to turn it into a PC. The integrated peripherals, while generally better than same facilities present on the PC aren't the least compatible. The wrong thing in a world dominated by hardware-manipulating applications, such as games, graphics utilities, backup programs, etc. I still have the Durango 80186 IO.SYS source for MS-DOS 1.25, as well as the OEM docs for 2.0. All of this was a shame, because an 80186-based PC offers a pretty substantial bang for the buck; From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Mar 23 20:57:44 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 18:57:44 -0800 Subject: RL01 drive connector (was: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215) Message-ID: > Speaking of emulating RL0{1,2} drives, if I wanted to attach some sort > of drive emulator to the big fat cable attached to the RL01 drive, > where would I get specifications on the signals in the cable? The controller and drive maintenance manuals, and schematics. There isn't a spec that I know of that ever made it outside of DEC. From memory, the control interface is synchronous serial data. From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Mar 23 21:00:39 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 19:00:39 -0800 Subject: pdp-11/04 manuals? Message-ID: <65F87277-D1D4-4FF4-A7FB-9F6E9548F0CF@bitsavers.org> > Looks like bitsavers are missing out on the pdp-11/04! The 11/04 engineering drawings are now on line. From waisun.chia at gmail.com Thu Mar 23 21:16:06 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:16:06 +0800 Subject: pdp-11/04 manuals? In-Reply-To: <65F87277-D1D4-4FF4-A7FB-9F6E9548F0CF@bitsavers.org> References: <65F87277-D1D4-4FF4-A7FB-9F6E9548F0CF@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Thanks Al. That was quick! :-) On 3/24/06, Al Kossow wrote: > > > Looks like bitsavers are missing out on the pdp-11/04! > > The 11/04 engineering drawings are now on line. > > From waisun.chia at gmail.com Thu Mar 23 21:30:41 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:30:41 +0800 Subject: Anybody has an IMP? or a TIP? Message-ID: Was thinking about the previous day when I watched the ARPAnet documentary, and was drooling over the blinkenlights of the IMP and TIP... Anybody in this list has either an IMP or a TIP? Or even an unmodified H516? Wonder what exactly are the differences between a virgin H516 and an IMP? Heck if we have 2 of those IMPs, we could string a 50kbps line, and build Internet2 all over again! :-) From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Mar 23 22:28:47 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 20:28:47 -0800 Subject: c64reloaded.com ? Message-ID: Does anyone have any experience with c64reloaded.com? I'm curious as they seem to be the only US based seller that has MMC64'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 spectre at floodgap.com Thu Mar 23 22:39:08 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 20:39:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: c64reloaded.com ? In-Reply-To: from "Zane H. Healy" at "Mar 23, 6 08:28:47 pm" Message-ID: <200603240439.k2O4d80k017522@floodgap.com> > Does anyone have any experience with c64reloaded.com? I'm curious as > they seem to be the only US based seller that has MMC64's. I *think* that this is Jeff Ledger's site, and if so, he's reliable. I can't seem to verify it though. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- I may have invented CtrlAltDel, but Microsoft made it popular. -- D. Bradley From frustum at pacbell.net Thu Mar 23 22:45:12 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 22:45:12 -0600 Subject: Ebay posts + Austin,TX giveaway In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44237958.2050302@pacbell.net> Richard wrote: > In article <052401c64ec2$52002140$21fe54a6 at ibm23xhr06>, ... > Well, this sort of thing is one of those "can't please anyone" > scenarios. Some people will like the postings, some people won't. > Some people will like concise descriptions, some people won't. ... Since Jay is the host/list owner, I think his opinion should count a heck of a lot more. Jay manages things with a very light hand, so if he is speaking up, it is time to listen. To the sheep, the grass on the next hill looks as good as the grass here, but the shepherd nudges them back since he has to draw the line somewhere, even though the sheep don't see it. How's that for a pained metaphor? Why, that was so painful, it was like having your tooth pulled from the wrong end of the canal? Ooch, that was a strained simile. How strained was it? Like it went through a cheesecloth. Let me stop there by noting that with free association you get what you pay for. OK, I relent (it is Lent after all). To atone, I'll share a true classiccmp story. I recently accidentally acquired five apple IIs via four acts of impulsiveness. I meant to get one, A II+, just to have it, since I spent a couple summers programming one (one of the black Bell & Howell models, which is appropriate since I was working at B&H). Another reason to have one is that the Apple II/II+ circuitry put Wozniak in the TTL hall of fame even if he never did anything again. Which, other than the Apple II disk controller, is basically the case. Having made the decision, I bought a II+ off ebay for cheap, owing to the lack of picture and poor description: "It beeps when I turn it on but I don't know anything else." For various reasons, including a death in the seller's family, it took more than a month for it to get sent. I was impatient, the whole thing had planted a seed, so I stopped by an eco-cycler in Round Rock because I happened to be near. They had a pallet of IIe's, some model 4P TRS-80s, and some other random stuff, mostly in rough shape. It was being sold at $0.20/lb. I picked up the two best looking IIe's and a TRS-80 coco3 and gave him a $20 since I felt bad for wasting his time. It went right to the pizza fund I'm told. The three machines I picked out worked just fine. Shortly after that my original II+ arrived -- a bit corroded, and when powered up, it beeps alright, and keeps beeping. It wasn't exactly what I wanted. It is close to working, as the video displays OK and the 6502 shows it is kicking. Another good sign is that it exhibits the same "random" behavior on each power up, so there is a deterministic fault there. Meanwhile I did more ebay damage looking for software for my II's -- and picked up another IIe since it was bundled with a bunch of software. Then when I was in san antonio I stopped by the computer works and there was a II+ in mint shape for $25. It turns out it also had an Accelerator IIe card inside, making it a 3.5 MHz II+ (vs the stock ~1.0 MHz). I took off the numeric keypad dongle as it sullied the rest of it. Does anybody living in Austin want to come by and pick up a IIe or two? Or perhaps have more time than me and want to debug the II+? Otherwise I will drop some of them off at austin computerworks next time I'm near. As long as I'm mentioning it, I have a semi-functioning Osborne Executive. It boots and runs, but the video is intermittent. It seems ripe for fixing, except I already have too many project machines, and this one I have no emotional connection to. It has a boot disk or two. Again, in Austin, for pickup. How about a working Kaypro 10? That is the model with the floppy plus a hard disk (I forget if it is 5 MB or 10 MB). I still can't decide if Kaypro was more about selling computers or more about selling sheet metal. Even if you don't care, the kaypro 10 could be flipped on ebay for a few bucks (10s seem to fetch $80-$150, although the earlier models usually go for a song). At least somebody who cared would then own it. The last time I tried a giveaway there were no takers, and my fully decked out HP 85 and HP 86, plus 50 lbs of manuals, software, and accessories went to the Austin goodwill computerworks. I was fairly disappointed when they told me to go around to the drop off door where all the goodwill donations go, since the person there didn't seem to give a rats *** about the importance of putting the computers and their accessories in the same spot. Plus, in my four trips there in the 20 months that I've lived in Austin, their "museum" has always been closed. One of the things I miss about leaving Silicon Valley is the monthly foothill and livermore swap meets. They were great for finding things, but even better for disposing of things. You knew whatever you left at the curb with a "free" sign would just make somebody's day. From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 23 22:47:28 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 21:47:28 -0700 Subject: Anybody has an IMP? or a TIP? In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:30:41 +0800. Message-ID: In article , "Wai-Sun Chia" writes: > Was thinking about the previous day when I watched the ARPAnet > documentary, and was drooling over the blinkenlights of the IMP and > TIP... Me too, I now want a TIP for my terminal collection! :-) I looked out at the Computer History Museum and they only document having a manual for the TIP, while they have an entire IMP in hardware. There is an IMP design document in their collection as well. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From gkaufman at the-planet.org Thu Mar 23 22:54:33 2006 From: gkaufman at the-planet.org (Gary E Kaufman) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 23:54:33 -0500 Subject: Big Board - MicroCornucopia Message-ID: I'm in the process of restoring a Digital Research / Ferguson "Big Board". I built a bunch of them back in the 80's, and it will be nice to have one up and running again. I was wondering if anyone had copies of the support magazine - Micro Cornucopia, or any of the Big Board User Group disks? I have the first four issues of MicroCornucopia here and will scan them to PDF's when I get a chance. I'd like to eventually scan the full set if possible. Many thanks! - Gary From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Thu Mar 23 22:58:25 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 22:58:25 -0600 Subject: Find in Seattle Message-ID: Today I met up with a gentleman from Kirkland, WA (Ian Greenhoe, who knows at least one of the moderators on this list) who needed to pare down his collection due to domestic pressure. HE STILL HAS some stuff, complete HP/Apollo 9000/700 systems with monitors/keyboards if anyone is interested - give me an e-mail and I can pass it on Anyway, I got a bunch of Sun stuff, including a Sun 3/60 with mono monitor, keyboard, etc. just needs a monitor cable - contact me if you're interested I can't keep it. One of the machines happened to be a ComputerVision CADDstation (Sun 3/160 [looks like], with several customish looking cards and fancy graphics). I think this came up recently, so when I know a bit more I can post it. The BIG good news is a box of disttapes (~60, haven't been through them yet but it includes ComputerVision stuff, SunOS 3.2 & some Sun unbundled stuff) and 2 boxes of docs. I'm trying to figure out best way to get them scanned, need to inventory them, etc. I only have 2 boxes now, but will have the third. Anyway, I need homes for (1) almost complete Sun 3/60 with monitor and keyboard, nice condition but one of the VME ejectors is broken. and (1) Siilicon Graphics Indy R5000SC/150 XL-8 If anyone wants the HP 9000/700s I can forward an E-mail things that might be of interest, but might not: 1 PeeCee AT- class full tower case all in the Seatle area From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Mar 23 23:38:59 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 00:38:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: Find in Seattle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603240541.AAA11068@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Anyway, I got a bunch of Sun stuff, including a Sun 3/60 with mono > monitor, keyboard, etc. just needs a monitor cable - contact me if > you're interested I can't keep it. If the monitor cable it needs is the DE9F-to-DE9M kind, I have a bunch of spares; I'd be happy to send one to whoever ends up with that machine. (No, I'm not really interested in it myself; I have at least two spare -3/60s sitting idle right now. I might take it if someone else arranged for it to show up on my doorstep, but my level of interest in it does not extend to arranging such an event myself.) /~\ 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 oce.com Fri Mar 24 01:02:02 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 08:02:02 +0100 Subject: RL01 drive connector (was: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215) Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815C2@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> You call the RL0[1,2] "big fat cables" ? Wait until you see MASSBUS cables ... :-) - Henk, PA8PDP. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Richard > Sent: vrijdag 24 maart 2006 1:11 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RL01 drive connector (was: What disk is this? eBay > #8782293215) > > Speaking of emulating RL0{1,2} drives, if I wanted to attach > some sort of drive emulator to the big fat cable attached to > the RL01 drive, where would I get specifications on the > signals in the cable? > > (Yes, I'm still thinking of how to emulate expensive things > that may die so I don't have to kill them by operating them :-). > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > > > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 24 01:09:57 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 23:09:57 -0800 Subject: Big Board - MicroCornucopia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603232309570799.3BACB7A9@10.0.0.252> I've got a bunch of the MicroC's--but I'll have to inventory them to see exactly what I've got. Cheers, Chuck On 3/23/2006 at 11:54 PM Gary E Kaufman wrote: >I'm in the process of restoring a Digital Research / Ferguson "Big Board". >I built a bunch of them back in the 80's, and it will be nice to have one >up >and running again. > >I was wondering if anyone had copies of the support magazine - Micro >Cornucopia, or any of the Big Board User Group disks? I have the first >four >issues of MicroCornucopia here and will scan them to PDF's when I get a >chance. I'd like to eventually scan the full set if possible. > >Many thanks! > >- Gary From evan at snarc.net Fri Mar 24 01:26:31 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 02:26:31 -0500 Subject: Computer Collector Newsletter is changing... Message-ID: <000a01c64f14$462296d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Hello cctalkers, Some changes are in the air for the Computer Collector Newsletter. First, there is a new name. CCN is now (drum roll please) ............... Technology Rewind. Within the next day or two, our domain of http://news.computercollector.com will forward to http://www.technologyrewind.com and that will be our primary address. Also, for simplicity's sake, all of my posts to cctalk will just come from my personal email account (evan at snarc.net). Second, there will be some changes to the format. The changes are not final, but we're toying with a couple of ideas, such as dropping the subscription method and becoming a news web site rather than a newsletter per se, or perhaps following the route of a news-oriented blog. Of course, it will continue to be cost-free, with a news focus. (Anyone have ideas for additional resources we can provide? The only restriction is that we won't step on the toes of established resources such as cctalk, the VCM, etc. -- we're not going to compete against our friends.) We've given this a lot of thought already, so we hope the changes are well received, but we do look forward to all comments and questions. - Evan From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 24 02:38:22 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 00:38:22 -0800 Subject: Big Board - MicroCornucopia In-Reply-To: <200603232309570799.3BACB7A9@10.0.0.252> References: <200603232309570799.3BACB7A9@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603240038220457.3BFDA8FB@10.0.0.252> On 3/23/2006 at 11:09 PM Chuck Guzis wrote: >I've got a bunch of the MicroC's--but I'll have to inventory them to see >exactly what I've got. Okay, Nos. 21 and 37 through 53 (the last issue). Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 24 02:40:23 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 00:40:23 -0800 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603240040230801.3BFF82FB@10.0.0.252> On 3/23/2006 at 8:09 PM Robert Feldman wrote: >The HP LX series (95/100/200/700) palmtops were probably the most >successful 80186-based computers. Several million of them were sold. Bob, those were the CMOS parts right? (80C18x). Were they 188's or 186's? Cheers, Chuck From vax9000 at gmail.com Fri Mar 24 03:02:00 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 04:02:00 -0500 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <200603240040230801.3BFF82FB@10.0.0.252> References: <200603240040230801.3BFF82FB@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: On 3/24/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 3/23/2006 at 8:09 PM Robert Feldman wrote: > > >The HP LX series (95/100/200/700) palmtops were probably the most > >successful 80186-based computers. Several million of them were sold. > > Bob, those were the CMOS parts right? (80C18x). Were they 188's or > 186's? I have an HP 100LX. Unfortunately, HP 100LX or 200LX does NOT use an 80186 or 80188 or 80c186 or 80c188 or any other 80186 compatible chips. It uses an PC compatible Intel integrated CPU, with integrated CGA controller, integrated 8259 compatible interrupt controller, and some other controllers as well. vax, 9000 Cheers, > Chuck > > > From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Fri Mar 24 03:45:43 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 10:45:43 +0100 Subject: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215 In-Reply-To: References: <4422E681.5070703@msm.umr.edu> <4422F165.3080500@msm.umr.edu> <20060323210132.384f39ac.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <20060324104543.25380b0b.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 05:58:50 +0800 "Wai-Sun Chia" wrote: > That's it! I *MUST* get a 9" disk!! :-) > (just to see a BA123 "walk") :-) Hehehe. :-) My NEC 9" disks where really high performance equipment for that time. (Ca. 1986, 1 GB capacity.) They use a quite high acceleration to move the heads. That is the reason for the movement. > Heck why stop at 9"? May I say "washing mashine"? > ooh now I remember, shipping and electricity :-{ Yes. One disk is 40 kg and needs 250 W to 300 W of power when idle. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Fri Mar 24 03:55:44 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 10:55:44 +0100 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: References: <859b4e3cbb9f4066944b3502ae51300b@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <20060324105544.56e38755.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Fri, 24 Mar 2006 00:01:06 +0000 (GMT) ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > Am I the only person to be thinking of EDSAC and its delay lines here? My immediate associativity to mercury delay line memory is: http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/csirac/ -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From dave06a at dunfield.com Fri Mar 24 05:08:38 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 06:08:38 -0500 Subject: Big Board - MicroCornucopia In-Reply-To: <200603240038220457.3BFDA8FB@10.0.0.252> References: <200603232309570799.3BACB7A9@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060324110959.WASR8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> > On 3/23/2006 at 11:09 PM Chuck Guzis wrote: > > >I've got a bunch of the MicroC's--but I'll have to inventory them to see > >exactly what I've got. > > Okay, Nos. 21 and 37 through 53 (the last issue). Were getting close to a complete set - I've got numbers 1 through 26 -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com Fri Mar 24 06:03:06 2006 From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 04:03:06 -0800 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: References: <200603171734.26890.rtellason@blazenet.net> <441B3D4E.1010800@DakotaCom.Net> <200603181411.13168.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <200603240403060260.53854A69@192.168.42.129> Plenty of LVD compatible PC-based host adapters available. The Tekram DC390U/W comes immediately to mind, as does Adaptec's AHA2940U2W. Happy hunting. *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 18-Mar-06 at 22:56 Robert Borsuk wrote: >I have a bunch of these drives and I use them in my SGI systems. >I've never been able to find a controller that let's me use them in a >PC. If you find one that works, I would appreciate hearing about. > >Thanks >Rob > > >On Mar 18, 2006, at 2:11 PM, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > >> On Friday 17 March 2006 05:50 pm, Don Y wrote: >>> Roy J. Tellason wrote: >>>> Got a box of SCSI drives a while back, and in there is one that's >>>> apparently 18G, but it's marked "LV-D" which from my >>>> understanding of >>>> things won't work with anything I have here. Can any of you guys >>>> use >>>> this? >>>> >>>> Ideal for me would be a trade for something roughly comparable in >>>> size... >>> >>> Most likely Low Voltage Differential. >> >> What I was thinking... >> >>> Many LVD drives can also be run single-ended (either by autosensing >>> the connection *or* with a strapping option on the drive). >>> Without a model number, it's hard to tell. >> >> I don't know why (and can't seem to lay hands on the book I was >> using for >> reference in this) I assumed that it couldn't be used single- >> ended. The >> model is IBM DNES-318350 E182115 F, and yeah, it does say "LVD/ >> SE" on >> there. :-0 >> >> -- >> 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 >> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 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 dave06a at dunfield.com Fri Mar 24 07:30:13 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 08:30:13 -0500 Subject: Unisys A Series ? Message-ID: <20060324133100.WTUM29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Had this machine dropped on me last night... Can anyone tell me anything about it? So far, google etc. have turned up little. It's a "squat" format workstation or server of some kind: 11"w x 18"d x 21"h Front bears the name: UNISYS A SERIES Two doors reveal: Upper: Tape drive, CD-ROM, Floppy Lower: Power/Drive lights and key switch Two serial number labels on the back, a smaller one which says: Style: A7-311 And a larger one which says: Style: CER4344-100 One of labels inside says it was made in 1994. Appears to be somewhat "PC-ish": - Large maniboard with EISA slots - CPU card with 486 CPU and "OVerdrive socket" - VGA connector on back - PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse connectors - Also has serial, parallel, SCSI and UPS connectors. It also has a very large network card, and another card with more RAM and several large UniSys chips that I don't recognize (one with a large metal lid with the warning "DO NOT PRESS ON LID" printed on it!). It powers up, but reports that it's configuration is bad, and that I should run the setup disk. All I can do is press F1 to try and boot the floppy. Doesn't appear to be a PC - attempt to boot a DOS floppy results in silence (machine sucks on it for a while, then goes into la-la land). Attempt to boot a cleaning disk results in the message "Disk read error" and return to the "Press F1" prompt. (which suggests that it didn't have trouble reading the DOS disk). Can anyone tell me exactly what this is? What does it run? Any information would be appreciated. Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Mar 24 08:11:57 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 06:11:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: from 9000 VAX at "Mar 24, 6 04:02:00 am" Message-ID: <200603241411.k2OEBvEH016722@floodgap.com> > I have an HP 100LX. Unfortunately, HP 100LX or 200LX does NOT use an 80186 > or 80188 or 80c186 or 80c188 or any other 80186 compatible chips. It uses an > PC compatible Intel integrated CPU, with integrated CGA controller, > integrated 8259 compatible interrupt controller, and some other controllers > as well. But Bob is right about the 95LX -- I have one of those and it *is* a '186. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows. -- O. Henry ----------- From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Mar 24 08:34:54 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 06:34:54 -0800 Subject: Unisys A Series ? Message-ID: <668BDAC6-258A-4539-95AA-D1736BD06886@bitsavers.org> > Had this machine dropped on me last night... > Style: A7-311 It is a Unisys A7 series There was just a discussion about this on the list. It should have an A-Series CPU board in it with the PC-ish stuff handling I/O. The system ran OS-2. threads: History Check -- First CMOS mainframe a few micro-A references From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Mar 24 08:44:33 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:44:33 +0000 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <442405D1.80605@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: >> Not much use I can think of in computing, but in other things quite > > Am I the only person to be thinking of EDSAC and its delay lines here? I've got a feeling that the owner of the BCL Susie that we've got to pick up some time said that there's a mercury delay line in that for some reason... I don't believe that anyone's mentioned mercury arc rectifiers yet as one application of mercury (and of course fascinating to watch!). (Did any early computers ever use them for any reason? Presumably wound transformers were always the norm, although I'd love an excuse to have a running MAR on display :-) cheers Jules From uban at ubanproductions.com Fri Mar 24 08:50:43 2006 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 08:50:43 -0600 Subject: Big Board - MicroCornucopia In-Reply-To: <20060324110959.WASR8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> References: <200603240038220457.3BFDA8FB@10.0.0.252> <200603232309570799.3BACB7A9@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20060324085017.0251f2c8@mail.ubanproductions.com> Has someone already scanned or is someone willing to scan the various BB related articles and post them? --tnx --tom At 06:08 AM 3/24/2006 -0500, Dave Dunfield wrote: > > On 3/23/2006 at 11:09 PM Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > > >I've got a bunch of the MicroC's--but I'll have to inventory them to see > > >exactly what I've got. > > > > Okay, Nos. 21 and 37 through 53 (the last issue). > >Were getting close to a complete set - I've got numbers 1 through 26 > > >-- >dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield >dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com >com Collector of vintage computing equipment: > http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From lee at geekdot.com Fri Mar 24 09:46:48 2006 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 16:46:48 +0100 (CET) Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) Message-ID: <1364.86.139.105.174.1143215208.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> > I don't believe that anyone's mentioned mercury arc rectifiers yet as > one application of mercury (and of course fascinating to watch!). There was a 12 phase 800KVA MAR at Droitwich but that was just a big, black, steel tank with porcelain insulated terminals. The last 'visible' MARs I saw were at Daventry, 6 phase 500KVA with three rectifiers per phase. Daventry has closed and most of the original building at Droitwich has been demolished. I know of one site where the remaining mercury, some 10s of gallons all in glass demijohns, was 'lost' during building work. Of course the metal you can detect in the new building base is all steel reinforcement bars, honest. Lee. From aijones2 at bsu.edu Fri Mar 24 10:07:42 2006 From: aijones2 at bsu.edu (Andrew Jones) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:07:42 -0500 Subject: DECnet for IRIX Message-ID: <1143216462.12765.3.camel@Amnesiac> So, I've been looking, fruitlessly, for a copy of SGI 4DDN or 4DLT for IRIX 5.3 or 6.2. 4DDN was SGI's DECnet Phase IV; 4DLT was their LAT implementation that required 4DDN. Resellers don't seem to feel it's a good idea to sell unsupported SGI software from fifteen years ago. Does anyone have a copy at hand? I did get ahold of a copy of 4DDN 3.0, but it turned out to be IRIX 4.x-only, and I lack any hardware that's IRIX 4-capable. (Nevermind that IRIX 4 is kind of scary) I know this is a bit of a weird request. For reasons I cannot explain, I've felt compelled to get my SGI onto the hobbyist DECnet ever since a filename with a typo in it led me to believe that I had 4DDN on-hand. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 24 10:44:36 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 08:44:36 -0800 Subject: Unisys A Series ? In-Reply-To: <20060324133100.WTUM29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> References: <20060324133100.WTUM29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <200603240844360530.3DBAD231@10.0.0.252> On 3/24/2006 at 8:30 AM Dave Dunfield wrote: >Had this machine dropped on me last night... >Can anyone tell me anything about it? >So far, google etc. have turned up little. Briefly discussed here a couple of weeks ago. The x86 side boots OS/2 as an I/O server for the multichip Burroughs-family CPU. There's a patent online describing the setup. Kind of interesting as one of the lone 48-bit word systems based on a PC, not to mention the Burroughs architectural model. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 24 10:48:45 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 08:48:45 -0800 Subject: Big Board - MicroCornucopia In-Reply-To: <20060324110959.WASR8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> References: <200603232309570799.3BACB7A9@10.0.0.252> <20060324110959.WASR8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <200603240848450698.3DBE9F81@10.0.0.252> On 3/24/2006 at 6:08 AM Dave Dunfield wrote: >Were getting close to a complete set - I've got numbers 1 through 26 In the middle of the small stack of Micro C's, I found a Kilobaud #1 that I'd forgotten I even had. Is it worth anything in the used-magazine market? I remember subscribing to MicroC sometime after Microsystems ceased publication. Before that, I didn't even know it existed. Cheers, Chuck From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Mar 24 11:22:54 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:22:54 Subject: First drive letters? In-Reply-To: <200603231651370662.3A5259D1@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060324112254.3f2fecf0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 04:51 PM 3/23/06 -0800, you wrote: >As long as we're on the business of firsts, what was the first operating >system to refer to mass storage devices by single letters, starting with >"A"? Does CP/M have this distinction? Yes, AFIK. ISIS, IIRC used F0: and F1: for the >floppies. Almost. Actually it was :F1: > >Think of all of the keystrokes saved! Amen! Joe > >Cheers, >Chuck > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Mar 24 11:29:43 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:29:43 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: <200603240059.QAA00516@ca2h0430.amd.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060324112943.3f2f9098@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 04:59 PM 3/23/06 -0800, you wrote: >>From: "Roy J. Tellason" >> >>I have a mercury-wetted relay I salvaged out of something or other. Says so >>right on it. :-) It also indicates that it should be used in one specific >>physical orientation, too. >> >>So the advantage of those is speed? > >Hi > No, it is that they don't bounce and that they don't need >a minimum current to clean the contacts. They are not >any faster than others. > Some are designed for high current operation. These look >like tubes with a coil around them. No bounce means less arcing. There's still some arcing when the contacts open on inductive loads but the mercury actually forms the contacts and since it's a liquid and it flows it always presents clean contacts at each opening and closing. The self-cleaning action makes them great for applications that would normally burn out or weld the contacts on normal relays. That's also why they're used for telephone use, they don't develope high resistance in the contacts so they last a LONG time and are very reliable. Joe >Dwight > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Mar 24 11:32:06 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:32:06 Subject: Anybody has an IMP? or a TIP? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060324113206.3f372d7a@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 11:30 AM 3/24/06 +0800, you wrote: >Was thinking about the previous day when I watched the ARPAnet >documentary, and was drooling over the blinkenlights of the IMP and >TIP... > >Anybody in this list has either an IMP Nope but I have a NS Pacer which suceeded it. I also have an operators (I think) manaul for the IMP. Joe or a TIP? >Or even an unmodified H516? > >Wonder what exactly are the differences between a virgin H516 and an IMP? > >Heck if we have 2 of those IMPs, we could string a 50kbps line, and >build Internet2 all over again! :-) > From rborsuk at colourfull.com Fri Mar 24 12:11:36 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:11:36 -0500 Subject: DECnet for IRIX In-Reply-To: <1143216462.12765.3.camel@Amnesiac> References: <1143216462.12765.3.camel@Amnesiac> Message-ID: Andrew, Would this be on it's own CD or would it be together with something else? I have a couple hundred IRIX discs and I could check for you later this evening but it would help if I had a starting point of what I was looking for. Rob On Mar 24, 2006, at 11:07 AM, Andrew Jones wrote: > So, I've been looking, fruitlessly, for a copy of SGI 4DDN or 4DLT for > IRIX 5.3 or 6.2. 4DDN was SGI's DECnet Phase IV; 4DLT was their LAT > implementation that required 4DDN. Resellers don't seem to feel it's a > good idea to sell unsupported SGI software from fifteen years ago. > Does > anyone have a copy at hand? > > I did get ahold of a copy of 4DDN 3.0, but it turned out to be IRIX > 4.x-only, and I lack any hardware that's IRIX 4-capable. (Nevermind > that IRIX 4 is kind of scary) > > I know this is a bit of a weird request. For reasons I cannot > explain, > I've felt compelled to get my SGI onto the hobbyist DECnet ever > since a > filename with a typo in it led me to believe that I had 4DDN on-hand. > From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Mar 24 12:13:57 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:13:57 -0500 Subject: Big Board - MicroCornucopia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603241313.57127.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Thursday 23 March 2006 11:54 pm, Gary E Kaufman wrote: > I'm in the process of restoring a Digital Research / Ferguson "Big Board". > I built a bunch of them back in the 80's, and it will be nice to have one > up and running again. > > I was wondering if anyone had copies of the support magazine - Micro > Cornucopia, or any of the Big Board User Group disks? I have the first > four issues of MicroCornucopia here and will scan them to PDF's when I get > a chance. I'd like to eventually scan the full set if possible. I have pretty much of a full set of Micro-Cornucopia, but they're in storage and not accessible to me until I get those folks paid off... Speaking of BigBoards, do any of you guys know of any online resources for the Bigboard II? I have one of those that I built, and it's a rather nifty board for what it is... I made the mistake of not getting the software with it when I got it, and by the time I was ready to pursue that the company selling them had folded. :-( -- 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 stanb at dial.pipex.com Fri Mar 24 03:05:16 2006 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 09:05:16 +0000 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 23 Mar 2006 21:21:44 GMT." <019e01c64ebf$c91bcc00$0400a8c0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <200603240905.JAA21155@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Jim Beacon said: > > If you go back far enough, mercury was used in memories (mercury delay line > in some early British machines). Which were developed from the ones used in early radar to eliminate echoes from fixed objects. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From dwight.elvey at amd.com Fri Mar 24 12:43:36 2006 From: dwight.elvey at amd.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 10:43:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: the Canon Cat meow Message-ID: <200603241843.KAA23215@ca2h0430.amd.com> >From: "Chris M" > >I just obtained a rather beautiful specimen (specimen >- an Italian astronaut LOL LOL). So I hearby announce >my desire to network with other owners of the same. >And does anyone know if an 8088 add-on was ever >offered?? It seems like the most natural thing to me. > Hi Chris I have one of these. I've been exploring my machine. As far as I know, they never did a 8088 version. The 68K is really a nice machine though. Jeff Rasken's site has pdf's on the user manual's. There are also several pages describing how to get to the Forth underneath. There are all kinds of things you can do with the Forth, including writing your own special functions. You can even evaluate Forth expressions in your text. A handy place to put your source. One of the sites describes using " see " to decompile Forth words. So far, I've not found such a word in my machine. If you find it in yours, I'd really like to know. You could do a " see see " for me. The Forth is a tokenized Forth. The most common words are 1 byte tokens. There are a number of words called trier1, trier2 ... that are used to extend to 16 bit tokens. There is a way to find the token of any particular forth word. As an example, " ' find . " will display the token for the word find. If you do " ' find +table @ . " you'll get the pfa/cfa of the word find. I'm almost ready to write my own word see but I'm stuck at one point. I've found the dictionary and there is a 16 bit value attached to each entry. I suspect that this somehow is used to locate the token. I've not yet found out how this works. I've started a little by hand decompiling the word find. The word find must know how to use this value to get to the token. Words like ' use the word find inside. It is slow but not to bad. I used the word words in my text to dump the dictionary names and then wrote a keyboard macro to take each word and do a " ' SomeWord . ". It also cleans up the extra ' and . I use the word dump to look at the cfa/pfa and get the token there. I then search for that token in my text. I can only work on this during the weekend so I'd just started before I needed to go to sleep. My main reason for doing this is that I'd like to write a different printer driver to use my HP 3si. I don't have any Canon printers that it normally uses. I'd also like to here from other Canon Cat owners. Dwight From marvin at rain.org Fri Mar 24 12:44:23 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 10:44:23 -0800 Subject: Mac SE, SE/30, etc. Message-ID: <44243E07.A73FB810@rain.org> A friend of mine passed away last month and he had a lot of Mac stuff in his garage. His widow asked me to take a look at it, and I didn't see anything worth much money. There are probably about two dozen machines; SE, SE/30, Classic?, Plus?, SI, LC, etc. and maybe a 512K along with a number of monitors. She doesn't want to throw them away, but does want them gone. If anyone is interested in these machines, let me know and I'll pass along the information. There were also some Imagewriters, and other stuff that I haven't had the time to check out yet. BTW, he did have a MAC 128K that I have now, but it was stuck in a non-128K case. From teoz at neo.rr.com Fri Mar 24 13:48:04 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:48:04 -0500 Subject: Mac SE, SE/30, etc. References: <44243E07.A73FB810@rain.org> Message-ID: <00c701c64f7b$de1bbf90$a05d1941@game> I would be willing to snag an SE/30 for shipping costs if it was in decent condition (not yellowed and working). ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marvin Johnston" To: "ClassicCmp" Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 1:44 PM Subject: Mac SE, SE/30, etc. > > A friend of mine passed away last month and he had a lot of Mac stuff in > his garage. His widow asked me to take a look at it, and I didn't see > anything worth much money. There are probably about two dozen machines; > SE, SE/30, Classic?, Plus?, SI, LC, etc. and maybe a 512K along with a > number of monitors. She doesn't want to throw them away, but does want > them gone. If anyone is interested in these machines, let me know and > I'll pass along the information. There were also some Imagewriters, and > other stuff that I haven't had the time to check out yet. > > BTW, he did have a MAC 128K that I have now, but it was stuck in a > non-128K case. From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 24 13:57:28 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 12:57:28 -0700 Subject: Unisys A Series ? In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 24 Mar 2006 08:44:36 -0800. <200603240844360530.3DBAD231@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603240844360530.3DBAD231 at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > The x86 side boots OS/2 as an I/O server for the multichip Burroughs-family > CPU. There's a patent online describing the setup. [...] Do you know the patent number of keywords to search for? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Fri Mar 24 14:42:37 2006 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 12:42:37 -0800 Subject: QNX, Useful applications In-Reply-To: <26c11a640603181730m5ebb4c11o@mail.gmail.com> References: <200603171516.k2HFGuWP098648@dewey.classiccmp.org> <26c11a640603181730m5ebb4c11o@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 3/18/06, Dan Williams wrote: > > > > I would *love* to see a VMS/VAX client, and to my knowledge > > there are several VAXen on the net now doing not so much at any given > > moment. Do any of you VMS gurus have time and inclination to combine > > the VMS/Alpha and the NetBSD/VAX clients and let us put VMS/VAX on > > the charts? > > I don't know if it's for the same reason but seti never had a Vax > client because of a lack of iee floating point (from the faq). Probably not. I don't think any of the d.net code uses floating point. Might have more to do with the limitations of VAX/VMS C compilers and their libraries. The newer versions of SETI at home might be more amenable to a non-IEEE FP version. Anyone who want to is welcome to attempt a port (download the most recent SETI at home enhanced tarball from http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/sah/seti_source/nightly/ and boinc from boinc.berkeley.edu). Of course it's all autoconf so without a VMS version of bash, you'll have fun editing you own make scripts. Eric From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Fri Mar 24 14:42:37 2006 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 12:42:37 -0800 Subject: QNX, Useful applications In-Reply-To: <26c11a640603181730m5ebb4c11o@mail.gmail.com> References: <200603171516.k2HFGuWP098648@dewey.classiccmp.org> <26c11a640603181730m5ebb4c11o@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 3/18/06, Dan Williams wrote: > > > > I would *love* to see a VMS/VAX client, and to my knowledge > > there are several VAXen on the net now doing not so much at any given > > moment. Do any of you VMS gurus have time and inclination to combine > > the VMS/Alpha and the NetBSD/VAX clients and let us put VMS/VAX on > > the charts? > > I don't know if it's for the same reason but seti never had a Vax > client because of a lack of iee floating point (from the faq). Probably not. I don't think any of the d.net code uses floating point. Might have more to do with the limitations of VAX/VMS C compilers and their libraries. The newer versions of SETI at home might be more amenable to a non-IEEE FP version. Anyone who want to is welcome to attempt a port (download the most recent SETI at home enhanced tarball from http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/sah/seti_source/nightly/ and boinc from boinc.berkeley.edu). Of course it's all autoconf so without a VMS version of bash, you'll have fun editing you own make scripts. Eric From CCTalk at catcorner.org Fri Mar 24 15:08:09 2006 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 16:08:09 -0500 Subject: Adds model 10 Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3387D@mail.catcorner.org> Anyone know a site with info on the Adds model 10? I'm trying google, and not having much luck. I know they made quite a few machines in the day, but adds is such a generic word that I can't seem to find what I want. What other Adds equipment was there? Anyone out there collect Adds stuff? Thanks, Kelly From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Mar 24 14:16:12 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 20:16:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: <442405D1.80605@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Mar 24, 6 02:44:33 pm Message-ID: > I don't believe that anyone's mentioned mercury arc rectifiers yet as one > application of mercury (and of course fascinating to watch!). (Did any early Nobody's mentioned thyratrons (gas-filled triodes/tetrodes) either. I suspect the thyratrons used in ring counters, etc, were always inert gas (and not mercury vapour) ones, does anyone know for sure? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Mar 24 14:04:07 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 20:04:07 +0000 (GMT) Subject: RL01 drive connector (was: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215) In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Mar 23, 6 05:10:38 pm Message-ID: > Speaking of emulating RL0{1,2} drives, if I wanted to attach some sort > of drive emulator to the big fat cable attached to the RL01 drive, > where would I get specifications on the signals in the cable? AFAIK there never was a published specification. You'll have to work it out from the printsets and the RL01 technical manual. It's not that complicated, I worked out enough to make a drive exerxiser years ago. >From what I rememebr, you have raw data signals, write gate, etc. The drive will complain if you assert write gate at the wrong time (e.g. during the servo burst time). There's also a serial clock/data signal set which sends head-movement commands from the controller to the drive (you send the number of cylinders you want to move to, and the direction). and reports drive status back to the controller. > > (Yes, I'm still thinking of how to emulate expensive things that may > die so I don't have to kill them by operating them :-). Why bother to run a classic computer at all, then? Seriously, the drives are as much a part of the system as the CPU is. -tony From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 24 15:34:39 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:34:39 -0800 Subject: Unisys A Series ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603241334390165.3EC462A0@10.0.0.252> On 3/24/2006 at 12:57 PM Richard wrote: >Do you know the patent number of keywords to search for? http://freepatentsonline.com/5113500.pdf From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 24 15:36:26 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:36:26 -0700 Subject: RL01 drive connector (was: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215) In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 24 Mar 2006 20:04:07 +0000. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > Why bother to run a classic computer at all, then? Seriously, the drives > are as much a part of the system as the CPU is. I hear what you're saying, but the drives are also the part that's hardest to replace. Seriously, I see PDP-11 CPU cards and controller cards out on ebay all the time but rarely do I see an actual RL01 drive or the disk packs. Thankfully I have about 25 disk packs, so they are not the limiting factor. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 24 15:46:03 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:46:03 -0700 Subject: Unisys A Series ? In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:34:39 -0800. <200603241334390165.3EC462A0@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603241334390165.3EC462A0 at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > On 3/24/2006 at 12:57 PM Richard wrote: > > >Do you know the patent number of keywords to search for? > > http://freepatentsonline.com/5113500.pdf Even better! Hey, that's a pretty good web site. This is my patent: :-) (Trixter: I patented the demoscene! bwuahaha) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Mar 24 15:51:16 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:51:16 -0800 Subject: Mercury use Message-ID: Nobody's mentioned thyratrons (gas-filled triodes/tetrodes) either. I suspect the thyratrons used in ring counters, etc, were always inert gas (and not mercury vapour) ones, does anyone know for sure? -tony I know we used mercury vapor thyratrons in the Army (Signal Corps) on some of the triggering circuits on early radars. One of the NCOs made a beautiful chrome chassis and mounted 8 of them on it. Then used them to drive the spark plugs on an old straight 8 Buick. Was gorgeous to watch running at night. I still regret not getting some photographs of it. (This was in 1960 at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.) Billy From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 24 15:54:10 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:54:10 -0800 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603241354100589.3ED64281@10.0.0.252> On 3/24/2006 at 8:16 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >Nobody's mentioned thyratrons (gas-filled triodes/tetrodes) either. I >suspect the thyratrons used in ring counters, etc, were always inert gas >(and not mercury vapour) ones, does anyone know for sure? There are small ignitrons that use mercury vapor. There are also ignitrons that use sodium vapor. I love the old names for thermionic devices; we've lost that knack for naming. Any gas-filled thermionic diode is a phanotron, any vacuum-filled diode is a kenotron. So an 866 is a phanotron (has mercury), but a 5U4 is a kenotron. A vacuum triode is a pliotron and a gas triode is a thyratron. Ya gotta love it! --Chuck From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Mar 24 16:02:29 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:02:29 -0800 Subject: First drive letters? Message-ID: As long as we're on the business of firsts, what was the first operating system to refer to mass storage devices by single letters, starting with "A"? Does CP/M have this distinction? ISIS, IIRC used F0: and F1: for the floppies. Think of all of the keystrokes saved! Cheers, Chuck The first one I encountered was the MSOS (Mass Storage Operating System) software on early Control Data 3200 systems. MSOS and MASTER were both in the field in the late 60's. I was trained on MSOS in 1966. A lot of ideas in CP/M and similar progenitors came from systems already in the field for years at the time of the early micros. Billy From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Mar 24 16:14:20 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 17:14:20 -0500 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: <200603240403060260.53854A69@192.168.42.129> References: <200603171734.26890.rtellason@blazenet.net> <441B3D4E.1010800@DakotaCom.Net> <200603181411.13168.rtellason@blazenet.net> <200603240403060260.53854A69@192.168.42.129> Message-ID: <44246F3C.6050709@gmail.com> Bruce Lane wrote: > Plenty of LVD compatible PC-based host adapters available. The Tekram DC390U/W comes immediately to mind, as does Adaptec's AHA2940U2W. > > Happy hunting. My personal favorite is the LSI Logic ISP-1080. Peace... Sridhar From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Mar 24 16:16:24 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:16:24 -0800 Subject: Anybody has an IMP? or a TIP? Message-ID: Wai-Sun Chia wrote: Anybody in this list has either an IMP or a TIP? Or even an unmodified H516? ---------------------------- Assume we are talking about the National Semi IMP from early 70's? If so, I recently gave Al K. a contact in the Bay area who has an IMP running in his den and has done so since the early days of the Homebrew Computer club. He also has a lot of software, custom interfaces and spares. He was at the last VCF in Mountain View but was more fascinated with the museum. I promised to not print his name - he is a private person. But perhaps Al has been over to see him? Billy From vax at purdue.edu Fri Mar 24 16:43:49 2006 From: vax at purdue.edu (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 17:43:49 -0500 Subject: Anybody has an IMP? or a TIP? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060324224349.GA18538@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 02:16:24PM -0800, Billy Pettit wrote: > Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > Anybody in this list has either an IMP or a TIP? Or even an unmodified H516? > > ---------------------------- > Assume we are talking about the National Semi IMP from early 70's? If so, I > recently gave Al K. a contact in the Bay area who has an IMP running in his I think we're talking about the ARPAnet IMPs and TIPs, which were discussed in the video that was linked to by a recent thread. From what they looked like in the video, I'm pretty sure that they weren't anything homebrew or microcomputer-ish. :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Mar 24 16:53:46 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 22:53:46 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: <200603241354100589.3ED64281@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Mar 24, 6 01:54:10 pm Message-ID: > I love the old names for thermionic devices; we've lost that knack for I've not heard of half of these... > naming. Any gas-filled thermionic diode is a phanotron, any vacuum-filled > diode is a kenotron. So an 866 is a phanotron (has mercury), but a 5U4 is Which reminds me... Didn't one of the Teletypes have a couple of 866s in the power supply? Anotehr use for mercury in classic computing. I can't remember. Is the 866 a pure diode, or does it have a trigger electrode? > a kenotron. A vacuum triode is a pliotron and a gas triode is a thyratron. > Ya gotta love it! I guess most of use know 'Rheostat' for a variable resistor. But what about 'Rheophor' (a conductor, like a length of wire). Or 'Rheotome' (originally the interupting contact on an induction coil, a mad friend of mine uses the term for the chopper transistor in an SMPSU). -tony From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 24 16:54:23 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:54:23 -0800 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603241454230655.3F0D640A@10.0.0.252> The earliest electrical use of mercury that I can think of is the so-called (I think) "mercury tube". A quantity of mercury is sealed inside of an evacuated glass tube. When the tube is shaken, flashes of light (from the ionized mercury vapor) can be seen. This is at least an 18th century discovery and may go back to the 17th century. Because the vacuum was obtained by using the empty space at the top of a mercury barometer, the phenomenon was called "barometric light". I also believe that Edison evacuated early models of his incandescent lamp using mercury and the barometric effect. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 24 16:58:15 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:58:15 -0800 Subject: First drive letters? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603241458150668.3F10EE58@10.0.0.252> On 3/24/2006 at 2:02 PM Billy Pettit wrote: >The first one I encountered was the MSOS (Mass Storage Operating System) >software on early Control Data 3200 systems. MSOS and MASTER were both in >the field in the late 60's. I was trained on MSOS in 1966. >A lot of ideas in CP/M and similar progenitors came from systems already in >the field for years at the time of the early micros. I worked on 6000 and Cyber 200 systems and didn't have much contact with the 3000 series. It's darned interesting the amount of dissimilarity that CDC operating systems had from one another. 6000 SCOPE and NOS was nothing like MASTER or MSOS. 7000 SCOPE bore a cosmetic resemblance to the 6000 version, but was very different internally. Cyber 200/STAR OS was a completely different animal from anything else. If you moved between hardware lines, you might as well have been changing manufacturers. Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Mar 24 17:15:39 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 18:15:39 -0500 Subject: Unisys A Series ? In-Reply-To: <200603240844360530.3DBAD231@10.0.0.252> References: <20060324133100.WTUM29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <200603240844360530.3DBAD231@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44247D9B.7020905@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3/24/2006 at 8:30 AM Dave Dunfield wrote: > >> Had this machine dropped on me last night... >> Can anyone tell me anything about it? >> So far, google etc. have turned up little. > > Briefly discussed here a couple of weeks ago. > > The x86 side boots OS/2 as an I/O server for the multichip Burroughs-family > CPU. There's a patent online describing the setup. Kind of interesting as > one of the lone 48-bit word systems based on a PC, not to mention the > Burroughs architectural model. Somewhat like the IBM IS/390, no? Peace... Sridhar From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 24 17:35:03 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 15:35:03 -0800 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603241535030378.3F329BD7@10.0.0.252> On 3/24/2006 at 10:53 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >I can't remember. Is the 866 a pure diode, or does it have a trigger >electrode? Diodes, Had 'em in the power supply for my transmitter. There was a trick where you could use two DPDT switches to turn on the filament and then HV supplies where no matter which switch was flipped, the filaments always came on first. Turning on the HV before or at the same time as the filaments could destroy the things. Cheers, Chuck From allain at panix.com Fri Mar 24 17:46:12 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 18:46:12 -0500 Subject: Unisys A Series ? References: <20060324133100.WTUM29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <004201c64f9d$22f6d7a0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> > Doesn't appear to be a PC - attempt to boot a DOS > floppy results in silence (machine sucks on it for a > while, then goes into la-la land). Grumble. You deserve better. I have a desktop Micro-A here* that I can look into for more information. Mine is very much a PC booting OS/2 and doesn't even segue into MCP unless you issue the magic commands. I believe 99% that mine would boot a MSDOS floppy if given it, but haven't tried. John A. *orbiting the outer ring of NYC From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 24 17:54:57 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 16:54:57 -0700 Subject: Anybody has an IMP? or a TIP? In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 24 Mar 2006 17:43:49 -0500. <20060324224349.GA18538@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> Message-ID: In article <20060324224349.GA18538 at alpha.rcac.purdue.edu>, Patrick Finnegan writes: > I think we're talking about the ARPAnet IMPs and TIPs, Yes: IMP = Interface Message Processor, TIP = Terminal Interface Processor The IMP connected computers to the arpanet and the TIP connected terminals to machines on the arpanet. > which were > discussed in the video that was linked to by a recent thread. From what > they looked like in the video, I'm pretty sure that they weren't > anything homebrew or microcomputer-ish. :) Wikipedia says: "BBN's proposal followed Roberts' plan closely; it called for the network to be composed of small computers known as Interface Message Processors (more commonly known as IMPs). The IMPs at each site performed store-and-forward packet switching functions, and were connected to each other using modems connected to leased lines (initially running at 50 kbit/second). Host computers connected to the IMPs via custom bit-serial interfaces to connect to ARPANET. BBN initally chose a ruggedized version of Honeywell's DDP-516 computer to build the first generation IMP. The 516 was originally configured with 24 kbytes of core memory (expandable) and a 16 channel Direct Multiplex Control (DMC) direct memory access control unit. Custom interfaces were used to connect, via the DMC, to each of the hosts and modems. In addition to the lamps on the front panel of the 516 there was also a special set of 24 indicator lights to show the status of the IMP communication channels. Each IMP could support up to four local hosts and could communicate with up to six remote IMPs over leased lines. [...] 1971 saw the start of the use of the non-ruggedized (and therefore significant lighter) H-316 as an IMP. It could also be configured as a Terminal IMP (TIP), which added support for up to 63 ASCII serial terminals through a multi-line controller in place of one of the hosts. The 316 featured a greater degree of integration than the 516, which made it less expensive and easier to maintain. The 316 was configured with 40 Kbytes of core memory for a TIP. The size of core memory was later increased, to 32 Kbytes for the IMPs, and 56Kbytes for TIPs, in 1973. The Honeywell based IMPs were eventually superseded by multi-processor BBN Pluribus IMPs in 1975. These in turn were later phased out in favor of machines called C/30s, which were custom built by BBN. The original IMPs and TIPs were phased out as the ARPANET was shut down after the introduction of the NSFNet, but some IMPs remained in service as late as 1989." -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 24 17:56:04 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 16:56:04 -0700 Subject: First drive letters? In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:58:15 -0800. <200603241458150668.3F10EE58@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603241458150668.3F10EE58 at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > I worked on 6000 and Cyber 200 systems and didn't have much contact with > the 3000 series. It's darned interesting the amount of dissimilarity that > CDC operating systems had from one another. 6000 SCOPE and NOS was nothing > like MASTER or MSOS. 7000 SCOPE bore a cosmetic resemblance to the 6000 > version, but was very different internally. Cyber 200/STAR OS was a > completely different animal from anything else. If you moved between > hardware lines, you might as well have been changing manufacturers. I remember the PLATO IV system being so vastly different from everything else I had used that it felt like an alien world. I remember the Tutor language as being so odd that I found it difficult to write simple programs. I never really did quite grok it. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Mar 24 18:32:07 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 19:32:07 -0500 Subject: pertec cables? Message-ID: <200603250032.k2P0W7eD005770@mwave.heeltoe.com> Anyone have a set of pertec cables laying around they don't want? (or will sell/trade) I've decided to fire up my TS05 which has pcb edge connectors and I need two cables from the PCB edge connectors to the controller headers. I'm pretty sure these are standard pertec cables (comments welcome). I've got an TMSCP and TM11 controller, but no cables :-( -brad From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 24 18:52:28 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 17:52:28 -0700 Subject: pertec cables? In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 24 Mar 2006 19:32:07 -0500. <200603250032.k2P0W7eD005770@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: In article <200603250032.k2P0W7eD005770 at mwave.heeltoe.com>, Brad Parker writes: > Anyone have a set of pertec cables laying around they don't want? (or > will sell/trade) Same here. I scrounged up some Pertec compatible controller cards from this list and was offered a power cable for my Fujitsu drive, but the power cable never arrived. So I still need a Fujitsu power cable and the pertec interface cables. Are these cables straightforward enough that they could be made new from flat ribbon cable and suitable connectors? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Mar 24 19:34:05 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 18:34:05 -0700 Subject: pertec cables? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44249E0D.2040604@DakotaCom.Net> Richard wrote: > In article <200603250032.k2P0W7eD005770 at mwave.heeltoe.com>, > Brad Parker writes: > >> Anyone have a set of pertec cables laying around they don't want? (or >> will sell/trade) > > Same here. I scrounged up some Pertec compatible controller cards > from this list and was offered a power cable for my Fujitsu drive, but > the power cable never arrived. So I still need a Fujitsu power cable > and the pertec interface cables. > > Are these cables straightforward enough that they could be made new > from flat ribbon cable and suitable connectors? Depends on what you have on each end. E.g., my controller has a funky D connector on it :-/ But, the data rates are quite low so maybe something like twisted pair ribbon ("rainbow ribbon"?) would work nicely. IIRC, all of the odd numbered pins were ground, etc. And, the lines are driven with, e.g., LS38's. I'd have to dig out a service manual for anything more specific... --don From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 24 19:53:20 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 17:53:20 -0800 Subject: pertec cables? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603241753200468.3FB1365A@10.0.0.252> On 3/24/2006 at 5:52 PM Richard wrote: >So I still need a Fujitsu power cable >and the pertec interface cables. The connector on the power cable is an Amp 206037-2. Mouser's got it in stock for less than $4; Jameco's got it for $3. Does anyone have a Pertec ISA tape controller (with software available) that they'd like to sell? Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 24 20:28:02 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 19:28:02 -0700 Subject: Tektronix 4632 Video Hard Copy Unit -- Manual? Message-ID: Does anyone have a manual for this? Its a video hardcopy unit. Video feeds into the device on a BNC style connector, it takes a large drum of paper part #016-1603, and has a copy intensity dial and a copy button as top panel controls. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From gkaufman at the-planet.org Fri Mar 24 20:35:20 2006 From: gkaufman at the-planet.org (Gary E Kaufman) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 21:35:20 -0500 Subject: MicroCornucopia Magazine / Big Board Message-ID: I'm very willing to do the scanning and create indexed PDF files of the available MicroCornucopia editions. I already have 1-4, but would love to borrow 5-26 & 37-53. If Roy can locate the missing 27-36 it would be great. I'd be glad to pay round trip postage costs, and return a full set on CDR of the files to anyone willing to help out by loaning issues. I'd also eventually like to collect up the user group disks that were distributed. I found #13 on the web (which ironically starts out with 4 files I submitted back in the 1980's when I was living in Philadelphia!). I also have the PFM3.3 source code here and believe I have a bootable CPM disk that I can add to a CDR. Dave Dunfield's site also has .IMG files of disks for the Big Board I. I have the original documentation and schematics I can include. And I have a neat "CRTMON" that was a debugging monitor that doesn't use any dram to boot. It used the CRT static memory for the monitor, letting you debug problems with the DRAM section. Many thanks to anyone who can help. I'd hope to eventually get them up on the web to share. - Gary "Chuck Guzis" Okay, Nos. 21 and 37 through 53 (the last issue). "Dave Dunfield" Were getting close to a complete set - I've got numbers 1 through 26 "Tom Uban" Has someone already scanned or is someone willing to scan the various BB related articles and post them? "Roy J. Tellason" I have pretty much of a full set of Micro-Cornucopia, but they're in storage and not accessible to me until I get those folks paid off... From r_a_feldman at hotmail.com Fri Mar 24 21:20:04 2006 From: r_a_feldman at hotmail.com (Robert Feldman) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 21:20:04 -0600 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? Message-ID: OK. The models from the LX100 and up do have a cutom Intel "Hornet" chip, but it is an 80186 at its heart. There is a block diagram of the Hornet at http://www.daniel-hertrich.de/200lx/block.pdf. There is more about the Hornet at http://www.daniel-hertrich.de/200lx/, about half way down the page, under the heading "The Hornet chip (CPU) and block diagram". Bob Message: 22 Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 06:11:57 -0800 (PST) From: Cameron Kaiser Subject: Re: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? >I have an HP 100LX. Unfortunately, HP 100LX or 200LX does NOT use an 80186 >or 80188 or 80c186 or 80c188 or any other 80186 compatible chips. It uses >an >PC compatible Intel integrated CPU, with integrated CGA controller, >integrated 8259 compatible interrupt controller, and some other >controllers >as well. But Bob is right about the 95LX -- I have one of those and it *is* a '186. From vrs at msn.com Fri Mar 24 21:58:43 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 19:58:43 -0800 Subject: RL01 drive connector (was: What disk is this? eBay #8782293215) References: Message-ID: > Speaking of emulating RL0{1,2} drives, if I wanted to attach some sort > of drive emulator to the big fat cable attached to the RL01 drive, > where would I get specifications on the signals in the cable? Chapter 3 of http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/disc/rl01_rl02/RL02techDescr.pdf seems to have some of this. > (Yes, I'm still thinking of how to emulate expensive things that may > die so I don't have to kill them by operating them :-). I think it's an interesting project :-). Vince From waisun.chia at gmail.com Fri Mar 24 22:28:47 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 12:28:47 +0800 Subject: Anybody has an IMP? or a TIP? In-Reply-To: References: <20060324224349.GA18538@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> Message-ID: On 3/25/06, Richard wrote: > > In article <20060324224349.GA18538 at alpha.rcac.purdue.edu>, > Patrick Finnegan writes: > > > I think we're talking about the ARPAnet IMPs and TIPs, > > Yes: > IMP = Interface Message Processor, > TIP = Terminal Interface Processor > > The IMP connected computers to the arpanet and the TIP connected > terminals to machines on the arpanet. > Yeah, the IMP was the first incarnation of the router as we know of it today. While the TIP was the first incarnation of the terminal server. From waisun.chia at gmail.com Fri Mar 24 22:32:03 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 12:32:03 +0800 Subject: Anybody has an IMP? or a TIP? In-Reply-To: References: <20060324224349.GA18538@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> Message-ID: Anybody has the history of the ancestry of IMP/TIPs? How many IMPs were made? For how many years of services before the 2nd. generation succeeded them? And what about the 3rd., 4th., and so on until Cisco wiped everybody out.. :-{ Joe R. menitioned that he has a 2nd. generation unit? On 3/25/06, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > On 3/25/06, Richard wrote: > > > > In article <20060324224349.GA18538 at alpha.rcac.purdue.edu>, > > Patrick Finnegan writes: > > > > > I think we're talking about the ARPAnet IMPs and TIPs, > > > > Yes: > > IMP = Interface Message Processor, > > TIP = Terminal Interface Processor > > > > The IMP connected computers to the arpanet and the TIP connected > > terminals to machines on the arpanet. > > > > Yeah, the IMP was the first incarnation of the router as we know of it today. > While the TIP was the first incarnation of the terminal server. > From cclist at sydex.com Fri Mar 24 22:43:22 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 20:43:22 -0800 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603242043220719.404CE2E4@10.0.0.252> On 3/24/2006 at 9:20 PM Robert Feldman wrote: >OK. The models from the LX100 and up do have a cutom Intel "Hornet" chip, >but it is an 80186 at its heart. Well, yes and no, I think. The 80186 has a unique interrupt controller, timer and serial I/O facility. The Hornet looks like these were replaced with more conventional functional blocks (e.g., instead of the 80186 timer, Intel placed a 8254 compatible unit). I'd say that it's an 80186 only in the sense that it has the same instruction set and basic CPU control. But the peripherals are another story. Cheers, Chuck From evan at snarc.net Fri Mar 24 23:25:56 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 00:25:56 -0500 Subject: the Canon Cat meow In-Reply-To: <200603241843.KAA23215@ca2h0430.amd.com> Message-ID: <002f01c64fcc$97cc5030$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> I highly recommend reading Jef's book, "The Humane Interface" ... Not only is it a great book, it contains some discussion of the design and planning for the Cat. Did anyone here correspond with him before he passed away last year? I only met him briefly at VCF 6 and recall him being very friendly. -----Original Message----- From: Dwight Elvey [mailto:dwight.elvey at amd.com] Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 1:44 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: the Canon Cat meow >From: "Chris M" > >I just obtained a rather beautiful specimen (specimen >- an Italian astronaut LOL LOL). So I hearby announce my desire to >network with other owners of the same. >And does anyone know if an 8088 add-on was ever offered?? It seems like >the most natural thing to me. > Hi Chris I have one of these. I've been exploring my machine. As far as I know, they never did a 8088 version. The 68K is really a nice machine though. Jeff Rasken's site has pdf's on the user manual's. There are also several pages describing how to get to the Forth underneath. There are all kinds of things you can do with the Forth, including writing your own special functions. You can even evaluate Forth expressions in your text. A handy place to put your source. One of the sites describes using " see " to decompile Forth words. So far, I've not found such a word in my machine. If you find it in yours, I'd really like to know. You could do a " see see " for me. The Forth is a tokenized Forth. The most common words are 1 byte tokens. There are a number of words called trier1, trier2 ... that are used to extend to 16 bit tokens. There is a way to find the token of any particular forth word. As an example, " ' find . " will display the token for the word find. If you do " ' find +table @ . " you'll get the pfa/cfa of the word find. I'm almost ready to write my own word see but I'm stuck at one point. I've found the dictionary and there is a 16 bit value attached to each entry. I suspect that this somehow is used to locate the token. I've not yet found out how this works. I've started a little by hand decompiling the word find. The word find must know how to use this value to get to the token. Words like ' use the word find inside. It is slow but not to bad. I used the word words in my text to dump the dictionary names and then wrote a keyboard macro to take each word and do a " ' SomeWord . ". It also cleans up the extra ' and . I use the word dump to look at the cfa/pfa and get the token there. I then search for that token in my text. I can only work on this during the weekend so I'd just started before I needed to go to sleep. My main reason for doing this is that I'd like to write a different printer driver to use my HP 3si. I don't have any Canon printers that it normally uses. I'd also like to here from other Canon Cat owners. Dwight From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Mar 25 00:31:33 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 22:31:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT: Tell Linux to stop hacking my web site! Message-ID: <200603250631.k2P6VX2f017030@floodgap.com> http://www.theregister.com/2006/03/24/tuttle_centos/ CentOS probably couldn't have asked for better publicity than this rube. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- I'm a dyslexic amateur orthinologist. I just love word-botching. ----------- From legalize at xmission.com Sat Mar 25 02:23:32 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 01:23:32 -0700 Subject: Searching the CHM collection (finding photos) Message-ID: I'm sure many of you realize this, but maybe it will be news to some like it was to me :-) You can search the Computer History Museum's collection at . They sometimes have promotional pamphlets available as PDFs, promotional photographs as JPEGs and photographs of items in their collection (hardware) as JPEGs. Searching for 'terminal' taught me about a whole bunch of manufacturers and models of terminals that I'd never heard of before, some with pictures! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From dave06a at dunfield.com Sat Mar 25 03:37:45 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 04:37:45 -0500 Subject: Unisys A Series ? In-Reply-To: <200603240844360530.3DBAD231@10.0.0.252> References: <20060324133100.WTUM29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <20060325093833.LMME29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> > >Had this machine dropped on me last night... > >Can anyone tell me anything about it? > >So far, google etc. have turned up little. > It is a Unisys A7 series > > There was just a discussion about this on the list. It should > have an A-Series CPU board in it with the PC-ish stuff handling > I/O. The system ran OS-2. > > threads: > > History Check -- First CMOS mainframe > > a few micro-A references Thanks, That explains the large board filled with unknown "unisys" chips thats plugged into another socket near the 486 CPU board. I checked the list references and didn't find a whole lot of useful material. I did get the patent info which contains some general details. > Briefly discussed here a couple of weeks ago. > > The x86 side boots OS/2 as an I/O server for the multichip Burroughs-family > CPU. There's a patent online describing the setup. Kind of interesting as > one of the lone 48-bit word systems based on a PC, not to mention the > Burroughs architectural model. I assume the OS/2 runs only on the 486 side? What runs on the unisys CPU side? Do you know if the 486 side is "PC-ish" enough to boot DOS? > Grumble. > You deserve better. I have a desktop Micro-A here* > that I can look into for more information. Mine is very > much a PC booting OS/2 and doesn't even segue into > MCP unless you issue the magic commands. > I believe 99% that mine would boot a MSDOS floppy > if given it, but haven't tried. John, could you try booting a DOS disk? (I used DOS-5) It would he helpful to know if the machine should boot DOS (ie: if this one has a problem). What is 'MCP'? Do you know about the 'setup' program that it keeps asking me to run? Does it boot from floppy? Is this thing interesting enough to be work spending some time on? Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From Watzman at neo.rr.com Sat Mar 25 08:30:00 2006 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 09:30:00 -0500 Subject: another mysterious chip (Chris M) In-Reply-To: <200603251239.k2PCd524097015@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <000401c65018$99b745c0$6e01a8c0@barry> Your mystery chip is clearly Motorola, a very good guess is that it's a 6845 CRT controller chip, or at least a derivative thereof. Message: 7 Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 20:28:15 -0800 (PST) From: Chris M Subject: another mysterious chip To: tech Message-ID: <20060320042815.79263.qmail at web61019.mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 First line: circle possibly with M in it, INMOS B. Second line: IMSG170S35 (pretty sure). Third line: 8611 - obviously date of manufacture. Chip has a gold cover, and is present on a dual 8-bit graphics card made by Vermont Microsystems, 80188 on board (similar to an IBM PGA card). Works in a P166MMX DTK mobo...but not in my IBM PC/AT. And yer know what else...it emulates CGA (pretty well seemingly, but only tested it with QBasic thus far). O for the drivers to access its wild advanced modes *snifful*. From henk.gooijen at oce.com Sat Mar 25 08:57:25 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 15:57:25 +0100 Subject: how to connect a Kennedy 9100 ? Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2002D@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Hi all, I have a Kennedy 9100 tape drive, and would like to connect it to my (UNIBUS) PDP-11/84. The Kennedy has 3 ribbon cables, 2 smaller ones and a bigger one, that end with IDC connectors. What interface should I be looking for to hook it to the UNIBUS ? The Kennedy 9100 manual (from bitsavers) does not tell about that ... thanks, - Henk, PA8PDP. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From fernande at internet1.net Sat Mar 25 09:15:45 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 10:15:45 -0500 Subject: Unisys A Series ? In-Reply-To: <20060325093833.LMME29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> References: <20060324133100.WTUM29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <20060325093833.LMME29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <44255EA1.3080505@internet1.net> Dave Dunfield wrote: > Do you know about the 'setup' program that it keeps asking > me to run? Does it boot from floppy? Is it an EISA machine? If yes, it's configuration has probably changed and it doesn't know what to do. I have a Unisys setup program that may be what you need. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com Sat Mar 25 10:17:27 2006 From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 08:17:27 -0800 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: <441F1EC2.7010600@Rikers.org> References: <200603171734.26890.rtellason@blazenet.net> <441B3D4E.1010800@DakotaCom.Net> <200603181411.13168.rtellason@blazenet.net> <20060319040149.GC23112@ned.cc.purdue.edu> <441DD7E8.6010602@vintagecomputermarketplace.com> <441F1EC2.7010600@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <200603250817270727.59948F1B@192.168.42.129> Hi, Tim, *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 20-Mar-06 at 14:29 Tim Riker wrote: >My tape changer came with 2 2944 controllers. It's a Quantum ATL-7100 >changer with 2 DLT 7000 drives in it. I'd very much like to run it on >non-2944 drives. Anyone know how to get the HVD drives to interoperate >with normal drives/controllers? I'm guessing that the quantum drives can >be reconfigured, but I'm not sure about the changer hardware. The only way I know of to safely do so is to use a single-ended (or LVD) to HVD converter on the specific device that needs it. Rancho Technology still makes such units. Check this link... http://www.rancho.com/Products.aspx?ID=1&Model=RTBLVD-HVD&CatID=1 Happy hunting. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 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 aw288 at osfn.org Sat Mar 25 10:42:16 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 11:42:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: <200603241354100589.3ED64281@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: > I love the old names for thermionic devices; we've lost that knack for > naming. Any gas-filled thermionic diode is a phanotron, any vacuum-filled > diode is a kenotron. So an 866 is a phanotron (has mercury), but a 5U4 is > a kenotron. A vacuum triode is a pliotron and a gas triode is a thyratron. > Ya gotta love it! Outside the marketing department of General Electric, nobody actually used these terms, other than thyratron. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Sat Mar 25 10:46:16 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 11:46:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mercury use In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > I know we used mercury vapor thyratrons in the Army (Signal Corps) on some > of the triggering circuits on early radars. Very likely these were not mercury devices, but xenon devices. Which radar sets? William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Sat Mar 25 10:53:17 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 11:53:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: Anybody has an IMP? or a TIP? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Anybody in this list has either an IMP or a TIP? I have a PDP-11/23 that has the IMP cardset, and a big connector called "IMP". It has never been turned on since it left DEC's factory floor. I also have the Chicago backbone node of the NSFnet, along with a bunch of crap from the network. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Mar 25 10:59:16 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 08:59:16 -0800 Subject: how to connect a Kennedy 9100 ? Message-ID: <267EF508-A364-4B26-AE77-D2B308E00A95@bitsavers.org> > What interface should I be looking for to hook it to the UNIBUS ? Some variation of an unformatted tape drive interface. They are slight variations between vendors, so you need the right edge connector to idc interface card at the drive. There should be some indication of who made the interface card on the PC board. The three connectors are read, write, and control. Unibus controllers often are either a system unit or a single quad board with a second board for 1600 BPI PE support. The Emulex TC11 and Western Peripherals TC-131 manuals are up on bitsavers Plessey and Dilog made similar controllers. From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Mar 25 11:06:50 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 09:06:50 -0800 Subject: another mysterious chip (Chris M) Message-ID: <70F46755-BAE9-4127-8369-091834251B01@bitsavers.org> >>First line: circle possibly with M in it, INMOS B. >>Second line: IMSG170S35 (pretty sure). ^^^^^ > Your mystery chip is clearly Motorola (M) is a mask mark, like (C) INMOS high speed RAM, 35 nanosecond access time. Probably used for a color lookup table before the DACs. From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Mar 25 11:19:11 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 09:19:11 -0800 Subject: pertec cables? Message-ID: The cables are straight through 50 pin ribbons. IDC edge connector on one end (same as 8" floppy connectors) and .1" socket on the other. I've seen normal flat used on short runs and "twist and flat" 25 pair used on longer runs. 6' or so should be fine with the standard flat grey stuff. The coupler manuals limit the length to 25' From rtellason at blazenet.net Sat Mar 25 11:29:28 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 12:29:28 -0500 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603251229.28585.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 24 March 2006 03:16 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > > I don't believe that anyone's mentioned mercury arc rectifiers yet as one > > application of mercury (and of course fascinating to watch!). (Did any > > early > > Nobody's mentioned thyratrons (gas-filled triodes/tetrodes) either. I > suspect the thyratrons used in ring counters, etc, were always inert gas > (and not mercury vapour) ones, does anyone know for sure? No, but I am currently in the process of collecting datasheets on tubes and am running into some really amazing stuff so far. A somewhat earlier version of what I've got is at http://yourpage.blazenet.net/rtellason/tubes.html if anyone wants to take a look. I'm currently adding a *lot* more stuff to that page, but it'll be a bit yet before I get around to uploading the new version. -- 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 kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com Sat Mar 25 11:50:51 2006 From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 09:50:51 -0800 Subject: Replacing 80C188 and 68HC11 Message-ID: <200603250950510490.59EA115D@192.168.42.129> Fellow Techies, I have a device (a GPS-referenced clock) that uses an Intel N80C188-16 microprocessor, in a 68-lead PLCC package. Odd as it may sound, I suspect this chip of being defective, and I've been attempting to locate a match for it so I can prove or disprove that theory. The original part is, of course, no longer manufactured as far as I can tell. Hunting around on the 'net turned up a couple of modern equivalents, one of which is an Intel TN80C188EA20. As near as I can tell, the only difference with this chip is that it can be clocked a bit faster (20MHz instead of 16), and that it has an extended operating temperature range. There are two other possible candidates available, though not in stock at the moment. Both are made by Intel. One is the N80C188XL20, and the other is the other is the TN80C188XL20. I know just enough about these chips to be wary of differences in prefix and suffix letters. With that in mind, I have two questions for the group. (1) Of the above replacements I've mentioned, which one is most likely to be a direct plug-in replacement for the suspect chip? (2) Failing that -- Does anyone happen to have a known-good N80C188-16 that they could be convinced to part with? In this same instrument is a Motorola MC68HC11A0FNC11W in a PLCC-52 package. I need to find a viable replacement for it as well. I've had a harder time tracking down possible replacements for it. The only ones I've come across so far, that are available without an enormous minimum purchase, are the MC68HC11E0CFN2, the MC68HC11E1CFN2, and the MC68HC11E1CFN3. Once again, I'm very leery of mixing/matching suffix codes due to lack of knowledge. I do know this much: The Motorola part is operating with an external EPROM, so the chip itself is ROMless. Assistance with this mess would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 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 wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Sat Mar 25 12:01:01 2006 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 13:01:01 -0500 Subject: ASR-33s in Timonium... Message-ID: at the BARC hamfest in the tailgating area. Along with a couple of DecWriters. Not Teletype badged, one was IBM badged the other was badged with some local company. They were still there at 11:30 am. From vax9000 at gmail.com Sat Mar 25 12:15:50 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 13:15:50 -0500 Subject: Replacing 80C188 and 68HC11 In-Reply-To: <200603250950510490.59EA115D@192.168.42.129> References: <200603250950510490.59EA115D@192.168.42.129> Message-ID: On 3/25/06, Bruce Lane wrote: > > Fellow Techies, > > I have a device (a GPS-referenced clock) that uses an Intel > N80C188-16 microprocessor, in a 68-lead PLCC package. Odd as it may sound, I > suspect this chip of being defective, and I've been attempting to locate a > match for it so I can prove or disprove that theory. > > The original part is, of course, no longer manufactured as far as > I can tell. Hunting around on the 'net turned up a couple of modern > equivalents, one of which is an Intel TN80C188EA20. As near as I can tell, > the only difference with this chip is that it can be clocked a bit faster > (20MHz instead of 16), and that it has an extended operating temperature > range. > > There are two other possible candidates available, though not in > stock at the moment. Both are made by Intel. One is the N80C188XL20, and the > other is the other is the TN80C188XL20. > > I know just enough about these chips to be wary of differences in > prefix and suffix letters. With that in mind, I have two questions for the > group. > > (1) Of the above replacements I've mentioned, which one is most > likely to be a direct plug-in replacement for the suspect chip? I happen to use 80C188XL. There is a document on line, http://x86.ddj.com/ftp/manuals/186/2370.pdf that talks about how to upgrade from 80C188 to 80C188XL. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > 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 compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Mar 25 12:19:49 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 12:19:49 -0600 Subject: 4DDN Message-ID: <77a76f8ab19d4734a015755897a0680f@valleyimplants.com> 4DDN is on its own CD (AFAIK, never used it but it's not on the standard distro), but keep in mind that it is a nodelocked product, which creates issues. From aw288 at osfn.org Sat Mar 25 12:42:27 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 13:42:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: <200603231529350907.3A0742C9@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: > And as primary cells--mercury cells have a remarkably stable voltage output > over their life. Yes, but electrically and physically very fragile. SHort one out and it goes out of spec forever. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Sat Mar 25 12:49:09 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 13:49:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: NY/CT collectors In-Reply-To: <004201c64f9d$22f6d7a0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: > John A. > *orbiting the outer ring of NYC I think this may have been kicked around before, but would there be interest in a once-a-month beer and pizza dinner geekfest for those of us in the NY and CT area, and even northern NJ? Nothing really all that organized, mind you - we just pick a day and a place, and whoever shows up shows up. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 25 13:18:17 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 11:18:17 -0800 Subject: Replacing 80C188 and 68HC11 In-Reply-To: References: <200603250950510490.59EA115D@192.168.42.129> Message-ID: <200603251118170324.436DE128@10.0.0.252> On 3/25/2006 at 1:15 PM 9000 VAX wrote: You can easily find a socketed 80c188 by digging around for someone with a scrap USR Courier modem (the big black external ones). There have to be thousands of those still out there. Cheers, Chuck From Watzman at neo.rr.com Sat Mar 25 13:44:25 2006 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 14:44:25 -0500 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: <200603251800.k2PI0hTL099617@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <002901c65044$85845bc0$6e01a8c0@barry> 134.5 baud was the exact baud rate required to match the motor speed of the main shaft in the selectric mechanism. At that speed, the printer main shaft clutch would remain continuously engaged. At any other speed, the mechanical wear would destroy the mechanism VERY quickly. Obviously, with buffering and handshaking one could use a faster rate externally, but that speed was essential at the mechanism level. All selectric mechanisms, at the mechanism level, use tilt/rotate code. You tilt the ball to select a row, and then rotate it to select a column, then whack the paper through a ribbon (it's a mechanism that Tony Soprano would love). That is simply how a selectric works, and any other code will ultimately get converted into tilt/rotate before being applied to solenoids in the mechanism. From henk.gooijen at oce.com Sat Mar 25 14:04:59 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 21:04:59 +0100 Subject: how to connect a Kennedy 9100 ? References: <267EF508-A364-4B26-AE77-D2B308E00A95@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2002E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Thanks Al, the Kennedy has the three cables and on the 3 IDC connectors are indeed the words read, write and control! I do have a few Emulex boards put away on the attic, and that TC-131 does ring a bell too! At least I now know what to look for [ on the attic or eBay :-) ] thanks, - Henk. ________________________________ Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Al Kossow Verzonden: za 25-03-2006 17:59 Aan: classiccmp at classiccmp.org Onderwerp: Re: how to connect a Kennedy 9100 ? > What interface should I be looking for to hook it to the UNIBUS ? Some variation of an unformatted tape drive interface. They are slight variations between vendors, so you need the right edge connector to idc interface card at the drive. There should be some indication of who made the interface card on the PC board. The three connectors are read, write, and control. Unibus controllers often are either a system unit or a single quad board with a second board for 1600 BPI PE support. The Emulex TC11 and Western Peripherals TC-131 manuals are up on bitsavers Plessey and Dilog made similar controllers. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sat Mar 25 15:07:39 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 16:07:39 -0500 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: <002901c65044$85845bc0$6e01a8c0@barry> References: <002901c65044$85845bc0$6e01a8c0@barry> Message-ID: <20060325210739.7DD118C00A7@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> "Barry Watzman" wrote: > All selectric mechanisms, at the mechanism level, use tilt/rotate code. You > tilt the ball to select a row, and then rotate it to select a column, then > whack the paper through a ribbon (it's a mechanism that Tony Soprano would > love). That is simply how a selectric works, and any other code will > ultimately get converted into tilt/rotate before being applied to solenoids > in the mechanism. I believe that one of Don Lancaster's logic cookbooks shows how to convert ASCII to tilt/rotate codes. Either that or some mid-late-70's Radio Electronics article that also tells how to use surplus core memory... The one Selectric that I saw converted just used a bunch of solenoids to whack the keys on a plain old keyboard. Did any micro hobbyists actually succesfully use surplus core? I remember it somewhat cheap (but not ridiculously cheap) in the Meshna catalog etc. but never saw it being used. It is not a trivial matter to time and calibrate all the drive and sense lines especially when it's some random core plane and the first you ever saw. Tim. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 25 15:12:59 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 13:12:59 -0800 Subject: NetBSD and QIC02 Message-ID: <200603251312590340.43D6E408@10.0.0.252> Many thanks to whomever suggested NetBSD for my QIC02 support problem. I've been a long time user of Linux--my last contact with BSD was back in the 80's on a VAX--I think it was 4.2BSD. The last few years, the rot in Linux has been getting to me. It seems that every time I want to do something a little off the beaten path, it's a matter of Googling for "who else has this problem?" and finding patches and putting up with careless distros. And endless bloat implementing things that I didn't even dream that anyone could want. NetBSD (I installed 2.1 to be safe) is the way I remember Unix--no-nonsense and no-frills. The kernel compiled with what I wanted on the first try. I haven't installed KDE yet, but it looks to be pretty straightforward. The surprise is how well NetBSD functions on a lowly Pentium 166. Compiling the kernel is a matter of saying "make" just before you go to bed. Cheers, Chuck From jrkeys at concentric.net Sat Mar 25 15:28:11 2006 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 15:28:11 -0600 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? References: <002901c65044$85845bc0$6e01a8c0@barry> <20060325210739.7DD118C00A7@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <008a01c65053$062f2b20$35406b43@66067007> It's covered in the first ed. 1976 TV Typewriter Cookbook with green cover. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Shoppa" To: ; Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 3:07 PM Subject: Re: Where have all the Selectrics gone? > "Barry Watzman" wrote: >> All selectric mechanisms, at the mechanism level, use tilt/rotate code. >> You >> tilt the ball to select a row, and then rotate it to select a column, >> then >> whack the paper through a ribbon (it's a mechanism that Tony Soprano >> would >> love). That is simply how a selectric works, and any other code will >> ultimately get converted into tilt/rotate before being applied to >> solenoids >> in the mechanism. > > I believe that one of Don Lancaster's logic cookbooks shows how to > convert ASCII to tilt/rotate codes. Either that or some mid-late-70's > Radio Electronics article that also tells how to use surplus core > memory... > > The one Selectric that I saw converted just used a bunch of solenoids > to whack the keys on a plain old keyboard. > > Did any micro hobbyists actually succesfully use surplus core? I remember > it somewhat cheap (but not ridiculously cheap) > in the Meshna catalog etc. but never saw it being used. It is not > a trivial matter to time and calibrate all the drive and sense lines > especially when it's some random core plane and the first you ever > saw. > > Tim. > From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 25 15:32:31 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 13:32:31 -0800 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: <20060325210739.7DD118C00A7@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <002901c65044$85845bc0$6e01a8c0@barry> <20060325210739.7DD118C00A7@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <200603251332310736.43E8C7B4@10.0.0.252> On 3/25/2006 at 4:07 PM shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com wrote: >Did any micro hobbyists actually succesfully use surplus core? I remember >it somewhat cheap (but not ridiculously cheap) >in the Meshna catalog etc. but never saw it being used. It is not >a trivial matter to time and calibrate all the drive and sense lines >especially when it's some random core plane and the first you ever >saw. There was an article way back in one of the hobbyist mags (Microsystems, Kilobaud???) about a guy who did adapt a core module to his S-100 box. Note that it was a "module"--essentially a box with the core and all of the drivers, sense amps, latches and rewrite circuitry inside. Mostly a job of interfacing and supplying power. Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at blazenet.net Sat Mar 25 15:32:28 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 16:32:28 -0500 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: <20060325210739.7DD118C00A7@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <002901c65044$85845bc0$6e01a8c0@barry> <20060325210739.7DD118C00A7@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <200603251632.28162.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Saturday 25 March 2006 04:07 pm, Tim Shoppa wrote: > "Barry Watzman" wrote: > > All selectric mechanisms, at the mechanism level, use tilt/rotate code. > > You tilt the ball to select a row, and then rotate it to select a column, > > then whack the paper through a ribbon (it's a mechanism that Tony Soprano > > would love). That is simply how a selectric works, and any other code > > will ultimately get converted into tilt/rotate before being applied to > > solenoids in the mechanism. > > I believe that one of Don Lancaster's logic cookbooks shows how to > convert ASCII to tilt/rotate codes. Either that or some mid-late-70's > Radio Electronics article that also tells how to use surplus core > memory... I remember him doing something with converting either to or from Baudot code (5-level), but not selectric... Of course, I still don't have a copy of the RTL cookbook, and I suppose it could be in there. :-) > The one Selectric that I saw converted just used a bunch of solenoids > to whack the keys on a plain old keyboard. I remember some outfit selling those way back when. > Did any micro hobbyists actually succesfully use surplus core? I remember > it somewhat cheap (but not ridiculously cheap) > in the Meshna catalog etc. but never saw it being used. It is not > a trivial matter to time and calibrate all the drive and sense lines > especially when it's some random core plane and the first you ever > saw. I never really thought of actually using one, but thought that it might be kind of neat to have one of those to hang on the wall. :-) And yeah, I remember those Meshna catalogs 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 blazenet.net Sat Mar 25 15:34:44 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 16:34:44 -0500 Subject: NetBSD and QIC02 In-Reply-To: <200603251312590340.43D6E408@10.0.0.252> References: <200603251312590340.43D6E408@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603251634.44913.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Saturday 25 March 2006 04:12 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Many thanks to whomever suggested NetBSD for my QIC02 support problem. > I've been a long time user of Linux--my last contact with BSD was back in > the 80's on a VAX--I think it was 4.2BSD. > > The last few years, the rot in Linux has been getting to me. It seems that > every time I want to do something a little off the beaten path, it's a > matter of Googling for "who else has this problem?" and finding patches and > putting up with careless distros. And endless bloat implementing things > that I didn't even dream that anyone could want. I guess that might be a problem with some distros, but it hasn't been so much for me with Slackware, which is pretty much the only one that I've run consistently since I started running linux in 1999. > NetBSD (I installed 2.1 to be safe) is the way I remember Unix--no-nonsense > and no-frills. The kernel compiled with what I wanted on the first try. I > haven't installed KDE yet, but it looks to be pretty straightforward. Do that and you'll find some bloat, all right. But it's not too bad. That's what I'm typing in now, in kmail. > The surprise is how well NetBSD functions on a lowly Pentium 166. > Compiling the kernel is a matter of saying "make" just before you go to > bed. My "server" is a K6-200 and I've compiled kernels on there, though not lately, and it wasn't nearly that bad. Now trying it on a 486, OTOH... -- 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 blazenet.net Sat Mar 25 15:35:35 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 16:35:35 -0500 Subject: Where have all the Selectrics gone? In-Reply-To: <008a01c65053$062f2b20$35406b43@66067007> References: <002901c65044$85845bc0$6e01a8c0@barry> <20060325210739.7DD118C00A7@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <008a01c65053$062f2b20$35406b43@66067007> Message-ID: <200603251635.35608.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Saturday 25 March 2006 04:28 pm, Keys wrote: > It's covered in the first ed. 1976 TV Typewriter Cookbook with green cover. Ah. I have that one, but it's been a *long* time since I looked at it. :-) Also cheap video, and son of... > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Tim Shoppa" > To: ; > Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 3:07 PM > Subject: Re: Where have all the Selectrics gone? > > > "Barry Watzman" wrote: > >> All selectric mechanisms, at the mechanism level, use tilt/rotate code. > >> You > >> tilt the ball to select a row, and then rotate it to select a column, > >> then > >> whack the paper through a ribbon (it's a mechanism that Tony Soprano > >> would > >> love). That is simply how a selectric works, and any other code will > >> ultimately get converted into tilt/rotate before being applied to > >> solenoids > >> in the mechanism. > > > > I believe that one of Don Lancaster's logic cookbooks shows how to > > convert ASCII to tilt/rotate codes. Either that or some mid-late-70's > > Radio Electronics article that also tells how to use surplus core > > memory... > > > > The one Selectric that I saw converted just used a bunch of solenoids > > to whack the keys on a plain old keyboard. > > > > Did any micro hobbyists actually succesfully use surplus core? I remember > > it somewhat cheap (but not ridiculously cheap) > > in the Meshna catalog etc. but never saw it being used. It is not > > a trivial matter to time and calibrate all the drive and sense lines > > especially when it's some random core plane and the first you ever > > saw. > > > > Tim. -- 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 cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Mar 25 15:47:25 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 13:47:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060325134636.N33116@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 24 Mar 2006, Robert Feldman wrote: > OK. The models from the LX100 and up do have a cutom Intel "Hornet" chip, > but it is an 80186 at its heart. > > There is a block diagram of the Hornet at > http://www.daniel-hertrich.de/200lx/block.pdf. There is more about the > Hornet at http://www.daniel-hertrich.de/200lx/, about half way down the > page, under the heading "The Hornet chip (CPU) and block diagram". Is there a way in software to determine whether that is present v a conventional 80186? From brad at heeltoe.com Sat Mar 25 15:58:22 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 16:58:22 -0500 Subject: NetBSD and QIC02 In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 25 Mar 2006 13:12:59 PST." <200603251312590340.43D6E408@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603252158.k2PLwMnF021466@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > >NetBSD (I installed 2.1 to be safe) is the way I remember Unix--no-nonsense >and no-frills. The kernel compiled with what I wanted on the first try. I >haven't installed KDE yet, but it looks to be pretty straightforward. I don't share your views on linux, but that may well be a matter of personal taste (or running 3ghz servers with multicore cpus and SATA :-) But I will say the NetBSD have done an excellent job on their build system. Near as I can tell it will build for any platform on any machine as long as it's posix compliant. I built a clean vax kernel on a linux box without lifting a finger. It was a most pleasant experience. and i will always have a soft spot for bsd unix :-) -brad From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Sat Mar 25 16:02:09 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 14:02:09 -0800 Subject: pertec cables? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4425BDE1.4010408@msm.umr.edu> Al Kossow wrote: > The cables are straight through 50 pin ribbons. IDC edge connector on > one end > (same as 8" floppy connectors) and .1" socket on the other. I've seen > normal > flat used on short runs and "twist and flat" 25 pair used on longer > runs. 6' > or so should be fine with the standard flat grey stuff. The coupler > manuals > limit the length to 25' > I had a set that worked of flat with a copper shield that worked that was 50' long, but only for a 25 ips drive. (Pertec). I had some made by Pertec for their 7000 series drives that were 25' long as Al described, that had no shield. I never observed a difference between the ribbon cable or the braided ones at 25 to 75 ips. I never had to run a long run with a Cipher, which was the main drive I ran a 100ips, as all I had the luck to work with were in the cabinets with the systems, and long cables (over 20' or so) were not necessary. Jim From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Mar 25 16:08:17 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 15:08:17 -0700 Subject: NetBSD and QIC02 In-Reply-To: <200603251312590340.43D6E408@10.0.0.252> References: <200603251312590340.43D6E408@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4425BF51.6080906@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Many thanks to whomever suggested NetBSD for my QIC02 support problem. > I've been a long time user of Linux--my last contact with BSD was back in > the 80's on a VAX--I think it was 4.2BSD. > > The last few years, the rot in Linux has been getting to me. It seems that > every time I want to do something a little off the beaten path, it's a > matter of Googling for "who else has this problem?" and finding patches and > putting up with careless distros. And endless bloat implementing things > that I didn't even dream that anyone could want. Agreed. Folks seem to think of Linux as a playground instead of a platform. Who cares if you have a gorgeous skylight in your house if the roof leaks?? :-( No, I *don't* want to upgrade my kernel to get *this* fixed -- along with a NEW set of bugs. :-( (I can get that sort of thing from Microsoft :< ) I started using NetBSD 0.8 (!) in early 1990's (maybe 1993?). Then, moved to FreeBSD as they were further along with certain stability and userland issues (the NetBSD folks have always had a much harder job since they have to support N architectures instead of the *single* x86 architecture that FBSD supported at that time). But, FBSD quickly became a Linux-wannabe... oodles of features added but lots of bugs in already existing (cough) "features". So, I went back to the NBSD camp and have been there ever since. > NetBSD (I installed 2.1 to be safe) is the way I remember Unix--no-nonsense > and no-frills. The kernel compiled with what I wanted on the first try. I > haven't installed KDE yet, but it looks to be pretty straightforward. I think you will find the "packages" to be of more dubious quality than the core OS features. There seems to be much less discipline there. And, I have found people don't often understand what they are tinkering with as they patch the code -- "it compiled without any errors, so it MUST be OK, right??" :< > The surprise is how well NetBSD functions on a lowly Pentium 166. > Compiling the kernel is a matter of saying "make" just before you go to > bed. Heh heh heh... try building a kernel on a SPARC classic (40MHz?). Actually, it isn't terribly unbearable. And, you can always keep working while it's doing its thing! Please, no flames from the Linux world. I respect what you are trying to do -- it just doesn't "fit" with what *my* needs are! (I don't buy *hammers* that also have built in AM/FM radios and dental floss dispensers... I just want to drive a *nail* and be done with it! :> ) --don From allain at panix.com Sat Mar 25 16:24:08 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 17:24:08 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors References: Message-ID: <004201c6505a$d63df060$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> > I think this may have been kicked around before, but would there be > interest in a once-a-month beer and pizza dinner geekfest for those of us > in the NY and CT area, and even northern NJ? Being there, Doing that. Right now I'm all gungho for infoAge, in Central NJ. It's nearer than either RCS/RI or the MIT swap and has lots of cool machines to work on. Make an appearance for the VCF East this May 13. John A. From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Mar 25 16:29:54 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 14:29:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: NetBSD and QIC02 In-Reply-To: <200603251312590340.43D6E408@10.0.0.252> from Chuck Guzis at "Mar 25, 6 01:12:59 pm" Message-ID: <200603252229.k2PMTsII017056@floodgap.com> > The surprise is how well NetBSD functions on a lowly Pentium 166. I have NetBSD/mac68k running happily on a Mac IIci here. It handles internal DNS, printer services and power failure alerts, and offers AppleShare services to the old Macs on the network. Does the job well. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- When in doubt, use brute force. -- Ken Thompson ---------------------------- From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 25 16:30:20 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 14:30:20 -0800 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <20060325134636.N33116@shell.lmi.net> References: <20060325134636.N33116@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200603251430200333.441DB4E9@10.0.0.252> On 3/25/2006 at 1:47 PM Fred Cisin wrote: >Is there a way in software to determine whether that is present v a >conventional 80186? Hmmm, maybe. The problem is the "pull the hole in after yourself" relocation mechanism of the peripheral control block. Assuming that the startup code in the BIOS didn't fool with the relocation register, you could just read the contents of the control block starting at I/O address FF00. You could also search for it in I/O space by this method: unsigned k; for ( k = 0; k < 256; k++) { if ( (inpw( (k << 8) + 254) & 0xfff) == k) printf( "Looks like the control block starts at I/O address %x\n", k << 8); } You could also search memory space in much the same way, if the BIOS has decided to relocate it to memory space instead. If you find it, then you can twiddle the onboard peripherals to see what you've got. My guess is that the Hornet won't have the 186-style timers or PIC. Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at blazenet.net Sat Mar 25 16:31:18 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 17:31:18 -0500 Subject: NetBSD and QIC02 In-Reply-To: <4425BF51.6080906@DakotaCom.Net> References: <200603251312590340.43D6E408@10.0.0.252> <4425BF51.6080906@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200603251731.18889.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Saturday 25 March 2006 05:08 pm, Don Y wrote: > > NetBSD (I installed 2.1 to be safe) is the way I remember > > Unix--no-nonsense and no-frills. The kernel compiled with what I wanted > > on the first try. I haven't installed KDE yet, but it looks to be pretty > > straightforward. > > I think you will find the "packages" to be of more dubious quality > than the core OS features. There seems to be much less discipline > there. And, I have found people don't often understand what they > are tinkering with as they patch the code -- "it compiled without > any errors, so it MUST be OK, right??" :< KDE seems to be the one area of the stuff I run here that gives me a bit of trouble... Maybe it's because I'm running several machines here that never get turned off. I seldom log off, either. And on this one box (that I'm typing on) I have continuing increase of swap used, until it gets to the point where response starts to suffer. Depending on what I'm doing, this can take a few days, or it can take a few weeks. Running a lot of tasks or a lot of tabs in the Firefox browser seems to make it worse quicker. Can you say memory leak? Thought so... But I don't have to reboot or shut the machine down or anything like that to fix it, just log out of KDE and go back in again. Hm, I just looked and I'm currently up over 207M of swap used, but if I log out of here and log back in with exactly the same mix of applications open it'll be sitting there at 3-5M of swap used. I hope they get it fixed sometime soon... -- 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 Sat Mar 25 16:47:42 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 17:47:42 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <002601c6505e$20be2d00$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> WD -- I know you're already on our local list -- but for everyone else: if you live in the mid-atlantic / northeast and you're not familiar with MARCH, then check us out at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/midatlanticretro/ ... I need to update our FAQ buy basically we're a vintage-focused user group. We're hosting VCF East and we're setting up a computer museum. Lots of fun! -----Original Message----- From: William Donzelli [mailto:aw288 at osfn.org] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 1:49 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: NY/CT collectors > John A. > *orbiting the outer ring of NYC I think this may have been kicked around before, but would there be interest in a once-a-month beer and pizza dinner geekfest for those of us in the NY and CT area, and even northern NJ? Nothing really all that organized, mind you - we just pick a day and a place, and whoever shows up shows up. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From CCTalk at catcorner.org Sat Mar 25 16:45:26 2006 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 17:45:26 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33882@mail.catcorner.org> > -----Original Message----- > From: John Allain [mailto:allain at panix.com] > Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 5:24 PM > > > > I think this may have been kicked around before, but would there be > > interest in a once-a-month beer and pizza dinner geekfest > for those of us > > in the NY and CT area, and even northern NJ? > > Being there, Doing that. > Right now I'm all gungho for infoAge, in Central NJ. > It's nearer than either RCS/RI or the MIT swap and has > lots of cool machines to work on. > Make an appearance for the VCF East this May 13. > > John A. > And I just can't muster up the strength to drive the 3.5 hours to get there. I'll be there on May 13th though. What part of CT? I just hate driving, but Harford is closer by car to me than infoAge, and a more pleasant drive. Kelly From aw288 at osfn.org Sat Mar 25 16:58:07 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 17:58:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: NY/CT collectors In-Reply-To: <002601c6505e$20be2d00$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: > WD -- I know you're already on our local list -- but for everyone else: if > you live in the mid-atlantic / northeast and you're not familiar with MARCH, > then check us out at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/midatlanticretro/ ... I > need to update our FAQ buy basically we're a vintage-focused user group. > We're hosting VCF East and we're setting up a computer museum. Lots of fun! I actually never got around to joining the group, so I just did. One of these days I will check out the infoAge center and what MARCH is doing, but not during VCF, as I will be in California. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Sat Mar 25 17:00:40 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 18:00:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: NY/CT collectors In-Reply-To: <004201c6505a$d63df060$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: > Being there, Doing that. > Right now I'm all gungho for infoAge, in Central NJ. > It's nearer than either RCS/RI or the MIT swap and has > lots of cool machines to work on. Certainly, but what kinds oif machines? Big machines? BIG machines? Anyway, my original request was just for a beer and pizza night, so we could geek-out without using email. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Mar 25 17:11:28 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 16:11:28 -0700 Subject: NetBSD and QIC02 In-Reply-To: <200603251731.18889.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <200603251312590340.43D6E408@10.0.0.252> <4425BF51.6080906@DakotaCom.Net> <200603251731.18889.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <4425CE20.7030500@DakotaCom.Net> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Saturday 25 March 2006 05:08 pm, Don Y wrote: >> I think you will find the "packages" to be of more dubious quality >> than the core OS features. There seems to be much less discipline >> there. And, I have found people don't often understand what they >> are tinkering with as they patch the code -- "it compiled without >> any errors, so it MUST be OK, right??" :< > > KDE seems to be the one area of the stuff I run here that gives me a bit of > trouble... Not surprising -- when you look at how BIG it is. :-( > Maybe it's because I'm running several machines here that never get turned > off. I seldom log off, either. And on this one box (that I'm typing on) I > have continuing increase of swap used, until it gets to the point where > response starts to suffer. Depending on what I'm doing, this can take a few > days, or it can take a few weeks. Running a lot of tasks or a lot of tabs > in the Firefox browser seems to make it worse quicker. > > Can you say memory leak? Thought so... Yup. Hence my analogy to "hammer with dental floss dispenser". :-( I don't run a "desktop". Just bare xterms/emacs on top of twm. I don't need much more that that to write/compile/test my code. :> I keep a disposable Windows machine to talk to the outside world. Nothing of value on it (software or data) so *if* I encounter something mean and nasty while online, I just reinsert the CD and reinstall the OS from scratch. Much less maintenance required than having to download and apply the newest set of "security patches" for OS. (And, a lot more peace of mind knowing my codebase is never vulnerable!) > But I don't have to reboot or shut the machine down or anything like that to > fix it, just log out of KDE and go back in again. Hm, I just looked and > I'm currently up over 207M of swap used, but if I log out of here and log > back in with exactly the same mix of applications open it'll be sitting there > at 3-5M of swap used. > > I hope they get it fixed sometime soon... And, that the fix doesn't break something that you can't work around! :-( From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 25 16:46:37 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 22:46:37 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: <200603241535030378.3F329BD7@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Mar 24, 6 03:35:03 pm Message-ID: > > On 3/24/2006 at 10:53 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: > > >I can't remember. Is the 866 a pure diode, or does it have a trigger > >electrode? > > Diodes, Had 'em in the power supply for my transmitter. There was a Yes, you're right. I was mis-remembering something I'd read in the RSGB Teleprinter Handbook (RSGB = Radio Society of Great Britian, roughly the same as your ARRL). In the edition that I have, it gives a schematic for the Teletype 19, which uses a pair of thyratrons in the power supply. There's a comment (references to some ARRL publication) that since these are expesnive and difficult to find, if you have only one good one, you can put an 866 rectifier in place of the other one (with a socket change, etc). The PSU will still regulate correctly with just one good thyratron. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Mar 25 17:16:35 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 23:16:35 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: from "William Donzelli" at Mar 25, 6 11:42:16 am Message-ID: > > > I love the old names for thermionic devices; we've lost that knack for > > naming. Any gas-filled thermionic diode is a phanotron, any vacuum-filled > > diode is a kenotron. So an 866 is a phanotron (has mercury), but a 5U4 is > > a kenotron. A vacuum triode is a pliotron and a gas triode is a thyratron. > > Ya gotta love it! > > Outside the marketing department of General Electric, nobody actually used > these terms, other than thyratron. Dit anyone other than RCA ever use the term 'Kinescope' for CRT? I rememebr when I read the service manual for the monitor for my TRS-80 Model 1 (this monitor being a converted RCA portable TV, of course), wondering what on earth the Kinescope was.... -tony From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 25 18:08:05 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 16:08:05 -0800 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603251608050627.447731C0@10.0.0.252> On 3/25/2006 at 11:16 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >Dit anyone other than RCA ever use the term 'Kinescope' for CRT? I >rememebr when I read the service manual for the monitor for my TRS-80 >Model 1 (this monitor being a converted RCA portable TV, of course), >wondering what on earth the Kinescope was.... "Kinescope" was used outside of RCA. Actually, "Cathode Ray Tube" is a bit too general--e.g., a Crookes tube is a CRT. Besides, haven't we figured out what "cathode rays" are yet? I like the old "picture tube" better. :) Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Sat Mar 25 18:12:51 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 19:12:51 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4425DC83.9050208@gmail.com> William Donzelli wrote: >> John A. >> *orbiting the outer ring of NYC > > I think this may have been kicked around before, but would there be > interest in a once-a-month beer and pizza dinner geekfest for those of us > in the NY and CT area, and even northern NJ? Nothing really all that > organized, mind you - we just pick a day and a place, and whoever shows up > shows up. I'd show. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Sat Mar 25 18:17:19 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 19:17:19 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33882@mail.catcorner.org> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33882@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <4425DD8F.1080804@gmail.com> Kelly Leavitt wrote: >>> I think this may have been kicked around before, but would there be >>> interest in a once-a-month beer and pizza dinner geekfest >> for those of us >>> in the NY and CT area, and even northern NJ? >> Being there, Doing that. >> Right now I'm all gungho for infoAge, in Central NJ. >> It's nearer than either RCS/RI or the MIT swap and has >> lots of cool machines to work on. >> Make an appearance for the VCF East this May 13. >> >> John A. >> > And I just can't muster up the strength to drive the 3.5 hours to get there. > I'll be there on May 13th though. > > What part of CT? I just hate driving, but Harford is closer by car to me > than infoAge, and a more pleasant drive. I'm in Poughkeepsie, NY, myself, and, like you, Hartford is a lot closer than InfoAge for me too. Peace... Sridhar From evan at snarc.net Sat Mar 25 18:44:02 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 19:44:02 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors In-Reply-To: <4425DD8F.1080804@gmail.com> Message-ID: <003801c6506e$60c648f0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Post-VCF, we'll arrange a MARCH event in our northern reaches. Maybe we should bring this thread over to our list, since most people here on cctalk probably are not interested. :) -----Original Message----- From: Sridhar Ayengar [mailto:ploopster at gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 7:17 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: NY/CT collectors Kelly Leavitt wrote: >>> I think this may have been kicked around before, but would there be >>> interest in a once-a-month beer and pizza dinner geekfest >> for those of us >>> in the NY and CT area, and even northern NJ? >> Being there, Doing that. >> Right now I'm all gungho for infoAge, in Central NJ. >> It's nearer than either RCS/RI or the MIT swap and has lots of cool >> machines to work on. >> Make an appearance for the VCF East this May 13. >> >> John A. >> > And I just can't muster up the strength to drive the 3.5 hours to get there. > I'll be there on May 13th though. > > What part of CT? I just hate driving, but Harford is closer by car to > me than infoAge, and a more pleasant drive. I'm in Poughkeepsie, NY, myself, and, like you, Hartford is a lot closer than InfoAge for me too. Peace... Sridhar From allain at panix.com Sat Mar 25 20:04:14 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 21:04:14 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33882@mail.catcorner.org> <4425DD8F.1080804@gmail.com> Message-ID: <02ae01c65079$98629420$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> > I'm in Poughkeepsie, NY, myself, and, like you, > Hartford is a lot closer than InfoAge for me too. Wimps! A once-a-year VCF trip might be enough to convince you, however. In Silicon Valley, a neat day out might be to go to the Flea Market, or a supplier store. I know of nothing like that anywhere here Still, I'm very flexible, I'd go to Poughkeepsie at least once to see you and William. John A. From allain at panix.com Sat Mar 25 20:04:42 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 21:04:42 -0500 Subject: Unisys A Series ? References: <20060324133100.WTUM29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <20060325093833.LMME29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <02b801c65079$a608d760$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> > What is 'MCP'? It's the Command Language for Unisys A-Series and represents what this list desperately needs; an MCP expert. I'm an MCP moron so that's why I've spend so little time with my system... Doing a ListenWait() for more information. > Do you know about the 'setup' program that it keeps asking > me to run? Does it boot from floppy? I haven't seen this or at least it wasn't a problem for me. Just sounds like that situation with some manufacturers PC's where the BIOS setup is completely out of ROM and they require a diskette when the BIOS cache* battery fails > Is this thing interesting enough to be work spending some > time on? Well, I found mine in some scrap, not knowing what it was, I dismantled it for the Adaptec cards, etc. Got to the custom memory+CPU, took a good look at all that custom LSI, stopped put the whole thing back together again, and voila! It, uhhh, did something. After finding all the external drives and OS/2 commands it really paid off as a Unique experience. It's a mainframe in a box, like the PC/370's that some people on the list have. Takes up a lot less garage space than the real thing. John A. *possible misuse of terminology From allain at panix.com Sat Mar 25 20:11:44 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 21:11:44 -0500 Subject: battery trolling References: <003801c6506e$60c648f0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <02ce01c6507a$a2066c80$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> I've found a NiMH 6-cell pack that fits exactly in the recess of a Semi-OT Laptop (HP OmniBook 800CT). (7.2v 3.3AH vs 2.6 AH) My trollish question: would it be at all safe to let the laptop charge this? The cell it replaces is LiIon which appears from my searches to be the more fussy of the two technologies. Peripheral question. How does one set-up a constant current circuit, being a non-electrical engineer? John A. From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Mar 25 20:12:40 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 20:12:40 -0600 Subject: xxdp CKTGE0 Message-ID: <000301c6507a$c2e02720$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Anyone have any docs on xxdp diagnostic CKTGE0? Or to teach a man to fish.... where should I be looking for this? :) Jay West From jfoust at threedee.com Sat Mar 25 20:54:57 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 20:54:57 -0600 Subject: 4DDN In-Reply-To: <77a76f8ab19d4734a015755897a0680f@valleyimplants.com> References: <77a76f8ab19d4734a015755897a0680f@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060325205346.055cf208@mail> At 12:19 PM 3/25/2006, Scott Quinn wrote: >4DDN is on its own CD (AFAIK, never used it but it's not on the standard distro), but keep in mind that it is a nodelocked product, which creates issues. And I'm curious - how are these issues handled today? I ask remembering that I once node-locked the software I sold on the SGI. What are the repercussions for legacy hobbyists, when companies like SGI take a dive? - John From rborsuk at colourfull.com Sat Mar 25 21:23:54 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 22:23:54 -0500 Subject: 4DDN In-Reply-To: <77a76f8ab19d4734a015755897a0680f@valleyimplants.com> References: <77a76f8ab19d4734a015755897a0680f@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <62883D65-D6A4-4345-8D49-E5CD37A0316E@colourfull.com> Yep, I found it. I have version 4.0. If someone needs it, write me off list. Thanks Rob On Mar 25, 2006, at 1:19 PM, Scott Quinn wrote: > 4DDN is on its own CD (AFAIK, never used it but it's not on the > standard distro), but keep in mind that it is a nodelocked product, > which creates issues. > > > From brad at heeltoe.com Sat Mar 25 22:14:34 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 23:14:34 -0500 Subject: battery trolling In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 25 Mar 2006 21:11:44 EST." <02ce01c6507a$a2066c80$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <200603260414.k2Q4EYk9003741@mwave.heeltoe.com> "John Allain" wrote: >(HP OmniBook 800CT) mmm. love my 800ct's. They make excellent portable linux boxes :-) I have not needed replace the batteries yet - are they hard to find? I don't know if the cv/cv curve for LI is any differnt from a NiMH. I'd be interested to hear. -brad From waisun.chia at gmail.com Sat Mar 25 23:03:32 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 13:03:32 +0800 Subject: Replacing 80C188 and 68HC11 In-Reply-To: <200603250950510490.59EA115D@192.168.42.129> References: <200603250950510490.59EA115D@192.168.42.129> Message-ID: On 3/26/06, Bruce Lane wrote: > In this same instrument is a Motorola MC68HC11A0FNC11W in a PLCC-52 package. I need to find a viable replacement for it as well. I've had a harder time tracking down possible replacements for it. The only ones I've come across so far, that are available without an enormous minimum purchase, are the MC68HC11E0CFN2, the MC68HC11E1CFN2, and the MC68HC11E1CFN3. > I have a couple of spare MC68HC11A1CFN3 in a PLCC-52 package. Would this work? From ak6dn at mindspring.com Sat Mar 25 23:22:19 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 21:22:19 -0800 Subject: xxdp CKTGE0 In-Reply-To: <000301c6507a$c2e02720$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <000301c6507a$c2e02720$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <4426250B.3020100@mindspring.com> Jay West wrote: > Anyone have any docs on xxdp diagnostic CKTGE0? > > Or to teach a man to fish.... where should I be looking for this? :) > > Jay West > Try fishing in the http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/xxdp/PDP11_DiagnosticHandbook_1988.pdf pond on p.1-2 If you want a listing, well that is a horse of a different color. From CCTalk at catcorner.org Sun Mar 26 09:12:03 2006 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 10:12:03 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33884@mail.catcorner.org> > -----Original Message----- > From: John Allain [mailto:allain at panix.com] > Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 9:04 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: NY/CT collectors > > > > I'm in Poughkeepsie, NY, myself, and, like you, > > Hartford is a lot closer than InfoAge for me too. > > Wimps! A once-a-year VCF trip might > be enough to convince you, however. > > In Silicon Valley, a neat day out might be to go to the Flea Market, > or a supplier store. I know of nothing like that anywhere here > > Still, I'm very flexible, I'd go to Poughkeepsie > at least once to see you and William. > > John A. > Poughkeepsie would be good for me too. There's always the Hamfest in Augusta NJ in July. Last year they had a few Octanes and some Apple IIs. I work the vendor gate and get to see a lot of stuff before it goes on sale.... Kelly KB2SYD From doug at blinkenlights.com Sun Mar 26 10:44:17 2006 From: doug at blinkenlights.com (Doug Salot) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 08:44:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: Seattle-area collectors: stuff for sale In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A33884@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: I'm about to move, and I don't have room for all my collection in the new place. Before I start offering stuff on eBay, I'd like to give local collectors a shot at some deals. I won't be giving away any primo stuff, but I'll give you a better deal than you'd get on eBay if you can come and pick-up from my Bainbridge Island location. Available machines include: A DEC trainer from the 1960's (based on straight-8 style flipchips) An IMSAI 8080 chockfull of cards An IBM 5100 An ultracool HP 9830A with lots of system manuals and 3rd-party cards Other cool HP machines, including an Integral, 9825, and I think there's a 9815 in there somewhere. A couple Apple Lisa 2's in good and complete shape. Worked last time I checked them about 7 years ago. A bunch of other stuff. I still need to go through my boxes. Send me an email if you'd like to browse (probably 200 machines in total, mostly portables). From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 26 11:30:42 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 18:30:42 +0100 (BST) Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: <200603251608050627.447731C0@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Mar 25, 6 04:08:05 pm Message-ID: > > On 3/25/2006 at 11:16 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: > > >Dit anyone other than RCA ever use the term 'Kinescope' for CRT? I > >rememebr when I read the service manual for the monitor for my TRS-80 > >Model 1 (this monitor being a converted RCA portable TV, of course), > >wondering what on earth the Kinescope was.... > > "Kinescope" was used outside of RCA. Actually, "Cathode Ray Tube" is a bit Right... It's not a term that I've ever seen in an English (as distinct from American) book or manual. > too general--e.g., a Crookes tube is a CRT. Besides, haven't we figured > out what "cathode rays" are yet? Yes, but we can't call it an 'electron tube' since that's what you call a valve (glassfet, whatever). And 'Electron Ray Tube' is another name (at least here) for that form of indicator commonly called a 'Magic Eye'. > I like the old "picture tube" better. What, even when it's being used as part of a Williams memory? [Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)] -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 26 11:57:16 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 18:57:16 +0100 (BST) Subject: battery trolling In-Reply-To: <02ce01c6507a$a2066c80$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> from "John Allain" at Mar 25, 6 09:11:44 pm Message-ID: > > I've found a NiMH 6-cell pack that fits exactly in the recess of a > Semi-OT Laptop (HP OmniBook 800CT). (7.2v 3.3AH vs 2.6 AH) > My trollish question: would it be at all safe to let the laptop charge this? > The cell it replaces is LiIon which appears from my searches to be the > more fussy of the two technologies. LiIon is _very_ touchy -- the cells are reputed to explode if you look at them oddly. Well, perhaps not quite as bad as that, but you certainly treat them with respsect. NiMH is a lot easier to charge, a constant current supply will do. But that doesn't mean that a LiIon charger is suitable, personally I'd not use that. > > Peripheral question. How does one set-up a constant current > circuit, being a non-electrical engineer? The normal principle it to 'measure' the voltage across a resistorin series with the load and to adjust some current control element of the circuit until that voltage is correct (which means the current is correct too, of course). -tony From cclist at sydex.com Sun Mar 26 12:24:15 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 10:24:15 -0800 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603261024150604.000FDB96@10.0.0.252> On 3/26/2006 at 6:30 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >> I like the old "picture tube" better. > >What, even when it's being used as part of a Williams memory? >[Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)] Or, in electronics slang, "bottle" or "jug". :) Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Mar 26 13:06:16 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 20:06:16 +0100 (BST) Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: <200603261024150604.000FDB96@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Mar 26, 6 10:24:15 am Message-ID: > > On 3/26/2006 at 6:30 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: > > >> I like the old "picture tube" better. > > > >What, even when it's being used as part of a Williams memory? > >[Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)] > > Or, in electronics slang, "bottle" or "jug". :) 'Bottle' is slang for any glass vacuum device (including valves and CRTs). I've seen the convention that 'valve' is a set of electrodes including the cathode and anode while 'bottle' is a glass envelope that contains one or more valves. That is, a 12AX7 (ECC83, etc) is one bottle but two (triode) valves. -tony From rtellason at blazenet.net Sun Mar 26 15:02:01 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 16:02:01 -0500 Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603261602.01134.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Sunday 26 March 2006 12:30 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > Yes, but we can't call it an 'electron tube' since that's what you call a > valve (glassfet, whatever). And 'Electron Ray Tube' is another name (at > least here) for that form of indicator commonly called a 'Magic Eye'. Now I sure wouldn't mind getting my hands on some of _those_...! There seem to be all sorts of VFDs in audio gear these days but even the ones designed for level indicators still use discrete steps, making them "digital", while those old 6E5 tubes (and similar) were most definitely "analog". :-) Anybody have any of those kicking around? -- 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 florit at gmail.com Sun Mar 26 15:08:28 2006 From: florit at gmail.com (Louis Florit) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 16:08:28 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs Message-ID: <46e70d050603261308q1c80bc74xb4ad001e237b09cd@mail.gmail.com> Hi, I've got an old C64 that I've been unable to make it work and don't have time to play with it. Free to anyone that could use it for parts or fix; has power supply (brick). If you could help me w/ shipping I'd appreciate it. Please email me if interested. If there is no interest its going to the trashbin. L -- Louis Florit AIM: lflorit MSN:louis_florit at hotmail.com Y!: indygolunaria GoogleTalk: florit at gmail.com From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sun Mar 26 16:28:34 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 16:28:34 -0600 Subject: Defunct companies and nodelocked software (Was RE: 4DDN) Message-ID: <53fd2d1f5c4a43ccb31a1833aae3160f@valleyimplants.com> >And I'm curious - how are these issues handled today? I ask remembering >that I once node-locked the software I sold on the SGI. What are the >repercussions for legacy hobbyists, when companies like SGI take a dive? In that case, you either crack the license system or binary-patch around it. If you still have the keys you used to create nodelocked licenses, you can make a "any" license. Further on the SGI note- is there any move to unofficially mirror official SGI stuff, especially TechPubs and patches "just in case"? Perhaps divide it up among several CCmp'ers. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Mar 26 16:32:18 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 14:32:18 -0800 Subject: ADIC 530/H QIC drive Message-ID: <200603261432180757.00F2F49F@10.0.0.252> Does anyone on this list have any experience with an Adic 530/H drive? Does anyone have details? (e.g. Capacity, QIC02 or QIC36, etc.) The web seems to have nothing other than folks offering to sell (probably non-existent) units. Many thanks. Chuck From rtellason at blazenet.net Sun Mar 26 16:40:51 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 17:40:51 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: <46e70d050603261308q1c80bc74xb4ad001e237b09cd@mail.gmail.com> References: <46e70d050603261308q1c80bc74xb4ad001e237b09cd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200603261740.51212.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Sunday 26 March 2006 04:08 pm, Louis Florit wrote: > Hi, I've got an old C64 that I've been unable to make it work and > don't have time to play with it. Free to anyone that could use it for > parts or fix; has power supply (brick). If you could help me w/ > shipping I'd appreciate it. > > Please email me if interested. If there is no interest its going to > the trashbin. I've responded to this off-list, but if any of the rest of you guys have or know of c64s or c128s that might be available for parts please drop me a line. They don't need to be working, or have power supplies with them either, and in fact I don't even necessarily need cases and keyboards and such, though those won't contribute all that much to shipping weight. I have someone who is looking for certain chips... -- 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 Sun Mar 26 16:50:59 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 16:50:59 -0600 Subject: ComputerVision Model 32 system Message-ID: <866e30393a004f2abc77694c1286901f@valleyimplants.com> Gave it the dust-off and vis inspection - Base is a Sun 3/160 system, Sun backplane, 3004 processor and memory cards. it has a non-VLSI CV SCSI/2xTTY card. The VME terminator cards are CV-proprietary, and are switchable between "VME" and "CV" mode, not sure what the difference is yet. The case is CV-specific, all drives are front-mounted along with the power supply. Old-IBM type superstrong reinforced-plastic skins. The "heart" of the CADDS system is the CV-GPU, two cards connected by 3 ribbon cables. One is a Multibus "interface card", the other is the VME processing part, with 7x AMD 2901 bitslice processors. According to docs, the "GPU" system can be anywhere in the network displaying on a remote terminal if desired, which differs from SGI-type systems. Not sure exactly what is done in the GPU yet. The framebuffer is a seperate VME card, with a unusual DB-25 connector to the monitor that I haven't traced yet. There is also a bridged Multibus tablet interface card. I have docs, but they don't go very deep into hardware. Unfortunately, it looks like it uses a dongle for protection, which I don't have. Good news is that it shouldn't be too hard to workaround, given that it is a ca 1988 machine. It came with full ComputerVision "4.2 UNIX release 4" tapes, SunOS 3.2 and 3.4 upgrade, SunWrite/SunPaint, CADDS, and some other stuff. Gave me a smoke signal on the p/s test, from a cap on the VME terminator board. Everything else looks O.K., except for a broken termpwr wire in the SCSI card. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Mar 26 17:41:36 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 15:41:36 -0800 Subject: Defunct companies and nodelocked software (Was RE: 4DDN) In-Reply-To: <53fd2d1f5c4a43ccb31a1833aae3160f@valleyimplants.com> References: <53fd2d1f5c4a43ccb31a1833aae3160f@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <200603261541360593.0132655B@10.0.0.252> On 3/26/2006 at 4:28 PM Scott Quinn wrote: >>And I'm curious - how are these issues handled today? I ask remembering >>that I once node-locked the software I sold on the SGI. What are the >>repercussions for legacy hobbyists, when companies like SGI take a dive? > >In that case, you either crack the license system or binary-patch around it. >If you still have the keys you used to create nodelocked licenses, you can >make a "any" license. By "reprecussions" do you mean legal or practical? While it happens, it's not uncommon for copyright and patents to be sold as part of the bankruptcy proceedings. A good bankruptcy court will find a buyer for everything, (e.g. payables, receivables, patents, copyrights, trademarks, etc.). While a lot of this stuff may find its way into a dusty box in the corner of a warehouse, protections under the law are still preserved for whomever the owner is. (Hence the wording in the software license of the term "assigns and successors"). The bad part is that a bankruptcy liquidation can take years to complete, leaving old customers to swing in the breeze with no support. Cheers, Chuck From curt at atarimuseum.com Sun Mar 26 18:11:13 2006 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt - Atari Museum) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 19:11:13 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44272DA1.5040601@atarimuseum.com> Count me in! I'm in Putnam so anyplace in NY/CT or N. NJ/Rockland County works for me. Pizza/Beer location sounds like a good idea. It certainly would be a good idea for us to network on potential liquidations or flea market meets and such, maybe make a day of stopping around, rummaging and such. I never shy away from a good dumpster dive for equipment ;-) Curt William Donzelli wrote: >> John A. >> *orbiting the outer ring of NYC >> > > I think this may have been kicked around before, but would there be > interest in a once-a-month beer and pizza dinner geekfest for those of us > in the NY and CT area, and even northern NJ? Nothing really all that > organized, mind you - we just pick a day and a place, and whoever shows up > shows up. > > William Donzelli > aw288 at osfn.org > > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Mar 26 19:21:32 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 19:21:32 -0600 Subject: booting rt11 v5.1 on an 11/45 Message-ID: <01da01c6513c$c8e36070$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> The 11/45 will boot xxdp+ v1, but won't boot RT11 v5.1. Upon booting the RT11 v5.1 RL02 pack, the disk flashes for about 5-8 seconds, then the processor just halts. First question which I didn't see in the RT11 5x docs... what exactly would the hardware requirements be for RT11 5.1 on a 11/45? Is it expecting a minimum of memory? Certain I/O devices at certain locations? I tried both a real DEC RT11 v5.1 RL02 dist. pack, and also was able to gen one from a 5.1 image on a scratch pack with vtserver. The only thing I can think of (and another listmember point to as well) is a problem with interrupts. But I've no idea how exactly to go about troubleshooting it, not being a DEC expert like others here :) I've gone back and forth between using 8K core, 16K core, or 128k unibus memory. Similar results. My copy of xxdp+ seems a bit old, so most diags I have seem to have older names. Any thoughts are most appreciated! Jay West From ploopster at gmail.com Sun Mar 26 19:35:08 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 20:35:08 -0500 Subject: 4DDN In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060325205346.055cf208@mail> References: <77a76f8ab19d4734a015755897a0680f@valleyimplants.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20060325205346.055cf208@mail> Message-ID: <4427414C.70106@gmail.com> John Foust wrote: > At 12:19 PM 3/25/2006, Scott Quinn wrote: >> 4DDN is on its own CD (AFAIK, never used it but it's not on the standard distro), but keep in mind that it is a nodelocked product, which creates issues. > > And I'm curious - how are these issues handled today? I ask remembering > that I once node-locked the software I sold on the SGI. What are the > repercussions for legacy hobbyists, when companies like SGI take a dive? Someone would write a key generator. Peace... Sridhar From trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu Sun Mar 26 19:38:27 2006 From: trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu (joe heck) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 20:38:27 -0500 Subject: Unisys A Series answers In-Reply-To: <02b801c65079$a608d760$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> References: <20060324133100.WTUM29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <20060325093833.LMME29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <02b801c65079$a608d760$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <44274213.8000007@splab.cas.neu.edu> Hi all, I have a friend that used to work on/with the Unisys stuff. I have most of a machine in my basement, but never fired it up. He also has a complete machine, and hasn't fired it up recently, but believes it will run. I forwarded Dave's original email to him and he replied below. If any of you need further help, let me know and I'll pass the questions on to him and he might answer directly. His big thing is that he already gets a ton of email (good,bad and ugly) and is cautious about getting more, or joining the group. Very interesting about what he says about booting from the floppy. He used to support a bunch of these machines, so I am pretty sure he knows his stuff, but to not boot a floppy is unique. Cheers, Joe Heck Unisys info: A7 came in a few varieties.... A7-311 first release basically a 486 souped up with several mainframe boards in it. the host operating system was OS/2 2.1 The mainframe processor (aka SCAMP) is the "do not press" chip. the a7-411 was similar to the 311 but in a rack mount 6u chassis then came the A7-811 which went up to a P-90 but still ran os/2 etc... the memory boards (daughter boards) on the processor card are (i think) 500K Words each, yes i said words... the A series uses a 48 bit user word with a 4 bit tag (52 bit words) the a7-811 processor had a second card strapped to the proccessor that would allow a max of about 3-4 Mg Words. The long net card is really the mainframe network interface, 10B2 or AUI, in the right os it will support tcp/ip There should also be a long scsi card, i believe a 1744 or there abouts.. this would be the primary mainframe bus. the config error is usually due to: a) a bad cmos battery b) re-arranged cards c) missing cards. you need the SCU for the machine to fix the cmos to get rid of the error... Unisys was very picky and nothing else would work you should be able to boot from either the CD-rom or the QIC tape. you usually cannot boot from the floppy. The same server cabinet also came with SYSVr4 Unix, be sure you DO NOT use the SCU for the unix box as the tags for the mainframe cards are wrong. once you boot into os/2 (if it's there) you'll get into the a-series maintenance mode support and the into the a-series. be sure that you DO NOT use a ps/2 style mouse as that interrupt is needed for the mainframe. once booted, the mainframe will try to boot from it's own boot drive. the a series boot scsi disks are NOT 512 byte sectors, they are 180 byte sectors and will not look right to any pc software. there is special firmware on the drive to enable the correct size sectors, etc. also, if you have 4mm or 8mm drives for it, they have custom firmware. once booted, you should be able to get to an ODT screen, enter ??MARC if that is taken, about 3-4 minutes later you should see a login screen.!!!! if so, we can talk from there. MCP is the master control program and runs the a series line. I have an A7-811 here and i think it still runs. From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Mar 26 19:46:17 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 19:46:17 -0600 Subject: xxdp RL02? Message-ID: <020401c65140$3da04bf0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Does anyone have a .dsk image of an RL02 with a later version of XXDP v2? Hopefully that matches more closely the diagnostic manual on bitsavers? Thanks in advance! Jay West From fernande at internet1.net Sun Mar 26 21:03:15 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 22:03:15 -0500 Subject: Unisys A Series answers In-Reply-To: <44274213.8000007@splab.cas.neu.edu> References: <20060324133100.WTUM29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <20060325093833.LMME29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <02b801c65079$a608d760$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> <44274213.8000007@splab.cas.neu.edu> Message-ID: <442755F3.4010703@internet1.net> joe heck wrote: > The same server cabinet also came with SYSVr4 Unix, be sure you DO NOT > use the SCU for the unix box as the tags for the mainframe cards are wrong. Dave, I guess you shouldn't try to use the SCU that I sent you then!! Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From chd_1 at nktelco.net Sun Mar 26 21:28:04 2006 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (C. H. Dickman) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 22:28:04 -0500 Subject: xxdp RL02? In-Reply-To: <020401c65140$3da04bf0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <020401c65140$3da04bf0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <44275BC4.5010509@nktelco.net> Jay West wrote: > Does anyone have a .dsk image of an RL02 with a later version of XXDP > v2? Hopefully that matches more closely the diagnostic manual on > bitsavers? Thanks in advance! > > Jay West I don't think there is such a thing. I have been searching for PDP-11 diagnostics for several years. The available images: xxdp22 and xxdp25 seem to be the best thing out there. The "Diagnostic Handbook" describes a version of the diagnostics in superficial detail. It is MUCH better than nothing, but it has nowhere near the detail necessary to use the diagnostic tests if they fail. For this you need the program listings. The "Handbook" was also written in Europe. This makes me think it was something created in the field and not supported directly by DEC. That makes me think there was no unified diagnostic package, but that options had diagnostic tapes or disks and that they were distributed on an ad-hoc basis. DEC users in the day can say more about this... I am only guessing from the available evidence. -chuck From waisun.chia at gmail.com Sun Mar 26 23:25:31 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:25:31 +0800 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: <200603261740.51212.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <46e70d050603261308q1c80bc74xb4ad001e237b09cd@mail.gmail.com> <200603261740.51212.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: On 3/27/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > either, and in fact I don't even necessarily need cases and keyboards and > such, though those won't contribute all that much to shipping weight. I > have someone who is looking for certain chips... > ooh...a SID hunter!! :-) From marvin at rain.org Mon Mar 27 00:48:51 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 22:48:51 -0800 Subject: Escon Microcomputer/Selectric Interface System Message-ID: <44278AD3.93778C8@rain.org> I've got an Escon Microcomputer/Selectric Interface System that looks like it was sold as a kit. It appears to be a unit to convert a Selectric I or II typewriter so it can be used as a computer printer. Is anyone familiar with this unit, and any ideas about what it is worth? It belongs to the widow of my friend who died last month, and I am trying to help separate the good stuff from everything else. From marvin at rain.org Mon Mar 27 01:30:51 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 23:30:51 -0800 Subject: Heathkit Manuals Site Message-ID: <442794AB.8714B88C@rain.org> I just saw a reference to http://www.pestingers.net/pdfs/ on the Heathkit Listserver. It looks like it has a number of other computer manuals besides Heathkit. I've bookmarked it now :). From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Mar 27 01:28:45 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 02:28:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus) In-Reply-To: <200603241535030378.3F329BD7@10.0.0.252> References: <200603241535030378.3F329BD7@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603270736.CAA09247@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > There was a trick where you could use two DPDT switches to turn on > the filament and then HV supplies where no matter which switch was > flipped, the filaments always came on first. You don't need DPDT, just DPST. Wire one pole from each in parallel, the other pole in series. The parallel-wired ones control the filament, the series-wired ones the HV. In ASCII graphics: \ \ \ \ ______^ :\_____________________^ :\________ <-- HV switch : : \: \: \ \ ______^ \_____ ___^ \________ <-- filament switch | | | | | |____________ | __________| |_________________________| /~\ 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 Mar 27 02:28:48 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 03:28:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Replacing 80C188 and 68HC11 In-Reply-To: <200603250950510490.59EA115D@192.168.42.129> References: <200603250950510490.59EA115D@192.168.42.129> Message-ID: <200603270831.DAA09847@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> (Would it be too much to ask that you not use one-long-line paragraphs?) > In this same instrument is a Motorola MC68HC11A0FNC11W in a PLCC-52 > package. I need to find a viable replacement for it as well. I've > had a harder time tracking down possible replacements for it. The > only ones I've come across so far, that are available without an > enormous minimum purchase, are the MC68HC11E0CFN2, the > MC68HC11E1CFN2, and the MC68HC11E1CFN3. I believe I have a 68HC11 doc book somewhere; in case you don't find what you need, tell me and I can try to dig it out and see if it explains the suffixes in enough detail to tell whether any of those should be workable replacements. > I do know this much: The Motorola part is operating with an external > EPROM, so the chip itself is ROMless. ...or running with the ROM disabled; memory (from when I last read that book) says that a 68HC11 with ROM can be configured to run as if it were ROMless. /~\ 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 halarewich at gmail.com Mon Mar 27 02:34:11 2006 From: halarewich at gmail.com (Chris Halarewich) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 00:34:11 -0800 Subject: Heathkit Manuals Site In-Reply-To: <442794AB.8714B88C@rain.org> References: <442794AB.8714B88C@rain.org> Message-ID: <6d6501090603270034u3c06cb79xd1af762ef8e2215@mail.gmail.com> here is some more info in this persons comp site http://www.pestingers.net/Antique%20computers.htm On 3/26/06, Marvin Johnston wrote: > > > I just saw a reference to http://www.pestingers.net/pdfs/ on the > Heathkit Listserver. It looks like it has a number of other computer > manuals besides Heathkit. I've bookmarked it now :). > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Mar 27 03:41:11 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 21:41:11 +1200 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: References: <46e70d050603261308q1c80bc74xb4ad001e237b09cd@mail.gmail.com> <200603261740.51212.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: On 3/27/06, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > On 3/27/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > either, and in fact I don't even necessarily need cases and keyboards and > > such, though those won't contribute all that much to shipping weight. I > > have someone who is looking for certain chips... > > > ooh...a SID hunter!! :-) What do bare SIDs fetch these days? (I wouldn't be parting out machines - I have the remnants of an old Commodore dealer service department. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Mar 27 03:43:11 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 21:43:11 +1200 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: <200603261740.51212.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <46e70d050603261308q1c80bc74xb4ad001e237b09cd@mail.gmail.com> <200603261740.51212.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: On 3/27/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > I've responded to this off-list, but if any of the rest of you guys have or > know of c64s or c128s that might be available for parts please drop me a > line. They don't need to be working, or have power supplies with them > either, and in fact I don't even necessarily need cases and keyboards and > such, though those won't contribute all that much to shipping weight. I > have someone who is looking for certain chips... Well... the two that come immediately to mind are the PLA (since they die so often), and the SID (since there still isn't a modern replacement for *that* sound)... -ethan From henk.gooijen at oce.com Mon Mar 27 03:55:27 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:55:27 +0200 Subject: how to connect a Kennedy 9100 ? Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815C6@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> I downloaded the TC11 and TC-131 manuals. TC11 has two 40-pin connectors, so you can not hook a Kennedy 9100 to the TC11. The TC-131 looks promising ... Question: who actually has a Kennedy 9100 connected to a UNIBUS machine, and (of course) which interface do you use ? It looks like I'm in the market for a Kennedy 9100 UNIBUS interface [preferably a singe board module] :-) thanks, - Henk. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow > Sent: zaterdag 25 maart 2006 17:59 > To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: how to connect a Kennedy 9100 ? > > > > What interface should I be looking for to hook it to the UNIBUS ? > > Some variation of an unformatted tape drive interface. They > are slight variations between vendors, so you need the right > edge connector to idc interface card at the drive. There > should be some indication of who made the interface card on > the PC board. > > The three connectors are read, write, and control. > > Unibus controllers often are either a system unit or a single > quad board with a second board for 1600 BPI PE support. > > The Emulex TC11 and Western Peripherals TC-131 manuals are up > on bitsavers Plessey and Dilog made similar controllers. > > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From James at jdfogg.com Mon Mar 27 06:06:32 2006 From: James at jdfogg.com (James Fogg) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 07:06:32 -0500 Subject: Heathkit Manuals Site Message-ID: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A0E5D95@sbs.jdfogg.com> > Subject: Heathkit Manuals Site > > > I just saw a reference to http://www.pestingers.net/pdfs/ on > the Heathkit Listserver. It looks like it has a number of > other computer manuals besides Heathkit. I've bookmarked it now :). When I find something incredibly useful I download the content because you never know when it will go away. Like just now the link above shows "service unavailable". Did you Download the content? From shirsch at adelphia.net Mon Mar 27 06:48:10 2006 From: shirsch at adelphia.net (Steven N. Hirsch) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 07:48:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 21 Mar 2006, Doc Shipley wrote: > Well, the 7012-370 will *walk* v5.1. Verry verry slowly. > > BTW, I bought a pallet of 7043-140 boxes last week at $8/ea for the graphics > adapers (GXT120P) and the PCNET32 10/100 cards. I'm sure the scrapper thought > he was ripping me off by burying a much older system at the bottom. > > It's a 7012-397 w/512MB RAM, 2 4.5GB drives, CDROM and 8505 8mm tape drive, > GXT800M and a 10/100 ethernet adapter. And with the deskside "foot". > > I wasn't too upset about the ripoff. :) > > And, if anybody has a 43P-140 and needs RAM, I have a crapload of 64MB > DIMMs. As far as I know, *only* the 7043-140 will run them. > > AIX v5.1 was the last version to support any non-CHRP platform. The > 7043-150 (43P-150), F50, and B50 are the oldest systems that'll run v5.2 or > v5.2. Do you know if my 7248-133 can run AIX 5.1? I cannot seem to find much of any information on this system, which is setup with AIX 4.3.3 at the moment. Also, if anyone has a 100-BaseTx capable PCI ethernet adapter for this beast, I'd be interested. Ditto for a set of ISO images of AIX 5.1 (assuming it can boot it). Steve From blairrya at msu.edu Mon Mar 27 07:17:48 2006 From: blairrya at msu.edu (Ryan Blair) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 08:17:48 -0500 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <20060327081748.79e00d3a.blairrya@msu.edu> On Mon, 27 Mar 2006 07:48:10 -0500 (EST) "Steven N. Hirsch" wrote: > Do you know if my 7248-133 can run AIX 5.1? I cannot seem to find > much of any information on this system, which is setup with AIX 4.3.3 > at the moment. Sure can, it's what I've got on mine at the moment. > Also, if anyone has a 100-BaseTx capable PCI ethernet adapter for > this beast, I'd be interested. You're probably looking for one of the '9-P' Ethernet cards. -Ryan From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Mar 27 08:00:24 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:00:24 -0500 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <4427EFF8.1090007@gmail.com> Steven N. Hirsch wrote: > Do you know if my 7248-133 can run AIX 5.1? I cannot seem to find much of > any information on this system, which is setup with AIX 4.3.3 at the > moment. A 7248 can definitely run AIX 5.1. It runs AIX 5.1 very slowly. It absolutely cannot run AIX 5.2. > Also, if anyone has a 100-BaseTx capable PCI ethernet adapter for this > beast, I'd be interested. Ditto for a set of ISO images of AIX 5.1 > (assuming it can boot it). There are a bunch of third party ones that have AIX drivers available. Many of them can't be used for net-booting, but that usually isn't a problem. Just look around. Peace... Sridhar From fireflyst at earthlink.net Mon Mar 27 08:39:05 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 08:39:05 -0600 Subject: booting rt11 v5.1 on an 11/45 In-Reply-To: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11C9C992@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: As I stated in the chat last night, I don't know a whole lot about 11/45s (or rather, any PDP11s before the /04 in general) but I would recommend downloading xxdp v2.5 and seeing if that even boots. This is an easy way to figure out if (a) it's just RT-11 5.1, and (b) if there are additional diags on the xxdp 2.5 cartridge that might help nail down the problem. Downloadable here: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/xxdp/ I hope that helps. Julian > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jay West > Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2006 7:22 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: booting rt11 v5.1 on an 11/45 > > The 11/45 will boot xxdp+ v1, but won't boot RT11 v5.1. > > Upon booting the RT11 v5.1 RL02 pack, the disk flashes for > about 5-8 seconds, then the processor just halts. > > First question which I didn't see in the RT11 5x docs... what > exactly would the hardware requirements be for RT11 5.1 on a > 11/45? Is it expecting a minimum of memory? Certain I/O > devices at certain locations? I tried both a real DEC RT11 > v5.1 RL02 dist. pack, and also was able to gen one from a 5.1 > image on a scratch pack with vtserver. > > The only thing I can think of (and another listmember point > to as well) is a problem with interrupts. But I've no idea > how exactly to go about troubleshooting it, not being a DEC > expert like others here :) I've gone back and forth between > using 8K core, 16K core, or 128k unibus memory. > Similar results. My copy of xxdp+ seems a bit old, so most > diags I have seem to have older names. > > Any thoughts are most appreciated! > > Jay West > > From doc at mdrconsult.com Mon Mar 27 09:23:37 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:23:37 -0600 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <44280379.6040001@mdrconsult.com> Steven N. Hirsch wrote: > Do you know if my 7248-133 can run AIX 5.1? I cannot seem to find much of > any information on this system, which is setup with AIX 4.3.3 at the > moment. It will, but it'll be horribly slow. The memory limitations and the disk subsystem compete to be the main bottleneck on that box. I personally would stick with 4.3.3. The 7248 is the first 43P, and you've already found that IBM just barely admits it ever existed. You'll probably find more information about the physical system in the LinuxPPC community. > Also, if anyone has a 100-BaseTx capable PCI ethernet adapter for this > beast, I'd be interested. Ditto for a set of ISO images of AIX 5.1 > (assuming it can boot it). How many would you like? Seriously, I have a large stack of "Type 9-P" IBM 10/100 cards. $15 shipped inside the US. Doc From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Mar 27 09:27:14 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 07:27:14 -0800 Subject: how to connect a Kennedy 9100 ? Message-ID: <8208420B-5FB9-4B87-B00E-096FDDF0D2B3@bitsavers.org> > I downloaded the TC11 and TC-131 manuals. > TC11 has two 40-pin connectors As I said, different manufacturers sold slightly different cabling. The hex board is the basic controller for 800 bpi, you daisy chain the read/write cable to the quad board if you needed 800/1600 support. From marvin at rain.org Mon Mar 27 09:38:43 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 07:38:43 -0800 Subject: Heathkit Manuals Site Message-ID: <44280703.29000ECF@rain.org> I think it would be *FAR* better to contact the owner first. From what I've seen, the connection is slow and there is a lot of material there. It is also possible the site could be mirrored on a faster connection; after all, the guy is a ham and thus a good guy :). BTW, this site has been posted both here and on the Heath Listserver. It is entirely possible that a number of people are hogging the bandwidth and copying the site. If so, that kind of misuse could well result in the site going down. Look at the notice on bitsavers! > From: "James Fogg" > > > > I just saw a reference to http://www.pestingers.net/pdfs/ on > > the Heathkit Listserver. It looks like it has a number of > > other computer manuals besides Heathkit. I've bookmarked it now :). > > > When I find something incredibly useful I download the content because > you never know when it will go away. Like just now the link above shows > "service unavailable". Did you Download the content? > From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Mon Mar 27 09:42:17 2006 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:42:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: Burroughs B220 console In-Reply-To: <442794AB.8714B88C@rain.org> References: <442794AB.8714B88C@rain.org> Message-ID: Does anyone have any good pictures of a Burroughs B220 console, or know of an online source? Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Mar 27 10:19:51 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:19:51 -0500 Subject: ImageDisk / PC FDCs & single-density In-Reply-To: <20060322121246.FGPP8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> References: <200603210952460862.2E8636C2@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060327162042.EHTW8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Looks like I may have found the problem - It seems in my last update to "improve" the calculation of gap lengths for unknown formats, I completely cocked-up the calculation for single-density (left a variable out of the calculation). The user reports that with the corrected code, he can write the Osborne SD disk images in question on his Adaptec 1522A controller without any problems. I've asked him to run a couple of other tests, and if all goes well, I should have an update to ImageDisk posted on my site by noon tomorrow. Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Mar 27 10:23:30 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:23:30 -0500 Subject: AT&T EO handheld computers Message-ID: <20060327162421.YZIL29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> I've been contacted by someone in NJ with a couple of AT&T "EO" handheld computers to dispose of ... Anyone on the list with an interest in these that is located "close"? - If so, contact me and I'll pass on the info. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From evan at snarc.net Mon Mar 27 10:43:56 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:43:56 -0500 Subject: AT&T EO handheld computers In-Reply-To: <20060327162421.YZIL29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <000a01c651bd$a3c8c330$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> ME ME ME ME ME. Please? -----Original Message----- From: Dave Dunfield [mailto:dave06a at dunfield.com] Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 11:23 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: AT&T EO handheld computers I've been contacted by someone in NJ with a couple of AT&T "EO" handheld computers to dispose of ... Anyone on the list with an interest in these that is located "close"? - If so, contact me and I'll pass on the info. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Mar 27 10:44:50 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:44:50 -0500 Subject: Unisys A Series answers In-Reply-To: <44274213.8000007@splab.cas.neu.edu> References: <02b801c65079$a608d760$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <20060327164541.EQLR8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Hi Joe, > I have a friend that used to work on/with the Unisys stuff. I have > most of a machine in my basement, but never fired it up. He also has a > complete machine, and hasn't fired it up recently, but believes it will > run. I forwarded Dave's original email to him and he replied below. If > any of you need further help, let me know and I'll pass the questions on > to him and he might answer directly. His big thing is that he already > gets a ton of email (good,bad and ugly) and is cautious about getting > more, or joining the group. Very interesting about what he says about > booting from the floppy. He used to support a bunch of these machines, > so I am pretty sure he knows his stuff, but to not boot a floppy is unique. Please thank him for the wealth of info - if you could pass on my questions below, I'd appreciate it. I'd like to see this thing running, and I think it's "almost there", but it would appear that I still need some things... If he is willing, I would very much appreicate corresponding with him directly - please forward my email address to him and ask him to contact me. > the memory boards (daughter boards) on the processor card are (i think) > 500K Words each, yes i said words... > > the A series uses a 48 bit user word with a 4 bit tag (52 bit words) > > the a7-811 processor had a second card strapped to the proccessor that > would allow a max of about 3-4 Mg Words. > > The long net card is really the mainframe network interface, 10B2 or > AUI, in the right os it will support tcp/ip > > There should also be a long scsi card, i believe a 1744 or there > abouts.. this would be the primary mainframe bus. As far as I can tell, there is no card like this, and it does not appear to be missing - I am wondering if this system is "a bit different". Here is a more details description of what I have: - There is a "map" printed on the side cover which shows the locations of various items on the mainboard. It makes no mention of a SCSI card. There is SCSI connectors, termination and other evidence of a strong SCSI presence on the mainboard itself. - The mainboard has 8 EISA slots. The network card is plugged into the bottom slot (#1 on map). The suspected A-Series card (with the "do not press" chip) is plugged into the third slot from the top (#6 on map). - The above are the only EISA cards - there are no missing end plates or other evidence that a card has been removed. - There is a daughter card attached to the suspected A-Series card which contains memory SIMs. - Above the EISA slots, toward the front of the machine, is the 486 CPU daughter card (Marked CPU module on the map). Behind that (toward rear of machine) is a connecter marked "CPU 64-bit connector" which is unconnected. - Just above these two items (64-bit connector and 486) are two slots marked "Memory module" which are both filled with what is obviously memory cards. > the config error is usually due to: > > a) a bad cmos battery > b) re-arranged cards > c) missing cards. > > you need the SCU for the machine to fix the cmos to get rid of the error... > > Unisys was very picky and nothing else would work > > use the SCU for the unix box as the tags for the mainframe cards are wrong. > The same server cabinet also came with SYSVr4 Unix, be sure you DO NOT I received no disks, documentation or other material with the machine. I have obtained a ZIP archive of a number of config programs related to this machine - Is there any way to identify the correct one of a particular configuration/type of machine. I can send a directory listing of the files that I have if that would help. > you should be able to boot from either the CD-rom or the QIC tape. you > usually cannot boot from the floppy. It "appears to try" to boot from floppy - if sucks on the disk for a few seconds before it "dies" (no further activity - need power-cycle to get back to activity). Will it boot a "normal" CD? Ie: If I make a bootable CD with DOS on it (done by a floppy disk image) - should this boot? > once you boot into os/2 (if it's there) > > you'll get into the a-series maintenance mode support and the into the > a-series. > > be sure that you DO NOT use a ps/2 style mouse as that interrupt is > needed for the mainframe. > > once booted, the mainframe will try to boot from it's own boot drive. > > the a series boot scsi disks are NOT 512 byte sectors, they are 180 byte > sectors and will not look right to any pc software. there is special > firmware on the drive to enable the correct size sectors, etc. > > also, if you have 4mm or 8mm drives for it, they have custom firmware. > > once booted, you should be able to get to an ODT screen, > > enter ??MARC > > if that is taken, about 3-4 minutes later you should see a login > screen.!!!! if so, we can talk from there. > > MCP is the master control program and runs the a series line. > > I have an A7-811 here and i think it still runs. Thanks for all the info - I haven't gotten it to go far enough to worry too much about "what happens after booting" yet, but this is good to know - hopefully I will need this info shortly! Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From henk.gooijen at oce.com Mon Mar 27 10:45:27 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 18:45:27 +0200 Subject: how to connect a Kennedy 9100 ? References: <8208420B-5FB9-4B87-B00E-096FDDF0D2B3@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C20034@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Hmmm, perhaps I should read some more in the manual! thanks, - Henk. ________________________________ Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Al Kossow Verzonden: ma 27-03-2006 17:27 Aan: classiccmp at classiccmp.org Onderwerp: Re: how to connect a Kennedy 9100 ? > I downloaded the TC11 and TC-131 manuals. > TC11 has two 40-pin connectors As I said, different manufacturers sold slightly different cabling. The hex board is the basic controller for 800 bpi, you daisy chain the read/write cable to the quad board if you needed 800/1600 support. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Mon Mar 27 10:49:42 2006 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:49:42 -0600 Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) Message-ID: Okay, so I was thinking, would it be possible to replace the regulators and whatnot in a BA11 with several standard PC power supplies? Obviously there would be adjustments that need to be made, but considering the DEC units are now 20+ years old and the out-of-service modules may have dried up caps, would this not be a possible option? I'm just curious, I'm no electrician, nor have I looked over the leads yet. Secondly, if I have less than half the BA11 box full of cards, do I need both of the fans plugged in? Julian From paulrsm at buckeye-express.com Mon Mar 27 10:59:22 2006 From: paulrsm at buckeye-express.com (Paul R. Santa-Maria) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:59:22 -0500 Subject: Big Board - MicroCornucopia Message-ID: <380-220063127165922661@buckeye-express.com> Read this thread. No one even bid $1 for them. http://classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2001-June/174213.html -- Paul R. Santa-Maria Monroe, Michigan USA From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Mar 27 11:15:09 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:15:09 -0600 Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) References: Message-ID: <000701c651c2$0083c9e0$6800a8c0@BILLING> I haven't checked the specs, but I'd be surprised if the standard PC supplies could put out the amps required. Jay From fireflyst at earthlink.net Mon Mar 27 11:23:32 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:23:32 -0600 Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) In-Reply-To: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11C9CA6D@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: That's what I figured, but I thought I'd check with people that had more expert-ness than me :) > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jay West > Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 11:15 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) > > I haven't checked the specs, but I'd be surprised if the > standard PC supplies could put out the amps required. > > Jay > > From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 27 11:32:44 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:32:44 -0800 Subject: Info on Computer Devices Inc. DOT PC Message-ID: <200603270932440400.05070AAD@10.0.0.252> Just got an email from Down Under from a fellow with one of these. Uses 2 3.5" single-sided drives in what he thinks is a 280KB format. His unit has a dead keyboard. Before I have him send me sample of the diskette, does anyone know anything about these? Thanks, Chuck From jbglaw at lug-owl.de Mon Mar 27 11:34:20 2006 From: jbglaw at lug-owl.de (Jan-Benedict Glaw) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 19:34:20 +0200 Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) In-Reply-To: <000701c651c2$0083c9e0$6800a8c0@BILLING> References: <000701c651c2$0083c9e0$6800a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <20060327173420.GC31387@lug-owl.de> On Mon, 2006-03-27 11:15:09 -0600, Jay West wrote: > I haven't checked the specs, but I'd be surprised if the standard PC > supplies could put out the amps required. Looking at http://bitsavers.vt100.net/dec/unibus/EK-BA11A-TM-003_Aug83.pdf, the PSU will give you these: Logic Voltage: +5.1V +/- 0.10V min: 6.0A max: 120.0A +15.0V +/- 0.30V min: 0.0A max: 3.0A -15.0V +/- 0.30V min: 0.0A max: 3.0A +12.0V +/- 0.24V min: 0.0A max: 5.0A Memory Voltage: -12.0V +/- 0.24V min: 0.0A max: 1.0A +5.1V +/- 0.10V min: 0.0A max 10.0A Most of these shouldn't be much of a problem for a high-powered PC power supply, except 120A for 5.1V ... 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 cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 27 11:38:16 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:38:16 -0800 Subject: Big Board - MicroCornucopia In-Reply-To: <380-220063127165922661@buckeye-express.com> References: <380-220063127165922661@buckeye-express.com> Message-ID: <200603270938160340.050C1B4E@10.0.0.252> On 3/27/2006 at 11:59 AM Paul R. Santa-Maria wrote: >Read this thread. No one even bid $1 for them. >http://classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2001-June/174213.html Timing seems to be everyhting in the ephemera market, Paul. About 10 years ago, I tried to find a taker for complete sets of Microsystems and Kilobaud. No luck, they went to the recyclers. I kept the Kilobaud #1, though. Cheers, Chuck From zap at columbus.rr.com Mon Mar 27 12:04:22 2006 From: zap at columbus.rr.com (Chris Riedl) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:04:22 -0500 Subject: Things for Free - Columbus, Ohio Message-ID: I have not found any interest on the net in this equipment, so hopefully it might be worth something to someone if offered for free, otherwise it may be destined for the dump when I have to move. AT&T Unix PC (Internal HD, boots to prompt) Vector Graphic Memorite w/ manual Original IBM PC & Printer (both in zip up carry bags) I certainly wouldn't turn down a small donation for anything here, but I'd rather see it go to a good home than get pitched. I can't afford to move everything I have with me off to school! Thanks, Chris From Tim at Rikers.org Mon Mar 27 12:13:54 2006 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:13:54 -0700 Subject: SCSI LV-D In-Reply-To: <200603250817270727.59948F1B@192.168.42.129> References: <200603171734.26890.rtellason@blazenet.net> <441B3D4E.1010800@DakotaCom.Net> <200603181411.13168.rtellason@blazenet.net> <20060319040149.GC23112@ned.cc.purdue.edu> <441DD7E8.6010602@vintagecomputermarketplace.com> <441F1EC2.7010600@Rikers.org> <200603250817270727.59948F1B@192.168.42.129> Message-ID: <44282B62.3030609@Rikers.org> Bruce Lane wrote: > The only way I know of to safely do so is to use a single-ended (or LVD) to HVD converter on the specific device that needs it. > > Rancho Technology still makes such units. Check this link... > > http://www.rancho.com/Products.aspx?ID=1&Model=RTBLVD-HVD&CatID=1 Looks like that would do it, but at $389 I'm not planning to pick one up. Thanx anyway. -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From tshoppa at wmata.com Mon Mar 27 12:17:40 2006 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:17:40 -0500 Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) Message-ID: Julian asked: > Okay, so I was thinking, would it be possible to replace the regulators and > whatnot in a BA11 with several standard PC power supplies? Obviously there > would be adjustments that need to be made, but considering the DEC units are > now 20+ years old and the out-of-service modules may have dried up caps, > would this not be a possible option? "BA11" covers a lot of chassis/backplane combinations, both Q-bus and Unibus and not really any bus. I suspect you're talking about the 10.5" high Unibus box. Dried up caps in the modules are far from a fundamental difficulty. Compare that with re-doing the power bussing on the backplanes and replacing a couple of caps seems downright easy :-). Not all the backplane signals are drop-in compatible with PC-clone power supplies, but when third-party manufacturers used PC-clone power supplies for Q-bus chassis the extra signals were easily generated with a little board. On the Unibus, you probably need at least a token 15V supply and maybe one that can give substantial currents (depending on what boards you've got.) Some of those will run off +12V just fine, but others won't Look at Strobe Data's Unibus backplane for an example of one way to approach the problem: http://www.strobedata.com/home/ubus.pdf One warning: few "350W" PC clone power supplies are actually capable of pumping out half that much power. There are good PC-clone supplies but at that price point the "industrial" switchers are not too far off in price (and are far more flexible in terms of configuration.) Tim. From trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu Mon Mar 27 12:22:15 2006 From: trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu (joe heck) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:22:15 -0500 Subject: more Unisys A Series answers In-Reply-To: <20060327164541.EQLR8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> References: <02b801c65079$a608d760$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> <20060327164541.EQLR8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <44282D57.4010108@splab.cas.neu.edu> Hi again everyone, Well, the question about the Unisys A series to my friend got him started. He's fired up his system and started looking for support stuff. Here are his latest ramblings. And BTW, he has changed his mind about booting from a floppy. It should work. He spells it out some more below. Of interest is the fact that he would start a group, probably yahoo group specifically for this stuff if there is not a group already. He is wondering how much interest there really is in this hardware/software? Additional Information: well, after the email i finally dug out and powered up the a7-811 i have. also dug around for other stuff. here are some observations and corrections. the system should boot from a dos 6.2 series floppy, however, if you have the 311 series (based on a U600-35 or U6000-400) it may be a 5.25" fd to boot from the scu utilities i have include the following models.... A7-311,411,811 MicroA, U6000-35,U6000-400 and the UNISYS CCP a special auxiliary processor used on the larger A series unit to connect via some strange protocols but loosely based on the rack-mount 411 I have a fully functional A7-811 running MCP 4.6 i think... with many keys for much of the software. I have a set of boards for a 411 and the chassis, however, i would have to put them all back together to recheck functionality., somewhere i may even have lot's of the doc's in pdf for it if i can find the cd's. If there is enough interest, i might startup a resurrection group. have joe let me know. i have not done much of this stuff since about 98 and have been out of the field for about 5 years, so it may take a while for the brain cells to fire again. i used to be a systems, applications, and product support person within a company that developed software for the a-series line. the company is still around and still does this stuff!!! as i said to joe earlier, i seem to be remembering more of the gotcha's than the actual stuff and don't know how much i have forgotten. i seem to remember that you could have up to 3 scsi controllers in an 811, the first one was a 274x and the rest were 174x and would allow up to 3 external scsi busses and would support differential as well as single ended. The long ethernet card was actually called a NP card or network processor... it would support the 10b2 or aui communications based on the position of the wide switch to the back of the card. this card only works in the mainframe side and you could have up to 2 of them. if you wanted network connectivity on the OS/2 side, you needed to add a 3C503 card to the PC side. the SCAMP board and the parasitic daughter board had to be in a specific slot. other than that i'll see what i can dig up. >>>LOU<<< Dave Dunfield wrote: > Hi Joe, > > > Please thank him for the wealth of info - if you could pass on my questions > below, I'd appreciate it. I'd like to see this thing running, and I think it's "almost > there", but it would appear that I still need some things... > > If he is willing, I would very much appreicate corresponding with him > directly - please forward my email address to him and ask him to contact > me. > > > > > As far as I can tell, there is no card like this, and it does not appear to > be missing - I am wondering if this system is "a bit different". Here is > a more details description of what I have: > > - There is a "map" printed on the side cover which shows the locations > of various items on the mainboard. It makes no mention of a SCSI > card. There is SCSI connectors, termination and other evidence of > a strong SCSI presence on the mainboard itself. > > - The mainboard has 8 EISA slots. > The network card is plugged into the bottom slot (#1 on map). > The suspected A-Series card (with the "do not press" chip) is > plugged into the third slot from the top (#6 on map). > > - The above are the only EISA cards - there are no missing end > plates or other evidence that a card has been removed. > > - There is a daughter card attached to the suspected A-Series > card which contains memory SIMs. > > - Above the EISA slots, toward the front of the machine, is the > 486 CPU daughter card (Marked CPU module on the map). > Behind that (toward rear of machine) is a connecter marked > "CPU 64-bit connector" which is unconnected. > > - Just above these two items (64-bit connector and 486) are > two slots marked "Memory module" which are both filled with > what is obviously memory cards. > > > > I received no disks, documentation or other material with the machine. > I have obtained a ZIP archive of a number of config programs related to > this machine - Is there any way to identify the correct one of a particular > configuration/type of machine. > > I can send a directory listing of the files that I have if that would help. > > > > > It "appears to try" to boot from floppy - if sucks on the disk for a few > seconds before it "dies" (no further activity - need power-cycle to > get back to activity). > > Will it boot a "normal" CD? Ie: If I make a bootable CD with DOS > on it (done by a floppy disk image) - should this boot? > > > Thanks for all the info - I haven't gotten it to go far enough to > worry too much about "what happens after booting" yet, but this > is good to know - hopefully I will need this info shortly! > > Regards, > Dave > > -- > dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield > dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com > com Collector of vintage computing equipment: > http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html > > From Useddec at aol.com Mon Mar 27 12:36:42 2006 From: Useddec at aol.com (Useddec at aol.com) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:36:42 EST Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) Message-ID: <2c5.6407814.31598aba@aol.com> I have all of the replacement parts if are interested. Paul From Useddec at aol.com Mon Mar 27 12:45:42 2006 From: Useddec at aol.com (Useddec at aol.com) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:45:42 EST Subject: how to connect a Kennedy 9100 ? Message-ID: <354.c55e97.31598cd6@aol.com> I should have a TC11 and TC131 if you need them. Paul From fireflyst at earthlink.net Mon Mar 27 12:47:23 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 12:47:23 -0600 Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) In-Reply-To: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11C9CAC5@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: Umm, thanks but no thanks, it was a technical curiousity, not indicating anything was broken. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Useddec at aol.com > Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 12:37 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) > > I have all of the replacement parts if are interested. > > Paul > From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 27 13:01:06 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:01:06 -0800 Subject: Escon Microcomputer/Selectric Interface System In-Reply-To: <44278AD3.93778C8@rain.org> References: <44278AD3.93778C8@rain.org> Message-ID: <200603271101060997.0557F3BE@10.0.0.252> On 3/26/2006 at 10:48 PM Marvin Johnston wrote: >I've got an Escon Microcomputer/Selectric Interface System that looks >like it was sold as a kit. It appears to be a unit to convert a >Selectric I or II typewriter so it can be used as a computer printer. Is >anyone familiar with this unit, and any ideas about what it is worth? It >belongs to the widow of my friend who died last month, and I am trying >to help separate the good stuff from everything else. Marv, does this thing work with a Selectric typewriter or a Selectric I/O writer? There's a big difference--the typewriter has none of the electrical components (solenoids, etc.) that the I/O writer uses to activate the mechanism. The golf-ball print mechanism is the same in both. Since Selectrics are still pretty easy to come by as typewriters, I suspect that this may have more interest if it were intended for typewriters (i.e. it included the actuators). On the other hand, the I/O writers, while once more commonplace, are fairly rare today and the unit would have substantially less appeal. Cheers, Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Mar 27 13:15:48 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:15:48 -0800 Subject: more Unisys A Series answers Message-ID: > Of interest is the fact that he would start a group, probably yahoo > group specifically for this stuff if there is not a group already. He > is wondering how much interest there really is in this hardware/ software? As these are pretty much the only sort of B machine that started with the B 5000 that normal folks are likely to run into, there is going to be some interest in the future. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Mar 27 13:19:51 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 12:19:51 -0700 Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) In-Reply-To: <000701c651c2$0083c9e0$6800a8c0@BILLING> References: <000701c651c2$0083c9e0$6800a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <44283AD7.3090401@jetnet.ab.ca> Jay West wrote: > I haven't checked the specs, but I'd be surprised if the standard PC > supplies could put out the amps required. > > Jay Well that is 600 watts on the 5 volt supply @ 120 amps. I think a PC power supply while you can get 5 volt power supplies are about 20 amps. From halarewich at gmail.com Mon Mar 27 13:32:40 2006 From: halarewich at gmail.com (Chris Halarewich) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:32:40 -0800 Subject: Heathkit Manuals Site In-Reply-To: <44280703.29000ECF@rain.org> References: <44280703.29000ECF@rain.org> Message-ID: <6d6501090603271132r7ec843a9i4bea305078e30fad@mail.gmail.com> if start at the main site http://www.pestingers.net/ then navigate to interests, his hobbies, antique computers u should be able to get in that way On 3/27/06, Marvin Johnston wrote: > > > I think it would be *FAR* better to contact the owner first. From what > I've seen, the connection is slow and there is a lot of material there. > It is also possible the site could be mirrored on a faster connection; > after all, the guy is a ham and thus a good guy :). > > > BTW, this site has been posted both here and on the Heath Listserver. It > is entirely possible that a number of people are hogging the bandwidth > and copying the site. If so, that kind of misuse could well result in > the site going down. Look at the notice on bitsavers! > > > > From: "James Fogg" > > > > > > I just saw a reference to http://www.pestingers.net/pdfs/ on > > > the Heathkit Listserver. It looks like it has a number of > > > other computer manuals besides Heathkit. I've bookmarked it now :). > > > > > > When I find something incredibly useful I download the content because > > you never know when it will go away. Like just now the link above shows > > "service unavailable". Did you Download the content? > > > From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Mon Mar 27 13:58:21 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 21:58:21 +0200 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <44280379.6040001@mdrconsult.com> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> <44280379.6040001@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <20060327215821.58a580e7.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:23:37 -0600 Doc Shipley wrote: > Seriously, I have a large stack of "Type 9-P" IBM 10/100 cards. > $15 shipped inside the US. ARGL. Are these the cards with the fscked up AMD PCnet chips? (IBM changed the PCI vendor ID of those cards to make ordinary PeeCee cards incompatible with AIX. That gave me some headache when I stated to port NetBSD to a 43P-150.) If someone in Germany (EU) needs one of this cards: IIRC there are still some of them in my PCI card box... -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Mar 27 14:59:55 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 12:59:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: References: <46e70d050603261308q1c80bc74xb4ad001e237b09cd@mail.gmail.com> <200603261740.51212.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 27 Mar 2006, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 3/27/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > I've responded to this off-list, but if any of the rest of you guys have or > > know of c64s or c128s that might be available for parts please drop me a > > line. They don't need to be working, or have power supplies with them > > either, and in fact I don't even necessarily need cases and keyboards and > > such, though those won't contribute all that much to shipping weight. I > > have someone who is looking for certain chips... > > Well... the two that come immediately to mind are the PLA (since they > die so often), and the SID (since there still isn't a modern > replacement for *that* sound)... Here's a guy who's doing a very good job at replicating the SID on FPGA. http://myhdl.jandecaluwe.com/doku.php/projects:phoenixsid_65x81 It's not ready yet, but much of the spec works right now. There are even some sound samples. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu From ak6dn at mindspring.com Mon Mar 27 15:03:57 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:03:57 -0800 Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4428533D.8080001@mindspring.com> Wolfe, Julian wrote: > Okay, so I was thinking, would it be possible to replace the regulators and > whatnot in a BA11 with several standard PC power supplies? Obviously there > would be adjustments that need to be made, but considering the DEC units are > now 20+ years old and the out-of-service modules may have dried up caps, > would this not be a possible option? Certainly possible, with either OTS PC style or switcher PS modules. For the 'classic' DEC brick-style regulator modules as in the BA11-K box: H744 ....... +5V @ 25A H7441 ...... +5V @ 32A (upgrade to the H744) H745 ...... -15V @ 10A H754 ...... +20V @ 8A & -5V @ 1-8A 54-11086 .. +15V @ 4A A standard BA11-K box has 2xH744 (or later 2xH7441), 1xH745, 1x54-11086, and usually a spot for 1xH754 (for core memory, not req'd if no core). Each of the backplanes (DD11-D/C) has one or two AMP MateNLok connectors that handle the power distribution to the various slots, typically a pair of 14ga wires for +5V, and one wire each for the other voltages. Each 9slot SU is nominally 10-15A max at +5V, easily handled by a small switcher. The main problem I see with OTS PC supplies is they are +12V and not +15V. Older DEC cards expect +15V input and do on-board regulation to +12V. Only some of the later MOS memory cards (like MS11-PB 1MB for the 11/44) expect +12V on the backplane (which is supplied directly from the BA11-A supply). I have built a benchtop debug station that uses a DD11-CK 4 slot SU with an inexpensive +5V at 10A, +15V at 2A, -15V at -2A modular supply. I suppose it would be fairly straightforward to rip out the rear end of a BA11-K box an lineup 5 or 6 of these and completely replace the power subsystem. > > I'm just curious, I'm no electrician, nor have I looked over the leads yet. > > Secondly, if I have less than half the BA11 box full of cards, do I need > both of the fans plugged in? > For the BA11-K box remember the fans not only cool the boards but also the power regulators and internal power supply transformer. I would not disable one of the fans even if the box were lightly populated. Power supplies want to be in a cool environment, heat is your biggest enemy (besides time, I guess). > Julian > > > From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 27 15:27:15 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:27:15 -0800 Subject: more Unisys A Series answers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603271327150783.05DDC078@10.0.0.252> On 3/27/2006 at 11:15 AM Al Kossow wrote: >As these are pretty much the only sort of B machine that started with >the B 5000 that normal folks are likely to run into, there is going to be >some interest in the future. The big thing in the way of any sort major interest group forming is the relative rarity of the Series A boxes. I've never seen one in the flesh. Cheers, Chuck From allain at panix.com Mon Mar 27 15:56:19 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 16:56:19 -0500 Subject: Escon Microcomputer/Selectric Interface System References: <44278AD3.93778C8@rain.org> Message-ID: <006101c651e9$4805b040$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> > a unit to convert a > Selectric I or II typewriter so it can be used as a computer printer. I would like to see a few photos of this, in general because I would like some insight on how to see the selectric mechanism in simple terms. Or you could just send me the thing . John A. From fireflyst at earthlink.net Mon Mar 27 15:58:50 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 15:58:50 -0600 Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) In-Reply-To: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11C9CB5C@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Don North > Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 3:04 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) > > Wolfe, Julian wrote: > > Okay, so I was thinking, would it be possible to replace the > > regulators and whatnot in a BA11 with several standard PC power > > supplies? Obviously there would be adjustments that need > to be made, > > but considering the DEC units are now 20+ years old and the > > out-of-service modules may have dried up caps, would this > not be a possible option? > Certainly possible, with either OTS PC style or switcher PS modules. > > For the 'classic' DEC brick-style regulator modules as in the > BA11-K box: > > H744 ....... +5V @ 25A > H7441 ...... +5V @ 32A (upgrade to the H744) > H745 ...... -15V @ 10A > H754 ...... +20V @ 8A & -5V @ 1-8A > 54-11086 .. +15V @ 4A > > A standard BA11-K box has 2xH744 (or later 2xH7441), 1xH745, > 1x54-11086, and usually a spot for 1xH754 (for core memory, > not req'd if no core). > > Each of the backplanes (DD11-D/C) has one or two AMP MateNLok > connectors that handle the power distribution to the various > slots, typically a pair of 14ga wires for +5V, and one wire > each for the other voltages. Each 9slot SU is nominally > 10-15A max at +5V, easily handled by a small switcher. > > The main problem I see with OTS PC supplies is they are +12V > and not +15V. > Older DEC cards expect +15V input and do on-board regulation > to +12V. Only some of the later MOS memory cards (like > MS11-PB 1MB for the 11/44) expect > +12V on the backplane (which is supplied directly from the > BA11-A supply). > > I have built a benchtop debug station that uses a DD11-CK 4 > slot SU with an inexpensive +5V at 10A, +15V at 2A, -15V at -2A > modular supply. I suppose it would be fairly straightforward > to rip out the rear end of a BA11-K box an lineup 5 or 6 of > these and completely replace the power subsystem. > > > > I'm just curious, I'm no electrician, nor have I looked > over the leads yet. > > > > Secondly, if I have less than half the BA11 box full of cards, do I > > need both of the fans plugged in? > > > For the BA11-K box remember the fans not only cool the boards > but also the power regulators and internal power supply > transformer. I would not disable one of the fans even if the > box were lightly populated. Power supplies want to be in a > cool environment, heat is your biggest enemy (besides time, I guess). > > Julian I pretty much counted on this being the answer, and again it was more of a curiosity thing. Thanks :) > > > > > > > > From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 27 16:09:36 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 14:09:36 -0800 Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603271409360933.060486BC@10.0.0.252> You know, for less than $100, you could probably put together a very adequte supply from OTS PSUs available from Jameco. A 5v 50A open frame switcher runs less than $50--and they do have 15v switchers also. One of the concerns about using any third-party PSU though, would be power up/down sequencing. Are there specs available for that? Cheers, Chuck From allain at panix.com Mon Mar 27 16:17:31 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:17:31 -0500 Subject: more Unisys A Series answers References: <02b801c65079$a608d760$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06><20060327164541.EQLR8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <44282D57.4010108@splab.cas.neu.edu> Message-ID: <00ac01c651ec$3e8875e0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> > Of interest is the fact that he would start a group, probably yahoo > group specifically for this stuff if there is not a group already. He > is wondering how much interest there really is in this hardware/ > software? I would definitely want to be on that list. The machine I have should be able to run some interesting demos rather than just booting Up and shutting Down. John A. From aw288 at osfn.org Mon Mar 27 16:24:52 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:24:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: NY/CT collectors In-Reply-To: <44272DA1.5040601@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: > Count me in! I'm in Putnam so anyplace in NY/CT or N. NJ/Rockland > County works for me. Pizza/Beer location sounds like a good idea. OK, that makes four or five of us. Anyone else? Let's pick a time and place. Ideas? William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From evan at snarc.net Mon Mar 27 16:46:01 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:46:01 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001e01c651f0$39251410$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> < Evan kicks this thread in the rear and hopes it lands in the MARCH list where it belongs > :) -----Original Message----- From: William Donzelli [mailto:aw288 at osfn.org] Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 5:25 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: NY/CT collectors > Count me in! I'm in Putnam so anyplace in NY/CT or N. NJ/Rockland > County works for me. Pizza/Beer location sounds like a good idea. OK, that makes four or five of us. Anyone else? Let's pick a time and place. Ideas? William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 27 16:23:04 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 23:23:04 +0100 (BST) Subject: booting rt11 v5.1 on an 11/45 In-Reply-To: <01da01c6513c$c8e36070$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> from "Jay West" at Mar 26, 6 07:21:32 pm Message-ID: > > The 11/45 will boot xxdp+ v1, but won't boot RT11 v5.1. > > Upon booting the RT11 v5.1 RL02 pack, the disk flashes for about 5-8 > seconds, then the processor just halts. > > First question which I didn't see in the RT11 5x docs... what exactly would > the hardware requirements be for RT11 5.1 on a 11/45? Is it expecting a > minimum of memory? Certain I/O devices at certain locations? I tried both a > real DEC RT11 v5.1 RL02 dist. pack, and also was able to gen one from a 5.1 > image on a scratch pack with vtserver. I have seen a 'stock' RT11 V5.something distribution boot on an 11/45. So there's no inherent problem. AFAIK the only devices that RT11 needs to boot are the system console (a DL11 serial port at the normal addres (777560 IIRC)) and the disk controller for whatever disk you are booting from (in yuor case an RL11). These 2 devices need to be at the 'standard' I/O addresses and have the standard vectors. As regards memory, it doesn't need much. 32KW is easily enough. AFAIK RT11 will boot on a system without mrmory management. > The only thing I can think of (and another listmember point to as well) is a > problem with interrupts. But I've no idea how exactly to go about > troubleshooting it, not being a DEC expert like others here :) I've gone > back and forth between using 8K core, 16K core, or 128k unibus memory. > Similar results. My copy of xxdp+ seems a bit old, so most diags I have seem > to have older names. > > Any thoughts are most appreciated! Thougths (and be warned that I am not an RT11 expert) Firstly, where does it halt? What's on the address lights when it halts. If it appears to halt at the second word of a vector (that is, a location near the start of the address space -- high bits all 0 -- with bit 1 set), then see if the first word of the vector points to that location (it's common practice to set unused vectors to point to their own second word, which contains a HALT instruction). If it does, then it reasonably probable that the machine is taking that vector. Find out why. Is it , for example, an illegal address trap. Is it possible that some interupting device is sending that vector. Secondly, if the disk is being accessed for 5 seconds or more, it's probable that something is being loaded from disk. Maybe you should step through memory using the panel after it's booted to see if, indeed, something is being loaded (and the data is not falling into a black hole, which might indicate DMA problems). Does anything ever appear on the console? Is it possible there's a problem with the console interface? I've seen this sort of problem once on an 11/34. It halted when booting RT11. It turned out that one of the DIP switches on the DL11-W console interface card was defective, the card was therefore sending the wrong interrupt vector. As soon as RT11 enabled interrupts on that device, it got said bogus vector and halted (see above). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Mar 27 16:35:27 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 23:35:27 +0100 (BST) Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) In-Reply-To: from "Wolfe, Julian" at Mar 27, 6 10:49:42 am Message-ID: > > Okay, so I was thinking, would it be possible to replace the regulators and > whatnot in a BA11 with several standard PC power supplies? Obviously there Firslty 'BA11' covers dozens of mounting boxes for PDP11 stuff, both Unibus and Q-bus. And there were many different PSUs used with them > would be adjustments that need to be made, but considering the DEC units are > now 20+ years old and the out-of-service modules may have dried up caps, > would this not be a possible option? I fail to see why you want to do this. The DEC PSUs are conservatively designed, well built, and properly documented. PSU PSUs are none of these in my expserience. Most, if not all, compoents for the DEC supplies, certainly those components that are likely to fail, are still available. Easily availalbe. Now, I said earlier that there were many different PSUs. Most of the older ones used the DEC 'Bricks' or similar circuitry. While these are switch-mode units, there are 'friendly' switch-mode units. The input is about 25V AC from a step-down isolating transformer. There is no mains or rectified manis around. Yes theres enough power to burn the tip off your screwdriver if you short the wrong thing out, or to make some of the components explode (the latter is direct experience), but it's a lot nicer than the rectified mains in a lot of later supplies. There are exceptions. The supply in the 11/44 is a mains voltage (on-line) swithcer. In fact it's a particularly complicated one. This is not a supply that I like working on, but I've done it, and lived to tell the tale. So it is _possible_. Just be aware that there are a couple of coke-can size capacitors at the left side that charge up to 200V each and are in sereis. Touch the output of that (and it's on barrier strip terminals on top of some of the PSU boards) and you won't feel anything ever again. Seriously! But getting back to your suggestion. It probably is possible to substitute PC power supplies, but it would be a lot less work to simply repair the existing supply. Once you realise it's a swticher, and once you find out what the 723 chip really is (read the data sheet, it must be out there somewhere) and understand op-amps, then the design of the 'brick' is not hard to follow. > Secondly, if I have less than half the BA11 box full of cards, do I need > both of the fans plugged in? Possibly not, but I've yet to find a computer that objects to over-cooling... WHat's the reason for wanting to disconnect one of the fans? -tony From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Mon Mar 27 16:46:14 2006 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:46:14 -0500 Subject: Wanted: Ohio Scientific... Message-ID: For those who don't already know, I focus my vintage collection on Ohio Scientific. I would really like to fill out my collection with a C1P-MF Series II, pictured here (sorry if the URL wraps): http://www.technology.niagarac.on.ca/people/mcsele/images/OSIAd-1981PopularE lec.jpg Also, I need the tan/brown metal floppy chassis for an original C1P-MF. Yes, I know that many were sold with the metal/wood floppy unit that usually went with the C4P but I'd like an example of the other model. Finally, I'd like a better example of a C4P metal/wood CPU chassis. I have a 4P with the electronics in good shape but the case is pretty rough. None of the above need to be working, just in good physical shape. In pursuit of the above, I am considering trades of other parts of my collection that are rather rare. Also, I have a small reserve of convenient, wallet sized presidential portraits (but don't get any ideas of ebay level riches). Thanks, Bill Sudbrink From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Mar 27 17:23:04 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 15:23:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: Escon Microcomputer/Selectric Interface System In-Reply-To: <200603271101060997.0557F3BE@10.0.0.252> References: <44278AD3.93778C8@rain.org> <200603271101060997.0557F3BE@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060327151929.L27839@shell.lmi.net> On 3/26/2006 at 10:48 PM Marvin Johnston wrote: > I've got an Escon Microcomputer/Selectric Interface System that looks > like it was sold as a kit. It appears to be a unit to convert a > Selectric I or II typewriter so it can be used as a computer printer. Is IFF it is the one that I think that it is, it attaches UNDERNEATH the keyboard, and has a lot of mechanical linkage. from an outfit in Walnut Creek (Lamorinda?) California? Finding info is further complicated, because IBM has a trademark for some uses of "Escon", as Enterprise System Connection, or something similar. From doc at mdrconsult.com Mon Mar 27 17:35:34 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:35:34 -0600 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <20060327215821.58a580e7.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> <44280379.6040001@mdrconsult.com> <20060327215821.58a580e7.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <442876C6.20705@mdrconsult.com> Jochen Kunz wrote: > On Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:23:37 -0600 > Doc Shipley wrote: > > >> Seriously, I have a large stack of "Type 9-P" IBM 10/100 cards. >> $15 shipped inside the US. > > ARGL. Are these the cards with the fscked up AMD PCnet chips? > (IBM changed the PCI vendor ID of those cards to make ordinary PeeCee > cards incompatible with AIX. That gave me some headache when I stated to > port NetBSD to a 43P-150.) The very one... However, it's a beefier adapter than the alternative from 3Com (based on the 3C595 chip IIRC), and it's still supported in AIX >5.0, whereas the 3Com card isn't. What's the graphics support like on the -150 in NetBSD? Are the Matrox-based cards supported? Doc From rpost4 at cfl.rr.com Mon Mar 27 18:36:16 2006 From: rpost4 at cfl.rr.com (rpost) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 19:36:16 -0500 Subject: Eletronics Learning Lab Message-ID: <004401c651ff$a0080bb0$03fea8c0@HP53975803189> I recently saw a thread posted on the parts list for the Radio Shack model 28-280 kit does any one have the manual for it my son would be extremely appreciative. Allen From rtellason at blazenet.net Mon Mar 27 18:44:22 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 19:44:22 -0500 Subject: Zenith power supplies Message-ID: <200603271944.22975.rtellason@blazenet.net> I have a couple of Zenith power supplies, fit their models 151, I think, maybe more. Anybody interested in taking these off my hands? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Mar 27 18:53:25 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 18:53:25 -0600 Subject: xxdp CKTGE0 References: <000301c6507a$c2e02720$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <4426250B.3020100@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <00c201c65202$06f8f8f0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Don wrote.... > Try fishing in the > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/xxdp/PDP11_DiagnosticHandbook_1988.pdf > pond on p.1-2 > > If you want a listing, well that is a horse of a different color. Actually, I was looking for listings. If the diagnostic fails, the existing docs are almost useless to tell just why. Not that I remember much of Macro11 yet, but hopefully the comments would help. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Mar 27 19:00:38 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 19:00:38 -0600 Subject: xxdp RL02? References: <020401c65140$3da04bf0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <44275BC4.5010509@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <00c901c65203$07d27390$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> You wrote.... > I don't think there is such a thing. I have been searching for PDP-11 > diagnostics for several years. The available images: xxdp22 and xxdp25 > seem to be the best thing out there. I have a disk of xxdp v1.0. If anyone wants an image of it, I'd be happy to oblige. > The "Handbook" was also written in Europe. This makes me think it was > something created in the field and not supported directly by DEC. That > makes me think there was no unified diagnostic package, but that options > had diagnostic tapes or disks and that they were distributed on an ad-hoc > basis. I'm just shocked diags seem to receive such short shrift at DEC. I guess it makes me feel quite fortunate that for HP 2100 & 21MX we have a complete set of full source listings that exactly match diag documentation that exactly match the code version on the media. I've refered to that code many times. Hopefully someday a late full library of DEC diags will be unearthed with matching source & docs. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Mar 27 19:03:28 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 19:03:28 -0600 Subject: booting rt11 v5.1 on an 11/45 References: Message-ID: <017001c65203$6cd53750$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Julian wrote... > Downloadable here: > http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/xxdp/ That helps, exactly what I was looking for :) Jay From ak6dn at mindspring.com Mon Mar 27 19:41:11 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:41:11 -0800 Subject: xxdp RL02? In-Reply-To: <00c901c65203$07d27390$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <020401c65140$3da04bf0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <44275BC4.5010509@nktelco.net> <00c901c65203$07d27390$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <44289437.1050808@mindspring.com> Jay West wrote: > You wrote.... >> I don't think there is such a thing. I have been searching for PDP-11 >> diagnostics for several years. The available images: xxdp22 and >> xxdp25 seem to be the best thing out there. > I have a disk of xxdp v1.0. If anyone wants an image of it, I'd be > happy to oblige. I (and probably others to with 1970s vintage pdp11s) would like an online image, much like the 'xxdpv25_rl02.dsk' images already online. There are lots of DEC diagnostics missing from the v2.2 and v2.5 XXDP disks, specifically for earlier/obscure machines (eg 11/60 :-() and peripherals. > >> The "Handbook" was also written in Europe. This makes me think it was >> something created in the field and not supported directly by DEC. >> That makes me think there was no unified diagnostic package, but that >> options had diagnostic tapes or disks and that they were distributed >> on an ad-hoc basis. When I worked on the 11/60 diagnostics in 1977 or so the diagnostics HAD to be written to be distributable on paper tape AND be able to run in the minimum memory configuration, like 8KW or 16KW of core. That's why there were DQFPA, DQFPB, DQFPC, etc segments. Diagnostics weren't distributed on an ad-hoc basis, when you bought the item, you got tape(s) and hardcopy listings. Only later when disks got big enough and the number*size of diagnostics got large enough did XXDP media like RL01/RL02 become the standard means (and paper tape readers were phased out) for binary. I don't know that DEC ever distributed soft copies of diagnostic listings on disk or tape (now finding that would be the holy grail at this point). > I'm just shocked diags seem to receive such short shrift at DEC. I > guess it makes me feel quite fortunate that for HP 2100 & 21MX we have > a complete set of full source listings that exactly match diag > documentation that exactly match the code version on the media. I've > refered to that code many times. Hopefully someday a late full library > of DEC diags will be unearthed with matching source & docs. > > Jay > From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Mar 27 20:12:01 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 21:12:01 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44289B71.4050509@gmail.com> William Donzelli wrote: >> Count me in! I'm in Putnam so anyplace in NY/CT or N. NJ/Rockland >> County works for me. Pizza/Beer location sounds like a good idea. > > OK, that makes four or five of us. > > Anyone else? Let's pick a time and place. Ideas? How about Longobardi's in Wappingers? Food's pretty good. Peace... Sridhar From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Mar 27 20:34:37 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 20:34:37 -0600 Subject: booting rt11 v5.1 on an 11/45 References: Message-ID: <01d301c65210$28c03f80$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Tony wrote... > Thougths (and be warned that I am not an RT11 expert) > > Firstly, where does it halt? I will get that information the next time I go down and work on that machine. >Does anything ever appear on the > console? Is it possible there's a problem with the console interface? Possible, but... xxdp (both v1 and v2.5) works, and vtserver (which is of course highly dependant on the serial port) works. > I've seen this sort of problem once on an 11/34. It halted when booting > RT11. It turned out that one of the DIP switches on the DL11-W console > interface card was defective, the card was therefore sending the wrong > interrupt vector. As soon as RT11 enabled interrupts on that device, it > got said bogus vector and halted (see above). I've tried a few different DL11-W's, all the same. I have this funny feeling it doesn't have a good line clock. I *DID* run a diagnostic that is supposed to be fairly thorough... Below is the output. Of course, the docs don't tell me what this output means, nor do I have source to dig in to (not that I am good with macro11 yet). But here's the diag output: @DL CHMDLE0 XXDP+ DL MONITOR BOOTED VIA UNIT 0 28K UNIBUS SYSTEM ENTER DATE (DD-MMM-YY): RESTART ADDR: 152010 THIS IS XXDP+. TYPE "H" OR "H/L" FOR HELP. .R CQKCG1 CQKCG1.BIC DCQKC-G 11/40 & 11/45 INST EXER OPT.CP=145406 OPT.DEV.=000001 PASS #0000 VPC=152114 PSW=000344 PASS #0000 VPC=152114 PSW=030344 PASS #0000 VPC=152114 PSW=030344 PASS #0000 VPC=152114 PSW=030344 PASS #0000 VPC= and the cursor just sits to the right of that last VPC= So can anyone who may have source for that diag and familiarity with macro 11 tell me what this might be pointing to? Other oddities - the DL11-W diagnostic locks up right after it says something like "01 devices under test" on two different DL11-W cards. On the third card, it continues but then says something about LTC bit 7 isn't setting. I find it hard to believe all three cards are bad... especially when they work fine transmitting and receiving 10mb without error under vtserver. But then, perhaps vtserver isn't doing interrupt mode. Thanks for any thoughts! Jay West From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Mar 27 20:48:02 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 20:48:02 -0600 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: References: <46e70d050603261308q1c80bc74xb4ad001e237b09cd@mail.gmail.com> <200603261740.51212.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <4428A3E2.6070909@oldskool.org> David Griffith wrote: > Here's a guy who's doing a very good job at replicating the SID on FPGA. I am a complete noob on this subject matter (something that is most likely going to get me booed off the stage in about five seconds) but wouldn't there be a way to just, I don't know, slice open the chip somehow and trace things to reproduce the chip exactly? (Ignore patent/copyright issues for now, I'm just curious in the technical feasibility of the process.) Is something like that possible? -- 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 dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Mar 27 22:55:28 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 20:55:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: <4428A3E2.6070909@oldskool.org> References: <46e70d050603261308q1c80bc74xb4ad001e237b09cd@mail.gmail.com> <200603261740.51212.rtellason@blazenet.net> <4428A3E2.6070909@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On Mon, 27 Mar 2006, Jim Leonard wrote: > David Griffith wrote: > > Here's a guy who's doing a very good job at replicating the SID on FPGA. > > I am a complete noob on this subject matter (something that is most > likely going to get me booed off the stage in about five seconds) but > wouldn't there be a way to just, I don't know, slice open the chip > somehow and trace things to reproduce the chip exactly? (Ignore > patent/copyright issues for now, I'm just curious in the technical > feasibility of the process.) Is something like that possible? Theoretically, the SID handbook published by Commodore should be enough to recreate the SID. Since NMOS isn't used very much anymore, that may be a roadblock to making exact copies. There are some xrays of the SID on the web, which would be a big help. I'm not very keen on FPGA. Can someone tell me if one can take FPGA design specs and make a run of masked chips? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Mar 27 23:22:51 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 21:22:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: from David Griffith at "Mar 27, 6 08:55:28 pm" Message-ID: <200603280522.k2S5MpKj013116@floodgap.com> > Theoretically, the SID handbook published by Commodore should be enough to > recreate the SID. Tell that to the fanboys. Because SID has some analogue components in it, it is very difficult to duplicate the sound precisely. Some SID-philes insist they can discern a difference not only between major versions (6581/2 and 8580) and minor revisions, but even individual chips. There are some software libraries that closely emulate the SID, such as Dag Lem's reSID, but making a perfect working modern form that everyone agrees on has been a minor holy grail. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Dalai Lama to hotdog vendor: "Make me one with everything." ---------------- From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Mar 27 23:24:34 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 21:24:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: from David Griffith at "Mar 27, 6 08:55:28 pm" Message-ID: <200603280524.k2S5OYp2005254@floodgap.com> > Theoretically, the SID handbook published by Commodore should be enough to > recreate the SID. Since NMOS isn't used very much anymore, that may be a > roadblock to making exact copies. Also, I should point out that while both the 6581/2 and 8580 are NMOS, the later 8580 is technically HMOS-2, which is a Commodore-specific high speed NMOS manufacturing process. In addition, the 8580 *is* different w/r/t waveforms, and corrects a voltage leak which was widely exploited as a cheap 4-bit D/A converter ($d418). -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- #include ------------------------------------------------ From frustum at pacbell.net Mon Mar 27 23:25:41 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 23:25:41 -0600 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: References: <46e70d050603261308q1c80bc74xb4ad001e237b09cd@mail.gmail.com> <200603261740.51212.rtellason@blazenet.net> <4428A3E2.6070909@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <4428C8D5.2050409@pacbell.net> David Griffith wrote: > On Mon, 27 Mar 2006, Jim Leonard wrote: > >> David Griffith wrote: >>> Here's a guy who's doing a very good job at replicating the SID on FPGA. >> I am a complete noob on this subject matter (something that is most >> likely going to get me booed off the stage in about five seconds) but >> wouldn't there be a way to just, I don't know, slice open the chip >> somehow and trace things to reproduce the chip exactly? (Ignore >> patent/copyright issues for now, I'm just curious in the technical >> feasibility of the process.) Is something like that possible? > > Theoretically, the SID handbook published by Commodore should be enough to > recreate the SID. Since NMOS isn't used very much anymore, that may be a > roadblock to making exact copies. There are some xrays of the SID on the > web, which would be a big help. ... I just did a google search and there is a patent on the chip -- it has already expired. US Patent 4,677,890. The chip is a hybrid digital/analog chip. Duplicating it via pure digital means would be hard. Apparently too the chip had bugs and so are unspecified, but people exploited those bugs for generating sound effects. From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Mar 27 23:31:55 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 23:31:55 -0600 Subject: 11/45 RTC Message-ID: <000c01c65228$ed914d50$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Given that the system seems to pass a lot of diags, but fails the LTC test, I'm focusing there. From looking in the programming manual for the DL11-W, it appears that bit 7 never being set means that there is no LTC L signal coming in to the DL11-W. It would appear that software clears this bit and then waits for it to set (by the square wave from the AC at 50 or 60 hz or so). According to the diag, bit 7 never sets, so I'm thinking I'm not getting any LTC signal from the power supply. I need to find that square wave signal and see if it's working and directed to the right place. My problem is finding that signal. My 11/45 is a KB11-A, serial number < 2000. The maintenance manual shows the LTC coming from the power supply to the power distribution board (top connector towards the cabinet door) shows six wires, the bottom one (brown) going to slot 1 row C where the M787 option plugs in. My top connector does not have that many wires, only 3 or so. My system never had (I don't believe) a M787 card. The system came with two DL11-A (M7800), and a M7228 (KW11-P). But I don't think there was ever a LTC in slot 1. So is it possible that LTC isn't even routed out of the power supply? I'm wanting to use a single DL11-W with the onboard LTC. But doesn't that need to get the LTC signal from the backplane? If it wasn't ever routed to the system unit.... So I'm not sure where to look. I'll pour over the manuals some more. Jay West From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 27 23:36:51 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 21:36:51 -0800 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: <200603280522.k2S5MpKj013116@floodgap.com> References: <200603280522.k2S5MpKj013116@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <200603272136510314.079DF7E6@10.0.0.252> On 3/27/2006 at 9:22 PM Cameron Kaiser wrote: >Tell that to the fanboys. Because SID has some analogue components in it, >it is very difficult to duplicate the sound precisely. Some SID-philes >insist they can discern a difference not only between major versions >(6581/2 and 8580) and minor revisions, but even individual chips. ...and the best ones are the ones that have vacuum tubes sticking out of the top and are connected with gold-plated litz wire... :) --Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Mar 27 23:44:24 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 21:44:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: <200603272136510314.079DF7E6@10.0.0.252> from Chuck Guzis at "Mar 27, 6 09:36:51 pm" Message-ID: <200603280544.k2S5iO1t013894@floodgap.com> > >Tell that to the fanboys. Because SID has some analogue components in it, > >it is very difficult to duplicate the sound precisely. Some SID-philes > >insist they can discern a difference not only between major versions > >(6581/2 and 8580) and minor revisions, but even individual chips. > > ...and the best ones are the ones that have vacuum tubes sticking out of > the top and are connected with gold-plated litz wire... :) Exactly. ;) -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- "I am Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated." ------ From henk.gooijen at oce.com Tue Mar 28 00:10:42 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 08:10:42 +0200 Subject: 11/45 RTC Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815D4@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> For what's it worth ... I do not have an 11/45 :-(, but I was triggered when I read M787. Long ago, I added "LTC" to my 11/35, which involved installing an M787 in slot 3, position F. The 11/35 manual said that you must cut one wire on the backplane ... perhaps that applies here too ...? - Henk. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jay West > Sent: dinsdag 28 maart 2006 7:32 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: 11/45 RTC > > Given that the system seems to pass a lot of diags, but fails > the LTC test, I'm focusing there. From looking in the > programming manual for the DL11-W, it appears that bit 7 > never being set means that there is no LTC L signal coming in > to the DL11-W. It would appear that software clears this bit > and then waits for it to set (by the square wave from the AC > at 50 or 60 hz or so). According to the diag, bit 7 never > sets, so I'm thinking I'm not getting any LTC signal from the > power supply. I need to find that square wave signal and see > if it's working and directed to the right place. > > My problem is finding that signal. My 11/45 is a KB11-A, > serial number < 2000. The maintenance manual shows the LTC > coming from the power supply to the power distribution board > (top connector towards the cabinet door) shows six wires, the > bottom one (brown) going to slot 1 row C where the M787 > option plugs in. My top connector does not have that many > wires, only 3 or so. My system never had (I don't believe) a > M787 card. The system came with two DL11-A (M7800), and a > M7228 (KW11-P). But I don't think there was ever a LTC in > slot 1. So is it possible that LTC isn't even routed out of > the power supply? I'm wanting to use a single DL11-W with the > onboard LTC. But doesn't that need to get the LTC signal from > the backplane? If it wasn't ever routed to the system unit.... > > So I'm not sure where to look. I'll pour over the manuals some more. > > Jay West > > > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From marvin at rain.org Tue Mar 28 00:25:14 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 22:25:14 -0800 Subject: Escon Microcomputer/Selectric Interface System Message-ID: <4428D6CA.EFA31B9E@rain.org> Since I've had a number of requests for the picture, it is online at: http://www.rain.org/~marvin/escon.jpg Included, but not shown, are two manuals. The first has the installation and instruction manuals including schematics, while the second contains the illustrations and diagrams for use with the Vol I instruction manual. There are also a number of what look to be Selectric parts. >From the information in the installtion manual: "The ESCON equipment covered by these instructions fits all IBM office type Selectrics. The length of the platen or if it is single or dual pitch, has no affect on installation of this system. If your machine has a manual velocity control, contact the factory for special instructions." Another interesting quote from the instruction manual: "the magnets used in the ESCON conversion kits have 55-ohm coils, except for the shift magnet which has a 130-ohm coil." There were no magnets in this package. I suspect if there was a Selectric already prepared with the magnets, it got dumpstered before I got a chance to check this stuff out. > >I've got an Escon Microcomputer/Selectric Interface System that looks > >like it was sold as a kit. It appears to be a unit to convert a > >Selectric I or II typewriter so it can be used as a computer printer. Is > >anyone familiar with this unit, and any ideas about what it is worth? It > >belongs to the widow of my friend who died last month, and I am trying > >to help separate the good stuff from everything else. > > Marv, does this thing work with a Selectric typewriter or a Selectric I/O > writer? There's a big difference--the typewriter has none of the > electrical components (solenoids, etc.) that the I/O writer uses to > activate the mechanism. The golf-ball print mechanism is the same in both. > > Since Selectrics are still pretty easy to come by as typewriters, I suspect > that this may have more interest if it were intended for typewriters (i.e. > it included the actuators). On the other hand, the I/O writers, while once > more commonplace, are fairly rare today and the unit would have > substantially less appeal. > > Cheers, > Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Mar 28 01:03:01 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 23:03:01 -0800 Subject: xxdp RL02? Message-ID: <1DC39BA1-FF9E-4A7A-82C5-1ED3FA6170D8@bitsavers.org> I don't know that DEC ever distributed soft copies of diagnostic listings on disk or tape (now finding that would be the holy grail at this point). - I've never seen them either. If there is ever a HP vault trip, that would be something to look for. Paper copies of the diags stopped when the maint fiche doc sets came out This is probably what the diag handbook was based on. If there are specific diags needed, I'll scan them from fiche. It is a fairly long process to get clean copies, since the scanner is a fiddle-fest to set up at high magnifications. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Mar 28 01:24:51 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 23:24:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: <4428C8D5.2050409@pacbell.net> References: <46e70d050603261308q1c80bc74xb4ad001e237b09cd@mail.gmail.com> <200603261740.51212.rtellason@blazenet.net> <4428A3E2.6070909@oldskool.org> <4428C8D5.2050409@pacbell.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 27 Mar 2006, Jim Battle wrote: > The chip is a hybrid digital/analog chip. Duplicating it via pure > digital means would be hard. Apparently too the chip had bugs and so > are unspecified, but people exploited those bugs for generating sound > effects. The hybrid nature comes more from using digital components for analog purposes. A "proper" state-variable filter is made with opamps or a Moog-style transistor ladder. The SID's filters are made with digital inverters and that's where a lot of the unique flavor comes from. Because the PhoenixSID's filter is made of discrete CMOS inverters, I'm guessing that pulling such a stunt in FPGA is difficult. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu From pete at dunnington.plus.com Tue Mar 28 01:31:19 2006 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 08:31:19 +0100 (BST) Subject: xxdp RL02? In-Reply-To: "Jay West" "Re: xxdp RL02?" (Mar 27, 19:00) References: <020401c65140$3da04bf0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <44275BC4.5010509@nktelco.net> <00c901c65203$07d27390$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <10603280831.ZM15431@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> On Mar 27 2006, 19:00, Jay West wrote: > I'm just shocked diags seem to receive such short shrift at DEC. I guess it > makes me feel quite fortunate that for HP 2100 & 21MX we have a complete set > of full source listings that exactly match diag documentation that exactly > match the code version on the media. I've refered to that code many times. > Hopefully someday a late full library of DEC diags will be unearthed with > matching source & docs. Actually DEC took a lot of care over diagnostics. All systems were sold with comprehensive relevant diagnostic media, normally accompanied by the listings. In the early days the listings were on paper, but later on microfiche. Furthermore, DEC maintained those diagnostics carefully, and there were regular revisions and patches when necessary which were sent out to customers who had maintainance contracts. I don't know about the paper listings, but microfiche was certainly sent out (inserting the updates used to be one of my jobs). In fact, there's the problem -- when you do find listings, which have often been separated from the machine and media they originally were meant to be with, they may be for a different revision or patch level. The code will be close, and the listings may be useful, but may not be quite the same. Paper listings in particular will usually be for older versions of the diagnostics, and many diags came along late enough that the listings were only on microfiche. A full set of PDP-11 microfiche diagnostics listings, such as might have been held by a Field Service office, reseller, or a third party maintainer, is one whole microfiche box, some 14" deep. There would normally be another box beside that with the hardware documentation: manuals, engineering drawings, parts lists, illustrated parts breakdown, field and engineering change orders, etc. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Mar 28 03:09:07 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 02:09:07 -0700 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: References: <46e70d050603261308q1c80bc74xb4ad001e237b09cd@mail.gmail.com> <200603261740.51212.rtellason@blazenet.net> <4428A3E2.6070909@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <4428FD33.1040700@jetnet.ab.ca> David Griffith wrote: > On Mon, 27 Mar 2006, Jim Leonard wrote: > Theoretically, the SID handbook published by Commodore should be enough to > recreate the SID. Since NMOS isn't used very much anymore, that may be a > roadblock to making exact copies. There are some xrays of the SID on the > web, which would be a big help. > > I'm not very keen on FPGA. Can someone tell me if one can take FPGA > design specs and make a run of masked chips? > A CPLD design might be better since they are cheaper, if you can fit the design in one and a adaptor to the 40 pin packaging. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Mar 28 03:20:44 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 02:20:44 -0700 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: <200603272136510314.079DF7E6@10.0.0.252> References: <200603280522.k2S5MpKj013116@floodgap.com> <200603272136510314.079DF7E6@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4428FFEC.1030705@jetnet.ab.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > ...and the best ones are the ones that have vacuum tubes sticking out of > the top and are connected with gold-plated litz wire... :) Have you priced Litz wire lately? I don't see any gold plated stuff. http://www.schmarder.com/radios/sale/wire.htm I suspect the analog parts could be done as surface mount parts as well as a CPLD or FPGA on a small PCB. > --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 28 03:35:05 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 01:35:05 -0800 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: <4428FFEC.1030705@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <200603280522.k2S5MpKj013116@floodgap.com> <200603272136510314.079DF7E6@10.0.0.252> <4428FFEC.1030705@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200603280135050954.087814AC@10.0.0.252> On 3/28/2006 at 2:20 AM woodelf wrote: >Have you priced Litz wire lately? I don't see any gold plated stuff. >http://www.schmarder.com/radios/sale/wire.htm Sheesh, at those prices, it might as well be gold plated! Another sign of my increasing age, I suppose. I wanted to say "solid silver speaker cable", but that would be too large for IC use, so I thought of litz wire--the best excuse for owning a solder pot. Cheers, Chuck From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Mar 28 07:16:12 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 07:16:12 -0600 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: <200603280135050954.087814AC@10.0.0.252> References: <200603280522.k2S5MpKj013116@floodgap.com> <200603272136510314.079DF7E6@10.0.0.252> <4428FFEC.1030705@jetnet.ab.ca> <200603280135050954.087814AC@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060328071520.044931d8@mail> At 03:35 AM 3/28/2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: >Sheesh, at those prices, it might as well be gold plated! Another sign of >my increasing age, I suppose. I wanted to say "solid silver speaker cable", >but that would be too large for IC use, so I thought of litz wire--the best >excuse for owning a solder pot. You learn something new every day. I remember that wire as being used in some crystal set-ish earphones I had as a kid, and I never knew the name to describe it. - John From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Mar 28 07:31:02 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 07:31:02 -0600 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060328071520.044931d8@mail> References: <200603280522.k2S5MpKj013116@floodgap.com> <200603272136510314.079DF7E6@10.0.0.252> <4428FFEC.1030705@jetnet.ab.ca> <200603280135050954.087814AC@10.0.0.252> <6.2.3.4.2.20060328071520.044931d8@mail> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060328072858.0533be00@mail> At 07:16 AM 3/28/2006, John Foust wrote: >You learn something new every day. I remember that wire as being >used in some crystal set-ish earphones I had as a kid, and I never >knew the name to describe it. Hmm, after examining litz-wire.com, I'm not so sure any more. What I remember is that the conductive part of the wire was a thin ribbon and wound around a silky core like a tight candy cane, and there were several strands of this inside the plastic sheath. - John From CCTalk at catcorner.org Tue Mar 28 07:46:34 2006 From: CCTalk at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 08:46:34 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors Message-ID: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3388F@mail.catcorner.org> Count me in... > ---------- > From: Sridhar Ayengar > Reply To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 9:12 PM > To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: NY/CT collectors > > William Donzelli wrote: > >> Count me in! I'm in Putnam so anyplace in NY/CT or N. NJ/Rockland > >> County works for me. Pizza/Beer location sounds like a good idea. > > > > OK, that makes four or five of us. > > > > Anyone else? Let's pick a time and place. Ideas? > > How about Longobardi's in Wappingers? Food's pretty good. > > Peace... Sridhar > From fireflyst at earthlink.net Tue Mar 28 09:01:53 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 09:01:53 -0600 Subject: 11/45 RTC In-Reply-To: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11C9CD61@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: Have you tried this with M7800 and M787 instead of M7228? I'd say if not, try that, if yes, and if that works, then look over the DL11-W manual for some sort of compatibility issue with the 11/45. This is just speculation, but it's possible that you may have to use a M787 and disable the RTC on the DL11-W or something strange like that. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jay West > Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 11:32 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: 11/45 RTC > > Given that the system seems to pass a lot of diags, but fails > the LTC test, I'm focusing there. From looking in the > programming manual for the DL11-W, it appears that bit 7 > never being set means that there is no LTC L signal coming in > to the DL11-W. It would appear that software clears this bit > and then waits for it to set (by the square wave from the AC > at 50 or 60 hz or so). According to the diag, bit 7 never > sets, so I'm thinking I'm not getting any LTC signal from the > power supply. I need to find that square wave signal and see > if it's working and directed to the right place. > > My problem is finding that signal. My 11/45 is a KB11-A, > serial number < 2000. The maintenance manual shows the LTC > coming from the power supply to the power distribution board > (top connector towards the cabinet door) shows six wires, the > bottom one (brown) going to slot 1 row C where the M787 > option plugs in. My top connector does not have that many > wires, only 3 or so. My system never had (I don't believe) a > M787 card. The system came with two DL11-A (M7800), and a > M7228 (KW11-P). > But I don't think there was ever a LTC in > slot 1. So is it possible that LTC isn't even routed out of > the power supply? I'm wanting to use a single DL11-W with the > onboard LTC. But doesn't that need to get the LTC signal from > the backplane? If it wasn't ever routed to the system unit.... > > So I'm not sure where to look. I'll pour over the manuals some more. > > Jay West > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 09:33:21 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 09:33:21 -0600 Subject: 11/45 RTC References: Message-ID: <000a01c6527c$f2254930$6800a8c0@BILLING> Julian wrote... > Have you tried this with M7800 and M787 instead of M7228? I'd say if not, > try that, if yes, and if that works, then look over the DL11-W manual for > some sort of compatibility issue with the 11/45. This is just > speculation, > but it's possible that you may have to use a M787 and disable the RTC on > the > DL11-W or something strange like that. I don't have a M787 card. This system arrived with two M7800's and a M7228. No KW11-L. It came with the M7228 (KW11-P). From what I can tell, the M7228 can provide several different time clocks, one of which is LTC based as an option if you run an additional wire, but not at the normal address for the LTC. I want to see first if the power supply is generating a LTC L signal, and then see where it goes. Right now I'm trying to just find the signal. It would obviously go to slot 1C somewhere for the M787. But I can't seem to figure out if it was by default also provided to a pin in the 3 unibus slots built in to the system unit in order for the DL11-W to take advantage of. Jay From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Mar 28 10:05:13 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:05:13 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors In-Reply-To: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3388F@mail.catcorner.org> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3388F@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <44295EB9.9060500@gmail.com> Kelly Leavitt wrote: > Count me in... Who else? Evenings and weekends are fine with me. Peace... Sridhar >> William Donzelli wrote: >>>> Count me in! I'm in Putnam so anyplace in NY/CT or N. NJ/Rockland >>>> County works for me. Pizza/Beer location sounds like a good idea. >>> OK, that makes four or five of us. >>> >>> Anyone else? Let's pick a time and place. Ideas? >> How about Longobardi's in Wappingers? Food's pretty good. >> >> Peace... Sridhar >> > From allain at panix.com Tue Mar 28 10:11:35 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:11:35 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3388F@mail.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <008401c65282$5e909e80$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> >> How about Longobardi's in Wappingers? Food's pretty good. Accessing... http://www.yp.com/yppc.php?pi=NYE5801183&cid=xml2 => Route 9 # 1201; Wappingers Falls, NY 12590 Says it's closed Weekends... Sounds odd, but still OK at times. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 28 10:14:53 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 08:14:53 -0800 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060328072858.0533be00@mail> References: <200603280522.k2S5MpKj013116@floodgap.com> <200603272136510314.079DF7E6@10.0.0.252> <4428FFEC.1030705@jetnet.ab.ca> <200603280135050954.087814AC@10.0.0.252> <6.2.3.4.2.20060328071520.044931d8@mail> <6.2.3.4.2.20060328072858.0533be00@mail> Message-ID: <200603280814530333.09E61958@10.0.0.252> On 3/28/2006 at 7:31 AM John Foust wrote: >Hmm, after examining litz-wire.com, I'm not so sure any more. >What I remember is that the conductive part of the wire was >a thin ribbon and wound around a silky core like a tight candy cane, >and there were several strands of this inside the plastic sheath. Litz wire was very useful for winding high-Q LF and MF inductors. Used to be that most IF transformers and quite a few RF chokes were wound with it. I guess it was pretty much rendered obsolete with the advent of ferrites. >From the looks of it, it's now almost the exclusive domain of antique radio enthusiasts. Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Mar 28 10:41:00 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:41:00 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors In-Reply-To: <008401c65282$5e909e80$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3388F@mail.catcorner.org> <008401c65282$5e909e80$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <4429671C.9060602@gmail.com> John Allain wrote: >>> How about Longobardi's in Wappingers? Food's pretty good. > > Accessing... > http://www.yp.com/yppc.php?pi=NYE5801183&cid=xml2 > => Route 9 # 1201; Wappingers Falls, NY 12590 > Says it's closed Weekends... Sounds odd, but still OK at times. That thing is smoking the rock. There is no American food, nor is there Chinese food. It's an Italian restaurant, and it's definitely open on weekends. Peace... Sridhar From fireflyst at earthlink.net Tue Mar 28 10:50:35 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 10:50:35 -0600 Subject: 11/45 RTC In-Reply-To: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11C9CF9E@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jay West > Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 9:33 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: 11/45 RTC > > Julian wrote... > > Have you tried this with M7800 and M787 instead of M7228? > I'd say if > > not, try that, if yes, and if that works, then look over the DL11-W > > manual for some sort of compatibility issue with the 11/45. > This is > > just speculation, but it's possible that you may have to use a M787 > > and disable the RTC on the DL11-W or something strange like that. > > I don't have a M787 card. This system arrived with two > M7800's and a M7228. > No KW11-L. It came with the M7228 (KW11-P). From what I can > tell, the M7228 can provide several different time clocks, > one of which is LTC based as an option if you run an > additional wire, but not at the normal address for the LTC. > > I want to see first if the power supply is generating a LTC L > signal, and then see where it goes. Right now I'm trying to > just find the signal. It would obviously go to slot 1C > somewhere for the M787. But I can't seem to figure out if it > was by default also provided to a pin in the 3 unibus slots > built in to the system unit in order for the DL11-W to take > advantage of. How about this: Dig in the KW11-P manual if its available and see if there is any info on replacing a KW11-L with it. Maybe that will tell you where that LTC L signal is. From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 11:17:28 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:17:28 -0600 Subject: 11/45 RTC References: Message-ID: <007201c6528b$7d9c39c0$6800a8c0@BILLING> Julian wrote... > How about this: Dig in the KW11-P manual if its available and see if there > is any info on replacing a KW11-L with it. Maybe that will tell you where > that LTC L signal is. Yes, but I'm missing something somewhere. I see the spot where the power supply LTC L signal hits the cpu backplane. It comes from the brown wire, #7 on P2 at the top front. There's a trace that goes down from this to slot 1, row C, pin R1. That's just peachy, and gives me a spot to test in order to make sure the power supply is providing a clock signal. But of course I want to make sure that signal is also present on the three unibus slots built into the cpu backplane, so that my DL11-W can use it. So I was looking for THAT pin. From eyeballing it and testing, it appears that slot 1 row C pin R1 (the LTC "source") hits all the unibus slots on the cpu backplane at row C pin D1. Ok, I'm fine there. But here's where the KW11-P manual gets confusing. I'm only bringing this up as a sanity check - It says that in order for the KW11-P to get the LTC (if you even want to use that option, not required), you have to install a jumper wire to the slot that the KW11-P is in to provide that signal. It says the KW11-P expects to get it on CE1, and specifically says to run a wire from CE1 to slot 1 row C pin R1 (on the 11/45). But why would they say that if the LTC signal is available on pin CD1 right there in the same slot already next to CE1?? Or better yet, why didn't they design the KW11-P to get LTC from CD1 instead of CE1? This is the part that makes me think I'm messing up somewhere. I guess I could find prints for the DL11-W and see if in fact it's looking to CD1 for LTC. Jay West From fireflyst at earthlink.net Tue Mar 28 11:40:17 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:40:17 -0600 Subject: 11/45 RTC In-Reply-To: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11C9D002@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jay West > Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 11:17 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: 11/45 RTC > > Julian wrote... > > How about this: Dig in the KW11-P manual if its available > and see if > > there is any info on replacing a KW11-L with it. Maybe > that will tell > > you where that LTC L signal is. > > Yes, but I'm missing something somewhere. I see the spot > where the power supply LTC L signal hits the cpu backplane. > It comes from the brown wire, #7 on P2 at the top front. > There's a trace that goes down from this to slot 1, row C, > pin R1. That's just peachy, and gives me a spot to test in > order to make sure the power supply is providing a clock signal. > > But of course I want to make sure that signal is also present > on the three unibus slots built into the cpu backplane, so > that my DL11-W can use it. So I was looking for THAT pin. > From eyeballing it and testing, it appears that slot 1 row C > pin R1 (the LTC "source") hits all the unibus slots on the > cpu backplane at row C pin D1. Ok, I'm fine there. > > But here's where the KW11-P manual gets confusing. I'm only > bringing this up as a sanity check - It says that in order > for the KW11-P to get the LTC (if you even want to use that > option, not required), you have to install a jumper wire to > the slot that the KW11-P is in to provide that signal. It > says the KW11-P expects to get it on CE1, and specifically > says to run a wire from CE1 to slot 1 row C pin R1 (on the > 11/45). But why would they say that if the LTC signal is > available on pin CD1 right there in the same slot already > next to CE1?? Or better yet, why didn't they design the > KW11-P to get LTC from CD1 instead of CE1? This is the part > that makes me think I'm messing up somewhere. Do you maybe have a different/special backplane alltogether? Is the backplane designator sticker still on it? > > I guess I could find prints for the DL11-W and see if in fact > it's looking to CD1 for LTC. That sounds like a good idea too. > > Jay West > From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 28 11:50:33 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 10:50:33 -0700 Subject: Escon Microcomputer/Selectric Interface System In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 27 Mar 2006 22:25:14 -0800. <4428D6CA.EFA31B9E@rain.org> Message-ID: In article <4428D6CA.EFA31B9E at rain.org>, Marvin Johnston writes: > Since I've had a number of requests for the picture, it is online at: > > http://www.rain.org/~marvin/escon.jpg Based on the picture, it looks like it connects electrically to the Selectric and not mechanically. I'm assuming the entire enclosure looks like a box and doesn't have "typing finger" solenoids on the bottom? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 11:57:07 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:57:07 -0600 Subject: 11/45 RTC References: Message-ID: <000801c65291$08146e10$6800a8c0@BILLING> I had written... >> I guess I could find prints for the DL11-W and see if in fact >> it's looking to CD1 for LTC. To which Julian replied... > That sounds like a good idea too. Can't find prints for the DL11-W. BUT... I looked at the prints for the KW11-P. It has the same text about running a wire from slot 1 row C pin R1 (on the 11/45) to CE1. However, in the schematics the line is labled "CE1 CD1" The plot thickens :) Jay From fireflyst at earthlink.net Tue Mar 28 12:14:22 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 12:14:22 -0600 Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) In-Reply-To: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11C9CB5C@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: > A standard BA11-K box has 2xH744 (or later 2xH7441), 1xH745, > 1x54-11086, and usually a spot for 1xH754 (for core memory, > not req'd if no core). Oh CRAP. I built this machine from parts (albeit all marked 11/34), and did NOT know that I needed an H754 for core. Would this couse the deposit errors I'm experiencing? From marvin at rain.org Tue Mar 28 12:15:37 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 10:15:37 -0800 Subject: Escon Microcomputer/Selectric Interface System Message-ID: <44297D49.8320291A@rain.org> Yes, the box is basically a 6502 microprocessor and support chips, and has no mechanical connections to the Selectric. Al, do you want scans of the manuals for Bitsavers? > From: Richard > > In article <4428D6CA.EFA31B9E at rain.org>, > Marvin Johnston writes: > > > Since I've had a number of requests for the picture, it is online at: > > > > http://www.rain.org/~marvin/escon.jpg > > Based on the picture, it looks like it connects electrically to the > Selectric and not mechanically. I'm assuming the entire enclosure > looks like a box and doesn't have "typing finger" solenoids on the > bottom? > -- From marvin at rain.org Tue Mar 28 12:16:11 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 10:16:11 -0800 Subject: Escon Microcomputer/Selectric Interface System Message-ID: <44297D6B.E32C4249@rain.org> Yes, the box is basically a 6502 microprocessor and support chips, and has no mechanical connections to the Selectric. Al, do you want scans of the manuals for Bitsavers? > From: Richard > > In article <4428D6CA.EFA31B9E at rain.org>, > Marvin Johnston writes: > > > Since I've had a number of requests for the picture, it is online at: > > > > http://www.rain.org/~marvin/escon.jpg > > Based on the picture, it looks like it connects electrically to the > Selectric and not mechanically. I'm assuming the entire enclosure > looks like a box and doesn't have "typing finger" solenoids on the > bottom? > -- From trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu Tue Mar 28 12:43:12 2006 From: trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu (joe heck) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 13:43:12 -0500 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <00ac01c651ec$3e8875e0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> References: <02b801c65079$a608d760$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06><20060327164541.EQLR8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <44282D57.4010108@splab.cas.neu.edu> <00ac01c651ec$3e8875e0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <442983C0.9050500@splab.cas.neu.edu> Well, there is now a Unisys google group for those that want to work/play with your Unisys A system. This way we won't plug up this list with something so specific. THanks, Joe Heck ================================================================================= Congratulations: you've successfully created your Google Group, Unisys MicroA Resurection. Here are the essentials: * Group name: Unisys MicroA Resurection * Group home page: http://groups.google.com/group/Unisys-MicroA-Resurection * Group email address Unisys-MicroA-Resurection at googlegroups.com And here are links to a few more Google Group-related goodies: * Change group settings: http://groups.google.com/group/Unisys-MicroA-Resurection/manage * Invite more users: http://groups.google.com/group/Unisys-MicroA-Resurection/manage_members_add If you have questions about this or any other group, please visit the Google Groups Help Center at http://groups.google.com/support. Enjoy your group and make us proud! The Google Groups Team From ak6dn at mindspring.com Tue Mar 28 12:45:00 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 10:45:00 -0800 Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4429842C.6040600@mindspring.com> Julian Wolfe wrote: >> A standard BA11-K box has 2xH744 (or later 2xH7441), 1xH745, >> 1x54-11086, and usually a spot for 1xH754 (for core memory, >> not req'd if no core). > > Oh CRAP. I built this machine from parts (albeit all marked 11/34), and did > NOT know that I needed an H754 for core. Would this couse the deposit > errors I'm experiencing? > > > Probably; your core memory is unpowered (H754 supplies +20V & -5V to core memory modules). AFAIK the ONLY use for the +20V/-5V H754 brick is for core memory. The MOS memory boards for the 11/34 box (MS11-L) use the +15V/-15V from the backplane and have onboard regulators to generate +12V/-5V for the DRAM devices. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 28 12:49:39 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 10:49:39 -0800 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <442983C0.9050500@splab.cas.neu.edu> References: <02b801c65079$a608d760$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> <20060327164541.EQLR8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <44282D57.4010108@splab.cas.neu.edu> <00ac01c651ec$3e8875e0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> <442983C0.9050500@splab.cas.neu.edu> Message-ID: <200603281049390886.0A73CF91@10.0.0.252> On 3/28/2006 at 1:43 PM joe heck wrote: >Well, there is now a Unisys google group for those that want to >work/play with your Unisys A system. This way we won't plug up this >list with something so specific. You mean like endless PDP-11 and VAX threads? (Just kidding, folks!) --Chuck From lproven at gmail.com Tue Mar 28 13:16:36 2006 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:16:36 +0000 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <200603230333280896.37779F7C@10.0.0.252> References: <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <200603230333280896.37779F7C@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <575131af0603281116n79d48218sd3fb48c4f8877ac4@mail.gmail.com> On 3/23/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > The PS/2 386 boxes were also > out fairly early--didn't the Model 50 have a bug that required replacement > of the mobo? The PS/2 Model 50 was an 80286. I wasn't aware of any recalls on 'em, but then, they came out just before I started my 1st job. They launched in 1987, the year of release of the 80386DX, but I'm fairly sure several others beat IBM to the punch. The first 386 PC I can remember was a Compaq, but there's this vague memory of an ALR that marginally predated it. The first 486 PC, I think, was an Apricot, but again, that might just be the 1st I saw. -- 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 dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Mar 28 13:58:36 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 12:58:36 -0700 Subject: AViiON on Intel Message-ID: <4429956C.2020902@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, I'm trying to get DG/UX installed on an AV3700. But, having a helluva time trying to sort out the proper incantation for the boot device. I managed to get things running on an AV3000 some years ago but the 3700 is a different beast. Has anyone here wrestled with these beasts (they have *got* to be the most annoying things to get running! :< ) Thanks for any pointers... --don From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Mar 28 14:01:40 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 13:01:40 -0700 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs - litz wire In-Reply-To: <200603280814530333.09E61958@10.0.0.252> References: <200603280522.k2S5MpKj013116@floodgap.com> <200603272136510314.079DF7E6@10.0.0.252> <4428FFEC.1030705@jetnet.ab.ca> <200603280135050954.087814AC@10.0.0.252> <6.2.3.4.2.20060328071520.044931d8@mail> <6.2.3.4.2.20060328072858.0533be00@mail> <200603280814530333.09E61958@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44299624.7060601@jetnet.ab.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Litz wire was very useful for winding high-Q LF and MF inductors. Used to > be that most IF transformers and quite a few RF chokes were wound with it. > I guess it was pretty much rendered obsolete with the advent of ferrites. >>From the looks of it, it's now almost the exclusive domain of antique radio > enthusiasts. That is mostly new Xtal or one or two tube radios.Cost cutting from hand labor to the most cheapest transformer made is the real reason I bet. If you want a real coil look at all the hard work to make one. http://www.detektor-radios.de/gollum/ > Cheers, > Chuck > > > . > From fireflyst at earthlink.net Tue Mar 28 14:00:40 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:00:40 -0600 Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) In-Reply-To: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11C9D05C@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: > > Julian Wolfe wrote: > >> A standard BA11-K box has 2xH744 (or later 2xH7441), 1xH745, > >> 1x54-11086, and usually a spot for 1xH754 (for core > memory, not req'd > >> if no core). > > > > Oh CRAP. I built this machine from parts (albeit all > marked 11/34), > > and did NOT know that I needed an H754 for core. Would > this couse the > > deposit errors I'm experiencing? > > > > > > > > Probably; your core memory is unpowered (H754 supplies +20V & > -5V to core memory modules). > > AFAIK the ONLY use for the +20V/-5V H754 brick is for core memory. > > The MOS memory boards for the 11/34 box (MS11-L) use the > +15V/-15V from the backplane and have onboard regulators to > generate +12V/-5V for the DRAM devices. > Actually, what I meant was EXAM errors. I can DEP but not EXAM. However, this is sort of amusing, because what I'm basically doing is entering an address, and depositing a value into /dev/null. This could very well mean there's nothing wrong with any of my equipment, and once my MOS memory arrives, the problem might clear itself up. Thanks again, Don. From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 28 14:06:42 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 13:06:42 -0700 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 28 Mar 2006 10:49:39 -0800. <200603281049390886.0A73CF91@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603281049390886.0A73CF91 at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > On 3/28/2006 at 1:43 PM joe heck wrote: > > >Well, there is now a Unisys google group for those that want to > >work/play with your Unisys A system. This way we won't plug up this > >list with something so specific. > > You mean like endless PDP-11 and VAX threads? :-) Actually I wouldn't mind the Unisys A traffic here. It can be interesting to monitor traffic for a box I know nothing about just to learn about it. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 14:26:39 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:26:39 -0600 Subject: Unisys A google group References: <02b801c65079$a608d760$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06><20060327164541.EQLR8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> <44282D57.4010108@splab.cas.neu.edu><00ac01c651ec$3e8875e0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> <442983C0.9050500@splab.cas.neu.edu> Message-ID: <001b01c652a5$ebb99f50$6800a8c0@BILLING> What vintage is the Unisys A? I would think it'd be fine for discussion here from what I've seen. Jay ----- Original Message ----- From: "joe heck" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 12:43 PM Subject: Unisys A google group > Well, there is now a Unisys google group for those that want to work/play > with your Unisys A system. This way we won't plug up this list with > something so specific. > > THanks, > > Joe Heck > ================================================================================= > > Congratulations: you've successfully created your Google Group, Unisys > MicroA > Resurection. > > Here are the essentials: > > * Group name: Unisys MicroA Resurection > * Group home page: > http://groups.google.com/group/Unisys-MicroA-Resurection > * Group email address Unisys-MicroA-Resurection at googlegroups.com > > And here are links to a few more Google Group-related goodies: > > * Change group settings: > http://groups.google.com/group/Unisys-MicroA-Resurection/manage > * Invite more users: > http://groups.google.com/group/Unisys-MicroA-Resurection/manage_members_add > > If you have questions about this or any other group, please visit the > Google > Groups Help Center at http://groups.google.com/support. > > Enjoy your group and make us proud! > > The Google Groups Team > > > > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 28 12:36:31 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:36:31 +0100 (BST) Subject: booting rt11 v5.1 on an 11/45 In-Reply-To: <01d301c65210$28c03f80$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> from "Jay West" at Mar 27, 6 08:34:37 pm Message-ID: > > Tony wrote... > > Thougths (and be warned that I am not an RT11 expert) > > > > Firstly, where does it halt? > I will get that information the next time I go down and work on that > machine. It does actually halt, right, and not hang with the Unibus in an odd state (e.g. due to a lost grant somewhere), I trust. > > >Does anything ever appear on the > > console? Is it possible there's a problem with the console interface? > Possible, but... xxdp (both v1 and v2.5) works, and vtserver (which is of > course highly dependant on the serial port) works. Yes, but do those programs use interrupts? RT11 certainly does. > > > I've seen this sort of problem once on an 11/34. It halted when booting > > RT11. It turned out that one of the DIP switches on the DL11-W console > > interface card was defective, the card was therefore sending the wrong > > interrupt vector. As soon as RT11 enabled interrupts on that device, it > > got said bogus vector and halted (see above). > I've tried a few different DL11-W's, all the same. I have this funny feeling > it doesn't have a good line clock. I can't rememebr if RT11 needs the Line Time Clock to boot. I have an idea it doesn't, at least not for the simpler monitors. > > Other oddities - the DL11-W diagnostic locks up right after it says > something like "01 devices under test" on two different DL11-W cards. On the > third card, it continues but then says something about LTC bit 7 isn't > setting. I find it hard to believe all three cards are bad... especially > when they work fine transmitting and receiving 10mb without error under > vtserver. But then, perhaps vtserver isn't doing interrupt mode. YOu are using DL11-W cards, right? That is, ones with a built-in line time clock. Do you have a line time clock module -- a KW11-L single-height board -- in slot C of the very front slot of the processor backplane. If you do, you must disable (with the DIP switches) the LTC on the DL11-W card. If you don't then there's a wire-wrapped jumper documented _somewhere_ in the printset that has to be in place to complete the grant chain over the slot where the KW11-L goes. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 28 14:04:23 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:04:23 +0100 (BST) Subject: 11/45 RTC In-Reply-To: <000c01c65228$ed914d50$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> from "Jay West" at Mar 27, 6 11:31:55 pm Message-ID: > > Given that the system seems to pass a lot of diags, but fails the LTC test, > I'm focusing there. From looking in the programming manual for the DL11-W, > it appears that bit 7 never being set means that there is no LTC L signal > coming in to the DL11-W. It would appear that software clears this bit and > then waits for it to set (by the square wave from the AC at 50 or 60 hz or Fro memory, that is correct. It's a fairly simple circuit, actually > so). According to the diag, bit 7 never sets, so I'm thinking I'm not > getting any LTC signal from the power supply. I need to find that square > wave signal and see if it's working and directed to the right place. > > My problem is finding that signal. My 11/45 is a KB11-A, serial number < > 2000. The maintenance manual shows the LTC coming from the power supply to OK, it's the old version power harness with the 8 pin mate-n-lock connectors. >From the printset, it apperas that the LTC signal is not carried by the Unibus connectors, it's connected sepaeately to each backplane by the power harness. The signal starts on P14 pin 11 (that's the 12 pin connector on the top H742 power supply, it plugs into the transformer housing not into one of the bricks). It then goes to pin 6 of P36. This is a connector that plugs into the power distribution PCB at the back of the machine. That PCB links it to pin 5 of the same connector, that is linked to pin 7 of P2 which plugs into the CPU backplane. From there it ends up on the slot for the KW11-L card. The H742 power control board diagram shows how the signal -- LTC L -- is produced. Just a couple of resistors and a zener from one of the transformer secondaries. What I can't find is a diagram of the power distribution board, but it's simple enough for you to 'buzz it out'. You want to trace that LTC L signal from J36 (the socket that mates with P36) to the connectors that the backplanes plug into, and then along the harness to the backplane itself. > the power distribution board (top connector towards the cabinet door) shows > six wires, the bottom one (brown) going to slot 1 row C where the M787 > option plugs in. My top connector does not have that many wires, only 3 or > so. My system never had (I don't believe) a M787 card. The system came with > two DL11-A (M7800), and a M7228 (KW11-P). But I don't think there was ever a > LTC in slot 1. So is it possible that LTC isn't even routed out of the power > supply? I'm wanting to use a single DL11-W with the onboard LTC. But doesn't See above. You should be able to find the wires I've mentioned and make sure they go to the rioght places using an ohmmeter (or other continuity checker). AFAIK, though, the LTC L signal was wired on all 11/45 machines. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 28 14:32:37 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:32:37 +0100 (BST) Subject: 11/45 RTC In-Reply-To: <007201c6528b$7d9c39c0$6800a8c0@BILLING> from "Jay West" at Mar 28, 6 11:17:28 am Message-ID: > > Julian wrote... > > How about this: Dig in the KW11-P manual if its available and see if there > > is any info on replacing a KW11-L with it. Maybe that will tell you where > > that LTC L signal is. > > Yes, but I'm missing something somewhere. I see the spot where the power > supply LTC L signal hits the cpu backplane. It comes from the brown wire, #7 > on P2 at the top front. There's a trace that goes down from this to slot 1, > row C, pin R1. That's just peachy, and gives me a spot to test in order to > make sure the power supply is providing a clock signal. > > But of course I want to make sure that signal is also present on the three > unibus slots built into the cpu backplane, so that my DL11-W can use it. So > I was looking for THAT pin. From eyeballing it and testing, it appears that > slot 1 row C pin R1 (the LTC "source") hits all the unibus slots on the cpu > backplane at row C pin D1. Ok, I'm fine there. > > But here's where the KW11-P manual gets confusing. I'm only bringing this up > as a sanity check - It says that in order for the KW11-P to get the LTC (if > you even want to use that option, not required), you have to install a > jumper wire to the slot that the KW11-P is in to provide that signal. It > says the KW11-P expects to get it on CE1, and specifically says to run a > wire from CE1 to slot 1 row C pin R1 (on the 11/45). But why would they say > that if the LTC signal is available on pin CD1 right there in the same slot > already next to CE1?? Or better yet, why didn't they design the KW11-P to > get LTC from CD1 instead of CE1? This is the part that makes me think I'm > messing up somewhere. > > I guess I could find prints for the DL11-W and see if in fact it's looking > to CD1 for LTC. I can't put my hand on the DL11-W prints at the moment (I know I have them sowewhere -- several times in fact), but all the notes I can find say that the standard pin for the LTC L signal on an SPC slot is CD1. CE1 is a testpoint, normally unconnected. In the early days of the Unibus things like this were not standardised, so it's quite possible that the KW11-P needs the LTC L signal on CE1. But I don't think the DL11-W expects it there. Can you look at the DL11-W card to see what, if anything, is connected to either of those pins? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 28 14:10:29 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:10:29 +0100 (BST) Subject: 11/45 RTC In-Reply-To: <000a01c6527c$f2254930$6800a8c0@BILLING> from "Jay West" at Mar 28, 6 09:33:21 am Message-ID: > I want to see first if the power supply is generating a LTC L signal, and Do you have a 'scope or logic probe? It should be easy enough to see if the signal is there or not. > then see where it goes. Right now I'm trying to just find the signal. It > would obviously go to slot 1C somewhere for the M787. But I can't seem to > figure out if it was by default also provided to a pin in the 3 unibus slots > built in to the system unit in order for the DL11-W to take advantage of. Now that I don't know, and the prints don't include a wire-wrap list for the backplane. But no real problem. accroding to the prints, that LTC L signal goes to 1CR1 (that is, pin R1 of connector C on the frontmost slot). See if you can find it there (if not, trace back through the power harness, etc). If it is there, see if it's on the appropriate pin on the SPC slots (I would have to look that one up). If it's not there, maybe add a wire-wrap jumper. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 28 14:40:13 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:40:13 +0100 (BST) Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Mar 28, 6 01:06:42 pm Message-ID: > > >Well, there is now a Unisys google group for those that want to > > >work/play with your Unisys A system. This way we won't plug up this > > >list with something so specific. > > > > You mean like endless PDP-11 and VAX threads? > > :-) > > Actually I wouldn't mind the Unisys A traffic here. It can be > interesting to monitor traffic for a box I know nothing about just to > learn about it. I would actively encourage such traffic here (provided the machine is at least 10 years old -- I know nothing about them). Several times I've read discussions on this list of machines that I've never heard of and have been prompted to either find out more or even to track down one of said machines (a case in point being those Panasonic HHCs, I only started looking for those after I'd read about there here). -tony From aw288 at osfn.org Tue Mar 28 14:47:59 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:47:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <442983C0.9050500@splab.cas.neu.edu> Message-ID: > Well, there is now a Unisys google group for those that want to > work/play with your Unisys A system. This way we won't plug up this > list with something so specific. BAD IDEA. Splitting off a group generally never works well - most of us do not want to be part of zillions of little groups, anyway. The cross pollenization of systems and ideas on one (or few) classic computer groups adds quite a bit to the whole picture, as well. It would be very good to see just what the Unisys architecture is all about. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 28 15:01:25 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 22:01:25 +0100 (BST) Subject: 11/45 RTC In-Reply-To: from "Tony Duell" at Mar 28, 6 09:32:37 pm Message-ID: > > I guess I could find prints for the DL11-W and see if in fact it's looking > > to CD1 for LTC. > > > I can't put my hand on the DL11-W prints at the moment (I know I have I've now found the DL11-W prints (in the 11/34 printset) and also the prints fro a Plessey clone of the DL11-W Both boards take LTC L on pin CD1. I would see if it's actually there with a 'scope or logic probe. -tony From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 15:07:59 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:07:59 -0600 Subject: booting rt11 v5.1 on an 11/45 References: Message-ID: <002b01c652ab$b2b63a50$6800a8c0@BILLING> Tony wrote.... > You are using DL11-W cards, right? That is, ones with a built-in line > time clock. Do you have a line time clock module -- a KW11-L single-height > board -- in slot C of the very front slot of the processor backplane. Yup, I'm using a DL11-W. No, I do not have a KW11-L in 1C. God only knows if this system ever had one there, but I don't have one in any case. Maybe it never had one, or maybe it did and fell out years before I got the system. No clue. > If you do, you must disable (with the DIP switches) the LTC on the DL11-W > card. I don't :) > If you don't then there's a wire-wrapped jumper documented > _somewhere_ in the printset that has to be in place to complete the grant > chain over the slot where the KW11-L goes. AHA! Now THAT is information I'd like to know about. It sounds like if you don't have an M787 and want to use the clock on the DW11-W, you need a jumper to complete the grant chain over 1C. Sounds like I need that info! Anyone know what the magic jumper is from/to? Jay From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Mar 28 15:11:41 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 13:11:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: Escon Microcomputer/Selectric Interface System In-Reply-To: <44297D49.8320291A@rain.org> References: <44297D49.8320291A@rain.org> Message-ID: <20060328130802.B76217@shell.lmi.net> 1) IS IT the one from Walnut Creek, CA? On Tue, 28 Mar 2006, Marvin Johnston wrote: > Yes, the box is basically a 6502 microprocessor and support chips, and has no > mechanical connections to the Selectric. >"the magnets used in the ESCON conversion kits have 55-ohm coils, except > for the shift magnet which has a 130-ohm coil." > There were no magnets in this package. I suspect if there was a > Selectric already prepared with the magnets, it got dumpstered before I > got a chance to check this stuff out. that does not seem to be consistent with an electronic only, no mechanical connection, system You appear to be missing the other half of it, that connects to the selectric From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 15:12:20 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:12:20 -0600 Subject: 11/45 RTC References: Message-ID: <003401c652ac$4d3ca370$6800a8c0@BILLING> Tony wrote... > Do you have a 'scope or logic probe? It should be easy enough to see if > the signal is there or not. Yup, I do, and that is where I'm headed. BUT... I wanted to be absolutely positive (and cross check) that the pins I am putting my probes on are the correct ones, and thus that I'm positive of what I should or should not be seeing on the scope first! My idea is to see if the square wave is at pin CD1 of the socket I have the DLW in. If it is, then I probably have a bad DL11-W. If it isn't, then I need to track that back to 1CR1. If not there, back to the power supply. But I'm curious about your previous email and the special jumper if you don't have a M787! Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 16:04:19 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 16:04:19 -0600 Subject: 11/45 RTC References: <003401c652ac$4d3ca370$6800a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <008701c652b3$90805170$6800a8c0@BILLING> Well, there is a square wave at CD1 of the unibus slots, as well as at CR1 of slot 1. My scope shows it at 180hz. I should have stayed with my simpler scope that I understood a bit better :) A frequency counter puts it at the same value though. Jay West From rick at rickmurphy.net Tue Mar 28 16:04:46 2006 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 17:04:46 -0500 Subject: 11/45 RTC In-Reply-To: References: <000a01c6527c$f2254930$6800a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20060328170331.024f3510@rickmurphy.net> Googling for DL11-W CD1 found the following (old - 1997) post to Classiccmp by Tim Shoppa. Perhaps it'll help. -Rick Sheesh. Why do I even bother running a FTP site filled with hardware documentation when nobody even bothers to read it? In any event, here are dl11-w.info and dl11-w.info2 from ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/hardware : Here's some stuff about the M7856 (DL11-W) module (combined serial port/real-time clock), taken from the print-set. As far as I can remember, there are 5 sets of dip-switches on the board. Mode of operation is selected as follows: Mode 1: serial line and RTC can both be addressed. Serial line addresses are restricted to 77756X. [Standard console address]. Line clock is at 777546. Mode 2: Only serial line can be addressed. Address selection ranges from 774000 to 777777. Line clock is disabled. Mode 3: Only line clock can be addressed, serial line does not respond to any address. Line clock is at 777546. Mode selection & address bits: Address bit A10 A09 A08 A07 A06 A05 A04 A03 N/A N/A Switch S5-3 S5-2 S5-1 S5-4 S5-5 S5-6 S5-8 S5-7 S5-9 S5-10 Mode 1 Off Off Off On Off Off Off On Off On Mode 2 Off Off Off On Off Off Off On On Off Mode 3 Off Off Off On Off Off On On On On Mode 2 is shown for serial line addresses 77756X. For address bits in mode 2, switch off = 1 and switch on = 0. [Apparently, it is not possible to deviate from the specified address for the serial port in Mode 1 -- I have a feeling that if you fiddle with the address switches in Mode 1, the LTC address may move as well.] Note: remove R63 from DL11-W operating in Mode 2 to allow proper operation of a line frequency clock or other DL11-W in Mode 1 or Mode 3. [R63 goes from the BUS LTC L signal at pin CD1 on the backplane connector to (among other things) pin 9 on a 7414, and is a 330 ohm resistor. It should be easy enough to find -- I don't have a layout diagram for the board.] Vector Address Assignments Line clock is fixed at 100. Serial line assignments are floating vectors of the form XX0 (receiver) and XX4 (transmitter), where XX is 00 to 77. For console device, vector should be 060/064. Vector bit V8 V7 V6 V5 V4 V3 switch S2-8 S2-7 S2-5 S2-3 S2-6 S2-4 060/064 Off Off Off On On Off On=1, Off=0. Data Format Bits per Character S4-4 S4-3 Bits On On 5 On Off 6 Off On 7 Off Off 8 Parity S4-2 S4-6 Parity Off Off Off On Off Off Off On Even On On Odd Stop Bits S4-5 Stop bits On 1 Off 2 (or 1.5 if 5 data bits selected) Baud Rate Selection Rate Receiver Transmitter S3-2 S3-3 S3-5 S4-10 S3-1 S3-4 110 Off Off Off On On On 150 On Off Off Off On On 300 Off On On On Off Off 600 Off On Off On Off On 1200 Off Off On On On Off 2400 On On On Off Off Off 4800 On On Off Off Off On 9600 On Off On Off On Off Current Loop Active/Passive Selection Transmitter S1-1 S1-2 S1-3 S1-6 S1-7 Active On On Off Off On Passive Off Off On On Off Receiver S3-6 S3-7 S3-8 S3-9 S3-10 Active On Off On Off On Passive Off On Off On Off Reader Enable S1-4 S1-5 S1-8 S1-9 S1-10 Active On Off On Off On Passive Off On Off On Off [There is a spade lug on the board, near the front edge, which can be connected to one of the spade lugs on the M9301 bootstrap module, so that pressing BREAK on your terminal keyboard will cause the machine to bomb into the bootstrap module's console emulator.] So there you go. I've used one of these boards on my 11/40 for several years now, without much bother. I have an M9301 for bootstrap, and am good at avoiding BREAK when typing! The only thing that occurs to me about the problems you've been having is: is there another device (e.g. bootstrap board) in your system that includes an LTC circuit? See the note about R63 above. You can reset the 11/34 CPU by placing CONT/HALT in HALT position, then operating BOOT/INIT. It is indeed possible to disable the on-board SLU on a KD11-B (11/05 CPU). I assume (please correct me if I'm wrong) that an 11/10 is similar. According to my print set, "with W1 *installed* the CPU does not respond to internal addresses 177560-177566 and another interface device corresponding to these standard console addresses can be configured with the KD11-B." W1 is on the M7261 board (control logic and microprogram board) between E69 and C51 (about halfway up the board, roughly in line with edge connector DH1/DH2). The DL11-W (M7856) has 5 DIP switch packs, to set address, vector, baud rate, etc. Unfortunately, the functions aren't handily grouped (except in the sense one might use if laying out a PCB :-) Approximate layout (ASCII art isn't my best point): \______/ \______/ \______/ _____II_____________II___________________________II_____ | | | ___ | | Berg | / |UU,VV | connector | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | S3: 1..10 |__\ | B,A | | | | | | | S1: 1..10 | | | | S5: 1..10 | | S4: 1..10 | | | | | | | | | | S2: 1..8 | | ___ __ ___ | | | | | | | | | |__________| |__________| |__________| |__________| The DL11-W has a Line-Time Clock and one SLU, which can be used in EIA (RS232) mode or 20mA current-loop. There are three address modes: 1) Both SLU and LTC active. Only possible if SLU address is set to 77756x. LTC address is 777546. 2) Only the SLU is addressable, in the range 774000-777776. LTC disabled. 3) Only the LTC is addressable, the SLU is disabled. Standard address settings: addr.bit: A10 A9 A8 A7 A6 A5 A4 A3 LTC LTC switch: S5-3 S5-2 S5-1 S5-4 S5-5 S5-6 S5-8 S5-7 S5-9 S5-10 Mode 1: off off off ON off off off ON off ON Mode 2: off off off ON off off off ON ON ON Mode 3: off off off ON off off ON ON ON ON I've shown the mode2 setting for standard console address. It can be changed, ON=0 and OFF=1 for the appropriate address bits. Standard vector settings: The LTC vector is fixed at 100. For console use, the SLU vector should be set to 60, otherwise use the normal vector allocation. For S2, ON=1 and OFF=0 (opposite way to S5). S2-1, S2-2 do nothing. Vector bit: V8 V7 V6 V5 V4 V3 switch: S2-8 S2-7 S2-5 S2-3 S2-6 S2-4 for console: off off off ON ON off The SLU provides 20mA and EIA signals on different pins of the Berg connector. Standard BC05C, 7008360, or 7008519 cables can be used (see below). The 20mA current loop provides RDR ENBL, and can be active or passive, independantly set for transmitter and receiver: Transmitter: S1-1 S1-2 S1-3 S1-6 S1-7 Active: ON ON off off ON Passive: off off ON ON off Receiver: S3-6 S3-7 S3-8 S3-9 S3-10 Active: ON off ON off ON Passive: off ON off ON off Reader Enable: S1-4 S1-5 S1-8 S1-9 S1-10 Active: ON off ON off ON Passive: off ON off ON off Baud rates: _____Transmit_____ ______Receive_____ S4-10 S3-1 S3-4 S3-2 S3-3 S3-5 110 ON ON ON off off off 150 off ON ON ON off off 300 ON off off off ON ON 600 ON off ON off ON off 1200 ON ON off off off ON 2400 off off off ON ON ON 4800 off off ON ON ON off 9600 off ON off ON off ON The remaining switch settings are for data format: (No)Parity: S4-6 When on, enable parity. Odd/Even: S4-2 When on, and S4-6 is on, use ODD parity When off, and S4-6 is on, use EVEN parity If S4-6 is off, this switch has no effect STOP bits: S4-5 ON = 1 stop bit OFF = 2 stop bits (6,7, or 8-bit data) OFF = 1.5 stop bits (5-bit data) Data word length: 5 bits 6 bits 7 bits 8 bits S4-3 ON off ON off S4-4 ON ON off off Cable pinouts (blank means "no connection"): Numbers are DB25 pin numbers (for the BC05C) or Mate-N-Lok pin numbers (for 7008360): Berg pin Signal BC05C 7008360 A Ground 1 Prot.Ground (blue/wht) - ground B Ground 7 Signal Ground (brwn/wht) C 25 Force Busy (red/org) D 13 Secondary CTS (org/red) E TTL serial in - interlock in - interlock in F EIA serial out 2 Transmit Data (wht/blue) H 20mA interlock - interlock out J EIA serial in 3 Receive Data (org/wht) K +20mA serial in 7 + Rec.Data (green) L 24 External clk (brwn/red) M EIA interlock - interlock out N 15 serial clk xmit (grey/grn) P 19 Secondary RTS (lbue/blk) R 17 serial clk recv (grey) S -20mA serial in 3 - Rec.Data (red) T 5 Clear To Send (grn/wht) U V EIA RTS 4 Request To Send (wht/org) W 10 -ve power (wht/grey) X 22 Ring (blk/org) Y 9 +ve power (grey/wht) Z 6 Data Set Ready (wht/grn) AA +20mA serial out 5 + Trans.Data (white) BB 8 Data Carrier Detect (wht/brwn) CC DD EIA DTR 20 Data Terminal Ready (blk/blu) EE -20mA RDR Run 3 - Reader Run (black) FF 11 202 Secondary TD (blu/red) HH JJ 12 202 Secondary RD (red/blu) KK -20mA serial out 2 - Trans.Data (black) LL 14 EIA Secondary TD (grey/red) MM 21 Signal Quality (org/blk) NN 16 EIA Secondary RD (red/brwn) PP +20mA RDR Run 6 + Reader Run (black) RR 23 Signal Rate (grn/blk) SS TT +5V DC UU ground VV ground From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 28 16:20:36 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:20:36 -0800 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <575131af0603281116n79d48218sd3fb48c4f8877ac4@mail.gmail.com> References: <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <200603230333280896.37779F7C@10.0.0.252> <575131af0603281116n79d48218sd3fb48c4f8877ac4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200603281420360141.0B34ED91@10.0.0.252> On 3/28/2006 at 7:16 PM Liam Proven wrote: >The PS/2 Model 50 was an 80286. I checked my old records. Right memory, wrong model. I dropped a bit. It was the 8570 (Model 70) and it was ECA 021. Nasty memory problem resulting in a 110 error. IBM would replace the mobo only if you complained loudly enough. Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 28 16:28:02 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 23:28:02 +0100 (BST) Subject: 11/45 RTC In-Reply-To: <008701c652b3$90805170$6800a8c0@BILLING> from "Jay West" at Mar 28, 6 04:04:19 pm Message-ID: > > Well, there is a square wave at CD1 of the unibus slots, as well as at CR1 > of slot 1. My scope shows it at 180hz. I should have stayed with my simpler Err.... It comes straight from the mains (well, the output of the mains transformer). You are in the States, right? You are running off a normal power outlet (and not, say, a private generating set)? However, I don't see how this can be the cause of the problem. A 180Hz signal would still trigger the DL11-W circuit. I doubt the machine would get interrupt-bound either. Do you have the DL11-W prints (e.g. in an 11/34 printset)? If so, I can talk you through some simple tests on the board itself. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 28 16:21:28 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 23:21:28 +0100 (BST) Subject: booting rt11 v5.1 on an 11/45 In-Reply-To: <002b01c652ab$b2b63a50$6800a8c0@BILLING> from "Jay West" at Mar 28, 6 03:07:59 pm Message-ID: > > > If you don't then there's a wire-wrapped jumper documented > > _somewhere_ in the printset that has to be in place to complete the grant > > chain over the slot where the KW11-L goes. > AHA! Now THAT is information I'd like to know about. It sounds like if you > don't have an M787 and want to use the clock on the DW11-W, you need a > jumper to complete the grant chain over 1C. Sounds like I need that info! > Anyone know what the magic jumper is from/to? It's not just 'if you want to use a clock on a DL11-W'. That jumper completes the grant chain for one of the bus grant sigals (the one that is used by the line time clock interrupt), if you miss it out, then _no_ device on that priority level can interrup. It's like missing out a grant continuity card. Found it. It's C01R2 to C01V2. That is, it's on the C connector of the frontmost slot in the CPU backplane between pins R2 and V2. You can check with an ohmmeter that those 2 pins are connected to see if the jumper is in place. -tony From bkr at WildHareComputers.com Tue Mar 28 16:45:38 2006 From: bkr at WildHareComputers.com (Bruce Ray) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:45:38 -0700 Subject: AViiON on Intel References: <4429956C.2020902@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <014901c652b9$5604a450$367cfea9@newhare> G'day Don - Do you have the installation docs for the 3700? I don't think I have the later-model AViiON (Intel) -specific docs at this point but will check for you... Bruce ----- Original Message ----- From: "Don Y" To: "Classic Computers" Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 12:58 PM Subject: AViiON on Intel > Hi, > > I'm trying to get DG/UX installed on an AV3700. > But, having a helluva time trying to sort out > the proper incantation for the boot device. > I managed to get things running on an AV3000 > some years ago but the 3700 is a different beast. > > Has anyone here wrestled with these beasts > (they have *got* to be the most annoying things > to get running! :< ) > > Thanks for any pointers... > --don > From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 28 16:59:37 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:59:37 -0700 Subject: IBM PC BIOS error codes (was: who built the first 8086/88 based puter?) In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:20:36 -0800. <200603281420360141.0B34ED91@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603281420360141.0B34ED91 at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > Right memory, wrong model. I dropped a bit. It was the 8570 (Model 70) > and it was ECA 021. Nasty memory problem resulting in a 110 error. IBM > would replace the mobo only if you complained loudly enough. Speaking of inscrutable error codes from IBM BIOS, in the big equipment purge of 2006 at work I obtained a number of IBM PC model 350 and 365s. In my various disassembling and re-assembling of pieces amongst these systems to make a smaller number of maximally configured systems I occasionally get an inscrutable error code form the BIOS. Does anyone know if there are manuals for these models online? I tried searching IBM's web site, but immediately got lost in the large amount of irrelevant results. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From marvin at rain.org Tue Mar 28 17:08:34 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:08:34 -0800 Subject: Escon Microcomputer/Selectric Interface System Message-ID: <4429C1F2.F30244A6@rain.org> The information indicates their address as: ESCON Products, Inc. 171 Mayhew Way Suite 204 Pleasant Hill, CA 94523 I don't know that area, or if it is close to Walnut Creek. The installation instructions detail how to install the magnets and wiring onto a Selectric. Volume II contains the illustrations of the Selectric that go with the installation instructions. When I go back over (hopefully tomorrow), I'll check and see if any Selectrics survived the dumpster. > From: Fred Cisin > > 1) IS IT the one from Walnut Creek, CA? > > On Tue, 28 Mar 2006, Marvin Johnston wrote: > > Yes, the box is basically a 6502 microprocessor and support chips, and has no > > mechanical connections to the Selectric. > > >"the magnets used in the ESCON conversion kits have 55-ohm coils, except > > for the shift magnet which has a 130-ohm coil." > > There were no magnets in this package. I suspect if there was a > > Selectric already prepared with the magnets, it got dumpstered before I > > got a chance to check this stuff out. > > that does not seem to be consistent with an electronic only, no mechanical > connection, system > > You appear to be missing the other half of it, that connects to the > selectric > > From innfoclassics at gmail.com Tue Mar 28 17:10:29 2006 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:10:29 -0800 Subject: Auto dealer closure uncovers... Message-ID: An old Auto dealership closed and I got some interesting older equipment. A Reynolds and Reynolds 1000 Z80? 8 bit computer, two floppy from about 1980. An all in one with keyboard, monitor and two early 5 1/4" floppys. 2 ADM 5 terminals, the classic early ADM all in one design. 3 Televideo 925 terminals with keyboards Reynolds and Reynolds 2000 tower server (Multibus 1) No HD This is actually a NCR 4350 7102. Original IBM XT286 wi original box, no HD Original IBM CGA Color Monitor wi original box and packing. TI 820 Dot Matrix printer in its box. A real classic workhorse. 2 LA 120 Decwriter III printers. Why oh why do I want these. Will part out or ship whole. Nice IBM 2390 Plus 24 pin dot matrix printer. A old Cosmowriter 4000 daisywheel printer with both parallel and serial interfaces A bunch of RJ45 serial cable kits. And a OT Mac G3 300 small tower, Sony Monitor and no Hard drive. I think I am going to try to get this to work. I have a spare HD but no OS. I understand it will run OSX but slowly. They kept all the hard drives rather than let me erase them. They even stripped the Reynolds and Reynolds 1000 down trying to find a HD, not realizing it is just a two floppy 8 bit computer. I had to put the housings back on to get it in the van.+ The NCR 3450 tower is very heavy and awkward and I am inclined to strip it down unless someone objects. If anyone on the list is interested in anything let me know. Please contact me off list or at whoagiii at gmail.com. I thought I would mention it to the list first before it hits eBay. I am a good packer. They had lots of space so anything they discontinued use to got sent to the basement. I remember early Data General systems running in Auto Parts stores also. This is one of the reasons I check the old users when they close down. Unfortunately much of the equipment is quite dirty. -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Tue Mar 28 17:11:36 2006 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 18:11:36 -0500 Subject: Wanted: Ohio Scientific... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: < Synopsis > - Wanted: - 1) OSI C1P-MF Series II - 2) OSI tan/brown metal floppy chassis for an original C1P-MF - 3) OSI C4P metal/wood CPU chassis > > None of the above need to be working, just in good physical > shape. > > In pursuit of the above, I am considering trades of other > parts of my collection that are rather rare. Also, I have a > small reserve of convenient, wallet sized presidential > portraits (but don't get any ideas of ebay level riches). Hmmm... 24 hours, not even a nibble. I can understand the first two but there should be a fair number of C4Ps out there. In Re trades... Let me drop a few names... Apple Lisa various Macs various Apple IIs various TRS-80s IBM PC Jr with accessories all in original boxes NorthStar Horizon _many_ functioning, tested S-100 cards HP85 Kaypro Osborne... That's just off the top of my head. Many more, ask! Bill Sudbrink From trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu Tue Mar 28 17:19:59 2006 From: trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu (joe heck) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 18:19:59 -0500 Subject: Unisys A google group reasoning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4429C49F.7020305@splab.cas.neu.edu> Well, I have no control over what my Unisys friend wants to do, good idea or bad. He specifically did not want to join this group because of all the traffic and cross-pollinization he is NOT interested in. So, for those of you that are looking for somebody to perhaps lend a hand or find some software or ideas on the Unisys A systems, the group he started is it. So, saying that starting a new group is a bad idea may help in the future for others thinking about creating a new group, but that will not change my friends mind in this case. Joe Heck From fireflyst at earthlink.net Tue Mar 28 17:26:52 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 17:26:52 -0600 Subject: Auto dealer closure uncovers... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001e01c652bf$18bd2d00$6401a8c0@dementium> What do you want for the DECwriters? > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] > On Behalf Of Paxton Hoag > Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 5:10 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Auto dealer closure uncovers... > > An old Auto dealership closed and I got some interesting older equipment. > > A Reynolds and Reynolds 1000 Z80? 8 bit computer, two floppy from > about 1980. An all in one with keyboard, monitor and two early 5 1/4" > floppys. > > 2 ADM 5 terminals, the classic early ADM all in one design. > > 3 Televideo 925 terminals with keyboards > > Reynolds and Reynolds 2000 tower server (Multibus 1) No HD > This is actually a NCR 4350 7102. > > Original IBM XT286 wi original box, no HD > Original IBM CGA Color Monitor wi original box and packing. > > TI 820 Dot Matrix printer in its box. A real classic workhorse. > > 2 LA 120 Decwriter III printers. Why oh why do I want these. Will part > out or ship whole. > > Nice IBM 2390 Plus 24 pin dot matrix printer. > > A old Cosmowriter 4000 daisywheel printer with both parallel and > serial interfaces > > A bunch of RJ45 serial cable kits. > > And a OT Mac G3 300 small tower, Sony Monitor and no Hard drive. I > think I am going to try to get this to work. I have a spare HD but no > OS. I understand it will run OSX but slowly. > > They kept all the hard drives rather than let me erase them. They even > stripped the Reynolds and Reynolds 1000 down trying to find a HD, not > realizing it is just a two floppy 8 bit computer. I had to put the > housings back on to get it in the van.+ > > The NCR 3450 tower is very heavy and awkward and I am inclined to > strip it down unless someone objects. > > If anyone on the list is interested in anything let me know. Please > contact me off list or at whoagiii at gmail.com. I thought I would > mention it to the list first before it hits eBay. I am a good packer. > > They had lots of space so anything they discontinued use to got sent > to the basement. I remember early Data General systems running in Auto > Parts stores also. This is one of the reasons I check the old users > when they close down. Unfortunately much of the equipment is quite > dirty. > > -- > Paxton Hoag > Astoria, OR > USA From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 28 17:32:34 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 16:32:34 -0700 Subject: Is this blue disk cabinet an IBM? Message-ID: It looks IBM blue :-). The description is the typical non-descriptive description I've come to expect from govliquidation: "LOT (11)LDV DISK STORAGE RACKS, IN WOODEN CRATES" -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Mar 28 17:48:04 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 16:48:04 -0700 Subject: AViiON on Intel In-Reply-To: <014901c652b9$5604a450$367cfea9@newhare> References: <4429956C.2020902@DakotaCom.Net> <014901c652b9$5604a450$367cfea9@newhare> Message-ID: <4429CB34.8040007@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, Bruce, Bruce Ray wrote: > G'day Don - > > Do you have the installation docs for the 3700? I don't think I have > the later-model AViiON (Intel) -specific docs at this point but will > check for you... I have the Release Notes for 4.20. Let me try to be more specific about my problem(s)... :-( I was able to install some disks (3x4G, currently, all identical) and configure the array controller (Mylex DAC1100?) to treat them as a single RAID 5 logical drive. (I had no docs so this was a hit-or-miss proposition :< ). The unit does not have an SCM so I boot from a floppy (4.20MU04). When prompted, I tell it to boot the CD (sd(npsc(pci(0),8),5)). But, when the installer goes looking for disks onto which to copy the software, it complains. Nearest I can tell, all it sees is the *floppy* (which obviously isn't suitable!) So, what trick am I missing? I would assume (!) the logical drive created under the Mylex controller would "magically" appear *somewhere* that the installer could see it (since there are no other provisions for internal drives!) (sigh) I've only got a few more fistfuls of hair that I can pull out... :> Thanks! --don > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Don Y" > To: "Classic Computers" > Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 12:58 PM > Subject: AViiON on Intel > > >> Hi, >> >> I'm trying to get DG/UX installed on an AV3700. >> But, having a helluva time trying to sort out >> the proper incantation for the boot device. >> I managed to get things running on an AV3000 >> some years ago but the 3700 is a different beast. >> >> Has anyone here wrestled with these beasts >> (they have *got* to be the most annoying things >> to get running! :< ) From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 28 17:44:43 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:44:43 -0800 Subject: Auto dealer closure uncovers... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603281544430776.0B81F297@10.0.0.252> Paxton, too bad there wasn't an old Sun automotive engine analyzer in that lot! Some of the older ones have complete intact NSC IMP-16 CPU boards in them... Cheers, Chuck From SUPRDAVE at aol.com Tue Mar 28 18:14:46 2006 From: SUPRDAVE at aol.com (SUPRDAVE at aol.com) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:14:46 EST Subject: IBM PC BIOS error codes (was: who built the first 8086/88 based puter?) Message-ID: <356.e2f15a.315b2b76@aol.com> In a message dated 3/28/2006 6:01:51 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, legalize at xmission.com writes: In article <200603281420360141.0B34ED91 at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > Right memory, wrong model. I dropped a bit. It was the 8570 (Model 70) > and it was ECA 021. Nasty memory problem resulting in a 110 error. IBM > would replace the mobo only if you complained loudly enough. Speaking of inscrutable error codes from IBM BIOS, in the big equipment purge of 2006 at work I obtained a number of IBM PC model 350 and 365s. In my various disassembling and re-assembling of pieces amongst these systems to make a smaller number of maximally configured systems I occasionally get an inscrutable error code form the BIOS. Does anyone know if there are manuals for these models online? I tried searching IBM's web site, but immediately got lost in the large amount of irrelevant results. -- What errors? I am familiar with those models. Fairly standard PC, nothing unusual about them. You're looking for the HHM for these computers, but their website has changed a lot since I worked there. DId you try _www.pc.ibm.com/support_ (http://www.pc.ibm.com/support) ? You might also want to look around at service.boulder.ibm.com too. From useddec at aol.com Tue Mar 28 18:20:12 2006 From: useddec at aol.com (useddec at aol.com) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:20:12 -0500 Subject: Printronix manuels Message-ID: <8C820DDAE350C9E-1A04-12706@mblk-r42.sysops.aol.com> Any interest in PI-3287, P6000, or IGP-100/200/400 manuals? Thanks, Paul From allain at panix.com Tue Mar 28 18:21:06 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:21:06 -0500 Subject: Unisys A google group reasoning References: <4429C49F.7020305@splab.cas.neu.edu> Message-ID: <004f01c652c6$ac445740$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> > He specifically did not want to join this group because of > all the traffic Alternately, we could agree to always use "[Micro-A] " in the subject line, and he could reject all non-compliant letters. John A. got bandwidth? From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 20:07:11 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:07:11 -0600 Subject: Unisys A google group References: Message-ID: <009701c652d5$7e6f4190$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Tony wrote.... > I would actively encourage such traffic here (provided the machine is at > least 10 years old -- I know nothing about them). Several times I've read > discussions on this list of machines that I've never heard of and have > been prompted to either find out more or even to track down one of said > machines (a case in point being those Panasonic HHCs, I only started > looking for those after I'd read about there here). Absolutely. I'm not concerned so much about the specific age, I'm more concerned if it's classic/retro/unique/envelope-pushing. If it's not, I'm sure I or others will yell about it. But I agree with Tony, many of the discussions here about machines I don't have or know about have made me search them out or at the least broaden my horizons. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 20:12:06 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:12:06 -0600 Subject: Unisys A google group reasoning References: <4429C49F.7020305@splab.cas.neu.edu> <004f01c652c6$ac445740$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <00be01c652d6$2e19ce80$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> It was written.... >> He specifically did not want to join this group because of >> all the traffic And also.... > Alternately, we could agree to always use "[Micro-A] " in the > subject line, and he could reject all non-compliant letters. Your friend could easily create a rule for key words in the body to, so he doesn't get all the traffic :) But regardless... I do agree with William that it's better to keep it in one spot. But certainly everyone has a right to start up a list! Jay From dave06a at dunfield.com Tue Mar 28 20:23:00 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:23:00 -0500 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <001b01c652a5$ebb99f50$6800a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <20060329022351.DJOE8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> > What vintage is the Unisys A? I would think it'd be fine for discussion here > from what I've seen. The sticked inside my A7-311 says it was manufactured in 1994. Btw - photos are up on my site now. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 20:27:02 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:27:02 -0600 Subject: Ebay posts References: <001b01c64ea7$29524400$6800a8c0@BILLING><2789adda0603231051r4cdd9384k81a5939763e6ce0c@mail.gmail.com><4422F216.6080808@msm.umr.edu> <052401c64ec2$52002140$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <00da01c652d8$43d9d240$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> To return to a previous subject for a moment (can you tell I'm going backwards through email?) John A. wrote... > Jay's request suffers a bit from bad timing; that HDD eBay was > particularly > good. Absolutely. But it needed to be brought up for a while now. >But personally, I'd prefer less of: > 1./ Drive by URL's. Hey L@@k at this link, and the poster gives > no further or maybe a two word description. > 2./ Sellers who post 2 or more auctions in seperate emails, > where they could be bunched together in one. Agreed. As I said, I'm not opposed to the occasional Ebay post. Especially if it's something unique, or misclassified, etc. But I think John gives a good list of what can be bad... in addition a daily recount style posting isn't necessary :) Jay From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 28 20:29:02 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:29:02 -0700 Subject: IBM PC BIOS error codes (was: who built the first 8086/88 based puter?) In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:14:46 -0500. <356.e2f15a.315b2b76@aol.com> Message-ID: In article <356.e2f15a.315b2b76 at aol.com>, SUPRDAVE at aol.com writes: > What errors? Well, if I knew what the numbers meant I wouldn't have to look them up :-P. I suspect they are just codes saying "hey, you changed the amount of memory inside me since the last time I booted", but it wouldn't hurt to have a reference. I'll check out the web sites you mention. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 20:31:36 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:31:36 -0600 Subject: xxdp RL02? References: <020401c65140$3da04bf0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <44275BC4.5010509@nktelco.net><00c901c65203$07d27390$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <44289437.1050808@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <00f301c652d8$e73bb020$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I had written.... >> I have a disk of xxdp v1.0. If anyone wants an image of it, I'd be happy >> to oblige. To which Don replied.... > I (and probably others to with 1970s vintage pdp11s) would like an online > image, much like the 'xxdpv25_rl02.dsk' images already online. > > There are lots of DEC diagnostics missing from the v2.2 and v2.5 XXDP > disks, specifically for earlier/obscure machines (eg 11/60 :-() and > peripherals. Ok, I'd be happy to send it to the same spot as the 2.2 and 2.5. Who owns that site and how can I get in touch with them? Anyone in the know? Jay From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 28 20:33:24 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:33:24 -0700 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:07:11 -0600. <009701c652d5$7e6f4190$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: In article <009701c652d5$7e6f4190$6700a8c0 at HPLAPTOP>, "Jay West" writes: > Absolutely. I'm not concerned so much about the specific age, I'm more > concerned if it's classic/retro/unique/envelope-pushing. If it's not, I'm > sure I or others will yell about it. But I agree with Tony, many of the > discussions here about machines I don't have or know about have made me > search them out or at the least broaden my horizons. You mean we can't talk about Windows 95? Its vintage, baby. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Mar 28 20:34:16 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 18:34:16 -0800 Subject: Is this blue disk cabinet an IBM? Message-ID: <7C014E2B-3469-4241-8AEE-8FB590EFF860@bitsavers.org> Billy P. would know for sure, but it looks like a CDC Hawk (5440-ish 10mb drive) to me. From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 28 20:39:48 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:39:48 -0700 Subject: IBM PC BIOS error codes (was: who built the first 8086/88 based puter?) In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:14:46 -0500. <356.e2f15a.315b2b76@aol.com> Message-ID: In article <356.e2f15a.315b2b76 at aol.com>, SUPRDAVE at aol.com writes: > website has changed a lot since I worked there. DId you try > _www.pc.ibm.com/support_ (http://www.pc.ibm.com/support) ? You might also want to look around > at service.boulder.ibm.com too. Thanks, that first URL got me the Hardware Maintenance Manual. Oddly, they didn't have my model number listed specifically so I selected the one that was closest and that seems to have done the trick. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Mar 28 20:40:26 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 18:40:26 -0800 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <20060329022351.DJOE8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> References: <20060329022351.DJOE8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <4429F39A.1040601@msm.umr.edu> Dave Dunfield wrote: > The sticked inside my A7-311 says it was manufactured in 1994. > >Btw - photos are up on my site now. > > For what it's worth, I suspect this is an Intel server platform that is Unisys badged. You will find this in the Pentium 2 platforms, if you look for the "Astor" for example on the intel Oem server site. that is newer than the box you show, but I suspect it is probably compatable if you need setup disks and basic support and the like and don't have it. I know the box you have photos of is an Eisa so that may be a bit of a challenge to find setup disks for, as the Eisa setups in bios was not quite there yet. Jim From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 20:44:54 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:44:54 -0600 Subject: Unisys A google group References: Message-ID: <01a001c652da$c2f62fe0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Richard wrote.... > You mean we can't talk about Windows 95? Its vintage, baby. Nope. From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 28 20:48:25 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:48:25 -0700 Subject: Is this blue disk cabinet an IBM? In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 28 Mar 2006 18:34:16 -0800. <7C014E2B-3469-4241-8AEE-8FB590EFF860@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: In article <7C014E2B-3469-4241-8AEE-8FB590EFF860 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow writes: > Billy P. would know for sure, but it looks like a CDC Hawk (5440-ish > 10mb drive) > to me. Watching govliquidation.com is sometimes like playing "name that old computer"! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 21:24:07 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:24:07 -0600 Subject: booting rt11 v5.1 on an 11/45 References: Message-ID: <036e01c652e0$3fd31d70$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Tony wrote... > It's not just 'if you want to use a clock on a DL11-W'. That jumper > completes the grant chain for one of the bus grant sigals (the one that > is used by the line time clock interrupt), if you miss it out, then _no_ > device on that priority level can interrup. It's like missing out a grant > continuity card. I took it as "if you want to yank out the M787 from a system that previously had one. > You can check with an ohmmeter that those 2 pins are connected to see if > the jumper is in place. I checked, I do have that jumper. Jay From legalize at xmission.com Tue Mar 28 21:35:20 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:35:20 -0700 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:44:54 -0600. <01a001c652da$c2f62fe0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: In article <01a001c652da$c2f62fe0$6700a8c0 at HPLAPTOP>, "Jay West" writes: > Richard wrote.... > > You mean we can't talk about Windows 95? Its vintage, baby. > Nope. Its 10 years old. I thought that was the requirement for "on topic", or are we going to get snooty about *which* 10 year old things we can talk about? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 21:43:29 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:43:29 -0600 Subject: 11/45 RTC References: Message-ID: <037101c652e2$f1cdf110$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Tony wrote... > However, I don't see how this can be the cause of the problem. A 180Hz > signal would still trigger the DL11-W circuit. I doubt the machine would > get interrupt-bound either. Nope, standard 110v singlephase outlet. I think something is up with my test cable. I'm going to double check it tomorrow. I do know that I set a function generator on 50hz and connected my freq counter to it. It registered right on 50hz. I moved the freq counter to the /45 and got about 189hz on CD1. That just seems wrong. I connected my scope to the function generator set at the same 50 hz and the scope picked it up sharp at 50hz (scope does measurement). I moved it to the /45 and got odd readings, around 189hz. Here's something else... on the function generator, the 50hz clock was square and very clean. It also had a stable display. When looking at the trace on the /45, the rise and fall of the square were noticeablely sloped, not square. Also, it's like it was triggering right... because the square image seemed to alternate between two traces 90 degrees out of phase (1/2 step back). Made it hard to measure the period. > Do you have the DL11-W prints (e.g. in an 11/34 printset)? If so, I can > talk you through some simple tests on the board itself. I do not have DL11-W prints alas. Maybe I should start from the beginning and re-explain the problem as I percieve it. The machine boots xxdp+ v1.0 and 2.5 just fine. However, when I try to boot RT11, the lights flicker and the disk flickers for about 10 seconds, and then the system just halts. Because of the fact the system can read and write full disk packs using VTserver, I kinda doubt there is a major read/write problem with the drive. I am GUESSING that what is happening is that xxdp does not use interrupts for anything, nor does vtserver. My GUESS is that RT11 does, and that there is something wrong with interrupts on my machine. I am GUESSING that at some point in the boot process of RT11 it tries to use interrupts and thus my machine just dies there. I centered on the LTC as a possible route to investigate for two reasons - one, I was under the impression that the LTC signal had to be present for interrupts to work, and if it wasn't, I'd get this behaviour, and two - because when I run the diagnostic program for the DL11-W, it specifically complains about the LTC part of the DL11-W with "Bit 7 never sets". Sooooo long story short, I wanted to make sure the LTC and interrupts were working, then try rebooting RT11 and see if that was the issue. Bear in mind I have three DL11-W cards. I guess it's possible, but I find it hard to believe they are all bad (although they do fail the diagnostic in different ways). I've also tried several different RL11 controllers, and I've triple checked the NPG jumpers and grant cards. Maybe I should be looking in a different direction. I am going to go back and run the trap and interrupt tests tomorrow, I believe the machine fails the interrupt test. Jay From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Mar 28 21:55:16 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:55:16 -0700 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <442A0524.2080807@jetnet.ab.ca> Richard wrote: > Its 10 years old. I thought that was the requirement for "on topic", > or are we going to get snooty about *which* 10 year old things we can > talk about? Well you can talk of windows 95 I guess, but alas it still has too many bugs that are off topic from the last decade. :) Does anybody make a DOS clone that runs on the new machines, for old programs? From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Mar 28 21:57:21 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 22:57:21 -0500 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: References: <01a001c652da$c2f62fe0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <20060329035721.GT1195@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> On Tue, Mar 28, 2006 at 08:35:20PM -0700, Richard wrote: > > In article <01a001c652da$c2f62fe0$6700a8c0 at HPLAPTOP>, > "Jay West" writes: > > > Richard wrote.... > > > You mean we can't talk about Windows 95? Its vintage, baby. > > Nope. > > Its 10 years old. I thought that was the requirement for "on topic", > or are we going to get snooty about *which* 10 year old things we can > talk about? Yes. 10-years is a quasi-guideline. Things must be non-pedestrian -- interesting, you might say. If you want to talk about Windows 95, there's a lot better places to be discussing it than here. Why do we have to argue about this over and over? It seems like some people can't understand the difference between a 'guideline' or 'general idea' and fixed rule that cannot be broken (assuming there really is such a thing). If this decends into a WinTel PC discussion list, any interest I have in this list will die a quick death. IBM PCs, PC/XTs, PCjrs, PC/ATs, etc (perhaps PS/2's as well) are generally excepted as they were at least somewhat novel machines at the time of their inception. A Packard Bell 486 running Windows 95 (for example) isn't. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Mar 28 21:59:19 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 22:59:19 -0500 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <442A0524.2080807@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <442A0524.2080807@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <20060329035919.GU1195@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> On Tue, Mar 28, 2006 at 08:55:16PM -0700, woodelf wrote: > Richard wrote: > > >Its 10 years old. I thought that was the requirement for "on topic", > >or are we going to get snooty about *which* 10 year old things we can > >talk about? > Well you can talk of windows 95 I guess, but alas it still has too many > bugs that are off topic from the last decade. :) > Does anybody make a DOS clone that runs on the new machines, for old > programs? Well, you can generally run MS/PCDOS on new machines. There's also FreeDOS (which is a free clone), and things like BOCHS and dosemu for running DOS under some of the more useful modern multitasking OSes. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 22:01:06 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 22:01:06 -0600 Subject: Unisys A google group PLEASE READ References: Message-ID: <038301c652e5$681fa2d0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> >> Richard wrote.... >> > You mean we can't talk about Windows 95? Its vintage, baby. To which I replied... >> Nope. To which Richard replied... > Its 10 years old. I thought that was the requirement for "on topic", > or are we going to get snooty about *which* 10 year old things we can > talk about? Back up just a second here. You're saying anything which doesn't meet what YOU THOUGHT the rule was, is snooty? Apparently I need to be much more vocal in expressing the guidelines. Or more specifically, I need to slap myself for not updating the list charter/FAQ so that new people to the list just assume they know the scoop. My bad, I have been remiss for too long! The rule for on-topicness is NOT simply anything over 10 years. I'm sorry I have not repeated this since some of the newer members joined the list, so they assume anything over 10 years goes. That is not the case. There are many things over 10 years that are not on topic. There are a few things less than 10 years that ARE on topic. MS/DOS (hopefully not to excess) is on-topic. Windows 3.1 is borderline, but a rare question here and there isn't going to be a huge deal. Windows 95 and more recent incarnations? Not even remotely on topic. This subject has been beat to death and most of the old timers here know the guidelines and keep in line. Newer people don't have the advantage of that history. We'll get there :) Jay From ak6dn at mindspring.com Tue Mar 28 22:03:33 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:03:33 -0800 Subject: 11/45 RTC In-Reply-To: <037101c652e2$f1cdf110$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <037101c652e2$f1cdf110$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <442A0715.5010206@mindspring.com> Jay West wrote: > I do not have DL11-W prints alas. > > Maybe I should start from the beginning and re-explain the problem as > I percieve it. The machine boots xxdp+ v1.0 and 2.5 just fine. > However, when I try to boot RT11, the lights flicker and the disk > flickers for about 10 seconds, and then the system just halts. Because > of the fact the system can read and write full disk packs using > VTserver, I kinda doubt there is a major read/write problem with the > drive. I am GUESSING that what is happening is that xxdp does not use > interrupts for anything, nor does vtserver. My GUESS is that RT11 > does, and that there is something wrong with interrupts on my machine. > I am GUESSING that at some point in the boot process of RT11 it tries > to use interrupts and thus my machine just dies there. I centered on > the LTC as a possible route to investigate for two reasons - one, I > was under the impression that the LTC signal had to be present for > interrupts to work, and if it wasn't, I'd get this behaviour, and two > - because when I run the diagnostic program for the DL11-W, it > specifically complains about the LTC part of the DL11-W with "Bit 7 > never sets". > > Sooooo long story short, I wanted to make sure the LTC and interrupts > were working, then try rebooting RT11 and see if that was the issue. > Bear in mind I have three DL11-W cards. I guess it's possible, but I > find it hard to believe they are all bad (although they do fail the > diagnostic in different ways). I've also tried several different RL11 > controllers, and I've triple checked the NPG jumpers and grant cards. > Maybe I should be looking in a different direction. I am going to go > back and run the trap and interrupt tests tomorrow, I believe the > machine fails the interrupt test. > > Jay > DL11-W prints and user manual are on bitsavers I believe: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/unibus/EK-DL11W-OP-001_May77.pdf http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/unibus/MP00106_DL11-W_Aug77.pdf Also, try running the DL11-W diagnostic from the XXDPv2.5 disk. It is ZDLDI0 (see diag hnbk p 2.34) It will tell you if your DL11-W interrupts are working or not. From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 22:04:27 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 22:04:27 -0600 Subject: "old" dos on new hardware References: <442A0524.2080807@jetnet.ab.ca> <20060329035919.GU1195@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> Message-ID: <038c01c652e5$dfd84980$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> FreeDOS and OpenDOS (if we're talking noncommercial). I've used FreeDOS extensively. Love it. However, I'm running an older version before it got all messed up and no longer free. I would like to switch to OpenDOS, but last time I looked, it wasn't quite ready for prime time. This may be dated information. Jay From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 28 22:07:06 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:07:06 -0800 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <442A0524.2080807@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <442A0524.2080807@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200603282007060377.0C72260F@10.0.0.252> On 3/28/2006 at 8:55 PM woodelf wrote: >Does anybody make a DOS clone that runs on the new machines, for old >programs? ???? New machines? What platform? From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 28 22:09:34 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:09:34 -0800 Subject: Psion CM Message-ID: <200603282009340778.0C7469B8@10.0.0.252> Now that posting auction links IS okay, there's Psion CM on Yahoo!: http://auctions.yahoo.com/auction/90529200 From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Mar 28 22:26:48 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 22:26:48 -0600 Subject: 11/45 RTC References: <037101c652e2$f1cdf110$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <442A0715.5010206@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <03b001c652e9$0074ccb0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> It was written.... > DL11-W prints and user manual are on bitsavers I believe: > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/unibus/EK-DL11W-OP-001_May77.pdf > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/unibus/MP00106_DL11-W_Aug77.pdf How did I miss that?? I've been all over that specific page the past week :\ > Also, try running the DL11-W diagnostic from the XXDPv2.5 disk. It is > ZDLDI0 (see diag hnbk p 2.34) > > It will tell you if your DL11-W interrupts are working or not. I said many posts ago... it fails with "bit 7 fails to set" in reference to the test of the LTC (with regards to the above diagnostic). Of course, without diagnostic source I have no clue if the LTC test is before or after the full serial port test, or maybe inbetween it... But that is as far as it gets and the message I get. Jay West From aw288 at osfn.org Tue Mar 28 22:40:05 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 23:40:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Its 10 years old. I thought that was the requirement for "on topic", > or are we going to get snooty about *which* 10 year old things we can > talk about? I think the ultimate rule has come into play. If Dad says no, that is the ruling... William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From fernande at internet1.net Tue Mar 28 23:08:15 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 00:08:15 -0500 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <20060329022351.DJOE8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> References: <20060329022351.DJOE8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <442A163F.5020702@internet1.net> Dave Dunfield wrote: > The sticked inside my A7-311 says it was manufactured in 1994. > > Btw - photos are up on my site now. Dave, That looks virtually identical to the machine I used to own. I didn't have the APIC MTHBD that your configuration label shows, However. I think I shipped most of mine to someone on the list to use as spares. I ran Dos (not M$) and Windows 3.11 for Work Groups on it. What does the label just under the power supply say? Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From Bob at BRADLEE.ORG Thu Mar 23 08:23:46 2006 From: Bob at BRADLEE.ORG (Bob Bradlee) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:23:46 -0500 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <20060323025818.90985.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200603231435.k2NEZAcv021845@keith.ezwind.net> I was the technical editor for Cadence Mag in those days, and reviewed a lot of hardware. As a hardware reviewer for a monthly AutoCAD news rag, I reviewed and collected a lot of early poweruser systems and graphic co-processors. Redraw and regen times on large drawings was all everyone in the CAD world cared about in the early days. I had a 386/16 ARL several months before Compaq could get the Deskpro 386 to the point they could they sent me one to review. Still have my original ARL in storage. Had to send the Deskpro back after the eval period but I picked one up a few years later. I think it is still in attic. I am sure the Zenith Z100 was the first 8085/8088 dual processor production system that ran both processors at the same time. It booted both CP/M and Z/DOS (msdos), CP/M 86 came along sometime later for it. Depending on the OS you booted, it would use the other processor for I/O. Serial #2 from the lab complete with a ton of blue and yellow wire mods is packed away up in the attic along with a later production system. SD Systems had the first multy processor Z80 system using the second processor to control a 4 port intelligent buffered I/O card. along with the memory mapped console it supported provided 5 users 4 serial monitors and the console. When Morrows came out with the M26 harddrive it was the king, till Altos came out with a low cost production system a few years later. It used an early banked switched 64k card that when stacked 4 deep support. 5 banks of 48k with 16k common for MPM. Still have my original in the basement Not sure where the M26 ended up, though :( The First 8086 I worked on was intel multibus, ran the MDBS database operating system. I think it was originally to run on an IBM Series 1. It was an database application called LISA for law enviroment. First 80186 I saw was a card for an IBM pc about a year before the AT came out. It was all so long ago :) later Bob Bradlee On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 18:58:18 -0800 (PST), Chris M wrote: >in all likelihood Intel is far too simplistic an >answer (although I do recall seeing pictures of >multibus type boxes with an Intel monniker, so things >like that could possibly qualify). I suppose even a >sbc could qualify, or even some sort of add-on for an >established system. But sdks from Intel (or others) >dont. Seattle Gazelle? What about 80186 firsts? 80286? >I know the popular conception is that Compaq built the >first 386 desktop, but I seem to recall ALR being >numero uno (pretty sure it was ALR). >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around >http://mail.yahoo.com From Bob at BRADLEE.ORG Thu Mar 23 08:52:55 2006 From: Bob at BRADLEE.ORG (Bob Bradlee) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 09:52:55 -0500 Subject: toxic obsessive-compulsive disorder .... In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060322211936.0509ef18@mail> Message-ID: <200603231504.k2NF4Jq9022368@keith.ezwind.net> No question, I am living proof, although I think many on this list are afflicted too :) Playing with mercury as a kid, Making lead army men from the lead we dug out of a pistol range after hours, Holding lead solder in my mouth and working over a solder pot for years as a service monkey. Not to mention the early transformers we drained the oil from, or the wide assortment of flux removers, freon cool sprays, electro clean washes and other cleaning sprays and solvents used and consumed during the 60's and 70's, It is a wonder most of us old timers are still alive :) Any else remember we could carry our toolcase containing many implements of destruction and toxic sprays on an airplane and only had to show a business card at security, It helped to have a 465 scope on a the luggage cart with it when you pulled up to the early Xray systems at security. Scope went under the seat and the toolbox went in the over head bin. Those were the good old days :) Bob Bradlee On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:33:39 -0600, John Foust wrote: >Apparently, it leads to an obsessive-compulsive disorder >where the poisoned tries to collect as much computer junk >as will fit on his property. From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Thu Mar 23 14:33:00 2006 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (a.carlini at ntlworld.com) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 20:33:00 -0000 Subject: pdp-11/04 manuals? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000e01c64eb8$fbbd8b50$c901a8c0@tempname> >Looks like bitsavers are missing out on the pdp-11/04! >Anybody has a copy of the processor manual/prints online? Manx lists the PDP-11/04/34A/44/60/70 handbook and a maintenance card. Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From dageb101 at ybb.ne.jp Fri Mar 24 05:35:29 2006 From: dageb101 at ybb.ne.jp (Hitoshi Sasaki) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 20:35:29 +0900 Subject: Dual-Processor PCI/MCA PC's Message-ID: <4423D981.8030903@ybb.ne.jp> Hello, I read the fpllowing message. http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2003-September/028192.html > Anyone want these two dual-processor Pentium PCI/MCA servers I have here? > They have some sort of TP ethernet on the motherboard, and they have some > form of wide SCSI, along with hotswap drive cages, and I have a full load > of trays for them. All in all, pretty nice systems. They are IBM PC > Server 320's (8640-MDV). There's still reference disk and BIOS downloads > available for them on ftp.pc.ibm.com. I'd hate to see these go to waste, > but I need the space. > > If you feel like throwing a couple of dollars at me for them, it would be > appreciated, as I am out of work right now, but it is not required nor > expected. > > Peace... Sridhar Do you still have the server? Hitoshi Sasaki From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Mar 25 16:08:25 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 14:08:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: another mysterious chip Message-ID: <20060325220825.59410.qmail@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> whos AD? It seems the PS2 model 25 has something similar also (G171?). I was hoping there was nothing but off the shelf stuph on this thing. I have an IBM PGA card on the way - does that have a crt controller also in addition to an 8088? Seeing that these things may have formed the basis for the VGA, what other cards/systems have them? I would really appreciate the data sheet if you can find the time. --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > That is the INMOS G170 graphics chip. Used in the IBM graphics cards. > I got the datasheet somewhere in my house :-) > I remember AD also made a pin-compatible version of it too... > > Cheers, > > Ram > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chris M > > Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2006 11:28 PM > > To: tech > > Subject: another mysterious chip > > > > > > First line: circle possibly with M in it, INMOS B. > > Second line: IMSG170S35 (pretty sure). Third line: > > 8611 - obviously date of manufacture. Chip has a gold > > cover, and is present on a dual 8-bit graphics card > > made by Vermont Microsystems, 80188 on board (similar > > to an IBM PGA card). Works in a P166MMX DTK mobo...but > > not in my IBM PC/AT. And yer know what else...it > > emulates CGA (pretty well seemingly, but only tested > > it with QBasic thus far). O for the drivers to access > > its wild advanced modes *snifful*. > > > > __________________________________________________ > > Do You Yahoo!? > > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > > http://mail.yahoo.com > > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Mar 25 18:16:26 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 16:16:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: speaking of Televideo Message-ID: <20060326001626.83746.qmail@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> the manual for my T Personal Mini calls for a T 925 or 950 for the console. Floppies (bad) have emulator software that makes a pc look like one of those. So does anyone know of another way of emulating a T terminal, or perhaps got one theyll let go cheapish? This all assumes the hard drive even works, but what have I got to lose. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 28 18:56:21 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 16:56:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <200603230936420756.38C42B8C@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060329005621.28609.qmail@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> --- Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3/23/2006 at 7:43 AM Cini, Richard wrote: > > >I don't know where in the overall timeline this is > but wasn't the Tandy > >2000 based on the 80186? It was introduced in 11/83 > and ran an OEM version > of > >DOS 2.11. not sure what OEM means in this context, but it was a customized version that only ran on the 2000. Same for all the pseudo-compatibles...no need for a list I'm sure. Not 3 days ago began imaging a stack of disks for this thing. The developer from the Chicago area was working on a mod that would make it 100% compatible or nearly so. Somehow he got hold of the sources for the rom bios (my understanding anyway). 2 of the 4 disks exhibited a bad sector. Just thought someone would like to know... > Yes, and the 80186 was a marketing disaster for any > company that tried to > turn it into a PC. The integrated peripherals, > while generally better than > same facilities present on the PC aren't the least > compatible. The wrong > thing in a world dominated by hardware-manipulating > applications, such as > games, graphics utilities, backup programs, etc. I > still have the Durango > 80186 IO.SYS source for MS-DOS 1.25, as well as the > OEM docs for 2.0. > > All of this was a shame, because an 80186-based PC > offers a pretty > substantial bang for the buck; the few NEC V40-based > systems faced pretty > much the same demise also. Yet, the 80186/88 found > plenty of places > embedded in things like modems where it was very > successful. Believe it or not there was 1 manufacturer on California who offered a fully compatible (presumably) 80186 based motherboard/pc. IIRC their name was Computer Products United. I have the ad somewhere. Anyone got one? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 28 19:02:07 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 17:02:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <200603231435.k2NEZAcv021845@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <20060329010207.70002.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com> --- Bob Bradlee wrote: > I was the technical editor for Cadence Mag in those > days, and reviewed a lot of hardware. > As a hardware reviewer for a monthly AutoCAD news > rag, I reviewed and collected a lot of early > poweruser systems and graphic co-processors. > Redraw and regen times on large drawings was all > everyone in the CAD world cared about in the early > days. > > I had a 386/16 ARL several months before Compaq > could get the Deskpro 386 to the point they could > they sent me one to review. > Still have my original ARL in storage. Had to send > the Deskpro back after the eval period but I picked > one up a few years later. I think it is still in > attic. Aha, knew I was right! ;) > I am sure the Zenith Z100 was the first 8085/8088 > dual processor production system that ran both > processors at the same time. There was also the Rainbow and the Epson QX-16, though the earlier QX-10 had an aftermarket (Titan) 8088 board that was reasonably compatible from what I understand. > First 80186 I saw was a card for an IBM pc about a > year before the AT came out. > It was all so long ago :) More then likely the Orchid Turbo-186. Got one somewhere, just haven't seen it in a while. The '186 fell out too :( Do still have my Vermont Microsystems dual graphics card (80188 on board). Emulates CGA pretty well it seems. No drivers for the advanced modes though :( __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Mar 28 19:05:35 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 17:05:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: another mysterious chip In-Reply-To: <9A6FF2537AEA484296A3EE4990D1855701748464@cpexchange.olf.com> Message-ID: <20060329010535.9905.qmail@web61023.mail.yahoo.com> Thanks to you I was able to identify it adequately. But to call it a graphics chip is deceiving (i.e it's not a crt-controller). It's a RAMDAC. Probably one of the earliest cards to support analog color (hence the need for one). Probably also present on the IBM PGA card (or something equivalent). Yes, the PS/2's all seem to have the G171. --- Ram Meenakshisundaram wrote: > That is the INMOS G170 graphics chip. Used in the > IBM graphics cards. > I got the datasheet somewhere in my house :-) > I remember AD also made a pin-compatible version of > it too... > > Cheers, > > Ram > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf > Of Chris M > > Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2006 11:28 PM > > To: tech > > Subject: another mysterious chip > > > > > > First line: circle possibly with M in it, INMOS B. > > Second line: IMSG170S35 (pretty sure). Third line: > > 8611 - obviously date of manufacture. Chip has a > gold > > cover, and is present on a dual 8-bit graphics > card > > made by Vermont Microsystems, 80188 on board > (similar > > to an IBM PGA card). Works in a P166MMX DTK > mobo...but > > not in my IBM PC/AT. And yer know what else...it > > emulates CGA (pretty well seemingly, but only > tested > > it with QBasic thus far). O for the drivers to > access > > its wild advanced modes *snifful*. > > > > __________________________________________________ > > Do You Yahoo!? > > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam > protection around > > http://mail.yahoo.com > > > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From dbetz at xlisper.mv.com Thu Mar 23 07:18:10 2006 From: dbetz at xlisper.mv.com (David Betz) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 08:18:10 -0500 Subject: Another Panasonic HHC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Is this the unit that would take the SNAP development ROMs? The SNAP ROMs came in a unit that plugs into the side of the HHC and has sockets for four 24 pin EPROMs. Unfortunately, my SNAP ROMs no longer work since a few of the pins broke off one of the EPROM chips when I removed it to read the contents on my EPROM programmer. I've purchased some machined pin sockets on someone's suggestion but I don't seem to have the skill needed to solder the EPROM pin stubs to the socket pins. The good news is that I *did* get images of the EPROMs before the pins broke off this one chip. From TechSupport at HamiltonRoss.com Fri Mar 24 07:43:54 2006 From: TechSupport at HamiltonRoss.com (Hamilton-Ross - Tech Support) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:43:54 +0000 Subject: Personal Computer World magazine - Vol. 1, No. 1 Message-ID: <4423F79A.6090205@HamiltonRoss.com> Hi, I came across this link via Google and wondered if you could help me with an article in Personal Computer World magazine Vol. 1, No. 1 ... I think it was the editorial at the beginning of the magazine. The editor was warning of the beginning of a new kind of "great divide" between those who have and know how to use the new technology and those who don't. I would really appreciate a scan of that article if you wouldn't mind doing that for me. Many thanks, Steve From erikb at cyberspace.org Fri Mar 24 11:24:57 2006 From: erikb at cyberspace.org (erikb at cyberspace.org) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 12:24:57 -0500 Subject: Honeywell DDP-516 available (was: Anybody has an IMP? or a TIP?) Message-ID: <20060324172457.GA29224@grex.cyberspace.org> You wrote: > Anybody in this list has either an IMP or a TIP? > Or even an unmodified H516? I have two unmodified Honeywell DDP-516 computers available for trade in the Netherlands. Both were still performing their original job (in the USA) back in 2000 and are in excellent condition. For years I've tried to locate other DDP-516 owners, but it seems I'm the only person left on this planet with Honeywell DDP-516s. They are pretty interesting minicomputers with a nice story... Contact me directly if you are interested in working something out. Sincerely, Erik. From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Fri Mar 24 14:28:16 2006 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:28:16 -0600 Subject: FT: Two MM11-DP modules (maybe for sale) Message-ID: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11C54156@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Hello! I'm looking to trade my two MM11-DP memory modules for a 128kw(256kb) module of MOS memory. (Preferably MS11-LD) Anyone who is interested in the MM11-DP modules let me know, I may be convinced to sell them if the price is right. Julian From Josef.Deuschinger at web.de Fri Mar 24 15:19:37 2006 From: Josef.Deuschinger at web.de (Josef Deuschinger) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 22:19:37 +0100 Subject: Help for Tektronix 4041 GPIB controller tape, manuals and utility ROM pack Message-ID: <000a01c64f88$a7d55380$2101a8c0@STO3> Hello Monty, I read your message, dated 01/2002. For my TEK 4041 I would highly appreciate, if you can help me getting: a copy of the 4041 system verification tape, a copy of the manuals including the ROM pack manuals. I am also looking for an Utility ROM pack. Can you help, if yes, what would it cost including sending to Germany, German ZIP 80687? Thanks for your help in advance. Best regards, Josef From mike at ambientdesign.com Mon Mar 27 00:24:26 2006 From: mike at ambientdesign.com (Michael van Bokhoven) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 18:24:26 +1200 Subject: Wang 2200 available in New Zealand References: <46e70d050603261308q1c80bc74xb4ad001e237b09cd@mail.gmail.com><200603261740.51212.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <000701c65167$1b28d520$3e00a8c0@fluke> Hi all! I have to move a few items on, I've found myself very short on space, so quite a few classic comp type bits and pieces have to go. I have a Wang 2200 (just the machine, no peripherals) available, free to a good home, in Auckland, NZ. It was given to me a while back but I've never had time to search for the peripherals. Anyone wanting me to ship this will have to be VERY persuasive. In a couple of days I'll list it on a local auction site, sale price to go to charity. This machine was running when decommissioned, and is in good physical condition. I haven't powered it up, care would be required due to the length of time since it was last running. It has multiple cards, looks like all slots have been populated both internal and external. The IO cards are two multi-function I/O cards (keyboard, printer/plotter, disk), a typewriter controller (?), a plotter controller, cassette, video. Internal cards are harder to identify without spending research time, but it looks about as RAM-populated as it could be. Pics are here (large image warning - 316k each): http://host.fenz.net/DSC07196.JPG http://host.fenz.net/DSC07198.JPG http://host.fenz.net/DSC07199.JPG Info is here (the site of someone very familiar to this list): http://www.thebattles.net/wang/wang.html From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Mon Mar 27 10:49:26 2006 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 10:49:26 -0600 Subject: Curiosity about power supplies (BA11) Message-ID: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11C54545@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Okay, so I was thinking, would it be possible to replace the regulators and whatnot in a BA11 with several standard PC power supplies? Obviously there would be adjustments that need to be made, but considering the DEC units are now 20+ years old and the out-of-service modules may have dried up caps, would this not be a possible option? I'm just curious, I'm no electrician, nor have I looked over the leads yet. Secondly, if I have less than half the BA11 box full of cards, do I need both of the fans plugged in? Julian From Jose.Korneluk at motorola.com Mon Mar 27 13:07:09 2006 From: Jose.Korneluk at motorola.com (Korneluk Jose-EJK016) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 14:07:09 -0500 Subject: SWP ATR8000 with hard drive upgrade.... Message-ID: Curt, Do you still have the ATR8000 co-power-88 software and docs? Let me know, I will have some free time this summer and I would like to lay out a new co-power-88 PCB and make it available to all those interested. -- jos? k. 954.723.8072 office 954.818.1856 nextel UFMI: 158*213*49 jose.korneluk at motorola.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Sentido comun es el menos comun de todos los sentidos" "Common sense is the least common of all the senses" ... Spanish proverb ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From stanley.rogers at spcorp.com Thu Mar 23 16:02:49 2006 From: stanley.rogers at spcorp.com (Rogers, Stanley) Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 17:02:49 -0500 Subject: DEC Manuals available Message-ID: <7CF852977364B54EB8E2B9D075745D357D0B@kenmsg40.us.schp.com> Do you know if there is a service manual for the DEC LA-210 ?? I need one badly Stanley Rogers Halifax Corporation @ Schering Plough Memphis Location Desktop Support 3030 Jackson Ave Memphis Tn 38151 Office 901-320-4238 Fax 901-320-2101 Cell 908-477-0914 ********************************************************************* This message and any attachments are solely for the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, disclosure, copying, use or distribution of the information included in this message is prohibited -- Please immediately and permanently delete. From zl3zzz at xtra.co.nz Tue Mar 28 04:08:00 2006 From: zl3zzz at xtra.co.nz (zl3zzz) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 22:08:00 +1200 Subject: atc-510 simulator Message-ID: <000e01c6524f$7f055df0$24f337d2@yourm8tp710jkr> Hello michael, I am in NZ. and looking at buying an old ATC 510 which is for sale. I am a retired airline pilot and am helping a young guy next door to get his licences. Is the 510 useful for basic instrument training, or would I be better off using a microsoft sim? What accessories have you got and where are you? Many thanks Dave McDonald -------------- next part -------------- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.3.1/291 - Release Date: 24/03/2006 From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Tue Mar 28 14:52:03 2006 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:52:03 -0600 Subject: KY11-LB behavior question Message-ID: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11CD3E10@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> I just have a question about Standby mode on an 11/34. I read it's supposed to leave power applied to MOS, but do the fans and whatnot turn off along with the CPU? Or are they supposed to stay on? My junk's in a BA11-K box. From henk.gooijen at oce.com Wed Mar 29 00:36:26 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 08:36:26 +0200 Subject: 11/45 RTC Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815D9@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> I scanned a few xxdp *listings* and the DL11-W is among them ... Check http://www.classiccmp.org/bitsavers/pdf/dec/pdp11/xxdp/listings/ there is DL11-E, DL11-W, DL11, another DL11-E, and at the bottom of the list are a few MAINDECs DL11-E, DL11-C-D-E. I might have missed one. - Henk, PA8PDP. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jay West > Sent: woensdag 29 maart 2006 6:27 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: 11/45 RTC > > It was written.... > > DL11-W prints and user manual are on bitsavers I believe: > > > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/unibus/EK-DL11W-OP-001_May77.pdf > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/unibus/MP00106_DL11-W_Aug77.pdf > > How did I miss that?? I've been all over that specific page > the past week :\ > > > Also, try running the DL11-W diagnostic from the XXDPv2.5 > disk. It is > > ZDLDI0 (see diag hnbk p 2.34) > > > > It will tell you if your DL11-W interrupts are working or not. > I said many posts ago... it fails with "bit 7 fails to set" > in reference to the test of the LTC (with regards to the > above diagnostic). Of course, without diagnostic source I > have no clue if the LTC test is before or after the full > serial port test, or maybe inbetween it... But that is as far > as it gets and the message I get. > > Jay West > > > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From trag at io.com Fri Mar 24 09:11:07 2006 From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther) Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 09:11:07 -0600 Subject: Thunderscan In-Reply-To: <200603240704.k2O74IWC080877@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200603240704.k2O74IWC080877@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: >Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 09:21:23 -0500 >From: Mike >It's a Thunderscan, >It came with a 512 Mac with the demo tape, and reset clip, and floppies >still in the box. It powers up OK, but after a while goes blank, a tap to >the side restores the screen. One of the connectors for the cable which joins the logic board to the analog board has a bad solder joint on Pin 1. It's the connector on the analog board. This is an extremely common problem on the old 512 and similar Macs. There's an extra screw in the battery compartment for five total. Once you have the case open, just remove the cardboard cover from the analog board, identify the pin in question and rehabilitate the solder joint. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the Thunderscan. I saw them back when, but never had one. Jeff Walther From curt at atarimuseum.com Wed Mar 29 00:41:42 2006 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 01:41:42 -0500 Subject: SWP ATR8000 with hard drive upgrade.... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <442A2C26.10904@atarimuseum.com> Hi Jose, Sure, scanned them all in a while ago for someone else. There is a lot of stuff so I will post up onto one of my servers and email the link to d/l Curt Korneluk Jose-EJK016 wrote: > Curt, > > Do you still have the ATR8000 co-power-88 software and docs? > > Let me know, I will have some free time this summer and I would like to lay out a new co-power-88 PCB and make it available to all those interested. > > > -- jos? k. > 954.723.8072 office > 954.818.1856 nextel > UFMI: 158*213*49 > jose.korneluk at motorola.com > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > "Sentido comun es el menos comun de todos los sentidos" > "Common sense is the least common of all the senses" ... Spanish proverb > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.3.2/294 - Release Date: 3/27/2006 From henk.gooijen at oce.com Wed Mar 29 00:49:06 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 08:49:06 +0200 Subject: KY11-LB behavior question Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815DA@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> It's been a long time I had the switch at the Standby position. *IIRC*, everything goes OFF, and only MOS memory is powered, but there are a few wires on the backplane, where the power leads are soldered, that connect the backup supply pins to the main supply pins. To use the memory battery backup, you must remove these wires, but without a battery and the charger plus a cable to the BA11 power supply, it is useless. - Henk. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Wolfe, Julian > Sent: dinsdag 28 maart 2006 22:52 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: KY11-LB behavior question > > I just have a question about Standby mode on an 11/34. I > read it's supposed to leave power applied to MOS, but do the > fans and whatnot turn off along with the CPU? Or are they > supposed to stay on? My junk's in a BA11-K box. > > > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From frustum at pacbell.net Wed Mar 29 01:37:40 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 01:37:40 -0600 Subject: Wang 2200 available in New Zealand In-Reply-To: <000701c65167$1b28d520$3e00a8c0@fluke> References: <46e70d050603261308q1c80bc74xb4ad001e237b09cd@mail.gmail.com><200603261740.51212.rtellason@blazenet.net> <000701c65167$1b28d520$3e00a8c0@fluke> Message-ID: <442A3944.8010406@pacbell.net> Michael van Bokhoven wrote: > Hi all! > > I have to move a few items on, I've found myself very short on space, so > quite a few classic comp type bits and pieces have to go. > > I have a Wang 2200 (just the machine, no peripherals) available, free to a > good home, in Auckland, NZ. It was given to me a while back but I've never > had time to search for the peripherals. Anyone wanting me to ship this will > have to be VERY persuasive. In a couple of days I'll list it on a local > auction site, sale price to go to charity. > > This machine was running when decommissioned, and is in good physical > condition. I haven't powered it up, care would be required due to the length > of time since it was last running. > > It has multiple cards, looks like all slots have been populated both > internal and external. The IO cards are two multi-function I/O cards > (keyboard, printer/plotter, disk), a typewriter controller (?), a plotter > controller, cassette, video. Internal cards are harder to identify without > spending research time, but it looks about as RAM-populated as it could be. > > Pics are here (large image warning - 316k each): > http://host.fenz.net/DSC07196.JPG > http://host.fenz.net/DSC07198.JPG > http://host.fenz.net/DSC07199.JPG DSC07198.JPG doesn't seem to be there, but DSC07197.JPG does. > Info is here (the site of someone very familiar to this list): > http://www.thebattles.net/wang/wang.html heh, heh, it is familiar The card types are indicated by the numbers on the left side of the 7199 image. The I/O backplane is completely symmetric, but the cards behind the black cover all have a very specific slot they belong to. 6311+6710+6709 are the CPU. 6311 mostly does control for the I/O bus that it is adjacent to; 6710 mostly is the ALU (all four bits of it) plus the eight nibble register file; 6709 is mostly the memory pointer, the microcode instruction pointer, and the pointer stack. "ROM" cards: there are two ROM slots but most 2200's fit it all into a single card as mask ROMs had gotten dense enough pretty early on. These are the microcode for Wang BASIC. Wang shipped different versions of BASIC and some options could be added by stuffing in more ROMs (like MATrix math, and the SORT option). The full blown BASIC occupied 42.5 KB of ROM. 6708 is the timing generator plus it contains a ROM containing the atom and constant table. in the first generation cpu, the microcode couldn't read itself. by setting a certain mode bit, reads came from this ROM instead of from RAM. RAM: those cards use dynamic RAMs. you'd have to take the cards out and see how many chips and what type were in it to know how much. the most ram possible is 32 KB. the cpu has a 16b address, but it is addressing nibbles, not bytes. the machine is also weird in that in a given cycle the CPU can either write 4b or read 8b. reads have two addressing modes: one mode reads nibbles at address PC and (PC ^ 1) to fetch the two nibbles of a byte; the other mode fetches the nbbles at PC and (PC ^ 0x10) to retrieve corresponding nibbles from two locations eight bytes apart. The latter mode was useful for simultaneously grabbing the corresponding nibbles of two floating point numbers (in Wang BASIC all numbers are double precision float, stored in eight bytes in BCD format). The 2216 display generator is a bit unusual. The stock display generator for the early machines produced a 64x16 characters. Only 6b were stored per character, so only upper case letters, numbers, and some punctuation were available. The 2216 is called a "dual language" card; it adds another RAM so that there are now 7b per character, and it adds another character generator ROM, yielding either upper and lower case ASCII characters, or upper case ascii plus kana characters. From useddec at aol.com Wed Mar 29 02:08:35 2006 From: useddec at aol.com (useddec at aol.com) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 03:08:35 -0500 Subject: FT: Two MM11-DP modules (maybe for sale) In-Reply-To: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11C54156@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> References: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11C54156@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: <8C8211F1CC3B925-1B1C-15FAA@mblk-r28.sysops.aol.com> Hi Julian, I would be interested. Thanks, Paul -----Original Message----- From: Wolfe, Julian To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Cc: info-pdp11 at village.org Sent: Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:28:16 -0600 Subject: FT: Two MM11-DP modules (maybe for sale) Hello! I'm looking to trade my two MM11-DP memory modules for a 128kw(256kb) module of MOS memory. (Preferably MS11-LD) Anyone who is interested in the MM11-DP modules let me know, I may be convinced to sell them if the price is right. Julian From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Wed Mar 29 02:29:21 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 10:29:21 +0200 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <442876C6.20705@mdrconsult.com> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> <44280379.6040001@mdrconsult.com> <20060327215821.58a580e7.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <442876C6.20705@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <20060329102921.12aa1c1f.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:35:34 -0600 Doc Shipley wrote: > What's the graphics support like on the -150 in NetBSD? NetBSD does not run at all on the -150. I stated to port NetBSD/ofppc to the IBM CHRP machines but encountered technical problems. Other things became more important... so it lingered for about a year. I continued that project just recently as I got some help with the problematic parts. If we are in luck, we may get somthing usefull within a month or two. > Are the Matrox-based cards supported? This may never happen. I don't have a clue about X11 hacking and I am not interrested in learning it. I.e. I leave that to other people as I can't do everything myself. So all depends on someone to show up and do the job. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Mar 29 02:40:37 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 20:40:37 +1200 Subject: Things for Free - Columbus, Ohio In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3/28/06, Chris Riedl wrote: > I have not found any interest on the net in this equipment, so > hopefully it might be worth something to someone if offered for free, > otherwise it may be destined for the dump when I have to move. > > AT&T Unix PC (Internal HD, boots to prompt) If I were home, I'd nab that, but I'm far, far away. -ethan From lee at geekdot.com Wed Mar 29 06:00:24 2006 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 14:00:24 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Wanted: Ohio Scientific... Message-ID: <3271.86.139.105.174.1143633624.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> > I can understand the first two but there should be a fair number > of C4Ps out there. There are, it's just that we want to keep them. 8^)= (Well I do anyway) Lee. From RMeenaks at olf.com Wed Mar 29 06:42:04 2006 From: RMeenaks at olf.com (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 07:42:04 -0500 Subject: another mysterious chip Message-ID: <9A6FF2537AEA484296A3EE4990D18557017486E2@cpexchange.olf.com> It is the standard CUT (color-lookup table) used in pretty much all the early VGA especially IBM. AD is analog Devices which had a compatible one. I don't have the time to get the datasheet out now (have midterms this week), but I know I definitely have them (its in the graphics databook as well which I certainly have), so when I have the time, I'll put them online... Ram > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chris M > Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 5:08 PM > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > Subject: RE: another mysterious chip > > > whos AD? It seems the PS2 model 25 has something > similar also (G171?). I was hoping there was nothing > but off the shelf stuph on this thing. I have an IBM > PGA card on the way - does that have a crt controller > also in addition to an 8088? Seeing that these things > may have formed the basis for the VGA, what other > cards/systems have them? I would really appreciate the > data sheet if you can find the time. > --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org > wrote: > > That is the INMOS G170 graphics chip. Used in the > IBM graphics cards. > > I got the datasheet somewhere in my house :-) > > I remember AD also made a pin-compatible version of > it too... > > > > Cheers, > > > > Ram > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf > Of Chris M > > > Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2006 11:28 PM > > > To: tech > > > Subject: another mysterious chip > > > > > > > > > First line: circle possibly with M in it, INMOS B. > > > Second line: IMSG170S35 (pretty sure). Third line: > > > 8611 - obviously date of manufacture. Chip has a > gold > > > cover, and is present on a dual 8-bit graphics > card > > > made by Vermont Microsystems, 80188 on board > (similar > > > to an IBM PGA card). Works in a P166MMX DTK > mobo...but > > > not in my IBM PC/AT. And yer know what else...it > > > emulates CGA (pretty well seemingly, but only > tested > > > it with QBasic thus far). O for the drivers to > access > > > its wild advanced modes *snifful*. > > > > > > __________________________________________________ > > > Do You Yahoo!? > > > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam > protection around > > > http://mail.yahoo.com > > > > > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > From James at jdfogg.com Wed Mar 29 06:49:35 2006 From: James at jdfogg.com (James Fogg) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 07:49:35 -0500 Subject: toxic obsessive-compulsive disorder .... Message-ID: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A0E5DAB@sbs.jdfogg.com> > Playing with mercury as a kid, Making lead army men from the > lead we dug out of a pistol range after hours, Holding lead > solder in my mouth and working over a solder pot for years as > a service monkey. > Not to mention the early transformers we drained the oil > from, or the wide assortment of flux removers, freon cool > sprays, electro clean washes and other cleaning sprays and > solvents used and consumed during the 60's and 70's, > > It is a wonder most of us old timers are still alive :) Same here, I think the lead and mercury form an amalgam that flows in our bloodstream and shields us from the other inhaled and dermal absorbed chemicals. > >Apparently, it leads to an obsessive-compulsive disorder where the > >poisoned tries to collect as much computer junk as will fit on his > >property. The advanced cases show signs of renting and borrowing space to hold equipment that won't fit into their own property. I've seen where once the cellar and living room and dining room are filled (and the wife has left the marriage) they go on to spending all free money on rental sheds and even warehouse space. The truly sick go on to form museums so they can write off their expenses on their income tax. From dave06a at dunfield.com Wed Mar 29 06:59:39 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 07:59:39 -0500 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <442A163F.5020702@internet1.net> References: <20060329022351.DJOE8983.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <20060329130031.EPHR29380.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> > Dave Dunfield wrote: > > The sticker inside my A7-311 says it was manufactured in 1994. > > > > Btw - photos are up on my site now. > > Dave, > > That looks virtually identical to the machine I used to own. I didn't > have the APIC MTHBD that your configuration label shows, However. I > think I shipped most of mine to someone on the list to use as spares. I > ran Dos (not M$) and Windows 3.11 for Work Groups on it. > > What does the label just under the power supply say? The label directly under the power supply reads: UNISYS Style No: CER4344-100 Serial No: 414465227 The small label on the upper right of the back panel reads: UNISYS CORPORATION. Style : A7-311 34642801 Serial: 419517222 Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Mar 29 07:21:05 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 07:21:05 -0600 Subject: toxic obsessive-compulsive disorder .... In-Reply-To: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A0E5DAB@sbs.jdfogg.com> References: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A0E5DAB@sbs.jdfogg.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060329070558.05942708@mail> At 06:49 AM 3/29/2006, James Fogg wrote: >> >Apparently, it leads to an obsessive-compulsive disorder where the >> >poisoned tries to collect as much computer junk as will fit on his >> >property. > >The advanced cases show signs of renting and borrowing space to hold >equipment that won't fit into their own property. I've seen where once >the cellar and living room and dining room are filled (and the wife has >left the marriage) they go on to spending all free money on rental sheds >and even warehouse space. The truly sick go on to form museums so they >can write off their expenses on their income tax. OK, I have the experience of scavenging a range for lead, too. In this case, it was military, so there were bits of old mortar shells, too. (Did no one consider we might find unexploded ordnance? Or were we hunting for unexploded? I forget.) And using a torch to quickly desolder 7400-era chips from boards, en masse. And making and burning amalgams. And working through the details of forming a non-profit to start a tech museum. Frankly, I expected my comments about mercury and lead exposure to cause a larger debate. There's plenty of tinfoil-hat info on the web that makes it sound like merely looking at lead and mercury will fry your brain. But if toxoplasmosis infection causes rats to no longer fear cat urine, I'd also at least listen to anyone with a reasoned argument that typical nerd exposure to various toxic substances could enhance forms of obsessive-compulsive afflictions, including hoarding. - John From James at jdfogg.com Wed Mar 29 07:35:48 2006 From: James at jdfogg.com (James Fogg) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 08:35:48 -0500 Subject: toxic obsessive-compulsive disorder .... Message-ID: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A0E5DAE@sbs.jdfogg.com> > Frankly, I expected my comments about mercury and lead > exposure to cause a larger debate. There's plenty of > tinfoil-hat info on the web that makes it sound like merely > looking at lead and mercury will fry your brain. But if > toxoplasmosis infection causes rats to no longer fear cat > urine, I'd also at least listen to anyone with a reasoned > argument that typical nerd exposure to various toxic > substances could enhance forms of obsessive-compulsive > afflictions, including hoarding. My list of chemical exposure is huge, and includes automotive chemicals and paints, industrial chemicals, commercial cleaners and degreasers, and smart-but-stoopid kid exposures (smart enough to experiment, didn't know about the risks). I do have a serious genetic disease that will result in a short lifespan. I don't know if its from my life exposure or exposure to a toxic dumpsite that my mother lived next to as a child (hexavelent chromium and other stuff in Woburn, MA). Out of 4 kids I'm the only one with the disease, so it could be from my technochemical exposures. I also have technology-hoarding disorders that I struggle with daily ;-) From fireflyst at earthlink.net Wed Mar 29 08:26:31 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 08:26:31 -0600 Subject: KY11-LB behavior question In-Reply-To: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11C9D185@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: Okay, it's just that I was testing the switch position just to see what it did, and everything went off including the front panel. I guess it's supposed to do that. I don't know why DEC didn't put a standby LED on the front - you'd think because it's already powering the MOS, you wouldn't care about powering some silly LED. What does that position do if core is installed? > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Gooijen, Henk > Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 12:49 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: KY11-LB behavior question > > It's been a long time I had the switch at the Standby position. > *IIRC*, everything goes OFF, and only MOS memory is powered, > but there are a few wires on the backplane, where the power > leads are soldered, that connect the backup supply pins to > the main supply pins. To use the memory battery backup, you > must remove these wires, but without a battery and the > charger plus a cable to the BA11 power supply, it is useless. > > - Henk. > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Wolfe, Julian > > Sent: dinsdag 28 maart 2006 22:52 > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Subject: KY11-LB behavior question > > > > I just have a question about Standby mode on an 11/34. I read it's > > supposed to leave power applied to MOS, but do the fans and whatnot > > turn off along with the CPU? Or are they supposed to stay on? My > > junk's in a BA11-K box. > > > > > > > > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the > use of the addressee and may contain information that is > privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure > under applicable law. > If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof > responsible for delivering this message to the intended > recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, > distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly > prohibited. > If you have received this communication in error, please > notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" > message. > Thank you for your cooperation. > > > > From henk.gooijen at oce.com Wed Mar 29 08:52:19 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:52:19 +0200 Subject: KY11-LB behavior question Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815E1@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Uhhmm, there *is* a standby LED on the front panel, it is called BATT. You will see "something" of this LED only when a battery is installed in the system. Here are the LED states: OFF : battery voltage is below the minimum level required to maintain the contents of the MOS memory, or the battery is not present in the system (probably your situation) FLASH SLOW : (once per 2 seconds) battery is charging and the voltage is above the required level to maintain the contents of th MOS memory if power is removed FLASH FAST : (ten times per second) primary power is lost and the battery is discharging while maintaining MOS memory contents ON : battery is present and fully charged. - Henk. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Julian Wolfe > Sent: woensdag 29 maart 2006 16:27 > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Subject: RE: KY11-LB behavior question > > Okay, it's just that I was testing the switch position just > to see what it did, and everything went off including the > front panel. I guess it's supposed to do that. > > I don't know why DEC didn't put a standby LED on the front - > you'd think because it's already powering the MOS, you > wouldn't care about powering some silly LED. > > What does that position do if core is installed? > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Gooijen, Henk > > Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 12:49 AM > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Subject: RE: KY11-LB behavior question > > > > It's been a long time I had the switch at the Standby position. > > *IIRC*, everything goes OFF, and only MOS memory is > powered, but there > > are a few wires on the backplane, where the power leads are > soldered, > > that connect the backup supply pins to the main supply pins. To use > > the memory battery backup, you must remove these wires, but > without a > > battery and the charger plus a cable to the BA11 power > supply, it is > > useless. > > > > - Henk. > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Wolfe, Julian > > > Sent: dinsdag 28 maart 2006 22:52 > > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > > Subject: KY11-LB behavior question > > > > > > I just have a question about Standby mode on an 11/34. I > read it's > > > supposed to leave power applied to MOS, but do the fans > and whatnot > > > turn off along with the CPU? Or are they supposed to > stay on? My > > > junk's in a BA11-K box. > > > > > > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Mar 29 08:53:08 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 08:53:08 -0600 Subject: Two MM11-DP modules (maybe for sale) References: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11C54156@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: <009101c65340$7ec722f0$6800a8c0@BILLING> You wrote.... > I'm looking to trade my two MM11-DP memory modules for a 128kw(256kb) > module of MOS memory. (Preferably MS11-LD) > > Anyone who is interested in the MM11-DP modules let me know, I may be > convinced to sell them if the price is right. If I had to do it over again, I'd go with the memory board Guy is working on instead. See http://www.shiresoft.com/products/mem11a/MEM11A%20Unibus%20Memory.html I've already found M7891's to fill the need. But wish I had Guy's board instead :) Jay West From henk.gooijen at oce.com Wed Mar 29 08:57:47 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:57:47 +0200 Subject: KY11-LB behavior question Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815E2@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Again, from (my) memory :-) If core is installed, the standby position is of no use. To use the backup battery the 4th "power brick" is an H775 (IIRC) which is needed for the battery charging/regulation. If you have core in the machine, the 4th power brick in the power supply (H765?), is the H754 for core (+20V and -5V). - Henk. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Julian Wolfe > Sent: woensdag 29 maart 2006 16:27 > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Subject: RE: KY11-LB behavior question > > Okay, it's just that I was testing the switch position just > to see what it did, and everything went off including the > front panel. I guess it's supposed to do that. > > I don't know why DEC didn't put a standby LED on the front - > you'd think because it's already powering the MOS, you > wouldn't care about powering some silly LED. > > What does that position do if core is installed? > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Gooijen, Henk > > Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 12:49 AM > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Subject: RE: KY11-LB behavior question > > > > It's been a long time I had the switch at the Standby position. > > *IIRC*, everything goes OFF, and only MOS memory is > powered, but there > > are a few wires on the backplane, where the power leads are > soldered, > > that connect the backup supply pins to the main supply pins. To use > > the memory battery backup, you must remove these wires, but > without a > > battery and the charger plus a cable to the BA11 power > supply, it is > > useless. > > > > - Henk. > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Wolfe, Julian > > > Sent: dinsdag 28 maart 2006 22:52 > > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > > Subject: KY11-LB behavior question > > > > > > I just have a question about Standby mode on an 11/34. I > read it's > > > supposed to leave power applied to MOS, but do the fans > and whatnot > > > turn off along with the CPU? Or are they supposed to > stay on? My > > > junk's in a BA11-K box. > > > > > > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From ggs at shiresoft.com Wed Mar 29 10:09:00 2006 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 08:09:00 -0800 Subject: Should I track down an M8268 (KK11-A)? In-Reply-To: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11CD40B1@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> References: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11CD40B1@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> Message-ID: <1143648540.7470.7.camel@linux.site> On Wed, 2006-03-29 at 09:38 -0600, Wolfe, Julian wrote: > I was just curious, for those who own them, is the KK11-A cache module > for the 11/34 worth acquiring? How much does it boost performance of > the machine, and in what areas? The big problem is getting the "over the top" connectors. The ones that allow both the cache and FP are especially rare. If I had a choice, get the FP. The "over the top" connectors are the same for the cache or the FP. There is another set if you want both at the same time. -- TTFN - Guy From jgessling at yahoo.com Wed Mar 29 10:12:47 2006 From: jgessling at yahoo.com (James Gessling) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 08:12:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: Escon Microcomputer/Selectric Interface System In-Reply-To: <4429C1F2.F30244A6@rain.org> Message-ID: <20060329161247.80387.qmail@web31903.mail.mud.yahoo.com> That's quite near Walnut Creek. (where I live) In fact (in the good old days) Tektronix had their offices on that same street. In the era when they were trying to sell smalltalk machines. Marketed as AI workstations. That would be mid to late 1980's. Boy, I'd love to have one of those. Jim --- Marvin Johnston wrote: > > The information indicates their address as: > > ESCON Products, Inc. > 171 Mayhew Way > Suite 204 > Pleasant Hill, CA 94523 > > I don't know that area, or if it is close to Walnut > Creek. > > The installation instructions detail how to install > the magnets and wiring onto > a Selectric. Volume II contains the illustrations of > the Selectric that go with > the installation instructions. > > When I go back over (hopefully tomorrow), I'll check > and see if any Selectrics > survived the dumpster. > > > > From: Fred Cisin > > > > 1) IS IT the one from Walnut Creek, CA? > > > > On Tue, 28 Mar 2006, Marvin Johnston wrote: > > > Yes, the box is basically a 6502 microprocessor > and support chips, and has no > > > mechanical connections to the Selectric. > > > > >"the magnets used in the ESCON conversion kits > have 55-ohm coils, except > > > for the shift magnet which has a 130-ohm coil." > > > There were no magnets in this package. I suspect > if there was a > > > Selectric already prepared with the magnets, it > got dumpstered before I > > > got a chance to check this stuff out. > > > > that does not seem to be consistent with an > electronic only, no mechanical > > connection, system > > > > You appear to be missing the other half of it, > that connects to the > > selectric > > > > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 29 10:59:14 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 09:59:14 -0700 Subject: Unisys A google group PLEASE READ In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 28 Mar 2006 22:01:06 -0600. <038301c652e5$681fa2d0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: In article <038301c652e5$681fa2d0$6700a8c0 at HPLAPTOP>, "Jay West" writes: > [...] Newer people don't > have the advantage of that history. We'll get there :) ... of which I'm one. I don't have any problems with guidelines or even *gasp* rules for the list. However, I do have a problem with the rules not being written down anywhere and someone getting upset that I've "broken" the unwritten law. If you want to have guidelines then they have to be posted. Saying "look in the archives" isn't really sufficient as I've seen that the subject rarely accurately reflects the content of a message and using vague search terms on an archive as large as cctalk is going to yield many useless hits. So yes, please update the FAQ/whatever to be more accurate :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From lbickley at bickleywest.com Wed Mar 29 11:04:28 2006 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 09:04:28 -0800 Subject: Should I track down an M8268 (KK11-A)? In-Reply-To: <1143648540.7470.7.camel@linux.site> References: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11CD40B1@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> <1143648540.7470.7.camel@linux.site> Message-ID: <200603290904.28383.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Wednesday 29 March 2006 08:09, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > On Wed, 2006-03-29 at 09:38 -0600, Wolfe, Julian wrote: > > I was just curious, for those who own them, is the KK11-A cache module > > for the 11/34 worth acquiring? How much does it boost performance of > > the machine, and in what areas? > > The big problem is getting the "over the top" connectors. The ones that > allow both the cache and FP are especially rare. If I had a choice, get > the FP. The "over the top" connectors are the same for the cache or the > FP. There is another set if you want both at the same time. Guy is right, finding the OTT connectors is challenging - but not impossible. I recently discovered a set after looking for several months. I would also agree with Guy that given a choice of cache or FP, take FP. I've done extensive benchmarks with and without cache and found that cache can make significant performance enhancements. Here's a brief summary of my findings of cache speed enhancement: Large FORTRAN compiles and MACRO assemblies run on average 44% faster and large LINKs run 56% faster. Integer benchmarks like HANOI run 57% faster and floating point benchmarks like single precision Whetstone run 19.4% faster and double precision Whetstone runs 16.9% faster. BTW: I have both FP and cache in my 11/34A (11/34C ;-) BTW2: I was surprised that cache helped performance as much as it did in my 11/34 considering that I'm using fast MOS (MS11-L) memory - and the cache was designed as a "kicker" for much slower memory... Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From marvin at rain.org Wed Mar 29 11:07:50 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 09:07:50 -0800 Subject: toxic obsessive-compulsive disorder .... Message-ID: <442ABEE6.B66A8F33@rain.org> I remember flying all over the US with my toolkit. Then once at LAX, United said no and I had to check my toolkit. The toolkit was broken when I arrived at the next stop and my luggage was sent to the wrong city. After I got back, I raised hell at the United office, and never flew with them again until many many years after I had left that job. Still makes me irritated when I think about it including the nonsense with TSA. I *REALLY* dislike stupid people! > From: "Bob Bradlee" > Any else remember we could carry our toolcase containing many implements of destruction and toxic sprays on an airplane > and only had to show a business card at security, > It helped to have a 465 scope on a the luggage cart with it when you pulled up to the early Xray systems at security. > Scope went under the seat and the toolbox went in the over head bin. > Those were the good old days :) > > Bob Bradlee From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 29 11:28:13 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 10:28:13 -0700 Subject: speaking of Televideo In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 25 Mar 2006 16:16:26 -0800. <20060326001626.83746.qmail@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: In article <20060326001626.83746.qmail at web61022.mail.yahoo.com>, Chris M writes: > the manual for my T Personal Mini calls for a T 925 or > 950 for the console. Floppies (bad) have emulator > software that makes a pc look like one of those. So > does anyone know of another way of emulating a T > terminal, or perhaps got one theyll let go cheapish? > This all assumes the hard drive even works, but what > have I got to lose. I have a Televideo 925 in my collection, although I haven't tested it yet. I believe that basically any VT100 compatible terminal would work though. I don't have manuals for the 925 but I think it has a VT100 compatible mode. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Mar 29 11:52:59 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 12:52:59 -0500 Subject: NY/CT collectors In-Reply-To: <008401c65282$5e909e80$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> References: <3572C311B2DB4C418DAB189F1F190799A3388F@mail.catcorner.org> <008401c65282$5e909e80$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <442AC97B.4020104@gmail.com> John Allain wrote: >>> How about Longobardi's in Wappingers? Food's pretty good. > > Accessing... > http://www.yp.com/yppc.php?pi=NYE5801183&cid=xml2 > => Route 9 # 1201; Wappingers Falls, NY 12590 > Says it's closed Weekends... Sounds odd, but still OK at times. I spoke to the owner, he said they're open Sunday - Thursday until 10PM, and Friday and Saturday later than that. Don't need a reservation except on Friday or Saturday night. Peace... Sridhar From rborsuk at colourfull.com Wed Mar 29 12:00:21 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 13:00:21 -0500 Subject: Computer book downloads Message-ID: Hi All, I just found this site. Has some decent computer books for download for free. http://www.computer-books.us Some "not so vintage" but some of the programming languages are (Fortran, ADA, etc.). Rob From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 29 12:10:18 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:10:18 -0700 Subject: Wanted: Ohio Scientific... In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 29 Mar 2006 14:00:24 +0200. <3271.86.139.105.174.1143633624.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> Message-ID: In article <3271.86.139.105.174.1143633624.squirrel at webmail.geekdot.com>, "Lee Davison" writes: > > I can understand the first two but there should be a fair number > > of C4Ps out there. > > There are, it's just that we want to keep them. 8^)= And some of us are still looking for one! :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 29 13:34:58 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:34:58 -0800 Subject: speaking of Televideo In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603291134580219.0FC3A3A3@10.0.0.252> On 3/29/2006 at 10:28 AM Richard wrote: >I have a Televideo 925 in my collection, although I haven't tested it >yet. I believe that basically any VT100 compatible terminal would >work though. I don't have manuals for the 925 but I think it has a >VT100 compatible mode. IIRC, I don't believe that either the 925 or 950 handled VT100/ANSI protocol. I believe you had to go to the 922 for that. Cheers, Chuck From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Wed Mar 29 13:45:27 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 14:45:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: speaking of Televideo In-Reply-To: <200603291134580219.0FC3A3A3@10.0.0.252> References: <200603291134580219.0FC3A3A3@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200603291948.OAA06986@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > IIRC, I don't believe that either the 925 or 950 handled VT100/ANSI > protocol. I believe you had to go to the 922 for that. I used to use TeleVideo heavily. The 950 was my favourite, but I also used the 925, and I can confirm that neither one does X3.64 (nor even that foundation X3.64 built on, whose name I'm having trouble recalling - X3.41 maybe?). I don't think I've ever seen a 922, so I can't speak to that part. /~\ 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 doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Mar 29 13:56:12 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 13:56:12 -0600 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <20060329035919.GU1195@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> References: <442A0524.2080807@jetnet.ab.ca> <20060329035919.GU1195@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> Message-ID: <442AE65C.1010003@mdrconsult.com> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > Well, you can generally run MS/PCDOS on new machines. There's also > FreeDOS (which is a free clone), and things like BOCHS and dosemu for > running DOS under some of the more useful modern multitasking OSes. And, last I checked IBM still sells PC-DOS if you need something supported. I run MS-DOS 6.22 on a Pentium-133 Compaq and occasionally on a 1200MHz Athlon, depending on whether I'm reading/writing floppy or tape. Since I own several "legitimate" copies of v6.22, and it supports all the programs I need very well, I haven't really looked at the free alternatives. Doc From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Mar 29 14:07:43 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 14:07:43 -0600 Subject: Powerstation 370 In-Reply-To: <20060329102921.12aa1c1f.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> References: <54B28B40-8EA7-469C-95E4-1267CEFF61EC@adelphia.net> <4420E25D.2070809@gmail.com> <4420E629.4040104@mdrconsult.com> <44280379.6040001@mdrconsult.com> <20060327215821.58a580e7.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <442876C6.20705@mdrconsult.com> <20060329102921.12aa1c1f.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> Message-ID: <442AE90F.5020703@mdrconsult.com> Jochen Kunz wrote: > NetBSD does not run at all on the -150. I stated to port NetBSD/ofppc to > the IBM CHRP machines but encountered technical problems. Other things > became more important... so it lingered for about a year. I continued > that project just recently as I got some help with the problematic > parts. If we are in luck, we may get somthing usefull within a month or > two. Cool. I have a couple of CHRP models - a -150 and a 43P-260 - that are primarily AIX and Linux testbeds. Won't be hard to add a NetBSD drive to either if you need testing done. Hit me offlist if there's anything I can do. >>Are the Matrox-based cards supported? > > This may never happen. I don't have a clue about X11 hacking and I am > not interrested in learning it. I.e. I leave that to other people as I > can't do everything myself. So all depends on someone to show up and do > the job. Not a big deal, really. All my RS/6K systems run mostly headless, anyhow. Doc From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 29 14:22:17 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 13:22:17 -0700 Subject: speaking of Televideo In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 29 Mar 2006 14:45:27 -0500. <200603291948.OAA06986@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: In article <200603291948.OAA06986 at Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>, der Mouse writes: > I used to use TeleVideo heavily. The 950 was my favourite, but I also > used the 925, and I can confirm that neither one does X3.64 (nor even > that foundation X3.64 built on, whose name I'm having trouble recalling > - X3.41 maybe?). I stand corrected and more interested in my 925 as a result :-). It looks cosmetically similar to the VT100 so I figured that might carry over to the escape code sequences as well. So now I'm on the lookout for documentation on the 925 control sequences. Mouse, do you know if the 925 and 950 share the same control codes? The 950 Operator's Manual is on manx. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jcwren at jcwren.com Wed Mar 29 14:35:01 2006 From: jcwren at jcwren.com (J.C. Wren) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 15:35:01 -0500 Subject: speaking of Televideo In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <442AEF75.8000509@jcwren.com> They do except for the status line programming and the real-time clock. You can use the 950 manual for 99.44% of your programming. --jc Richard wrote: > In article <200603291948.OAA06986 at Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>, > der Mouse writes: > > >> I used to use TeleVideo heavily. The 950 was my favourite, but I also >> used the 925, and I can confirm that neither one does X3.64 (nor even >> that foundation X3.64 built on, whose name I'm having trouble recalling >> - X3.41 maybe?). >> > > I stand corrected and more interested in my 925 as a result :-). > > It looks cosmetically similar to the VT100 so I figured that might > carry over to the escape code sequences as well. > > So now I'm on the lookout for documentation on the 925 control > sequences. > > Mouse, do you know if the 925 and 950 share the same control codes? > The 950 Operator's Manual is on manx. > From drb at msu.edu Wed Mar 29 14:36:35 2006 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 15:36:35 -0500 Subject: speaking of Televideo In-Reply-To: (Your message of Wed, 29 Mar 2006 13:22:17 MST.) References: Message-ID: <200603292036.k2TKaaqH006371@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > I stand corrected and more interested in my 925 as a result :-). > > It looks cosmetically similar to the VT100 so I figured that might > carry over to the escape code sequences as well. > > So now I'm on the lookout for documentation on the 925 control > sequences. > > Mouse, do you know if the 925 and 950 share the same control codes? > The 950 Operator's Manual is on manx. If I may barge into this topic... The 950 is a superset of the 925 in functionality and control codes. One of the key differences is that attributes (i.e. changes to bold, dim, etc.) on the 925 take a screen position. On the 950, they don't. (That may be configurable on the 950; memory isn't giving me a solid answer on this point.) I have 925 manual(s) and control code info somewhere. I'll try to get them typed in. De From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 29 14:49:36 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 13:49:36 -0700 Subject: Tektronix catalogs? Have 1982, 1985 want > 1985 Message-ID: The Boat Anchor Manual Archive has the Tektronix catalogs for 1982 and 1985. Does anyone know of online copies of the catalog for other years? Barring an online copy, does anyone have catalogs after 1985? I'm trying to track down size/weight information on the following items: PEP301 System Control (may not be Tektronix) HC01 Video/Copier Printer (may not be Tektronix) 9200T Color Display Terminal 9201T Color Display Terminal 9219 Logic Analyzer 9219T Logic Analyzer 9220 Logic Analyzer 9221 Logic Analyzer 9229 Logic Analyzer If anyone can lookup the size (width, height, depth) and weight of those items in their catalog and email them to me, it would be greatly appreciated! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 29 15:32:07 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 13:32:07 -0800 Subject: speaking of Televideo In-Reply-To: <200603291948.OAA06986@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200603291134580219.0FC3A3A3@10.0.0.252> <200603291948.OAA06986@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200603291332070737.102EE66B@10.0.0.252> On 3/29/2006 at 2:45 PM der Mouse wrote: >I don't think I've ever seen a 922, so I can't speak to that part. I've got the manual--VT 110/220 compatible, with VT925/950 emulation. It's been a long time since I've fooled with the 925 or 950 (or 911), but something sticks on my mind about the 925 about there being a lmit to the number of attribute changes (blink, highlight, etc.) per line. Am I remembering correctly? Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 29 15:43:41 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 13:43:41 -0800 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <442AE65C.1010003@mdrconsult.com> References: <442A0524.2080807@jetnet.ab.ca> <20060329035919.GU1195@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> <442AE65C.1010003@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <200603291343410882.10397DE5@10.0.0.252> On 3/29/2006 at 1:56 PM Doc Shipley wrote: > I run MS-DOS 6.22 on a Pentium-133 Compaq and occasionally on a >1200MHz Athlon, depending on whether I'm reading/writing floppy or tape. > Since I own several "legitimate" copies of v6.22, and it supports all >the programs I need very well, I haven't really looked at the free >alternatives. My mostly-DOS machines all have Win95 installed, but boot into real-mode DOS. I've also installed the long file name driver (I think it's available from SourceForge.net), so I don't get too boxed in by the 8.3 naming limitation. If I need a GUI, I just type 'win". I've never had a heck of a lot of luck with FreeDOS past simple installation (e.g. never could get the networking going reliably). Not to bash NetBSD or Linux (I have and use both), but they're lousy platforms for driver development. Implementing a new device or driver usually involves wrestling with the kernel. On DOS, I can write a real-mode program, TSR or .sys driver and load it on the fly. On Win 9x, it's mostly a matter of a VxD (again, loading on the fly). For NT/2K/XP, the boilerplate is a bit more involved (handle ACPI, PnP, Power Management, etc.), but once done, it's a matter of making the necessary registry entries and maybe restarting. Cheers, Chuck From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Wed Mar 29 16:24:23 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 17:24:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: speaking of Televideo In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603292245.RAA08266@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> [Richard ] > Mouse, do you know if the 925 and 950 share the same control codes? I used to know the commonly-used ones by heart, but that memory has long bitrotted out of existence. ["J.C. Wren" ] > They do except for the status line programming and the real-time > clock. You can use the 950 manual for 99.44% of your programming. [Dennis Boone ] > The 950 is a superset of the 925 in functionality and control codes. > One of the key differences is that attributes (i.e. changes to bold, > dim, etc.) on the 925 take a screen position. On the 950, they > don't. (That may be configurable on the 950; memory isn't giving me > a solid answer on this point.) Yes, this is a major difference for many applications, and one reason why I hated to have to use a 925 - I hate "occupy a screen position" attribute cookies. My memory is fuzzy on this point, but it does agree that the 950 and 925 were very similar. Here are my private termcap file's entries for the 950 and 925, reformatted into two columns for comparison. Looking at them now, I see some errors (for example, the 950 really should have :hs: as well, and I'm not sure it should have :xn:), but these are what I've been using. tvi950|950|televideo 950:\ tvi925|TeleVideo 925:\ :ae=\E%:\ :al=\EE:\ :al=\EE\ET:\ :am:\ :am:\ :as=\E$:\ :bl=^G:\ :bl=^G:\ :bs:\ :bs:\ :bt=\EI:\ :bt=\EI:\ :bw:\ :bw:\ :cd=\EY:\ :cd=\EY:\ :ce=\ET:\ :ce=\ET:\ :cl=^Z:\ :cl=^Z:\ :cm=\E=%+ %+ :\ :cm=\E=%+ %+ :\ :co#80:\ :co#80:\ :cr=^M:\ :cr=^M:\ :ct=\E3:\ :ct=\E3:\ :dc=\EW:\ :dc=\EW:\ :dl=\ER:\ :dl=\ER:\ :do=^V:\ :do=^V:\ :ei=\Er:\ :ei=:\ :ho=^^:\ :ho=^^:\ :hs:\ :ic=\EQ:\ :im=\Eq:\ :im=:\ :is=\E)^^\EO\E= (\E1\E= 0\E1\E= 8\E1\E= @\E1\E= H\E1\E= P\E1\E= X\E1\E= `\E1\E= h\E1\E= n\E1:\ :is=\El\E":\ :.is=\EX\E3\E= (\E1\E= 0\E1\E= 8\E1\E= @\E1\E= H\E1\E= P\E1\E= X\E1\E= `\E1\E= h\E1\E= n\E1\E)\E'\El\E,\E"\Ew\EN:\ :it#8:\ :kb=^H:\ :kd=^V:\ :kh=^^:\ :kl=^H:\ :kr=^L:\ :ku=^K:\ :le=^H:\ :le=^H:\ :li#24:\ :li#24:\ :mi:\ :mi:\ :ms:\ :nd=^L:\ :nd=^L:\ :nl=^J:\ :pt: :pt:\ :se=\E):\ :se=\E):\ :sf=^J:\ :so=\E(:\ :so=\E(:\ :sr=\Ej:\ :st=\E1:\ :st=\E1:\ :ta=^I:\ :up=^K:\ :up=^K:\ :vb=\Eb\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\Ed\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200:\ :vb=\Eb\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\Ed\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200\200:\ :xn:\ :xo:\ :: /~\ 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 ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 29 16:58:01 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 23:58:01 +0100 (BST) Subject: 11/45 RTC In-Reply-To: <037101c652e2$f1cdf110$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> from "Jay West" at Mar 28, 6 09:43:29 pm Message-ID: > > > Tony wrote... > > However, I don't see how this can be the cause of the problem. A 180Hz > > signal would still trigger the DL11-W circuit. I doubt the machine would > > get interrupt-bound either. > Nope, standard 110v singlephase outlet. I think something is up with my test > cable. I'm going to double check it tomorrow. I do know that I set a > function generator on 50hz and connected my freq counter to it. It > registered right on 50hz. I moved the freq counter to the /45 and got about > 189hz on CD1. That just seems wrong. I connected my scope to the function Most, if not all, fequency counters detect the number of times the input crosses a given throeshold voltage in a particular time interval (or alternatively measure the time between the crossings of said threshold). If the input signal is noisy, or something like that you might get spurious results. > generator set at the same 50 hz and the scope picked it up sharp at 50hz > (scope does measurement). I moved it to the /45 and got odd readings, around > 189hz. Here's something else... on the function generator, the 50hz clock > was square and very clean. It also had a stable display. When looking at the > trace on the /45, the rise and fall of the square were noticeablely sloped, > not square. Also, it's like it was triggering right... because the square That is actually correct. If you look at the PSU scheamtics in the printset you'll see that the LTC L signal is produced by clamping the sine-wave output from the transformer using a zener diode (and a couple of resistors). The output will look like a sine wave with the top cut off. The input stage on the DL11-W uses a schmitt trigger gate (part of a 7414 IIRC) which woould squeare up that signal. > image seemed to alternate between two traces 90 degrees out of phase (1/2 > step back). Made it hard to measure the period. What have you connected the ground lead of your 'scope probe to? Have you tried fiddling with the trigger level (and other trigger controls) on the 'scope? > > > Do you have the DL11-W prints (e.g. in an 11/34 printset)? If so, I can > > talk you through some simple tests on the board itself. > I do not have DL11-W prints alas. I think somebody else has pointed them out on Bitsavers. Assuming you can read thsoe, you should see the LTC L signal coming in on CD1 and going into a 7414 gate. My next test would be to look at the output of that gate with a 'scope. You should get a nice square wave at mains frequency there. > > Maybe I should start from the beginning and re-explain the problem as I > percieve it. The machine boots xxdp+ v1.0 and 2.5 just fine. However, when I > try to boot RT11, the lights flicker and the disk flickers for about 10 > seconds, and then the system just halts. Because of the fact the system can > read and write full disk packs using VTserver, I kinda doubt there is a > major read/write problem with the drive. I am GUESSING that what is > happening is that xxdp does not use interrupts for anything, nor does > vtserver. My GUESS is that RT11 does, and that there is something wrong with > interrupts on my machine. I am GUESSING that at some point in the boot > process of RT11 it tries to use interrupts and thus my machine just dies > there. I centered on the LTC as a possible route to investigate for two > reasons - one, I was under the impression that the LTC signal had to be > present for interrupts to work, and if it wasn't, I'd get this behaviour, Not really. The LTC signal _geenates_ an interrupt once every mains cycle. It's used for a software real time clock, for things like task switching, etc. But there are many other devices that can cause interrupts. Just about any I/O device can, including your console port (separate interrupts for input and output), yuor RL11 disk controller, etc. Those interrupts will work (assuming you have a working machine!) whether the LTC L signal is there or not. The interurpt logic does not require LTC L to work. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 29 16:36:19 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 23:36:19 +0100 (BST) Subject: Another Panasonic HHC In-Reply-To: from "David Betz" at Mar 23, 6 08:18:10 am Message-ID: > > > Is this the unit that would take the SNAP development ROMs? > > The SNAP ROMs came in a unit that plugs into the side of the HHC and > has sockets for four 24 pin EPROMs. Unfortunately, my SNAP ROMs no Right, so it's not the (3rd party) unit that I now have. Let me ask a few questions about the SNAP development box : What sort of EPROMs are used (how big, etc) ? What else is in the unit? My investigations of the logic board have shown that there are a number of chip select lines brought out on the expansion connecotr, but there's no sane way to put 4 EPROMs directly on that connector. I would guess at least there's a 2-4 line decoder. And probably some transsitors to swich the Vcc to the EPROMs to save battery power (the HHC itself does that trick). These components may well be SMD on the back side of the board, BTW. I am wondering if it would be possible to make a clone of this unit, using, say, one 16K or 32K EPROM suitable connected. > longer work since a few of the pins broke off one of the EPROM chips > when I removed it to read the contents on my EPROM programmer. I've > purchased some machined pin sockets on someone's suggestion but I > don't seem to have the skill needed to solder the EPROM pin stubs to > the socket pins. The good news is that I *did* get images of the > EPROMs before the pins broke off this one chip. Are the EPROMs a rare type? Or could you get new ones and burn the images into them. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 29 17:04:45 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 00:04:45 +0100 (BST) Subject: Unisys A google group PLEASE READ In-Reply-To: <038301c652e5$681fa2d0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> from "Jay West" at Mar 28, 6 10:01:06 pm Message-ID: > > >> Richard wrote.... > >> > You mean we can't talk about Windows 95? Its vintage, baby. > > To which I replied... > >> Nope. > > To which Richard replied... > > Its 10 years old. I thought that was the requirement for "on topic", > > or are we going to get snooty about *which* 10 year old things we can > > talk about? > > Back up just a second here. You're saying anything which doesn't meet what > YOU THOUGHT the rule was, is snooty? > > Apparently I need to be much more vocal in expressing the guidelines. Or Well, it's your list, and you can therefore decide what is, and is not, on topic here. But have the rules changed without me knowing it? The original charter did say simply 'A classic computer is one that's at least 10 years old ' Nothing more, nothing less. Yes, there was at least one debate in the early days of the list as to whether that meant a machine where the _design_ was at least 10 years old, or a machine that had been produced at least 10 years ago. > more specifically, I need to slap myself for not updating the list > charter/FAQ so that new people to the list just assume they know the scoop. > My bad, I have been remiss for too long! > > The rule for on-topicness is NOT simply anything over 10 years. I'm sorry I > have not repeated this since some of the newer members joined the list, so > they assume anything over 10 years goes. That is not the case. There are > many things over 10 years that are not on topic. There are a few things less Well, leaving out things that are clearly not computer-related, even if over 10 years old, what are you thining of here? Somebody else suggested that the machine must be inovative or something like that. Does that mean the PDP11/34 is off-topic? There's little in that machine that wasn't in earlier PDP11s. Is the TRS-80 Model 3 off-topic (it's a Model 1 in an all-in-one case with minor changes -- I've had Model 3 BASIC running on a Model 1 ...). Are all PETs after the 2001 off-topic? And so on. This would seem to be impossible to administer. I don't want this list to become yet-another-Windows-list of course. But now I am confused as to what is, and is not, on-topic. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 29 16:42:31 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 23:42:31 +0100 (BST) Subject: KY11-LB behavior question In-Reply-To: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11CD3E10@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> from "Wolfe, Julian" at Mar 28, 6 02:52:03 pm Message-ID: > > I just have a question about Standby mode on an 11/34. I read it's > supposed to leave power applied to MOS, but do the fans and whatnot turn > off along with the CPU? Or are they supposed to stay on? My junk's in > a BA11-K box. AFAIK it does nothing useful unless you have the battery backup 'brick' and the battery unit. If you have those, it keeps the MOS memory powered from that system. The BA11-K power supply can't have the outputs independantly controlled, so the Standby position turns everything off (fans, CPU, memory, the lot). One problem if you do have the battery backup unit is that the fans will stop when the backup unit is in operation (either due to mains failure or because you've switched to Standby). This is probably not good for the memory. The 11/44 supply got it right. The standby postion on the key of that machine keeps the memory and fans powered, just shuts down the CPU and I/O supplies And if you have the battery backup unit, then the fans keep running when the memory is powered from the battery. The downside is that the 11/44 supply is _very_ complicated and hard to repair. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Mar 29 16:48:37 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 23:48:37 +0100 (BST) Subject: booting rt11 v5.1 on an 11/45 In-Reply-To: <036e01c652e0$3fd31d70$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> from "Jay West" at Mar 28, 6 09:24:07 pm Message-ID: > > Tony wrote... > > It's not just 'if you want to use a clock on a DL11-W'. That jumper > > completes the grant chain for one of the bus grant sigals (the one that > > is used by the line time clock interrupt), if you miss it out, then _no_ > > device on that priority level can interrup. It's like missing out a grant > > continuity card. > I took it as "if you want to yank out the M787 from a system that previously > had one. YEs, although DEC never actually considered you might do that. From what I've read, all 11/45 CPU backplanes were made with the jumper. You cut it if you put in the KW11-L card (M787). But yes, you re-fit the jumper if you want to pull that card and carry on running. > > > You can check with an ohmmeter that those 2 pins are connected to see if > > the jumper is in place. > I checked, I do have that jumper. OK... -tony From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 29 17:18:55 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:18:55 -0700 Subject: Craters and Freighters Message-ID: I just used this company to get Patrick's Megatek "Whizzer" graphics terminal (1984) to my house in Salt Lake from Dallas. (Sweet unit by the way!) I selected their "cardboard crate" option and they prepared everything for shipment and contracted with a freight carrier to have it delivered to my house. (There was also a RSTS distribution on magtape combined with this, thanks Patrick!) They did a very professional job of wrapping and cushioning everything in the crate and it was delivered in a timely manner with no damage. Their home page has a photo gallery of the various crates that they've built for items they've shipped. The company history says that they started in Silicon Valley in 1990 and that they specialize in the shipping of electronics, art and antiques. I would recommend anyone needing freight shipping to check them out. They work directly with dovebid and govliquidation and are familiar with those sorts of auction lots. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 29 17:50:51 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:50:51 -0700 Subject: Unisys A google group PLEASE READ In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 30 Mar 2006 00:04:45 +0100. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > I don't want this list to become yet-another-Windows-list of course. But > now I am confused as to what is, and is not, on-topic. (*see hornet's nest*) (*kick it*) (*run!*) :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From rtellason at blazenet.net Wed Mar 29 17:57:14 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 18:57:14 -0500 Subject: old DRAM chips Message-ID: <200603291857.14083.rtellason@blazenet.net> I have some early DRAM chips, was wondering if any of you guys would be interested? It's gonna take me some digging to get to where they are, so I figure I'd ask first before doing that. :-) If there's some interest I'll dig 'em out and post a list. -- 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 Wed Mar 29 18:31:31 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:31:31 -0800 Subject: old DRAM chips In-Reply-To: <200603291857.14083.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <200603291857.14083.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <200603291631310801.10D324EF@10.0.0.252> On 3/29/2006 at 6:57 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: >I have some early DRAM chips... >If there's some interest I'll dig 'em out and post a list. I'd be surprised if there was. I mentioned that I had a bunch of 4Kx1 DRAM TMS4044 clones some months ago and got not a peep. Cheers, Chuck From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Mar 29 19:19:47 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 19:19:47 -0600 Subject: 11/45 RTC References: Message-ID: <001e01c65398$092f0a50$6800a8c0@BILLING> Tony wrote... > If the input signal is noisy, or something like that you might get > spurious results. It looked noisy to me! > What have you connected the ground lead of your 'scope probe to? When measuring BUS LTC L at CD1, I used CC2 as my ground reference. Just before that I put the scope between CC2 and CA2 and got a nice non-ripply +5v trace. I should point out that the ground clip on my probe is a bit large for clipping to a backplane pin, so I used an alligator to microclip extension that is about 8 inches long. Surely that wouldn't mess up the signal that badly. > Have you tried fiddling with the trigger level (and other trigger > controls) on the 'scope? Yup, I'm used to doing that and generally can get a stable trace. With this signal, I was unable to do so. > Assuming you can read thsoe, you should see the LTC L signal coming in on > CD1 and going into a 7414 gate. My next test would be to look at the > output of that gate with a 'scope. You should get a nice square wave at > mains frequency there. Good idea. The 7414 is at E45, CD1 goes in pin 9 (4a) and out pin 8 (4y). I'll ground the scope at pin 7 and see how the signal looks. If the issue is bit 7 in the RTC is not setting (according to the diag), and I get a good clock out of the schmitt trigger, I assume the next thing to check is the pin 8 output of the flipflop the trigger drives? That seems to be where bit 7 comes from. > The interurpt logic does not require LTC L to work. Ok gotcha. I still suspect something with trap/interrupts being broke. But more on that later :) Thanks for the direction Tony! Jay From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Mar 29 21:13:57 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 21:13:57 -0600 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <200603291343410882.10397DE5@10.0.0.252> References: <442A0524.2080807@jetnet.ab.ca> <20060329035919.GU1195@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> <442AE65C.1010003@mdrconsult.com> <200603291343410882.10397DE5@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <442B4CF5.2090703@mdrconsult.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> I run MS-DOS 6.22 on a Pentium-133 Compaq and occasionally on a >>1200MHz Athlon, depending on whether I'm reading/writing floppy or tape. >> Since I own several "legitimate" copies of v6.22, and it supports all >>the programs I need very well, I haven't really looked at the free >>alternatives. > > > My mostly-DOS machines all have Win95 installed, but boot into real-mode > DOS. I've also installed the long file name driver (I think it's available > from SourceForge.net), so I don't get too boxed in by the 8.3 naming > limitation. If I need a GUI, I just type 'win". I should probably do that on the Athlon, if only because networking and graphics are marginally simpler in Win9x (and while there's no current AV software for DOS, there are plenty of the old DOS virii floating around). As I'm too lazy to go look it up, what was the msdos.sys incantation to boot into CLI? And Hey, Jay! Wouldn't this be an example of "acceptable use" re Win9x discussion? > Not to bash NetBSD or Linux (I have and use both), but they're lousy > platforms for driver development. Implementing a new device or driver > usually involves wrestling with the kernel. On DOS, I can write a > real-mode program, TSR or .sys driver and load it on the fly. On Win 9x, > it's mostly a matter of a VxD (again, loading on the fly). For NT/2K/XP, > the boilerplate is a bit more involved (handle ACPI, PnP, Power Management, > etc.), but once done, it's a matter of making the necessary registry > entries and maybe restarting. IANAP, so I don't care. :) Doc From oldcomp at cox.net Wed Mar 29 21:39:58 2006 From: oldcomp at cox.net (Bryan K. Blackburn) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 20:39:58 -0700 Subject: old DRAM chips In-Reply-To: <200603291857.14083.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <200603291857.14083.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <442B530E.1010208@cox.net> I wouldn't mind finding some pretty ceramic 4027 or 4096 4K DRAMs... or even the 4801. -Bryan Roy J. Tellason wrote: > I have some early DRAM chips, was wondering if any of you guys would be > interested? From at258 at osfn.org Wed Mar 29 21:44:54 2006 From: at258 at osfn.org (Merle K. Peirce) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 22:44:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: Any RCS/RI folks on the list? In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20060323012736.07ee7af0@mail.marcal.com> Message-ID: try geoff at pkworks.com On Thu, 23 Mar 2006, Dan Veeneman wrote: > Hi, > > Are there any folks from The Retro-Computing Society of Rhode Island > on this list? I haven't been able to raise anyone at their normal e-mail > address and would like to chat with one of the curators. > > Please e-mail me off-list. > > Thanks! > > > Cheers, > > Dan > > -- M. K. Peirce Rhode Island Computer Museum, Inc. Shady Lea, Rhode Island "Casta est quam nemo rogavit." - Ovid From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Mar 29 21:48:47 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 21:48:47 -0600 Subject: 11/45 RTC References: <001e01c65398$092f0a50$6800a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <03e501c653ac$da13aa40$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I had written.... > Good idea. The 7414 is at E45, CD1 goes in pin 9 (4a) and out pin 8 (4y). > I'll ground the scope at pin 7 and see how the signal looks. If the issue > is bit 7 in the RTC is not setting (according to the diag), and I get a > good clock out of the schmitt trigger, I assume the next thing to check is > the pin 8 output of the flipflop the trigger drives? That seems to be > where bit 7 comes from. On the DL11-W I was using, the BUS LTC L signal can be seen going in pin 9 of the 7414, but it doesn't come out on pin 8. Problem identified :) I then tried two other DL11-W cards, and made sure that both of them showed the LTC in on 9 and out clean on 8. They do. So I ran the DL11-W diag on both these other cards, and it fails for different reasons.It prints the normal diag startup message, followed by "01 devices under test" and the cpu halts. I find it hard to believe both fail the same way, so I suspect something else. Per a suggestion from another listmember, I'm going to remove all the I/O cards, put dual grants in, and ring out the 4 bus grant lines across the SPC slots and see if there is a break somewhere. Jay West From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Mar 29 21:54:18 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 21:54:18 -0600 Subject: Unisys A google group References: <442A0524.2080807@jetnet.ab.ca> <20060329035919.GU1195@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> <442AE65C.1010003@mdrconsult.com><200603291343410882.10397DE5@10.0.0.252> <442B4CF5.2090703@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <03ee01c653ad$9f146780$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Doc wrote.... > And Hey, Jay! Wouldn't this be an example of "acceptable use" re Win9x > discussion? Most of your discussion is actually DOS 6x related... so yes, it's an example of acceptable use :) >> Not to bash NetBSD or Linux (I have and use both), but they're lousy >> platforms for driver development. Complex != Lousy You're right. It's much easier in DOS. And that's good how? ;) Jay From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Mar 29 22:01:28 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 22:01:28 -0600 Subject: Unisys A google group PLEASE READ In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <442B5818.9070205@oldskool.org> Tony Duell wrote: > I don't want this list to become yet-another-Windows-list of course. But > now I am confused as to what is, and is not, on-topic. The Cynical Jim(tm) sez that "if it reminds the old-timers why bad products succeed over better ones, it's not on-topic." I think an easier way to define things is to specify what is *not* on-topic. And that list has one item: Windows. So the basic rule is, don't talk about Windows. Everything else is on-topic. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Mar 29 22:05:26 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 22:05:26 -0600 Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: <200603280524.k2S5OYp2005254@floodgap.com> References: <200603280524.k2S5OYp2005254@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <442B5906.5050801@oldskool.org> Cameron Kaiser wrote: > In addition, the 8580 *is* different w/r/t > waveforms, and corrects a voltage leak which was widely exploited as a cheap > 4-bit D/A converter ($d418). Yes, us fanboyz at the time called it the "Best. Hack. Ever." IIRC, the trick still works in the 8580 but is *much* quieter. -- 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 cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 29 22:36:59 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 20:36:59 -0800 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <442B4CF5.2090703@mdrconsult.com> References: <442A0524.2080807@jetnet.ab.ca> <20060329035919.GU1195@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> <442AE65C.1010003@mdrconsult.com> <200603291343410882.10397DE5@10.0.0.252> <442B4CF5.2090703@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <200603292036590533.11B3DC43@10.0.0.252> On 3/29/2006 at 9:13 PM Doc Shipley wrote: > As I'm too lazy to go look it up, what was the msdos.sys incantation >to boot into CLI? Easy, just edit the system text file MSDOS.SYS to say BootGUI=0. You'll see what I mean. Cheers, Chuck From Tim at Rikers.org Wed Mar 29 22:49:21 2006 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 21:49:21 -0700 Subject: Craters and Freighters In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <442B6351.9060603@Rikers.org> Richard wrote: > Their home page has a photo > gallery of the various crates that they've built for items they've > shipped. The company history says that they started in Silicon Valley > in 1990 and that they specialize in the shipping of electronics, art > and antiques. electronic antique art. that about sums it up. -- Tim Riker - http://rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Mar 29 23:40:33 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 21:40:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 for grabs In-Reply-To: <442B5906.5050801@oldskool.org> from Jim Leonard at "Mar 29, 6 10:05:26 pm" Message-ID: <200603300540.k2U5eXKB019930@floodgap.com> > > In addition, the 8580 *is* different w/r/t > > waveforms, and corrects a voltage leak which was widely exploited as a cheap > > 4-bit D/A converter ($d418). > > Yes, us fanboyz at the time called it the "Best. Hack. Ever." IIRC, the > trick still works in the 8580 but is *much* quieter. It does and it is. There are some tweaks to set up a similar effect, but even I'll agree it doesn't sound quite the same on the 8580 even with adjustment. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- MOVIE IDEA: E-mailsignaturebusters ----------------------------------------- From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 29 23:41:55 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 21:41:55 -0800 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <03ee01c653ad$9f146780$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <442A0524.2080807@jetnet.ab.ca> <20060329035919.GU1195@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> <442AE65C.1010003@mdrconsult.com> <200603291343410882.10397DE5@10.0.0.252> <442B4CF5.2090703@mdrconsult.com> <03ee01c653ad$9f146780$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200603292141550008.11EF4C34@10.0.0.252> On 3/29/2006 at 9:54 PM Jay West wrote: >Complex != Lousy > >You're right. It's much easier in DOS. And that's good how? ;) Oh, c'mon. When you're out for results (i.e. does this device really work the way I think it does?) can you really beat DOS? I can't think of a device driver I haven't written first in DOS just to see if I understood the way things worked. Cheers, Chuck From innfoclassics at gmail.com Wed Mar 29 23:46:05 2006 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 21:46:05 -0800 Subject: Tektronix catalogs? Have 1982, 1985 want > 1985 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I have the 1988 catalog and it shows up in there. I have had a couple go through my hands also. There is no info on weight and size in the catalog. The 9200T terminal is probably a Tek 4107A from its looks comparing it and the one in the catalog. As for size and weight I seem to remember that it is about 17 inches high by 15 or 16 inches wide (13 inch screen, 640X480) and about 20 inches deep, weighing about 30 pounds. I couldn't find any published specifications. I have found the keyboards to be particularly fragile. I didn't see a picture of the 9201T which could possibly be a Tek 4107A or a Tek 4207. The 9219s are mainframes and as I remember fairly heavy even though they were made of aluminium. I seem to remember they are about 12 inches high by about 17 inches wide (will rack mount in a 19 inch rack) by 24 inches deep. Weight changes with how many cards are installed and if the drives are still there, full ones were probably about 45+ pounds. I think the expansion cabinets were the same size, the mainframe could take up to three expansion cabinets and if more than one was installed they all had to be rack mounted. There were some I/O modules that were about 5 inches tall. No catalog number mentioned. The 9229 is a 9219 mainframe and the 9201T terminal bundled together. I couldn't find out info on the 9220 and 9221. I suspect they follow the number protocal of the DAS 9100 series and indicate particular configuration for specific applications. If I were to scan the catalog pages what would be the best format to save them in. I know this has been mentioned before and I should have paid attention but only recently did I get a scanner that worked. As to Tektronix catalogs I have 1982, 84, 86, 88, 88 and 1994 and would be happy to look things up. And no, they aren't for sale...... The Video copier is a Japanese one I seem to remember (Hitachi or Mitsubishi?) and was B&W only. Hope this helps. Feel free to contact me off list. Paxton On 3/29/06, Richard wrote: > The Boat Anchor Manual Archive has the Tektronix catalogs for 1982 and 1985. > > Does anyone know of online copies of the catalog for other years? > > Barring an online copy, does anyone have catalogs after 1985? > > I'm trying to track down size/weight information on the following > items: > > PEP301 System Control (may not be Tektronix) > HC01 Video/Copier Printer (may not be Tektronix) > > 9200T Color Display Terminal > 9201T Color Display Terminal > 9219 Logic Analyzer > 9219T Logic Analyzer > 9220 Logic Analyzer > 9221 Logic Analyzer > 9229 Logic Analyzer > > If anyone can lookup the size (width, height, depth) and weight of > those items in their catalog and email them to me, it would be greatly > appreciated! > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > > -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From legalize at xmission.com Wed Mar 29 23:56:07 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 22:56:07 -0700 Subject: old DRAM chips In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 29 Mar 2006 16:31:31 -0800. <200603291631310801.10D324EF@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603291631310801.10D324EF at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > On 3/29/2006 at 6:57 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > >I have some early DRAM chips... > >If there's some interest I'll dig 'em out and post a list. > > I'd be surprised if there was. I mentioned that I had a bunch of 4Kx1 DRAM > TMS4044 clones some months ago and got not a peep. I see chips offered up singly on ebay as "collector items" and sometimes I see people selling their entire chip collection. So obviously there are people out there who collect individual chips. For whatever reason they just don't lurk on this list :-). I think people here are more interested in collecting whole (hopefully working) systems rather than components. I wonder, if you collect chips, do you accumulate as many different date codes as you can? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Mar 30 00:04:52 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 00:04:52 -0600 Subject: Unisys A google group References: <442A0524.2080807@jetnet.ab.ca><20060329035919.GU1195@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu><442AE65C.1010003@mdrconsult.com><200603291343410882.10397DE5@10.0.0.252><442B4CF5.2090703@mdrconsult.com><03ee01c653ad$9f146780$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <200603292141550008.11EF4C34@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <000f01c653bf$dcbb28f0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Chuck wrote... > Oh, c'mon. When you're out for results (i.e. does this device really work > the way I think it does?) can you really beat DOS? Ok, I admit it. That was an obvious troll :D Jay From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 30 00:12:16 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 23:12:16 -0700 Subject: Tektronix catalogs? Have 1982, 1985 want > 1985 In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 29 Mar 2006 21:46:05 -0800. Message-ID: In article , "Paxton Hoag" writes: > The 9200T terminal is probably a Tek 4107A from its looks comparing it > and the one in the catalog. As for size and weight I seem to remember > that it is about 17 inches high by 15 or 16 inches wide (13 inch > screen, 640X480) and about 20 inches deep, weighing about 30 pounds. I > couldn't find any published specifications. I have found the keyboards > to be particularly fragile. Sweet. This is just the kind of info I was looking for and is consistent with my guesses based on photos and the size/weight of the 4105 -- which is 33 lbs, 20x17x20 plus another 5 lbs for the keyboard. I'll make sure that they keyboards are packed with care if I purchase these... > If I were to scan the catalog pages what would be the best format to > save them in. I know this has been mentioned before and I should have > paid attention but only recently did I get a scanner that worked. Bitsavers says: "The preferred form for any contributed text scan is as a collection of lossless Group 4 fax compression (ITU-T recommendation T.6) images saved as TIFF files with a minium scan resolution of 400 dpi." I think the guy at the Boat Anchor Manual Archive is happy to have them in any-old format. (To be honest, I have no idea why bitsavers prefers Group 4 fax compression.) The Tektronix catalogs I've seen (1982: , 1985: ) were scanned in color, which is very helpful for a few reasons. First, Tektronix had a tendency to mark new items by printing them in the index in color. A B&W scan doesn't reveal this as readily. Second, they had nice color pictures of the graphics terminals which gave you more of a sense for their output. With things like manuals, I wouldn't think color would normally be an issue -- typically there's only the occasional photo. So I would prefer color scans. Bitsavers requests the high resolution (400dpi) for manuals because I think they're expecting that people are scanning at 1bit/pixel which means you have to scan at high resolution for character recognition to work well. For material with color photos and lots of text intermixed (like the Tektronix catalogs), it might be better to scan it both ways: one way for the visual appeal and the other way for the eventual OCR of the data. With a PDF you could even combine the two results to get a "pretty" PDF with color pictures that you could text search. > As to Tektronix catalogs I have 1982, 84, 86, 88, 88 and 1994 and > would be happy to look things up. And no, they aren't for sale...... If anyone has Tektronix catalogs they want to part with, email me :-). I was more interested in just getting at the information than having my own catalogs though. With the 82 and 85 catalogs that are online and the manuals at bitsavers, I have gotten most of the material I needed so far. However, now I'm venturing out into territory that isn't so well documented in the regular places, so I'm on the lookout for any documentation related to the Tektronix terminals and/or development systems. > The Video copier is a Japanese one I seem to remember (Hitachi or > Mitsubishi?) and was B&W only. HC = Hitachi Copier? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 30 00:41:06 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 22:41:06 -0800 Subject: old DRAM chips In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603292241060482.12257C75@10.0.0.252> On 3/29/2006 at 10:56 PM Richard wrote: >For whatever reason they just don't lurk on this list :-). I think >people here are more interested in collecting whole (hopefully >working) systems rather than components. I wonder, if you collect >chips, do you accumulate as many different date codes as you can? > I don't collect chips; just have them around taking up space. I'm not likely to use one of those 3-supply mid-size 4Kx1 DRAMs any time during the remainder of my brief tenure on this planet, so they're either landfill or they take up space elsewhere. BTW, they're ceramic Fujitsu MB8107N's--maybe from about 1980 or so. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 30 01:11:46 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 00:11:46 -0700 Subject: old DRAM chips In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 29 Mar 2006 22:41:06 -0800. <200603292241060482.12257C75@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: In article <200603292241060482.12257C75 at 10.0.0.252>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > I don't collect chips; just have them around taking up space. I'm not > likely to use one of those 3-supply mid-size 4Kx1 DRAMs any time during the > remainder of my brief tenure on this planet, so they're either landfill or > they take up space elsewhere. Well, as long as you're being morbid about it, have you made provisions in your will for your collection? :-) > BTW, they're ceramic Fujitsu MB8107N's--maybe from about 1980 or so. OK, having a chip in a white ceramic carrier from before they perfected plastic carriers would be kinda cool. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From marvin at rain.org Thu Mar 30 01:22:03 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 23:22:03 -0800 Subject: More on disposition of radio collections - reflections from a semi-old collector Message-ID: <442B871B.7BAB7CB3@rain.org> This subject comes up from time to time, and I ran across the following post to the Heath Listserver that applies equally to classic computers. He makes some very good points, and I too am becoming more and more aware of things that should be done to preserve some of the less common stuff that I have. ************** I've been following the recent thread on Boat Anchors regarding large collections of ham radio equipment and the (eventual) problem of disposing of them after the collector's eventual (and inevitable, I might add) demise and exit from this world. I, too, have accumulated my share of old radio's - both amateur radio types and broadcast types. When I was younger, I frankly did not give much thought to what a burden these might be to my family when I pass away. But now I am older (just retired and a 'youngish' 65) and I have certainly given the problem much more thought. Additionally I have helped other's dispose of their collections and have, in some cases, purchased collections of equipment for my own collection. Anyways here are some serious thoughts for those of us who love our radio's. 1. Make a list of your radio's and keep it up to date. Include an estimate of condition and what you would guesstimate the 'street value' is. Make sure your wife and family know where this list is. 2. Make a list of people and organizations your wife and family can turn to for help when the time comes to dispose of your equipment. In my case, this includes a few local hams and the antique radio club that I belong to. 3. Keep your collection honed down! Purge it on a regular basis. EBAY and these lists are a great way to keep the surplus down I'm still working on that part of it and, more or less constantly, I go though my 'stuff' (not just ham or radio gear either) and get it gone! 4. Buy with discrimination! It is easy to become a hoarder! I am trying to be more discriminating now - in fact, I skipped the last couple of hamfests. I only buy what really appeals to me and only at a good 'value point'. I have plenty and plenty of radio's to work on. I do enjoy the hunt for new and interesting radios (building an HBR is still a dream) but I am more discriminating that before. Plus I try to sell some for every one I buy (kind of spread the joy). So it is serious - this 'obsession' that we have. It does behove us to try to keep it in check and try to make things easier for your spouse and your family when the big cleanup is needed. With any luck, I'll sell my last radio just before you pass on and that will be one less burden for my wife to cope with. Meanwhile I intent to have some fun with my collection. But remember - the emphasis should be on the fun (and in preserving old radios!). 73 de WA2CKY Bob Groh From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 30 01:31:42 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 23:31:42 -0800 Subject: old DRAM chips In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603292331420709.1253D020@10.0.0.252> On 3/30/2006 at 12:11 AM Richard wrote: >Well, as long as you're being morbid about it, have you made >provisions in your will for your collection? :-) What collection? The stuff I have has just been accumulated over the years like earwax. Most of it purchased new (like the MITS 8800). A few things purchased used; some stuff just given to me. Nothing acquired to collect. If my lovely wife outlives me, she'll have the problem of disposing of my life's detritus; if I'm the last one into the ground, it'll be the problem of the charity that's been named as our executor. Sheesh, if I collected something, it'd be something that would appreciate with time, like saxophones or gold ingots or pie safes. Cheers, Chuck From bert at brothom.nl Thu Mar 30 04:24:29 2006 From: bert at brothom.nl (Bert Thomas) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 11:24:29 +0100 Subject: OT: video signal question In-Reply-To: <442036AF.2060107@DakotaCom.Net> References: <35502.192.168.0.10.1142959868.squirrel@office.brothom.nl> <442036AF.2060107@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <442BB1DD.3020903@brothom.nl> Don Y wrote: > Hmmm... the only video printers I have seen/used were > independant of the video source. That was the whole > point of their design (e.g., to grab a copy of the > image on a ComputerVision CAD system without having to > tinker with their software in any way). It appears that all of you where right. I was pointed in the wrong direction! The trigger signal is seperated from the video source. Anyway, thanks! Bert From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Mar 30 04:16:14 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 22:16:14 +1200 Subject: Eletronics Learning Lab In-Reply-To: <004401c651ff$a0080bb0$03fea8c0@HP53975803189> References: <004401c651ff$a0080bb0$03fea8c0@HP53975803189> Message-ID: On 3/28/06, rpost wrote: > I recently saw a thread posted on the parts list for the Radio Shack model > 28-280 kit does any one have the manual for it my son would be extremely > appreciative. Allen Radio Shack does not make their Electronic Kit manuals available electronically, and my paper copy is thouands of miles away (I do not have any sort of scan, just paper) -ethan From holger.veit at ais.fraunhofer.de Thu Mar 30 06:22:27 2006 From: holger.veit at ais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:22:27 +0200 Subject: RA6800ML? Message-ID: <442BCD83.9090607@ais.fraunhofer.de> Hi, for historical reasons I am looking for an electronic copy of the RA6800ML relocating assembler for the Motorola 6800 (surely one can find and even write from scratch PC-based crossassemblers, and I do know of several of them, but this is not interesting for me). This was published by Byte Paperbooks in 1978, and its ISBN is still listed at Amazon et al, but hasn't appeared for quite some time as a used book. I have located the corresponding relocating linker (at least it seems to be it) from Flex Usergroup downloads (where it is listed as "unidentified/RA6800ML") but this linker is likely the code from another Byte paperbook of that time. Or if someone has this book and could xerox it for me, provided we can negotiate some method to transfer expenses - I'd be willing to pay reasonably. THX & Regards Holger From henk.gooijen at oce.com Thu Mar 30 06:33:53 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:33:53 +0200 Subject: RA6800ML? Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815EC@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> I am 100% sure, that I have that book! Copy or scan is the same work for me :-) The drawback is that it will damage the glue of the spine ... I like to keep my books in perfect shape. There were a few more books from Byte (for the 6800) in that time. I have the Relocating Linker too. My first StarShip code was built using these programs! I also have several books from TSC. BASIC, editor, and 6800 Simulator [ on 6800 :-) ] comes to mind ... I will try to check this evening (I get home after 22:00). - Henk. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Holger Veit > Sent: donderdag 30 maart 2006 14:22 > To: On-Topic Posts Only > Subject: RA6800ML? > > Hi, > for historical reasons I am looking for an electronic copy of > the RA6800ML relocating assembler for the Motorola 6800 > (surely one can find and even write from scratch PC-based > crossassemblers, and I do know of several of them, but this > is not interesting for me). > > This was published by Byte Paperbooks in 1978, and its ISBN > is still listed at Amazon et al, but hasn't appeared for > quite some time as a used book. I have located the > corresponding relocating linker (at least it seems to be it) > from Flex Usergroup downloads (where it is listed as > "unidentified/RA6800ML") but this linker is likely the code > from another Byte paperbook of that time. Or if someone has > this book and could xerox it for me, provided we can > negotiate some method to transfer expenses - I'd be willing > to pay reasonably. > > THX & Regards > Holger > > > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From dbetz at xlisper.com Thu Mar 30 07:29:21 2006 From: dbetz at xlisper.com (David Betz) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 08:29:21 -0500 Subject: Another Panasonic HHC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: (I'm sorry if this message reaches the list twice. I sent it from the wrong email address the first time.) >> >>> Is this the unit that would take the SNAP development ROMs? >>> >> >> The SNAP ROMs came in a unit that plugs into the side of the HHC and >> has sockets for four 24 pin EPROMs. Unfortunately, my SNAP ROMs no >> > > Right, so it's not the (3rd party) unit that I now have. > > Let me ask a few questions about the SNAP development box : > > What sort of EPROMs are used (how big, etc) ? > Two of the EPROMs are marked HN462532G and the other two are marked 2532JDL-45. I assume they are 32k bits (4k x 8)? > > What else is in the unit? My investigations of the logic board > have shown > that there are a number of chip select lines brought out on the > expansion > connecotr, but there's no sane way to put 4 EPROMs directly on that > connector. I would guess at least there's a 2-4 line decoder. And > probably some transsitors to swich the Vcc to the EPROMs to save > battery > power (the HHC itself does that trick). These components may well > be SMD > on the back side of the board, BTW. > There are four M74LS08P chips on the board with the EPROMs. There is also another circuit board mounted underneath the one with the EPROMs that contains lots of other chips: M74LS22P, M74LS08P x 2, HD14002BP, M74LS00P, M74LS138P, M74LS02P, MC14013B, MC14011B. I guess this is more than just an EPROM expansion board. > > I am wondering if it would be possible to make a clone of this unit, > using, say, one 16K or 32K EPROM suitable connected. > > >> longer work since a few of the pins broke off one of the EPROM chips >> when I removed it to read the contents on my EPROM programmer. I've >> purchased some machined pin sockets on someone's suggestion but I >> don't seem to have the skill needed to solder the EPROM pin stubs to >> the socket pins. The good news is that I *did* get images of the >> EPROMs before the pins broke off this one chip. >> > > Are the EPROMs a rare type? Or could you get new ones and burn the > images > into them. > That would be a good idea. In fact, I obviously have a programmer that can handle the chips since I was able to read their contents. Anyone know where I can get some HN462532G chips? I don't know enough about hardware to figure out how the unit works myself. I guess I could send it to you if you want to take a look. By the way, the part number on this SNAP extension cartridge is RL- P9001 if that helps. From dbetz at xlisper.com Thu Mar 30 07:34:33 2006 From: dbetz at xlisper.com (David Betz) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 08:34:33 -0500 Subject: Old 68k Macintosh? Message-ID: <05A83FD5-4546-4C5D-B7AE-B71BFB1B01F0@xlisper.com> I know that these are supposed to be quite common but there don't seem to be any on eBay at the moment. I'm looking for an old 68k Macintosh, preferably something like a Quadra 800, to use to run Macintosh Common Lisp. I used to have a bunch of old Macs but I've gotten rid of all of them except a Color Classic and I find its screen too small to use for Lisp development. Anyone have a Quadra 800 with a 14/15" color monitor they want to get rid of? I would prefer one with an internal CD-ROM drive. Other Macs (maybe the LC475) might be okay too but I'd like one with a 68040 processor. Thanks, David Betz From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Mar 30 08:14:08 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 06:14:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <000f01c653bf$dcbb28f0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> from Jay West at "Mar 30, 6 00:04:52 am" Message-ID: <200603301414.k2UEE8mL015382@floodgap.com> > > Oh, c'mon. When you're out for results (i.e. does this device really work > > the way I think it does?) can you really beat DOS? > > Ok, I admit it. That was an obvious troll :D Tar and feathers!!!! -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Do not use for personal hygiene. -- Actual label, toilet brush ------------- From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Mar 30 08:47:06 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 15:47:06 +0100 Subject: Unisys A google group PLEASE READ In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <442BEF6A.1030606@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: > I don't want this list to become yet-another-Windows-list of course. But > now I am confused as to what is, and is not, on-topic. No, I wouldn't want another Windows list - but nor would I want Windows fans to feel that they had nowhere to ask questions about *old* versions of Windows. I expect the various MS usenet groups are all about new versions and nothing more. (Although Win95 seems to work close enough to newer Windows variants that I'd debate the usefulness of asking anything here!) Jay - would an official policy work along the lines of: "Anything over ten years is on topic, but the mods reserve the right to ask that specific threads be stopped if things are getting out of hand"? That way the odd Windows question gets through OK, but can be knocked on the head after anything more than a handful of replies. (After all, I'm sure there are all plenty of on-topic threads here that people don't read because they're not of personal interest!) cheers Jules From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Mar 30 10:21:53 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 09:21:53 -0700 Subject: ISO: Motorola RGP documentation Message-ID: <442C05A1.8000405@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, This is a LOOONNGG (*very* long!) shot, but does anyone have any information on Motorola's RGP (I think 1980 timeframe)? I can't seem to find my manual anywhere (though there are still boxes hidden for me to dig through -- along with others stored off-site). Thanks! --don From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Thu Mar 30 10:35:30 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 11:35:30 -0500 Subject: Image of MSDOS 6.22, Disk 1 available? Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060330112349.01bfbb38@mail.30below.com> Well, I'm working on reworking my PC setup (it's the only accessible EPROM burner for my old stuff), and I want to set up an MS-DOS (and maybe Win3.11) bootable partition - prolly on a 256Meg USB key, if my BIOS can boot from it. That would give me a nice portable environment for burning EPROMs and the JV CoCo3 emulator w/all my schtuff in one spot. So, whilst drudging 'round my attic, I came across my original Dos6.22 & Win3.11 disks - and yes, they're totally original & legal ;-). I promptly went to make images of them just in case - and my Disk 1 of MS-DOS 6.22 is hosed. Anyone happen to have an image (rawrite/dd is fine) I could 'borrow' via email to reformat that floppy? -- (assuming the media's not damaged - else I'll make a backup floppy and tape it to the original as proof of legal ownership) My other 2 MS-DOS & Win3.11 disks read/imaged fine, so if anyone needs to restore one of their legal copies, I'd be more than happy to provide. ;-) To my knowledge, the request isn't illegal or out-of-line, but if I am, please LART me and ignore the request. ;-) Thanks! Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers zmerch at 30below.com What do you do when Life gives you lemons, and you don't *like* lemonade????????????? From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Thu Mar 30 11:31:40 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 12:31:40 -0500 Subject: Thanks! (was: Image of MSDOS 6.22, Disk 1 available? Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060330122957.056f40a0@wheresmymailserver.com> Thanks to Richard Cini & Bob Lafleur, everything's been taken care of! Thanks again, guys! Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers zmerch at 30below.com What do you do when Life gives you lemons, and you don't *like* lemonade????????????? From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 30 12:16:19 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 11:16:19 -0700 Subject: RA6800ML? In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:33:53 +0200. <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815EC@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Message-ID: In article <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815EC at OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net>, "Gooijen, Henk" writes: > I am 100% sure, that I have that book! If you have the ISBN, try looking for it via a used seller on amazon or ebay. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 30 12:22:43 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 10:22:43 -0800 Subject: Possible job for PDP-11 fan Message-ID: <200603301022430977.14A7DA91@10.0.0.252> We just got a query from a fellow in India who's got a PCB milling machine connected to a PDP 11/53 running Micro RSX. He's got his data on a Seagate ST-251. He wants to convert this setup over to Peecee, migrating the HD data and running an emulator (he mentions ertz-11). He's asking for a quote to do this. Anyone want to take this one on? If so, drop me an email offline. We'd rather not, because of the distance involved and our unfamiliarity with his setup. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Mar 30 14:04:48 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 12:04:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <200603301414.k2UEE8mL015382@floodgap.com> References: <200603301414.k2UEE8mL015382@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <20060330120351.W84107@shell.lmi.net> > > > Oh, c'mon. When you're out for results (i.e. does this device really work > > > the way I think it does?) can you really beat DOS? > > Ok, I admit it. That was an obvious troll :D > On Thu, 30 Mar 2006, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > Tar and feathers!!!! not enough. Dells and Windoze!!!! From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Mar 30 14:08:18 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:08:18 -0600 Subject: Unisys A google group References: <200603301414.k2UEE8mL015382@floodgap.com> <20060330120351.W84107@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <000601c65435$b0586220$6800a8c0@BILLING> Fred wrote... > not enough. > Dells and Windoze!!!! *scurrying off to quickly insert a cruel and unusual punishment clause in the list charter* Jay From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Mar 30 14:10:19 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 12:10:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <20060330120351.W84107@shell.lmi.net> from Fred Cisin at "Mar 30, 6 12:04:48 pm" Message-ID: <200603302010.k2UKAJaM017704@floodgap.com> > > > > the way I think it does?) can you really beat DOS? > > > Ok, I admit it. That was an obvious troll :D > > Tar and feathers!!!! > not enough. > Dells and Windoze!!!! You, sir, are a sadist. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- You can't kill me because I've got magic aaargh. -- Terry Pratchett -------- From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 30 12:29:27 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 19:29:27 +0100 (BST) Subject: 11/45 RTC In-Reply-To: <001e01c65398$092f0a50$6800a8c0@BILLING> from "Jay West" at Mar 29, 6 07:19:47 pm Message-ID: > > Tony wrote... > > If the input signal is noisy, or something like that you might get > > spurious results. > It looked noisy to me! > > > What have you connected the ground lead of your 'scope probe to? > When measuring BUS LTC L at CD1, I used CC2 as my ground reference. Just > before that I put the scope between CC2 and CA2 and got a nice non-ripply Fine. I was just making sure you'd connected it to a logic ground. > +5v trace. I should point out that the ground clip on my probe is a bit > large for clipping to a backplane pin, so I used an alligator to microclip > extension that is about 8 inches long. Surely that wouldn't mess up the > signal that badly. Not a 60Hz signal, no :-) And as you saw it's not even got a fast rise time. [Where LTC L goes on the DL11-W card] > Good idea. The 7414 is at E45, CD1 goes in pin 9 (4a) and out pin 8 (4y). > I'll ground the scope at pin 7 and see how the signal looks. If the issue is Yes, I'll agree with that. > bit 7 in the RTC is not setting (according to the diag), and I get a good > clock out of the schmitt trigger, I assume the next thing to check is the > pin 8 output of the flipflop the trigger drives? That seems to be where bit > 7 comes from. Exactly/ > > > The interurpt logic does not require LTC L to work. > Ok gotcha. I still suspect something with trap/interrupts being broke. But > more on that later :) Good luck if you haev to dive into the arbiter in the processor board set. It's not exactly simple :-). -tony From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Mar 30 14:23:06 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 12:23:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: <200603302010.k2UKAJaM017704@floodgap.com> References: <200603302010.k2UKAJaM017704@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <20060330121821.T84107@shell.lmi.net> > > > > the way I think it does?) can you really beat DOS? > > > > Ok, I admit it. That was an obvious troll :D > > > Tar and feathers!!!! > > not enough. > Dells and Windoze!!!! I was joking. I apologize for my lack of good taste. I have been dealing with college administrators too much lately. (they are discontinuing computer science, and are re-assigning me to be a librarian) -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 30 12:35:02 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 19:35:02 +0100 (BST) Subject: 11/45 RTC In-Reply-To: <03e501c653ac$da13aa40$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> from "Jay West" at Mar 29, 6 09:48:47 pm Message-ID: > > I had written.... > > Good idea. The 7414 is at E45, CD1 goes in pin 9 (4a) and out pin 8 (4y). > > I'll ground the scope at pin 7 and see how the signal looks. If the issue > > is bit 7 in the RTC is not setting (according to the diag), and I get a > > good clock out of the schmitt trigger, I assume the next thing to check is > > the pin 8 output of the flipflop the trigger drives? That seems to be > > where bit 7 comes from. > > On the DL11-W I was using, the BUS LTC L signal can be seen going in pin 9 > of the 7414, but it doesn't come out on pin 8. Problem identified :) I then Well, you've found _a_ problem :-) > tried two other DL11-W cards, and made sure that both of them showed the LTC > in on 9 and out clean on 8. They do. So I ran the DL11-W diag on both these OK, so there's probably nothing wrong with the power supply or power harness, or backplane wiring. The 7414 is a pretty cheap chip, and not hard to find (I think you want to keep the same family as the original here, though -- that is don't use a 74LS14). I would change it on the card where you know there's a problem ansd see what happens. > other cards, and it fails for different reasons.It prints the normal diag > startup message, followed by "01 devices under test" and the cpu halts. I > find it hard to believe both fail the same way, so I suspect something else. Well, I've had multiple indentical devices all fail the same way, and make me look for a fault elsewhere, where it isn;t (if you see what I mean). You haev too many unknowns IMHO. You don't _know_ that any of the boards are working. OK, is the halt a genuine one or not? In other words did it halt on a HALT instruction, or because there's something wrong with the procesor? It's possible there's something seriously wrong with the interrupt arbiter logic, I think... > > Per a suggestion from another listmember, I'm going to remove all the I/O > cards, put dual grants in, and ring out the 4 bus grant lines across the SPC > slots and see if there is a break somewhere. Good idea, although why this would halt the CPU (as oposed to hanging the bus) is another matter. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 30 13:02:54 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 20:02:54 +0100 (BST) Subject: Another Panasonic HHC In-Reply-To: from "David Betz" at Mar 30, 6 08:29:21 am Message-ID: > > > > What sort of EPROMs are used (how big, etc) ? > > > > Two of the EPROMs are marked HN462532G and the other two are marked > 2532JDL-45. I assume they are 32k bits (4k x 8)? Yes, 2532s are 4K*8. They're like 2732s, but with a different pinout. > > > > > > What else is in the unit? My investigations of the logic board > > have shown > > that there are a number of chip select lines brought out on the > > expansion > > connecotr, but there's no sane way to put 4 EPROMs directly on that > > connector. I would guess at least there's a 2-4 line decoder. And > > probably some transsitors to swich the Vcc to the EPROMs to save > > battery > > power (the HHC itself does that trick). These components may well > > be SMD > > on the back side of the board, BTW. > > > > There are four M74LS08P chips on the board with the EPROMs. quad 2-input AND gates. I wonder what they're for? > > There is also another circuit board mounted underneath the one with > the EPROMs that contains lots of other chips: M74LS22P, M74LS08P x 2, > HD14002BP, M74LS00P, M74LS138P, M74LS02P, MC14013B, MC14011B. Ouch! A lot more logic than I was expecting (I was hoping it was just an address decoder mapping the ROMs into one of the gaps in the HHC's memory map). This would appera to be some kind of paging circuit (you've got a couple of D-type flip-flops there that could be used to hold the selected bank number). > > That would be a good idea. In fact, I obviously have a programmer > that can handle the chips since I was able to read their contents. > Anyone know where I can get some HN462532G chips? I _may_ have a couple, I will take a look... -tony From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Mar 30 14:57:05 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:57:05 -0600 Subject: Unisys A google group References: <200603302010.k2UKAJaM017704@floodgap.com> <20060330121821.T84107@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <000c01c6543c$8134cd10$6800a8c0@BILLING> I was joking right along with you Fred, no problem! Jay From dbetz at xlisper.com Thu Mar 30 15:04:50 2006 From: dbetz at xlisper.com (David Betz) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 16:04:50 -0500 Subject: Another Panasonic HHC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> There is also another circuit board mounted underneath the one with >> the EPROMs that contains lots of other chips: M74LS22P, M74LS08P x 2, >> HD14002BP, M74LS00P, M74LS138P, M74LS02P, MC14013B, MC14011B. > > > Ouch! A lot more logic than I was expecting (I was hoping it was > just an > address decoder mapping the ROMs into one of the gaps in the HHC's > memory > map). This would appera to be some kind of paging circuit (you've > got a > couple of D-type flip-flops there that could be used to hold the > selected > bank number). Hmmm... Sounds like that makes it unlikely that it would be possible to just burn the 16k of code into two 8k EPROMs that will fit inside the HHC. I suppose I could find a 6502 disassembler and try to figure out how the code works so that it could be patched to work in ROMS inside the case. Anyone want to recommend a good 6502 disassembler? From henk.gooijen at oce.com Thu Mar 30 15:57:12 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 23:57:12 +0200 Subject: RA6800ML? References: Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C20047@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Perhaps I should not type this message, and go to bed instead ... I am not going to sell my book, if that is what you suggest, Richard. I can scan or make a paper copy, but I will keep the original book. goodnight, - Henk. ________________________________ Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Richard Verzonden: do 30-03-2006 20:16 Aan: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Onderwerp: Re: RA6800ML? In article <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815EC at OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net>, "Gooijen, Henk" writes: > I am 100% sure, that I have that book! If you have the ISBN, try looking for it via a used seller on amazon or ebay. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 30 16:22:30 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 15:22:30 -0700 Subject: RA6800ML? In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 30 Mar 2006 23:57:12 +0200. <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C20047@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Message-ID: In article <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C20047 at OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net>, "Gooijen, Henk" writes: > Perhaps I should not type this message, and go to bed instead ... > I am not going to sell my book, if that is what you suggest, Richard. > I can scan or make a paper copy, but I will keep the original book. Sorry, I should have been more explicit... I meant that if the original poster who is looking for the book has an ISBN then they could find it through the Usual Suspects. Henk, I thought you said you didn't want to copy/scan it since that would impose heavy wear on the spine? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Mar 30 16:41:00 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 23:41:00 +0100 (BST) Subject: Another Panasonic HHC In-Reply-To: from "David Betz" at Mar 30, 6 04:04:50 pm Message-ID: > > >> There is also another circuit board mounted underneath the one with > >> the EPROMs that contains lots of other chips: M74LS22P, M74LS08P x 2, > >> HD14002BP, M74LS00P, M74LS138P, M74LS02P, MC14013B, MC14011B. > > > > > > Ouch! A lot more logic than I was expecting (I was hoping it was > > just an > > address decoder mapping the ROMs into one of the gaps in the HHC's > > memory > > map). This would appera to be some kind of paging circuit (you've > > got a > > couple of D-type flip-flops there that could be used to hold the > > selected > > bank number). > > Hmmm... Sounds like that makes it unlikely that it would be possible > to just burn the 16k of code into two 8k EPROMs that will fit inside > the HHC. I suppose I could find a 6502 disassembler and try to figure Well, the internal ROMs -- the user-installable ROMs -- are bank-switched too, I think. There are 3 outputs from the I/O controller (custom chip). One of them selects between {a} all acessses to a particular area going to the I/O devices and {b} write accesses going to the I/O stuff and reads going to the ROMs. The other 2 lines are decoded by half a '139 to select between the ROMs (3 internal sockets, one signal on the expansion connector for one (or is it several, with external bank select logic) ROM in an add-on unit. But I would be suprised if the SNAP development ROMs would work without changes in the internal sockets. Also on the HHC, I've discovered that the display really is 159 columns of dots. There are 4 driver chips, each of them can drive 40 columns. The 160th 'column' is the 8 annunciators across the bottom of the display. > out how the code works so that it could be patched to work in ROMS > inside the case. Anyone want to recommend a good 6502 disassembler? The 6502 instruction set is so small that it's easy to write a disassembler... > -tony From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Thu Mar 30 16:56:39 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 16:56:39 Subject: Is this blue disk cabinet an IBM? In-Reply-To: <7C014E2B-3469-4241-8AEE-8FB590EFF860@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060330165639.3f4f73ec@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 06:34 PM 3/28/06 -0800, Al wrote: >Billy P. would know for sure, but it looks like a CDC Hawk (5440-ish >10mb drive) >to me. > I think you're right. The color doesn't look quite right for IBM but it looks close to what Intel used to use. It MAY be a hard drive for an early Intel system. There's been quite a bit of Intel MDS stuff on there lately. Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Thu Mar 30 17:24:40 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 17:24:40 Subject: Tektronix catalogs? Have 1982, 1985 want > 1985 In-Reply-To: References: <"29 Mar 2006 21:46:05 -0800." Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060330172440.3f4f12a8@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 11:12 PM 3/29/06 -0700, Richard wrote: > However, now I'm venturing out into territory that >isn't so well documented in the regular places, so I'm on the lookout >for any documentation related to the Tektronix terminals and/or >development systems. If you can tell me SPECIFICLY what you're looking for I may be able to find it. I have a friend that has a MASSIVE collection of Tektronix catalogs and manuals. BTW we just recently went through his warehouse and rounded up all the Tektronix development stuff that we could find. We ended up with 2 plus pallets of them. I'd say 12 to 14 systems. FWIW there's a guy (in the UK IIRC) that has a website of terminal manuals. I send him my Tektronix terminal manual and he's supposed to have scanned it and added it to his website. Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Thu Mar 30 17:28:50 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 17:28:50 Subject: RA6800ML? In-Reply-To: References: <"30 Mar 2006 14:33:53 +0200." <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815EC@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060330172850.3f4f1272@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 11:16 AM 3/30/06 -0700, you wrote: > >In article <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815EC at OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net>, > "Gooijen, Henk" writes: > >> I am 100% sure, that I have that book! > >If you have the ISBN, try looking for it via a used seller on amazon >or ebay. >-- Better yet, check for it on ABEBOOKS.COM. It checks a LOT more dealers. You don't need the ISBN just the title, author or subject. Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Thu Mar 30 17:15:47 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 17:15:47 Subject: Tektronix catalogs? Have 1982, 1985 want > 1985 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060330171547.3f4f151a@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 01:49 PM 3/29/06 -0700, you wrote: >The Boat Anchor Manual Archive has the Tektronix catalogs for 1982 and 1985. > >Does anyone know of online copies of the catalog for other years? > >Barring an online copy, does anyone have catalogs after 1985? > >I'm trying to track down size/weight information on the following >items: > > PEP301 System Control (may not be Tektronix) > HC01 Video/Copier Printer (may not be Tektronix) Can't help with the HC10 but I have a HC100 sitting about two feet from me. Joe > > 9200T Color Display Terminal > 9201T Color Display Terminal > 9219 Logic Analyzer > 9219T Logic Analyzer > 9220 Logic Analyzer > 9221 Logic Analyzer > 9229 Logic Analyzer > >If anyone can lookup the size (width, height, depth) and weight of >those items in their catalog and email them to me, it would be greatly >appreciated! >-- >"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Thu Mar 30 17:05:06 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 17:05:06 Subject: Is this blue disk cabinet an IBM? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060330170506.401fad12@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Use this URL, , instead. The last two links below are not for this auction but are something unrelated. The forth picture in the link that I have shows that this is a top loading disk drive. FWIW these are located in Jacksonville Fla. Joe At 04:32 PM 3/28/06 -0700, you wrote: > >It looks IBM blue :-). The description is the typical non-descriptive >description I've come to expect from govliquidation: >"LOT (11)LDV DISK STORAGE RACKS, IN WOODEN CRATES" > > > > > >-- >"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > > From Useddec at aol.com Thu Mar 30 17:10:06 2006 From: Useddec at aol.com (Useddec at aol.com) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 18:10:06 EST Subject: Tektronix catalogs? Have 1982, 1985 want > 1985 Message-ID: <21f.a5335e2.315dbf4e@aol.com> Hi, I have 82,83,85,86,87, and 88. Maybe more. What do you need? Can I give you specs over the phone? Thanks, Paul From legalize at xmission.com Thu Mar 30 17:44:32 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 16:44:32 -0700 Subject: Tektronix catalogs? Have 1982, 1985 want > 1985 In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 30 Mar 2006 18:10:06 -0500. <21f.a5335e2.315dbf4e@aol.com> Message-ID: Thanks for the offers guys, I got the specific information I needed in order to get an accurate shipping quote :-). I purchased a lot of 18 Tektronix color graphics terminals (and one weird unknown-as-yet-to-me box identified as "PEP301 16MHz SYSTEM CONTROL"). The terminal models are 4105A, 9200T, and 9201T. As near as I can tell the 9200T and 9201T are color terminals configured for the logic 92xx series logic analyzer products. They may be 4105A's with just a different label/ROM or something, I'm not sure yet. I'm looking for manuals for these units: - 4105A Color Graphics Terminal - 9200T Color Terminal - 9201T Color Terminal - PEP301 16 MHz System Control The latter appears to be some sort of GPIB controller for test instruments. I suspect the 9200T/9201T manuals are buried in with the 92xx Logic Analyzer docs. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Mar 30 19:09:18 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 19:09:18 -0600 Subject: More 11/45 References: Message-ID: <009b01c6545f$bcab7f60$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Tony wrote.... > The 7414 is a pretty cheap chip, and not hard to find (I think you want > to keep the same family as the original here, though -- that is don't use > a 74LS14). I would change it on the card where you know there's a problem > ansd see what happens. Did that today. LTC is going through the schmitt trigger just fine. The diag no longer fails on "bit 7 stuck in LTC". Instead, it now locks up at the same spot in the DL11-W diag as the other two DL11-W cards. Right after "01 devices under test", the machine just halts with the cursor still at the end of that line. > You haev too many unknowns IMHO. You don't _know_ that any of the boards > are working. Agreed. > OK, is the halt a genuine one or not? In other words did it halt on a > HALT instruction, or because there's something wrong with the procesor? > It's possible there's something seriously wrong with the interrupt > arbiter logic, I think... Greaaaat :\ Here's where I'm trying to start. I was looking at some of the code on this website, hints for troubleshooting a dead PDP11. It's at: http://www.psych.usyd.edu.au/pdp-11/hints.html I enter and run the Line Time Clock Interrupt test from that webpage, and the system halts at location 4. How on earth? Does the 11/45 have some interrupts to specific locations for things like power fail or something? Should a unexpected trap to location 4 mean something special to me? Here is the section from that website reproduced below: ------- Line Time Clock Interrupt Test Most of the older PDP11's had a line time clock that would interrupt at mains frequency (50 or 60Hz). On early LSI-11's, it was not programmable but enabled by a switch on the front panel. Load the following program (which is just a trap catcher and interrupt enable), and start. If an early LSI-11's, substitute 000240 for the lines marked #, run the program for a second or two, then enable the clock. The program should halt at address 104 (the interrupt vector address is 100, and the vector is loaded with 102, which then executes a halt at 102, the PC will then be 104). Location Contents Opcode Comment 001000 012706 mov #770,sp set the stack pointer 001002 000770 001004 005000 clr r0 memory pointer 001006 012701 mov #2,r1 trap value 001010 000002 001012 010120 loop: mov r1,(r0)+ set trap vector value 001014 005020 clr (r0)+ set halt instruction in trap 001016 062701 add #4,r1 update r1 for next trap 001020 000004 001022 020600 cmp sp,r0 load up to stack pointer 001024 001372 bne loop # 001026 012737 mov #100,@#ltc enable clock interrupt # 001030 000100 # 001032 177546 001034 000777 br . loop for ever If the processor doesn't halt, then your clock isn't running. If it halts at 6, then the clock register is missing. ---------- I also wanted to run the trap catcher program from that website to help test software traps & interrupts. However, I don't understand part of what they say to do. I can certainly enter the program, but then they say to deposit 777 into loc 1000. That would overwrite the first word of the program. Not sure what they want done there or I'd run that to see what it comes up with. Any thoughts? Jay West From rpost4 at cfl.rr.com Thu Mar 30 19:22:22 2006 From: rpost4 at cfl.rr.com (rpost) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 20:22:22 -0500 Subject: Eletronics Learning Lab In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000601c65461$8fcd86d0$03fea8c0@HP53975803189> Thanks for trying my kit just happens to have all the original pieces in their original box with a complete parts list if any body needs it. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 5:16 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Eletronics Learning Lab On 3/28/06, rpost wrote: > I recently saw a thread posted on the parts list for the Radio Shack model > 28-280 kit does any one have the manual for it my son would be extremely > appreciative. Allen Radio Shack does not make their Electronic Kit manuals available electronically, and my paper copy is thouands of miles away (I do not have any sort of scan, just paper) -ethan From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Mar 30 19:29:30 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 19:29:30 -0600 Subject: 11/45 printsets? Message-ID: <00bb01c65462$8efc37a0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I want to trace out the bus grant signals on my /45 to make sure there's not a break somewhere. However, I don't see the backplane printsets on bitsavers. I could start at the first unibus slot in the system backplane and check BG4 through BG7. However, I'd rather start at wherever those 4 signals actually originate. It's pretty hard to identify visually what pins and where, so I wanted to check the prints. Then I can check from where BG4-7 orignate to the end of the bus and make sure I have continuity. Can some one point me in the right direction? Jay West From Useddec at aol.com Thu Mar 30 20:19:15 2006 From: Useddec at aol.com (Useddec at aol.com) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 21:19:15 EST Subject: 11/45 printsets? Message-ID: <2d5.607096f.315deba3@aol.com> Hi Jay, I think I have a set I could loan you, but weren't there two different models? A "B" and a "C" I think. I don't type well, But I'm willing to give you phone support on my dime. Thanks, Paul From geneb at simpits.com Thu Mar 30 21:45:15 2006 From: geneb at simpits.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 19:45:15 -0800 Subject: RA6800ML? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060330172850.3f4f1272@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <"30 Mar 2006 14:33:53 +0200." <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815EC@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <3.0.6.16.20060330172850.3f4f1272@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <1143776715.7779.0.camel@sidewinder.deltasoft.com> > Better yet, check for it on ABEBOOKS.COM. It checks a LOT more dealers. > You don't need the ISBN just the title, author or subject. > Dammit Joe. I just spent $50 for a bunch of David Ahl books. I'm telling my wife it's your fault. :) g. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Mar 30 22:39:31 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 23:39:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Another Panasonic HHC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603310447.XAA29996@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > I suppose I could find a 6502 disassembler and try to figure out how > the code works so that it could be patched to work in ROMS inside the > case. Anyone want to recommend a good 6502 disassembler? Well, I wrote a disassembler which is specifically designed for humans to pick apart code and figure out what it does and/or how it does it. While it doesn't support the 6502 per se, it does support a chip called the G65SC802, which is a slight superset of the 6502; it also supports the Tempest video game, which is actually two CPUs, one of them a vanilla 6502 and the other the Atari vector graphics engine. Taking the latter and ripping out (or just not using) the vector engine support would leave you with a 6502 disassembler. See ftp.rodents.montreal.qc.ca:/mouse/disas/src/ if you're interested. /~\ 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 drb at msu.edu Thu Mar 30 23:06:05 2006 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 00:06:05 -0500 Subject: speaking of Televideo In-Reply-To: (Your message of Wed, 29 Mar 2006 15:36:35 EST.) References: Message-ID: <200603310506.k2V565pC002821@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > I have 925 manual(s) and control code info somewhere. I'll try to > get them typed in. This trip into the attic was well worthwhile. I found several things, include my Yarmish&Yarmish 370 assembler book, and my Baase Vax assembler book. I also found the old Prime PL/P manual, the MTS sysprog and operator docs, etc. Cool! But, for this thread, the useful info is the Esprit 6310 and Televideo 925 manuals. I've scanned these, and they are available as PDF and zipped TIFFs, at: http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/tvi925_ig.pdf http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/tvi925_ig.zip http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/esprit6310.pdf http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/esprit6310.zip http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/esprit6310errata.pdf http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/esprit6310errata.zip I did the 6310 stuff because the terminal emulated, among other things, the 925, and the manual has some control code info which might prove useful. Esprit was the name later used by Hazeltine. (I suppose they had to escape from the legacy of a name associated with using a printing character as a control code. :>) Al Kossow, if you're listening: these are available for your archive if you want them. They were built using tumble; the TIFF files were generated using a Canon iR copier and OmniPage Pro 10. (Did I mention I'm a non-Windows guy? Grrr.) Unfortunately, the combination doesn't seem to be able to do anything but 300 dpi. Hope all of this does someone some good. De From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Mar 31 00:16:10 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 18:16:10 +1200 Subject: More 11/45 In-Reply-To: <009b01c6545f$bcab7f60$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <009b01c6545f$bcab7f60$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: On 3/31/06, Jay West wrote: > Here's where I'm trying to start. I was looking at some of the code on this > website, hints for troubleshooting a dead PDP11. It's at: > http://www.psych.usyd.edu.au/pdp-11/hints.html > > I enter and run the Line Time Clock Interrupt test from that webpage, and > the system halts at location 4. How on earth? Does the 11/45 have some > interrupts to specific locations for things like power fail or something? > Should a unexpected trap to location 4 mean something special to me? Here is > the section from that website reproduced below: Yes... the lowest trap vectors on _all_ PDP-11s are fixed and mean something special when you hit them. I don't have a reference right in front of me (should be in all of the small computer handbooks), but on a different spot on that page, it mentions this... Location Contents Opcode Comment 000004 000006 Bus Error trap 000006 000000 halt 000010 000012 Reserved instruction trap 000012 000000 halt 000024 000026 Power fail trap 000026 000000 halt ... so if you really are halting at 000004, sounds like a bus error. Perhaps the code you toggled in can't find an I/O register it's expecting. -ethan From henk.gooijen at oce.com Fri Mar 31 00:23:31 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 08:23:31 +0200 Subject: RA6800ML? Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815F0@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Correct, I prefer to keep my books in good shape. But keeping a book on the shelf is not why they are printed. So, if I can be of help, the book will be *used* instead of just collecting dust. - Henk. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Richard > Sent: vrijdag 31 maart 2006 0:23 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: RA6800ML? > > > In article > <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C20047 at OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo. oce.net>, > "Gooijen, Henk" writes: > > > Perhaps I should not type this message, and go to bed instead ... > > I am not going to sell my book, if that is what you > suggest, Richard. > > I can scan or make a paper copy, but I will keep the original book. > > Sorry, I should have been more explicit... I meant that if > the original poster who is looking for the book has an ISBN > then they could find it through the Usual Suspects. > > Henk, I thought you said you didn't want to copy/scan it > since that would impose heavy wear on the spine? > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: > > Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty > > > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From holger.veit at ais.fraunhofer.de Fri Mar 31 01:21:38 2006 From: holger.veit at ais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 09:21:38 +0200 Subject: RA6800ML Message-ID: <442CD882.9050609@ais.fraunhofer.de> Richard wrote: >In article <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C20047 at OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net>, > "Gooijen, Henk" writes: > >> Perhaps I should not type this message, and go to bed instead ... >> I am not going to sell my book, if that is what you suggest, Richard. >> I can scan or make a paper copy, but I will keep the original book. > >Sorry, I should have been more explicit... I meant that if the >original poster who is looking for the book has an ISBN then they >could find it through the Usual Suspects. The ISBN is available through the usual suspects - simply lookup at Amazon, but I wrote I haven't seen it pop up for used-sale for a while. I also do not expect Henk to sell it to me, BTW; copies or scans would be perfect for me. >Henk, I thought you said you didn't want to copy/scan it since that >would impose heavy wear on the spine? Now, I remember these paperbooks were not too thick (I once had Emmerichs Tiny Assembler and MONDEB from that class - unfortunately got lost - TinyAsm at least can be copied from old 1977 Byte issues), so I'am not sure whether it will wear out more than by simply reading the book. Unless you have a multi-page scanner where you'd have to destroy the spine. Regards Holger From pete at dunnington.plus.com Fri Mar 31 01:21:48 2006 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 08:21:48 +0100 (BST) Subject: More 11/45 In-Reply-To: "Ethan Dicks" "Re: More 11/45" (Mar 31, 18:16) References: <009b01c6545f$bcab7f60$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <10603310821.ZM22476@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> On Mar 31 2006, 18:16, Ethan Dicks wrote: > Yes... the lowest trap vectors on _all_ PDP-11s are fixed and mean > something special when you hit them. I don't have a reference right > in front of me (should be in all of the small computer handbooks), but > on a different spot on that page, it mentions this... > > Location Contents Opcode Comment > > 000004 000006 Bus Error trap > 000006 000000 halt > 000010 000012 Reserved instruction trap > 000012 000000 halt > 000024 000026 Power fail trap > 000026 000000 halt > > ... so if you really are halting at 000004, sounds like a bus error. > Perhaps the code you toggled in can't find an I/O register it's > expecting. No, if you have set up the standard trap catcher, and you halt at 4, it loaded the vector from 0, executed the HALT instruction at 2, and the PC contains 4 by the time it stops or returns to ODT. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.plus.com Fri Mar 31 01:30:43 2006 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 08:30:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: More 11/45 In-Reply-To: "Jay West" "More 11/45" (Mar 30, 19:09) References: <009b01c6545f$bcab7f60$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <10603310830.ZM22482@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> On Mar 30 2006, 19:09, Jay West wrote: > I enter and run the Line Time Clock Interrupt test from that webpage, and > the system halts at location 4. How on earth? Does the 11/45 have some > interrupts to specific locations for things like power fail or something? > Should a unexpected trap to location 4 mean something special to me? You mean the PC contains 4 when it halts? The LTC interrupt test you ran sets each of the vectors in low memory to contain two words: when the processor uses the vector, the first word is loaded into the PC. The LTC test fills each vector with a pointer to the second word of the vector, and put a halt instruction in the second word, so the reason your PC contains 4 when it halts is that it tried to use the vector at zero. The PC gets loaded with 000002 from location zero, and the processor executes the HALT instruction at 000002. By the time you see it, the PC has been autoincrememnted and contains 000004. > I also wanted to run the trap catcher program from that website to help test > software traps & interrupts. However, I don't understand part of what they > say to do. I can certainly enter the program, but then they say to deposit > 777 into loc 1000. That would overwrite the first word of the program. Not > sure what they want done there or I'd run that to see what it comes up with. Standard stuff. You're supposed to enter _and_execute_ the little program that fills memory with zeros -- that fills the vectors like the LTC test. After it's run, the vectors are set up, and *then* you replace the first instruction, at 001000, with 000777, which is a branch-to-self instruction. When you run *that* the processor will run in a tight loop until an interrupt or trap makes it jump through one of the vectors. If you use the first, shorter program, all the vectors contain 000000, and 000000 contains a halt instruction, so the branch-to-self halts at 000000 (so the PC will contain 000002) when it gets any interrupt or trap. If you use the second test instead of the first, each vector contains a pointer to its own second word, so it halts with the PC pointing to 4+the vector it used. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From henk.gooijen at oce.com Fri Mar 31 01:42:29 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 09:42:29 +0200 Subject: RA6800ML Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815F3@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> I will look at what Byte Paperbacks I have. They are all about the 6800 (or perhaps more general: Motorola processors). I never quite liked the Intel stuff, but that is an other topic :-) I will probably make scans (next week) of the books I find in the attic (this weekend), so I will post a list. RA6800ML will be first, but if there is interest for some others, I will scan them in order of # requests. As a packratt I will indeed not sell books, except the case where I have more than one copy. "VAX Architecture" or something like it comes to mind ... - Henk. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Holger Veit > Sent: vrijdag 31 maart 2006 9:22 > To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: RA6800ML > > Richard wrote: > >In article <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C20047 at > OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net>, > > "Gooijen, Henk" writes: > > > >> Perhaps I should not type this message, and go to bed instead ... > >> I am not going to sell my book, if that is what you > >> suggest, Richard. > >> I can scan or make a paper copy, but I will keep the > >> original book. > > > >Sorry, I should have been more explicit... I meant that if > the >original poster who is looking for the book has an ISBN > then they >could find it through the Usual Suspects. > > The ISBN is available through the usual suspects - simply > lookup at Amazon, but I wrote I haven't seen it pop up for > used-sale for a while. I also do not expect Henk to sell it > to me, BTW; copies or scans would be perfect for me. > > >Henk, I thought you said you didn't want to copy/scan it > since that >would impose heavy wear on the spine? > > Now, I remember these paperbooks were not too thick (I once > had Emmerichs Tiny Assembler and MONDEB from that class - > unfortunately got lost - TinyAsm at least can be copied from > old 1977 Byte issues), so I'am not sure whether it will wear > out more than by simply reading the book. Unless you have a > multi-page scanner where you'd have to destroy the spine. > > Regards > Holger > > > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From pete at dunnington.plus.com Fri Mar 31 01:53:45 2006 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 08:53:45 +0100 (BST) Subject: More 11/45 In-Reply-To: "Jay West" "More 11/45" (Mar 30, 19:09) References: <009b01c6545f$bcab7f60$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <10603310853.ZM22535@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> On Mar 30 2006, 19:09, Jay West wrote: > I enter and run the Line Time Clock Interrupt test from that webpage, and > the system halts at location 4. How on earth? Does the 11/45 have some > interrupts to specific locations for things like power fail or something? > Should a unexpected trap to location 4 mean something special to me? I just had another thought. Standard traps for errors and software traps start at 4, and zero is reserved. Normal interrupt vectors for hardware devices use the area from 100 up to 400. 000000 is reserved, so if anything uses that as a vector, it's because you have some hardware fault. My guess would be something along the lines of a hardware device generating an interrupt, but apparently giving 000000 as a vector instead of the true value intended. Unlikely all three of your LTCs would do the same thing. Could be the CPU reading zeros due to a fault in the interrupt logic, as Tony suggested. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Mar 31 03:56:48 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 21:56:48 +1200 Subject: More 11/45 In-Reply-To: <10603310821.ZM22476@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> References: <009b01c6545f$bcab7f60$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <10603310821.ZM22476@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: On 3/31/06, Pete Turnbull wrote: > On Mar 31 2006, 18:16, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > ... so if you really are halting at 000004, sounds like a bus error. > > Perhaps the code you toggled in can't find an I/O register it's > > expecting. > > No, if you have set up the standard trap catcher, and you halt at 4, it > loaded the vector from 0, executed the HALT instruction at 2, and the > PC contains 4 by the time it stops or returns to ODT. Ah... my mistake... it's been about 20 years since I had to do any interrupt coding on the -11. -ethan From vax9000 at gmail.com Fri Mar 31 07:50:03 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 08:50:03 -0500 Subject: Fwd: [LV] VAX 4000/500A System In-Reply-To: <400D54FDF821BD4F8D1526E6E831A584120CF5@LEXMAIL01.hst.stoneridge.com> References: <400D54FDF821BD4F8D1526E6E831A584120CF5@LEXMAIL01.hst.stoneridge.com> Message-ID: I forward this email from the linux-vax mailing list. The machine is still available waiting to be picked up. It is in Lexington, Ohio, USA. Please contack Tom directly. Thank you. vax, 9000 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ruckman, Thomas Date: Mar 9, 2006 8:33 AM Subject: [LV] VAX 4000/500A System To: linux-vax at pergamentum.com We have a VAX 4000/500A we have just decommissioned. We are now looking for someone to take it off our hands. Would you be interested? Tom Ruckman Systems Administrator Stoneridge, Inc. Hi-Stat Lexington Div. Phone: 419-884-4126 E-mail: thomas.ruckman at hst.stoneridge.com ------------------------------ This electronic mail transmission contains confidential information intended only for the person(s) named. Any use, distribution, copying or disclosure by any other person is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please send an electronic mail message to postmaster at hst.stoneridge.com. _______________________________________________ Linux-Vax mailing list Linux-Vax at pergamentum.com http://www.pergamentum.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-vax From vax9000 at gmail.com Fri Mar 31 07:54:02 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 08:54:02 -0500 Subject: [LV] VAX 4000/500A System(free to pick up at Ohio, US) Message-ID: On 3/31/06, 9000 VAX wrote: > > I forward this email from the linux-vax mailing list. The machine is still > available waiting to be picked up. It is in Lexington, Ohio, USA. Please > contack Tom directly. Thank you. > > vax, 9000 > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Ruckman, Thomas > Date: Mar 9, 2006 8:33 AM > Subject: [LV] VAX 4000/500A System > To: linux-vax at pergamentum.com > > We have a VAX 4000/500A we have just decommissioned. We are now looking > for someone to take it off our hands. Would you be interested? > > > > Tom Ruckman > > Systems Administrator > > Stoneridge, Inc. Hi-Stat Lexington Div. > > Phone: 419-884-4126 > > E-mail: thomas.ruckman at hst.stoneridge.com > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > This electronic mail transmission contains confidential information > intended only for the person(s) named. Any use, distribution, copying or > disclosure by any other person is strictly prohibited. If you received this > transmission in error, please send an electronic mail message to > postmaster at hst.stoneridge.com. > > _______________________________________________ > Linux-Vax mailing list > Linux-Vax at pergamentum.com > http://www.pergamentum.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-vax > > > From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 31 08:53:43 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 07:53:43 -0700 Subject: Another Panasonic HHC In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 30 Mar 2006 23:39:31 -0500. <200603310447.XAA29996@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: In article <200603310447.XAA29996 at Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>, der Mouse writes: > Well, I wrote a disassembler which is specifically designed for humans > to pick apart code and figure out what it does and/or how it does it. What does it do besides disassembling that helps humans figure out the code? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From legalize at xmission.com Fri Mar 31 08:57:04 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 07:57:04 -0700 Subject: speaking of Televideo In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 31 Mar 2006 00:06:05 -0500. <200603310506.k2V565pC002821@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: In article <200603310506.k2V565pC002821 at yagi.h-net.msu.edu>, Dennis Boone writes: > But, for this thread, the useful info is the Esprit 6310 and Televideo > 925 manuals. [...] Sweet, thanks! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From lbickley at bickleywest.com Fri Mar 31 09:08:12 2006 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 07:08:12 -0800 Subject: speaking of Televideo In-Reply-To: <200603310506.k2V565pC002821@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <200603310506.k2V565pC002821@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <200603310708.12798.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Thursday 30 March 2006 21:06, Dennis Boone wrote: --snip-- > But, for this thread, the useful info is the Esprit 6310 and Televideo > 925 manuals. I've scanned these, and they are available as PDF and > zipped TIFFs, at: > > http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/tvi925_ig.pdf > http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/tvi925_ig.zip > > http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/esprit6310.pdf > http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/esprit6310.zip > > http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/esprit6310errata.pdf > http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/esprit6310errata.zip --snip-- THANKS! Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From sb at thebackend.de Fri Mar 31 09:23:44 2006 From: sb at thebackend.de (=?ISO-8859-15?Q?Sebastian_Br=FCckner?=) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 17:23:44 +0200 Subject: PDP-11/03 + VTserver? Message-ID: <442D4980.1020800@thebackend.de> Hi! Since I had to leave my 8/L behind for the next couple months I got myself a smaller toy for the meantime. It's a PDP-11/03 with LSI-11/2 CPU, 32k MOS memory and a DLV11-J serial interface card. It also had an EPROM-board and an unknown interface card (40-pin connector) by a company called "sprecher + schuh" but I removed those till I figure out what exactly they do. Some TU58 tapes came with the machine so I guess the EPROMs only contain some kind of bootloader and the main program came from the tape. I don't have the tape drive though. I made some adapter cables for the DLV11 and can talk to the ODT and execute small programs. To try something bigger I guess I can use VTserver. I don't have any tape-images to use with VTserver though. I found hints on the net saying it is possible to create xxdp and RT-11 tape images using simh or E11 or something like that. I didn't manage to do that myself though. I can boot both systems on the emulator but E11 crashes whenever I try to access the emulated DECtape II and simh doesn't seem to support it at all... Is there an idiot proof howto somewhere on the net that I missed? Could someone maybe send me some images to try? Is this the way to go at all or is there a better alternative to get software into the PDP? thanks in advance, Sebastian From frustum at pacbell.net Fri Mar 31 09:58:03 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 09:58:03 -0600 Subject: old HP manuals + HP Journal Message-ID: <442D518B.6030601@pacbell.net> Every once in a while someone on this list will ask about manuals for some piece of vintage test equipment that they picked up for working on their vintage computer. I was looking for a manual for an HP 6284A power supply and found this ftp drop on agilent's site: ftp://ftp.agilent.com/pub/manuals There was no 6284 manual there, but there was one the 1630 logic analyzer, and of course lots of other HP equipment. The web page leading to this ftp site has an impossibly long URL, so I won't try to quote it, but the page does say: (quote) Help us share old manuals! If you have an electronic copy of an old HP or Agilent manual, we'd like to share it with your test colleagues. Send a brief email letting us know what you have, and we will contact you about receiving the file. I have a manual to share (manuals at agilent.com) (end of quote) I think it is great that they want to collect the old manuals (too bad they won't scan them themselves though). If you happen to have any scanned HP test equipment manuals, why not mail it to them to help build the archive? There is also a subdirectory of HP Journals, althoug there are only a dozen or so issues. I'd imagine they'd post copies of any issues sent to them as well. ftp://ftp.agilent.com/pub/manuals/HPJournal From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Mar 31 11:21:30 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 09:21:30 -0800 Subject: old HP manuals + HP Journal Message-ID: I think it is great that they want to collect the old manuals (too bad they won't scan them themselves though). -- It takes a significant amount of work to do a good job of scanning and post-processing an HP manual. Many of the schematic sheets are extended length (>17" long) I wonder what happened to all of the content they took down several years ago (things that included mid-90's test gear like the 16500C) FYI, I took a look at the 1630 manual, and it was recovered from microfiche. I should bug someone I know about getting a paper copy to scan. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Mar 31 12:47:48 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 11:47:48 -0700 Subject: RA6800ML In-Reply-To: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815F3@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> References: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066815F3@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Message-ID: <442D7954.9060803@jetnet.ab.ca> Trimmed reply > I will look at what Byte Paperbacks I have. They are all about > the 6800 (or perhaps more general: Motorola processors). I never > quite liked the Intel stuff, but that is an other topic :-) > I will probably make scans (next week) of the books I find in > the attic (this weekend), so I will post a list. > RA6800ML will be first, but if there is interest for some others, > I will scan them in order of # requests. > As a packratt I will indeed not sell books, except the case where > I have more than one copy. "VAX Architecture" or something like it > comes to mind ... >>Now, I remember these paperbooks were not too thick (I once >>had Emmerichs Tiny Assembler and MONDEB from that class - >>unfortunately got lost - TinyAsm at least can be copied from >>old 1977 Byte issues), so I'am not sure whether it will wear >>out more than by simply reading the book. Unless you have a >>multi-page scanner where you'd have to destroy the spine. Hey I want them for general reading. How many people still have old Bytes in the local libraries? I liked the tiny assembler because if I remember right you had structured code to save on program lables. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Mar 31 12:34:22 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 13:34:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: Another Panasonic HHC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200603311849.NAA14165@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> Well, I wrote a disassembler which is specifically designed for >> humans to pick apart code and figure out what it does and/or how it >> does it. > What does it do besides disassembling that helps humans figure out > the code? It lets the human driving it interactively mark things as "instruction", "8-byte number", "character string", "pointer to memory location", etc. The user can also define symbols (which appear in the targets of jumps and branches when appropriate), add comments, and suchlike. As an exmaple of the sort of thing it can produce, see http://216.46.5.1:18804/, which is a text save straight from the disassembler. /~\ 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 Fri Mar 31 13:04:32 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 11:04:32 -0800 Subject: Another Panasonic HHC In-Reply-To: <200603311849.NAA14165@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200603311849.NAA14165@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200603311104320574.19F47A6F@10.0.0.252> In my experience, one of the best multi-platform disassemblers around is IDA Pro: http://www.datarescue.com/idabase/gallery/6502.htm It's not free, but what's your time worth? Cheers, Chuck From holger.veit at ais.fraunhofer.de Fri Mar 31 13:30:54 2006 From: holger.veit at ais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 21:30:54 +0200 Subject: RA6800ML Message-ID: <442D836E.3080307@ais.fraunhofer.de> >>>/Now, I remember these paperbooks were not too thick (I once />>>/had Emmerichs Tiny Assembler and MONDEB from that class - />>>/unfortunately got lost - TinyAsm at least can be copied from />>>/old 1977 Byte issues), so I'am not sure whether it will wear />>>/out more than by simply reading the book. Unless you have a />>>/multi-page scanner where you'd have to destroy the spine. /> > >Hey I want them for general reading. How many people still >have old Bytes in the local libraries? I liked the tiny assembler >because if I remember right you had structured code to save on >program lables. Hi, the library of our research institute has copies from at least 1/1977 completely in the shelves (they say 1/76 but looking there, the first ones were missing). At least the three articles of the TinyAsm are there, and I could make scans of them on demand. You can find an index of Byte at http://www.devili.iki.fi/library/publication/10.en.html so if you have specific articles (limited!) you're interested in I could pdf them. I won't scan everything due to lack of time, and I won't make them publicly due to copyright concerns, but we could talk about few articles. Yes, the tiny assmebler was rather structured, a nice example how to write good assembler code. Unfortunately, the Byte articles only has a hex dump - the paperbyte book had a commented disassembly, but I lost that eventually :-( Regards Holger From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Mar 31 14:57:23 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 15:57:23 -0500 Subject: Another Panasonic HHC In-Reply-To: <200603311849.NAA14165@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200603311849.NAA14165@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200603311557.23686.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 31 March 2006 01:34 pm, der Mouse wrote: > >> Well, I wrote a disassembler which is specifically designed for > >> humans to pick apart code and figure out what it does and/or how it > >> does it. > > > > What does it do besides disassembling that helps humans figure out > > the code? > > It lets the human driving it interactively mark things as > "instruction", "8-byte number", "character string", "pointer to memory > location", etc. The user can also define symbols (which appear in the > targets of jumps and branches when appropriate), add comments, and > suchlike. As an exmaple of the sort of thing it can produce, see > http://216.46.5.1:18804/, which is a text save straight from the > disassembler. I used to use a product called "Dazzlestar" (named such because it used a wordstar-like command key structure) under CP/M, which was pretty nice, but was also usually pretty memory-limited for anything nontrivial in size. Then there was another disassembler that I used too that I can't remember the name of that would do a pretty good job of automatically parsing code and data areas, you still had to make corrections but it did a lot of the work for you. I sure wouldn't mind finding something of the sort that would run under linux with various target processors, for picking apart code... Anybody know of something like that? -- 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 Fri Mar 31 15:06:16 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 13:06:16 -0800 Subject: Another Panasonic HHC In-Reply-To: <200603311557.23686.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <200603311849.NAA14165@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200603311557.23686.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <200603311306160407.1A63ED07@10.0.0.252> On 3/31/2006 at 3:57 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: >I sure wouldn't mind finding something of the sort that would run under >linux with various target processors, for picking apart code... > >Anybody know of something like that? See my comment on IDA Pro. It runs on Windoze and as a Linux console app. Cheers, Chuck From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Fri Mar 31 17:28:11 2006 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 00:28:11 +0100 Subject: Auto dealer closure uncovers... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <442DBB0B.3060107@gjcp.net> Paxton Hoag wrote: > And a OT Mac G3 300 small tower, Sony Monitor and no Hard drive. I > think I am going to try to get this to work. I have a spare HD but no > OS. I understand it will run OSX but slowly. Further OT but load it with memory and turn of antialiasing. You'll need to google around to find out how to do this. Gordon. From jack.rubin at ameritech.net Fri Mar 31 17:59:13 2006 From: jack.rubin at ameritech.net (Jack Rubin) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 17:59:13 -0600 Subject: another VCF contender? Message-ID: <001201c6551f$1ca6d300$176fa8c0@obie> homebrewing at its best! http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~harry/Relay/index.html -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.3.3/298 - Release Date: 3/30/2006 From f2hj.p.theunis at hetnet.nl Wed Mar 29 06:39:46 2006 From: f2hj.p.theunis at hetnet.nl (Hans Theunis) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 14:39:46 +0200 Subject: MPF-1 Manuals Message-ID: <000d01c6532d$dca9ff40$9600000a@lan> Can you please make mij a copy of the schematic's of the mpf-1 ? greetings. Hans theunis j.p.theunis at freeler.nl From Bob at BRADLEE.ORG Wed Mar 29 06:52:39 2006 From: Bob at BRADLEE.ORG (Bob Bradlee) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 07:52:39 -0500 Subject: who built the first 8086/88 based puter? In-Reply-To: <20060329010207.70002.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200603291304.k2TD4GS7080154@keith.ezwind.net> On Tue, 28 Mar 2006 17:02:07 -0800 (PST), Chris M wrote: >--- Bob Bradlee wrote: > >> I am sure the Zenith Z100 was the first 8085/8088 >> dual processor production system that ran both >> processors at the same time. > There was also the Rainbow and the Epson QX-16, >though the earlier QX-10 had an aftermarket (Titan) >8088 board that was reasonably compatible from what I >understand. I was thinking about it, I think the first CPM card for the Apple II kept the 6502 running as an I/O processor. Anyone out there remember for sure ? >> First 80186 I saw was a card for an IBM pc about a >> year before the AT came out. >> It was all so long ago :) > More then likely the Orchid Turbo-186. Got one >somewhere, just haven't seen it in a while. The '186 >fell out too :( That was the one, I had forgotten its name. Thanks ..... Bob Bradlee -------------------------------------------------- PS: (Message for the moderator) Any Idea why it is taking 6 days to get a message posted on this list ? It was only about 1.5 to days when I first attempted to posting last october. Lets see how long this one takes to make the loop. Back to lurking, and replying directly to people :( >From the latest message header : Received: from dewey.classiccmp.org ([209.145.140.57]) by mail.cave.net (VisNetic.MailServer.v7.2.4.1) with ESMTP id CQN38002 for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2006 01:31:22 -0500 Received: from dewey.classiccmp.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by dewey.classiccmp.org (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k2T6YN9c049907; Wed, 29 Mar 2006 00:35:37 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org) Received: from keith.ezwind.net (keith.ezwind.net [209.145.140.15]) by dewey.classiccmp.org (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k2NESwro068147 for ; Thu, 23 Mar 2006 08:28:58 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from Bob at BRADLEE.ORG) Received: from mail.cave.net (mail.cave.net [66.35.72.5]) by keith.ezwind.net (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k2NEZAcv021845 for ; Thu, 23 Mar 2006 08:35:10 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from Bob at BRADLEE.ORG) From Bob at BRADLEE.ORG Wed Mar 29 08:22:32 2006 From: Bob at BRADLEE.ORG (Bob Bradlee) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 09:22:32 -0500 Subject: toxic obsessive-compulsive disorder .... In-Reply-To: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A0E5DAB@sbs.jdfogg.com> Message-ID: <200603291434.k2TEY9Zf081727@keith.ezwind.net> On Wed, 29 Mar 2006 07:49:35 -0500, James Fogg wrote: >Same here, >I think the lead and mercury form an amalgam that flows in our >bloodstream and shields us from the other inhaled and dermal absorbed >chemicals. I figured if the dentist could put silver and mercury in my teeth how bad could it be ? >> >Apparently, it leads to an obsessive-compulsive disorder where the >> >poisoned tries to collect as much computer junk as will fit on his >> >property. I always thought it was advanced Silicon addiction. >The advanced cases show signs of renting and borrowing space to hold >equipment that won't fit into their own property. I've seen where once >the cellar and living room and dining room are filled (and the wife has >left the marriage) they go on to spending all free money on rental sheds >and even warehouse space. The truly sick go on to form museums so they >can write off their expenses on their income tax. My favorite excuses for the truly addicted. 1. Future offerings to the Church of the Silicon Life-Form. Don't laugh, my cat puts toys in his food dish as offerings to the food god, it gets him fed :) I have a long list of people who have indicated over the years they would like to be a founding member if it was ever formalized. I have found computers on my front porch, one wrapped in a blanket with a sign "please give it a good home". 2. I have been using the museum excuse for years. SheWhoMustBeObayed rolls her eyes, and mutters "and what year do you plan on doing this ?" I think after listening to this dream for 30+ years she wants the rest of the house back ... I plan on taking both my wife and my mother to VCF3 to prove there are others with this affliction. 3. It is a long term investment ! Some days this stuff will be antiques and worth big bucks again. dkdkk on ebay is a good example. If you search by bidder on ebay: http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBidItems&userid=dkdkk&sort=3&page=5&rows=25&completed=1&all=1 and added up his winning bids over any given 30 day period you will find it well over $10k most months. I saw it at just over $25k in a month last year. This last 30 days looks to be about $14k if anyone wants to add it up. 4. Consultancy is the best business "front" on the rare case where there is any income associated with the activity. I would hate to have Suetbandit's tax bill this year, but then again, an estimated quarter mil or so of cash and paypal sales would be a nice problem to have :-) 5. To quote John Foust : If toxoplasmosis infection causes rats to no longer fear cat urine, .... typical nerd exposure to various toxic substances could enhance forms of obsessive-compulsive afflictions, including hoarding. ..... got to run ... Till later. Hope this makes the list in a timely manor :) Bob Bradlee From Bob at BRADLEE.ORG Wed Mar 29 09:09:38 2006 From: Bob at BRADLEE.ORG (Bob Bradlee) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 10:09:38 -0500 Subject: toxic obsessive-compulsive disorder .... In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060329070558.05942708@mail> Message-ID: <200603291521.k2TFLEj7082694@keith.ezwind.net> On Wed, 29 Mar 2006 07:21:05 -0600, John Foust wrote: > But if toxoplasmosis infection causes rats to no longer fear cat urine .... That might explains the lack of logic we exhibit when we sneak just one more something into the basement. Wifes having not been exposed to technochemical exposures in fact still fear or at the least, loath cat urine. Making it easier to get away with on kittylitter full change days :-) The adrenaline rush of getting away with it, and avoiding the "And What Do We Need, THAT For ?!." question is an equally good excuse for this abnormal lack of fear.... Moving is the only sure way to cull the herd and reduce the collection to a manageable size, as some of us has discovered in the past. Waring: remorse is common after a move when you or someone you know need something and you cant remember which box it is in. I still have unopened boxes of computer books, parts and stuff in storage from a move 15 years ago, Mabe we should start a 12 step program :-) Back to lurking Bob Bradlee From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Wed Mar 29 09:38:37 2006 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 09:38:37 -0600 Subject: Should I track down an M8268 (KK11-A)? Message-ID: <3D86D46B6D24D642AC9BB09DD8CF335F11CD40B1@hermes.CLCILLINOIS.EDU> I was just curious, for those who own them, is the KK11-A cache module for the 11/34 worth acquiring? How much does it boost performance of the machine, and in what areas? From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 29 12:13:49 2006 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (a.carlini at ntlworld.com) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 19:13:49 +0100 Subject: Unisys A google group In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c6535c$88a020d0$c901a8c0@tempname> > or are we going to get snooty about *which* >10 year old things we can talk about? I think we've always been snooty about which things we talk about. W95 support is available in many places so there's no need to hash it out here. If you need to know something that particularly relates to classic computing that's perhaps different, but if you just want to know what resolutions your box supports I'd suggest that asking here is the wrong thing to do. Excuse me while I stop Outlook adding capitals all Over the place :-) Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 29 15:12:43 2006 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (a.carlini at ntlworld.com) Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 22:12:43 +0100 Subject: Tektronix catalogs? Have 1982, 1985 want > 1985 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c65375$86623560$c901a8c0@tempname> Richard wrote: > Does anyone know of online copies of the catalog for other years? I have these in PDF that I could make available (I have no idea which ones will have what you want though): Tektronix Measurement Products Catalogue 1997-1998 Tektronix Oscilloscopes and Associated Instruments 1969 Tektronix Television Products 1987-1988 Tektronix Television Products 1994 Catalog Product Catalogue 1977 Product Catalogue 1989 Product Catalogue 1993 Television Products Catalogue 1998 For fun I went over to Tek's home page and searched a little. "9200" brings up this page: http://www.tek.com/site/mn/mnfinder_results/1,1095,,00.html A few clicks and one painless registration procedure later and I am the proud owner of the 41 page LAD935 Instruction Manual. Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 31 12:20:34 2006 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (a.carlini at ntlworld.com) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 19:20:34 +0100 Subject: old HP manuals + HP Journal In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <003901c654ef$ce628d80$c901a8c0@tempname> Al Kossow wrote: > I wonder what happened to all of the content they took down several > years ago (things that included mid-90's test gear like the 16500C) Well the contents of one agilent ftp site were gathered up and made available (a year or so ago I guess) to anyone who asked. I have a copy of the resulting CDs and I'm pretty sure that I sent a DVD of them all to Eric Smith. I also have a vague memory of someone being forced to take down old manuals (by either HP or Agilent), possibly temporarily until an agreement could be put in place. Maybe that's why the stuff is not up now. As for ftp://ftp.agilent.com/pub/manuals, the "Welcome ...txt" at the bottom says: "Because this site is a staging area, and not a resting place, you may find that a file you downloaded Monday is no longer here on Tuesday. When this happens, you will find the file as a manual under its product listing on http://www.tm.agilent.com. That is the permanent home for Agilent manuals." If you do head over to http://www.tm.agilent.com and drop 16500C into the search boxx you get a bunch of interesting hits as far back as 1996. Sounds too recent though ... Antonio -- Antonio carlini arcarlini at iee.org From jimkeng at yahoo.com.tw Fri Mar 31 02:48:40 2006 From: jimkeng at yahoo.com.tw (jimmy Keng) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 16:48:40 +0800 Subject: New aquisition: Texas Instruments TI 980A Message-ID: <442CECE8.AE1CAB31@yahoo.com.tw> We need one Arithmetic unit 2 board. Can you tell us you can get one and sell to us? Thanks. Jim From dbetz at xlisper.mv.com Thu Mar 30 07:05:59 2006 From: dbetz at xlisper.mv.com (David Betz) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 08:05:59 -0500 Subject: Another Panasonic HHC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: By the way, the part number on this SNAP extension cartridge is RL- P9001 if that helps. Also, I just noticed that there is another circuit board mounted underneath the one with the EPROMs that contains lots of other chips: M74LS22P, M74LS08P x 2, HD14002BP, M74LS00P, M74LS138P, M74LS02P, MC14013B, MC14011B. I guess this is more than just an EPROM expansion board. From dbetz at xlisper.mv.com Thu Mar 30 06:54:43 2006 From: dbetz at xlisper.mv.com (David Betz) Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 07:54:43 -0500 Subject: Another Panasonic HHC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <17E76336-6DC6-4B2D-9EBF-EA2F75F232BA@xlisper.mv.com> >> >>> Is this the unit that would take the SNAP development ROMs? >> >> The SNAP ROMs came in a unit that plugs into the side of the HHC and >> has sockets for four 24 pin EPROMs. Unfortunately, my SNAP ROMs no > > Right, so it's not the (3rd party) unit that I now have. > > Let me ask a few questions about the SNAP development box : > > What sort of EPROMs are used (how big, etc) ? Two of the EPROMs are marked HN462532G and the other two are marked 2532JDL-45. I assume they are 32k bits (4k x 8)? > > What else is in the unit? My investigations of the logic board > have shown > that there are a number of chip select lines brought out on the > expansion > connecotr, but there's no sane way to put 4 EPROMs directly on that > connector. I would guess at least there's a 2-4 line decoder. And > probably some transsitors to swich the Vcc to the EPROMs to save > battery > power (the HHC itself does that trick). These components may well > be SMD > on the back side of the board, BTW. There are four M74LS08P chips on the board as well as the EPROMs. > > I am wondering if it would be possible to make a clone of this unit, > using, say, one 16K or 32K EPROM suitable connected. > >> longer work since a few of the pins broke off one of the EPROM chips >> when I removed it to read the contents on my EPROM programmer. I've >> purchased some machined pin sockets on someone's suggestion but I >> don't seem to have the skill needed to solder the EPROM pin stubs to >> the socket pins. The good news is that I *did* get images of the >> EPROMs before the pins broke off this one chip. > > Are the EPROMs a rare type? Or could you get new ones and burn the > images > into them. That would be a good idea. In fact, I obviously have a programmer that can handle the chips since I was able to read their contents. Anyone know where I can get some HN462532G chips? I don't know enough about hardware to figure out how the unit works myself. I guess I could send it to you if you want to take a look. From jondjohnston at hotmail.com Fri Mar 31 18:54:34 2006 From: jondjohnston at hotmail.com (Jon Johnston) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 10:54:34 +1000 Subject: Have dinosaur - need paper. Message-ID: Joe, We have paper for HP 7245B. Regards, Jon Johnston HP Computer Museum http://www.hpmuseum.net