From classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk Sat Dec 1 00:20:26 2007 From: classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk (Ensor) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 06:20:26 -0000 Subject: My Mercedes CRAY connection References: Message-ID: <004401c833e2$43e9cb40$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Hi, > Wow, is this THE Steven Chen, designer of the CRAY X-MP???!!! My Atari "BattleZone" machine was once owned by THE Jeff Minter....but that's a topic for another mailing listy. :-) TTFN - Pete. From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Dec 1 00:28:46 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:28:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: My Mercedes CRAY connection In-Reply-To: <004401c833e2$43e9cb40$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> from Ensor at "Dec 1, 7 06:20:26 am" Message-ID: <200712010628.lB16Sl4U015684@floodgap.com> > > Wow, is this THE Steven Chen, designer of the CRAY X-MP???!!! > > My Atari "BattleZone" machine was once owned by THE Jeff Minter....but > that's a topic for another mailing listy. :-) I'm sorry to hear that. There must have been a ton of llama poop in that thing. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Too much of a good thing is wonderful. -- Mae West ------------------------- From classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk Sat Dec 1 00:29:51 2007 From: classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk (Ensor) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 06:29:51 -0000 Subject: Amiga TV Out References: , <012401c833b8$2fd24e90$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> <47504A61.14959.68AA3E78@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <005b01c833e3$9442aed0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Hi, > 819, but proposed but not deployed. SECAM-L used in France >was 625 lines, like PAL.... Well, you really do learn something new every day! Makes sense I suppose. >....Variants of SECAM were also deployed in various Warsaw Block >countries.... Very true, Poland used SECAM until sometime in the 90's I believe when they switched to some variant of PAL (I haven't been over there since 1985 so I don't know the exact details). >....overall picture quality and relative immunity to transmission >disturbances is superior to PAL. I believe it was developed, at least in part, to overcome some of the problems with PAL (whatever they are/were)? But this is heading well OT.... TTFN - Pete. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Dec 1 01:33:14 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 23:33:14 -0800 Subject: Shugart 801 drives? In-Reply-To: <4750F66E.8010502@msm.umr.edu> References: , <4750CD85.2000600@brutman.com>, <4750F66E.8010502@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <47509DBA.31054.69EFCF6E@cclist.sydex.com> On 30 Nov 2007 at 21:51, jim s wrote: > main thing to watch out for is that they take 5, 12 and 28 (i think) > volt ps which has to be pretty substantial. If they come w/o that take > care what you hook them up with. +5, +24, -5 volts, no +12. As long as you have a capable (i.e. if you're going to be handling FM, your controller has to support FM. If you're putting this on a PC XT, you have to have a controller capable of 500K data rate) controller on your PC, you're fine. If you're going to be using the drive in 801 (i.e. hard sectored) mode, that's a whole 'nother topic and usually involves a Catweasel or some such board on a PC. Wiring a cable is pretty straightforward and involves matching 8" drive signals up with like 5.25" signals on the controller. I normally wire HEAD LOAD to the corresponding MOTOR ON line on the PC, but I've heard of some wiring it to SELECT and SELECT to MOTOR ON. Your choice. Cheers, Chuck From arcarlini at iee.org Sat Dec 1 03:31:03 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 09:31:03 -0000 Subject: VAX 11/750 power supply fault In-Reply-To: <1196479830.4750d55685883@www.jblaser.org> Message-ID: <003901c833fc$e5aa0840$5b01a8c0@uatempname> J Blaser wrote: > I'd love to repair it, but I'm certainly not as smart as Tony, nor am > I likely > to ever figure out the faulty component(s) directly. There is a main > 'motherboard', two plug in PCBs, and other bolt-on components galore, > and while > I can follow some logic circuit diagrams, I'm clearly out of my > league with analog/PS stuff. You seem to have managed to wiled a voltmeter and not hurt yourself inside the PSU. Sureley the worst that can happen is that you'll end up at the point where you need to fix component X and you are unable/unwilling to do so? People have been talked through some tricky procedures on this list ... For that matter this is maybe the 3rd VAX-11/750 with the "REG FAIL" fault and I don't recall ever hearing of one getting fixed. Someone has to be the first :-) > Besides, I haven't been able locate schematics for this power > system. Soooo.... There should be a full set of schematics on Manx: http://vt100.net/manx. I scanned a full set for the first person I came across with this problem, so while I'm not 100% sure the PSU schematics are in there, I am 99% sure ... Antonio No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.10/1160 - Release Date: 29/11/2007 20:32 From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Dec 1 05:30:45 2007 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 11:30:45 +0000 Subject: New thread - Unwanted / Available parts In-Reply-To: <47507F38.1030603@yahoo.co.uk> References: <002d01c8332f$590d6a30$911ca8c0@mss.local> <47507F38.1030603@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <1196508645.7139.15.camel@elric.inet> On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 15:23 -0600, Jules Richardson wrote: > Actually, how well would a freecycle-type list for classiccmp.org work? I thought about creating a freecycle-style webby app in Django, but haven't had time. It started off with making a list of things I needed to get rid of last time I moved house... Gordon From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Dec 1 05:51:53 2007 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 11:51:53 +0000 Subject: AMSTRAD PCW8256 systems & sw available In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1196509913.7139.25.camel@elric.inet> On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 16:53 -0800, Steven Martin wrote: > My dad is 82, a retired College Professor, he owns a Amstrad PCW 8256 > and his printer is broken. The printer head doesn't seem to go > anywhere so it can't print. Is there someone in the USA that you know > of that can help me, we are in California. If you do not know of > anyone in the USA is there a way you can direct me to someone I can > buy parts from that speaks english or at least can communicate > through email in english. Considering the machines were made mostly in the UK and Germany, you should be OK on that score. Is the head itself free to move? I seem to recall something about buffer chips failing in the printers that caused various odd problems - erroneous "Bail Bar Back" messages and stuff. Maybe you should check on eBay and see if you can pick up the serial/parallel adaptor for it, and hang a "normal" printer off it. You could also squirt the documents across the serial port to a newer computer. If you do this, make sure you get one with the right connector - German PCWs had a different plug to GB ones iirc. Gordon From coredump at gifford.co.uk Sat Dec 1 06:09:32 2007 From: coredump at gifford.co.uk (John Honniball) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 12:09:32 +0000 Subject: Teaching kids about computers... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47514EFC.30102@gifford.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: > The 6809 and 6502 buses are _very_ similar (read 'E' for 'Phi2', > basically ;-)). Most I/O cards would work with either CPU (hence the lack > of problems in haveing a 6809 CPU in a System). Of course the > instruction set, and thus firmware/software are very different. I've successfully installed a 6809 in a previously 6502-based machine: the Compukit UK101. I had to write new EPROM-based firmware for it, of course. As far as the bus and I/O devices are concerned, it Just Works. Even the pinout is similar enough that the socket adaptor is easy to build. > -tony -- John Honniball coredump at gifford.co.uk From mike at brickfieldspark.org Sat Dec 1 07:50:12 2007 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 08:50:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 51, Issue 95 In-Reply-To: <200712010045.lB10jYvh016809@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712010045.lB10jYvh016809@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <55001.86.16.147.252.1196517012.squirrel@webmail3.pair.com> > Message: 4 > From: Philip Pemberton > Actually, I've been working on a similar thing... > The software is called ISIS, http://isistest.philpem.me.uk/. Ok a lot further advanced than I had envisaged. I had seen it for vintage computers and components but since posting the website and seen a few replies about the individual cataloging what they had, it seemed the initial catalog work was the p.i.t.a. My intention was to post pages of who had what with a search facility, and let them contact each other. > Message: 16 > From: Jules Richardson > Actually, how well would a freecycle-type list for classiccmp.org work? > For some reason the casual offered/wanted model tends to suit me a lot > better than itemising everything I have and deciding which bits I > definitely know I don't need now and won't ever need (somehow, I'm a lot > better at getting rid of stuff when I know in advance I have a taker for > it) It was getting rid of some household bits that gave me the idea and its possible this would be better served by a listing in Freecycle. My problem with that is that Freecycle seems to be a fast turnover system with "I have this" or "I want that". In the vintage computer / component area I though this challenge response system might be too restrictive (possibly). Although some work to set up initially, I thought a central repository of parts where you could search for bits when needed and then email the owner might work better. Those individual "Fred" & "Mike" pages could be set up for Fred to upload his own data as a text file used to generate the "Fred" page with a bit of coding, that way each member of the system could change it as and when they had time. More comments / suggestions ?. From lproven at gmail.com Sat Dec 1 09:42:36 2007 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 15:42:36 +0000 Subject: AMSTRAD PCW8256 systems & sw available In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <575131af0712010742p67a2d24ft798e5b2d14aa8db3@mail.gmail.com> On 01/12/2007, Steven Martin wrote: > My dad is 82, a retired College Professor, he owns a Amstrad PCW 8256 > and his printer is broken. The printer head doesn't seem to go > anywhere so it can't print. Is there someone in the USA that you know > of that can help me, we are in California. If you do not know of > anyone in the USA is there a way you can direct me to someone I can > buy parts from that speaks english or at least can communicate > through email in english. It's a British machine, so English shouldn't be a problem. They're still quite common over here, but international freight for a printer isn't worth it. The bundled printer is dumb, with no controller electronics; all the logic is in the computer. The PCW8xxx has no serial or parallel ports - you'd need to buy them. If you can find an interface, that's a good option. Other option: get LocoScript PC, have his disks batch converted, and give him a dead basic PC with DOS, a 3.5" floppy drive, and set up MS-DOS to boot straight into LocoScript. It has a huge range of printer drivers so you'll get something that can drive a modern inkjet or an old-fashioned mono laser fairly easily. Obviously, with DOS, you'll need parallel-port printers. Locomotive, the company that wrote LocoScript for the PCW (and indeed the PC version, the BASIC and DOSes for all the Amstrad 8-bit machines, their CP/M ports, Mallard BASIC for CP/M and the graphical BASIC/2 for DR GEM) is still around. They'll be able to help you. http://www.locoscript.com/ -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From brg123 at tiscali.co.uk Sat Dec 1 10:12:23 2007 From: brg123 at tiscali.co.uk (Brian Gardner) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 16:12:23 -0000 Subject: Available: Compaq Deskpro 386/20e Manuals/Diskette Message-ID: <000501c83434$f57c31c0$5d322a50@D1J7VR0J> Hi Dave, I am looking for a set up/diagnostic diskette for my compaq 386/20e and yours seems to fit the bill. Since I am in the UK I can send ?s, euros or buy some dollars to send if you will let me know the cost of item and shipping/handling. Regards Brian. From legalize at xmission.com Sat Dec 1 11:46:18 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 10:46:18 -0700 Subject: ebay: Are these PDP-8 boards? Message-ID: Item # 320190208819 They look too small to be Qbus and the module numbers are all 3 digits, whereas all the Qbus and UNIBUS module board numbers I've seen had 4 digits. This looks like a good deal for someone looking for spare flip-chip modules or maybe someone who wants to reverse engineer this pile of flip-chip modules and wire-wrapped backplane to figure out what it used to do :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Dec 1 11:55:05 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 09:55:05 -0800 Subject: ebay: Are these PDP-8 boards? Message-ID: <47519FF9.5030102@bitsavers.org> It is the controller for an RF-08 disk (RS08) I expect it will go for a LOT of money at the last second. From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Dec 1 11:56:16 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 12:56:16 -0500 Subject: VAX 11/750 power supply fault In-Reply-To: <1196479830.4750d55685883@www.jblaser.org> References: <200711292354.lATNsixZ093034@dewey.classiccmp.org> <1196478099.4750ce9354910@www.jblaser.org> <1196479830.4750d55685883@www.jblaser.org> Message-ID: On Nov 30, 2007, at 10:30 PM, J Blaser wrote: > Anyone have a spare H7104D 5V PS for this baby??? ;P Aside from the > tongue-in- > cheekiness, does anyone have schematics and/or Engineering Drawings > for this 11/ > 750. Maybe I could actually try to sort it out if I had some more > information, > at least until I electrocute myself! :o I'm fairly certain that I have 11/750 prints here, but I will have to find them. Let me know if you don't find them elsewhere quickly enough and I'll start digging. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Sat Dec 1 12:01:15 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim s) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 10:01:15 -0800 Subject: ebay: Are these PDP-8 boards? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4751A16B.2060809@msm.umr.edu> Richard wrote: > Item # 320190208819 > > They look too small to be Qbus and the module numbers are all 3 > digits, whereas all the Qbus and UNIBUS module board numbers I've seen > had 4 digits. > this looks like an I/O module from the vintage of pdp 8/I or earlier 8's. the poster put in Qbus to get more Dec types to hit the auction, rather than having any idea what the unit actually did. Note that the unit probably had all the modules pulled and they look like they were put back in sorted for pretty color rather than where they need to be. So w/o drawings this is a nice backplane and a lot of boards. Jim From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Sat Dec 1 12:01:55 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 18:01:55 +0000 Subject: ebay: Are these PDP-8 boards? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20071201180155.GA30125@usap.gov> On Sat, Dec 01, 2007 at 10:46:18AM -0700, Richard wrote: > Item # 320190208819 > > They look too small to be Qbus and the module numbers are all 3 > digits, whereas all the Qbus and UNIBUS module board numbers I've seen > had 4 digits. You have probably only seen later stuff - have a look at a pre-1978 backplane-sized peripheral - the M105 is a Unibus Address Selector (from memory - it's at least part of older, multi-board, Unibus peripherals). These cards look like pretty much ordinary FLIP-CHIP modules, which were used to make a variety of CPUs and periperals in the 1960s and 1970s. I don't recall any Qbus stuff made up of these, but there was plenty of Unibus (PDP-11) and pre-OMNIBUS (PDP-8) stuff, chock full of these and similar cards. > This looks like a good deal for someone looking for spare flip-chip > modules or maybe someone who wants to reverse engineer this pile of > flip-chip modules and wire-wrapped backplane to figure out what it > used to do :-) The seller shows a photo of the nameplate which *says* what it used to do - it's an RS08 backplane. The RF08/RS08 is a fixed-head disk for the PDP-8. The RF08 was the master, the RS08(s) was/were the slave disks. Obviously, this doesn't include a drive mechanism, nor the smart part of the RF08, but it's still an interesting piece. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 1-Dec-2007 at 17:50 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -27.2 F (-32.9 C) Windchill -43.1 F (-41.7 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 4.6 kts Grid 124 Barometer 678.2 mb (10696 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Dec 1 12:28:30 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 13:28:30 -0500 Subject: DoveBid Phoenix, AZ (4x) PDP 11/04 $1700, In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <50e43af88012c427865cdb4fcb03fce0@neurotica.com> On Nov 30, 2007, at 7:18 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >>>> An 11/04 is somewhat more desirable of a machine than the 11/03 is >>>> (it's >>>> UNIBUS instead of QBUS), but you still lack the MMU, and only have a >>>> calculator-keypad frontpanel instead of a full lights and toggles > > IIRC the keypad frontpanel is an option (the 'Programmer's Panel'), as > I > believe it is on the 11/34. Every 11/34 I've seen has had the keypad, > every 11/04 hasn't, but that's hardly a representative sample. Though I've not done it myself, the KY11-LB documentation states that it can be used on either the 11/04 or the 11/34. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Dec 1 14:01:12 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 14:01:12 -0600 Subject: How easy is it to damage an IBM CGA display? In-Reply-To: <4750BA58.6080006@brutman.com> References: <200711292331.SAA01552@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <4750BA58.6080006@brutman.com> Message-ID: <4751BD88.2040302@oldskool.org> Michael B. Brutman wrote: > > NCSA Telnet *was* running on before I put the CGA card in. (I had a > Cirrus Logic VGA card in it yesterday.) Now NCSA Telnet is hanging on > startup after reading it's config file. Check the config file; there is a video mode line IIRC. -- 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 mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sat Dec 1 14:40:54 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 14:40:54 -0600 Subject: How easy is it to damage an IBM CGA display? In-Reply-To: <4751BD88.2040302@oldskool.org> References: <200711292331.SAA01552@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <4750BA58.6080006@brutman.com> <4751BD88.2040302@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <4751C6D6.5070902@brutman.com> Jim Leonard wrote: > Michael B. Brutman wrote: >> >> NCSA Telnet *was* running on before I put the CGA card in. (I had a >> Cirrus Logic VGA card in it yesterday.) Now NCSA Telnet is hanging on >> startup after reading it's config file. > > Check the config file; there is a video mode line IIRC. Been there .. Other people have reported weirdness with NCSA Telnet on an XT before. If I put the VGA card back in and it works, I'll have it narrowed down. From medavidson at mac.com Sat Dec 1 14:48:39 2007 From: medavidson at mac.com (Mark Davidson) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 12:48:39 -0800 Subject: Symbolics XL400/1200 In-Reply-To: <474CA08F.60002@saw.net> References: <474CA08F.60002@saw.net> Message-ID: Out of curiosity, is this machine still available? Thanks. Mark On Nov 27, 2007, at 2:56 PM, davis wrote: > The machine is available in Portland Or or preferably, up the gorge > in Goldendale Wa. which is located about 100 miles east of Portland. > The machine could be shipped, but it would require a pallet for the > case, foam for the monitor and separate packing for the drive and > boards. > I'm not sure how much it's worth. I have had an offer for $370. So > I guess thats a start. > The system includes the mono hi-res graphics monitor, space cadet > keyboard, full document (user) set, but no hardware prints (sorry) > and a frame tosser board. I'll throw in a couple bus mice, but they > will need to be rewired. I'll fire it up and verify that it still > boots. (it did 6 months ago) > If you pick it up in goldendale, I'll let you dig around in my shed > for other goodies. > The machine is badged as a XL400 but boot reports a XL1200. I > assume it's the extra memory and possibly software upgrades. > It has been stored inside, in a clean dry environment since I > picked it up about 7 years ago. > Jim Davis. From oldcpu2 at rogerwilco.org Sat Dec 1 15:41:55 2007 From: oldcpu2 at rogerwilco.org (J Blaser) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 14:41:55 -0700 (MST) Subject: VAX 11/750 power supply fault In-Reply-To: References: <200711292354.lATNsixZ093034@dewey.classiccmp.org> <1196478099.4750ce9354910@www.jblaser.org> <1196479830.4750d55685883@www.jblaser.org> Message-ID: <1196545315.4751d523644ad@www.jblaser.org> Quoting Dave McGuire : > On Nov 30, 2007, at 10:30 PM, J Blaser wrote: > > cheekiness, does anyone have schematics and/or Engineering Drawings > > for this 11/ > > 750. Maybe I could actually try to sort it out if I had some more > > information, > > at least until I electrocute myself! :o > > I'm fairly certain that I have 11/750 prints here, but I will have to > find them. Let me know if you don't find them elsewhere quickly enough > and I'll start digging. Thanks, Dave, for the offer (and to all others giving helpful advice in this thread). I *did* find the schematics last night on vt100.net/manx, so I just need to spend some time now looking them over, and seeing what I can do. I do have some very basic tools, and a 'scope, and I guess my plan is to try to look for some bad passives first, unpowered, then take whatever next steps seem reasonable. These PSs are pretty tightly packed, in a 3-D kind of way, and I'm not sure I'm up to poking around inside with it powered. I might touch something I shouldn't with a probe, and make things worse! ;) We will see... As things progress I'll give a report, but don't hold your breath for quick news. I've got a lot to learn first. Thanks. - Jared From oldcpu2 at rogerwilco.org Sat Dec 1 15:55:13 2007 From: oldcpu2 at rogerwilco.org (J Blaser) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 14:55:13 -0700 (MST) Subject: How easy is it to damage an IBM CGA display? In-Reply-To: <4751C6D6.5070902@brutman.com> References: <200711292331.SAA01552@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <4750BA58.6080006@brutman.com> <4751BD88.2040302@oldskool.org> <4751C6D6.5070902@brutman.com> Message-ID: <1196546113.4751d84114cc4@www.jblaser.org> Quoting "Michael B. Brutman" : > Jim Leonard wrote: > > Michael B. Brutman wrote: > >> > >> NCSA Telnet *was* running on before I put the CGA card in. (I had a > >> Cirrus Logic VGA card in it yesterday.) Now NCSA Telnet is hanging > >> on startup after reading it's config file. > > Check the config file; there is a video mode line IIRC. > > Been there .. > > Other people have reported weirdness with NCSA Telnet on an XT before. > If I put the VGA card back in and it works, I'll have it narrowed > down. > For what it's worth. I've lately been successfully running NCSA Telnet on a 'XT-ized' Tandy 1000A. It's got 640KB and 20MB MFM. Also, the T1000 has that weird blend of CGA and 16-color CGA that was in the PCjr (don't remember what it's acronym is, right now), but I have no problems running the NCSA Telnet package. My config is set for 'CGA'. - Jared From v.slyngstad at verizon.net Sat Dec 1 15:56:21 2007 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 13:56:21 -0800 Subject: ebay: Are these PDP-8 boards? References: <4751A16B.2060809@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <037201c83465$03091fd0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Apologies if this appears twice -- Replies to mail from cctalk seem to vanish into thin air. From: "jim s" > Richard wrote: >> Item # 320190208819 >> > Note that the unit probably had all the modules pulled and they look > like they were put > back in sorted for pretty color rather than where they need to be. So > w/o drawings this > is a nice backplane and a lot of boards. I'd go a step further -- many of those modules were never part of the RS08 that the backplane implies. I'm quite sure there were no Mxxx modules in an RS08. The Gxxx are right, as are the Bxxx. I don't know what an S200 is, and I don't see one in the RS08 documentation (maybe it's an S206?). My theory is someone used it for a while as a convenient place to store some Mxxx spares from a PDP-8/I. Here's the RS08 module list from table 5-2 (on page 5-2 of DEC-08-HIEA-D, aka RF08_PrelimMaintMan.pdf): B133x2 B134 B135 B137 B152x3 B165x2 B172 B212x2 B301x3 B312 B611 B683x2 G085x4 G284 G285x4 G286x4 R002 R302 R111 R302 R303 S206 Vince From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Dec 1 16:25:59 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 16:25:59 -0600 Subject: How easy is it to damage an IBM CGA display? In-Reply-To: <4751C6D6.5070902@brutman.com> References: <200711292331.SAA01552@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <4750BA58.6080006@brutman.com> <4751BD88.2040302@oldskool.org> <4751C6D6.5070902@brutman.com> Message-ID: <4751DF77.9060305@oldskool.org> Michael B. Brutman wrote: >>> NCSA Telnet *was* running on before I put the CGA card in. (I had a >>> Cirrus Logic VGA card in it yesterday.) Now NCSA Telnet is hanging >>> on startup after reading it's config file. >> >> Check the config file; there is a video mode line IIRC. > > Been there .. > > Other people have reported weirdness with NCSA Telnet on an XT before. > If I put the VGA card back in and it works, I'll have it narrowed down. But that wouldn't make any sense since it works for my 8088w/CGA and the two cards don't conflict... The only lines in my config file I can think of that may relate are: (config.tel:) video=cga # type of video screen # Legal values for video are: # cga,ega,pga,no9,hercules,ega43,vga50 # Default is ega bios=no # don't use slow BIOS screen access # bios=yes to reduce flicker on cga # bios=yes for TopView or Windows # Default is no Couldn't hurt to turn on "consoledebug=1" too... -- 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 ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Dec 1 16:17:40 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 22:17:40 +0000 (GMT) Subject: VAX 11/750 power supply fault In-Reply-To: <003901c833fc$e5aa0840$5b01a8c0@uatempname> from "Antonio Carlini" at Dec 1, 7 09:31:03 am Message-ID: > People have been talked through some tricky procedures on this > list ... For that matter this is maybe the 3rd VAX-11/750 with > the "REG FAIL" fault and I don't recall ever hearing of one > getting fixed. Someone has to be the first :-) Unforutnately (?) I've always kept well clear of the 11/750. I really wouldn't want to maitain that CPU.... But I can be eaily persuaded to look at the PSU schematics sometime and see if I spot anything obvious. Or at least tlak you through the design (which might be somewhat unconventional if other DEC supplies are anything to go by [1]) [1] This might not be a problem for you. If oyu don't have any experience of SMPSUs, any one is as good/bad as another to get started with. The problems generally come if you have fixed ideas ofg how supplies should work and then you get something strange thrown at you. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Dec 1 16:21:42 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 22:21:42 +0000 (GMT) Subject: AMSTRAD PCW8256 systems & sw available In-Reply-To: <575131af0712010742p67a2d24ft798e5b2d14aa8db3@mail.gmail.com> from "Liam Proven" at Dec 1, 7 03:42:36 pm Message-ID: > > On 01/12/2007, Steven Martin wrote: > > My dad is 82, a retired College Professor, he owns a Amstrad PCW 8256 > > and his printer is broken. The printer head doesn't seem to go > > anywhere so it can't print. Is there someone in the USA that you know > > of that can help me, we are in California. If you do not know of > > anyone in the USA is there a way you can direct me to someone I can > > buy parts from that speaks english or at least can communicate > > through email in english. > > It's a British machine, so English shouldn't be a problem. I should have the service manual for it somewhere. It's an Amstrad manual, so just schematics and parts lists, but that's all you really need... > > They're still quite common over here, but international freight for a > printer isn't worth it. The bundled printer is dumb, with no > controller electronics; all the logic is in the computer. Tjhere's a little PCB in the printer. It contains, from waht I remember, the driver transsitors, etc. The printer is controlled (again IIRC), by aprogrammed 8042 microcontroller on the main PCB. The fault could be any number of things, most of them fixable (dry joints, blown driver transsitors, etc). A defective 8042 could be a problem, oyu'd have to take a spare from a similar machine, as I suspect oriignals are long since unavailable. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Dec 1 15:58:19 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 21:58:19 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Bought a 4GB USB stick today, and guess what... In-Reply-To: <0JSC007H5IP0HR16@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> from "Allison" at Nov 30, 7 07:59:33 pm Message-ID: > >And of course a 4040 from Intel is a 4-bit microprocessor, from RCA it's > >a 12 bit CMOS counter. I can never rememebr what the 4004 is in the > >4000-eries CMOS, it's sufficiently rare that none of the data books I > >have to hand list it. > > > ur kiddin. Just prefix 74{c, hc, hct} and the 4xxx number and you > get it's function and pinout. None of my data books list a 74HC4004 either. Does it even exist? The 74HC4040 exists, and as expected it's a 12 bit ripple counter. > However for us who kept those old and valuable manuals like Signetics > 8xxx series and the RCA databook series (my 1973 set was some 8 books) > I do have data for RCA 4xxx and a lot of other oddities. I haev never thrown out a databook. Darn it, I've got an Ericson databook for Dekatrons and Trochotroncs, etc. And a valve databook from the 1940s that has printed on almost every page 'Supply of this device cannot be guaranteed due to the current situatio' (that is, of course, WW2). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Dec 1 16:09:07 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 22:09:07 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Amiga TV Out In-Reply-To: <012401c833b8$2fd24e90$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> from "Ensor" at Dec 1, 7 01:19:14 am Message-ID: > As an aside, isn't (wasn't?) France's SECAM system broadcast with something > like 800 lines? As far as I know, System E (819 lines) was monochrome only. The French Secam system was 625 lines. I once saw a portable monochrome TV with 3 interlocked buttons to select between 625 lines/5.5MHz souncs carrier offet (continental Europe), 625 lines/6MHz sounce carrier offset (UK) and 819 lines/AM sound (France). I wish I'd managed to talk the owner out of it... I assume there were French home computers and the like with SECAM colour outputs. Were there ever 819-line video machines? -tony From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Dec 1 17:03:09 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 15:03:09 -0800 Subject: VAX 11/750 power supply fault In-Reply-To: References: <003901c833fc$e5aa0840$5b01a8c0@uatempname> from Message-ID: > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk > >> People have been talked through some tricky procedures on this >> list ... For that matter this is maybe the 3rd VAX-11/750 with >> the "REG FAIL" fault and I don't recall ever hearing of one >> getting fixed. Someone has to be the first :-) > > Unforutnately (?) I've always kept well clear of the 11/750. I really > wouldn't want to maitain that CPU.... > > But I can be eaily persuaded to look at the PSU schematics sometime and > see if I spot anything obvious. Or at least tlak you through the design > (which might be somewhat unconventional if other DEC supplies are > anything to go by [1]) > > [1] This might not be a problem for you. If oyu don't have any experience > of SMPSUs, any one is as good/bad as another to get started with. The > problems generally come if you have fixed ideas ofg how supplies should > work and then you get something strange thrown at you. > Hi One of the trickiest things about switchers is that they often use the main output to provide the rails for the regulation feedback. This causes a chicken/egg problem. We can see that there is no output so no feedback to tell the high side to deliver more voltage ( had just such a problem on my Olivetti M20 supply ). These circuits often have some way to kick start the supply by pulsing the high side once on powerup, delivering just enough current to the regulator feed back to get the hole thing started. This type of circuit is unlikely on a 11/750 ( without actually looking at the supply schematic ). They most likely have a separate transformer and analog supply to power the regulator feedback. I was just showing that these can be tricky compared to analog supplies. The problem was located in the feedback. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live.Download today it's FREE! http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_sharelife_112007 From spc at conman.org Sat Dec 1 18:10:24 2007 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 19:10:24 -0500 Subject: Teaching kids about computers... In-Reply-To: <47514EFC.30102@gifford.co.uk> References: <47514EFC.30102@gifford.co.uk> Message-ID: <20071202001024.GB5384@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great John Honniball once stated: > Tony Duell wrote: > >The 6809 and 6502 buses are _very_ similar (read 'E' for 'Phi2', > >basically ;-)). Most I/O cards would work with either CPU (hence the lack > >of problems in haveing a 6809 CPU in a System). Of course the > >instruction set, and thus firmware/software are very different. > > I've successfully installed a 6809 in a previously 6502-based > machine: the Compukit UK101. I had to write new EPROM-based > firmware for it, of course. As far as the bus and I/O devices > are concerned, it Just Works. Even the pinout is similar enough > that the socket adaptor is easy to build. I seem to recall that the original Apple I had a jumper that selected between a 6502 and a 6800. The ony reason that Apple used the 6502 was price. -spc (or so I've heard ... ) From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Dec 1 18:49:33 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 16:49:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Teaching kids about computers... In-Reply-To: <20071202001024.GB5384@brevard.conman.org> from Sean Conner at "Dec 1, 7 07:10:24 pm" Message-ID: <200712020049.lB20nXAj014448@floodgap.com> > I've successfully installed a 6809 in a previously 6502-based > machine: the Compukit UK101. I had to write new EPROM-based > firmware for it, of course. As far as the bus and I/O devices > are concerned, it Just Works. Even the pinout is similar enough > that the socket adaptor is easy to build. I just had an evil thought -- a 6502-based CoCo. I wonder how well that would work. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Computers are like air conditioners. They stop working if you open windows. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Dec 1 18:59:53 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 17:59:53 -0700 Subject: Teaching kids about computers... In-Reply-To: <200712020049.lB20nXAj014448@floodgap.com> References: <200712020049.lB20nXAj014448@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <47520389.7010106@jetnet.ab.ca> Cameron Kaiser wrote: > I just had an evil thought -- a 6502-based CoCo. I wonder how well > that would work. I wonder if now is a good time to find out if I can shoot and hit the broad side of a barn? Could you just stand a little more to the right ... and wear this blindfold. :) From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Dec 1 19:06:30 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 18:06:30 -0700 Subject: Teaching kids about computers... In-Reply-To: <200712020049.lB20nXAj014448@floodgap.com> References: <200712020049.lB20nXAj014448@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <47520516.3020402@jetnet.ab.ca> Cameron Kaiser wrote: > I just had an evil thought -- a 6502-based CoCo. I wonder how well > that would work. Oddly I think it could of sold almost as well the CoCo did. I don't expect more than about 10% of the people ran OS/9 and that is the only 6809 dependant thing ( other than I think the game Joust ) that I can think of. Most of the stuff was in Basic and that is mostly platform independant for a 8 bit micro. From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Dec 1 20:08:50 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 02:08:50 +0000 (GMT) Subject: ZX Spectrum (was Re: Commodores ) In-Reply-To: <200711271121.22089.gordonjcp@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <713056.43156.qm@web23401.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Yeah, I remember that. The pictures I made were saved in such a way (by BASIC) so that as they loaded they would draw onscreen straight away! A handfull of professionally-made games found a way so that they were drawn in such a way that they only flicked into view at the last minute - presumably by setting all ink & pen colours to zero, until all the image data was loaded. Just incase I do get around to playing with the Speccy again, do you recall where the screen memory starts? All my graphical operations were done using plot, circle and draw commands. I did manage to poke graphics into the character set to replace them, but whenever I went back to BASIC I couldn't read the program listing!!! I did find a way to reset that, but I don't recall of-hand what I did. Did anyone make much use of the virtual disk (drive M: IIRC) on it? I was too young to realise the potential with it and had all my data in long lines of: DATA BIN 00000000 DATA BIN 00111100 DATA BIN 00100100 DATA BIN 00100100 DATA BIN 00111100 etc. as I didn't know how to convert binary to decimal (or even hex.) back then. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Gordon JC Pearce wrote: The ZX Spectrum had a fairly bonkers layout, with three blocks of 2048 bytes, comprising eight rows of eight rows of 32 bytes. So - the first 32 bytes were the top row of the display, the next 32 were eight pixels down, the next 32 were 8 pixels below that, until you got 2048 bytes in. Then you started again on the second row of the display, and so on. Once the top third was done, you moved onto the middle third, then the bottom third. After you'd got all the pixels done, you had 768 bytes of attribute memory, to set foreground and background colour, bright and flash. Writing single-pixel vertical scrolling code was a pig. Gordon From cclist at sydex.com Sat Dec 1 20:49:58 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 18:49:58 -0800 Subject: Teaching kids about computers... In-Reply-To: <20071202001024.GB5384@brevard.conman.org> References: , <47514EFC.30102@gifford.co.uk>, <20071202001024.GB5384@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <4751ACD6.14742.6E12D490@cclist.sydex.com> On 1 Dec 2007 at 19:10, Sean Conner wrote: > I seem to recall that the original Apple I had a jumper that selected > between a 6502 and a 6800. The ony reason that Apple used the 6502 was > price. MOS Technology was hurting badly after they withdrew the 6501. You could get a 6502 for about $25, IIRC. A couple of friends even picked up 6502 S-100 cards (SSM? I don't remember) because they were too cheap to resist. I don't know if they did anything with them, considering the momentum x80 software was beginning to experience. Cheers, Chuck From cctech at vax-11.org Sat Dec 1 21:03:12 2007 From: cctech at vax-11.org (cctech at vax-11.org) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 20:03:12 -0700 (MST) Subject: VAX 11/750 power supply fault In-Reply-To: <1196545315.4751d523644ad@www.jblaser.org> References: <200711292354.lATNsixZ093034@dewey.classiccmp.org> <1196478099.4750ce9354910@www.jblaser.org> <1196479830.4750d55685883@www.jblaser.org> <1196545315.4751d523644ad@www.jblaser.org> Message-ID: On Sat, 1 Dec 2007, J Blaser wrote: > Quoting Dave McGuire : > >> On Nov 30, 2007, at 10:30 PM, J Blaser wrote: >>> cheekiness, does anyone have schematics and/or Engineering Drawings >>> for this 11/ >>> 750. Maybe I could actually try to sort it out if I had some more >>> information, >>> at least until I electrocute myself! :o >> >> I'm fairly certain that I have 11/750 prints here, but I will have to >> find them. Let me know if you don't find them elsewhere quickly enough >> and I'll start digging. > > Thanks, Dave, for the offer (and to all others giving helpful advice in this > thread). I *did* find the schematics last night on vt100.net/manx, so I just > need to spend some time now looking them over, and seeing what I can do. > > I do have some very basic tools, and a 'scope, and I guess my plan is to try to > look for some bad passives first, unpowered, then take whatever next steps seem > reasonable. These PSs are pretty tightly packed, in a 3-D kind of way, and I'm > not sure I'm up to poking around inside with it powered. I might touch > something I shouldn't with a probe, and make things worse! ;) We will see... > > As things progress I'll give a report, but don't hold your breath for quick > news. I've got a lot to learn first. > > Thanks. > > - Jared > I like to solder wires to interesting points, run them outside of whatever I'm working and attach them to a something (paint stir stick) so they don't short out. That way I can look at the signals without risking a short, especially on high voltage stuff. Clint From cclist at sydex.com Sat Dec 1 21:15:43 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 19:15:43 -0800 Subject: AMSTRAD PCW8256 systems & sw available In-Reply-To: References: <575131af0712010742p67a2d24ft798e5b2d14aa8db3@mail.gmail.com> from "Liam Proven" at Dec 1, 7 03:42:36 pm, Message-ID: <4751B2DF.3809.6E2A6697@cclist.sydex.com> > > On 01/12/2007, Steven Martin wrote: > > > My dad is 82, a retired College Professor, he owns a Amstrad PCW 8256 > > > and his printer is broken. The printer head doesn't seem to go > > > anywhere so it can't print. Is there someone in the USA that you know > > > of that can help me, we are in California. If you do not know of > > > anyone in the USA is there a way you can direct me to someone I can > > > buy parts from that speaks english or at least can communicate > > > through email in english. I'm amazed that your father still can find 3" CF diskettes for the thing and that his diskette drive hasn't developed "belt slop" yet. At any rate, there's a somewhat fuzzy service manual for the Joyce and its printer at http://www.amstradcg.nl/service.pdf . It might be readable enough to get you going. My guess as far as culprits, if the carriage motor hasn't gone south and the right signals are getting through to the printer, would be IC706 (HA13408) or Q701 (2SA1013) labeled "carriage enable" on the schematic. Cheers, Chuck From silent700 at gmail.com Sun Dec 2 00:04:11 2007 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 00:04:11 -0600 Subject: For trade: SGI Iris 4D/310VGX Message-ID: <51ea77730712012204i2a1a94e4x663ec82d0c3d1de1@mail.gmail.com> It's time to clear some space and say goodbye to an unfinished project. my SGI Iris 4D/310VGX. She's a double-wide deskside cabinet, I believe with an R3000 33mhz CPU. The power supply is dead, having traded her good PSU to revive a somewhat more alluring SGI Crimson. There are no hard drives or hard drive sleds. There is a CPU card, RAM card and video card. The external plastics are in pretty good shape; some scratches here and there. The clasp on the front door might be cracked, but the hinges are good and it stays closed with tape. A fine project for revival or as a parts machine for another SGI. I really don't want to part it out myself; I'd like the whole machine gone. So that probably means local pick-up only, since it's a back-breaker. I'm in Palatine, IL, northwest of Chicago. I'd like to trade for.....well pretty much anything smaller than the Iris. Any token cool item is fine. If no one has anything for trade, I'm sure I'll end up giving it away. -j -- silent700.blogspot.com Retrocomputing and collecting in the Chicago area: http://chiclassiccomp.org From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sat Dec 1 16:52:16 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 17:52:16 -0500 Subject: Bought a 4GB USB stick today, and guess what... Message-ID: <0JSE00EJZ7I8LYM3@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Bought a 4GB USB stick today, and guess what... > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 21:58:19 +0000 (GMT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> >And of course a 4040 from Intel is a 4-bit microprocessor, from RCA it's >> >a 12 bit CMOS counter. I can never rememebr what the 4004 is in the >> >4000-eries CMOS, it's sufficiently rare that none of the data books I >> >have to hand list it. >> >> >> ur kiddin. Just prefix 74{c, hc, hct} and the 4xxx number and you >> get it's function and pinout. > >None of my data books list a 74HC4004 either. Does it even exist? I have data but in 1973 it was already replaced by 4024 a 7 stage binary counter. > >The 74HC4040 exists, and as expected it's a 12 bit ripple counter. That and the 4060 (14stge counter) are still widely used. >> However for us who kept those old and valuable manuals like Signetics >> 8xxx series and the RCA databook series (my 1973 set was some 8 books) >> I do have data for RCA 4xxx and a lot of other oddities. > >I haev never thrown out a databook. Darn it, I've got an Ericson databook >for Dekatrons and Trochotroncs, etc. And a valve databook from the 1940s >that has printed on almost every page 'Supply of this device cannot be >guaranteed due to the current situatio' (that is, of course, WW2). ;) That and my RCA powe tube manuals from the 50s, 60s and even a 1970 copy. Whats scary is that I have old databooks to support the old parts I HAVE and use. Allison >-tony From grant at stockly.com Sun Dec 2 03:16:29 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 00:16:29 -0900 Subject: Teaching kids about computers... In-Reply-To: <20071202001024.GB5384@brevard.conman.org> References: <47514EFC.30102@gifford.co.uk> <20071202001024.GB5384@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <0JSF00MMX0FC3B70@msgmmp-1.gci.net> > I seem to recall that the original Apple I had a jumper that selected >between a 6502 and a 6800. The ony reason that Apple used the 6502 was >price. In a letter to BYTE, Wozniak describes the Z80 as a "real processor" in comparison. : ) This letter was almost exactly one year before the Apple 1. Grant From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Dec 2 04:06:47 2007 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 10:06:47 +0000 Subject: ZX Spectrum (was Re: Commodores ) In-Reply-To: <713056.43156.qm@web23401.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <713056.43156.qm@web23401.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1196590007.9372.10.camel@elric.inet> On Sun, 2007-12-02 at 02:08 +0000, Andrew Burton wrote: > Yeah, I remember that. > > The pictures I made were saved in such a way (by BASIC) so that as they loaded they would draw onscreen straight away! > A handfull of professionally-made games found a way so that they were drawn in such a way that they only flicked into view at the last minute - presumably by setting all ink & pen colours to zero, until all the image data was loaded. There are two ways to do this. You can say INK 0:PAPER 0:BORDER 0:CLS (or whatever colour you want). Then when you do LOAD ""SCREEEN$ then the attribute buffer will get overwritten in a few seconds just at the end, and the picture will appear. The alternative is to use a bit of machine code to copy the image into screen RAM really quickly after loading it higher up. That would be something like: ld hl, 32768; // start of loaded image ld de, 16384; // start of screen memory ld bc, 6912; // byte count ldir One final alternative is that on the Speccy 128 you could flip between two addresses for the screen RAM with a bit on one of the IO ports. By switching during the screen draw time, you could do lovely smooth wipes. > Just incase I do get around to playing with the Speccy again, do you recall where the screen memory starts? See above > All my graphical operations were done using plot, circle and draw commands. I did manage to poke graphics into the character set to replace them, but whenever I went back to BASIC I couldn't read the program listing!!! > I did find a way to reset that, but I don't recall of-hand what I did. The screen layout is *weird*. I'm sure you'll figure it out. Gordon From wmaddox at pacbell.net Sun Dec 2 06:25:20 2007 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 04:25:20 -0800 Subject: Nice PDP8 gear available in Sweden Message-ID: <4752A430.7060201@pacbell.net> A fellow in Sweden is offering some very nice PDP8 gear, including a loaded PDP-8/E chassis, an RK05, and some additional peripherals. For you folks on the other side of the pond, here's your chance. He's eBay savvy, however, so expect to have to make a serious offer. You can find more info at his website: http://www.neab.net/pdp-8e/ Of particular interest is an extremely rare MR873a Microprocessor ROM Programmer, which appears to interface to the PDP8. I have no connection with the seller other than as the buyer for a few of his eBay auctions. --Bill From alberto at a2sistemi.it Sun Dec 2 07:30:21 2007 From: alberto at a2sistemi.it (Alberto Rubinelli - A2 Sistemi) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 14:30:21 +0100 Subject: IBM 5285 info request In-Reply-To: <4752A430.7060201@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <00fa01c834e7$7d5a78b0$0f00a8c0@PCA104Alberto> I'm not able to find information or pictures of IBM 5285 This model numbers list http://www.beagle-ears.com/lars/engineer/comphist/ibmmodel.txt says : 5285 -IBM Programmable Data Station Anyone have more information or pictures ? Alberto ------------------------------------------------------ Alberto Rubinelli Mail : alberto at a2sistemi.it A2 SISTEMI Web : www.a2sistemi.it Via Costantino Perazzi 22 Tel +39 0321 640149 28100 NOVARA (NO) - ITALY Fax +39 0321 391769 Skype : albertorubinelli Mobile +39 335 6026632 Il museo di vecchi computers/My old computers museum http://www.retrocomputing.net ICQ : 49872318 ------------------------------------------------------ From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Dec 2 09:19:30 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 10:19:30 -0500 Subject: Nice PDP8 gear available in Sweden In-Reply-To: <4752A430.7060201@pacbell.net> References: <4752A430.7060201@pacbell.net> Message-ID: > Of particular interest is an extremely rare MR873a > Microprocessor ROM Programmer, which appears to > interface to the PDP8. What specifically does it program? -- Will From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 2 11:50:25 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 09:50:25 -0800 Subject: IBM 5285 info request In-Reply-To: <00fa01c834e7$7d5a78b0$0f00a8c0@PCA104Alberto> References: <4752A430.7060201@pacbell.net>, <00fa01c834e7$7d5a78b0$0f00a8c0@PCA104Alberto> Message-ID: <47527FE1.17354.714B352C@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Dec 2007 at 14:30, Alberto Rubinelli - A2 Sistemi wrote: > Anyone have more information or pictures ? Does this help? http://www.sysipl.fr/articles.php?lng=en&pg=36 I gather it's part of the 5280 DDS. Cheers, Chuck From alberto at a2sistemi.it Sun Dec 2 11:59:14 2007 From: alberto at a2sistemi.it (Alberto Rubinelli - A2 Sistemi) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 18:59:14 +0100 Subject: IBM 5285 info request In-Reply-To: <47527FE1.17354.714B352C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <010801c8350d$0f39eac0$0f00a8c0@PCA104Alberto> > Does this help? > > http://www.sysipl.fr/articles.php?lng=en&pg=36 > I gather it's part of the 5280 DDS. Great ! Now I have an idea of how many space I need in my museum :) Thanks , Alberto ------------------------------------------------------ Alberto Rubinelli Mail : alberto at a2sistemi.it A2 SISTEMI Web : www.a2sistemi.it Via Costantino Perazzi 22 Tel +39 0321 640149 28100 NOVARA (NO) - ITALY Fax +39 0321 391769 Skype : albertorubinelli Mobile +39 335 6026632 Il mio museo di vecchi computers/My old computers museum http://www.retrocomputing.net ICQ : 49872318 ------------------------------------------------------ From Arno_1983 at gmx.de Sun Dec 2 12:18:11 2007 From: Arno_1983 at gmx.de (Arno Kletzander) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:18:11 +0100 Subject: Mechanical calculators (was: Re: *updating* 8088's) Message-ID: <20071202181811.166300@gmx.net> M H Stein wrote: > The IBM unit record or Tabulating machines that we've been discussing > had their roots in the same principles as these calculators, adding > machines and cash registers (...) Thanks for that interesting piece of history! Nice insight into the workings of unit record equipment, a quite fascinating category of data processing in itself. My contribution however was not targeted at the IBM equipment thread, btw. "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > "Roy J. Tellason" wrote: > > This stirs a vague recollection of an old mechanical adding machine I > > once had, the kind that had a big rectangular array of buttons instead > > of just a "10-key" set of numbers. I have *no* idea how it stored a > > number in there, though. > > (...) > > When you mention the big array of keys, I think of a comptometer. > There's a nice discussion on the web: > > http://www2.cruzio.com/~vagabond/ComptHome.html > > But the item I'm thinking of was alphanumeric, more like a Teletype. > > Cheers, > Chuck Yes, exactly that is the class of machines I meant. There were similar ones which printed on a platten carriage mounted behind the adding machine body, and some of the latest electromechanical models had a "type box" as a means of commenting the ledgers, invoices - whatever. The letters were assigned as secondary functions to some of the keys and the machine would print those instead of accepting numeric input when it was in a column definded for comments (which was done by sticking pegs into a programming board moving together with the carriage). -- Arno Kletzander GMX FreeMail: 1 GB Postfach, 5 E-Mail-Adressen, 10 Free SMS. Alle Infos und kostenlose Anmeldung: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/freemail From steve at radiorobots.com Sun Dec 2 15:08:12 2007 From: steve at radiorobots.com (Steve Stutman) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 16:08:12 -0500 Subject: DEC HSZ20 Message-ID: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com> Hi, Looking for doc on HSZ20 running under VMS. Thanks, Steve From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Dec 2 15:17:18 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 16:17:18 -0500 Subject: Amiga 1000 In-Reply-To: <474FB4A0.6090802@oldskool.org> References: <112385.41295.qm@web61023.mail.yahoo.com> <200711281734.19616.rtellason@verizon.net> <474FB4A0.6090802@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200712021617.18675.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 30 November 2007 01:58, Jim Leonard wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > We went round and round with them on the phone once. I wanted to know > > what the heck the software was trying to do that it wasn't loading > > properly. They insisted that the drive had to be perfectly aligned, and > > I'd just done that... > > Is that a subtle/sarcastic dig at their copy protection methods, or just > "they would connect me to clueless people on the other end of the line"? Beats me. The phone call just didn't resolve anything, and the level of frustration on both my part and that of the customer just increased... BTW, the company still appears to have some issues. A family member came to me asking for help with a web-based game that wouldn't work. The site insisted that java had to be installed and enabled. As far as I could tell it was. Detailed instructions on their site referred to specific stuff that wasn't there in "Java" on that computer, though I managed to find the specifics anyhow, and enabled things. The computer had 1.6.something, they were saying you needed at least 1.5... Looked at the bottom of the web page and there was that familiar logo I hadn't seen since those days: "EA" Told the family member that the site was screwed up, and not seeing that they already had Java installed and enabled. -- 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 bear at typewritten.org Sun Dec 2 15:38:07 2007 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 13:38:07 -0800 Subject: IBM 5161 Extender Card DIP Switch Settings Message-ID: Does anybody have information how to set the memory size correctly with the 4-pos DIP switch used on the IBM 5161 Extender Card? Thanks. ok bear From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Dec 2 15:48:01 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 16:48:01 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 PSUs In-Reply-To: <4750A50C.3030100@jbrain.com> References: <901126.39063.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> <475038BE.2040505@yahoo.co.uk> <4750A50C.3030100@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <200712021648.01498.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 30 November 2007 19:04, Jim Brain wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: > > Jim Brain wrote: > >>> > pics? I'm not sure I recall a wedge-shaped PSU. > >>> > >>> OK, look here: http://jope.fi/cbm/cbm/c64psu.jpg. > >>> > >>> The PSU I'm referring to is the leftmost one of the three in that > >>> picture; I've always called them "wedge shaped", but I suppose > >>> "cheese block" would be closer to the mark, LOL. > >> > >> Wow, never seen anything like that. The ones on the right and middle > >> are all I know as PSUs. Ya learn something new every day. I don't recall ever seeing one that looked like that, either. > > Jumping in... > > > > Curious. For 'old shape' C64 machines, I've never seen anything > > *except* the wedge-shape design - I didn't know anything else existed > > until the time when CBM re-did the machine case itself. Isn't it > > exactly the same shell as the Plus/4 PSU, but in beige rather than black? > > THis is all I have here for old-style 64 PS: > > http://www.bullnet.co.uk/shops/live/images/c64.jpg That's what most all of them looked like, except for those fewer older units that weren't potted. > Now, I only know this as the PS for the Plus/4: > > http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/vic20/h/plus4.jpg Same as the one for the 64, but with a different connector on the computer end of the wire, no? > This interesting unit I have seen on VICs: > > http://www.commodore.ca/products/vic20/vic202.jpg That the 2-pin version? If so, it's just a small transformer in a box. > Of course, while searching, I came upon this item I have never seen. > Another day of learning. I want one! > > http://cdn2.soundclick.com/21/imgPages/3/3/3059673_63411.jpg?version=206 Never saw anything like that...! > I have a rounded (non-fin) 2 prong VIC PS in storage, but I can't find > good pics online, so take my word at present that such rounded > non-finned beasts exist. Those are the ones that are repairable, if we're talking about the same thing. Vented? Screws accessible on the bottom of the unit? Lousy strain relief at the DIN connector? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Dec 2 15:50:28 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 16:50:28 -0500 Subject: Bought a 4GB USB stick today, and guess what... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200712021650.28447.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 30 November 2007 19:38, Tony Duell wrote: > > > Either someone at Hynix has a sense of humour, or they have run right > > > out of IC codes and have come full circle to 2708 again. > > > > Several years ago, Motorola/IBM used the part number "7400" for some of > > their PowerPC chips. > > And of course a 4040 from Intel is a 4-bit microprocessor, from RCA it's > a 12 bit CMOS counter. I can never rememebr what the 4004 is in the > 4000-eries CMOS, it's sufficiently rare that none of the data books I > have to hand list it. And then there was the guy a while back who I'd sent some MC4044 chips to, and he accused me of sending him some R-S Latch parts... Which Motorola would've called MC14044. -- 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 mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sun Dec 2 16:02:46 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 16:02:46 -0600 Subject: IBM 5161 Extender Card DIP Switch Settings In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47532B86.9090408@brutman.com> r.stricklin wrote: > Does anybody have information how to set the memory size correctly with > the 4-pos DIP switch used on the IBM 5161 Extender Card? > > Thanks. > > ok > bear > > From page 5-50 of the Guide To Operations "Set the switches on the Extender Card to reflect total system memory" 16 to 64K On On On Off 96 to 128K On On Off On 160 to 192K On On Off Off 224 to 256K On Off On On 288 to 320K On Off On Off 352 to 384K On Off Off On 416 to 448K On Off Off Off 480 to 512K Off On On On 544 to 576K Off On On Off 608 to 640K Off On Off On From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 2 16:23:02 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 14:23:02 -0800 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com> References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com> Message-ID: <4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com> I was just doing some work on my Beige G3 attached to an HP 98789A 17" monitor sitting next to a PC with a brand-new wide-screen LCD and a NVidia DVI-output AGP card. What struck me was how smooth the color rendition was with the CRT (I think it's a Sony under the HP badge) compared to the LCD. Sure, the LCD has more pixels and is very sharp, but the HP analog tube seems to be much more pleasing to the eye. Am I imagining this or have others noticed the same thing? Is this another case of vinyl-vs-CD? I don't own an LCD TV and after this experience am not tempted to get one. I figure this is fair game for the list, as the G3 is over 10 years old and the HP monitor much older than that. Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Dec 2 16:19:17 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 22:19:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Bought a 4GB USB stick today, and guess what... In-Reply-To: <0JSE00EJZ7I8LYM3@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> from "Allison" at Dec 1, 7 05:52:16 pm Message-ID: > >> >And of course a 4040 from Intel is a 4-bit microprocessor, from RCA it's > >> >a 12 bit CMOS counter. I can never rememebr what the 4004 is in the > >> >4000-eries CMOS, it's sufficiently rare that none of the data books I > >> >have to hand list it. > >> > >> > >> ur kiddin. Just prefix 74{c, hc, hct} and the 4xxx number and you > >> get it's function and pinout. > > > >None of my data books list a 74HC4004 either. Does it even exist? > > I have data but in 1973 it was already replaced by 4024 a 7 stage > binary counter. YEs, the 4004 exited, but I susepct the 74HC(T)4004 never did. So trying to look it up doesn't help... > Whats scary is that I have old databooks to support the old parts > I HAVE and use. So do I. Valves, CRTs, DTL chips, and so on.... I even keep old component catalogues so if I find some part marked with, say, an RS components stock number I can look it up and find the specs. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Dec 2 16:25:38 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 22:25:38 +0000 (GMT) Subject: VAX 11/750 power supply fault In-Reply-To: from "dwight elvey" at Dec 1, 7 03:03:09 pm Message-ID: > One of the trickiest things about switchers is that they often > use the main output to provide the rails for the regulation feedback. > This causes a chicken/egg problem. We can see that there is > no output so no feedback to tell the high side to deliver more If there is no feedback -- that is the feedback detects no output voltage, then the power supply controller should try to increase the output voltage. That's why a fault in the feedback circuit -- even unconencted sense terminals in some poorly-designed supplies -- will get the outputs to go sky-high. Hopefully the overvoltage protection circuit (crowbar or whatever) trips before any real damage is done. You might be confusing this issue with another one. That is, the power supply control circuitry needs to be powered. Once the supply is running, it; can be powered from one of the outputs of said supply, but at swich-on, the power supply outputs are all 0, to the power control circuitry is not powered, so the supply can't do anything, so the outputs remain at 0. Some larger supplies -- even things like the VT100 -- have a little linear supply to get things going. Other times there's a dropping resistor (startup resistor) to power some bits of the control circuit directly from the recifiied mians, just to get it all going. Once it's started up, it carries on running from the main supply outputs. DEC took this to extremes in the 11/44. The main PSU circuits (and there are 2 of them) in that machine start from a little SMPSU circuit. That in turn has a startup resistor. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Dec 2 16:26:44 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 22:26:44 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Teaching kids about computers... In-Reply-To: <20071202001024.GB5384@brevard.conman.org> from "Sean Conner" at Dec 1, 7 07:10:24 pm Message-ID: > I seem to recall that the original Apple I had a jumper that selected > between a 6502 and a 6800. The ony reason that Apple used the 6502 was > price. I think I've seen a CPU board, possibly from a Tangerine computer, that had overlapping 40 pin DIL sockets for either a 6502 or 6800. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Dec 2 16:28:24 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 22:28:24 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Teaching kids about computers... In-Reply-To: <200712020049.lB20nXAj014448@floodgap.com> from "Cameron Kaiser" at Dec 1, 7 04:49:33 pm Message-ID: > I just had an evil thought -- a 6502-based CoCo. I wonder how well > that would work. It might be harder than you think. The CoCo used the 6809E -- that is the external clock version, which took separate E and Q clocks from the SAM chip. I thought all 6502-family chips had internacl clock geenrators, and getting on to sync to the SAM's E and Q clocks might well be hard. -tony From trixter at oldskool.org Sun Dec 2 16:52:15 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 16:52:15 -0600 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com> <4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4753371F.3060001@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > What struck me was how smooth the color rendition was with the CRT (I > think it's a Sony under the HP badge) compared to the LCD. Sure, the > LCD has more pixels and is very sharp, but the HP analog tube seems > to be much more pleasing to the eye. It depends on the application (graphics? text?) and the LCD (what exact make and model?) LCDs are not made equal and I have seen some pretty crappy LCDs in the last year. -- 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 verizon.net Sun Dec 2 17:41:36 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:41:36 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com> <4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200712021841.36326.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 02 December 2007 17:23, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I was just doing some work on my Beige G3 attached to an HP 98789A > 17" monitor sitting next to a PC with a brand-new wide-screen LCD and > a NVidia DVI-output AGP card. > > What struck me was how smooth the color rendition was with the CRT (I > think it's a Sony under the HP badge) compared to the LCD. Sure, the > LCD has more pixels and is very sharp, but the HP analog tube seems > to be much more pleasing to the eye. > > Am I imagining this or have others noticed the same thing? Is this > another case of vinyl-vs-CD? I don't own an LCD TV and after this > experience am not tempted to get one. > > I figure this is fair game for the list, as the G3 is over 10 years > old and the HP monitor much older than that. I dunno but I've been staring at this laptop screen for a number of months now, while I search for which box has the boards that were in my workstation that I need to rebuild. I expect I'll get that round tuit one of these days and then I'll have a side-by-side comparison as well. This is my first extensive use of other than a monitor, so it should be interesting going back again. I do know that Sony stuff does seem to work very nicely overall. I have a tv in the room here that I brought with me when I left NYC -- back in 1978! The tube is a bit worse for wear, but it mostly works just fine. -- 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 brad at heeltoe.com Sun Dec 2 18:31:21 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:31:21 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 02 Dec 2007 14:23:02 PST." <4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200712030031.lB30VLtW026773@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Chuck Guzis" wrote: >I was just doing some work on my Beige G3 attached to an HP 98789A >17" monitor sitting next to a PC with a brand-new wide-screen LCD and >a NVidia DVI-output AGP card. a trinitron tube has always looked better to me. black line and all. it might be subjective, but I have bought a number of sony monitors after I stopped using ikagami's :-) back in the day, of course. i could swear i used color sony's on sun's too. but convenience (and weight) have won over. I would only go back if I were looking at 32 bit deep images all day long. -brad From trixter at oldskool.org Sun Dec 2 18:40:54 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:40:54 -0600 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712030031.lB30VLtW026773@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200712030031.lB30VLtW026773@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <47535096.90604@oldskool.org> Brad Parker wrote: > i could swear i used color sony's on sun's too. Yep. Most Sun monitors where I work are Trinitrons. > but convenience (and weight) have won over. I would only go back > if I were looking at 32 bit deep images all day long. ...which is good, because you have to pay over $400 for an LCD that does better than 18-bit color. (Many advertise 24-bit but only process 6 bits per component internally) -- 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 pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Dec 2 19:45:50 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 20:45:50 -0500 Subject: RM02 Massbus adapter troubleshooting Message-ID: <200712022045.51023.pat@computer-refuge.org> I'm trying to get a few RM02 drives going, which I picked up about a month ago. I can't get the RH11 I've got to talk to the MBA (Massbus adapter) in the drive (it reports a 'timeout'), and I think I've traced down the fault to a problem with the massbus transceiver, but wouldn't mind someone else taking a look at this... On page 2 of the M5922 schematics, signal AA2 DEMAND A H is generated from a 75108. It looks like the signals "IF5 PORT A ON H" and the global enable from the switch on the board are both high and "MASS FAIL H" is low (and thus "AA2 MASS FAIL A L" is high). When the controller toggles the DEM(and) line on the massbus, I see "MASS DEM A H" and "MASS DEM A L" at pins BV2 and BV1, respectively, change state, but the output "AA2 DEMAND A H" stays low. Any ideas? I guess that either the 7417 at E3 could be defective, or the 75108 at E17 could be to blame. Or, is there something else that I'm missing? BTW, after staring at the MASS FAIL logic for a while, I looked up a datasheet for a 7417, and realized that it's just a buffer, and not an inverter (as it's drawn in the print set). Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From oldcpu2 at rogerwilco.org Sun Dec 2 19:51:16 2007 From: oldcpu2 at rogerwilco.org (J Blaser) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:51:16 -0700 (MST) Subject: VAX 11/750 power supply fault In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1196646676.4753611479145@www.jblaser.org> Quoting Tony Duell : > But I can be eaily persuaded to look at the PSU schematics sometime and > see if I spot anything obvious. Or at least tlak you through the design > (which might be somewhat unconventional if other DEC supplies are > anything to go by [1]) > > [1] This might not be a problem for you. If oyu don't have any experience > of SMPSUs, any one is as good/bad as another to get started with. The > problems generally come if you have fixed ideas ofg how supplies should > work and then you get something strange thrown at you. > Thanks much for the offer to work me through this! There are a couple of things that I want to do tomorrow night when I get a chance. Clint's suggested that there is something 'shorting' the supplies outputs has prompted me to consider disconnecting all outputs (+5V, +/-15V) from the backplane, and *only* hook up my auto headlamps as a load. I don't know that this will give me anything useful, but I'll give it a try. Based on those results, I might be ready to cry, "Uncle!" and ping you for some advice. I do like Clint's suggestion to solder some wires to various points, bringing them to the outside for measurement (that's just the sort of thing I would not have thought of...thanks, Clint!), so that might be a good next step. More soon (after my only-headlamps-connected test)... - Jared From oldcpu2 at rogerwilco.org Sun Dec 2 19:56:04 2007 From: oldcpu2 at rogerwilco.org (J Blaser) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:56:04 -0700 (MST) Subject: VAX 11/750 power supply fault In-Reply-To: References: <200711292354.lATNsixZ093034@dewey.classiccmp.org> <1196478099.4750ce9354910@www.jblaser.org> <1196479830.4750d55685883@www.jblaser.org> Message-ID: <1196646964.4753623498dcb@www.jblaser.org> Quoting Clint: > I have a "spare" 11/750 supply that I can loan you. Since it is out of a > machine, I'd need to get it back eventually. If you can troubleshoot it > down to a single board I can loan that as well (to save on shipping) > I'd also suggest you measure the resistance between +/-15V and ground on > the backplane without any cards plugged in. A bad capacitor or shorted > pin could make the supply current limit trip as well. Let me do some further testing, maybe under Tony's guidance, and we'll see what happens. This could be a good fallback if needed. Thanks for the offer. Let's leave this on the table for now. - Jared From doc at mdrconsult.com Sun Dec 2 20:11:53 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:11:53 -0600 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com> <4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <475365E9.5010901@mdrconsult.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I was just doing some work on my Beige G3 attached to an HP 98789A > 17" monitor sitting next to a PC with a brand-new wide-screen LCD and > a NVidia DVI-output AGP card. > > What struck me was how smooth the color rendition was with the CRT (I > think it's a Sony under the HP badge) compared to the LCD. Sure, the > LCD has more pixels and is very sharp, but the HP analog tube seems > to be much more pleasing to the eye. > > Am I imagining this or have others noticed the same thing? Is this > another case of vinyl-vs-CD? I don't own an LCD TV and after this > experience am not tempted to get one. > > I figure this is fair game for the list, as the G3 is over 10 years > old and the HP monitor much older than that. Put it this way - 3 years ago I replaced my Dell laptop, which had their premium 15" 1400x1050 screen, with a PowerBook. I was thinking I'd have to go with a 17" screen, as the 15" Mac only does 1280x856. After looking at the PowerBooks, I bought the 15". The Mac screen is much clearer, colors are more consistent, edges are sharper, and smaller fonts are *less* pixelated at 1280x856 than the Dell at 1400x1050. Samsung's high-end LCDs, Dell's xx0700FP[W] line, and Apple's displays are very, very close to the quality I got used to with the SGI GDM-5011 tubes. The rest are pretty much "ehh..." Doc From ian_primus at yahoo.com Sun Dec 2 20:46:41 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 18:46:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712021841.36326.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- "Roy J. Tellason" wrote: > On Sunday 02 December 2007 17:23, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > I was just doing some work on my Beige G3 > attached to an HP 98789A > > 17" monitor sitting next to a PC with a brand-new > wide-screen LCD and > > a NVidia DVI-output AGP card. > > > > What struck me was how smooth the color rendition > was with the CRT (I > > think it's a Sony under the HP badge) compared to > the LCD. Sure, the > > LCD has more pixels and is very sharp, but the HP > analog tube seems > > to be much more pleasing to the eye. > > > > Am I imagining this or have others noticed the > same thing? Is this > > another case of vinyl-vs-CD? I don't own an LCD > TV and after this > > experience am not tempted to get one. You're not imagining it - I have noticed the same thing. The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day for me. And, for whatever reason, LCD's seem to give me headaches. I don't know what it is, but something about them, I get headaches after a few hours. Mono terminals never give me problems - LCD's do. Go figure. At home I use a pair of old GDM 17E10 (one Sun, one SGI) monitors on my Mac. I absolutely love them. I actually just had to swap out one of them, it needs to be recapped. The linearity is going south, and it's starting to develop smearing. Not bad though, it was made in like '93, and I have been using it every day for the last six years. Fortunately I had a spare. I'll have to keep my eyes open for more of them. At work, I use a well worn Dell 17" CRT monitor with Windows 98 screen burn, connected to a PC running Linux. It's a bit worse for wear, with the burn-in and the tube getting dim, but it's still crisp and readable. For most purposes, CRT's are much nicer than LCD's (IMHO). But, then again, that's just how I feel. Most people these days would disagree with me. Besides, us in the classic computer community are probably a bit biased . Nothing beats the sharpness of a good monochrome CRT... -Ian From hachti at hachti.de Sun Dec 2 21:19:35 2007 From: hachti at hachti.de (Philipp Hachtmann) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 04:19:35 +0100 Subject: Nice PDP8 gear available in Sweden In-Reply-To: <4752A430.7060201@pacbell.net> References: <4752A430.7060201@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <475375C7.1010704@hachti.de> The link doesn't work :-( William Maddox wrote: > A fellow in Sweden is offering some very nice PDP8 gear, > including a loaded PDP-8/E chassis, an RK05, and some > additional peripherals. For you folks on the other side > of the pond, here's your chance. He's eBay savvy, > however, so expect to have to make a serious offer. > You can find more info at his website: > > http://www.neab.net/pdp-8e/ > > Of particular interest is an extremely rare MR873a > Microprocessor ROM Programmer, which appears to > interface to the PDP8. > > I have no connection with the seller other than as the > buyer for a few of his eBay auctions. > > --Bill -- http://www.hachti.de From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 2 21:21:35 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:21:35 -0800 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <4753371F.3060001@oldskool.org> References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com>, <4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com>, <4753371F.3060001@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <475305BF.3596.73561A5D@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Dec 2007 at 16:52, Jim Leonard wrote: > It depends on the application (graphics? text?) and the LCD (what exact > make and model?) LCDs are not made equal and I have seen some pretty > crappy LCDs in the last year. Well, I'm staring at mostly text on a ASUS VW192T. Not exactly top- of-the-line, but fairly new. Maybe a really good one would look better, I don't know. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 2 21:30:57 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:30:57 -0800 Subject: Mechanical calculators (was: Re: *updating* 8088's) In-Reply-To: <20071202181811.166300@gmx.net> References: <20071202181811.166300@gmx.net> Message-ID: <475307F1.12989.735EB090@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Dec 2007 at 19:18, Arno Kletzander wrote: > Yes, exactly that is the class of machines I meant. There were similar > ones which printed on a platten carriage mounted behind the adding > machine body, and some of the latest electromechanical models had a > "type box" as a means of commenting the ledgers, invoices - whatever. > The letters were assigned as secondary functions to some of the keys > and the machine would print those instead of accepting numeric input > when it was in a column definded for comments (which was done by > sticking pegs into a programming board moving together with the > carriage). -- Arno Kletzander Could you perhaps point me at a web photo of such a machine? Thanks, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Sun Dec 2 21:31:45 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:31:45 -0700 Subject: Nice PDP8 gear available in Sweden In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 03 Dec 2007 04:19:35 +0100. <475375C7.1010704@hachti.de> Message-ID: In article <475375C7.1010704 at hachti.de>, Philipp Hachtmann writes: > > You can find more info at his website: > > > > http://www.neab.net/pdp-8e/ > > The link doesn't work :-( It worked for me when I looked at it earlier today. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From brain at jbrain.com Sun Dec 2 21:33:16 2007 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:33:16 -0600 Subject: Commodore 64 PSUs In-Reply-To: <200712021648.01498.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <901126.39063.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> <475038BE.2040505@yahoo.co.uk> <4750A50C.3030100@jbrain.com> <200712021648.01498.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <475378FC.9090204@jbrain.com> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > Same as the one for the 64, but with a different connector on the computer > end of the wire, no? > Yep, a square connector, the same as on the 128, as I recall. > Those are the ones that are repairable, if we're talking about the same > thing. Vented? Screws accessible on the bottom of the unit? Lousy strain > relief at the DIN connector? > I was thinking of a potted wall-wart model that had the old-style electric-shaver 2 prong connector. The only ones I knew that were repairable were the heavy duty PSUs that came with the 128 and the 1764 REUs. Jim From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Dec 2 22:24:33 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 20:24:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 PSUs In-Reply-To: <475378FC.9090204@jbrain.com> from Jim Brain at "Dec 2, 7 09:33:16 pm" Message-ID: <200712030424.lB34OXHF013340@floodgap.com> > I was thinking of a potted wall-wart model that had the old-style > electric-shaver 2 prong connector. Wasn't that for the 16? I missed the original message. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- The truth is out there. The speculation, however, is really out there. ----- From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Dec 2 22:26:08 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 20:26:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> from Mr Ian Primus at "Dec 2, 7 06:46:41 pm" Message-ID: <200712030426.lB34Q83E015942@floodgap.com> > You're not imagining it - I have noticed the same > thing. The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day > for me. Likewise. I put up with this 19" behemoth because the colour is so nice. ObClassicCmp: starting to see more Commodore users at festivals with LCD monitors, like Larry. I still prefer a 1702 any day, but you can't beat it for convenience. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- BOND THEME NOW PLAYING: "The Living Daylights" ----------------------------- From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Dec 2 22:34:31 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 23:34:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200712030442.XAA04300@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day for me. I agree, a good CRT beats a good LCD. However, when restricted to the price ranges I can afford, LCDs beat CRTs all hollow. That's why I'm using LCDs - especially since most of the stuff I do has more need for the things LCDs are good at than the things they're bad at. (Well-defined pixels and non-washed-out thin vertical lines, for example, count for more for me than high-precision colour fidelity or a really dim black level.) I haven't tossed my CRTs, though. > Besides, us in the classic computer community are probably a bit > biased . Nothing beats the sharpness of a good monochrome > CRT... True. For a long time I used a 1600x1280 mono Sun monitor, and it was a real joy. But years ago it dimmed into unusability, and it looks as though the next thing I'm going to be able to afford that can approach it for crispness is probably going to be some kind of flat-panel. Yes, I'd rather have a good CRT instead. But money talks loudly here. :( Perhaps I just haven't found a good source for CRT screens.... /~\ 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 v.slyngstad at verizon.net Sun Dec 2 22:45:53 2007 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:45:53 -0800 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <053401c83567$63581640$6600a8c0@vrsxp> From: "Mr Ian Primus" > You're not imagining it - I have noticed the same > thing. The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day > for me. And, for whatever reason, LCD's seem to give > me headaches. I don't know what it is, but something > about them, I get headaches after a few hours. Mono > terminals never give me problems - LCD's do. Go > figure. Er, you guys *are* using the LCD's at their native resolution, I hope. Otherwise the monitor is interpolating on top of whatever your O/S is doing to scale and draw the image. In my experience, the monitor does a lousy job of this, so you definitely need to run an LCD at it's native resolution. Maybe you can set it up to letterbox the display from your classicmp gear :-). (I'm on a 24" Samsung LCD in 1920x1200 and liking it a lot, but it's *way* off topic :-).) Vince From trixter at oldskool.org Sun Dec 2 22:57:12 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 22:57:12 -0600 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712030426.lB34Q83E015942@floodgap.com> References: <200712030426.lB34Q83E015942@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <47538CA8.5050903@oldskool.org> Cameron Kaiser wrote: > ObClassicCmp: starting to see more Commodore users at festivals with LCD How is that possible? C64 is RGB 9-pin TTL...? -- 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 pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Dec 2 23:05:17 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 00:05:17 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <47538CA8.5050903@oldskool.org> References: <200712030426.lB34Q83E015942@floodgap.com> <47538CA8.5050903@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200712030005.17849.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Sunday 02 December 2007 23:57, Jim Leonard wrote: > Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > ObClassicCmp: starting to see more Commodore users at festivals > > with LCD > > How is that possible? C64 is RGB 9-pin TTL...? It does? I've only ever used the composite output on C64s. I can't find any references to a C65 having a TTL video output, only composite, Y/C, and an RF modulated output. And, who said "C64"? :) Maybe Cameron meant Amigas, C128s, etc... Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 2 23:06:09 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:06:09 -0800 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <053401c83567$63581640$6600a8c0@vrsxp> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com>, <053401c83567$63581640$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: <47531E41.13377.73B5D6B1@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Dec 2007 at 20:45, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > Er, you guys *are* using the LCD's at their native resolution, > I hope. Otherwise the monitor is interpolating on top of whatever > your O/S is doing to scale and draw the image. In my experience, > the monitor does a lousy job of this, so you definitely need to > run an LCD at it's native resolution. Yup. 1440x900. Cheers, Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Dec 2 23:08:20 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 21:08:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712030005.17849.pat@computer-refuge.org> from Patrick Finnegan at "Dec 3, 7 00:05:17 am" Message-ID: <200712030508.lB358KvV007638@floodgap.com> > > > ObClassicCmp: starting to see more Commodore users at festivals > > > with LCD > > > > How is that possible? C64 is RGB 9-pin TTL...? > > It does? I've only ever used the composite output on C64s. I can't > find any references to a C65 having a TTL video output, only composite, > Y/C, and an RF modulated output. > > And, who said "C64"? :) Maybe Cameron meant Amigas, C128s, etc... I meant composite, with the LCD monitors that accept a composite input (or S-video, which would be better on a 64). The 128 is RGB 9-pin TTL, but only from the VDC 80-column output. In 40 columns, it is also composite. See, Jay, I got it back on topic! ;) -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Understanding is a three-edged sword. -- Babylon 5, "Deathwalker" ---------- From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Sun Dec 2 23:15:17 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 05:15:17 +0000 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <47538CA8.5050903@oldskool.org> References: <200712030426.lB34Q83E015942@floodgap.com> <47538CA8.5050903@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <20071203051517.GA28350@usap.gov> On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 10:57:12PM -0600, Jim Leonard wrote: > Cameron Kaiser wrote: > >ObClassicCmp: starting to see more Commodore users at festivals with LCD > > How is that possible? C64 is RGB 9-pin TTL...? I have an HP 2035 right at my elbow that has composite input. Some LCDs will probably even have S-Video. Not all LCD monitors are limited to just DVI and VGA inputs. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 3-Dec-2007 at 05:10 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -27.4 F (-33.0 C) Windchill -40.3 F (-40.2 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 3.4 kts Grid 67 Barometer 678.4 mb (10689 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Dec 2 23:23:12 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 00:23:12 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <20071203051517.GA28350@usap.gov> References: <200712030426.lB34Q83E015942@floodgap.com> <47538CA8.5050903@oldskool.org> <20071203051517.GA28350@usap.gov> Message-ID: <200712030023.12139.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 03 December 2007 00:15, Ethan Dicks wrote: > I have an HP 2035 right at my elbow that has composite input. Some > LCDs will probably even have S-Video. Yes, and they're usually called "LCD TVs" (though there are some that have both DVI/VGA and S-video/composite/RF inputs). :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Dec 2 23:42:22 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 21:42:22 -0800 Subject: VAX 11/750 power supply fault Message-ID: > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk >> > You might be confusing this issue with another one. That is, the power > supply control circuitry needs to be powered. Once the supply is > running, it; can be powered from one of the outputs of said supply, but > at swich-on, the power supply outputs are all 0, to the power control > circuitry is not powered, so the supply can't do anything, so the outputs > remain at 0. > Hi Tony No, I'm not confused. If the feedback circuit isn't running, there is no feedback. The feedback is such that it is positive at the interface between the low and high side. This way a failure in the feedback would bring the supply output to zero. To Make this work, there needs to be some way of getting things started. There is a oneshot on the high side that gives the supply a single kick on powering on. This also gets enough voltage to start the overall feedback that is negative from the output to the high side. It is just enough to blink some LEDs. A clever circuit but hard to trouble shoot. The first kick is so short, it is hard to catch on a meter and distinguish between lack of feedback and the over voltage protection( which also kills the feedback at the interface ). I spent time analyzing the overvoltage parts before realizing that it was a complete lack of feedback that was the problem and not the over voltage protection. The problem traced to an open ( poor solder ) inside the pulse transformer that connected the low side to the high side and provided the pulse width modulation for the supply. I'd call it a tricky circuit because as you seem to consider, it goes against common sense in that no feedback is no output. No feedback just means no pulse modulation and hence no output. As I also stated, the DEC supply most likely used a second powersource for the regulation feedback. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ You keep typing, we keep giving. Download Messenger and join the i?m Initiative now. http://im.live.com/messenger/im/home/?source=TAGLM From dm561 at torfree.net Mon Dec 3 00:46:01 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 01:46:01 -0500 Subject: Mechanical calculators (was: Re: *updating* 8088's) Message-ID: <01C8354E.443E1660@mandr71> Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:18:11 +0100 From: "Arno Kletzander" Subject: Mechanical calculators (was: Re: *updating* 8088's) M H Stein wrote: >> The IBM unit record or Tabulating machines that we've been discussing >> had their roots in the same principles as these calculators, adding >> machines and cash registers (...) >Thanks for that interesting piece of history! Nice insight into the workings of >unit record equipment, a quite fascinating category of data processing in itself. >My contribution however was not targeted at the IBM equipment thread, btw. ------- MHS: I realized that, which is why I left the original subject line. I just thought it was a relevant and interesting link to the other thread about IBM punch card equipment which was very similar in function but replaced manual entry with punched cards; the second part of my reply dealt with the type you're talking about. ------ "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > "Roy J. Tellason" wrote: > > This stirs a vague recollection of an old mechanical adding machine I > > once had, the kind that had a big rectangular array of buttons instead > > of just a "10-key" set of numbers. I have *no* idea how it stored a > > number in there, though. > > (...) > > When you mention the big array of keys, I think of a comptometer. > There's a nice discussion on the web: > > http://www2.cruzio.com/~vagabond/ComptHome.html > > But the item I'm thinking of was alphanumeric, more like a Teletype. > > Cheers, > Chuck Yes, exactly that is the class of machines I meant. There were similar ones which printed on a platten carriage mounted behind the adding machine body, and some of the latest electromechanical models had a "type box" as a means of commenting the ledgers, invoices - whatever. The letters were assigned as secondary functions to some of the keys and the machine would print those instead of accepting numeric input when it was in a column definded for comments (which was done by sticking pegs into a programming board moving together with the carriage). -- Arno Kletzander ------ MHS: And those were the "posting" or "accounting" machines I was talking about; in the Burroughs line that I worked with, the electro-mechanical ones equivalent to the IBM punch card equipment we've been discussing were the "Sensimatic" F series, programmed by a removable program panel with two sets of "pins," one that determined the actual operation to be performed and sort of equivalent to the IBM patchboards, and another to control carriage movement (sort of equivalent to the forms control tapes of an IBM 40x). The panels had a selector knob which rotated the tab stops to four different sets of positions and shifted 4 sets of program pins sideways slightly, so that one panel served for four "programs" and of course you could have as many panels as you needed. Incidentally, Fs could optionally also punch PPT & cards. I had three of these at one time, but scrapped them all long ago. The later electronic versions were the "E" series; a good brochure with pictures of a type of computer largely ignored in the various histories (although there's a brief mention in The Encyclopedia of Microcomputers), with core memory and magnetic stripe & PPT/EPC I/O, can be found here: http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Burroughs/Burroughs.E1400.1966.102646238.pdf (Chuck: change the colour, remove the cabinet on the left and put it on tubular legs and you've got the picture you're looking for - remove the alpha keyboard for one of the older numeric-only models ;-) This is a fairly small one with the electronics in the desk itself (although you can see the thick cable connecting the console to the processor), and it is still programmed with the same type of program panel; the cabinet on the right is a 4003 auto-reader for magnetic stripe cards, usually master file records whose data was usually merged/combined with the data on the mag stripes of the transaction cards feeding through the carriage. Larger models (E2000 etc.) had a separate electronics cabinet the size of a large freezer. Come to think of it, I still have the desk from an E1200 I scrapped long ago which is presently supporting a Cromemco System 3, and also still have one of the tape perforators you can see on the right side of the E1200 in that brochure, as well as a few other odd parts... The "E" series was later replaced by the "L" series which finally abandoned the full keyboard and used "normal" machine language programs loaded from PPT or ledger cards (and, later, cassettes). That was the machine, incidentally, which got me out of being an "employee" and took me into self-employed programming, consulting and support, which is what I've been doing for the last thirty-odd years, so I have fond memories of it... The last Burroughs machines of this class were the B80 & B90 which used disks and represented the transition to more conventional computers, with optional displays and terminals, datacomm etc. m From brain at jbrain.com Mon Dec 3 00:50:50 2007 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 00:50:50 -0600 Subject: Commodore 64 PSUs In-Reply-To: <200712030424.lB34OXHF013340@floodgap.com> References: <200712030424.lB34OXHF013340@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4753A74A.7060807@jbrain.com> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> I was thinking of a potted wall-wart model that had the old-style >> electric-shaver 2 prong connector. >> > > Wasn't that for the 16? I missed the original message. > > I thought my 16 has a COAX power connector, but I can't check at present, so maybe it uses the same conenctor. I know the 116 uses the COAX connector. I do own some old VIC-20s with a 2 prong connector that looks similar to this: http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/24W023/68/Electric%2Dshaver%2Dtype%2Dpower%2Dcord%2C%2D6%2Dfoot It delivered 9VAC (or so) to the VIC, which internally created the 5VDC, as seen in the Rev E board schematic (page 3) http://www.mainbyte.com/vic20/e_schematic.pdf Jim From cclist at sydex.com Mon Dec 3 01:06:02 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 23:06:02 -0800 Subject: Mechanical calculators (was: Re: *updating* 8088's) In-Reply-To: <01C8354E.443E1660@mandr71> References: <01C8354E.443E1660@mandr71> Message-ID: <47533A5A.23841.74239653@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Dec 2007 at 1:46, M H Stein wrote: > (Chuck: change the colour, remove the cabinet on the left and put it on tubular legs > and you've got the picture you're looking for - remove the alpha keyboard for one > of the older numeric-only models ;-) How about the National Class 3000 from 1929? One can be seen on the page numbered 140 in this very interesting document from Portugal: http://www3.dsi.uminho.pt/memtsi/docs/guia_exposicao_ilustrado.pdf Cheers, Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Dec 3 01:19:06 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 23:19:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 PSUs In-Reply-To: <4753A74A.7060807@jbrain.com> from Jim Brain at "Dec 3, 7 00:50:50 am" Message-ID: <200712030719.lB37J6Xe016090@floodgap.com> > > > I was thinking of a potted wall-wart model that had the old-style > > > electric-shaver 2 prong connector. > > > > Wasn't that for the 16? I missed the original message. > > I thought my 16 has a COAX power connector, but I can't check at > present, so maybe it uses the same conenctor. I know the 116 uses the > COAX connector. No, you're right -- the 16 and the 116 use the same power connector (just checked on my two units). They are wall-warts though. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them? -- Justice Gustine -------- From ama at ugr.es Mon Dec 3 03:05:29 2007 From: ama at ugr.es (Angel Martin Alganza) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 10:05:29 +0100 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712030442.XAA04300@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <200712030442.XAA04300@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20071203090529.GE9684@darwin.ugr.es> On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 11:34:31PM -0500, der Mouse wrote: > However, when restricted to the price ranges I can afford, LCDs beat > CRTs all hollow. And, what about power consumption? Is it worth to change for it? I use to have a couple of monitors powered on most of the time (they are not the main box, but they show some quotations and other data). What monitors would you recommend? (I'm interested in using as less power as possible over anything else, included image quality). Thanks, ?ngel -- 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 PGP Public key: http://www.ugr.es/~ama/ama-pgp-key 3EB2 967A 9404 6585 7086 8811 2CEC 2F81 9341 E591 ------------------------------------------------------ () ASCII Ribbon Campaign - http://www.asciiribbon.org/ /\ Against all HTML e-mail and proprietary attachments Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments http://linux.sgms-centre.com/advocacy/no-ms-office.php From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Mon Dec 3 03:20:06 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 01:20:06 -0800 Subject: Whence the CMOS 4004 / was Re: Bought a 4GB USB stick today, and guess what... References: Message-ID: <4753CA46.855E3F3A@cs.ubc.ca> Tony Duell wrote: > > > >> >And of course a 4040 from Intel is a 4-bit microprocessor, from RCA it's > > >> >a 12 bit CMOS counter. I can never rememebr what the 4004 is in the > > >> >4000-eries CMOS, it's sufficiently rare that none of the data books I > > >> >have to hand list it. > > >> > > >> > > >> ur kiddin. Just prefix 74{c, hc, hct} and the 4xxx number and you > > >> get it's function and pinout. > > > > > >None of my data books list a 74HC4004 either. Does it even exist? > > > > I have data but in 1973 it was already replaced by 4024 a 7 stage > > binary counter. > > YEs, the 4004 exited, but I susepct the 74HC(T)4004 never did. So trying > to look it up doesn't help... FWIW, the 1972 RCA COS/MOS databook, which is pretty early for the 4000 CMOS series, does not present data pages for a 4004 (nor a 4003 or 4005), nor are they listed in the numerical index. However, there is an application note "COS/MOS MSI Counter and Register Design and Applications" (no date) which discusses the 4004 (CD4004A) "7-stage ripple-carry binary counter" extensively. From mike at brickfieldspark.org Mon Dec 3 03:32:12 2007 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 09:32:12 -0000 Subject: Unwanted / Available parts - update References: <200712011135.lB1BZM3u022275@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <00ad01c8358f$62ab5450$911ca8c0@mss.local> Well I've already had a bite for some bits of the "Mike" page, so there may be some mileage in this idea yet. www.soemtron.org/partsavailable/index.html Mike. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Dec 3 03:29:54 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 04:29:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <20071203090529.GE9684@darwin.ugr.es> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <200712030442.XAA04300@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20071203090529.GE9684@darwin.ugr.es> Message-ID: <200712031006.FAA12341@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> However, when restricted to the price ranges I can afford, LCDs beat >> CRTs all hollow. > And, what about power consumption? Is it worth to change for it? Depends on various factors, such as your local power rates, which I don't know. For me, it probably is not, since for much of the year the electricity is free (my place is heated with electricity, meaning that during the heating season it makes no difference to my electricity bill how much power the computers pull - if the computers don't convert that power to heat, the big resistor at the bottom of the wall will). > What monitors would you recommend? (I'm interested in using as > [little] power as possible over anything else, includ[ing] image > quality). I don't know; power consumption is totally not on my radar when selecting a display device for my desktop computers. I can tell you that the flat-screen I'm using right now (an Acer AL1716 B) is marked 100-240V, 50/60Hz, 1.0A, and, according to my clip-on ammeter, is actually pulling about 0.3A (at 120V, according to the voltage scale on that same meter). The Sun GDM 17E20 that's the one I'd use if I wanted to use a CRT is marked 100-240V, 50/60Hz, 1.7-1.2A, and, according to the same meter, draws from 0.6A (black screen) to 0.95A (white screen) at 122V. (Given how the technology works, I didn't bother comparing current draw for the flat-panel for black vs white screen.) So, it appears that the CRT draws two to three times the current, based on a sample of one CRT and one flat panel (is it LCD? probably, but I don't really know - I don't know what all the flat-panel technologies are). Since each one apparently uses a switching power supply, I do not expect there to be any corrections necessary to convert the difference in current into a difference in power, so I feel reasonably confident saying that the CRT draws two to three times the power, too. As for usability with classic machines, well, each one works with my SPARCstations. The CRT is better in that it can handle more of the resolutions the machines can provide, but that's not intrinsic to the technology - it's just a question of the driving electronics. This is a cheap flat-panel; it can't letterbox coarser resolutions than its native 1280x1024, which is a minor pain. The CRT does beat it in that regard. Depending on what you're planning on driving it with, this may or may not matter to you. But if I were to go looking to buy the CRT, a GDM 17E20 would doubtless cost me more than the flat-panel cost; the principal reason I bought the flat-screen is that work changed out the CRT for a flat-panel for my work desktop and it took only a day or two for the pixel distinctness difference to win me over. But, as I said upthread, I'm not tossing my CRTs, either. /~\ 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 Arno_1983 at gmx.de Mon Dec 3 05:00:55 2007 From: Arno_1983 at gmx.de (Arno Kletzander) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:00:55 +0100 Subject: Mechanical calculators Message-ID: <20071203110055.7410@gmx.net> "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > On 2 Dec 2007 at 19:18, Arno Kletzander wrote: > > > Yes, exactly that is the class of machines I meant. There were similar > > ones which printed on a platten carriage mounted behind the adding > > machine body, and some of the latest electromechanical models had a > > "type box" as a means of commenting the ledgers, invoices - whatever. > > Could you perhaps point me at a web photo of such a machine? Heh...you just sent me on a journey through some of my hellboxen since I didn't remember the name of that particular machine and I had to dig out the book where it's in (Buchungsmaschinen, GMD Report No. 162, by Werner Lange). It has lots of pictures and drawings about both adding machines and bookkeeping/facturing typewriters (Wahl actuator, Burroughs-Moon-Hopkins,...) However it looks like I mixed up some stuff: The typebox printing element depicted in the book is described as belonging to a Burroughs Typing Sensimatic - an advertisement can be seen under ebay auction number 260181621699, but this shows a typewriter keyboard in front of the adding machine part. The keyboard with dual legends depicted in the book however (which I wrongly associated with the typebox) belongs to a German Zeiss-Ikon adder from 1958, no further classification given. The printing mechanism of this machine is described to consist of three disks or typewheels able to print a set of 42 characters. Greetings, -- Arno Kletzander Ist Ihr Browser Vista-kompatibel? Jetzt die neuesten Browser-Versionen downloaden: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/browser From doc at mdrconsult.com Mon Dec 3 06:20:08 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 06:20:08 -0600 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <20071203090529.GE9684@darwin.ugr.es> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <200712030442.XAA04300@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20071203090529.GE9684@darwin.ugr.es> Message-ID: <4753F478.7050608@mdrconsult.com> Angel Martin Alganza wrote: > On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 11:34:31PM -0500, der Mouse wrote: > >> However, when restricted to the price ranges I can afford, LCDs beat >> CRTs all hollow. > > And, what about power consumption? Is it worth to change for it? I > use to have a couple of monitors powered on most of the time (they are > not the main box, but they show some quotations and other data). What > monitors would you recommend? (I'm interested in using as less power > as possible over anything else, included image quality). My SGI GDM-5011's thermal output was rated at something like 800 BTU/hr max, 550 BTU/hr typical. The Dell 2007FP I run now is rated at 256 max and 188 typical. I don't have the power consumption specs available for the SGI tube, but just the thermal budget translates to a LOT of savings. Rated screen size, color-depth, and resolution are pretty close to identical, but the Dell is a better picture and the GDM-5011 didn't have S-video, composite, analog, and DVI inputs, or pic-in-pic screen. Doc From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Mon Dec 3 06:23:42 2007 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 12:23:42 +0000 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <4753F478.7050608@mdrconsult.com> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20071203090529.GE9684@darwin.ugr.es> <4753F478.7050608@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <200712031223.43072.gordonjcp@gjcp.net> On Monday 03 December 2007 12:20:08 Doc Shipley wrote: > My SGI GDM-5011's thermal output was rated at something like 800 > BTU/hr max, 550 BTU/hr typical. The Dell 2007FP I run now is rated at > 256 max and 188 typical. I don't have the power consumption specs > available for the SGI tube, but just the thermal budget translates to a > LOT of savings. Yeah. Since switching from a Targa 19" CRT to a Belinea 22" LCD, it's been bloody freezing in the computer room. I've had to move to a house with better central heating. Gordon From jpero at sympatico.ca Mon Dec 3 03:35:25 2007 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero at sympatico.ca) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 09:35:25 +0000 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712030442.XAA04300@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6bpki0$7ipdca@toip3.srvr.bell.ca> > > The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day for me. > > I agree, a good CRT beats a good LCD. Seconded. LCD even at native resolution, I still get banding due to MOST panels itself is limited to 6 bits, 8 bits panels is out there but diffcult to find. I rather want 10-12 even more bits. Money did speak too, I had to replace my much loved samsung 17" flat CRT (really dim after 4 years) with this less trilling Samsung LCD 19". As repair shop, I know the range of watts, LCD does have limit where you can see benefits. 24" is about the limit for efficient. Anything larger, use TV CRT for entertainment beyond 36" go rear or front projector, the 3 CRT proj have least watts, for large than 60" DLP or LCD. Remember to keep your cooling system clean for DLP and LCD for lamp life and also more important on LCD life especially this. One byproduct is you have to be careful with HID lamps is they contain mercury and it is not fun if lamp explodes, common than you think! LCD do contain mercury in the lamps fluorscent tubes. There is a one that is now available is DLP with LEDS in place of lamp and I rather go with this, efficient and safer. Plamsa and LCD larger than 27" simply consume too much watts but this trend reverses above 60". Large screen size with one len (DLP and LCD) and very short depth have bad issues with illumiation distribution, I see this all the time with 60" and up. > Perhaps I just haven't found a good source for CRT screens.... Alas! I still want a CRT, as LCD is not 100% there. I'm watching on technologies like SED, OLED and more recent ones in research and on market. Cheers, Wizard > > /~\ 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 jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Dec 3 08:43:28 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 08:43:28 -0600 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <6bpki0$7ipdca@toip3.srvr.bell.ca> Message-ID: <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> >> > The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day for me. >> >> I agree, a good CRT beats a good LCD. I had no idea there were LCD's on vintage computers. Wow. From mike at brickfieldspark.org Mon Dec 3 09:10:04 2007 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 15:10:04 -0000 Subject: cctalk Digest, Unwanted / Available parts References: <200712011135.lB1BZM3u022275@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <000701c835be$96b609f0$911ca8c0@mss.local> Added a search facility on http://www.soemtron.org/partsavailable/index.html and updated Mikes sample page with more representative list of parts. Updated home page with expanded description an aims. Since release last Friday have had one live enquiry. Mike. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Dec 3 09:05:48 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 10:05:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <6bpki0$7ipdca@toip3.srvr.bell.ca> <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <200712031515.KAA15162@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >>>> The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day for me. >>> I agree, a good CRT beats a good LCD. > I had no idea there were LCD's on vintage computers. Wow. Yup. Those of my SPARCstations which are connected to displays are using flat panels (as I remarked, I don't know the precise technology, but I suspect they're LCD). And there are things like the SPARCstation Voyager with its built-in flatscreen, or my IBM WorkPad z50, with *its* built-in flatscreen...though the discussion so far doesn't really apply to built-in screens like the Voyager's or the z50's. To some, I daresay, using a modern display on a classic machine borders on heresy, like using a converter and a modern disk instead of an RP03, or replacing a blown module with a modern IC functional equivalent. But there are some, such as me, to whom it's not unreasonable; I certainly know that if I refused to use anything non-original with my classic machines I'd have substantially fewer classic machines in use. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Dec 3 09:33:13 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 10:33:13 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <6bpki0$7ipdca@toip3.srvr.bell.ca> <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <200712031033.13739.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 03 December 2007 09:43, Jay West wrote: > >> > The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day for me. > >> > >> I agree, a good CRT beats a good LCD. > > I had no idea there were LCD's on vintage computers. Wow. TRS-80 Model 100? :) Oh, and I dare say you'll piss Evan off for saying something like that, and I know you definitely wouldn't want to do that. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Dec 3 09:37:35 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 09:37:35 -0600 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com><6bpki0$7ipdca@toip3.srvr.bell.ca><01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> <200712031033.13739.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <026e01c835c2$7098f8a0$6400a8c0@BILLING> >> I had no idea there were LCD's on vintage computers. Wow. Apparently people had their sarcasm-meters turned off. Mine was pegged. From legalize at xmission.com Mon Dec 3 09:37:40 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:37:40 -0700 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:43:28 -0600. <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: In article <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0 at BILLING>, "Jay West" writes: > I had no idea there were LCD's on vintage computers. Wow. The Random Colleague is a vintage VT100 clone that is a portable laptop terminal with an LCD display. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Dec 3 09:55:59 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:55:59 -0600 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com> <4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4754270F.4090901@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Am I imagining this or have others noticed the same thing? Is this > another case of vinyl-vs-CD? I don't own an LCD TV and after this > experience am not tempted to get one. Personally I find that LCDs give me a headache - I can use the one on this Dell (*spit*!) laptop for a couple of hours, but for every desktop one I've seen so far I can't get more than an hour out of it before I need a good, long break. Maybe I've just never used the LCD equivalent of the high-end Sonys and Iiyamas in the CRT world that I've always been used to? I find the extra sharpness of an LCD to be a drawback except for very specific kinds of work - for a lot of typical applications I just find everything too crisp for comfortable use (which may be related to the headache issue above). A *good* CRT I find to be about spot-on - sharp enough for everyday use but not too sharp as to be annoying. Problem is, a lot of people have poor CRTs to begin with, or don't do any adjustments over the years, all of which gives them a bad name. Oh, I also *like* the bulk of a CRT - for the bigger 19" and 21" screens, there's a useful place on top of the display to park paperwork and things (without blocking the vents, of course!). With an LCD, I'd still need it the same distance from my chair, keyboard etc., but it's not really practical to go stuffing things behind it. Despite the smaller volume, I actually lose functional space. Sadly a CRT won't win out on the power front. As for longevity - remains to be seen. But with routine maintenance CRTs of ten years ago are still fine (and of course we all have much older ones on our vintage gear). Plus I feel better about reusing an existing product and keeping it out of landfill than I do buying a new product (with all the manufacturing 'impact' involved). > I figure this is fair game for the list, as the G3 is over 10 years > old and the HP monitor much older than that. I certainly like the discussions around modern practices vs. old. (I keep meaning to mention how I actually seem to have *less* useful real-estate in my modern email client than I did in something running on a 80x25 display of 15 years ago :-) 'Progress' is a strange old thing... cheers Jules From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Dec 3 09:56:45 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:56:45 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <6bpki0$7ipdca@toip3.srvr.bell.ca> <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <4754273D.6000102@gmail.com> Jay West wrote: > >>> > The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day for me. >>> >>> I agree, a good CRT beats a good LCD. > > I had no idea there were LCD's on vintage computers. Wow. There are. There just aren't color ones. There are also plasma screens on classic computers, only not color ones. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Dec 3 09:57:33 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:57:33 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712031515.KAA15162@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <6bpki0$7ipdca@toip3.srvr.bell.ca> <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> <200712031515.KAA15162@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <4754276D.20600@gmail.com> der Mouse wrote: >>>>> The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day for me. >>>> I agree, a good CRT beats a good LCD. >> I had no idea there were LCD's on vintage computers. Wow. > > Yup. Those of my SPARCstations which are connected to displays are > using flat panels (as I remarked, I don't know the precise technology, > but I suspect they're LCD). And there are things like the SPARCstation > Voyager with its built-in flatscreen, or my IBM WorkPad z50, with *its* > built-in flatscreen...though the discussion so far doesn't really apply > to built-in screens like the Voyager's or the z50's. And let's not forget the IBM PC Convertible with its pea-soup-green screen. Peace... Sridhar From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Mon Dec 3 09:57:05 2007 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 15:57:05 +0000 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <6bpki0$7ipdca@toip3.srvr.bell.ca> <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <200712031557.06034.gordonjcp@gjcp.net> On Monday 03 December 2007 14:43:28 Jay West wrote: > >> > The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day for me. > >> > >> I agree, a good CRT beats a good LCD. > > I had no idea there were LCD's on vintage computers. Wow. Is a DEC Alphaserver vintage yet? I know my Epson HX-20 is. We know what you mean, Jay, which is why I should point out that all my classics that require an RGB monitor seem to work perfectly well with an LCD display. So let's see, that's an Archimedes, a BBC Micro, the SGI O2 I've just got rid of, some HP kit, some Sun kit... Gordon (using modern tyres instead of period 1981 Michelin X, for safety and convenience) From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Dec 3 10:05:02 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:05:02 -0600 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4754292E.8050702@yahoo.co.uk> Richard wrote: > In article <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0 at BILLING>, > "Jay West" writes: > >> I had no idea there were LCD's on vintage computers. Wow. > > The Random Colleague is a vintage VT100 clone that is a portable > laptop terminal with an LCD display. Someone I picked some vintage stuff up from a year or two ago had a vintage LCD PC monitor - it was about a 10" diagonal, monochrome, and some form of TTL input (CGA or EGA, don't recall which). No doubt it was rather expensive when new. Seems pretty uncommon - whilst it doubtless dated from the era when laptops with such displays were becoming widespread, a standalone non-CRT screen would be quite rare. Back in the day, there must have been quite a few non-PC portable systems around which used LCD screens (e.g. Tadpole SPARC machines and Acorn's A4 spring immediately to mind). Not to mention all those classic hand-held games which don't get mentioned much here :-) cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Dec 3 10:06:07 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:06:07 -0600 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <4754273D.6000102@gmail.com> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <6bpki0$7ipdca@toip3.srvr.bell.ca> <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> <4754273D.6000102@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4754296F.5070604@yahoo.co.uk> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> I had no idea there were LCD's on vintage computers. Wow. > > There are. There just aren't color ones. There are also plasma screens > on classic computers, only not color ones. Orange is a colour ;) From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Dec 3 10:14:27 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 11:14:27 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <4754296F.5070604@yahoo.co.uk> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <6bpki0$7ipdca@toip3.srvr.bell.ca> <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> <4754273D.6000102@gmail.com> <4754296F.5070604@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <47542B63.9070406@gmail.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> I had no idea there were LCD's on vintage computers. Wow. >> >> There are. There just aren't color ones. There are also plasma >> screens on classic computers, only not color ones. > > Orange is a colour ;) Wise-ass. 8-) Peace... Sridhar From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Dec 3 10:17:40 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 11:17:40 -0500 Subject: Using old disks drives Message-ID: > To some, I daresay, using a modern display on a classic machine borders > on heresy, like using a converter and a modern disk instead of an RP03, At some point, however, it starts to make sense. For these old 14" beasts, new/nice packs and heads are starting to get hard to find - some very hard. I have been looking for several types of IBM packs in new/nice condition for years now, with no luck. Same with the heads. And there are probably a dozen people waiting for a 18/36 bit RP06/RM03 emulator in a box, using a cheap modern disk. Prod, prod. (Looking for packs 1316, 3336, 3348, and heads for 2311, 3330. And the Univac equivalent to the 1316.) -- Will From arcarlini at iee.org Mon Dec 3 10:54:30 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 16:54:30 -0000 Subject: cctalk Digest, Unwanted / Available parts In-Reply-To: <000701c835be$96b609f0$911ca8c0@mss.local> Message-ID: <002901c835cd$3364c8f0$4404010a@uatempname> Mike Hatch wrote: > Added a search facility on > http://www.soemtron.org/partsavailable/index.html > and updated Mikes sample page with more representative list of parts. > Updated home page with expanded description an aims. Since release > last > Friday have had one live enquiry. Now if you slap it onto the Wiki front page ... (http://www.classiccmp.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page) then it's one less link for me to lose in future :-) Antonio No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.13/1165 - Release Date: 02/12/2007 20:34 From dm561 at torfree.net Mon Dec 3 11:05:16 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 12:05:16 -0500 Subject: Mechanical calculators (was: Re: *updating* 8088's) Message-ID: <01C835A4.C62855E0@MSE_D03> -------Original Message: Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 23:06:02 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" Subject: Re: Mechanical calculators (was: Re: *updating* 8088's) On 3 Dec 2007 at 1:46, M H Stein wrote: >> (Chuck: change the colour, remove the cabinet on the left and put it on tubular legs >> and you've got the picture you're looking for - remove the alpha keyboard for one >> of the older numeric-only models ;-) >How about the National Class 3000 from 1929? One can be seen on the >page numbered 140 in this very interesting document from Portugal: >http://www3.dsi.uminho.pt/memtsi/docs/guia_exposicao_ilustrado.pdf >Cheers, >Chuck ----- Well, the Burroughs F styling was a _little_ more modern and the Sensimatic program panels were a Burroughs trademark, but yes, that's the idea (even the flip-up table for the ledger tray on the left). The one in the eBay ad that Arno mentioned is a fairly late model F with the beige and blue colour scheme; the older ones were dark brown. Some nice pictures on that Portuguese site; even the 517 interpreter that got that other thread going. Incidentally, Sensimatic referred to the way the program pins were "sensed;" the pins were different lengths which determined the operation to be performed (add/subtract/print/etc.) and different pin locations determined the register number or the accumulator (sound familiar?). A set of sensing pins would rise up to measure the length of the program pins, and the keyboard also had "function keys" (called OCKs - Operator Control Keys) for different options (normal entry, error correction, etc.) A program would consist of steps like "Load A (from keyboard) (INP 01), "LD R1, 2 and 3 from A," "SUB A from R5&6," "Punch A (OUT 2)," "IF OCK3 then SKIP (JMP) to Step12," etc., all done mechanically with gears, levers and springs of course. Programming was done with a nibbling tool, a tray of numbered different length pins and a screwdriver. Wouldn't you love to have 20 registers today, and the ability to load/store more than one simultaneously? Mind you, that was also the entire memory until electronic versions came along... And of course they usually had colour printers ;-) (Red & black ribbons). BTW, AFAIK some Teletypes used the same type "box" as the typing Sensimatic that Arno is talking about. Think I still have one of those somewhere as well. m From legalize at xmission.com Mon Dec 3 11:22:29 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:22:29 -0700 Subject: Using old disks drives In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 03 Dec 2007 11:17:40 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "William Donzelli" writes: > > To some, I daresay, using a modern display on a classic machine borders > > on heresy, like using a converter and a modern disk instead of an RP03, > > At some point, however, it starts to make sense. For these old 14" > beasts, new/nice packs and heads are starting to get hard to find - > some very hard. I have been looking for several types of IBM packs in > new/nice condition for years now, with no luck. Same with the heads. Not only that but when you do find packs/heads/etc. do you want to wear them out by just tinkering around? There will come a point where the only way you can make these older machines work is to remanufacture parts for them. Now there's enough of a market for car enthusiasts that people service that demand, but I don't know if there will ever be a market for all the oddball technology in old computers to support such an aftermarket service. Then there's the power needs. An RL01 requires a helluva lot more power to run on a regular basis than an RL01 emulator connected to a PC and the MTBF is much, much higher with the emulator. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Dec 3 11:40:43 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 09:40:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: Using old disks drives In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Dec 03, 2007 10:22:29 AM Message-ID: <200712031740.lB3Heh94030000@onyx.spiritone.com> > Then there's the power needs. An RL01 requires a helluva lot more > power to run on a regular basis than an RL01 emulator connected to a > PC and the MTBF is much, much higher with the emulator. Or if you're able (i.e. you're not on a PDP-8, or running an OS that requires an RL01) you can simply put in a SCSI adapter and use SCSI drives. While I have RL01 and RL02 drives on my PDP-11/44, I'd much rather use the SCSI HD it has (once I get access back to the system, it's buried in my parents garage). Also it's not simply power, my PDP-11/73 runs significantly quieter with SCSI drives than it did with MFM or ESDI drives. Not sure if going to SCSI effected the noise level on teh /23+ as I never had anything else in the BA23 chassis, and it has been about 10 years since I ran my VAXstation II/RRC. Additionally SCSI allows for CD-ROM's and DAT or 8mm tape drives. Another advantage to SCSI is the ability to hook the drive up to a Linux box, and use 'dd' to image it, and have an image you can use under SIMH. I tend to suspect that modern drives run a lot cooler as well, and for me, cooling is a major concern. Which is why the /73 and /23+ tend to only be run in the Winter. Oh, and lets not forget weight, some of us run our machines where we need to worry about the amount of weight we are putting on the floor. Personally I like running my PDP-11's with VT420's and SCSI, neither of which are really that "correct" for the systems, but who cares, I run them to use them. At the same time my intention is for the PDP-11/44 to become part of an exhibit once the library gets its building, and I have a DECwriter II and VT100's for when that happens. Zane From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Dec 3 12:21:10 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 13:21:10 -0500 Subject: Using old disks drives In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200712031321.10113.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 03 December 2007, Richard wrote: > In article > , > > "William Donzelli" writes: > > > To some, I daresay, using a modern display on a classic machine > > > borders on heresy, like using a converter and a modern disk > > > instead of an RP03, > > > > At some point, however, it starts to make sense. For these old 14" > > beasts, new/nice packs and heads are starting to get hard to find - > > some very hard. I have been looking for several types of IBM packs > > in new/nice condition for years now, with no luck. Same with the > > heads. > > Not only that but when you do find packs/heads/etc. do you want to > wear them out by just tinkering around? > > There will come a point where the only way you can make these older > machines work is to remanufacture parts for them. Now there's enough > of a market for car enthusiasts that people service that demand, but > I don't know if there will ever be a market for all the oddball > technology in old computers to support such an aftermarket service. > > Then there's the power needs. An RL01 requires a helluva lot more > power to run on a regular basis than an RL01 emulator connected to a > PC and the MTBF is much, much higher with the emulator. I think that an RL01/RL02 + a small 11/23 or 11/03 actually takes quite a bit less power than most dual-socket, dual-core Xeon servers do these days... Of course, an RM0[235] or RP0[3-7] is a different matter... Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Dec 3 12:22:00 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 10:22:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <4754296F.5070604@yahoo.co.uk> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <6bpki0$7ipdca@toip3.srvr.bell.ca> <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> <4754273D.6000102@gmail.com> <4754296F.5070604@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20071203102119.J45647@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 3 Dec 2007, Jules Richardson wrote: > Orange is a colour ;) So is grey. But gray is a color. From doc at mdrconsult.com Mon Dec 3 12:35:03 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:35:03 -0600 Subject: Micro Five system Message-ID: <47544C57.3000309@mdrconsult.com> I ran across a "Micro Five" motherboard this morning. The gent who owns it (just the system board, not a whole system) tells me that it was an 80286-based system built to run Netware. It has 2MB of RAM onboard, and several slots for 8MB memory cards, and Ed says that the disk subsystem lived in an external unit. The thing is huge - roughly 20" by 28". I found only one google hit on it, and that was a post asking for info. I'm not even sure why I'm interested - he's not going to give it up - but I am curious about it. I'm especially curious about the memory. If his recollection of the memory options is right, this thing supports 34MB or so. How is that possible on a 286? Doc From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Dec 3 13:00:27 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 14:00:27 -0500 Subject: Using old disks drives In-Reply-To: <200712031321.10113.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200712031321.10113.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: > I think that an RL01/RL02 + a small 11/23 or 11/03 actually takes quite > a bit less power than most dual-socket, dual-core Xeon servers do these > days... > > Of course, an RM0[235] or RP0[3-7] is a different matter... Who cares. When it comes right down to it, in the US at least, power is pretty damn cheap. Turning on a large system - say one that sucks up a couple or three kW - for the weekend really does not cost all that much. And it is for fun, right? How much do we spend taking a girl or the wife out for dinner and a movie? It will be much more than what you spent on electricity to feed your computer for a couple of days! -- Will From legalize at xmission.com Mon Dec 3 13:13:21 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:13:21 -0700 Subject: Using old disks drives In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:21:10 -0500. <200712031321.10113.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: In article <200712031321.10113.pat at computer-refuge.org>, Patrick Finnegan writes: > I think that an RL01/RL02 + a small 11/23 or 11/03 actually takes quite > a bit less power than most dual-socket, dual-core Xeon servers do these > days... You can always get a power sucking machine by buying the fastest PC available. However, you can also buy a power-miserly PC by careful selection. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Mon Dec 3 13:30:33 2007 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:30:33 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <6bpki0$7ipdca@toip3.srvr.bell.ca> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20071203142106.06207dd8@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Jay West may have mentioned these words: >>> > The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day for me. >>>I agree, a good CRT beats a good LCD. > >I had no idea there were LCD's on vintage computers. Wow. You saw one on my CoCo3 almost a year-n-a-half ago! ;-) Admittedly, the LCD wasn't vintage. Technically, neither was the gizmo that makes it work... ;-) Which, BTW, if you'd ever used Tandy's CM5 or (not as bad, but still not great) CM8 monitors, you'd realize that an RGB->VGA upconverter run into a 17" LCD display running a "stretched" 640x480 into the native 1280x1024 _still_ looks much better, with less eyestrain! Most of y'all had access to nice workstation stuff earlier than I did - I worked with 106 columns on a nice, fuzzy .42mm dot pitch 13" CRT. That'll give ya headaches after a while! Tandy's CM5 (.51mm dot pitch) IMHO wasn't suitable for even 80-column use! I *love* my VGA & SVideo upconverters for my CoCo. Much better than the alternative! =-=-=-= Wasn't there a vintage color LCD available (but expensive) for the Apple ][ c or e series? I thought there was mention of that fact on the list in the past... but I haven't searched the archives, and I never really got into the Apples other than working on the ones the school had at the time. 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 pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Dec 3 13:53:47 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 14:53:47 -0500 Subject: Using old disks drives In-Reply-To: References: <200712031321.10113.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200712031453.47202.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 03 December 2007, William Donzelli wrote: > > I think that an RL01/RL02 + a small 11/23 or 11/03 actually takes > > quite a bit less power than most dual-socket, dual-core Xeon > > servers do these days... > > > > Of course, an RM0[235] or RP0[3-7] is a different matter... > > Who cares. > > When it comes right down to it, in the US at least, power is pretty > damn cheap. Turning on a large system - say one that sucks up a > couple or three kW - for the weekend really does not cost all that > much. And it is for fun, right? How much do we spend taking a girl or > the wife out for dinner and a movie? It will be much more than what > you spent on electricity to feed your computer for a couple of days! > For the weekend, sure. I meant more like running it 24x7. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Dec 3 15:14:41 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 13:14:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20071203142106.06207dd8@mail.30below.com> from Roger Merchberger at "Dec 3, 7 02:30:33 pm" Message-ID: <200712032114.lB3LEfnp013222@floodgap.com> > You saw one on my CoCo3 almost a year-n-a-half ago! ;-) Admittedly, the LCD > wasn't vintage. Technically, neither was the gizmo that makes it work... ;-) > Which, BTW, if you'd ever used Tandy's CM5 or (not as bad, but still not > great) CM8 monitors, you'd realize that an RGB->VGA upconverter run into a This reminds me -- I'm getting a CoCo 3 very shortly in a trade. From reading the specs, it looks like the RGB video output should work with a Commodore 1902 or 1084. Anyone used it with that? -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- She loves ya! ... now what? -- "True Lies" --------------------------------- From george at rachors.com Mon Dec 3 15:22:54 2007 From: george at rachors.com (George L. Rachor Jr.) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 13:22:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20071203142106.06207dd8@mail.30below.com> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <6bpki0$7ipdca@toip3.srvr.bell.ca> <5.1.0.14.2.20071203142106.06207dd8@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <20071203132043.H90209@racsys.rachors.com> I was lucky enough to snag an Apple ][c with LCD display about 5 years ago at a Goodwill. I think I ended up paying $40 for both. I was extremely lucky and now need to dig it out and play... Wasn't the best LCD diplay but for the day it was pretty neat. George Rachor > > Wasn't there a vintage color LCD available (but expensive) for the Apple ][ c > or e series? I thought there was mention of that fact on the list in the > past... but I haven't searched the archives, and I never really got into the > Apples other than working on the ones the school had at the time. > > 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 zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Mon Dec 3 15:58:52 2007 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:58:52 -0500 Subject: CoCo3 Monitors (Was: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712032114.lB3LEfnp013222@floodgap.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20071203142106.06207dd8@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20071203162746.05404b48@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Cameron Kaiser may have mentioned these words: > > You saw one on my CoCo3 almost a year-n-a-half ago! ;-) Admittedly, the > LCD > > wasn't vintage. Technically, neither was the gizmo that makes it > work... ;-) > > Which, BTW, if you'd ever used Tandy's CM5 or (not as bad, but still not > > great) CM8 monitors, you'd realize that an RGB->VGA upconverter run into a > >This reminds me -- I'm getting a CoCo 3 very shortly in a trade. From >reading the specs, it looks like the RGB video output should work with a >Commodore 1902 or 1084. Anyone used it with that? I personally haven't (I purchased my CM-8 as soon as they were available... it still works!) but I know others have.... but the Sync's need to be inverted, IIRC. Googling quick shows this post, but for the other way 'round (Using a CM8 on a Miggy): http://five.pairlist.net/pipermail/coco/2007-July/031195.html I have all the stuff to build a couple cables to go from the CoCo3 to the Atari SC1224 (13-pin DIN, I have 2 of 'em) but haven't taken the time to build them as my VGA & SVideo converters work well, and my CM-8 *just* *won't* *die.* ;-) BTW, Roy Justus makes the CoCo3->VGA upconverter, and Chris Hawks makes the CoCo3->SVideo upconverter; both are on the CoCo mailing list over at www.maltedmedia.com. HTH, 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 cclist at sydex.com Mon Dec 3 16:50:14 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:50:14 -0800 Subject: Micro Five system In-Reply-To: <47544C57.3000309@mdrconsult.com> References: <47544C57.3000309@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <475417A6.3712.778406C6@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Dec 2007 at 12:35, Doc Shipley wrote: > I'm not even sure why I'm interested - he's not going to give it up - > but I am curious about it. I'm especially curious about the memory. If > his recollection of the memory options is right, this thing supports > 34MB or so. How is that possible on a 286? Time to dig out my PC Tech Journal product guides. Well, I see a System 5000 and a System 6000 in the 1988 guide and only the System 5000 in the 1987 one. Both are described as follows: System 5000 Multiuser, multiprogramming Memory: 512K-16M CPU: 80286 Graphics: Monochrome, Color Interface(s): 1 RS-232C, 1 Centronics Units sold: 5,000 since 1985 Cost: $2,450-$3,895 There's also a System 6000 with the same description but for: Units sold: 400 since 1986 Cost: $1,595-$3,005 The 1985 issues of IEEE Computer contain a couple of product annoucements for the System 5000, but nothing more recent. There's a System 3000 box in the Freeman PC Museum at http://www.pcmuseum.net; just select "Micro Five" from the "Manufacturers" search box. A little web research shows that the company hit hard times around 1987, ultimately being acquired by Samsung in 1988. Their chairman during that time appeared to be a "turnaround specialist" who later went on to head up Pick Systems. That's all I've got here. I suspect that those memory expansion slots could accommodate 16M tops. Another remote possibility is that they were LIM/EMS type memory or that they were otherwise bankswitched. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Mon Dec 3 16:54:02 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:54:02 -0800 Subject: Micro Five system In-Reply-To: <47544C57.3000309@mdrconsult.com> References: <47544C57.3000309@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <4754188A.30032.7787831D@cclist.sydex.com> One other thing--there's a squib in the "New Products" section of January 1984 Microsystems about their System 1000 "multiuser expansion". But I wonder if an early 1984 box would be an 80286 unit. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Mon Dec 3 17:14:57 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:14:57 -0700 Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics Board by SCION) Message-ID: One of these just sold on ebay item # 290186096576 I was looking at it because its graphics (I have no S-100 machines), but even had I remembered to bid on it I would have been priced out :-). Are graphics boards for S-100 machines common at all? It seems not. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Dec 3 17:32:28 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:32:28 -0700 Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics Board by SCION) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4754920C.6080806@jetnet.ab.ca> Richard wrote: > Are graphics boards for S-100 machines common at all? It seems not. I think I have only seen about 3 ads for a S-100 graphics card. From legalize at xmission.com Mon Dec 3 17:35:23 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:35:23 -0700 Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics Board by SCION) In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:32:28 -0700. <4754920C.6080806@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: In article <4754920C.6080806 at jetnet.ab.ca>, woodelf writes: > Richard wrote: > > > Are graphics boards for S-100 machines common at all? It seems not. > I think I have only seen about 3 ads for a S-100 graphics card. In the 79-81 time frame I remember poring over the ads for machines in BYTE on a regular basis. (I really wanted my own computer but couldn't afford one.) I recall that Cromemco and SWTPC both had some sort of graphics options, although the SWTPC one might have been from a 3rd party. Cromemco had the "dazzler" card IIRC. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Dec 3 17:43:06 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:43:06 -0600 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <6bpki0$7ipdca@toip3.srvr.bell.ca> <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <4754948A.2060607@oldskool.org> Jay West wrote: > >>> > The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day for me. >>> >>> I agree, a good CRT beats a good LCD. > > I had no idea there were LCD's on vintage computers. Wow. We have year 2000 Sun-branded LCD monitors with that funky Sun video connector native on the monitor, connected to machines that fit the bill of this list (ultra 2, etc). So yes, they are out there. Nice try, SarcasiMaster! :-) -- 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 frustum at pacbell.net Mon Dec 3 18:05:53 2007 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:05:53 -0600 Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics Board by SCION) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <475499E1.9030304@pacbell.net> Richard wrote: > One of these just sold on ebay item # 290186096576 > > I was looking at it because its graphics (I have no S-100 machines), > but even had I remembered to bid on it I would have been priced out > :-). > > Are graphics boards for S-100 machines common at all? It seems not. Matrox S-100 graphics cards appear once in a while on ebay. They made character generators and bitmapped displays as well. They could be ganged to make grayscale, or even palettized color, and they made it easy to sync them so you could overlay graphics and text. I have a couple of each, although I haven't set them up yet. They date from about 1978 or so. Their speed was amazingly slow. Even though the Apple II managed to fit in a CPU access and a graphics access in each memory cycle, the Matrox card allows the CPU twiddle a single pixel per 50 uS scanline (during hblank), so about 20K pixels/second. In other words, a 4 MHz Z80 could execute about 25-50 instructions for each pixel it output. (Richard, I know you know the following, but since a short thread a month or two ago indicates that some people are unaware how far computer graphics hardware has come since 1978, I thought I'd go on a bit) Now 30 years later, graphics cards have 512 MB of RAM (and more), sport virtual memory (the graphics processor can take page faults in the latest generation of chips), process dozens of pixels per clock at 600 MHz and use single precision FP representation per color channel, allow general shader programs per vertex and per pixel (including conditionals, loops, subroutines, computing transcendentals in a single clock, 3d textures with advanced filtering, etc). Oh, and costs less than that 1978 Matrox card even ignoring inflation. This perf/$ curve greatly exceeds even that of the microprocessor over the same time span. Matrox is still around and still selling graphics cards for PCs, although they command a vanishingly small segment of the market these days. There were other graphics cards on S-100 too. I've seen (recently) an S-100 card that had one of the TI bitmap & sprite generator ICs on it. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 3 17:23:01 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:23:01 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712030442.XAA04300@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> from "der Mouse" at Dec 2, 7 11:34:31 pm Message-ID: > True. For a long time I used a 1600x1280 mono Sun monitor, and it was > a real joy. But years ago it dimmed into unusability, and it looks as I normally measure hte CRT electrode voltages (and any other voltages I can think of, like the video amplifer supply, main PSU outputs, etc) in any old monitor I depend on and write htem down in the back of the manual, or on the schematic -- that is the values in _my_ monitor displaying a normal (for that machine) picture. Then, if it starts to fade, I can re-check them and see if the problem is the CRT loosing emision or something cheaper to fix like the 1st anode (g2) voltage going low due to a dead capacitor. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 3 17:26:55 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:26:55 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <47538CA8.5050903@oldskool.org> from "Jim Leonard" at Dec 2, 7 10:57:12 pm Message-ID: > > Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > ObClassicCmp: starting to see more Commodore users at festivals with LCD > > How is that possible? C64 is RGB 9-pin TTL...? Is it? The C64 I have here (and indeed the P500 which has similar video circuitry) has an 8 pin DIN socket, carruying composite colour video and separate Y and C signals (similar to S-video). The C128 has that connector fo the 40 column output and a DE9 connecotr (CGA signals and pinout) for the 80 column chip (presumably that's why the Commodore monitor had both types of input). Many LCD TVs and video projectors will at least accept the composite input. A year or so back i gave a talk to HPCC on the 7245 printer/plotter (now that _is_ on-topic), and demonstrated it using an HP71 as the controller. For a laugh I suck my 80 column HPIL video interface on the HPIL loop, fed it into the composite input on the video projector that others were using with PC laptops and got a pefectly useable display. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 3 17:29:35 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:29:35 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <20071203051517.GA28350@usap.gov> from "Ethan Dicks" at Dec 3, 7 05:15:17 am Message-ID: > Not all LCD monitors are limited to just DVI and VGA inputs. Given the amount of stuff around with composite or S-video outputs, I would be very suprised if nobody makes a composite/S-video to DVI converter. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 3 17:37:07 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:37:07 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> from "Jay West" at Dec 3, 7 08:43:28 am Message-ID: > > > >> > The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day for me. > >> > >> I agree, a good CRT beats a good LCD. > > I had no idea there were LCD's on vintage computers. Wow. >From whaere I am sitting I can see : HP41(several), HP71B, HP75C, HP95LX, HP100LX, Epson HX20, Epson PX4, Epson PX8, HP110, HP110+, Amstrad PPC640, etc. All are classic computers, all have LCD displays. For that matter, I can also see an HP IntegralPC, which has a monochrome plasma display. If, as I suspect, you're maing a cryptic comment that discussion of LCD monitors is off-topic, well, it is your list, but there have been sevearal comments about using them on classic machines including commodore micros.. if you want _that_ to be off-topic, then surely things like IDE interfaces for the Omnibus are off-topic (there were no IDE drives around when the PDP9/e came out), dittoe for almost all of my repair comments (I oftne suggest the use of logic analysers, digital multimeters, etc, which are not conteemporary with the machine being repaired). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 3 17:43:21 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:43:21 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <4754270F.4090901@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Dec 3, 7 09:55:59 am Message-ID: > Oh, I also *like* the bulk of a CRT - for the bigger 19" and 21" screens, > there's a useful place on top of the display to park paperwork and things It's also a normal place for the cat to sleep ;-) More seriously, this was one thing that was liked about the HP836. The monitor for that, which locked on top of the keyboard/processor unit, had a flat top with no coooling vents. It was common to stick the printer or plotter on top of the mahcine, or of you didn't have those, to pile up manuals and paperwork there. [...] > of course we all have much older ones on our vintage gear). Plus I feel better > about reusing an existing product and keeping it out of landfill than I do > buying a new product (with all the manufacturing 'impact' involved). So do I. That's why I bought a lathe to make a part to fix a cheap copier, even though the lathe cost 10 times as much as a new copier (of course said lathe is something I'd wanted for some time, and it's been used fro many jobs since and will be used more in the future... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 3 17:18:12 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:18:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> from "Mr Ian Primus" at Dec 2, 7 06:46:41 pm Message-ID: > You're not imagining it - I have noticed the same > thing. The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day > for me. And, for whatever reason, LCD's seem to give My experience is that the sharpest picture of all is produced by a properly-set up (and with proper exernal circuitry) delta gun CRT. Mabybe becuase the 3 phophor areas associated with a given pixel are closer together in that sort of CRT than in an in-line gun type (including the Trinitron). However, the problem with the delta gun CRT is that it has to be set up in the position it is going to be used. Stray magnetic fields really cause nasty convergence errors. That, I suspect, is why it fell out of fashion, it was not suitable for portable TVs/monitors, and it was not suitable for sets sold by 'box-shifters' I find this is another example of a very common trend. With consumer-grade stuff (I am not talking about top-end things), it seems that 'progress' means increased convenience and often lower quality. The flat-panel monitors/TVs might well be more convenient that the older CRT ones, but they dont' give such good results. There are plenty more really off-topic examples of this, which I won;t mention. I stick with CRTs for another (obvious if you know me) reason. I understand how they work, I can get most spares down to component level. WIth the LCD and plasma displays, the cmallest part the manufacturers supply to anytone is a complete PCB, and often they're only avaialble to service agents. No thanks!. I'll stick to BU208s, TDA1170s and the like ;-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 3 17:53:36 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:53:36 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Using old disks drives In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Dec 3, 7 10:22:29 am Message-ID: > Not only that but when you do find packs/heads/etc. do you want to > wear them out by just tinkering around? The other side ot that is : What's the point in having a good set of heads just to look nice on the shelf. You maight as well use them. If you're not going to use it at all, it doesn't matter if the heads will fly or not. I have no problem at all with using modern peripherals, be they storage, terminals, monitors, whatever, on classic computers. But I don't like _just_ preserving the CPU as the only interesting part of the classic computer. Of course if you just get the CPU, it's great to be able to use modern peripherals with it, that way you can get it to do something. If you have an old complete system, then there's nothing wrong with sticking an IDE interface or a SCSI interface in it and using a modern hard disk in place of the 'washing machine'. But I'd want to keep the old drives around, in runnable condition. Not use them all the time, but be able to use them. As I've said before, I find the design of a hard disk to be every bit as interesting as the CPU. [...] > Then there's the power needs. An RL01 requires a helluva lot more > power to run on a regular basis than an RL01 emulator connected to a > PC and the MTBF is much, much higher with the emulator. On the other hand, the RL01 is a lot easier to repair than the modern unit. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 3 17:55:45 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:55:45 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <20071203102119.J45647@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Dec 3, 7 10:22:00 am Message-ID: > > On Mon, 3 Dec 2007, Jules Richardson wrote: > > Orange is a colour ;) > > So is grey. > But gray is a color. :-) More seriously, at one time, black, white (and therefor I assume grey) were not regarded as colours, since they involved all visible light wavelenghts. In the same way, at one time '1' was not classed as a number (!), -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 3 18:03:42 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 00:03:42 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712032114.lB3LEfnp013222@floodgap.com> from "Cameron Kaiser" at Dec 3, 7 01:14:41 pm Message-ID: > This reminds me -- I'm getting a CoCo 3 very shortly in a trade. From > reading the specs, it looks like the RGB video output should work with a > Commodore 1902 or 1084. Anyone used it with that? I have no idea. What I can describe are the (NTSC-version) CoCo3 video outputs.There are 3 of them The first is composite NTSC baseband video on an RCA phono connector. It should feend any NTSC (RS-170 rate) monitor The sccond is an RF output on Channel 3 or Channel 4 to feed into a TV set aerial (oops 'Antenna') connection. Again an RCA phono socket The last is the one you'r etalking about, I think. It's a 10 pin header (2*5 pins) on the bottom of the machine/ A standard IDC header socket will fit, it's the same sort of connector as wsa used for the 'second' RS232 port on a lot of ISA cards. The signals are line-level audio (let's forget thet, it's also on a separate RCA phono socket on the back of the mahcine), TTL level sync, and analogue (1V level) RGB video. No sync-on-green or anything like that. I beleive the video signals are designed to drive 75 ohm loads. What I discoverted ('For I have a kludge and a good kludge too' ;-)) is that if you _don't_ terminate the RGB signals, they will drive TTL inputs (!). OK, you only get 8 colours (on/off for each of R,G,B), and you have to fiddle with the colour look-up table to get the signals either hard on or hard off, but it does work. Certainly things like white 80-column text on a blue background are very useable. I drove a CGA monitor from my CoCo 3 that way, with a little buffer box to boffer the video signals and sort out the sync. -tony From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Dec 3 18:32:13 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 19:32:13 -0500 Subject: Using old disks drives In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 3, 2007, at 12:22 PM, Richard wrote: > Then there's the power needs. An RL01 requires a helluva lot more > power to run on a regular basis than an RL01 emulator connected to a > PC and the MTBF is much, much higher with the emulator. I'm sorry, but I have to disagree on both counts. The fact that many of us have RL01 drives that are still working (without having been repaired) counters the MTBF argument, and an RL drive pulls something like 65W spun up...much MUCH less than the average PC. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cclist at sydex.com Mon Dec 3 18:32:22 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:32:22 -0800 Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics Board by SCION) In-Reply-To: <475499E1.9030304@pacbell.net> References: , <475499E1.9030304@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <47542F96.9353.77E18906@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Dec 2007 at 18:05, Jim Battle wrote: > Matrox S-100 graphics cards appear once in a while on ebay. They made > character generators and bitmapped displays as well. They could be > ganged to make grayscale, or even palettized color, and they made it > easy to sync them so you could overlay graphics and text. ...and there were others besides the usual gang of Polymorphic, Cromemco, Vector and North Star. Not rare, just uncommon. I remember one very nice one (or set)--the MicroAngelo from Scion. Initially a monochrome version with its own Z80, I think later editions included multiple planes for color. Very nice and very expensive. One of the problems was the terminal-centric view--i.e. many S100 boxes simply communicated with a terminal over a serial link--far too slow for decent graphics, although there were color graphics terminals. And CP/M knew nothing of graphics; there was no "standard" graphics interface as there was on, say the Apple II or the PC, so applications software was a problem. What is hard to appreciate from this time is how revolutionary any sort of non-TTY interface software was. WordStar, for example, was a real eye-opener--you hit ctrl-Y to delete a line and it vanished from the display and succeeding lines scrolled up to close up the gap. Amazing! Real meaningful graphics applications would have to wait a bit to become the rule, rather than the exception. Certainly, larger memory spaces and faster CPUs didn't hurt. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Mon Dec 3 18:33:08 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:33:08 -0700 Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics Board by SCION) In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:05:53 -0600. <475499E1.9030304@pacbell.net> Message-ID: In article <475499E1.9030304 at pacbell.net>, Jim Battle writes: > There were other graphics cards on S-100 too. I've seen (recently) an > S-100 card that had one of the TI bitmap & sprite generator ICs on it. Maybe it would be a fun "extend my S-100 machine" project to add a simple graphics frame buffer? You could put a frame buffer on the card, expose a window of the frame buffer via memory mapped I/O on teh bus and a simple VGA output controller in an FPGA. I don't know what you'd do with it after that, since it would be so non-standard that there isn't any "off the shelf" software you could use with it, but it might be a nice retro-fit! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From glen.slick at gmail.com Mon Dec 3 18:33:18 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 16:33:18 -0800 Subject: VT100 Character ROM image In-Reply-To: <47503F0B.4070309@frixxon.co.uk> References: <4747DFF9.5060708@msu.edu> <47503F0B.4070309@frixxon.co.uk> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90712031633h1fe531dbna3519c482b349727@mail.gmail.com> On Nov 30, 2007 8:49 AM, Paul Williams wrote: > Josh Dersch wrote: > > Anyone out there have a dump of the VT100 character ROM? (This is the > > ROM located at E4 on the VT100 PCB, labeled as 23-018E2-00) > > The patterns are shown on pages 4-78 and 4-79 of EK-VT100-TM-003, "VT100 > Series Video Terminal Technical Manual". It also explains why the > characters you see on screen don't look exactly like the ROM pattern, > due to dot stretching. > If you still want to read that ROM instead of capturing the patterns from pictures in a doc, it appears that ROM has the same pinout as a 2716. If that ROM was in a socket instead of being soldered in place I would pull it out of my VT100 and try reading it as a 2716 myself. What sort of hardware are you planning on building for an emulator? -Glen From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Dec 3 19:11:05 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 01:11:05 +0000 Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics Board by SCION) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4754A929.6050206@dunnington.plus.com> On 03/12/2007 23:35, Richard wrote: > In the 79-81 time frame I remember poring over the ads for machines in > BYTE on a regular basis. (I really wanted my own computer but couldn't > afford one.) I recall that Cromemco and SWTPC both had some sort of > graphics options, although the SWTPC one might have been from a 3rd > party. Cromemco had the "dazzler" card IIRC. I have two Dazzlers, I think, and three Matrox cards for my Cromemco. They're not particularly common, but my Cromemco came from someone who supported various systems that needed graphics. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Dec 3 19:14:28 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 20:14:28 -0500 Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics Board by SCION) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 3, 2007, at 6:14 PM, Richard wrote: > One of these just sold on ebay item # 290186096576 > > I was looking at it because its graphics (I have no S-100 machines), > but even had I remembered to bid on it I would have been priced out > :-). > > Are graphics boards for S-100 machines common at all? It seems not. Sadly not. I had a nice one back when I was in high school; I wrote software for it in Turbo Pascal and Z80 assembler. I don't recall what make/model it was, and I don't know what happened to it...I still have the IMSAI 8080 that it was installed in, but no graphics board. :-( -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From marvin at west.net Mon Dec 3 20:17:02 2007 From: marvin at west.net (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:17:02 -0800 Subject: Early Intel 55S073 IC, RAM Chip? Message-ID: <4754B89E.F7AE2030@west.net> I am starting to list some chips and "stuff" on Ebay (hanging my head), but the mortgage company would really like me to continue paying them, and Ebay unfortunately is the best venue for some of this stuff :(. I ran across this chip in my collection and only found one Google reference. It appears to be an early (code date 7238S) Intel 256 Byte RAM chip. Is this actually one of those *RARE* type chips? From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Dec 3 20:30:35 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 21:30:35 -0500 Subject: Early Intel 55S073 IC, RAM Chip? In-Reply-To: <4754B89E.F7AE2030@west.net> References: <4754B89E.F7AE2030@west.net> Message-ID: > I am starting to list some chips and "stuff" on Ebay (hanging my head), but the > mortgage company would really like me to continue paying them, and Ebay > unfortunately is the best venue for some of this stuff :(. There is no shame in this. -- Will From davis at saw.net Mon Dec 3 20:32:23 2007 From: davis at saw.net (davis) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:32:23 -0800 Subject: ***SPAM*** Re: Symbolics XL400/1200 In-Reply-To: References: <474CA08F.60002@saw.net> Message-ID: <4754BC37.5070707@saw.net> Mark Davidson wrote: > Out of curiosity, is this machine still available? > > Thanks. > > Mark > > On Nov 27, 2007, at 2:56 PM, davis wrote: > >> The machine is available in Portland Or or preferably, up the gorge >> in Goldendale Wa. which is located about 100 miles east of Portland. >> The machine could be shipped, but it would require a pallet for the >> case, foam for the monitor and separate packing for the drive and >> boards. >> I'm not sure how much it's worth. I have had an offer for $370. So I >> guess thats a start. >> The system includes the mono hi-res graphics monitor, space cadet >> keyboard, full document (user) set, but no hardware prints (sorry) >> and a frame tosser board. I'll throw in a couple bus mice, but they >> will need to be rewired. I'll fire it up and verify that it still >> boots. (it did 6 months ago) >> If you pick it up in goldendale, I'll let you dig around in my shed >> for other goodies. >> The machine is badged as a XL400 but boot reports a XL1200. I assume >> it's the extra memory and possibly software upgrades. >> It has been stored inside, in a clean dry environment since I picked >> it up about 7 years ago. >> Jim Davis. > > > Hi Mark, The offer for the machine is currently at $600. We have had a bit of weather, power outages and 2 feet of snow if you haven't seen the news. I'm just now getting back to everyone that showed interest. Thanks, Jim. From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Mon Dec 3 20:49:26 2007 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 20:49:26 -0600 Subject: ***SPAM*** Re: Symbolics XL400/1200 In-Reply-To: <4754BC37.5070707@saw.net> References: <474CA08F.60002@saw.net> <4754BC37.5070707@saw.net> Message-ID: I saw this on slashdot today, of interest to the classic comp crowd, here is a list of the first 100 dot com companies. I find it interesting that Symbolics was the first: http://tinyurl.com/7rfy3 Randy > Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 18:32:23 -0800 > From: davis at saw.net > To: General at saw.net > CC: > Subject: Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Symbolics XL400/1200 > > Mark Davidson wrote: > > Out of curiosity, is this machine still available? > > > > Thanks. > > > > Mark > > > > On Nov 27, 2007, at 2:56 PM, davis wrote: > > > >> The machine is available in Portland Or or preferably, up the gorge > >> in Goldendale Wa. which is located about 100 miles east of Portland. > >> The machine could be shipped, but it would require a pallet for the > >> case, foam for the monitor and separate packing for the drive and > >> boards. > >> I'm not sure how much it's worth. I have had an offer for $370. So I > >> guess thats a start. > >> The system includes the mono hi-res graphics monitor, space cadet > >> keyboard, full document (user) set, but no hardware prints (sorry) > >> and a frame tosser board. I'll throw in a couple bus mice, but they > >> will need to be rewired. I'll fire it up and verify that it still > >> boots. (it did 6 months ago) > >> If you pick it up in goldendale, I'll let you dig around in my shed > >> for other goodies. > >> The machine is badged as a XL400 but boot reports a XL1200. I assume > >> it's the extra memory and possibly software upgrades. > >> It has been stored inside, in a clean dry environment since I picked > >> it up about 7 years ago. > >> Jim Davis. > > > > > > > Hi Mark, > > The offer for the machine is currently at $600. > We have had a bit of weather, power outages and 2 feet of snow if you > haven't seen the news. > I'm just now getting back to everyone that showed interest. > > Thanks, > Jim. _________________________________________________________________ Put your friends on the big screen with Windows Vista? + Windows Live?. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/shop/specialoffers.mspx?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_CPC_MediaCtr_bigscreen_102007 From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Mon Dec 3 21:01:10 2007 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 21:01:10 -0600 Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (Merlin ?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Anybody have one of these - they were cool, monochrome but hi res (320x240, but I'm gessing, I forgot) A couple of neat features: Parallel keyboard interface Cassette interface ROM monitor, cassette BASIC including graphics commands, line arc rectangle AND sprites! I built a couple of these from their kit, about $200 or so. On the subject of BASIC with added commands I think all of us early OEMs of 8080 and z-80 machines used the same technique. We dissasebled Microsoft's code, and found where the syntax error trap was. We then jumped to our code, and parsed our new added commands. Our product was an industrial PC based on the Intecolor. We added serial protocol and rs232 comm commands for PLC's linked to realtime graphics for factory automation. 20 years before Wonderware, Intelution, and Allen Bradley... aaa the days Randy > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > From: legalize at xmission.com > Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 16:14:57 -0700 > CC: > Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics Board by SCION) > > One of these just sold on ebay item # 290186096576 > > I was looking at it because its graphics (I have no S-100 machines), > but even had I remembered to bid on it I would have been priced out > :-). > > Are graphics boards for S-100 machines common at all? It seems not. > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > > > Legalize Adulthood! _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live.Download today it's FREE! http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_sharelife_112007 From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Dec 3 21:17:01 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 22:17:01 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <053401c83567$63581640$6600a8c0@vrsxp> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <053401c83567$63581640$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: <200712032217.01262.pat@computer-refuge.org> It's amazing to me how people can go on for days about completely off-topic stuff like whether or not LCDs give people headaches, but completely ignore thread(s) about trying to fix classic gear. Pat On Sunday 02 December 2007 23:45, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > From: "Mr Ian Primus" > > > You're not imagining it - I have noticed the same > > thing. The picture of a good CRT beats an LCD any day > > for me. And, for whatever reason, LCD's seem to give > > me headaches. I don't know what it is, but something > > about them, I get headaches after a few hours. Mono > > terminals never give me problems - LCD's do. Go > > figure. > > Er, you guys *are* using the LCD's at their native resolution, > I hope. Otherwise the monitor is interpolating on top of whatever > your O/S is doing to scale and draw the image. In my experience, > the monitor does a lousy job of this, so you definitely need to > run an LCD at it's native resolution. Maybe you can set it up > to letterbox the display from your classicmp gear :-). > > (I'm on a 24" Samsung LCD in 1920x1200 and liking it a lot, but > it's *way* off topic :-).) > > Vince -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From doc at mdrconsult.com Mon Dec 3 21:40:25 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:40:25 -0600 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712032217.01262.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <053401c83567$63581640$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <200712032217.01262.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <4754CC29.7050203@mdrconsult.com> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > It's amazing to me how people can go on for days about completely > off-topic stuff like whether or not LCDs give people headaches, but > completely ignore thread(s) about trying to fix classic gear. Nah, some of us saw your post, and just had nothing to offer. No luck with the RM02? Doc From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Dec 3 22:05:31 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:05:31 -0500 Subject: My RM02s (was Completely OT Re: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD) In-Reply-To: <4754CC29.7050203@mdrconsult.com> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <200712032217.01262.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4754CC29.7050203@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <200712032305.31350.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 03 December 2007 22:40, Doc Shipley wrote: > Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > It's amazing to me how people can go on for days about completely > > off-topic stuff like whether or not LCDs give people headaches, but > > completely ignore thread(s) about trying to fix classic gear. > > Nah, some of us saw your post, and just had nothing to offer. No > luck with the RM02? I wasn't picking out anyone in particular, just observing a trend... The post last night is what about 9 hours of troubleshooting this weekend has revealed. Unfortunately, none of the 4 RM02s I have seem to work with the controller, but I've only had the LA hooked up to one so far. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From curt at atarimuseum.com Mon Dec 3 22:09:36 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:09:36 -0500 Subject: My RM02s (was Completely OT Re: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD) In-Reply-To: <200712032305.31350.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <200712032217.01262.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4754CC29.7050203@mdrconsult.com> <200712032305.31350.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <4754D300.1010306@atarimuseum.com> Can you just bypass the MassBus controller box? Isn't the RM02 just a CDC9763? Does it come out of the drive itself SMD cabling? If so, can you just use an Emulex SMD controller and try it that route? Curt Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Monday 03 December 2007 22:40, Doc Shipley wrote: > >> Patrick Finnegan wrote: >> >>> It's amazing to me how people can go on for days about completely >>> off-topic stuff like whether or not LCDs give people headaches, but >>> completely ignore thread(s) about trying to fix classic gear. >>> >> Nah, some of us saw your post, and just had nothing to offer. No >> luck with the RM02? >> > > I wasn't picking out anyone in particular, just observing a trend... > > The post last night is what about 9 hours of troubleshooting this > weekend has revealed. > > Unfortunately, none of the 4 RM02s I have seem to work with the > controller, but I've only had the LA hooked up to one so far. > > Pat > From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Dec 3 22:37:56 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:37:56 -0500 Subject: My RM02s (was Completely OT Re: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD) In-Reply-To: <4754D300.1010306@atarimuseum.com> References: <962280.57498.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <200712032305.31350.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4754D300.1010306@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <200712032337.56724.pat@computer-refuge.org> The drive isn't just standard SMD; see Ethan's previous stories about not being able to de-decify an RM02/03 in the past. And, I'd rather run them as massbus drive than as SMD drives with a 3rd party controller if I can. I've got an RH11, and massbus controller for my 11/750 and 11/780, and no UNIBUS SMD controllers... Pat On Monday 03 December 2007 23:09, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > Can you just bypass the MassBus controller box? Isn't the RM02 > just a CDC9763? Does it come out of the drive itself SMD cabling? > If so, can you just use an Emulex SMD controller and try it that > route? > > > Curt > > Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > On Monday 03 December 2007 22:40, Doc Shipley wrote: > >> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > >>> It's amazing to me how people can go on for days about completely > >>> off-topic stuff like whether or not LCDs give people headaches, > >>> but completely ignore thread(s) about trying to fix classic gear. > >> > >> Nah, some of us saw your post, and just had nothing to offer. > >> No luck with the RM02? > > > > I wasn't picking out anyone in particular, just observing a > > trend... > > > > The post last night is what about 9 hours of troubleshooting this > > weekend has revealed. > > > > Unfortunately, none of the 4 RM02s I have seem to work with the > > controller, but I've only had the LA hooked up to one so far. > > > > Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Mon Dec 3 22:58:04 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim s) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:58:04 -0800 Subject: Micro Five system (PC Clone system) In-Reply-To: <4754188A.30032.7787831D@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47544C57.3000309@mdrconsult.com> <4754188A.30032.7787831D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4754DE5C.6040005@msm.umr.edu> Chuck Guzis wrote: > One other thing--there's a squib in the "New Products" section of > January 1984 Microsystems about their System 1000 "multiuser > expansion". > > But I wonder if an early 1984 box would be an 80286 unit. > > Cheers, > Chuck Micro5 initially made a system with an 8086 that ran basic around 1981 or so. They developed a PC clone with their own BIOS that targeted the AT clone market soon after the AT came out. They caused quite a stir by figuring out that Microsoft's extended ram disk driver used what was called the LOADALL after it was fessed up to by intel. Initially intel had added such instructions to the dies and then enabled them when they produced what were called bondout parts for their In Circuit Emulators, or ICE products. when they came out with the 286 and built their ICE they didn't disable it on the production parts. The significance of LOADALL was that it offered a way to load not only the registers that one normally could modify with architectural instructions, but it could also modify others, some of which happened to be the registers that were computed and were the actual memory pointer registers for certain memory operations. The 286 also did not have the capability in the architecture to address memory over 1mb once in "protected" mode and once in protected mode one had to reset the cpu to get back to real mode (the mode that dos runs is is real). IBM's drivers were very slow because they had to actually reset the 286 after any memory operation the extended memory, since to do it by normal instructions one had to enter protected mode. So they would reset after each operation, and run very slow. Microsoft had produced their extended memory driver, and advertised that ran very fast, and it turned out they were able to do the extended memory operations with only the penalty of using LOADALL to get to the memory. long story, short Micro 5 also came out with a driver after noticing that there was no reset when they ran the ibm driver and there was with the microsoft one. Their bios blew up on the microsoft memory driver because of some assumptions related to the reset the IBM driver had to do. They supported more slots and memory that other systems (I think they came out with > 32mb later) and eventually signed some contracts with Novell to supply large servers. After Samsung bought Micro5 out, the remaining business other than the server business was spun off due to the fact that it ran larger numbers of slots than most clones. Jim From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Dec 3 23:30:12 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 21:30:12 -0800 Subject: Torode Disk drive Controller In-Reply-To: <1196486310.4750eea63fde9@www.jblaser.org> References: <200711292354.lATNsixZ093034@dewey.classiccmp.org> <1196478099.4750ce9354910@www.jblaser.org> <1196479830.4750d55685883@www.jblaser.org> <1196486310.4750eea63fde9@www.jblaser.org> Message-ID: Hi I've finally found something that I've been looking for for over 10 years. I have one of the Digital Systems drive and controller boxes. About 8 years ago, I decompiled the state machine in this controller to figure out how it worked. Even though getting it working in the system, I've been off and on looking for the manual. I finally located someone that actually has a manual ;) It is funny how when one thinks it is a hopeless cause, something pops up. This controller is interesting because it was used on the first S-100 machine that had an official CP/M installed on it ( not my controller but the same model ). It seems that John Torode and Kildall worked on the controller together and he ported his CP/M to the S-100 world. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Put your friends on the big screen with Windows Vista? + Windows Live?. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/shop/specialoffers.mspx?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_CPC_MediaCtr_bigscreen_102007 From marvin at west.net Mon Dec 3 23:37:14 2007 From: marvin at west.net (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:37:14 -0800 Subject: Early Intel 55S073 IC, RAM Chip? Message-ID: <4754E78A.D791A210@west.net> /rant on Will, I am *VERY* critical of Ebay and generally view them as operationally inept or challenged, and I would much rather see VCM succeed as an alternative. I don't like dealing with organizations I view as unethical. /rant off I didn't have time to put up a picture of the chip, so I just uploaded one to: http://www.west.net/~marvin/55s073-1.jpg In looking at it again, this doesn't look like an Intel logo, so I am curious who did make this chip. I thought it might be intersil, but so far, I haven't seen any Intersil logos that look like this one. > > I am starting to list some chips and "stuff" on Ebay (hanging my head), but the > > mortgage company would really like me to continue paying them, and Ebay > > unfortunately is the best venue for some of this stuff :(. > > There is no shame in this. > > -- > Will From glen.slick at gmail.com Mon Dec 3 23:44:57 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 21:44:57 -0800 Subject: Early Intel 55S073 IC, RAM Chip? In-Reply-To: <4754E78A.D791A210@west.net> References: <4754E78A.D791A210@west.net> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90712032144n6416c58dr595bd80117a07fdd@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 3, 2007 9:37 PM, Marvin Johnston wrote: > > http://www.west.net/~marvin/55s073-1.jpg > > In looking at it again, this doesn't look like an Intel logo, so I am curious > who did make this chip. I thought it might be intersil, but so far, I haven't > seen any Intersil logos that look like this one. > That logo is listed under Intersil here: http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/logos/semiconductorlogos.html From marvin at west.net Mon Dec 3 23:49:12 2007 From: marvin at west.net (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:49:12 -0800 Subject: Early Intel 55S073 IC, RAM Chip? Message-ID: <4754EA58.23E2B2E@west.net> I found a site that has a lot of chip logos: http://www.elnec.com/support/ic-logos/?method=logo Looks like the 55S073 is an Intersil chip, and not Intel. But I still haven't been able to find out any information on this chip. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Dec 4 00:00:13 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:00:13 -0800 Subject: Micro Five system (PC Clone system) In-Reply-To: <4754DE5C.6040005@msm.umr.edu> References: <47544C57.3000309@mdrconsult.com>, <4754188A.30032.7787831D@cclist.sydex.com>, <4754DE5C.6040005@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <47547C6D.27798.790DAE08@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Dec 2007 at 20:58, jim s wrote: > Initially intel had added such instructions to the dies and then enabled > them when they produced what were called bondout parts for their In > Circuit Emulators, or ICE products. when they came out with the 286 and > built their ICE they didn't disable it on the production parts. > > The significance of LOADALL was that it offered a way to load not only > the registers that one normally could modify with architectural > instructions, but it could also modify others, some of which happened to > be the registers that were computed and were the actual memory pointer > registers for certain memory operations. LOADALL was probably one of the the worst-kept secret in the 80286 world (Intel did document it in a memo that soon made the rounds). Most 386 and 486 BIOSes even emulate the 286 LOADALL (the 386 and 486 and P's have a different version of the instruction). I think it finally went official in a DDJ article. I hadn't realized that Micro Five was part of the brouhaha. Cheers, Chuck From g-wright at att.net Tue Dec 4 00:48:46 2007 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:48:46 +0000 Subject: Micro Five system Message-ID: <120420070648.17526.4754F84D0003B5870000447622216128369B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> -------------- Original message from "Chuck Guzis" : -------------- > One other thing--there's a squib in the "New Products" section of > January 1984 Microsystems about their System 1000 "multiuser > expansion". > > But I wonder if an early 1984 box would be an 80286 unit. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > Well I have a 1000 here and not sure which CPU it has but it is a CPM/ MPM mutliuser system. It has no slots. The serial IO board is on top of the Mother board making it hard to find the CPU. I also have a Micro V, Microstar system that uses a 8085 CPU not sure if there related. They certenly have a close name. Just 2 8" floppies. - Jerry Jerry Wright g-wright at att.net From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Mon Dec 3 18:09:35 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:09:35 -0500 Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics Board bySCION) Message-ID: <0JSI003EB0CP6VA1@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics Board bySCION) > From: Richard > Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:14:57 -0700 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >One of these just sold on ebay item # 290186096576 > >I was looking at it because its graphics (I have no S-100 machines), >but even had I remembered to bid on it I would have been priced out >:-). > >Are graphics boards for S-100 machines common at all? It seems not. Generally no. They existed and were available but the requirement was not there (killer app that used it). That however changed near end of life for S100 as there were CPUs 8088/86, 286 and concurrent CP/M and even MS-DOS sop grpahics support and use was desireable. However MicroAngelo, Comemco dazzler and others were out there in the wild. Generally though when I've seen them they were in embedded S100 systems being used for process controls (dairy, and other production factilities). Seems that market liked graphics and used it. Allison From dwight at svdc-imap00.amd.com Mon Dec 3 18:18:07 2007 From: dwight at svdc-imap00.amd.com (Dwight Elvey) Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 16:18:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Torode disk controller for the S-100 Message-ID: <200712040018.QAA12867@svdc-imap00.amd.com> Hi Bob Do you remember the S-100 controller and disk drives I talked you into buying last year? I recently dug up some more interesting information. I've actually found someone that has a manual. This is a find. These controllers are really quite rare. Manuals are even rarer. Second thing is that these Digital Systems controllers were designed by Torode. These were the first S-100 floppy system that Kildall release a packaged CP/M for. I knew these were early controllers but didn't realize the history of them. Dwight From derschjo at msu.edu Mon Dec 3 18:32:18 2007 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:32:18 -0800 Subject: ROM image for NEC PC-8300 Message-ID: <4754A012.1050602@msu.edu> Anyone out there have a ROM image for the NEC PC-8300? This is NEC's variant of the Kyocera KC 85, of which the TRS-80 Model 100 was another. I picked up two of these a long time ago, they had been used as some sort of data-logging system and had custom ROMs in them which are useless without special hardware I don't have :). Now that I have a functional EPROM burner I can get this running in its native state, if only I can find the right ROM for it. Can't seem to find this on the 'net. Thanks for any pointers... Josh From derschjo at msu.edu Mon Dec 3 18:52:16 2007 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:52:16 -0800 Subject: VT100 Character ROM image In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90712031633h1fe531dbna3519c482b349727@mail.gmail.com> References: <4747DFF9.5060708@msu.edu> <47503F0B.4070309@frixxon.co.uk> <1e1fc3e90712031633h1fe531dbna3519c482b349727@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4754A4C0.102@msu.edu> Glen Slick wrote: > On Nov 30, 2007 8:49 AM, Paul Williams wrote: > >> Josh Dersch wrote: >> >>> Anyone out there have a dump of the VT100 character ROM? (This is the >>> ROM located at E4 on the VT100 PCB, labeled as 23-018E2-00) >>> >> The patterns are shown on pages 4-78 and 4-79 of EK-VT100-TM-003, "VT100 >> Series Video Terminal Technical Manual". It also explains why the >> characters you see on screen don't look exactly like the ROM pattern, >> due to dot stretching. >> >> > > If you still want to read that ROM instead of capturing the patterns > from pictures in a doc, it appears that ROM has the same pinout as a > 2716. If that ROM was in a socket instead of being soldered in place > I would pull it out of my VT100 and try reading it as a 2716 myself. > > What sort of hardware are you planning on building for an emulator? > > -Glen > > I tried to dump the ROM over the weekend and had no luck whatsoever, regardless of what I tried to read it as. I suppose it wouldn't be out of the question to recreate the contents manually based on the patterns from the tech manual; there's not a ton of data in there, it's just tedious :). I'm doing a software emulation of the VT100 hardware, so that at last a "100%" compatible VT100 emulator will be available for the PC :). I have the 8080 emulation done, and once I get some time it's a matter of getting the video and I/O emulation working... I plan on making the I/O "pluggable" so you can use the emulator to talk to a serial port, telnet, ssh, standard IO, etc... Josh From justdun at bigpond.net.au Tue Dec 4 01:55:38 2007 From: justdun at bigpond.net.au (Justin M Dunlop) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 18:55:38 +1100 Subject: 2.5" IDE to SCSI adapters In-Reply-To: <200712040036.lB40aAYr091698@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712040036.lB40aAYr091698@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: Greetings all, I had heard thst someone was organising a group buy for 2.5" IDE to SCSI adapters (eg for Mac Powerbooks). I couldn't seem to find any reference in the archives. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks, Justin. -- ___________________________________________________________________________ Justin M. Dunlop NB: New email account details.... email: justdun at bigpond.net.au ____________________________________________________________________________ From ama at ugr.es Tue Dec 4 02:31:28 2007 From: ama at ugr.es (Angel Martin Alganza) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 09:31:28 +0100 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712031515.KAA15162@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <01af01c835ba$e311c180$6400a8c0@BILLING> <200712031515.KAA15162@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20071204083128.GH9684@darwin.ugr.es> On Mon, Dec 03, 2007 at 10:05:48AM -0500, der Mouse wrote: > But there are some, such as me, to whom it's not unreasonable; I > certainly know that if I refused to use anything non-original with my > classic machines I'd have substantially fewer classic machines in use. It seems not only reasonable but convenient if, for example, talking about monitors you can get one who is better for your eyes, or it draws less power (which is neither free nor cheap here); or talking about disks you get a less noisy one or one that produce less heat. -- Saludos, Angel O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail and posts - www.asciiribbon.org From Arno_1983 at gmx.de Tue Dec 4 03:18:49 2007 From: Arno_1983 at gmx.de (Arno Kletzander) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:18:49 +0100 Subject: Mechanical calculators Message-ID: <20071204091849.193030@gmx.net> M H Stein wrote: > From: "Arno Kletzander" > > >My contribution however was not targeted at the IBM equipment thread, > >btw. > ------ > MHS: > > I realized that, which is why I left the original subject line. (...) > the second part of my reply dealt with the type you're talking about. Sorry for the misunderstand, thanks for clearing up. > >Yes, exactly that is the class of machines I meant. There were similar > >ones which printed on a platten carriage mounted behind the adding > >machine body (...) > ------ > MHS: > > And those were the "posting" or "accounting" machines I was talking > about; in the Burroughs line that I worked with, the electro-mechanical > ones equivalent to the IBM punch card equipment we've been discussing > were the "Sensimatic" F series, programmed by a removable program panel > with two sets of "pins," (...) > I had three of these at one time, but scrapped them all long ago. > > The later electronic versions were the "E" series; a good brochure with > pictures of a type of computer largely ignored in the various histories > (although there's a brief mention in The Encyclopedia of Microcomputers), > with core memory and magnetic stripe & PPT/EPC I/O (...) > > Incidentally, Sensimatic referred to the way the program pins > were "sensed;" the pins were different lengths which determined the > operation to be performed (add/subtract/print/etc.) and different pin > locations determined the register number or the accumulator (sound > familiar?). A set of sensing pins would rise up to measure the length of > the program pins, and the keyboard also had "function keys" (called > OCKs - Operator Control Keys) for different options (normal entry, error > correction, etc.) > > A program would consist of steps like "Load A (from keyboard) (INP 01), > "LD R1, 2 and 3 from A," "SUB A from R5&6," "Punch A (OUT 2)," "IF OCK3 > then SKIP (JMP) to Step12," etc., all done mechanically with gears, > levers and springs of course. Programming was done with a nibbling tool, > a tray of numbered different length pins and a screwdriver. > > Wouldn't you love to have 20 registers today, and the ability to > load/store more than one simultaneously? Mind you, that was also the > entire memory until electronic versions came along... Uhh, what have I done to deserve this treatment? You make me long for those big ugly heavy boat-anchors even more than before. Must...go...chastise myself (before my parents do when I bring home the next one :-)) All joking aside, my collection in the field of accounting machinery is pretty fragmentary yet: All I have is a Triumph Duplex wide carriage accounting typewriter (Wahl actuator principle, supposedly pre-WWII) with motorised carriage return and just two registers (one on the carriage for vertical sums, one on the machine body for horizontal sums, and an empty shell that activates the horizontal register but doesn't accumulate in itself - there sure must have been more), and a Triumph-Adler "TA 20 compact" electronic facturing typewriter which pretty much looks like a Selectric with a numeric keypad, a few extra lamps and all dressed in white. The older one was a dumpster find and is unrestored as of yet - there's a load of rust, dirt und grease gunk inside and I'm not so sure if I'm going to get it reassembled if I take it to pieces far enough to clean it out. The electronic machine was a present from my grandfather who was a office machinery serviceman, it was my practice machine for the touch-typing course I took in grammar school and it's working to this day. There is a keyswitch to select either typewriter or facturing machine mode, the customer-specific facturing program (for which I was lucky enough to also get some documentation; obviously the machine was used in a carpetry store) is hard coded in an EPROM and even contains the postal adresses of some regular customers. Writing a new program involved some precoding on forms. Then, a cassette-based "programming accessory" was attached to the machine, the program entered and saved to tape. The programmer (and the customer?) could test it for correctness; if it was accepted, the tape was sent to the factory, the program burned to EPROMs and these sent back to the serviceman for installation. Unfortunately, I do not have that accessory, and working out the interface for building a replacement is somewhere quite low on my priority list. Oh, I forgot that "GROSS U.K." restaurant cash register with key-locks for eight waiters and dual printer for receipt and journal. This one is also working, but the case has a few dents in it. But something I'd really consider a find is one of those desk-sized facturing machines, say a Rheinmetall FME series - this has a motorized mechanical four-species calculator in the desk drawer which is electrically linked to the typewriter on top: magnets for input, contacts for readout. My grandfather detested those, as they used 120V DC to pick the magnets and there were lots of unencapsulated contacts within the mechanism... Greetings, -- Arno Kletzander Der GMX SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen! Ideal f?r Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Dec 4 08:15:54 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim s) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:15:54 -0800 Subject: Micro Five system / Microdata connection In-Reply-To: <120420070648.17526.4754F84D0003B5870000447622216128369B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> References: <120420070648.17526.4754F84D0003B5870000447622216128369B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: <4755611A.1030009@msm.umr.edu> g-wright at att.net wrote: > > > Well I have a 1000 here and not sure which CPU it has but it is a CPM/ MPM > mutliuser system. It has no slots. The serial IO board is on top of the Mother board > making it hard to find the CPU. > > I also have a Micro V, Microstar system that uses a 8085 CPU not sure if there > related. They certenly have a close name. Just 2 8" floppies. > > - Jerry > > Jerry Wright > g-wright at att.net > Micro V and Micro 5 were all the same. They started with an 8086 with 2 users capability and expanded to a better basic and hardware and the 8085 when it came out. They could have run CPM but they had their own O/S that they sold for business purposes. For what it's worth they were financed by Ken Allen among others, who also was a founding backer of Microdata in 1968 or 69. I don't recall exactly when they were founded but it was in the 80 to 85 time frame. I'll ask some of the culprits at a reunion coming up and try to post more accurate info. There was a special agreement between Microdata and Micro V not to sue over the "Micro" in the name, due to the close relation. There was no other connection other than the founders that I know of of a business nature. Soon after the founding of Micro V, Microdata was acquired by McDonnell Douglass and began to change to other identities (MDCSS and Novadyne eventually) away from Microdata. One of the original engineers is John Pitcher, who originally was from Microdata. The first President was Cliff Myers. Both were key players at Microdata and there is a strong geographic relation to Microdata as well as the people being from there. I believe that John Pitcher has a system he saved which has all the software on 3 1/2" floppies, and should probably try to get it to save away, since he had most of the software on that format which is much easier to handle than the original 8" systems. Jim From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Dec 4 09:03:32 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 07:03:32 -0800 Subject: VT100 Character ROM image In-Reply-To: <4754A4C0.102@msu.edu> References: <4747DFF9.5060708@msu.edu> <47503F0B.4070309@frixxon.co.uk> <1e1fc3e90712031633h1fe531dbna3519c482b349727@mail.gmail.com> <4754A4C0.102@msu.edu> Message-ID: >> From: derschjo at msu.edu> > >> > > I tried to dump the ROM over the weekend and had no luck whatsoever, > regardless of what I tried to read it as. I suppose it wouldn't be out > of the question to recreate the contents manually based on the patterns > from the tech manual; there's not a ton of data in there, it's just > tedious :).> Hi I've rarely seen ROMs that have 100% match between pin of a 2716. Most have at least one enable pin that is inverted. Also, to prevent damage, I recommend disconnection the program voltage wire with a socket adapter. This wire would be either tied high or low at the ROM depending on selects chosen for that ROM. On a 2Kx8 ROM, there are usually 3 enables that need to have the correct levels on. When I've read ROMs in the past, I've usually put SPDT switches on these wires. One can then play with the combinations to get the correct one that reads the data in the ROM. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Your smile counts. The more smiles you share, the more we donate.? Join in. www.windowslive.com/smile?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_oprsmilewlhmtagline From glen.slick at gmail.com Tue Dec 4 10:06:40 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 08:06:40 -0800 Subject: 2.11BSD Patch 445; FPSIM fixed; 211bsd runs on systems without FPP In-Reply-To: <459BF36E.5040100@gsi.de> References: <459BF36E.5040100@gsi.de> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90712040806mc04ec8dl606b9a946e6755dc@mail.gmail.com> On Jan 3, 2007 10:18 AM, Walter F.J. Mueller wrote: > A note to all 2.11bsd users: > > Some time ago I looked into running 2.11bsd on systems without > floating point unit. The release notes state that this is untested > and unsupported, and indeed it didn't work. > > Robin Birch some time ago fixed part of the issues, see patch 434, > but still the kernel paniced when the very first program was started. > I managed to localize and fix the problem in sys/pdp/mch_fpsim.s. > > Steven Schultz right away issued 2.11BSD patch #445. All patches > up to and including 445 are provided by Steven under > > ftp://sg-1.ims.ideas.gd-ais.com/pub/2.11BSD > Anyone have a current working link for the 2.11BSD patch archive? The link above doesn't seem to work. http://moe.2bsd.com/ refers to ftp://ftp.cato.gd-ais.com/pub/2.11BSD which doesn't work. -Glen From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Dec 4 10:06:27 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 11:06:27 -0500 Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics Board by SCION) Message-ID: <01C83667.6DF89C40@mandr71> ----------Original Message: Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 01:11:05 +0000 From: Pete Turnbull Subject: Re: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics Board by SCION) On 03/12/2007 23:35, Richard wrote: > In the 79-81 time frame I remember poring over the ads for machines in > BYTE on a regular basis. (I really wanted my own computer but couldn't > afford one.) I recall that Cromemco and SWTPC both had some sort of > graphics options, although the SWTPC one might have been from a 3rd > party. Cromemco had the "dazzler" card IIRC. I have two Dazzlers, I think, and three Matrox cards for my Cromemco. They're not particularly common, but my Cromemco came from someone who supported various systems that needed graphics. -- Pete -----------Reply: S-100 Graphics are what got Cromemco started; the founders, Harry Garland and Roger Melen started out building RAM-chip cameras in their dorm room at CROthers MEMorial hall (CROMEMco) at Stanford and their Dazzler graphics card was quite a sensation in its day, stopping traffic and gathering a crowd when a New York computer shop set up a demo in its store window. Ironically, after years of selling high-end text-only S-100 systems to governments, institutions and business, in the end it was also graphics that kept them going (at least for a little while): A company called Dynatech (also makers of the famous Fuzz-Buster) was using Cromemco systems for one of their products, the Colorgraphics Weather System used by TV stations to display weather maps, and when Cromemco fell on hard times they "merged with" (were bought by) Dynatech to assure continued support for their systems. See: http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/display/3-5-CROMEMCO.html mike From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Dec 4 10:15:45 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 11:15:45 -0500 Subject: Mechanical calculators Message-ID: <01C83667.6F824980@mandr71> Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:18:49 +0100 From: "Arno Kletzander" Subject: Re: Mechanical calculators >Uhh, what have I done to deserve this treatment? You make me long >for those big ugly heavy boat-anchors even more than before. >Must...go...chastise myself (before my parents do when I bring home >the next one :-)) ---- Sorrrrryy... They're not "junk," they're "rare and valuable antiques," just a little larger than that old teapot belonging to your great-grandmother that your mother keeps in the buffet... ---- >My grandfather detested those, as they used 120V DC to pick the magnets >and there were lots of unencapsulated contacts within the mechanism... --- Ouch! Been there, done that... mike From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Dec 4 10:18:36 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 11:18:36 -0500 Subject: ROM image for NEC PC-8300 Message-ID: <01C83667.705C7CE0@mandr71> -----------Original Message: Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:32:18 -0800 From: Josh Dersch Subject: ROM image for NEC PC-8300 Anyone out there have a ROM image for the NEC PC-8300? This is NEC's variant of the Kyocera KC 85, of which the TRS-80 Model 100 was another. I picked up two of these a long time ago, they had been used as some sort of data-logging system and had custom ROMs in them which are useless without special hardware I don't have :). Now that I have a functional EPROM burner I can get this running in its native state, if only I can find the right ROM for it. Can't seem to find this on the 'net. Thanks for any pointers... Josh ----------Reply: Go to: http://www.diginexus.com/web8201/ and get in touch with Gary at the link there; he's Mr. NEC and will have it for you and he's also a nice guy who'll gladly help you with any other NEC issues you may have. mike From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Dec 4 12:40:24 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 13:40:24 -0500 Subject: VT100 Character ROM image Message-ID: <01C8367B.589B28E0@MSE_D03> -------Original Message: Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 07:03:32 -0800 From: dwight elvey Subject: RE: VT100 Character ROM image >> From: derschjo at msu.edu> > >> > > I tried to dump the ROM over the weekend and had no luck whatsoever, > regardless of what I tried to read it as. I suppose it wouldn't be out > of the question to recreate the contents manually based on the patterns > from the tech manual; there's not a ton of data in there, it's just > tedious :).> Hi I've rarely seen ROMs that have 100% match between pin of a 2716. Most have at least one enable pin that is inverted. Also, to prevent damage, I recommend disconnection the program voltage wire with a socket adapter. This wire would be either tied high or low at the ROM depending on selects chosen for that ROM. On a 2Kx8 ROM, there are usually 3 enables that need to have the correct levels on. When I've read ROMs in the past, I've usually put SPDT switches on these wires. One can then play with the combinations to get the correct one that reads the data in the ROM. Dwight ---------Reply: Dwight's quite correct; many ROMs included partial address decoding. Aren't there schematics in any of the bitsavers files (or elsewhere)? Enable pinouts & levels should be obvious if you have a schematic; a lot less work than creating a ROM from the dot patterns... m From cclist at sydex.com Tue Dec 4 12:41:32 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:41:32 -0800 Subject: Torode disk controller for the S-100 In-Reply-To: <200712040018.QAA12867@svdc-imap00.amd.com> References: <200712040018.QAA12867@svdc-imap00.amd.com> Message-ID: <47552EDC.27678.7BC6B17A@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Dec 2007 at 16:18, Dwight Elvey wrote: > Second thing is that these Digital Systems controllers > were designed by Torode. These were the first S-100 floppy > system that Kildall release a packaged CP/M for. > I knew these were early controllers but didn't realize > the history of them. Why is it that I never saw a mention of a CBIOS for these things with the DRI material? The only disk controller that DRI ever published any code for back then (CP/M 1.3 or so?) was for the Intel MDS. Isn't it true that almost all vendors wrote their own CBIOS? Cheers, Chuck From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Dec 4 12:42:45 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:42:45 -0500 Subject: ***SPAM*** Re: Symbolics XL400/1200 In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:49:26 CST." Message-ID: <200712041842.lB4Igjn1000787@mwave.heeltoe.com> Randy Dawson wrote: > >I saw this on slashdot today, of interest to the classic comp crowd, here is a > list of the first 100 dot com companies. > >I find it interesting that Symbolics was the first: They may well have had the first DNS server. I would not be surprised if a lispm (on the Internet) was one of the first. >http://tinyurl.com/7rfy3 (I just barely made the top 100! ah, those were the days, when you could ask for a class B network number and get it and 3 letter domains were free...) -brad From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Dec 4 12:38:05 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 13:38:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: 2.5" IDE to SCSI adapters In-Reply-To: References: <200712040036.lB40aAYr091698@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <200712041845.NAA06010@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > I had heard thst someone was organising a group buy for 2.5" IDE to > SCSI adapters (eg for Mac Powerbooks). I couldn't seem to find any > reference in the archives. > Can someone point me in the right direction? That was probably me. I found a source of such adapters, but they wanted a minimum order of something like 15 units, so I started to plan a group buy. After starting to set that up, I found a vendor which sold quantity-one for less per unit than the other source wanted for a much larger minimum order, so I dropped the group buy idea, ordered from the other place, and sent mail to the list giving the contact info for the "better" vendor, for the benefit of the people who'd expressed interest in the group buy (the price difference was substantial, enough to cover shipping and still come out cheaper). I might still have the email I sent to the list, though it's unlikely. I almost certainly still have paperwork giving contact info for the cheaper vendor, if anyone wants. /~\ 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 ak6dn at mindspring.com Tue Dec 4 12:46:11 2007 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:46:11 -0800 Subject: 2.11BSD Patch 445; FPSIM fixed; 211bsd runs on systems without FPP In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90712040806mc04ec8dl606b9a946e6755dc@mail.gmail.com> References: <459BF36E.5040100@gsi.de> <1e1fc3e90712040806mc04ec8dl606b9a946e6755dc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4755A073.2020407@mindspring.com> Glen Slick wrote: > On Jan 3, 2007 10:18 AM, Walter F.J. Mueller wrote: > >> A note to all 2.11bsd users: >> >> Some time ago I looked into running 2.11bsd on systems without >> floating point unit. The release notes state that this is untested >> and unsupported, and indeed it didn't work. >> >> Robin Birch some time ago fixed part of the issues, see patch 434, >> but still the kernel paniced when the very first program was started. >> I managed to localize and fix the problem in sys/pdp/mch_fpsim.s. >> >> Steven Schultz right away issued 2.11BSD patch #445. All patches >> up to and including 445 are provided by Steven under >> >> ftp://sg-1.ims.ideas.gd-ais.com/pub/2.11BSD >> >> > > Anyone have a current working link for the 2.11BSD patch archive? The > link above doesn't seem to work. > > http://moe.2bsd.com/ refers to ftp://ftp.cato.gd-ais.com/pub/2.11BSD > which doesn't work. > > -Glen > > Try ftp://moe.2bsd.com/pub/2.11BSD/ From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Dec 4 12:52:30 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 13:52:30 -0500 Subject: HP 9000/216 Message-ID: <200712041352.30733.pat@computer-refuge.org> I finally decided to pick up the HP 9000/216 box which had been laying around at my usual supplier for a few weeks. I spent a little time looking at google, and can't find much info on them. >From physical examination, it looks like it has a 1MB and a 256kB expansion memory card (so 1.5MB total), and a fairly large keyboard, which is different than the "standard" keyboard that comes with it (it includes a dial at the top left, and has grey keys instead of brown). I was wondering if these are actually somewhat rare, or if they're just not very well sought-after. If anyone is interested in giving me some $$ for one or has something interesting (mostly old DEC), feel free to bother me about it. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Tue Dec 4 13:32:38 2007 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:32:38 +0100 Subject: HP 9000/216 In-Reply-To: <200712041352.30733.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200712041352.30733.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <4755AB56.3070607@bluewin.ch> > I was wondering if these are actually somewhat rare, or if they're just > not very well sought-after. Probably the latter. They are the usual good HP engineering, but on the software side things are somewhat meagre, i.e. nothing much of interest seems to be around. If someone in Europe wants one, I also have one that I do not use. ( 1MB extension, 3x RS232, GPIO & HPIB cards , graphics extension . But I would like my outlay back...) Jos Dreesen From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Dec 4 14:06:21 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 12:06:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: ROM image for NEC PC-8300 In-Reply-To: <4754A012.1050602@msu.edu> References: <4754A012.1050602@msu.edu> Message-ID: <20071204120220.X14775@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 3 Dec 2007, Josh Dersch wrote: > Anyone out there have a ROM image for the NEC PC-8300? This is NEC's > variant of the Kyocera KC 85, of which the TRS-80 Model 100 was another. How does that compare with the 8200 series? Uncle Roger almost certainly has one; it shouldn't be too hard to peek() in a loop to read it out. http://www.sinasohn.com/clascomp/ From lproven at gmail.com Tue Dec 4 14:07:25 2007 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 20:07:25 +0000 Subject: ZX Spectrum (was Re: Commodores ) In-Reply-To: <1196590007.9372.10.camel@elric.inet> References: <713056.43156.qm@web23401.mail.ird.yahoo.com> <1196590007.9372.10.camel@elric.inet> Message-ID: <575131af0712041207y4c5e76d3n600ea2da60b61b41@mail.gmail.com> On 02/12/2007, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > One final alternative is that on the Speccy 128 you could flip between > two addresses for the screen RAM with a bit on one of the IO ports. By > switching during the screen draw time, you could do lovely smooth wipes. I was going to comment on that. I still to this day think it's a crying shame that Sinkers didn't use the enhanced ULA from the Timex-Sinclair 2068 in the Spectrum 128. The more flexible RAM paging scheme would have been a boon, too - the TS2068 could page out the ROM making a CP/M port for the Speccy viable. The Amstrad +3 could do that too, but it didn't have the better ULA either, so you were stuck with a 32*24 text display - not a lot of use for Wordstar or Supercalc - or weeny 4-pixel wide characters for 64 columns and eye-strain. The 2068 could do 64 columns of 8-pixel wide characters, meaning that an 80 column screen of fairly legible 7-pixel wide characters was viable. Plus it also had a mode that largely got rid of attribute clash - still only 32 columns of colours, but a different set every pixel line. (Screen resolution 256*192, colour resolution 32*192. Even weirder than a normal Speccy.) I'm sure with a bit of work they could have made a TS2068-alike that was entirely Speccy compatible in 48K mode but had a better BASIC in 128K mode. Even the SAM Coupe managed that, an entirely third-party machine with a faster Z80. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From legalize at xmission.com Tue Dec 4 15:15:16 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:15:16 -0700 Subject: HP 9000/216 In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:32:38 +0100. <4755AB56.3070607@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: In article <4755AB56.3070607 at bluewin.ch>, Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel writes: > > I was wondering if these are actually somewhat rare, or if they're just > > not very well sought-after. > > Probably the latter. They are the usual good HP engineering, but on the > software side things are somewhat meagre, i.e. nothing much of interest > seems to be around. If these are the 680x0 based workstations, the UofU did a port of BSD to them. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Dec 4 15:26:36 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim s) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:26:36 -0800 Subject: HP 9000/216 In-Reply-To: <200712041352.30733.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200712041352.30733.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <4755C60C.4060300@msm.umr.edu> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > I finally decided to pick up the HP 9000/216 box which had been laying > around at my usual supplier for a few weeks. I spent a little time > looking at google, and can't find much info on them. > if these are what I think they are, they are PA architecture and there is an HPUX 11.11 release that HP will send you that is pretty good. You can use GNU tools for compiling since the HP compiler is expensive and not free. Main drawback is that the main disk storage is HVDiff SCSI . I plan to use a pacific converter to single ended and use regular drives, but the usual system will have a big old HVD scsi drive in it which isn't very big in capacity. Jim From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Dec 4 15:50:42 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 16:50:42 -0500 Subject: HP 9000/216 In-Reply-To: <4755C60C.4060300@msm.umr.edu> References: <200712041352.30733.pat@computer-refuge.org> <4755C60C.4060300@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <200712041650.42330.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 04 December 2007, jim s wrote: > Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > I finally decided to pick up the HP 9000/216 box which had been > > laying around at my usual supplier for a few weeks. I spent a > > little time looking at google, and can't find much info on them. > > if these are what I think they are, they are PA architecture and > there is an HPUX 11.11 release Nope, they're 68k. I don't think you could have put only 1.5MB of memory into any PA-RISC box. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Dec 4 15:33:26 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 21:33:26 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Using old disks drives In-Reply-To: from "Dave McGuire" at Dec 3, 7 07:32:13 pm Message-ID: > > On Dec 3, 2007, at 12:22 PM, Richard wrote: > > Then there's the power needs. An RL01 requires a helluva lot more > > power to run on a regular basis than an RL01 emulator connected to a > > PC and the MTBF is much, much higher with the emulator. > > I'm sorry, but I have to disagree on both counts. The fact that many > of us have RL01 drives that are still working (without having been > repaired) counters the MTBF argument, and an RL drive pulls something I would also argue that MTBF is unimportant in a machine used for a hobby. I'd much rather have a machine that required minor maintenance/repair every year or so (requiring, perhaps, that the fans be taken apart and cleaned, or ta few TTL chips replaced) than one that ran for 3 yeasrs and then failed in a catastrophic way (requriing the replacement of, say, a PC motherboard or a modern hard disk). Incidnetally, I feel this way about things other than computers. 'Sealed for life' bearings are a pain. I'd rather go round every month with a grease gun :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Dec 4 16:07:30 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 22:07:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP 9000/216 In-Reply-To: <4755AB56.3070607@bluewin.ch> from "Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel" at Dec 4, 7 08:32:38 pm Message-ID: > Probably the latter. They are the usual good HP engineering, but on the > software side things are somewhat meagre, i.e. nothing much of interest > seems to be around. There's HP BASIC 5.x, which is a very nice version of BASIC. It allows named procedures, local variables, etc. There's also a Pascal, which I assume is UCSD-based. > > If someone in Europe wants one, I also have one that I do not use. ( 1MB > extension, 3x RS232, GPIO & HPIB cards , graphics extension . But I > would like my outlay back...) I am wondering how on earth oyu get all taht into a 9816. Do you have an expansion chassis? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Dec 4 15:38:09 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 21:38:09 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712032217.01262.pat@computer-refuge.org> from "Patrick Finnegan" at Dec 3, 7 10:17:01 pm Message-ID: > > It's amazing to me how people can go on for days about completely > off-topic stuff like whether or not LCDs give people headaches, but > completely ignore thread(s) about trying to fix classic gear. Most, if not all, people here respond only to posts when they feel they know something about the subject. In the case of repairs, you'll only (alas) get comments if somebody else has that particular machine (or at least has read the servivce manual/printset). If this refers to your RM02 problems, I didn't reply because I have never worked on a Massbus interface, I don;t have the prints, and so on. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Dec 4 16:05:35 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 22:05:35 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP 9000/216 In-Reply-To: <200712041352.30733.pat@computer-refuge.org> from "Patrick Finnegan" at Dec 4, 7 01:52:30 pm Message-ID: > > I finally decided to pick up the HP 9000/216 box which had been laying > around at my usual supplier for a few weeks. I spent a little time > looking at google, and can't find much info on them. The first trap for the unwary is that this machine also goes under the number 'HP9816'. Maybe a search for that would be more helpful. For the record : HP9000/226 == HP9826 HP9000/236 == HP9836 HP9000/217 == HP9817 too. Go to http://www.hpmuseum.net/ . I don't think there's much machine-spcific infopr fo the 9816 on that site, but there should be things like HP BASIC disks for the 9000/200 family (of which this is a member). And if you can stick my handwritinmg, there should be a set of schematics. > >From physical examination, it looks like it has a 1MB and a 256kB > expansion memory card (so 1.5MB total), and a fairly large keyboard, It's a beautiful little machine IMHO, built very well. It's possible to remove all the PCBs apart form the PSU only having to remove 1 screw, for example. There are 6 PCBs (and 2 expansion slots) packed into that little case.Flat in the bottom there's the processor board, which also contains RAM, boot ROMs, RS232 and HPIB ports, keyboard interface, etc. That plugs into a little backplane with 2 DIO slots. DIO is the HP expansion bus for the 9000/200 series. physically it's the same connectors as S100 bus, but the PCBs are smaller, and the signals totally different. It's basically the 68000 bus, with lites to talk to an optional DMA controller. The power lines are regulated +5V and +/-12V. On top of that assembly is another larage PCB mounted horizontally that plugs into the same backplane. It cotnains the monitor circuitry and the +/-12V regulators (the PSU outptus +/-14V). Plugged into that are 2 small PCbs on the right of the CRT (lookinf from the back of the machine), the larger one on the left is the text video board (6845 + 4K RAM + character generator + TTL), the smalelr one is the graphics board (16K DRAM + TTL). Finally on the left of the PCBs is a metal box containing an SMPSU board. You are lucky if you have a machine with 1M on the CPU board. Most have 256K (32 off 4164 DRAMs). I figured out when looking at said board that it had been designed to take 41256 chips too, so I desoldered all the RAMs in mine, replaed them with 41256s (alas you can't use sockets, the PCB won't fit under the backplane if you do), fitted a 74F158 mux chip and a resistor for the extra address input, and cut a couple of jumpers. Only much later did I hear that HP had shipped machines like that. The 2 DIO slots are wired in prallel. The lower one can take a PCB with an external connector (like a GPIO parallel card), the upper one can only take 'internal' cards (RAM, DMA controller, ROM, bubble memory, etc). Without an HP disk drive, it's not going to do a lot (well, if you have a ROM BASIC or ROM HPL board in the machine, it'll boot to that, but you can't save your programs). You want to track down an HP9122 (dual floppy) or HP9133 (floppy/hard disk) or something like that. Thos plug into the HPIB interface. The serial port is a strange connector (50 pin microribbon), but standard RS232 signals (once you've worked out where they all are). Finding the wirelist of the cable was an entertainment. I finally found it in the Pascal standard procedures manaul, it's also in one of the Basic manuals. It's not in any specidfically-hardware manual that I could find. > which is different than the "standard" keyboard that comes with it (it > includes a dial at the top left, and has grey keys instead of brown). Mine came with the samll keyboard. It also has the 'dial', actually a rotary encoder. That's used for scrolling. On its own it moves the cursor horizontally, if you hold down the shift key it moves it vertically. It feels very nice to me. The keyboard interface is power, ground, clock (processor board to keyboard) and a bidirectional line. From the procesor board to keyboard it's a reset to clear the scan counter and start a new scan. From keyboard to processor, it carries the state of the current key. Strangely, for all the keys are scanned by the hardware in the keyboard, they are not wired in a matrix. Instead one side of each key is grounded, the other goes to an input on a 4051 mux chip (the keyboard is full of those!) When mine came, it was missing the left shift key and a couple fo the key contacts were mangled. I soon realised the latter were the same as used in the VT52, VT100, TRS-80 Model 1, etc. Digging in my junk box, I found a 'spare' VT52 keyboard PCB from whih I raided some contacts, and parts like key plungers to replaced cracked ones. I found the shift key on that was the right size, even if the wrong colour and design to fit the 9816 keybard, so I put it on. If I ever find the right one, I can swap it. [1] No I didn't raid a repariable VT52. I was given a load of DEC bits, and this keyboard was amongst them. I assume somebody else raided a VT52. I've enver seen the larger keyboard 'in the flesh'. I assume it's electrically compatible, although it might well be different internally. > > I was wondering if these are actually somewhat rare, or if they're just > not very well sought-after. If anyone is interested in giving me some HP9000/200 machines don't seem to have much collector interest, which is a pity. I find them all to be very well made, repairable, interesting designs. Tracking down expansion boards is a bit of a problem, but when you find them, they tend to sell for low prices, thankfully. -tony From teoz at neo.rr.com Tue Dec 4 16:14:03 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 17:14:03 -0500 Subject: HP 9000/216 References: <200712041352.30733.pat@computer-refuge.org><4755C60C.4060300@msm.umr.edu> <200712041650.42330.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <005901c836c2$faac72a0$c600a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Patrick Finnegan" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 4:50 PM Subject: Re: HP 9000/216 > On Tuesday 04 December 2007, jim s wrote: > > Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > > I finally decided to pick up the HP 9000/216 box which had been > > > laying around at my usual supplier for a few weeks. I spent a > > > little time looking at google, and can't find much info on them. > > > > if these are what I think they are, they are PA architecture and > > there is an HPUX 11.11 release > > Nope, they're 68k. > > I don't think you could have put only 1.5MB of memory into any PA-RISC > box. > > Pat > -- That model came out in 1982, so the RAM seems to be pretty good for that time period. The HP Computer Museum Website says: "The 9816 family was also known as the 200 Series Model 16, 9000 Model 216 and 9000/216." http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=4 If you look under the software section for the 200/300 series there are some things to play around with (test utils, basic, Pascal, etc). I think they have the manuals for the unit as well. The HP 9000 series was 68K up to the 400S model (68030) then they switched. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Dec 4 16:15:46 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 22:15:46 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP 9000/216 In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Dec 4, 7 02:15:16 pm Message-ID: > If these are the 680x0 based workstations, the UofU did a port of BSD > to them. Definitely 68000-based. The 9817 (shoebox cabinet, seperate monitor) was a 68010, and had MMU circuitry on the mainboard (it looks like a 68012 could go in there too). All the other machines were plain 68000s The 9816 had no MMU circutiry at all. I believe there was an HP-UX version for these machines _with MMU_ (the 9826 and 9836 could be fitted with several diffent CPU boards one of which had an MMU), but that it won't run o nthe 9816. From looking at schematics, etc, it appears a 9817 CPU board could be jury-rigged into a 9816 case (fiddle with the sould circuitry, and you'd have to put RAM in the DIO slots). I've never tried this, probably never will. No idea what this BSD prot needs... Maybe it'll run on an MMU-less machine. -tony From oldcpu2 at rogerwilco.org Tue Dec 4 16:48:55 2007 From: oldcpu2 at rogerwilco.org (J Blaser) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:48:55 -0700 Subject: VAX 11/750 5V PS troubleshooting In-Reply-To: <1196646676.4753611479145@www.jblaser.org> References: <1196646676.4753611479145@www.jblaser.org> Message-ID: <4755D957.5090601@rogerwilco.org> J Blaser wrote: > Quoting Tony Duell : > > >> But I can be eaily persuaded to look at the PSU schematics sometime and >> see if I spot anything obvious. Or at least tlak you through the design >> (which might be somewhat unconventional if other DEC supplies are >> anything to go by [1]) >> >> [1] This might not be a problem for you. If oyu don't have any experience >> of SMPSUs, any one is as good/bad as another to get started with. The >> problems generally come if you have fixed ideas ofg how supplies should >> work and then you get something strange thrown at you. >> >> > > > Thanks much for the offer to work me through this! There are a couple of things > that I want to do tomorrow night when I get a chance. I finally got a little time to take another look at this 5V supply. I removed all connections to the backplane, etc., then connected my 4-filament rig of headlamps as the only load and powered up. I see the same results as before, about 0.8V (a bit variable) on the 5V output. So I guess we can safely say that the problem lies within the PS itself, and not in anything that it's connected to. I'll add that I hear a not-loud-but-noticable 'DZZZ' sound from the PS (not just now, it's been there from the beginning), probably the crowbar doing something. Still, I think I have a suitable load with the headlamps. Tony, if your offer still stands, I'd appreciate some advice on how best to proceed. If you could give me a couple of ideas about what would be good test points to get started with, I'll give it a go. As I said earlier, I have a modest set of tools, e.g., VOM and oscilloscope. I have the 2.5V (H7104-C) and 5V (H7104-D) PSU printsets, found at: http://vt100.net/mirror/hcps/h7104-c.pdf http://vt100.net/mirror/hcps/h7104-d.pdf I admit, I'm not making much sense of them at the moment. FWIW, I have no experience working inside of switching PSUs, so I have no knowledge (good or bad) to draw upon. Many thanks. - Jared From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Dec 4 18:06:28 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 19:06:28 -0500 Subject: HP 9000/216 In-Reply-To: <005901c836c2$faac72a0$c600a8c0@game> References: <200712041352.30733.pat@computer-refuge.org><4755C60C.4060300@msm.umr.edu> <200712041650.42330.pat@computer-refuge.org> <005901c836c2$faac72a0$c600a8c0@game> Message-ID: <4755EB84.8010400@gmail.com> Teo Zenios wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Patrick Finnegan" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 4:50 PM > Subject: Re: HP 9000/216 > > >> On Tuesday 04 December 2007, jim s wrote: >>> Patrick Finnegan wrote: >>>> I finally decided to pick up the HP 9000/216 box which had been >>>> laying around at my usual supplier for a few weeks. I spent a >>>> little time looking at google, and can't find much info on them. >>> if these are what I think they are, they are PA architecture and >>> there is an HPUX 11.11 release >> Nope, they're 68k. >> >> I don't think you could have put only 1.5MB of memory into any PA-RISC >> box. >> >> Pat >> -- > > That model came out in 1982, so the RAM seems to be pretty good for that > time period. The HP Computer Museum Website says: "The 9816 family was also > known as the 200 Series Model 16, 9000 Model 216 and 9000/216." > > http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=4 > > If you look under the software section for the 200/300 series there are some > things to play around with (test utils, basic, Pascal, etc). I think they > have the manuals for the unit as well. > > The HP 9000 series was 68K up to the 400S model (68030) then they switched. I'm pretty sure that the 425 and 433 machines were 68040-based. Peace... Sridhar From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Tue Dec 4 18:19:44 2007 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore Sinding Bekkedal) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 01:19:44 +0100 Subject: these RTL or what? In-Reply-To: References: <0JPD002D0YJ7IW63@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <1196813985.23053.104.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Fri, 2007-10-05 at 12:42 -0400, William Donzelli wrote: > > VAX9000 built of ECL100K, fastest of the fast. The second most common > > use of TTL was in very high speed instrumentation and specifically frequency > > counters and UHF PLLs. > > If the 9000 series was till using 100K, DEC must have been sleeping. > By the 9000s development period, ECL was beyond 100K. I am not sure, > but 10E may have been out by then. 10G maybe as well, but using that > leads to insanity. > > But one thing I notice about DEC's ECL machines (9000, KL10) - for > being ECL, there sure were ssssllloooowwwww. Recently, I actually had a chance to speak with one of the original engineers behind the VAX 9000. He said that they had the Aquarius running very stably (and completely quietly) when they were told that they had to switch the machine to air-cooled. The reason was that a business analyst had decided that supercomputers were no longer selling, and the main indicator of a supercomputer was liquid cooling. They had to cut the cycle speed down quite significantly. -Tore :) From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Dec 4 20:01:48 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 18:01:48 -0800 Subject: Torode disk controller for the S-100 In-Reply-To: <47552EDC.27678.7BC6B17A@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712040018.QAA12867@svdc-imap00.amd.com> <47552EDC.27678.7BC6B17A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: cclist at sydex.com > > On 3 Dec 2007 at 16:18, Dwight Elvey wrote: > >> Second thing is that these Digital Systems controllers >> were designed by Torode. These were the first S-100 floppy >> system that Kildall release a packaged CP/M for. >> I knew these were early controllers but didn't realize >> the history of them. > > Why is it that I never saw a mention of a CBIOS for these things with > the DRI material? The only disk controller that DRI ever published > any code for back then (CP/M 1.3 or so?) was for the Intel MDS. Hi Chuck To my knowledge, you are correct that the only listing created for implementing a CBIOS was for the MDS 800. It used ROM BIOS calls as I recall. I think this was because Kildall did most of his work on the Intel boxes as that is where he had PLM. At least that is what I recall. > > Isn't it true that almost all vendors wrote their own CBIOS? This is also true, most. For the information I got, one reference on the web is: http://www.retrotechnology.com/dri/d_dri_history.html#post under the section: Early CP/M, PL/M and DRI history I question that he stayed with an upgraded Intelec-8. At least the listings that I've see would have had to have been a MDS-800 at least. This is not a simple upgrade. The 800 is a multibus and the -8 isn't. I don't think the I/O calls had been standardized before the 800. Also, the listing specifically state MDS-800. There were 8080 boards for the -8. I know this because I have one in my piles someplace ( the board, not the -8 ). Other references specifically state that he and Torode worked together on releasing the first version for the S-100. It also states that this was the more universal version that had the separate CBIOS, intended for easier implementation on other systems/controllers. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ You keep typing, we keep giving. Download Messenger and join the i?m Initiative now. http://im.live.com/messenger/im/home/?source=TAGLM From ray at arachelian.com Tue Dec 4 21:14:19 2007 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 22:14:19 -0500 Subject: Old laptop hard drive "goo" In-Reply-To: <474E9942.30517.620E6040@cclist.sydex.com> References: <474EDB4D.5080602@tdh.com> <474E9942.30517.620E6040@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4756178B.2010203@arachelian.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > A lot of small hard drives use a ferrofluid seal on the motor shaft. > When it works, it's great--forms an impervious low-friction seal. > > I wonder if that's what your "goo" is. > Might be useful to see if it responds to a magnet. :-) From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Tue Dec 4 23:46:33 2007 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 06:46:33 +0100 Subject: HP 9000/216 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47563B39.5090503@bluewin.ch> >> If someone in Europe wants one, I also have one that I do not use. ( 1MB >> extension, 3x RS232, GPIO & HPIB cards , graphics extension . But I >> would like my outlay back...) > > I am wondering how on earth oyu get all taht into a 9816. Do you have an > expansion chassis? > No, got caught out with HP's naming : mine is actually a HP9826... jOS From cclist at sydex.com Wed Dec 5 00:02:57 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 22:02:57 -0800 Subject: Torode disk controller for the S-100 In-Reply-To: References: <200712040018.QAA12867@svdc-imap00.amd.com>, <47552EDC.27678.7BC6B17A@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <4755CE91.9990.7E3688D4@cclist.sydex.com> On 4 Dec 2007 at 18:01, dwight elvey wrote: > I question that he stayed with an upgraded Intelec-8. At least > the listings that I've see would have had to have been a MDS-800 > at least. This is not a simple upgrade. The 800 is a multibus > and the -8 isn't. Yeah--even the 1.4 BIOS listings say "MDS", if I remember correctly. Certainly the 2.0 ones do. Ah, well, perhaps it's all lost in the mists of time... Cheers, Chuck From g-wright at att.net Wed Dec 5 00:28:30 2007 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 06:28:30 +0000 Subject: Micro Five system / Microdata connection Message-ID: <120520070628.26234.4756450C00086B4E0000667A22230704929B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> -------------- Original message from jim s : -------------- > g-wright at att.net wrote: > > > > > > Well I have a 1000 here and not sure which CPU it has but it is a CPM/ MPM > > mutliuser system. It has no slots. The serial IO board is on top of the > Mother board > > making it hard to find the CPU. > > > > I also have a Micro V, Microstar system that uses a 8085 CPU not sure if there > > related. They certenly have a close name. Just 2 8" floppies. > > > > - Jerry > > > > Jerry Wright > > g-wright at att.net > > > Micro V and Micro 5 were all the same. They started with an 8086 with 2 > users capability and expanded to a better basic and hardware and the > 8085 when it came out. > > They could have run CPM but they had their own O/S that they sold for > business purposes. > > For what it's worth they were financed by Ken Allen among others, who > also was a founding backer of Microdata in 1968 or 69. I don't recall > exactly when they were founded but it was in the 80 to 85 time frame. > I'll ask some of the culprits at a reunion coming up and try to post > more accurate info. > > There was a special agreement between Microdata and Micro V not to sue > over the "Micro" in the name, due to the close relation. There was no > other connection other than the founders that I know of of a business > nature. Soon after the founding of Micro V, Microdata was acquired by > McDonnell Douglass and began to change to other identities (MDCSS and > Novadyne eventually) away from Microdata. > > One of the original engineers is John Pitcher, who originally was from > Microdata. The first President was Cliff Myers. Both were key players > at Microdata and there is a strong geographic relation to Microdata as > well as the people being from there. > > I believe that John Pitcher has a system he saved which has all the > software on 3 1/2" floppies, and should probably try to get it to save > away, since he had most of the software on that format which is much > easier to handle than the original 8" systems. > > Jim Thanks Jim, for the info. this is the first I have seen so far. It would be nice to come up with any info or OS for these. I dug out my 1000 and it boots StarDos. I have looked for years for info on either machine and/or the OS. Not much is out there. - Jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc g-wright at att.net From gpearce at curiousgroup.co.uk Tue Dec 4 04:44:32 2007 From: gpearce at curiousgroup.co.uk (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 10:44:32 +0000 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200712041044.32254.gpearce@curiousgroup.co.uk> On Monday 03 December 2007 23:23:01 Tony Duell wrote: > Then, if it starts to fade, I can re-check them and see if the problem is > the CRT loosing emision or something cheaper to fix like the 1st anode > (g2) voltage going low due to a dead capacitor. I spotted this and thought "Aha, capacitor? Usually a resistor going high in my experiece! I'll reply and set this person straight". Then I spotted it was Tony, and now I'm keen to see what bizarre set of circumstances he diagnosed where a failing cap caused this. I really hope it's nothing as prosaic as a failing smoothing cap in the A2 supply... ;-) Gordon From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Tue Dec 4 06:51:18 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 07:51:18 -0500 Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics BoardbySCION) Message-ID: <0JSI00IRMZA0D2N2@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics BoardbySCION) > From: Richard > Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:33:08 -0700 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > >In article <475499E1.9030304 at pacbell.net>, > Jim Battle writes: > >> There were other graphics cards on S-100 too. I've seen (recently) an >> S-100 card that had one of the TI bitmap & sprite generator ICs on it. > >Maybe it would be a fun "extend my S-100 machine" project to add a >simple graphics frame buffer? You could put a frame buffer on the >card, expose a window of the frame buffer via memory mapped I/O on teh >bus and a simple VGA output controller in an FPGA. I don't know what >you'd do with it after that, since it would be so non-standard that >there isn't any "off the shelf" software you could use with it, but it >might be a nice retro-fit! A good fit is the NEC7220, used in the Rainbow. It was one of the first graphics controllers to bridge the CRTC and the graphics world as known now. If you can find one that is a good candidate for S100 for a 3 or 4plane color system. Allison >-- >"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > > > Legalize Adulthood! From robert.stek at gmail.com Tue Dec 4 09:45:53 2007 From: robert.stek at gmail.com (Robert Stek) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 08:45:53 -0700 Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics Board by SCION) Message-ID: <47557631.2de9220a.585b.ffff8472@mx.google.com> No one was more surprised than me at the selling price - and I'm the one who sold it! I was expecting maybe $20 - $30. I think I even have another one, but I haven't found it yet. Anyway, it was a nice surprise and will mean some extra money for Xmas. Bob Stek Saver of Lost Sols From mardy at voysys.com Tue Dec 4 14:27:15 2007 From: mardy at voysys.com (Marden P. Marshall) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 15:27:15 -0500 Subject: Looking for source of S-100 backplane connectors Message-ID: Does anyone know where one can still purchase S-100 backplane connectors? Thanks, -Mardy From macmonster at myrealbox.com Tue Dec 4 16:27:19 2007 From: macmonster at myrealbox.com (Stroller) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 22:27:19 +0000 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <475365E9.5010901@mdrconsult.com> References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com> <4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com> <475365E9.5010901@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: On 3 Dec 2007, at 02:11, Doc Shipley wrote: > ... > After looking at the PowerBooks, I bought the 15". The Mac screen > is much clearer, colors are more consistent, edges are sharper, and > smaller fonts are *less* pixelated at 1280x856 than the Dell at > 1400x1050. I'm not sure if you're comparing your laptop's screen with a Mac connected to a Dell monitor, or a Dell PC generally. If it's the latter case then you shouldn't because fonts are handled differently between Mac & PC systems (although fonts under XP (and Vista?) should be sharper than OS X (up to 10.4, anyway)). Stroller. From tom at brumleysouth.com Tue Dec 4 20:13:36 2007 From: tom at brumleysouth.com (TOM) Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 21:13:36 -0500 Subject: Intel 8024A Message-ID: Hi, Let me know if you want to sell them. Thanks tom, From teoz at neo.rr.com Wed Dec 5 01:15:01 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 02:15:01 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com><4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com><475365E9.5010901@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <003601c8370e$8d681ea0$c600a8c0@game> Anybody happen to know what the higest resolution ever made for CRT was? LCDs seem to pack the pixel count in these days, have they topped what a high end CRT could do in the same screen size? From cclist at sydex.com Wed Dec 5 01:38:03 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:38:03 -0800 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <003601c8370e$8d681ea0$c600a8c0@game> References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com>, <003601c8370e$8d681ea0$c600a8c0@game> Message-ID: <4755E4DB.3197.7E8D98BC@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Dec 2007 at 2:15, Teo Zenios wrote: > Anybody happen to know what the higest resolution ever made for CRT was? > LCDs seem to pack the pixel count in these days, have they topped what a > high end CRT could do in the same screen size? I assume you mean "color" CRT. The resolution of a monochrome CRT is pretty close to infinite (at least limited by dot size, phosphor grain size and electronics). Isn't the highest-resolution color obtained with field-sequential systems? I seem to recall a Polaroid color photo setup for the PC that used a color wheel and a white (monochrome) CRT. (I also recall seing an octal socket on the back of some old 50's CBS color receivers tagged for the addition of a color wheel setup, but that's OT). Cheers, Chuck From grant at stockly.com Wed Dec 5 02:14:04 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:14:04 -0900 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <4755E4DB.3197.7E8D98BC@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com> <003601c8370e$8d681ea0$c600a8c0@game> <4755E4DB.3197.7E8D98BC@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <0JSK006K8HJ8ZZB0@msgmmp-1.gci.net> At 10:38 PM 12/4/2007, you wrote: >On 5 Dec 2007 at 2:15, Teo Zenios wrote: > > > Anybody happen to know what the higest resolution ever made for CRT was? > > LCDs seem to pack the pixel count in these days, have they topped what a > > high end CRT could do in the same screen size? > >I assume you mean "color" CRT. The resolution of a monochrome CRT is >pretty close to infinite (at least limited by dot size, phosphor >grain size and electronics). I worked with a color sony display that was around 2100x1590. It was a really funny resolution that required a specific video card and the manual told you how to trick the driver into doing it. It was the heaviest monitor I've ever seen. I remember a faint line down the middle that the manual said was an artifact of the manufacturing process. The highest resolution LCD I've worked is 19-20" diagonal and has a resolution of 3840x2400 (no kidding). For a while both IBM and ViewSonic both sold them and they were down to 3.5k. The pixels are so small you have to get a magnifying glass. For drafting its a dream come true. :) From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Dec 5 02:52:29 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 03:52:29 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <0JSK006K8HJ8ZZB0@msgmmp-1.gci.net> References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com> <003601c8370e$8d681ea0$c600a8c0@game> <4755E4DB.3197.7E8D98BC@cclist.sydex.com> <0JSK006K8HJ8ZZB0@msgmmp-1.gci.net> Message-ID: <475666CD.8040804@gmail.com> Grant Stockly wrote: > At 10:38 PM 12/4/2007, you wrote: >> On 5 Dec 2007 at 2:15, Teo Zenios wrote: >> >> > Anybody happen to know what the higest resolution ever made for CRT >> was? >> > LCDs seem to pack the pixel count in these days, have they topped >> what a >> > high end CRT could do in the same screen size? >> >> I assume you mean "color" CRT. The resolution of a monochrome CRT is >> pretty close to infinite (at least limited by dot size, phosphor >> grain size and electronics). > > I worked with a color sony display that was around 2100x1590. It was a > really funny resolution that required a specific video card and the > manual told you how to trick the driver into doing it. It was the > heaviest monitor I've ever seen. I remember a faint line down the > middle that the manual said was an artifact of the manufacturing process. > > The highest resolution LCD I've worked is 19-20" diagonal and has a > resolution of 3840x2400 (no kidding). For a while both IBM and > ViewSonic both sold them and they were down to 3.5k. > > The pixels are so small you have to get a magnifying glass. For > drafting its a dream come true. :) I'm reasonably certain the IBM T221 was 22.2". If memory serves, it was sold by IBM, Viewsonic and Iiyama. Peace... Sridhar From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Dec 5 07:03:19 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 07:03:19 -0600 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com> <4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com> <475365E9.5010901@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <4756A197.6010104@mdrconsult.com> Stroller wrote: > > On 3 Dec 2007, at 02:11, Doc Shipley wrote: >> ... >> After looking at the PowerBooks, I bought the 15". The Mac screen is >> much clearer, colors are more consistent, edges are sharper, and >> smaller fonts are *less* pixelated at 1280x856 than the Dell at >> 1400x1050. > > I'm not sure if you're comparing your laptop's screen with a Mac > connected to a Dell monitor, or a Dell PC generally. Yeah, I realized after sending that that I left off about half of what I meant to say. I was comparing my powerbook laptop screen to a Dell laptop screen of the same size and better resolution. The Mac wins hands-down. I also have a Mac G5 connected to a Samsung 172t LCD and a Dell 2007FP LCD. I'll grant that a $500 LCD won't do a couple of things as well as a $2500 CRT (my 21" SGI), like black blacks and fast motion neither of which is important to me. Otherwise, the Dell easily equals the SGI tube. And, to drag this sort-of on-topic, the Dell has composite-in that works fine with my Amigas and C128, although 40 columns at 20" is kind of scary. > If it's the latter case then you shouldn't because fonts are handled > differently between Mac & PC systems (although fonts under XP (and > Vista?) should be sharper than OS X (up to 10.4, anyway)). I couldn't speak to that either way. The only Windows systems I spend time with are classroom systems, and they're invariably cheap 17" LCDs. *Those* are perfectly awful. Doc From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Dec 5 10:00:34 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 11:00:34 -0500 Subject: LCDs back on-topic Re: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <4756A197.6010104@mdrconsult.com> References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com> <4756A197.6010104@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <200712051100.34972.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 05 December 2007 08:03, Doc Shipley wrote: > And, to drag this sort-of on-topic, the Dell has composite-in that > works fine with my Amigas and C128, although 40 columns at 20" is > kind of scary. I wonder if 80 column text over NTSC (eg, a CGA card) would be more readable on an LCD monitor/TV than it is on a common TV. Has anyone tried that? Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From marvin at west.net Wed Dec 5 12:48:07 2007 From: marvin at west.net (Marvin Johnston) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 10:48:07 -0800 Subject: Graphics for S-100 machines (MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics Message-ID: <4756F267.722BD3B8@west.net> Congratulations on the selling price of the MicroAngelo board!!! I did take a look at the bidders and it appears that at least the winning bidder had just registered on Ebay a week ago and had a bidding war with another person who, by their feedback, looks like they had been a member for a while. If that bidding war had not taken place, it would have probably sold in the $30.00 range or so. At least you know how much someone is willing to pay for one of these if you list another one :)! > From: "Robert Stek" > > No one was more surprised than me at the selling price - and I'm the one who > sold it! I was expecting maybe $20 - $30. I think I even have another one, > but I haven't found it yet. Anyway, it was a nice surprise and will mean > some extra money for Xmas. > > > > Bob Stek > > Saver of Lost Sols From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Dec 5 13:01:19 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:01:19 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 Message-ID: <4756F57F.3090008@gmail.com> My father just rescued a Hazeltine 1200 from a scrapheap for me. I know nothing about these. Could someone give me some pointers to information? Thanks. Peace... Sridhar From ian_primus at yahoo.com Wed Dec 5 13:43:14 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 11:43:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <4756F57F.3090008@gmail.com> Message-ID: <803321.41533.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > > My father just rescued a Hazeltine 1200 from a > scrapheap for me. I know > nothing about these. Could someone give me some > pointers to > information? Thanks. > > Peace... Sridhar > Nice! I don't know anything about the 1200, but I have a 1500 and a 1421. They are both just simple terminals, with some fairly basic control functions What does it look like? Is the keyboard integral or detatched? Does it look like the 1500/1400 series? - http://vt100.net/manx/covers/14/hi-1056a.png. Now, if it looks like the 2000, you've got a great score. Those are some interesting beasts. I've never seen one, but they look like this. http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/h2000s.gif The Hazeltine 2000 was a very early video terminal (circa 1972). -Ian From ian_primus at yahoo.com Wed Dec 5 13:53:11 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 11:53:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching Message-ID: <148904.46737.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> This should be a much simpler problem than I'm making it, but at the moment my brain doesn't want to come up with a solution. Picture this - a number of switches, say, eight. Momentary contact, normally open switches. And then eight outputs, one for each switch, TTL level. I want to be able to push one switch and bring it's corresponding output high, and have it stay high even when the switch is released. But, making this more complicated, I only want to be able to allow one switch to be active at a time. So, say switch four is pressed, output four is high. Then, switch one is pressed, and output four goes low, and output 1 goes high. Timing is not critical. I know this should be a simple array of flip flops, in some fashion, but at the moment, the solution eludes me. I feel like there is probably even a single/two chip solution to this. Now, I know that this is probably off-topic, but I'd be using this in on-topic hardware... -Ian From ian_primus at yahoo.com Wed Dec 5 14:00:48 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 12:00:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <4756F57F.3090008@gmail.com> Message-ID: <410578.50493.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > > My father just rescued a Hazeltine 1200 from a > scrapheap for me. I know > nothing about these. Could someone give me some > pointers to > information? Thanks. > > Peace... Sridhar > Ah-hah. Found a picture of one. http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/h1200.html I don't believe the information on that page is all that correct, he seems to be describing a Hazeltine 2000 (detatched keyboard, etc). And judging from the looks of the terminal, model number, etc, I would guess (guess!) that the 1200 came after the 2000, and before the 1400/1500 series. Probably somewhere around the mid 70's. But, of course, that really doesn't help you all that much, since I don't actually _know_ anything useful about the terminal that you don't already. It's RS-232 :). Very nice score though. -Ian From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Wed Dec 5 14:05:51 2007 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 21:05:51 +0100 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <148904.46737.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <148904.46737.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 11:53:11 -0800> From: ian_primus at yahoo.com> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching> > This should be a much simpler problem than I'm making> it, but at the moment my brain doesn't want to come up> with a solution.> > Picture this - a number of switches, say, eight.> Momentary contact, normally open switches. And then> eight outputs, one for each switch, TTL level. I want> to be able to push one switch and bring it's> corresponding output high, and have it stay high even> when the switch is released. But, making this more> complicated, I only want to be able to allow one> switch to be active at a time. So, say switch four is> pressed, output four is high. Then, switch one is> pressed, and output four goes low, and output 1 goes> high. Timing is not critical.> > I know this should be a simple array of flip flops, in> some fashion, but at the moment, the solution eludes> me. I feel like there is probably even a single/two> chip solution to this.> > Now, I know that this is probably off-topic, but I'd> be using this in on-topic hardware...> > -Ian What pops into mind, but would need a bit more thought, 8 D flipflops with common clock. The 8 switches are connected to the 8 D inputs, but also tied together with a small capacitor and connected to the clock. When you press a switch, the D input is set to the level of the pressed switch, while the other D inputs are at the levels from the not-pressed switches. Pressing any switch will produce a pulse on the clock (with a small delay). The levels of the 8 D inputs is latched in the 8 D flipflops. I have build that circuit, but can't remember exactly how the 8 switches connect combined to the single clock input ... Henk From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Dec 5 14:17:26 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 13:17:26 -0700 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: References: <148904.46737.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47570756.6040804@jetnet.ab.ca> Henk Gooijen wrote: > I have build that circuit, but can't remember exactly how > the 8 switches connect combined to the single clock input ... This is job for Superman ... err one-shots. The first one-shot triggers reset and when that times out it tiggers a second one-shot for the clock. > Henk From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Wed Dec 5 14:29:37 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 15:29:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <148904.46737.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <148904.46737.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200712052040.PAA25825@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Picture this - a number of switches, say, eight. Momentary contact, > normally open switches. And then eight outputs, one for each switch, > TTL level. I want to be able to push one switch and bring [its] > corresponding output high, and have it stay high even when the switch > is released. But, making this more complicated, I only want to be > able to allow one switch to be active at a time. So, say switch four > is pressed, output four is high. Then, switch one is pressed, and > output four goes low, and output 1 goes high. Timing is not > critical. Do you care what happens if two switches are pressed at once? In particular, do you care what the outputs are like during the time when both switches are pressed? Do you care what the state is like on powerup, before any switches are pressed? My first cut would be to set up a bunch of R-S flipflops (each one being two cross-coupled NAND gates, probably). A switch would then drive low the S input for its flipflop and the R input for all other flipflops. (How this is done is more or less irrelevant. Personally, I'd probably put pullups on the inputs (omittable if they're true TTL, as opposed to something like HCT which is TTL-level but not real TTL) and then have each switch ground the cathode side of a diode matrix which then pulls the relevant inputs low. If you want to "do it right" you'd need a bunch of 8-input AND/NAND gates - you might even make the flipflops out of those, with one input of each flipflop dedicated to each switch.) If you care about power-up state I'd probably add some kind of discrete-component circuit to fake pressing a switch for a brief time during powerup. I can see a possible way to do it with a diode, a transistor, a resistor, and a capacitor.... Another possible solution is to feed the raw switch bits into a priority encoder chip, latch the resulting encoded bits, and feed the latch outputs into an N-to-one demux chip. /~\ 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 dave06a at dunfield.com Wed Dec 5 02:49:06 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (dave06a at dunfield.com) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 03:49:06 -0500 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <200712052040.PAA25825@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <148904.46737.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200712052053.lB5Kr3Dv060573@billy.ezwind.net> > Picture this - a number of switches, say, eight. Momentary contact, > normally open switches. And then eight outputs, one for each switch, > TTL level. I want to be able to push one switch and bring [its] > corresponding output high, and have it stay high even when the switch > is released. But, making this more complicated, I only want to be > able to allow one switch to be active at a time. So, say switch four > is pressed, output four is high. Then, switch one is pressed, and > output four goes low, and output 1 goes high. Timing is not > critical. Generate a pulse when any switch is pressed (AND them together and drive a one-shot) - use this to latch the inputs from the switches to the outputs. So any time a switch is pressed, the current state of the switches is latched. The latch should be triggered at the trailing edge of the pulse. Side effects which may or may not be significant: - The timing of the pulse will provide debounce - the switches will have this amount of time to settle before they are latched. - If you press (and hold) two switches within the period of time of the pulse, you will get two outputs latched. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Dec 5 14:52:59 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:52:59 -0600 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <4756A197.6010104@mdrconsult.com> References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com> <4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com> <475365E9.5010901@mdrconsult.com> <4756A197.6010104@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <47570FAB.9050400@oldskool.org> Doc Shipley wrote: > And, to drag this sort-of on-topic, the Dell has composite-in that > works fine with my Amigas and C128, although 40 columns at 20" is kind > of scary. s/scary/noisy/g :-) -- 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 Dec 5 14:53:59 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:53:59 -0600 Subject: LCDs back on-topic Re: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712051100.34972.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com> <4756A197.6010104@mdrconsult.com> <200712051100.34972.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <47570FE7.9070802@oldskool.org> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Wednesday 05 December 2007 08:03, Doc Shipley wrote: >> And, to drag this sort-of on-topic, the Dell has composite-in that >> works fine with my Amigas and C128, although 40 columns at 20" is >> kind of scary. > > I wonder if 80 column text over NTSC (eg, a CGA card) would be more > readable on an LCD monitor/TV than it is on a common TV. Has anyone > tried that? I haven't, but it most certainly should be because modern LCD monitors usually have better comb filters than older units... -- 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 Dec 5 15:00:24 2007 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 16:00:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <47570756.6040804@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <148904.46737.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <47570756.6040804@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > Henk Gooijen wrote: > > I have build that circuit, but can't remember exactly how > the 8 switches connect combined to the single clock input ... How about a MM54HCT149 8-line to 8-line priority encoder? http://eshop.engineering.uiowa.edu/NI/pdfs/00/53/DS005364.pdf Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Dec 5 15:01:27 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:01:27 -0500 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <200712052040.PAA25825@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <148904.46737.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <200712052040.PAA25825@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <475711A7.4010207@gmail.com> der Mouse wrote: >> Picture this - a number of switches, say, eight. Momentary contact, >> normally open switches. And then eight outputs, one for each switch, >> TTL level. I want to be able to push one switch and bring [its] >> corresponding output high, and have it stay high even when the switch >> is released. But, making this more complicated, I only want to be >> able to allow one switch to be active at a time. So, say switch four >> is pressed, output four is high. Then, switch one is pressed, and >> output four goes low, and output 1 goes high. Timing is not >> critical. > > Do you care what happens if two switches are pressed at once? In > particular, do you care what the outputs are like during the time when > both switches are pressed? Do you care what the state is like on > powerup, before any switches are pressed? Couldn't one just hypothetically feed all of the switch outputs through a bunch of XORs and then AND the output of the XOR array with each of the outputs of the flip-flops you suggest below? Or am I overcomplicating the problem? > My first cut would be to set up a bunch of R-S flipflops (each one > being two cross-coupled NAND gates, probably). A switch would then > drive low the S input for its flipflop and the R input for all other > flipflops. (How this is done is more or less irrelevant. Personally, > I'd probably put pullups on the inputs (omittable if they're true TTL, > as opposed to something like HCT which is TTL-level but not real TTL) > and then have each switch ground the cathode side of a diode matrix > which then pulls the relevant inputs low. If you want to "do it right" > you'd need a bunch of 8-input AND/NAND gates - you might even make the > flipflops out of those, with one input of each flipflop dedicated to > each switch.) > > If you care about power-up state I'd probably add some kind of > discrete-component circuit to fake pressing a switch for a brief time > during powerup. I can see a possible way to do it with a diode, a > transistor, a resistor, and a capacitor.... > > Another possible solution is to feed the raw switch bits into a > priority encoder chip, latch the resulting encoded bits, and feed the > latch outputs into an N-to-one demux chip. This is the method I would normally choose. Peace... Sridhar From cclist at sydex.com Wed Dec 5 15:10:47 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 13:10:47 -0800 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <200712052053.lB5Kr3Dv060573@billy.ezwind.net> References: <148904.46737.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com>, <200712052040.PAA25825@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>, <200712052053.lB5Kr3Dv060573@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4756A357.32156.8175ABC7@cclist.sydex.com> > Picture this - a number of switches, say, eight. Momentary contact, > normally open switches. And then eight outputs, one for each switch, > TTL level. I want to be able to push one switch and bring [its] > corresponding output high, and have it stay high even when the switch > is released. But, making this more complicated, I only want to be > able to allow one switch to be active at a time. So, say switch four > is pressed, output four is high. Then, switch one is pressed, and > output four goes low, and output 1 goes high. Timing is not > critical. How much overlap or "dead space" between switch depressions? In other words, can any two outputs be simultaneously high, even for a few nanoseconds? If a switch is pressed, can your application tolerate a brief "nothing is pressed" period of a few nanoseconds between cancelling the old depression and instating the new one? Will your application be synchronous (i.e. depressions synchronized to the transitions of a clock signal) or asynchronous? Would you rather have your output as a 3-bit encoded binary number? There are several solutions, depending on your needs. The solution with the lowest parts count would be a PIC or AVR microcontroller (might also be the least expensive). My next choice might be a registered PAL. But if you want to stay vintage, there are low parts count combinatorial solutions. Cheers, Chuck From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Dec 5 15:29:35 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:29:35 -0700 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <4756A357.32156.8175ABC7@cclist.sydex.com> References: <148904.46737.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com>, <200712052040.PAA25825@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>, <200712052053.lB5Kr3Dv060573@billy.ezwind.net> <4756A357.32156.8175ABC7@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4757183F.8080609@jetnet.ab.ca> I see active low press. 1 8 input nand gate to generate a high clock to all the D F/F with '0' as input. The active low press sets the FF. Reset is left for power on clear of the FF's. So 1 8 input NAND and 4 dual FF's are needed. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Dec 5 15:49:49 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 13:49:49 -0800 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <4757183F.8080609@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <148904.46737.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com>, <4756A357.32156.8175ABC7@cclist.sydex.com>, <4757183F.8080609@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4756AC7D.26773.81996885@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Dec 2007 at 14:29, woodelf wrote: > I see active low press. > 1 8 input nand gate to generate a high clock > to all the D F/F with '0' as input. The active low press sets the FF. > Reset is left for power on clear of the FF's. > So 1 8 input NAND and 4 dual FF's are needed. My point was that there are many unanswered questions. Two keys down at the same time would set two FFs, for example. If two keys are down and one must decide, which gets priority? The first key pressed, or the last key released? Is debouncing part of this circuit? Since the "none pressed" never occurs after the first keypress, is there an initial state? Isn't this what engineering is about--to define one's requirements-- and then develop a solution? Or am I just a geezer and too old-school? Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Dec 5 16:13:57 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:13:57 -0800 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <410578.50493.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <4756F57F.3090008@gmail.com>, <410578.50493.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4756B225.32297.81AF817B@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Dec 2007 at 12:00, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > Ah-hah. Found a picture of one. > http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/h1200.html > I don't believe the information on that page is all > that correct, he seems to be describing a Hazeltine > 2000 (detatched keyboard, etc). And judging from the > looks of the terminal, model number, etc, I would > guess (guess!) that the 1200 came after the 2000, and > before the 1400/1500 series. Probably somewhere around > the mid 70's. Well the color scheme (black bezel with beige fiberglas case) is the same as was used on the H1400, a dreadful terminal if there ever was one. Since my old copies of termcap files don't even mention this one, even though they do mention the H1000, H2000, H1400...etc., I'm going to guess that the H1200 isn't an async terminal at all, but most likely bisync. The indicators and switches next to the main keyboard area might be an indication of that. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Dec 5 17:16:11 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 15:16:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <475711A7.4010207@gmail.com> References: <148904.46737.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <200712052040.PAA25825@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <475711A7.4010207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20071205150543.T6215@shell.lmi.net> Well, . . . You could do it purely in mechanical hardware. Look at an old 5 line office phone, or an old car radio (sorry, Jay) with pushbuttons. Or, . . . you could do it entirely in software, using a junk PC. Rip the tops off of all of the keys except the numerals. NXT2: MOV AH,0 INT 16h ; Your most recent key is in AX (ASCII in AL, scanciode in AH) . . . JMP NXT2 If you want a multi-megabyte solution, you could use the "radio buttons" in WINDOZE. But you'd probably rather do it with relays From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Wed Dec 5 17:21:39 2007 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere at gmail.com) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 23:21:39 +0000 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <003601c8370e$8d681ea0$c600a8c0@game> References: <47531EBC.4080307@radiorobots.com> <4752BFC6.26297.7244C9D3@cclist.sydex.com> <475365E9.5010901@mdrconsult.com> <003601c8370e$8d681ea0$c600a8c0@game> Message-ID: On Dec 5, 2007 7:15 AM, Teo Zenios wrote: > Anybody happen to know what the higest resolution ever made for CRT was? There was one made for (medical?) imaging applications, a Sony Trinitron I think it was, which did 2048x2048. I've seen a (NIB) spare CRT for one, but never the monitor itself. I can't remember the model number of this beast, and Google is failing me in trying to find it... Ed. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Dec 5 17:25:47 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 23:25:47 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712041044.32254.gpearce@curiousgroup.co.uk> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Dec 4, 7 10:44:32 am Message-ID: > > On Monday 03 December 2007 23:23:01 Tony Duell wrote: > > > Then, if it starts to fade, I can re-check them and see if the problem is > > the CRT loosing emision or something cheaper to fix like the 1st anode > > (g2) voltage going low due to a dead capacitor. > > I spotted this and thought "Aha, capacitor? Usually a resistor going high in > my experiece! I'll reply and set this person straight". Then I spotted it > was Tony, and now I'm keen to see what bizarre set of circumstances he > diagnosed where a failing cap caused this. I really hope it's nothing as > prosaic as a failing smoothing cap in the A2 supply... ;-) Well, it could be -- the A1/g2 supply often comes from a half-wave rectifier hung off the flyback. It's thus charged by a pulse essentially at the baeginning of each line, so a low-value can cause an 'iuteresting' display. The fualt I was thinking of was actually a leaky capacitor, part of the RC filter network on the A1 supply. It was pulling the supply down, of course. The series reisstor was fine in this case, and yes I have had high-value resistorrs go even hihgher, or open. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Dec 5 17:52:31 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 23:52:31 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP 9000/216 In-Reply-To: <47563B39.5090503@bluewin.ch> from "Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel" at Dec 5, 7 06:46:33 am Message-ID: > > > >> If someone in Europe wants one, I also have one that I do not use. ( 1MB > >> extension, 3x RS232, GPIO & HPIB cards , graphics extension . But I > >> would like my outlay back...) > > > > I am wondering how on earth oyu get all taht into a 9816. Do you have an > > expansion chassis? > > > No, got caught out with HP's naming : mine is actually a HP9826... Ah, that expalins it. The 9826 and 9836 have 8 DIO slots, 4 of them can take PCBs with external connectors. The 9826 and 9836 are pretty similar machines. The main difference is in the video system (9826 has 50*20 text and an internal 6" or so CRT, the 9836 has 80*24 text and a 12" monitor that fits on top of the machine). The 9826 has 1 internal 5.25" drive with the CRT alongside it, the 9836 has 2 intenral 5.25" drives. About half of the internal PCBs are the same in both machines. I have a 9836 in bits on the bench at the moment, When I've sorted out the PSU problems and realigned the drives, I put it back together and put the 9826 on the bench. My 9826 was dropped before I got it, and there's major cabinet damage mainly due to the mass of the mains transformer. Fortunately all the PCBs, the disk drive and amazingly the CRT are undamaged, so it should be repairable. As well as the 9816, 9826 and 9836 I've already mentioned, I have a 9817. This is an HP-shoebox sized machine with 6 DIO slots. Inside the case is the DIO backplane (whcih also includes the +/-12V regulators, an SMPSU board, and the CPU board. The last contains a 68010 processor, MMU circuitry, HP-HIL port for the keyboard, HPIB port, RS232 port, etc. There's no on-board video, rather there/s a DIO video board in one of the slorts, and a graphics board in the 'internal' DIO slot above it. I have the higher-resolution video board in mine, which uses an special HP monitor. The output is composite video, but at a higher horixontal scan rate than RS-170. Yes, I have the monitor. One day, when sorting out an RS232 problem with the main machine [1], the monitor went bang and magic smoke came out. Of course I turend it off at once and pulled the covers. It turned out that one of the mains filter capacitors had failed (case split open, metalised paper coming out. Replacing that was easy enough, once I'd got to it. Getting the main PCB out of that monitor, actually a Samsung chassis, is non-trivial. Even removing the back cover is harder than it should be. You have to unclip the CRT bezel, remove 2 screws through the hole the bezel came out of, then put the bezel back on, put the monitor face down and remove 4 screws on the bottom. The case then lifts off. 4 very obvious screws hold a chassis plate undr the main PCB. There is one pieece of very odd design in that monitor. The monitor circuit itself runs off 12V. This is provided by a mains transformer/rectifier/smoothing capacitor circuit and a 3 terminal regulaotr. There's one main PCB containing the monitor circuiry, the recrifier and smoothing cap and the mains filtering. The 3 terminal regulator is mounted o n seaprate heatsink, the transformer, mains swtich and maisn input IEC plug are separately mounted on the chassis. Now for the odd bit. The regulator has a 3-pin Molek KK socket-thingy fitted onto the pins, so that can be easily disconnected. The mains input from the IEC plug goes to a 2 pin socket on the PCB, so that comes off, ditto the on/off switch (separarate conenctors fo the live and neutral sides...). Now the mains transforme has a single seondary winding, again conencted by a 2 pin socket, and 2 primary windings (to be put in parallel for 115V or series for 230V mains). There's a voltage selector swithc on the chassis Now many of the wires from that switch are soldered to the PCB. This is nopt a real problem, it's easy to remove the 2 screws holding the switch in place and remove it with the PCB. 3 of the 4 mains transformer wires go to a socket that plugs into the PCB. But the fourth is soldered to the voltage selector. In other words, you either have to desolder that wire, or remove the PCB and transformer together. Why they didn't use a 4 pin connector for the transofrmer primary wires and route this last wire via the PCB is beyond me. I almost suspect the votlage selector design was an afterthought. [1] Back in the main machine, on the CPU board. The RS232 port was failing in odd ways, for example it would fail diagnostics at power-on, but would pass every subsequect diagnost. It turned out that all 4 of the RS232 buffer chips (1488s and 1489s) _and the UART_ (an 8250, suprisingly in a 68000 machine) were defective. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Dec 5 17:56:07 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 23:56:07 +0000 (GMT) Subject: LCDs back on-topic Re: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <200712051100.34972.pat@computer-refuge.org> from "Patrick Finnegan" at Dec 5, 7 11:00:34 am Message-ID: > I wonder if 80 column text over NTSC (eg, a CGA card) would be more > readable on an LCD monitor/TV than it is on a common TV. Has anyone > tried that? I doubt it. There is a bandwidth limitation on the NTSC signal, which is independant of the type of final display device used, and that's what makes 80 column text unreadable on colour NTSC displays. -tony From ian_primus at yahoo.com Wed Dec 5 18:35:00 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 16:35:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <4756AC7D.26773.81996885@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <45579.24262.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 5 Dec 2007 at 14:29, woodelf wrote: > > > I see active low press. > > 1 8 input nand gate to generate a high clock > > to all the D F/F with '0' as input. The active low > press sets the FF. > > Reset is left for power on clear of the FF's. > > So 1 8 input NAND and 4 dual FF's are needed. > > My point was that there are many unanswered > questions. Two keys down > at the same time would set two FFs, for example. If > two keys are > down and one must decide, which gets priority? The > first key > pressed, or the last key released? Is debouncing > part of this > circuit? Since the "none pressed" never occurs > after the first > keypress, is there an initial state? I guess I should have been more clear... And everyone has brought up some good points. I initally didn't think about the initial power-up setting, but in this application it doesn't much matter - I guess defaulting to none pressed (or #1 pressed, even better) would be good. I don't intend to press two switches at once, but if it were to happen, it doesn't much matter - either one could take priority. I'd rather not have more than one select output active at a time, but it's not a huge problem if it happens. Timing is totally non-critical. Two outputs can be active for a tiny period, no outputs active during switching is fine. The idea is to simply control some CBT3244A bus switching chips to switch some analog signals. I want to avoid having each chip controlled by a toggle on/off switch, because then in order to change signals you would have to manually turn off one, and turn on the next. The main thing I'm trying to achieve is simplicity. Nothing fancy. No PIC's, no microcontrollers, etc. I initially thought of using flip flops and a bunch of inverters to reset all the non-selected flip flop, but couldn't work out in my head a good way to do it... I hadn't taken switch debouncing into the equation - but aren't flip flops commonly used to debounce switches anyway? > Isn't this what engineering is about--to define > one's requirements-- > and then develop a solution? > > Or am I just a geezer and too old-school? No, you're absolutely correct. I just didn't properly define the requirements. It's been a rough day. -Ian From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Dec 5 18:35:47 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 16:35:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: LCDs back on-topic Re: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20071205163036.S6215@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 5 Dec 2007, Tony Duell wrote: > I doubt it. There is a bandwidth limitation on the NTSC signal, which is > independant of the type of final display device used, and that's what > makes 80 column text unreadable on colour NTSC displays. I would certainly never claim that it is pleasant to use, nor even practical, but I have seen 80 column text (CGA) on some color NTSC displays that are "READABLE". B&W composite monitors are "usable" on CGA, in either mode 2 or 3. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Dec 5 18:43:58 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:43:58 -0800 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <45579.24262.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <4756AC7D.26773.81996885@cclist.sydex.com>, <45579.24262.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4756D54E.29130.8238D8C9@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Dec 2007 at 16:35, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > The main thing I'm trying to achieve is simplicity. > Nothing fancy. No PIC's, no microcontrollers, etc. I > initially thought of using flip flops and a bunch of > inverters to reset all the non-selected flip flop, but > couldn't work out in my head a good way to do it... I > hadn't taken switch debouncing into the equation - but > aren't flip flops commonly used to debounce switches > anyway? How about an 8-position rotary switch? Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Dec 5 18:51:17 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:51:17 -0800 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <45579.24262.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <4756AC7D.26773.81996885@cclist.sydex.com>, <45579.24262.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4756D705.5337.823F8BFD@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Dec 2007 at 16:35, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > The main thing I'm trying to achieve is simplicity. > Nothing fancy. No PIC's, no microcontrollers, etc. I > initially thought of using flip flops and a bunch of > inverters to reset all the non-selected flip flop, but > couldn't work out in my head a good way to do it... I > hadn't taken switch debouncing into the equation - but > aren't flip flops commonly used to debounce switches > anyway? ...or a 0-7 BCD switch connected to a demux chip? Small, direct readout. Cheers, Chuck From jpero at sympatico.ca Wed Dec 5 13:56:54 2007 From: jpero at sympatico.ca (jpero at sympatico.ca) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 19:56:54 +0000 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <200712052053.lB5Kr3Dv060573@billy.ezwind.net> References: <200712052040.PAA25825@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <6bpm1d$5040uh@toip4.srvr.bell.ca> Look for row of mechanical pushbuttons that you only can push any of button while any one of other 3 buttons even is pressed pops out. I see this on older audio stuff. Usually 3 to 5 ganged together and stays on but you could use tact button (they come in different length of button itself) touching the rear end of the pushbutton (these ganged buttons have open frame on back btw.) so you get momentary aaction when pressed but button that was pushed stays in but not closing the tact switch because of play in the latching mechanism. Got it? Cheers, Wizard From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Dec 5 18:59:23 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:59:23 -0700 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <4756D54E.29130.8238D8C9@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4756AC7D.26773.81996885@cclist.sydex.com>, <45579.24262.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <4756D54E.29130.8238D8C9@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4757496B.8090207@jetnet.ab.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 5 Dec 2007 at 16:35, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > >> The main thing I'm trying to achieve is simplicity. >> Nothing fancy. No PIC's, no microcontrollers, etc. I >> initially thought of using flip flops and a bunch of >> inverters to reset all the non-selected flip flop, but >> couldn't work out in my head a good way to do it... I >> hadn't taken switch debouncing into the equation - but >> aren't flip flops commonly used to debounce switches >> anyway? > > How about an 8-position rotary switch? and skip the FF's ... all manual :) > Cheers, > Chuck From ian_primus at yahoo.com Wed Dec 5 19:11:35 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 17:11:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <4757496B.8090207@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <942769.29001.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- woodelf wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 5 Dec 2007 at 16:35, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > > > >> The main thing I'm trying to achieve is > simplicity. > >> Nothing fancy. No PIC's, no microcontrollers, > etc. I > >> initially thought of using flip flops and a bunch > of > >> inverters to reset all the non-selected flip > flop, but > >> couldn't work out in my head a good way to do > it... I > >> hadn't taken switch debouncing into the equation > - but > >> aren't flip flops commonly used to debounce > switches > >> anyway? > > > > How about an 8-position rotary switch? > and skip the FF's ... all manual :) Yeah, I thought about that. But then I'd have to find a rotary switch with the proper number of positions... And besides, what's the fun in that? I also wanted to be able to use an arbitrary number of inputs. Eight was just an example :) -Ian From marvin at west.net Wed Dec 5 19:17:22 2007 From: marvin at west.net (Marvin Johnston) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:17:22 -0800 Subject: TRADIC Computer? Message-ID: <47574DA2.551B052C@west.net> 170174269537 is the auction number on Ebay for a Popular Electronics magazine that has an article on the TRADIC computer. Anyone know what this thing is? From cclist at sydex.com Wed Dec 5 19:22:11 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:22:11 -0800 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <942769.29001.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <4757496B.8090207@jetnet.ab.ca>, <942769.29001.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4756DE43.9844.825BD755@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Dec 2007 at 17:11, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > Yeah, I thought about that. But then I'd have to find > a rotary switch with the proper number of positions... > And besides, what's the fun in that? I also wanted to > be able to use an arbitrary number of inputs. Eight > was just an example :) My take on this is that if you employ pushbuttons, you'll need some sort of indicator as to which one's been pressed. So, that's a bunch of LEDs or a digital display and all the gallimaufry associated with that. If you want to extend the design, consider stacking a number of binary-encoded switches. Readily obtainable with direct (i.e. foolproof) readout. But nothing beats a rotary switch for simplicity. A quick search of the Jameco catalog shows no shortage of them. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Dec 5 19:35:36 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 17:35:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <942769.29001.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <942769.29001.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20071205173458.K6215@shell.lmi.net> > > > How about an 8-position rotary switch? On Wed, 5 Dec 2007, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > Yeah, I thought about that. But then I'd have to find > a rotary switch with the proper number of positions... > And besides, what's the fun in that? I also wanted to > be able to use an arbitrary number of inputs. Eight > was just an example :) . . . then I guess that a rotary telephone dial is out of the question From wmaddox at pacbell.net Wed Dec 5 19:40:34 2007 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 17:40:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: TRADIC Computer? In-Reply-To: <47574DA2.551B052C@west.net> Message-ID: <546850.57533.qm@web82614.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- Marvin Johnston wrote: > 170174269537 is the auction number on Ebay for a > Popular Electronics magazine > that has an article on the TRADIC computer. Anyone > know what this thing is? I believe it was a transistorized computer built at Bell Labs, possibly the first. --Bill From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Dec 5 19:48:38 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:48:38 -0700 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <20071205173458.K6215@shell.lmi.net> References: <942769.29001.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <20071205173458.K6215@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <475754F6.3060004@jetnet.ab.ca> Fred Cisin wrote: > . . . then I guess that a rotary telephone dial is out of the question Just how many inputs do you have? For analog inputs I have, DVD player,cassete,computer sound card,vcr. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Dec 5 19:55:51 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:55:51 -0800 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <20071205173458.K6215@shell.lmi.net> References: <942769.29001.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com>, <20071205173458.K6215@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4756E627.20088.827AA7DD@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Dec 2007 at 17:35, Fred Cisin wrote: > . . . then I guess that a rotary telephone dial is out of the question Oooh, cool--Strowger switches! From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Dec 5 20:40:18 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 21:40:18 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <803321.41533.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <803321.41533.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2fa59fa274ba3fd25838335509b85b0e@neurotica.com> On Dec 5, 2007, at 2:43 PM, Mr Ian Primus wrote: >> My father just rescued a Hazeltine 1200 from a >> scrapheap for me. I know >> nothing about these. Could someone give me some >> pointers to >> information? Thanks. > > Nice! I don't know anything about the 1200, but I have > a 1500 and a 1421. They are both just simple > terminals, with some fairly basic control functions I used a 1500 about 20-21 years ago. It was a great terminal. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From legalize at xmission.com Wed Dec 5 20:46:13 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:46:13 -0700 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:01:19 -0500. <4756F57F.3090008@gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <4756F57F.3090008 at gmail.com>, Sridhar Ayengar writes: > My father just rescued a Hazeltine 1200 from a scrapheap for me. I know > nothing about these. Could someone give me some pointers to > information? Thanks. Nice! Let us know the date codes on the chips when you get a chance to peek inside. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Dec 5 20:47:20 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:47:20 -0700 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:13:57 -0800. <4756B225.32297.81AF817B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <4756B225.32297.81AF817B at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > Well the color scheme (black bezel with beige fiberglas case) is the > same as was used on the H1400, a dreadful terminal if there ever was > one. Some other people mentioned this the last time the Hazeltine 1x00 terminals were brought up by me :-). However, as somebody who scrounges around for terminals, Hazeltines seem to be pretty rare, regardless of the model. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Dec 5 20:47:54 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:47:54 -0700 Subject: HP 9000/216 In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 04 Dec 2007 22:15:46 +0000. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > No idea what this BSD prot needs... Maybe it'll run on an MMU-less machine. I don't recall the particulars, but I'm fairly certain they require an MMU. I believe the machines that were used as the basis for the port at the UofU were 68020 or better. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Dec 5 20:49:12 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:49:12 -0700 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 05 Dec 2007 21:40:18 -0500. <2fa59fa274ba3fd25838335509b85b0e@neurotica.com> Message-ID: In article <2fa59fa274ba3fd25838335509b85b0e at neurotica.com>, Dave McGuire writes: > I used a 1500 about 20-21 years ago. It was a great terminal. I have a 1400 (beige) and a 1500 (black) in my collection. I haven't gotten them hooked up and played with yet. I need to get my terminal server up and running and then hook up all the terminals :) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Dec 5 21:02:01 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 22:02:01 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47576629.2010405@gmail.com> Richard wrote: > In article <4756F57F.3090008 at gmail.com>, > Sridhar Ayengar writes: > >> My father just rescued a Hazeltine 1200 from a scrapheap for me. I know >> nothing about these. Could someone give me some pointers to >> information? Thanks. > > Nice! Let us know the date codes on the chips when you get a chance > to peek inside. Will do. Peace... Sridhar From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Dec 5 21:09:26 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 19:09:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore US*8 for shipping Message-ID: <200712060309.lB639QNk008478@floodgap.com> I'm trying to get rid of some stuff I don't collect or want, and among them is a US*8 that's a little battered and takes a few seconds to "warm up" when you turn it on, but otherwise seems to work. The badge is missing but the model number is clearly identified on the backplate. $9 shipping to Lower 48 if you're interested. There might be some other stuff, I'm still clearing out boxes. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- The best things in life are sold out. -------------------------------------- From cclist at sydex.com Wed Dec 5 21:38:12 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:38:12 -0800 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: References: >, Message-ID: <4756FE24.5108.82D859D6@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Dec 2007 at 19:47, Richard wrote: > Some other people mentioned this the last time the Hazeltine 1x00 > terminals were brought up by me :-). However, as somebody who > scrounges around for terminals, Hazeltines seem to be pretty rare, > regardless of the model. IIRC, they were some of the cheapest terminals available in the mid- 70's. By 1980, they were be ditched pretty fast--they were just too strange (hex 7e escape ccode really did it). The keyboard was terrible. I'm not surprised that not many survived. When the cheap-but-not-bad terminals like the Wyse 50 came out, keeping a dinosaur like a 1400 just made no sense at all. Cheers, Chuck From rescue at hawkmountain.net Wed Dec 5 21:44:49 2007 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 22:44:49 -0500 Subject: Old Terminals (was: Hazeltine 1200) In-Reply-To: <4756FE24.5108.82D859D6@cclist.sydex.com> References: >, <4756FE24.5108.82D859D6@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47577031.4090309@hawkmountain.net> Speaking of old terminals.... anyone have or ever use an ADDS 580 (I'm going by memory, it's been over 20+ years since I used one). Big, heavy, but as I recall had a nice keyboard. I seem to recall there were white and amber (and maybe green) phosphor models... I liked the amber one. In my own 'collection' of old terminals I have: Teleray TE-10 Digital VT-52 (I'm not bothering listing anything newer than a vt100) -- Curt Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 5 Dec 2007 at 19:47, Richard wrote: > > >> Some other people mentioned this the last time the Hazeltine 1x00 >> terminals were brought up by me :-). However, as somebody who >> scrounges around for terminals, Hazeltines seem to be pretty rare, >> regardless of the model. >> > > IIRC, they were some of the cheapest terminals available in the mid- > 70's. By 1980, they were be ditched pretty fast--they were just too > strange (hex 7e escape ccode really did it). The keyboard was > terrible. > > I'm not surprised that not many survived. When the cheap-but-not-bad > terminals like the Wyse 50 came out, keeping a dinosaur like a 1400 > just made no sense at all. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > From rickb at bensene.com Wed Dec 5 22:05:02 2007 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 20:05:02 -0800 Subject: TRADIC Computer? In-Reply-To: <546850.57533.qm@web82614.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <47574DA2.551B052C@west.net> <546850.57533.qm@web82614.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of William Maddox > Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 5:41 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: TRADIC Computer? > > --- Marvin Johnston wrote: > > > 170174269537 is the auction number on Ebay for a Popular > Electronics > > magazine that has an article on the TRADIC computer. Anyone > know what > > this thing is? > > I believe it was a transistorized computer built at Bell > Labs, possibly the first. > > --Bill > > Yes, TRADIC was a very early transistorized computer, built at Bell Labs. The design was done to test the feasability of building a fully functional computer with transistor technology that could be used in aircraft avionics and weapons systems, due to the low power requirements (as compared to tubes) and much smaller size. Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com From lproven at gmail.com Wed Dec 5 22:23:40 2007 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 04:23:40 +0000 Subject: Free "museum pieces" in London Message-ID: <575131af0712052023u42cc58ccrc284a36bef575593@mail.gmail.com> A message I spotted on the CIX online service... [[ >From Hex Museum pieces Before they go into a skip, does anyone want: Amstrad PC1512 with dual floppies BBC model B with microvitec monitor and twin 5.25" floppies Epson EX-100 132-column printer Epson FX-80 Sinclair ZX Printer Collect from Edgware, nw London. Feel free to copy this elsewhere. If you want anything, email robert at schifreen dot co dot uk ONLY. ]] -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Dec 5 22:31:10 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:31:10 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 PSUs In-Reply-To: <475378FC.9090204@jbrain.com> References: <901126.39063.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> <200712021648.01498.rtellason@verizon.net> <475378FC.9090204@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <200712052331.10955.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 02 December 2007 22:33, Jim Brain wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > Same as the one for the 64, but with a different connector on the > > computer end of the wire, no? > > Yep, a square connector, the same as on the 128, as I recall. I remember them as being similar, couldn't say at this point if they were the same or not. > > Those are the ones that are repairable, if we're talking about the same > > thing. Vented? Screws accessible on the bottom of the unit? Lousy > > strain relief at the DIN connector? > > I was thinking of a potted wall-wart model that had the old-style > electric-shaver 2 prong connector. The only ones I knew that were > repairable were the heavy duty PSUs that came with the 128 and the 1764 > REUs. I was thinking of the earlier c64 supplies. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Dec 5 22:32:19 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:32:19 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 PSUs In-Reply-To: <200712030424.lB34OXHF013340@floodgap.com> References: <200712030424.lB34OXHF013340@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <200712052332.20174.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 02 December 2007 23:24, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > I was thinking of a potted wall-wart model that had the old-style > > electric-shaver 2 prong connector. > > Wasn't that for the 16? I missed the original message. The c16 used a barrel-type coaxial connector, they sold those for a while at Radio Shack after the machine was discontinued. I don't think I ever saw a c16, during the time we had the shop or since then. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Dec 6 00:52:16 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 01:52:16 -0500 Subject: got this old peecee... Message-ID: <200712060152.17499.rtellason@verizon.net> And a few things I've noticed about it are: -- It says "digital" (lowercase like that) on the front. :-) -- it has a third power supply connector to the MB, and that PS is rated to ptu 33A (!) out on the +5 -- It has the CPU on a separate small daughterboard. A jumper there seems to select speeds, up to maybe 100 or so. I have a 486dx2/66 chip in it at present, which will run real flaky at 80, and not at all at 100. :-) -- It has a _very_ loud beep when you power it up. -- It wants only _parity_ ram -- there's no option in CMOS to disable that. I have a couple of 16s and a couple of 4s in there at present, all the parity parts I was able to scrounge. Anybody have some they might wanna trade? -- Slots are ISA only, but they're _all_ 16-bit. -- This thing's built like a tank! I'd originally planned to put OS/2 in this box. Now I'm lots less enthused about that OS than I was at one time, so I dunno what I'm gonna do with it. Thoughts on this? -- 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 pc_doctor_est at yahoo.com Wed Dec 5 15:24:56 2007 From: pc_doctor_est at yahoo.com (mohanned` momani) Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 13:24:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: Argus 700GZ Message-ID: <434664.52961.qm@web51411.mail.re2.yahoo.com> dear sir I am interested in getting some parts for the Argus 700GZ computer. MOhanned --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Wed Dec 5 16:18:04 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:18:04 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 Message-ID: <0JSL0039DKI661D7@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Hazeltine 1200 > From: Mr Ian Primus > Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:43:14 -0800 (PST) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > >--- Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > >> >> My father just rescued a Hazeltine 1200 from a >> scrapheap for me. I know >> nothing about these. Could someone give me some >> pointers to >> information? Thanks. >> >> Peace... Sridhar >> > >Nice! I don't know anything about the 1200, but I have >a 1500 and a 1421. They are both just simple >terminals, with some fairly basic control functions >What does it look like? Is the keyboard integral or >detatched? Does it look like the 1500/1400 series? - The 14xx and 15xx are late 70s (after 1976) as 1500 used 8080 and the 1400 used 8048 cpus. >http://vt100.net/manx/covers/14/hi-1056a.png. > >Now, if it looks like the 2000, you've got a great >score. Those are some interesting beasts. I've never >seen one, but they look like this. >http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/h2000s.gif > >The Hazeltine 2000 was a very early video terminal >(circa 1972). The 1200 was a basically glass tty, all uppercase (may have had a back pannel option for all upper tty mode or mixed) it was capable of slow baud rates (I think to 1200 or 4800) and both RS232 or current loop. I used on on the DEC PDP10 so that means it was in house there by spring 1972. It was all logic no cpu used and I belive it used serial PMOS shift registers for storage. Allison >-Ian From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Dec 6 02:17:18 2007 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 08:17:18 +0000 Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1196929038.30499.3.camel@elric.inet> On Wed, 2007-12-05 at 23:25 +0000, Tony Duell wrote: > The fualt I was thinking of was actually a leaky capacitor, part of the > RC filter network on the A1 supply. It was pulling the supply down, of > course. The series reisstor was fine in this case, and yes I have had > high-value resistorrs go even hihgher, or open. It seems particularly common with highish value resistors (more than a few hundred k) used at high voltages, even if the current through them is fairly tiny. It's *incredibly* common in old Sun monitors, I've found. Gordon From cfox1 at cogeco.ca Thu Dec 6 05:18:41 2007 From: cfox1 at cogeco.ca (Charles Fox) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 06:18:41 -0500 Subject: Amiga Video Toaster Message-ID: <20071206111846.4F71E2A34@fep1.cogeco.net> I have received an Amiga 2K with a Toaster board and Toaster 4 software. I got everything working but find the 4 software much different from the #2 I have been using. Does anyone know where I can get a scan of the instructions for the switcher ? Thanks Charlie Fox Charles E. Fox Video Productions 793 Argyle Rd. Windsor, Ontario 519-254-4991 N8Y 3J8 www.chasfoxvideo.com From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Dec 6 07:21:53 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 05:21:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: US*8 spoken for Message-ID: <200712061321.lB6DLrZ5015466@floodgap.com> Thanks to all that inquired (good grief, we must have a lot of calculator collectors). -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- I like work. I could watch people doing work for hours. -------------------- From legalize at xmission.com Thu Dec 6 08:19:46 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 07:19:46 -0700 Subject: Old Terminals (was: Hazeltine 1200) In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 05 Dec 2007 22:44:49 -0500. <47577031.4090309@hawkmountain.net> Message-ID: In article <47577031.4090309 at hawkmountain.net>, "Curtis H. Wilbar Jr." writes: > In my own 'collection' of old terminals I have: > > Teleray TE-10 > Digital VT-52 Telerays also seem to be quite rare. I've not been able to find one to add to my collection :-). As Chuck mentioned, once the Wyse brand hit the shelf, a lot of these other terminal vendors couldn't compete and died. There were a *lot* of terminal vendors in the late 70s/early 80s and most of those died off by the late 80s and the market consolidated to just a few players. (Also people were shifting to PCs and workstations from terminals.) There's nothing more frustrating than finding a nice rare terminal on ebay and having it packed so poorly that it arrives as a heap of smashed plastic :-(. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Dec 6 08:24:08 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 09:24:08 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <4756FE24.5108.82D859D6@cclist.sydex.com> References: >, <4756FE24.5108.82D859D6@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Dec 5, 2007, at 10:38 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Some other people mentioned this the last time the Hazeltine 1x00 >> terminals were brought up by me :-). However, as somebody who >> scrounges around for terminals, Hazeltines seem to be pretty rare, >> regardless of the model. > > IIRC, they were some of the cheapest terminals available in the mid- > 70's. By 1980, they were be ditched pretty fast--they were just too > strange (hex 7e escape ccode really did it). The keyboard was > terrible. > > I'm not surprised that not many survived. When the cheap-but-not-bad > terminals like the Wyse 50 came out, keeping a dinosaur like a 1400 > just made no sense at all. Eh, I dunno...I had a 1420 and later a 1500 on my CP/M machine from about 1985-1987. I liked it ok. The only thing that bothered me about the 1420 is that it had no backspace key; I got into the habit of using ^H. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Dec 6 08:24:29 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 09:24:29 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <47576629.2010405@gmail.com> References: <47576629.2010405@gmail.com> Message-ID: <2AF28257-9BC0-4885-B681-8DA35F082AB3@neurotica.com> On Dec 5, 2007, at 10:02 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> My father just rescued a Hazeltine 1200 from a scrapheap for me. >>> I know nothing about these. Could someone give me some pointers >>> to information? Thanks. >> Nice! Let us know the date codes on the chips when you get a chance >> to peek inside. > > Will do. I'm also curious about what processor it's built around, if you don't mind checking. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Dec 6 09:09:00 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 10:09:00 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <0JSL0039DKI661D7@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JSL0039DKI661D7@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <4758108C.1050304@gmail.com> Allison wrote: >>> My father just rescued a Hazeltine 1200 from a >>> scrapheap for me. I know >>> nothing about these. Could someone give me some >>> pointers to >>> information? Thanks. >>> >> Nice! I don't know anything about the 1200, but I have >> a 1500 and a 1421. They are both just simple >> terminals, with some fairly basic control functions >> What does it look like? Is the keyboard integral or >> detatched? Does it look like the 1500/1400 series? - > > The 14xx and 15xx are late 70s (after 1976) as 1500 used > 8080 and the 1400 used 8048 cpus. Interesting. 8048 is an integrated microcontroller, no? >> http://vt100.net/manx/covers/14/hi-1056a.png. >> >> Now, if it looks like the 2000, you've got a great >> score. Those are some interesting beasts. I've never >> seen one, but they look like this. >> http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/h2000s.gif >> >> The Hazeltine 2000 was a very early video terminal >> (circa 1972). > > The 1200 was a basically glass tty, all uppercase > (may have had a back pannel option for all upper > tty mode or mixed) it was capable of slow baud rates > (I think to 1200 or 4800) and both RS232 or current > loop. I used on on the DEC PDP10 so that means it > was in house there by spring 1972. It was all logic > no cpu used and I belive it used serial PMOS shift > registers for storage. Wow. Neato! Peace... Sridhar From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Dec 6 09:33:17 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 10:33:17 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <4758108C.1050304@gmail.com> References: <0JSL0039DKI661D7@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> <4758108C.1050304@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Dec 6, 2007, at 10:09 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>>> My father just rescued a Hazeltine 1200 from a >>>> scrapheap for me. I know nothing about these. Could someone >>>> give me some >>>> pointers to information? Thanks. >>>> >>> Nice! I don't know anything about the 1200, but I have >>> a 1500 and a 1421. They are both just simple >>> terminals, with some fairly basic control functions >>> What does it look like? Is the keyboard integral or >>> detatched? Does it look like the 1500/1400 series? - >> The 14xx and 15xx are late 70s (after 1976) as 1500 used >> 8080 and the 1400 used 8048 cpus. > > Interesting. 8048 is an integrated microcontroller, no? Yes it is; sorta a predecessor to the 8051 family. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Dec 6 10:24:07 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 11:24:07 -0500 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching Message-ID: <01C837FA.A5D65D20@mandr71> Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:55:51 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" Subject: Re: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching (No "almost" about it any more...) >On 5 Dec 2007 at 17:35, Fred Cisin wrote: >> . . . then I guess that a rotary telephone dial is out of the question >Oooh, cool--Strowger switches! ------------- Pshaw; a mere 10 positions? I've got a 25-step 12-pole stepper here, just the ticket. Expandable? I'll say; add one of your 10-steps and you've got 250 positions. mike From cclist at sydex.com Thu Dec 6 11:53:03 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:53:03 -0800 Subject: got this old peecee... In-Reply-To: <200712060152.17499.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200712060152.17499.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4757C67F.8640.85E6FB48@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Dec 2007 at 1:52, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > I'd originally planned to put OS/2 in this box. Now I'm lots less enthused > about that OS than I was at one time, so I dunno what I'm gonna do with it. > Thoughts on this? Can you get a DX4/100 to run in the slot? There are versions of Linux that will work; as well as other operating systems if you don't like OS/2 (I do like it better than a lot of other operating systems). How about PC-MOS? MP/M-86 with GEM? UCSD Pascal? Cheers, Chuck From arcarlini at iee.org Thu Dec 6 11:56:38 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 17:56:38 -0000 Subject: Free "museum pieces" in London In-Reply-To: <575131af0712052023u42cc58ccrc284a36bef575593@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <003d01c83831$5a8c3470$5f04010a@uatempname> Liam Proven wrote: > A message I spotted on the CIX online service... > > [[ >> From Hex > Museum pieces > Before they go into a skip, does anyone want: > > Amstrad PC1512 with dual floppies > BBC model B with microvitec monitor and twin 5.25" floppies > Epson EX-100 132-column printer > Epson FX-80 > Sinclair ZX Printer > > Collect from Edgware, nw London. > > Feel free to copy this elsewhere. If you want anything, email > robert at schifreen dot co dot uk ONLY. > ]] I wonder if that's _the_ Robert Schifreen who hacked into Prince Philip's Prestel account? Wonder if there's anything interesting on the hard drive :-) Antonio No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.15/1173 - Release Date: 05/12/2007 21:29 From legalize at xmission.com Thu Dec 6 12:00:52 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 11:00:52 -0700 Subject: got this old peecee... In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:53:03 -0800. <4757C67F.8640.85E6FB48@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <4757C67F.8640.85E6FB48 at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > How about PC-MOS? MP/M-86 with GEM? UCSD Pascal? Aren't there some no-OS-required FORTH implementations you can use on a bare x86 PC? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From les at hildenbrandt.com Thu Dec 6 08:40:14 2007 From: les at hildenbrandt.com (Les Hildenbrandt) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 07:40:14 -0700 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <200712060751.lB67paKo031694@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712060751.lB67paKo031694@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <475809CE.4000301@hildenbrandt.com> My first computer came with a Hazeltine 1000, this was older than the 1200. It had 80 characters wide, but I think it only was 12 lines tall, I cant remember that part for sure. What I remeber for sure was that it was upper case only. There was a place of the PCB for a second character generator rom for lower case which was not loaded. There was also a switch on the front which enabled lower case for the keyboard. That was very confusing because sometimes I was typing in lower case, then when I did a search or search / replace in ed it couldn't find what I was searching for because it was upper case. I didn't figure that out until later when I got an intertube terminal to replace the Hazeltine 1000. Les From dgahling at hotmail.com Thu Dec 6 10:03:28 2007 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 11:03:28 -0500 Subject: looking for volker-craig terminals Message-ID: I grew up using these things, and have been trying to find one, for nostalgia reasons. does anyone on the list have one they'd be willing to part with? Yes, I've tried every other avenue I can think of PS - sorry if this is "off-topic" Dan. _________________________________________________________________ Exercise your brain! Try Flexicon! http://puzzles.sympatico.msn.ca/chicktionary/index.html?icid=htmlsig From dave06a at dunfield.com Thu Dec 6 13:14:31 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 14:14:31 -0500 Subject: looking for volker-craig terminals In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200712061820.lB6IKLP5015632@hosting.monisys.ca> > > I grew up using these things, and have been trying to find one, for nostalgia reasons. > > does anyone on the list have one they'd be willing to part with? > > Yes, I've tried every other avenue I can think of > > PS - sorry if this is "off-topic" > > Dan. Dan, Any particular model you are looking for? I've got a VC-4404 and a VC-3100, either (or both) of which I would part with. Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Dec 6 13:14:06 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 19:14:06 +0000 Subject: Free "museum pieces" in London In-Reply-To: <003d01c83831$5a8c3470$5f04010a@uatempname> Message-ID: On 6/12/07 17:56, "Antonio Carlini" wrote: >> >> Feel free to copy this elsewhere. If you want anything, email >> robert at schifreen dot co dot uk ONLY. >> ]] > > I wonder if that's _the_ Robert Schifreen who hacked into > Prince Philip's Prestel account? Wonder if there's anything > interesting on the hard drive :-) I wondered that too, took me a while to work out why I knew the name! -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From chaosotter76 at gmail.com Thu Dec 6 14:09:03 2007 From: chaosotter76 at gmail.com (Mark Meiss) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 15:09:03 -0500 Subject: Information on the AtariLab Interface Message-ID: <653a64ac0712061209h6227e4c5v2d636a9de40cfd31@mail.gmail.com> It took me longer than I meant to, but I dug up the manual for the AtariLab package that I'd mentioned in the thread on getting kids into older computers. In case you weren't reading that discussion, the AtariLab system was a science kit for the Atari 8-bit home computers that included a cartridge, an interface box that plugs into the joystick port, and a variety of measurement probes. Atari must have manufactured them far in excess of demand (no! not Atari!), because they're still fairly inexpensive NIB. At any rate, here's the scoop on the interface box: it has 8 phono jacks on it, arranged into 4 pairs: PADDLE, PTRIG, CONTROL, and POWER. The PADDLE inputs are the analog inputs; they're simply expecting to see a variable resistor on the other end, just as you'd except. The PTRIG inputs are digital inputs corresponding to the joystick fire buttons. The CONTROL jacks are indeed digital outputs (this was the question that came up in the original thread). They are wired to the UP and DOWN pins of the connector -- the Atari joystick interface can be programmed to use these pins for output rather than input, it seems. You must use controller jack 3 or 4 on the original 400/800 and 1 or 2 on the XL series. The PTRIG inputs can be reversed in the same way, giving you a total of four digital output lines per interface. The POWER outputs are just connected to the +5V supply of the joystick interface. The manual doesn't indicate how much current you can draw from the interface, but I imagine it's not much. So there you have it: 2 analog inputs, 2 digital input/outputs, 2 digital outputs, and 2 power connections. From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Thu Dec 6 14:42:28 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 20:42:28 +0000 Subject: Information on the AtariLab Interface In-Reply-To: <653a64ac0712061209h6227e4c5v2d636a9de40cfd31@mail.gmail.com> References: <653a64ac0712061209h6227e4c5v2d636a9de40cfd31@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20071206204228.GB24101@usap.gov> On Thu, Dec 06, 2007 at 03:09:03PM -0500, Mark Meiss wrote: > ... the AtariLab system was a science kit for the Atari 8-bit home > computers that included a cartridge, an interface box that plugs > into the joystick port, and a variety of measurement probes. Thanks for digging out the info. I was one of the silent, curious ones. > Atari must have manufactured them far in excess of > demand (no! not Atari!), because they're still fairly inexpensive NIB. I may have to go looking for one. > At any rate, here's the scoop on the interface box: it has 8 phono jacks on > it, arranged into 4 pairs: PADDLE, PTRIG, CONTROL, and POWER. > > The PADDLE inputs are the analog inputs... > The PTRIG inputs are digital inputs... the joystick fire buttons. > The CONTROL jacks are indeed digital outputs... They are wired to > the UP and DOWN pins of the connector > So there you have it: 2 analog inputs, 2 digital input/outputs, 2 digital > outputs, and 2 power connections. Interesting. My own curiosity is from the standpoint of being able to hang them off of Commodore, not Atari, hardware. It all seems rather straightforward from your description. Do you have any info on the sensor probes? -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 6-Dec-2007 at 20:30 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -26.0 F (-32.2 C) Windchill -47.9 F (-44.4 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 8.5 kts Grid 6 Barometer 679.3 mb (10655 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Dec 6 14:56:17 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 20:56:17 +0000 Subject: Free "museum pieces" in London In-Reply-To: <003d01c83831$5a8c3470$5f04010a@uatempname> References: <003d01c83831$5a8c3470$5f04010a@uatempname> Message-ID: <475861F1.9040704@dunnington.plus.com> On 06/12/2007 17:56, Antonio Carlini wrote: > I wonder if that's _the_ Robert Schifreen who hacked into > Prince Philip's Prestel account? Wonder if there's anything > interesting on the hard drive :-) I'm pretty sure it is, and that might even be the Beeb he used. I have the modem :-) -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From chaosotter76 at gmail.com Thu Dec 6 15:18:09 2007 From: chaosotter76 at gmail.com (Mark Meiss) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 16:18:09 -0500 Subject: Information on the AtariLab Interface In-Reply-To: <20071206204228.GB24101@usap.gov> References: <653a64ac0712061209h6227e4c5v2d636a9de40cfd31@mail.gmail.com> <20071206204228.GB24101@usap.gov> Message-ID: <653a64ac0712061318j5900f207pc70cdaee622a3024@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 6, 2007 3:42 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > Interesting. My own curiosity is from the standpoint of being able to > hang them off of Commodore, not Atari, hardware. It all seems rather > straightforward from your description. I think it should be. As I understand it, the joystick ports on the C64 are wired to the bidrectional parallel pins on the CIA, so it seems like it would just be a matter of setting the data direction registers as appropriate. > Do you have any info on the sensor probes? Not much, unfortunately. The base system comes with only the temperature probe, which handles a 23F - 113F (-5C to 45C) range and is basically a thermistor on a wire. Its response is not particularly linear -- after calibration it's accurate to about 1C at the low end and 2C at the high end. I know there's a light module as well, which I assume is just a photoresistor on a wire, but I don't know if any others were produced. All of these was released in 1983, which was a Bad Year for Atari... From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Dec 6 15:05:33 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 21:05:33 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <4756D705.5337.823F8BFD@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Dec 5, 7 04:51:17 pm Message-ID: > > On 5 Dec 2007 at 16:35, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > > > The main thing I'm trying to achieve is simplicity. > > Nothing fancy. No PIC's, no microcontrollers, etc. I > > initially thought of using flip flops and a bunch of > > inverters to reset all the non-selected flip flop, but > > couldn't work out in my head a good way to do it... I > > hadn't taken switch debouncing into the equation - but > > aren't flip flops commonly used to debounce switches > > anyway? > > ...or a 0-7 BCD switch connected to a demux chip? Small, direct > readout. Or a normal rotary switch and a bunch of pull up/down resistors (I don't know if the enable lines are to be active high or active low)? Even more direct. For that matter, what about a bank of mechancially-interlocked buttons (I think you can still get such swtiches and the bracketry to interlock them). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Dec 6 15:08:09 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 21:08:09 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <942769.29001.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com> from "Mr Ian Primus" at Dec 5, 7 05:11:35 pm Message-ID: > Yeah, I thought about that. But then I'd have to find > a rotary switch with the proper number of positions... Over heere you can easily get single pole, 12 position rotary switches. There's a little key plate, retained by the fixing nut, that you can insert into different holes in the switch to select fewer than 12 positions. So you could quite easily have 8 postiions. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Dec 6 15:14:10 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 21:14:10 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP 9000/216 In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Dec 5, 7 07:47:54 pm Message-ID: > > > In article , > ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > > > No idea what this BSD prot needs... Maybe it'll run on an MMU-less machine. > > I don't recall the particulars, but I'm fairly certain they require an > MMU. I believe the machines that were used as the basis for the port > at the UofU were 68020 or better. In which case it probably won't run on any 9000/200 series machine. The 9817 was a 68010 with an HP-designed MMU (lots of small chips), I believe there as a CPU board for the 9836 that had an MMU circuit on it, presumably similar to that in a 9817. That board, nd indeed all other 9000/200 machines, were plain 68000 processors. I am probablty being unfair, but I find all the 9000 series after the 9000/200 to be 'boring unix boxes'. Lots of HP custom silicon (some, I believe have PA-RISC CPUs, the ones that are 68K-based have other HP custom chips in them). The 9000/200 series hae a few PALs in them, but they are mostly stadnard chips. And there are some interesting add-on boards for them, admittedly those can often be used in the 9000/300 series too. So I go after the 9000/200 machines, but ignore the later ones. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Dec 6 15:19:16 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 21:19:16 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Slightly OT: Old CRT displays vs. new LCD In-Reply-To: <1196929038.30499.3.camel@elric.inet> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Dec 6, 7 08:17:18 am Message-ID: > > > On Wed, 2007-12-05 at 23:25 +0000, Tony Duell wrote: > > > The fualt I was thinking of was actually a leaky capacitor, part of the > > RC filter network on the A1 supply. It was pulling the supply down, of > > course. The series reisstor was fine in this case, and yes I have had > > high-value resistorrs go even hihgher, or open. > > It seems particularly common with highish value resistors (more than a > few hundred k) used at high voltages, even if the current through them > is fairly tiny. Indeed it is. Another example is the startup resistor in many small SMPSUs. Typically a few hunderd k in value, and may be 2 or more resistors in series, it goes from the +ve side of the rectified mains smoothing caapacitor to a point in the chopper control circuit, and provides current to get the thing started when you turn it on. It often fails, resulting in a supply that runs fine, but when you turn it off (or the mains fails), it won't re-start. I've fixed _dozens_ of such supplies by lookking for a reissotr matching the description and replaicnig it if open-circuit. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Dec 6 15:22:11 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 21:22:11 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <2AF28257-9BC0-4885-B681-8DA35F082AB3@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Dec 6, 7 09:24:29 am Message-ID: > > I'm also curious about what processor it's built around, if you > don't mind checking. Why does it have to have a processor at all? A number of the older terminals, both 'glass TTYs' and those with some limited control code response, like cursor positioning, were built from simple TTL (etc) chips. Sometimes the artchitecture was something like a processor (DEC VT5x, for example), sometimes it was just random logic. -tony From doc at mdrconsult.com Thu Dec 6 15:39:26 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 15:39:26 -0600 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47586C0E.8090909@mdrconsult.com> Tony Duell wrote: > Or a normal rotary switch and a bunch of pull up/down resistors (I don't > know if the enable lines are to be active high or active low)? Even more > direct. For that matter, what about a bank of mechancially-interlocked > buttons (I think you can still get such swtiches and the bracketry to > interlock them). It just occurred to me that there's a possible problem with the rotary switch plan. If I've selected "3" and I then want to select "7", then "4", "5", and "6" are briefly selected. Well, or "2", "1", and "0".... :) If the selection sequence matters, you'd need some sort of delayed response. Doc From curt at atarimuseum.com Thu Dec 6 15:40:08 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:40:08 -0500 Subject: Information on the AtariLab Interface In-Reply-To: <20071206204228.GB24101@usap.gov> References: <653a64ac0712061209h6227e4c5v2d636a9de40cfd31@mail.gmail.com> <20071206204228.GB24101@usap.gov> Message-ID: <47586C38.2010404@atarimuseum.com> Here ya go, all the Atarilab modules your heart desires - $1 each: http://www.excesssolutions.com/cgi-bin/item/ES455 Curt Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Dec 06, 2007 at 03:09:03PM -0500, Mark Meiss wrote: > >> ... the AtariLab system was a science kit for the Atari 8-bit home >> computers that included a cartridge, an interface box that plugs >> into the joystick port, and a variety of measurement probes. >> > > Thanks for digging out the info. I was one of the silent, curious > ones. > > >> Atari must have manufactured them far in excess of >> demand (no! not Atari!), because they're still fairly inexpensive NIB. >> > > I may have to go looking for one. > > >> At any rate, here's the scoop on the interface box: it has 8 phono jacks on >> it, arranged into 4 pairs: PADDLE, PTRIG, CONTROL, and POWER. >> >> The PADDLE inputs are the analog inputs... >> The PTRIG inputs are digital inputs... the joystick fire buttons. >> The CONTROL jacks are indeed digital outputs... They are wired to >> the UP and DOWN pins of the connector >> So there you have it: 2 analog inputs, 2 digital input/outputs, 2 digital >> outputs, and 2 power connections. >> > > Interesting. My own curiosity is from the standpoint of being able to > hang them off of Commodore, not Atari, hardware. It all seems rather > straightforward from your description. > > Do you have any info on the sensor probes? > > -ethan > > From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Dec 6 17:16:44 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:16:44 -0500 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <01C837FA.A5D65D20@mandr71> References: <01C837FA.A5D65D20@mandr71> Message-ID: <200712061816.44523.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 06 December 2007 11:24, M H Stein wrote: > Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:55:51 -0800 > From: "Chuck Guzis" > Subject: Re: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching > > (No "almost" about it any more...) > > >On 5 Dec 2007 at 17:35, Fred Cisin wrote: > >> . . . then I guess that a rotary telephone dial is out of the question > > > >Oooh, cool--Strowger switches! > > ------------- > Pshaw; a mere 10 positions? I've got a 25-step 12-pole stepper here, > just the ticket. Expandable? I'll say; add one of your 10-steps and you've > got 250 positions. (Trying to picture a 25-hole old-style telephone dial... :-) -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Dec 6 17:22:28 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:22:28 -0500 Subject: got this old peecee... In-Reply-To: <4757C67F.8640.85E6FB48@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712060152.17499.rtellason@verizon.net> <4757C67F.8640.85E6FB48@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200712061822.29018.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 06 December 2007 12:53, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6 Dec 2007 at 1:52, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > I'd originally planned to put OS/2 in this box. Now I'm lots less > > enthused about that OS than I was at one time, so I dunno what I'm gonna > > do with it. Thoughts on this? > > Can you get a DX4/100 to run in the slot? Maybe. I was running a "5x86/133" in another box, I just need to figure out what jumper setting would allow that one to work... > There are versions of Linux that will work; as well as other operating > systems if you don't like OS/2 (I do like it better than a lot of other > operating systems). It's not that I dislike OS/2, it's just that I'm not as fired up as I was about it at one point. I have a copy of "Warp Connect Blue", which means the networking stuff is included and you don't need DOS or Windows to get it to run that software, but that's only version 3 and v4 was supposed to be very different. Then there are all those fixpacks, not just for the OS itself but for all this other stuff and I think those had to be applied in a certain order, too. It made a lot of sense when I was still running my BBS, since just about all of the software I was running also had OS/2 versions, but I took that down a couple of years ago, and have no pressing need to run DOS or win 3.1 type apps any more, so... > How about PC-MOS? MP/M-86 with GEM? UCSD Pascal? Dunno why I'd want any of these -- they run any special apps? I'd like it better if I could fill the RAM up, and also get the fastest CPU in there that the box would support. But I'm in no hurry, either. :-) -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Dec 6 17:23:31 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:23:31 -0500 Subject: got this old peecee... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200712061823.31732.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 06 December 2007 13:00, Richard wrote: > In article <4757C67F.8640.85E6FB48 at cclist.sydex.com>, > > "Chuck Guzis" writes: > > How about PC-MOS? MP/M-86 with GEM? UCSD Pascal? > > Aren't there some no-OS-required FORTH implementations you can use on > a bare x86 PC? Hmm... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Dec 6 17:28:27 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:28:27 -0500 Subject: Information on the AtariLab Interface In-Reply-To: <653a64ac0712061318j5900f207pc70cdaee622a3024@mail.gmail.com> References: <653a64ac0712061209h6227e4c5v2d636a9de40cfd31@mail.gmail.com> <20071206204228.GB24101@usap.gov> <653a64ac0712061318j5900f207pc70cdaee622a3024@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200712061828.27825.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 06 December 2007 16:18, Mark Meiss wrote: > On Dec 6, 2007 3:42 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > Interesting. My own curiosity is from the standpoint of being able to > > hang them off of Commodore, not Atari, hardware. It all seems rather > > straightforward from your description. > > I think it should be. As I understand it, the joystick ports on the C64 > are wired to the bidrectional parallel pins on the CIA, so it seems like it > would just be a matter of setting the data direction registers as > appropriate. I don't know that you'd even have to do much of anything with those. I can't recall the specific locations now, but there was a one-line program I used to type in to test those ports. Just "Peek"ing two locations and looping back, it'd give you a continuously scrollign display of a couple of numbers, I think 255 and 127 but am not sure any more since we're talking 15+ years ago. You'd plug a joystick into a port and wiggle it, try the fire button, and watch to see if the number changed with each thing you did -- if it didn't, there was a bad chip in there. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From legalize at xmission.com Thu Dec 6 18:28:16 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 17:28:16 -0700 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 06 Dec 2007 21:22:11 +0000. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > > I'm also curious about what processor it's built around, if you > > don't mind checking. > > Why does it have to have a processor at all? As was stated in this thread, there's no need to have a microprocessor. Of course one of the first applications of microprocessors was to make terminals *much* cheaper. I think I have one terminal that has no microprocessor (a Basic/4 terminal). I have a graphics generator that has no microprocessor, but that's just a display device not a terminal. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Dec 6 18:35:13 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 17:35:13 -0700 Subject: FAA control room keyboard -- parallel or RS-232? Message-ID: I have an FAA control room keyboard that I picked up off ebay. Each key has a little bulb underneath it that lights up the keys for use in the dark. I need to get some replacement bulbs since some of them have burned out. I haven't disassembled this thing enough to know if they have parts numbers on them or not. Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? I'm thinking that the bulbs burning out has got to be a regular occurrence and that the bulbs are therefore probably socketed and not soldered, but again I didn't disassemble it that far to know. The keyboard assembly inside is labelled MicroSwitch IIRC. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From glen.slick at gmail.com Thu Dec 6 18:57:34 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 16:57:34 -0800 Subject: FAA control room keyboard -- parallel or RS-232? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90712061657v64cf1e51g39a17b0beeb19f93@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 6, 2007 4:35 PM, Richard wrote: > I have an FAA control room keyboard that I picked up off ebay. Each > key has a little bulb underneath it that lights up the keys for use in > the dark. I need to get some replacement bulbs since some of them > have burned out. I haven't disassembled this thing enough to know if > they have parts numbers on them or not. > > Does any of this sound familiar to anyone? I'm thinking that the > bulbs burning out has got to be a regular occurrence and that the > bulbs are therefore probably socketed and not soldered, but again I > didn't disassemble it that far to know. The keyboard assembly inside > is labelled MicroSwitch IIRC. Not knowning anything about this device I would toss out a guess that the bulbs might be similar to some of these Chicago Miniature bi-pin lamps. http://www.mouser.com/catalog/632/94.pdf I bought some of these as replacements for the HP-2100A front panel buttons. I'm pretty sure there was a part number screened onto the lamp that could be looked up in an x-ref somewhere to find the appropriate replacement. Pop a keycap off your keyboard and see if you can pull a lamp straight out and see what you find. From legalize at xmission.com Thu Dec 6 20:49:39 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 19:49:39 -0700 Subject: FAA control room keyboard -- parallel or RS-232? In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:57:34 -0800. <1e1fc3e90712061657v64cf1e51g39a17b0beeb19f93@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <1e1fc3e90712061657v64cf1e51g39a17b0beeb19f93 at mail.gmail.com>, "Glen Slick" writes: > http://www.mouser.com/catalog/632/94.pdf Thanks! That looks like just the place for me to start! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From sellam at vintagetech.com Thu Dec 6 22:42:03 2007 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 20:42:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: Need NDIS2SUP.386 file for Windows for Workgroups Message-ID: Ok, I give up. I've searched high, low, sober, etc., and cannot find one single solitary instance of the file NDIS2SUP.386. It is supposedly on Disk 7 of the WFWG install set. I have a set that has 8 disks but the file is nowhere to be found on any of them. I've found references to the file WG0971.EXE which should be a self-extracting file that contains NDIS2SUP.386 but it cannot be found, not even where it should be on Microsoft's FTP server. I spent hours on Google and it is not there. Maybe someone else has more Google foo than me, and you're welcome to try, but I'll bet someone out there has this file. If so, PLEASE e-mail me directly to let me know. Thanks a thousand times in advance and may all your dreams be naughty. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From james.rice at gmail.com Thu Dec 6 23:01:53 2007 From: james.rice at gmail.com (James Rice) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 23:01:53 -0600 Subject: Need NDIS2SUP.386 file for Windows for Workgroups In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ftp://ftp.blackcube.org/pub/NDIS2SUP.38_ On Dec 6, 2007 10:42 PM, Sellam Ismail wrote: > > Ok, I give up. I've searched high, low, sober, etc., and cannot find one > single solitary instance of the file NDIS2SUP.386. It is supposedly on > Disk 7 of the WFWG install set. I have a set that has 8 disks but the > file is nowhere to be found on any of them. I've found references to the > file WG0971.EXE which should be a self-extracting file that contains > NDIS2SUP.386 but it cannot be found, not even where it should be on > Microsoft's FTP server. > > I spent hours on Google and it is not there. Maybe someone else has more > Google foo than me, and you're welcome to try, but I'll bet someone out > there has this file. If so, PLEASE e-mail me directly to let me know. > > Thanks a thousand times in advance and may all your dreams be naughty. > > -- > > 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 ] > -- www.blackcube.org - The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers From james.rice at gmail.com Thu Dec 6 23:04:19 2007 From: james.rice at gmail.com (James Rice) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 23:04:19 -0600 Subject: Need NDIS2SUP.386 file for Windows for Workgroups In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The WG0971.EXE file is at http://ftp.gaby.de/ftpindex.htm -- www.blackcube.org - The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers From g-wright at att.net Thu Dec 6 23:37:34 2007 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 05:37:34 +0000 Subject: Tandy with expansion for jay Message-ID: <120720070537.8411.4758DC1D0009D4E4000020DB22218683269B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> -------------- Original message from "Jay West" jwest at classiccmp.org>: --------- Jay I have walked over this tandy long enough. send me your address Before is heads out the door. - Jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc g-wright at att.net From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Dec 6 23:54:03 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 00:54:03 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 6, 2007, at 4:22 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> I'm also curious about what processor it's built around, if you >> don't mind checking. > > Why does it have to have a processor at all? A number of the older > terminals, both 'glass TTYs' and those with some limited control code > response, like cursor positioning, were built from simple TTL (etc) > chips. Sometimes the artchitecture was something like a processor (DEC > VT5x, for example), sometimes it was just random logic. Of course it doesn't *need* to have a processor in the traditional sense...I was just assuming that it would, as I was guessing it wasn't much older than 1420 I had years ago. I could certainly be wrong. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Dec 7 00:06:49 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 22:06:49 -0800 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching Message-ID: > From: ian_primus at yahoo.com > > I guess I should have been more clear... And everyone > has brought up some good points. I initally didn't > think about the initial power-up setting, but in this > application it doesn't much matter - I guess > defaulting to none pressed (or #1 pressed, even > better) would be good. I don't intend to press two > switches at once, but if it were to happen, it doesn't > much matter - either one could take priority. I'd > rather not have more than one select output active at > a time, but it's not a huge problem if it happens. > Timing is totally non-critical. Two outputs can be > active for a tiny period, no outputs active during > switching is fine. The idea is to simply control some > CBT3244A bus switching chips to switch some analog > signals. I want to avoid having each chip controlled > by a toggle on/off switch, because then in order to > change signals you would have to manually turn off > one, and turn on the next. > > The main thing I'm trying to achieve is simplicity. > Nothing fancy. No PIC's, no microcontrollers, etc. I > initially thought of using flip flops and a bunch of > inverters to reset all the non-selected flip flop, but > couldn't work out in my head a good way to do it... I > hadn't taken switch debouncing into the equation - but > aren't flip flops commonly used to debounce switches > anyway? > Hi The simplest method would be to use the cross coupled nands as another described. For 8 inputs, you'll need 4 ea 7400's to make the nand latches. You'l need 8 ea 8 input nands ( forget the 74 number ) and 3 of the hex inverters, 7404s. For each switch wire one lead to ground. Wire one lead to a 4.7K pullup resistor and one of the free inputs to the cross coupled nand pair. Also wire that switch lead to 7 of the 8 input nands ( not the one on this switch circuit. ). On the remaining free inputs to the cross coupled nands pair, wire an inverters output. The input of the inverter goes to the output of the 8 input nand that wasn't one of the 7 connected to this switch. Repeat this for each of the 8 switches. If the active level is to be 0 when selected, you can save one inverter IC. If it needs to be active high, you need the inverter. in either case, you need to connect to the nand that has the inverter to the 8 input nand. This will ensure that multiple switches won't select anything until only one is selected. On the 8 input nand, you'll notice that one input isn't connected. This can be used to reset. Tie all together with a 1K resistor to +5. Place a diode across this such that the band is on the +5 ended. Add a 10uf tantalum to this net with th plus on the same net and the negative to ground. This will reset all on powering up. If you want to one of the outputs to come on when powering up, you can add a similar capacitor, resistor and diode circuit to the desired input switch lead. You'd need to remove the common input to the 8 input nand and tie it to +5 as well. I like this better than using some other clocked method because if multiple switches are selected at the same time, non will select but when the last switch is still selected, that output will go active. There are no ambiguous states and no oscillations. The switches are debounced as well. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/connect.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_newways_112007 From dm561 at torfree.net Fri Dec 7 00:13:41 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 01:13:41 -0500 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching Message-ID: <01C8386E.86C0CF00@mandr71> Message: 17 Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:16:44 -0500 From: "Roy J. Tellason" Subject: Re: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching To: "'cctalk at classiccmp.org'" Message-ID: <200712061816.44523.rtellason at verizon.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 On Thursday 06 December 2007 11:24, M H Stein wrote: >> Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:55:51 -0800 >> From: "Chuck Guzis" > >> Subject: Re: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching >> >> (No "almost" about it any more...) >> >> >On 5 Dec 2007 at 17:35, Fred Cisin wrote: >> >> . . . then I guess that a rotary telephone dial is out of the question >> > >> >Oooh, cool--Strowger switches! > >> ------------- >> Pshaw; a mere 10 positions? I've got a 25-step 12-pole stepper here, >> just the ticket. Expandable? I'll say; add one of your 10-steps and you've >> got 250 positions. >(Trying to picture a 25-hole old-style telephone dial... :-) ------------- Think bigger - the interrupter doesn't care how many! Or dial 10 at a time... m From mike at brickfieldspark.org Fri Dec 7 03:21:45 2007 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 09:21:45 -0000 Subject: Free "museum pieces" in London References: <200712070555.lB75tNcC042334@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <002e01c838b2$96c360e0$911ca8c0@mss.local> > From: Pete Turnbull > Subject: Re: Free "museum pieces" in London > > I'm pretty sure it is, and that might even be the Beeb he used. I have > the modem :-) > >> robert at schifreen dot co dot uk schifreen dot co dot uk goes to http://www.defeatingthehacker.com/securitysavvy/ Which states - " In 1985, Robert became the first person in the world to face a jury trial in connection with computer hacking. His ultimate acquittal on all charges led to the introduction of the UK's Computer Misuse Act 1990, which now outlaws the practice. " Mike From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Dec 7 08:22:38 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 08:22:38 -0600 Subject: Need NDIS2SUP.386 file for Windows for Workgroups In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20071207081544.04fd4a28@mail.threedee.com> A lot of people seem to mention NDIS2SUP.VXD instead. Does NDIS2SUP.386 become NDIS2SUP.VXD on installation? There are some indications that this may not be the droid you are looking for: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q127970&ID=KB;EN-US;Q127970& "These load failures do not necessarily indicate a problem. It is common for some, if not all, of these load attempts to fail, depending on your system configuration. The following sections of this article contain more information about the causes of specific types of load failures." And http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winme/1100380589 . Google time: 3 minutes. Do I get a naughty dream? - John At 10:42 PM 12/6/2007, you wrote: >Ok, I give up. I've searched high, low, sober, etc., and cannot find one >single solitary instance of the file NDIS2SUP.386. It is supposedly on >Disk 7 of the WFWG install set. I have a set that has 8 disks but the >file is nowhere to be found on any of them. I've found references to the >file WG0971.EXE which should be a self-extracting file that contains >NDIS2SUP.386 but it cannot be found, not even where it should be on >Microsoft's FTP server. > >I spent hours on Google and it is not there. Maybe someone else has more >Google foo than me, and you're welcome to try, but I'll bet someone out >there has this file. If so, PLEASE e-mail me directly to let me know. > >Thanks a thousand times in advance and may all your dreams be naughty. > >-- > >Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org > >[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] >[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From james.rice at gmail.com Fri Dec 7 09:02:55 2007 From: james.rice at gmail.com (James Rice) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 09:02:55 -0600 Subject: Need NDIS2SUP.386 file for Windows for Workgroups In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20071207081544.04fd4a28@mail.threedee.com> References: <6.2.3.4.2.20071207081544.04fd4a28@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: On Dec 7, 2007 8:22 AM, John Foust wrote: > > A lot of people seem to mention NDIS2SUP.VXD instead. > > Does NDIS2SUP.386 become NDIS2SUP.VXD on installation? > > There are some indications that this may not be the droid > you are looking for: > > > http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q127970&ID=KB;EN-US;Q127970& > > "These load failures do not necessarily indicate a problem. It is common > for some, if not all, of these load attempts to fail, depending on your > system configuration. The following sections of this article contain > more information about the causes of specific types of load failures." > > And http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winme/1100380589 . > > Google time: 3 minutes. Do I get a naughty dream? > > - John > > The .vxd model is Win95 and above as I recall. Sellam was asking about Windows 3.1/3.11. I could use a good naughty dream. It's been pretty boring around here recently. -- www.blackcube.org - The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers From dzubint at vcn.bc.ca Fri Dec 7 09:25:18 2007 From: dzubint at vcn.bc.ca (dzubint at vcn.bc.ca) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 07:25:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: CNN front page: Commodore 64 Message-ID: So, I turn on the computer this morning, go to www.cnn.com to see the latest Britney Spears news ('cause CNN reports on ALL of the important stuff like that) and what do I see on the front page? A Commodore 64 story! http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/12/07/c64/index.html Thomas "PDP-11" Dzubin Calgary, Vancouver, or Saskatoon From evan at snarc.net Fri Dec 7 10:45:08 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 11:45:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: CNN front page: Commodore 64 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1909.65.126.154.6.1197045908.squirrel@vandal.degnanco.net> > > So, I turn on the computer this morning, go to www.cnn.com to see the > latest Britney Spears news ('cause CNN reports on ALL of the important > stuff like that) and what do I see on the front page? > A Commodore 64 story! > http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/12/07/c64/index.html > > Thomas "PDP-11" Dzubin > Calgary, Vancouver, or Saskatoon > > Lest anyone forgot -- we've still got the Peddle lecture posted at http://www.youtube.com/user/hazydave -- he begins approx. 15-16 minutes into part 1 of the four video segments. From chaosotter76 at gmail.com Fri Dec 7 11:00:58 2007 From: chaosotter76 at gmail.com (Mark Meiss) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 12:00:58 -0500 Subject: Information on the AtariLab Interface In-Reply-To: <200712061828.27825.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <653a64ac0712061209h6227e4c5v2d636a9de40cfd31@mail.gmail.com> <20071206204228.GB24101@usap.gov> <653a64ac0712061318j5900f207pc70cdaee622a3024@mail.gmail.com> <200712061828.27825.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <653a64ac0712070900l77d3ea4eta6c6a600bddd4eef@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 6, 2007 6:28 PM, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > I don't know that you'd even have to do much of anything with those. I > can't > recall the specific locations now, but there was a one-line program I > used > to type in to test those ports. Just "Peek"ing two locations and looping > back, it'd give you a continuously scrollign display of a couple of > numbers, > I think 255 and 127 but am not sure any more since we're talking 15+ years > ago. You'd plug a joystick into a port and wiggle it, try the fire > button, > and watch to see if the number changed with each thing you did -- if it > didn't, there was a bad chip in there. Reading the digital inputs from the joystick ports is indeed just a matter of reading $DC00 (port 2) and $DC01 (port 1). The question is whether there's any obstacle to setting the DDR on the CIA to make some of the pins on the joystick ports digital outputs rather than inputs. I don't know whether this would work or not, because the joystick pins on the CIA are shared with the keyboard matrix. I can dig out my Programmer's Reference tonight and peek at the schematics, or maybe somebody out there just knows...? From chaosotter76 at gmail.com Fri Dec 7 11:09:08 2007 From: chaosotter76 at gmail.com (Mark Meiss) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 12:09:08 -0500 Subject: Information on the AtariLab Interface In-Reply-To: <653a64ac0712070900l77d3ea4eta6c6a600bddd4eef@mail.gmail.com> References: <653a64ac0712061209h6227e4c5v2d636a9de40cfd31@mail.gmail.com> <20071206204228.GB24101@usap.gov> <653a64ac0712061318j5900f207pc70cdaee622a3024@mail.gmail.com> <200712061828.27825.rtellason@verizon.net> <653a64ac0712070900l77d3ea4eta6c6a600bddd4eef@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <653a64ac0712070909u1790d872yc55ff8a08c57275e@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 7, 2007 12:00 PM, Mark Meiss wrote: > > Reading the digital inputs from the joystick ports is indeed just a matter > of reading $DC00 (port 2) and $DC01 (port 1). The question is whether > there's any obstacle to setting the DDR on the CIA to make some of the pins > on the joystick ports digital outputs rather than inputs. I don't know > whether this would work or not, because the joystick pins on the CIA are > shared with the keyboard matrix. I can dig out my Programmer's Reference > tonight and peek at the schematics, or maybe somebody out there just > knows...? > Following up to myself, it seems that as long as you disable interrupts to avoid having the keyboard scan routine execute, all is well and you're free to set the DDR for output. Here's a project that does just that: http://esglabs.com/personal/parody/commies/joyport.html From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Fri Dec 7 11:45:13 2007 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 18:45:13 +0100 (CET) Subject: HP 9000/216 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Dec 2007, Tony Duell wrote: > I am probablty being unfair, but I find all the 9000 series after the > 9000/200 to be 'boring unix boxes'. Lots of HP custom silicon (some, I > believe have PA-RISC CPUs, the ones that are 68K-based have other HP > custom chips in them). The 9000/200 series hae a few PALs in them, but > they are mostly stadnard chips. And there are some interesting add-on boards > for them, admittedly those can often be used in the 9000/300 series too. You are unfair, just have a look at the 9000/840 (1986/87). We have one (still running 24/7), together with a 7978 and several 7935 drives (the system's running from SCSI disks though). The interesting parts of this machine: 1. It's the first PA-RISC machine 2. It's completely TTL (SN74xx, PROMs and memories) 3. The CPU consists of about half a dozen PCBs 4. It's useful as a bridge between the HP-IB world and the UNIX/Internet world As an example, the ALU resides on the EU (execution unit) board and is built from SN74AS181 (eight of them for 32 bits). Another example: the ECC controller on the memory controller board is a (rarely found) SN74ALS632, IIRC. The other CPU boards are the CA (cache), TL (table lookaside) and IU (instruction unit). The only custom chips are found on the I/O interfaces (bus interface IC for the CIO) and the FPU boards (the FPU consists of two ICs embedded into a plethora of TTL ICs). BTW many I/O boards have intelligent subsystems on them, e.g. the terminal MUX board is a Z80 system with SIOs etc., the ethernet board has a MC68000 (as many ethernet boards at that time), and the HP-IB board has a HP 1TL1 IC (is there a datasheet available?). I wish I had a *real* service manual/schematics for this machine... Christian From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Dec 7 12:35:22 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 11:35:22 -0700 Subject: CNN front page: Commodore 64 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4759926A.6000702@jetnet.ab.ca> dzubint at vcn.bc.ca wrote: > So, I turn on the computer this morning, go to www.cnn.com to see the > latest Britney Spears news ('cause CNN reports on ALL of the important > stuff like that) and what do I see on the front page? > A Commodore 64 story! > http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/12/07/c64/index.html Forget all that! Spears or C-64's.[1] Just drop off a PDP-11 on your next trip between Calgary and Saskatoon. Take the NOTHERN route via Cold Lake. :) > Thomas "PDP-11" Dzubin > Calgary, Vancouver, or Saskatoon [1] Both a I can find still easy, a PDP 11 is a real computer in the sence it was designed for computing vs control of a dumb terminal. From lproven at gmail.com Fri Dec 7 13:02:27 2007 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 19:02:27 +0000 Subject: Offered: Free Macs, London, England Message-ID: <575131af0712071102k7ad8f78fj67decfa8efeed652@mail.gmail.com> I'm trying to have a clear out and I think it's time most of the legacy Mac stuff went. I have: - 2 LC 475s (one dead, one alive, as far as I can recall) - one PowerMac 6100/66 (runs but has a blank hard disk) - one Beige G3 minitower (300MHz, CD, Zip, 8GB HD) - UMAX PPC604 Mac compatible minitower machine I've also got at least 1 21" mono Mac monitor with accompanying mono NuBus graphics card, 1 or 2 14" Apple colour monitors, and a couple of boxes of classic Mac apps. Anyone who wants any or all of these machines, including some free apps to go with them, is welcome to come and rummage. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From lproven at gmail.com Fri Dec 7 13:04:32 2007 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 19:04:32 +0000 Subject: Free "museum pieces" in London In-Reply-To: <003d01c83831$5a8c3470$5f04010a@uatempname> References: <575131af0712052023u42cc58ccrc284a36bef575593@mail.gmail.com> <003d01c83831$5a8c3470$5f04010a@uatempname> Message-ID: <575131af0712071104p3df88249j1bf9fcf78227f5f9@mail.gmail.com> On 06/12/2007, Antonio Carlini wrote: > Liam Proven wrote: > > A message I spotted on the CIX online service... > > > > [[ > >> From Hex > > Museum pieces > > Before they go into a skip, does anyone want: > > > > Amstrad PC1512 with dual floppies > > BBC model B with microvitec monitor and twin 5.25" floppies > > Epson EX-100 132-column printer > > Epson FX-80 > > Sinclair ZX Printer > > > > Collect from Edgware, nw London. > > > > Feel free to copy this elsewhere. If you want anything, email > > robert at schifreen dot co dot uk ONLY. > > ]] > > I wonder if that's _the_ Robert Schifreen who hacked into > Prince Philip's Prestel account? Wonder if there's anything > interesting on the hard drive :-) Yes, it's that Rob. He's a friend of mine. Steve Gold, which AFAICR I've not met, occasionally pops up on CIX still, too. Apparently, he's a distant relative of Lalo Schifrin, the film score composer, too. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From cclist at sydex.com Fri Dec 7 13:32:21 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 11:32:21 -0800 Subject: HP250 curiosity Message-ID: <47592F45.22814.8B68429D@cclist.sydex.com> I was going through some of my old literature and stumbled upon a discussion of the HP250 architecture. One statement made was that it was impossible for the customer to write his own binary executables on this system. The idea being that the customer would program everything in HP BASIC, I imagine. Out of curiosity, was this restriction ever relaxed? How many people have one of these in their collection? Cheers, Chuck From brain at jbrain.com Fri Dec 7 17:45:43 2007 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 17:45:43 -0600 Subject: CNN front page: Commodore 64 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4759DB27.5080005@jbrain.com> dzubint at vcn.bc.ca wrote: > So, I turn on the computer this morning, go to www.cnn.com to see the > latest Britney Spears news ('cause CNN reports on ALL of the important > stuff like that) and what do I see on the front page? > A Commodore 64 story! > http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/12/07/c64/index.html > Pic #12 has a shot of the basement here. Enjoy. From bpope at wordstock.com Fri Dec 7 17:52:17 2007 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 18:52:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: CNN front page: Commodore 64 In-Reply-To: <4759DB27.5080005@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <20071207235217.58E4C456AC@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Jim Brain > > dzubint at vcn.bc.ca wrote: > > So, I turn on the computer this morning, go to www.cnn.com to see the > > latest Britney Spears news ('cause CNN reports on ALL of the important > > stuff like that) and what do I see on the front page? > > A Commodore 64 story! > > http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/12/07/c64/index.html > > > Pic #12 has a shot of the basement here. Enjoy. > The wall of happy Commodores! :D Very cool! Cheers, Bryan From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Dec 7 17:47:26 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 23:47:26 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP 9000/216 In-Reply-To: from "Christian Corti" at Dec 7, 7 06:45:13 pm Message-ID: > > On Thu, 6 Dec 2007, Tony Duell wrote: > > I am probablty being unfair, but I find all the 9000 series after the > > 9000/200 to be 'boring unix boxes'. Lots of HP custom silicon (some, I > > believe have PA-RISC CPUs, the ones that are 68K-based have other HP > > custom chips in them). The 9000/200 series hae a few PALs in them, but > > they are mostly stadnard chips. And there are some interesting add-on boards > > for them, admittedly those can often be used in the 9000/300 series too. > > You are unfair, just have a look at the 9000/840 (1986/87). We have one (still Oh, you rotten sod :-). That is one beautiful machine :-) I must admit I was basing my comments on the HP9000s that I haev seen inside. My small collection of 9000/200 machines (9826, 9836, 9816, 9817), the 9000/340 (68030 I think, but with lots of HP custom stuff in PGA packages round it), the 9000/425 with an external graphics box (the latter has am i860 in it, but again with custom stuff all round it, ditto in the machin amchine). and a friend's PA-Risc box (I forget the model number). The reason you're a 'rotten sod' is not that I don't wnat to be educated about machines I've not come across, of course I do. But having looked at the CE manual on the museum website, I now really want one of those machines. And I have no chance of finding one :-) > running 24/7), together with a 7978 and several 7935 drives (the system's > running from SCSI disks though). The interesting parts of this machine: > 1. It's the first PA-RISC machine > 2. It's completely TTL (SN74xx, PROMs and memories) That sounds just the sort of thing I would love. > 3. The CPU consists of about half a dozen PCBs > 4. It's useful as a bridge between the HP-IB world and the UNIX/Internet > world > > As an example, the ALU resides on the EU (execution unit) board and is built > from SN74AS181 (eight of them for 32 bits). Another example: the ECC Nice. How large physcially are the CPU boards? > controller on the memory controller board is a (rarely found) SN74ALS632, > IIRC. The other CPU boards are the CA (cache), TL (table lookaside) and > IU (instruction unit). > The only custom chips are found on the I/O interfaces (bus interface IC > for the CIO) and the FPU boards (the FPU consists of two ICs embedded into > a plethora of TTL ICs). > > BTW many I/O boards have intelligent subsystems on them, e.g. the terminal > MUX board is a Z80 system with SIOs etc., the ethernet board has a MC68000 That, I believe, is treu of even the 9000/200 machines. The SRM (HP custom network) card has a Z80 and some peripheral chips on it, I think there was at least one 'intellegent' serial card fro those machines (98268???) > (as many ethernet boards at that time), and the HP-IB board has a HP 1TL1 > IC (is there a datasheet available?). IIRC, that's a 'Medusa'. I have the pinout, but not the register map or anything like that. It was used in quite a few 'advanced' HPIB devives -- the high-speed DIO HPIB card has one on it, as do some of the disk/tape peripherals. There is rumoured to be a techncial manual for the 9000/200 series. Not with full schematics of course, but with enough information for people whoe are designing new interface cards, writing drivers for them, or proting a new OS to the machines. I have never seen it, I have never met anyone who's seen it. And yes I want to read it. > > I wish I had a *real* service manual/schematics for this machine... If I eve manage to find one, schematics would follow some time later :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Dec 7 17:25:10 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 23:25:10 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Graphics device with no processor In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Dec 6, 7 05:28:16 pm Message-ID: > one terminal that has no microprocessor (a Basic/4 terminal). I have > a graphics generator that has no microprocessor, but that's just a > display device not a terminal. The classic example of that is the HP1350 'Grpahics Translator' This is a 2U-high rack case that connects to an HPIB bus (I believe there was also an RS232 version, but I've never seen one), and to an HP vector display. You send it commands in cut-down HPGL (ASCII command codes and decimal numbers) and it displays the resulting vectors on the monitor. What makes it odd is that not only is there no microprocessor inside, but the circuitry doesn't ahve a parocessor-like architectore. It's just random logic. BCD-binary converters, state machines, 4K DRAMs, etc. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Dec 7 17:53:55 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 23:53:55 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP250 curiosity In-Reply-To: <47592F45.22814.8B68429D@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Dec 7, 7 11:32:21 am Message-ID: > > I was going through some of my old literature and stumbled upon a > discussion of the HP250 architecture. One statement made was that it > was impossible for the customer to write his own binary executables > on this system. The idea being that the customer would program > everything in HP BASIC, I imagine. > > Out of curiosity, was this restriction ever relaxed? How many people Qute a number of HP machines could not be programmed in their native machine code. HP Technical BASIC did not inclode PEEK and POKE, for example... In the case of the 9830, there was no way to get user machine code into memory. You could load it from tape (but you couldn't write a machine code tape file from the machine), you could run it from ROM.I suppose some users maight have fiund ways to interface standard EPROMs to the machine or write the tapes (it was a standard BMS format) on something else. In the case of the HP41 calculator, it was physcially impossible to run machine code from the machine's internal RAM. The processor was a pseudo harvard architecture, RAM was organised in 56 bit 'registers' connected to the SPU DATA line, ROM was in 10 bit words connected to the ISA line. Some hackers found a way round this, making ROM emulator boxes (normally called MLDL (Machine Language Development Lab) units). I haev no idea whcih restriction applies to the HP250. IIRC it uses the BPC processor hybrid (as in the HP9825), and I belive all ROM and RAM is in the same address space on that chip. So presumably if you can get the machine code into memoery and find some what to get the CPU to jump to it, it will run. > have one of these in their collection? I wish... -tony From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Fri Dec 7 18:15:59 2007 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 16:15:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: CNN front page: Commodore 64 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 7 Dec 2007 dzubint at vcn.bc.ca wrote: > So, I turn on the computer this morning, go to www.cnn.com to see the > latest Britney Spears news ('cause CNN reports on ALL of the important > stuff like that) and what do I see on the front page? > A Commodore 64 story! > http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/12/07/c64/index.html How can I get those videos? All I get are blanks. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From dm561 at torfree.net Fri Dec 7 18:29:23 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 19:29:23 -0500 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching Message-ID: <01C83907.7B2D9BC0@mandr71> -----------Original Messages: Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 22:06:49 -0800 From: dwight elvey Subject: RE: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching > From: ian_primus at yahoo.com > The main thing I'm trying to achieve is simplicity. > Nothing fancy. No PIC's, no microcontrollers, etc. I > initially thought of using flip flops and a bunch of > inverters to reset all the non-selected flip flop, but > couldn't work out in my head a good way to do it... I > hadn't taken switch debouncing into the equation - but > aren't flip flops commonly used to debounce switches > anyway? > Hi The simplest method would be to use the cross coupled nands as another described. For 8 inputs, you'll need 4 ea 7400's to make the nand latches. You'l need 8 ea 8 input nands ( forget the 74 number ) and 3 of the hex inverters, 7404s. For each switch wire one lead to ground. Wire one lead to a 4.7K pullup resistor and one of the free inputs to the cross coupled nand pair. Also wire that switch lead to 7 of the 8 input nands ( not the one on this switch circuit. ). On the remaining free inputs to the cross coupled nands pair, wire an inverters output. The input of the inverter goes to the output of the 8 input nand that wasn't one of the 7 connected to this switch. Repeat this for each of the 8 switches. If the active level is to be 0 when selected, you can save one inverter IC. If it needs to be active high, you need the inverter. in either case, you need to connect to the nand that has the inverter to the 8 input nand. This will ensure that multiple switches won't select anything until only one is selected. On the 8 input nand, you'll notice that one input isn't connected. This can be used to reset. Tie all together with a 1K resistor to +5. Place a diode across this such that the band is on the +5 ended. Add a 10uf tantalum to this net with th plus on the same net and the negative to ground. This will reset all on powering up. If you want to one of the outputs to come on when powering up, you can add a similar capacitor, resistor and diode circuit to the desired input switch lead. You'd need to remove the common input to the 8 input nand and tie it to +5 as well. I like this better than using some other clocked method because if multiple switches are selected at the same time, non will select but when the last switch is still selected, that output will go active. There are no ambiguous states and no oscillations. The switches are debounced as well. Dwight ------------Reply: 15 ICs and a dozen discretes is "the simplest?" I think some simpler circuits have been suggested...;-) As a matter of fact, if you add a diode & cap per switch you could do the job with 2 IC's for each 8 PBs (7430 & '573 (or 2x'75 if you need complementary outputs)). mike From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Fri Dec 7 18:58:29 2007 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:58:29 -0800 Subject: HP250 curiosity In-Reply-To: <47592F45.22814.8B68429D@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47592F45.22814.8B68429D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4759EC35.7050000@sbcglobal.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I was going through some of my old literature and stumbled upon a > discussion of the HP250 architecture. One statement made was that it > was impossible for the customer to write his own binary executables > on this system. The idea being that the customer would program > everything in HP BASIC, I imagine. > > Out of curiosity, was this restriction ever relaxed? How many people > have one of these in their collection? > > Cheers, > Chuck > > I have one but have not yet tried to power it up. Bob From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Dec 7 20:54:06 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 18:54:06 -0800 Subject: Torode disk controller for the S-100 In-Reply-To: <47552EDC.27678.7BC6B17A@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712040018.QAA12867@svdc-imap00.amd.com> <47552EDC.27678.7BC6B17A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: Hi I found an email for John Torode and asked him about his controller. He said that he believes that his controller was the first to be sold that had CP/M implemented for the S-100. He said that this was 1.3. He also stated that the FDC-1 controller was the same basic controller that he used on the Intelec-8/80 that ran the very first CP/M. He stated that the controller was based on work that he did for his thesis. dwight _________________________________________________________________ You keep typing, we keep giving. Download Messenger and join the i?m Initiative now. http://im.live.com/messenger/im/home/?source=TAGLM From us21090 at yahoo.com Fri Dec 7 22:24:04 2007 From: us21090 at yahoo.com (Scott Austin) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 20:24:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT: Need Sparcstation 5 rescue Message-ID: <374514.40456.qm@web30801.mail.mud.yahoo.com> All- In an appeal to avoid the crusher.... I've got an SUN/Sun Sparcstation 5, GDM-1662B monitor (16" specs say, 1280 x 1024, color), 13W3 video cable, keyboard, mouse, 64 MB, 1 GB drive (I believe). I live near BWI, Maryland. If you know someone (who knows someone)* who would like this system, let me know. BTW, that previous line is a joke of sorts for the regular expressionists among us. I'd prefer a local pickup, but will ship on your nickel. Thanks, Scott ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From evan at snarc.net Fri Dec 7 23:20:00 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 0:20:00 -0500 Subject: TRADIC Message-ID: <200712080520.lB85KeX3002418@billy.ezwind.net> A few days ago, someone asked about TRADIC. Tonight I stumbled upon a mention of this computer on page 204 of the book "Crystal Fire" (Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson, 1997). The authors wrote, "In January 1954 Whippany engineers built a fully transistorized computer for the Air Force. Called TRADIC (for TRAnsistorized DIgital Computer), it used 700 point-contact transistors and more than 10,000 germanium crystal rectifiers in its circuits. Capable of performing a million logical operations every second, TRADIC was the first completely solid-state computer; it approached the speed of computers based on vacuum tubes." By "Whippany" they meant the Whippany, N.J. location of Bell Labs. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Dec 7 23:33:37 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 21:33:37 -0800 Subject: OT: Vintage sighting Message-ID: <4759BC31.30920.8D8EB789@cclist.sydex.com> I'll make this quick--I just saw a rerun of a 1970 "Mission Impossible" episode called "The Innocent". The computer there definitely looks to be Univac; I'm guessing an 1106. Anyone else see this one? ...and who has a reference manual for KAZAN IV? Cheers, Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Dec 8 00:10:25 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 22:10:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT: Vintage sighting In-Reply-To: <4759BC31.30920.8D8EB789@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Dec 7, 7 09:33:37 pm" Message-ID: <200712080610.lB86APYu019080@floodgap.com> > I'll make this quick--I just saw a rerun of a 1970 "Mission > Impossible" episode called "The Innocent". The computer there > definitely looks to be Univac; I'm guessing an 1106. Anyone else see > this one? I've seen it, but alas I am no good at making IDs. I'm not near my VHS M:I collection, but I'll make a screen grab when I get back if anyone wants to take a crack at it. > ...and who has a reference manual for KAZAN IV? It's no good, all it does is make Dehominant. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize. -- Steven Wright ------------------------- From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sat Dec 8 01:03:14 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 23:03:14 -0800 Subject: TRADIC References: <200712080520.lB85KeX3002418@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <475A41B2.457CB15C@cs.ubc.ca> Evan wrote: > > A few days ago, someone asked about TRADIC. Tonight I stumbled upon a mention of this computer on page 204 of the book "Crystal Fire" (Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson, 1997). The authors wrote, "In January 1954 Whippany engineers built a fully transistorized computer for the Air Force. Called TRADIC (for TRAnsistorized DIgital Computer), it used 700 point-contact transistors and more than 10,000 germanium crystal rectifiers in its circuits. Capable of performing a million logical operations every second, TRADIC was the first completely solid-state computer; it approached the speed of computers based on vacuum tubes." > > By "Whippany" they meant the Whippany, N.J. location of Bell Labs. TRADIC is a well-known machine in the history of computing. A little googling does bring up a lot of refs. (I think there's another experimental/proof-of-concept machine commonly mentioned as being one of the first transistorised machines (something from Philco perhaps?).) Another anecdote I ran across a few years ago in the IEEE AotHoC (which I wish had kept a ref to), was of an IBM engineer working on one of the first transistorised designs in the mid-50s (ECL IIRC), telling the story of how he chose 5 Volts for the logic supply. From evan at snarc.net Sat Dec 8 01:29:00 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 2:29:00 -0500 Subject: TRADIC Message-ID: <200712080729.lB87TKmD010364@billy.ezwind.net> For me, this is exciting because the early transistor research was (to a large extent) encouraged and funded by the Army Signal Corps lab that is now the home of our computer museum. Yes, Will D., we know for FACT that it was our lab and not just the ASC in general. Will likes to keep us on our toes. :) Speaking of which -- sorry for the thread hijack -- at the next VCF East we will have a special exhibit of all the computer history that happened or that was directly related to our lab. Bush, Mauchly, Hewlett, Vollum, Shockley -- they all are part of our history here. (Which makes it quite fun for us to roam the hallways looking for ghosts!) -----Original Message----- From: Brent Hilpert Subj: Re: TRADIC Date: Sat Dec 8, 2007 2:04 am Size: 1K To: General at priv-edmwaa05.telusplanet.net; "Discussion at priv-edmwaa05.telusplanet.net":On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Evan wrote: > > A few days ago, someone asked about TRADIC. Tonight I stumbled upon a mention of this computer on page 204 of the book "Crystal Fire" (Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson, 1997). The authors wrote, "In January 1954 Whippany engineers built a fully transistorized computer for the Air Force. Called TRADIC (for TRAnsistorized DIgital Computer), it used 700 point-contact transistors and more than 10,000 germanium crystal rectifiers in its circuits. Capable of performing a million logical operations every second, TRADIC was the first completely solid-state computer; it approached the speed of computers based on vacuum tubes." > > By "Whippany" they meant the Whippany, N.J. location of Bell Labs. TRADIC is a well-known machine in the history of computing. A little googling does bring up a lot of refs. (I think there's another experimental/proof-of-concept machine commonly mentioned as being one of the first transistorised machines (something from Philco perhaps?).) Another anecdote I ran across a few years ago in the IEEE AotHoC (which I wish had kept a ref to), was of an IBM engineer working on one of the first transistorised designs in the mid-50s (ECL IIRC), telling the story of how he chose 5 Volts for the logic supply. From grant at stockly.com Sat Dec 8 05:29:25 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 02:29:25 -0900 Subject: Scan of a 1702A Message-ID: <0JSQ001N2AL1TS90@msgmmp-1.gci.net> I couldn't help it. I had to scan a 1702A 256byte EPROM. This one was done at 6400dpi, really 3200dpi along the scanner array and 6400dpi in the scanning direction. So there is some interpolation in the image. Still a pretty impressive picture for a scanner. :) http://www.stockly.com/images3/071208-1702A-1.jpg Just playing the new scanner... Grant From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sat Dec 8 08:19:46 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 09:19:46 -0500 Subject: TRADIC In-Reply-To: <200712080729.lB87TKmD010364@billy.ezwind.net> References: <200712080729.lB87TKmD010364@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: > For me, this is exciting because the early transistor research was (to a large extent) encouraged and funded by the Army Signal Corps lab that is now the home of our computer museum. > > Yes, Will D., we know for FACT that it was our lab and not just the ASC in general. Will likes to keep us on our toes. :) The problem here is that there are a lot more facts that say most early transistor research was so the Bell System could get rid of all those tubes in repeater service, mostly for power and space reasons. Define "to a large extent". The military was actually very slow at adapting to transistor solid state - there were many, many guys in the high up positions that did not want them. They were right - transistors were relatively unreliable (and poor performers) compared to tubes until about 1960. It was not until the mid-1960 until the military started to field partial or entirely solid state units to the troops. TRADIC and a few other solid state equipments in the 1950s were pretty much fantasyland - from an era when just about anything could be funded by the military. Some might call it "pork". And once again I will point out that Camp Evans was just a small part of the Signal Corps. It was not the center, by any means. And do not call the Signal Corps "ASC" - almost nobody uses that. -- Will From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Thu Dec 6 17:02:04 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:02:04 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 Message-ID: <0JSN00303H8C6X9A@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Hazeltine 1200 > From: Dave McGuire > Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 10:33:17 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" > >On Dec 6, 2007, at 10:09 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>>>> My father just rescued a Hazeltine 1200 from a >>>>> scrapheap for me. I know nothing about these. Could someone >>>>> give me some >>>>> pointers to information? Thanks. >>>>> >>>> Nice! I don't know anything about the 1200, but I have >>>> a 1500 and a 1421. They are both just simple >>>> terminals, with some fairly basic control functions >>>> What does it look like? Is the keyboard integral or >>>> detatched? Does it look like the 1500/1400 series? - >>> The 14xx and 15xx are late 70s (after 1976) as 1500 used >>> 8080 and the 1400 used 8048 cpus. >> >> Interesting. 8048 is an integrated microcontroller, no? > > Yes it is; sorta a predecessor to the 8051 family. Yes, and it can also address up to 4k of program either internal (up to 2K for the 8049) and axternal. It's possible to hand external ram on it as well but the pointer is only 8bits so larger ram has to be paged using IO pins. Allison > -Dave > >-- >Dave McGuire >Port Charlotte, FL >Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 > > From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Thu Dec 6 17:03:07 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:03:07 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 Message-ID: <0JSN00IHDHA3ARJA@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Hazeltine 1200 > From: Dave McGuire > Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:24:29 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" > >On Dec 5, 2007, at 10:02 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>>> My father just rescued a Hazeltine 1200 from a scrapheap for me. >>>> I know nothing about these. Could someone give me some pointers >>>> to information? Thanks. >>> Nice! Let us know the date codes on the chips when you get a chance >>> to peek inside. >> >> Will do. > > I'm also curious about what processor it's built around, if you >don't mind checking. Best of my knowledge only the 15xx and 24xx serius used a processor and the earlier ones wer random logic and simple state machines. Allison > > -Dave > >-- >Dave McGuire >Port Charlotte, FL >Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 > > From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Thu Dec 6 17:04:24 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:04:24 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 Message-ID: <0JSN009L7HF05N94@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Hazeltine 1200 > From: Sridhar Ayengar > Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 10:09:00 -0500 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > >Allison wrote: >>>> My father just rescued a Hazeltine 1200 from a >>>> scrapheap for me. I know >>>> nothing about these. Could someone give me some >>>> pointers to >>>> information? Thanks. >>>> >>> Nice! I don't know anything about the 1200, but I have >>> a 1500 and a 1421. They are both just simple >>> terminals, with some fairly basic control functions >>> What does it look like? Is the keyboard integral or >>> detatched? Does it look like the 1500/1400 series? - >> >> The 14xx and 15xx are late 70s (after 1976) as 1500 used >> 8080 and the 1400 used 8048 cpus. > >Interesting. 8048 is an integrated microcontroller, no? Yes but it has an external databas and addressing for extended configurations. Basically a subset of 8051. Allison >>> http://vt100.net/manx/covers/14/hi-1056a.png. >>> >>> Now, if it looks like the 2000, you've got a great >>> score. Those are some interesting beasts. I've never >>> seen one, but they look like this. >>> http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/h2000s.gif >>> >>> The Hazeltine 2000 was a very early video terminal >>> (circa 1972). >> >> The 1200 was a basically glass tty, all uppercase >> (may have had a back pannel option for all upper >> tty mode or mixed) it was capable of slow baud rates >> (I think to 1200 or 4800) and both RS232 or current >> loop. I used on on the DEC PDP10 so that means it >> was in house there by spring 1972. It was all logic >> no cpu used and I belive it used serial PMOS shift >> registers for storage. > >Wow. Neato! > >Peace... Sridhar From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Thu Dec 6 17:05:28 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:05:28 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 Message-ID: <0JSN00F7DHGS5U02@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Hazeltine 1200 > From: Les Hildenbrandt > Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2007 07:40:14 -0700 > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > >My first computer came with a Hazeltine 1000, this was older than the >1200. It had 80 characters wide, but I think it only was 12 lines tall, I remember it as 72 (tty width). >I cant remember that part for sure. What I remeber for sure was that it >was upper case only. There was a place of the PCB for a second >character generator rom for lower case which was not loaded. There was >also a switch on the front which enabled lower case for the keyboard. >That was very confusing because sometimes I was typing in lower case, >then when I did a search or search / replace in ed it couldn't find what >I was searching for because it was upper case. I didn't figure that out >until later when I got an intertube terminal to replace the Hazeltine 1000. ;) Allison >Les From gpearce at curiousgroup.co.uk Fri Dec 7 03:09:39 2007 From: gpearce at curiousgroup.co.uk (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 09:09:39 +0000 Subject: FAA control room keyboard -- parallel or RS-232? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200712070909.39349.gpearce@curiousgroup.co.uk> On Friday 07 December 2007 00:35:13 Richard wrote: > I have an FAA control room keyboard that I picked up off ebay. Each > key has a little bulb underneath it that lights up the keys for use in > the dark. I need to get some replacement bulbs since some of them > have burned out. I haven't disassembled this thing enough to know if > they have parts numbers on them or not. I'm going to take a random guess and suggest that they might not be a million miles away from the little wedge-base bulbs in car dashboards. For obvious reasons, 12V and 24V versions are incredibly easy to get. Gordon From cc at corti-net.de Fri Dec 7 04:51:13 2007 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 11:51:13 +0100 (CET) Subject: HP 9000/216 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 6 Dec 2007, Tony Duell wrote: > I am probablty being unfair, but I find all the 9000 series after the > 9000/200 to be 'boring unix boxes'. Lots of HP custom silicon (some, I > believe have PA-RISC CPUs, the ones that are 68K-based have other HP > custom chips in them). The 9000/200 series hae a few PALs in them, but > they are mostly stadnard chips. And there are some interesting add-on boards > for them, admittedly those can often be used in the 9000/300 series too. You are unfair, just have a look at the 9000/840 (1986/87). We have one (still running 24/7), together with a 7978 and several 7935 drives (the system's running from SCSI disks though). The interesting parts of this machine: 1. It's the first PA-RISC machine 2. It's completely TTL (SN74xx, PROMs and memories) 3. The CPU consists of about half a dozen PCBs 4. It's useful as a bridge between the HP-IB world and the UNIX/Internet world As an example, the ALU resides on the EU (execution unit) board and is built from SN74AS181 (eight of them for 32 bits). Another example: the ECC controller on the memory controller board is a (rarely found) SN74ALS632, IIRC. The other CPU boards are the CA (cache), TL (table lookaside) and IU (instruction unit). The only custom chips are found on the I/O interfaces (bus interface IC for the CIO) and the FPU boards (the FPU consists of two ICs embedded into a plethora of TTL ICs). BTW many I/O boards have intelligent subsystems on them, e.g. the terminal MUX board is a Z80 system with SIOs etc., the ethernet board has a MC68000 (as many ethernet boards at that time), and the HP-IB board has a HP 1TL1 IC (is there a datasheet available?). I wish I had a *real* service manual/schematics for this machine... Christian From jkbla at sbcglobal.net Fri Dec 7 19:59:16 2007 From: jkbla at sbcglobal.net (JHoyos) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 17:59:16 -0800 Subject: Northgate OmniKey Ultra Message-ID: <200712080159.lB81xBVq088229@billy.ezwind.net> Hi, I saw this whilst doing some searches. Do you still have it? Response appreciated. Thanks From Lee.Courtney at windriver.com Fri Dec 7 23:11:53 2007 From: Lee.Courtney at windriver.com (Courtney, Lee) Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2007 21:11:53 -0800 Subject: HP250 curiosity In-Reply-To: <4759EC35.7050000@sbcglobal.net> References: <47592F45.22814.8B68429D@cclist.sydex.com> <4759EC35.7050000@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: Hi Bob, CHM has one - the desk model with a console monitor on a flexible neck. Do have that model or the desk-side unit the size of a two drawer file cabinet? I remember the former from my days at HP in the late-70s, early 80s. Very very nice product design. Do you have any software for your machine? Lee Courtney Product Line Manager - Linux for Consumer Devices Wind River 500 Wind River Way Alameda, California 94501 Office: 510-749-2763 Cell: 650-704-3934 WR Conf: (888) 545-8370 code: 510-749-2763 Yahoo IM: charlesleecourtney Skype: charlesleecourtney > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Bob Rosenbloom > Sent: Friday, December 07, 2007 4:58 PM > To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: HP250 curiosity > > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > I was going through some of my old literature and stumbled upon a > > discussion of the HP250 architecture. One statement made > was that it > > was impossible for the customer to write his own binary > executables on > > this system. The idea being that the customer would program > > everything in HP BASIC, I imagine. > > > > Out of curiosity, was this restriction ever relaxed? How > many people > > have one of these in their collection? > > > > Cheers, > > Chuck > > > > > I have one but have not yet tried to power it up. > > Bob > From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Sat Dec 8 09:51:47 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 15:51:47 +0000 Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? Message-ID: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> Hi, all, Has anyone here worked with or ever plotted silently to create a moderish 7-segment decoder/driver from a GAL16V8? I'm working on a project made from classic parts, and am trying to reduce part count rather aggresively, since I'm going to hand-wire it. One thought was to attempt to combine a 7490 _and_ a 7447 in a single GAL16V8. I have blown hundreds of PALs, but have much less experience in designing with them, so I'm not even sure that it's possible to mash together that much logic internally in a 16V8. I know all the outputs are optionally registered, so presuming one has 4 assignable flip-flops, one could theoretically make a counter on the output pins, but what's less clear to me is if you could then take those terms and internally decode them to a 7-segment display. After the large amounts of replies about this 8-way digital switch, I don't necessarily want to clog the list with discissions of what is and isn't possible for a GAL16V8, so if you can remember, please make any suggestions and comments to me directly, not the list. Thanks for any nudges towards a solution. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 8-Dec-2007 at 15:40 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -25.4 F (-31.9 C) Windchill -52.5 F (-47.0 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 13.7 kts Grid 12 Barometer 678.8 mb (10674 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From pcw at mesanet.com Sat Dec 8 10:12:30 2007 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 08:12:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> References: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Dec 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote: > Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 15:51:47 +0000 > From: Ethan Dicks > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? > > Hi, all, > > Has anyone here worked with or ever plotted silently to create a moderish > 7-segment decoder/driver from a GAL16V8? I'm working on a project made > from classic parts, and am trying to reduce part count rather aggresively, > since I'm going to hand-wire it. > > One thought was to attempt to combine a 7490 _and_ a 7447 in a single > GAL16V8. I have blown hundreds of PALs, but have much less experience > in designing with them, so I'm not even sure that it's possible to mash > together that much logic internally in a 16V8. I know all the outputs > are optionally registered, so presuming one has 4 assignable flip-flops, > one could theoretically make a counter on the output pins, but what's > less clear to me is if you could then take those terms and internally > decode them to a 7-segment display. > > After the large amounts of replies about this 8-way digital switch, I > don't necessarily want to clog the list with discissions of what is and > isn't possible for a GAL16V8, so if you can remember, please make any > suggestions and comments to me directly, not the list. > > Thanks for any nudges towards a solution. > > -ethan > > -- > Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 8-Dec-2007 at 15:40 Z > South Pole Station > PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -25.4 F (-31.9 C) Windchill -52.5 F (-47.0 C) > APO AP 96598 Wind 13.7 kts Grid 12 Barometer 678.8 mb (10674 ft) > > Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html > IICRC the 16V8 does not have buried registers so you will lose the 4 of the output pins (for the counter) that you needed for the 7 segment outputs If you are using sockets, a 5V or 3.3V (cheaper) 44 pin PLCC CPLD might be a better solution, plus they are easier to program. A X9572XL will probably do 4 decades of count/decode for about $2.00 Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From blstuart at bellsouth.net Sat Dec 8 10:28:41 2007 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (Brian L. Stuart) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 16:28:41 +0000 Subject: HP250 curiosity Message-ID: <120820071628.29730.475AC639000874BC0000742222218865869B0A02D2089B9A019C04040A0DBF9B9D0E9A9B9C040D@att.net> > In the case of the HP41 calculator, it was physcially impossible to run > machine code from the machine's internal RAM. The processor was a pseudo > harvard architecture, RAM was organised in 56 bit 'registers' connected > to the SPU DATA line, ROM was in 10 bit words connected to the ISA line. > Some hackers found a way round this, making ROM emulator boxes (normally > called MLDL (Machine Language Development Lab) units). Where does the synthetic programming fit in? I thought it was a case of creating machine language code in RAM. And I remember it being based on some ugly tricks, rather than an external device. BLS From coredump at gifford.co.uk Sat Dec 8 10:41:52 2007 From: coredump at gifford.co.uk (John Honniball) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 16:41:52 +0000 Subject: Information on the AtariLab Interface In-Reply-To: <653a64ac0712061209h6227e4c5v2d636a9de40cfd31@mail.gmail.com> References: <653a64ac0712061209h6227e4c5v2d636a9de40cfd31@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <475AC950.7070009@gifford.co.uk> Mark Meiss wrote: > It took me longer than I meant to, but I dug up the manual for the AtariLab > package that I'd mentioned in the thread on getting kids into older > computers. ... > So there you have it: 2 analog inputs, 2 digital input/outputs, 2 digital > outputs, and 2 power connections. The Atarilab was mentioned recently on the Make magazine web-site: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/01/8bit_science_at.html I think a few of the Makers there got hold of one and may have done some experiments with them. -- John Honniball coredump at gifford.co.uk From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Dec 8 11:28:07 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 12:28:07 -0500 Subject: got this old peecee... In-Reply-To: <200712061823.31732.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200712061823.31732.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Dec 6, 2007, at 6:23 PM, Roy J. Tellason wrote: >> "Chuck Guzis" writes: >>> How about PC-MOS? MP/M-86 with GEM? UCSD Pascal? >> >> Aren't there some no-OS-required FORTH implementations you can use on >> a bare x86 PC? > > Hmm... FORTH likes to *be* the OS. I have played a few implementations of bare-metal FORTHs on PCs (under QEMU on a Mac) and most of them are pretty nice. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Dec 8 11:34:18 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 12:34:18 -0500 Subject: Scan of a 1702A In-Reply-To: <0JSQ001N2AL1TS90@msgmmp-1.gci.net> References: <0JSQ001N2AL1TS90@msgmmp-1.gci.net> Message-ID: <6ec87116a0b41a3da5159a7740d3924a@neurotica.com> On Dec 8, 2007, at 6:29 AM, Grant Stockly wrote: > I couldn't help it. I had to scan a 1702A 256byte EPROM. > > This one was done at 6400dpi, really 3200dpi along the scanner array > and 6400dpi in the scanning direction. So there is some interpolation > in the image. Still a pretty impressive picture for a scanner. :) > > http://www.stockly.com/images3/071208-1702A-1.jpg > > Just playing the new scanner... Wow, it's an excellent pic for a scanner...What make/model of scanner did you get? Could I ask you to do it again and save it in a lossless format, like TIF perhaps? I'd love to see that. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Dec 8 11:42:00 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 10:42:00 -0700 Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> References: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> Message-ID: <475AD768.50604@jetnet.ab.ca> Ethan Dicks wrote: > Has anyone here worked with or ever plotted silently to create a moderish > 7-segment decoder/driver from a GAL16V8? I'm working on a project made > from classic parts, and am trying to reduce part count rather aggresively, > since I'm going to hand-wire it. > > One thought was to attempt to combine a 7490 _and_ a 7447 in a single > GAL16V8. I have blown hundreds of PALs, but have much less experience Do you need the driver to count? I would decode the input and latch the outputs for the display if you did not need a count. > Thanks for any nudges towards a solution. > > -ethan > From cclist at sydex.com Sat Dec 8 12:06:35 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 10:06:35 -0800 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <01C83907.7B2D9BC0@mandr71> References: <01C83907.7B2D9BC0@mandr71> Message-ID: <475A6CAB.9930.5F19D3@cclist.sydex.com> How about this? 8 74xx30's (8 input NAND) with each output feeding one of the inputs of the other stages. The remaining input of each gate is connected to a pushbutton whose other side is grounded and the gate side pulled up to Vcc through an appropriate resistor (say, 2.2K). The circuit is self-debouncing and the last button released governs the output. Basically an 8-stable flip-flap-floop...-flop. Initial state is theoretically random, but probably could be forced with a small capacitor across one of the buttons. If you expand much beyond this, note that fanout issues may rear their ugly heads. Cheers, Chuck From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Sat Dec 8 12:08:29 2007 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 19:08:29 +0100 Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> References: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> Message-ID: Ethan wrote > Has anyone here worked with or ever plotted silently to create a moderish > 7-segment decoder/driver from a GAL16V8? I'm working on a project made > from classic parts, and am trying to reduce part count rather aggresively, > since I'm going to hand-wire it. I have build a small clock, and did not want to do much wiring, so I used 73LS390 and those fancy HP "7-segment" displays that display the numbers in a series of dots. Old HP counters have them. I love those displays. Also, those displays have a 4-bit latch and "7447" incorporated. They have 4 (or 5, I can't remember) pins on the lower side and ditto on the upper side. 4 pins are obviously for the BCD code, 2 pins are for +5V power supply, one pin is LATCH, one pin is BLANK. The dimensioning is such that they can be "stacked", put neatly next to each other. As these displays have the 7-segment decoder and the BCD latch inside, it made the wiring/soldering quite easy, and you get a "cool display" :-) Henk From cclist at sydex.com Sat Dec 8 12:12:23 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 10:12:23 -0800 Subject: got this old peecee... In-Reply-To: References: , <200712061823.31732.rtellason@verizon.net>, Message-ID: <475A6E07.12888.646AEC@cclist.sydex.com> On 8 Dec 2007 at 12:28, Dave McGuire wrote: > FORTH likes to *be* the OS. I have played a few implementations of > bare-metal FORTHs on PCs (under QEMU on a Mac) and most of them are > pretty nice. Off-list, I'd suggested ForthOS--a 32-bit standalone system: http://www.forthos.org/ Looks like a good match to the machine. Cheers, Chuck From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Sat Dec 8 12:17:22 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 18:17:22 +0000 Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: References: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> Message-ID: <20071208181722.GA22088@usap.gov> On Sat, Dec 08, 2007 at 07:08:29PM +0100, Henk Gooijen wrote: > Ethan wrote > > > Has anyone here worked with or ever plotted silently to create a moderish > > 7-segment decoder/driver from a GAL16V8? I'm working on a project made > > from classic parts... > > I have build a small clock, and did not want to do much wiring, > so I used 73LS390 and those fancy HP "7-segment" displays > that display the numbers in a series of dots. Old HP counters have them. It sounds like you are describing the TIL311. They are very nice. I have a number of them (with me here) and have worked with them since my first Elf in the late 1970s. Unfortunately, for what I am trying to do, they aren't my first choice - I have an existing mechanical spacing that I'm trying to stay compatible with, and it's too wide for a reasonable bank of TIL311s. > The dimensioning is such that they can be "stacked", put neatly next to > each other. As these displays have the 7-segment decoder and the BCD latch > inside, it made the wiring/soldering quite easy, and you get a "cool display" :-) They do stack nicely, and they do make a cool display. Unfortunately, I need something that's about 0.2" wider than a TIL311, and that happens to be some HP 7-segment displays, which is why I asked about the 7447 rather than going off and doing my own thing with TIL311s. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 8-Dec-2007 at 18:10 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -25.2 F (-31.8 C) Windchill -52.1 F (-46.7 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 13.4 kts Grid 9 Barometer 678.4 mb (10689 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Sat Dec 8 12:30:43 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 18:30:43 +0000 Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: References: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> Message-ID: <20071208183043.GD22088@usap.gov> On Sat, Dec 08, 2007 at 08:12:30AM -0800, Peter C. Wallace wrote: > On Sat, 8 Dec 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote: > >Has anyone here worked with or ever plotted silently to create a moderish > >7-segment decoder/driver from a GAL16V8? > > IICRC the 16V8 does not have buried registers so you will lose the 4 of the > output pins (for the counter) that you needed for the 7 segment outputs Right. > If you are using sockets, a 5V or 3.3V (cheaper) 44 pin PLCC CPLD might be > a better solution, plus they are easier to program. A X9572XL will probably > do 4 decades of count/decode for about $2.00 That is not feasible. I need 7 or 9 decades of count/decode, and I happen to have an abundance of GALs and a GAL programmer. If it comes down to a CPLD-design, I'll probably throw in the towel and use an AVR microcontroller and perhaps a real 74LS47 or 74LS247 to lower the I/O requirements a touch. I was just musing about what it might take to put it all in hardware rather than a combination of hardware and firmware. Using an MCU makes the entire problem trivial. Thanks, -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 8-Dec-2007 at 18:20 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -25.2 F (-31.8 C) Windchill -52.6 F (-47.0 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 14.0 kts Grid 20 Barometer 678.3 mb (10692 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From bob at jfcl.com Sat Dec 8 12:33:23 2007 From: bob at jfcl.com (Bob Armstrong) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 10:33:23 -0800 Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> References: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> Message-ID: <002401c839c8$d0de4850$729ad8f0$@com> >Ethan Dicks [ethan.dicks at usap.gov] wrote: >Thanks for any nudges towards a solution. Implementing the combinatorial logic for a seven segment decoder is trivial even for the simplest GAL. But, as somebody else pointed out, the latches in a simple GAL are permanently tied to output pins, so a 4 bit counter plus a seven segment decoder would need 4+7=11 output pins. A 16V8 has only 8 outputs, and a 22V10 has only 10, which rules both of them out. Now if you only wanted it to latch the data rather than count, that'd be possible with a 16V8. Hmm... Having said all that, it might be possible to put a state machine into a 16V8 that had a 7 bit current state and a next state function that corresponded to "counting" is seven segments. In theory that'd work, but I don't know off hand if there are enough terms inside a 16V8 to implement that next state function. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader :-) Another thing to keep in mind is that parts like these are really power hungry, even compared with traditional 74xx parts. > Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 8-Dec-2007 at 15:40 Z Are you back down there again?? Did you see the NBC news team that visited a few weeks ago? Bob From lee at geekdot.com Sat Dec 8 12:34:52 2007 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 19:34:52 +0100 (CET) Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching Message-ID: <1917.84.68.40.52.1197138892.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> > 8 74xx30's (8 input NAND) with each output feeding one of the inputs > of the other stages. That was my first thought but a quick look at the logic revealed that pressing one button will make only one of the other seven outputs go low. Lee. From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Sat Dec 8 12:41:43 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 18:41:43 +0000 Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: <002401c839c8$d0de4850$729ad8f0$@com> References: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> <002401c839c8$d0de4850$729ad8f0$@com> Message-ID: <20071208184143.GB25014@usap.gov> On Sat, Dec 08, 2007 at 10:33:23AM -0800, Bob Armstrong wrote: > >Ethan Dicks [ethan.dicks at usap.gov] wrote: > >Thanks for any nudges towards a solution. > > Implementing the combinatorial logic for a seven segment decoder is > trivial even for the simplest GAL. But, as somebody else pointed out, the > latches in a simple GAL are permanently tied to output pins, so a 4 bit > counter plus a seven segment decoder would need 4+7=11 output pins. A 16V8 > has only 8 outputs, and a 22V10 has only 10, which rules both of them out. Right. > Now if you only wanted it to latch the data rather than count, that'd be > possible with a 16V8. I could get away with an external counter easily enough, but I was musing aloud about a way to cut the part-count in half. > Hmm... Having said all that, it might be possible to put a state machine > into a 16V8 that had a 7 bit current state and a next state function that > corresponded to "counting" is seven segments. In theory that'd work, but I > don't know off hand if there are enough terms inside a 16V8 to implement > that next state function. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader :-) Indeed. Someone else already made that suggestion, and I'm thinking about it. The good news is that it's easy to prototype one up and see how it works on a breadboard. > Another thing to keep in mind is that parts like these are really power > hungry, even compared with traditional 74xx parts. True. Power is not really an issue here. The LEDs are going to pull a fair amount of power on their own, not including counting and driving. > Are you back down there again?? Did you see the NBC news team that > visited a few weeks ago? Yep... I arrived back here about 5 weeks ago. I did see the NBC crew on their brief stop-over, including Ann Curry making a bit of fun of our soft-serve ice-cream machine (they arrived around 01:00 and departed around 03:00, and I happened to be up when they arrived). -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 8-Dec-2007 at 18:30 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -25.2 F (-31.8 C) Windchill -53.8 F (-47.6 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 15.5 kts Grid 12 Barometer 678.3 mb (10692 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From lee at geekdot.com Sat Dec 8 12:44:13 2007 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 19:44:13 +0100 (CET) Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? Message-ID: <1960.84.68.40.52.1197139453.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> >> One thought was to attempt to combine a 7490 _and_ a 7447 in a single >> GAL16V8. I have blown hundreds of PALs, but have much less experience > IICRC the 16V8 does not have buried registers so you will lose the 4 > of the output pins (for the counter) that you needed for the 7 segment > outputs You can do it but you need to make a counter that counts in segment patterns and not binary. I did see an example of this and remember thinking how clever it was but a search of my files and online has failed to turn up a copy. Lee. From lee at geekdot.com Sat Dec 8 12:49:19 2007 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 19:49:19 +0100 (CET) Subject: (no subject) Message-ID: <1977.84.68.40.52.1197139759.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> > Hmm... Having said all that, it might be possible to put a state > machine into a 16V8 that had a 7 bit current state and a next state > function that corresponded to "counting" is seven segments. It was just that that I've seen an example of, many years ago, but can't find now. Lee. From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Sat Dec 8 12:57:21 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 18:57:21 +0000 Subject: (no subject) In-Reply-To: <1977.84.68.40.52.1197139759.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> References: <1977.84.68.40.52.1197139759.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> Message-ID: <20071208185721.GA27444@usap.gov> On Sat, Dec 08, 2007 at 07:49:19PM +0100, Lee Davison wrote: > > Hmm... Having said all that, it might be possible to put a state > > machine into a 16V8 that had a 7 bit current state and a next state > > function that corresponded to "counting" is seven segments. > > It was just that that I've seen an example of, many years ago, but can't > find now. I found a fleeting reference, perhaps, in the ORCAD 4.0 manual, chapter 5, on PLDs? |GAL16V8 in:RESET, | out:(SEG[6~0], CARRY), | clock:CLK | | High: CLK, CARRY | Registers: CLK // SEG[6~0], CARRY | | Map: SEG[6~0] -> SEG[6~0] | { sevenseg(n) -> sevenseg((n+1)\10), RESET' & 0<=n<=9 | n -> sevenseg(0), RESET } | | CARRY = SEG[6~0]==sevenseg(9) & RESET' ... but that's all I found. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 8-Dec-2007 at 18:50 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -25.2 F (-31.8 C) Windchill -54.1 F (-47.8 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 15.9 kts Grid 10 Barometer 678.2 mb (10696 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From lproven at gmail.com Sat Dec 8 13:13:51 2007 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 19:13:51 +0000 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] Message-ID: <575131af0712081113m5f7b4211s66e83f7e1b046941@mail.gmail.com> On 06/12/2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Thursday 06 December 2007 12:53, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 6 Dec 2007 at 1:52, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > > I'd originally planned to put OS/2 in this box. Now I'm lots less > > > enthused about that OS than I was at one time, so I dunno what I'm gonna > > > do with it. Thoughts on this? Depends what you want to do, or be able to do, with it, obviously! Do you want a GUI OS? Do you want Internet access? Do you want productivity apps? It's a bit low-spec for a modern Linux distro. You could try some low-end distros, like DamnSmallLinux, Puppy, or VectorLinux. I've also heard good comments of SaxenOS & Crux on low-end PCs, but I've not tried them myself yet. It would run NetBSD pretty nicely, but then, the same is probably true of some toasters. One that might suit it quite well would be Minix 3. Never played with that yet myself. It might run BeOS, especially with a 5x86 chip in there. BeOS Max is a good, freely-available BeOS distro. Mainly intended for Pentium-class systems, though. FreeDOS or DR-DOS plus OpenGEM would run very well; indeed, it's quite high-spec for that. For a more modern, but commercial, DOS GUI, there's Geos, AKA GeoWorks, now known as Breadbox Ensemble. Again, it costs, but you can assemble a fairly complete little system from various free demos and things that have been put out there. http://www.breadbox.com/ (I think others have suggested something akin to Concurrent DOS. IMS' Real32 was the last supported descendant of that, I think, but it's primarily a multiuser thing so not of great interest on a standalone box - it just looks like MS-DOS.) Or just plain old DOS, together with DesqView, or, if you want something cool and exotic, DesqView/X. That might be both fun and quite productive couple with some of the last-generation, high-end DOS apps, like MS Word 5.5 (available free from MS and so downloadable, as they gave it away rather than issue Y2K patches for Word for DOS.) I'd like to try WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS, which had a full GUI, but I've been looking for a copy for years with no joy. It was unusably slow at the time, but on a more recent PC like a fast 486, it should fly along. There was also a full-GUI graphical spreadsheet version of one of the major spreadsheets, but I don't remember details now. I think it might have been Borland Quattro or QuattroPro 5 or so for DOS. If you can get a supported TCP/IP stack running on DOS, there *are* some DOS web browsers, such as Arachne and Lineo's WebSpyder. I'm not sure about email programs, though. Bung in a SCSI card and a couple of old SCSI disks, make it into a NetWare server? There was a freely-available 2-user version of Netware 4.1, and that can be patched up to date with free service packs, making it fully W2K compliant and so on. If you want to try a modern, networking-enabled OS/2, there's Serenity's eComStation. Expensive, though. There's a free demo live CD, but it's not installable. If you fancy something unusual, which IME doesn't work well in VMs on modern PCs, you could try the DEC-like TSX-32, which is sort of aesthetically appropriate - it's a sort of PDP-like OS for the PC. http://www.sandh.com/tsx32.htm Also on a DEC theme, there's FreeVMS, but I don't think they have any downloads yet. http://www.freevms.org/ Somewhere lost in a cupboard I have an ancient 386 notebook PC, whose 80MB hard disk has DOS (DR-DOS 7 with QEMM) coupled to a choice of about 4 GUIs, a range of productivity apps, and also dual-boots with Pygmy Linux giving me TCP/IP through a parallel port Ethernet adaptor and thus very basic Web access with Links. All this in 80MB and it's about one-third full. I think it has WordPerfect 5.1, Word 5.5, a spreadsheet of some kind, plus a selection of DesqView, OpenGEM, ViewMAX and GeoWorks Ensemble. It was a real nostalgia-fest putting it together. It has the Microsoft free DOS network stack, too, with TCP/IP, but it can't actually talk to any modern Windows machine. Just don't ask me to get it to print... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From lee at geekdot.com Sat Dec 8 13:32:40 2007 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 20:32:40 +0100 (CET) Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? Message-ID: <2746.84.68.40.52.1197142360.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> > I found a fleeting reference, perhaps, in the ORCAD 4.0 manual, > chapter 5, on PLDs? > |GAL16V8 in:RESET, > | out:(SEG[6~0], CARRY), Yes that looks like it. So at least I wasn't imagining it. Lee. From evan at snarc.net Sat Dec 8 13:51:00 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 14:51:00 -0500 Subject: TRADIC Message-ID: <200712081952.lB8JptDa082298@billy.ezwind.net> >>> Camp Evans was just a small part of the Signal Corps. It was not the center, by any means. I never said otherwise. BUT, in all of the examples I've cited, the sources indicated not just the Signal Corps lab, but specifically the Signal Corps comms lab at Fort Monmouth. That's us (there is plenty of other evidence too, but we're already OT for cctalk ... feel free to carry this over to the local club list.) From grant at stockly.com Sat Dec 8 14:17:56 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 11:17:56 -0900 Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> References: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> Message-ID: <0JSQ00BXPZ1VD730@msgmmp-1.gci.net> At 06:51 AM 12/8/2007, you wrote: >Hi, all, > >Has anyone here worked with or ever plotted silently to create a moderish >7-segment decoder/driver from a GAL16V8? I'm working on a project made >from classic parts, and am trying to reduce part count rather aggresively, >since I'm going to hand-wire it. Look at the 750 SPLD from atmel. Its 28 pins and has a lot more internal stuff than a regular 22V10. From grant at stockly.com Sat Dec 8 14:40:25 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 11:40:25 -0900 Subject: Scan of a 1702A In-Reply-To: <6ec87116a0b41a3da5159a7740d3924a@neurotica.com> References: <0JSQ001N2AL1TS90@msgmmp-1.gci.net> <6ec87116a0b41a3da5159a7740d3924a@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <0JSR00BMM03CD740@msgmmp-1.gci.net> At 08:34 AM 12/8/2007, you wrote: >On Dec 8, 2007, at 6:29 AM, Grant Stockly wrote: >>I couldn't help it. I had to scan a 1702A 256byte EPROM. >> >>This one was done at 6400dpi, really 3200dpi along the scanner >>array and 6400dpi in the scanning direction. So there is some >>interpolation in the image. Still a pretty impressive picture for >>a scanner. :) >> >>http://www.stockly.com/images3/071208-1702A-1.jpg >> >>Just playing the new scanner... > > Wow, it's an excellent pic for a scanner...What make/model of > scanner did you get? Could I ask you to do it again and save it in > a lossless format, like TIF perhaps? I'd love to see that. The whole chip or just the window? The png file doesn't look too much better and is 28MB. You can have it if you want it. The scanner is a Microtek 1000XL. I bought it to make archival scans of PCBs. The uncompressed TIFFs are 3.2GB per side for an S-100 board. :) Grant From brad at heeltoe.com Sat Dec 8 14:55:17 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:55:17 -0500 Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 08 Dec 2007 19:44:13 +0100." <1960.84.68.40.52.1197139453.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> Message-ID: <200712082055.lB8KtH4r012358@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Lee Davison" wrote: > >You can do it but you need to make a counter that counts in segment >patterns and not binary. I did see an example of this and remember >thinking how clever it was but a search of my files and online has >failed to turn up a copy. isn't just a state machine with decoded output? I would code it up in verilog and the let xst have it's way with it and see what the resulting equations look like... -brad From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Dec 8 15:11:52 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 16:11:52 -0500 Subject: TRADIC In-Reply-To: <475A41B2.457CB15C@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200712080520.lB85KeX3002418@billy.ezwind.net> <475A41B2.457CB15C@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <200712081611.52995.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 08 December 2007 02:03, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Another anecdote I ran across a few years ago in the IEEE AotHoC (which I > wish had kept a ref to), was of an IBM engineer working on one of the first > transistorised designs in the mid-50s (ECL IIRC), telling the story of how > he chose 5 Volts for the logic supply. I've wondered often how the various supply voltages I run into get chosen... Care to elaborate on that a bit? -- 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 dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Dec 8 15:29:53 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 13:29:53 -0800 Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: <475AD768.50604@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> <475AD768.50604@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 10:42:00 -0700 > From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca > To: > Subject: Re: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? > > Ethan Dicks wrote: > >> Has anyone here worked with or ever plotted silently to create a moderish >> 7-segment decoder/driver from a GAL16V8? I'm working on a project made >> from classic parts, and am trying to reduce part count rather aggresively, >> since I'm going to hand-wire it. >> >> One thought was to attempt to combine a 7490 _and_ a 7447 in a single >> GAL16V8. I have blown hundreds of PALs, but have much less experience > > Do you need the driver to count? > I would decode the input and latch the outputs for the display > if you did not need a count. > >> Thanks for any nudges towards a solution. >> >> -ethan >> > Hi There is no reason that the counter has to be binary. I think there are enough terms to do a 7 segement count using the output latches. Load would require a binary to 7 segment decode. Just decode in front of the strange counter. Just thinking out side of the box. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Your smile counts. The more smiles you share, the more we donate.? Join in. www.windowslive.com/smile?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_oprsmilewlhmtagline From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Dec 8 15:37:50 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 13:37:50 -0800 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <475A6CAB.9930.5F19D3@cclist.sydex.com> References: <01C83907.7B2D9BC0@mandr71> <475A6CAB.9930.5F19D3@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: cclist at sydex.com > > How about this? > > 8 74xx30's (8 input NAND) with each output feeding one of the inputs > of the other stages. The remaining input of each gate is connected > to a pushbutton whose other side is grounded and the gate side pulled > up to Vcc through an appropriate resistor (say, 2.2K). The circuit > is self-debouncing and the last button released governs the output. > Basically an 8-stable flip-flap-floop...-flop. Initial state is > theoretically random, but probably could be forced with a small > capacitor across one of the buttons. > > If you expand much beyond this, note that fanout issues may rear > their ugly heads. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > Hi Chuck Essencially the same as I described. I think is best meets the general design criteria. I just used a single throw switch as the circuit would be more than fast enough to ignore an bounch issues. If there was a fan out problem, one could do a ripple ring for clearing but that might require some timed circuits to keep from racing. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ You keep typing, we keep giving. Download Messenger and join the i?m Initiative now. http://im.live.com/messenger/im/home/?source=TAGLM From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Dec 8 15:46:04 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 13:46:04 -0800 Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: References: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> <475AD768.50604@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > From: dkelvey at hotmail.com > > Hi > There is no reason that the counter has to be binary. I think there > are enough terms to do a 7 segement count using the output latches. > Load would require a binary to 7 segment decode. Just decode > in front of the strange counter. > Just thinking out side of the box. > Dwight > Oops, it looks like several other have also suggested this. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Put your friends on the big screen with Windows Vista? + Windows Live?. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/shop/specialoffers.mspx?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_CPC_MediaCtr_bigscreen_102007 From cclist at sydex.com Sat Dec 8 15:57:21 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 13:57:21 -0800 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: References: <01C83907.7B2D9BC0@mandr71>, <475A6CAB.9930.5F19D3@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <475AA2C1.5409.1325D4C@cclist.sydex.com> On 8 Dec 2007 at 13:37, dwight elvey wrote: > Essencially the same as I described. I think is best meets the > general design criteria. I just used a single throw switch as > the circuit would be more than fast enough to ignore an bounch issues. > If there was a fan out problem, one could do a ripple ring for clearing > but that might require some timed circuits to keep from racing. If you wanted to go really retro, implement the NANDS and diode-input transistor sets. Assuming that the transistors have enough gain and are beefy enough, you could extend it pretty far. Or use diode array ICs and an octal buffer. Anyone ever fool with ternary logic, building flip-flap-flops out of 3-input gates? Cheers, Chuck From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Sat Dec 8 15:59:57 2007 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere at gmail.com) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 21:59:57 +0000 Subject: Listing paper FTGH (Yorks, UK) Message-ID: Hi list, I have 7 2000-sheet boxes of tractor-feed plain 11x14.5" listing paper which I'd like to give away as I need the space back. Located in West Yorkshire, UK. Sorry, it isn't greenbar ;) There are also 3 boxes of A4-ish size (11x9.5" I think they are). Free, but you'll have to collect. I'd ship if you're desperate, but it won't be cheap as they're heavy. Please drop me a mail if you're interested - thanks. Ed. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sat Dec 8 17:00:39 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:00:39 -0800 Subject: 5V and early ICs / was Re: TRADIC References: <200712080520.lB85KeX3002418@billy.ezwind.net> <475A41B2.457CB15C@cs.ubc.ca> <200712081611.52995.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <475B2216.772DB531@cs.ubc.ca> "Roy J. Tellason" wrote: > > On Saturday 08 December 2007 02:03, Brent Hilpert wrote: > > Another anecdote I ran across a few years ago in the IEEE AotHoC (which I > > wish had kept a ref to), was of an IBM engineer working on one of the first > > transistorised designs in the mid-50s (ECL IIRC), telling the story of how > > he chose 5 Volts for the logic supply. > > I've wondered often how the various supply voltages I run into get chosen... > > Care to elaborate on that a bit? I wish I could, but without the ref ... For what I do recall, the suggestion in the article was that this was the first use or choice of 5V for the logic supply, although I can't remember whether the 5V was a choice of whim from which other design parameters followed, or whether the 5V was an engineered outcome. Even though I found it an interesting anecdote however, there were, or would still be (IMHO) a couple of historical links necessary to show that there was a causal connection/influence to the 5V supply standard of the later DTL & TTL integrated circuit families. The earliest reference for real ICs I have is a TI product catalog from 1965. The first products mentioned are the "NEW! Series 54 TTL" (SN5400,5410,5420..5470) (4.5 to 5.5V of course). The commercial 74xx versions apparently followed a little later. Five other digital IC families are mentioned: - Series 53 Modified DTL (SN53x) (different from 'standard' DTL) (3 to 4V) - Series 51 RCTL (SN51x) (3 to 6V) - Series 51R (severe environment versions of 51) - Minuteman Series DTL (SN337A..) (produced for the Minuteman II missile) (+6V & -3V) - Low-power RTL (SN7xx..) (would become one of the 'standard' RTL families) (3V) A Fairchild catalog from 1966 presents standard 900-series DTL and some 9000 series TTL with 5V supplies. .. and I may be repeating myself on the list, or this may be more well-known than I realise, but another somewhat novel point that is apparent from the TI catalog is that the "SN" prefix on Texas Instruments ICs is short for "Semiconductor Network", an alternative phrase before "Integrated Circuit" became the more accepted phrase. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Dec 8 17:01:37 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 23:01:37 +0000 (GMT) Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> from "Ethan Dicks" at Dec 8, 7 03:51:47 pm Message-ID: > > Hi, all, > > Has anyone here worked with or ever plotted silently to create a moderish > 7-segment decoder/driver from a GAL16V8? I'm working on a project made > from classic parts, and am trying to reduce part count rather aggresively, > since I'm going to hand-wire it. > > One thought was to attempt to combine a 7490 _and_ a 7447 in a single > GAL16V8. I have blown hundreds of PALs, but have much less experience > in designing with them, so I'm not even sure that it's possible to mash > together that much logic internally in a 16V8. I know all the outputs > are optionally registered, so presuming one has 4 assignable flip-flops, > one could theoretically make a counter on the output pins, but what's > less clear to me is if you could then take those terms and internally > decode them to a 7-segment display. I'm pretty sure you can't. Yes, you can sue 4 of the flip-flips to make a counter (although with a common clock input, you would have to make a synchronous counter, and I've not worked out if you have enough product terms to do that, I think you do, thought). But those 4 flip-flops take up 4 of the 8 outputs of your GAL. Yes, you can use feedback terms to process the otuputs of that counter. But you only havr 4 outputs left, and you need 7 for drive a 7-segment display. What I've not workeod out if you can do (and I suspect you don't ahve enough product terms to do it) is to make a state machine with 7 flip-flops, the 10 allowed states of which are the 7 segment patterns, and a trasnition table something like : 1111110 -> 0110000 -> 1101101 etc 0 1 2 (7 segemnt patterns) I suepect you don't have enough product terms to do that, but I have not tried to work it out. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Dec 8 17:25:35 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 23:25:35 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP250 curiosity In-Reply-To: <120820071628.29730.475AC639000874BC0000742222218865869B0A02D2089B9A019C04040A0DBF9B9D0E9A9B9C040D@att.net> from "Brian L. Stuart" at Dec 8, 7 04:28:41 pm Message-ID: [ HP41 machine code, etc] > Where does the synthetic programming fit in? I thought it was > a case of creating machine language code in RAM. And I remember > it being based on some ugly tricks, rather than an external device. No, synthetic programming is not machine code. Let me tey to explain. The HP41 is based round a custom HP processor called a 'NUT'. It's a bit=-serial device with 56 bit registers and 10 bit instruction word.s In the HP41 there's 12K words of ROM containing (in part) an interpretter program. This program interprets user programs which are stored as sequences of bytes in the user RAM (7 bytes to a 'register'). For example. according to the quick reference card I've just picked up, RCL 33 90 21 PI 72 * 42 SIN 59 RTN 85 The numbers on the rigth of each line are the hex codes for the user program instructions on the left. They are _not_ NUT machine code, though. Now synthetic programming is basically creating 'unusual' combinations of those hex codes. For example, as given in the program above, the RCL (recall a number for a user data ragister) instruciton takes up 2 bytes. The first one is $90, the second one encodes the register number. The HP41 allwos you to enter 4 differnce tpyes of RCL instruciton ; RCL 00 ... RCL 99 (normal recalls) which are encoded as 90 00 to 90 63 (OK, I am deliberately missing out the 'short form recalls' to avoid confusing everyone. If you don't understnad this comment, it doesn't matter) RCL IND 00 ... RCL IND 99 (indirect recalls), encoded as 90 80 to 90 E3. The high bit of the register number is set to indicate it's an indirect address RCL T, RCL Z , RCL Y, RCL X, RCL L (Stack recalls), encoded as 90 70 to 90 74. RCL IND T ... RCL IND L (indirect stack recalls), encoded as 90 F0 to 90 F4 So far, so good. But of course there are several 'second bytes' not covered by that. You can't enter such instructions directly from the machine's keybboard, but what happens if, say, the instuction 90 65 is exectued? The answere is that it does a RCL 101 (recalls register 101), in other words the interpretter program doesn't do any range checking. This is nice (normally the only way to access register 101 is to use an indirect addresss, but it's not essential. More interesting, though are 90 75 to 90 7F (and their indirect equivalents). The thing is that the 5 stack registers, whuch can be accessed using the second bytes 70-74 are actually the first 5 registers of a 16 register area (on the very first HP41Cs it was a sepeate RAM chip) called the 'status registers'. Other registers in that area incude the user text (Alpha) register (4 actuall registers long), the user/system flag regsister, user prgoram subroutine stack, and so on. Now, amaxingly, 90 75 to 90 7F recall those registers (and, since 91 is a the code for a STO (Store) instruction, 91 75 to 91 7F let you store things in said registers. So you can change normally protected flags, fiddle around with the Alpha register, and so on -- things you cna't do any docuemtned way. The only problem is entriing those extra instructions. You can't type them on a normal HP41 keyboard. Synthetic programming is basically the techniques for entering them. One trick is to make up the seqeucne of bytes you want using 2 other instructions, like this : RCL IND 17 90 91 RDN 75 Both those lines can be entered normally. And then, by exploiting a bug in the HP41's ROMs, 'grab' the first byte of the first instrucion, whereupon it ebcomes part of a text string in the program. You are then left with the seqeunct 91 75 in program memory. Delete said text string, and you have the instruction you want. So yesy, you can do this on an unmodified HP41 (any model. but it doens't work on the HP41 emulator for the HP71, or on the HP42S). But it's not true machine code. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Dec 8 17:37:36 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 23:37:36 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP250 curiosity In-Reply-To: <120820071628.29730.475AC639000874BC0000742222218865869B0A02D2089B9A019C04040A0DBF9B9D0E9A9B9C040D@att.net> from "Brian L. Stuart" at Dec 8, 7 04:28:41 pm Message-ID: > Where does the synthetic programming fit in? I thought it was One thing I forgot to mention in my previous message is that a good book on this (and on programmign the HP41 in general, but not covering hardware or true machine code) is 'Extend Your HP41' by Wlodek Mier-J. I think yopu can still get new copies of it, if not, it's scanned on the MoBPC CD-ROM set. Other ways to get the synthetic instrucitons into the HP41 include using the barcode wand to read program barcode contianing the requeired instructions. The barcode loader deosn't cheack that the incoming bytes form a typable instruciton, it juect copies them into program memory. HP's book' Vreating your own HP41 Barcode' explains how to do it, it says certain combinations of bytes are not used, and those are the ones you want ! There were some 3rd party plug-in ROM modules (the one I have is called ZenROM) that let you driectly tpye the synthetic instructions on the HP41 keyboard. Somehow, that feels like cheating, though. -tony From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sat Dec 8 17:48:13 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 18:48:13 -0500 (EST) Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: <002401c839c8$d0de4850$729ad8f0$@com> References: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> <002401c839c8$d0de4850$729ad8f0$@com> Message-ID: <200712082348.SAA19323@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Hmm... Having said all that, it might be possible to put a state > machine into a 16V8 that had a 7 bit current state and a next state > function that corresponded to "counting" is seven segments. In > theory that'd work, but I don't know off hand if there are enough > terms inside a 16V8 to implement that next state function. You also need to make sure that the next-state function converges on a valid state from all possible start states, or else add a way to reset it to some valid state (probably zero). Using (what I think of as) the canonical 7-stroke digits, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | | | _| _| |_| |_ |_ | |_| |_| |_| | |_ _| | _| |_| | |_| _| with the segments identified as A to G from top to bottom, left to right, the digits are A B C D E F G 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 2 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 3 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 4 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 5 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 6 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 7 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 8 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 9 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 Then, if X' is the next-state X, I find that, optimizing for gate count (NOT, AND, OR, NAND, NOR), if I didn't make any typos feeding the program, A' = ~(G&F&~(D&B)) [2 gates - 2NAND, 3NAND] B' = (C&F&D)|(A&~E) [4 gates - NOT, 2AND, 3AND, 2OR] C' = E|~(B&~(D&C&A&B)) [3 gates - 4NAND, 2NAND, 2OR] D' = ~(B&(C|E)&A&~(D&C&F&E)) [3 gates - 4NAND, 2OR, 4NAND] E' = ~(E|(D&~(D&A&B))) [3 gates - 3NAND, 2AND, 2NOR] F' = A|D [1 gate - 2OR] G' = ~(G&F&(C|E)&~(D&C&A&B)) [3 gates - 4NAND, 2OR, 4NAND] There's even a little commonality; ~(D&C&A&B) and (C|E) each occur twice. (Trying to optimize for total gate count over all seven signals would have been a lot more computation, using the technique I used.) If this gate-count metric is not appropriate for a GAL, outline a more appropriate metric and I can work out equations using it.... Using these equations, I find that, fortunately, all 128 initial states settle into one of the ten digits in no more than four transitions, and even that many for only six of the 128: 0101000, 0101001, 0101010, 0101011, 0111000, and 0111001. Interestingly, the digit all six of those turn into after four transitions is the same. ("Fortunately" because the way I did this doesn't have any good way to feed information back into the equation determination from the loop detection.) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From dm561 at torfree.net Sat Dec 8 18:44:29 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 19:44:29 -0500 Subject: FW: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? Message-ID: <01C839D2.DCB7AF40@MSE_D03> ------------Original Message: Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 18:30:43 +0000 From: Ethan Dicks Subject: Re: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? On Sat, Dec 08, 2007 at 08:12:30AM -0800, Peter C. Wallace wrote: > On Sat, 8 Dec 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote: > >Has anyone here worked with or ever plotted silently to create a moderish > >7-segment decoder/driver from a GAL16V8? > > IICRC the 16V8 does not have buried registers so you will lose the 4 of the > output pins (for the counter) that you needed for the 7 segment outputs Right. > If you are using sockets, a 5V or 3.3V (cheaper) 44 pin PLCC CPLD might be > a better solution, plus they are easier to program. A X9572XL will probably > do 4 decades of count/decode for about $2.00 That is not feasible. I need 7 or 9 decades of count/decode, and I happen to have an abundance of GALs and a GAL programmer. If it comes down to a CPLD-design, I'll probably throw in the towel and use an AVR microcontroller and perhaps a real 74LS47 or 74LS247 to lower the I/O requirements a touch. I was just musing about what it might take to put it all in hardware rather than a combination of hardware and firmware. Using an MCU makes the entire problem trivial. Thanks, -ethan ----------------- --------------Reply: Well, since it started one of "those" discussions here as usual anyway, what's wrong with a 74143? mike From cclist at sydex.com Sat Dec 8 19:35:00 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 17:35:00 -0800 Subject: FW: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: <01C839D2.DCB7AF40@MSE_D03> References: <01C839D2.DCB7AF40@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <475AD5C4.14798.1F99EBD@cclist.sydex.com> On 8 Dec 2007 at 19:44, M H Stein wrote: > That is not feasible. I need 7 or 9 decades of count/decode, and I happen > to have an abundance of GALs and a GAL programmer. If it comes down to a > CPLD-design, I'll probably throw in the towel and use an AVR microcontroller > and perhaps a real 74LS47 or 74LS247 to lower the I/O requirements a touch. Any need to have a separate decoder for each digit? I wonder if an alternate approach of using a single BCD-to-7 decoder, multiplexing the displays and simply concentrating on the counting end. Just a thought--certainly if I were running this with a PIC or an AVR, I'd definitely give it some thought. Cheers, Chuck From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sat Dec 8 20:57:37 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 18:57:37 -0800 Subject: FW: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? References: <01C839D2.DCB7AF40@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <475B59A2.26A5B3C5@cs.ubc.ca> M H Stein wrote: > Well, since it started one of "those" discussions here as usual anyway, > what's wrong with a 74143? Indeed, there are also several 4000-series CMOS counter-latch-decoder-driver combo ICs (4026,4033,40110), as well as some multi-decade versions (74C925,926..) which I would guess would fill the bill. (..but I'm guessing the problem is they're not in stock at the South Pole :) ) From bob at jfcl.com Sat Dec 8 21:21:56 2007 From: bob at jfcl.com (Bob Armstrong) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 19:21:56 -0800 Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: <20071208184143.GB25014@usap.gov> References: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> <002401c839c8$d0de4850$729ad8f0$@com> <20071208184143.GB25014@usap.gov> Message-ID: <002001c83a12$a7a85b70$f6f91250$@com> >The good news is that it's easy to prototype one up and >see how it works on a breadboard. Breadboard? As in hardware? That's for sissies - we have simulators now :-) FWIW, I tried it and it is possible to fit a decimal counter with seven segment outputs, a carry out, and a synchronous clear into a single 16V8. Hint: you have to invert one of the state machine bits, and then invert the corresponding output pin, but if you do that it'll fit. You didn't say whether you need a parallel load (in BCD, presumably) too - that'd almost certainly be too many AND terms. >True. Power is not really an issue here. The LEDs are going to pull >a fair amount of power on their own, not including counting and driving. A 16V8 can use 100mA or so. How many decades did you say you wanted? That's gonna add up fast... Bob From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Dec 8 22:32:36 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 23:32:36 -0500 Subject: Scan of a 1702A In-Reply-To: <0JSQ001N2AL1TS90@msgmmp-1.gci.net> References: <0JSQ001N2AL1TS90@msgmmp-1.gci.net> Message-ID: <200712082332.36973.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 08 December 2007 06:29, Grant Stockly wrote: > I couldn't help it. I had to scan a 1702A 256byte EPROM. > > This one was done at 6400dpi, really 3200dpi along the scanner array > and 6400dpi in the scanning direction. So there is some > interpolation in the image. Still a pretty impressive picture for a > scanner. :) > > http://www.stockly.com/images3/071208-1702A-1.jpg > > Just playing the new scanner... Or, how to know that you've really got too many things running at one time and then push things over the edge into using not only all RAM but also all swap as well, and then sit there thrashing for a fairly long time... I need to figure out a way to notice that things are this close to the edge before going over it, I think. :-) That's a BIG pic, there! But it ain't nowhere near as purty as the ones I have here, all white ceramic and gold on the pins and window frame and such. :-D -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Dec 8 22:38:21 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 23:38:21 -0500 Subject: FAA control room keyboard -- parallel or RS-232? In-Reply-To: <200712070909.39349.gpearce@curiousgroup.co.uk> References: <200712070909.39349.gpearce@curiousgroup.co.uk> Message-ID: <200712082338.21424.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 07 December 2007 04:09, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > On Friday 07 December 2007 00:35:13 Richard wrote: > > I have an FAA control room keyboard that I picked up off ebay. Each > > key has a little bulb underneath it that lights up the keys for use in > > the dark. I need to get some replacement bulbs since some of them > > have burned out. I haven't disassembled this thing enough to know if > > they have parts numbers on them or not. > > I'm going to take a random guess and suggest that they might not be a > million miles away from the little wedge-base bulbs in car dashboards. For > obvious reasons, 12V and 24V versions are incredibly easy to get. Sounds like the #194, I think it was, that some of my vehicles use all over the dash and for markers too. But that's a relatively short and squat bulb. There was another "wedge base" that I ran into, in some switches I have here. I remember seeing bunches of these on some equipment or other, with different legends on them, and in all sorts of different colors. The ones I have are mostly green or orange caps, salvaged out of some bit of telco test gear that also had a whole mess of 24V and 48V relays in it. I vaguely recall looking up a bulb like that one time and finding that it was only available in two ratings -- a 5V type, and a 24V or 48V type, and they weren't cheap. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sat Dec 8 23:15:19 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 00:15:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <475A6CAB.9930.5F19D3@cclist.sydex.com> References: <01C83907.7B2D9BC0@mandr71> <475A6CAB.9930.5F19D3@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200712090515.AAA26843@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > 8 74xx30's (8 input NAND) with each output feeding one of the inputs > of the other stages. The remaining input of each gate is connected > to a pushbutton [to ground]. Basically an 8-stable > flip-flap-floop...-flop. Nice idea, but it doesn't work. Draw out three NANDs cross-coupled as you described. Mark the logic states for a stable state with one output low. Now consider what happens when each of the inputs goes low. The only one that does anything is the one feeding the gate whose output is low. To put it another way, an input going low doesn't pull the distinguished state to that gate; it pushes it off that gate. With two two-input NANDs, there's only one place for it to go, so it's well-defined; with more, it could stabilize anywhere (or, theoretically, oscillate forever if the gates have identical propagation delays). /~\ 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 g-wright at att.net Sat Dec 8 23:19:44 2007 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 05:19:44 +0000 Subject: CDC 5 1/4 floppy 77711501 / 77711800 specs Message-ID: <120920070519.4791.475B7AEF0006BE0B000012B722216125569B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> Hi I have a machine with a 77711501 floppy drive and it's bad.. I have tried 3 different 360k drives. I tried to find specs on it but so far have not. What is the difference between that drive and a 77711800 used in a PC The computer just says there is a drive error. I'm using the same jumper settings on both. I have also tried a Teac fd-55bv. Is it a 320k drive ?? - jerry From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Dec 8 23:30:44 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 00:30:44 -0500 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] In-Reply-To: <575131af0712081113m5f7b4211s66e83f7e1b046941@mail.gmail.com> References: <575131af0712081113m5f7b4211s66e83f7e1b046941@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200712090030.44784.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 08 December 2007 14:13, Liam Proven wrote: > On 06/12/2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > On Thursday 06 December 2007 12:53, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > On 6 Dec 2007 at 1:52, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > > > I'd originally planned to put OS/2 in this box. Now I'm lots less > > > > enthused about that OS than I was at one time, so I dunno what I'm > > > > gonna do with it. Thoughts on this? > > Depends what you want to do, or be able to do, with it, obviously! > > Do you want a GUI OS? Not too likely on that box... I tend to run a GUI on one box, and leave the rest of them in textmode. Right now that's a server and a firewall/router but this other huge box just arrived here yesterday and that's gonna be another server, and I need to build another workstation. > Do you want Internet access? Networked with the rest of what I have here will do. :-) Got plenty of 3c509 cards to deal with that. Even some with boot roms on them... > Do you want productivity apps? I'm not sure what you mean there. Office-type stuff? Nah. > It's a bit low-spec for a modern Linux distro. You could try some > low-end distros, like DamnSmallLinux, Puppy, or VectorLinux. I've also > heard good comments of SaxenOS & Crux on low-end PCs, but I've not > tried them myself yet. > > It would run NetBSD pretty nicely, but then, the same is probably true > of some toasters. Heh. I may use it for playing with smaller distros, though mostly they seem to want to boot into some sort of a graphics mode and impress you with their eye-candy. > One that might suit it quite well would be Minix 3. Never played with > that yet myself. Never played with any of them, and didn't know there was a v3 out there. > It might run BeOS, especially with a 5x86 chip in there. BeOS Max is a > good, freely-available BeOS distro. Mainly intended for Pentium-class > systems, though. Well, I have a bunch of those around too and assorted cases I could stuff 'em into if I ever got the desire... > FreeDOS or DR-DOS plus OpenGEM would run very well; indeed, it's quite > high-spec for that. I think I looked at DR-DOS once, don't they run some oddball sort of networking in there? > For a more modern, but commercial, DOS GUI, there's Geos, AKA > GeoWorks, now known as Breadbox Ensemble. Again, it costs, but you can > assemble a fairly complete little system from various free demos and > things that have been put out there. > > http://www.breadbox.com/ Hm, I didn't know that was still around. > (I think others have suggested something akin to Concurrent DOS. IMS' > Real32 was the last supported descendant of that, I think, but it's > primarily a multiuser thing so not of great interest on a standalone > box - it just looks like MS-DOS.) > > Or just plain old DOS, together with DesqView, or, if you want > something cool and exotic, DesqView/X. I ran dos/dv on a different box, also with a 5x86/133 chip, for a really long time, and that was in fact the last box that ran my BBS, which shut down for the last time in October of 2005 or thereabouts. Never played with dv/x, though. If I could access the BBS stuff I think I remember seeing something in there about where one could snag a copy of that. > That might be both fun and quite productive couple with some of the > last-generation, high-end DOS apps, like MS Word 5.5 (available free > from MS and so downloadable, as they gave it away rather than issue > Y2K patches for Word for DOS.) Got a whole package here someplace that's WP6 for dos, which I think I'd prefer, maybe. Though I do recall some of those real early versions of Word (whatever one it was that ran on XT-class hardware) that would actually show things like bold and italics on screen. But a machine for WP? I don't do that much of it. > I'd like to try WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS, which had a full GUI, but > I've been looking for a copy for years with no joy. Hmm. :-) For dos? I don't think so, or at least don't remember that being in there, though it was menu-driven by comparison with the funky key stuff that you had to deal with in 5.1. OTOH, my brother at one point had at least 3 copies of WP6 for windoze (presumably 3.1 at the time?) and it may have been that one you were thinking of? I'm sure I have that whole package someplace, anyhow, if I run across it I could look. > It was unusably slow at the time, but on a more recent PC like a fast 486, > it should fly along. There was also a full-GUI graphical spreadsheet version > of one of the major spreadsheets, but I don't remember details now. I > think it might have been Borland Quattro or QuattroPro 5 or so for DOS. I actually used multiplan under dos, until that machine died. Not all that much was in there, and at this point if I really need to do spreadsheet-type stuff I'll use open office. Not that I see a need for GUI in that type of app, either. > If you can get a supported TCP/IP stack running on DOS, there *are* some DOS > web browsers, such as Arachne and Lineo's WebSpyder. I'm not sure about > email programs, though. I've heard of the first one, not the second. And I had a fair collection of stuff for all sorts of functions. Crynwr (sp?) drivers for one thing, though that stuff didn't get along well with dv. And a couple of different ftp clients. I had one heck of a collection of assorted utilities I picked up over time, probably still do someplace, in some backup copy. I also ran a UUCP gateway that would call out from time to time to a local system I had a login on, and exchange email traffic, and then gate things to fidonet-type messages. > Bung in a SCSI card and a couple of old SCSI disks, make it into a > NetWare server? There was a freely-available 2-user version of Netware > 4.1, and that can be patched up to date with free service packs, > making it fully W2K compliant and so on. Ok, do-able but why would I want to run Netware? > If you want to try a modern, networking-enabled OS/2, there's > Serenity's eComStation. Expensive, though. There's a free demo live > CD, but it's not installable. Hm. > If you fancy something unusual, which IME doesn't work well in VMs on > modern PCs, you could try the DEC-like TSX-32, which is sort of > aesthetically appropriate - it's a sort of PDP-like OS for the PC. > > http://www.sandh.com/tsx32.htm A bit on the spendy side, certainly more than I can afford to spend on an old machine to fool around with. > Also on a DEC theme, there's FreeVMS, but I don't think they have any > downloads yet. > > http://www.freevms.org/ Some, but also some very interesting links from there too. Bookmarked! :-) > Somewhere lost in a cupboard I have an ancient 386 notebook PC, whose > 80MB hard disk has DOS (DR-DOS 7 with QEMM) coupled to a choice of > about 4 GUIs, a range of productivity apps, and also dual-boots with > Pygmy Linux giving me TCP/IP through a parallel port Ethernet adaptor > and thus very basic Web access with Links. All this in 80MB and it's > about one-third full. I think it has WordPerfect 5.1, Word 5.5, a > spreadsheet of some kind, plus a selection of DesqView, OpenGEM, > ViewMAX and GeoWorks Ensemble. It was a real nostalgia-fest putting it > together. It has the Microsoft free DOS network stack, too, with > TCP/IP, but it can't actually talk to any modern Windows machine. Just > don't ask me to get it to print... Hehe. Sounds like a fun box to play with, all right. That reminds me of a "lunchbox" style machine I almost snagged a while back, probably pretty similar in terms of what the hardware is capable of. The first incarnation of my firewall/router used an 80M drive as well, and I had plenty of room left over on that, too. And that wasn't using anything special, just plain old Slackware, I was just real choosy about what packages I let it install. Probably I'll be working up another "workstation" here next, so I can stop using this laptop. The keyboard quit some time back anyhow, and the pointing device always was flaky, I'm just not sure how I'm going to feel staring at a monitor screen instead of this display. And then get that second file server going here. That box has two CPUs in it, enough room for plenty of drives so I can play a bit with this RAID card I have here, and get to know some more aspects of the software. I can see how easy it would be to set up other, more specialized boxes for various purposes like fax server, print server, and so forth but I really don't see a need for any of that here on this small home LAN just yet... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Dec 8 23:36:39 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 00:36:39 -0500 Subject: 5V and early ICs / was Re: TRADIC In-Reply-To: <475B2216.772DB531@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200712080520.lB85KeX3002418@billy.ezwind.net> <200712081611.52995.rtellason@verizon.net> <475B2216.772DB531@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <200712090036.39610.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 08 December 2007 18:00, Brent Hilpert wrote: > "Roy J. Tellason" wrote: > > On Saturday 08 December 2007 02:03, Brent Hilpert wrote: > > > Another anecdote I ran across a few years ago in the IEEE AotHoC (which > > > I wish had kept a ref to), was of an IBM engineer working on one of the > > > first transistorised designs in the mid-50s (ECL IIRC), telling the > > > story of how he chose 5 Volts for the logic supply. > > > > I've wondered often how the various supply voltages I run into get > > chosen... > > > > Care to elaborate on that a bit? > > I wish I could, but without the ref ... > For what I do recall, the suggestion in the article was that this was the > first use or choice of 5V for the logic supply, although I can't remember > whether the 5V was a choice of whim from which other design parameters > followed, or whether the 5V was an engineered outcome. > > Even though I found it an interesting anecdote however, there were, or > would still be (IMHO) a couple of historical links necessary to show that > there was a causal connection/influence to the 5V supply standard of the > later DTL & TTL integrated circuit families. > > The earliest reference for real ICs I have is a TI product catalog from > 1965. The first products mentioned are the "NEW! Series 54 TTL" > (SN5400,5410,5420..5470) (4.5 to 5.5V of course). The commercial 74xx > versions apparently followed a little later. Hm, I had no idea that stuff was around that early on. My first encounter with those parts was around 1970, and I still have that particular databook, which had the standard parts and the H and L variants. > Five other digital IC families are mentioned: > - Series 53 Modified DTL (SN53x) (different from 'standard' DTL) (3 to > 4V) - Series 51 RCTL (SN51x) (3 to 6V) > - Series 51R (severe environment versions of 51) > - Minuteman Series DTL (SN337A..) (produced for the Minuteman II missile) > (+6V & -3V) > - Low-power RTL (SN7xx..) (would become one of the 'standard' RTL > families) (3V) > > A Fairchild catalog from 1966 presents standard 900-series DTL and some > 9000 series TTL with 5V supplies. I've never heard of most of those, though I think I do have some mention of those 9xx/9xxxx numbers in my parts pages. I also have some more tech info on hand here that I've downloaded but haven't plowed through yet or installed into the charts... > .. and I may be repeating myself on the list, or this may be more > well-known than I realise, but another somewhat novel point that is > apparent from the TI catalog is that the "SN" prefix on Texas Instruments > ICs is short for "Semiconductor Network", an alternative phrase before > "Integrated Circuit" became the more accepted phrase. Well *I* never heard about that one before, and I've wondered for some time what the heck it stood for. :-) -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From cclist at sydex.com Sat Dec 8 23:41:20 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 21:41:20 -0800 Subject: FAA control room keyboard -- parallel or RS-232? In-Reply-To: <200712082338.21424.rtellason@verizon.net> References: , <200712070909.39349.gpearce@curiousgroup.co.uk>, <200712082338.21424.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <475B0F80.29129.2DB241B@cclist.sydex.com> I was thinking of perhaps T 1 3/4 flange base. They're found in a lot of indicators, though the T 2 "slide base" lamp is another possibility. The T 1 bi-pin lamp is another option, I suppose. CML is the usual source of these. I note that they now offer LED replacements for some of the miniature panel lamps. At any rate, here's a catalog: http://www.cml-it.com/pdf/psg_200607.pdf Most of the big distributors (Newark, Mouser, etc.) carry these. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Dec 9 00:14:07 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 22:14:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: CDC 5 1/4 floppy 77711501 / 77711800 specs In-Reply-To: <120920070519.4791.475B7AEF0006BE0B000012B722216125569B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> References: <120920070519.4791.475B7AEF0006BE0B000012B722216125569B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: <20071208221119.C95840@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 9 Dec 2007 g-wright at att.net wrote: > Hi > I have a machine with a 77711501 floppy drive and it's bad.. I have > tried 3 different 360k drives. I tried to find specs on it but so far have not. > What is the difference between that drive and a 77711800 used in a PC > The computer just says there is a drive error. I'm using the same jumper > settings on both. I have also tried a Teac fd-55bv. > Is it a 320k drive ?? There ain't no difference. 320K drive and 360K drive are the same drive. There is a way that it would be possible to build a drive that could do 320K, but not be able to do 360K, but nobody has done so yet. Boot something other than WINDOZE. "Drive error" is not specific enough. From innfoclassics at gmail.com Sun Dec 9 01:02:55 2007 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 23:02:55 -0800 Subject: CDC 5 1/4 floppy 77711501 / 77711800 specs In-Reply-To: <20071208221119.C95840@shell.lmi.net> References: <120920070519.4791.475B7AEF0006BE0B000012B722216125569B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> <20071208221119.C95840@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: > > I have a machine with a 77711501 floppy drive and it's bad.. I have > > tried 3 different 360k drives. I tried to find specs on it but so far have not. > > What is the difference between that drive and a 77711800 used in a PC > > The computer just says there is a drive error. I'm using the same jumper > > settings on both. I have also tried a Teac fd-55bv. > > Is it a 320k drive ?? Hi Jerry, My guess is it is a single sided 180K / 160K drive however I think CDC made full height 80 track Quad density drives also. Is there any date on it? My bet is based on the last three digits of the number. Since 800 is the PC drive, 501 is probably earlier and if it is one of the earliest the 5 1/4 single sided is a good guess. I can't find my copy of Mini-Micro Systems that covers those disk drives. Does anyone have an archive of that publication? I lost my set in my house fire in 1989. They had great summaries of who made what parts, computers, printers, drives etc in the late 70s and early 80s along with some specifications. What system did it come out of? Age? Any termination on the drive? Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From g-wright at att.net Sun Dec 9 01:48:57 2007 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 07:48:57 +0000 Subject: CDC 5 1/4 floppy 77711501 / 77711800 specs Message-ID: <120920070748.16490.475B9DE80004F4420000406A22230650629B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> -------------- Original message from Fred Cisin : -------------- > On Sun, 9 Dec 2007 g-wright at att.net wrote: > > Hi > > I have a machine with a 77711501 floppy drive and it's bad.. I have > > tried 3 different 360k drives. I tried to find specs on it but so far have > not. > > What is the difference between that drive and a 77711800 used in a PC > > The computer just says there is a drive error. I'm using the same jumper > > settings on both. I have also tried a Teac fd-55bv. > > Is it a 320k drive ?? > > There ain't no difference. > 320K drive and 360K drive are the same drive. > > There is a way that it would be possible to build a drive that could do > 320K, but not be able to do 360K, but nobody has done so yet. > > Boot something other than WINDOZE. "Drive error" is not specific enough. > > > And for the rest of the story ..................... This is on a MicroStar machine that runs StarDos. I know nothing about this but from recent posts I decided to drag one of them down and look into it a little further. This machine I have running is a Micro Five 1000 with a IMI 10 meg HD. It has a boot menu and back up Menu. It will still boot and will make its own formatted floppies and back itself up with out much problems. If I try to read one of the floppies with Image disk or Anadisk they fail. It tried with both 360 and 1.2 meg drives. I would guess that the drive in the machine is off enough to cause these problems . If I install another floppy drive, the System picks up something and errors. So there must be some other signal or ??? coming from the drive. The machine date is in the 84 -85 range The straps on the drive (M 4 x 3 2 1 H) are set with M and 1 jumpered - thanks, Jerry From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 9 01:50:29 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 23:50:29 -0800 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <200712090515.AAA26843@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <01C83907.7B2D9BC0@mandr71>, <475A6CAB.9930.5F19D3@cclist.sydex.com>, <200712090515.AAA26843@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <475B2DC5.26406.3516200@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Dec 2007 at 0:15, der Mouse wrote: > Nice idea, but it doesn't work. Draw out three NANDs cross-coupled as > you described. Mark the logic states for a stable state with one > output low. Now consider what happens when each of the inputs goes > low. The only one that does anything is the one feeding the gate whose > output is low. Yeah -- I see that. Release a button and the circuit goes into an unstable state. I wonder what the smallest number of active devices is for an n-stable circult with n greater than 2. 8 D flip=flops with each switch connected to a PRESET input and a NAND (or NOR) to edge-clock in a reset state looks to be far from the minimum. How about some capacitively coupled logic with a few steering diodes? Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 9 02:47:07 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 00:47:07 -0800 Subject: CDC 5 1/4 floppy 77711501 / 77711800 specs In-Reply-To: <120920070748.16490.475B9DE80004F4420000406A22230650629B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> References: <120920070748.16490.475B9DE80004F4420000406A22230650629B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: <475B3B0B.24997.3853959@cclist.sydex.com> Well, I can tell you that MPI made 100 tpi FH drives--I have two of them on my shelf here, date codes are 81-82. Unfortunately, the labels have dried up and dropped off, so I no longer have any idea of what their part number is. I've also got a couple in another machine, but it's a bear to get at them. Does the drive have a little "daughterboard" plugged into the main PCB with a 74ls123 on it? That'd be the "Drive Ready' circuit. I don't know if all MPI 100 tpi drives had this though. "Micropolis" type 100tpi drives also have a slightly different pinout than normal "Shugart" type drives (this includes the Tandon TM-100- 4M). A big difference is that READY is pin 6, not 34. Maybe that's what's causing your drive error. Just guessing... Cheers, Chuck From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Dec 9 03:32:38 2007 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 09:32:38 +0000 Subject: FAA control room keyboard -- parallel or RS-232? In-Reply-To: <200712082338.21424.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200712070909.39349.gpearce@curiousgroup.co.uk> <200712082338.21424.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <1197192758.9145.19.camel@elric.inet> On Sat, 2007-12-08 at 23:38 -0500, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Friday 07 December 2007 04:09, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > > On Friday 07 December 2007 00:35:13 Richard wrote: > > > I have an FAA control room keyboard that I picked up off ebay. Each > > > key has a little bulb underneath it that lights up the keys for use in > > > the dark. I need to get some replacement bulbs since some of them > > > have burned out. I haven't disassembled this thing enough to know if > > > they have parts numbers on them or not. > > > > I'm going to take a random guess and suggest that they might not be a > > million miles away from the little wedge-base bulbs in car dashboards. For > > obvious reasons, 12V and 24V versions are incredibly easy to get. > > Sounds like the #194, I think it was, that some of my vehicles use all over > the dash and for markers too. The difficulty is that in other countries they're called different things. The ones used in the side lights and indicator side repeaters, as well as the instrument backlights is a fairly big fat bulb about the size of the top joint of my pinky. The ones I meant are about 4mm x 13mm and are the same as the ones used in the panel lamps on an RL02. Guess where I got the spare bulbs for my RL02 from? Gordon From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Sun Dec 9 04:58:30 2007 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 11:58:30 +0100 (CET) Subject: 5V and early ICs / was Re: TRADIC In-Reply-To: <475B2216.772DB531@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200712080520.lB85KeX3002418@billy.ezwind.net> <475A41B2.457CB15C@cs.ubc.ca> <200712081611.52995.rtellason@verizon.net> <475B2216.772DB531@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: On Sat, 8 Dec 2007, Brent Hilpert wrote: > The earliest reference for real ICs I have is a TI product catalog from > 1965. The first products mentioned are the "NEW! Series 54 TTL" > (SN5400,5410,5420..5470) (4.5 to 5.5V of course). The commercial 74xx > versions apparently followed a little later. There are earlier ones. As you might know, the SN74xx family started with the SN740, SN741 etc. (only three digits!). After TI expanded this family they went over to four digit part numbers and just appended a zero to the already available parts. Thus the SN740 became the SN7400, the SN741 the SN7410 and so on. I have a TI databook somewhere that has the old part numbers. Christian From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sat Dec 8 08:54:24 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 09:54:24 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine 1200 Message-ID: <0JSQ00I94K1P5ANM@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Hazeltine 1200 > From: Dave McGuire > Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:54:03 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" > >On Dec 6, 2007, at 4:22 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >>> I'm also curious about what processor it's built around, if you >>> don't mind checking. >> >> Why does it have to have a processor at all? A number of the older >> terminals, both 'glass TTYs' and those with some limited control code >> response, like cursor positioning, were built from simple TTL (etc) >> chips. Sometimes the artchitecture was something like a processor (DEC >> VT5x, for example), sometimes it was just random logic. > > Of course it doesn't *need* to have a processor in the traditional >sense...I was just assuming that it would, as I was guessing it wasn't >much older than 1420 I had years ago. I could certainly be wrong. It's much older than 14xx maybe at least two generations. Actually the 14xx series was near the end of the line for Hazeltine designs and I remember being then for it in mid 78. By then they almost had the 15xx series working in production. Allison > -Dave > >-- >Dave McGuire >Port Charlotte, FL From glade at barneygang.com Sat Dec 8 21:29:35 2007 From: glade at barneygang.com (Glade Barney) Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 20:29:35 -0700 Subject: Apple StyleWriter M8000 Message-ID: <000501c83a13$ba78fce0$0200a8c0@barney> Since our printer has malfunctioning and not working and I am interested in getting a printer for my computer and the M8000 is what we need. If your Stylewriter printer is working, we would be happy to pay the shipping to have it shipped here. My email is: glade at barneygang.com From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Sun Dec 9 07:11:42 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 13:11:42 +0000 Subject: FW: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: <475AD5C4.14798.1F99EBD@cclist.sydex.com> References: <01C839D2.DCB7AF40@MSE_D03> <475AD5C4.14798.1F99EBD@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20071209131142.GD2431@usap.gov> On Sat, Dec 08, 2007 at 05:35:00PM -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 8 Dec 2007 at 19:44, M H Stein wrote: > > > That is not feasible. I need 7 or 9 decades of count/decode, and I happen > > to have an abundance of GALs and a GAL programmer... > Any need to have a separate decoder for each digit? I wonder if an > alternate approach of using a single BCD-to-7 decoder, multiplexing > the displays and simply concentrating on the counting end. No requirement, it just keeps the design simple (lots of repetition of nearly identical digits). > Just a thought--certainly if I were running this with a PIC or an > AVR, I'd definitely give it some thought. My AVR plan would be a Tiny2313 and a 7447, probably (need enough I/O pins for 7 or 9 column drivers plus 4-bit BCD row output plus a button or two or a serial input). I have the LEDs on hand, already mounted behind red plexi (thus the desire not to move to TIL311s), and I happen to have a few Tiny2313 and 90S2313 AVRs with me. I'd just need to pick up a 7447 or 74247 (I left mine at home, but can have a handful shipped). I was hoping to do this in hardware, since once the soldering is done, it's done, but obviously, an AVR MCU would lead to about the minimum part count possible. If I had a spare ATMega8, I would have so many I/O pins available that I wouldn't even need the 7447. Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions. I have a lot to mull over, especially to see if it's possible to jam a counter and decoder in the same GAL. If that turns out to be unfeasible, I'll probably quit trying to make it 100% hardware and go with the MCU. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 9-Dec-2007 at 13:00 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -23.4 F (-30.8 C) Windchill -45.7 F (-43.2 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 9.3 kts Grid 17 Barometer 675.9 mb (10783 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From brad at heeltoe.com Sun Dec 9 08:38:34 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 09:38:34 -0500 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 08 Dec 2007 09:54:24 EST." <0JSQ00I94K1P5ANM@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <200712091438.lB9EcaU7018741@mwave.heeltoe.com> Allison wrote: > >It's much older than 14xx maybe at least two generations. Actually the >14xx series was near the end of the line for Hazeltine designs and I >remember being then for it in mid 78. By then they almost had the >15xx series working in production. I've always wanted to have a Hazeltine 2000. I'm curious, did a lot of those survive and do folks see them or have them? -brad From mtapley at swri.edu Sun Dec 9 09:44:38 2007 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 09:44:38 -0600 Subject: Teaching kids about computers... (CoCo assembler) In-Reply-To: <200711290028.lAT0SJ8p077279@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200711290028.lAT0SJ8p077279@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: At 18:28 -0600 11/28/07, Sean wrote: > A Color Computer or Color Computer 2 seems to fit the bill. The CPU is >the nicest of the 8bits (IMHO) and the video screen is more logical than >anything you'll find on the C64, Atari or Apple. ... At 18:28 -0600 11/28/07, Mark M. wrote: >I'd tend to agree. The 6809 is a lovely processor, and there aren't any of >the "black box" chips that others have mentioned. ... I'd agree completely, *except* that if you want to do Assembly (conveniently), you also need the EDTASM+ ROM cartridge, and prices/availability for those seem to have gone a little wonky in the past 6 months. EBay prices yield systems for $5 to $10 (plus shipping), but the EDTASM cart is over $30. I have not found a non-eBay source that actually had a cart for sale at all. I don't quite have the knowledge to do it, but something I'd really like to see is a reverse-engineered equivalent (editor, assembler, monitor) implemented and available as an inexpensive cassette tape or downloadable sound file that could be played into the cassette port (or even, shudder, READ-DATA/POKE basic program to type in) and an accompanying public-domain manual. I know this would be vulnerable to getting overwritten by an out-of-control assembly program, and the ROM version is preferable, but it sure would turn a cheap, otherwise very capable BASIC platform into a cheap, very capable Assembly language platform that one occasionally had to re-load. I note that there are good emulators and cross-compilers available for both Mac OS-X and Windows: Toolshed for OS-X rocks: http://sourceforge.net/projects/toolshed/ David Keil's Windows emulator gets excellent reviews: http://www.discover-net.net/~dmkeil/index.htm no relation either way. -- - Mark, 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward. From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Dec 9 10:01:37 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 11:01:37 -0500 Subject: Scan of a 1702A In-Reply-To: <200712082332.36973.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <0JSQ001N2AL1TS90@msgmmp-1.gci.net> <200712082332.36973.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <698a220cd59616bf3f3a9868d8520788@neurotica.com> On Dec 8, 2007, at 11:32 PM, Roy J. Tellason wrote: >> I couldn't help it. I had to scan a 1702A 256byte EPROM. >> >> This one was done at 6400dpi, really 3200dpi along the scanner array >> and 6400dpi in the scanning direction. So there is some >> interpolation in the image. Still a pretty impressive picture for a >> scanner. :) >> >> http://www.stockly.com/images3/071208-1702A-1.jpg >> >> Just playing the new scanner... > > Or, how to know that you've really got too many things running at > one time > and then push things over the edge into using not only all RAM but > also all > swap as well, and then sit there thrashing for a fairly long time... > > I need to figure out a way to notice that things are this close to the > edge > before going over it, I think. :-) > > That's a BIG pic, there! > > But it ain't nowhere near as purty as the ones I have here, all white > ceramic > and gold on the pins and window frame and such. :-D I have a bunch of those as well. They really are gorgeous packages. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Dec 9 10:05:14 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 11:05:14 -0500 Subject: got this old peecee... In-Reply-To: <475A6E07.12888.646AEC@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <200712061823.31732.rtellason@verizon.net>, <475A6E07.12888.646AEC@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Dec 8, 2007, at 1:12 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> FORTH likes to *be* the OS. I have played a few implementations of >> bare-metal FORTHs on PCs (under QEMU on a Mac) and most of them are >> pretty nice. > > Off-list, I'd suggested ForthOS--a 32-bit standalone system: > > http://www.forthos.org/ > > Looks like a good match to the machine. Yup, I've used ForthOS a little bit...it looks like a really nice system. I hope to mess with it some more soon. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ian_primus at yahoo.com Sun Dec 9 11:57:48 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 09:57:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <200712091438.lB9EcaU7018741@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <188010.45893.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com> > I've always wanted to have a Hazeltine 2000. I'm > curious, did a lot > of those survive and do folks see them or have them? > > -brad I've never seen one. I've been looking for one for a long time as well, and I've never seen one for sale anywhere (eBay or otherwise). I somehow doubt that a whole lot of them survived, they were pretty early, and would have been probably made obsolete by even the ADM3A. Right up there with other unobtanium terminals like Beehive, Soroc, and the Ann Arbor Ambassador. I'd put the Tektronix 4010 on the list too, except I know that at least one of those exists :) -Ian From lproven at gmail.com Sun Dec 9 12:15:40 2007 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 18:15:40 +0000 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] In-Reply-To: <200712090030.44784.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <575131af0712081113m5f7b4211s66e83f7e1b046941@mail.gmail.com> <200712090030.44784.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <575131af0712091015g45358a03kdaf5db9fe88e874d@mail.gmail.com> On 09/12/2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Saturday 08 December 2007 14:13, Liam Proven wrote: > > On 06/12/2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > > On Thursday 06 December 2007 12:53, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > > On 6 Dec 2007 at 1:52, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > > > > I'd originally planned to put OS/2 in this box. Now I'm lots less > > > > > enthused about that OS than I was at one time, so I dunno what I'm > > > > > gonna do with it. Thoughts on this? > > > > Depends what you want to do, or be able to do, with it, obviously! > > > > Do you want a GUI OS? > > Not too likely on that box... I see no reason. A fast 486 with a decent graphics accelerator would be all right, if you confined yourself to DOS-era GUIs, things that run in SVGA or VESA modes and the like. > > Do you want productivity apps? > > I'm not sure what you mean there. Office-type stuff? Nah. OK. What /do/ you want to be able to do with it, then? > I may use it for playing with smaller distros, though mostly they seem to > want to boot into some sort of a graphics mode and impress you with their > eye-candy. The baseline for that these days seems to be roughly a fast Pentium-1 or slow Pentium-II with ~128MB of RAM and 6-8GB of disk. > > One that might suit it quite well would be Minix 3. Never played with > > that yet myself. > > Never played with any of them, and didn't know there was a v3 out there. Minix 3 is a total rewrite, very modular, microkernel, designed to be usable as a low-end Unix system on a 386-class machine. Big change from v1/2, which was a demo/teaching system for XTs. Much lower-end than Linux, though, smaller and simpler. Free with a capital F. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minix_3 > > It might run BeOS, especially with a 5x86 chip in there. BeOS Max is a > > good, freely-available BeOS distro. Mainly intended for Pentium-class > > systems, though. > > Well, I have a bunch of those around too and assorted cases I could stuff 'em > into if I ever got the desire... BeOS is stunning. A glimpse of what the future might have been. Shows where we went wrong with Windows and Unix. It's a must-see OS, IMHO. > > FreeDOS or DR-DOS plus OpenGEM would run very well; indeed, it's quite > > high-spec for that. > > I think I looked at DR-DOS once, don't they run some oddball sort of > networking in there? [Furrowed brow] What /do/ you do with your time? 8?) DR-DOS is a clone of MS-DOS, based on the core of Concurrent-CP/M. It has no native networking, any more than MS-DOS does. Some versions were bundled with Personal Netware or Netware Lite, Novell's 2 doomed peer-to-peer products. Both are best avoided. But DR-DOS itself is a great DOS. There's a version out there that's open source, with current updates - Google the "dr-dos enhancement project". > > For a more modern, but commercial, DOS GUI, there's Geos, AKA > > GeoWorks, now known as Breadbox Ensemble. Again, it costs, but you can > > assemble a fairly complete little system from various free demos and > > things that have been put out there. > > > > http://www.breadbox.com/ > > Hm, I didn't know that was still around. Just barely. > > (I think others have suggested something akin to Concurrent DOS. IMS' > > Real32 was the last supported descendant of that, I think, but it's > > primarily a multiuser thing so not of great interest on a standalone > > box - it just looks like MS-DOS.) > > > > Or just plain old DOS, together with DesqView, or, if you want > > something cool and exotic, DesqView/X. > > I ran dos/dv on a different box, also with a 5x86/133 chip, for a really > long time, and that was in fact the last box that ran my BBS, which shut > down for the last time in October of 2005 or thereabouts. Never played with > dv/x, though. If I could access the BBS stuff I think I remember seeing > something in there about where one could snag a copy of that. I have a boxed copy but I'm on the wrong side of the Atlantic and anyway I don't really want to part with it. :?) It's a very interesting system, though. I wish DV/X had taken off instead of Windows. Rather than the current battle between Windows versus Unix, via DV/X, the world of DOS would have been led into multitasking, GUIs and networking via the Unix standards. The two would have merged rather than diverged. It would be a very different IT world today. I'm not saying better, but interesting. > > That might be both fun and quite productive couple with some of the > > last-generation, high-end DOS apps, like MS Word 5.5 (available free > > from MS and so downloadable, as they gave it away rather than issue > > Y2K patches for Word for DOS.) > > Got a whole package here someplace that's WP6 for dos, which I think I'd > prefer, maybe. Though I do recall some of those real early versions of Word > (whatever one it was that ran on XT-class hardware) that would actually show > things like bold and italics on screen. But a machine for WP? I don't do > that much of it. Ah. It's my living, or a large part of it. > > I'd like to try WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS, which had a full GUI, but > > I've been looking for a copy for years with no joy. > > Hmm. :-) > > For dos? I don't think so, or at least don't remember that being in there, > though it was menu-driven by comparison with the funky key stuff that you had > to deal with in 5.1. OTOH, my brother at one point had at least 3 copies of > WP6 for windoze (presumably 3.1 at the time?) and it may have been that one > you were thinking of? I'm sure I have that whole package someplace, anyhow, > if I run across it I could look. Please do. Yes, AFAICR, WP6 *DOS* had a full-on graphics-mode GUI. WP 5.1 had CUA-compliant drop-down menus /as well as/ WP's own weird F-key driven interface. I think WP5 did, too, but less CUA-like. The last version which was F-key only was WP 4.2, I think. > > It was unusably slow at the time, but on a more recent PC like a fast 486, > > it should fly along. There was also a full-GUI graphical spreadsheet version > > of one of the major spreadsheets, but I don't remember details now. I > > think it might have been Borland Quattro or QuattroPro 5 or so for DOS. > > I actually used multiplan under dos, until that machine died. Not all that > much was in there, and at this point if I really need to do spreadsheet-type > stuff I'll use open office. Not that I see a need for GUI in that type of > app, either. There's no /need/ but the last generation of DOS apps was trying very hard to look and work like Windows apps, but without the need for the overhead and licence of Windows. At the time, they were too big and slow. 15y later, they would be tiny and sleek by modern standards. > > If you can get a supported TCP/IP stack running on DOS, there *are* some DOS > > web browsers, such as Arachne and Lineo's WebSpyder. I'm not sure about > > email programs, though. > > I've heard of the first one, not the second. And I had a fair collection of > stuff for all sorts of functions. Crynwr (sp?) drivers for one thing, > though that stuff didn't get along well with dv. And a couple of different > ftp clients. I had one heck of a collection of assorted utilities I picked > up over time, probably still do someplace, in some backup copy. I also ran > a UUCP gateway that would call out from time to time to a local system I had > a login on, and exchange email traffic, and then gate things to > fidonet-type messages. Fair enough. TBH, I confined my online comms activity to JANET, Compuserve and (mainly) CIX until the Web happened. I never got into the bulletin board scene. In Europe, we pay for local calls too. There are no free calls except 0800 numbers, where the company on the other end pays. This means BBSs were very expensive to use, so they were not that big here. Some people did it; I couldn't afford the phone bills. The selling point of CIX was offline readers: you dialled in, grabbed your messages with a script, sent your outgoing ones, and hung up, as fast as possible to keep the bills down. This meant that services like Compuserve, with no official offline reader and only some horrendously clunky and primitive 3rd party ones, were prohibitively expensive, so I never used them unless my employers were paying. Before broadband, the comms world in Europe was very very different to North America, with its (to us) weird system of lots of rival phone companies, free local calls and vastly expensive long distance ones. > > Bung in a SCSI card and a couple of old SCSI disks, make it into a > > NetWare server? There was a freely-available 2-user version of Netware > > 4.1, and that can be patched up to date with free service packs, > > making it fully W2K compliant and so on. > > Ok, do-able but why would I want to run Netware? It's something genuinely /different/. I used to rather like Netware; I wish server-side Linux had evolved into something as simple and powerful. > > If you want to try a modern, networking-enabled OS/2, there's > > Serenity's eComStation. Expensive, though. There's a free demo live > > CD, but it's not installable. > > Hm. If you're a former OS2er, you should at least look at it! (A former OS2er speaks.) > > If you fancy something unusual, which IME doesn't work well in VMs on > > modern PCs, you could try the DEC-like TSX-32, which is sort of > > aesthetically appropriate - it's a sort of PDP-like OS for the PC. > > > > http://www.sandh.com/tsx32.htm > > A bit on the spendy side, certainly more than I can afford to spend on an old > machine to fool around with. There's a freebie shareware version. I've got it to install and run in the past. > > Also on a DEC theme, there's FreeVMS, but I don't think they have any > > downloads yet. > > > > http://www.freevms.org/ > > Some, but also some very interesting links from there too. Bookmarked! :-) > > > Somewhere lost in a cupboard I have an ancient 386 notebook PC, whose > > 80MB hard disk has DOS (DR-DOS 7 with QEMM) coupled to a choice of > > about 4 GUIs, a range of productivity apps, and also dual-boots with > > Pygmy Linux giving me TCP/IP through a parallel port Ethernet adaptor > > and thus very basic Web access with Links. All this in 80MB and it's > > about one-third full. I think it has WordPerfect 5.1, Word 5.5, a > > spreadsheet of some kind, plus a selection of DesqView, OpenGEM, > > ViewMAX and GeoWorks Ensemble. It was a real nostalgia-fest putting it > > together. It has the Microsoft free DOS network stack, too, with > > TCP/IP, but it can't actually talk to any modern Windows machine. Just > > don't ask me to get it to print... > > Hehe. Sounds like a fun box to play with, all right. That reminds me of > a "lunchbox" style machine I almost snagged a while back, probably pretty > similar in terms of what the hardware is capable of. It's amazing how much you can do with DOS these days on by modern standards tiny resources. > The first incarnation of my firewall/router used an 80M drive as well, and I > had plenty of room left over on that, too. And that wasn't using anything > special, just plain old Slackware, I was just real choosy about what > packages I let it install. Too much work for me. I used to use Smoothwall. However, now, it's cheaper to run a hardware NAT firewall. > Probably I'll be working up another "workstation" here next, so I can stop > using this laptop. The keyboard quit some time back anyhow, and the > pointing device always was flaky, I'm just not sure how I'm going to feel > staring at a monitor screen instead of this display. And then get that > second file server going here. That box has two CPUs in it, enough room for > plenty of drives so I can play a bit with this RAID card I have here, and > get to know some more aspects of the software. I can see how easy it would > be to set up other, more specialized boxes for various purposes like fax > server, print server, and so forth but I really don't see a need for any of > that here on this small home LAN just yet... With cheap unreliable EIDE drives and relatively cheap CPU and RAM, software RAID works very well these days. You can build a RAID5 or RAID6 on an old PC for next to no money and have loads of *reliable* storage. My home fileserver is an old dual PII-400 board in a big tower case with 6 old 40GB drives, in a RAID5 using Ubuntu Server. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From legalize at xmission.com Sun Dec 9 12:19:17 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 11:19:17 -0700 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 09 Dec 2007 09:57:48 -0800. <188010.45893.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: In article <188010.45893.qm at web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com>, Mr Ian Primus writes: > Right up there with other unobtanium terminals like > Beehive, Soroc, and the Ann Arbor Ambassador. I'd put > the Tektronix 4010 on the list too, except I know that > at least one of those exists :) I obtained a Beehive, but only because it was OEM's to Cromemco! There are two Soroc terminals on ebay right now, but both have serious screen rot and one has a fairly substantial crack in the case. I haven't seen an Ann Arbor terminal of any model. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dm561 at torfree.net Sun Dec 9 12:26:17 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 13:26:17 -0500 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching Message-ID: <01C83A67.38D3B460@mandr71> ------------Original Message: Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 23:50:29 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" Subject: Re: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching On 9 Dec 2007 at 0:15, der Mouse wrote: > Nice idea, but it doesn't work. Draw out three NANDs cross-coupled as > you described. Mark the logic states for a stable state with one > output low. Now consider what happens when each of the inputs goes > low. The only one that does anything is the one feeding the gate whose > output is low. Yeah -- I see that. Release a button and the circuit goes into an unstable state. I wonder what the smallest number of active devices is for an n-stable circult with n greater than 2. 8 D flip=flops with each switch connected to a PRESET input and a NAND (or NOR) to edge-clock in a reset state looks to be far from the minimum. How about some capacitively coupled logic with a few steering diodes? Cheers, Chuck ---------------Reply: Well, with some diodes and caps, a single 8-bit latch (74564/574) oughta do the job. m From innfoclassics at gmail.com Sun Dec 9 12:38:26 2007 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 10:38:26 -0800 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <188010.45893.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <200712091438.lB9EcaU7018741@mwave.heeltoe.com> <188010.45893.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > Right up there with other unobtanium terminals like > Beehive, Soroc, and the Ann Arbor Ambassador. I'd put > the Tektronix 4010 on the list too, except I know that > at least one of those exists :) The reason these are unobtainium is that their scrap value far exceeded the collector value at the time they were being sold. The scrap dealer I worked with really liked Beehives for their good gold value and the aluminum case. He would buy all he could and have them parted out before they left tha Auction site. The aluminum cases didn't even make it to the warehouse. And if he saw one of the original Sorocs or Hazeltine 2000s he really went after them for their multiple cards installed, and would pay good money for them. The inside of the Tek 4010"s CRT is plated inside with gold and had lots of aluminum in the case. All of these had and still have very high scrap values. So if you see one expect to pay for it. Paxton -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From pcw at mesanet.com Sun Dec 9 13:00:30 2007 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 11:00:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <188010.45893.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <188010.45893.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 9 Dec 2007, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 09:57:48 -0800 (PST) > From: Mr Ian Primus > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Subject: Re: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 > > >> I've always wanted to have a Hazeltine 2000. I'm >> curious, did a lot >> of those survive and do folks see them or have them? >> >> -brad > > I've never seen one. I've been looking for one for a > long time as well, and I've never seen one for sale > anywhere (eBay or otherwise). I somehow doubt that a > whole lot of them survived, they were pretty early, > and would have been probably made obsolete by even the > ADM3A. > > Right up there with other unobtanium terminals like > Beehive, Soroc, and the Ann Arbor Ambassador. I'd put > the Tektronix 4010 on the list too, except I know that > at least one of those exists :) > > -Ian > I remember using Hazeltine 2000s with a HP TSB system in the early 70's. They were funny because they had (I think) core memory, so some of what was on the screen when they were powered down showed up when powered up again. The old screen data was always corrupted, presumably because unlike processor core, they didn't bother to power it down or up carefully... Peter Wallace (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From chris at mainecoon.com Sun Dec 9 13:11:51 2007 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Chris Kennedy) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 11:11:51 -0800 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: References: <188010.45893.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <475C3DF7.7090105@mainecoon.com> Peter C. Wallace wrote: > I remember using Hazeltine 2000s with a HP TSB system in the early 70's. > They were funny because they had (I think) core memory, so some of what > was on the screen when they were powered down showed up when powered up > again. They did indeed. In an era of model 33s the boxy 2000 with the equally boxy detached keyboard was Really Very Cool. I seem to recall that one had to be careful about power cycling them too quickly as they'd eat HOTs if you did. I remember the Ann Arbor Ambassador as well. The novelty of lower case characters (with descenders, as I recall) in a case that made the adm 3a look like the pig that it was. -- Chris Kennedy chris at mainecoon.com AF6AP http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97 PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration..." From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Dec 9 13:48:36 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:48:36 -0500 Subject: 5V and early ICs / was Re: TRADIC In-Reply-To: References: <200712080520.lB85KeX3002418@billy.ezwind.net> <475B2216.772DB531@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <200712091448.36702.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 09 December 2007 05:58, Christian Corti wrote: > There are earlier ones. As you might know, the SN74xx family started with > the SN740, SN741 etc. (only three digits!). After TI expanded this family > they went over to four digit part numbers and just appended a zero to the > already available parts. Thus the SN740 became the SN7400, the SN741 the > SN7410 and so on. I have a TI databook somewhere that has the old part > numbers. That's the first I've ever heard that one, which explains the somewhat puzzling number sequences, and how they got that way... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Dec 9 13:45:16 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 14:45:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <475B2DC5.26406.3516200@cclist.sydex.com> References: <01C83907.7B2D9BC0@mandr71>, <475A6CAB.9930.5F19D3@cclist.sydex.com>, <200712090515.AAA26843@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <475B2DC5.26406.3516200@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200712091956.OAA09542@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> The only one that does anything is the one feeding the gate whose >> output is low. > Yeah -- I see that. Release a button and the circuit goes into an > unstable state. Actually, _press_ it and that happens - it happens as soon as the input driving the distinguished gate goes low. > I wonder what the smallest number of active devices is for an > n-stable circult with n greater than 2. Well, you can do a tristable circuit with three _four_-input NANDs. Cross-couple them, each output driving an input on each other gate; then, each button drives an input on all but one of the gates. For example, let the inputs be inA, inB, inC, and the outputs outA, outB, outC. Then set up outA = NAND(outB,outC,inB,inC) outB = NAND(outC,outA,inC,inA) outC = NAND(outA,outB,inA,inB) For an N-stable circuit, this technique requires 2*(N-1) inputs on each gate. For a bistable, or even a tristable, this is tolerable; for an 8-stable, it requires eight 14-input NANDs. You could do it with 8*14=112 diodes (hmm, might need another 8) and a relatively small handful of resistors and transistors. Doing it with just TTL would be..somewhat inconvenient. /~\ 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 dave06a at dunfield.com Sun Dec 9 15:13:30 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 16:13:30 -0500 Subject: Yet Another VT-100 Emulator Message-ID: <200712092019.lB9KJNKR013500@hosting.monisys.ca> Hi Guys, Just thought I'd mention in case anyone is interested... Having recently acquired a couple of VAXen, I've taken the time to update my LAPTALK terminal program to provide MUCH more complete VT-100 emulation. This is a very small (<20k) DOS program, so you can use it to turn any old PC into a terminal. First the bad news - Like most PC/text based VT-100 emulators, it DOES NOT support: - Double width/Double height lines. - 132 column mode. - Split RX/TX speeds. The good news - It does support "most everything else" now. In fact, it's the only emulator I've tested which passes all of my "VT-100 Checkup" tests (excepting for the limitations mentioned above) - I've included the test program in the archive. It also adds a few extra features you might find useful: - Fairly power script language for automating sessions. - 40 programmable function keys (F1-F10, ShiftF1-F10, CtrlF1-F10 and AltF1-F10) with on-screen labels. (very handy!) - If you have a VGA display it will load a custom character set to provide the complete VT-100 character set including the graphics mode characters. I've also include a font editor so that you can create your own custom character sets if you like. I've made the package temporarily available at: http://www.dunfield.com/pub/index.htm If there's any interest, I'll find it a permanent home. Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Dec 9 14:27:26 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 15:27:26 -0500 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] In-Reply-To: <575131af0712091015g45358a03kdaf5db9fe88e874d@mail.gmail.com> References: <575131af0712081113m5f7b4211s66e83f7e1b046941@mail.gmail.com> <200712090030.44784.rtellason@verizon.net> <575131af0712091015g45358a03kdaf5db9fe88e874d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200712091527.26964.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 09 December 2007 13:15, Liam Proven wrote: > > > > > > I'd originally planned to put OS/2 in this box. Now I'm lots > > > > > > less enthused about that OS than I was at one time, so I dunno > > > > > > what I'm gonna do with it. Thoughts on this? > > > > > > Depends what you want to do, or be able to do, with it, obviously! > > > > > > Do you want a GUI OS? > > > > Not too likely on that box... > > I see no reason. A fast 486 with a decent graphics accelerator would > be all right, if you confined yourself to DOS-era GUIs, things that > run in SVGA or VESA modes and the like. I don't particularly see a need for another GUI box, mostly. > > > Do you want productivity apps? > > > > I'm not sure what you mean there. Office-type stuff? Nah. > > OK. What /do/ you want to be able to do with it, then? That's the big question. I'm wondering what the box might be particularly well-suited for as compared to a bunch of the other old boxes I have around here. :-) > > I may use it for playing with smaller distros, though mostly they seem > > to want to boot into some sort of a graphics mode and impress you with > > their eye-candy. > > The baseline for that these days seems to be roughly a fast Pentium-1 > or slow Pentium-II with ~128MB of RAM and 6-8GB of disk. Hell, my _server_ currently has only 64MB of ram in it, and seems to do quite well most of the time. I've been getting by with 4G disks for installs where I want a lot in there, but if I get real picky I can get by with quite a lot less. A far change from my original install of linux back in 1999 (which was Slackware 4.0), when I installed *everything*, since I wanted to get to know it a bit, and had room left over on a 1G drive. That sort of nonsense is a lot of why I'm not usually in any particular hurry to upgrade software. :-) > > > One that might suit it quite well would be Minix 3. Never played with > > > that yet myself. > > > > Never played with any of them, and didn't know there was a v3 out there. > > Minix 3 is a total rewrite, very modular, microkernel, designed to be > usable as a low-end Unix system on a 386-class machine. Big change > from v1/2, which was a demo/teaching system for XTs. Much lower-end > than Linux, though, smaller and simpler. Free with a capital F. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minix_3 I'll have to have a look. Sounds good... > > > It might run BeOS, especially with a 5x86 chip in there. BeOS Max is a > > > good, freely-available BeOS distro. Mainly intended for Pentium-class > > > systems, though. > > > > Well, I have a bunch of those around too and assorted cases I could > > stuff 'em into if I ever got the desire... > > BeOS is stunning. A glimpse of what the future might have been. Shows > where we went wrong with Windows and Unix. It's a must-see OS, IMHO. Ok, that one sounds worth a look too. > > > FreeDOS or DR-DOS plus OpenGEM would run very well; indeed, it's quite > > > high-spec for that. > > > > I think I looked at DR-DOS once, don't they run some oddball sort of > > networking in there? > > [Furrowed brow] What /do/ you do with your time? 8?) Never enough of it, that's for sure. :-) > DR-DOS is a clone of MS-DOS, based on the core of Concurrent-CP/M. It > has no native networking, any more than MS-DOS does. Some versions > were bundled with Personal Netware or Netware Lite, Novell's 2 doomed > peer-to-peer products. Both are best avoided. OK, that's probably what I'm thinking of. I have a number of floppies around here someplace that seem to be for PNW, apparently serialized? Never wanted to do much of anything with them, but then I don't toss things just because I have no immediate use for them... > But DR-DOS itself is a great DOS. There's a version out there that's > open source, with current updates - Google the "dr-dos enhancement > project". Ok, I'll have a look. > > > For a more modern, but commercial, DOS GUI, there's Geos, AKA > > > GeoWorks, now known as Breadbox Ensemble. Again, it costs, but you can > > > assemble a fairly complete little system from various free demos and > > > things that have been put out there. > > > > > > http://www.breadbox.com/ > > > > Hm, I didn't know that was still around. > > Just barely. That made quite a big splash among the commodore crowd (most of the folks in the area that I saw back when things were going strongly with our shop). It *really* needed at least the REU, which I never had one of, so the one time I got to try it out the performance was rather abysmal, to put it mildly. > > > (I think others have suggested something akin to Concurrent DOS. IMS' > > > Real32 was the last supported descendant of that, I think, but it's > > > primarily a multiuser thing so not of great interest on a standalone > > > box - it just looks like MS-DOS.) > > > > > > Or just plain old DOS, together with DesqView, or, if you want > > > something cool and exotic, DesqView/X. > > > > I ran dos/dv on a different box, also with a 5x86/133 chip, for a > > really long time, and that was in fact the last box that ran my BBS, > > which shut down for the last time in October of 2005 or thereabouts. > > Never played with dv/x, though. If I could access the BBS stuff I think > > I remember seeing something in there about where one could snag a copy of > > that. > > I have a boxed copy but I'm on the wrong side of the Atlantic and > anyway I don't really want to part with it. :?) I'll get around to it at some point. :-) > It's a very interesting system, though. I wish DV/X had taken off > instead of Windows. Rather than the current battle between Windows > versus Unix, via DV/X, the world of DOS would have been led into > multitasking, GUIs and networking via the Unix standards. The two > would have merged rather than diverged. It would be a very different > IT world today. I'm not saying better, but interesting. I never could understand why dv didn't go farther than it did. > > > That might be both fun and quite productive couple with some of the > > > last-generation, high-end DOS apps, like MS Word 5.5 (available free > > > from MS and so downloadable, as they gave it away rather than issue > > > Y2K patches for Word for DOS.) > > > > Got a whole package here someplace that's WP6 for dos, which I think I'd > > prefer, maybe. Though I do recall some of those real early versions of > > Word (whatever one it was that ran on XT-class hardware) that would > > actually show things like bold and italics on screen. But a machine for > > WP? I don't do that much of it. > > Ah. It's my living, or a large part of it. As it is for a family member, who we got started with a lower-end Zenith clone machine many years back. The help system and wysiwyg display in textmode that word did on that machine was actually quite impressive. He's running macs these days, though, which seem to be favored by dtp folks. > > > I'd like to try WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS, which had a full GUI, but > > > I've been looking for a copy for years with no joy. > > > > Hmm. :-) > > > > For dos? I don't think so, or at least don't remember that being in > > there, though it was menu-driven by comparison with the funky key stuff > > that you had to deal with in 5.1. OTOH, my brother at one point had at > > least 3 copies of WP6 for windoze (presumably 3.1 at the time?) and it > > may have been that one you were thinking of? I'm sure I have that whole > > package someplace, anyhow, if I run across it I could look. > > Please do. > > Yes, AFAICR, WP6 *DOS* had a full-on graphics-mode GUI. WP 5.1 had > CUA-compliant drop-down menus /as well as/ WP's own weird F-key driven > interface. I think WP5 did, too, but less CUA-like. The last version > which was F-key only was WP 4.2, I think. I'm not sure about the software since it's been a really long time but I am pretty sure about the version number, anyhow. I run across the box with that in it, I'll have a look... > > > It was unusably slow at the time, but on a more recent PC like a fast > > > 486, it should fly along. There was also a full-GUI graphical > > > spreadsheet version of one of the major spreadsheets, but I don't > > > remember details now. I think it might have been Borland Quattro or > > > QuattroPro 5 or so for DOS. > > > > I actually used multiplan under dos, until that machine died. Not all > > that much was in there, and at this point if I really need to do > > spreadsheet-type stuff I'll use open office. Not that I see a need for > > GUI in that type of app, either. > > There's no /need/ but the last generation of DOS apps was trying very > hard to look and work like Windows apps, but without the need for the > overhead and licence of Windows. At the time, they were too big and > slow. 15y later, they would be tiny and sleek by modern standards. Probably. As far as a lot of the "stuff" they were trying to do, I'm not convinced that software needed to really go there. > > > If you can get a supported TCP/IP stack running on DOS, there *are* > > > some DOS web browsers, such as Arachne and Lineo's WebSpyder. I'm not > > > sure about email programs, though. > > > > I've heard of the first one, not the second. And I had a fair > > collection of stuff for all sorts of functions. Crynwr (sp?) drivers for > > one thing, though that stuff didn't get along well with dv. And a couple > > of different ftp clients. I had one heck of a collection of assorted > > utilities I picked up over time, probably still do someplace, in some > > backup copy. I also ran a UUCP gateway that would call out from time to > > time to a local system I had a login on, and exchange email traffic, > > and then gate things to fidonet-type messages. > > Fair enough. TBH, I confined my online comms activity to JANET, > Compuserve and (mainly) CIX until the Web happened. I never got into > the bulletin board scene. I started out as a user, and this area was particularly rich in them for a while, particularly ones running on c64 machines, which was interesting. Sometimes the software running on those would assume you had one too, and sent all sorts of codes for colors and whatnot which of course wouldn't work for me on my Osborne Exec running CP/M. Eventually I became a "point" system (much more efficient), and then a bit later a node. I was a "net coordinator" by the time I was done, but at that point there was only one other node in the net, so there really wasn't that much point to it. > In Europe, we pay for local calls too. There are no free calls except 0800 > numbers, where the company on the other end pays. This means BBSs were very > expensive to use, so they were not that big here. Some people did it; I > couldn't afford the phone bills. Europe also seems to have gone considerably further earlier on with regard to making broadband connections available to folks than what's happened here. > The selling point of CIX was offline readers: you dialled in, grabbed > your messages with a script, sent your outgoing ones, and hung up, as > fast as possible to keep the bills down. That's the sort of thing running a point system was supposed to do, too. > This meant that services like Compuserve, with no official offline reader > and only some horrendously clunky and primitive 3rd party ones, were > prohibitively expensive, so I never used them unless my employers were > paying. I've never used any of the pay services myself, though I have seen others using them, and "horrendously clunky" seems to be a pretty apt term for a lot of it. But then that was true of a lot of stuff back then -- people just didn't get it. I used to download and try out lots of software back then, and later just downloaded it and put it in the files section of the bbs for other folks. One program in particular I recall was rather obnoxious in that it tried to tell you that you _must_ complete some things before you can go on to other steps, I can't even remember now what the heck it was supposed to do. It wouldn't let you out! I guess they were a mite confused about whose computer that was, anyway, as after reset/reboot the thing got deleted. I don't expect that particular "shareware" author saw much income out of that... > Before broadband, the comms world in Europe was very very different to > North America, with its (to us) weird system of lots of rival phone > companies, free local calls and vastly expensive long distance ones. Yes, though I recall some nontrivial activity in fidonet before I left, in Europe and all sorts of other places. People were using it anyhow, to some extent. > > > Bung in a SCSI card and a couple of old SCSI disks, make it into a > > > NetWare server? There was a freely-available 2-user version of Netware > > > 4.1, and that can be patched up to date with free service packs, > > > making it fully W2K compliant and so on. > > > > Ok, do-able but why would I want to run Netware? > > It's something genuinely /different/. I used to rather like Netware; I > wish server-side Linux had evolved into something as simple and > powerful. I remember one time trying to help a friend of mine out who had a system in a dental office that was showing bad problems on a hard drive. Putting a new one in there and running their utility on it seemed to take darn near forever... Of course, that was on an actual "AT", and it was not a particularly fast machine. :-) > > > If you want to try a modern, networking-enabled OS/2, there's > > > Serenity's eComStation. Expensive, though. There's a free demo live > > > CD, but it's not installable. > > > > Hm. > > If you're a former OS2er, you should at least look at it! (A former > OS2er speaks.) Ok, maybe I'll take a look. :-) > > > If you fancy something unusual, which IME doesn't work well in VMs on > > > modern PCs, you could try the DEC-like TSX-32, which is sort of > > > aesthetically appropriate - it's a sort of PDP-like OS for the PC. > > > > > > http://www.sandh.com/tsx32.htm > > > > A bit on the spendy side, certainly more than I can afford to spend on > > an old machine to fool around with. > > There's a freebie shareware version. I've got it to install and run in the > past. I didn't see that on there. > > > Also on a DEC theme, there's FreeVMS, but I don't think they have any > > > downloads yet. > > > > > > http://www.freevms.org/ > > > > Some, but also some very interesting links from there too. Bookmarked! > > :-) > > > > > Somewhere lost in a cupboard I have an ancient 386 notebook PC, whose > > > 80MB hard disk has DOS (DR-DOS 7 with QEMM) coupled to a choice of > > > about 4 GUIs, a range of productivity apps, and also dual-boots with > > > Pygmy Linux giving me TCP/IP through a parallel port Ethernet adaptor > > > and thus very basic Web access with Links. All this in 80MB and it's > > > about one-third full. I think it has WordPerfect 5.1, Word 5.5, a > > > spreadsheet of some kind, plus a selection of DesqView, OpenGEM, > > > ViewMAX and GeoWorks Ensemble. It was a real nostalgia-fest putting it > > > together. It has the Microsoft free DOS network stack, too, with > > > TCP/IP, but it can't actually talk to any modern Windows machine. Just > > > don't ask me to get it to print... > > > > Hehe. Sounds like a fun box to play with, all right. That reminds me > > of a "lunchbox" style machine I almost snagged a while back, probably > > pretty similar in terms of what the hardware is capable of. > > It's amazing how much you can do with DOS these days on by modern > standards tiny resources. Sure. I can also only imagine what it'd be like running cp/m on some of the faster z80 chips that seem to be available these days, too, as well as faster than floppy drives. It might be fun if I can get around to it. > > The first incarnation of my firewall/router used an 80M drive as well, > > and I had plenty of room left over on that, too. And that wasn't using > > anything special, just plain old Slackware, I was just real choosy > > about what packages I let it install. > > Too much work for me. I used to use Smoothwall. Not that much work, though I admit getting a little lazy on it the last time around and now it eats somewhere around half of a 540M drive. > However, now, it's cheaper to run a hardware NAT firewall. Not cheaper than free, seeing as how I have all this old hardware kicking around anyway, and would prefer to use it instead of just continuing to store it... > > Probably I'll be working up another "workstation" here next, so I can > > stop using this laptop. The keyboard quit some time back anyhow, and > > the pointing device always was flaky, I'm just not sure how I'm going to > > feel staring at a monitor screen instead of this display. And then get > > that second file server going here. That box has two CPUs in it, enough > > room for plenty of drives so I can play a bit with this RAID card I have > > here, and get to know some more aspects of the software. I can see how > > easy it would be to set up other, more specialized boxes for various > > purposes like fax server, print server, and so forth but I really don't > > see a need for any of that here on this small home LAN just yet... > > With cheap unreliable EIDE drives and relatively cheap CPU and RAM, > software RAID works very well these days. Sure. But since I have this card here anyway, which happens to have a 68040 on it and 64MB of cache, I might as well have some fun with it. I just wish I could find some parity or better yet ECC ram to put on it. > You can build a RAID5 or RAID6 on an old PC for next to no money and have > loads of *reliable* storage. That's the plan. > My home fileserver is an old dual PII-400 board in a big > tower case with 6 old 40GB drives, in a RAID5 using Ubuntu Server. I'm not sure what the chip is in my latest acquisition, it's a dual CPU board and I'm told they run at 500 MHz, but they're not P-II, they're socket-something-or-other, and that sort of thing is what I had in mind for it. Wish I had as big as 40G drives to put in there, but that's bigger than anything I have on hand here currently, so what I build is going to be somewhat smaller, but still quite useful, I think. The box got here already decorated, where a previous user had done this on the side: http://www.badpenguin.org/wallpapers/born2frag.jpg :-) -- 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 cannings at earthlink.net Sun Dec 9 14:35:17 2007 From: cannings at earthlink.net (Steven Canning) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 12:35:17 -0800 Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? References: <20071208155147.GA3171@usap.gov> <475AD768.50604@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <000901c83aa3$0313f920$0201a8c0@hal9000> > Ethan Dicks wrote: > > > > > I have blown hundreds of PALs, but have much less experience I would have worded it as " I have programmed hundreds of PALs ...... " just so there is no confusion.... Sorry Ethan, I couldn't resist ... Slow day. Best regards, Steven From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sun Dec 9 14:35:32 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 12:35:32 -0800 Subject: 5V and early ICs / was Re: TRADIC References: <200712080520.lB85KeX3002418@billy.ezwind.net> <475A41B2.457CB15C@cs.ubc.ca> <200712081611.52995.rtellason@verizon.net> <475B2216.772DB531@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <475C5195.905BCF7C@cs.ubc.ca> Christian Corti wrote: > > On Sat, 8 Dec 2007, Brent Hilpert wrote: > > The earliest reference for real ICs I have is a TI product catalog from > > 1965. The first products mentioned are the "NEW! Series 54 TTL" > > (SN5400,5410,5420..5470) (4.5 to 5.5V of course). The commercial 74xx > > versions apparently followed a little later. > > There are earlier ones. As you might know, the SN74xx family started with > the SN740, SN741 etc. (only three digits!). After TI expanded this family > they went over to four digit part numbers and just appended a zero to the > already available parts. Thus the SN740 became the SN7400, the SN741 the > SN7410 and so on. I have a TI databook somewhere that has the old part > numbers. Well, that makes sense to some degree, the 740 numbers conceivably following on the 730 RTL numbers, but I have never seen or heard as you suggest. It sounds a little more like a convolution of TI's developments. The 1965 catalog (which appears to be a full-line catalog) declares the 5400 series as new, it includes earlier/older IC series, and makes no mention of either 740 or 7400 numbers or series. The implication from this catalog is that TI went to the 4-digit numbers with the original and initial release of the 5400 series. All the mentioned 5400 numbers end in 0. A 1969 TI 54/74 series TTL databook makes no mention of 3-digit 740 numbers in the cross-refs, although it does mention another TTL series with some 3-digit numbers (SNG1xx,SNG2xx,SNF1xx,SNF2xx). If you find your databook I'd be interested in hearing details. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sun Dec 9 14:36:02 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 12:36:02 -0800 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 References: <188010.45893.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <475C51B2.5E322CD@cs.ubc.ca> Mr Ian Primus wrote: > Right up there with other unobtanium terminals like > Beehive, Soroc, and the Ann Arbor Ambassador. Richard wrote: > I haven't seen an Ann Arbor terminal of any model. Hindsight says I should have picked up a couple of Ambassadors when I saw them at the University surplus in the mid-90s. (They all came from the lab I used to work in, I probably could have found 'my' unit that I spent a good portion of the 80's sitting in front of (where was my sense of nostalgia?).) From legalize at xmission.com Sun Dec 9 14:47:35 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 13:47:35 -0700 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 09 Dec 2007 10:38:26 -0800. Message-ID: In article , "Paxton Hoag" writes: > So if you see one expect to pay for it. I had to outbid other Crommeco collectors for the Beehive. $350. For the Tektronix 4010/4014 that I got -- well they were free! I had a post out on comp.terminals looking for one of these and for a while there if you googled "Tektronix 4010" (or 4014), my post would be in the first page of results (alas, no longer) and the guy contacted me. He was in Denver and I drove out there to haul them back from his storage. He even let me crash at his house instead of getting a hotel, a very nice guy. The 4014 is in near mint condition. It turns out it was one of the very last ones purchased by his company right before they discontinued support for the 4014. So it sat in his company's storage for 10+ years. Then he rescued it from his company and stored it for another 10+ years. Then I rescued it from him :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Sun Dec 9 14:48:53 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 13:48:53 -0700 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 09 Dec 2007 11:11:51 -0800. <475C3DF7.7090105@mainecoon.com> Message-ID: In article <475C3DF7.7090105 at mainecoon.com>, Chris Kennedy writes: > Peter C. Wallace wrote: > > > They were funny because they had (I think) core memory, [...] > They did indeed. In an era of model 33s the boxy 2000 with the equally > boxy detached keyboard was Really Very Cool. I seem to recall that one > had to be careful about power cycling them too quickly as they'd eat > HOTs if you did. HOTs? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Sun Dec 9 14:52:18 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 13:52:18 -0700 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 09 Dec 2007 18:15:40 +0000. <575131af0712091015g45358a03kdaf5db9fe88e874d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <575131af0712091015g45358a03kdaf5db9fe88e874d at mail.gmail.com>, "Liam Proven" writes: > BeOS is stunning. A glimpse of what the future might have been. Shows > where we went wrong with Windows and Unix. It's a must-see OS, IMHO. Actually, its a glimpse of where Apple went wrong. The creative force behind BeOS was at Apple and couldn't get anyone at Apple interested in BeOS-like directions, so he went to form his own company. When the Be computer as a piece of hardware didn't pan out and the OS was the remaining IP of the company that had any promise of a future, Apple still wasn't interested. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From chris at mainecoon.com Sun Dec 9 14:54:40 2007 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Chris Kennedy) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 12:54:40 -0800 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <475C5610.8030700@mainecoon.com> Richard wrote: > HOTs? Horizontal output transistors. 2N3055 IIRC. -- Chris Kennedy chris at mainecoon.com AF6AP http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97 PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration..." From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Dec 9 14:55:19 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 15:55:19 -0500 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200712091555.19523.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 09 December 2007 15:47, Richard wrote: > In article , > > "Paxton Hoag" writes: > > So if you see one expect to pay for it. > > I had to outbid other Crommeco collectors for the Beehive. $350. Dang! That Cromemco 3101 (?) I have sitting in storage is worth that much? Whodathunkit... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Dec 9 14:55:54 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 15:55:54 -0500 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200712091555.54338.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 09 December 2007 15:48, Richard wrote: > In article <475C3DF7.7090105 at mainecoon.com>, > > Chris Kennedy writes: > > Peter C. Wallace wrote: > > > They were funny because they had (I think) core memory, [...] > > > > They did indeed. In an era of model 33s the boxy 2000 with the equally > > boxy detached keyboard was Really Very Cool. I seem to recall that one > > had to be careful about power cycling them too quickly as they'd eat > > HOTs if you did. > > HOTs? Horizontal Output Transistors would be my 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 teoz at neo.rr.com Sun Dec 9 15:06:30 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 16:06:30 -0500 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this oldpeecee...] References: Message-ID: <006701c83aa7$5f230860$c600a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2007 3:52 PM Subject: Re: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this oldpeecee...] > > Actually, its a glimpse of where Apple went wrong. The creative force > behind BeOS was at Apple and couldn't get anyone at Apple interested > in BeOS-like directions, so he went to form his own company. When the > Be computer as a piece of hardware didn't pan out and the OS was the > remaining IP of the company that had any promise of a future, Apple > still wasn't interested. > -- NEXTstep was a finished OS that just needed ported, BEOS was a work in progress that needed more work (networking etc). It came down to Gassee wanting too much cash and Jobs being a better bullshitter. All in all the stockholders did better with Jobs then they would have with Gassee (who didn't have much luck at Apple to begin with). What product they make their billions from does not matter in the end, as long as they make the money. From legalize at xmission.com Sun Dec 9 15:04:58 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:04:58 -0700 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 09 Dec 2007 15:55:19 -0500. <200712091555.19523.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: In article <200712091555.19523.rtellason at verizon.net>, "Roy J. Tellason" writes: > On Sunday 09 December 2007 15:47, Richard wrote: > > In article = > , > > > > "Paxton Hoag" writes: > > > So if you see one expect to pay for it. > > > > I had to outbid other Crommeco collectors for the Beehive. $350. > > Dang! That Cromemco 3101 (?) I have sitting in storage is worth that muc= > h? As we have discussed many times, the prices on ebay are not a necessarily reliable indicator of value. But yes, I had to pay that much to win that auction. If you auction yours, will it command 350? I don't know. I think I'm about the only person actively *looking* for a beehive terminal. Just another demonstration of how, even in a bunch of "odd" people, I will still be "odder" :-). I've noticed that when a seller on ebay has quantity 4 of the exact same item, that when they auction them off one at a time, the first one tends to command a hefty pricetag, then 2nd not so much, the 3rd less, and so-on. So if you only have 1, and there's sufficient demand, then the price tends to be a little spikey. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 9 15:32:09 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 13:32:09 -0800 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <200712091956.OAA09542@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <01C83907.7B2D9BC0@mandr71>, <475B2DC5.26406.3516200@cclist.sydex.com>, <200712091956.OAA09542@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <475BEE59.27300.450F03@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Dec 2007 at 14:45, der Mouse wrote: > For an N-stable circuit, this technique requires 2*(N-1) inputs on each > gate. For a bistable, or even a tristable, this is tolerable; for an > 8-stable, it requires eight 14-input NANDs. You could do it with > 8*14=112 diodes (hmm, might need another 8) and a relatively small > handful of resistors and transistors. Doing it with just TTL would > be..somewhat inconvenient. Perhaps something with UJTs and diodes--a UJT would give you a stable state for each button and some steering logic would get you there. But UJTs seem to be pretty scarce nowadays. Better to use a single RS FF per button, with reset being driven by the OR of all of the other buttons. You could certainly do the OR with diodes; for an 8-button setup that would be 8 RS flip-flops and 56 diodes (fewer if you want to make a tree of them). That'd be 2 74279s or 4043s with a pile of diodes. Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Dec 9 15:03:47 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 21:03:47 +0000 (GMT) Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: <200712082348.SAA19323@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> from "der Mouse" at Dec 8, 7 06:48:13 pm Message-ID: > > > Hmm... Having said all that, it might be possible to put a state > > machine into a 16V8 that had a 7 bit current state and a next state > > function that corresponded to "counting" is seven segments. In > > theory that'd work, but I don't know off hand if there are enough > > terms inside a 16V8 to implement that next state function. > > You also need to make sure that the next-state function converges on a > valid state from all possible start states, or else add a way to reset > it to some valid state (probably zero). > > Using (what I think of as) the canonical 7-stroke digits, > _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ > | | | _| _| |_| |_ |_ | |_| |_| > |_| | |_ _| | _| |_| | |_| _| > > with the segments identified as A to G from top to bottom, left to > right, the digits are Not that it invalidates your logic (it's just a permuation of the outputs, after all), but the conventional naming of the segments is A ---------- | | F | | B | | ---------- | G | E | | C | | ----------- D with the decimal point sometimes refered to as 'H' > > A B C D E F G > 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 > 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 > 2 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 > 3 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 > 4 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 > 5 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 > 6 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 > 7 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 > 8 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 > 9 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 > > Then, if X' is the next-state X, I find that, optimizing for gate count > (NOT, AND, OR, NAND, NOR), if I didn't make any typos feeding the > program, > > A' = ~(G&F&~(D&B)) [2 gates - 2NAND, 3NAND] > B' = (C&F&D)|(A&~E) [4 gates - NOT, 2AND, 3AND, 2OR] > C' = E|~(B&~(D&C&A&B)) [3 gates - 4NAND, 2NAND, 2OR] > D' = ~(B&(C|E)&A&~(D&C&F&E)) [3 gates - 4NAND, 2OR, 4NAND] > E' = ~(E|(D&~(D&A&B))) [3 gates - 3NAND, 2AND, 2NOR] > F' = A|D [1 gate - 2OR] > G' = ~(G&F&(C|E)&~(D&C&A&B)) [3 gates - 4NAND, 2OR, 4NAND] The structure of a PAL/CAL is a programmable AND matrix followed by a fixed OR matrize. That is, the D inputs of the flip-flops come from OR gates (with, a fixed number of inputs, I think 8 in this case), the inputs of thost OR gates come from AND gates which can be programmed to AND together any comination of inputs, feedback terms (outputs of the flip-flops) and their inverses. With a GAL (although not a PAL), you can invert the final output on the pin (that is, make the D-tupe store A' rather than A) if it manas the logic will fit), but IIRC, you have to keep track of whether each flip-flop is inverted or not, since you have to use the right sense of the feedback terms. Some CAD tools with convert arbitrary equations into the right SOP form, sometimes you get to do it yourself. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Dec 9 15:09:25 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 21:09:25 +0000 (GMT) Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? In-Reply-To: <002001c83a12$a7a85b70$f6f91250$@com> from "Bob Armstrong" at Dec 8, 7 07:21:56 pm Message-ID: > Breadboard? As in hardware? That's for sissies - we have simulators now > :-) I've yet to find a simulator that's as easy to use or as accurate as my soldering iron and wire-wrap tool... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Dec 9 15:20:22 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 21:20:22 +0000 (GMT) Subject: CDC 5 1/4 floppy 77711501 / 77711800 specs In-Reply-To: <120920070748.16490.475B9DE80004F4420000406A22230650629B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> from "g-wright@att.net" at Dec 9, 7 07:48:57 am Message-ID: > This is on a MicroStar machine that runs StarDos. I know nothing about this > but from recent posts I decided to drag one of them down and look into it a > little further. This machine I have running is a Micro Five 1000 with a IMI > 10 meg HD. It has a boot menu and back up Menu. It will still boot and > will make its own formatted floppies and back itself up with out much > problems. If I try to read one of the floppies with Image disk or Anadisk > they fail. It tried with both 360 and 1.2 meg drives. I would guess that How do they fail? Can you read anything from any cylinder? Do you have any reason to assume that the Micro Fice controller is a normal MFM one? Some PCs can also read FM (single density) formats. But if the Micro Five is GCR or something odd, no normal PC is going to be able to read it. If you can read something from cylinder 0, but it fails on other cylinders, it might be a 100tpi drive (I thinkl cylinder 0 is in the same place on both 100tpi and 96 tpi drives). > the drive in the machine is off enough to cause these problems . If I > install another floppy drive, the System picks up something and errors. So > there must be some other signal or ??? coming from the drive. The > machine date is in the 84 -85 range Doe the machine do anything with the replacement drive? Does it spin up, do the heads seek? > > The straps on the drive (M 4 x 3 2 1 H) are set with M and 1 jumpered I am ownderign what hte 'M' jumper is. Is it 'multiplexed' -- that is, 'Enable the otuput drives all the time, so the controller can read the drive status always'? I know some machines used that. It limits you to one drive per cable, but it maeans you can reliabled use the write protect signals as a start for a disk changed line, for example. I don't suppose anyone has a sourve for service manuals for CDC/MPI full-height 5.25" drives? I have an HP9826 going o nthe bench soon, the drive in that is a CDC/MPI (HP badged, but the original labels are there too). I really could do with a maechanical dismantiling/ reassembling/ alignment manual. There's an odd damper-like thing on the head carriage, for example, which seems to be leaking grease. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Dec 9 15:36:43 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 21:36:43 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Dec 9, 7 01:48:53 pm Message-ID: > > They did indeed. In an era of model 33s the boxy 2000 with the equally > > boxy detached keyboard was Really Very Cool. I seem to recall that one > > had to be careful about power cycling them too quickly as they'd eat > > HOTs if you did. > > HOTs? I asume 'Horizontal Output Transistor' (which we call the 'Line Output Transistor' in the UK). A power transsitor that drives the horizontal deflection coils and the flyback trasnformer. -tony From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 9 15:49:36 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 13:49:36 -0800 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] In-Reply-To: References: >, Message-ID: <475BF270.17386.5508D7@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Dec 2007 at 13:52, Richard wrote: > Actually, its a glimpse of where Apple went wrong. The creative force > behind BeOS was at Apple and couldn't get anyone at Apple interested > in BeOS-like directions, so he went to form his own company. When the > Be computer as a piece of hardware didn't pan out and the OS was the > remaining IP of the company that had any promise of a future, Apple > still wasn't interested. There was an article in, I think, "Nuts and Volts" about Gassee and his BeBox and BeOS. It looked very innovative with a lot of good thought behind it--and much too late to make any kind of a splash. It seems that Apple is getting closer to MICROS~1 every day. I powered up my old G3 with Panther installed the other day and learned that there was something like 59MB in security updates waiting for me to install. I can't imagine how a user with slow modem access deals with this kind of thing. And the US is full of people with modem as their only available internet access--and not at anywhere near 56K. A friend upgraded to Leopard from Tiger on his G4 and lost every bit of his saved email. And Apple is now flogging the new Macs as great Windoze machines. Good times. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Sun Dec 9 15:50:23 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:50:23 -0700 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this oldpeecee...] In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 09 Dec 2007 16:06:30 -0500. <006701c83aa7$5f230860$c600a8c0@game> Message-ID: In article <006701c83aa7$5f230860$c600a8c0 at game>, "Teo Zenios" writes: > NEXTstep was a finished OS that just needed ported, BEOS was a work in > progress that needed more work (networking etc). It came down to Gassee > wanting too much cash and Jobs being a better bullshitter. A fair enough assessment, but the main point I wanted to make is that it wasn't just Unix and Windows that passed on the ideas in BeOS. It was everyone. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cannings at earthlink.net Sun Dec 9 15:53:05 2007 From: cannings at earthlink.net (Steven Canning) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 13:53:05 -0800 Subject: GAL16V8 as a modern substitute for a 7447? References: Message-ID: <000501c83aad$e1867de0$0201a8c0@hal9000> > > > > > Hmm... Having said all that, it might be possible to put a state > > > machine into a 16V8 that had a 7 bit current state and a next state > > > function that corresponded to "counting" is seven segments. In > > > theory that'd work, but I don't know off hand if there are enough > > > terms inside a 16V8 to implement that next state function. > > > > You also need to make sure that the next-state function converges on a > > valid state from all possible start states, or else add a way to reset > > it to some valid state (probably zero). > > > > Using (what I think of as) the canonical 7-stroke digits, > > _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ > > | | | _| _| |_| |_ |_ | |_| |_| > > |_| | |_ _| | _| |_| | |_| _| > > > > with the segments identified as A to G from top to bottom, left to > > right, the digits are > > Not that it invalidates your logic (it's just a permuation of the > outputs, after all), but the conventional naming of the segments is > > A > ---------- > | | > F | | B > | | > ---------- > | G | > E | | C > | | > ----------- > D > > with the decimal point sometimes refered to as 'H' > > > > > A B C D E F G > > 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 > > 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 > > 2 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 > > 3 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 > > 4 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 > > 5 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 > > 6 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 > > 7 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 > > 8 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 > > 9 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 > > > > Then, if X' is the next-state X, I find that, optimizing for gate count > > (NOT, AND, OR, NAND, NOR), if I didn't make any typos feeding the > > program, > > > > A' = ~(G&F&~(D&B)) [2 gates - 2NAND, 3NAND] > > B' = (C&F&D)|(A&~E) [4 gates - NOT, 2AND, 3AND, 2OR] > > C' = E|~(B&~(D&C&A&B)) [3 gates - 4NAND, 2NAND, 2OR] > > D' = ~(B&(C|E)&A&~(D&C&F&E)) [3 gates - 4NAND, 2OR, 4NAND] > > E' = ~(E|(D&~(D&A&B))) [3 gates - 3NAND, 2AND, 2NOR] > > F' = A|D [1 gate - 2OR] > > G' = ~(G&F&(C|E)&~(D&C&A&B)) [3 gates - 4NAND, 2OR, 4NAND] > > The structure of a PAL/CAL is a programmable AND matrix followed by a > fixed OR matrize. That is, the D inputs of the flip-flops come from OR > gates (with, a fixed number of inputs, I think 8 in this case), the inputs > of thost OR gates come from AND gates which can be programmed to AND > together any comination of inputs, feedback terms (outputs of the > flip-flops) and their inverses. With a GAL (although not a PAL), you can > invert the final output on the pin (that is, make the D-tupe store A' > rather than A) if it manas the logic will fit), but IIRC, you have to keep > track of whether each flip-flop is inverted or not, since you have to use > the right sense of the feedback terms. Some CAD tools with convert > arbitrary equations into the right SOP form, sometimes you get to do it > yourself. > > -tony > I designed a " new ? " 7 segment LED driver in college and if memory serves me it takes less terms or gates to shut segments off as opposed to turning them on ( i.e. for an " 8 " you don't turn off any segments, for a " 9 " you only turn off segment " E " ( standard 'Tony' convention ). Best regards, Steven From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 9 15:55:17 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 13:55:17 -0800 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <475C5610.8030700@mainecoon.com> References: , <475C5610.8030700@mainecoon.com> Message-ID: <475BF3C5.264.5A3AF4@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Dec 2007 at 12:54, Chris Kennedy wrote: > Richard wrote: > > > HOTs? > > Horizontal output transistors. 2N3055 IIRC. Or more likely (at least in my case) Horizontal Output Transformer. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 9 16:04:21 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:04:21 -0800 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <475C3DF7.7090105@mainecoon.com> References: <188010.45893.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com>, , <475C3DF7.7090105@mainecoon.com> Message-ID: <475BF5E5.13918.62892D@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Dec 2007 at 11:11, Chris Kennedy wrote: > They did indeed. In an era of model 33s the boxy 2000 with the equally > boxy detached keyboard was Really Very Cool. I seem to recall that one > had to be careful about power cycling them too quickly as they'd eat > HOTs if you did. The Beehives were the same slab-sided boxes. Sheet aluminum welded with little gussets every so often. The front was just a piece of tinted plexiglas attached with a variation of a velcro fastener. Shift register storage with an 8008 running affairs. I suspect that some of the old WPs used similar terminals. I recall that the CPT 8000 used a setup like that--load the terminal memory with text from a floppy, edit it offline, then send the page back to the disk. Cheers, Chuck From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Sun Dec 9 16:42:17 2007 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:42:17 -0500 Subject: Yet Another VT-100 Emulator In-Reply-To: <200712092019.lB9KJNKR013500@hosting.monisys.ca> References: <200712092019.lB9KJNKR013500@hosting.monisys.ca> Message-ID: <475C6F49.6000404@compsys.to> >Dave Dunfield wrote: >Hi Guys, > >Just thought I'd mention in case anyone is interested... > >Having recently acquired a couple of VAXen, I've taken the time to >update my LAPTALK terminal program to provide MUCH more complete >VT-100 emulation. This is a very small (<20k) DOS program, so you >can use it to turn any old PC into a terminal. > >First the bad news - Like most PC/text based VT-100 emulators, it >DOES NOT support: > - Double width/Double height lines. > - 132 column mode. > - Split RX/TX speeds. >The good news - It does support "most everything else" now. In fact, >it's the only emulator I've tested which passes all of my "VT-100 >Checkup" tests (excepting for the limitations mentioned above) - I've >included the test program in the archive. > >It also adds a few extra features you might find useful: > - Fairly power script language for automating sessions. > - 40 programmable function keys (F1-F10, ShiftF1-F10, CtrlF1-F10 and > AltF1-F10) with on-screen labels. (very handy!) > - If you have a VGA display it will load a custom character set to > provide the complete VT-100 character set including the graphics > mode characters. I've also include a font editor so that you can > create your own custom character sets if you like. > >I've made the package temporarily available at: > http://www.dunfield.com/pub/index.htm > >If there's any interest, I'll find it a permanent home. > >Regards, >Dave > > >-- >dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield >dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com >com Collector of vintage computing equipment: > http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html > > > Jerome Fine replies: Any possibility that your VT-100 emulator can be extended to support 132 character text lines? Most of the programs that I write are in MACRO-11 and they require 132 character text lines for the list files which are generated. The alternative is to use 80 character text lines with wrap around and that is so messy that it becomes almost useless by comparison. The other reason is that I use the KEYPAD characters under RT-11 for both KED and SL:(Single Line Editor). Are you confident that the keypad key acts as the key which translates to the 3 character sequence: "[P"? Also, the keypad comma, ".", key on the VT-100 is just above the keypad key, but does not exist on the PC keypad. I finally settled on the key as a substitute since there never seemed to be any use other for . What does your VT-100 emulator substitute for the keypad comma, ",", key? And finally, On the VT-100 keyboard, the SCROLL/NOSCROLL key is at the bottom left hand corner of the keyboard. While the standard 105 keyboard from a PC can't exactly correspond to the VT-100, the key can act in that manner and the key then becomes the key on the VT-100. Is your VT-100 emulator able to manage this aspect as well? 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 rtellason at verizon.net Sun Dec 9 16:59:43 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:59:43 -0500 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <475C5610.8030700@mainecoon.com> References: <475C5610.8030700@mainecoon.com> Message-ID: <200712091759.43575.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 09 December 2007 15:54, Chris Kennedy wrote: > Richard wrote: > > HOTs? > > Horizontal output transistors. 2N3055 IIRC. They used one of those for a HOT? Wow. I'd not have expected that, with the ratings on that part. Most of those have *way* higher voltage ratings... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Dec 9 17:05:22 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 18:05:22 -0500 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <475BEE59.27300.450F03@cclist.sydex.com> References: <01C83907.7B2D9BC0@mandr71> <200712091956.OAA09542@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <475BEE59.27300.450F03@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200712091805.22254.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 09 December 2007 16:32, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 9 Dec 2007 at 14:45, der Mouse wrote: > > For an N-stable circuit, this technique requires 2*(N-1) inputs on each > > gate. For a bistable, or even a tristable, this is tolerable; for an > > 8-stable, it requires eight 14-input NANDs. You could do it with > > 8*14=112 diodes (hmm, might need another 8) and a relatively small > > handful of resistors and transistors. Doing it with just TTL would > > be..somewhat inconvenient. > > Perhaps something with UJTs and diodes--a UJT would give you a stable > state for each button and some steering logic would get you there. > But UJTs seem to be pretty scarce nowadays. You can make your own with a pair of cross-connected transistors. > Better to use a single RS FF per button, with reset being driven by > the OR of all of the other buttons. You could certainly do the OR > with diodes; for an 8-button setup that would be 8 RS flip-flops and > 56 diodes (fewer if you want to make a tree of them). That'd be 2 > 74279s or 4043s with a pile of diodes. A similar application that comes to mind is the "game controller" where each contestant has a push button and the first one in gets lit and locks the other ones out. There are a bunch of circuits like that around the web. See the "4QD" site (in the uk?) for an example of both this and the how-to-make-your-own UJT particulars. My initial reply on this went offlist, and I still think it's the simplest. You take a '374 (well, I have a pile of 'em here... :-) and connect a push button with a pullup resistor to each input. Then connect a diode to those points too, with all of the diodes tied together. A single transistor fed by those diodes will generate the clock... My application for that was a multiple-battery charging setup. I still have to finish up the design in figuring out how each select output will choose a different circuit (different sized batteries) and build the darn thing, saving me the effort of having to manually hook up all sorts of stuff and deal with it. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Dec 9 17:08:30 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 18:08:30 -0500 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] In-Reply-To: <475BF270.17386.5508D7@cclist.sydex.com> References: <475BF270.17386.5508D7@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200712091808.30903.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 09 December 2007 16:49, Chuck Guzis wrote: > It seems that Apple is getting closer to MICROS~1 every day. (Snip) > And Apple is now flogging the new Macs as great Windoze machines. Good > times. Ick. They can keep 'em... -- 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 Sun Dec 9 17:17:03 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 15:17:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] In-Reply-To: <200712091808.30903.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <475BF270.17386.5508D7@cclist.sydex.com> <200712091808.30903.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20071209151559.O26905@shell.lmi.net> > And Apple is now flogging the new Macs as great Windoze machines. Good > times. Apple's hardware usta be incapable of running Windoze malware. They have finally fixed that incompatability. From dm561 at torfree.net Sun Dec 9 17:09:58 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 18:09:58 -0500 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 Message-ID: <01C83A90.5FFEE0E0@mandr71> Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 15:55:19 -0500 From: "Roy J. Tellason" Subject: Re: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Message-ID: <200712091555.19523.rtellason at verizon.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 On Sunday 09 December 2007 15:47, Richard wrote: >> In article , >> >> "Paxton Hoag" writes: >> > So if you see one expect to pay for it. >> >> I had to outbid other Crommeco collectors for the Beehive. $350. >Dang! That Cromemco 3101 (?) I have sitting in storage is worth that much? >Whodathunkit... --------- And I gave one away... Lesson learned! m From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 9 17:35:48 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 15:35:48 -0800 Subject: Almost OT: Pushbutton switch latching In-Reply-To: <200712091805.22254.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <01C83907.7B2D9BC0@mandr71>, <475BEE59.27300.450F03@cclist.sydex.com>, <200712091805.22254.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <475C0B54.6133.B64148@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Dec 2007 at 18:05, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > My initial reply on this went offlist, and I still think it's the simplest. > You take a '374 (well, I have a pile of 'em here... :-) and connect a push > button with a pullup resistor to each input. Then connect a diode to those > points too, with all of the diodes tied together. A single transistor fed > by those diodes will generate the clock... You can probably leave out the transistor if you don't need to invert the diode "OR". i.e. if you need to clock on the falling edge. You could also fool with pulldowns, N.C. pushbottons, etc. I was looking for a "valid state guaranteed" circuit where the output terms would feed back into the input to guarantee that only one output would ever be valid--even on powerup. You can do it, but the gate count starts to climb rapidly as the number of states increases, as der Mouse has illustrated. There are diode arrays in SIPs and DIPs if you don't like the look of discretes. Cheers, Chuck From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Dec 9 19:25:06 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 17:25:06 -0800 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: <200712091555.19523.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200712091555.19523.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: > From: rtellason at verizon.net > > On Sunday 09 December 2007 15:47, Richard wrote: >> In article , >> >> "Paxton Hoag" writes: >>> So if you see one expect to pay for it. >> >> I had to outbid other Crommeco collectors for the Beehive. $350. > > Dang! That Cromemco 3101 (?) I have sitting in storage is worth that much? > > Whodathunkit... I doubt the scrap got anything like $350 for a BeeHive. I doubt there was more than $20 all to gether in metal in one. I'd gladly pay $50 for a working BeeHive, especially if it had the Intel blue paint. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live.Download today it's FREE! http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_sharelife_112007 From ian_primus at yahoo.com Sun Dec 9 20:23:35 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 18:23:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <938918.93074.qm@web52706.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- Richard wrote: > > In article > <200712091555.19523.rtellason at verizon.net>, > "Roy J. Tellason" > writes: > > > On Sunday 09 December 2007 15:47, Richard wrote: > > > In article > = > > , > > > > > > "Paxton Hoag" > writes: > > > > So if you see one expect to pay for it. > > > > > > I had to outbid other Crommeco collectors for > the Beehive. $350. > > > > Dang! That Cromemco 3101 (?) I have sitting in > storage is worth that muc= > > h? > > As we have discussed many times, the prices on ebay > are not a > necessarily reliable indicator of value. But yes, I > had to pay that > much to win that auction. > > If you auction yours, will it command 350? I don't > know. I think I'm > about the only person actively *looking* for a > beehive terminal. Just > another demonstration of how, even in a bunch of > "odd" people, I will > still be "odder" :-). Heh. I am actively looking for a Beehive, and several other old/weird terminals too. But I can't afford to spend anywhere near that. For example, that Soroc on eBay - it's a store item for $120 + $60 shipping. I could never justify spending that much money for a terminal. (Especially one in as bad a shape as that Soroc!). I collect terminals, but I just don't have deep pockets. But, I am glad that Richard found one, and congrats on the Tek 4014! That's a really, really sweet terminal. Anyone got one that needs a new home? -Ian From ian_primus at yahoo.com Sun Dec 9 20:23:35 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 18:23:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <938918.93074.qm@web52706.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- Richard wrote: > > In article > <200712091555.19523.rtellason at verizon.net>, > "Roy J. Tellason" > writes: > > > On Sunday 09 December 2007 15:47, Richard wrote: > > > In article > = > > , > > > > > > "Paxton Hoag" > writes: > > > > So if you see one expect to pay for it. > > > > > > I had to outbid other Crommeco collectors for > the Beehive. $350. > > > > Dang! That Cromemco 3101 (?) I have sitting in > storage is worth that muc= > > h? > > As we have discussed many times, the prices on ebay > are not a > necessarily reliable indicator of value. But yes, I > had to pay that > much to win that auction. > > If you auction yours, will it command 350? I don't > know. I think I'm > about the only person actively *looking* for a > beehive terminal. Just > another demonstration of how, even in a bunch of > "odd" people, I will > still be "odder" :-). Heh. I am actively looking for a Beehive, and several other old/weird terminals too. But I can't afford to spend anywhere near that. For example, that Soroc on eBay - it's a store item for $120 + $60 shipping. I could never justify spending that much money for a terminal. (Especially one in as bad a shape as that Soroc!). I collect terminals, but I just don't have deep pockets. But, I am glad that Richard found one, and congrats on the Tek 4014! That's a really, really sweet terminal. Anyone got one that needs a new home? -Ian From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Dec 9 20:34:53 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 21:34:53 -0500 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] In-Reply-To: <475BF270.17386.5508D7@cclist.sydex.com> References: >, <475BF270.17386.5508D7@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <5c66d2f5ec037db279dfba3407e481fa@neurotica.com> On Dec 9, 2007, at 4:49 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > It seems that Apple is getting closer to MICROS~1 every day. I > powered up my old G3 with Panther installed the other day and learned > that there was something like 59MB in security updates waiting for me > to install. Updates aren't bad. An OS being so poorly designed and implemented that it can't function WITHOUT updates is bad. That's the difference. > I can't imagine how a user with slow modem access deals > with this kind of thing. And the US is full of people with modem as > their only available internet access--and not at anywhere near 56K. As someone who has worked in the ISP industry for many years, and currently manages a (quickly shrinking) dialin bank, I say "bunk". Dialup is very nearly dead. > A friend upgraded to Leopard from Tiger on his G4 and lost every bit > of his saved email. Leopard is problematic in a number of ways, it seems. I won't be moving to it for some time. > And Apple is now flogging the new Macs as great Windoze machines. > Good times. Yep. I might have to move back to Sun for my main desktop platform if Apple keeps trying to turn themselves into a PeeCee company. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 9 21:13:25 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 19:13:25 -0800 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] In-Reply-To: <5c66d2f5ec037db279dfba3407e481fa@neurotica.com> References: , <5c66d2f5ec037db279dfba3407e481fa@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <475C3E55.19958.17D7CEF@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Dec 2007 at 21:34, Dave McGuire wrote: > As someone who has worked in the ISP industry for many years, and > currently manages a (quickly shrinking) dialin bank, I say "bunk". > Dialup is very nearly dead. According to a July report from the American Farm Bureau Federation, only about 24 percent of rural US households have any access to broadband at all. Fewer than 10 percent actually subscribe. It's kind of the rural electrification before REA. Not everyone lives in a city. Heck, I'm only 2 miles outside of the city and there's no WiFi or cable here--but because I was willing to sell a parcel of land to the telco, I do have DSL. Cheers, Chuck From g-wright at att.net Sun Dec 9 21:14:43 2007 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 03:14:43 +0000 Subject: CDC 5 1/4 floppy 77711501 / 77711800 specs, update Message-ID: <121020070314.9094.475CAF2100056D160000238622230704929B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> -------------- Original message from "Chuck Guzis" : -------------- > Well, I can tell you that MPI made 100 tpi FH drives--I have two of > them on my shelf here, date codes are 81-82. Unfortunately, the > labels have dried up and dropped off, so I no longer have any idea of > what their part number is. I've also got a couple in another > machine, but it's a bear to get at them. > > Does the drive have a little "daughterboard" plugged into the main > PCB with a 74ls123 on it? That'd be the "Drive Ready' circuit. I > don't know if all MPI 100 tpi drives had this though. > > "Micropolis" type 100tpi drives also have a slightly different pinout > than normal "Shugart" type drives (this includes the Tandon TM-100- > 4M). A big difference is that READY is pin 6, not 34. Maybe that's > what's causing your drive error. > > Just guessing... > > Cheers, > Chuck > Hi, Well Chuck and Paxton where right there. I took a chance and pulled a Quad denisity drive out of a Motorola system I got from Paxon (sorry Tony. I see your post) and all is well. It took 16 disks to back up close to 10 megs. I had to bulk erase the disks (DSDD) for them to work with either drive. Anadisk finds 80 cylinders and is able to read the whole floppy with out errors ( using a 1.2HD drive.) I have not workd with Image disk yet. I'm still out in the dark on the OS and how to make a bootable floppy. I cant get past there Menu system It seems to run on or with some type of basic. Below is a Boot screen for those with interest. The System is a small desk top 6 serial port business system. Thanks, Jerry ...................................................... BOOTSTRAP LOADER VER 120A 31MAR83 S/N:000794 STARDOS SYSTEM UTILITIES REV 242B 10JAN84 STARDOS BASIC LOADER 1) ENTER MASTER MENU 2) ENTER SYSTEM UTILITIES MENU ENTER YOUR CHOICE 2 ########################################### # STARDOS SYSTEM UTILITIES - VERSION 242B # ########################################### 1) ENTER MASTER MENU 2) INITIALIZE DEVICE 3) COPY DISKETTE 4) COPY STARDOS 5) RECONFIGURE 6) BINARY BACKUP HARD DISK 7) BINARY RESTORE HARD DISK 8) INITIALIZE FILE SAVE DISKETTE 9) HARDWARE CONFIGURATION ENTER YOUR CHOICE 1 *** S T A R D O S II *** BASIC RELEASE 10.7 REV C 05JUN84 snip................................................. From teoz at neo.rr.com Sun Dec 9 21:29:21 2007 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 22:29:21 -0500 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this oldpeecee...] References: , <5c66d2f5ec037db279dfba3407e481fa@neurotica.com> <475C3E55.19958.17D7CEF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <004601c83adc$db1b8890$c600a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2007 10:13 PM Subject: Re: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this oldpeecee...] > According to a July report from the American Farm Bureau Federation, > only about 24 percent of rural US households have any access to > broadband at all. Fewer than 10 percent actually subscribe. It's > kind of the rural electrification before REA. > > Not everyone lives in a city. Heck, I'm only 2 miles outside of the > city and there's no WiFi or cable here--but because I was willing to > sell a parcel of land to the telco, I do have DSL. > > Cheers, > Chuck > America used to be a nation of farmers who left the farms to find work in the city. The way work in the city is going you might want to get that parcel of land back from the telco. ;) What speed data access do you get using cell phones these days? Just about anywhere has cell phone access these days and I figure sooner or later the data rate will be high enough you can just use the cell for DATA instead of having to have a cable or DSL landline. From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Dec 9 21:36:38 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 22:36:38 -0500 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] In-Reply-To: <475C3E55.19958.17D7CEF@cclist.sydex.com> References: <5c66d2f5ec037db279dfba3407e481fa@neurotica.com> <475C3E55.19958.17D7CEF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200712092236.38904.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 09 December 2007 22:13, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 9 Dec 2007 at 21:34, Dave McGuire wrote: > > As someone who has worked in the ISP industry for many years, and > > currently manages a (quickly shrinking) dialin bank, I say "bunk". > > Dialup is very nearly dead. > > According to a July report from the American Farm Bureau Federation, > only about 24 percent of rural US households have any access to > broadband at all. Fewer than 10 percent actually subscribe. It's > kind of the rural electrification before REA. > > Not everyone lives in a city. Heck, I'm only 2 miles outside of the > city and there's no WiFi or cable here--but because I was willing to > sell a parcel of land to the telco, I do have DSL. Interesting approach, that. I have a friend in rural WV and who had basically *no* options besides dialup until he very recently got satellite, which cost for some equipment and is costing him *way* more a month than what I'm spending here on DSL -- about 4 times as much. -- 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 doc at mdrconsult.com Sun Dec 9 22:07:58 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 22:07:58 -0600 Subject: Haletine 2000 ? was Re: Hazeltine 1200 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <475CBB9E.8050909@mdrconsult.com> Richard wrote: > There are two Soroc terminals on ebay right now, but both have serious > screen rot and one has a fairly substantial crack in the case. Been meaning to ask about a Soroc. I know they're subject to screen rot, but would that be visible with the terminal powered down? Are they really unobtainium? Doc From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 9 22:08:01 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 20:08:01 -0800 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this oldpeecee...] In-Reply-To: <004601c83adc$db1b8890$c600a8c0@game> References: Message-ID: <475C4B21.21553.1AF785D@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Dec 2007 at 22:29, Teo Zenios wrote: > What speed data access do you get using cell phones these days? Just about > anywhere has cell phone access these days and I figure sooner or later the > data rate will be high enough you can just use the cell for DATA instead of > having to have a cable or DSL landline. A lot of wireless coverage depends on terrain. It's kind of funny watching cars with Verizon coverage headed down the hill stop on the road just in back of my house to get their last crack at cell coverage. I've invited several friends with various carriers to visit my bass pond at the bottom of a draw. Nada, zip, nothing down there and probably never will be. Gives me a great excuse to be incommunicado--gone fishin'. :) Cheers, Chuck From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Dec 9 22:17:25 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 22:17:25 -0600 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] References: <5c66d2f5ec037db279dfba3407e481fa@neurotica.com><475C3E55.19958.17D7CEF@cclist.sydex.com> <200712092236.38904.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <008301c83ae3$92b5bbf0$6600a8c0@JWEST> Someone wrote... >> According to a July report from the American Farm Bureau Federation, Hopefully there was going to be discussion of the computers used by the FBF? No? Surely that's why we're heading down this path? Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Dec 9 22:19:42 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 22:19:42 -0600 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got thisoldpeecee...] References: <475C4B21.21553.1AF785D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <009201c83ae3$e3c36600$6600a8c0@JWEST> >> What speed data access do you get using cell phones these days? *blink* From Nick.Jarmany at quixant.co.uk Sun Dec 9 10:22:38 2007 From: Nick.Jarmany at quixant.co.uk (Nick Jarmany) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 16:22:38 -0000 Subject: Free Magazines. was: Electronics Today International back issues Message-ID: <68A53467ED2703459FFCD5A9CE2C9C6806E54467@EXVS01.HL.local> Hi Rob, You may not remember but you posted the following on classiccmp.org about 2 years ago:- >I have a large pile of magazines dating back to the 70's-mid 80's, mostly >Hobby Electronics right from the start, quite a lot of ETI (but I don't >think as late as wanted here, box is buried behind a live server so will >take time to access and check) also a lot of Practical Electronics >including, if I still have them, many dating back to the '60s. Lots of >odds and ends too as to be expected, plus I think some Railway Modeling >mags to stray off topic.. I am writing this email on the off-chance you might still have these. I grew up with ETI as a child and kept all my magazines from mid-70?s until mid-80?s but unfortunately they were all thrown out when my parents moved house. I found your post (and the classiccmp.org forum ) from a Google for Electronics Today International. I am trying to get hold of as many of the magazines from this era as possible. I am particularly hoping to be able to find the issues that covered the ETI System68, which I built when I was 16. Ideally I would like to find these and get them scanned, approach the current copyright owners and see if they would agree to PDF?s of these magazines being made available online. I would also like to try and re-build this design if at all possible. Anyway, hope to hear from you. Regards, Nick Jarmany London No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.17/1177 - Release Date: 07/12/2007 13:11 From wgungfu at csd.uwm.edu Sun Dec 9 16:24:24 2007 From: wgungfu at csd.uwm.edu (Martin Scott Goldberg) Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 16:24:24 -0600 (CST) Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Dec 09, 2007 02:50:23 PM Message-ID: <200712092224.lB9MOO9F018884@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu> >In article <006701c83aa7$5f230860$c600a8c0 at game>, > "Teo Zenios" writes: > >> NEXTstep was a finished OS that just needed ported, BEOS was a work in >> progress that needed more work (networking etc). It came down to Gassee >> wanting too much cash and Jobs being a better bullshitter. > >A fair enough assessment, but the main point I wanted to make is that >it wasn't just Unix and Windows that passed on the ideas in BeOS. It >was everyone. At the time of the deal with Jobs, sure. When I adopted it at BeOS Pro R5 (2000), no, it was a finished OS. The downfall was with Gassee and his boneheaded drivers philosophy (or strategy if you want to call it that). Rather than continuing to write drivers to support products, (and this is verbatim what I was explained by tech support there at the time) they wanted to force the hardware manufacturers to support them and take them seriously for driver support. I.e., enough users contact the hardware manufacturers wanting a driver and they in turn will decide to support BeOS and write the driver for it. Of course that didn't work, the drivers never appeared, users had to stick with older hardware or loose BeOS support, and BeOS sold to PALM. On the plus side, there's Haiku. An open source version of BeOS R5, that's compatible in both source and binary. I've actually replaced some parts of my Pro R5 with it, and they've worked flawlessly. I believe they just need to complete the network and usb stacks to have a full replacement (last I checked). Marty From derschjo at msu.edu Sun Dec 9 16:34:24 2007 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:34:24 -0800 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] In-Reply-To: <475BF270.17386.5508D7@cclist.sydex.com> References: >, <475BF270.17386.5508D7@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <475C6D70.2050007@msu.edu> Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > It seems that Apple is getting closer to MICROS~1 every day. I > powered up my old G3 with Panther installed the other day and learned > that there was something like 59MB in security updates waiting for me > to install. I can't imagine how a user with slow modem access deals > with this kind of thing. And the US is full of people with modem as > their only available internet access--and not at anywhere near 56K. > > To be fair, I don't think this is limited to Apple or Microsoft; I booted an Ubuntu Linux box of mine a few weeks ago and had about 75mb of updates that it wanted me to install. Programmers make mistakes, unfortunately, and I don't think that's a trend that's going to change anytime soon. At least they're fixing the problems, though I agree that it's painful to get the fixes over a modem (haven't had to do that in years, thankfully.) Josh From derschjo at msu.edu Sun Dec 9 19:52:02 2007 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:52:02 -0800 Subject: ROM image for NEC PC-8300 In-Reply-To: <01C83667.705C7CE0@mandr71> References: <01C83667.705C7CE0@mandr71> Message-ID: <475C9BC2.1060109@msu.edu> Excellent -- thanks for the pointer, I'll give him a ring... Thanks, Josh M H Stein wrote: > -----------Original Message: > Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:32:18 -0800 > From: Josh Dersch > Subject: ROM image for NEC PC-8300 > > Anyone out there have a ROM image for the NEC PC-8300? This is NEC's > variant of the Kyocera KC 85, of which the TRS-80 Model 100 was another. > > I picked up two of these a long time ago, they had been used as some > sort of data-logging system and had custom ROMs in them which are > useless without special hardware I don't have :). Now that I have a > functional EPROM burner I can get this running in its native state, if > only I can find the right ROM for it. Can't seem to find this on the 'net. > > Thanks for any pointers... > Josh > > ----------Reply: > Go to: > http://www.diginexus.com/web8201/ > and get in touch with Gary at the link there; he's Mr. NEC and will have it > for you and he's also a nice guy who'll gladly help you with any other NEC > issues you may have. > > mike > > > > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Dec 11 21:52:07 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:52:07 -0600 Subject: list is open Message-ID: <002001c83c72$5e09fbb0$6600a8c0@JWEST> List is back open for traffic. Let's try to keep it more on-topic please. Jay From silent700 at gmail.com Tue Dec 11 22:09:59 2007 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 22:09:59 -0600 Subject: Some old ad pins Message-ID: <51ea77730712112009k3646e64eyd137f62a5925f9bb@mail.gmail.com> A while back a friend gave me a big tub of pins his father was going to toss out. His dad did sales and marketing for Zenith, I believe, and had these pins from a CES show in the early 80s. I've laid them all out and taken some pics: http://flickr.com/photos/chiclassiccomp/sets/72157603430282899/ There are many recognizable names in there, some rare ones (Esprit!) and some I have no idea what they are. Flickr users who can name some of the oddballs feel free to add Flickr notes to the pics to ID them. You'll probably want to view the pics full size, or at least larger than they display by default. j -- silent700.blogspot.com Retrocomputing and collecting in the Chicago area: http://chiclassiccomp.org From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Dec 11 22:39:34 2007 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:39:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: Some old ad pins In-Reply-To: <51ea77730712112009k3646e64eyd137f62a5925f9bb@mail.gmail.com> References: <51ea77730712112009k3646e64eyd137f62a5925f9bb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Dec 2007, Jason T wrote: > A while back a friend gave me a big tub of pins his father was going > to toss out. His dad did sales and marketing for Zenith, I believe, > and had these pins from a CES show in the early 80s. I've laid them > all out and taken some pics: Very nifty! Rather than keeping those in a box, why don't you stick them all on a board and hang it on the wall? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Dec 11 22:47:08 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim s) Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:47:08 -0800 Subject: Some old ad pins In-Reply-To: <51ea77730712112009k3646e64eyd137f62a5925f9bb@mail.gmail.com> References: <51ea77730712112009k3646e64eyd137f62a5925f9bb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <475F67CC.1070008@msm.umr.edu> Jason T wrote: I emailed the one with the Able computer one in it to Ken Omohundro, who founded Able. I found a nice history of his about Microdata, but I don't think anyone has gotten him to recount his Able computer experiences. He consulted for a while after Microdata before the Able computer concept took off. It stemmed from ideas that Microdata exploited in their emulation of computer systems to do a similar thing with computer I/O to simplify the problem. Jim From innfoclassics at gmail.com Tue Dec 11 23:32:50 2007 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:32:50 -0800 Subject: any one have Mini-Micro Systems magazines & digests? Message-ID: One of my favorite reference magazines was Mini-Micro Systems which published from 1976 to 1989 by the Cahners Publications. They printed 10 issues a year along with a Spring and Fall Peripherals Digest. I think Starting in June 1984 they printed a Mini-Micro computers special issue. I have one copy left, the 1983 Fall Peripherals digest. It is what I was looking for when Jerry was trying to identify the CDC/QD drive he had. Unfortunately the model numbers and what is printed on the drive don't correspond (and from what I remember never did) They have sections on drives, in fact they have separate sections listing 8", 5 1/4" and Micro Drives. The 5 1/4 " drive listing has 39 makers of internal and external 5 1/4" drives, including simple specs; sides, capacity, tracks, TPI, access time, transfer rate, dimensions and model numbers. Similarly for hard drives of all sizes (14" to 3") and removable cart drives. They also had a great reference section on Terminals and Printers. They are great reference magazines for collectors or for just identifying equipment. The collection is one of the things I miss the most, losing them in a house fire. Doing an Internet search I discovered WorldCat.org which indicates there is a Microfiche set at Oregon State University in Corvallis. I will have to go look. So does anyone have a set or the Microfiche? I think anyone who has a museum should think of looking for this magazine, especially the product digests for reference. -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From silent700 at gmail.com Tue Dec 11 23:51:49 2007 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 23:51:49 -0600 Subject: Some old ad pins In-Reply-To: References: <51ea77730712112009k3646e64eyd137f62a5925f9bb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <51ea77730712112151s2efb170fm5cbc8ded4c35c2c9@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 11, 2007 10:39 PM, David Griffith wrote: > Very nifty! Rather than keeping those in a box, why don't you stick them > all on a board and hang it on the wall? Yeah, I'll get around to that sometime. At least in time for VCF-MW next year so I can display them. Meant to do that this year and forgot I even had them! From g-wright at att.net Wed Dec 12 00:22:38 2007 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 06:22:38 +0000 Subject: any one have Mini-Micro Systems magazines & digests? Message-ID: <121220070622.25766.475F7E2C000E7007000064A622230647629B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> -------------- Original message from "Paxton Hoag" : -------------- > One of my favorite reference magazines was Mini-Micro Systems which > published from 1976 to 1989 by the Cahners Publications. They printed > 10 issues a year along with a Spring and Fall Peripherals Digest. I > think Starting in June 1984 they printed a Mini-Micro computers > special issue. > > I have one copy left, the 1983 Fall Peripherals digest. It is what I > was looking for when Jerry was trying to identify the CDC/QD drive he > had. > > Unfortunately the model numbers and what is printed on the drive don't > correspond (and from what I remember never did) > Hi, Paxton well you might be right on that. I have looked high and low and seem to keep coming up with different numbers for the drives. Here is what is listed on Mfaris site. for CDC and MPI (both names are on the label). http://www.mfarris.com/floppy/mpi.html http://www.mfarris.com/floppy/cdc.html - jerry From colin.jensen at gulfair.com Wed Dec 12 01:18:48 2007 From: colin.jensen at gulfair.com (Colin Albert Jensen) Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:18:48 +0300 Subject: Apple external SCSI drives Message-ID: Good Morning Mark Have you had any luck or info on the Ricoh RH5500 drive. Thanks Colin Official Airline and Sponsor of the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2008 www.gulfair.com ================================================================================================================= This is an e-mail from Gulf Air Co. It is privileged and confidential and is intended only for the individual or entity named above and contains information that is or may be confidential, non-public or legally privileged. Any retention, dissemination or distribution of this message other than to its intended recipient is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, kindly reply back to the sender immediately and delete the original message and all its copies. ================================================================================================================= From corticn at linuxserv.home Tue Dec 11 04:48:33 2007 From: corticn at linuxserv.home (Christian Corti) Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 11:48:33 +0100 (CET) Subject: 5V and early ICs In-Reply-To: <475C5195.905BCF7C@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200712080520.lB85KeX3002418@billy.ezwind.net> <475A41B2.457CB15C@cs.ubc.ca> <200712081611.52995.rtellason@verizon.net> <475B2216.772DB531@cs.ubc.ca> <475C5195.905BCF7C@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: On Sun, 9 Dec 2007, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Well, that makes sense to some degree, the 740 numbers conceivably following > on the 730 RTL numbers, but I have never seen or heard as you suggest. > It sounds a little more like a convolution of TI's developments. The > 1965 catalog (which appears to be a full-line catalog) declares the 5400 > series as new, it includes earlier/older IC series, and makes no mention of > either 740 or 7400 numbers or series. The implication from this catalog is > that TI went to the 4-digit numbers with the original and initial release > of the 5400 series. All the mentioned 5400 numbers end in 0. It seems that I was wrong with the three-digit 74 series. Ok, I will simply list all TI digital IC series that I have found in two old data books: 1. American Miniature and Microminiature Electronic Assemblies Data Annual (1963-64) Series 51 RCTL logic: SN510, SN511, SN512 and SN513. (and that's it...) 2. Semiconductor Integrated Circuits (Texas Instruments, August 1965) Series 51 and 51R RCTL: Three-digit numbers, newer parts have four-digits, e.g. SN510, SN5101 SN511, SN5111, SN5112, SN5113 Series 53 and 73 Modified-DTL: This is were TI seems to have introduced the four-digit numbers, e.g. SN530 / SN7300 SN531 / SN7310 Apparently there was no three-digit 73 series, but a SN530 and SN7300 are identical parts (except for the temperature range) Minuteman series DTL (e.g. SN337A, SN341A, SN359A) Series 54 and 74 TTL: Has always had four-digit numbers (SN5400, SN7400) Series 70 ECL (SN7000, SN7001) Series 1500 and 1580 DTL Series 1700 RTL Christian From frustum at pacbell.net Wed Dec 12 11:16:28 2007 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:16:28 -0600 Subject: 12" CRT for cost of shipping Message-ID: <4760176C.4070000@pacbell.net> I listed a CRT on ebay and received no bids. If anybody in the US would like to pay for shipping, you can have it. I was told it was a replacement CRT for a TRS-80 (model 3 or 4, I guess) from the guy who gave it to me. It is unused and thus has no burn in. Search ebay for auction #120193025277. Or you can view a greater variety of full scale images here: http://home.pacbell.net/frustum/ebay/tube/ Even if you don't have a trs-80 with a dead tube, perhaps you can turn it into a cool large screen vectrex instead. From legalize at xmission.com Wed Dec 12 11:58:07 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:58:07 -0700 Subject: free SGI Origin 2000 In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:09:23 -0700. <15DD6E37-9A01-434B-9ED6-0A2B7B70BFAD@earthlink.net> Message-ID: In article <15DD6E37-9A01-434B-9ED6-0A2B7B70BFAD at earthlink.net>, mike ingram writes: > I have two (2) SGI Origin 2000 systems.... It's an 8 node, 195Mhz > R10000, 512Mbyte, CD, 4Gbyte disk.. I had an interesting time going down to Tucson to pick these up. Much thanks to Mike Ingram for making them available for me, along with 5 Octanes, for free. The "interesting" part of my trip was that on the way back to SLC from Tucson, my engine started acting up and it took the mechanics a while to figure it out so that I had to stay over until Monday morning. I just got everything unpacked at home and these machines will make a nice addition to my computer graphics museum :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From medavidson at mac.com Thu Dec 13 01:15:39 2007 From: medavidson at mac.com (Mark Davidson) Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 23:15:39 -0800 Subject: ***SPAM*** Re: Symbolics XL400/1200 In-Reply-To: <4754BC37.5070707@saw.net> References: <474CA08F.60002@saw.net> <4754BC37.5070707@saw.net> Message-ID: <400D0BD0-C6BD-49BE-B58B-3941C2E397DB@mac.com> I've been out of touch via email for a week, so I just got this. Have you sold the machine yet? Thanks. Mark On Dec 3, 2007, at 6:32 PM, davis wrote: > Mark Davidson wrote: >> Out of curiosity, is this machine still available? >> >> Thanks. >> >> Mark >> >> On Nov 27, 2007, at 2:56 PM, davis wrote: >> >>> The machine is available in Portland Or or preferably, up the >>> gorge in Goldendale Wa. which is located about 100 miles east of >>> Portland. >>> The machine could be shipped, but it would require a pallet for >>> the case, foam for the monitor and separate packing for the drive >>> and boards. >>> I'm not sure how much it's worth. I have had an offer for $370. >>> So I guess thats a start. >>> The system includes the mono hi-res graphics monitor, space cadet >>> keyboard, full document (user) set, but no hardware prints (sorry) >>> and a frame tosser board. I'll throw in a couple bus mice, but >>> they will need to be rewired. I'll fire it up and verify that it >>> still boots. (it did 6 months ago) >>> If you pick it up in goldendale, I'll let you dig around in my >>> shed for other goodies. >>> The machine is badged as a XL400 but boot reports a XL1200. I >>> assume it's the extra memory and possibly software upgrades. >>> It has been stored inside, in a clean dry environment since I >>> picked it up about 7 years ago. >>> Jim Davis. >> >> >> > Hi Mark, > > The offer for the machine is currently at $600. > We have had a bit of weather, power outages and 2 feet of snow if > you haven't seen the news. > I'm just now getting back to everyone that showed interest. > > Thanks, > Jim. From jeffj at panix.com Wed Dec 12 21:26:37 2007 From: jeffj at panix.com (Jeff Jonas) Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:26:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: QIC drives need a home! Message-ID: I'm cleaning off my workbench and don't need this paperweight: Archive 5945L-3 QIC drive with daughter-board. It's a 60 mb drive but the card had no useful numbers. I suspect it's a QIC-02 to QIC-36 adapter. If anyone's still using such things, let me know, it's available! Jeff Jonas jeffj at panix.com From John.Santos at Sun.COM Wed Dec 12 21:37:33 2007 From: John.Santos at Sun.COM (John Santos) Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:37:33 -0800 Subject: Mike Quinn Electronics -- one last chance References: <43E245C9.26379.8E316330@brian.quarterbyte.com> Message-ID: <4760A8FD.7030100@Sun.COM> Where do I go now? I live in San Leandro and loved that place. I loved walking through all the cool stuff picking out some stepper motors or picking up some resistors or caps. Took my wife there once. She was amazed at the place. well I told her. "It's a geek thing" Know of another place like that around the bay area? John Santos From davis at saw.net Thu Dec 13 01:57:07 2007 From: davis at saw.net (davis) Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 23:57:07 -0800 Subject: ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Symbolics XL400/1200 In-Reply-To: <400D0BD0-C6BD-49BE-B58B-3941C2E397DB@mac.com> References: <474CA08F.60002@saw.net> <4754BC37.5070707@saw.net> <400D0BD0-C6BD-49BE-B58B-3941C2E397DB@mac.com> Message-ID: <4760E5D3.8090908@saw.net> Mark Davidson wrote: > I've been out of touch via email for a week, so I just got this. Have > you sold the machine yet? > > Thanks. > > Mark > > On Dec 3, 2007, at 6:32 PM, davis wrote: > >> Mark Davidson wrote: >>> Out of curiosity, is this machine still available? >>> >>> Thanks. >>> >>> Mark >>> >>> On Nov 27, 2007, at 2:56 PM, davis wrote: >>> >>>> The machine is available in Portland Or or preferably, up the gorge >>>> in Goldendale Wa. which is located about 100 miles east of Portland. >>>> The machine could be shipped, but it would require a pallet for the >>>> case, foam for the monitor and separate packing for the drive and >>>> boards. >>>> I'm not sure how much it's worth. I have had an offer for $370. So >>>> I guess thats a start. >>>> The system includes the mono hi-res graphics monitor, space cadet >>>> keyboard, full document (user) set, but no hardware prints (sorry) >>>> and a frame tosser board. I'll throw in a couple bus mice, but they >>>> will need to be rewired. I'll fire it up and verify that it still >>>> boots. (it did 6 months ago) >>>> If you pick it up in goldendale, I'll let you dig around in my shed >>>> for other goodies. >>>> The machine is badged as a XL400 but boot reports a XL1200. I >>>> assume it's the extra memory and possibly software upgrades. >>>> It has been stored inside, in a clean dry environment since I >>>> picked it up about 7 years ago. >>>> Jim Davis. >>> >>> >>> >> Hi Mark, >> >> The offer for the machine is currently at $600. >> We have had a bit of weather, power outages and 2 feet of snow if you >> haven't seen the news. >> I'm just now getting back to everyone that showed interest. >> >> Thanks, >> Jim. > > > Hi Mark, Josh Dursh in seattle offered 850$ and that was enough to keep me and my family warm this winter. I have a lot ot TEK gear that I would like to get rid of, Unfortunately it;s been stored in a unheated enclosure for nearly 20 years. So some of the components may need to be replaced. What kind of stuff are you looking for. I might have something in the piles of stuff. Mostly color graphics terminal stuff and tek graphics workstations. What I don't have: sun, dec, dg What I have, TEK, motorola, and a bunch of 70's micro stuff. Jim. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Dec 13 02:38:39 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 00:38:39 -0800 Subject: 5V and early ICs References: <200712080520.lB85KeX3002418@billy.ezwind.net> <475A41B2.457CB15C@cs.ubc.ca> <200712081611.52995.rtellason@verizon.net> <475B2216.772DB531@cs.ubc.ca> <475C5195.905BCF7C@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4760EF90.B22DE79C@cs.ubc.ca> Below I have interspersed the correlations from my 1965 TI catalog (TI "1965 Semiconductor and Components Catalog") with further comment following: Christian Corti wrote: > 2. Semiconductor Integrated Circuits (Texas Instruments, August 1965) > Series 51 and 51R RCTL: > Three-digit numbers, newer parts have four-digits, e.g. > SN510, SN5101 > SN511, SN5111, SN5112, SN5113 - yes > Series 53 and 73 Modified-DTL: > This is were TI seems to have introduced the four-digit numbers, e.g. > SN530 / SN7300 > SN531 / SN7310 > Apparently there was no three-digit 73 series, but a SN530 and SN7300 > are identical parts (except for the temperature range) - SN53x are mentioned - Series 73 industrial modified-DTL are mentioned in a special late-additions fold out attached to the back. The SN72x/73x RTL series is apparently distinct from these. > Minuteman series DTL (e.g. SN337A, SN341A, SN359A) - yes > Series 54 and 74 TTL: > Has always had four-digit numbers (SN5400, SN7400) - 5400,5410,5420,..5470 listed - 74xx not mentioned > Series 70 ECL (SN7000, SN7001) - not mentioned > Series 1500 and 1580 DTL - not mentioned > Series 1700 RTL - not mentioned My 1965 catalog does not specify a month, although it lists several other TI publications with the latest publication date being Mar 65. It would appear the catalog I have was but a few months before the one you have. Between the two of them it would seem reasonable to conclude the 7400 series was introduced in the summer of 1965, a few months after the 5400 series. > 1. American Miniature and Microminiature Electronic Assemblies Data Annual If you are ever inclined to produce scans of these, I'd be interested; someday I'd like to start compiling a list of the numerous early IC series. -- On another note, the catalog I have also lists "gallium-arsenide infrared sources" and "solid-state light emitters" (for the latter: "Spectral emission matched to silicon light-sensors", no mention is made of use as a visible indicator). From ian_primus at yahoo.com Thu Dec 13 08:12:19 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 06:12:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: Semi-OT:Storing electronic parts Message-ID: <547714.53357.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Well, I've made lots of progress on the eternal task of cleaning, sorting and organizing. I can now see my entire workbench! I found half a dozen #2 Phillips screwdrivers I hadn't seen in a while, and while vacuuming, I probably picked up a couple pounds of screws, wire insulation bits and solder drops. So, now I think I need to actually, finally organize my parts. You see, I started to do this a long time ago, and I have a lot of those little plastic drawers. I got about as far as the basic parts, and half way through the electrolytics. Everything else is semi-sorted into drawers, albiet with rather vauge categories "Transistors... Diodes..." or completely unsorted (Salsa jars, butter tubs, shoe boxes, coffee cans and Altoids tins). So now, I need to sit down, for a good long day, and sort parts into drawers. And herein lies my question - how do you manage a large parts collection? I mean, the phrase "junkbox" generally referrs to a somewhat organized system of finding parts, not just a copier paper box full of parts. Otherwise, you'll spend two hours just trying to find that 330 ohm current limiting resistor you need. So - how do other electronic hobbyists sort parts? How far do you organize them? A drawer for each value of resistor? Drawer for a range of values? What works well, to minimize the time spend searching for components? Also, another thing I have been wondering about - how bad is it to store IC's in those clear plastic parts drawers? Any problem with static? I've never noticed any, but then again, so far I've only got a handfull of basic TTL logic sorted out. The rest are still in tubes and boxes. What about CMOS chips? So, I'd be interested to hear what other people have to say on the subject - and Jay, I hope this is on-topic enough. I mean, these are all parts used for repairing and maintaining on-topic hardware, so I think it counts. All of us that fix this stuff need to keep track of parts. The next time I need a 1488 to repair a terminal that won't transmit, I don't want to spend four hours trying to find it. -Ian From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Dec 13 09:23:56 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:23:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: Semi-OT:Storing electronic parts In-Reply-To: <547714.53357.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <547714.53357.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200712131529.KAA17001@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > So - how do other electronic hobbyists sort parts? How far do you > organize them? A drawer for each value of resistor? Drawer for a > range of values? What works well, to minimize the time spend > searching for components? To minimize time spent searching, of course, you'd want a drawer for each value. That makes for a lot of drawers, though; myself, I use a drawer for each third band colour (ie, the exponent in the floating-point value encoding). Caps, too, I sot by order-of-magnitude. ICs I sort by individual part number, but lack of drawers has made me double up some parts, so that a given sorting bin will contain more than one number. > Also, another thing I have been wondering about - how bad is it to > store IC's in those clear plastic parts drawers? Any problem with > static? I've not seen any such, but I don't use very many static-sensitive parts, and the ones I do use I usually leave stuck into anti-static foam when I pop them in the drawers. /~\ 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 shumaker at att.net Thu Dec 13 09:29:21 2007 From: shumaker at att.net (Steve Shumaker) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 07:29:21 -0800 Subject: ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Symbolics XL400/1200 In-Reply-To: <4760E5D3.8090908@saw.net> References: <474CA08F.60002@saw.net> <4754BC37.5070707@saw.net> <400D0BD0-C6BD-49BE-B58B-3941C2E397DB@mac.com> <4760E5D3.8090908@saw.net> Message-ID: <47614FD1.5040801@att.net> the 70s micro stuff caught my eye.. That's definitely material I'd be interested in - and more than willing to pay the shipping costs for. If you're looking to clear it out, have you considered doing some sort of inventory and posting it (at some point where you're not at risk from the weather of course). s shumaker davis wrote: > Mark Davidson wrote: >> I've been out of touch via email for a week, so I just got this. >> Have you sold the machine yet? >> >> Thanks. >> >> Mark >> >> On Dec 3, 2007, at 6:32 PM, davis wrote: >> >>> Mark Davidson wrote: >>>> Out of curiosity, is this machine still available? >>>> >>>> Thanks. >>>> >>>> Mark >>>> >>>> On Nov 27, 2007, at 2:56 PM, davis wrote: >>>> >>>>> The machine is available in Portland Or or preferably, up the >>>>> gorge in Goldendale Wa. which is located about 100 miles east of >>>>> Portland. >>>>> The machine could be shipped, but it would require a pallet for >>>>> the case, foam for the monitor and separate packing for the drive >>>>> and boards. >>>>> I'm not sure how much it's worth. I have had an offer for $370. So >>>>> I guess thats a start. >>>>> The system includes the mono hi-res graphics monitor, space cadet >>>>> keyboard, full document (user) set, but no hardware prints (sorry) >>>>> and a frame tosser board. I'll throw in a couple bus mice, but >>>>> they will need to be rewired. I'll fire it up and verify that it >>>>> still boots. (it did 6 months ago) >>>>> If you pick it up in goldendale, I'll let you dig around in my >>>>> shed for other goodies. >>>>> The machine is badged as a XL400 but boot reports a XL1200. I >>>>> assume it's the extra memory and possibly software upgrades. >>>>> It has been stored inside, in a clean dry environment since I >>>>> picked it up about 7 years ago. >>>>> Jim Davis. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> Hi Mark, >>> >>> The offer for the machine is currently at $600. >>> We have had a bit of weather, power outages and 2 feet of snow if >>> you haven't seen the news. >>> I'm just now getting back to everyone that showed interest. >>> >>> Thanks, >>> Jim. >> >> >> > Hi Mark, > Josh Dursh in seattle offered 850$ and that was enough to keep me and > my family warm this winter. > I have a lot ot TEK gear that I would like to get rid of, > Unfortunately it;s been stored in a unheated > enclosure for nearly 20 years. So some of the components may need to > be replaced. What kind > of stuff are you looking for. I might have something in the piles of > stuff. Mostly color graphics > terminal stuff and tek graphics workstations. > What I don't have: sun, dec, dg > What I have, TEK, motorola, and a bunch of 70's micro stuff. > Jim. > > From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Dec 13 09:40:26 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:40:26 +0000 Subject: Semi-OT:Storing electronic parts In-Reply-To: <547714.53357.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <547714.53357.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4761526A.6040703@dunnington.plus.com> Mr Ian Primus wrote: > So - how do other electronic hobbyists sort parts? How > far do you organize them? A drawer for each value of > resistor? Drawer for a range of values? What works > well, to minimize the time spend searching for > components? Also, another thing I have been wondering > about - how bad is it to store IC's in those clear > plastic parts drawers? Any problem with static? Basic TTL might be OK (I confess most of my TTL and LS TTL is rattling around in the drawers) but it ought to be in foam, and almost every other IC is in black anti-static foam in the drawers. I definitely wouldn't put MOS devices unprotected straight into plastic drawers. My main component storage is a set of interlocking drawers arranged in a block about 4 feet wide by 3 high. Some drawers are square-fronted (about 1.5" sq) and some are double-width. The resistors are in double-width drawers, with two E12 values per drawer. First row is 10/12 ohm, 15/18 ohm, 22/27, 33/39, 47/56, 68/82. Next is 100/120, etc, then 1k0/1k2, etc, and so on up to 680k/820k, then the last row is assorted "1M to 8M2", "10M and over", "less than 10R", "high wattage", and things like that. For E24 and closer-tolerance values, I just put them in the drawer that's got the nearest-matching label. Capacitors I have squeezed into 1 row, one decade to a drawer, and a couple of bigger drawers for larger electrolytics. The really big ones are in a box elsewhere. There's a row for TTL, LS TTL, and ALS/F TTL; one for CMOS; one for various types of linear ICs; one for diodes, rectifiers, zeners, LEDS, PNP trannies, NPN, FETs, power trannies, etc; one row for micros and their support chips; one for EPROMs and RAMs; and lots of drawers for other ICs and various types of connectors, switches, crystals, etc. To give an example of how the ICs are stored, there's a drawer for "LS00 - LS80" or thereabouts, with the lower end of that range stored in the front and the upper half in the rear section of the drawer. So there are 4 or 5 drawers for each logic family. Two places I used to work had one drawer per type but that's overkill for my collection. Besides, apart from not having that much space, I couldn't afford the drawers :-) Bigger stuff like PCBs, potentiometers, large connectors, coils, etc are in open-top boxes in what used to be a card-index cabinet that has eight drawers about 8" wide x 8" high and 16" deep. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From mikelee at tdh.com Thu Dec 13 10:16:56 2007 From: mikelee at tdh.com (Michael Lee) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:16:56 -0600 Subject: Semi-OT:Storing electronic parts In-Reply-To: <547714.53357.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <547714.53357.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47615AF8.1090900@tdh.com> When I was in school, I had to carry all my components around, and being a good geek, I made sure I had every value of resister, etc "just in case" The school recommended a tackle box, but I found that to be unnecessary and rather odd. I just got a plain plastic medium sized toolbox and a couple craft segmented containers, small plastic storage containers, and some little baggies. I still keep most of the small components this way. I found sorting things like resisters by value into little baggies works, but instead of every single value, I put them in basic "first two band" groups. So for example the 1.0, 10, 100, 1000, 10k, 100k etc were in one bag, and 1.1, 11, 110, 1100, 11k, etc were in another bag etc. Other misc small misc parts, switches, etc I kept in the craft storage boxes. For ICs I used anti-static foam and stuck them in order on there and put those into the tool box as well. I have little drawer storage as well, but for things like keycaps, RJ connectors, coax etc. Mr Ian Primus wrote: > Well, I've made lots of progress on the eternal task > of cleaning, sorting and organizing. I can now see my > entire workbench! I found half a dozen #2 Phillips > screwdrivers I hadn't seen in a while, and while > vacuuming, I probably picked up a couple pounds of > screws, wire insulation bits and solder drops. > > So, now I think I need to actually, finally organize > my parts. You see, I started to do this a long time > ago, and I have a lot of those little plastic drawers. > I got about as far as the basic parts, and half way > through the electrolytics. Everything else is > semi-sorted into drawers, albiet with rather vauge > categories "Transistors... Diodes..." or completely > unsorted (Salsa jars, butter tubs, shoe boxes, coffee > cans and Altoids tins). So now, I need to sit down, > for a good long day, and sort parts into drawers. > > And herein lies my question - how do you manage a > large parts collection? I mean, the phrase "junkbox" > generally referrs to a somewhat organized system of > finding parts, not just a copier paper box full of > parts. Otherwise, you'll spend two hours just trying > to find that 330 ohm current limiting resistor you > need. > > So - how do other electronic hobbyists sort parts? How > far do you organize them? A drawer for each value of > resistor? Drawer for a range of values? What works > well, to minimize the time spend searching for > components? Also, another thing I have been wondering > about - how bad is it to store IC's in those clear > plastic parts drawers? Any problem with static? I've > never noticed any, but then again, so far I've only > got a handfull of basic TTL logic sorted out. The rest > are still in tubes and boxes. What about CMOS chips? > > So, I'd be interested to hear what other people have > to say on the subject - and Jay, I hope this is > on-topic enough. I mean, these are all parts used for > repairing and maintaining on-topic hardware, so I > think it counts. All of us that fix this stuff need to > keep track of parts. The next time I need a 1488 to > repair a terminal that won't transmit, I don't want to > spend four hours trying to find it. > > -Ian > From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Thu Dec 13 12:33:51 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:33:51 -0500 Subject: Semi-OT:Storing electronic parts In-Reply-To: <547714.53357.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200712131834.lBDIXrQl025818@billy.ezwind.net> On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 06:12:19 -0800 (PST), Mr Ian Primus wrote: >Well, I've made lots of progress on the eternal task >of cleaning, sorting and organizing. I can now see my I picked up a bunch of very small ziplock parts bags at hamvention, I expect you can find them elsewhere. A sharpie note on the bag saves me the time of looking for my glasses or a reading glass to locate things in a bin. Resistors are lumped together by third band and wattage and caps are stored by value range and sizes. A bit larger bag is a good way to keep a postit or a reduced data sheet with unusual items. Again a sharpie note easily read without reading glasses, even if not needed now, will be appreciated in the distant future. If static is a concern then use static bags or anti-static foam. If you label well, it does not mater if you use parts bins or shoe boxes as long as there is an overall logic to the storage. Some questions and related thoughts you need to conceder: Are you sorting your collection for the future as a hobby ? Parts or collectables, Once sorted how often do you expect to access them? Parts or collectables, Collectables are displayed, parts are stored, most collectors have both. Are you sorting your parts to improve productivity of your current activities ? In fact, I tend to use a binary search pile method with ageing piles getting moved to boxes to be sorted someday as access to a given pile drops from day to day, to just occasional, or more like never. These boxes are identified by the topic of the origional pile or simply by the chronologic age of the pile when it was moved to the box or bin. A move every few years helps promote this process. Do as I say and not as I do :-) The other Bob From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Dec 13 13:39:03 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:39:03 -0500 Subject: Semi-OT:Storing electronic parts Message-ID: <01C83D96.19CCCCA0@mandr71> ------------Original Message: Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 06:12:19 -0800 (PST) From: Mr Ian Primus Subject: Semi-OT:Storing electronic parts Well, I've made lots of progress on the eternal task of cleaning, sorting and organizing. I can now see my entire workbench! I found half a dozen #2 Phillips screwdrivers I hadn't seen in a while, and while vacuuming, I probably picked up a couple pounds of screws, wire insulation bits and solder drops. So, now I think I need to actually, finally organize my parts. You see, I started to do this a long time ago, and I have a lot of those little plastic drawers. I got about as far as the basic parts, and half way through the electrolytics. Everything else is semi-sorted into drawers, albiet with rather vauge categories "Transistors... Diodes..." or completely unsorted (Salsa jars, butter tubs, shoe boxes, coffee cans and Altoids tins). So now, I need to sit down, for a good long day, and sort parts into drawers. And herein lies my question - how do you manage a large parts collection? I mean, the phrase "junkbox" generally referrs to a somewhat organized system of finding parts, not just a copier paper box full of parts. Otherwise, you'll spend two hours just trying to find that 330 ohm current limiting resistor you need. -Ian ------------Reply: Boy, does that sound familiar! For resistors, I was lucky enough to have a lot of small plastic boxes that Sprague used to put their caps into; they're stacked up in a couple of small partitioned cardboard parts bins. Things like tantalum caps, fuses, hardware etc. I keep in those small partitioned clear plastic craft boxes. Diodes and small transistors are in individual small paper bag/envelopes, which in turn are in small cardboard boxes, file folder style. You could use the same for resistors & caps. Bigger parts go into the same partitioned cardboard parts bins use for the resistor boxes. ICs I keep loose in drawers, unless I have a lot of one type which I keep in tubes; a few special MOS ones I kept in foam, but have had a few go bad with pin rot from a certain type of foam. Just keep the humidity reasonable. The problem with semi-inflexible systems like drawers is adding new items; I finally started a spreadsheet cross-referencing IC numbers to drawer/compartment so I don't have to worry about keeping them in any sequence and can also double up, and it also gives me an idea of what I've got (as long as I remember to keep it current ;-) mike From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Dec 13 13:41:31 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:41:31 -0500 Subject: Semi-OT:Storing electronic parts In-Reply-To: <547714.53357.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <547714.53357.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200712131441.32081.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 13 December 2007 09:12, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > Well, I've made lots of progress on the eternal task of cleaning, sorting > and organizing. I can now see my entire workbench! I found half a dozen #2 > Phillips screwdrivers I hadn't seen in a while, and while vacuuming, I > probably picked up a couple pounds of screws, wire insulation bits and > solder drops. I use that #2 Philips too much to let it get lost. :-) > So, now I think I need to actually, finally organize my parts. You see, I > started to do this a long time ago, and I have a lot of those little plastic > drawers. I have some of those that I was given a while back too, and tend not to use 'em all that much. The biggest problem with those is inserting stuff into the middle, if you add parts later on... > I got about as far as the basic parts, and half way through the > electrolytics. Electrolytics can cover an awfully large range of sizes, some of what I have being so small I can barely handle them and others are the size of soup cans. I don't tend to try and store them all in the same context. > Everything else is semi-sorted into drawers, albiet with rather vauge > categories "Transistors... Diodes..." or completely unsorted (Salsa jars, > butter tubs, shoe boxes, coffee cans and Altoids tins). So now, I need to > sit down, for a good long day, and sort parts into drawers. > > And herein lies my question - how do you manage a large parts collection? I > mean, the phrase "junkbox" generally referrs to a somewhat organized system > of finding parts, not just a copier paper box full of parts. Otherwise, > you'll spend two hours just trying to find that 330 ohm current limiting > resistor you need. Way back when, in my case, it surely did refer to a large unorganized container such as you refer to here. And yes, I did spend way too much time looking for stuff sometimes. > So - how do other electronic hobbyists sort parts? How far do you organize > them? A drawer for each value of resistor? Drawer for a range of values? > What works well, to minimize the time spend searching for components? I've used drawers at one point, and still have some hardware in some of them. I also went for a while with various small boxes. One place sold "white boxes" that were the size you'd need for vacuum tubes, and buying 1000 of those at a time came in handy, though finding appropriate ways to store those was a little difficult. Right now I have a whole bunch of those in a couple of punch card cabinets. I'm probably going to phase those out, though. What I'm doing now is putting parts in small zip lock bags. I got a hold of a box of 1000 of these 3x5 bags that also had a punched hole in the top of them, making it convenient to bunch them on large rings (or a bit of wire or whatever), so quarter watt resistors on one, transistors on another, etc. I give a part its own bag when I have enough of them. The problem now is that I need to find a source for some more of those as I don't know where these came from. > Also, another thing I have been wondering about - how bad is it to store > IC's in those clear plastic parts drawers? Any problem with static? I've > never noticed any, but then again, so far I've only got a handfull of basic > TTL logic sorted out. The rest are still in tubes and boxes. What about CMOS > chips? Chips that I have a lot of stay in the tubes I got 'em in, mostly. Some salvaged CMOS parts live in a can. I have a lot of cans here but they're not terribly space-efficient. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Dec 13 13:45:30 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:45:30 -0500 Subject: Semi-OT:Storing electronic parts In-Reply-To: <4761526A.6040703@dunnington.plus.com> References: <547714.53357.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <4761526A.6040703@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <200712131445.30296.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 13 December 2007 10:40, Pete Turnbull wrote: > Two places I used to work had one drawer per type but that's overkill for my > collection. Besides, apart from not having that much space, I couldn't > afford the drawers :-) Yeah, that's the issue one needs to be careful about -- spending more on the facilities for storing this stuff than the parts actually cost! Easy enough to do these days... -- 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 Thu Dec 13 15:10:17 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:10:17 -0700 Subject: SGI drive sleds and interfaces? Message-ID: OK, with my new Origin 2000 machines, I was thinking that I could use these SGI drives+sleds that I had purchased previously, where the seller said they would work in Onyx2/Origin machines. However, while the sleds appear compatible, the drive interface is not. Is there any online guide that compares the different drive sled designs for SGI machines so that I can compare what's being offered on ebay to identify the machines that can use it? For instance, my drives have a high density connector that is only about 1" long, but the Origin 2000 has a high density connector that looks to be about 2-2.5" long. Is my only recourse to scrape through individual manuals to try and find diagrams? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ray at arachelian.com Thu Dec 13 15:25:29 2007 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 16:25:29 -0500 Subject: [lisaem] LisaEm 1.2.6 released - video bug fixes In-Reply-To: <474A372C.3040506@arachelian.com> References: <46F87B77.4000102@arachelian.com> <4737D744.3040509@arachelian.com> <474A372C.3040506@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <4761A349.7080505@arachelian.com> LisaEm 1.2.6 has been released. As usual, it can be downloaded from http://lisaem.sunder.net/downloads.html. This version, like the last few is all bug fixes - this time to the video system. 2007.12.03 - fixed win32 rawbitmap issues, this should speed up the display quite a bit. Linux rawbitmaps don't work yet, just show a blank white display. 2007.12.01 - fixed bugs on skinless on OS X. Issue with wxBitmap, it needed to be filled in before using. Some update to wxWidgets changed the default from the default being white, to an alpha background causing the whole display to fail to update at all since the data inside the wxBitmap was invisible. - bug report - libexpat was accidentally turned on in the OS X version of LisaEm, this is not needed by LisaEm's use of wxWidgets, it will be removed via --without-expat in wxWidgets' configure script. If you'd like to support this project, you can do so by sending me something from my Amazon wish list. (Used books and DVD's are perfectly fine with me.) The trains are for my kid. :) http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/14EOBF86ARMDT From g-wright at att.net Thu Dec 13 16:35:04 2007 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:35:04 +0000 Subject: SGI drive sleds and interfaces? Message-ID: <121320072235.6250.4761B39800058E0D0000186A22230650029B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> -------------- Original message ---------------------- From: Richard > > OK, with my new Origin 2000 machines, I was thinking that I could use > these SGI drives+sleds that I had purchased previously, where the > seller said they would work in Onyx2/Origin machines. However, while > the sleds appear compatible, the drive interface is not. > > Is there any online guide that compares the different drive sled > designs for SGI machines so that I can compare what's being offered on > ebay to identify the machines that can use it? > > For instance, my drives have a high density connector that is only > about 1" long, but the Origin 2000 has a high density connector that > looks to be about 2-2.5" long. > > Is my only recourse to scrape through individual manuals to try and > find diagrams? > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > > > Legalize Adulthood! Hi Richard The ones I have seen take standars SCA drives ???? Power and data in the same connector ??? The Connector is a little more rugged looking. same as a Later Sun. - Jerry From legalize at xmission.com Thu Dec 13 16:58:58 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:58:58 -0700 Subject: SGI drive sleds and interfaces? In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:35:04 +0000. <121320072235.6250.4761B39800058E0D0000186A22230650029B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: In article <121320072235.6250.4761B39800058E0D0000186A22230650029B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309 at att.net>, g-wright at att.net writes: > The ones I have seen take standars SCA drives ???? Looking here: , the connector shown in the top portion of the topmost photo, , is the one that the Origin 2000 uses. The drives I purchased previously thinking that they would work in my Onyx2 Reality Monster (and presumably the Origin 2000) look similar, but not identical, to the connector depicted in the lower portion of the photo. They must include power because there is no other connector on the drive to supply power, but instead of the smaller connector off to the left, it looks physically very similar to the connector shown in the top part of the photo, only the connector has fewer pins, is narrower and still located in the center of the sled assembly. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Dec 13 18:09:15 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:09:15 +0000 Subject: SGI drive sleds and interfaces? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4761C9AB.40704@dunnington.plus.com> On 13/12/2007 21:10, Richard wrote: > OK, with my new Origin 2000 machines, I was thinking that I could use > these SGI drives+sleds that I had purchased previously, where the > seller said they would work in Onyx2/Origin machines. However, while > the sleds appear compatible, the drive interface is not. > For instance, my drives have a high density connector that is only > about 1" long, but the Origin 2000 has a high density connector that > looks to be about 2-2.5" long. Your 1" long connector sounds like a fibre channel (FC-AL) interface. That's a serial interface with power on the same connector. What the Origin and Onyx2 use is an SCA connector. You can use any SCA drive in an Origin; for a short while I had a couple of small capacity drives borrowed from Sun systems in mine, wedged in place with small rubber window wedges, until I got enough sleds and some larger drives. I think some SGI FC-AL disk shelf used the same sleds as the Origin. Perhaps that's where yours came from. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From onymouse at garlic.com Thu Dec 13 07:48:52 2007 From: onymouse at garlic.com (jd) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 05:48:52 -0800 Subject: Mike Quinn Electronics -- one last chance In-Reply-To: <4760A8FD.7030100@Sun.COM> References: <43E245C9.26379.8E316330@brian.quarterbyte.com> <4760A8FD.7030100@Sun.COM> Message-ID: <47613844.2080400@garlic.com> John Santos wrote: > Where do I go now? > I live in San Leandro and loved that place. I loved walking through all > the cool stuff picking out some stepper motors or picking up some > resistors or caps. Took my wife there once. She was amazed at the > place. well I told her. "It's a geek thing" > Know of another place like that around the bay area? > > Halted Specialties, Sunnyvale, Santa Rosa &c. www.halted.com WeirdStuff in Sunnyvale is a sort of boneyard for computer stuff and occasionally has a few lots of various components. www.weirdstuff.com == jd Naeser's Law: You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it damnfoolproof. From legalize at xmission.com Thu Dec 13 19:21:29 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:21:29 -0700 Subject: SGI drive sleds and interfaces? In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:09:15 +0000. <4761C9AB.40704@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: In article <4761C9AB.40704 at dunnington.plus.com>, Pete Turnbull writes: > I think some SGI FC-AL disk shelf used the same sleds as the Origin. > Perhaps that's where yours came from. That must be it because the sleds are most definately the same as the Origin/Onyx2 in terms of the physical connection to the cabinet. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ian_primus at yahoo.com Thu Dec 13 20:28:52 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:28:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: SGI drive sleds and interfaces? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <906736.70520.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- Richard wrote: > The drives I purchased previously thinking that they > would work in my > Onyx2 Reality Monster (and presumably the Origin > 2000) look similar, > but not identical, to the connector depicted in the > lower portion of > the photo. They must include power because there is > no other > connector on the drive to supply power, but instead > of the smaller > connector off to the left, it looks physically very > similar to the > connector shown in the top part of the photo, only > the connector has > fewer pins, is narrower and still located in the > center of the sled > assembly. The top connector in the photo is a standard 80 pin SCA SCSI connector. The narrower one you describe sounds like Fibre Channel (FC-AL) it's 40 pin. Both are backplane based technologies that don't use cables or separate power connectors. Now, once you have drives that plug into those connectors inside the computer, you don't necessarily need actual sleds. A litle trick I found on SGI Octane systems - the rails that the drive sled fits onto are exactly the correct spacing and height to use CD jewel cases instead. The top two bays, use regular full size cases, the bottom one, use a slimline case. Just sit the drive on the CD case, line it up, and mate it with the connector. Mine has been running like this for years. Just remember if you ever need to move it... -Ian From lynchaj at yahoo.com Thu Dec 13 20:55:51 2007 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:55:51 -0500 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? Message-ID: <001a01c83dfc$d690dcd0$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> Hi, I recently bought a KayPro II keyboard. It contains a nice Keytronics mechanical keyboard and really nice case. I'd like to convert it to a parallel ASCII keyboard or just reuse its case but was wondering if anyone had the schematics? Please let me know if you have the KapPro II keyboard schematics. Thanks! Andrew Lynch From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Dec 13 21:29:57 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:29:57 -0800 Subject: TTL names In-Reply-To: <000001c83237$238f67d0$176fa8c0@obie> References: <000001c83237$238f67d0$176fa8c0@obie> Message-ID: Hi There seems to be evidence that there was at least a 3 number part SN514B. See ebay. It may have been RTL though. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Dec 13 21:43:07 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:43:07 -0500 Subject: SGI drive sleds and interfaces? In-Reply-To: <4761C9AB.40704@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4761C9AB.40704@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <2028d615cc8efddd77b65c2ac8620874@neurotica.com> On Dec 13, 2007, at 7:09 PM, Pete Turnbull wrote: >> OK, with my new Origin 2000 machines, I was thinking that I could use >> these SGI drives+sleds that I had purchased previously, where the >> seller said they would work in Onyx2/Origin machines. However, while >> the sleds appear compatible, the drive interface is not. > >> For instance, my drives have a high density connector that is only >> about 1" long, but the Origin 2000 has a high density connector that >> looks to be about 2-2.5" long. > > Your 1" long connector sounds like a fibre channel (FC-AL) interface. > That's a serial interface with power on the same connector. What the > Origin and Onyx2 use is an SCA connector. You can use any SCA drive > in an Origin; for a short while I had a couple of small capacity > drives borrowed from Sun systems in mine, wedged in place with small > rubber window wedges, until I got enough sleds and some larger drives. Actually the FC (be it -AL or -SW) connector is also correctly referred to as "SCA". A 20-pin SCA connector is FibreChannel (the -AL suffix only applies if it's operating in Arbitrated Loop mode, which depends on what it's plugged into) and an 80-pin SCA connector is almost always wide SCSI. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Dec 13 21:51:18 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:51:18 -0500 Subject: SGI drive sleds and interfaces? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6d32f587274473efb0bc035c9f4b0d95@neurotica.com> On Dec 13, 2007, at 5:58 PM, Richard wrote: > Looking here: > , > the connector shown in the top portion of the topmost photo, > , > is the one that the Origin 2000 uses. > > The drives I purchased previously thinking that they would work in my > Onyx2 Reality Monster (and presumably the Origin 2000) look similar, > but not identical, to the connector depicted in the lower portion of > the photo. They must include power because there is no other > connector on the drive to supply power, but instead of the smaller > connector off to the left, it looks physically very similar to the > connector shown in the top part of the photo, only the connector has > fewer pins, is narrower and still located in the center of the sled > assembly. That sounds like FC. Can you take a pic of the business end of the drive, or send the make/model number? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From bnansel at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 13 01:48:00 2007 From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au (Robert Nansel) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:18:00 +1030 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer Message-ID: I'm looking at what it would take to make a barebones "museum piece" bit-serial computer along the lines of an LGP-30 or maybe a Bendix G-15. I don't want to do the whole vacuum-tube-computing trip, so I'm limiting my madness to discrete bipolar transistors, specifically the 2n2222. To keep it interesting, I want to use only components available to mortals in 1963. And the keep the project within budget (i.e. none to speak of), I'm further limiting the number of transistors semi-arbitrarily to 256. Of course there will be a pile of si diodes, resistors and capacitors involved, but the idea is to keep the number of active components down -- if only so this beast will fit in the boot of my car! I've scavenged the web for information on bit-serial magnetic drum machines of the Elder Years, and I think I have a pretty good notion of how they worked (mostly very slowly). What I haven't been able to get a handle on is how to make a serviceable magnetic drum. I reckon I can do some simple prototyping with some CMOS 64-bit shift registers so I don't have to debug both the logic and the magnetic read/write electronics, but beyond that I have only a hazy idea how to proceed. Certainly I could trash a few old cassette decks, or even get some floppy R/W heads to experiment with audio recording tape super-glued to a soda can, but I really want to get at least the performance the old machines could produce, so that means a reasonably fast drum RPM, somewhere around 6000 RPM, say. Any ideas? From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Fri Dec 14 03:59:30 2007 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:59:30 +0100 (CET) Subject: TTL names In-Reply-To: References: <000001c83237$238f67d0$176fa8c0@obie> Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Dec 2007, dwight elvey wrote: > There seems to be evidence that there was at least a > 3 number part SN514B. See ebay. It may have been RTL > though. ?!? The older databooks that have been cited the last days have this part listed, so I don't know why you need an evidence on ebay. The SN514 is a dual 3-input NAND/NOR gate; it is a RCTL part (resistor-capacitor-transistor logic) Citing page 13 of the 1965 TI flyer: "Series 51 integrated circuits are used in the optical aspect computer of NASA's IMP satellites. These units have been operational in space since November, 1963." Christian From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Fri Dec 14 04:01:09 2007 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:01:09 +0000 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200712141001.09935.gordonjcp@gjcp.net> On Thursday 13 December 2007 07:48:00 Robert Nansel wrote: > Certainly I could trash a few old cassette decks, or even get some > floppy R/W heads to experiment with audio recording tape super-glued > to a soda can, but I really want to get at least the performance the > old machines could produce, so that means a reasonably fast drum RPM, > somewhere around 6000 RPM, say. That's actually pretty fast, and anything you stick to the drum will need to be stuck very firmly! By comparison, a washing machine in fast spin goes at roughly a quarter of this speed, and a typical car engine is reaching its "red line" at around 6000rpm... You would need an extremely good workshop to machine up a drum that would stay in balance at this sort of speed. It's actually the sort of thing that you might want to farm out to a specialist machine shop. I would be inclined to make the drum out of a bit of thick-walled aluminium tubing, carefully bored to remove any imperfections from the inside that might affect the balance. A couple of aluminium end caps would take a thickish steel axle and the bearings (which would be tricky in themselves - they'd need to be sealed to prevent grease being thrown out, or something capable of running fairly dry at high speed). Then you'd skim the drum to ensure it was perfectly concentric - any runout would very quickly destroy the bearings at 6000rpm. Some motors use little sealed ball races. I'd consider looking at teeny-tiny taper roller bearings like car wheel bearings, so that you could use a shim to set the preload very accurately to remove any play. I can probably provide a scan of a car gearbox manual that shows *exactly* how to do this bit. You'd probably need to balance it after painting or otherwise coating it with some sort of magnetic material. I don't know what you'd use for that. You could probably research what they used in early drives. I am now entering the realms of speculation, but my gut feeling is that you'd need to somehow spray it on and rub back the layers to get a perfectly smooth finish - when it's done it shouldn't quite be hot-rod shiny but it should be very flat and polished. Over to Tony, I think... Gordon From mike at brickfieldspark.org Fri Dec 14 04:02:07 2007 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:02:07 -0000 Subject: Subject: Semi-OT:Storing electronic parts References: <200712131800.lBDI041J015401@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <003201c83e38$62d62070$911ca8c0@mss.local> > Message: 6 > Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 06:12:19 -0800 (PST) > From: Mr Ian Primus > So, now I think I need to actually, finally organize my parts. You see, I > started to do this a long time > ago, and I have a lot of those little plastic drawers. I got about as far > as the basic parts, and half way > through the electrolytics. Everything else is semi-sorted into drawers, > albiet with rather vauge I set up some of those drawers years ago (more than 25, eek) resistors and caps sorted by value, Ics transistors diodes by type #. I was in small scale production and the system seemed to work well enough. Untill recently I had a couple of regular products for customers who shipped in parts so they had a set of drawers for themselves and a very basic stock control system on an Excel spreadsheet. No longer in production but still have the drawers, a pain to set up but many years ago, but I can find most things I want in seconds. > Otherwise, you'll spend two hours just trying to find that 330 ohm current > limiting resistor you need. Thats why I set it up. > about - how bad is it to store IC's in those clear plastic parts drawers? > Any problem with static? > What about CMOS chips? A lot of my personal stuff is older 74 flavours, that does not seem to suffer static problems, Cmos is kept in antistatic foam or those black a/s carriers that the I/c's are shipped in. I have a whole box full of empty carriers if somebody wants them. I'cs shipped in A/s tubes are kept in tube untill used. The system has served me well over the years, a bit anal maybe but it worked for me. Mike From mike at brickfieldspark.org Fri Dec 14 04:07:40 2007 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:07:40 -0000 Subject: [personal] cctalk Digest, Vol 52, Issue 27 References: <200712131800.lBDI041J015401@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <003601c83e39$2993f700$911ca8c0@mss.local> > My main component storage is a set of interlocking drawers arranged in a > block about 4 feet wide by 3 high. Some drawers are square-fronted > (about 1.5" sq) and some are double-width. The resistors are in > double-width drawers, with two E12 values per drawer. First row is > 10/12 ohm, 15/18 ohm, 22/27, 33/39, 47/56, 68/82. Next is 100/120, etc, > then 1k0/1k2, etc, and so on up to 680k/820k, then the last row is > assorted "1M to 8M2", "10M and over", "less than 10R", "high wattage", > and things like that. For E24 and closer-tolerance values, I just put > them in the drawer that's got the nearest-matching label. Capacitors I > have squeezed into 1 row, one decade to a drawer, and a couple of bigger > drawers for larger electrolytics. The really big ones are in a box > elsewhere. So spookily similar I'm now very very worried ! or perhaps its a British thing. > To give an example of how the ICs are stored, there's a drawer for "LS00 - > LS80" or thereabouts, with the lower end of that range stored in the > front and the upper half in the rear section of the drawer. So there > are 4 or 5 drawers for each logic family. Two places I used to work had > one drawer per type but that's overkill for my collection. One drawer for 2-4 types for Ic's Transistors diodes. Mike From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Dec 14 05:26:14 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 06:26:14 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:18:00 +1030." Message-ID: <200712141126.lBEBQFp1025567@mwave.heeltoe.com> Robert Nansel wrote: ... >old machines could produce, so that means a reasonably fast drum RPM, >somewhere around 6000 RPM, say. mmm. fast. if you want to go that fast I'd think the laminar flow of air would force you to use a flying head. no experience with drums, however. at those speeds, it might be fun to grab an RK05 platter or RL02 platter and hard mount it with 8 fixed heads. but I don't think you want those heads to land on the media at powerdown. might be easier to grab a old 5 1/4" ST-506 MFM drive and fashion a carrier for 8 heads in fixed location using a single platter. You could run the "motor" with a pic and the sense amps and drivers for the heads would not be complex. Maybe have another head for a clock track if you didn't want to use MFM. Those heads should land on the media safely and live to fly again. -brad From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Fri Dec 14 05:27:36 2007 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:27:36 +0100 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <476268A8.8010706@bluewin.ch> Robert Nansel wrote: > I'm looking at what it would take to make a barebones "museum piece" > bit-serial computer along the lines of an LGP-30 or maybe a Bendix G-1 So I am not the only madman araound here ! I was thinking around a transistor based cpu with homestring core memory. I happen to have ca 5000 TO-5 cans with a dual transistor each, and Si diodes are cheap. > And the keep the project within budget (i.e. none to speak of), That is, I believe, a recipy for disaster. Your really need to budget for having PCB's made if you want some reliable operation of whole cpu. Ond you will probably have to give out work to a machineshop. > I've scavenged the web for information on bit-serial magnetic drum > machines of the Elder Years, and I think I have a pretty good notion of > how they worked (mostly very slowly). To prove this to yourself it is always a good idea to build an emulator in C. What I haven't been able to get a > handle on is how to make a serviceable magnetic drum. A major mechanical challenge, I believe outside most people's capabilities. Tony is bound to comment on it though ! > > Certainly I could trash a few old cassette decks, A local electronics shop has hundreds of unused cassette heads, each time I pass I think " line up 100 of those and make a drum". Sanity comes back quickly though. Major problem in this kind of constructions is to keep your interest going on long enough, and have enough time to see it through. A couple of years ago the German CT magazine had a nice article about how, in the early sixties, some German universities were creating exaclty this kind of drum machine for their own use. This article is on http://www.billingpreis.mpg.de/hbp05/gewire.pdf (Sorry, German only ) Jos Dreesen From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Dec 14 08:19:06 2007 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 08:19:06 -0600 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> Robert Nansel wrote: > Certainly I could trash a few old cassette decks, or even get some > floppy R/W heads to experiment with audio recording tape super-glued to > a soda can, but I really want to get at least the performance the old > machines could produce, so that means a reasonably fast drum RPM, > somewhere around 6000 RPM, say. Very interesting project. Won't standard tape heads only work reliably if the magnetic material's passing by at quite a narrow range of speeds, though? Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, which isn't very fast at all - a drum that can do a few tens of RPM seems possible, but 6000?? If I've got my numbers right, a small 6" drum has a diameter of approx 19" and at 6000rpm will take 1/100 seconds to do a single revolution. That's 1900" per second past each head - roughly 1000 times the typical operating speed of a cassette deck. Build several low-speed soda can drums - equivalent in number to the word length of your machine, then read/write data in parallel... (OK, that's a humourous suggestion, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone hasn't tried it) cheers Jules From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Fri Dec 14 08:42:34 2007 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:42:34 +0000 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> References: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200712141442.34129.gordonjcp@gjcp.net> On Friday 14 December 2007 14:19:06 Jules Richardson wrote: > Very interesting project. Won't standard tape heads only work reliably if > the magnetic material's passing by at quite a narrow range of speeds, > though? Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, which isn't very fast at > all - a drum that can do a few tens of RPM seems possible, but 6000?? I don't think it makes a difference. The higher the speed, the larger the voltage from the flux transition, but that shouldn't be a problem (within reason). The head gap and medium speed dictates the "resolution" of the system. You can think of it as being like trying to write with different sizes of pen nib. Look at reel-to-reel audio recorders - they may run at a variety of speeds, giving a tradeoff between audio quality and recording time. You can use a higher flux density with a larger head gap (and a correspondingly larger drive signal), but you need to haul the tape through faster to maintain the bandwidth. On playback, you get the problem that higher frequencies produce a higher voltage, hence the need for equalisation (not unlike the RIAA curve for magnetic record pickups). In this case you probably just want to detect the presence or absence (or possibly polarity) of a pulse. Equalisation won't be a worry. Gordon From pete at dunnington.plus.com Fri Dec 14 09:39:48 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:39:48 +0000 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> References: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <4762A3C4.2040304@dunnington.plus.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > Very interesting project. Won't standard tape heads only work reliably > if the magnetic material's passing by at quite a narrow range of speeds, > though? Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, which isn't very fast > at all - a drum that can do a few tens of RPM seems possible, but 6000?? It makes a difference to the bandwidth and signal level; cassette tapes run at 1_7/8 ips, domestic 1/4" tape runs at 3_3/4 ips or 7_1/2 ips, 1/4" studio tapes typically run at 7_1/2 or 15 ips. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Dec 14 10:21:55 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim s) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 08:21:55 -0800 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <4762A3C4.2040304@dunnington.plus.com> References: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> <4762A3C4.2040304@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <4762ADA3.40109@msm.umr.edu> Pete Turnbull wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: > >> Very interesting project. Won't standard tape heads only work >> reliably if the magnetic material's passing by at quite a narrow >> range of speeds, though? Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, >> which isn't very fast at all - a drum that can do a few tens of RPM >> seems possible, but 6000?? > > It makes a difference to the bandwidth and signal level; cassette > tapes run at 1_7/8 ips, domestic 1/4" tape runs at 3_3/4 ips or 7_1/2 > ips, 1/4" studio tapes typically run at 7_1/2 or 15 ips. > It would take an examination of the magnet circuit that you are creating with the head material and the magnetic media. This is not a problem that can be attacked by comparing to other applications because the materials will be different. I don't know if one can obtain material that can be attached to a drum, but it probably wont be the same consistency as that of cassette or audio tape for instance. and the aluminum drum backing will be different in nature than the tape with the felt backing that you have with those heads. Also all the drums I ever saw had a sort of flying head with a horizontal head in a hole with a small spring mechanism that would hold it in position. I don't if the head normally was out of contact with the drum while the head was stopped and was then sucked in, or if it landed and was pushed back, but that whole affair was delicate as well. John Bohner has some drums that we could photograph and use for you to get some ideas on how to do the heads. I'm not aware of any drums that ever had heads that resembled cassette recorder heads though. Jim From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Dec 14 10:41:55 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:41:55 -0500 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? In-Reply-To: <0JT100EV0GEKDST3@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JT100EV0GEKDST3@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: On Dec 14, 2007, at 7:09 AM, Allison wrote: >> I recently bought a KayPro II keyboard. It contains a nice >> Keytronics >> mechanical keyboard and really nice case. I'd like to convert it >> to a >> parallel ASCII keyboard or just reuse its case but was wondering >> if anyone >> had the schematics? >> >> Please let me know if you have the KapPro II keyboard schematics. >> Thanks! > > It has an 8048 uP if memory serves and the output is TTL level serial > ASCII. Making it put out parallel would be a major hackup including > reprogramming an 8748. It sure would make a nice parallel keyboard for hacking purposes, though. I really like Kaypro keyboards. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Dec 14 10:58:32 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:58:32 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <200712141442.34129.gordonjcp@gjcp.net> References: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> <200712141442.34129.gordonjcp@gjcp.net> Message-ID: On Dec 14, 2007, at 9:42 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >> though? Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, which isn't very >> fast at >> all - a drum that can do a few tens of RPM seems possible, but 6000?? > > I don't think it makes a difference. The higher the speed, the > larger the > voltage from the flux transition, but that shouldn't be a problem > (within > reason). The head gap and medium speed dictates the "resolution" > of the > system. You can think of it as being like trying to write with > different > sizes of pen nib. As the speed increases, the inductance of the tape head will come into play at some point. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Fri Dec 14 11:20:13 2007 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:20:13 -0600 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <4762ADA3.40109@msm.umr.edu> References: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> <4762A3C4.2040304@dunnington.plus.com> <4762ADA3.40109@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: Why not peel the heads out of a floppy? or the whole electronics of a wd1771 and data seperator circuit too? Or a Bernouli drive, perhaps you can 'fly' the heads... Randy > Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 08:21:55 -0800 > From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu > To: > CC: > Subject: Re: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) > > Pete Turnbull wrote: > > Jules Richardson wrote: > > > >> Very interesting project. Won't standard tape heads only work > >> reliably if the magnetic material's passing by at quite a narrow > >> range of speeds, though? Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, > >> which isn't very fast at all - a drum that can do a few tens of RPM > >> seems possible, but 6000?? > > > > It makes a difference to the bandwidth and signal level; cassette > > tapes run at 1_7/8 ips, domestic 1/4" tape runs at 3_3/4 ips or 7_1/2 > > ips, 1/4" studio tapes typically run at 7_1/2 or 15 ips. > > > It would take an examination of the magnet circuit that you are creating > with the head material and the magnetic media. This is not a problem > that can be attacked by comparing to other applications because the > materials will be different. I don't know if one can obtain material > that can be attached to a drum, but it probably wont be the same > consistency as that of cassette or audio tape for instance. and the > aluminum drum backing will be different in nature than the tape with the > felt backing that you have with those heads. > > Also all the drums I ever saw had a sort of flying head with a > horizontal head in a hole with a small spring mechanism that would hold > it in position. I don't if the head normally was out of contact with > the drum while the head was stopped and was then sucked in, or if it > landed and was pushed back, but that whole affair was delicate as well. > > John Bohner has some drums that we could photograph and use for you to > get some ideas on how to do the heads. I'm not aware of any drums that > ever had heads that resembled cassette recorder heads though. > > Jim _________________________________________________________________ i?m is proud to present Cause Effect, a series about real people making a difference. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_Cause_Effect From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Dec 14 11:58:42 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:58:42 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <200712141705.02843.gpearce@curiousgroup.co.uk> References: <200712141442.34129.gordonjcp@gjcp.net> <200712141705.02843.gpearce@curiousgroup.co.uk> Message-ID: <90E146E7-CF3C-4EDC-896D-6FEA08285A98@neurotica.com> On Dec 14, 2007, at 12:05 PM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >>>> though? Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, which isn't very >>>> fast at >>>> all - a drum that can do a few tens of RPM seems possible, but >>>> 6000?? >>> >>> I don't think it makes a difference. The higher the speed, the >>> larger the >>> voltage from the flux transition, but that shouldn't be a problem >>> (within >>> reason). The head gap and medium speed dictates the "resolution" >>> of the >>> system. You can think of it as being like trying to write with >>> different >>> sizes of pen nib. >> >> As the speed increases, the inductance of the tape head will come >> into play at some point. > > That's true. Maybe pull some video recorder heads? They'd probably be more suitable in terms of frequency response. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Fri Dec 14 12:23:24 2007 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:23:24 +0100 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20071214192324.6856aa38@SirToby.dinner41.local> On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:18:00 +1030 Robert Nansel wrote: > I'm looking at what it would take to make a barebones "museum piece" > bit-serial computer along the lines of an LGP-30 or maybe a Bendix > G-15. Maybe you should have a look at the Zuse machines also. The Z22 is a bit-serial, drum based machine too. > What I haven't been able to > get a handle on is how to make a serviceable magnetic drum. What about acoustic delay line memory? It is at least as "classic" as a drum but would be much easier to build. AFAIK the CSIRAC was a bit-serial, delay memory machine. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From mtapley at swri.edu Fri Dec 14 12:55:48 2007 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:55:48 -0600 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <200712141543.lBEFhE5R026565@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712141543.lBEFhE5R026565@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: ...don't you also need to *write* at the same speed? I'll bet there's something in the design of the audio cassette heads that makes it hard to do that. I'm pretty firmly in the camp of (at least initially) abusing technology by changing as few parameters as possible. That'd mean try the experiment with a (or 8, but since it's a serial computer .... ) head mounted over a drum (or disc) that pulls tape past it at the design speed for that head, 1 7/8 ips (?) for a cassette tape head. That also implies the max. data rate will be something like the max. bandwidth of the tape recorder, maybe 10 kHz. (Hey! Stereo recorders will give you 2 bits parallel, at close to 18 kHz....) Once you get it running at that clock rate and get the distributed.net client compiled and running ( :-) ), then work on speeding it up. I'd say the kewl factor on that machine will so blow away anything I've ever done that you need not also have a MHz advantage... Good luck! At 9:43 -0600 12/14/07, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Very interesting project. Won't standard tape heads only work reliably if >> the magnetic material's passing by at quite a narrow range of speeds, >> though? Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, which isn't very fast at >> all - a drum that can do a few tens of RPM seems possible, but 6000?? > >I don't think it makes a difference. The higher the speed, the larger the >voltage from the flux transition, but that shouldn't be a problem (within >reason). The head gap and medium speed dictates the "resolution" of the >system. You can think of it as being like trying to write with different >sizes of pen nib. > >Look at reel-to-reel audio recorders - they may run at a variety of speeds, >giving a tradeoff between audio quality and recording time. You can use a >higher flux density with a larger head gap (and a correspondingly larger >drive signal), but you need to haul the tape through faster to maintain the >bandwidth. > >On playback, you get the problem that higher frequencies produce a higher >voltage, hence the need for equalisation (not unlike the RIAA curve for >magnetic record pickups). > >In this case you probably just want to detect the presence or absence (or >possibly polarity) of a pulse. Equalisation won't be a worry. -- - Mark, 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward. From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Dec 14 13:11:11 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:11:11 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: References: <200712141543.lBEFhE5R026565@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <200712141411.12069.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 14 December 2007 13:55, Mark Tapley wrote: > ...don't you also need to *write* at the same speed? I'll bet > there's something in the design of the audio cassette heads that > makes it hard to do that. > > I'm pretty firmly in the camp of (at least initially) abusing > technology by changing as few parameters as possible. That'd mean try > the experiment with a (or 8, but since it's a serial computer .... ) > head mounted over a drum (or disc) that pulls tape past it at the > design speed for that head, 1 7/8 ips (?) for a cassette tape head. > That also implies the max. data rate will be something like the max. > bandwidth of the tape recorder, maybe 10 kHz. (Hey! Stereo recorders > will give you 2 bits parallel, at close to 18 kHz....) > > Once you get it running at that clock rate and get the > distributed.net client compiled and running ( :-) ), then work on > speeding it up. I'd say the kewl factor on that machine will so blow > away anything I've ever done that you need not also have a MHz > advantage... Good luck! This whole idea strikes me as just plain crazy... But! For some reason the above reminded me of something that I was considering early on, probably early 1970s or so. Instead of a drum just use a loop of tape. You can start with an old reel-to-reel deck, ignoring the reel transport portion of it, and putting as long of a tape loop as you want to tolerate in some sort of an enclosure (two sheets of clear plastic might be kinda cool) and having a metal strip on one spot on the tape as an "index pulse" or similar. Funny thing about that idea was that the slower speed does give you somewhat less frequency response, yeah, but cutting the speed in half does _not_ cut your frequency response in half -- it just cuts it down some, so you can actually get more bits on the tape at the slower speed. Of course your access time does get longer, but... Just one of those weird ideas I was kicking around back when, and never did anything with. :-) > At 9:43 -0600 12/14/07, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > > Very interesting project. Won't standard tape heads only work > > > reliably if > >> > >> the magnetic material's passing by at quite a narrow range of speeds, > >> though? Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, which isn't very fast > >> at all - a drum that can do a few tens of RPM seems possible, but 6000?? > > > >I don't think it makes a difference. The higher the speed, the larger the > >voltage from the flux transition, but that shouldn't be a problem (within > >reason). The head gap and medium speed dictates the "resolution" of the > >system. You can think of it as being like trying to write with different > >sizes of pen nib. > > > >Look at reel-to-reel audio recorders - they may run at a variety of > > speeds, giving a tradeoff between audio quality and recording time. You > > can use a higher flux density with a larger head gap (and a > > correspondingly larger drive signal), but you need to haul the tape > > through faster to maintain the bandwidth. > > > >On playback, you get the problem that higher frequencies produce a higher > >voltage, hence the need for equalisation (not unlike the RIAA curve for > >magnetic record pickups). > > > >In this case you probably just want to detect the presence or absence (or > >possibly polarity) of a pulse. Equalisation won't be a worry. -- 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 mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Fri Dec 14 13:25:25 2007 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:25:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <4762ADA3.40109@msm.umr.edu> References: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> <4762A3C4.2040304@dunnington.plus.com> <4762ADA3.40109@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, jim s wrote: > Also all the drums I ever saw had a sort of flying head with a horizontal > head in a hole with a small spring mechanism that would hold it in position. > I don't if the head normally was out of contact with the drum while the head > was stopped and was then sucked in, or if it landed and was pushed back, but > that whole affair was delicate as well. Just for reference, here's some information about the drums used in the SAGE (AN/FSQ-7) system: Length: 12.6 inches Diameter: 10.7 inches Weight: 85 lbs Speed: 2914 RPM Recording Surface: nickel-cobalt alloy Word Length: 32 bits (typically, plus various control and parity bits) The heads were fixed, on 6 pairs of mounting bars, with a critical air gap between the head the drum surface. The Q7 drums had two sets of heads to support simultaneous r/w operations between the computer and drums, and outside equipment (radar info, xtel, etc). Here's a picture from the Computer History Museum: http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Q7/CHDrum.jpg ... and a very small picture of r/w head: http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Q7/parts.gif The head is in the lower right hand corner. Specifics were taken from pp 125-131 of the "Theory of Programming" T.O.: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/sage/31P2-2FSQ7-112_SagePgmNov56.pdf Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From dm561 at torfree.net Fri Dec 14 13:23:52 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:23:52 -0500 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? Message-ID: <01C83E5D.152CD740@mandr71> Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:55:51 -0500 From: "Andrew Lynch" Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? >Hi, >I recently bought a KayPro II keyboard. It contains a nice Keytronics >mechanical keyboard and really nice case. I'd like to convert it to a >parallel ASCII keyboard or just reuse its case but was wondering if anyone >had the schematics? >Please let me know if you have the KapPro II keyboard schematics. Thanks! >Andrew Lynch ------------- How about leaving the keyboard intact and just adding a simple serial>parallel converter between it and the VG box? Add an EPROM for code conversion if necessary. I've got some serial interface cards for Olivetti typewriters (with schematics) that you could probably hack fairly easily if you didn't want to start from scratch; even FIFO buffers for typeahead, although you wouldn't need that with a Vector. mike From ian_primus at yahoo.com Fri Dec 14 13:45:05 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:45:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? In-Reply-To: <01C83E5D.152CD740@mandr71> Message-ID: <380175.73769.qm@web52702.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- M H Stein wrote: > Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:55:51 -0500 > From: "Andrew Lynch" > Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? > > >Hi, > >I recently bought a KayPro II keyboard. It > contains a nice Keytronics > >mechanical keyboard and really nice case. I'd like > to convert it to a > >parallel ASCII keyboard or just reuse its case but > was wondering if anyone > >had the schematics? > > >Please let me know if you have the KapPro II > keyboard schematics. Thanks! > > >Andrew Lynch > > ------------- > How about leaving the keyboard intact and just > adding a simple serial>parallel > converter between it and the VG box? Add an EPROM > for code conversion > if necessary. Yeah, like a 74594 shift register - 8 bit serial to parallel. I think a previous poster mentioned that it was ASCII output, serialized, and if that's the case, all you would need to do is use something like a shift register to "parallelize" it. If the key codes are different, than an EPROM can be abused into converting them for you. -Ian From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Dec 14 13:53:15 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:53:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <200712141411.12069.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200712141543.lBEFhE5R026565@dewey.classiccmp.org> <200712141411.12069.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20071214115137.R5209@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > This whole idea strikes me as just plain crazy... > But! For some reason the above reminded me of something that I was > considering early on, probably early 1970s or so. Instead of a drum just > use a loop of tape. You can start with an old reel-to-reel deck, ignoring Howzbout an 8-track? Unfortunately, the kids today don't even remember them, so wouldn't fully appreciate the absurdity. From go at ao.com Fri Dec 14 13:58:44 2007 From: go at ao.com (Gary Oliver) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:58:44 -0800 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <4762ADA3.40109@msm.umr.edu> References: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> <4762A3C4.2040304@dunnington.plus.com> <4762ADA3.40109@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <4762E074.6090007@ao.com> I didn't quite get to play with one, but I did have the r/w head from a SAGE computer after it was decommissioned at a base near here in Corvallis Oregon in the late 60s (if I recall correctly.) I *did* read one of the maintenance manuals, though, and it suggested strongly it was not a flying head device. I seem to recall the drum was nickel plated (rather hard) and the adjustment procedure was something like "turn the screw to advance the head to the drum surface until you hear a squeal, then back it off a bit." The heads were rather simple devices with a single screw that drove the head to/from the media surface. These heads were long and skinny (from memory about 1cm X 2 cm X 15 cm) with the head mounting in fixed brackets that spiraled around the drum surface (so that spacing was close without having to crowd the heads next to each other.) I do still have my storage-tube display from the SAGE though (a charactron tube) and hope to interface it to something medieval someday. Wish I'd kept the drum parts. -Gary jim s wrote: > Also all the drums I ever saw had a sort of flying head with a > horizontal head in a hole with a small spring mechanism that would > hold it in position. I don't if the head normally was out of contact > with the drum while the head was stopped and was then sucked in, or if > it landed and was pushed back, but that whole affair was delicate as > well. > > John Bohner has some drums that we could photograph and use for you to > get some ideas on how to do the heads. I'm not aware of any drums > that ever had heads that resembled cassette recorder heads though. > > Jim > > From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Fri Dec 14 14:08:40 2007 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:08:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <4762E074.6090007@ao.com> References: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> <4762A3C4.2040304@dunnington.plus.com> <4762ADA3.40109@msm.umr.edu> <4762E074.6090007@ao.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, Gary Oliver wrote: > I didn't quite get to play with one, but I did have the r/w head from a > SAGE computer after it was decommissioned at a base near here in > Corvallis Oregon in the late 60s (if I recall correctly.) I *did* read > one of the maintenance manuals, though, and it suggested strongly it was > not a flying head device. I seem to recall the drum was nickel plated > (rather hard) and the adjustment procedure was something like "turn the > screw to advance the head to the drum surface until you hear a squeal, > then back it off a bit." The heads were rather simple devices with a > single screw that drove the head to/from the media surface. As someone who had to replace those heads (while the drum was spinning, mind you), I can tell you that's NOT the procedure. :-) You hooked a scope to the read amplifier, then SLOWLY turned the screw until you started to see a level, then adjusted it for the proper output voltage. You're correct, it was not a flying head system. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From go at ao.com Fri Dec 14 14:09:01 2007 From: go at ao.com (Gary Oliver) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:09:01 -0800 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: References: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> <4762A3C4.2040304@dunnington.plus.com> <4762ADA3.40109@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <4762E2DD.9090406@ao.com> Thanks for the pictures - brings back memories :-) I had misremembered the head mount orientation, but my memory of the had size was fairly bit-free... I wish I could find the TM that had the head tune instructions. I remember the "tune for squeal" bit, though and wish I could find the quotation. Have been involved with a project involving (a rather touchy) Vermont Research Drum of about 1 megaBIT capacity, I found the adjustment procedure funny. The VRC drum used FeO and would have been destroyed quickly by such an indelicate procedure. -Gary Mike Loewen wrote: > On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, jim s wrote: > Just for reference, here's some information about the drums used in > the SAGE (AN/FSQ-7) system: > > Length: 12.6 inches > Diameter: 10.7 inches > Weight: 85 lbs > Speed: 2914 RPM > Recording Surface: nickel-cobalt alloy > Word Length: 32 bits (typically, plus various control and parity bits) From go at ao.com Fri Dec 14 14:22:15 2007 From: go at ao.com (Gary Oliver) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:22:15 -0800 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: References: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> <4762A3C4.2040304@dunnington.plus.com> <4762ADA3.40109@msm.umr.edu> <4762E074.6090007@ao.com> Message-ID: <4762E5F7.20901@ao.com> Well, I'm glad to be set straight. I am probably melding a description from some other device, since I worked with a few other drum/disk machines about that time. I do distinctly remember having a manual from that time that described that procedure - always seemed strange to me, but the document did make rounds at our computer lab group at Oregon State. It may have been for a small fixed-head disk, rather than a drum, but the point was that it was possible. It WAS about 30 years go :-) I have a reference somewhere for a drum project from the 40s that used what would now be simple machine-shop procedures (assuming one had a small drill-mill and lathe) to fashion a small drum of a few k-bit capacity. I'll try to dig that out and send it along. I was sort of planning to do something along this line myself at some point during "retirement" (which won't be for a few years, I suspect.) I've acquired a few of the components for fabricating the drum and will give it a "whirl" some day. I was definitely NOT planning to make a flying head device and to keep it simple enough I could fabricate a few heads from "first principles." Thanks, Gary Mike Loewen wrote: > On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, Gary Oliver wrote: > >> I didn't quite get to play with one, but I did have the r/w head from a >> SAGE computer after it was decommissioned at a base near here in >> Corvallis Oregon in the late 60s (if I recall correctly.) I *did* read >> one of the maintenance manuals, though, and it suggested strongly it was >> not a flying head device. I seem to recall the drum was nickel plated >> (rather hard) and the adjustment procedure was something like "turn the >> screw to advance the head to the drum surface until you hear a squeal, >> then back it off a bit." The heads were rather simple devices with a >> single screw that drove the head to/from the media surface. From ian_primus at yahoo.com Fri Dec 14 14:35:14 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:35:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <20071214115137.R5209@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <669241.29965.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- Fred Cisin wrote: > On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > This whole idea strikes me as just plain crazy... > > But! For some reason the above reminded me of > something that I was > > considering early on, probably early 1970s or so. > Instead of a drum just > > use a loop of tape. You can start with an old > reel-to-reel deck, ignoring > > Howzbout an 8-track? > > Unfortunately, the kids today don't even remember > them, so wouldn't fully > appreciate the absurdity. That actually would work pretty well, since the mechanism already intends to have a continuous loop of tape. You would just have to shorten it somewhat. Waiting 12 minutes for that bit to come back around would be a pain. If you shortened the tape, and a somewhat shorter foil splice and had both the record and playback heads egaged at the same time, then you could use the foil sensing splice/contacts and have that generate an index pulse to start timing. Of course, you're still limited to 2 bits wide, since eight track tape recorders still only have a stereo head, with a solenoid to move the head. Now, if you could find a quadraphonic 8 track recorder (rare as heck)... -Ian From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Fri Dec 14 14:36:12 2007 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:36:12 +0100 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: References: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> <4762A3C4.2040304@dunnington.plus.com> <4762ADA3.40109@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <4762E93C.8000504@bluewin.ch> > The heads were fixed, on 6 pairs of mounting bars, with a critical > air gap between the head the drum surface. In the machines made in Gottingen the procedure was to a cigarette paper as a shim... a machine made in the GDR seems to be the kind of machine the OP was thinking of : http://rechentechnik.foerderverein-tsd.de/d4a/d4avortrag/img6.html Jos Dreesen From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Dec 14 15:18:25 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim s) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:18:25 -0800 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (tape loop) In-Reply-To: <669241.29965.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <669241.29965.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4762F321.8070509@msm.umr.edu> Mr Ian Primus wrote: > > That actually would work pretty well, since the > mechanism already intends to have a continuous loop of > tape. You would just have to shorten it somewhat. > Waiting 12 minutes for that bit to come back around > would be a pain. > > If you shortened the tape, and a somewhat shorter foil > splice and had both the record and playback heads > egaged at the same time, then you could use the foil > sensing splice/contacts and have that generate an > index pulse to start timing. > > Of course, you're still limited to 2 bits wide, since > eight track tape recorders still only have a stereo > head, with a solenoid to move the head. > > Now, if you could find a quadraphonic 8 track recorder > (rare as heck)... > > -Ian > The other problem you have with tape even with acceptable delay between the bits appearing is that you want to do a write after read. Say you shift in a value from the read head, process it and need to write it back over the previously read location. with a drum you can have a write head and a read head and have them synced to either a timing track, or a tach disk or other device and have a pretty precise pulse when you read and when you need to write. but with tape, you'd have to be able to get the read and write heads precisely set so that if you wanted to write a value, you'd put it down on the tape over the previous position. I guess the other obvious solution to that problem would be to read everything into a register, and then write it for later retrieval, whether it was modified or not. writing all the time like that doesn't appeal to me but it would work. main thing that would kill you would be the latency of how long till the bits reappeared. I know that one of the attributes of the drum on the lgp30 that was taken advantage of was the fact that there was skew between tracks that one could write modified values to on other tracks, and you'd juggle between several tracks at different radial positions knowing you'd not wait a whole rotation to dispose of the data you needed to save, and could calculate at faster than the drum's rotation latencey. With only a few tracks and a very long time between appearances of data that would be pretty useless. Jim > > From legalize at xmission.com Fri Dec 14 15:51:32 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:51:32 -0700 Subject: SAGE tube (was: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads)) In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:58:44 -0800. <4762E074.6090007@ao.com> Message-ID: In article <4762E074.6090007 at ao.com>, Gary Oliver writes: > I do still have my storage-tube display from the SAGE though (a > charactron tube) and hope to interface it to something medieval > someday. Wish I'd kept the drum parts. Do you have any of the surrounding desk/switch stuff that goes with the tube? I've been thinking of making a replica SAGE console, since my chances of getting an *actual* SAGE console a pretty much nil. (Although CHM does have one, but I don't think they'll give it to me :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From curt at atarimuseum.com Fri Dec 14 15:56:31 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:56:31 -0500 Subject: SAGE tube In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4762FC0F.1070803@atarimuseum.com> Is the massive SAGE complex close by in Newburgh, NY gutted out? I had heard (most likely in a thread on cctalk) that someone wanted to level the complex for commercial use - a process next to impossible without the aid of several thermonuclear devices ;-) Curt Richard wrote: > In article <4762E074.6090007 at ao.com>, > Gary Oliver writes: > > >> I do still have my storage-tube display from the SAGE though (a >> charactron tube) and hope to interface it to something medieval >> someday. Wish I'd kept the drum parts. >> > > Do you have any of the surrounding desk/switch stuff that goes with > the tube? > > I've been thinking of making a replica SAGE console, since my chances > of getting an *actual* SAGE console a pretty much nil. (Although CHM > does have one, but I don't think they'll give it to me :-). > From curt at atarimuseum.com Fri Dec 14 16:00:40 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:00:40 -0500 Subject: SAGE tube In-Reply-To: <4762FC0F.1070803@atarimuseum.com> References: <4762FC0F.1070803@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <4762FD08.4040009@atarimuseum.com> Here a link to some info: http://www.dmna.state.ny.us/forts/fortsQ_S/sage.htm Curt Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > Is the massive SAGE complex close by in Newburgh, NY gutted out? I > had heard (most likely in a thread on cctalk) that someone wanted to > level the complex for commercial use - a process next to impossible > without the aid of several thermonuclear devices ;-) > > Curt > > > > Richard wrote: >> In article <4762E074.6090007 at ao.com>, >> Gary Oliver writes: >> >> >>> I do still have my storage-tube display from the SAGE though (a >>> charactron tube) and hope to interface it to something medieval >>> someday. Wish I'd kept the drum parts. >>> >> >> Do you have any of the surrounding desk/switch stuff that goes with >> the tube? >> >> I've been thinking of making a replica SAGE console, since my chances >> of getting an *actual* SAGE console a pretty much nil. (Although CHM >> does have one, but I don't think they'll give it to me :-). >> > From legalize at xmission.com Fri Dec 14 16:11:32 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:11:32 -0700 Subject: SAGE tube In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:56:31 -0500. <4762FC0F.1070803@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: In article <4762FC0F.1070803 at atarimuseum.com>, "Curt @ Atari Museum" writes: > Is the massive SAGE complex close by in Newburgh, NY gutted out? Isn't that the one that has a gutted interior that they wanted to make into a cold war museum? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Fri Dec 14 16:11:51 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:11:51 -0700 Subject: SAGE tube In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:56:31 -0500. <4762FC0F.1070803@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: Oh, and there are SAGE manuals on bitsavers if anyone wants to look at the details :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From rickb at bensene.com Fri Dec 14 16:52:29 2007 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:52:29 -0800 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <90E146E7-CF3C-4EDC-896D-6FEA08285A98@neurotica.com> References: <200712141442.34129.gordonjcp@gjcp.net><200712141705.02843.gpearce@curiousgroup.co.uk> <90E146E7-CF3C-4EDC-896D-6FEA08285A98@neurotica.com> Message-ID: Some of the smaller drum-based computers from the late '50's and earlu '60's (transistorized) had drums that didn't rotate nearly as fast as 6000 RPM. In High School, we had a very interesting 24-bit machine made by 3M (did you know that 3M made computers for a time?) that was a dual-CPU machine, with a communications Channel between the two processors and shared access to peripherals. Each CPU was a 24-bit, bit-serial machine, each with an 8K-word magnetic drum, which used a pair of heads per track (one read, one write). The drum rotated at 3000 RPM. The drum was quite an assembly. One of the drums failed, leaving one CPU inoperative. I carefully disassembled the drum to figure out why it quit working. As it turned out, a bearing had failed, and the drum crashed into the heads. Irrepairable mess. A lot of brownish-colored powder greeted me when I opened the housing of the drum assembly, and the drum surface was scratched with some fairly deep grooves. The crash happened during the night, and there was a protection feature on the motor that if too much current was drawn (e.g., head crash or some kind of jam), the power to the motor was removed. When I came in the next day, that CPU was "dead". Fortunately, the other CPU could run without independently without its pair, and it was still running fine. It was clear that the machining of the drum assembly was very precise. The bearings were very high-precision, pin-type sealed bearings. The drive shaft and motor connection were precisely machined and clearly dynamically balanced. There was vibration isolation between the drive motor and the drive shaft for the drum. The heads flew at a fixed (but adjustable) height from the drum...they were not floating head The heads were mounted in a staggered fashion to enable them all to fit. They were very small head assemblies. The CPU was clocked by a master timing track on the drum. There was some kind of phase-locked loop that once the drum was up to approximately the correct operational speed, the PLL would monitor the clock frequency and make small adjustments to the motor speed to keep things all in synchronization. Spin-up time was about 20 seconds if I recall correctly. During spin-up, the CPU was held in HALT state, and the write amps were force disabled. IIRC, there were 40 (octal) tracks, 00-37. Each "sector" was 24 bits of data (with some additional timing/identification data that was invisible to the user). There were also some number of what were called "blocks" that were different groups of 40 tracks, but I can't recall the number of them (maybe 8? - though through some simple math that I don't care to do at the moment, it could probably be figured out). Instruction words had a 5 bit operation code, addresses in Block/Track/Sector format for operand and next instruction location, as well as some other bits for stuff like I/O instructions and immediate operations. I recall that the timing for most instructions was such that as the current instruction was fetched, the operand should be at the current track/sector address +3, and the next instruction should be at the current track/sector address +6 for optimal programming. This would mean that just after the instruction was fetched and decoded, the operand would be under the head ready to be read/written, and by the time the operation was complete, the next instruction would be under the head ready for reading. It was an interesting machine. No index registers. Doing table accesses required loading an instruction into the accumulator, adding a constant (or a calculated variable if you wanted to try to keep things optimized by interlacing table addresses), and storing the instruction back in its place, then branching to it. It had two main registers, the accumulator, and a "B" register, which could serve as a temporary register, and was also used for I/O operations. It had a hard-logic-based loader. Putting the machine in LOAD mode, would accept octal coded address and data information from the ASR33 Teletype and write it out to the drum. It could run fast enough to load pre-preared punched tapes from the ASR33's paper tape reader. I can't remember exactly, but I'd guess that the CPU had about 50 3x5 circuit boards, each with varying numebers of transistors and diodes. It was definitely discrete DTL logic. I'd guess the total transistor count to be something in the range of 1000-1500. The circuit cards were arranged in a horseshoe fashion, surrounding the magnetic drum. The CPU itself was about 12RU, and fit in a standard 19" rack. The two CPUs were in a small rack that housed them one atop the other. Each could slide out far enough for complete access to all components. The power supplies for the CPUs were in a separate enclosure, with an individual power supply for each CPU. There was a big I/O equipment rack that was 19", and about 6 ft. tall. The machine was originally used as a real-time data acquisition system (albeit at slow acquisition rates..the machine was not very fast), and once CPU did all of the data acquisition, and the other did post-processing and report generation. The I/O rack was full of various different types of modular units including A/D converters, programmable amplifiers, timers, D/A converters, counters, and simple contact closure inputs and relay outputs, as well as the interfaces for a real-time clock, the ASR-33 TTY, and a wide-carriage IBM (pre-selectric) output typewriter for typing out reports. Sure wish I could remember the model number of the machine. As I recall, it was manufactured sometime in 1965 or so. It vanished a few years after I graduated from High School...probably scrapped, sadly. I wonder ow many computers 3M built...can't have been many, as there's no reference to computer equipment as being products of 3M in anything I can find on the web. Wonder if there are any of these machines left at all? As for a 6000 RPM drum, I'd think that you'd definitely not be successful using a pop can with magtape glued to it. The tolerances and balance just wouldn't work at this kind of speed. In order to make a real practical drum, you'd need a pretty good machine shop, and access to high quality bearings, low vibration motors, and other materials (such as the coating for the drum and vibration damping materials) as well as a means to balance rotating assemblies precisely. Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Fri Dec 14 17:13:09 2007 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:13:09 -0600 Subject: Found thhe source to MS Basic Message-ID: This may be of interest to the group, on the Nascom web page, I found the Microsoft 8K basic source: http://www.nascomhomepage.com/lang/8kbasic.asm Randy _________________________________________________________________ i?m is proud to present Cause Effect, a series about real people making a difference. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_Cause_Effect From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Dec 14 18:35:11 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 00:35:11 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <200712141126.lBEBQFp1025567@mwave.heeltoe.com> from "Brad Parker" at Dec 14, 7 06:26:14 am Message-ID: > might be easier to grab a old 5 1/4" ST-506 MFM drive and fashion a > carrier for 8 heads in fixed location using a single platter. You could > run the "motor" with a pic and the sense amps and drivers for the heads Has the art totally gone out of design??? The spindle motor driver for an ST506/ST406/ST412/etc was a separate PCB that just took in 12V DC and drove the motor. It contains a handful of discrete parts., and AFAIK no chips. And you want to use a PIC? You'd probalby need as amnytranssitors to interface said PIC to the hall sensor and windings. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Dec 14 18:43:53 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 00:43:53 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <476268A8.8010706@bluewin.ch> from "Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel" at Dec 14, 7 12:27:36 pm Message-ID: > > Robert Nansel wrote: > > I'm looking at what it would take to make a barebones "museum piece" > > bit-serial computer along the lines of an LGP-30 or maybe a Bendix G-1 > > So I am not the only madman araound here ! Is anyone here sane? I would hope not! I know I'm insane... > > And the keep the project within budget (i.e. none to speak of), > That is, I believe, a recipy for disaster. Your really need to budget > for having PCB's made if you want some reliable operation of whole cpu. Why do you need PCBs? This thing sounds slow enough that almost any construction technique would work (stripboard, for example). And if you do ened PCBs, they'd only have to be double sided, and those you can make at home. [...] > What I haven't been able to get a > > handle on is how to make a serviceable magnetic drum. > > A major mechanical challenge, I believe outside most people's > capabilities. Tony is bound to comment on it though ! The comment 'bl**dy difficult' springs to mind... If you have the heads in contact with the media -- E.g. wrapping recodinng take round a drup and hainv heads rubbing on it -- you;ll get wear. Lots of it. It'll work fine for some minuts/hours and then fail. Rememebr thati n a tape recorder the head doesn't (normally) keep on going over the same bit of tape). If you have heads spaced away from the media, then rememebr that the air gap is critical -- the larger the gap the lower the density of recoridng yoyu can use. But the gap, in turn, is detemriend by the mechanical tolerances of the drum and bearings -- and you're going to have problems from that. I would think any form of ball/roller bearing is going to have too mich run out -- even an adjustable tapered toller bearing. I would think tapered bush bearings (and used in a good lathe headstock) would do, but making them -- and adjusting them -- would be 'interesting'. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Dec 14 19:02:06 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 01:02:06 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <20071214115137.R5209@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Dec 14, 7 11:53:15 am Message-ID: > > On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > This whole idea strikes me as just plain crazy... > > But! For some reason the above reminded me of something that I was > > considering early on, probably early 1970s or so. Instead of a drum just > > use a loop of tape. You can start with an old reel-to-reel deck, ignoring > > Howzbout an 8-track? Unforuately, I don't think any 8-track machines had 8 head windings. Most had a 2-winding head that was shifteded mechjancialy to one of 4 postions on the tape. Although I've never seen such a machine, I do have schematics for a few such machines with 4-coil heads that could be used to record and play quadraphonic tapes. Of ocurse there's no reason why you hsve a to have 8-bit words. With a 4-coil head you cold have 3 bits and a clock track, like the HP9100/HP9810/HP9820 magnetic card reader. To go off-thread but more on-topic. am I the only person to rememebr that the Exidy sorceror cartridges with 8-track tape cases with a PCB containing EPROMs in them. > Unfortunately, the kids today don't even remember them, so wouldn't fully > appreciate the absurdity. Wel, the tape loop was rather long. An access time of up to 30 minutes would seem to be somewhat impractcal. But I don't see why you couldn't shorten the tape look to something more useable. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Dec 14 19:03:58 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 01:03:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <4762E074.6090007@ao.com> from "Gary Oliver" at Dec 14, 7 11:58:44 am Message-ID: > (rather hard) and the adjustment procedure was something like "turn the > screw to advance the head to the drum surface until you hear a squeal, > then back it off a bit." The heads were rather simple devices with a > single screw that drove the head to/from the media surface. That sounds like the procedure for fitting a new CRT : Tighten the clamp until the CRT implodes, then back off 1/4 of a turn. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Dec 14 19:10:43 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 01:10:43 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <20071214192324.6856aa38@SirToby.dinner41.local> from "Jochen Kunz" at Dec 14, 7 07:23:24 pm Message-ID: > What about acoustic delay line memory? > It is at least as "classic" as a drum but would be much easier to build. > AFAIK the CSIRAC was a bit-serial, delay memory machine. I wonder if you could use those glass delay lines that were used in PAL colour TV receiver until fairly recently (and there must be plenty still around)? Alas they have a somewhat odd delay time (a little less than 64us -- one line period of the European TV signal), but I am sure you could fiddle the master clock to compensate. There were some similar dalay lines of exaclty 64us delay, used to store a picture line in the drop-out compensator circuit of early VCRs, but those are going to be a lot harder to find. -tony From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Dec 14 20:05:29 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:05:29 -0500 Subject: Found thhe source to MS Basic In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:13:09 CST." Message-ID: <200712150205.lBF25Tv3003294@mwave.heeltoe.com> Randy Dawson wrote: > >This may be of interest to the group, on the Nascom web page, I found the Micr >osoft 8K basic source: > >http://www.nascomhomepage.com/lang/8kbasic.asm thanks! excellent post... -brad From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Fri Dec 14 20:21:49 2007 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:21:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: Found thhe source to MS Basic In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, Randy Dawson wrote: > This may be of interest to the group, on the Nascom web page, I found > the Microsoft 8K basic source: > > http://www.nascomhomepage.com/lang/8kbasic.asm I wonder... Does it support non-square 2-dimensional arrays? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From cclist at sydex.com Fri Dec 14 20:24:07 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:24:07 -0800 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 52, Issue 30 In-Reply-To: <200712150118.lBF1I8SI033183@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712150118.lBF1I8SI033183@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4762CA47.21069.BFDFF95@cclist.sydex.com> Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:52:29 -0800 From: "Rick Bensene" > Some of the smaller drum-based computers from the late '50's and earlu > '60's (transistorized) had drums that didn't rotate nearly as fast as > 6000 RPM. I don't know--the drum on the IBM 650 spun at 12,500 RPM, was 4 inches in diameter and about a foot long. This is not a project I'd launch into lightly. In the 70's and 80's Meshna would occasionally offer a mil-surplus drum unit for sale usually from some some airborne installation (i.e. used in radar). Lots of heads and no guarantee. The precision necessary in the mechanicals is pretty daunting. The heads fly at a few micrometers above the surface of the drum, which pretty much mandates some sort of clean-room environment. The bearings would need close to zero runout and getting the surface of the drum coated smoothly enough, either by plating or with a magnetic emulsion would also be an obstacle. If you have a good precision machine shop and mechanical engineering skills at your disposal, you could try it. Personally, I'd rather work something up with a magnetostrictive delay line memory--easier to build and quite robust--and just as "vintage". I recall that even in the 70's, drums had their problems. On the CDC STAR, every so often, a station would go down because of a "drum error"--more frequently than the disk drives encountered errors. You could make the heads on a Univac Fastrand II drum "ping" just by jumping up and down on the floor near the monster. I also recall that the ADL folks at CDC were working on a "super drum"--a very high speed unit that spun in a vacuum(IIRC) to be used as a paging store for the STAR. I recall the Neil Lincoln mentioned that the time between the observation window being clear and coated with drum surface was typically a few minutes at best. There's a nice story about the Manchester Mark I drum here: http://www.computer50.org/mark1/gethomas/manchester_drums.html About the only item of the correct size and tolerances that's readily available today, it seems to me, would be the drum unit out of a laser printer or copier. I don't know if the OPC layer could be easily stripped off and replaced with oxide, but it might be worth a try. If you're really serious abou this, I'd be willing to donate a head from a CDC 808 disk unit--4 bit parallel recording. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Fri Dec 14 20:30:02 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:30:02 -0800 Subject: Quick survey Message-ID: <4762CBAA.8176.C036917@cclist.sydex.com> Would I be more-or-less correct if I assumed that the bulk of hard- sectored diskettes in use fell into two groups: 16-sector 5.25" and 32-sector 8"? I know that there are other physical formats, but I'm wondering if that would have 90% coverage? Thanks, Chuck From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Dec 14 20:37:48 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:37:48 -0800 Subject: Quick survey In-Reply-To: <4762CBAA.8176.C036917@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4762CBAA.8176.C036917@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: cclist at sydex.com > > Would I be more-or-less correct if I assumed that the bulk of hard- > sectored diskettes in use fell into two groups: 16-sector 5.25" and > 32-sector 8"? I know that there are other physical formats, but I'm > wondering if that would have 90% coverage? > > Thanks, > Chuck > Hi Chuck I have one application for 8 inch hard sectored and it is 32. All of my 5.25 are 10 sectored. That is three completely different manufactures and formats. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Fri Dec 14 20:58:55 2007 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:58:55 -0600 Subject: Al Kossow, here are the versaplot sources Message-ID: Al, A while back you asked for the Versaplot sources, I have them here with a port to the PC DOS (Ryan-Mcfarland Fortran). I also found them on the web: http://history.dcs.ed.ac.uk/archive/apps/edwin/randomvms/ A google of versaplot turned this up, and also some manuals in what looks like troff format. It looks like all the DECUS stuff is out there itoo f you google a bit. I would like to see your MOVIE.BYU! Randy _________________________________________________________________ i?m is proud to present Cause Effect, a series about real people making a difference. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_Cause_Effect From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Dec 14 22:30:36 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:30:36 -0800 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? In-Reply-To: References: <0JT100EV0GEKDST3@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: > From: mcguire at neurotica.com > > On Dec 14, 2007, at 7:09 AM, Allison wrote: >>> I recently bought a KayPro II keyboard. It contains a nice >>> Keytronics >>> mechanical keyboard and really nice case. I'd like to convert it >>> to a >>> parallel ASCII keyboard or just reuse its case but was wondering >>> if anyone >>> had the schematics? >>> >>> Please let me know if you have the KapPro II keyboard schematics. >>> Thanks! >> >> It has an 8048 uP if memory serves and the output is TTL level serial >> ASCII. Making it put out parallel would be a major hackup including >> reprogramming an 8748. > > Hi I have a parallel keyboard that runs from a 8035 ( romless 8048 ). It has a clever way of generating the parallel output that would require little circuit modification. He'd either have to get a 8035 and EPROM or a 8748 as you suggested. What they do is run the wires for the keyboard data as the same signal lines as used to strobe the keyboard. While scanning the keyboard, there is junk on the parallel output. Once a key is struck, it outputs the ascii from a table, along with the parallel strobe. This is a clever way to do two different things with the same I/O pins. The Keyboard I got was missing a few key codes that I needed for my computer. Luckily, the ascii lookup tables were easy to spot in a dump of the ROM. I just modified these and replaced the ROM with an EPROM and my new tables. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Fri Dec 14 06:07:40 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 07:07:40 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer Message-ID: <0JT1009O4FWC2944@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Homebrew Drum Computer > From: Gordon JC Pearce > Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:01:09 +0000 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On Thursday 13 December 2007 07:48:00 Robert Nansel wrote: > >> Certainly I could trash a few old cassette decks, or even get some >> floppy R/W heads to experiment with audio recording tape super-glued >> to a soda can, but I really want to get at least the performance the >> old machines could produce, so that means a reasonably fast drum RPM, >> somewhere around 6000 RPM, say. > >That's actually pretty fast, and anything you stick to the drum will need to >be stuck very firmly! By comparison, a washing machine in fast spin goes at >roughly a quarter of this speed, and a typical car engine is reaching >its "red line" at around 6000rpm... > >You would need an extremely good workshop to machine up a drum that would stay >in balance at this sort of speed. It's actually the sort of thing that you >might want to farm out to a specialist machine shop. I would be inclined to >make the drum out of a bit of thick-walled aluminium tubing, carefully bored >to remove any imperfections from the inside that might affect the balance. A >couple of aluminium end caps would take a thickish steel axle and the >bearings (which would be tricky in themselves - they'd need to be sealed to >prevent grease being thrown out, or something capable of running fairly dry >at high speed). Then you'd skim the drum to ensure it was perfectly >concentric - any runout would very quickly destroy the bearings at 6000rpm. >Some motors use little sealed ball races. I'd consider looking at teeny-tiny >taper roller bearings like car wheel bearings, so that you could use a shim >to set the preload very accurately to remove any play. I can probably >provide a scan of a car gearbox manual that shows *exactly* how to do this >bit. > >You'd probably need to balance it after painting or otherwise coating it with >some sort of magnetic material. I don't know what you'd use for that. You >could probably research what they used in early drives. I am now entering >the realms of speculation, but my gut feeling is that you'd need to somehow >spray it on and rub back the layers to get a perfectly smooth finish - when >it's done it shouldn't quite be hot-rod shiny but it should be very flat and >polished. > >Over to Tony, I think... Most of the old Drum machines spun at 1200, 1800, 3125 or maybe a screamigly fast 3600. Though 1800 is the more common. Also most used "fast tracks" that had more than one head per track radially so that a partial rotataion was needed. A good machine to study is the Minuteman Missle guidence computer. It was bit serial and used a disk as a "drum" rotating memory. Allison Allison >Gordon From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Fri Dec 14 06:09:48 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 07:09:48 -0500 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? Message-ID: <0JT100EV0GEKDST3@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? > From: "Andrew Lynch" > Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:55:51 -0500 > To: > >Hi, >I recently bought a KayPro II keyboard. It contains a nice Keytronics >mechanical keyboard and really nice case. I'd like to convert it to a >parallel ASCII keyboard or just reuse its case but was wondering if anyone >had the schematics? > >Please let me know if you have the KapPro II keyboard schematics. Thanks! It has an 8048 uP if memory serves and the output is TTL level serial ASCII. Making it put out parallel would be a major hackup including reprogramming an 8748. Allison >Andrew Lynch From gpearce at curiousgroup.co.uk Fri Dec 14 08:42:18 2007 From: gpearce at curiousgroup.co.uk (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:42:18 +0000 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> References: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200712141442.18527.gpearce@curiousgroup.co.uk> On Friday 14 December 2007 14:19:06 Jules Richardson wrote: > Very interesting project. Won't standard tape heads only work reliably if > the magnetic material's passing by at quite a narrow range of speeds, > though? Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, which isn't very fast at > all - a drum that can do a few tens of RPM seems possible, but 6000?? I don't think it makes a difference. The higher the speed, the larger the voltage from the flux transition, but that shouldn't be a problem (within reason). The head gap and medium speed dictates the "resolution" of the system. You can think of it as being like trying to write with different sizes of pen nib. Look at reel-to-reel audio recorders - they may run at a variety of speeds, giving a tradeoff between audio quality and recording time. You can use a higher flux density with a larger head gap (and a correspondingly larger drive signal), but you need to haul the tape through faster to maintain the bandwidth. On playback, you get the problem that higher frequencies produce a higher voltage, hence the need for equalisation (not unlike the RIAA curve for magnetic record pickups). In this case you probably just want to detect the presence or absence (or possibly polarity) of a pulse. Equalisation won't be a worry. Gordon From gpearce at curiousgroup.co.uk Fri Dec 14 11:05:02 2007 From: gpearce at curiousgroup.co.uk (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:05:02 +0000 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: References: <200712141442.34129.gordonjcp@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <200712141705.02843.gpearce@curiousgroup.co.uk> On Friday 14 December 2007 16:58:32 Dave McGuire wrote: > On Dec 14, 2007, at 9:42 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > >> though? Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, which isn't very > >> fast at > >> all - a drum that can do a few tens of RPM seems possible, but 6000?? > > > > I don't think it makes a difference. The higher the speed, the > > larger the > > voltage from the flux transition, but that shouldn't be a problem > > (within > > reason). The head gap and medium speed dictates the "resolution" > > of the > > system. You can think of it as being like trying to write with > > different > > sizes of pen nib. > > As the speed increases, the inductance of the tape head will come > into play at some point. That's true. Maybe pull some video recorder heads? Gordon From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Fri Dec 14 12:31:42 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:31:42 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer Message-ID: <0JT100C24Y2Y4386@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Homebrew Drum Computer > From: Jules Richardson > Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 08:19:06 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > >Robert Nansel wrote: >> Certainly I could trash a few old cassette decks, or even get some >> floppy R/W heads to experiment with audio recording tape super-glued to >> a soda can, but I really want to get at least the performance the old >> machines could produce, so that means a reasonably fast drum RPM, >> somewhere around 6000 RPM, say. > >Very interesting project. Won't standard tape heads only work reliably if the >magnetic material's passing by at quite a narrow range of speeds, though? >Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, which isn't very fast at all - a >drum that can do a few tens of RPM seems possible, but 6000?? Correct, there is a relationship between gap width and media speed. I've used casette heads to 10ips but above that there are problems. one is the total inductance of the winding limit the upper frequency reponse (used as saturation recording head) to around 40khz and thats pushing it. Allison > >If I've got my numbers right, a small 6" drum has a diameter of approx 19" and >at 6000rpm will take 1/100 seconds to do a single revolution. That's 1900" per >second past each head - roughly 1000 times the typical operating speed of a >cassette deck. > >Build several low-speed soda can drums - equivalent in number to the word >length of your machine, then read/write data in parallel... (OK, that's a >humourous suggestion, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone hasn't tried it) > >cheers > >Jules From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Fri Dec 14 12:41:52 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:41:52 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer Message-ID: <0JT1009FTYL82XP5@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Homebrew Drum Computer > From: Gordon JC Pearce > Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 14:42:34 +0000 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On Friday 14 December 2007 14:19:06 Jules Richardson wrote: > >> Very interesting project. Won't standard tape heads only work reliably if >> the magnetic material's passing by at quite a narrow range of speeds, >> though? Google suggests that's 1 7/8" per second, which isn't very fast at >> all - a drum that can do a few tens of RPM seems possible, but 6000?? > >I don't think it makes a difference. The higher the speed, the larger the >voltage from the flux transition, but that shouldn't be a problem (within >reason). The head gap and medium speed dictates the "resolution" of the >system. You can think of it as being like trying to write with different >sizes of pen nib. > >Look at reel-to-reel audio recorders - they may run at a variety of speeds, >giving a tradeoff between audio quality and recording time. You can use a >higher flux density with a larger head gap (and a correspondingly larger >drive signal), but you need to haul the tape through faster to maintain the >bandwidth. However the inductance of the head windings are a significant factor in how high you can go for bandwidth. >On playback, you get the problem that higher frequencies produce a higher >voltage, hence the need for equalisation (not unlike the RIAA curve for >magnetic record pickups). > >In this case you probably just want to detect the presence or absence (or >possibly polarity) of a pulse. Equalisation won't be a worry. At low bit densities it's not an issue otherwise you get into peak shift. Low being around 300FCPI (Flux Changes Per Inch) based on testing I did 30 years ago. I was using the best ferrite heads I could get my hands on from top of the line analog casette decks. Those heads were very limited and heads from 1/4" machines performed far better and still limited me to under 600FCPI at 15ips (~4800 bits sec) for NRZI and I could hit 9.6k using phase encoding. Most audio heads are not so hot for saturation work. Allison >Gordon From robert.maxwell at creationtech.com Fri Dec 14 12:49:28 2007 From: robert.maxwell at creationtech.com (Robert Maxwell) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:49:28 -0500 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? Message-ID: <3A85BC648C544B49B68DC1A6C4D8BCB3037E3F23@ctrex.creationtech.com> Got a UART? It will make the Kaypro keyboard output into parallel without changing a thing. The signal's 300 baud RS-232 at TTL levels. Bob Maxwell From bnansel at bigpond.net.au Fri Dec 14 16:59:19 2007 From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au (Robert Nansel) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 09:29:19 +1030 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer architecture Message-ID: <224621EB-1438-4B8D-BDA7-C861D588C53D@bigpond.net.au> Thanks for all the great ideas so far! In no particular order: * Delay lines: I have a junk magnetostrictive DL on the way. I don't know if it works. * The idea behind using cassette heads is just to test out my logic and R/W amplifiers at s-l-o-w speed. A baby step. The high-speed stuff would come later. I do have a small lathe (a Taig), so I can handle some of the machining, provided the drum is small (around 4" dia x 9" long). If I can rig a tool-post grinder I might be able to do all of it. * As for the drum coating, it would either be plated with nickel or coated with a mixture of ferric oxide and epoxy. Now for some more questions: I haven't settled on the machine architecture yet. I was thinking a smaller word size would be better because the recirculating registers would have lower latency; that is, a 16-bit word would halve the word time vs. a 32-bit word. Does this make sense? One of the big problems with drum machines is the need to ensure instructions are optimally placed on the drum. To lighten the load a bit I'm considering making it a zero-address stack machine. Then I only have to worry about the occasional random access reads/writes. I was thinking I would implement a data stack and a return stack, each being made of short recirculating buffers to hold the top two or three stack entries, with the older entries swapped to longer buffers with corresponding longer access times. Allowing for the overall insanity level of this project, is this seem a sane strategy? -Bobby From bnansel at bigpond.net.au Fri Dec 14 20:53:13 2007 From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au (Robert Nansel) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 13:23:13 +1030 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer Message-ID: <68A8F37D-8BC9-4BAD-825E-70F145CF5E39@bigpond.net.au> I thought of this, too. So far I haven't found an online source of them (Google search terms: "glass delay line" OR "quartz delay line" OR "ultrasonic delay line" TV PAL OR NTSC). -Bobby Fri Dec 14 19:10 Tony Duell wrote: > I wonder if you could use those glass delay lines that were used in > PAL > colour TV receiver until fairly recently (and there must be plenty > still > around)? Alas they have a somewhat odd delay time (a little less than > 64us -- one line period of the European TV signal), but I am sure you From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Dec 15 03:35:32 2007 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 09:35:32 +0000 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1197711332.12145.3.camel@elric> On Sat, 2007-12-15 at 01:02 +0000, Tony Duell wrote: > Wel, the tape loop was rather long. An access time of up to 30 minutes > would seem to be somewhat impractcal. But I don't see why you couldn't > shorten the tape look to something more useable. You can actually buy carts similar to 8-track carts for broadcast use - that's what idents and jingles used to be recorded onto before doing it digitally became feasable. Broadcast carts typically have three or four simultaneous tracks (for left, right and a sync track with start, stop and cue tones), and come in anything from 5 seconds to a few minutes. To nudge this a little back towards the topic, the original poster could probably pick up a couple of cart decks fairly cheaply, along with some carts. Two bits plus timing would work fairly well. Gordon From mike at brickfieldspark.org Sat Dec 15 04:00:27 2007 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 05:00:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <200712141801.lBEI19a6027965@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712141801.lBEI19a6027965@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <55001.86.16.147.252.1197712827.squirrel@webmail2.pair.com> The SDS9300 I used to service had a drum memory, unfortunatley can't remember the type but I do recall that the drum was slightly tapered and had a rising bearing assembly. As the drum finally ran up to speed it rose an amount to bring the heads to the correct position and gap. Basically a "parking" system, when stopped the drum had dropped, so the heads were not at their working position. Heads were adjusted for position with the drum stopped using gauges, so as it was stopped and down you did not risk damaging the track. Spin it up to speed and the heads automatically got to the tracks and flying height. I recall it being about 2ft in diameter and about 4ft tall took about 30 seconds to come to speed and had its own motor generator set as it ran on a dedicated 60 cycle supply not the usual 50 we have here in the UK. I think it had 4 banks of 24 heads in fixed position. It was the one bit of kit we did not touch, a specialist used to fly in from the US once a year to check it and rewrite the timing tracks. Mike From kerobaros at gmail.com Sat Dec 15 08:21:28 2007 From: kerobaros at gmail.com (Matt Lichtenberg) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 08:21:28 -0600 Subject: Small SBC kits for Christmas! Message-ID: <6103c8710712150621p2534deb2j5820af35d62b3d51@mail.gmail.com> So, every year I like to get myself a little something; this year, I'm probably going to be getting a new computer (outside the realms of this list), but I'd also like to get some kind of single-board kit that I can work on. I'd like something along the lines of a ZX-81 kit, although it looks like those are selling for somewhere around $250, when you can find one. SpareTimeGizmos' Elf 2000 kit also looks fantastic, but I don't have an 1802 or an 1861 to use in the thing, and I'd rather not hunt any down. (If anyone wants to get rid of theirs, though, let me know. *grin*) Has anyone seen any similar kits out there? They don't have to be useful for anything, just fun to play with, and not horribly difficult to put together. I can solder fairly well, and I'm mean with a multimeter, but I don't have the money for my own oscilloscope; I just use other peoples' when they're not looking. Thanks, folks! ~Matt From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Dec 15 08:59:55 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 06:59:55 -0800 Subject: Small SBC kits for Christmas! In-Reply-To: <6103c8710712150621p2534deb2j5820af35d62b3d51@mail.gmail.com> References: <6103c8710712150621p2534deb2j5820af35d62b3d51@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: kerobaros at gmail.com > > So, every year I like to get myself a little something; this year, I'm > probably going to be getting a new computer (outside the realms of > this list), but I'd also like to get some kind of single-board kit > that I can work on. > > I'd like something along the lines of a ZX-81 kit, although it looks > like those are selling for somewhere around $250, when you can find > one. SpareTimeGizmos' Elf 2000 kit also looks fantastic, but I don't > have an 1802 or an 1861 to use in the thing, and I'd rather not hunt > any down. (If anyone wants to get rid of theirs, though, let me know. > *grin*) > > Has anyone seen any similar kits out there? They don't have to be > useful for anything, just fun to play with, and not horribly difficult > to put together. I can solder fairly well, and I'm mean with a > multimeter, but I don't have the money for my own oscilloscope; I just > use other peoples' when they're not looking. Thanks, folks! > > ~Matt Hi Matt There is an Apple I kit someplace and there is another 6502 kit of some type as well but I forget what it emulates. These are not original but recreations of course. It seem like these are in the $100 range someplace. Grant sells bigger kits. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ From evan at snarc.net Sat Dec 15 10:57:00 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 11:57:00 -0500 Subject: Small SBC kits for Christmas! Message-ID: <200712151657.lBFGv8Ha029833@billy.ezwind.net> Apple I is Vince's deal -- www. brielcomputing.com (or maybe it is "brielcomputers.com" or something like that...) -----Original Message----- From: "Matt Lichtenberg" Subj: Small SBC kits for Christmas! Date: Sat Dec 15, 2007 9:23 am Size: 918 bytes To: cctalk at classiccmp.org So, every year I like to get myself a little something; this year, I'm probably going to be getting a new computer (outside the realms of this list), but I'd also like to get some kind of single-board kit that I can work on. I'd like something along the lines of a ZX-81 kit, although it looks like those are selling for somewhere around $250, when you can find one. SpareTimeGizmos' Elf 2000 kit also looks fantastic, but I don't have an 1802 or an 1861 to use in the thing, and I'd rather not hunt any down. (If anyone wants to get rid of theirs, though, let me know. *grin*) Has anyone seen any similar kits out there? They don't have to be useful for anything, just fun to play with, and not horribly difficult to put together. I can solder fairly well, and I'm mean with a multimeter, but I don't have the money for my own oscilloscope; I just use other peoples' when they're not looking. Thanks, folks! ~Matt From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Sat Dec 15 11:05:19 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 11:05:19 -0600 Subject: test Message-ID: <4764094F.9070104@gmail.com> Apologies for noise! From curt at atarimuseum.com Sat Dec 15 11:17:15 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 12:17:15 -0500 Subject: SAGE tube In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47640C1B.4000105@atarimuseum.com> Here is a link a friend sent to me: http://www.smecc.org/sage_a_n_fsq-7.htm Man the pictures are spectacular.... I miss the Cold War :-) Curt Richard wrote: > In article <4762E074.6090007 at ao.com>, > Gary Oliver writes: > > >> I do still have my storage-tube display from the SAGE though (a >> charactron tube) and hope to interface it to something medieval >> someday. Wish I'd kept the drum parts. >> > > Do you have any of the surrounding desk/switch stuff that goes with > the tube? > > I've been thinking of making a replica SAGE console, since my chances > of getting an *actual* SAGE console a pretty much nil. (Although CHM > does have one, but I don't think they'll give it to me :-). > From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Sat Dec 15 11:30:46 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 11:30:46 -0600 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <0JT1009O4FWC2944@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JT1009O4FWC2944@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <47640F46.5000609@gmail.com> Allison wrote: > Most of the old Drum machines spun at 1200, 1800, 3125 or maybe a screamigly > fast 3600. Though 1800 is the more common. > > Also most used "fast tracks" that had more than one head per track > radially so that a partial rotataion was needed. Indeed - the museum's pair of HP 1016C drums are 512 tracks and something like 32 segments (I'm going by memory on the latter). My brain's telling me that drum speed was 4800RPM. Head-load is done by a big solenoid on the top of the drum - when powered it pulls on a large arm which, through a ring assembly, pivots all the columns of heads in toward the drum surface. Quite an impressive bit of engineering... cheers Jules From grant at stockly.com Sat Dec 15 13:02:49 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 10:02:49 -0900 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <47640F46.5000609@gmail.com> References: <0JT1009O4FWC2944@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> <47640F46.5000609@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0JT3002O3U8OZG20@msgmmp-1.gci.net> What about using a slow spinning hard drive for a drum? Would it be hard to position the heads and read/write the data manually? Would a hard drive platter be able to store analog data? It would be neat to store audio on it like a record. : ) From cclist at sydex.com Sat Dec 15 13:03:31 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 11:03:31 -0800 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer architecture In-Reply-To: <200712151800.lBFI06hJ040079@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712151800.lBFI06hJ040079@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4763B483.15844.F90F3FD@cclist.sydex.com> On 15 Dec 2007 at Robert Nansel : > * Delay lines: I have a junk magnetostrictive DL on the way. I > don't know if it works. Golly, if you're talking about producing your own drum, a magnetostrictive delay line would seem to be like a walk in the park. Find some nickel wire; make a large-looped coil with the turns supported by something like neoprene spacers so that they're mechanically isolated; put a coil on each end. Shock-mount the whole affair in a box. The Packard-Bell 250 was a great little machine along the lines that you're contemplating. Used delay-line memory and had a 22-bit word. You could plug it into a 115-volt wall outlet. Few transistors and lots of diodes, IIRC. Really one of the earliest minicomputers around. There are several that are extant. I recall seeing the memory in a 250 and being surprised at its simplicity. > I was thinking I would implement a data stack and a return stack, > each being made of short recirculating buffers to hold the top two or > three stack entries, with the older entries swapped to longer buffers > with corresponding longer access times. Allowing for the overall > insanity level of this project, is this seem a sane strategy? Sounds pretty complicated to me. Why not a simple one-plus-one architecture? It may not be fast, but then, no drum- or delay-line- based machine is going to be a speed demon... Cheers, Chuck From dm561 at torfree.net Sat Dec 15 13:34:28 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 14:34:28 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer Message-ID: <01C83F27.B99540E0@host-208-72-122-29.dyn.295.ca> Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 13:23:13 +1030 From: Robert Nansel Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer >I thought of this, too. So far I haven't found an online source of >them (Google search terms: "glass delay line" OR "quartz delay line" >OR "ultrasonic delay line" TV PAL OR NTSC). >-Bobby Fri Dec 14 19:10 Tony Duell wrote: >> I wonder if you could use those glass delay lines that were used in >> PAL colour TV receiver until fairly recently (and there must be plenty >> still around)? Alas they have a somewhat odd delay time (a little less >> than 64us -- one line period of the European TV signal), but I am sure ----------------------- I've got some old VCR boards with 2 glass delay lines on 'em: Markings: DL BTB85B 042 (Component # DL2K0, 6cm long, 4 pins) And: ADL-FN2038M 337P16301 4003 (DL6A0, 3cm, 3 pins) Just slabs of quartz with wires attached (the covers are removeable). Might be tricky to find specs though; unfortunately no idea of the VCR make/model. Also should have an old MS delay line somewhere. mike From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sat Dec 15 17:14:40 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 15:14:40 -0800 Subject: "Requiem for the Mainframe" on CBC-Radio, 4 PM Saturday Message-ID: <47645FDF.64325AB9@cs.ubc.ca> Brief notification, but I just heard a blurb announcing as per the subject line, for those who happen to be near the radio in the next hour and can tune in the CBC (after the news at 4). (It's on the show "SPARK", if one wishes to try to hear a repeat.) It is about the mainframe computer, but that's all I got ... can't testify further as to the content. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Dec 15 17:09:21 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 23:09:21 +0000 (GMT) Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? In-Reply-To: <0JT100EV0GEKDST3@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> from "Allison" at Dec 14, 7 07:09:48 am Message-ID: > It has an 8048 uP if memory serves and the output is TTL level serial > ASCII. Making it put out parallel would be a major hackup including > reprogramming an 8748. Or alternatively converting that serial output to parallel using an external circuit. How hard that is depends on the format of the serial data. If it's an asynchonous signal, with start and stop bits, a 40 pin dumb UART chip should do it. What was used inside the Kaypro to receive the keyboard data? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Dec 15 17:12:12 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 23:12:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? In-Reply-To: <3A85BC648C544B49B68DC1A6C4D8BCB3037E3F23@ctrex.creationtech.com> from "Robert Maxwell" at Dec 14, 7 01:49:28 pm Message-ID: > > Got a UART? It will make the Kaypro keyboard output into parallel = > without changing a thing. The signal's 300 baud RS-232 at TTL levels. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Isn't that a contradiction in terms, given that the RS232 standard specifies the voltage levels (but not, IIRC, the data format)? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Dec 15 17:39:45 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 23:39:45 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <0JT3002O3U8OZG20@msgmmp-1.gci.net> from "Grant Stockly" at Dec 15, 7 10:02:49 am Message-ID: > Would a hard drive platter be able to store analog data? It would be > neat to store audio on it like a record. : ) Yes. Somewhere I have a video hard disk (Jay, this is, IMHO on-topic for a reason I'll explain in a moment). It rotates at (IIRC) 50rps (amybe 25rps), and has a number of fixed heads. A video frame is recorded -- analogue FM modulated -- on 3 tracks, one for each of R,G,B. I can't rememebr how many sets of heads you haev -- so howm many frames yuo can record at once. The company that meade it really made them for storing the 'action replay' images for TV. But mine came wit ha PDP11 interface. It transfers a frame of video out of the PDP11's memoey (it hooks up to a DR11-B), feeds it into a DAC, then into the FM modulator, and thence to the disk. It's one of the more unusual video output systems I have for the PDP11. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Dec 15 17:24:54 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 23:24:54 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Quick survey In-Reply-To: <4762CBAA.8176.C036917@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Dec 14, 7 06:30:02 pm Message-ID: > > Would I be more-or-less correct if I assumed that the bulk of hard- > sectored diskettes in use fell into two groups: 16-sector 5.25" and > 32-sector 8"? I know that there are other physical formats, but I'm > wondering if that would have 90% coverage? I am sure I've seen 10 sector 5.25" ones. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Dec 15 17:29:12 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 23:29:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <68A8F37D-8BC9-4BAD-825E-70F145CF5E39@bigpond.net.au> from "Robert Nansel" at Dec 15, 7 01:23:13 pm Message-ID: > > I thought of this, too. So far I haven't found an online source of > them (Google search terms: "glass delay line" OR "quartz delay line" > OR "ultrasonic delay line" TV PAL OR NTSC). I didn't think the NTSC system used a delay line at the receiver, but I must admit I've never repaired a US TV set. It's not a common component for spares companies to stock, simply because it rarely fails. And of course more modern TVs used IC delay lines, which are not what we want here. When I wanted one, I went to an (alas long-gone) TV repair shop that also sold compoennts. No, they didn't keep them in stock, but the owner found a scrap PCB with a delay line on it. Needless to say that was acceptable. -tony From bob at jfcl.com Sat Dec 15 17:55:22 2007 From: bob at jfcl.com (Bob Armstrong) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 15:55:22 -0800 Subject: Small SBC kits for Christmas! In-Reply-To: <6103c8710712150621p2534deb2j5820af35d62b3d51@mail.gmail.com> References: <6103c8710712150621p2534deb2j5820af35d62b3d51@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <001801c83f75$f4d36f80$de7a4e80$@com> > SpareTimeGizmos' Elf 2000 kit also looks fantastic, but I don't >have an 1802 ... FWIW, the "partial kit" ($100) includes the 1802 chip and the TIL311 displays (plus PCB, GAL and EPROM). The 1861 isn't included, though - sorry. Bob From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Dec 15 17:55:43 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 18:55:43 -0500 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 15, 2007, at 6:09 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> It has an 8048 uP if memory serves and the output is TTL level serial >> ASCII. Making it put out parallel would be a major hackup including >> reprogramming an 8748. > > Or alternatively converting that serial output to parallel using an > external circuit. How hard that is depends on the format of the serial > data. If it's an asynchonous signal, with start and stop bits, a 40 pin > dumb UART chip should do it. > > What was used inside the Kaypro to receive the keyboard data? Z80 SIO, at least on the -II and -4. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Sat Dec 15 18:49:33 2007 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 00:49:33 +0000 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <200712151800.lBFI06hQ040079@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712151800.lBFI06hQ040079@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <8B4A5780-60E8-4CC7-A531-370701E0E466@microspot.co.uk> Your target of the technology of 1963 fits reasonably well with my 1962 mainframe, it uses drum(s) for backing storage (holding program and data overlays to be brought into core) but I don't think that makes much difference to the drum itself, other than you may want more than one read/write head per track. Each drum looks to be about a foot diameter and about a foot and a half long. They spin at 5240 rpm on a vertical axis. The drum is made of aluminium and the manufacturers (International Computers and Tabulators) had a lot of trouble getting the surface coating right, trying all sorts of high tech methods until they found the most effective method was for someone to smooth it on by hand while the drum was spun at low speed, rather like a potter throwing a clay pot. They also had problems with the length of the drum, and had to logically divide it into two sections, each one with its own timing track and datum track. Hopefully if you keep the drum length small this will not be a problem for you. The drums are powered by 3/4 horse three phase motors with V-belts providing a step UP in speed from just under 3000rpm at the motor to 5240rpm. They do not need clean room conditions, they are not sealed, and even have a fan to draw cold air up from the bottom over the surface and out the top, or is it the other way around, I can't remember, the fan are currently removed anyway and the drums run fine in a rural environment (i.e. reasonably clean air, no coal fire smoke/smog/ diesel particulates) The drum sits within an aluminium casing which holds 244 (+some spares) read/write heads arranged in a helix so they do not need to be physically close to each other. The heads do not fly, and can be moved in and out using an Allen key, which is apparently done whilst watching a pressure gauge on an airline blowing air through a venturi in the read/write head, so that when the air pressure reaches a certain level, the head must be close enough to the drum because the drum is starting to impede the air flow. The steel screws have now rusted and seized in the aluminium but work just fine because if can't work loose they can't go out of adjustment. The drum is coated rather than plated, I know this because when certain machines used by the Home Office for security purposes were decommissioned, a friend of mine was required to dismantle the drums and wash the magnetic coating off of the drums before they (the drums) were allowed to leave the premises. The machines had earlier survived being blown up by terrorists detonating a bomb on the window ledge outside one of the computer room windows. They don't make them like that any more, tough as old boots! The same friend also worked on a serial drum machine with valves which was installed at a Carbon factory where the inside of the machine used to get covered in conductive fine carbon dust. It is amazing it worked at all. Another friend worked on modern electronic weighing equipment at a phosphate factory using bird droppings as the raw material. He was called in to one machine which had stopped working the previous day, and found a small rubber grommet had failed, the chemicals had got in and eaten the resin of the PCBs and the copper tracking was hanging loose inside the cabinet, it seemed that it had somehow been working in that state for some time because it would have taken some weeks for the resin to be consumed, so maybe this contradicts my statement that they don't make them like that any more. The 1MHz main machine clock is derived from the 250KHz drum timing track, so no need to synchronise to the drum except when switching between drums, or the two halves of a drum. The machine can also be run from a separate clock, though of course all drum accesses fail. For fault finding, it can even be run one cycle for every time you press a button, wonderful to watch data shifting through the registers displayed on the front console and see where your data is getting corrupted. Not so good for fault finding the drum, magnetic tape or other peripherals though. I hope some small part of these details might be of help to you, good luck with the project. From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Sat Dec 15 19:19:35 2007 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 20:19:35 -0500 Subject: Quick survey In-Reply-To: <4762CBAA.8176.C036917@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4762CBAA.8176.C036917@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47647D27.6090709@compsys.to> >Chuck Guzis wrote: >Would I be more-or-less correct if I assumed that the bulk of hard- >sectored diskettes in use fell into two groups: 16-sector 5.25" and >32-sector 8"? I know that there are other physical formats, but I'm >wondering if that would have 90% coverage? > Jerome Fine replies: For 5.25" diskettes, if you mean currently still in use, then you are probably correct regarding 90% use of HD 5.25" diskettes. But initially the use of 180K and 360K 5.25" diskettes was probably 90% - did they use 9 sectors? And as Tony stated, don't forget the RX50 5.25" diskettes which used 10 sectors - if I remember correctly. I suggest that what you really should do is to state the percentage sales of DD (which cold be used both SS and DS) versus HD (which were almost always used DS) diskettes for any given year along with how many units were sold. And then you might also want to look at the actual number of floppy drives that were sold which are able to use a given number of sectors. 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 dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Dec 15 19:53:16 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 17:53:16 -0800 Subject: Quick survey In-Reply-To: <47647D27.6090709@compsys.to> References: <4762CBAA.8176.C036917@cclist.sydex.com> <47647D27.6090709@compsys.to> Message-ID: > From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to> > >Chuck Guzis wrote:> > >Would I be more-or-less correct if I assumed that the bulk of hard-> >sectored diskettes in use fell into two groups: 16-sector 5.25" and > >32-sector 8"? I know that there are other physical formats, but I'm > >wondering if that would have 90% coverage?> >> Jerome Fine replies:> > For 5.25" diskettes, if you mean currently still in use,> then you are probably correct regarding 90% use of HD 5.25"> diskettes. But initially the use of 180K and 360K 5.25"> diskettes was probably 90% - did they use 9 sectors?> > And as Tony stated, don't forget the RX50 5.25" diskettes> which used 10 sectors - if I remember correctly.> > I suggest that what you really should do is to state the> percentage sales of DD (which cold be used both SS and DS)> versus HD (which were almost always used DS) diskettes for> any given year along with how many units were sold.> > And then you might also want to look at the actual number> of floppy drives that were sold which are able to use a> given number of sectors.> Hi There is nothing in the drive that is specific to the number of sectors. The following were 10 sector disk: Polymorphic 8813 Used both single and double density disk H8/89 H17 controller used single density NorthStar single density ( double?? don't think so ) These are all 5.25inch. As far as I know, 10 sectored was the most common. I don't know of any that used 16 sectored and never heard of 9 sectored. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_122007 From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Dec 15 20:27:39 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 18:27:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: Quick survey In-Reply-To: <47647D27.6090709@compsys.to> References: <4762CBAA.8176.C036917@cclist.sydex.com> <47647D27.6090709@compsys.to> Message-ID: <20071215182526.B75001@shell.lmi.net> > >Would I be more-or-less correct if I assumed that the bulk of hard- > >sectored diskettes in use fell into two groups: 16-sector 5.25" and > >32-sector 8"? I know that there are other physical formats, but I'm > >wondering if that would have 90% coverage? On Sat, 15 Dec 2007, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > For 5.25" diskettes, if you mean currently still in use, > then you are probably correct regarding 90% use of HD 5.25" > diskettes. But initially the use of 180K and 360K 5.25" > diskettes was probably 90% - did they use 9 sectors? Chuck was asking about HARD-sectored diskettes. NONE of which are in "current" use. You are talking about SOFT-sectored diskettes. From ploopster at gmail.com Sat Dec 15 21:00:17 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 22:00:17 -0500 Subject: "Requiem for the Mainframe" on CBC-Radio, 4 PM Saturday In-Reply-To: <47645FDF.64325AB9@cs.ubc.ca> References: <47645FDF.64325AB9@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <476494C1.9070904@gmail.com> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Brief notification, but I just heard a blurb announcing as per the subject > line, for those who happen to be near the radio in the next hour and can tune > in the CBC (after the news at 4). > (It's on the show "SPARK", if one wishes to try to hear a repeat.) > > It is about the mainframe computer, but that's all I got ... can't testify > further as to the content. *Requiem* for the mainframe? Bleh!! My living depends on mainframe manufacturing! As does the living of many of the people in this city! Peace... Sridhar From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sat Dec 15 21:45:22 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 19:45:22 -0800 Subject: "Requiem for the Mainframe" on CBC-Radio, 4 PM Saturday References: <47645FDF.64325AB9@cs.ubc.ca> <476494C1.9070904@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47649F53.51861CFC@cs.ubc.ca> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > > Brent Hilpert wrote: > > Brief notification, but I just heard a blurb announcing as per the subject > > line, for those who happen to be near the radio in the next hour and can tune > > in the CBC (after the news at 4). > > (It's on the show "SPARK", if one wishes to try to hear a repeat.) > > > > It is about the mainframe computer, but that's all I got ... can't testify > > further as to the content. > > *Requiem* for the mainframe? Bleh!! > > My living depends on mainframe manufacturing! As does the living of > many of the people in this city! > > Peace... Sridhar Yeah, well, as it turns out, the radio mention was rather specific: about the shutting down of the "mainframe" at the Univ. of Winnipeg. It was about 2 minutes out of a half-hour show. Started out mentioning the U's first computer - an IBM 650 in 1957, then mentioned getting 300 users on the mainframe 27 years ago and the shutting down of the mainframe (what machine was not specified). Then the host stepped in and talked about shutting down the machine after 50 years, making it sound like the 650 was in active use up to 2007 (!). And all framed by a bad poetic eulogy. I can only guess that what they meant was the termination of providing a general computing service to the campus after 50 years. As inaccurate or misleading as it all was, I must say I seem to hear more frequent mention of vintage/old computers in popular culture or the mass media lately, at least relative to a few years ago. I heard Commodore 64's mentioned offhand on some show just a couple of days ago. Retro-technology may be having a bit of a heyday. From evan at snarc.net Sat Dec 15 21:54:34 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 22:54:34 -0500 Subject: "Requiem for the Mainframe" on CBC-Radio, 4 PM Saturday In-Reply-To: <47649F53.51861CFC@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <011701c83f97$60726360$f750f945@evan> >>> I must say I seem to hear more frequent mention of vintage/old computers in popular culture or the mass media lately, at least relative to a few years ago. I heard Commodore 64's mentioned offhand on some show just a couple of days ago. Retro-technology may be having a bit of a heyday. Some factors: a bunch of major system anniveraries; the dot-com boom creating nerds with disposable income; we young'ns for the 70s/80s coming of age; trends in recycling; etc. Several of us -- me, Jay, Sellam, Erik K., Al, etc. -- keep finding ourselves contacted by media who seek quotes about "What is all this; who are you people?" ... Which is a good thing. From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Sun Dec 16 00:44:51 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim s) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 22:44:51 -0800 Subject: "Requiem for the Mainframe" on CBC-Radio, 4 PM Saturday In-Reply-To: <011701c83f97$60726360$f750f945@evan> References: <011701c83f97$60726360$f750f945@evan> Message-ID: <4764C963.3030503@msm.umr.edu> Evan Koblentz wrote: >>>> I must say I seem t I was going to post a pointer to this from Digg before the list was shut down. If you can stomach the Youtoob video, you will see that some very nice stuff we on the list would like was hauled out and dumped in the snow for the occasion. I know that probably (or possibly, I don't want to argue) a lot of this went to gold scrappers, rather than being salvaged for use in someones system, but it just sort of makes me cringe when I see nice vintage equipment treated like this because it is so rare be able to salvage a lot of stuff. Jim From cc at corti-net.de Sat Dec 15 03:36:39 2007 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 10:36:39 +0100 (CET) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <4762ADA3.40109@msm.umr.edu> References: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> <4762A3C4.2040304@dunnington.plus.com> <4762ADA3.40109@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, jim s wrote: > Also all the drums I ever saw had a sort of flying head with a horizontal > head in a hole with a small spring mechanism that would hold it in position. All the drums that I have seen have fixed heads. There are adjusting screws for the distance between head and surface, but the head itself is then fixed with another screw after adjusting (we had to do this on the drum of our second LGP-30). Christian From cc at corti-net.de Sat Dec 15 03:49:25 2007 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 10:49:25 +0100 (CET) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <20071214192324.6856aa38@SirToby.dinner41.local> References: <20071214192324.6856aa38@SirToby.dinner41.local> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, Jochen Kunz wrote: >> I'm looking at what it would take to make a barebones "museum piece" >> bit-serial computer along the lines of an LGP-30 or maybe a Bendix >> G-15. > Maybe you should have a look at the Zuse machines also. The Z22 is a > bit-serial, drum based machine too. The Z22 is a bit 'bigger' than the LGP-30, although it's bit-serial, too. There's the Z22 in Karlsruhe which apparently runs (idle) several days a week. I have seen this machine when it still was at the FH some years ago. > What about acoustic delay line memory? > It is at least as "classic" as a drum but would be much easier to build. > AFAIK the CSIRAC was a bit-serial, delay memory machine. Yes, it should be easier although it is very sensible to temperature changes. Another, "more classic" memory devices would be Williams tubes. The big advantage of the drum is that it doesn't lose its contents when switched off. I think most drum based computers (at least the LGP-30) have permanently recorded timing and clock tracks (which can't be recreated in the field). The LGP-30, for example, derives its master bit clock from its drum because it was impossible to synchronize the drum to the computer. It's also a much simpler approach. Christian From cc at corti-net.de Sat Dec 15 03:58:52 2007 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 10:58:52 +0100 (CET) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: References: <476290DA.9000809@yahoo.co.uk> <4762A3C4.2040304@dunnington.plus.com> <4762ADA3.40109@msm.umr.edu> <4762E074.6090007@ao.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, Mike Loewen wrote: > As someone who had to replace those heads (while the drum was spinning, > mind you), I can tell you that's NOT the procedure. :-) You hooked a scope > to the read amplifier, then SLOWLY turned the screw until you started to see > a level, then adjusted it for the proper output voltage. And I am someone who had to replace (better: relocate) some heads on a drum this year ;-) This was because of a "squeal" that the drum suddenly emitted. And yes, you need your good old Tek 555 to properly adjust the head. One channel to the bit clock, the second to the read amplifier, the third to the read F/F and the fourth to the word mask. > You're correct, it was not a flying head system. Surely not. I think that the OP was thinking of a fixed-head disk which sometimes was called a "drum", too. Christian From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sat Dec 15 09:07:34 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 10:07:34 -0500 Subject: Small SBC kits for Christmas! Message-ID: <0JT3001CFJAEWDO5@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Small SBC kits for Christmas! > From: "Matt Lichtenberg" > Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 08:21:28 -0600 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >So, every year I like to get myself a little something; this year, I'm >probably going to be getting a new computer (outside the realms of >this list), but I'd also like to get some kind of single-board kit >that I can work on. > >I'd like something along the lines of a ZX-81 kit, although it looks >like those are selling for somewhere around $250, when you can find >one. SpareTimeGizmos' Elf 2000 kit also looks fantastic, but I don't >have an 1802 or an 1861 to use in the thing, and I'd rather not hunt >any down. (If anyone wants to get rid of theirs, though, let me know. >*grin*) The Elf200 is excellent and there is a yahoo group for it as well. Finding 1802s is generally easy. the 1861 is a different can of worms but Bob solved that with a tiny board that emulates it. See the Spare Time Gizmos site for details. No you can't have mine! >Has anyone seen any similar kits out there? They don't have to be >useful for anything, just fun to play with, and not horribly difficult >to put together. I can solder fairly well, and I'm mean with a >multimeter, but I don't have the money for my own oscilloscope; I just >use other peoples' when they're not looking. Thanks, folks! If you hunt around the net there are SBC of all sorts. Allison >~Matt From snhirsch at gmail.com Sat Dec 15 09:32:15 2007 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 10:32:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: Corvus drivers for Xerox 820/Bigboard Message-ID: I'm looking for the drivers that will let my Bigboard speak to a Corvus flat-cable drive. I have a couple of the interface boxes that go between the parallel port and the drive unit, but have never been able to locate the required software nor any installation docs. If anyone in Classic Computer-land can help, I'd really appreciate it. Steve -- From andrew-lynch at sbcglobal.net Sat Dec 15 12:33:36 2007 From: andrew-lynch at sbcglobal.net (Andrew Lynch) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 13:33:36 -0500 Subject: Quick survey Message-ID: <000001c83f49$0140de10$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> Would I be more-or-less correct if I assumed that the bulk of hard- sectored diskettes in use fell into two groups: 16-sector 5.25" and 32-sector 8"? I know that there are other physical formats, but I'm wondering if that would have 90% coverage? Thanks, Chuck -----REPLY----- Chuck, If I were to pick two of the most common, I would pick 10 sector 5.25" hard sector floppy disks and the 32 sector 8" hard sector floppy disks. There is a less common 16 sector 5.25" hard sector floppy disk as well used on Vector Graphic, AES, Exidy Sorceror, and a few other exotic platforms. Of course, none of the hard sector media are exactly common... [drifting slightly off thread but in a related manner] BTW, I did get Catweasel Vector Graphic working. I am in testing now and will be changing the output format to support the simulator work underway presently. Nothing major; just time consuming and the usual stuff. My Catweasel programs seem to work fine but are not really designed for easy modification. Quick hacks rarely are. It turns out to be major oversight though; there are even more diverse and incompatible disk formats for VG than for NorthStar or Heath which is really saying something. The frakkin' hard sector disk formats are just crazy in the ways things vary from one vendor to the next and even within different OS's from the same vendor. "No rules for hard sector disks" is a profound understatement! Thanks! Andrew Lynch From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sat Dec 15 18:02:44 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 19:02:44 -0500 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? Message-ID: <0JT400G1D83J96Q0@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: KayPro II keyboard schematic? > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 23:09:21 +0000 (GMT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> It has an 8048 uP if memory serves and the output is TTL level serial >> ASCII. Making it put out parallel would be a major hackup including >> reprogramming an 8748. > >Or alternatively converting that serial output to parallel using an >external circuit. How hard that is depends on the format of the serial >data. If it's an asynchonous signal, with start and stop bits, a 40 pin >dumb UART chip should do it. > >What was used inside the Kaypro to receive the keyboard data? Z80 DART, The keyboard is a simple TTL level serial (async) protocal. It's bidirectional for lighting leds if memory serves. Allison > >-tony From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sat Dec 15 18:05:42 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 19:05:42 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer Message-ID: <0JT400JVY876TGJ6@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Homebrew Drum Computer > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 23:29:12 +0000 (GMT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> >> I thought of this, too. So far I haven't found an online source of >> them (Google search terms: "glass delay line" OR "quartz delay line" >> OR "ultrasonic delay line" TV PAL OR NTSC). > >I didn't think the NTSC system used a delay line at the receiver, but I >must admit I've never repaired a US TV set. Yes they did/do but is was not ultrasonic. The common ones were basically the same as LONG (4.5us?) transmission lines. They would be hard to find. Allison >It's not a common component for spares companies to stock, simply because >it rarely fails. And of course more modern TVs used IC delay lines, which >are not what we want here. > >When I wanted one, I went to an (alas long-gone) TV repair shop that also >sold compoennts. No, they didn't keep them in stock, but the owner found >a scrap PCB with a delay line on it. Needless to say that was acceptable. > >-tony From bnansel at bigpond.net.au Sat Dec 15 18:34:11 2007 From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au (Robert Nansel) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:04:11 +1030 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer Delay Lines Message-ID: <19F107E2-5519-4C95-BC67-527471BBA464@bigpond.net.au> I've come across a reference to a reverb unit made with a garden hose, speaker, and microphone. Would something as bone-headed as this work as a data delay line? I've read that mercury was used in delay lines because it was a better impedance match with quartz transducers, but wouldn't water work nearly as well? Everything would need to be kept at a constant temperature, and no doubt there would be some dispersion of the compression waves. It's my understanding that a lot of materials were tried for delay lines, but that mercury was the "best." Magnetostrictive delay lines are attractive, though I hear they are more than a little microphonic. I notice that most magnetostrictive delay line designs use the transducers to generate torsional waves, which apparently suffer less from dispersion and have a slower propagation speed to boot. The pictures I've seen show the transductive materials spot welded to the delay wire such that they twist the wire when a magnetic pulse is applied: http://www.science.uva.nl/faculteit/museum/delayline.html Does anybody know how well plain nickel wire would work OK, or would some more exotic like Terfenol-D be required? The delay wire itself need not be magnetostrictive; it's just the storage medium. -Bobby From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Sun Dec 16 09:04:02 2007 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore Sinding Bekkedal) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:04:02 +0100 Subject: xt/370 e-mail problem and stacked memory chips illustrated In-Reply-To: <461E2BCE.30062.FC0B5D@cclist.sydex.com> References: <18275169.1176330826119.JavaMail.root@mswamui-chipeau.atl.sa.earthlink.net> <461E6E3A.6080206@blueskystudios.com> <461E816C.2070407@pacbell.net> <461E2BCE.30062.FC0B5D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1197817442.8155.37.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-04-12 at 12:53 -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Richard Hadsell wrote: > > ... > > > Having worked on the IBM Micro/370 project, and having the one and only > > > ever working Micro/370 chip, I can assure you that the XT/370 card > > > predates the Micro/370. The Micro/370 is mounted on a prototype version > > > (Augusta Sr.) of what would have become the AT/370 card, had the project > > > not been canned. > > Does anyone on the list collect non-IBM S/360 or S/370 "clones"? > While I don't expect to see a Spectrola still around, there was a > firm called Two-Pi that in the early 80's was successful enough to be > purchased by Four Phase. Not physically huge, IIRC--and a great pun > on a name. (Catching up on list backlog, a sysiphusian task) The Norwegian telco museum has a Univac 9300 and a Univac 9400 in seemingly very good shape. The tape drives and DASD seem gone, but the punch card equipment is there still, AFAICT. -Tore From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Sun Dec 16 09:29:27 2007 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore Sinding Bekkedal) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:29:27 +0100 Subject: digital camera capabilities / was Re: 1000+ old computer in In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1197818967.8155.48.camel@localhost.localdomain> (Still catching up on list mail, couldn't help pitching in on this discussion) On Wed, 2007-05-30 at 01:09 +0100, Tony Duell wrote: > OK, if I had a digital cameera, I'd use it. But to be honest, I can't > afford one. YEs, I'd save the cost of film and processing, but I'd have > to buy the camera, buy a pC, by the equipment to maintain them, and so > on. That'd buy an awful lot of film. False; a multitude of DSLRs (and indeed, compact cameras) now exist that will directly interface to a (certainly considered "irrepairable" by you) printer. No PC necessary. And, given that you have anything that can read from a CF card (which is trivially adaptable to an IDE bus), you can read that, as well. > I;ve yet to see a digital camera service manual, so %deity knows what I > do whne it fails. For my (totalyl mechanical, I may add) film cameras, I > just take them apart and fix them. And they'll be good for a few more > decades. Granted. I have a great fondness for photochemical film - there is a certain tangibility to it that I miss when using a digital SLR, but when I'm out on holiday or such, a somewhat miserly part of me just refuses to trip the shutter when I know that this exposure will cost so-and-so money. I find myself not taking pictures that I in retrospect really would have liked. With digital, if I'm on holiday and run out of storage space, I can buy a CF card fitting 300 8MP images for about the price of film and development for 60 images. The effective resolution of 35mm film is IIRC considered by professionals to be in the 27MP range; DSLRs are rapidly approaching this. -Tore :) From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Dec 16 09:31:15 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 10:31:15 -0500 Subject: "Requiem for the Mainframe" on CBC-Radio, 4 PM Saturday In-Reply-To: <476494C1.9070904@gmail.com> References: <47645FDF.64325AB9@cs.ubc.ca> <476494C1.9070904@gmail.com> Message-ID: <2510de56ffff1957c1ea1f1240adedb8@neurotica.com> On Dec 15, 2007, at 10:00 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> Brief notification, but I just heard a blurb announcing as per the >> subject >> line, for those who happen to be near the radio in the next hour and >> can tune >> in the CBC (after the news at 4). >> (It's on the show "SPARK", if one wishes to try to hear a repeat.) >> It is about the mainframe computer, but that's all I got ... can't >> testify >> further as to the content. > > *Requiem* for the mainframe? Bleh!! > > My living depends on mainframe manufacturing! As does the living of > many of the people in this city! Yeah, there are a lot of clueless people out there who have absolutely no idea of what the real data processing world looks like. Many people honestly believe that their bank transactions, for example, are actually processed by Pentiums running Windows. I have no problem with people being clueless about a certain thing or field...but cluelessness accompanied by assumption, often further accompanied by assertion, is infuriating. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Sun Dec 16 10:01:08 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 10:01:08 -0600 Subject: Small SBC kits for Christmas! In-Reply-To: <6103c8710712150621p2534deb2j5820af35d62b3d51@mail.gmail.com> References: <6103c8710712150621p2534deb2j5820af35d62b3d51@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47654BC4.70005@gmail.com> Matt Lichtenberg wrote: > I'd like something along the lines of a ZX-81 kit, although it looks > like those are selling for somewhere around $250, when you can find > one. Hmm, that seems quite expensive. Get an original ZX81*, dismantle it, then put it back together again? ;-) * Possibly hard to find outside of the UK? I lost track of how many I've been offered within the UK though; there's no shortage of them! cheers Jules From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Dec 16 10:03:30 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:03:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: digital camera capabilities / was Re: 1000+ old computer in In-Reply-To: <1197818967.8155.48.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <1197818967.8155.48.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <200712161606.LAA25082@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > The effective resolution of 35mm film is IIRC considered by > professionals to be in the 27MP range; DSLRs are rapidly approaching > this. Perhaps - but film still has attributes which digital cameras don't, such as lack of aliasing artifacts (because the grains are randomly dispersed in the film instead of being in a neat rectlinear grid). /~\ 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 rdawson16 at hotmail.com Sun Dec 16 10:41:59 2007 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 10:41:59 -0600 Subject: digital camera capabilities Message-ID: As an expert in this area, my opinion is that silicon sensors have a long ways to catch up to film. Both CCD and CMOS sensors lack in resolution and the spatial sampling artifacts Der Mouse mentioned are only part of the problem. (CFA array, metal shading of the cell) The world however, is focused (hahah pun intended) on the megapixel wars. Far more important is the geometry of the color filter array and conductors at the periphery, causing viginetting. Also, the conversion of the A/D in both systems is only 12 bits, far below the dynamic range of film and the eye. While at Micron, we developed a high dynamic range sensor for the security camera market, by varying the cell precharge and a sub ranging A/D for the sample. Imagine a security camera viewing a dark face in the lobby, and the security cam looking outside the front door glass at the daylight street too, we could image both of these simultaneously, no f stop changes... Lucas Film Pioneered the OpenEXR high dynamic range format: http://www.openexr.com/ Also take a look at where film is with the Gigapixel project: http://www.gigapxl.org/ Film has a few miles left for sure. Randy > From: mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca > Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:03:30 -0500 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: digital camera capabilities / was Re: 1000+ old computer in > > > The effective resolution of 35mm film is IIRC considered by > > professionals to be in the 27MP range; DSLRs are rapidly approaching > > this. > > Perhaps - but film still has attributes which digital cameras don't, > such as lack of aliasing artifacts (because the grains are randomly > dispersed in the film instead of being in a neat rectlinear grid). > > /~\ 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 _________________________________________________________________ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Sun Dec 16 10:46:48 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:46:48 -0500 Subject: digital camera capabilities / was Re: 1000+ old computer in In-Reply-To: <200712161606.LAA25082@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200712161646.lBGGkoUR023584@billy.ezwind.net> On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:03:30 -0500 (EST), der Mouse wrote: >Perhaps - but film still has attributes which digital cameras don't, >such as lack of aliasing artifacts (because the grains are randomly >dispersed in the film instead of being in a neat rectlinear grid). On the other hand modern printing devices (ie: epson photo 2200) use a ramdomized spray to break the pattern and introduce the desired randomness. In attempt to get back on topic, When working with the ECRM 8400, the first halftoning scanner/printer in the early 80's operators often twisted the origional off axis in the scanner to reduce the herringbone pattern introduced by the process even though it was mostly analog. The output was burned on PMT paper using an AM modulated laser and chemically processed. Scan was acoumplished bouncing two laser beam off of a mirror attached to a galvanometer yes an analog galvanometer. one beam passed over the origional, at the same time a second beam record the previous scan on PMT paper to be processed chemically. Harringbone and undesired patterns have been a problem for printers since the first time a photographer printed threw window screen to "fake" an etching for printing purposes. Back under my rock...... This has drifted far enough off topic, unless someone cares about c1980 vintage scanners and the death of linotype in the newspaper business :-) What I would give now, to have small camera in my tool box, back then. The other Bob From pcw at mesanet.com Sun Dec 16 10:55:21 2007 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 08:55:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: digital camera capabilities / was Re: 1000+ old computer in In-Reply-To: <1197818967.8155.48.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <1197818967.8155.48.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: > With digital, if I'm on holiday and run out of storage space, I can buy > a CF card fitting 300 8MP images for about the price of film and > development for 60 images. > > The effective resolution of 35mm film is IIRC considered by > professionals to be in the 27MP range; DSLRs are rapidly approaching > this. Except digital camera pixel specs are deliberately misleading. 27 MP probably means 27 million monochrome pixels with a color filter stuck on top of the imager. No one would accept LCD monitors sold this way... (You will notice this is you try to image high spacial frequency images with different colors - works fine in black and white, crumbles to a mess of aliasing in color) > > -Tore :) > Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From James at jdfogg.com Sun Dec 16 11:08:02 2007 From: James at jdfogg.com (James Fogg) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 12:08:02 -0500 Subject: digital camera capabilities Message-ID: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A2571A4@sbs.jdfogg.com> > As an expert in this area, my opinion is that silicon sensors have a long > ways to catch up to film. Both CCD and CMOS sensors lack in resolution > and the spatial sampling artifacts Der Mouse mentioned are only part of > the problem. Another part of the problem is archiving the images. Decay of film/paper photography is well known and incredibly slow(esp. B&W). Digital bitrot is much faster and not well known. Just ask anyone who's lost a hard disk drive full of digital baby pictures. I've also seen a lot of discussion about CD-ROM and DVD-ROM lifespan and it's not good either. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Dec 16 11:31:58 2007 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 12:31:58 -0500 Subject: "Requiem for the Mainframe" on CBC-Radio, 4 PM Saturday In-Reply-To: <4764C963.3030503@msm.umr.edu> References: <011701c83f97$60726360$f750f945@evan> <4764C963.3030503@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: > I was going to post a pointer to this from Digg before the list was shut > down. If you can stomach the Youtoob video, you will see that some very > nice stuff we on the list would like was hauled out and dumped in the > snow for the occasion. I know that probably (or possibly, I don't want > to argue) a lot of this went to gold scrappers, rather than being > salvaged for use in someones system, but it just sort of makes me cringe > when I see nice vintage equipment treated like this because it is so > rare be able to salvage a lot of stuff. Cripes, get a grip on it! The "vintage equipment" was a rather modern Amdahl, and the machine "dumped in the snow" was a cardboard box painted to look like a computer. Hmmm, next post says: " I have no problem with people being clueless about a certain thing or field...but cluelessness accompanied by assumption, often further accompanied by assertion, is infuriating." Yep. The blade cuts both ways. -- Will From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Dec 16 11:14:32 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 12:14:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A2571A4@sbs.jdfogg.com> References: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A2571A4@sbs.jdfogg.com> Message-ID: <200712161735.MAA26381@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> [digital versus film cameras] > Another part of the problem is archiving the images. Decay of > film/paper photography is well known and incredibly slow(esp. B&W). > Digital bitrot is much faster and not well known. Just ask anyone > who's lost a hard disk drive full of digital baby pictures. I've > also seen a lot of discussion about CD-ROM and DVD-ROM lifespan and > it's not good either. But, on the other hand, *when properly done* (a very important qualification), digital probably has a longer lifetime, because it can be recopied losslessly - and stored redundantly and distributedly, which are at least partially a consequence of lossless copying. Cue the recurring data-archiving thread.... /~\ 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 jos.mar at bluewin.ch Sun Dec 16 11:41:27 2007 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 18:41:27 +0100 Subject: ECRM / was digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <200712161646.lBGGkoUR023584@billy.ezwind.net> References: <200712161646.lBGGkoUR023584@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <47656347.3000009@bluewin.ch> > In attempt to get back on topic, When working with the ECRM 8400, ECRM is certainly on topic, my PDP8/e was used in first ECRM machine, an OCR scanner. Used a laser and a fotocell, and plenty of additional Omnibus boards. Two of those form a nice 80x25 char video output, with lots of attribues ( underline, blink etc.) My PDP8/m was used in a meat processing factory. Versatile machines they where... Jos Dreesen From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Sun Dec 16 12:10:17 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 13:10:17 -0500 Subject: ECRM / was digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <47656347.3000009@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: <200712161810.lBGIAJLm039024@billy.ezwind.net> On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 18:41:27 +0100, Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel wrote: >> In attempt to get back on topic, When working with the ECRM 8400, >ECRM is certainly on topic, my PDP8/e was used in first ECRM machine, an OCR scanner. >Used a laser and a fotocell, and plenty of additional Omnibus boards. I worked on the pdp8e basce scanners a few times, my only experiance with them was to toggle in a diagonistics utility, and align the optical bed. Those scanners used Behive terminals with 8008's in them. I scavaged and rebuilt one that had a shipping mishap to use on my SDK80 single board. Most of my time was spent tweeking 8400's in the field, trying to make pressmen hapy with our raged dots before I moved on to a signetics 2650 based project. Sure wish I still had the behive terminal. later Bob From dm561 at torfree.net Sun Dec 16 10:47:56 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:47:56 -0500 Subject: Quick survey Message-ID: <01C83FE7.5F002760@host-208-79-60-151.dyn.295.ca> Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 17:53:16 -0800 From: dwight elvey Subject: RE: Quick survey >Hi > There is nothing in the drive that is specific to the number >of sectors. ------- Except that a number of "modern" drives will not go ready and pass data with any hard sector disks. ------ > The following were 10 sector disk: >Polymorphic 8813 Used both single and double density disk >H8/89 H17 controller used single density >NorthStar single density ( double?? don't think so ) > These are all 5.25inch. As far as I know, 10 sectored was >the most common. I don't know of any that used 16 sectored >and never heard of 9 sectored. >Dwight -------- Just goes to show ya: all I've got are 16 sector disks, originally used in CBM computers (not because they were needed but because they were cheap) and now handy for my Vector Graphic MZs. I think Jerome was talking about 9 sector soft sector disks. mike From josefcub at gmail.com Sun Dec 16 12:38:44 2007 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 12:38:44 -0600 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer Delay Lines In-Reply-To: <19F107E2-5519-4C95-BC67-527471BBA464@bigpond.net.au> References: <19F107E2-5519-4C95-BC67-527471BBA464@bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <9e2403920712161038jb1b1015l5942f0a9201aacbc@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 15, 2007 6:34 PM, Robert Nansel wrote: > I've come across a reference to a reverb unit made with a garden > hose, speaker, and microphone. Would something as bone-headed as > this work as a data delay line? As a decidedly OT aside, why not use this for a delay line, instead? http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071213/full/news.2007.376.html At least, if what my brain says is accurate, this could be considered an acousti-optical delay line? ...Josef ;-) -- "I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke." -- Hilda "Sharpie" Burroughs, "The Number of the Beast" by Robert A. Heinlein From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Sun Dec 16 12:55:31 2007 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore Sinding Bekkedal) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 19:55:31 +0100 Subject: 4004 and IC history / was Re: Vintage computer photogallery In-Reply-To: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3903BB5B@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> References: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3903BB5B@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> Message-ID: <1197831331.8155.55.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2007-10-18 at 13:04 +0100, Rod Smallwood wrote: > The design of the VT100 was done by one engineer who I met but I cannot > recall his name. I believe you may be referring to Mike Leis. I snapped a photo of him at a DEC reunion at The Mill: http://gunkies.org/photos/mill/big/img_3513.jpg Amongst other things, he told me that DEC considered the VT100 to be a failure, since it never met the profit margin outlined in the project proposal. The main reason they created the VT100 was because the VT52 was quite hard to mass produce automatically. -Tore From brad at heeltoe.com Sun Dec 16 13:08:13 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 14:08:13 -0500 Subject: any idea how to find old diamond edge 3d card? Message-ID: <200712161908.lBGJ8EZw004143@mwave.heeltoe.com> can anyone point me to a place to find an old "diamond edge 3d" graphics card? I specifically want one with the sega controller ports and a copy of virtua fighter. I looked on ebay - no luck. anyone have any ideas? any good places for ancient (like 1995) graphics cards? -brad From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Sun Dec 16 13:04:28 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim s) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:04:28 -0800 Subject: Corvus drivers for Xerox 820/Bigboard (Alspa has similar interfase) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <476576BC.30503@msm.umr.edu> Steven Hirsch wrote: > I'm looking for the drivers that will let my Bigboard speak to a > Corvus flat-cable drive. I have a couple of the interface boxes that > go between the parallel port and the drive unit, but have never been > able to locate the required software nor any installation docs. > > If anyone in Classic Computer-land can help, I'd really appreciate it. > > Steve > > The Alspa has a parallel port on it that goes to a Corvus drive. If I find my diskettes, or can get a boot disk with bios source, you can use that code to run the drive. I don't know of any real documentation, maybe Al K has some that is not online somewhere that describes how the actual disk runs over that cable. Jim From legalize at xmission.com Sun Dec 16 13:22:05 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 12:22:05 -0700 Subject: any idea how to find old diamond edge 3d card? In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 16 Dec 2007 14:08:13 -0500. <200712161908.lBGJ8EZw004143@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: In article <200712161908.lBGJ8EZw004143 at mwave.heeltoe.com>, Brad Parker writes: > can anyone point me to a place to find an old "diamond edge 3d" > graphics card? > > I specifically want one with the sega controller ports and a copy of > virtua fighter. > > I looked on ebay - no luck. Well, this sort of thing isn't going to be on ebay all the time. You'll need to setup a search and monitor it for many months, probably doing hand searches occasionally to make sure your search is picking up all items of interest. You can post to usenet, but its readership is down these days, so its not as effective as it used to be. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Dec 16 13:25:19 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:25:19 -0800 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer Delay Lines Message-ID: > From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au > > I've come across a reference to a reverb unit made with a garden > hose, speaker, and microphone. Would something as bone-headed as > this work as a data delay line? > > I've read that mercury was used in delay lines because it was a > better impedance match with quartz transducers, but wouldn't water > work nearly as well? Everything would need to be kept at a constant > temperature, and no doubt there would be some dispersion of the > compression waves. It's my understanding that a lot of materials > were tried for delay lines, but that mercury was the "best." > Hi The primary reason for mercury was the slow propagation time, not impedance. The slower, the more bits per length. Mechanical transformers are not all that hard to create. Early programmable calculators use a different mode of transmission. They use rotation of a wire. The twisting goes slower along the wire than a compression wave because it is the rotational inertia compared to the spring of the wire. Compressional waves tend to travel faster. In something like mercury, being a fluid, can only transmit compressional waves ( except other surface waves like ocean waves ). A wire can use either compressional or rotational. The rotational is slower and can hold more date for distance. The important thing for any of these is absorbing any reflection. This means that impedance matching and possible dampening will make all the difference. Surface can have vertical as well as shear waves but these are harder to control. The rotational wave is similar to a shear wave. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 16 13:37:48 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:37:48 -0800 Subject: Quick survey In-Reply-To: <200712161506.lBGF5r7t053144@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712161506.lBGF5r7t053144@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47650E0C.25152.14D6B134@cclist.sydex.com> On 16 Dec 2007 at 9:06 dwight elvey > These are all 5.25inch. As far as I know, 10 sectored was > the most common. I don't know of any that used 16 sectored > and never heard of 9 sectored. The Vector Graphic systems all used 16-sector media and I've seen a few others systems as well. So, I'd be safe by generalizing that 8" 32-sector and 5.25" 10- and 16-sector covers just about all of the hard-sector media in common use? Does anyone know of any other "common" 8" hard-sector media? Thanks, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 16 13:58:39 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:58:39 -0800 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 52, Issue 32 In-Reply-To: <200712161506.lBGF5r7t053144@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712161506.lBGF5r7t053144@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <476512EF.19237.14E9C8FA@cclist.sydex.com> On Sat, 15 Dec 2007 10:36:39 +0100 (CET) > From: Christian Corti > All the drums that I have seen have fixed heads. There are adjusting > screws for the distance between head and surface, but the head itself is > then fixed with another screw after adjusting (we had to do this on the > drum of our second LGP-30). Univac made extensive use of flying head drums during the 1960's. Systems as late as the 1108 used them. AFAIK, they all had "FH" prefixes to identify them as such. Bitsavers has the manual on the one I used on the 1108, the FH-880: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/univac/1107/UT-2560_FH- 880_Drum_Dec61.pdf IIRC, the FH-880 spun quite fast. On the other hand, the "big drum" on the 1108, the FASTRAND II, was a slow sewer-pipe of a monster. Here's a document that accurately describes it: http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/univac/fastrand.html IIRC, the head movement was accomplished through an system of levers connected to solenoids that directly converted a binary code to a physical position. Regarding magnetostrictive delay line, bitsavers also has a collection of PB250 documents that might be worth a perusal: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/packardBell/PB-250/ Hope this helps, Chuck From ingrammp at earthlink.net Sun Dec 16 14:00:04 2007 From: ingrammp at earthlink.net (mike ingram) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 13:00:04 -0700 Subject: SGI drive sleds and interfaces? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Richard Those Octanes and the Origin 2000 use an "SCA" drive interface... it' an 80 pin scsi interface that takes power and signals on the one connector... sometimes you will see the drive called out as having an 80 pin Centronics (SCA-2) connector ... ( just looking at CDW's web page at the moment and there are about 17 different choices ) Seagate drives that will work all have LC as the last two characters in the part number.... Most new drives all have Ultra 320 in their name someplace, but they seem to work well also. I know 140 Gbyte drives and 70 Gbyte drives will work in Octanes... although those machines originally shipped with 4G and 9 Gbyte drives way back there.. Mike On Dec 13, 2007, at 2:10 PM, Richard wrote: > OK, with my new Origin 2000 machines, I was thinking that I could use > these SGI drives+sleds that I had purchased previously, where the > seller said they would work in Onyx2/Origin machines. However, while > the sleds appear compatible, the drive interface is not. > > Is there any online guide that compares the different drive sled > designs for SGI machines so that I can compare what's being offered on > ebay to identify the machines that can use it? > > For instance, my drives have a high density connector that is only > about 1" long, but the Origin 2000 has a high density connector that > looks to be about 2-2.5" long. > > Is my only recourse to scrape through individual manuals to try and > find diagrams? > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for > download > > > Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 16 14:06:51 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 12:06:51 -0800 Subject: Small SBC kits for Christmas! In-Reply-To: <200712161506.lBGF5r7t053144@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712161506.lBGF5r7t053144@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <476514DB.16788.14F14A4B@cclist.sydex.com> From: "Matt Lichtenberg" Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 08:21:28 -0600 While not vintage (but then, is any modern kit really "vintage"?), TI has a very slick and inexpensive gizmo for their MSP-430 16-bit microcontroller. $20 bucks for a USB stick including programmer and processor; $10 for additional uC "heads". Might be a kick to fool around with: http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/ez430-f2013.html Cheers, Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Dec 16 14:42:37 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 15:42:37 -0500 Subject: Small SBC kits for Christmas! In-Reply-To: <476514DB.16788.14F14A4B@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712161506.lBGF5r7t053144@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476514DB.16788.14F14A4B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Dec 16, 2007, at 3:06 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > While not vintage (but then, is any modern kit really "vintage"?), TI > has a very slick and inexpensive gizmo for their MSP-430 16-bit > microcontroller. $20 bucks for a USB stick including programmer and > processor; $10 for additional uC "heads". > > Might be a kick to fool around with: > > http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/ez430-f2013.html ...and the architecture of the MSP430 is very similar to that of the PDP-11! B-) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Dec 16 14:47:06 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 12:47:06 -0800 Subject: Quick survey In-Reply-To: <47650E0C.25152.14D6B134@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712161506.lBGF5r7t053144@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47650E0C.25152.14D6B134@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: cclist at sydex.com > > On 16 Dec 2007 at 9:06 dwight elvey > >> These are all 5.25inch. As far as I know, 10 sectored was >> the most common. I don't know of any that used 16 sectored >> and never heard of 9 sectored. > > The Vector Graphic systems all used 16-sector media and I've seen a > few others systems as well. > > So, I'd be safe by generalizing that 8" 32-sector and 5.25" 10- and > 16-sector covers just about all of the hard-sector media in common > use? Does anyone know of any other "common" 8" hard-sector media? > > Thanks, > Chuck > Hi Chuck Other than the 32, I did once see one with holes around the outside of the disk. I have no idea how many sectors it was. My Nicolet uses the 32 hard sectored but actually writes two sectors of 16 holes each. It has a counter in the controller to keep track. So it is possible that other controllers use multiple sector holes for each data sector. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Dec 16 15:06:28 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 13:06:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A2571A4@sbs.jdfogg.com> Message-ID: <81159.65216.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> --- James Fogg wrote: > > As an expert in this area, my opinion is that > silicon sensors have a > long > > ways to catch up to film. Both CCD and CMOS > sensors lack in > resolution > > and the spatial sampling artifacts Der Mouse > mentioned are only part > of > > the problem. > > > Another part of the problem is archiving the images. > Decay of film/paper > photography is well known and incredibly slow(esp. > B&W). Digital bitrot > is much faster and not well known. Just ask anyone > who's lost a hard > disk drive full of digital baby pictures. I've also > seen a lot of > discussion about CD-ROM and DVD-ROM lifespan and > it's not good either. But optical media is cheap enough that you can create new archives periodically (every 6 months might not be a bad idea given the flakiness of optical media). Have we forgotten the old days when everything was *periodically* - HA! - backed up with a stack of floppies as high as the Tower of Babel? That is if you were smart. People are sheep and lazy these days. I cringe when I hear the commercials for online data storage (and to think on the Laura Ingraham show!) almost daily. Why??? Isn't there enough automated back up software so you can do it yourself? Can you say decentralization? OI! ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From legalize at xmission.com Sun Dec 16 15:35:23 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 14:35:23 -0700 Subject: SGI drive sleds and interfaces? In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 16 Dec 2007 13:00:04 -0700. Message-ID: Thanks for the info, Mike! Helpful as always. Of course, I now realize that the drives I purchased on ebay were for a fiber channel chassis although the sleds and connector look similar. So it appears that while I thought I had a nice stash of drives for my RealityMonster Onyx2, I'll still need some drives and sleds. Anyone have some spare O2K/Onyx2 drive sleds they don't need? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Dec 16 16:17:22 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:17:22 +0000 (GMT) Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? In-Reply-To: from "Dave McGuire" at Dec 15, 7 06:55:43 pm Message-ID: > > What was used inside the Kaypro to receive the keyboard data? > > Z80 SIO, at least on the -II and -4. Drat! It could be async or syunc, since that chip can be configured to handle eithr format. But I'll be t it's the former. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Dec 16 16:20:38 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:20:38 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <0JT400JVY876TGJ6@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> from "Allison" at Dec 15, 7 07:05:42 pm Message-ID: > >I didn't think the NTSC system used a delay line at the receiver, but I > >must admit I've never repaired a US TV set. > > Yes they did/do but is was not ultrasonic. The common ones were basically > the same as LONG (4.5us?) transmission lines. Is that a luminance deleay line, to compensate for the different bandwidths of the luminance and chromanance channels? PAL sets have those as well, The delay line I was sgggesting for use as a computer memory device is a glass block wioth untrasonic transducers on it. It's got a delay period of almost one complete line-time, and is used to store one of the chromanace signals as part of the PAL decoding process. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Dec 16 16:30:06 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:30:06 +0000 (GMT) Subject: xt/370 e-mail problem and stacked memory chips illustrated In-Reply-To: <1197817442.8155.37.camel@localhost.localdomain> from "Tore Sinding Bekkedal" at Dec 16, 7 04:04:02 pm Message-ID: > > Does anyone on the list collect non-IBM S/360 or S/370 "clones"? I know very little about it,, but I have something called a 370/E (and it's certainly not an IBM machine). I am told it runs the user-mode part of the IBM 370 instruction set. It's one rackmount case, about 8U high. The PCBs are the same form factor as DEC hex-hieght boards, and are full of 74Fxxxx parts and 55ns SRAMs. There's a PPDP11/03 that boots it and links it to an ethernet network, that's in a seprate BA11 box. Anyone recognise that? -tony From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Dec 16 17:10:13 2007 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:10:13 +0000 Subject: digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <81159.65216.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> References: <81159.65216.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1197846613.6640.3.camel@elric> On Sun, 2007-12-16 at 13:06 -0800, Chris M wrote: > But optical media is cheap enough that you can create > new archives periodically (every 6 months might not be > a bad idea given the flakiness of optical media). Have > we forgotten the old days when everything was > *periodically* - HA! - backed up with a stack of > floppies as high as the Tower of Babel? Hm. Big sheets of granite and a CNC mill gets my vote. Gordon From arcarlini at iee.org Sun Dec 16 17:50:48 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:50:48 -0000 Subject: digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <200712161735.MAA26381@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <003001c8403e$7f1ff550$5b01a8c0@uatempname> der Mouse wrote: > Cue the recurring data-archiving thread.... One of the few things which will last forever is that thread. Which just goes to show, if you want to preserve it - give everyone a copy :-) Antonio No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.2/1185 - Release Date: 15/12/2007 12:00 From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Dec 16 18:36:11 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:36:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <1197846613.6640.3.camel@elric> References: <81159.65216.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> <1197846613.6640.3.camel@elric> Message-ID: <20071216163517.L14500@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 16 Dec 2007, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Hm. Big sheets of granite and a CNC mill gets my vote. But please archive the documentation, also. (unlike the world's largest hard sector media (Stonehenge)) From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sun Dec 16 21:36:16 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:36:16 -0300 Subject: digital camera capabilities / was Re: 1000+ old computer in References: <1197818967.8155.48.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <002001c8405e$1cec2280$f0fea8c0@alpha> > False; a multitude of DSLRs (and indeed, compact cameras) now exist that > will directly interface to a (certainly considered "irrepairable" by > you) printer. No PC necessary. And, given that you have anything that > can read from a CF card (which is trivially adaptable to an IDE bus), > you can read that, as well. And of course, with the cheap price of memory cards, you can use it as a "write once" card. It is even being created right now, people discovered that is nicer to have a "write once" card than download lots of photos to the computer. Very rational. And you can use the camera to display photos on TV :o) Do you have a TV, eh? :oD >> I;ve yet to see a digital camera service manual, so %deity knows what I >> do whne it fails. For my (totalyl mechanical, I may add) film cameras, I >> just take them apart and fix them. And they'll be good for a few more >> decades. Most sony cameras have. Ah, talking about transfering...there are (old and cheap) mavica cameras which uses 3 1/2 diskettes which can be read in anything. > The effective resolution of 35mm film is IIRC considered by > professionals to be in the 27MP range; DSLRs are rapidly approaching > this. I have a Nikon coolpix 2000 2.1 MP camera. My photos rival the quality of my Zenith (russian) film camera in 10 x 13 format. Why do I need more? Greetz Alexandre http://www.tabajara-labs.com.br From bob at jfcl.com Sun Dec 16 21:42:53 2007 From: bob at jfcl.com (Bob Armstrong) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 19:42:53 -0800 Subject: Small SBC kits for Christmas! In-Reply-To: <0JT3001CFJAEWDO5@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JT3001CFJAEWDO5@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <006b01c8405e$e7de2ce0$b79a86a0$@com> >the 1861 is a different can of worms >but Bob solved that with a tiny board that emulates it It's true - the STG1861 uses two 74HC chips and two 22V10 GALs to make an exact (AFAIK :-) emulation of the CDP1861, but I've run out of the PC boards for it and there's just not enough demand to order more. The schematics and GAL files are still there, though, if you want to make one on a piece of perf board. There was some guy who bought dozens of CDP1861 chips a while ago, and he was selling them on the Yahoo COSMAC Elf group. You might check the archives there, too. Bob From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sun Dec 16 23:06:48 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 21:06:48 -0800 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer Delay Lines References: <19F107E2-5519-4C95-BC67-527471BBA464@bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <476603E8.11438D9@cs.ubc.ca> Robert Nansel wrote: > > I've come across a reference to a reverb unit made with a garden > hose, speaker, and microphone. Would something as bone-headed as > this work as a data delay line? > > I've read that mercury was used in delay lines because it was a > better impedance match with quartz transducers, but wouldn't water > work nearly as well? Everything would need to be kept at a constant > temperature, and no doubt there would be some dispersion of the > compression waves. It's my understanding that a lot of materials > were tried for delay lines, but that mercury was the "best." > > Magnetostrictive delay lines are attractive, though I hear they are > more than a little microphonic. I notice that most magnetostrictive > delay line designs use the transducers to generate torsional waves, > which apparently suffer less from dispersion and have a slower > propagation speed to boot. The pictures I've seen show the > transductive materials spot welded to the delay wire such that they > twist the wire when a magnetic pulse is applied: > > http://www.science.uva.nl/faculteit/museum/delayline.html > > Does anybody know how well plain nickel wire would work OK, or would > some more exotic like Terfenol-D be required? The delay wire itself > need not be magnetostrictive; it's just the storage medium. I have three calculators which use magnetostrictive delay lines. Two of these (same manufacturer, diff models) use torsional waves as you describe with two bands of MS material going through a double solenoid and spot-welded tangentially to the delay wire. The other ends of the bands are anchored in an elastic/rubber material. The third calc uses compression waves with the delay-wire being MS material and the ends going through simple solenoids as one would more typically expect. Although all of these are SSI IC-based calcs, the delay line interfaces are discrete transistor. The read amps are fairly straightforward multi-stage RC-coupled amps, 4 stages for the torsional types, 6 stages for the compression. All these calcs get some hundreds of bits of storage out of the delay lines over delays in the range of 1mS and clock rates around 1MHz. The two torsion-mode machines use crystals in the master clock for timing stability. No temperature compensation for delay is apparent in these machines, so apparently at those lengths the variability fits within the crystal tolerances. The machine using the compression-mode line has an RC astable FF for the master clock but adjusted in a PLL style loop. The other side of the phase comparator is fed from what appears to be a sync slice (track) written into the delay line at power-up. I've sometimes wondered whether things were handled differently in early video terminals or processors with MS delay lines where the lines were presumably a fair bit longer. Have to check out the PB250 docs Chuck mentioned. One of the interesting aspects of the two calcs using the torsion-mode is that the delay line actually has two write transducers, one at an end and one part way along the length nearer the read end. Bits are injected at the end in every second bit-slot, the mid-way write transducer fills those empty bit-slots to interleave the bits from different registers. It's used to advantage in the architecture in a manner similar to the way drum machines would have multiple heads for lower latency of the main registers. The interleaving techniques in bit-serial machines can be quite novel. From legalize at xmission.com Sun Dec 16 23:49:47 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:49:47 -0700 Subject: Max configuration of SGI Origin 2000/Onyx2 architecture Message-ID: OK, we talked earlier about how high this architecture could go and there was some mention of 256 and 512 processor systems. However, I just stumbled across a press release at LANL describing their installation of a massive 6144 processor system consisting of 48 sets of 128 nodes all arranged as a giant supercomputer: This machine was decomissioned in 2004: Something tells me that I won't be able to afford 6144 processors without a grant and a lot of scrounging :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dave06a at dunfield.com Sun Dec 16 10:30:12 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:30:12 -0500 Subject: Yet Another VT-100 Emulator Message-ID: <200712161536.lBGFaGvn021214@hosting.monisys.ca> > Any possibility that your VT-100 emulator can be extended > to support 132 character text lines? Most of the programs > that I write are in MACRO-11 and they require 132 character > text lines for the list files which are generated. The > alternative is to use 80 character text lines with wrap > around and that is so messy that it becomes almost useless > by comparison. Not likely - as far as I know there are no standard PC text video modes that give 132 columns. Even in graphical mode, the highest standard resolution supported by VGA is 640x480, which isn't enough for 132 columns. I might be able to do SVGA 800x600 on *most* cards, which could work, but so far I've not done a bit-mapped version (that would be a lot of changes to my emulator). > The other reason is that I use the KEYPAD characters under > RT-11 for both KED and SL:(Single Line Editor). Are you > confident that the keypad key acts as the > key which translates to the 3 character sequence: "[P"? > Also, the keypad comma, ".", key on the VT-100 is just above > the keypad key, but does not exist on the PC keypad. > I finally settled on the key as a substitute since > there never seemed to be any use other for . What > does your VT-100 emulator substitute for the keypad comma, > ",", key? The original terminal I announced was "close" on the keypad, but did not support use of the NumLock, '/' or ENTER keys. I've just posted an updated version which is "really close", and is limited only by the physical keypad difference. In this version I map (on the keypad in application mode): NumLock = PF1, '/' = PF2, '*'=PF3, '-' = PF4 0-9 = 0-9 '.' = '.' ENTER = ENTER '+' = ',' PgDn = '-' I chose this layout because '+' takes up both '-' and ',' slots, and PgDn is the closest additional key I could get to either one of those - It's at the same latitude as '-', but to the left of '7' instead of to the right of '9'. The good news is that I've added a "Keyboard mapping" configuration function which will allow you to assign the individual Normal, SHIFT and CTRL functions of *ANY* key on the keyboard, so you aren't stuck with my choices. You can also assign multiple PC keys to the same VT-100 function if you like. I've also got 30 programmable function keys using PC F1-10 ShiftF1-10 and CtrlF1-10 which you can define to any strings you like. These too can be remapped to appear on other keys. > And finally, On the VT-100 keyboard, the SCROLL/NOSCROLL key > is at the bottom left hand corner of the keyboard. While the > standard 105 keyboard from a PC can't exactly correspond to > the VT-100, the key can act in that manner and the > key then becomes the key on the VT-100. Is > your VT-100 emulator able to manage this aspect as well? I hadn't implemented NoScroll (never use it, I'm so used to entering CTRL-S and CTRL-Q directly on various systems)... I really didn't want to mess with the CTRL keys since I'm very used to where they are located on the PC, so I've added NoScroll to the PC "Scroll Lock" key. As noted above, you can now assign the behaviour of all keys, so you can easily create exactly the layout you requested. My keyboard handler differentiates between Left and Right Ctrl, Alt, Shift and "windows" keys, so you can map these individually any way you like. I default "Caps Lock" to "Caps Lock", but you can move that to another key and make it the CTRL key if you wish (my keyboard remapper supports assigning SHIFT and CTRL keys as well - just be sure to assign them in ALL modes - otherwise they move around as you move between Normal, SHIFT and CTRL modes, which can be a bit confusing... Another thing I've added in this most recent version is that I came up with technique when using a VGA card to not only load a custom font which gives you all the VT-100 graphic characters, but also to enable all of the VT-100 attributes (Bold, Underline, Blink and Reverse) in any and all combinations. I forgot to mention last time - I'm interested in improving the emulator, so I'm happy to make corrections and additions (within reason) - just let me know what you you would like to see. Dave NOTE: I am currently unscribed from the list - I've been trying for the past week to get resubscribed, however so far no joy ... The only way I have to read it is via the web site which is rather painfull, and somewhat delayed - so reponses will be slow in coming. I'm hoping this will go through since I've seen other messages which appear to be from non-subscribers. -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From bnansel at bigpond.net.au Sun Dec 16 17:01:49 2007 From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au (Robert Nansel) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:31:49 +1030 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) Message-ID: <3E05B8D4-7FA2-4ECD-85D3-C112A76C49BB@bigpond.net.au> I think I might have a whack at making R/W heads using small ferrite cores/beads, the kind used in radio work. My plan is to string several cores up on a straight brass rod with a snug fit to their I.D., then bed the whole lot in wax and remove the rod. Next I'll use an abrasive to grind a tiny V-notch from the inside of the cores, taking care not to break through the outer diameter. After removing the cores from the wax I'll wind turns of gauge magnet wire on them, fixed in place with super glue. Then I would re-bed them in more wax, this time with the coils down and the internal notches up. The cores would be almost completely embedded in the wax to provide strength for the fInal step, grinding a flat very slowly from the outside until the sharp end of the notch is exposed for each core. This makes the gap. I'll remove them from the wax and mount them on blocks with screw adjustments. As for the drum part, I think I'll be best off with a disk instead, perhaps a 14" washing machine platter and spindle from a 3000RPM Gonkulator. So, aside from the mumbles, does this sound like a workable plan? -Bobby > Fri Dec 14 14:22 Gary Oliver go at ao.com said: > > I have a reference somewhere for a drum project from the 40s that used > what would now be simple machine-shop procedures (assuming one had a > small drill-mill and lathe) to fashion a small drum of a few k-bit > capacity. I'll try to dig that out and send it along. I was sort of > planning to do something along this line myself at some point during > "retirement" (which won't be for a few years, I suspect.) I've > acquired > a few of the components for fabricating the drum and will give it a > "whirl" some day. I was definitely NOT planning to make a flying head > device and to keep it simple enough I could fabricate a few heads from > "first principles." From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sun Dec 16 17:02:10 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 18:02:10 -0500 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic? Message-ID: <0JT500HHPZJZV4V5@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: KayPro II keyboard schematic? > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:17:22 +0000 (GMT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> > What was used inside the Kaypro to receive the keyboard data? >> >> Z80 SIO, at least on the -II and -4. > >Drat! It could be async or syunc, since that chip can be configured to >handle eithr format. But I'll be t it's the former. Its async, I posted it was Async, SIO/DART yesterday. It's levels are TTL to save RS232 conversion and power needed for negative supply. It's an easy keyboard to talk to via serial. I have two Kaypros and a spare keyboard. its not rocket science. Allsion > >-tony From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sun Dec 16 17:04:50 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 18:04:50 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer Message-ID: <0JT600A26031YJQ3@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Homebrew Drum Computer > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:20:38 +0000 (GMT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> >I didn't think the NTSC system used a delay line at the receiver, but I >> >must admit I've never repaired a US TV set. >> >> Yes they did/do but is was not ultrasonic. The common ones were basically >> the same as LONG (4.5us?) transmission lines. > >Is that a luminance deleay line, to compensate for the different >bandwidths of the luminance and chromanance channels? PAL sets have those >as well, > >The delay line I was sgggesting for use as a computer memory device is a >glass block wioth untrasonic transducers on it. It's got a delay period >of almost one complete line-time, and is used to store one of the >chromanace signals as part of the PAL decoding process. I don't know about PAL but one line for NTSC is only 63us and thats not enough delay. Computers that used delay lines were in the milliseconds range as they needed to store a lot of bits/digit/words. Allison > >-tony From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sun Dec 16 18:20:19 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 19:20:19 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) Message-ID: <0JT600HFD367V0T5@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) > From: Robert Nansel > Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:31:49 +1030 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >I think I might have a whack at making R/W heads using small ferrite >cores/beads, the kind used in radio work. > >My plan is to string several cores up on a straight brass rod with a >snug fit to their I.D., then bed the whole lot in wax and remove the >rod. Next I'll use an abrasive to grind a tiny V-notch >from the inside of the cores, taking care not to break through the >outer diameter. > >After removing the cores from the wax I'll wind turns of > gauge magnet wire on them, fixed in place with super >glue. Then I would re-bed them in more wax, this time with the coils >down and the internal notches up. The cores would be almost >completely embedded in the wax to provide strength for the fInal >step, grinding a flat very slowly from the outside until the sharp >end of the notch is exposed for each core. This makes the gap. > >I'll remove them from the wax and mount them on blocks >with screw adjustments. > >As for the drum part, I think I'll be best off with a disk instead, >perhaps a 14" washing machine platter and spindle from a 3000RPM > Gonkulator. > >So, aside from the mumbles, does this sound like a workable plan? Ah no. the gaps have to be narrow less than .001". that hs been done two peice ferrite heads (half beads) with oe side of the magnetic circuit filled with .001" thick brass shim stock. Or you could pull the heads from a number of old floppies. The 14" platter is a good source for media. Allison >-Bobby > > >> Fri Dec 14 14:22 Gary Oliver go at ao.com said: >> >> I have a reference somewhere for a drum project from the 40s that used >> what would now be simple machine-shop procedures (assuming one had a >> small drill-mill and lathe) to fashion a small drum of a few k-bit >> capacity. I'll try to dig that out and send it along. I was sort of >> planning to do something along this line myself at some point during >> "retirement" (which won't be for a few years, I suspect.) I've >> acquired >> a few of the components for fabricating the drum and will give it a >> "whirl" some day. I was definitely NOT planning to make a flying head >> device and to keep it simple enough I could fabricate a few heads from >> "first principles." From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Sun Dec 16 20:17:37 2007 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 02:17:37 -0000 Subject: 4004 and IC history / was Re: Vintage computer photogallery Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3903E5BD@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> It could be him, but its over thirty years ago and of course remember I him as he was not as he maybe now. I worked for the Terminals Product Line and sold VT100's and LA36's to resellers and OEM's in the UK. The target margin per unit may not have been reached. However the volume was so high and the economies of scale such that over all DEC made lots of profit from what became the industry standard. Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tore Sinding Bekkedal Sent: 16 December 2007 18:56 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: 4004 and IC history / was Re: Vintage computer photogallery On Thu, 2007-10-18 at 13:04 +0100, Rod Smallwood wrote: > The design of the VT100 was done by one engineer who I met but I > cannot recall his name. I believe you may be referring to Mike Leis. I snapped a photo of him at a DEC reunion at The Mill: http://gunkies.org/photos/mill/big/img_3513.jpg Amongst other things, he told me that DEC considered the VT100 to be a failure, since it never met the profit margin outlined in the project proposal. The main reason they created the VT100 was because the VT52 was quite hard to mass produce automatically. -Tore From cclist at sydex.com Mon Dec 17 02:08:22 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:08:22 -0800 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <200712170719.lBH7JOY6062933@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712170719.lBH7JOY6062933@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4765BDF6.10174.1785D74C@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:31:49 +1030 > From: Robert Nansel > I think I might have a whack at making R/W heads using small ferrite > cores/beads, the kind used in radio work. ...lots of detail... > So, aside from the mumbles, does this sound like a workable plan? I'd think that you'd want the head characteristics to be a very close match if you intend to employ more than one head per track--and I can't see how you'd get the head gaps remotely close in characteristics with one another. On the local Freecycle, I see VHS recorders hitting the landfill with incredible regularity. Why not simply scavenge the heads from a few of these? Certainly, the frequency response should be good enough. As far as the disk goes, that should work. It seems to me that some of the Shugard SA-4000 models even had a track or two of fixed heads as an option. Cheers, Chuck From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Mon Dec 17 08:04:49 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:04:49 -0600 Subject: Max configuration of SGI Origin 2000/Onyx2 architecture In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47668201.5020603@gmail.com> Richard wrote: > OK, we talked earlier about how high this architecture could go and > there was some mention of 256 and 512 processor systems. However, I > just stumbled across a press release at LANL describing their > installation of a massive 6144 processor system consisting of 48 sets > of 128 nodes all arranged as a giant supercomputer: > Interesting stuff. Weta Digital had a pretty impressive room full of O2k hardware rendering the Lord of the Rings effects back around 2001. I'm not sure if they're even still using SGI, but the rows of double-height O2k cabinets looked pretty stunning back then - it'd be interesting to find out what their exact config was. cheers Jules From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Mon Dec 17 08:38:51 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:38:51 -0500 Subject: Yet Another VT-100 Emulator In-Reply-To: <200712161536.lBGFaGvn021214@hosting.monisys.ca> Message-ID: <200712171438.lBHEcrG2079341@billy.ezwind.net> On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:30:12 -0500, Dave Dunfield wrote: >Not likely - as far as I know there are no standard PC text >video modes that give 132 columns. Long ago I had a 132char driver for the Hercules/TTL mono video card. I was based on the 720x348 mono graphics mode. I also remember the several of the SuperEGA bios that supported the extended MDA modes: 46h Text 132x25 (8/9x14) 47h Text 132x29 (8/9x12) 48h Text 132x32 (8/9x11) 49h Text 132x44 (8/9x8) The other Bob From legalize at xmission.com Mon Dec 17 09:29:56 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:29:56 -0700 Subject: Max configuration of SGI Origin 2000/Onyx2 architecture In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:04:49 -0600. <47668201.5020603@gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <47668201.5020603 at gmail.com>, Jules Richardson writes: > Interesting stuff. Weta Digital had a pretty impressive room full of O2k > hardware rendering the Lord of the Rings effects back around 2001. I'm not > sure if they're even still using SGI, but the rows of double-height O2k > cabinets looked pretty stunning back then - it'd be interesting to find out > what their exact config was. Each double height rack holds two system modules. Each system module can hold 4 node boards. Each node board has 2 CPUs (initially R10k @ 195 MHz, but later R12k at 300 MHz). Each node also has a chunk of system memory, up to 4 GB. The memory is shared between all the CPUs through a cross-bar based interconnection fabric that is scalable with the CPUs, i.e. there is no shared bus. Its pretty interesting! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Mon Dec 17 09:49:11 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:49:11 -0800 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 52, Issue 34 In-Reply-To: <200712170719.lBH7JOYB062933@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712170719.lBH7JOYB062933@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <288308c3270b36291afe594a37818288@valleyimplants.com> On Dec 16, 2007, at 11:19 PM, Richard wrote: >> OK, with my new Origin 2000 machines, I was thinking that I could use >> these SGI drives+sleds that I had purchased previously, where the >> seller said they would work in Onyx2/Origin machines. However, while >> the sleds appear compatible, the drive interface is not. >> >> Is there any online guide that compares the different drive sled >> designs for SGI machines so that I can compare what's being offered on >> ebay to identify the machines that can use it? There is, sadly it is at the SGI Addict (www.sgiaddict.net) which is inconsistently up. This is most useful for the older sleds with integral connectors, modern SGI sleds are (I believe) one of three types: O2 (wouldn't come close to fitting), Octane/Origin200/000/Onyx2 (works), and Origin300/000 >> >> For instance, my drives have a high density connector that is only >> about 1" long, but the Origin 2000 has a high density connector that >> looks to be about 2-2.5" long. >> A drive with a 1" long connector very similar to a SCSI SCA connector is probably FC (Fiber Channel). If you have a newish Sun (Blade 1000/2000 era) you can check, as the main interface in these is FC. The FC drives I have (Seagates) have a model number ending in FC. Some of the SGI Vaults/InfiniteStorage arrays do use FC disks, so it's possible that these came out of one of those. Sadly, I'm not sure that the Qlogic FC interfaces are bootable, so you might not be able to use them as a system disk. From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Mon Dec 17 09:55:37 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:55:37 -0600 Subject: Max configuration of SGI Origin 2000/Onyx2 architecture In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47669BF9.4070308@gmail.com> Richard wrote: > In article <47668201.5020603 at gmail.com>, > Jules Richardson writes: > >> Interesting stuff. Weta Digital had a pretty impressive room full of O2k >> hardware rendering the Lord of the Rings effects back around 2001. I'm not >> sure if they're even still using SGI, but the rows of double-height O2k >> cabinets looked pretty stunning back then - it'd be interesting to find out >> what their exact config was. > > Each double height rack holds two system modules. Each system module > can hold 4 node boards. Each node board has 2 CPUs (initially R10k @ > 195 MHz, but later R12k at 300 MHz). Each node also has a chunk of > system memory, up to 4 GB. The memory is shared between all the CPUs > through a cross-bar based interconnection fabric that is scalable with > the CPUs, i.e. there is no shared bus. Its pretty interesting! Oh, I know... I loved O2k systems (still do - would love to find one someday; I haven't messed around with one for a few years now). I'm just not sure what Weta Digital's exact setup was - I believe the systems were all fully populated with CPUs, but I'm not sure what their memory config was. My recollection is of 5 or 6 rows of dual-height cabs in their machine room, about 6 per row, with a further row or two for disk storage. I seem to remember that a few of the cabinets were split though - an O2k in one half, but framebuffer hardware in the other. I'm not sure if they were supplied like that by SGI as one of their stock models, or whether it was something custom (when I worked with SGI on projects they were pretty good at tweaking configuration on a per-site basis). It was most impressive to see that much SGI kit in one place, anyway - it must have been reasonably uncommon to find such a large-scale install in a non-government institution. Nowadays I expect it's all PC clusters running Linux :( cheers Jules From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Mon Dec 17 09:57:03 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:57:03 -0800 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 52, Issue 34 In-Reply-To: <200712170719.lBH7JOYB062933@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712170719.lBH7JOYB062933@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <7165c2613524c2fe9c6cb0e1534d8fb6@valleyimplants.com> On Dec 16, 2007, at 11:19 PM, Richard wrote: > OK, we talked earlier about how high this architecture could go and > there was some mention of 256 and 512 processor systems. However, I > just stumbled across a press release at LANL describing their > installation of a massive 6144 processor system consisting of 48 sets > of 128 nodes all arranged as a giant supercomputer: > Above 128 processors you need a special "Cray" router. Above either 512 or 1024 you'll probably need custom SGI setup, possibly a custom IRIX. At any rate, 32 or 64 processors are pretty fast (remember as you scale it's harder and harder to get parallel code to run across all processors), and don't forget to factor in electricity and cooling. Most hobbyists only run one or two racks. From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Dec 17 10:16:20 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:16:20 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 52, Issue 34 In-Reply-To: <7165c2613524c2fe9c6cb0e1534d8fb6@valleyimplants.com> References: <200712170719.lBH7JOYB062933@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7165c2613524c2fe9c6cb0e1534d8fb6@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <4766A0D4.8020007@gmail.com> Scott Quinn wrote: > > On Dec 16, 2007, at 11:19 PM, Richard wrote: > >> OK, we talked earlier about how high this architecture could go and >> there was some mention of 256 and 512 processor systems. However, I >> just stumbled across a press release at LANL describing their >> installation of a massive 6144 processor system consisting of 48 sets >> of 128 nodes all arranged as a giant supercomputer: >> > Above 128 processors you need a special "Cray" router. Above either 512 > or 1024 you'll probably need custom SGI setup, possibly a custom IRIX. > At any rate, 32 or 64 processors are pretty fast (remember as you scale > it's harder and harder to get parallel code to run across all > processors), and don't forget to factor in electricity and cooling. > Most hobbyists only run one or two racks. Do these humongous configurations run a single OS image? If so, cool! Peace... Sridhar From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Mon Dec 17 10:27:30 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:27:30 -0600 Subject: SGI drive sleds and interfaces? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4766A372.5040909@gmail.com> mike ingram wrote: > I know 140 Gbyte drives and 70 Gbyte drives will work in Octanes... > although those machines originally shipped with 4G and 9 Gbyte drives > way back there.. Brings back memories - the first pair of SCSI drives I ran "in anger" on a PC were surplus from an Origin 2k, in about 1998 or so. Those were SGI-supplied SCA-connector units - one was a 9GB and the other was just over 4 (4.3GB I think). Both were IBM drives, although the drive firmware was custom so that they reported themselves as SGI in response to an inquiry command - it makes me wonder if at least some SGI models check for this and will barf on drives that they don't think are 'SGI approved'? cheers Jules From ian_primus at yahoo.com Mon Dec 17 10:37:10 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:37:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: SGI drive sleds and interfaces? In-Reply-To: <4766A372.5040909@gmail.com> Message-ID: <540008.78302.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- Jules Richardson wrote: > Both were IBM drives, although the drive firmware > was custom so that they > reported themselves as SGI in response to an inquiry > command - it makes me > wonder if at least some SGI models check for this > and will barf on drives that > they don't think are 'SGI approved'? I don't know about other SGI models, but I know that the Octane doesn't care. I used generic surplus 80 pin SCA SCSI drives with mine, I have three in there right now - two IBM's and a Seagate. Using CD jewel cases instead of drive sleds. (use full height cases on the top two bays, a slimline case on the bottom) Running IRIX 6.5 - no problems at all. -Ian From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Dec 17 10:43:00 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:43:00 +0000 Subject: SGI drive sleds and interfaces? In-Reply-To: <4766A372.5040909@gmail.com> References: <4766A372.5040909@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4766A714.5020405@dunnington.plus.com> On 17/12/2007 16:27, Jules Richardson wrote: > Both were IBM drives, although the drive firmware was custom so that > they reported themselves as SGI in response to an inquiry command - it > makes me wonder if at least some SGI models check for this and will barf > on drives that they don't think are 'SGI approved'? I don't think so. O2s and Octanes don't care, and my Origin2000 doesn't. In fact it has a Fujitsu boot disk and a bunch of Seagate drives. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Dec 17 10:41:05 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:41:05 +0000 Subject: Max configuration of SGI Origin 2000/Onyx2 architecture In-Reply-To: <47669BF9.4070308@gmail.com> References: <47669BF9.4070308@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4766A6A1.1020700@dunnington.plus.com> On 17/12/2007 15:55, Jules Richardson wrote: > My recollection is of 5 or 6 rows of dual-height cabs in their machine > room, about 6 per row, with a further row or two for disk storage. I > seem to remember that a few of the cabinets were split though - an O2k > in one half, but framebuffer hardware in the other. I'm not sure if they > were supplied like that by SGI as one of their stock models, or whether > it was something custom (when I worked with SGI on projects they were > pretty good at tweaking configuration on a per-site basis). Sounds like an ordinary (for SGI types of ordinary) Onyx2. That has the framebuffer hardware in the upper module, and CPUs in the lower; one framebuffer module per machine, but up to 7 (IIRC) CPU modules in multi-rack configurations. > It was most impressive to see that much SGI kit in one place, anyway - > it must have been reasonably uncommon to find such a large-scale install > in a non-government institution. Biggest I saw in a university was the 32-processor (4 modules, 2 racks) we had in Computer Science. There was a deskside (8 processor, 1 module) and a later a single rack (2 modules, 16 processors) in Music. The one I have is a single rack with two modules (16 CPUs), but at present I have the two modules in separate racks and running as two separate machines. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Dec 17 10:35:42 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:35:42 +0000 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 52, Issue 34 In-Reply-To: <4766A0D4.8020007@gmail.com> References: <200712170719.lBH7JOYB062933@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7165c2613524c2fe9c6cb0e1534d8fb6@valleyimplants.com> <4766A0D4.8020007@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4766A55E.8040705@dunnington.plus.com> On 17/12/2007 16:16, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Scott Quinn wrote: >> Above 128 processors you need a special "Cray" router. Above either >> 512 or 1024 you'll probably need custom SGI setup, possibly a custom >> IRIX. At any rate, 32 or 64 processors are pretty fast (remember as >> you scale it's harder and harder to get parallel code to run across >> all processors), and don't forget to factor in electricity and >> cooling. Most hobbyists only run one or two racks. > > Do these humongous configurations run a single OS image? If so, cool! Yes, they do. And it has a little LCD display in the centre of the main rack that can show you bargraphs of the CPU and system activity, per processor. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Dec 17 10:46:49 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:46:49 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 52, Issue 34 In-Reply-To: <4766A0D4.8020007@gmail.com> References: <200712170719.lBH7JOYB062933@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7165c2613524c2fe9c6cb0e1534d8fb6@valleyimplants.com> <4766A0D4.8020007@gmail.com> Message-ID: <666E3456-608D-4C24-A95A-1E42DBA11185@neurotica.com> On Dec 17, 2007, at 11:16 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> OK, we talked earlier about how high this architecture could go and >>> there was some mention of 256 and 512 processor systems. However, I >>> just stumbled across a press release at LANL describing their >>> installation of a massive 6144 processor system consisting of 48 >>> sets >>> of 128 nodes all arranged as a giant supercomputer: >>> >> Above 128 processors you need a special "Cray" router. Above >> either 512 or 1024 you'll probably need custom SGI setup, possibly >> a custom IRIX. At any rate, 32 or 64 processors are pretty fast >> (remember as you scale it's harder and harder to get parallel code >> to run across all processors), and don't forget to factor in >> electricity and cooling. Most hobbyists only run one or two racks. > > Do these humongous configurations run a single OS image? If so, cool! Yup, single image. The O2K you got from me has eight processors...if you get another chassis just like it and link them together with CrayLink cables, it'll be one machine with sixteen processors, transparently. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Dec 17 10:47:52 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:47:52 -0500 Subject: SGI drive sleds and interfaces? In-Reply-To: <4766A372.5040909@gmail.com> References: <4766A372.5040909@gmail.com> Message-ID: <61E0FB7C-5CC0-42C6-BCFC-A214501F913B@neurotica.com> On Dec 17, 2007, at 11:27 AM, Jules Richardson wrote: > Brings back memories - the first pair of SCSI drives I ran "in > anger" on a PC were surplus from an Origin 2k, in about 1998 or so. > Those were SGI-supplied SCA-connector units - one was a 9GB and the > other was just over 4 (4.3GB I think). > > Both were IBM drives, although the drive firmware was custom so > that they reported themselves as SGI in response to an inquiry > command - it makes me wonder if at least some SGI models check for > this and will barf on drives that they don't think are 'SGI approved'? I've used quite a few "non-SGI" drives in quite a few SGI systems, and have never seen one complain. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Dec 17 11:29:50 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:29:50 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 52, Issue 34 In-Reply-To: <4766A0D4.8020007@gmail.com> References: <200712170719.lBH7JOYB062933@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7165c2613524c2fe9c6cb0e1534d8fb6@valleyimplants.com> <4766A0D4.8020007@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200712171229.50793.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 17 December 2007, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Scott Quinn wrote: > > Above 128 processors you need a special "Cray" router. Above either > > 512 or 1024 you'll probably need custom SGI setup, possibly a > > custom IRIX. At any rate, 32 or 64 processors are pretty fast > > (remember as you scale it's harder and harder to get parallel code > > to run across all processors), and don't forget to factor in > > electricity and cooling. Most hobbyists only run one or two racks. > > Do these humongous configurations run a single OS image? If so, > cool! Yeah, it's just another NUMA box. :) Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From legalize at xmission.com Mon Dec 17 12:21:26 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:21:26 -0700 Subject: CrayLink connections between Origin 2000s In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:46:49 -0500. <666E3456-608D-4C24-A95A-1E42DBA11185@neurotica.com> Message-ID: In article <666E3456-608D-4C24-A95A-1E42DBA11185 at neurotica.com>, Dave McGuire writes: > Yup, single image. The O2K you got from me has eight > processors...if you get another chassis just like it and link them > together with CrayLink cables, it'll be one machine with sixteen > processors, transparently. The manual I'm reading says that Origin 2000 machines can't be connected by CrayLink cables, but this seems to contradict what I see in the box (i.e. it has two router cards with CrayLink connections). What's the straight dope on that? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Mon Dec 17 12:22:25 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:22:25 -0700 Subject: SGI Cray Router In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:57:03 -0800. <7165c2613524c2fe9c6cb0e1534d8fb6@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: In article <7165c2613524c2fe9c6cb0e1534d8fb6 at valleyimplants.com>, Scott Quinn writes: > Above 128 processors you need a special "Cray" router. Anyone got one of these? I see the rack systems on ebay and other places fairly frequently but haven't seen the router cabinet yet. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Dec 17 12:49:32 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:49:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <20071216163517.L14500@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <519982.55841.qm@web61016.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Cisin wrote: > On Sun, 16 Dec 2007, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > > Hm. Big sheets of granite and a CNC mill gets my > vote. > > But please archive the documentation, also. > (unlike the world's largest hard sector media > (Stonehenge)) I was unaware the heretofore undiscovered (?) Tower of Babel nor Stonehenge were repositories of information. At least not in a strict sense. Of course a sun dial could be broadly classified as a *computer*. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Dec 17 13:15:52 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:15:52 -0500 Subject: CrayLink connections between Origin 2000s In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 17, 2007, at 1:21 PM, Richard wrote: >> Yup, single image. The O2K you got from me has eight >> processors...if you get another chassis just like it and link them >> together with CrayLink cables, it'll be one machine with sixteen >> processors, transparently. > > The manual I'm reading says that Origin 2000 machines can't be > connected by CrayLink cables, but this seems to contradict what I see > in the box (i.e. it has two router cards with CrayLink connections). > > What's the straight dope on that? I can't tell you the straight dope, but I can tell you that *my* machine was indeed connected that way (dual-chassis) until I sent half of it to Sridhar. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Mon Dec 17 13:56:20 2007 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:56:20 -0600 Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? Message-ID: There is a lot of really cool source code here; a DXF vector library, math and graphics libraries..... Randy _________________________________________________________________ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 From legalize at xmission.com Mon Dec 17 14:18:21 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:18:21 -0700 Subject: CrayLink connections between Origin 2000s In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:15:52 -0500. Message-ID: In article , Dave McGuire writes: > On Dec 17, 2007, at 1:21 PM, Richard wrote: > > The manual I'm reading says that Origin 2000 machines can't be > > connected by CrayLink cables, but this seems to contradict what I see > > in the box (i.e. it has two router cards with CrayLink connections). > > > > What's the straight dope on that? > > I can't tell you the straight dope, but I can tell you that *my* > machine was indeed connected that way (dual-chassis) until I sent > half of it to Sridhar. Yeah, from what I could tell as long as you had bona-fide router boards (not null router or star router) then you should be able to connect Onyx2K modules together into a larger fabric. Unless the default midplane doesn't support this, I don't see why it wouldn't work. It seems the essential difference between an Onyx2 deskside and the Origin 2000 deskside is the midplane and the board set. Can anyone confirm that? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From tsw-cc at johana.com Mon Dec 17 14:58:42 2007 From: tsw-cc at johana.com (Tom Watson) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:58:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: Delay lines in TV sets Message-ID: <964264.33872.qm@web90401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> While the subject of delay lines has been hashed out here for a while, most of the delay lines used in TV sets are probably not too reasonable for data storage. In particular those used in NTSC sets are to balance the delays in the chroma circuits (those that are on the 3.579 sub carrier) with the luma signal (which isn't processed). Since the chroma goes thru additional circuits, the other signal needs to be delayed (not very long) to maintain the registration. In PAL sets, I believe that the same idea is used. The difference is that in PAL sets a different subcarrier frequency is used, and the demodulation products are different for every other line (they swap In-phase, and Quadrature). SECAM is a bit different, as they do NOT use in-phase and quadrature (simultaneous) demodulation of the color difference signals, but alternate them line by line (The 'S' in SECAM). This necessitates a one line delay to keep around the other color difference signal to display on the line. More complexity in the receiver with all that switching and "storing", and while it has lower color resolution is more immune to phase differences which plague signal chains in I & Q (NTSC/PAL) systems. PAL systems on the other hand with the swapping of I & Q every other line (the 'A' in PAL) usually nulls out the differences. If you decide to make up a delay line to hold CPU data, try a prototype using shift registers. They are a bit easier to make up, and often the chips are available. The problem is that they come in weird (at times) sizes (132, 80, and the like). I'll leave it to the reader to determine the usability of odd sizes and their original use. -- Sorry, No signature at the moment. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Dec 17 15:05:14 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:05:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <27257.39530.qm@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> I realize that old doggies die hard, but who except for the scientific/engineering crowd would want to create new apps, and for what reason? I imagine there could be some good reasons to port old (iron?) code to peecees, but gcc can compile FORTRAN already (albeit only F77). --- Randy Dawson wrote: > > There is a lot of really cool source code here; a > DXF vector library, math and graphics libraries..... > > Randy > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows > Live. > http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Mon Dec 17 15:53:55 2007 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:53:55 -0600 Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? Message-ID: Performance. These are generally the best compilers around, with support for parallelism, distributed memory, loop unrolling, support for vector hardware.... Even using the GPU as a general purpose processor. High performance parallel computing with Fortran 90 and HPF. Real men code in FORTRAN ;) > Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:05:14 -0800 > From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: have you seen www.fortran.com? > > I realize that old doggies die hard, but who except > for the scientific/engineering crowd would want to > create new apps, and for what reason? I imagine there > could be some good reasons to port old (iron?) code to > peecees, but gcc can compile FORTRAN already (albeit > only F77). > > --- Randy Dawson wrote: > > > > > There is a lot of really cool source code here; a > > DXF vector library, math and graphics libraries..... > > > > Randy > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows > > Live. > > > http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. > http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs _________________________________________________________________ i?m is proud to present Cause Effect, a series about real people making a difference. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_Cause_Effect From rickb at bensene.com Mon Dec 17 17:06:38 2007 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:06:38 -0800 Subject: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV sets) In-Reply-To: <964264.33872.qm@web90401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <964264.33872.qm@web90401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Tom Watson wrote: > If you decide to make up a delay line to hold CPU data, try a > prototype using shift registers. They are a bit easier to > make up, and often the chips are available. The problem is > that they come in weird (at times) sizes (132, 80, and the > like). I'll leave it to the reader to determine the > usability of odd sizes and their original use. > A lot of early MOS shift registers were developed specifically for use in electronic calculators, as solid-state replacements for magnetic core memory or magnetostrictive delay lines. Since most all electronic calculators in the mid-'60's through the late 70's operated in BCD or some alternate four (or sometimes five)-bit representation of decimal digits, the shift registers were usually made with a number of stages that was a multiple of four or five, with a few extra bits here and there for timing and synchronization. That's why many of these devices as an unusual number of stages. In some calculators from the late '60's, as IC logic had pretty much replaced discrete transistor designs, there were different versions of the same machine, earlier machines which used a magnetostrictive delay line, and "updated" versions which dispensed with the delay line, and replaced it with a number of MOS IC shift register devices. Functionally, the machines were identical. As far as the digital logic section of the machine went, also identical. The only real changes were the removal of the read amplifier and write driver for the delay line, and replacement with some simple level-shifting and power supply circuitry to properly drive the shift register chain. Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com From shumaker at att.net Mon Dec 17 17:41:50 2007 From: shumaker at att.net (Steve Shumaker) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:41:50 -0800 Subject: green-bar paper Message-ID: <4767093E.2040002@att.net> Wasn't someone on the list looking for wide format green-bar paper a while back? PublicSurplus.com has several boxes listed. Items 228477, 228478, 228480 s shumaker From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Dec 17 17:49:44 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:49:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: green-bar paper In-Reply-To: <4767093E.2040002@att.net> from "Steve Shumaker" at Dec 17, 2007 03:41:50 PM Message-ID: <200712172349.lBHNni9q027305@onyx.spiritone.com> > Wasn't someone on the list looking for wide format green-bar paper a > while back? Does anyone still sell standard 8.5"x11" tractor-feed green-bar? Actually a couple reams that you could put through a laserprinter could be fun as well! :^) Zane From shumaker at att.net Mon Dec 17 17:55:57 2007 From: shumaker at att.net (Steve Shumaker) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:55:57 -0800 Subject: green-bar paper In-Reply-To: <200712172349.lBHNni9q027305@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200712172349.lBHNni9q027305@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <47670C8D.2090706@att.net> there are also boxes described as 9" green-bar listed on the site... ss Zane H. Healy wrote: >> Wasn't someone on the list looking for wide format green-bar paper a >> while back? > > Does anyone still sell standard 8.5"x11" tractor-feed green-bar? Actually a > couple reams that you could put through a laserprinter could be fun as well! > :^) > > Zane > > From frustum at pacbell.net Mon Dec 17 17:59:49 2007 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:59:49 -0600 Subject: Found thhe source to MS Basic In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47670D75.3090808@pacbell.net> Randy Dawson wrote: > > > > This may be of interest to the group, on the Nascom web page, I found the Microsoft 8K basic source: > > http://www.nascomhomepage.com/lang/8kbasic.asm > > Randy Randy, I'm assuming that this isn't *the* source code. It looks like someone reverse engineered it and added the comments. I was under the impression that *the* source code was full of conditional code to generate BASIC for a variety of machines. From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Dec 17 18:04:10 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:04:10 +0000 Subject: CrayLink connections between Origin 2000s In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47670E7A.2020604@dunnington.plus.com> On 17/12/2007 18:21, Richard wrote: > The manual I'm reading says that Origin 2000 machines can't be > connected by CrayLink cables, but this seems to contradict what I see > in the box (i.e. it has two router cards with CrayLink connections). > > What's the straight dope on that? Unless it's trying to say you can't link two separate machines (and still have them be separate machines), the manual is wrong. Which manual is it? Apart from single-module units, all Origin 2000s use Craylink connections to link the modules. You can even link two O200s that way. My 2-module O2000 has four Craylinks. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 17 17:48:19 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:48:19 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: <0JT600A26031YJQ3@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> from "Allison" at Dec 16, 7 06:04:50 pm Message-ID: > I don't know about PAL but one line for NTSC is only 63us and thats > not enough delay. The European PAL B/G/I standard has a 64us line time. The PAL delay line time is a little less than that (I would have to get the exact figure from a service manual -- AFAIK all TV sets had the same delay). > > Computers that used delay lines were in the milliseconds range as they > needed to store a lot of bits/digit/words. Ture. I was thinking of using said delay lines are 64 bit 'registers' (they should easily be able to handle a 1MHz data rate), nothing more. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 17 18:08:47 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:08:47 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Delay lines in TV sets In-Reply-To: <964264.33872.qm@web90401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> from "Tom Watson" at Dec 17, 7 12:58:42 pm Message-ID: > In particular those used in NTSC sets are to balance the delays in the chroma > circuits (those that are on the 3.579 sub carrier) with the luma signal (which > isn't processed). Since the chroma goes thru additional circuits, the other > signal needs to be delayed (not very long) to maintain the registration. In > PAL sets, I believe that the same idea is used. The difference is that in PAL It is, but that's not the delay line I'm talking about. Look up the design of a PAL-D decoder (D = Delay) and see how a just-less-than-1-line-time delay line is used to store onoe fo the clour difference signals. > sets a different subcarrier frequency is used, and the demodulation products > are different for every other line (they swap In-phase, and Quadrature). SECAM > is a bit different, as they do NOT use in-phase and quadrature (simultaneous) > demodulation of the color difference signals, but alternate them line by line > (The 'S' in SECAM). This necessitates a one line delay to keep around the I thought SECAM was 'Systeme Electronique Couleur Avec Memoire' (?Spel) The 'M' referes to the delay lien acting as a 1-line time memory to store one of the colour difference signals I think. -tony From ggs at shiresoft.com Mon Dec 17 18:19:57 2007 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:19:57 -0800 Subject: green-bar paper In-Reply-To: <4767093E.2040002@att.net> References: <4767093E.2040002@att.net> Message-ID: <4767122D.7040602@shiresoft.com> Steve Shumaker wrote: > Wasn't someone on the list looking for wide format green-bar paper a > while back? I've found green bar of various formats readily available at Office Depot. -- TTFN - Guy From rcini at optonline.net Mon Dec 17 18:22:13 2007 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:22:13 -0500 Subject: Found thhe source to MS Basic In-Reply-To: <47670D75.3090808@pacbell.net> Message-ID: The "original" BASICs for the Altair, for example were single-target -- no conditional compilations. My recollection is the same relating to later versions. It wasn't until they began supporting a multitude of micros did they begin using conditional compilations. It became too big of a job given the different input/output methods and I/O devices. On 12/17/07 6:59 PM, "Jim Battle" wrote: > Randy Dawson wrote: >> >> >> >> This may be of interest to the group, on the Nascom web page, I found the >> Microsoft 8K basic source: >> >> http://www.nascomhomepage.com/lang/8kbasic.asm >> >> Randy > > Randy, > > I'm assuming that this isn't *the* source code. It looks like someone > reverse engineered it and added the comments. > > I was under the impression that *the* source code was full of > conditional code to generate BASIC for a variety of machines. Rich -- Rich Cini Collector of Classic Computers Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator http://www.altair32.com http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp From davidfrkane at gmail.com Mon Dec 17 18:23:50 2007 From: davidfrkane at gmail.com (David Kane) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:23:50 +1100 Subject: green-bar paper In-Reply-To: <47670C8D.2090706@att.net> References: <200712172349.lBHNni9q027305@onyx.spiritone.com> <47670C8D.2090706@att.net> Message-ID: > > Does anyone still sell standard 8.5"x11" tractor-feed green-bar? > A office supply company in Oz does (www.officeworks.com.au in the "Paper, Labels and Envelopes -> Dot matrix Computer Paper" section). More blue than green. But shipping to the US might be a killer. David From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Dec 17 18:24:09 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:24:09 -0500 Subject: green-bar paper In-Reply-To: <4767122D.7040602@shiresoft.com> References: <4767093E.2040002@att.net> <4767122D.7040602@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <200712171924.09331.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 17 December 2007 19:19, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > Steve Shumaker wrote: > > Wasn't someone on the list looking for wide format green-bar paper > > a while back? > > I've found green bar of various formats readily available at Office > Depot. The last time I got 14-7/8" greenbar, I bought a box from OfficeMax in town (before they closed their store). I think it was about $50, for 5000 sheets maybe? It felt expensive at the time, but then again, I'll likely never use up all 5000 sheets in my lifetime... Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Dec 17 19:04:20 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:04:20 -0500 Subject: CrayLink connections between Origin 2000s In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4f08d175db0bc97e958210e869e5056d@neurotica.com> On Dec 17, 2007, at 3:18 PM, Richard wrote: > It seems the essential difference between an Onyx2 deskside and the > Origin 2000 deskside is the midplane and the board set. Can anyone > confirm that? Hmm, the only difference I was aware of was the I/O module...keyboard/mouse interface or not. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Dec 17 19:05:06 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:05:06 -0500 Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <27257.39530.qm@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> References: <27257.39530.qm@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Dec 17, 2007, at 4:05 PM, Chris M wrote: > I realize that old doggies die hard, but who except > for the scientific/engineering crowd would want to > create new apps, and for what reason? I imagine there > could be some good reasons to port old (iron?) code to > peecees, but gcc can compile FORTRAN already (albeit > only F77). 1) the scientific/engineering crowd is much larger than you think 2) FORTRAN is fun -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From drb at msu.edu Mon Dec 17 19:06:27 2007 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:06:27 -0500 Subject: green-bar paper In-Reply-To: (Your message of Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:41:50 PST.) <4767093E.2040002@att.net> References: <4767093E.2040002@att.net> Message-ID: <200712180106.lBI16RQJ005632@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > Wasn't someone on the list looking for wide format green-bar paper a > while back? Sams sells 14+7/8x11 size IBM brand greenbar. It's really half-cases, 2500 sheets I think it was. Candy-stripe is harder. De From chaosotter76 at gmail.com Mon Dec 17 19:27:52 2007 From: chaosotter76 at gmail.com (Mark Meiss) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:27:52 -0500 Subject: Troubleshooting a TRS-80 disk drive Message-ID: <653a64ac0712171727h5b2160d3xf8cb9da806630849@mail.gmail.com> I've just had one of the disk drives in my TRS-80 Model III start to go south on me, and before I crack the case and get down to serious diagnostic work, I thought I'd check with the list to see if the symptoms ring a bell with anybody. I believe that the drive in question is a stock factory install; it's the secondary drive in a fairly low serial-numbered Model III (in the 50,000s). The first sign of trouble was that the drive began returning spurious "Disk is Write-Protected" errors, which would go away upon reinserting the disk. Now it's begun episodes of returning TRS-DOS Error 08 ("Drive Not Ready") messages for all operations. The activity light functions normally, and the drive hasn't made any alarming sounds. It does not spin up the disk when it's in this state. After a while, it'll begin working again on its own. I realize there are any number of replacement drive solutions out there, but this is a system where I'd really like to keep the original equipment up and running until it just can't be patched together any longer. (I can't really explain why I'm so fond of this thing; I just am.) Thanks in advance for any suggestions, or just things to look at first. I've got a scope and logic analyzer I can use for diagnostics, but my knowledge of disk systems beyond the tracks-and-sectors level is marginal. From chaosotter76 at gmail.com Mon Dec 17 20:30:37 2007 From: chaosotter76 at gmail.com (Mark Meiss) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:30:37 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <200712172253.lBHMrLuv031334@hosting.monisys.ca> References: <200712172253.lBHMrLuv031334@hosting.monisys.ca> Message-ID: <653a64ac0712171830t10a04e0bl23d901026a11c56c@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 17, 2007 6:47 PM, Dave Dunfield wrote: > > As far as I know there are no **STANDARD** PC text video modes that give > 132 columns. There's certainly no such mode on the MDA/CGA/EGA/VGA cards as used in the PC and PS/2.Yes, at 720 dots, you can do a 5 point wide font for 132 columns on a Herc., > Does anyone know if any of the more modern (ie: VGA) cards support > enhanced > 132 column text modes? I think this is a "maybe". At [ http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/textmode.html ], there's a link to a program that scans for a series of 132-column VESA text modes. It couldn't find any on the laptop I tried it on (no surprise), but apparently there are a number of NVIDIA cards that support these modes. I don't know what how the layout compares to the character/attribute pairs for 80-column modes, but here's the Pascal code they use to try entering the modes: PROGRAM VesaTest; USES Dos; VAR ok : Boolean; Reg : Registers; i : Word; BEGIN i := 0; IF ParamStr (1) = '132x60' THEN i := 268; IF ParamStr (1) = '132x50' THEN i := 267; IF ParamStr (1) = '132x43' THEN i := 266; IF ParamStr (1) = '132x25' THEN i := 265; IF ParamStr (1) = '080x60' THEN i := 264; Reg.ax := $4F02; Reg.bx := i; Intr (16, Reg); {VesaTextmodus einschalten} ok := (Reg.ah = 0); Reg.ax := $0003; IF ok THEN Intr (16, Reg) {auf 80x25 zur?ckschalten} ELSE Halt (1); END. From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Dec 17 20:44:36 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:44:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <653a64ac0712171830t10a04e0bl23d901026a11c56c@mail.gmail.com> References: <200712172253.lBHMrLuv031334@hosting.monisys.ca> <653a64ac0712171830t10a04e0bl23d901026a11c56c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20071217183904.H81491@shell.lmi.net> > As far as I know there are no **STANDARD** PC text video modes that give > 132 columns. That's right. No **STANDARD** 132 column modes. My Wyse 700/Amdek 1280s would do 50 lines of 160 characters per line. I had a MDA board (Matrox? MBI? ??) that did 132 x 25, 43?, 50? The DOS box in XP can be set to 132 cols. From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Mon Dec 17 20:57:37 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim s) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:57:37 -0800 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <4765BDF6.10174.1785D74C@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712170719.lBH7JOY6062933@dewey.classiccmp.org> <4765BDF6.10174.1785D74C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47673721.6090000@msm.umr.edu> Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On the local Freecycle, I see VHS recorders hitting the landfill with > incredible regularity. Why not simply scavenge the heads from a few > of these? Certainly, the frequency response should be good enough. > > > > Cheers, > Chuck > I think you have an excellent suggestion. Also I'd be tempted to salvage the head itself and use it as a nice balanced "drum" to start the project with and coat it with various magnetic concoctions to try recording on before making the actual drum. You'd have to remount it, but it would be balanced for spinning at high speed anyway. I wonder if something as crude as a careful job of gluing (what adhesive) video tape on the head and spinning that would work for a start? Assuming that you had a single head and that a single spin of the head represents 1 video frame, you'd have about 200k bit pulses possible (don't know any exact amount, but am using something less that 512 x 512 for the density). Biggest problem would be with getting a head that actually spins as some units I've seen have only a spinning head, and also whether there is a way to glue the tape on the head and get it to adhere for testing. Then you'd have to figure out what to use for the actual drum even if it worked. Jim From classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk Mon Dec 17 22:36:14 2007 From: classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk (Ensor) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:36:14 -0000 Subject: Couple of "classic" printers available for pickup (UK) Message-ID: <00ca01c8412f$8653b400$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Second call.... Anyone interested in an HP "LaserJet+" for the cost of merely coming and picking it up from Birmingham? Also available, one IBM "ProPrinter XL24". Same deal. The HP works but the IBM is in unknown condition. These both need to be picked up by the end of January or they *WILL* get dumped....same goes for the rest of my computer collection (more "free for collection" postings to follow soon). Contact me off-list if interested. Thanks. TTFN - Pete. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Dec 18 00:40:43 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:40:43 -0800 Subject: Troubleshooting a TRS-80 disk drive In-Reply-To: <653a64ac0712171727h5b2160d3xf8cb9da806630849@mail.gmail.com> References: <653a64ac0712171727h5b2160d3xf8cb9da806630849@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:27:52 -0500 > From: chaosotter76 at gmail.com > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > CC: > Subject: Troubleshooting a TRS-80 disk drive > > I've just had one of the disk drives in my TRS-80 Model III start to go > south on me, and before I crack the case and get down to serious diagnostic > work, I thought I'd check with the list to see if the symptoms ring a bell > with anybody. > > I believe that the drive in question is a stock factory install; it's the > secondary drive in a fairly low serial-numbered Model III (in the 50,000s). > The first sign of trouble was that the drive began returning spurious "Disk > is Write-Protected" errors, which would go away upon reinserting the disk. > Now it's begun episodes of returning TRS-DOS Error 08 ("Drive Not Ready") > messages for all operations. The activity light functions normally, and the > drive hasn't made any alarming sounds. It does not spin up the disk when > it's in this state. After a while, it'll begin working again on its own. > > I realize there are any number of replacement drive solutions out there, but > this is a system where I'd really like to keep the original equipment up and > running until it just can't be patched together any longer. (I can't really > explain why I'm so fond of this thing; I just am.) > > Thanks in advance for any suggestions, or just things to look at first. > I've got a scope and logic analyzer I can use for diagnostics, but my > knowledge of disk systems beyond the tracks-and-sectors level is marginal. Hi I suspect this drive uses an optical write protect. If so, it is getting old and most likely dirty. First try cleaning the optical surfaces. If it is mechanical, make sure the switch hasn't shifted. What ever it is, it is right on the edge of failing. If it is optical and cleaning doesn't help, you might try increasing the current in the LED by about 15% or so. Find the series resistor and calculate what parallel resistor would increase the current by the 15% or so. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ From cclist at sydex.com Tue Dec 18 01:50:03 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:50:03 -0800 Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <200712180642.lBI6gffN076797@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712180642.lBI6gffN076797@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47670B2B.32621.1C9B6822@cclist.sydex.com> > From: Chris M > I realize that old doggies die hard, but who except > for the scientific/engineering crowd would want to > create new apps, and for what reason? I imagine there > could be some good reasons to port old (iron?) code to > peecees, but gcc can compile FORTRAN already (albeit > only F77). Dear me, where do I start? For me, FORTRAN is hugely efficient. It's one of the few languages where folks on the ANSI working group actually spend their careers writing automatic optimizers for the language and will raise a stink where a particular construct does not lend itself to efficient or safe optimization. Some of the optimizations performed by the top- end compilers are amazing to the point of one smacking one's forehead and saying, "Damn, that's clever!" At least at one time, it was true that FORTRAN was one of the most portable language, executing on the widest range of systems. I think one of the advertised attractions of the PDP 8/L that contributed to its success was that it could speak FORTRAN. Some of the earliest cross-assemblers that I ever saw were written in FORTRAN, that would pretty much run on any system that supported the language. This was back in the days when USASCII was a character set used on the minority of computer systems; not all were 2's complement (or even binary). Yet you could write a cross assembler (and probably a compiler) that would run on anything. I know of operating systems written in FORTRAN, as well as great hunks of several compilers. I even wrote my early data conversion routines on CP/M using FORTRAN for most of the code. FORTRAN used to have the only really reliable math routines. It's not a bad language to have under your belt. Does ACM CALGO still accept FORTRAN as a permissible source language? Cheers, Chuck From stanb at dial.pipex.com Tue Dec 18 02:32:54 2007 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 08:32:54 +0000 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:44:36 PST." <20071217183904.H81491@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200712180832.IAA31985@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Fred Cisin said: > > As far as I know there are no **STANDARD** PC text video modes that give > > 132 columns. > > That's right. > No **STANDARD** 132 column modes. > > My Wyse 700/Amdek 1280s would do 50 lines of 160 characters per line. > I had a MDA board (Matrox? MBI? ??) that did 132 x 25, 43?, 50? > The DOS box in XP can be set to 132 cols. Most of the vga cards I've used support at least one 132 column text mode. Certainly the S3 card in my Forth PC does, I run Forth in 132 columns. It uses mode 55(hex) for 132x43. An older DFI vga card in another box runs the following modes: Mode(Hex) Format Char size 53 132x25 8x14 54 132x30 8x16 55 132x43 8x11 56 132x60 8x8 57 132x25 9x14 58 132x30 9x16 59 132x43 9x11 5A 132x60 9x8 According to the manual. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From pete at dunnington.plus.com Tue Dec 18 03:31:42 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:31:42 +0000 Subject: CrayLink connections between Origin 2000s In-Reply-To: <4f08d175db0bc97e958210e869e5056d@neurotica.com> References: <4f08d175db0bc97e958210e869e5056d@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4767937E.1040204@dunnington.plus.com> On 18/12/2007 01:04, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Dec 17, 2007, at 3:18 PM, Richard wrote: >> It seems the essential difference between an Onyx2 deskside and the >> Origin 2000 deskside is the midplane and the board set. Can anyone >> confirm that? > > Hmm, the only difference I was aware of was the I/O > module...keyboard/mouse interface or not. That's not a reliable criterion, because some Origins also have the expanded Base I/O module with mouse, keyboard, audio and video (at least, some rackmount ones do). Richard is correct; the essential difference is that the midplanes and board sets are different. Looking from the back, an Origin deskside has space for 4 node boards at the left, then the Base I/O module and PCI box (if fitted) and then 12 XIO slots (for 12 half-height or 6 full-height boards) on the right. An Onyx can have only two node boards, then a graphics board set (3 or 4 boards depending on how much raster memory it has), then the Base I/O unit and PCI box, which are much further over than they are in an Origin, and 5 XIO slots (3 full-height or 5 half-height boards). This isn't true in a rackmount system, because a rackmount Onyx2 has a module with 4 node boards (same module as an Origin) in the bottom, and a different graphics module with no node boards, Base I/O, or PCI, but two sets of graphics with up to six raster memory cards in total, in the top. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From bnansel at bigpond.net.au Mon Dec 17 01:36:11 2007 From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au (Robert Nansel) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:06:11 +1030 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) Message-ID: <99319605-5202-4E20-8908-1B7081751727@bigpond.net.au> RIght. But it would be plenty big for registers, say. Those delay lines have 4.5MHz bandwidth (I think...), so they ought to be able to handle a short series of pulses; 16 bits should be easy, and 32 might work, too. An analog guru could probably squeeze more in 64us. -Bobby > > ... > >The delay line I was sgggesting for use as a computer memory > device is a > >glass block wioth untrasonic transducers on it. It's got a delay > period > >of almost one complete line-time, and is used to store one of the > >chromanace signals as part of the PAL decoding process. > > I don't know about PAL but one line for NTSC is only 63us and thats > not enough delay. > > Computers that used delay lines were in the milliseconds range as they > needed to store a lot of bits/digit/words. > > > Allison > From bnansel at bigpond.net.au Mon Dec 17 01:40:58 2007 From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au (Robert Nansel) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:10:58 +1030 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) Message-ID: <0924BFEF-C751-4C40-82A8-C1F055F4F79D@bigpond.net.au> With a sharp enough v-notch and very gradual abrasion from the outside, is should be possible to make the gap less than one thou. This is sort of the inverse of the way they made the point contacts for the first transistor at Bell Labs. -Bobby > >So, aside from the mumbles, does this sound like a workable plan? > > Ah no. the gaps have to be narrow less than .001". that hs been done > two peice ferrite heads (half beads) with oe side of the magnetic > circuit > filled with .001" thick brass shim stock. > > Or you could pull the heads from a number of old floppies. > > The 14" platter is a good source for media. > > > Allison > From root at parse.com Mon Dec 17 08:54:56 2007 From: root at parse.com (Robert Krten) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:54:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: PDP Collectors Group on LinkedIn Message-ID: <200712171454.lBHEsuTu028583@amd64.ott.parse.com> If you're a linkedin user, there's a PDP Minicomputer Collectors Group that I created last week. You're all invited to join. Details can be found at: www.parse.com/~museum/linkedin.html (While the PDP-10 isn't a "minicomputer", we'll let PDP-10 people join anyway :-)) Cheers, -RK -- Robert Krten, PARSE Software Devices, http://www.parse.com/resume.html Wanted: DEC minis: http://www.parse.com/~museum/admin/wanted.html From spedraja at gmail.com Mon Dec 17 11:33:11 2007 From: spedraja at gmail.com (Sergio Pedraja) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:33:11 +0100 Subject: Yet Another VT-100 Emulator In-Reply-To: <200712171438.lBHEcrG2079341@billy.ezwind.net> References: <200712161536.lBGFaGvn021214@hosting.monisys.ca> <200712171438.lBHEcrG2079341@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: I probed the 132 columns option with the Netterm Windows Emulator. I don't know if it is in production actually, but I use it yet to connect with all my remote telnet connections. Greetings Sergio 2007/12/17, Bob Bradlee : > > On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:30:12 -0500, Dave Dunfield wrote: > > >Not likely - as far as I know there are no standard PC text > >video modes that give 132 columns. > > Long ago I had a 132char driver for the Hercules/TTL mono video card. > I was based on the 720x348 mono graphics mode. > > > I also remember the several of the SuperEGA bios that supported the > extended MDA modes: > 46h Text 132x25 (8/9x14) > 47h Text 132x29 (8/9x12) > 48h Text 132x32 (8/9x11) > 49h Text 132x44 (8/9x8) > > > The other Bob > > > From c.heidelmeyer at excite.com Mon Dec 17 14:40:25 2007 From: c.heidelmeyer at excite.com (C Heidelmeyer) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:40:25 +0000 Subject: IBM 8-inch diskette Message-ID: <4766DEB9.6010601@excite.com> I have three old 8-inch diskettes with graphic files on them from an old MRI machine, probably a Siemens Magnetom 1 using a VAX computer. I would like to compare the old pictures with modern MRI or CT scans or X-rays taken of the same person. Would someone in the UK be able to read them and store the files on a modern diskette or CD? I can read 5 1/4, 3 1/2 or CD. Kind regards Carl Heidelmeyer Consultant Anaesthetist Portishead UK From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Dec 17 17:47:16 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:47:16 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator Message-ID: <200712172253.lBHMrLuv031334@hosting.monisys.ca> >>Not likely - as far as I know there are no standard PC text >>video modes that give 132 columns. > >Long ago I had a 132char driver for the Hercules/TTL mono video card. >I was based on the 720x348 mono graphics mode. > >I also remember the several of the SuperEGA bios that supported the >extended MDA modes: >46h Text 132x25 (8/9x14) >47h Text 132x29 (8/9x12) >48h Text 132x32 (8/9x11) >49h Text 132x44 (8/9x8) As far as I know there are no **STANDARD** PC text video modes that give 132 columns. Yes, at 720 dots, you can do a 5 point wide font for 132 columns on a Herc., but I don't have Hercules (or any MDA) cards in any of the system that I actually use on a regular basis (POLL: How many here are using Herc cards in systems they would want to use as a VT100) - I'm also not sure I could achieve all of the attributes (Can you blink graphics on a Herc? - I suppose you could do it in software, but the only MDA machines I have here are XT class which would make for "interesting effects" :-) I think I also mentioned that I wasn't quite ready to do a bitmapped version of the terminal yet. I agree that it would be nice to do eventually, as I could support double-width/height characters as well... Does anyone know if any of the more modern (ie: VGA) cards support enhanced 132 column text modes? - And is the video addressing basically the same except for 132 words of memory per line instead of 80? And where to find more information? If it could be reliably determined that support was there, and it is compatible with my text windowing code, it would not be difficult to add support for it. Dave Still unsubscribed - Oh Jay ... where are you? -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From dc.hunt at worldnet.att.net Mon Dec 17 17:36:47 2007 From: dc.hunt at worldnet.att.net (David Hunt) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:36:47 -0700 Subject: need info on old eprom programmer Message-ID: <000501c84105$b163aa80$dcb5480c@YOUR47375C5FC1> We have one that does not work as well as the original manuals. We cannot get ours to work as we do not have the breakout cards for troublreshooting thi unit.Contact us if we can possible help you. From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Mon Dec 17 17:52:59 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:52:59 -0500 Subject: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV sets) Message-ID: <0JT700JZ6WKABID2@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV sets) > From: "Rick Bensene" > Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:06:38 -0800 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >Tom Watson wrote: >> If you decide to make up a delay line to hold CPU data, try a >> prototype using shift registers. They are a bit easier to >> make up, and often the chips are available. The problem is >> that they come in weird (at times) sizes (132, 80, and the >> like). I'll leave it to the reader to determine the >> usability of odd sizes and their original use. >> Msot of those are later designs and tended to be for line printer, CRT and other displey and printing systems. Common sizes for that were line printer 132, CRT 80 and 72 (tty was 72!) and the true oddball lengths were the 1024, 224, 192 and 56. MOS shift registers of lengths greater than a few bits are very late 60s (after 67 or so). By early 70s parts 1024 long ere not uncommon. What makes them interesting is you can use them word or digit parallel and very deep by cascading them serially. For lesser registers older 4 and 8bit TTL devices in parallel can be very effecive in providing a digit wide by 8 digits deep register in a small space. This is truely getting into late 60s early 70s serial compurer design right on the cusp of the days of the last serial drums or disks for local store and the drums would then be for the larger program store. Allison >A lot of early MOS shift registers were developed specifically for use >in electronic calculators, as solid-state replacements for magnetic core >memory or magnetostrictive delay lines. Since most all electronic >calculators in the mid-'60's through the late 70's operated in BCD or >some alternate four (or sometimes five)-bit representation of decimal >digits, the shift registers were usually made with a number of stages >that was a multiple of four or five, with a few extra bits here and >there for timing and synchronization. That's why many of these devices >as an unusual number of stages. In some calculators from the late >'60's, as IC logic had pretty much replaced discrete transistor designs, >there were different versions of the same machine, earlier machines >which used a magnetostrictive delay line, and "updated" versions which >dispensed with the delay line, and replaced it with a number of MOS IC >shift register devices. Functionally, the machines were identical. As >far as the digital logic section of the machine went, also identical. >The only real changes were the removal of the read amplifier and write >driver for the delay line, and replacement with some simple >level-shifting and power supply circuitry to properly drive the shift >register chain. > >Rick Bensene >The Old Calculator Museum >http://oldcalculatormuseum.com From janprunk at gmail.com Tue Dec 18 01:07:13 2007 From: janprunk at gmail.com (Jan Prunk) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 08:07:13 +0100 Subject: Save Computer books from the years 1970-1990 Message-ID: Hello ! Save some old computer books, before they go for paper recycling. I still have most of the collection available. The books vary from the years 1970-1990 The collection contains books about: LISP, Data management, Artificial Intelligence, Automatic data processing, Computer programming etc. >From publishers like: McGraw Hill, M&T Books, Wiley Press, Microsoft They are all in English language and in good condition. You can get them for FREE, only pay for post delivery. The books are shipped from Slovenia, Europe. The link to the list is available at: http://yang.mtveurope.org/books.html If you are interested, contact me to my private email address. Kind regards, Jan Prunk -- Jan Prunk http://www.prunk.si GnuPG: 1024D/00E80E86 77C5 156E 29A4 EB6C 1C4A 5EBA 414A 29F5 00E8 0E86 From pete at dunnington.plus.com Tue Dec 18 03:38:49 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:38:49 +0000 Subject: CrayLink connections between Origin 2000s In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47679529.70000@dunnington.plus.com> On 17/12/2007 18:21, Richard wrote: > The manual I'm reading says that Origin 2000 machines can't be > connected by CrayLink cables, but this seems to contradict what I see > in the box (i.e. it has two router cards with CrayLink connections). > > What's the straight dope on that? Thinking about that when I was looking up the Onxy2 config, I wonder if the manual is referring specifically to a deskside. The normal front panel on a deskside covers the router board so you don't have access to the Craylink connectors. If you remove the panel and have the appropriate router board, it should work. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From jvdg at sparcpark.net Tue Dec 18 03:57:07 2007 From: jvdg at sparcpark.net (Joost van de Griek) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:57:07 +0100 Subject: CrayLink connections between Origin 2000s Message-ID: > Sounds like an ordinary (for SGI types of ordinary) Onyx2. That has the > framebuffer hardware in the upper module, and CPUs in the lower; one > framebuffer module per machine, but up to 7 (IIRC) CPU modules in > multi-rack configurations. Seven CPU modules is unpossible. The (hyper)cube topology nust be maintained, so you can only expand a machine by doubling the number of modules connected together. Powers of two. ,xtG tsooJ From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Tue Dec 18 04:03:34 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:03:34 +0000 Subject: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV sets) In-Reply-To: <0JT700JZ6WKABID2@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JT700JZ6WKABID2@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <20071218100334.GB27206@usap.gov> On Mon, Dec 17, 2007 at 06:52:59PM -0500, Allison wrote: > MOS shift registers of lengths greater than a few bits are very late > 60s (after 67 or so). By early 70s parts 1024 long ere not uncommon. I think I have a couple of old SAD1024 MOS shift registers from when I was collecting deeply discounted items from the local Radio Shack "Manager's Table" as a kid. I had thought one day to make the audio echo/delay circuit I think I saw in an old Forrest Mims circuit book, but a solid-state acoustic delay line emulator sounds like a much cooler place to put them. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 18-Dec-2007 at 09:50 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -13.4 F (-25.2 C) Windchill -28.7 F (-33.7 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 5.8 kts Grid 31 Barometer 685.6 mb (10418 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From Bob.Adamson at sli-institute.ac.uk Tue Dec 18 04:22:30 2007 From: Bob.Adamson at sli-institute.ac.uk (Bob Adamson) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:22:30 -0000 Subject: cctech Digest, Vol 52, Issue 29 In-Reply-To: <200712181002.lBIA1k48079424@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712181002.lBIA1k48079424@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <7D7A68F7F09DAE40AE47E55F7F601D8B8346AC@SLISERVER21.sli-institute.ac.uk> The first LSI tester I ever worked on (manufactured by, I think, LSI Testing Inc of Utah) used triple-66 bit MOS shift registers to store the digital stimuli and compare patterns (3x64-bit registers plus 2 bits used as control). Around 1970 or so at Hughes Microelectronics. Since we manufactured MOS ICs (PMOS at the time) and the shift registers became obsolete after a few years we designed our own as spares. The tester itself used a PDP-8/L as the controller and was soon after replaced by a bigger one which used a PDP8/I - my first contact with SEC PDP8 computers. regards Bob Adamson > From: "Rick Bensene" > > A lot of early MOS shift registers were developed specifically for use > in electronic calculators, as solid-state replacements for magnetic core > memory or magnetostrictive delay lines. Since most all electronic > calculators in the mid-'60's through the late 70's operated in BCD or > some alternate four (or sometimes five)-bit representation of decimal > digits, the shift registers were usually made with a number of stages > that was a multiple of four or five, with a few extra bits here and > there for timing and synchronization. That's why many of these devices > as an unusual number of stages. In some calculators from the late > '60's, as IC logic had pretty much replaced discrete transistor designs, > there were different versions of the same machine, earlier machines > which used a magnetostrictive delay line, and "updated" versions which > dispensed with the delay line, and replaced it with a number of MOS IC > shift register devices. Functionally, the machines were identical. As > far as the digital logic section of the machine went, also identical. > The only real changes were the removal of the read amplifier and write > driver for the delay line, and replacement with some simple > level-shifting and power supply circuitry to properly drive the shift > register chain. > > Rick Bensene > The Old Calculator Museum > http://oldcalculatormuseum.com > From legalize at xmission.com Tue Dec 18 07:37:17 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 06:37:17 -0700 Subject: CrayLink connections between Origin 2000s In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:04:10 +0000. <47670E7A.2020604@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: In article <47670E7A.2020604 at dunnington.plus.com>, Pete Turnbull writes: > Unless it's trying to say you can't link two separate machines (and > still have them be separate machines), the manual is wrong. I tried to find where I read this and I think I found what I was reading that made me think you couldn't link them but I simply misinterpreted the manual. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Tue Dec 18 07:37:56 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 06:37:56 -0700 Subject: CrayLink connections between Origin 2000s In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:04:20 -0500. <4f08d175db0bc97e958210e869e5056d@neurotica.com> Message-ID: In article <4f08d175db0bc97e958210e869e5056d at neurotica.com>, Dave McGuire writes: > On Dec 17, 2007, at 3:18 PM, Richard wrote: > > It seems the essential difference between an Onyx2 deskside and the > > Origin 2000 deskside is the midplane and the board set. Can anyone > > confirm that? > > Hmm, the only difference I was aware of was the I/O > module...keyboard/mouse interface or not. The diagrams of the midplane are definately different in the manual. (For real this time :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From pete at dunnington.plus.com Tue Dec 18 08:55:04 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:55:04 +0000 Subject: CrayLink connections between Origin 2000s In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4767DF48.70601@dunnington.plus.com> On 18/12/2007 09:57, Joost van de Griek wrote: >> Sounds like an ordinary (for SGI types of ordinary) Onyx2. That has the >> framebuffer hardware in the upper module, and CPUs in the lower; one >> framebuffer module per machine, but up to 7 (IIRC) CPU modules in >> multi-rack configurations. > > Seven CPU modules is unpossible. The (hyper)cube topology nust be maintained, so you can only expand a machine by doubling the number of modules connected together. Powers of two. I know we've run odd numbers under fault conditions. Sure, the interconnections are sub-optimal, but I don't believe it has to be powers of two. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From legalize at xmission.com Tue Dec 18 09:39:21 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 08:39:21 -0700 Subject: CrayLink connections between Origin 2000s In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:55:04 +0000. <4767DF48.70601@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: In article <4767DF48.70601 at dunnington.plus.com>, Pete Turnbull writes: > I know we've run odd numbers under fault conditions. Sure, the > interconnections are sub-optimal, but I don't believe it has to be > powers of two. I believe this is correct. I haven't read anything so far that indicates you *must* have powers of two. For instance, you can quite readily connect two modules within a rack that don't have powers of two CPUs (i.e. 3 node boards in one module, 1-4 node boards in another module, for 6+(2/4/6/8) CPUs total. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Dec 18 10:18:57 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:18:57 -0500 Subject: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV sets) In-Reply-To: <20071218100334.GB27206@usap.gov> References: <0JT700JZ6WKABID2@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> <20071218100334.GB27206@usap.gov> Message-ID: On Dec 18, 2007, at 5:03 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> MOS shift registers of lengths greater than a few bits are very late >> 60s (after 67 or so). By early 70s parts 1024 long ere not uncommon. > > I think I have a couple of old SAD1024 MOS shift registers from when I > was collecting deeply discounted items from the local Radio Shack > "Manager's Table" as a kid. > > I had thought one day to make the audio echo/delay circuit I think I > saw in an old Forrest Mims circuit book, but a solid-state acoustic > delay line emulator sounds like a much cooler place to put them. I remember that project, in the "Engineer's Notebook" book. I wanted to build it too, but I never quite managed to amass all the parts. (back then, of course) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Tue Dec 18 10:20:06 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 08:20:06 -0800 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 52, Issue 36 In-Reply-To: <200712180642.lBI6gffS076797@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712180642.lBI6gffS076797@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <6aa35e6c7bd0fe505e0d51ce57586129@valleyimplants.com> On Dec 17, 2007, at 10:42 PM, Dave wrote: > > Hmm, the only difference I was aware of was the I/O > module...keyboard/mouse interface or not. > > -Dave For Onyx2 Deskside, the midplane is indeed different (has an XIO connection to the graphics side, and a graphics side). Onyx2 rack uses standard Origin2000 compute modules with the Xtown external XIO interface linking the compute modules to the graphics module(s), which in the case of a rack support 2 pipelines. Deskside Onyx2 also comes with only null routers, so 4 procs is the max. Some people have tried putting in full routers, but I don't recall having heard any success. I don't think O2000 has this issue (except for one model of IP31 (one of the 250MHz boards, I think) that has a hard limit in the PROM about how many other nodes it will work with before becoming sulky. Marketing department at work. From nico at farumdata.dk Tue Dec 18 10:38:32 2007 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 17:38:32 +0100 Subject: IBM 8-inch diskette References: <4766DEB9.6010601@excite.com> Message-ID: <006001c84194$6f1065d0$59ff873e@NOTEBOOK> > From: "C Heidelmeyer" <> > I have three old 8-inch diskettes with graphic files on them from an old > MRI machine, probably a Siemens Magnetom 1 using a VAX computer. I would > like to compare the old pictures with modern MRI or CT scans or X-rays > taken of the same person. I've done a similar investigation for a hospital in Canada. It showed, that I had no problems reading the diskette physically, but the content of the pictures were compressed, using some algorithm Siemens didnt want to part with, so it never came to be a real job Nico From lbickley at bickleywest.com Tue Dec 18 11:57:46 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:57:46 -0800 Subject: green-bar paper In-Reply-To: <4767122D.7040602@shiresoft.com> References: <4767093E.2040002@att.net> <4767122D.7040602@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <200712180957.56732.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Monday 17 December 2007 16:19, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > Steve Shumaker wrote: > > Wasn't someone on the list looking for wide format green-bar > > paper a while back? > > I've found green bar of various formats readily available at > Office Depot. I've found the same - including the hard-to-find Standard Perforation, 1-Part, 18 Lb., 12" x 8 1/2" continuous forms (The more available 8 1/2" x 12" continuous forms are easy to find at many office supply stores). Office Depot also has "free" delivery. Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Dec 18 12:11:34 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:11:34 -0800 Subject: green-bar paper In-Reply-To: <200712180957.56732.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <4767093E.2040002@att.net> <4767122D.7040602@shiresoft.com> <200712180957.56732.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: At 9:57 AM -0800 12/18/07, Lyle Bickley wrote: >On Monday 17 December 2007 16:19, Guy Sotomayor wrote: >> Steve Shumaker wrote: >> > Wasn't someone on the list looking for wide format green-bar >> > paper a while back? >> >> I've found green bar of various formats readily available at >> Office Depot. > >I've found the same - including the hard-to-find Standard >Perforation, 1-Part, 18 Lb., 12" x 8 1/2" continuous forms (The more >available 8 1/2" x 12" continuous forms are easy to find at many >office supply stores). Office Depot also has "free" delivery. So you're ordering this online rather than going into the stores and picking it up? Probably explains why I couldn't find 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 cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Dec 18 12:26:16 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:26:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <47670B2B.32621.1C9B6822@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712180642.lBI6gffN076797@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47670B2B.32621.1C9B6822@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20071218101838.O14560@shell.lmi.net> A REAL programmer can write a FORTRAN program in any language. On Mon, 17 Dec 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote: > At least at one time, it was true that FORTRAN was one of the most > portable language, executing on the widest range of systems. I think "more transportable than Syphilis" The definition of FORTRAN from the "Devil's DP Dictionary", by Stan Kelly-Bootle: "FORTRAN n. [Acronym for FORmula TRANslating system.] One of the earliest languages of any real height, level-wise, developed out of Speedcoding by Backus and Ziller for the IBM/704 in the mid 1950s in order to boost the sale of 80-column cards to engineers. In spite of regular improvements(including a recent option called 'STRUCTURE'), it remains popular among engineers but despised elsewhere. Many rivals, with the benefit of hindsight, have crossed swords with the old workhorse ! Yet FORTRAN gallops on, warts and all, more transportable than syphilis, fired by a bottomless pit of working subprograms. Lacking the compact power of APL, the intellectually satisfying elegance of ALGOL 68, the didactic incision of Pascal, and the spurned universality of PL/I, FORTRAN survives, nay, FLOURISHES, thanks to a superior investmental inertia." http://sysprog.net/quotcob.html If it weren't for FORTRAN, I wouldn't have ended up here. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Dec 18 12:43:12 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:43:12 -0500 Subject: CrayLink connections between Origin 2000s In-Reply-To: <4767DF48.70601@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4767DF48.70601@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <476814C0.9090508@gmail.com> Pete Turnbull wrote: > On 18/12/2007 09:57, Joost van de Griek wrote: >>> Sounds like an ordinary (for SGI types of ordinary) Onyx2. That has >>> the framebuffer hardware in the upper module, and CPUs in the lower; >>> one framebuffer module per machine, but up to 7 (IIRC) CPU modules in >>> multi-rack configurations. >> >> Seven CPU modules is unpossible. The (hyper)cube topology nust be >> maintained, so you can only expand a machine by doubling the number of >> modules connected together. Powers of two. > > I know we've run odd numbers under fault conditions. Sure, the > interconnections are sub-optimal, but I don't believe it has to be > powers of two. Anyway, there's nothing stopping someone from building a 7-item hypercube in a tightly curved space. 8-) Peace... Sridhar From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Dec 18 12:50:39 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:50:39 -0500 Subject: green-bar paper In-Reply-To: References: <4767093E.2040002@att.net> <200712180957.56732.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <200712181350.39811.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 18 December 2007, Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 9:57 AM -0800 12/18/07, Lyle Bickley wrote: > >On Monday 17 December 2007 16:19, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > >> Steve Shumaker wrote: > >> > Wasn't someone on the list looking for wide format green-bar > >> > paper a while back? > >> > >> I've found green bar of various formats readily available at > >> Office Depot. > > > >I've found the same - including the hard-to-find Standard > >Perforation, 1-Part, 18 Lb., 12" x 8 1/2" continuous forms (The more > >available 8 1/2" x 12" continuous forms are easy to find at many > >office supply stores). Office Depot also has "free" delivery. > > So you're ordering this online rather than going into the stores and > picking it up? Probably explains why I couldn't find it. :^) I at least bought mine (from OfficeMax) in-store. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From arcarlini at iee.org Tue Dec 18 12:51:28 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:51:28 -0000 Subject: PDP Collectors Group on LinkedIn In-Reply-To: <200712171454.lBHEsuTu028583@amd64.ott.parse.com> Message-ID: <001101c841a6$ffa8faa0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Robert Krten wrote: > If you're a linkedin user, there's a PDP Minicomputer Collectors Group > that I created last week. You're all invited to join. > > Details can be found at: > > www.parse.com/~museum/linkedin.html I see two passing mentions of classiccmp on linkedin.com. Is it worth starting a classiccmp group there too? Or is it better to keep a low profile: the flood of job offers fixing C=64 machines might just be too much :-) Antonio No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.4/1188 - Release Date: 17/12/2007 14:13 From cclist at sydex.com Tue Dec 18 12:59:08 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:59:08 -0800 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <200712181802.lBII2Fld083374@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712181802.lBII2Fld083374@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4767A7FC.21406.1EFFF84A@cclist.sydex.com> > From: "Dave Dunfield" > As far as I know there are no **STANDARD** PC text video modes that give > 132 columns. What was *standard* for the time of these cards? Herc graphics certainly weren't "standard" when they came out. I've not checked, but I have a couple of Everex MicroEnhancer EGA boards with a boatload of additional modes--and one of those might well be a 132- character one. (If anyone is really curious, I can check). > Yes, at 720 dots, you can do a 5 point wide font for 132 columns on a > Herc., but I don't have Hercules (or any MDA) cards in any of the system > that I actually use on a regular basis (POLL: How many here are using Herc > cards in systems they would want to use as a VT100) - I'm also not sure I > could achieve all of the attributes (Can you blink graphics on a Herc? - I > suppose you could do it in software, but the only MDA machines I have here > are XT class which would make for "interesting effects" :-) I think I also > mentioned that I wasn't quite ready to do a bitmapped version of the > terminal yet. I agree that it would be nice to do eventually, as I could > support double-width/height characters as well... Ever worked with a Hercules Graphics Plus? It can blink, as well as support 12-bit character width and software fonts--all in text mode. There was a also mode setting to use 8-dot wide, rather than 9-dot wide characters. Double-width was certainly possible in test mode. Perhaps a scheme to use the extended character set to display 132 characters could be worked out, but I hated the 132 character display on most terminals, even the 14-inch ones as being too grainy and hard to read for my weak eyes. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Dec 18 13:02:30 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:02:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: green-bar paper In-Reply-To: <200712181350.39811.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <4767093E.2040002@att.net> <200712180957.56732.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <200712181350.39811.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <20071218105851.K14560@shell.lmi.net> At the college where I teach, the purchasing people bought large quantities of blue bar paper full width, but 8.5" instead of 11" high. Apparently, they were thinking in terms of "legal" size paper. Recently, "in the dead of night", they dumpstered hundreds of boxes of it. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Dec 18 13:14:50 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:14:50 -0800 Subject: green-bar paper In-Reply-To: <20071218105851.K14560@shell.lmi.net> References: <4767093E.2040002@att.net> <200712180957.56732.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <200712181350.39811.pat@computer-refuge.org> <20071218105851.K14560@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: At 11:02 AM -0800 12/18/07, Fred Cisin wrote: >At the college where I teach, the purchasing people bought large >quantities of blue bar paper full width, but 8.5" instead of 11" high. >Apparently, they were thinking in terms of "legal" size paper. > >Recently, "in the dead of night", they dumpstered hundreds of boxes of it. they could have most likely donated it to some preschool or something. 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 dm561 at torfree.net Tue Dec 18 13:28:02 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:28:02 -0500 Subject: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV sets) Message-ID: <01C84182.4D9196C0@MSE_D03> Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:03:34 +0000 From: Ethan Dicks Subject: Re: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV sets) On Mon, Dec 17, 2007 at 06:52:59PM -0500, Allison wrote: >> MOS shift registers of lengths greater than a few bits are very late >> 60s (after 67 or so). By early 70s parts 1024 long ere not uncommon. >I think I have a couple of old SAD1024 MOS shift registers from when I >was collecting deeply discounted items from the local Radio Shack >"Manager's Table" as a kid. >I had thought one day to make the audio echo/delay circuit I think I >saw in an old Forrest Mims circuit book, but a solid-state acoustic >delay line emulator sounds like a much cooler place to put them. >-ethan ___________ Sounds like our shopping habits were the same in those golden days at the 'shack ;-); I've still got a couple waiting for me to get a round tuit (the data sheet also has the bucket brigade audio delay schematic). As a digital delay line I guess you could even use it word-wise since it's analog; you'd need some pretty fast DAC/ADCs though. mike From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Dec 18 15:11:33 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:11:33 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <47673721.6090000@msm.umr.edu> from "jim s" at Dec 17, 7 06:57:37 pm Message-ID: [VCR pats -- ion particular the head drum] > I think you have an excellent suggestion. Also I'd be tempted to > salvage the head itself and use it as a nice balanced "drum" to start > the project with and coat it with various magnetic concoctions to try > recording on before making the actual drum. You'd have to remount it, > but it would be balanced for spinning at high speed anyway. RWjhy remount it? Why not take the lower drum as well? You have a nicely made shaft and bearings, and if you're lucky a direct-drive motor to turn it. > > I wonder if something as crude as a careful job of gluing (what > adhesive) video tape on the head and spinning that would work for a start? I am sure I've seen an experiment 'proof of idea' drum store, probably in the London science museum, that seemed to consist of audio 1/4" tape wrapped round a metal cylinder. A couple of things. I susepct if you do that and have contact between the heads and tape, the lifetime will be very short. Most VCRs would shut down after a short time in 'pasue' mode for exaclty this reason -- with the tape stopped, the heads are continually running over the same bit of tape as the had drum spins and will waer it out. 'Very short' means minutes, I expect, here, in other words it'll work long enough for you to see it working, but not for you to use it in a computer Seocndly, if you fiddle with the video heads themselves, be warned they are delicate. They are brittle ferrite cors, the windings are thin and brought out to little BCPs stuck in postiion. If you break the wires you'll not be able to fix them.If the PCB comes uncluged, it'll break the wires. And if the head tip bangs into anything it will shatter. That is the bitter voice of experience from the time I rebuilt the head assembly in a portable rell-to-reel VTR (sorry it's off-topic, so I'll stop there). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Dec 18 15:03:29 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:03:29 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Troubleshooting a TRS-80 disk drive In-Reply-To: <653a64ac0712171727h5b2160d3xf8cb9da806630849@mail.gmail.com> from "Mark Meiss" at Dec 17, 7 08:27:52 pm Message-ID: > > I've just had one of the disk drives in my TRS-80 Model III start to go > south on me, and before I crack the case and get down to serious diagnostic > work, I thought I'd check with the list to see if the symptoms ring a bell > with anybody. Firstly a couple of general comments : 1) A lot of TRS-80 M3/M4 disk problems are due to the tapewire between the CPU board and the disk controller board.. This is _very_ unlikely to be your problem (it will affect both drives, it often makes the machine not recognise it has a disk controller at all), but it's something to be aware of. 2) I don;t know if you've been inside your M3 before, but if you haven't, you should know that the monitor seciton -- CRT and video board -- is fixed to the cocer, the rest of the machine is fixed to the baseplate. Take out the screws on the bottom and the one on the back, put the machine in the normal operating position and lift the cover straight up (I find a hand flat on each side is the beast way to start gripping it), turn in 1/4 of a turn counterclockwise, and put it down to the left of the base. If you want to separate the 2 parts, there's an edge connector on the video board that carries all the wires from the base section, and a ground wire with a faston connector. Be very careful when removing or fitting the op case not to knock the neck of the CRT. It's all too easy to break this and then you're looking (of course) for a replacement. > I believe that the drive in question is a stock factory install; it's the > secondary drive in a fairly low serial-numbered Model III (in the 50,000s). > The first sign of trouble was that the drive began returning spurious "Disk > is Write-Protected" errors, which would go away upon reinserting the disk. > Now it's begun episodes of returning TRS-DOS Error 08 ("Drive Not Ready") > messages for all operations. The activity light functions normally, and the > drive hasn't made any alarming sounds. It does not spin up the disk when > it's in this state. After a while, it'll begin working again on its own. > > I realize there are any number of replacement drive solutions out there, but > this is a system where I'd really like to keep the original equipment up and > running until it just can't be patched together any longer. (I can't really > explain why I'm so fond of this thing; I just am.) If it is an original drive, it's a single-sided 40 cylinder Tandon TM100 thing (maybe 'Texas Peripehrals', but as far as I can see, that and the Tandon are identical). There should eb documentaion on the web -- the M3 technical manuial has scvhematics and alignment data in it. A disk drive consists of a number of subsystems : 1) The spindle motor, mechanical drive to the disk spindle, and speed control circuit (in some Tandon drives -- in fact most early ones -- this speed control circuit is a separate PCB mounted o nthe rear of the drive chassis). Therte's an input signal from the controller to start the spindle motor 2) The head postiioner stepper motor, head positioner mechanism, and the stepper motor driver circuit. This is controller by 2 signals from the controller, one moves the head by one cylinder each time it's pulsed, the other one determines which way the head moves. The _controller_ keeps a record of which cylinder the head is on, and works out how many pulses to send to move the head to th wanted cylinder. 3) The track 0 sensor which tells the controller when the head is at the outpuermost cylinder, and also (normally) prevents the head from being stepped out further. It consists of a microswitch or optical sensor operated by the head carriage, the output of this is often gated with the stepper motor drive signals to reduce the mechancial accuracy required in the sensor.. Most Tandons use the microswitch! 4) THe index sensor, which is a light barrier shone through the hole in the disk to detect when that hole comes round. It provides an index pulse signal to the cotnroller, and may also be used to determine when the drive is ready (if the index pulses are occuring at the right rate, the drtive is up to speed and has a disk in it) 5) the write protect which detects the presence of the notch in the edge of the disk jacket. It may be an optical sensor or a microswitch, again the old Tandons use a microswitch. It provides a signal back to the controller and also disables thw write electronics (a write-protected disk cannont be written to, no matter what the controller may try!). 6) The write circuit, enabled by the write gate signal from the controller, provided the disk is not write protected. Theis takes the write data line from the controller and drives the read/write head so as to write a flux transition on the disk fro every pulse on thw write data line 7) The read circuit, which takes the signal from the head if the drive is not writing, and oputputs a pulse to the controller for every flux transition on the disk 8) The ehad swtich cirucit, used to select between the 2 heads ian double-sided drive. A signle-sided drive won't have this. Now, you have a problem with the spindle motor, since you say the disk is not spinning. In some dirves, but not AFAIK, this Tandon unit, the motor will only start if there's a disk in, etc. But in the Tandon, it should run whenever the controller tells it to. So that's a definite problem. Get tyhe drive out -- from what I rememebr you have to remove the top drive wrist, and to get tho the mounint screws for the lower drive, you have to remove the PSU on the side of the drive tower. Refit the PSU and top drive (screw the PSU in place, if it shorts out to something, the results are expensive as there's live mains on that PCB!), and find some way of cabling up the drive externally. Trun on the machine and check the supply voltages _at the drive_. A missing power line will casue all sorts of 'interesting' problems. Then do something that should get the second drive started. If you have one of the drives with a separate motor control PCB, look as the motor-on line on the cable to that board. If that line is asseted, there's a problem on the spidndle motor cotnrolelr, if not, then you need to check back through the enable logic on the main drive logic board. Either way, I can help you sort it out. -tony From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Dec 18 16:55:13 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 19:55:13 -0300 Subject: need info on old eprom programmer References: <000501c84105$b163aa80$dcb5480c@YOUR47375C5FC1> Message-ID: <008001c841c9$10a35270$f0fea8c0@alpha> It would help a lot if you tell us what model/manufacturer your old eprom programmer is :o) ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Hunt" To: Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 8:36 PM Subject: need info on old eprom programmer We have one that does not work as well as the original manuals. We cannot get ours to work as we do not have the breakout cards for troublreshooting thi unit.Contact us if we can possible help you. -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.4/1188 - Release Date: 17/12/2007 14:13 From chaosotter76 at gmail.com Tue Dec 18 16:08:03 2007 From: chaosotter76 at gmail.com (Mark Meiss) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 17:08:03 -0500 Subject: Troubleshooting a TRS-80 disk drive In-Reply-To: References: <653a64ac0712171727h5b2160d3xf8cb9da806630849@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <653a64ac0712181408v153472c4ue20a7bd6de7c35d5@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 18, 2007 4:03 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > > (A great deal of helpful advice.) Great thanks to both you and Dwight for the technical details and suggestions -- this is great information to be armed with before I set about opening the unit and getting down to tinkering. It'll be a learning experience for sure, but that, far more than nostalgia, is the reason I've got all the old systems to begin with. I'll be cracking the case as soon as I return from my holiday travels. Between this and the Radio Shack Tech Reference, I think I'll be much better prepared to fix without breaking. (By the way, the write-protect mechanism in this particular drive does use a microswitch rather than an optical sensor.) Thanks again! From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Dec 18 17:07:33 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:07:33 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <20071214115137.R5209@shell.lmi.net> References: <200712141543.lBEFhE5R026565@dewey.classiccmp.org> <200712141411.12069.rtellason@verizon.net> <20071214115137.R5209@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200712181807.33708.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 14 December 2007 14:53, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > This whole idea strikes me as just plain crazy... > > But! For some reason the above reminded me of something that I was > > considering early on, probably early 1970s or so. Instead of a drum > > just use a loop of tape. You can start with an old reel-to-reel deck, > > ignoring > > Howzbout an 8-track? > > Unfortunately, the kids today don't even remember them, so wouldn't fully > appreciate the absurdity. Those at least have the metal "index" thingy in 'em already... But all it took for me was to see one diagram of how they worked -- by pulling the tape out of the middle of the roll, near the hub -- to give up on any idea of using them. I read someplace that those were made with some kind of lube on the tape and that once it was gone that was it... My initial idea didn't use reels, and wasn't particularly concerned with being able to change tapes, I just wanted some nontrivial amount of storage to be available to me, and came up with (assuredly totally unrealistic) numbers for not all that many feet of tape. Maybe as much as *gasp!* a half a million bytes or so! :-) -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Dec 18 17:12:37 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:12:37 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200712181812.37441.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 14 December 2007 20:10, Tony Duell wrote: > > What about acoustic delay line memory? > > It is at least as "classic" as a drum but would be much easier to build. > > AFAIK the CSIRAC was a bit-serial, delay memory machine. > > I wonder if you could use those glass delay lines that were used in PAL > colour TV receiver until fairly recently (and there must be plenty still > around)? Alas they have a somewhat odd delay time (a little less than > 64us -- one line period of the European TV signal), but I am sure you > could fiddle the master clock to compensate. There were some similar > dalay lines of exaclty 64us delay, used to store a picture line in the > drop-out compensator circuit of early VCRs, but those are going to be a > lot harder to find. Having scrapped a whole lot of VCRs, including at least one that I know of that was designed to operate on European standards, I probably have some of those parts around, if anybody has a use for them... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Dec 18 17:17:33 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 15:17:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <47670B2B.32621.1C9B6822@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <555207.27406.qm@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> --- Chuck Guzis wrote: > > From: Chris M > > > I realize that old doggies die hard, but who > except > > for the scientific/engineering crowd would want to > > create new apps, and for what reason? I imagine > there > > could be some good reasons to port old (iron?) > code to > > peecees, but gcc can compile FORTRAN already > (albeit > > only F77). > > Dear me, where do I start? Oi next time start by actually answering my question! OI! > For me, FORTRAN is hugely efficient. It's one of > the few languages > where folks on the ANSI working group actually spend > their careers > writing automatic optimizers for the language and > will raise a stink > where a particular construct does not lend itself to > efficient or > safe optimization. I get the basic jist of what you're saying I guess. Can you a counter example for clarity? > Some of the optimizations > performed by the top- > end compilers are amazing to the point of one > smacking one's forehead > and saying, "Damn, that's clever!" This is going to sound like a stupid question, but given it's typical applications - scientific and engineering - why the need for such speed? Another stupid question. Would a modernish pc port lend itself well to writing some kind of modernish game? Who else besides the world's worst nerds use it? And along those lines was COBOL used for anything other then business apps? > I know of operating systems written in FORTRAN, as > well as great > hunks of several compilers. A penny for those thoughts... > I even wrote my early > data conversion > routines on CP/M using FORTRAN for most of the code. Relate to disk archiving? Ok dumb question. > FORTRAN used to have the only really reliable math > routines. Oh you don't say. What other languages have reliable, presumably floating-point capability today? What's gcc like? Are there cheap Windoze implements? ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Dec 18 17:27:14 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 15:27:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <20071218101838.O14560@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <364203.72365.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Cisin wrote: > A REAL programmer can write a FORTRAN program in any > language. O man don't tell me that means a *real* pwogwammer knows how to use the key. Or spends half his coding time running the spacebar. > "more transportable than Syphilis" ewww. Nietschze is dead LOL LOL LOL > In spite of regular improvements(including a > recent option called > 'STRUCTURE'), it remains popular among engineers > but despised elsewhere. Unlikely the F variant (OO) is popular amongst engineers. But what do I know. > FORTRAN survives, > nay, FLOURISHES, thanks > to a superior investmental inertia." No, I think some people are just too lazy to learn a new language LOL LOL. Actually if all the FORTRAN code, libraries and all, were transformed into say C or even C++ overnight, would the world be a better place? The Intel Compiler I think plugs right into Visual C++ GUI. For what all that mess is worth. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Tue Dec 18 17:32:59 2007 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:32:59 +0000 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <200712181807.33708.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200712141543.lBEFhE5R026565@dewey.classiccmp.org> <200712141411.12069.rtellason@verizon.net> <20071214115137.R5209@shell.lmi.net> <200712181807.33708.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <1198020779.5876.2.camel@elric> On Tue, 2007-12-18 at 18:07 -0500, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > My initial idea didn't use reels, and wasn't particularly concerned with > being able to change tapes, I just wanted some nontrivial amount of storage > to be available to me, and came up with (assuredly totally unrealistic) > numbers for not all that many feet of tape. Maybe as much as *gasp!* a half > a million bytes or so! :-) Did any company ever actually produce a storage product that used 8-track carts (or indeed broadcast carts)? Did it work? Gordon From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Dec 18 17:57:36 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:57:36 -0500 Subject: digital camera capabilities / was Re: 1000+ old computer in In-Reply-To: <002001c8405e$1cec2280$f0fea8c0@alpha> References: <1197818967.8155.48.camel@localhost.localdomain> <002001c8405e$1cec2280$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <200712181857.36703.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 16 December 2007 22:36, Alexandre Souza wrote: > > False; a multitude of DSLRs (and indeed, compact cameras) now exist that > > will directly interface to a (certainly considered "irrepairable" by > > you) printer. No PC necessary. And, given that you have anything that > > can read from a CF card (which is trivially adaptable to an IDE bus), > > you can read that, as well. > > And of course, with the cheap price of memory cards, you can use it as > a "write once" card. It is even being created right now, people discovered > that is nicer to have a "write once" card than download lots of photos to > the computer. (Snip) Speaking of which this brings to mind another old project idea I had that never went anywhere. That was using a 3" scope tube to "write" to film, and then after developing, to read it back again. I vaguely recall "flying spot scanner" being somewhat related to this, I think there was some equipment out there that'd actually take a 35mm slide. Though I'd envisioned a roll of film, driven by a stepper motor. The mechanical complexity of it really put me off from ever developing the idea, though I do have the scope tube. :-) Also the idea of having to try and get the film developed, figure out what sort of film and focus / intensity settings would give the best results, etc. My own idea of "optical storage". :-) Seems to me that moving an electron beam has gotta be seriously faster than spinning the media, which is what everybody else seemt to be into doing. I wonder what I'm missing here? -- 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 spc at conman.org Tue Dec 18 18:15:05 2007 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 19:15:05 -0500 Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <555207.27406.qm@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> References: <47670B2B.32621.1C9B6822@cclist.sydex.com> <555207.27406.qm@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20071219001505.GQ30562@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great Chris M once stated: > > > Some of the optimizations > > performed by the top- > > end compilers are amazing to the point of one > > smacking one's forehead > > and saying, "Damn, that's clever!" > > This is going to sound like a stupid question, but > given it's typical applications - scientific and > engineering - why the need for such speed? Mathematical simulations. Back in college, I wrote a program (in C, didn't really have a Fortran compiler for the platform) that did a horrendous number of calculations (looking for attractors---please don't ask for more of an explanation as I didn't even really understand what my employer was looking for, but I could write the program to his specifications) that took a year to run. Even a 10% improvement in speed would have nocked a month off the run time [1]. > Another > stupid question. Would a modernish pc port lend itself > well to writing some kind of modernish game? Probably not. Games typically simplify the physics, and use a lot of tricks to get "acceptable" looking results, not "accurate" results. There's a difference there. -spc (Who's old enough to have taken Fortran in college ... ) [1] Last year, I did some tests, and was sad (and amazed) to see that the same problem I did over a decade previously would have taken maybe a week on a modern quad-core machine. Then again, had I such equipment available to me back then, the work off the backend would have possibly taken a year [2]. [2] The program generated images that needed to be run together into an animation and transferred to VCS tape. The editing of the results alone took several days of constant work. From spc at conman.org Tue Dec 18 18:34:04 2007 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 19:34:04 -0500 Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <364203.72365.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20071218101838.O14560@shell.lmi.net> <364203.72365.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20071219003404.GR30562@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great Chris M once stated: > > > FORTRAN survives, > > nay, FLOURISHES, thanks > > to a superior investmental inertia." > > No, I think some people are just too lazy to learn a > new language LOL LOL. Actually if all the FORTRAN > code, libraries and all, were transformed into say C > or even C++ overnight, would the world be a better > place? Nope. There are certain optimizations you can do in Fortran that you can't do in C because of the language semantics. Given the hypothetical code: int y; int foo(int *px) { int a; int b; int c; a = y; *px = a * 2; c = y; ... } The compiler is hampered with this code. It would be much faster if the compiler could do: move.w (y),d0 move.w d0,a(sp) move.w d0,c(sp) add.w d0,d0 move.w d0,[px(sp)] (and if my syntax is a bit off, please forgive me, I don't have my 68k references handy right now) But the C compiler can't do that because it can't know if px points to y. So it has to be rather conservative in code generation: move.w (y),d0 move.w d0,a(sp) add.w d0,d0 move.w do,[px(sp)] move.w (y),d0 move.w d0,c(sp) Not much difference, but when you're writing code that takes a year to run, it does add up. Fortran also supports complex numbers. It may even support vector operations like (borrowing a C like-syntax): double A[MAXSIZE]; double B[MAXSIZE]; double C[MAXSIZE]; C = A + B; which does the equivilent of: for (i = 0 ; i < MAXSIZE ; i++) C[i] = A[i] + B[i]; or for (pa = A , pb = B , pc = C , i = 0 ; i < MAXSIZE ; i++) *pc++ = *pa++ + *pb++; or whatever is faster for the CPU architecture. I do know that the newer C standard (C99) has attempted to address some of these issues, but not all of them. -spc (Now? Where is my Numerical Recipies book again?) From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Tue Dec 18 18:51:35 2007 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere at gmail.com) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:51:35 +0000 Subject: Listing paper FTGH (Yorks, UK) Message-ID: Hi list, I have 7 2000-sheet boxes of tractor-feed plain 11x14.5" listing paper which I'd like to give away as I need the space back. Located in West Yorkshire, UK. Sorry, it isn't greenbar ;) There are also 3 boxes of A4-ish size (11x9.5" I think they are). Free, but you'll have to collect. I'd ship if you're desperate, but it won't be cheap as they're heavy. Please drop me a mail if you're interested - thanks. Ed. From lee at geekdot.com Tue Dec 18 19:01:39 2007 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 02:01:39 +0100 (CET) Subject: Read and write film - was digital camera capabilities Message-ID: <4166.84.68.40.52.1198026099.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> > That was using a 3" scope tube to "write" to film, and then after > developing, to read it back again. I vaguely recall "flying spot > scanner" being somewhat related to this, I think there was some > equipment out there that'd actually take a 35mm slide. Though I'd > envisioned a roll of film, driven by a stepper motor. It sounds like you were trying to reinvent the telecine machine. Monochrome versions can indeed both read and write film using the same mechanism and it tends to be claw drive rather than a stepper motor. Lee. From classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk Tue Dec 18 19:37:08 2007 From: classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk (Ensor) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:37:08 -0000 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator References: Message-ID: <005801c841df$ac8c08b0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Hi, >>> Not likely - as far as I know there are no standard PC text >>>video modes that give 132 columns. >> >> Long ago I had a 132char driver for the Hercules/TTL mono video >>card. I was based on the 720x348 mono graphics mode. > > As far as I know there are no **STANDARD** PC text video modes >that give 132 columns. Precisely, just what is so difficult about that statement for people on this list to understand!!?? The bottom line is that the **ONLY** ***STANDARD*** text modes supported by EGA and VGA adapters are 40 and 80 column. END OF ARGUMENT. PERIOD. Whilst it is perfectly true that most/all "SuperVGA" cards support one or more 132 column text modes, these modes - along with their mode numbers - are unique to each manufacturer and indeed often differ between chipsets from the same manufacturer! Great if you want to tie your software to working with only a single brand of chipset/graphics card (which I doubt is what the OP wants), but otherwise utterly useless.... TTFN - Pete. From classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk Tue Dec 18 19:42:25 2007 From: classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk (Ensor) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:42:25 -0000 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator References: <200712181802.lBII2Fld083374@dewey.classiccmp.org> <4767A7FC.21406.1EFFF84A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <005d01c841e0$688426b0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Hi, >> As far as I know there are no **STANDARD** PC text video modes >>that give 132 columns. > > What was *standard* for the time of these cards? 80*25 and 40*25. >....I have a couple of Everex MicroEnhancer EGA boards with a >boatload of additional modes.... So what? The OP needs modes which work on ALL adapters, not non-standard modes which work on a small number of Mickey Mouse cards which noone uses.... TTFN - Pete. From bnansel at bigpond.net.au Tue Dec 18 20:25:20 2007 From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au (Robert Nansel) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:55:20 +1030 Subject: Washing Machine Drives [was: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads)] Message-ID: <06103CF8-CE1E-4B88-ABA9-D70F2E23DC60@bigpond.net.au> Thank you very kindly for the offer. I'd be glad to study whatever materials you have, and I'd pay for the postage; if I can't use them I would send them back. Maybe ought to wait until I get some of the logic up and running first, though. So far, however, I'm having zero luck finding washing machine platters or spindles. There are a couple Data General drives on ebay, but I sure can't afford to ship those to Australia! What I need is something like the drive unit from a Data Disc F- series hard drive. IIRC, they had 12" platters, which would be perfect for my machine (plus bitsavers has got the schematics!). I wouldn't turn down 14-inchers, mind you; the smaller size would fit in my car easier. Twenty-five years ago I remember being annoyed that I had to trip over gear like that to get to the *good* stuff at United Products in Seattle. Ah, well, I was a poor university student at the time, and even if I had bought one and hung on to it, my wife would surely have had me committed if I had even proposed dragging such a thing to Australia... -Bobby On Fri Dec 14 2007 Chuck Guzis wrote: > ... > About the only item of the correct size and tolerances that's readily > available today, it seems to me, would be the drum unit out of a > laser printer or copier. I don't know if the OPC layer could be > easily stripped off and replaced with oxide, but it might be worth a > try. > > If you're really serious abou this, I'd be willing to donate a head > from a CDC 808 disk unit--4 bit parallel recording. > > Cheers, > Chuck > From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Dec 18 20:31:05 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:31:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <364203.72365.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <364203.72365.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20071218182751.G40318@shell.lmi.net> > > A REAL programmer can write a FORTRAN program in any > > language. On Tue, 18 Dec 2007, Chris M wrote: > O man don't tell me that means a *real* pwogwammer > knows how to use the key. Or spends half his > coding time running the spacebar. of course not you punch a drum card From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Dec 18 21:12:52 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 22:12:52 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <005d01c841e0$688426b0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> References: <200712181802.lBII2Fld083374@dewey.classiccmp.org> <4767A7FC.21406.1EFFF84A@cclist.sydex.com> <005d01c841e0$688426b0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Message-ID: <200712182212.52756.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 18 December 2007 20:42, Ensor wrote: > Hi, > > >> As far as I know there are no **STANDARD** PC text video modes > >>that give 132 columns. > > > > What was *standard* for the time of these cards? > > 80*25 and 40*25. > > >....I have a couple of Everex MicroEnhancer EGA boards with a > >boatload of additional modes.... > > So what? So, there's a lot of cards out there that do 132 column mode. Back when I actually used text-mode (in Linux), almost every machine I tried with a PCI VGA card had some 132xblah video modes. And, the VESA mode number are somewhat standardized. If you can select a certain mode, you *do* know what resolution it'll give you. That's the whole point behind the VESA standards. > The OP needs modes which work on ALL adapters, not non-standard modes > which work on a small number of Mickey Mouse cards which noone > uses.... He does? I'm sure that someone using Dave's VT100 emulator couldn't decide that because they want 132 column mode, they'll spend some time to figure out what works with their hardware, and specify it in a config file somewhere. :( Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From cclist at sydex.com Tue Dec 18 21:39:40 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 19:39:40 -0800 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 52, Issue 38 In-Reply-To: <200712190229.lBJ2StXD088894@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712190229.lBJ2StXD088894@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <476821FC.20961.20DC87E5@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Dec 2007 at 20:29, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Seocndly, if you fiddle with the video heads themselves, be warned they > are delicate. They are brittle ferrite cors, the windings are thin and > brought out to little BCPs stuck in postiion. If you break the wires > you'll not be able to fix them.If the PCB comes uncluged, it'll break the > wires. And if the head tip bangs into anything it will shatter. That is > the bitter voice of experience from the time I rebuilt the head assembly > in a portable rell-to-reel VTR (sorry it's off-topic, so I'll stop there). I was going to suggest a head from a Telcan video recorder as being more suitable, but I doubt that there are many of those around. Maybe a head from one of the cheap floppytape QIC drives might also do the trick. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Dec 18 22:34:22 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:34:22 -0800 Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <200712190229.lBJ2StXD088894@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712190229.lBJ2StXD088894@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47682ECE.19553.210E9E47@cclist.sydex.com> > From: Chris M > I get the basic jist of what you're saying I guess. > Can you a counter example for clarity? Nope--I'm not going to get nudged for off-topic conversation. Clearly, FORTRAN has nothing to do with vintage computers. > This is going to sound like a stupid question, but > given it's typical applications - scientific and > engineering - why the need for such speed? Oh, atomic bomb explosion simulations, predicting tomorrow's weather, etc. I recall working on a proposal back in the 1970s to supply systems to ECMWF (look it up). One of the fellows I spoke with said something to the effect of: "Golly that's great; now if you could provide us with something about 1000 times faster, we might be able to figure out if it'll rain tomorrow..." > stupid question. Would a modernish pc port lend itself > well to writing some kind of modernish game? > Who else besides the world's worst nerds use it? And > along those lines was COBOL used for anything other > then business apps? I don't know what current implementations of Fortran 2003 are out there for the PC currently, so I can't comment. My last serious involvement with FORTRAN was as an alternate on the F90 (we foolishly called it "FORTRAN 8x" back then. That's optimism for you) vector extensions working group. Talk about some donnybrooks between vendors... I haven't really done anything major with FORTRAN since then and I doubt that I can even understand some of the more exotic aspects of the most modern dialect (F2008 is due out next year). But then, ANSI isn't ANSI anymore--it's INCITS and X3J3 is now just J3. Times change. > Relate to disk archiving? Ok dumb question. Just the basic sector I/O stuff was assembly; all of the logical decipherment was FORTRAN. It made the project go much faster without the verbosity of PL/M. > Oh you don't say. What other languages have reliable, > presumably floating-point capability today? What's gcc > like? Are there cheap Windoze implements? I'm talking about the real hard-bitten mathematicians who run a bunch of data through a vendor's math library and say "Feh--garbage. Let's write our own." I remember commenting about the routines (in FORTRAN, of course) in my just-purchased copy of Cody and Waite to a friend of that persuasion. His face looked about like it would have if I'dve said "You know, the Yugo is really a very fine luxury car." It used to be that the FORTRAN mathlibs at places like Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore were second to none. Sadly, I don't know if that's true anymore. Sigh...back to assembly for now and cursing idiots who still can't write a decent macro assembler... Back on topic before I'm castigated. Cheers, Chuck From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Dec 18 22:41:36 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:41:36 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator Message-ID: <01C841CF.8B3681A0@mandr71> ---------Original Message: Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:37:08 -0000 From: "Ensor" Subject: Re: Yet another VT-100 emulator Hi, >>> Not likely - as far as I know there are no standard PC text >>>video modes that give 132 columns. >> >> Long ago I had a 132char driver for the Hercules/TTL mono video >>card. I was based on the 720x348 mono graphics mode. > > As far as I know there are no **STANDARD** PC text video modes >that give 132 columns. Precisely, just what is so difficult about that statement for people on this list to understand!!?? The bottom line is that the **ONLY** ***STANDARD*** text modes supported by EGA and VGA adapters are 40 and 80 column. END OF ARGUMENT. PERIOD. Whilst it is perfectly true that most/all "SuperVGA" cards support one or more 132 column text modes, these modes - along with their mode numbers - are unique to each manufacturer and indeed often differ between chipsets from the same manufacturer! Great if you want to tie your software to working with only a single brand of chipset/graphics card (which I doubt is what the OP wants), but otherwise utterly useless.... The OP needs modes which work on ALL adapters, not non-standard modes which work on a small number of Mickey Mouse cards which noone uses.... TTFN - Pete. ---------Reply: VESA will be disappointed to hear that their VBE standard which does define four 132-column modes (109 - 10C) is not a "standard" at all (insofar as anything in this field can be considered "standard.") http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_BIOS_Extensions I'd say a Mickey Mouse card is one that does *not* implement the VESA extensions, and I think there's more than just one brand that *does*... But if you think we should all be restricted to EGA and VGA modes (who actually has an EGA or VGA card and/or monitor?) then who am I to argue; I personally find 132 columns useful at times. mike From cclist at sydex.com Tue Dec 18 22:39:34 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:39:34 -0800 Subject: digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <200712190229.lBJ2StXD088894@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712190229.lBJ2StXD088894@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47683006.24978.21135F9D@cclist.sydex.com> From: "Roy J. Tellason" > Speaking of which this brings to mind another old project idea I had that > never went anywhere. That was using a 3" scope tube to "write" to film, > and then after developing, to read it back again. I vaguely recall > "flying spot scanner" being somewhat related to this, I think there was > some equipment out there that'd actually take a 35mm slide. Though I'd > envisioned a roll of film, driven by a stepper motor. Ever hear of the IBM 1360 photostore? http://www.computerhistory.org/virtualvisiblestorage/artifact_frame.ph p?tax_id=02.07.01.00 It was used a verb at Lawrence Livermore--as in "Your file has been photostored." A very unfortunate happening... Cheers, Chuck From dmc_67301 at yahoo.com Tue Dec 18 22:45:36 2007 From: dmc_67301 at yahoo.com (Debbie Cornett) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:45:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: Membranes in Keyboards Message-ID: <287865.88747.qm@web55315.mail.re4.yahoo.com> I have an old Xerox memorywriter electronic typewriter that needs to have the membranes inside the keyboard replaced. Does anyone out there know how to replace the membranes? I have two keys that no longer work because of this problem. Thanks. --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Dec 18 22:55:26 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:55:26 -0800 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <200712190229.lBJ2StXD088894@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712190229.lBJ2StXD088894@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <476833BE.25512.2121E7CF@cclist.sydex.com> From: "Ensor" > The OP needs modes which work on ALL adapters, not non-standard modes > which work on a small number of Mickey Mouse cards which noone uses.... With all due respect, I think the observations on the part of the other posters including myself were valid. What the OP probably meant to say was: "Does anyone know of a video text mode supported by a standard IBM VGA/PGC/XGA/EGA card real-mode 16-bit BIOS that supports 132 colums?" That "BIOS" keyword is very important, given that few operating systems actually use it to do anything useful nowadays. In point of fact, there has been little "standard" since third-party vendors began sourcing their versions of the VGA card. And IBM by that time was far from the majority presence in the marketplace. Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Dec 18 22:59:41 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:59:41 -0500 Subject: digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <47683006.24978.21135F9D@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712190229.lBJ2StXD088894@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47683006.24978.21135F9D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200712182359.41575.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 18 December 2007 23:39, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Ever hear of the IBM 1360 photostore? No, except that I did see mention of that recently, in something I was reading. (And was that you that pointed me at Gordon Bell's stuff?) > http://www.computerhistory.org/virtualvisiblestorage/artifact_frame.ph > p?tax_id=02.07.01.00 > > It was used a verb at Lawrence Livermore--as in "Your file has been > photostored." A very unfortunate happening... Unfortunate as in it wasn't directly accessible then? I thought that the point of such a setup was to keep a file accessible in digital form. Or is that some sort of offline storage, like punched cards? -- 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 trixter at oldskool.org Tue Dec 18 23:06:55 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:06:55 -0600 Subject: Yet Another VT-100 Emulator In-Reply-To: <200712161536.lBGFaGvn021214@hosting.monisys.ca> References: <200712161536.lBGFaGvn021214@hosting.monisys.ca> Message-ID: <4768A6EF.2030604@oldskool.org> Dave Dunfield wrote: > Not likely - as far as I know there are no standard PC text > video modes that give 132 columns. VESA supports querying card capabilities (including extended text modes) and also setting such modes through the BIOS, no bit-banging required. Most cards made after 1996 have VESA BIOS built-in; for cards made 1993-1996, the old Scitech Display Doctor TSR should work fine. For cards made before 1993, the card manufacturers usually provided a small TSR that provided VESA 1.0 or 1.2 (should still have a few extended text modes in there). The earliest VESA TSR I'd ever seen is one from 1989 for Paradise chipsets. YMMV. > I've not done a bit-mapped version (that would be a lot of > changes to my emulator). I would highly recommend staying away from manual rasterization; if a card can do 1024x768, it can do 132x25 or 132x50. > Another thing I've added in this most recent version is that I > came up with technique when using a VGA card to not only load > a custom font which gives you all the VT-100 graphic characters, > but also to enable all of the VT-100 attributes (Bold, Underline, > Blink and Reverse) in any and all combinations. Ah, so you are using VGA's capability to store multiple fonts and bank-switch between them? Or something more hideous, like changing the font every 16 scanlines? ;-) -- 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 Tue Dec 18 23:16:15 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:16:15 -0600 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <653a64ac0712171830t10a04e0bl23d901026a11c56c@mail.gmail.com> References: <200712172253.lBHMrLuv031334@hosting.monisys.ca> <653a64ac0712171830t10a04e0bl23d901026a11c56c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4768A91F.9040100@oldskool.org> Mark Meiss wrote: > IF ParamStr (1) = '132x60' THEN i := 268; > IF ParamStr (1) = '132x50' THEN i := 267; > IF ParamStr (1) = '132x43' THEN i := 266; > IF ParamStr (1) = '132x25' THEN i := 265; > IF ParamStr (1) = '080x60' THEN i := 264; Just a quick note that you shouldn't actually implement VESA this way, because the mode numbers are not guaranteed from card to card. The proper way is to use VESA to query all of the modes, stuff results into an array, iterate through the array to find what you're looking for, and then set the mode with what you come up 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 Tue Dec 18 23:26:25 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:26:25 -0600 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <005801c841df$ac8c08b0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> References: <005801c841df$ac8c08b0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Message-ID: <4768AB81.80908@oldskool.org> Ensor wrote: > The bottom line is that the **ONLY** ***STANDARD*** text modes supported > by EGA and VGA adapters are 40 and 80 column. END OF ARGUMENT. PERIOD. Actually, the number of columns is arbitrary. You can adjust overscan frequencies to get more columns and rows if you really want to, and all without threatening to release the magic smoke. On a stock IBM CGA with stock 5153 color monitor, I can produce a 90x30 text mode that fills to the borders, perfectly stable, perfectly within timings, without distortion. Even without "cheating" in that way, it is easy for EGA to do 43 lines and VGA to do 50, and > Whilst it is perfectly true that most/all "SuperVGA" cards support one > or more 132 column text modes, these modes - along with their mode > numbers - are unique to each manufacturer and indeed often differ > between chipsets from the same manufacturer! Yes, that's what VESA BIOS extensions -- available on most cards since 1990 -- are for. See my prior post with details. While it is a stretch that Dave be asked to support every single chipset, it is quite reasonable to go after VESA BIOS calls since most SVGA cards support them. This is a problem that was solved 15 years ago. -- 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 erik at baigar.de Wed Dec 19 00:39:26 2007 From: erik at baigar.de (Erik Baigar) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 07:39:26 +0100 (MET) Subject: Govliquidation: Rolm 1602 Console Message-ID: There is again one of the unique Consoles, alias Operator Panel for the 1602 vintage computer on govliquidation: http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?auctionId=1483422&convertTo=USD Maybe there is someone willing to save this from the scrapyard... Best regards and merry x-mas, Erik. From dave06a at dunfield.com Tue Dec 18 08:42:44 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:42:44 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator Message-ID: <200712181348.lBIDmori022872@hosting.monisys.ca> >> Does anyone know if any of the more modern (ie: VGA) cards support >> enhanced >> 132 column text modes? > >I think this is a "maybe". At [ >http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/textmode.html ], there's a link to a >program that scans for a series of 132-column VESA text modes. It couldn't >find any on the laptop I tried it on (no surprise), but apparently there are >a number of NVIDIA cards that support these modes. I don't know what how >the layout compares to the character/attribute pairs for 80-column modes, >but here's the Pascal code they use to try entering the modes: Thanks! - that was useful. Turns out many of the cards I have support a 132x25 column video mode which is laid out exactly the same as the 80 column modes except for being 264 bytes per line instead of 160 (character and attribute pairs). For my ATI cards mode 35 (23h) seems to work on most of them. I've just posted a new version of LAPTALK, which supports 132 column mode. In order to enable it, you must configure the 132 column video mode under "General Parameters". 0-255 are standard BIOS modes, and 256-511 are VESA modes (sorry, but you have to set the mode in decimal). It also supports set/reset "column" (132 column) mode now (if the mode is configured). I've also added a small FIND132.COM utility to the package which helps find that elusive 132 column video mode. I've also added a 132 column test to the VTEST.COM utility, Other improvements in this version: - Improved the keyboard mapping function, including a visual layout showing where the 103 keycodes I support occur on a generic keyboard. - "auto-repeat" is now configurable, and set/reset mode works. - Configurable Device Attributes value sent back to host. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From bbooth at pausd.org Tue Dec 18 13:46:30 2007 From: bbooth at pausd.org (Bradley Booth) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:46:30 -0800 Subject: FW: [HeathKit] HERO Robots for sale Message-ID: <47682396.1070406@pausd.org> Hello, I have two Hero 1 Robots that would be good for parts. They suffered at the hands of middle school children. Brad From snhirsch at gmail.com Tue Dec 18 19:17:10 2007 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:17:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Corvus drivers for Xerox 820/Bigboard (Alspa has similar interfase) In-Reply-To: <476576BC.30503@msm.umr.edu> References: <476576BC.30503@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, 16 Dec 2007, jim s wrote: > Steven Hirsch wrote: >> I'm looking for the drivers that will let my Bigboard speak to a Corvus >> flat-cable drive. I have a couple of the interface boxes that go between >> the parallel port and the drive unit, but have never been able to locate >> the required software nor any installation docs. >> >> If anyone in Classic Computer-land can help, I'd really appreciate it. > The Alspa has a parallel port on it that goes to a Corvus drive. If I find > my diskettes, or can get a boot disk with bios source, you can use that code > to run the drive. I don't know of any real documentation, maybe Al K has > some that is not online somewhere that describes how the actual disk runs > over that cable. That would be terrific - thanks! BTW, are you the same Jim Stephens I've talked to before about Corvus drives? I have a vague recollection of a discussion about a Mirror card for a flat-cable drive. I've been looking for one of these with no success for > 10 years. Steve -- From derschjo at msu.edu Tue Dec 18 20:48:33 2007 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 18:48:33 -0800 Subject: Docs/Software/Info for Virtual Microsystems 8086 Dec Pro board? Message-ID: <47688681.7020705@msu.edu> Inherited a Dec Professional 350 with a card labeled as a "Virtual Microsystems Inc. Pro Bd." installed in it. It has an 8086 chip on it, and from the (very) limited information I've found on it I'm guessing it's a card that affords the Dec Pro some amount of IBM PC compatibility. Anyone know anything about this thing? Anyone have any software for it? :) Thanks, Josh From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Tue Dec 18 21:01:20 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 22:01:20 -0500 Subject: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV sets) Message-ID: <0JTA002NO0E8E8P2@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV sets) > From: Dave McGuire > Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:18:57 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" > >On Dec 18, 2007, at 5:03 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >>> MOS shift registers of lengths greater than a few bits are very late >>> 60s (after 67 or so). By early 70s parts 1024 long ere not uncommon. >> >> I think I have a couple of old SAD1024 MOS shift registers from when I >> was collecting deeply discounted items from the local Radio Shack >> "Manager's Table" as a kid. >> >> I had thought one day to make the audio echo/delay circuit I think I >> saw in an old Forrest Mims circuit book, but a solid-state acoustic >> delay line emulator sounds like a much cooler place to put them. Consider that there are only 1024 buket in that brigade and if your storing bits thats about it or less. Maybe even Nyquist less. Allison > > I remember that project, in the "Engineer's Notebook" book. I >wanted to build it too, but I never quite managed to amass all the >parts. (back then, of course) > > -Dave > >-- >Dave McGuire >Port Charlotte, FL >Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 > > From chris at mainecoon.com Wed Dec 19 01:19:28 2007 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Chris Kennedy) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:19:28 -0800 Subject: IBM photostore (was: Re: digital camera capabilities) In-Reply-To: <200712182359.41575.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200712190229.lBJ2StXD088894@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47683006.24978.21135F9D@cclist.sydex.com> <200712182359.41575.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4768C600.6050801@mainecoon.com> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Tuesday 18 December 2007 23:39, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Ever hear of the IBM 1360 photostore? [snip] >> It was used a verb at Lawrence Livermore--as in "Your file has been >> photostored." A very unfortunate happening... > > Unfortunate as in it wasn't directly accessible then? I thought that the > point of such a setup was to keep a file accessible in digital form. Or is > that some sort of offline storage, like punched cards? One of these was in use at LBL as well, where it was sometimes called chipstore (an apparent reference to the individual pieces of film). Chips were organized into cells, cells into trays. When a particular chip was needed the appropriate tray was rotated into place, an arm selected the appropriate cell and it was sucked out of the tray and sent on Mr. Toad's Pneumatic Wild Ride to the reading station, where the cell was popped open and the film loaded into the reader. That was the theory, at least. Unfortunately it had a very bad habit of sometimes screwing up the last step; consequently there was frequently a broom nearby in the company of a small pile of chips. I recall that data density was quite high, reading speed was high but access times were long. Writing used some combination of electron beam and wet chemistry, so while the bit rate was respectable the throughput was -er- on the slow side. IIRC the primary use was to store census data. Co-located in the same room with the chipstore was a truly strange magnetic storage device from IBM that was referred to as MSS. It consisted of a carousel of rectangular magnetic sheets and a single reader-writer station; the carousel would rotate the correct sheet into the station and then the sheet would move up and down past a series of fixed heads. What made all of this truly strange is that these IBM peripherals hung off CDC channel controllers that interfaced them to 6000 series machines. CDC and IBM FEs would periodically get into pissing contests over who was responsible for various faults; recurring ones would end up with a piece of paper taped to the channel controller that would say something to the effect of "TP XYZ +X volts -> IBM problem, -Y volts -> CDC problem". -- Chris Kennedy chris at mainecoon.com AF6AP http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97 PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration..." From cannings at earthlink.net Wed Dec 19 02:07:59 2007 From: cannings at earthlink.net (Steven Canning) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:07:59 -0800 Subject: GRID computer available in So Cal References: Message-ID: <000701c84216$45c0b4f0$0201a8c0@hal9000> I have come into possession of a fully functional GRID computer that needs a good home ( that is why it is appearing here first ). I would love to keep it but I already have my " quota " of computers for this lifetime. If you are interested please contact me offline so as not to piss off the list. It weighs about 10 pounds so shipping won't be cheap... GRID computer with 640 K RAM, 384 K Bubble Memory In really good shape ! Phoenix BIOS, MS-DOS Ver 3.20 ( I'm not kidding ... ) 100 to 240 Volts 50 / 60 / 400 Hz This thing is built like a tank. They were used in the space shuttle, and by various branches of the Military. Boots up ( off of the Bubble Memory ) and presents the expected " DOS " screen and prompt. No dead or stuck pixels. Best regards, Steven Canning From dave06a at dunfield.com Wed Dec 19 08:00:02 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:00:02 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <01C841CF.8B3681A0@mandr71> Message-ID: <200712191306.lBJD6AKD020723@hosting.monisys.ca> Finally back on the list!!! (yeah!) Comments to multiple messages follow: If you asked a question, please read through till you find it! >VESA will be disappointed to hear that their VBE standard which >does define four 132-column modes (109 - 10C) is not a "standard" at >all (insofar as anything in this field can be considered "standard.") > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_BIOS_Extensions > >I'd say a Mickey Mouse card is one that does *not* implement the >VESA extensions, and I think there's more than just one brand that *does*... > + many other comments on VESA I've got mainly ATI "Mach" and "3Drage" series cards in the older machines in my office, and while I can get some VESA modes to work, I haven't found any in the VESA range (100h-1FFh right?) that actually do 132 columns... I'm using INT 10h with AX=4F02h and BX containing the VESA SVGA mode number 100h-1FFh - is this right? I have found "vendor extensions" to the standard modes 00h-FFh which work fine at 132 columns on the ATI cards. >I would highly recommend staying away from manual rasterization; if a >card can do 1024x768, it can do 132x25 or 132x50. Perhaps ... but one thing really appealing about going graphical is that I could properly support double-wide/double-high characters... I haven't figured out a way to do this in text mode ... I could do double-wide with some font manipulation, but there would be a line down the middle of the characters, and there isn't enough characters available even with two active character sets to do double-height/ double-wide. I'd also lose my current ability to emulate the VT-100 attributes. The big problem with a graphical version would be the "blinking" attribute - Do any graphics modes support blinking in hardware? - There's also the matter of incompatibilities in modes higher than 640x480 (which isn't enough for 132 columns). >Ah, so you are using VGA's capability to store multiple fonts and >bank-switch between them? Or something more hideous, like changing the >font every 16 scanlines? ;-) Nothing so disgusting. The problem is that you need to be able to do: Bold, Underline, Blinking and Reverse video in any and all combinations, and standard PC attributes can't do this - you can get close in mono VGA, but you still can't do all the combinations. For example, Underline only works in Mono, and not in combination with all other attributes. So what I did was to use VGA's capability of having two fonts (512 possible characters on screen at once), and generate a second font with underlines. Then the font select attribute bit becomes the underline bit. This conflicts with the standard "bold" attributes, however I reprogram the palette to provide increased intensity in another "color". This lets me do ALL the VT-100 attribute combinations without resorting to hardware dependancy (except that it needs a VGA adapter). For non-VGA cards, I just let you choose which attributes (or colors) will display for each of the 16 possible VT-100 attribute combinations. I also maintain two separate attribute tables for the TTY colors, one for when attribute emulation via VGA features is enabled, and one for not - so the attributes don't go completely wonky when you switch this feature on or off. >I'm curious how it will on a Model 25. It's MCGA, which means it has >the 9x16 VGA font and doesn't detect as CGA or EGA, yet the font is >fixed and can't be changed. What will your program do on such an >uncommon video board? It should work as long as your video supports standard 80 column color or mono video modes (Mode 3 or 7). If your video does not detect as VGA, you will be limited to the PC character set and attributes which are available. You can program the PC attributes that are displayed for each possible combination of VT-100 Bold, Underline, Blink and Reverse. If it does detect as VGA, but is incompatible with the features I used - you can disable the use of VGA fonts and attribute emulation in my configuration screens. You won't get my VT-100 character font, however I map the VT-100 characters which line up with PC characters into the appropriate character on the PC font. You will lose some of the VT-100 graphic character set. I map most of these into corresponding characters on the PC, however some don't have any PC equivalent, and I map these into PC characters 80-89 (which I replace in my VT-100 font). At the moment, my mapping of VT-100 characters (standard and graphical) to the PC character set is fixed (you can change the charcters displayed by loading a different character-set under VGA) - but if there is a requirement, I could make the mapping tables configurable - This would let you pick any PC character to display for any particular VT-100 character. >> The OP needs modes which work on ALL adapters, not non-standard modes >> which work on a small number of Mickey Mouse cards which noone >> uses.... > >He does? I'm sure that someone using Dave's VT100 emulator couldn't >decide that because they want 132 column mode, they'll spend some time >to figure out what works with their hardware, and specify it in a >config file somewhere. :( What I've done is to enable you to configure the 132 column mode under "General Parameters" - Standard modes 01h-FFh should work, as well as VESA SVGA modes 100h-1FFh. If a mode is configured, then I enable the "132 column mode" under "General switches" as well as the DEC private {ESC}[?3h/l mode set/reset. I've also provided FIND132 which helps locate a 132 column video mode for your adapter. I'm still researching VESA - as Jim said, perhaps I can directly determine a suitable mode from the information returned by the VESA BIOS. >With all due respect, I think the observations on the part of the >other posters including myself were valid. What the OP probably >meant to say was: > >"Does anyone know of a video text mode supported by a standard IBM >VGA/PGC/XGA/EGA card real-mode 16-bit BIOS that supports 132 colums?" > >That "BIOS" keyword is very important, given that few operating >systems actually use it to do anything useful nowadays. In my case, I do want it to work with BIOS calls - I tend to use it on DOS machines in my workshop, and I don't want to make it dependant on anyone's particular hardware. If you are using windows, I'm sure there are better VT-100 emulators since you should be able to do the double-sized modes easily in a graphical environment. But so far it still works fine on my Win2K machine (Haven't tried it on XP lately, but I will). If there are any more suggestions or feedback, please keep it coming. Probably this weekend, I'm going to rename the package (*) and get it moved into a permanent home under "Simulators and Emulators" on my site (with an extra link in the terminals/VT-100 section). (*) LAPTALK made sense when it was a tiny telecom program for my floppy based laptop, but it's much more a VT-100 emulator now). I'm thinking something simple like "PC100", but suggestions are welcome. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From geneb at deltasoft.com Wed Dec 19 07:52:37 2007 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:52:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Need an H-37... In-Reply-To: <200712181348.lBIDmori022872@hosting.monisys.ca> References: <200712181348.lBIDmori022872@hosting.monisys.ca> Message-ID: I'm in need of an H-37 soft-sectored floppy controller for an H-89. I also have a need for four 720k 3.5" floppy drives that have drive select jumpers on them. Would older Amiga drives work for this? -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Dec 19 08:16:56 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:16:56 -0600 Subject: Washing Machine Drives [was: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads)] In-Reply-To: <06103CF8-CE1E-4B88-ABA9-D70F2E23DC60@bigpond.net.au> References: <06103CF8-CE1E-4B88-ABA9-D70F2E23DC60@bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <476927D8.5050201@gmail.com> Robert Nansel wrote: > So far, however, I'm having zero luck finding washing machine platters > or spindles. There are a couple Data General drives on ebay, but I sure > can't afford to ship those to Australia! If all of this is some proof of concept step anyway, why not use ST412 type 5.25"-form-factor drives? The platters are still large enough that you could do something with them, surely, and they're still reasonably available. Heck - get a multi-platter drive, rip out all but one platter, and figure out a way of mounting all the existing heads in parallel on just the one surface in order to simulate drum tracks. For a backyard engineering project, that can't be any worse than screwing around with VCR heads. Keeping things clean during assembly will be interesting, and you'd presumably need to seal everything afterwards to keep particles out (but use plexiglass so you can see the guts). On the plus side, you get a balanced spindle, data surface, and a bunch of matched heads 'for free'. %deity% knows what issues there'll be with suitable amplification / processing of the read signal, and with writing - but that's no worse that a VCR solution or a homebrew drum running at a few thousand RPM :-) I'm not convinced it can be done due to the fine tolerances involved - but I'd be really interested to see someone try! Maybe for version 0.1 just use a single head on the surface (i.e. use the existing head arm) and figure out how to write data and read it back again... cheers Jules From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Dec 19 08:34:41 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:34:41 -0500 Subject: FW: [HeathKit] HERO Robots for sale In-Reply-To: <47682396.1070406@pausd.org> References: <47682396.1070406@pausd.org> Message-ID: <47692C01.9050308@gmail.com> Bradley Booth wrote: > Hello, > I have two Hero 1 Robots that would be good for parts. They suffered > at the hands of middle school children. Brad Are they complete, other than not working? Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Dec 19 08:36:16 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:36:16 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <1198020779.5876.2.camel@elric> References: <200712141543.lBEFhE5R026565@dewey.classiccmp.org> <200712141411.12069.rtellason@verizon.net> <20071214115137.R5209@shell.lmi.net> <200712181807.33708.rtellason@verizon.net> <1198020779.5876.2.camel@elric> Message-ID: <47692C60.2080707@gmail.com> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >> My initial idea didn't use reels, and wasn't particularly concerned with >> being able to change tapes, I just wanted some nontrivial amount of storage >> to be available to me, and came up with (assuredly totally unrealistic) >> numbers for not all that many feet of tape. Maybe as much as *gasp!* a half >> a million bytes or so! :-) > > Did any company ever actually produce a storage product that used > 8-track carts (or indeed broadcast carts)? Did it work? Couldn't the sounds written to Digicart be considered data? Peace... Sridhar From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Dec 19 08:40:06 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:40:06 -0600 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <4768A91F.9040100@oldskool.org> References: <200712172253.lBHMrLuv031334@hosting.monisys.ca> <653a64ac0712171830t10a04e0bl23d901026a11c56c@mail.gmail.com> <4768A91F.9040100@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <47692D46.5070808@gmail.com> Jim Leonard wrote: > Mark Meiss wrote: >> IF ParamStr (1) = '132x60' THEN i := 268; >> IF ParamStr (1) = '132x50' THEN i := 267; >> IF ParamStr (1) = '132x43' THEN i := 266; >> IF ParamStr (1) = '132x25' THEN i := 265; >> IF ParamStr (1) = '080x60' THEN i := 264; > > Just a quick note that you shouldn't actually implement VESA this way, > because the mode numbers are not guaranteed from card to card. The > proper way is to use VESA to query all of the modes, stuff results into > an array, iterate through the array to find what you're looking for, and > then set the mode with what you come up with. ... so long as there's a user override for when it goes wrong. There were some really broken VESA implementations out there back in the day! The last time I did anything serious with PC graphics programming under DOS, I ended up going the loadable driver route - it was the driver which translated requests to actual things happening on screen (and the reporting of board modes) via a common API. My main focus was graphics though, so I think the text APIs that I came up with were reasonably primitive and didn't support attributes other than colour. Implementation-wise, it wasn't too difficult to do - I tend to find that most code (aside from things designed to be as fast as possible) naturally provides API-like boundaries anyway, so it's not hard to abstract that out and parcel it up into some sort of runtime-loadable module. cheers Jules From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Dec 19 08:41:43 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:41:43 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <200712182212.52756.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200712181802.lBII2Fld083374@dewey.classiccmp.org> <4767A7FC.21406.1EFFF84A@cclist.sydex.com> <005d01c841e0$688426b0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> <200712182212.52756.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <47692DA7.8090407@gmail.com> Patrick Finnegan wrote: >> >> As far as I know there are no **STANDARD** PC text video modes >> >>that give 132 columns. >> > >> > What was *standard* for the time of these cards? >> >> 80*25 and 40*25. >> >> >....I have a couple of Everex MicroEnhancer EGA boards with a >> >boatload of additional modes.... >> >> So what? > > So, there's a lot of cards out there that do 132 column mode. Back when > I actually used text-mode (in Linux), almost every machine I tried with > a PCI VGA card had some 132xblah video modes. These cards can't really be considered VGA. They're actually SVGA, and it's a de-facto standard for SVGA cards to produce the Hercules resolutions without complaint. A real VGA won't. At least it won't on any of the first-generation VGA machines I have in the pile. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Dec 19 08:46:10 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:46:10 -0500 Subject: digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <47683006.24978.21135F9D@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712190229.lBJ2StXD088894@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47683006.24978.21135F9D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47692EB2.8080207@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > >> Speaking of which this brings to mind another old project idea I had that >> never went anywhere. That was using a 3" scope tube to "write" to film, >> and then after developing, to read it back again. I vaguely recall >> "flying spot scanner" being somewhat related to this, I think there was >> some equipment out there that'd actually take a 35mm slide. Though I'd >> envisioned a roll of film, driven by a stepper motor. > > Ever hear of the IBM 1360 photostore? > > http://www.computerhistory.org/virtualvisiblestorage/artifact_frame.ph > p?tax_id=02.07.01.00 > > It was used a verb at Lawrence Livermore--as in "Your file has been > photostored." A very unfortunate happening... Wow! That's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Are any of them still around anywhere? Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Dec 19 08:55:13 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:55:13 -0500 Subject: Looking for ThinkPads Message-ID: <476930D1.8020305@gmail.com> I'm looking for an IBM Thinkpad 701C or 701CS (the one with the butterfly keyboard), as well as a Thinkpad 860. Anyone have any available? They have to be working. Peace... Sridhar From cclist at sydex.com Wed Dec 19 09:45:35 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 07:45:35 -0800 Subject: digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <200712191441.lBJEfgii095940@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712191441.lBJEfgii095940@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4768CC1F.16769.23752164@cclist.sydex.com> On 19 Dec 2007 at 8:41, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > Unfortunate as in it wasn't directly accessible then? I thought that the > point of such a setup was to keep a file accessible in digital form. Or > is that some sort of offline storage, like punched cards? It depended on your idea of "accessible". It was "accessible" on the scale of, oh, say, a book requested through inter-library loan is "accessible". Make a request, find a good Russian novel to read and hope your file hasn't been lost. There was a very-much-frowned-upon program that was popular among users to open and close every single file cataloged under your account just to avoid the dreaded Photostore. The 1360 was very typical of the wonderful Rube Goldberg-style of mechanical engineering that IBM was capable of. Second perhaps only to the 3850 MSS or the 2321 DCD. Certainly in a different league from the competition (e.g., NCR CRAM), although the ill-fated CDC SCROLL comes close... Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Dec 19 09:54:34 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 07:54:34 -0800 Subject: Subject: IBM photostore (was: Re: digital camera capabilities) In-Reply-To: <200712191441.lBJEfgii095940@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712191441.lBJEfgii095940@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4768CE3A.23861.237D5B13@cclist.sydex.com> > From: Chris Kennedy > CDC and IBM FEs would periodically get into pissing contests over who > was responsible for various faults; recurring ones would end up with a > piece of paper taped to the channel controller that would say something > to the effect of "TP XYZ +X volts -> IBM problem, -Y volts -> CDC > problem". Heh, I was with the CDC STAR-100 installation at LLL/LRL. It was ALWAYS our problem. ;( Sigh, Chuck From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Wed Dec 19 10:27:50 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:27:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <200712191306.lBJD6AKD020723@hosting.monisys.ca> References: <200712191306.lBJD6AKD020723@hosting.monisys.ca> Message-ID: <200712191630.LAA01102@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > The big problem with a graphical version would be the "blinking" > attribute - Do any graphics modes support blinking in hardware? Do they need to? Don't peecee video cards have the ability to flip between two blocks of video RAM with the flip of a bit? All you need to do is render twice, once with and once without the blinking stuff, and keep toggling between the two VRAM areas every however often. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Dec 19 12:38:24 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 10:38:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <200712181348.lBIDmori022872@hosting.monisys.ca> References: <200712181348.lBIDmori022872@hosting.monisys.ca> Message-ID: <20071219103516.P72922@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 18 Dec 2007, Dave Dunfield wrote: > Turns out many of the cards I have support a 132x25 column video mode which > is laid out exactly the same as the 80 column modes except for being 264 bytes > per line instead of 160 (character and attribute pairs). > For my ATI cards mode 35 (23h) seems to work on most of them. IIRC, there is also a byte in BIOS data segment 40h that identifies how many characters per line, and another for number of lines. MANY programs are so hard-wired to expect 80 x 25 at B000h or B800h, that they border on unusable when you have any different configuration. From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Wed Dec 19 12:45:22 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:45:22 -0600 Subject: IBM Bookmanager reader Message-ID: <476966C2.4080705@brutman.com> This was a pleasant surprise .. a Java version of the reader for IBM BookManager files: http://www-306.ibm.com/software/applications/office/bkmgr/softcopyread.html It makes some of my old documentation much more accessible. Sadly, it is a 66MB download. (It is also Java code, but requires Windows.) Mike From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Dec 19 12:47:52 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 10:47:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: GRID computer available in So Cal In-Reply-To: <000701c84216$45c0b4f0$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <000701c84216$45c0b4f0$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <20071219104230.J72922@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 19 Dec 2007, Steven Canning wrote: > it but I already have my " quota " of computers for this lifetime. If you Once you cross THAT line, there's no turning back. > GRID computer with 640 K RAM, 384 K Bubble Memory In really good shape ! > Phoenix BIOS, MS-DOS Ver 3.20 ( I'm not kidding ... ) 100 to 240 Volts > 50 / 60 / 400 Hz Three point twenty was the first version that directly supported 720K from MICROS~1, although there were a LOT of two point elevens, such as Gavilan that were set up by OEMS to do it. You should be able to run WINDOZE three point ten on it, although it takes some work to squeeze it down to fit. However, I do NOT think that it can do a 132 column text mode. From cannings at earthlink.net Wed Dec 19 13:02:14 2007 From: cannings at earthlink.net (Steven Canning) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:02:14 -0800 Subject: Looking for ThinkPads References: <476930D1.8020305@gmail.com> Message-ID: <000901c84271$ac2babe0$0201a8c0@hal9000> Sridhar, I have a bunch of the 760s ...? They weigh a ton ! But at least they are working. Currently running Windoze 3.1 and DOS mostly to control test equipment. Best regards, Steven Subject: Looking for ThinkPads > > I'm looking for an IBM Thinkpad 701C or 701CS (the one with the > butterfly keyboard), as well as a Thinkpad 860. Anyone have any > available? They have to be working. > > Peace... Sridhar From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Dec 19 13:20:10 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:20:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <200712191630.LAA01102@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200712191306.lBJD6AKD020723@hosting.monisys.ca> <200712191630.LAA01102@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20071219111117.S72922@shell.lmi.net> > The big problem with a graphical version would be the "blinking" > attribute - Do any graphics modes support blinking in hardware? Don't EVER use the "blink" attribute! I used it, and as soon as the software publisher saw it, he demanded a change in the rate at which it blinked! When I was doing some screen printing (Sybex used XenoFont in producing a lot of their textmode DOS books (WordPervert, etc.)), I could handle attrib 7/70h v attrib 0Fh/F0h easily with regular v bold fonts. I could handle reverse video by simply creating fonts with all pixels on EXCEPT the character content. BTW, HP tech support told me that that was impossible with HP Laserjets. I'm glad that I was done before I found out! ("Wile E. Coyote software development rule") BUT, how would you SHOW a blinking attribute with a printer font?? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Dec 19 13:42:19 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 11:42:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <20071219111117.S72922@shell.lmi.net> from Fred Cisin at "Dec 19, 7 11:20:10 am" Message-ID: <200712191942.lBJJgJd1013840@floodgap.com> > BUT, how would you SHOW a blinking attribute with a printer font?? Flip books. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Wherever I go, there's I AM. ----------------------------------------------- From evan at snarc.net Wed Dec 19 13:58:23 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:58:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: GRID computer available in So Cal In-Reply-To: <20071219104230.J72922@shell.lmi.net> References: <000701c84216$45c0b4f0$0201a8c0@hal9000> <20071219104230.J72922@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <45452.65.126.154.6.1198094303.squirrel@vandal.degnanco.net> The default was GridOS. > > Three point twenty was the first version that directly supported 720K from > MICROS~1, although there were a LOT of two point elevens, such as Gavilan > that were set up by OEMS to do it. > > You should be able to run WINDOZE three point ten on it, although it takes > some work to squeeze it down to fit. > > However, I do NOT think that it can do a 132 column text mode. > > From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Dec 19 14:42:13 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:42:13 -0500 Subject: Looking for ThinkPads In-Reply-To: <000901c84271$ac2babe0$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <476930D1.8020305@gmail.com> <000901c84271$ac2babe0$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <47698225.7010605@gmail.com> Steven Canning wrote: > I have a bunch of the 760s ...? They weigh a ton ! But at least they are > working. Currently running Windoze 3.1 and DOS mostly to control test > equipment. Nope, those aren't the ones I'm looking for. Peace... Sridhar From tsw-cc at johana.com Wed Dec 19 15:10:10 2007 From: tsw-cc at johana.com (Tom Watson) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 13:10:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? Message-ID: <31314.15085.qm@web90401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> On Tue, 18 Dec 2007 , Fred Cisin wrote: > > > A REAL programmer can write a FORTRAN program in any > > > language. > > On Tue, 18 Dec 2007, Chris M wrote: > > O man don't tell me that means a *real* pwogwammer > > knows how to use the key. Or spends half his > > coding time running the spacebar. > > of course not > you punch a drum card No, you have the "standard" drum card already punched up. You keep them right below the chad box in the keypunch so that the students who muck up the "standard" one in their crazy attempts to make their own can be put out of their misery. Always keep a few "extras" floating around. Of course, the "standard" drum card has Fortran as the #1 program, and the assembler of the machine in the #2 program. This usually indicated you had the statement number LEFT justified in columns 1-5, not any of that coding form right justified junk. As for Greenbar/bluebar (I always thought bluebar was better), weren't those the coding forms we all used. Having nice wide paper was where you made the "edits" to your code and took it to the keypunch. Ob Keypunch: Back in the day they had a Control Data Institute ad on TV that boasted "Do you like working with your hands and not getting your fingernails dirty?", I then remarked that this guy has NEVER replaced a keypunch ribbon. (*SIGH*) those days were much more fun!! ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Dec 19 15:16:12 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:16:12 -0500 Subject: digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <4768CC1F.16769.23752164@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712191441.lBJEfgii095940@dewey.classiccmp.org> <4768CC1F.16769.23752164@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200712191616.12626.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 19 December 2007 10:45, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 19 Dec 2007 at 8:41, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > > Unfortunate as in it wasn't directly accessible then? I thought that the > > point of such a setup was to keep a file accessible in digital form. Or > > is that some sort of offline storage, like punched cards? > > It depended on your idea of "accessible". It was "accessible" on the > scale of, oh, say, a book requested through inter-library loan is > "accessible". Make a request, find a good Russian novel to read and > hope your file hasn't been lost. Heh. > There was a very-much-frowned-upon program that was popular among > users to open and close every single file cataloged under your > account just to avoid the dreaded Photostore. So I guess that being done was based on the file not having been accessed recently, then... > The 1360 was very typical of the wonderful Rube Goldberg-style of > mechanical engineering that IBM was capable of. After plowing my way through somewhat over 1500 pages of material on different systems recently, I found some stuff of interest. It was a bit of a surprise to me to find what Burroughs did back when interesting, although they tried to do _so_ much in hardware to support the things they were trying to do in software that changing anything must've been a nightmare to contemplate. I have a bit of a better picture now of DEC's line of machines, though they cover a time period when the hardware was changing so drastically... I'm still wondering where they went from there (where that stuff left off), guess I need to dig out some more material to read that's just a bit more recent. And in reading about the various IBM boxes, only one word comes to mind: "Baroque"! > Second perhaps only to the 3850 MSS or the 2321 DCD. Certainly in a > different league from the competition (e.g., NCR CRAM), although the > ill-fated CDC SCROLL comes close... I don't think I've run across anything on those just yet... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Dec 19 15:20:17 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:20:17 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <20071219103516.P72922@shell.lmi.net> References: <200712181348.lBIDmori022872@hosting.monisys.ca> <20071219103516.P72922@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200712191620.18055.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 19 December 2007 13:38, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Tue, 18 Dec 2007, Dave Dunfield wrote: > > Turns out many of the cards I have support a 132x25 column video mode > > which is laid out exactly the same as the 80 column modes except for > > being 264 bytes per line instead of 160 (character and attribute pairs). > > For my ATI cards mode 35 (23h) seems to work on most of them. > > IIRC, there is also a byte in BIOS data segment 40h that identifies how > many characters per line, and another for number of lines. > > MANY programs are so hard-wired to expect 80 x 25 at B000h or B800h, that > they border on unusable when you have any different configuration. Depends on the software... I started out with mono, never bothered doing much with CGA as the quality of those monitors was just too poor to read much text on. With EGA and VGA I always tried to put as much text on the screen as I could, which in practice meant 43 or 50-line mode. [OT]Even now, when I boot my server, I kick it into a 132x60 line mode.[/OT] -- 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 lynchaj at yahoo.com Wed Dec 19 15:45:30 2007 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:45:30 -0500 Subject: HD 5.25" floppy disk drives emulating legacy DSQD floppy disk drives Message-ID: <007e01c84288$79f87290$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> Hi, Sorry for the long post. I have done a lot of things to make this work but am still stuck on this problem. As some of you know, I and some others have been busily working on restoring some Vector Graphic machines. One goal is to replace the Tandon TM100-4M 100tpi drives with more commonly available High Density 96tpi floppy drives. I realize the disks between the two types of drives are incompatible and I plan to retain both types of drives for compatibility with other Vector Graphic machines. However, the 100tpi drives are difficult to obtain and I would like to limit their use to preserve their remaining lifespans. I would like to transition my regular usage disks to the HD 96tpi drives to utilitize commonly available and inexpensive HD floppy drive mechanisms. I believe it is possible to make an HD drive emulate a legacy DSQD drive -- at least I am sure it can be done on the PC. The late Don Maslin was apparently able to use 720K (DSQD) 5.25" floppy drives on his Vector Graphic system (see link below). I would like to do a similar thing but using the HD drives in DSQD emulation mode. http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/1998-January/093114.html I have a couple of HD floppy disk drives such as the Panasonic JU-475 and TEAC FD-55GFR. I have jumpered and modified both drives so that the spindle motor turns at 300 RPM which I have verified using a fluorescent lamp and tach wheel. I have set the jumpers or directly wired to ground Pin 2 to force Double Density mode. I have covered Pin 2 on the interface with tape so that it does not interfere with the FDC on my Vector Graphic machine and vice versa. According to the schematic of my Vector Graphic integrated FD/HD controller (FDC) neither pin 2 (density select) nor pin 34 (/ready) are used. After many tests and inspections, I have verified both HD drives do work in 720K DSQD emulation mode on my floppy test bench PC. They are configured as 3.5" 80 track drives. The motor spins at 300 RPM and they are both able to format and verify with scandisk under MS-DOS using good quality 5.25" disks. The problem comes in when I attach either HD drive to the Vector Graphic FDC. Whenever it tries to format under CP/M, the VG is able to write out all 154 tracks (I have verified it is writing the tracks by inspecting the disks using my Catweasel) but the VG cannot verify the tracks correctly and fails the format. Everytime it tries to format a disk, it ends with "PERMANENT DISK ERROR" messages. Using different CP/M utilities to write to the HD drives results in similar errors such as VG BACKUP, a disk copy utility, and CPYFSTU, another CP/M disk copy utility. I do not know for certain whether the disks are have errors when written or the drive is having problems reading the track. I know the disks are good as I can format them on the VG using the TM100-4M drive without issue. When I verified the tracks are written using the Catweasel and the same disk and drive I noticed several read errors and bad sectors which implies the tracks were written with errors. Does anyone know why these HD floppy drives are incompatible with the Vector Graphic FDC? Is there something I am missing or some setting which would make them compatible? The HD drives work just fine at DSQD drives on the floppy test bench PC so I am fairly sure the drives themselves are OK. The VG FDC works fine with the TM100-4M drives so I think they work OK. The problem is only when I attach the HD drives to the VG FDC. Would anyone please give me some insight on this problem? Thank you in advance for any help. Andrew Lynch From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Dec 19 15:49:18 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:49:18 -0500 Subject: IBM Bookmanager reader In-Reply-To: <476966C2.4080705@brutman.com> References: <476966C2.4080705@brutman.com> Message-ID: On Dec 19, 2007, at 1:45 PM, Michael B. Brutman wrote: > This was a pleasant surprise .. a Java version of the reader for IBM > BookManager files: > > http://www-306.ibm.com/software/applications/office/bkmgr/ > softcopyread.html > > It makes some of my old documentation much more accessible. Sadly, it > is a 66MB download. (It is also Java code, but requires Windows.) It's written in Java, and yet it *requires* Windows? What is the nature of this requirement? (I'd love such a reader but don't use Windows!) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From broche at tcn.net Wed Dec 19 15:50:53 2007 From: broche at tcn.net (Bernie Roche) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:50:53 -0500 Subject: Burroughs C3660 Electronic Calculator Message-ID: <47694BED.7110.2BA511E@broche.tcn.net> Hi, all: I'm a newbie to the list, so hello. I'm trying to fnd out the fair market value of a Burroughs C3660 Electronic Calculator, c/w manuals, magnetic memory cards, etc. Can anyone give me their opinion, or point me to a web site which gives market values? Best Wishes, Bernie Roche Toronto, ON, Canada From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Dec 19 16:50:13 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:50:13 -0300 Subject: IBM Bookmanager reader References: <476966C2.4080705@brutman.com> Message-ID: <008101c84291$dc4798f0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > This was a pleasant surprise .. a Java version of the reader for IBM > BookManager files: > http://www-306.ibm.com/software/applications/office/bkmgr/softcopyread.html > It makes some of my old documentation much more accessible. Sadly, it is > a 66MB download. (It is also Java code, but requires Windows.) What is the advantage of using java, if it requires windows? :oO From cannings at earthlink.net Wed Dec 19 15:56:42 2007 From: cannings at earthlink.net (Steven Canning) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 13:56:42 -0800 Subject: GRID computer available in So Cal References: <000701c84216$45c0b4f0$0201a8c0@hal9000> <20071219104230.J72922@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <001301c8428a$0a883d80$0201a8c0@hal9000> Fred, In terms of crossing lines, she told me either the computers go or she does... I do miss her cooking .... > On Wed, 19 Dec 2007, Steven Canning wrote: > > it but I already have my " quota " of computers for this lifetime. If you > > Once you cross THAT line, there's no turning back. > > > GRID computer with 640 K RAM, 384 K Bubble Memory In really good shape ! > > Phoenix BIOS, MS-DOS Ver 3.20 ( I'm not kidding ... ) 100 to 240 Volts > > 50 / 60 / 400 Hz > > Three point twenty was the first version that directly supported 720K from > MICROS~1, although there were a LOT of two point elevens, such as Gavilan > that were set up by OEMS to do it. > > You should be able to run WINDOZE three point ten on it, although it takes > some work to squeeze it down to fit. > > However, I do NOT think that it can do a 132 column text mode. It seems to have about the equivalent of a Hercules' graphics card in terms of Graphics " power ". There seems to be some inconsistency on processor speed. Most say it was a screaming 8 MHz ? Best regards, Steven From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Wed Dec 19 16:45:36 2007 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 22:45:36 +0000 Subject: Membranes in Keyboards In-Reply-To: <287865.88747.qm@web55315.mail.re4.yahoo.com> References: <287865.88747.qm@web55315.mail.re4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1198104336.5876.7.camel@elric> On Tue, 2007-12-18 at 20:45 -0800, Debbie Cornett wrote: > I have an old Xerox memorywriter electronic typewriter that needs to have the membranes inside the keyboard replaced. Does anyone out there know how to replace the membranes? I have two keys that no longer work because of this problem. Thanks. You'll be lucky to get a replacement. You may be able to repair the tracks with the silver-loaded paint for fixing heated rear windows. Gordon From arcarlini at iee.org Wed Dec 19 16:56:03 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 22:56:03 -0000 Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <47682ECE.19553.210E9E47@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <003101c84292$55ccc240$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Chuck Guzis wrote: > It used to be that the FORTRAN mathlibs at places like Los Alamos and > Lawrence Livermore were second to none. Sadly, I don't know if > that's true anymore. For my doctoral work (using a PDP-11 - probably vintage even then - and a MicroVAX - shiny and new then, definitely on-topic now), I used the NAG library for all the number crunching. My son recently did some work experience with them: they now do C libraries and (it seems) some Java stuff too. Times change I guess. > Back on topic before I'm castigated. Perhaps I've inadvertently stumbled across a solution to the perennial "is this system on-topic in and of itself". If it can run Java then "no" :-). Antonio No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.4/1189 - Release Date: 18/12/2007 21:40 From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Dec 19 17:00:12 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 23:00:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Troubleshooting a TRS-80 disk drive In-Reply-To: <653a64ac0712181408v153472c4ue20a7bd6de7c35d5@mail.gmail.com> from "Mark Meiss" at Dec 18, 7 05:08:03 pm Message-ID: > I'll be cracking the case as soon as I return from my holiday travels. > Between this and the Radio Shack Tech Reference, I think I'll be much better > prepared to fix without breaking. The official TechRef is pretty good on the disk drives, althoguh since the drives are standard units, it's always possible your machine has some other drive in there. Compare the PCB against the layouts in the manual to be sore. And IIRC my TechRef has an extra section on the later version drive that has the spindle motor speed control cirucit on the main PCB. But don't beleive the PSU section in the manual _at all_. Ok, the PSus in my M3 and M4 (all the same PSUs, BTW), are the 230V model, so you'd expect some differences, but there's very little in common between the PSU and the one i nthe manual. Worse, the diagram in the manual couldn't possibly work IIRC. The PSUs were not made by Radio Shack, they're Astec units, and I susepct Astec would not supply scheamtics so soembody at Radio Shack reverse-engineered it and didn't do a very good job! -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Dec 19 17:04:17 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 23:04:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <1198020779.5876.2.camel@elric> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Dec 18, 7 11:32:59 pm Message-ID: > Did any company ever actually produce a storage product that used > 8-track carts (or indeed broadcast carts)? Did it work? Not specifcially 8-track tape cartridges, but there were several microcomputer storage systems that used endless-loop tape cartridges. The best knwon being the Sinclair Microdrive. Whether it worked or not is up to you :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Dec 19 17:19:26 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 23:19:26 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Membranes in Keyboards In-Reply-To: <287865.88747.qm@web55315.mail.re4.yahoo.com> from "Debbie Cornett" at Dec 18, 7 08:45:36 pm Message-ID: > > I have an old Xerox memorywriter electronic typewriter that needs to > have the membranes inside the keyboard replaced. Does anyone out there > know how to replace the membranes? I have two keys that no longer work > because of this problem. Thanks. You ahve posted your question to a large, international, mailing list... There are many people here who do repairs on older computers and related equipment, often without any service documentation for the device in question, and who could almost certainly dismantle your Memorywriter to repair the keyboard. However, whether such a repair can be carried out would depend on whether anyone has, or can get, the replacement membrane. Since this is an international list, it would be useful to know where you are. This is the sort of thing best done by somebody local to you, somebody on the other side of a large body of water is unlikely to be of any help. -tony From drb at msu.edu Wed Dec 19 17:23:39 2007 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:23:39 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) Message-ID: <200712192323.lBJNNdn6005712@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > Did any company ever actually produce a storage product that used > 8-track carts (or indeed broadcast carts)? Did it work? There were commercial systems based on VHS decks, good for a couple of GB per tape. Prime actually sold them briefly, iirc. The company I worked for at the time sold a few such systems to our customers, and made them work. I recall video tape quality being critical. De From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Dec 19 17:25:14 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:25:14 -0600 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <1198020779.5876.2.camel@elric> References: <200712141543.lBEFhE5R026565@dewey.classiccmp.org> <200712141411.12069.rtellason@verizon.net> <20071214115137.R5209@shell.lmi.net> <200712181807.33708.rtellason@verizon.net> <1198020779.5876.2.camel@elric> Message-ID: <4769A85A.3090006@gmail.com> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Did any company ever actually produce a storage product that used > 8-track carts (or indeed broadcast carts)? I presume somebody's mentioned Exidy already? (hey, you didn't specify that the cartridges had to have the correct guts...) J. From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Dec 19 17:34:19 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:34:19 -0600 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <200712192323.lBJNNdn6005712@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <200712192323.lBJNNdn6005712@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4769AA7B.1070700@gmail.com> Dennis Boone wrote: > > Did any company ever actually produce a storage product that used > > 8-track carts (or indeed broadcast carts)? Did it work? > > There were commercial systems based on VHS decks, good for a couple of > GB per tape. I'm not so sure about 'good' - from what I heard, reliability of those things was pretty awful! From bnansel at bigpond.net.au Wed Dec 19 17:50:03 2007 From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au (Robert Nansel) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:20:03 +1030 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) Message-ID: <78BE5E44-3ECB-4CAC-890D-C896A4786030@bigpond.net.au> Tue Dec 18, 2007 at 17:32 Gordon JC Pearce said: > Did any company ever actually produce a storage product that used > 8-track carts (or indeed broadcast carts)? Did it work? > > Gordon I had a surplus dual 8-track data drive back in the early '80s that came from a Compucolor machine, ca. 1975. It was fun to play with. As I recall, it had a 4-track head and two head positions. I managed to write & read data from it at 2400 baud. I don't know if it would have worked at a higher data rate, though the manufacturer claimed it would work at up to 600 cps. -Bobby From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Dec 19 18:07:23 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:07:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <200712192323.lBJNNdn6005712@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <200712192323.lBJNNdn6005712@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <20071219160657.M85402@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 19 Dec 2007, Dennis Boone wrote: > There were commercial systems based on VHS decks, good for a couple of > GB per tape. Prime actually sold them briefly, iirc. The company I > worked for at the time sold a few such systems to our customers, and > made them work. I recall video tape quality being critical. . . . and the Corvus interface for Apple ][ ! From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Dec 19 18:43:33 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:43:33 -0500 Subject: IBM Bookmanager reader In-Reply-To: References: <476966C2.4080705@brutman.com> Message-ID: <200712191943.33360.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 19 December 2007 16:49, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Dec 19, 2007, at 1:45 PM, Michael B. Brutman wrote: > > This was a pleasant surprise .. a Java version of the reader for > > IBM BookManager files: > > > > http://www-306.ibm.com/software/applications/office/bkmgr/ > > softcopyread.html > > > > It makes some of my old documentation much more accessible. Sadly, > > it is a 66MB download. (It is also Java code, but requires > > Windows.) > > It's written in Java, and yet it *requires* Windows? What is the > nature of this requirement? > > (I'd love such a reader but don't use Windows!) There are Linux and OS/2 versions as well. No idea if the Linux version is usable on a non-x86 Linux box. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From rcini at optonline.net Wed Dec 19 18:49:36 2007 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:49:36 -0500 Subject: IBM Bookmanager reader In-Reply-To: <200712191943.33360.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On 12/19/07 7:43 PM, "Patrick Finnegan" wrote: > On Wednesday 19 December 2007 16:49, Dave McGuire wrote: >> On Dec 19, 2007, at 1:45 PM, Michael B. Brutman wrote: >>> This was a pleasant surprise .. a Java version of the reader for >>> IBM BookManager files: >>> >>> http://www-306.ibm.com/software/applications/office/bkmgr/ >>> softcopyread.html >>> >>> It makes some of my old documentation much more accessible. Sadly, >>> it is a 66MB download. (It is also Java code, but requires >>> Windows.) >> >> It's written in Java, and yet it *requires* Windows? What is the >> nature of this requirement? >> >> (I'd love such a reader but don't use Windows!) > > There are Linux and OS/2 versions as well. No idea if the Linux version > is usable on a non-x86 Linux box. > > Pat Rich -- Rich Cini Collector of Classic Computers Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator http://www.altair32.com http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Wed Dec 19 19:49:49 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 17:49:49 -0800 Subject: IBM Bookmanager reader In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20071219174949.ley4f32f5lw00wog@webmail3.secure-wi.com> Guys, I was trying to point out useful software for reading an old documentation standard from IBM. Going off on a tangent about the evils of coding for one specific platform or another really isn't necessary. Anything that makes the old documentation more accessible is a plus, even if it is Windows only. If the Java part bothers you, just ignore it and pretend it is a normal piece of bloatware. From madodel at ptdprolog.net Wed Dec 19 20:05:13 2007 From: madodel at ptdprolog.net (madodel) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 21:05:13 -0500 Subject: Looking for ThinkPads In-Reply-To: <476930D1.8020305@gmail.com> References: <476930D1.8020305@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4769CDD9.2010201@ptdprolog.net> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > > I'm looking for an IBM Thinkpad 701C or 701CS (the one with the > butterfly keyboard), as well as a Thinkpad 860. Anyone have any > available? They have to be working. > > Peace... Sridhar I have two 701C butterflies. One has a cracked bezel, but works OK. The other boots but has a horizontal roll unless the lid is held at a specific point. They have A/C adapters but no working batteries. I think the one AC adapter cost me about as much as the computer. My goal was to install OS/2 2.0 or 2.1 on them but haven't gotten that far yet. Are you looking for cosmetic perfection? If so neither of these are good. If you do find a source for some 701Cs in really good shape I'd be interested in one also. It seems the ones on eBay are a real crap shoot and I'm tired of getting burned. The keyboards are a work of art though. Mark -- From the eComStation Desktop of: Mark Dodel Warpstock 2007 - Toronto, Ontario, Canada: http://www.warpstock.org Warpstock Europe - Valkenswaard close to Eindhoven, the Netherlands: http://www.warpstock.eu For a choice in the future of personal computing, Join VOICE - http://www.os2voice.org "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That in it's essence, is Fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power." Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Message proposing the Monopoly Investigation, 1938 From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Dec 19 20:41:05 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:41:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <200712192323.lBJNNdn6005712@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> from Dennis Boone at "Dec 19, 7 06:23:39 pm" Message-ID: <200712200241.lBK2f5V5009328@floodgap.com> > > Did any company ever actually produce a storage product that used > > 8-track carts (or indeed broadcast carts)? Did it work? > > There were commercial systems based on VHS decks, good for a couple of > GB per tape. Alpha Micro comes to mind, particularly the Videotrax system, which was not only available for their server line but also for DOS and (briefly) Mac. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Flat text is just *never* what you want. -- stephen p spackman ------------- From cclist at sydex.com Wed Dec 19 20:52:30 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:52:30 -0800 Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <200712200207.lBK2715b002890@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712200207.lBK2715b002890@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4769686E.2694.25D7B2CF@cclist.sydex.com> > From: Tom Watson > > Ob Keypunch: Back in the day they had a Control Data Institute ad on TV > that boasted "Do you like working with your hands and not getting your > fingernails dirty?", I then remarked that this guy has NEVER replaced a > keypunch ribbon. (*SIGH*) those days were much more fun!! I used to tease the CDC CE's with that line when they were digging bits and pieces of shredded printer ribbon out of a 512 printer type train (a not infrequent occurrence). If looks could kill... Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Dec 19 21:01:11 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:01:11 -0800 Subject: GRID computer available in So Cal In-Reply-To: <200712200207.lBK2715b002890@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712200207.lBK2715b002890@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47696A77.12120.25DFA434@cclist.sydex.com> > Three point twenty was the first version that directly supported 720K from > MICROS~1, although there were a LOT of two point elevens, such as Gavilan > that were set up by OEMS to do it. That reminds me--I located a nice black vinyl binder and slipcase with Grid MS-DOS 3.20 docs and disks in it. Grid did have its own version of the MODE command as well as a few other utilities. Since I no longer own a Grid, if anyone wants it (and is willing to pay shipping), it's up for grabs. Email me off-list if you're interested. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Dec 19 21:04:24 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:04:24 -0800 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <200712200207.lBK2715b002890@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712200207.lBK2715b002890@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47696B38.12211.25E29623@cclist.sydex.com> From: Jules Richardson > Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > > Did any company ever actually produce a storage product that used > > 8-track carts (or indeed broadcast carts)? > > I presume somebody's mentioned Exidy already? (hey, you didn't specify > that the cartridges had to have the correct guts...) Did you perhaps mean Exatron as in "stringy floppy"? Or am I showing my age again? Cheers, Chuck From lynchaj at yahoo.com Wed Dec 19 21:09:43 2007 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 22:09:43 -0500 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic Message-ID: <00c701c842b5$c4ed50e0$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> Got a UART? It will make the Kaypro keyboard output into parallel without changing a thing. The signal's 300 baud RS-232 at TTL levels. Bob Maxwell ------REPLY------ Hi Bob! Thanks to everyone who replied to my question. They have been very helpful. The goal of this project is to interface the Kaypro II serial keyboard to a Vector Graphic Flashwriter II video board. It requires 8 bits of parallel input (TTL levels) and a strobe. It provides +5v and ground connections. The interface is 8 bits of data, 1 strobe line, +5v, and ground connected to an intel 8212 parallel interface chip. Does anyone have a schematic for *simple* hardware only circuit using a commonly available UART, like an 8251 or 8250, to do the serial to parallel conversion? I am looking for a schematic which I can easily modify to strap the UART to 300bps operation. Really, I'd like to stress a *simple* circuit using a small number of chips and discrete components on a small protoboard. Preferably with +5v only operation. Even a hand drawn example or one in a datasheet would be great. I have searched on the internet for a simple circuit but have not found anything I could use. Please no MCU's or programmable devices, I realize how appealing they are but they require learning time consuming programming environments and I am pressed for time at the moment. Thanks in advance for any help! Andrew Lynch From classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk Wed Dec 19 21:47:05 2007 From: classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk (Ensor) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 03:47:05 -0000 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) References: <200712200207.lBK2715b002890@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47696B38.12211.25E29623@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <007001c842ba$fd221a40$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Hi, >> I presume somebody's mentioned Exidy already? (hey, you >>didn't specify that the cartridges had to have the correct >>guts...) > > Did you perhaps mean Exatron as in "stringy floppy"? Or am >I showing my age again? Nope, he meant "Exidy". The cartridges for the "Sorcorer" were actually 8-track cassettes with the indised replaced with a PCB etc. TTFN - Pete. From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Dec 19 22:19:14 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:19:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <47696B38.12211.25E29623@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712200207.lBK2715b002890@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47696B38.12211.25E29623@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20071219201657.B955@shell.lmi.net> > > > Did any company ever actually produce a storage product that used > > > 8-track carts (or indeed broadcast carts)? > > I presume somebody's mentioned Exidy already? (hey, you didn't specify > > that the cartridges had to have the correct guts...) On Wed, 19 Dec 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Did you perhaps mean Exatron as in "stringy floppy"? Or am I showing > my age again? That was less than 30 years ago. Intro'd at 3rd West Coast Computer Faire? (the one time that it was in southern CA) Actually, I think that he was referring to uses of empty 8 track cases for ROM cartridges. From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Dec 19 23:50:32 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:50:32 -0500 Subject: IBM Bookmanager reader In-Reply-To: References: <476966C2.4080705@brutman.com> Message-ID: <476A02A8.3020207@gmail.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Dec 19, 2007, at 1:45 PM, Michael B. Brutman wrote: >> This was a pleasant surprise .. a Java version of the reader for IBM >> BookManager files: >> >> http://www-306.ibm.com/software/applications/office/bkmgr/softcopyread.html >> >> >> It makes some of my old documentation much more accessible. Sadly, it >> is a 66MB download. (It is also Java code, but requires Windows.) > > It's written in Java, and yet it *requires* Windows? What is the > nature of this requirement? > > (I'd love such a reader but don't use Windows!) The installer requires Windows. I've gotten the reader to work under NetBSD. It just takes some fiddling. Peace... Sridhar From g-wright at att.net Thu Dec 20 00:28:38 2007 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 06:28:38 +0000 Subject: Looking for ThinkPads Message-ID: <122020070628.2924.476A0B95000135B700000B6C22230680329B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> -------------- Original message from "Steven Canning" : -------------- > Sridhar, > > I have a bunch of the 760s ...? They weigh a ton ! But at least they are > working. Currently running Windoze 3.1 and DOS mostly to control test > equipment. > > Best regards, Steven > > 760's make very good Dumb Terminals. I have 3 here with Procomm on them. Use them everyday for testing systems. and recording the sessions. Very nice screens. The 860 is a Power PC ThinkPad, which is getting hard to find. They where very expensive in there day. - Jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc From bnansel at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 20 00:30:32 2007 From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au (Robert Nansel) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:00:32 +1030 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] Message-ID: <57AFCC3F-3565-4457-98AB-71004804A18A@bigpond.net.au> That's BSCP as in "Bit-Serial Computer Project." The 2N2/256 part of the name is a nod to ham homebrewer Jim Kortge (K8IQY) who designed a QRP rig called the 2N2/40 for a design contest about ten years ago. The contest objective was to design and build a functional amateur radio transceiver, using a maximum of twenty-two 2N2222 type transistors. Whether it uses drums, disks, or ultrasonic delay lines, my challenge is: 1) To build a complete functional computer, including memory, using no more than 256 2N2222-ish transistors (plus scads of diodes, resistors, etc.). 2) Use no ICs or other parts that wouldn't have been available to hobbyists ca. 1965. 3) Must be transportable in the boot of a mid-size sedan (i.e. a few roughly 350mm cubical modules). Anybody up for a contest to see who can design the most powerful general-purpose digital computer given these constraints? I guess we'd have to figure out what "powerful" means in this context, given that it's likely never to exceed a few KIPS. I'm prototyping DTL NAND gates and flip-flops today... -Bobby From spc at conman.org Thu Dec 20 01:42:30 2007 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 02:42:30 -0500 Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <003101c84292$55ccc240$5b01a8c0@uatempname> References: <47682ECE.19553.210E9E47@cclist.sydex.com> <003101c84292$55ccc240$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: <20071220074230.GT30562@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great Antonio Carlini once stated: > > Perhaps I've inadvertently stumbled across a solution to the perennial > "is this system on-topic in and of itself". If it can run Java then "no" > :-). Might have to have the List Wizard chime in here, but my first Java project [1] was done over ten years ago. -spc (Java sucked back then too ... ) [1] http://www.conman.org/people/spc/refs/search/search.hp1.html From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Wed Dec 19 02:18:01 2007 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:18:01 -0000 Subject: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV sets) Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3903E5DF@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> I actually worked on VDU's that used shift registers as the display memory around 1973. If I remember correctly one lines worth (80 characters) got transferred to a buffer in the interline gap (Fly back time). The buffer was scanned out in such a way as to address the character generator one row at a time. Characters were 7x5 dots so the top five dots of the first character was serialized followed by the top row of the second one and so on. Then all of the second character row dots on a line would be displayed until the end of the store (and therefore frame was reached) New characters would join the tail end (first unused position) of the store as it went past. Rod Smallwood Sitting in my DEC chair in the SUN shine. -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of M H Stein Sent: 18 December 2007 19:28 To: 'cctalk at classiccmp.org' Subject: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV sets) Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:03:34 +0000 From: Ethan Dicks Subject: Re: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV sets) On Mon, Dec 17, 2007 at 06:52:59PM -0500, Allison wrote: >> MOS shift registers of lengths greater than a few bits are very late >> 60s (after 67 or so). By early 70s parts 1024 long ere not uncommon. >I think I have a couple of old SAD1024 MOS shift registers from when I >was collecting deeply discounted items from the local Radio Shack >"Manager's Table" as a kid. >I had thought one day to make the audio echo/delay circuit I think I >saw in an old Forrest Mims circuit book, but a solid-state acoustic >delay line emulator sounds like a much cooler place to put them. >-ethan ___________ Sounds like our shopping habits were the same in those golden days at the 'shack ;-); I've still got a couple waiting for me to get a round tuit (the data sheet also has the bucket brigade audio delay schematic). As a digital delay line I guess you could even use it word-wise since it's analog; you'd need some pretty fast DAC/ADCs though. mike From jason at pureenergymultimedia.com Wed Dec 19 03:07:37 2007 From: jason at pureenergymultimedia.com (Jason Fitzpatrick) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:07:37 -0000 Subject: GRID computer available in So Cal In-Reply-To: <000701c84216$45c0b4f0$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: Hi Steven, I would very much like to give a home to your grid at the Centre for Computing History in Suffolk. See : www.computinghistory.org.uk I'd be happy to pay the shipping. Interested? :-) Kind Regards Jason Fitzpatrick Chairman -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Steven Canning Sent: 19 December 2007 08:08 To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Subject: GRID computer available in So Cal I have come into possession of a fully functional GRID computer that needs a good home ( that is why it is appearing here first ). I would love to keep it but I already have my " quota " of computers for this lifetime. If you are interested please contact me offline so as not to piss off the list. It weighs about 10 pounds so shipping won't be cheap... GRID computer with 640 K RAM, 384 K Bubble Memory In really good shape ! Phoenix BIOS, MS-DOS Ver 3.20 ( I'm not kidding ... ) 100 to 240 Volts 50 / 60 / 400 Hz This thing is built like a tank. They were used in the space shuttle, and by various branches of the Military. Boots up ( off of the Bubble Memory ) and presents the expected " DOS " screen and prompt. No dead or stuck pixels. Best regards, Steven Canning No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.4/1189 - Release Date: 18/12/2007 21:40 From tiggerlasv at aim.com Wed Dec 19 13:03:36 2007 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:03:36 -0500 Subject: RQDXn to RX33 / RX50 cable construction Message-ID: <8CA1088FE6E2AE4-138C-1DB7@WEBMAIL-MB03.sysops.aol.com> While perusing the 'net the other day, I stumbled across details for a cable to go directly from an RQDXn controller to a hard drive. I didn't find any mention of a cable to go from an RQDXn to a floppy. Since I have a BA123, and ONLY use the RQDX3 for floppy support, I thought it might be a handy cable to have, rather than going through the tangle of cables involved with the RQDX "Paddle card". It might also come in handy for testing. If anyone is interested, here are the pinouts, and instructions for constructing such a cable.? The instructions were created with the lay-person in mind.? Copying this text into Windows Notepad should restore proper formatting. This cable was constructed using a BA23 distribution panel as a guide, and has been tested with both RX50's and RX33's, attached to an RQDX3. Cable diagram: Floppy? RQDX??? Description --------------------------------- 1?????? 21????? Gnd 2?????? 22????? Density Select --------------------------------- 3?????? NC????? (Cut) 4?????? NC????? (Cut) 5?????? NC????? (Cut) --------------------------------- 6?????? 24????? Drive Select 4? 7?????? 25????? Gnd 8?????? 26????? Index 9?????? NC 10????? 28????? Drive Select 1 --------------------------------- 11????? NC????? (Cut) 12????? 29????? Drive Select 2 13????? NC????? (Cut) --------------------------------- 14????? 30????? Drive Select 3 15????? NC 16????? 32????? Floppy Motor 17????? 33????? Gnd 18????? 34????? Direction 19????? 35????? Gnd 20????? 36????? Step 21????? 37????? Gnd 22????? 38????? Floppy Write Data 23????? 39????? Gnd 24????? 40????? Write Gate 25????? 41????? Gnd 26????? 42????? Track 0 --------------------------------- 27????? NC????? (Cut) 28????? 8?????? Write Fault --------------------------------- 29????? 45????? Gnd 30????? 46????? Floppy Read Data 31????? 47????? Gnd 32????? 48????? Head Select 0 33????? 49????? Gnd 34????? 50????? Ready Stuff you'll need: 1.)???? A suitable length of 34-conductor ribbon cable. ??????? Make sure you have enough wire to reach the controller, ??????? and enough slack on the other end to allow the drives ??????? to slide out of the bay.? Add 6" onto this measurement. 2.)???? A 50-pin IDC-style "Berg" connector for the RQDXn. 3.)???? A 34-pin IDC-style "Berg" connector for an RX50. 4.)???? One or two 34-pin IDC-style card-edge connectors for RX33's. What to do: 1.)???? Split one end of the ribbon cable as follows. ??????? DON'T separate ALL of the wires individually; keep them paired! ??????? Peel each grouping of conductors back about 4 or 5 inches. ??????? 1,2 ??????? ------------- ??????? 3,4,5 ??????? ------------- ??????? 6 through 10 ??????? ------------- ??????? 11,12,13 ??????? ------------- ??????? 14 through 26 ??????? ------------- ??????? 27,28 ??????? ------------- ??????? 29 through 34 2.)???? Cut conductors 3, 4, 5, 11, 13, and 27. ??????? They won't be used, and there won't be a convenient place ??????? to terminate them on the connector. ? ??????? These wires will need to be insulated at some point. ??????? If you have wide plastic sleeving, then put a section of it ??????? onto the cable.? Heat shrink will NOT work well. ??????? A simple loop of electrical tape should suffice. 3.)???? Conductor 28 needs to be fairly long, since it ??????? lands on the opposite side of the 50-pin connector. ?????? ?Trim about 3 inches off ALL of the OTHER wires. 4.)???? Using a pair of needle-nose pliers, ??????? REMOVE the following contacts from the 50-pin IDC connector: ??????? 7, 9, 19, 20, 23, 27, 31, 43, and 44. ??????? This will prevent certain RQDXn signal lines from ??????? being inadvertently grounded, and will help properly ??????? identify your landing positions for some of the connections. 5.)???? Line up the ribbon cable with the connector, ??????? and check to make sure that conductor 28 is long enough ??????? to reach across the cable, without placing it under any strain. 6.)???? Press the ribbon cable onto the 50-pin IDC connector. ??????? Refer to the chart at the top of this text; You'll see ??????? that they are grouped exactly as they should sit on ??????? the actual connector, with the exception of conductor 28. ??????? Note that SOME groupings start on ODD connector numbers, ??????? and some start on EVEN numbers. 7.)???? If you haven't done so already, refer back to step 2, ??????? and insulate the wires that were cut, to prevent them ??????? from shorting-out against the chassis. 8.)???? Determine where you need your floppy connectors, ??????? and press the connectors onto the 34-pin cable. ??????? Make sure that you observe the position of Pin 1. ??????? I made a "Universal cable" for my BA123. ??????? It has a 34-pin berg, and TWO card-edge connectors ??????? near the end (spaced about 4" apart), and then a THIRD ??????? card-edge connector about 10" down. ??????? This will allow double-stacked RX33's in a single bay, ??????? individual RX33's in separate bays, or a single RX50. 9.)??? ?Test, and enjoy ! ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From Commtekman at aol.com Wed Dec 19 22:49:15 2007 From: Commtekman at aol.com (Commtekman at aol.com) Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 23:49:15 EST Subject: Good finds this weekend Message-ID: Hi, I am trying to locate the TT manual for the 15E paper winder, any idea on where to get one ? Thanks Bob K6OSM McCall, Idaho commtekman at aol.com **************************************See AOL's top rated recipes (http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004) From frustum at pacbell.net Thu Dec 20 02:11:30 2007 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 02:11:30 -0600 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <57AFCC3F-3565-4457-98AB-71004804A18A@bigpond.net.au> References: <57AFCC3F-3565-4457-98AB-71004804A18A@bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <476A23B2.8070909@pacbell.net> Robert Nansel wrote: > That's BSCP as in "Bit-Serial Computer Project." The 2N2/256 part of the > name is a nod to ham homebrewer Jim Kortge (K8IQY) who designed a QRP > rig called the 2N2/40 for a design contest about ten years ago. The > contest objective was to design and build a functional amateur radio > transceiver, using a maximum of twenty-two 2N2222 type transistors. > > > > Whether it uses drums, disks, or ultrasonic delay lines, my challenge is: > > 1) To build a complete functional computer, including memory, using > no more than 256 2N2222-ish transistors (plus scads of diodes, > resistors, etc.). > > 2) Use no ICs or other parts that wouldn't have been available to > hobbyists ca. 1965. > > 3) Must be transportable in the boot of a mid-size sedan (i.e. a > few roughly 350mm cubical modules). > > > > Anybody up for a contest to see who can design the most powerful > general-purpose digital computer given these constraints? I guess we'd > have to figure out what "powerful" means in this context, given that > it's likely never to exceed a few KIPS. > > I'm prototyping DTL NAND gates and flip-flops today... Rather than a magnetic drum, I think a much more achievable contraption is a drum that uses capacitance for storage. The density would be much lower, but it would be more tractable, I think. Inside a hollow cylinder mount rows of capacitors. One side of all capacitors would be connected in common to ground, which conveniently would also be the axle that would be spinning the drum. The other side of each cap would punch through the cylinder wall with a brass stud. A row of brushes would make contact with a row of caps at a given time. Just like a DRAM, you'd have to read, sense, and refresh the caps on each read, and every so often in case a given word wasn't read for a while. To make things simple, read, sense, and refresh every rotation to get rid of any special cases. If you don't want word parallel access, then just have the studs from a given brush represent the bits of a word. Different brushes are used to select which word you care to access. 16 words of 16 bits should be do-able. Thinking a bit more about this, it should be possible to make a single cross section "slice", and then laminate these to as many words as you'd like. The first slice would be unique -- it wouldn't have any storage, but instead would be the clock source, and some indication of the rotation phase (perhaps just a "this is bit 0" signal). By making the "studs" on this clock track smaller and centered relative to the ones used for accessing the data, you should be able to use it to gate the r/m/w timing. It sure isn't going to do 3000 RPM, but perhaps 1/10 of that speed, and it will make a nice clatter I suppose. But since you are setting a limit of 256 transistors, you shouldn't really be aiming for high performance anyway. From bnansel at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 20 02:49:16 2007 From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au (Robert Nansel) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:19:16 +1030 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] Message-ID: <268AC5E7-1D36-4816-8B52-643771279B75@bigpond.net.au> On Thu Dec 20, 2007 at 02:11 Jim Battle said: > Rather than a magnetic drum, I think a much more achievable > contraption > is a drum that uses capacitance for storage. ... Ha! Just like the Atanasoff-Berry machine. Someone else mentioned using a toner drum, but as a smooth surface on which to put an oxide coating to make it into a magnetic drum. I wonder how fast one could optically write charge to a toner drum? Readout could be through capacitive coupling, no contact at all. I 'spose the antecedent to a disc version of the above would be, what, a Wimshurst machine? :) > ... > It sure isn't going to do 3000 RPM, but perhaps 1/10 of that speed, > and > it will make a nice clatter I suppose. But since you are setting a > limit of 256 transistors, you shouldn't really be aiming for high > performance anyway. No, no! The drum is the limiting factor on speed. Fast drum == slow computer; slow drum == intolerably slow computer. -B From davis at saw.net Thu Dec 20 03:01:07 2007 From: davis at saw.net (davis) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:01:07 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <476A23B2.8070909@pacbell.net> References: <57AFCC3F-3565-4457-98AB-71004804A18A@bigpond.net.au> <476A23B2.8070909@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <476A2F53.3000407@saw.net> Jim Battle wrote: > Robert Nansel wrote: >> That's BSCP as in "Bit-Serial Computer Project." The 2N2/256 part of >> the name is a nod to ham homebrewer Jim Kortge (K8IQY) who designed a >> QRP rig called the 2N2/40 for a design contest about ten years ago. >> The contest objective was to design and build a functional amateur >> radio transceiver, using a maximum of twenty-two 2N2222 type >> transistors. >> >> >> >> Whether it uses drums, disks, or ultrasonic delay lines, my challenge >> is: >> >> 1) To build a complete functional computer, including memory, >> using no more than 256 2N2222-ish transistors (plus scads of diodes, >> resistors, etc.). >> >> 2) Use no ICs or other parts that wouldn't have been available >> to hobbyists ca. 1965. >> >> 3) Must be transportable in the boot of a mid-size sedan (i.e. a >> few roughly 350mm cubical modules). >> >> >> >> Anybody up for a contest to see who can design the most powerful >> general-purpose digital computer given these constraints? I guess >> we'd have to figure out what "powerful" means in this context, given >> that it's likely never to exceed a few KIPS. >> >> I'm prototyping DTL NAND gates and flip-flops today... > IMHO, to build anything interesting and useful, the rules should be 256 2n2222s for the CPU. The memory design requirements, (unless you're looking to build a CARDIAC clone with 10 cells) should allow use of contemporary memory ( but not too much, just for code, not ALU lookup tables). The guy that did the relay computer allowed that, and he was able to execute interesting code?. This kind of a CPU design screams bit serial execution. Take a look at the Nebula design (OSU) on bitsavers for insight. Cheers, Jim Davis. I've been thinking about a eprom/latch/sequencer based CPU since I picked up a hundred or so 16 bit wide 64KW eproms from a dumpster at work. From davis at saw.net Thu Dec 20 03:12:16 2007 From: davis at saw.net (davis) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:12:16 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <476A2F53.3000407@saw.net> References: <57AFCC3F-3565-4457-98AB-71004804A18A@bigpond.net.au> <476A23B2.8070909@pacbell.net> <476A2F53.3000407@saw.net> Message-ID: <476A31F0.3080706@saw.net> davis wrote: > > IMHO, to build anything interesting and useful, the rules should be > 256 2n2222s for the CPU. The memory design requirements, (unless > you're looking to build a CARDIAC clone with 10 cells) > should allow use of contemporary memory ( but not too much, just for > code, not ALU lookup tables). The guy that did the relay computer > allowed that, and he was able to execute interesting code?. > This kind of a CPU design screams bit serial execution. Take a look at > the Nebula design (OSU) on bitsavers for insight. > > Cheers, > Jim Davis. > I've been thinking about a eprom/latch/sequencer based CPU since I > picked up a hundred or so 16 bit wide 64KW eproms from a dumpster at > work. > > > Sorry, that's the Oregon state archive. Still, even without my complaints, it sounds like fun and a great way to wreck any relationships and careers. Jim Davis. From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Thu Dec 20 03:57:12 2007 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:57:12 +0100 Subject: AMD9016E speed grades ? Message-ID: <476A3C78.8070207@bluewin.ch> Does anyone know what a speedgrade an amd9016e DRAM chip is ? Google gives one million resellers and no datasheets. Suggestions as to why replacing said am9016epc with a mcm4116bp20 does not work, are also welcome. Jos From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Dec 20 03:57:46 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:57:46 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] References: <57AFCC3F-3565-4457-98AB-71004804A18A@bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <476A3C9A.74C1961E@cs.ubc.ca> Robert Nansel wrote: > I'm prototyping DTL NAND gates and flip-flops today... There is a DTL AND-NOR construct requiring only one transistor that was fairly common back in the discrete days if you're interested or unaware. Should save transistors, but wants a neg-bias supply. > Anybody up for a contest to see who can design the most powerful > general-purpose digital computer given these constraints? I guess > we'd have to figure out what "powerful" means in this context, given > that it's likely never to exceed a few KIPS. Sounds like fun, even if only to do the design, but I think I must refrain from getting sidetracked from other projects that I've got to finish this winter or they'll just languish for longer ('ooooh, look .. another shiny object' syndrome). From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Dec 20 03:58:00 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:58:00 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] References: <57AFCC3F-3565-4457-98AB-71004804A18A@bigpond.net.au> <476A23B2.8070909@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <476A3CA8.95EC7449@cs.ubc.ca> Jim Battle wrote: > > Rather than a magnetic drum, I think a much more achievable contraption > is a drum that uses capacitance for storage. The density would be much > lower, but it would be more tractable, I think. > > Inside a hollow cylinder mount rows of capacitors. One side of all > capacitors would be connected in common to ground, which conveniently > would also be the axle that would be spinning the drum. The other side > of each cap would punch through the cylinder wall with a brass stud. A > row of brushes would make contact with a row of caps at a given time. > > Just like a DRAM, you'd have to read, sense, and refresh the caps on > each read, and every so often in case a given word wasn't read for a > while. To make things simple, read, sense, and refresh every rotation > to get rid of any special cases. The ABC (Atanasoff-Berry Computer) did this in 1939-41 (you may be aware, but figured it should be mentioned..). From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Dec 20 04:09:22 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 04:09:22 -0600 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <200712191306.lBJD6AKD020723@hosting.monisys.ca> References: <200712191306.lBJD6AKD020723@hosting.monisys.ca> Message-ID: <476A3F52.6040608@oldskool.org> Dave Dunfield wrote: > The big problem with a graphical version would be the > "blinking" attribute - Do any graphics modes support blinking in > hardware? No. But I definitely see your point about double-wide characters being a problem in text mode, and agree that the only elegant solution would be rasterizing in graphics mode. > So what I did was to use VGA's capability of having two fonts (512 > possible characters on screen at once), and generate a second font > with underlines. It warms my heart to see that feature of VGA used properly. I think I can count the number of programs that use both VGA font banks on less then ten fingers. > I've also provided FIND132 which helps locate a 132 column video mode > for your adapter. I'm still researching VESA - as Jim said, perhaps I > can directly determine a suitable mode from the information returned > by the VESA BIOS. Feel free to contact me off-list for some sample code. The basic idea I use is to use Int 10/AX=4F01h to loop through all 256(*) available modes and check the results for the resolution or attributes (ie. text or graphics) that I'm specifically looking for. There might be a more elegant way than calling Int 10/AX=4F01h times, but it works well and is fast enough that I never looked for a more "elegant" way. (*)there are a total of 512 modes you can query, but the 0xxh are non-VESA and so you don't need to check them, only the 1xxh modes). > If there are any more suggestions or feedback, please keep it coming. I think this project is excellent and a kick-ass way to use spare old hardware lying around (which is more likely to have a working 25-pin serial port than any modern machine). I love this project. -- 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 Dec 20 04:11:30 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 04:11:30 -0600 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <200712191630.LAA01102@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200712191306.lBJD6AKD020723@hosting.monisys.ca> <200712191630.LAA01102@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <476A3FD2.6030700@oldskool.org> der Mouse wrote: >> The big problem with a graphical version would be the "blinking" >> attribute - Do any graphics modes support blinking in hardware? > > Do they need to? Don't peecee video cards have the ability to flip > between two blocks of video RAM with the flip of a bit? All you need > to do is render twice, once with and once without the blinking stuff, > and keep toggling between the two VRAM areas every however often. I've read that several times and am still trying to figure out if that is an elegant solution or an ugly solution... :-) (elegant due to instant hardware flip, but ugly due to burning up double the video ram just to blink a character... decisions, decisions...) -- 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 Dec 20 04:16:28 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 04:16:28 -0600 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <47692DA7.8090407@gmail.com> References: <200712181802.lBII2Fld083374@dewey.classiccmp.org> <4767A7FC.21406.1EFFF84A@cclist.sydex.com> <005d01c841e0$688426b0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> <200712182212.52756.pat@computer-refuge.org> <47692DA7.8090407@gmail.com> Message-ID: <476A40FC.2010405@oldskool.org> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > it's a de-facto standard for SVGA cards to produce the Hercules > resolutions without complaint. Um, no. It's the other way around. I think the number of clone VGA cards I have ever seen that would produce/emulate Hercules 720x348 mode 1. I could count on one hand, and 2. were all manufactured before 1990. Now, if you had said clone *EGA* card, I would have agreed with you. Most clone EGA cards accepted a monochrome monitor (pinout was the same) and would produce either Hercules 720x348 or EGA monochrom 640x350 on request. -- 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 dave06a at dunfield.com Thu Dec 20 05:51:21 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 06:51:21 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <476A3FD2.6030700@oldskool.org> References: <200712191630.LAA01102@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200712201057.lBKAvPdK002869@hosting.monisys.ca> > > So what I did was to use VGA's capability of having two fonts (512 > > possible characters on screen at once), and generate a second font > > with underlines. > > It warms my heart to see that feature of VGA used properly. I think I > can count the number of programs that use both VGA font banks on less > then ten fingers. Not the first time I've use dual-fonts. My Multi-channel datascope (MDLM) uses dual fonts so that it can display the data in a different character set than it's own displays. I use this for "partial hex" where all the non- printable characters are shown as HEX values, and "total hex" where ALL the data is shown in hex. > I think this project is excellent and a kick-ass way to use spare old > hardware lying around (which is more likely to have a working 25-pin > serial port than any modern machine). I love this project. Thanks. I just like to minimize the number of boxes that I need to have out in my workshop area. I've been using LAPTALK for years as my main "terminal", but with the recent acquisition of some VAXen, I decided it was time to make it as close to a VT-100 as possible. > >> The big problem with a graphical version would be the "blinking" > >> attribute - Do any graphics modes support blinking in hardware? > > > > Do they need to? Don't peecee video cards have the ability to flip > > between two blocks of video RAM with the flip of a bit? All you need > > to do is render twice, once with and once without the blinking stuff, > > and keep toggling between the two VRAM areas every however often. > > I've read that several times and am still trying to figure out if that > is an elegant solution or an ugly solution... :-) > > (elegant due to instant hardware flip, but ugly due to burning up double > the video ram just to blink a character... decisions, decisions...) I agree - It's a good idea (thanks Mouse), the double VRAM use doesn't bother me (It's there, and not being used otherwise), but I don't really like the idea of rendering twice - especially if you want this to work on XT's and 286's (It would be slow enough rendering once!)... I haven't really done much with VGA at the hardware registers level, ut could ou use a different "color", and reprogram the controller to change he way that color appears on the fly? ... There are four attributes: Blink, old, underline and Reverse ... Underline and Reverse you can do in the rendering, so you would need to modify two colors to handle blinking (Blink alone, and Blink+Bold) - you would need to do this every 1/2 second or so. Not that I'm planning to do a graphical version just yet. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From arcarlini at iee.org Thu Dec 20 06:26:40 2007 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:26:40 -0000 Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <20071220074230.GT30562@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <004901c84303$93c1e5a0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Sean Conner wrote: > It was thus said that the Great Antonio Carlini once stated: >> >> Perhaps I've inadvertently stumbled across a solution to the >> perennial "is this system on-topic in and of itself". If it can run >> Java then "no" :-). > > Might have to have the List Wizard chime in here, but my first Java > project [1] was done over ten years ago. On Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 it seems, so off-topic in and of themselves. So the putative can-it-run-Java rule may have something going for it after all ! Antonio No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.5/1190 - Release Date: 19/12/2007 19:37 From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Dec 20 06:47:33 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 07:47:33 -0500 Subject: IBM Bookmanager reader In-Reply-To: <008101c84291$dc4798f0$f0fea8c0@alpha> References: <476966C2.4080705@brutman.com> <008101c84291$dc4798f0$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <3fe675efd728b58487d28353b735632f@neurotica.com> On Dec 19, 2007, at 5:50 PM, Alexandre Souza wrote: >> This was a pleasant surprise .. a Java version of the reader for IBM >> BookManager files: >> http://www-306.ibm.com/software/applications/office/bkmgr/ >> softcopyread.html >> It makes some of my old documentation much more accessible. Sadly, >> it is a 66MB download. (It is also Java code, but requires Windows.) > > What is the advantage of using java, if it requires windows? :oO Exactly. :-( (I mean, minus the virtual machine foolishness, it's what C++ should have been, but still..) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Dec 20 06:49:15 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 07:49:15 -0500 Subject: IBM Bookmanager reader In-Reply-To: <200712191943.33360.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <476966C2.4080705@brutman.com> <200712191943.33360.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <5787ab8104aaf8aad55681e68f103032@neurotica.com> On Dec 19, 2007, at 7:43 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >>> This was a pleasant surprise .. a Java version of the reader for >>> IBM BookManager files: >>> >>> http://www-306.ibm.com/software/applications/office/bkmgr/ >>> softcopyread.html >>> >>> It makes some of my old documentation much more accessible. Sadly, >>> it is a 66MB download. (It is also Java code, but requires >>> Windows.) >> >> It's written in Java, and yet it *requires* Windows? What is the >> nature of this requirement? >> >> (I'd love such a reader but don't use Windows!) > > There are Linux and OS/2 versions as well. No idea if the Linux > version > is usable on a non-x86 Linux box. The "Linux" version is probably fine...I will pull it down and try it when I have a chance. It's likely that there's a .jar file in there somewhere; there just aren't that many different ways to run Java bytecode. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Dec 20 06:51:45 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 07:51:45 -0500 Subject: IBM Bookmanager reader In-Reply-To: <20071219174949.ley4f32f5lw00wog@webmail3.secure-wi.com> References: <20071219174949.ley4f32f5lw00wog@webmail3.secure-wi.com> Message-ID: On Dec 19, 2007, at 8:49 PM, mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com wrote: > Guys, I was trying to point out useful software for reading an old > documentation standard from IBM. Going off on a tangent about the > evils of coding for one specific platform or another really isn't > necessary. Anything that makes the old documentation more accessible > is a plus, even if it is Windows only. If the Java part bothers you, > just ignore it and pretend it is a normal piece of bloatware. I must've missed some messages; I didn't see much of a tangent. :-( -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Dec 20 06:53:36 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 07:53:36 -0500 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <200712192323.lBJNNdn6005712@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <200712192323.lBJNNdn6005712@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Dec 19, 2007, at 6:23 PM, Dennis Boone wrote: >> Did any company ever actually produce a storage product that used >> 8-track carts (or indeed broadcast carts)? Did it work? > > There were commercial systems based on VHS decks, good for a couple of > GB per tape. Prime actually sold them briefly, iirc. The company I > worked for at the time sold a few such systems to our customers, and > made them work. I recall video tape quality being critical. There were quite a few such systems. Many of them had reliability problems, but some worked pretty well. Steve Ciarcia even designed one in one of his columns. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Dec 20 06:55:32 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 07:55:32 -0500 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <57AFCC3F-3565-4457-98AB-71004804A18A@bigpond.net.au> References: <57AFCC3F-3565-4457-98AB-71004804A18A@bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <8c5414fd7684462d616e1d236d5e89e4@neurotica.com> On Dec 20, 2007, at 1:30 AM, Robert Nansel wrote: > Anybody up for a contest to see who can design the most powerful > general-purpose digital computer given these constraints? I guess > we'd have to figure out what "powerful" means in this context, given > that it's likely never to exceed a few KIPS. Well then you'd have the problem of defining "most powerful". By many metrics, any VAX is an incredibly powerful system, but the average not-so-powerful modern PeeCee will blow its doors off in integer performance. So how will you define "power"? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From dave06a at dunfield.com Thu Dec 20 07:59:12 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 08:59:12 -0500 Subject: VT-100 emulator Message-ID: <200712201305.lBKD5GaN008125@hosting.monisys.ca> I've posted the latest VT-100 emulator to my site: www.classiccmp.org/dunfield It's in the "Download simulators and emulators" section near the end of the main page. There's also a link under the VT-100 entry in "Assorted terminals". I've renamed it to "PC100", which seems more descriptive of it's current functionality. I'm interested in hearing about any VT-100 incompatibilities that you might discover in it, as I'd like to make it as close to 100% as is possible on the PC. Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Dec 20 07:41:28 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 07:41:28 -0600 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <20071219201657.B955@shell.lmi.net> References: <200712200207.lBK2715b002890@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47696B38.12211.25E29623@cclist.sydex.com> <20071219201657.B955@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <476A7108.80302@gmail.com> Fred Cisin wrote: > Actually, I think that he was referring to uses of empty 8 track cases for > ROM cartridges. Yep... and I think that was the first time I'd ever seen an 8-track case. I've never seen one of the drives, yet people in the US of my age and younger still mention them once in a while - I get the impression they just didn't really 'happen' in the UK. cheers Jules From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Dec 20 07:42:43 2007 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 08:42:43 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <476A40FC.2010405@oldskool.org> References: <200712181802.lBII2Fld083374@dewey.classiccmp.org> <4767A7FC.21406.1EFFF84A@cclist.sydex.com> <005d01c841e0$688426b0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> <200712182212.52756.pat@computer-refuge.org> <47692DA7.8090407@gmail.com> <476A40FC.2010405@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <476A7153.9080904@gmail.com> Jim Leonard wrote: > Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> it's a de-facto standard for SVGA cards to produce the Hercules >> resolutions without complaint. > > Um, no. It's the other way around. I think the number of clone VGA > cards I have ever seen that would produce/emulate Hercules 720x348 mode > 1. I could count on one hand, and 2. were all manufactured before 1990. Tell that to my Geforce 8800GTS, which does it every day. Peace... Sridhar From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Dec 20 08:30:33 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 08:30:33 -0600 Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <20071220074230.GT30562@brevard.conman.org> References: <47682ECE.19553.210E9E47@cclist.sydex.com> <003101c84292$55ccc240$5b01a8c0@uatempname> <20071220074230.GT30562@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <476A7C89.8060703@gmail.com> Sean Conner wrote: > It was thus said that the Great Antonio Carlini once stated: >> Perhaps I've inadvertently stumbled across a solution to the perennial >> "is this system on-topic in and of itself". If it can run Java then "no" >> :-). > > Might have to have the List Wizard chime in here, but my first Java > project [1] was done over ten years ago. Yeah, my first commercial one was in the latter half of 1996. (It was all client-server stuff and well over a million lines of code. Definitely one of the bigger Java projects out there back then - which meant we had Sun trying to throw Java-related hardware at us for evaluation, and boy did that stuff suck) > -spc (Java sucked back then too ... ) I didn't mind it back then - for real-world problems I was seeing around 90% performance against native languages anyway, and so the language benefits and ability to run on diverse hardware were real pluses. Sun really lost the plot with the language in the late 90s when they tried to appeal to the web generation though, and began preaching to people over how they should create their apps. Bleh (kind of the software equivalent of "everything is a PC"). cheers J. From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Dec 20 09:27:19 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:27:19 -0200 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator References: <200712191306.lBJD6AKD020723@hosting.monisys.ca><200712191630.LAA01102@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <476A3FD2.6030700@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <012301c8431e$c4e7bae0$0302a8c0@PORTAJARA> > I've read that several times and am still trying to figure out if that > is an elegant solution or an ugly solution... :-) Ah...A suggestion that works? :o) And doesn?t that much code... :o) From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Dec 20 09:26:24 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:26:24 -0200 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator References: <200712191306.lBJD6AKD020723@hosting.monisys.ca> <476A3F52.6040608@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <012201c8431e$c3622c50$0302a8c0@PORTAJARA> > I think this project is excellent and a kick-ass way to use spare old > hardware lying around (which is more likely to have a working 25-pin > serial port than any modern machine). I love this project. Although there are cheap CF cards today, it would be a hit if it could be ROMable and put in place of BIOS chip :o) From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Dec 20 10:29:06 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 11:29:06 -0500 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <8c5414fd7684462d616e1d236d5e89e4@neurotica.com> References: <57AFCC3F-3565-4457-98AB-71004804A18A@bigpond.net.au> <8c5414fd7684462d616e1d236d5e89e4@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <200712201129.06517.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 20 December 2007 07:55, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Dec 20, 2007, at 1:30 AM, Robert Nansel wrote: > > Anybody up for a contest to see who can design the most powerful > > general-purpose digital computer given these constraints? I guess > > we'd have to figure out what "powerful" means in this context, > > given that it's likely never to exceed a few KIPS. > > Well then you'd have the problem of defining "most powerful". By > many metrics, any VAX is an incredibly powerful system, but the > average not-so-powerful modern PeeCee will blow its doors off in > integer performance. So how will you define "power"? > > -Dave The "power" of a machine tends to directly relate to the Watts of power it consumes from an AC supply. :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Dec 20 11:38:24 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 11:38:24 -0600 Subject: small misc. parts available... Message-ID: <006001c8432f$227dc1d0$6400a8c0@BILLING> MSD let their main line sewer backup, 10 feet downhill on the street from my house. So... all my upstreet neighbors sewage wound up in my basement. The servepro people are here removing everything from my basement (any of you that have seen my basement know what THAT is like)... and starting their cleaning process. Not much of the collection has been affected... the notable items that were sitting in 5 inches of raw waste were a HP 2100S cpu, Microdata Reflex disc drive, HP D series box, RL01 drive, a couple 7900A drives... I think that's the major items affected. Not sure how they plan to disinfect the wire wrap backplane on the 2100, may be a loss :\ Anyways... the reason I'm posting this... Since the cleaners are bringing in a dumpster to remove unsalvageable stuff, they kindly agreed to take away stuff that has been taking space here that I was going to get rid of... like DEC corp cabs, some lowboy some full height, one stuffed with RA81's (all dead), etc. I am going to have these carted off. I will post to the list specific items as they go out the back door (to sit for a day before the dumpster truck comes). I will not save whole racks, but if there is any specific rack hardware or bits that someone wants me to strip off, I will do so. Right now - Out went a mid-height dec corp cab that used to house an 11/44. It used to have an RA81? drive in it, so it's one of those extra deep corp cabs. Does anyone need those hex sided metal posts that stick like 7 inches out from the rack, or that large bracket at the bottom where you hook up those round (power sequencing?) cables (4 pin, screw on). More as it becomes available... Jay From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Thu Dec 20 12:11:37 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:11:37 +0000 Subject: small misc. parts available... In-Reply-To: <006001c8432f$227dc1d0$6400a8c0@BILLING> References: <006001c8432f$227dc1d0$6400a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <20071220181137.GB14466@usap.gov> On Thu, Dec 20, 2007 at 11:38:24AM -0600, Jay West wrote: > MSD let their main line sewer backup, 10 feet downhill on the street from > my house. So... all my upstreet neighbors sewage wound up in my basement. Ow! That happened to me in a commercial-space basement about 20 years ago. Unfun. In my event, I lost a 4' shelf of late 1970s/early 1980s BYTE magazines, a Diablo 30, and a Beehive terminal (big blocky metal box, like the ones that are under discussion here every once in a while). > More as it becomes available... The only cab parts I am perpetually looking for are the older backdoor bushings - they sit on a fixed 1/4" dia post at the corner of an H960, then allow the door skin to pivot around it. Bad ASCII art follows: /===\ | | _+___+_ The whole thing is smaller than a grape. Some of the cabs I got back in the day were just plain, bare cabs, no accessories whatsoever. For some reason, I never seem to turn up any of those bushings when I go through piles of DEC rack hardware. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 20-Dec-2007 at 18:00 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -8.0 F (-22.2 C) Windchill -28.7 F (-33.7 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 11.9 kts Grid 25 Barometer 687.8 mb (10335 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From cclist at sydex.com Thu Dec 20 12:23:28 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:23:28 -0800 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <476A42A0.9493.292C042A@cclist.sydex.com> Fred wrote: > That was less than 30 years ago. > Intro'd at 3rd West Coast Computer Faire? > (the one time that it was in southern CA) I used to get the newsletters from Exatron. I seem to recall (probably a sign of an impending ischemic event) that someone wrote a ditty in praise of their product and published it in one of those. Did anyone hang on to the newsletters? It started with "I love my Stringy Floppy..." or some such. > Actually, I think that he was referring to uses of empty 8 track cases for > ROM cartridges. Ah, so not magnetic at all and not germane to the topic. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Dec 20 12:29:07 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:29:07 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <476A43F3.25366.29313290@cclist.sydex.com> > From: Robert Nansel > 1) To build a complete functional computer, including memory, using > no more than 256 2N2222-ish transistors (plus scads of diodes, resistors, > etc.). > > 2) Use no ICs or other parts that wouldn't have been available to > hobbyists ca. 1965. Well, if you put no limit on the number of diodes (just 3 terminal devices), you can go a heckuva long way using tunnel diodes or even diacs. Or you could use magnetic core logic, using transistors only as I/O terminals and clock drivers. Either of those would certainly satisfy the 1965 aspect. Or is the restriction on "negative resistance devices"? Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Dec 20 12:40:18 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:40:18 -0800 Subject: E: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV In-Reply-To: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <476A4692.22482.293B7076@cclist.sydex.com> From: "Rod Smallwood" > I actually worked on VDU's that used shift registers as the display > memory around 1973. The Beehive terminal I used around 1975 used an 8008 and a bunch of MOS shift registers for memory. No conventional SRAM/DRAM at all. I recall the parts were small 8-pin DIPs. My 1969 Moto Microelectronics databook shows only a handful of MOS devices: MC1124L - Quad T flip-flop MC1141G - Triple 66-bit dynamic shift register MC1150L - 8 channel MUX switch MC1151L - 2-of-8 channel MUX switch So it's doubtful that MOS shift registers would meet the 1965 criterion at all. Cheers, Chuck From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Thu Dec 20 10:53:51 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 08:53:51 -0800 Subject: digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <200712200207.lBK2715g002890@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712200207.lBK2715g002890@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On Dec 19, 2007, at 6:07 PM, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > And in reading about the various IBM boxes, only one word comes to > mind: "Baroque"! I wouldn't say that- although I admit that on first looking at even the RS/6000 (and later hearing about the AS/400 and S/3XX) was "weird". IBMs are just a different mindset than DECs. A way of looking at it is that IBM moved "downmarket" and DEC moved "upmarket" (similar thing with most of the computers we see: they started out at the lower end, and then later on the manufacturers decided to put together a big machine for certain customers (PDP-10, SGI PowerSeries, Sun E10k, VAX 9000 ...) IBM also had a paradigm early, and those tend to stick. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Dec 20 12:56:09 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:56:09 -0800 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic In-Reply-To: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <476A4A49.13998.2949F0D4@cclist.sydex.com> > From: "Andrew Lynch" > Does anyone have a schematic for *simple* hardware only circuit using a > commonly available UART, like an 8251 or 8250, to do the serial to > parallel conversion? I am looking for a schematic which I can easily > modify to strap the UART to 300bps operation. If you don't want programmable logic, an 8251 or 8250 isn't going to be what you want. Try a TR1602 or TR1865 or any of the other "hardwire" UARTS--set parity, data bits, etc. by connecting appropriate pins to Vcc or GND; put the serial data in on one pin and take the parallel data out on 8 pins. No programming needed. Cheers, Chuck From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Dec 20 13:15:02 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:15:02 -0600 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <476A42A0.9493.292C042A@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476A42A0.9493.292C042A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <476ABF36.2000000@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Actually, I think that he was referring to uses of empty 8 track cases for >> ROM cartridges. > > Ah, so not magnetic at all and not germane to the topic. No, although looking back the previous poster had said 'storage product', so it sort-of fits. I just missed the smiley from the end... (interesting re-used of existing product in a new direction though; there probably weren't many companies who managed to pull that kind of stunt off) From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Thu Dec 20 13:39:07 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:39:07 +0000 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic In-Reply-To: <476A4A49.13998.2949F0D4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476A4A49.13998.2949F0D4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20071220193907.GA3492@usap.gov> On Thu, Dec 20, 2007 at 10:56:09AM -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > From: "Andrew Lynch" > > > Does anyone have a schematic for *simple* hardware only circuit using a > > commonly available UART, like an 8251 or 8250, to do the serial to > > parallel conversion? I am looking for a schematic which I can easily > > modify to strap the UART to 300bps operation. > > If you don't want programmable logic, an 8251 or 8250 isn't going to > be what you want. Try a TR1602 or TR1865 or any of the other > "hardwire" UARTS--set parity, data bits, etc. by connecting > appropriate pins to Vcc or GND; put the serial data in on one pin and > take the parallel data out on 8 pins. No programming needed. The RCA CDP1854 or the Intersil (and others) IM6402 are great for this, and shouldn't be difficult to find. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 20-Dec-2007 at 19:30 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -8.3 F (-22.4 C) Windchill -30.5 F (-34.7 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 13.7 kts Grid 24 Barometer 688.1 mb (10324 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From brain at jbrain.com Thu Dec 20 13:44:50 2007 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:44:50 -0600 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic In-Reply-To: <476A4A49.13998.2949F0D4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476A4A49.13998.2949F0D4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <476AC632.6030802@jbrain.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: >> From: "Andrew Lynch" >> > > >> Does anyone have a schematic for *simple* hardware only circuit using a >> commonly available UART, like an 8251 or 8250, to do the serial to >> parallel conversion? I am looking for a schematic which I can easily >> modify to strap the UART to 300bps operation. >> > > If you don't want programmable logic, an 8251 or 8250 isn't going to > be what you want. Try a TR1602 or TR1865 or any of the other > "hardwire" UARTS--set parity, data bits, etc. by connecting > appropriate pins to Vcc or GND; put the serial data in on one pin and > take the parallel data out on 8 pins. No programming needed. > > Cheers, > Chuck > Wow, that's a lot to pay for a hardwire solution: http://store.americanmicrosemiconductor.com/tr1602.html A TINY2313 AVR will do the job in a single IC for a few bucks. Heck, I'd even program it for you if you told me the specifics (how to signal that a new byte as arrived, for example) Maybe if you have a TR1602 lying around, or maybe that place is ultra expensive. Jim From spc at conman.org Thu Dec 20 14:15:18 2007 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:15:18 -0500 Subject: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <004901c84303$93c1e5a0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> References: <20071220074230.GT30562@brevard.conman.org> <004901c84303$93c1e5a0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: <20071220201518.GU30562@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great Antonio Carlini once stated: > Sean Conner wrote: > > It was thus said that the Great Antonio Carlini once stated: > >> > >> Perhaps I've inadvertently stumbled across a solution to the > >> perennial "is this system on-topic in and of itself". If it can run > >> Java then "no" :-). > > > > Might have to have the List Wizard chime in here, but my first Java > > project [1] was done over ten years ago. > > On Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 it seems, so off-topic in and of > themselves. Not quite so fast---it also ran on Solaris 8-P > So the putative can-it-run-Java rule may have something going for it > after all ! May. -spc (Well ... in theory anyway ... ) From tsw-cc at johana.com Thu Dec 20 14:15:41 2007 From: tsw-cc at johana.com (Tom Watson) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:15:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator Message-ID: <370120.9697.qm@web90405.mail.mud.yahoo.com> On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:26:24 -0200 "Alexandre Souza" said: > > I think this project is excellent and a kick-ass way to use spare old > > hardware lying around (which is more likely to have a working 25-pin > > serial port than any modern machine). I love this project. > Although there are cheap CF cards today, it would be a hit if it could > be ROMable and put in place of BIOS chip :o) If you can still find them, ancient XT motherboards ought to be just right for this type of service. Just get an old video board (will it work with a CGA board?) and a serial I/O card and plug in the "extra" bios chips for the emulator. Of course, several options could be added: 1) Support for a character based printer (both serial and parallel) 2) Some sort of scrolling (got to use that 640k of memory somehow!) 3) Color support (if you got a CGA card, use it!). 4) Provisions for 40 column mode (so you can use the RS-170 output to a TV set) 5) Add a network card for a telnet client (probably a bother since there are so many network cards) The best part is that when you turn the machine on, you get instant terminal. None of this silly operating system stuff. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From melamy at earthlink.net Thu Dec 20 14:18:28 2007 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:18:28 -0800 (GMT-08:00) Subject: E: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV Message-ID: <7096497.1198181909125.JavaMail.root@elwamui-sweet.atl.sa.earthlink.net> actually Texas Instruments had a quad 80 bit MOS shift register package available in the early to mid seventies. I had used two of them for a frame buffer on a CRT controller design I did. The part number was TMS3409 I believe and it was something I got from the surplus market. -----Original Message----- >From: Chuck Guzis >Sent: Dec 20, 2007 10:40 AM >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Subject: E: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV > > From: "Rod Smallwood" > >> I actually worked on VDU's that used shift registers as the display >> memory around 1973. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Dec 20 14:47:22 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:47:22 -0800 Subject: AMD9016E speed grades ? References: <476A3C78.8070207@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: <476AD4DA.27861B11@cs.ubc.ca> Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel wrote: > > Does anyone know what a speedgrade an amd9016e DRAM chip is ? > Google gives one million resellers and no datasheets. > > Suggestions as to why replacing said am9016epc with a mcm4116bp20 does not work, > are also welcome. It doesn't resolve your question, but IC Master (1982) lists the following max Access Times: AMD 9016D: 160ns AMD 9016E: 200ns MCM4116B-20: 200ns AMD 9016D: 250ns AMD 9016C: 300ns (Yes, the D is listed twice, perhaps 160 should to be F (?)) From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Thu Dec 20 14:56:24 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:56:24 +0000 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic In-Reply-To: <476AC632.6030802@jbrain.com> References: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476A4A49.13998.2949F0D4@cclist.sydex.com> <476AC632.6030802@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <20071220205624.GA14707@usap.gov> On Thu, Dec 20, 2007 at 01:44:50PM -0600, Jim Brain wrote: > >If you don't want programmable logic, an 8251 or 8250 isn't going to > >be what you want. Try a TR1602 or TR1865 or any of the other > >"hardwire" UARTS--set parity, data bits, etc. by connecting > >appropriate pins to Vcc or GND; put the serial data in on one pin and > >take the parallel data out on 8 pins. No programming needed. > > > Wow, that's a lot to pay for a hardwire solution: > > http://store.americanmicrosemiconductor.com/tr1602.html > > A TINY2313 AVR will do the job in a single IC for a few bucks. Heck, > I'd even program it for you if you told me the specifics (how to signal > that a new byte as arrived, for example) > > Maybe if you have a TR1602 lying around, or maybe that place is ultra > expensive. That place appears to be expensive, but it's probably a function of how long ago they stopped making the TR1602 and how much surplus vendors get for 'just the right part'. For a new design, I would still recommend the IM6402. It's still available from a number of places... http://www.bgmicro.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=10738 - $2.45 -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 20-Dec-2007 at 20:50 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -8.0 F (-22.2 C) Windchill -30.4 F (-34.7 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 14.2 kts Grid 24 Barometer 688.4 mb (10313 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From tponsford at rnsmte.com Thu Dec 20 15:26:56 2007 From: tponsford at rnsmte.com (tponsford) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 14:26:56 -0700 Subject: FREE: CDC CMD948 Message-ID: <476ADE20.5040307@rnsmte.com> Hi All One of the good things, or bad things, about being the "antique computer guy" at our local auctions is that I'm a frequent recipient of all things old, obsolete, or just unwanted. Someone mistakingly bought a lot item he did not want so rather than trashing it, he gave to me. I felt it was unique enough that maybe some of the brethren on ccomp might want it. It's a Control Data CMD 9448-96 "phoenix" modular (removable/fixed) disk drive in unknown condition. It reminds me of a RL01/02 disk. It looks to have everything there but until I find a manual, I know little about it. It is supposed to have a capacity around 80MB, has a 14" platter and is real heavy; 120+ lbs, so shipping is probably out of the question. If anyone wants it. It's yours for the taking as long as you come get it. I'm in SE Arizona outside of Tucson (near tombstone) and I do make trips to Phoenix or El Paso from time to time! I'll keep it around in my storage shed for a while at least! Cheers Tom Ponsford From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Dec 20 15:23:34 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:23:34 -0800 Subject: AMD9016E speed grades ? References: <476A3C78.8070207@bluewin.ch> <476AD4DA.27861B11@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <476ADD56.F6E4184E@cs.ubc.ca> Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel wrote: > Suggestions as to why replacing said am9016epc with a mcm4116bp20 does not work, > are also welcome. Should have mentioned this previously, but are all the power supplies there? The info I have says the MCM4116BP20 requires +5,?5,+12. It isn't clear as to what the 9016 requires but there are other 16K*1 DRAMs listed as requiring only +5. From steve at radiorobots.com Thu Dec 20 15:24:12 2007 From: steve at radiorobots.com (Steve Stutman) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:24:12 -0500 Subject: Anyone have a Compaq SystemPro? Message-ID: <476ADD7C.9050609@radiorobots.com> Looking for an early Compaq SystemPro for public display. Steve From brain at jbrain.com Thu Dec 20 15:57:44 2007 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:57:44 -0600 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic In-Reply-To: <20071220205624.GA14707@usap.gov> References: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476A4A49.13998.2949F0D4@cclist.sydex.com> <476AC632.6030802@jbrain.com> <20071220205624.GA14707@usap.gov> Message-ID: <476AE558.5000104@jbrain.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: > For a new design, I would still recommend the IM6402. It's still available > from a number of places... > > http://www.bgmicro.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=10738 - $2.45 > That's fine, much more reasonable price. Still, if some list member just needs a uController programmed for some small nit like this, let the list know. Surely someone can program and send a part out to finish an interface. Cute, "general at icecube.southpole.usap.gov" Antarctican's do have a sense of humor, I presume. Jim -- Jim Brain, Brain Innovations (X) brain at jbrain.com Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times! Home: http://www.jbrain.com From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Dec 20 14:35:51 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:35:51 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <47696B38.12211.25E29623@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Dec 19, 7 07:04:24 pm Message-ID: > > I presume somebody's mentioned Exidy already? (hey, you didn't specify > > that the cartridges had to have the correct guts...) > > Did you perhaps mean Exatron as in "stringy floppy"? Or am I showing > my age again? I thought so too,. at first. And then I rememebrs something I've posted often enough. The Exidy Sorceror ROM cartridges were actually 8-track tape housings (the sort of thing you used to stick in your car tape player) with the tape and spools removded, some bits of the hosing cut away, and a PCB inside containing the ROMs. The PCB had edge fingers to connect it to the rest of the machine, accssible through the front side of the carttridge. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Dec 20 14:50:21 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:50:21 +0000 (GMT) Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <57AFCC3F-3565-4457-98AB-71004804A18A@bigpond.net.au> from "Robert Nansel" at Dec 20, 7 05:00:32 pm Message-ID: > Whether it uses drums, disks, or ultrasonic delay lines, my challenge > is: > > 1) To build a complete functional computer, including memory, Are things like core-on-a-rope ROM allowrd? > using no more than 256 2N2222-ish transistors (plus scads of diodes, > resistors, etc.). Do all transsitors have to be of the same flavour, or could I use TUNs and TUPs? I think I'd start by readign the schematics of the HP9100. It contains more transistors than that, but it's still amazingly simple. Anyway, the flip-flops in that machine were JKs, using 4 transsitors each. The inputs are current-operated (direct onto the base of the transistor). The loric gates use just diodes and resisitors, remeber you get Q and Q/ from a flip-flop, which can really save inverters. > > 2) Use no ICs or other parts that wouldn't have been available > to hobbyists ca. 1965. So that preumably means a multi-layer-PCB acting as an inductively-coupled ROM is out. Rats! > > 3) Must be transportable in the boot of a mid-size sedan (i.e. Totally OT, but I find 'boot of a sedan' a somewhat odd expession. 'Trunk of a sedan' or 'boot of a saloon car' would seem more natural. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Dec 20 15:47:50 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 21:47:50 +0000 (GMT) Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic In-Reply-To: <476A4A49.13998.2949F0D4@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Dec 20, 7 10:56:09 am Message-ID: > > > From: "Andrew Lynch" > > > Does anyone have a schematic for *simple* hardware only circuit using a > > commonly available UART, like an 8251 or 8250, to do the serial to > > parallel conversion? I am looking for a schematic which I can easily > > modify to strap the UART to 300bps operation. > > If you don't want programmable logic, an 8251 or 8250 isn't going to > be what you want. Try a TR1602 or TR1865 or any of the other Actually I have seen a device that used a 8251 USART and set it up using a little counter/state machine to load the control registers from DIP switches (and some fixed bits of course). IIRC that chip has the TcRdy and RxRdy signals brought out to pins, when the latter was asserted the hardware read out the Rx register, etc. I don't think there were any PROMs in that design. Certainly no microcnotrollers, PALs, or anything like that. I _think_ it was athe HP9836 RS232 interface for the 9825, but I might be confusing it with something else. > "hardwire" UARTS--set parity, data bits, etc. by connecting > appropriate pins to Vcc or GND; put the serial data in on one pin and > take the parallel data out on 8 pins. No programming needed. Oh, indeed. That's a much simpler drvice to sue, and a better choice here. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Dec 20 15:58:26 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 21:58:26 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV sets) In-Reply-To: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3903E5DF@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> from "Rod Smallwood" at Dec 19, 7 08:18:01 am Message-ID: > > I actually worked on VDU's that used shift registers as the display > memory around 1973. > If I remember correctly one lines worth (80 characters) got transferred > to a buffer in the > interline gap (Fly back time). The buffer was scanned out in such a way > as to address the > character generator one row at a time. Characters were 7x5 dots so the > top five dots of the first character was serialized followed by the top > row of the second one and so on. Then all of the second character row > dots on a line would be displayed until the end of the store (and > therefore frame was reached) The HP9866A thermal printer used MOS shift registers for character storage. I am tryign to recall the details, because it's not as obvious as you might think. From memory : The printhead is the full width of the paper, with 400 eleemnts (80 charas * 5 dots/char). Physically it's made up of 4 modules. IIRC each printhead module is divided up into 4 sectiosn, each of 5 characters, and I think they're interleaved (so characters 0, 4, 8,... are one section, 1, 5, 9,... are the next and so on. I might have got that wrong, though) Incoming characters (7 bit ASCII) are re-encoded to 6 bits (it's an upper-case only printer, so 6 bits is enoguh) and stored in 6 80-bit Shift registers (physcially 3 TO99 cans). When the printer dtects a LF character, the more comlicated parts starts up. This reads ou the shift retgisters, every fourth character is sent to the character geenrator ROM, and the bit pattern for the top row is shfited into a set of 5 (one for each column of the chracters) 20 bit shift registers (I think the chips used are 8203s) which drive the printehad. That pattern or dots is printed The shift registers are run rount again, now the next set of chars taken throgh the character gernearotr ROM. to the printhead shift registers, and printed After the top row of all 80 characters has been printed, the paper is moved up one dot-line, and the process is repeated, only this time the character generatoter ROM outputs the patterns for the second row of the characters. And so on until the complete characters have been printed. This is controlled by a state machine that looks simple as a schematic (a handful of chips), but is not easy to understnad! -tony From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Thu Dec 20 16:01:23 2007 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:01:23 +0100 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <476A2F53.3000407@saw.net> References: <57AFCC3F-3565-4457-98AB-71004804A18A@bigpond.net.au> <476A23B2.8070909@pacbell.net> <476A2F53.3000407@saw.net> Message-ID: <20071220230123.4b55d97c@SirToby.dinner41.local> On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:01:07 -0800 davis wrote: > I've been thinking about a eprom/latch/sequencer based CPU since I > picked up a hundred or so 16 bit wide 64KW eproms from a dumpster at > work. IIRC MyCPU uses microcode in an EPROM and is similar to the 6502... http://www.mycpu.eu/ -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Dec 20 16:15:39 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 22:15:39 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Exatron Stringy Floppies (was Re: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads)) In-Reply-To: <476A42A0.9493.292C042A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <187661.97278.qm@web23412.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Well, I have the Exatron Stingy Floppy adverts on the back of (and inside?) several issues of 80 Microcomputing which I could attempt to photograph with my (cheap) webcam, if anyone is interested? No newsletters though :( Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Chuck Guzis wrote: Fred wrote: > That was less than 30 years ago. > Intro'd at 3rd West Coast Computer Faire? > (the one time that it was in southern CA) I used to get the newsletters from Exatron. I seem to recall (probably a sign of an impending ischemic event) that someone wrote a ditty in praise of their product and published it in one of those. Did anyone hang on to the newsletters? It started with "I love my Stringy Floppy..." or some such. > Actually, I think that he was referring to uses of empty 8 track cases for > ROM cartridges. Ah, so not magnetic at all and not germane to the topic. Cheers, Chuck From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Dec 20 16:26:03 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 22:26:03 +0000 (GMT) Subject: small misc. parts available... In-Reply-To: <006001c8432f$227dc1d0$6400a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <511819.5215.qm@web23411.mail.ird.yahoo.com> "Let" is a very strong word. I work for a UK water company which is currently promoting a anti-fog (fats, oil & grease) campaign, trying to get businesses and home-owners to use fog-traps (basically a container to dump fat & grease into). The main reasons sewers block up (apart other junk being thrown in) is from fog. Also, you seem to forget how much sewage flows through that main sewer... probably a few hundred litres (maybe more) of sewage each hour. Atleast only a small portion of your stuff was ruined and sorry for going OT, but thought you should know about FOG. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Jay West wrote: MSD let their main line sewer backup, 10 feet downhill on the street from my house. So... all my upstreet neighbors sewage wound up in my basement. The servepro people are here removing everything from my basement (any of you that have seen my basement know what THAT is like)... and starting their cleaning process. From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Dec 20 16:42:07 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:42:07 -0600 Subject: small misc. parts available... References: <511819.5215.qm@web23411.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <007801c84359$8d653670$6400a8c0@BILLING> Andrew wrote... > "Let" is a very strong word. The blockage was due to tree roots, which they have come out and "fixed" about every other year. They refuse to replace the pipe or even set up a maintenance plan. So their maintenance plan is to wait till we call them and say we're flooded. Yeah, I'd say "Let" is accurate ;) > Also, you seem to forget how much sewage flows through that main sewer... > probably a few hundred litres (maybe more) of sewage each hour. Nah, there's exactly two houses above me, so the total running down that section is those two houses and mine (shower, sink, toilet, etc.). Jay From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Dec 20 17:01:03 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:01:03 -0500 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <476A43F3.25366.29313290@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476A43F3.25366.29313290@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <31a93254098aa1fba09210f387775b6c@neurotica.com> On Dec 20, 2007, at 1:29 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> 2) Use no ICs or other parts that wouldn't have been available >> to >> hobbyists ca. 1965. > > Well, if you put no limit on the number of diodes (just 3 terminal > devices), you can go a heckuva long way using tunnel diodes or even > diacs. I'd love to find a huge stash of a few thousand new-old-stock tunnel diodes. :-( -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Dec 20 17:05:37 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:05:37 -0500 Subject: KayPro II keyboard schematic In-Reply-To: <476AC632.6030802@jbrain.com> References: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476A4A49.13998.2949F0D4@cclist.sydex.com> <476AC632.6030802@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <809f0d8e37e20f4928c50452f81469a8@neurotica.com> On Dec 20, 2007, at 2:44 PM, Jim Brain wrote: >>> Does anyone have a schematic for *simple* hardware only circuit >>> using a >>> commonly available UART, like an 8251 or 8250, to do the serial to >>> parallel conversion? I am looking for a schematic which I can easily >>> modify to strap the UART to 300bps operation. >> If you don't want programmable logic, an 8251 or 8250 isn't going to >> be what you want. Try a TR1602 or TR1865 or any of the other >> "hardwire" UARTS--set parity, data bits, etc. by connecting >> appropriate pins to Vcc or GND; put the serial data in on one pin and >> take the parallel data out on 8 pins. No programming needed. >> > Wow, that's a lot to pay for a hardwire solution: > > http://store.americanmicrosemiconductor.com/tr1602.html > > A TINY2313 AVR will do the job in a single IC for a few bucks. Heck, > I'd even program it for you if you told me the specifics (how to > signal that a new byte as arrived, for example) > > Maybe if you have a TR1602 lying around, or maybe that place is ultra > expensive. Those people are on crack. Unicorn has TR1602s for four bucks, no firmware development required. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From bnansel at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 20 17:09:01 2007 From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au (Robert Nansel) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 09:39:01 +1030 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] Message-ID: Thu Dec 20, 2007 at 14:50 Tony Duell said: > > ... > > > > 1) To build a complete functional computer, including memory, > > Are things like core-on-a-rope ROM allowrd? Yes. Encouraged, even. > > > using no more than 256 2N2222-ish transistors (plus scads of diodes, > > resistors, etc.). > > Do all transsitors have to be of the same flavour, or could I use TUNs > and TUPs? I'd never encountered the TUN & TUP TLAs before, so I looked them up: Transistor, Universal NPN/PNP. Neat! And any TUN or TUP will do, provided a device of comparable spec was reasonably available to hobbyists in the mid sixties. For my first efforts, at least, I'll be using the PN2222 in modern TO-92 plastic packages. I'm not sure when the TO-92 package was introduced, but there were definitely plastic package transistors available then. SOTs are right out, though :) > I think I'd start by reading the schematics of the HP9100. It contains > more transistors than that, but it's still amazingly simple. > > Anyway, the flip-flops in that machine were JKs, using 4 transistors > each. ... I'll check that out. Thanks. > > 2) Use no ICs or other parts that wouldn't have been available > > to hobbyists ca. 1965. > > So that preumably means a multi-layer-PCB acting as an > inductively-coupled ROM is out. Rats! I recall seeing a few two-layer boards in hobbyist electronics magazines from the '60s. Certainly you can make multilayer boards out of single-side boards, as long as you don't need to make many connections to the inner layers. > > 3) Must be transportable in the boot of a mid-size sedan (i.e. > > Totally OT, but I find 'boot of a sedan' a somewhat odd expession. > 'Trunk > of a sedan' or 'boot of a saloon car' would seem more natural. Maybe it's an Australian thing. Being an ex-pat Yank in Oz, saying "boot" instead of "trunk" still doesn't come naturally to me, even after more than a year here. Saloon car, though, sounds like a sure way to get a drunk driving ticket :) -Bobby From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Dec 20 17:09:42 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:09:42 +0000 (GMT) Subject: small misc. parts available... In-Reply-To: <007801c84359$8d653670$6400a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <638192.17924.qm@web23410.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Ok, you were correct on both accounts in this case and they are stupid not to replace the pipe. The company I work for replaces hundreds of pipes each year (in part to convert the ancient cast-iron pipes to the new (non rusty) plastic ones) and is currently the leading UK water company in fixing leakages :) Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Jay West wrote: Andrew wrote... > "Let" is a very strong word. The blockage was due to tree roots, which they have come out and "fixed" about every other year. They refuse to replace the pipe or even set up a maintenance plan. So their maintenance plan is to wait till we call them and say we're flooded. Yeah, I'd say "Let" is accurate ;) > Also, you seem to forget how much sewage flows through that main sewer... > probably a few hundred litres (maybe more) of sewage each hour. Nah, there's exactly two houses above me, so the total running down that section is those two houses and mine (shower, sink, toilet, etc.). Jay From davis at saw.net Thu Dec 20 17:14:43 2007 From: davis at saw.net (davis) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:14:43 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <31a93254098aa1fba09210f387775b6c@neurotica.com> References: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476A43F3.25366.29313290@cclist.sydex.com> <31a93254098aa1fba09210f387775b6c@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <476AF763.9040605@saw.net> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Dec 20, 2007, at 1:29 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >>> 2) Use no ICs or other parts that wouldn't have been >>> available to >>> hobbyists ca. 1965. >> >> Well, if you put no limit on the number of diodes (just 3 terminal >> devices), you can go a heckuva long way using tunnel diodes or even >> diacs. > > I'd love to find a huge stash of a few thousand new-old-stock tunnel > diodes. :-( > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > > You Sir, are a maniac. From bnansel at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 20 17:17:23 2007 From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au (Robert Nansel) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 09:47:23 +1030 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] Message-ID: <27BFF8AE-168F-4164-8A78-044369857BC8@bigpond.net.au> On Thu Dec 20, 2007 at 17:01 Dave McGuire wrote: > > Well, if you put no limit on the number of diodes (just 3 terminal > > devices), you can go a heckuva long way using tunnel diodes or even > > diacs. > > I'd love to find a huge stash of a few thousand new-old-stock > tunnel > diodes. :-( > > -Dave Me, too! I've never seen tunnel diodes going for less than $50 each, so if I had a few thousand I'd sell most of 'em for $40 : ) -Bobby From cclist at sydex.com Thu Dec 20 18:05:27 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:05:27 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <200712202310.lBKNAiGL021182@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712202310.lBKNAiGL021182@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <476A92C7.5156.2A651B6F@cclist.sydex.com> > From: Dave McGuire > I'd love to find a huge stash of a few thousand new-old-stock tunnel > diodes. :-( You'll kindly observe that I had the good taste not to also mention Shockley diodes, which, to the best of my knowledge, are really unobtainium. American Microsemiconductor still offers a selection of tunnel (Esaki) diodes, for as cheap as $9 the each. http://store.americanmicrosemiconductor.com/diodes-tunnel-diodes.html I suspect a clue to the high prices is the "JAN" labeling on some of the parts (i.e. military and aerospace application). I have a copy of the GE tunnel diode handbook around here somewhere (as well as about a dozen or so NOS diodes in my hellbox) that shows all manner of logic circuits constructed with the little beasts. I've never even breadboarded any of them, but the power requirements look very modest. OTOH, I've never seen a book detailing logic circuits with Shockley diodes, though I imagine it's certainly possible. Cheers, Chuck From rollerton at gmail.com Thu Dec 20 18:20:33 2007 From: rollerton at gmail.com (Robert Ollerton) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:20:33 -0600 Subject: FREE: CDC CMD948 In-Reply-To: <476ADE20.5040307@rnsmte.com> References: <476ADE20.5040307@rnsmte.com> Message-ID: <2789adda0712201620p274f4fb0t617ac1bfdfc6f152@mail.gmail.com> Toaster Oven. Do you have any cartridges for it? I should be passing thru your area coming from Patagonia next week. On Dec 20, 2007 3:26 PM, tponsford wrote: > Hi All > > One of the good things, or bad things, about being the "antique computer > guy" at our local auctions is that I'm a frequent recipient of all > things old, obsolete, or just unwanted. Someone mistakingly bought a lot > item he did not want so rather than trashing it, he gave to me. I felt > it was unique enough that maybe some of the brethren on ccomp might want > it. > > It's a Control Data CMD 9448-96 "phoenix" modular (removable/fixed) disk > drive in unknown condition. It reminds me of a RL01/02 disk. It looks to > have everything there but until I find a manual, I know little about it. > It is supposed to have a capacity around 80MB, has a 14" platter and is > real heavy; 120+ lbs, so shipping is probably out of the question. > > If anyone wants it. It's yours for the taking as long as you come get > it. I'm in SE Arizona outside of Tucson (near tombstone) and I do make > trips to Phoenix or El Paso from time to time! > > I'll keep it around in my storage shed for a while at least! > > Cheers > > Tom Ponsford > From drb at msu.edu Thu Dec 20 19:22:33 2007 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:22:33 -0500 Subject: FREE: CDC CMD948 In-Reply-To: (Your message of Thu, 20 Dec 2007 14:26:56 MST.) <476ADE20.5040307@rnsmte.com> References: <476ADE20.5040307@rnsmte.com> Message-ID: <200712210122.lBL1MXvH024748@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > It's a Control Data CMD 9448-96 "phoenix" modular (removable/fixed) disk > drive in unknown condition. It reminds me of a RL01/02 disk. It looks to > have everything there but until I find a manual, I know little about > it. It is supposed to have a capacity around 80MB, has a 14" platter and > is real heavy; 120+ lbs, so shipping is probably out of the question. Prime used to sell these. They were available in 32, 64 and 96 MB models. The bottom section contains fixed platters. The top section has a door which folds down, exposing a track onto which you can slide a pack; as the door closes, the pack slides in and drops into the cavity. The fixed capacity was 16, 48, or 80 MB depending on model, removable pack capacity was about 16 MB. Filters are critical. They're SMD interface devices. Part of the reason they're so heavy is that there's a 1"+ thick base plate in there to keep the beast stiff. A 96MB model has 5 fixed surfaces and one removable surface. The removable surface is number 1; the fixed surfaces start at number 16. I have a platter out of a pack which experienced a head crash in our drive, years ago. When the room was air conditioned, the piping for the air handler (a stand-in-the-corner model) was run out the window and up to the roof. Since the window wouldn't close all the way, and this was in what passes for a downtown district around here, pigeons had a tendency to sit on the ledge, and occasionally a feather would stay behind. One of these feathers inexplicably made its way into the drive one day... Grinding up disk oxide makes a _terrible_ smell. De From classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk Thu Dec 20 19:46:20 2007 From: classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk (Ensor) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 01:46:20 -0000 Subject: More stuff to get rid of (terminals) [UK] Message-ID: <00ee01c84373$493550b0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> The clearout continues.... I've turned up a couple of Televideo 950s and a couple of Wyse 30s if anyone wants them? AFAIK The Wyse 30s are fully functional (though bear in mind I haven't used them for some 7 years), but I think the TV950s may need some TLC - I vaguely remember them having problems communicating with their respective keybaords the last time I used them (they'd make a good source of spares though). There's also a Zenith Z89 available, which definitely needs some work doing on it. Again, probably best used for spares for a working unit. All of these are available free for pickup from Birmingham before the end of January (whereupon any computer crap left in my house *WILL* be unceremoniously junked). BTW I've also turned up a number of old "Micro Decision" magazines from 1989/90 if anyone wants them (they were heading for the recycling bin, but with the amount of stuff I've chucked in there tonight they simply won't fit). They'll be heading for the recycler next fortnight, so speak up now if you want them! As usual, contact me off-list if interested. TTFN - Pete. From classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk Thu Dec 20 19:55:43 2007 From: classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk (Ensor) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 01:55:43 -0000 Subject: More stuff to get rid of (terminals) [UK] References: <00ee01c84373$493550b0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Message-ID: <010701c84374$990afa80$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> > As usual, contact me off-list if interested. Should've said, send email to "ensor at ...." instead of "classiccmp at ...." to reach me off-list. TTFN - Pete. From fu3.org at gmail.com Thu Dec 20 20:59:41 2007 From: fu3.org at gmail.com (from@fu3.org) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 03:59:41 +0100 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] In-Reply-To: <575131af0712081113m5f7b4211s66e83f7e1b046941@mail.gmail.com> References: <575131af0712081113m5f7b4211s66e83f7e1b046941@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <310f50ab0712201859g138ee6d7h9b9630d7d93b84af@mail.gmail.com> I think Word6 for DOS is at http://www.vetusware.com/ in their office section. 2007/12/8, Liam Proven : > On 06/12/2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > On Thursday 06 December 2007 12:53, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > On 6 Dec 2007 at 1:52, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > > > I'd originally planned to put OS/2 in this box. Now I'm lots less > > > > enthused about that OS than I was at one time, so I dunno what I'm > gonna > > > > do with it. Thoughts on this? > > Depends what you want to do, or be able to do, with it, obviously! > > Do you want a GUI OS? > Do you want Internet access? > Do you want productivity apps? > > It's a bit low-spec for a modern Linux distro. You could try some > low-end distros, like DamnSmallLinux, Puppy, or VectorLinux. I've also > heard good comments of SaxenOS & Crux on low-end PCs, but I've not > tried them myself yet. > > It would run NetBSD pretty nicely, but then, the same is probably true > of some toasters. > > One that might suit it quite well would be Minix 3. Never played with > that yet myself. > > It might run BeOS, especially with a 5x86 chip in there. BeOS Max is a > good, freely-available BeOS distro. Mainly intended for Pentium-class > systems, though. > > FreeDOS or DR-DOS plus OpenGEM would run very well; indeed, it's quite > high-spec for that. > > For a more modern, but commercial, DOS GUI, there's Geos, AKA > GeoWorks, now known as Breadbox Ensemble. Again, it costs, but you can > assemble a fairly complete little system from various free demos and > things that have been put out there. > > http://www.breadbox.com/ > > (I think others have suggested something akin to Concurrent DOS. IMS' > Real32 was the last supported descendant of that, I think, but it's > primarily a multiuser thing so not of great interest on a standalone > box - it just looks like MS-DOS.) > > Or just plain old DOS, together with DesqView, or, if you want > something cool and exotic, DesqView/X. > > That might be both fun and quite productive couple with some of the > last-generation, high-end DOS apps, like MS Word 5.5 (available free > from MS and so downloadable, as they gave it away rather than issue > Y2K patches for Word for DOS.) > > I'd like to try WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS, which had a full GUI, but > I've been looking for a copy for years with no joy. It was unusably > slow at the time, but on a more recent PC like a fast 486, it should > fly along. There was also a full-GUI graphical spreadsheet version of > one of the major spreadsheets, but I don't remember details now. I > think it might have been Borland Quattro or QuattroPro 5 or so for > DOS. If you can get a supported TCP/IP stack running on DOS, there > *are* some DOS web browsers, such as Arachne and Lineo's WebSpyder. > I'm not sure about email programs, though. > > Bung in a SCSI card and a couple of old SCSI disks, make it into a > NetWare server? There was a freely-available 2-user version of Netware > 4.1, and that can be patched up to date with free service packs, > making it fully W2K compliant and so on. > > If you want to try a modern, networking-enabled OS/2, there's > Serenity's eComStation. Expensive, though. There's a free demo live > CD, but it's not installable. > > If you fancy something unusual, which IME doesn't work well in VMs on > modern PCs, you could try the DEC-like TSX-32, which is sort of > aesthetically appropriate - it's a sort of PDP-like OS for the PC. > > http://www.sandh.com/tsx32.htm > > Also on a DEC theme, there's FreeVMS, but I don't think they have any > downloads yet. > > http://www.freevms.org/ > > Somewhere lost in a cupboard I have an ancient 386 notebook PC, whose > 80MB hard disk has DOS (DR-DOS 7 with QEMM) coupled to a choice of > about 4 GUIs, a range of productivity apps, and also dual-boots with > Pygmy Linux giving me TCP/IP through a parallel port Ethernet adaptor > and thus very basic Web access with Links. All this in 80MB and it's > about one-third full. I think it has WordPerfect 5.1, Word 5.5, a > spreadsheet of some kind, plus a selection of DesqView, OpenGEM, > ViewMAX and GeoWorks Ensemble. It was a real nostalgia-fest putting it > together. It has the Microsoft free DOS network stack, too, with > TCP/IP, but it can't actually talk to any modern Windows machine. Just > don't ask me to get it to print... > > -- > Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven > Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com > Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 > AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com > Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 > > From classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk Thu Dec 20 21:05:29 2007 From: classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk (Ensor) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 03:05:29 -0000 Subject: More bits for free [UK] Message-ID: <000901c8437e$5920a0f0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Also just turned up the following: Philips CDD-462 External CD-ROM drive - boxed with manuals, software, 2 interface cards but no cable. Odd stand alone NCR tape drive unit (appears to use ordinary compact cassettes) - from an NCR machine I got shot of LONG ago. At least one "Telexbox" (a "Telexbox III" according to the manual). I'm really not interested in posting any of these items, so pickup from Birmingham please. TTFN - Pete. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Dec 20 21:08:47 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:08:47 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] References: Message-ID: <476B2E3F.D534B1EE@cs.ubc.ca> Robert Nansel wrote: > > Thu Dec 20, 2007 at 14:50 Tony Duell said: > > Anyway, the flip-flops in that machine were JKs, using 4 transistors > > each. ... > > I'll check that out. Thanks. Another approach to discrete flip-flops can be seen at: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/eec/misc/CasioAL1000Tech/electronics.html The stacking of multiple inputs into the basic FF structure was another technique from the discrete days. Helps reduce the amount of gating (and hence transistors) required, for instance when making a parallel loaded shift register or counter, although they were lots of other novel uses. (Some aspects of logic design were narrowed with the introduction of ICs for the sake of standardizing on elements that would fit in packages with limited connections.) From bnansel at bigpond.net.au Thu Dec 20 22:23:22 2007 From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au (Robert Nansel) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:53:22 +1030 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] Message-ID: Thu Dec 20 2007 at 06:55 Dave McGuire wrote: > Well then you'd have the problem of defining "most powerful". By > many metrics, any VAX is an incredibly powerful system, but the > average > not-so-powerful modern PeeCee will blow its doors off in integer > performance. So how will you define "power"? > > -Dave Good question. Wish I'd asked it myself :) It could be any number of things. Myself, I'm going to eventually use it for a "simple" robot rover (more "museum piece" engineering ... it's a long story; ask me by private e-mail if you really want to know). Most people would probably do something different, though. Here's an idea: a machine powerful enough to serve a simple webpage with minimal graphics, a page views counter, and, oh, maybe a few links elsewhere. After all, these days Real Computers are all on the web, right :) I am not a web head, but it seems this ought to be doable. Shucks, if a Commodore 64 can browse web pages, this ought to be relatively straightforward. Sort reminds me of a guy I knew in the early '80s who recorded modem tones and about a page of 1200 baud bulletin board data on his answering machine outgoing message tape. He said it was to drive the then new phenomenon of computer hackers crazy.... -Bobby From drb at msu.edu Thu Dec 20 22:57:29 2007 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:57:29 -0500 Subject: FREE: CDC CMD948 Message-ID: <200712210457.lBL4vT90029464@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Forwarding this note about the CDC 9448 for Billy Pettit. De ------- Forwarded Message I did tech support onthese drives for many years, working out of OK City.In fact, I'm still in touch with the original designer - had nunch with him about a month ago.It's a minor point, but one surface on the cartridge and one on the fixed pack is used for a servo reference. So it has two servo surfaces, the only drive I know with that piece of wierdness.Don't know if I still have a manual in the garage or not. Definately do still have the training aides,since I had to teach it to several OEM's support people. (There were more than 1000 configurations of the Phoenix sold to various OEMs at the time. I was on the road 50% of my time for a couple of years.)Can you forward this to the cctalk list? I can read it but not post messages. I'm pretty certain it is a problem with my ISP and not the list.Thanks,Billy ------- End of Forwarded Message From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Thu Dec 20 23:18:20 2007 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:18:20 -0600 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > From: bnansel at bigpond.net.au > Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:53:22 +1030 > Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] > > Thu Dec 20 2007 at 06:55 Dave McGuire wrote: > > Well then you'd have the problem of defining "most powerful". By > > many metrics, any VAX is an incredibly powerful system, but the > > average > > not-so-powerful modern PeeCee will blow its doors off in integer > > performance. So how will you define "power"? > > > > -Dave > > Good question. Wish I'd asked it myself :) > > It could be any number of things. Myself, I'm going to eventually > use it for a "simple" robot rover (more "museum piece" > engineering ... it's a long story; ask me by private e-mail if you > really want to know). Most people would probably do something > different, though. > > Here's an idea: a machine powerful enough to serve a simple webpage > with minimal graphics, a page views counter, and, oh, maybe a few > links elsewhere. After all, these days Real Computers are all on the > web, right :) > > I am not a web head, but it seems this ought to be doable. Shucks, > if a Commodore 64 can browse web pages, this ought to be relatively > straightforward. > > Sort reminds me of a guy I knew in the early '80s who recorded modem > tones and about a page of 1200 baud bulletin board data on his > answering machine outgoing message tape. He said it was to drive the > then new phenomenon of computer hackers crazy.... > > -Bobby You could use any number of net enabled eval boards. This onefrom Frescale the Netburner Eclipse is $99, comes with full blown IDE, TCP/IP stack, 147Mhz 512K flash, 2MB SDRAM: www.netburner.com not exactly classic, but there was some talk going around here for $100 SBCs for christmas hacking Randy _________________________________________________________________ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Dec 21 01:07:01 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:07:01 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <476A92C7.5156.2A651B6F@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712202310.lBKNAiGL021182@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476A92C7.5156.2A651B6F@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: cclist at sydex.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:05:27 -0800 > Subject: Re: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] > >> From: Dave McGuire > >> I'd love to find a huge stash of a few thousand new-old-stock tunnel >> diodes. :-( > > You'll kindly observe that I had the good taste not to also mention > Shockley diodes, which, to the best of my knowledge, are really > unobtainium. American Microsemiconductor still offers a selection of > tunnel (Esaki) diodes, for as cheap as $9 the each. > > http://store.americanmicrosemiconductor.com/diodes-tunnel-diodes.html > > I suspect a clue to the high prices is the "JAN" labeling on some of > the parts (i.e. military and aerospace application). > > I have a copy of the GE tunnel diode handbook around here somewhere > (as well as about a dozen or so NOS diodes in my hellbox) that shows > all manner of logic circuits constructed with the little beasts. > I've never even breadboarded any of them, but the power requirements > look very modest. > > OTOH, I've never seen a book detailing logic circuits with Shockley > diodes, though I imagine it's certainly possible. > > Cheers, > Chuck > Hi As a cheaper alternative to a tunnel diode, do a search for a Lambda Diode. I used one of these circuits once to make an oscillator that ran at over 100MHz. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_122007 From jrr at flippers.com Thu Dec 20 10:18:19 2007 From: jrr at flippers.com (John Robertson) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 08:18:19 -0800 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer architecture In-Reply-To: <224621EB-1438-4B8D-BDA7-C861D588C53D@bigpond.net.au> References: <224621EB-1438-4B8D-BDA7-C861D588C53D@bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <476A95CB.4070905@flippers.com> Not sure if this is of any use, but back in about 1965/66 the high school I was going to in Toronto was building an analog computer - gears, pulleys, cams, shafts, etc. I recall it being a rather largish machine about 6 feet long and three or so feet deep and four to five feet off the ground. I was not interested in it (I was 14 at the time and only interested in old battery radios at that time) other than spotting it on my first tour of the place. The school (if anyone here lives in Toronto) was/is Upper Canada College (private boys school - I only lasted one year there). I have no idea if the project was ever finished or if it still exists, but it struck me - reading this thread - that someone might be interested enough to see if it is still buried in the bowels of the main building. I doubt it, but one never knows! John :-#)# Robert Nansel wrote: > Thanks for all the great ideas so far! In no particular order: > > * Delay lines: I have a junk magnetostrictive DL on the way. I don't > know if it works. > > * The idea behind using cassette heads is just to test out my logic > and R/W amplifiers at s-l-o-w speed. A baby step. The high-speed > stuff would come later. I do have a small lathe (a Taig), so I can > handle some of the machining, provided the drum is small (around 4" > dia x 9" long). If I can rig a tool-post grinder I might be able to > do all of it. > > * As for the drum coating, it would either be plated with nickel or > coated with a mixture of ferric oxide and epoxy. > > Now for some more questions: > > I haven't settled on the machine architecture yet. I was thinking a > smaller word size would be better because the recirculating registers > would have lower latency; that is, a 16-bit word would halve the word > time vs. a 32-bit word. Does this make sense? > > One of the big problems with drum machines is the need to ensure > instructions are optimally placed on the drum. To lighten the load a > bit I'm considering making it a zero-address stack machine. Then I > only have to worry about the occasional random access reads/writes. I > was thinking I would implement a data stack and a return stack, each > being made of short recirculating buffers to hold the top two or three > stack entries, with the older entries swapped to longer buffers with > corresponding longer access times. Allowing for the overall insanity > level of this project, is this seem a sane strategy? > > -Bobby > > -- John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames) www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out" From Lee.Courtney at windriver.com Thu Dec 20 10:23:21 2007 From: Lee.Courtney at windriver.com (Courtney, Lee) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 08:23:21 -0800 Subject: FORTRAN 50th Anniversary was RE: have you seen www.fortran.com? In-Reply-To: <476A7C89.8060703@gmail.com> References: <47682ECE.19553.210E9E47@cclist.sydex.com> <003101c84292$55ccc240$5b01a8c0@uatempname><20071220074230.GT30562@brevard.conman.org> <476A7C89.8060703@gmail.com> Message-ID: Brief piece on the BBC about FORTRAN's 50th anniversary at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/digital_planet.shtml featuring Paul McJones of CHM. The Fortran segment starts at about 19m38s into the show. Happy Holidays! Lee Courtney (user of FORTRAN II on the IBM 1620-II, FORTRAN-IV on Sigma-7) From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Fri Dec 21 02:46:03 2007 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 09:46:03 +0100 Subject: AMD9016E speed / lilith memory In-Reply-To: <476ADD56.F6E4184E@cs.ubc.ca> References: <476A3C78.8070207@bluewin.ch> <476AD4DA.27861B11@cs.ubc.ca> <476ADD56.F6E4184E@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <476B7D4B.70708@bluewin.ch> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel wrote: >> Suggestions as to why replacing said am9016epc with a mcm4116bp20 does not work, >> are also welcome. > > Should have mentioned this previously, but are all the power supplies there? > The info I have says the MCM4116BP20 requires +5,?5,+12. It isn't clear as > to what the 9016 requires but there are other 16K*1 DRAMs listed as requiring > only +5. > It is a three power device, all voltages are there. The IC is part of the Lilith memory, which are 4 pcb's with 32 x amd9016 devices each. 16 bit wide for r/w, 64 bits wide for instruction fetch and video output. The machine functions, but the defective IC shows up as a white stripe on the display since it is part of the video frame buffer. Changing the IC did not help, of course also the 4116 replacement I used could have been defective. The graphic board is OK, since (WARNING : board swap !) using another memoryboard solves the problem. I ordered some exact replacements and will continue when they arrive. Jos From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Dec 21 03:29:03 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 01:29:03 -0800 Subject: AMD9016E speed / lilith memory References: <476A3C78.8070207@bluewin.ch> <476AD4DA.27861B11@cs.ubc.ca> <476ADD56.F6E4184E@cs.ubc.ca> <476B7D4B.70708@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: <476B8760.6AFFA710@cs.ubc.ca> Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel wrote: > > Brent Hilpert wrote: > > Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel wrote: > >> Suggestions as to why replacing said am9016epc with a mcm4116bp20 does not work, > >> are also welcome. > > > > Should have mentioned this previously, but are all the power supplies there? > > The info I have says the MCM4116BP20 requires +5,?5,+12. It isn't clear as > > to what the 9016 requires but there are other 16K*1 DRAMs listed as requiring > > only +5. > > > > It is a three power device, all voltages are there. The IC is part of the Lilith memory, which are 4 pcb's with 32 x amd9016 devices each. 16 bit wide for r/w, 64 bits wide for instruction fetch and video output. > The machine functions, but the defective IC shows up as a white stripe on the display since it is part of the video frame buffer. Changing the IC did not help, of course also the 4116 replacement I used could have been defective. > The graphic board is OK, since (WARNING : board swap !) using another memoryboard solves the problem. > I ordered some exact replacements and will continue when they arrive. .. try swapping two 9016 chips on the one memory board to see if the problem moves with the chip? (or are the chips soldered in?) From tiggerlasv at aim.com Fri Dec 21 03:34:10 2007 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:34:10 -0500 Subject: CDC 9425's on govliquidation.com Message-ID: <8CA11CBC63F99D3-99C-50B7@WEBMAIL-MC19.sysops.aol.com> I was perusing govliquidation.com, and noticed that they have Quantity 3 Control Data 9425 drives coming up for bids. Go to govliquidation.com, and do a search for 9425 As info. . . ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From tiggerlasv at aim.com Fri Dec 21 03:38:20 2007 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:38:20 -0500 Subject: Wanted: System Industries QS1000 documentation / manual Message-ID: <8CA11CC5B9A0DE6-99C-50D0@WEBMAIL-MC19.sysops.aol.com> Greetings. . . I'm looking for documentation on a System Industries QS1000 SCSI controller for the Q-bus. I've tried the usual web searches, and checked out bitsavers and manx, to no avail. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! Tim ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Fri Dec 21 03:47:57 2007 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:47:57 +0100 Subject: AMD9016E speed / lilith memory In-Reply-To: <476B8760.6AFFA710@cs.ubc.ca> References: <476A3C78.8070207@bluewin.ch> <476AD4DA.27861B11@cs.ubc.ca> <476ADD56.F6E4184E@cs.ubc.ca> <476B7D4B.70708@bluewin.ch> <476B8760.6AFFA710@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <476B8BCD.60106@bluewin.ch> > .. try swapping two 9016 chips on the one memory board to see if > the problem moves with the chip? (or are the chips soldered in?) > 80% of the TTL (thus robust) ic's are socketed, all the finnicky's DRAM chips are soldered in... jos From tiggerlasv at aim.com Fri Dec 21 03:45:58 2007 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:45:58 -0500 Subject: Wanted: WATBOL for the PDP-11 Message-ID: <8CA11CD6CA44570-99C-50F0@WEBMAIL-MC19.sysops.aol.com> Has anyone seen sources floating around for WATBOL for the PDP ? Thanks in advance! Tim ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From billdeg at degnanco.com Fri Dec 21 07:17:51 2007 From: billdeg at degnanco.com (B. Degnan) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:17:51 -0500 Subject: Exatron Stringy Floppies In-Reply-To: <200712210737.lBL7bFQc025425@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20071221075610.03f97078@mail.degnanco.net> > > >Well, I have the Exatron Stingy Floppy adverts on the back of (and >inside?) several issues of 80 Microcomputing which I could attempt to >photograph with my (cheap) webcam, if anyone is interested? > >No newsletters though :( > I have some of these materials if anyone is interested in PDF scans. Contact me directly and specify which issue of 80 Microcomputing and/or Newsletter (I have only the first @LOAD, the newsletter's name). I am presently working on a new drive belt replacement. I have found a vendor to make the belts and hope to get them in early January. It seems that every stringy floppy that I have come upon has a dried-up drive belt, making the drives useless. Before my last belt died, I was able to take a few pictures of a successful load: http://www.vintagecomputer.net/tandy/trs80_1/exatron_stringy_floppy/ Bill From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Dec 21 07:42:11 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:42:11 -0500 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <27BFF8AE-168F-4164-8A78-044369857BC8@bigpond.net.au> References: <27BFF8AE-168F-4164-8A78-044369857BC8@bigpond.net.au> Message-ID: <5459CAE3-6572-44C4-BF51-137A6146193D@neurotica.com> On Dec 20, 2007, at 6:17 PM, Robert Nansel wrote: >> > Well, if you put no limit on the number of diodes (just 3 terminal >> > devices), you can go a heckuva long way using tunnel diodes or even >> > diacs. >> >> I'd love to find a huge stash of a few thousand new-old-stock >> tunnel >> diodes. :-( > > Me, too! I've never seen tunnel diodes going for less than $50 > each, so if I had a few thousand I'd sell most of 'em for $40 : ) Well that too, of course. ;) I'd love to have a bunch to build cool things with, primarily the logic circuits Chuck alluded to. I wonder if there's an easy discrete component circuit that approximates the behavior of a tunnel diode with cheap parts. I kinda doubt it. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Dec 21 07:52:06 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:52:06 -0500 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: References: <200712202310.lBKNAiGL021182@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476A92C7.5156.2A651B6F@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <5894BFCC-A3CB-4BD8-9C96-0280181BA4B8@neurotica.com> On Dec 21, 2007, at 2:07 AM, dwight elvey wrote: > As a cheaper alternative to a tunnel diode, do a search for > a Lambda Diode. I used one of these circuits once to make an > oscillator that ran at over 100MHz. Oh my, there IS an almost-equivalent-to-a-tunnel-diode circuit! That looks really, really neat...I will have to play with that! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From jplist2007 at kiwigeek.com Fri Dec 21 08:32:36 2007 From: jplist2007 at kiwigeek.com (JP Hindin) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:32:36 -0600 (CST) Subject: Probably OT - eBay object - what the devil is it? Message-ID: What on Earth is this? 110206772756 I'm guessing its OT because of the SMD devices in the centre ring, but it is weird enough I'm willing to risk Jay's wrath to find out what it is. Thanks all; - JP From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Fri Dec 21 08:31:07 2007 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:31:07 +0100 Subject: Probably OT - eBay object - what the devil is it? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <476BCE2B.1070006@bluewin.ch> JP Hindin wrote: > What on Earth is this? > > 110206772756 > > I'm guessing its OT because of the SMD devices in the centre ring, but it > is weird enough I'm willing to risk Jay's wrath to find out what it is. > It is a PCB for a tester. The radial patterns are contacts to the tester pins. Awfully expensive and utterly useless for anything but it's designed purpose. Jos From ian_primus at yahoo.com Fri Dec 21 08:33:34 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 06:33:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: Probably OT - eBay object - what the devil is it? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <665697.37303.qm@web52705.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- JP Hindin wrote: > > What on Earth is this? > > 110206772756 > > I'm guessing its OT because of the SMD devices in > the centre ring, but it > is weird enough I'm willing to risk Jay's wrath to > find out what it is. > > Thanks all; > > - JP Wow. That is unusual. Never seen anything like that before. It's pretty though. Would probably make a nice clock... -Ian From rborsuk at colourfull.com Fri Dec 21 08:35:41 2007 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 09:35:41 -0500 Subject: Probably OT - eBay object - what the devil is it? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9184891C-E565-4978-9384-6BF7D384E261@colourfull.com> This reminds me of an impedance matched test head. I use to see similar things on the HP3070. Rob On Dec 21, 2007, at 9:32 AM, JP Hindin wrote: > > What on Earth is this? > > 110206772756 > > I'm guessing its OT because of the SMD devices in the centre ring, > but it > is weird enough I'm willing to risk Jay's wrath to find out what it > is. > > Thanks all; > > - JP > From feldman.r at comcast.net Fri Dec 21 09:22:55 2007 From: feldman.r at comcast.net (feldman.r at comcast.net) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:22:55 +0000 Subject: Marginally On Topic Humor Message-ID: <122120071522.823.476BDA4F0002807F0000033722070210539DD2020E030B040A00@comcast.net> >From the BOFH column in The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/21/bofh_trivia_quiz_200712/): Are you an old bastard? 7. >Clunka Clunka Clunka< is the sound you would most associate with: A. The clothes dryer B. A washing machine with an imbalanced load C. A flat tyre on your car D. A tape safe door shutting repeatedly on an annoying user's foot E. An imbalanced DEC RM05 Disk assembly moving around the computer room by itself during a head crash From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Dec 21 09:25:28 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 09:25:28 -0600 Subject: next out the door (parts available) Message-ID: <009601c843e5$bae990a0$6400a8c0@BILLING> Tall Corporate cab, plus five (all bad hda) RA81 drives. The corporate cab includes an 861A power supply. This 861 has a power cable half the size of my arm coming out of it. The cab was sold with four RA81's in it, so it has all the correct DEC rack hardware & cable management pieces for all the SDI cables (several of the bolt on SDI in/out modules), the power sequencing connectors for in/out of the rack at the bottom, etc. It also has a metric buttload of SDI cables and power sequencing cables. All headed for the skip unless someone is willing to pay shipping for any of it. It will be gone within 24 hours. I don't want to ship dead drives or anything, but I'm willing to unbolt any small rackmount hardware or brackets people may want. Jay From asholz at topinform.de Fri Dec 21 09:38:56 2007 From: asholz at topinform.de (Andreas Holz) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:38:56 +0100 Subject: FREE: CDC CMD948 In-Reply-To: <200712210457.lBL4vT90029464@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <200712210457.lBL4vT90029464@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <476BDE10.4020709@topinform.de> To get manuals and or traning aids would be quite interesting, since I've two of these beasts an some media with software (RT11, Fortran, IMSLIB, ...) which I would like to backup. Up to now I wasn't able to get one of this drives running. Andreas > Forwarding this note about the CDC 9448 for Billy Pettit. > > De > > ------- Forwarded Message > > I did tech support onthese drives for many years, working out of OK > City.In fact, I'm still in touch with the original designer - had nunch > with him about a month ago.It's a minor point, but one surface on the > cartridge and one on the fixed pack is used for a servo reference. So > it has two servo surfaces, the only drive I know with that piece of > wierdness.Don't know if I still have a manual in the garage or not. > Definately do still have the training aides,since I had to teach it to > several OEM's support people. (There were more than 1000 configurations > of the Phoenix sold to various OEMs at the time. I was on the road 50% > of my time for a couple of years.)Can you forward this to the cctalk > list? I can read it but not post messages. I'm pretty certain it is a > problem with my ISP and not the list.Thanks,Billy > > ------- End of Forwarded Message > > > From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Dec 21 09:55:35 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 09:55:35 -0600 Subject: next out the door (parts available) In-Reply-To: <009601c843e5$bae990a0$6400a8c0@BILLING> References: <009601c843e5$bae990a0$6400a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <476BE1F7.3040704@gmail.com> Jay West wrote: > Tall Corporate cab, plus five (all bad hda) RA81 drives. Sigh, I'd love one of the dead HDAs purely as a work of art... way too expensive to ship, though! (And you'd already ruled that out anyway :-) From rogpugh at mac.com Fri Dec 21 10:11:04 2007 From: rogpugh at mac.com (Roger Pugh) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:11:04 +0000 Subject: Marginally On Topic Humor In-Reply-To: <122120071522.823.476BDA4F0002807F0000033722070210539DD2020E030B040A00@comcast.net> References: <122120071522.823.476BDA4F0002807F0000033722070210539DD2020E030B040A00@comcast.net> Message-ID: On 21 Dec 2007, at 15:22, feldman.r at comcast.net wrote: >> From the BOFH column in The Register >> (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/21/bofh_trivia_quiz_200712/): > > Are you an old bastard? > 7. >Clunka Clunka Clunka< is the sound you would most associate with: > A. The clothes dryer > B. A washing machine with an imbalanced load > C. A flat tyre on your car > D. A tape safe door shutting repeatedly on an annoying user's foot > E. An imbalanced DEC RM05 Disk assembly moving around the computer > room by itself during a head crash > BOFH is my favorite friday afternoon read.. BOFH = Bastard Operator From Hell roger From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Dec 21 10:21:53 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:21:53 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <5894BFCC-A3CB-4BD8-9C96-0280181BA4B8@neurotica.com> References: <200712202310.lBKNAiGL021182@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476A92C7.5156.2A651B6F@cclist.sydex.com> <5894BFCC-A3CB-4BD8-9C96-0280181BA4B8@neurotica.com> Message-ID: > From: mcguire at neurotica.com > Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:52:06 -0500 > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > CC: > Subject: Re: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] > > On Dec 21, 2007, at 2:07 AM, dwight elvey wrote: >> As a cheaper alternative to a tunnel diode, do a search for >> a Lambda Diode. I used one of these circuits once to make an >> oscillator that ran at over 100MHz. > > Oh my, there IS an almost-equivalent-to-a-tunnel-diode circuit! > That looks really, really neat...I will have to play with that! > Hi To better approximate a tunnel diode, you'd have to put a resistor in parallel. I don't recommend doing this as it only degrades the negative resistance. Still, if one was to use a pair of these for a flop, it might be more stable since at the higher voltages, unlike a real TD, it completely shuts off. Without the shunt resistors to bypass some current the circuit might oscillate. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ From brettdurham at mybluelight.com Fri Dec 21 10:21:54 2007 From: brettdurham at mybluelight.com (brettdurham at mybluelight.com) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:21:54 GMT Subject: Fw: Epson PC286UX ....anyone? Message-ID: <20071221.112154.1112.0@webmail21.vgs.untd.com> ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Does anyone have a source for the keyboard for this PC? This keyboard connects to an eight pin mini-DIN socket. Also if anyone has pin-out information for this keyboard or this PC's monitor outputs, (B/W-5 pin DIN connector, analog RGB-DB15 connector, or digital RGB), it would be greatly appreciated. I am also looking for pin out information for my Zenith ZVM-131 monitor purchased new in 1985 but did not have a manual with it when we received it. Regards, Brett _____________________________________________________________ Need cash? Click here for low rate home equity options. http://thirdpartyoffers.mybluelight.com/TGL2321/fc/Ioyw6i50uhFS2ETSxvvPdN8fdtabBI9bvqpbeN5CLc0zQZKSA0CeR4/ From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Dec 21 10:38:45 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:38:45 -0600 Subject: Marginally On Topic Humor In-Reply-To: References: <122120071522.823.476BDA4F0002807F0000033722070210539DD2020E030B040A00@comcast.net> Message-ID: <476BEC15.5020905@gmail.com> Roger Pugh wrote: > BOFH = Bastard Operator From Hell I'm trying to recall where it originates, though. I'm sure I saw the term in the early 90s within the context of a Unix environment, but I suspect it was already old by then... From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Dec 21 10:49:39 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:49:39 -0800 Subject: ebay 110206772756 (what the devil is it?) Message-ID: <476BEEA3.3020002@bitsavers.org> DUT (Device Under Test) board for an automatic board tester. The pins around the edge are called pogo pins and mate with the base of the tester. You see these a lot on eBay, sellers never have a clue what they are. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Dec 21 10:55:06 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:55:06 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] Message-ID: > From: dkelvey at hotmail.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:21:53 -0800 > Subject: RE: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] > > > > > >> From: mcguire at neurotica.com >> Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:52:06 -0500 >> To: cctech at classiccmp.org >> CC: >> Subject: Re: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] >> >> On Dec 21, 2007, at 2:07 AM, dwight elvey wrote: >>> As a cheaper alternative to a tunnel diode, do a search for >>> a Lambda Diode. I used one of these circuits once to make an >>> oscillator that ran at over 100MHz. >> >> Oh my, there IS an almost-equivalent-to-a-tunnel-diode circuit! >> That looks really, really neat...I will have to play with that! >> > > > Hi > To better approximate a tunnel diode, you'd have > to put a resistor in parallel. I don't recommend doing > this as it only degrades the negative resistance. > Still, if one was to use a pair of these for a flop, it > might be more stable since at the higher voltages, > unlike a real TD, it completely shuts off. Without the > shunt resistors to bypass some current the circuit > might oscillate. > Dwight > Hi Another negative resistance device is the DIAC. These are really cheap but these are knee type curves instead of S type, like the TD and Lambda. One would have to rearrange these in a parallel configuration for a latch or flop, similar to the neon circuits. The TD has the advantage that the stable state is lower current, not higher current. The disadvantage is that that tends to increate the impedance of the storage net making it less stable and more susceptible to noise. That is why I recommend the shunt resistor to decrease the impedance. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_122007 From mike at brickfieldspark.org Fri Dec 21 11:55:02 2007 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 17:55:02 -0000 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] References: <200712211433.lBLEX4Hr028789@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <025501c843fa$9cddb680$911ca8c0@mss.local> > From: Brent Hilpert > Subject: Re: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] > > Another approach to discrete flip-flops can be seen at: > > http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/eec/misc/CasioAL1000Tech/electronics.html > > The stacking of multiple inputs into the basic FF structure was another > technique from the discrete days. Helps reduce the amount of gating (and > hence > transistors) required, for instance when making a parallel loaded shift > register or counter, although they were lots of other novel uses. (Some > aspects of logic design were narrowed with the introduction of ICs for the > sake > of standardizing on elements that would fit in packages with limited > connections.) > Very similar to an East German calculator that I am partway through reverse engineering, a Soemtron 220. www.soemtron.org/downloads/board10.pdf http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/eec/misc/CasioAL1000Tech/electronics.html Looks like thees pages might help in that task thanks for the link Mike. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Dec 21 11:58:49 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 09:58:49 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <200712211433.lBLEX4Hv028789@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712211433.lBLEX4Hv028789@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <476B8E59.3343.2E3BC9E4@cclist.sydex.com> From: Dave McGuire > > On Dec 21, 2007, at 2:07 AM, dwight elvey wrote: > > As a cheaper alternative to a tunnel diode, do a search for > > a Lambda Diode. I used one of these circuits once to make an > > oscillator that ran at over 100MHz. > > Oh my, there IS an almost-equivalent-to-a-tunnel-diode circuit! That > looks really, really neat...I will have to play with that! I don't know if Lambda diodes would meet the 1965 test. Gunn diodes (another possibility) might, however--invented in 1963. Cheers, Chuck From lproven at gmail.com Fri Dec 21 13:13:57 2007 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:13:57 +0000 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] In-Reply-To: <310f50ab0712201859g138ee6d7h9b9630d7d93b84af@mail.gmail.com> References: <575131af0712081113m5f7b4211s66e83f7e1b046941@mail.gmail.com> <310f50ab0712201859g138ee6d7h9b9630d7d93b84af@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <575131af0712211113g6de32285q851b799c029cee50@mail.gmail.com> On 21/12/2007, from at fu3.org wrote: > I think Word6 for DOS is at http://www.vetusware.com/ in their office section. Nope, Word 6 is for Windows 3. AFAIK 5.5 was the last ever version for DOS. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Fri Dec 21 12:20:15 2007 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 18:20:15 +0000 Subject: Marginally On Topic Humor In-Reply-To: <476BEC15.5020905@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 21/12/07 16:38, "Jules Richardson" wrote: > Roger Pugh wrote: >> BOFH = Bastard Operator From Hell > > I'm trying to recall where it originates, though. I'm sure I saw the term in > the early 90s within the context of a Unix environment, but I suspect it was > already old by then... As far as I know it was started by Simon Travaglia way back then, he's certainly been penning the BOFH stories since at least the early 90s. Anyone else know? -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From cannings at earthlink.net Fri Dec 21 13:27:34 2007 From: cannings at earthlink.net (Steven Canning) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:27:34 -0800 Subject: GRID computer available in So Cal - gone References: <000701c84216$45c0b4f0$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <000e01c84407$8a642d60$0201a8c0@hal9000> List ( et al ); The GRID has a new home and new owner that will take good care of it with respect to the piece of history it represents. Thanks to all who expressed interest and did so in a timely manner. I believe the GRID on E-pay is still available for Buy-It-Now at $400 plus shipping. Best regards, Steven From joachim.thiemann at gmail.com Fri Dec 21 14:17:41 2007 From: joachim.thiemann at gmail.com (Joachim Thiemann) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:17:41 -0500 Subject: FT: HP Omnibook 600C Message-ID: <4affc5e0712211217y3ca93daanc1aeb0a41242c5fb@mail.gmail.com> Hello everyone, doing a little cleanout myself, and this falls into "not really getting to play with this properly" category. I've got an HP Omnibook 600C, it's got a 486 CPU, 8megs ram, and a 340M pcmica hard drive, and a 640x480 screen. Works ok, except it'll reset after coming out of sleep mode - very annoying. Also, the left button of the pop-out mouse does not work, but is probably fixable. Original battery (Li-Ion?) still holds a charge, will give you tens of minutes of operation! Runs Dave's PC100 emulator quite well (80col only of course) you could use it as a nice small terminal! The hard drive has all the HP drivers (AFAICT) but no windows. I've only used it with DOS. I did use to run linux on this - years ago - but due to some proprietary hw (in particular the PCMICA stuff) I could only boot through DOS using "loadlin". Since linux can't access the PCMICA slots, it's of very limited use. I have no idea what it would cost to ship but would guess in the $20-$30 range for most of North America. I'm located in Montreal, Canada. It comes with the power adapter and the snazzy carrying bag! What I'm looking for in exchange: in particular, I'm looking for a HP48, especially if it has been opened already (and still works). I'm planning a little HW hack and would prefer not to do significant damage cosmetically to my 48S that is still in use and has sentimental value to boot - it got me through engineering school! But frankly, most hackable handheld/portable computing stuff (vintage or not) would be of interest to me :-) (anyone got a N770 lying around?) Joe. From tponsford at rnsmte.com Fri Dec 21 14:41:04 2007 From: tponsford at rnsmte.com (tponsford) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:41:04 -0700 Subject: CDC 9425's on govliquidation.com In-Reply-To: <8CA11CBC63F99D3-99C-50B7@WEBMAIL-MC19.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA11CBC63F99D3-99C-50B7@WEBMAIL-MC19.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <476C24E0.9000909@rnsmte.com> Its's raining CDC 94XX!! Run!!! See the thread on the CDC 9448! Cheers Tom tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: >I was perusing govliquidation.com, and noticed that they have >Quantity 3 Control Data 9425 drives coming up for bids. > >Go to govliquidation.com, and do a search for 9425 > >As info. . . > > > >________________________________________________________________________ >More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com > > > > From cclist at sydex.com Fri Dec 21 14:40:25 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 12:40:25 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <200712211800.lBLI0QbX033605@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712211800.lBLI0QbX033605@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <476BB439.690.2ECFBD91@cclist.sydex.com> From: dkelvey at hotmail.com > Another negative resistance device is the DIAC. These are > really cheap but these are knee type curves instead of > S type, like the TD and Lambda. > One would have to rearrange these in a parallel configuration > for a latch or flop, similar to the neon circuits. > The TD has the advantage that the stable state is lower > current, not higher current. > The disadvantage is that that tends to increate the impedance > of the storage net making it less stable and more susceptible > to noise. That is why I recommend the shunt resistor to > decrease the impedance. I did suggest DIACs along with the tunnel diodes as being a period device, but I think of them more akin to neon bulbs (i.e. great for relaxation oscillators and ring counters perhaps) than TDs. At the time of their debut, I believe that TDs offered the fastest performance of any semiconductor active logic. DIACs (I'm thinking of UJT speeds) would not nearly be as promising, it seems to me. There are patents employing Gunn diodes in logic, but a pair seems to be required. On the other hand, its relative, the IMPATT diode seems not have seen use as the active element in logic circuits. IMPATTs date from about 1965, so they're *barely* OT for the rules of the project. Cheers, Chuck From daviderhart at oldzonian.com Fri Dec 21 15:27:38 2007 From: daviderhart at oldzonian.com (David W. Erhart) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:27:38 -0500 Subject: Booting Sage Computer talk at VCF 10.0 posted to YouTube Message-ID: <26134147.501091198272458291.JavaMail.servlet@perfora> I finally got the video of Rod Coleman's (Sage Computer co-founder) talk at the Vintage Computer Festival edited and posted to YouTube. It's about 55+ minutes long so I had to brake it into six parts. They are at: http://www.youtube.com/user/daviderhart I learned a lot about making/editing a video for YouTube along the way. The next should be much better. :) Regards, david. http://www.sageandstride.org From daviderhart at oldzonian.com Fri Dec 21 15:34:38 2007 From: daviderhart at oldzonian.com (David W. Erhart) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:34:38 -0500 Subject: Stride 460 restoration video posted to YouTube Message-ID: <26340992.501911198272878113.JavaMail.servlet@perfora> I've been having some fun with a Stride 460 tower I'm restoring. Here is a link to the video I made of the Stride 460 restoration. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOx-ZadCGDg The Stride 460 is a 68000 based system from Stride Micro in the mid 1980's. Stride Micro was formerly Sage Computer Technology. Here are scans of old datasheets about the Stride 460: http://www.sageandstride.org/html/stride_460.html Regards, david. http://www.sageandstride.org From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Fri Dec 21 10:48:33 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:48:33 -0800 Subject: (REPOST) Stuff for trade, some possibly/likely free Message-ID: <8cbefc43503bb6d4c05f83bda972f0e2@valleyimplants.com> Repost since the mail server doesn't seem to like to work outside of business hours I've been looking at the garage, and here's a list (for those who are waiting (you know who you are), I have the SIMMS and the Xyplex ready to go, the post office is a bit of a nightmare now though). (1) the definitely on-topic stuff Sun-3 and Sun-4 VME stuff. (note-Pat gets first call, since he's sending me some E3k stuff) 4x 501-1333 32M Sun 4/400 (/470, /490) ECC RAM (128MB total) 3x 501-1102 8MB Sun-3/200 ECC RAM (also works on 4/260 & 4/280 per FEH) 501-1167 Sun-2 SCSI and 9U->6U adaptor (external DD-50 conn.) 501-1276 FDDI adaptor 501-1539 IPI-2 adaptor 501-1206 Sun 3200 CPU, no PROM onboard. 501-1316 Sun 4300 CPU for parts 501-1203 Asynch serial multiplexor Sun 50-pin drive lunchbox. Assorted stuff (well, the Xylogics can go in a Sun) Xylogics 450 Multibus SMD controller, with or without a Sun VTM adaptor. DIGITAL Alpha Multia VX42 (233MHz, cache) with new battery. SGI IRIS Indigo Express (GR2 XS/XS-24/XZ/Elan) boards: ZB4 Z-Buffer 3x VM2 bitplanes Personal IRIS PSU and TFLU skins (no cracks, door in place) Xyplex Maxserver 4000-series terminal server, telco style outputs, fully populated. still many 4MB 30-pin (9-bit) parity SIMMS (80nS) (free) one Sun USIIi 333MHz/2MB Ecache module (U5/U10) Apple M0130 400K Macintosh floppy DD-50 interface drive box w/ PSU. The "pushing it" section: Unholtz-Dickie OSC-1S sweep sine generator Graphtec WR3200 thermal arraycorder (8-channel chart recorder) HP 3746A selective level measuring set HP 5061A Cesium beam frequency standard (CS beam likely needs work) HP scope frame that I've not tested yet - no plugins, email if interested as I'll test it later. Part of a satellite tracking system. Figure no interest, but I should ask before scrapping. Scientific Atlanta. On a more practical note, these have 3U rack cabinets, aluminum, pretty nice. Not set up for computer stuff specifically, but hackable. Renton, WA. If anyone wants to trade, I'm looking for a decent soldering setup, PROM/PLD programmer (need not be fancy), interesting computer stuff (perhaps some SGI Origin 200 dual processor modules, largish 72-pin parity SIMMS, even very off-topic but a couple of years old stuff that could run W*****s (but won't). Don't think any of this runs up anywhere near the value of a smallish PDP-11 or HP 2100, but figured I'd put it out as a pipe dream), or other electronic/computer stuff. Cash always accepted, too. Otherwise make offer, some I might just give away. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Dec 21 15:54:16 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:54:16 -0800 Subject: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting Message-ID: <476BC588.11687.2F1358B8@cclist.sydex.com> If you feel this subject is too far off-topic, please respond privately. OTOH, it just might help some who are trying to repair some of the old gear that uses SMT. At any rate, I've got some 68-pin TQFP packages that I need to mount on a PCB. I've searched the web and become throughly confused over recommendations. I'd like to stay away from using a hot-air rework iron as I don't think I have enough skill to use it without causing some damage to the PCB or component. I'd like to use my temperature-controlled Weller soldering station as the heat source. I'll also be using Sn- Pb solder rather than lead-free. Two approaches that I've seen for conventional soldering iron mounting involve what I'll call "flood and suck" that involves covering all of the leads on one side of the QFP on the PCB with solder and then using a solder "sucker" (such as a Soldapullt) to remove the excess. The other approach uses solder wick (solder removal braid), laying the braid over the QFP leads and PCB and heating and applying solder *through* the braid to the leads. I'm fairly confident that I could do either, but who's had real success with either method? Thanks, Chuck From tshoppa at wmata.com Fri Dec 21 12:33:25 2007 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:33:25 -0500 Subject: Probably OT - eBay object - what the devil is it? Message-ID: <476BC0A5020000370001BCA3@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> --- JP Hindin wrote: > What on Earth is this? > > 110206772756 > > I'm guessing its OT because of the SMD devices in > the centre ring, but it > is weird enough I'm willing to risk Jay's wrath to > find out what it is. It looks a lot like the readout electronics that might go on the end of a high energy physics cylindrical wire chamber. Go to google images and look for "wire chamber". For even more science-fictiony particle physics detectors, google for "Gammasphere". I understand it made an appearance in the Hulk movie! Tim. From lproven at gmail.com Fri Dec 21 16:50:14 2007 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 22:50:14 +0000 Subject: Stride 460 restoration video posted to YouTube In-Reply-To: <26340992.501911198272878113.JavaMail.servlet@perfora> References: <26340992.501911198272878113.JavaMail.servlet@perfora> Message-ID: <575131af0712211450o675a1cceo3eb69a3e925c03c3@mail.gmail.com> On 21/12/2007, David W. Erhart wrote: > I've been having some fun with a Stride 460 tower I'm restoring. Here is a link to the video I made of the Stride 460 restoration. > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOx-ZadCGDg > > The Stride 460 is a 68000 based system from Stride Micro in the mid 1980's. Stride Micro was formerly Sage Computer Technology. > > Here are scans of old datasheets about the Stride 460: > http://www.sageandstride.org/html/stride_460.html Nifty little film. Thanks for that! I particularly enjoyed the music, too. I'd have liked perhaps a little more actual video in the video, rather than the endless pans and zooms, and perhaps a voiceover explaining a little something about the machine - but I'm not saying it wasn't good! -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Dec 21 17:02:23 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:02:23 -0800 Subject: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting Message-ID: <476C45FF.9040603@bitsavers.org> Two approaches that I've seen for conventional soldering iron mounting involve what I'll call "flood and suck" that involves covering all of the leads on one side of the QFP on the PCB with solder and then using a solder "sucker" (such as a Soldapullt) to remove the excess. The other approach uses solder wick (solder removal braid), laying the braid over the QFP leads and PCB and heating and applying solder *through* the braid to the leads. -- I've used "flood and wick" successfully applying liquid flux before the "flood". I suspect soldering through braid accomplishes the same thing. From pcw at mesanet.com Fri Dec 21 17:37:00 2007 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:37:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting In-Reply-To: <476BC588.11687.2F1358B8@cclist.sydex.com> References: <476BC588.11687.2F1358B8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 21 Dec 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:54:16 -0800 > From: Chuck Guzis > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting > > If you feel this subject is too far off-topic, please respond > privately. OTOH, it just might help some who are trying to repair > some of the old gear that uses SMT. > > At any rate, I've got some 68-pin TQFP packages that I need to mount > on a PCB. I've searched the web and become throughly confused over > recommendations. > > I'd like to stay away from using a hot-air rework iron as I don't > think I have enough skill to use it without causing some damage to > the PCB or component. I'd like to use my temperature-controlled > Weller soldering station as the heat source. I'll also be using Sn- > Pb solder rather than lead-free. > > Two approaches that I've seen for conventional soldering iron > mounting involve what I'll call "flood and suck" that involves > covering all of the leads on one side of the QFP on the PCB with > solder and then using a solder "sucker" (such as a Soldapullt) to > remove the excess. > > The other approach uses solder wick (solder removal braid), laying > the braid over the QFP leads and PCB and heating and applying solder > *through* the braid to the leads. > > I'm fairly confident that I could do either, but who's had real > success with either method? > > Thanks, > Chuck > > I've done the flood method many times, you dont actually need to use a solder sucker or wick much if you use a _LARGE_ excess of flux, and tilt the card as you solder each side so the solder you are 'flooding' with makes a little wave following the soldering iron tip. If you have enough flux and the correct angle (pins down and with a tilt to help the wave move), the surface tension of the solder will pull the solder bridges apart at the end of the 'wave'. Usually only the last two pins on a side will end up with a solder bridge. requiring solder wick to remove. That said, there is a danger in flooding: if you cant get it right in a few passes, you may dissolve the copper pads in the excess solder, causing a distinct lack of holiday cheer... Best thing is to practice on cards/parts you dont care about. Peter Wallace From daviderhart at oldzonian.com Fri Dec 21 17:46:16 2007 From: daviderhart at oldzonian.com (David W. Erhart) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 18:46:16 -0500 Subject: Stride 460 restoration video posted to YouTube Message-ID: <12115065.531831198280776588.JavaMail.servlet@perfora> >On 21/12/2007, David W. Erhart wrote: >> I've been having some fun with a Stride 460 tower I'm restoring. Here is a >link to the video I made of the Stride 460 restoration. >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOx-ZadCGDg >> >> The Stride 460 is a 68000 based system from Stride Micro in the mid 1980's. >Stride Micro was formerly Sage Computer Technology. >> >> Here are scans of old datasheets about the Stride 460: >> http://www.sageandstride.org/html/stride_460.html > >Nifty little film. Thanks for that! I particularly enjoyed the music, too. > >I'd have liked perhaps a little more actual video in the video, rather >than the endless pans and zooms, and perhaps a voiceover explaining a >little something about the machine - but I'm not saying it wasn't >good! > This was my first attempt at a YouTube video of a vintage system. I agree it could be much more informative. Good feedback for my next attempt. Glad you enjoyed it. I wish the quality of the YouTube video was as good as what I uploaded. david. >-- >Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven >Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com >Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 >AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com >Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 > From cfox1 at cogeco.ca Fri Dec 21 17:53:45 2007 From: cfox1 at cogeco.ca (Charles Fox) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 18:53:45 -0500 Subject: Stride 460 restoration video posted to YouTube In-Reply-To: <26340992.501911198272878113.JavaMail.servlet@perfora> References: <26340992.501911198272878113.JavaMail.servlet@perfora> Message-ID: <20071221235350.1D3BB1055@fep5.cogeco.net> At 04:34 PM 12/21/2007, you wrote: >I've been having some fun with a Stride 460 tower I'm restoring. >Here is a link to the video I made of the Stride 460 restoration. > >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOx-ZadCGDg > >The Stride 460 is a 68000 based system from Stride Micro in the mid >1980's. Stride Micro was formerly Sage Computer Technology. > >Here are scans of old datasheets about the Stride 460: >http://www.sageandstride.org/html/stride_460.html > >Regards, >david. > >http://www.sageandstride.org A beautiful job both on the computer and the video. The music fitted in with the action, and I liked the pans and zooms. A computer doesn't move around much, so what else can you do? It's not like shooting "dancing with the stars". Cheers Charlie Fox Charles E. Fox Video Productions 793 Argyle Rd. Windsor, Ontario 519-254-4991 N8Y 3J8 www.chasfoxvideo.com From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Dec 21 17:33:00 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 23:33:00 +0000 (GMT) Subject: FREE: CDC CMD948 In-Reply-To: <200712210122.lBL1MXvH024748@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> from "Dennis Boone" at Dec 20, 7 08:22:33 pm Message-ID: > Prime used to sell these. They were available in 32, 64 and 96 MB > models. The bottom section contains fixed platters. The top section Each data surfact stores 16Mbytes (or so). The removeable pack has one data surface and one servo surface. There's also a servo sufrace among the fixed platters -- the drive automatically selects which servo head to used based on which data haed is selected. The reason for the 2 servo surfaces is that the removeable pack may not centre exaclty, so for repiable operation they took the positioner reference from the fixed or removeable platters as appropriate. A 32MB drive has one fixed platter (one data surface, one servo surface).. So 16MB fixed, 16MB removable. A 64MB drive has 2 fixed platters (3 data surfaces), so 48MB fixed, 16MB removeable. And finally the 96MB one has 3 fixed platters (5 dfata surfaces), so 80MB fixed, 16MB removable. I do have the service manual for this drive. The thing I rememebr is that you don't fiddle with the mechanics without reading it first, and even then tread carefully. There are all sorts of special tools you may need. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Dec 21 17:58:09 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 23:58:09 +0000 (GMT) Subject: AMD9016E speed / lilith memory In-Reply-To: <476B7D4B.70708@bluewin.ch> from "Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel" at Dec 21, 7 09:46:03 am Message-ID: > It is a three power device, all voltages are there. The IC is part of th= > e Lilith memory, which are 4 pcb's with 32 x amd9016 devices each. 16 bit= > wide for r/w, 64 bits wide for instruction fetch and video output. Very like a PERQ, then... > The machine functions, but the defective IC shows up as a white stripe on= > the display since it is part of the video frame buffer. Changing the IC = Can the processor correctly read and write that location, or does it show errors? > did not help, of course also the 4116 replacement I used could have been = > defective.=20 > The graphic board is OK, since (WARNING : board swap !) using another mem= > oryboard solves the problem. I wonder if the IC is fine ,and the problem is actually a data buffer to/from that IC. I asusme you have a logic probe. If so, are you seeing traisntion o nthe data in (pin 2) and data out (pin 14) pins ofthat chip? those pins may or may not be connected together externally, my first guess is that they are not. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Dec 21 17:52:43 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 23:52:43 +0000 (GMT) Subject: More bits for free [UK] In-Reply-To: <000901c8437e$5920a0f0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> from "Ensor" at Dec 21, 7 03:05:29 am Message-ID: > > Also just turned up the following: > > > Philips CDD-462 External CD-ROM drive - boxed with manuals, software, 2 > interface cards but no cable. Eeek. I never throught I'd see anyone else with one of those... That's the only CD-ROM driove I have. It is, of course, a modified CD player. The service manial (yes I have it!), doesn't list some components in the parts list, I think you're supposed to deduce what audio player is much the same and get the bits for that! Anyway, the cable is, I am pretty sure, straioght-through (DA15-P to DA15-S). Whwether there's anything odd about the cable itsself I don't know, The signals are all differential RS422-level things (26LS31 drives, 26LS32 receivers), so twisted pair cable wouldn't be a bad idea. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Dec 21 17:26:06 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 23:26:06 +0000 (GMT) Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: from "Robert Nansel" at Dec 21, 7 09:39:01 am Message-ID: > > Do all transsitors have to be of the same flavour, or could I use TUNs > > and TUPs? > > I'd never encountered the TUN & TUP TLAs before, so I looked them up: > Transistor, Universal NPN/PNP. Neat! I suspect the acronyms were invented by Elektor magazine over 30 eyars ago. Although they're not still sued in said magazine, theu're handy :-) There's also DUG and DUS (Diode, Universal, Germanium/Silcon). > > And any TUN or TUP will do, provided a device of comparable spec was > reasonably available to hobbyists in the mid sixties. For my first > efforts, at least, I'll be using the PN2222 in modern TO-92 plastic Sure. I tened to use 2N3904/2N3906 to excess round here. I don't think they're quite the same spec as a TUN.TUP, but they're pretty universal in their own right :-). > packages. I'm not sure when the TO-92 package was introduced, but > there were definitely plastic package transistors available then. > SOTs are right out, though :) Given that there's a limit on the number of transistors, I don't see what advantage using SOT23s would give you. OK, you could make it smaller, maybe clock it faster. But the change in package wouldn't allow a totally different architecture. So I don't see any particular reason to ban them, since the same design could be built with compoents in 1960's packages. -tony From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Dec 21 18:58:45 2007 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim s) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:58:45 -0800 Subject: Probably OT - eBay object - what the devil is it? In-Reply-To: <9184891C-E565-4978-9384-6BF7D384E261@colourfull.com> References: <9184891C-E565-4978-9384-6BF7D384E261@colourfull.com> Message-ID: <476C6144.3010500@msm.umr.edu> Robert Borsuk wrote: > This reminds me of an impedance matched test head. > I use to see similar things on the HP3070. > > Rob > I have one that is from an HP tester. The pins which appear to be in radial rows are spring loaded and when you put this in the tester, it is with the pins down to connect to probes on the tester. The electronics in the center are actually on the back side of a carrier board which would have a holder for a device under test, or at least mine does. The pins are reusable, but the testers are falling out of use and so these come on the market for gold scrap. Also when a company such as an ASIC maker shuts down an office usually they are in possession of these test fixtures and they just toss them. They do have a lot of gold if you scrap them, and are pretty much useless unless you want to recover the pin probes. jim From brain at jbrain.com Fri Dec 21 19:26:29 2007 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:26:29 -0600 Subject: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting In-Reply-To: <476C45FF.9040603@bitsavers.org> References: <476C45FF.9040603@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <476C67C5.2000007@jbrain.com> Al Kossow wrote: > Two approaches that I've seen for conventional soldering iron > mounting involve what I'll call "flood and suck" that involves > covering all of the leads on one side of the QFP on the PCB with > solder and then using a solder "sucker" (such as a Soldapullt) to > remove the excess. > > The other approach uses solder wick (solder removal braid), laying > the braid over the QFP leads and PCB and heating and applying solder > *through* the braid to the leads. > > -- > > I've used "flood and wick" successfully applying liquid flux before > the "flood". > > I suspect soldering through braid accomplishes the same thing. > I've had success with QFP packages here with the flood/wick/"spot"method. Coat both parts with solder liberally while separate, and use wick to take off all excess. Then, place part on pads and use a fine tip weller tip to heat each pin separately, pressing it down just a bit. You can also suck off the excess in the first step, I had wick handy. After a few tries, you learn how much solder to leave on. I like my approach (trial and error), as it keeps the amount of time heating the IC to a minimum. Jim -- Jim Brain, Brain Innovations (X) brain at jbrain.com Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times! Home: http://www.jbrain.com From tpeters at mixcom.com Fri Dec 21 19:58:27 2007 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:58:27 -0600 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> This is off-topic in terms of the industry involved, but not too far off in the time period this stuff dates from. I've got some very nice, rather large Burroughs nixies- 7971 types. They're 4.8" high, "British flag" display which looks to be 2.5" high inside the glass. They have 15 segments each-- 14 in the alphanumeric display part of the tube and one sort-of cursor, an underline character with the ends bent downwards. I hear one can dismember D-shell connectors to get some sockets to solder to a pc board to connect to these. But my problem is driving them. Anyone know a good way to drive these, four or six of them in an array? I need 170 volts, 21ma all cathodes, between 4.0 and 6.0ma any individual cathode. I was thinking of a pic at each tube, sort-of a character generator that would take an ascii code and drive the right segments. Some sort of escape code would let you send 16 bits to be interpreted literally, i.e. turn on the literal segments corresponding to the bits set, for more fanciful displays. -T ----- 994. I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. -- Thomas Edison --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: 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 lproven at gmail.com Fri Dec 21 20:27:33 2007 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 02:27:33 +0000 Subject: Stride 460 restoration video posted to YouTube In-Reply-To: <20071221235350.1D3BB1055@fep5.cogeco.net> References: <26340992.501911198272878113.JavaMail.servlet@perfora> <20071221235350.1D3BB1055@fep5.cogeco.net> Message-ID: <575131af0712211827n730235d3ra2b25d72975cea36@mail.gmail.com> On 21/12/2007, Charles Fox wrote: > A beautiful job both on the computer and the video. The > music fitted in with the action, and I liked the pans and zooms. A > computer doesn't move around much, so what else can you do? It's not > like shooting "dancing with the stars". :?) Well, that's certainly true! I'm improvising here, but I'd like to have seen some details of how it was reassembled, for instance - what new or refurbished parts were put in. A time-lapse of the strip-down and reassembly would have worked well, showing it being torn apart then rebuilt in 30sec or so. Seeing what sorts of connectors it has, if special cables were made up, showing the button being pressed for the 1st power-on, things like that? Just some ideas... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Dec 21 20:30:32 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 21:30:32 -0500 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <763DFFC0-9283-43A3-A805-E7B3DD5D4652@neurotica.com> On Dec 21, 2007, at 6:26 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> packages. I'm not sure when the TO-92 package was introduced, but >> there were definitely plastic package transistors available then. >> SOTs are right out, though :) > > Given that there's a limit on the number of transistors, I don't > see what > advantage using SOT23s would give you. It'd be easier to assemble. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Dec 21 21:32:26 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:32:26 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <476B8E59.3343.2E3BC9E4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712211433.lBLEX4Hv028789@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476B8E59.3343.2E3BC9E4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: cclist at sydex.com > > From: Dave McGuire > >> >> On Dec 21, 2007, at 2:07 AM, dwight elvey wrote: >>> As a cheaper alternative to a tunnel diode, do a search for >>> a Lambda Diode. I used one of these circuits once to make an >>> oscillator that ran at over 100MHz. >> >> Oh my, there IS an almost-equivalent-to-a-tunnel-diode circuit! That >> looks really, really neat...I will have to play with that! > > I don't know if Lambda diodes would meet the 1965 test. Gunn diodes > (another possibility) might, however--invented in 1963. > > Cheers, > Chuck > Hi Chuck Why not. JFETs were clearly available in 1965. There is one web page that shows using a regular trnasistor and a N-JFET instead of the P and N pair. All the parts were available in 1965. I don't know what date the lambda diode was first made. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_122007 From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Dec 21 21:53:04 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 22:53:04 -0500 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> Message-ID: <2D6B2159-2342-491A-B1C1-40B9FA45F8CC@neurotica.com> On Dec 21, 2007, at 8:58 PM, Tom Peters wrote: > This is off-topic in terms of the industry involved, but not too > far off in the time period this stuff dates from. > > I've got some very nice, rather large Burroughs nixies- 7971 types. > They're 4.8" high, "British flag" display which looks to be 2.5" > high inside the glass. They have 15 segments each-- 14 in the > alphanumeric display part of the tube and one sort-of cursor, an > underline character with the ends bent downwards. > > I hear one can dismember D-shell connectors to get some sockets to > solder to a pc board to connect to these. But my problem is driving > them. > > Anyone know a good way to drive these, four or six of them in an > array? I need 170 volts, 21ma all cathodes, between 4.0 and 6.0ma > any individual cathode. I was thinking of a pic at each tube, sort- > of a character generator that would take an ascii code and drive > the right segments. Some sort of escape code would let you send 16 > bits to be interpreted literally, i.e. turn on the literal segments > corresponding to the bits set, for more fanciful displays. B7971 tubes are very nice indeed. A PIC with lookup tables in code memory is a reasonable approach. You can gate the 170VDC to the cathodes with MPSA42 transistors (NPN, Vceo=300V). If you'll be multiplexing, you can drive the anodes with MPSA92s (PNP, Vceo=300V, effectively the PNP version of the MPSA42). Both are available new in lots on eBay for next to nothing. I generate the 170VDC for Nixie (and similar) applications from 12VDC using an MC34063-based step-up switching regulator, the design of which is based on a circuit from one of the chip's app notes. I can send you the schematic if that'd be helpful. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Dec 21 22:12:38 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:12:38 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: References: <200712211433.lBLEX4Hv028789@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476B8E59.3343.2E3BC9E4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: dkelvey at hotmail.com > >> From: cclist at sydex.com >> >> From: Dave McGuire >> >>> >>> On Dec 21, 2007, at 2:07 AM, dwight elvey wrote: >>>> As a cheaper alternative to a tunnel diode, do a search for >>>> a Lambda Diode. I used one of these circuits once to make an >>>> oscillator that ran at over 100MHz. >>> >>> Oh my, there IS an almost-equivalent-to-a-tunnel-diode circuit! That >>> looks really, really neat...I will have to play with that! >> >> I don't know if Lambda diodes would meet the 1965 test. Gunn diodes >> (another possibility) might, however--invented in 1963. >> >> Cheers, >> Chuck >> > > Hi Chuck > Why not. JFETs were clearly available in 1965. There is one > web page that shows using a regular trnasistor and a N-JFET > instead of the P and N pair. > All the parts were available in 1965. I don't know what > date the lambda diode was first made. > Dwight > The earliest reference I can find on the web is 1971. I made mine in 1975 so it must have been around for some time before that. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ i?m is proud to present Cause Effect, a series about real people making a difference. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_Cause_Effect From daviderhart at oldzonian.com Fri Dec 21 22:39:05 2007 From: daviderhart at oldzonian.com (David W. Erhart) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 23:39:05 -0500 Subject: Stride 460 restoration video posted to YouTube Message-ID: <18254214.544781198298345553.JavaMail.servlet@perfora> >On 21/12/2007, Charles Fox wrote: >> A beautiful job both on the computer and the video. The >> music fitted in with the action, and I liked the pans and zooms. A >> computer doesn't move around much, so what else can you do? It's not >> like shooting "dancing with the stars". > >:?) > >Well, that's certainly true! > >I'm improvising here, but I'd like to have seen some details of how it >was reassembled, for instance - what new or refurbished parts were put >in. A time-lapse of the strip-down and reassembly would have worked >well, showing it being torn apart then rebuilt in 30sec or so. Seeing >what sorts of connectors it has, if special cables were made up, >showing the button being pressed for the 1st power-on, things like >that? > >Just some ideas... > Great ideas. I think I have a much better plan for the next restoration project. I was working backwards in this project. Taking what I had available, pictures, video clips, etc. and making a video. Next time I think a plan would be helpful. ;-) I'm thinking about doing a take-apart/put-back-together series of videos for the Sage II (half-height/full-height), Sage IV and Stride 440 and 460. Might be worth capturing for future 'restorations'. david. >-- >Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven >Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com >Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 >AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com >Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 > From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Dec 21 23:35:24 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:35:24 -0500 Subject: small misc. parts available... In-Reply-To: <006001c8432f$227dc1d0$6400a8c0@BILLING> References: <006001c8432f$227dc1d0$6400a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <200712220035.25031.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 20 December 2007 12:38, Jay West wrote: > MSD let their main line sewer backup, 10 feet downhill on the street from > my house. So... all my upstreet neighbors sewage wound up in my basement. Oh man... Been there, done that one (it happened in our shop, multiple times, over a period of several months until the building owner finally broke down and had the street torn up to fix the blocked pipe), back when we had our shop. I lost a *lot* of business -- we were either closed or trying to recover from the mess. We ended up moving. I'll never open a business using basement space again! -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Dec 21 23:37:39 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:37:39 -0500 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <476A43F3.25366.29313290@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712201228.lBKCSS3H009937@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476A43F3.25366.29313290@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200712220037.39850.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 20 December 2007 13:29, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > From: Robert Nansel > > > > 1) To build a complete functional computer, including memory, > > using no more than 256 2N2222-ish transistors (plus scads of diodes, > > resistors, etc.). > > > > 2) Use no ICs or other parts that wouldn't have been available to > > hobbyists ca. 1965. > > Well, if you put no limit on the number of diodes (just 3 terminal > devices), you can go a heckuva long way using tunnel diodes or even > diacs. It's my understanding (from other lists) that tunnel diodes are pretty hard to find these days as well... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Dec 21 23:40:30 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:40:30 -0500 Subject: digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: References: <200712200207.lBK2715g002890@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <200712220040.30623.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 20 December 2007 11:53, Scott Quinn wrote: > On Dec 19, 2007, at 6:07 PM, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > And in reading about the various IBM boxes, only one word comes to > > mind: "Baroque"! > > I wouldn't say that- although I admit that on first looking at even the > RS/6000 (and later hearing about the AS/400 and S/3XX) was "weird". That works too. I think this was mostly S/360 and maybe some S'/370 stuff, there might've been some System/38 in there, I think. > IBMs are just a different mindset than DECs. *Very* different. > A way of looking at it is that IBM moved "downmarket" and DEC > moved "upmarket" (similar thing with most of the computers we see: they > started out at the lower end, and then later on the manufacturers decided to > put together a big machine for certain customers (PDP-10, SGI PowerSeries, > Sun E10k, VAX 9000 ...) > > IBM also had a paradigm early, and those tend to stick. How do you mean here? I really wish more of the details of the history of this stuff had stuck with me, but I occasoinally had to pay attention to other things at the time. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Dec 21 23:43:29 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:43:29 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <370120.9697.qm@web90405.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <370120.9697.qm@web90405.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200712220043.29303.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 20 December 2007 15:15, Tom Watson wrote: > On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:26:24 -0200 "Alexandre Souza" said: > > > I think this project is excellent and a kick-ass way to use spare old > > > hardware lying around (which is more likely to have a working 25-pin > > > serial port than any modern machine). I love this project. > > > > Although there are cheap CF cards today, it would be a hit if it > > could be ROMable and put in place of BIOS chip :o) > > If you can still find them, ancient XT motherboards ought to be just right > for this type of service. Just get an old video board (will it work with a > CGA board?) and a serial I/O card and plug in the "extra" bios chips for > the emulator. Of course, several options could be added: > 1) Support for a character based printer (both serial and parallel) > 2) Some sort of scrolling (got to use that 640k of memory somehow!) > 3) Color support (if you got a CGA card, use it!). > 4) Provisions for 40 column mode (so you can use the RS-170 output to a TV > set) > 5) Add a network card for a telnet client (probably a bother since there > are so many network cards) Not that many in 8-bit. I have some Etherlink I cards that could be useful for someone that wanted to try this... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Dec 22 00:00:25 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 01:00:25 -0500 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <476A92C7.5156.2A651B6F@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712202310.lBKNAiGL021182@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476A92C7.5156.2A651B6F@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200712220100.26094.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 20 December 2007 19:05, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > From: Dave McGuire > > > > I'd love to find a huge stash of a few thousand new-old-stock tunnel > > diodes. :-( > > You'll kindly observe that I had the good taste not to also mention > Shockley diodes, which, to the best of my knowledge, are really > unobtainium. Are those what were also referred to at one point as 4-layer diodes? If so, it's possible to simulate them with a complementary pair of transistors and not all that many other parts. > American Microsemiconductor still offers a selection of tunnel (Esaki) > diodes, for as cheap as $9 the each. > > http://store.americanmicrosemiconductor.com/diodes-tunnel-diodes.html Hmm. :-) > I suspect a clue to the high prices is the "JAN" labeling on some of > the parts (i.e. military and aerospace application). Could be. > I have a copy of the GE tunnel diode handbook around here somewhere > (as well as about a dozen or so NOS diodes in my hellbox) that shows > all manner of logic circuits constructed with the little beasts. I'll have one here: http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/books/GE_TDM.pdf as soon as the upload completes (which will take a little while even with my DSL connection). It's a 100-page PDF file. There _will_ be a "tech books" page supporting the stuff there at some point, when I can get it done. I'm still in the process of plowing through several thousand files of "stuff" that I've accumulated over the past few years, editing some stuff, tossing out some duplicates, and trying to organize what I'm keeping to be accessible through my local HTML tree. Once I get that mostly done I'll pull a tech books page together out of it. > I've never even breadboarded any of them, but the power requirements > look very modest. I picked up a couple of them once on Canal Street in NYC, but that was a long time ago. -- 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 trixter at oldskool.org Sat Dec 22 00:07:23 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:07:23 -0600 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] In-Reply-To: <575131af0712211113g6de32285q851b799c029cee50@mail.gmail.com> References: <575131af0712081113m5f7b4211s66e83f7e1b046941@mail.gmail.com> <310f50ab0712201859g138ee6d7h9b9630d7d93b84af@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0712211113g6de32285q851b799c029cee50@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <476CA99B.5040803@oldskool.org> Liam Proven wrote: > On 21/12/2007, from at fu3.org wrote: >> I think Word6 for DOS is at http://www.vetusware.com/ in their office section. > > Nope, Word 6 is for Windows 3. AFAIK 5.5 was the last ever version for DOS. And the only versions worth using, IMO, are the ones with Lotus-style menus. If you think about it, it's a lot less screen real-estate, especially for word-processing. I believe 5.0 was the last one to use lotus-style menus; 5.5 added drop-down menus IIRC. -- 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 Sat Dec 22 00:11:27 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:11:27 -0600 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <476A7153.9080904@gmail.com> References: <200712181802.lBII2Fld083374@dewey.classiccmp.org> <4767A7FC.21406.1EFFF84A@cclist.sydex.com> <005d01c841e0$688426b0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> <200712182212.52756.pat@computer-refuge.org> <47692DA7.8090407@gmail.com> <476A40FC.2010405@oldskool.org> <476A7153.9080904@gmail.com> Message-ID: <476CAA8F.9070103@oldskool.org> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> it's a de-facto standard for SVGA cards to produce the Hercules >>> resolutions without complaint. >> >> Um, no. It's the other way around. I think the number of clone VGA >> cards I have ever seen that would produce/emulate Hercules 720x348 >> mode 1. I could count on one hand, and 2. were all manufactured before >> 1990. > > Tell that to my Geforce 8800GTS, which does it every day. You're saying that your 8800GTS emulates Hercules mode? 720x348 monochrome? Seriously? If so, how are you testing it? What program are you running and in what environment? -- 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 verizon.net Sat Dec 22 00:11:00 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 01:11:00 -0500 Subject: FREE: CDC CMD948 In-Reply-To: <200712210122.lBL1MXvH024748@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <476ADE20.5040307@rnsmte.com> <200712210122.lBL1MXvH024748@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <200712220111.00493.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 20 December 2007 20:22, Dennis Boone wrote: > > It's a Control Data CMD 9448-96 "phoenix" modular (removable/fixed) disk > > drive in unknown condition. It reminds me of a RL01/02 disk. It looks to > > have everything there but until I find a manual, I know little about > > it. It is supposed to have a capacity around 80MB, has a 14" platter and > > is real heavy; 120+ lbs, so shipping is probably out of the question. > > Prime used to sell these. They were available in 32, 64 and 96 MB > models. The bottom section contains fixed platters. The top section > has a door which folds down, exposing a track onto which you can slide a > pack; as the door closes, the pack slides in and drops into the cavity. > The fixed capacity was 16, 48, or 80 MB depending on model, removable > pack capacity was about 16 MB. Filters are critical. They're SMD > interface devices. Part of the reason they're so heavy is that there's > a 1"+ thick base plate in there to keep the beast stiff. A 96MB model > has 5 fixed surfaces and one removable surface. The removable surface > is number 1; the fixed surfaces start at number 16. The GRI system I had a few encounters with back in '85 or so had two drives of this sort, in racks. We also had a customer that had brought one in, a sort of a low-profile (less than desk height) floor-standing unit that I think he said had been attached to a Wang computer or word processor or something. That sucker was *heavy*! I forget now which is which, but each of these had a fixed platter and a removable platter and in one case was 5MB, in the other 10MB. Somewhere I have a service manual for these drives. > I have a platter out of a pack which experienced a head crash in our > drive, years ago. When the room was air conditioned, the piping for the > air handler (a stand-in-the-corner model) was run out the window and up > to the roof. Since the window wouldn't close all the way, and this was > in what passes for a downtown district around here, pigeons had a > tendency to sit on the ledge, and occasionally a feather would stay > behind. One of these feathers inexplicably made its way into the drive > one day... > > Grinding up disk oxide makes a _terrible_ smell. I wasn't there when it happened, but I did acquire a platter that has a similar issue. You can see a line going around one side of the platter. I used to have it hanging on the wall in my shop... -- 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 AK6DN at mindspring.com Sat Dec 22 01:19:20 2007 From: AK6DN at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 23:19:20 -0800 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> Message-ID: On Dec 21, 2007, at 5:58 PM, Tom Peters wrote: > This is off-topic in terms of the industry involved, but not too > far off in the time period this stuff dates from. > > I've got some very nice, rather large Burroughs nixies- 7971 types. > They're 4.8" high, "British flag" display which looks to be 2.5" > high inside the glass. They have 15 segments each-- 14 in the > alphanumeric display part of the tube and one sort-of cursor, an > underline character with the ends bent downwards. > > I hear one can dismember D-shell connectors to get some sockets to > solder to a pc board to connect to these. But my problem is driving > them. > For the sockets I'd recommend the Mill-max pin approach; I've used these for Russian IN-18 and IN-1 tubes in clocks. Digikey carries a wide selection; see http://dkc3.digikey.com/PDF/ T073/P0462.pdf for info. > Anyone know a good way to drive these, four or six of them in an > array? I need 170 volts, 21ma all cathodes, between 4.0 and 6.0ma > any individual cathode. I was thinking of a pic at each tube, sort- > of a character generator that would take an ascii code and drive > the right segments. Some sort of escape code would let you send 16 > bits to be interpreted literally, i.e. turn on the literal segments > corresponding to the bits set, for more fanciful displays. From geneb at deltasoft.com Sat Dec 22 01:25:15 2007 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 23:25:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: WD 1797 ... In-Reply-To: References: <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> Message-ID: I'm in dire need of at least one WD 1797 floppy controller chip. Could someone point me to where I could find these things? thkx! g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Dec 22 01:37:14 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 02:37:14 -0500 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this old peecee...] In-Reply-To: <575131af0712211113g6de32285q851b799c029cee50@mail.gmail.com> References: <575131af0712081113m5f7b4211s66e83f7e1b046941@mail.gmail.com> <310f50ab0712201859g138ee6d7h9b9630d7d93b84af@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0712211113g6de32285q851b799c029cee50@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200712220237.15131.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 21 December 2007 14:13, Liam Proven wrote: > On 21/12/2007, from at fu3.org wrote: > > I think Word6 for DOS is at http://www.vetusware.com/ in their office > > section. > > Nope, Word 6 is for Windows 3. AFAIK 5.5 was the last ever version for DOS. Not to drag out this OT stuff, we were talking about WP, not Word... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Dec 22 01:52:27 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 02:52:27 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting In-Reply-To: <476BC588.11687.2F1358B8@cclist.sydex.com> References: <476BC588.11687.2F1358B8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200712220252.27994.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 21 December 2007 16:54, Chuck Guzis wrote: > If you feel this subject is too far off-topic, please respond > privately. OTOH, it just might help some who are trying to repair > some of the old gear that uses SMT. > > At any rate, I've got some 68-pin TQFP packages that I need to mount > on a PCB. I've searched the web and become throughly confused over > recommendations. > > I'd like to stay away from using a hot-air rework iron as I don't > think I have enough skill to use it without causing some damage to > the PCB or component. I'd like to use my temperature-controlled > Weller soldering station as the heat source. I'll also be using Sn- > Pb solder rather than lead-free. > > Two approaches that I've seen for conventional soldering iron > mounting involve what I'll call "flood and suck" that involves > covering all of the leads on one side of the QFP on the PCB with > solder and then using a solder "sucker" (such as a Soldapullt) to > remove the excess. I've *never* heard this recommended. And with that setup you're talking about pulling the solder out between the part lead and the trace without pulling the trace off the board. I wouldn't care to try it. > The other approach uses solder wick (solder removal braid), laying > the braid over the QFP leads and PCB and heating and applying solder > *through* the braid to the leads. > > I'm fairly confident that I could do either, but who's had real > success with either method? I've actually done very little with surface mount, mostly finding it not worth the bother for salvage, but while attending a technical seminar some time back (Yamaha P.A.C.E. if anybody's interested) they recommended the second technique for dealing with some of their stuff that was surface-mount, most notably a 286 Laptop they had out that had something like 16 MIDI ports on the back of it. That's how I'd do it, anyhow. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Dec 22 01:55:47 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 02:55:47 -0500 Subject: FREE: CDC CMD948 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200712220255.47207.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 21 December 2007 18:33, Tony Duell wrote: > I do have the service manual for this drive. The thing I rememebr is that > you don't fiddle with the mechanics without reading it first, and even > then tread carefully. There are all sorts of special tools you may need. That manual have "double sized" pages? That's what the one I have is like, I guess 11x17 or somesuch. Not something I'd particularly want to tear into, really. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Dec 22 02:16:01 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 03:16:01 -0500 Subject: a place for OT Message-ID: <200712220316.01209.rtellason@verizon.net> I just want to mention again that there's a place where some of you guys could take what's OT here and chat it up if you like, a yahoo group I started for things that don't quite fit anywhere else: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/roys-tech-chat/ Feel free to stop on by if you like. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From dave06a at dunfield.com Sat Dec 22 04:27:54 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 05:27:54 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <370120.9697.qm@web90405.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200712220933.lBM9Xxhr018269@hosting.monisys.ca> > > Although there are cheap CF cards today, it would be a hit if it could > > be ROMable and put in place of BIOS chip :o) > > If you can still find them, ancient XT motherboards ought to be just right for > this type of service. Just get an old video board (will it work with a CGA > board?) and a serial I/O card and plug in the "extra" bios chips for the > emulator. Of course, several options could be added: > 1) Support for a character based printer (both serial and parallel) > 2) Some sort of scrolling (got to use that 640k of memory somehow!) > 3) Color support (if you got a CGA card, use it!). > 4) Provisions for 40 column mode (so you can use the RS-170 output to a TV > set) > 5) Add a network card for a telnet client (probably a bother since there are > so many network cards) > > The best part is that when you turn the machine on, you get instant terminal. > None of this silly operating system stuff. This might not be as difficult as you might think. The terminal is written using my own Micro-C compiler, and I do have an embedded version for the 8086 family that makes code not requiring an operating system... I'm not sure about targeting an XT - I like the features you can get with VGA (full VT-100 graphics font, proper attributes) and the enhanced AT keyboard. AT's and 386's are a dime a dozen, and 16 bit slots are easier to get VGA working in - extra ROM sockets are harder to find however. You also get CMOS RAM which could be used to store terminal parameters if you do replace the BIOS. Replacing the BIOS would be a bit tricky, as it would be realy nice to be able to use the VGA BIOS for compatibility with the most cards. I don't know what would be involved in enabling the VGA BIOS without the standard BIOS - normally they hook together. I'd have to rip out the scripting language, file transfers and other features which assume files... But is all this worth it? .... The program is tiny (about 20k .COM) and easily fits on a boot floppy with DOS, it's config file (or multiples if you want to save multiple configs) and a few scripts if you like to automate things --- So you wouldn't need a hard drive, CD etc. just a single floppy. and you can have it today. Telnet might be a bit trickier, but one might be able to use wattcp to provide the ip services. Use of packet drivers would provide compatibility with MANY older network cards (and is another case where booting from a DOS floppy would make sense) - how much interest would there be in a stand-alone telnet VT-100 ? Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Dec 22 05:32:58 2007 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:32:58 +0000 Subject: small misc. parts available... In-Reply-To: <007801c84359$8d653670$6400a8c0@BILLING> References: <511819.5215.qm@web23411.mail.ird.yahoo.com> <007801c84359$8d653670$6400a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <1198323178.6236.0.camel@elric> On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 16:42 -0600, Jay West wrote: > Andrew wrote... > > "Let" is a very strong word. > The blockage was due to tree roots, which they have come out and "fixed" > about every other year. They refuse to replace the pipe or even set up a > maintenance plan. So their maintenance plan is to wait till we call them and > say we're flooded. Yeah, I'd say "Let" is accurate ;) I'm kind of not seeing how sewer pipes are on-topic... Gordon From ian_primus at yahoo.com Sat Dec 22 06:33:09 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 04:33:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT sockets for Nixies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <830602.58656.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> > > Anyone know a good way to drive these, four or six > of them in an > > array? I need 170 volts, 21ma all cathodes, > between 4.0 and 6.0ma > > any individual cathode. I was thinking of a pic at > each tube, sort- > > of a character generator that would take an ascii > code and drive > > the right segments. Some sort of escape code would > let you send 16 > > bits to be interpreted literally, i.e. turn on the > literal segments > > corresponding to the bits set, for more fanciful > displays. To actually drive the tubes. you need something that can handle the volage/current. Use MPSA42 transistors - they're cheap, about 8 cents each. One transistor per cathode. Tie the anode of the tube to the power source of 200v or whatever. Connect each cathode to the collector of a MPSA42, tie the emitters all to ground. To drive a segment, drive the base high through a 33k resistor. -Ian From davis at saw.net Sat Dec 22 06:56:36 2007 From: davis at saw.net (davis) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 04:56:36 -0800 Subject: small misc. parts available... In-Reply-To: <1198323178.6236.0.camel@elric> References: <511819.5215.qm@web23411.mail.ird.yahoo.com> <007801c84359$8d653670$6400a8c0@BILLING> <1198323178.6236.0.camel@elric> Message-ID: <476D0984.7080807@saw.net> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 16:42 -0600, Jay West wrote: > >> Andrew wrote... >> >>> "Let" is a very strong word. >>> >> The blockage was due to tree roots, which they have come out and "fixed" >> about every other year. They refuse to replace the pipe or even set up a >> maintenance plan. So their maintenance plan is to wait till we call them and >> say we're flooded. Yeah, I'd say "Let" is accurate ;) >> > > I'm kind of not seeing how sewer pipes are on-topic... > > Gordon > > > > Or complaining about it on list, and complaining about the complaining, Oops.... From pcw at mesanet.com Sat Dec 22 10:03:07 2007 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 08:03:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting In-Reply-To: <200712220252.27994.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <476BC588.11687.2F1358B8@cclist.sydex.com> <200712220252.27994.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 22 Dec 2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 02:52:27 -0500 > From: Roy J. Tellason > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Subject: Re: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting > > On Friday 21 December 2007 16:54, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> If you feel this subject is too far off-topic, please respond >> privately. OTOH, it just might help some who are trying to repair >> some of the old gear that uses SMT. >> >> At any rate, I've got some 68-pin TQFP packages that I need to mount >> on a PCB. I've searched the web and become throughly confused over >> recommendations. >> >> I'd like to stay away from using a hot-air rework iron as I don't >> think I have enough skill to use it without causing some damage to >> the PCB or component. I'd like to use my temperature-controlled >> Weller soldering station as the heat source. I'll also be using Sn- >> Pb solder rather than lead-free. >> >> Two approaches that I've seen for conventional soldering iron >> mounting involve what I'll call "flood and suck" that involves >> covering all of the leads on one side of the QFP on the PCB with >> solder and then using a solder "sucker" (such as a Soldapullt) to >> remove the excess. > > I've *never* heard this recommended. And with that setup you're talking about > pulling the solder out between the part lead and the trace without pulling > the trace off the board. I wouldn't care to try it. I've soldered at least at least 500 parts the flood way for protos over the years, from SO packages to .5 mm 208 pitch QFPs. I think the flood method is by far the best way, as when done properly, _NO_ pressure is put on the PCB pads when hot (the main cause of lifted pads). This does not mean that you create a solder bridge between every pin pair, the object is to have enough flux and the correct board tilt so the surface tension prevents the bridges from forming in the first case. This results in a very even solder distribution, much better, faster, and easier than soldering pins one at a time and much less likely to damage the PCB... > >> The other approach uses solder wick (solder removal braid), laying >> the braid over the QFP leads and PCB and heating and applying solder >> *through* the braid to the leads. >> >> I'm fairly confident that I could do either, but who's had real >> success with either method? > > I've actually done very little with surface mount, mostly finding it not > worth the bother for salvage, but while attending a technical seminar some > time back (Yamaha P.A.C.E. if anybody's interested) they recommended the > second technique for dealing with some of their stuff that was surface-mount, > most notably a 286 Laptop they had out that had something like 16 MIDI ports > on the back of it. That's how I'd do it, 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 > Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From glen.slick at gmail.com Sat Dec 22 10:04:20 2007 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 08:04:20 -0800 Subject: WD 1797 ... In-Reply-To: References: <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90712220804t392e840eyf95cbda9097f54b8@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 21, 2007 11:25 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: > > I'm in dire need of at least one WD 1797 floppy controller chip. Could > someone point me to where I could find these things? > > thkx! One of the first places I look for old ICs... http://www.unicornelectronics.com/ 1791* 40 Single/Double Density Controller (Inverted) 3.99 1793* 40 Single/Double Density Controller 4.99 1797* 40 Single/Double Density Cont. with Side Select 1.89 * Discontinued by manufacturer - stock conditions may vary From geneb at deltasoft.com Sat Dec 22 10:26:21 2007 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 08:26:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: WD 1797 ... In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90712220804t392e840eyf95cbda9097f54b8@mail.gmail.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> <1e1fc3e90712220804t392e840eyf95cbda9097f54b8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > One of the first places I look for old ICs... > > http://www.unicornelectronics.com/ > Ahhh! I thought I'd gone there already, but apparently there is another Unicorn electronics out there as the site looks nothing like the last place I looked! Thanks! g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. From brad at heeltoe.com Sat Dec 22 10:37:56 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:37:56 -0500 Subject: Probably OT - eBay object - what the devil is it? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:31:07 +0100." <476BCE2B.1070006@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: <200712221637.lBMGbup3004163@mwave.heeltoe.com> Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel wrote: >JP Hindin wrote: >> What on Earth is this? >> >> 110206772756 >> >> I'm guessing its OT because of the SMD devices in the centre ring, but it >> is weird enough I'm willing to risk Jay's wrath to find out what it is. >> >It is a PCB for a tester. The radial patterns are contacts to the tester pins >. >Awfully expensive and utterly useless for anything but it's designed purpose. Yes, I think the folks at Teradyne call that a "dib". (which I think may be something like device interface block) It goes on the business end of an ic test machine. I've never seen the material handing side of one those, however; I just see them naked in the lab. -brad From brad at heeltoe.com Sat Dec 22 10:43:23 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:43:23 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:02:23 PST." <476C45FF.9040603@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <200712221643.lBMGhOLs004559@mwave.heeltoe.com> Al Kossow wrote: > >I've used "flood and wick" successfully applying liquid flux before >the "flood". I'd also recommend liquid flux (via a pen applicator). But be sure and clean the boards afterward (flux is corrosive) -brad From joachim.thiemann at gmail.com Sat Dec 22 11:30:51 2007 From: joachim.thiemann at gmail.com (Joachim Thiemann) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 12:30:51 -0500 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> Message-ID: <4affc5e0712220930k6c57a864w2f40f0c81c8de1b9@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 21, 2007 8:58 PM, Tom Peters wrote: > Anyone know a good way to drive these, four or six of them in an array? I > need 170 volts, 21ma all cathodes, between 4.0 and 6.0ma any individual > cathode. I was thinking of a pic at each tube, sort-of a character > generator that would take an ascii code and drive the right segments. Some > sort of escape code would let you send 16 bits to be interpreted literally, > i.e. turn on the literal segments corresponding to the bits set, for more > fanciful displays. Check the Microchip app note TB053 "Generating High Voltage Using the PIC16C781/782", the HV is generated from 9V using some discrete components and the PWM output (+analog in) of a PIC. Joe. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Dec 22 11:43:43 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 09:43:43 -0800 Subject: 5.25 drive with sector output In-Reply-To: References: <200712211433.lBLEX4Hv028789@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476B8E59.3343.2E3BC9E4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: Hi Were there any 5.25 drive made with sector pulse output? I'm working on a controller for my Polymorphic. I have not software to run the board so I'm decoding the Z80 code that runs in its firmware. I see that one of the signals from the drive is the sector signal. I know that the SA801 could be configured for 32/16/8 sectors and produce a sector output signal. In any case, the code seems to be looking for the sector signal at one point. The next question is, do the older drives have a filter on them such that they would not output the index along with the sector pulse? The drive I'm planning on using is an old Qume drive with a IBM lable on the front. It is a QUMETRAK 142. It is good to work on because it is all descrete parts and TTL ( some analog IC's as well ). Still, if they have a filter on the index, I should be able to modify it. I only see one pot in that area of the board and I suspect that it is for the pulse witdh of the index. If there is no filter, I should be able to make an external sector separator. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ i?m is proud to present Cause Effect, a series about real people making a difference. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_Cause_Effect From tpeters at mixcom.com Sat Dec 22 11:38:46 2007 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:38:46 -0600 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies In-Reply-To: <2D6B2159-2342-491A-B1C1-40B9FA45F8CC@neurotica.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20071222113457.0d5fcfb8@localhost> At 10:53 PM 12/21/2007 -0500, you wrote: >On Dec 21, 2007, at 8:58 PM, Tom Peters wrote: >>This is off-topic in terms of the industry involved, but not too >>far off in the time period this stuff dates from. >> >>I've got some very nice, rather large Burroughs nixies- 7971 types. >>They're 4.8" high, "British flag" display which looks to be 2.5" >>high inside the glass. They have 15 segments each-- 14 in the >>alphanumeric display part of the tube and one sort-of cursor, an >>underline character with the ends bent downwards. >> >>I hear one can dismember D-shell connectors to get some sockets to >>solder to a pc board to connect to these. But my problem is driving >>them. >> >>Anyone know a good way to drive these, four or six of them in an >>array? I need 170 volts, 21ma all cathodes, between 4.0 and 6.0ma >>any individual cathode. I was thinking of a pic at each tube, sort- of a >>character generator that would take an ascii code and drive >>the right segments. Some sort of escape code would let you send 16 >>bits to be interpreted literally, i.e. turn on the literal segments >>corresponding to the bits set, for more fanciful displays. > > B7971 tubes are very nice indeed. A PIC with lookup tables in >code memory is a reasonable approach. > > You can gate the 170VDC to the cathodes with MPSA42 transistors >(NPN, Vceo=300V). If you'll be multiplexing, you can drive the >anodes with MPSA92s (PNP, Vceo=300V, effectively the PNP version of >the MPSA42). Both are available new in lots on eBay for next to >nothing. Ah! Good information, thanks very much. > I generate the 170VDC for Nixie (and similar) applications from >12VDC using an MC34063-based step-up switching regulator, the design >of which is based on a circuit from one of the chip's app notes. I >can send you the schematic if that'd be helpful. Please send schematic, thanks. Who makes the MC34063? Something I could get at DigiKey or Mouser? I did some reading last year and I read something about driving Nixies with DC, is that what's usually done, rather than AC? > -Dave > >-- >Dave McGuire >Port Charlotte, FL >Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 > > > ----- 536. [Love] When a young man complains that a young lady has no heart, it is a pretty certain sign that she has his. --George D. Prentice (1802-1870) --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: 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 tpeters at mixcom.com Sat Dec 22 11:43:00 2007 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:43:00 -0600 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies In-Reply-To: <4affc5e0712220930k6c57a864w2f40f0c81c8de1b9@mail.gmail.com > References: <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20071222114231.0d64ecf0@localhost> At 12:30 PM 12/22/2007 -0500, you wrote: >On Dec 21, 2007 8:58 PM, Tom Peters wrote: > > Anyone know a good way to drive these, four or six of them in an array? I > > need 170 volts, 21ma all cathodes, between 4.0 and 6.0ma any individual > > cathode. I was thinking of a pic at each tube, sort-of a character > > generator that would take an ascii code and drive the right segments. Some > > sort of escape code would let you send 16 bits to be interpreted literally, > > i.e. turn on the literal segments corresponding to the bits set, for more > > fanciful displays. > >Check the Microchip app note TB053 "Generating High Voltage Using the >PIC16C781/782", the HV is generated from 9V using some discrete >components and the PWM output (+analog in) of a PIC. > >Joe. Thanks! Looks like a good approach. ----- 330. [Commentary] There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you. --Will Rodgers --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: 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 tpeters at mixcom.com Sat Dec 22 11:39:42 2007 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:39:42 -0600 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies In-Reply-To: References: <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20071222113902.0cdec590@localhost> At 11:19 PM 12/21/2007 -0800, you wrote: >On Dec 21, 2007, at 5:58 PM, Tom Peters wrote: > >>This is off-topic in terms of the industry involved, but not too >>far off in the time period this stuff dates from. >> >>I've got some very nice, rather large Burroughs nixies- 7971 types. >>They're 4.8" high, "British flag" display which looks to be 2.5" >>high inside the glass. They have 15 segments each-- 14 in the >>alphanumeric display part of the tube and one sort-of cursor, an >>underline character with the ends bent downwards. >> >>I hear one can dismember D-shell connectors to get some sockets to >>solder to a pc board to connect to these. But my problem is driving >>them. > > >For the sockets I'd recommend the Mill-max pin approach; I've used >these for Russian IN-18 and IN-1 tubes in clocks. > >Digikey carries a wide selection; see http://dkc3.digikey.com/PDF/ >T073/P0462.pdf for info. Ok, thanks, I'll check into that. Wow, there's a lot of experience out here. >>Anyone know a good way to drive these, four or six of them in an >>array? I need 170 volts, 21ma all cathodes, between 4.0 and 6.0ma >>any individual cathode. I was thinking of a pic at each tube, sort- of a >>character generator that would take an ascii code and drive >>the right segments. Some sort of escape code would let you send 16 >>bits to be interpreted literally, i.e. turn on the literal segments >>corresponding to the bits set, for more fanciful displays. ----- 398. [SF] No hyperdrive? It's not my fault! --Princess Leia and Han Solo: The Empire Strikes Back --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: 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 tpeters at mixcom.com Sat Dec 22 11:42:13 2007 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:42:13 -0600 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies In-Reply-To: <830602.58656.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20071222114008.0d5fc900@localhost> At 04:33 AM 12/22/2007 -0800, you wrote: > > > Anyone know a good way to drive these, four or six > > of them in an > > > array? I need 170 volts, 21ma all cathodes, > > between 4.0 and 6.0ma > > > any individual cathode. I was thinking of a pic at > > each tube, sort- > > > of a character generator that would take an ascii > > code and drive > > > the right segments. Some sort of escape code would > > let you send 16 > > > bits to be interpreted literally, i.e. turn on the > > literal segments > > > corresponding to the bits set, for more fanciful > > displays. > >To actually drive the tubes. you need something that >can handle the volage/current. Use MPSA42 transistors >- they're cheap, about 8 cents each. One transistor >per cathode. Tie the anode of the tube to the power >source of 200v or whatever. Connect each cathode to >the collector of a MPSA42, tie the emitters all to >ground. To drive a segment, drive the base high >through a 33k resistor. Great information, thanks. Someone else suggested MPSA42's and '92's as well. The Burroughs spec sheets talk about the series anode R recommended for each of three types of tubes; for the B-7971 they say 1.8k. Does your suggestion eliminate the need for a anode resistor? >-Ian ----- 294. [Internet] "The Wittenberg church door was Usenet for Luther's community." --Nick Arnett --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: 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 dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Dec 22 12:30:52 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 10:30:52 -0800 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies Message-ID: > From: tpeters at mixcom.com > > Please send schematic, thanks. Who makes the MC34063? Something I could get > at DigiKey or Mouser? > I did some reading last year and I read something about driving Nixies with > DC, is that what's usually done, rather than AC? > Yes, they use DC, not AC. You could use just rectifying 120 AC. That will give you just about 170Volts DC after filtering. I suspect that the voltage could be the same tolerance as the AC lines. I'd recommend using an isolation transformer. Some come with taps to raise or lower the voltage about 10% as well. It just has to be enough to fire. I doubt it needs to be to exact. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Dec 22 13:27:22 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 16:27:22 -0300 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator References: <200712220933.lBM9Xxhr018269@hosting.monisys.ca> Message-ID: <013e01c844d1$2ca7fec0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > This might not be as difficult as you might think. The terminal is written > using my own Micro-C compiler, and I do have an embedded version for the > 8086 > family that makes code not requiring an operating system... But Dave, will you release the sources? ;o) Thanks Alexandre From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Dec 22 13:35:57 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 16:35:57 -0300 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies References: <830602.58656.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <015b01c844d2$026762d0$f0fea8c0@alpha> > To actually drive the tubes. you need something that > can handle the volage/current. Use MPSA42 transistors > - they're cheap, about 8 cents each. One transistor > per cathode. Tie the anode of the tube to the power > source of 200v or whatever. Connect each cathode to > the collector of a MPSA42, tie the emitters all to > ground. To drive a segment, drive the base high > through a 33k resistor. Now if only I could find some nixie tubes... :o) From ian_primus at yahoo.com Sat Dec 22 12:58:43 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 10:58:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT sockets for Nixies In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20071222114008.0d5fc900@localhost> Message-ID: <603314.5405.qm@web52710.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- Tom Peters wrote: > At 04:33 AM 12/22/2007 -0800, you wrote: > > > > Anyone know a good way to drive these, four or > six > > > of them in an > > > > array? I need 170 volts, 21ma all cathodes, > > > between 4.0 and 6.0ma > > > > any individual cathode. I was thinking of a > pic at > > > each tube, sort- > > > > of a character generator that would take an > ascii > > > code and drive > > > > the right segments. Some sort of escape code > would > > > let you send 16 > > > > bits to be interpreted literally, i.e. turn on > the > > > literal segments > > > > corresponding to the bits set, for more > fanciful > > > displays. > > > >To actually drive the tubes. you need something > that > >can handle the volage/current. Use MPSA42 > transistors > >- they're cheap, about 8 cents each. One transistor > >per cathode. Tie the anode of the tube to the power > >source of 200v or whatever. Connect each cathode to > >the collector of a MPSA42, tie the emitters all to > >ground. To drive a segment, drive the base high > >through a 33k resistor. > > Great information, thanks. Someone else suggested > MPSA42's and '92's as > well. The Burroughs spec sheets talk about the > series anode R recommended > for each of three types of tubes; for the B-7971 > they say 1.8k. Does your > suggestion eliminate the need for a anode resistor? No, you still need the anode resistor. That's a current limiting resistor. It's purpose is to prevent too much current from damaging the tubes - you need that. It's actual value will vary depending on supply voltage. Since the tubes you have are rather large, and may draw more current, I'd suggest using at least a half watt resistor for this purpose. Adjust the value until you get a good, solid glow from the tubes. If it looks too bright or has a weird haze, increase the value of the resistor. If the digit isn't completely lit, decrease it. Start with the recommended 1.8k and work from there. Remember, you don't need any fancy power IC's or DC-DC converters - you can just rectify line voltage (an isolation transformer is good if you do this...) and use a simple voltage doubler circuit (two electrolytics capable of the voltage, and two 1N4006 diodes). You can get a good 250-300v this way. -Ian From pcw at mesanet.com Sat Dec 22 13:04:51 2007 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:04:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT sockets for Nixies In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20071222114008.0d5fc900@localhost> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20071222114008.0d5fc900@localhost> Message-ID: On Sat, 22 Dec 2007, Tom Peters wrote: > Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:42:13 -0600 > From: Tom Peters > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Subject: Re: OT sockets for Nixies > > At 04:33 AM 12/22/2007 -0800, you wrote: >> > > Anyone know a good way to drive these, four or six >> > of them in an >> > > array? I need 170 volts, 21ma all cathodes, >> > between 4.0 and 6.0ma >> > > any individual cathode. I was thinking of a pic at >> > each tube, sort- >> > > of a character generator that would take an ascii >> > code and drive >> > > the right segments. Some sort of escape code would >> > let you send 16 >> > > bits to be interpreted literally, i.e. turn on the >> > literal segments >> > > corresponding to the bits set, for more fanciful >> > displays. >> >> To actually drive the tubes. you need something that >> can handle the volage/current. Use MPSA42 transistors >> - they're cheap, about 8 cents each. One transistor >> per cathode. Tie the anode of the tube to the power >> source of 200v or whatever. Connect each cathode to >> the collector of a MPSA42, tie the emitters all to >> ground. To drive a segment, drive the base high >> through a 33k resistor. > > Great information, thanks. Someone else suggested MPSA42's and '92's as well. > The Burroughs spec sheets talk about the series anode R recommended for each > of three types of tubes; for the B-7971 they say 1.8k. Does your suggestion > eliminate the need for a anode resistor? You need the series resistor because of the negative resistance of the glow discharge. Many years ago I made a clock with a National MM5316 clock chip and 4 of those Burroughs Nixies (connected as 7 segmant). I used a PNP transistor to switch the anode voltage with variable pulse width determined by a CDS light sensor so the Nixie brighness adjusted automatically to room light. The Nixies eventually wore out (in about 25 years...) > > > >> -Ian > > ----- > 294. [Internet] "The Wittenberg church door was Usenet for Luther's > community." > --Nick Arnett > --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... > tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) > "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: 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 > > Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From pat at computer-refuge.org Sat Dec 22 13:15:27 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 14:15:27 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting In-Reply-To: <200712220252.27994.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <476BC588.11687.2F1358B8@cclist.sydex.com> <200712220252.27994.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200712221415.27971.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Saturday 22 December 2007 02:52, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Friday 21 December 2007 16:54, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Two approaches that I've seen for conventional soldering iron > > mounting involve what I'll call "flood and suck" that involves > > covering all of the leads on one side of the QFP on the PCB with > > solder and then using a solder "sucker" (such as a Soldapullt) to > > remove the excess. > > I've *never* heard this recommended. And with that setup you're > talking about pulling the solder out between the part lead and the > trace without pulling the trace off the board. I wouldn't care to > try it. The way that they taught us to do it in college was basically the same way, except using solderwick to pull up the excess, instead of a solder sucker. The technique was basically to tack down the corners of the chip first, so that the chip is/stays properly aligned with the board, and then drag the soldering iron along each side (using a wedge tip), with the solder along the trailing edge.. if you get just the right speed, you'll get a good connection. Then, just take solderbraid and an iron to pick up the excess. It works, and unless you're careless (or using a 100W soldering gun or something), it works pretty well, once you've tried it a time or two. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pat at computer-refuge.org Sat Dec 22 13:20:16 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 14:20:16 -0500 Subject: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting In-Reply-To: <200712221415.27971.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <476BC588.11687.2F1358B8@cclist.sydex.com> <200712220252.27994.rtellason@verizon.net> <200712221415.27971.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200712221420.16515.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Saturday 22 December 2007 14:15, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > The technique was basically to tack down the corners of the chip > first, so that the chip is/stays properly aligned with the board, and > then drag the soldering iron along each side (using a wedge tip), > with the solder along the trailing edge.. if you get just the right > speed, you'll get a good connection. Then, just take solderbraid and > an iron to pick up the excess. I forgot to mention, coating everything in excessive amounts of flux is essential.. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From frustum at pacbell.net Sat Dec 22 14:14:37 2007 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 14:14:37 -0600 Subject: Zilog system 8000 Message-ID: <476D702D.9000902@pacbell.net> A friend and former coworker, Terence Tanaka, emailed me yesterday saying: "I used to work at Zilog and have some tapes, printout and eproms for the System 8000. I don't want to keep it but hate throwing it away. If it can find a good home, I'm willing to ship it." If you are interested, please contact me, not the list, and I'll forward your email address to Terence. In case more than one person wants it, please include a description of how this might use this. Preference goes to someone willing to publicly archive the information, secondarily to someone who has a system that could use these items, tertiarily :-) to a pack rat who will keep it intact and in good condition until they finally come to realize that they didn't need it and will pass it on to the next guy. Eventually it will get in the hands of someone with the time to archive it. PS, the System 8000, as you might expect, was based on the Z8000. PPS: reply to me, not the list! From cclist at sydex.com Sat Dec 22 15:12:37 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:12:37 -0800 Subject: 5.25 drive with sector output In-Reply-To: <200712221802.lBMI1xSS056022@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712221802.lBMI1xSS056022@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <476D0D45.18019.341391B8@cclist.sydex.com> > From: dwight elvey > Were there any 5.25 drive made with sector pulse output? > I'm working on a controller for my Polymorphic. I have not > software to run the board so I'm decoding the Z80 code > that runs in its firmware. I can ever recall having seen one, although that's not saying that there never have been any. It would be easy enough to make a "index/sector" detector by using a one-shot whose period is set to more than half, but less than the time between sectors. Since the index is placed about midway between two sector pulses, you'd generate an INDEX if you received a pulse and the one-shot hadn't yet reset. Sector outputs would simply be the output of the one-shot, perhaps run though another one-shot or ANDed with the original to provide a pulse of determinsitic length. --------------------- Which brings me to a related topic that might interest some... I'm now beta-testing my "hard-sector synthesizer". It's all coded into a 8-pin PIC 12F629. It operates as follows: 1) For those not necessarily caring about hard sector diskettes, it can function as a READY/ generator--after 3 successive index pulses, the PIC generates a DRIVE READY/. Missing a pulse after that within a 262msec window causes READY/ to be deasserted and the cycle to repeat. Works for both 300 and 360 RPM drives. 2) For those interested in hard-sector generation, the PIC will synthesize index signals for 300 RPM 10 and 16 sector diskettes (selectable by grounding a pin on the PIC) and 32 sector 360 RPM diskettes. The choice between 300 and 360 RPM is made automatically by the PIC based on the drive spindle speed. 3) If a hard-sectored diskette is inserted in the drive, the PIC simply passes the index pulses along. 3) Index pulses are normalized to 1 msec width. Many 3.5" drives and several later 5.25" drives output very long index pulses that need to be pruned back. 4) Calculation of the position of sector pulses is based on the time of the previous disk revolution to about 0.15 percent (I can improve on that if needed). Since the computation is performed for every disk revolution, drift should not be a significant problem. The whole thing is self-contained; no external crystals, buffers, etc. are required; only a +5 supply and a pullup (470-2.2K would probably be fine) on the INDEX/ line coming from the drive. You could probably stick the PIC in an 8-pin socket and "dead bug" it into your system if you wanted to be crude. The PIC can sink 25ma per output. Here's the catch: I'll send out object (and source, if requested), but I'm not going to send out PICs or program them for requestors. I expect that there will be a couple of software updates and I don't want to deal with the hassle of updating everyone's PIC. PIC programmers can be constructed or purchased very inexpensively and there are several free programmer packages out there. PICs themselves are dirt-cheap. I'm not going to post the code to a web site until I'm happy with it-- otherwise, I fear that intermediate versions (i.e. buggy) will start ciculating and I'll never hear the end of things. Drop me a private email if you're interested. Best regards, Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Dec 22 15:28:46 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:28:46 -0800 Subject: 5.25 drive with sector output Message-ID: <476D818E.8020205@bitsavers.org> A quick scan of the Qume 242 maint manual from bitsavers shows there is no separate sector signal. The Shugart 455/465 manual talks about a combined index/sector signal. Looking at the northstar controller, they just refer to the incoming signal as 'hole' and decode it in the controller. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sat Dec 22 15:46:50 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:46:50 -0800 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies References: <5.1.0.14.2.20071222114008.0d5fc900@localhost> Message-ID: <476D85CA.4C34E59E@cs.ubc.ca> On Sat, 22 Dec 2007, Tom Peters wrote: > The Burroughs spec sheets talk about the series anode R recommended for each > of three types of tubes; for the B-7971 they say 1.8k. Does your suggestion > eliminate the need for a anode resistor? I don't know about the spec sheet, but typically with segmented gas discharge displays like this, one uses a series resistor for each segment/cathode so that each segment gets a uniform current regardless of how many segments are on. With a single anode resistor each segment gets a variable current for different characters/segment-patterns (unless the tube has somehow been designed to limit this variability within the typical character set). With NIXIEs - where there is only one of the 10 cathodes on at any given time - a single anode resistor can service all 10 cathodes. (Arguably, or pedantically speaking, the 7971 isn't a NIXIE.) .. experiment with just the tube, power supply, some resistors, some switches/breadboard, and a (milli-)ammeter to see how it looks lit up, .. a little fun in-and-of-itself. .. then replace the switches with transistors. Note that if you do anode switching for multiplexing you also need some high voltage isolation (another transistor&c. or a capacitor) between the logic and the base of the anode driver transistor. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Dec 22 15:48:17 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:48:17 -0800 Subject: 5.25 drive with sector output In-Reply-To: <476D0D45.18019.341391B8@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712221802.lBMI1xSS056022@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476D0D45.18019.341391B8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: cclist at sydex.com > >> From: dwight elvey > >> Were there any 5.25 drive made with sector pulse output? >> I'm working on a controller for my Polymorphic. I have not >> software to run the board so I'm decoding the Z80 code >> that runs in its firmware. > > I can ever recall having seen one, although that's not saying that > there never have been any. > I was just wondering. I know the controller was intended for both 8 inch drives and 5.25. It might be that if using an 8 inch drive, it uses the SECTOR signal while if running a 5.25, it would use just the index out. I'm still decoding the source. The board is dead but I think it is the Z80. I can see read strobes and there is no BREQ but the address lines seem to be floating. Some 555s would do the trick for a index/sector seperator. Well of to the load chip sales. Dwight PS I'd like to get your code for the PIC but I don't think I can Beta is for you. Too many projects already. I do have a H89 that it could be tried on. _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_122007 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Dec 22 15:53:41 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:53:41 -0800 Subject: Zilog system 8000 In-Reply-To: <476D702D.9000902@pacbell.net> References: <476D702D.9000902@pacbell.net> Message-ID: > From: frustum at pacbell.net > A friend and former coworker, Terence Tanaka, emailed me yesterday saying: > > "I used to work at Zilog and have some tapes, printout and eproms for > the System 8000. I don't want to keep it but hate throwing it away. If > it can find a good home, I'm willing to ship it." > > If you are interested, please contact me, not the list, and I'll forward > your email address to Terence. > Hi I saw one of these on ebay about two weeks ago. I do have a machine with a Z8001 but I'm sure the info you have would be useless for it. I have an Olivetti M20. There is a fellow that has a Z8000 site: http://www.kranenborg.org/z8000/ If not to him, Al Kossow would be the best place to send it. It shouldn't be tossed. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_122007 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Dec 22 16:08:59 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 14:08:59 -0800 Subject: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting In-Reply-To: <200712221415.27971.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <476BC588.11687.2F1358B8@cclist.sydex.com> <200712220252.27994.rtellason@verizon.net> <200712221415.27971.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: > From: pat at computer-refuge.org > > On Saturday 22 December 2007 02:52, Roy J. Tellason wrote: >> On Friday 21 December 2007 16:54, Chuck Guzis wrote: >>> Two approaches that I've seen for conventional soldering iron >>> mounting involve what I'll call "flood and suck" that involves >>> covering all of the leads on one side of the QFP on the PCB with >>> solder and then using a solder "sucker" (such as a Soldapullt) to >>> remove the excess. >> >> I've *never* heard this recommended. And with that setup you're >> talking about pulling the solder out between the part lead and the >> trace without pulling the trace off the board. I wouldn't care to >> try it. > > The way that they taught us to do it in college was basically the same > way, except using solderwick to pull up the excess, instead of a solder > sucker. > > The technique was basically to tack down the corners of the chip first, > so that the chip is/stays properly aligned with the board, and then > drag the soldering iron along each side (using a wedge tip), with the > solder along the trailing edge.. if you get just the right speed, > you'll get a good connection. Then, just take solderbraid and an iron > to pick up the excess. > > It works, and unless you're careless (or using a 100W soldering gun or > something), it works pretty well, once you've tried it a time or two. > Hi I've probably reworked 100's of boards. I've found the safes method is to use a solder sucker and thin blade to move the lead around ( doesn't absorb too much heat ). Using the solderwick, I've found it is more likely to lift a lead. If you make too much contact and can't heat it all, it is difficult to remove the wick without damage. I always add fresh solder and flux before sucking. If you don't get a clean suck, add solder again and repeat. Don't try to clean the last bit by reheating only, you need to re-add solder. For through hole ICs, I will first clear the hole and then apply slight sideways pressure with the iron. The instant the lead moves, remove the heat. The lead will usually be free or have a tiny connection one can break with pliers. If it didn't come lose, repeat by adding solder. For surface devices I may just lift the leads one at a time after cleaning solder or use a heat gun ( depending on package type ). Patience and timing are what it takes. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec From legalize at xmission.com Sat Dec 22 16:46:50 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 15:46:50 -0700 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:43:29 -0500. <200712220043.29303.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: Hell, if you're going to go to the trouble of putting ethernet on it, you might as well make it an X terminal :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ccmpcpg at yahoo.de Sat Dec 22 18:56:49 2007 From: ccmpcpg at yahoo.de (=?iso-8859-1?q?Christian=20Gr=F6ssler?=) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 01:56:49 +0100 (CET) Subject: Zilog system 8000 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <981134.40817.qm@web23308.mail.ird.yahoo.com> --- dwight elvey schrieb: > I saw one of these on ebay about two weeks ago. A System 8000? Link, link (umm, I mean ebay #) :-) regards, chris __________________________________ Ihre erste Baustelle? Wissenswertes f?r Bastler und Hobby Handwerker. www.yahoo.de/clever From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Dec 22 22:02:36 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 20:02:36 -0800 Subject: Zilog system 8000 In-Reply-To: <981134.40817.qm@web23308.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <981134.40817.qm@web23308.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 01:56:49 +0100 > From: ccmpcpg at yahoo.de > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: RE: Zilog system 8000 > > > --- dwight elvey schrieb: > >> I saw one of these on ebay about two weeks ago. > > A System 8000? > > Link, link (umm, I mean ebay #) :-) > > regards, > chris > Hi Chris I'm not sure what he has but check out the seller: electronicspart he seems to have a lot of parts related to a system 8000. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Dec 23 01:46:33 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 02:46:33 -0500 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20071222113457.0d5fcfb8@localhost> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20071222113457.0d5fcfb8@localhost> Message-ID: <9E19A60A-6AEF-4A00-ADAE-C7C86D9FA72F@neurotica.com> On Dec 22, 2007, at 12:38 PM, Tom Peters wrote: >> I generate the 170VDC for Nixie (and similar) applications from >> 12VDC using an MC34063-based step-up switching regulator, the design >> of which is based on a circuit from one of the chip's app notes. I >> can send you the schematic if that'd be helpful. > > Please send schematic, thanks. Here's the schematic: http://www.neurotica.com/misc/step-up-regulator.png I'll see about writing up some better docs for it later. The values of the timing capacitor (C3) and the gate pulldown resistor (R4) could probably use some optimization; I've not done much tuning there. It works well as-is though; I've powered four IN-17 tubes with it at 100% duty cycle with no heating or other issues. The power inductor (L2) needs to be able to handle the current, and have low DC resistance and good core saturation characteristics...I used a Murata 2200R series unit, Mouser part number 580-22R334C. The MOSFET, fast-recovery diode, and low-ESR capacitors are readily available in small lots via eBay, very cheaply. > Who makes the MC34063? Something I could get at DigiKey or Mouser? Yes, Mouser stocks them. It's originally a Motorola design, but it has been second-sourced by lots of companies. The ones I have on hand here are from STMicro, and were purchased from Mouser. > I did some reading last year and I read something about driving > Nixies with DC, is that what's usually done, rather than AC? Yes, Nixie tubes are usually driven with DC. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Dec 23 01:47:03 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 02:47:03 -0500 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies In-Reply-To: <015b01c844d2$026762d0$f0fea8c0@alpha> References: <830602.58656.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com> <015b01c844d2$026762d0$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <6B0B3614-6A30-4D24-9E10-0E4939D044AA@neurotica.com> On Dec 22, 2007, at 2:35 PM, Alexandre Souza wrote: >> To actually drive the tubes. you need something that >> can handle the volage/current. Use MPSA42 transistors >> - they're cheap, about 8 cents each. One transistor >> per cathode. Tie the anode of the tube to the power >> source of 200v or whatever. Connect each cathode to >> the collector of a MPSA42, tie the emitters all to >> ground. To drive a segment, drive the base high >> through a 33k resistor. > > Now if only I could find some nixie tubes... :o) Good heavens, man. There are gazillions of them on eBay on any given day. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Fri Dec 21 02:09:21 2007 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:09:21 -0000 Subject: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV sets) Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3903E5FD@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> The next VDU design after that was a sort of state mahine. Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell Sent: 20 December 2007 21:58 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV sets) > > I actually worked on VDU's that used shift registers as the display > memory around 1973. > If I remember correctly one lines worth (80 characters) got > transferred to a buffer in the interline gap (Fly back time). The > buffer was scanned out in such a way as to address the character > generator one row at a time. Characters were 7x5 dots so the top five > dots of the first character was serialized followed by the top row of > the second one and so on. Then all of the second character row dots on > a line would be displayed until the end of the store (and therefore > frame was reached) The HP9866A thermal printer used MOS shift registers for character storage. I am tryign to recall the details, because it's not as obvious as you might think. From memory : The printhead is the full width of the paper, with 400 eleemnts (80 charas * 5 dots/char). Physically it's made up of 4 modules. IIRC each printhead module is divided up into 4 sectiosn, each of 5 characters, and I think they're interleaved (so characters 0, 4, 8,... are one section, 1, 5, 9,... are the next and so on. I might have got that wrong, though) Incoming characters (7 bit ASCII) are re-encoded to 6 bits (it's an upper-case only printer, so 6 bits is enoguh) and stored in 6 80-bit Shift registers (physcially 3 TO99 cans). When the printer dtects a LF character, the more comlicated parts starts up. This reads ou the shift retgisters, every fourth character is sent to the character geenrator ROM, and the bit pattern for the top row is shfited into a set of 5 (one for each column of the chracters) 20 bit shift registers (I think the chips used are 8203s) which drive the printehad. That pattern or dots is printed The shift registers are run rount again, now the next set of chars taken throgh the character gernearotr ROM. to the printhead shift registers, and printed After the top row of all 80 characters has been printed, the paper is moved up one dot-line, and the process is repeated, only this time the character generatoter ROM outputs the patterns for the second row of the characters. And so on until the complete characters have been printed. This is controlled by a state machine that looks simple as a schematic (a handful of chips), but is not easy to understnad! -tony From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Fri Dec 21 02:23:11 2007 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:23:11 -0000 Subject: E: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3903E5FE@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> Now that sounds familiar. Two for an 80 character line (8bits) 7 bits for the ASCII code and one for the extending under line cursor. 48 for 24 lines = six rows of eight on the board. Add address counters etc. Yup that could have been it. Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Steve Thatcher Sent: 20 December 2007 20:18 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: E: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV actually Texas Instruments had a quad 80 bit MOS shift register package available in the early to mid seventies. I had used two of them for a frame buffer on a CRT controller design I did. The part number was TMS3409 I believe and it was something I got from the surplus market. -----Original Message----- >From: Chuck Guzis >Sent: Dec 20, 2007 10:40 AM >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Subject: E: Shift Registers as Delay Lines (was Delay lines in TV > > From: "Rod Smallwood" > >> I actually worked on VDU's that used shift registers as the display >> memory around 1973. From cc at corti-net.de Fri Dec 21 03:41:38 2007 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:41:38 +0100 (CET) Subject: AMD9016E speed / lilith memory In-Reply-To: <476B7D4B.70708@bluewin.ch> References: <476A3C78.8070207@bluewin.ch> <476AD4DA.27861B11@cs.ubc.ca> <476ADD56.F6E4184E@cs.ubc.ca> <476B7D4B.70708@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: On Fri, 21 Dec 2007, Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel wrote: > The machine functions, but the defective IC shows up as a white stripe on the > display since it is part of the video frame buffer. Changing the IC did not > help, of course also the 4116 replacement I used could have been defective. What about a broken copper trace, defective data or address buffer/driver or mux/demux? I had a similar fault on the graphics adapter in the IBM 5110, one bit of a multiplexer was bad. Christian From aapstar99 at cox.net Fri Dec 21 13:58:19 2007 From: aapstar99 at cox.net (Amy Paez) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 12:58:19 -0700 Subject: What ever happened to Hal Hardenbergh? Message-ID: <000001c8440b$d5b977d0$812c6770$@net> My grandfather was col hal hardenbergh if you did info on him you can email he died last year and I have a lot of his letters. Amy Paez From davebarnes at roadrunner.com Fri Dec 21 13:39:42 2007 From: davebarnes at roadrunner.com (David Barnes) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:39:42 -0500 Subject: FREE: CDC CMD948 In-Reply-To: <476BDE10.4020709@topinform.de> References: <200712210457.lBL4vT90029464@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <476BDE10.4020709@topinform.de> Message-ID: The CDC Phoenix 9448 was an interesting drive.... I owned 3 of them previously.... Here are some tips I learned the HARD way... :) 1- If they have been sitting for any length of time, especially in a dusty area they MUST BE PURGED.. here is what I did when I got an unknown drive - remove the cover - with power off and unplugged (yeah paranoid) carefully UNPLUG the connector for the voice coil, this will keep the heads from loading when you power it up and spin up the disk. - replace top cover, apply power and let blower run for 60 mins. - insert cartridge and spin up the drive (remember the heads will NOT load) and let run for 2 hours. - spin down, power off , and connect connector above. Then you MIGHT have a chance of it coming ready and not crashing... These drives were VERY sensitive about environmentals... be warned.. When they work they work well... David Barnes davebarnes AT roadrunner DOT com OpenVMS , Tru64 , Solaris , Linux , OS X , SGI Irix On Dec 21, 2007, at 10:38 AM, Andreas Holz wrote: > To get manuals and or traning aids would be quite interesting, > since I've two of these beasts an some media with software (RT11, > Fortran, IMSLIB, ...) which I would like to backup. > > Up to now I wasn't able to get one of this drives running. > > Andreas > >> Forwarding this note about the CDC 9448 for Billy Pettit. >> >> De >> >> ------- Forwarded Message >> >> I did tech support onthese drives for many years, working out of OK >> City.In fact, I'm still in touch with the original designer - had >> nunch >> with him about a month ago.It's a minor point, but one surface on the >> cartridge and one on the fixed pack is used for a servo >> reference. So >> it has two servo surfaces, the only drive I know with that piece of >> wierdness.Don't know if I still have a manual in the garage or not. >> Definately do still have the training aides,since I had to teach >> it to >> several OEM's support people. (There were more than 1000 >> configurations >> of the Phoenix sold to various OEMs at the time. I was on the >> road 50% >> of my time for a couple of years.)Can you forward this to the cctalk >> list? I can read it but not post messages. I'm pretty certain it >> is a >> problem with my ISP and not the list.Thanks,Billy >> >> ------- End of Forwarded Message >> >> >> > From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Fri Dec 21 18:36:22 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:36:22 -0500 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] Message-ID: <0JTF00LAQDM39JR4@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 23:26:06 +0000 (GMT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> > Do all transsitors have to be of the same flavour, or could I use TUNs >> > and TUPs? >> >> I'd never encountered the TUN & TUP TLAs before, so I looked them up: >> Transistor, Universal NPN/PNP. Neat! > >I suspect the acronyms were invented by Elektor magazine over 30 eyars >ago. Although they're not still sued in said magazine, theu're handy :-) > >There's also DUG and DUS (Diode, Universal, Germanium/Silcon). > > >> >> And any TUN or TUP will do, provided a device of comparable spec was >> reasonably available to hobbyists in the mid sixties. For my first >> efforts, at least, I'll be using the PN2222 in modern TO-92 plastic Old TUNs and TUPs are in the 2n400 and 2n130x series of germainum computer transistors. Next generation was the silicon 2n70x series and their plastic cased counterparts. PN2222 is a fair devices to use for that. Far better than early 60s devices and being silicon far more stable too. Those should be easy to find for under 4cents at the 100 peice level. >Sure. I tened to use 2N3904/2N3906 to excess round here. I don't think >they're quite the same spec as a TUN.TUP, but they're pretty universal in >their own right :-). Good for both switching and RF too. Also the metal can TO18 parts the 2n2222A and 2n2905 when you need a higher Ic and of course the 2n2219 and 2n2907 in TO5 for the next power level up. All been around a long time and dirt cheap. > >> packages. I'm not sure when the TO-92 package was introduced, but >> there were definitely plastic package transistors available then. >> SOTs are right out, though :) The TI silicon TIS9x transistor series was popular. >Given that there's a limit on the number of transistors, I don't see what >advantage using SOT23s would give you. OK, you could make it smaller, >maybe clock it faster. But the change in package wouldn't allow a totally >different architecture. So I don't see any particular reason to ban them, >since the same design could be built with compoents in 1960's packages. The 2n3904/6 is about 10X or more faster than the 1960s germainium parts and still better than late 60s parts. Most of the 1960s wer the MADT germainium in it's odd metal (to39?) can or TO5 sized parts so most devices like TO18 or TO92 will be smaller. Allison >-tony From vze323vd at verizon.net Sat Dec 22 01:58:02 2007 From: vze323vd at verizon.net (vze323vd) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 02:58:02 -0500 Subject: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this oldpeecee...] In-Reply-To: <575131af0712211113g6de32285q851b799c029cee50@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Liam Proven > Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 2:14 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Obscure PC operating systems and apps [was Re: got this > oldpeecee...] > > > On 21/12/2007, from at fu3.org wrote: > > I think Word6 for DOS is at http://www.vetusware.com/ in their > office section. > > Nope, Word 6 is for Windows 3. AFAIK 5.5 was the last ever > version for DOS. > There was a version 6 for DOS that had a GUI interface (run from a DOS prompt with Windows not even installed on the system)for it, as well as the text based one. I have a copy of it here. There was also a Windows version of it. Sorry, Greg From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sat Dec 22 10:59:17 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:59:17 -0500 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] Message-ID: <0JTG00J0CN411558@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 01:00:25 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On Thursday 20 December 2007 19:05, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> > From: Dave McGuire >> > >> > I'd love to find a huge stash of a few thousand new-old-stock tunnel >> > diodes. :-( >> >> You'll kindly observe that I had the good taste not to also mention >> Shockley diodes, which, to the best of my knowledge, are really >> unobtainium. > >Are those what were also referred to at one point as 4-layer diodes? If so, >it's possible to simulate them with a complementary pair of transistors and >not all that many other parts. Shotkey diodes are common. Aka 1n5711. Widely used in Rf and microwave. They are low capacitance fast switching with low threshold. Allison >> American Microsemiconductor still offers a selection of tunnel (Esaki) >> diodes, for as cheap as $9 the each. >> >> http://store.americanmicrosemiconductor.com/diodes-tunnel-diodes.html > >Hmm. :-) > >> I suspect a clue to the high prices is the "JAN" labeling on some of >> the parts (i.e. military and aerospace application). > >Could be. > >> I have a copy of the GE tunnel diode handbook around here somewhere >> (as well as about a dozen or so NOS diodes in my hellbox) that shows >> all manner of logic circuits constructed with the little beasts. > >I'll have one here: > >http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/books/GE_TDM.pdf > >as soon as the upload completes (which will take a little while even with my >DSL connection). It's a 100-page PDF file. > >There _will_ be a "tech books" page supporting the stuff there at some point, >when I can get it done. I'm still in the process of plowing through several >thousand files of "stuff" that I've accumulated over the past few years, >editing some stuff, tossing out some duplicates, and trying to organize >what I'm keeping to be accessible through my local HTML tree. Once I get >that mostly done I'll pull a tech books page together out of it. > >> I've never even breadboarded any of them, but the power requirements >> look very modest. > >I picked up a couple of them once on Canal Street in NYC, but that was a long >time ago. > >-- >Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and >ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can >be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" >- >Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James >M Dakin From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sat Dec 22 18:54:28 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 19:54:28 -0500 Subject: 5.25 drive with sector output Message-ID: <0JTH00MHP93VR3XA@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: 5.25 drive with sector output > From: dwight elvey > Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 09:43:43 -0800 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > >Hi > Were there any 5.25 drive made with sector pulse output? >I'm working on a controller for my Polymorphic. I have not >software to run the board so I'm decoding the Z80 code >that runs in its firmware. Yes, every one made. Sector pulse is the same ass index on 5.25" drives. aqn example controller that uses that is the NorthStart MDS. > I see that one of the signals from the drive is the sector >signal. I know that the SA801 could be configured for >32/16/8 sectors and produce a sector output signal. Still requires hard sector media. > In any case, the code seems to be looking for the sector >signal at one point. > The next question is, do the older drives have a filter on >them such that they would not output the index along with >the sector pulse? No.. But some of the old 8" had the index on the inner radius and the hard sector holes at the outer radius making for two seperate signals. Allison > The drive I'm planning on using is an old Qume drive with >a IBM lable on the front. It is a QUMETRAK 142. It is >good to work on because it is all descrete parts and >TTL ( some analog IC's as well ). Still, if they have a >filter on the index, I should be able to modify it. > I only see one pot in that area of the board and I suspect >that it is for the pulse witdh of the index. > If there is no filter, I should be able to make an external >sector separator. >Dwight > >_________________________________________________________________ >i?m is proud to present Cause Effect, a series about real people making a difference. >http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_Cause_Effect From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sun Dec 23 08:28:47 2007 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 11:28:47 -0300 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies References: <830602.58656.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com><015b01c844d2$026762d0$f0fea8c0@alpha> <6B0B3614-6A30-4D24-9E10-0E4939D044AA@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <005201c84570$b2a12ca0$f0fea8c0@alpha> >> Now if only I could find some nixie tubes... :o) > Good heavens, man. There are gazillions of them on eBay on any given > day. Sure it has, but I live in Brazil, and things from other countries are a little bit expensive to arrive here :o) It happens... :o( Greetz Alexandre http://www.tabajara-labs.com.br From mike at brickfieldspark.org Sun Dec 23 09:14:58 2007 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 10:14:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: Probably OT - eBay object - what the devil is it? In-Reply-To: <200712211800.lBLI0QbT033605@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712211800.lBLI0QbT033605@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <55001.86.16.147.252.1198422898.squirrel@webmail3.pair.com> Looks like a test head although all the ones I ever worked on had a large hole in the centre for probes. It does have printed on it "Testhead side" bit of a give away. Mike > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 06:33:34 -0800 (PST) > From: Mr Ian Primus > Subject: Re: Probably OT - eBay object - what the devil is it? > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >> >> What on Earth is this? >> >> 110206772756 > Wow. That is unusual. Never seen anything like that > before. It's pretty though. Would probably make a nice > clock... > > -Ian > From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Dec 23 10:55:12 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 11:55:12 -0500 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies In-Reply-To: <005201c84570$b2a12ca0$f0fea8c0@alpha> References: <830602.58656.qm@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com><015b01c844d2$026762d0$f0fea8c0@alpha> <6B0B3614-6A30-4D24-9E10-0E4939D044AA@neurotica.com> <005201c84570$b2a12ca0$f0fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <8C2101C8-0084-443A-9E89-56DEBBA740D9@neurotica.com> On Dec 23, 2007, at 9:28 AM, Alexandre Souza wrote: >>> Now if only I could find some nixie tubes... :o) >> Good heavens, man. There are gazillions of them on eBay on any >> given day. > > Sure it has, but I live in Brazil, and things from other > countries are a little bit expensive to arrive here :o) > > It happens... :o( I've purchased quite a few Nixie tubes from Russia; the shipping hasn't been unreasonable at all. Do take a look, you might be surprised. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Dec 23 11:08:27 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 09:08:27 -0800 Subject: AMD9016E speed / lilith memory In-Reply-To: References: <476A3C78.8070207@bluewin.ch> <476AD4DA.27861B11@cs.ubc.ca> <476ADD56.F6E4184E@cs.ubc.ca> <476B7D4B.70708@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: > From: cc at corti-net.de > > On Fri, 21 Dec 2007, Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel wrote: >> The machine functions, but the defective IC shows up as a white stripe on the >> display since it is part of the video frame buffer. Changing the IC did not >> help, of course also the 4116 replacement I used could have been defective. > > What about a broken copper trace, defective data or address buffer/driver > or mux/demux? I had a similar fault on the graphics adapter in the IBM > 5110, one bit of a multiplexer was bad. > > Christian Hi It could also be a problem in the address decoder. I've also seen interaction with another RAM on the same line as causing such problems as well. In the case of another RAM, it is ususally the previous RAM accessed. It tends to stay selected a little longer than it should. My bet is on the address decoder not selecting that RAM. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Dec 23 11:09:35 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 12:09:35 -0500 Subject: Zilog system 8000 In-Reply-To: <981134.40817.qm@web23308.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <981134.40817.qm@web23308.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <89A49722-65E1-496E-A56B-3DB9F4290DE4@neurotica.com> On Dec 22, 2007, at 7:56 PM, Christian Gr?ssler wrote: >> I saw one of these on ebay about two weeks ago. > > A System 8000? > > Link, link (umm, I mean ebay #) :-) Yeah, you and me both! I had two of them in 1989 or so, a Model 21 and a Model (I think) 41. I sold the former and ran the latter for quite a while. It was a really, really nice machine! ZEUS (Zilog Enhanced UNIX System) performed well and seemed nicely done overall. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sun Dec 23 13:02:55 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 13:02:55 -0600 Subject: VCM offline? Message-ID: <476EB0DF.7080703@brutman.com> Is anybody else having problems getting to From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sun Dec 23 13:03:55 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 13:03:55 -0600 Subject: VCM offline? Message-ID: <476EB11B.70801@brutman.com> Sorry about that last message .. bad clicking on my part. I'm having trouble getting to Sellam's marketplace site (http://vintagecomputermarketplace.com/) - was there an announcement that I missed? Mike From legalize at xmission.com Sun Dec 23 13:45:38 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 12:45:38 -0700 Subject: What is a Heathkit H120? Message-ID: Supposedly its a computer, but I can't seem to find anything on the net about it. old-computers.com in particular let me down. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Dec 23 14:02:47 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:02:47 -0500 Subject: What is a Heathkit H120? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200712231502.48013.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 23 December 2007 14:45, Richard wrote: > Supposedly its a computer, but I can't seem to find anything on the net > about it. old-computers.com in particular let me down. Heath/Zenith x100 series machines were prior to their XT-class boxes, they were S-100 machines as I recall. I do have some extensive data on them, but it's currently buried in a storage unit and I can't get to it. A search on H100 or Z100 should find you some useful info, 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 tpeters at mixcom.com Sun Dec 23 13:55:42 2007 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 13:55:42 -0600 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies In-Reply-To: <9E19A60A-6AEF-4A00-ADAE-C7C86D9FA72F@neurotica.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20071222113457.0d5fcfb8@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20071221193855.0d3e5e80@localhost> <5.1.0.14.2.20071222113457.0d5fcfb8@localhost> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20071223135458.0d078008@localhost> Thanks very much for the circuit; doesn't look as complex as I thought it might. Looks like something even I might be able to build. At 02:46 AM 12/23/2007 -0500, you wrote: >On Dec 22, 2007, at 12:38 PM, Tom Peters wrote: >>> I generate the 170VDC for Nixie (and similar) applications from >>>12VDC using an MC34063-based step-up switching regulator, the design >>>of which is based on a circuit from one of the chip's app notes. I >>>can send you the schematic if that'd be helpful. >> >>Please send schematic, thanks. > > Here's the schematic: > http://www.neurotica.com/misc/step-up-regulator.png > > I'll see about writing up some better docs for it later. The >values of the timing capacitor (C3) and the gate pulldown resistor >(R4) could probably use some optimization; I've not done much tuning >there. It works well as-is though; I've powered four IN-17 tubes >with it at 100% duty cycle with no heating or other issues. > > The power inductor (L2) needs to be able to handle the current, >and have low DC resistance and good core saturation >characteristics...I used a Murata 2200R series unit, Mouser part >number 580-22R334C. > > The MOSFET, fast-recovery diode, and low-ESR capacitors are >readily available in small lots via eBay, very cheaply. > >>Who makes the MC34063? Something I could get at DigiKey or Mouser? > > Yes, Mouser stocks them. It's originally a Motorola design, but >it has been second-sourced by lots of companies. The ones I have on >hand here are from STMicro, and were purchased from Mouser. > >>I did some reading last year and I read something about driving >>Nixies with DC, is that what's usually done, rather than AC? > > Yes, Nixie tubes are usually driven with DC. > > -Dave > >-- >Dave McGuire >Port Charlotte, FL >Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 > > > ----- 875. [Government]Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. --P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: 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 caveguy at sbcglobal.net Sun Dec 23 14:26:08 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:26:08 -0500 Subject: What is a Heathkit H120? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200712232028.lBNKSELS077348@keith.ezwind.net> THe Zenith Z-100 series were dual processor systems 8085/8088 that could run both CPM80 and MSdos but NOT PCdos. It was a single board computer with 4 S100 slots for expansion. There were several configurations a low profile a lot like the SOL20 and an all in one with built in monitor. later The other Bob On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 12:45:38 -0700, Richard wrote: >Supposedly its a computer, but I can't seem to find anything on the net >about it. old-computers.com in particular let me down. >-- >"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > > Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Sun Dec 23 15:29:25 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 13:29:25 -0800 Subject: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer] In-Reply-To: <200712231800.lBNI079o075505@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712231800.lBNI079o075505@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <476E62B5.29656.39494527@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Dec 2007 at 12:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Shotkey diodes are common. Aka 1n5711. Widely used in Rf and microwave. > They are low capacitance fast switching with low threshold. Not Schottky diodes, but *Shockley* diodes, a close relative of a diac. Genuine ones, circa late 1950's are very hard to find: http://semiconductormuseum.com/PhotoGallery/PhotoGallery_Shockley4E30. htm Schematic symbol looks like the number "4" with leads coming out of the top and bottom. Here's an application using some in an audio power amplifier: http://electronicdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=3979 Sometimes also called a "transistor diode" and once intended to replace the 3-terminal transistor. Cheers, Chuck From evan at snarc.net Sun Dec 23 16:50:00 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 17:50:00 -0500 Subject: VCM offline? Message-ID: <200712232250.lBNMoq92087781@keith.ezwind.net> Rumor sez the VCM is getting a software upgrade... -----Original Message----- From: "Michael B. Brutman" Subj: VCM offline? Date: Sun Dec 23, 2007 2:08 pm Size: 212 bytes To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Sorry about that last message .. bad clicking on my part. I'm having trouble getting to Sellam's marketplace site (http://vintagecomputermarketplace.com/) - was there an announcement that I missed? Mike From tsw-cc at johana.com Sun Dec 23 17:02:01 2007 From: tsw-cc at johana.com (Tom Watson) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:02:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: Diodes [was: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer]] In-Reply-To: <200712231716.lBNHFn5a075177@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <370665.18489.qm@web90411.mail.mud.yahoo.com> In a previous message, Allison said: > Shotkey diodes are common. Aka 1n5711. Widely used in Rf and microwave. > They are low capacitance fast switching with low threshold. > > Allison A couple of things here. There are TWO different things: 1) Yes, there are Schottky diodes as you have mentioned. They have very low forward voltage drop and are the basis for a faster TTL series (74Sxxx/74LSxxx, and probably others). Another attribute is that they switch fast. These are very available. 2) The other type of diode is a Shockley (like the "co-inventor of transistor"). These are 4 layer devices and behave similar to a neon bulb only at a lower voltage, and without the glow. They have a high "trigger" voltage, and a lower "sustaining" voltage that keeps the current flowing (look at how a neon bulb "NE-2" works). I don't remember much more than that, but my high school science teacher wanted to make up a storage array using them. This was in the 60's, and we didn't have DRAM them, so it looked "interesting". I suppose you could simulate them with a connected PNP/NPN transistor pair (as mentioned here), or use a higher voltage to trigger and use an SCR (another 4 layer device) and not connect the trigger lead. These went out of style long ago I understand. In looking things up, I ran across this: http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_3/chpt_7/3.html which explains things in great detail. -- Sorry, No signature at the moment. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Dec 23 17:38:43 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 18:38:43 -0500 Subject: Diodes [was: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer]] In-Reply-To: <370665.18489.qm@web90411.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <370665.18489.qm@web90411.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200712231838.44178.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 23 December 2007 18:02, Tom Watson wrote: > I suppose you could simulate them with a connected PNP/NPN transistor pair > (as mentioned here), or use a higher voltage to trigger and use an SCR > (another 4 layer device) and not connect the trigger lead. These went out > of style long ago I understand. In looking things up, I ran across this: > http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_3/chpt_7/3.html > which explains things in great detail. That page with the two-transistor equivalent reminded me of this one: http://www.4qdtec.com/putpr.html which strikes me as a handy thing to be able to do, take a couple of ordinary bipolar transistors and use 'em as an SCR, a PUT, a 4-layer diode, an SCS, and all sorts of other 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 legalize at xmission.com Sun Dec 23 18:12:04 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 17:12:04 -0700 Subject: What is a Heathkit H120? In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:26:08 -0500. <200712232028.lBNKSELS077348@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: In article <200712232028.lBNKSELS077348 at keith.ezwind.net>, "Bob Bradlee" writes: > There were several configurations a low profile a lot like the SOL20 > and an all in one with built in monitor. Does the all-in-one unit have a graphics mode? Collectible Microcomputers says the H-100 had an 8 color 640x225 graphics mode. Does that sound correct? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk Sun Dec 23 18:50:43 2007 From: classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk (Ensor) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 00:50:43 -0000 Subject: More bits for free [UK] References: Message-ID: <006201c845c7$0365f0c0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Hi, >> Philips CDD-462 External CD-ROM drive - boxed with manuals, >>software, 2 interface cards but no cable. > > Eeek. I never throught I'd see anyone else with one of those... I did wonder whether it was the same unit you mentioned recently when I dug it out. >....The service manial (yes I have it!), doesn't list some components >in the parts list, I think you're supposed to deduce what audio player >is much the same and get the bits for that! Is that normal for Philips? The only Philips service manual I currently have is the one for my old Philips BSB receivers, and that one is pretty darn complete. > Anyway, the cable is, I am pretty sure, straioght-through (DA15-P to >DA15-S).... That's what I figured, only reason I never made one up is that I never got around to playing with the unit. One of those things I was going to get around to "one day".... ;-) TTFN - Pete. From classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk Sun Dec 23 19:20:15 2007 From: classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk (Ensor) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 01:20:15 -0000 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator References: <01C841CF.8B3681A0@mandr71> Message-ID: <006901c845cb$248fa350$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Hi, > VESA will be disappointed to hear that their VBE standard >which does define four 132-column modes (109 - 10C) is not a >"standard" at all.... The problem with the VESA "standard" was that, back then, it had come along *FAR* too late in the day for it to have actually been worth a damn! I was dealing with graphics cards in PCs extensively in the course of my work between about 1990 and 1995, and, quite frankly, VESA was the bane of my life - all it achieved was to make things significantly MORE complicated. And those TSRs which allegedly turned non-VESA compliant cards into VESA compliant cards were, in most cases, enough to drive you to the point of slashing your wrists.... :-( Nowadays, VESA would certainly be worth investigating since all this stuff is obsolete and available at little or no cost. But like everyone else, you've missed the point. The OP was originally asking about standard IBM cards, not about VESA "standard" cards which are a different kettly of fish.... TTFN - Pete. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Dec 23 19:24:31 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 17:24:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: What is a Heathkit H120? In-Reply-To: <200712232028.lBNKSELS077348@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <44141.5457.qm@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> since it's branded Heath, don't that mean it was built from a kit panky? --- Bob Bradlee wrote: > THe Zenith Z-100 series were dual processor systems > 8085/8088 > that could run both CPM80 and MSdos but NOT PCdos. > It was a single board computer with 4 S100 slots for > expansion. > > There were several configurations a low profile a > lot like the SOL20 > and an all in one with built in monitor. > > later > The other Bob > > > On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 12:45:38 -0700, Richard wrote: > > >Supposedly its a computer, but I can't seem to find > anything on the net > >about it. old-computers.com in particular let me > down. > >-- > >"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft > available for download > > > > > > Legalize Adulthood! > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From legalize at xmission.com Sun Dec 23 20:41:14 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 19:41:14 -0700 Subject: CrayLink cabling prohibited on Origin 2000 deskside Message-ID: OK, I found it: Origin2000 and Onyx2 Deskside and Rackmount Installation Instructions Document Number 108-0155-002 12/96 pg. 6-36 "Caution: You cannot install CrayLink interconnect cabling on a standalone deskside system because of power grounding requirements. The power differential between two interconnected modules should not exceed 500 millivolts; otherwise severe damage can result to boards and other components inside the chassis. The power distribution unit (PDU) inside the rack provides a common ground source for the modules. In addition, the groundstraps are installed on multirack configurations to help provide common grounding across the racks as described in Section 6.16" That seems about as blunt as you can get. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Sun Dec 23 20:58:53 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 21:58:53 -0500 Subject: What is a Heathkit H120? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200712240301.lBO310SU003091@keith.ezwind.net> Yes, The Z100 was the first systems I ever ran AutoCAD on. With the addition of a piggback board that sat between the CPU and motherboard I added a 8087 math coprocessor and it worked well for me. I still have that system packed away in storage. The other Bob. On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 17:12:04 -0700, Richard wrote: >In article <200712232028.lBNKSELS077348 at keith.ezwind.net>, > "Bob Bradlee" writes: >> There were several configurations a low profile a lot like the SOL20 >> and an all in one with built in monitor. >Does the all-in-one unit have a graphics mode? Collectible >Microcomputers says the H-100 had an 8 color 640x225 graphics mode. >Does that sound correct? >-- >"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download > > Legalize Adulthood! From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Sun Dec 23 21:09:59 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 22:09:59 -0500 Subject: What is a Heathkit H120? In-Reply-To: <44141.5457.qm@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200712240312.lBO3C6n6003682@keith.ezwind.net> The early systems were branded both ways, but I do not think it was ever available as a kit. I worked with the Zenith Edusystems distributer in chicago back then as a consultant building the Corvis interface and drivers, so my knowledge of the Heath side of the company is limited. The other Bob On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 17:24:31 -0800 (PST), Chris M wrote: >since it's branded Heath, don't that mean it was built >from a kit panky? >--- Bob Bradlee wrote: >> THe Zenith Z-100 series were dual processor systems >> 8085/8088 >> that could run both CPM80 and MSdos but NOT PCdos. >> It was a single board computer with 4 S100 slots for >> expansion. >> >> There were several configurations a low profile a >> lot like the SOL20 >> and an all in one with built in monitor. >> >> later >> The other Bob >> >> >> On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 12:45:38 -0700, Richard wrote: >> >> >Supposedly its a computer, but I can't seem to find >> anything on the net >> >about it. old-computers.com in particular let me >> down. >> >-- >> >"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft >> available for download >> > >> > >> >> > Legalize Adulthood! >> >> >> >> > _________________________________________________________________________________ ___ >Looking for last minute shopping deals? >Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php? category=shopping From trixter at oldskool.org Sun Dec 23 21:42:49 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 21:42:49 -0600 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <006901c845cb$248fa350$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> References: <01C841CF.8B3681A0@mandr71> <006901c845cb$248fa350$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Message-ID: <476F2AB9.1080601@oldskool.org> Ensor wrote: > VESA was the bane > of my life - all it achieved was to make things significantly MORE > complicated. And those TSRs which allegedly turned non-VESA compliant > cards into VESA compliant cards were, in most cases, enough to drive you > to the point of slashing your wrists.... :-( I had no issues at all working with VESA. It made my life easier because I didn't have to support 30+ different chipset variants. If you queried the BIOS for the card's capabilities and stayed within them, it didn't give you problems. I'm quite surprised you claim to have jad trouble with VESA. I found stock VGA 640x480 at 16 more troublesome because of the bitplane nature of the mode. VESA 1.x let me plot a pixel with one byte write... doesn't get much easier than that. > Nowadays, VESA would certainly be worth investigating since all this > stuff is obsolete and available at little or no cost. Actually, thanks to the popularity of Linux, VESA is put into every ATI and nVidia card still being made. Run VESAINFO on your modern card if you don't believe me -- it will work and the extensive list of modes available may surprise you. -- 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 classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk Sun Dec 23 23:10:22 2007 From: classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk (Ensor) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 05:10:22 -0000 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator References: <01C841CF.8B3681A0@mandr71><006901c845cb$248fa350$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> <476F2AB9.1080601@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <001601c845eb$4a46e390$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Hi Jim, > I had no issues at all working with VESA. It made my life easier >because I didn't have to support 30+ different chipset variants.... > I'm quite surprised you claim to have jad trouble with VESA.... After some 12+ years or so I really don't remember the exact details of the problems I had back then. What I do remember ****VIVIDLY**** though, is that VESA, for me at least, was a MAJOR pain in the arse (or more likely, buggy implementations of it).... :-( I might be able to remember more were I not: a) suffering from the worst bout of flu I've ever had {3 weeks and counting}, b) recovering from carbon monoxide poisoning, and c) suffering from nicotine withdrawal (I gave up smoking recently because of "a" and "b", LOL). So, if I sound grumpy at the moment, it's because I am...! Still, when was life ever easy? ;-) >>....since all this stuff is obsolete and available at little or >>no cost. > Actually, thanks to the popularity of Linux, VESA is put into every >ATI and nVidia card still being made.... Actually, I was thinking in terms of ISA bus SVGA cards. Should've been a bit clearer on that point, sorry. >....Run VESAINFO on your modern card if you don't believe me.... I'll take your word for it. :-) For me, a modern PC clone is merely a tool for getting a job done and _nothing_ more. I have absolutely no interest **WHATSOEVER** in what lies buried "under the hood" as it were (outside of specifying the bits which I build it from), or tinkering with it, or whatever.... That's why I collect "classic" machines! TTFN - Pete. From geneb at deltasoft.com Sun Dec 23 23:49:00 2007 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 21:49:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: Serial board schematics... In-Reply-To: <001601c845eb$4a46e390$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> References: <01C841CF.8B3681A0@mandr71><006901c845cb$248fa350$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> <476F2AB9.1080601@oldskool.org> <001601c845eb$4a46e390$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Message-ID: I've got a serial I/O board in my H-89 that transmits data, but doesn't receive it. I've replaced the 1489 on the off chance it was blown, but no change was noticed. The serial cable is ok. Can someone point me to a set of schematics for this board? It's the "multi i/o" board with 2 serial (apparently) and one parallel port. Thanks all! g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Dec 24 00:22:07 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 22:22:07 -0800 Subject: Serial board schematics... In-Reply-To: References: <01C841CF.8B3681A0@mandr71><006901c845cb$248fa350$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> <476F2AB9.1080601@oldskool.org> <001601c845eb$4a46e390$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Message-ID: > From: geneb at deltasoft.com > > I've got a serial I/O board in my H-89 that transmits data, but doesn't > receive it. I've replaced the 1489 on the off chance it was blown, but > no change was noticed. The serial cable is ok. > > Can someone point me to a set of schematics for this board? It's the > "multi i/o" board with 2 serial (apparently) and one parallel port. > Hi Gene I'm not aware of the serial board with a parallel port. The only one I know has 3 serial ports. They ususally only had 2 populated. How are you determining that it isn't working? Is it possible that there is an interrupt connected to it that is stealing your data? Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Dec 24 00:37:55 2007 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 22:37:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Serial board schematics... In-Reply-To: References: <01C841CF.8B3681A0@mandr71><006901c845cb$248fa350$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> <476F2AB9.1080601@oldskool.org> <001601c845eb$4a46e390$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Message-ID: > Hi Gene > I'm not aware of the serial board with a parallel port. The only > one I know has 3 serial ports. They ususally only had 2 populated. > How are you determining that it isn't working? Is it possible that > there is an interrupt connected to it that is stealing your data? > Dwight The board has three connectors along the top that go to DB25 connectors on the back. The connectors are marked DCE, DTE and PARALLEL. The board has "HEATH COPR" on the back, so I'm assuming it's a "standard" card. The tests are being done with a Hayes Smartmodem. I can talk to the modem and watch it respond to commands but I get no data at the terminal. I'm using MODEM as the terminal program. tnx! g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Dec 24 01:07:03 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 23:07:03 -0800 Subject: Serial board schematics... In-Reply-To: References: <01C841CF.8B3681A0@mandr71><006901c845cb$248fa350$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> <476F2AB9.1080601@oldskool.org> <001601c845eb$4a46e390$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Message-ID: > From: geneb at deltasoft.com > >> Hi Gene >> I'm not aware of the serial board with a parallel port. The only >> one I know has 3 serial ports. They ususally only had 2 populated. >> How are you determining that it isn't working? Is it possible that >> there is an interrupt connected to it that is stealing your data? >> Dwight > The board has three connectors along the top that go to DB25 connectors on > the back. The connectors are marked DCE, DTE and PARALLEL. The board has > "HEATH COPR" on the back, so I'm assuming it's a "standard" card. > > The tests are being done with a Hayes Smartmodem. I can talk to the modem > and watch it respond to commands but I get no data at the terminal. I'm > using MODEM as the terminal program. > > tnx! > Hi U should also post to SEBHC. Also, it may be missing a control bit from the RS232. This can lock up the recieve. Check that all the needed signals make it to the serial chips. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ i?m is proud to present Cause Effect, a series about real people making a difference. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_Cause_Effect From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 24 02:55:28 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 08:55:28 +0000 Subject: Zilog S8000 Message-ID: > Yeah, you and me both! I had two of them in 1989 or so, a Model =20 > 21 and a Model (I think) 41. I sold the former and ran the latter =20 > for quite a while. It was a really, really nice machine! ZEUS =20 > (Zilog Enhanced UNIX System) performed well and seemed nicely done =20 > overall. You're convicning me to get mine out and get it running again.... I have a model 30 (I think). It's built in 4 slices. The bottom 2 are just RS23 distribution panels, then next slice contains an SMD winchester and a QIC tape drtive, the top slice contains the cardcage. I remembr looking at the boards and seeing the Z8001 + suppoert devices, and Z80s on some of the otehr boards (not too suprising). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 24 02:56:52 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 08:56:52 +0000 Subject: 2N2/256-BSCP Message-ID: > > Given that there's a limit on the number of transistors, I don't > > see what > > advantage using SOT23s would give you. > > It'd be easier to assemble. Only if you don't spend hours looking for the transistors that flew off the end of your tweezers :-). My point is that while SOT23s didn't exist 40 years ago, there is no real reason to prohibit them in a project like this. Limit the number of transistors, sure. Insist on an architecture that could be built 40 years ago, sure. But should the use of a storage 'scope to debug the thing be prohibited too, on the grounds that hobbyists 40 yrars ago were lucky to have _any_ 'scope? Do you prohibit writing simulators for the transistorised machine, on the grounds that 40 years ago hobbyists wouldn't have had anything to run them on? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 24 02:57:31 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 08:57:31 +0000 Subject: 5.25 drive with sector output Message-ID: > The next question is, do the older drives have a filter on > them such that they would not output the index along with > the sector pulse? The normal way to separate index form secotr pulses was to have a non-retriggerable monostable that was triggered from the index sensor and which had a period a little less than the time between sector holes. It was triggered at the end of each hole. Normally it timed out after each sector hole, but was still set when the index hole came after the last sectore hole. The output of said monostabel sent the output of the index hole sesnor to either the 'sector' line or the 'index' line. What do you mean by 'older drives'? AFAIK no half-height 5.25" drive has such a feature. > The drive I'm planning on using is an old Qume drive with > a IBM lable on the front. It is a QUMETRAK 142. It is IIRC that's the drive used in the PortablePC and PCjr. In which case I'll have the schematics for it. Hang on... The index sensor on that drive goes into a schmitt trigger circuit using U16 f and U16c ('LS14). The output of that goes to U10c ('38) and thence tiooe the interface connector. TP7 is the index testpoint. There's no monostable, or filtering, or anytthing like that on this drive. Some drives, particularly 3.5" ones, have an adjustable monostable in the index circuit which lets you delay the index pulse. It's adjusted when the drive is aloighed to give the correct timing between the index pulse and the data ffrom the ehad -- twiddlign the pot is easier than moving the index sensor. Such a circuit could msess up what you're trying to do, but this IBM drive doesn't have anything like that. > good to work on because it is all descrete parts and > TTL ( some analog IC's as well ). Still, if they have a > filter on the index, I should be able to modify it. > I only see one pot in that area of the board and I suspect > that it is for the pulse witdh of the index. I can find 2 pots on the schrmatic. R56 (connected ot U1, an LM2917), sets the spidnle motor speed. R63, connectrd to U2 (MC3740) is the common read-data balance adjustment. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 24 02:58:11 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 08:58:11 +0000 Subject: OT sockets for Nixies Message-ID: > No, you still need the anode resistor. That's a > current limiting resistor. It's purpose is to prevent Rememebr that most glow discharges have a negative resistance. They will 'run away' if you don't include the limiting reisstor until the current gets so high that the tube explodes (literally!). > Remember, you don't need any fancy power IC's or DC-DC > converters - you can just rectify line voltage (an > isolation transformer is good if you do this...) and I would never recoemnd running an experimental circuit straight from the mains without isolation. Another useful trick (if your PSU already incorporates a normal mains transdormer) is to connect a small mains transformer of the same nominal voltage 'backwards' to the secodnary of the PSU transformer. That is, if you have a mains-9V trasnformer in the PSU anyway, get a small 9V mains transformer and connect the 9V winding (originally the secondary) to the secondary of the pSU transformer. You now have an isolated supply of about mains voltage, from what was originally the primary of that little transformer. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 24 02:58:53 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 08:58:53 +0000 Subject: FREE CDC CMD9448 drive Message-ID: > On Friday 21 December 2007 18:33, Tony Duell wrote: > > I do have the service manual for this drive. The thing I rememebr is th= > at > > you don't fiddle with the mechanics without reading it first, and even > > then tread carefully. There are all sorts of special tools you may need. > > That manual have "double sized" pages? That's what the one I have is lik= > e, I=20 > guess 11x17 or somesuch. No, it's normal A4-sih pages. Maybe fold-out schemcatis, but I don't think so. >From memory, my manaul doesn't say CDC on it, but it's clearly the same drive, I have a real CDC drive, and everything I've compared is identical. -tony From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sun Dec 23 18:45:06 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 19:45:06 -0500 Subject: Diodes [was: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer]] Message-ID: <0JTJ00L203DDDPQ3@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Diodes [was: The 2N2/256-BSCP [was: Homebrew Drum Computer]] > From: Tom Watson > Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:02:01 -0800 (PST) > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > >In a previous message, Allison said: > > >> Shotkey diodes are common. Aka 1n5711. Widely used in Rf and microwave. >> They are low capacitance fast switching with low threshold. >> >> Allison > >A couple of things here. There are TWO different things: >1) Yes, there are Schottky diodes as you have mentioned. They have very low >forward voltage drop and are the basis for a faster TTL series (74Sxxx/74LSxxx, >and probably others). Another attribute is that they switch fast. These are >very available. >2) The other type of diode is a Shockley (like the "co-inventor of >transistor"). These are 4 layer devices and behave similar to a neon bulb only >at a lower voltage, and without the glow. They have a high "trigger" voltage, >and a lower "sustaining" voltage that keeps the current flowing (look at how a >neon bulb "NE-2" works). I don't remember much more than that, but my high >school science teacher wanted to make up a storage array using them. This was >in the 60's, and we didn't have DRAM them, so it looked "interesting". I >suppose you could simulate them with a connected PNP/NPN transistor pair (as >mentioned here), or use a higher voltage to trigger and use an SCR (another 4 >layer device) and not connect the trigger lead. These went out of style long >ago I understand. In looking things up, I ran across this: >http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_3/chpt_7/3.html >which explains things in great detail. Mixed them up. You can simulate that using two transistors. I've done that mant times as it's easier to have a few 2n3904/06s handy rahter than some part thats not unobtainium. The transistor equivilent is more flexible. Allison > >-- >Sorry, >No signature at the moment. > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ >Looking for last minute shopping deals? >Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org Mon Dec 24 04:21:48 2007 From: thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org (Alexis) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 20:51:48 +1030 Subject: Unknown NEC IC's Message-ID: <772b2896897c967eaebf4317cd7c30f8@kaput.homeunix.org> Hi, I've desoldered some IC's off a board from an NEC workstation and there are two which I can't find any information on. Does anyone know what they are or perhaps have a datasheet? They are: D65030C022 (48 pin DIP) B6103C012 (40 pin DIP) They could be proprietary custom LSI IC's, I don't know. Also the CRT controller from the boards is a 64-pin DIP Hitachi HD63484 which will be saved for a neat project. I'm thinking of using a 6809 with UniFLEX, or even a 68000 with Minix, and perhaps making some sort of GUI for it... A long way off but I can dream :) Thanks, Alexis. From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Dec 24 10:05:57 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 11:05:57 -0500 Subject: Zilog S8000 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 24, 2007, at 3:55 AM, ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >> Yeah, you and me both! I had two of them in 1989 or so, a Model >> =20 >> 21 and a Model (I think) 41. I sold the former and ran the latter =20 >> for quite a while. It was a really, really nice machine! ZEUS =20 >> (Zilog Enhanced UNIX System) performed well and seemed nicely done =20 >> overall. > > You're convicning me to get mine out and get it running again.... > > I have a model 30 (I think). It's built in 4 slices. The bottom 2 are > just RS23 distribution panels, then next slice contains an SMD > winchester and a QIC tape drtive, the top slice contains the cardcage. > I > remembr looking at the boards and seeing the Z8001 + suppoert devices, > and Z80s on some of the otehr boards (not too suprising). That's a very nice machine. I very much enjoyed hacking on mine; I regret getting rid of it (as I have many things) but I hope to own another someday. Mine (again I *think* it was a Model 41...it was a 6' rack with a 9-track tape drive, a CDC Keystone) was set up in my apartment with an HP ThinkJet as its printer. I always thought the size difference was cute. :) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Dec 24 10:08:01 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 11:08:01 -0500 Subject: 2N2/256-BSCP In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <218ffb027d851073343b13691fc6c14d@neurotica.com> On Dec 24, 2007, at 3:56 AM, ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >>> Given that there's a limit on the number of transistors, I don't >>> see what >>> advantage using SOT23s would give you. >> >> It'd be easier to assemble. > > Only if you don't spend hours looking for the transistors that flew off > the end of your tweezers :-). Oh, SOT23s are easy to deal with. 01005-size components are the ones that just disappear without a trace. > My point is that while SOT23s didn't exist 40 years ago, there is no > real > reason to prohibit them in a project like this. Limit the number of > transistors, sure. Insist on an architecture that could be built 40 > years > ago, sure. But should the use of a storage 'scope to debug the thing be > prohibited too, on the grounds that hobbyists 40 yrars ago were lucky > to > have _any_ 'scope? Do you prohibit writing simulators for the > transistorised machine, on the grounds that 40 years ago hobbyists > wouldn't have had anything to run them on? I'd have to agree. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Dec 24 10:48:43 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 11:48:43 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <006901c845cb$248fa350$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> References: <01C841CF.8B3681A0@mandr71> <006901c845cb$248fa350$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Message-ID: <200712241148.43299.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Sunday 23 December 2007 20:20, Ensor wrote: > But like everyone else, you've missed the point. The OP was > originally asking about standard IBM cards, not about VESA "standard" > cards which are a different kettly of fish.... That must be why didn't add VESA 132-column mode to his VT100 emuatlor. Oh wait... On Tuesday 18 December 2007 09:42, Dave Dunfield wrote: > I've just posted a new version of LAPTALK, which supports 132 column > mode. In order to enable it, you must configure the 132 column video > mode under "General Parameters". 0-255 are standard BIOS modes, and > 256-511 are VESA modes (sorry, but you have to set the mode in > decimal). It also supports set/reset "column" (132 column) mode now > (if the mode is configured). Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 24 10:58:17 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 16:58:17 +0000 Subject: Merry Newtonsday! Message-ID: Merry Christmas, Newtonsday, Yule, Winter Solstice, or whatever you celebrate to all members of this list and their families. I wonder if anyone will get any classic computer related presents :-). We can always hope... I'll probably spend tomorrow doing what I've been doing for the last few months. Namely slowly restoring an HP9836 (and HP9826, they're very closely related). I am currently having problems posting to the list. Mail from my home box bounces (something about the time not being compliant with the approriate RFC). I can post from an internet cafe, but obviously not easily over the holiday period. I know I've changed nothing my end, I guess it's an 'upgrade' somewhere else... -tony From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Mon Dec 24 11:16:47 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 09:16:47 -0800 Subject: CrayLink cabling prohibited on Origin 2000 deskside In-Reply-To: <200712240939.lBO9d9RJ085925@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712240939.lBO9d9RJ085925@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <19da570d0c01976b30a6e738e34bbc1e@valleyimplants.com> On Dec 24, 2007, at 1:39 AM, Richard wrote: > Origin2000 and Onyx2 Deskside and Rackmount Installation Instructions > Document Number 108-0155-002 > 12/96 > pg. 6-36 > > "Caution: You cannot install CrayLink interconnect cabling on a > standalone deskside system because of power grounding > requirements. The power differential between two interconnected > modules should not exceed 500 millivolts; otherwise severe damage > can result to boards and other components inside the chassis. The > power distribution unit (PDU) inside the rack provides a common > ground source for the modules. In addition, the groundstraps are > installed on multirack configurations to help provide common > grounding across the racks as described in Section 6.16" > > That seems about as blunt as you can get. I'm not sure about that- you can CrayLink to Origin 200s together, the only requirement being the common ground (plug them into sockets with the same ground, run a thick ground between the chassis, or (as I have) stack them one on another if they don't have the skins). If you can do it with an Origin 200, then you can do it with a Origin 2000, since the hardware is very similar. You might need to get creative with the grounding, though, and make sure it's done well (perhaps two grounding straps of ~12AWG connected to different locations). Perhaps SGI did not design the ground point into the O2k deskside as they did in the O200, but we're a creative bunch here. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Dec 24 12:17:58 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 10:17:58 -0800 Subject: 5.25 drive with sector output In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk > >> The next question is, do the older drives have a filter on >> them such that they would not output the index along with >> the sector pulse? > > The normal way to separate index form secotr pulses was to have a > non-retriggerable monostable that was triggered from the index sensor and > which had a period a little less than the time between sector holes. It > was triggered at the end of each hole. Normally it timed out after each > sector hole, but was still set when the index hole came after the last > sectore hole. The output of said monostabel sent the output of the index > hole sesnor to either the 'sector' line or the 'index' line. > > What do you mean by 'older drives'? AFAIK no half-height 5.25" drive has > such a feature. > Hi Tony Thanks for the reply. I looked at the circuit use on the SA801. It looks relatively simple. It has the divider for creating other sector counts out but all I need is the one shot circuits. It used 9602s but I'll most likely use some 555s or a 556. The SA801 used feedback on the 9602 to keep them from being retriggered. My board was intended to be used with 5.25 disk drives but looking at the ribbon connector, it was wired for an 8 inch drive. It is a 40 pin connector but has signals with the same spacing as would be on a 50 pin ( 50 pin number minus 10 ). This leads me to think they had an interface board to translate the pins and generate the sector pulses. It might be that they had their own hard sectored 5.25 drive made with the 40 pin connector but I doubt it. I have a pile of 5.25 disk that are double density but also are hard sectored. It is possible that the disk are really just softsectored format but I rather doubt that since I have more than 50 such disk. From what I was told, Polymorphic only used hard sectored for every thing. The firmware code I have is intended for a 10 sectored disk but it looks like the variables for timing and sector count can be overwritten. I do have some 8 inch disk( 5 ) that are SSSD hard sectored as well. These would have the same data rate as the double density 5.25 disk but have 32 sector holes. The firmware is definitely 10 sectored. I think I have most every thing that is on the 8 inch disk on the 5.25 inch disk, from the lables on the disk. Still, setting up for 8 inch drives is a future project. The serial chip used is one of the fancier ones that has the CRC16 built in. The single density controller that I have in my Polymorphic 8813 uses a simpler serial chip. I've been disassembling the code but still haven't figured out how they get it to read the disk. I've found the code that does the read but I've not been able to back track it to the command interpreter. I suspect that the read code was one of the pieces set by the firmware on the main system bus. The board has two memory windows on the S-100 side. One is from 1000H-2000H while the other is a 16 byte window for parameters and command handshake. One of the commands goes to code that would be loaded into this shared memory window. These disk are of great archival value. They are the backup disk for the code that Polymorphic sold. It even includes source code for the version of BASIC that Polymorphic wrote. I've already read the single density disk but still need to get these double density ones read. I don't have the right system firmware for this board so I'm doing a lot of reverse engineering. I'm actually expecting to run this on my Poly88 instead of the 8813. I'm more familiar with writing code for the Poly88 but it is a cassette based system. The controller board is a Z80 and the Poly88 is a 8080 but I think there are enough routines on the controller boards firmware that I can assemble 8080 code on the Poly88 for the code that I'd load into the common area of the two busses. I'll just call the routines in the controllers firmaware. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec From lbickley at bickleywest.com Mon Dec 24 12:19:17 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 10:19:17 -0800 Subject: Vintage Marketplace IS down (on purpose)... Message-ID: <200712241019.17906.lbickley@bickleywest.com> I was just email chatting with Sellam - here's the "scoop" on Vintage Marketplace: "Yep, a planned outage. ?We're moving everything over to a new server and new software. ?It'll take a while. ?I guess I should've done a better job of communicating this ;)" Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From cclist at sydex.com Mon Dec 24 12:33:48 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 10:33:48 -0800 Subject: 5.25 drive with sector output In-Reply-To: <200712240939.lBO9d9RI085925@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712240939.lBO9d9RI085925@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <476F8B0C.22691.3DCED6DD@cclist.sydex.com> From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk > The normal way to separate index form secotr pulses was to have a > non-retriggerable monostable that was triggered from the index sensor and > which had a period a little less than the time between sector holes. It > was triggered at the end of each hole. Normally it timed out after each > sector hole, but was still set when the index hole came after the last > sectore hole. The output of said monostabel sent the output of the index > hole sesnor to either the 'sector' line or the 'index' line. The period of the monostable is pretty flexible--anything longer than half the time between sectors and less than the time between sectors will work. If you're "back of the envelope-ing" it, you might shoot for 75% of the time between sectors. This would allow a pot-less design, as the component tolerances would be well within the "slop" allowed in timing. > Some drives, particularly 3.5" ones, have an adjustable monostable in the > index circuit which lets you delay the index pulse. It's adjusted when the > drive is aloighed to give the correct timing between the index pulse and > the data ffrom the ehad -- twiddlign the pot is easier than moving the > index sensor. Such a circuit could msess up what you're trying to do, but > this IBM drive doesn't have anything like that. Most newer 3.5" drives subsume the "ready" circuit into a monolithic hunk of silicon with the rest of the drive control. Index output pulses are blocked until the period between indexes satisfies some internal "ready" standard. Also, 3.5" drives can have *very* wide index pulses when compared to 5.25" and 8" drives. Of course, any 5.25" drive with this logic (and it's very common) will view a hard-sector disk as not being anywhere near the correct speed, so will not only not come ready, but will block *all* index pulses going out. This feature has a curious implication if you decide to replace an older drive without the "block index until ready" logic with a newer drive with that logic. Many controllers (such as the WD1770) or software will count up a few sectors after select or motor on before commencing an operation. The result is that everything still works, but the latency after selecting a drive increases significantly. Note that once the drive been selected and come ready, this is not an issue. For what it's worth, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Dec 24 12:37:10 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 10:37:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: 5.25 drive with sector output In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20071224103521.P26454@shell.lmi.net> > The drive I'm planning on using is an old Qume drive with > a IBM lable on the front. It is a QUMETRAK 142. It is You might want to get it working with a RELIABLE drive, first. Then it will be a lot easier to tell whether the problems are due to drive malfunctions v implementation. From dm561 at torfree.net Mon Dec 24 12:57:56 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 13:57:56 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator Message-ID: <01C84634.FEFE9500@mandr71> Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 01:20:15 -0000 From: "Ensor" Subject: Re: Yet another VT-100 emulator >But like everyone else, you've missed the point. The OP was originally >asking about standard IBM cards, not about VESA "standard" cards which are a >different kettly of fish.... >TTFN - Pete. ------------ Actually, I think *you*'re missing the point of this whole thread, which is the feasibility of 132 column mode in Dave's VT-100 emulator; FYI I'll quote the OP: ... "Does anyone know if any of the more modern (ie: VGA) cards support enhanced 132 column text modes? - And is the video addressing basically the same except for 132 words of memory per line instead of 80? And where to find more information? If it could be reliably determined that support was there, and it is compatible with my text windowing code, it would not be difficult to add support for it." ... m From dm561 at torfree.net Mon Dec 24 13:15:30 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 14:15:30 -0500 Subject: Merry Newtonsday! Message-ID: <01C84637.B33E2880@mandr71> Message: 5 Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 16:58:17 +0000 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Subject: Merry Newtonsday! >Merry Christmas, Newtonsday, Yule, Winter Solstice, or whatever you celebrate >to all members of this list and their families. ---------------- And also from me, best wishes to all for a warm and happy holiday with friends and family, and a 2008 filled with successful cc restorations, one- of-a-kind finds, and/or whatever brings you pleasure and joy. mike From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Dec 24 13:22:54 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 11:22:54 -0800 Subject: 5.25 drive with sector output In-Reply-To: <20071224103521.P26454@shell.lmi.net> References: <20071224103521.P26454@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: > From: cisin at xenosoft.com> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Re : 5.25 drive with sector output> > > The drive I'm planning on using is an old Qume drive with> > a IBM lable on the front. It is a QUMETRAK 142. It is> > You might want to get it working with a RELIABLE drive, first.> Then it will be a lot easier to tell whether the problems are due to drive> malfunctions v implementation.> Hi Fred The drive I'm going to use has been checked to be working on a PC. What do you have against the Qume drives. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Dec 24 13:35:51 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 11:35:51 -0800 Subject: 5.25 drive with sector output In-Reply-To: <476F8B0C.22691.3DCED6DD@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712240939.lBO9d9RI085925@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476F8B0C.22691.3DCED6DD@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: cclist at sydex.com > ---snip--- >> > Most newer 3.5" drives subsume the "ready" circuit into a monolithic > hunk of silicon with the rest of the drive control. Index output > pulses are blocked until the period between indexes satisfies some > internal "ready" standard. Also, 3.5" drives can have *very* wide > index pulses when compared to 5.25" and 8" drives. > > Of course, any 5.25" drive with this logic (and it's very common) > will view a hard-sector disk as not being anywhere near the correct > speed, so will not only not come ready, but will block *all* index > pulses going out. That is why I like the Qume. It has no monolithic chips. Just 14 and 16 pin dips. If needed, I can bypass any such circuits if needed to get the ready signal. > > This feature has a curious implication if you decide to replace an > older drive without the "block index until ready" logic with a newer > drive with that logic. Many controllers (such as the WD1770) or > software will count up a few sectors after select or motor on before > commencing an operation. The result is that everything still works, > but the latency after selecting a drive increases significantly. The double density controller uses a serial chip. I don't expect to use the controller once I manage to get the floppies archived. I have a single density system runnning fine on my 8813 now. My main issue is to get the data from the disk. Dwight > > Note that once the drive been selected and come ready, this is not an > issue. > > For what it's worth, > Chuck > _________________________________________________________________ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Dec 24 14:24:06 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 12:24:06 -0800 Subject: 5.25 drive with sector output In-Reply-To: <476F8B0C.22691.3DCED6DD@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712240939.lBO9d9RI085925@dewey.classiccmp.org> <476F8B0C.22691.3DCED6DD@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: cclist at sydex.com --snip--- > > Note that once the drive been selected and come ready, this is not an > issue. > > For what it's worth, > Chuck > Hi If I don't have any problems with the ready signal, I have drawn up a simple circuit using two 555s, a 74S38, some resistors and capacitors. The timing looks good so it should work. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Dec 24 14:48:21 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 12:48:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: Qume 142 (was: Re : 5.25 drive with sector output In-Reply-To: References: <20071224103521.P26454@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20071224124249.E31313@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 24 Dec 2007, dwight elvey wrote: > Hi Fred > The drive I'm going to use has been checked to be working on > a PC. What do you have against the Qume drives. > Dwight 1) It is the slowest drive that IBM ever used. Normally, that wouldn't matter to me, but it was SO slow that IBM had to switch from PC-DOS two point zero to PC-DOS two point ten to handle a drive that was TOO slow. 2) We had an extremely high failure rate with that particular drive. From doc at mdrconsult.com Mon Dec 24 15:25:30 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:25:30 -0600 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <01C84634.FEFE9500@mandr71> References: <01C84634.FEFE9500@mandr71> Message-ID: <477023CA.3080002@mdrconsult.com> M H Stein wrote: > Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 01:20:15 -0000 > From: "Ensor" > Subject: Re: Yet another VT-100 emulator > > >> But like everyone else, you've missed the point. The OP was originally >> asking about standard IBM cards, not about VESA "standard" cards which are a >> different kettly of fish.... >> TTFN - Pete. > > ------------ > Actually, I think *you*'re missing the point of this whole thread, which is the > feasibility of 132 column mode in Dave's VT-100 emulator; FYI I'll quote the OP: > ... > "Does anyone know if any of the more modern (ie: VGA) cards support enhanced > 132 column text modes? - And is the video addressing basically the same except > for 132 words of memory per line instead of 80? And where to find more information? > If it could be reliably determined that support was there, and it is compatible with > my text windowing code, it would not be difficult to add support for it." > ... I've been following this in a very casual way, so maybe it's already been offered, but the Linux kernel source contains a lot of documentation about VESA modes and VESA polling. A quick whole-word grep for "vesa" in /Documents lists several files in /Documents/fb and /Documents/svga.txt The source files and header files themselves are generally reasonably well-commented, and should also be informative. It's all in the kernel source tarballs available at ftp.kernel.org, or I could make an archive of just those docs and the associated driver trees if anybody wants them. Doc From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Dec 24 16:35:00 2007 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 17:35:00 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <200712241148.43299.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <006901c845cb$248fa350$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Message-ID: <200712242141.lBOLf9hm009543@hosting.monisys.ca> > On Sunday 23 December 2007 20:20, Ensor wrote: > > But like everyone else, you've missed the point. The OP was > > originally asking about standard IBM cards, not about VESA "standard" > > cards which are a different kettly of fish.... > > That must be why didn't add VESA 132-column mode to his VT100 emuatlor. > Oh wait... > > On Tuesday 18 December 2007 09:42, Dave Dunfield wrote: > > I've just posted a new version of LAPTALK, which supports 132 column > > mode. In order to enable it, you must configure the 132 column video > > mode under "General Parameters". 0-255 are standard BIOS modes, and > > 256-511 are VESA modes (sorry, but you have to set the mode in > > decimal). It also supports set/reset "column" (132 column) mode now > > (if the mode is configured). Guys ... get a life! FWIW, I really don't care for or against VESA - I just wanted to provide the capability to do 132 columns because someone had asked for it that had a good chance of working on more than one type of card. You seem to have snipped the bit about FIND132, the program I wrote to seek out 132 column modes from ALL available video modes. FWIW-2 - So far, of about 1/2 dozen systems I've found 132 column modes on, only one of them has been a VESA mode (and iirc it had a vendor proprietary standard mode that was equivalent). I've got a couple more pending updates to the program (now called PC100), including a fix for a bug where configured attributes/colors got misplaced when switching column modes, and semi-support for DEC private mode '?4' - although the PC can't do smooth scrolling in text modes, I've implemented "slow scroll" which limits scrolling speed to about 6 lines/second (same as a VT-100 when smooth scrolling), and a couple of other minor goodies. Of anyone is actually interested in the program because they want to emulate a VT-100 (.vs. arguing about what I intended, or if VESA is a good thing), let me know and I'll get it updated - otherwise I'll wait until later in the week, as I'll probably work on it a bit over the holiday... Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From dave.thearchivist at gmail.com Mon Dec 24 15:50:56 2007 From: dave.thearchivist at gmail.com (Dave Caroline) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 21:50:56 +0000 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <200712242141.lBOLf9hm009543@hosting.monisys.ca> References: <006901c845cb$248fa350$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> <200712241148.43299.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200712242141.lBOLf9hm009543@hosting.monisys.ca> Message-ID: I have the values for Trident and Orchid cards if needed (pre vesa) can dig them out of my Wyse 50 emulator I had way back. Dave Caroline From classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk Mon Dec 24 17:14:29 2007 From: classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk (Ensor) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 23:14:29 -0000 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator References: <01C841CF.8B3681A0@mandr71><006901c845cb$248fa350$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Message-ID: <004601c84682$bc97b1d0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> >> But like everyone else, you've missed the point.... > That must be why didn't add VESA 132-column mode to his VT100 >emuatlor.... Which is something which came along sometime AFTER the original question was posed, moron.... From classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk Mon Dec 24 17:17:02 2007 From: classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk (Ensor) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 23:17:02 -0000 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator References: <01C84634.FEFE9500@mandr71> Message-ID: <004b01c84683$17bb7380$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> Hi, > Actually, I think *you*'re missing the point of this whole thread.... Not at all, but I can't be bothered to argue the toss any longer with a bunch of people who obviously can't read english properly.... Don't bother responding because I'm marking this idiotic thread as "ignored" in my mail reader. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Dec 24 18:11:54 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 16:11:54 -0800 Subject: Qume 142 (was: Re : 5.25 drive with sector output In-Reply-To: <20071224124249.E31313@shell.lmi.net> References: <20071224103521.P26454@shell.lmi.net> <20071224124249.E31313@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: > From: cisin at xenosoft.com > > On Mon, 24 Dec 2007, dwight elvey wrote: >> Hi Fred >> The drive I'm going to use has been checked to be working on >> a PC. What do you have against the Qume drives. >> Dwight > > 1) It is the slowest drive that IBM ever used. Normally, that wouldn't > matter to me, but it was SO slow that IBM had to switch from PC-DOS two > point zero to PC-DOS two point ten to handle a drive that was TOO slow. By slow, you mean step rate? No Problem. > > 2) We had an extremely high failure rate with that particular drive. For what I need, once I've got the setup working, I'll settle for it to work for about another week. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 From classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk Mon Dec 24 18:53:59 2007 From: classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk (Ensor) Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 00:53:59 -0000 Subject: Clearout, final offers [UK] Message-ID: <005901c84690$a3be93f0$0a01a8c0@memoryalpha.org.uk> One last try, this stuff is going to start getting junked at the end of this week unless someone pipes up: --Monitors-- SGI 19" Colour Monitor (white in colour, unknown model #) Philips MDA/Hercules Monitor --Terminals-- Televideo 950 (*2, spares or repair) Wyse 30 Zenith Z89 (spares or repair) --Computers-- Power Macintosh (Dunno model # offhand) BBC Micro (*2) CBM PET (at least 3, plus floppy drive units) Tandon PAC-286 (c/w kbd, monitor, printer) --Printers-- HP LaserJet+ IBM ProPrinter XL24 (unknown condition) --Other-- Philips CDD-462 External CD-ROM drive Odd stand alone NCR tape drive unit Telexbox III (possibly *2) BT Modem rack (contains some 10 14k modem cards) Philips BSB Satellite Receiver (*3) Tatung BSB Satellite Receiver Panasonic Analogue Satellite Receiver "Micro Decision" magazines from 1989/90 There's a reasonable amount of other stuff which I haven't been able to get at to catalogue yet which will also be on offer. Please contact me directly at "ensor" at the domain name this message came from for more details or if you're interested in any of this stuff as I'll be quitting the list over the next couple of days. TTFN - Pete. From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Dec 24 19:11:06 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 17:11:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: Qume 142 (was: Re : 5.25 drive with sector output In-Reply-To: References: <20071224103521.P26454@shell.lmi.net> <20071224124249.E31313@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20071224170927.O40028@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 24 Dec 2007, dwight elvey wrote: > By slow, you mean step rate? No Problem. OK > > 2) We had an extremely high failure rate with that particular drive. > For what I need, once I've got the setup working, I'll settle for it to > work for about another week. My experiences with an admittedly small sample of a dozen of those drives were that IF you select one that is not DOA, that is about the length of time that you can expect it to continue working. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Dec 24 19:42:08 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 17:42:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: What is a Heathkit H120? In-Reply-To: <200712240312.lBO3C6n6003682@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <860452.98123.qm@web61023.mail.yahoo.com> hmmm I have to wonder though. There were a number of those correspondence type courses where (in later years anyway) they'd send you uhh a Z148 or equivalent to mosh together. Basically a beige box, mostly compatible. I don't remember specific model numbers, nor what was their first *real* peecee either. One might think that they'd a pushed the 100/120 that way if even for a short while. But heck what do I know... OI HEATH*KIT* MEANS A KIT, NO??? --- Bob Bradlee wrote: > The early systems were branded both ways, but I do > not think it was ever available as a kit. > I worked with the Zenith Edusystems distributer in > chicago back then as a consultant building the > Corvis > interface and drivers, so my knowledge of the Heath > side of the company is limited. > > The other Bob > > > On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 17:24:31 -0800 (PST), Chris M > wrote: > > >since it's branded Heath, don't that mean it was > built > >from a kit panky? > > >--- Bob Bradlee wrote: > > >> THe Zenith Z-100 series were dual processor > systems > >> 8085/8088 > >> that could run both CPM80 and MSdos but NOT > PCdos. > >> It was a single board computer with 4 S100 slots > for > >> expansion. > >> > >> There were several configurations a low profile a > >> lot like the SOL20 > >> and an all in one with built in monitor. > >> > >> later > >> The other Bob > >> > >> > >> On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 12:45:38 -0700, Richard > wrote: > >> > >> >Supposedly its a computer, but I can't seem to > find > >> anything on the net > >> >about it. old-computers.com in particular let > me > >> down. > >> >-- > >> >"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 > draft > >> available for download > >> > > >> > > > >> > >> > Legalize Adulthood! > >> > >> > >> > >> > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________________________ > ___ > >Looking for last minute shopping deals? > >Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. > http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php? > category=shopping > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Dec 24 20:05:40 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 18:05:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: looking for a 16 volts dc walwart or equivalent Message-ID: <767401.23783.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> a laptop p/s would be ideal. Anyone offhand know which lt's used 16 volts? Many thanks. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From rtellason at verizon.net Mon Dec 24 20:21:52 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 21:21:52 -0500 Subject: Yet another VT-100 emulator In-Reply-To: <01C84634.FEFE9500@mandr71> References: <01C84634.FEFE9500@mandr71> Message-ID: <200712242121.52755.rtellason@verizon.net> On Monday 24 December 2007 13:57, M H Stein wrote: > Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 01:20:15 -0000 > From: "Ensor" > Subject: Re: Yet another VT-100 emulator > > > > >But like everyone else, you've missed the point. The OP was originally > >asking about standard IBM cards, not about VESA "standard" cards which are > > a different kettly of fish.... > >TTFN - Pete. > > ------------ > Actually, I think *you*'re missing the point of this whole thread, which is > the feasibility of 132 column mode in Dave's VT-100 emulator; FYI I'll > quote the OP: ... > "Does anyone know if any of the more modern (ie: VGA) cards support > enhanced 132 column text modes? - And is the video addressing basically the > same except for 132 words of memory per line instead of 80? And where to > find more information? If it could be reliably determined that support was > there, and it is compatible with my text windowing code, it would not be > difficult to add support for it." ... I kept seeing stuff about what the OP wanted but didn't remember the post and didn't want to jump in, but this helps... I have a habit of altering my /etc/lilo.conf file after a linux install, and changing the line that sometimes refers to a framebuffer or which says "vga = normal" to activate a line that says "vga = ask". When I do that I get prompted after boot to hit to see video modes, and after doing so I get a list of what it's found so far. At that point I can also type "scan" and have it look for some more, if I want, but since (in the case of my server at least) I find a nice 132x60 mode that's still quite readable, I don't usually bother any more. I recently changed that line to specify that mode directly after we had our fun and games with the ice storm and the glitches that caused, choice "a" being also shown as "030c" putting the line "vga = 0x030c" did the trick. I don't know the system well enough to say exactly where one might start looking, but a perusal of the source code of any recent linux should show this code, both the one that comes up with the initial list and the one that probes further, when "scan" is typed, to give a pretty good idea of how it's done. Hope this helps... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Mon Dec 24 20:25:19 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 21:25:19 -0500 Subject: Qume 142 (was: Re : 5.25 drive with sector output In-Reply-To: <20071224170927.O40028@shell.lmi.net> References: <20071224170927.O40028@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200712242125.19951.rtellason@verizon.net> On Monday 24 December 2007 20:11, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Mon, 24 Dec 2007, dwight elvey wrote: > > By slow, you mean step rate? No Problem. > > OK > > > > 2) We had an extremely high failure rate with that particular drive. > > > > For what I need, once I've got the setup working, I'll settle for it to > > work for about another week. > > My experiences with an admittedly small sample of a dozen of those drives > were that IF you select one that is not DOA, that is about the length of > time that you can expect it to continue working. I've not had bad luck with those drives, so if you all have any that you don't want, feel free to let me know... -- 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 steve at radiorobots.com Mon Dec 24 20:32:27 2007 From: steve at radiorobots.com (Steve Stutman) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 21:32:27 -0500 Subject: looking for a 16 volts dc walwart or equivalent In-Reply-To: <767401.23783.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <767401.23783.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47706BBB.3000803@radiorobots.com> Chris M wrote: >a laptop p/s would be ideal. Anyone offhand know which >lt's used 16 volts? Many thanks. > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ >Looking for last minute shopping deals? >Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping > > Panasonic Toughbooks use bricks rated 15.6 VDC @ 3-6A, depending on model. Have not scoped, but presume that it is a SMPS with "reasonable" regulation. Use a couple here, "CF-AA1653-XX"; XX is output connector. GL and HH, Steve From rescue at hawkmountain.net Mon Dec 24 21:28:21 2007 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 22:28:21 -0500 Subject: looking for a 16 volts dc walwart or equivalent In-Reply-To: <767401.23783.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <767401.23783.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <477078D5.4050708@hawkmountain.net> Chris M wrote: > a laptop p/s would be ideal. Anyone offhand know which > lt's used 16 volts? Many thanks. > IBM Thinkpad laptops (at least 365X/XD, 760 series, and I think even the 770 series and 600/600E/600X series, quite possibly many more). -- Curt > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Looking for last minute shopping deals? > Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping > > From fsmith at ladylinux.com Mon Dec 24 22:51:27 2007 From: fsmith at ladylinux.com (Francesca Smith) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 23:51:27 -0500 Subject: Vintage Computer Marketplace Down ?? Message-ID: <200712242351.27990.fsmith@ladylinux.com> Hi, I think its been over a week now as far as I can see. Just wondering if this is just me not being able to get to this site. Has it gone away ?? http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com/ -- Kindest Regards, Francesca Smith "No Problems Only Solutions" Lady Linux Internet Services Baltimore, Maryland 21217 From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Mon Dec 24 10:59:59 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 11:59:59 -0500 Subject: 2N2/256-BSCP Message-ID: <0JTK009V6CJT5Q95@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Re : 2N2/256-BSCP > From: Dave McGuire > Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 11:08:01 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" > >On Dec 24, 2007, at 3:56 AM, ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >>>> Given that there's a limit on the number of transistors, I don't >>>> see what >>>> advantage using SOT23s would give you. >>> >>> It'd be easier to assemble. >> >> Only if you don't spend hours looking for the transistors that flew off >> the end of your tweezers :-). > > Oh, SOT23s are easy to deal with. 01005-size components are the ones >that just disappear without a trace. > >> My point is that while SOT23s didn't exist 40 years ago, there is no >> real >> reason to prohibit them in a project like this. Limit the number of >> transistors, sure. Insist on an architecture that could be built 40 >> years >> ago, sure. But should the use of a storage 'scope to debug the thing be >> prohibited too, on the grounds that hobbyists 40 yrars ago were lucky >> to >> have _any_ 'scope? Do you prohibit writing simulators for the >> transistorised machine, on the grounds that 40 years ago hobbyists >> wouldn't have had anything to run them on? > > I'd have to agree. Actually the Accutron watch used a very small tansistor to excite the tuning fork the package was a three legged item of .095" diameter and 0.130 long with the 3 leads exiting the end. I've had 4 of them in my parts collection for over 35 years looking for a small project. Small existed back then. Keep in mind the Apollo Guidence computer is over 40 years old and that was 3input nor gates! Transistor computers were near their end 40 years ago with ICs making inroads. So comments on predominently transistor computers really have to point to prior to around 1968ish and thats within a week of 40 years ago. The interesting transistor machines are in the time frame of TX1 through PDP-8 roughly 1957 to 1967 (someon can fine tune those days). Anywho the dividing line is around 1963 and prior for germainium transistors (grown and diffused junctions types) and after then for silicon devices with superior characteristics. Allison > > -Dave > >-- >Dave McGuire >Port Charlotte, FL From classiccmp.org at stellar.eclipse.co.uk Tue Dec 25 07:57:14 2007 From: classiccmp.org at stellar.eclipse.co.uk (Stroller) Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 13:57:14 +0000 Subject: Curiosity on eBay UK: "antique" Video Conferencing System Message-ID: Item number: 270198584951 A Google returns this 1993 article in which the product is mentioned: Just before Christmas, BT launched its VC7000 conference unit (made by Tandberg in Norway). This is a low-cost digital videophone, with a 25-centimetre colour cathode-ray tube screen which is switchable between 64 and 128 kbit/s working. It costs ?7500. BT puts the cost of an hour's video call at 128 kbit/s to the US at ?168, but Mercury promises to undercut this by nearly ?40. Call cost can be halved by switching the phone to work at 64 kbit/s, but most serious users prefer to pay more to get the better pictures and clearer sound available from 128 kbit/s working. The British telecommunications giant GPT is also selling 64-128 kbit/s systems, with screens measuring up to 70 centimetres, for around ?40 000. -------------- next part -------------- Stroller. From cannings at earthlink.net Tue Dec 25 16:01:43 2007 From: cannings at earthlink.net (Steven Canning) Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 14:01:43 -0800 Subject: Major technical milestone- 60 years References: Message-ID: <000301c84741$bd25b330$0201a8c0@hal9000> December 16, 1947 ( sixty years ago ) the transistor was developed by John Bardeen , Walter Brattain, and William Shockley from Bell Labs. The rest, as they say, is history !! Best regards, Steven From steve at radiorobots.com Tue Dec 25 16:23:00 2007 From: steve at radiorobots.com (Steve Stutman) Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 17:23:00 -0500 Subject: Major technical milestone- 60 years In-Reply-To: <000301c84741$bd25b330$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <000301c84741$bd25b330$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <477182C4.20607@radiorobots.com> Steven Canning wrote: >December 16, 1947 ( sixty years ago ) the transistor was developed by John >Bardeen , Walter Brattain, and William Shockley from Bell Labs. > >The rest, as they say, is history !! > >Best regards, Steven > > > > See Lilienfeld's January 1930 patent; 1, 745, 175. FETs before bipolars. Steve From john at guntersville.net Tue Dec 25 16:31:16 2007 From: john at guntersville.net (John C. Ellingboe) Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 16:31:16 -0600 Subject: Major technical milestone- 60 years In-Reply-To: <000301c84741$bd25b330$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <000301c84741$bd25b330$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <477184B4.7050200@guntersville.net> Steven Canning wrote: > December 16, 1947 ( sixty years ago ) the transistor was developed by John > Bardeen , Walter Brattain, and William Shockley from Bell Labs. > And 10 to 15 years before that, ARRL, in its magazine QST, published schematics and all the other necessary info to build a solid state audio amplifier. I seem to remember 1932 or there abouts. > The rest, as they say, is history !! > > Best regards, Steven > > > > . > From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Dec 25 17:29:05 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 23:29:05 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Vintage Computer Marketplace Down ?? In-Reply-To: <200712242351.27990.fsmith@ladylinux.com> Message-ID: <568577.57973.qm@web23412.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Someone has already confirmed that it was a planned outtage. Just to make sure you don't miss this message I have CC'ed it to you. Sellam confessed to not doing a good job at communicating the planned outtage, but it should be back up again soon once all the data is transferred to new servers :) Merry Christmas, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Francesca Smith wrote: Hi, I think its been over a week now as far as I can see. Just wondering if this is just me not being able to get to this site. Has it gone away ?? http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com/ -- Kindest Regards, Francesca Smith "No Problems Only Solutions" Lady Linux Internet Services Baltimore, Maryland 21217 From ballsandy at msn.com Tue Dec 25 19:44:43 2007 From: ballsandy at msn.com (john ball) Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 23:44:43 -0200 Subject: How uncommon are DEC racks these days Message-ID: I have had my fun with Unix boxes but I think it's time to try something a little older and more complex. I first thought about looking for an older IBM mainframe like the system/36 but my chances of finding one were pretty much slim to none so I then thought about the computers that DIGITAL made. Yes it would be fantastic to own something like a PDP-12 rack (how often do you see a bright green computer these days?) but knowing how my luck is almost never with me I would have to settle with something smaller. That returns me to my chances of finding a PDP. I live in Western Canada and so far it has been hard enough just finding a SPARCstation 1+ so I assume that something like a PDP will be even harder. How common are DEC's these days and where are they usually found and how much do they usually go for if any price at all? It would be a rather nice (but late) christmas present to myself. _________________________________________________________________ Read what Santa`s been up to! For all the latest, visit asksantaclaus.spaces.live.com! http://asksantaclaus.spaces.live.com/ From g-wright at att.net Tue Dec 25 22:31:27 2007 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 04:31:27 +0000 Subject: Cromemco 64FDC manual, needed Message-ID: <122620070431.15702.4771D91E000F3A4900003D5622193100029B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> I have been looking for a readable copy of the schematic for this card. It seems that the Harte Technology copy is all that's out there. The schematic is real poor quality Anyone have one they have scanned ???? Thanks, Jerry Jerry Wright g-wright at att.net From Watzman at neo.rr.com Tue Dec 25 23:20:30 2007 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:20:30 -0500 Subject: What is a Heathkit H120? In-Reply-To: <200712251801.lBPI147h006260@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <000601c8477f$08891780$6500a8c0@barry> The H-120 was a generic designation for the "all-in-one" version of the Heathkit / Zenith Data Systems Z-100 series of personal computers (actual units had a slightly different model number depending on their configuration). It was a dual processor system, 8085 and 8088, could run both CP/M and MS-DOS (but it was not PC compatible at the hardware level). It had a large motherboard that included a 5-slot S-100 expansion backplane at the rear. The system was available both in kit form and assembled, the assembled models carried Zenith Data Systems rather than Heathkit labels but were identical. The kit was mostly pre-assembled, only the floppy disk controller and video monitor deflection boards were actually build by the buyer, otherwise the kit was just a final assembly task of factory assembled & tested boards. The system had a floppy disk controller that could support both 8" and 5" drives simultaneously (I think four 8" and three 5" drives). A hard drive controller was also offered that could support two MFM hard drives. Video came from a dedicated video board that was, for it's time, quite sophisticated (the PC had nothing better until the EGA cards came out). It was pure bit-mapped color graphics, 640x225 resolution. There was a major revision of the motherboard after about 2 years of production, the early models had a 5MHz 8088 and 3 banks of 64k each (192k total) memory, the later models COULD (but did not always) have an 8MHz 8088 and the memory banks could be 256MB chips per bank (768MB total) rather than 64k per bank. Models with the late motherboard (85-2806) could be upgraded to the faster CPU or larger memory if desired by changing some parts. The early motherboard (85-2653) could not be easily upgraded (plans for upgrading the early motherboard do exist, but it is a MASSIVE undertaking in terms of the number of changes, cuts and jumpers required. It takes a real masochist to undertake it). Barry Watzman [One of the architects of the Z-100 and the computer Product Line Director for both Heathkit and Zenith Data Systems from 1979-1983]. From fsmith at ladylinux.com Wed Dec 26 12:08:56 2007 From: fsmith at ladylinux.com (Francesca Smith) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 13:08:56 -0500 Subject: Vintage Computer Marketplace Down ?? In-Reply-To: <200712261800.lBQI0K78015449@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712261800.lBQI0K78015449@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <200712261308.56793.fsmith@ladylinux.com> On Wednesday 26 December 2007 01:00:34 pm cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: Hi, It was not so much a complaint on my part but rather a observation. I run and own several web hosting companies so I know the difficulties involved. :-) I get mail from this list in digest form so there is some lag in getting notifies. > Someone has already confirmed that it was a planned outtage. Just to make > sure you don't miss this message I have CC'ed it to you. > > Sellam confessed to not doing a good job at communicating the planned > outtage, but it should be back up again soon once all the data is > transferred to new servers :) -- Kindest Regards, Francesca Smith "No Problems Only Solutions" Lady Linux Internet Services Baltimore, Maryland 21217 From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Dec 26 13:04:15 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 13:04:15 -0600 Subject: looking for a 16 volts dc walwart or equivalent In-Reply-To: <477078D5.4050708@hawkmountain.net> References: <767401.23783.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> <477078D5.4050708@hawkmountain.net> Message-ID: <4772A5AF.4080500@gmail.com> Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote: > Chris M wrote: >> a laptop p/s would be ideal. Anyone offhand know which >> lt's used 16 volts? Many thanks. > > IBM Thinkpad laptops (at least 365X/XD, 760 series, and I think even the > 770 series and 600/600E/600X series, quite possibly many more). Confirmed for the 600E - 16VDC, 3.36A (IBM p/n 02K6543). Nice compact PSU, 100-240VAC input at 50-60Hz. cheers, Jules From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Dec 26 13:20:33 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 11:20:33 -0800 Subject: Recovering my Poly disk In-Reply-To: <122620070431.15702.4771D91E000F3A4900003D5622193100029B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> References: <122620070431.15702.4771D91E000F3A4900003D5622193100029B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: Hi I've been hacking some code to recover data on Polymorphic disk. I been making goo progress but run into a couple of stumbling blocks. First I have both 8 inch disk and 5.25 inch disk to recover from. In the 5.25 disk, I had both single and double density disk. I had a single density controller on my Polymorphic 8813. I was able to read these disk images with that machine and firmware. I think I forgot to mention, all the disk are hard sectored. I got a double density controller card that I'm repairing now. I found code for the ROM on this card on one of my SSSD 5.25 disk. At first I thought the code was for the 5.25 because I saw a bunch of variables with 0Ah in them( the 5.25's are 10 sectored ). On looking at the code some more, I find that the code was really for 32 sectors. The 0Ah was for retries( Baaa ). I don't know if I have any double sided 8 inch drives. I bought a SA851 years ago but have no idea where it might be today. I'll look for it. Just in case, is there someone in the SF bay area with a SA851 that I might barrow. I'm not ready for it but hope to be in a few weeks or months( I'm still figuring out the code ). I may deside to work on the DSDD 5.25 disk first. I'll need to modify the code and make some mods to the controller ( crystal and a few timing caps ). It has a PLL to recover data but it is timed for the 8 inch rate. I'll need to slow it down for the 5.25s I have ( about 50 or so 5.25s ). The PLL looks easy to adjust. It has a feed back mode to keep the PLL running while not reading the disk. I should be able to use this to get it adjusted. It will require changes to the code as well. The 8inch are 32 hardsectored while the 5.25 are 10. I'm not sure about the sector data size but the 5.25 are most likely 512 or 256 for 10 sectored double density. Anyway this should be easy to determine( I just need to do a little math ). I do have a question. The board has a delay line to create the early and late signals for writing the bits. There are no numbers on it. Does anyone know the values used for early and late on double density 8 inch and on double density 5.25? Thanks Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Dec 26 13:48:14 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 11:48:14 -0800 Subject: Recovering my Poly disk In-Reply-To: References: <122620070431.15702.4771D91E000F3A4900003D5622193100029B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: > From: dkelvey at hotmail.com ---snip--- > Just in case, is there someone in the SF bay area with > a SA851 that I might barrow. I'm not ready for it but ---snip--- Hi I should note that a SA850 would be OK as well. I don't need the data/clock separator and I've already built a index/sector splitter for the 5.25 disk. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Dec 26 13:52:17 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:52:17 -0500 Subject: What is a Heathkit H120? In-Reply-To: <000601c8477f$08891780$6500a8c0@barry> References: <000601c8477f$08891780$6500a8c0@barry> Message-ID: <200712261452.17932.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 26 December 2007 00:20, Barry Watzman wrote: > The H-120 was a generic designation for the "all-in-one" version of the > Heathkit / Zenith Data Systems Z-100 series of personal computers (actual > units had a slightly different model number depending on their > configuration). It was a dual processor system, 8085 and 8088, could run > both CP/M and MS-DOS (but it was not PC compatible at the hardware level). > It had a large motherboard that included a 5-slot S-100 expansion backplane > at the rear. The system was available both in kit form and assembled, the > assembled models carried Zenith Data Systems rather than Heathkit labels > but were identical. The kit was mostly pre-assembled, only the floppy disk > controller and video monitor deflection boards were actually build by the > buyer, otherwise the kit was just a final assembly task of factory > assembled & tested boards. > > The system had a floppy disk controller that could support both 8" and 5" > drives simultaneously (I think four 8" and three 5" drives). A hard drive > controller was also offered that could support two MFM hard drives. > > Video came from a dedicated video board that was, for it's time, quite > sophisticated (the PC had nothing better until the EGA cards came out). It > was pure bit-mapped color graphics, 640x225 resolution. Thinking back on that stuff, wasn't it one of those machines that used some rather odd memory parts for either the main RAM or the video? The ones I'm thinking of were half the normal capacity, presumably chips that failed on one side or the other but still had half a chip usable. I'm vaguely recalling something about how you had to match the ones you had so that they were all responding to the same addresses, either "upper" or "lower", 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 jim at photojim.ca Wed Dec 26 14:11:52 2007 From: jim at photojim.ca (Jim MacKenzie) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:11:52 -0600 Subject: How uncommon are DEC racks these days In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000301c847fb$8e1fc7f0$09dea8c0@melbourne> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of john ball > Sent: December 25, 2007 7:45 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: How uncommon are DEC racks these days > > > I live in Western Canada > and so far it has been hard enough just finding a > SPARCstation 1+ so I assume that something like a PDP will be > even harder. Whereabouts are you? I'm in Regina, Saskatchewan and in my basement I have a VAXstation 4000/100, Sun Sparcstation 20 and Sun UltraSparc 1/170E, all running, plus a VAXstation 3100 and a VAX 4000/100 (neither running but both should be in working order). Jim From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Dec 26 14:30:05 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 12:30:05 -0800 Subject: Recovering my Poly disk In-Reply-To: References: <122620070431.15702.4771D91E000F3A4900003D5622193100029B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: > From: dkelvey at hotmail.com ---snip--- > I do have a question. The board has a delay line to > create the early and late signals for writing the bits. > There are no numbers on it. Does anyone know the > values used for early and late on double density 8 inch > and on double density 5.25? Hi I was just looking at the specs for the I82077. They list the compoensation values, as recommended, of 125ns for both 500 kbs and 250 kbs. I would guess that means I could use the same delay line for both. I don't expect I'll need it anyway since I'm primarily reading disk. It would be nice to both read and write once I've completed the project though. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ From dm561 at torfree.net Wed Dec 26 15:47:42 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 16:47:42 -0500 Subject: Cromemco 64FDC manual, needed Message-ID: <01C847DF.09ABEB00@MSE_D03> Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 04:31:27 +0000 From: g-wright at att.net Subject: Cromemco 64FDC manual, needed >Content-Type: text/plain >I have been looking for a readable copy of the schematic for this card. >It seems that the Harte Technology copy is all that's out there. The >schematic is real poor quality >Anyone have one they have scanned ???? >Thanks, Jerry >Jerry Wright >g-wright at att.net ----------------- Marcus also has an excellent collection of Cromemco manuals at: http://maben.homeip.net/static/S100/cromemco/cards/index.html but it looks like his is the same scan as Howard's. They're good scans; it's the original that's bad. I'll look around to see if I've got a different revision of the manual which might be better. There were also a number of revisions and mods, depending on which CPU it was used with. Just curious: why do you need it? mike From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 26 17:19:27 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 15:19:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: What is a Heathkit H120? In-Reply-To: <000601c8477f$08891780$6500a8c0@barry> Message-ID: <612187.17800.qm@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> --- Barry Watzman wrote: > The system had a floppy disk controller that could > support both 8" and 5" > drives simultaneously (I think four 8" and three 5" > drives). A hard drive > controller was also offered that could support two > MFM hard drives. The Z100 Lifeline or some such site has info on an IDE card that's custom to the Z100 and 120 I guess. I can dig out the specific URL if anyone can't find it. > Video came from a dedicated video board that was, > for it's time, quite > sophisticated (the PC had nothing better until the > EGA cards came out). It > was pure bit-mapped color graphics, 640x225 > resolution. Woa not true. The Sanyo MBC-550/555 had, IINM, 640 x 240 x 16 or something. I could be wrong on that specific item though. There was talk of the Tandy 1000 having over 200 lines of resolution, but it took tricks to access the modes (maybe it wasn't really talk, just drivel LOL). There were many a pseudo-compatible that had 640 x 400 x 8, like the TRS-80 model 2000. There were aftermarket cards like the Sigma 400, Persyst BOB, others, that gave a vanilla pc 400 lines of res in color modes. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 26 17:20:47 2007 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 15:20:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: What is a Heathkit H120? In-Reply-To: <200712261452.17932.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <646309.865.qm@web61018.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Roy J. Tellason" wrote: > Thinking back on that stuff, wasn't it one of those > machines that used some > rather odd memory parts for either the main RAM or > the video? The ones I'm > thinking of were half the normal capacity, > presumably chips that failed on > one side or the other but still had half a chip > usable. I'm vaguely > recalling something about how you had to match the > ones you had so that they > were all responding to the same addresses, either > "upper" or "lower", > something like that. Uh not sure, but the IBM System 23/Datamaster has redundant ram chippers. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From Watzman at neo.rr.com Wed Dec 26 19:02:44 2007 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:02:44 -0500 Subject: Cromemco 64FDC manual, needed In-Reply-To: <200712261801.lBQI18as015487@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <002a01c84824$30836880$6500a8c0@barry> I am probably the original source of that manual, and actually the manual is quite good .... except for the schematic. That probably reflects how the schematic in the manual actually was. I have two other files that contain the schematics for the 64FDC in a better quality format. One is a 24MB multi-page TIFF file (not too many readers can read multi-page TIFF files), the other is an adobe acrobat pdf file produced from the TIFF file which is a 6-page pdf file and it's only 720k in size. The 24MB TIFF file was scanned from an original at 600 dpi, and the pdf file, not withstanding that it's only 5% as large, seems to have retained the quality of the tif file. Barry Watzman Message: 3 Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 04:31:27 +0000 From: g-wright at att.net Subject: Cromemco 64FDC manual, needed To: cctalk at classiccmp.org (cc_talk) Message-ID: <122620070431.15702.4771D91E000F3A4900003D5622193100029B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809 079D99D309 at att.net> Content-Type: text/plain I have been looking for a readable copy of the schematic for this card. It seems that the Harte Technology copy is all that's out there. The schematic is real poor quality Anyone have one they have scanned ???? Thanks, Jerry Jerry Wright g-wright at att.net From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Dec 26 19:15:09 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 18:15:09 -0700 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: <20071214115137.R5209@shell.lmi.net> References: <200712141543.lBEFhE5R026565@dewey.classiccmp.org> <200712141411.12069.rtellason@verizon.net> <20071214115137.R5209@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4772FC9D.2050401@jetnet.ab.ca> Fred Cisin wrote: > On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote: >> This whole idea strikes me as just plain crazy... >> But! For some reason the above reminded me of something that I was >> considering early on, probably early 1970s or so. Instead of a drum just >> use a loop of tape. You can start with an old reel-to-reel deck, ignoring > > Howzbout an 8-track? > > Unfortunately, the kids today don't even remember them, so wouldn't fully > appreciate the absurdity. Was not the stringy floppy a medium like that? Ben alias woodelf From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Dec 26 19:34:40 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 18:34:40 -0700 Subject: digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <20071216163517.L14500@shell.lmi.net> References: <81159.65216.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> <1197846613.6640.3.camel@elric> <20071216163517.L14500@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <47730130.7010100@jetnet.ab.ca> Fred Cisin wrote: > On Sun, 16 Dec 2007, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >> Hm. Big sheets of granite and a CNC mill gets my vote. > > But please archive the documentation, also. > (unlike the world's largest hard sector media (Stonehenge)) > And enode it phoneticly so the pre-apes evolving from 2001 can learn to read it. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Dec 26 19:41:26 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 18:41:26 -0700 Subject: Delay lines in TV sets In-Reply-To: <964264.33872.qm@web90401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <964264.33872.qm@web90401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <477302C6.7090009@jetnet.ab.ca> Tom Watson wrote: > If you decide to make up a delay line to hold CPU data, try a prototype using > shift registers. They are a bit easier to make up, and often the chips are > available. The problem is that they come in weird (at times) sizes (132, 80, > and the like). I'll leave it to the reader to determine the usability of odd > sizes and their original use. What about DUAL ported memorys clocked with delay line speeds? From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Dec 26 22:28:59 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:28:59 -0800 Subject: Recovering my Poly disk In-Reply-To: References: <122620070431.15702.4771D91E000F3A4900003D5622193100029B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: > From: dkelvey at hotmail.com > >> From: dkelvey at hotmail.com > ---snip--- >> Just in case, is there someone in the SF bay area with >> a SA851 that I might barrow. I'm not ready for it but > ---snip--- > > Hi > I should note that a SA850 would be OK as well. I don't > need the data/clock separator and I've already built > a index/sector splitter for the 5.25 disk. > Dwight Hi I shouldn't need the disk drive. I just dug through my storage locker and found a REMEX 4820 drive. It is intended to be a slave to a smart drive. Many of the signals are inverted but I can always add some inverters to the board I made for the index/sector separator baord. I found docs on Al Kossow's web site. Thanks Al. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Dec 26 23:49:35 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 23:49:35 -0600 Subject: How uncommon are DEC racks these days References: <000301c847fb$8e1fc7f0$09dea8c0@melbourne> Message-ID: <002c01c8484c$433a0790$6600a8c0@JWEST> I posted just a few days ago about two dec racks (corp cabs) going out to the trash that day. They are still out there, but the dumpster arrived today so they will be gone tomorrow. Also going out the door and into the dumpster tomorrow, a "wide" corp cab. This is the more modern beige rack, but this one is wider than usual (I think vax's were commonly in this type of cabinet). There is the normal 19" wide rackspace, but on this one there an extension on the side about 1/3 of a cabinet wide used for cable management. It formerly housed an 11/44, TS05, RX02, and RA81. If someone wants them speak up now.... Jay From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Dec 26 23:59:30 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 23:59:30 -0600 Subject: Data I/O software Message-ID: <47733F42.8080102@mdrconsult.com> A friend has a Data I/O 2900 and has lost the disks to it. He says he found Disk 1 of v5.7 and Disk 2 of v5.8, and Disk 3 of both sets is missing. Anybody able to help out with disk images? Doc From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Dec 27 00:07:52 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 00:07:52 -0600 Subject: vt220 & TV950 source? Message-ID: <00d701c8484e$d1123720$6600a8c0@JWEST> Insurance company is paying to clean some of my "affected" gear. However, they want me to get a price on just replacing the vt220 & televideo 950 instead of getting those two cleaned & ozoned. I found one dealer selling refurb vt220 w/LK201 for $248USD. Anyone else have a preferred source where I can buy either of the above? Jay West From g-wright at att.net Thu Dec 27 00:23:13 2007 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 06:23:13 +0000 Subject: 11-44 panels needed Message-ID: <122720070623.3053.477344D00002BB8300000BED22243651029B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> -------------- Original message from "Jay West" : -------------- > I posted just a few days ago about two dec racks (corp cabs) going out to > the trash that day. They are still out there, but the dumpster arrived today > so they will be gone tomorrow. > > Also going out the door and into the dumpster tomorrow, a "wide" corp cab. > This is the more modern beige rack, but this one is wider than usual (I > think vax's were commonly in this type of cabinet). There is the normal 19" > wide rackspace, but on this one there an extension on the side about 1/3 of > a cabinet wide used for cable management. It formerly housed an 11/44, TS05, > RX02, and RA81. If someone wants them speak up now.... > > Jay > > If no one wants the whole thing ??? I'm still looking for the top and 1 side panel for my 11-44 system Has the flip up rails for the 11-44. So the main top panel is removeable. - Jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc g-wright at att.net From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Dec 27 00:48:21 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 01:48:21 -0500 Subject: Anybody need some Z80 chips? Message-ID: <01C8482A.ABBBD860@MSE_D03> I've got a pile of Z80 ICs here that I don't need; anybody want some? Z80 CPU Z80 DART Z80 SIO Z80 CTC Some A & B versions, Mostek, SGS & Zilog, various date codes. Also some SMC CRT9007s; plastic & ceramic, some with heat sinks. mike From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Dec 27 00:56:25 2007 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 00:56:25 -0600 Subject: 11-44 panels needed References: <122720070623.3053.477344D00002BB8300000BED22243651029B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: <00ff01c84855$99bed6a0$6600a8c0@JWEST> > I'm still looking for the top and 1 side panel for my 11-44 system > Has the flip up rails for the 11-44. So the main top panel is removeable. I'm familiar with the top panel you're talking about. I have one on a mid size corp cab that the /44 I'm keeping is in. But I've also seen 44's in those cabinets without the piston-assist tiltup "rails" and instead use the "rotate up" chassistrak rails. Only one of the cabinets I'm getting rid of have the style of top you're looking for, and on that one the top is missing :\ I don't think that one has side panels, but I'll check. That cabinet style also has two different depths that I'm aware of. What does your existing side panel measure? Jay From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Wed Dec 26 07:32:01 2007 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 08:32:01 -0500 Subject: How uncommon are DEC racks these days Message-ID: <0JTN00BZES93XGF2@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: How uncommon are DEC racks these days > From: john ball > Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 23:44:43 -0200 > To: > > >I have had my fun with Unix boxes but I think it's time to try something a little older and more complex. >I first thought about looking for an older IBM mainframe like the system/36 but my chances of finding one were pretty much slim to none so I then thought about the computers that DIGITAL made. Yes it would be fantastic to own something like a PDP-12 rack (how often do you see a bright green computer these days?) but knowing how my luck is almost never with me I would have to settle with something smaller. That returns me to my chances of finding a PDP. I live in Western Canada and so far it has been hard enough just finding a SPARCstation 1+ so I assume that something like a PDP will be even harder. How common are DEC's these days and where are they usually found and how much do they usually go for if any price at all? PDP-12s are rare. there were very few made and fewer available. Estimates are around a dozen around. More likely candidates and PDP-10 (later models), PDP-11s. >It would be a rather nice (but late) christmas present to myself. You can find PDP-11s easily enough, PDP-8 of the omnibus era are easy to find earlier 8s are much fewer. In the PDP10 realm the later '10s (system 20s) are still findable though there were not all that many made in that family. So the likely candidates in order of most frequently found/bought to least. You can buy or find these fairly cheap ======================================= microVAX (all sorts and easily found) PDP-11 (qbus) very common PDP-11 Unibus PDP-8[E,F,M,a] omnibus VAX 750 and 730s Good luck! ============ VAX (78x series, ) PDP-8 earlier [L, I, and straight] PDP10 (system 20 later models) Everything else is scarce to rare or only a few left on earth. What differentiates them is production volumes. Some the volumes were very small like a PDP-6 where there were something less than 10 made. Allison >_________________________________________________________________ >Read what Santa`s been up to! For all the latest, visit asksantaclaus.spaces.live.com! >http://asksantaclaus.spaces.live.com/= From FJGJR1 at aol.com Wed Dec 26 21:40:14 2007 From: FJGJR1 at aol.com (FJGJR1 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 22:40:14 EST Subject: 6 Kaypro "8" computers + parts, etc. Message-ID: Are you interested in purchasing working Kaypro "8"'s [not II, 2, IV, 4] and parts / items for them? They are much more powerful than the early standard Kaypros and I have found none on my many web searches, although they were very popular upgrades / modifications in the 1980's. I am posting a lot of information on _www.vintage-computer.com_ (http://www.vintage-computer.com/) , now that I can finally access it. There were about 5 previous posts by me "GADFRAN" but I was not able to do anything else on the site except post. I will also check back on this website also periodically. We are downsizing in retirement and sometime in the Spring of 2008, April or May, we will get our next dumpster. They are on the list to be disposed of ,unless it is worthwhile disposing of them in another acceptable way. Naturally,I will try eBay with a local go between. They served my wife and I very well in the 1980's and early 1990's in our many professional, volunteer and hobbies. I can send you a detailed list with even s/n, model numbers, digital pictures, etc. Briefly: all 6 working Kaypro "8"'s were modified by me from Kaypro 4's using Microcornucopia directions and parts. I kept them running with whatever that was needed including: 2 CRT's + boards 4 main boards 4 power supplies 2 keyboards numerous chips including Z80's - A and B, etc. numerous Teac and Tandon drives Technical manuals original software etc. Thanks! Frank **************************************See AOL's top rated recipes (http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004) From silent700 at gmail.com Thu Dec 27 09:50:56 2007 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 09:50:56 -0600 Subject: 6 Kaypro "8" computers + parts, etc. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <51ea77730712270750r7e3d9381o3a032efcddc390a6@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 26, 2007 9:40 PM, wrote: > Are you interested in purchasing working Kaypro "8"'s [not II, 2, IV, 4] and > parts / items for them? They are much more powerful than the early standard > Kaypros and I have found none on my many web searches, although they were > very popular upgrades / modifications in the 1980's. And the most important bit...............where are they?? From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Dec 27 11:44:58 2007 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 12:44:58 -0500 Subject: How uncommon are DEC racks these days In-Reply-To: <0JTN00BZES93XGF2@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JTN00BZES93XGF2@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <200712271244.58439.pat@computer-refuge.org> Fine, I have to disagree with this sorting a bit. On Wednesday 26 December 2007 08:32, Allison wrote: > You can buy or find these fairly cheap > ======================================= > PDP-11 Unibus Not cheap, unless you find someone who hasn't discovered ebay yet. > PDP-8[E,F,M,a] omnibus Ditto, > Good luck! > ============ > VAX (78x series, ) Maybe harder to find, but also relatively cheap if you do. The last two that I got from ebay were $60 (three years ago) and $200 (this year), respectively. I haven't seen ANY -8 go for less than about $1500, and any Unibus-11 is going to be well over $200, with toggles, probably no less than $800 for a /5 or /10, or $1k+ for anything that has an MMU (and speed). Though, I know there's at least one person on the list (though not geographically near you) who has 11/780s that they told me that they want to part with. I don't want to post who, just in case. :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ggs at shiresoft.com Thu Dec 27 11:55:49 2007 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 09:55:49 -0800 Subject: How uncommon are DEC racks these days In-Reply-To: <200712271244.58439.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <0JTN00BZES93XGF2@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> <200712271244.58439.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <4773E725.6020903@shiresoft.com> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > Fine, I have to disagree with this sorting a bit. > > On Wednesday 26 December 2007 08:32, Allison wrote: > >> You can buy or find these fairly cheap >> ======================================= >> PDP-11 Unibus >> > > Not cheap, unless you find someone who hasn't discovered ebay yet. > I have some 11/44's and 11/84's that can go fairly cheap (well as far as unibus system go). I also have 11/05's and 11/10's that depending upon configurations start at ~$500. I also have a "real" 11/83 (ie not an 11/53 that was upgraded) that can go for ~250 or so. > >> PDP-8[E,F,M,a] omnibus >> > > Ditto, > > >> Good luck! >> ============ >> VAX (78x series, ) >> > > Maybe harder to find, but also relatively cheap if you do. The last two > that I got from ebay were $60 (three years ago) and $200 (this year), > respectively. I haven't seen ANY -8 go for less than about $1500, and > any Unibus-11 is going to be well over $200, with toggles, probably no > less than $800 for a /5 or /10, or $1k+ for anything that has an MMU > (and speed). > > Though, I know there's at least one person on the list (though not > geographically near you) who has 11/780s that they told me that they > want to part with. I don't want to post who, just in case. :) > I also have some 11/780, 11/780-5 and 11/785 that we can talk about. :-) I'm in San Jose California. -- TTFN - Guy From coredump at gifford.co.uk Thu Dec 27 12:45:35 2007 From: coredump at gifford.co.uk (John Honniball) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 18:45:35 +0000 Subject: Sun 3/60 - how to boot this thing? In-Reply-To: <20071227140843.GA68240@pin.if.uz.zgora.pl> References: <20071227140843.GA68240@pin.if.uz.zgora.pl> Message-ID: <4773F2CF.5080005@gifford.co.uk> Edward Tomasz Napierala wrote: > I just got a Sun 3/60, 8MB RAM, no disk. I have several questions: Do you have the monitor and/or keyboard for it, too? > 1. Were these used with an external disk? There is some room inside the > machine, but there are also several strange looking capacitors there. Yes, they were used with either an external SCSI disk enclosure known as a "shoebox" or with a network disk (NFS). The latter setup was known as a diskless workstation. > 2. With diag switch set to "norm", there is nothing (no output) on the > serial console; the machine just blinks one of the LEDs. With diag > switch set to "diag", the following appears: OK; if you have a keyboard plugged in, then the boot messages will go to the built-in framebuffer (i.e. the video monitor). Without a keyboard, the machine boots up "headless" and sends messages to the serial port. > Boot PROM Selftest > > PROM Checksum Test > Context Reg Test > Segment Map Wr/Rd Test > Segment Map Address Test > Page Map Test > Memory Path Data Test > NXM Bus Error Test > Interrupt Test > TOD Clock Interrupt Test > MMU Access Bit Test > MMU Access/Modify Bit Test > MMU Invalid Page Test > MMU Protected Page Test > Parity Test > Memory Size = 0x00000008 Megabytes > > Selftest passed. > > Type a character within 10 seconds to enter Menu Tests... > (e for echo > mode) > > Is that a sign of EEPROM problem? Failed battery? It looks OK to me. What happens if you wait 10 seconds? Do you get a monitor prompt? To boot from the external SCSI disk (which I presume you don't yet have) there's a "boot sd(0,0,0)" command (or similar). I think there may be help built-in at the monitor command level, but it all depends on how old the monitor ROMs are. Old versions had less helpful help than newer versions... -- John Honniball coredump at gifford.co.uk From djg at pdp8.net Thu Dec 27 12:47:56 2007 From: djg at pdp8.net (djg at pdp8.net) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:47:56 -0500 Subject: Mailing list search Message-ID: <200712271847.lBRIlu213177@user-119apiu.biz.mindspring.com> I have never gotten it to work. I have tried a couple times over some reasonable long (month?) time and it always says no matches found. Is it just me? http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/ No matches were found for '(digital or digitally)' From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Dec 27 13:32:32 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:32:32 -0600 Subject: digital camera capabilities In-Reply-To: <47730130.7010100@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <81159.65216.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> <1197846613.6640.3.camel@elric> <20071216163517.L14500@shell.lmi.net> <47730130.7010100@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4773FDD0.7050104@gmail.com> woodelf wrote: > Fred Cisin wrote: >> On Sun, 16 Dec 2007, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >>> Hm. Big sheets of granite and a CNC mill gets my vote. >> >> But please archive the documentation, also. >> (unlike the world's largest hard sector media (Stonehenge)) >> > And enode it phoneticly so the pre-apes evolving from > 2001 can learn to read it. :-) Who's to say that Stonehenge isn't actually the documentation, and we just haven't found the software yet... I got to (casually) thinking about this 'universal media archive format' thing again the other week (the concept that crops up here every once in a while). It got me pondering questions about regionalisation - i.e. should English be enforced for anything human-readable within the structure of an archive or not? Will file formats that are able to be tailored to a specific country survive better than ones which try to be 'global' but enforce a specific language? Or do pure binary formats beat them all - even if they make decoding that much harder for future generations? It made my brain hurt anyway, so I gave up thinking about it... ;) Merry whatever-you-want-to-call-it anyway! cheers Jules From brad at heeltoe.com Thu Dec 27 13:32:54 2007 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 14:32:54 -0500 Subject: free strongarm sa1100 devel system kit Message-ID: <200712271932.lBRJWsfO016495@mwave.heeltoe.com> I have a strongarm (sa1100) development board I'm about to pitch and I thought maybe someone here would want it. It's an "Assabet" board I think. It once booted linux. I have some of the original cdrom's also and the serial cable and power supply. The devel board has ethernet, usb, lcd and sound. It seems like it's 10 years old anyway :-) I believe the part has been EOL'd. If you want it, send me you address and paypal postage. The box weighs 5lbs (.3 stone? :-) -brad Brad Parker Heeltoe Consulting +1-781-483-3101 http://www.heeltoe.com From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Dec 27 13:41:37 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:41:37 -0600 Subject: Mailing list search In-Reply-To: <200712271847.lBRIlu213177@user-119apiu.biz.mindspring.com> References: <200712271847.lBRIlu213177@user-119apiu.biz.mindspring.com> Message-ID: <4773FFF1.1060506@gmail.com> djg at pdp8.net wrote: > I have never gotten it to work. I have tried a couple times > over some reasonable long (month?) time and it always says no > matches found. Is it just me? > > http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/ > > No matches were found for '(digital or digitally)' Jay will doubtless be along, but I think (from hazy memory) the fundamental issues were that the default re-indexing process tries to re-index everything (rather than just adding 'new' content), the process often takes more hours than there are available in the day to run, and search queries return no results whilst the re-indexing is in progress. Someone - I'd have to check my own archives to find the relevant message - was archiving all list traffic online. Then there was once talk of re-implementing the search engine (I believe the current one is some default that comes with the mailing list software), but I suspect that the issue is that the people with the time/inclination to do that don't then have the resources to actually make the result 'live' (and Jay's understandably hampered by there only being one of him ;) cheers Jules From ballsandy at msn.com Thu Dec 27 13:50:40 2007 From: ballsandy at msn.com (john ball) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:50:40 -0200 Subject: How uncommon are DEC racks these days Message-ID: >Whereabouts are you? I'm in Regina, Saskatchewan and in my basement I have >a VAXstation 4000/100, Sun Sparcstation 20 and Sun UltraSparc 1/170E, all >running, plus a VAXstation 3100 and a VAX 4000/100 (neither running but both >should be in working order). > >Jim I live in Kamloops BC so I am two provinces over. :( The closest thing I found DEC related in this town was a random EIA distribution panel for a rack and that was in the trash. >I posted just a few days ago about two dec racks (corp cabs) going out to >the trash that day. They are still out there, but the dumpster arrived today >so they will be gone tomorrow. > >Also going out the door and into the dumpster tomorrow, a "wide" corp cab. >This is the more modern beige rack, but this one is wider than usual (I >think vax's were commonly in this type of cabinet). There is the normal 19" >wide rackspace, but on this one there an extension on the side about 1/3 of >a cabinet wide used for cable management. It formerly housed an 11/44, TS05, >RX02, and RA81. If someone wants them speak up now.... > >Jay Ack! even if you were close to me it's too late now. :( _________________________________________________________________ Read what Santa`s been up to! For all the latest, visit asksantaclaus.spaces.live.com! http://asksantaclaus.spaces.live.com/ From ballsandy at msn.com Thu Dec 27 13:55:15 2007 From: ballsandy at msn.com (john ball) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:55:15 -0200 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) Message-ID: Fred Cisin wrote: > On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote: >> This whole idea strikes me as just plain crazy... >> But! For some reason the above reminded me of something that I was >> considering early on, probably early 1970s or so. Instead of a drum just >> use a loop of tape. You can start with an old reel-to-reel deck, ignoring > > Howzbout an 8-track? > > Unfortunately, the kids today don't even remember them, so wouldn't fully > appreciate the absurdity. >Ben alias woodelf wrote: >Was not the stringy floppy a medium like that? First off, I would like to add that I am only 17 but to answer the question, yes, the stringy floppy was to a degree just like the 8-track drive people made. Actually, I have here instructions on how to modify a regular 8-track deck to work with a regular TRS-80 model I. _________________________________________________________________ Introducing the City @ Live! Take a tour! http://getyourliveid.ca/?icid=LIVEIDENCA006 From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Dec 27 14:12:03 2007 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:12:03 -0700 Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47740713.5050908@jetnet.ab.ca> john ball wrote: > First off, I would like to add that I am only 17 but to answer the question, yes, the stringy floppy was to a degree > just like the 8-track drive people made. Actually, I have here instructions on how to modify a regular 8-track deck > to work with a regular TRS-80 model I. I am 17+ :) I think a drum computer model be made using standard components and this could give some insite on the real hardware design. PS. Remember the first computer Cray built was using Ge reject transistors. From Arno_1983 at gmx.de Thu Dec 27 15:31:00 2007 From: Arno_1983 at gmx.de (Arno Kletzander) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:31:00 +0100 Subject: Framegrabber MMAC and WinTV questions Message-ID: <20071227213100.235730@gmx.net> Hello listmembers! Apart from the usual Season's Greetings to all of you, I've got some questions again. Sometime this year, I scored some kind of video digitizer/framegrabber card out of an old PC. These days I managed to analyze the harddisk that came with it for drivers, but didn't find any. The board has a PCI edge connector, a BT848 video decoder (datecode from '96, so marginally on-topic), two crystals, a bunch of passives, and an s-video socket plus two RCA sockets accessible from the outside. Manufacturer is "MultiMedia Access Corporation" according to the etch, a sticker holds the part number "91-00109-01 Rev. C" and a serial number. www.MMAC.com now redirects to the site of ViewCast and the oldest stuff I was able to find there and in the waybackmachine are drivers for a series of cards called "Osprey". Anybody got some hints for what I've got there and where to find drivers/software for it? Additionally, can somebody please enlighten me as to the pinout of that weird 7-pin Mini-DIN video input connector on the WinTV PCI series cards? I know that the outer four pins will accept a standard s-video cable, but I don't have the adaptor plug needed for composite input and would like to cobble up a replacement. Thanks in Advance, and my best wishes for a successful year 2008. Yours sincerely, Arno Kletzander. -- Arno Kletzander Stud. Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen www.iser.uni-erlangen.de Ist Ihr Browser Vista-kompatibel? Jetzt die neuesten Browser-Versionen downloaden: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/browser From grant at stockly.com Thu Dec 27 15:35:28 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 12:35:28 -0900 Subject: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting In-Reply-To: <476BC588.11687.2F1358B8@cclist.sydex.com> References: <476BC588.11687.2F1358B8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <0JTQ000CK9ARYD70@msgmmp-1.gci.net> At 12:54 PM 12/21/2007, you wrote: >If you feel this subject is too far off-topic, please respond >privately. OTOH, it just might help some who are trying to repair >some of the old gear that uses SMT. > >At any rate, I've got some 68-pin TQFP packages that I need to mount >on a PCB. I've searched the web and become throughly confused over >recommendations. > >I'd like to stay away from using a hot-air rework iron as I don't >think I have enough skill to use it without causing some damage to >the PCB or component. I'd like to use my temperature-controlled >Weller soldering station as the heat source. I'll also be using Sn- >Pb solder rather than lead-free. > >Two approaches that I've seen for conventional soldering iron >mounting involve what I'll call "flood and suck" that involves >covering all of the leads on one side of the QFP on the PCB with >solder and then using a solder "sucker" (such as a Soldapullt) to >remove the excess. > >The other approach uses solder wick (solder removal braid), laying >the braid over the QFP leads and PCB and heating and applying solder >*through* the braid to the leads. > >I'm fairly confident that I could do either, but who's had real >success with either method? I've never done it with either method. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQXhny3R7lk From innfoclassics at gmail.com Thu Dec 27 17:28:39 2007 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:28:39 -0800 Subject: Sun 3/60 - how to boot this thing? In-Reply-To: <4773F2CF.5080005@gifford.co.uk> References: <20071227140843.GA68240@pin.if.uz.zgora.pl> <4773F2CF.5080005@gifford.co.uk> Message-ID: On Dec 27, 2007 10:45 AM, John Honniball wrote: > Edward Tomasz Napierala wrote: > > I just got a Sun 3/60, 8MB RAM, no disk. I have several questions: > > Do you have the monitor and/or keyboard for it, too? > > > 1. Were these used with an external disk? There is some room inside the > > machine, but there are also several strange looking capacitors there. > > Yes, they were used with either an external SCSI disk enclosure > known as a "shoebox" or with a network disk (NFS). The latter > setup was known as a diskless workstation. I have some shoeboxes in storage for those machines. I think they have 1 Gig 5 1/4 full ht drives inside and have the oldstyle 3 row 50 pin rectangular SCSI connector. No CPUs anymore, nor cables.. Very heavy for shipping.. If you need one let me know. Paxton -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Dec 27 17:47:11 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:47:11 -0800 Subject: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting Message-ID: <4774397F.5030403@bitsavers.org> I've never done it with either method. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQXhny3R7lk --- That is EXACTLY the technique I used! Note the flux application beforehand and putting the flat of the soldering iron towards the body of the chip, with solder going in towards the board over surface of the iron. From grant at stockly.com Thu Dec 27 18:51:32 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:51:32 -0900 Subject: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting In-Reply-To: <4774397F.5030403@bitsavers.org> References: <4774397F.5030403@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <0JTQ002OSIDJ4A00@msgmmp-1.gci.net> At 02:47 PM 12/27/2007, you wrote: >I've never done it with either method. > >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQXhny3R7lk > > >--- > > >That is EXACTLY the technique I used! Note the flux >application beforehand and putting the flat of the >soldering iron towards the body of the chip, with >solder going in towards the board over surface of >the iron. The only thing that separates his method from most of the methods discussed here is the board being vertical. The solder likes gravity more than its own surface tension. It makes boards easy! From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Dec 27 19:10:22 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 20:10:22 -0500 Subject: Data I/O software In-Reply-To: <4773E730.1060902@flippers.com> References: <47733F42.8080102@mdrconsult.com> <4773E730.1060902@flippers.com> Message-ID: <2a36e2bf08faf2082e91a2748b92539a@neurotica.com> On Dec 27, 2007, at 12:56 PM, John Robertson wrote: >> A friend has a Data I/O 2900 and has lost the disks to it. He says >> he found Disk 1 of v5.7 and Disk 2 of v5.8, and Disk 3 of both sets >> is missing. >> >> Anybody able to help out with disk images? > > You can try contacting the fellow that took over Data-I/O support for > the obsolete equipment. His name is Alfred Marin and I have found him > very helpful in the past with reasonable requests. Email is > "mlps_vt(at)verizon(duh)net". > > He might charge for this software, some he gives away...might take a > few days to get back to you. As far as I'm aware, Data I/O is still updating and selling UniFamily software (which includes the 2900) for Very Big Bucks (~$1200), and will be for the foreseeable future. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Dec 27 19:19:30 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 01:19:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Homebrew Drum Computer (magnetic heads) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <399596.61062.qm@web23406.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Only 17? You must either work with (!) or have a relative involved with retro computers, as I can't see how else someone so young would know (let alone be interested) in retro computers. Most of us grew up with computers in the 80's or earlier. Drifting a little, I just a Spectrum emu for the Amiga (yes, I'm running a Speccy emu on an Amiga emu on a laptop running Windows 2K!) where the copyright date is 1982. Does that make the Spectrum emu a 48K Speccy emulator? I have only used a ZX Spectrum 128K before. Happy Holidays, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk john ball wrote: First off, I would like to add that I am only 17 but to answer the question, yes, the stringy floppy was to a degree just like the 8-track drive people made. Actually, I have here instructions on how to modify a regular 8-track deck to work with a regular TRS-80 model I. _________________________________________________________________ Introducing the City @ Live! Take a tour! http://getyourliveid.ca/?icid=LIVEIDENCA006 From legalize at xmission.com Thu Dec 27 19:50:06 2007 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 18:50:06 -0700 Subject: CDC Grid Display Subsystem Message-ID: I just got the Hardware Reference Manual on ebay for the CDC Grid Display Subsystem (Publication No. PD82134500 September, 1969, PD-1-0). This doesn't appear to be on bitsavers; I'm not sure but I haven't stumbled across it in the pdf/cdc folder. The manual is a photocopy of an original and will be scanned for bitsavers. GRID stands for Graphical Interactive Display, making "Grid Display Subsystem" contain a redundant "Display" when expanded. This looks like an interesting system with a builtin console and enclosure containing all the graphics processing hardware. Has anyone used one? Anyone got any photos? The manual just has diagrams. Included with the manual was: - a short whitepaper on the "GRID Operating System (GOS)", marked "Robert Gammill 9/11/70", 13 pgs. - "GRID* USER MANUAL", John Walker, David Robertson, Robert Gammill, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado 80302, December 1971, 36 pgs. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mardy at voysys.com Thu Dec 27 20:34:19 2007 From: mardy at voysys.com (Marden P. Marshall) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 21:34:19 -0500 Subject: Looking for California Computer Systems Z-80 CPU Card Message-ID: Hi All, I'm looking to get my hands on a California Computer Systems Model 2810 Z-80 CPU card. This is an S-100 bus card. Anybody out there have one they want to sell? I'm also looking for a readable schematic for this card. Thanks, -Mardy From trag at io.com Thu Dec 27 19:55:39 2007 From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 19:55:39 -0600 Subject: Free for Shipping, PSpice & P-CAD Security Devices In-Reply-To: <200712271800.lBRI0g7C027690@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712271800.lBRI0g7C027690@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: I am throwing stuff out and found these two dongles. The first is a little 2" X 2" dongle which says "Plug into serial port" on one end and has a female DB25 port, with a pass through on the other end. It says PSpice MicroSIM Corporation, Electrical Circuit Simulator, ID #66097". The other is a long module labeled "P-CAD Software Security Device, 104-0019-01, Serial No. 15871, 047-0124-00. This module is about 12" long and has a lid which hinges upwards and contains ten slots for small modules. One module is installed and it is labeled "PC-CAPS, Serial No. 7125, 104-0120-01". This long module also has a pass-through and appears to require a 9VDC power supply. I have no use for these and only a vague idea of how I would make use of them. So if anyone wants them for the cost of shipping let me know by email. I am in Austin, TX near Spicewood Springs and Mopac. If I don't make arrangements with anyone by Sunday, they're going in the trash. Jeff Walther From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Dec 28 00:43:07 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:43:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: updates to the Alpha Micro Phun Machine Message-ID: <200712280643.lBS6h7I3012112@floodgap.com> A greatly updated history of Alpha Micro, including their use of alternative operating systems such as UNIMOS/Unix and Pick, and the invasion of the clone systems, is now up on the Alpha Micro Phun Machine. In addition, the models page is tremendously expanded with corrected chronology and more information on loadouts. This is all with the help of Bob Fowler, who graciously allowed me to raid his AMUS document archive and take images. He also put a lot of his software onto a QIC tape for me, but naturally my AM-626 streamer has decided to be recalcitrant, so this will wait for the next update until I can fix it. Also, I recently acquired an AM-1200, and there will be a model page for that as soon as I get it operational. http://ampm.floodgap.com/ -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- The son becomes the father, the father becomes the son, the uncle has a beer. From trasz at FreeBSD.org Thu Dec 27 08:08:43 2007 From: trasz at FreeBSD.org (Edward Tomasz Napierala) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:08:43 +0100 Subject: Sun 3/60 - how to boot this thing? Message-ID: <20071227140843.GA68240@pin.if.uz.zgora.pl> I just got a Sun 3/60, 8MB RAM, no disk. I have several questions: 1. Were these used with an external disk? There is some room inside the machine, but there are also several strange looking capacitors there. 2. With diag switch set to "norm", there is nothing (no output) on the serial console; the machine just blinks one of the LEDs. With diag switch set to "diag", the following appears: Boot PROM Selftest PROM Checksum Test Context Reg Test Segment Map Wr/Rd Test Segment Map Address Test Page Map Test Memory Path Data Test NXM Bus Error Test Interrupt Test TOD Clock Interrupt Test MMU Access Bit Test MMU Access/Modify Bit Test MMU Invalid Page Test MMU Protected Page Test Parity Test Memory Size = 0x00000008 Megabytes Selftest passed. Type a character within 10 seconds to enter Menu Tests... (e for echo mode) Is that a sign of EEPROM problem? Failed battery? -- If you cut off my head, what would I say? Me and my head, or me and my body? From jrr at flippers.com Thu Dec 27 11:56:00 2007 From: jrr at flippers.com (John Robertson) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 09:56:00 -0800 Subject: Data I/O software In-Reply-To: <47733F42.8080102@mdrconsult.com> References: <47733F42.8080102@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <4773E730.1060902@flippers.com> Doc Shipley wrote: > A friend has a Data I/O 2900 and has lost the disks to it. He says > he found Disk 1 of v5.7 and Disk 2 of v5.8, and Disk 3 of both sets is > missing. > > Anybody able to help out with disk images? > > > Doc > > You can try contacting the fellow that took over Data-I/O support for the obsolete equipment. His name is Alfred Marin and I have found him very helpful in the past with reasonable requests. Email is "mlps_vt(at)verizon(duh)net". He might charge for this software, some he gives away...might take a few days to get back to you. John :-#)# -- John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames) www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out" From vax9000 at gmail.com Thu Dec 27 14:59:34 2007 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:59:34 -0500 Subject: looking for Chad Martin Message-ID: Hello people, I am looking for Chad Martin to talk about his computer in my hand. If you know his current email address please let me know off-line. His previous one (name @ fli...) stopped working. Best, vax9000 From vax9000 at gmail.com Thu Dec 27 15:05:36 2007 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:05:36 -0500 Subject: microvax 3800 available in NE ohio Message-ID: Hello people, I am dumping my small collection. If anybody is interested and is able to pick it up, you are welcome to get it. I do not ship or store. It was a complete microvax 3800 (upgraded to 3900) but I took the KA655 to fix my barebone 3900. You get the computer with RA7? DISK, DSSI disk controller, memory, ethernet card, tape card and tape drive. Plug in a KA655 and it is ready to go. vax9000 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ever watched "American Beauty"? From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de Thu Dec 27 15:32:21 2007 From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit) Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:32:21 +0100 (CET) Subject: Sun 3/60 - how to boot this thing? In-Reply-To: <20071227140843.GA68240@pin.if.uz.zgora.pl> References: <20071227140843.GA68240@pin.if.uz.zgora.pl> Message-ID: <9771.217.225.80.69.1198791141.squirrel@217.225.80.69> Edward Tomasz Napierala said: > I just got a Sun 3/60, 8MB RAM, no disk. I have several questions: > > 1. Were these used with an external disk? There is some room inside the > machine, but there are also several strange looking capacitors there. You can use a SCSI disk there, but then, depending on the model and capacity, you need to set some parameters in /etc (IIRC some format.dat file) to make it known to SunOS. Typically, those machines where used as diskless clients from a bootp server with sufficient storage. The client boots from the network and receives a tftpboot image which then pulls in the SunOS kernel and uses NFS to mount some /export/root, /export/swap and /usr file systems. /export/root and /export/swap are per-system instances of the root file system and swap file for the client, /usr is usually readonly for all clients. Unless you have a boot media (QIC24 tape or floppies) and can hook an external drive to the machine, you better set up a server for diskless clients. This can also be a Sparc machine. > 2. With diag switch set to "norm", there is nothing (no output) on the > serial console; the machine just blinks one of the LEDs. With diag > switch set to "diag", the following appears: > > Boot PROM Selftest > > PROM Checksum Test > Context Reg Test > Segment Map Wr/Rd Test > Segment Map Address Test > Page Map Test > Memory Path Data Test > NXM Bus Error Test > Interrupt Test > TOD Clock Interrupt Test > MMU Access Bit Test > MMU Access/Modify Bit Test > MMU Invalid Page Test > MMU Protected Page Test > Parity Test > Memory Size = 0x00000008 Megabytes > > Selftest passed. > > Type a character within 10 seconds to enter Menu Tests... > (e for echo > mode) > > Is that a sign of EEPROM problem? Failed battery? The above is correct behaviour. With the diag switch set to NORM, the machine expects a keyboard/mouse and monitor; it will then usually wait for a boot command at the ">" prompt. Typing "b le()" attempts to boot from the server; "b st(0,,0)" would boot a QIC tape to be connected, "b (0,3,0)/vmunix" should boot a disk connected to SCSI with normal settings IIRC. You should also see a ">" prompt after self test at the serial console. Regards Holger From bert at brothom.nl Fri Dec 28 03:19:02 2007 From: bert at brothom.nl (Bert Thomas) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 10:19:02 +0100 Subject: Slightly OT: TQFP mounting In-Reply-To: <0JTQ000CK9ARYD70@msgmmp-1.gci.net> References: <476BC588.11687.2F1358B8@cclist.sydex.com> <0JTQ000CK9ARYD70@msgmmp-1.gci.net> Message-ID: <4774BF86.3090809@brothom.nl> > I've never done it with either method. > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQXhny3R7lk What shape of tip is he using? From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Dec 28 04:19:12 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 05:19:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Sun 3/60 - how to boot this thing? In-Reply-To: <20071227140843.GA68240@pin.if.uz.zgora.pl> References: <20071227140843.GA68240@pin.if.uz.zgora.pl> Message-ID: <200712281025.FAA10021@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > I just got a Sun 3/60, 8MB RAM, no disk. I have several questions: > 1. Were these used with an external disk? Yes, at least sometimes. That's what the DD50 connector on the back panel is for. > 2. With diag switch set to "norm", there is nothing [...] I thought the -3/60 was advanced enough to notice no keybaord and switch to serial console even if it's set to use keybaord/screen. I see three possibilities here: (1) I'm wrong, and at least some -3/60s, including yours, try to use screen/keyboard when set that way in the NVRAM, even if no keyboard is connected. (2) It's set for output to video and input from serial. (This would be an unusual way to set it, but I think it's possible.) (3) It's broken (though, to my eye, the diag output you quote gives no obvious evidence to support this theory). If it's (1), you'll need at least a keybaord; unless you're good enough with -3/60 monitors to type the necessary commands blind, you'll need a display too. If it's (2), you can fix it over the serial port, but, again, unless you can do it typing blind, you'll need a display. > If you cut off my head, what would I say? Me and my head, or me and > my body? Caught you! Trick question - if I cut off your head, you wouldn't be saying anything! /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Fri Dec 28 09:05:37 2007 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 16:05:37 +0100 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? Message-ID: The seasonal holidays give me time to play around a bit ... I wanted to connect my DECprinter I (that's an LA180) but I could not find any documentation here at home, neither on the web! Can somebody who knows or has an LA180 connected tell me how it is hooked to a serial line? Or point me to an LA180 user's manual on the web? >From my guess, the BERG header is "standard" as on M7800 DL11's or M7856 DL11-W, SLU's (with the appropriate lugs either RS-232 or 20 mA current loop), but I would rather be assured than destroying a very nice printer! thanks, Henk From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Fri Dec 28 09:44:33 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 15:44:33 +0000 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> On Fri, Dec 28, 2007 at 04:05:37PM +0100, Henk Gooijen wrote: > > The seasonal holidays give me time to play around a bit ... > I wanted to connect my DECprinter I (that's an LA180) but > I could not find any documentation here at home, neither > on the web! If you can't find the LA-180 manual, perhaps one of the interface manuals is on bitsavers? > Can somebody who knows or has an LA180 > connected tell me how it is hooked to a serial line? > Or point me to an LA180 user's manual on the web? It's not hooked to a serial line. It's an 8-bit parallel printer with handshaking. > >From my guess, the BERG header is "standard" as on M7800 > DL11's or M7856 DL11-W, SLU's (with the appropriate lugs > either RS-232 or 20 mA current loop), but I would rather be > assured than destroying a very nice printer! Just because DEC used the 40-pin BERG on PDP-8 and PDP-11 console interfaces does not make the same connector in the LA-180 a serial interface. The same connector is used on the RL11, RLV11, RLV12, and the RL8A, and is certainly does _not_ carry EIA or 20mA signals on it. It's just a very, very common connector in the DEC world after, say, 1970. The LA-180 can be attached directly to an LP-11, an LPV-11, an LP8E, or a DKC8AA (PDP-8/a multi-I/O board, which inverts some signals and does not have the same IOTs as an LP8E, so uses a different OS/8 driver). I recall a simple circuit with one or two handshake signals inverted to hook a LA-180 to a Centronics-type printer interface, but you'd probably want to find the LA-180 manual for that. I did get a manual with mine, 20 years ago, the size of a small-town phone book. If it's been scanned, it's going to be a large file. It's a great printer. I hope someone can help you find a manual for it. You'll certainly want to be on the lookout for either an LP-11 (quad height) or an LPV-11, depending on what kind of PDP-11 or VAX you have. IIRC, you _can_ stuff an LP interface into a VAX and the VMS LPDRIVER will work (giving you LPA0:) -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 28-Dec-2007 at 15:30 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -11.9 F (-24.4 C) Windchill -33.5 F (-36.4 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 11.6 kts Grid 27 Barometer 684.4 mb (10463 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Dec 28 10:09:29 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 10:09:29 -0600 Subject: Sun 3/60 - how to boot this thing? In-Reply-To: <200712281025.FAA10021@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <20071227140843.GA68240@pin.if.uz.zgora.pl> <200712281025.FAA10021@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <47751FB9.9020808@gmail.com> der Mouse wrote: > (2) It's set for output to video and input from serial. (This would be > an unusual way to set it, but I think it's possible.) I could see that happening for a 'hobby' machine snagged from a dumpster if all the person had was the CPU unit. It'd be reasonably easy to hook some form of graphical display to the machine, but more tricky to emulate a missing Sun keyboard. It was actually my plan for our Sun 2 machine as we were in exactly that situation; we just had the system unit, but no keyboard or display. Finding a capable display would be easy enough though, and we had a few VT220's laying around with dead LOPTs - I was planning on stripping one of those down so it would just run as a nice RS232 keyboard. (Unfortunately I got as far as verifying that the system was healthy, just using a pure RS232 console, then more urgent things needed attention - now I'm a few thousand miles away :-) cheers Jules From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Fri Dec 28 10:35:18 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 08:35:18 -0800 Subject: Sun 3/60 - how to boot this thing? In-Reply-To: <200712281611.lBSGBT0M037327@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712281611.lBSGBT0M037327@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <45e9ae590d9d479210d1df21a571bb84@valleyimplants.com> On Dec 28, 2007, at 8:11 AM, Jules wrote: > I could see that happening for a 'hobby' machine snagged from a > dumpster if > all the person had was the CPU unit. It'd be reasonably easy to hook > some form > of graphical display to the machine, but more tricky to emulate a > missing Sun > keyboard. Yep. Would have shipped with a Type-3, but you can do a cable adaptor from a Type-4 or Type-5. Remember that these need ECL displays and not analog. I believe that after a while the serial console will pop out with a ">", but there are no intermediate messages such as you get with a SPARC. Haven't had one of these for a couple years, but I remember getting the console prompt on serial when I had one I have a DD-50 single drive enclosure and a surfeit of DD-50 -> HD-50 (SCSI-II type) cables, as well as some Type-4 keyboards in my garage. I haven't gotten the original message yet, so I'm not sure where you are - I'm in the Western Washington (state) area. The 3/60 is eminently hackable - look at the Sun-3 Zoo for ideas. People have wired in internal 1/3 ht drives (there are solder pads for a 50-pin header on the SCSI bus) and done many other things. I run my 3/110 diskless from the network (served from an IPX, but Suns are so standard that you should be able to use Linux or xBSD). 4.1.1_U1 is the release of SunOS to get, and it's floating around out there. From classiccmp.org at stellar.eclipse.co.uk Fri Dec 28 11:52:54 2007 From: classiccmp.org at stellar.eclipse.co.uk (Stroller) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:52:54 +0000 Subject: Framegrabber MMAC and WinTV questions In-Reply-To: <20071227213100.235730@gmx.net> References: <20071227213100.235730@gmx.net> Message-ID: On 27 Dec 2007, at 21:31, Arno Kletzander wrote: > ... Sometime this year, I scored some kind of video digitizer/ > framegrabber card out of an old PC.... > > The board has a PCI edge connector, a BT848 video decoder ... I do not believe these are uncommon. Note especially the first link: http://www.google.com/search?q=BT848 Stroller. From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Fri Dec 28 11:59:28 2007 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 18:59:28 +0100 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? In-Reply-To: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> References: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> Message-ID: > Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 15:44:33 +0000> From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?> > On Fri, Dec 28, 2007 at 04:05:37PM +0100, Henk Gooijen wrote:> > > > The seasonal holidays give me time to play around a bit ...> > I wanted to connect my DECprinter I (that's an LA180) but> > I could not find any documentation here at home, neither> > on the web!> > If you can't find the LA-180 manual, perhaps one of the> interface manuals is on bitsavers?> > > Can somebody who knows or has an LA180> > connected tell me how it is hooked to a serial line?> > Or point me to an LA180 user's manual on the web?> > It's not hooked to a serial line. It's an 8-bit parallel> printer with handshaking.> > > >From my guess, the BERG header is "standard" as on M7800> > DL11's or M7856 DL11-W, SLU's (with the appropriate lugs> > either RS-232 or 20 mA current loop), but I would rather be> > assured than destroying a very nice printer!> > Just because DEC used the 40-pin BERG on PDP-8 and PDP-11> console interfaces does not make the same connector in the> LA-180 a serial interface. The same connector is used on> the RL11, RLV11, RLV12, and the RL8A, and is certainly> does _not_ carry EIA or 20mA signals on it. It's just> a very, very common connector in the DEC world after, say,> 1970.> > The LA-180 can be attached directly to an LP-11, an LPV-11,> an LP8E, or a DKC8AA (PDP-8/a multi-I/O board, which inverts> some signals and does not have the same IOTs as an LP8E, so> uses a different OS/8 driver).> > I recall a simple circuit with one or two handshake signals> inverted to hook a LA-180 to a Centronics-type printer> interface, but you'd probably want to find the LA-180> manual for that.> > I did get a manual with mine, 20 years ago, the size of a> small-town phone book. If it's been scanned, it's going to> be a large file.> > It's a great printer. I hope someone can help you find a> manual for it. You'll certainly want to be on the lookout> for either an LP-11 (quad height) or an LPV-11, depending> on what kind of PDP-11 or VAX you have. IIRC, you _can_> stuff an LP interface into a VAX and the VMS LPDRIVER> will work (giving you LPA0:)> > -ethan> > -- > Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 28-Dec-2007 at 15:30 Z> South Pole Station> PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -11.9 F (-24.4 C) Windchill -33.5 F (-36.4 C)> APO AP 96598 Wind 11.6 kts Grid 27 Barometer 684.4 mb (10463 ft)> > Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html Thanks Ethan! That was very informative information! True, that blue BERG header is very common, but I ASSumed that the printer had a serial interface, which made me think that it *could* resemble the DL11 connector. I did not know that the LP11 interface can be used to connect the LA180, but that is great news. I know for sure that I have at least two LP11 UNIBUS modules (M7258) and I will check my cable storage in the attick. I vaguely remember that I have a cable for the LP11! I would like to connect the LA180 to my 11/34C, so that would be great. I have checked bitsavers, but on "LA180" there is not much. However, looking for LP11 is more successful, so after this e-mail I am off to one of the mirror site to grab the LP11 User's Manual for starters :-) I'll report my findings. One day, I might put the other LP11 interface in my VAX-11/750...! thanks again! Henk. From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Fri Dec 28 12:47:10 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 18:47:10 +0000 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? In-Reply-To: References: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> Message-ID: <20071228184710.GA7385@usap.gov> On Fri, Dec 28, 2007 at 06:59:28PM +0100, Henk Gooijen wrote: > > Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 15:44:33 +0000> From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov> Henk, Something is wrong with your mail settings - you quoted my message on a single smashed-up line. > Thanks Ethan! That was very informative information! You are quite wlecome. > True, that blue BERG header is very common, but I ASSumed that > the printer had a serial interface, which made me think that it > *could* resemble the DL11 connector. The LA-120 (DECwriter/printer III) is serial, as is the LA-36, and a bunch of other LA-xxx printers. I think the LA-180 might be unique in its naming series to be parallel. > I did not know that the LP11 interface can be used to connect > the LA180, but that is great news. I know for sure that I have at > least two LP11 UNIBUS modules (M7258)... Perfect. > and I will check my cable > storage in the attick. I vaguely remember that I have a cable for > the LP11! If you don't have a round cable, you can use a pin-1-to-pin-1 40-pin flat cable. That's what I did for my LPV-11 in 1986. It was much cheaper to buy meters of bulk cable and two IDC ends than to get a "real" cable from a DEC reseller. > One day, I might put the other LP11 interface in my VAX-11/750...! I seem to recall doing that myself in the late 1980s, under VMS 4.6, but we also had a "real" line printer we hung off of a DMF-32 DC-37 parallel-out port (sorta like the DKC8AA trick with a PDP-8/a). I think we had an LP25 at the end of that cable, or an LP26. Either way, it was a DEC-badged Dataproducts printer that I wasn't able to rescue when the company folded in the early 1990s - too large and way too worn out (I'd been limping it along for over 4 years at that point). ...but I think we did have the LA-180 on the VAX as a backup for when the ribbon feeder or the paper tractors would freak out on our line printer. It probably died 3 or 4 times a year, requiring parts or extended cleaning/tweaking. We ran box after box of paper through that thing. As I said previously, the LA-180 works with PDP-8s, PDP-11s and VAXen, plus with a single-chip interface (a few inverters), it's possible to hook that same printer up to a "modern" machine with a parallel port (Amiga, PC...) -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 28-Dec-2007 at 18:30 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -14.1 F (-25.6 C) Windchill -36.4 F (-38.0 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 11.8 kts Grid 33 Barometer 684.5 mb (10459 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From cclist at sydex.com Fri Dec 28 13:02:21 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 11:02:21 -0800 Subject: CDC Grid Display Subsystem In-Reply-To: <200712281611.lBSGBT0K037327@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712281611.lBSGBT0K037327@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4774D7BD.12671.52DF6F7@cclist.sydex.com> From: Richard > I just got the Hardware Reference Manual on ebay for the CDC Grid > Display Subsystem (Publication No. PD82134500 September, 1969, PD-1-0). > This doesn't appear to be on bitsavers; I'm not sure but I haven't > stumbled across it in the pdf/cdc folder. The manual is a photocopy of an > original and will be scanned for bitsavers. > > GRID stands for Graphical Interactive Display, making "Grid Display > Subsystem" contain a redundant "Display" when expanded. This looks like > an interesting system with a builtin console and enclosure containing all > the graphics processing hardware. Sounds like a one-off by or for the NCAR crew; given the date, the standard CDC product would have been something like the IGS 274--a large display console with light pen, but with the controller in a separate large 3000-series type (i.e. green glass and "barred" front) cabinet. Certainly hooked up to the 6600's that NCAR owned at the time. Did you check the pubs catalog in the CDC section on bitsavers? It's pretty complete, even listing QSEs. Cheers, Chuck From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Fri Dec 28 13:28:22 2007 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 20:28:22 +0100 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? In-Reply-To: <20071228184710.GA7385@usap.gov> References: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> <20071228184710.GA7385@usap.gov> Message-ID: > Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 18:47:10 +0000> From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?> > On Fri, Dec 28, 2007 at 06:59:28PM +0100, Henk Gooijen wrote:> > > Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 15:44:33 +0000> From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov>> > Henk,> > Something is wrong with your mail settings - you quoted my message> on a single smashed-up line.> > > Thanks Ethan! That was very informative information!> > You are quite wlecome.> > > True, that blue BERG header is very common, but I ASSumed that> > the printer had a serial interface, which made me think that it> > *could* resemble the DL11 connector.> > The LA-120 (DECwriter/printer III) is serial, as is the LA-36, and> a bunch of other LA-xxx printers. I think the LA-180 might be> unique in its naming series to be parallel.> > > I did not know that the LP11 interface can be used to connect> > the LA180, but that is great news. I know for sure that I have at> > least two LP11 UNIBUS modules (M7258)...> > Perfect.> > > and I will check my cable> > storage in the attick. I vaguely remember that I have a cable for> > the LP11!> > If you don't have a round cable, you can use a pin-1-to-pin-1> 40-pin flat cable. That's what I did for my LPV-11 in 1986.> It was much cheaper to buy meters of bulk cable and two IDC ends> than to get a "real" cable from a DEC reseller.> > > One day, I might put the other LP11 interface in my VAX-11/750...!> > I seem to recall doing that myself in the late 1980s, under VMS 4.6,> but we also had a "real" line printer we hung off of a DMF-32 DC-37> parallel-out port (sorta like the DKC8AA trick with a PDP-8/a). I> think we had an LP25 at the end of that cable, or an LP26. Either> way, it was a DEC-badged Dataproducts printer that I wasn't able> to rescue when the company folded in the early 1990s - too large> and way too worn out (I'd been limping it along for over 4 years> at that point).> > ...but I think we did have the LA-180 on the VAX as a backup for> when the ribbon feeder or the paper tractors would freak out on our> line printer. It probably died 3 or 4 times a year, requiring> parts or extended cleaning/tweaking. We ran box after box of> paper through that thing.> > As I said previously, the LA-180 works with PDP-8s, PDP-11s> and VAXen, plus with a single-chip interface (a few inverters),> it's possible to hook that same printer up to a "modern"> machine with a parallel port (Amiga, PC...)> > -ethan> > -- > Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 28-Dec-2007 at 18:30 Z> South Pole Station> PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -14.1 F (-25.6 C) Windchill -36.4 F (-38.0 C)> APO AP 96598 Wind 11.8 kts Grid 33 Barometer 684.5 mb (10459 ft)> > Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html I am using webmail, but it seems that it uses the Outlook Express settings. I hope this is not garbbling everyting into one long unreadable line. I have found the two M7258, and downloaded the LP11 user's manual. Had to go to the attick twice, because the etch on the M7258 says LS11, *not* LP11, so I thought I did not remember the M-number correctly :-) I even found the round cable with headers at both ends *and* text on it written that says "LA180". Now, that *must* be the right cable! The combination of the LA180 with an M7258 is called LA11. I checked the jumpers on the M7258. It is set for LA180 operation, so after cleaning the cable (very dirty!) I hope to print some lines tomorrow! Perhaps I will shoot some pictures to "upgrade" my peripherals pages :-) The second M7258 is jumpered differently, so it was used with one of the other printers mentioned in the user's manual. I even found a third M7258 with a single height board connected via 2" flat cable directly to the BERG header on the M7258. The M-number of that single height module is M59?? Sorry, I forgot the last 2 digits. If somebody needs to know, I will go up the attick for a third time :-) Thanks for sharing experiences from the past Ethan. I always love to read those stories. - Henk. (keeping fingers crossed that quoted text stays in neat lines...) From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Fri Dec 28 14:21:03 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 20:21:03 +0000 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? In-Reply-To: References: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> <20071228184710.GA7385@usap.gov> Message-ID: <20071228202103.GA8910@usap.gov> Hi, Henk, On Fri, Dec 28, 2007 at 08:28:22PM +0100, Henk Gooijen wrote: > > Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 18:47:10 +0000> From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov>... > > I am using webmail, but it seems that it uses the Outlook Express settings. > I hope this is not garbbling everyting into one long unreadable line. Not your text... just what you quote. > I have found the two M7258, and downloaded the LP11 user's manual. Nice. > Had to go to the attick twice, because the etch on the M7258 says LS11, > *not* LP11, so I thought I did not remember the M-number correctly :-) Ah...sorry... LS11 rings a bell as a printer interface, too. > I even found the round cable with headers at both ends *and* text on > it written that says "LA180". Now, that *must* be the right cable! Perfect. It's probably like a falt cable, but only with the essential wires run. > The combination of the LA180 with an M7258 is called LA11. Make sense. > I checked the jumpers on the M7258. It is set for LA180 operation, so > after cleaning the cable (very dirty!) I hope to print some lines tomorrow! Once you get it checked out, one nice thing to do with an LA180 is overstrike ASCII art. There's a really fancy picture of a digitized cat that I have on an OS/8 floppy somewhere. I'm sure the data file is out there to be grabbed. Use a fresh ribbon and give it lots of time to complete. It's stunning. > Perhaps I will shoot some pictures to "upgrade" my peripherals pages :-) When you do, shoot us a URL. > The second M7258 is jumpered differently, so it was used with one of the > other printers mentioned in the user's manual. Since you have the manual there, out of curiosity, what other printers does it support? LP05 and stuff? > I even found a third M7258 > with a single height board connected via 2" flat cable directly to the BERG > header on the M7258. The M-number of that single height module is M59?? > Sorry, I forgot the last 2 digits. If somebody needs to know, I will go up > the attick for a third time :-) Hmm... that sounds interesting. I wonder if that's stock, or just something someone stuck together because it happens to fit. If I'm picturing it right, the only place for the signals to go are out of the edge-fingers of the M59xx module, right? That doesn't sound like any Unibus thing _I_ can think of. > Thanks for sharing experiences from the past Ethan. I always love to read > those stories. You're welcome. I was just in the right place at the right time, and managed to get my hands on a PDP-8 of my own when I was 16, and on a room full of PDP-11s and VAXen at work by the time I was 18. I also had lots and lots of hands-on experience at the time (approx 1982-1994), building and repairing machines (mine and my employer's) by picking up "cheap" boxes and boards that nobody wanted anymore. Once the machines were assembled and working, it was all OS installs, application programming, etc. I had a blast working with the stuff of that era. Fortunately for me, I still have piles of hardware and documenation that I didn't have to leave behind. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 28-Dec-2007 at 20:00 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -15.2 F (-26.2 C) Windchill -36.4 F (-38.0 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 10.3 kts Grid 32 Barometer 684.8 mb (10448 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Fri Dec 28 15:29:24 2007 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 22:29:24 +0100 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? In-Reply-To: <20071228202103.GA8910@usap.gov> References: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> <20071228184710.GA7385@usap.gov> <20071228202103.GA8910@usap.gov> Message-ID: > Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 20:21:03 +0000> From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?> > Hi, Henk,> > On Fri, Dec 28, 2007 at 08:28:22PM +0100, Henk Gooijen wrote:> > > Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 18:47:10 +0000> From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov>...> > > > I am using webmail, but it seems that it uses the Outlook Express settings.> > I hope this is not garbbling everyting into one long unreadable line.> > Not your text... just what you quote.> > > I have found the two M7258, and downloaded the LP11 user's manual.> > Nice.> > > Had to go to the attick twice, because the etch on the M7258 says LS11,> > *not* LP11, so I thought I did not remember the M-number correctly :-)> > Ah...sorry... LS11 rings a bell as a printer interface, too.> > > I even found the round cable with headers at both ends *and* text on> > it written that says "LA180". Now, that *must* be the right cable!> > Perfect. It's probably like a falt cable, but only with the> essential wires run.> > > The combination of the LA180 with an M7258 is called LA11.> > Make sense.> > > I checked the jumpers on the M7258. It is set for LA180 operation, so> > after cleaning the cable (very dirty!) I hope to print some lines tomorrow!> > Once you get it checked out, one nice thing to do with an LA180 is> overstrike ASCII art. There's a really fancy picture of a digitized> cat that I have on an OS/8 floppy somewhere. I'm sure the data file> is out there to be grabbed.> > Use a fresh ribbon and give it lots of time to complete. It's> stunning.> > > Perhaps I will shoot some pictures to "upgrade" my peripherals pages :-)> > When you do, shoot us a URL.> > > The second M7258 is jumpered differently, so it was used with one of the> > other printers mentioned in the user's manual.> > Since you have the manual there, out of curiosity, what other printers> does it support? LP05 and stuff?> > > I even found a third M7258> > with a single height board connected via 2" flat cable directly to the BERG> > header on the M7258. The M-number of that single height module is M59??> > Sorry, I forgot the last 2 digits. If somebody needs to know, I will go up> > the attick for a third time :-)> > Hmm... that sounds interesting. I wonder if that's stock, or just> something someone stuck together because it happens to fit. If I'm> picturing it right, the only place for the signals to go are out of the> edge-fingers of the M59xx module, right? That doesn't sound like any> Unibus thing _I_ can think of.> > > Thanks for sharing experiences from the past Ethan. I always love to read> > those stories.> > You're welcome. I was just in the right place at the right time, and> managed to get my hands on a PDP-8 of my own when I was 16, and on a> room full of PDP-11s and VAXen at work by the time I was 18. I also had> lots and lots of hands-on experience at the time (approx 1982-1994),> building and repairing machines (mine and my employer's) by picking up> "cheap" boxes and boards that nobody wanted anymore. > > Once the machines were assembled and working, it was all OS installs,> application programming, etc. I had a blast working with the stuff> of that era. Fortunately for me, I still have piles of hardware and> documenation that I didn't have to leave behind.> > -ethan> > -- > Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 28-Dec-2007 at 20:00 Z> South Pole Station> PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -15.2 F (-26.2 C) Windchill -36.4 F (-38.0 C)> APO AP 96598 Wind 10.3 kts Grid 32 Barometer 684.8 mb (10448 ft)> > Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html Sorry, I just don't understand why the quoted text is so messed up.It all looks fine before I click the "Send" button. This time, I changedthe encoding from UTF-8 to Western Europe (Windows) ... I better not putmy answers interspersed.If somebody knows how to get this stupid quoting corrected: help!The manual is called "LP11/LS11/LA11 line printer user's manual", butthe etch on the M7258 only says "LS11 interface".The round cable is not a flat cable, but has separate wires. At least,that is how it looks to me. The diameter is approx 0.5". I will shoot apicture of that cable too. I will "announce" the LA180 page when it isfinished ... and hunt down that cat :-) If somebody has that text file, I would love to print it! You got me up the attick for the third time Ethan :-)If you hold the M7258 with the fingers at the right side and look at thecomponent side of the module, the BERG header is at the top left side.The single height module is directly above the M7258, like this ASCII art: ----------------------------------------------------- | ############### ---- \\ | | \ \| M5973 | | component side view | / /| | // | BERG (to M7258) | | ############### ---- ----------------------------------------------------- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <--- flat cable ----------------------------------------------------- | ############### ---- | M7258 | === ===The module is original DIGITAL, it is in the etch, M5973. It's in theField Guide: "M5973 LLD11 U TTL to differential transceiver".There are only 3 fingers connected at the end, for power supply.The way it is, this M5973 must have been installed in position B ofthe slot, where the M7258 goes into an SPC (position C-F). The manual indeed is for the major part concerning the LP01/02/04/05.Wished I could have played with DEC stuff in those days! Cool having your own pdp8 at 16!!Henk (wondering how this will appear on the list!) From doc at mdrconsult.com Fri Dec 28 15:37:25 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 15:37:25 -0600 Subject: Data I/O software In-Reply-To: <4773E730.1060902@flippers.com> References: <47733F42.8080102@mdrconsult.com> <4773E730.1060902@flippers.com> Message-ID: <47756C95.5050602@mdrconsult.com> John Robertson wrote: > Doc Shipley wrote: >> A friend has a Data I/O 2900 and has lost the disks to it. He says >> he found Disk 1 of v5.7 and Disk 2 of v5.8, and Disk 3 of both sets is >> missing. >> >> Anybody able to help out with disk images? >> >> >> Doc >> >> > You can try contacting the fellow that took over Data-I/O support for > the obsolete equipment. His name is Alfred Marin and I have found him > very helpful in the past with reasonable requests. Email is > "mlps_vt(at)verizon(duh)net". > > He might charge for this software, some he gives away...might take a few > days to get back to you. Thanks to everyone who replied. The missing disks have been replaced by a very kind list member. Doc From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Fri Dec 28 16:00:28 2007 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 23:00:28 +0100 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? In-Reply-To: References: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> <20071228184710.GA7385@usap.gov> <20071228202103.GA8910@usap.gov> Message-ID: [Sent again, to get it readable. What can I do to correct this?] Sorry, I just don't understand why the quoted text is so messed up. It all looks fine before I click the "Send" button. This time, I changed the encoding from UTF-8 to Western Europe (Windows) ... I better not put my answers interspersed. If somebody knows how to get this stupid quoting corrected: help! The manual is called "LP11/LS11/LA11 line printer user's manual", but the etch on the M7258 only says "LS11 interface". The round cable is not a flat cable, but has separate wires. At least, that is how it looks to me. The diameter is approx 0.5". I will shoot a picture of that cable too. I will "announce" the LA180 page when it is finished ... and hunt down that cat :-) If somebody has that text file,I would love to print it! You got me up the attick for the third time Ethan :-) If you hold the M7258 with the fingers at the right side and look at the component side of the module, the BERG header is at the top left side. The single height module is directly above the M7258, like this ASCII art: ----------------------------------------------------- | ############### ---- \\ | | \ \| M5973 | | component side view | / /| | // | BERG (to M7258) | | ############### ---- ----------------------------------------------------- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <--- flat cable ----------------------------------------------------- | ############### ---- | M7258 | === === The module is original DIGITAL, it is in the etch, M5973. It's in the Field Guide: "M5973 LLD11 U TTL to differential transceiver". There are only 3 fingers connected at the end, for power supply. The way it is, this M5973 must have been installed in position B of the slot, where the M7258 goes into an SPC (position C-F). The manual indeed is for the major part concerning the LP01/02/04/05. Wished I could have played with DEC stuff in those days! Cool havingyour own pdp8 at 16!! Henk (wondering how this will appear on the list!) From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Fri Dec 28 16:10:31 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 22:10:31 +0000 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? In-Reply-To: References: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> <20071228184710.GA7385@usap.gov> <20071228202103.GA8910@usap.gov> Message-ID: <20071228221031.GA10163@usap.gov> Hi, Henk, Formatting problems aside, please trim your replies. On Fri, Dec 28, 2007 at 10:29:24PM +0100, Henk Gooijen wrote: > Sorry, I just don't understand why the quoted text is so messed up. > It all looks fine before I click the "Send" button. This time, I changed > the encoding from UTF-8 to Western Europe (Windows) ... This was worse - everything, all the quoted text, all the new text, was on one line. > I better not putmy answers interspersed.If somebody knows how to get > this stupid quoting corrected: help! Sorry... don't know what's up... I don't do e-mail on Windows nor use Windows browsers. > The manual is called "LP11/LS11/LA11 line printer user's manual", > but the etch on the M7258 only says "LS11 interface". That's not really surprising. > The round cable is not a flat cable, but has separate wires. > At least,that is how it looks to me. Right. Got that. When I said "like the flat cable", I meant more of "pin-1-to-pin-1" for all necessary pins. There's probably only 24 to 30 wires in that cable, _if_ they are using a ground for every signal (more likely back in those days than now). I didn't mean to suggest it was like a ribbon cable rolled into a tube. > I will "announce" the LA180 page when it is finished ... Cool. > and hunt down that cat :-) If somebody has that text file, > I would love to print it! I have a dim memory that someone who is now, or was once, a member of this list had some ASCII art on a PDP-8 page. It might also be on some RX01 images of PDP-8 software out there. If nothing else, googling for "ASCII art" will probably reveal a huge repository of pictures of Mr. Spock and Snoopy. I can't think of a computer room prior to 1985 that didn't have one or more items hanging on the walls. Some of it was quite simplistic (just asterisks), but ones like the cat were amazing. > You got me up the attick for the third time Ethan :-) > If you hold the M7258 with the fingers at the right side... The picture was totally trashed, sorry. > The module is original DIGITAL, it is in the etch, M5973. It's in the > Field Guide: "M5973 LLD11 U TTL to differential transceiver". > There are only 3 fingers connected at the end, for power supply. > The way it is, this M5973 must have been installed in position B of > the slot, where the M7258 goes into an SPC (position C-F). Very odd. Sounds like it might need a custom backplane, not a DD11-DK or DD11-CK. I don't recognize the LLD11, but it sounds like someone may have been trying to run a printer very far away from the CPU. I don't know the max cable length (it should be in the manual), but I'm willing to guess that it's under 100', probably under 50'. > The manual indeed is for the major part concerning the LP01/02/04/05. Make sense. Those were more common in the era of low-density quad-height cards like the LS-11. I fixed an LP05 once, at a different job, in 1988, but it was an ancient beast then. > Wished I could have played with DEC stuff in those days! Cool having > your own pdp8 at 16!! It was one of those random flukes that affected the rest of my life (in a good way). I literally stumbled across it as they were herding the folks out of the Dayton Hamvention. It looked really cool, and I recognized the vendor (Digital) from a computer store we used to have in Downtown Columbus. I knew *zip* about DEC equipment then. Took me 2 years to get that first -8 working (I had no docs), but it was a great learning experience. Two years after I got it, someone gave me a PDP-8/a and offered me that job working with PDP-11s and VAXen and embedded 68000 processors. Literally a life-changing event. > Henk (wondering how this will appear on the list!) Poorly. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 28-Dec-2007 at 21:40 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -16.1 F (-26.7 C) Windchill -37.7 F (-38.7 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 10.5 kts Grid 41 Barometer 685.2 mb (10433 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From chd_1 at nktelco.net Fri Dec 28 19:14:37 2007 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (Charles H Dickman) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 20:14:37 -0500 Subject: PDP-8 SPACEWAR! Message-ID: <47759F7D.1050000@nktelco.net> Over a year ago I asked for some help on getting a PDP-8/e EAE functional. There was an immediate response and I got a later version M8330 that was EAE compatible. Thanks to those who helped. In the spring I got a version of SPACEWAR to work. I also played with a clock for the point plot display. I made some videos, but didn't do anything with them at the time. I was not satisfied with the quality. Nonetheless, today I added them to my web pages. http://www.chd.dyndns.org/pdp8/VC8/ http://www.chd.dyndns.org/pdp8/spacewar/ The clock video on the VC8 page is much more dynamic. I used some unix font tools and a little bit of python to make bitmap images of the numerical characters. These were then converted to PAL8 source. The hands are drawn using the Bresenham algorithm. Since it is the close to the new year, I want to thank everyone for the knowledge that I have gained from listening here. When we don't stumble over our own narrow mindedness and biases we are a pretty knowledgeable bunch. Thanks again to all... -chuck PS: I tried the videos using firefox and internet explorer in windows and firefox in linux. I am curious if there are problem, but please don't turn this into some kind of off topic discussion. From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Dec 28 19:52:14 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 01:52:14 +0000 (GMT) Subject: ASCII Art (was Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?) In-Reply-To: <20071228221031.GA10163@usap.gov> Message-ID: <289591.13139.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Last time I searched for "ASCII Art" on the net I found a couple of pictures of naked women amongst those of Spock and Kirk. I didn't see any of Snoopy though :( I rarely see ASCII art these days. There was a retro ASCII Art newsletter that was published every few months which had some ASCII art in it, but sadly the people behind it have decided to stop making it. Only 5 issues exist, and at present I only have issue 5. Happy Holidays, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Ethan Dicks wrote: I have a dim memory that someone who is now, or was once, a member of this list had some ASCII art on a PDP-8 page. It might also be on some RX01 images of PDP-8 software out there. If nothing else, googling for "ASCII art" will probably reveal a huge repository of pictures of Mr. Spock and Snoopy. I can't think of a computer room prior to 1985 that didn't have one or more items hanging on the walls. Some of it was quite simplistic (just asterisks), but ones like the cat were amazing. From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Dec 28 19:56:36 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:56:36 -0800 Subject: PDP-8 SPACEWAR! Message-ID: <4775A954.8000609@bitsavers.org> > The clock video on the VC8 page is much more dynamic. I used some unix > font tools and a little bit of python to make bitmap images of the > numerical characters. I don't know right offhand where to find them, but you should dig around and find the glyphs for the "Dali Clock". These morph from one digit to the next. From sellam at vintagetech.com Fri Dec 28 21:10:29 2007 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 19:10:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Laser Turbo XT turbo mode switch? Message-ID: I have a Laser Turbo XT that I'm trying to resuscitate to 100%. I have it almost all working, but I'd be durned if I can't figure out how to get it into turbo mode. Right now it's blazing along at 1.4Mhz if the Landmark speed test is to be believed. There are no hardware switches so I can only assume there is some sort of utility program that needs to be run? If so, I don't have it :( Any hints? Thanks! Happy New Year! -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Dec 28 21:27:57 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 19:27:57 -0800 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? In-Reply-To: References: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> <20071228184710.GA7385@usap.gov> <20071228202103.GA8910@usap.gov> Message-ID: > From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 23:00:28 +0100 > Subject: RE: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? > > [Sent again, to get it readable. What can I do to correct this?] > > Sorry, I just don't understand why the quoted text is so messed up. > It all looks fine before I click the "Send" button. This time, I changed > the encoding from UTF-8 to Western Europe (Windows) ... I better not put > my answers interspersed. > If somebody knows how to get this stupid quoting corrected: help! > Hi In hotmail, I select plain text. It still isn't perfect. It seems to delete indents for paragraphs. It is an obvious bug in the current hotmail but I suspect the people at MS could care less. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Get the power of Windows + Web with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_powerofwindows_122007 From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Dec 28 21:32:03 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 22:32:03 -0500 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 28, 2007, at 10:05 AM, Henk Gooijen wrote: > The seasonal holidays give me time to play around a bit ... > I wanted to connect my DECprinter I (that's an LA180) but > I could not find any documentation here at home, neither > on the web! Can somebody who knows or has an LA180 > connected tell me how it is hooked to a serial line? > Or point me to an LA180 user's manual on the web? > >> From my guess, the BERG header is "standard" as on M7800 > DL11's or M7856 DL11-W, SLU's (with the appropriate lugs > either RS-232 or 20 mA current loop), but I would rather be > assured than destroying a very nice printer! I had to smile when I read this. I had an LA180 printer on my first PDP-11 when I was a teen, back in the mid-1980s. Like so many things from back then, I deeply regret selling it years ago. And, again like so many past things, I hope to find another someday. The LA180 is not a serial device...it is parallel, not terribly different from a "Centronics" parallel interface. I used an LS11 board to interface between it and my PDP-11/34a, but I think it can work with the LP11 also. I think I have a paper manual for that printer; I will look. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Dec 28 22:16:26 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 23:16:26 -0500 Subject: Looking for California Computer Systems Z-80 CPU Card In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 27, 2007, at 9:34 PM, Marden P. Marshall wrote: > I'm looking to get my hands on a California Computer Systems Model > 2810 Z-80 CPU card. This is an S-100 bus card. Anybody out there > have one they want to sell? > > I'm also looking for a readable schematic for this card. I have one of these in my IMSAI system; I've had it for nearly 25 years. I used it daily back then. It's definitely not for sale. I did see one go on eBay a few months ago for (I think) about $100. I've put the documentation for this board (which includes a sorta-readable-but-not-great schematic) up at: http://www.neurotica.com/misc/CCS_2810_CPU_Manual.pdf -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From rick at rickmurphy.net Fri Dec 28 22:19:12 2007 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 23:19:12 -0500 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200712290419.lBT4JIJ3008346@mail.itm-inst.com> At 10:05 AM 12/28/2007, Henk Gooijen wrote: > >The seasonal holidays give me time to play around a bit ... >I wanted to connect my DECprinter I (that's an LA180) but >I could not find any documentation here at home, neither >on the web! Can somebody who knows or has an LA180 >connected tell me how it is hooked to a serial line? >Or point me to an LA180 user's manual on the web? > > >From my guess, the BERG header is "standard" as on M7800 >DL11's or M7856 DL11-W, SLU's (with the appropriate lugs >either RS-232 or 20 mA current loop), but I would rather be >assured than destroying a very nice printer! > >thanks, >Henk You've gotten some replies already that were mostly correct - the *base* LA180 is a parallel printer. If you look at the fold-down door that has the logic card, it has four threaded posts that are designed to mount the LAXX-NW or LAXX-NX serial converter cards. (The -NW is EIA RS232, the -NX is current loop). If you've got two cards mounted on the back door, you have a serial printer. The LA180 is a workhorse. I ran hundreds of boxes of paper through one that had been dropped off a truck - the plastic cover was badly cracked but it ran forever that way. I've got the LA180 maintenance manual. Prints, mechanical drawings, and logic description. If anyone can get it onto one of the archives, they're welcome to it. -Rick From useddec at gmail.com Fri Dec 28 23:16:29 2007 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 23:16:29 -0600 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? In-Reply-To: <200712290419.lBT4JIJ3008346@mail.itm-inst.com> References: <200712290419.lBT4JIJ3008346@mail.itm-inst.com> Message-ID: <624966d60712282116g43569f63ked6ab6f24ddce56c@mail.gmail.com> The serial interface was not widely used. The LP11 and LPV11 was used for mostly Data Products printers (LP01, 02, etc). The LS11 and LAV11 worked with the LA180 and in the case of the LS11, others. I think all used the same cable to the LA180, including the PDP8 interface. If you need the part #, I'll try to find it over the weekend. Paul On Dec 28, 2007 10:19 PM, Rick Murphy wrote: > At 10:05 AM 12/28/2007, Henk Gooijen wrote: > > > >The seasonal holidays give me time to play around a bit ... > >I wanted to connect my DECprinter I (that's an LA180) but > >I could not find any documentation here at home, neither > >on the web! Can somebody who knows or has an LA180 > >connected tell me how it is hooked to a serial line? > >Or point me to an LA180 user's manual on the web? > > > > >From my guess, the BERG header is "standard" as on M7800 > >DL11's or M7856 DL11-W, SLU's (with the appropriate lugs > >either RS-232 or 20 mA current loop), but I would rather be > >assured than destroying a very nice printer! > > > >thanks, > >Henk > > You've gotten some replies already that were mostly correct - the > *base* LA180 is a parallel printer. > If you look at the fold-down door that has the logic card, it has four > threaded posts that are designed to mount the LAXX-NW or LAXX-NX serial > converter cards. (The -NW is EIA RS232, the -NX is current loop). If > you've got two cards mounted on the back door, you have a serial printer. > > The LA180 is a workhorse. I ran hundreds of boxes of paper through one > that had been dropped off a truck - the plastic cover was badly cracked > but it ran forever that way. > > I've got the LA180 maintenance manual. Prints, mechanical drawings, and > logic description. If anyone can get it onto one of the archives, > they're welcome to it. > -Rick > > From tiggerlasv at aim.com Fri Dec 28 23:36:13 2007 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 00:36:13 -0500 Subject: Laser Turbo XT turbo mode switch? Message-ID: <8CA17F3DBBD5CFE-B14-3FDD@webmail-de13.sysops.aol.com> If I remember right (it's been many years), turbo switching was actually performed from the keyboard. Try hitting CONTROL ALT +? to enter turbo mode. (Use the + sign on the 10-key) If that doesn't work, try various control combinations, including sequences ending with Page Up / Page Down. Tim ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From trixter at oldskool.org Fri Dec 28 23:42:00 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 23:42:00 -0600 Subject: Laser Turbo XT turbo mode switch? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4775DE28.3030107@oldskool.org> Sellam Ismail wrote: > I have a Laser Turbo XT that I'm trying to resuscitate to 100%. I have it > almost all working, but I'd be durned if I can't figure out how to get it > into turbo mode. Right now it's blazing along at 1.4Mhz if the Landmark > speed test is to be believed. There are no hardware switches so I can > only assume there is some sort of utility program that needs to be run? > If so, I don't have it :( I doubt it's really running that slow. What does MIPS say the speed is relative to an XT? (you can get MIPS here: http://www.oldskool.org/guides/oldonnew/resources/mips.zip) -- 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 tiggerlasv at aim.com Fri Dec 28 23:54:03 2007 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 00:54:03 -0500 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? Message-ID: <8CA17F659D8B21C-B14-4019@webmail-de13.sysops.aol.com> The LA180 cable (at least for use with an LPV11) is a BC11S-25. That is a round cable with a 40-pin BERG on each end. I couldn't tell you if all the pins are used or not, or if the connections are pin-for-pin. The LA180 engineering print set is available at?? http://vt100.net/manx although it is in two parts, in multi-page TIFF format, takes up 20 MB, and takes FOREVER to load in Windows.?? Would be nice if someone converted it to PDF format.?? ;-) Tim ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From lbickley at bickleywest.com Sat Dec 29 00:25:21 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 22:25:21 -0800 Subject: updates to the Alpha Micro Phun Machine In-Reply-To: <200712280643.lBS6h7I3012112@floodgap.com> References: <200712280643.lBS6h7I3012112@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <200712282225.21766.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Thursday 27 December 2007 22:43, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > A greatly updated history of Alpha Micro, including their use of > alternative operating systems such as UNIMOS/Unix and Pick, and > the invasion of the clone systems, is now up on the Alpha Micro > Phun Machine. In addition, the models page is tremendously > expanded with corrected chronology and more information on > loadouts. This is all with the help of Bob Fowler, who graciously > allowed me to raid his AMUS document archive and take images. Great site. Thanks! I'm an Alpha Micro fan, as well (also DEC and ModComp and Apple ... ;-) Years ago I was the angel for "Personal Computer Corp." - and we sold Alpha Micro AM-100's as our "high end" system :-) I have a AM-2056 that I restored to "health" about two years ago. One thing about AM's - once you have 'em running - they seem to stay up forever... AM Story: I picked up some AMOS VHS system tapes from a friend - which had been stored for years in a warehouse - and who know where before that. I used a new VHS player to read them all successfully into my AM. Quite amazing after all those years... I also backed up my AM-2056 to a new VHS tapes - and restored the tapes to a new HDD - which worked perfectly. AM's use of VHS technology was a clever and inexpensive backup technique - it clearly has more "lasting power" than some other backup technologies. --snip-- > Also, I recently acquired an AM-1200, and there will be a model > page for that as soon as I get it operational. I also have a nice AM-1042 that is anxiously awaiting restoration. It's clean (came from a dentist's office), I've tested the PS, but it's currently not bootable. If any of the folks on this list are not familiar with Alpha Micro, do yourself a favor and check out Cameron's website!! > http://ampm.floodgap.com/ Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Dec 29 02:42:44 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 08:42:44 +0000 Subject: How to connect a DECprinter 1 (LA180) Message-ID: > > =20 > The seasonal holidays give me time to play around a bit ... > I wanted to connect my DECprinter I (that's an LA180) but > I could not find any documentation here at home, neither > on the web! Can somebody who knows or has an LA180 > connected tell me how it is hooked to a serial line? It's not!. The interface is a TTL-level parallel one, somewhat similar to Centronics, but IIRC some of the control lines are inverted, etc. IIRC, it connects to an LP11 or LPV11 card. The cable is straight-through wired, I think, but you probalby flip one of the connectors over, as is usual with DEC cabling. > Or point me to an LA180 user's manual on the web? > =20 > >From my guess, the BERG header is "standard" as on M7800 > DL11's or M7856 DL11-W, SLU's (with the appropriate lugs > either RS-232 or 20 mA current loop), but I would rather be > assured than destroying a very nice printer! I suspect applying RS232 levesl to the connector will cook a few ICs. I do have the printset somewhere, so it would be repairable... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Dec 29 02:43:54 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 08:43:54 +0000 Subject: How to connect a DECprinter 1 (LA180) Message-ID: > The LA-120 (DECwriter/printer III) is serial, as is the LA-36, and > a bunch of other LA-xxx printers. I think the LA-180 might be > unique in its naming series to be parallel. The LA100 is also serial (that's a strange printer with a solenoid to move the printhead up and down by half the dot pitch, giving NLQ output). The LA324 (much later) is paralell and serial, the serial port being an MMJ connector (and the parallel port is a 36 pin Microribbon, wired as a Centronics connector). -tony From phil.whitehouse at osmosoft.com Fri Dec 28 06:13:53 2007 From: phil.whitehouse at osmosoft.com (Phil Whitehouse) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 12:13:53 +0000 Subject: Old computers Message-ID: <6b3db8bb0712280413y66f881cbnc0491ca7e30dd0be@mail.gmail.com> Hi there, I work with Andrew Back, and he's recently forwarded us a copy of your email about the old computers you're about to throw away. We'd very much like to give them a loving home - specifically the CMB Pet and BBC Micro computers. Are they still up for grabs? If you could please let me know availability and location, I'll sort out a courier or something similar. Many thanks for this opportunity! Cheers, Phil From Will at Swaggie.net Fri Dec 28 13:02:21 2007 From: Will at Swaggie.net (Will Kemp) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 19:02:21 +0000 Subject: Any ideas what this machine was? Message-ID: <1198868541.3063.86.camel@swaggie.localdomain> Back in the early 80s, i worked as an assembler programmer for Reuters in London. I was involved with maintenance and development of software on two platforms - one was the PDP11, but the other was a much more obscure machine and i can't remember the name of the manufacturer. The machines in question worked together as a pair - we referred to them as "SGS", which stood for "Second Generation Slave". I believe they were designed as a front end for the IBM 360, but Reuters used them as, i guess, minicomputers. These machines were the heart of Reuters' oldest live stock and share price reporting system - and subscribers were able to check prices via a PDP8 in their office which was connected to the SGS pair. One of the pair was what you'd call a database server nowadays and the other did the comms stuff. As far as i remember, each machine was the size of three racks next to each other (which is probably what they were). The data was stored on a drum in one machine, and the other machine had a card reader and a teletype terminal. They both had paper tape readers. They were 16-bit machines and had a row of lights and toggle switches at the top of one rack, with a switch to change between memory location and data, plus an "enter/run" button. The data machine was booted by toggling in a paper tape reader bootstrap and then loading the drum reader bootstrap from paper tape, then booting the OS, which was stored on the drum. The comms machine also had a three stage boot process - toggle in paper tape bootstrap, read card reader bootstrap off paper tape, then read the OS from a stack of cards. I can't remember how we got the OS onto the drum now - but i do remember we did a lot of "patching" in memory, through the front panel, for debugging etc. These machines ran IBM 360 machine code and we did the development in 360 assembly language on an IBM 370, which was later upgraded to a 4340. Recently i've been trying to remember the name of the manufacturer of these machines, but i just haven't got a clue - although i'm sure i'd recognise it if i saw it. I've looked through computer history sites on the web, hoping i'd come across the manufacturer's name and recognise it, but i never have. So if anyone knows, or can give me any clues, i'd be grateful. I'm not subscribed to this list, so i'd be very grateful if anyone replying could Cc me. Thanks Will Kemp From james at machineroom.info Fri Dec 28 16:10:36 2007 From: james at machineroom.info (James) Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 22:10:36 +0000 Subject: Sun 3/60 - how to boot this thing? In-Reply-To: <47751FB9.9020808@gmail.com> References: <20071227140843.GA68240@pin.if.uz.zgora.pl> <200712281025.FAA10021@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <47751FB9.9020808@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4775745C.5020708@machineroom.info> Jules Richardson wrote: > der Mouse wrote: >> (2) It's set for output to video and input from serial. (This would be >> an unusual way to set it, but I think it's possible.) > > I could see that happening for a 'hobby' machine snagged from a dumpster > if all the person had was the CPU unit. It'd be reasonably easy to hook > some form of graphical display to the machine, but more tricky to > emulate a missing Sun keyboard. > > It was actually my plan for our Sun 2 machine as we were in exactly that > situation; we just had the system unit, but no keyboard or display. > Finding a capable display would be easy enough though, and we had a few > VT220's laying around with dead LOPTs - I was planning on stripping one > of those down so it would just run as a nice RS232 keyboard. > Are you sure? IIRC the displays have ECL connections. From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Sat Dec 29 02:41:52 2007 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 08:41:52 -0000 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3903E608@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> Hi If my memory is not totally shot. The basic model was the LA180-PA. It had a Centronics interface and I think all that was required was a cable to go from the Berg to a 36way Plug. The various boards in LSI's PDP's may well have been parallel (Centronics type) interfaces and could have been pin-to-pin matches requiring only a flat ribbon cable to the LA-180. RS232 and EIA (20mA) interfaces were on their own boards and plugged into the Berg. Rod Smallwood DEC Terminals Product Line 1975 - 1979 -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Henk Gooijen Sent: 28 December 2007 22:00 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? [Sent again, to get it readable. What can I do to correct this?] Sorry, I just don't understand why the quoted text is so messed up. It all looks fine before I click the "Send" button. This time, I changed the encoding from UTF-8 to Western Europe (Windows) ... I better not put my answers interspersed. If somebody knows how to get this stupid quoting corrected: help! The manual is called "LP11/LS11/LA11 line printer user's manual", but the etch on the M7258 only says "LS11 interface". The round cable is not a flat cable, but has separate wires. At least, that is how it looks to me. The diameter is approx 0.5". I will shoot a picture of that cable too. I will "announce" the LA180 page when it is finished ... and hunt down that cat :-) If somebody has that text file,I would love to print it! You got me up the attick for the third time Ethan :-) If you hold the M7258 with the fingers at the right side and look at the component side of the module, the BERG header is at the top left side. The single height module is directly above the M7258, like this ASCII art: ----------------------------------------------------- | ############### ---- \\ | | \ \| M5973 | | component side view | / /| | // | BERG (to M7258) | | ############### ---- ----------------------------------------------------- xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <--- flat cable ----------------------------------------------------- | ############### ---- | M7258 | === === The module is original DIGITAL, it is in the etch, M5973. It's in the Field Guide: "M5973 LLD11 U TTL to differential transceiver". There are only 3 fingers connected at the end, for power supply. The way it is, this M5973 must have been installed in position B of the slot, where the M7258 goes into an SPC (position C-F). The manual indeed is for the major part concerning the LP01/02/04/05. Wished I could have played with DEC stuff in those days! Cool havingyour own pdp8 at 16!! Henk (wondering how this will appear on the list!) From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Sat Dec 29 05:08:15 2007 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 12:08:15 +0100 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? In-Reply-To: <8CA17F659D8B21C-B14-4019@webmail-de13.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA17F659D8B21C-B14-4019@webmail-de13.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org> Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 00:54:03 -0500> From: tiggerlasv at aim.com> Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?> > > The LA180 cable (at least for use with an LPV11) is a BC11S-25.> > That is a round cable with a 40-pin BERG on each end.> > I couldn't tell you if all the pins are used or not,> or if the connections are pin-for-pin.> > The LA180 engineering print set is available at?? http://vt100.net/manx> although it is in two parts, in multi-page TIFF format, takes up 20 MB,> and takes FOREVER to load in Windows.?? Would be nice if someone> converted it to PDF format.?? ;-)> > Tim Another attempt to see if my replies to the list come over a bit better. I have set and checked all suggestions, and change the font type to Courier New after typing the message. If this message gets to the list, I will see how it's presented. If it is still bad, I better stop using webmail, and switch to Outlook Express (and keep fingers crossed) ... The LA180 cable indeed is the BC11S-xx where xx stands for the length in feet (25, 50 or 100). I checked visually, not all 40 pins are used. At both sides 19 pins are wired, first 2 pins, then one open and then 17 pins. The print set will show which pins actually carry signals. Ethan already mentioned that he used a straight 1:1 flatcable. :-) I scanned the 2 parts multi-page TIFF back in the days when the Oc? 3165 scanner and image processing only output was TIFF. It still is, but nowadays you can select "pdf". It is still TIFF, but with a "pdf jacket" to present the data easier (acrobat reader). I don't work for Oc? anymore but I still think the 3165 (or successors) is a very nice copier/printer and scanner (600 dpi, 8 bit, 256 grey scale). Windows 98 has a very good TIFF viewer (in "accessories -> imager") from Kodak, IIRC. thanks, Henk. From huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au Sat Dec 29 05:21:13 2007 From: huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au (Huw Davies) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:21:13 +1100 Subject: Any ideas what this machine was? In-Reply-To: <1198868541.3063.86.camel@swaggie.localdomain> References: <1198868541.3063.86.camel@swaggie.localdomain> Message-ID: <7F9CDB36-BA28-4784-B5E6-90ADF3E5C525@kerberos.davies.net.au> On 29/12/2007, at 6:02 AM, Will Kemp wrote: > Back in the early 80s, i worked as an assembler programmer for Reuters > in London. I was involved with maintenance and development of software > on two platforms - one was the PDP11, but the other was a much more > obscure machine and i can't remember the name of the manufacturer. > > > These machines ran IBM 360 machine code and we did the development in > 360 assembly language on an IBM 370, which was later upgraded to a > 4340. > > Recently i've been trying to remember the name of the manufacturer of > these machines, but i just haven't got a clue - although i'm sure i'd > recognise it if i saw it. I've looked through computer history > sites on > the web, hoping i'd come across the manufacturer's name and recognise > it, but i never have. So if anyone knows, or can give me any clues, > i'd > be grateful. Interdata made a range of systems that were IBM 360 compatible. Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies at kerberos.davies.net.au Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the Australia | air, the sky would be painted green" From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Sat Dec 29 07:54:36 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 13:54:36 +0000 Subject: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ? In-Reply-To: References: <8CA17F659D8B21C-B14-4019@webmail-de13.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <20071229135436.GA8964@usap.gov> On Sat, Dec 29, 2007 at 12:08:15PM +0100, Henk Gooijen wrote: > > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org> Date:... > Another attempt to see if my replies to the list come over a bit better. This message looks like the first ones - your text was all formatted well, but the lines you were quoting were all mashed together into one line. > The LA180 cable indeed is the BC11S-xx where xx stands for the length in > feet (25, 50 or 100). Make sense. > I checked visually, not all 40 pins are used. At both sides 19 pins are > wired, first 2 pins, then one open and then 17 pins. The print set will > show which pins actually carry signals. Ethan already mentioned that he > used a straight 1:1 flatcable. It may have had the standard DEC "flipped connector" on one end, but I think that's just a mechanical convenience to fit easily into each end, not an electrical difference. As for someone on the list (don't have the posting in front of me) mentioning serial versions of the LA-180, with an additional board inside, yes, I do remember they existed, but 20 years ago, I don't recall them being common - we always had lots of ports on our DEC machines, either DZ-11s or Emulex CS-21s or DEC DMF32s - at least 8 ports per machine, unless it was for development, engineering, or office work - then it was 24-32 ports per machine (so that folks could have more than one port going to their desk - we never went the route of terminal servers for a variety of reasons). It would have been very handy to have a medium-speed wide-carriage printer on more than one machine at a time - something we _did_ do with LA100s, albeit at a slower speed. Parallel printing interfaces are nice when the printer doesn't migrate much, but when you have a serial infrastructure over a 5000 sq ft building, serial printers are much quicker to migrate (you don't have to move a card to move the printer). -ethan P.S. - here's a thumbnail of the overstrike cat picture I was referring to - http://www.threedee.com/jcm/aaa/images/catbig.jpg I must have been dimly recalling John Foust's "Ancient Alphabetic Art" web page - http://www.threedee.com/jcm/aaa/index.html -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 29-Dec-2007 at 13:20 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -18.8 F (-28.2 C) Windchill -37.0 F (-38.4 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 7.0 kts Grid 74 Barometer 686.2 mb (10395 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From mardy at voysys.com Sat Dec 29 08:23:27 2007 From: mardy at voysys.com (Marden P. Marshall) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 09:23:27 -0500 Subject: Looking for California Computer Systems Z-80 CPU Card In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <711F20A2-9E5A-4934-953A-A11F8AFC6DE6@voysys.com> On Dec 28, 2007, at 11:16 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Dec 27, 2007, at 9:34 PM, Marden P. Marshall wrote: >> I'm looking to get my hands on a California Computer Systems Model >> 2810 Z-80 CPU card. This is an S-100 bus card. Anybody out there >> have one they want to sell? >> >> I'm also looking for a readable schematic for this card. > > I have one of these in my IMSAI system; I've had it for nearly 25 > years. I used it daily back then. It's definitely not for sale. I > did see one go on eBay a few months ago for (I think) about $100. > > I've put the documentation for this board (which includes a sorta- > readable-but-not-great schematic) up at: > > http://www.neurotica.com/misc/CCS_2810_CPU_Manual.pdf > Thanks for the pdf Dave. Unfortunately that's the same one I've found floating around and the schematic is so badly pixelated that the details can't be made out. I did hear from Herb Johnson at retrotechnology and he has a copy for sale which includes a full size foldout schematic. I think I'm going to bite the bullet and buy a copy from him. By the way, that PDP-11/70 looks awesome! -Mardy From alhartman at yahoo.com Sat Dec 29 08:27:25 2007 From: alhartman at yahoo.com (Al Hartman) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 09:27:25 -0500 Subject: Laser Turbo XT turbo mode switch? (Sellam Ismail) In-Reply-To: <200712290846.lBT8jrVJ044865@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712290846.lBT8jrVJ044865@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4776594D.7000104@yahoo.com> Sellam, According to the manual I have, the keys are as following: [Ctrl] 8 = 8mhz Turbo [Ctrl] 5 = 4.77 XT Speed If you run across an extra P.S., let me know. I have one here I can't power up without one. Al Phila, PA From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Dec 29 09:25:22 2007 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 07:25:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: updates to the Alpha Micro Phun Machine In-Reply-To: <200712282225.21766.lbickley@bickleywest.com> from Lyle Bickley at "Dec 28, 7 10:25:21 pm" Message-ID: <200712291525.lBTFPMuw016466@floodgap.com> > > http://ampm.floodgap.com/ > > Great site. Thanks! > > I'm an Alpha Micro fan, as well (also DEC and ModComp and > Apple ... ;-) > > Years ago I was the angel for "Personal Computer Corp." - and we sold > Alpha Micro AM-100's as our "high end" system :-) > > I have a AM-2056 that I restored to "health" about two years ago. One > thing about AM's - once you have 'em running - they seem to stay up > forever... I like the AM-2000 series also. I'm still hoping to get a AM-2K or -3K (or -4K? a man can dream) at some point, but I imagine most of those are still operational somewhere. What's installed in your machine? How many ports? Ethernet? I do have to say that the Eagles are still my favourites. The E300 that AMPM runs on is 1994-vintage, so on-topic (this one was built in 1997, so still on-topic), but the fact that they have TCP stack and Ethernet options makes it fun and easy to work into a server farm. And hosting an Alpha Micro site on an Alpha Micro is fun stuff! > AM Story: I picked up some AMOS VHS system tapes from a friend - > which had been stored for years in a warehouse - and who know where > before that. I used a new VHS player to read them all successfully > into my AM. Quite amazing after all those years... > > I also backed up my AM-2056 to a new VHS tapes - and restored the > tapes to a new HDD - which worked perfectly. AM's use of VHS > technology was a clever and inexpensive backup technique - it > clearly has more "lasting power" than some other backup > technologies. When you say "new VHS player" are you using the AM's VCR equipment NOS, or just an off-the-shelf one? I remember the system administrator at the Salvation Army telling me that they backed up to VHS (in retrospect I think they were using either AM-20XX or AM-3000 units at the individual corps/churches) and being incredulous, that it had to be some other form of magtape. I'm getting questions now and then about what hardware people need to find to restore from an AM tape, like the old PC and Mac-based VideoTRAX system, so I should probably do a page on that. > > Also, I recently acquired an AM-1200, and there will be a model > > page for that as soon as I get it operational. > > I also have a nice AM-1042 that is anxiously awaiting restoration. > It's clean (came from a dentist's office), I've tested the PS, but > it's currently not bootable. Ah, that's a shame. I'm still looking for an AM-100-based system myself. Even a 1010 would be nice :) > If any of the folks on this list are not familiar with Alpha Micro, > do yourself a favor and check out Cameron's website!! Thank you for the kind word :) -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Gravity is a myth. The Earth just sucks. ----------------------------------- From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Dec 29 09:36:29 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 10:36:29 -0500 Subject: Looking for California Computer Systems Z-80 CPU Card In-Reply-To: <711F20A2-9E5A-4934-953A-A11F8AFC6DE6@voysys.com> References: <711F20A2-9E5A-4934-953A-A11F8AFC6DE6@voysys.com> Message-ID: <5a20d01bc84e8e9e1e7426097b249214@neurotica.com> On Dec 29, 2007, at 9:23 AM, Marden P. Marshall wrote: >> I've put the documentation for this board (which includes a >> sorta-readable-but-not-great schematic) up at: >> >> http://www.neurotica.com/misc/CCS_2810_CPU_Manual.pdf > > Thanks for the pdf Dave. Unfortunately that's the same one I've found > floating around and the schematic is so badly pixelated that the > details can't be made out. :-( > I did hear from Herb Johnson at retrotechnology and he has a copy > for sale which includes a full size foldout schematic. I think I'm > going to bite the bullet and buy a copy from him. Sounds good. Would you be willing to scan it? > By the way, that PDP-11/70 looks awesome! Thanks! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sat Dec 29 09:33:56 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 10:33:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mail formatting [was Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?] In-Reply-To: References: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> <20071228184710.GA7385@usap.gov> <20071228202103.GA8910@usap.gov> Message-ID: <200712291538.KAA05576@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> [Ethan Dicks ] >> Sorry, I just don't understand why the quoted text is so messed up. >> It all looks fine before I click the "Send" button. This time, I >> changed the encoding from UTF-8 to Western Europe (Windows) ... > This was worse - everything, all the quoted text, all the new text, > was on one line. Ethan, I suspect a problem on your side. Hank's list message, as it arrived in my mailbox, looked perfectly reasonable - Hank's text you quoted was properly line-broken as far as I could tell: > From: Henk Gooijen > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > Sorry, I just don't understand why the quoted text is so messed up. > It all looks fine before I click the "Send" button. This time, I changed > the encoding from UTF-8 to Western Europe (Windows) ... [...] /~\ 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 ethan.dicks at usap.gov Sat Dec 29 10:00:07 2007 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:00:07 +0000 Subject: Mail formatting [was Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?] In-Reply-To: <200712291538.KAA05576@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> <20071228184710.GA7385@usap.gov> <20071228202103.GA8910@usap.gov> <200712291538.KAA05576@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20071229160007.GC17604@usap.gov> On Sat, Dec 29, 2007 at 10:33:56AM -0500, der Mouse wrote: > Ethan, I suspect a problem on your side. It could be, but I'm using a pretty vanilla system - Mutt as a textual IMAP client, pulling through someone else's Exchange server. Henk's quoted text was mashed together both on the Exchange server (checked with a web client) and with my textual client. For the record, I've never seen anyone else's messages, on the cctalk list or anywhere, mashed up like that. Just Henk's. And it got worse when he fiddled with his settings. > Hank's list message, as it > arrived in my mailbox, looked perfectly reasonable - Hank's text you > quoted was properly line-broken as far as I could tell: I manually reformatted Henk's text before posting. It took a while. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 29-Dec-2007 at 15:50 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -19.7 F (-28.7 C) Windchill -36.5 F (-38.0 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 5.9 kts Grid 105 Barometer 686.0 mb (10403 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From tiggerlasv at aim.com Sat Dec 29 10:34:00 2007 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 11:34:00 -0500 Subject: Mail formatting Message-ID: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> Something is definitely amiss. . . Take a peek at Henk's last posting, dated Sat Dec 29 05:08:15 CST 2007 The first line is quoted text in response to one of my postings. It looks like the carriage returns were stripped out somehow. Still other postings (where Ethan reported problems) looked fine when I read them.?? There might be TWO different symptoms being displayed. Of course, I noticed that in at least one of my postings, there are some extraneous characters that came across, that weren't in the body of my text. This might be due to the way A-oh-well (AOL) formats their e-mails. Tim ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From lynchaj at yahoo.com Sat Dec 29 12:51:17 2007 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 13:51:17 -0500 Subject: HD 5.25 floppy disk drives emulating legacy DSQD floppy disk drives Message-ID: <008201c84a4b$cb4fb3e0$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> Hi a quick follow up to my question to the list earlier. I found that on the TEAC FD-55GFR more closely emulates the TM100-4M signals if the "E2" jumper is ON. It changes the logic of the /INDEX and /READ DATA signals to be compatible with older PC and XT floppy drive controllers which do not give the drive adequate time to fully settle. Apparently the older TM100-4M drives don't seem to care much about it but the Vector Graphic FDC is expecting to get those signals whether regardless of seek status. If anyone has any additional thoughts on the matter, please post. I am still trying to figure this out for the Panasonic JU-475-1 drive. Is anyone familiar with it so that it's /INDEX and /READ DATA are compatible with PC and XT FDCs? Thanks! Andrew Lynch Hi, Sorry for the long post. I have done a lot of things to make this work but am still stuck on this problem. As some of you know, I and some others have been busily working on restoring some Vector Graphic machines. One goal is to replace the Tandon TM100-4M 100tpi drives with more commonly available High Density 96tpi floppy drives. I realize the disks between the two types of drives are incompatible and I plan to retain both types of drives for compatibility with other Vector Graphic machines. However, the 100tpi drives are difficult to obtain and I would like to limit their use to preserve their remaining lifespans. I would like to transition my regular usage disks to the HD 96tpi drives to utilitize commonly available and inexpensive HD floppy drive mechanisms. I believe it is possible to make an HD drive emulate a legacy DSQD drive -- at least I am sure it can be done on the PC. The late Don Maslin was apparently able to use 720K (DSQD) 5.25" floppy drives on his Vector Graphic system (see link below). I would like to do a similar thing but using the HD drives in DSQD emulation mode. http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/1998-January/093114.html I have a couple of HD floppy disk drives such as the Panasonic JU-475 and TEAC FD-55GFR. I have jumpered and modified both drives so that the spindle motor turns at 300 RPM which I have verified using a fluorescent lamp and tach wheel. I have set the jumpers or directly wired to ground Pin 2 to force Double Density mode. I have covered Pin 2 on the interface with tape so that it does not interfere with the FDC on my Vector Graphic machine and vice versa. According to the schematic of my Vector Graphic integrated FD/HD controller (FDC) neither pin 2 (density select) nor pin 34 (/ready) are used. After many tests and inspections, I have verified both HD drives do work in 720K DSQD emulation mode on my floppy test bench PC. They are configured as 3.5" 80 track drives. The motor spins at 300 RPM and they are both able to format and verify with scandisk under MS-DOS using good quality 5.25" disks. The problem comes in when I attach either HD drive to the Vector Graphic FDC. Whenever it tries to format under CP/M, the VG is able to write out all 154 tracks (I have verified it is writing the tracks by inspecting the disks using my Catweasel) but the VG cannot verify the tracks correctly and fails the format. Everytime it tries to format a disk, it ends with "PERMANENT DISK ERROR" messages. Using different CP/M utilities to write to the HD drives results in similar errors such as VG BACKUP, a disk copy utility, and CPYFSTU, another CP/M disk copy utility. I do not know for certain whether the disks are have errors when written or the drive is having problems reading the track. I know the disks are good as I can format them on the VG using the TM100-4M drive without issue. When I verified the tracks are written using the Catweasel and the same disk and drive I noticed several read errors and bad sectors which implies the tracks were written with errors. Does anyone know why these HD floppy drives are incompatible with the Vector Graphic FDC? Is there something I am missing or some setting which would make them compatible? The HD drives work just fine at DSQD drives on the floppy test bench PC so I am fairly sure the drives themselves are OK. The VG FDC works fine with the TM100-4M drives so I think they work OK. The problem is only when I attach the HD drives to the VG FDC. Would anyone please give me some insight on this problem? Thank you in advance for any help. Andrew Lynch From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Dec 29 12:57:23 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 10:57:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 29 Dec 2007 tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > It looks like the carriage returns were stripped out somehow. One of the recurring issues of ASCII is: "What is the ASCII code for newline?" Is a new line CR (carriage return)? LF (linefeed)? CR LF? LF CR? Is '\n' 0Dh? 0Ah? 0Dh 0Ah? 0Ah 0Dh? Before you answer, contemplate: "Why have SO MANY companies got that wrong?" ("wrong" actually means any choice other than yours, and each company thought that there were good reasons for doing it their way.) For example, TRS80 was 0Dh; IBM PC was 0Dh 0Ah made for lots of extra fun when interchanging printers, and resulted in many printers having "auto linefeed". What does your system do when it receives a message that is "wrong"? Fergeddabout how Henk's message quotes look on the screen. In the raw message, BEFORE processing by the mail program, do those parts of his messages have 0Dh characters? Do they have 0Ah characters? What OS is Henk using? What mail program? What ISP? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sat Dec 29 13:08:29 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 14:08:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mail formatting [was Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?] In-Reply-To: <20071229160007.GC17604@usap.gov> References: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> <20071228184710.GA7385@usap.gov> <20071228202103.GA8910@usap.gov> <200712291538.KAA05576@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20071229160007.GC17604@usap.gov> Message-ID: <200712291910.OAA06686@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> Hank's list message, as it arrived in my mailbox, looked perfectly >> reasonable - Hank's text you quoted was properly line-broken as far >> as I could tell: > I manually reformatted Henk's text before posting. I was too ambiguous, sorry about that. I meant: "The text of Hank's that you quoted in your message was, in the copy of Hank's message which I received through the list, properly line-broken as far as I could tell". /~\ 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 djg at pdp8.net Sat Dec 29 13:15:08 2007 From: djg at pdp8.net (djg at pdp8.net) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 14:15:08 -0500 Subject: ASCII Art Message-ID: <200712291915.lBTJF8g07854@user-119apiu.biz.mindspring.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: >I have a dim memory that someone who is now, or was once, a >member of this list had some ASCII art on a PDP-8 page. I have some. This is a tape of IBM lineprinter art ftp://ftp.pdp8.net/ascii_art If you enter snoopy on the search you will find several versions All really the same simple picture wrapped in different languages http://www.pdp8online.com/htdig/search.shtml Also more on this one http://www.pdp8online.com/pdp8cgi/os8_html?act=dir;fn=images/os8/dial%2Ddecus.tu56;sort=name That reminds me, I have a box of teletype art also for 5 level machines I need to read the paper tapes in. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Dec 29 13:27:32 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 11:27:32 -0800 Subject: Mail formatting [was Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?] In-Reply-To: <20071229160007.GC17604@usap.gov> References: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> <20071228184710.GA7385@usap.gov> <20071228202103.GA8910@usap.gov> <200712291538.KAA05576@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20071229160007.GC17604@usap.gov> Message-ID: > From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov ---sip--- > > For the record, I've never seen anyone else's messages, on the cctalk > list or anywhere, mashed up like that. Just Henk's. And it got worse > when he fiddled with his settings. > >> Hank's list message, as it >> arrived in my mailbox, looked perfectly reasonable - Hank's text you >> quoted was properly line-broken as far as I could tell: > Hi Ethan I'm using what used to be hotmail, now says Windows Live. If I send replies with text from other users in rich text, it comes out missing all of the returns, just as Henk's does. I've been sending in plain text but that is not without issues either. It seems to drop any leading blank spaces so indicating paragraphs can only been done with blank lines. This is just more windows crap. I'm sure it would work fine if we were all using windows for all mail. The older Hotmail worked just fine. I noticed the problem when they upgraded me to windows live. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_122007 From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sat Dec 29 13:12:59 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 14:12:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > One of the recurring issues of ASCII is: > "What is the ASCII code for newline?" 0x0a, one of whose names is NL. This is well-defined. > Is a new line CR (carriage return)? LF (linefeed)? CR LF? LF CR? This is not a question about ASCII; it is a question about how some unspecified system represents linebreaks - about how that system uses ASCII, perhaps. Worse, on many systems the answer differs depending what point you measure at. On most Unix variants, for example, it's 0x0a when measured in files or in C strings, but 0x0d 0x0a when measured on hardware serial lines. > Is '\n' 0Dh? 0Ah? 0Dh 0Ah? 0Ah 0Dh? It's only one character; that much is well-specified (well, assuming your '\n' was supposed to be C). What the numerical value of that character is is not well-defined without reference to a particular system (though 0x0a is by far the commonest, probably because it's ASCII NL). > Before you answer, contemplate: > "Why have SO MANY companies got that wrong?" > ("wrong" actually means any choice other than yours, and each company > thought that there were good reasons for doing it their way.) Then in what sense are those choices "wrong"? > Fergeddabout how Henk's message quotes look on the screen. In the > raw message, BEFORE processing by the mail program, do those parts of > his messages have 0Dh characters? Do they have 0Ah characters? "the mail program"? There were at least..um, let's check headers..6 pieces of software that could reasonably be called "mail program"s involved in getting the message from Hank to any list receiver's system, possibly excepting the small (maybe empty) set of people who actually read list mail on dewey.classiccmp.org. There's at least one additional piece of software involved (displaying the message) and possibly more. By definition, in the SMTP transaction, the line breaks are 0x0d 0x0a octet pairs (and 0x0d and 0x0a octets do not occur in any other context than 0x0d-0x0a line-break pairs..unless, of course, the sending SMTP code is broken). Of course, there is a lot of broken SMTP code out there. Looking at headers makes me think Hank's mail was actually sent through Hotmail, which means it's almost certain the sending SMTP code was broken (though not necessarily in this way). However, as it arrived at my system, it apepars to have been fine in this regard, so I see no reason to think line-break botches elsewhere than between the list and Ethan are behind this. I'm mystified as to what provoked the behaviour Ethan saw, since he says it's just Hank's mail, and as far as I can tell Hank's mail is fine after passing through the list. Ethan, did Hank send you an off-list copy, and you replied to that one, maybe? It's the most plausible theory I see offhand. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Dec 29 14:36:46 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 15:36:46 -0500 Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200712291536.47082.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 29 December 2007 13:57, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Sat, 29 Dec 2007 tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > > It looks like the carriage returns were stripped out somehow. > > One of the recurring issues of ASCII is: > "What is the ASCII code for newline?" > Is a new line CR (carriage return)? Yeah, on a mac. > LF (linefeed)? Yeah, on unix/linux boxes. > CR LF? On most dos boxes. > LF CR? Not that I've ever seen, the CR usually being sent first because if it's any kinda mechanical thingy it takes longer. > Is '\n' 0Dh? 0Ah? 0Dh 0Ah? 0Ah 0Dh? I remember back when I first started fiddling with c programming having to use \n\r in some instances to get what I wanted. > Before you answer, contemplate: "Why have SO MANY companies got that wrong?" > ("wrong" actually means any choice other than yours, and each company > thought that there were good reasons for doing it their way.) I always thought it'd be kinda nifty to have one character instead of two. > For example, > TRS80 was 0Dh; IBM PC was 0Dh 0Ah > made for lots of extra fun when interchanging printers, and resulted in > many printers having "auto linefeed". I remember well one Tandy printer that double-spaced lines and there didn't seem to be any way to disable that "feature". -- 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 jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Sat Dec 29 15:01:34 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 15:01:34 -0600 Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <4776B5AE.5050400@gmail.com> der Mouse wrote: > However, as it arrived at my system, it apepars to have been fine in > this regard, so I see no reason to think line-break botches elsewhere > than between the list and Ethan are behind this. I'm mystified as to > what provoked the behaviour Ethan saw, since he says it's just Hank's > mail, and as far as I can tell Hank's mail is fine after passing > through the list. That's interesting. I see the same behaviour as Ethan does (Thunderbird 1.5 / Linux here) for Henk's replies to the list (but not his original messages). There's at least one other listmember for which I see the same behaviour, too, but names elude me right now. I *think* I raised it with one such person before, and there was something unusual about their setup - but I might be confusing this with the "why do some people include unedited text, separator, and then their text in their replies" thread from a while ago... cheers Jules From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sat Dec 29 14:53:28 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 20:53:28 +0000 Subject: Mail formatting [was Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?] In-Reply-To: <200712291538.KAA05576@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> <20071228184710.GA7385@usap.gov> <20071228202103.GA8910@usap.gov> <200712291538.KAA05576@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <4776B3C8.8070301@dunnington.plus.com> On 29/12/2007 15:33, der Mouse wrote: > [Ethan Dicks ] > >>> Sorry, I just don't understand why the quoted text is so messed up. > Ethan, I suspect a problem on your side. Hank's list message, as it > arrived in my mailbox, looked perfectly reasonable - Hank's text you > quoted was properly line-broken as far as I could tell: Nope, I agree with Ethan. Looking at the raw email, the quoted part is totally devoid of line breaks (indeed, of any control characters) of any kind. Thunderbird displays it suitably reformatted to fit the window it's using, but only by using its own soft breaks. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sat Dec 29 14:58:32 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 20:58:32 +0000 Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <4776B4F8.4020301@dunnington.plus.com> On 29/12/2007 19:12, der Mouse wrote: > However, as it arrived at my system, it apepars to have been fine in > this regard, so I see no reason to think line-break botches elsewhere > than between the list and Ethan are behind this. I'm mystified as to > what provoked the behaviour Ethan saw, since he says it's just Hank's > mail, and as far as I can tell Hank's mail is fine after passing > through the list. Maybe you're looking at one specific message that Ethan reformatted before replying, but the the messages from Henk where *Henk* has quoted some text do not have any newline or CR-LF pairs or any other control characters in the quoted sections. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sat Dec 29 15:08:21 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:08:21 +0000 Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <4776B745.1060902@dunnington.plus.com> On 29/12/2007 19:12, der Mouse wrote: >> One of the recurring issues of ASCII is: >> "What is the ASCII code for newline?" > > 0x0a, one of whose names is NL. This is well-defined. No, it isn't :-) There is no ASCII code for "newline". 0x0A is the code for a line feed (name "LF"). Some systems treat that as a newline. But only some :-) -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From jfoust at threedee.com Sat Dec 29 14:28:34 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 14:28:34 -0600 Subject: ASCII Art (was Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?) In-Reply-To: <289591.13139.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <20071228221031.GA10163@usap.gov> <289591.13139.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20071229142358.0524b738@mail.threedee.com> At 07:52 PM 12/28/2007, Andrew Burton wrote: >Last time I searched for "ASCII Art" on the net I found a couple of pictures of naked women amongst those of Spock and Kirk. I didn't see any of Snoopy though :( >I rarely see ASCII art these days. There was a retro ASCII Art newsletter that was published every few months which had some ASCII art in it, but sadly the people behind it have decided to stop making it. Only 5 issues exist, and at present I only have issue 5. There's a collection of links and picture files at: http://207-207-72-42.ip.theriver.com/gallery/index.html My site is the "museum", second one down. As you can see, the radio teletype crowd was doing this long before there were "computers", long before I was born. At another end of the spectrum are ASCII / ANSI artists who flourished during the BBS scene in the 80s. - John From dm561 at torfree.net Sat Dec 29 16:18:49 2007 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 17:18:49 -0500 Subject: ASCII Art (was Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?) Message-ID: <01C84A3E.E2CA5DC0@MSE_D03> Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 01:52:14 +0000 (GMT) From: Andrew Burton Subject: ASCII Art (was Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?) >Last time I searched for "ASCII Art" on the net I found a couple of pictures of naked women amongst those of Spock and Kirk. I >didn't see any of Snoopy though :( >I rarely see ASCII art these days. There was a retro ASCII Art newsletter that was published every few months which had some >ASCII art in it, but sadly the people behind it have decided to stop making it. Only 5 issues exist, and at present I only have issue 5. >Happy Holidays, >Andrew B >aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk --------- Lots of ASCII art here (a couple dozen Snoopys in the DECUS section): http://textfiles.group.lt/art/ Anybody know of a simple program to print these on a laser or inkjet? mike From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Dec 29 16:39:49 2007 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:39:49 -0600 Subject: ASCII Art (was Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?) In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20071229142358.0524b738@mail.threedee.com> References: <20071228221031.GA10163@usap.gov> <289591.13139.qm@web23407.mail.ird.yahoo.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20071229142358.0524b738@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: <4776CCB5.5030206@oldskool.org> John Foust wrote: > As you can see, the radio teletype crowd was doing this long before > there were "computers", long before I was born. Indeed, and we lost one of the pioneers a year or so ago. Here is the raw unedited footage taken of him for the BBS Documentary: http://www.archive.org/details/20030322-bbs-sheetz -- 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 mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Dec 29 17:09:16 2007 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 18:09:16 -0500 Subject: Looking for California Computer Systems Z-80 CPU Card In-Reply-To: <4776A086.9000104@harrells.net> References: <711F20A2-9E5A-4934-953A-A11F8AFC6DE6@voysys.com> <5a20d01bc84e8e9e1e7426097b249214@neurotica.com> <4776A086.9000104@harrells.net> Message-ID: <8114492E-35FF-4845-AFE0-97DE2E82BF1A@neurotica.com> A good copy has just turned up. Thanks anyway, though! -Dave On Dec 29, 2007, at 2:31 PM, info wrote: > I have the manual and can try to scan the schematic page if you > still need it. I agree the one on the internet sites is very poor > so let me know. Herb's scans are good also. > > Dave McGuire wrote: >> On Dec 29, 2007, at 9:23 AM, Marden P. Marshall wrote: >>>> I've put the documentation for this board (which includes a >>>> sorta-readable-but-not-great schematic) up at: >>>> >>>> http://www.neurotica.com/misc/CCS_2810_CPU_Manual.pdf >>> >>> Thanks for the pdf Dave. Unfortunately that's the same one I've >>> found floating around and the schematic is so badly pixelated >>> that the details can't be made out. >> >> :-( >> >>> I did hear from Herb Johnson at retrotechnology and he has a >>> copy for sale which includes a full size foldout schematic. I >>> think I'm going to bite the bullet and buy a copy from him. >> >> Sounds good. Would you be willing to scan it? >> >>> By the way, that PDP-11/70 looks awesome! >> >> Thanks! >> >> -Dave >> >> -- >> Dave McGuire >> Port Charlotte, FL >> > -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007 From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Dec 29 17:50:43 2007 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 15:50:43 -0800 Subject: new find: NS BLC80/10 Message-ID: <4a07b211a03553fc52e1831696edee6e@valleyimplants.com> I was dismantling some old stuff that I got as a lot and came across this beastie. It's a National Semiconductor Microcomputer Systems BLC 80/10. Clone of an Intel iSBC 80/10. Single board 8080A computer with sockets for PROMs and 1K of RAM onboard, several parallel ports, one serial port, and Multibus interface for expansion. As used in this case, it was standalone with only the power pins on the Multibus connected (and the I/O at the top). As the only Multibus backplane I have is an IRIS 3000 series (double-deep), it's available. From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Dec 29 19:29:07 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 17:29:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <200712291536.47082.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> <200712291536.47082.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20071229172409.D20404@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 29 Dec 2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > LF CR? > Not that I've ever seen, the CR usually being sent first because if it's any > kinda mechanical thingy it takes longer. that makes sense. I have run into LF CR in files, but haven't gotten around to tracking down what system created them. > > Is '\n' 0Dh? 0Ah? 0Dh 0Ah? 0Ah 0Dh? > I remember back when I first started fiddling with c programming having to use > \n\r in some instances to get what I wanted. THAT would give LF CR on some systems! > I always thought it'd be kinda nifty to have one character instead of two. Many companies went that route. > > > For example, > > TRS80 was 0Dh; IBM PC was 0Dh 0Ah > I remember well one Tandy printer that double-spaced lines and there didn't > seem to be any way to disable that "feature". Some Tandy compatible printers had "smart auto linefeed" - a line feed would be added to a CR IFF there was not a LF following the CR. That worked well except for the LF CR case. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Dec 29 19:35:43 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 01:35:43 +0000 (GMT) Subject: ASCII Art (was Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?) In-Reply-To: <01C84A3E.E2CA5DC0@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <997306.99709.qm@web23403.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Thanks for that, I especially loved the page with all those cow pictures on it :) Happy New Year, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk M H Stein wrote: Lots of ASCII art here (a couple dozen Snoopys in the DECUS section): http://textfiles.group.lt/art/ Anybody know of a simple program to print these on a laser or inkjet? mike From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Dec 29 19:56:31 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 01:56:31 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Free for Shipping, PSpice & P-CAD Security Devices In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <993573.52803.qm@web23412.mail.ird.yahoo.com> If noone else has claimed it, I would like the 2"x2" dongle please. Happy new Year, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Jeff Walther wrote: I am throwing stuff out and found these two dongles. The first is a little 2" X 2" dongle which says "Plug into serial port" on one end and has a female DB25 port, with a pass through on the other end. It says PSpice MicroSIM Corporation, Electrical Circuit Simulator, ID #66097". The other is a long module labeled "P-CAD Software Security Device, 104-0019-01, Serial No. 15871, 047-0124-00. This module is about 12" long and has a lid which hinges upwards and contains ten slots for small modules. One module is installed and it is labeled "PC-CAPS, Serial No. 7125, 104-0120-01". This long module also has a pass-through and appears to require a 9VDC power supply. I have no use for these and only a vague idea of how I would make use of them. So if anyone wants them for the cost of shipping let me know by email. I am in Austin, TX near Spicewood Springs and Mopac. If I don't make arrangements with anyone by Sunday, they're going in the trash. Jeff Walther From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Dec 29 20:01:15 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 18:01:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20071229173711.Y20404@shell.lmi.net> > > "What is the ASCII code for newline?" BTW, Is it "Henk" or "Hank"? On Sat, 29 Dec 2007, der Mouse wrote: > 0x0a, one of whose names is NL. This is well-defined. and the whole world is a ? > This is not a question about ASCII; it is a question about how some > unspecified system represents linebreaks - about how that system uses > ASCII, perhaps. true, agreed > Worse, on many systems the answer differs depending what point you > measure at. On most Unix variants, for example, it's 0x0a when > measured in files or in C strings, but 0x0d 0x0a when measured on > hardware serial lines. in which case, what characters would fprintf(PRN, "%s" , "X\n" ); actually send to the printer? > > Is '\n' 0Dh? 0Ah? 0Dh 0Ah? 0Ah 0Dh? > It's only one character; that much is well-specified (well, assuming > your '\n' was supposed to be C). Yes, indeed, although there are numerous derivatives of C with same or similar behavior. in which case, HOW MANY characters would fprintf(PRN, "%s" , "X\n" ); actually send to the printer? > What the numerical value of that > character is is not well-defined without reference to a particular > system (though 0x0a is by far the commonest, probably because it's > ASCII NL). '\n' is VERY esplicitly defined as "NEWLINE" My documentation of ASCII is rather dated (Bremer, Interface Rage, 1973, etc.) They seem to consistently define 0Ah as LF (LINEFEED), and I don't have any ASCII standards documents that call 0Ah "NEWLINE", although there are plenty of unix C textbooks that make that statement informally. It often bogs down beginning students for a few hours dealing with using '\n' to start a newline for output, but looking for '\r' when searching for the Carriage Return in input ( getch(), etc.) > > Before you answer, contemplate: > > "Why have SO MANY companies got that wrong?" > > ("wrong" actually means any choice other than yours, and each company > > thought that there were good reasons for doing it their way.) > Then in what sense are those choices "wrong"? so, may I assume that you have no objection to Tandy defining NEWLINE as 0Dh? > By definition, in the SMTP transaction, the line breaks are 0x0d 0x0a > octet pairs (and 0x0d and 0x0a octets do not occur in any other context > than 0x0d-0x0a line-break pairs..unless, of course, the sending SMTP > code is broken). > Of course, there is a lot of broken SMTP code out there. Looking at > headers makes me think Hank's mail was actually sent through Hotmail, > which means it's almost certain the sending SMTP code was broken > (though not necessarily in this way). VERY MUCH agreed > However, as it arrived at my system, it apepars to have been fine in > this regard, so I see no reason to think line-break botches elsewhere > than between the list and Ethan are behind this. I'm mystified as to > what provoked the behaviour Ethan saw, since he says it's just Hank's > mail, and as far as I can tell Hank's mail is fine after passing > through the list. OK Right now, I'm using a recent version of PINE on a unix system that I am TELNETing to with a WINDOZE 98 machine (when you are not at home, you make do with what is available) Henk's text looks good, but the content that he was QUOTING has mangled newlines that look as though all of the control characters were stripped out, and then soft newlines inserted [often in the wrong places] by the display program. > Ethan, did Hank send you an off-list copy, and you replied to that one, > maybe? It's the most plausible theory I see offhand. Nope. Although Henk and Ethan did manually reformat a few messages. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Dec 29 20:05:42 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 18:05:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mail formatting [was Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?] In-Reply-To: References: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> <20071228184710.GA7385@usap.gov> <20071228202103.GA8910@usap.gov> <200712291538.KAA05576@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20071229160007.GC17604@usap.gov> Message-ID: <20071229180346.F20404@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 29 Dec 2007, dwight elvey wrote: > This is just more windows crap. I'm sure it would work fine > if we were all using windows for all mail. . . . but where's the fun in THAT? From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Dec 29 21:18:41 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:18:41 -0500 Subject: Multibus, was Re: new find: NS BLC80/10 In-Reply-To: <4a07b211a03553fc52e1831696edee6e@valleyimplants.com> References: <4a07b211a03553fc52e1831696edee6e@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <200712292218.41233.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 29 December 2007 18:50, Scott Quinn wrote: > I was dismantling some old stuff that I got as a lot and came across > this beastie. > > It's a National Semiconductor Microcomputer Systems BLC 80/10. > > Clone of an Intel iSBC 80/10. > > Single board 8080A computer with sockets for PROMs and 1K of RAM > onboard, several parallel ports, one serial port, and Multibus > interface for expansion. As used in this case, it was standalone with > only the power pins on the Multibus connected (and the I/O at the top). > > As the only Multibus backplane I have is an IRIS 3000 series > (double-deep), it's available. I remember vaguely running into some literature that mentioned multibus some years back, but I never encountered any of the actual equipment. Heck, the literature didn't even mention prices, though I got the impression that it was kinda spendy compared to some of the other choices that were around at the time. Is there much of this stuff out there? Any pointers to technical descriptions and such? I really don't know much about it and I'd like to rectify 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 rtellason at verizon.net Sat Dec 29 21:21:24 2007 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:21:24 -0500 Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <20071229172409.D20404@shell.lmi.net> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <200712291536.47082.rtellason@verizon.net> <20071229172409.D20404@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200712292221.24179.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 29 December 2007 20:29, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Sat, 29 Dec 2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > > LF CR? > > > > Not that I've ever seen, the CR usually being sent first because if it's > > any kinda mechanical thingy it takes longer. > > that makes sense. I have run into LF CR in files, but haven't gotten > around to tracking down what system created them. > > > > Is '\n' 0Dh? 0Ah? 0Dh 0Ah? 0Ah 0Dh? > > > > I remember back when I first started fiddling with c programming having > > to use \n\r in some instances to get what I wanted. > > THAT would give LF CR on some systems! I don't even remember for sure that it was in that order, but I was doing screen output at the time so it made little difference. > > I always thought it'd be kinda nifty to have one character instead of > > two. > > Many companies went that route. > > > > For example, > > > TRS80 was 0Dh; IBM PC was 0Dh 0Ah > > > > I remember well one Tandy printer that double-spaced lines and there > > didn't seem to be any way to disable that "feature". > > Some Tandy compatible printers had "smart auto linefeed" - a line feed > would be added to a CR IFF there was not a LF following the CR. > That worked well except for the LF CR case. I can't recall now what the system was that was feeding the printer in question, but apparently there was some software sequence (escape sequence maybe?) that could be fed to the printer to turn that feature off. That being all the way back in oh, 1984 or thereabouts, the info on just how to do so was pretty hard to come by, compared to how it might turn out these days. -- 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 dmabry at mich.com Sat Dec 29 21:27:43 2007 From: dmabry at mich.com (Dave Mabry) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:27:43 -0500 Subject: Multibus, was Re: new find: NS BLC80/10 In-Reply-To: <200712292218.41233.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <4a07b211a03553fc52e1831696edee6e@valleyimplants.com> <200712292218.41233.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4777102F.6060602@mich.com> Roy J. Tellason said the following on 12/29/2007 10:18 PM: > I remember vaguely running into some literature that mentioned multibus some > years back, but I never encountered any of the actual equipment. Heck, the > literature didn't even mention prices, though I got the impression that it > was kinda spendy compared to some of the other choices that were around at > the time. > > Is there much of this stuff out there? > > Any pointers to technical descriptions and such? I really don't know much > about it and I'd like to rectify that.. The Multibus was an Intel invention and has its roots in the bus structure that was used in the Intel MDS-800. As I was told by Intel reps, the Intel MDS-800, the development system, was so well received that end users in industry wanted the pieces that made it up to use in turnkey systems. Recognizing the market Intel developed an entire family of boards, starting with the SBC 80/10, around it, at some time naming it "Multibus". Over the years it was enhanced to handle 16- and even some 32-bit processors. The 80/10 was based on the 8080 cpu and had ram, EPROM, I/O, all on one board. The bus was used in subsequent development systems such as the MDS Series II, Series III, and several systems based on the RMX and Xenix operating systems. I'm sure others here will elaborate further, but that's kind of a nutshell version. Dave Mabry From spc at conman.org Sat Dec 29 21:29:09 2007 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:29:09 -0500 Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20071230032909.GA32378@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great Fred Cisin once stated: > On Sat, 29 Dec 2007 tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > > It looks like the carriage returns were stripped out somehow. > > One of the recurring issues of ASCII is: > "What is the ASCII code for newline?" What I've heard---there is no one character that returns the carriage to the start of the line (CR) and advances down one line (LF). MS-DOS seems to think both are required, whereas Unix went with one (LF) and add both if required in the driver code. The older versions of Mac OS (prior to being Unix under the hood) used CR. And while I wrote code to handle CR, LF, CRLF, LFCR, I never did see LFCR in the wild. Another recurring issue for ASCII: what is baskspace supposed to do? I'm used to systems that use $08 [1] to move the cursor left one column and overwrite the character there with a space. But Linux (maybe because Linus was secretly a DEChead?) decided that $7F would move the cursor left one column and overwrite the character there with a space, but X Windows (which I use on Linux) seems to want to use $08 for that. Grrrrr ... > What does your system do when it receives a message that is "wrong"? > > Fergeddabout how Henk's message quotes look on the screen. > In the raw message, BEFORE processing by the mail program, do those parts > of his messages have 0Dh characters? Do they have 0Ah characters? > What OS is Henk using? What mail program? What ISP? If you read up on the SMTP specification [2], they require the use of CRLF to terminate each line, and it's up to the receiving side to add/remove/translate the line ending characters as appropriate. There is some verbiage in the older SMTP RFC [3] dealing with bare CRs in header lines (treat it as whitespace, but preserve); I'm not sure if the that has been carried over to the current standard [2]. -spc (Who now gets to deal with UTF-8 pages served up as ISO-8859-1 or worse, Windows-1251 ... ) [1] Sorry, I'm old school---hex numbers are preceeded with a currency sign. [2] RFC-2821 [3] RFC-821 From rivie at ridgenet.net Sat Dec 29 21:34:09 2007 From: rivie at ridgenet.net (Roger Ivie) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 19:34:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <20071229173711.Y20404@shell.lmi.net> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20071229173711.Y20404@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 29 Dec 2007, der Mouse wrote: > Of course, there is a lot of broken SMTP code out there. Looking at > headers makes me think Hank's mail was actually sent through Hotmail, There's the bit I was looking for. Hotmail recently became "Windows Live". In their most recent "upgrade", I noticed it doing this to messages I reply to. It even drops the line breaks from my *signature*, despite being a Hotmail signature that's been defined for ages. Basically, Microsoft broke Hotmail recently. Users have to be careful. -- roger ivie rivie at ridgenet.net From spc at conman.org Sat Dec 29 21:36:56 2007 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:36:56 -0500 Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20071230033656.GB32378@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great der Mouse once stated: > > One of the recurring issues of ASCII is: > > "What is the ASCII code for newline?" > > 0x0a, one of whose names is NL. This is well-defined. > > > Is a new line CR (carriage return)? LF (linefeed)? CR LF? LF CR? > > This is not a question about ASCII; it is a question about how some > unspecified system represents linebreaks - about how that system uses > ASCII, perhaps. > > Worse, on many systems the answer differs depending what point you > measure at. On most Unix variants, for example, it's 0x0a when > measured in files or in C strings, but 0x0d 0x0a when measured on > hardware serial lines. > > > Is '\n' 0Dh? 0Ah? 0Dh 0Ah? 0Ah 0Dh? > > It's only one character; that much is well-specified (well, assuming > your '\n' was supposed to be C). What the numerical value of that > character is is not well-defined without reference to a particular > system (though 0x0a is by far the commonest, probably because it's > ASCII NL). If you run the following bit of C code under MS-DOS (or Windows): #include #include int main(int argc,char *argv[]) { FILE *fp; int c; if (argv == 1) fp = stdin; else fp = fopen(argv[1],"r"); if (fp == NULL) { perror(argv[1]); return(EXIT_FAILURE); } while((c = getc(fp)) != EOF) { if (c == '\n') printf("new line\n"); else if (c == 0x0D) printf("carriage return\n"); } return(EXIT_SUCCESS); } All you will see is repetition of "new line"----you won't see any "carriage return" at all. That's because the Standard C Library is sucking up the carriage returns. Upon printing a '\n', the Standard C Library is silently adding carriage returns. Change the "r" in the fopen() call to "rb" and then you'll start seeing carriage returns. -spc (Gah! Why do I remember this horrible MS-DOS crap?) From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Sat Dec 29 22:01:44 2007 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:01:44 -0600 Subject: Multibus, was Re: new find: NS BLC80/10 In-Reply-To: <4777102F.6060602@mich.com> References: <4a07b211a03553fc52e1831696edee6e@valleyimplants.com> <200712292218.41233.rtellason@verizon.net> <4777102F.6060602@mich.com> Message-ID: <47771828.4040408@gmail.com> Dave Mabry wrote: > The 80/10 was based on the 8080 cpu and had ram, EPROM, I/O, all on one > board. The bus was used in subsequent development systems such as the > MDS Series II, Series III, and several systems based on the RMX and > Xenix operating systems. ISTR it's what my NCR Tower uses for the I/O bus (although system memory access is via a separate bus). > I'm sure others here will elaborate further, but that's kind of a > nutshell version. Google led me to: http://www.techfest.com/hardware/bus/multibus_sokos.htm ... which seems pretty comprehensive. cheers J. From geoffr at zipcon.net Sat Dec 29 23:05:32 2007 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoff Reed) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:05:32 -0800 Subject: Multibus, was Re: new find: NS BLC80/10 In-Reply-To: <47771828.4040408@gmail.com> References: <4a07b211a03553fc52e1831696edee6e@valleyimplants.com> <200712292218.41233.rtellason@verizon.net><4777102F.6060602@mich.com> <47771828.4040408@gmail.com> Message-ID: <002a01c84aa1$9b0cda40$6a01a8c0@liberator> Hey, I am feeling twisted... anyone out there have MS Xenix 286? And the development kit? I have been missing my tandy 6000 and since I have some old 386 boards, I thought I'd see if I can get my hands on Xenix/286 disks and build a xenix box... -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2007 8:02 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Multibus, was Re: new find: NS BLC80/10 Dave Mabry wrote: > The 80/10 was based on the 8080 cpu and had ram, EPROM, I/O, all on one > board. The bus was used in subsequent development systems such as the > MDS Series II, Series III, and several systems based on the RMX and > Xenix operating systems. ISTR it's what my NCR Tower uses for the I/O bus (although system memory access is via a separate bus). > I'm sure others here will elaborate further, but that's kind of a > nutshell version. Google led me to: http://www.techfest.com/hardware/bus/multibus_sokos.htm ... which seems pretty comprehensive. cheers J. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Dec 29 23:09:36 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:09:36 -0800 Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <200712300338.lBU3cBTY061157@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712300338.lBU3cBTY061157@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4776B790.17846.C80452D@cclist.sydex.com> > From: Fred Cisin > > Worse, on many systems the answer differs depending what point you > > measure at. On most Unix variants, for example, it's 0x0a when > > measured in files or in C strings, but 0x0d 0x0a when measured on > > hardware serial lines. > > in which case, what characters would > fprintf(PRN, "%s" , "X\n" ); > actually send to the printer? Unix was the first ASCII-using OS that I saw that used a print control character "\n" as a logical separator. Prior to that, I'd seen decimal 31 (US) used. The benefit of using the ASCII separator characters (US RS GS FS) is that one can stucture a file or files hierarchically (i.e. units in records in groups in files). A shame that our current modern systems don't take advantage of this. Even CDC SCOPE or NOS allowed for file/record-level hierarchies. Up to 15 levels of records were allowed, IIRC. So you could skip to the next level 4 record within a file, bypassing all intervening level 0, 1, 2 and 3 records in the process. A shame that was never carried into our "modern" systems. Does anyone know why SUB (0x1A, 26) was used to denote an EOF in CP/M and, to some extent, DOS text files? IIRC, there is at least one programming language that treats newline as a quotable character. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sat Dec 29 23:14:18 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:14:18 -0800 Subject: (Fwd) CDC Grid Display Subsystem Message-ID: <4776B8AA.16899.C849241@cclist.sydex.com> This from Billy Petit: ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Unless I have badly confused names, the GRID system was a very unusual Control Data experiement. It was a 160-A made from CDC's Interbrid logic chips. It used a 12 bit X and Y axis vector display. The instruction set was the standard 160-A but with some extra commands supporting the display. It was initialized with Function Ready commands, then did vector transfers directly from the processor memory. The memory was 12K core of 12 bits. This was a very small run system, somewhere around 20 to 30 systems total built. They were made at the Roseville plant. The GRIDsystemwas droppeda little afterCDC bought out the imaging group from Itek and formed the Digigraphics Division. (The market wasn't big enough to support two competing product lines.) The 274 console was the second generation system from this new group. The first was a huge console used on 3000 systems. It was used on large CAD systems. They were made at the Burlington, Mass. plant. I installed four of them at Lockheed in Marietta when they won the C-5 contract, circa 1966-67. Maybe another 10 systems total, were made. The second generation Digigraphics system used a new controller built from 6000 logic modules. It was a 16 bit controller and used on the 1700 systems. There was a limited version that shipped with the System 18. I'd love to see the GRID manual posted to bitsavers. If you will loan it to Al or me, we will scan it and return to you. I may still have some schemantics for it in the garage, but I haven't seen them since 1976 so I maybe imagining their existence. I have recently talked to one of the designers of the GRID, but my contact addresses for him don't work. I still can't post emails directly to the cclist, so can I get one of you to put up this follow up message? Thanks, Billy From jfoust at threedee.com Sat Dec 29 23:33:45 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 23:33:45 -0600 Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <4776B790.17846.C80452D@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712300338.lBU3cBTY061157@dewey.classiccmp.org> <4776B790.17846.C80452D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20071229232119.051a4358@mail.threedee.com> At 11:09 PM 12/29/2007, you wrote: >Does anyone know why SUB (0x1A, 26) was used to denote an EOF in CP/M >and, to some extent, DOS text files? Tom Jennings has a nice guide here: http://www.wps.com/projects/codes/index.html although it does not answer your question. I believe the answer is DEC's PIP, from its char to terminate user input? But it didn't get stored in the file, it was just UI, no? The Jargon Chaff file also refers to CTRL/Z / SUB as "line starve": http://www.catb.org/jargon/chaff.html - John From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sat Dec 29 23:30:19 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:30:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <4776B745.1060902@dunnington.plus.com> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <4776B745.1060902@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <200712300603.BAA11733@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >>> "What is the ASCII code for newline?" >> 0x0a, one of whose names is NL. This is well-defined. > There is no ASCII code for "newline". Hm, I was under the impression that 0x0a had two names, LF (line feed) and NL (newline), and that it was up to each sender and receiver using the code to decide which meaning they'd use. This impression dates back long enough that I no longer have any idea where I got it, but it must ahve been a source authoritative-seeming enough for me to have believd it at the time. Someday I should go look up the real X3.4.... /~\ 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 Sun Dec 30 00:07:21 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 01:07:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <20071229173711.Y20404@shell.lmi.net> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20071229173711.Y20404@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200712300616.BAA11800@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> Worse, on many systems the answer differs depending what point you >> measure at. On most Unix variants, for example, [a line break is] >> 0x0a when measured in files or in C strings, but 0x0d 0x0a when >> measured on hardware serial lines. > in which case, what characters would > fprintf(PRN, "%s" , "X\n" ); > actually send to the printer? "It depends" - which was really my point. It could send 0x58 0x0a, or it could send 0x58 0x0a 0x0d, or possibly even other things under more unusual circumstances. Even serial lines can on most systems be put into a mode wherein they're content-blind octet streams, in which case mapping between '\n' and CRLF doesn't happen. Of course, the printier may well be a parallel instead of serial interface, in which case it's even more of a crapshoot what you get. Parallel interfaces usually are treated differently from serial interfaces, and mapping '\n' to CRLF is one of the things that plausibly may differ. But it still depends on where you measure. It's plausible, for example, that it's two octets at the syscall interface but three at the hardware interface, each of which is a reasonable interpretation of "actually send to the printer" in an appropriate context. > in which case, HOW MANY characters would > fprintf(PRN, "%s" , "X\n" ); > actually send to the printer? See above - usually either two or three, depending on whether '\n'->CRLF mapping is being done. >> Then in what sense are those choices "wrong"? > so, may I assume that you have no objection to Tandy defining NEWLINE > as 0Dh? Within the context of their systems? Only that it hampers interoperability, both mechanized and human, but that's not enough for me to call it "wrong" in isolation from a context. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Dec 30 00:43:05 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:43:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <200712300603.BAA11733@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <4776B745.1060902@dunnington.plus.com> <200712300603.BAA11733@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20071229221429.N29093@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 30 Dec 2007, der Mouse wrote: > This impression dates back long enough that I no longer have any idea > where I got it, but it must ahve been a source authoritative-seeming > enough for me to have believd it at the time. Someday I should go look > up the real X3.4.... I remember being confused when I read in some Tandy docs that "character 13 is newline". It might have been the same document that said that "RS232" meant "Radio Shack 232". "... nice thing about standards is that everyone can have a unique one of their own" - George Morrow My DTC300's (Hitype I daisy wheel) permitted extensive use of 0Ah as linefeed WITHOUT carriage return in plotting mode, and could use CR without LF for BOLD, overstrike, and underline. My first DTC300 didn't have a working "Auto LF" switch, but when Jim Bertera fixed that for me, I finally got my TRS80 to print. Prior to that, it was in "paper saving mode", and printed each page of text on a single line. (Electric Pencil and Scripsit) I'm far from expert in it, but for 30+ years, I've been struggling with implementation dependent interpretations of newline, and was suggesting that that might be at the root of the missing newlines in some mail quotes. Consider the possibility of a crude filter to convert CRLF to CR by deleting all LFs. Now feed THAT some text that uses LF for newline. That's why THAT filter should only delete the LFs that follow CRs. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Dec 30 00:44:49 2007 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:44:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <200712300616.BAA11800@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20071229173711.Y20404@shell.lmi.net> <200712300616.BAA11800@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20071229224325.F29093@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 30 Dec 2007, der Mouse wrote: > "It depends" - which was really my point. mine also From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Dec 30 00:29:44 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 01:29:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <20071230032909.GA32378@brevard.conman.org> References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> <20071230032909.GA32378@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <200712300652.BAA11910@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > What I've heard---there is no one character that returns the carriage > to the start of the line (CR) and advances down one line (LF). Sometimes there is; I have used hardware having a mode wherein there is a single code on the serial line that performs that function. > Another recurring issue for ASCII: what is baskspace supposed to do? > I'm used to systems that use $08 [1] to move the cursor left one > column and overwrite the character there with a space. But Linux > (maybe because Linus was secretly a DEChead?) decided that $7F would > move the cursor left one column and overwrite the character there > with a space, but X Windows (which I use on Linux) seems to want to > use $08 for that. There's an ambiguity here: are you talking on input or on output? On output, 0x08 usually moves one space left and does nothing else (though I've heard of hardware that overwrites the character moved onto with a space), and 0x7f usually does nothing. On input, "it depends". On VMS (which I went through my larval phase on), 0x7f was the "delete previously-typed character" code and 0x08 was...I don't clearly recall; I think it was just another nonprinting input character, like 0x05 or 0x16. On Unix variants, it depends even more. There's a tty driver setting which controls what character the tty driver treats as an erase character; this can normally be set to pretty much anything, including 0x08 or 0x7f. And a lot of software does its own input line editing, in which case it's up to that software; a lot of it treats either 0x08 or 0x7f as "delete previous character". Whatever performs the delete-previous function is usually echoed as multiple characters whose effect is to back up one space and blank out what was there, which sounds a lot like what you describe. The X Window System ["it's a window system named X, not a system named X Windows"] does not, strictly, do what you describe. First, because in X you don't type characters; you type keystrokes, and they get turned into characters, if at all, by the choice of the client handling them. Second, because input line editing - indeed, the notion of collecting input into lines - is also a client-specific notion. Terminal emulators like xterm usually leave this up to whatever is listening on the pseudo-terminal in use, which means the applciation running there and/or the pseudo-terminal driver in use by the underlying OS. Other applications may or may not provide any line editing; when they do, they usually have some way to configure what keystrokes perform what functions; if they don't have such control, it's by choice of the application author, not something imposed by 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 dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Dec 30 00:56:43 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:56:43 -0800 Subject: Multibus, was Re: new find: NS BLC80/10 In-Reply-To: <200712292218.41233.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <4a07b211a03553fc52e1831696edee6e@valleyimplants.com> <200712292218.41233.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: > From: rtellason at verizon.net > > On Saturday 29 December 2007 18:50, Scott Quinn wrote: >> I was dismantling some old stuff that I got as a lot and came across >> this beastie. >> >> It's a National Semiconductor Microcomputer Systems BLC 80/10. >> >> Clone of an Intel iSBC 80/10. >> >> Single board 8080A computer with sockets for PROMs and 1K of RAM >> onboard, several parallel ports, one serial port, and Multibus >> interface for expansion. As used in this case, it was standalone with >> only the power pins on the Multibus connected (and the I/O at the top). >> >> As the only Multibus backplane I have is an IRIS 3000 series >> (double-deep), it's available. Hi I think there may be something on Al's site. Even so, the 80/10's were not too complicated. One doesn't need to connect it to a multibus. It is intended to work as a stand alone SBC if one so desires. It has RAM/ROM and serial. As I recall, there was some parallel ports as well. If one wanted to do more with it, one could find a multibus back plane and add some memory or such -snip- > > Is there much of this stuff out there? They're not real common but there are quite a few out there. I've got at least two or three 80/10's in my basement someplace. Most are missing parts but who knows, maybe I'll do something with them. Intel made a series of these, 80/10, 80/20 and 80/30. These all had different RAM sizes and supported newer and larger EPROMs. I think that 80/30 was the last in the series because they came out with a 8086 board about then. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Dec 30 01:09:25 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 23:09:25 -0800 Subject: Mail formatting [was Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?] In-Reply-To: <20071229180346.F20404@shell.lmi.net> References: <20071228154433.GB5621@usap.gov> <20071228184710.GA7385@usap.gov> <20071228202103.GA8910@usap.gov> <200712291538.KAA05576@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20071229160007.GC17604@usap.gov> <20071229180346.F20404@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: > From: cisin at xenosoft.com > On Sat, 29 Dec 2007, dwight elvey wrote: >> This is just more windows crap. I'm sure it would work fine >> if we were all using windows for all mail. > > . . . but where's the fun in THAT? > > Hi Just to add fun to things. My Olivetti M20 uses 0Eh as LF CR. I noticed this when I was editing files on my PC and transfering them to the M20. I needed to pass them through a filter each time I move one way or the other. Painful but I just included it in my transfer program. It did use a ^Z for end of text. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ i?m is proud to present Cause Effect, a series about real people making a difference. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_Cause_Effect From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Dec 30 03:05:19 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 09:05:19 +0000 Subject: ASCII Art Message-ID: > I rarely see ASCII art these days. There was a retro ASCII Art > newsletter that was published every few months which had some ASCII art > in it, but sadly the people behind it have decided to stop making it. > Only 5 issues exist, and at present I only have issue 5 I feel there are 2 subtly-different forms of ASCII-Art. The first is essantally 2-colour, and uses characters of the right shape to form the image. The second uses characters of different average densitys to form a sort-of greyscale image. The former is used (and I still regularly use it) for things like schematic diagrams. I think I've worked out ASCII-Art versions of the symbols for all common components, and I've drawn up quite complex scheamtics that way. The second, which seems to be a lot rarer, is the sort of thing used for that picture of the cat, I guess. -tony From info at harrells.net Sat Dec 29 13:31:18 2007 From: info at harrells.net (info) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 14:31:18 -0500 Subject: Looking for California Computer Systems Z-80 CPU Card In-Reply-To: <5a20d01bc84e8e9e1e7426097b249214@neurotica.com> References: <711F20A2-9E5A-4934-953A-A11F8AFC6DE6@voysys.com> <5a20d01bc84e8e9e1e7426097b249214@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4776A086.9000104@harrells.net> I have the manual and can try to scan the schematic page if you still need it. I agree the one on the internet sites is very poor so let me know. Herb's scans are good also. Dave McGuire wrote: > On Dec 29, 2007, at 9:23 AM, Marden P. Marshall wrote: >>> I've put the documentation for this board (which includes a >>> sorta-readable-but-not-great schematic) up at: >>> >>> http://www.neurotica.com/misc/CCS_2810_CPU_Manual.pdf >> >> Thanks for the pdf Dave. Unfortunately that's the same one I've >> found floating around and the schematic is so badly pixelated that >> the details can't be made out. > > :-( > >> I did hear from Herb Johnson at retrotechnology and he has a copy >> for sale which includes a full size foldout schematic. I think I'm >> going to bite the bullet and buy a copy from him. > > Sounds good. Would you be willing to scan it? > >> By the way, that PDP-11/70 looks awesome! > > Thanks! > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > From iamvirtual at gmail.com Sat Dec 29 14:31:31 2007 From: iamvirtual at gmail.com (B M) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 13:31:31 -0700 Subject: ASCII Art (was Re: how to connect a DECprinter I (LA180) ?) Message-ID: <000501c84a59$cfab3d70$6400a8c0@bear4> If you look for the PBM tools, there is a PBM to ASCII output format. Using the tools, any picture could be converted to the ASCII art. Enjoy! --barrym From eniveld at gmail.com Sat Dec 29 19:42:17 2007 From: eniveld at gmail.com (David Levine) Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 17:42:17 -0800 Subject: Source code to MMD1 and MMD2 Message-ID: <001201c84a85$36d3b8d0$a47b2a70$@com> I wrote the machine code for the MMD1 and MMD2 and was wondering if anyone would find it valuable? I also created an experimental model for E&L that never shipped where I converted the CPU over to a 6502. Any takers? It's all on printed paper, so I don't know what the best way to get it on line is. --David From stanb at dial.pipex.com Sun Dec 30 05:05:31 2007 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 11:05:31 +0000 Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:30:19 EST." <200712300603.BAA11733@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200712301105.LAA11471@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, der Mouse said: > >>> "What is the ASCII code for newline?" > >> 0x0a, one of whose names is NL. This is well-defined. > > There is no ASCII code for "newline". > > Hm, I was under the impression that 0x0a had two names, LF (line feed) > and NL (newline), and that it was up to each sender and receiver using > the code to decide which meaning they'd use. > > This impression dates back long enough that I no longer have any idea > where I got it, but it must ahve been a source authoritative-seeming > enough for me to have believd it at the time. Someday I should go look > up the real X3.4.... It's the other one: 0x0d... CR Control M 13 0D 0001101 Carriage Return A format effector that controls the movement of the printing position to the first printing position on the same printing line. In some cases the CR will incorporate an automatic line feed (LF) as either a default or an option. This feature, called New Line (NL), is used to make computer keyboards more like those of typewriters. >From X3.4-1977 -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From hoelscher-kirchbrak at freenet.de Sun Dec 30 06:41:32 2007 From: hoelscher-kirchbrak at freenet.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?H=F6lscher?=) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 13:41:32 +0100 Subject: Wanted: PDP-11 MUMPS Software & Manuals Message-ID: Hi, I'm looking for Software & Manuals for any of the MUMPS implementations for the PDP-11, e.g. MUMPS-11, DSM-11 or M/11+. Can anybody help? Regards, Ulli From Arno_1983 at gmx.de Sun Dec 30 07:57:54 2007 From: Arno_1983 at gmx.de (Arno Kletzander) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:57:54 +0100 Subject: Framegrabber MMAC and WinTV questions In-Reply-To: <200712281801.lBSI0eXT038114@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712281801.lBSI0eXT038114@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20071230135754.230740@gmx.net> Stroller wrote: > > The board has a PCI edge connector, a BT848 video decoder ... > > I do not believe these are uncommon. > > Note especially the first link: > http://www.google.com/search?q=BT848 Err, yes...I actually had noticed before, and meanwhile got it to work using the generic Bt8x8 driver from btwincap.sourceforge.net. I had just hoped that somebody might point me to the original driver for that card. The btwincap thingie implements lots of stuff (like program lists, tuner and audio crossbar control by I2C or I/O lines...) that this simple device doesn't need. -- Arno Kletzander Der GMX SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen! Ideal f?r Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Sun Dec 30 10:41:11 2007 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 17:41:11 +0100 Subject: Mail formatting - and announcing first draft of the LA180 webpage In-Reply-To: References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20071229173711.Y20404@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: Hi all, my apologies to the list. I seem to have stirred in a can of worms. For some reason, I have the impression that top-posting, and leaving the "line" intact that hotmail inserts, seems to keep the lines correct in the original posting. This is the experiment for it, allthough we do not prefer top-posting. Yes, it is "Henk", not "Hank". Indeed, I am using Hotmail which is "upgraded" to "Windows Live". I can not remember that quoted replies were mashed up like they did yesterday, but then again, I am not a frequent poster :-) So, as an experiment, I will repeat this posting with adding some text at the bottom, BUT I will re-run the original posting, concatenating the lines and entering "Enter" to seperate them again. I have written the LA180 page (partly) and put it on my site. Go to www.pdp-11.nl and navigate to: peripherals -> comm -> printers -> LA180 Henk, PA8PDP > Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 19:34:09 -0800> From: rivie at ridgenet.net> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Mail formatting> > On Sat, 29 Dec 2007, der Mouse wrote:> > Of course, there is a lot of broken SMTP code out there. Looking at> > headers makes me think Hank's mail was actually sent through Hotmail,> > There's the bit I was looking for.> > Hotmail recently became "Windows Live". In their most recent "upgrade",> I noticed it doing this to messages I reply to. It even drops the line> breaks from my *signature*, despite being a Hotmail signature that's> been defined for ages.> > Basically, Microsoft broke Hotmail recently. Users have to be careful.> -- > roger ivie> rivie at ridgenet.net> From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Sun Dec 30 10:51:57 2007 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 17:51:57 +0100 Subject: Mail formatting - LA180 webpage is live In-Reply-To: References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20071229173711.Y20404@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: > Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 19:34:09 -0800 > From: rivie at ridgenet.net > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Mail formatting > > On Sat, 29 Dec 2007, der Mouse wrote: > > Of course, there is a lot of broken SMTP code out there. Looking at > > headers makes me think Hank's mail was actually sent through Hotmail, > > There's the bit I was looking for. > > Hotmail recently became "Windows Live". In their most recent "upgrade", > I noticed it doing this to messages I reply to. It even drops the line > breaks from my *signature*, despite being a Hotmail signature that's > been defined for ages. > > Basically, Microsoft broke Hotmail recently. Users have to be careful. > -- > roger ivie > rivie at ridgenet.net OK, I have seen my own reply ... top-posting is no different. The text at the bottom is also stripped of all control characters it seems. I am running Windows XP SP2 and use "Windows Live Hotmail". For this experiment, I concatenated the original quoted text at the top, and created the separated lines by hitting "Enter". It is a bit of labour, but if that makes the quoted text look good, it is better to do it myself, than giving many people a hard time reading that. It also helps in trimming a reply :-) I hope the quoted text now has CR's. One repeat, to "add some information" in this message: I have written the LA180 page (partly) and put it on my site. Go to www.pdp-11.nl and navigate to: peripherals -> comm -> printers -> LA180 Henk, PA8PDP (again keeping fingers crossed...) From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Dec 30 11:39:49 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 09:39:49 -0800 Subject: Mail formatting - LA180 webpage is live In-Reply-To: References: <8CA184FC02D88FF-D80-1285@FWM-D01.sysops.aol.com> <20071229103517.L6225@shell.lmi.net> <200712291937.OAA06945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20071229173711.Y20404@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: > From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com -snip- > > > OK, I have seen my own reply ... top-posting is no different. > The text at the bottom is also stripped of all control characters it seems. > I am running Windows XP SP2 and use "Windows Live Hotmail". Hi Henk Look right below the subject line on the from:to:subject: There is a select "Show plain text". Select this and you won't have to fiddle with the quoted text. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ From jfoust at threedee.com Sun Dec 30 12:16:52 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 12:16:52 -0600 Subject: ASCII Art In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20071230113903.056a5170@mail.threedee.com> At 03:05 AM 12/30/2007, ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >I feel there are 2 subtly-different forms of ASCII-Art. The first is >essantally 2-colour, and uses characters of the right shape to form the >image. The second uses characters of different average densitys to form a >sort-of greyscale image. There were many approaches, of course. There were typewriter artists in the same style, years before teletypes. Many old RTTY images were built by hand. Certainly many RTTY images were ported to computers and are still passed around today. If you have kids on MySpace, you'll see that ASCII art is still very popular when posted as comments on your friend's web pages. Later computer-generated pictures were certainly automated through several sorts of scanning processes and subsequent assignment of grey to chars. For example, with any early computer that could drive a teletype and digitize a crude value from a phototransistor mounted on the print head, you can feed a photograph through the print roller, "print" nothing, read the values and "scan" the image. The choice of chars could include schemes for overstrike - sending a line with a carriage return but without the line-feed, and overprinting to make new one-char-space greys. I talk about this on my page http://www.threedee.com/jcm/aaa/ . A long time ago I wrote a filter to translate overstrike ASCII files into Adobe Illustrator files. This gave a path to printer-independent overstrike, choice of fonts, and direct rasterization of the image via PhotoShop, which can read the AI files. Fully automated conversion of old ASCII art to bitmaps can be tricky. There are other feed-control characters explicit or implicit in some of the original files, such as form feed and vertical tab. Some ASCII art came with its own printing program to interpret the image data. They come in all rotations. As you can see in the Einstein example on my page, the chars used to print Albert are "upside down". Some images are portrait, others landscape. Some are assembled of several strips or even just partial strips, taped together. More subtle infidelities happen when the font's glyphs don't exactly match the original. Then there's the huge realm of ANSI art from the late 80s / early 90s, using the VT-100 / PC-ish conventions for positioning the cursor on the 80x24 screen, erasing, refreshing, or animating, often passed around on BBSes. - John From lynchaj at yahoo.com Sun Dec 30 13:04:32 2007 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:04:32 -0500 Subject: ST506 and/or ST412 hard disk drives Message-ID: <002101c84b16$d03495d0$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> Hi, I am restoring a Vector Graphic computer and would like to add a hard disk drive. The controller only supports two kinds of hard disk drives, the ST506 and ST412. The HD controller is hard coded to support these DRIVES not just a compatible interface and relies on a special signal present only in these actual drives. If anyone has one or more of these hard disk drives they would like to sell me, please contact me or reply here. Thanks! Andrew Lynch From bpettit at ix.netcom.com Sun Dec 30 13:15:05 2007 From: bpettit at ix.netcom.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 11:15:05 -0800 Subject: Test - Don't Reply Message-ID: <4777EE39.4070302@ix.netcom.com> Testing to see if send problem resolved. From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Sun Dec 30 13:59:34 2007 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere at gmail.com) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:59:34 +0000 Subject: Compaq "Enhanced II Keyboard" - what's with these? Message-ID: Hi list, I have two "Compaq Enhanced II Keyboard"s here (they look old enough to be on-topic) - PS/2 connector, but they don't work on any PC I've tried them with. Are these specific to one machine? If so, is there any interest before I dumpster them? Thanks, Ed. From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sun Dec 30 14:52:01 2007 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:52:01 -0600 Subject: Modem to Modem without a line simulator? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <477804F1.9060004@brutman.com> This question is bugging me from another forum. Is it possible to connect two modems (eg: Hayes 2400 to Hayes 2400) using a 'dead' or isolated pair of copper wire and have them be able to communicate? I always thought that this can not work because the line that the modems are connected to has to have some current. The phone system works because an action on one end of the phone (talking into the carbon microphone) causes a reaction on the other end. Without some sort of current on the line, how can this work? Hence the need for 'line simulator' circuits Some people are claiming that it works without the line simulator. I'd like to understand why. (I could get out the multimeter if things get really desperate, but maybe somebody can tell me that the line current thing only applies to acoustically connected modems, not direct connect. Or the direct connect modems put enough juice on the line to make it work. Or something else that might make sense.) From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Dec 30 15:38:46 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 13:38:46 -0800 Subject: Modem to Modem without a line simulator? In-Reply-To: <477804F1.9060004@brutman.com> References: <477804F1.9060004@brutman.com> Message-ID: > From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com > > This question is bugging me from another forum. > > Is it possible to connect two modems (eg: Hayes 2400 to Hayes 2400) > using a 'dead' or isolated pair of copper wire and have them be able to > communicate? > > I always thought that this can not work because the line that the modems > are connected to has to have some current. The phone system works > because an action on one end of the phone (talking into the carbon > microphone) causes a reaction on the other end. Without some sort of > current on the line, how can this work? Hence the need for 'line > simulator' circuits > > Some people are claiming that it works without the line simulator. I'd > like to understand why. > > (I could get out the multimeter if things get really desperate, but > maybe somebody can tell me that the line current thing only applies to > acoustically connected modems, not direct connect. Or the direct > connect modems put enough juice on the line to make it work. Or > something else that might make sense.) > Hi The only thing missing that might be a problem is that there is no ring generator. If you force the modems to be off the hook, they could be just connected together. The current is used for the carbon mike and to tell the phone system that the phone is off the hook. Line connected modems don't have any use for the current and only have a load resistor there to keep the line connected. Other than the ring detect, there is no reason two modems can't talk to each other since they are self powered. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Sun Dec 30 15:40:14 2007 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 16:40:14 -0500 Subject: ST506 and/or ST412 hard disk drives In-Reply-To: <002101c84b16$d03495d0$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> References: <002101c84b16$d03495d0$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> Message-ID: <4778103E.2010103@compsys.to> >Andrew Lynch wrote: >Hi, > >I am restoring a Vector Graphic computer and would like to add a hard >disk drive. The controller only supports two kinds of hard disk >drives, the ST506 and ST412. The HD controller is hard coded to >support these DRIVES not just a compatible interface and relies on a >special signal present only in these actual drives. > >If anyone has one or more of these hard disk drives they would like to >sell me, please contact me or reply here. > >Thanks! > >Andrew Lynch > Jerome Fine replies: I may still have an ST412, actually an RD51. I am in Toronto. If no one else replies, contact me and I will check to see if the ST412 is still stored there. 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 grant at stockly.com Sun Dec 30 15:49:58 2007 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 12:49:58 -0900 Subject: Modem to Modem without a line simulator? In-Reply-To: <477804F1.9060004@brutman.com> References: <477804F1.9060004@brutman.com> Message-ID: <0JTV00E2VTZ62W10@msgmmp-1.gci.net> At 11:52 AM 12/30/2007, you wrote: >This question is bugging me from another forum. > >Is it possible to connect two modems (eg: Hayes 2400 to Hayes 2400) >using a 'dead' or isolated pair of copper wire and have them be able >to communicate? > >I always thought that this can not work because the line that the >modems are connected to has to have some current. The phone system >works because an action on one end of the phone (talking into the >carbon microphone) causes a reaction on the other end. Without some >sort of current on the line, how can this work? Hence the need for >'line simulator' circuits > >Some people are claiming that it works without the line >simulator. I'd like to understand why. > >(I could get out the multimeter if things get really desperate, but >maybe somebody can tell me that the line current thing only applies >to acoustically connected modems, not direct connect. Or the direct >connect modems put enough juice on the line to make it work. Or >something else that might make sense.) I've done it with a Hayes 1200 and a Hayes Supermodem 28.8. I think I may have done it with a Hayes 300 in an Apple IIe. I don't know how it works, but it did... From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sun Dec 30 16:08:43 2007 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:08:43 -0800 Subject: Modem to Modem without a line simulator? References: <477804F1.9060004@brutman.com> Message-ID: <477816EC.7B4EE587@cs.ubc.ca> "Michael B. Brutman" wrote: > > This question is bugging me from another forum. > > Is it possible to connect two modems (eg: Hayes 2400 to Hayes 2400) > using a 'dead' or isolated pair of copper wire and have them be able to > communicate? > > I always thought that this can not work because the line that the modems > are connected to has to have some current. The phone system works > because an action on one end of the phone (talking into the carbon > microphone) causes a reaction on the other end. Without some sort of > current on the line, how can this work? Hence the need for 'line > simulator' circuits > > Some people are claiming that it works without the line simulator. I'd > like to understand why. > > (I could get out the multimeter if things get really desperate, but > maybe somebody can tell me that the line current thing only applies to > acoustically connected modems, not direct connect. Or the direct > connect modems put enough juice on the line to make it work. Or > something else that might make sense.) Yes, it will work (or can, acknowledging the idiosyncrasies of some modems) (I have used it on occasion to transfer between machines that had no other common communication/IO facility). You're on the right track about the modems putting juice on the line. The original design of the phone system, as you suggest, was such that the carbon mike modulated the DC line current to produce an AC component (the audio) on the line, the carbon mike acting as a variable resistance and the DC line current being the only source of energy on the line. However, many directly-connected modems are transformer coupled onto the line and actually inject their own AC energy onto the line, with no inherent need for the DC line current. On the other hand, some modems (generally later, higher-speed ones, I believe) use opto-isolator-coupling onto the line and so work more like the carbon mike, and will require the DC line current. It's been awhile since I've done it, but the general idea is to simply connect up the modems (one pair/two wires), set one into answer mode (ATA), and set the other into originate mode (ATD or ATH1(?)), forcing one/both off-hook. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Dec 30 16:18:00 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:18:00 -0800 Subject: ST506 and/or ST412 hard disk drives In-Reply-To: <002101c84b16$d03495d0$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> References: <002101c84b16$d03495d0$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> Message-ID: > From: lynchaj at yahoo.com > > Hi, > > I am restoring a Vector Graphic computer and would like to add a hard > disk drive. The controller only supports two kinds of hard disk > drives, the ST506 and ST412. The HD controller is hard coded to > support these DRIVES not just a compatible interface and relies on a > special signal present only in these actual drives. > > If anyone has one or more of these hard disk drives they would like to > sell me, please contact me or reply here. > > Thanks! > > Andrew Lynch > Hi Andrew First, I'm not sure what you mean by ST506 and ST412. I thought these were different in that one had a signal used for write precompensation while the other used the same line for a head select. If you use a newer drive that has built in precomp, just tie the line going to the drive so that it ignores the Precomp from the controller. I seem to recall some signal from the drive that was on the data cable. I don't recall what it was that came from the drive but it seems like it was some type of write protect or something. In any case this line can be cut and tied as well. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Dec 30 16:39:31 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:39:31 -0800 Subject: ST506 and/or ST412 hard disk drives In-Reply-To: References: <002101c84b16$d03495d0$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> Message-ID: > From: dkelvey at hotmail.com >> >> From: lynchaj at yahoo.com >> >> Hi, >> >> I am restoring a Vector Graphic computer and would like to add a hard >> disk drive. The controller only supports two kinds of hard disk >> drives, the ST506 and ST412. The HD controller is hard coded to >> support these DRIVES not just a compatible interface and relies on a >> special signal present only in these actual drives. >> >> If anyone has one or more of these hard disk drives they would like to >> sell me, please contact me or reply here. >> >> Thanks! >> >> Andrew Lynch >> > > Hi Andrew > First, I'm not sure what you mean by ST506 and ST412. I thought > these were different in that one had a signal used for write precompensation > while the other used the same line for a head select. > If you use a newer drive that has built in precomp, just > tie the line going to the drive so that it ignores the Precomp > from the controller. > I seem to recall some signal from the drive that was on > the data cable. I don't recall what it was that came from the > drive but it seems like it was some type of write protect or > something. In any case this line can be cut and tied > as well. > Dwight Hi I just checked on it and your request doesn't make sense. There was a spec for the ST506 and a newer spec ST506/412. For your problem, I'd think the number of heads would be more important. The other issue would be stp time. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ i?m is proud to present Cause Effect, a series about real people making a difference. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_Cause_Effect From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Dec 30 17:56:40 2007 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 23:56:40 +0000 Subject: Modem to Modem without a line simulator? In-Reply-To: References: <477804F1.9060004@brutman.com> Message-ID: <1199059000.10832.16.camel@elric> On Sun, 2007-12-30 at 13:38 -0800, dwight elvey wrote: > Other than the ring detect, there is no reason two > modems can't talk to each other since they are self powered. Some modems detect loop current and won't play unless there's something there. You can use a 9v battery to provide this. Gordon From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Sun Dec 30 18:02:56 2007 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:02:56 -0500 Subject: Modem to Modem without a line simulator? In-Reply-To: <1199059000.10832.16.camel@elric> Message-ID: <200712310001.lBV00uPR053690@keith.ezwind.net> On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 23:56:40 +0000, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >On Sun, 2007-12-30 at 13:38 -0800, dwight elvey wrote: >> Other than the ring detect, there is no reason two >> modems can't talk to each other since they are self powered. >Some modems detect loop current and won't play unless there's something >there. You can use a 9v battery to provide this. >Gordon and if you want to create a ring, 90vac at 30 cps works just fine :-) later the other Bob From doc at mdrconsult.com Sun Dec 30 18:44:44 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 18:44:44 -0600 Subject: Modem to Modem without a line simulator? In-Reply-To: References: <477804F1.9060004@brutman.com> Message-ID: <47783B7C.7070107@mdrconsult.com> dwight elvey wrote: >> From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com >> >> This question is bugging me from another forum. >> >> Is it possible to connect two modems (eg: Hayes 2400 to Hayes 2400) >> using a 'dead' or isolated pair of copper wire and have them be able to >> communicate? >> > Other than the ring detect, there is no reason two > modems can't talk to each other since they are self powered. And, in fact, one of the AT commands initiates negotiation without a ring. I disremember which one, but I've used 2 modems and a "plain vanilla" 4-wire phone cord between them. Doc From silent700 at gmail.com Sun Dec 30 19:12:58 2007 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:12:58 -0600 Subject: Modem to Modem without a line simulator? In-Reply-To: <47783B7C.7070107@mdrconsult.com> References: <477804F1.9060004@brutman.com> <47783B7C.7070107@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <51ea77730712301712y60831b10wbab415d8d739b967@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 30, 2007 6:44 PM, Doc Shipley wrote: > And, in fact, one of the AT commands initiates negotiation without a > ring. I disremember which one, but I've used 2 modems and a "plain > vanilla" 4-wire phone cord between them. ATA[nswer] on one and ATO[riginate] on the other should do the trick. From evan at snarc.net Sun Dec 30 20:14:46 2007 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 21:14:46 -0500 Subject: Rescue opp in Boston Message-ID: <00b501c84b52$eb7f7760$f750f945@evan> Just passing this one along for whoever's interested. >>> Xerox 820 II with 8" floppy disks, CP/M operating system, Select Word processing, and a 630 Daisy wheel printer. It was bought in 1982 and we have all the manuals. It has not been turned on since we "retired" it in 1989 or so, but it was working at that point. JoAnne Yates jyates at MIT.EDU From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Dec 30 21:45:26 2007 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:45:26 -0800 Subject: Wanted: PDP-11 MUMPS Software & Manuals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 1:41 PM +0100 12/30/07, H?lscher wrote: >I'm looking for Software & Manuals for any of >the MUMPS implementations for the PDP-11, >e.g. MUMPS-11, DSM-11 or M/11+. > >Can anybody help? Doubtful, the only person I'm aware of having any copies lives in Holland, and I've not seen any sign of him online for a long time now. I know I do not have a copy of either the software or the manuals. 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 gklinger at gmail.com Mon Dec 31 00:23:25 2007 From: gklinger at gmail.com (Golan Klinger) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 01:23:25 -0500 Subject: Modem to Modem without a line simulator? In-Reply-To: <477804F1.9060004@brutman.com> References: <477804F1.9060004@brutman.com> Message-ID: It might also be worth noting that some modems are capable of operating as line drivers and require only a dry pair between them to function. -- Golan Klinger Dark is the suede that mows like a harvest. From eastofthesun2 at gmail.com Sun Dec 30 13:32:52 2007 From: eastofthesun2 at gmail.com (Bob Conrich) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 15:32:52 -0400 Subject: Part for IBM 5110 Message-ID: <4777F264.9000407@eastcaribbean.com> Henk, I was researching my Corcom F2280 on the internet and came across your 2004 message: --------------------------------------- Who can help me with an EMI filter from an IBM 5110 ? Mine has an internal non-repairable short circuit. This EMI filter is a CORCOM type F2280 and is located in the mains entry box underneath the screen tube. Any one ? Thanks Henk --------------------------------------- I have one, if you're still interested. Bob From trasz at FreeBSD.org Sun Dec 30 16:08:54 2007 From: trasz at FreeBSD.org (Edward Tomasz Napierala) Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 23:08:54 +0100 Subject: Sun 3/60 - how to boot this thing? In-Reply-To: <200712281025.FAA10021@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <20071227140843.GA68240@pin.if.uz.zgora.pl> <200712281025.FAA10021@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20071230220854.GA23324@pin.if.uz.zgora.pl> On 1228T0519, der Mouse wrote: > > I just got a Sun 3/60, 8MB RAM, no disk. I have several questions: > > > 1. Were these used with an external disk? > > Yes, at least sometimes. That's what the DD50 connector on the back > panel is for. > > > 2. With diag switch set to "norm", there is nothing [...] > > I thought the -3/60 was advanced enough to notice no keybaord and > switch to serial console even if it's set to use keybaord/screen. I > see three possibilities here: > > (1) I'm wrong, and at least some -3/60s, including yours, try to use > screen/keyboard when set that way in the NVRAM, even if no keyboard > is connected. Thanks, it seems that was the case. Fortunately the "le" test from the Test Menu fails (for some reason) dropping me to the monitor prompt: Extended Test Menu: (Enter 'q' to return to Monitor) Cmd - Test le - AMD Ethernet Test mk - Mouse/Keyboard Ports Test rs - Serial Ports Test Cmd=>le AMD Ethernet Tests: (Enter 'q' to return to Test Menu) Cmd - Test w - Wr/Rd CSR1 Reg Test l - Local Loopback Test x - External Loopback Test Cmd=>w Test Options: (Enter 'q' to return to Test Menu) Cmd - Option f - Loop forever h - Loop forever with Halt on error l - Loop once with Loop on error n - Loop forever with error messages inhibited - Loop once Cmd=> Address Error, PC fetch at 0FEF1052 > ... And this was enough to change "Primary Terminal", according to http://www.sun3arc.org/FAQ/bootrom.phtml, from 0x12 to 0x10: >q 1f EEPROM 01F: 12? 10 That fixed things. After reboot in "NORM" mode, I get: Selftest Completed. Sun Workstation, Model Sun-3/60C/G. ROM Rev 2.8.3, 8MB memory installed, Serial #59096. Ethernet address 08:00:20:06:A7:85. EEPROM: Using RS232 A port. Selftest Completed. Sun Workstation, Model Sun-3/60C/G. ROM Rev 2.8.3, 8MB memory installed, Serial #59096. Ethernet address 08:00:20:06:A7:85. Testing 8 Megabytes of Memory ... Completed. Auto-boot in progress... EEPROM boot device...sd(0,0,0) Device not found > No idea why it prints banner twice. [..] > > If you cut off my head, what would I say? Me and my head, or me and > > my body? > > Caught you! Trick question - if I cut off your head, you wouldn't be > saying anything! There are ways to say things without using one's lungs. You could blink in Morse code, for example. ;-) -- If you cut off my head, what would I say? Me and my head, or me and my body? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 31 02:45:24 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 08:45:24 +0000 Subject: Mail formatting Message-ID: > > One of the recurring issues of ASCII is: > > "What is the ASCII code for newline?" > > What I've heard---there is no one character that returns the carriage to > the start of the line (CR) and advances down one line (LF). MS-DOS seems to That, indeed, is how the Teletype 33 behaves. And 5-level teleprinters normally had separate CR and LF codes that acted in that way. > think both are required, whereas Unix went with one (LF) and add both if > required in the driver code. The older versions of Mac OS (prior to being > Unix under the hood) used CR. And while I wrote code to handle CR, LF, TRS-80s used CR only IIRC. In fact they _sent_ CR only to the printer as standard, which could be a a problem if you had a non-Radio-Shack printer, or if you wanted to use an Radio Shack printer on some other machine. There were 'filters' for some TRS-80 OSes to add the LF. Most older printers had an internal DIP switch to set an 'Autofeed' -- that is to do a linefeed (as well as returning the carriage). There was also a pin on the Centronics connector to enable/disable this feature. IIRC the BBC micro has a operating system call to set the 'printer ignore character'. At power-on this was set to 0x0A (LF). I think the OS would try to send CR LF, the printer driver routine would then delete the LF so that only the CR got through (requring a printer that did an autofeed), then you could change the 'ignore' character to something else if the printer neeeded both CR and LF. The HP9866 is a thermal line printer (prinhead the full width of the paper, but only one dot high). From what I can deduce from the scehamtics, it ignroes CRs totally, when it gets an LF it springs into life and prints the contents of its buffer. > CRLF, LFCR, I never did see LFCR in the wild. I think I did, once. Really confuesed a bit of software I was using too... > > Another recurring issue for ASCII: what is baskspace supposed to do? > I'm used to systems that use $08 [1] to move the cursor left one column and > overwrite the character there with a space. But Linux (maybe because Linus > was secretly a DEChead?) decided that $7F would move the cursor left one > column and overwrite the character there with a space, but X Windows (which > I use on Linux) seems to want to use $08 for that. I beleive the original intention was that 0x7F would be _ignored_. The point being you could overpunch any characeter on paper tape to turn it into 0x7F (all holes), and thus you could effectively delete that character from the tape -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 31 02:46:16 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 08:46:16 +0000 Subject: ST506 and/or ST412 hard drives Message-ID: > > Hi, > > I am restoring a Vector Graphic computer and would like to add a hard > disk drive. The controller only supports two kinds of hard disk > drives, the ST506 and ST412. The HD controller is hard coded to > support these DRIVES not just a compatible interface and relies on a > special signal present only in these actual drives. What signal is that? I've looked at the schematics for thsoe (although not recently) and I can't remember any extra signals on the connector. Can this signal, if it exiasts, not be 'faked' on some other drive? -tony From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Dec 31 02:44:19 2007 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 03:44:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: Modem to Modem without a line simulator? In-Reply-To: <477804F1.9060004@brutman.com> References: <477804F1.9060004@brutman.com> Message-ID: <200712310846.DAA18141@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Is it possible to connect two modems (eg: Hayes 2400 to Hayes 2400) > using a 'dead' or isolated pair of copper wire and have them be able > to communicate? It depends on the modems. Some modems refuse to try to talk unless they see dialtone and/or battery voltage. Others can be told to ignore such deviations from normal PSTN operation and try to operate anyway. (It's possible that some modems that appear to be in the first class are actually in the second and just don't document it.) /~\ 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 Mon Dec 31 02:47:11 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 08:47:11 +0000 Subject: Modem to modem without a line simulator Message-ID: > > > This question is bugging me from another forum. > > Is it possible to connect two modems (eg: Hayes 2400 to Hayes 2400) > using a 'dead' or isolated pair of copper wire and have them be able to > communicate? > > I always thought that this can not work because the line that the modems > are connected to has to have some current. The phone system works > because an action on one end of the phone (talking into the carbon > microphone) causes a reaction on the other end. Without some sort of > current on the line, how can this work? Hence the need for 'line > simulator' circuits Most direct-connect modems do not require any power from the telephone line -- in fact the modem circuitry is coupled to the line through an isolating transformer, which is iteself capacitor-coupled to the line. So the DC conditions on the line have no effect on the modem circuit Of course such modems do 'loop the line' (provide a DC path between the 2 line wires) when off-hook. But that's to tell the telephone exchange that the modem is indeed off-hook, not for any particular requirement of the modem So if you can get onee modem to ignore the lack of dial tone/rigning tone, andthe other one to answer without seeing a rining voltage on teh line, then just connecting them together should work. I think there have been a few -- a very few -- modems that do requeire a DC voltage on the line for correct operation. Foe those, you can often fake it by connecting a suitable DC supply in series with a suitable limiting resistor between the line wires. > > Some people are claiming that it works without the line simulator. I'd > like to understand why. > > (I could get out the multimeter if things get really desperate, but > maybe somebody can tell me that the line current thing only applies to > acoustically connected modems, not direct connect. Or the direct > connect modems put enough juice on the line to make it work. Or > something else that might make sense.) Telephones, of course, do draw power from the line, which means accoustically-coupled modems need line power for the asscoicated telephone. -tony From James at jdfogg.com Mon Dec 31 09:38:00 2007 From: James at jdfogg.com (James Fogg) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:38:00 -0500 Subject: Wanted: PDP-11 MUMPS Software & Manuals Message-ID: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A2571DF@sbs.jdfogg.com> > Hi, > > I'm looking for Software & Manuals for any of the MUMPS implementations > for the PDP-11, > e.g. MUMPS-11, DSM-11 or M/11+. > > Can anybody help? Intersystems in Cambridge Massachusetts, USA was the last company to own/publish this software. They may still support it. My older brother used to maintain their Data General and UNIX versions. From jfoust at threedee.com Mon Dec 31 09:41:58 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 09:41:58 -0600 Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20071231092751.057586d0@mail.threedee.com> At 02:45 AM 12/31/2007, ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >> CRLF, LFCR, I never did see LFCR in the wild. > >I think I did, once. Really confuesed a bit of software I was using too... I think I did, too. The odd combinations could turn up once the sender and receiver were on different platforms using different telecom programs, each with their own settings for send and capture, as well as the after-effects of crude text-file filtering utilities that people used back then to massage files they'd captured from elsewhere. To better handle all combos in the software I was writing at the time, I rewrote much of C's stdio so it was more agnostic and flexible about line ending. We already had a wrapper around it for platform independence and better error-handling, so it wasn't a stretch. >I beleive the original intention was that 0x7F would be _ignored_. The >point being you could overpunch any characeter on paper tape to turn it >into 0x7F (all holes), and thus you could effectively delete that >character from the tape Wasn't it used to indicate that the previous character could be ignored? - John From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Dec 31 10:23:21 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 08:23:21 -0800 Subject: ST506 and/or ST412 hard drives In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk > >> >> Hi, >> >> I am restoring a Vector Graphic computer and would like to add a hard >> disk drive. The controller only supports two kinds of hard disk >> drives, the ST506 and ST412. The HD controller is hard coded to >> support these DRIVES not just a compatible interface and relies on a >> special signal present only in these actual drives. > > What signal is that? I've looked at the schematics for thsoe (although > not recently) and I can't remember any extra signals on the connector. > > Can this signal, if it exiasts, not be 'faked' on some other drive? > Hi Tony I have the same question. The ST506 and ST412 were different in the WrPrecomp signal being changed to a head select for the ST412. I think he is looking at documents that state that he needs a ST506/412 interface. This would be compatable with just about any MFM drive made after the ST412. There was a signal on some drives that came on the data cable. I think it may have been a write protect but I don't recall exactly what it was. The ST506 may have used this signal. I'm not sure if this is what he is talking about. I'd suspect things like step rate and number of heads would be more important to him than anything else. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Dec 31 10:45:51 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:45:51 +0000 Subject: ST506 and/or ST412 hard drives In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47791CBF.5030001@dunnington.plus.com> On 31/12/2007 16:23, dwight elvey wrote: >> From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk >> What signal is that? I've looked at the schematics for thsoe (although >> not recently) and I can't remember any extra signals on the connector. > I have the same question. The ST506 and ST412 were different > in the WrPrecomp signal being changed to a head select for > the ST412. I think he is looking at documents that state that he > needs a ST506/412 interface. This would be compatable with > just about any MFM drive made after the ST412. > > There was a signal on some drives that came on the data cable. > I think it may have been a write protect but I don't recall > exactly what it was. The ST506 may have used this signal. > I'm not sure if this is what he is talking about. There's a "drive selected" signal, but I think most drives have that. It's there because the 34-way control cable is daisy-chained but the 20-way data cable is radial, one per drive. > I'd suspect things like step rate and number of heads would > be more important to him than anything else. The other important difference between the ST506 signals and the ST412 was that the ST506 didn't support buffered seek; the timing of the step signals had to be slow enough that the stepper motor could keep up. The ST412 was the first drive that buffered the step signals, so they could be sent rapidly, and virtually every hard drive after that did too. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Dec 31 11:22:11 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 09:22:11 -0800 Subject: ST506 and/or ST412 hard drives In-Reply-To: <47791CBF.5030001@dunnington.plus.com> References: <47791CBF.5030001@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: > From: pete at dunnington.plus.com ---snip--- >> >> There was a signal on some drives that came on the data cable. >> I think it may have been a write protect but I don't recall >> exactly what it was. The ST506 may have used this signal. >> I'm not sure if this is what he is talking about. > > There's a "drive selected" signal, but I think most drives have that. > It's there because the 34-way control cable is daisy-chained but the > 20-way data cable is radial, one per drive. Yes, that may have been it. If he is using just one drive, this shouldn't be an issue. > >> I'd suspect things like step rate and number of heads would >> be more important to him than anything else. > > The other important difference between the ST506 signals and the ST412 > was that the ST506 didn't support buffered seek; the timing of the step > signals had to be slow enough that the stepper motor could keep up. The > ST412 was the first drive that buffered the step signals, so they could > be sent rapidly, and virtually every hard drive after that did too. > This is important because many drives that had the auto step, were really slow using the fixed rate step. I had this problem getting a ST251 to run on my Olivetti M20. The original drive had a fast step rate of something like 6 ms. The ST251 wouldn't work faster than 10ms as I recall but the auto rate was much faster. I think we need to hear from Andrew to see just what it is he is talking about. From his original post, I still think he has something confused. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Dec 31 12:05:07 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:05:07 -0800 Subject: Have the microvax user diag tapes been imaged? Message-ID: <47792F53.1060708@bitsavers.org> I have a couple that are sticky/shedding. Before I spend a lot of time trying to recover them, has someone imaged them already? They are from 87-89. From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Dec 31 11:53:17 2007 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:53:17 +0000 Subject: ST506 and/or ST412 hard drives In-Reply-To: References: <47791CBF.5030001@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <47792C8D.2060000@dunnington.plus.com> On 31/12/2007 17:22, dwight elvey wrote: > This is important because many drives that had the auto step, were > really slow using the fixed rate step. I had this problem getting > a ST251 to run on my Olivetti M20. The original drive had a fast step > rate of something like 6 ms. The ST251 wouldn't work faster than > 10ms as I recall but the auto rate was much faster. I remember a similar issue on one of my old machines. Some of those hard drives stepped more slowly than many floppys! A genuine ST506 has a 3ms step rate, while a genuine ST412 accepts seek pulses at 5-500 microsecond intervals (any slower than 0.5ms, and it assumes they're not going to be buffered but then they do have to be *much* slower). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From cclist at sydex.com Mon Dec 31 12:08:02 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:08:02 -0800 Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <200712311652.lBVGqeFc090401@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200712311652.lBVGqeFc090401@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4778BF82.28223.146F4964@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 09:41:58 -0600 > From: John Foust > >I beleive the original intention was that 0x7F would be _ignored_. The > >point being you could overpunch any characeter on paper tape to turn it > >into 0x7F (all holes), and thus you could effectively delete that > >character from the tape > > Wasn't it used to indicate that the previous character could > be ignored? No--the use is "Rubout"--erase an erroneous character by overpunching all holes. Deleting characters from punched paper tape is otherwise very difficult without a pair of scissors. Back on topic, one thing that seems to be confused here is the *function* of the newline/carriage return/whatever. One function is as a format effector (i.e. print control; the other is as a record delimiter. Confusing the two roles leads to problems. For example, if CR is used as a record delimiter, then there's no easy way to indicate that the next line on a printing device should overprint the next line on the current one. By the same token, using linefeed as a record delimiter forces the next record to insert spaces in the next record to simulate a vertical motion of the printing position without a corresponding return to the beginning of line. If one is to have character-delimited records, better to use a character whose function is to delimit records rather than control printing behavior. I believe that the Beehive SuperBee sent 1/15 as an end-of-line character rather than CR, at least in screen editing mode. By the same token, 0/8 BS does not imply that a character is to be erased when the printing position is moved back; the implication is that the next character will overprint the previous one. CRT terminals and their simple-minded mode of operation pretty much forced this behavior and it's curious that with our GUI displays that we still mimic the faulty behavior. I recall that this was an issue in the original Videotex spec--IIRC, certain characters could be combined using BS. Cheers, Chuck From ian_primus at yahoo.com Mon Dec 31 12:34:14 2007 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:34:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Anyone have a "Chain Train" printer from Data Printer corp? I have ribbons... Message-ID: <520849.53842.qm@web52702.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Doing some cleaning here at work, and have located several boxes of new, sealed ribbons from old Chain Train printers made by Data Printer Corp. These are some seriously unusual ribbons - about 14" wide rolls. We also have some parts for these machines. Anyone have one of these beasts? -Ian From tpeters at mixcom.com Mon Dec 31 12:45:09 2007 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 12:45:09 -0600 Subject: Anyone have a "Chain Train" printer from Data Printer corp? I have ribbons... In-Reply-To: <520849.53842.qm@web52702.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20071231124331.0b7b1bd8@localhost> We have some Data General printers that I think are DataProducts printers under the covers. I wonder if that's anything like what you have there. We also use a 14-15" wide ribbon on two rolls, and a band embossed with all the characters. At 10:34 AM 12/31/2007 -0800, you wrote: >Doing some cleaning here at work, and have located >several boxes of new, sealed ribbons from old Chain >Train printers made by Data Printer Corp. These are >some seriously unusual ribbons - about 14" wide rolls. > >We also have some parts for these machines. > >Anyone have one of these beasts? > >-Ian ----- 165. [Fiction] "Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. and Mrs.: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father or brother was killed, wounded or reported missing in action." --(_Catch-22_. Cathcart to the doctor's "widow.") --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: 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 jfoust at threedee.com Mon Dec 31 13:35:23 2007 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:35:23 -0600 Subject: Mail formatting In-Reply-To: <4778BF82.28223.146F4964@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200712311652.lBVGqeFc090401@dewey.classiccmp.org> <4778BF82.28223.146F4964@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20071231125631.0579abe8@mail.threedee.com> At 12:08 PM 12/31/2007, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 09:41:58 -0600 >> From: John Foust > >> >I beleive the original intention was that 0x7F would be _ignored_. The >> >point being you could overpunch any characeter on paper tape to turn it >> >into 0x7F (all holes), and thus you could effectively delete that >> >character from the tape >> >> Wasn't it used to indicate that the previous character could >> be ignored? > >No--the use is "Rubout"--erase an erroneous character by overpunching >all holes. Deleting characters from punched paper tape is otherwise >very difficult without a pair of scissors. I was remembering the description of SUB from Jenning's page: SUB, Substitute, 1/10 (ASCII-1967). Replaces ASCII-1963 generic separator character S2. A SUB character replaces a character that is in error, a sort of placeholder, and produced by machinery, not humans. Presumably if a character error such as a parity error is detected, the bad character in a text is replaced with a SUB, so that the receiving system can at least detect it; for example: THE QUICK BROWN FO SUB JUMPS OVER THE LAZY GOD A SUB character replaces the damaged character following the text "FO". - John From tsw-cc at johana.com Mon Dec 31 14:13:53 2007 From: tsw-cc at johana.com (Tom Watson) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 12:13:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: Modem to Modem without a line simulator? Message-ID: <561559.8867.qm@web90401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> >From a digest article I must comment on... > Is it possible to connect two modems (eg: Hayes 2400 to Hayes 2400) > using a 'dead' or isolated pair of copper wire and have them be able > to communicate? As said before, just get one modem in Originate mode, and the other in Answer mode and go from there. Most "modern" modems (that have some Part 68 certification) can do this quite easily as long as you have access to the command stream on each side. The more difficult is when you don't (usually on one side). Then you attempt to get the "answering" modem in answer mode sending its carrier before he "originating" modem asks for it, and will sense it when it wants to. The part that is touchy is making the timeout on the "answer" side long enough. Ob ClassicComp: I should really try this with my Bell 103A modem (I got one, don't ask!) to see if I can get it to "connect". It might need some DC voltage from tip to ring (green wire to red wire) to trip some relay (it was before optical couplers!). What an experiment to do! If you want to make two "500" sets talk to each other, a nice 6 Volt battery works quite well placed in series with the two sets. It won't make them ring, but you CAN talk. Use a lantern battery (or 4 D cells) and unless you are making DTMF (touch-tone) on a polarity sensitive set (older 2500 sets) polarity makes little difference. -- Sorry, No signature at the moment. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From rcini at optonline.net Mon Dec 31 16:38:08 2007 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:38:08 -0500 Subject: Source for EEPROMs Message-ID: All: I?m in the process of getting a floppy system running on my IMSAI (I should have CP/M running on it tomorrow; a separate book report to follow since I polled this group a few times for info on the topic) and I?ve been burning/erasing a lot of EPROMs to get it done. I have an EPROM emulator somewhere but I can?t find it. Anyway, my programmer can also handle 28C16 EEPROMs. I located some at Jameco ($4@) and at JDR ($4.50@) but I was looking for a cheaper source if possible. Googling produces tons of sites with either data sheets or industrial recovery companies that want to sell 100 of them at a shot. At most I?d probably buy a tube (15 or 20) of them. Any pointers would be appreciated. Thanks again, and Happy New Year to all. Rich -- Rich Cini Collector of Classic Computers Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator http://www.altair32.com http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp From silent700 at gmail.com Mon Dec 31 16:51:37 2007 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:51:37 -0600 Subject: HP Tape drive for Christmas Message-ID: <51ea77730712311451y221bc9d2p39597c120469dd78@mail.gmail.com> So on the 24th I trucked up to Milwaukee (from Chicago) for a $100 SGI haul, the star of which was a working Crimson with three hard drives. Brought back the Crimson and some Indigo 2s (which will be for sale/trade/free as soon as I inventory them.) There was supposed to be an O2 as well, but it went missing. So for the pre-arranged price I asked to hunt around the shop for a replacement item, which turned out to be the back-breaking HP 88780B 9-Track Tape Drive! A fair trade-up, I'd say. So I've got it home and onto a table. This may be old-hat to some, but having never used a 9-track before I have to say the air-powered self-threading mechanism is the coolest thing I've seen all month. I loaded a blank tape for the self-test, which passes. Now to get it to write some real data, and eventually use it to rescue some old tapes I've had for years as well as the one I bought at VCF. I'm guessing that any modern *nix machine should recognize it and be able to read it. I planned on using a Sparc IPX or something similarly portable when I get one formatted and loaded. In the meantime, I have my laptop. Is there any chance of getting WinXP to use this beast? I have a SCSI PCMCIA card on the laptop which I've used to read old hard drives, but drivers will be the issue here. I know in most cases the backup software needs to be able to handle the drive as well as the OS - anyone tried to use Backup Exec or any of the other big commercial s/w with one of these? Thanks in advance... -- jht From silent700 at gmail.com Mon Dec 31 16:51:37 2007 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:51:37 -0600 Subject: HP Tape drive for Christmas Message-ID: <51ea77730712311451y221bc9d2p39597c120469dd78@mail.gmail.com> So on the 24th I trucked up to Milwaukee (from Chicago) for a $100 SGI haul, the star of which was a working Crimson with three hard drives. Brought back the Crimson and some Indigo 2s (which will be for sale/trade/free as soon as I inventory them.) There was supposed to be an O2 as well, but it went missing. So for the pre-arranged price I asked to hunt around the shop for a replacement item, which turned out to be the back-breaking HP 88780B 9-Track Tape Drive! A fair trade-up, I'd say. So I've got it home and onto a table. This may be old-hat to some, but having never used a 9-track before I have to say the air-powered self-threading mechanism is the coolest thing I've seen all month. I loaded a blank tape for the self-test, which passes. Now to get it to write some real data, and eventually use it to rescue some old tapes I've had for years as well as the one I bought at VCF. I'm guessing that any modern *nix machine should recognize it and be able to read it. I planned on using a Sparc IPX or something similarly portable when I get one formatted and loaded. In the meantime, I have my laptop. Is there any chance of getting WinXP to use this beast? I have a SCSI PCMCIA card on the laptop which I've used to read old hard drives, but drivers will be the issue here. I know in most cases the backup software needs to be able to handle the drive as well as the OS - anyone tried to use Backup Exec or any of the other big commercial s/w with one of these? Thanks in advance... -- jht From curt at atarimuseum.com Mon Dec 31 16:59:22 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:59:22 -0500 Subject: Source for EEPROMs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4779744A.5050303@atarimuseum.com> netcomponents.com and partminer.com are good sources for older parts, I use them when I want to build an exact replica of older designs. Curt Richard A. Cini wrote: > All: > > I?m in the process of getting a floppy system running on my IMSAI (I > should have CP/M running on it tomorrow; a separate book report to follow > since I polled this group a few times for info on the topic) and I?ve been > burning/erasing a lot of EPROMs to get it done. I have an EPROM emulator > somewhere but I can?t find it. > > Anyway, my programmer can also handle 28C16 EEPROMs. I located some at > Jameco ($4@) and at JDR ($4.50@) but I was looking for a cheaper source if > possible. Googling produces tons of sites with either data sheets or > industrial recovery companies that want to sell 100 of them at a shot. At > most I?d probably buy a tube (15 or 20) of them. > > Any pointers would be appreciated. Thanks again, and Happy New Year to > all. > > Rich > > -- > Rich Cini > Collector of Classic Computers > Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator > http://www.altair32.com > http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp > > > From curt at atarimuseum.com Mon Dec 31 17:02:43 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:02:43 -0500 Subject: HP Tape drive for Christmas In-Reply-To: <51ea77730712311451y221bc9d2p39597c120469dd78@mail.gmail.com> References: <51ea77730712311451y221bc9d2p39597c120469dd78@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47797513.40705@atarimuseum.com> Yes, BSD and Most Linux's see it. Win 98 and NT don't always like 9tracks for whatever reason, but XP works fine. dd works fine and you can install unix utils for XP and through a cmd window run dd and access many tape contents. Curt Jason T wrote: > So on the 24th I trucked up to Milwaukee (from Chicago) for a $100 SGI > haul, the star of which was a working Crimson with three hard drives. > Brought back the Crimson and some Indigo 2s (which will be for > sale/trade/free as soon as I inventory them.) There was supposed to > be an O2 as well, but it went missing. So for the pre-arranged price > I asked to hunt around the shop for a replacement item, which turned > out to be the back-breaking HP 88780B 9-Track Tape Drive! A fair > trade-up, I'd say. > > So I've got it home and onto a table. This may be old-hat to some, > but having never used a 9-track before I have to say the air-powered > self-threading mechanism is the coolest thing I've seen all month. I > loaded a blank tape for the self-test, which passes. Now to get it to > write some real data, and eventually use it to rescue some old tapes > I've had for years as well as the one I bought at VCF. > > I'm guessing that any modern *nix machine should recognize it and be > able to read it. I planned on using a Sparc IPX or something > similarly portable when I get one formatted and loaded. In the > meantime, I have my laptop. Is there any chance of getting WinXP to > use this beast? I have a SCSI PCMCIA card on the laptop which I've > used to read old hard drives, but drivers will be the issue here. I > know in most cases the backup software needs to be able to handle the > drive as well as the OS - anyone tried to use Backup Exec or any of > the other big commercial s/w with one of these? > > Thanks in advance... > From curt at atarimuseum.com Mon Dec 31 17:02:43 2007 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:02:43 -0500 Subject: HP Tape drive for Christmas In-Reply-To: <51ea77730712311451y221bc9d2p39597c120469dd78@mail.gmail.com> References: <51ea77730712311451y221bc9d2p39597c120469dd78@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47797513.40705@atarimuseum.com> Yes, BSD and Most Linux's see it. Win 98 and NT don't always like 9tracks for whatever reason, but XP works fine. dd works fine and you can install unix utils for XP and through a cmd window run dd and access many tape contents. Curt Jason T wrote: > So on the 24th I trucked up to Milwaukee (from Chicago) for a $100 SGI > haul, the star of which was a working Crimson with three hard drives. > Brought back the Crimson and some Indigo 2s (which will be for > sale/trade/free as soon as I inventory them.) There was supposed to > be an O2 as well, but it went missing. So for the pre-arranged price > I asked to hunt around the shop for a replacement item, which turned > out to be the back-breaking HP 88780B 9-Track Tape Drive! A fair > trade-up, I'd say. > > So I've got it home and onto a table. This may be old-hat to some, > but having never used a 9-track before I have to say the air-powered > self-threading mechanism is the coolest thing I've seen all month. I > loaded a blank tape for the self-test, which passes. Now to get it to > write some real data, and eventually use it to rescue some old tapes > I've had for years as well as the one I bought at VCF. > > I'm guessing that any modern *nix machine should recognize it and be > able to read it. I planned on using a Sparc IPX or something > similarly portable when I get one formatted and loaded. In the > meantime, I have my laptop. Is there any chance of getting WinXP to > use this beast? I have a SCSI PCMCIA card on the laptop which I've > used to read old hard drives, but drivers will be the issue here. I > know in most cases the backup software needs to be able to handle the > drive as well as the OS - anyone tried to use Backup Exec or any of > the other big commercial s/w with one of these? > > Thanks in advance... > From lynchaj at yahoo.com Mon Dec 31 17:07:38 2007 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:07:38 -0500 Subject: Emailing: ST506 and-or ST412 hard drives.htm Message-ID: <002401c84c01$f0303ab0$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> > From: pete at dunnington.plus.com ---snip--- >> >> There was a signal on some drives that came on the data cable. >> I think it may have been a write protect but I don't recall >> exactly what it was. The ST506 may have used this signal. >> I'm not sure if this is what he is talking about. > > There's a "drive selected" signal, but I think most drives have that. > It's there because the 34-way control cable is daisy-chained but the > 20-way data cable is radial, one per drive. Yes, that may have been it. If he is using just one drive, this shouldn't be an issue. > >> I'd suspect things like step rate and number of heads would >> be more important to him than anything else. > > The other important difference between the ST506 signals and the ST412 > was that the ST506 didn't support buffered seek; the timing of the step > signals had to be slow enough that the stepper motor could keep up. The > ST412 was the first drive that buffered the step signals, so they could > be sent rapidly, and virtually every hard drive after that did too. > This is important because many drives that had the auto step, were really slow using the fixed rate step. I had this problem getting a ST251 to run on my Olivetti M20. The original drive had a fast step rate of something like 6 ms. The ST251 wouldn't work faster than 10ms as I recall but the auto rate was much faster. I think we need to hear from Andrew to see just what it is he is talking about. From his original post, I still think he has something confused. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ The best games are on Xbox 360. Click here for a special offer on an Xbox 360 Console. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/hardware/wheretobuy/ ________________________________ -----REPLY----- Hi, Yes, I'll admit this can be a bit confusing and I am bit puzzled by it as well. I had not heard of anything like it either but I have to believe the VG engineer to know what he is talking about. However, I have heard from a former Vector Graphic engineer who is intimately familiar with the VEDMCS (aka, the integrated FD/HD controller) and he tells me that the ST506's used for the VEDMCS are different than the generic "off the shelf" ST506 hard drives. I believe the stock ST506 is modified or configured to provide the signal in some manner. The different signal is called a "constant index" signal. Apparently, it is similar to an /INDEX signal from a floppy drive interface but the signal tells the HD controller everytime sector 0 passes around. The HD controller requires it for setting up the PLL. Here is an excerpt on the subject from the VG engineer: " All hard drives working with a Vector FD/HD must have constant index. There is a phase locked loop that is controlled by U20 which is CMOS 4040 chip and unless you have constant index the PLL never has time to sync up and gives read errors. " I have seen the VEDMCS driver source code and it specifically lists the ST506 and the ST412 as its only two supported drives. I'd like to start witho one of those and see if I can get it work. Maybe I could convince it to accept a ST225 instead of a ST412 but so far I haven't had any luck. I keep getting "drive not ready" errors. I hope this helps explain this situation. Thanks! Andrew Lynch From lynchaj at yahoo.com Mon Dec 31 17:07:38 2007 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:07:38 -0500 Subject: Emailing: Source for EEPROMs.htm Message-ID: <002501c84c01$f09935b0$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> All: I?m in the process of getting a floppy system running on my IMSAI (I should have CP/M running on it tomorrow; a separate book report to follow since I polled this group a few times for info on the topic) and I?ve been burning/erasing a lot of EPROMs to get it done. I have an EPROM emulator somewhere but I can?t find it. Anyway, my programmer can also handle 28C16 EEPROMs. I located some at Jameco ($4@) and at JDR ($4.50@) but I was looking for a cheaper source if possible. Googling produces tons of sites with either data sheets or industrial recovery companies that want to sell 100 of them at a shot. At most I?d probably buy a tube (15 or 20) of them. Any pointers would be appreciated. Thanks again, and Happy New Year to all. Rich -- Rich Cini Collector of Classic Computers Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator http://www.altair32.com http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp ________________________________ -----REPLY----- Try Unicorn Electronics. I have bought some 28C16's from them before and they are OK. http://unicornelectronics.com http://unicornelectronics.com/IC/EEPROM.html Thanks! Andrew Lynch From silent700 at gmail.com Mon Dec 31 17:11:43 2007 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:11:43 -0600 Subject: HP Tape drive for Christmas In-Reply-To: <47797513.40705@atarimuseum.com> References: <51ea77730712311451y221bc9d2p39597c120469dd78@mail.gmail.com> <47797513.40705@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <51ea77730712311511h24306977r41c4bfe2226abeda@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 31, 2007 5:02 PM, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > Yes, BSD and Most Linux's see it. Win 98 and NT don't always like > 9tracks for whatever reason, but XP works fine. dd works fine and > you can install unix utils for XP and through a cmd window run dd and > access many tape contents. Interesting...could Cygwin do the job? I see AT&T has "uwin" now too (or maybe it's been around forever and I just discovered it?) From silent700 at gmail.com Mon Dec 31 17:11:43 2007 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:11:43 -0600 Subject: HP Tape drive for Christmas In-Reply-To: <47797513.40705@atarimuseum.com> References: <51ea77730712311451y221bc9d2p39597c120469dd78@mail.gmail.com> <47797513.40705@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <51ea77730712311511h24306977r41c4bfe2226abeda@mail.gmail.com> On Dec 31, 2007 5:02 PM, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > Yes, BSD and Most Linux's see it. Win 98 and NT don't always like > 9tracks for whatever reason, but XP works fine. dd works fine and > you can install unix utils for XP and through a cmd window run dd and > access many tape contents. Interesting...could Cygwin do the job? I see AT&T has "uwin" now too (or maybe it's been around forever and I just discovered it?) From doc at mdrconsult.com Mon Dec 31 17:15:19 2007 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:15:19 -0600 Subject: HP Tape drive for Christmas In-Reply-To: <51ea77730712311451y221bc9d2p39597c120469dd78@mail.gmail.com> References: <51ea77730712311451y221bc9d2p39597c120469dd78@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47797807.9040805@mdrconsult.com> Jason T wrote: > I'm guessing that any modern *nix machine should recognize it and be > able to read it. I planned on using a Sparc IPX or something > similarly portable when I get one formatted and loaded. In the > meantime, I have my laptop. Is there any chance of getting WinXP to > use this beast? I have a SCSI PCMCIA card on the laptop which I've > used to read old hard drives, but drivers will be the issue here. I > know in most cases the backup software needs to be able to handle the > drive as well as the OS - anyone tried to use Backup Exec or any of > the other big commercial s/w with one of these? Tivoli Storage Manager still supports 9-track, and I think the IBM 9-track SCSI drive is a close relative of yours. Failing that, if you have bootable Linux CD, it should deal with the drive just fine. Doc From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 31 17:47:03 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:47:03 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Testing Message-ID: Just a mail test -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 31 17:54:49 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:54:49 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Modem to Modem without a line simulator? Message-ID: > The current is used for the carbon mike and to tell the > phone system that the phone is off the hook. Line connected > modems don't have any use for the current and only have > a load resistor there to keep the line connected. Something I forgot about earlier : I think the GPO Modem 13A (A plinth mounted under a normal dial-type phone) could be strapped to draw its power from the line. I don't know the full deatails, I do have one of these modems (300 baud CCITT oriignate only), but I have no diagrams other than the connection lable stuck inside. But there's certainly a transformer-isolated PSU circuit on the board, and one setting of the straps seems to connect the input of this to the line -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 31 17:56:22 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:56:22 +0000 (GMT) Subject: ST506 and/or ST412 hard disk drives Message-ID: > First, I'm not sure what you mean by ST506 and ST412. I thought > these were different in that one had a signal used for write precompensation > while the other used the same line for a head select. Weren't both of those 4 head drives? THe ST412 is part of a family (ST406, ST412, ST419) which were 2, 4, 6 head drives from what I can see. I thought the ST506 was 4 heads but fewer cylinders. I also thought the main difference between the ST506 and ST412 interface was that the latter alloewed buffered seeks, the former didn't I am still curious as to what the 'speacial' signal is. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 31 17:57:46 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:57:46 +0000 (GMT) Subject: ST506 and/or ST412 hard disk drives Message-ID: > I have the same question. The ST506 and ST412 were different > in the WrPrecomp signal being changed to a head select for > the ST412. I think he is looking at documents that state that he > needs a ST506/412 interface. This would be compatable with > just about any MFM drive made after the ST412. > > There was a signal on some drives that came on the data cable. > I think it may have been a write protect but I don't recall > exactly what it was. The ST506 may have used this signal. > I'm not sure if this is what he is talking about. Some, if not most, ST506/ST412 interface drives output a signal on the data cable when that drive is selected. The idea was you could plug the data cables into the controller in any order, and the controller could determine which data connector to use, which receivers to enable, etc. It's a pity few controllers made use of that! I'm not aware of any write-protect signal on the data connector of any such drive. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Dec 31 18:04:39 2007 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 00:04:39 +0000 (GMT) Subject: ST506 and/or ST412 hard disk drives Message-ID: > > From: pete at dunnington.plus.com > ---snip--- > >> > >> There was a signal on some drives that came on the data cable. > >> I think it may have been a write protect but I don't recall > >> exactly what it was. The ST506 may have used this signal. > >> I'm not sure if this is what he is talking about. > > > > There's a "drive selected" signal, but I think most drives have that. > > It's there because the 34-way control cable is daisy-chained but the > > 20-way data cable is radial, one per drive. > > Yes, that may have been it. If he is using just one drive, > this shouldn't be an issue. Actually it would be if the controller depends on it, even if you only have one drive. If that drive doesn't output the 'drive_selected_ signal, then the contorller might not enable any data receivers. > > > > >> I'd suspect things like step rate and number of heads would > >> be more important to him than anything else. > > > > The other important difference between the ST506 signals and the ST412 > > was that the ST506 didn't support buffered seek; the timing of the step > > signals had to be slow enough that the stepper motor could keep up. The > > ST412 was the first drive that buffered the step signals, so they could > > be sent rapidly, and virtually every hard drive after that did too. > > > > > This is important because many drives that had the auto step, were > really slow using the fixed rate step. I had this problem getting The really strange lone (not the same interface, of course, but similar in concept) is the SA4000 (14" Winchester). On that drive, you eitehr have to send pulses so slowly that the the head movement it completed for each one (that is, the head gets to the next track before you send the next pulse) or fast enough that you've sent all of them before the heads start to move. An intermediate rate will end up with the darn thing mis-stepping. This is docuemtned in the manaul and the reason for it (one up/down counter with a common clock input to record the head offset) is clear from the schematics. -tony From lbickley at bickleywest.com Mon Dec 31 18:38:44 2007 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:38:44 -0800 Subject: updates to the Alpha Micro Phun Machine In-Reply-To: <200712291525.lBTFPMuw016466@floodgap.com> References: <200712291525.lBTFPMuw016466@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <200712311638.44622.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Saturday 29 December 2007 07:25, Cameron Kaiser wrote: --snip-- > > What's installed in your machine? How many ports? Ethernet? > The poor critter, it's documentation and log are stashed behind an SGI Onyx IR in my internal storage area. I can see it - but not its backside. IIRC, It has six ports, 170MB HDD, DAT tape (and VHS port) - but no ethernet :-( --snip-- > When you say "new VHS player" are you using the AM's VCR equipment > NOS, or just an off-the-shelf one? Off the shelf. It would have been nice to have AM's VCR - but the off-the-shelf worked fine (just a bit more "operator" interaction required). > I remember the system administrator at the Salvation Army telling > me that they backed up to VHS (in retrospect I think they were > using either AM-20XX or AM-3000 units at the individual > corps/churches) and being incredulous, that it had to be some > other form of magtape. As you know, the VHS backup is actually quite reliable - because there are multiple redundant copies of all records (quantity user controlled). This is a critical feature since a VHS player can't stop, backspace record and re-read like a "real" tape backup. What is really "strange" is that one can duplicate AMOS backup VHS tapes using two standard VHS units (1 read and 1 record) - and the duplicated tape will be readable by AMOS. > I'm getting questions now and then about what hardware people need > to find to restore from an AM tape, like the old PC and Mac-based > VideoTRAX system, so I should probably do a page on that. Good idea... > > > Also, I recently acquired an AM-1200, and there will be a > > > model page for that as soon as I get it operational. > > > > I also have a nice AM-1042 that is anxiously awaiting > > restoration. It's clean (came from a dentist's office), I've > > tested the PS, but it's currently not bootable. > > Ah, that's a shame. I think of it as an "opportunity" ;-) Now if I can only find time to work on it.... > > If any of the folks on this list are not familiar with Alpha > > Micro, do yourself a favor and check out Cameron's website!! > > Thank you for the kind word :) Your welcome! Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Dec 31 18:59:31 2007 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:59:31 -0800 Subject: HP Tape drive for Christmas Message-ID: <47799073.3000004@bitsavers.org> > Failing that, if you have bootable Linux CD, it should deal with the > drive just fine. Apparently, modern Linux distros have depreciated the 'mt' command. You have to install the 'mt-st' package to get it. Eric Smith's tapecopy program seems to work ok, other than the known quirks like an endless stream of -1 length blocks if the tape stalls. From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Dec 31 19:01:51 2007 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 01:01:51 +0000 (GMT) Subject: updates to the Alpha Micro Phun Machine In-Reply-To: <200712311638.44622.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <586048.41389.qm@web23405.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Why is that strange? As long as it's a first or second (or up to say about 4th) generation copy there shouldn't be any read problems (unless the tape is dodgy to begin with). Happy New Year, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Lyle Bickley wrote: What is really "strange" is that one can duplicate AMOS backup VHS tapes using two standard VHS units (1 read and 1 record) - and the duplicated tape will be readable by AMOS. From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Mon Dec 31 19:43:28 2007 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 20:43:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: HP Tape drive for Christmas In-Reply-To: <51ea77730712311451y221bc9d2p39597c120469dd78@mail.gmail.com> References: <51ea77730712311451y221bc9d2p39597c120469dd78@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 31 Dec 2007, Jason T wrote: > I'm guessing that any modern *nix machine should recognize it and be > able to read it. I planned on using a Sparc IPX or something > similarly portable when I get one formatted and loaded. In the > meantime, I have my laptop. Is there any chance of getting WinXP to > use this beast? I have a SCSI PCMCIA card on the laptop which I've > used to read old hard drives, but drivers will be the issue here. I have an IBM 9348-012, which is essentially the same beast. It works fine under Linux, with a PCMCIA SCSI card. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From cclist at sydex.com Mon Dec 31 21:37:12 2007 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:37:12 -0800 Subject: Vector and ST506 (was: ST506 and-or ST412 hard drives.htm In-Reply-To: <200801010145.m011jHVG095724@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200801010145.m011jHVG095724@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <477944E8.12360.16785D76@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:07:38 -0500 > From: "Andrew Lynch" > The different signal is called a "constant index" signal. Apparently, it > is similar to an /INDEX signal from a floppy drive interface but the > signal tells the HD controller everytime sector 0 passes around. The HD > controller requires it for setting up the PLL. > > Here is an excerpt on the subject from the VG engineer: Well, the ST506 knows nothing from sectors--it's about as "bare" and interface as they come. I wonder if by "constant index" it's meant that there's always an INDEX/ signal present; not just when the drive is selected. At least that would make sense from this: > All hard drives working with a Vector FD/HD must have constant > index. There is a phase locked loop that is controlled by U20 which > is CMOS 4040 chip and unless you have constant index the PLL never... Maybe? What happens if the drive is jumpereed so as to be permanently selected? Cheers, Chuck From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Dec 31 22:28:42 2007 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 20:28:42 -0800 Subject: Emailing: ST506 and-or ST412 hard drives.htm In-Reply-To: <002401c84c01$f0303ab0$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> References: <002401c84c01$f0303ab0$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> Message-ID: > From: lynchaj at yahoo.com ---snip--- > > Hi, > > Yes, I'll admit this can be a bit confusing and I am bit puzzled by it as > well. I had not heard of anything like it either but I have to believe the > VG engineer to know what he is talking about. > > However, I have heard from a former Vector Graphic engineer who is > intimately familiar with the VEDMCS (aka, the integrated FD/HD controller) > and he tells me that the ST506's used for the VEDMCS are different than the > generic "off the shelf" ST506 hard drives. I believe the stock ST506 is > modified or configured to provide the signal in some manner. > > The different signal is called a "constant index" signal. Apparently, it is > similar to an /INDEX signal from a floppy drive interface but the signal > tells the HD controller everytime sector 0 passes around. The HD controller > requires it for setting up the PLL. > > Here is an excerpt on the subject from the VG engineer: > > " > All hard drives working with a Vector FD/HD must have constant > index. There is a phase locked loop that is controlled by U20 which > > is CMOS 4040 chip and unless you have constant index the PLL never > > has time to sync up and gives read errors. > " > > I have seen the VEDMCS driver source code and it specifically lists the > ST506 and the ST412 as its only two supported drives. I'd like to start > witho one of those and see if I can get it work. > > Maybe I could convince it to accept a ST225 instead of a ST412 but so far I > haven't had any luck. I keep getting "drive not ready" errors. > > I hope this helps explain this situation. Hi Andrew This make sense now. I'd guess that these were the only drives know to be able to be modified to pass the index signal. I suspect that the ST225 might be able to be modified as well but I do know that the ST506 has a lot of easily accessed ICs that one could make such a mode easily. Most drives gate signals right at the output driver. This makes such a mod easy to be made. I wouldn't give up on the ST225 yet. As Chuck suggest, it might just need the Index to be continuous. This might just require pulling one lead of the the output driver IC on the drive. Dwight > > Thanks! > > Andrew Lynch > _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_122007 From Will at Swaggie.net Mon Dec 31 02:09:34 2007 From: Will at Swaggie.net (Will Kemp) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 08:09:34 +0000 Subject: Any ideas what this machine was? In-Reply-To: <7F9CDB36-BA28-4784-B5E6-90ADF3E5C525@kerberos.davies.net.au> References: <1198868541.3063.86.camel@swaggie.localdomain> <7F9CDB36-BA28-4784-B5E6-90ADF3E5C525@kerberos.davies.net.au> Message-ID: <1199088574.8964.5.camel@swaggie.localdomain> On Sat, 2007-12-29 at 22:21 +1100, Huw Davies wrote: > > Recently i've been trying to remember the name of the manufacturer of > > these machines, but i just haven't got a clue - although i'm sure i'd > > recognise it if i saw it. I've looked through computer history > > sites on > > the web, hoping i'd come across the manufacturer's name and recognise > > it, but i never have. So if anyone knows, or can give me any clues, > > i'd > > be grateful. > > Interdata made a range of systems that were IBM 360 compatible. Thanks for that. But, looking at material about their machines on the web, it doesn't look like they're the company i'm after. Regards Will