From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 1 18:10:25 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 00:10:25 -2300 (BST) Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <575131af0605310600n6641827eob421f6446da0ef12@mail.gmail.com> from "Liam Proven" at May 31, 6 01:00:35 pm Message-ID: > > On 5/30/06, Tony Duell wrote: > > > Why not? I would think a PDP8 would be a lot easier to keep running tha= > n > > a modern PC. > > Only to somebody with what is rapidly becoming a /very/ specialist skills= > et. And alas skills that nobody seems to want ;-( > > > You are speaking to somebody who is reading/writing mail on > > an old PC mainly because it is easier to maintain than a more modern ma= > chine. > > Fine. But for most people, modern PCs are a damn sight /easier./ All Problem is. I don't trust I've put a fault right unless I've found the fault. That is, really found it. Replacing bits until the machine works again is not good enough for me. Or perhaps you've never had a connector problem, or an intermittant fault, or a marginal timing problem, or one of the many other little things that plague my life. > in one integrated motherboards, simple mix&match DIMMs, > interchangeable commodity disks and screens and keyboards, simple USB > peripherals. The day of the =A3100 PC is just around the corner. Soon > they'll be as disposable as transistor radios. You are speaking to the person who _repairs_ transistor radios. > > No, I disagree totally. I have no problem at all with making reverseabl= > e > > modificuations to old machines (be they computers or anything else). I > > certainly see no problem in plugging in a modern peripheral. > > > > Are you trying to convince me that I shouldn't use 74Fxxx parts to repa= > ir > > a PDP11 (they are much easier to get than 74Sxxx and work in most > > circuits). You'll really hate what I've done to a lot of machines here,= > then > > I don't even know what a 74Fxxx is. I've been repairing and working on A chip in the 74F family (that's FAST (Fairchild Advanced Shottky TTL)). One of the later, faster logic chip families. Most of the time they can be used to replace the much older (and slower) 74S chips, but not always. > PCs and Macs for 20y now, I've built dozens and dozens of computers, No, you've _assembled_ dozens of computers. To me, making a computer involves starting from chips, transistors, etc. And it's a bonus if you don't use a ready-built microprocessor, so you can define your own instruction set. > and I don't own a multimeter or an oscilloscope and never have. I have > a soldering iron; I use it occasionally to fix the lights on my > bicycle. > > This is great stuff if you know it, but it's no more relevant to C21 > computing than the correct bloodletting and the correct administration That maybe why I don't get invloved in C21 computing... > of laudanum is to C21 medicine. It's an admirable skill and I salute > you, but it's not mainstream any more. I'm not saying it's not > worthwhile; I'm just saying that things have moved on. If a circuit > board fails in a modern machine, recycle it & bung in a new one. It's quicker for me to repair many faults to component level than to track down a replacement and hope there's not some nasty incompatibility with some software I'm using. > > > So far, no emulator has come anywhere near the experience of running th= > e > > real machine. And I don't think it ever will for me. I want to be able = > to > > connect my 'scope (a real Tekky 555, please) to any pin of any componen= > t > > in the machine. And have all the feelings associated with so doing. > > Yeah, it's not quite the same, but you do realise, we're talking of > something of the level of a glass case in a museum, with a few shiny > buttons and lights for people to play with for 5min? They will neither > know nor care. I'm not/ I'm talking about museums, I am talking about my own machines which I actively use. > > Secondly, as far as preserving old kit for posterity, your > hacked-about with machines will confuse other techies, who would Only if said techies are somewhat brain-dead. For one thing I keep records of all significant modifications (and the person who gets my collection when I snuff it is clueful enough to look at all my manuals too). And for another, ICs have date codes on them. If you came across a machine, clearly from the 1970's, where all the ICs but one had 1976 date codes, and that one had a 1990 date code, the only sensible conclusion is that it's been replaced. -tony From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 1 00:04:08 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 22:04:08 -0700 Subject: Another once-bright star falling... Message-ID: <200605312204080932.1B1DBEF4@10.0.0.252> http://tinyurl.com/s2ta9 Looks like they've got the guy with the chainsaw in charge now. Sell off whatever pieces you can, dump the rest. --Chuck From teoz at neo.rr.com Thu Jun 1 00:14:10 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 01:14:10 -0400 Subject: Another once-bright star falling... References: <200605312204080932.1B1DBEF4@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <00b901c6853a$3744c910$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2006 1:04 AM Subject: Another once-bright star falling... > http://tinyurl.com/s2ta9 > > Looks like they've got the guy with the chainsaw in charge now. Sell off > whatever pieces you can, dump the rest. > > --Chuck Why sell now? If anything its about as low as it is going to go without bankruptcy action, it might rebound a bit after they cut some more people later in the year. If anybody purchased this stock when it was $60+ and held it, I feel sorry for you. From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 1 00:37:53 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 22:37:53 -0700 Subject: C64 upgrades (was Re: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles") In-Reply-To: <20060601010609.5673858410@mail.wordstock.com> References: <20060601010609.5673858410@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: At 9:06 PM -0400 5/31/06, Bryan Pope wrote: And thusly were the wise words spake by Zane H. Healy > > While trying to figure that one out, I ran across a *VERY* interesting > > website: http://www.64hdd.com/64hdd.html This is for a piece of software >> that turns an MS-DOS PC into a Commodore Disk drive, plus it can handle D64 >> files. I think this is the route I might end up going. >> > >This requires the XE1541 cable which goes from the parallel port on >your PC to the IEC connector on the C64. But you need an older PC >as the newer PCs parallel port will not work properly. There is >also the new XM1541 ( http://sta.c64.org/xm1541.html ) which is >supposed to work with most parallel ports and PC boards. The is also >a link there for The Star Commander which handles quite a few different >file formats (and this cable!) :) I'm wondering if one of my Dauphin DTR-1 handhelds can be used (basically a 486 running DOS). I've got the external floppy, and they have a parallel port. It might very well work with the X1541 I built for my 486 years ago. If not I might just order an XE1541 cable from c64reloaded. > > I must confess I'm not totally clear on why I would want this. The Retro > > Replay cartridge looks cool, but what does the RR-Net addon get me? Can I >I don't think so... I believe it only works with Contiki at this >time. I hate to say it, but it gets back to the, why? If that's all it is good for, I honestly can't see a purpose. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 1 01:39:51 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 23:39:51 -0700 Subject: C64 upgrades (was Re: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles") In-Reply-To: References: <20060601010609.5673858410@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: <200605312339510394.1B755D87@10.0.0.252> On 5/31/2006 at 10:37 PM Zane H. Healy wrote: >I'm wondering if one of my Dauphin DTR-1 handhelds can be used >(basically a 486 running DOS). I've got the external floppy, and >they have a parallel port. It might very well work with the X1541 I >built for my 486 years ago. If not I might just order an XE1541 >cable from c64reloaded. The X1541, while it'll probably work with most older systems (including your DTR-1), is just lousy design. The 1541 serial interface is bi-directional, and the X1541 relies on the 1541 to pull down an output-only parallel port pin. While this works for LSTTL-driven parallel ports, it's pretty hostile to later CMOS-driven ones. The XE1541 uses some diodes to steer the signals to the proper pins whether the 1541 serial interface is in input or output mode. It's pretty easy to modify a X1541 to be a XE1541 and you can find "any idiot can do it" instructions on the web. Cheers, Chuck (been there) From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 1 06:04:36 2006 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 04:04:36 -0700 Subject: Identify a Morrow transformer References: Message-ID: <447EC9C5.86CA0C42@cs.ubc.ca> David Griffith wrote: > > I have a bunch of 4-inch tall transformers with ten terminals each. > Looking at the front, I see terminals 1 and 2 on the left. On the right > are 3, 4, and 5. On this side I see: > > MORROW'S > DESIGN, inc > MD2FD8 > > On the other side are terminals 6 through 10 arranged the same way as > before. On this side I see: > > TSC > 529 > > I presume this transformer takes 120 volts and steps it down to 16, 8, and > 5 volts. But what are the other terminals for? One side for 120V input > and the other for 240V? If you can identify it for me and want one, I'll > send it to you for postage. > > A picture is at http://www.cs.csubak.edu/~dgriffi/transformer_morrow.jpg A possible scenario is 2*2 terminals for dual-120V-primaries and 2*3 terminals for two center-tapped secondaries, although usually the 4 dual-primary terminals would be on the same side of the core. Another scenario might be 2 terminals for 120V primary, 2*3 for two center-tapped secondaries and 2 for a third secondary. Some 70s-era floppies used 24V, so it might be targetting +5V, +/-12V and 24V. Some suggestions if you want to go through the process: - Assuming that being from Morrow Designs indicates it as a low-voltage transformer (all secondaries step down). (Did Morrow Designs do anything else?). If there is a step-up winding the following may not apply. - Get out an ohmmeter so as to electrically associate terminals with each other. Highest resistance is most likely the/a primary. - Usually one can observe the gauge of wire of the windings by looking around the edge of the coil by each terminal, or in the gap around the last wrap of insulation, to get an indication of the relative current capacity of the windings. Two wires to the same terminal will typically indicate a center-tap. For a linear supply for a computer the finest wires will likely be the primary/s, and the heaviest wires the secondary for the 5VDC, although it's possible the winding for the 12VDC is finer than the primary(s). - If you can identify a primary, fire it up and measure V on the other windings. If you're not sure enough to feel like connecting it up to 120VAC, or to be somewhat safer, inject 6VAC-or-so (from another small transformer) instead (preferably onto the highest resistance winding or smallest gauge), measure V on the others and calculate proportions. You don't want to inject even that low voltage on a heavy-gauge winding as it may draw too much current. Note if you didn't get the primary you may have a step-up situation. A fuse on the supply is a good idea. From allain at panix.com Thu Jun 1 08:15:58 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 09:15:58 -0400 Subject: Another once-bright star falling... References: <200605312204080932.1B1DBEF4@10.0.0.252> <00b901c6853a$3744c910$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <005401c6857d$866351e0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> The pattern was the same for DG, Digital, and SGI once proprietary HW+OS, then specialized Intel compatible HW, then Nadda. Could this happen to Sun? If not, why? John A. From lcourtney at mvista.com Thu Jun 1 08:59:21 2006 From: lcourtney at mvista.com (Lee Courtney) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 06:59:21 -0700 Subject: Another once-bright star falling... In-Reply-To: <200605312204080932.1B1DBEF4@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <003c01c68583$952f41b0$c20a000a@mvista.com> Too little too late... Lee Courtney MontaVista Software, Inc. 2929 Patrick Henry Drive Santa Clara, CA. 95054-1831 408-572-7816 408-572-7020 Fax Yahoo IM: charlesleecourtney http://www.linkedin.com/in/leecourtney > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis > Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 10:04 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Another once-bright star falling... > > http://tinyurl.com/s2ta9 > > Looks like they've got the guy with the chainsaw in charge > now. Sell off whatever pieces you can, dump the rest. > > --Chuck > From lbickley at bickleywest.com Thu Jun 1 09:38:05 2006 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 07:38:05 -0700 Subject: Another once-bright star falling... In-Reply-To: <200605312204080932.1B1DBEF4@10.0.0.252> References: <200605312204080932.1B1DBEF4@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606010738.06111.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Wednesday 31 May 2006 22:04, Chuck Guzis wrote: > http://tinyurl.com/s2ta9 > > Looks like they've got the guy with the chainsaw in charge now. Sell off > whatever pieces you can, dump the rest. Many on Wall Street and others here in the Valley have long thought that Sun's "research" expenses were excessive compared to their results (product-wise and financially). If the trimming is done in the right places, it could be a significant aid to Sun's bottom line and long-term future. Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From spliffrd at inch.com Thu Jun 1 12:59:48 2006 From: spliffrd at inch.com (mmelnick) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 13:59:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: apple stuff for sale or trade Message-ID: <20060601135731.X66525@shell.inch.com> Hey everyone I've gotlLots of old apple stuff for trade or sale. I'll consider all offers. I'd love to trade for other old computers IMSAI, SOL, etc Case modders particularly welcome. I just have way too much tech and need to get some of it outta the house. http://lostbrooklyn.org/apple/ -Matt spliffrd at inch.com www.matthewmelnick.com From RLAAG at PACBELL.NET Thu Jun 1 13:57:47 2006 From: RLAAG at PACBELL.NET (BOB LAAG) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 11:57:47 -0700 Subject: Old computer stuff with 989102 and 989105 chips Message-ID: <447F38AB.9060601@PACBELL.NET> Just wondering if anyone has description and pinout of the old 989102 and 989105 I.C. chips??? From fireflyst at earthlink.net Thu Jun 1 14:08:07 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 14:08:07 -0500 Subject: Another once-bright star falling... In-Reply-To: <200606010738.06111.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: I think this was a long time coming. They never did seem to rebound after the dot com crash. They've also been forced to narrow their software product scope somewhat as nobody seems to want to pay for commercial software these days if there's a free alternative. I'm starting to wonder if OpenSolaris was a good financial move for them though. I'm not worried. I think Sun will be around many years from now. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Lyle Bickley > Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2006 9:38 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Another once-bright star falling... > > On Wednesday 31 May 2006 22:04, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > http://tinyurl.com/s2ta9 > > > > Looks like they've got the guy with the chainsaw in charge > now. Sell > > off whatever pieces you can, dump the rest. > > Many on Wall Street and others here in the Valley have long > thought that Sun's "research" expenses were excessive > compared to their results (product-wise and financially). If > the trimming is done in the right places, it could be a > significant aid to Sun's bottom line and long-term future. > > Lyle > -- > Lyle Bickley > Bickley Consulting West Inc. > Mountain View, CA > http://bickleywest.com > > "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" > From brad at heeltoe.com Thu Jun 1 14:19:57 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 15:19:57 -0400 Subject: Another once-bright star falling... In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 01 Jun 2006 14:08:07 CDT." Message-ID: <200606011920.k51JJvAD017337@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Julian Wolfe" wrote: > >I'm not worried. I think Sun will be around many years from now. Hmmm. I believed that too, until two things happened to me: (1) I discovered my customers where all starting to use dual-cpu x86_64 cpu's and they where *blazingly* fast and (1) I spent some time with an HP server salesman who showed me some very high end, very reliable x86_64 based servers from HP. Back in the day ("are we off topic, yet?" :-), solaris was the most reliable thing going for 2, 4 and 8-way servers. And sun hardware was very very reliable. But I think that day has passed. Too bad; I always liked Andy "theese eess zee hardvare, and it verks" B. and his sparc architecture. (a friend worked on the sparc 1 and when andy delivered the first hardware to the software folks he said "this is the hardware, and it works!" - the famous last words, delivered with his accent. needless to say, there were bugs, so I always remember that and chuckle :-) -brad From caveguy at wowway.com Thu Jun 1 14:39:24 2006 From: caveguy at wowway.com (Bob Bradlee) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 15:39:24 -0400 Subject: Looking for 0.75" width endless printer ribbon In-Reply-To: <200605311700480112.1A0807D6@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606011936.k51JaaGl011684@pop-8.dnv.wideopenwest.com> On Wed, 31 May 2006 17:00:48 -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote: >I believe that nylon ribbons are welded ultrasonically. Long ago, one >used to be able to order ribbons made-to-order. Just to follow up on this.... You are correct and they still exsist, thanks to ASK.com I located a printer ribbon company that can ultrasonically weld 3/4 ribbon, I am sending them one to refill next week. Till later ... The other Bob If anyone else want to challange these guys with an old ribbon request their contact info is: http://www.wespacinc.com/ Wespac Inc. 3200 Bonnie Drive Fort Worth, TX 76116-5113 (800) 762-0970 From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 1 15:39:45 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 13:39:45 -0700 Subject: Another once-bright star falling... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606011339450951.1E7656D0@10.0.0.252> Okay, I'm trying to decide if I should buy some SUNW and try for a bounce (closed at 4.55 today, down 1.7%). After reading the CEO's blog at: http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan?entry=phase_2 I'm beginning to think that hoping for a bounce wouldn't be realistic. In particular, I can't figure out what this guy proposes to do differently. His revelation that "the internet's growing at an incredible rate" doesn't inspire confidence, nor does his statement about "green computing". So, if you were a betting person, long road into oblivion or a comeback into rosy-cheeked health? Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 1 15:43:57 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 13:43:57 -0700 Subject: Old computer stuff with 989102 and 989105 chips In-Reply-To: <447F38AB.9060601@PACBELL.NET> References: <447F38AB.9060601@PACBELL.NET> Message-ID: <200606011343570585.1E7A2DC0@10.0.0.252> On 6/1/2006 at 11:57 AM BOB LAAG wrote: >Just wondering if anyone has description and pinout of the old 989102 >and 989105 I.C. chips??? Bob, if you'll tolerate a completely uninformed opinion, these sound like "house numbers" and may well be something like mask-programmed ROMs. Can you tell us who manufactured the chips? Cheers, Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 1 15:48:55 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 21:48:55 +0100 Subject: Another once-bright star falling... In-Reply-To: <005401c6857d$866351e0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> References: <200605312204080932.1B1DBEF4@10.0.0.252> <00b901c6853a$3744c910$0b01a8c0@game> <005401c6857d$866351e0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <447F52B7.7080308@yahoo.co.uk> John Allain wrote: > The pattern was the same for DG, Digital, and SGI > once proprietary HW+OS, then specialized Intel compatible HW, then Nadda. > Could this happen to Sun? If not, why? Depends how long they can hold out. The sort of "go for the cheapest short-term option rather than a quality long-lasting product" seems systematic of today's society and affects all aspects of life. I don't think it's sustainable, though - cheaper, poorly-built products tend to consume far too many resources in production. "Do all" products tend to not do any one thing particularly well and are barely adequate at the tasks they are supposed to cover. Eventually there'll be a shift back toward making and buying the best product for the job rather than the cheapest; it's just a question of whether Sun can hang in there that long. Whether they can hang in there that long and continue to produce good products is another matter entirely of course... cheers Jules From rtellason at blazenet.net Thu Jun 1 16:01:05 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 17:01:05 -0400 Subject: Old computer stuff with 989102 and 989105 chips In-Reply-To: <200606011343570585.1E7A2DC0@10.0.0.252> References: <447F38AB.9060601@PACBELL.NET> <200606011343570585.1E7A2DC0@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606011701.05738.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Thursday 01 June 2006 04:43 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/1/2006 at 11:57 AM BOB LAAG wrote: > >Just wondering if anyone has description and pinout of the old 989102 > >and 989105 I.C. chips??? > > Bob, if you'll tolerate a completely uninformed opinion, these sound like > "house numbers" and may well be something like mask-programmed ROMs. Can > you tell us who manufactured the chips? Or what they're out of? These sound vaguely like some early commodore numbers, they used a lot of 9xxxxx numbers on some of their parts. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From allain at panix.com Thu Jun 1 16:07:00 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 17:07:00 -0400 Subject: Another once-bright star falling... References: <200606011339450951.1E7656D0@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <000b01c685bf$540fb0c0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> > So, if you were a betting person, long road into oblivion or a comeback > into rosy-cheeked health? I bet hard and well on both GE and IBM, no idea how youngsters like a 25 y-o comapny will behave, however. John A. From allain at panix.com Thu Jun 1 16:10:04 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 17:10:04 -0400 Subject: [midatlanticretro] Re: hp 264x terms on ebay References: <04fa01c685b9$cf15e380$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <002b01c685bf$c1697700$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> >>>> I probably was one of the first to buy one, and it >>>> ain't here yet. >>> nothing yet. I wouldn't recommend sending this guy >>> any more money until we've verified that he's shipped >>> some product. >> Is this the guy in Tyler, TX ? > Yep. Two weeks now. Surely somebody has received one by now? John A. From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jun 1 16:15:26 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 22:15:26 +0100 Subject: New Exidy Sorcerer stuff In-Reply-To: <005d01c6850e$d4d282c0$2f406b43@66067007> Message-ID: It's been on my list for years which is why I'm doubly happy that this system just fell into my lap :) I've put some hastily taken pictures up at http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Exidy/index.php Then my camera battery died....curse this modern technology! You'll get one eventually....between Exidy and Compudata tens of thousands were sold so they can't be THAT rare? A On 1/6/06 00:52, "Keys" wrote: > I want one :-( It's been on my list for awhile. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Paxton Hoag" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 6:44 PM > Subject: Re: New Exidy Sorcerer stuff > > >> I have an Exidy Sorceror also. >> Paxton >> Astoria, Oregon >> >> On 5/31/06, Tony Duell wrote: >>>> >>>> Nice! Very similar to the lot I picked up on Monday, but having poked a >>>> couple of messages on here about it I think there's only 3 of us that >>>> are >>>> interested :o\ >>> >>> FWIW, I ahve a Sorceror, the S100 box, the BASIC ROM cartridge and one >>> other cartridge (I asusme you've noticed these are actually modified >>> 8-track tape cases!), and the manuals (including the technical manuals). >>> Oh, and ESC newsletters 1-30 (I think I have the full run). >>> >>> But I've not done anything with it recently. Too many other machines to >>> work on. >>> >>> -tony >>> >> >> >> -- >> Paxton Hoag >> Astoria, OR >> USA >> > > -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 1 16:16:58 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 14:16:58 -0700 Subject: Another once-bright star falling... In-Reply-To: <447F52B7.7080308@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200605312204080932.1B1DBEF4@10.0.0.252> <00b901c6853a$3744c910$0b01a8c0@game> <005401c6857d$866351e0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> <447F52B7.7080308@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200606011416580463.1E98677A@10.0.0.252> On 6/1/2006 at 9:48 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >Depends how long they can hold out. The sort of "go for the cheapest >short-term option rather than a quality long-lasting product" seems >systematic of today's society and affects all aspects of life. One thing in the computer biz that militates against "long lasting" is Moore's Law. You know, that "Your state-of-the-art PeeCee is obsolete by the time you get it home" effect. When and if true high-speed internet connectivity becomes realistic for the majority of the population,I'd expect this trend to accelerate. Right now, a 600 MHz PIII does just fine for a dialup or 1.5Mbps DSL connection, even running a pig like XP. In fact, Google's (right across the street from Sun, BTW) shown that you don't need hi-rel or particularly powerful computing resources to get a job done. Maybe Sun should have paid more attention to their neighbors. Maybe they did and decided that they couldn't do anything about it. Okay, so if the hardware doesn't matter that much, how about the software? Well, there's Solaris, but I've never found a compelling reason to use it. Microsoft is still the heavyweight and will continue to be so as long as its software is bundled with new systems. In fact, I suspect that shrink-wrapped software box sales of Vista will probably be disappointing, but that Vista will occupy the majority position in PCs simply through the phenomenon of normal product replacement. Cheers, Chuck From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jun 1 16:16:30 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 22:16:30 +0100 Subject: New Exidy Sorcerer stuff In-Reply-To: <20060601041323.55058.qmail@web81007.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 1/6/06 05:13, "nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com" wrote: > I'd love it if someone could scan all these newsletters and such it seems > people are getting. I'd offer space to put them if anyone could. I will if I get the time, at least these things are fairly easily scanned. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From teoz at neo.rr.com Thu Jun 1 16:17:16 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 17:17:16 -0400 Subject: Another once-bright star falling... References: <200606011339450951.1E7656D0@10.0.0.252> <000b01c685bf$540fb0c0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <002d01c685c0$c2cb3470$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Allain" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2006 5:07 PM Subject: Re: Another once-bright star falling... > > So, if you were a betting person, long road into oblivion or a comeback > > into rosy-cheeked health? > > I bet hard and well on both GE and IBM, no idea how > youngsters like a 25 y-o comapny will behave, however. > > John A. I wouldn't put much money into any tech company based in the USA. From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jun 1 16:18:04 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 22:18:04 +0100 Subject: New Exidy Sorcerer stuff In-Reply-To: <20060601041634.48026.qmail@web81012.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Could you pass the next one you get onto Keys? :) On 1/6/06 05:16, "nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com" wrote: > This makes my third, well fourth really but I traded one long ago. I really > like the Sorcerer and want to add more resources to the site for them. Though > this is the first time I've been able to get more than the base unit and some > doc and software. I can't wait for all my work travel to be over so I can set > this up and check it all out. > > I just wish I could find some of the other systems on my wish list as easily > as it seems I find these. :) > > ----- > David Williams > http://www.trailingedge.com > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: Keys > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 6:52:03 PM > Subject: Re: New Exidy Sorcerer stuff > > > I want one :-( It's been on my list for awhile. > -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jun 1 16:24:04 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 22:24:04 +0100 Subject: New Exidy Sorcerer stuff In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 31/5/06 23:58, "Tony Duell" wrote: > FWIW, I ahve a Sorceror, the S100 box, the BASIC ROM cartridge and one > other cartridge (I asusme you've noticed these are actually modified > 8-track tape cases!), and the manuals (including the technical manuals). > Oh, and ESC newsletters 1-30 (I think I have the full run). Yep, I spotted the 8-track case straight away. My ESCs go up to 43 which is labelled as 'the last one' so that was obviously the end, though the Dutch group ESGG lasted a few years more. I also got Exidy's CP/M manuals and disks plus other docs I've not looked at yet. > But I've not done anything with it recently. Too many other machines to > work on. It's difficult for me too since I live 250 miles away from home during the week; I originally thought that being here would mean I got more museum stuff done but instead it means I procrastinate and talk to friends :) This is mostly the reason me working on the PERQs stalled months ago. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jun 1 16:35:13 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 17:35:13 -0400 Subject: How silly can collectors be? Message-ID: <200606011735.13278.pat@computer-refuge.org> Ok, so I thought that the prices on the S/370 consoles were silly, but at least you were getting something which was obscure and hard to reproduce. How much is a small piece of aluminum with some lettering on it worth? Aparently, between $125 and $411... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=8817899347 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=8817897605 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=8817901495 Oddly enough, the largest one went for the lowest price, as well. I wonder if IBM would come after me for putting some lettering on some aluminum plates, and selling them on ebay... of course I'd put "replica" somewhere in the fine print of the auction. :) Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From rborsuk at colourfull.com Thu Jun 1 17:02:48 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 18:02:48 -0400 Subject: [midatlanticretro] Re: hp 264x terms on ebay In-Reply-To: <002b01c685bf$c1697700$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> References: <04fa01c685b9$cf15e380$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> <002b01c685bf$c1697700$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <28045EBB-78EB-4D4A-AF44-DAD0C473834E@colourfull.com> Nope. Not here. I wrote him 2 days ago asking for a tracking number or my money back. I have received neither so I have filed a paypal claim. Rob On Jun 1, 2006, at 5:10 PM, John Allain wrote: >>>>> I probably was one of the first to buy one, and it >>>>> ain't here yet. > >>>> nothing yet. I wouldn't recommend sending this guy >>>> any more money until we've verified that he's shipped >>>> some product. > >>> Is this the guy in Tyler, TX ? > >> Yep. > > Two weeks now. Surely somebody has received one by now? > > John A. From wmaddox at pacbell.net Thu Jun 1 17:06:53 2006 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 15:06:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [midatlanticretro] Re: hp 264x terms on ebay In-Reply-To: <002b01c685bf$c1697700$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <20060601220653.12874.qmail@web81301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- John Allain wrote: > Two weeks now. Surely somebody has received one by > now? > > John A. The two terminals that I ordered arrived yesterday. I honestly don't know why it took so long or why Ben was having so much trouble with all this, but they did arrive, and they are for real. --Bill From frustum at pacbell.net Thu Jun 1 17:39:33 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 17:39:33 -0500 Subject: New Exidy Sorcerer stuff In-Reply-To: <20060601041634.48026.qmail@web81012.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060601041634.48026.qmail@web81012.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <447F6CA5.4060401@pacbell.net> nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com wrote: > This makes my third, well fourth really but I traded one long ago. I > really like the Sorcerer and want to add more resources to the site for > them. Though this is the first time I've been able to get more than the > base unit and some doc and software. I can't wait for all my work travel > to be over so I can set this up and check it all out. > > I just wish I could find some of the other systems on my wish list as > easily as it seems I find these. :) > ----- > David Williams > http://www.trailingedge.com My intention when I traded with David for one of his sorcerers is was that I was going to make some small changes to my Sol emulator and have an Exidy emulator. :-) I have all the information I need to do it (tech manual, rom images, actual specimen for verifying things). The problem, other than lack of time, is that it hasn't been attractive to me to do it since there is so little software for it on the net, so why bother. There was a java sorcerer emulator that was on the net a few years ago, but I always had problems with it, so I lost interest. Hmm, here it is: http://www.liaquay.co.uk/ It runs OK; one problem is that the emulator, in an attempt to be faithful to the original, maps the keys to return the same symbols that he original machine did. So if you are entering a BASIC program, typing "+" enters "=" intead; you have to type ":" to get "+", etc. For some games keeping the original layout is key to controlling the game, but for entering text and programs not so good. When entering BASIC, the lag time from keypress to update seems north of 100 ms. I'm still holding onto the machine, hoping that one day I'll find the time and someone will turn up with a nice cache of software to make it interesting. From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jun 1 17:44:31 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 17:44:31 -0500 Subject: Another once-bright star falling... In-Reply-To: <200606011920.k51JJvAD017337@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200606011920.k51JJvAD017337@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <447F6DCF.5080401@oldskool.org> Brad Parker wrote: > Hmmm. I believed that too, until two things happened to me: (1) I > discovered my customers where all starting to use dual-cpu x86_64 cpu's > and they where *blazingly* fast and (1) I spent some time with an HP > server salesman who showed me some very high end, very reliable x86_64 > based servers from HP. Sun has Opteron-based machines that are 32-way for $2000 in a 3u rackmount. They are extremely impressive and beat dual-cpu dual-core HP boxen. Total power usage is 330W. Don't count them out just yet. -- 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 Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jun 1 18:22:33 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 16:22:33 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" Message-ID: Tony Duell wrote: Thing is, the electronics of the older drives uses simpler ICs, and fewer custom parts. I would much rather repair an ST412 (for which I have schematics anyway) than the IDE thing I've just looked at. ----------------------------------------------------- Billy: I've data from 3 different disk drive companies over 20 years and 100+ million failed drives, that show the same thing: PCB failures are less than 1% of the total field return failures. The vast majority are tribology related (heads and media). I know a few specialty companies that can recover data from crashed drives. But I know of none that try to repair crashes. The cost is hundreds of times greater than buying a new disk. ------------------------------------------------------ > circuitry in the surplus stores. But it's the heads and platters that = > wear > out and ferrite heads and oxide media are gone. Occasional bits and True. But other problems inside the HDA would be much easier to repair on an older drive with a much larger head flying height. I think it would be possible to make a 'clean box' to open up ST412s at home and repair them and expect the repaired HDA to be reliable enough to use. That is not the case with modern drives. ------------------------------------------------------- Billy: I'm not certain what you think can be repaired in an old ST412. I know you can't make the media or rewind the heads, so I assume you are only talking of substituting parts from another unit. Which may be in just as bad condition. And even if you could put a new platter in, how do you do servo track writing? Disk drives are not designed for decades of life. They're designed to last until the next new tech is available - cheaper and faster. Their design, whatever era, is at the bleeding edge of available technology at time of design. Technology pushes with each generation. Your ST412 was designed for a range of 40-60K hours MTBF. Current products are at 1.8M hours. A lot of that improvement comes from getting rid of the individual components, solder joints, power consumption electronics, connectors, etc. So you can find the odd ST412 that you recover. But is it fun? Is it worth the time you spend vs buying a ?20 IDE drive and having time to use your system? I know we share a love of understandable electronics and hands on computing. And especially building our own design out of logic. But repairing old disks because you do not want to learn new technology seems to me to be counter-productive. I must admit that I truly don't understand your logic in only using devices that you can troubleshoot down to the electronic component. (It reminds me of a few classic stories of Victorian handymen who shared that philosophy dealing with the first electric lamps .) It seems to me that you are severely limiting your fun by ignoring all the new technology that is out there. The world has moved on. Today, we often have to work with conponents that we can't repair - such as a processor chip with 100 million transistors. Perhaps this is where we differ. You want to work only on products that you understand each component and can fix. I want to play with it all - even if I can't get into all the minute details such as firmware, ASICs, or FPGAs. Maybe I can't repair a Pentium chip. But I can make it sit up and do tricks. And by doing so, improve my marketable skills. I was hired for my current job at age 63 - primarily because of my knowledge of the latest technology; not the 35+ years experience on old drives and dinosaur systems. Billy From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jun 1 18:29:28 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:29:28 -0500 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060601182835.055317e8@mail> At 06:22 PM 6/1/2006, Billy Pettit wrote: >I must admit that I truly don't understand your logic in only using devices >that you can troubleshoot down to the electronic component. (It reminds me >of a few classic stories of Victorian handymen who shared that philosophy >dealing with the first electric lamps .) It seems to me that you are >severely limiting your fun by ignoring all the new technology that is out >there. Can someone please write an entry for the FAQ under the title "Tony Duell". :-) - John From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 1 18:59:11 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 16:59:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Another once-bright star falling... In-Reply-To: from "Julian Wolfe" at Jun 01, 2006 02:08:07 PM Message-ID: <200606012359.k51NxBCs008002@onyx.spiritone.com> > I think this was a long time coming. They never did seem to rebound after > the dot com crash. > > They've also been forced to narrow their software product scope somewhat as > nobody seems to want to pay for commercial software these days if there's a > free alternative. > > I'm starting to wonder if OpenSolaris was a good financial move for them > though. > > I'm not worried. I think Sun will be around many years from now. I've thought from the start that OpenSolaris is a bad idea. With IRIX barely even on life support, and HP seeming inclined to ignore HP-UX and Tru64 (which is technically dead anyway) in favor of Linux, Solaris well on its way to be the only Commercial Unix left besides AIX. Making all of their development software available as free downloads is an interesting move (the CD/DVD sets are *VERY* reasonably priced as well). I don't know if it's a good move or a bad move. As a Hobbyist, it's nice, as I can finally use thier tools, but I can't help but feel it might be bad for them in the long run. I'm in the process of setting up a Sunblade 1000 up as a developement system, if the cost of feeding it electricity and the problems with the heat it generates weren't enough, these layoffs really makes me wonder if I should bother investing any more time in Solaris :^( I'd much rather work on a good Solaris box, but Linux on a nice Intel processor looks to be the better choice from where I'm sitting. Zane From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jun 1 19:44:11 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 19:44:11 -0500 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <00ba01c684a8$297148a0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> References: <575131af0605301449g489f1380k7c16e1c8322efaf7@mail.gmail.com> <00ba01c684a8$297148a0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <447F89DB.60008@oldskool.org> John Allain wrote: > Personally, I don't think continuous duty at all for anything >10y-o. I do my best work on my IBM 5160; it has gotten continuous use for nearly two decades. -- 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 Thu Jun 1 19:06:15 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 01:06:15 +0100 (BST) Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <447E2D52.1090003@jetnet.ab.ca> from "woodelf" at May 31, 6 05:57:06 pm Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > > That, I am afraid, is one reason I avoid programmable logic chips. By the > > time I've finished the design, the darn chip is unavailable. > > I bought my chips first ... and the programmer/demo board. :) Hmm.. I always feel I am going to make a mistake and ruin the chip, so I want to be sure of being able to get replacements, at least while I'm still designing. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 1 19:36:26 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 01:36:26 +0100 (BST) Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: from "Billy Pettit" at Jun 1, 6 04:22:33 pm Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > Thing is, the electronics of the older drives uses simpler ICs, and = > fewer > custom parts. I would much rather repair an ST412 (for which I have > schematics anyway) than the IDE thing I've just looked at. > ----------------------------------------------------- > Billy: I've data from 3 different disk drive companies over 20 years = > and > 100+ million failed drives, that show the same thing: PCB failures are = > less > than 1% of the total field return failures. The vast majority are = This does not mean electronic failures do not happen. The last 'classic' drive that failed here was a Micropolis 1200 series (8" Winchester-type). The fault was the servo amplifier chip, an LM379. Getting a replacement was 'fun' (and it has to be that device, the unit uses the property that the 'bottom end' of the output stages of the 2 amplifiers are brought out to separate pins), but fitting it was trivial. > tribology > related (heads and media). I know a few specialty companies that can > recover data from crashed drives. But I know of none that try to repair > crashes. The cost is hundreds of times greater than buying a new disk. But hos does it compare to building an interface circuit to use the current drives on a machine that was never designed to use them? Perhaps you'd like to design a PERQ EIO card -> SATA interface. > ------------------------------------------------------ > > circuitry in the surplus stores. But it's the heads and platters that = > =3D > > wear > out and ferrite heads and oxide media are gone. Occasional bits = > and=20 > > True. But other problems inside the HDA would be much easier to repair = > on an > older drive with a much larger head flying height. I think it would be > possible to make a 'clean box' to open up ST412s at home and repair them = > and > expect the repaired HDA to be reliable enough to use. That is not the = > case > with modern drives.=20 > ------------------------------------------------------- > Billy: I'm not certain what you think can be repaired in an old ST412. = >From your comments below I am not even sure you've seen an ST412. > I > know you can't make the media or rewind the heads, so I assume you are = > only > talking of substituting parts from another unit. Which may be in just I was thinking of spindle motors problems, positioner problems, track 0 sensor problems, etc. And yes, moving parts from other units. I've I've got 2 dead drives, I might well have enough good heads and platters to make one working one out of the bits. This is one reason I keep old/defective modules. = > as > bad condition. And even if you could put a new platter in, how do you = > do > servo track writing? That's what makes me think you've never seen an ST412. What servo track? It uses a stepper motor positioner. There is no servo data on the platters, period. > > Disk drives are not designed for decades of life. They're designed to = > last > until the next new tech is available - cheaper and faster. Their = Fine, if the machine you're using can take the cheaper/faster drives (this PC, for all it's a much hacked PC/AT, has an IDE controller and drive, not the origianl ST412-interfaced one). Not so good if you're talking about a classic computer that depends on getting the raw bitstream that comes over an ST412-like interface. > solder joints, power consumption electronics, connectors, etc. So you = > can > find the odd ST412 that you recover. But is it fun? Is it worth the = TO me that _is_ fun... > time > you spend vs buying a =A320 IDE drive and having time to use your = > system? =20 You can't possibly attempt to account for the time you spend on hobbies. > > I know we share a love of understandable electronics and hands on = > computing. > And especially building our own design out of logic. But repairing old > disks because you do not want to learn new technology seems to me to be > counter-productive. Not when (a) you enjoy repairing things (as I do) and (b) it's the simplest way to keep the computer working. > dealing with the first electric lamps .) It seems to me that you are > severely limiting your fun by ignoring all the new technology that is = > out > there. How can you possiibly tell me what I enjoy and what I don't? If you don't like gabbing a soldering iron and 'scope and diving into the logic fine, but don't try to critisse those of us who do. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 1 19:12:32 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 01:12:32 +0100 (BST) Subject: atari printers In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jun 1, 6 04:40:14 pm Message-ID: > > I am wondering aobut making lantern pinions the right size. Yes, the > > tooth profile on the meshing gear in the plotter would be wrong, but > > would it matter? And a lantern pinion is a lot easier to make than the > > original type. > > I am unfamiliar with a lantern pinion... what is that? It's a clockmaking term (at least over here). Instead of making a pinion from solid metal, you have 2 disks fixed to the spindle with holes round them, nad pins (called 'trundles') going through said holes acting as the teeth. The result looks like a little cage around the shaft. The advantage, when it comes to making them, is that you only need a dividing head (to put the holes round the circle at an even spacing), you don't need the right milling cutter to cut the spaces between the teeth as you do for a normal-type of pinion. The disadvantage here is that the teeth on the meshing gear should really have a different profile. I don't think that would matter in one of these plotters, though. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 1 19:20:25 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 01:20:25 +0100 (BST) Subject: Identify a Morrow transformer In-Reply-To: <447EC9C5.86CA0C42@cs.ubc.ca> from "Brent Hilpert" at Jun 1, 6 04:04:36 am Message-ID: > > David Griffith wrote: > > > > I have a bunch of 4-inch tall transformers with ten terminals each. > > Looking at the front, I see terminals 1 and 2 on the left. On the right > > are 3, 4, and 5. On this side I see: > > > > MORROW'S > > DESIGN, inc > > MD2FD8 > > > > On the other side are terminals 6 through 10 arranged the same way as > > before. On this side I see: > > > > TSC > > 529 > > > > I presume this transformer takes 120 volts and steps it down to 16, 8, and > > 5 volts. But what are the other terminals for? One side for 120V input > > and the other for 240V? If you can identify it for me and want one, I'll > > send it to you for postage. > > > > A picture is at http://www.cs.csubak.edu/~dgriffi/transformer_morrow.jpg > > > A possible scenario is 2*2 terminals for dual-120V-primaries and 2*3 terminals > for two center-tapped secondaries, although usually the 4 dual-primary > terminals would be on the same side of the core. Another common-ish primary winding configuration, beloved of HP amongst others [1] is to have 2 primary windings. One is 120V (2 connections), the other is 120V, tapped at 100V (3 connections). You can wire them up to work with : 100V mains : Input to the 100V part of the winding, then the 2 120V windings in parallel. The tapped winding acts as an autotransformer to step up the mains to 120V for the plain winding. 120V mains : The 2 120V windings in parallel, mains across them 220V mains : 120V winding in series with the 100V part. 240V mains : The 2 120V windings in series. [1] I've only really seen it in HP devices, but it must have been standard in that I've seen a combined mains input plug/filter/voltage selector assemnly where the last part was clearly designed for this sort of transformer. Given that configruation of primaries, which uses 5 connections, you have 5 left for the secodnaries. The obvious combination would be a simple winding to give 8V DC (regulated down to 5V) and a centre-tapped winding to give 16-0-16V DC (regulated down to +/- 12V) I suppose another primary configuration could be a pair of 115V windings (paralllel for US mains, series for European mains) with another terminal used for an inter-winding screen. I would start by using an ohmmeter to work out just what is connected to what. That will tell you how many windings you have, if they're tapped, or whatever. A terminal that connects nowhwere (assuming a good transformer!) is a screen, most likely. -tony From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 1 20:41:23 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 18:41:23 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <447F89DB.60008@oldskool.org> References: <575131af0605301449g489f1380k7c16e1c8322efaf7@mail.gmail.com> <00ba01c684a8$297148a0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> <447F89DB.60008@oldskool.org> Message-ID: At 7:44 PM -0500 6/1/06, Jim Leonard wrote: >John Allain wrote: >>Personally, I don't think continuous duty at all for anything >10y-o. > >I do my best work on my IBM 5160; it has gotten continuous use for >nearly two decades. My DEC PWS 433au is right at about 10 years and gets continuous use. It runs 24x365, and has for the last 6 years. A lot of people have VAXen that they been using for 10+ years (if not 20+), same with PDP-11's. In the DEC world 10+ years isn't so much unusual, as the norm. Some DEC systems have been in continuous use for 30+ years. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From innfoclassics at gmail.com Thu Jun 1 20:49:35 2006 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 18:49:35 -0700 Subject: [midatlanticretro] Re: hp 264x terms on ebay In-Reply-To: <20060601220653.12874.qmail@web81301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <002b01c685bf$c1697700$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> <20060601220653.12874.qmail@web81301.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: How well were they packed? These are somewhat fragile. Paxton -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jun 1 20:51:49 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 18:51:49 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" Message-ID: Tony Duell wrote: How can you possiibly tell me what I enjoy and what I don't? If you don't like gabbing a soldering iron and 'scope and diving into the logic fine, but don't try to critisse those of us who do. -tony ----------------------------------------------------- Tony, I am not telling you what you enjoy or don't. I was simply commenting on your many many statements that troubleshooting to a component level is your belief in the right way to do things. If you feel I was criticizing, then I apologize for my comments. I was merely saying that I don't understand why you can't do both: fix old time computers and be intimate with the latest and greatest. Both are fun. If you are interested in only one aspect of the hobby, more power to you. It's your life. As for my likes, yes I use a soldering iron and oscilloscope every day. As play, I also design using TTL and linear, though usually with a wire wrap gun instead of solder. For example, I spent last weekend repairing a batch of HP180 oscilloscopes that had sat in the garage for 20 years. As far as I know, I have the oldest working computer on this list - built in 1962. Several list members have seen it in operation. Al K is busy archiving the software and manuals for the benefit of the list. But I also love my G4's and have ordered a Quad G5. I use a laptop constantly, and see nothing wrong with playing with the latest offerings from Microsoft. It's all a big game. Why not play with the entire genre? Billy From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 1 23:00:54 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 21:00:54 -0700 Subject: MO support Message-ID: <447FB7F6.4000602@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, I have several (different) MO drives -- including a small jukebox. But, it seems that most OS's don't have support for them -- usually the BLOCKSIZE != 512 issue is the killer. Amusingly, *Windows* seems to talk to all of them (but that is my last choice!). I believe Linux will, as well (but I don't want to run Linux). [I think I would prefer to get them running under Solaris or NetBSD] So, given that these devices have been around for ages, what was talking to them? Thanks, --don From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Thu Jun 1 22:55:41 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 22:55:41 -0500 Subject: Another once-bright star falling... Message-ID: <0402a8eeb2cb4bf88eee473e4d301f67@valleyimplants.com> I think that Sun's biggest problem is still residual from the UltraSPARC II debacle- they angered management by lying aboug why the new $100k+ computer wasn't working, and they really p***ed off sysadmins by alledging that they were incompetent. It would be a while before I'd recommend a Sun after that . . . The new product line looks good, but a bit confusing (TWO different processor architectures sharing the same "Ultra" and "Fire" names?, Why???) I wouldn't pooh-pooh OpenSolaris, either - if you were contemplating buying a expensive computer, wouldn't SGI's financial issues give you concern about buying a Origin? OpenSolaris gives the stability of having potential third-party support up to and including patches. Sun still is seen as the big player, and Sun Solaris will likely maintain an edge over OpenSolaris, while allowing Sun the option of (backporting? porting? including? whatever. . .) bits from OpenSolaris, much as Apple has done with Darwin (but OpenSolaris will likely become more of a "serious" O.S. since it doesn't have the Mach issues) Some of this is probably wishful thinking - I do hope that Sun and IBM are both around to provide an alternative to Itanium - but I do think that Sun is getting it's act together Now we need more people to really learn UNIX (it is rather scary the number of "computer professionals" who don't know how to use anything except Windows and perhaps Mac). Scott Quinn From imind at ptd.net Thu Jun 1 23:21:26 2006 From: imind at ptd.net (Ben Ackerman) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 00:21:26 -0400 Subject: Preserving cassette tapes In-Reply-To: <4477A15A.5070809@brutman.com> Message-ID: <000001c685fc$03aa8f00$0401a8c0@beast> >I don't know. I haven't started looking. But I'm quite sure that I >haven't seen a new mono (not stereo) shoebox player/recorder in a very, >very long time. Heck, I don't even have stereo equipment that plays >cassettes. They are still being manufactured believe it or not, largely for the educational market. This seems fairly close: http://www.schooloutfitters.com/catalog/product_info/cPath/CAT1_CAT14/pf am_id/PFAM608/products_id/PRO3793 -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Michael B. Brutman Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 8:46 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Preserving cassette tapes Tony Duell wrote: > Are they rare, or something? Heck, I found _both_ of the Philips portable > upright reel-to-reel machines I'd been looking for in a couple of months on > E-overpay. Surely cassette recorders turn up there too (I've never looked...) > > -tony I don't know. I haven't started looking. But I'm quite sure that I haven't seen a new mono (not stereo) shoebox player/recorder in a very, very long time. Heck, I don't even have stereo equipment that plays cassettes. All I need is one good playback, so I'm not too concerned, But in the last 20 years CD has supplanted cassette, and I can't say that I'm upset. From trixter at oldskool.org Fri Jun 2 00:35:01 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 00:35:01 -0500 Subject: Another once-bright star falling... In-Reply-To: <0402a8eeb2cb4bf88eee473e4d301f67@valleyimplants.com> References: <0402a8eeb2cb4bf88eee473e4d301f67@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <447FCE05.1080001@oldskool.org> Scott Quinn wrote: > I think that Sun's biggest problem is still residual from the UltraSPARC II debacle- they angered management by lying aboug why the new $100k+ computer wasn't working, > and they really p***ed off sysadmins by alledging that they were incompetent. It would be a while before I'd recommend a Sun after that . . . Not sure I follow; are you talking about the ecache parity bug? (CPU would panic for pretty much no reason). As a guy who likes to torture the hardware purely through software, I liked the way they fixed that debacle (a kernel patch that "scrubs" ecache in such a way that the parity bug never comes up). > I wouldn't pooh-pooh OpenSolaris, either - if you were contemplating buying a expensive computer, wouldn't SGI's financial issues give you concern about buying a But that's not why they did OpenSolaris, they did it (IMO) as a reaction to Linux "cuz that's what all the k00l kidz R doing". Since Linux was ported to sun hardware way back in 1997, I never saw the point. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 00:56:05 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 01:56:05 -0400 Subject: Preserving cassette tapes In-Reply-To: <000001c685fc$03aa8f00$0401a8c0@beast> References: <000001c685fc$03aa8f00$0401a8c0@beast> Message-ID: <200606020156.05741.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 12:21 am, Ben Ackerman wrote: > >I don't know. I haven't started looking. But I'm quite sure that I > >haven't seen a new mono (not stereo) shoebox player/recorder in a very, > > > >very long time. Heck, I don't even have stereo equipment that plays > >cassettes. I have _three_ dual-cassette decks here, if anybody is looking for one... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From d.angst at s-tec.ch Fri Jun 2 01:05:53 2006 From: d.angst at s-tec.ch (Daniel Angst) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 08:05:53 +0200 Subject: AW: about olivetti's m290 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Alberto, I am looking for the Systemdisk for getting into the Olivetti's m290 Bios in order to set the settings for the hdd right. Can you help me? Regards, Daniel Angst -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- Von: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]Im Auftrag von Alberto Rubinelli - A2 Sistemi Gesendet: Mittwoch, 31. Mai 2006 17:36 An: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Betreff: RE: about olivetti's m290 > Daniel Angst > EDV Support What are you looking for about Olivetti M290 ? Check on my website, there is technical manual http://www.retrocomputing.net/phpengine/scheda/sch2005.php/Language=ENG/Mode =Display/Item=691/Letter=O/Marca=12/Pagina=Documentazione 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 jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Jun 2 01:05:42 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 23:05:42 -0700 Subject: MO support In-Reply-To: <447FB7F6.4000602@DakotaCom.Net> References: <447FB7F6.4000602@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <447FD536.4020501@msm.umr.edu> Don Y wrote: > Hi, > > I have several (different) MO drives -- including > a small jukebox. > > But, it seems that most OS's don't have support > for them -- usually the BLOCKSIZE != 512 issue > is the killer. > > Amusingly, *Windows* seems to talk to all of them > (but that is my last choice!). I believe Linux > will, as well (but I don't want to run Linux). > > [I think I would prefer to get them running > under Solaris or NetBSD] > > So, given that these devices have been around for > ages, what was talking to them? > don, from your list above what "most" os's dont support the MO devices? I dont recall having any problem with SCSI attached MO drives that I have used since at least with PC platforms, they are mapped to being bios supported units. Maybe non PC platforms? I used them with Solaris on sparcstations, and with HPUX, and AIX on their respective platforms to interchnge data. There was a jukebox support program distributed that I used one time that would issue commands to the jukebox devices, but most of the time I used MO drives only. Jim From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 2 01:21:18 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 23:21:18 -0700 Subject: MO support In-Reply-To: <447FD536.4020501@msm.umr.edu> References: <447FB7F6.4000602@DakotaCom.Net> <447FD536.4020501@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <447FD8DE.3080403@DakotaCom.Net> jim stephens wrote: > Don Y wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> I have several (different) MO drives -- including >> a small jukebox. >> >> But, it seems that most OS's don't have support >> for them -- usually the BLOCKSIZE != 512 issue >> is the killer. >> >> Amusingly, *Windows* seems to talk to all of them >> (but that is my last choice!). I believe Linux >> will, as well (but I don't want to run Linux). >> >> [I think I would prefer to get them running >> under Solaris or NetBSD] >> >> So, given that these devices have been around for >> ages, what was talking to them? >> > > don, > from your list above what "most" os's dont support > the MO devices? I dont recall having any problem > with SCSI attached MO drives that I have used since > at least with PC platforms, they are mapped to being > bios supported units. > > Maybe non PC platforms? I used them with Solaris > on sparcstations, and with HPUX, and AIX on their > respective platforms to interchnge data. > > There was a jukebox support program distributed > that I used one time that would issue commands to > the jukebox devices, but most of the time I used > MO drives only. The jukebox control would be icing on the cake. I've just not had any luck getting machines to recognize the 1024 or 2048 byte sector sizes. *If* they talk to the drive, they end up treating it AS IF the sectors were 512 bytes -- so you end up only seeing 1/2 or 1/4 of the total disk capacity. I've seen ADD ON products for MO support on things like Slowaris... but, it doesn't seem to be native. HPUX *may* be an exception (the JB is an HP product) but I don't run HPUX... :-/ Or, am I just missing some little "trick"?? :-( Thanks, --don From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Jun 2 01:31:39 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 23:31:39 -0700 Subject: MO support In-Reply-To: <447FD8DE.3080403@DakotaCom.Net> References: <447FB7F6.4000602@DakotaCom.Net> <447FD536.4020501@msm.umr.edu> <447FD8DE.3080403@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <447FDB4B.8070102@msm.umr.edu> Don Y wrote: > > > Or, am I just missing some little "trick"?? :-( > > Thanks, > --don > > Sector size does mess up things. If you are not using the device for booting, then it should not be an issue. I never saw anything but 512 byte / sector work with any windows or dos version. the drivers dont have any way to change the blocksize. I didnt see the problem you saw when using 1024 byte media, it just would spit it back out and do nothing. Solaris should have no problem with this, and of course booting wont be a problem there. There is a jukebox program, I'll have to air out the brain cells and try to remember what that was called. If this rings any bells with others on this list, chime in. The package I'm thinking about is a public domain thing, i believe it works for MO libaries, but is also written to issue select commands to tape libraries. YMMV. it is a good basis to start with. It is not going to support different volumes which auto select like the Pioneer cd 6 or 18 pack drives do, or the NEC scsi cdrom drives do, which would be cute, but is only framework to open a scsi target id, and issue a select command to pull and swap in a different media to a drive. I recall that someone had used it with MO jukeboxes but I only saw it used with DLT libraries. (Breece Hill). Jim From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Jun 2 02:19:02 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 01:19:02 -0600 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <447FE666.8050400@jetnet.ab.ca> Tony Duell wrote: > Hmm.. I always feel I am going to make a mistake and ruin the chip, so I > want to be sure of being able to get replacements, at least while I'm > still designing. In that case send me all your old DTL stuff, I had planned to build one since about 1972 or so... Only now I have the $$$. > -tony From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Jun 2 02:20:21 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 00:20:21 -0700 Subject: IBM 1620 panel on Ebay In-Reply-To: <447FDB4B.8070102@msm.umr.edu> References: <447FB7F6.4000602@DakotaCom.Net> <447FD536.4020501@msm.umr.edu> <447FD8DE.3080403@DakotaCom.Net> <447FDB4B.8070102@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <447FE6B5.9070707@msm.umr.edu> The photos of this panel are exceptional With the current mix of bidders, this one will probably set more bidding records. 370 panels are a dime a dozen compared to 1620 panels. only one to hear from now is Dennis K about 2 second before the end of the auction. 8817902582 is the auction, closes Jun 4 at 2:30pm PDT. Jim From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 02:28:25 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 03:28:25 -0400 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <447FE666.8050400@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <447FE666.8050400@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200606020328.25185.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 03:19 am, woodelf wrote: > Tony Duell wrote: > > Hmm.. I always feel I am going to make a mistake and ruin the chip, so I > > want to be sure of being able to get replacements, at least while I'm > > still designing. > > In that case send me all your old DTL stuff, I had planned to build one > since about 1972 or so... Only now I have the $$$. One what? I always wondered what DTL was good for... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Jun 2 02:40:12 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 01:40:12 -0600 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606020328.25185.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <447FE666.8050400@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606020328.25185.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <447FEB5C.10409@jetnet.ab.ca> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Friday 02 June 2006 03:19 am, woodelf wrote: > One what? umm could be a computer or am I off topic :) > I always wondered what DTL was good for... > I allways remember the polypack ads ... 74xx for only 5 cents each or so if I recall right. From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 02:48:55 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 03:48:55 -0400 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <447FEB5C.10409@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <200606020328.25185.rtellason@blazenet.net> <447FEB5C.10409@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200606020348.55442.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 03:40 am, woodelf wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > On Friday 02 June 2006 03:19 am, woodelf wrote: > > > > One what? > > umm could be a computer or am I off topic :) > > > I always wondered what DTL was good for... > > I allways remember the polypack ads ... 74xx for > only 5 cents each or so if I recall right. Yeah, but that ain't DTL, that's TTL, I still have a bunch of it. I forget what the DTL numbers were but I think they're up in the 9xxx range. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 2 03:00:55 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 01:00:55 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <447FEB5C.10409@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <447FE666.8050400@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606020328.25185.rtellason@blazenet.net> <447FEB5C.10409@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200606020100550134.20E5EDF9@10.0.0.252> On 6/2/2006 at 1:40 AM woodelf wrote: >I allways remember the polypack ads ... 74xx for >only 5 cents each or so if I recall right. I remember buying 923 RTL FFs from them for $1 apiece and thinking that it was a steal. Typical floor sweepings--some packages didn't even have the leads plated. I still have a couple of Fairchild 8 bit addressable memories that I bought from them for way too much. DTL, requiring a 6 volt supply and a 7 volt clock. Ran hot as a pistol. My first 741 op amp came from them. My first LED's were purchased directly from Montsanto as part of their "experimenter's program". Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 2 03:17:23 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 01:17:23 -0700 Subject: MO support In-Reply-To: <447FDB4B.8070102@msm.umr.edu> References: <447FB7F6.4000602@DakotaCom.Net> <447FD536.4020501@msm.umr.edu> <447FD8DE.3080403@DakotaCom.Net> <447FDB4B.8070102@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <447FF413.60803@DakotaCom.Net> jim stephens wrote: > Sector size does mess up things. If you are not > using the device for booting, then it should not be > an issue. Well, if I can't build a filesystem on it, then it's sort of a moot point! :> > I never saw anything but 512 byte / sector work > with any windows or dos version. the drivers dont > have any way to change the blocksize. I didnt > see the problem you saw when using 1024 byte > media, it just would spit it back out and do nothing. I am pretty sure the Windows machine had *no* problems. The UN*X boxen all seem to gag on the != 512 byte sector size... > Solaris should have no problem with this, and > of course booting wont be a problem there. I am almost 100% certain Solaris did NOT like the 1024/2048 byte sectors. I will try to make time this weekend to test each medium/drive on a variety of machines just to be sure. > There is a jukebox program, I'll have to air out > the brain cells and try to remember what that > was called. If this rings any bells with others on > this list, chime in. The package I'm thinking about > is a public domain thing, i believe it works for > MO libaries, but is also written to issue select > commands to tape libraries. YMMV. it is > a good basis to start with. > It is not going to support different volumes > which auto select like the Pioneer cd 6 or > 18 pack drives do, or the NEC scsi cdrom > drives do, which would be cute, but is only > framework to open a scsi target id, and issue > a select command to pull and swap in a different > media to a drive. I recall that someone had > used it with MO jukeboxes but I only saw it > used with DLT libraries. (Breece Hill). I can always use the front panel controls on the JB to move media to/from the drives. I am more concerned with trying to get full *use* of the media (i.e. not throwing away half of each physical sector) Thanks! --don From cc at corti-net.de Fri Jun 2 04:31:20 2006 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 11:31:20 +0200 (CEST) Subject: ITT Service Manual Message-ID: Has anyone a copy of the ITT 3280 System service manual? I'm mostly interested in the terminals sections, i.e. ITT 3285/3287. The terminals may also be known as Courier C275 and C270. Christian From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 2 04:54:48 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 21:54:48 +1200 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606020328.25185.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <447FE666.8050400@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606020328.25185.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: On 6/2/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > I always wondered what DTL was good for... When I have the time, I plan to make some DTL peripherals for my PDP-8 and PDP-8/S... -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 2 04:55:55 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 21:55:55 +1200 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606020348.55442.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <200606020328.25185.rtellason@blazenet.net> <447FEB5C.10409@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606020348.55442.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: On 6/2/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > Yeah, but that ain't DTL, that's TTL, I still have a bunch of it. I forget > what the DTL numbers were but I think they're up in the 9xxx range. What about the Motorola 7xx and 8xx parts? DTL or RTL? -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 2 04:57:11 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 21:57:11 +1200 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606020328.25185.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <447FE666.8050400@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606020328.25185.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: On 6/2/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > I always wondered what DTL was good for... Well.. for one thing, you can make some of those electronics toys and games from "Radio Electronics", et al., c. 1973. Some of the projects have been scanned and are floating around on the 'net, but I don't think they'll work with TTL parts (without a redesign). -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 2 04:59:35 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 21:59:35 +1200 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: <575131af0605301449g489f1380k7c16e1c8322efaf7@mail.gmail.com> <00ba01c684a8$297148a0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> <447F89DB.60008@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On 6/2/06, Zane H. Healy wrote: > My DEC PWS 433au is right at about 10 years and gets continuous use. > It runs 24x365, and has for the last 6 years. A lot of people have > VAXen that they been using for 10+ years (if not 20+), same with > PDP-11's. In the DEC world 10+ years isn't so much unusual, as the > norm. Some DEC systems have been in continuous use for 30+ years. Hear, hear. The oldest (to me) DEC machine in my posession I got in 1982 (PDP-8/L); it works, but I don't use it every day. I do have some stuff from the late 1970s and early 1980s that I have every expectation to work on those occasions when I do fire it up (few times per year). The stuff from the early 1960s I'm less confident about, but I'm not terribly worried about the electronics (just the electrolytic caps). -ethan From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 2 07:03:26 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 07:03:26 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 2 07:13:47 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 07:13:47 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 2 07:43:52 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 07:43:52 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 2 07:57:15 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 07:57:15 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Done. From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Jun 2 07:49:49 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 07:49:49 -0500 Subject: MO support In-Reply-To: <447FB7F6.4000602@DakotaCom.Net> References: <447FB7F6.4000602@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060602074309.04d0be58@mail> At 11:00 PM 6/1/2006, Don Y wrote: >So, given that these devices have been around for >ages, what was talking to them? There were MO drivers for Macs, too. I don't recall if there were some for Amiga. Weren't MO devices popular for archiving of medical images, like X-rays? - John From allain at panix.com Fri Jun 2 08:35:32 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 09:35:32 -0400 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" References: <575131af0605301449g489f1380k7c16e1c8322efaf7@mail.gmail.com><00ba01c684a8$297148a0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06><447F89DB.60008@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <009401c68649$6c830be0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> > >John Allain wrote: > >>Personally, I don't think continuous duty at all for anything >10y-o. >> I do my best work on my IBM 5160; it has gotten continuous use for >> nearly two decades. > My DEC PWS 433au is right at about 10 years and gets continuous use. The idea is if it dies, and nobody can get another, then you are the one who killed it. There are counterarguments I guess, like that CRTs and electrolytics need at least some periodic duty to keep them up, but for me that's actually about 1 week a year, hardly continuous. John A. From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Jun 2 09:00:16 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 09:00:16 Subject: atari printers In-Reply-To: <588f242f4e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> References: <000e01c6838b$8df5d930$6401a8c0@hal9000> <000e01c6838b$8df5d930$6401a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060602090016.34cfbfe0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 02:15 PM 5/30/06 +0100, you wrote: >In message <000e01c6838b$8df5d930$6401a8c0 at hal9000> > "Steven Canning" wrote: > >> On my 1020s the shaft diameter is 0.060 " on the gear in question. I hope >> this helps. The gear listed below has a bore almost 2 times too big. I can >> ship you small parts (i.e. things that will fit in an envelope). I have >> several 1020s still in the original unopened boxes and some that have been >> parted out. Biggest problem is still the ink ... > >I think I've got a Sharp pen plotter that's the same - little tiny pens and a >paper roll (although IIRC you can feed it cut sheets as well). I've yet to >find anywhere that sells the pens, but apparently Radioshack used to stock >them. > >Shame really, it's a nice little plotter - Sharp CE-515P if anyone wants to >look it up. Takes the EA-850B, EA-850C or EA-852C pens. Actually, I think >I've got a PDF of the manual somewhere... FWIW I have a couple of Gould Digital Storage Scopes that have similar printers built into them. The printers appear to work but the pins dried up years ago. If anyone comes up with a replacement or fix for them I'd like to hear about it. FWIW2 Based on my experience years ago with the CGP-115 the pins don't last long so replacement isn't a good solution unless you can buy them by the dozen! Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Jun 2 09:32:34 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 09:32:34 Subject: atari printers In-Reply-To: References: <588f242f4e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060602093234.34cf965c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 03:54 PM 5/31/06 +1200, you wrote: >On 5/31/06, Tony Duell wrote: >> There was also a standard controller IC (it was a mask-programmed >> microcontroller, I forget which one, but it was something standard -- >> maybe 6805-like), which was used in some of the desktop printers. It had >> Centronics and 600 baud serial inputs. > >The controller in the C= 1520 is a 6500-family masked-programmed >controller and only implemented the C= IEC bus, not serial or >Centronics. > >> I have the Alps service documentation for this mechanism, but it doesn't >> show the motor pinion separately from the motor. > >That's a shame. > >I've contemplated what it would take to make a "negative gear" in some >durable material like aluminum and experiment with extrusion molding >of a "slug" which would then be cut down to the right length. Since I >have a few bare Alps mechanisms, I've also contemplated experimentally >turning down the motor shafts if I were to ever find a matching gear >that was the right size except for shaft diameter. Anyone else here >have any ideas on how to solve the perpetual cracked gear dilemma? I bought a CGP-115 new about 20 years ago and had the same gear problem. I went to a TRS "computer store" and tried to order a gear but they insisted that I had to have the printer checked out by their technician before they would sell me one. After a bit of intense questioning they finally admitted that there was a one hour minimum charge at something like $40/hour! I told them to stuff it and I've seldom darkened the door of an Trash Shack since. A year or two later I meet the manager of another TRS store and I told him the story. He ordered 3 or 4 gears for me and they only cost about $1. So the gears WERE available. I've seen a crude but effective method of cutting gears by turning a shaft of the desired od and then mounting it horzontally on a verticle milling machine so that it can turn freely. Then mount a TAP vertiaclly in the headstock and spin it slowly and then moving it slowly in against the shaft. The tap will cut longitudinal (actually nearly longitudinal) threads (teeth) in the shaft as you move it in. (You only need to move it in by the depth of threads for the gear once you contact the shaft.) It will also spin the shaft and cut threads all the way around. You will need a tap of the same od and pitch (or as close as you can get) as the gear that mates to the one you're trying to make. This will yield a lantern post shaped gear instead of a straight one but for this application that should be even better. Another way to cut the gear is to turn a shaft of the correct od and mount it in a lathe. Lock the headstock so that the lathe spindle, chuck and shaft can't turn. Make a cutter that matches the shape and size of one of the spaces between the gear teeth. (1) Mount the cutter in the tool post holder and move it back and forth taking light cuts on the shaft until you get the desired depth of cut. (2) Unlock the head stock and turn it exactly the angle between the gear teeth and then lock it again. Reapeat steps 1 and 2 until you've cut all the teeth. The advantage of this method is that you can cut a gear of just about any length. You can then cut them off to the desired size and that will yield a number of individual gears. FWIW THE standard reference for gear cutting is 'Gear Cutting Practice' by Colvin and Stanley. My copy is dated 1937. Joe > >-ethan > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Jun 2 09:53:43 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 09:53:43 Subject: MO support In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060602074309.04d0be58@mail> References: <447FB7F6.4000602@DakotaCom.Net> <447FB7F6.4000602@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060602095343.18e726a8@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 07:49 AM 6/2/06 -0500, you wrote: >At 11:00 PM 6/1/2006, Don Y wrote: >>So, given that these devices have been around for >>ages, what was talking to them? > >There were MO drivers for Macs, too. I don't recall if there >were some for Amiga. Weren't MO devices popular for archiving >of medical images, like X-rays? > >- John > Apparently they were popular with lawyers too. I just picked up two drives and a pile of unused disks from the State Attorney's office last week. I expect they've switched over to CDs now. BOY are they in for a surprise! Joe From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jun 2 09:03:48 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 07:03:48 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606020100550134.20E5EDF9@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: Hi I have 9xx DTL in my Nicolet 1080 and it runs on 5 volts, not 6 volts. DTL can, for the most part be replaced by TTL with the same pinouts. That is except one case. I don't recall the number but there is a DTL gate that can be expanded externally with more diodes to create a wider input. I built an electronic dice using RTL once. RTL runs at 3.6 volts. It used a number of jk flops and drove some small LEDs that were aranged like dice. It ran on a 9 volt battery through a regulator. It flattened the battery in just a few minutes of operation. Dwight >From: "Chuck Guzis" > >On 6/2/2006 at 1:40 AM woodelf wrote: > > >I allways remember the polypack ads ... 74xx for > >only 5 cents each or so if I recall right. > >I remember buying 923 RTL FFs from them for $1 apiece and thinking that it >was a steal. Typical floor sweepings--some packages didn't even have the >leads plated. > >I still have a couple of Fairchild 8 bit addressable memories that I bought >from them for way too much. DTL, requiring a 6 volt supply and a 7 volt >clock. Ran hot as a pistol. > >My first 741 op amp came from them. My first LED's were purchased directly >from Montsanto as part of their "experimenter's program". > >Cheers, >Chuck > > From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 2 09:25:59 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 07:25:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: MO support In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060602074309.04d0be58@mail> from John Foust at "Jun 2, 6 07:49:49 am" Message-ID: <200606021425.k52EPxdH014092@floodgap.com> > >So, given that these devices have been around for > >ages, what was talking to them? > > There were MO drivers for Macs, too. I don't recall if there > were some for Amiga. Weren't MO devices popular for archiving > of medical images, like X-rays? And echocardiogrammes. The cardiology department here still uses them for 2D and stress echoes. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Even cabbage more sense than you! -- Shampoo, "Ranma 1/2" ------------------ From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 2 10:32:29 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 08:32:29 -0700 Subject: MO support In-Reply-To: <200606021425.k52EPxdH014092@floodgap.com> References: <200606021425.k52EPxdH014092@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <200606020832290483.22835B3C@10.0.0.252> The Pinnacle Micro MO stuff offered two types of media; 512 byte and 1024 byte sectors. I've got an Apex 4.3GB 512-byte sector cart around here someplace. The drives would die if you looked at them cross-eyed--and I think the miserable field record of the Apex drives contributed to the eventual bankruptcy of Pinnacle. Youi can still find the drives on ePay. In my experience, if you find one that looks like a good deal, the seller will not warrant that it works. Cheers, Chuck From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Fri Jun 2 10:50:37 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 11:50:37 -0400 Subject: MO support In-Reply-To: <200606020832290483.22835B3C@10.0.0.252> References: <200606021425.k52EPxdH014092@floodgap.com> <200606021425.k52EPxdH014092@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060602114612.01c02630@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Chuck Guzis may have mentioned these words: >The Pinnacle Micro MO stuff offered two types of media; 512 byte and 1024 >byte sectors. I've got an Apex 4.3GB 512-byte sector cart around here >someplace. The drives would die if you looked at them cross-eyed--and I >think the miserable field record of the Apex drives contributed to the >eventual bankruptcy of Pinnacle. I have a MaxOptix Tahiti1 drive here on the shelf - 5.25" FH, heavy sucker, standard SCSI - it'll take Tahiti 1G disks (500M/side - the one disk I had always had R/W errors & problems) and standard 600Meg disks (300Meg/side - the 2 I had worked flawlessly) - 512byte sectors. The only difference I could see w/the Tahiti disk was that the sectors were staggered & there were more sectors on the outer cylinders of the disk. Who knows: maybe that confused the drive.... ;-) From what I understand, the 650Meg disks (325Meg/side) disks had 1024 byte sectors, and would not work with my drive. AFAIK, it still works tho I haven't used it in prolly 4-5 years or so... Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers _??_ zmerch at 30below.com (?||?) If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead _)(_ disarmament should *not* be your first career choice. From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Fri Jun 2 10:57:57 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 16:57:57 +0100 Subject: Pens for Atari, CBM and TRS plotters (was: atari printers) In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060602090016.34cfbfe0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.16.20060602090016.34cfbfe0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <40ecbe304e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> In message <3.0.6.16.20060602090016.34cfbfe0 at pop-server.cfl.rr.com> "Joe R." wrote: > FWIW I have a couple of Gould Digital Storage Scopes that have similar > printers built into them. The printers appear to work but the pins dried up > years ago. If anyone comes up with a replacement or fix for them I'd like > to hear about it. What about drilling out the innards of the pen, then installing the cut-down guts of a fibre-tip ("fineliner") pen in its place? You'd probably need a drill press and some form of mounting jig to get the hole centred, and I've no doubt it would make a big mess, but it should be doable. The only problem would be that the pen would likely dry out over time, but I've seen fineliners that claim not to dry out if the cap is left off... -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G VF+UniPod philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 1G+180G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com Fri Jun 2 11:12:11 2006 From: nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com (nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 09:12:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: New Exidy Sorcerer stuff In-Reply-To: <447F6CA5.4060401@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <20060602161211.21120.qmail@web81012.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Jim, I still would love to see the emulator. Maybe this will help, the latest addition to my growing Sorcerer collection includes a pile of cassettes of software as well as a couple of 8" floppies with what looks like at least CP/M for the Sorcerer. I'll know better after this month of travel is done, then I can really spend some time to check it all out. Could be the source of software you need for the emulator. :) -----David Williams http://www.trailingedge.com ----- Original Message ---- From: Jim Battle To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Sent: Thursday, June 1, 2006 5:39:33 PM Subject: Re: New Exidy Sorcerer stuff My intention when I traded with David for one of his sorcerers is was that I was going to make some small changes to my Sol emulator and have an Exidy emulator. :-) I have all the information I need to do it (tech manual, rom images, actual specimen for verifying things). The problem, other than lack of time, is that it hasn't been attractive to me to do it since there is so little software for it on the net, so why bother. There was a java sorcerer emulator that was on the net a few years ago, but I always had problems with it, so I lost interest. Hmm, here it is: http://www.liaquay.co.uk/ It runs OK; one problem is that the emulator, in an attempt to be faithful to the original, maps the keys to return the same symbols that he original machine did. So if you are entering a BASIC program, typing "+" enters "=" intead; you have to type ":" to get "+", etc. For some games keeping the original layout is key to controlling the game, but for entering text and programs not so good. When entering BASIC, the lag time from keypress to update seems north of 100 ms. I'm still holding onto the machine, hoping that one day I'll find the time and someone will turn up with a nice cache of software to make it interesting. From nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com Fri Jun 2 11:15:45 2006 From: nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com (nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 09:15:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: New Exidy Sorcerer stuff In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060602161545.11916.qmail@web81001.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Looking at your pics, the expansion box is just like the one I recently received. Looking forward to testing it all out and getting these 8" floppies running. -----David Williamshttp://www.trailingedge.com ----- Original Message ---- From: Adrian Graham To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Sent: Thursday, June 1, 2006 4:15:26 PM Subject: Re: New Exidy Sorcerer stuff It's been on my list for years which is why I'm doubly happy that this system just fell into my lap :) I've put some hastily taken pictures up at http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Exidy/index.php Then my camera battery died....curse this modern technology! You'll get one eventually....between Exidy and Compudata tens of thousands were sold so they can't be THAT rare? A On 1/6/06 00:52, "Keys" wrote: > I want one :-( It's been on my list for awhile. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Paxton Hoag" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 6:44 PM > Subject: Re: New Exidy Sorcerer stuff > > >> I have an Exidy Sorceror also. >> Paxton >> Astoria, Oregon >> >> On 5/31/06, Tony Duell wrote: >>>> >>>> Nice! Very similar to the lot I picked up on Monday, but having poked a >>>> couple of messages on here about it I think there's only 3 of us that >>>> are >>>> interested :o\ >>> >>> FWIW, I ahve a Sorceror, the S100 box, the BASIC ROM cartridge and one >>> other cartridge (I asusme you've noticed these are actually modified >>> 8-track tape cases!), and the manuals (including the technical manuals). >>> Oh, and ESC newsletters 1-30 (I think I have the full run). >>> >>> But I've not done anything with it recently. Too many other machines to >>> work on. >>> >>> -tony >>> >> >> >> -- >> Paxton Hoag >> Astoria, OR >> USA >> > > -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Jun 2 11:20:11 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 10:20:11 -0600 Subject: atari printers - gears In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060602093234.34cf965c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <588f242f4e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> <3.0.6.16.20060602093234.34cf965c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <4480653B.9030305@jetnet.ab.ca> Joe R. wrote: > Another way to cut the gear is to turn a shaft of the correct od and > mount it in a lathe. Lock the headstock so that the lathe spindle, chuck > and shaft can't turn. Make a cutter that matches the shape and size of one > of the spaces between the gear teeth. (1) Mount the cutter in the tool post > holder and move it back and forth taking light cuts on the shaft until you > get the desired depth of cut. (2) Unlock the head stock and turn it exactly > the angle between the gear teeth and then lock it again. Reapeat steps 1 > and 2 until you've cut all the teeth. The advantage of this method is that > you can cut a gear of just about any length. You can then cut them off to > the desired size and that will yield a number of individual gears. > > FWIW THE standard reference for gear cutting is 'Gear Cutting Practice' > by Colvin and Stanley. My copy is dated 1937. Check out Lindsay's Techical Books www.lindsaybks.com for a *modern* re-print and other fine books :) Dave Gingery has a set of books of how to build a metal working shop from scratch. Book #3 is the metal shaper for gear cutting, after you read and construct from book #1 The charoal foundry , and book #2 The metal lathe. > Joe > > >>-ethan >> > > > . > From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 2 11:38:04 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 09:38:04 -0700 Subject: MO support In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060602074309.04d0be58@mail> References: <447FB7F6.4000602@DakotaCom.Net> <6.2.3.4.2.20060602074309.04d0be58@mail> Message-ID: <4480696C.8040508@DakotaCom.Net> John Foust wrote: > At 11:00 PM 6/1/2006, Don Y wrote: >> So, given that these devices have been around for >> ages, what was talking to them? > > There were MO drivers for Macs, too. I don't recall if there At least some (all?) of my drives work on Macs "out of the box". I.e. Mac's and PC's (and HPUX?) seem to be the only places where you can just plug them in and they Do The Right Thing. Disappointing that they don't seem to work elsewhere... > were some for Amiga. Weren't MO devices popular for archiving > of medical images, like X-rays? From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 2 11:39:30 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 09:39:30 -0700 Subject: MO support In-Reply-To: <200606020832290483.22835B3C@10.0.0.252> References: <200606021425.k52EPxdH014092@floodgap.com> <200606020832290483.22835B3C@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <448069C2.2000102@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > The Pinnacle Micro MO stuff offered two types of media; 512 byte and 1024 > byte sectors. I've got an Apex 4.3GB 512-byte sector cart around here > someplace. The drives would die if you looked at them cross-eyed--and I > think the miserable field record of the Apex drives contributed to the > eventual bankruptcy of Pinnacle. I have a pair of PMO650's that work well. And the Blue LED (ahead of its time?) is really cool when writing! :> But, they want their own "special" enclosures :-( > Youi can still find the drives on ePay. In my experience, if you find one > that looks like a good deal, the seller will not warrant that it works. From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 11:41:38 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 12:41:38 -0400 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: <200606020328.25185.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <200606021241.38103.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 05:57 am, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 6/2/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > I always wondered what DTL was good for... > > Well.. for one thing, you can make some of those electronics toys and > games from "Radio Electronics", et al., c. 1973. Some of the projects > have been scanned and are floating around on the 'net, but I don't > think they'll work with TTL parts (without a redesign). I thought some of those used RTL, which _is_ a very different beast. I remember building some of that stuff... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 2 11:52:30 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 09:52:30 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606020952300676.22CCA4F1@10.0.0.252> On 6/2/2006 at 7:03 AM dwight elvey wrote: >I have 9xx DTL in my Nicolet 1080 and it runs on 5 volts, not 6 volts. >DTL can, for the most part be replaced by TTL with the same pinouts. >That is except one case. I don't recall the number but there is a DTL >gate that can be expanded externally with more diodes to create >a wider input. Early 7400-series TTL had the 7450 and 7453 AND-OR-INVERT gates that could be explanded with another 4 inputs via the 7460 dual 4-input expander. I'd hate to own equipment now that used some of those that required replacement--they must be very difficult to find. The bigger problems in replacing DTL with TTL (other than the obvious impedance mismatch issues) is that DTL could use a relatively wide range of supply voltages (up to 8 volts) and outputs could be wire-OR-ed with relative impunity (i.e. you didn't have to consult the databook to see if you could do it). And yes, expandable gates were more common. In addition to flat pack and DIP, DTL could also be furnished in TO-100 cans; which led to the interesting situation that you could have two packages with the same base part number but with a different number of active pins (e.g. MC833P vs. MC833G). For Moto, DTL devices were, by and large, the 830/930- 960 families, with some late parts having numbers in the 1800-1900 range. There was an old DTL 200/250 series, but I've never seen equipment that used it. There was also a "radiation hardened" line of DTL, the MCE930 series that featured nichrome resistors and dielectric isolation of circuit elements from the substrate. RTL also featured expandable gates, but with an interesting twist the expanders (basically open-collector gates) could be used on just about any other RTL device--you didn't need the base device to be one of the "expandable" versions Again, wired-OR operation was very common. Where I'd be stuck is finding replacements for HTL--15 volt Vcc and the switching threshold somewhere around 7 volts. Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 12:08:11 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 13:08:11 -0400 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606020952300676.22CCA4F1@10.0.0.252> References: <200606020952300676.22CCA4F1@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606021308.11655.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 12:52 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Where I'd be stuck is finding replacements for HTL--15 volt Vcc and the > switching threshold somewhere around 7 volts. Is that stuff pretty much totally gone, then? My last ECG book (not recent) still listed it, I've asked NTE to send me some literature but it hasn't arrived yet and I don't know if they support it as well, or if it's not included in their lineup... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 2 12:15:36 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 10:15:36 -0700 Subject: Pens for Atari, CBM and TRS plotters (was: atari printers) In-Reply-To: <40ecbe304e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> References: <3.0.6.16.20060602090016.34cfbfe0@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <40ecbe304e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <200606021015360493.22E1CA3B@10.0.0.252> On 6/2/2006 at 4:57 PM Philip Pemberton wrote: >What about drilling out the innards of the pen, then installing the >cut-down guts of a fibre-tip ("fineliner") pen in its place? >You'd probably need a drill press and some form of mounting jig to get the >hole centred, and I've no doubt it would make a big mess, but it should be >doable. The only problem would be that the pen would likely dry out over >time, but I've seen fineliners that claim not to dry out if the cap is left >off... One solution might be to obtain the ink and pen from a strip recorder and fit it to the plotter. These don't dry out as quickly and can be easily unclogged with a small cleaning wire. I recall trying felt tips on a Moore strip recorder and having a miserable time with the ink drying out. Cheers, Chuck From geoffb at vigilan.com Fri Jun 2 12:18:20 2006 From: geoffb at vigilan.com (Geoffrey Bunza) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 10:18:20 -0700 Subject: MO support Message-ID: <448072DC.8050302@vigilan.com> MO drives came in at least three major variations, distinguished by media: originally up to 520MB or so with 512 tracks then 680MB and beyond with 1024 byte tracks, and here's where the first OS issues occurred when they didn't inherently handle 1024 byte tracks-- solution: you need an updated driver AND usually a special formatting utility to format the disk. More recently there were multi GByte disks that were 5" or 5 1/4" or so too (obviously with a different drive mechanism). The 3 1/2" originals look like a thicker 3 1/2" floppy (still with rigid plastic case). All the MO drives I've used have had a SCSI interface and have worked very well. Another application was with the military due to rugged design and data integrity: the MO disk had to be written with both a laser AND magnetic head. The laser was used to spot heat the MO material and the magnetic head wrote the bit in place. It is the reason why they are much less susceptible to erasure or bit drop due to magnetic field interference. Some MO providers still have the drives available for download on the net and through their support chains. Hope this is of help. Geoff From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 12:26:03 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 13:26:03 -0400 Subject: parts pages updated Message-ID: <200606021254.56112.rtellason@blazenet.net> I've updated my parts pages again, and this time pretty near all of the datasheets are online as well. They can be found at: http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/parts-index.html Hopefully some of you folks might find this useful... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 2 16:48:14 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 14:48:14 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606021308.11655.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <200606020952300676.22CCA4F1@10.0.0.252> <200606021308.11655.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <200606021448140387.23DB639E@10.0.0.252> On 6/2/2006 at 1:08 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: >Is that stuff pretty much totally gone, then? My last ECG book (not >recent) >still listed it, I've asked NTE to send me some literature but it hasn't >arrived yet and I don't know if they support it as well, or if it's not >included in their lineup... All gone. If you run some MHTL part numbers, say, MC660* by the NTE cross-reference at: http://www.nteinc.com/ they all come up with "NTEOBS-NLA"; i.e. NTE obsolete, no longer available. I wonder if 4000 series CMOS might provide some of the functionality at slower speeds... Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 16:54:22 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 17:54:22 -0400 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606021448140387.23DB639E@10.0.0.252> References: <200606021308.11655.rtellason@blazenet.net> <200606021448140387.23DB639E@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606021754.23012.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 05:48 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/2/2006 at 1:08 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: > >Is that stuff pretty much totally gone, then? My last ECG book (not > >recent) > >still listed it, I've asked NTE to send me some literature but it hasn't > >arrived yet and I don't know if they support it as well, or if it's not > >included in their lineup... > > All gone. If you run some MHTL part numbers, say, MC660* by the NTE > cross-reference at: > > http://www.nteinc.com/ > > they all come up with "NTEOBS-NLA"; i.e. NTE obsolete, no longer available. Bummer. But then, I don't remember the last time I ran into any of that stuff. > I wonder if 4000 series CMOS might provide some of the functionality at > slower speeds... I don't get the impression that speed is going to be a major issue there, it's more likely that drive current capabiilty or some other aspect of it is going to be a problem. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 2 18:24:32 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 00:24:32 +0100 (BST) Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: from "Billy Pettit" at Jun 1, 6 06:51:49 pm Message-ID: > Tony, I am not telling you what you enjoy or don't. I was simply = > commenting > on your many many statements that troubleshooting to a component level = > is > your belief in the right way to do things. If you feel I was = I beleie you can't know you've cured a fault unless you know what the fault wss (just having the fault go away is not good enough!). And the only way to know where the fault is is to trace it to the component. At which point you might as well do component level repair (_finding_ the fault is what takes the time, replacing a component, even a 100+ pin SMD chip, is a lot quicker). > criticizing, > then I apologize for my comments. I was merely saying that I don't > understand why you can't do both: fix old time computers and be intimate > with the latest and greatest. Both are fun. If you are interested in = If you enjoy that, fine. That is no reason for me to _have_ to enjoy it too. > only > one aspect of the hobby, more power to you. It's your life. > > As for my likes, yes I use a soldering iron and oscilloscope every day. = > As > play, I also design using TTL and linear, though usually with a wire = > wrap > gun instead of solder. For example, I spent last weekend repairing a = I was using the term 'solcering iron' somewhat figuratively. Obviously I regard wire-wrap as being equivalent in this context. I like wire wrap, and it's certainly reliable, but the problem I have with it is that the special sockets are expensive and have to be mail-ordered over here. So for quick projects (10 or so ICs) I find it quicker to solder it. Verowire (or whatever it's called now) is fast, not as reliable as wire-wrap, bnt OK for making test circuits, etc (heck, I built a complete transputer system using Verowire, it ran fine for 10 years It would probalby still run if I powered it up). [...] > love my G4's and have ordered a Quad G5. I use a laptop constantly, and = > see > nothing wrong with playing with the latest offerings from Microsoft. = Well, considering Microsoft OSes (at least the ones I've had the misfortune to use) are closed-source, difficult to use, crash if you look at them worng, and have as much security as a tissue paper front door, I am not sure why I should like them. > It's > all a big game. Why not play with the entire genre? This is about as sensible as saying that 'pianos and guitars are musical instruments, if you enjoy playing one you _must_ necessarily enjoy the other'. To be honest, I am not a 'computer person'. I don't much enjoy programming. I'm an electronics/mechanical person. I like tinkering with hardware, but it computers, radios, cameras, clocks, whatever. So I could turn your statement round and say 'Well, you enjoy working on your 1962 mainframe, why don't you strip down an M-series Leica. It's all machinery after all' -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 2 19:02:01 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 01:02:01 +0100 (BST) Subject: Pens for Atari, CBM and TRS plotters (was: atari printers) In-Reply-To: <40ecbe304e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> from "Philip Pemberton" at Jun 2, 6 04:57:57 pm Message-ID: > > What about drilling out the innards of the pen, then installing the cut-down > guts of a fibre-tip ("fineliner") pen in its place? > You'd probably need a drill press and some form of mounting jig to get the The easy way to do that is to clamp the pen body in a lathe chuck and put a twist drill in the tailstock chuck. I would think most self-centring lathe chucks would be accurate enough for this -- easily. The only problem is that most, if not all, lathe owners are not going to want ink all over their machine tools... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 2 18:41:22 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 00:41:22 +0100 (BST) Subject: atari printers In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060602093234.34cf965c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> from "Joe R." at Jun 2, 6 09:32:34 am Message-ID: > I bought a CGP-115 new about 20 years ago and had the same gear problem. > I went to a TRS "computer store" and tried to order a gear but they > insisted that I had to have the printer checked out by their technician > before they would sell me one. After a bit of intense questioning they That's odd... In the UK, when we had Radio Shack/Tandy stores, I never had any such problems. I used to order the service manual (if there wasn't a Technical manual available, as there was for the computers themselves). The way to do that was to ask them to get MS260-xxxx (where xxxx was the last 4 digts of the unit's stock number) from National Parts. Then I'd go into the shop again with the manual and ask them to get me '2 of those'. And they'd come. No problems. > finally admitted that there was a one hour minimum charge at something like > $40/hour! I told them to stuff it and I've seldom darkened the door of an > Trash Shack since. A year or two later I meet the manager of another TRS > store and I told him the story. He ordered 3 or 4 gears for me and they > only cost about $1. So the gears WERE available. > > I've seen a crude but effective method of cutting gears by turning a > shaft of the desired od and then mounting it horzontally on a verticle > milling machine so that it can turn freely. Then mount a TAP vertiaclly in > the headstock and spin it slowly and then moving it slowly in against the > shaft. The tap will cut longitudinal (actually nearly longitudinal) threads THis is related to a gear cutting method called 'hobbing'. A real hobbign machine has the blank mounted on a spindle that's geared to the cutter spindle by the appropriate ratio. And you use a hob, not a tap -- the differenece being that the cutting edges are a different shape. The advantage of this method is that you only need one cutter for a particular pitch of gear, no matter how many teeth you want to cut. If you use the other method you've suggested, you, in theory, need a different milling cutter for each number of teeth, since you're actually cutting the spaces between the teeth (not the teeth themselves), and the shape of the space varies with the number of teeth on the gear. In practice, there are typically 8 cutters to cover the range from 10 teeth to a rack (the last one typically goes from 135 teeth upwards, all the way to a rack which is an 'infinite number of teeth' if you think about it). But those cutters are not cheap -- I've been quoted \pounds 45.00 each (not for a set of 8, for one cutter) for the sort of size you'd need here. There was some discussion in one of the UK model engineering magazines about making a hobbing machine where the blank was driven by a stepper motor, there was an optical encoder (n pulses per revolution) on the cutter spindle, and you used electronic dividers to set up the ratio. I must have a go at that. > > Another way to cut the gear is to turn a shaft of the correct od and > mount it in a lathe. Lock the headstock so that the lathe spindle, chuck > and shaft can't turn. Make a cutter that matches the shape and size of one > of the spaces between the gear teeth. (1) Mount the cutter in the tool post > holder and move it back and forth taking light cuts on the shaft until you > get the desired depth of cut. (2) Unlock the head stock and turn it exactly > the angle between the gear teeth and then lock it again. Reapeat steps 1 > and 2 until you've cut all the teeth. The advantage of this method is that > you can cut a gear of just about any length. You can then cut them off to > the desired size and that will yield a number of individual gears. The more usueal way to do this is to mount the blank on some kind of dividing head -- either a stand-alone one, or the lathe mandrel with some kind of division plate (even a detent engaging in the last gear of the backgear train has been used). And use a rotating milling cutter -- either a proper gear cutter (See above) or a homemade fly cutter. In the former case you can use most small lathes as a milling machine to drive the cutter, but they generally won't run fast enoung to use a fly cutter. Of course if you have a milling machine, use that. > > FWIW THE standard reference for gear cutting is 'Gear Cutting Practice' > by Colvin and Stanley. My copy is dated 1937. There's a handy book in the UK 'Workshop Practive Series' on gear cutting that covers the second method in some detail. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 2 19:08:16 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 01:08:16 +0100 (BST) Subject: atari printers - gears In-Reply-To: <4480653B.9030305@jetnet.ab.ca> from "woodelf" at Jun 2, 6 10:20:11 am Message-ID: > Check out Lindsay's Techical Books www.lindsaybks.com for a *modern* > re-print and other fine books :) I do love the comment on the title page which says something like 'for engineers, mad scientists.. and very few normal people' :-) In the UK, look at Camden Miniature Steam Services. They sell Lindsay books, along with other reprints of old books, etc. Much of their stock (As the company name implies) is aimed at the model engineering crowd -- people who make small steam locomotives, etc. But there's plenty there to interest eccentrics like me too. The only complaint I have ever heard about Camden's is that if you order a book from them they send you their current booklist (catalogue). And you are sure to find 10 more books you want. They will end up bankrupting you :-). Seriosuly, they're a great company to deal with, they send the right books almost all the time, and when they did once make a mistake and sent me the wrong book (same title, different author), they put it right very quickly and without fuss. > Dave Gingery has a set of books of how to build a metal working shop > from scratch. Book #3 is the metal shaper for gear cutting, after > you read and construct from book #1 The charoal foundry , and book #2 > The metal lathe. I've never read that series, but I've read plenty of other books by Dave and VInce Gingery. They're excellent. Very clearly written, and you get the impression that they've done the stuff described in the book, and you can do it too. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 2 19:12:01 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 01:12:01 +0100 (BST) Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606020952300676.22CCA4F1@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 2, 6 09:52:30 am Message-ID: > Early 7400-series TTL had the 7450 and 7453 AND-OR-INVERT gates that could > be explanded with another 4 inputs via the 7460 dual 4-input expander. I'd > hate to own equipment now that used some of those that required > replacement--they must be very difficult to find. There were at least 2 different expanders, I forget the number of the other one. The HP98x0 machines use these gates as the input selectors to the bit-serial ALU (and I think to the T register (memory data register)). I did have a 74H52 fail in one 9810 (that's an AND-OR gate), fortunately, not much of it is used in _that machine_ and I could dead-bug in a 74LS51. That wouldn't work in the 9830, or I assume the 9820 (not looked at the hardware of that machine yet, next project) as those use rather more input sections of the AND-OR gate. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 2 19:17:16 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 01:17:16 +0100 (BST) Subject: Pens for Atari, CBM and TRS plotters (was: atari In-Reply-To: <200606021015360493.22E1CA3B@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 2, 6 10:15:36 am Message-ID: > One solution might be to obtain the ink and pen from a strip recorder and > fit it to the plotter. These don't dry out as quickly and can be easily > unclogged with a small cleaning wire. These plotters have a plastic cylinder on the carriage with 4 pens fitted round it (it's a bit like the chambers of a revolver gun). When the carriage moves to the extreme left, a spring bit of metal on the frame hits a ratchet tooth on the cyclinder. By moving the carriage to/from the left side 3 times (I think), the cylinder is turned by quarter of a turn, thus sleecting the next pen. Theres a magent embedded in the cylinder and a reed switch on the chassis, used to detect the home position of the cylinder (black pen in use, if you've fitted the pens conventionally). The points of the pens fit into a spring metal circle with 4 holes that keeps them off the paper. Across the printer, just behind the carriage, is a rail operated by a solenoid at one side of the chassis. When operated, it pushes the selected pen forwards, into contact with the paper. Because of this consruction, it's almost impossible to kludge in some non-stnadard pen. -tony From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Jun 2 19:17:20 2006 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 17:17:20 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" References: <200606020328.25185.rtellason@blazenet.net> <447FEB5C.10409@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606020348.55442.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <4480D50F.D3AAB193@cs.ubc.ca> Ethan Dicks wrote: > > On 6/2/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > Yeah, but that ain't DTL, that's TTL, I still have a bunch of it. I forget > > what the DTL numbers were but I think they're up in the 9xxx range. > > What about the Motorola 7xx and 8xx parts? DTL or RTL? > > -ethan RTL: 7xx, 8xx, 9xx (etc...) DTL: 8xx, 9xx, 18xx, 19xx (etc...) At the decade level the grouping makes more sense. There were actually lots of other series of SSI RTL/DTL/TTL ICs made in the 60s, by both the major manufacturers and smaller players, in addition to the various 'standard' series. I received an email request from a fellow in Cuba a year or two ago, asking for info about a non-standard TTL-class series of ICs (59xx) made by Mitsubishi in the late 60s (I have info about some ICs of the series). Apparently the series had been used in the first Cuban minicomputer which he had worked on the design of, around 1970. From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 19:34:13 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 20:34:13 -0400 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606022034.13762.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 07:24 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > > Tony, I am not telling you what you enjoy or don't. I was simply > > commenting on your many many statements that troubleshooting to a > > component level is your belief in the right way to do things. If you feel > > I was > > I beleie you can't know you've cured a fault unless you know what the > fault wss (just having the fault go away is not good enough!). And the > only way to know where the fault is is to trace it to the component. At > which point you might as well do component level repair (_finding_ the > fault is what takes the time, replacing a component, even a 100+ pin SMD > chip, is a lot quicker). Not that I ever screwed around with SMD, but yeah, troubleshooting is what takes the time. Too bad it was such a PITA when I repaired things for a living to get the customers to understand that sometimes... [...] -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 19:37:20 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 20:37:20 -0400 Subject: atari printers In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060602093234.34cf965c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.16.20060602093234.34cf965c@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <200606022037.20795.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 05:32 am, Joe R. wrote: > I bought a CGP-115 new about 20 years ago and had the same gear problem. > I went to a TRS "computer store" and tried to order a gear but they > insisted that I had to have the printer checked out by their technician > before they would sell me one. After a bit of intense questioning they > finally admitted that there was a one hour minimum charge at something like > $40/hour! I told them to stuff it and I've seldom darkened the door of an > Trash Shack since. A year or two later I meet the manager of another TRS > store and I told him the story. He ordered 3 or 4 gears for me and they > only cost about $1. So the gears WERE available. I've had similar problems in dealing with those stores. The thing you gotta do there is to deal with the store manager, and get them to order for you the service manual for the equipment in question (which usually isn't all that expensive). Then with a photocopy of the pertinent page from the manual you can get them to order the parts for you too. I've never "had to" use their repair services at all. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 19:40:19 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 20:40:19 -0400 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606022040.19327.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 08:12 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > > Early 7400-series TTL had the 7450 and 7453 AND-OR-INVERT gates that > > could be explanded with another 4 inputs via the 7460 dual 4-input > > expander. I'd hate to own equipment now that used some of those that > > required replacement--they must be very difficult to find. > > There were at least 2 different expanders, I forget the number of the > other one. Have a look at http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/by-generic-number.html and search for the word "expander" with your browser, you'll find as many as I've been able to find mention of, and not just TTL either. > The HP98x0 machines use these gates as the input selectors to the > bit-serial ALU (and I think to the T register (memory data register)). I > did have a 74H52 fail in one 9810 (that's an AND-OR gate), fortunately, > not much of it is used in _that machine_ and I could dead-bug in a > 74LS51. That wouldn't work in the 9830, or I assume the 9820 (not looked > at the hardware of that machine yet, next project) as those use rather > more input sections of the AND-OR gate. Speaking of 74H stuff, I have a fair box of chips here that I pulled out of the boards of a Burroughs B500 that was scrapped. Almost all of these are "house-numbered". Does anybody know where there might be a list that crosses these over? I found only one or two that had 74H numbers on them, and I think in maybe one case it had both... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rcini at optonline.net Fri Jun 2 19:44:06 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:44:06 -0400 Subject: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch Message-ID: <003601c686a6$d19369f0$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: I'm having trouble locating someone (anyone) who has a bootable 5.25" single-density diskette suitable for my VersaFloppy controller. So, I was wondering the following. What if I setup an old PC with a 5.25" drive and use 22DISK to prepare a disk and move CP/M 2.2 .COM files to it from the PeeCee. Then, I would have to figure out how to get the cold-start loader onto the disk. Does this sound like a viable scenario? Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ From ak6dn at mindspring.com Fri Jun 2 19:49:12 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 17:49:12 -0700 Subject: MATE-N-LOK 8p flat connector availability In-Reply-To: <4480D50F.D3AAB193@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200606020328.25185.rtellason@blazenet.net> <447FEB5C.10409@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606020348.55442.rtellason@blazenet.net> <4480D50F.D3AAB193@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4480DC88.7080807@mindspring.com> FYI, I was looking for the old AMP MATE-N-LOK 8p flat connector with the tongue (now out of production) and found a source. State Electronics (http://www.state-elec.com) has them available, the AMP part number is 1-480460-0. I bought 100pcs at US$0.75/ea (a pretty decent price, I had been quoted up to $3.00 each by another vendor). These connectors are used in old DEC equipment for the 20ma interfaces, for the BA11-K box power module connections, and on some front panels (11/70). Just thought I'd pass this along, as they are now out of production and hard to find. The other matrix (6p, 9p, 12p, 15p) are still in production and widely available. Don North ak6dn From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 19:49:17 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 20:49:17 -0400 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <4480D50F.D3AAB193@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4480D50F.D3AAB193@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <200606022049.17826.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 08:17 pm, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > > On 6/2/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > > Yeah, but that ain't DTL, that's TTL, I still have a bunch of it. I > > > forget what the DTL numbers were but I think they're up in the 9xxx > > > range. > > > > What about the Motorola 7xx and 8xx parts? DTL or RTL? > > > > -ethan > > RTL: 7xx, 8xx, 9xx (etc...) > DTL: 8xx, 9xx, 18xx, 19xx (etc...) > At the decade level the grouping makes more sense. There's much of that in my chart at: http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/by-generic-number.html but I have bunches more data to get, still. > There were actually lots of other series of SSI RTL/DTL/TTL ICs made in the > 60s, by both the major manufacturers and smaller players, in addition to > the various 'standard' series. I've heard that, in particular that Fairchild had made some early TTL in the 9000 numbers, I think it was? But I seldom run across any of that info at all, these days, and didn't then. First TTL databook I have goes back to about 1970, and is a TI book with the standard, H, and L series in it only. > I received an email request from a fellow in Cuba a year or two ago, asking > for info about a non-standard TTL-class series of ICs (59xx) made by > Mitsubishi in the late 60s (I have info about some ICs of the series). > Apparently the series had been used in the first Cuban minicomputer > which he had worked on the design of, around 1970. Mitsubishi? I didn't even know they made TTL. Feel free to pass any info along and I'll include it in my charts... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 19:54:54 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 20:54:54 -0400 Subject: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch In-Reply-To: <003601c686a6$d19369f0$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <003601c686a6$d19369f0$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <200606022054.54238.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 08:44 pm, Richard A. Cini wrote: > All: > > I'm having trouble locating someone (anyone) who has a bootable > 5.25" single-density diskette suitable for my VersaFloppy controller. So, I > was wondering the following. What if I setup an old PC with a 5.25" drive > and use 22DISK to prepare a disk and move CP/M 2.2 .COM files to it from > the PeeCee. Then, I would have to figure out how to get the cold-start > loader onto the disk. > > Does this sound like a viable scenario? Writing the system tracks is definitely going to be the hard part, all right. Because you need that to include a BIOS that's specific to your hardware. I'm in the same spot with regard to my BigBoard II, which I can boot a Xerox SSSD floppy on but then I only get SSSD support, even though the hardware and the drives support DSDD. If you figure out how to do this I'd sure like to hear about 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 rcini at optonline.net Fri Jun 2 20:01:56 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:01:56 -0400 Subject: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch In-Reply-To: <200606022054.54238.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <003b01c686a9$4fd211c0$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Roy: Creating a new CBIOS is easy using modern tools. Assuming I can get the first part done (floppy access on a modern PeeCee), my thought would be to use 22NICE (the CP/M emulator), DDT and SYSGEN to do it. I have a tool from Sydex to test the SD capability of a modern PeeCee controller. If this passes, then I'm OK. The 22DISK manual mentions that you can take an XT controller and modify it with an inverter to handle FM disks. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Roy J. Tellason Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 8:55 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch On Friday 02 June 2006 08:44 pm, Richard A. Cini wrote: > All: > > I'm having trouble locating someone (anyone) who has a bootable > 5.25" single-density diskette suitable for my VersaFloppy controller. So, I > was wondering the following. What if I setup an old PC with a 5.25" drive > and use 22DISK to prepare a disk and move CP/M 2.2 .COM files to it from > the PeeCee. Then, I would have to figure out how to get the cold-start > loader onto the disk. > > Does this sound like a viable scenario? Writing the system tracks is definitely going to be the hard part, all right. Because you need that to include a BIOS that's specific to your hardware. I'm in the same spot with regard to my BigBoard II, which I can boot a Xerox SSSD floppy on but then I only get SSSD support, even though the hardware and the drives support DSDD. If you figure out how to do this I'd sure like to hear about it. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 2 20:06:51 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 18:06:51 -0700 Subject: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch In-Reply-To: <003601c686a6$d19369f0$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <003601c686a6$d19369f0$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <200606021806510388.249137AF@10.0.0.252> On 6/2/2006 at 8:44 PM Richard A. Cini wrote: > > I'm having trouble locating someone (anyone) who has a bootable >5.25" single-density diskette suitable for my VersaFloppy controller. So, I >was wondering the following. What if I setup an old PC with a 5.25" drive >and use 22DISK to prepare a disk and move CP/M 2.2 .COM files to it from >the PeeCee. Then, I would have to figure out how to get the cold-start loader >onto the disk. Just make an image file with an extension of .LBL for the boot tracks and then insert a LABEL statement into the definition. When 22DISK formats the disk, it'll read the .LBL and write it to the disk, starting with the first sector. There's no limit AFAIK to the size of a .LBL file, so you could conceivably put a whole disk image in one. One word of caution, however. 22DISK uses the sector address computation and ordering rules in the definition to write the .LBL file to disk (it just makes more sense that way). Cheers, Chuck From tosteve at yahoo.com Fri Jun 2 20:14:12 2006 From: tosteve at yahoo.com (steven stengel) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 18:14:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: TRS-80 plus other electronics available in Houston. Message-ID: <20060603011412.94521.qmail@web34112.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Group, I received this from Allison - respond to her, not I. --------------- "From my uncle's estate, we have, at least, the monitor for the TRS-80. I'm sure as we continue to go through his belongings, we will find the rest of the computer as he kept everything. We are in Houston, Texas and am trying to find someone who is interested in owning it. (We have lots of other miscellaneous electronic equipment from the estate, too. My uncle saved everything!) Please let me know if you know of anyone in our area who is interested in a TRS-80. Sincerely, Allison Hardman __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Fri Jun 2 20:14:34 2006 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:14:34 -0400 Subject: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch In-Reply-To: <200606022054.54238.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Friday 02 June 2006 08:44 pm, Richard A. Cini wrote: > > I'm having trouble locating someone (anyone) who has > > a bootable 5.25" single-density diskette suitable for > > my VersaFloppy controller. So, I was wondering the > > following. What if I setup an old PC with a 5.25" drive > > and use 22DISK to prepare a disk and move CP/M 2.2 > > .COM files to it from the PeeCee. Then, I would have to > > figure out how to get the cold-start loader onto the disk. > > Writing the system tracks is definitely going to be the hard > part, all right. Because you need that to include a BIOS > that's specific to your hardware. I'm in the same spot with > regard to my BigBoard II, which I can boot a Xerox SSSD > floppy on but then I only get SSSD support, even though the > hardware and the drives support DSDD. > > If you figure out how to do this I'd sure like to hear about it. You might try using Dave Dunfield's ImageDisk program. Fill the whole image with hex E5 except for a small "hello world" type program in the boot sector and see if it runs. Once you get that working, then put your real boot loader, CBIOS and CP/M in the appropriate sectors on the first couple of tracks. You should then be able to boot to an empty disk. Do some SAVEs to create some files in the file system and then copy the disk back to the PC using ImageDisk. Fill in the sectors of the SAVEd files with real data in the disk image and write another disk. From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 20:31:01 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 21:31:01 -0400 Subject: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch In-Reply-To: <003b01c686a9$4fd211c0$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <003b01c686a9$4fd211c0$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <200606022131.01683.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 09:01 pm, Richard A. Cini wrote: > Roy: > > Creating a new CBIOS is easy using modern tools. Assuming I can get > the first part done (floppy access on a modern PeeCee), my thought would be > to use 22NICE (the CP/M emulator), DDT and SYSGEN to do it. Ok, but then what do you use for the BIOS for the target machine? Surely not the same one that's in that package? This is where I get confused. > I have a tool from Sydex to test the SD capability of a modern > PeeCee controller. If this passes, then I'm OK. The 22DISK manual mentions > that you can take an XT controller and modify it with an inverter to handle > FM disks. I'm thinking that part won't be much of a problem for me because of all the hardware I have kicking around here. Within fairly easy reach are my old Osborne Executive (SSDD only, darnit!) and a Kaypro 4 which has a 50-wire ribbon coming out of the box and there's another box with a couple of ST251s in it that plugs into that. All I lack is someplace to set it up. :-) -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 20:37:41 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 21:37:41 -0400 Subject: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606022137.41322.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 09:14 pm, Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > On Friday 02 June 2006 08:44 pm, Richard A. Cini wrote: > > > I'm having trouble locating someone (anyone) who has > > > a bootable 5.25" single-density diskette suitable for > > > my VersaFloppy controller. So, I was wondering the > > > following. What if I setup an old PC with a 5.25" drive > > > and use 22DISK to prepare a disk and move CP/M 2.2 > > > .COM files to it from the PeeCee. Then, I would have to > > > figure out how to get the cold-start loader onto the disk. > > > > Writing the system tracks is definitely going to be the hard > > part, all right. Because you need that to include a BIOS > > that's specific to your hardware. I'm in the same spot with > > regard to my BigBoard II, which I can boot a Xerox SSSD > > floppy on but then I only get SSSD support, even though the > > hardware and the drives support DSDD. > > > > If you figure out how to do this I'd sure like to hear about it. > > You might try using Dave Dunfield's ImageDisk program. Fill the > whole image with hex E5 except for a small "hello world" type > program in the boot sector and see if it runs. Once you get that > working, then put your real boot loader, CBIOS and CP/M in the > appropriate sectors on the first couple of tracks. You should > then be able to boot to an empty disk. Do some SAVEs to create > some files in the file system and then copy the disk back to the > PC using ImageDisk. Fill in the sectors of the SAVEd files with > real data in the disk image and write another disk. I might... The problem is, I don't _have_ an appropriate CBIOS for the BBII. Maybe I oughta take another look, see what's out there on the 'net, as it's been a while. I paid way too much for that machine when I bought it (as a kit) and figured I'd defer the costs of the software until later on. Unfortunately the software only came on 8" floppies, and it was quite some time after that I actually acquired any, and I knew of very few people that had 'em. But anyhow when the time finally arrived that I realized that I really should have those sources it was too late, the company had gone out of business. I did talk at some point around there to Jim Ferguson, who designed that board, and he referred me to the guy who did the software (whose name escapes me at the moment), and although I attempted to get in touch with him I never did hear back from him. There's some really nifty stuff in the rom, like the board looking at both serial ports and the built-in stuff to determine where you are talking to it from, adjusting the baud rate automatically in the case of a serial port or the strobe polarity in the case of an ascii keyboard, and when I had the thing in a box with drives hooked up I could tell it to read a sector and it'd do so, doesn't matter what sector size or what density, I could even stick a DOS floppy in there and keep hitting the 'r' key until you'd start seeing directory entries in the DUMP-type display... I have that board sitting in a box here, and really oughta get it out and play with it some, and I probably will, once I unclutter this room some. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Jun 2 21:03:22 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 19:03:22 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" Message-ID: Tony duell wrote: This is about as sensible as saying that 'pianos and guitars are musical instruments, if you enjoy playing one you _must_ necessarily enjoy the other'. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Billy: I don't think I used the word "must" in my comments. But certainly many musicians enjoying playing both, my youngest daughter included. And I was talking about using, playing with, understanding, etc. I like a good tear down as much as the next guy. In fact, this discussion has prodded me into doing something I've put off for a long time - strip some PCBs I found with 8ns CMOS static RAMs, 128Kx8. They are surface mount and the small geometries are a real challenge for my twisted fingers and bifocal eyes. But I have a project that needs fast memory and the weekend is free.) Last weekend was at the TRW flea market. Anybody else on the list from the LA/OC area? Let me know. Maybe we can meet up at the next one. (I scored a Microtek 9600XL scanner for $40. I've been looking for a wide bed scanner for months and saw this one on the way out. Put it on an old G4 running OS 8.6 and it came right up. Slow as hell though - you can literally go make a cup of coffee while it does a full 12"x17" scan. But it will be ideal to copy a lot of the old A3 size manuals.) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Tony Duell: To be honest, I am not a 'computer person'. I don't much enjoy programming. I'm an electronics/mechanical person. I like tinkering with hardware, but it computers, radios, cameras, clocks, whatever. So I could turn your statement round and say 'Well, you enjoy working on your 1962 mainframe, why don't you strip down an M-series Leica. It's all machinery after all' -tony ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Billy: A big difference between us then. I have loved computers since my very first one, an IBM 650 in 1958. In the Army, I did some mortar tracking computers so had to work with analogue computers as well as digital. Programming is like doing puzzles: a little is a lot of fun but a lot is no fun at all. Strip a Leica? Well if I can find a cheap one, I might do it. I have done dozens of MP3 players in the last year, and a Canon and JVC camcorder. Though it is not so much a tear down as reverse engineering. If the Leica uses a 1" drive, then I'll definitely put it on the list. Cameras are fun - I get to buy new tools to work on them. I like machinery less than computers but still putz around. That's partly why I specialized in peripherals for the last 30 years. Besides, the super computers were dying and the minis just weren't as much fun. But even peripherals can be too much mechanical for me sometimes. Anyone on the list ever work on an IBM-1311 or CDC 807/808 or CDC 813/814? All of these featured hydraulic actuators. A face full of warm pressurized hydraulic fluid is enough to convince even the most die hard GOM that electronics has advantages. (GOM is how they used to refer to us peripheral types - Greasy Ol' Mechanics.) If you like electro-mechanical, then perhaps you share another interest: Meccano. I always liked Erector sets until I saw my first Meccano set. I realized then that the US sets were shoddy wanabees. I've been a collector and user of Meccano since the early 70's, when I first met them. There's still a #10 set in the hall closet, though it is probably incomplete now. At the Museum where Al K. works is a beautiful Babbage Difference Engine built out of Red/Green Meccano. It's a gorgeous piece of machinery - works of course. I wish I had that much ambition and skill. Anyone on the list seen it (besides Al)? Billy From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Jun 2 21:03:46 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:03:46 -0700 Subject: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch In-Reply-To: <003601c686a6$d19369f0$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <003601c686a6$d19369f0$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <4480EE02.1060905@msm.umr.edu> Richard A. Cini wrote: >All: > > > > I'm having trouble locating someone (anyone) who has a bootable >5.25" single-density diskette suitable for my VersaFloppy controller. So, I >was wondering the following. What if I setup an old PC with a 5.25" drive >and use 22DISK to prepare a disk and move CP/M 2.2 .COM files to it from the >PeeCee. Then, I would have to figure out how to get the cold-start loader >onto the disk. > > There was no official way supported in cpm to do this. However in the brave new world of today, you can do it a variety of ways, assuming: 22disk to write a floppy image knowlege of the mapping of the file that 22disk uses. assume that the first 256 bytes = sector 0, the boot. use a cpm emulator to build your bios and so forth. this should result in two files on the cpm emulator, one which has the boot sector, and one larger one with the bios image. move these out to files on the dos file system. Use the method of you choice to merge the boot and bios images together, taking care to maintain the sector padding. that is if you have a 50 byte boot file, pad it out to 256, likewise round the length of the bios file up, and determine how many sectors it takes. Now determine where the boot is reading the boot from, either sectors following the boot sector on track0, or whatever. I would paste together the image of at least track 0, and have it prepared in a file. The slice off that amount from your system boot disk image from the front, and merge these together. you can use something as simple as the linux dd command to slice and dice, or the hex editor of choice if you have another preference. I have sliced and diced like this, but not for probably 10 years, and with considerably less recsources than I have today. Jim From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Jun 2 21:15:24 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 19:15:24 -0700 Subject: parts pages updated Message-ID: Roy J. Tellason wrote: Hopefully some of you folks might find this useful... ----------------------------------------- Billy: Roy, I think you've done a grand service here and I've already used some of the data sheets. I have a book shelf in the garage full of Data Manuals going back into the 60's that need a good home. Much too heavy to ship. I talked to Al K. about them, but from his quietness gathered that he has a garage full of them too. Do you live near the Bay area? Anything special you want to continue the good work? There would be no cost of course. I love to see good work like your and want to help if I can. Billy From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 21:40:52 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 22:40:52 -0400 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606022240.52526.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 10:03 pm, Billy Pettit wrote: > In fact, this discussion has prodded me into doing something I've put off > for a long time - strip some PCBs I found with 8ns CMOS static RAMs, 128Kx8. > They are surface mount and the small geometries are a real challenge for my > twisted fingers and bifocal eyes. But I have a project that needs fast > memory and the weekend is free.) I haven't yet tried to salvage any surface-mount chips, yet, though I do have a board here with a few transistors that are tempting me. 8 ns?! That's _fast_. What if you don't mind my asking are you doing that needs those kinds of speeds? I'm used to thinking of access times in numbers that are three digits long. :-) Some cache I snagged out of a defunct 486 board is about the fastest I've managed to salvage yet, and it oughta really do just fine with a z80 or something, no wait states there! -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at blazenet.net Fri Jun 2 21:45:09 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 22:45:09 -0400 Subject: parts pages updated In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606022245.09202.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 10:15 pm, Billy Pettit wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > Hopefully some of you folks might find this useful... > ----------------------------------------- > Billy: > Roy, I think you've done a grand service here and I've already used some of > the data sheets. I have a book shelf in the garage full of Data Manuals > going back into the 60's that need a good home. Much too heavy to ship. I > talked to Al K. about them, but from his quietness gathered that he has a > garage full of them too. Do you live near the Bay area? No, I'm in south central PA, Lebanon County but more in the Harrisburg metro area (near Hershey). > Anything special you want to continue the good work? There would be no cost > of course. I love to see good work like your and want to help if I can. I'd love to be able to devote some serious time to it, but I'm also scrambling at this point to try and figure out some way to generate some cash flow here, as I've been unemployed since about this time in 2003. And stuff is starting to pile up in a hurry. No dial tone on the phone line the other day, but since I was online at the time (and have been ever since) I got to finish uploading the datasheets and tweak the pages one last time. If this email address quits working changing the last part to yahoo.com will still reach me, but message turnaround time is gonna be a whole lot longer... I'll figure something out, I usually do, but it also usually doesn't take this long. :-( -- 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 marvin at rain.org Fri Jun 2 21:52:20 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:52:20 -0700 Subject: Pens for Atari, CBM and TRS plotters (was: atari printers) Message-ID: <4480F964.BEB34300@rain.org> Something I haven't tried (yet) but is worth a shot is to use the same ink used in stamp pads since that is easily available and it is available in a variety of colors. > From: "Chuck Guzis" > One solution might be to obtain the ink and pen from a strip recorder and > fit it to the plotter. These don't dry out as quickly and can be easily > unclogged with a small cleaning wire. > > Cheers, > Chuck From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Fri Jun 2 21:56:43 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 21:56:43 -0500 Subject: DSSI and StorageWorks questions Message-ID: <51da649ca0164dcfafdd813a3fb9f5aa@valleyimplants.com> I'm still trying to hack together a HSD05AA SBB into my VAX 4200 (I know there are better ways to do this, but my budget is about $20 so getting a SCSI-equipped VAX or DSSI cables are somewhat out of the question). 2 questions: (1) in the HD50 -> MR cable (BC29R), is it wired 1-1, 2-2 . . . 50-50 ? (2) Will the StorageWorks stuff operate with a "faked" backplane consisting of power + SCSI signals? I took apart a SBB sled to check the pinout, and it has some species of PAL in there, not sure how that interfaces with things. From marvin at rain.org Fri Jun 2 22:05:12 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:05:12 -0700 Subject: TRW Swap Meet, was Re: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" Message-ID: <4480FC68.51777D4F@rain.org> I'm from Santa Barbara (close enough though) and have been attending the TRW swap meet for about the past 10 years or so. I share a couple of spots with CARA in G22/G24, so chances are we've seen/met each other but I am not putting a face with a name right now :). The next one in June is Field Day weekend, but I do plan on being there. So stop by and say hi!!! > From: "Billy Pettit" > Last weekend was at the TRW flea market. Anybody else on the list from the > LA/OC area? Let me know. Maybe we can meet up at the next one. (I scored From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jun 2 22:13:44 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:13:44 -0700 Subject: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch In-Reply-To: <003601c686a6$d19369f0$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: Hi Richard I think I'm missing something here. The versafloppy controller will not blindly boot a disk. You need some firmware to get things started. I can tell you how I did it but only parts are relavent. 1. Write a serial to memory transfer. This can be done in about 50 bytes for chips like the 8250 that needs initialization and about 10 to 15 for the older part that don't need software initialization. 2. Write a disk formatter. This isn't neccissary if you want to use something that can be done from the PC but remember, many PC's can't do FM. THe versafloppy is FM. 3. Write a routine that can transfer an image in RAM to sectors on the disk. 4. Create your BIOS, use routines in ROM and put this to the disk using #1 and #2 5. Load the rest of CPM2.2 the same way. I've done it this way except that my machine had a controller that did DMA and would auto load sector 0 into RAM on reset. It has no ROMs in the system space. Your versafloppy will need firmware. Dwight >From: "Richard A. Cini" >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts" >To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts'" >Subject: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch >Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:44:06 -0400 > >All: > > > > I'm having trouble locating someone (anyone) who has a >bootable >5.25" single-density diskette suitable for my VersaFloppy controller. So, I >was wondering the following. What if I setup an old PC with a 5.25" drive >and use 22DISK to prepare a disk and move CP/M 2.2 .COM files to it from >the >PeeCee. Then, I would have to figure out how to get the cold-start loader >onto the disk. > > > > Does this sound like a viable scenario? > > > >Rich > > > >Rich Cini > >Collector of classic computers > >Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator > >Web site: >http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ > >Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ > >/***************************************************/ > > > From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Thu Jun 1 13:56:25 2006 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 19:56:25 +0100 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: <200606011702.k51H2IL9028399@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606011702.k51H2IL9028399@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <0654301A-B175-4E24-BEBF-5D3B24CB6A06@microspot.co.uk> > >> An interesting question. >> >> If you have a module of the same age, I don't see any problem with a >> module swap. > > My main objection, actually, is to _random_ module-swapping, as > suggested > by certain HP calculator service manuals. How you can _know_ the fault > has been cured if you don't know what/where it is is beyond me. With a modern machine with just three or four modules (say power supply, logic board and one RAM module) then you take an informed guess and can swap modules until you guess right, unless of course a module you did not swap causes failure of another module. Then it gets expensive. On my old machine, with 4500 separate PCBs, its out of the question. I have to fault find down to where a signal fails, and then comes the interesting bit with a wire-or machine, which of the OR inputs is dragging a signal down to -6.3 volts? Or is it a short circuit to a supply rail? Sometimes insulating individual signals helps, sometimes it easiest to swap one module at a time until the problem goes away. > >> That's what I do, but my modules are probably logically rather >> smaller. One printed >> circuit board holds one 3 input not-J not-K flip-flop. Another type >> has four And gates. > > But why not repair them? I can't believe they're that complicated > to test > or debug. And I would have thought the components were a lot easier to > find than complete modules. I have scrapped an almost complete machine, so I have many of the commonest modules. I understand digital electronics but I find it hard to get my head around the analogue electronics on the boards. Testing bare components is hard enough but testing them in circuit is tricky, especially if they require half a dozen different supply rails at weird voltages such as -18.0 -17.1, -12.6, -6.3, -4.6, -2 and +12.6. 1960s components which look right are not easy to get new. The resistors all have two green bands where you would expect to find a gold or silver band. Electrolytics capacitors are all orange coloured, and bigger than their modern equivalents. I have not seen any GET872 transistors for sale for a long time, and the last time I saw an OA5 diode in the RS catalogue they were a pound each. So when I run out of modules I will be down to taking components of boards, testing them and soldering them onto other boards. Several of the modules have multiple circuits (e.g 4 AND gates) on them, so that makes it a lot easier. Surprisingly I have had success lately getting big Thyratron valves on e-bay, though they all seem to be on the American continent, which pushes up costs, what with shipping charges, VAT(tax) and handling charges. The thyrotrons are inside the magnetic tape decks were built by Ampex in the States, though the rest of the machine is British, using British components and built like a battleship. Oh, except the Card Punch, which is to an IBM design dating way back to the days when BTM (British Tabulating Machine company) were the licensees for all IBM technology throughout the British Empire. The basic mechanism has been seen with 'Lease-Lend' stickers on it, though the electronics underneath has been radically modified. I will not ramble on any more. > >> When I eventually run low on spare modules I will have to start >> component level >> repair, hopefully being able to make 3 good modules out of 4 bad >> ones. > > That is one reason why you should never throw away a defective PCB. It > might well be repairable later, or you might be able to use parts > from it > to fix another board. Absolutely, though I have sold common ones on e-Bay as novelties/ souvenirs. > OK, 'almost never' -- ISA cards with one ASIC and > not much else don't count :-) No, not much hope there. Roger Holmes. 1962 ICT 1301 mainframe nut (and Apple software author) From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Fri Jun 2 11:50:27 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 09:50:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: atari printers - gears In-Reply-To: <4480653B.9030305@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <20060602165027.2972.qmail@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> I'd never want to discourage someone from fabricating parts for their puters or whatever. Seems extreme unless you're already outfitted and have considerable experience with the equipment. Some learn faster then others though... Searching for suplus parts (All-Tronics, Halted Specialties, Mendsellson, Surplus Cener, Surplus Sales of Nebraska, BG Micro, etc... don't quote me on the spellings) could possibly turn up something close, but it's usually hit-or-miss. Old scanners can also be a source for gears, and any number of old toys or whatever else. What you'd need to make a gear is an involute gear cutter. It can be done on a lathe but is more practical on a mill. It would be nice if there was a file you could buy that had the proper contour so you could file the individual teeth, with the help of a jig to guide the file correctly, and hold the blank...and rotate it a precise # of degrees. And yes getting the blank to the correct diameter is a big part it, but in reality this can be done with an electric drill and a file/emery paper. And a shirtload of patience. And finesse. Soft music and a certain ambiance...OMG you get the picture. Some sort of arbor would be required to hold the material (delrin I suppose, also referred to as acetal or "engineering plastic". I believe all 3 are at least somewhat interchangeable). I can't imagine the tolerances for a printer gear being all that critical. Therefore conceivably possible in the home slop..uh shop LOL LOL. Then there's the injection molding route. For about $100 or considerably less if you're a good scrounger, you can build a hand lever operated injection molder. Lindsay pubs has (had?) a book on the topic (by Vince Gingery). Some machining required. The BIGGEST hurdle there though is getting the die/mold produced. There is talk in the book of using a plaster mold for just a couple of reproductions. LOADS of pressure if present at the tip of that injection nozzle though. Yer guess is as good as mine... There must be every type of plastic gear in use out there I would imagine. The issue is finding what you need. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Fri Jun 2 11:57:42 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 09:57:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" Message-ID: <20060602165743.94949.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" > >John Allain wrote: > >>Personally, I don't think continuous duty at all for anything >10y-o. >> I do my best work on my IBM 5160; it has gotten continuous use for >> nearly two decades. > My DEC PWS 433au is right at about 10 years and gets continuous use. >The idea is if it dies, and nobody can get another, then you are the one who killed it. >There are counterarguments I guess, like that CRTs >and electrolytics need at >least some periodic duty to keep them up, but for me >that's actually about 1 >week a year, hardly continuous. >John A. Is there a statute against murdering classic puters? Well there should be! 25 TO LIFE!! LOL LOL LOL. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From rybskip at idcnet.com Fri Jun 2 14:48:24 2006 From: rybskip at idcnet.com (Paul M. Rybski) Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 14:48:24 -0500 Subject: VAX 8700 system needs a new home Message-ID: Dear Friends, I am a new member to the CCList but have long been a user and collector of classic computers. At present, I am trying to find a home for a Digital Equipment Corporation VAX 8700, sporting one high-density (6250 BPI) tape drive and three disk drives, along with the the desktop console unit without display. I will be happy off-list to provide details to the board level on the CPU and, of course, the model numbers of the peripherals, to anyone interested in acquiring the system at NO COST save the expense of shipping (or, if you pick the system up yourself, just the cost of renting the van and driving to and from Whitewater, WI, to pick it up). The system was in operation until decommissioned in the early 1990's and is missing only the "under-the-floor" power interconnect module. McIntyre Computer Exchange in Michigan has expressed an interest in acquiring this unit, but I would rather put it in the hands of collectors who would want to keep it out of a landfill. Please write back directly to me off-list if you are interested. Yours, cordially, Paul Rybski -- ________________________________________ Paul M. Rybski, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Chair, Dept. of Physics, and Director, Whitewater Observatory Goodhue 320 University of WI-Whitewater Whitewater, WI 53190-1790 Office FAX: (262) 472-5633 Email address: rybskip at uww.edu "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited." Plutarch "He bid them look at the sky and lift their faces to the stars." Ovid "To develop the genuine understanding of concepts and theories that underlie [declarative] knowledge, the college student, no less than the elementary school child, must engage in deductive and inductive mental activity coupled with interpretation of personal observation and experience. Unfortunately, such activity is rarely induced in passive listeners; but it can be nurtured, developed, and enhanced in the majority of students, providing it is experientially rooted and not too rapidly paced, and providing the mind of the learner is actively engaged." Arnold Arons (1983) From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 2 20:11:09 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 18:11:09 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606022049.17826.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <4480D50F.D3AAB193@cs.ubc.ca> <200606022049.17826.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <200606021811090091.24952654@10.0.0.252> On 6/2/2006 at 8:49 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: >I've heard that, in particular that Fairchild had made some early TTL in >the 9000 numbers, I think it was? But I seldom run across any of that info >at all, these days, and didn't then. First TTL databook I have goes back >to about 1970, and is a TI book with the standard, H, and L series in it >only. When I'm working something out that needs a dual one-shot, I use a 96LS02. And let's not forget the Signetics 8Txxx TTL stuff. Japanese numbers can be a problem if they're not conventional. Mitsubishi and Fujitsu particularly. I've got lots of "what the heck is this thing" samples of both. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 3 01:08:48 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 23:08:48 -0700 Subject: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606022308480932.25A5A884@10.0.0.252> Okay, here goes. This is how I'd do the whole process on my PC. First of all, I'd pick a disk format. Since you're limited to FM, you might as well use something with 128 bytes/sector and avoid having to write blocking/deblocking code. Another thing to think about is the interleave (physical or logical). I'd go with physical, since you can vary this without changing any code. If you're using a 4 MHz Z80 with that Versafloppy, 3:1 is a reasonable value to start with. 1:1 on slower CP/M systems generally only works when you can read and write a track at a time. However, there were darned few (if any) FM 5.25" formats that used physical interleaving (heaven only knows why). And very few 5.25" FM formats are double-sided (which I think that you'd really want, given the limited space on a FM 5.25" diskette. So you can either write your own 22DISK definition (easy enough) or use an existing one, say, the DSSD Cromemco CDOS one (22DISK CRO2) which will give you about 172K. First, I'm assuming that there's a PROM on the Versafloppy that will load the first sector of your floppy drive into RAM at some fixed location and jump to it. This first sector will contain your boot loader... Next, you need to write a boot loader, which basically sucks in the your CBIOS (see the next paragraph) and jumps to the cold boot entry to load the CP/M's DOS, which will, in turn, load CCP and give you a command prompt. Now, for the tough part. You need to write a CBIOS, which at a minimum, has your terminal I/O routines and disk I/O routines. The terminal I/O is going to depend on what hardware you have. The simplest is using a connection to a serial terminal. More complex routines may be needed if what you have is a video-mapped display. The disk routines aren't too bad. One set of them simply passes the disk parameter block information to CP/M; the other entry points merely store the track and sector and unit and transfer address of what's to be read or written and then reads or writes it. Part of the CBIOS is also the cold boot loader, which loads the DOS part of CP/M. There are other useful features in the CBIOS, such as punch, printer, and reader I/O as well as IOBYTE redirection, but you can do those later. After you've done this, you need to put things together. You can use ASM or ZASM to generate a hex file and LOAD to produce an image of what you want, then concatenate (using COPY) the boot sector, CBIOS and CP/M files into an image file of what's to be written to disk. You can then use the format funciton of 22DISK to create a new system disk, then drop PIP, ED, ASM, LOAD, DDT and whatever else you need onto it. Peruse the "CP/M System Alteration Guide" for examples of how to build a CBIOS and a boot loader. Hope this helps. Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at blazenet.net Sat Jun 3 01:15:28 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 02:15:28 -0400 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606021811090091.24952654@10.0.0.252> References: <200606022049.17826.rtellason@blazenet.net> <200606021811090091.24952654@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606030215.28099.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Friday 02 June 2006 09:11 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/2/2006 at 8:49 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: > >I've heard that, in particular that Fairchild had made some early TTL in > >the 9000 numbers, I think it was? But I seldom run across any of that > > info > > >at all, these days, and didn't then. First TTL databook I have goes > > back > > >to about 1970, and is a TI book with the standard, H, and L series in it > >only. > > When I'm working something out that needs a dual one-shot, I use a 96LS02. I don't use one-shots much myself, but I do have a couple of those, both the LS and the straight 9602 versions, maybe one and two of them. I notice that some designers seem to favor those though I'm not familiar enough with the details to know just why that is. Back in '78 when I was messing with that H11 system that at that time had _no_ external storage except for paper tape, the company got a hold of a dual cassette drive to evaluate. I got the job of seeing if I could come up with an interface for the '11, and did get as far as wire-wrapping a board but never got the handshaking right and the machine never recognized it. I recall a conversation on the phone, though, where this guy at the company who'd sent out the drive advised *very* strongly against the '123 parts, saying that they had some serious stability issues, or somesuch. I do know I hardly ever see them used, with the 96x02s being more common for some reason. > And let's not forget the Signetics 8Txxx TTL stuff. I did forget about those. I also remember seeing them in some databook here, though with things in their current state of disarray I wouldn't begin to guess which book that was. I also remember those with some other numbers attached, maybe something like "8T97/8097" perhaps? > Japanese numbers can be a problem if they're not conventional. Mitsubishi > and Fujitsu particularly. I've got lots of "what the heck is this thing" > samples of both. I've managed okay with their transistors -- and those numbers seem to make up the bulk of my data, for sure, as well as a lot of my salvage lately. The chips, though, are another matter entirely. And I haven't really even begun to seriously dig. There's both a mass of stuff in books here that I could just enter some basic info on, and a whole lot more out there on the 'net that I haven't dug into yet -- most of that stuff came from one or two sites, which I stopped using when they started "branding" datasheets, none of which I've uploaded. I've a couple of others to hit for replacements, and then all of the manufacturer's sites yet. One guy had a bunch of stuff on a web page a while back and it looked like a link to my pages would fit in well, so I dropped him an email. The one word that stands out in my recollection from his response was "Ambitious!" :-) Not that I ever actually started out to try and make this project happen, initially. It was more a matter of getting some data on some parts I happened to have around (which is why there are part entries with no data at all, I have 'em and haven't found any yet) and arranging what data I did find into a form that I found useful. I'm glad to see some other folks finding it useful as well, and it looks like more folks are doing so lately, particularly since I added the datasheets to the pile since I changed hosts. More data in whatever form is welcome, and I'll add it as time permits. -- 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 Jun 3 01:16:07 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 23:16:07 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606022316070955.25AC5B5D@10.0.0.252> On 6/3/2006 at 1:12 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >There were at least 2 different expanders, I forget the number of the >other one. Well, for the 3000-series TTL, there was the 3130, a dual 4-input job, and for 2000 series TTL, there was the 2002/2052 3-2-2-3 AND-OR-INVERT expander, as well as the 2006/2056 dual 4-input. There were similar parts for the 400/500 series TTL also. Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at blazenet.net Sat Jun 3 01:21:03 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 02:21:03 -0400 Subject: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch In-Reply-To: <200606022308480932.25A5A884@10.0.0.252> References: <200606022308480932.25A5A884@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606030221.03367.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Saturday 03 June 2006 02:08 am, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Now, for the tough part. You need to write a CBIOS, which at a minimum, > has your terminal I/O routines and disk I/O routines. The terminal I/O is > going to depend on what hardware you have. The simplest is using a > connection to a serial terminal. More complex routines may be needed if > what you have is a video-mapped display. The disk routines aren't too bad. > One set of them simply passes the disk parameter block information to > CP/M; the other entry points merely store the track and sector and unit > and transfer address of what's to be read or written and then reads or > writes it. Part of the CBIOS is also the cold boot loader, which loads > the DOS part of CP/M. There are other useful features in the CBIOS, such > as punch, printer, and reader I/O as well as IOBYTE redirection, but you > can do those later. This is the part I keep tripping over... <...> > Peruse the "CP/M System Alteration Guide" for examples of how to build a > CBIOS and a boot loader. Google came back with _one_ hit on that, and it was just a reference in a bibliography, with no link to the actual document. Oh 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 blazenet.net Sat Jun 3 01:22:15 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 02:22:15 -0400 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606022316070955.25AC5B5D@10.0.0.252> References: <200606022316070955.25AC5B5D@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606030222.15630.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Saturday 03 June 2006 02:16 am, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/3/2006 at 1:12 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: > >There were at least 2 different expanders, I forget the number of the > >other one. > > Well, for the 3000-series TTL, there was the 3130, a dual 4-input job, and > for 2000 series TTL, there was the 2002/2052 3-2-2-3 AND-OR-INVERT > expander, as well as the 2006/2056 dual 4-input. There were similar parts > for the 400/500 series TTL also. I've been wondering for a while now what the major use was of those "AND-OR-Invert" gates, since the early TTL stuff I became familiar with first had a bunch of them in the databook... Anybody 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 wmaddox at pacbell.net Sat Jun 3 02:31:37 2006 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 00:31:37 -0700 Subject: AND-OR-Invert, was Re: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606030222.15630.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <200606022316070955.25AC5B5D@10.0.0.252> <200606030222.15630.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <44813AD9.7040400@pacbell.net> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > I've been wondering for a while now what the major use was of those > "AND-OR-Invert" gates, since the early TTL stuff I became familiar with > first had a bunch of them in the databook... > > Anybody know? This particular configuration of gates comes up frequently in digital logic, and combining gates in this way provided more gates with fewer packages. The 7451, using 2-input AND and OR gates, was often used as a dual 2-to-1 MUX with unencoded select inputs. The inversion of the output was not so much a feature as consequence of the fact that an inverted output was easier to provide, e.g., NAND and NOR are more commonly used than AND and OR for this reason. NAND and NOR are also in some sense more universal -- you can compute any boolean function with sufficient numbers of either NAND or NOR gates alone, but not with AND and OR, which may require the use of inverters as well. --Bill From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jun 3 03:07:42 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 01:07:42 -0700 Subject: AND-OR-Invert, was Re: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <44813AD9.7040400@pacbell.net> References: <200606022316070955.25AC5B5D@10.0.0.252> <200606030222.15630.rtellason@blazenet.net> <44813AD9.7040400@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <4481434E.1050901@DakotaCom.Net> William Maddox wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > >> I've been wondering for a while now what the major use was of those >> "AND-OR-Invert" gates, since the early TTL stuff I became familiar >> with first had a bunch of them in the databook... >> >> Anybody know? > > This particular configuration of gates comes up frequently in digital > logic, and combining gates in this way provided more gates with fewer Indeed. In the days before PAL's (later renamed PLA's), GAL's, FPGA's and other ASICs, implementing "junk logic" used up lots of DIPs really quick. Consider that two device pins are required to connect an output from one gate to an input of another... The AOI's facilitate sum-of-product implementations of arbitrary combinatorial functions. And, they are often faster (end-to-end) than gluing together discrete gates. Using AOI's was a bit of an acquired taste -- they are their own little specialized logic family, of sorts. E.g., "expanders" presented different signal characteristics than the regular logic inputs on the same device. > packages. The 7451, using 2-input AND and OR gates, was often used as > a dual 2-to-1 MUX with unencoded select inputs. The inversion of the > output was not so much a feature as consequence of the fact that an > inverted output was easier to provide, e.g., NAND and NOR are more > commonly used than AND and OR for this reason. NAND and NOR are > also in some sense more universal -- you can compute any boolean > function with sufficient numbers of either NAND or NOR gates alone, but > not with AND and OR, which may require the use of inverters as well. From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sat Jun 3 05:24:43 2006 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 11:24:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: atari printers In-Reply-To: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) "Re: atari printers" (Jun 3, 0:41) References: Message-ID: <10606031124.ZM24801@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> On Jun 3 2006, 0:41, Tony Duell wrote: > On Jun 2 2006, 9:32, Joe R. wrote: > > I've seen a crude but effective method of cutting gears by > > turning a shaft of the desired od and then mounting it horzontally > > on a verticle milling machine so that it can turn freely. Then > > mount a TAP vertiaclly in the headstock and spin it slowly and > > then moving it slowly in against the shaft. > THis is related to a gear cutting method called 'hobbing'. A real > hobbign machine has the blank mounted on a spindle that's geared to > the cutter spindle by the appropriate ratio. And you use a hob, not > a tap -- the differenece being that the cutting edges are a > different shape. > > The advantage of this method is that you only need one cutter for a > particular pitch of gear, no matter how many teeth you want to cut. > > If you use the other method you've suggested, you, in theory, need a > different milling cutter for each number of teeth, since you're actually > cutting the spaces between the teeth (not the teeth themselves), and the > shape of the space varies with the number of teeth on the gear. In > practice, there are typically 8 cutters to cover the range from 10 teeth > to a rack (the last one typically goes from 135 teeth upwards, all the > way to a rack which is an 'infinite number of teeth' if you think about > it). But those cutters are not cheap -- I've been quoted \pounds 45.00 > each (not for a set of 8, for one cutter) for the sort of size you'd need > here. There's a third method which gives reasonably-shaped gear teeth, but only needs one cutter. It's based on the idea that the teeth in a rack are straight-sided. The cutter is like a short length of a rack (think of the side view) rotated around its long axis to make a cylindrical cutter. It's easy to make such a cutter by turning a bar in a lathe, using a V-point tool to cut the valleys so you end up with something like a ribbed cylinder. Then mount the cylinder in a dividing head, and mill or cut narrow slots along the length to form the front faces of the teeth, and finally apply some relief to these teeth by milling or grinding away part of the back of each. _ _ _ _ _ _ / \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \ side view | |__ | _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _| _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ <-- hole through centre for arbor | __| | _ _ _ _ _ | \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ You mount the cutter on an arbor (easiest to make it that way to start with), and put your gear blank under it in a dividing head, such that it will cut both sides of what will be the uppermost tooth (with a normal cutter, you form one gap at a time between two teeth, with this you form the two sides of one tooth between two gaps). You'll find that for gears with a reasonable number of teeth, it cuts one tooth in the centre to full deptth, but cuts part of the teeth to either side, and for large gears, two more either side of those. The point is that as you cut one tooth, the ones either side get their profiles modifed to something much more like an involute form than a straight form. It works well, and I've cut replacement gears for a few things like that, mostly out of nylon, brass, or aluminium. It doesn't give a perfect involute tooth form, of course, but it's close enough for most purposes. If you want a better shape, you can smooth out the curves with a swiss file. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jun 3 06:41:38 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 23:41:38 +1200 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB dongles In-Reply-To: <20060531233618.9584.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060531233618.9584.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/1/06, Chris M wrote: > Nuts and Volts magazine had an article within the > last 6 months I believe wherein the construction of an > mpeg player was detailed, which used flash storage. http://sparetimegizmos.com/Hardware/MP3_Player.htm Uses CF cards. > Didn't buy it, but afterwards thought it might prove a > useful read if I ever wanted to design a reader of my > own. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but > there didn't seem to be anything terribly complex > about it. I did buy one - very happy with it. Some SMT, which tends to scare off some people, but all in all, an easy kit to build, with easy-to-get parts (as of Nov, 2005). I was happy to have a 20x4 LCD display on hand ($5 at a hamfest), and the exact shaft encoder in the plans (there are others, even cheaper ones, but it was nice to have the right one in my parts bin - from the Dayton Hamvention, years ago). I did have to get the CPU and MP3 decoder and DAC new, but they were easy to order from Digikey, et al. > Can't even remember what the circuit used > for brain power, but it must have been something > common and well documented. A Phillips 89C664, an 80C51 descendant. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jun 3 06:49:05 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 23:49:05 +1200 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606022240.52526.rtellason@blazenet.net> References: <200606022240.52526.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: On 6/3/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Friday 02 June 2006 10:03 pm, Billy Pettit wrote: > > In fact, this discussion has prodded me into doing something I've put off > > for a long time - strip some PCBs I found with 8ns CMOS static RAMs, 128Kx8. > > They are surface mount and the small geometries are a real challenge for my > > twisted fingers and bifocal eyes. > > I haven't yet tried to salvage any surface-mount chips, yet, though I do > have a board here with a few transistors that are tempting me. I do it all the time - getting them off is easy - it can be tricky to reuse parts if the leads aren't clean and flat. Obviously, working with new parts is easier - they sit nice and flat on the board, but sometimes, it's faster to recycle parts from a dead board than order a small quantity from Digikey or whomever. > 8 ns?! That's _fast_... Some cache I snagged out of a defunct 486 > board is about the fastest I've managed to salvage yet, and it oughta really > do just fine with a z80 or something, no wait states there! I've used cache SRAMs in a few projects, an 1802, for example. Very handy, and they take up less board space than a 62256. -ethan From rtellason at blazenet.net Sat Jun 3 06:50:12 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 07:50:12 -0400 Subject: AND-OR-Invert, was Re: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <44813AD9.7040400@pacbell.net> References: <200606030222.15630.rtellason@blazenet.net> <44813AD9.7040400@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <200606030750.12399.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Saturday 03 June 2006 03:31 am, William Maddox wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > I've been wondering for a while now what the major use was of those > > "AND-OR-Invert" gates, since the early TTL stuff I became familiar with > > first had a bunch of them in the databook... > > > > Anybody know? > > This particular configuration of gates comes up frequently in digital > logic, and combining gates in this way provided more gates with fewer > packages. The 7451, using 2-input AND and OR gates, was often used as > a dual 2-to-1 MUX with unencoded select inputs. The inversion of the > output was not so much a feature as consequence of the fact that an > inverted output was easier to provide, e.g., NAND and NOR are more > commonly used than AND and OR for this reason. NAND and NOR are > also in some sense more universal -- you can compute any boolean > function with sufficient numbers of either NAND or NOR gates alone, but > not with AND and OR, which may require the use of inverters as well. Now that you mention it, that early TTL book didn't have any AND or OR gates in it, 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 rcini at optonline.net Sat Jun 3 06:54:39 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 07:54:39 -0400 Subject: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch In-Reply-To: <200606022308480932.25A5A884@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <004c01c68704$7e60cd50$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Chuck: Going back to an original comment about using the LABEL command in the 22DISK definition, when producing the data for the LBL file, is that data in straight track/sector order? To me this sounds like the easiest way to do "virgin birth" diskette creation since any PeeCee based cross-assembler can be used to build the on-disk cold-start loader and other required files. To answer another question floating around there, this Versafloppy is the first version which uses the 1771 and is single-sided only. It has no ROM, so I have (from the manual) a simple bootstrap loader which will read Track 0, Sector 1 into memory (the cold-start loader) and jump to that. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis Sent: Saturday, June 03, 2006 2:09 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: RE: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch Okay, here goes. This is how I'd do the whole process on my PC. First of all, I'd pick a disk format. Since you're limited to FM, you might as well use something with 128 bytes/sector and avoid having to write blocking/deblocking code. Another thing to think about is the interleave (physical or logical). I'd go with physical, since you can vary this without changing any code. If you're using a 4 MHz Z80 with that Versafloppy, 3:1 is a reasonable value to start with. 1:1 on slower CP/M systems generally only works when you can read and write a track at a time. However, there were darned few (if any) FM 5.25" formats that used physical interleaving (heaven only knows why). And very few 5.25" FM formats are double-sided (which I think that you'd really want, given the limited space on a FM 5.25" diskette. So you can either write your own 22DISK definition (easy enough) or use an existing one, say, the DSSD Cromemco CDOS one (22DISK CRO2) which will give you about 172K. First, I'm assuming that there's a PROM on the Versafloppy that will load the first sector of your floppy drive into RAM at some fixed location and jump to it. This first sector will contain your boot loader... Next, you need to write a boot loader, which basically sucks in the your CBIOS (see the next paragraph) and jumps to the cold boot entry to load the CP/M's DOS, which will, in turn, load CCP and give you a command prompt. Now, for the tough part. You need to write a CBIOS, which at a minimum, has your terminal I/O routines and disk I/O routines. The terminal I/O is going to depend on what hardware you have. The simplest is using a connection to a serial terminal. More complex routines may be needed if what you have is a video-mapped display. The disk routines aren't too bad. One set of them simply passes the disk parameter block information to CP/M; the other entry points merely store the track and sector and unit and transfer address of what's to be read or written and then reads or writes it. Part of the CBIOS is also the cold boot loader, which loads the DOS part of CP/M. There are other useful features in the CBIOS, such as punch, printer, and reader I/O as well as IOBYTE redirection, but you can do those later. After you've done this, you need to put things together. You can use ASM or ZASM to generate a hex file and LOAD to produce an image of what you want, then concatenate (using COPY) the boot sector, CBIOS and CP/M files into an image file of what's to be written to disk. You can then use the format funciton of 22DISK to create a new system disk, then drop PIP, ED, ASM, LOAD, DDT and whatever else you need onto it. Peruse the "CP/M System Alteration Guide" for examples of how to build a CBIOS and a boot loader. Hope this helps. Cheers, Chuck From jfoust at threedee.com Sat Jun 3 08:07:02 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 08:07:02 -0500 Subject: VAX 8700 system needs a new home In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060603080628.0588b158@mail> At 02:48 PM 6/2/2006, you wrote: >I am a new member to the CCList but have long been a user and collector of classic computers. At present, I am trying to find a home for a Digital Equipment Corporation VAX 8700, I'm about 15 minutes from this one, folks, so I'll visit early in the week. - John From allain at panix.com Sat Jun 3 08:36:50 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 09:36:50 -0400 Subject: DSSI and StorageWorks questions References: <51da649ca0164dcfafdd813a3fb9f5aa@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <002001c68712$c505f1a0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Do you have a StorageWorks cabinet of your own (EG BA356) or is that one of the things you want to hack together? Be advised that they are dirt cheap* if you look long enough. I'm saying five bucks. > the HD50 -> MR cable (BC29R), I don't have that one, how about a BC21M, and define "MR"? I know how you feel, for one thing, I'd like a plug you could slap on a Storageworks cannister to get access to just a single SCSI drive. John A. * as with all things that are dirt cheap at time N, they are unobtanium/expensive at time N+1. FAQ this! From allain at panix.com Sat Jun 3 08:57:10 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 09:57:10 -0400 Subject: VAX 8700 system needs a new home References: Message-ID: <003a01c68715$9c6eae00$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> > you pick the system up yourself, just the cost of renting the van and > driving to and from Whitewater, WI, to pick it up). The system was FYI I am willing to assist in this rescue, but am located in New York. For whatever That's worth. John A. From allain at panix.com Sat Jun 3 09:06:14 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 10:06:14 -0400 Subject: VAX 8700 system needs a new home References: <6.2.3.4.2.20060603080628.0588b158@mail> Message-ID: <004c01c68716$e0ddcb60$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> > I'm about 15 minutes from this one, folks, so I'll visit early... I just sent the poster a request for an overview photo, in case you can take along a canera... Good Luck. John A. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Jun 3 09:45:35 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 07:45:35 -0700 Subject: AND-OR-Invert, was Re: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <44813AD9.7040400@pacbell.net> Message-ID: Hi One thing that one should consider is that just tying descrete TTL's is not the same as how it would be done on silicon. Combining nands together would create a AND OR structure with no inversion. When doing it on silicon, it is easier to move the and and or functions to the inputs but then to drive the output requires the inversion. As is mentioned this creates the AND OR invert structure that would be faster than combining simple nand gates together making the non-inverting AND OR. These were, as mentioned, used as multiplexers. These were also better to have inverted outputs for the DTL and RTL type setups. The outputs could be wired together from several devices to drive a single bus line. As long as the selects were all zero, on one device, the output would be high, the undriven state of the output, the other device could then drive the bus. As I recall, some of the TTL devices had open collector as well and could be used this way. Dwight >From: William Maddox >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts" >To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > >Subject: AND-OR-Invert, was Re: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" >Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 00:31:37 -0700 > >Roy J. Tellason wrote: > >>I've been wondering for a while now what the major use was of those >>"AND-OR-Invert" gates, since the early TTL stuff I became familiar with >>first had a bunch of them in the databook... >> >>Anybody know? > >This particular configuration of gates comes up frequently in digital >logic, and combining gates in this way provided more gates with fewer >packages. The 7451, using 2-input AND and OR gates, was often used as a >dual 2-to-1 MUX with unencoded select inputs. The inversion of the output >was not so much a feature as consequence of the fact that an inverted >output was easier to provide, e.g., NAND and NOR are more commonly used >than AND and OR for this reason. NAND and NOR are >also in some sense more universal -- you can compute any boolean function >with sufficient numbers of either NAND or NOR gates alone, but not with AND >and OR, which may require the use of inverters as well. > >--Bill From bob at jfcl.com Sat Jun 3 10:02:13 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 08:02:13 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life Message-ID: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> SBC6120 Last Buy and End of Life If you've never heard of it before, the SBC6120 is a PDP-8 clone, including an optional front panel, that you build yourself http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/Hardware/SBC6120-2.htm http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/Hardware/SBC6120_Front_Panel.htm Spare Time Gizmos has been selling kits for them since 2001. Last November I announced that I was running low on SBC6120 parts and that I wasn't planning to buy any more http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sparetimegizmos/message/110 and the last kit was shipped to a gentleman in France at the end of March. Since the web page was updated to show them as "Sold Out", I've been inundated with requests. Apparently people thought that Spare Time Gizmos would keep selling the SBC6120 forever :-) I really wish I could, but given the minimum orders for some of the parts and the rate at which it was selling, it would take years to sell off the inventory. I just can't afford to have that much money tied up waiting for somebody to buy it. But, we can do one "last buy" for the SBC6120s, if we can get enough people together to make the minimum orders for 6120 chips, bus connectors, and PC boards. If all the people who have emailed me recently sign up, then that should be more than enough! The last buy will be for a SBC6120 partial kit that will include: * A four layer, silk screened, solder masked PC board * The HD6120 chip and 3 HM6208 SRAM chips * The special stacking bus connector I don't know exactly how much this kit will cost - it will depend on the price I can get for the parts - but I estimate that its going to be around $150. All the rest of the parts used in the SBC6120 are modern, easily found parts and there's a complete list, with suppliers, in the back of the manual http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/Downloads/SBC6120.pdf Pre-programmed EPROMs and GALs, if you need them, are also available from the Spare Time Gizmos web page. I may also sell full kits of all parts (I used to before I ran out) if there is enough demand. BTW, the SBC6120 is an entirely "open" design. All the schematics, firmware, and GAL programming is GPLed and available from the web page. If you're interested, email me and I'll sign you up on a list, and if we get enough orders then I'll let everybody on the list know the details. Oh, one last thing for people in the EU, the SBC6120 parts are not RoHS compliant and it's not likely they ever will be. If you want one, you'd better get it before July 1st! Thanks, Bob Armstrong Spare Time Gizmos www.SpareTimeGizmos.com From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jun 3 10:16:02 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 08:16:02 -0700 Subject: AND-OR-Invert, was Re: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4481A7B2.1000002@DakotaCom.Net> dwight elvey wrote: > Hi > One thing that one should consider is that just tying descrete TTL's > is not the same as how it would be done on silicon. Combining nands > together would create a AND OR structure with no inversion. Yes, but you can cascade a NOR following an AND. A NOR would be preferred (over OR) as ORs are slow. > When doing it on silicon, it is easier to move the and and or functions > to the inputs but then to drive the output requires the inversion. > As is mentioned this creates the AND OR invert structure that > would be faster than combining simple nand gates together making > the non-inverting AND OR. > These were, as mentioned, used as multiplexers. These were also > better to have inverted outputs for the DTL and RTL type setups. > The outputs could be wired together from several devices to drive > a single bus line. As long as the selects were all zero, on one device, > the output would be high, the undriven state of the output, the > other device could then drive the bus. As I recall, some of the TTL > devices had open collector as well and could be used this way. That depends on the AOI. Some had totem pole outputs. Others were OC. And, not all were "expandable". Note that the *expanders* could be used for wired AND *or* wired OR logic as they typically had uncommitted collectors *and* emitters on the output stage. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 3 11:20:57 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 09:20:57 -0700 Subject: AND-OR-Invert, was Re: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606030920570782.27D61867@10.0.0.252> One of the things that I found highly instructive when starting with integrated circuit logic were the schematics of the logic found in the old databooks. Not done any longer (probably for practical reasons), but they were sure instructive as to showing how a given logic function was accomplished. Often it wasn't what you expected. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 3 11:39:20 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 09:39:20 -0700 Subject: Creating new CP/M disk from scratch In-Reply-To: <004c01c68704$7e60cd50$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <004c01c68704$7e60cd50$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <200606030939200157.27E6EA8E@10.0.0.252> On 6/3/2006 at 7:54 AM Richard A. Cini wrote: > Going back to an original comment about using the LABEL command in >the 22DISK definition, when producing the data for the LBL file, is that >data in straight track/sector order? That all depends on the definition. If the sector ordering is given as 1,6,11,16,2,7...., that's the order that 22DISK writes the label record. It only makes sense to do it that way. While there are a few systems that adopt a different scheme to store the boot tracks, trying to accommodate them leads to madness. I've even mixed and matched tools on a PeeCee to create CBIOS and Boot loader disk images. Good old DOS DEBUG understands the .HEX files produced by ASM and gives you a lot more command and address flexibility than does, say, DDT. And DEBUG will write a file for you. If we're really missing the CP/M Alteration Guide from online archives, I can scan one of my copies and email it to someone who's willing to host it, as long as whomever owns the rights to the publication doesn't care. With SS media, you're going to be restricted to about 80K of usable disk space. The Xerox 820 XER2 definition should be fine for that. I think (but I'd have to check) the Tarbell controller used a little 82S123 bipolar fuse-programmable ROM to hold the bootstrap code. A tight squeeze, but it worked. Cheers, Chuck From dbwood at kc.rr.com Sat Jun 3 13:17:18 2006 From: dbwood at kc.rr.com (dbwood at kc.rr.com) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 13:17:18 -0500 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> Message-ID: Oh, what I wouldn't give for some extra spending money right about now... ----- Original Message ----- From: Robert Armstrong Date: Saturday, June 3, 2006 10:05 am Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life To: cctech at classiccmp.org > SBC6120 Last Buy and End of Life > > If you've never heard of it before, the SBC6120 is a PDP-8 clone, > including an optional front panel, that you build yourself > > http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/Hardware/SBC6120-2.htm > http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/Hardware/SBC6120_Front_Panel.htm > > Spare Time Gizmos has been selling kits for them since 2001. Last > November I announced that I was running low on SBC6120 parts and > that I > wasn't planning to buy any more > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sparetimegizmos/message/110 > > and the last kit was shipped to a gentleman in France at the end > of March. > > Since the web page was updated to show them as "Sold Out", I've been > inundated with requests. Apparently people thought that Spare > Time Gizmos > would keep selling the SBC6120 forever :-) I really wish I could, > but given > the minimum orders for some of the parts and the rate at which it was > selling, it would take years to sell off the inventory. I just > can't afford > to have that much money tied up waiting for somebody to buy it. > > But, we can do one "last buy" for the SBC6120s, if we can get enough > people together to make the minimum orders for 6120 chips, bus > connectors,and PC boards. If all the people who have emailed me > recently sign up, then > that should be more than enough! > > The last buy will be for a SBC6120 partial kit that will include: > > * A four layer, silk screened, solder masked PC board > * The HD6120 chip and 3 HM6208 SRAM chips > * The special stacking bus connector > > I don't know exactly how much this kit will cost - it will depend > on the > price I can get for the parts - but I estimate that its going to > be around > $150. > > All the rest of the parts used in the SBC6120 are modern, easily > foundparts and there's a complete list, with suppliers, in the > back of the manual > > http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/Downloads/SBC6120.pdf > > Pre-programmed EPROMs and GALs, if you need them, are also > available from > the Spare Time Gizmos web page. I may also sell full kits of all > parts (I > used to before I ran out) if there is enough demand. > > BTW, the SBC6120 is an entirely "open" design. All the schematics, > firmware, and GAL programming is GPLed and available from the web > page. > If you're interested, email me and I'll sign you up on a list, > and if we > get enough orders then I'll let everybody on the list know the > details. > Oh, one last thing for people in the EU, the SBC6120 parts are > not RoHS > compliant and it's not likely they ever will be. If you want one, > you'dbetter get it before July 1st! > > Thanks, > Bob Armstrong > Spare Time Gizmos > www.SpareTimeGizmos.com > > > > > From glen.slick at gmail.com Sat Jun 3 14:01:17 2006 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 12:01:17 -0700 Subject: Name this Z80 assembler? Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90606031201g3f11b93ej5a9fc1c76fa16099@mail.gmail.com> Does anyone recognize a Z80 assember that would produce listings with this header on the top of each page: "LOC OBJ CODE M STMT SOURCE STATEMENT" The listing in this document I found online matches the source code format and listing format of the assembler I'm looking for: http://www.lc80.de/download/lc80-monitor_rom.pdf I don't just want to assemble some Z80 code, I can find plenty of assemblers to do that. I want to find one that I can use to exactly recreate a hardcopy listing of some particular Z80 code without any changes to the source code format and output listing format. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Jun 3 14:04:40 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 13:04:40 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> Message-ID: <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> Robert Armstrong wrote: > SBC6120 Last Buy and End of Life > Oh, one last thing for people in the EU, the SBC6120 parts are not RoHS > compliant and it's not likely they ever will be. If you want one, you'd > better get it before July 1st! So what is RoHs? signed Confused PS. One can always order the board now and get the other parts later. From ploopster at gmail.com Sat Jun 3 14:37:36 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 15:37:36 -0400 Subject: Name this Z80 assembler? In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90606031201g3f11b93ej5a9fc1c76fa16099@mail.gmail.com> References: <1e1fc3e90606031201g3f11b93ej5a9fc1c76fa16099@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4481E500.3040105@gmail.com> Glen Slick wrote: > Does anyone recognize a Z80 assember that would produce listings with > this header on the top of each page: > > "LOC OBJ CODE M STMT SOURCE STATEMENT" The only assembler I know of that produces that statement at the top of its listings isn't for Z80, it's for IBM mainframes. Tachyon z/Assembler. Peace... Sridhar From bob at jfcl.com Sat Jun 3 14:42:40 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 12:42:40 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life Message-ID: <041e01c68745$e2ef61f0$0401010a@GIZMO> >So what is RoHs? Short answer - it will be illegal and criminal to sell products containing lead (and many other hazardous substances) in the EU after July 1. This, in particular, means the traditional lead/tin solder. Google for RoHS. You'll find plenty of matches. Bob From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jun 3 14:52:36 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 14:52:36 -0500 Subject: VAX 8700 system needs a new home References: Message-ID: <004f01c68747$43b745b0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Wow. This puts me in an odd position. I had been talking to Paul for a week before he posted this to the list, and I already had talked to a couple people who were interested in getting the Vax. Jay West From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Jun 3 14:59:16 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 13:59:16 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <041e01c68745$e2ef61f0$0401010a@GIZMO> References: <041e01c68745$e2ef61f0$0401010a@GIZMO> Message-ID: <4481EA14.3020407@jetnet.ab.ca> Robert Armstrong wrote: >>So what is RoHs? > Short answer - it will be illegal and criminal to sell products containing > lead (and many other hazardous substances) in the EU after July 1. This, in > particular, means the traditional lead/tin solder. > > Google for RoHS. You'll find plenty of matches. > > Bob Hmm Another fact of life to stop DIY projects in the UK. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 3 15:00:51 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 13:00:51 -0700 Subject: Name this Z80 assembler? In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90606031201g3f11b93ej5a9fc1c76fa16099@mail.gmail.com> References: <1e1fc3e90606031201g3f11b93ej5a9fc1c76fa16099@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200606031300510382.289F6D78@10.0.0.252> On 6/3/2006 at 12:01 PM Glen Slick wrote: >I don't just want to assemble some Z80 code, I can find plenty of >assemblers to do that. I want to find one that I can use to exactly >recreate a hardcopy listing of some particular Z80 code without any >changes to the source code format and output listing format. To my eye (and my references), this is the standard ASM assembler as it ran on the Zilog Development System. Contrast your listing with the samples in the Zilog "Z80-Assembly Language Programming Manual". (February 1977). There may have also been a Zilog cross-assembler for mainframes; I don't recall. Didn't the ZDS use hard-sector 8" floppies? I can't remember for certain. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 3 15:21:49 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 13:21:49 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> On 6/3/2006 at 1:04 PM woodelf wrote: >PS. One can always order the board now and get the other parts later. But it's the parts that aren't RoHS compliant! Tinned leads=bad. That's why manufacturers are slashing production of legacy ICs (can you say DIP?) on a wholesale basis. If you can't sell them in the EU, why bother? I wouldn't fret too much, though. I suspect you could pretty much implement the entire thing in an FPGA with room to spare. Heck, make the switches and LEDs small enough and you could make working PDP-8's for use as dollhouse furniture. Cheers, Chuck From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Jun 3 16:11:32 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 15:11:32 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4481FB04.2030600@jetnet.ab.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > But it's the parts that aren't RoHS compliant! Tinned leads=bad. That's > why manufacturers are slashing production of legacy ICs (can you say DIP?) > on a wholesale basis. If you can't sell them in the EU, why bother? They started that with surface mount stuff,Legacy ICs have been going smaller and smaller for years. So how does this effect the sales of Component Parts? > I wouldn't fret too much, though. I suspect you could pretty much > implement the entire thing in an FPGA with room to spare. Heck, make the > switches and LEDs small enough and you could make working PDP-8's for use > as dollhouse furniture. FPGA's are HUDGE! And where would I keep my dolls now? > > Cheers, > Chuck > > From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jun 3 16:22:03 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 14:22:03 -0700 Subject: Name this Z80 assembler? In-Reply-To: <200606031300510382.289F6D78@10.0.0.252> References: <1e1fc3e90606031201g3f11b93ej5a9fc1c76fa16099@mail.gmail.com> <200606031300510382.289F6D78@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4481FD7B.7010107@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/3/2006 at 12:01 PM Glen Slick wrote: > >> I don't just want to assemble some Z80 code, I can find plenty of >> assemblers to do that. I want to find one that I can use to exactly >> recreate a hardcopy listing of some particular Z80 code without any >> changes to the source code format and output listing format. > > To my eye (and my references), this is the standard ASM assembler as it ran > on the Zilog Development System. Contrast your listing with the samples in > the Zilog "Z80-Assembly Language Programming Manual". (February 1977). > There may have also been a Zilog cross-assembler for mainframes; I don't > recall. I have the sources for the ZDS (OS plus toolchain) *somewhere*. I can keep an eye open for them... > Didn't the ZDS use hard-sector 8" floppies? I can't remember for certain. Yes. From allain at panix.com Sat Jun 3 16:26:34 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 17:26:34 -0400 Subject: VAX 8700 system needs a new home References: <004f01c68747$43b745b0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <01a501c68754$64b31b60$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> > Wow. This puts me in an odd position. I had been talking to Paul for a week > before he posted this to the list, and I already had talked to a couple > people who were interested in getting the Vax. Reminds me of the "hp 264x terms on ebay" thread. I thought I had a straight deal with the seller, then people warned me to be cautious about him, so I negotiated a wait-and-see to check on his record of shipping. When the news came in it was too late and he got upset and bailed on the deal. John A. Maybe these people felt, ummm.... "Two-Timed"? From allain at panix.com Sat Jun 3 16:28:11 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 17:28:11 -0400 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> Message-ID: <01b801c68754$9e17cb80$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> > But, we can do one "last buy" for the SBC6120s, if we can get enough > people together to make the minimum orders for 6120 chips,... I should apologize for my past misunderstanding. I thought that 6120's just _weren't available_ and that the kit required you to cannibalize your own cpu chip from a classiccsomething. That made a read of your message actually better news than I thought. John A. From teoz at neo.rr.com Sat Jun 3 16:56:41 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 17:56:41 -0400 Subject: MO support References: <200606021425.k52EPxdH014092@floodgap.com> <200606020832290483.22835B3C@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <00c501c68758$98eda220$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 11:32 AM Subject: Re: MO support > The Pinnacle Micro MO stuff offered two types of media; 512 byte and 1024 > byte sectors. I've got an Apex 4.3GB 512-byte sector cart around here > someplace. The drives would die if you looked at them cross-eyed--and I > think the miserable field record of the Apex drives contributed to the > eventual bankruptcy of Pinnacle. > > Youi can still find the drives on ePay. In my experience, if you find one > that looks like a good deal, the seller will not warrant that it works. > > Cheers, > Chuck > So who made good MO drives back in the 1990's? I have a Fujitsu 230MB 3.5" drive, a FWB Hammer 1300 that just came in today (Maxoptix T3-1304 drive), and a Olympus MOS525. The last 2 drives are 5.25" 1.3GB and all are rewritable. Last year I lucked into the Olympus and Fujitsu for free along with a huge box of media (quite a bit still in shrink-wrap). I snagged the FWB box because I like having atleast 2 compatible drives around if I decide to archive material I will want to read down the road. Atleast with my DDS4 tape drive I am sure I can find a replacement cheap in 5 years, the old MO are still hard to come by cheaply. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jun 3 17:16:16 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 15:16:16 -0700 Subject: MO support In-Reply-To: <00c501c68758$98eda220$0b01a8c0@game> References: <200606021425.k52EPxdH014092@floodgap.com> <200606020832290483.22835B3C@10.0.0.252> <00c501c68758$98eda220$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <44820A30.1050804@DakotaCom.Net> Teo Zenios wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Chuck Guzis" > To: > Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 11:32 AM > Subject: Re: MO support > > >> The Pinnacle Micro MO stuff offered two types of media; 512 byte and 1024 >> byte sectors. I've got an Apex 4.3GB 512-byte sector cart around here >> someplace. The drives would die if you looked at them cross-eyed--and I >> think the miserable field record of the Apex drives contributed to the >> eventual bankruptcy of Pinnacle. >> >> Youi can still find the drives on ePay. In my experience, if you find one >> that looks like a good deal, the seller will not warrant that it works. >> >> Cheers, >> Chuck >> > > So who made good MO drives back in the 1990's? > > I have a Fujitsu 230MB 3.5" drive, a FWB Hammer 1300 that just came in today I like my Ricoh (5013?). But, damn impossible to find documentation for it! :-( Needless to say, I never dick with the DIP switches (without writing down their original settings) for fear of "breaking" something... > (Maxoptix T3-1304 drive), and a Olympus MOS525. The last 2 drives are 5.25" > 1.3GB and all are rewritable. Last year I lucked into the Olympus and > Fujitsu for free along with a huge box of media (quite a bit still in Yeah, I picked up 200 shrink-wrapped 650M carts for a whopping $7 (total). I've been using them to give me backup copies (of backup copies) of things that I *really* don't want to lose! :-/ > shrink-wrap). I snagged the FWB box because I like having atleast 2 > compatible drives around if I decide to archive material I will want to read > down the road. Atleast with my DDS4 tape drive I am sure I can find a > replacement cheap in 5 years, the old MO are still hard to come by cheaply. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Jun 3 17:42:33 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 16:42:33 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <01b801c68754$9e17cb80$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <01b801c68754$9e17cb80$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <44821059.3000709@jetnet.ab.ca> John Allain wrote: > I should apologize for my past misunderstanding. > I thought that 6120's just _weren't available_ and that the kit required > you to cannibalize your own cpu chip from a classiccsomething. > That made a read of your message actually better news than I thought. I kind of thought that too. I wish the fact that the PDP-8 clone can be hooked upto a IDE drive and you have real PDP-8 TTY I/O was more implied at the time. I would like to get this clone ( PCB & custiom parts) but I still feel with out a paper tape reader/punch you just can't do software right with the 8. > John A. PS. And the idea of using a PC for a smart terminal *SUCKS*. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 3 16:40:15 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 22:40:15 +0100 (BST) Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: <0654301A-B175-4E24-BEBF-5D3B24CB6A06@microspot.co.uk> from "Roger Holmes" at Jun 1, 6 07:56:25 pm Message-ID: > > > > > >> An interesting question. > >> > >> If you have a module of the same age, I don't see any problem with a > >> module swap. > > > > My main objection, actually, is to _random_ module-swapping, as > > suggested > > by certain HP calculator service manuals. How you can _know_ the fault > > has been cured if you don't know what/where it is is beyond me. > > With a modern machine with just three or four modules (say power supply, > logic board and one RAM module) then you take an informed guess and can > swap modules until you guess right, unless of course a module you did > not > swap causes failure of another module. Then it gets expensive. That is _exactly_ what I object to. Fault finding is not (or rather should not) be bbased on guesswork. Unless you've found the fault logically, you can't know you've fixed it. I've got stories of where a problem in one module appeared to be cured by replacing a different one that was, say, more tolerant of timing errors on one of the signals. Of course the problem came back as the timing error (which was the original fault) got worse. And this is one reason I don't have a modern computer. I don't have (and can't afford) the necessary test gear to be able to _prove_ which module is at fault. > I have scrapped an almost complete machine, so I have many of the > commonest > modules. I understand digital electronics but I find it hard to get > my head around > the analogue electronics on the boards. Testing bare components is 'Digital circuits are built from Analogue parts' (one of Vonada's lawas IIRC). I haev never understood how you can understand digitial electronics properly and not understand analogue electronics. I certaimly couldn't understnad digital stuff until I understood things like transmision lines, termination, etc. > hard enough > but testing them in circuit is tricky, especially if they require > half a dozen different > supply rails at weird voltages such as -18.0 -17.1, -12.6, -6.3, > -4.6, -2 and +12.6. I think if I had a machine like that to maintain, I'd make up a test rig, with a power supply giving those voltages. > > 1960s components which look right are not easy to get new. The To be honest, I don't care too much about the appearance of the components, provided they are electrically correct. There are certainly a few obvious modern replacements in my 1968 HP9100B. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 3 16:54:29 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 22:54:29 +0100 (BST) Subject: atari printers - gears In-Reply-To: <20060602165027.2972.qmail@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> from "Chris M" at Jun 2, 6 09:50:27 am Message-ID: > > I'd never want to discourage someone from fabricating > parts for their puters or whatever. Seems extreme Iwould agree with you. I think it's pointless to make a part if you can get it reasonably easily/cheapky. In the UK there are model engineering enthusiasts who make scale reproductions of steam locomotives, and even make all the nuts and bolts themselves to get the right (scale) size heads, etc. I have great admiration for this sort of work, but I don't intend to do it myself. I have a reasonable workshop, including a lathe, but I got the latter to make bits for computers (OK, one day I am going to start making a clock from scratch...). I am not going to make bolts, etc (even though I can do screwcutting) if I can get an acceptable part from one of the normal suppliers. But if I need some special mouting pillar with a threaded end, then I make it. [OK, one part I have _not_ been able to get ready made in the UK is the jackposts for the HPIB connector (M3.5 thread). When I needed those, I made them]. > unless you're already outfitted and have considerable > experience with the equipment. Some learn faster then > others though... I haev never done gear cutting, although I understand the principles, and have a dividing head. But the way to learn, IMHO, is to have a go and see whwt goes wrong. If I attempt to make a gear for one of these plotters and it doesn't work out, all I've wasted is a bit of metal. I've not even wasted any time, because I will hopefully learn from the experience. > Searching for suplus parts (All-Tronics, Halted > Specialties, Mendsellson, Surplus Cener, Surplus Sales > of Nebraska, BG Micro, etc... don't quote me on the > spellings) could possibly turn up something close, but > it's usually hit-or-miss. Old scanners can also be a > source for gears, and any number of old toys or > whatever else. Problem is, there are an infinite (litterally) different pitches, numbers of teeth, etc. Finding a workable replacement for one gear in a train is not foing to be easy > What you'd need to make a gear is an involute gear > cutter. It can be done on a lathe but is more > practical on a mill. It would be nice if there was a Due to lack of workshop space, many UK model enginers, etc do milling in the lathe. You put a 'vertical slide' on the cross slide, and put an end mill or slot drill,. or whatever in the lathe mandrel. Obviously the capacity (in terms of length of movements, depth of cut you can take in one go, etc) is a lot less than a real milling machine, but it's enough to make an awful lot of parts. > file you could buy that had the proper contour so you > could file the individual teeth, with the help of a > jig to guide the file correctly, and hold the You might as well use a clockmaker's wheel cutting engine. That lets use rotate the blank using a division plate (normally with no step-down gearing between the division plate and the blank, unlike a dividing head), and cut the teeth using the appropriate rotating cutter. Doing it with a file, even with a jig, would be very hard IMHO. To get all the teeth cut to the same depth would be a problem. > blank...and rotate it a precise # of degrees. And yes > getting the blank to the correct diameter is a big > part it, but in reality this can be done with an > electric drill and a file/emery paper. And a shirtload > of patience. And finesse. Soft music and a certain > ambiance...OMG you get the picture. Some sort of arbor Is there a good reason _not_ to get a small lathe? I am not sure how much a Taig/Peatol or a Unimat costs these days, but it's not _that_ expensive, and if not misused will last a long time. Yes, it's a small tool, but it's big enough for this sort of job. > would be required to hold the material (delrin I > suppose, also referred to as acetal or "engineering > plastic". I believe all 3 are at least somewhat > interchangeable). > I can't imagine the tolerances for a printer gear > being all that critical. Therefore conceivably > possible in the home slop..uh shop LOL LOL. > Then there's the injection molding route. For about > $100 or considerably less if you're a good scrounger, > you can build a hand lever operated injection molder. > Lindsay pubs has (had?) a book on the topic (by Vince > Gingery). Some machining required. The BIGGEST hurdle I've read said book. One day I am going to make it (with a few modifications). Yes, you need a lathe, particularly to make the injection cylinder and ram,. but it doesn't look that hard (famoug last words). My attitude to this sort of thing is 'have a go'. Yes, I'll make mistakes. Things won't work out first time (or second time, or...). But all I waste is a bit of metal (that will probably get used for something else later anyway). I am not risking a classic computer by making parts for it. I am convinced the world would be a better place if more people tried to make things... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 3 16:57:22 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 22:57:22 +0100 (BST) Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <20060602165743.94949.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> from "Chris M" at Jun 2, 6 09:57:42 am Message-ID: > Is there a statute against murdering classic puters? > Well there should be! 25 TO LIFE!! LOL LOL LOL. I think 'murder' would have to mean deliberate killing here. E.g. like extracing the gold from the last remaining example of some machine. If a machine fails in normal use (and the user is not doing something very stupid at the time), then that should carry a much lower penalty. And if said user then gets the machine working again, there should be no penalty at all. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 3 17:28:56 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 23:28:56 +0100 (BST) Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: from "Billy Pettit" at Jun 2, 6 07:03:22 pm Message-ID: > > Tony duell wrote: > This is about as sensible as saying that 'pianos and guitars are musical = > > instruments, if you enjoy playing one you _must_ necessarily enjoy the=20 > other'.=20 > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Billy: I don't think I used the word "must" in my comments. But = > certainly > many musicians enjoying playing both, my youngest daughter included. = Sure. There are plenty of people too, who enjoy both working on real old classic computers and running emulators on modern machines. And plenty of people who like both old and new computers. But this doesn't mean that everybody who likes old computers likes new ones too. > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Tony Duell: To be honest, I am not a 'computer person'. I don't much = > enjoy=20 > programming. I'm an electronics/mechanical person. I like tinkering with = > > hardware, but it computers, radios, cameras, clocks, whatever. So I = > could=20 > turn your statement round and say 'Well, you enjoy working on your 1962=20 > mainframe, why don't you strip down an M-series Leica. It's all = > machinery=20 > after all' > > -tony > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Billy: A big difference between us then. I have loved computers since = Sure. This list would be terribly boring if we were all totally alike :-) > my > very first one, an IBM 650 in 1958. In the Army, I did some mortar = > tracking > computers so had to work with analogue computers as well as digital. > Programming is like doing puzzles: a little is a lot of fun but a lot is = > no > fun at all. Agreed. And yes, I can program, and yes I have written programs. But I don't much enjoy it. The puzzles I enjoy (if you think of them as such) are tracking down faults in real hardware. Again we are differnt. I have a lot of respect for people who write complicated programs (particularly if they then open-source them so I can learn from what they did). But this doesn't mean I have to want to do it myself. > > Strip a Leica? Well if I can find a cheap one, I might do it. I have = Cheap and Leica don't normally go together :-) > done > dozens of MP3 players in the last year, and a Canon and JVC camcorder. > Though it is not so much a tear down as reverse engineering. If the = > Leica > uses a 1" drive, then I'll definitely put it on the list. Cameras are = Eh? A Leica M series is a 35mm rangefinder camera. The only electrical parts are the flash synchonisation contacts in the older models (later ones have a built-in exposure meter). Surely you don't think all cameras are digital? > fun - > I get to buy new tools to work on them. Tell me about it. I'll have to order as special toolkit just to get the top plate off my M-series Leica... However, for _most_ cameras the only special tool you need is an adjustable spanner wrench (this is not the same as an adjustable wrench, OK) to remvoe the retaining rings in the lenx/shutter assembly, etc. A good one is not cheap, but I am glad I bought it. If you want camera tools (including precision screwdrivers, pliers, tweezers, etc that are useful for classic computer repair too), look at Microtools. Not cheap, but they have some very interesting stuff. > I like machinery less than computers but still putz around. That's = > partly > why I specialized in peripherals for the last 30 years. Besides, the = As a related point, I feel that classic computers should be more than just the CPU. The peripherals need to be preserved too. Perhaps it's because I regard all of them (including the CPU) as just being complex/interesting electronic and/or mechanical systems that I can find as much interest in, say, a printer as in a CPU. > super > computers were dying and the minis just weren't as much fun. > > But even peripherals can be too much mechanical for me sometimes. = > Anyone on > the list ever work on an IBM-1311 or CDC 807/808 or CDC 813/814? All of > these featured hydraulic actuators. A face full of warm pressurized > hydraulic fluid is enough to convince even the most die hard GOM that Never had the 'pleasure' of working on one of those. On the other hand. a few years back I had to remove the steering rack from a Citroan BX car. This thing has a hydraulic cylinder on the side to do the power-assisted steering, and you have to remove that first to get the rest of the rack out of the car (at least if you don't want to remove the engine first!). Lying on my back under the car, disconnecting pipes, etc, I got a faceful of LHM (Citroen's hydraulic fluid). No thanks. And yes I had depressurised the system first. > electronics has advantages. (GOM is how they used to refer to us = > peripheral > types - Greasy Ol' Mechanics.) > > If you like electro-mechanical, then perhaps you share another interest: > Meccano. I always liked Erector sets until I saw my first Meccano set. = Ah yes.. Pity the interesting stuff has been discontinued. I still have my Number 9 set (nver could afford a number 10 set, never will either!), a couple of the elctrical sets (these contain solenoids, lampholders, insulating parts, etc, you get to make motors, relays, and the like), several motors and more. > I > realized then that the US sets were shoddy wanabees. I've been a = > collector > and user of Meccano since the early 70's, when I first met them. = > There's > still a #10 set in the hall closet, though it is probably incomplete = > now.=20 Very nice. > > At the Museum where Al K. works is a beautiful Babbage Difference Engine > built out of Red/Green Meccano. It's a gorgeous piece of machinery - = > works > of course. I wish I had that much ambition and skill. There was a small difference engine made from Meccano (blue/yellow, the more modern stuff) at a model engineering exhibition in the UK earlier this year. I wish I'd gone along to see it. Hve you tried Fischer Technik? It's a lot quicker to assemble than Meccano, and in some ways a lot more ingenious (there used to be electronic mocdules, including flip-flops, AND gates, OR gates, etc. Alas it's all been dumbed down now). Not cheap, but great fun to work with (it's a lot more than a toy, I can assure you). To get it on-topic here, there wrre even interfaces for some of the more common home computers to like to FT motors/lamps/switches. I bought the one for the BBC micro on E-bay a few months back, I've seen one for the C64 listed there too (but I am not that interested in that machine). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 3 17:02:56 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 23:02:56 +0100 (BST) Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606022034.13762.rtellason@blazenet.net> from "Roy J. Tellason" at Jun 2, 6 08:34:13 pm Message-ID: > Not that I ever screwed around with SMD, but yeah, troubleshooting is what > takes the time. Too bad it was such a PITA when I repaired things for a > living to get the customers to understand that sometimes... Agreed. I once very nearly submitted a bill which read : 2N3904 transisotr : \pounds 0.10 Knowing how to find the fault, and discovring which transistor to replace : \pounds 49.90 FWIW, this was on a very rare prototype HP calculator (not mine!), and the owner was very happy to have a non-original part fitted if it meant he could try programming it. Of course there was no service data available then, not even a schenatic [1], but one of the more normal production machines was similar enough to be a great help [1] There is one now, but you have to put up with having it as jpeg files... In general, at least on classic computer repairs, the components are the cheap part. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 3 17:35:13 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 23:35:13 +0100 (BST) Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606030222.15630.rtellason@blazenet.net> from "Roy J. Tellason" at Jun 3, 6 02:22:15 am Message-ID: > I've been wondering for a while now what the major use was of those > "AND-OR-Invert" gates, since the early TTL stuff I became familiar with > first had a bunch of them in the databook... > > Anybody know? A couple of thoughts 1) It's fundamentally a sum-of-products circuit (OR of ANDs). This is one standard way to genrate an arbitrary logic function 2) It's also the basic circuit of a multiplexer. If you want a mux where you can enable several inputs simulaneously, or where the select lines can't easily be turned into n binary-encoded lines, then an And-OR-(invert) gate is esseintally what you're going to use. 3) Rememebr a PAL is fundamentally a set of AND-OR-(invert) gates with programmable input wiring. Before there were PALs you got to use the AOIs and wire the inputs by hand :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 3 17:09:08 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 23:09:08 +0100 (BST) Subject: MATE-N-LOK 8p flat connector availability In-Reply-To: <4480DC88.7080807@mindspring.com> from "Don North" at Jun 2, 6 05:49:12 pm Message-ID: > The other matrix (6p, 9p, 12p, 15p) are still in production and widely > available. I am looking for a somewhat similar connector. I am not sure if it's AMP or Molex, but I suspect it's one or the other. It has 5 pins in a straight line. The pins look to be the normal 0.093" ones. The face of the socket housing looks a bit like this : /o\ |o| |o| |o| |o| - That is, 5 pins in a line, with one end of the housing pointed for polarisation. It's used to connect the mains switch (in the keyboard assembly to the PSU harness in the HP9810 and HP9820 calculators. I want a plug housing and pins so I can make up a jumper plug to power up the machine with the keyboard totally removed. Unfortuately the HP service manual is a boardswapper guide and doesn't include any details of this connector (it comes as part of the complete keyboard assembly). Does anyone recognise it and/or know of a source. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 3 17:45:10 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 23:45:10 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of In-Reply-To: <4481EA14.3020407@jetnet.ab.ca> from "woodelf" at Jun 3, 6 01:59:16 pm Message-ID: > > Robert Armstrong wrote: > > >>So what is RoHs? > > > Short answer - it will be illegal and criminal to sell products containing > > lead (and many other hazardous substances) in the EU after July 1. This, in > > particular, means the traditional lead/tin solder. > > > > Google for RoHS. You'll find plenty of matches. > > > > Bob > Hmm Another fact of life to stop DIY projects in the UK. I don't think so. From what I understand, it's still OK to use leaded solder (and components, etc) if you aren't going to sell the result (it's for your own use). And it's OK to use leaded solder for repairs on equipment made before this daft directive came into force. On the other hand, it probably will make leaded solder and some components difficult to find. I;'ve stocked up on the former, no way am I going to use the current lead-free replacements if I can help it. The result (at least based on the number of dry joints I've had to re-work in commerical equipment ) is simply not reliable. -tony From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 3 18:39:20 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 16:39:20 -0700 Subject: MO support In-Reply-To: <44820A30.1050804@DakotaCom.Net> References: <200606021425.k52EPxdH014092@floodgap.com> <200606020832290483.22835B3C@10.0.0.252> <00c501c68758$98eda220$0b01a8c0@game> <44820A30.1050804@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606031639200633.296774F8@10.0.0.252> >> So who made good MO drives back in the 1990's? AFAIK, most of the 650/MB1.3GB drives were okay, even the Pinnacle ones. But Pinnacle got into a bunch of trouble pushing the technology to 4.3GB and above. What was the MO drive on the Next cube--650 MB? Seemed silly to me to market the thing without a hard drive--and I think Next eventually came around to that way of thinking. Cheers, Chuck From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sat Jun 3 18:45:22 2006 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 00:45:22 +0100 (BST) Subject: MATE-N-LOK 8p flat connector availability In-Reply-To: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) "Re: MATE-N-LOK 8p flat connector availability" (Jun 3, 23:09) References: Message-ID: <10606040045.ZM26360@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> On Jun 3 2006, 23:09, Tony Duell wrote: > I am looking for a somewhat similar connector. I am not sure if it's > AMP or Molex, but I suspect it's one or the other. > > It has 5 pins in a straight line. The pins look to be the normal > 0.093" ones. The face of the socket housing looks a bit like this: > > > /o\ > |o| > |o| > |o| > |o| > - > > That is, 5 pins in a line, with one end of the housing pointed for > polarisation. I'm pretty sure this isn't AMP, but it looks like a Molex 0.093" Power Connector. A lot of these are made in panel-mount as well as free-hanging styles, but the five-way is only made as free-hanging according to my old Molex catalogue. However, it says there's a mating unshrouded vertical header in their 1840 series, and "vertical headers may be assembled using PC tail terminals in standard housing". The receptacle part is 03-09-1052, it's 27.2mm long x 6.2mm wide; the plug part is 03-09-2052, 30.0mm long x 8.6mm wide. Each pin is rated 9A at 250V in these housings. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sat Jun 3 18:59:28 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 16:59:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <44821059.3000709@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <01b801c68754$9e17cb80$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> <44821059.3000709@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Sat, 3 Jun 2006, woodelf wrote: > John Allain wrote: > > > I should apologize for my past misunderstanding. > > I thought that 6120's just _weren't available_ and that the kit required > > you to cannibalize your own cpu chip from a classiccsomething. > > That made a read of your message actually better news than I thought. > > I kind of thought that too. > I wish the fact that the PDP-8 clone can be hooked upto a IDE drive > and you have real PDP-8 TTY I/O was more implied at the time. I would > like to get this clone ( PCB & custiom parts) but I still feel with out > a paper tape reader/punch you just can't do software right with the 8. Maybe the GIDE interface can be adapted for use with this board. It's just a couple GALs and not much more connected to data and address lines. About paper tape, I've been pondering now and then about making a punch/reader that uses cash register tape. > > John A. > PS. And the idea of using a PC for a smart terminal *SUCKS*. Are you saying that using a PC for a terminal is required for this board??? -- 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 aw288 at osfn.org Sat Jun 3 19:09:55 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 20:09:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: > But it's the parts that aren't RoHS compliant! Tinned leads=bad. That's > why manufacturers are slashing production of legacy ICs (can you say DIP?) > on a wholesale basis. I think it may have to do with nobody actually buying them in quantities more than a handful at a time. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From bob at jfcl.com Sat Jun 3 20:17:01 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 18:17:01 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life Message-ID: <045601c68774$98aa46d0$0401010a@GIZMO> >Are you saying that using a PC for a terminal is required for this board??? An ASCII RS-232 terminal is required, yes. Use any kind you like; it doesn't have to be a PC. Bob From bob at jfcl.com Sat Jun 3 20:20:48 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 18:20:48 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life Message-ID: <045b01c68775$1ffd5fa0$0401010a@GIZMO> > thought that 6120's just _weren't available_ I've purchased 6120 chips several times since introducing the SBC6120; it's never been a problem to get them. There are old IC jobbers out there that will find anything, for a price. The problem has always been that the minimum order is 50-100 pieces and several thousands of dollars. And please, don't everybody start calling old IC jobbers asking for 6120 chips now. A) They won't sell you just one, and b) you'll just make 'em think 6120 chips are valuable and the prices will go even higher. Bob From bob at jfcl.com Sat Jun 3 20:43:55 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 18:43:55 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <047d01c68778$5d651a10$0401010a@GIZMO> >I don't think so. From what I understand, it's still OK to use leaded >solder (and components, etc) if you aren't going to sell the result (it's >for your own use). Yes, but kit makers (and that includes me) can't sell kits or components that contain lead. So an EU citizen might be able to legally build a SBC6120, but I can't sell him parts for one. Bob From vrs at msn.com Sat Jun 3 21:12:06 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 19:12:06 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of References: <047d01c68778$5d651a10$0401010a@GIZMO> Message-ID: From: "Robert Armstrong" > >I don't think so. From what I understand, it's still OK to use leaded > >solder (and components, etc) if you aren't going to sell the result (it's > >for your own use). > > Yes, but kit makers (and that includes me) can't sell kits or components > that contain lead. So an EU citizen might be able to legally build a > SBC6120, but I can't sell him parts for one. OK, the question running through my mind is how this affects resale of our old gear. Is that grandfathered in somehow, or is that no longer allowed either? What about board level replacement parts, etc.? Vince From aw288 at osfn.org Sat Jun 3 21:31:20 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 22:31:20 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > OK, the question running through my mind is how this affects resale of our > old gear. Is that grandfathered in somehow, or is that no longer allowed > either? What about board level replacement parts, etc.? I would not worry any time soon (however, be vigilant). Many things that have hazmat status that are much nastier than solder still trade with almost no restrictions or no enforcement. How many things with PCBs, asbestos, mercury, radium, and BeO trade on Ebay every day without a hitch? Or go thru the USPS? Or sell at the flea market? William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Sat Jun 3 21:35:20 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 22:35:20 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606030222.15630.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: > Anybody know? As long as were talkin'... I am not home right now - going thru a pile of stuff I have stored elsewhere - and came across some logic I am not familiar with. MC5xx from Motorola ring a bell? This is the oldest logic IC system I have personally seen, as the chips have 1965 datecodes (!). They are part of a Doppler processor for the obscuro AN/KPQ-1 radar set. Being not home, I can not look this up, and it is starting to bug me. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Sat Jun 3 21:40:15 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 22:40:15 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > But even peripherals can be too much mechanical for me sometimes. Anyone on > the list ever work on an IBM-1311 or CDC 807/808 or CDC 813/814? All of > these featured hydraulic actuators. A face full of warm pressurized > hydraulic fluid is enough to convince even the most die hard GOM that > electronics has advantages. (GOM is how they used to refer to us peripheral > types - Greasy Ol' Mechanics.) If "worked on" means "moved", then yes. I have two Univac 2311 clones, as well as a real IBM 2311. I will probably "never" come across a 2841 control unit for the 2311 (but am jealous that I just saw one at CHM - where did they get that?!), but I do have the Disk Control for the Univac. I have no docs for either, and until I do, the iron will just have to wait. By the way: WANTED - REAL MONEY PAID FOR IBM 2841 CONTROL UNIT. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From rtellason at blazenet.net Sat Jun 3 21:53:40 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 22:53:40 -0400 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606032253.40818.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Saturday 03 June 2006 05:40 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > 'Digital circuits are built from Analogue parts' (one of Vonada's lawas > IIRC). > > I haev never understood how you can understand digitial electronics > properly and not understand analogue electronics. I certaimly couldn't > understnad digital stuff until I understood things like transmision > lines, termination, etc. I think it's the way that it's too often taught these days -- people come out of that *thinking* that they understand it, when they don't, 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 ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jun 3 21:56:25 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 14:56:25 +1200 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: References: <0654301A-B175-4E24-BEBF-5D3B24CB6A06@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: On 6/4/06, Tony Duell wrote: > 'Digital circuits are built from Analogue parts' (one of Vonada's lawas > IIRC). > > I haev never understood how you can understand digitial electronics > properly and not understand analogue electronics. I certaimly couldn't > understnad digital stuff until I understood things like transmision > lines, termination, etc. Well... as someone who considers his own knowledge of analog circuits to be inferior to his own knowledge of digital circuits, let me say this - while I _know_ that at the lowest level, all digital circuits are really just collections of analog parts, in practice, as long as you aren't working with a design at the edge of the envelope, you can ignore 90% of analog theory and still have an understanding that works on the circuit in front of you. For example - if you are building a clock out of TTL, if you follow the recommendations from the various chips data sheets about fan-out, etc., it's not that difficult to come up with a design that requires nothing more elaborate than a logic probe to debug. In fact, if you build an electronic debounced momentary switch, you can use a DVM to "scope" the circuit, pulsing it as needed to step through the states. OTOH, I've seen mysterious problems take a long time to solve when *completely* overlooking the analog aspects of a TTL circuit - one in particular was undershoot and ringing with a 74S409 DRAM controller hooked up to a field of 32 4164s. The eventual solution was to insert 33 Ohm resistors in-line on the CAS and RAS lines to dampen the undershoot to where the ringing didn't cause a problem - it was still there, but at an amplitude that didn't have a negative effect. I was amused to see the identical solution 2 years later in a Commodore "slap-on-the-front" RAM expansion for the Amiga 1000 - the card was literally the connector, one capacitor per DRAM, the DRAM, and a couple of 33 Ohm (38 Ohm?) resistor packs. So there are certainly many cases where it _is_ important to have a good grounding (pun intended) in analog theory (transmission lines, parasitic capacitance, hidden inductance, RF effects, etc), but for a lot of TTL work, pretending that everything is exactly +5 and ground will still get you a working circuit. When it _doesn't_ work, though, be prepared to pull out all the conceptual tools you can. Obviously, the faster the clocks and the more complex the design, the analog side does start to rear its head earlier. -ethan From rborsuk at colourfull.com Sat Jun 3 22:03:11 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 23:03:11 -0400 Subject: What is this ? NCR Panel Message-ID: Hi All, Anyone have information on what this is: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8822142523 I tried doing some googling for it but didn't really turn up anything. Rob Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com From rtellason at blazenet.net Sat Jun 3 22:05:16 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 23:05:16 -0400 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606032305.16707.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Saturday 03 June 2006 10:35 pm, William Donzelli wrote: > > Anybody know? > > As long as were talkin'... > > I am not home right now - going thru a pile of stuff I have stored > elsewhere - and came across some logic I am not familiar with. MC5xx from > Motorola ring a bell? This is the oldest logic IC system I have > personally seen, as the chips have 1965 datecodes (!). They are part of a > Doppler processor for the obscuro AN/KPQ-1 radar set. The oldest Motorola book I have on hand here is their 1971 Master Selection Guide, and those numbers appear on page 122, under "MTTL I". If you'd care to call out specific numbers I can tell you what they are. -- 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 Jun 3 23:45:44 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 21:45:44 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606032145440938.2A7FF71A@10.0.0.252> On 6/2/2006 at 7:03 PM Billy Pettit wrote: >But even peripherals can be too much mechanical for me sometimes. Anyone >on the list ever work on an IBM-1311 or CDC 807/808 or CDC 813/814? All of >these featured hydraulic actuators. A face full of warm pressurized >hydraulic fluid is enough to convince even the most die hard GOM that >electronics has advantages. (GOM is how they used to refer to us >peripheral types - Greasy Ol' Mechanics.) Don't forget the old CDC 6603-Bryant disk! My most vivd reminder of hydraulic actuators on CDC gear was on the 821 disk. We were running a benchmark with about eight of these things (connected through a QSE). We knew that one was leaking, but the leak wasn't enough to take the thing offline and we had a few hours invested in setting the benchmark up, so we decided to go with it. At some point, a message pops up on the console that 821 Unit-so-and-such is offline. I run for the thing, forgetting about the lieak, have my hand out ready to punch the "on/off line" button, hit the puddle of fluid and do a wonderful imitation of a swan dive. I collect myself, punch the button and limp back... I REALLY don't miss the old hardware. If I wanted to work with heavy machinery, I'd go back to work in a steel mill. I'm sure that Billy has had his share of digging shredded ribbon out of the type train on a CDC 512 pritner, too. Wonderful rewarding job. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 3 23:57:08 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 21:57:08 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606032157080545.2A8A654E@10.0.0.252> >> Anybody know? The AND-OR-INVERT is a very useful function. Think about it--you have not only a good hunk of a multiplexer, but also most of a XOR gate as well as a half-adder. It took awhile to get integration up to the point where full adders (much less ALUs) were available on a single chip. Cheers, Chuck From henk.gooijen at oce.com Sun Jun 4 04:11:40 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 11:11:40 +0200 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO><4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> > >PS. One can always order the board now and get the other parts later. > >But it's the parts that aren't RoHS compliant! Tinned leads=bad. That's >why manufacturers are slashing production of legacy ICs (can you say DIP?) >on a wholesale basis. If you can't sell them in the EU, why bother? > >I wouldn't fret too much, though. I suspect you could pretty much >implement the entire thing in an FPGA with room to spare. Heck, make the >switches and LEDs small enough and you could make working PDP-8's for use >as dollhouse furniture. > >Cheers, >Chuck For repair of non-RoHS complint equipment, it is still allowed to use the "old" parts. The RoHS rule only applies to new-built equipment. As a hobbyist you must make sure that you do not mix RoHS and non-RoHS parts because the technique and the material to solder these parts are different. Regarding the pdp8, I have built a pdp8-clone using the Blinkenlight Boards. Because of the simulation of the pdp8 instructions in 6809 it is a lot slower though. However, it does run DMS and OS/8 ! And it has an IDE drive connected to the I/O Board which looks to the pdp8 simulation as an RF08. I will soon start to add a floppy disk interface to the simulation to add "RX01" to the 'pdp8'. And yes, it is true, the switches (and to minor extend the LEDs) determine the size of the frontpanel. - Henk, PA8PDP. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jun 4 04:51:18 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 21:51:18 +1200 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Message-ID: On 6/4/06, Gooijen, Henk wrote: > For repair of non-RoHS complint equipment, it is still allowed to use the > "old" parts. The RoHS rule only applies to new-built equipment. > As a hobbyist you must make sure that you do not mix RoHS and non-RoHS parts > because the technique and the material to solder these parts are different. Well... 1/8W RoHS resistors and decoupling caps can't cost that much, and presumably the new "solder" will still wick to gold, so one could still use old gold-plated machine-pin sockets, yes? I don't know about anyone else, but _I_ socketed 100% of the ICs on my SBC-6120. Given the cost of the blank PCB, I didn't think that a few $$$ more for sockets was a burden. -ethan From classiccmp.org at irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk Sun Jun 4 05:08:23 2006 From: classiccmp.org at irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk (Rob O'Donnell) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 11:08:23 +0100 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of In-Reply-To: <047d01c68778$5d651a10$0401010a@GIZMO> References: <047d01c68778$5d651a10$0401010a@GIZMO> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.0.20060604105848.062e1700@irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk> At 02:43 04/06/2006, Robert Armstrong wrote: > Yes, but kit makers (and that includes me) can't sell kits or components >that contain lead. So an EU citizen might be able to legally build a >SBC6120, but I can't sell him parts for one. Hmm... The UK RoHH website states quite clearly that components, in themselves, are exempt: http://www.rohs.gov.uk/DecisionTree.aspx?id=7 It's also allowed to build non-compliant equipment for your own use: http://www.rohs.gov.uk/FAQs.aspx#9 So on the face of it, it looks like you'd not actually have a problem selling the parts, and your customers won't have a problem building them *for their own use* - just don't go selling complete units, and they can't re-sell the built item, at least not within the EEA. Rob. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Jun 4 09:37:06 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 07:37:06 -0700 Subject: Part for a friend In-Reply-To: <004c01c68704$7e60cd50$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: Hi I've been working on my M20 to get it to work with a ST251 hard drive instead of the original Olivetti drive. The project has been quite successful. I now have the system up and running with the hard drive. I was inspired to do this by another fellow in Germany that had a failure of his drive and was trying to replace his hard drive. Working with him on his machine we discovered that his controller also had a bad part. Of course, it is a hard to find part. Does anyone have a WD1100V-05 that the would be willing to part with. This is the parallel to serial converter used on the WD1000 or similar controllers. Can you folks check to see if you have one of these on a scrap board? Thanks Dwight From andyh at andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk Sun Jun 4 10:05:02 2006 From: andyh at andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk (Andy Holt) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 16:05:02 +0100 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000f01c687e8$41a2d270$655b2c0a@w2kdell> Tony wrote: > I haev never understood how you can understand digitial electronics > properly and not understand analogue electronics. I certaimly couldn't > understnad digital stuff until I understood things like transmision > lines, termination, etc. You can understand it well enough to use for many practical purposes by just knowing a few "rules of thumb"*. A better, but still not necessarily detailed, understanding of the analogue background can help considerably in some of the more tricky situations - especially if you are "stretching"/abusing the "rules". Too detailed a consideration of the background can actually get in the way [the best example I have of this is the realisation that one has much more tolerance in termination than analogue theorists tend to expect - half or double the normal termination resistance does produce reflections ... but they are small enough that digital inputs will ignore them even though they would be a disaster in, say, an audio or RF amplifier]. * eg, "fanout"; "use lots of decoupling - then add some more"; "keep connections short - and be very cautious of long adjacent runs"; "If mixing LSTTL and CMOS don't connect both types of input to the same output"; and so on. Andy From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Jun 4 10:20:11 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 08:20:11 -0700 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: <000f01c687e8$41a2d270$655b2c0a@w2kdell> Message-ID: >From: "Andy Holt" > >Tony wrote: > > I haev never understood how you can understand digitial electronics > > properly and not understand analogue electronics. I certaimly couldn't > > understnad digital stuff until I understood things like transmision > > lines, termination, etc. >You can understand it well enough to use for many practical purposes by >just >knowing a few "rules of thumb"*. A better, but still not necessarily >detailed, understanding of the analogue background can help considerably in >some of the more tricky situations - especially if you are >"stretching"/abusing the "rules". ---snip--- Hi Still, Tony has a point. In order to do intellegent trouble shooting, one has to be able to understand how the analog elements of real circuits effect how a circuit will function incorrectly. Sure, one can hunt and swap parts until it works but to know the part you are unsoldering is the cause requires true understanding of what that part is failing to do from an analog sense. Of course, one is hopelessly lost fixing power supplies without some analog knowledge. Understanding feedback and how each part effects the other is the key to fixing these parts. I see so many times that some fellow will say, I've replaced all the capacitors and it still doesn't work. They ask for help but I often don't know where to start. Should I begin with elementary electronics or just use them as a remote VOM and oscilloscope. Dwight From pcw at mesanet.com Sun Jun 4 10:31:47 2006 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 08:31:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606032157080545.2A8A654E@10.0.0.252> References: <200606032157080545.2A8A654E@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: On Sat, 3 Jun 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: >>> Anybody know? > > The AND-OR-INVERT is a very useful function. Think about it--you have not > only a good hunk of a multiplexer, but also most of a XOR gate as well as > a half-adder. It took awhile to get integration up to the point where full > adders (much less ALUs) were available on a single chip. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > If I'm not mistaken the sort-of-processor-from-TTL-bits the Diablo HyType II had used a pair of AOI gates for the logical part of its ALU (along with a pair of 74LS283s) Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics From jvdg at sparcpark.net Sat Jun 3 14:06:08 2006 From: jvdg at sparcpark.net (Joost van de Griek) Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 21:06:08 +0200 Subject: How silly can collectors be? In-Reply-To: <200606011735.13278.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On 6/1/06 11:35 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > Ok, so I thought that the prices on the S/370 consoles were silly, but > at least you were getting something which was obscure and hard to > reproduce. > > How much is a small piece of aluminum with some lettering on it worth? > Aparently, between $125 and $411... Once something is collectible, value is very hard to establish. While such a price for a "small piece of aluminium with some lettering on it" may seem outrageous to you, if it is the final missing piece in someone's collection, that price may be peanuts compared to the increase of the complete collection's value. ,xtG .tsooJ -- You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, The Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the US of arrogance, and Germany doesn't want to go to war. -- Joost van de Griek From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com Sun Jun 4 10:34:21 2006 From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 08:34:21 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Message-ID: <200606040834210311.735189CB@192.168.42.129> Hi, gang, *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 04-Jun-06 at 21:51 Ethan Dicks wrote: >On 6/4/06, Gooijen, Henk wrote: >> For repair of non-RoHS complint equipment, it is still allowed to use the >> "old" parts. The RoHS rule only applies to new-built equipment. >> As a hobbyist you must make sure that you do not mix RoHS and non-RoHS >parts because the technique and the material to solder these parts are >different. > >Well... 1/8W RoHS resistors and decoupling caps can't cost that much, >and presumably the new "solder" will still wick to gold, so one could >still use old gold-plated machine-pin sockets, yes? I would also question if it's bad to mix the parts. I've already done so, several times, and found that regular lead-bearing solder works just fine on RoHS components. While I have no doubt that the special solder and techniques will be required for manufacturing, I don't see (at least for the moment) why regular solder will not work. If you're paranoid about it, you can do as I've done for years and use solder with 1.4% silver. Keep the peace(es). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?" From pcw at mesanet.com Sun Jun 4 10:38:15 2006 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 08:38:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 4 Jun 2006, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 6/4/06, Gooijen, Henk wrote: >> For repair of non-RoHS complint equipment, it is still allowed to use the >> "old" parts. The RoHS rule only applies to new-built equipment. >> As a hobbyist you must make sure that you do not mix RoHS and non-RoHS >> parts >> because the technique and the material to solder these parts are different. > > Well... 1/8W RoHS resistors and decoupling caps can't cost that much, > and presumably the new "solder" will still wick to gold, so one could > still use old gold-plated machine-pin sockets, yes? > > I don't know about anyone else, but _I_ socketed 100% of the ICs on my > SBC-6120. Given the cost of the blank PCB, I didn't think that a few > $$$ more for sockets was a burden. > > -ethan > The SN/CU/AG RoHS compliant solder works ok for us when re-touching our RoHS PCBs. It does require a little higher temperature than SN63/PB37 solder (so dont try on old PCB material) and ends up looking grainier. Its much stronger than tin/lead solder though. You probably dont want to use it on a Tin/Lead plated PCB however... Peter Wallace From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Jun 4 10:42:19 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 08:42:19 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: <200606032157080545.2A8A654E@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: >From: "Chuck Guzis" > > >> Anybody know? > >The AND-OR-INVERT is a very useful function. Think about it--you have not >only a good hunk of a multiplexer, but also most of a XOR gate as well as >a half-adder. It took awhile to get integration up to the point where full >adders (much less ALUs) were available on a single chip. > >Cheers, >Chuck > Hi Of course, I think is is interesting that in CMOS, one often uses analog transmission gates to create XOR functions. Analog transmission gates are usually used for MUX's. Dwight From pcw at mesanet.com Sun Jun 4 10:44:43 2006 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 08:44:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <200606040834210311.735189CB@192.168.42.129> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <200606040834210311.735189CB@192.168.42.129> Message-ID: On Sun, 4 Jun 2006, Bruce Lane wrote: > Hi, gang, > > *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** > > On 04-Jun-06 at 21:51 Ethan Dicks wrote: > >> On 6/4/06, Gooijen, Henk wrote: >>> For repair of non-RoHS complint equipment, it is still allowed to use the >>> "old" parts. The RoHS rule only applies to new-built equipment. >>> As a hobbyist you must make sure that you do not mix RoHS and non-RoHS >> parts because the technique and the material to solder these parts are >> different. >> >> Well... 1/8W RoHS resistors and decoupling caps can't cost that much, >> and presumably the new "solder" will still wick to gold, so one could >> still use old gold-plated machine-pin sockets, yes? > > > > I would also question if it's bad to mix the parts. I've already done so, several times, and found that regular lead-bearing solder works just fine on RoHS components. > > While I have no doubt that the special solder and techniques will be required for manufacturing, I don't see (at least for the moment) why regular solder will not work. If you're paranoid about it, you can do as I've done for years and use solder with 1.4% silver. > > Keep the peace(es). > There is no problem in general using RoHS compliant parts with Tin/Lead solder assembly, as long as the RoHS parts do not contain Bismuth (which is rare and may be banned by the next RoHS standards - goodbye Pepto-Bismol) > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, > Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com > kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m > "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?" > > Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Jun 4 11:32:42 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 12:32:42 -0400 Subject: How silly can collectors be? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606041232.43398.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Saturday 03 June 2006 15:06, Joost van de Griek wrote: > On 6/1/06 11:35 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > Ok, so I thought that the prices on the S/370 consoles were silly, but > > at least you were getting something which was obscure and hard to > > reproduce. > > > > How much is a small piece of aluminum with some lettering on it worth? > > Aparently, between $125 and $411... > > Once something is collectible, value is very hard to establish. While such > a price for a "small piece of aluminium with some lettering on it" may seem > outrageous to you, if it is the final missing piece in someone's > collection, that price may be peanuts compared to the increase of the > complete collection's value. I'd agree with you, but I'm pretty sure that in at least fordkdkk, that's probably not the case, from what I've learned from other collectors. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From bshannon at tiac.net Sun Jun 4 11:56:20 2006 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 12:56:20 -0400 Subject: Memorex 651 Drive References: <447E0271.8070801@tridentcomputer.com> Message-ID: <000b01c687f7$ceedca40$0100a8c0@screamer> Are these the ancient 7.5 inch hard sectored drives? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Sheldrick" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 4:54 PM Subject: Memorex 651 Drive > Do you have the actual Memorex 651 drive (not the floppy disks)? I'm > looking to buy one. > > Thanks, > Bob Sheldrick > Trident Computer Corporation > 277 Park Drive > Troy MI 48083 USA > Tel # 248-585-8100 > From bert at brothom.nl Sun Jun 4 13:28:55 2006 From: bert at brothom.nl (Bert Thomas) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 19:28:55 +0100 Subject: question about ELF executable Message-ID: <44832667.5000301@brothom.nl> Hi all, Is there perhaps anyone here that can answer this question? ELF executables have program segment headers, containing a field p_offset that should refer to the offset in the file where the section of data starts. However, regardless what executable I look at, they all seem to contain a header that contains a p_offset = 0. This would mean the absolute start of the file, exactly where the ELF header itself is located. For example, when I do: $ readelf -a /bin/bash |less I get: Program Headers: Type Offset VirtAddr PhysAddr FileSiz MemSiz Flg Align PHDR 0x000034 0x08048034 0x08048034 0x000e0 0x000e0 R E 0x4 INTERP 0x000114 0x08048114 0x08048114 0x00013 0x00013 R 0x1 [Requesting program interpreter: /lib/ld-linux.so.2] LOAD 0x000000 0x08048000 0x08048000 0x837bc 0x837bc R E 0x1000 LOAD 0x084000 0x080cc000 0x080cc000 0x05350 0x09a94 RW 0x1000 DYNAMIC 0x088fa4 0x080d0fa4 0x080d0fa4 0x000d8 0x000d8 RW 0x4 NOTE 0x000128 0x08048128 0x08048128 0x00020 0x00020 R 0x4 GNU_EH_FRAME 0x083790 0x080cb790 0x080cb790 0x0002c 0x0002c R 0x4 The 3rd header contains an p_offset=0. Why? I don't get it. Bert From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Jun 4 12:39:15 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 11:39:15 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Message-ID: <44831AC3.1010809@jetnet.ab.ca> Ethan Dicks wrote: > I don't know about anyone else, but _I_ socketed 100% of the ICs on my > SBC-6120. Given the cost of the blank PCB, I didn't think that a few > $$$ more for sockets was a burden. With my soldering a socket is a good idea. I just downloaded the PCB manual ... ARG 1/2 Size crystal Oscillators, and none of my favorite suppliers have them.Well one does but it has a $50 min order. I tend to shop at the online surplus places and I don't even think of modern parts. Well I guess I am going to need the whole kit if I buy a SBC-6120. From jfoust at threedee.com Sun Jun 4 12:36:50 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 12:36:50 -0500 Subject: How silly can collectors be? In-Reply-To: References: <200606011735.13278.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060604123347.04f63b90@mail> At 02:06 PM 6/3/2006, Joost van de Griek wrote: >Once something is collectible, value is very hard to establish. While such a >price for a "small piece of aluminium with some lettering on it" may seem >outrageous to you, if it is the final missing piece in someone's collection, >that price may be peanuts compared to the increase of the complete >collection's value. It's not even that. "Value" gets crazy and psychological when it comes to collectibles. It happens with tulip bulbs and Beany Babies, it happens with old junk computers, too. - John From bob at jfcl.com Sun Jun 4 12:42:44 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 10:42:44 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Message-ID: <04ab01c687fe$4c6b4820$0401010a@GIZMO> >ARG 1/2 Size crystal Oscillators, Digit-Key sells them, as does Mouser, and neither has a minimum order. Bob From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 4 12:47:46 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 10:47:46 -0700 Subject: OT: RoHS was: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <200606040834210311.735189CB@192.168.42.129> Message-ID: <200606041047460623.00608031@10.0.0.252> I've never fully understood the logic behind removing lead from tin-lead solders in the name of "hazardous substances". It seems to me that in its metallic state, lead is pretty benign. I recall that the city used it for water pipe when I was a boy--the feed to the water meter was a lead pipe swaged inside a brass fitting. Connections to cast-iron sewer pipe was usually made by first stuffing a filler gasket of oakum in to the joint, then pouring insold molten lead as a sealer. Stained-glass windows are full of the stuff and my brass instruments are put together with tin-lead solder. Roof flashing used to be made of sheet lead and it'd last a few hundred years. Certainly the problem must lie in disposal of old electronics and other things using tin-lead solder. Yet it would seem one of the easiest substances to reclaim. Why ban it then? Most of the major European musical instrument manufacturers have moved to lead-free solders. One of the aspects of tin-lead solder that's heavily exploited in manufacturing a brass instrument is the fairly wide liquidus range. Essentially, joints are fluxed, then heated with a torch, then solder is applied, which is promptly drawn by capillary action into the joint, resulting in a strong airtight seal. Lead-free (and I've tried a bunch of them) solders just don't have the nice flow characteristics of the leaded varieties. When bending brass tubing, a filler material is used to keep the tube from collapsing. Traditionally, this material has been lead, which is wonderfully ductile and forgiving. However, I've moved to a low-melting point (153 F) alloy, Wood's metal, which, while it doesn't contain lead, does contain cadmium, which to my mind is worse than lead in terms of toxicity. Most of the big commercial manufacturers now use either the low-temp alloys, a frozen slurry of water and soap, or pitch, none of which is quite as satisfactory as lead. Free-machining alloys, including some brasses, are made with a bit of lead in the mix and the result is something that's a joy to work with on the lathe. If disposal of lead-bearing products is the real problem, why not tackle that issue instead of banning them altogether? What's next? Are we now going to dig all of the lead ores out of the earth, package them up and shoot them into space? Forgive the Sunday rant. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 4 13:01:30 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 11:01:30 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of In-Reply-To: <04ab01c687fe$4c6b4820$0401010a@GIZMO> References: <04ab01c687fe$4c6b4820$0401010a@GIZMO> Message-ID: <44831FFA.4060202@DakotaCom.Net> Robert Armstrong wrote: >> ARG 1/2 Size crystal Oscillators, > > Digit-Key sells them, as does Mouser, and neither has a minimum order. Digikey has a service charge for orders under $25, iirc. Not sure what mouser's current policy is... From trestivo at tarinc.com Sun Jun 4 12:58:12 2006 From: trestivo at tarinc.com (thom restivo) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 13:58:12 -0400 Subject: 3 pdp8/a chassis free for pickup Message-ID: <200606041758.k54HwG9R024268@ms-smtp-01.tampabay.rr.com> Joe r. or anybody interested in picking these up in Melbourne fl, please contact thom at 321-537-2384. They are in reasonable condition, no 8018 regulators installed. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 4 13:11:08 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 11:11:08 -0700 Subject: OT: RoHS was: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <200606041047460623.00608031@10.0.0.252> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <200606040834210311.735189CB@192.168.42.129> <200606041047460623.00608031@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4483223C.6070202@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I've never fully understood the logic behind removing lead from tin-lead > solders in the name of "hazardous substances". It seems to me that in its > metallic state, lead is pretty benign. I recall that the city used it for > water pipe when I was a boy--the feed to the water meter was a lead pipe > swaged inside a brass fitting. Connections to cast-iron sewer pipe was > usually made by first stuffing a filler gasket of oakum in to the joint, > then pouring insold molten lead as a sealer. Stained-glass windows are > full of the stuff and my brass instruments are put together with tin-lead > solder. Roof flashing used to be made of sheet lead and it'd last a few > hundred years. We also used to have "fluoroscopes" (sp?) in shoe stores. And asbestos siding on houses. And DDT to kill the carpenter ants around the house. And those cute little (oil burning?) cartoon-style "bombs" along the side of the road in construction areas. > Certainly the problem must lie in disposal of old electronics and other > things using tin-lead solder. Yet it would seem one of the easiest > substances to reclaim. Why ban it then? I think there are moves in places to start putting "recycling fees" on electronic devices. E.g., add $25 to the cost of a monitor and let the user reclaim that $25 by *properly* disposing of it, later. (akin to the 5c fee on bottles/cans in some areas). I see truckloads of electronic devices *allegedly* being recycled that, I am sure, are simply being dumped after someone cherry-picks whatever useful items (resale) they see fit to salvage from the pile -- EVERY WEEK. :-( > Most of the major European musical instrument manufacturers have moved to > lead-free solders. One of the aspects of tin-lead solder that's heavily > exploited in manufacturing a brass instrument is the fairly wide liquidus > range. Essentially, joints are fluxed, then heated with a torch, then > solder is applied, which is promptly drawn by capillary action into the > joint, resulting in a strong airtight seal. Just like sweating a joint when plumbing. > Lead-free (and I've tried a bunch of them) solders just don't have the nice > flow characteristics of the leaded varieties. > > When bending brass tubing, a filler material is used to keep the tube from > collapsing. Traditionally, this material has been lead, which is > wonderfully ductile and forgiving. However, I've moved to a low-melting > point (153 F) alloy, Wood's metal, which, while it doesn't contain lead, > does contain cadmium, which to my mind is worse than lead in terms of > toxicity. Most of the big commercial manufacturers now use either the > low-temp alloys, a frozen slurry of water and soap, or pitch, none of which > is quite as satisfactory as lead. > > Free-machining alloys, including some brasses, are made with a bit of lead > in the mix and the result is something that's a joy to work with on the > lathe. > > If disposal of lead-bearing products is the real problem, why not tackle > that issue instead of banning them altogether? What's next? Are we now > going to dig all of the lead ores out of the earth, package them up and > shoot them into space? > > Forgive the Sunday rant. From jvdg at sparcpark.net Sun Jun 4 13:11:46 2006 From: jvdg at sparcpark.net (Joost van de Griek) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 20:11:46 +0200 Subject: How silly can collectors be? In-Reply-To: <200606041232.43398.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On 6/4/06 6:32 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Saturday 03 June 2006 15:06, Joost van de Griek wrote: > >> On 6/1/06 11:35 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >> >>> How much is a small piece of aluminum with some lettering on it worth? >>> Aparently, between $125 and $411... >> >> Once something is collectible, value is very hard to establish. While such >> a price for a "small piece of aluminium with some lettering on it" may seem >> outrageous to you, if it is the final missing piece in someone's >> collection, that price may be peanuts compared to the increase of the >> complete collection's value. > > I'd agree with you, but I'm pretty sure that in at least fordkdkk, that's > probably not the case, from what I've learned from other collectors. Fair enough. I didn't mean to imply my reasoning applied to this particular case. ,xtG .tsooJ -- When the revolution comes, you will be first against the wall. -- Joost van de Griek From brad at heeltoe.com Sun Jun 4 13:23:26 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 14:23:26 -0400 Subject: question about ELF executable In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 04 Jun 2006 19:28:55 BST." <44832667.5000301@brothom.nl> Message-ID: <200606041823.k54INQ74024858@mwave.heeltoe.com> Bert Thomas wrote: > >The 3rd header contains an p_offset=0. Why? I don't get it. it's been a while, but I don't think that offset is from the begining of the file. i may be wrong, however. I thought there was a fixed size header space (like 64k). you might try looking at the linux exec code for elf files... that might give you an idea how they get loaded. -brad From djg at pdp8.net Sun Jun 4 13:25:31 2006 From: djg at pdp8.net (djg at pdp8.net) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 14:25:31 -0400 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" Message-ID: <200606041825.k54IPV506253@user-119apiu.biz.mindspring.com> >I am not home right now - going thru a pile of stuff I have stored >elsewhere - and came across some logic I am not familiar with. MC5xx from >Motorola ring a bell? > Military temperature range of the MTTL I 4xx series logic. Seems to be 5V TTL but I only have a device selector tables, not full datasheets. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 4 13:31:03 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 11:31:03 -0700 Subject: OT: RoHS was: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <4483223C.6070202@DakotaCom.Net> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <200606040834210311.735189CB@192.168.42.129> <200606041047460623.00608031@10.0.0.252> <4483223C.6070202@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606041131030177.00881EFB@10.0.0.252> On 6/4/2006 at 11:11 AM Don Y wrote: >We also used to have "fluoroscopes" (sp?) in shoe stores. >And asbestos siding on houses. Are you one of the greying folks who use Grecian Formula 16 to hide the effects of age? 0.6% lead acetate--a very toxic substance. Sometimes blamed as a factor in the decline of the Roman Empire (ancient Romans used to boil wine in lead pots to "sweeten" it. Lead acetate is also known as "sugar of lead" because of its sweet taste). Cheers, Chuck From djg at pdp8.net Sun Jun 4 13:37:53 2006 From: djg at pdp8.net (djg at pdp8.net) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 14:37:53 -0400 Subject: 3 pdp8/a chassis free for pickup Message-ID: <200606041837.k54IbrQ06408@user-119apiu.biz.mindspring.com> >Joe r. or anybody interested in picking these up in Melbourne fl, please >contact thom at 321-537-2384. They are in reasonable condition, no 8018 >regulators installed. > I'm needing transformer, fans, and power entry module for a chassis I have that does have the regulator. If anybody is willing to ship a chassis or parts to MD for a reasonable handling I would appreciate it. I could also trade for it a G8018 in unknown condition. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 4 14:15:42 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 12:15:42 -0700 Subject: OT: RoHS was: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <200606041131030177.00881EFB@10.0.0.252> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <200606040834210311.735189CB@192.168.42.129> <200606041047460623.00608031@10.0.0.252> <4483223C.6070202@DakotaCom.Net> <200606041131030177.00881EFB@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4483315E.8010209@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/4/2006 at 11:11 AM Don Y wrote: > >> We also used to have "fluoroscopes" (sp?) in shoe stores. >> And asbestos siding on houses. > > Are you one of the greying folks who use Grecian Formula 16 to hide the > effects of age? 0.6% lead acetate--a very toxic substance. Sometimes Nope. Not prone to vanity :> Though my facial hair is almost stark white (and has been since my 30's) > blamed as a factor in the decline of the Roman Empire (ancient Romans used > to boil wine in lead pots to "sweeten" it. Lead acetate is also known as > "sugar of lead" because of its sweet taste). Yup. Kids eat paint... From gkaufman at the-planet.org Sun Jun 4 14:15:43 2006 From: gkaufman at the-planet.org (Gary E Kaufman) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 15:15:43 -0400 Subject: A few oddball items for trade.... In-Reply-To: <200606041702.k54H2lhd070903@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: I have a few oddball items I'd be happy to trade away for things I could use. I can email pictures of any of these. PDP 11/04 Front Panel Vector 4607 protoboards (3 each), PDP 11 style edge connectors SWTPC Ascii Keyboard (no case) early version with diodes for encoding LCD Panel (Sharp LQ12S56) and Keyboard from Dell Latitude CP series And free for postage, PCB from an Exidy Starfire game (eproms are gone). I'm interested in S100 stuff, a Decmate I Keyboard, Nixie and Vacuum tubes etc. - Gary From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Sun Jun 4 14:47:56 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 21:47:56 +0200 Subject: question about ELF executable In-Reply-To: <44832667.5000301@brothom.nl> References: <44832667.5000301@brothom.nl> Message-ID: <20060604214756.11de0df7@SirToby.dinner41.de> On Sun, 04 Jun 2006 19:28:55 +0100 Bert Thomas wrote: > Is there perhaps anyone here that can answer this question? > ELF executables have program segment headers, [...] Search the net for a file named "elf-64-hp.pdf". It contains a quite good description of the ELF format. The source of objcopy(1) and nm(1) may be of use also. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 4 15:02:54 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 13:02:54 -0700 Subject: ISO: Wide HVD SCSI SBUS In-Reply-To: References: <4478E279.1040905@DakotaCom.Net> <4479527A.7080606@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44833C6E.4050308@DakotaCom.Net> Well, I appear to have struck out on the SBUS HVD aproach. Is it worth pursuing 2944's for use in a U10? Or, should I just add the storage arrays to the "hazardous waste" recycling pile and relace them with a few 160G IDE drives? Thanks! --don Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 12:34 AM -0700 5/28/06, Don Y wrote: >> Zane H. Healy wrote: >>> At 4:36 PM -0700 5/27/06, Don Y wrote: >>>> I'm looking for two or three HVD wide SCSI SBUS cards >>>> to connect some storage arrays to an SS20. Does anyone >>>> have any that they would care to part with? >>> >>> Depending on what OS you intend to use, you'll want to watch out for >>> which cards you get. I know most of the ones we used at work >>> wouldn't work on newer than Solaris 2.6. >> >> Ouch! I didn;t know there were different flavors of HVD cards! >> (not to be confused with LVD cards) Are you sure these are >> SBUS cards (SPARC) and not PCI cards? > > Trust me, I know the difference. :^) Up until two weeks ago when the > last Ultra 2's were retired, I've spent the last 10 years maintaining > some S-Bus systems. It caused some real problems for me 2-3 years ago > when we moved a bunch of the remaining U2's to Solaris 8. Of the ones > I'm aware of, PTI made at least two different cards, neither will work > past 2.6, and Sun made at least two cards, one won't work past 2.6, and > one will work with at least Solaris 8. We originally used SE-to-DIFF > converters, these might be the way for you to go. That way you can use > better supported SE-SCSI controllers, which will work under newer > versions of Solaris. We used these for years on some Auspex fileservers. From trs-80 at cableone.net Sun Jun 4 16:07:21 2006 From: trs-80 at cableone.net (Steve Phipps) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 16:07:21 -0500 Subject: WTB: Compaq Portable 3 or similar Message-ID: <001001c6881a$df172100$8a02a8c0@steve6isvpk5vy> Hi all, Still looking for a good working Compaq Portable 3 or similar Compaq "lunchbox" portable... preferably one of the plasma screen models. I believe they also made 286 and 386 versions in these. I'll pay a fair price. Will also consider a Compaq Portable 1 or 2 , the CRT versions, if cheap enough. Let me know... Thanks, Steve trs-80 at cableone.net From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 4 16:04:23 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 22:04:23 +0100 (BST) Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jun 4, 6 02:56:25 pm Message-ID: > > On 6/4/06, Tony Duell wrote: > > 'Digital circuits are built from Analogue parts' (one of Vonada's lawas > > IIRC). > > > > I haev never understood how you can understand digitial electronics > > properly and not understand analogue electronics. I certaimly couldn't > > understnad digital stuff until I understood things like transmision > > lines, termination, etc. > > Well... as someone who considers his own knowledge of analog circuits > to be inferior to his own knowledge of digital circuits, let me say > this - while I _know_ that at the lowest level, all digital circuits > are really just collections of analog parts, in practice, as long as > you aren't working with a design at the edge of the envelope, you can > ignore 90% of analog theory and still have an understanding that works > on the circuit in front of you. The problem comes when you end up with a circuit that works 90% _of the time_ becuase you've got a reflection somewhere that you shouldn't, or coupling between gates (either due to stray capacitance between traces, or becasue of inadequate power rail decoupling, or...) that you don't want. One thing that's _very_ important to rememebr is that the frequency you need to consider when designing is not determined by the clock frequency you're using, but by the sharpness of the edges of the logic signals (that is, the rise/fall times). Most modern chips (things like CPLDs, etc) have quite fast rise/fall times. You may only have a 1kHz master clock on your board (or whatever), you still need to do the design assuming there are multi-hundered-MHz signals around. > OTOH, I've seen mysterious problems take a long time to solve when > *completely* overlooking the analog aspects of a TTL circuit - one in > particular was undershoot and ringing with a 74S409 DRAM controller > hooked up to a field of 32 4164s. The eventual solution was to insert > 33 Ohm resistors in-line on the CAS and RAS lines to dampen the Yes, series termination. Very common in such circuits. And that's another thing I recoemnd. Read -- and understand -- as many complete circuit diagrams as yoy can. Not the cut-down, ideallised ones you find in some so-called text books. But real ones, from actual working products. You'll soon see where termination is considered essential. No, I am not suggesting copying complete commercial designs and claiming them as yor own. But you can pick up tricks from such circuits. The list of references in my Ph.D. thesis includes several to PDP11 printsets and technical manauls. Not because I copied the PDP11 (I wasn't even building a processor), but because some of the tricks pulled in the PDP11/45 to save a few ns were, when translated into F TTL and ECL, were very useful. Alas most students never get to see a complete, working circuit diagram of anything. Once I met a chap who'd just graduated in engineering, and had specialised in RF work. I put the scheamtic of a discrete-transistor AM radio (nothing special, a superhet of course) and asked him to explain what each of the components was for. He was totally lost. I don't think he even spotted the IF transformers. > undershoot to where the ringing didn't cause a problem - it was still > there, but at an amplitude that didn't have a negative effect. I was > amused to see the identical solution 2 years later in a Commodore > "slap-on-the-front" RAM expansion for the Amiga 1000 - the card was > literally the connector, one capacitor per DRAM, the DRAM, and a > couple of 33 Ohm (38 Ohm?) resistor packs. I am trying to think of a DRAM board using 4116ws, 4164s or 41256s that doesn't sereis-terminate the RAS/ and CAS/ lines and probably the address lines and WE/ line as well. 33 Ohm or 68 Ohm resistors are common for this. I rememebr soldering in dozens of the darn things when I upgraded a part-filled Unibus RAM board. > So there are certainly many cases where it _is_ important to have a > good grounding (pun intended) in analog theory (transmission lines, > parasitic capacitance, hidden inductance, RF effects, etc), but for a I learnt years ago that the most difficult part of a digital circuit to understand is the wire (OK, PCB traces :-)) linking the gates together. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 4 16:07:26 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 22:07:26 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of In-Reply-To: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> from "Gooijen, Henk" at Jun 4, 6 11:11:40 am Message-ID: > For repair of non-RoHS complint equipment, it is still allowed to use the > "old" parts. The RoHS rule only applies to new-built equipment. > As a hobbyist you must make sure that you do not mix RoHS and non-RoHS part= > s > because the technique and the material to solder these parts are different.= A friend of mine who should understand this has told me it's OK to solder modern, lead-free components with leaded solder (and to solder them onto old boards with lead 'tinning'), but not to use lead-free solder on leaded parts. So I should be able to buy, say, modern lead-free resistors and solder them with leaded solder into my PDP11s. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 4 16:13:02 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 22:13:02 +0100 (BST) Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: <000f01c687e8$41a2d270$655b2c0a@w2kdell> from "Andy Holt" at Jun 4, 6 04:05:02 pm Message-ID: > > Tony wrote: > > I haev never understood how you can understand digitial electronics > > properly and not understand analogue electronics. I certaimly couldn't > > understnad digital stuff until I understood things like transmision > > lines, termination, etc. > You can understand it well enough to use for many practical purposes by just > knowing a few "rules of thumb"*. A better, but still not necessarily True enough. I don't set up a TDR every time I wire up a simple logic circuit.. (I have been known to assume that a twisted pair of wire-wrap wire with 3 twists per inch has a chracteristic impedance of 120 Ohms, though. That is near enough for most circuits!). > detailed, understanding of the analogue background can help considerably in > some of the more tricky situations - especially if you are > "stretching"/abusing the "rules". Too detailed a consideration of the > background can actually get in the way [the best example I have of this is > the realisation that one has much more tolerance in termination than > analogue theorists tend to expect - half or double the normal termination A good understanding includes an understanding of tolerances IMHO. I have no time at all for so-called engineers (and I've met plenty of them) who can calculate component values to 10 significant figures but have no idea how accurate they actually need to be (hint, for pull-up resistors a factor of 10 may make little difference). A good undersanding of the analogue side of 'digital eleectronics' includes, therefore, knowing when you need to terminate a signal, and how accurate that teminator needs to be. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 4 15:46:47 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 21:46:47 +0100 (BST) Subject: MATE-N-LOK 8p flat connector availability In-Reply-To: <10606040045.ZM26360@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> from "Pete Turnbull" at Jun 4, 6 00:45:22 am Message-ID: > > On Jun 3 2006, 23:09, Tony Duell wrote: > > > I am looking for a somewhat similar connector. I am not sure if it's > > AMP or Molex, but I suspect it's one or the other. > > > > It has 5 pins in a straight line. The pins look to be the normal > > 0.093" ones. The face of the socket housing looks a bit like this: > > > > > > /o\ > > |o| > > |o| > > |o| > > |o| > > - > > > > That is, 5 pins in a line, with one end of the housing pointed for > > polarisation. > > I'm pretty sure this isn't AMP, but it looks like a Molex 0.093" Power It might well be. I've not seen a maker's name on the moulding. > Connector. A lot of these are made in panel-mount as well as > free-hanging styles, but the five-way is only made as free-hanging The panel-mount ones I've seen had little plastic clips moulded into them to lock into the hole on the panel. It's easy to cyt those off if you want to turn a panel-mount into a free-hanging one. > according to my old Molex catalogue. However, it says there's a mating In this case, the connector is used in-line, it's not panel mounted. On the rear panel of the 9810/9820 are mounted most of the 'mains' components -- the power transformer, fan, mains filter, fuseholders, mains in/out connectors. A 4 way screend cable (rated to carry mains) is connected to this lot, and runs down the side of the case. On the front end of it is the socket half of this connector (the 5 pins being 2 for mains in, 2 for mains out to the transformer, and a ground for the screen). Another length of similar cable is wired to the plug half of the connector, the other end of that coonnects to the (double pole) mains switch on the front of the keyboard assembly. > unshrouded vertical header in their 1840 series, and "vertical headers > may be assembled using PC tail terminals in standard housing". The No, it's not PCB mounted. What I want to do is wire up a plug housing with the appropriate pairs of pins linked together to simulate a turned-on power switch. Then I can plug that into the end of the cable from the transformer assemnbly, and power up the machine with the keyboard totally removed (using the switch on the mains socket outlet to turn it on/off). Since it's mains, I want to get the right housing, rather than use bare pins covered in heat-shrink or something. > receptacle part is 03-09-1052, it's 27.2mm long x 6.2mm wide; the plug > part is 03-09-2052, 30.0mm long x 8.6mm wide. Each pin is rated 9A at > 250V in these housings. Easily enough (as you'd expect from HP at that time). The transformer has a mains fuse (1A for 2330V mains, 2A for 115V mains). There's also a 6A mains input fuse 'before' this connector. Now all I need to do is find a source. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 4 15:49:43 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 21:49:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of In-Reply-To: <025801c6877c$4790bc40$6700a8c0@vrs> from "vrs" at Jun 3, 6 07:12:06 pm Message-ID: > OK, the question running through my mind is how this affects resale of our > old gear. Is that grandfathered in somehow, or is that no longer allowed > either? What about board level replacement parts, etc.? I beleive (at least in the UK), what matters is the date the machine (etc) was first sold in the EU. In other words you can sell second-hand stuff that contains leaded solder. I am not sure if it's illegal, though, for me to buy an old machine from somebody in the States and have it sent to me. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 4 16:17:20 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 22:17:20 +0100 (BST) Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: from "dwight elvey" at Jun 4, 6 08:20:11 am Message-ID: > Of course, one is hopelessly lost fixing power supplies without some > analog knowledge. Understanding feedback and how each part effects I would love to see anyone understand an SMPSU without understanding analogue electronics... > the other is the key to fixing these parts. I see so many times that > some fellow will say, I've replaced all the capacitors and it still doesn't > work. They ask for help but I often don't know where to start. Should > I begin with elementary electronics or just use them as a remote VOM and > oscilloscope. That depends, IMHO, on who it is, and what they are trying to do. If they just need to get the machine up and running again, then ask them to do some tests, and tell them what component to change. If they want to learn about repairs, then explain what they are doing. Anyone who askes me how to fix their classic computer gets the latter approach. I think it's important that you should understands what you are doing. I remember talking to a chap in Germany about repairing a (digital, but the principle is the same) fault on an HP9810. I had a pretty good idea where the fault was at the start, but I wasn't prepared to tell him -- that is to make a guess. I got him to do a number of tests (including teacing bits of the CPU microcode) to fidn out where the fault really was. He ended up fixing his machine _and_ understanding the processor. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 4 15:51:46 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 21:51:46 +0100 (BST) Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: <200606032253.40818.rtellason@blazenet.net> from "Roy J. Tellason" at Jun 3, 6 10:53:40 pm Message-ID: > I think it's the way that it's too often taught these days -- people come out > of that *thinking* that they understand it, when they don't, really. Moaning about modern teaching methods (and the syllabi) is another matter. Don't get me started on that, please... -tony From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 4 17:08:26 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 15:08:26 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606041508260697.014F262D@10.0.0.252> On 6/4/2006 at 10:07 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >A friend of mine who should understand this has told me it's OK to solder >modern, lead-free components with leaded solder (and to solder them onto >old boards with lead 'tinning'), but not to use lead-free solder on >leaded parts. So I should be able to buy, say, modern lead-free resistors >and solder them with leaded solder into my PDP11s. That's true--leaded solder will contaminate lead-free and cause it to weaken considerably. But then, that's the case of lead in combination with any other soldering/brazing material in general. When I silver solder (well, actually silver-braze) old botched repairs in brass that were done with tin-lead solder, I have to remove every last bit of the leaded solder before I can braze. Otherwise, the lead will make the silver (56% silver, the remainder copper) braze very brittle and it will fail in no time at all. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 4 17:16:24 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 15:16:24 -0700 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606041516240187.01566F47@10.0.0.252> On 6/4/2006 at 10:13 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >A good undersanding of the analogue side of 'digital eleectronics' >includes, therefore, knowing when you need to terminate a signal, and how >accurate that teminator needs to be. In a sense, hobbyists have been spoiled by the simplicity of connecting up TTL (and before that, RTL and DTL). Had the industry standardized on ECL, things would be quite a bit more interesting on the design end. Cheers, Chuck From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Jun 4 17:23:28 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 16:23:28 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44835D60.3080703@jetnet.ab.ca> Tony Duell wrote: > A friend of mine who should understand this has told me it's OK to solder > modern, lead-free components with leaded solder (and to solder them onto > old boards with lead 'tinning'), but not to use lead-free solder on > leaded parts. So I should be able to buy, say, modern lead-free resistors > and solder them with leaded solder into my PDP11s. Well modern parts are better, but sometimes you still need *GOOD* quality old stuff too. I am building a valve amp and I want the best value for my money, but I can't find offhand a good source for some 3 watt 100 ohm bias pots and a 100k adjustable pot for the regulated powersupply voltage adjust since you can't use the new-tiny resistors that they seem to market now days. I seem to like working my own valve stuff since you can hold and even see the parts that you need to solder too. From allain at panix.com Sun Jun 4 17:47:03 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 18:47:03 -0400 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) References: Message-ID: <009f01c68828$cd1f7ca0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> > Alas most students never get to see a complete, working circuit diagram > of anything. Once I met a chap who'd just graduated in engineering, and Sol Libes just reminded us at this years VCF/east that DEC printsets were so open that a poor student with a summer free would just order the printset and build themselves a PDP-8 from scratch if they wanted one bad enough. John A. From doug.jackson at ewa-australia.com Sun Jun 4 19:01:58 2006 From: doug.jackson at ewa-australia.com (Doug Jackson) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 10:01:58 +1000 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <200606040127.k541PhA3063498@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606040127.k541PhA3063498@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <44837476.9000104@ewa-australia.com> > I wish the fact that the PDP-8 clone can be hooked upto a IDE drive > and you have real PDP-8 TTY I/O was more implied at the time. I would > like to get this clone ( PCB & custiom parts) but I still feel with out > a paper tape reader/punch you just can't do software right with the 8. > PS. And the idea of using a PC for a smart terminal *SUCKS*. I brought one of Bob's boards about 18 months ago, and it works a treat. The board has a fully supported IDE interface that allows it to "just Work" with an IDE drive. If you use an adapter, it will work with a CF Card as well. On the terminal front, being a PDP-8 clone, it does need a console of some description. While it does not provide a current loop interface for the ASR-33, its RS-232 serial just plugs into my VT52. I highly commend this board to anybody considering one. It sure is smaller than the PDP-8i that I played with as a kid. regards Doug -- Doug Jackson, MAIPM, MIEEE Senior Information Security Consultant EWA-AUSTRALIA PO Box 6308 O'Connor ACT 2602 Level 1, 214 Northbourne Ave, Braddon ACT 2612 Tel: +61 (0)2 6230 6833 Fax: +61 (0)2 6230 5833 Mob: +61 (0)414 986 878 http://www.ewa-australia.com ============================================ IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of Electronic Warfare Associates - Australia. If you have received this email in error, you are requested to contact doug.jackson at ewa-australia.com or Ph +61 2 62306833 and delete the email. This message is not to be copied or distributed to other parties without the express permission of the author. Any personal information in this email must be handled in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). ============================================ From chd_1 at nktelco.net Sun Jun 4 21:10:53 2006 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (C. H. Dickman) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 22:10:53 -0400 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448392AD.7040806@nktelco.net> Tony Duell wrote: > I am not sure if it's illegal, though, for me to buy an old machine from > somebody in the States and have it sent to me. > This is the type of question that my employer (midwest, USA) is struggling with. We have hundreds of machine tools sold to Europe over the last 30 years. Are we allowed to ship non-compliant repair parts? Some say yes, some say no. If we refuse to ship parts, we risk future sales of $10s of millions a year. If we ship parts (and its against the law), we risk being excluded from the market completely. No wonder my bosses think this is all a just another trade barrier by other means. -chuck From aw288 at osfn.org Sun Jun 4 21:34:07 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 22:34:07 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: <200606041516240187.01566F47@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: > In a sense, hobbyists have been spoiled by the simplicity of connecting up > TTL (and before that, RTL and DTL). Had the industry standardized on ECL, > things would be quite a bit more interesting on the design end. Yes, like programmiung in Pascal, engineers would need to follow all the rules. Some might say that would be a good thing... Anyway, some years ago I did some 100K design, and pretty much if you follow all of the rules in the Fairchild book, nearly all of the weirdo analog (radio?) problems drop from sight. It actually was not too hard to get away with doing a good digital design while not knowing much analog theory. You just had to pull out the ruler quite a few times - now how long is that trace? 100G scared me, so I never did anything with that except get some parts and datasheets. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 4 22:04:01 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 20:04:01 -0700 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44839F21.5080606@DakotaCom.Net> William Donzelli wrote: >> In a sense, hobbyists have been spoiled by the simplicity of connecting up >> TTL (and before that, RTL and DTL). Had the industry standardized on ECL, >> things would be quite a bit more interesting on the design end. > > Yes, like programmiung in Pascal, engineers would need to follow all the > rules. Some might say that would be a good thing... Blech. It's awfully had to do anything *interesting* in Pascal... If you want to force folks to carry around lots of excess baggage, why not pick Ada? :-( > Anyway, some years ago I did some 100K design, and pretty much if you > follow all of the rules in the Fairchild book, nearly all of the weirdo > analog (radio?) problems drop from sight. It actually was not too hard to > get away with doing a good digital design while not knowing much analog > theory. You just had to pull out the ruler quite a few times - now how > long is that trace? I worked on a 100MHz (doesn't sound like much, 30 years later :> ) CPU in the mid 70's. The problems I found were all the *different* ECL families (10K, 100K, MECL III, etc.) plus all the other cruft to interface the real world to them (4000 series CMOS for the JTAG stuff, other level translators for the "fast" stuff). And, the colossal *power* requirements (>500W for that CPU alone!). Of course, with more integration, that wouldn't be as big an issue (since a good deal of power is expended in the pin drivers). But, the idea of having to debug with nothing metallic on one's person (for fear of serious injury) was not something I looked forward to... > 100G scared me, so I never did anything with that except get some parts > and datasheets. From aw288 at osfn.org Sun Jun 4 22:26:36 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 23:26:36 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: <44839F21.5080606@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: > I worked on a 100MHz (doesn't sound like much, 30 years later :> ) > CPU in the mid 70's. Damn impressive for the 1970s. What CPU? > The problems I found were all the *different* > ECL families (10K, 100K, MECL III, etc.) plus all the other > cruft to interface the real world to them (4000 series CMOS > for the JTAG stuff, other level translators for the "fast" > stuff). 10K sucked. MECL III sucked. 100K was the way to go, except for the relatively skimpy selection. And never mix... > And, the colossal *power* requirements (>500W for > that CPU alone!). Real computers used real power supplies. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From evan at snarc.net Sun Jun 4 22:39:30 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 23:39:30 -0400 Subject: Sad news -- Alan Kotok Message-ID: <000001c68851$a819a7e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/03/business/03kotok.html From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 4 22:57:21 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 20:57:21 -0700 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4483ABA1.4040104@DakotaCom.Net> William Donzelli wrote: >> I worked on a 100MHz (doesn't sound like much, 30 years later :> ) >> CPU in the mid 70's. > > Damn impressive for the 1970s. What CPU? It was a custom device. I.e. the CPU was fabricated entirely of discrete ECL chips. The size of a medium sized briefcase. >> The problems I found were all the *different* >> ECL families (10K, 100K, MECL III, etc.) plus all the other >> cruft to interface the real world to them (4000 series CMOS >> for the JTAG stuff, other level translators for the "fast" >> stuff). > > 10K sucked. MECL III sucked. 100K was the way to go, except for the > relatively skimpy selection. And never mix... But you couldn't get "everything" in any given family. Hence the problems... >> And, the colossal *power* requirements (>500W for >> that CPU alone!). > > Real computers used real power supplies. Yeah, I always enjoyed "adjusting" the -Vbb supply -- a *shunt* regulator fabricated with a whopping big Lambda power supply driving *BIG* diodes to ground... "select at test". Crude but it *worked*! Power supplies that big can't descriminate between their load and a dead short! :-( From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jun 4 22:57:35 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 15:57:35 +1200 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <44831AC3.1010809@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <44831AC3.1010809@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On 6/5/06, woodelf wrote: > With my soldering a socket is a good idea. Practice, man, practice (the punchline to an old musician's joke about how to get to Carnegie Hall). > I just downloaded the PCB manual ... ARG 1/2 Size crystal Oscillators, > and none of my favorite suppliers have them.Well one does but it has a > $50 min order. I tend to shop at the online surplus places and I don't > even think of modern parts. They are easy enough to get from places like DigiKey, but I agree that they aren't found in often in surplus shops. -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 4 23:03:05 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 21:03:05 -0700 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606042103050399.0293D313@10.0.0.252> On 6/4/2006 at 10:34 PM William Donzelli wrote: >Yes, like programmiung in Pascal, engineers would need to follow all the >rules. Some might say that would be a good thing... A little anachronistic, don't you think? Pascal didn't come until about 1970. Maybe ALGOL-60? Cheers, Chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jun 4 23:59:05 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 16:59:05 +1200 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/5/06, Tony Duell wrote: > > Of course, one is hopelessly lost fixing power supplies without some > > analog knowledge. Understanding feedback and how each part effects > > I would love to see anyone understand an SMPSU without understanding > analogue electronics... That is, I think, why I have so much problem trying to fix them - my understanding of analog is inadequate. -ethan From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jun 3 07:28:40 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 09:28:40 -0300 Subject: [more or less OT]: Hitachi V1100A scope manual References: <200606022240.52526.rtellason@blazenet.net> Message-ID: <003e01c68709$64be0cf0$01fea8c0@alpha> Dear friends, Anyone got a spare copy or a PDF of the Hitachi V1100A Scope? There are too many buttons here, every one of them gotta have a function ;o) Thanks, Alexandre From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sun Jun 4 12:41:31 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 14:41:31 -0300 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <44831AC3.1010809@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <02f601c687fe$a18c3080$01fea8c0@alpha> > > I don't know about anyone else, but _I_ socketed 100% of the ICs on my > > SBC-6120. Given the cost of the blank PCB, I didn't think that a few > > $$$ more for sockets was a burden. > With my soldering a socket is a good idea. > I just downloaded the PCB manual ... ARG 1/2 Size crystal Oscillators, > and none of my favorite suppliers have them.Well one does but it has a > $50 min order. I tend to shop at the online surplus places and I don't > even think of modern parts. No board should be without sockets. Period. Even in prototype boards, you should use that. They are cheap comparing to the price of your time for a future problem diagnose, or for the care of the board in case you need to change one or two ICs. Sockets are cheap, love them! ;o) From dakotadv at yahoo.com Sun Jun 4 20:48:48 2006 From: dakotadv at yahoo.com (dakota dave) Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 18:48:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: RCA WO-33A Manual available Message-ID: <20060605014848.4470.qmail@web34408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Yeah if you have that manual I'm interested ! Thanks ! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From cheri-post at web.de Mon Jun 5 01:28:51 2006 From: cheri-post at web.de (Pierre Gebhardt) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 08:28:51 +0200 Subject: How silly can collectors be? Message-ID: <1308681984@web.de> > -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- > Von: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Gesendet: 04.06.06 18:34:04 > An: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Betreff: Re: How silly can collectors be? > On Saturday 03 June 2006 15:06, Joost van de Griek wrote: > > On 6/1/06 11:35 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > > Ok, so I thought that the prices on the S/370 consoles were silly, but > > > at least you were getting something which was obscure and hard to > > > reproduce. > > > > > > How much is a small piece of aluminum with some lettering on it worth? > > > Aparently, between $125 and $411... > > > > Once something is collectible, value is very hard to establish. While such > > a price for a "small piece of aluminium with some lettering on it" may seem > > outrageous to you, if it is the final missing piece in someone's > > collection, that price may be peanuts compared to the increase of the > > complete collection's value. > > I'd agree with you, but I'm pretty sure that in at least fordkdkk, that's > probably not the case, from what I've learned from other collectors. > > Pat In the above case, I'd say that some people apparently just have too much money and do not really know what to do with it.... Pierre > -- > Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ > The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org ______________________________________________________________ Verschicken Sie romantische, coole und witzige Bilder per SMS! Jetzt bei WEB.DE FreeMail: http://f.web.de/?mc=021193 From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 5 02:36:05 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 01:36:05 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <44837476.9000104@ewa-australia.com> References: <200606040127.k541PhA3063498@dewey.classiccmp.org> <44837476.9000104@ewa-australia.com> Message-ID: <4483DEE5.1010804@jetnet.ab.ca> Doug Jackson wrote: > I highly commend this board to anybody considering one. It sure is > smaller than the PDP-8i that I played with as a kid. I used a PDP8/S once, does that I mean I need to slow the CPU down? From bert at brothom.nl Mon Jun 5 06:24:52 2006 From: bert at brothom.nl (Bert Thomas) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:24:52 +0100 Subject: question about ELF executable In-Reply-To: <200606041823.k54INQ74024858@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200606041823.k54INQ74024858@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <44841484.3030404@brothom.nl> Brad Parker wrote: > Bert Thomas wrote: > >>The 3rd header contains an p_offset=0. Why? I don't get it. > > > it's been a while, but I don't think that offset is from the begining of > the file. i may be wrong, however. I thought there was a fixed size > header space (like 64k). There is, but this is what the description in the ELF standard for p_offset says: "This member gives the offset from the beginning of the file at which the first byte of the segment resides." So if p_offset = 0 it refers to the header ?! > > you might try looking at the linux exec code for elf files... that might > give you an idea how they get loaded. I will do, but even if I understand that, what can I possibly miss in the description of the formal standard? (Ref: http://www.skyfree.org/linux/references/ELF_Format.pdf) Thanks! Bert From rcini at optonline.net Mon Jun 5 06:54:21 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 07:54:21 -0400 Subject: Altair32-Cromemco Dazzler Pictures Message-ID: <003e01c68896$c8b365f0$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: I thought that some of you might like to see screen shots of several Cromemco Dazzler games and programs running on the Altair32, sent to me by a long-time contributor to the project: http://www.altair32.com/Altair32links.htm (Scroll down to the "Submitted Files" section). I don't have the working binaries yet but when I do, I will post them. This contributor also added support for the Cromemco joystick through the keyboard. Neat! Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ From jfoust at threedee.com Mon Jun 5 08:16:13 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 08:16:13 -0500 Subject: question about ELF executable In-Reply-To: <44841484.3030404@brothom.nl> References: <200606041823.k54INQ74024858@mwave.heeltoe.com> <44841484.3030404@brothom.nl> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060605072556.05651280@mail> At 06:24 AM 6/5/2006, Bert Thomas wrote: >>you might try looking at the linux exec code for elf files... that might >>give you an idea how they get loaded. > >I will do, but even if I understand that, what can I possibly miss in the description of the formal standard? You might find more clues here: "Smallest possible ELF executable?" http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/19/1233250 - John From fritz_chwolka at t-online.de Mon Jun 5 08:31:04 2006 From: fritz_chwolka at t-online.de (Fritz Chwolka) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 15:31:04 +0200 (CEST) Subject: ITT Service Manual In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1FnFAd-04ZmTI0@fwd28.sul.t-online.de> On Fri, 2 Jun 2006 11:31:20 +0200 (CEST), Christian Corti wrote: >Has anyone a copy of the ITT 3280 System service manual? I'm mostly >interested in the terminals sections, i.e. ITT 3285/3287. >The terminals may also be known as Courier C275 and C270. > >Christian > Sad - I have only the infos for ITT3030 at http://oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/pub/rechner/sel/itt3030/info.html Mit freundlichen Gruessen Fritz Chwolka From allain at panix.com Mon Jun 5 09:37:13 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 10:37:13 -0400 Subject: [midatlanticretro] Sad news -- Alan Kotok References: <000101c68851$ae440660$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <2e1eef530606042050u2c708feayb4de59e6fedee99a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <005a01c688ad$8a1b4300$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> A not-so-subtle reminder to keep my weight down. If you can find a better copy of the picture on this page, http://www-db.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/display/3-3.htm (it's in 'Digital at Work') Alan is the chubbiest guy on the team of 14. see also here for Alan http://research.microsoft.com/~gbell/Digital/timeline/1965-3.htm John A. FYI where on the Stanford page it says: "Does someone recognize the others?" They are (seated) Lydia McKalip, Bill Coburn, Ken Senior, Ken Fitzgerald, Norman Hurst, Harris Hyman (standing) Peter Samson, Leo Gossell, Gordon Bell, Alan Kotok, Russ Doane, Bill Kellicker, Bob Reed, George Vogelsang. From RLAAG at PACBELL.NET Mon Jun 5 10:18:04 2006 From: RLAAG at PACBELL.NET (BOB LAAG) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 08:18:04 -0700 Subject: Old computer stuff with 989102 and 989105 chips Message-ID: <44844B2C.3020909@PACBELL.NET> Just wondering if anyone has description and pinout of the old 989102 and 989105 I.C. chips??? From bob at jfcl.com Mon Jun 5 10:30:33 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 08:30:33 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life Message-ID: <04d401c688b5$03d88f20$0401010a@GIZMO> >woodelf bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: >I used a PDP8/S once, does that I mean I need to slow the CPU down? The SBC6120 is fully static; you can reduce the clock speed to anything you're comfortable with :-) On a more serious note along these lines - the HD6120 datasheet gives a maximum clock of 5.1MHz, however DEC ran the DECmate (-II/PC278, that is; I don't know about the -I/VT278) at 8MHz. I used to ship 5MHz crystals with the full kits just to be on the safe side, but I've always run mine at 8MHz and I know many other people who have done the same. Never found one that's failed to work at this speed. Does anybody know if DEC was using specially selected 6120s, or is the datasheet just conservative? Bob From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 5 11:16:43 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 09:16:43 -0700 Subject: Old computer stuff with 989102 and 989105 chips In-Reply-To: <44844B2C.3020909@PACBELL.NET> References: <44844B2C.3020909@PACBELL.NET> Message-ID: <200606050916430386.053380A1@10.0.0.252> On 6/5/2006 at 8:18 AM BOB LAAG wrote: >Just wondering if anyone has description and pinout of the old 989102 >and 989105 I.C. chips??? Bob, if you please--what system do these come out of and who made them? What package are these in? A number without any sort of reference isn't enough to get most of us even twitching to see if we might have something on them. Thanks, Chuck From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Mon Jun 5 12:11:02 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 18:11:02 +0100 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net><44831AC3.1010809@jetnet.ab.ca> <02f601c687fe$a18c3080$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <001701c688c3$06079bc0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> From: "Alexandre Souza" . > > No board should be without sockets. Period. > > Even in prototype boards, you should use that. They are cheap comparing > to the price of your time for a future problem diagnose, or for the care of > the board in case you need to change one or two ICs. Sockets are cheap, love > them! ;o) > Actually, lots of boards should not have sockets! For example, the RGB video combiner I'm designing at the moment, even those couple of extra pF can spoil things. I'll also cite early double sided boards, before through-hole plating - it is virtually impossible to solder both sides of a socket. Add anything working above about 10MHz, and you'll have it about right. Oh, and anything you want to be reliable...... Remember all those "I reseated the chips in their sockets and it worked" posts you've seen on this list! Jim. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 5 12:27:51 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 11:27:51 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <001701c688c3$06079bc0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net><44831AC3.1010809@jetnet.ab.ca> <02f601c687fe$a18c3080$01fea8c0@alpha> <001701c688c3$06079bc0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> Message-ID: <44846997.50407@jetnet.ab.ca> Jim Beacon wrote: > Remember all those "I reseated the chips in their sockets and it worked" > posts you've seen on this list! But we are talking Good Sockets here, not the 2 cent versions. > Jim. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 5 12:52:08 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 10:52:08 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <001701c688c3$06079bc0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <44831AC3.1010809@jetnet.ab.ca> <02f601c687fe$a18c3080$01fea8c0@alpha> <001701c688c3$06079bc0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> Message-ID: <200606051052080595.058ADC81@10.0.0.252> On 6/5/2006 at 6:11 PM Jim Beacon wrote: >Remember all those "I reseated the chips in their sockets and it worked" >posts you've seen on this list! Most folks think that the machine-pin sockets are the very best. I thought so too, until putting a piece of equipment on a shake table convinced me otherwise. If you want to withstand G forces, the better sockets to use for DIPs are the flat spring contact type that seat the DIP in sort of a "well" and make contact over the entire outside surface of the DIP pin. I can dig out the Augat part number, if anyone's really interested. Another not-so-obvious conclusion is that we found almost no difference vis-a-vis corrosion between the tinned and gold-plated versions when socketing a tinned-lead DIP when doing elevated temp and humidity tests. At least that's how it was 25 years ago. I haven't seen the DIP sockets with built-in decoupling caps for some time. I suppose it dawned on somemone eventually how difficult things get when the cap in those things fails. Cheers, Chuck From marvin at rain.org Mon Jun 5 12:53:40 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 10:53:40 -0700 Subject: IC Sockets was Re: SBC6120 ... Message-ID: <44846FA4.323EEA5D@rain.org> Sockets do have their place, but to say no board should be without sockets expresses a *VERY* narrow viewpoint. Many arcade game boards had sockets and gave no end of reliability problems. I would certainly agree that prototype boards probably need sockets, but I would not expand that to a generalization that all boards need sockets. > From: "Alexandre Souza" > No board should be without sockets. Period. > > Even in prototype boards, you should use that. They are cheap comparing > to the price of your time for a future problem diagnose, or for the care of > the board in case you need to change one or two ICs. Sockets are cheap, love > them! ;o) > From jrasite at eoni.com Mon Jun 5 13:14:57 2006 From: jrasite at eoni.com (Jim at work) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 11:14:57 -0700 Subject: Free for shipping References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net><44831AC3.1010809@jetnet.ab.ca> <02f601c687fe$a18c3080$01fea8c0@alpha><001701c688c3$06079bc0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> <44846997.50407@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <000801c688cb$f40dc6c0$5113fea9@supertech> Good morning, I currently work for an ISP in Eastern Oregon. Today's backroom clean-out day and we have a couple items that may be of interest. Cost? You pay the shipping to get them to you. 1.) Microcom ISPorte, 48 port analog modem rackmount chassis. Comes with (12) 4 port modems and both a spare power supply and a spare chassis. 2.) Computone Inteliserver. 64 port serial chassis. Comes with dead tree docs. 3.) (2) Comtrol 16 port serial cards. Comes in original boxes w/ dead tree docs. Rather than dropping this stuff in the dumpster, we like to find new homes for them. Any interest? Please respond to jamesa at eoni.com with a cc: to jeff at eoni.com Jim Arnott From stanb at dial.pipex.com Mon Jun 5 03:08:00 2006 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 09:08:00 +0100 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 04 Jun 2006 22:10:53 EDT." <448392AD.7040806@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <200606050808.JAA23305@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, "C. H. Dickman said: > This is the type of question that my employer (midwest, USA) is > struggling with. We have hundreds of machine tools sold to Europe over > the last 30 years. Are we allowed to ship non-compliant repair parts? > Some say yes, some say no. To quote a leading consultant* on RoHS matters: "Maintenance and repair - spare parts for repair, upgrade or reuse of electrical and electronic equipment on the market before 1st July 2006" [are exempt.] and "...the use of non-RoHS compliant material in EEE products put on the market before 1 July 2006 for the purposes of capacity expansion/upgrades is allowed, providing that the EEE is not put on the market as a new product." hth * Gary Nevison, chairman of the AFDEC RoHS team. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jun 5 13:16:40 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:16:40 -0400 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <200606051052080595.058ADC81@10.0.0.252> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <44831AC3.1010809@jetnet.ab.ca> <02f601c687fe$a18c3080$01fea8c0@alpha> <001701c688c3$06079bc0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> <200606051052080595.058ADC81@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44847508.8030703@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Most folks think that the machine-pin sockets are the very best. I thought > so too, until putting a piece of equipment on a shake table convinced me > otherwise. If you want to withstand G forces, the better sockets to use > for DIPs are the flat spring contact type that seat the DIP in sort of a > "well" and make contact over the entire outside surface of the DIP pin. I > can dig out the Augat part number, if anyone's really interested. Another I'm interested. Peace... Sridhar From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Mon Jun 5 13:28:37 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:28:37 -0400 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <001701c688c3$06079bc0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <44831AC3.1010809@jetnet.ab.ca> <02f601c687fe$a18c3080$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Jim Beacon may have mentioned these words: >I'll also cite early double sided >boards, before through-hole plating - it is virtually impossible to solder >both sides of a socket. Virtually impossible? I doubt that - however, there's a few caveats... Why not get wire-wrap sockets that have longer tails, and put a toothpick or popsicle stick under the socket when you solder it (with enough room to remove it later), then it will give enough room to solder the top as well, thereby bridging both layers. Sure, it's a little more labor, but can & does work... Granted, if you were working in a very limited height scenario, one might need to be careful with the extra height. > Add anything working above about 10MHz, and you'll >have it about right. Why 10Mhz? At least in a computer-centric sense, if sockets weren't possible to be used above that freq. how come 2+GHz CPUs can be socketed & work, and 400+Mhz memory can be socketed & work fine? [[ I have no knowledge of audio/analog circuit shiznit WRT stuff like that.... ]] >Oh, and anything you want to be reliable...... > >Remember all those "I reseated the chips in their sockets and it worked" >posts you've seen on this list! Use machine-turned or machine-pin sockets. Don't blame the socket for all the companies (CouATARIgh ;-) that used cheap sockets... Besides, cheap sockets are still better than no sockets when you need to repair or replace a ROM type chip (CouTANDYgh ;-) but I won't mention any names. ;^> Anyway, reseating chips isn't that difficult of a "fix" anyway... Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Bugs of a feather flock together." sysadmin, Iceberg Computers | Russell Nelson zmerch at 30below.com | From aw288 at osfn.org Mon Jun 5 13:49:06 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 14:49:06 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <001701c688c3$06079bc0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> Message-ID: > Oh, and anything you want to be reliable...... Also, when sockets are used in large quantities, manufacturing yield takes a dump. We have all mashed a pin or two in our lifetimes, trying to get something inserted (anyone that hasn't is a liar!). Now multiply that by several orders of magnitude on the assembly floor. ENgineers should try there best to avoid sockets. Period. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jun 5 13:52:59 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 11:52:59 -0700 Subject: Altair32-Cromemco Dazzler Pictures Message-ID: > I don't have the working binaries yet Would it be possible to find out if the program images are from the paper tapes that are up at http://bitsavers.org/bits/Cromemco/paperTapes/ It has been claimed that the tapes there were read incorrectly and Since I didn't know the format, I have no way to verify them. From rcini at optonline.net Mon Jun 5 14:00:07 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 15:00:07 -0400 Subject: Altair32-Cromemco Dazzler Pictures In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <005b01c688d2$43251050$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> I will check and let you know. I do not know the original source of the programs yet. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 2:53 PM To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Altair32-Cromemco Dazzler Pictures > I don't have the working binaries yet Would it be possible to find out if the program images are from the paper tapes that are up at http://bitsavers.org/bits/Cromemco/paperTapes/ It has been claimed that the tapes there were read incorrectly and Since I didn't know the format, I have no way to verify them. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jun 5 14:12:31 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:12:31 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <44831AC3.1010809@jetnet.ab.ca> <02f601c687fe$a18c3080$01fea8c0@alpha> <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <4484821F.2070509@DakotaCom.Net> Roger Merchberger wrote: > Rumor has it that Jim Beacon may have mentioned these words: > >> I'll also cite early double sided >> boards, before through-hole plating - it is virtually impossible to >> solder >> both sides of a socket. > > Virtually impossible? I doubt that - however, there's a few caveats... > > Why not get wire-wrap sockets that have longer tails, and put a > toothpick or popsicle stick under the socket when you solder it (with > enough room to remove it later), then it will give enough room to solder > the top as well, thereby bridging both layers. Sure, it's a little more > labor, but can & does work... Granted, if you were working in a very > limited height scenario, one might need to be careful with the extra > height. That also is problematic if the devices are located too close together. *But*, you can buy individual *pins* and solder them as well. E.g., consider how Augat panels are built... >> Oh, and anything you want to be reliable...... >> >> Remember all those "I reseated the chips in their sockets and it worked" >> posts you've seen on this list! > > Use machine-turned or machine-pin sockets. Don't blame the socket for > all the companies (CouATARIgh ;-) that used cheap sockets... Besides, > cheap sockets are still better than no sockets when you need to repair > or replace a ROM type chip (CouTANDYgh ;-) but I won't mention any > names. ;^> > > Anyway, reseating chips isn't that difficult of a "fix" anyway... Often, oxidation and corrosion (on a microscopic level) are the culprit. I've many older components with "tarnished" pins (legs). Even *soldering* to them is a chore unless you remove the cruft. From jcwren at jcwren.com Mon Jun 5 14:03:45 2006 From: jcwren at jcwren.com (J.C. Wren) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 15:03:45 -0400 Subject: Cromemco Dazzler value? Message-ID: <44848011.6040802@jcwren.com> What's a Dazzler board set with manuals worth these days? --jc From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Mon Jun 5 15:03:31 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 21:03:31 +0100 Subject: Paging Lee Davison... Message-ID: <7ce960324e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> Sorry for clogging up folks' bandwidth like this, but I'm trying to get in touch with Lee Davison. Does anyone know if he's still around? I asked him to have a go at fixing my Jupiter Ace a while back, now I want the thing back (to try and fix it myself ) and he's not replying to my emails (or not receiving them - one or the other)... Lee: can you contact me offlist either on this address or on philpem at philpem.me.uk so we can sort this out? Thanks. -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G VF+UniPod philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 1G+180G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 5 15:04:11 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 13:04:11 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <4484821F.2070509@DakotaCom.Net> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <44831AC3.1010809@jetnet.ab.ca> <02f601c687fe$a18c3080$01fea8c0@alpha> <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> <4484821F.2070509@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606051304110487.0603C0FD@10.0.0.252> >Roger Merchberger wrote: >> Rumor has it that Jim Beacon may have mentioned these words: >> I'll also cite early double sided boards, before through-hole plating - >> it is virtually impossible to solder both sides of a socket. Well, one of the solutions before plated vias was copper eyelets connecting each side. Other than being labor-intensive, I don't know why these still wouldn't work (assuming you could still obtain them. Cheers, Chuck From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Mon Jun 5 15:10:56 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 21:10:56 +0100 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> References: <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <44831AC3.1010809@jetnet.ab.ca> <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <8b9761324e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> In message <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08 at mail.30below.com> Roger Merchberger wrote: > Why not get wire-wrap sockets that have longer tails, and put a toothpick > or popsicle stick under the socket when you solder it (with enough room to > remove it later), then it will give enough room to solder the top as well, > thereby bridging both layers. Sure, it's a little more labor, but can & > does work... Granted, if you were working in a very limited height > scenario, one might need to be careful with the extra height. Another way - get a piece of wirewrap wire (well, I guess Roadrunner wire would be better, but w/w should work) and strip the insulation off of it. Put it through the hole and bend it over in a "U" shape. Solder the top side down to the track and cut off the excess wire. Then when you solder the socket in, solder the wire to the bottom side too (I usually wrap the wire round the socket's pin first). Cut off the excess wire. There you go - a through hole connection. That trick is usually pretty handy when you desolder something and some of the through-hole plating eyelets end up pulling out with the pin. > [[ I have no knowledge of audio/analog circuit shiznit WRT stuff like > that.... ]] Me neither... I've got some basic analogue skills (mostly related to using opamps for VERY basic signal processing) but ask me to make a transistor audio amplifier and I'm lost... I do however know a lot of the little 'thou shalt not break this rule' type stuff - one decoupling capacitor of between 10nF and 100nF between Vcc and ground as close to the power pins on the IC as possible, and so forth. > Anyway, reseating chips isn't that difficult of a "fix" anyway... Well it beats replacing unsocketed chips any day. Swap-in/swap-out vs. cut pins off/desolder/clean holes/install new chip/clean more holes/install/solder/resolder the pad you missed.... :) -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G VF+UniPod philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 1G+180G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From rtellason at blazenet.net Mon Jun 5 15:11:35 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 16:11:35 -0400 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <02f601c687fe$a18c3080$01fea8c0@alpha> <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <200606051611.35509.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Monday 05 June 2006 02:28 pm, Roger Merchberger wrote: > > Add anything working above about 10MHz, and you'll > >have it about right. > > Why 10Mhz? At least in a computer-centric sense, if sockets weren't > possible to be used above that freq. how come 2+GHz CPUs can be socketed & > work, and 400+Mhz memory can be socketed & work fine? Seems to me I remember somebody or other opining as to how that was more or less the practical limit for the S-100 bus... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at blazenet.net Mon Jun 5 15:15:16 2006 From: rtellason at blazenet.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 16:15:16 -0400 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <200606051304110487.0603C0FD@10.0.0.252> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4484821F.2070509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606051304110487.0603C0FD@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606051615.16225.rtellason@blazenet.net> On Monday 05 June 2006 04:04 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > >Roger Merchberger wrote: > >> Rumor has it that Jim Beacon may have mentioned these words: > >> I'll also cite early double sided boards, before through-hole plating - > >> > >> it is virtually impossible to solder both sides of a socket. > > Well, one of the solutions before plated vias was copper eyelets connecting > each side. Other than being labor-intensive, I don't know why these still > wouldn't work (assuming you could still obtain them. They're still out there, I saw this subject come up in lists where people were DIY'ing boards, wanted double-sided but didn't want to get into the whole hassle of trying to get the holes plated through or similar. Not easy to find, 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 dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Jun 5 16:26:38 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (dave06a at dunfield.com) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 16:26:38 -0500 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <8b9761324e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> > > Anyway, reseating chips isn't that difficult of a "fix" anyway... > > Well it beats replacing unsocketed chips any day. Swap-in/swap-out vs. > cut pins off/desolder/clean holes/install new chip/clean more > holes/install/solder/resolder the pad you missed.... IMHO, and essential tool if you are serious about doing any kind of rework is a good desoldering station. Takes a bit of time, but if done it right, the chip just lifts out with no damage to it or the board. One of the best investments to my workbench that I ever made.... 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 dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Jun 5 15:28:57 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 13:28:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <44831AC3.1010809@jetnet.ab.ca> <02f601c687fe$a18c3080$01fea8c0@alpha> <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 5 Jun 2006, Roger Merchberger wrote: > Rumor has it that Jim Beacon may have mentioned these words: > > >I'll also cite early double sided > >boards, before through-hole plating - it is virtually impossible to solder > >both sides of a socket. > > Virtually impossible? I doubt that - however, there's a few caveats... Most documents I've read on making homemade PCBs discuss doing exactly this by using machined-pin sockets. There's enough metal on the parts side to make it work. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu From jvdg at sparcpark.net Mon Jun 5 15:28:59 2006 From: jvdg at sparcpark.net (Joost van de Griek) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 22:28:59 +0200 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <001701c688c3$06079bc0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> Message-ID: On 6/5/06 7:11 PM, Jim Beacon wrote: > it is virtually impossible to solder both sides of a socket. Depends on the socket type. ,xtG .tsooJ -- Capitalisation is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse," and "I had to help my uncle jack off a horse." -- Joost van de Griek From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jun 5 15:31:51 2006 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:31:51 -0600 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 03 Jun 2006 22:40:15 +0100. Message-ID: In article , ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > I haev never understood how you can understand digitial electronics > properly and not understand analogue electronics. [...] Simple. Digital electronics implement logic and for the most part you can ignore any analog effects within reason (I don't care about rise time when I'm concerned with the correct logic, for instance.) Start out by learning programming, then have someone teach you digital electronics reasonably competently. Then have someone awful try to teach you analog electronics from a crappy book using antiquated terminology. (When was the last time you heard someone refer to a capacitor as a condenser?) Further, make sure that you limit meaningful lab time or give lab assignments that only embody trivial analog and digital electronics. End result? You have a good handle on boolean logic and digital circuitry but don't know f*ck all when it comes to analog crap. Welcome to the digital option for the Electical Engineer curricula at the University of Delaware from 1982-1986. I didn't realize how ripped off I was at the time until I came to the University of Utah in 1988 and learned that the undergraduate CS students were building more digital hardware in 1 year than we had built in 4... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty From henk.gooijen at oce.com Mon Jun 5 15:35:24 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 22:35:24 +0200 Subject: looking for two Kennedy 9100 tape drive terminator cards Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C20191@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Hi all, I thought I have a working Kennedy 9100 open reel tape drive ... I copied files to the tape and could .DIR them. The next day it did not work. Today Edward came for a visit, and I demonstrated the tape drive to show how it fails. But now it did work again, though it was 100% successful. Edward checked the card cage inside of the Kennedy 9100 drive. Two boards are probably missing, and it makes sense *if* the tape was one of several in a chain, because missing are slot #3: "data terminator" and slot 8: "control terminator". So, in a multi-drive setup, I assume these two terminator boards go in the last drive. In a single drive setup, these boards should be in that drive. Is this correct? If so, can somebody help me find these two cards ...? thanks, - Henk. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 5 15:39:46 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:39:46 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> Message-ID: <44849692.30403@jetnet.ab.ca> dave06a at dunfield.com wrote: > IMHO, and essential tool if you are serious about doing any kind of > rework is a good desoldering station. Takes a bit of time, but if done > it right, the chip just lifts out with no damage to it or the board. One > of the best investments to my workbench that I ever made.... I take it the it is a tossup between a scope and good soldering iron for the first best investment one you get off the kitchen table for projects. The SBC6120 is good reason to get a better iron for me now. > Dave From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 5 15:46:33 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:46:33 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> Message-ID: <44849829.1010600@jetnet.ab.ca> dave06a at dunfield.com wrote: > IMHO, and essential tool if you are serious about doing any kind of > rework is a good desoldering station. Takes a bit of time, but if done > it right, the chip just lifts out with no damage to it or the board. One > of the best investments to my workbench that I ever made.... > projects. The SBC6120 is good reason to get a better iron for me now. I take it was tossup between a scope and good soldering iron for the first best investment once you get off the kitchen table for projects. The SBC6120 is good reason to get a better iron for me now. PS. I notice most TTL projects are wire wrapped that I have seen on the web rather than having a PCB made. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jun 5 16:20:30 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:20:30 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> Message-ID: <4484A01E.3040402@DakotaCom.Net> dave06a at dunfield.com wrote: >>> Anyway, reseating chips isn't that difficult of a "fix" anyway... >> Well it beats replacing unsocketed chips any day. Swap-in/swap-out vs. >> cut pins off/desolder/clean holes/install new chip/clean more >> holes/install/solder/resolder the pad you missed.... > > IMHO, and essential tool if you are serious about doing any kind of > rework is a good desoldering station. Takes a bit of time, but if done > it right, the chip just lifts out with no damage to it or the board. One > of the best investments to my workbench that I ever made.... This only seems to work on "nominal" boards -- 4 layers or less, respectable annular rings, appropriate thermal reliefs, etc. Get a board with fine line rules and lots of thermal mass on a pin (e.g., an internal power plane that is not relieved) and you'll stand a good chance of lifting pads, regardless. This actually can work to your advantage if you are designing products and don't want folks dicking with them! From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jun 5 16:22:12 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:22:12 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <44849692.30403@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> <44849692.30403@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4484A084.8060902@DakotaCom.Net> woodelf wrote: > dave06a at dunfield.com wrote: > >> IMHO, and essential tool if you are serious about doing any kind of >> rework is a good desoldering station. Takes a bit of time, but if done >> it right, the chip just lifts out with no damage to it or the board. One >> of the best investments to my workbench that I ever made.... > > I take it the it is a tossup between a scope and good soldering iron > for the first best investment one you get off the kitchen table for > projects. The SBC6120 is good reason to get a better iron for me now. Soldering iron. You can do a lot of debugging *without* a 'scope. But, having the world's best 'scope won't do squat when it comes to melting tin! :-/ From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jun 5 16:26:25 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:26:25 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <44849829.1010600@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> <44849829.1010600@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4484A181.4010508@DakotaCom.Net> woodelf wrote: > dave06a at dunfield.com wrote: > >> IMHO, and essential tool if you are serious about doing any kind of >> rework is a good desoldering station. Takes a bit of time, but if done >> it right, the chip just lifts out with no damage to it or the board. One >> of the best investments to my workbench that I ever made.... > > projects. The SBC6120 is good reason to get a better iron for me now. > > I take it was tossup between a scope and good soldering iron > for the first best investment once you get off the kitchen table for > projects. The SBC6120 is good reason to get a better iron for me now. > > PS. I notice most TTL projects are wire wrapped that I have seen on the > web rather than having a PCB made. TTL is slow enough that WW is perfectly acceptable (assuming you have the tools and patience). Actually, WW can be a better fabrication technique than a PCB in many cases. PCB layout of (really!) high speed designs is an art form that a lot of folks don't quite appreciate. So, Joe Average LayoutGuy may not realize the BFM that goes into high speed (short edge times, etc.) layouts. And, you end up with a mess to try to troubleshoot. OTOH, wirewrap (by *machine*) is usually point to point which tends to cut down on coupling between signals, right angles in foil runs, etc. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 5 17:19:25 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 15:19:25 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <4484A084.8060902@DakotaCom.Net> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> <44849692.30403@jetnet.ab.ca> <4484A084.8060902@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606051519250630.067F902D@10.0.0.252> On 6/5/2006 at 2:22 PM Don Y wrote: >Soldering iron. You can do a lot of debugging *without* a 'scope. >But, having the world's best 'scope won't do squat when it comes >to melting tin! :-/ So, with the fancy irons with solid-state temperature control circuitry, is the Weller TC201 now out of fashion? It's been my faithful compainion for decades--some years ago, I snagged a big batch of assorted tips from a going-out-of-business sale, so I haven't had any reason to change just yet. But is there something that's tons better? Cheers, Chuck From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Jun 5 18:28:38 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 18:28:38 -0500 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <4484A01E.3040402@DakotaCom.Net> References: <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> Message-ID: <20060605223034.EUO5003.orval.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> > > IMHO, and essential tool if you are serious about doing any kind of > > rework is a good desoldering station. Takes a bit of time, but if done > > it right, the chip just lifts out with no damage to it or the board. One > > of the best investments to my workbench that I ever made.... > > This only seems to work on "nominal" boards -- 4 layers or > less, respectable annular rings, appropriate thermal reliefs, > etc. > > Get a board with fine line rules and lots of thermal mass > on a pin (e.g., an internal power plane that is not > relieved) and you'll stand a good chance of lifting pads, > regardless. Agreed, and even on the "normal" stuff, you still hit pins soldered into large planes etc., so you have to have to be careful. Even so, a very large percentage of the material that I work on responds well to the desoldering station ... It's one of those tools that you can get by with without most of the time, but when you need it it really comes in handy. Quite often I am removing hard-to-find components from junk boards in order to repair a different piece of equipment, and the station leaves both in better shape than my previous method which involved a torch. And no (a response to another post), I didn't say it was THE best investment I have made in my workbench - just one of the best ones. I would put a good fine-tip soldering iron, good storage scope, good mutimeter ahead of it ... After all I went years without it, but I rank it quite "up there" with the other staples now... 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 ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 5 17:19:54 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 23:19:54 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of In-Reply-To: <448392AD.7040806@nktelco.net> from "C. H. Dickman" at Jun 4, 6 10:10:53 pm Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > I am not sure if it's illegal, though, for me to buy an old machine from > > somebody in the States and have it sent to me. > > > This is the type of question that my employer (midwest, USA) is > struggling with. We have hundreds of machine tools sold to Europe over > the last 30 years. Are we allowed to ship non-compliant repair parts? > Some say yes, some say no. As I understand it (at least in the UK) 1) You can sell non-compliant components without problems (you just can't sell _new_ equipment using them in many cases) 2) You can perform repairs using non-compliant components, solder, etc In some cases (I will have to check the exact details), you can even do an upgrade to a machine using non-compliant components without problems. AFAIK it would be OK to take a memory board (first sold before the deadline), solder in more non-compliant RAMs with leaded solder and put it back into service. > No wonder my bosses think this is all a just another trade barrier by > other means. I do wonder what the real point of this law is. But then I feel that way about most, if not all, EU regulations. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 5 17:21:04 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 23:21:04 +0100 (BST) Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: <44839F21.5080606@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jun 4, 6 08:04:01 pm Message-ID: > Blech. It's awfully had to do anything *interesting* in Pascal... I assume you've enver seen a PERQ running POS ;-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 5 17:27:13 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 23:27:13 +0100 (BST) Subject: ITT Service Manual In-Reply-To: <1FnFAd-04ZmTI0@fwd28.sul.t-online.de> from "Fritz Chwolka" at Jun 5, 6 03:31:04 pm Message-ID: > > On Fri, 2 Jun 2006 11:31:20 +0200 (CEST), Christian Corti wrote: > > >Has anyone a copy of the ITT 3280 System service manual? I'm mostly > >interested in the terminals sections, i.e. ITT 3285/3287. > >The terminals may also be known as Courier C275 and C270. > > > >Christian > > > > Sad - I have only the infos for ITT3030 at > > http://oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/pub/rechner/sel/itt3030/info.html FWIW, I have an ITT 3210 display terminal engineering manual (including schematics). This is a fairly dumb RS232 terminal (it does support cursor positioning, but not much more) built from TTL and MOS shift registers as the display memory As ever I have no scanner, but I can look stuff up if anyone needs it. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 5 17:24:01 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 23:24:01 +0100 (BST) Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jun 5, 6 04:59:05 pm Message-ID: > > I would love to see anyone understand an SMPSU without understanding > > analogue electronics... > > That is, I think, why I have so much problem trying to fix them - my > understanding > of analog is inadequate. The main problem I have with fixing SMPSUs is missing some seemingly minor fault (like a diode that breaks down under load only) which causes all the nice, expensive, new components that I've fitted to blow at switch-on. A series light bulb helps (if only to reduce the shock to _me_ when the thing tries to put a dead short across the mains), but won't always save the expensive chopper transsistor. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 5 17:29:38 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 23:29:38 +0100 (BST) Subject: Old computer stuff with 989102 and 989105 chips In-Reply-To: <44844B2C.3020909@PACBELL.NET> from "BOB LAAG" at Jun 5, 6 08:18:04 am Message-ID: > > Just wondering if anyone has description and pinout of the old 989102 > and 989105 I.C. chips??? You've asked about these several times and nobody has replied, so I think it's a good guess that none of us recognise those numbers (they look like house codes to me). A bit more information would help. How many pins do these ICs have. What sort of package (DIL, PGA, PLCC, etc). Plastic or ceramic? Is there a manufacturer's logo on them? Do you have any idea what they are? -tony From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jun 5 17:51:12 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 15:51:12 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <200606051519250630.067F902D@10.0.0.252> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> <44849692.30403@jetnet.ab.ca> <4484A084.8060902@DakotaCom.Net> <200606051519250630.067F902D@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4484B560.5000607@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/5/2006 at 2:22 PM Don Y wrote: > >> Soldering iron. You can do a lot of debugging *without* a 'scope. >> But, having the world's best 'scope won't do squat when it comes >> to melting tin! :-/ > > So, with the fancy irons with solid-state temperature control circuitry, is > the Weller TC201 now out of fashion? It's been my faithful compainion for > decades--some years ago, I snagged a big batch of assorted tips from a > going-out-of-business sale, so I haven't had any reason to change just yet. > > But is there something that's tons better? I still rely on an old Weller (not sure of the model) for thru-hole work. I have a Leister for SMT. From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Mon Jun 5 17:51:26 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 15:51:26 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" Message-ID: Chuck Guzis wrote: Don't forget the old CDC 6603-Bryant disk! My most vivd reminder of hydraulic actuators on CDC gear was on the 821 disk. We were running a benchmark with about eight of these things (connected through a QSE). We knew that one was leaking, but the leak wasn't enough to take the thing offline and we had a few hours invested in setting the benchmark up, so we decided to go with it. ---------------------------------- Billy: Through incredible luck, I never had to work on the Bryants. They always seemed to break on shifts that I didn't work. CDC starting buying them in the early '60s. I actually worked on 1604's with Bryant disks. I think the controller was a 1619. They were horrible to work with, and very hard on the hands. For Indutrial Data Products group, we used a few of the old Bryant drums and single platter fixed disks. STC wrote an OS for these drums in the late '60's. They put them all the world with the tracking stations. Last one I saw that was still running was around 1980. Would love to find one now. The model numbers were 8951 and 8952. One of the most reliable peripherals ever made, some ran for 15 years, 24 hours a day, without any maintenance. ------------------------------------ Chuck: At some point, a message pops up on the console that 821 Unit-so-and-such is offline. I run for the thing, forgetting about the lieak, have my hand out ready to punch the "on/off line" button, hit the puddle of fluid and do a wonderful imitation of a swan dive. I collect myself, punch the button and limp back... ------------------------------------ Billy: I don't place the model 821. There was an 841 that might be what you remember. It had the drives two high in an expandable rack. You kept bolting chassis together and then put end panels on it. It was hydraulic too. And leaked like a sieve. The beauty of the two high is that if the top drive leaked, it would drip on the bottom drive and take it out also. Two for the price of one! Had big ten high platter removeable disk stacks and was used on the 3000 systems with a controller called the 3234. ------------------------------------ Chuck: I REALLY don't miss the old hardware. If I wanted to work with heavy machinery, I'd go back to work in a steel mill. I'm sure that Billy has had his share of digging shredded ribbon out of the type train on a CDC 512 pritner, too. Wonderful rewarding job. Cheers, Chuck ------------------------------------- Billy: The 512 was an abomination. It was a rip off of the IBM 1402. To avoid paying fo patents, Rochester re-invented several wheels. The train used slugs that ran in tracks, but had no direct connection to each other (think about a bunch of ICs in a circular tube). Any wear and the timing changed. So you had to tweak the hammer timing almost daily. It ate ribbons. And if the operators tried to be cheap and use one to the last drop of ink, it would disasseble the ribbon and jam the pieces between the slugs and deep into the hammers. Some times a ribbon change could take an entire shift. It also used a paper tape reader for format control. This nasty little kludge used a sprocket drive on early 512s. When it tore the paper tape, usually late at night, it would high speed slew paper through the printer, jam the output stacker, and sometimes break the hammers. The 512 was probably the most hated peripheral CDC ever produced. Billy From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 5 18:14:27 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 16:14:27 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife In-Reply-To: <44847508.8030703@gmail.com> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <4481DD48.3000205@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606031321490223.28B29EDC@10.0.0.252> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2018E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <44831AC3.1010809@jetnet.ab.ca> <02f601c687fe$a18c3080$01fea8c0@alpha> <001701c688c3$06079bc0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> <200606051052080595.058ADC81@10.0.0.252> <44847508.8030703@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200606051614270389.06B1F128@10.0.0.252> On 6/5/2006 at 2:16 PM Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >I'm interested. > >Peace... Sridhar Closest thing that I can find in current production are the AMP Diplomate DL series sockets. According to the spec sheet, they rise about 5.3 mm above the PCB and are classified as "Over the component" type. The Augat brand seems to be have been assimilated into AMP (itself a division of Tyco). Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 5 18:43:11 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 16:43:11 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606051643110256.06CC3EBF@10.0.0.252> On 6/5/2006 at 3:51 PM Billy Pettit wrote: >Billy: I don't place the model 821. There was an 841 that might be what >you remember. It had the drives two high in an expandable rack. You kept >bolting chassis together and then put end panels on it. It was hydraulic >too. And leaked like a sieve. The beauty of the two high is that if the >top drive leaked, it would drip on the bottom drive and take it out also. >Two for the price of one! Had big ten high platter removeable disk stacks >and was used on the 3000 systems with a controller called the 3234. I'm not surprised that you never ran into an 821. For an RFQ, we needed someting that held more than an 808, and heard that a double-capacity model was in the works called the 821. So we bid them and got a few to run our benchmarks. From 10 feet away, you couldn't tell them from 808s. They were much less reliable than the 808; data errors were very common. Eventually we amended the bid to substitute a mess of the then brand-new 844s--which had their own set of problems. I recall an operator starting out with one bad pack, and through swapping packs on drives, killing something like 13 drives and nine packs in the space of an hour. AFAIK, we had all of the 821s ever built in SSD and all of them met the sledgehammer by 1973 or so (that's another story that would make some people sick--how CDC disposed of equipment.). >It also used a paper tape reader for format control. This nasty little >kludge used a sprocket drive on early 512s. When it tore the paper tape, >usually late at night, it would high speed slew paper through the printer, >jam the output stacker, and sometimes break the hammers. ...or if someone forgot to punch ALL channels in the control tape and then some idiot issued a skip to a hole-less channel.... I had a friend who observed the development of the 512. He said initially the thing was supposed to be a chain printer, but apparently they couldn't make a type chain that would hold together for more than a few minutes. The 501 printer was a pretty good workhorse and actually produced pretty decent output if run at the low speed setting--which no one ever did. There was another little drum printer used with the Intercom terminals that wasn't too bad; I don't recall the model number, though. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jun 5 19:07:28 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 17:07:28 -0700 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4484C740.10909@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: >>> I would love to see anyone understand an SMPSU without understanding >>> analogue electronics... >> That is, I think, why I have so much problem trying to fix them - my >> understanding >> of analog is inadequate. > > The main problem I have with fixing SMPSUs is missing some seemingly > minor fault (like a diode that breaks down under load only) which causes > all the nice, expensive, new components that I've fitted to blow at > switch-on. A series light bulb helps (if only to reduce the shock to _me_ > when the thing tries to put a dead short across the mains), but won't > always save the expensive chopper transsistor. We designed a 2KV, 2KW switcher many (MANY!) years ago. Getting drive transistors was a *bitch* (expensive and hard to come by!). There was damn little you could do to "prevent" losing the entire set in an ohnosecond. Then, spend the better half of the day disassembling, looking for possible faults in the design, soldering in a new set of Q's and doing the same thing over again the NEXT morning. Advice to others trying this: do it some MONTH when your boss is on vacation!! :-/ From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jun 5 18:57:33 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 16:57:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060605165108.U3185@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 5 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > I am not sure if it's illegal, though, for me to buy an old machine from > somebody in the States and have it sent to me. If some others would chip in on the shipping, I'd gladly send you a scanner. Would you prefer SCSI or "Centronics"? Would you also like some early Pentium machines, a Beseler enlarger and a "dichroic" head, a Kodak Caramate, some printers and monitors, ...? Howabout: a Fujinon holography camera? 'course it's all 60Hz stuff. How much lead solder are you stockpiling? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 5 19:18:23 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 18:18:23 -0600 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <20060605165108.U3185@shell.lmi.net> References: <20060605165108.U3185@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4484C9CF.1080705@jetnet.ab.ca> Fred Cisin wrote: > Howabout: a Fujinon holography camera? What the heck is that? > 'course it's all 60Hz stuff. > How much lead solder are you stockpiling? > Looking at for some other stuff, sliver solder does not seem to be that high priced compared to the lead stuff. From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jun 5 19:34:16 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 17:34:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <4484C9CF.1080705@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <20060605165108.U3185@shell.lmi.net> <4484C9CF.1080705@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <20060605172529.B3185@shell.lmi.net> > > Howabout: a Fujinon holography camera? On Mon, 5 Jun 2006, woodelf wrote: > What the heck is that? http://www.xenosoft.com/fujinon/ sorry for the lousy pictures, sometime I'll get around to taking some good ones with a properly functioning camera It's a box with a laser in the botom half, and mirrors and a film holder on the top. It's an appropriate size for the ubiquitous holograms of chessboard pieces and miniature gargoyle statues. BTW, it's marked for 100V, but there are multiple taps on the transformer. I'm guessing that that means that it was intended for the Japanese market. About 20 years ago, I called the USA office of Fuji Photo Optical. Once I got through to people who were capable of understanding what I was asking about, I got the usual: "WOW! that sounds really neat! Never seen or heard of one of those, but would you get back to us if you find out anything about it?" -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jun 5 20:51:58 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 20:51:58 -0500 Subject: 1977 era RT-11 manuals available Message-ID: <001b01c6890b$cca50450$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Someone in south-central US has "alot" of 1977 era RT-11 manuals available. I was going to direct them Al's way, but wanted to see if Jerome or someone dealing with older versions of RT-11 ressussitation may have a dire need (after which, they'd need to send them to Al). Contact me off-list. Jay West From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 5 21:02:58 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:02:58 -0700 Subject: Mitsubishi Multi16 Message-ID: <200606051902580802.074C3949@10.0.0.252> Anyone out there with one of these things? I'd like to know a little bit about the I/O device setup if you've got the information. Cheers, Chuck From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jun 5 21:10:50 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 21:10:50 -0500 Subject: 1977 era RT-11 manuals available References: <001b01c6890b$cca50450$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <000901c6890e$704f4af0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Yikes, I'm sorry... I overlooked that they also have two Decwriters available too. Jay From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jun 6 03:05:22 2006 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 01:05:22 -0700 Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> <44849829.1010600@jetnet.ab.ca> <4484A181.4010508@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44853743.E1A24EF2@cs.ubc.ca> There was another technique for making circuit boards in the 70s: a programmed/automated machine moved over the initially bare board and laid down a fine wire from a spool to form the circuits. I think the wire stuck to the board initially and the board was later lacquered or coated with something to seal/hold the wires better. I forgot how the wire traces were terminated around IC pin locations, probably a pressure weld. I think the economics were such that it was too slow for large production runs, but was suitable for prototypes and small production runs of larger, more-complex boards. Last example I saw was a disk-controller for a TI-990 mini circa 1980. Anybody remember the name for the technique? From bert at brothom.nl Mon Jun 5 13:27:10 2006 From: bert at brothom.nl (Bert Thomas) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:27:10 +0100 Subject: question about ELF executable In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060605072556.05651280@mail> References: <200606041823.k54INQ74024858@mwave.heeltoe.com> <44841484.3030404@brothom.nl> <6.2.3.4.2.20060605072556.05651280@mail> Message-ID: <4484777E.7040602@brothom.nl> John Foust wrote: > You might find more clues here: > > "Smallest possible ELF executable?" > > http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/19/1233250 Yes, I did: "(it's normal behavior for a program to include its ELF header and program header table in its memory image)" Aha! Thanks!!! Bert From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jun 6 08:46:44 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 06:46:44 -0700 Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <44853743.E1A24EF2@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: Hi Brent I don't recall the name but they used Eyelets for the component holes. Even though, all the wires were on the same side, they showed test that indicated that the cross talk was very low compared to normal PC boards. As I recall the connection to the eyelets were a trouble spot. There was no weld. It was just the rolled edge of the eyelet cutting the thin insulation of the wire. Dwight >From: Brent Hilpert > >There was another technique for making circuit boards in the 70s: a >programmed/automated machine moved over the initially bare board and laid >down >a fine wire from a spool to form the circuits. I think the wire stuck to >the >board initially and the board was later lacquered or coated with something >to >seal/hold the wires better. I forgot how the wire traces were terminated >around IC pin locations, probably a pressure weld. > >I think the economics were such that it was too slow for large production >runs, but was suitable for prototypes and small production runs of larger, >more-complex boards. Last example I saw was a disk-controller for a TI-990 >mini circa 1980. > >Anybody remember the name for the technique? From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Tue Jun 6 09:40:34 2006 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (David Woyciesjes) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 10:40:34 -0400 Subject: Pinging Peter Hufnagel Message-ID: <448593E2.7080802@sbcglobal.net> Apologies for this, but I sent Peter H. a direct private message on 5/26. I was just wondering if he's off doing something else, or just ignoring me. ;-) -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes From henk.gooijen at oce.com Tue Jun 6 09:37:43 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 16:37:43 +0200 Subject: looking for two Kennedy 9100 tape drive terminator cards Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06681796@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Well, I am still looking for the terminator cards :-) but I can be a little more specific. The "data terminator" card has part number 3860-001, and the "control terminator" card has part number 3841-001. Can somebody who has a Kennedy 9100 confirm that the card cage at the left side of the tape drive indeed has a card in slot #3 and in slot #8? I want to be sure that I need those two terminator cards, before I spend some money (if a brooker has them in stock)! thanks, - Henk. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 6 12:16:59 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 10:16:59 -0700 Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <44853743.E1A24EF2@cs.ubc.ca> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> <44849829.1010600@jetnet.ab.ca> <4484A181.4010508@DakotaCom.Net> <44853743.E1A24EF2@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4485B88B.3070104@DakotaCom.Net> Brent Hilpert wrote: > There was another technique for making circuit boards in the 70s: a > programmed/automated machine moved over the initially bare board and laid down > a fine wire from a spool to form the circuits. I think the wire stuck to the Yes. *Very* fine wire. It "looked" like magnet wire. It was really cool because the wires would crossover each other at will (insulated with lacquer?). So, you had to learn that "touching" wasn';t synonomous with "shorted". I think there were still "conventional" power planes on the interior > board initially and the board was later lacquered or coated with something to > seal/hold the wires better. I forgot how the wire traces were terminated > around IC pin locations, probably a pressure weld. > > I think the economics were such that it was too slow for large production > runs, but was suitable for prototypes and small production runs of larger, > more-complex boards. Last example I saw was a disk-controller for a TI-990 > mini circa 1980. I saw it used in a little (explosion proof!) ATE controller for flight line diagnostics (military). Perfect application as you had very dense/complex boards and very limited "production". > Anybody remember the name for the technique? Nope. But I will see if I have any written notes on it... From arcarlini at iee.org Tue Jun 6 12:27:24 2006 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 18:27:24 +0100 Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <44853743.E1A24EF2@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <006801c6898e$7c1dffe0$c901a8c0@uatempname> > Anybody remember the name for the technique? That wouldn't be Printed Wiring Board (PWB) would it? Antonio From aw288 at osfn.org Tue Jun 6 12:32:07 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 13:32:07 -0400 (EDT) Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <4485B88B.3070104@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: Multiwire. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 6 13:07:44 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 11:07:44 -0700 Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606061107440902.0ABF7C58@10.0.0.252> On 6/6/2006 at 1:32 PM William Donzelli wrote: >Multiwire. I believe that was a vendor trademark. DWT (Discrete Wire Technology) is the generic term. Cheers, Chuck From ak6dn at mindspring.com Tue Jun 6 13:27:49 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 11:27:49 -0700 Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <44853743.E1A24EF2@cs.ubc.ca> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> <44849829.1010600@jetnet.ab.ca> <4484A181.4010508@DakotaCom.Net> <44853743.E1A24EF2@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4485C925.2030307@mindspring.com> Brent Hilpert wrote: > There was another technique for making circuit boards in the 70s: a > programmed/automated machine moved over the initially bare board and laid down > a fine wire from a spool to form the circuits. I think the wire stuck to the > board initially and the board was later lacquered or coated with something to > seal/hold the wires better. I forgot how the wire traces were terminated > around IC pin locations, probably a pressure weld. > > I think the economics were such that it was too slow for large production > runs, but was suitable for prototypes and small production runs of larger, > more-complex boards. Last example I saw was a disk-controller for a TI-990 > mini circa 1980. > > Anybody remember the name for the technique? > > Multiwire was the trade name from one vendor I am familiar with. It was used to do the prototype for the first pass of the DEC 11/74 commercial instruction set CIS processor. It was a disaster. The selling point was we could get complex multilayer-equivalent PCB in 1/3 the time it took to layout and fabricate a real four layer PCB. That claim was true, unless you wanted working, reliable boards. Multiwire was very prone to the wire-hole connection breaking, leaving an open. Each time the PCB was flexed, connections would come and go. By the time we finished debugging all the boards (three of them) they were covered in a ratsnest of red wire wrap jumper wires to fix all the open connections, and the real PCB fabs arrived about a week later. I think that was the first (and last) time DEC used Multiwire to do 'quick-turn' prototypes, at least in mid-range PDP-11 land. From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Jun 6 13:33:22 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 14:33:22 -0400 Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 06 Jun 2006 10:16:59 PDT." <4485B88B.3070104@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606061833.k56IXMhv004426@mwave.heeltoe.com> > >> Anybody remember the name for the technique? > I thought Proteon (network vendor) made a lot of their early cards using that "printed wire" technique. I'm probably making that name up but it's what popped out of my brain. Actually I think PWB is what they call PCB's on the other side of the pond. I saw a lot of those cards at MIT at one point. As I recall (dimly) Proteon had their own proprietary wire level protocol (which I'd bet was chaosnet). I think they later went token ring and/or ethernet. But again, I'm hazy on that. -brad From marvin at rain.org Tue Jun 6 14:22:11 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 12:22:11 -0700 Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 Message-ID: <4485D5E3.752455B1@rain.org> That goes back a ways! I don't remember the name of the machine, but it was a patented process by IIRC PhotoCircuits based in NY. I had the opportunity to see one of the machines run at one of their plants while working on another machine, and it was pretty impressive. I'm not sure it was a cost effective solution for double sided PCBs, but back then, it was certainly an alternative for multilayer boards. > From: Brent Hilpert > There was another technique for making circuit boards in the 70s: a > programmed/automated machine moved over the initially bare board and laid down > a fine wire from a spool to form the circuits. I think the wire stuck to the > board initially and the board was later lacquered or coated with something to > seal/hold the wires better. I forgot how the wire traces were terminated > around IC pin locations, probably a pressure weld. > > I think the economics were such that it was too slow for large production > runs, but was suitable for prototypes and small production runs of larger, > more-complex boards. Last example I saw was a disk-controller for a TI-990 > mini circa 1980. > > Anybody remember the name for the technique? > From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 6 15:07:23 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 13:07:23 -0700 Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 In-Reply-To: <4485D5E3.752455B1@rain.org> References: <4485D5E3.752455B1@rain.org> Message-ID: <200606061307230334.0B2D0518@10.0.0.252> DWT was still actively discussed as late as 5 years ago. DWT has two distinct advantages over traditional PCB. One of which is shorter interconnect length; the other is lower crosstalk. I think it's declined only because of the relatively slow production process and the gradual phase-out of through-hole component mounting. Several years before the 8080 debuted, I set about building my own computer, severely under-estimating what it was going to take in terms of time, etc. At the time, DIP was very new, so most ICs were packaged in TO-100 cans or flatpacks. Rather than resort to fulll PCB with a technology that I was unfamiliar with, I etched a single-sided PCB with pads for both types of ICs and interconnected them with #24 enameled magnet wire. I got as far as building a working 8-bit ALU with 2 registers, but lost interest when I realized I didn't have a good solution for memory. For a time, I toyed with getting a drum (used on aircraft, I think) from Meshna, but never got around to it. By that time, the 8008 had made its appearance and I was trying to figure out the best way to build a system based on that chip. I wound up with a MITS 8800 evenually. Cheers, Chuck From kelly at catcorner.org Tue Jun 6 15:57:23 2006 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 16:57:23 -0400 Subject: Humidity and storing paper manuals Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3741B@MEOW.catcorner.org> Has this been covered before? I have added a lot to my collection of Radio Shack manuals over the winter. It is now warm weather here on the east coast and that means lots of humidity. What are the reccomendations for humidity levels for long term storage of paper products. I have the dehumidifiers running and have it down to about 45%, but they're struggling to keep up. My basement is about 110 meters square and 2.2 meters high. Thanks, Kelly From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Tue Jun 6 16:06:44 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 14:06:44 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" Message-ID: Chuck Guzis wrote: I recall an operator starting out with one bad pack, and through swapping packs on drives, killing something like 13 drives and nine packs in the space of an hour. Billy: Once I moved to OKCity and worked on cartridge drives, this was one of our most common failure modes. Some people could never learn. One guy at 4 Phase Systems used to do this at least once a month. And he would lie about the bad pack and hide it. Probably the single most incompetent engineer I ever met. Of course he was later promoted to management and put in charge of their Field Engineers. Actually, I was thinking about him recently. The incoming area was at the back of 4 Phase, where Apple headquarters is now. I visited Infinity Drive and parked in almost the same spot. Deja vu. Chuck: I had a friend who observed the development of the 512. He said initially the thing was supposed to be a chain printer, but apparently they couldn't make a type chain that would hold together for more than a few minutes. Billy: I worked a little with the Development team on the 512. Their story was that they couldn't find a chain design that didn't infringe on IBM patents. This was at the time of the big lawsuit against IBM, so was a big deal. Chuck: The 501 printer was a pretty good workhorse and actually produced pretty decent output if run at the low speed setting--which no one ever did. There was another little drum printer used with the Intercom terminals that wasn't too bad; I don't recall the model number, though. Cheers, Chuck Billy: The 501 was messy to work on. The print drum segments would fill up with ribbon crap, and had to be cleaned with a tooth brush and solvent. The most efficient cleaner was carbon tetrachloride, which cut right through the ink. But left you feeling woozy. It wasn't until years later that I found out how dangerous our recommended process was. Still, even today you come across the occasional drum segment on somebody's desk. They make good pencil holders and seem to be a mark of old-fartness for field engineers. Saw one on eBay last year for some ridiculous price. The first CDC printers were made by Analex. Huge things, almost needed a room by themselves, ran at 1000 lines a minute. Sometimes for 2 or 3 hours straight, before breaking. Used a ribbon 18 inches wide. The PCBs were large horizontal PCBs the size of cookie sheets. You had to troubleshoot to the component level, then disassemble the logic chassis so you could get to the component to replace it. On small systems, a drum printer called the 166 was used; it was a 150 line a minute piece of junk. The sole reason for I remember it, is that is was made by Holly Carburetor. There were some strange bedfellows in the early days of computers. One of the most memorable printers I worked on the was the Page Printer system made in OKCity. Originally GE, then Honeywell. I'm not certain when it died - sometime after I left in 1986. It used paper on large rolls. There was a little dolly you used to move the paper - the rolls looked like newsprint and were too heavy to carry. It would print a page then had a paper knife that would cut the page from the continuous feed of paper, and move it to a bin. If you printed multiple copies, it would print the same page x times, cut them off and stack them in different hoppers. The paper path was 8-10 feet long and took a lot of hard work to thread each new roll. But the thing that sticks in my mind the most is that it also had a hole punch built in. After printing and cutting, it would also punch holes if you wanted, 2 or 3 per page. I've never seen another printer that could punch holes, not even the Seimens that were the major competitor. The chad was always in demand by people wanting it for parties or weddings. Which brings up something I'm certain others on the list have done = used teletype or other paper tape punch chad for pranks. The oiled paper would stick to anything, and vacuum cleaners wouldn't pick it up. I once left a bag of black and yellow chad where the 6 year old son of a co-worker could find it. (The co-worker had stiffed me for $20.) It took him weeks to get it out of his carpets using tweezers, piece by piece. Anyone else have fun and games with chad? Billy From mtapley at swri.edu Tue Jun 6 16:06:41 2006 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 16:06:41 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 34, Issue 8 In-Reply-To: <200606040125.k541Ph9q063498@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606040125.k541Ph9q063498@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: At 20:25 -0500 6/3/06, Chuck wrote: >What was the MO drive on the Next cube--650 MB? Seemed silly to me to >market the thing without a hard drive--and I think Next eventually came >around to that way of thinking. 256 MB. I don't think the cartridges were interchangeable with anything else common. There were reversible cartridges which could hold 256M per side, but only one side was accessible at a time. NeXT did add first a "Swap drive" of 20 MB and later larger hard drives, 105MB in pizza boxes, 330 and 660 MB in cubes, and eventually stopped selling the opticals. There were significant problems with drive dust inhalation in the NeXT implementation. That led to reversal of the fan (by mechanically reversing, *not* by changing around the power connector, in case you want to try it) by many owners, which was eventually approved by NeXT. However, my cube has a fairly unique set-up which meant that fan reversal caused problems with overheating of the SCSI driver chip. There were also long-term problems with either the drives or the media - they seem to be going bad at a fairly regular pace. I don't know that I've heard a good explanation for that. It *might* be some form of connector corrosion; disassembling and cleaning mine has cured it twice, even though it didn't look dirty at all around the lens area. Corrections or clarifications welcome, apologies if this is redundant (getting behind on the digests again). -- - Mark Cell Phone: 210-379-4635 office: 210-522-6025 From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Jun 6 16:24:54 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 14:24:54 -0700 Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <4485C925.2030307@mindspring.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> <44849829.1010600@jetnet.ab.ca> <4484A181.4010508@DakotaCom.Net> <44853743.E1A24EF2@cs.ubc.ca> <4485C925.2030307@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <4485F2A6.5050801@msm.umr.edu> Don North wrote: > Brent Hilpert wrote: > > Multiwire was the trade name from one vendor I am familiar with. It > was used to do the prototype for > the first pass of the DEC 11/74 commercial instruction set CIS > processor. It was a disaster. > We used multiwire twice for our test boards, 8" x 11" which were usually 4 layer boards, with mostly 14 or 16 pin dips. We had good luck with multiwire, and it was able to run off our wirewrap system, since there was less to be concerned with as far as routing. It was only faster to use an early form of computer circuit board routing and a pcboard, but probably 10 times as expensive. The boards had good electrical characteristics, which was a concern with us, since we were doing a Microdata 1600 type processor plug compatable. I did see some other boards that had the hole to wire problem, but those were on much larger boards, for DG Nova type systems and had much more wiring on it than our cpu's did. Don, thanks for recharging my brain cells about what this was called Jim From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Tue Jun 6 16:38:52 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 14:38:52 -0700 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 34, Issue 8 Message-ID: Mark Tapley wrote: There were significant problems with drive dust inhalation in the NeXT implementation. That led to reversal of the fan (by mechanically reversing, *not* by changing around the power connector, in case you want to try it) by many owners, which was eventually approved by NeXT. However, my cube has a fairly unique set-up which meant that fan reversal caused problems with overheating of the SCSI driver chip. There were also long-term problems with either the drives or the media - they seem to be going bad at a fairly regular pace. I don't know that I've heard a good explanation for that. It *might* be some form of connector corrosion; disassembling and cleaning mine has cured it twice, even though it didn't look dirty at all around the lens area. Corrections or clarifications welcome, apologies if this is redundant (getting behind on the digests again). -- - Mark Billy: Dust was a huge problem with most of the earlier CDROMs. And a bigger problem when CD-RW came along. On my first trip to Hasselt, Belgium with Philips I was introduced to the Calibrated Dust Machine. This is no BS. Philips worked with IBM to develop a chamber that was filled with fine dust under slight pressure. The optical drives would be tested to failure. Some of the early drives would only go minutes before failure. Often powering them down and starting up was enough to remove the dust for a short time. Engineering would also test all the competitors to see how they sealed their units and how long they lasted. LG had by far the best seals around the OPU. Philips redesigned all their front doors and bezel seals to improve dust immunity. And sold testing to other companies. One of those memories that lasts a lifetime: the test engineer complaining about how hard it was to buy calibrated dust. Billy From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jun 6 16:58:27 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 15:58:27 -0600 Subject: Humidity and storing paper manuals In-Reply-To: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3741B@MEOW.catcorner.org> References: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3741B@MEOW.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <4485FA83.6060401@jetnet.ab.ca> Kelly Leavitt wrote: > Has this been covered before? I have added a lot to my collection of Radio Shack manuals over the winter. It is now warm weather here on the east coast and that means lots of humidity. > > What are the reccomendations for humidity levels for long term storage of paper products. I have the dehumidifiers running and have it down to about 45%, but they're struggling to keep up. My basement is about 110 meters square and 2.2 meters high. > > Thanks, > Kelly It is the 100% humidity that will kill you. Unexpected basement flooding is what you also need to worry about is a valid threat. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 6 17:00:32 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 15:00:32 -0700 Subject: Semi-OT: IDE & SATA to USB "dongles" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606061500320534.0B949C8E@10.0.0.252> On 6/6/2006 at 2:06 PM Billy Pettit wrote: >Actually, I was thinking about him recently. The incoming area was at the >back of 4 Phase, where Apple headquarters is now. I visited Infinity Drive >and parked in almost the same spot. Deja vu. At one time, wasn't there an MPI sales office on the other side of the street (was that Wolfe Road?) from 4 Phase? Even more defja vu. >On small systems, a drum printer called the 166 was used; it was a 150 line >a minute piece of junk. The sole reason for I remember it, is that is was >made by Holly Carburetor. There were some strange bedfellows in the early >days of computers. Like Ball Brothers making Mason jars and monitors? I remember that we bid a project that used some printing terminals made by Singer hooked to a 1700. The terminals were truly awful--a spinning type wheel inked by a felt pad, and the wheel was banged directly on the paper--no ribbon.. Carriage return was a large spring, like you might find on storm door. You had to start every print session with a page eject because the typewheel spun continuously and left a nice vertical black streak on the paper. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 6 17:12:44 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 15:12:44 -0700 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 34, Issue 8 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4485FDDC.5070106@DakotaCom.Net> [Calibrated Dust Machine] > One of those memories that lasts a lifetime: the test engineer > complaining about how hard it was to buy calibrated dust. This is actually a problem in many industries: - how do you test a *hammer*? a screwdriver? a tape rule? - how do you quantify the "shell" of an M&M candy? - how do you check the race of a ball bearing made out of *glass*? - just how "fizzy" should alka-seltzer tablets be? Some of the "solutions" can be quite amusing... From fireflyst at earthlink.net Tue Jun 6 17:30:53 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 17:30:53 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 34, Issue 8 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: If you're going to reply to the digest messages, please replace the subject with the actual subject of your topic so we know what it's about. Thanks. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mark Tapley > Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2006 4:07 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 34, Issue 8 > > At 20:25 -0500 6/3/06, Chuck wrote: > >What was the MO drive on the Next cube--650 MB? Seemed > silly to me to > >market the thing without a hard drive--and I think Next > eventually came > >around to that way of thinking. > > 256 MB. I don't think the cartridges were > interchangeable with anything else common. There were > reversible cartridges which could hold 256M per side, but > only one side was accessible at a time. > NeXT did add first a "Swap drive" of 20 MB and later larger > hard drives, 105MB in pizza boxes, 330 and 660 MB in cubes, > and eventually stopped selling the opticals. > There were significant problems with drive dust > inhalation in the NeXT implementation. That led to reversal > of the fan (by mechanically reversing, *not* by changing > around the power connector, in case you want to try it) by > many owners, which was eventually approved by NeXT. However, > my cube has a fairly unique set-up which meant that fan > reversal caused problems with overheating of the SCSI driver chip. > There were also long-term problems with either the > drives or the media - they seem to be going bad at a fairly > regular pace. I don't know that I've heard a good explanation > for that. It *might* be some form of connector corrosion; > disassembling and cleaning mine has cured it twice, even > though it didn't look dirty at all around the lens area. > Corrections or clarifications welcome, apologies if > this is redundant (getting behind on the digests again). > -- > - Mark > Cell Phone: 210-379-4635 > office: 210-522-6025 > From fireflyst at earthlink.net Tue Jun 6 17:47:06 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 17:47:06 -0500 Subject: Free for shipping In-Reply-To: <000801c688cb$f40dc6c0$5113fea9@supertech> Message-ID: How big is the intelliserver and what are we talking for shipping? Also are there docs for it? > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jim at work > Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 1:15 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Cc: jeff at eoni.com > Subject: Free for shipping > > Good morning, > > I currently work for an ISP in Eastern Oregon. Today's > backroom clean-out day and we have a couple items that may be > of interest. Cost? You pay the shipping to get them to you. > > 1.) Microcom ISPorte, 48 port analog modem rackmount chassis. > Comes with > (12) 4 port modems and both a spare power supply and a spare chassis. > > 2.) Computone Inteliserver. 64 port serial chassis. Comes > with dead tree docs. > > 3.) (2) Comtrol 16 port serial cards. Comes in original boxes > w/ dead tree docs. > > Rather than dropping this stuff in the dumpster, we like to > find new homes for them. > > Any interest? > > Please respond to jamesa at eoni.com with a cc: to jeff at eoni.com > > Jim Arnott > From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Tue Jun 6 17:52:38 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 18:52:38 -0400 Subject: List Etiquette (was: RE: cctalk Digest, Vol 34, Issue 8 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060606184204.040d50f0@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Julian Wolfe may have mentioned these words: >If you're going to reply to the digest messages, please replace the subject >with the actual subject of your topic so we know what it's about. Thanks. And if you're going to whine about others' email etiquette[1], please at least *trim*[2] yours? Thanks. [1] should I mention: whilst not following your own advice? [2] Not to mention top-posting; you might want to review RFC 1855, section 3.1.1, paragraph 10. -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Bugs of a feather flock together." sysadmin, Iceberg Computers | Russell Nelson zmerch at 30below.com | From vp at drexel.edu Tue Jun 6 18:49:34 2006 From: vp at drexel.edu (Vassilis PREVELAKIS) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 19:49:34 -0400 (EDT) Subject: HP9825 Message-ID: <200606062349.k56NnYCv013794@dune.cs.drexel.edu> Hi, I am looking for an HP9825 with the 98228A ROM (I guess that means that the 9825 must be a T model or an earlier model upgraded to an 9825T). I am working on a project to allow an HP-85 to read 9825 tapes, and I need to be able use floppies to xfer data between the 9825 and my main (OpenBSD) system. If anyone is willing to sell me an 9825T with the 98228A ROM, or lend me one (for abour 8-10 months) please contact me off list. I already have an 98034A HPIB interface. Thanks **vp http://www.series80.org From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 6 19:07:24 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 01:07:24 +0100 (BST) Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself In-Reply-To: <200606061307230334.0B2D0518@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 6, 6 01:07:23 pm Message-ID: > technology that I was unfamiliar with, I etched a single-sided PCB with > pads for both types of ICs and interconnected them with #24 enameled magnet > wire. I got as far as building a working 8-bit ALU with 2 registers, but Over here there were wiring systems solder under the brand names of 'Verowire' and 'Road Runner'. You had a 'pen' which contained a spool of enammeled copper wire, the enammel was designed to melt at soldering temperatures. You soldered the ICs/sockets/etc onto square pad board, and rand the wire between the pins. soldering as you go. The verowire tool was much nicer as it had a metal tip. The road runner tool tended to melt if you weren't careful. It was not really suiable for production (far too slow, and not mechancially robust), but it worked well for prototyping (up to at least FAST speeds if you used a ground plane board). I've built a lot of stuff using it. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 6 18:44:17 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 00:44:17 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <20060605165108.U3185@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jun 5, 6 04:57:33 pm Message-ID: > > On Mon, 5 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > > I am not sure if it's illegal, though, for me to buy an old machine from > > somebody in the States and have it sent to me. > > If some others would chip in on the shipping, I'd gladly send you a > scanner. Would you prefer SCSI or "Centronics"? I don't care, provided it comes with schematics and uses chips that I recognise :-) > > Would you also like some early Pentium machines, a Beseler enlarger and a Pentium machines cannot be early :-) > "dichroic" head, a Kodak Caramate, some printers and monitors, ...? As for the enlarger, I have enough problems hosuing my DeVere 504.... > Howabout: a Fujinon holography camera? > 'course it's all 60Hz stuff. Does it _depend_ on the mains frequency? Votlage conversion is trivial (I have a 110V step-down transformer in the workshop anyway), frequency conversion can be more of an 'interesting' job. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 6 18:47:16 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 00:47:16 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <4484C9CF.1080705@jetnet.ab.ca> from "woodelf" at Jun 5, 6 06:18:23 pm Message-ID: > Looking at for some other stuff, sliver solder > does not seem to be that high priced compared > to the lead stuff. The problem is not the cost, nor the fact you need a slightly hotter iron. There are worries that it's not reliable (there are exceptions in the RoHS directives for military and medical electronics, IIRC. Draw your own conclusions...). Certainly there are a _lot_ more dry joints (and I don't mean joints that look dry, but genuine bad connections) in consumer electronic devices using lead-free solder. -tony From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Tue Jun 6 19:32:45 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 17:32:45 -0700 Subject: EU Message-ID: Tony Duell wrote: Certainly there are a _lot_ more dry joints (and I don't mean joints that look dry, but genuine bad connections) in consumer electronic devices using lead-free solder. -tony Billy: I'd like to see your data on this, if it is more than personal observation of a recent purchase. I work in an organization that does millions of PCBs a month, all RoHS compliant. And our experience and statistics don't match your statement. Billy From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Tue Jun 6 19:37:34 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 20:37:34 -0400 Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <4485B88B.3070104@DakotaCom.Net> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060605135056.0408cb08@mail.30below.com> <200606052027.k55KRWhW007722@mail1.magma.ca> <44849829.1010600@jetnet.ab.ca> <4484A181.4010508@DakotaCom.Net> <44853743.E1A24EF2@cs.ubc.ca> <4485B88B.3070104@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <20060607003734.78008BA4932@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Don Y wrote: > Brent Hilpert wrote: > > There was another technique for making circuit boards in the 70s: a > > programmed/automated machine moved over the initially bare board and laid down > > a fine wire from a spool to form the circuits. I think the wire stuck to the > > Yes. *Very* fine wire. It "looked" like magnet wire. > It was really cool because the wires would crossover each other > at will (insulated with lacquer?). So, you had to learn that > > I think the economics were such that it was too slow for large production > > runs, but was suitable for prototypes and small production runs of larger, > > more-complex boards. Last example I saw was a disk-controller for a TI-990 > > mini circa 1980. > > I saw it used in a little (explosion proof!) ATE controller for > flight line diagnostics (military). Perfect application as you > had very dense/complex boards and very limited "production". > > > Anybody remember the name for the technique? "Multiwire". I saw it used for very high-density logic in CAT scanner backprojectors. It was capable of very high packing densities with IC's, much more than conventional 2-layer PCB's, because there was no 2-layer limit as to how many wires could cross over each other. Tim. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 6 19:59:53 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 17:59:53 -0700 Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606061759530249.0C38CE0B@10.0.0.252> On 6/7/2006 at 1:07 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >Over here there were wiring systems solder under the brand names of >'Verowire' and 'Road Runner'. You had a 'pen' which contained a spool of >enammeled copper wire, the enammel was designed to melt at soldering >temperatures. You soldered the ICs/sockets/etc onto square pad board, and >rand the wire between the pins. soldering as you go. > >The verowire tool was much nicer as it had a metal tip. The road runner >tool tended to melt if you weren't careful. I think that Vector briefly offered a similar system here. I don't recall the name. IIRC, this preceded the Strip-n-Wrap system that was offered with a tool that cut small slits in the very thin insulated wire, so that it would contact the corners of a square wirewrap post. This (ostensibly) was wonderful because you could daisy-chain your wraps without cutting the wire. It never worked that well for me--the connections weren't really tight, the wire was expensive, and the insulation was very very thin. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jun 6 20:55:42 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 18:55:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060606184142.Q82406@shell.lmi.net> > > If some others would chip in on the shipping, I'd gladly send you a > > scanner. Would you prefer SCSI or "Centronics"? On Wed, 7 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > I don't care, provided it comes with schematics and uses chips that I > recognise :-) I kinda doubt that even the old HP scanners had schematics available. However, the operation of a scanner is not too complex to reverse engineer. I guess that we still can't get you to accept one, even for free, without open hardware source. > > Would you also like some early Pentium machines, a Beseler enlarger and a > Pentium machines cannot be early :-) True I meant relative to Pentiums. > > "dichroic" head, a Kodak Caramate, some printers and monitors, ...? > As for the enlarger, I have enough problems hosuing my DeVere 504.... > > Howabout: a Fujinon holography camera? > > 'course it's all 60Hz stuff. > Does it _depend_ on the mains frequency? Votlage conversion is trivial (I > have a 110V step-down transformer in the workshop anyway), frequency > conversion can be more of an 'interesting' job. I'd be tempted to do it "mechanically", with a motor and generator. 8" drives may need 50 v 60 Hz (or a change of pulley and belt). But almost everything else recently is rectified to DC. Most "modern" computers just want 5VDC, 12VDC, etc. The only electronics in the holography camera is the power supply for the laser tube. And since I don't have the original tube, a different power supply is not a very big deal. From teoz at neo.rr.com Tue Jun 6 21:10:20 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 22:10:20 -0400 Subject: Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillators References: <200606061759530249.0C38CE0B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <008001c689d7$877bf6a0$0b01a8c0@game> Seems my luck in getting all mypackages to my house intact has ended. I managed to snag a complete Media 100 video capture board setup for my old Macs and the person who packaged it didn't do such a good job. I found a few tantalum capacitors laying in the ESD bag, and on close inspection found another 4-5 that were lose. I soldered the caps back where they should have been and then noticed that one of the crystal oscillator had pins broken off inside the device, plus there is a small brownish surface mount cap missing next to the oscillator that I could not find. So I wonder if that small cap is needed for the card to run, and where am I going to find a new Crystal oscillator to replace the one that is broken. Anybody happen to have a K1602 T laying around they don't need? http://www.brookdale.com/champion/k1601.htm shows the part in question. The frequency needed is 24.545454 Mhz. P.S how do you read any marking on a tiny surface mount capacitor? My cheapo magnifying glass didn't show anything, I even tried using a scanner at 1200 DPI and got nothing but a blur. At first I thaught it was a resistor but the part number C238 I believe must be a capacitor. Thanks for any help, I would rather get this unit working then have to toss it (kind of rare) just because of a couple parts. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 6 21:31:37 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 19:31:37 -0700 Subject: Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillators In-Reply-To: <008001c689d7$877bf6a0$0b01a8c0@game> References: <200606061759530249.0C38CE0B@10.0.0.252> <008001c689d7$877bf6a0$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <200606061931370553.0C8CCA5F@10.0.0.252> On 6/6/2006 at 10:10 PM Teo Zenios wrote: >P.S how do you read any marking on a tiny surface mount capacitor? My >cheapo >magnifying glass didn't show anything, I even tried using a scanner at 1200 >DPI and got nothing but a blur. At first I thaught it was a resistor but >the part number C238 I believe must be a capacitor. Get a compound loupe--fairly inexpensive and absolutely indispensible. From jcwren at jcwren.com Tue Jun 6 21:49:18 2006 From: jcwren at jcwren.com (J.C. Wren) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 22:49:18 -0400 Subject: Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillators In-Reply-To: <200606061931370553.0C8CCA5F@10.0.0.252> References: <200606061759530249.0C38CE0B@10.0.0.252> <008001c689d7$877bf6a0$0b01a8c0@game> <200606061931370553.0C8CCA5F@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44863EAE.7080301@jcwren.com> A loupe rarely helps for surface mount caps because surface mount caps don't have markings. Very annoying. Most electrolytics do, either in 'A' case style (and up), or the cans. I also have a number of 2512 and one size larger that have no markings. Only way to tell is with a capacitance meter. And if you're dealing in picofarad range caps in RF circuits and such, it doesn't help either, unless it's very very expensive. --jc Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/6/2006 at 10:10 PM Teo Zenios wrote: > > >> P.S how do you read any marking on a tiny surface mount capacitor? My >> cheapo >> magnifying glass didn't show anything, I even tried using a scanner at >> > 1200 > >> DPI and got nothing but a blur. At first I thaught it was a resistor but >> the part number C238 I believe must be a capacitor. >> > > Get a compound loupe--fairly inexpensive and absolutely indispensible. > > > > From jrasite at eoni.com Tue Jun 6 22:31:09 2006 From: jrasite at eoni.com (Jim Arnott) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 20:31:09 -0700 Subject: Free for shipping In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <65A5F45E-F9A5-4FA2-94FF-1CF6BE7FC2B6@eoni.com> Like I said in the original post, please reply to with a cc: to . I'm just the messenger boy. Jim On Jun 6, 2006, at 3:47 PM, Julian Wolfe wrote: > How big is the intelliserver and what are we talking for shipping? > Also are > there docs for it? > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org >> [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jim at work >> Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 1:15 PM >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >> Cc: jeff at eoni.com >> Subject: Free for shipping >> >> Good morning, >> >> I currently work for an ISP in Eastern Oregon. Today's >> backroom clean-out day and we have a couple items that may be >> of interest. Cost? You pay the shipping to get them to you. >> >> 1.) Microcom ISPorte, 48 port analog modem rackmount chassis. >> Comes with >> (12) 4 port modems and both a spare power supply and a spare chassis. >> >> 2.) Computone Inteliserver. 64 port serial chassis. Comes >> with dead tree docs. >> >> 3.) (2) Comtrol 16 port serial cards. Comes in original boxes >> w/ dead tree docs. >> >> Rather than dropping this stuff in the dumpster, we like to >> find new homes for them. >> >> Any interest? >> >> Please respond to jamesa at eoni.com with a cc: to jeff at eoni.com >> >> Jim Arnott >> > > From allanh-cctalk at kallisti.com Tue Jun 6 23:46:54 2006 From: allanh-cctalk at kallisti.com (Allan Hessenflow) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 21:46:54 -0700 Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 In-Reply-To: <200606070409.k5749A4W008704@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606070409.k5749A4W008704@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20060606214654.A9422@kallisti.com> On Tue, 06 Jun 2006 17:59:53 -0700, "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > IIRC, this preceded the Strip-n-Wrap system that was offered with a tool > that cut small slits in the very thin insulated wire, so that it would > contact the corners of a square wirewrap post. This (ostensibly) was > wonderful because you could daisy-chain your wraps without cutting the > wire. It never worked that well for me--the connections weren't really > tight, the wire was expensive, and the insulation was very very thin. I had the opposite experience - I built several quite complex prototypes using the Vector Slit-n-Wrap system, and had excellent results. In fact I still use it; I still have a working electric wrap tool (as far as I can tell they no longer make those, but they do still make manual ones and the tips are the same so I can still get replacement tips when necessary). The only problems I've ever seen are opens when I set the tension too low (which I catch immediately because it doesn't feel right), and breaking the wire when it is set too high. I have never seen a connection fail later. I also like that wire better than standard wirewrap wire; the tefzel insulation seems more forgiving than kynar. In addition to wirewrapping, I use it for soldered jumpers; with kynar, the insulation seems to like to split and come off the wire near the soldered joint. However, to be fair I don't recall having that problem even with kynar wire ten or more years ago; maybe it's just the quality of the kynar wire that has been available to me has dropped, as it comes from a variety of manufacturers competing for price while tefzel insulated wire still all comes through a single source. allan -- Allan N. Hessenflow allanh at kallisti.com From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 7 01:02:52 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 23:02:52 -0700 Subject: PCB vs wirewrap, was Re: SBC6120 In-Reply-To: <20060606214654.A9422@kallisti.com> References: <200606070409.k5749A4W008704@dewey.classiccmp.org> <20060606214654.A9422@kallisti.com> Message-ID: <200606062302520925.0D4E3191@10.0.0.252> On 6/6/2006 at 9:46 PM Allan Hessenflow wrote: >However, to be >fair I don't recall having that problem even with kynar wire ten or more >years ago; maybe it's just the quality of the kynar wire that has been >available to me has dropped,. Same experience here. My old spools of wirewrap wire are just fine with solder, but the new ones have insulation that will peel away if you leave the iron on the connection a little too long. And seemingly holding the wire anywhere near the joint while soldering will cause the insulation to peel away at the point where you're holding it. I keep a bottle of clear nail polish handy to patch that up if if I'm worried about a short. My biggest problems with Slit-n-wrap were the ones you mentioned--opens and wires breaking. I guess I never acquired the "feel" for it. Cheers, Chuck From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jun 7 01:32:59 2006 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 23:32:59 -0700 Subject: PCB vs wirewrap References: Message-ID: <4486731C.990254@cs.ubc.ca> Thanks for all the replies, Multiwire was indeed the name I had forgotten. Rather easy to forget... it's not a very unique name, there being lots of things that could fittingly take on that name. I didn't remember the eyelets at the IC pins, but as Dwight mentions them I have a vague recollection of examining a board and (without knowing better or worse) raising an eyebrow as to the potential for manufacturing (in)consistency and the possibility of either cutting the wire too deeply, or not enough to maintain a good contact. Interesting that there was such a wide range of experience with it's reliability. I wonder if it was board size, or variation in quality control between manufacturers of the boards. From Arno_1983 at gmx.de Wed Jun 7 01:53:15 2006 From: Arno_1983 at gmx.de (Arno Kletzander) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 08:53:15 +0200 Subject: Apple PB190 driver for Xircom PCMCIA NIC? Message-ID: <20060607065315.245650@gmx.net> Hello, a Xircom "CreditCard Ethernet 10/100-Ready" (CE3B-100BTX) PCMCIA NIC recently found its way to me, unfortunately without adaptor cable(s). Inserting it in my Apple Powerbook 190 (System 6.something IIRC, my only machine with PCMCIA slot yet) produced a message to the effect that the necessary support software wasn't installed and whether I wanted the card ejected just now or later ;). Anyway a new symbol with the name of the card appeared below that of the harddisk and showed me that it was detected correctly. Some searching of the net didn't turn up anything that looked particularly useful regarding drivers for anything besides Windows - not even at the Xircom (now Intel) product support site - and I'd be grateful to learn whether I have a chance of getting the card to work in the powerbook before I go shelling out money for a replacement cable. Thanks in advance. Yours sincerely, Arno Kletzander BTW: If you have replacement cables/dongles to offer in Europe, then please do it! -- Arno Kletzander Stud. Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen www.iser.uni-erlangen.de Echte DSL-Flatrate dauerhaft f?r 0,- Euro*! "Feel free" mit GMX DSL! http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 7 01:58:06 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 23:58:06 -0700 Subject: Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillators In-Reply-To: <008001c689d7$877bf6a0$0b01a8c0@game> References: <200606061759530249.0C38CE0B@10.0.0.252> <008001c689d7$877bf6a0$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <200606062358060452.0D80C083@10.0.0.252> On 6/6/2006 at 10:10 PM Teo Zenios wrote: >plus there is a small brownish surface mount cap missing >next to the oscillator that I could not find. >So I wonder if that small cap is needed for the card to run, and where am I >going to find a new Crystal oscillator to replace the one that is broken. Check to see if the capacitor is connected between ground and +5. If so, it's just a decoupling capacitor and just about any value between .01 and .1 uF will do the job. >http://www.brookdale.com/champion/k1601.htm shows the part in question. The >frequency needed is 24.545454 Mhz. You might check with Alltronics. They claim to have the frequency in stock for $4.00: http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/email.cgi?item=OSC_24_545454&category=38 I don't know if it's the right package or if it has a trimmer, but it's a start. Cheers, Chuck > >P.S how do you read any marking on a tiny surface mount capacitor? My >cheapo >magnifying glass didn't show anything, I even tried using a scanner at 1200 >DPI and got nothing but a blur. At first I thaught it was a resistor but >the part number C238 I believe must be a capacitor. > >Thanks for any help, I would rather get this unit working then have to toss >it (kind of rare) just because of a couple parts. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 7 02:48:54 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 19:48:54 +1200 Subject: Multiwire (was Re: PCB vs wirewrap) Message-ID: On 6/7/06, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Thanks for all the replies, Multiwire was indeed the name I had forgotten. > Rather easy to forget... it's not a very unique name, there being lots of things > that could fittingly take on that name. The COMBOARD for VAXBI was a Multiwire board, "Unilayer", technically, but the same technology - they took our gerber map and created two custom "decals" of the wire nest, then bonded them down to a 10-layer! 0.1"-center perfboard with only the VAXBI corner done in copper traces (per DEC's VAXBI spec). The advantage was that the VAXBI corner layout was exactly to DEC's spec, and the rest of the board was to our spec, without the tooling costs of setting up and machining a 10-layer PCB. We worked out the math of the costs of Unilayer and full PCB production, and the setup-costs for 10-layer were so high that even though Unilayer was somewhat expensive, we saved money on the initial order of boards. Another cost savings was ECOs in a rev 0/rev A board... it can be tough to make a fix where the problem is on an inner layer (bad enough with 6-layer). We did end up making one cut and one jump on the Unilayer board, but were confident that a later board would have had no wires. Had there been enough demand for a second order, we had contemplated going the full PCB route, but the by the early 1990s (when we finally got our license to manufacture VAXBI boards), the market had moved on. I still have a VAXBI COMBOARD in the 8300 in my basement - it runs HASP and 3780 (we never had enough customer demand to port SNA to it), and if I can think of something else to do with it, I might someday redo the firmware and device driver. It is, in essence, a really-smart dual serial port (10Mhz 68010, 512K to 2MB of local RAM, 1 x Z8530 SIO), and the PCB is rather full, so even trying to hack it into, say, a SCSI card, would be difficult. Still, it was fascinating to open the box and see a large board coated with nests of fine wires... we _did_ inspect every single joint. We found one failure on one board, but not the bonding of the wires to the board - one pin insert was missing, leaving an IC pin hanging in free space. Stole one from the edge of the board from an unoccupied position and the board worked perfectly after that. -ethan From allain at panix.com Wed Jun 7 08:28:16 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 09:28:16 -0400 Subject: Humidity and storing paper manuals References: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3741B@MEOW.catcorner.org> <4485FA83.6060401@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <006001c68a36$3c82a5e0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Just would like to add that a solution I've been thinking about is bag sealing the things that may have to go in the basement. The bag itself is 100% moisture proof and whatever small wear holes there are or the tie around the bag opening would admit some air and therefore humidity, but it would cut the air exposure rates down by a factor of 1000's to 1, I would think. May have to back it up with Dessicant in the bag too. Uline.com, for one, can sell that in bulk for this purpose. Seal the bag in the climate controlled area first and then put that in the basement to start off well. John A. From class at fliptronics.com Wed Jun 7 09:21:33 2006 From: class at fliptronics.com (Philip Freidin) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 07:21:33 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> Message-ID: There is a picture of my build of this great project here: http://gallery.brouhaha.com/freidin-sbc6120/img_5035 This is with the optional front panel, and a custom built wooden case. Philip From lance.w.lyon at gmail.com Wed Jun 7 09:25:42 2006 From: lance.w.lyon at gmail.com (Lance Lyon) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 00:25:42 +1000 Subject: C128 forums References: <001b01c6890b$cca50450$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <003f01c68a3e$440ff620$6500a8be@pentium> Hi guys, I've started a site dedicated to the Commodore 128 (plenty of C64 sites, but nothing much for it's big brother). Forums, files & all the usual suspects..... http://landover.no-ip.com From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jun 7 09:42:04 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 15:42:04 +0100 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4486E5BC.5030109@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: > Certainly there are a _lot_ more dry joints (and I > don't mean joints that look dry, but genuine bad connections) in consumer > electronic devices using lead-free solder. There's certainly a lot more dry joints in modern electronics, period. TVs seem to be particular culprits for some reason - they're one of the more expensive consumer electronics gadgets and yet seem to be the ones with the poorest build quality. From Kevin at RawFedDogs.net Wed Jun 7 09:50:25 2006 From: Kevin at RawFedDogs.net (Kevin Monceaux) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 09:50:25 -0500 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? Message-ID: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> Fellow Classic Computer Enthusiasts, I was rewatching "30 Years in the Tardis" last night and came across an item on the tape I had forgotten about. It's been years since I watched it, and the last time was long before I started tinkering with classic computer emulators. Anyway, while rewatching it I was thrilled to come across a commercial with the Doctor and Romana advertising a Prime computer. I found some info on the net on the Prime computer line, such as: http://www.malch.com/prime/ on the net but no mention of an emulator. I also found some manuals on BitSavers.org. Having been a Doctor Who fan for years, and with Tom Baker being my favorite Doctor, I'd love to have the opportunity to experience a computer system he endorsed. Kevin http://www.RawFedDogs.net http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org Bruceville, TX From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jun 7 09:52:24 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 15:52:24 +0100 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4486E828.40906@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: >> On Mon, 5 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: >>> I am not sure if it's illegal, though, for me to buy an old machine from >>> somebody in the States and have it sent to me. >> If some others would chip in on the shipping, I'd gladly send you a >> scanner. Would you prefer SCSI or "Centronics"? > > I don't care, provided it comes with schematics and uses chips that I > recognise :-) I'm assuming that some of the older scanner mechanisms could be interfaced to with your own electronics if you so wanted? (Does anyone know how the actual scanning head's driven? Is it just a massive linear array of sensors with an on-board de-multiplexor?) I suppose that you can't fix the scanning head if it develops a fault - so it may be easier to accept that if you can't fix the critical/complex/expensive part of the unit then you may as well treat the whole device as a throwaway item [1] [1] Old scanners can be recycled to make nice light-boxes if you're into art/graphics work - rip the guts out and install a couple of fluorescent tubes. Hmm, and possibly they'd make an interesting fishtank if sealed properly (scanquarium?) :-) cheers Jules From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jun 7 10:10:01 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 11:10:01 -0400 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> References: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> Message-ID: <4486EC49.7020502@gmail.com> Kevin Monceaux wrote: > Fellow Classic Computer Enthusiasts, > > I was rewatching "30 Years in the Tardis" last night and came across an item > on the tape I had forgotten about. It's been years since I watched it, and > the last time was long before I started tinkering with classic computer > emulators. Anyway, while rewatching it I was thrilled to come across a > commercial with the Doctor and Romana advertising a Prime computer. I found > some info on the net on the Prime computer line, such as: > > http://www.malch.com/prime/ > > on the net but no mention of an emulator. I also found some manuals on > BitSavers.org. Having been a Doctor Who fan for years, and with Tom Baker > being my favorite Doctor, I'd love to have the opportunity to experience a > computer system he endorsed. Why not just pick up a Prime? They're out there. Some of them are even not all that big. Peace... Sridhar From drb at msu.edu Wed Jun 7 10:11:17 2006 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 11:11:17 -0400 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: (Your message of Wed, 07 Jun 2006 09:50:25 CDT.) <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> References: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> Message-ID: <200606071511.k57FBHLp021050@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > I was rewatching "30 Years in the Tardis" last night and came across > an item on the tape I had forgotten about. It's been years since I > watched it, and the last time was long before I started tinkering > with classic computer emulators. Anyway, while rewatching it I > was thrilled to come across a commercial with the Doctor and Romana > advertising a Prime computer. I found some info on the net on the > Prime computer line, such as: > > http://www.malch.com/prime/ > > on the net but no mention of an emulator. I also found some manuals > on BitSavers.org. Having been a Doctor Who fan for years, and with > Tom Baker being my favorite Doctor, I'd love to have the opportunity > to experience a computer system he endorsed. Aha, another interested person. There's an unreleased emulator which is complete enough to run PRIMOS Rev. 21 and most of the utilities; last I knew it had not yet developed I-mode instruction support. Documentation is slowly accreting on bitsavers; I have a few things I need to finish up and make available. PRIMOS tapes seem to be a bit scarce. I have some tapes of utilities and such that I collected over the years I worked on Prime systems. I've talked to a few list.folk who have machines in their garages awaiting enough parts and software to try to revive them. Mine is a 2550. I've talked to a fellow who has a mostly running 2450. A machine in the UK recently sold on eBay, and one vendor has a pile of (overpriced, mislabeled) boards and parts constituting most of a machine except for cabinet, backplane and disk drives in his store. I'd be interested in seeing that commercial if you can put it online somewhere. De From drb at msu.edu Wed Jun 7 10:14:31 2006 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 11:14:31 -0400 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: (Your message of Wed, 07 Jun 2006 11:10:01 EDT.) <4486EC49.7020502@gmail.com> References: <4486EC49.7020502@gmail.com> <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> Message-ID: <200606071514.k57FEVwv021173@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > Why not just pick up a Prime? They're out there. Some of them are > even not all that big. Sridhar, Do you know of some which are available? De From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jun 7 10:15:08 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 10:15:08 -0500 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? References: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> Message-ID: <005401c68a45$4e0c18f0$6500a8c0@BILLING> I looked around for an emulator and never found one. I'd love to find one though! Better yet, I'd be willing to trade a few highly desireable mini's for a decent prime box :) Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jun 7 10:17:09 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 10:17:09 -0500 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? References: <4486EC49.7020502@gmail.com><20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> <200606071514.k57FEVwv021173@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <006f01c68a45$7543ec40$6500a8c0@BILLING> Sridhar wrote.... > > Why not just pick up a Prime? They're out there. Some of them are > > even not all that big. I'd prefer a large one, but I'd take anything. Do tell me where one is :) Jay From drb at msu.edu Wed Jun 7 10:26:46 2006 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 11:26:46 -0400 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: (Your message of Wed, 07 Jun 2006 10:15:08 CDT.) <005401c68a45$4e0c18f0$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <005401c68a45$4e0c18f0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> Message-ID: <200606071526.k57FQkVs021634@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > I looked around for an emulator and never found one. I'd love to find > one though! > > Better yet, I'd be willing to trade a few highly desireable mini's > for a decent prime box :) Jay, I've talked a bit by e-mail to the guy who did some of the work on the F77 MAGRST clone and who has a 2450 mostly working. (Was working; power suplly needs repair.) He provided disk images to another guy, to whom I've also talked, who has written an emulator. The latter guy is reluctant to release the emulator because he's afraid since copyrighted materials were used as references during its construction, he'd end up in legal trouble. I've got a transcript of a session with the emulator, booting, running fix_disk, shutting down, which the guy sent me. There's hope; guy #1 is working on guy #2 to relax and ship the code. Meanwhile, if I find any Primes, I'll try to nab them for you. De From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Jun 7 10:27:09 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 08:27:09 -0700 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> References: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> Message-ID: I'm not aware of one. Here are the Big Iron emulators that I am aware of: http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/bigironemu.html 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 evan at snarc.net Wed Jun 7 10:35:02 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 11:35:02 -0400 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: <4486EC49.7020502@gmail.com> Message-ID: <000301c68a47$f1c50590$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> We have a couple of large ones here in the MARCH/InfoAge collection. I don't have any information handy about the model numbers or the condition. -----Original Message----- From: Sridhar Ayengar [mailto:ploopster at gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 11:10 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? Kevin Monceaux wrote: > Fellow Classic Computer Enthusiasts, > > I was rewatching "30 Years in the Tardis" last night and came across > an item on the tape I had forgotten about. It's been years since I > watched it, and the last time was long before I started tinkering with > classic computer emulators. Anyway, while rewatching it I was > thrilled to come across a commercial with the Doctor and Romana > advertising a Prime computer. I found some info on the net on the Prime computer line, such as: > > http://www.malch.com/prime/ > > on the net but no mention of an emulator. I also found some manuals > on BitSavers.org. Having been a Doctor Who fan for years, and with > Tom Baker being my favorite Doctor, I'd love to have the opportunity > to experience a computer system he endorsed. Why not just pick up a Prime? They're out there. Some of them are even not all that big. Peace... Sridhar From Kevin at RawFedDogs.net Wed Jun 7 10:36:25 2006 From: Kevin at RawFedDogs.net (Kevin Monceaux) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 10:36:25 -0500 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: <200606071511.k57FBHLp021050@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> <200606071511.k57FBHLp021050@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <20060607153625.GA4818@RawFedDogs.net> On Wed, Jun 07, 2006 at 11:11:17AM -0400, Dennis Boone wrote: > There's an unreleased emulator which is complete enough to run PRIMOS > Rev. 21 and most of the utilities; last I knew it had not yet developed > I-mode instruction support. Any idea where I might find more information about it, such as when it might be released? > I'd be interested in seeing that commercial if you can put it online > somewhere. Since what I have is on "More than 30 Years in the Tardis" from the BBC I suspect it's copyrighted. It would appear that what I have is an abbreviated version. I found some info on the commercials at: http://nzdwfc.tetrap.com/archive/tsv26/primecomputers.html It appears that there were actually four commercials staring the Doctor and Romana. I would love to see them all myself. Kevin http://www.RawFedDogs.net http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org Bruceville, TX From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jun 7 10:37:29 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 11:37:29 -0400 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: <200606071511.k57FBHLp021050@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> <200606071511.k57FBHLp021050@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4486F2B9.2020302@gmail.com> Dennis Boone wrote: > > I was rewatching "30 Years in the Tardis" last night and came across > > an item on the tape I had forgotten about. It's been years since I > > watched it, and the last time was long before I started tinkering > > with classic computer emulators. Anyway, while rewatching it I > > was thrilled to come across a commercial with the Doctor and Romana > > advertising a Prime computer. I found some info on the net on the > > Prime computer line, such as: > > > > http://www.malch.com/prime/ > > > > on the net but no mention of an emulator. I also found some manuals > > on BitSavers.org. Having been a Doctor Who fan for years, and with > > Tom Baker being my favorite Doctor, I'd love to have the opportunity > > to experience a computer system he endorsed. > > Aha, another interested person. > > There's an unreleased emulator which is complete enough to run PRIMOS > Rev. 21 and most of the utilities; last I knew it had not yet developed > I-mode instruction support. Documentation is slowly accreting on > bitsavers; I have a few things I need to finish up and make available. > PRIMOS tapes seem to be a bit scarce. I have some tapes of utilities > and such that I collected over the years I worked on Prime systems. > > I've talked to a few list.folk who have machines in their garages > awaiting enough parts and software to try to revive them. Mine is > a 2550. I've talked to a fellow who has a mostly running 2450. > > A machine in the UK recently sold on eBay, and one vendor has a pile > of (overpriced, mislabeled) boards and parts constituting most of a > machine except for cabinet, backplane and disk drives in his store. > > I'd be interested in seeing that commercial if you can put it online > somewhere. Ian Primus , who has been a member of this list in the past, works for one of the few support shops that still supports Prime and PRIMOS *today*. He collects classic hardware and runs one or two fully functional Primes in his house. You might want to email him. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jun 7 10:39:11 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 11:39:11 -0400 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: <000301c68a47$f1c50590$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <000301c68a47$f1c50590$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <4486F31F.2040605@gmail.com> Evan Koblentz wrote: > We have a couple of large ones here in the MARCH/InfoAge collection. I > don't have any information handy about the model numbers or the condition. I believe you met Ian at VCFE. He works with Primes for a living. Peace... Sridhar From evan at snarc.net Wed Jun 7 10:50:39 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 11:50:39 -0400 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: <4486F31F.2040605@gmail.com> Message-ID: <000701c68a4a$20462a00$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Yep, I forgot. Will ping you off-list about that. -----Original Message----- From: Sridhar Ayengar [mailto:ploopster at gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 11:39 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? Evan Koblentz wrote: > We have a couple of large ones here in the MARCH/InfoAge collection. I > don't have any information handy about the model numbers or the condition. I believe you met Ian at VCFE. He works with Primes for a living. Peace... Sridhar From cc at corti-net.de Wed Jun 7 11:02:02 2006 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 18:02:02 +0200 (CEST) Subject: ITT Service Manual In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 5 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: >> Sad - I have only the infos for ITT3030 at >> http://oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/pub/rechner/sel/itt3030/info.html That's an entire different beast ;-) I have several of these machines (complete with hard disks, external drives etc.) and a "small amount" of spare parts in several banana boxes. BTW there's where I found other ITT stuff like 3287 boards and course materials. > FWIW, I have an ITT 3210 display terminal engineering manual (including > schematics). This is a fairly dumb RS232 terminal (it does support cursor > positioning, but not much more) built from TTL and MOS shift registers as > the display memory Well, *this* one is too dumb for me... The bigger ones from the 328x series were generally connected to a terminal controller (3282) which in turn provided terminal lines to an IBM 360/370 host. These terminals are based on the i8008 (and i8080 in later models), I have several boards from those terminals, some of them contain ICs that I cannod identify (see the thread for the AMI 1315-P-2 and Synertek 2650-P-01). The AMI part seems to be a keyboard controller with keycode repeat etc. The Synertek part *may* be a custom chip, it's definitely *not* a Signetics 2650 as the idiot chip collectors would tell you. BTW I couldn't trace a ground line to this IC, only -5V and +5V, eight data(?) lines coming from DS8833 transceivers and other signals I haven't traced out yet. The display board from these terminals still have MOS shift registers, and an unknown (again!) IC from NatSemi called 1409. I hope schematics would tell me what all these rare ICs are. Christian From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Jun 7 11:15:15 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 12:15:15 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Intel MDS keyboard Message-ID: I have a rather junky...very junky...keyboard for the Intel MDS 220 microprocessor system. No plastic, some keycaps missing, dirty. It might be good for spares (like the keyboad encoder). Anyway need it? Cheeeeep bribes go a long way, but I at least ask for shipping. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From lbickley at bickleywest.com Wed Jun 7 11:49:03 2006 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 09:49:03 -0700 Subject: Humidity and storing paper manuals In-Reply-To: <006001c68a36$3c82a5e0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> References: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3741B@MEOW.catcorner.org> <4485FA83.6060401@jetnet.ab.ca> <006001c68a36$3c82a5e0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <200606070949.03894.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Wednesday 07 June 2006 06:28, John Allain wrote: > Just would like to add that a solution I've been thinking about is bag > sealing the things that may have to go in the basement. The bag itself > is 100% moisture proof and whatever small wear holes there are or > the tie around the bag opening would admit some air and therefore > humidity, but it would cut the air exposure rates down by a factor of > 1000's to 1, I would think. May have to back it up with Dessicant in > the bag too. Uline.com, for one, can sell that in bulk for this purpose. > Seal the bag in the climate controlled area first and then put that in the > basement to start off well. Since I'm a volunteer at the Computer History Museum, I thought this subject would be best addressed by a professional archivist. I asked Allison Akbay for advice for vintage computer collectors in storing documents. Here is her response: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The good news is the caring for books and other documents is something that archivists, conservationists and Museum collection managers have down pat as we have had hundreds of years experience at caring for these types of things. Now caring for vintage computers is a whole new field... ;-) [my smily face - Lyle] There are some really wonderful references online, here are a few I recommend: American Institute for Conservation publishes brochures for the public that are available online: http://aic.stanford.edu/library/online/brochures/ Conservation online has a number of great resources run by a great variety of Museums and archives: http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/bytopic/genpub/ The National Parks publication Conserve O Gram is aimed at collections in parks but is easily useable by the general public. All of the Conserve O Grams are available online at: http://www.cr.nps.gov/museum/publications/conserveogram/cons_toc.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In addition, for those who live in, or are visiting the San Francisco Bay Area in June, Allison is running a workshop on artifact and document care: "June 21st at 2 pm I am teaching a artifact handling workshop at the Museum which gives a basic introduction to document care" - Allison ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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 Wed Jun 7 12:29:06 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 10:29:06 -0700 Subject: Any Tandem collectors Message-ID: <200606071029060757.0FC26FF8@10.0.0.252> The slow demise of SGI and probably Sun got me to thinking about another one-time Silicon Valley high-flyer, Tandem and its not-very-shy Texan CEO Jimmy Treybig. (I know that Compaq bought Tandem, but I don't count the modern systems as being truly "Tandem"). Does anyone here collect Tandem (or even Stratus) gear? Just curious. Cheers, Chuck From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Jun 7 12:44:22 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 10:44:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> Message-ID: On Wed, 7 Jun 2006, Philip Freidin wrote: > There is a picture of my build of this great project here: > > http://gallery.brouhaha.com/freidin-sbc6120/img_5035 > > This is with the optional front panel, and a custom built wooden case. Very nice! It seems like a fairly straightforward and simple project. What are those brass latches on the inside for? Holding the top on? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From nico at farumdata.dk Wed Jun 7 13:02:54 2006 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 20:02:54 +0200 Subject: Hobby / museum activities Message-ID: <001601c68a5c$99ca3cb0$2101a8c0@finans> Hi all We frequently talked about a conversion service, where those having the proper drives, could help amateurs / museums in preserving / conserving their data. Before I incorporate this page in my normal web site, I'd like to hear comments, and where possible the names/websites of others who are interesting in helping our community. The way I see it, this page should only refer to relevant parties, who then (on their own website) can have a description of what they can be of assistance with. Please take a look at http://www.farumdata.dk/uk/enmuseum.asp I would appreciated your comments Nico From aijones2 at bsu.edu Wed Jun 7 13:26:04 2006 From: aijones2 at bsu.edu (Andrew Jones) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 14:26:04 -0400 Subject: My annual request: iAPX 432 binary code. Message-ID: <44871A3C.5090907@bsu.edu> I asked this a year ago, and I think another time two years ago: Does anyone have any access to any sort of i432 binaries whatsoever? The i432 was Intel's brilliantly-designed, massively-multiway, object-oriented CPU from the late seventies and early eighties. It was a tremendously powerful, forward-looking design, but it was slower than molasses. At the same clock speed, an i432 was 1/4th the speed and 10x the cost of an 80286. I've got "enough" documentation on the thing to potentially write an emulator, but it's all a gedankenexperiment until I can get ahold of at least a snippet of actual i432 executables. I've long since given up on ever finding hardware; only a few systems ever made it into customer hands, and most of those were rather low-spec. Any tape dump of any kind containing i432 object code would be the closest I'll ever get! From fireflyst at earthlink.net Wed Jun 7 13:35:36 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 13:35:36 -0500 Subject: Hobby / museum activities In-Reply-To: <001601c68a5c$99ca3cb0$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: Sorry about that I didn't look at your page first, you can list me as available to convert RL02 PDP11 media in the USA, but if someone from overseas wants to use me too, that's fine. I'll make .dsk images of their media for them. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Nico de Jong > Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 1:03 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Hobby / museum activities > > Hi all > > We frequently talked about a conversion service, where those > having the proper drives, could help amateurs / museums in > preserving / conserving their data. > Before I incorporate this page in my normal web site, I'd > like to hear comments, and where possible the names/websites > of others who are interesting in helping our community. > The way I see it, this page should only refer to relevant > parties, who then (on their own website) can have a > description of what they can be of assistance with. > > Please take a look at http://www.farumdata.dk/uk/enmuseum.asp > I would appreciated your comments > > Nico > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jun 7 13:43:55 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 13:43:55 -0500 Subject: Hobby / museum activities References: <001601c68a5c$99ca3cb0$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: <004d01c68a62$54c802e0$6500a8c0@BILLING> I should have posted a week ago all the new services I'm trying to get up on the classiccmp website. One of them is a list of people to assist with media conversion. I'll try to clean up the list and post it publicly, so people know where I'm headed. Jay West From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jun 7 14:32:33 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 14:32:33 -0500 Subject: Hobby / museum activities References: <001601c68a5c$99ca3cb0$2101a8c0@finans> <004d01c68a62$54c802e0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <00e801c68a69$1fe09950$6500a8c0@BILLING> I had written.... > I'll try to clean up the list and post it publicly, so people know where > I'm headed. Clarification: I wasn't saying I had a list of people to do media conversion. I was saying I had a list of all the upgrades and new features that were being worked on for the new classiccmp website, and that a section on the site was going to have a list where people could see folks willing to do media conversions. The facility is planned, but there is no data (names) in place to go on that list. It was the list of all the upgrades and new features that I'm planning for the new classiccmp website that I was saying I'd post soon :) Jay From jrasite at eoni.com Wed Jun 7 15:14:42 2006 From: jrasite at eoni.com (Jim at work) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 13:14:42 -0700 Subject: More details on "Free for Shipping" Message-ID: <00af01c68a6f$0368a370$5113fea9@supertech> Here it is direct from the boss's hand... item 1 Microcom ISPorte, 48 port analog modem rackmount system includes: one chassis that is loaded with twelve quad modem cards (4 modems per card) (35 pounds) one spare, new empty chassis (21 pounds) one spare, new power supply (7 pounds) the quad modem cards have 4 RJ45 RS-232 DTE ports and 4 analog RJ11 ports. item 2 Computone Inteliserver. 64 port terminal server (25 pounds) includes paper documentation and console cable this unit is a rackmount chassis that contains CPU card with one 10BT Ethernet, and one RS-232 console port on the CPU card. 4 serial port cards with 16 serial ports on each card total of 64 ports the interface on the serial ports is RJ45. A standard straight patch cable can be connected between the Microcom DTE port and the Computone Serial port (that is how we used it in a dialup ISP application) The Intelliserver can take modem calls and provide the dialup user with a menu of service choices (telnet to this host, telnet to that host) or in our case we used it to run dialup PPP sessions the unit could be used for dump terminal applications as well. this example is just how we used it. Item 3 one ISA Comtrol 16 port RockPort serial card. Comes in original boxes w/ paper documentation. No technical support is included, all items are as-is, if you want to know if it is worth the shipping, look up UPS ground from 97850 to your zip code and add $10 for us to box it up and get it sent. We can ship after your check is sent to us and it clears the bank. If you are sure you want the items, call Jeff at 541-963-2625 and we can arrange all the details. Thanks. Jeff Crews Eastern Oregon Net, Inc. 808 Adams Av, La Grande Oregon 97850 main office: 541-962-7873 ext 11 or 800-785-7873 ext 11 direct 541-963-2625, fax 503-907-6704, email jeff at eoni.com http://home.eoni.com From fmc at reanimators.org Wed Jun 7 15:40:01 2006 From: fmc at reanimators.org (Frank McConnell) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 13:40:01 -0700 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? References: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> <200606071511.k57FBHLp021050@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <200606072040.k57Ke1ZV085942@lots.reanimators.org> Dennis Boone wrote (after Kevin Monceaux): > > with classic computer emulators. Anyway, while rewatching it I > > was thrilled to come across a commercial with the Doctor and Romana > > advertising a Prime computer. > I'd be interested in seeing that commercial if you can put it online > somewhere. You might find it about 2/3 of the way down this page: -Frank McConnell From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Wed Jun 7 15:40:47 2006 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 15:40:47 -0500 Subject: My continuing 11/34 confusion Message-ID: Alright, so, I finally was able to get good readings at the backplane as far as votages go. My AC voltage is exactly 28 volts going into all units requesting. The -15v line is fine, it must just be the bulb that's burnt out on the regulator. So, as far as I can tell, my power supply is working just as it should. So now I move up to the backplane.I plugged in the memory and a DL11-W and put a tester on the RS232 lines - I get nothing coming from the DL11-W. The front panel reads all zeros when powered on, the Run light and DC lights are on. Here is my current backplane config: 1 M8266-----M8266-------M8266-------M8266-------M8266-------M8266 2 M8265-----M8265-------M8265-------M8265-------M8265-------M8265 3 M7891-----M7891-------M7891-------M7891-------M7891-------M7891 4 M9301-----M9301 M7859-------M7859-------M7859-------M7859 5 EMPTY EMPTY M7856-------M7856-------M7856-------M7856 6 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY 7 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY 8 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY 9 M9302-----M9302 EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY Can anyone make sense of this? Thanks Julian From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jun 7 15:53:03 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 14:53:03 -0600 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: <200606072040.k57Ke1ZV085942@lots.reanimators.org> References: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> <200606071511.k57FBHLp021050@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <200606072040.k57Ke1ZV085942@lots.reanimators.org> Message-ID: <44873CAF.4080300@jetnet.ab.ca> Frank McConnell wrote: > > You might find it about 2/3 of the way down this page: > Since I know how the Doctor ran the Tardis I would not trust him with a computer. :) From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Wed Jun 7 17:08:51 2006 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 18:08:51 -0400 Subject: What's up with these floppies??? Message-ID: ebay auction : 8821101727 A pair of Mitsubishi M2896-63-02U 8 inch floppies... Bare drives no chassis or power supply. They look like pretty bog standard half height 8 inch drives to me. Sold for $257 US. From henk.gooijen at oce.com Wed Jun 7 17:10:04 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 00:10:04 +0200 Subject: My continuing 11/34 confusion References: Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2019E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> First the easy question ... must be FAQ by now! Did you check the wire CA1-CB1 for the slots 6-7-8-9 ? It *must* be present. The simplest check is replace all G727s and install G7273's in position C-D in slots 6-7-8-9. As long as the RUN light stays on after power up, you have a bus hung. - Henk. ________________________________ Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Wolfe, Julian Verzonden: wo 07-06-2006 22:40 Aan: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Onderwerp: My continuing 11/34 confusion Alright, so, I finally was able to get good readings at the backplane as far as votages go. My AC voltage is exactly 28 volts going into all units requesting. The -15v line is fine, it must just be the bulb that's burnt out on the regulator. So, as far as I can tell, my power supply is working just as it should. So now I move up to the backplane.I plugged in the memory and a DL11-W and put a tester on the RS232 lines - I get nothing coming from the DL11-W. The front panel reads all zeros when powered on, the Run light and DC lights are on. Here is my current backplane config: 1 M8266-----M8266-------M8266-------M8266-------M8266-------M8266 2 M8265-----M8265-------M8265-------M8265-------M8265-------M8265 3 M7891-----M7891-------M7891-------M7891-------M7891-------M7891 4 M9301-----M9301 M7859-------M7859-------M7859-------M7859 5 EMPTY EMPTY M7856-------M7856-------M7856-------M7856 6 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY 7 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY 8 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY 9 M9302-----M9302 EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY Can anyone make sense of this? Thanks Julian This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From rcini at optonline.net Wed Jun 7 17:58:32 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 18:58:32 -0400 Subject: Altair32-Cromemco Dazzler Pictures In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001901c68a85$e681af60$6501a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Al: According to Rodger, he got all of the images from Bitsavers. Magenta Martini appears to be an unknown data file. Maybe a DAZZLEMATION data file, just guessing. The others are 8080 binaries. Only TANKWAR requires a Z80. He stripped the leaders(zeroes), patched the console routines in the 2 Writers and 4dtictactoe for the ALTAIR32. Doodle is org'd at 200, the Writers at 5000, and the rest at 0. Oh, 4dtictactoe uses a terminal to ask/show moves. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 2:53 PM To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Altair32-Cromemco Dazzler Pictures > I don't have the working binaries yet Would it be possible to find out if the program images are from the paper tapes that are up at http://bitsavers.org/bits/Cromemco/paperTapes/ It has been claimed that the tapes there were read incorrectly and Since I didn't know the format, I have no way to verify them. From fireflyst at earthlink.net Wed Jun 7 18:01:24 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 18:01:24 -0500 Subject: My continuing 11/34 confusion In-Reply-To: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C2019E@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Message-ID: Alright. I know this is a very COMMON problem, but the other COMMON problem is there seems to be no good explanation as to what pins are what on the damn backplane. I know I may be coming off sort of abrasive here (no offense meant to Henk or anyone else) but even the 11/34 documentation *also* talks about the bus grant path and gives no pin explanation on the backplane - you're just supposed to inherently know where the connection between CA1 and CB1 is in a mass of pins and wire. I've looked through what manuals are available on bitsavers and manx, and got nothing at all that I could make sense of. All I'm looking for is simple pin labling for a DD11 9 slot backplane. Why was this so hard to put in the manual? IMO this information should be included in whatever FAQ you want to add the bus grant info. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Gooijen, Henk > Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 5:10 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: My continuing 11/34 confusion > > First the easy question ... must be FAQ by now! > Did you check the wire CA1-CB1 for the slots 6-7-8-9 ? > It *must* be present. The simplest check is replace all > G727s and install G7273's in position C-D in slots 6-7-8-9. > As long as the RUN light stays on after power up, you have a bus hung. > > - Henk. > > ________________________________ > > Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Wolfe, Julian > Verzonden: wo 07-06-2006 22:40 > Aan: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Onderwerp: My continuing 11/34 confusion > > > > Alright, so, I finally was able to get good readings at the > backplane as far > as votages go. My AC voltage is exactly 28 volts going into all units > requesting. The -15v line is fine, it must just be the bulb > that's burnt > out on the regulator. So, as far as I can tell, my power > supply is working > just as it should. > > So now I move up to the backplane.I plugged in the memory and > a DL11-W and > put a tester on the RS232 lines - I get nothing coming from > the DL11-W. The > front panel reads all zeros when powered on, the Run light > and DC lights are > on. > > Here is my current backplane config: > > 1 M8266-----M8266-------M8266-------M8266-------M8266-------M8266 > 2 M8265-----M8265-------M8265-------M8265-------M8265-------M8265 > 3 M7891-----M7891-------M7891-------M7891-------M7891-------M7891 > 4 M9301-----M9301 M7859-------M7859-------M7859-------M7859 > 5 EMPTY EMPTY M7856-------M7856-------M7856-------M7856 > 6 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY > 7 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY > 8 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY > 9 M9302-----M9302 EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY > > Can anyone make sense of this? > > Thanks > Julian > > > > > > > > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the > use of the addressee and may contain information that is > privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure > under applicable law. > If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof > responsible for delivering this message to the intended > recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, > distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly > prohibited. > If you have received this communication in error, please > notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" > message. > Thank you for your cooperation. > > From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 7 18:02:13 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 16:02:13 -0700 Subject: What's up with these floppies??? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606071602130879.10F36831@10.0.0.252> On 6/7/2006 at 6:08 PM Bill Sudbrink wrote: >They look like pretty bog standard half height 8 inch >drives to me. > >Sold for $257 US. 8" floppy drives are getting expensive as they get to be less common. The Mitsubishis were used a bunch of equipment, include Heath/Zentith. $257 for two half-height DS units is not a particularly awful deal. Cheers, Chuck From williams.dan at gmail.com Wed Jun 7 18:12:58 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 00:12:58 +0100 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: <200606071511.k57FBHLp021050@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> <200606071511.k57FBHLp021050@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <26c11a640606071612w62a1c56blc011e2e8b0b9db73@mail.gmail.com> > A machine in the UK recently sold on eBay, and one vendor has a pile > of (overpriced, mislabeled) boards and parts constituting most of a > machine except for cabinet, backplane and disk drives in his store. > > I'd be interested in seeing that commercial if you can put it online > somewhere. > > De > I bought the one from ebay recently unfortunately the last time it was powered up apparently it went bang and no longer powers up. I am hoping it was something simple. I haven't had a chance to have a good look yet, mainly due to space. This should be remedied sometime soon. Dan From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Wed Jun 7 18:50:07 2006 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 19:50:07 -0400 Subject: What's up with these floppies??? In-Reply-To: <200606071602130879.10F36831@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/7/2006 at 6:08 PM Bill Sudbrink wrote: > >They look like pretty bog standard half height 8 inch > >drives to me. > > > >Sold for $257 US. > > 8" floppy drives are getting expensive as they get to be less common. The > Mitsubishis were used a bunch of equipment, include Heath/Zentith. $257 > for two half-height DS units is not a particularly awful deal. OK then, this guy got a hell of a deal: ebay auction : 8820786285 these guys got good deals: ebay auction : 8817737206, 8814698597 and I'm sitting on a gold mine... I have about 30 SA-851s. Full height admittedly, but I personally think that SA-851s are the best 8" floppy ever made and grab them whenever I get the chance (for a reasonable, to me anyway, price... less than $30 including shipping per drive). I keep an eye for 8 inchers on ebay and don't recall ever seeing that high of a price for bare drives before. I was going to bid those because I have a system where it would be handy to stuff two drives into a single full height spot and the seller was local to me and would allow pickup for no fee. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 7 18:39:22 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 00:39:22 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <4486E828.40906@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jun 7, 6 03:52:24 pm Message-ID: > I'm assuming that some of the older scanner mechanisms could be interfaced to > with your own electronics if you so wanted? (Does anyone know how the actual > scanning head's driven? Is it just a massive linear array of sensors with an > on-board de-multiplexor?) > I would assume it's a linear (as opposed to area) CCD. Now, I spent many years playing tricks with CCDs, and one thing that's burnt into my memory is that the drive pulses are critical. Not mild;y critical, but _very_ critical. Trying to get them right for an unknwn device is not my idea of a good time. It would be easier, I think to get a known CCD and build the rest of the mechanism from scratch. Anyway, there is the other problem that if I do get the scanner, what the heck do I store the data from it on. I am not using multiple 8" disks per page :-) Do you know of a CD burner that comes with a service manual? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 7 18:16:52 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 00:16:52 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: from "Billy Pettit" at Jun 6, 6 05:32:45 pm Message-ID: > I'd like to see your data on this, if it is more than personal = > observation > of a recent purchase. I work in an organization that does millions of = No real data, I'm afraid. It's based on talking to people who repair modern TVs, DVD players, etc. They have found a lot more dry joints (which may lead to further component damage) in 'lead free' boards. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 7 18:45:51 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 00:45:51 +0100 (BST) Subject: ITT Service Manual In-Reply-To: from "Christian Corti" at Jun 7, 6 06:02:02 pm Message-ID: > Well, *this* one is too dumb for me... The bigger ones from the 328x > series were generally connected to a terminal controller (3282) which in > turn provided terminal lines to an IBM 360/370 host. These terminals are > based on the i8008 (and i8080 in later models), I have several boards from > those terminals, some of them contain ICs that I cannod identify (see the > thread for the AMI 1315-P-2 and Synertek 2650-P-01). The AMI part seems to I don;'t think the 3210 manual is going to be any use at all for this. I am pretty sure the keyboard encoding is done by some TTL chips one the back of the keyboard, I rememeber, almost 20 years ago (when the thing was already anytique), adding the circuit shown in the manual (a few TTL chips on a bit of stripboard) so the keyboard could send lower case characters (as stamdard, the keyboard was upper case only, the unit would correctly display upper and lower case. Go figure). > be a keyboard controller with keycode repeat etc. The Synertek part *may* > be a custom chip, it's definitely *not* a Signetics 2650 as the idiot chip > collectors would tell you. BTW I couldn't trace a ground line to this IC, > only -5V and +5V, eight data(?) lines coming from DS8833 transceivers and This makes me think of a PMOS chip, effecively running on -10V (below the 5V line, if you see what I mean). Could it be a ROM, used to re-map the keyboard layout? > other signals I haven't traced out yet. > The display board from these terminals still have MOS shift registers, and > an unknown (again!) IC from NatSemi called 1409. > I hope schematics would tell me what all these rare ICs are. FWIW, the 3210 manual suggests repair by board-swapping, but does contain full scheamtics and theory-of-operation. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 7 18:23:15 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 00:23:15 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <20060606184142.Q82406@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jun 6, 6 06:55:42 pm Message-ID: > > > > If some others would chip in on the shipping, I'd gladly send you a > > > scanner. Would you prefer SCSI or "Centronics"? > On Wed, 7 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > > I don't care, provided it comes with schematics and uses chips that I > > recognise :-) > > I kinda doubt that even the old HP scanners had schematics available. AFAIK you're right, they didn't. I don't think there were any scanner service manuals on hpmusuem.net before the crash, but manuals for similar-date products didn't contain schematics. > However, the operation of a scanner is not too complex to reverse > engineer. Rather you than me. The only scanner I looked inside had several unindentifyable ICs... > I guess that we still can't get you to accept one, even for free, without > open hardware source. Surely you all know me by now. I am not going to depend on something that I can't repair. > > Does it _depend_ on the mains frequency? Votlage conversion is trivial (I > > have a 110V step-down transformer in the workshop anyway), frequency > > conversion can be more of an 'interesting' job. > > I'd be tempted to do it "mechanically", with a motor and generator. So would I. Doing it electroncially (rectify mains to give DC, then re-chop at the right frequency) looks great on paper, but as we all know, using power semiconductors that way is a black art. One tiny mistake and they'll try to put a dead short across the mains and scatter themselves round the room in the process... > 8" drives may need 50 v 60 Hz (or a change of pulley and belt). Making a new pulley is not a particularly difficult job.... > But almost everything else recently is rectified to DC. > Most "modern" computers just want 5VDC, 12VDC, etc. Indeed. Occasionally, the mains frequecy was used for a real time clock (in which case the thing won't keep good time, which may not be a big problem -- if it is, a crysal + divider chain would be a workaround). Very occasionally, the transformer is rated only for 60Hz (higher frequency means you can use a smaller core for the same power, that's (a) why a lot of aircraft stuff ran at 400Hx, and (b) why the transformers in SMPSUs are small). But most trasnformers that are used on 60Hz are OK for 50Hz too. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 7 18:56:17 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 00:56:17 +0100 (BST) Subject: My continuing 11/34 confusion In-Reply-To: from "Julian Wolfe" at Jun 7, 6 06:01:24 pm Message-ID: > > Alright. > > I know this is a very COMMON problem, but the other COMMON problem is there > seems to be no good explanation as to what pins are what on the damn > backplane. I know I may be coming off sort of abrasive here (no offense > meant to Henk or anyone else) but even the 11/34 documentation *also* talks > about the bus grant path and gives no pin explanation on the backplane - > you're just supposed to inherently know where the connection between CA1 and > CB1 is in a mass of pins and wire. > > I've looked through what manuals are available on bitsavers and manx, and > got nothing at all that I could make sense of. > > All I'm looking for is simple pin labling for a DD11 9 slot backplane. Why > was this so hard to put in the manual? OK, here you are : A pin reference is of the form 2AF1 (that is, digit, letter, leter, digit) The first digit is the slot number. Slot 1 is on the right, looking at the side you plug the boards into. The component side of the boards faces towards slot 1 The next letter is the sub-connector in the slot. It'll be A up to F. Slot A is the rearmost one, slot F is the frontmost (again, looking at the backplane from the 'board side' as you have it in the BA11-K The next letter is the row of the pin. There are 18 rows, since there are 18 pins down each side of the connector. The letters used, in order, are : A B C D E F H J K L M N P R S T U V Again, row F is the rearmost And the last digit gives the side. Side one is the component side, side 2 the solder side. -tony From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Wed Jun 7 19:58:46 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 19:58:46 -0500 Subject: ComputerVision CADDstation 32 Message-ID: I've posted about this machine a couple times before- it's a Sun 3004 + Carerra memory along with a bunch of ComputerVision parts. It looks like it runs SunOS 3.x at this point. I have documentation. Anyway - This beast is biggish and the 3004 has some sort of fault, the nature of which is beyond my current skills to locate. I did pop in a 3/110 mainboard, and it semi-booted (started complaining about unhandled interrupts- looks like it has a trimmed kernel). Looks like the drive (a Control Data) is having issues (errors on a couple of directories when I mounted it from a 4.1.4 IPX). Disclaimers aside- or the Reason for This Message: I don't think that I can keep this machine, and I think that there are others on the list who would be more interested in it. It has, in addition to the CPU and RAM (12 MB), the CV framebuffer, CV GPU (2 board set), tablet interface, and SCSI+serial card (SMPL board in CV lingo). Built-in tape drive (complete with gummy roller) and the CDC 1?0 MB SCSI drive in a deskside chassis (not Sun 3/160). Docs and tapes included, all smoked caps have been replaced. I will be scanning the docs and taking more pictures before getting rid of it. Preference given to location (about 150-200 pounds of computer here), interest, and bribes (I'm looking for a decent smallish VMS box that takes modern SCSI drives, and a MC88k box, but will consider other offers). From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 7 20:26:00 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 18:26:00 -0700 Subject: What's up with these floppies??? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606071826000263.11770825@10.0.0.252> On 6/7/2006 at 7:50 PM Bill Sudbrink wrote: >OK then, this guy got a hell of a deal: > >ebay auction : 8820786285 > >these guys got good deals: > >ebay auction : 8817737206, 8814698597 Hey, I don't set prices--and the guy who bought the two drives runs a parts business and so knows what things will sell for. Maybe he had a customer lined up. It's really hard to say. But if he had to buy these things through normal retail channels, he'd pay a lot more. I've done the same thing--paid something like $70 for a NEC 3.5" diskette drive for a customer who needed one as a replacement (this NEC was a very weird drive, with status lines that one doesn't normally see on a commodity 3.5" drive--and it was a 1.3MB model to boot). I turned around and sold it to the guy for $150 after I checked it out. He was happy to pay that. OT: Did anyone see the 1620 core memory module on eBay? 8824427759 Looks to be only a partial one--and the guy has his numbers wrong--the base model 1620 came with 20K digits of memory. (a digit being CF8421 6 bits decimal). Cheers, Chuck From innfoclassics at gmail.com Wed Jun 7 20:32:46 2006 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 18:32:46 -0700 Subject: What's up with these floppies??? In-Reply-To: References: <200606071602130879.10F36831@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: Well the lucky buyers did not know that kind of floppy they are buying. None of those sales mention which dirve is installed in the cabinet. The one who paid so much is a well know DEC and old equipment dealer. probaly in reaction to an order. I have sold stuff to him and he doesn't like to pay much for stuff to sit on the shelf but he is willing to pay for what he wants. I also suspect the -63 is a particular model of the 851 Drive.. -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 7 22:31:36 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 15:31:36 +1200 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> Message-ID: On 6/8/06, Philip Freidin wrote: > There is a picture of my build of this great project here: > > http://gallery.brouhaha.com/freidin-sbc6120/img_5035 > > This is with the optional front panel, and a custom built wooden case. Nice case. I should post pictures of mine. I made the frame myself, and not having any hardwood handy, it's only pine, but it's a case nonetheless. -ethan From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Jun 7 23:24:03 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 21:24:03 -0700 Subject: Intel MDS keyboard In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi These are top quality keyboards and are parallel out incase you might need one for an older machine. Dwight >From: William Donzelli > >I have a rather junky...very junky...keyboard for the Intel MDS 220 >microprocessor system. No plastic, some keycaps missing, dirty. It might >be good for spares (like the keyboad encoder). Anyway need it? > >Cheeeeep bribes go a long way, but I at least ask for shipping. > >William Donzelli >aw288 at osfn.org > From nico at farumdata.dk Wed Jun 7 23:31:42 2006 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 06:31:42 +0200 Subject: What's up with these floppies??? References: <200606071826000263.11770825@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <002801c68ab4$713e9130$2101a8c0@finans> From: "Chuck Guzis" > > I've done the same thing--paid something like $70 for a NEC 3.5" diskette > drive for a customer who needed one as a replacement I have the same problem with 3.5" floppy drives used in Trace/Mountain floppy autoloaders. They use a drive called Sone 73W (IIRC). The peculiar thing with these drives is that the eject button are exactly in the centre of the front. I couldnt find them, so I had to modify the eject mechanism of the loaders one after one. The drives were only good for 10-15.000 ejections. Nico From ak6dn at mindspring.com Wed Jun 7 23:49:51 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 21:49:51 -0700 Subject: My continuing 11/34 confusion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4487AC6F.2060408@mindspring.com> Look in http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/1144/1144_SystemTechMan.pdf pp 3-3 ~ 3-9 and 5-16 ~ 5-27 Covers basic DEC UNIBUS backplane numbering conventions and the DD11-DK expansion backplane layout. Julian Wolfe wrote: > Alright. > > I know this is a very COMMON problem, but the other COMMON problem is there > seems to be no good explanation as to what pins are what on the damn > backplane. I know I may be coming off sort of abrasive here (no offense > meant to Henk or anyone else) but even the 11/34 documentation *also* talks > about the bus grant path and gives no pin explanation on the backplane - > you're just supposed to inherently know where the connection between CA1 and > CB1 is in a mass of pins and wire. > > I've looked through what manuals are available on bitsavers and manx, and > got nothing at all that I could make sense of. > > All I'm looking for is simple pin labling for a DD11 9 slot backplane. Why > was this so hard to put in the manual? > > IMO this information should be included in whatever FAQ you want to add the > bus grant info. > > From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 8 00:03:52 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 06:03:52 +0100 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4487AFB8.8010409@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: >> I'm assuming that some of the older scanner mechanisms could be interfaced to >> with your own electronics if you so wanted? (Does anyone know how the actual >> scanning head's driven? Is it just a massive linear array of sensors with an >> on-board de-multiplexor?) >> > > I would assume it's a linear (as opposed to area) CCD. Now, I spent many > years playing tricks with CCDs, and one thing that's burnt into my memory > is that the drive pulses are critical. Not mild;y critical, but _very_ > critical. OK, scratch that idea, then :-) > Anyway, there is the other problem that if I do get the scanner, what the > heck do I store the data from it on. I am not using multiple 8" disks per > page :-) You know, I did almost raise that question - but I figured that you've probably got some old mini laying around with a reasonably large-capacity full-height SCSI disk in it :-) > Do you know of a CD burner that comes with a service manual? For starters I'd want to be able to trust CDs as a good storage medium, so let's not go there ;) cheers Jules From fireflyst at earthlink.net Thu Jun 8 00:56:40 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 00:56:40 -0500 Subject: My continuing 11/34 confusion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <003d01c68ac0$503e4550$6801a8c0@dementium> Thanks to everyone who helped me figure this out. It can be confusing sometimes when you think you've looked everywhere and it's still just in the wrong place. Unfortunately, after properly checking the NPG and BG lines for continuity, I found that they are wired properly - I was hoping for something simple like that :( So now that I know those lines are solid, and I know the Power supply is outputting what it's supposed to, where do I go from here? Note awhile back I had a few very slightly bent pins, I straightened them ever so carefully, so I ruled out shorts between pins touching in case you're curious. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 6:56 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: My continuing 11/34 confusion > > Alright. > > I know this is a very COMMON problem, but the other COMMON problem is there > seems to be no good explanation as to what pins are what on the damn > backplane. I know I may be coming off sort of abrasive here (no offense > meant to Henk or anyone else) but even the 11/34 documentation *also* talks > about the bus grant path and gives no pin explanation on the backplane - > you're just supposed to inherently know where the connection between CA1 and > CB1 is in a mass of pins and wire. > > I've looked through what manuals are available on bitsavers and manx, and > got nothing at all that I could make sense of. > > All I'm looking for is simple pin labling for a DD11 9 slot backplane. Why > was this so hard to put in the manual? OK, here you are : A pin reference is of the form 2AF1 (that is, digit, letter, leter, digit) The first digit is the slot number. Slot 1 is on the right, looking at the side you plug the boards into. The component side of the boards faces towards slot 1 The next letter is the sub-connector in the slot. It'll be A up to F. Slot A is the rearmost one, slot F is the frontmost (again, looking at the backplane from the 'board side' as you have it in the BA11-K The next letter is the row of the pin. There are 18 rows, since there are 18 pins down each side of the connector. The letters used, in order, are : A B C D E F H J K L M N P R S T U V Again, row F is the rearmost And the last digit gives the side. Side one is the component side, side 2 the solder side. -tony From useddec at gmail.com Thu Jun 8 02:08:43 2006 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 02:08:43 -0500 Subject: My continuing 11/34 confusion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c68aca$74389550$2000a8c0@main> Do you have a Uni-bus Troubleshooting Guide? Paul -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Julian Wolfe Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 6:01 PM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: My continuing 11/34 confusion Alright. I know this is a very COMMON problem, but the other COMMON problem is there seems to be no good explanation as to what pins are what on the damn backplane. I know I may be coming off sort of abrasive here (no offense meant to Henk or anyone else) but even the 11/34 documentation *also* talks about the bus grant path and gives no pin explanation on the backplane - you're just supposed to inherently know where the connection between CA1 and CB1 is in a mass of pins and wire. I've looked through what manuals are available on bitsavers and manx, and got nothing at all that I could make sense of. All I'm looking for is simple pin labling for a DD11 9 slot backplane. Why was this so hard to put in the manual? IMO this information should be included in whatever FAQ you want to add the bus grant info. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Gooijen, Henk > Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 5:10 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: My continuing 11/34 confusion > > First the easy question ... must be FAQ by now! > Did you check the wire CA1-CB1 for the slots 6-7-8-9 ? > It *must* be present. The simplest check is replace all > G727s and install G7273's in position C-D in slots 6-7-8-9. > As long as the RUN light stays on after power up, you have a bus hung. > > - Henk. > > ________________________________ > > Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Wolfe, Julian > Verzonden: wo 07-06-2006 22:40 > Aan: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Onderwerp: My continuing 11/34 confusion > > > > Alright, so, I finally was able to get good readings at the > backplane as far > as votages go. My AC voltage is exactly 28 volts going into all units > requesting. The -15v line is fine, it must just be the bulb > that's burnt > out on the regulator. So, as far as I can tell, my power > supply is working > just as it should. > > So now I move up to the backplane.I plugged in the memory and > a DL11-W and > put a tester on the RS232 lines - I get nothing coming from > the DL11-W. The > front panel reads all zeros when powered on, the Run light > and DC lights are > on. > > Here is my current backplane config: > > 1 M8266-----M8266-------M8266-------M8266-------M8266-------M8266 > 2 M8265-----M8265-------M8265-------M8265-------M8265-------M8265 > 3 M7891-----M7891-------M7891-------M7891-------M7891-------M7891 > 4 M9301-----M9301 M7859-------M7859-------M7859-------M7859 > 5 EMPTY EMPTY M7856-------M7856-------M7856-------M7856 > 6 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY > 7 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY > 8 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY > 9 M9302-----M9302 EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY > > Can anyone make sense of this? > > Thanks > Julian > > > > > > > > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the > use of the addressee and may contain information that is > privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure > under applicable law. > If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof > responsible for delivering this message to the intended > recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, > distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly > prohibited. > If you have received this communication in error, please > notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" > message. > Thank you for your cooperation. > > From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Jun 8 02:09:16 2006 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 08:09:16 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT: lathe tool bits Message-ID: <10606080809.ZM6885@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> I'm making some spare parts for a piece of computer equipment, and I know a few others do similar things, so I thought I'd risk asking here. I need some spare TCMT090204 carbide tips (small triangular ones) for lathe tools, and I've seen some labelled TCMT 731. I think this is one manufacturer's part number for that size. Does anyone know if that's the case, and what the proper ANSI designation would be? -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From evan at snarc.net Thu Jun 8 02:16:50 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 03:16:50 -0400 Subject: The old Computer Collector Newsletter is back! Sort of. Message-ID: <001e01c68acb$82daa840$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Hello out there, A few months ago, I posted here that the Computer Collector Newsletter was being renamed Technology Rewind. That's still the case, but I realized that much more than a name change was in order. CCN reached about 1,000 subscribers and that made me feel quite proud, but I couldn't keep up with the scale. It was simply too much effort to keep publishing without any source of income, and we (I and the contributing editors) were certainly NOT going to charge money for this. So instead I decided to make a big change: CCN-turned-TR would "go blog" instead. We're quite aware that the web log format will turn off some readers. Some people insisted that CCN be delivered in raw text as no more than 80 columns, as we were happy to oblige. That made sense two years ago. But now we think it's equally important to help this hobby grow, and the web is the place to do it. We'll be sorry to see any of our former readers leave, so we ask that you give the format a try. The new address is just http://www.technologyrewind.com but for now it's something of a beta version. There are plenty of links to be fixed, old articles to be uploaded, email addresses to nowhere, and who knows what other bugs we might find. For the new few weeks, our pace of posting new blog entries will be slow. We'll ramp us gradually, and there may be more contributors than in the past. As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions OFF-LIST please. :) - Evan From dave06a at dunfield.com Thu Jun 8 08:13:02 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 08:13:02 -0500 Subject: Docs avail: Vermont Research Model 1016 Drum Memory (1969) Message-ID: <20060608121500.UOMU12507.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Yesterday I was given a fairly hefty documentation set: Installation and Operation Model 1016 Drum Memory with Digital Interface Vermont Reserch Corporation North Springfield, Vermont Most of the documents are dated 1969. It contains a lot of technical information, theory of operation all all the boards, full schematics, copies of the original blueprint drawings etc. Anyone need/looking-for this? Regards, Dave PS: Anyone know what type of system this was used with? -- 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 Richard.Cini at wachovia.com Thu Jun 8 07:29:51 2006 From: Richard.Cini at wachovia.com (Cini, Richard) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 08:29:51 -0400 Subject: New Altair32 "hardware" Message-ID: All: I want to add a real time clock to the Altair32 but I want to throw this out there for comment. Would one rather use a "faceless" RTC (like the Compu/Time) or one with an on-screen display like the Hayes Chronograph? The Compu/Time is very easy (nearly done coding) but the Chronograph would be prettier. Thoughts? Rich From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 8 10:07:41 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 16:07:41 +0100 Subject: The old Computer Collector Newsletter is back! Sort of. In-Reply-To: <001e01c68acb$82daa840$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <001e01c68acb$82daa840$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <44883D3D.2020907@yahoo.co.uk> Evan Koblentz wrote: > CCN-turned-TR would "go blog" instead. *runs* > We're quite aware that the web log format will turn off some readers. Some > people insisted that CCN be delivered in raw text as no more than 80 > columns, as we were happy to oblige. That made sense two years ago. But > now we think it's equally important to help this hobby grow, and the web is > the place to do it. We'll be sorry to see any of our former readers leave, > so we ask that you give the format a try. Other than the inclusion of images (or in the case of the web, links to), can't you just spit out each blog entry automatically to subscribers who want plain text rather than a web format? Heck, you could even include links at the relevant points in the plain text to the images referenced on the website if you wanted. Do it at say the close of each day and spit out that day's entries from your database in plain-text form as an email. Or does the new site have no concept at all of a subscription database and it's purely casual browsing only? What 'scale' issues did you have with the email format? Surely 99% of people can handle subscribing and unsubscribing without intervention of any kind of admin. I'm missing something, I know - but I fail to see how writing, collating and formatting text into a web page is really any different to writing, collating and forming text into an email; the former's just far more heavyweight/slower/inconvenient for the user! cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 8 10:23:55 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 16:23:55 +0100 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: References: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> Message-ID: <4488410B.3090704@yahoo.co.uk> Zane H. Healy wrote: > I'm not aware of one. Here are the Big Iron emulators that I am aware of: > http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/bigironemu.html What defines 'big'? Raw horsepower, or physical size, or something else? I'm just thinking that there are probably lots of emulators of older (1950s and 1960s) machines around - big iron in their day, but not exactly quick by the standards of 1970's hardware. cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 8 10:28:45 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 16:28:45 +0100 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> References: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> Message-ID: <4488422D.7060409@yahoo.co.uk> Kevin Monceaux wrote: > I was rewatching "30 Years in the Tardis" last night and came across an item > on the tape I had forgotten about. It's been years since I watched it, and > the last time was long before I started tinkering with classic computer > emulators. Anyway, while rewatching it I was thrilled to come across a > commercial with the Doctor and Romana advertising a Prime computer. Aha - I've certainly seen those as full-page ads in magazines, although I've not seen TV versions before. I *think* I scanned a couple of the magazine ads - I'm back in England where they are as of this weekend, so drop me an email next week if you want me to check. > I found some info on the net on the Prime computer line Very little around though it seems, which is odd considering how big the company once was. cheers Jules From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 8 10:57:44 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 08:57:44 -0700 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: <4488410B.3090704@yahoo.co.uk> References: <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> <4488410B.3090704@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: At 4:23 PM +0100 6/8/06, Jules Richardson wrote: >Zane H. Healy wrote: >>I'm not aware of one. Here are the Big Iron emulators that I am aware of: >>http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/bigironemu.html > >What defines 'big'? Raw horsepower, or physical size, or something else? > >I'm just thinking that there are probably lots of emulators of older >(1950s and 1960s) machines around - big iron in their day, but not >exactly quick by the standards of 1970's hardware. For that webpage, pretty much anything that isn't DEC (as each family of DEC hardware has its own page), and isn't a home computer type system. Stuff that wouldn't normally be found in the home. There are plenty of webpages out there dedicated to home computer or video game emulation, but a serious lack of any dedicated to the rest. Basically it's an off shoot of the DEC Emulation Website, which in turn was an off shoot of the PDP-10 Emulation Webpage. 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 evan at snarc.net Thu Jun 8 11:08:12 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 12:08:12 -0400 Subject: The old Computer Collector Newsletter is back! Sort of. In-Reply-To: <44883D3D.2020907@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <001b01c68b15$be33d5c0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> >>> Or does the new site have no concept at all of a subscription database That is correct. >>> What 'scale' issues did you have with the email format? Surely 99% of people can handle subscribing and unsubscribing without intervention of any kind of admin ..... I fail to see how writing, collating and formatting text into a web page is really any different to writing, collating and forming text into an email; the former's just far more heavyweight/slower/inconvenient for the user! The actual list was the easy part; that was just a hosted service. I meant scale in terms of the work required on my end to keep producing a quality newsletter every Monday. The tasks of finding interesting news each week, thoroughly reporting on it, and doing all the list formatting are a LOT of work. Frankly, after two years and three months, spanning more than 100 issues, I was starting to feel burned out. I'm busier with (gasp) paying work now than I was two years ago and I'm trying to write a book manuscript. So I decided that a blog lends itself to slightly easier and definitely quicker production. Equally important is the issue of how to introduce more people to our hobby, and I think "new media" is how to accomplish that. I would be ** happy ** to publish a no-frills weekly summary of what's in the new weblog if someone will go off-list and show me an easy way to do it. Seriously. -----Original Message----- From: Jules Richardson [mailto:julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk] Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 11:08 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: The old Computer Collector Newsletter is back! Sort of. Evan Koblentz wrote: > CCN-turned-TR would "go blog" instead. *runs* > We're quite aware that the web log format will turn off some readers. > Some people insisted that CCN be delivered in raw text as no more than > 80 columns, as we were happy to oblige. That made sense two years > ago. But now we think it's equally important to help this hobby grow, > and the web is the place to do it. We'll be sorry to see any of our > former readers leave, so we ask that you give the format a try. Other than the inclusion of images (or in the case of the web, links to), can't you just spit out each blog entry automatically to subscribers who want plain text rather than a web format? Heck, you could even include links at the relevant points in the plain text to the images referenced on the website if you wanted. Do it at say the close of each day and spit out that day's entries from your database in plain-text form as an email. Or does the new site have no concept at all of a subscription database and it's purely casual browsing only? What 'scale' issues did you have with the email format? Surely 99% of people can handle subscribing and unsubscribing without intervention of any kind of admin. I'm missing something, I know - but I fail to see how writing, collating and formatting text into a web page is really any different to writing, collating and forming text into an email; the former's just far more heavyweight/slower/inconvenient for the user! cheers Jules From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Thu Jun 8 11:28:02 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 12:28:02 -0400 Subject: VCF-MW Lodging & SO/Munchkin Activities? Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060608121739.03d4ab20@mail.30below.com> For VCF-MidWest 2.0, where's everybody staying, or is it "catch-as-catch-can?" I've not yet registered (which I must do soon) and I'd like to put up a display table... I'll also have the wife & kiddies along - we're making this into a "family weekend" kinda thingy, as we're leaving Thursday afternoon(ish). I'm guessing it's about an 8 or 9 hour drive, so we're still planning out if we're driving the whole way in one go or stopping for the night halfway down or so.[1] So, what's available for non-geeks to do down at Purdue? I'd like to get the reservations pretty soon; as earlier usually == cheaper. ;-) BTW - I have a rather nice digital camera (Nikon D70) - so if anyone wants some nice pictures of their booth, track me down, just in case I don't get a chance to wander around & shoot everything anyway. Thanks! Roger "Merch" Merchberger [1] This info is rather pointless if you don't know (at least) my starting point! ;-) Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan - Take I-75 North until everyone says "Eh?" ;-) -- 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 dittman at dittman.net Thu Jun 8 11:50:37 2006 From: dittman at dittman.net (Eric Dittman) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 11:50:37 -0500 Subject: [Fwd: raising awareness re: classic hardware] Message-ID: <4488555D.4030103@dittman.net> I've received the following from Dave McGuire, who is a fellow DEC collector (some of you know him): > Hey folks. I just had a disturbing conversation with an eBay seller > up in Canada. One of his auctions was for DRAM chips "for gold scrap" > that he claimed to have "removed from some old DEC computer". I sent > him a question asking him what happened to the rest of it, and > reminding him that "some old DEC computer" was likely worth orders of > magnitude more than the trivial amount of gold that one might glean > from recycling DRAM chips. > > He replied with this: > >> Not anymore. In case you haven't noticed, the market for DEC PDP >> stuff is gone. All of the collectors have as much as they want and >> nobody is actually using Qbus anymore. The same happened about a year >> ago with IBM MCA stuff. You can't even get $10 a card anymore. I've >> shipped out hundreds of pounds of DEC Qbus and IBM MCA for scrap >> metals. You should do the same. > > This is, of course, COMPLETELY incorrect, aside from being > disturbing. The DEC collector market is booming like never before, > and growing like crazy. -- Eric Dittman dittman at dittman.net From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jun 8 12:13:08 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 12:13:08 -0500 Subject: [Fwd: raising awareness re: classic hardware] In-Reply-To: <4488555D.4030103@dittman.net> References: <4488555D.4030103@dittman.net> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060608120843.0510a280@mail> At 11:50 AM 6/8/2006, Eric Dittman wrote: >> This is, of course, COMPLETELY incorrect, aside from being >> disturbing. The DEC collector market is booming like never before, >> and growing like crazy. You could both be right. Price is set between buyer and seller, and price can vary widely depending on the marketing and the market. You may be misperceiving the volume of old DEC equipment that he sees available for scrapping. He may not see the value in expending the extra effort to market items to collectors. But it is a shame to imagine it all being ground up for scrap. - John From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 8 12:22:12 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 11:22:12 -0600 Subject: The old Computer Collector Newsletter is back! Sort of. In-Reply-To: <001b01c68b15$be33d5c0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <001b01c68b15$be33d5c0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <44885CC4.2050507@jetnet.ab.ca> Evan Koblentz wrote: > people can handle subscribing and unsubscribing without intervention of any > kind of admin ..... I fail to see how writing, collating and formatting text > into a web page is really any different to writing, collating and forming > text into an email; the former's just far more > heavyweight/slower/inconvenient for the user! The advantage with a news letter is you get it with your email. I guess now that email is needed only to receive spam. I don't like blogs because you can never seem to reach the blog website because a server has changed or the blog is so long you can't find the text you want -- say blah blah was looking for a QZ3215 computer about 3 years ago and at the flea-market I picked up a video card for a QZ3215-Z computer would he need this for the year 2K patch? - From allain at panix.com Thu Jun 8 12:19:26 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 13:19:26 -0400 Subject: [Fwd: raising awareness re: classic hardware] References: <4488555D.4030103@dittman.net> Message-ID: <002401c68b1f$b322fee0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Well, the company died in 1997, and, I believe I've seen the death of the reseller market _off of eBay_, around 2002. _On eBay_, there is a reseller market, via *buy-it-now*s, but they haven't got their prices down and they may collapse on low sales. Looks like however the eBay BIN market is of so low an overhead that it may last 5 years more, But(emphasis), people still have overhead for _storage costs_. If my hunch is right, there is a possibility that flea markets will rebound as the holders sell out. Nothing as big as the 1980's, I hear. Wish I was around them then. >> This is, of course, COMPLETELY incorrect, aside from being >> disturbing. The DEC collector market is booming like never before, >> and growing like crazy. Proof. Need proof. just my 0.02K$ John A. still strictly a buyer From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jun 8 12:42:07 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 13:42:07 -0400 Subject: VCF-MW Lodging & SO/Munchkin Activities? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060608121739.03d4ab20@mail.30below.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060608121739.03d4ab20@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <200606081342.07177.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 08 June 2006 12:28, Roger Merchberger wrote: > For VCF-MidWest 2.0, where's everybody staying, or is it > "catch-as-catch-can?" I've not yet registered (which I must do soon) > and I'd like to put up a display table... I'd recommend either the Hilton Garden Inn or Econolodge (depending on your preferences), they're both within a block of each other and within 3 blocks or so of campus. The details for either are on vintage.org under the VCF/MW2 site. Also, I still could use (quite a few) more exhibitors to sign up. And, if anyone knows of a speaker who'd be interested in speaking at the event, that'd be great. > I'll also have the wife & kiddies along - we're making this into a > "family weekend" kinda thingy, as we're leaving Thursday > afternoon(ish). I'm guessing it's about an 8 or 9 hour drive, so > we're still planning out if we're driving the whole way in one go or > stopping for the night halfway down or so.[1] > > So, what's available for non-geeks to do down at Purdue? Well, there's corn, soybeans, and bars. :) There's a calendar of some events going on here: http://www.lafayette-online.com/calendar/ Other than that, I'm not sure how much help I can be, as I'm a geek. :) Pat > I'd like to get the reservations pretty soon; as earlier usually == > cheaper. ;-) > > BTW - I have a rather nice digital camera (Nikon D70) - so if anyone > wants some nice pictures of their booth, track me down, just in case > I don't get a chance to wander around & shoot everything anyway. > > Thanks! > Roger "Merch" Merchberger > > [1] This info is rather pointless if you don't know (at least) my > starting point! ;-) Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan - Take I-75 North > until everyone says "Eh?" ;-) > > -- > 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!" -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From class at fliptronics.com Thu Jun 8 13:16:28 2006 From: class at fliptronics.com (Philip Freidin) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 11:16:28 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> Message-ID: <05qg82d9gh9fkrlb769viabltsv5j1t0t9@4ax.com> On Wed, 7 Jun 2006 10:44:22 -0700 (PDT), you wrote: >On Wed, 7 Jun 2006, Philip Freidin wrote: > >> There is a picture of my build of this great project here: >> >> http://gallery.brouhaha.com/freidin-sbc6120/img_5035 >> >> This is with the optional front panel, and a custom built wooden case. > >Very nice! It seems like a fairly straightforward and simple project. >What are those brass latches on the inside for? Holding the top on? Yep. The project from Bob is very easy to do. All through hole parts. Mine worked pretty much first time after replacing a dead osc. I added a 4 GB hard drive from one of my dead laptop computers, and it looks like ~1600 RK05 packs. Bob's virtualization software for the hard drive lets you mount any 8 packs at a time. With 1600 of them, You get to have a lot of scratch packs :-). OS8 runs fine on it. Cheers, Philip ================= Philip Freidin philip at fliptronics.com From fireflyst at earthlink.net Thu Jun 8 13:44:09 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 13:44:09 -0500 Subject: [Fwd: raising awareness re: classic hardware] In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060608120843.0510a280@mail> Message-ID: Depends on what the card is - People don't need a cabinet full of DZ11s anymore, and there are some other now-worthless heaps of cards out there like synchronous serial - this could be hurting the perceived value of the machines. Overall though, I'd say you were right and that salvage sales is generally out of touch with the fairly new collector market for this stuff. There is sort of a stipulation to this though - it depends on what's being offered. I don't know many people who desire an 11/03. Is the market saturated yet? Absolutely not. Is it getting there? Yes, and at a steady pace. Qbus stuff is becoming less and less in demand, especially since these machines are continuing to get decomissioned and pop up on ebay or in collector markets. My regular salvage dealer recently sold an 11/05 on ebay for $1500 with no peripherals or rack - so, anyone that tells you there isn't a market for UNIBUS gear is totally mistaken. Even a mostly-complete CPU box will fetch at least $200 on ebay. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of John Foust > Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 12:13 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: [Fwd: raising awareness re: classic hardware] > > At 11:50 AM 6/8/2006, Eric Dittman wrote: > >> This is, of course, COMPLETELY incorrect, aside from being > >> disturbing. The DEC collector market is booming like > never before, > >> and growing like crazy. > > You could both be right. Price is set between buyer and > seller, and price can vary widely depending on the marketing > and the market. > You may be misperceiving the volume of old DEC equipment that > he sees available for scrapping. He may not see the value in > expending the extra effort to market items to collectors. > > But it is a shame to imagine it all being ground up for scrap. > > - John > > From fireflyst at earthlink.net Thu Jun 8 13:47:06 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 13:47:06 -0500 Subject: My continuing 11/34 confusion In-Reply-To: <000001c68aca$74389550$2000a8c0@main> Message-ID: Yes, but I don't have any of the special cards or the margin tester box. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Paul Anderson > Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 2:09 AM > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Subject: RE: My continuing 11/34 confusion > > Do you have a Uni-bus Troubleshooting Guide? > > Paul > > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] > On Behalf Of Julian Wolfe > Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 6:01 PM > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > Subject: RE: My continuing 11/34 confusion > > Alright. > > I know this is a very COMMON problem, but the other COMMON > problem is there seems to be no good explanation as to what > pins are what on the damn backplane. I know I may be coming > off sort of abrasive here (no offense meant to Henk or anyone > else) but even the 11/34 documentation *also* talks about the > bus grant path and gives no pin explanation on the backplane > - you're just supposed to inherently know where the > connection between CA1 and > CB1 is in a mass of pins and wire. > > I've looked through what manuals are available on bitsavers > and manx, and got nothing at all that I could make sense of. > > All I'm looking for is simple pin labling for a DD11 9 slot > backplane. Why was this so hard to put in the manual? > > IMO this information should be included in whatever FAQ you > want to add the bus grant info. > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Gooijen, Henk > > Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 5:10 PM > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Subject: RE: My continuing 11/34 confusion > > > > First the easy question ... must be FAQ by now! > > Did you check the wire CA1-CB1 for the slots 6-7-8-9 ? > > It *must* be present. The simplest check is replace all G727s and > > install G7273's in position C-D in slots 6-7-8-9. > > As long as the RUN light stays on after power up, you have > a bus hung. > > > > - Henk. > > > > ________________________________ > > > > Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Wolfe, Julian > > Verzonden: wo 07-06-2006 22:40 > > Aan: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > > Onderwerp: My continuing 11/34 confusion > > > > > > > > Alright, so, I finally was able to get good readings at the > backplane > > as far as votages go. My AC voltage is exactly 28 volts going into > > all units requesting. The -15v line is fine, it must just > be the bulb > > that's burnt out on the regulator. So, as far as I can > tell, my power > > supply is working just as it should. > > > > So now I move up to the backplane.I plugged in the memory > and a DL11-W > > and put a tester on the RS232 lines - I get nothing coming from the > > DL11-W. The front panel reads all zeros when powered on, the Run > > light and DC lights are on. > > > > Here is my current backplane config: > > > > 1 M8266-----M8266-------M8266-------M8266-------M8266-------M8266 > > 2 M8265-----M8265-------M8265-------M8265-------M8265-------M8265 > > 3 M7891-----M7891-------M7891-------M7891-------M7891-------M7891 > > 4 M9301-----M9301 M7859-------M7859-------M7859-------M7859 > > 5 EMPTY EMPTY M7856-------M7856-------M7856-------M7856 > > 6 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY > > 7 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY > > 8 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY > > 9 M9302-----M9302 EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY > > > > Can anyone make sense of this? > > > > Thanks > > Julian > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the > use of the > > addressee and may contain information that is privileged, > confidential > > or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. > > If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof > responsible for > > delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby > > notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this > > communication is strictly prohibited. > > If you have received this communication in error, please notify the > > sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" > > message. > > Thank you for your cooperation. > > > > > > > From sellam at vintagetech.com Thu Jun 8 13:51:42 2006 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 11:51:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Need help reading IBM System/36 disks Message-ID: Is there anyone that has the facilities to read IBM System/36 disks at the filesystem level? I have 5 disks from which I need to transfer the files. If someone can do this for me I will pay in $$$ or trade items. Please e-mail me directly. I will not get any replies to the list. sellam at vintagetech.com Hope everyone is having a groovy time! -- 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 sellam at vintagetech.com Thu Jun 8 13:54:18 2006 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 11:54:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Need help with big old computer in Florida Message-ID: I need to get someone's help to move an old computer in the Jacksonville area from where it currently resides (in a house on the ground floor right by a conveniently located door) to a local public storage area. I would need someone to make the move for me as well as scout out a local public storage business where I will store the computer until I'm able to ship it. Or I might just go ahead and ship it now, in which case I would need someone who is good at palletizing precious old computers for long hauls across the country. If you think you might be able to assist me with this there will be rewards (monetary or trade). Please reply directly to me as I won't get any replies to the list. sellam at vintagetech.com Thanks!! -- 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 ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 8 14:22:42 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 20:22:42 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <4487AFB8.8010409@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jun 8, 6 06:03:52 am Message-ID: > > I would assume it's a linear (as opposed to area) CCD. Now, I spent many > > years playing tricks with CCDs, and one thing that's burnt into my memory > > is that the drive pulses are critical. Not mild;y critical, but _very_ > > critical. > > OK, scratch that idea, then :-) If you think how a CCD basically works, it has a series of electrodes (normally 3 or 4 'phase' drive) on the surface of the chip, by sequencing the votlages on these electrodes, you move the accumulated charge along. Charge transfer actually occurs as the voltages are changing, which means the rise/fall time, and to a lesser extent the shape of the rising/falling edge matters. Too steep can be a problem. I spent many a late night looking at the 'scope and adding low-value series resistors to slow things down a bit. > > > Anyway, there is the other problem that if I do get the scanner, what the > > heck do I store the data from it on. I am not using multiple 8" disks per > > page :-) > > You know, I did almost raise that question - but I figured that you've > probably got some old mini laying around with a reasonably large-capacity > full-height SCSI disk in it :-) My minis have RK05s and the like. 2,5M on a pack is not a lot of use for this. OK, I have a couple of RK07s, but they're 'only' 28MBytes, and I don't have that many packs for them (enough to use, bot enough to use for archiving images). > > > Do you know of a CD burner that comes with a service manual? > > For starters I'd want to be able to trust CDs as a good storage medium, so > let's not go there ;) No, but I am told CD-ROMs are useful for sending said scanned manuals to places like Bitsacers. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 8 14:33:57 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 20:33:57 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Fwd: raising awareness re: classic hardware] In-Reply-To: from "Julian Wolfe" at Jun 8, 6 01:44:09 pm Message-ID: > > Depends on what the card is - People don't need a cabinet full of DZ11s > anymore, and there are some other now-worthless heaps of cards out there > like synchronous serial - this could be hurting the perceived value of the > machines. Speak for yourself :-). I find a lot of serial ports to be _very_ useful on a computer (I have many devices with RS232 interfaces), I think I have about 4 DZs and as many DJs (each of the latter being a 4-lsot system unit backplane) to go into my 11/45 sometime. As regards synchronous serial cards, comms processors (DMCs, DMRs, etc), and the like, I find them interesting. But then as I mentioned last week, I am very much a hardware person. Yes, I know I am not going to determine the market for these things, but there _are_ people around who like the weird stuff... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 8 14:36:54 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 20:36:54 +0100 (BST) Subject: My continuing 11/34 confusion In-Reply-To: <003d01c68ac0$503e4550$6801a8c0@dementium> from "Julian Wolfe" at Jun 8, 6 00:56:40 am Message-ID: > > Thanks to everyone who helped me figure this out. It can be confusing > sometimes when you think you've looked everywhere and it's still just in the > wrong place. > > Unfortunately, after properly checking the NPG and BG lines for continuity, > I found that they are wired properly - I was hoping for something simple > like that :( > > So now that I know those lines are solid, and I know the Power supply is > outputting what it's supposed to, where do I go from here? Next thing I would do is to pull the M9302 terminator. A single-backplane machine like you currently have will run without it (at least for testing) if everything else is OK. And the M9302 will lock the Unibus (it asserts SACK and won't release it) if a grant gets all the way to the terminator (the normal reason for this is that the chain is open at some point, but you've checked this). After that, I'd better get out the 11/34 printset and suggest good places to stick the 'scope probe... -tony From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jun 8 14:40:07 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 12:40:07 -0700 Subject: Docs avail: Vermont Research Model 1016 Drum Memory (1969) Message-ID: Dave Dunfield wrote: Yesterday I was given a fairly hefty documentation set: Installation and Operation Model 1016 Drum Memory with Digital Interface Vermont Reserch Corporation North Springfield, Vermont Most of the documents are dated 1969. It contains a lot of technical information, theory of operation all all the boards, full schematics, copies of the original blueprint drawings etc. Anyone need/looking-for this? Regards, Dave PS: Anyone know what type of system this was used with? -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield Billy: We used some of them at Control Data on the Process Control Computers. I liked them; very nice, relieable drums, ran forever. I would love to find one now. Would complement my old timer nicely. And I would certainly like to have the set of documentation and would gladly pay for the shipping. But I'll do something better for the group: I'll happily pay for the shipping to to Al K. so he can put them on his site. Then all of us will benefit from your find. Billy From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Thu Jun 8 16:28:59 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 16:28:59 Subject: What's up with these floppies??? In-Reply-To: <002801c68ab4$713e9130$2101a8c0@finans> References: <200606071826000263.11770825@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060608162859.0fff7e68@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 06:31 AM 6/8/06 +0200, you wrote: >From: "Chuck Guzis" >> >> I've done the same thing--paid something like $70 for a NEC 3.5" diskette >> drive for a customer who needed one as a replacement > >I have the same problem with 3.5" floppy drives used in Trace/Mountain >floppy autoloaders. >They use a drive called Sone 73W (IIRC). The peculiar thing with these >drives is that the eject button are exactly in the centre of the front. That sounds like it might be the same drive used in the HP 9122C disk drives. I haven't looked at the drive itself out of a 9122C but I know HP used Sony mechanisms in other floppy disk drives. Joe I >couldnt find them, so I had to modify the eject mechanism of the loaders one >after one. The drives were only good for 10-15.000 ejections. > >Nico > From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jun 8 16:22:44 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 16:22:44 -0500 Subject: sync serial cards References: Message-ID: <001f01c68b41$aec46740$6500a8c0@BILLING> Tony wrote.... > As regards synchronous serial cards, comms processors (DMCs, DMRs, etc), > and the like, I find them interesting. But then as I mentioned last week, > I am very much a hardware person. Speaking of which.... I have one machine that talks sync serial out 4 wires that are designed to go to a dedicated 56k leased line. I'd like to hook this up to an intel x86 PCI based machine via some card... and write code on the PC that talks to the card (ie. so the PC is talking to the host). I was thinking a PCI sync serial card would do, but that wouldn't take care of the 56k leased line signal. I'm guessing I'd need a sync modem that supports 56K dedicated line, and then run that to a PCI sync serial card in the PC? Unless there is such a thing as a PCI sync modem card that supports dedicated 56k connection? Anyone have this type of hardware around for trade? Jay West From brad at heeltoe.com Thu Jun 8 18:19:16 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 19:19:16 -0400 Subject: sync serial cards In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 08 Jun 2006 16:22:44 CDT." <001f01c68b41$aec46740$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <200606082319.k58NJGtT030233@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Jay West" wrote: > >I have one machine that talks sync serial out 4 wires that are designed to >go to a dedicated 56k leased line. I'd like to hook this up to an intel x86 >PCI based machine via some card... and write code on the PC that talks to >the card (ie. so the PC is talking to the host). I was thinking a PCI sync >serial card would do, but that wouldn't take care of the 56k leased line >signal. I'm guessing I'd need a sync modem that supports 56K dedicated line, >and then run that to a PCI sync serial card in the PC? Unless there is such >a thing as a PCI sync modem card that supports dedicated 56k connection? >Anyone have this type of hardware around for trade? mmm. been a while since i done that :-) I think you could use a 56k CSU/DSU and something as simple a ISA bus card with an SCC on it. There used to be a linux driver for the 8530 that could keep up at 56k. There are other higher performance cards of course. The CSU/DSU might have a giant v.35 connector or if you are lucky just a DB-25. I think some even had both (it's all dim now). You'll laugh, but I ran a 56k internet connection for a few years out of my house using a sparc station 1 running sun os. I ran the sparc serial port (8530 based) directly into a CSU/DSU. It worked fine. I think I hacked a sync driver I got from someone else (Phil Budne? does that sound right Phil?) the phone man thought I was nuts, however. I had a 56k and isdn and a few too many pots lines. shortly after that I moved it all to commercial space and became an isp :-) -brad From spc at conman.org Thu Jun 8 18:35:28 2006 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 19:35:28 -0400 Subject: sync serial cards In-Reply-To: <200606082319.k58NJGtT030233@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <001f01c68b41$aec46740$6500a8c0@BILLING> <200606082319.k58NJGtT030233@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <20060608233528.GC20641@linus.groomlake.area51> It was thus said that the Great Brad Parker once stated: > > You'll laugh, but I ran a 56k internet connection for a few years out of > my house using a sparc station 1 running sun os. I ran the sparc serial > port (8530 based) directly into a CSU/DSU. It worked fine. I think I > hacked a sync driver I got from someone else (Phil Budne? does that sound > right Phil?) The first ISP I worked for, in late 1993, had a 56k leased line to the Internet. And the first webhosting company I worked for (late 1994, maybe 1995?) was in my friend's dining room with a 28.8kbps modem to the Internet [1]. -spc (And even though we started out at the same time as Hiway Technologies, under similar circumstances, we didn't get bought out $150million 8-( [1] Okay, so the actual server was co-located at an ISP 8-) From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jun 8 19:38:23 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 17:38:23 -0700 Subject: EU Message-ID: Tony Duell answered: > However, the operation of a scanner is not too complex to reverse > engineer. Rather you than me. The only scanner I looked inside had several unindentifyable ICs... > I guess that we still can't get you to accept one, even for free, without > open hardware source. Surely you all know me by now. I am not going to depend on something that I can't repair. Tony --------------------------------------- Billy: I'm still glassy eyed about this statement. So I thought I would tell you a little about some work I did in the past. In OKCity, I was responsible for all the customer support documentation on the MPI floppies, cartridge and fixed disk drives. In the early 80's I had to do a study and recommend ways to reduce costs - publications had become a huge cost empire within Engineering. And whole product families were being delayed while the elaborate manuals were written and prepared. Customers were complaining about the enormous cost of maintenance. So I sample polled the largest customers for our drives. It was a couple of hundred out of 2500+. At that time, the only ones who replied that they needed schematics were a couple of repair services. We asked on theory of operation, app notes, etc. Same thing. None of the customers paying the bills used any of the elaborate documentation except for the interface specs. The conclusion reached was that schematics were not required and they were dropped. If any customer complained, I was to supply him engineering drawings as schematics. No customer ever complained. (Note the word customer - the ones who spent the money. A few third party types weren't happy, but they were a real thorn in our side then.) Theory of Ops was dropped. So were wire lists. Parts lists stayed - always like to sell parts at slight markups. (Sarcasm implied.) At that time two other trends were starting. First, most products no longer needed card cages. ICs allowed all the logic of a drive to be on one PCB. And we certainly did not want end users mucking up those boards by trying to repair them. (Also, many of the circuits were tuned in PCB fab; swapping out an IC wouldn't always fix the problem. It had to be tuned to be optimum.) Second, the first ASICs were used; I believe the first ones for us were on the 8" products. Physical size and board space were suddenly critical. The shrink to the 5.25" Wren series was really tough for engineers who were used to designing individual boards bigger than the entire Wren. So - the MPI official policy was to no longer provide documentation. The customer did not demand it, wasn't willing to pay for it. With ASICs and single board drives, we didn't want them to repair the units. The customers were pleased with the change - they were able to reduce their maintenance staffs, their spare parts costs and their cost of ownership. I'm cutting out a long section out here about the reliability of replaceable components vs limiting connections, adjustments, power etc. It is the same argument used on anything electronic. The point to all this is that a series of conscious deliberate decisions were made to prevent what Tony wants to do: repair to a component level. Repair cost money, was unreliable and required massive support. The world would only pay for cheaper product. The ASPs for disk drives moved from $3000+ to sub $50 in 15 years while the capacity went from 16 MB for Wren I to a terabyte today. A repairable drive was a luxury that nobody would pay for. And as time has proved, was unnecessary. Since that time, more than 20 years, Tony Duell is the only person I've met who insists on repairing his personal work system to the component level. Everyone else, wants it to be cheap and reliable. And that includes the most fanatical military buyer. What's next? My last three employers all had long range programs to get the entire drive electronics and interface down to one piece of silicon. And they want to eliminate the connectors as much as possible. Hard drives will be soldered to PCBs before the end of the decade. Optical drives are a little harder because of the form factor. They will achieve one piece of silicon, but it will probably be mounted on the OPU and have a 4 wire serial interface. As everything moves to SOC (System On A Chip) designers become firmware engineers. And already, there are plans to make firmware easier and more modular. The goal here is to have the system design itself from a few high level instructions. I understand Tony's feelings - I've encountered similar viewpoints many times in other fields. But it makes me sad, because he can't share a lot of the fun with us. We can't send him scanned manuals and he can't send us some of the work he has done. And what about photos from our conventions, videos of the speakers, software that is on CDs not floppies? The exchange of knowledge that bonds the rest of us is lost with Tony. And he has lots of knowledge that we would enjoy seeing. Billy From aw288 at osfn.org Thu Jun 8 19:44:54 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 20:44:54 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Fwd: raising awareness re: classic hardware] In-Reply-To: <4488555D.4030103@dittman.net> Message-ID: Some comments... > > Hey folks. I just had a disturbing conversation with an eBay seller > > up in Canada. One of his auctions was for DRAM chips "for gold scrap" > > that he claimed to have "removed from some old DEC computer". I sent > > him a question asking him what happened to the rest of it, and > > reminding him that "some old DEC computer" was likely worth orders of > > magnitude more than the trivial amount of gold that one might glean > > from recycling DRAM chips. Quite a few DRAMs, even in plastic DIPs, can have a large amount of gold inside. > >> Not anymore. In case you haven't noticed, the market for DEC PDP > >> stuff is gone. All of the collectors have as much as they want and > >> nobody is actually using Qbus anymore. The same happened about a year > >> ago with IBM MCA stuff. You can't even get $10 a card anymore. I've > >> shipped out hundreds of pounds of DEC Qbus and IBM MCA for scrap > >> metals. You should do the same. > > > > This is, of course, COMPLETELY incorrect, aside from being > > disturbing. The DEC collector market is booming like never before, > > and growing like crazy. While I think the scrapper is shooting himself in the foot by lumping all DEC PDP-11 stuff together, he does have a point. Many DEC cards are extremely common. Everybody seems to have a pile. Put one up on Ebay, and you might only get a couple or three bucks. The competition is the scrap market. In case you folks have not noticed, scrap is ASTOUNDING high right now - gold, silver, and especially copper. A scrapper can make lots of money just chucking the boards in a container headed to the refinery. OK, so he will not make the same money - maybe one or two dollars instead of two or three or maybe five (on a good day), but he will expend about 20 seconds of his time as compared to ten minutes of Ebay time per board. The scrapper is hurting himself by not knowing what to pull for Ebay, and what to chuck. Rather than yell at the scrapper for high crimes - he will probably just laugh and then throw the boards into the container with a little extra gusto - inform him of the real value of the gems. Offer to buy them AT MARKET VALUE with cash on the spot. The payoff can be great. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Thu Jun 8 20:00:55 2006 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 21:00:55 -0400 Subject: What's up with these floppies??? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060608162859.0fff7e68@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: OK, for anybody who needs one badly, here's a new-old-stock 8 inch full height floppy. I have no connection to the seller. Watch the shipping charge, it's a bit steep (in my opinion, anyway). It went around once with no bids: 8821684724 and has just been relisted: 8825490497. From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jun 8 20:13:32 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 20:13:32 -0500 Subject: ClassicCMP.org direction Message-ID: <000501c68b61$ed23e900$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I've been alluding to some things in the works for the ClassicCMP.org website and ClassicCMP.org as a whole, mailing list included. I wanted to give a heads up that I will be posting a long list of all the things I've been considering and/or actively planned in a few minutes. Most of the items on this list have been planned for over a year. Quite some time ago I asked for listmembers to volunteer to help with development on the classiccmp website. One member spearheaded the new look, but then had a variety of work issues, sabbatical, paying projects, etc. come up. He's getting back to the project, so he has the same list that I'm going to post here momentarily. Based on the size of the work on the list, I'm sure he'd be willing to accept volunteers to help in the coding. The goal is to move more towards ClassicCMP.org being a tier1 resource for vintage computer collectors and hobbyists - a full fledged resource and not just a mailing list - a launching board to other sites as well. I'm not trying to hurt anyone elses website or resources. I just want ClassicCMP.org to be more of a branded entity, and provide a large de-facto starting spot for collectors and hobbyists. Not just a mailing list. Bear in mind that many of the things on the "to-do" list are still ideas being formed. Some may prove not to be practical after further thought. But, I wanted to at least show people where I planned to head. If you have words of encouragement or further suggestions I'd LOVE to hear them. I'd love to hear reasons why some of the ideas are bad (but that doesn't necessarily mean I won't do them anyway). The new look is at http://dev.classiccmp.org Best regards, Jay West From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Thu Jun 8 20:28:42 2006 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 20:28:42 -0500 Subject: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes Message-ID: Hi all, I'm going to go to a hamfest this weekend to look for an oscilloscope. Do you guys have any pointers on what to look for, and how to know if what I'm looking at has problems? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks! Julian From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jun 8 20:39:38 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 20:39:38 -0500 Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list Message-ID: <002a01c68b65$92724d40$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> New ClassicCMP website, current development is at http://dev.classiccmp.org --------------------- Home - blurb about classiccmp organization (need to write this text up) About - blurb about the hobby, how rewarding it is, why do it, all about classiccmp and how it can help (need to write this text up) Services - See list of ClassicCMP services below Member Login: This button takes users to a new page where people can log in and manage their membership to classiccmp.org. I'm thinking that all the sub-services (mailing list, etc.) can be managed from one user database. But more importantly, on this page they would get a list of all the services below, and they could check a selection box by each service as to if they want to be automatically emailed when anything in that section changes. Also offer vanity email addresses in the @classiccmp.org domain which forwards to their real email address. -------services-------------- ClassicCMP Knowledgebase This exists at classiccmp.org/kb but the look & feel needs to be matched to the new website style. Users can suggest categories which are added upon moderator approval. Track popularity (most views, last 5 viewed) of each article. Allow users to add to and rate each article. Users can submit articles which are invisible till moderator approval. ClassicCMP Links Database Organized in categories. Users can add links that are invisible until moderator approval. Users can rate links. Autocheck for dead links. Track clicks/popularity on each link. Users can suggest new link categories, which are added upon moderator approval. ClassicCMP Computer Picture Archive A database of classic computer pictures, organized by vendor by machine, searchable. Must allow a mechanism to show a credit if picture came from elsewhere, separate from showing what user uploaded it. Not just cpu pictures, but peripherals (disks, tapes, etc.). Primarily meant to be a archive for identification, not an extensive multipicture set of each system. Same capabilities/structure as the above, users can submit photos pending moderator approval, photo rating, etc. ClassicCMP Computer Books Database A database of book titles that are of interest to collectors. This could be books on collecting, or books on repair, electronics, or anything germane to the hobby. Include the full text of Kevin Stumpf's collecting guide (already have Kevin's approval). Users submit titles, rate books, perhaps contribute a short review, etc. ClassicCMP File Library Basically a web interface to the tons of files on the ClassicCMP server that no one knows about hardly (PROM database, bitsavers mirror, RT11 files, etc. Fully searchable, include a web based window into the local bitsavers files. Allow users to submit keywords for existing files, or submit new files, rate files, moderator approvals,new category suggestion, etc. NOTE: The knowledgebase, links database, picture archive, books database, and file library are identical except for basic skinning/presentation. One well-written module can handle all of the above "under the hood". For the above sections, members have full access. Non-members can only browse, and not rate items, vote, suggest categories, etc. ClassicCMP newsletter Online or via email or both? What's new with the classiccmp website, upcoming events of interest to the hobby, etc. Ebay picture hosting for members Allow ClassicCMP members to upload a limited number of pictures for linking to ebay auctions. Directory of trusted subject-matter experts Provide a list for members to contact of people who are subject-matter experts in specific areas that are willing to be contacted by those with specific needs (legal research, prior art, user questions, contracting/support work, etc.). ClassicCMP Pricelist "MarketWatch" Autotrack closing price of stuff on ebay and other auction sites and show statistics - hi,lo,avg, std. dev, avg time to sell, etc. I've seen this done for synthesizers. ClassicCMP mailing list Policy changes, combining lists, fixing archives, everyone already knows what this service is. #classiccmp channel on IRC List of guidelines, how to access, etc. Events calender Get a feed from ccn? Maybe just upcoming events in the collector community, hamfests, etc. Perhaps the best way to do this is simply let users put entries on the calendar (subject to moderation). ClassicCMP things to see in real life Just let people add places to a list, sort by state (museums, places to buy vintage computer stuff). Make sure to have a link to Evan's book so people can go to his site and buy it. Maybe let people enter notes on places other people have listed. ClassicCMP store Selling t-shirts, mugs, mousepads, calendars, etc. branded with ClassicCMP logo. Proceeds used to cover bandwidth & hardware upgrades on ClassicCMP server. Arbitration A group of appointed moderators will be available to settle disputes among collectors via binding arbitration (for trades, etc.) if the parties are willing to have a dispute/trade arbitrated. I remember two disputes in the last year that this may have helped with. Disposition of collection upon death Not sure if I'd want the liability of this. But perhaps it might fill a need if people want to have a collection dispensed a certain way after death. If they made a person the executor of the collection, that person may be out of the hobby after years, or personality conflicts, etc. But if they specify classiccmp to hold the documents on what to do, classiccmp (which hopefully goes on after me as an organization) can ensure the collectors wishes are followed. Not sure this is even possible to do, but it may merit investigating if this would be a service people would want (and we could provide). ClassicCMP media conversion services Provide a list of people willing to do media/data conversions for various hardware platforms. Users could submit their name, fees, email address (hidden by the site), a submission form for a quote, etc. ClassicCMP Rescue Squad I want to do something just like Bill Yakowenko's CCRS (classic computer rescue squad), where people can list the systems they are interested in and their location and contact info. So people disposing of systems can find a rescue'er (and rescue'er's could find rescue helpers!) close. Bill doesn't seem to be actively maintaining his, and I've tried to ask him before duplicating the effort but I can't get in touch with him. I'm ready to just do it anyway, so there is a continually maintained source of this good info for collectors. Wanted! I want to put up a "wanted" section. I don't want to compete with ebay or the vintage marketplace, so I don't want to track bids or anything. ONLY a place where people can post "I'm looking for this". Then have one item at a time rotate at the top of the home page? That would keep items in peoples mind that are wanted. Voting >From time to time it would be nice to put up questions for voting on, and site members could vote. This could be for mailing list policies, enhancements to classiccmp.org, selection of the classicCMP logo, etc. Leads! Giving a fair shot at "system available" leads. I probably get two emails a month directly to me from companies or individuals looking to dispose of gear. Most of the time, these leads are only given to me, not the list or other lists - so no one knows about them. Most (but not all) of the time I merely post these opportunities to the list and let everyone go after them. This penalizes people who don't read the list every hour. The people wanting to dispose of the gear may not like being contacted by 1000 people. It's just not as fair a process as it could be. So, I want a spot on the list where people can basically see each opportunity I get sent to dispose of classic gear, and enter into a lottery. This would allow gear I get notice of to be more fairly distributed. From glen.slick at gmail.com Thu Jun 8 20:45:57 2006 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 18:45:57 -0700 Subject: What's up with these floppies??? In-Reply-To: References: <3.0.6.16.20060608162859.0fff7e68@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90606081845h36d793bdic72354e4937fa77b@mail.gmail.com> On 6/8/06, Bill Sudbrink wrote: > OK, for anybody who needs one badly, here's a > new-old-stock 8 inch full height floppy. I have > no connection to the seller. Watch the shipping > charge, it's a bit steep (in my opinion, anyway). > It went around once with no bids: 8821684724 and > has just been relisted: 8825490497. > I don't see a manual for the Mitsubishi M2894-36B drive on Bitsavers, but it looks like Al recently picked up the manual for the Mitsubishi M2894-63. Maybe the listing 8825490497 transposed 63 to 36? From ian_primus at yahoo.com Thu Jun 8 20:54:05 2006 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 18:54:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: <4486F2B9.2020302@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060609015405.34523.qmail@web52708.mail.yahoo.com> > Ian Primus , who has been a > member of this list in > the past, works for one of the few support shops > that still supports > Prime and PRIMOS *today*. *delurk* Hehe - you ratted me out... I'm here, I've just been quiet. Yes, believe it or not, there are still places running Primes, and I've had to do a couple of repairs recently - although these things don't break too often. They're very reliable and do what they're supposed to do very well. The largest repair job I've had to do recently was a 2755 at a hospital that had problems with it's disks after a problem of flickering power. That computer has been running since it was new, sometime in the early 80's, and is still being used for archival purposes, to look up old records Then there's a 2950 running at a school system, doing a lot of database work, that is in active use. That one has been running there since it was new too. The people in the office love it, and since they haven't seen any modern system that they can use half as well as the Prime for what they need to do, the Prime stays. The only problem it's had recently was a worn out microcode floppy drive. We have a lot of other customers, but we haven't had to do any hardware repairs in the longest time. Great machines, Primes. Ian Primus ian_primus at yahoo.com From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 8 20:58:08 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 02:58:08 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: from "Billy Pettit" at Jun 8, 6 05:38:23 pm Message-ID: > > Tony Duell answered: > > However, the operation of a scanner is not too complex to reverse=20 > > engineer.=20 > Rather you than me. The only scanner I looked inside had several > unindentifyable ICs...=20 > > I guess that we still can't get you to accept one, even for free, = > without=20 > > open hardware source.=20 > Surely you all know me by now. I am not going to depend on something = > that I > can't repair.=20 > Tony > --------------------------------------- > Billy: > I'm still glassy eyed about this statement. So I thought I would tell = > you a > little about some work I did in the past. In OKCity, I was responsible = > for > all the customer support documentation on the MPI floppies, cartridge = > and > fixed disk drives. In the early 80's I had to do a study and recommend = > ways > to reduce costs - publications had become a huge cost empire within > Engineering. And whole product families were being delayed while the > elaborate manuals were written and prepared. Customers were complaining > about the enormous cost of maintenance. > > So I sample polled the largest customers for our drives. It was a = > couple of > hundred out of 2500+. At that time, the only ones who replied that they > needed schematics were a couple of repair services. We asked on theory = > of > operation, app notes, etc. Same thing. None of the customers paying = > the > bills used any of the elaborate documentation except for the interface > specs. What you're possibly missing here is that people like me choose a product _because of the availability of scheamtics and repair parts_. I actually tracked down and bought a genuine Teac floppy drive for this PC becasue I could get a service manual for it. Said drive cost over 10 times as much as a non-name, no-docs drive from the local PC shop. So, when you stopped supplying schematics, you may well have lost the odd customer. Not many, and it probably was a sensible business decision, but maybe the odd one. And alas I learnt a long time ago that unless it was obvious that schematics/service manuals were available, thenn they weren't. There was no point in phoning up the so-called technical support for them. All I'd get would be insults that I couldn't possibly repair the unit. > At that time two other trends were starting. First, most products no = > longer > needed card cages. ICs allowed all the logic of a drive to be on one = > PCB. > And we certainly did not want end users mucking up those boards by = > trying to I have never (well, not in the last 20 years, anyhow) 'mucked up a PCB' trying to repair it. Yes, you can generally tell where I've been (hand soldering does look different from wave soldering), but I do not lift traces, rip out vias, and all the other things that certain people manage to do. > repair them. (Also, many of the circuits were tuned in PCB fab; = > swapping > out an IC wouldn't always fix the problem. It had to be tuned to be > optimum.) That's why I'd want a service manual, not just a schematic. As an aside, this is a real headache for me when I try to write the service docs for some ancient, undocumented, computer product. Most manufactueres used select-on-test resistors rather than presets (there are good engineering reasons for this, I'll agree), it's not always obvious that a resistor was selected. And often I only have one example of the unit to look at. And of course even knowning something was selected doesn't necessarily make it easy to work out what you have to do to select it. > The > customer did not demand it, wasn't willing to pay for it. With ASICs = > and > single board drives, we didn't want them to repair the units. The = No, you'd rather sell them a replacement drive than have them replace some $1 component (I've seen a Wren, there's a lot that can be field-repaired on one, expecially given a schematic). > Since that time, more than 20 years, Tony Duell is the only person I've = > met > who insists on repairing his personal work system to the component = > level. > Everyone else, wants it to be cheap and reliable. And that includes the > most fanatical military buyer. I want it to be relable 20+ years into the future. That means I have to be able to repair it. I'd rather not, but I know I will. > I understand Tony's feelings - I've encountered similar viewpoints many > times in other fields. But it makes me sad, because he can't share a = > lot of > the fun with us. We can't send him scanned manuals and he can't send us FWIW< I am not totally averse to using internet cafes if I have to. I have been known to pop into such a place to read a scanned manual, then make notes from it. > some of the work he has done. And what about photos from our = As I mentioned a few weeks back, a friend at HPCC has scanned many of my hand-drawn diagrams and sells the on a CD-ROM. The money does not go to me, it supports HOCC. And all I got for mentioning this was a flame that (a) I'd used the wrong file format (no I haven't, I didn't pick a file format at all, the one used is convenient for said friend) and (b) I didn't send it out for nothing. So I'll make a genuine offer. I will arrange to have all my hand-drawn schematics put onto CD-ROM in whatever format you choose, And I'll send it to you free of charge. In return, 'all' I ask for is copies of every manual on Bitsavers that applies to a machine that I own, in a format that I prefer, namely printed paper. If you're not willing to spend weeks printing out this stuff, then you'll have to accept my stuff in whatever format I consider convenient (just as I have to accept stuff from Bitsavers, etc, in the format that the site author considered convenient/reasonable). > conventions, To me, photos will always be soemthing that uses silver-based imaging. > videos of the speakers, software that is on CDs not floppies? The = And I'll take videos on EIAJ spools, N1500 cassettes, V2000 cassetes, and even, I guess, Betamax. At a pinch I'll take VHS (but it's a horrible format). Very little original software for my classics came on CD-ROM. Anyway, I do have a CD-ROM drive. It's an ancient Philips, actually a modified (by Philips) audio CD player. And yes I do have the manufacturers service manual for it. > exchange > of knowledge that bonds the rest of us is lost with Tony. And he has = > lots > of knowledge that we would enjoy seeing. I gtuess we'll have to rely on text to exchange information. It's worked for many hundreds of years, after all. -tony From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 8 20:59:54 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 18:59:54 -0700 Subject: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606081859540285.0225A76F@10.0.0.252> On 6/8/2006 at 8:28 PM Wolfe, Julian wrote: >I'm going to go to a hamfest this weekend to look for an oscilloscope. > >Do you guys have any pointers on what to look for, and how to know if what >I'm looking at has problems? > >Any advice would be appreciated. What do you plan to use the oscilloscope for? Do you need a lot of bandwidth (usually means $$$); do you need a storage scope? ($$$) Are you in the market for a DSO? ($$$$) Are you looking for a lab scope with plug-in modules or just an all-around basic unit? A number of folks find that the older Tek all-vacuum-tube scopes can be quite exceptional for low-speed analogue use. If I were looking for an inexpensive used scope for nonspecific general-purpose use, I might consider one of the more ubiquitous models, like the Tek 465. Bandwidth (depending on model) is a useful 100-200MHz, triggering and delayed sweep are usuually rock-solid; a regular workhorse. Occasionally, you can find an exceptional deal in a Tek or HP scope that's been mounted on a rack panel. (Just drill out the spot-welds and add some feet). If possible, find a scope that's been calibrated regularly. Don't forget the probes--a cheap probe can really degrade operation, so make sure that the probes are intended for use with the unit and not somone's generic piece of wire. Make sure that all of the indicators work, the display can be focused and there are no burn marks on the screen and the controls and switches aren't noisy. Most scopes have a calibration test function, so you can at least get a ballpark idea of the thing's operation. Stick with a brand name unit--Tektronix, HP, LeCroy, etc. There will be a larger community of users (and hence more replacement parts) for those. Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 8 21:03:36 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 03:03:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: from "Wolfe, Julian" at Jun 8, 6 08:28:42 pm Message-ID: > > Hi all, > > I'm going to go to a hamfest this weekend to look for an oscilloscope. > > Do you guys have any pointers on what to look for, and how to know if what > I'm looking at has problems? Since you're going for a second-hand one (I think this is wise), buy a well-known make. IMHO Tektronix are the bext. Older Tektronix 'scopes (certainly up to the 465, etc) had excellent manuals with schemaitcs (:-)), theory, etc. Make sure you get one (or can get one). You will need it. Although I like them, probably steer clear of the 500 series. They're large, hot (mostly valved), and take a bit of TLC to keep going. Great if you like that sort of thing (I do). Make sure you know the spec of the instruemnt (Do you have a portable machine with a wireless internet connection to the web, etc? If so, take it along and do a serach on any instrument that you spot. I've seen people do this). The reason is that Tekky (and others) made some excellent special-purpose 'scopes that are really not suitable for computer repair. -tony From aw288 at osfn.org Thu Jun 8 21:04:02 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 22:04:02 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <200606081859540285.0225A76F@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: > What do you plan to use the oscilloscope for? Do you need a lot of > bandwidth (usually means $$$); do you need a storage scope? ($$$) Are you > in the market for a DSO? ($$$$) Are you looking for a lab scope with > plug-in modules or just an all-around basic unit? But at a hamfest, unless you know the buyer - just $. > Stick with a brand name unit--Tektronix, HP, LeCroy, etc. There will be a > larger community of users (and hence more replacement parts) for those. I would not get an old (tube) HP. Drifty as hell. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From ian_primus at yahoo.com Thu Jun 8 21:06:52 2006 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 19:06:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Fwd: raising awareness re: classic hardware] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060609020652.82592.qmail@web52712.mail.yahoo.com> > While I think the scrapper is shooting himself in > the foot by lumping all > DEC PDP-11 stuff together, he does have a point. > Many DEC cards are > extremely common. Everybody seems to have a pile. > Put one up on Ebay, and > you might only get a couple or three bucks. > The thing that ticks me off about eBay is that people tend to junk a machine and just sell the boards on eBay - and me, wanting to get a PDP-11 or a Vax, runs into the problem where I see lots of boards, but no computers. No chassis. It seems that I can find all the parts for the computer except for the chassis/backplane. I have an 11/73, but I don't have anything Unibus, I don't have a spare chassis, I'd love to have another system to work with, and I would love to find an ethernet card for my 11/73 but I guess I look on eBay at the wrong times or something. A quick search now reveals a bunch of boards, none ethernet, and a couple 8's - that I'm sure will go way out of my price range, and one 11. I guess it's out there, but it does seem to be much, much harder to get a computer than the parts thereof. Just what I've noticed. Ian Primus ian_primus at yahoo.com From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 8 21:06:55 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 19:06:55 -0700 Subject: Docs avail: Vermont Research Model 1016 Drum Memory (1969) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606081906550899.022C164B@10.0.0.252> On 6/8/2006 at 12:40 PM Billy Pettit wrote: >We used some of them at Control Data on the Process Control Computers. I >liked them; very nice, relieable drums, ran forever. I would love to find >one now. Would complement my old timer nicely. They were also used in the Star-100 SBUs. For the life of me, I never figured out why drums and not disks, but 'twas so. A lot of military aircraft computers used them also. The givewaway there would be the 400 Hz spindle motor. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 8 21:16:25 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 19:16:25 -0700 Subject: MTOS-86 info? Message-ID: <200606081916250561.0234C772@10.0.0.252> Does anyone have any documentation on MTOS-86? The sample I'm trying to work through appears to load from CP/M-86 and be directly tied to an application. Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 8 21:22:18 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 03:22:18 +0100 (BST) Subject: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <200606081859540285.0225A76F@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 8, 6 06:59:54 pm Message-ID: > > On 6/8/2006 at 8:28 PM Wolfe, Julian wrote: > > >I'm going to go to a hamfest this weekend to look for an oscilloscope. > > > >Do you guys have any pointers on what to look for, and how to know if what > >I'm looking at has problems? > > > >Any advice would be appreciated. > > What do you plan to use the oscilloscope for? Do you need a lot of > bandwidth (usually means $$$); do you need a storage scope? ($$$) Are you As regrds bandwidth, for digital repairs, a good rule of thumb is that the bandwidth should be at least 3 times the master clock rate, probably more. A 100MHz scope is adequate for just about any classic computer work. You can get away with a lot less (even 10Mhz only) if you know what you are doing, and know how the instrument behaves. > in the market for a DSO? ($$$$) Are you looking for a lab scope with > plug-in modules or just an all-around basic unit? If you get a 'scope that takes plug-ins, you'll have many enjoyable hours at hamfests trackign them down :-). More seriously, make sure it comes with the appropriate number of general-purpose plug-ins (a 2-trace Y amplifier, timebase, etc). Certainly for Tektronix 'scopes there were soem very special-purpose plug-ins that, while interesting and fun, are not what you're looking for at this point. > A number of folks find that the older Tek all-vacuum-tube scopes can be > quite exceptional for low-speed analogue use. Don't get me wrong, I love my old Tekky 555, but I really don't think this sort of instrument is good for a beginner who doesn't want to learn how to repair valve circuitry and 'scopes in general. They are very maintainable, and the manuals are excellent, but since they're over 40 years old, you are going to have to do some work on them. > If I were looking for an inexpensive used scope for nonspecific > general-purpose use, I might consider one of the more ubiquitous models, > like the Tek 465. Bandwidth (depending on model) is a useful 100-200MHz, > triggering and delayed sweep are usuually rock-solid; a regular workhorse. > Occasionally, you can find an exceptional deal in a Tek or HP scope that's > been mounted on a rack panel. (Just drill out the spot-welds and add some > feet). > > If possible, find a scope that's been calibrated regularly. Don't forget It's not hard to do your own calibration. You need the proper manual for the 'scope, of course (HP and Tekky provided excellent manuals, I beleive there are companies that sell copies). As regards 'standards', remember you can't read a 'scope to better than 1% anyway (and that's pushing it). A reasonable crystal oscillator will do as a time standard, a bandgap references as a voltage standard. Most of the time you don't need high accuracy when using a 'scope anyway. > the probes--a cheap probe can really degrade operation, so make sure that > the probes are intended for use with the unit and not somone's generic > piece of wire. Make sure that all of the indicators work, the display can > be focused and there are no burn marks on the screen and the controls and > switches aren't noisy. Most scopes have a calibration test function, so > you can at least get a ballpark idea of the thing's operation. > > Stick with a brand name unit--Tektronix, HP, LeCroy, etc. There will be a > larger community of users (and hence more replacement parts) for those. IMHO, Tektronix are the best all-round 'scopes (if you get one of their general-purpose models). LeCroy made some lovelly stuff, but it was all very high-end and expensive when new, I am not sure how often it turns up at hamfests). I have never really liked HP 'scopes (and the user interface on their DSOs of about 10 years ago is horrible!). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 8 21:30:40 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 03:30:40 +0100 (BST) Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list In-Reply-To: <002a01c68b65$92724d40$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> from "Jay West" at Jun 8, 6 08:39:38 pm Message-ID: > ClassicCMP Computer Picture Archive > A database of classic computer pictures, organized by vendor by machine, > searchable. Must allow a mechanism to show a credit if picture came from > elsewhere, separate from showing what user uploaded it. Not just cpu > pictures, but peripherals (disks, tapes, etc.). Primarily meant to be a > archive for identification, not an extensive multipicture set of each > system. Same capabilities/structure as the above, users can submit photos > pending moderator approval, photo rating, etc. Hmmm... As a general point here, I'm a little fed up with classic computer websites that show a front view of the machine and little more. OK, perhaps I use the web a little differently to most people, but when I do a search on some classic computer, I normally know what it looks like, I've got one in front of me :-). Pictures of the insides would be a lot more use. I rmemeber once, severals years back, trying to find a picture of the keyboard of the HP9815 [1]. I'd foolishly unscrewed the PCB withut noting where all the keycaps went, not realising they fell out if you did this. So I needed to know where to put them back. Finding a picture of sufficient resoultion to read the legends on the keys was non-trivial (this was before there were sites with scanned manuals for said machine). Anyway, the beauty of a classic computer is in the PCBs, not the case :-) [1] A 4-level stack programmable desktop calculator. It's got a 6800 inside, it's over 30 eyars old. I guess it's a classic computer :-) > ClassicCMP Computer Books Database > A database of book titles that are of interest to collectors. This could be > books on collecting, or books on repair, electronics, or anything germane to Also old books on computing (that were current when they were published). Things like 'Automatic Digital Computers' (M V WIlkes) 'We built our own computers' (the exploits of some schoolboys making relay logic machines), etc. > the hobby. Include the full text of Kevin Stumpf's collecting guide (already > have Kevin's approval). Users submit titles, rate books, perhaps contribute > a short review, etc. > ClassicCMP things to see in real life > Just let people add places to a list, sort by state (museums, places to buy Don't assume everyone, or everything, is in the States :-). Make it possible to include stuff in other countries too. -tony From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jun 8 21:38:44 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 19:38:44 -0700 Subject: EU Message-ID: Tony Duell wrote: > single board drives, we didn't want them to repair the units. The = No, you'd rather sell them a replacement drive than have them replace some $1 component (I've seen a Wren, there's a lot that can be field-repaired on one, expecially given a schematic). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Billy: Once again you missed the point. Sure there's a few items on Wren that could be repaired. Though in all the hundreds of thousands built, I never saw a single PCB failure. And I wish you would consider your time as valuable. Repair, as you said earlier, is not about the 10P resistor but about the knowledge and experience of the technician. It is not free. Maybe everybody, could fix it without damaging it. But if they didn't, then the manufacturer is liable for the botched repair. And don't say this didn't happen. For almost 10 years, those of us in Field Service had to go out and clean up the messes that so called trained engineers created. I have enough stories about the idiocy prevalent in the computer repair field, that I've started writing a book about some of them. We did not want to cater to this tiny miserable bunch that caused so much grief and expense, so we forced a change. And it became a standard for peripheral companies. Eliminating maintenance and repair on hard drives saved tens of millions of dollars and raised our customer satisfaction enormously. The main point is: to accommodate the whimsy of one hobbyist, we would have had to invest 100's of thousands of dollars in technical manuals, keep them up to date, make them available. The Wren had more than 50 variations - I know because I had to track them. It would have required a staff of 20 to keep the manuals accurate. Making a maintenance manual available would have been a disastrous financial mistake. And for what purpose? Only one person in the world would use this documentation. Everyone else would prefer to spend the $50 on a new drive than risk reusing a repaired one Billy. From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jun 8 21:46:56 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 19:46:56 -0700 Subject: Question For The List Message-ID: Tony Duell wrote: What you're possibly missing here is that people like me choose a product _because of the availability of scheamtics and repair parts_. I actually tracked down and bought a genuine Teac floppy drive for this PC becasue I could get a service manual for it. Said drive cost over 10 times as much as a non-name, no-docs drive from the local PC shop. -------------------------------------- Billy: Tony, as far as I know you are unique - there are no other people like you. (And no, I'm not judging you - I regard myself as unique in lots of ways, and proudly.) But let's ask the list: is there anybody else out there or that you know who buys a product only if it has repair documentation available? And as a corollary, do you only buy products you want to run 20 years? Or can you accept a product as being expendable? How long should a computer part last? Billy From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Thu Jun 8 21:59:03 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 19:59:03 -0700 Subject: Docs avail: Vermont Research Model 1016 Drum Memory (1969) Message-ID: Chuck Guzis wrote: On 6/8/2006 at 12:40 PM Billy Pettit wrote: >We used some of them at Control Data on the Process Control Computers. I >liked them; very nice, relieable drums, ran forever. I would love to find >one now. Would complement my old timer nicely. They were also used in the Star-100 SBUs. For the life of me, I never figured out why drums and not disks, but 'twas so. A lot of military aircraft computers used them also. The givewaway there would be the 400 Hz spindle motor. Cheers, Chuck -------------------------------------------------------- Billy: There were several reasons, but the biggest one was: they could do parallel read and writes. You could stripe them for 16 bit wide data paths that became incredibly fast. And with virtually no bit skew. Plus access time was never more than one revolution. (It would be years before access time on disks got down to the 16ms range.) Finally, we just hashed over the painful reliability of early disks. Drums were used since the 50's, had a lot engineering behind them. Unfortunately, they were hard to increase capacity on, weren't removable and never became cheap. Billy From aw288 at osfn.org Thu Jun 8 22:08:12 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 23:08:12 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Docs avail: Vermont Research Model 1016 Drum Memory (1969) In-Reply-To: <200606081906550899.022C164B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: > They were also used in the Star-100 SBUs. For the life of me, I never > figured out why drums and not disks, but 'twas so. A lot of military > aircraft computers used them also. Drums can tolerate a bad landing much better than a disk. > The givewaway there would be the 400 Hz > spindle motor. Not just aircraft, but shipboard as well. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 8 22:34:53 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 20:34:53 -0700 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4488EC5D.3020203@DakotaCom.Net> Billy Pettit wrote: > Tony Duell wrote: > What you're possibly missing here is that people like me choose a product > _because of the availability of scheamtics and repair parts_. I actually > tracked down and bought a genuine Teac floppy drive for this PC becasue I > could get a service manual for it. Said drive cost over 10 times as much as > a non-name, no-docs drive from the local PC shop. > > -------------------------------------- > Billy: > > Tony, as far as I know you are unique - there are no other people like you. > (And no, I'm not judging you - I regard myself as unique in lots of ways, > and proudly.) > > But let's ask the list: is there anybody else out there or that you know > who buys a product only if it has repair documentation available? > And as a corollary, do you only buy products you want to run 20 years? Or > can you accept a product as being expendable? How long should a computer > part last? I do. My VCR, TV, tape (hifi) decks, etc. Even my first PC was purchased contingent on having a service manual available! Ditto for my car, etc. I expect "things" to last a long time -- assuming I am going to "take care" of them. But, then again, I don't usually buy crappy products so they actually DO stand a chance of "lasting". Immediately after buying something, I figure out which parts are the most likely to need replacement (mechanical wear, etc.) and/or will be the hardest to locate substitutes for later on. I make an educated guess as to how many of these I should "stockpile" and then order them. Whenever one of these DOES break, I replace it out of my "spares" lot and immediately order a replacement for that spare. It lets me buy "better" products than Joe Average would normally afford -- since I don't have to replace the entire product *or* pay exorbitant service fees to keep the old one running! Works for me. YMMV. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 8 22:31:25 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 20:31:25 -0700 Subject: Docs avail: Vermont Research Model 1016 Drum Memory (1969) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606082031250881.0279721F@10.0.0.252> On 6/8/2006 at 7:59 PM Billy Pettit wrote: >Billy: >There were several reasons, but the biggest one was: they could do parallel >read and writes. You could stripe them for 16 bit wide data paths that >became incredibly fast. And with virtually no bit skew. Plus access time >was never more than one revolution. Yeah, but in a Star-100 SBU, there was enough memory in the thing that the drum hardly got used past booting the thing up. There was just no point to the speed. The Star paged to disk; there were some plans initially for a huge drum, running something like 512 bits parallel, but I don't know if the concept ever made it off paper. The funny thing was that there were the same SBUs on the two Star-1B's in Sunnyvale--the SBU's were qutie a bit faster than the 1Bs themselves. (Those two systems eventually went into the dumpster per company policy). During the 60's, drums gave disks a run for their money. I remember a Univac 1108 with the very large FASTRAND-II moving-head drum on it. There were a number of late 50's-early-60's machine with drum as the main memory, such as the IBM 650 and the LGP-30. "one plus one" addressing. Cheers, Chuck From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jun 8 22:58:48 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 22:58:48 -0500 Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list References: Message-ID: <011001c68b79$034699a0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Tony wrote.... > Hmmm... As a general point here, I'm a little fed up with classic > computer websites that show a front view of the machine and little more. > OK, perhaps I use the web a little differently to most people, but when I > do a search on some classic computer, I normally know what it looks like, > I've got one in front of me :-). Pictures of the insides would be a lot > more use. If you've got one in front of you, why do you need pictures of the inside? ;) But seriously... my goal for this wasn't for the grizzled veterans. Part of my ideas for the future of ClassicCMP.org are designed to help bring new/young people into the hobby. Otherwise it'd be a mailing list and a character-based text/website. Newbies don't know when they see a straight-8 what it is. Or an altair. They didn't grow up drooling over one. So, I was thinking of a quick one-picture-per-system gallery just to help people id "what kinda system is this" when they find one at a thrift store and don't know what it is. HOWEVER... I am not opposed at all (and was kinda hoping to if this grew) to having a photo of even individual boards for each system, all 4 sides of sytems, etc. Something much more expansive. But I figured an ID gallery was easier to start up :) > Also old books on computing (that were current when they were published). > Things like 'Automatic Digital Computers' (M V WIlkes) 'We built our own > computers' (the exploits of some schoolboys making relay logic machines), > etc. Absolutely! I assume you'd be willing to enter those books into the site and post a word or two about them ;) > Don't assume everyone, or everything, is in the States :-). Make it > possible to include stuff in other countries too. Oh, I assure you, the focus is not just US based. But thanks for the reminder! Jay West From evan at snarc.net Thu Jun 8 23:14:38 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 00:14:38 -0400 Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list In-Reply-To: <011001c68b79$034699a0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <001b01c68b7b$39b72520$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> >>> > Don't assume everyone, or everything, is in the States :-). Make it > possible to include stuff in other countries too. Oh, I assure you, the focus is not just US based. But thanks for the reminder! I believe he was talking about the museums list that I'm supplying. My answer is, yes, the directory will definitely grow beyond the U.S. -- it's one of many things on my to-do list. -----Original Message----- From: Jay West [mailto:jwest at classiccmp.org] Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 11:59 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: classiccmp todo/idea list Tony wrote.... > Hmmm... As a general point here, I'm a little fed up with classic > computer websites that show a front view of the machine and little more. > OK, perhaps I use the web a little differently to most people, but > when I do a search on some classic computer, I normally know what it > looks like, I've got one in front of me :-). Pictures of the insides > would be a lot more use. If you've got one in front of you, why do you need pictures of the inside? ;) But seriously... my goal for this wasn't for the grizzled veterans. Part of my ideas for the future of ClassicCMP.org are designed to help bring new/young people into the hobby. Otherwise it'd be a mailing list and a character-based text/website. Newbies don't know when they see a straight-8 what it is. Or an altair. They didn't grow up drooling over one. So, I was thinking of a quick one-picture-per-system gallery just to help people id "what kinda system is this" when they find one at a thrift store and don't know what it is. HOWEVER... I am not opposed at all (and was kinda hoping to if this grew) to having a photo of even individual boards for each system, all 4 sides of sytems, etc. Something much more expansive. But I figured an ID gallery was easier to start up :) > Also old books on computing (that were current when they were published). > Things like 'Automatic Digital Computers' (M V WIlkes) 'We built our > own computers' (the exploits of some schoolboys making relay logic > machines), etc. Absolutely! I assume you'd be willing to enter those books into the site and post a word or two about them ;) > Don't assume everyone, or everything, is in the States :-). Make it > possible to include stuff in other countries too. Oh, I assure you, the focus is not just US based. But thanks for the reminder! Jay West From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 8 23:16:55 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 21:16:55 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <05qg82d9gh9fkrlb769viabltsv5j1t0t9@4ax.com> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <05qg82d9gh9fkrlb769viabltsv5j1t0t9@4ax.com> Message-ID: <200606082116550666.02A31908@10.0.0.252> On 6/8/2006 at 11:16 AM Philip Freidin wrote: >I added a 4 GB hard drive from one of my dead laptop computers, and >it looks like ~1600 RK05 packs. Bob's virtualization software for the >hard drive lets you mount any 8 packs at a time. With 1600 of them, >You get to have a lot of scratch packs :-). OS8 runs fine on it. Didn't one of the first hard disks for the Apple ][ work like that? It was a shoebox-sized unit (drive made by IMI, maybe?). Mapped into something like 50 floppies. So, what does one do with a PDP-8 clone? Cheers, Chuck From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Jun 9 00:12:43 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 23:12:43 -0600 Subject: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4489034B.8040601@jetnet.ab.ca> Wolfe, Julian wrote: > Hi all, > > I'm going to go to a hamfest this weekend to look for an oscilloscope. > > Do you guys have any pointers on what to look for, and how to know if what > I'm looking at has problems? > > Any advice would be appreciated. > > Thanks! > Julian Remeber to get a scope probe. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Jun 9 00:16:44 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 23:16:44 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <200606082116550666.02A31908@10.0.0.252> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <05qg82d9gh9fkrlb769viabltsv5j1t0t9@4ax.com> <200606082116550666.02A31908@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4489043C.3030500@jetnet.ab.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > So, what does one do with a PDP-8 clone? Much the same with any computer --- play games :) You have 4k chess I know for sure... From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 9 00:18:50 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 17:18:50 +1200 Subject: sync serial cards In-Reply-To: <200606082319.k58NJGtT030233@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <001f01c68b41$aec46740$6500a8c0@BILLING> <200606082319.k58NJGtT030233@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On 6/9/06, Brad Parker wrote: > I think you could use a 56k CSU/DSU and something as simple a ISA bus > card with an SCC on it. There used to be a linux driver for the 8530 > that could keep up at 56k. There are other higher performance cards of > course. The "problem" is that semi-modern machines have no ISA slots - my primary knock-around-and-game machine at home has a motherboard from early 2000, and it's 5 PCI and 0 ISA. > The CSU/DSU might have a giant v.35 connector or if you are lucky just a > DB-25. I think some even had both (it's all dim now). There are also DB-25 (EIA) to V.35 converters out there - we used to sell a few by Gandalf when we'd sell a COMBOARD to V.35-equipped customers (our cable was similar to a DEC serial cable - 40-pin BERG on one end, DB-25 on the other, with 1488s and 1489s for EIA level conversion). > You'll laugh, but I ran a 56k internet connection for a few years out of > my house using a sparc station 1 running sun os. I ran the sparc serial > port (8530 based) directly into a CSU/DSU. Pretty wild for the home. The Qbus and VAXBI COMBOARDs used the Z8530 (the COMBOARD-I and COMBOARD-II for Unibus used a COM5025 since that's what DEC boards in the late-1970s used for sync serial (DUP-11?)). We had either an 8Mhz 68000 or a 10MHz 68010, running a monolithic app (one in C, several simpler protocols in 68K assembler) driving one Z8530 serial channel at up to 64Kbps all day long (with a pair of boards in the back room we'd hooked up to a tweaked modem eliminator at 128Kbps). If your modernish PC can't keep up with a 56Kbps sync data stream, your operating system is probably stepping on your interrupts - it's not a CPU-load thing. I am unaware of a PCI-based sync serial card. I think by the time that PCI was becoming dominant, most folks who wanted a 56K line to the outer world wanted it to speak ATM or ppp (not Bisync or SNA), thus it was reasonable to offload that task to a TCP/IP router. There are *plenty* of models of Cisco router that you can hang a CSU/DSU off of, but I don't recall ever seeing that done with a PCI-based machine. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 9 00:19:32 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 17:19:32 +1200 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <4489043C.3030500@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <05qg82d9gh9fkrlb769viabltsv5j1t0t9@4ax.com> <200606082116550666.02A31908@10.0.0.252> <4489043C.3030500@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On 6/9/06, woodelf wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > So, what does one do with a PDP-8 clone? > Much the same with any computer --- play games :) > You have 4k chess I know for sure... Plenty of stuff in Dave Ahl's books on BASIC computer games... -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 9 00:21:36 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 22:21:36 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <4489043C.3030500@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <05qg82d9gh9fkrlb769viabltsv5j1t0t9@4ax.com> <200606082116550666.02A31908@10.0.0.252> <4489043C.3030500@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200606082221360666.02DE5108@10.0.0.252> On 6/8/2006 at 11:16 PM woodelf wrote: >Much the same with any computer --- play games :) >You have 4k chess I know for sure... That explains it--I'm not much one for computer games. Cheers, Chuck From lbickley at bickleywest.com Fri Jun 9 00:33:21 2006 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 22:33:21 -0700 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606082233.22252.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Thursday 08 June 2006 19:46, Billy Pettit wrote: --snip-- > But let's ask the list: is there anybody else out there or that you know > who buys a product only if it has repair documentation available? I give very strong preference to items that I purchase that have service manuals and schematics available. I have service manuals with schematics for all my audio gear, big screen TV, test equipment, etc. I have service manuals for all three of my vehicles (Including a very detailed one - 3" thick - for my CJ7). At one time or the other I've likely used all of them to repair something. I don't bother with service manuals with schematics for items I consider expendable - modern disk drives, motherboards, memory sticks... I do have schematics and maintenance manuals for all my DEC vintage gear (and other manufacturers when they're available). Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From dbwood at kc.rr.com Fri Jun 9 00:36:19 2006 From: dbwood at kc.rr.com (dbwood at kc.rr.com) Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 00:36:19 -0500 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <4489043C.3030500@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <05qg82d9gh9fkrlb769viabltsv5j1t0t9@4ax.com> <200606082116550666.02A31908@10.0.0.252> <4489043C.3030500@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: In the late 70s I used a timesharing operating system called (IIRC) EduComp. This would allow eight users to have access to a virtual PDP- 8 and 32K memory. Is it available somewhere? ----- Original Message ----- From: woodelf Date: Friday, June 9, 2006 0:15 am Subject: Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > So, what does one do with a PDP-8 clone? > Much the same with any computer --- play games :) > You have 4k chess I know for sure... > > From waisun.chia at gmail.com Fri Jun 9 00:54:51 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 13:54:51 +0800 Subject: sync serial cards In-Reply-To: References: <001f01c68b41$aec46740$6500a8c0@BILLING> <200606082319.k58NJGtT030233@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On 6/9/06, Ethan Dicks wrote: > I am unaware of a PCI-based sync serial card. I think by the time > that PCI was becoming dominant, most folks who wanted a 56K line to > the outer world wanted it to speak ATM or ppp (not Bisync or SNA), > thus it was reasonable to offload that task to a TCP/IP router. There > are *plenty* of models of Cisco router that you can hang a CSU/DSU off > of, but I don't recall ever seeing that done with a PCI-based machine. > One word: Sangoma http://www.sangoma.com/main/products/wanpipe Supports Linux out-of-the-box. Sangoma also has a special low-profile card for the Soekris. So that you can hang off a T1/E1 off something about the same size of a VHS tape. Presumably supports Linux, *BSD. http://www.soekris.com/bundles.htm From waisun.chia at gmail.com Fri Jun 9 00:56:34 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 13:56:34 +0800 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: <200606082221360666.02DE5108@10.0.0.252> References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <05qg82d9gh9fkrlb769viabltsv5j1t0t9@4ax.com> <200606082116550666.02A31908@10.0.0.252> <4489043C.3030500@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606082221360666.02DE5108@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: On 6/9/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/8/2006 at 11:16 PM woodelf wrote: > > >Much the same with any computer --- play games :) > >You have 4k chess I know for sure... > > That explains it--I'm not much one for computer games. > How about home control? Junk out all the new-fangled X10 stuff, and use your PDP-8/SBC6120 to control your home applicances.. :-) From technobug at comcast.net Fri Jun 9 01:18:18 2006 From: technobug at comcast.net (CRC) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 23:18:18 -0700 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <200606090203.k5923VIA033929@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606090203.k5923VIA033929@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <085FF060-5635-4AAF-93B4-DC71ADD6AD74@comcast.net> On Thu, 8 Jun 2006 20:22:42 +0100 (BST), > ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > >>> I would assume it's a linear (as opposed to area) CCD. Now, I >>> spent many >>> years playing tricks with CCDs, and one thing that's burnt into >>> my memory >>> is that the drive pulses are critical. Not mild;y critical, but >>> _very_ >>> critical. >> >> OK, scratch that idea, then :-) > > If you think how a CCD basically works, it has a series of electrodes > (normally 3 or 4 'phase' drive) on the surface of the chip, by > sequencing > the votlages on these electrodes, you move the accumulated charge > along. > Charge transfer actually occurs as the voltages are changing, which > means > the rise/fall time, and to a lesser extent the shape of the > rising/falling edge matters. Too steep can be a problem. I spent > many a > late night looking at the 'scope and adding low-value series > resistors to > slow things down a bit. > Alas, the world has moved on : check out . The clock generators are built in - you input a read-out gate, and a clock to move things around. There is a sample-and-hold (built in). Nothing really critical like in the old days playing with Reticon sensors. I ran across a bunch of 2088 pixel chips and had one beast running in less than 15 minutes... These sensors are over 10 yo. CRC From cc at corti-net.de Fri Jun 9 03:02:01 2006 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 10:02:01 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Need help reading IBM System/36 disks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 8 Jun 2006, Sellam Ismail wrote: > Is there anyone that has the facilities to read IBM System/36 disks at the > filesystem level? Are they in standard IBM format, i.e. volume header (VOL1) on sector 7, directory entries (HDR1) beginning on sector 8, entry size 128 bytes, EBCDIC? (See my page at http://computermuseum-stuttgart.de/dev/ibm_5110/technik/en/diskops.html for a description) If yes, I can read and write them (I did this for my 5110 disks). Another way would be to create a disk dump (e.g. with AnaDisk) and copy the relevant sectors into a new file. Christian From cc at corti-net.de Fri Jun 9 03:13:54 2006 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 10:13:54 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > Don't get me wrong, I love my old Tekky 555, but I really don't think > this sort of instrument is good for a beginner who doesn't want to learn > how to repair valve circuitry and 'scopes in general. They are very > maintainable, and the manuals are excellent, but since they're over 40 > years old, you are going to have to do some work on them. My experiences with a 555 are *very* good. Found one on a scrap heap three years ago, and someone picked the power valves (and the funny diode 2AS15-A) and their sockets out of the power supply (and cut the wires). It took me some time to get replacement valves and rewire the power supply around the sockets, but in the end, the scope worked like a charm! The traces (it's a real dual beam, not dual trace) are sharper and finer than everything else I've seen so far (mostly "modern" equipment like Hamegs or HPs). We use it here e.g. to adjust the heads on RK05 drives or to measure the signals on our LGP-30s (we have two working now!). (Some pictures are on http://computermuseum-stuttgart.de/dev/tek555, you can click on the pictures to see more) Christian From tosteve at yahoo.com Fri Jun 9 04:00:02 2006 From: tosteve at yahoo.com (steven stengel) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 02:00:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: ATT-6300 PC (1985) for sale: Message-ID: <20060609090003.88903.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Folks, Kirk has an ATT-6300 for sale. Contact him, not I. -------------------- Kirk writes: "I'm the original owner of a 1985 ATT6300 PC I'd like to sell for whatever its worth. It was a "high-end" one at the time. 10 MB HD, 640x400 color monitor, 640 KB RAM. I replaced the 8086 CPU with a V30 chip for faster performance (executes same 8086 instruction set in fewer T-states), 8087 math coprocessor, ATT 2MB RAM expansion board, 20 MG Plus Hardcard, and a STI EGA video card (special card made for ATT computers and monitors). It worked fine up until the mid 90's when the power supply became intermitant. Everything else was working just fine. As a bonus, I have an Epson 185 dot-matrix printer (132 column) in excellent shape. It was bought at the same time. Kirk kjb23 at verizon.net __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From fireflyst at earthlink.net Fri Jun 9 04:34:56 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 04:34:56 -0500 Subject: My continuing 11/34 confusion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <006201c68ba7$f8b441c0$6801a8c0@dementium> I just wanted to double check that I did this before replying, but I pulled the M9302 again and this seemed to have no effect on anything - RUN and DC ON lights and 000000 display still the same. Looks like any further progress requires a scope, which I'll hopefully find on Sunday. (hence my other thread, though I use it for other things) -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 2:37 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: My continuing 11/34 confusion > > Thanks to everyone who helped me figure this out. It can be confusing > sometimes when you think you've looked everywhere and it's still just in the > wrong place. > > Unfortunately, after properly checking the NPG and BG lines for continuity, > I found that they are wired properly - I was hoping for something simple > like that :( > > So now that I know those lines are solid, and I know the Power supply is > outputting what it's supposed to, where do I go from here? Next thing I would do is to pull the M9302 terminator. A single-backplane machine like you currently have will run without it (at least for testing) if everything else is OK. And the M9302 will lock the Unibus (it asserts SACK and won't release it) if a grant gets all the way to the terminator (the normal reason for this is that the chain is open at some point, but you've checked this). After that, I'd better get out the 11/34 printset and suggest good places to stick the 'scope probe... -tony From fireflyst at earthlink.net Fri Jun 9 04:37:51 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 04:37:51 -0500 Subject: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <006301c68ba8$6097b740$6801a8c0@dementium> Yeah, I'd rather not have a PDP11 sized scope, but thanks for the suggestion, I'm sure they're wonderful devices. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Christian Corti Sent: Friday, June 09, 2006 3:14 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > Don't get me wrong, I love my old Tekky 555, but I really don't think > this sort of instrument is good for a beginner who doesn't want to learn > how to repair valve circuitry and 'scopes in general. They are very > maintainable, and the manuals are excellent, but since they're over 40 > years old, you are going to have to do some work on them. My experiences with a 555 are *very* good. Found one on a scrap heap three years ago, and someone picked the power valves (and the funny diode 2AS15-A) and their sockets out of the power supply (and cut the wires). It took me some time to get replacement valves and rewire the power supply around the sockets, but in the end, the scope worked like a charm! The traces (it's a real dual beam, not dual trace) are sharper and finer than everything else I've seen so far (mostly "modern" equipment like Hamegs or HPs). We use it here e.g. to adjust the heads on RK05 drives or to measure the signals on our LGP-30s (we have two working now!). (Some pictures are on http://computermuseum-stuttgart.de/dev/tek555, you can click on the pictures to see more) Christian From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Jun 9 05:53:56 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 06:53:56 -0400 Subject: sync serial cards In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 09 Jun 2006 13:54:51 +0800." Message-ID: <200606091053.k59AruYi027313@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Wai-Sun Chia" wrote: >> >One word: Sangoma >http://www.sangoma.com/main/products/wanpipe oh yea. forgot about them. one of my customres once bought the rights to their isa card and glued it onto a PPC850. I did the integration. It uses a Z180 as i recall, which has an ESCC. -brad From joachim.thiemann at gmail.com Fri Jun 9 07:49:16 2006 From: joachim.thiemann at gmail.com (Joachim Thiemann) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 08:49:16 -0400 Subject: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes Message-ID: <4affc5e0606090549i51cdd6b7g79dc2435dfb407d2@mail.gmail.com> If the OP is looking for a new scope that's cheap, here at McGill, we've been using the PicoScope USB scopes in the EE labs (DSP Hardware). We trust undergrads with them, and they're a heck of a lot easier to store (if you have 10 of them in a lab). No knobs or buttons, just 2 BNC and a USB-B on a white box the size of a hardback book. Unfortuantely they are Windows-only, so no use for someone like me who's only got Mac and NetBSD at home. And it's quite possible to find a good used analog scope for less, I think, but a digital storage scope has some advantages... Joe. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jun 9 08:46:12 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 14:46:12 +0100 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44897BA4.2070705@yahoo.co.uk> > But let's ask the list: is there anybody else out there or that you know > who buys a product only if it has repair documentation available? > And as a corollary, do you only buy products you want to run 20 years? Or > can you accept a product as being expendable? I don't know about 20 years, but I certainly expect 10 out of a device. I like things that do one job and one job only, and do it well - and based on that I've got no expectation of wanting to replace that device for a good few years, so I'd rather that it was built to last. I'll run things like a TV, VCR, DVD player etc. into the ground, and I think somewhere around 1996 was the last time I bought a new part for a PC; I'll upgrade if someone's throwing a useful part out, but getting caught up in the "must upgrade every five minutes" cycle seems pretty foolish. The problem these days is that so many items are built based on price rather than quality, are deliberately built to have a short life (in order to keep customers reaching into their pockets), and are built to do several jobs at once - none of which they do particularly well due to the price constraints. Mobile phones are a good case in point. I want to use a phone to - surprise! - make phone calls with. I've got a camera for taking pictures. I've got a TV for watching TV. I've got a hifi (or portable CD player) for playing music on. I don't need a phone to do (badly, at low quality) all of those things - yet it seems impossible to get a phone these days that's built to last and handle phone calls well, without the expense of also paying for all the bundled features. > How long should a computer part last? For as long as the maximum life of its components under ideal (or as close as possible) conditions. Things like EPROMs and capacitors that are prone to dying can be replaced, so it's probably down to the natural life of other ICs - which is what, 50 years or so? No reason to expect that a properly-designed system with good cooling and no use of sub-standard parts can't be maintained and last that long if desired. Which is strange if you think about it - much of this hobby will be dead in 50 years time as the era of collectible systems is pretty much over (who wants to go around collecting PCs, Playstations and X-Boxes?). There'll still be emulators, documentation, research, and non-functional systems, but the running machines - which are of primary interest to most on this list I suspect - will be gone. OK, that's depressing. Time for more coffee. :-) cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jun 9 08:57:08 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 14:57:08 +0100 Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44897E34.2000804@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: >> ClassicCMP Computer Picture Archive >> A database of classic computer pictures, organized by vendor by machine, >> searchable. Must allow a mechanism to show a credit if picture came from >> elsewhere, separate from showing what user uploaded it. Not just cpu >> pictures, but peripherals (disks, tapes, etc.). Primarily meant to be a >> archive for identification, not an extensive multipicture set of each >> system. Same capabilities/structure as the above, users can submit photos >> pending moderator approval, photo rating, etc. > > Hmmm... As a general point here, I'm a little fed up with classic > computer websites that show a front view of the machine and little more. > OK, perhaps I use the web a little differently to most people, but when I > do a search on some classic computer, I normally know what it looks like, > I've got one in front of me :-). Pictures of the insides would be a lot > more use. That's part of the reason it's taken me so long to get some pages up (the rest is that I'm lazy) - I want to make sure I've got a good collection of *good quality* board photos, ROM images, data scans, advert scans, software images etc. for any particular machine - plus of course good quality photos (including hi-res versions that can be downloaded rather than viewed in a browser if desired). Lots of sites seem to do the "single photo of the machine" thing. A small subset add some history information (and to be fair, do it well). Very few sites offer the resources to help maintain these machines, though. It'd be interesting to know what percentage of people reach a site as casual browsers, and what percentage do so because they actually own an example of something that's referenced on the site. I suspect that the latter is a lot higher than might be thought. > Anyway, the beauty of a classic computer is in the PCBs, not the case :-) Well, some have nice cases. Some have very nice (or at least interesting) engineering in the chassis. But yeah, I hear ya. cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jun 9 09:18:32 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 15:18:32 +0100 Subject: ClassicCMP.org direction In-Reply-To: <000501c68b61$ed23e900$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <000501c68b61$ed23e900$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <44898338.2040808@yahoo.co.uk> Jay West wrote: > The goal is to move more towards ClassicCMP.org being a tier1 resource > for vintage computer collectors and hobbyists - a full fledged resource > and not just a mailing list - a launching board to other sites as well. > I'm not trying to hurt anyone elses website or resources. I just want > ClassicCMP.org to be more of a branded entity, and provide a large > de-facto starting spot for collectors and hobbyists. Not just a mailing > list. OK, back-burner idea that keeps resurfacing is that it'd be great if the "which site has what" or "which site does what" could be somehow automated and shared between websites with a classic computer theme. Think of the way that manx pulls together classic documents available on other sites - but in this case any participating site would have a manx-like interface via a stock bit of PHP (say - or something else) code. An owner of one participating site would put some new content online and then 'publish' it; the fact that it was available would then (somehow) propagate to other websites participating in the scheme (which would all display somewhere a "classic computing search" box). Heck, the content could even be published with a flag saying "yes, other sites can grab and host their own copy of this if they want", allowing site owners to duplicate content if the original publisher allows it; that's got to be a Good Thing. Rationale: It bugs me as a user when I know that some document (or whatever) that I'm after might be on one website, just not one that I've happened to stumble across - and I don't necessarily have time to look at *every* DEC (or whatever) website out there! With a sharing of "who has what", users benefit by not missing out on stuff, and site owners benefit by getting publicity for their own site (via searches carried out on a different site). It seems like a nice concept - I just don't know if it's workable :-) I'm not sure if a massive centralised database would be best, or if it's possible to do some DNS-like distributed database somehow so all the load's not on one system (and single point of failure). Presumably items in the system would be defined in plain-text, but possibly categorised (ROM image, software image, magazine ad, photo, manual scan etc.). There'd probably need to be some suggested guidelines too (such as scans saying what resolution / colour depth they are, software images saying what format they're in etc.) Maybe it's a stupid idea :) I just know that it's frustrating when looking for something knowing that it's likely out there *somewhere*, but search sites like Google aren't specific enough to let me find it. If a central database is the best approach though, it could well be a good candidate for classiccmp.org hosting... cheers Jules From bob at jfcl.com Fri Jun 9 09:50:39 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 07:50:39 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life Message-ID: <002301c68bd4$16542a20$0401010a@GIZMO> > Chuck Guzis wrote: >So, what does one do with a PDP-8 clone? The SBC6120 will run OS/8, and OS/8 has BASIC, FORTRAN (IV), PAL, MACREL, LINK, TECO, ALGOL, SNOBOL, LISP, FOCAL, and even a simple Pascal. You ought to be able to think of something to do with it! Bob From bob at jfcl.com Fri Jun 9 09:54:46 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 07:54:46 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life Message-ID: <002401c68bd4$a9b44890$0401010a@GIZMO> >In the late 70s I used a timesharing operating system called (IIRC) >EduComp. This would allow eight users to have access to a virtual PDP- >8 and 32K memory. Is it available somewhere? There were many models of EduComp computers - the lower end systems ran a timeshared BASIC interpreter, and the higher end systems ran TSS/8. TSS/8 exists on the web and will run on simulators, but the SBC6120 lacks the timeshare hardware needed to make it work. AFAIK, EduComp BASIC has disappeared - if anybody has a copy of it, I'd love to get a copy. Bob From sellam at vintagetech.com Fri Jun 9 10:41:42 2006 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 08:41:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Need manual for Etak Dispatch ($$$) Message-ID: Etak Disptach is a mid-1980s era GIS (mapping/routing) system. I need the manual for the product, or the product itself. I'll pay a $100 bounty for the manual, or more for an example of the complete system. I do not read the list. I only post here. If you have something or even a lead, please reply directly to me. Thanks! -- 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 kth at srv.net Fri Jun 9 11:11:58 2006 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 10:11:58 -0600 Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44899DCE.3070504@srv.net> Tony Duell wrote: >I rmemeber once, severals years back, trying to find a picture of the >keyboard of the HP9815 [1]. I'd foolishly unscrewed the PCB withut noting >where all the keycaps went, not realising they fell out if you did this. >So I needed to know where to put them back. Finding a picture of >sufficient resoultion to read the legends on the keys was non-trivial >(this was before there were sites with scanned manuals for said machine). > > What I usually do in the case of loose keycaps (if the keyboard can be assembled w/o the keytops enough to be functional), is to plug it in to a system either at a command prompt or in a text editor, then push the buttons to see what happens. Pop in the keycaps as their function is found. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 9 11:19:14 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 09:19:14 -0700 Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list In-Reply-To: <44899DCE.3070504@srv.net> References: <44899DCE.3070504@srv.net> Message-ID: <44899F82.6000803@DakotaCom.Net> Kevin Handy wrote: > Tony Duell wrote: > >> I rmemeber once, severals years back, trying to find a picture of the >> keyboard of the HP9815 [1]. I'd foolishly unscrewed the PCB withut >> noting where all the keycaps went, not realising they fell out if you >> did this. So I needed to know where to put them back. Finding a >> picture of sufficient resoultion to read the legends on the keys was >> non-trivial (this was before there were sites with scanned manuals for >> said machine). >> >> > What I usually do in the case of loose keycaps (if the keyboard can be > assembled w/o the keytops enough to be functional), is to plug it in to a > system either at a command prompt or in a text editor, then push the > buttons to see what happens. Pop in the keycaps as their function is found. This doesn't work for things like function keys, the magic keys on a Sun keyboard, etc. -- unless you have a full OS installed! I've started documenting keyboards on some of the boxes that I have -- it's just busywork and can save your *ss when you disassemble a keyboard to clean it. From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Jun 9 11:42:46 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 09:42:46 -0700 Subject: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <4489034B.8040601@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <4489034B.8040601@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4489A506.1030200@msm.umr.edu> woodelf wrote: > Wolfe, Julian wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> I'm going to go to a hamfest this weekend to look for an oscilloscope. >> unless you get a digital scope that holds calibration well, you will probably be wise to pick up a frequency reference, and voltage refreence to calibrate them with, unless you have access to such somewhere outside your home shop, such as at work. If you have a standalone operation, being able to check the voltage and triggering on your scope and recalibrate them is desirable too. a lot of bargain scopes will put up a nice square wave, especially tektronics showing the internal test square wave, and wont trigger on the crap you really see in your old computers worth a crap. triggering and reliable probes will probably be the the top two things you will not think of unless you keep them in mind in advance, and it will be hard to judge how good a scope is unless you know the vendors, and trust their description, and that they might let you return a dog of a scope. also, getting a good maintainence and calibration manual will help the above, you wont be doing that wo one. Dont go for some weird and wonderful bargain scope that you cant find a manual for. jim From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 9 11:50:40 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 09:50:40 -0700 Subject: sync serial cards In-Reply-To: References: <001f01c68b41$aec46740$6500a8c0@BILLING> <200606082319.k58NJGtT030233@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <200606090950400849.05552D9E@10.0.0.252> On 6/9/2006 at 5:18 PM Ethan Dicks wrote: >I am unaware of a PCI-based sync serial card. I think by the time >that PCI was becoming dominant, most folks who wanted a 56K line to >the outer world wanted it to speak ATM or ppp (not Bisync or SNA), >thus it was reasonable to offload that task to a TCP/IP router. There >are *plenty* of models of Cisco router that you can hang a CSU/DSU off >of, but I don't recall ever seeing that done with a PCI-based machine. They''re out there! Here's one from Quatech: http://www.quatech.com/catalog/rs232s_pci.php Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 9 11:55:30 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 09:55:30 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of Life In-Reply-To: References: <03f401c6871e$b95a4f70$0401010a@GIZMO> <05qg82d9gh9fkrlb769viabltsv5j1t0t9@4ax.com> <200606082116550666.02A31908@10.0.0.252> <4489043C.3030500@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606082221360666.02DE5108@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606090955300547.0559993F@10.0.0.252> On 6/9/2006 at 1:56 PM Wai-Sun Chia wrote: >How about home control? >Junk out all the new-fangled X10 stuff, and use your PDP-8/SBC6120 to >control your home applicances.. :-) Now, see, there's my problem. I recall when X10 came out and I couldn't see a use for it. What do I control? The only thing I can think of is the sprinkler system and it's got its own programmable controller. The theromostat on the heatpump's also programmable. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 9 11:57:10 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 09:57:10 -0700 Subject: Need help reading IBM System/36 disks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606090957100792.055B20D3@10.0.0.252> On 6/9/2006 at 10:02 AM Christian Corti wrote: >If yes, I can read and write them (I did this for my 5110 disks). Another >way would be to create a disk dump (e.g. with AnaDisk) and copy the >relevant sectors into a new file. We've got to have a standard terminology in this business. When Sellam said "disks" I took it not to mean floppies or diskettes but "hard" disks. Cheers, Chuck From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Fri Jun 9 11:56:43 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 17:56:43 +0100 Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes References: Message-ID: <003b01c68be5$b01cffe0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> Christian, can you tell me what the small monitor scope in the picture of the 555 is? Thanks Jim. PS - get some 1A1 amplifiers, they don't drift like the CA's, and you get ground position on the input switch :-) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christian Corti" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, June 09, 2006 9:13 AM Subject: Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes > On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > > Don't get me wrong, I love my old Tekky 555, but I really don't think > > this sort of instrument is good for a beginner who doesn't want to learn > > how to repair valve circuitry and 'scopes in general. They are very > > maintainable, and the manuals are excellent, but since they're over 40 > > years old, you are going to have to do some work on them. > > My experiences with a 555 are *very* good. Found one on a scrap heap three > years ago, and someone picked the power valves (and the funny diode > 2AS15-A) and their sockets out of the power supply (and cut the wires). It > took me some time to get replacement valves and rewire the power supply > around the sockets, but in the end, the scope worked like a charm! The > traces (it's a real dual beam, not dual trace) are sharper and finer than > everything else I've seen so far (mostly "modern" equipment like Hamegs or > HPs). We use it here e.g. to adjust the heads on RK05 drives or to measure > the signals on our LGP-30s (we have two working now!). > (Some pictures are on http://computermuseum-stuttgart.de/dev/tek555, you > can click on the pictures to see more) > > Christian > > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.8.3/360 - Release Date: 09/06/06 > > From evan at snarc.net Fri Jun 9 12:26:55 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 13:26:55 -0400 Subject: In response to overwhelming demand... Message-ID: <003101c68be9$e7dd2af0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Regarding my switch from an email newsletter to a weblog, there's been a tremendous about of feedback in support of the old format. Unfortunately the old format was just too much work for me to keep up with. I would keep doing it if I had unlimited time and money, but obviously no one does (except maybe Bill Gates on the money side.) The good news: I finally got an Atom feed working. The address is http://www.technologyrewind.com/atom.xml. Would those of you who prefer email updates be willing to pay a modest fee? I haven't worked out what technology I will need, but as I said before, I'd be happy to keep doing an email feed if it were easy and not terribly time-consuming. This isn't for profit, it's too avoid losing money when I'm formatting newsletter emails instead of doing real work. (This also is not any plan to contradict earlier statements about keeping the main product free -- you have my promise on that.) Of course, if someone points me to an automated blog-to-email conversion technology that is SO simple and takes no time at all, then I'll just do it without any premiums. Or maybe someone can write a cross-platform feed reader for vintage computers. :) - Evan From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jun 9 12:45:50 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 18:45:50 +0100 Subject: In response to overwhelming demand... In-Reply-To: <003101c68be9$e7dd2af0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <003101c68be9$e7dd2af0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <4489B3CE.8010702@yahoo.co.uk> Evan Koblentz wrote: > Of course, if someone points me to an automated blog-to-email conversion > technology that is SO simple and takes no time at all, then I'll just do it > without any premiums. Or maybe someone can write a cross-platform feed > reader for vintage computers. :) You need someone with a few PHP (or C, or whatever) skills I would have thought, and to be using some sort of CMS for the website (or at least have timestamped blog entries as plain-text in a database, which presumably any half-decent blog software does anyway). Homebrew some PHP (or whatever) code to pull any blog entries for a certain date range out of the database and concatenate them. You probably want to do something sensible with any images (or other non-text content) at that point too, like replace URLs with: [IMAGE http://blah/blah/blah.jpg] so that mailing-list subscribers can still access the non-text content via a web browser if they so wanted. The PHP/whatever code just submits the concatenated text to the mailing list in the same way as you've done in the past for newsletter submissions (e.g. using PHP's built-in SMTP abilities if needs be). Set up a cron job on the server to run the code once a day in order to send out a plain-text digest of that day's blog entries to mailing list subscribers. I doubt it's a lot of work at all for someone with a bit of free time - providing that you still have the mailing list software in place, and providing that you're using an openly-documented CMS/blog software that gives you the database format. cheers Jules From evan at snarc.net Fri Jun 9 13:01:06 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 14:01:06 -0400 Subject: In response to overwhelming demand... In-Reply-To: <4489B3CE.8010702@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <004401c68bee$ae300de0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> >>> providing that you still have the mailing list software in place, and providing that you're using an openly-documented CMS/blog software that gives you the database format. Quite the opposite. I unsubscribed from the hosted mailing list service and I'm the Google Blogger.com system now. I don't necessarily feel good about that, but it makes my life easier. -----Original Message----- From: Jules Richardson [mailto:julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk] Sent: Friday, June 09, 2006 1:46 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: In response to overwhelming demand... Evan Koblentz wrote: > Of course, if someone points me to an automated blog-to-email > conversion technology that is SO simple and takes no time at all, then > I'll just do it without any premiums. Or maybe someone can write a > cross-platform feed reader for vintage computers. :) You need someone with a few PHP (or C, or whatever) skills I would have thought, and to be using some sort of CMS for the website (or at least have timestamped blog entries as plain-text in a database, which presumably any half-decent blog software does anyway). Homebrew some PHP (or whatever) code to pull any blog entries for a certain date range out of the database and concatenate them. You probably want to do something sensible with any images (or other non-text content) at that point too, like replace URLs with: [IMAGE http://blah/blah/blah.jpg] so that mailing-list subscribers can still access the non-text content via a web browser if they so wanted. The PHP/whatever code just submits the concatenated text to the mailing list in the same way as you've done in the past for newsletter submissions (e.g. using PHP's built-in SMTP abilities if needs be). Set up a cron job on the server to run the code once a day in order to send out a plain-text digest of that day's blog entries to mailing list subscribers. I doubt it's a lot of work at all for someone with a bit of free time - providing that you still have the mailing list software in place, and providing that you're using an openly-documented CMS/blog software that gives you the database format. cheers Jules From spc at conman.org Fri Jun 9 13:23:58 2006 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 14:23:58 -0400 Subject: In response to overwhelming demand... In-Reply-To: <003101c68be9$e7dd2af0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <003101c68be9$e7dd2af0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <20060609182358.GC29237@linus.groomlake.area51> It was thus said that the Great Evan Koblentz once stated: > Of course, if someone points me to an automated blog-to-email conversion > technology that is SO simple and takes no time at all, then I'll just do it > without any premiums. Or maybe someone can write a cross-platform feed > reader for vintage computers. :) If you have the Atom feed, then you can use something like xsltproc (and an XSLT file) to convert the Atom feed to plain text (it would be a minimal XSLT file---the bare minimum XSLT file will strip out all XML tags so you need *a bit* of formatting). The trick then becomes pulling out the right entries ... hmmm ... depending on the blog software you're using, and if your using XHTML (or very pedantic HTML) then you could possibly use XSLT on the entries themselves and skip processing the Atom feed. -spc (So if say, the entries are stored in a MySQL database, just query for the dates you require, get the entries, pass it into xsltproc ... ) From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Jun 9 13:29:38 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 11:29:38 -0700 Subject: Docs avail: Vermont Research Model 1016 Drum Memory (1969) Message-ID: Chuck Guzis wrote: On 6/8/2006 at 7:59 PM Billy Pettit wrote: >Billy: >There were several reasons, but the biggest one was: they could do parallel >read and writes. You could stripe them for 16 bit wide data paths that >became incredibly fast. And with virtually no bit skew. Plus access time >was never more than one revolution. Yeah, but in a Star-100 SBU, there was enough memory in the thing that the drum hardly got used past booting the thing up. There was just no point to the speed. The Star paged to disk; there were some plans initially for a huge drum, running something like 512 bits parallel, but I don't know if the concept ever made it off paper. The funny thing was that there were the same SBUs on the two Star-1B's in Sunnyvale--the SBU's were qutie a bit faster than the 1Bs themselves. (Those two systems eventually went into the dumpster per company policy). During the 60's, drums gave disks a run for their money. I remember a Univac 1108 with the very large FASTRAND-II moving-head drum on it. There were a number of late 50's-early-60's machine with drum as the main memory, such as the IBM 650 and the LGP-30. "one plus one" addressing. Cheers, Chuck ---------------------------------------------------------- Billy: What a meaty message! All sorts of hooks. I'll try to stay in order. 1. The Star-100 was massive. And memory technology was in a transition, so a lot of the plans changed mid-stream. That was part of what killed it. By time it was working, it was obsolete. The storage concept came from 7600 ideas. You are dead on with the word staging. What software wanted was to stage ALL data transfers. The program would be loaded (including all required data tapes) from a tape station. In turn, the tape station would send the package to the storage station via memory to memory transfer. Then the storage station would transfer to the main memory also via memory to memory. Except that this transfer was supposed to be via 512 bit SWords(SuperWords). It was sort of the ultimate of Seymour's philosophy of using the CPU for calculating and every thing else was done off line. 2. The drum was an interim device. There was a point to it - the speed was needed to debug the channels and the streaming busses. This program required a lot of band aids while waiting for the new technology to come along. It made a lot of risky bets on new peripherals to keep up with the speed. The 512 bit wide drum did get to the prototype stage. But it was incredibly costly. To get the bit density and performance needed, the entire drum was filled with Helium under pressure. But it was fast. If I remember the analysis correctly, the big drum would have cost more than the main frame. 3. The disks were never close to what was needed. Cray was using Ibis and Fujitsu disk with parallel heads (4 bits at a time). The Star team funded a parallel head disk from Normandale, but I don't it ever got of the ground either. They also had a multiple actuator drive in the lab that had the same problems that caused all other attempts of this idea to fail. 4. The most exotic peripheral I saw was an 18" wide tape unit that used a helical scan head bar. It was being developed by the Government Systems Division. It made so much noise that you had to be in another room when it was running. 5. So there were all sorts of experiments running side by side to find some way to support the huge data rate required. The drums were more a proof of concept. They allowed the channels to run at full speed even if they couldn't supply much data. 6. The Star-1Bs were never intended to be products or peripheral stations. They were a totally microcoded pseudo-processor. Again, they were proof of concept, to have something for the programmers to run on. Working Star hardware was years away when they started the program. The OS needed development. And the designers needed machines to debug the commands on. The instruction set was pure IPL. Some of the instructions were very complex. The Star-1B was frequently recoded as the instruction set was refined. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't fast. But it was very easy to reconfigure, the critical parameter at that time. 7. I was assigned to the Star-65 program being developed in Mississauga. It had to run at least half the Star-100 speed using the same technology where possible. We had a couple of 1-Bs for the software folks. Used the same memories and Star Stations. But the processor was a different concept: the Star-100 was a massive brute force parallel machine. the Star-65 was a hybrid using some of the streaming units, but with a microcoded main processor Damn, those were exciting times! So many new ideas and concepts being tried. Today, 30 years later, I see an occasional reminder of those Halcyon machines. For example, the streaming function in ATA-7. Or pipelines in communication processors. 8. FASTRAND II and III lived on for decodes in the Sabre airline scheduling systems from Univac. I know some were still in operation until the mid-1990s. Somebody on the list probably worked on the 490 Series. Anyone? 9. All of the early computers I worked on were drum memory based. In the Army, it was the Pershing Fire Control Computer. And the Redstone jukebox, a fixed head sealed disk, actually. But CDC trained me on the Bendix G-15, LGP-30 and RPC-4000. I can't say I have fond memories of all of them. But I did prefer drums over disks until the first Winchesters became reliable. Billy From vp at drexel.edu Fri Jun 9 13:15:01 2006 From: vp at drexel.edu (Vassilis PREVELAKIS) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 14:15:01 -0400 (EDT) Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list Message-ID: <200606091815.k59IF1IV010630@dune.cs.drexel.edu> "Jay West" wrote: > If you've got one in front of you, why do you need pictures of the inside? to answer questions like: does this bracket do this way or that way? also was that placed like that on purpose? Some machines (esp old ones) have been modified and you may want to bring it back to its nominal state (esp if you are investigating some strange behaviour). Another example is the 9825A where a flat cable does not follow the convention that the red stripe should be near side of the connector with the little triangle. On a machine with voltages ranging from -20 to +20 you'd better plug in stuff the right way. Having said that, I usually take pictures of the machine as I take it apart to make sure I can go back and check things. In the case of the 9825A I assumed that having the service manual (original with readable photos) would be sufficient. False! I had to check the location of the ground connections to be sure that the connector was going in the "wrong" way (red stripe away from the triangle). In fact the same flat cable plugs in the other way round (red stripe near the triangle) to the I/O connector, which leads me to believe that HP people at the time either ignored or were unaware of this convention. **vp From dittman at dittman.net Fri Jun 9 15:27:34 2006 From: dittman at dittman.net (Eric Dittman) Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 15:27:34 -0500 Subject: [Fwd: more info about that scrapper] Message-ID: <4489D9B6.60903@dittman.net> Here's an update on the scrapper from Dave McGuire: > Ok, some good news here. I've had a good dialogue with that > scrapper up in Canada; he is beginning to understand the situation. > He seems to be a pretty bright guy and is receptive to new > information. I've offered to help him go over some of his stuff > and help him price it. -- Eric Dittman dittman at dittman.net From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 9 15:37:37 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 13:37:37 -0700 Subject: Drum Memory and STAR In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606091337370433.0624F2E0@10.0.0.252> On 6/9/2006 at 11:29 AM Billy Pettit wrote: >4. The most exotic peripheral I saw was an 18" wide tape unit that used a >helical scan head bar. It was being developed by the Government Systems >Division. It made so much noise that you had to be in another room when it >was running. The infamous "scroll" drive? That was supposed to make it to the Star platform too. Exotic? I rememer that Jim Thornton (and later Niel Lincoln) were off on an EBAM crusade for awhile. The last I saw of an EBAM unit was sitting in a hallway at ADL. Presumably to be scrapped, I don't know. The Star 1Bs were incredibly unreliable, particularly given their speed. You'd take a tape with the OS to be built on it and it'd take most of the night--if the system didn't die in the meantime. Often, it was just easier to cage some time at LLL and do it there. I didn't have any contact with the 65, but the folks who came to Sunnyvale from Canada had fond memories of it. I'd proposed writing an emulator for the Cyber 70 to at least get compilations and builds done, but that got nowhere--I suspect it would've been faster than the 1Bs. The Star-100 had a lot of problems, both with the archiitecture and personnel--the instruction set was huge (if you could think of an instruction, it was probably there). Running everything through the vector units, including scalar ops (can you say "start up latency"?). There was an insufficient understanding of how to manage virtual memory; it wasn't until fairly late in the project that working-set paging got fully debugged. The division of effort between Arden Hills and Canada, and then later, Sunnyvale made for bad communication and attitudes. I came into Star when it was given to Nix Frazier and he brought some of the old Sunnyvale SSD personnel to the project. The attitude in the original software group was unbelievable--like a bunch of civil service lifers. The OS being used by pretty much the only customer didn't originate at CDC, but at LLL, was written in a dialect of LRLTran (IMPL) and contained very little vector code--and what code that was generated was horrible. A lot of the architectural problems were addressed in the Cyber 203, but I think it was too little, too late. Most of the sharper folks at Sunnyvale moved to outside jobs in the late 70's, taking most everthing that they learned with them. I didn't hear from Neil Lincoln again until about 1983, when he was off on the ETA-10 (nee GF-10). The new digs in St. Paul were pretty cool, but the same old personnel and mentality was there. I'd proposed to Neil that doing a port of Unix might be a good shortcut to getting an OS going, but that was overruled. So a couple of buddies and I started a firm in Santa Clara whose sole purpose was to do an optimizing FORTRAN for the ETA-10. I left about 1987 to go out on my own--that was my last contact with really big iron, though I did get a call sometime around then from Neil wondering if I could do a port of Unix to the ETA machine in 6 months... Cheers, Chuck From arcarlini at iee.org Fri Jun 9 15:45:52 2006 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 21:45:52 +0100 Subject: sync serial cards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <003301c68c05$b3e9d8d0$c901a8c0@uatempname> >I am unaware of a PCI-based sync serial card. I think by the time I forget who produced it (probably Emulex) but the DEC PBXDD-Ax were (iirc) a PCI synch card. The DSYT1 was TC, the DNSES was EISA, the PBXDP-Ax were ISA. There was another set that were PCI too, but I never did much development on the PCI WAN drivers, so it's all a bit murky now. Antonio From williams.dan at gmail.com Fri Jun 9 18:11:52 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:11:52 +0100 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <44897BA4.2070705@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44897BA4.2070705@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <26c11a640606091611q530e92ddh97442e148f9a520@mail.gmail.com> ] > Which is strange if you think about it - much of this hobby will be dead in 50 > years time as the era of collectible systems is pretty much over (who wants to > go around collecting PCs, Playstations and X-Boxes?). There'll still be > emulators, documentation, research, and non-functional systems, but the > running machines - which are of primary interest to most on this list I > suspect - will be gone. > > OK, that's depressing. Time for more coffee. :-) > > cheers > > Jules > I don't know about 50 years but it would be great if in 10-15 years some of the top 500 super computers appeared on ebay. There is also some nice stuff like tadpole sparc books and quad G5's, Alphas, IBM power pc and especially that new Sun 32x1ghz spark processor that will become more affordable. Dan From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 9 17:10:59 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 23:10:59 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: from "Billy Pettit" at Jun 8, 6 07:38:44 pm Message-ID: > Once again you missed the point. Sure there's a few items on Wren that I would say there's a lot more than a 'few items' that can be field repaired, but anyway... > could be repaired. Though in all the hundreds of thousands built, I = > never > saw a single PCB failure. And I wish you would consider your time as I can't speak about the Wren specifically (I have a few, not in use, that contain software for a Whitechapel Hitec which I must get round to restoring sometime), but so far (touch wood), I've had only one failure inside a hard drive HDA (this was on an almost-new 1.3GByte IDE drive about 10 years ago). And perhaps 5 component failures on the logic boards of older drives. > valuable. Repair, as you said earlier, is not about the 10P resistor = > but > about the knowledge and experience of the technician. It is not free. > > Maybe everybody, could fix it without damaging it. But if they didn't, = > then > the manufacturer is liable for the botched repair. And don't say this Why is the manufacturer liable? I am _very_ happy to accept that as soon as I attempt to repair (or modify) something then it is _my_ responsibity. I do not expect you (or anyone else) to sort out problems that I may have caused myself. As an aside, why do you assume that _not_ providing a service manual will prevent botched repairs? You are not going to stop me having a go no matter what. And I am likely to do a better job if I have the official information, rather than having to work it all out myse;f. > didn't happen. For almost 10 years, those of us in Field Service had to = > go > out and clean up the messes that so called trained engineers created. I > have enough stories about the idiocy prevalent in the computer repair = > field, > that I've started writing a book about some of them. We did not want = I could turn that round and write several books on the things Field Service have done (we called them Failed Circus for a darn good reason!). I'll just give 3 examples... 1) The DEC 'enginner' who forced a video connector on upside-down so that red and blue were reversed (this was on some type of VAXstation I believe), and didn't know how to correct it. 2) My VT105 has been on DEC maintenance from new, and I have good reason to believe that nobody else ever worked inside it before I got it. None-the-less there was a spectacular flashover from the yoke area at switch-on, after which it worked normally. Investigation showed that the CRT ground wire had been connected to one of the adjustment tabs on the picture centering magnets, not to the earth tag. Hmmm... 3) The Ramtek engineer who wanted to replace every PCB in a graphics system that was failing all sorts of diagnostics. I reached over, touched the 5V testpoint with a votlmeter and showed it was sitting at around 4V. This idiot was actually ordered off the site by the system manager (who was extremely clueful...) I could go on. And on. > to > cater to this tiny miserable bunch that caused so much grief and = > expense, so > we forced a change. And it became a standard for peripheral companies. It alas has become standard for most companies. Which means they don't get any business from me. > > Eliminating maintenance and repair on hard drives saved tens of millions = > of > dollars and raised our customer satisfaction enormously. Of those customers who continued to buy your products... > > And for what purpose? Only one person in the world would use this > documentation. Everyone else would prefer to spend the $50 on a new = > drive > than risk reusing a repaired one Well, if I've got a few hundred megs of data on a hard drive, I'd rather repair a simple electronic fault than have to restore it all from backups. And it would take me lest time to repair such a fault than it would take to ship the replacement drive. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 9 17:14:49 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 23:14:49 +0100 (BST) Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: from "Billy Pettit" at Jun 8, 6 07:46:56 pm Message-ID: > Tony Duell wrote: > What you're possibly missing here is that people like me choose a = > product > _because of the availability of scheamtics and repair parts_. I actually > tracked down and bought a genuine Teac floppy drive for this PC becasue = > I > could get a service manual for it. Said drive cost over 10 times as much = > as > a non-name, no-docs drive from the local PC shop.=20 > > -------------------------------------- > Billy: > > Tony, as far as I know you are unique - there are no other people like = Well, in one sense I am unique (there can't be many other people who are mad enough to pull old HP desktop calculators apart in order to learn how to repair them). But I have several friends (not on this list) who also regard availability of repair data and parts as being important in choosing a product. > you. > (And no, I'm not judging you - I regard myself as unique in lots of = > ways, > and proudly.) > > But let's ask the list: is there anybody else out there or that you = > know > who buys a product only if it has repair documentation available? =20 > And as a corollary, do you only buy products you want to run 20 years? = > Or > can you accept a product as being expendable? How long should a = > computer > part last? I choose products that are expected to last as long as I want to use them (with repairs if necessary). I don't believe in upgrading every 5 minutes or whatever. I'm using electronic products here that are getting on for 50 years old, computers that are over 30 years old, and mechanical stuff over 70 years old. And I don't expect to have to replace any of them any time soon. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 9 18:41:23 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:41:23 +0100 (BST) Subject: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <4489A506.1030200@msm.umr.edu> from "jim stephens" at Jun 9, 6 09:42:46 am Message-ID: > > woodelf wrote: > > > Wolfe, Julian wrote: > > > >> Hi all, > >> > >> I'm going to go to a hamfest this weekend to look for an oscilloscope. > >> > > unless you get a digital scope that holds calibration well, you will > probably be wise to pick up a frequency reference, and voltage > refreence to calibrate them with, unless you have access to such > somewhere outside your home shop, such as at work. Remembr it's hard to read any analogue 'scope to better than 1%. so your 'standards' don't need to be very accurate. The average 4-pin crystal oscillator can has, I beleive, a tolerance of 200ppm at a specified temperature (20C?) and isn't that far out at normal room temperatures. That is easily good enough to set up a 'scope. Ditto for voltage. Maxim (I think) make a range of bandgap reference ICs that are more accurate than any normal 'scope. Wire one up in the standard circuit and use that. > > If you have a standalone operation, being able to check the > voltage and triggering on your scope and recalibrate them > is desirable too. a lot of bargain scopes will put up a > nice square wave, especially tektronics showing the internal > test square wave, and wont trigger on the crap you really > see in your old computers worth a crap. > Odd. I've always found Tektronix triggering to be the best around. Which is more than I can say of a Hameg I used once. It couldn't trigger on the index pulse from an RK05 (a nice, clean, TTL signal). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 9 18:13:24 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:13:24 +0100 (BST) Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <4488EC5D.3020203@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jun 8, 6 08:34:53 pm Message-ID: > > Billy Pettit wrote: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > What you're possibly missing here is that people like me choose a product > > _because of the availability of scheamtics and repair parts_. I actually > > tracked down and bought a genuine Teac floppy drive for this PC becasue I > > could get a service manual for it. Said drive cost over 10 times as much as > > a non-name, no-docs drive from the local PC shop. > > > > -------------------------------------- > > Billy: > > > > Tony, as far as I know you are unique - there are no other people like you. > > (And no, I'm not judging you - I regard myself as unique in lots of ways, > > and proudly.) > > > > But let's ask the list: is there anybody else out there or that you know > > who buys a product only if it has repair documentation available? > > And as a corollary, do you only buy products you want to run 20 years? Or > > can you accept a product as being expendable? How long should a computer > > part last? > > I do. My VCR, TV, tape (hifi) decks, etc. Even my first PC > was purchased contingent on having a service manual available! > Ditto for my car, etc. > > I expect "things" to last a long time -- assuming I am going > to "take care" of them. But, then again, I don't usually buy > crappy products so they actually DO stand a chance of "lasting". > > Immediately after buying something, I figure out which parts > are the most likely to need replacement (mechanical wear, etc.) > and/or will be the hardest to locate substitutes for later on. > I make an educated guess as to how many of these I should > "stockpile" and then order them. Whenever one of these DOES > break, I replace it out of my "spares" lot and immediately > order a replacement for that spare. > > It lets me buy "better" products than Joe Average would > normally afford -- since I don't have to replace the entire > product *or* pay exorbitant service fees to keep the old one > running! > > Works for me. YMMV. > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 9 18:18:05 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:18:05 +0100 (BST) Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list In-Reply-To: <011001c68b79$034699a0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> from "Jay West" at Jun 8, 6 10:58:48 pm Message-ID: > > Tony wrote.... > > Hmmm... As a general point here, I'm a little fed up with classic > > computer websites that show a front view of the machine and little more. > > OK, perhaps I use the web a little differently to most people, but when I > > do a search on some classic computer, I normally know what it looks like, > > I've got one in front of me :-). Pictures of the insides would be a lot > > more use. > If you've got one in front of you, why do you need pictures of the inside? To see if anything has been modified, to see which way up a part goes, how a cable should be routed, that sort of thing. > > > Also old books on computing (that were current when they were published). > > Things like 'Automatic Digital Computers' (M V WIlkes) 'We built our own > > computers' (the exploits of some schoolboys making relay logic machines), > > etc. > Absolutely! I assume you'd be willing to enter those books into the site and > post a word or two about them ;) If you mean 'enter the titles/publishers/etc' then fine. I am not typing in all the text, though. What about more general books on computing/electronics. I feel that virtually everybody should have 'The Art of Electronics' and K&R to hand. But there must be some people who've not heard of them... > > > Don't assume everyone, or everything, is in the States :-). Make it > > possible to include stuff in other countries too. > Oh, I assure you, the focus is not just US based. But thanks for the > reminder! Sure. I am well aware that you (and others here) know this is very much an international hobby. But when setting up a database of addresses, it's easy to forget this. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 9 18:45:37 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:45:37 +0100 (BST) Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list In-Reply-To: <200606091815.k59IF1IV010630@dune.cs.drexel.edu> from "Vassilis PREVELAKIS" at Jun 9, 6 02:15:01 pm Message-ID: > > "Jay West" wrote: > > If you've got one in front of you, why do you need pictures of the inside? > to answer questions like: does this bracket do this way or that way? > also was that placed like that on purpose? > > Some machines (esp old ones) have been modified and you may want to > bring it back to its nominal state (esp if you are investigating > some strange behaviour). > > Another example is the 9825A where a flat cable does not follow > the convention that the red stripe should be near side of the > connector with the little triangle. On a machine with voltages > ranging from -20 to +20 you'd better plug in stuff the right way. For the 9825, don't you have 'my' schemaitcs? Although I don't spend time drawing out straight-through IDC ribbon cables :-). I would include all the connectors on the PCBs, and I should have put arrows on them indicating the orientation (top, rear, left, etc) with the PCB in the normal operating positon. If you match up a few signals on the conenctors on the PCBs you're linking, you should be able to work out how the cable should be connected. > > Having said that, I usually take pictures of the machine as I take > it apart to make sure I can go back and check things. In the case > of the 9825A I assumed that having the service manual (original with > readable photos) would be sufficient. False! I had to check the location IIRC, there's only one useful thing in the 9825 service manual, and that's a schematic od the printer test fixture (!). Very few other schematics (the PSU is there, that's it), but they included a schematic of the one part that's not inside the machine. Great if you need to make one now... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 9 18:24:19 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:24:19 +0100 (BST) Subject: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: from "Christian Corti" at Jun 9, 6 10:13:54 am Message-ID: > > On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > > Don't get me wrong, I love my old Tekky 555, but I really don't think > > this sort of instrument is good for a beginner who doesn't want to learn > > how to repair valve circuitry and 'scopes in general. They are very > > maintainable, and the manuals are excellent, but since they're over 40 > > years old, you are going to have to do some work on them. > > My experiences with a 555 are *very* good. Found one on a scrap heap three Oh, my expereinces are excellent too (and with other Tektronix 500 series). My point is that these 'scopes are 40 years old, and while they're very well made, and will keep going a lot longer, they are going to need some maintenance. Fine if you like doing that (I do), but perhaps not the best choice for a beginner. Suppose some non-technical person was looking for a computer to do simple word procesing on. Would you recoemnd a PERQ, and get them to learn 3PROSE? It'll do the job, it's an excellent machine, but it'll need a bit of looking after. > years ago, and someone picked the power valves (and the funny diode > 2AS15-A) and their sockets out of the power supply (and cut the wires). It > took me some time to get replacement valves and rewire the power supply > around the sockets, but in the end, the scope worked like a charm! The > traces (it's a real dual beam, not dual trace) are sharper and finer than > everything else I've seen so far (mostly "modern" equipment like Hamegs or I must have told the story of the time that we got a new Tektronix at the place where I was working. I couldn't get the trace sharp (IMHO), so I phoned Tektronix. They asked what I was comparing it against, and of course I said my old 555 at home. They said that was probably the sharpest CRT ever, and that nothing modern (not even Tektronix) was as good in that respect. Hmmm -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 9 18:27:14 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:27:14 +0100 (BST) Subject: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <4affc5e0606090549i51cdd6b7g79dc2435dfb407d2@mail.gmail.com> from "Joachim Thiemann" at Jun 9, 6 08:49:16 am Message-ID: > > If the OP is looking for a new scope that's cheap, here at McGill, > we've been using the PicoScope USB scopes in the EE labs (DSP > Hardware). We trust undergrads with them, and they're a heck of a lot > easier to store (if you have 10 of them in a lab). No knobs or > buttons, just 2 BNC and a USB-B on a white box the size of a hardback > book. > > Unfortuantely they are Windows-only, so no use for someone like me > who's only got Mac and NetBSD at home. The problems with these (apart from the fact you need a modern PC to run them) is that for every one I've seen the user interface sucks. Big Time. I can use my Tektronix by feel alone (useful when you're looking at a dim trace with a viewing hood). I can also use it one-handed with no problems (useful when you're using your other hand to keep the probe on the testpoint). Have to use a mouse or similar to select trigger level, shifts, is simply unusable. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 9 18:33:37 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:33:37 +0100 (BST) Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list In-Reply-To: <44897E34.2000804@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jun 9, 6 02:57:08 pm Message-ID: > Lots of sites seem to do the "single photo of the machine" thing. A small > subset add some history information (and to be fair, do it well). Very few > sites offer the resources to help maintain these machines, though. > > It'd be interesting to know what percentage of people reach a site as casual > browsers, and what percentage do so because they actually own an example of > something that's referenced on the site. I suspect that the latter is a lot > higher than might be thought. Wheneever I get a new toy, I always do a google seach for the model mumber (in all sane variations...). Most of the time, alas, I find little of use -- virtually all the sites contain a picture and maybe a limited specification that I mostly know anyway (and which, alas, is often incorrect!). A good example is the Panasonic/Quasar HHC. There are many sites showing a picture of the front of the machine. I have not found one site that gives useful technical information (like a pinout of the bus connector, schematics, memory maps, etc) or has software to download. > > > Anyway, the beauty of a classic computer is in the PCBs, not the case :-) Which reminds me. At least one of the sites that covers the HP9830 (I think it's hpmuseum.org) shows one of the boards. The board chosen is the BASIC ROM board. OK, it looks pretty (with 28 seramic packaged chips with gold pins), but it's really a very boring board :-). > Well, some have nice cases. Some have very nice (or at least interesting) > engineering in the chassis. But yeah, I hear ya. True enough. So lets have pictures of the case, pictures of the mechanical construction, pictures of the boards, and so on. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 9 18:36:59 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:36:59 +0100 (BST) Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list In-Reply-To: <44899DCE.3070504@srv.net> from "Kevin Handy" at Jun 9, 6 10:11:58 am Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > >I rmemeber once, severals years back, trying to find a picture of the > >keyboard of the HP9815 [1]. I'd foolishly unscrewed the PCB withut noting > >where all the keycaps went, not realising they fell out if you did this. > >So I needed to know where to put them back. Finding a picture of > >sufficient resoultion to read the legends on the keys was non-trivial > >(this was before there were sites with scanned manuals for said machine). > > > > > What I usually do in the case of loose keycaps (if the keyboard can be > assembled w/o the keytops enough to be functional), is to plug it in to a > system either at a command prompt or in a text editor, then push the > buttons to see what happens. Pop in the keycaps as their function is found. This only works if the keys have an obvious, displayable, function. The machine in question was a programmable calculator, it has keys for Label, Go To, etc. It's not clear how easy it is to test those if you don't know where other keys (like the digits, program list, etc are). Now I make a diagram of the keyboard before I take it apart. I use graph paper, draw the key layout, and write in the legends for each keycap. That then gets put in the service manual (if I have it), or in with my notes/schematics/whatever for the machine. -tony From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 9 19:17:56 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 17:17:56 -0700 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <26c11a640606091611q530e92ddh97442e148f9a520@mail.gmail.com> References: <44897BA4.2070705@yahoo.co.uk> <26c11a640606091611q530e92ddh97442e148f9a520@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <448A0FB4.4010209@DakotaCom.Net> Dan Williams wrote: > ] >> Which is strange if you think about it - much of this hobby will be >> dead in 50 >> years time as the era of collectible systems is pretty much over (who >> wants to >> go around collecting PCs, Playstations and X-Boxes?). There'll still be >> emulators, documentation, research, and non-functional systems, but the >> running machines - which are of primary interest to most on this list I >> suspect - will be gone. > > I don't know about 50 years but it would be great if in 10-15 years > some of the top 500 super computers appeared on ebay. There is also > some nice stuff like tadpole sparc books and quad G5's, Alphas, IBM > power pc and especially that new Sun 32x1ghz spark processor that > will become more affordable. I suspect that the faster devices with sub-micron technologies will *die* before then (EM, etc.). Yet another reason for running older/slower hardware?? :> From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 9 20:22:15 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 20:22:15 -0500 Subject: sync serial cards References: <200606082319.k58NJGtT030233@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <023b01c68c2c$4feb2ce0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Brad wrote.... > I think you could use a 56k CSU/DSU and something as simple a ISA bus > card with an SCC on it. There used to be a linux driver for the 8530 > that could keep up at 56k. There are other higher performance cards of > course. Ixney the SAIAY! No ISA slots available. This is for a vintage setup where one machine is vintage and one isn't. The machine that isn't has only PCI slots. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 9 20:25:42 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 20:25:42 -0500 Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list References: <001b01c68b7b$39b72520$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <026401c68c2c$cae8c560$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Tony wrote... >>>> > Don't assume everyone, or everything, is in the States :-). Make it >> possible to include stuff in other countries too. And I replied... > Oh, I assure you, the focus is not just US based. But thanks for the > reminder! To which Evan replied... > I believe he was talking about the museums list that I'm supplying. > > My answer is, yes, the directory will definitely grow beyond the U.S. -- > it's one of many things on my to-do list. No, Tony was talking about the initial setup of the site, which will have events & places to visit that are just suggested & posted by site visitors. I figured you would have preferred my list to not be as extensive as your book. But if you're offering... :) Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 9 20:27:24 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 20:27:24 -0500 Subject: sync serial cards References: <001f01c68b41$aec46740$6500a8c0@BILLING><200606082319.k58NJGtT030233@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <026b01c68c2d$072cc7b0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Ethan wrote... > I am unaware of a PCI-based sync serial card. I've seen a fair number, but they are all expensive as heck. I hoping for an old used thing... aka. cheap :) So I guess I need a 56k CSU/DSU, and then some way to get the sync output of that to code running on the PC. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 9 20:29:06 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 20:29:06 -0500 Subject: Question For The List References: <200606082233.22252.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <027601c68c2d$464a76e0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Someone wrote.... >> But let's ask the list: is there anybody else out there or that you know >> who buys a product only if it has repair documentation available? Someone suggested Tony was somewhat unique for restricting purchases to things with schematics and things that are repairable. I think this list is FULL of people that are exactly like that :) Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 9 20:31:05 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 20:31:05 -0500 Subject: ClassicCMP.org direction References: <000501c68b61$ed23e900$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <44898338.2040808@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <028d01c68c2d$8b11bbd0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Jules wrote.... > OK, back-burner idea that keeps resurfacing is that it'd be great if the > "which site has what" or "which site does what" could be somehow automated > and shared between websites with a classic computer theme. Interesting. I will definitely give this some thought. I've cut & pasted your description to the to-do-list WIP. Jay From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Jun 9 20:37:43 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 18:37:43 -0700 Subject: EU Message-ID: Tony Duell wrote: Well, if I've got a few hundred megs of data on a hard drive, I'd rather repair a simple electronic fault than have to restore it all from backups. And it would take me lest time to repair such a fault than it would take to ship the replacement drive. -Tony ------------------------------------ Billy - I'll try one last time and then give up. Tony, hard drives rarely rarely have a simple electronic fault. The ratio of mechanical to electrical faults is around 98 to 1. They are so rare that most companies don't repair PCBs. You cannot repair mechanical failures in drives made in the last 25 years without highly specialized equipment. Drives made in the last ten years require Class 10 clean rooms, thanks to flying heights less than the wavelength of visible light. Yes I know you have a few early primitive drives that you fixed in the past. But technology has moved a long long ways from those Paleolithic days. We still repair drives, we still use technicians, but they sure as hell don't use soldering irons, oscilloscopes and schematics. And no, we didn't lose any customers because we stopped providing maintenance manuals. The demand for disk drives soared last year to 376 million units, a 23% jump over the previous year. I know you didn't buy any, and we'll have deal with that loss. But out of the tens of millions we sell every quarter, not a single paying customer asks for documentation other than spec sheets and the fluff manual that is standard today. And none of those customers have the slightest interest in any kind of repair. So tell me - why in the hell should we do something as pointless as provide documentation that will go unused? If you want to influence that SOP, buy some new product and demonstrate the need. Exercise your power by purchase. Otherwise, accept that the rest of the world doesn't like nor want equipment that requires repair. And please stop complaining about the lack of manuals. They ain't gonna happen. The products you like to work on were obsolete before most of our engineers were born. The world isn't going to back up to meet your needs. So why don't you develop new skills and learn how to repair this new equipment? Expand and learn - a lot of us here are older than you and had no trouble adapting to technological change. If you insist on only using trivial Stone Age technology, it's your choice. But you're missing out on equipment many times more exciting and fun to use. There's a place for you at the cutting edge. And you can still have your toys; have your cake and eat it too. And if not, well we'll miss you. Billy From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 9 20:43:01 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 20:43:01 -0500 Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list References: Message-ID: <02f401c68c2f$3616e720$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Tony (and someone else wrote....) > To see if anything has been modified, to see which way up a part goes, > how a cable should be routed, that sort of thing. Good point, I honestly didn't think of that. Like I said... my idea was a photo archive just for identification, but I'd be happy for it to grow in to more. If people post 360 pictures, one in each degree of view around a machine... I won't complain. It will be structured so people can post more than one. > If you mean 'enter the titles/publishers/etc' then fine. I am not typing > in all the text, though. *GRIN* Of course I meant the entry (title, publisher, etc.). I did NOT mean the book :) > What about more general books on computing/electronics. I feel that > virtually everybody should have 'The Art of Electronics' and K&R to hand. > But there must be some people who've not heard of them... Yup, great ideas. Those should be added. I'm sure others have favorite books that should be added too. Jay West From teoz at neo.rr.com Fri Jun 9 21:00:11 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 22:00:11 -0400 Subject: EU References: Message-ID: <00b201c68c31$9c16e4b0$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Billy Pettit" To: Sent: Friday, June 09, 2006 9:37 PM Subject: EU "And no, we didn't lose any customers because we stopped providing maintenance manuals. The demand for disk drives soared last year to 376 million units, a 23% jump over the previous year. I know you didn't buy any, and we'll have deal with that loss. But out of the tens of millions we sell every quarter, not a single paying customer asks for documentation other than spec sheets and the fluff manual that is standard today." Any how many hard drive companies are actually making a profit moving those 376 Million units? I don't expect blueprints and electrical schematics with the electronics I buy. But I do expect some way of finding out if the hardware is actually broken or something else (software, bad inputs etc) is causing things to not work. What percentage of returned electronics are sent back 100% working because people didn't have a good way to troubleshoot what the real problem was in the system? TZ From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Jun 9 21:41:32 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 19:41:32 -0700 Subject: EU Message-ID: Teo Zenios wrote: Any how many hard drive companies are actually making a profit moving those 376 Million units? I don't expect blueprints and electrical schematics with the electronics I buy. But I do expect some way of finding out if the hardware is actually broken or something else (software, bad inputs etc) is causing things to not work. What percentage of returned electronics are sent back 100% working because people didn't have a good way to troubleshoot what the real problem was in the system? TZ ------------------------------------------------------------------ Billy: I believe that there are six major companies still doing disk drives: Seagate, Hitachi, Toshiba, Fujitsu, WD and Samsung. Seagate is doing great, WD about half of Seagate's profit. Samsung, and Fujitsu are profitable. Toshiba, probably not and Hitachi definitely not. If you are looking into testing units, look for the SMART attributes. Most modern drives do elaborate error monitoring and logging. These values are available to the user by reading out the SMART logs. Some OS's do this as a matter of course and even present error messages when a drive is starting to fail. Finally, recent drives usually have Drive Self Test capability if you want to invoke diagnostics. The ARM cores used have tremendous potential and power. An ARM- 9 processor at 400 MHz is far more powerful than any of the supercomputers I worked on. And they reserve10-20GBs for maintenance use - many times more drive capacity than any of the supercomputers I used to maintain. No Fault Found on returns can vary from 20 to 50%. That is the same ratio it was 30 years ago. And not surprisingly, it is the same ratio for Optical drives, game machines, printers, etc. It is not so much not able to troubleshoot as the fact that when a system goes in for repair, they usually swap out a hard drive. When that doesn't fix the issue, the techs don't put the original drive back. On all electronics, there are many user influenced errors that can never be reproduced. Static is one; power failures, partially plugged in sockets, shock, vibration from the environment, noisy AC power, and on and on. There are a large number of external conditions that can cause equipment failure. If you are not there, you don't know what the conditions are. Of course there is the other extreme. I worked on a computer once that the building contractor had tied the lightning rod to the grounding plane of the computer room. Every single PCB in the system was fried. I saw an IPod recently that had been run over by a bull dozer. We often get calls about recovering data from laptops dropped into a lake or the ocean. I have the case of an XBox that had been hit with a sledge hammer by a frustrated wife. Optical is usually sent in for foreign material in the disk tray. On the game machines that I gathered stats on, the number one failure was 2 or more CDs. The users thought they could stack up games like a phonograph. And I thought finding pizza in a DVD was bizarre until I checked the logs and found we averaged one of two a week. I guess a game system is warm and lends itself to being an oven. Billy From kenziem at sympatico.ca Fri Jun 9 22:09:34 2006 From: kenziem at sympatico.ca (Mike) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 23:09:34 -0400 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606092309.34185.kenziem@sympatico.ca> On Friday 09 June 2006 10:41 pm, Billy Pettit wrote: > No Fault Found on returns can vary from 20 to 50%. That is the same ratio > it was 30 years ago. And not surprisingly, it is the same ratio for > Optical drives, game machines, printers, etc. It is not so much not able > to troubleshoot as the fact that when a system goes in for repair, they > usually swap out a hard drive. When that doesn't fix the issue, the techs > don't put the original drive back. On all electronics, there are many user > influenced errors that can never be reproduced. Static is one; power I just finished reviewing a few cases sent out for servicing. One laptop was reported as not booting, - the tech toggled the display -it had been set to use external monitor. Another laptop was frozen, it did not respond to crtl-alt-del - the tech held in the power button, it was hibernating. From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Fri Jun 9 22:28:20 2006 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore Sinding Bekkedal) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 05:28:20 +0200 Subject: Docs avail: Vermont Research Model 1016 Drum Memory (1969) In-Reply-To: <20060608121500.UOMU12507.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> References: <20060608121500.UOMU12507.berlinr.sprint.ca@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <1149910100.31935.5.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2006-06-08 at 08:13 -0500, Dave Dunfield wrote: > PS: Anyone know what type of system this was used > with? Norsk Data used them for their systems - certainly the NORD-10 (I have one, the drum was sold in '73) and possibly the NORD-1 (If so, I have a drum from that year, possibly the right drum). At some point, I might be restoring the NORD-1 drum and unlike the NORD-10, I have no docs for it. Please hang on to those docs, or try to scan them! Thanks :) -toresbe From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Jun 9 22:53:38 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 20:53:38 -0700 Subject: One For The Apple Guys Message-ID: eBay: 7628399735 From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Jun 9 23:12:59 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 21:12:59 -0700 Subject: EU Message-ID: Mike wrote: I just finished reviewing a few cases sent out for servicing. One laptop was reported as not booting, - the tech toggled the display -it had been set to use external monitor. Another laptop was frozen, it did not respond to crtl-alt-del - the tech held in the power button, it was hibernating. ----------------------------------- Billy: I've been buying broken iPods minis on eBay for work. One I got was described as unable to load songs or use the menu. Cost a whole twenty dollars. I found the Hold switch in lockout. Only visible switch and dispalys red when on. Toggled the switch and had an iPod in perfect working condition with a good battery. More than made up for some of the junkers I get and have to fix. Billy From waisun.chia at gmail.com Sat Jun 10 00:03:02 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 13:03:02 +0800 Subject: VT100 keyboard -> PS2? Message-ID: Has anybody interfaced a VT100 keyboard (1/4 plug) to a modern PeeCee? This either via a PS/2 or USB interface... From fireflyst at earthlink.net Sat Jun 10 00:35:36 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:35:36 -0500 Subject: The 11/34 has been DEFEATED Message-ID: <67FC5DF9-E47B-47C0-A598-8611B096971B@earthlink.net> Well, thanks to persistance, patience, and people on this list, I finally fix'ed the vile beast's problems. Okay, the last step was entirely ignorance on my part, as a timely call from Paul Anderson this afternoon pointed out my folly: I didn't know that the CPU was supposed to come up in a RUN mode - I thought you had to start it. He had me halt and start the CPU and run a branch-self, it just looped like it was supposed to. I now get the console, emulator, so a running OS isn't far off. I've got two SLUs - anyone know if there's TU58 diag images around? :) *sigh* If there's any hobby where ignorance isn't bliss, it's this one. Thanks again to everyone who assisted! From jbglaw at lug-owl.de Sat Jun 10 00:40:03 2006 From: jbglaw at lug-owl.de (Jan-Benedict Glaw) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 07:40:03 +0200 Subject: VT100 keyboard -> PS2? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060610054003.GB30775@lug-owl.de> On Sat, 2006-06-10 13:03:02 +0800, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > Has anybody interfaced a VT100 keyboard (1/4 plug) to a modern PeeCee? > This either via a PS/2 or USB interface... I'm using a LK401 (or alternatively a LK201) keyboard on my PeeCee with Linux. I soldered a little adapter to supply power and be able to interface to a modern DE9 plug. Look at the comments in the driver's source (drivers/input/keyboard/lkkbd.c) for the adaptor pinout. MfG, JBG -- Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de . +49-172-7608481 _ O _ "Eine Freie Meinung in einem Freien Kopf | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg _ _ O f?r einen Freien Staat voll Freier B?rger" | im Internet! | im Irak! O O O ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA)); From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Mon Jun 5 15:11:08 2006 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 21:11:08 +0100 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: <200606041702.k54H2lhl070903@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606041702.k54H2lhl070903@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: >> >> With a modern machine with just three or four modules (say power >> supply, >> logic board and one RAM module) then you take an informed guess >> and can >> swap modules until you guess right, unless of course a module you did >> not >> swap causes failure of another module. Then it gets expensive. > > That is _exactly_ what I object to. Fault finding is not (or rather > should not) be bbased on guesswork. Unless you've found the fault > logically, you can't know you've fixed it. For modern machines, that is the way the manufacturer wants it done, when doing warranty work, they will not pay for true diagnostic work. My company is not even required to have an oscilloscope, though we were until recently required to have an implosion booth with a mirror for when calibrating a CRT monitor or changing a CRT. Now all the CRT monitors are out of warranty and they only sell LCD displays we have taken it apart. > I've got stories of where a problem in one module appeared to be > cured by > replacing a different one that was, say, more tolerant of timing > errors > on one of the signals. Of course the problem came back as the timing > error (which was the original fault) got worse. Yes, and of course maybe the temperature had changed slightly or the voltage had drifted. Four of the power rails in the 1301 are fitted with marginal check facilities, it is possible to switch them off of the standard power stabilisers and wind them up and down via knobs on the machine's front panel. There is also a facility for varying the clock rate up and down. In service, engineers were issued with special hammers to hit the printed circuit boards with to check that vibration did not cause a failure. In all there are about 100 power supplies in the machine, and nearly all have potentiometers hidden away under the covers which adjust the voltages. > > And this is one reason I don't have a modern computer. I don't have > (and > can't afford) the necessary test gear to be able to _prove_ which > module > is at fault. > >> I have scrapped an almost complete machine, so I have many of the >> commonest >> modules. I understand digital electronics but I find it hard to get >> my head around >> the analogue electronics on the boards. Testing bare components is > > 'Digital circuits are built from Analogue parts' (one of Vonada's > lawas > IIRC). > > I haev never understood how you can understand digitial electronics > properly and not understand analogue electronics. I certaimly couldn't > understnad digital stuff until I understood things like transmision > lines, termination, etc. There is a big difference between fault finding digital electronics and designing digital electronics. Where there is an analogue signal, like in the Drum Write amplifiers I can cope with that, but there is some weird stuff, like there is a piece of what looks like 4 inches of coaxial cable - which is apparently a delay line and the signal bounces off the far end and comes back a bit later. There are 250 of these in the core store, they never go wrong, but the boards they are on tend to burn out one of their resistors frequently, and the core store itself is a current device, so fault finding with voltage based instruments can be tricky. What I find difficult in an analogue circuit is finding the order of what drives what. Sometimes its easy, but often the circuit diagrams are drawn in an illogical order, and sometimes there really is deliberate feed back, the flip flop is an obvious example. One time one of the three phase transformers was frying, it was in a very awkward place. I pulled the output fuses and it continued to fry. Eventually I changed it and the new one did the same, it was the three phase bridge rectifier (six big diodes) which was shorting out, I had not realised it came before the three fuses (feeding three circuits) rather being on the three secondaries of the transformer. Yes I should have checked the circuit diagram, but that meant searching through several hundred circuit diagrams, and I thought I knew what was doing. Wrong! Anyway, no harm done. > > >> hard enough >> but testing them in circuit is tricky, especially if they require >> half a dozen different >> supply rails at weird voltages such as -18.0 -17.1, -12.6, -6.3, >> -4.6, -2 and +12.6. > > I think if I had a machine like that to maintain, I'd make up a > test rig, > with a power supply giving those voltages. I have thought about it, its one of those things I will do when I get a round tuit. > > >> >> 1960s components which look right are not easy to get new. The > > To be honest, I don't care too much about the appearance of the > components, provided they are electrically correct. There are > certainly a > few obvious modern replacements in my 1968 HP9100B. But I am hoping a museum will take it sometime as a working exhibit, it is the last working one if its kind, and at one time its type was about 25% of the computers in Britain. Its biggest selling point was pounds shillings and pence in hardware. Then the IBM 360 came along and wiped the floor with all the other computer makers. What museums hate to see is modern components, so where there is a choice I stay with original parts, and always keep the original faulty parts when I have to use modern - such as when I put an old Apple switch mode power supply in place of an old supply which used a transformer which is no longer available. Actually there were several identical power supplies in that Paper Tape Reader, and they all plugged into a big connector which had links to configure the power supply for the required voltage needed in that position. I put the duff one in a position where the required voltage was nearest to the Apple's voltage (I think it was -17.1 volts, so I used the -12 and +5 volt rails and kept the other voltages, including ground and the case insulated). Roger. From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jun 5 15:55:10 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 17:55:10 -0300 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and EndofLife References: Message-ID: <01d301c688e2$eb5fd330$01fea8c0@alpha> > Also, when sockets are used in large quantities, manufacturing yield takes > a dump. We have all mashed a pin or two in our lifetimes, trying to get > something inserted (anyone that hasn't is a liar!). Now multiply that by > several orders of magnitude on the assembly floor. What is the difference of a "garry" socket hole and a board hole? I cannot agree with your affirmation... From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 5 17:18:09 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 15:18:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: atari printers - gears In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060605221809.36559.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> what the person looking for the gear might want to do is look to replace the entire train (2,3,...?) instead of looking for a replacement for just the 1. This way, if suitable replacements are found, one can be assured they'll all mesh properly. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Mon Jun 5 18:26:18 2006 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:26:18 -0400 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked Message-ID: <0J0E005T1UCB1L62@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked > From: woodelf > Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:46:33 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > I take it was tossup between a scope and good soldering iron > for the first best investment once you get off the kitchen table for > projects. The SBC6120 is good reason to get a better iron for me now. A decent workbench with power and storage I number one in my book. Lighting for it number two. Third is a good soldering iron. Around number 7 is a 'scope after a decent pair of VOM and DVM and simple logic probe. Number 6 is a quality set of handtools (cutters, needlenose, screwdrivers and the like). If I were to think on it I'd certainly put other tools and equipment before a scope. >PS. I notice most TTL projects are wire wrapped that I have seen on the >web rather than having a PCB made. > Obvious reason. Rework in the form of circuit corrections are easily done with wirewrap and can be costly and time consuming with PCB. Allison From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Mon Jun 5 18:31:59 2006 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:31:59 -0400 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) Message-ID: <0J0E00D93ULTT8G8@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 23:21:04 +0100 (BST) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> Blech. It's awfully had to do anything *interesting* in Pascal... > >I assume you've enver seen a PERQ running POS ;-) > >-tony Dont know who wrote the first commant about Pascal. My comment is simple. It's a programming language, whatever you do will be interesting or boring in any language. I've seen trash written in every language under the sun and one thing stands out. Trash is trash. Allison From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 5 19:52:48 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 17:52:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: are the IBM PCjr and PC JX cartridge compatible? Message-ID: <20060606005248.96999.qmail@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> Anyone know? I'd like to own a JX by the way... __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Mon Jun 5 15:15:24 2006 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 16:15:24 -0400 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and EndofLife Message-ID: <0J0E00B46LI7F764@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and EndofLife > From: William Donzelli > Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:49:06 -0400 (EDT) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >> Oh, and anything you want to be reliable...... > >Also, when sockets are used in large quantities, manufacturing yield takes >a dump. We have all mashed a pin or two in our lifetimes, trying to get >something inserted (anyone that hasn't is a liar!). Now multiply that by >several orders of magnitude on the assembly floor. > >ENgineers should try there best to avoid sockets. Period. > >William Donzelli >aw288 at osfn.org I use them where there are programable parts that can't be blasted in circuit. Sometimes when the part used is a temporary sub (74ls for a 74HCT). My preference is machined pin or the better sidewipe when I have to. However my worst experiences are socketed board for failures that were the socket itself. TI and RN made a edgewipe that was the absolute pits for relibility. By edgewipe I mean the narrow edge of the pin not the wider face. I've desocketed 4 NS* MDS controllers that used them both kit and factory and all had no bad parts but plenty of inop sockets. Allison From doug.jackson at ewa-australia.com Mon Jun 5 20:14:16 2006 From: doug.jackson at ewa-australia.com (Doug Jackson) Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 11:14:16 +1000 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and, End ofLife In-Reply-To: <200606052239.k55MbY1C092599@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606052239.k55MbY1C092599@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <4484D6E8.20109@ewa-australia.com> Chuck said: > So, with the fancy irons with solid-state temperature control > circuitry, is the Weller TC201 now out of fashion? It's been my > faithful compainion for decades--some years ago, I snagged a big batch > of assorted tips from a going-out-of-business sale, so I haven't had > any reason to change just yet. > > But is there something that's tons better? There is no iron better than the TC201!!! None, Not at all, in no way... Had it since I finished my traineeship. The only reason I could imaging is if you are soldering using wierd non-lead solder, then the precise temperature control matters. But there are cases where the TC201 simply doesn't have the thermal mass.... for those cases, never forget the 200W plumbers iron. For all of the electronics I can still see (until my eyesight fails me), my Weller is the answer. Take Care, Doug From spasticcolin-pdp8 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 6 09:06:53 2006 From: spasticcolin-pdp8 at yahoo.com (spasticcolin-pdp8 at yahoo.com) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 07:06:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: FYI last time buy of sbc6120 pdp8 work-alike Message-ID: <20060606140653.73712.qmail@web82408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Bob Armstrong at www.sparetimegizmos.com is trying to get enough order requests together to meet the numbers necessary to justify a last time parts order of his sbc6120 kit of a pdp-8e work alike clone. This kit is based on the harris hd6120 used in decmates and runs the pdp8 instruction set natively. He left a message on the alt.sys.pdp8 newsgroup. You can contact him at bob at jfcl.com. He estimates costs at $150 U.S. for a circuit card, cpu chip, static ram and stacking connector. the rest of the parts required are still manufactrured and available thru places like digikey/mouser/newark. About 50 people built this sbc from the original parts buy, it works. For $ 150 bucks how can you go wrong? I'm not in any way related to bob or sparetimegizmos. But I can't buy one unless others make the bulk parts order cost effective for Bob. He had 18 orders and needed more than twice that much by 10 june to go forward. From ying6926 at ureach.com Tue Jun 6 13:05:58 2006 From: ying6926 at ureach.com (Henry Ji) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 11:05:58 -0700 Subject: Reply: A few oddball items for trade.... Message-ID: <00d401c68993$ddbd3400$6401a8c0@catherine> HI Gary I am looking for a piece on pdp 11 front panel, it is the one with four control knobs. Any chance I can get a photo? thanks Henry A few oddball items for trade.... Gary E Kaufman gkaufman at the-planet.org Sun Jun 4 14:15:43 CDT 2006 a.. Previous message: 3 pdp8/a chassis free for pickup b.. Next message: ISO: Wide HVD SCSI SBUS c.. Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a few oddball items I'd be happy to trade away for things I could use. I can email pictures of any of these. PDP 11/04 Front Panel Vector 4607 protoboards (3 each), PDP 11 style edge connectors SWTPC Ascii Keyboard (no case) early version with diodes for encoding LCD Panel (Sharp LQ12S56) and Keyboard from Dell Latitude CP series And free for postage, PCB from an Exidy Starfire game (eproms are gone). I'm interested in S100 stuff, a Decmate I Keyboard, Nixie and Vacuum tubes etc. - Gary From ying6926 at ureach.com Tue Jun 6 13:25:09 2006 From: ying6926 at ureach.com (Henry Ji) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 11:25:09 -0700 Subject: RTvax 1000 monitor connection help needed Message-ID: <00dd01c68996$8c0ade20$6401a8c0@catherine> I am new to old vax computer. Help is appreciated. DEC rtvax 1000 620QY-A2 (1989 or 90?) From hard drive LED and LED display on the back the booting is all fine. It has two DB9 connectors on the back. I could not get matching monitor. Tried CGA nothing come out. Use DB9 to DB15 connector cable nothing came out on modern VGA monitor. But the monitor senses something and LED in front of VGA became green for a second and became yellow again. Tried Sony triniton with analog, digital 1 and digital 2 selection on the back, something came out (at least bright) but no characters. Is this syn issue or analog/digital issue? Any way can I open the chasis and figure out what kind of monitor I need? How do I prepare one hardware backup plan like floppy and tape similar to floppy and CD on model PC? How do I restore? thanks Henry From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 6 21:56:56 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 19:56:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU Message-ID: <20060607025656.70623.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> I havent been following this thread thus far, but if anyone is shipping a scanner to the UK (unless this is a joke and I havent gotten it yet) and its not at least usb 1.1 compliant, they need to reconsider. Blowing bucks to ship an older technology is just dopey as all get out. Dont mean to be insulting, but in the interest of he getting something done (as image files take a considera ble time to upload from the scanner to the puter) let it be usb. I dont have a spare unfortunately though. --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > > > If some others would chip in on the shipping, I'd gladly send you a > > > scanner. Would you prefer SCSI or "Centronics"? > On Wed, 7 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > > I don't care, provided it comes with schematics and uses chips that I > > recognise :-) > > I kinda doubt that even the old HP scanners had schematics available. > However, the operation of a scanner is not too complex to reverse > engineer. > I guess that we still can't get you to accept one, even for free, without > open hardware source. > > > > Would you also like some early Pentium machines, a Beseler enlarger and a > > Pentium machines cannot be early :-) > > True > I meant relative to Pentiums. > > > > "dichroic" head, a Kodak Caramate, some printers and monitors, ...? > > As for the enlarger, I have enough problems hosuing my DeVere 504.... > > > > Howabout: a Fujinon holography camera? > > > 'course it's all 60Hz stuff. > > Does it _depend_ on the mains frequency? Votlage conversion is trivial (I > > have a 110V step-down transformer in the workshop anyway), frequency > > conversion can be more of an 'interesting' job. > > I'd be tempted to do it "mechanically", with a motor and generator. > 8" drives may need 50 v 60 Hz (or a change of pulley and belt). > But almost everything else recently is rectified to DC. > Most "modern" computers just want 5VDC, 12VDC, etc. > The only electronics in the holography camera is the power supply for the > laser tube. And since I don't have the original tube, a different power > supply is not a very big deal. > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 6 22:24:42 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 20:24:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU Message-ID: <20060607032442.22301.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> now an even better idea then a scanner is a digital camera. 2 - 3 megapixels (even 1.2!) is sufficient for archiving text and graphics. It MUST have the ability where you can vary the focal length (able to move a fixed focus lense in and out in relation to the image sensor. And you thought I wasnt going to say that all wrong?). I would also deem ancillary storage (i.e cflash etc) a necessity. Cheaper to ship then a scanner. Flat bed scanners are unwieldy, especially when it comes to archiving bound stuph. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From oliv555 at arrl.net Wed Jun 7 12:00:49 2006 From: oliv555 at arrl.net (no) Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 12:00:49 -0500 Subject: RS6k wanted Message-ID: <44870641.2060307@arrl.net> Anyone have an F50 to sell? Looking for the 332mhz box, Houston area a plus. Would also consider trading my R-390a for the aforementioned F50. This is a very nice Collins/Motorola unit. Thanks, Nick O. From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Wed Jun 7 15:39:10 2006 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 15:39:10 -0500 Subject: My continuing 11/34 confusion Message-ID: Alright, so, I finally was able to get good readings at the backplane as far as votages go. My AC voltage is exactly 28 volts going into all units requesting. The -15v line is fine, it must just be the bulb that's burnt out on the regulator. So, as far as I can tell, my power supply is working just as it should. So now I move up to the backplane.I plugged in the memory and a DL11-W and put a tester on the RS232 lines - I get nothing coming from the DL11-W. The front panel reads all zeros when powered on, the Run light and DC lights are on. Here is my current backplane config: 1 M8266-----M8266-------M8266-------M8266-------M8266-------M8266 2 M8265-----M8265-------M8265-------M8265-------M8265-------M8265 3 M7891-----M7891-------M7891-------M7891-------M7891-------M7891 4 M9301-----M9301 M7859-------M7859-------M7859-------M7859 5 EMPTY EMPTY M7856-------M7856-------M7856-------M7856 6 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY 7 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY 8 EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY 9 M9302-----M9302 EMPTY EMPTY G727 EMPTY Can anyone make sense of this? Thanks Julian From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Jun 7 19:48:40 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 21:48:40 -0300 Subject: EU References: Message-ID: <007e01c68a95$9645e100$01fea8c0@alpha> > > I'd like to see your data on this, if it is more than personal = > > observation > > of a recent purchase. I work in an organization that does millions of = > No real data, I'm afraid. It's based on talking to people who repair > modern TVs, DVD players, etc. They have found a lot more dry joints > (which may lead to further component damage) in 'lead free' boards. I do agree with Tony, this is common here in Brazil. From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Jun 8 12:25:38 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 14:25:38 -0300 Subject: The old Computer Collector Newsletter is back! Sort of. References: <001b01c68b15$be33d5c0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <44885CC4.2050507@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <00a701c68b20$b6c3afd0$01fea8c0@alpha> > The advantage with a news letter is you get it with your email. > I guess now that email is needed only to receive spam. I don't > like blogs because you can never seem to reach the blog website > because a server has changed or the blog is so long you can't > find the text you want -- say blah blah was looking for a QZ3215 Use the "save as... .MHT" in internet exploder. It saves everything on the page onto just one .MHT file, excellent for backup purposes. And after opened, you can save parts, photos or anything just like a web page. I archive every page I see I'd miss with this method. From phil at ultimate.com Thu Jun 8 19:14:13 2006 From: phil at ultimate.com (Phil Budne) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 20:14:13 -0400 (EDT) Subject: sync serial cards Message-ID: <200606090014.k590EDgk023316@ultimate.com> Brad Parker wrote: > I think I hacked a sync driver I got from someone else (Phil Budne? > does that sound right Phil?) I suppose it's plausible, but I can no longer remember what I had for lunch yesterday, never mind last week. The first copy of the stuff I found seems to be stuff you had already hacked on: home% gtar tzvf doc/networking/morningstar/sync_scc.tar.gz drwxrwxr-x 100/users 0 Oct 6 07:36 1997 hdlc.fcr/ drwxrwxr-x 100/users 0 Oct 6 07:36 1997 hdlc.fcr/CVS/ -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 48 Oct 6 07:36 1997 hdlc.fcr/CVS/Root -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 43 Oct 6 07:36 1997 hdlc.fcr/CVS/Repository -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 289 Oct 6 07:36 1997 hdlc.fcr/CVS/Entries -rwxrwxr-x 100/users 268 Oct 6 07:36 1997 hdlc.fcr/hdlc_install -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 603 Oct 6 07:36 1997 hdlc.fcr/Makefile -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 24761 Oct 6 07:36 1997 hdlc.fcr/hdlc.c -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 2477 Oct 6 07:36 1997 hdlc.fcr/hdlc.h -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 584 Oct 6 07:36 1997 hdlc.fcr/hdlc_load -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 1313 Oct 6 07:36 1997 hdlc.fcr/hdlc_sub.s -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 2140 Oct 6 07:36 1997 hdlc.fcr/mod.c drwxrwxr-x 100/users 0 Oct 6 07:40 1997 sync/ drwxrwxr-x 100/users 0 Oct 6 07:40 1997 sync/CVS/ -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 48 Oct 6 07:40 1997 sync/CVS/Root -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 39 Oct 6 07:40 1997 sync/CVS/Repository -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 207 Oct 6 07:40 1997 sync/CVS/Entries -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 102 Oct 6 07:40 1997 sync/Makefile -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 283 Oct 6 07:40 1997 sync/README -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 2477 Oct 6 07:40 1997 sync/hdlc.h -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 1605 Oct 6 07:40 1997 sync/hdlcstat.c -rw-rw-r-- 100/users 1093 Oct 6 07:40 1997 sync/hdlctest.c .... home% head hdlc.fcr/hdlc.c /* * HDLC driver for sun's SCC hardware * * added support for async i/o & signals * added support for modem signal bits * some slight improvements * Sunos 4.1.3 * brad at fcr.com 3/94 * .... From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Thu Jun 8 19:44:18 2006 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 19:44:18 -0500 Subject: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes Message-ID: Hi all, I'm going to go to a hamfest this weekend to look for an oscilloscope. Do you guys have any pointers on what to look for, and how to know if what I'm looking at has problems? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks! Julian From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Jun 8 21:08:46 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 23:08:46 -0300 Subject: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes References: Message-ID: <003c01c68b69$af7aded0$01fea8c0@alpha> > Since you're going for a second-hand one (I think this is wise), buy a > well-known make. IMHO Tektronix are the bext. > Older Tektronix 'scopes (certainly up to the 465, etc) had excellent > manuals with schemaitcs (:-)), theory, etc. Make sure you get one (or can > get one). You will need it. Tektronix scopes are always the best. But just got a V1100A Hitachi 4 channel-8 trace-digital-readout scope on ebay for $160. Like new condition and with a pair of 150MHz tek 10x probes. The best scope I ever had, even best than my loved Tek 455 and 465. Highly recomended. Philips are good also, and easy to find info. BTW, anyone with a spare copy of the V1100A instructions' manual? Thanks Alexandre From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Jun 8 21:05:49 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 23:05:49 -0300 Subject: EU References: Message-ID: <003b01c68b69$af2ff320$01fea8c0@alpha> > What you're possibly missing here is that people like me choose a product > _because of the availability of scheamtics and repair parts_. I actually > tracked down and bought a genuine Teac floppy drive for this PC becasue I > could get a service manual for it. Said drive cost over 10 times as much > as a non-name, no-docs drive from the local PC shop. Mind sharing that manual? :o) I like your line of tought, but imagine a service manual for a simple thing like a mouse ;o) > I have never (well, not in the last 20 years, anyhow) 'mucked up a PCB' > trying to repair it. Yes, you can generally tell where I've been (hand > soldering does look different from wave soldering), but I do not lift > traces, rip out vias, and all the other things that certain people manage > to do. And if I muck that, (expletive deleted) them, because it is mine, bought with my (expletive deleted) money!!! What do they have to do with that? :oP > I want it to be relable 20+ years into the future. That means I have to > be able to repair it. I'd rather not, but I know I will. Keeping the legacy... ;o) > As I mentioned a few weeks back, a friend at HPCC has scanned many of my > hand-drawn diagrams and sells the on a CD-ROM. The money does not go to > me, it supports HOCC. And all I got for mentioning this was a flame that > (a) I'd used the wrong file format (no I haven't, I didn't pick a file > format at all, the one used is convenient for said friend) and (b) I > didn't send it out for nothing. Some people needs some cups of the good'ld STFU. > I gtuess we'll have to rely on text to exchange information. It's worked > for many hundreds of years, after all. Describe me a CGA board on that media ;o) Greetz Alexandre From wgungfu at csd.uwm.edu Fri Jun 9 00:28:03 2006 From: wgungfu at csd.uwm.edu (Martin Scott Goldberg) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 00:28:03 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Commodore SX64 Problem In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jun 09, 2006 05:18:50 PM Message-ID: <200606090528.k595S3o2013177@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu> I have a problem I'm hoping someone here can help with. Picked up an SX-64 (luggable C64) this past weekend. Worked fine when I first tested it, cleaned it down (was pretty grimy) and let it sit for 2 days. Went to power it up today, I get the normal startup screen and ready prompt but oddly the cursor is stuck at the upper left corner of the screen instead of down by the ready prompt. Can't type a thing, though I know the keyboard is still working (cartridge games are able to read the keyboard just fine). Anyone have any idea what happened? Marty From jbglaw at lug-owl.de Sat Jun 10 01:16:10 2006 From: jbglaw at lug-owl.de (Jan-Benedict Glaw) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 08:16:10 +0200 Subject: VT100 keyboard -> PS2? In-Reply-To: <20060610054003.GB30775@lug-owl.de> References: <20060610054003.GB30775@lug-owl.de> Message-ID: <20060610061610.GD30775@lug-owl.de> On Sat, 2006-06-10 07:40:03 +0200, Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote: > On Sat, 2006-06-10 13:03:02 +0800, Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > > Has anybody interfaced a VT100 keyboard (1/4 plug) to a modern PeeCee? > > This either via a PS/2 or USB interface... > > I'm using a LK401 (or alternatively a LK201) keyboard on my PeeCee with > Linux. I soldered a little adapter to supply power and be able to > interface to a modern DE9 plug. Look at the comments in the driver's > source (drivers/input/keyboard/lkkbd.c) for the adaptor pinout. Just to explicitely mention it: the commands accepted and the returned key scancodes are different compared to a simple PS/2 keyboard so there is no simple interfacing. Either you connect it by serial with a driver capable of handling a LK keyboard, or you need something like a microcontroller in between to handle protocol translation. MfG, JBG -- Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de . +49-172-7608481 _ O _ "Eine Freie Meinung in einem Freien Kopf | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg _ _ O f?r einen Freien Staat voll Freier B?rger" | im Internet! | im Irak! O O O ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA)); From pat at computer-refuge.org Sat Jun 10 01:31:06 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 02:31:06 -0400 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <20060607025656.70623.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060607025656.70623.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200606100231.06390.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 06 June 2006 22:56, Chris M wrote: > I havent been following this thread thus far, but if > anyone is shipping a scanner to the UK (unless this is > a joke and I havent gotten it yet) and its not at > least usb 1.1 compliant, they need to reconsider. > Blowing bucks to ship an older technology is just > dopey as all get out. Dont mean to be insulting, but > in the interest of he getting something done (as image > files take a considera ble time to upload from the > scanner to the puter) let it be usb. I dont have a > spare unfortunately though. I'll take a SCSI scanner over a USB1.1 one any day. (Of course, PC parallel port ones are worse than either - both in slowness and in lack of compatibilty with Sane.) They're not speed deamons, but all of the ADF-equipped HP ScanJets I've had (which have all been SCSI) work flawlessly. Pat > --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org > > wrote: > > > > If some others would chip in on the shipping, > > I'd gladly send you a > > > > > scanner. Would you prefer SCSI or "Centronics"? > > > > On Wed, 7 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > > > I don't care, provided it comes with schematics > > and uses chips that I > > > > recognise :-) > > > > I kinda doubt that even the old HP scanners had > > schematics available. > > > However, the operation of a scanner is not too > > complex to reverse > > > engineer. > > I guess that we still can't get you to accept one, > > even for free, without > > > open hardware source. > > > > > > Would you also like some early Pentium machines, > > a Beseler enlarger and a > > > > Pentium machines cannot be early :-) > > > > True > > I meant relative to Pentiums. > > > > > > "dichroic" head, a Kodak Caramate, some printers > > and monitors, ...? > > > > As for the enlarger, I have enough problems > > hosuing my DeVere 504.... > > > > > Howabout: a Fujinon holography camera? > > > > 'course it's all 60Hz stuff. > > > > > > Does it _depend_ on the mains frequency? Votlage > > conversion is trivial (I > > > > have a 110V step-down transformer in the workshop > > anyway), frequency > > > > conversion can be more of an 'interesting' job. > > > > I'd be tempted to do it "mechanically", with a motor > > and generator. > > > 8" drives may need 50 v 60 Hz (or a change of pulley > > and belt). > > > But almost everything else recently is rectified to > > DC. > > > Most "modern" computers just want 5VDC, 12VDC, etc. > > The only electronics in the holography camera is the > > power supply for the > > > laser tube. And since I don't have the original > > tube, a different power > > > supply is not a very big deal. > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pat at computer-refuge.org Sat Jun 10 01:31:27 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 02:31:27 -0400 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <20060607032442.22301.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060607032442.22301.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200606100231.28053.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 06 June 2006 23:24, Chris M wrote: > now an even better idea then a scanner is a digital > camera. 2 - 3 megapixels (even 1.2!) is sufficient for > archiving text and graphics. What are you smoking? Seriously, digital cameras make horrible tools for archiving text. Slow, bad resolution, and lens distortions, which you *can't* get away from, because of the fact that you're taking the image from a single point vs a moving imaging array like a scanner would have. And, telling a guy who collects PDP-11s that a flatbed scanner is "unweildly" is just plain silly. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Jun 10 01:34:38 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:34:38 -0600 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <003b01c68b69$af2ff320$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <003b01c68b69$af2ff320$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <448A67FE.8070501@jetnet.ab.ca> Alexandre Souza wrote: > Describe me a CGA board on that media ;o) Yuck!!! I can't remeber anything I liked about CGA? From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sat Jun 10 01:38:14 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 23:38:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <200606100231.06390.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <20060607025656.70623.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> <200606100231.06390.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > They're not speed deamons, but all of the ADF-equipped HP ScanJets I've had ^^^ Misparsed as "Apple Desktop Fuss". -- 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 frustum at pacbell.net Sat Jun 10 02:25:40 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 02:25:40 -0500 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <20060607032442.22301.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060607032442.22301.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <448A73F4.2020402@pacbell.net> Chris M wrote: > now an even better idea then a scanner is a digital > camera. 2 - 3 megapixels (even 1.2!) is sufficient for > archiving text and graphics. It MUST have the ability > where you can vary the focal length (able to move a > fixed focus lense in and out in relation to the image > sensor. And you thought I wasnt going to say that all > wrong?). I would also deem ancillary storage (i.e > cflash etc) a necessity. Cheaper to ship then a > scanner. Flat bed scanners are unwieldy, especially > when it comes to archiving bound stuph. What you propose is something to do if you are desperate, but not something you'd want to do routinely. Taking a picture of an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper with a 1.2 mpix camera would get you 113 DPI. In reality, it is worse than that. 99% of all digital cameras lie about their DPI -- a 1.2 mpix camera doesn't have 1.2 mpix red, 1.2m green, 1.2m blue sensors. Different sensors have different patterns, but essentially they count each r, g, or b subsample as a pixel and interpolate. a common pattern is a tiling like this R G B G G B G R Heavy duty image processing does its darnedest to hide this fact, but it is obvious in certain circumstances. Take a picture of a B&W newspaper from some distance where you will get some aliasing and then look at the picture -- you'll get lots of color fringing. The only camera sensor that doesn't do this is the one from foveon: http://www.foveon.com/ This is a nice tie in to classiccmp -- the CEO of Foveon is Federico Faggin, co designer of the 8080 and co-founder of Zilog. Finally, the linearity of cameras is horrible for work like this, so the effective DPI will drop even lower. From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jun 10 02:26:34 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:26:34 -0700 Subject: One For The Apple Guys In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >eBay: 7628399735 Interesting, but what is 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 ak6dn at mindspring.com Sat Jun 10 02:53:06 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:53:06 -0700 Subject: The 11/34 has been DEFEATED In-Reply-To: <67FC5DF9-E47B-47C0-A598-8611B096971B@earthlink.net> References: <67FC5DF9-E47B-47C0-A598-8611B096971B@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <448A7A62.9010600@mindspring.com> I have a bunch of 11/34, 11/44, and common peripheral TU-58 XXDPv25 bootable diagnostics tape images that I have generated using the XXDPv25 RL02 disk as a source, and the 'diagdir' program to extract/build the image files. I put them online at: http://www.ak6dn.com/PDP-11/TU58-images/ I also have a TU-58 serial line emulator that runs on Windows (native or CYGWIN). It started out based on the original Dan T'so emulator source, but now has been almost completely rewritten to make it work reliably. Contact me directly if you want to be a 'beta tester'. Julian Wolfe wrote: > Well, thanks to persistance, patience, and people on this list, I > finally fix'ed the vile beast's problems. > > Okay, the last step was entirely ignorance on my part, as a timely > call from Paul Anderson this afternoon pointed out my folly: > > I didn't know that the CPU was supposed to come up in a RUN mode - I > thought you had to start it. > > He had me halt and start the CPU and run a branch-self, it just looped > like it was supposed to. > > I now get the console, emulator, so a running OS isn't far off. I've > got two SLUs - anyone know if there's TU58 diag images around? :) > > *sigh* > > If there's any hobby where ignorance isn't bliss, it's this one. > > Thanks again to everyone who assisted! > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jun 10 03:13:55 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:13:55 +1200 Subject: FYI last time buy of sbc6120 pdp8 work-alike In-Reply-To: <20060606140653.73712.qmail@web82408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060606140653.73712.qmail@web82408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 6/7/06, spasticcolin-pdp8 at yahoo.com wrote: > Bob Armstrong at www.sparetimegizmos.com is trying to get enough order > requests together to meet the numbers necessary to justify a last time parts > order of his sbc6120 kit... > He had 18 orders and needed more than twice that much by 10 june to go forward. I already have 2 and don't need another one, but I can recommend this kit to others - mine hangs proudly over my desk at work, mounted to its optional front panel. Very nice. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jun 10 03:20:42 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:20:42 +1200 Subject: The old Computer Collector Newsletter is back! Sort of. In-Reply-To: <00a701c68b20$b6c3afd0$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <001b01c68b15$be33d5c0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <44885CC4.2050507@jetnet.ab.ca> <00a701c68b20$b6c3afd0$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: On 6/9/06, Alexandre Souza wrote: > > The advantage with a news letter is you get it with your email. > > I guess now that email is needed only to receive spam... > > Use the "save as... .MHT" in internet exploder. It saves everything on > the page onto just one .MHT file, excellent for backup purposes. And after > opened, you can save parts, photos or anything just like a web page. I > archive every page I see I'd miss with this method. *IF* you are using Exploder... some of us are in a non-Redmond environment. Also... if you save a blog page every day as an MHT file, you will end up with a lot of redundant information to sift through when looking for a particular item. I prefer information such as this to come via e-mail as discrete messages so I can stuff them in a mailbox and search/grep on them. I have mailboxes going back to the 1980s (VAXmail and saved Usenet articles). I consult the repository several times a year for ancient stuff. A lifesaver, sometimes. -ethan From henk.gooijen at oce.com Sat Jun 10 03:19:27 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 10:19:27 +0200 Subject: The 11/34 has been DEFEATED References: <67FC5DF9-E47B-47C0-A598-8611B096971B@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C201A3@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Huh? I guess it's OK, but I will check this weekend my 11/34C. If you mean "RUN mode" at power up that the RUN LED is ON, I seem to remember that after power up the RUN LED should be OFF. Amazing that I can not remember that! I have seen it just a few days ago, and right now I am not sure! Anyway Julian, as long as the keypad is responsive to the combination CNTRL - HLT/SS and EXAM or DEP it is fine, because that means that th UNIBUS is not stuck. Congrats. - Henk. ________________________________ Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Julian Wolfe Verzonden: za 10-06-2006 07:35 Aan: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Onderwerp: The 11/34 has been DEFEATED Well, thanks to persistance, patience, and people on this list, I finally fix'ed the vile beast's problems. Okay, the last step was entirely ignorance on my part, as a timely call from Paul Anderson this afternoon pointed out my folly: I didn't know that the CPU was supposed to come up in a RUN mode - I thought you had to start it. He had me halt and start the CPU and run a branch-self, it just looped like it was supposed to. I now get the console, emulator, so a running OS isn't far off. I've got two SLUs - anyone know if there's TU58 diag images around? :) *sigh* If there's any hobby where ignorance isn't bliss, it's this one. Thanks again to everyone who assisted! This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From henk.gooijen at oce.com Sat Jun 10 03:25:38 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 10:25:38 +0200 Subject: The 11/34 has been DEFEATED References: <67FC5DF9-E47B-47C0-A598-8611B096971B@earthlink.net> <448A7A62.9010600@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C201A4@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> I love to hear when you have the TU58 working, Julian. I helped Jim getting that working, but I have spent quite a few evenings trying to get that working here myself! It still isn't :-( I moved on to do something else, but will give it a new fresh start within a week or so. Dan's TU58 is DOS only, the TU58 simulator from Don will wotk in a "DOS"box in Windows. Check my website for the configuration of the DL11-W for use with the TU58. ( www.pdp-11.nl/peripherals/comm/interface/dl11w-info.html ). A long URL, but it is in the "peripherals" folder. - Henk. ________________________________ Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Don North Verzonden: za 10-06-2006 09:53 Aan: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Onderwerp: Re: The 11/34 has been DEFEATED I have a bunch of 11/34, 11/44, and common peripheral TU-58 XXDPv25 bootable diagnostics tape images that I have generated using the XXDPv25 RL02 disk as a source, and the 'diagdir' program to extract/build the image files. I put them online at: http://www.ak6dn.com/PDP-11/TU58-images/ I also have a TU-58 serial line emulator that runs on Windows (native or CYGWIN). It started out based on the original Dan T'so emulator source, but now has been almost completely rewritten to make it work reliably. Contact me directly if you want to be a 'beta tester'. Julian Wolfe wrote: > Well, thanks to persistance, patience, and people on this list, I > finally fix'ed the vile beast's problems. > > Okay, the last step was entirely ignorance on my part, as a timely > call from Paul Anderson this afternoon pointed out my folly: > > I didn't know that the CPU was supposed to come up in a RUN mode - I > thought you had to start it. > > He had me halt and start the CPU and run a branch-self, it just looped > like it was supposed to. > > I now get the console, emulator, so a running OS isn't far off. I've > got two SLUs - anyone know if there's TU58 diag images around? :) > > *sigh* > > If there's any hobby where ignorance isn't bliss, it's this one. > > Thanks again to everyone who assisted! > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From henk.gooijen at oce.com Sat Jun 10 03:29:39 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 10:29:39 +0200 Subject: The 11/34 has been DEFEATED References: <67FC5DF9-E47B-47C0-A598-8611B096971B@earthlink.net><448A7A62.9010600@mindspring.com> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C201A4@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C201A5@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> I forgot to mention that, because of the "under Windows" capability, I prefer Don's TU58 simulator. And I also forgot to mention the great help I got from Don, while trying to get it working! His help was so good that the TU58 simulator *should* have worked. I moved on, to return to it later, after my view was cleared. I guess, now is the time :-) I know, if you spend too much time too long on a problem, you develop a kind of blindness to solve the problem. Leaving and returning later often helps ... - Henk. ________________________________ Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Gooijen, Henk Verzonden: za 10-06-2006 10:25 Aan: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Onderwerp: RE: The 11/34 has been DEFEATED I love to hear when you have the TU58 working, Julian. I helped Jim getting that working, but I have spent quite a few evenings trying to get that working here myself! It still isn't :-( I moved on to do something else, but will give it a new fresh start within a week or so. Dan's TU58 is DOS only, the TU58 simulator from Don will wotk in a "DOS"box in Windows. Check my website for the configuration of the DL11-W for use with the TU58. ( www.pdp-11.nl/peripherals/comm/interface/dl11w-info.html ). A long URL, but it is in the "peripherals" folder. - Henk. ________________________________ Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Don North Verzonden: za 10-06-2006 09:53 Aan: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Onderwerp: Re: The 11/34 has been DEFEATED I have a bunch of 11/34, 11/44, and common peripheral TU-58 XXDPv25 bootable diagnostics tape images that I have generated using the XXDPv25 RL02 disk as a source, and the 'diagdir' program to extract/build the image files. I put them online at: http://www.ak6dn.com/PDP-11/TU58-images/ > I also have a TU-58 serial line emulator that runs on Windows (native or CYGWIN). It started out based on the original Dan T'so emulator source, but now has been almost completely rewritten to make it work reliably. Contact me directly if you want to be a 'beta tester'. Julian Wolfe wrote: > Well, thanks to persistance, patience, and people on this list, I > finally fix'ed the vile beast's problems. > > Okay, the last step was entirely ignorance on my part, as a timely > call from Paul Anderson this afternoon pointed out my folly: > > I didn't know that the CPU was supposed to come up in a RUN mode - I > thought you had to start it. > > He had me halt and start the CPU and run a branch-self, it just looped > like it was supposed to. > > I now get the console, emulator, so a running OS isn't far off. I've > got two SLUs - anyone know if there's TU58 diag images around? :) > > *sigh* > > If there's any hobby where ignorance isn't bliss, it's this one. > > Thanks again to everyone who assisted! > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jun 10 03:35:13 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:35:13 +1200 Subject: RTvax 1000 monitor connection help needed In-Reply-To: <00dd01c68996$8c0ade20$6401a8c0@catherine> References: <00dd01c68996$8c0ade20$6401a8c0@catherine> Message-ID: On 6/7/06, Henry Ji wrote: > > I am new to old vax computer. Help is appreciated. > DEC rtvax 1000 620QY-A2 (1989 or 90?) From hard drive LED and LED display on the back the booting is all fine. > It has two DB9 connectors on the back. I could not get matching monitor. Tried CGA nothing come out. Use DB9 to DB15 connector cable nothing came out on modern VGA monitor. But the monitor senses something and LED in front of VGA became green for a second and became yellow again. You will almost certainly not be able to use a PC monitor with this. If you have a DE-9 connector as your output, I'd expect that the video card in the VAX is looking for a monchrome monitor like the ones on Sun3 workstations. My memory is that DEC color frame buffers tended to have BNC connector or DA-15 connectors, not DE-9s. If you have a monochrome buffer, the video signal will be nowhere close to what a CGA or EGA or VGA monitor is looking for - it will be more like a workstation "megapixel" monitor wants to see - much higher res than EGA or VGA. A high-res modern monitor might be adaptable, but you might need to invert the H sync and V sync, or combine H and V sync into Composite Sync, etc. It will be helpful if you open the machine and determine the model number of the frame buffer cards in the VAX. That would allow folks to give you specific suggestions on what monitors might be compatible. One of those DE-9 connectors is probably the console serial port. With the right combination of switches on the back, etc., and the right cable (*not* a PC serial cable), you can hook up a dumb terminal or PC running a comm program to watch the boot and probably to log in. Many VAXen were used this way, without any frame buffer whatsoever. You could at least determine the OS version, etc., and even to break in and reset the SYSTEM password, etc., from a serial console. > Is this syn issue or analog/digital issue? Any way can I open the chasis and figure out what kind of monitor I need? Yes... you are looking for handle numbers on the cards like M8xxx that will identify what options are in your machine. With module numbers, you can determine what frame buffer is in there and what sort of monitor it is expecting. > How do I prepare one hardware backup plan like floppy and tape similar to floppy and CD on model PC? Is there a TK50 drive in the machine? (identical cartridge size to a DLT/SDLT) Also, if there's a floppy drive, it's most likely to be an RX50 - single-sided dual drive. It's possible to write those from a PC with a 5.25" drive. When the OS is running, you can make a backup tape, or you can boot from floppy the "Standalone Backup" package and backup the disk without worries that some program has some file open. > How do I restore? Boot a Standalone Backup TK50 or RX50 set. When these machines were in common usage, folks with software support contracts would get new OS distributions on some form of tape (TK50, 9-track...) along with the latest Standalone Backup set for whatever boot medium they'd registered with their contracts. I have seen SA Backup on TU58 (small tapes), RX50, TK50, and RL02, depending on the target machine. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jun 10 04:21:54 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 21:21:54 +1200 Subject: New Altair32 "hardware" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/9/06, Cini, Richard wrote: > All: > > I want to add a real time clock to the Altair32 but I want > to throw this out there for comment. Would one rather use a "faceless" > RTC (like the Compu/Time) or one with an on-screen display like the > Hayes Chronograph? The Compu/Time is very easy (nearly done coding) but > the Chronograph would be prettier. Personally? The Chronograph. I have a real one, so, of course, I'm biased. I've often contemplated making a Chronograph emulator, but it would take a graphical LCD; a 20x4 Text LCD can't quite do it justice (because of the day-of-the-week at the top of a real Chronograph's VFD). -ethan From cc at corti-net.de Sat Jun 10 04:40:57 2006 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 11:40:57 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <003b01c68be5$b01cffe0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> References: <003b01c68be5$b01cffe0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> Message-ID: On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Jim Beacon wrote: > can you tell me what the small monitor scope in the picture of the 555 is? :-)) It's a RIM Oszillette. RIM was a shop/seller in Munich that was widely known to sell interesting kits, mainly in the 60s/70s. They sold electronic parts, amplifiers, power supply etc. and many things as a kit. One of the kits was the Oszillette, a small scope with a tiny Valvo scope tube and only 4 or 5 other valves. We have it on the picture to show the difference: tiny 5 valve scope compared to huge over 100 valve scope (plus external power supply), as much as in our LGP-30! The Oszillette has no trigger, it's free running with sync and frequency adjustments via front knobs, and only 1:1 and 1:10 signal inputs. Christian From cc at corti-net.de Sat Jun 10 04:52:43 2006 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 11:52:43 +0200 (CEST) Subject: The 11/34 has been DEFEATED In-Reply-To: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C201A3@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> References: <67FC5DF9-E47B-47C0-A598-8611B096971B@earthlink.net> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C201A3@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Gooijen, Henk wrote: > If you mean "RUN mode" at power up that the RUN LED is ON, > I seem to remember that after power up the RUN LED should > be OFF. Amazing that I can not remember that! I have seen it I think the RUN LED is ON on power up because the CPU jumps into the console monitor PROM on the bootstrap/terminator card. Even my 11/45 does this. Christian From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jun 10 06:56:11 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 06:56:11 -0500 Subject: The 11/34 has been DEFEATED References: <67FC5DF9-E47B-47C0-A598-8611B096971B@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <000a01c68c84$de4d56e0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Julian wrote.... > I now get the console, emulator, so a running OS isn't far off. Don't get too excited just yet. I got to the point you are, then found interrupts weren't working. You may get stuck like me yet ;) Jay From fireflyst at earthlink.net Sat Jun 10 09:12:16 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 09:12:16 -0500 Subject: The 11/34 has been DEFEATED In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > I forgot to mention that, because of the "under Windows" > capability, I prefer Don's TU58 simulator. And I also forgot > to mention the great help I got from Don, while trying to get > it working! His help was so good that the TU58 simulator > *should* have worked. I moved on, to return to it later, > after my view was cleared. I guess, now is the time :-) I > know, if you spend too much time too long on a problem, you > develop a kind of blindness to solve the problem. Leaving and > returning later often helps ... I totally agree with this, I think Is hould have interspersed my time a little better - I tend to work on something way too hard and then burn out, then wait too long to come back to it to where I forget what I learned. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 10 09:23:26 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 07:23:26 -0700 Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: References: <003b01c68be5$b01cffe0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> Message-ID: <200606100723260201.09F4B736@10.0.0.252> On 6/10/2006 at 11:40 AM Christian Corti wrote: >The Oszillette has no trigger, it's free running with sync and frequency >adjustments via front knobs, and only 1:1 and 1:10 signal inputs. At one time didn't NLS (they of the Kaypro) market a little bitty portable oscilloscope? Does anyone remember these? Cheers, Chuck From fireflyst at earthlink.net Sat Jun 10 09:23:26 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 09:23:26 -0500 Subject: The 11/34 has been DEFEATED In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Yeah, I think this has more to do with a lack of experience with the behavior of UNIBUS machines. At this point in time, you have to own one to know one. However, with my previous experience with this machine being that of it coming up with an address on the console, I had not even begun to speculate that the reason the RUN light was on was for the obvious reason that THE CPU WAS ACTUALLY RUNNING ;0 However, I learned a lot about this machine and electronics in general from all this so I'm not the least bit aggrivated. At least now I know all the power supply voltages and wiring are working the way they should! > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Christian Corti > Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2006 4:53 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: The 11/34 has been DEFEATED > > On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Gooijen, Henk wrote: > > If you mean "RUN mode" at power up that the RUN LED is ON, > I seem to > > remember that after power up the RUN LED should be OFF. > Amazing that > > I can not remember that! I have seen it > > I think the RUN LED is ON on power up because the CPU jumps > into the console monitor PROM on the bootstrap/terminator > card. Even my 11/45 does this. > > Christian > > From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Sat Jun 10 09:47:09 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 15:47:09 +0100 Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes References: <003b01c68be5$b01cffe0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> Message-ID: <005801c68c9c$c0594320$0200a8c0@p2deskto> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christian Corti" > It's a RIM Oszillette. RIM was a shop/seller in Munich that was widely > known to sell interesting kits, mainly in the 60s/70s. They sold > electronic parts, amplifiers, power supply etc. and many things as a kit. > One of the kits was the Oszillette, a small scope with a tiny Valvo scope > tube and only 4 or 5 other valves. We have it on the picture to show the > difference: tiny 5 valve scope compared to huge over 100 valve scope (plus > external power supply), as much as in our LGP-30! > The Oszillette has no trigger, it's free running with sync and frequency > adjustments via front knobs, and only 1:1 and 1:10 signal inputs. > Christian, it looks to be a neat little unit! I have a couple of small scopes, for example the Cossor 1039 here: http://www.g1jbg.co.uk/test8.htm which has three valves as well as the CRT, and was intended for TV service. I also have a Muirehead frequency comparator, which has a 1" CRT, a crystal oscillator and a simple Y amplifier, and is designed to compare external frequencies with one of three switched crystal references, using Lissajou patterns. I have a few large Tek scopes (585, 545A, 545B, 547, 541, 535A, 515A and 502A), as well as a couple of later models (561, 564, 564B and a 647). I find the big old original 500's easy to use and easy to maintain, my current scope of choice is the 535A. The later 560 series are more difficult to maintain, but are more convenient in the workshop. What I'd really like is a 549, if anyone with in a 100 miles of London has one they no longer want :-) Jim. From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Sat Jun 10 10:03:42 2006 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 10:03:42 -0500 Subject: Need help with DQ132 Message-ID: I was trying to set up my DQ132 to work with my Overland OD3201 yesterday, and I have a strange problem with it. No matter whether or not I change switch 10, labeled "22 bit addressing/Extended Features" I get the error "Extended Features Disabled, Extended Features must be enabled for device TS:, Device Disabled" when I boot RSTS/E 9.6. It's supposed to have two modes, TSV05, and TS11/TU80. The mode I want is the TS11/TU80 mode. How do I accomplish this? The manual doesn't say. Anyone using one of these cards? Other things of note: - I added jumpers to change the way the drives are set as an attempt to set the modes correctly at pins J9-C to J7-A, J7-B to J8-B, and from J8-A to J6-A. The reson for this is that my tape drive can ONLY do 1600 or 3200 bpi. It's sort of an oddball that way. The manual is at http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dilog/2120-0044-3_DQ132_Dec85.pdf On page 2-5 table 2-3, I the jumper configuration I described above is the 3rd one down. Most of the info is on table 2-5 and 2-6. There is another section on Chuck McManis' page http://www.mcmanis.com/chuck/computers/vaxen/dq132.htm that talks about the DQ132 and mentions jumpers needing to be removed for a Q/CD backplane. Does the 11/23+ BA11-SE backplane qualify as Q/CD? Any help would be appreciated! Julian From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jun 10 08:38:00 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 10:38:00 -0300 Subject: The old Computer Collector Newsletter is back! Sort of. References: <001b01c68b15$be33d5c0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP><44885CC4.2050507@jetnet.ab.ca> <00a701c68b20$b6c3afd0$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <004701c68c93$4ef1d2f0$01fea8c0@alpha> > > Use the "save as... .MHT" in internet exploder. It saves everything on > > the page onto just one .MHT file, excellent for backup purposes. And after > > opened, you can save parts, photos or anything just like a web page. I > > archive every page I see I'd miss with this method. > *IF* you are using Exploder... some of us are in a non-Redmond environment. Firefox is your friend ;o) It also saves in MHT, there is an add-on for that. > Also... if you save a blog page every day as an MHT file, you will end > up with a lot of redundant information to sift through when looking > for a particular item. I prefer information such as this to come via > e-mail as discrete messages so I can stuff them in a mailbox and > search/grep on them. So do I, but that is not always avaiable. RSS feeds can be used now to save and index information. From rcini at optonline.net Sat Jun 10 11:43:59 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 12:43:59 -0400 Subject: New Altair32 "hardware" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <004d01c68cad$12aff4b0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Mmmm, I like it to. I started working on the bitmaps for the VFD display. Does anyone have either an LED/LCD font or a pointer to some sort of digital clock program (with sources)? Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2006 5:22 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: New Altair32 "hardware" On 6/9/06, Cini, Richard wrote: > All: > > I want to add a real time clock to the Altair32 but I want > to throw this out there for comment. Would one rather use a "faceless" > RTC (like the Compu/Time) or one with an on-screen display like the > Hayes Chronograph? The Compu/Time is very easy (nearly done coding) but > the Chronograph would be prettier. Personally? The Chronograph. I have a real one, so, of course, I'm biased. I've often contemplated making a Chronograph emulator, but it would take a graphical LCD; a 20x4 Text LCD can't quite do it justice (because of the day-of-the-week at the top of a real Chronograph's VFD). -ethan From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jun 10 12:01:16 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 12:01:16 -0500 Subject: please join the list if not subscribed Message-ID: <011601c68caf$7cea4090$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> There is actually a pretty substantial amount of people posting to the list regularly who are not members from the email address they regularly post from. I'm betting this is mostly due to people who are posting from email addresses other than the ones they typically receive list traffic on. Please take the time to subscribe to the list from all the email addresses you want to post from (this won't cause duplicates if you set the 'no-email' flag to yes for that email address'es subscription). If you won't bother to take the time to register your email addresses, then you can't expect me to take the time to approve all your regular postings manually. They'll get rejected. Thanks! Jay West From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Sat Jun 10 13:13:18 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 11:13:18 -0700 Subject: please join the list if not subscribed In-Reply-To: <011601c68caf$7cea4090$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <011601c68caf$7cea4090$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <448B0BBE.7000105@msm.umr.edu> Jay West wrote: > There is actually a pretty substantial amount of people posting to the > list regularly who are not members from the email address they > regularly post from. > I dont know where my emails come from, but I have a problem that I doubt is unique. My friend who does my email does not have an open server. So I cannot post nor does he from the email server that actually answers jwstephens.com (or tylerent.com, hosted same server...) so I have an sbc yahoo account, and i inject my email from a variety of clients using netscape on each, with a reply to. any comments on this? I cannot post to IBM-MAIN at all by any means I have determined because of it. Of course this flexibiltiy in yahoo makes it a hated spam source, and some people wont take yahoo, msn, or hotmail because of the ease of posting thru it to spam. probably too big a topic for the list, can reply offline if you like Jay. thanks Jim From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jun 10 13:21:30 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 13:21:30 -0500 Subject: please join the list if not subscribed References: <011601c68caf$7cea4090$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <448B0BBE.7000105@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <000401c68cba$b2ac2670$6500a8c0@BILLING> Jim wrote.... >My friend who does my email does not have an open server. So > I cannot post nor does he from the email server that actually answers > jwstephens.com (or tylerent.com, hosted same server...) I guess I just don't get what you're saying (and I know email/sendmail pretty darn well). You not having an "open" server isn't unique, the vast majority of ALL email servers aren't "open". I assume you mean open with respect to relaying?? That's good. Most servers aren't open to relaying and that does NOT prevent you from posting email from them. Either I don't understand what you mean by "open", or there's actually something else besides the "closedness" that is keeping you from posting from that address. Jay West From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jun 10 13:26:53 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 11:26:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <200606100231.28053.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <20060610182653.48836.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Have you tried it? I'll post some examples (somewhere?) one of these days. Any deficiencies it might have, and IMHO small, are outweighed when you consider having to flip a book or magazine over several hundred times. All you need to do is flip..flip..flip..flip. It works, and it's readable. Nuph said. And regardless of what he uses/collects, there was a better answer again IIMMHHOO. I offered an opinion dopey-boy. Maybe you're the silly rube after all. --- Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Tuesday 06 June 2006 23:24, Chris M wrote: > > now an even better idea then a scanner is a > digital > > camera. 2 - 3 megapixels (even 1.2!) is sufficient > for > > archiving text and graphics. > > What are you smoking? > > Seriously, digital cameras make horrible tools for > archiving text. Slow, bad > resolution, and lens distortions, which you *can't* > get away from, because of > the fact that you're taking the image from a single > point vs a moving imaging > array like a scanner would have. > > And, telling a guy who collects PDP-11s that a > flatbed scanner is "unweildly" > is just plain silly. > > Pat > -- > Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- > http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ > The Computer Refuge --- > http://computer-refuge.org > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jun 10 13:28:52 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 11:28:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <200606100231.06390.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <20060610182852.95322.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com> you're entitled to your opinion, despite it's deficiencies. I have no problem with that. But to some people in some situations, speed is paramount...scsi-boy. --- Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Tuesday 06 June 2006 22:56, Chris M wrote: > > I havent been following this thread thus far, but > if > > anyone is shipping a scanner to the UK (unless > this is > > a joke and I havent gotten it yet) and its not at > > least usb 1.1 compliant, they need to reconsider. > > Blowing bucks to ship an older technology is just > > dopey as all get out. Dont mean to be insulting, > but > > in the interest of he getting something done (as > image > > files take a considera ble time to upload from the > > scanner to the puter) let it be usb. I dont have a > > spare unfortunately though. > > I'll take a SCSI scanner over a USB1.1 one any day. > (Of course, PC parallel > port ones are worse than either - both in slowness > and in lack of > compatibilty with Sane.) > > They're not speed deamons, but all of the > ADF-equipped HP ScanJets I've had > (which have all been SCSI) work flawlessly. > > Pat > > > --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org > > > > > wrote: > > > > > If some others would chip in on the > shipping, > > > > I'd gladly send you a > > > > > > > scanner. Would you prefer SCSI or > "Centronics"? > > > > > > On Wed, 7 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > > > > I don't care, provided it comes with > schematics > > > > and uses chips that I > > > > > > recognise :-) > > > > > > I kinda doubt that even the old HP scanners had > > > > schematics available. > > > > > However, the operation of a scanner is not too > > > > complex to reverse > > > > > engineer. > > > I guess that we still can't get you to accept > one, > > > > even for free, without > > > > > open hardware source. > > > > > > > > Would you also like some early Pentium > machines, > > > > a Beseler enlarger and a > > > > > > Pentium machines cannot be early :-) > > > > > > True > > > I meant relative to Pentiums. > > > > > > > > "dichroic" head, a Kodak Caramate, some > printers > > > > and monitors, ...? > > > > > > As for the enlarger, I have enough problems > > > > hosuing my DeVere 504.... > > > > > > > Howabout: a Fujinon holography camera? > > > > > 'course it's all 60Hz stuff. > > > > > > > > Does it _depend_ on the mains frequency? > Votlage > > > > conversion is trivial (I > > > > > > have a 110V step-down transformer in the > workshop > > > > anyway), frequency > > > > > > conversion can be more of an 'interesting' > job. > > > > > > I'd be tempted to do it "mechanically", with a > motor > > > > and generator. > > > > > 8" drives may need 50 v 60 Hz (or a change of > pulley > > > > and belt). > > > > > But almost everything else recently is rectified > to > > > > DC. > > > > > Most "modern" computers just want 5VDC, 12VDC, > etc. > > > The only electronics in the holography camera is > the > > > > power supply for the > > > > > laser tube. And since I don't have the original > > > > tube, a different power > > > > > supply is not a very big deal. > > > > __________________________________________________ > > Do You Yahoo!? > > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam > protection around > > http://mail.yahoo.com > > -- > Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- > http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ > The Computer Refuge --- > http://computer-refuge.org > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jun 10 13:44:03 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 11:44:03 -0700 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming Message-ID: <448B12F3.8010106@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, Is there an "accepted norm" for correspondence, here, with respect to top posting and message trimming? Or, am I just being a grumpy olde farte? :> Thanks! --don From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jun 10 13:43:36 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 13:43:36 -0500 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming References: <448B12F3.8010106@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <002e01c68cbd$c8b6ab40$6500a8c0@BILLING> Don wrote.... > Is there an "accepted norm" for correspondence, here, > with respect to top posting and message trimming? I don't know about the "norm", but I can speak to the "accepted" part. It's no different here than generally accepted common mailing list courtesy. That means.... Please do not top post, and please trim messages as appropriate. > Or, am I just being a grumpy olde farte? :> This question I'm going to consider totally irrelevant ;) Jay West From trag at io.com Sat Jun 10 13:59:51 2006 From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 13:59:51 -0500 Subject: 30 pin 2MB SIMMs In-Reply-To: <200606101732.k5AHWc4V015004@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606101732.k5AHWc4V015004@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: >Date: Mon, 29 May 2006 23:58:48 -0300 >From: "Alexandre Souza" > Well, there is - believe it or not - 16MB 30-pin SIMM. I always thought >it was a mistake, but I saw that with my own eyes. Unbeliaveable as it can >be, there is only ONE equipment I saw using that, which is a Equinox (or >Ensoniq?) music keyboard. It was the first and last time. I hadn't ever >stopped to think how can it be possible (maybe a non-standard pinout) but it >is true indeed, 16 MB SIMMs, four of them making 64MB. Believe it or not. The 16 MB 30 pin SIMM is not uncommon in the early Macintosh World. The Mac II used 30 pin SIMMs and had a theoretical maximum of 128 MB of RAM when all eight sockets were populated with 16 MB SIMMs. I write "theoretical" because I think that there were *details* until the SE/30 and IIcx came out around 1989. The IIx (later than the II, but earlier than the SE/30 and IIcx) required PAL SIMMs (not sure what these were, except they apparently had a PAL on board) to use larger capacity SIMMs. Anyway, the SE/30, IIcx and IIci all had eight SIMM sockets capable of using 16 MB 30 pin SIMMs giving a 128 MB memory capacity back in the very late 80s and early 90s. Quite a forward looking memory capacity for the day. Of course, it was years before you could actually get SIMMs with such high capacities. Later Apple Mac models with the same CPU chips were built with lower maximum RAM capacities for no apparent reason other than marketing weenies. Compare, e.g., the SE/30 and the Classic II or Color Classic. The pinout is standard. There are 12 address lines available on the 30 pin SIMM, giving a multiplexed address of 24 bits which translates to 16M addresses. Pin Name Description 1 VCC +5 VDC 2 /CAS Column Address Strobe 3 DQ0 Data 0 4 A0 Address 0 5 A1 Address 1 6 DQ1 Data 1 7 A2 Address 2 8 A3 Address 3 9 GND Ground 10 DQ2 Data 2 11 A4 Address 4 12 A5 Address 5 13 DQ3 Data 3 14 A6 Address 6 15 A7 Address 7 16 DQ4 Data 4 17 A8 Address 8 18 A9 Address 9 19 A10 Address 10 20 DQ5 Data 5 21 /WE Write Enable 22 GND Ground 23 DQ6 Data 6 24 A11 Address 11 25 DQ7 Data 7 26 QP Data Parity Out 27 /RAS Row Address Strobe 28 /CASP Something Parity ???? 29 DP Data Parity In 30 VCC +5 VDC Sets of four 30 pin 16MB SIMMs typically go for about $25 plus shipping on Ebay. Jeff Walther From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Jun 10 14:15:16 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 13:15:16 -0600 Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: References: <003b01c68be5$b01cffe0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> Message-ID: <448B1A44.1030705@jetnet.ab.ca> Christian Corti wrote: > On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Jim Beacon wrote: > >> can you tell me what the small monitor scope in the picture of the 555 >> is? > > > :-)) > It's a RIM Oszillette. RIM was a shop/seller in Munich that was widely > known to sell interesting kits, mainly in the 60s/70s. They sold > electronic parts, amplifiers, power supply etc. and many things as a > kit. One of the kits was the Oszillette, a small scope with a tiny Valvo > scope tube and only 4 or 5 other valves. We have it on the picture to > show the difference: tiny 5 valve scope compared to huge over 100 valve > scope (plus external power supply), as much as in our LGP-30! > The Oszillette has no trigger, it's free running with sync and frequency > adjustments via front knobs, and only 1:1 and 1:10 signal inputs. > > Christian > Got the manual on-line? I 'd like to read about that. From pat at computer-refuge.org Sat Jun 10 14:21:26 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 15:21:26 -0400 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <002e01c68cbd$c8b6ab40$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <448B12F3.8010106@DakotaCom.Net> <002e01c68cbd$c8b6ab40$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <200606101521.26139.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Saturday 10 June 2006 14:43, Jay West wrote: > Don wrote.... > > > Is there an "accepted norm" for correspondence, here, > > with respect to top posting and message trimming? > > I don't know about the "norm", but I can speak to the "accepted" > part. It's no different here than generally accepted common mailing > list courtesy. That means.... Please do not top post, and please trim > messages as appropriate. But don't overtrim so that someone who sees the message you're sending without prior ones has absolutely no clue what you're talking about. IMO, that's as annoying as people who reply to a whole digest without trimming it at all. :) Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pat at computer-refuge.org Sat Jun 10 14:22:43 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 15:22:43 -0400 Subject: please join the list if not subscribed In-Reply-To: <448B0BBE.7000105@msm.umr.edu> References: <011601c68caf$7cea4090$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <448B0BBE.7000105@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <200606101522.43911.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Saturday 10 June 2006 14:13, jim stephens wrote: > Jay West wrote: > > There is actually a pretty substantial amount of people posting to > > the list regularly who are not members from the email address they > > regularly post from. > > I dont know where my emails come from, but I have a problem that I > doubt is unique. My friend who does my email does not have an open > server. So I cannot post nor does he from the email server that > actually answers jwstephens.com (or tylerent.com, hosted same > server...) Your emails come from the address in the From: head of your email: From: jim stephens That is the address that Jay is saying should be subscribed to the list. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jun 10 15:04:05 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 15:04:05 -0500 Subject: EU References: <20060610182653.48836.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <004b01c68cc9$0705e5e0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Chris M wrote.... > And regardless of what he uses/collects, there was a > better answer again IIMMHHOO. I offered an opinion > dopey-boy. Maybe you're the silly rube after all. Please be civil on the list. Jay From Watzman at neo.rr.com Sat Jun 10 15:23:24 2006 From: Watzman at neo.rr.com (Barry Watzman) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 16:23:24 -0400 Subject: stuff I got dumped to me today :) In-Reply-To: <200606101732.k5AHWTMQ014920@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <007601c68ccb$ba238ea0$6501a8c0@barry> Re: "1) A mint condition Heathkit H27 (dual 8" floppy drive for H11). Wonder if it's usable on anything else?" Yes, it is. The box has two absolutely garden variety standard Memorex 550 8-inch floppy disk drives in it (SSSD). They have an absolutely standard 50-pin Shugart SA-801 compatible interface. They are currently connected to a controller located in the bottom compartment of the drive case, below the drives (I think it's a single board computer with a Z-80 and a 1771 on it, but my memory isn't that good). Anyway, disconnect the cables going to the built-in controller, and connect your own 50-pin ribbon cable, and you can use the drives, cabinet and power supply with almost any system that takes "standard" (e.g. Shugart compatible) single sided 8" drives. From dm561 at torfree.net Sat Jun 10 15:38:38 2006 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 16:38:38 -0400 Subject: Eico 435 'Scope manual Message-ID: <01C68CAC.753048C0@mse-d03> While we're on the subjects of 'scopes & manuals, does anyone here have a manual for an Eico 435 oscilloscope by any chance? Loaned 'scope & manual to a friend some time back; his wife threw out the manual & scope came back DOA (but he's still a good friend). TIA, mike From dm561 at torfree.net Sat Jun 10 15:39:30 2006 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 16:39:30 -0400 Subject: New Altair32 "hardware" Message-ID: <01C68CAC.760A7C20@mse-d03> On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks On 6/9/06, Cini, Richard wrote: > All: > > I want to add a real time clock to the Altair32 but I want > to throw this out there for comment. Would one rather use a "faceless" > RTC (like the Compu/Time) or one with an on-screen display like the > Hayes Chronograph? The Compu/Time is very easy (nearly done coding) but > the Chronograph would be prettier. Personally? The Chronograph. I have a real one, so, of course, I'm biased. I've often contemplated making a Chronograph emulator, but it would take a graphical LCD; a 20x4 Text LCD can't quite do it justice (because of the day-of-the-week at the top of a real Chronograph's VFD). -ethan ----------------- Reply: Some older VCRs had a similar display, with the weekdays across the top; shouldn't be too hard to find one at the curb. mike From aijones2 at bsu.edu Sat Jun 10 15:47:51 2006 From: aijones2 at bsu.edu (Andrew Jones) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 16:47:51 -0400 Subject: DECnet network at VCF Midwest 2.0? Message-ID: <1149972471.31720.1.camel@Amnesiac.localtld> >Hey, is anyone here interested in getting an ethernet DECnet network >together at VCFMW? > >I'll be bringing my PDP11 which has DECnet/E on it :) I recently obtained SGI 4DDN 4.1, so I'm seriously considering bringing a DECnet-capable Indy if I can work out the licensing bullshit... From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Sat Jun 10 15:54:21 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 16:54:21 -0400 Subject: DECnet network at VCF Midwest 2.0? In-Reply-To: <1149972471.31720.1.camel@Amnesiac.localtld> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060610165116.0515d768@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Andrew Jones may have mentioned these words: > >Hey, is anyone here interested in getting an ethernet DECnet network > >together at VCFMW? > > > >I'll be bringing my PDP11 which has DECnet/E on it :) > >I recently obtained SGI 4DDN 4.1, so I'm seriously considering bringing >a DECnet-capable Indy if I can work out the licensing bullshit... I have DECnet capable hardware, but no DECnet capable intelligence... If anyone needs me to bring a functioning VAXStation 3100/m38, or a DEC Model 3000/300, I certainly can... I was planning on bringing "smaller" stuff, like my IDE-capable CoCo and a couple of Tandy laptops... Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com | From mr2ce at hotmail.com Sat Jun 10 16:39:12 2006 From: mr2ce at hotmail.com (Patrick Patterson) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 16:39:12 -0500 Subject: OT: RoHS was: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of In-Reply-To: <200606041131030177.00881EFB@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: Chuck, Maybe you can help me. i dont know how I got on this list but I am getting 800 messages a day now. How do I get off of this? Thanks much, Patrick >From: "Chuck Guzis" >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Subject: Re: OT: RoHS was: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last >Buy and End of Life >Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 11:31:03 -0700 > >On 6/4/2006 at 11:11 AM Don Y wrote: > > >We also used to have "fluoroscopes" (sp?) in shoe stores. > >And asbestos siding on houses. > >Are you one of the greying folks who use Grecian Formula 16 to hide the >effects of age? 0.6% lead acetate--a very toxic substance. Sometimes >blamed as a factor in the decline of the Roman Empire (ancient Romans used >to boil wine in lead pots to "sweeten" it. Lead acetate is also known as >"sugar of lead" because of its sweet taste). > >Cheers, >Chuck > > > > From henk.gooijen at oce.com Sat Jun 10 16:44:55 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 23:44:55 +0200 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming References: <448B12F3.8010106@DakotaCom.Net> <002e01c68cbd$c8b6ab40$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C201A9@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> ________________________________ Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Jay West Verzonden: za 10-06-2006 20:43 Aan: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Onderwerp: Re: Top Posting and Message Trimming Don wrote.... > Is there an "accepted norm" for correspondence, here, > with respect to top posting and message trimming? I don't know about the "norm", but I can speak to the "accepted" part. It's no different here than generally accepted common mailing list courtesy. That means.... Please do not top post, and please trim messages as appropriate. > Or, am I just being a grumpy olde farte? :> This question I'm going to consider totally irrelevant ;) Jay West This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From henk.gooijen at oce.com Sat Jun 10 16:45:15 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 23:45:15 +0200 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming References: <448B12F3.8010106@DakotaCom.Net> <002e01c68cbd$c8b6ab40$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C201AB@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Don wrote.... > Is there an "accepted norm" for correspondence, here, > with respect to top posting and message trimming? I don't know about the "norm", but I can speak to the "accepted" part. It's no different here than generally accepted common mailing list courtesy. That means.... Please do not top post, and please trim messages as appropriate. > Or, am I just being a grumpy olde farte? :> This question I'm going to consider totally irrelevant ;) Jay West Oops! In that case my apologies. I will not do any top post replies from now on. Thanks for explaining - Henk. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 10 15:35:17 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 21:35:17 +0100 (BST) Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: from "Roger Holmes" at Jun 5, 6 09:11:08 pm Message-ID: > > > >> > >> With a modern machine with just three or four modules (say power > >> supply, > >> logic board and one RAM module) then you take an informed guess > >> and can > >> swap modules until you guess right, unless of course a module you did > >> not > >> swap causes failure of another module. Then it gets expensive. > > > > That is _exactly_ what I object to. Fault finding is not (or rather > > should not) be bbased on guesswork. Unless you've found the fault > > logically, you can't know you've fixed it. > > For modern machines, that is the way the manufacturer wants it done, > when doing warranty work, they will not pay for true diagnostic work. Brillinat -- NOT!. But then I never have, and probably never will, claim under a warranty. If they get it wrong once, I don't see giving them a chance to get ti wrong again... And I knew there was a good reason for sticking to classic computers :-) > > properly and not understand analogue electronics. I certaimly couldn't > > understnad digital stuff until I understood things like transmision > > lines, termination, etc. > > There is a big difference between fault finding digital electronics and > designing digital electronics. > > Where there is an analogue signal, > like in the Drum Write amplifiers I can cope with that, but there is > some weird stuff, like there is a piece of what looks like 4 inches of > coaxial cable - which is apparently a delay line and the signal bounces > off the far end and comes back a bit later. There are 250 of these in This is a standard trick with transmission lines, it should be covered in any decent book on RF work. I would think it would be somewhere in the Radiation Lab sereis, but I don't have the full set of thsoe -- yet. > the core store, they never go wrong, but the boards they are on tend > to burn out one of their resistors frequently, and the core store > itself is a current device, so fault finding with voltage based > instruments > can be tricky. What I find difficult in an analogue circuit is A bit like the HP9100. The flip-flops on that are current-triggered (the J and K inputs are directly on to the base of a transistor), although the flip-flop outputs are voltage-level things. The logic gates are also voltage-to-current translators in effect. Odd, but beautiful, machine. > finding the > order of what drives what. Sometimes its easy, but often the circuit > diagrams are drawn in an illogical order, and sometimes there really This is one thing a lot of people don't realise. A well-drawn schematic doesn't just show the connections, it also lays the components out in a logical/expected way. As a digital example, a cross-coupled pair of NAND gates acting as an SR flip-flop will be drawn with one above the other, and the covnentional arrangement of the cross-coupling (not, for example one at one side of the page and the other on the other side of the page with long 'wires' connecting them). > is deliberate feed back, the flip flop is an obvious example. [...] > What museums hate to see is modern components, so where there is a I do feel that museums often use the same criteria to 'judge' technical exhibits (computers, etc) as they do for antique furniture, fine art, and the like. And said criteria are not always applicable. For example, while it's obvioulsy better to use original parts if you can get them, it is, IMHO better to repair a machine with modern parts (keeping the design the same) than to leave it non-working. One thing I do object to is the practice of hiding new components inside the shells of the old ones. This is common amongst the vintage radio crown when i comes to replacing electrolytic capacitors. To me it is a form of faking, and might well cause confusion when the machine is examined in the future. > choice > I stay with original parts, and always keep the original faulty parts > when I have > to use modern - such as when I put an old Apple switch mode power supply > in place of an old supply which used a transformer which is no longer > available. Transformers can be rewound without too much difficulty, If it was a mains input part, there are companies who sell transformer kits -- a bobbin with a pre-wound mains primary winding, lampinations, clamps, etc. You buy the right wire, wind the secondaries, and put it together. More expensive than a normal transformer, but for a machine like this I'd probably have bought one. I like to keep the electronic design as original as possible. And that means not replacing a linera PSU with a switcher. I think that's more important than, say, not using a modern capacitor. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 10 16:40:56 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 22:40:56 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <0J0E005T1UCB1L62@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> from "Allison" at Jun 5, 6 07:26:18 pm Message-ID: > A decent workbench with power and storage I number one in my book. > Lighting for it number two. Third is a good soldering iron. Around > number 7 is a 'scope after a decent pair of VOM and DVM and simple > logic probe. Number 6 is a quality set of handtools (cutters, needlenose, > screwdrivers and the like). If I were to think on it I'd certainly put > other tools and equipment before a scope. For electronic test instruments (not including hand tools, etc), my order would be something like 1) A good VOM (analogue) or DMM, whichever type you prefer. 2) A logic probe 3) A bench power supply (at least 5A output) 4) The other of the VOM/DMM pair 5) A 'scope or logic analyser, depending on what sort of work you're doing 6) The other one of those instruments 7) Strange stuff that you get because you see it at a cheap price and it looks interesting (curve tracers, valve testers, LCR bridge, etc) > > > >PS. I notice most TTL projects are wire wrapped that I have seen on the > >web rather than having a PCB made. > > > > Obvious reason. Rework in the form of circuit corrections are easily > done with wirewrap and can be costly and time consuming with PCB. I find it helps when prototyping to be able to build one bit of the circuit, check it works properly, then add a bit more, and so on. This is easy with wire wrap, harder on a PCB. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 10 16:49:37 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 22:49:37 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <003b01c68b69$af2ff320$01fea8c0@alpha> from "Alexandre Souza" at Jun 8, 6 11:05:49 pm Message-ID: > > > What you're possibly missing here is that people like me choose a product > > _because of the availability of scheamtics and repair parts_. I actually > > tracked down and bought a genuine Teac floppy drive for this PC becasue I > > could get a service manual for it. Said drive cost over 10 times as much > > as a non-name, no-docs drive from the local PC shop. > > Mind sharing that manual? :o) I like your line of tought, but imagine a A little hard with no scanenr :-). > service manual for a simple thing like a mouse ;o) Actaully, I don't have a mouse on this PC (probably the only PC in the world not to have one, but...). But for things like mice it's often quicker just to trace out the scheamtic than to do battle trying to get a schemaitc from the manufactuer. I know I included schematics of the appropriate mice when I traced out diagrams for the PERQ AGW3300 and the HP IPC> > > > I have never (well, not in the last 20 years, anyhow) 'mucked up a PCB' > > trying to repair it. Yes, you can generally tell where I've been (hand > > soldering does look different from wave soldering), but I do not lift > > traces, rip out vias, and all the other things that certain people manage > > to do. > > And if I muck that, (expletive deleted) them, because it is mine, bought > with my (expletive deleted) money!!! What do they have to do with that? :oP Exactly! And I still fail to see how supplying information means I'll do a worse repair. Darn it, I am going to have a go at fixing this no matter what. If I can get a service manual I'll read it first, if not, I'll have to work it out as I go along... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 10 16:57:10 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 22:57:10 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <448A67FE.8070501@jetnet.ab.ca> from "woodelf" at Jun 10, 6 00:34:38 am Message-ID: > > Alexandre Souza wrote: > > > Describe me a CGA board on that media ;o) > Yuck!!! > I can't remeber anything I liked about CGA? The fact that it was built from TTL, DRAMs and a 6845, and there was a schematic in the O&A Techref :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 10 17:03:05 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 23:03:05 +0100 (BST) Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <005801c68c9c$c0594320$0200a8c0@p2deskto> from "Jim Beacon" at Jun 10, 6 03:47:09 pm Message-ID: > I have a couple of small scopes, for example the Cossor 1039 here: > > http://www.g1jbg.co.uk/test8.htm > > which has three valves as well as the CRT, and was intended for TV service. Somewhere I have the issue of Practical Television magazine which gives construction details for a 1 valve + CRT scope. OK, there are some semiconductor rectifiiers in the PSU too. The valve is for the timebase, the Y input goes straight to the CRT plates. But it was useable for the signals in vavle TVs of the time, and a lot better than nothing. > really like is a 549, if anyone with in a 100 miles of London has one they > no longer want :-) Woudln't we all :-) -tony From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jun 10 17:16:03 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 15:16:03 -0700 Subject: New version of PDP-10 & -11 OS to Layered Product XRef Message-ID: After 3 years, I've been able to update the PDP-10 and PDP-11 OS to Layered Products Cross-reference. I ran across a pile of RSTS/E and Micro/RSTS SPD's yesterday. As a result there is now info on Micro/RSTS V2.0 and V2.1, and RSTS/E V9.2-9.6. http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/PDP-10_11_OS_xref(V2b).pdf As always, if anyone can provide information to help update this, I'd appreciate 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 bear at typewritten.org Sat Jun 10 17:23:50 2006 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 15:23:50 -0700 Subject: DN10000s In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3965904B-D58A-4CBF-AE68-DF0669282254@typewritten.org> On May 25, 2006, at 7:48 PM, Al Kossow wrote: >> Apollo should have open-documented their stuff. > > Yup.. A huge problem for Apollo historical preservation. > > I don't even know what might still exist inside HP for the early > stuff. > Absolutely nothing, and that's confirmed. Boeing was the last existing Apollo customer with systems still in production until September of 2005. The final three years of which all hardware maintenance was performed in-house, scavenging parts from decomissioned machines. All leftover parts cleared surplus by CYE2005, which is a pity as I owed DOMAIN keyboards to a few folks and now I am not sure if I'll be able to make good on it. I think the FAA were the second-to-last existing Apollo customer. Not sure when they finally retired their last systems, but it was years before Boeing did. ok bear From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jun 10 17:39:36 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 15:39:36 -0700 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <002e01c68cbd$c8b6ab40$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <448B12F3.8010106@DakotaCom.Net> <002e01c68cbd$c8b6ab40$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <448B4A28.3010400@DakotaCom.Net> Jay West wrote: > Don wrote.... >> Is there an "accepted norm" for correspondence, here, >> with respect to top posting and message trimming? > > I don't know about the "norm", but I can speak to the "accepted" part. > It's no different here than generally accepted common mailing list > courtesy. That means.... Please do not top post, and please trim > messages as appropriate. > >> Or, am I just being a grumpy olde farte? :> > This question I'm going to consider totally irrelevant ;) Dunno. I was wondering if it was a "generational thing" (i.e. youngsters taking the easy way out and top posting while "traditionalists" -- Olde Fartes :> -- opted for bottom posting...) --don From aw288 at osfn.org Sat Jun 10 17:31:36 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 18:31:36 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and EndofLife In-Reply-To: <01d301c688e2$eb5fd330$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: > What is the difference of a "garry" socket hole and a board hole? > > I cannot agree with your affirmation... The most immediate issue that leaps to mind is that when using sockets, now you have twice as many things to plug into other things. Think about it. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 10 17:49:12 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 15:49:12 -0700 Subject: atari printers - gears In-Reply-To: <20060605221809.36559.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060605221809.36559.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200606101549120326.0BC3C7B1@10.0.0.252> On 6/5/2006 at 3:18 PM Chris M wrote: >what the person looking for the gear might want to do >is look to replace the entire train (2,3,...?) instead >of looking for a replacement for just the 1. This way, >if suitable replacements are found, one can be assured >they'll all mesh properly. You can just throw your bad one away and get a new one. There's a guy selling 825 printers for $10 the each, NOS on Yahoo!: http://tinyurl.com/e4sgx But I'd make sure he's for real, first. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jun 10 18:02:20 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 16:02:20 -0700 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448B4F7C.80708@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: [equipment manuals] >> service manual for a simple thing like a mouse ;o) > > Actaully, I don't have a mouse on this PC (probably the only PC in the > world not to have one, but...). But for things like mice it's often > quicker just to trace out the scheamtic than to do battle trying to get a > schemaitc from the manufactuer. I know I included schematics of the > appropriate mice when I traced out diagrams for the PERQ AGW3300 and the > HP IPC> Yes, though this is frustrating. It helps if you have some spare/disposable units that can give their lives for the cause! :> But, even then, it can be difficult... I have to sacrifice a couple of telephone sets in order to figure out what's inside them so I can modify them for "(doorway) entry phones". But, I susct I will encounter a fair number of oddball/proprietary components in the process (PBX's are usually poorly documented) >>> I have never (well, not in the last 20 years, anyhow) 'mucked up a PCB' >>> trying to repair it. Yes, you can generally tell where I've been (hand >>> soldering does look different from wave soldering), but I do not lift >>> traces, rip out vias, and all the other things that certain people manage >>> to do. >> And if I muck that, (expletive deleted) them, because it is mine, bought >> with my (expletive deleted) money!!! What do they have to do with that? :oP > > Exactly! > > And I still fail to see how supplying information means I'll do a worse > repair. Darn it, I am going to have a go at fixing this no matter > what. If I can get a service manual I'll read it first, if not, I'll have > to work it out as I go along... Manuals don't exist anymore because: - they are expensive to produce - few people are CAPABLE of using them - litigation ("Didn't you INVITE my client to stick his hands inside that 20KW pulse amplifier, Sir?") - product lifecycles are really short - vendors are under the (mistaken?) belief that they have a monopoly on some "great idea"/implementation If you think about each of these, I think you'll have to agree... So, why should a vendor undertake such a task? --don From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jun 10 18:05:48 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 16:05:48 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and EndofLife In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448B504C.5090609@DakotaCom.Net> William Donzelli wrote: >> What is the difference of a "garry" socket hole and a board hole? >> >> I cannot agree with your affirmation... > > The most immediate issue that leaps to mind is that when using sockets, > now you have twice as many things to plug into other things. Think about > it. I think it depends on the quality of the components and construction. I've worked on a lot of military gear that was fabricated out of wirewrapped panels -- one such instrument had 18"x70" hinged panels with everything socketed (except the bypass caps). OTOH, some SIMM sockets are rated for a whopping *6* insertions! think about that next time you're pulling memory! :< ) --don From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jun 10 17:59:17 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 15:59:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060610155724.O31953@shell.lmi.net> > Describe me a CGA board on that media ;o) > Yuck!!! > I can't remeber anything I liked about CGA? It produced composite [almost] NTSC video, and therefore provided a way to use a PC without buying an IBM monitor. ($100 v $600) From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jun 10 18:11:17 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 16:11:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060610155935.O31953@shell.lmi.net> > > Mind sharing that manual? :o) I like your line of tought, but imagine a On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > A little hard with no scanenr :-). Which is why we keep trying to give you one! Howzbout: We send you one of our scanners to "check out" for us. (BUT, only until we get our manual for it :-) You could use it, test it, try it out, run it now and then (to keep the mechanism from freezing up:-) and then we'll get it back from you, just as soon as scanners start including manuals. > > service manual for a simple thing like a mouse ;o) > quicker just to trace out the scheamtic than to do battle trying to get a > schemaitc from the manufactuer. I know I included schematics of the > appropriate mice when I traced out diagrams for the PERQ AGW3300 and the > HP IPC> I thought that maybe I could get away with that logic to get you to accept a scanner :-) BTW, one important spec for mice would be the diameter of the ball, that lUsers keep losing. > And I still fail to see how supplying information means I'll do a worse > repair. Darn it, I am going to have a go at fixing this no matter > what. If I can get a service manual I'll read it first, if not, I'll have > to work it out as I go along... I think that his argument (which I don't agree with), was that possession of information would give people a false sense of confidence to attempt tasks for which they weere not qualified. Is that so? Or does that speak badly for the quality of the information? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From aw288 at osfn.org Sat Jun 10 18:17:08 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 19:17:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and EndofLife In-Reply-To: <448B504C.5090609@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: > I think it depends on the quality of the components > and construction. No, it generally does not, unless really cheap, out of spec sockets are used. The humans and pick-n-place robots still make mistakes - twice as many when you have twice as many insertions. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 10 18:21:35 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 16:21:35 -0700 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <20060610155724.O31953@shell.lmi.net> References: <20060610155724.O31953@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200606101621350897.0BE16F82@10.0.0.252> On 6/10/2006 at 3:59 PM Fred Cisin wrote: >> Describe me a CGA board on that media ;o) >> Yuck!!! >> I can't remeber anything I liked about CGA? > >It produced composite [almost] NTSC video, and therefore provided >a way to use a PC without buying an IBM monitor. >($100 v $600) You mean like an Atari 400/800 or an Apple ][[? Wait--you had to buy a modulator for the CGA. When I saw the 80x25 text display of the CGA (on an IBM monitor), I decided that color wasn't for me. I bought the MDA and picked up a bare-frame 15" monitor at Haltek for something like $50. Put it in a plywood box with a 24v switcher for power. It worked until I bought for a Sony variable sync color monitor a couple of years later. One thing that held the wholesale adoption of color back was the generally lousy quality of the CRTs available at the time. Most were designed for broadcast viewing and had a very coarse dot pitch which made things like text unpleasant to read. Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 10 18:25:15 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 00:25:15 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <448B4F7C.80708@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jun 10, 6 04:02:20 pm Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > [equipment manuals] > > >> service manual for a simple thing like a mouse ;o) > > > > Actaully, I don't have a mouse on this PC (probably the only PC in the > > world not to have one, but...). But for things like mice it's often > > quicker just to trace out the scheamtic than to do battle trying to get a > > schemaitc from the manufactuer. I know I included schematics of the > > appropriate mice when I traced out diagrams for the PERQ AGW3300 and the > > HP IPC> > > Yes, though this is frustrating. It helps if you have some > spare/disposable units that can give their lives for the cause! :> Why> Apart from HDAs, I can't think of any classic computer device that can't be dismantled non-destructively. Mind you, desoldering the HP9100B ROM board from the address decoder and sense amplifier boards was a stressful exercise. Since the internal track layout on that board is critical (it's what determines the bit pattern of the ROM), if I'd ripped out a via I'd have ruined the machine. I didn't.... > But, even then, it can be difficult... > > I have to sacrifice a couple of telephone sets in order to > figure out what's inside them so I can modify them for Why? Can't they be taken apart without damage? -tony From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jun 10 18:35:39 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 16:35:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <200606101621350897.0BE16F82@10.0.0.252> References: <20060610155724.O31953@shell.lmi.net> <200606101621350897.0BE16F82@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060610163137.H31953@shell.lmi.net> > >> Describe me a CGA board on that media ;o) > >> Yuck!!! > >> I can't remeber anything I liked about CGA? > > > >It produced composite [almost] NTSC video, and therefore provided > >a way to use a PC without buying an IBM monitor. > >($100 v $600) On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > You mean like an Atari 400/800 or an Apple ][[? or TRS80 > Wait--you had to buy a modulator for the CGA. When I saw the 80x25 text > display of the CGA (on an IBM monitor), I decided that color wasn't for me. WHY? It has a phono jack on the outside for NTSC; just connect that to a cheap B&W CCTV monitor. It ALSO had a 4 pin (minus one for keying) berg plug on the inside that was exactly right for a SupRMod][, but why degreade the signal by RF'ing it, and then tuning it back in? > One thing that held the wholesale adoption of color back was the generally > lousy quality of the CRTs available at the time. Most were designed for > broadcast viewing and had a very coarse dot pitch which made things like > text unpleasant to read. B&W was substantially better. (Mode 2) -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sat Jun 10 19:00:11 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 17:00:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: cash register tape Message-ID: I'm pretty sure I could design and build a paper tape punch and reader that uses plain old cash register tape and winds the tape on old microfilm spools. Assuming the sprocket and data holes match standard paper tape, what are some other caveats to look out for? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sat Jun 10 19:01:39 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 17:01:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <448B4A28.3010400@DakotaCom.Net> References: <448B12F3.8010106@DakotaCom.Net> <002e01c68cbd$c8b6ab40$6500a8c0@BILLING> <448B4A28.3010400@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Don Y wrote: > Jay West wrote: > Dunno. I was wondering if it was a "generational thing" > (i.e. youngsters taking the easy way out and top posting while > "traditionalists" -- Olde Fartes :> -- opted for bottom posting...) I'm not an old fart and I consider top posting a Rude Thing... -- 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 wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Sat Jun 10 19:26:41 2006 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:26:41 -0400 Subject: Mis-categorized and not cheap... Message-ID: but in case someone wants a SOL-20 really bad... ebay item: 8825526106 Starting bid is at the top of the value range (IMO) so I don't thing anybody is going to snipe it. From jcwren at jcwren.com Sat Jun 10 19:50:47 2006 From: jcwren at jcwren.com (J.C. Wren) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:50:47 -0400 Subject: Mis-categorized and not cheap... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448B68E7.7020500@jcwren.com> Perhaps I'll mod my SOL-20 to 4.8GB of RAM. Hell, that's more than I've got in my top two Athlon boxes combined. --jc Bill Sudbrink wrote: > but in case someone wants a SOL-20 really bad... > > ebay item: 8825526106 > > Starting bid is at the top of the value range (IMO) > so I don't thing anybody is going to snipe it. > From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Sat Jun 10 19:55:26 2006 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:55:26 -0400 Subject: Mis-categorized and not cheap... In-Reply-To: <448B68E7.7020500@jcwren.com> Message-ID: J.C. Wren wrote: > Bill Sudbrink wrote: > > but in case someone wants a SOL-20 really bad... > > > > ebay item: 8825526106 > > > > Starting bid is at the top of the value range (IMO) > > so I don't thing anybody is going to snipe it. > > > Perhaps I'll mod my SOL-20 to 4.8GB of RAM. Hell, that's more than I've > got in my top two Athlon boxes combined. Ha ha! Just noticed that. It has 48K... what's a few orders of magnitude between friends. BTW: I have no connection to or knowledge of the seller. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Jun 10 20:04:49 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 13:04:49 +1200 Subject: atari printers - gears In-Reply-To: <200606101549120326.0BC3C7B1@10.0.0.252> References: <20060605221809.36559.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> <200606101549120326.0BC3C7B1@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: On 6/11/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > You can just throw your bad one away and get a new one. There's a guy > selling 825 printers for $10 the each, NOS on Yahoo!: That's one of the reasons I bought a handful of printer mechs from Alltronics or Electronic Goldmine or one of those guys... spare gears. The problem is that what I got was about 90% defective. It's really a design flaw, I think, where the depth of the teeth in the gear doesn't leave much material to be sturdy. Add a little thermal expansion/contraction and *pop* one less gear. That's why I'd like to find a source of gears - one replacement per motor isn't going to be enough. -ethan From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jun 10 20:04:59 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:04:59 -0500 Subject: DN10000s Message-ID: >>> Apollo should have open-documented their stuff. >>Yup.. A huge problem for Apollo historical preservation. >>I don't even know what might still exist inside HP for the early >>stuff. >Absolutely nothing, and that's confirmed. Boeing was the last >existing Apollo customer with systems still in production until >September of 2005. The final three years of which all hardware >maintenance was performed in-house, scavenging parts from >decomissioned machines. All leftover parts cleared surplus by >CYE2005, which is a pity as I owed DOMAIN keyboards to a few folks >and now I am not sure if I'll be able to make good on it. >I think the FAA were the second-to-last existing Apollo customer. Not >sure when they finally retired their last systems, but it was years >before Boeing did. FAA had, I think, some in-house S/W on their Apollos- what did Boeing use on them? Scott Quinn P.S. - I got one of those last-dump Apollos- there weren't any keyboards or mice at Boeing, but still several 425es. I was kind of wondering if they used them as Apollos or HP 9ks. Now I know. From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jun 10 20:12:12 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:12:12 -0500 Subject: ComputerVision CADDstation 32 Message-ID: <2610381de5964e3fb98711d193030092@valleyimplants.com> No takers on the CV yet- I'm a bit disappointed since this is (IMO) one of the more interesting machines in my stable. The fact that no one offered anything in trade isn't too surprising (I just didn't want to turn anyone down if they had a MVAX 3100 or a DEC AXP in their garage that they didn't know what to do with...) What is surprising is that no one expressed any interest at all Perhaps it was because I forgot to say where it was - Renton, Washington (Western side), ZIP 98058 Bribes still accepted, but not required (if that wasn't clear from the first posting). Scott Quinn From gordon at gjcp.net Sat Jun 10 15:28:22 2006 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 21:28:22 +0100 Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1149971302.6966.6.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Mon, 2006-06-05 at 14:31 -0600, Richard wrote: > Then have someone awful try to teach you analog electronics from a > crappy book using antiquated terminology. (When was the last time > you heard someone refer to a capacitor as a condenser?) When I looked in the workshop manual for my car? ;-) Gordon. From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com Sat Jun 10 20:35:46 2006 From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 18:35:46 -0700 Subject: Data I/O Series 22 EPROM Programmer help In-Reply-To: <4473FBAD.8080005@msm.umr.edu> References: <4473FBAD.8080005@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <200606101835460994.945E8072@192.168.42.129> Hi, gang, *********** REPLY SEPARATOR *********** On 23-May-06 at 23:22 jim stephens wrote: >ed_sipols at goodyear.com wrote: > >>I have acquired an old DATA I/O series 22 porm programmer. I have some >>Signetics N82S141F chips that will not read at the recommended family >and >>pinout codes of 10/15. In fact, the programmer will not even allow me to >>enter the 10 as the family. Help???!!!! Ed >> >> >> >> >if you have the data I/O poster or docs you are taking the data from, >you may not >have the same rom revision in your programmer. An accurate statement indeed. Family/Pinout codes could change during the lifetime of a device, although I will say that Data I/O tried to keep them consistent (one of the few points in their favor). >I don't know of any resource that details what units were capable of what >to direct you to, sad to say. Data I/O was never too forthcomming about >the information even when we paid for it, and for a long time there was not >alternative. > >Sort of like Microsoft is now. Anyone would use an alternative if they >could, Oh, believe you me, there are PLENTY of alternatives to Data I/O! There's a company called Advin, based out of Sunnyvale. Their stuff, in terms of functionality and electronics, is just as good as anything Data I/O ever turned out, and it's a lot less expensive to own. You are correct, though, in saying that DIO is hardly forthcoming about how to deal with the inner secrets of their programmers. Heck, they stopped selling service manuals in 2005. Don't even get me started on their absurd prices for spare parts ($82 for a strip of plastic?!) >assuming that they are not tied to Microsoft for reasons not relevent to >this list. I know a lot of people in the late 70's and 80's that would have >used another programmer, but Data I/O had insides at the manufacturers that >other prom programmer makers could not equal. Advin has similar contacts. That's one of the reasons their stuff works so well. In any case... I did a device search, and programming of the 82S141's is supported on the Unisite. If you end up not being able to program the beasties, send 'em my way and I'll be happy to do them for you at no cost other than return postage. Happy tweaking. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?" From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jun 10 20:47:58 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 18:47:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU Message-ID: <20060611014758.41268.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> sorry, but it always seems to be the person who responds to name calling with name calling who gets the reprimand. He simply could have said that IHHO it wasnt a good idea or whatever. No...it gets insinuated Im smoking banana peals and that I make silly suggestions. Im afraid I found it a little offensive. --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > Chris M wrote.... > > And regardless of what he uses/collects, there was a > > better answer again IIMMHHOO. I offered an opinion > > dopey-boy. Maybe you're the silly rube after all. > > Please be civil on the list. > > Jay __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jun 10 20:59:32 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 18:59:32 -0700 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448B7904.7060807@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: >> Tony Duell wrote: >> >> [equipment manuals] >> >>>> service manual for a simple thing like a mouse ;o) >>> Actaully, I don't have a mouse on this PC (probably the only PC in the >>> world not to have one, but...). But for things like mice it's often >>> quicker just to trace out the scheamtic than to do battle trying to get a >>> schemaitc from the manufactuer. I know I included schematics of the >>> appropriate mice when I traced out diagrams for the PERQ AGW3300 and the >>> HP IPC> >> Yes, though this is frustrating. It helps if you have some >> spare/disposable units that can give their lives for the cause! :> > > Why> Apart from HDAs, I can't think of any classic computer device that Not EVERYTHING is a "classic computer device" :> > can't be dismantled non-destructively. Mind you, desoldering the HP9100B I note that most of Votrax's products are troubling to dismantle non-destructively (lots of potted "hide me so the user doesn't know the secrets of my design" stuff). Also, any maritime equipment I designed was always conformal coated (several of those being "classic microcomputers" :> ) > ROM board from the address decoder and sense amplifier boards was a > stressful exercise. Since the internal track layout on that board is > critical (it's what determines the bit pattern of the ROM), if I'd ripped > out a via I'd have ruined the machine. I didn't.... > >> But, even then, it can be difficult... >> >> I have to sacrifice a couple of telephone sets in order to >> figure out what's inside them so I can modify them for > > Why? Can't they be taken apart without damage? It adds a level of stress and risk that I chose not to add. My goal is to get a nice clean PCB that I can scan and then convert to a photoplot. From there, I have tools that will help automate reconstructing a schematic. Since I have LOTS of these phones (far more than I would use in my typical nightmares :> ), it seems smarter to destroy components in the hope of recovering a good (photographable) PCB from the exercise. I'd like *not* to waste the components but wasting/disfiguring the foil patterns (even from scratches with the soldering iron tip) is more important. If this approach works well, I have a great way of doing this in the future! :> From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 10 20:49:26 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 18:49:26 -0700 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <20060610163137.H31953@shell.lmi.net> References: <20060610155724.O31953@shell.lmi.net> <200606101621350897.0BE16F82@10.0.0.252> <20060610163137.H31953@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200606101849260134.0C68C86E@10.0.0.252> On 6/10/2006 at 4:35 PM Fred Cisin wrote: >> Wait--you had to buy a modulator for the CGA. When I saw the 80x25 text >> display of the CGA (on an IBM monitor), I decided that color wasn't for >me. > >WHY? Because if I had to read the darned text for more than an hour or two, I was going to go blind. 0.31 mm (or was it 0.38 mm?) color dot pitch makes for some really bad looking text. Compared to CGA, the MDA text was postively wonderful--and let's face it, on the PC, what does one write programs in--text or graphics mode? When I got the Sony, I think the dot pitch was 0.25mm which, while still not up to monochrome, was passable. With my nystagmus, display deficiencies are magnified. >It ALSO had a 4 pin (minus one for keying) berg plug on the inside that >was exactly right for a SupRMod][, but why degreade the signal by RF'ing >it, and then tuning it back in? I think that's the way most folks would probably use it if they didn't spring for an IBM CGA monitor or equivalent. Wasn't that the point of the CGA anyway? Seems to me there's even a diagram of that in one of the manuals (the maroon installation one?). >B&W was substantially better. (Mode 2). But still no comparison to MDA on a monochrome monitor in terms of display and font quality. I couldn't imagine installing a PC with CGA in an office for, say, word processing on an 8-hour per day basis. That would have been just plain sadistic. And if you needed graphics, Hercules (or clones thereof) was very nice. True, the MDA text mode wouldn't let you change the font, but then there was the Herc Graphics Plus card, which gave you quite a bit of downloadable font memory. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jun 10 21:01:59 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 19:01:59 -0700 Subject: cash register tape In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448B7997.7050009@DakotaCom.Net> David Griffith wrote: > I'm pretty sure I could design and build a paper tape punch and reader > that uses plain old cash register tape and winds the tape on old microfilm > spools. Assuming the sprocket and data holes match standard paper tape, > what are some other caveats to look out for? You don't even need to have a "sprocket" engage the holes. Use a friction roller and just make sure it always moves *forward* constantly (trivial with the sorts of electronics available nowadays) without slipping backwards, etc. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 10 20:57:19 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 18:57:19 -0700 Subject: cash register tape In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606101857190955.0C700341@10.0.0.252> On 6/10/2006 at 5:00 PM David Griffith wrote: >I'm pretty sure I could design and build a paper tape punch and reader >that uses plain old cash register tape and winds the tape on old microfilm >spools. Assuming the sprocket and data holes match standard paper tape, >what are some other caveats to look out for? David, I don't think that cash register tape would be robust enough. Remember that paper tape was robust enough to go through the meatgrinder of an ASR 33--and for those who had to use a tape over and over again, there was mylar-coated tape. You know, paper tape's still very much around in the CNC field. Here's a supplier: http://www.wncsupply.com/mylar.html There are others. Admittedly, it's not cheap, but how many thousand feet are you planning to punch? Cheers, Chuck From tpeters at mixcom.com Sat Jun 10 20:51:57 2006 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:51:57 -0500 Subject: OT: RoHS was: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of In-Reply-To: References: <200606041131030177.00881EFB@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060610204046.0d360b48@localhost> At 04:39 PM 6/10/2006 -0500, Patrick Patterson wrote: >Chuck, > >Maybe you can help me. i dont know how I got on this list but I am >getting 800 messages a day now. How do I get off of this? Thanks much, > >Patrick If you're getting 800 messages a day, they are NOT coming from this list! There were about 82 messages today, give or take, up to about 9 PM CDT. That's a far cry from 800. Better run AdWare SE and check for malware. Anti-virus programs don't catch all the bad guys. That's the point of quotations, you know: one can use another's words to be insulting." -- Amanda Cross --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 10 21:14:04 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 19:14:04 -0700 Subject: OT: RoHS was: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060610204046.0d360b48@localhost> References: <200606041131030177.00881EFB@10.0.0.252> <5.1.0.14.2.20060610204046.0d360b48@localhost> Message-ID: <200606101914040189.0C7F55F7@10.0.0.252> On 6/10/2006 at 8:51 PM Tom Peters wrote: >If you're getting 800 messages a day, they are NOT coming from this list! >There were about 82 messages today, give or take, up to about 9 PM CDT. >That's a far cry from 800. Better run AdWare SE and check for malware. >Anti-virus programs don't catch all the bad guys. >That's the point of quotations, you know: one can use another's words >to be insulting." -- Amanda Cross Maybe he's exaggerating a little. I sent him a private email that sent him to the classiccmp.org email subscription page, where he can take himself off of the list. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jun 10 21:47:13 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 19:47:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <200606101849260134.0C68C86E@10.0.0.252> References: <20060610155724.O31953@shell.lmi.net> <200606101621350897.0BE16F82@10.0.0.252> <20060610163137.H31953@shell.lmi.net> <200606101849260134.0C68C86E@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060610193155.S41254@shell.lmi.net> > >> Wait--you had to buy a modulator for the CGA. When I saw the 80x25 text > >> display of the CGA (on an IBM monitor), I decided that color wasn't for > >me. > >WHY? On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Because if I had to read the darned text for more than an hour or two, I sorry, I should have made it clear that I was talking about the modulator. >From the late 70's until last year, even my living room TV did not have a built-in tuner. > was going to go blind. 0.31 mm (or was it 0.38 mm?) color dot pitch makes > for some really bad looking text. Compared to CGA, the MDA text was > postively wonderful--and let's face it, on the PC, what does one write > programs in--text or graphics mode? A B&W monitor on a CGA was as good as most of the micros at the time. In those days, NO color display was really adequate for text. > When I got the Sony, I think the dot pitch was 0.25mm which, while still > not up to monochrome, was passable. With my nystagmus, display > deficiencies are magnified. and a B&W monitor was better than that. > But still no comparison to MDA on a monochrome monitor in terms of display > and font quality. ~$400 and non-standard frequencies v ~$100 for a standard CCTV monitor (plus, I could videotape directly from CGA) > And if you needed graphics, Hercules (or clones thereof) was very nice. > True, the MDA text mode wouldn't let you change the font, but then there > was the Herc Graphics Plus card, which gave you quite a bit of downloadable > font memory. Once aftermarket MDA monitors, and then Hercules boards showed up, that did, indeed, became the way to go. But in those intervening years until then, ... Boy did Jenkins get bent out of shape when people began imitating his [imporoved] imitation of the MDA! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jun 10 21:47:12 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 19:47:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU Message-ID: <20060611024712.61919.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com> so if someone puts a readable image of 2 facing pages of text in front of you, will all that stuph you typed still mean that much? And desperate as in the device now being used by libraries to archive countless tomes, the link to which was posted here a couple of months ago? Desperate or not, I refuse to sit and flip a book over ~500 times. I have obtained very suitable results with a cheap Aiptek Pencam SD (1.2mp) - on the first try! And image enhancement is possible if the results are less then desireable --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > Chris M wrote: > > now an even better idea then a scanner is a digital > > camera. 2 - 3 megapixels (even 1.2!) is sufficient for > > archiving text and graphics. It MUST have the ability > > where you can vary the focal length (able to move a > > fixed focus lense in and out in relation to the image > > sensor. And you thought I wasnt going to say that all > > wrong?). I would also deem ancillary storage (i.e > > cflash etc) a necessity. Cheaper to ship then a > > scanner. Flat bed scanners are unwieldy, especially > > when it comes to archiving bound stuph. > > What you propose is something to do if you are desperate, but not > something you'd want to do routinely. > > Taking a picture of an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper with a 1.2 mpix camera > would get you 113 DPI. > > In reality, it is worse than that. 99% of all digital cameras lie about > their DPI -- a 1.2 mpix camera doesn't have 1.2 mpix red, 1.2m green, > 1.2m blue sensors. Different sensors have different patterns, but > essentially they count each r, g, or b subsample as a pixel and > interpolate. a common pattern is a tiling like this > > R G B G > G B G R > > Heavy duty image processing does its darnedest to hide this fact, but it > is obvious in certain circumstances. Take a picture of a B&W newspaper > from some distance where you will get some aliasing and then look at the > picture -- you'll get lots of color fringing. The only camera sensor > that doesn't do this is the one from foveon: > > http://www.foveon.com/ > > This is a nice tie in to classiccmp -- the CEO of Foveon is Federico > Faggin, co designer of the 8080 and co-founder of Zilog. > > Finally, the linearity of cameras is horrible for work like this, so the > effective DPI will drop even lower. > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jun 10 22:03:34 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:03:34 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and EndofLife In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448B8806.6070104@DakotaCom.Net> William Donzelli wrote: >> I think it depends on the quality of the components >> and construction. > > No, it generally does not, unless really cheap, out of spec sockets are > used. The humans and pick-n-place robots still make mistakes - twice as > many when you have twice as many insertions. I've not noticed that. I use cost solely as the criteria for when to specify a socketed part on a board of mine. But, that is OVERALL cost (which is burdened by in-warranty repairs, etc.) I socket anything that interfaces to the "field" as well as anything that would be too costly to program *reliably* in-circuit (adding ISP adds recurring costs, too, so that's a tradeoff). Anything that is likely to "disappear" during early production or that is export controlled, etc. And, anything that can add value by being socketed E.g., in some markets, it's easier to get a set of DIPs through customs than it is to try to get a whole *board* through. So, "firmware upgrades" are easier to accomplish on-the-sly than they would be with other schemes (relying on FLASH and available machines -- "PC's" -- isn't always appropriate for some markets). From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jun 10 21:58:22 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 21:58:22 -0500 Subject: EU References: <20060611014758.41268.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <010501c68d02$e6ebec70$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Chris M wrote... > sorry, but it always seems to be the person who > responds to name calling with name calling who gets > the reprimand. Well then officially and in plain sight, let me say that I post a reprimand while reading a thread and it may or may not be the primary offender. I don't read every thread on the list. It's possible I stumble across something after several things have gone on already. It's a whole lot easier for me to just shout out "don't make me turn this car around..." than it is to go back and figure out who started it and who was the "worse" offender ;) Loosely translated, don't take it personally :> Jay From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jun 10 22:12:17 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:12:17 -0700 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <010501c68d02$e6ebec70$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <20060611014758.41268.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> <010501c68d02$e6ebec70$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <448B8A11.2020008@DakotaCom.Net> Jay West wrote: > I don't read every thread on the list. It's possible I stumble across > something after several things have gone on already. It's a whole lot > easier for me to just shout out "don't make me turn this car around..." ROTFLMFAO! Boy, does THAT bring back memories!! :-/ > than it is to go back and figure out who started it and who was the > "worse" offender ;) From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Sat Jun 10 22:02:00 2006 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 23:02:00 -0400 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <010501c68d02$e6ebec70$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: Jay West wrote > Chris M wrote... > > sorry, but it always seems to be the person who > > responds to name calling with name calling who gets > > the reprimand. > > Well then officially and in plain sight, let me say that > I post a reprimand while reading a thread and it may or > may not be the primary offender. > > I don't read every thread on the list. It's possible I > stumble across something after several things have gone > on already. It's a whole lot easier for me to just shout > out "don't make me turn this car around..." than it is > to go back and figure out who started it and who was the > "worse" offender ;) > > Loosely translated, don't take it personally :> But Dad... he was looking out _MY_ window! From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jun 10 22:02:07 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 22:02:07 -0500 Subject: OT: RoHS was: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End of References: <200606041131030177.00881EFB@10.0.0.252><5.1.0.14.2.20060610204046.0d360b48@localhost> <200606101914040189.0C7F55F7@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <012001c68d03$6cdf9c50$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Chuck wrote.... > Maybe he's exaggerating a little. I sent him a private email that sent > him > to the classiccmp.org email subscription page, where he can take himself > off of the list. I jumped all over it right away and just unsubbed him. Nothing is probably as offensive as suddenly getting traffic from a list that you didn't subscribe to. I did have a "hiccup" with the list server today as I was trying to dig back in to mailman to refresh my memory on how certain parts of it worked. However, he was subbed to the list, and I find it hard to imagine the list just picked his address out of thin air and subbed him. MOST strange. I have no clue what happened there. Jay From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 10 22:17:01 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:17:01 -0700 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <20060610193155.S41254@shell.lmi.net> References: <20060610155724.O31953@shell.lmi.net> <200606101621350897.0BE16F82@10.0.0.252> <20060610163137.H31953@shell.lmi.net> <200606101849260134.0C68C86E@10.0.0.252> <20060610193155.S41254@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200606102017010671.0CB8F967@10.0.0.252> On 6/10/2006 at 7:47 PM Fred Cisin wrote: >~$400 and non-standard frequencies v ~$100 for a standard CCTV monitor >(plus, I could videotape directly from CGA) I don't think I ever owned a monochrome monitor that was branded as a IBM-compatible for use with my MDA. It was easy enough to tweak standard surplus monitors to display at the higher horizontal frequency--and you could get them in 19" for not a lot of money. When VGA first came out, I invested in a couple of monochrome VGA monitors (still have them). I didn't miss the colors and saved myself a bunch of bucks. Eventually, I picked up some surplus Daisy 20" behemoths and wired up a converter that converted the separate sync to SOG. Not much more than a 74LS86 and some resistors. Jettisoned those around 1995 and picked up some surplus (I think HP) Sony monitors--a 17" and a 20" and did the same. I traded the Daisies to Dave McGlone for a TRS-80 Mod 16 and a bunch of other stuff. I'm using LCD now, but if anyone wants the monitors, they can have them. Nice units, even if they do have the faint Trinitron wire shadow. I'll toss in the PCI VGA cards and adapters. It'll cost me $20 the each to have them recycled at the dump. >Boy did Jenkins get bent out of shape when people began imitating his >[imporoved] imitation of the MDA! Boy, those were the times--nothing was safe from the Taiwanese. I'm convinced that some folks working in Silicon Valley PC firms were quietly spying for Taiwanese firms. For a number of years, it was mostly commodity ICs in designs, so what was to stop them? Today, it'd be a field day for the lawyers. I meant to get an InColor card, but enhanced EGA and then VGA just rendered the issue moot. Cheers, Chuck From aw288 at osfn.org Sat Jun 10 22:24:35 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 23:24:35 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Socket Use In-Reply-To: <448B8806.6070104@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: > I've not noticed that. I use cost solely as the criteria for > when to specify a socketed part on a board of mine. But, that > is OVERALL cost (which is burdened by in-warranty repairs, etc.) Please do not take this as a slam, but have you done real floorwalking amongst the assembly lines with your boards? Most design engineers have not - many have never even seen an assembly line*. Depending on the company, or even the project team, communication between the "front engineers" and the "back engineers" can range from excellent to poor. IBM generally was very good, I understand, across the board. At USR (where I spent time), it was mixed - some products were well coordinated but others were bombs (FaxServer, NetServer leap to mind. They were so hard to make properly that the line was killed prematurely). Anyway, my point is that you may not be getting appropriate feedback about the your designs when you send them out. They may get a board and say - "Great, more goddamn sockets. I wish he would stop." - then go ahead and make the boards. Or they may get back to you and say "Do you really need these sockets?". Yeilds do go down when sockets are used. Insertions are not perfect, and bad insertions can result in poor reliability and/or rework time. Sockets fatigue the machines (or people) more, and slow the line down simply due to that extra sliver of time spent on the sockets. All this adds up, tiny is it may be, but manufacturing lives and dies by yeild numbers. * Once again, please do not take this as a slam. I just suspect that many design engineers on this list have never seen the other side, regardless of their skills. Manufacturing engineering is an interesting mix of hardcore engineering, economics, unskilled labor, tricks of the trade, ancient Chinese secrets, and that ISO9001 garbage. > And, anything that can add value by being socketed E.g., in > some markets, it's easier to get a set of DIPs through > customs than it is to try to get a whole *board* through. Yes, there are places for sockets, but any manufacturing engineer will try his hardest to convince you otherwise! William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 10 22:56:30 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 20:56:30 -0700 Subject: Socket Use In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606102056300956.0CDD1FF6@10.0.0.252> There was (and maybe still is) a valid use for sockets. The "was" was when LSI IC prices were high. There was just too much invested in them to scrap them along with a defective board. This still obtains with CPUs and memory in PCs. At one time, two-channel serial I/O boards for PCs were shipped with one 8250 and one set of 1488/89s. The positions for the second port were socketed. Before that, almost any LSI IC was socketed, such were the economic realities. The "is" is when a ROM needs to be socketed for the purpose of a field upgrade, although flash is making this pretty much obsolete. I can't think of any other reasons. Are there any? Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jun 10 23:08:19 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 21:08:19 -0700 Subject: Socket Use In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448B9733.4010005@DakotaCom.Net> William Donzelli wrote: >> I've not noticed that. I use cost solely as the criteria for >> when to specify a socketed part on a board of mine. But, that >> is OVERALL cost (which is burdened by in-warranty repairs, etc.) > > Please do not take this as a slam, but have you done real floorwalking > amongst the assembly lines with your boards? Most design engineers have > not - many have never even seen an assembly line*. Depending on the > company, or even the project team, communication between the "front > engineers" and the "back engineers" can range from excellent to poor. IBM > generally was very good, I understand, across the board. At USR (where I > spent time), it was mixed - some products were well coordinated but others > were bombs (FaxServer, NetServer leap to mind. They were so hard to make > properly that the line was killed prematurely). You're dealing with cheap (inexpensive) consumer products. How did they handle in warranty repairs -- toss the part in a box and donate the box to a local tech school? When you're dealing with something that sells for *many* hundreds or *thousands* of dollars, you look at things differently. I.e. if I have to send someone to a remote village in China to service a piece of equipment because the locals can't just *replace* a hammer driver or analog front end, suddenly the cost of all those "extra insertions" looks like *pennies*! The alternative -- telling a customer to keep a full set of spares on hand -- says a LOT about your confidence in your design! :-( And, makes that product look a LOT more expensive to the customer. Quite different than a market where folks can have a stack of modem cards in a desk drawer as spares -- and another customer down the street to borrow from if need be, etc. > Anyway, my point is that you may not be getting appropriate feedback about > the your designs when you send them out. They may get a board and say - > "Great, more goddamn sockets. I wish he would stop." - then go ahead and > make the boards. Or they may get back to you and say "Do you really need > these sockets?". My first few jobs were doing field service work and managing a production line. That's where I learned what *real* costs were (ignoring, for the time being, opportunity costs and the cost of "bad will" from your customers). > Yeilds do go down when sockets are used. Insertions are not perfect, and > bad insertions can result in poor reliability and/or rework time. Sockets > fatigue the machines (or people) more, and slow the line down simply due > to that extra sliver of time spent on the sockets. All this adds up, tiny > is it may be, but manufacturing lives and dies by yeild numbers. But you are looking at it from a consumer products viewpoint. High volume, drive the cost and quality as low as the market will tolerate. And, if something fails, just replace it (since the labor cost of *repairing* -- not just "retesting" -- a "defective" product exceeds the DM+DL for that product). Imagine the device you are selling is used in a manufacturing environment. I.e. someone relies on your device to make *their* products. Being "down" for an hour, day, *week* can cost more than your product -- even if your product was a few kilobucks. Most manfacturing lines have a hard time justifying a complete set of spares. And, expecting your field tech to carry *everything* that could ned to be replaced makes his job harder (and, more costly to you). OTOH, if your design supports repair in the field, then you have more options available. Customers don't want to have EE's on their payroll *just* in case something needs troubleshooting. *But*, having a *tech* on their payroll who can take direction from someone (over the phone) and replace components without butchering a board (trying to unsolder components) > * Once again, please do not take this as a slam. I just suspect that many > design engineers on this list have never seen the other side, regardless > of their skills. Manufacturing engineering is an interesting mix of > hardcore engineering, economics, unskilled labor, tricks of the trade, > ancient Chinese secrets, and that ISO9001 garbage. Exactly. And, just like writing code, you have to *measure* before making decisions. Listen to the manufacturing engineer who is SOLELY concerned with his yields and never bears the cost of lost sales, service calls, stocking costs, etc. and you get a stilted view of what the REAL costs are. They are just as guilty of monovision as the design engineer who never walks the floor. >> And, anything that can add value by being socketed E.g., in >> some markets, it's easier to get a set of DIPs through >> customs than it is to try to get a whole *board* through. > > Yes, there are places for sockets, but any manufacturing engineer will try > his hardest to convince you otherwise! Caps are as likely to fail as a socket -- do you keep caps out of a design? *Or*, do you design them in WITH PLENTY OF MARGIN? From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jun 10 23:17:32 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 21:17:32 -0700 Subject: Socket Use In-Reply-To: <200606102056300956.0CDD1FF6@10.0.0.252> References: <200606102056300956.0CDD1FF6@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <448B995C.9020606@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > There was (and maybe still is) a valid use for sockets. > > The "was" was when LSI IC prices were high. There was just too much > invested in them to scrap them along with a defective board. This still > obtains with CPUs and memory in PCs. At one time, two-channel serial I/O > boards for PCs were shipped with one 8250 and one set of 1488/89s. The > positions for the second port were socketed. Before that, almost any LSI > IC was socketed, such were the economic realities. > > The "is" is when a ROM needs to be socketed for the purpose of a field > upgrade, although flash is making this pretty much obsolete. > > I can't think of any other reasons. Are there any? In a "PC", In a CNC machine that has 240V running around next to signal lines from LVDT's etc. where there is a real risk that "something" can end up where it shouldn't be (e.g., 240V shorting to the LVDT inputs and taking out the front end on the interface) you might think twice! A socket is real cheap insurance. Some products aren't suited to use of FLASH (e.g., gaming devices tend to want *real* ROMs so they can't be tampered with unless seals are physically disturbed). Older products couldn't bear the cost of *big* FLASH devices. Some products may be designed *knowing* that a device is not yet available for production -- yet you don't want to delay your product's market entry. So, you might opt to install a socket that can support this "enhancement" in the future without requiring user's to send their devices in for service. Some options are just too expensive to build in to each product (e.g., coprocessors) I see sockets being around for a very long time, yet! From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sat Jun 10 23:25:26 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 21:25:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: cash register tape In-Reply-To: <200606101857190955.0C700341@10.0.0.252> References: <200606101857190955.0C700341@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/10/2006 at 5:00 PM David Griffith wrote: > > >I'm pretty sure I could design and build a paper tape punch and reader > >that uses plain old cash register tape and winds the tape on old microfilm > >spools. Assuming the sprocket and data holes match standard paper tape, > >what are some other caveats to look out for? > > David, I don't think that cash register tape would be robust enough. > Remember that paper tape was robust enough to go through the meatgrinder of > an ASR 33--and for those who had to use a tape over and over again, there > was mylar-coated tape. > > You know, paper tape's still very much around in the CNC field. Here's a > supplier: > > http://www.wncsupply.com/mylar.html > > There are others. Admittedly, it's not cheap, but how many thousand feet > are you planning to punch? Well, it seems that the paper tapes are cheap enough for casual fiddling around. There's my source for media. -- 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 Sat Jun 10 23:36:37 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 21:36:37 -0700 Subject: Socket Use In-Reply-To: <448B995C.9020606@DakotaCom.Net> References: <200606102056300956.0CDD1FF6@10.0.0.252> <448B995C.9020606@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606102136370436.0D01D7CE@10.0.0.252> On 6/10/2006 at 9:17 PM Don Y wrote: >In a "PC", No kidding. When you get one of those CPUs with the NIchicon electrolyic disease, you pull the CPU and memory and pretty much everything else goes to recycling--well,maybe you pull the button cell. Such are realities. To sell an old PC mobo on eBay, one almost has to include CPU and memory with it--and even then, there are no guarantees. This seems horribly wasteful to me, but then my TV is a Sony from the 1970's. Repairs have been easy and it just keeps going. It survoved a fall off of a table during the Loma Prieta quake (cracked the plastic bezel, but some fiberglass cloth and Bondo took care of that. After a coat of paint, it looks original.) No remote on this one, but there is a mini phone jack labeled "KV-1922" whatever that's for. The portable AM/FM radio sitting on my kitchen table is likewise an old Sony, but this time from the 60's that proudly proclaims "10 transistor". Those are germanium transistors--the unit's powered by 3 D cells, which last about a year or so of daily use. A nylon dial indicator pulley cracked, so I fabricated one from the head of a nylon thumbscrew. That's been the extent of repairs on it--it's quite sensitive--even the dial indicator light still works. But with a modern PC mobo, I couldn't rationalize the time spent repairing it. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jun 10 23:54:08 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 21:54:08 -0700 Subject: Socket Use In-Reply-To: <200606102136370436.0D01D7CE@10.0.0.252> References: <200606102056300956.0CDD1FF6@10.0.0.252> <448B995C.9020606@DakotaCom.Net> <200606102136370436.0D01D7CE@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <448BA1F0.6000104@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/10/2006 at 9:17 PM Don Y wrote: > >> In a "PC", > > No kidding. When you get one of those CPUs with the NIchicon electrolyic Heh heh heh... "Nichicon Electrolytic Disease"... you heard it here, first, folks! :> > disease, you pull the CPU and memory and pretty much everything else goes I have been leary of even salvaging the CPU. Consider in many cases the "diseased" components are supply decoupling for the CPU... how do you know that one of those voltages didn't swing "too far" at some point while the CPU was operating in that environment? > to recycling--well,maybe you pull the button cell. Such are realities. To > sell an old PC mobo on eBay, one almost has to include CPU and memory with > it--and even then, there are no guarantees. > > This seems horribly wasteful to me, but then my TV is a Sony from the > 1970's. Repairs have been easy and it just keeps going. It survoved a I kept my JVC set running for 20 years -- until my "aging vision" had me install a cap backwards. One and a half ohnoseconds later it was toast! (but, I figure 20 years from a TV is A Good Deal) > fall off of a table during the Loma Prieta quake (cracked the plastic > bezel, but some fiberglass cloth and Bondo took care of that. After a coat > of paint, it looks original.) No remote on this one, but there is a mini > phone jack labeled "KV-1922" whatever that's for. > > The portable AM/FM radio sitting on my kitchen table is likewise an old > Sony, but this time from the 60's that proudly proclaims "10 transistor". > Those are germanium transistors--the unit's powered by 3 D cells, which > last about a year or so of daily use. A nylon dial indicator pulley > cracked, so I fabricated one from the head of a nylon thumbscrew. That's > been the extent of repairs on it--it's quite sensitive--even the dial > indicator light still works. > > But with a modern PC mobo, I couldn't rationalize the time spent repairing > it. PC's are designed as disposable products. I wonder why they even bother with "extra" SIMM/DIMM sockets... just build it in a particular configuration and forget it! From bear at typewritten.org Sun Jun 11 02:32:44 2006 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 00:32:44 -0700 Subject: DN10000s In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <96B3998D-F8C5-4EF4-B6C0-15FA208568E2@typewritten.org> On Jun 10, 2006, at 6:04 PM, Scott Quinn wrote: > FAA had, I think, some in-house S/W on their Apollos- what did > Boeing use on them? They ran a document publishing system built loosely around Interleaf, or at least that's the application that prevented them from getting rid of their Apollos long ago. ok bear From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Sun Jun 11 04:35:37 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:35:37 +0100 Subject: DN10000s References: <3965904B-D58A-4CBF-AE68-DF0669282254@typewritten.org> Message-ID: <002501c68d3a$659c4ec0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> ----- Original Message ----- From: "r.stricklin" > > Absolutely nothing, and that's confirmed. Boeing was the last > existing Apollo customer with systems still in production until > September of 2005. The final three years of which all hardware > maintenance was performed in-house, scavenging parts from > decomissioned machines. All leftover parts cleared surplus by > CYE2005, which is a pity as I owed DOMAIN keyboards to a few folks > and now I am not sure if I'll be able to make good on it. > > I think the FAA were the second-to-last existing Apollo customer. Not > sure when they finally retired their last systems, but it was years > before Boeing did. > We STILL have operational 3500's at work, controlling a digital CCTV system, and yes, keeping the things going is an absolute nightmare! Jim. From cc at corti-net.de Sun Jun 11 04:41:30 2006 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 11:41:30 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <005801c68c9c$c0594320$0200a8c0@p2deskto> References: <003b01c68be5$b01cffe0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> <005801c68c9c$c0594320$0200a8c0@p2deskto> Message-ID: On Sat, 10 Jun 2006, Jim Beacon wrote: > I have a few large Tek scopes (585, 545A, 545B, 547, 541, 535A, 515A and > 502A), as well as a couple of later models (561, 564, 564B and a 647). I I, too, have several large scopes in our museum here. Originally we didn't want to start collecting such items, but being radio/tube enthusiats (me and Klemens) we couldn't let them to the junk. You just can't imagine what can still be found at our university (and others probably too). So now we have a 536 incl. several plugins, a 535A, 547, 502, 555 and 549. BTW I found four big Tek carts, too, which aren't easy to find today. > difficult to maintain, but are more convenient in the workshop. What I'd > really like is a 549, if anyone with in a 100 miles of London has one they > no longer want :-) If that's the storage scope then we have it (and it works!) :-)) It came with several plugins inclusive two sampling units. To come back to computers, here's what we tried one day not long ago: There's a (DECUS?) program for the PDP-8 that emulates a Tek 4014 terminal. It requires two serial ports, one to the host system and one to the console terminal, and then a VC8e. It is intended to work with some large screen storage scope but I simply hooked up the Tek 549. The host was a Unix system (Sun 4/260) running GnuPlot (tek40xx). Now guess how it worked... The screen on the scope is too small to read text, but graphics are fine. Christian Jim: Aren't you also a list member on vintage-radio.net? I've subscribed to the list several weeks ago, too, in the need for some idea to get my french HDTV set (819 lines, 11 MHz bandwidth) working again (with a PC, Kat's RGB combiner and a modulator). From gordon at gjcp.net Sun Jun 11 02:40:49 2006 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 08:40:49 +0100 Subject: Socket Use In-Reply-To: <448BA1F0.6000104@DakotaCom.Net> References: <200606102056300956.0CDD1FF6@10.0.0.252> <448B995C.9020606@DakotaCom.Net> <200606102136370436.0D01D7CE@10.0.0.252> <448BA1F0.6000104@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <1150011650.6966.20.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 21:54 -0700, Don Y wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 6/10/2006 at 9:17 PM Don Y wrote: > > > >> In a "PC", > > > > No kidding. When you get one of those CPUs with the NIchicon electrolyic > > Heh heh heh... "Nichicon Electrolytic Disease"... you heard it > here, first, folks! :> Ah, the dreaded cheap-and-crappy electrolytics. Every so often I take one of my video cameras apart and shotgun a few more electrolytics, and it works a bit better for a few weeks until the next set of dying caps goes. Offtopic: If anyone out there (Tony, I'm looking at you...) has a manual for a Sony CCD-V6000 Hi8 camera, let me know. Gordon. From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sun Jun 11 10:18:13 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:18:13 -0500 Subject: fun for the EE guys (board design) Message-ID: <2169096f03b24eae8845431db5c2a528@valleyimplants.com> Found a problem in my IRIS 3k - didn't have a terminator on the IM1 memory bus. I doubt that this is still available through retail channels Gerhard helped quite a lot by taking pictures of the board and giving a description of where it went, now I need to fab one. The board looks to be 4-layer (front&back traces with power and ground planes), which is a bit difficult to do at home. This runs in a 16MHz 68k system. Would it be possible to fab it using a barely-etched dual sided board for power/ground planes and running point-to-point wires for the signals, or is this asking for trouble as far as timing issues go? Termination is standard 331/331 resistors. Scott Quinn From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jun 11 10:32:30 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 08:32:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU Message-ID: <20060611153230.26833.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> dude...I wasnt taking personal at all. I was just pointing something out. It happens to me alot! LoL. Maybe it has something to do with all those banana peels... --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > Chris M wrote... > > sorry, but it always seems to be the person who > > responds to name calling with name calling who gets > > the reprimand. > > Well then officially and in plain sight, let me say that I post a reprimand > while reading a thread and it may or may not be the primary offender. > > I don't read every thread on the list. It's possible I stumble across > something after several things have gone on already. It's a whole lot easier > for me to just shout out "don't make me turn this car around..." than it is > to go back and figure out who started it and who was the "worse" offender ;) > > Loosely translated, don't take it personally :> > > Jay > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From RLAAG at PACBELL.NET Sun Jun 11 10:46:28 2006 From: RLAAG at PACBELL.NET (BOB LAAG) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 08:46:28 -0700 Subject: Vintage computer diagrams scanning Message-ID: <448C3AD4.5010107@PACBELL.NET> I was wondering about getting some of the diagrams and text documentation scanner and made available for those needing it... I have stuff for Computer Automation Alpha-16 and LSI-2 with the diagrams being on 11 X 17 sheets... I called around and it seemed that they wanted $5 a page, and this just sounded like a rip off... Al Kosso mentioned a while back that he might help do this and i was wondering if the 11 X 17 pages are hard to do or if they can be done on his scanner or another??? I am in so. cal. in Riverside... From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jun 11 11:24:41 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 09:24:41 -0700 Subject: Vintage computer diagrams scanning Message-ID: Al Kosso mentioned a while back that he might help do this and i was wondering if the 11 X 17 pages are hard to do or if they can be done on his scanner or another??? -- They are easy to do. My scanner handles 11 x 17 double sided. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 11 11:54:41 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 09:54:41 -0700 Subject: Vintage computer diagrams scanning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606110954410745.0FA58FBD@10.0.0.252> On 6/11/2006 at 9:24 AM Al Kossow wrote: >They are easy to do. My scanner handles 11 x 17 double sided. I've also scanned the large folio-sized music by simply photocopying it down to letter-sized format first. However, this might not be feasible if there's a large number of pages to be scanned. Anyone remember the days of the "hand scanners" with their 4-or-inch wide scanning head? To scan a page, you made two passes, then used software to join the halves. Nasty business--but I think I actually have one of the little buggers if anyone wants one for their collection. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 11 12:14:16 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:14:16 -0700 Subject: Socket Use In-Reply-To: <1150011650.6966.20.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <200606102056300956.0CDD1FF6@10.0.0.252> <448B995C.9020606@DakotaCom.Net> <200606102136370436.0D01D7CE@10.0.0.252> <448BA1F0.6000104@DakotaCom.Net> <1150011650.6966.20.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <448C4F68.4070100@DakotaCom.Net> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Ah, the dreaded cheap-and-crappy electrolytics. Every so often I take > one of my video cameras apart and shotgun a few more electrolytics, and > it works a bit better for a few weeks until the next set of dying caps > goes. > > Offtopic: If anyone out there (Tony, I'm looking at you...) has a manual > for a Sony CCD-V6000 Hi8 camera, let me know. Yeah, I'd like something for a Sony CCD-SC55! Damn thing has all its prompts in Japanese -- so I can;t even figure out what it's trying to tell the user! :-( But, it makes a decent (albeit oversized) webcam! :> Probably time to put it in the recycling pile... From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Jun 11 12:05:47 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:05:47 -0700 Subject: Vintage computer diagrams scanning In-Reply-To: <200606110954410745.0FA58FBD@10.0.0.252> References: <200606110954410745.0FA58FBD@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: At 9:54 AM -0700 6/11/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: >Anyone remember the days of the "hand scanners" with their 4-or-inch wide >scanning head? To scan a page, you made two passes, then used software to >join the halves. Nasty business--but I think I actually have one of the >little buggers if anyone wants one for their collection. Ugh! Don't remind me, I bought one, as well as a jig to help you do a "better" job of scanning. Not only did you have to "try" to move the scanner across the paper at the same speed, but you had to keep it in a straight line. To make matters worse, I made one scan, then set it aside, by the time I went to use it again a few months later, it was dead. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 11 12:20:11 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:20:11 -0700 Subject: fun for the EE guys (board design) In-Reply-To: <2169096f03b24eae8845431db5c2a528@valleyimplants.com> References: <2169096f03b24eae8845431db5c2a528@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <448C50CB.1060104@DakotaCom.Net> Scott Quinn wrote: > Found a problem in my IRIS 3k - didn't have a terminator on the IM1 memory bus. I doubt that this is still available through > retail channels > Gerhard helped quite a lot by taking pictures of the board and giving a description of where it went, now I need to fab one. > > The board looks to be 4-layer (front&back traces with power and ground planes), which is a bit difficult to do at home. This runs > in a 16MHz 68k system. Would it be possible to fab it using a barely-etched dual sided board for power/ground planes and running > point-to-point wires for the signals, or is this asking for trouble as far as timing issues go? > Termination is standard 331/331 resistors. How large is it? You can probably get it done "for free" using one of the "$500 promotions" that PCB manufacturers often have. Of course, they are expecting you to SAVE $500 on your > $500 order... but, if you are only doing one or two and can live without things like silkscreen, you can probably send them a layout tweeked to come in UNDER that $500 number (ie. FREE) Otherwise... What sort of connector does it have on it (sorry, I don't have an IRIS)? I suspect you can probably hand-wire the whole thing (depends on what they used to drive the bus and how sharp the edges are). That's not a particularly fast bus (I've wirewarpped 68K designs that fast, easily). --don From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 11 12:14:21 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:14:21 -0700 Subject: fun for the EE guys (board design) In-Reply-To: <2169096f03b24eae8845431db5c2a528@valleyimplants.com> References: <2169096f03b24eae8845431db5c2a528@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <200606111014210770.0FB790FB@10.0.0.252> On 6/11/2006 at 10:18 AM Scott Quinn wrote: >The board looks to be 4-layer (front&back traces with power and ground >planes), which is a bit difficult to do at home. This runs >in a 16MHz 68k system. Would it be possible to fab it using a >barely-etched dual sided board for power/ground planes and running >point-to-point wires for the signals, or is this asking for trouble as far >as timing issues go? Golly, at that bus speed, I'd think that even wirewrapped terminator boards would do the job. Your method would probably be fine--and may even be superior to PCB (reduced crosstalk if you keep the wires short). Cheers, Chuck From g-wright at worldnet.att.net Sun Jun 11 12:30:10 2006 From: g-wright at worldnet.att.net (Jerry Wright) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:30:10 -0700 Subject: Any DEC RSTS folks out there, need help Message-ID: <448C5322.3040905@worldnet.att.net> Hi, I have been working on my 11/44 for a while and finally go it to boot and find the drives. (RA80's) I believe it had more than the (2) I have. Drive ID buttons say 0 and 2. The system booted RSTS 1 time and of coarse asked for the password. I shut down the system and went back to the "books" for a while. I then tried to boot it up again the next day and receive the following. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> CONSOLE 17777707 173064 >>>~ CONSOLE 17777707 173012 >>> User-defined address for Device DZ1: not found - device disabled. (this was there before) RSTS V8.0-07 EVERETT XXXXXXXX (DU0) INIT V8.0-07 Option: START Disk is being rebuilt - wait ... DU0 Error UDASA P.OPCD P.STS P.BCNT P.BUFF P.BUF2 P.LBN 000000 000241 000010 000000 000000 000000 000000 Unrecoverable disk error on DU0 PC=121232 PS=030341 OV=000022 M5=001600 M6=003242 SP=041266 R0=000000 R1=077777 R2=042125 R3=172150 R4=041410 R5=140026 SP-> 026220 000006 000002 150103 000001 041410 Fatal RSTS/E system initialization error! Option: HELP The valid RSTS initialization options are: DSKINT Initialize disk to RSTS file structure COPY Copy minimal system to disk PATCH Patch a file HARDWR Set controller characteristics INSTALL Install a monitor SIL REFRESH Manipulate files in [0,1] DEFAULT Set monitor defaults SET Set device characteristics START Start timesharing Start timesharing (fast) BOOT Bootstrap a device SAVRES SAVE or RESTORE a RSTS/E disk IDENT Display version of INIT and installed SIL HELP Type this HELP message FILL Set console fill for INIT Only the first two characters need be typed. Option: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I would guess it has disk/File problems of some sort. I know very little about RSTS and it looks like its a steep learning curve. The second drive has some kind of internal control problems and shuts off if it is accessed by the 11/44. it was left (Off). The system has been setting for 10 years before I got it. I try to keep each system intack if possible. The Dead TU80 is my next project. On the bright side it did come with a SCSI card. Thanks, Jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc g-wright at att.net From mail at g-lenerz.de Sun Jun 11 13:06:47 2006 From: mail at g-lenerz.de (Gerhard Lenerz) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 20:06:47 +0200 Subject: fun for the EE guys (board design) In-Reply-To: <448C50CB.1060104@DakotaCom.Net> References: <2169096f03b24eae8845431db5c2a528@valleyimplants.com> <448C50CB.1060104@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <1526762561.20060611200647@g-lenerz.de> Sunday, June 11, 2006, 7:20:11 PM, you wrote: > What sort of connector does it have on it (sorry, I don't have an > IRIS)? I'll just post the image link - maybe that helps in finding good ideas: http://sgistuff.g-lenerz.de/pictures/iris.php#imterm This board is plugged into the two connectors of the last memory board in the chain. The cables are then connected to the terminator instead of the board itself. -- Best regards, Gerhard mailto:mail at g-lenerz.de Old SGI Stuff http://sgistuff.g-lenerz.de/ From g-wright at worldnet.att.net Sun Jun 11 12:44:57 2006 From: g-wright at worldnet.att.net (Jerry Wright) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:44:57 -0700 Subject: Looking for Motorola Boot disks Message-ID: <448C5699.1090708@worldnet.att.net> Hi, I have a few Motorola systems that still lack a boot disk. I believe they had a diagnostic/boot disk for the VME systems that worked on a few different systems, but I may be wrong. The first 2 ran VERSAdos - VME/10 5 1/4 - VME 1131 5 1/4 - EXORciser 8" Thanks, In advance - jerry From g-wright at worldnet.att.net Sun Jun 11 13:06:36 2006 From: g-wright at worldnet.att.net (Jerry Wright) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 11:06:36 -0700 Subject: DN10000s Message-ID: <448C5BAC.6060305@worldnet.att.net> Message: 9 Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 00:32:44 -0700 On Jun 10, 2006, at 6:04 PM, Scott Quinn wrote: >> FAA had, I think, some in-house S/W on their Apollos- what did >> Boeing use on them? > > >>They ran a document publishing system built loosely around Interleaf, >>>or at least that's the application that prevented them from getting >>>rid of their Apollos long ago. >>ok >>bear -- As far as I know Boeing is still using Apollo's in some places. They where one of the largest users of Apollo's and had large amounts of there own software running on them. Most of this was for Airplane testing and development. This is what kept the Apollo's around for so long. Someone in the Seattle area had mentioned that they needed a keyboard for an Apollo. Just contact me off list. I still have a few. - Jerry Jerry Wright g-wright at att.net From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jun 11 13:45:33 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 18:45:33 +0000 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448C64CD.3040101@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: >> service manual for a simple thing like a mouse ;o) > > Actaully, I don't have a mouse on this PC (probably the only PC in the > world not to have one, but...) I don't have one on my laptop either, just a pointing device ;-) (sorry) From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jun 11 13:54:36 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 18:54:36 +0000 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <448B12F3.8010106@DakotaCom.Net> References: <448B12F3.8010106@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <448C66EC.5000104@yahoo.co.uk> Don Y wrote: > Hi, > > Is there an "accepted norm" for correspondence, here, > with respect to top posting and message trimming? > > Or, am I just being a grumpy olde farte? :> Funnily enough, your message landed after Jay's reply, so it was sort-of like a top post :-P I don't like top posting much for various reasons - but what really irritates is when people top-post in an environment filled with bottom-posters, as any kind of context gets seriously messed up (unless you go around editing top-posted replies and converting them to bottom-posted ones when replying to them) I suspect this list if filled with grumpy old farts, though ;) cheers Jules From jvdg at sparcpark.net Sun Jun 11 14:14:12 2006 From: jvdg at sparcpark.net (Joost van de Griek) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 21:14:12 +0200 Subject: Vintage computer diagrams scanning In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 6/11/06 7:05 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 9:54 AM -0700 6/11/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Anyone remember the days of the "hand scanners" with their 4-or-inch wide >> scanning head? To scan a page, you made two passes, then used software to >> join the halves. Nasty business--but I think I actually have one of the >> little buggers if anyone wants one for their collection. > > Ugh! Don't remind me, I bought one, as well as a jig to help you do > a "better" job of scanning. Not only did you have to "try" to move > the scanner across the paper at the same speed, but you had to keep > it in a straight line. > > To make matters worse, I made one scan, then set it aside, by the > time I went to use it again a few months later, it was dead. I fondly remember a variety of DIY projects and kits that would convert a 9-pin home computer printer into a scanner. ,xtG .tsooJ -- Do you really think that when Jesus comes back he'll want to see a cross? -- Joost van de Griek From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 11 14:27:08 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 12:27:08 -0700 Subject: fun for the EE guys (board design) In-Reply-To: <1526762561.20060611200647@g-lenerz.de> References: <2169096f03b24eae8845431db5c2a528@valleyimplants.com> <448C50CB.1060104@DakotaCom.Net> <1526762561.20060611200647@g-lenerz.de> Message-ID: <448C6E8C.2070604@DakotaCom.Net> Gerhard Lenerz wrote: > Sunday, June 11, 2006, 7:20:11 PM, you wrote: > >> What sort of connector does it have on it (sorry, I don't have an >> IRIS)? > > I'll just post the image link - maybe that helps in finding good > ideas: > > http://sgistuff.g-lenerz.de/pictures/iris.php#imterm > > This board is plugged into the two connectors of the last memory board > in the chain. The cables are then connected to the terminator instead > of the board itself. Huh? Perhaps you mean that the way the board connects to the rest of the machine is *through* the cables (i.e. there is not some other set of connectors on the board that plug into a "backplane")? So, *normally* the cables plug into the memory board but, on the last board, the terminator sits "between" the cables and the board? In other words, any solution *must* have 4 connectors on it (you can't just take two INDIVIDUAL connectors and solder the RPAK's onto the back of those connectors (i.e. skip the PCB entirely!) From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jun 11 14:21:04 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 12:21:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Vintage computer diagrams scanning In-Reply-To: <200606110954410745.0FA58FBD@10.0.0.252> References: <200606110954410745.0FA58FBD@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060611121937.D79718@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Anyone remember the days of the "hand scanners" with their 4-or-inch wide > scanning head? To scan a page, you made two passes, then used software to > join the halves. Nasty business--but I think I actually have one of the > little buggers if anyone wants one for their collection. Will that software work for piecing together 11x17 scanned with an 8.5x11? From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 11 14:36:12 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 12:36:12 -0700 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <448C66EC.5000104@yahoo.co.uk> References: <448B12F3.8010106@DakotaCom.Net> <448C66EC.5000104@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <448C70AC.6010906@DakotaCom.Net> Jules Richardson wrote: > Don Y wrote: >> Hi, >> >> Is there an "accepted norm" for correspondence, here, >> with respect to top posting and message trimming? >> >> Or, am I just being a grumpy olde farte? :> > > Funnily enough, your message landed after Jay's reply, so it was sort-of > like a top post :-P Yes, I planned it that way! The hard part was telepathically getting Jay to type all that "Don said:..." stuff in ABOVE his post before I sent mine! ;-) > I don't like top posting much for various reasons - but what really > irritates is when people top-post in an environment filled with > bottom-posters, as any kind of context gets seriously messed up (unless > you go around editing top-posted replies and converting them to > bottom-posted ones when replying to them) I think top posting can possibly make sense if two people are carrying on a (private, two party) discussion and can remember the last thing they said to each other, etc. But, for the most part, I think it is just laziness ("I don't have time to scroll down 5 lines and insert my reply where it belongs...") > I suspect this list if filled with grumpy old farts, though ;) *belch* :> From andyh at andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk Sun Jun 11 14:38:56 2006 From: andyh at andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk (Andy Holt) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 20:38:56 +0100 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <448C70AC.6010906@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <000a01c68d8e$add04da0$655b2c0a@w2kdell> > I think top posting can possibly make sense if two people > are carrying on a (private, two party) discussion and can > remember the last thing they said to each other, etc. or if you are using a threading mail reader so you have don't have to keep on reading the same stuff and scrolling down to find the replies. Yes - not all the logic is on the side of the old faithfull. Of course, with adequate trimming either method is usually satisfactory ... but that is a big proviso. Andy From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Jun 11 14:48:11 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 13:48:11 -0600 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <448C70AC.6010906@DakotaCom.Net> References: <448B12F3.8010106@DakotaCom.Net> <448C66EC.5000104@yahoo.co.uk> <448C70AC.6010906@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <448C737B.4050506@jetnet.ab.ca> >> I suspect this list if filled with grumpy old farts, though ;) > *belch* :> NO BOTTOM POST FARTING! I don't care top or bottom posting as long as the posts are trimmed. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 11 14:53:38 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 12:53:38 -0700 Subject: Vintage computer diagrams scanning In-Reply-To: <20060611121937.D79718@shell.lmi.net> References: <200606110954410745.0FA58FBD@10.0.0.252> <20060611121937.D79718@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200606111253380859.1049637F@10.0.0.252> On 6/11/2006 at 12:21 PM Fred Cisin wrote: >On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: >Will that software work for piecing together 11x17 scanned with an 8.5x11? I don't know--I'll have to dig it out and see--if anyone's interested. Cheers, Chuck From mail at g-lenerz.de Sun Jun 11 14:54:29 2006 From: mail at g-lenerz.de (Gerhard Lenerz) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 21:54:29 +0200 Subject: fun for the EE guys (board design) In-Reply-To: <448C6E8C.2070604@DakotaCom.Net> References: <2169096f03b24eae8845431db5c2a528@valleyimplants.com> <448C50CB.1060104@DakotaCom.Net> <1526762561.20060611200647@g-lenerz.de> <448C6E8C.2070604@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <17410144719.20060611215429@g-lenerz.de> Sunday, June 11, 2006, 9:27:08 PM, you wrote: > Huh? Perhaps you mean that the way the board connects to > the rest of the machine is *through* the cables (i.e. there > is not some other set of connectors on the board that plug > into a "backplane")? So, *normally* the cables plug into the > memory board but, on the last board, the terminator sits > "between" the cables and the board? It actually does both. The IRIS has a Multibus backplane into which all boards plugged. In addition to that for some busses ribbon cable connections are used. So a look into the cardcage of an IRIS shows some boards hidden by quite a lot of ribbon cables: http://www.g-lenerz.de/tmp/IMG_1869.JPG As the leftmost board in that picture you see the memory board along with the terminator installed. The following boards also connected by the two ribbon cables at the upper left corner are FPU and CPU. The reason for the termination not being on the memory board itself is that additional memory is installed by using further boards. The last one (leftmost) is then terminated as shown. Just for another view I also upload a picture of a pulled memory board (with attached terminator): http://www.g-lenerz.de/tmp/IMG_1876.JPG -- Best regards, Gerhard mailto:mail at g-lenerz.de Old SGI Stuff http://sgistuff.g-lenerz.de/ From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 11 14:57:31 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 12:57:31 -0700 Subject: fun for the EE guys (board design) In-Reply-To: <448C6E8C.2070604@DakotaCom.Net> References: <2169096f03b24eae8845431db5c2a528@valleyimplants.com> <448C50CB.1060104@DakotaCom.Net> <1526762561.20060611200647@g-lenerz.de> <448C6E8C.2070604@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606111257310666.104CF0DA@10.0.0.252> On 6/11/2006 at 12:27 PM Don Y wrote: >In other words, any solution *must* have 4 connectors on it >(you can't just take two INDIVIDUAL connectors and solder >the RPAK's onto the back of those connectors (i.e. skip the >PCB entirely!) Maybe--didn't/doesn't someone like AP miake a cute little "T" adapter for probing the signals on a ribbon cable? The details are fuzzy, but with a couple of those, that might solve the problem of 4 connectors. I suppose one could just solder the resistors right to the backplane, too. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 11 15:08:28 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 13:08:28 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff Message-ID: <448C783C.8040000@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, The discussion re: SBC6120 got me thinking (something I try hard to do only on special occasions! :> ) It's disturbing that it seems so hard for the OP to scrape up enough interest to justify parts for another build. Which brings me to my question(s)... *Why* aren't people interested in this sort of thing? - lack of interest (i.e. PDP8? what's *that*??) - lack of collector appeal ("Ah, but it's not a REAL '8!") - lack of space ("Hand me a shovel; I'm digging a sub-basement") - lack of CASH () - lack of skills ("Now, *which* end of the iron do I hold??") - lack of time ("Honey, little Bobby set himself on fire, again. Can you please put it out?") I obviously have a good idea what the reasons COULD be. But, I'm curious as to what they REALLY are! In the interests of candor, maybe replies off-list are better? And, don't interpret this as JUST pertaining to that particular product/project. I'm curious as to how receptive (resistant!) people are to *any* sorts of projects like that (even if they are "already assembled") Thanks! I hope I didn't step on anyone's toes... --don From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 11 15:12:35 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 13:12:35 -0700 Subject: fun for the EE guys (board design) In-Reply-To: <17410144719.20060611215429@g-lenerz.de> References: <2169096f03b24eae8845431db5c2a528@valleyimplants.com> <448C50CB.1060104@DakotaCom.Net> <1526762561.20060611200647@g-lenerz.de> <448C6E8C.2070604@DakotaCom.Net> <17410144719.20060611215429@g-lenerz.de> Message-ID: <448C7933.5000609@DakotaCom.Net> Gerhard Lenerz wrote: > Sunday, June 11, 2006, 9:27:08 PM, you wrote: > >> Huh? Perhaps you mean that the way the board connects to >> the rest of the machine is *through* the cables (i.e. there >> is not some other set of connectors on the board that plug >> into a "backplane")? So, *normally* the cables plug into the >> memory board but, on the last board, the terminator sits >> "between" the cables and the board? > > It actually does both. The IRIS has a Multibus backplane into which > all boards plugged. In addition to that for some busses ribbon cable > connections are used. So a look into the cardcage of an IRIS shows > some boards hidden by quite a lot of ribbon cables: > http://www.g-lenerz.de/tmp/IMG_1869.JPG > > As the leftmost board in that picture you see the memory board along > with the terminator installed. The following boards also connected > by the two ribbon cables at the upper left corner are FPU and CPU. The > reason for the termination not being on the memory board itself is > that additional memory is installed by using further boards. The last > one (leftmost) is then terminated as shown. > > Just for another view I also upload a picture of a pulled memory board > (with attached terminator): > http://www.g-lenerz.de/tmp/IMG_1876.JPG But the question still stands: Could the OP just take a pair of the *female* connectors (that plug into the memory board) and solder some RPAKs onto them, then plug onto the board (*whichever* board). Or, would the absence of the *male* connectors (blue in your pix) render the board useless? Or, do it the other way around... keep the blue connectors to mate to the ribbons, solder the RPAKs to those connectors and omit the "black" connectors? From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 11 15:14:37 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 13:14:37 -0700 Subject: fun for the EE guys (board design) In-Reply-To: <200606111257310666.104CF0DA@10.0.0.252> References: <2169096f03b24eae8845431db5c2a528@valleyimplants.com> <448C50CB.1060104@DakotaCom.Net> <1526762561.20060611200647@g-lenerz.de> <448C6E8C.2070604@DakotaCom.Net> <200606111257310666.104CF0DA@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <448C79AD.8000403@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/11/2006 at 12:27 PM Don Y wrote: > >> In other words, any solution *must* have 4 connectors on it >> (you can't just take two INDIVIDUAL connectors and solder >> the RPAK's onto the back of those connectors (i.e. skip the >> PCB entirely!) > > Maybe--didn't/doesn't someone like AP miake a cute little "T" adapter for > probing the signals on a ribbon cable? The details are fuzzy, but with a > couple of those, that might solve the problem of 4 connectors. I suppose > one could just solder the resistors right to the backplane, too. I know someone makes an assembly that fits in series and lets you *open* (via small slide switches) individual conductors. But, I can't see an easy way to exploit that. I'd have to look at pix closer to see if you couldn't make two (identical) "half terminators"... one for each M-F pair of connectors... From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Jun 11 15:13:51 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 14:13:51 -0600 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <448C783C.8040000@DakotaCom.Net> References: <448C783C.8040000@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <448C797F.4060005@jetnet.ab.ca> Don Y wrote: > *Why* aren't people interested in this sort of thing? > - lack of interest (i.e. PDP8? what's *that*??) > - lack of collector appeal ("Ah, but it's not a REAL '8!") > - lack of space ("Hand me a shovel; I'm digging a sub-basement") > - lack of CASH () > - lack of skills ("Now, *which* end of the iron do I hold??") > - lack of time ("Honey, little Bobby set himself on fire, again. > Can you please put it out?") > > I obviously have a good idea what the reasons COULD be. > But, I'm curious as to what they REALLY are! > All of the above. :) The main reason I did not look closely at the SBC6120 is the fact that I did not realise that you had IDE drivers to boot a OS. Having used a real PDP-8 and a TTY I think PDP == PAPER TAPE and don't have both fun items the TTY or the READER/PUNCH. From ddl-cctech at danlan.com Sun Jun 11 16:02:28 2006 From: ddl-cctech at danlan.com (Dan Lanciani) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 17:02:28 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Raylan Ethernet hubs available Message-ID: <200606112102.RAA02940@ss10i.danlan.com> I have three Raylan modular 10Base hubs available with many 10BaseFl modules, ~4 10BaseT modules, and a couple of 10Base2 modules. If you don't know what these are (and possibly if you do :) you probably do not want them. This appears to be a picture of one, though I'm not sure why they are showing such old equipment: http://www.fiberopticsonline.com/Content/ProductShowcase/product.asp?DocID=%7BC893B5FD-74F8-11D4-8C59-009027DE0829%7D As usual, price is $0 plus shipping... Dan Lanciani ddl at danlan.*com From aw288 at osfn.org Sun Jun 11 16:05:01 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 17:05:01 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Socket Use In-Reply-To: <448B9733.4010005@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: > You're dealing with cheap (inexpensive) consumer products. Well, actually, I was on the expensive Total Control side of USR, with $35,000 rack modem systems and $155,000 integrated AOL cabinets. > How did they handle in warranty repairs -- toss the part > in a box and donate the box to a local tech school? Scrap, mostly. It was up to the techs. I think for a while they watched the clock, and if it looked like they were going to overspend time on a debug, they would fling the board into the bin. > But you are looking at it from a consumer products viewpoint. > High volume, drive the cost and quality as low as the market > will tolerate. And, if something fails, just replace it > (since the labor cost of *repairing* -- not just "retesting" -- a > "defective" product exceeds the DM+DL for that product). See above. > Imagine the device you are selling is used in a manufacturing > environment. I.e. someone relies on your device to make > *their* products. Being "down" for an hour, day, *week* can > cost more than your product -- even if your product was a few > kilobucks. Yes, when an AOL node went down, big or small, costs were staggering. We did not measure using hours, days, or weeks, but seconds and lost packets. Sidenote, when the pick-n-place robots went down at USR, it was about $1500 per hour per line. > OTOH, if your design supports repair in the field, then you > have more options available. In todays environment, especially networking, often the cost one would spend replacing the component (including the entire years salary for the tech) would get dwarfed by the lost revenue due to the downtime. I am not exagerrating. I pretty much can not think of anyone of importance that does onsite board level repair in a working environment. Those days are long gone. Even the military pretty much went to depot repairs in the 1970s. > They are just as > guilty of monovision as the design engineer who never walks the floor. Definitely - and the trick is to get everyone working together. > Caps are as likely to fail as a socket -- do you keep caps > out of a design? *Or*, do you design them in WITH PLENTY OF > MARGIN? Remember, we are not talking about reliability (yes, sockets are a problem there as well), but yeild. My point is that socket use takes a big toll on yeild and manufacturing issues. Anyway, yes, one tries to minimize the cap count. There is no black and white, of course. Muntz was not a dumb man. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From aw288 at osfn.org Sun Jun 11 16:14:26 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 17:14:26 -0400 (EDT) Subject: DEC hamfest finds Message-ID: Today's show yeilded one seller with a bunch of DEC PDP-8 cable and Flip Chip scrap - sort of handy, because that DEC coax ribbon cable is not common. Another seller had a LINCscope. This rackmount scope has the oddball DEC LINC-8 custom plugins, but the scope is an RM 564 (I think - the storage scope). Seems odd, although the vendor said the plugins were original to the scope. So the question is - did LINC-8s ever get fitted with storage scopes? William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From rborsuk at colourfull.com Sun Jun 11 16:22:14 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 17:22:14 -0400 Subject: Welcome home DG Nova 3 System Message-ID: <7EED738D-C746-4FEC-B6BF-7247D15E6D58@colourfull.com> Hi All, Thought some of you might want to see my new (? old) Nova 3 System. This system came courtesy of Bob H. who was the owner for several years and thought it might be time to send it to a new home (mine) (yeah!). Here's some pics. http://homepage.mac.com/irisworld/PhotoAlbum3.html Enjoy, Rob From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 11 16:40:39 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 22:40:39 +0100 (BST) Subject: Socket Use In-Reply-To: from "William Donzelli" at Jun 10, 6 11:24:35 pm Message-ID: > > > I've not noticed that. I use cost solely as the criteria for > > when to specify a socketed part on a board of mine. But, that > > is OVERALL cost (which is burdened by in-warranty repairs, etc.) > > Please do not take this as a slam, but have you done real floorwalking > amongst the assembly lines with your boards? Most design engineers have > not - many have never even seen an assembly line*. Depending on the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ As opposed to a 'line of assembly code' (aorry, couldn't resist). More seriously, there is, I will agree, one heck of a difference between prototyping and production. It makes no sense at all to socket most (if any) devices in most production boards. It _may_ make sense to socket rather more stuff in a prototype, or an experimental set-up. I suspect that most of the stuff we do here (related to classic computers, I am not talking about stuff list-members do as part of their jobs) would come under the latter category. If you think of that PDP8-clone board kit that's been discussed here recently, I would think that almost all (if not all) of thsoe will he hand-assembled. Pop each component in by hand and solder it. Nobody (I think) is going to use a pick-and-place machine and a wave solder machine on it. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 11 16:14:43 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 22:14:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: Repair methods (was Cromemco 3101/Beehive B150 score) In-Reply-To: <1149971302.6966.6.camel@localhost.localdomain> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Jun 10, 6 09:28:22 pm Message-ID: > > On Mon, 2006-06-05 at 14:31 -0600, Richard wrote: > > > Then have someone awful try to teach you analog electronics from a > > crappy book using antiquated terminology. (When was the last time > > you heard someone refer to a capacitor as a condenser?) > > When I looked in the workshop manual for my car? ;-) YEs, for some odd reason motor car manufacturers refered to said component as a 'condenser' long after the rest of the world had stopped doing so. Although the workshop manual for the Austin A60 (the nearest one to hand :-)) referes to it as a '.2 microfarad metallized capacitor' (and it is identified as such on the exploded diagram of the ignition distributor). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 11 16:44:06 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 22:44:06 +0100 (BST) Subject: Socket Use In-Reply-To: <200606102056300956.0CDD1FF6@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 10, 6 08:56:30 pm Message-ID: > > I can't think of any other reasons. Are there any? Debugging. particularly on prototypes. For example, I've been known to pull the data bus buffer next to the CPU (assuming everything else is on the other side of the buffer to the CPU) and force the CPU to execute NOPs. Then I get a nice incrememting count on the address bus (with most CPUs, anyhow :-)), and can see that address decoder outputs, etc, behave correctly. Or if you have a data line stuck, you can pull chips connected to the bus until it starts behaving, then look to see why that's always outputting. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 11 16:19:46 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 22:19:46 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <20060610163137.H31953@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jun 10, 6 04:35:39 pm Message-ID: > > > Wait--you had to buy a modulator for the CGA. When I saw the 80x25 text > > display of the CGA (on an IBM monitor), I decided that color wasn't for me. > > WHY? > It has a phono jack on the outside for NTSC; just connect that to a cheap > B&W CCTV monitor. Incidentally, some clonne CGA cards didn't have the phono socket, but had the composite signal on pin 7 of the DE9 connector. Worth checking for it there anyway. > > It ALSO had a 4 pin (minus one for keying) berg plug on the inside that This was, of course, also used to connect the internal monitor of the PortablePC. > was exactly right for a SupRMod][, but why degreade the signal by RF'ing > it, and then tuning it back in? > > > > One thing that held the wholesale adoption of color back was the generally > > lousy quality of the CRTs available at the time. Most were designed for > > broadcast viewing and had a very coarse dot pitch which made things like > > text unpleasant to read. > > B&W was substantially better. (Mode 2) IIRC, you could turn off the colour subcarrier, etc using a bit of one of the output ports (I think this was done in Mode 2), this was worth doing if you used a mono mnonitor. And I seem to rememebr you could get an extra 4 colour palette on the RGB (DE9) output if you did this. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 11 16:24:50 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 22:24:50 +0100 (BST) Subject: atari printers - gears In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jun 11, 6 01:04:49 pm Message-ID: > > On 6/11/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > You can just throw your bad one away and get a new one. There's a guy > > selling 825 printers for $10 the each, NOS on Yahoo!: > > That's one of the reasons I bought a handful of printer mechs from > Alltronics or Electronic Goldmine or one of those guys... spare gears. > The problem is that what I got was about 90% defective. That was my first thought. These gears don't fail because they wear out in use, they fail due to stresses generated by them being pushed onto the speindle. Severaal of mine have failed without being used. Personally, I'd want to use a metal gear that was a sliding fit onto the motor sprindle, and then fix it on with a suitable Loctite. Somebody else suggested replacing all 3 gears in each train. Difficult. The last gear is part of the platten or cable drum, and is, in fact 2 gears wit han anti-backlash spring IIRC. All these parts could be made, but you're not going to find them off-the-shelf. And if you're going to start 'm,king swarf'[1], why not just make the pinion you need. [1] A common UK expresion for doing home machining, for the obvious reason. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 11 16:52:42 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 22:52:42 +0100 (BST) Subject: Socket Use In-Reply-To: <1150011650.6966.20.camel@localhost.localdomain> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Jun 11, 6 08:40:49 am Message-ID: > Offtopic: If anyone out there (Tony, I'm looking at you...) has a manual > for a Sony CCD-V6000 Hi8 camera, let me know. Not that I am aware of (I think the only Sony video camera manual I have is for a monochrome unit with a vidicon tube that goes with a portable reel-to-reel video recorder -- yes I have the unit, it still works [1]). But I will check. Have you checked the usual companies for such manuals? [1] The heads got wrecked by a wonderful -- NOT piece of corner-cutting. The head design is a bit like a Betamax machine in that the entire drum is stationary, there's a head beak with a head on each end that spins in a gap between the upper and lower drums. Anyway, said head beam is mounted on a disk on top of one of the motors, and said disk is held to the motor spindle by a nut. It should be a left-hand thread (so that it self-tightens when in operation), it's not. If it works loose, the heads clatter against the edge of the top drum with obvious results. Anyway, I managed to fit and align the heads taken from a Betamax head disk onto the origianl beam... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 11 16:31:25 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 22:31:25 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <448B7904.7060807@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jun 10, 6 06:59:32 pm Message-ID: > > Why> Apart from HDAs, I can't think of any classic computer device that > > Not EVERYTHING is a "classic computer device" :> No, but everything discussed on this list should be :-) > > > can't be dismantled non-destructively. Mind you, desoldering the HP9100B > > I note that most of Votrax's products are troubling to dismantle > non-destructively (lots of potted "hide me so the user doesn't > know the secrets of my design" stuff). Potting compounds can often be removed without imparing the functionality of the device. I rememebr i obtained a thing called a 'Modem Maximiser', back from the days of 1200 and 2400 baud modems. It connected betweem a computer and a modem, added a real time clock, parallel port, mailbox, etc. Quite a fun toy. Anyway, one of the options for this was an encryption module, that was potted for security. I managed to cut away the potting compount at least far enough to see the ICs it contained (8031, 74xx373, OTP EPROM, all SMD packages), work out the interconnections and dump the EPROM contetns. Worked fine afterwards too. > Also, any maritime equipment I designed was always conformal > coated (several of those being "classic microcomputers" :> ) Confromal coating can be removed without ruining the device, surely? > > Why? Can't they be taken apart without damage? > > It adds a level of stress and risk that I chose not to add. > My goal is to get a nice clean PCB that I can scan and then > convert to a photoplot. From there, I have tools that will > help automate reconstructing a schematic. I have never found automatically-produced scheamtisc to be readable. I prefer to do it by hand, checking each connection. The result is a diagram I can actually follow... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 11 17:01:38 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 23:01:38 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <448C783C.8040000@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jun 11, 6 01:08:28 pm Message-ID: > > Hi, > > The discussion re: SBC6120 got me thinking (something > I try hard to do only on special occasions! :> ) > > It's disturbing that it seems so hard for the OP > to scrape up enough interest to justify parts for > another build. > > Which brings me to my question(s)... > > *Why* aren't people interested in this sort of thing? > - lack of interest (i.e. PDP8? what's *that*??) > - lack of collector appeal ("Ah, but it's not a REAL '8!") > - lack of space ("Hand me a shovel; I'm digging a sub-basement") > - lack of CASH () > - lack of skills ("Now, *which* end of the iron do I hold??") > - lack of time ("Honey, little Bobby set himself on fire, again. > Can you please put it out?") In my case, it's a combination of lack of interest and lack of money.... This kit would cost around $150 I beliece. OK, I could afford that, but I would perhaps not be able to buy some tools I wanted or something like that. And while I enjoy electronic hardware, soldering up a PCB is not _that_ interesting unless I've been designing it. And I have a PDP8/e on my desk anyway (a real one, not a PC running an emulator, before anyone asks.) I'd spend more than that on one of my own projects, because I enjoy the design/debugging part. -tony From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 11 17:34:47 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 15:34:47 -0700 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448C9A87.6030703@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: >>> Why> Apart from HDAs, I can't think of any classic computer device that >> Not EVERYTHING is a "classic computer device" :> > > No, but everything discussed on this list should be :-) > >>> can't be dismantled non-destructively. Mind you, desoldering the HP9100B >> I note that most of Votrax's products are troubling to dismantle >> non-destructively (lots of potted "hide me so the user doesn't >> know the secrets of my design" stuff). > > Potting compounds can often be removed without imparing the functionality Yes. But if you don't *know* what's *inside*, exposing things doesn't buy you much. The Votrax units are (were) largely analog devices. So, you need to be able to remove all the compound without disturbing any of the discretes, their markings or their *settings* (trimmers, etc.) Not something you want to casually do on a hard to replace, expensive little device! > of the device. I rememebr i obtained a thing called a 'Modem Maximiser', > back from the days of 1200 and 2400 baud modems. It connected betweem a > computer and a modem, added a real time clock, parallel port, mailbox, > etc. Quite a fun toy. Anyway, one of the options for this was an > encryption module, that was potted for security. I managed to cut away > the potting compount at least far enough to see the ICs it contained > (8031, 74xx373, OTP EPROM, all SMD packages), work out the > interconnections and dump the EPROM contetns. Worked fine afterwards too. > >> Also, any maritime equipment I designed was always conformal >> coated (several of those being "classic microcomputers" :> ) > > Confromal coating can be removed without ruining the device, surely? It is quite messy. Doing field repairs is like a trip to the dentist (i.e. not fun). And, when you are done, you have to conformal coat it, again. (else the salt air/water will eat the lands in no time at all!) >>> Why? Can't they be taken apart without damage? >> It adds a level of stress and risk that I chose not to add. >> My goal is to get a nice clean PCB that I can scan and then >> convert to a photoplot. From there, I have tools that will >> help automate reconstructing a schematic. > > I have never found automatically-produced scheamtisc to be readable. I > prefer to do it by hand, checking each connection. The result is a > diagram I can actually follow... I want the tool to handle the *connectivity* for me. I can redraw a schematic without any problem. But, making sure I've got every foil accounted for is tedious (if I can have a machine do that for me!). I find it a lot easier to check a schematic redraw against an *existing* schematic than against a *board*. From teoz at neo.rr.com Sun Jun 11 17:31:00 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 18:31:00 -0400 Subject: Vintage computer diagrams scanning References: <200606110954410745.0FA58FBD@10.0.0.252> <20060611121937.D79718@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <006101c68da6$b83e5c60$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Cisin" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2006 3:21 PM Subject: Re: Vintage computer diagrams scanning > On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Anyone remember the days of the "hand scanners" with their 4-or-inch wide > > scanning head? To scan a page, you made two passes, then used software to > > join the halves. Nasty business--but I think I actually have one of the > > little buggers if anyone wants one for their collection. > > Will that software work for piecing together 11x17 scanned with an 8.5x11? > Back in the Windows 3.1 era I purchased some software from Media Cybernetics called Halo Desktop Imager. This software was used for stitching together multiple images (from any twain compatible scanner), editing the pictures, and printing them out in banner format (borderless so you could make huge posters etc). Very nice software, too bad I loaned a friend the disks and never got them back. BTW if anybody happens to have version 1.0 of this software contact me, I need a copy of the floppies (have the original manual and serial number). From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jun 11 17:50:05 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 15:50:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060611154703.I79718@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > > It ALSO had a 4 pin (minus one for keying) berg plug on the inside that > > This was, of course, also used to connect the internal monitor of the > PortablePC. since that was power and composite [almost] NTSC, that would mean that the PortablePC case could easily be used to house an Apple][, coco, etc. Unlike the Compaq case, which had an EGA capable monitor, instead of composite. Compaq video boards are readily recognizable by the two row berg header near the middle of the board for connecting to the internal monitor. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 11 18:37:20 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 16:37:20 -0700 Subject: Vintage computer diagrams scanning In-Reply-To: <006101c68da6$b83e5c60$0b01a8c0@game> References: <200606110954410745.0FA58FBD@10.0.0.252> <20060611121937.D79718@shell.lmi.net> <006101c68da6$b83e5c60$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <200606111637200816.11162F12@10.0.0.252> On 6/11/2006 at 6:31 PM Teo Zenios wrote: >Back in the Windows 3.1 era I purchased some software from Media >Cybernetics >called Halo Desktop Imager. This software was used for stitching together >multiple images (from any twain compatible scanner), editing the pictures, >and printing them out in banner format (borderless so you could make huge >posters etc). Very nice software, too bad I loaned a friend the disks and >never got them back. BTW if anybody happens to have version 1.0 of this >software contact me, I need a copy of the floppies (have the original >manual and serial number). Well, what I've got is a Logictech ScanMan crica 1988. The software (I NEVER throw software away, so if you have a need for vintage PeeCee software, drop me a line--I might have it) comes on 5.25" floppies and is ScanWare 1.1 and PaintShow Plus. Whatever they are. The label indicates compatibility with PC, XT, AT, etc., so it's not going to be a Windoze program. Didn't some of the old scanners have .PCX as an output format? Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 11 18:55:04 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 16:55:04 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <448C783C.8040000@DakotaCom.Net> References: <448C783C.8040000@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606111655040576.11266A58@10.0.0.252> On 6/11/2006 at 1:08 PM Don Y wrote: >*Why* aren't people interested in this sort of thing? Well, okay. Here's my take--while the miniature front panel is kind of cute, why the PDP-8? To my mind, the PDP-11 was a giant leap forward in terms of usability and might be a better target for implementation. The PDP-8 had a very small instruction set, miserable memory management and wasn't very fast (I'll bet the uC on the IDE drive that it's attached to is at least an order of magnitude faster). I have no particular fondness for it. Perhaps someone else does. Now, put out something that will exercise my mind a bit, say a multicore VLIW machine with vector capabilities, and I could get interested. How about a Dataflow machine? One could see the same thing in amateur radio or even audio. At one time, the way to get some of the best stuff at affordable prices was to build your own. When I was active in amateur radio, I built all of my own equipment--even my receiver. But after awhile, it was clear that folks with more money to spend than I had could buy better than the builders could build. So you got the phenomenon of the geezers with KWM-2s and whatnot sitting around and whiling away the hours on 75 meter fone. I would have sooner had a root canal than do that--it might as well be CB. Thank heavens I discovered computers. Well, now computers have turned into a plug-in artist's dream. In fact, things have gone a step further than amateur radio--the ready-made stuff is not only good, it's DISPOSABLE. What's the point of fooling with this stuff trying to make it better? I'd sooner make my own paper towels. Sure, I've got lots of memories tied up in this stuff. But they're just that--memories and the gear is just that--stuff. I want to make some new memories while I still have time. The stuff's just a means to an end. Cheers, Chuck From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Sun Jun 11 19:30:09 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 01:30:09 +0100 Subject: atari printers - gears In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448CB591.8080706@dsl.pipex.com> Tony Duell wrote: > Personally, I'd want to use a metal gear that was a sliding fit onto the > motor sprindle, and then fix it on with a suitable Loctite. I'd be tempted to file a flat section on the shaft and add a matching flat to the gear, or use a small screw to fix it. I'm not sure what the lifetime of Loctite is, but I wouldn't want to be pulling a plotter apart a few years down the line just to put some more glue on a gear... -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sun Jun 11 19:32:32 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 19:32:32 -0500 Subject: Fun for the EE guys (board design) Message-ID: <974a1ae9a43e4fe18e212da937e44f47@valleyimplants.com> >> This board is plugged into the two connectors of the last memory board >>in the chain. The cables are then connected to the terminator instead >>of the board itself. >Huh? Perhaps you mean that the way the board connects to >the rest of the machine is *through* the cables (i.e. there >is not some other set of connectors on the board that plug >into a "backplane")? So, *normally* the cables plug into the >memory board but, on the last board, the terminator sits >"between" the cables and the board? >In other words, any solution *must* have 4 connectors on it >(you can't just take two INDIVIDUAL connectors and solder >the RPAK's onto the back of those connectors (i.e. skip the >PCB entirely!) I think that I could probably get away without putting on the pass-through. My IM2 cable has 4 extra positions (IP2 + 1 IM2 are boards installed) I think it unlikely that I will come across enough boards to where I would need the pass-through (would need a FPA + 3 extra IM2s). I (not being an EE) wasn't sure about the seriousness of the crosstalk/unwanted reactance problem on computer busses. The downside to soldering directly onto cables is that there is a separate power feed for the voltage divider network that must be accounted for. Wire-wrap holds distinct possibilities, though. While I'm messing around with this, does anyone else have an IRIS 3k sans terminators? Scott Quinn From chd_1 at nktelco.net Sun Jun 11 20:19:03 2006 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (C. H. Dickman) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 21:19:03 -0400 Subject: display scope options Message-ID: <448CC107.6050801@nktelco.net> What options would I have for some kind of display scope for my PDP-8/e? I have a VC8/I-like point plot controller that I built last spring and I want a display for it. So far I have used a 100Mhz HP storage scope. But that is my primary debugging tool, so I want something that I can dedicate to the display purpose permanently. The DEC display would be a VR14, but I don't recall ever seeing one of these available. Basically what I need is an X-Y-Z oscilloscope with a reasonably persistent phosphor. -chuck From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sun Jun 11 21:38:36 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 21:38:36 -0500 Subject: Scopes (again) Message-ID: Based on the recommendations of the list, I bought a used LeCroy 9400 scope (O.K.- I went down to Boeing Surplus and they happened to have one close to my price range, and since it had come up on the list I knew that it would work [you can get good stuff at Boeing, but you can also get stuff that's very good for testing the rudder system in a 757, but not for much else]. I still give you guys credit, though). Anyway, two questions: What's a good set of resonably priced but decent probe-type things to start with? I went to a electronics shop and was quoted $100 for a set - I'd rather not pay as much for the probes as I did for the scope if I don't have to. MCM has several listed in the ~$50 range, but I don't know what to look for or if they are any good. (2) What's a good introduction to actually using the thing? I got the 9400 (A) manual from LeCroy [Aside - there's something really wrong when the company recommends you buy a copy of Norton Anti-Virus to run on your SCOPE!]. I know basically what a scope does, and have used one twice, but that's it. I also have a 555 in the garage, should I start on that and move to the DSO? I didn't ever use the 555 (had it 7 years), because it was ~110 Lbs and no probes. Scott Quinn PS- regarding analog meters- been looking at them (not seriously), and haven't found much. What's a good one, and do they still make the FET versions of the VTVM (MCM doesn't seem to list any). From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jun 11 22:04:08 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 15:04:08 +1200 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <448C783C.8040000@DakotaCom.Net> References: <448C783C.8040000@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: On 6/12/06, Don Y wrote: > Hi, > > The discussion re: SBC6120 got me thinking... > > *Why* aren't people interested in this sort of thing? > - lack of interest (i.e. PDP8? what's *that*??) In some cases... witness the "what do you _do_ with a PDP-8" thread. > - lack of collector appeal ("Ah, but it's not a REAL '8!") Well... it's not built in 1970, but _mine_ has a real chip I borrowed from a real DEC machine (spare DECmate III board that cost me less than a NOS CPU chip). > - lack of space ("Hand me a shovel; I'm digging a sub-basement") Mine hangs on the wall... > - lack of CASH () Can't help that one, but even with the FP6120, it's cheaper than typical ePay prices for an -8/e. It depends on how much you want to run code on hardware as opposed to an emulator. > - lack of skills ("Now, *which* end of the iron do I hold??") > - lack of time ("Honey, little Bobby set himself on fire, again. > Can you please put it out?") With as fine as the traces and vias are on this board, I wouldn't call the SBC6120 a "learn to solder" project, but I didn't find it difficult to assemble (unlike the IOB6120 which I found to be on the challenging side, given the 0.5mm-pitch QFP FPGA in the middle). > In the interests of candor, maybe replies off-list are better? > And, don't interpret this as JUST pertaining to that > particular product/project. I'm curious as to how receptive > (resistant!) people are to *any* sorts of projects like that > (even if they are "already assembled") I'm probably not a good example of why people don't build kits like this, since I've built *many* things from Spare Time Gizmos and many kits before that (starting with a Don Lancaster TVT-6 "TV Typewriter" and a Quest Elf in the late 1970s when I was just a punk kid who wanted a computer at home). About the only STG project I've passed on lately was the keypad for the Elf2K; pretty much everthing else I've found to be interesting to build, and always fun. OTOH, I can usually blunt the cost issue for most projects by supply 75%-90% of the parts out of my own parts bin, leaving just the bare PCB to pay for. The IOB6120 is one of the only projects I've done where I _did_ buy the 100%-of-the-parts-in-a-bag kit. I do like it when the board sellers make a "bare board and difficult-to-find/custom parts kit" - that's how I did the FP6120 (board, plexi, and paddle switches) and the SBC6120 (board and stackable connector) and the Elf2K disk board (board, stackable connector, and CF socket). I know kit makers aren't gouging on popcorn parts, but there's a certain amount of handling, etc., involved with ordering, re-packaging, etc., that they do need to recover. If I already _have_ the stuff on hand, I'm happy to order the minimal amount of parts with a bare board. Of course, it helps that I have my own EPROM burner, etc., which not every hobbyist has, especially beginners. So that's my $0.02... -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 11 22:20:45 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 20:20:45 -0700 Subject: Fun for the EE guys (board design) In-Reply-To: <974a1ae9a43e4fe18e212da937e44f47@valleyimplants.com> References: <974a1ae9a43e4fe18e212da937e44f47@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <200606112020450886.11E2B8D9@10.0.0.252> You know, with good regulator ICs available, as long as you're building a terminator, why not build an active one? From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jun 11 22:50:36 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 15:50:36 +1200 Subject: Scopes (again) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/12/06, Scott Quinn wrote: > > Based on the recommendations of the list, I bought a used LeCroy 9400 scope... Not a bad choice. Does yours have GPIB, parallel, Ethernet, PCMCIA and a bunch of other computer-type connectors on the back, or is it "just" an O-scope? If you have conenctors, you can hook a printer directly up, or even transfer screen shots to disk (PCMCIA Type III hard disk, or Microdrive w/CF adapter, or flash card), or over the network. > Anyway, two questions: What's a good set of resonably priced but decent probe-type > things to start with? I went to a electronics shop and was quoted $100 for a set - I'd > rather not pay as much for the probes as I did for the scope if I don't have to. That's why the advice here was to look for a scope with the probes. Unfortunately, at auctions, it's common to get the scope bare. I got an ancient Tek scope that way (small round tube, large box - larger than a 465). Fortunately, I had a buddy who worked at the local Physics department, and he found a 1965 Tek probe with accessories, NIB. > MCM has several listed in the > ~$50 range, but I don't know what to look for or if they are any good. Look around the BNC for your probe... if there are gold pads about 1mm^2, the scope is expecting compatible probes that will "tell" the scope what the probe's characteristics are. I _think_ you can use an older, "dumb" probe, but more stuff might have to set manually. The probes themselves have a larger base than "dumb" probes, and they have spring-loaded pins in several locations in an arc around the BNC to communicate simple information about the nature of the probe. > (2) What's a good introduction to actually using the thing? I got the 9400 (A) manual from LeCroy [Aside - there's something really wrong when the company recommends you buy a copy of Norton Anti-Virus to run on your SCOPE!]. Ah... you do have one of the modern fancy ones. If your scope is like our HP ones, you ought to back up the internal hard drive. The HP we have here runs plain Windows 98, but it has special drivers for the ISA card that plugs into the bog-standard motherboard. HP needs to know some details about the internals of the scope to get you the right image (we've been down that path twice here since we bought it - the laptop drives don't last more than a couple of years when run at 670 millibars). About all I can say is if you've used an analog scope, most of this will be familiar - you'll just have to learn how the menus work to get to the various functions that were like turning a knob in the old days. -ethan From teoz at neo.rr.com Sun Jun 11 23:10:37 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 00:10:37 -0400 Subject: Vintage computer diagrams scanning References: <200606110954410745.0FA58FBD@10.0.0.252> <20060611121937.D79718@shell.lmi.net> <006101c68da6$b83e5c60$0b01a8c0@game> <200606111637200816.11162F12@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <00b901c68dd6$2a01b2f0$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2006 7:37 PM Subject: Re: Vintage computer diagrams scanning > On 6/11/2006 at 6:31 PM Teo Zenios wrote: > > >Back in the Windows 3.1 era I purchased some software from Media > >Cybernetics > >called Halo Desktop Imager. This software was used for stitching together > >multiple images (from any twain compatible scanner), editing the pictures, > >and printing them out in banner format (borderless so you could make huge > >posters etc). Very nice software, too bad I loaned a friend the disks and > >never got them back. BTW if anybody happens to have version 1.0 of this > >software contact me, I need a copy of the floppies (have the original > >manual and serial number). > > Well, what I've got is a Logictech ScanMan crica 1988. The software (I > NEVER throw software away, so if you have a need for vintage PeeCee > software, drop me a line--I might have it) comes on 5.25" floppies and is > ScanWare 1.1 and PaintShow Plus. Whatever they are. The label indicates > compatibility with PC, XT, AT, etc., so it's not going to be a Windoze > program. Didn't some of the old scanners have .PCX as an output format? > > Cheers, > Chuck > > > > > I have a scanman 256 (Grayscale) on the shelf that I purchased new in the 1990's and just recently got a scanman color working on my 486/100 WFW machine. Wish I had the kits that hold the scanner so they go in a straight line. I have the software and manuals for both system. For any real work I use an older Umax 1200s SCSI scanner connected to my Quadra 950 Mac, I would use it on my Athlon PC but the original driver disks only cover Mac OS 8-9 and Win 9x. You have to pay $50 or so to get drivers for the scanner to work under Win2k (Silverfast) and I am not paying $50 for old software drivers. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 11 23:23:26 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 21:23:26 -0700 Subject: Vintage computer diagrams scanning In-Reply-To: <00b901c68dd6$2a01b2f0$0b01a8c0@game> References: <200606110954410745.0FA58FBD@10.0.0.252> <20060611121937.D79718@shell.lmi.net> <006101c68da6$b83e5c60$0b01a8c0@game> <200606111637200816.11162F12@10.0.0.252> <00b901c68dd6$2a01b2f0$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <200606112123260689.121C1B31@10.0.0.252> On 6/12/2006 at 12:10 AM Teo Zenios wrote: >For any real work I use an older Umax 1200s SCSI scanner connected to my >Quadra 950 Mac, I would use it on my Athlon PC but the original driver >disks only cover Mac OS 8-9 and Win 9x. You have to pay $50 or so to get drivers >for the scanner to work under Win2k (Silverfast) and I am not paying $50 >for old software drivers. I used to use an old Artec SCSI flatbed scanner--it worked really well and then just went belly up--the PCB was pure impermeability--lots of surface mount ASICs with house numbers. I recognized some glue and an OTP 27C512, but that was it. Ah, well--it was good, but not spectacular. I picked up a used HP SCSI Scanjet with document feeder for about $25 on e-Pay. Works great, drivers for Win2K and XP are still available for downloading. I've even used the document feeder a couple of times; by and large it was okay. But SCSI is defintely the way to go with scanners. Cheers, Chuck From nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com Sun Jun 11 23:33:30 2006 From: nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com (nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 21:33:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Welcome home DG Nova 3 System In-Reply-To: <7EED738D-C746-4FEC-B6BF-7247D15E6D58@colourfull.com> Message-ID: <20060612043330.15657.qmail@web81012.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Nice. I have one of those but it's empty. No boards inside at all. One day I'll probably offer it up for trade as I figure I'll never get the cards I need to actually do anything with it. ----- David Williams http://www.trailingedge.com ----- Original Message ---- From: Robert Borsuk To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2006 4:22:14 PM Subject: Welcome home DG Nova 3 System Hi All, Thought some of you might want to see my new (? old) Nova 3 System. This system came courtesy of Bob H. who was the owner for several years and thought it might be time to send it to a new home (mine) (yeah!). Here's some pics. http://homepage.mac.com/irisworld/PhotoAlbum3.html Enjoy, Rob From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 12 00:27:10 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 23:27:10 -0600 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <200606111655040576.11266A58@10.0.0.252> References: <448C783C.8040000@DakotaCom.Net> <200606111655040576.11266A58@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <448CFB2E.2020502@jetnet.ab.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/11/2006 at 1:08 PM Don Y wrote: > > >>*Why* aren't people interested in this sort of thing? > > > Well, okay. Here's my take--while the miniature front panel is kind of > cute, why the PDP-8? To my mind, the PDP-11 was a giant leap forward in > terms of usability and might be a better target for implementation. The > PDP-8 had a very small instruction set, miserable memory management and > wasn't very fast (I'll bet the uC on the IDE drive that it's attached to > is at least an order of magnitude faster). I have no particular fondness > for it. Perhaps someone else does. Heck I bet it is 100x faster and 4096x more memory at least. > Now, put out something that will exercise my mind a bit, say a multicore > VLIW machine with vector capabilities, and I could get interested. How > about a Dataflow machine? The PDP8 is a 1965 era computer ... a 40 year old design. The PC (XT) is 25 years and the 386 15 years. I can't say that computers have improved since all want to run Windows or claim to a RED HAT linux file server. ( I have no idea what a mac is since they dropped the 68000 ). Every body here wants just music, illegal CD's and DVD's downloaded and the internet to give you Junk Mail and free SEX at high speed. ( I have been on dial up a long time and then it was $60 a month ) > One could see the same thing in amateur radio or even audio. At one time, > the way to get some of the best stuff at affordable prices was to build > your own. When I was active in amateur radio, I built all of my own > equipment--even my receiver. But after awhile, it was clear that folks > with more money to spend than I had could buy better than the builders > could build. So you got the phenomenon of the geezers with KWM-2s and > whatnot sitting around and whiling away the hours on 75 meter fone. I > would have sooner had a root canal than do that--it might as well be CB. > Thank heavens I discovered computers. Well I guess morse code people don't use any more? Most short wave radio all seems to bible preaching or something Spanish. > Well, now computers have turned into a plug-in artist's dream. In fact, > things have gone a step further than amateur radio--the ready-made stuff is > not only good, it's DISPOSABLE. What's the point of fooling with this > stuff trying to make it better? I'd sooner make my own paper towels. You get what you pay for. > Sure, I've got lots of memories tied up in this stuff. But they're just > that--memories and the gear is just that--stuff. I want to make some new > memories while I still have time. The stuff's just a means to an end. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > > > . > From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 12 01:24:39 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 00:24:39 -0600 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: References: <448C783C.8040000@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <448D08A7.6080404@jetnet.ab.ca> Ethan Dicks wrote: > Can't help that one, but even with the FP6120, it's cheaper than > typical ePay prices for an -8/e. It depends on how much you want to > run code on hardware as opposed to an emulator. I like hardware you can touch. The FP6120 is still PDP-8 speed, not 10 or 100x faster as FPGA or emulator Version too. > I do like it when the board sellers make a "bare board and > difficult-to-find/custom parts kit" - that's how I did the FP6120 > (board, plexi, and paddle switches) and the SBC6120 (board and > stackable connector) and the Elf2K disk board (board, stackable > connector, and CF socket). I know kit makers aren't gouging on > popcorn parts, but there's a certain amount of handling, etc., > involved with ordering, re-packaging, etc., that they do need to > recover. If I already _have_ the stuff on hand, I'm happy to order > the minimal amount of parts with a bare board. Of course, it helps > that I have my own EPROM burner, etc., which not every hobbyist has, > especially beginners. That is also very handy. I think the limiting problem for DIY PCB's is the lack of good inexpensive PCB and Schematic layout software. Now that everything is going surface mount ... sigh Hmm what about using a gazzillion 3 input NOR gates for a very tiny Flip/Chips :) > -ethan > > . > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jun 12 01:44:38 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 18:44:38 +1200 Subject: Welcome home DG Nova 3 System In-Reply-To: <7EED738D-C746-4FEC-B6BF-7247D15E6D58@colourfull.com> References: <7EED738D-C746-4FEC-B6BF-7247D15E6D58@colourfull.com> Message-ID: On 6/12/06, Robert Borsuk wrote: > Hi All, > Thought some of you might want to see my new (? old) Nova 3 System. > This system came courtesy of Bob H. who was the owner for several > years and thought it might be time to send it to a new home (mine) > (yeah!). > > Here's some pics. > > http://homepage.mac.com/irisworld/PhotoAlbum3.html Very nice. Since I know little about DG (even though I have an Eclipse that I have yet to power on) allow me to ask the recently asked question... "what can you do with it?" In the case of the PDP-8, Bob Armstrong's answer was quite good - he listed the languages available for the PDP-8 under OS/8, the way that most folks are going to use a system with a disk (it's mostly that, or standalone papertapes; there _were_ other OSes, but OS/8 dominated the PDP-8 scene once it was available). There's also the DECUS library, full of educational apps, and, yes, games. To put a finer point on the question - I presume there are some programming languages, BASIC, most likely, FORTRAN, and perhaps a few others. What sorts of applications did people put a Nova 3 to? Bookkeeping (AR, payroll, etc.)? Scientific Computing (custom apps with occasionally custom interfaces)? Unlike the PDP-8, I don't recall hearing lots of stories of DG machines coming home with folks when the company/Uni was tired of them; conversely, _lots_ of PDP-8s were so rescued in the 1970s, 1980s, and even the 1990s (not so many recently coming freshly out of use ;-) And I guess more to the personal point... since I have an Eclipse, what can _I_ do with it beyond watch it start up, get a listing of the disk (if it still works), spin some mag tape... -ethan From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Jun 12 02:11:25 2006 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 08:11:25 +0100 (BST) Subject: atari printers - gears In-Reply-To: Philip Pemberton "Re: atari printers - gears" (Jun 12, 1:30) References: <448CB591.8080706@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <10606120811.ZM17152@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> On Jun 12 2006, 1:30, Philip Pemberton wrote: > Tony Duell wrote: > > Personally, I'd want to use a metal gear that was a sliding fit onto the + > > motor sprindle, and then fix it on with a suitable Loctite. >ues whoch p > I'd be tempted to file a flat section on the shaft and add a matching flat to > the gear, or use a small screw to fix it. I'm not sure what the lifetime of > Loctite is, but I wouldn't want to be pulling a plotter apart a few years down > the line just to put some more glue on a gear... >From memory, the gear is too small to make that practical, even an M2 would be far too big. Tony is talking about engineering Loctite designed to fit parts onto cylindrical shafts, not not superglue, and the life is decades. I've got model steam engine axles assembled that way in the 1970s. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Jun 12 02:17:26 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 00:17:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: floppies and the SCB6120 Message-ID: For comepleteness and just for fun, shouldn't the SBC6120 be able to support floppy disks? How hard would it be to come up with an interface board? -- 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 ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jun 12 02:58:50 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 19:58:50 +1200 Subject: floppies and the SCB6120 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/12/06, David Griffith wrote: > For comepleteness and just for fun, shouldn't the SBC6120 be able to > support floppy disks? How hard would it be to come up with an interface > board? Given that a _real_ PDP-8 has either an RX8E w/RX01 or RX02, a third-party OMNIBUS board and a propietary interface to a smart drive (a la DSD), or in the case of later DECmates, a local Western Digital FDC chip and a lot of firmware to emulate the functionality (similar IOT scheme) of the earlier techniques, I would say that it depends on which floppies you are trying to support. If you want to support an RX50 on a WD chip, I would think it would be as "easy" as building a daughter card for the SBC-6120 stackable connector that has a WD chip and whatever support components are required, then write a lot of ROM code. If you wanted to plug a _real_ RX01 or RX02 into it, that might be easier - just an IOT decoder on that daughter card, plus the shift registers, etc., to serialize/deserialize the bit stream on the RX cable (i.e., 80% of an RX8E). Given how large the "RX8L" that vrs prototyped (and that I have one of) is, I think you'd be hard pressed to make an RX-6120(?) the same size as the SBC-6120 without programmable parts and/or surface mount. Since the SBC-6120 comes with IDE, if you wanted to write ATAPI support into the ROMs, I suppose you could add support for LS-120 floppy drives (IBM-type HD floppies plus 120MB "uberfloppies"). As currently implemented, though, I'm reasonably certain the SBC-6120 only talks to "true" IDE devices (including PCMCIA flash and CompactFlast). -ethan From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Mon Jun 12 03:09:56 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 10:09:56 +0200 Subject: fun for the EE guys (board design) In-Reply-To: <2169096f03b24eae8845431db5c2a528@valleyimplants.com> References: <2169096f03b24eae8845431db5c2a528@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <20060612100956.222d6323@SirToby.dinner41.de> On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:18:13 -0500 "Scott Quinn" wrote: > Found a problem in my IRIS 3k - didn't have a terminator on the IM1 > memory bus. I doubt that this is still available through retail > channels Gerhard helped quite a lot by taking pictures of the board > and giving a description of where it went, now I need to fab one. Three ideas: If you have unused connectors on the ribbon cables (e.g. last memory board not instaled) just use a suitable male connector for the ribbon cable, solder the resistors to it and connect it to the last, unused connector of the cable. If you need all connectors on the ribbon cables make a new cables with one additional connector, then see above. Use a male and female connector, solder the pins at the tips together, so that you get a 1:1 male-female connector. Solder the resistors to the sides of this. All of this is not hard if you know how to handle a soldering iron. I build SCSI terminators that way. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From henk.gooijen at oce.com Mon Jun 12 07:21:10 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 14:21:10 +0200 Subject: looking for two Kennedy 9100 tape drive terminator cards Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066817BA@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> I have found a chap in The Netherlands (!) who also has a Kennedy 9100 tape drive. I asked him, and he checked: his tape drive is also *without* the two terminator cards. As a reminder, they are: card cage slot #3: "data terminator", part number 190-3860-001, and slot #8: "control terminator", part number 190-3841-001. BTW, these cards are also used in the Kennedy 9000 tape drive. Is somebody on the list, who has a Kennedy 9100, and is willing to look at the card cage (at the left side, looked from the front side to the drive)? The most-left card is #1 ... Or can somebody confirm that these card *must* be installed, or can indeed be left out? thanks, - Henk. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From kth at srv.net Mon Jun 12 11:08:37 2006 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 10:08:37 -0600 Subject: Any DEC RSTS folks out there, need help In-Reply-To: <448C5322.3040905@worldnet.att.net> References: <448C5322.3040905@worldnet.att.net> Message-ID: <448D9185.1020402@srv.net> Jerry Wright wrote: > > > Hi, > I have been working on my 11/44 for a while and finally > go it to boot and find the drives. (RA80's) I believe > it had more than the (2) I have. Drive ID buttons say > 0 and 2. > The system booted RSTS 1 time and of coarse asked for the password. I > shut down the system and went back to the "books" for a while. I then > tried to boot it up again > the next day and receive the following. > To get passed the password: It will eventually ask the question "Start timesharing". Answer "NO" and you will drop into command mode as 1,2. Reset passwords, and shutdown: "run $shutup". >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > CONSOLE > 17777707 173064 > >>>> ~ >>> > CONSOLE > 17777707 173012 > >>>> > User-defined address for Device DZ1: not found - device disabled. > (this was there before) > > RSTS V8.0-07 EVERETT XXXXXXXX (DU0) INIT V8.0-07 > > Option: START > > Disk is being rebuilt - wait ... > > > > DU0 Error UDASA P.OPCD P.STS P.BCNT P.BUFF P.BUF2 P.LBN > 000000 000241 000010 000000 000000 000000 000000 > > Unrecoverable disk error on DU0 > You probably have a hardware error. I'd run diagnostics on the RA80, and see what it says. Last machine that I had that used RA8* drives (a 11/83) kept failing the HDA's. After replacing the drives 3 times, I finally replaced them with RD54's. Only problem since then was a noisy drive (ground connector on the spindle making a lot of noise, but no other problems). I don't think the RA* HDA's age very well. > > PC=121232 PS=030341 OV=000022 M5=001600 M6=003242 SP=041266 > R0=000000 R1=077777 R2=042125 R3=172150 R4=041410 R5=140026 > > SP-> 026220 000006 000002 150103 000001 041410 > > Fatal RSTS/E system initialization error! > > > Option: HELP > > The valid RSTS initialization options are: > DSKINT Initialize disk to RSTS file structure > COPY Copy minimal system to disk > PATCH Patch a file > HARDWR Set controller characteristics > INSTALL Install a monitor SIL > REFRESH Manipulate files in [0,1] > DEFAULT Set monitor defaults > SET Set device characteristics > START Start timesharing > Start timesharing (fast) > BOOT Bootstrap a device > SAVRES SAVE or RESTORE a RSTS/E disk > IDENT Display version of INIT and installed SIL > HELP Type this HELP message > FILL Set console fill for INIT > Only the first two characters need be typed. > > > > > Option: > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > I would guess it has disk/File problems of some sort. I > know very little about RSTS and it looks like its > a steep learning curve. The second drive has some kind of internal > control problems and shuts off if it is accessed > by the 11/44. it was left (Off). The system has been setting for 10 > years before I got it. I try to keep each system > intack if possible. The Dead TU80 is my next project. On > the bright side it did come with a SCSI card. If you have a SCSI card, I'd probably hook up some (smallish) SCSI disks. I don't know what the maximum size RSTS can handle is, but I suspect it is in the 1Gb range. > > > Thanks, Jerry > > > Jerry Wright > JLC inc > g-wright at att.net From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Mon Jun 12 11:07:44 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 09:07:44 -0700 Subject: Vintage computer diagrams scanning Message-ID: * BOB LAAG wrote: ________________________________ I was wondering about getting some of the diagrams and text documentation scanner and made available for those needing it... I have stuff for Computer Automation Alpha-16 and LSI-2 with the diagrams being on 11 X 17 sheets... I called around and it seemed that they wanted $5 a page, and this just sounded like a rip off... Al Kosso mentioned a while back that he might help do this and i was wondering if the 11 X 17 pages are hard to do or if they can be done on his scanner or another??? I am in so. cal. in Riverside.... --------------------------------------------- Billy: Bob, I see Al has already answered you that he can do it. If you want, I can do it also. I have a Microtek 9600X on an old Apple G4 system. Al's is faster and duplex. But mine does color which is likely not important. Either of us will glad to help you. I will send the TIFF files to Al so he can convert them and link them to put on his site One big difference is that Al is in the Bay area. I'm in Laguna Woods, right off of I-5. So you could come over, get them scanned and then take them home. I stay down in Orange County around 3 weekends a month; the other one I go up to the Bay area. Billy From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Mon Jun 12 11:07:44 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 09:07:44 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff Message-ID: Don Y (dgy at DakotaCom.Net ) wrote: Sun Jun 11 15:08:28 CDT 2006 Hi, The discussion re: SBC6120 got me thinking (something I try hard to do only on special occasions! :> ) It's disturbing that it seems so hard for the OP to scrape up enough interest to justify parts for another build. Which brings me to my question(s)... *Why* aren't people interested in this sort of thing? - lack of interest (i.e. PDP8? what's *that*??) - lack of collector appeal ("Ah, but it's not a REAL '8!") - lack of space ("Hand me a shovel; I'm digging a sub-basement") - lack of CASH () - lack of skills ("Now, *which* end of the iron do I hold??") - lack of time ("Honey, little Bobby set himself on fire, again. Can you please put it out?") I obviously have a good idea what the reasons COULD be. But, I'm curious as to what they REALLY are! In the interests of candor, maybe replies off-list are better? And, don't interpret this as JUST pertaining to that particular product/project. I'm curious as to how receptive (resistant!) people are to *any* sorts of projects like that (even if they are "already assembled") Thanks! I hope I didn't step on anyone's toes... --don ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Billy: I don't know the answer to your question. I'm certain that a lot of it does fall into some of the categories above. Another factor might be cultural. I find a significantly greater interest in DIY projects of all kinds in the UK. Whether it is the chicken or the egg, they also have access to better parts stores (for hobbiest quantities) and excellent magazines. The Dutch magazine Electuur is translated into English and published in the UK every month as Elector. It has excellent construction articles, readily available firmware, and even the PCB layout for most of the projects. We have nothing like it in the States. For whatever reason, the UK and to a lesser extent, the EU have kept the interest alive. Perhaps some of our non-US members can shed insight on why. Billy From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jun 12 11:22:56 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:22:56 -0300 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff References: <448C783C.8040000@DakotaCom.Net> <448D08A7.6080404@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <01f701c68e3c$a922a600$01fea8c0@alpha> > That is also very handy. I think the limiting problem for > DIY PCB's is the lack of good inexpensive PCB and Schematic > layout software. Now that everything is going surface mount ... sigh > Hmm what about using a gazzillion 3 input NOR gates for a very tiny > Flip/Chips :) Try Circad (now omniglyph) from Holophase Software. This is the best PCB CAD software I've ever used. Diptrace and Eagle are excellent second-placers. Eagle has more libraries, and good support. Diptrace has EXCELLENT support and the facility to convert eagle libraries to him. But nothing is easy to use like circad. The option to load a BMP of a board and trace lines on top of that (for reverse engineering) is G R E A T. I have no problems with surface mount since I learned to do board using thermal transfering tech at home. Greetz from Brazil Alexandre http://www.tabajara-labs.com.br From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 12 11:46:10 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 09:46:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Scopes (again) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060612164610.34034.qmail@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> I just bought a scope. Yours doesn't have the probe. Mine don't either...NOR THE POWER CORD! It requires 24vdc from an external source. Phillips. So my questions are: 1)am I likely to find a reasonable priced probe for it (I know, what's the model #?). 2)would a homebrewed 24vdc using parts mainly purchased from Radio Shack be sufficient to power this thing? 3)being that it only has a sampling rate of 10mhz, should I even bother... Gracias Amigos! Ariba! Ariba! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From marvin at rain.org Mon Jun 12 11:55:00 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 09:55:00 -0700 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming Message-ID: <448D9C64.7F92756B@rain.org> Top posting makes sense in a number of instances, and just because something is the "norm" does not make it appropriate in all cases. When responding to a number of issues in a single post, top posting may be considered dumb, but when basically responding to one issue, top posting is appropriate. Top posting does NOT foul up the order people normally read text since prior messages have all the details and makes it far easier to follow the flow of an online conversation. If someone has a faulty memory, then the memory joggers can be found in the text below the post. I get far more annoyed at: 1) long posts with one liners inserted someplace. 2) not trimming out parts of a message not being responded to. 3) not changing the subject line to reflect the content. 4) not putting a space between the portion of the message being responded to, and the comments. The whole object of posting is communication, and the form used should be in a manner best suited to promote that communication. > From: David Griffith > I'm not an old fart and I consider top posting a Rude Thing... > > A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. > Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? > A: Top-posting. > Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 12 12:01:50 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 10:01:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Vintage computer diagrams scanning In-Reply-To: <20060611121937.D79718@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20060612170150.54338.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Cisin wrote: > Will that software work for piecing together 11x17 > scanned with an 8.5x11? So I'm not the only one that needs this capability? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From evan at snarc.net Mon Jun 12 12:03:39 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:03:39 -0400 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <448D9C64.7F92756B@rain.org> Message-ID: <001101c68e42$2893d300$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Agreed! Marvin is a smart man. -----Original Message----- From: Marvin Johnston [mailto:marvin at rain.org] Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 12:55 PM To: ClassicCmp Subject: Re: Top Posting and Message Trimming Top posting makes sense in a number of instances, and just because something is the "norm" does not make it appropriate in all cases. When responding to a number of issues in a single post, top posting may be considered dumb, but when basically responding to one issue, top posting is appropriate. Top posting does NOT foul up the order people normally read text since prior messages have all the details and makes it far easier to follow the flow of an online conversation. If someone has a faulty memory, then the memory joggers can be found in the text below the post. I get far more annoyed at: 1) long posts with one liners inserted someplace. 2) not trimming out parts of a message not being responded to. 3) not changing the subject line to reflect the content. 4) not putting a space between the portion of the message being responded to, and the comments. The whole object of posting is communication, and the form used should be in a manner best suited to promote that communication. > From: David Griffith > I'm not an old fart and I consider top posting a Rude Thing... > > 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 Mon Jun 12 12:10:41 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 10:10:41 -0700 Subject: Scopes (again) In-Reply-To: <20060612164610.34034.qmail@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060612164610.34034.qmail@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200606121010410048.14DA8D1C@10.0.0.252> On 6/12/2006 at 9:46 AM Chris M wrote: >1)am I likely to find a reasonable priced probe for it >(I know, what's the model #?). A 10 MHz sampling rate scope isn't going to need a premium proble. Check the Jameco catalog for an inexpensive one (I'm assuming that a BNC-connector "universal" probe will work just fine). >2)would a homebrewed 24vdc using parts mainly >purchased from Radio Shack be sufficient to power this >thing? Maybe, but why not go to the same Jameco catalog and just buy a suitable power supply? Jameco has gazillions in their surplus inventory. I assume that your scope has a nameplate that indicates current consumption. Cheers, Chuck From jfoust at threedee.com Mon Jun 12 12:20:29 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 12:20:29 -0500 Subject: Scopes (again) In-Reply-To: <200606121010410048.14DA8D1C@10.0.0.252> References: <20060612164610.34034.qmail@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> <200606121010410048.14DA8D1C@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060612121656.05586448@mail> At 12:10 PM 6/12/2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: >>2)would a homebrewed 24vdc using parts mainly >>purchased from Radio Shack be sufficient to power this >>thing? > >Maybe, but why not go to the same Jameco catalog and just buy a suitable >power supply? Jameco has gazillions in their surplus inventory. I assume >that your scope has a nameplate that indicates current consumption. Dang, just a few weeks ago I was helping a friend clear out a warehouse and the former tenants filled about half a Dumpster full of 24v(2A) / 5v(1A) power bricks. I only grabbed one and came home to google for a reason to find a reason to save more, but didn't find one. - John From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 12 12:25:22 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 11:25:22 -0600 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <01f701c68e3c$a922a600$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <448C783C.8040000@DakotaCom.Net> <448D08A7.6080404@jetnet.ab.ca> <01f701c68e3c$a922a600$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <448DA382.1070505@jetnet.ab.ca> Alexandre Souza wrote: > Try Circad (now omniglyph) from Holophase Software. This is the best PCB > CAD software I've ever used. Diptrace and Eagle are excellent > second-placers. Eagle has more libraries, and good support. Diptrace has > EXCELLENT support and the facility to convert eagle libraries to him. But > nothing is easy to use like circad. The option to load a BMP of a board and > trace lines on top of that (for reverse engineering) is G R E A T. $1000 is my budget for the computer not the PCB and schematic layout program. The biggest problem is the free software I have has no component libraries for the odd stuff I am using like a 84 PLCC socket. Tango PCB and schematic programs I liked. I live in a apartment so having room for any big items like a real computer are out -- front panel, 16K memory , Washing machine err Hard drive :). From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 12 12:31:15 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 11:31:15 -0600 Subject: Scopes (again) In-Reply-To: <200606121010410048.14DA8D1C@10.0.0.252> References: <20060612164610.34034.qmail@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> <200606121010410048.14DA8D1C@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <448DA4E3.4060004@jetnet.ab.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Maybe, but why not go to the same Jameco catalog and just buy a suitable > power supply? Jameco has gazillions in their surplus inventory. I assume > that your scope has a nameplate that indicates current consumption. BG Micro has a nice 24 volt 4.4 amp switcher for about $25. http://www.bgmicro.com/ No probes how ever. > Cheers, > Chuck From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Mon Jun 12 12:39:54 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:39:54 -0400 Subject: Umax 1200S drivers (was: Vintage computer diagrams scanning In-Reply-To: <00b901c68dd6$2a01b2f0$0b01a8c0@game> References: <200606110954410745.0FA58FBD@10.0.0.252> <20060611121937.D79718@shell.lmi.net> <006101c68da6$b83e5c60$0b01a8c0@game> <200606111637200816.11162F12@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060612132117.058cb208@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Teo Zenios may have mentioned these words: >For any real work I use an older Umax 1200s SCSI scanner connected to my >Quadra 950 Mac, I would use it on my Athlon PC but the original driver disks >only cover Mac OS 8-9 and Win 9x. You have to pay $50 or so to get drivers >for the scanner to work under Win2k (Silverfast) and I am not paying $50 for >old software drivers. IIRC, that's the scanner I have and I may have the drivers for it under Win2K. (Free ones, back when they offered the Win2K drivers for free.) However, I'm at work, and it's at home. I can check it out when I get home if you wish. Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 12 12:43:46 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 11:43:46 -0600 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448DA7D2.1000001@jetnet.ab.ca> > Whether it is the chicken or the egg, they also have access to better parts > stores (for hobbiest quantities) and excellent magazines. The Dutch > magazine Electuur is translated into English and published in the UK every > month as Elector. It has excellent construction articles, readily available > firmware, and even the PCB layout for most of the projects. I think it is do to the fact that you might need technical information or skills to do something that the USA is lacking. > We have nothing like it in the States. "Nuts and Volts" I think is the only construction magazine I have seen. I think the turning point was when BYTE magazine started reviews of PC clones rather having information than ALL computer systems was about the time construction projects like computers or Ham radio really died. That just left the simple projects like led flashers or PC printer port stuff. > For whatever reason, the UK and to a lesser extent, the EU have kept the > interest alive. Perhaps some of our non-US members can shed insight on why. > > Billy From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jun 12 12:59:40 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 12:59:40 -0500 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <448D9C64.7F92756B@rain.org>; from marvin@rain.org on Mon, Jun 12, 2006 at 09:55:00AM -0700 References: <448D9C64.7F92756B@rain.org> Message-ID: <20060612125940.A3221@homer.berkhirt.com> On Mon, Jun 12, 2006 at 09:55:00AM -0700, Marvin Johnston wrote: > > Top posting does NOT foul up the order people normally read text since prior > messages have all the details and makes it far easier to follow the flow of an > online conversation. If someone has a faulty memory, then the memory joggers can > be found in the text below the post. The whole point of proper quoting is so that people who do NOT have access to the prior messages can follow the conversation. > I get far more annoyed at: > > 1) long posts with one liners inserted someplace. > 2) not trimming out parts of a message not being responded to. > 3) not changing the subject line to reflect the content. > 4) not putting a space between the portion of the message being responded to, > and the comments. These are people who don't quote properly. Don't damn quoting just because some people don't do it eloquently. -- Jim Leonard http://www.oldskool.org/ Email: trixter at oldskool.org Like PC games? Help support the MobyGames database: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or taste a slice of the demoscene at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jun 12 12:56:58 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 14:56:58 -0300 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff References: <448C783C.8040000@DakotaCom.Net> <448D08A7.6080404@jetnet.ab.ca><01f701c68e3c$a922a600$01fea8c0@alpha> <448DA382.1070505@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <004101c68e4a$1868c000$01fea8c0@alpha> > $1000 is my budget for the computer not the PCB and schematic layout > program. The biggest problem is the free software I have has no > component libraries for the odd stuff I am using like a 84 PLCC socket. > Tango PCB and schematic programs I liked. Eagle and diptrace has. But you can always build your own component, it is easy! And all of the said programs are free with some (liveable) restrictions. Take a (good) look in the download area of Eagle, with TONS of libraries for it. > I live in a apartment so having room for any big items like a real > computer are out -- front panel, 16K memory , Washing machine err Hard > drive :). hahaha From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jun 12 12:58:29 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 14:58:29 -0300 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff References: <448DA7D2.1000001@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <004201c68e4a$199be8d0$01fea8c0@alpha> > "Nuts and Volts" I think is the only construction magazine I have seen. > I think the turning point was when BYTE magazine started reviews of PC > clones rather having information than ALL computer systems was about the > time construction projects like computers or Ham radio really died. > That just left the simple projects like led flashers or PC printer port > stuff. I need nothing of that since I have the net. I can find any info I want or any kind of circuit I may want, I cannot understand how magazines still exist, in the common sense of the word! Maybe for ads, who knows? :o? From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Mon Jun 12 13:02:37 2006 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 20:02:37 +0200 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor In-Reply-To: <448DA7D2.1000001@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <448DA7D2.1000001@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <448DAC3D.6030203@bluewin.ch> > Whether it is the chicken or the egg, they also have access to better > parts stores (for hobbiest quantities) and excellent magazines. The Dutch > magazine Electuur is translated into English and published in the UK > every month as Elector. It has excellent construction articles, readily > available firmware, and even the PCB layout for most of the projects. Elector is indeed recommended. AFAIK it also published the first DIY computer : in May '74 they started a series on a 12 or 16 bit TTL-based computer. That is two months before the Mark-8. Those who like to see something special should check it out : it is a two-address machine, no instructions, but memory-mapped "functional units". It even had hardware based multiply and divide ! Memory either , at astronomical expense, 2102's or, slightly less expensive, mos shift registers. Jos Dreesen From marvin at rain.org Mon Jun 12 13:13:18 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 11:13:18 -0700 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming Message-ID: <448DAEBE.EF94D7D0@rain.org> > Jim Leonard trixter at oldskool.org > > I get far more annoyed at: > > > > 1) long posts with one liners inserted someplace. > > 2) not trimming out parts of a message not being responded to. > > 3) not changing the subject line to reflect the content. > > 4) not putting a space between the portion of the message being responded to, > > and the comments. > > These are people who don't quote properly. Don't damn quoting just > because some people don't do it eloquently. Don't put words in my mouth I didn't say; I am not damning quoting, inline posting, top posting, or anything else. My point is that communication rather than form is the goal! From r_a_feldman at hotmail.com Mon Jun 12 13:15:29 2006 From: r_a_feldman at hotmail.com (Robert Feldman) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:15:29 -0500 Subject: atari printers - gears Message-ID: Tony Duell wrote: >Message: 33 >Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 22:24:50 +0100 (BST) >From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) >Subject: Re: atari printers - gears >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Message-ID: >Content-Type: text/plain >> >>On 6/11/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> > You can just throw your bad one away and get a new one. There's a guy >> > selling 825 printers for $10 the each, NOS on Yahoo!: >> >>That's one of the reasons I bought a handful of printer mechs from >>Alltronics or Electronic Goldmine or one of those guys... spare gears. >> The problem is that what I got was about 90% defective. >That was my first thought. These gears don't fail because they wear out in >use, they fail due to stresses generated by them being pushed onto the >speindle. Severaal of mine have failed without being used. > >Personally, I'd want to use a metal gear that was a sliding fit onto the >motor sprindle, and then fix it on with a suitable Loctite. > >Somebody else suggested replacing all 3 gears in each train. Difficult. The >last gear is part of the platten or cable drum, and is, in fact 2 gears wit >han anti-backlash spring IIRC. All these parts could be made, but you're >not going to find them off-the-shelf. And if you're going to start 'm,king >swarf'[1], why not just make the pinion you need. > >[1] A common UK expresion for doing home machining, for the obvious reason. >-tony This topic came up several years ago. At that time, I emailed Tony about a shop in Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, that makes gears for model railroad locomotives (I recently emailed Ethan offlist with the same information). I don't recall if Tony ever checked them out. I'd contact them myself, but I don't have an Atari printers to measure the gear. Anyway, for the information of the whole list, they are: Gear Services (Letchworth) Ltd., The Wynd East, The Wynd, Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, SG6 3EL United Kingdom. Tel: +44 (0) 1462 685327 Fax: +44 (0) 1462 677821 Their Web site is http://www.ultrascale.co.uk/ggs0001.php. They can produce the following spur gears: 48 DP from 12 teeth upwards 60 DP from 12 teeth upwards 64 DP from 13 teeth upwards 72 DP from 13 teeth upwards 96 DP from 18 teeth upwards 100 DP from 15 teeth upwards 0.4 MOD. from 21 teeth upwards 0.5 MOD. from 15 teeth upwards The price for a small gear (e.g., 15 tooth 100DP) is /Pounds 1.11, so it should not be outrageous to have a custom gear made. Bob From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 12 13:17:27 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 11:17:27 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor In-Reply-To: <448DAC3D.6030203@bluewin.ch> References: <448DA7D2.1000001@jetnet.ab.ca> <448DAC3D.6030203@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: <200606121117270830.1517B071@10.0.0.252> On 6/12/2006 at 8:02 PM Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel wrote: >> Whether it is the chicken or the egg, they also have access to better >> parts stores (for hobbiest quantities) and excellent magazines. The >Dutch >> magazine Electuur is translated into English and published in the UK >> every month as Elector. It has excellent construction articles, readily >> available firmware, and even the PCB layout for most of the projects. There's an outfit that I sometimes do business with--Futurlec (at http://www.futurlec.com/ ). As near as I can figure, order processing is done in New York, but shipment is done from Thailand. It's odd--I still get my orders in about a week, so maybe globalization works. They also carry the Aussie "Silicon Chip" magazine. Cheers, Chuck From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 12 13:23:24 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 12:23:24 -0600 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor In-Reply-To: <448DAC3D.6030203@bluewin.ch> References: <448DA7D2.1000001@jetnet.ab.ca> <448DAC3D.6030203@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: <448DB11C.7080705@jetnet.ab.ca> Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel wrote: > >> Whether it is the chicken or the egg, they also have access to better >> parts stores (for hobbiest quantities) and excellent magazines. The >> Dutch >> magazine Electuur is translated into English and published in the UK >> every month as Elector. It has excellent construction articles, >> readily available firmware, and even the PCB layout for most of the >> projects. > > > Elector is indeed recommended. > AFAIK it also published the first DIY computer : in May '74 they > started a series on a 12 or 16 bit TTL-based computer. That is two > months before the Mark-8. > > Those who like to see something special should check it out : it is a > two-address machine, no instructions, but memory-mapped "functional > units". It even had hardware based multiply and divide ! Umm where? A quick google search found nothing. > Memory either , at astronomical expense, 2102's or, slightly less > expensive, mos shift registers. > > Jos Dreesen 2102 are now $2.00 each and TTL $0.25 ... This may be a good time to build it. :) NOTE BGmicro has low power 450 ns 2102's for $.50 From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jun 12 13:46:07 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 11:46:07 -0700 Subject: OT: Magazines( was Re: OT-ish: Build-it stuff) In-Reply-To: <004201c68e4a$199be8d0$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <448DA7D2.1000001@jetnet.ab.ca> <004201c68e4a$199be8d0$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <448DB66F.5020903@DakotaCom.Net> Alexandre Souza wrote: >> "Nuts and Volts" I think is the only construction magazine I have seen. >> I think the turning point was when BYTE magazine started reviews of PC >> clones rather having information than ALL computer systems was about the >> time construction projects like computers or Ham radio really died. >> That just left the simple projects like led flashers or PC printer port >> stuff. > > I need nothing of that since I have the net. I can find any info I want > or any kind of circuit I may want, I cannot understand how magazines still > exist, in the common sense of the word! Maybe for ads, who knows? :o? Ditto. I gave up all of my "trade magazine" subsriptions years ago. The quality of the articles kept plummeting. The columnists were alternately whining or ranting. And, the tech info (ads, etc.) was obviously slanted towards those advertisers who were willing to pony up the money for these publications. Its so much easier to do a search and get *all* of the vendors of interest and make up your own mind (instead of relying on someone pushing a particular vendor/product). From brad at heeltoe.com Mon Jun 12 13:38:07 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 14:38:07 -0400 Subject: unibus RX11 vs RX211 Message-ID: <200606121838.k5CIc7XP017492@mwave.heeltoe.com> Hi, Finally getting around to some spring pdp-11 hacking. I managed to boot 2.11BSD on my 11/44 this morning :-) Now I want to (slowly) add peripherals. I discovered I have an RX11 board (quad width) and I think I want to try and connect it to an RX02 drive box. Anyone know the basic difference between an RX11 and an RX211? Can you plug an RX02 into an RX01? I really only want RX01 to be honest. Something tells me I need an RX211 but i thought i'd be lazy and ask here. M7846 RX11 U RX01 floppy disk controller M8256 RX211 U RX02 floppy disk controller -brad From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Mon Jun 12 13:35:31 2006 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 20:35:31 +0200 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor In-Reply-To: <448DB11C.7080705@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <448DA7D2.1000001@jetnet.ab.ca> <448DAC3D.6030203@bluewin.ch> <448DB11C.7080705@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <448DB3F3.1010707@bluewin.ch> woodelf wrote: > Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel wrote: > >> >>> Whether it is the chicken or the egg, they also have access to better >>> parts stores (for hobbiest quantities) and excellent magazines. The >>> Dutch >>> magazine Electuur is translated into English and published in the UK >>> every month as Elector. It has excellent construction articles, >>> readily available firmware, and even the PCB layout for most of the >>> projects. >> >> >> Elector is indeed recommended. >> AFAIK it also published the first DIY computer : in May '74 they >> started a series on a 12 or 16 bit TTL-based computer. That is two >> months before the Mark-8. >> >> Those who like to see something special should check it out : it is a >> two-address machine, no instructions, but memory-mapped "functional >> units". It even had hardware based multiply and divide ! > Umm where? A quick google search found nothing. > It is not on the web, and since Elektor is still around, copyright issues do arise. You might want to look for the issues from may 74 until january 75 to have the complete set of articles. They do appear from time to time on european auction sites. Look for "elektor", "elector" and "elektuur" (original Dutch version ) Jos Dreesen From aw288 at osfn.org Mon Jun 12 13:42:53 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 14:42:53 -0400 (EDT) Subject: OT: Magazines( was Re: OT-ish: Build-it stuff) In-Reply-To: <448DB66F.5020903@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: > The columnists were alternately whining or ranting. You mean sort of like this list lately? William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From Kevin at RawFedDogs.net Mon Jun 12 13:51:53 2006 From: Kevin at RawFedDogs.net (Kevin Monceaux) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:51:53 -0500 Subject: Welcome home DG Nova 3 System In-Reply-To: References: <7EED738D-C746-4FEC-B6BF-7247D15E6D58@colourfull.com> Message-ID: <20060612185153.GA21483@RawFedDogs.net> On Mon, Jun 12, 2006 at 06:44:38PM +1200, Ethan Dicks wrote: > Very nice. Since I know little about DG (even though I have an Eclipse > that I have yet to power on) allow me to ask the recently asked > question... "what can you do with it?" Ah, the memories. I worked at one place that had a DG Nova. > To put a finer point on the question - I presume there are some > programming languages, BASIC, most likely, FORTRAN, and perhaps a few > others. What sorts of applications did people put a Nova 3 to? > Bookkeeping (AR, payroll, etc.)? Back when I first started in retail at Service Merchandise they had a DG Nova. From the pictures I've found on the net I think it was a DG Nova/4. I remember the two blue buttons/switches on the front. One had a Lock and Unlock position. The other had a Reset and Program Load position. The Lock/Unlock switch had to be in the Unlock position for the Reset/Program Load switch to function. While I was there it was "upgraded" to a Motorola box runing Unix. Sadly I think the Nova was tossed into the store's trash compactor. One thing I found a little strange about Service Merchandise's system - The system had a few(four I think) different modes, such as sales mode which enabled all the registers on the sales floor, file maintenance mode for applying software updates sent from the home office, night mode for running the nightly batch processing and producing reports, etc. The different modes were selected from a menu via the console on top of the Nova. To switch modes one had to reset the system. There was no shutdown procedure involved at all. To switch modes one just went into the computer room, hit the reset button on the Nova, then the Program Load button. There was then a date/time prompt that one responded to on the console. After setting the date/time I think there was a run command, perhaps 'run menu', that was entered to get to the mode selection menu. It seemed quite strange to just hit the reset button without worrying about what kind of activity the system was in the middle of. Another strange thing I remember was that all of the print functions such as printing reports or customer receipts appeared to all be done via screen prints. The report or receipt was displayed on the terminal the printer was attached to, then one would see the cursor move across the screen left to right, top to bottom as it printed the output on the printer. In the case of printing a lengthy report the terminal was tied up for quite a while while it displayed a screenful of the report, dumped it to the printer, displayed the next screenful of the report, dumped it to the printer, etc., etc., etc. Kevin http://www.RawFedDogs.net http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org Bruceville, TX From fireflyst at earthlink.net Mon Jun 12 13:53:43 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:53:43 -0500 Subject: Any DEC RSTS folks out there, need help In-Reply-To: <448C5322.3040905@worldnet.att.net> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jerry Wright > Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2006 12:30 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Any DEC RSTS folks out there, need help > > > > Hi, > > I have been working on my 11/44 for a while and finally go it > to boot and find the drives. (RA80's) I believe it had more > than the (2) I have. Drive ID buttons say 0 and 2. > > The system booted RSTS 1 time and of coarse asked for the > password. I shut down the system and went back to the > "books" for a while. I then tried to boot it up again the > next day and receive the following. > > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > CONSOLE > 17777707 173064 > >>>~ > CONSOLE > 17777707 173012 > >>> > User-defined address for Device DZ1: not found - device disabled. > (this was there before) > > RSTS V8.0-07 EVERETT XXXXXXXX (DU0) INIT V8.0-07 > > Option: START > > Disk is being rebuilt - wait ... > > > > DU0 Error UDASA P.OPCD P.STS P.BCNT P.BUFF P.BUF2 P.LBN > 000000 000241 000010 000000 000000 000000 000000 > > Unrecoverable disk error on DU0 > > > PC=121232 PS=030341 OV=000022 M5=001600 M6=003242 SP=041266 > R0=000000 R1=077777 R2=042125 R3=172150 R4=041410 R5=140026 > > SP-> 026220 000006 000002 150103 000001 041410 > > Fatal RSTS/E system initialization error! How long did you let the disks run? You sid yourself it had been sitting, I'd let the disks sit spun up for at least 4 hours. > On the bright side it did come with a SCSI card. Ugh! Then don't mess with the RA80s! If you like to look at them, leave them there, but they suck way too much power for everyday use. At least that's how I feel. For my 11/23+ I did my RSTS installs on a simulator then used unix 'dd' to copy the files over to the 10gb scsi disk I use. For the /34a which has two RL02s, I prepared the images with simh then used vtserver to copy the images to the RL02 packs. (10MB takes about 2 to 3 hours) I run v9.6 on the /23+ and v8.0 on the /34a. From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Mon Jun 12 14:13:53 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 20:13:53 +0100 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor In-Reply-To: <448DB11C.7080705@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <448DA7D2.1000001@jetnet.ab.ca> <448DAC3D.6030203@bluewin.ch> <448DB11C.7080705@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <448DBCF1.8020005@dsl.pipex.com> woodelf wrote: > 2102 are now $2.00 each and TTL $0.25 ... This may be a good time to build > it. :) And I've got about a hundred of the things in my junk^W quality used parts box... -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 12 14:36:25 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:36:25 -0600 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor In-Reply-To: <448DBCF1.8020005@dsl.pipex.com> References: <448DA7D2.1000001@jetnet.ab.ca> <448DAC3D.6030203@bluewin.ch> <448DB11C.7080705@jetnet.ab.ca> <448DBCF1.8020005@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <448DC239.2000707@jetnet.ab.ca> Philip Pemberton wrote: > woodelf wrote: > >> 2102 are now $2.00 each and TTL $0.25 ... This may be a good time to >> build >> it. :) > > > And I've got about a hundred of the things in my junk^W quality used > parts box... > For the 12 bit version you have a whole 8K words of memory -- lucky you. Looking at some old GODBOUT ads on the web about 1975? -- 2102 had dropped to $1.95 -- my guess about $6.00 today each. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 12 14:56:57 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 19:56:57 +0000 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <448D9C64.7F92756B@rain.org> References: <448D9C64.7F92756B@rain.org> Message-ID: <448DC709.1020303@yahoo.co.uk> Marvin Johnston wrote: > Top posting makes sense in a number of instances, and just because something is > the "norm" does not make it appropriate in all cases. When responding to a > number of issues in a single post, top posting may be considered dumb, but when > basically responding to one issue, top posting is appropriate. That depends, too. At a typical screen size, most modern graphical email clients (displaying a folder view and message list as well as an individual message) only have room for about 20 lines of text in which to display a message. For many emails (I'd say most, at least for the typical ones I tend to get), when top-posting, the context all gets pushed off the bottom of the screen - the user still has to scroll to see the context before reading what the sender has written, so less scrolling only becomes a benefit in a top-posted environment for a narrow class of message. At least when bottom-posting, along with addressing points individually, the context and the response is all visible at once on the display. > Top posting does NOT foul up the order people normally read text since prior > messages have all the details and makes it far easier to follow the flow of an > online conversation. I really don't want to have to click, view and read every single past message just in order to get context, thank you very much! :) That's true whether using a threaded client or not. Out of interest, what do top posters do when they need to reply to an email and address several points? Most of the ones I see either: a) Only bother to reply to the first point and simply ignore the rest, b) Reply to all points, all in one enormous block of text. ... neither of which is actually useful :-( > The whole object of posting is communication, and the form used should be in a > manner best suited to promote that communication. It seems the *only* place where TP works is for responses to very short messages containing only one point - and in that situation, bottom-posting does the job just as well, so you'd think people would us BP exclusively just to be consistent! >> Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? Actually, that's probably people composing messages in HTML :-) cheers Jules From henk.gooijen at oce.com Mon Jun 12 14:53:50 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 21:53:50 +0200 Subject: unibus RX11 vs RX211 References: <200606121838.k5CIc7XP017492@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C201B0@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org namens Brad Parker Verzonden: ma 12-06-2006 20:38 Aan: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Onderwerp: unibus RX11 vs RX211 Hi, Finally getting around to some spring pdp-11 hacking. I managed to boot 2.11BSD on my 11/44 this morning :-) Now I want to (slowly) add peripherals. I discovered I have an RX11 board (quad width) and I think I want to try and connect it to an RX02 drive box. Anyone know the basic difference between an RX11 and an RX211? Can you plug an RX02 into an RX01? I really only want RX01 to be honest. Something tells me I need an RX211 but i thought i'd be lazy and ask here. M7846 RX11 U RX01 floppy disk controller M8256 RX211 U RX02 floppy disk controller -brad ================================ Ok, throwing in my 2 ct. The RX11 can only do programmed I/O, whereas the RX211 does "DMA". The RX01 disk drive is only single density, and the RX02 is a "funky" double density (the preamble, etc. is still single density, but the data field is double density). However, the control board inside the RX02 (the top one) has a small DIP switch (2 switches) that can put the RX02 drive into "RX01-mode". I never tried it, you can see it on my RX01/RX02 page at www.pdp-11.nl/peripherals/disk/rx-info.html as I said, just my 2 ct, - Henk. This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 12 15:12:37 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 20:12:37 +0000 Subject: ClassicCMP.org direction In-Reply-To: <028d01c68c2d$8b11bbd0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <000501c68b61$ed23e900$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <44898338.2040808@yahoo.co.uk> <028d01c68c2d$8b11bbd0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <448DCAB5.7090304@yahoo.co.uk> Jay West wrote: > Jules wrote.... >> OK, back-burner idea that keeps resurfacing is that it'd be great if >> the "which site has what" or "which site does what" could be somehow >> automated and shared between websites with a classic computer theme. > > Interesting. I will definitely give this some thought. I've cut & pasted > your description to the to-do-list WIP. Great :) It's an idea anyway - it's natural for people to want their own little corner of the web (rather than one site trying to do everything [1]), so anything that allows that but still allows a sharing of information has to be a Good Thing. [1] I know that's not your aim for classicmp.org! cheers J. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Jun 12 15:19:15 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:19:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Paratronics Bus Grabber Message-ID: I just now unearthed this little gem, a Paratronics Bus Grabber. It's composed of an S100 board and a 4-inch square mini front panel less blinkenlights. Anyone remember this thing or know where I can find docs for it? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From teoz at neo.rr.com Mon Jun 12 15:41:28 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 16:41:28 -0400 Subject: Umax 1200S drivers (was: Vintage computer diagrams scanning References: <200606110954410745.0FA58FBD@10.0.0.252> <20060611121937.D79718@shell.lmi.net> <006101c68da6$b83e5c60$0b01a8c0@game> <200606111637200816.11162F12@10.0.0.252> <5.1.0.14.2.20060612132117.058cb208@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <000801c68e60$951a2100$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Merchberger" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 1:39 PM Subject: Umax 1200S drivers (was: Vintage computer diagrams scanning > Rumor has it that Teo Zenios may have mentioned these words: > > >For any real work I use an older Umax 1200s SCSI scanner connected to my > >Quadra 950 Mac, I would use it on my Athlon PC but the original driver disks > >only cover Mac OS 8-9 and Win 9x. You have to pay $50 or so to get drivers > >for the scanner to work under Win2k (Silverfast) and I am not paying $50 for > >old software drivers. > > IIRC, that's the scanner I have and I may have the drivers for it under > Win2K. (Free ones, back when they offered the Win2K drivers for free.) > However, I'm at work, and it's at home. I can check it out when I get home > if you wish. > > Laterz, > Roger "Merch" Merchberger Thanks, it would help me out allot. From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Mon Jun 12 15:52:09 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 16:52:09 -0400 Subject: Tandy 1000 RLX (PC_ish) to good home... Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060612163607.0591b010@mail.30below.com> Old "Pizza-box" style PC - Dunno if it's a '286, but it's about that class of machine. Comes with an internal IDE drive (usually 40Meg - and was Tandy's "SmartDrive" version, which I *think* was one of the rare 8-bit compatible IDE drives). Built-in VGA, 1.44Meg Floppy, one expansion slot (I would assume ISA, but don't quote me) comes with DeskMate, with IIRC the "Recipe" option; as this was designed/marketed (believe it or not) as a "Kitchen Computer," again IIRC. These were designed/marketed slightly *after* I worked for Tandy as a sales monkey; I mostly knew/sold the units in the SX/SL/TX/TL/TL2/TL3 class of machines. VGM-220 Monitor, printer (DMP-130? - I'd have to look again) and manuals. Some docs; I didn't take inventory. Does not have a keyboard - it uses a Mini-DIN-6, but I don't know if they use an AT-compatible keyboard, or one of Tandy's own creations. Haven't tested it, but I can. If no takers by VCM-MW 2.0, it may enter an "undefined" state. It *may* become "more classic" by gutting the case for a nice compact CoCo3 repackage, or it *may* become "less classic" by retrofitting a MiniITX-like motherboard & turn it into a Linux router or fileserver. Either way, I have no use for the hardware as-is, so either save it from the evil "Merch" who intends to use it for cruel & disgusting things, or weep quietly enough that you don't disturb my maniacal laughing as it gets renamed Igor & goes on the operating table... ;^> 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 healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jun 12 16:46:17 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 14:46:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Any DEC RSTS folks out there, need help In-Reply-To: from "Julian Wolfe" at Jun 12, 2006 01:53:43 PM Message-ID: <200606122146.k5CLkH5k029589@onyx.spiritone.com> > > On the bright side it did come with a SCSI card. > > Ugh! Then don't mess with the RA80s! If you like to look at them, leave > them there, but they suck way too much power for everyday use. At least > that's how I feel. Agreed! OTOH, he's running RSTS/E V8, and I'm not sure if it will support SCSI drives. Also, he doesn't mention if it is a disk, tape, or disk/tape controller. It might very well be a tape only controller :^( > For my 11/23+ I did my RSTS installs on a simulator then used unix 'dd' to > copy the files over to the 10gb scsi disk I use. Cool! I've been saying this should work, but this is the first I've heard of anyone actually doing it. How did you create the disk image you installed RSTS onto? This would have the added advantage of not having to have the system up for *days* while RSTS prepares the HD. Just a single pass on a 2GB drive takes about a day on my /73, IIRC. > For the /34a which has two RL02s, I prepared the images with simh then used > vtserver to copy the images to the RL02 packs. (10MB takes about 2 to 3 > hours) If you have the hardware, a VMS box is very useful for this. I have a MicroVAX III outfited with RA72's and 73's, hooked up to a RL01 and RL02 for just this sort of thing, the downside is it is seriously buried in storage :^( Even a MicroVAX II CPU and RAM, along with an RLV12 that can be swapped into the chassis the /23+ uses might do the trick. Zane From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 12 16:15:36 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:15:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: atari printers - gears In-Reply-To: <448CB591.8080706@dsl.pipex.com> from "Philip Pemberton" at Jun 12, 6 01:30:09 am Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > Personally, I'd want to use a metal gear that was a sliding fit onto the > > motor sprindle, and then fix it on with a suitable Loctite. > > I'd be tempted to file a flat section on the shaft and add a matching flat to The spindle is about 1.5mm in diameter IIRC (I've not put the micrometer on it, so don't make something based on that). Making a hole-with-flat of that size could be 'interesting! > the gear, or use a small screw to fix it. I'm not sure what the lifetime of Again, a very small screww (M1, or smaller, I would think). > Loctite is, but I wouldn't want to be pulling a plotter apart a few years down > the line just to put some more glue on a gear... I haev never had this sort of Loctite fail. It's the sort of thing that's specified to lock certain bolts in modern cars, and they don't expect said bolts to undo themselves after a few years :-) In any case, shoulkd the gear come loose in one of these plotters, it's not going to cause death, injury, or even loss of income I would have thought :-). And I'd rather have to pull the cover and put another drop of Loctite on the spindle every 10 years (or whatever) than to have to keep on making plastic gears like the original. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 12 16:18:54 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:18:54 +0100 (BST) Subject: Analogue VOMs In-Reply-To: from "Scott Quinn" at Jun 11, 6 09:38:36 pm Message-ID: > PS- regarding analog meters- been looking at them (not seriously), and > haven't found much. What's a good one, and do they still make the FET > versions of the VTVM (MCM doesn't seem to list any). In the UK, a good analogue meter is the Avo Model 8. In the States, I believe everyone uses a Simpson 260. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 12 16:28:46 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:28:46 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <448DA382.1070505@jetnet.ab.ca> from "woodelf" at Jun 12, 6 11:25:22 am Message-ID: > I live in a apartment so having room for any big items like a real > computer are out -- front panel, 16K memory , Washing machine err Hard > drive :). I suspect your apartment is larger than the room I had as an undergraduate student. But in that room I manged to have and use : A TRS-80 Model 1 A TRS-80 Model 3 A TRS-80 Coco A Philips P850 Mini with paper tape punch/reader An Intel MCS8i Various printers, termionals, etc A small-ish valved 'scope Service manuals for all that stuff :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 12 16:42:47 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:42:47 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: from "Billy Pettit" at Jun 12, 6 09:07:44 am Message-ID: > =20 > Whether it is the chicken or the egg, they also have access to better = > parts > stores (for hobbiest quantities) and excellent magazines. The Dutch > magazine Electuur is translated into English and published in the UK = > every > month as Elector. It has excellent construction articles, readily = > available > firmware, and even the PCB layout for most of the projects. Elektor is the best of a dwindling number of electronics magazines available in the UK. It's improved in the last 5 years or so as they now do make firmware sources available for about 50% of their projects (but not the interesting ones, alas). Before that (and for the other 50% now) you have to buy the programmed device from them, and it comes copy-protected. Since I generally build in order to learn, this is a major reason for me not to build said project. Anotehr disadvantage is that their computer-related projects invariably have Windows software. The sources of that may not be available, the link between the PC and the project (RS232, USB, parallel ports) may not be properly documented. > =20 > We have nothing like it in the States. > =20 > For whatever reason, the UK and to a lesser extent, the EU have kept the It must be really dire in the States, becasue your comments don't seem to apply to the UK that I live in. 10 years ago, we had a number of Maplin shops around the country. All they really sold were components and kits. Many a time when I was doing my Ph.D in Bristol, I'd take the bus up the Gloucester road to get some components I needed for my work. Maplin still exist, but they now sell mostly crap consumer electronics. There is a small selection of components in the catalogue, but very few of them are kept in the shops. You have to special-order them. Yes we have RS and Farnell, but they're effectively mail order only. It's not a problem to have to mail-order the main components for a project (microcontrollers, memroy, power transformers, etc). It's a right pain when you're half way through a design and find you've run out of 10k resistors :-) I live in London. In the entire London area (which I define as the bus pass zone, and is a lot larger than most people think of as London), I know of _one_ shop where I can pop in to get resistors, etc. To be fair they have a good selection of common semiconductors too, but such places are not at all common. The SU EMC directives, mis-applied by our glorious government, have effectively killed off the small kit market in the UK too. And magazines. 20 years ago there were many titles. Now I can think of 2 (Elektor and Everyday/Practical Electronics). One thing that's not helped are that ICs now come in hacker-unfriendly pacakges, and may require expensice programming software and hardware to do anything with. I can see why, I don't expect semiconductor manufacturers to cater for a very small market, but you know, it's a lot easier for the average home constructor to hand-wire 100 TTL chips in DIL pacakges than to do battle with a DGA packaed FPGA... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 12 16:45:57 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:45:57 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor In-Reply-To: <448DAC3D.6030203@bluewin.ch> from "Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel" at Jun 12, 6 08:02:37 pm Message-ID: > > > > Whether it is the chicken or the egg, they also have access to better > > parts stores (for hobbiest quantities) and excellent magazines. The Dutch > > magazine Electuur is translated into English and published in the UK > > every month as Elector. It has excellent construction articles, readily > > available firmware, and even the PCB layout for most of the projects. > > Elector is indeed recommended. > AFAIK it also published the first DIY computer : in May '74 they > started a series on a 12 or 16 bit TTL-based computer. That is two > months before the Mark-8. FWIW, in 1972 the UK magazine 'Practical Electronics' published a design (going over 10 issuses, I have the whole set) for a TTL-based 4-function desktop calcualtor. Not a computer, sure, but a lot of the principles were there. > > Those who like to see something special should check it out : it is a > two-address machine, no instructions, but memory-mapped "functional > units". It even had hardware based multiply and divide ! I'd love to see that, but my Elektor collections starts at about the time of the first Elekturscope (and I don't have a complete run since then, alas) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 12 16:49:03 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:49:03 +0100 (BST) Subject: atari printers - gears In-Reply-To: from "Robert Feldman" at Jun 12, 6 01:15:29 pm Message-ID: > This topic came up several years ago. At that time, I emailed Tony about a > shop in Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, that makes gears for model > railroad locomotives (I recently emailed Ethan offlist with the same > information). I don't recall if Tony ever checked them out. I'd contact them > myself, but I don't have an Atari printers to measure the gear. I hadn't checked them out, but I just have, and I don't think they do anything small enough. They don't do many 14 tooth gears at all (which is what's needed for this plotter I beleive), the one I could find seems to be designed to fit on a 2mm spindle. The motor spindles in the plotter are a lot thinner than this, and since (as we all know), the wall thickness of the gear around said spindle is tiny, I doubt if a gear designed for a 2mm spindle could be small enough. When I get a round tuit, I will take one of mine apart and attempt to work out the specso of this gear prroperly. Then we can see if anyone makes it as a standard part. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 12 16:51:26 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:51:26 +0100 (BST) Subject: unibus RX11 vs RX211 In-Reply-To: <200606121838.k5CIc7XP017492@mwave.heeltoe.com> from "Brad Parker" at Jun 12, 6 02:38:07 pm Message-ID: > > > Hi, > > Finally getting around to some spring pdp-11 hacking. I managed to boot > 2.11BSD on my 11/44 this morning :-) Now I want to (slowly) add > peripherals. > > I discovered I have an RX11 board (quad width) and I think I want to try > and connect it to an RX02 drive box. > > Anyone know the basic difference between an RX11 and an RX211? Can you > plug an RX02 into an RX01? I really only want RX01 to be honest. > > Something tells me I need an RX211 but i thought i'd be lazy and ask here. > > M7846 RX11 U RX01 floppy disk controller > M8256 RX211 U RX02 floppy disk controller I believe you can use a RX02 drive unit with an RX11 if you set the DIP switches inside the drive unit correctly (it's either in the technical manual, or the pocket service guide, or both). You are limited to single-density operation, the thing exactly emulates an RX01 in this mode. -tony From fireflyst at earthlink.net Mon Jun 12 17:21:24 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:21:24 -0500 Subject: Any DEC RSTS folks out there, need help In-Reply-To: <200606122146.k5CLkH5k029589@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy > Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 4:46 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Any DEC RSTS folks out there, need help > > > > On the bright side it did come with a SCSI card. > > > > Ugh! Then don't mess with the RA80s! If you like to look at them, > > leave them there, but they suck way too much power for > everyday use. > > At least that's how I feel. > > Agreed! OTOH, he's running RSTS/E V8, and I'm not sure if it > will support SCSI drives. Also, he doesn't mention if it is > a disk, tape, or disk/tape controller. It might very well be > a tape only controller :^( > > > For my 11/23+ I did my RSTS installs on a simulator then used unix > > 'dd' to copy the files over to the 10gb scsi disk I use. > > Cool! I've been saying this should work, but this is the > first I've heard of anyone actually doing it. How did you > create the disk image you installed RSTS onto? I just let SIMH make it - I used a RA92 image I think. > > This would have the added advantage of not having to have the > system up for > *days* while RSTS prepares the HD. Just a single pass on a > 2GB drive takes about a day on my /73, IIRC. *shrug* My UC07 can split a drive into partitions, so I went ahead and did that. After I split the drive I initialized the other 2GB partition and it took about an hour and a half. > > > For the /34a which has two RL02s, I prepared the images > with simh then > > used vtserver to copy the images to the RL02 packs. (10MB > takes about > > 2 to 3 > > hours) > > If you have the hardware, a VMS box is very useful for this. > I have a MicroVAX III outfited with RA72's and 73's, hooked > up to a RL01 and RL02 for just this sort of thing, the > downside is it is seriously buried in storage :^( I could also just have a partition on the /23+ (which also has an RLV12 in it) with Ultrix-11 or BSD, transfer the disk images to the SCSI drive over TCP/IP, and use 'dd' on there to copy the images over to the cartridges. This is what I was going to use the other parition on my /23+ for but I'm waiting on getting new roms installed. > Even a MicroVAX II CPU and RAM, along with an RLV12 that can > be swapped into the chassis the /23+ uses might do the trick. > > Zane > > From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jun 12 17:35:40 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 15:35:40 -0700 Subject: OT: Magazines( was Re: OT-ish: Build-it stuff) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448DEC3C.2020803@DakotaCom.Net> William Donzelli wrote: >> The columnists were alternately whining or ranting. > > You mean sort of like this list lately? Ah, but *here* you don't have to put up with ADS!! :> From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 12 17:51:16 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 15:51:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Scopes (again) In-Reply-To: <448DA4E3.4060004@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <20060612225116.91021.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> I think this response is for me. The reason I was going to shlep to RS and buy the parts was cuz I've never really done it, and I have other needs for 24vdc. Yep, those surplus bricks might fulfill all my deepest desires...but I guess it's cuz I've never really done it ;). But if anyone should know of a reasonably priced bare transformer...don't particularly want to spend my money there. I never was a fan of RS, especially after what they did to us Orphans (ne1 remember the Whimper?). --- woodelf wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Maybe, but why not go to the same Jameco catalog > and just buy a suitable > > power supply? Jameco has gazillions in their > surplus inventory. I assume > > that your scope has a nameplate that indicates > current consumption. > > BG Micro has a nice 24 volt 4.4 amp switcher for > about $25. > http://www.bgmicro.com/ > No probes how ever. > > > Cheers, > > Chuck > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 12 18:03:48 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:03:48 -0600 Subject: OT: Magazines( was Re: OT-ish: Build-it stuff) In-Reply-To: <448DEC3C.2020803@DakotaCom.Net> References: <448DEC3C.2020803@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <448DF2D4.4080400@jetnet.ab.ca> Don Y wrote: > William Donzelli wrote: > Ah, but *here* you don't have to put up with ADS!! :> "For sale -- PDP-8 blah blah blah $800 would be nice." More like Drool over the last bunch of NOVA's I got for a song at the Ham Fest. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 12 18:01:56 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 00:01:56 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT: Magazines( was Re: OT-ish: Build-it stuff) In-Reply-To: <448DEC3C.2020803@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jun 12, 6 03:35:40 pm Message-ID: > Ah, but *here* you don't have to put up with ADS!! :> ADdress Strobe? -tony From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 12 18:12:21 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:12:21 -0600 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> Tony Duell wrote: > I suspect your apartment is larger than the room I had as an > undergraduate student. But in that room I manged to have and use : > > A TRS-80 Model 1 > A TRS-80 Model 3 > A TRS-80 Coco > A Philips P850 Mini with paper tape punch/reader > An Intel MCS8i > Various printers, termionals, etc > A small-ish valved 'scope > Service manuals for all that stuff :-) > -tony But I want a real Stereo and BIG not bookshelf speakers to go with a 26 inch wide screen TV as well as Music. The books and Music and Anime are all on my book shelves. ... and computers of course like a PC and hopefully later a SBC6120. PS. I got a cheap laser (B&W) and found for $200 it was better than paying $60 for a B&W ink jet every few months for just the odd stuff. If you have been downloading stuff off the web, a good printer is a must. From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Mon Jun 12 18:13:17 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 16:13:17 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor Message-ID: Tony Duell wrote: FWIW, in 1972 the UK magazine 'Practical Electronics' published a design (going over 10 issuses, I have the whole set) for a TTL-based 4-function desktop calcualtor. Not a computer, sure, but a lot of the principles were there. > Those who like to see something special should check it out : it is a > two-address machine, no instructions, but memory-mapped "functional > units". It even had hardware based multiply and divide ! I'd love to see that, but my Elektor collections starts at about the time of the first Elekturscope (and I don't have a complete run since then, alas) -tony ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- Hah, I remember the PE calculator well. I actually built it, though I restructured the boards to match some proto PCBs I had. To make it easier, I copied out the articles and bound them together. I saw that binder in the last few weeks - may have it here in OC. I'll look tonight. It's not a great copy, but anyone is interested, I'll hit the Xerox at Kinko's. (I doubt there's enough interest to be worth scanning.) I have all the English editions of Elektor, but they are not easy to get to. My garage is a solid mass of books and electronics. When I retire next year, the top priority is to clean up that mess. eBay will be a full time occupation for many many months. Some of the stuff is spoken for - I've promised Al K. he can copy anything he wants before I sell it. I should probably donate all the software to the Museum, but I still don't feel positive about their permanence. Billy From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jun 12 18:45:20 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 16:45:20 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <448DFC90.5040107@DakotaCom.Net> woodelf wrote: > PS. I got a cheap laser (B&W) and found for $200 it was better than > paying $60 for a B&W ink jet every few months for just the odd stuff. > If you have been downloading stuff off the web, a good printer is a must. Ouch. LJ4+'s sell for $30 here. From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Mon Jun 12 18:37:04 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 16:37:04 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff Message-ID: Tony Duell wrote: It must be really dire in the States, becasue your comments don't seem to apply to the UK that I live in. 10 years ago, we had a number of Maplin shops around the country. All they really sold were components and kits. Many a time when I was doing my Ph.D in Bristol, I'd take the bus up the Gloucester road to get some components I needed for my work. Maplin still exist, but they now sell mostly crap consumer electronics. There is a small selection of components in the catalogue, but very few of them are kept in the shops. You have to special-order them. Yes we have RS and Farnell, but they're effectively mail order only. It's not a problem to have to mail-order the main components for a project (microcontrollers, memroy, power transformers, etc). It's a right pain when you're half way through a design and find you've run out of 10k resistors :-) I live in London. In the entire London area (which I define as the bus pass zone, and is a lot larger than most people think of as London), I know of _one_ shop where I can pop in to get resistors, etc. To be fair they have a good selection of common semiconductors too, but such places are not at all common. The SU EMC directives, mis-applied by our glorious government, have effectively killed off the small kit market in the UK too. And magazines. 20 years ago there were many titles. Now I can think of 2 (Elektor and Everyday/Practical Electronics). One thing that's not helped are that ICs now come in hacker-unfriendly pacakges, and may require expensice programming software and hardware to do anything with. I can see why, I don't expect semiconductor manufacturers to cater for a very small market, but you know, it's a lot easier for the average home constructor to hand-wire 100 TTL chips in DIL pacakges than to do battle with a DGA packaed FPGA... -tony ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Billy: Yes, things really suck in the US. I hit the shops around Silicon Valley and Orange County. It is a sad mix, except for one or two shops left - Weird Stuff and Halted. Nothing like ten years ago. I was in Boston in April and out on 128 and found nothing. That used to be a great place for computers and electronics. I'm probably showing my age, but when I lived in London, there were lots of nice little shops along the Edgeware Road. Another bunch were close to Paddington. I looked for them a couple of years ago and only found one open. Then were some more up near Buck and Ryan's, my number one stop whenever I go into London. What is the one place left in London? I go in to London from Colechester a few times a year. Would love to find a source of small lots. Maplin used to have a nice store in Southend, but honestly, I haven't been in it for ten years. Magazines are pretty much as you describe. I used to be able to pick up 8 or 10 different ones a month, with Wireless World being supreme. Now it's two or three like you said. But that is still more than we have here. Nuts and Volts is it and it is pretty basic. Billy From brad at heeltoe.com Mon Jun 12 18:39:15 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 19:39:15 -0400 Subject: Any DEC RSTS folks out there, need help In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:21:24 CDT." Message-ID: <200606122339.k5CNdFJf031500@mwave.heeltoe.com> someone, who knows who, wrote: >> >> > For my 11/23+ I did my RSTS installs on a simulator then used unix >> > 'dd' to copy the files over to the 10gb scsi disk I use. >> >> Cool! I've been saying this should work, but this is the >> first I've heard of anyone actually doing it. How did you >> create the disk image you installed RSTS onto? You know, I did this recently. I started with the V9.2 tapes and made an image with simh and then dd'd it to a zip drive (thanks eric, good idea!) and then tried to boot it on my 11/44. I think, however, that the simh session thought I was running on an 11/73 and when I went to run in on an 11/44, something went wrong. I got a lot of messages complaining about the cluster size being wrong. It didn't run rsts. I plan to try again, telling simh i'm on a unibus machine, but I was curious if anyone one else had see this. I told it I was using an rd31. tiny, but big enough. I've had good luck doing this (i.e. making an image with simh and dd-ing it to a scsi disk) with rt11 and 211bsd. It's a quick way to bootstrap when you have unibus hardware you (ahem) might have forgotten to remove the battery backup jumpers from (dd11-dk) or NPR jumpers, or what other whatnot. But it does require a unibus (or qbus) scsi card. >I could also just have a partition on the /23+ (which also has an RLV12 in >it) with Ultrix-11 or BSD, transfer the disk images to the SCSI drive over >TCP/IP, and use 'dd' on there to copy the images over to the cartridges. I've done that too. rcp is my friend. I did it running 2.11bsd, however, using and 11/53 cpu in a qbus chassis. I used a kda-50 to write an SDI disk and then moved the SDI disk to a uda-50 unibus machine. -brad From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Mon Jun 12 18:39:04 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 00:39:04 +0100 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448DFB18.206@dsl.pipex.com> Tony Duell wrote: > Maplin still exist, but they now sell mostly crap consumer electronics. > There is a small selection of components in the catalogue, but very few > of them are kept in the shops. You have to special-order them. Yes we > have RS and Farnell, but they're effectively mail order only. Not if you happen to live in Leeds. The trade counter's open to the public and it's about ten minutes' walk from one of the stops on the main Armley Road bus route. Order at the desk and wait 20-40 minutes (depending on order size) for them to sort it, or ring ahead and it'll probably be ready by the time you get down there. All you really need is a Customer ID number - ring main sales and ask to register for one. Simple as. > It's not a > problem to have to mail-order the main components for a project > (microcontrollers, memroy, power transformers, etc). It's a right pain > when you're half way through a design and find you've run out of 10k > resistors :-) When I was over in the States a few years back (2001 I think), I picked up a few packs of resistors from the 'bargain bin' at Radioshack. Yes they're probably crap quality, but they work well enough for most things. When I need a value I don't have, I usually order a strip of 50 or 100 of the 0.25W metal-film variant. ?1 +VAT for fifty resistors - certainly beats Maplin's extortionate 70p for ten. I've still yet to find a place that sells nickel shim stock though (I use it for battery welding strips). I used to get it from McMaster-Carr, but they won't do export orders any more. > I live in London. In the entire London area (which I define as the bus > pass zone, and is a lot larger than most people think of as London), I > know of _one_ shop where I can pop in to get resistors, etc. To be fair > they have a good selection of common semiconductors too, but such places > are not at all common. Around here there's Farnell and the local Maplin (spit). Apparently there's also Bardwell's in Sheffield, but I don't know if they're still going. Now what I would like to find is a decent supplier of electronics surplus. Mainline were great up until their warehouse caught fire, Greenweld have disappeared (good riddance, their Innovations-catalogue wares will not be missed) and WCN don't seem to have much useful stock these days. Nor do they seem to want to send me a copy of the current catalogue... > And magazines. 20 years ago there were many titles. Now I can think of 2 > (Elektor and Everyday/Practical Electronics). EPE's a shadow of its former self. They won't take freelance submissions any more, and 90% of their content is from Silicon Chip magazine. I fully intend to let my subscription lapse when it's up for renewal. Elektor is neat - their "no you can't have the firmware source" policy is a bit crap though. They do publish more interesting stuff than EPE, and I find myself spending longer reading an issue of Elektor than I do an issue of EPE (I also tend to make a hell of a lot of scribbles in my 'neat circuit snippets' notebook while I'm doing so). Circuit Cellar is good too - kinda like an Americanised version of Elektor, but with more "this is a cool trick" type articles -- the current issue has the circuit diagram and firmware for a neat-looking motion-sensing glove based on an AtMega MCU. They've had other stuff too (too much to list), and Jeff Bachiochi's "From the Bench" column is usually worth reading. > One thing that's not helped are that ICs now come in hacker-unfriendly > pacakges, and may require expensice programming software and hardware to > do anything with. I've got a box full of homebrew adapter PCBs and turned-pin solder pins. When I need to put a particularly fussy chip onto a breadboard, I make an adapter in Autotrax and etch it. It takes longer, but it beats dead-bugging fine-pitch chips. On the software front, I just ignore anything that needs expensive software. I once had the 'pleasure' of dealing with an FPGA vendor who was screaming about how cheap their ICs were. I asked how much the development software was, and got the answer "sorry, we can't tell you unless you sign an NDA." Sorry, wrong answer, you lose, thanks for playing. There's a reason all the microcontrollers in my junkbox are Microchip PICs and 8051 derivatives (mostly Dallas Semiconductor "Speed It uP" series chips) - free or cheap dev software. MPLAB is free, MetaLink Assembler is free too, and the Dallas chips are programmed with a MAX232 and a toggle switch. All my CPLDs are Xilinx - the Parallel Cable III schematic is open (it's an LS244 buffer and some passive termination circuitry) and ISE WebPack is free (but bloody huge - about 200MB last time I checked, and the service packs are just as big). > I can see why, I don't expect semiconductor manufacturers to cater for a > very small market, but you know, it's a lot easier for the average home > constructor to hand-wire 100 TTL chips in DIL pacakges than to do battle > with a DGA packaed FPGA... I don't really do wirewrap or Roadrunner wiring much these days. My last three projects were built straight onto PCBs, then I patched the inevitable bugs with copper tape and patch wires. If I find an unpatchable bug, I etch a new PCB and move the old components onto the new board. Thankfully I haven't had to do that yet... At the moment I'm designing a 'proper' battery charger. Basically a current-mode switchmode buck converter and a programmable current sink. I got sick of the ?20 Chinese cheapshit chargers wrecking my expensive Sanyo NiMHs, and dying after a year or two of fairly light use. -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From jrkeys at concentric.net Mon Jun 12 18:57:59 2006 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 18:57:59 -0500 Subject: Working getting a SEL810A Computer Message-ID: <011101c68e7c$0a5c0710$3c406b43@66067007> Talking with group that has a SEL810A that is still running today in their business. They plan on turning if off for good on Wednesday. I got my fingers crossed. :-) John From brad at heeltoe.com Mon Jun 12 19:13:03 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 20:13:03 -0400 Subject: Working getting a SEL810A Computer In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 12 Jun 2006 18:57:59 CDT." <011101c68e7c$0a5c0710$3c406b43@66067007> Message-ID: <200606130013.k5D0D3sN000413@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Keys" wrote: >Talking with group that has a SEL810A that is still running today in their >business. They plan on turning if off for good on Wednesday. I got my >fingers crossed. :-) John I've never heard of a SEL. That data sheet seems ahead of it's time. Did I get confused or did it say 1968? I used load-and-go fortran on an 1620, but that seems like a nice early 16 bit single user workstation. pretty cool. -brad From wmaddox at pacbell.net Mon Jun 12 19:09:20 2006 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:09:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Working getting a SEL810A Computer In-Reply-To: <011101c68e7c$0a5c0710$3c406b43@66067007> Message-ID: <20060613000920.40424.qmail@web81308.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- Keys wrote: > Talking with group that has a SEL810A that is still > running today in their > business. They plan on turning if off for good on > Wednesday. I got my > fingers crossed. :-) John That is awesome! If it's still running, they must have the maintenance documents too. You should make sure that Al gets to scan them for the archives. Good luck! --Bill From jrkeys at concentric.net Mon Jun 12 19:18:32 2006 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 19:18:32 -0500 Subject: Working getting a SEL810A Computer References: <200606130013.k5D0D3sN000413@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <011c01c68e7e$e94deea0$3c406b43@66067007> Here's a link to a manual for it. http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Systems_Engineering_Laboratories/SystemsEngrgLab.SEL810A.1967.102646093.pdf ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brad Parker" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 7:13 PM Subject: Re: Working getting a SEL810A Computer > > "Keys" wrote: >>Talking with group that has a SEL810A that is still running today in their >>business. They plan on turning if off for good on Wednesday. I got my >>fingers crossed. :-) John > > I've never heard of a SEL. That data sheet seems ahead of it's time. > Did I get confused or did it say 1968? > > I used load-and-go fortran on an 1620, but that seems like a nice early > 16 bit single user workstation. > > pretty cool. > > -brad > > > > From jrkeys at concentric.net Mon Jun 12 19:21:46 2006 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 19:21:46 -0500 Subject: Working getting a SEL810A Computer References: <20060613000920.40424.qmail@web81308.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <012801c68e7f$5cc4f400$3c406b43@66067007> YES!!! They have ALL the doc's for it and the other items with it. They were using a ASR33 at one time for printing. ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Maddox" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 7:09 PM Subject: Re: Working getting a SEL810A Computer > --- Keys wrote: > >> Talking with group that has a SEL810A that is still >> running today in their >> business. They plan on turning if off for good on >> Wednesday. I got my >> fingers crossed. :-) John > > That is awesome! If it's still running, they must > have the maintenance documents too. You should make > sure that Al gets to scan them for the archives. > > Good luck! > > --Bill > > > From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jun 12 19:42:53 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:42:53 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448E0A0D.7060003@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: > Elektor is the best of a dwindling number of electronics magazines > available in the UK. It's improved in the last 5 years or so as they now > do make firmware sources available for about 50% of their projects (but > not the interesting ones, alas). Before that (and for the other 50% now) > you have to buy the programmed device from them, and it comes copy-protected. "Copy protected" -- implying an MCU implementation? I.e. *small* pieces of code? (not hundreds of KB) > Since I generally build in order to learn, this is a major reason for me > not to build said project. Yup. Or, at least to be able to *build* on their ideas (things they didn't think of or didn't implement well) > Anotehr disadvantage is that their computer-related projects invariably > have Windows software. The sources of that may not be available, the link > between the PC and the project (RS232, USB, parallel ports) may not be > properly documented. This is true here (US), as well. Its as if the idea of something *other* than a PC never crosses their mind... >> We have nothing like it in the States. >> =20 >> For whatever reason, the UK and to a lesser extent, the EU have kept the > > It must be really dire in the States, becasue your comments don't seem to > apply to the UK that I live in. [component vendors] I wonder if the *apparent* (? unsubstantiated by hard numbers) prevalence of hobbyists on your side of the pond has anything to do with economics? I recall (when working with a firm in Manchester) that many components that were dirt cheap here were quite "dear", there. And, the "pounds = dollars" relationship means things are effectively (i.e. from *my* point of view) 60 - 80% more expensive than they would be, here. What, for example do you see run of the mill consumer stuff selling for, there? E.g., decent (not top of the line) PC's, MP3 players, etc.? Could it be that these things are cheap enough here that it acts as a deterent to folks rolling-their-own? Conversely, that they are dear enough there that you have added incentive to tinker? > One thing that's not helped are that ICs now come in hacker-unfriendly > pacakges, and may require expensice programming software and hardware to > do anything with. Yes, this has been in the works since the 70's. I recall a friend advising me that the DIP would be short-lived. I hadn't realized just how short! > I can see why, I don't expect semiconductor manufacturers to cater for a > very small market, but you know, it's a lot easier for the average home > constructor to hand-wire 100 TTL chips in DIL pacakges than to do battle > with a DGA packaed FPGA... That's why there are **sockets**! :> (and socket-ish adapters) From bpope at wordstock.com Mon Jun 12 19:34:35 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 20:34:35 -0400 (EDT) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060613003435.20D3B57E36@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Billy Pettit > > Weird Stuff and Halted. Nothing like ten years ago. I was in Boston in > April and out on 128 and found nothing. That used to be a great place = > for > computers and electronics. > Arrgh!! You didn't see You-do-it Electronics?!?! ( http://www.youdoitelectronics.com ) They are the best place in the area for parts / kits / books / tools and they have good prices too! MARCH is having a New England road trip this fall and that is one place we will be visiting... (along with the Flea at MIT) Cheers, Bryan From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 12 19:47:49 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:47:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <200606102017010671.0CB8F967@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060613004749.70332.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> --- Chuck Guzis wrote: > Eventually, I picked up some surplus Daisy 20" > behemoths and wired up a > converter that converted the separate sync to SOG. > Not much more than a > 74LS86 and some resistors. I used to add the seperate syncs to the green input with a resistor, don't remember the value. Was that a mistake lol? I don't recall any problems. > Jettisoned those around 1995 and picked up some > surplus (I think HP) Sony > monitors--a 17" and a 20" and did the same. I Still got a few of my own, including the nicer IBM branded units that were slightly older then the typical 19" GDM-1950s (I'm guessing those are the ones you have). I've been wanting a (or several) large screen B & W monitors ever since I got rid of my Viking? Moniterm? unit I had on my old Mac II. The thing had some noticeable screen burn, but was still a pleasure to look at, being sharp as a tack. Anyone got any of the biguns? > I meant to get an InColor card, but enhanced EGA and > then VGA just rendered > the issue moot. Now that would be a collectible item. How stupid though, right about the time the EGA came out, and IIRC synced to an EGA monitor. Good luck finding one though... __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 12 19:53:30 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:53:30 -0700 Subject: Scopes (again) In-Reply-To: <20060612225116.91021.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060612225116.91021.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200606121753300958.16824632@10.0.0.252> On 6/12/2006 at 3:51 PM Chris M wrote: >I think this response is for me. The reason I was >going to shlep to RS and buy the parts was cuz I've >never really done it, and I have other needs for >24vdc. Yep, those surplus bricks might fulfill all my >deepest desires...but I guess it's cuz I've never >really done it ;). Well, okay, yes, I suppose you could build a nice analog 24VDC supply from RS parts. Let's see: Catalog #: 273-1512 25.2vct 2 amp transformer $10.49 Catalog #: 276-1146 4A, 50 PIV bridge rectifier $1.49 Catalog #: 272-1048 2200 uF 50 WVDC capacitor $4.29 At this point, options get tough, depending on the current you'll need. But let's go with Catalog #: 276-1778 LM317T adjustable voltage regulator $2.29 You could also build your own regulator for higher current using the 2N3055 power transistor, a zener and a handful of resistors. Add to this, a line cord, switch fuse, connectors (if needed0 heatsink and enclosure. I suppose that it might be fun to see what useful thing that could be built using components from the local RS; but you're not going to save any money there! Cheers, Chuck From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Mon Jun 12 20:04:27 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 18:04:27 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff Message-ID: Bryan Pope wrote: Arrgh!! You didn't see You-do-it Electronics?!?! ( http://www.youdoitelectronics.com ) They are the best place in the area for parts / kits / books / tools and they have good prices too! MARCH is having a New England road trip this fall and that is one place we will be visiting... (along with the Flea at MIT) Cheers, Bryan -------------------------------------------------- No I missed it, relying instead on 30 year old memories. Obviously, I should have asked somebody who knew the area. I hang my head in shame. For the link. Billy From marvin at rain.org Mon Jun 12 20:15:11 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 18:15:11 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff Message-ID: <448E119F.19C862C4@rain.org> Another interesting publication for (ham) builders here in the US is QEX (published by the ARRL.) I have no idea how well known it is (I just happened to run across a copy at the ARRL table at the TRW swap meet) but I was impressed that it had some fairly technical stuff for builders that was more than some flashing LEDs. > two or three like you said. But that is still more than we have here. Nuts > and Volts is it and it is pretty basic. > > > > Billy > From dm561 at torfree.net Mon Jun 12 20:54:39 2006 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 21:54:39 -0400 Subject: Atari/RS/CBM plotters - gears & pens Message-ID: <448e1adf.6.624f.19394@canada.com> -------------------Original Message: From: Pete Turnbull Subject: Re: atari printers - gears >On Jun 12 2006, 1:30, Philip Pemberton wrote: > I'd be tempted to file a flat section on the shaft and add a matching flat to > the gear, or use a small screw to fix it. I'm not sure what the lifetime of > Loctite is, but I wouldn't want to be pulling a plotter apart a few years down > the line just to put some more glue on a gear... >From memory, the gear is too small to make that practical, even an M2 would be far too big. -- Pete ----------------Reply: Indeed; the gears in question are only about 5mm (1/8") dia. with 12 (13?) teeth. As Tony explained, as the plastic ages they split due to the stress of being pressed onto the motor shaft. Although my CGP-115 was working fine when last used several years ago, when I dug it out recently I found that both gears had split in the meantime. I reamed out the centre hole a little with a 1/64" drill to relieve the stress, put a tiny drop of superglue on the inside of the split and put it back on the shaft with a gentle clamp (to avoid deforming the fairly soft teeth). Let it dry, carefully scraped a bit of excess glue from between the teeth at the split, and so far it's survived several feet of test printing in text mode (which stresses the gears much more than line drawing). What I was testing was re-inked pens. I suspect that some of the people who made suggestions re the pens have not seen one of those either; they are small ball-point pens, 24 x 5 mm (1" x 1/8") with a very fine point (for printing 6pt characters, 80 cols on 4" paper). There are two types, a plastic tip and a metal tip in a plastic sleeve. The tips are easily removed; the absorbent insert inside the body can also usually be removed, although that's not necessary. After a thorough soaking and drying they can be refilled and reassembled; briefly put them in hot water to force ink out the tip to get it started, and that's it (unless it was too solidly clogged or corroded). Since they have to fit into a small 4-pen carousel, the shape and size is pretty critical so they can't be replaced with any generic pens. It might be possible to replace the metal tip with a cut-off ballpoint refill, although a normal refill might not work very well since the pens are mounted horizontally. YMMV, mike ---------------------------------------- Upgrade your account today for increased storage; mail forwarding or POP enabled e-mail with automatic virus scanning. Visit our member benefits page at https://members.canada.com/benefits.aspx for more information. From aw288 at osfn.org Mon Jun 12 21:12:27 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:12:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <448E119F.19C862C4@rain.org> Message-ID: > Another interesting publication for (ham) builders here in the US is QEX > (published by the ARRL.) I have no idea how well known it is On the northeast hamfest circuit, well known, thanks to Finberg. > (I just happened to > run across a copy at the ARRL table at the TRW swap meet) but I was impressed > that it had some fairly technical stuff for builders that was more than some > flashing LEDs. When hams gripe about how QST has been dumbed down so much in the technical and project regions, it is amazing to find out how many _do_not_ know about QEX. The whole point of the QST split (old QST -> new QST and QEX) was to make everyone happy - one magazine for average Joe Ham, and one for the hardcore project-building hams. The ARRL seems to be very bad at marketing the magazine. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 12 21:24:50 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 19:24:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff Message-ID: <20060613022450.11813.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> it would be nice to see a copy at Borders/B & N. Im not a ham, not yet anyway, but Ive never even heard of it. --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Another interesting publication for (ham) builders here in the US is QEX > > (published by the ARRL.) I have no idea how well known it is > > On the northeast hamfest circuit, well known, thanks to Finberg. > > > (I just happened to > > run across a copy at the ARRL table at the TRW swap meet) but I was impressed > > that it had some fairly technical stuff for builders that was more than some > > flashing LEDs. > > When hams gripe about how QST has been dumbed down so much in the > technical and project regions, it is amazing to find out how many _do_not_ > know about QEX. The whole point of the QST split (old QST -> new QST and > QEX) was to make everyone happy - one magazine for average Joe Ham, and > one for the hardcore project-building hams. The ARRL seems to be very bad > at marketing the magazine. > > William Donzelli > aw288 at osfn.org > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From dbwood at kc.rr.com Mon Jun 12 21:29:01 2006 From: dbwood at kc.rr.com (dbwood at kc.rr.com) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 21:29:01 -0500 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: Billy Pettit Date: Monday, June 12, 2006 6:14 pm Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Tony Duell wrote: > > FWIW, in 1972 the UK magazine 'Practical Electronics' published a > design > (going over 10 issuses, I have the whole set) for a TTL-based 4- > function > desktop calcualtor. Not a computer, sure, but a lot of the > principles > were there. > > > Those who like to see something special should check it out : it > is a > > two-address machine, no instructions, but memory-mapped > "functional > > units". It even had hardware based multiply and divide ! > > I'd love to see that, but my Elektor collections starts at about > the time > of the first Elekturscope (and I don't have a complete run since > then, alas) > > -tony > > ------------------------------------------------------------------- > --------- > --------- > > Hah, > > I remember the PE calculator well. I actually built it, though I > restructured the boards to match some proto PCBs I had. To make > it easier, > I copied out the articles and bound them together. I saw that > binder in the > last few weeks - may have it here in OC. I'll look tonight. It's > not a > great copy, but anyone is interested, I'll hit the Xerox at > Kinko's. (I > doubt there's enough interest to be worth scanning.) > > I have all the English editions of Elektor, but they are not easy > to get to. > My garage is a solid mass of books and electronics. When I retire > nextyear, the top priority is to clean up that mess. eBay will be > a full time > occupation for many many months. Some of the stuff is spoken for - > I've > promised Al K. he can copy anything he wants before I sell it. I > shouldprobably donate all the software to the Museum, but I still > don't feel > positive about their permanence. > > Billy > > > Scan 'em! Scan 'em! I'd forgotten all about the PE Calculator... Douglas Wood From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 12 21:49:15 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 19:49:15 -0700 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <20060613004749.70332.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060613004749.70332.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200606121949150022.16EC3AC9@10.0.0.252> On 6/12/2006 at 5:47 PM Chris M wrote: > I used to add the seperate syncs to the green input >with a resistor, don't remember the value. Was that a >mistake lol? I don't recall any problems. Depends on the monitor, I guess. The XOR trick always worked, however. The GDM-1950 didn't even need that--it has 5 BNCs with separate H and V sync. The 17 incher is a Sony carrying the HP number 98789A; and has just RGB BNCs. Both work just fine at1024x768, and up untl about a year ago, were still in use. Now they're just sitting in a corner. > Now that would be a collectible item. How stupid >though, right about the time the EGA came out, and >IIRC synced to an EGA monitor. Good luck finding one though... Funny thing was is they sent me two Herc Plus cards free gratis and offered to send me the InColor if I wanted one, but I couldn't see the logic in my having one, since EGA had already been introduced. Besides, the Herc Plus cards were really nifty for the time--downloadable fonts with 12 bit character codes. Heck, if there was a video card that could do that and proportional spacing, I'd probably still be text-only today. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jun 12 22:15:24 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 20:15:24 -0700 Subject: OT: Magazines( was Re: OT-ish: Build-it stuff) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448E2DCC.8010603@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: >> Ah, but *here* you don't have to put up with ADS!! :> > > ADdress Strobe? I think on your side of the pond they're "ADVERTS"... (Always Defend, Very Egregiously, Religious Telepathic Senders) From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jun 12 22:52:07 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:52:07 -0500 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448E3667.6060809@oldskool.org> Billy Pettit wrote: > But let's ask the list: is there anybody else out there or that you know > who buys a product only if it has repair documentation available? Since I have 0% electronics repair skills, no. > And as a corollary, do you only buy products you want to run 20 years? Or > can you accept a product as being expendable? How long should a computer > part last? Computer parts without any moving parts should last forever, and in my experience, they usually do (if cared for properly). Fans, hard drives, and floppy drives have come and gone, but CPU, RAM, etc. Monitors, OTOH, have been very hit or miss for me. I have an IBM 5153 CGA monitor that is as perfect as the day it was manufactured (and it gets fairly regular use!), as well as a low-scanning VGA Amiga monitor (horizontal goes down to 15Khz, something I wish all VGA monitors would do), but I have thrown away more typical VGA monitors than I can count on both hands. Even the trinitrons eventually gain a red cast, or a voltage irregularity, or the flyback transformer blows, or something. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jun 12 23:02:20 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:02:20 -0500 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <448A67FE.8070501@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <003b01c68b69$af2ff320$01fea8c0@alpha> <448A67FE.8070501@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <448E38CC.2050602@oldskool.org> woodelf wrote: > Alexandre Souza wrote: > >> Describe me a CGA board on that media ;o) > Yuck!!! > I can't remeber anything I liked about CGA? I love CGA: http://www.oldskool.org/pc/8088_Corruption (shameless plug) -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jun 12 23:04:11 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:04:11 -0500 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <200606101621350897.0BE16F82@10.0.0.252> References: <20060610155724.O31953@shell.lmi.net> <200606101621350897.0BE16F82@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <448E393B.9010908@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Wait--you had to buy a modulator for the CGA. ?? I don't follow -- I got perfectly good color out of my composite CGA just fine (40x25, 160x200). Yes, 80x25 was B&W if you wanted it to be legible :-) but I don't ever remember having to buy a modulator... confused... -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From allain at panix.com Mon Jun 12 23:29:05 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 00:29:05 -0400 Subject: Scopes (again) References: <20060612225116.91021.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <004401c68ea1$e81f92e0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> > But if anyone should know of a reasonably priced bare > transformer Amperage? From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jun 12 23:35:25 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 01:35:25 -0300 Subject: Laser printing References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> > PS. I got a cheap laser (B&W) and found for $200 it was better than > paying $60 for a B&W ink jet every few months for just the odd stuff. > If you have been downloading stuff off the web, a good printer is a must. For me the HP 4 Plus (or the 5 Plus) is the winner. - Very reliable EX+ mech - 7000 pages/toner load - Original toner cartridge can be reloaded 3 or 4 times without changing cylinder - VERY sturdy - Last cheap model using an aluminiun fuser cylinder (the newer or cheaper lasers uses a tube of teflom, easy to rip or puncture) and a real fuser lamp (instead of a fragile and expensive ceramic resistance) - All the (metal) gears into JUST ONE module - One "fuse" gear separated from the gear module - if the fuser locks up, the "fuse" gear breaks, and it is a $1 replacement - 600 DPI with Resolution Enhancement - Cheap network board - Uses common 72-pin SIMM memory from PC - Has serial/parallel ports Of course there are better printers (4/5SI/MX) but at a way higher price and power comsumption. World will end and my HP4+ will still print. Mine has more than 700.000 copies printed!!! :oo Greetz from Brazil Alexandre Souza From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 12 23:42:21 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 21:42:21 -0700 Subject: Scopes (again) In-Reply-To: <004401c68ea1$e81f92e0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> References: <20060612225116.91021.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> <004401c68ea1$e81f92e0$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <200606122142210629.1753C7A5@10.0.0.252> On 6/13/2006 at 12:29 AM John Allain wrote: >> But if anyone should know of a reasonably priced bare >> transformer > >Amperage? Dunno about amperage, but I found this one: http://www.arky.ucalgary.ca/arky1/show/man-bear.jpg :) From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 12 23:46:32 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 21:46:32 -0700 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <448E393B.9010908@oldskool.org> References: <20060610155724.O31953@shell.lmi.net> <200606101621350897.0BE16F82@10.0.0.252> <448E393B.9010908@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200606122146320202.17579A65@10.0.0.252> On 6/12/2006 at 11:04 PM Jim Leonard wrote: >Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Wait--you had to buy a modulator for the CGA. > >?? I don't follow -- I got perfectly good color out of my composite CGA >just fine (40x25, 160x200). Yes, 80x25 was B&W if you wanted it to be >legible :-) but I don't ever remember having to buy a modulator... >confused... You had to be there. ;) It was the argument of the OP that the CGA was superior to the MDA because you didn't need to buy a $600 IBM monitor if you didn't want to. I took the "official" IBM slant that, yes, indeed you didn't--you'd simply hook it up to your TV set through a modulator (I believe that there's even an allusion to that in the maroon PC installation manual). That and an audio cassette recorder and a couple of joysticks and you were in business with your very own family entertainment system. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 12 23:50:09 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 21:50:09 -0700 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <200606122150090265.175AEA41@10.0.0.252> I've still got (and am still using) a Panasonic KXP-4450 and a KXP-4455; one circa 1989, the other 1992. Heavy duty-weigh a ton, but just keep going and going. Toner (no carts) and other supplies are still available. Cost per page has to be among the lowest for lasers. Cheers, Chuck From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jun 12 23:50:53 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:50:53 -0500 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <200606101849260134.0C68C86E@10.0.0.252> References: <20060610155724.O31953@shell.lmi.net> <200606101621350897.0BE16F82@10.0.0.252> <20060610163137.H31953@shell.lmi.net> <200606101849260134.0C68C86E@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <448E442D.10108@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I couldn't imagine installing a PC with CGA in an office for, say, word > processing on an 8-hour per day basis. That would have been just plain > sadistic. Well, duh. :-) People bought CGA for games, business graphics, art, etc. I agree I don't think I ever saw CGA in a business setting (unless it was the second adapter in a dual-monitor machine, which I DID see in great use at a friend's trading firm in the early 1980s). > And if you needed graphics, Hercules (or clones thereof) was very nice. Not until early 1983, anyway. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From Tim at Rikers.org Mon Jun 12 23:51:39 2006 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:51:39 -0600 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C201AB@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> References: <448B12F3.8010106@DakotaCom.Net> <002e01c68cbd$c8b6ab40$6500a8c0@BILLING> <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE06C201AB@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Message-ID: <448E445B.5030906@Rikers.org> Gooijen, Henk wrote: > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. > If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. > If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. > Thank you for your cooperation. Another thing to avoid is adding a footer like the above claiming that this message is in any way protected. This is NOT a private list. Archives are online. If you believe that the message you are sending should not be going to the general public, then DO NOT POST. I would recommend that the mail list reject any messages with such a clause attached to them. Thank you for your cooperation. -- Tim Riker - http://rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jun 12 23:52:19 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:52:19 -0500 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448E4483.7010204@oldskool.org> Tony Duell wrote: > IIRC, you could turn off the colour subcarrier, etc using a bit of one of > the output ports (I think this was done in Mode 2), this was worth doing > if you used a mono mnonitor. And I seem to rememebr you could get an > extra 4 colour palette on the RGB (DE9) output if you did this. Correct on both counts; see the wikipedia entry for CGA for exact details. -- 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 spectre at floodgap.com Mon Jun 12 23:53:26 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 21:53:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <448E445B.5030906@Rikers.org> from Tim Riker at "Jun 12, 6 10:51:39 pm" Message-ID: <200606130453.k5D4rQZ7016626@floodgap.com> > Another thing to avoid is adding a footer like the above claiming that > this message is in any way protected. This is NOT a private list. > Archives are online. If you believe that the message you are sending > should not be going to the general public, then DO NOT POST. > > I would recommend that the mail list reject any messages with such a > clause attached to them. Some people can't control for this, though. My work address adds on such crap automatically, and if it's the only address they have ... Naturally I use my home E-mail for this sort of stuff. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- #include ------------------------------------------------ From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jun 12 23:53:53 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:53:53 -0500 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <200606122146320202.17579A65@10.0.0.252> References: <20060610155724.O31953@shell.lmi.net> <200606101621350897.0BE16F82@10.0.0.252> <448E393B.9010908@oldskool.org> <200606122146320202.17579A65@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <448E44E1.1040500@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: >>> Wait--you had to buy a modulator for the CGA. >> ?? I don't follow -- I got perfectly good color out of my composite CGA >> just fine (40x25, 160x200). Yes, 80x25 was B&W if you wanted it to be >> legible :-) but I don't ever remember having to buy a modulator... >> confused... > > You had to be there. ;) It was the argument of the OP that the CGA was > superior to the MDA because you didn't need to buy a $600 IBM monitor if > you didn't want to. I took the "official" IBM slant that, yes, indeed you > didn't--you'd simply hook it up to your TV set through a modulator (I > believe that there's even an allusion to that in the maroon PC installation > manual). That and an audio cassette recorder and a couple of joysticks and > you were in business with your very own family entertainment system. Ah yes, thank you for the clarification. Sarcasm received and registered :-) Yes, the IBM PC+CGA as a family entertainment system was a very very hard sell in 1982... -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jun 12 23:56:25 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:56:25 -0500 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <448E4579.6050603@oldskool.org> Alexandre Souza wrote: > For me the HP 4 Plus (or the 5 Plus) is the winner. I have an HP 4ML next to me that is a decade old and prints(*) as well as the day I bought it. (*) It does not WORK quite the same way, though: Occasionally, it will just cease to accept input. A power cycle is the only thing that cures that condition. > - 600 DPI with Resolution Enhancement Only on text edges. It's not actually 600 DPI addressable. -- 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 Tim at Rikers.org Tue Jun 13 00:00:08 2006 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:00:08 -0600 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <200606130453.k5D4rQZ7016626@floodgap.com> References: <200606130453.k5D4rQZ7016626@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <448E4658.6080004@Rikers.org> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>Another thing to avoid is adding a footer like the above claiming that >>this message is in any way protected. This is NOT a private list. >>Archives are online. If you believe that the message you are sending >>should not be going to the general public, then DO NOT POST. >> >>I would recommend that the mail list reject any messages with such a >>clause attached to them. > > > Some people can't control for this, though. My work address adds on such > crap automatically, and if it's the only address they have ... Anyone can get a gmail account or similar. > Naturally I use my home E-mail for this sort of stuff. Exactly what I'd recommend. :) -- Tim Riker - http://rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 13 00:38:42 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 22:38:42 -0700 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <448E4F62.7060108@DakotaCom.Net> Alexandre Souza wrote: > For me the HP 4 Plus (or the 5 Plus) is the winner. Agreed. > - Very reliable EX+ mech > - 7000 pages/toner load > - Original toner cartridge can be reloaded 3 or 4 times without changing > cylinder > - VERY sturdy > - Last cheap model using an aluminiun fuser cylinder (the newer or > cheaper lasers uses a tube of teflom, easy to rip or puncture) and a real > fuser lamp (instead of a fragile and expensive ceramic resistance) > - All the (metal) gears into JUST ONE module > - One "fuse" gear separated from the gear module - if the fuser locks > up, the "fuse" gear breaks, and it is a $1 replacement > - 600 DPI with Resolution Enhancement > - Cheap network board > - Uses common 72-pin SIMM memory from PC Note that the 4 (without the '+') uses different memory! (parity) And, if you stuff a PostScript SIMM into a 4+ (along with the JetDirect card) it automatically morphs into a 4M+. I think I have 66MB in mine so printing even big documents is really quite fast! > - Has serial/parallel ports And 10Base2/T/Appletalk with the JetDirect card From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jun 13 00:30:38 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:30:38 +1200 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <448E4579.6050603@oldskool.org> References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> <448E4579.6050603@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On 6/13/06, Jim Leonard wrote: > I have an HP 4ML next to me that is a decade old and prints(*) as well > as the day I bought it. I bought a 4ML new, back in the day, for about $1100 - still works great. I also have a 3Si that was $15 at the local Uni surplus, but that one took about $40 in rollers and pads (and many hours) to get working, not that I'm complaining about a $55 duplexing, two-tray, networked Postscript printer. For lighter loads, though, I can recommend the 4ML. Mine has performed flawlessly for years with Amigas, Macs, PCs, and Sun boxes. The only thing I can recommend as an accessory is a external networked print server. -ethan From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Tue Jun 13 00:54:27 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 00:54:27 -0500 Subject: VX42 Multia versus 3000-300X Message-ID: <5d8b0d190a174bf9883ba1fceae0f16e@valleyimplants.com> I might have the opporitunity to get a DEC 3000-300X machine for VMS (175 MHz 21064) I know that 21(1,2,3)64 machines offer substantially improved performance, but for the moment they are out of reach. The question- I'm running VMS currently on a VX42 (233MHz 21066A, 512k cache, 88MB RAM) Multia, and it is quite slow (user response time with AXP-VMS v7.3-1) SPEC-92 indicates that the DEC 3300X will be slower (84/100 for the 300X, 97/112 for (a generic) 21066A/233) Likely, however, the 300X would have better I/O subsystems. Would it be worth messing with, or should I not bother (as far as useablility, not number-crunching prowess)? From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jun 13 01:13:33 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:13:33 -0700 Subject: VX42 Multia versus 3000-300X In-Reply-To: <5d8b0d190a174bf9883ba1fceae0f16e@valleyimplants.com> References: <5d8b0d190a174bf9883ba1fceae0f16e@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: At 12:54 AM -0500 6/13/06, Scott Quinn wrote: > I might have the opporitunity to get a DEC 3000-300X machine for >VMS (175 MHz 21064) >I know that 21(1,2,3)64 machines offer substantially improved >performance, but for the moment they are out of reach. > >The question- I'm running VMS currently on a VX42 (233MHz 21066A, >512k cache, 88MB RAM) Multia, and it is quite slow >(user response time with AXP-VMS v7.3-1) >SPEC-92 indicates that the DEC 3300X will be slower (84/100 for the >300X, 97/112 for (a generic) 21066A/233) >Likely, however, the 300X would have better I/O subsystems. Would it >be worth messing with, or should I not bother (as far as >useablility, not number-crunching prowess)? I'd recommend getting it as long as its cheap enough. It is a supported system (unless they've dropped support), unlike the Multia. Besides with two systems you can play with stuff like clustering :^) Get more RAM for the Multia, it's starving! I found with V7.2 the realistic bare minimum for an Alpha is 96MB, and the realistic minimum is actually 128MB for a lightly used system (the V7.2 SPD says 64MB is the minimum for an Alpha). IIRC, that would be another advantage to the 300X, it should be able to take more RAM than the Multia. HOWEVER, you'd best look into what kind of RAM it takes and how much it has. Depending on the model, it might be cheaper to get a better system than to upgrade the RAM. This is why my AlphaStation 500/333 sits unused with only has 96MB RAM, and you don't even want to know what I paid for it :^( Oh, and my guess is, the 300X really is faster. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jun 13 01:26:27 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:26:27 -0700 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> <448E4579.6050603@oldskool.org> Message-ID: At 5:30 PM +1200 6/13/06, Ethan Dicks wrote: >On 6/13/06, Jim Leonard wrote: >>I have an HP 4ML next to me that is a decade old and prints(*) as well >>as the day I bought it. > >I bought a 4ML new, back in the day, for about $1100 - still works great. That's about what I paid for my 5MP and I'm 3-4 months shy of having owned it for 10 years. I'm on the 2nd or 3rd Toner cartridge. I bought it because it spoke Postscript, a fact that has made it more useful as time has passed. >For lighter loads, though, I can recommend the 4ML. Mine has >performed flawlessly for years with Amigas, Macs, PCs, and Sun boxes. >The only thing I can recommend as an accessory is a external networked >print server. Mine has a Asante Ethertalk to Localtalk converter hooked up to it. The Mac's print directly to that, everything else goes through my VMS server to talk to it. One of these days I'm going to upgrade to a better print server, in fact I just had an unused HP one give to me (not sure how old it is). Main thing that's kept me from hooking up one of the other external networked print servers I have (I have at least two others), is that I can never remember where I put any of my Parallel cables and when I can, I don't have the time (after all my current solution works flawlessly). 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 cannings at earthlink.net Tue Jun 13 01:33:56 2006 From: cannings at earthlink.net (Steven Canning) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:33:56 -0700 Subject: atari printers - spindle References: Message-ID: <001301c68eb3$593eb5d0$6401a8c0@hal9000> > > Tony Duell wrote: > > > Personally, I'd want to use a metal gear that was a sliding fit onto the > > > motor sprindle, and then fix it on with a suitable Loctite. > > > > I'd be tempted to file a flat section on the shaft and add a matching flat to > > The spindle is about 1.5mm in diameter IIRC (I've not put the micrometer > on it, so don't make something based on that). Making a hole-with-flat of > that size could be 'interesting! > We don't have to guess, as I put on a previous post I measured the shaft diameter on my 1020s with a digital micrometer and it is 0.060 " ( or 1.5 mm for you metric folks ) on the gear in question. Also I found some Black replacement pens ( BX4206 ) and some color ones also. As " Curt - Atari Museum " pointed out these can still be ordered at the URL he gave. For some reason though the black pens are okay, but all the color ones I have crapped out ... Best regards, Steven Canning From evan at snarc.net Tue Jun 13 01:33:04 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 02:33:04 -0400 Subject: In response to overwhelming demand... In-Reply-To: <003101c68be9$e7dd2af0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <004a01c68eb3$3acf4470$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Thanks to everyone who suggested changes. I changed the style to traditional black text on a white background, instead of the inverse, and I made the page width dynamically resizable to the window. Still working on an email updates solution. -----Original Message----- From: Evan Koblentz [mailto:evan at snarc.net] Sent: Friday, June 09, 2006 1:27 PM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: In response to overwhelming demand... Regarding my switch from an email newsletter to a weblog, there's been a tremendous about of feedback in support of the old format. Unfortunately the old format was just too much work for me to keep up with. I would keep doing it if I had unlimited time and money, but obviously no one does (except maybe Bill Gates on the money side.) The good news: I finally got an Atom feed working. The address is http://www.technologyrewind.com/atom.xml. Would those of you who prefer email updates be willing to pay a modest fee? I haven't worked out what technology I will need, but as I said before, I'd be happy to keep doing an email feed if it were easy and not terribly time-consuming. This isn't for profit, it's too avoid losing money when I'm formatting newsletter emails instead of doing real work. (This also is not any plan to contradict earlier statements about keeping the main product free -- you have my promise on that.) Of course, if someone points me to an automated blog-to-email conversion technology that is SO simple and takes no time at all, then I'll just do it without any premiums. Or maybe someone can write a cross-platform feed reader for vintage computers. :) - Evan From henk.gooijen at oce.com Tue Jun 13 01:37:22 2006 From: henk.gooijen at oce.com (Gooijen, Henk) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 08:37:22 +0200 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming Message-ID: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066817BD@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tim Riker > Sent: dinsdag 13 juni 2006 7:00 > To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Top Posting and Message Trimming > > Cameron Kaiser wrote: > >>Another thing to avoid is adding a footer like the above > claiming that > >>this message is in any way protected. This is NOT a private list. > >>Archives are online. If you believe that the message you > are sending > >>should not be going to the general public, then DO NOT POST. > >> > >>I would recommend that the mail list reject any messages > with such a > >>clause attached to them. > > > > > > Some people can't control for this, though. My work address adds on > > such crap automatically, and if it's the only address they have ... > > Anyone can get a gmail account or similar. > > > Naturally I use my home E-mail for this sort of stuff. > > Exactly what I'd recommend. :) > > -- > Tim Riker - http://rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded > Linux Technologist BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! > > I am sorry, but I can not strip that footer, and you know that. And no, I use e-mail server, and I am not going to get a gmail or whatever account. It is a sad thing to see that the less tolerant attitude of the world is catching up on this list of old computers addicts. If I post to this list, it is always on topic. You will have a difficult time finding a reply on one of the *many* garbage threads on this list! If more people are "offended" by a footer, that I can not control, there are two options. 1) you see that I posted a message, so just delete it. Put me in your kill file. 2) Tell me, and I wil never reply to anything on this list. I would not want to ruin anybody's day because he sees a footer in my reply. And to keep my reply count low, I am not replying on this thread anymore. Yes, I will keep reading this list, because I *learn* from some of the posters on this list. - Henk, PA8PDP. BTW, sorry for the footer (if it appears) This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. Thank you for your cooperation. From useddec at gmail.com Tue Jun 13 01:42:52 2006 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 01:42:52 -0500 Subject: VX42 Multia versus 3000-300X In-Reply-To: <5d8b0d190a174bf9883ba1fceae0f16e@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <000001c68eb4$9a0df020$2000a8c0@main> I have a 3000 600S, 3000 400S, 3000 400, several 5000's and 3100's I'm thinking of taking to VCF next month. I can re-configure this within reason in advance, and most will ship UPS ground relatively well for around $25. I still have to decide what else to take. Anyone need TU56 tapes or other media? Thanks, Paul -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Scott Quinn Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 12:54 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: VX42 Multia versus 3000-300X I might have the opporitunity to get a DEC 3000-300X machine for VMS (175 MHz 21064) I know that 21(1,2,3)64 machines offer substantially improved performance, but for the moment they are out of reach. The question- I'm running VMS currently on a VX42 (233MHz 21066A, 512k cache, 88MB RAM) Multia, and it is quite slow (user response time with AXP-VMS v7.3-1) SPEC-92 indicates that the DEC 3300X will be slower (84/100 for the 300X, 97/112 for (a generic) 21066A/233) Likely, however, the 300X would have better I/O subsystems. Would it be worth messing with, or should I not bother (as far as useablility, not number-crunching prowess)? From evan at snarc.net Tue Jun 13 01:57:37 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 02:57:37 -0400 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <448E445B.5030906@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <005101c68eb6$a7d14660$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Just because I prefer top-posting: Tim, why get worked up over mindless legal-speak in footers? It doesn't hurt your life to skip over a few extra lines of gibberish. Lots of people have far more mindless signature files here. To everyone: I think that if individuals routinely post things here which are merely annoying to our respective opinions, then we should just gripe in private or ignore it. I think it's pretty stupid that so many people want a whole list of 1,000+ people to conform to their personal peeves about how email should be used. If every message conformed to everyone's personal style tastes, there would either be total chaos or no list at all. Instead what we have here is a microcosm of the (gasp) real world which some list members should spend more time checking out. And in the real world, everyone has his own way of doing things. Adults deal with that by shrugging things off and picking their fights carefully. So let's be adults, okay? -----Original Message----- From: Tim Riker [mailto:Tim at Rikers.org] Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 12:52 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Top Posting and Message Trimming Gooijen, Henk wrote: > This message and attachment(s) are intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure under applicable law. > If you are not the intended recipient or agent thereof responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. > If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone and with a "reply" message. > Thank you for your cooperation. Another thing to avoid is adding a footer like the above claiming that this message is in any way protected. This is NOT a private list. Archives are online. If you believe that the message you are sending should not be going to the general public, then DO NOT POST. I would recommend that the mail list reject any messages with such a clause attached to them. Thank you for your cooperation. -- Tim Riker - http://rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From useddec at gmail.com Tue Jun 13 02:21:59 2006 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 02:21:59 -0500 Subject: LA120 IPB or BOM In-Reply-To: <5d8b0d190a174bf9883ba1fceae0f16e@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <000101c68eba$0f8f5230$2000a8c0@main> Does anyone have part number info on LA120's they can send me or help for a few minutes on my dime? Thanks, Paul Anderson From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 13 02:44:04 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 00:44:04 -0700 Subject: ASR-33 Message-ID: <448E6CC4.8080405@DakotaCom.Net> Still housecleaning and the ASR-33 has got to go. Any ideas what it may be worth? I have to decide if it's worth the trouble to epay it -- or, if I should just systematically disassemble it for documentation purposes. Thanks! --don From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Tue Jun 13 03:11:58 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 09:11:58 +0100 Subject: atari printers - spindle In-Reply-To: <001301c68eb3$593eb5d0$6401a8c0@hal9000> References: <001301c68eb3$593eb5d0$6401a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <448E734E.8060904@dsl.pipex.com> Steven Canning wrote: > Also I found some Black replacement pens ( BX4206 ) and some color ones > also. As " Curt - Atari Museum " pointed out these can still be ordered at > the URL he gave. For some reason though the black pens are okay, but all the > color ones I have crapped out ... Can someone please repost that URL, I seem to have lost the message that contained it. Probably when I managed to clobber the mbox file that held my copy of this month's classiccmp messages... -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From wmaddox at pacbell.net Tue Jun 13 04:20:59 2006 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 02:20:59 -0700 Subject: ASR-33 In-Reply-To: <448E6CC4.8080405@DakotaCom.Net> References: <448E6CC4.8080405@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <448E837B.4050203@pacbell.net> Don Y wrote: > Still housecleaning and the ASR-33 has got to go. > Any ideas what it may be worth? I have to decide > if it's worth the trouble to epay it -- or, if I > should just systematically disassemble it for > documentation purposes. > > Thanks! > --don Even parts are worth something on eBay. If it works and is in good shape cosmetically, you can expect an ASR-33 to fetch $500 or more on eBay. Untested but complete, expect $250-$500. A couple of times, an ASR-33 has been the object of a crazy bidding war -- you could get really lucky. It is very difficult to ship an ASR-33 without damaging it. Requiring local pickup restricts your market, but I've seen them still go at a respectable price with a local pickup -- some people are willing to drive a good disntance for an ASR-33. If you do offer to ship an ASR-33, please do look into the proper way to do it. It is crucial that the printer subchassis be bolted down, as it normally floats on rubber shock mounts. The best way is to mount the teletype on a wooden baseplate, with bolts extending into the subchassis inside. The baseplate should be supported so that if the crate is turned upside-down, the printer will hang from the baseplate rather than having the easily-cracked plastic shell bearing the weight. If you try to ship an ASR-33 with the usual bubble-wrap and popcort treatment, it *will* arrive thoroughly trashed. --Bill From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jun 13 04:32:21 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:32:21 +1200 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <01f701c68e3c$a922a600$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <448C783C.8040000@DakotaCom.Net> <448D08A7.6080404@jetnet.ab.ca> <01f701c68e3c$a922a600$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: On 6/13/06, Alexandre Souza wrote: > Try Circad (now omniglyph) from Holophase Software... > ... The option to load a BMP of a board and > trace lines on top of that (for reverse engineering) is G R E A T. Wow... nice feature. -ethan From trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu Tue Jun 13 06:07:35 2006 From: trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu (joe heck) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 07:07:35 -0400 Subject: LQP02, LQP03 and LN03 docs available Message-ID: <448E9C77.8070101@splab.cas.neu.edu> I have the following available: EK-LQP02-RM-001 LQP02 Programmer Reference Manual AA-L662A-TK Installing and Using the LQP02 Printer AA-L662B-TK Installing and Using the LQP02 Printer AA-L663A-TK LQPX2-AA Forms Tractor EK-ASF02-UG-0001 Installing and Using the ASF02 Automatic Sheet Feeder $12 for postage and packaging Also: EK-LN03-PS-002 LN03A Pocket Service Guide EK-OLN03-RM-002 LN03 Programmer Reference Manual EK-TLN03-MG-001 LN03 Series Toner Kit Guide EK-MLN03-MG-002 LN03 Series Maintenance Kit Guide EK-OLN03-UG-002 Installing and Using the LN03 EK-OLN03-UG-001 Installing and Using the LN03A EK-LN03A-TM-001 LN03A Technical Manual $20 for postage and packaging Also: EK-LQP03-UG-002 Installing and Using the LQP03 Printer EK-LQP03-RM-001 LQP03 Printer Programmer Reference Manual $ for postage and packaging Or come by and pick them up for free... Wrentham, MA Joe Heck From doc at mdrconsult.com Tue Jun 13 07:05:29 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 08:05:29 -0400 Subject: VX42 Multia versus 3000-300X In-Reply-To: References: <5d8b0d190a174bf9883ba1fceae0f16e@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <448EAA09.6030707@mdrconsult.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: > IIRC, that would be another advantage to the 300X, it should be able to > take more RAM than the Multia. HOWEVER, you'd best look into what kind > of RAM it takes and how much it has. Depending on the model, it might > be cheaper to get a better system than to upgrade the RAM. This is why > my AlphaStation 500/333 sits unused with only has 96MB RAM, and you > don't even want to know what I paid for it :^( I'm trying to remember which DEC3000-300 I have. I'm pretty sure it's a 300X, but I'm away and my wife gets irked if I call her to look at model numbers. :) Anyway, it takes regular 36-bit parity, 72-pin SIMMs. The memory in mine came out of an Indigo^2. > Oh, and my guess is, the 300X really is faster. I have a Multia as well, and the DEC3k is considerably faster, at least at a serial console. My guess is that the reported response times were obtained on a graphics console with one of the "entry-level" 8-bit video boards in the DEC3000. Not to put too fine a point on it, the low-end turbochannel video boards suck. For what it's worth, there's quite a bit of practical info on the 300 series if you do a search for "Linux DEC turbochannel" I dunno if the Linux port is still active, but they had good system information. Doc From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 13 07:17:20 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 12:17:20 +0000 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <005101c68eb6$a7d14660$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <005101c68eb6$a7d14660$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <448EACD0.705@yahoo.co.uk> Evan Koblentz wrote: > Just because I prefer top-posting: Tim, why get worked up over mindless > legal-speak in footers? It doesn't hurt your life to skip over a few extra > lines of gibberish. Lots of people have far more mindless signature files > here. OTOH, it's pointless in this environment and contributes to a significant fraction of a message sent, so is just a total waste of space. I would have thought it's obvious though that people object to the companies that see the need to do this, not to the individual who posts to the list :-) I suppose the mailing list software could strip *all* signatures from anything posted in order to save bandwidth, but that's hardly fair on those who have legitimate, *useful* information in their sigs :-( > To everyone: I think that if individuals routinely post things here which > are merely annoying to our respective opinions, then we should just gripe in > private or ignore it. For the large part, yes. It seems nice periodically to gauge opinion on such things though and consider changing/enforcing policy if needs be. Personally I've got nothing against such discussions on here providing they don't happen every couple of weeks :-) > If every message conformed to everyone's personal style tastes, there would > either be total chaos or no list at all. Bingo - hence the top-posting discussion. The list is nicer (or at least easier to follow and use) when there's a consistent style rather than people doing their own thing. I'm giving the impression that I care here way more than I do, I know :-) I'm not going to lose any sleep if a tiny percentage of the list do things differently to the rest, and I doubt any other list inhabitants are either. cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 13 07:20:30 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 12:20:30 +0000 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <448E3667.6060809@oldskool.org> References: <448E3667.6060809@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <448EAD8E.70106@yahoo.co.uk> Jim Leonard wrote: > Billy Pettit wrote: >> But let's ask the list: is there anybody else out there or that you know >> who buys a product only if it has repair documentation available? > > Since I have 0% electronics repair skills, no. These days, being able to check that it's turned on or has working batteries is counted as an "electronics repair skill" it seems - so you probably have about 25%, not 0% :-) > Computer parts without any moving parts should last forever, and in my > experience, they usually do (if cared for properly). Natural chip decay will get 'em all in the end, but IMHO they should last for a significant part of a person's lifetime, though. cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 13 07:22:14 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 12:22:14 +0000 Subject: chain printer speed? Message-ID: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> Topic came up on a local newsgroup - anyone know what the typical speed of a chain printer was/is? I can't find any hard figures online - all the info about chain printers seems to just say they were "high speed" and that's it. Just curious! cheers Jules From williams.dan at gmail.com Tue Jun 13 07:30:14 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 13:30:14 +0100 Subject: More stuff to give away Message-ID: <26c11a640606130530v20e21441k848fd6df4542f144@mail.gmail.com> I have more stuff to give away : a pdp 11/04. Just the processor unit. An RK05 (untested) with 3 disk packs (2 new). An Rs/6000 (basic model) An Apollo (No PSU) Some HP Unix machine (Never tested don't have the correct cable) These are pick up from London. I also have a cray el98 around 6 processors, 50 hard drives. Untested and dismantled. Although it was working when disconnected. This is currently in storage in London. You will need a large van either LWB or a Luton. Taking offers on this as I have spent a lot of money on storage and picking it up. I will accept trades though. Dan From nico at farumdata.dk Tue Jun 13 07:46:18 2006 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 14:46:18 +0200 Subject: chain printer speed? References: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <001001c68ee7$5d827c60$2101a8c0@finans> > > Topic came up on a local newsgroup - anyone know what the typical speed of a > chain printer was/is? I can't find any hard figures online - all the info > about chain printers seems to just say they were "high speed" and that's it. > This question is not easy to answer. The IBM 1403 printer came in at least 2 versions : a 1000 lpm and a 300 lpm. However, the effective speed depended on what was being printed, as the chains could be different. Typically, a chain had more E's then Y's, more A's then P's, etc. I also recall a numeric-only version, which could do up to 2000 lpm, and I've heard about (but never seen) a Braille version Nico From holger.veit at ais.fraunhofer.de Tue Jun 13 08:12:05 2006 From: holger.veit at ais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 15:12:05 +0200 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor In-Reply-To: <448DB11C.7080705@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <448DA7D2.1000001@jetnet.ab.ca> <448DAC3D.6030203@bluewin.ch> <448DB11C.7080705@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <448EB9A5.5070602@ais.fraunhofer.de> woodelf schrieb: > Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel wrote: > >> >>> Whether it is the chicken or the egg, they also have access to >>> better parts stores (for hobbiest quantities) and excellent >>> magazines. The Dutch >>> magazine Electuur is translated into English and published in the UK >>> every month as Elector. It has excellent construction articles, >>> readily available firmware, and even the PCB layout for most of the >>> projects. >> >> >> Elector is indeed recommended. >> AFAIK it also published the first DIY computer : in May '74 they >> started a series on a 12 or 16 bit TTL-based computer. That is two >> months before the Mark-8. >> >> Those who like to see something special should check it out : it is a >> two-address machine, no instructions, but memory-mapped "functional >> units". It even had hardware based multiply and divide ! > Umm where? A quick google search found nothing. I have all (German) Elektor magazines since the first one in 1/1970 until about 12/1998 where the magazine started to become yet another popular blurb gazette with some relation to electronics. The mentioned "Computer 74" is also in my list; it was an interesting gadget to learn about TTL logic - an open collector bus, sort of bucket-brigade dynamic memory, a diode-matrix state machine. The machine was 12 bit. Unfortunately, that series ended abruptly after six issues - one would have expected some more functional units. I could maybe persuaded to scan in the stuff (notably: the schematics are easily understandable for any EE freak, but the text is German - not that I don't have any problems to understand that as well :-) ). -- Holger From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 13 09:45:09 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 07:45:09 -0700 Subject: East Coast business Message-ID: <200606130745090225.197BA5FD@10.0.0.252> I got a call from someone who's got a bunch of S/36 8" floppies who want to import the data to their AS/400. They want to be there for the process (sensitive data). Anyone in the NY/NJ area who wants to tackle this? Drop me a private email if so. We could do it but we're on the other side of the continent. Cheers, Chuck From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Jun 13 10:01:44 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:01:44 -0400 Subject: KB 3270 plus Message-ID: <200606131501.k5DF1iHG004120@mwave.heeltoe.com> I have a brand new (well, new in box) KeyTronic KB 3270 Plus keyboard. This is a programmable keyboard with an old XT style round din plug. I think there is software, but it's probably DOS only. I think it was designed for people using 3270 emulators and gave them the feel of a real 3270 keyboard (and key placement). It comes with extra key caps. I ment to use it long ago but never did, and now I have no need. I don't think it has much value (to me anyway) so all I ask is the cost of shipping. Contact me via email. -brad From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Jun 13 10:02:16 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 12:02:16 -0300 Subject: Laser printing References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca><011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> <448E4579.6050603@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <026b01c68efa$be114990$01fea8c0@alpha> > I bought a 4ML new, back in the day, for about $1100 - still works great. ML is a great printer, but has a very weak fuser assembly - this one already uses the "new technology" of ceramic heater and very thin and flexible teflon tube. But I love it, I have one of that too :o) It was saved from scrap, was in a trash bin, but now works flawlessly ;o) > I also have a 3Si that was $15 at the local Uni surplus, but that one > took about $40 in rollers and pads (and many hours) to get working, > not that I'm complaining about a $55 duplexing, two-tray, networked > Postscript printer. :oO > For lighter loads, though, I can recommend the 4ML. Mine has > performed flawlessly for years with Amigas, Macs, PCs, and Sun boxes. > The only thing I can recommend as an accessory is a external networked > print server. Great! :oD From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 13 10:08:01 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 08:08:01 -0700 Subject: chain printer speed? In-Reply-To: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> References: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200606130808010277.1990954B@10.0.0.252> On 6/13/2006 at 12:22 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >Topic came up on a local newsgroup - anyone know what the typical speed >of a >chain printer was/is? I can't find any hard figures online - all the info >about chain printers seems to just say they were "high speed" and that's >it. It depended entirely on what was being printed. There were worst-and-best case patterns. Consider the way a chain printer worked. You have a spinning chain, a wide ribbon, the paper and (usually about 132) hammers all making a sandwich. When a character in the chain is at the right position, the hammer at that position fires and bangs the paper against the ribbon backed by the type slug. Now, if the pattern being printed matches the order of characters on the chain (or the non-matching characters are spaces), you're all done and the paper advances. If not, then the paper has to wait until the proper characters come around to their respective positions. Clearly, the number of different characters in the chain is going to affect how many times they can be repeated in the chain; a chain containing lower-case characters in addition to uppercase is going to, on the average, print more slowly than a chain with just uppercase. Similarly, the manufacturer may have decided that some characters are so rarely used that they merit only one or two occurrences, while more frequently-used characters merit more frequent repetitions. Ordering of the characters on the chain also matters; placing a "U" next to a "Q" is a good idea. Most manufacturers give a number based on the average printing speed of a printer and 1500 LPM was about par for the high-speed models with "easy" lines going considerably faster.. But with the wrong type chain/train and pathological data, speed can drop as low as 60 LPM or so. Other factors could reduce printing speed, such as carriage control--when we printed documentation, we bolded characters by overstriking, essentially forcing the printer to print the same line 2 or 3 times. If you think about it, the chain/train printer is a perfect example of early parallel processing, although it was rarely stated as such. Cheers, Chuck From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jun 13 10:27:15 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 08:27:15 -0700 Subject: VX42 Multia versus 3000-300X In-Reply-To: <448EAA09.6030707@mdrconsult.com> References: <5d8b0d190a174bf9883ba1fceae0f16e@valleyimplants.com> <448EAA09.6030707@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: At 8:05 AM -0400 6/13/06, Doc Shipley wrote: >Zane H. Healy wrote: > >>IIRC, that would be another advantage to the 300X, it should be >>able to take more RAM than the Multia. HOWEVER, you'd best look >>into what kind of RAM it takes and how much it has. Depending on >>the model, it might be cheaper to get a better system than to >>upgrade the RAM. This is why my AlphaStation 500/333 sits unused >>with only has 96MB RAM, and you don't even want to know what I paid >>for it :^( > > I'm trying to remember which DEC3000-300 I have. I'm pretty sure >it's a 300X, but I'm away and my wife gets irked if I call her to >look at model numbers. :) > > Anyway, it takes regular 36-bit parity, 72-pin SIMMs. The memory >in mine came out of an Indigo^2. I believe only one or two models of the 3000 take 72-pin SIMMs. My 3000-300LX does, and it's also one of the slowest Alpha's out there. I have coworker who has a 3000 and her system uses decidedly non-standard RAM. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 13 10:37:19 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 08:37:19 -0700 Subject: chain printer speed? References: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> <200606130808010277.1990954B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606130837190182.19AB67C5@10.0.0.252> Forgot to mention that chain/train printers weren't the only type that worked like this. Teletype had a printer that used an embossed steel band instead of a chain (Model 40?) that worked the same way, although at a lower speed. One used to be able to pick those up pretty cheaply on the surplus market; if you had a lot of tractor-feed wide-carriage printing to do from a PeeCee or other micro, it was an attractive alternative to daisywheel and early dot-matrix printers. I don't know if any still are in use--without a sound hood they could be very noisy. I do have circuit diagrams and maintenance documentation on one if anyone needs it. Cheers, Chuck From jcwren at jcwren.com Tue Jun 13 10:50:17 2006 From: jcwren at jcwren.com (J.C. Wren) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:50:17 -0400 Subject: chain printer speed? In-Reply-To: <200606130837190182.19AB67C5@10.0.0.252> References: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> <200606130808010277.1990954B@10.0.0.252> <200606130837190182.19AB67C5@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <448EDEB9.6080106@jcwren.com> I used to do some DP on a PDP-8 that originally had an LA-36. Although I cannot remember for sure if it was driven by the PDP-8, we later switched to a Centronics (IIRC) 600 LPM band printer (at some point the computer was replaced, although I cannot recall what it was replaced with). This was, of course, a dramatic improvement over the LA-36. However, cleaning the band was a great way to risk losing fingers. Every so many hours we had to remove the band and clean the paper dust out. We found that rubber dishwashing gloves worked well. The band wasn't sharp enough to cut them, they kept the fluid off your fingers, and gave you good traction for handling the band. --jc Chuck Guzis wrote: > Forgot to mention that chain/train printers weren't the only type that > worked like this. Teletype had a printer that used an embossed steel band > instead of a chain (Model 40?) that worked the same way, although at a > lower speed. One used to be able to pick those up pretty cheaply on the > surplus market; if you had a lot of tractor-feed wide-carriage printing to > do from a PeeCee or other micro, it was an attractive alternative to > daisywheel and early dot-matrix printers. > > I don't know if any still are in use--without a sound hood they could be > very noisy. I do have circuit diagrams and maintenance documentation on > one if anyone needs it. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > From evan at snarc.net Tue Jun 13 11:15:49 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 12:15:49 -0400 Subject: East Coast business In-Reply-To: <200606130745090225.197BA5FD@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <000101c68f04$a280a9a0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> This sounds familiar, but I'm not sure why .... Will forward your message to our local (MARCH) list. -----Original Message----- From: Chuck Guzis [mailto:cclist at sydex.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 10:45 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: East Coast business I got a call from someone who's got a bunch of S/36 8" floppies who want to import the data to their AS/400. They want to be there for the process (sensitive data). Anyone in the NY/NJ area who wants to tackle this? Drop me a private email if so. We could do it but we're on the other side of the continent. Cheers, Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 13 12:23:34 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:23:34 +0000 Subject: chain printer speed? In-Reply-To: <200606130808010277.1990954B@10.0.0.252> References: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> <200606130808010277.1990954B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <448EF496.50801@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Most manufacturers give a number based on the average printing speed of a > printer and 1500 LPM was about par for the high-speed models with "easy" > lines going considerably faster.. that's probably the important bit... with what, something like 66 lines per page - so a shade over 20 pages per minute. Not bad, considering the age of the technology; I bet the average modern inkjet only does about 1/5th of that, and lots of laser printers still won't match it (not that you'd necessarily want a chain printer in the home :-) cheers Jules From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jun 13 11:31:03 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 10:31:03 -0600 Subject: chain printer speed? In-Reply-To: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> References: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <448EE847.8090801@jetnet.ab.ca> Jules Richardson wrote: > > Topic came up on a local newsgroup - anyone know what the typical speed > of a chain printer was/is? I can't find any hard figures online - all > the info about chain printers seems to just say they were "high speed" > and that's it. Compared to a TTY any other printer is high speed. :) From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 13 11:40:36 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 09:40:36 -0700 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <448EAD8E.70106@yahoo.co.uk> References: <448E3667.6060809@oldskool.org> <448EAD8E.70106@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <448EEA84.9090601@DakotaCom.Net> Jules Richardson wrote: > Jim Leonard wrote: >> Computer parts without any moving parts should last forever, and in my >> experience, they usually do (if cared for properly). > > Natural chip decay will get 'em all in the end, but IMHO they should > last for a significant part of a person's lifetime, though. Has anyone any "real" data on EM effects? Or is this effectively urban legendry? From h.j.stegeman at hccnet.nl Tue Jun 13 11:38:51 2006 From: h.j.stegeman at hccnet.nl (Henk Stegeman) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 18:38:51 +0200 Subject: IBM 3380 HDA's available In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi all, Anyone interested in original IBM 3380 hda's fru's ? They are properly locked and ready for transport. They are models A, E, K and may be even B & J's available. They free of charge but MUST to be removed before the 24th of June. After that date they will be scrapped. Location: Near Amsterdam/Netherlands. Please contact me offline if you are seriously interrested. Regards Henk From jrkeys at jrkeys.cnc.net Tue Jun 13 10:18:16 2006 From: jrkeys at jrkeys.cnc.net (Keys) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 10:18:16 -0500 (CDT) Subject: ASR-33 In-Reply-To: <448E6CC4.8080405@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606131518.LAA07987@alexander.cnc.net> You could also donate it to a Museum.:-) Were is it located? ---- General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts wrote: > > Still housecleaning and the ASR-33 has got to go. > Any ideas what it may be worth? I have to decide > if it's worth the trouble to epay it -- or, if I > should just systematically disassemble it for > documentation purposes. > > Thanks! > --don > > From jplist at kiwigeek.com Tue Jun 13 11:59:55 2006 From: jplist at kiwigeek.com (JP Hindin) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:59:55 -0500 (CDT) Subject: VMS network install Message-ID: Greetings folks; I'm trying to do my first VMS install, my machine of choice is a VAX 4000-300. Alas the VAX lacks any devices barring the DSSI disk I picked up from our own Pat Finnegan. So far I think the "easiest" way to get VMS onto the machine is by a network install. I'm fairly certain that I've seen list members pontificating on how easy VAX makes these sorts of things, so I'm hoping I'm right on the "easy" part. My plan is to get VMS installed on a SIMH VAX (actually, I've got this bit sorted already, SIMH rocks) and then get the VAX 4k to pull VMS off the SIMH VAX. The problem? I have absolutely no idea how to do this. This -is- my first experience with VMS, and my Googling for network install documentation is finding very little. Could someone help me out? Thanks all; JP From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 13 13:08:10 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 18:08:10 +0000 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <448EEA84.9090601@DakotaCom.Net> References: <448E3667.6060809@oldskool.org> <448EAD8E.70106@yahoo.co.uk> <448EEA84.9090601@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <448EFF0A.6090103@yahoo.co.uk> Don Y wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: >> Jim Leonard wrote: >>> Computer parts without any moving parts should last forever, and in >>> my experience, they usually do (if cared for properly). >> >> Natural chip decay will get 'em all in the end, but IMHO they should >> last for a significant part of a person's lifetime, though. > > Has anyone any "real" data on EM effects? Or is this effectively > urban legendry? Good question, and no I haven't. I'd breathe a sigh of relief if it weren't true I suppose - it's sad to think of the effort of keeping these things running if they're going to naturally fail despite best efforts a few years down the line. Isn't chip death something to do with natural Brownian motion or something? Eventually things just move around to the point that the chip stops functioning - whether it's been powered or not. I'm not a physicist - just dimly-remembered classes from years ago (and being told the 50 year figure) (I'm sure if it *is* true then the 50 years is something a guesstimate or worst-case, and lots of things will last much longer than that) From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Jun 13 12:53:26 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 10:53:26 -0700 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <448EEA84.9090601@DakotaCom.Net> References: <448E3667.6060809@oldskool.org> <448EAD8E.70106@yahoo.co.uk> <448EEA84.9090601@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <448EFB96.80409@msm.umr.edu> Don Y wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: > >> Jim Leonard wrote: >> >>> Computer parts without any moving parts should last forever, and in >>> my experience, they usually do (if cared for properly). >> >> >> Natural chip decay will get 'em all in the end, but IMHO they should >> last for a significant part of a person's lifetime, though. > > > Has anyone any "real" data on EM effects? Or is this effectively > urban legendry? > > Eproms are chemical based in some cases. I had some of them damaged near time when they were new. If talking about the semiconductors, I worked in a lab in the 70's that was doing, and had done a large amount of research on radiation hardening. It is effectivly a speeded up version of what happens to chips over time from natural sources in packaging and manufacturing, as well as cosmic rays. We had no way to determine a time variant, but the radiation had effects on the junctions, and they did change characteristics. I would assume that with the "background" radiation levels this would occur, though over what time span, I don't know. It isn't urban legend. but the parts, and the environment they are in may have an effect on the time it takes for something to drift far enough to make a part stop working. From arcarlini at iee.org Tue Jun 13 13:10:16 2006 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 19:10:16 +0100 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <448EEA84.9090601@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <004401c68f14$a0a95e50$c901a8c0@uatempname> >Has anyone any "real" data on EM effects? >Or is this effectively urban legendry? I have read in several places (industry papers and the like) that hot-carrier injection does cause localised damage that eventually leads to failure. But even if the effects have been exagerated, solid state Diffusion is real and will kill a chip even if it is never powered up. What I don't know is whether the problem will show up in 10 years, 100 years or 1000 years. Antonio -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.0.394 / Virus Database: 268.8.3/362 - Release Date: 12/06/2006 From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 13 13:38:18 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:38:18 -0700 Subject: ASR-33 In-Reply-To: <448E837B.4050203@pacbell.net> References: <448E6CC4.8080405@DakotaCom.Net> <448E837B.4050203@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <448F061A.2050608@DakotaCom.Net> William Maddox wrote: > Even parts are worth something on eBay. If it works and is in good > shape cosmetically, you can expect an ASR-33 to fetch $500 or more on > eBay. Untested but complete, expect $250-$500. A couple of times, an > ASR-33 has been the object of a crazy bidding war -- you could get > really lucky. Ouch! That's more than I would be willing to "throw away"! :-( > It is very difficult to ship an ASR-33 without damaging it. Requiring > local pickup restricts your market, but I've seen them still go at a > respectable price with a local pickup -- some people are willing to > drive a good disntance for an ASR-33. If you do offer to ship an > ASR-33, please do look into the proper way to do it. It is crucial that > the printer subchassis be bolted down, as it normally floats on rubber > shock mounts. The best way is to mount the teletype on a wooden > baseplate, with bolts extending into the subchassis inside. The > baseplate should be supported so that if the crate is turned > upside-down, the printer will hang from the baseplate rather than having > the easily-cracked plastic shell bearing the weight. If you try to ship > an ASR-33 with the usual bubble-wrap and popcort treatment, it *will* > arrive thoroughly trashed. Actually, I had assumed pulling the mechanism out of it's skin and shipping the skin separately. As well as the pedestal base. I thought the fragile two components (skin & mechanism) would best be handled in an "expanded foam" coccoon. It seems to have worked well for me on similar devices in the past. Though I would have t othink about *which* type of foam would be most appropriate (I may give Chuck's suggestion a try...) From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 13 13:43:14 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:43:14 -0700 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <004401c68f14$a0a95e50$c901a8c0@uatempname> References: <004401c68f14$a0a95e50$c901a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: <448F0742.5080606@DakotaCom.Net> Antonio Carlini wrote: >> Has anyone any "real" data on EM effects? >> Or is this effectively urban legendry? > > I have read in several places (industry papers and the like) > that hot-carrier injection does cause localised damage that > eventually leads to failure. I thought this was effectively more significant on the smaller geometries. I.e. that the older devices made with larger features were more immune (well, not "immune" as much as "takes longer to dig through a 1 micron feature than it does a .25 micron one!). So, folks with their shiney new 4GHz machines can expect them to fail much quicker than an older 100MHz box. [Aside -- I wonder if the number of *instructions executed* is, coincidentally, a constant? If so, folks running those machines burning billions of opcodes waiting for the next keystroke are getting the electronic "shaft"! :> ] And, powered up devices greatly accelerate the process. > But even if the effects have been exagerated, solid state > Diffusion is real and will kill a chip even if it is never > powered up. What I don't know is whether the problem will > show up in 10 years, 100 years or 1000 years. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 13 13:45:57 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:45:57 -0700 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <448EFB96.80409@msm.umr.edu> References: <448E3667.6060809@oldskool.org> <448EAD8E.70106@yahoo.co.uk> <448EEA84.9090601@DakotaCom.Net> <448EFB96.80409@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <448F07E5.1090908@DakotaCom.Net> jim stephens wrote: > Don Y wrote: >> Has anyone any "real" data on EM effects? Or is this effectively >> urban legendry? >> > Eproms are chemical based in some cases. I had some of them damaged > near time when they were new. IIRC, early EPROM technology was ballparked at ~10 year lifetime. I always wondered how much of that was influenced by light leakage into windowed devices and how OTP devices would compare... > If talking about the semiconductors, I worked in a lab in the 70's that was > doing, and had done a large amount of research on radiation hardening. Gee, I wonder *why* they were doing that? ;-) > It is effectivly a speeded up version of what happens to chips over time > from natural sources in packaging and manufacturing, as well as cosmic > rays. We had no way to determine a time variant, but the radiation had > effects on the junctions, and they did change characteristics. I would > assume that with the "background" radiation levels this would occur, though > over what time span, I don't know. > > It isn't urban legend. but the parts, and the environment they are in > may have an effect on the time it takes for something to drift far > enough to make a part stop working. From Kevin at RawFedDogs.net Tue Jun 13 13:34:43 2006 From: Kevin at RawFedDogs.net (Kevin Monceaux) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 13:34:43 -0500 Subject: KB 3270 plus In-Reply-To: <200606131501.k5DF1iHG004120@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200606131501.k5DF1iHG004120@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <20060613183443.GA727@RawFedDogs.net> -brad, On Tue, Jun 13, 2006 at 11:01:44AM -0400, Brad Parker wrote: > I ment to use it long ago but never did, and now I have no need. I > don't think it has much value (to me anyway) so all I ask is the cost of > shipping. Contact me via email. I sent you a private reply but thought it might be best to mention it on list just in case your e-mail software misfiles my reply. Kevin http://www.RawFedDogs.net http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org Bruceville, TX From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 13 13:47:54 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:47:54 -0700 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <448EFF0A.6090103@yahoo.co.uk> References: <448E3667.6060809@oldskool.org> <448EAD8E.70106@yahoo.co.uk> <448EEA84.9090601@DakotaCom.Net> <448EFF0A.6090103@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <448F085A.6030907@DakotaCom.Net> Jules Richardson wrote: > Don Y wrote: >> Jules Richardson wrote: >>> Jim Leonard wrote: >>>> Computer parts without any moving parts should last forever, and in >>>> my experience, they usually do (if cared for properly). >>> >>> Natural chip decay will get 'em all in the end, but IMHO they should >>> last for a significant part of a person's lifetime, though. >> >> Has anyone any "real" data on EM effects? Or is this effectively >> urban legendry? > > Good question, and no I haven't. I'd breathe a sigh of relief if it > weren't true I suppose - it's sad to think of the effort of keeping > these things running if they're going to naturally fail despite best > efforts a few years down the line. > > Isn't chip death something to do with natural Brownian motion or > something? Eventually things just move around to the point that the chip > stops functioning - whether it's been powered or not. I'm not a > physicist - just dimly-remembered classes from years ago (and being told > the 50 year figure) > > (I'm sure if it *is* true then the 50 years is something a guesstimate > or worst-case, and lots of things will last much longer than that) For "natural decay" the timelines may be quite long. But, I was asking particularly about effects of *powered* systems and contrasts between submicron geometries vs. some of the older, "collectible" gear... From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jun 13 13:41:48 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 19:41:48 +0100 Subject: VX42 Multia versus 3000-300X In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 13/6/06 16:27, "Zane H. Healy" wrote: > > I believe only one or two models of the 3000 take 72-pin SIMMs. My > 3000-300LX does, and it's also one of the slowest Alpha's out there. > I have coworker who has a 3000 and her system uses decidedly > non-standard RAM. The 3000-300 models are the only ones that do, the other bigger boxen use RAM carriers that take bigger DIMMs; I don't have any to hand at the moment to give specs etc, but I've just won 256mb for my 3000-400 on ebay for ukp4 so I'm quite happy :o) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Tue Jun 13 13:59:40 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 20:59:40 +0200 Subject: VX42 Multia versus 3000-300X In-Reply-To: References: <5d8b0d190a174bf9883ba1fceae0f16e@valleyimplants.com> <448EAA09.6030707@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <20060613205940.78096e95@SirToby.dinner41.de> On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 08:27:15 -0700 "Zane H. Healy" wrote: > I believe only one or two models of the 3000 take 72-pin SIMMs. My > 3000-300LX does, and it's also one of the slowest Alpha's out there. > I have coworker who has a 3000 and her system uses decidedly > non-standard RAM. The small desktop 3000-300 machines use PS/2 RAM. The large desktop and tower machines like 3000-500 / -600 use proprietary SIMMs. I suspect the 3000-300 will be still faster then a Multia, as the Multia has a 21066 and that CPU chip has crippled memory interface. The 3000-300 is no speed deamon either, but at least not that cripled as a Multia. Also: The -300 has no heat problems like the Multia. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jun 13 14:14:00 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 13:14:00 -0600 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <448F0742.5080606@DakotaCom.Net> References: <004401c68f14$a0a95e50$c901a8c0@uatempname> <448F0742.5080606@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <448F0E78.1050601@jetnet.ab.ca> Don Y wrote: > [Aside -- I wonder if the number of *instructions executed* > is, coincidentally, a constant? If so, folks running those > machines burning billions of opcodes waiting for the next > keystroke are getting the electronic "shaft"! :> ] Moore's law ... Techology doubles every 18 months. More Law ... Sales of computer have to double every year. :( From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Jun 13 14:18:32 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 12:18:32 -0700 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <448F07E5.1090908@DakotaCom.Net> References: <448E3667.6060809@oldskool.org> <448EAD8E.70106@yahoo.co.uk> <448EEA84.9090601@DakotaCom.Net> <448EFB96.80409@msm.umr.edu> <448F07E5.1090908@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <448F0F88.1080202@msm.umr.edu> Don Y wrote: > jim stephens wrote: > >> Don Y wrote: >> > If talking about the semiconductors, I worked in a lab in the 70's > that was > >> doing, and had done a large amount of research on radiation hardening. > > > Gee, I wonder *why* they were doing that? ;-) > actually was the most elaborate curve tracer one ever could hope to have access to. We did curve tracing in the lab to primary standards calibrated from NBS with at the time advanced HP 6 place voltage meters. Reason was partly for obvious use in radiological environments, but it was also an attempt to speed up the time element I refered to w/o having to let semiconductors lay around for years to see affects. the plastics, ceramics, and metals used in the manufacture are nowhere near as pure as the semiconductor materials used, so they wanted to see what zapped what. gamma, xray, beta, and alpha, and what did it do, and how fast. when I got there, it was all over but for the lab, and the data was published. We used the lab for other materials experiments, and moved onto other endeavors. We had a PDP8/I which was my intro to a computer I could actually play with (actually also the Microdata 1600 was around too, but there were more users for it). the 8/I was exclusive to me, and I built an interface from the HP voltmeters to the I so that data could be punched on paper tape directly. The rig that HP had sold had a data concentrator hooked to some custom gizmo which could either record on the paper printers that hp made that fit 1/2 an HP hole (dont recall model) or send it out to a Friden Flexowriter. We took the paper tapes to a DG Nova which converted the "lines" of data to card image format, and sent them into the 360/50 we had to a big fortran program, that did the graphing and other stuff. It's how I ended up with an EE degree and am currently doing embedded programming. less smoke involved. From aw288 at osfn.org Tue Jun 13 14:31:34 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 15:31:34 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Megadata Message-ID: Anyone here familiar with Megadata minicomputers, built just outside New York City in the 1970s? William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 13 15:05:34 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 13:05:34 -0700 Subject: Socket Use In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <448F1A8E.80602@DakotaCom.Net> William Donzelli wrote: >> Imagine the device you are selling is used in a manufacturing >> environment. I.e. someone relies on your device to make >> *their* products. Being "down" for an hour, day, *week* can >> cost more than your product -- even if your product was a few >> kilobucks. > > Yes, when an AOL node went down, big or small, costs were staggering. We > did not measure using hours, days, or weeks, but seconds and lost > packets. Sidenote, when the pick-n-place robots went down at USR, it was > about $1500 per hour per line. A slot machine loses ~$3000 of business* for each hour it is out of service. Note that most slots are run in 24/7 environments -- you can't have scheduled maintenance (e.g., for a firmware upgrade) "on the weekend". And, consider most locations have hundreds to thousands of slots. Between failures, upgrades, maintenance, etc. it is not uncommon for MANY to be "down" at a given time. Operators do not like this. :> They don't wait for a new board to be flown in. Or, send in a boardset for a factory upgrade, etc. Consider that most organizations require *two* people to be present when a machine is serviced and you'll note that labor can get expensive, quick! In the "gr[ea]y market", most operators have either very few machines (and a "cousin" who can maintain them on their behalf) or a *lot* of machines (and someone that they *pay* on staff for this service). The same is true of arcade owners and folks who run "routes" (i.e. the guy who owns the pinball machines, juke box, video games, candy machines, etc. in your neighborhood bar, bowling alley, etc.). Granted, their gross is typically peanuts (contrasted with a casino). But, that just makes the cost of any repair more significant (if they can't do it themselves). And, of course, the attendant legal-ish issues... Many medical devices are serviced "on site" by the owner's staff. [Not true for devices in a doctor's office (obvious reasons).] Granted, a CT scanner or MRI might require an (expensive!) visit from the factory tech. But, they are lower utilization devices and time on them already is heavily burdened so they can afford that cost (?). But, many of the other little devices (of which hospitals have *hundreds* of different types, models, etc.) are serviced in a shop by techs on the hospital's staff. This is becoming increasingly true of lab equipment as hospitals try to ween themselves from "FREE factory support" for them (the catch is the factory requires you to buy their consummables at grossly inflated prices: "But, this is just distilled water??"). The *direct* cost of not being able to run a battery of blood assays due to down time may not be great (i.e. the cost of those tests themselves) -- but, the cost to the organization may be considerable (if surgeries have to be postponed, beds have to remain occupied, etc.) A tablet press out of service for an hour could, conceivably, result in several *million* dollars in lost product! Most production presses operate in the 50-100,000+ tablet per hour range. But, some can run at rates up to 750,000/hour... that's 200 tablets per *second*! :> Imagine some of these $5 antibiotics cranking off the line at $1000 (retail) per second??! :> (of course, I don't imagine anything other than *aspirin* is produced at those rates as you have to worry about capping, sticking, lost product if your weight control slips for a few minutes, etc.) [realistically, there seems to be considerable excess capacity in that industry so I think a "down machine" is more of a scheduling hassle/inconvenience than anything else] >> OTOH, if your design supports repair in the field, then you >> have more options available. > > In todays environment, especially networking, often the cost one would Networking is a niche. Those folks' *sole* interest is in that equipment. It *is* their business. You *expect* them to have hot spares, etc. Their business ceases to exist when that stuff goes down. You expect a carpenter to have two (or *five*!) hammers! But, you probably don't expect him to have two *joiners*! Two expensive for the size business that he has (i.e. himself). Likewise, you can expect a hospital to have a few "extra" EKG monitors. But, not two CT scanners. And, given that they have a LOT of equipment on the premises, it makes sense for them to staff for their own repairs. Many hospitals even have their own labs to calibrate their test equipment, etc. Same holds true of gaming devices... > spend replacing the component (including the entire years salary for the > tech) would get dwarfed by the lost revenue due to the downtime. I am not I think you are looking at a different selection of industries than those that I have been involved with. I'm sure Casino operators, hospital administrators (and *especially* little one man "route operators" KEENLY aware of what their costs are since it is their *personal* cash at stake!), etc. have done the math and figured out that they *can* save money by doing these things. E.g., the (closest) local hospital has a staff of 6 just to support medical instruments (they don't even touch PC's, etc.). That's a lot of salary to throw at something that *could* be handled with depot repairs! Consider, a tech has to make close to $80-100K burdened rate. And, by undertaking their own repairs, the hospital has to purchase components, test equipment, etc. In addition, if they *don't* buy in to the vendor's "we'll service it for FREE if you buy our consumables" policy, then you often have to purchase the piece of equipment as well (many devices are "sold" at greatly inflated prices -- with the full knowledge that NONE are actually sold; they are all given away as promotionals to get the consumables in the door!) Sure looks like a HUGE piece of change to invest... *if* they could, instead, have saved all that by outsourcing it. > exagerrating. I pretty much can not think of anyone of importance that > does onsite board level repair in a working environment. Those days are > long gone. Even the military pretty much went to depot repairs in the > 1970s. And we all know how EFFICIENT the military is! :> >> Caps are as likely to fail as a socket -- do you keep caps >> out of a design? *Or*, do you design them in WITH PLENTY OF >> MARGIN? > > Remember, we are not talking about reliability (yes, sockets are a problem > there as well), but yeild. My point is that socket use takes a big toll on > yeild and manufacturing issues. And *my* point is that the total cost of a socket (etc.) figures in many other things -- that the guy walking the floor may not care about but the guy in the front office eventually *does*! Products that have short lifetimes (a cell phone, consumer electronics in general... even network infrastructure!) are usually designed to be replaced in the natural course of business in short order. Other devices with more staying power warrant reduced maintenance costs over those of manufacturing (how many hospitals replace their CT scanners every three years?? :> ) From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 13 15:09:36 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 13:09:36 -0700 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <448F0F88.1080202@msm.umr.edu> References: <448E3667.6060809@oldskool.org> <448EAD8E.70106@yahoo.co.uk> <448EEA84.9090601@DakotaCom.Net> <448EFB96.80409@msm.umr.edu> <448F07E5.1090908@DakotaCom.Net> <448F0F88.1080202@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <448F1B80.1000909@DakotaCom.Net> jim stephens wrote: > Don Y wrote: >> jim stephens wrote: >>> Don Y wrote: >>> >> If talking about the semiconductors, I worked in a lab in the 70's >> that was >>> doing, and had done a large amount of research on radiation hardening. >> >> Gee, I wonder *why* they were doing that? ;-) > > actually was the most elaborate curve tracer one ever could > hope to have access to. We did curve tracing in the lab to > primary standards calibrated from NBS with at the time > advanced HP 6 place voltage meters. I was alluding to the significance of radhardening for military applications :> > Reason was partly for obvious use in radiological environments, > but it was also an attempt to speed up the time element I refered > to w/o having to let semiconductors lay around for years to see > affects. Ah! I guess there *are* some "peaceful applications"! :> > the plastics, ceramics, and metals used in the manufacture are > nowhere near as pure as the semiconductor materials used, > so they wanted to see what zapped what. gamma, xray, beta, > and alpha, and what did it do, and how fast. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 13 15:11:47 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 13:11:47 -0700 Subject: ASR-33 In-Reply-To: <200606131518.LAA07987@alexander.cnc.net> References: <200606131518.LAA07987@alexander.cnc.net> Message-ID: <448F1C03.7060103@DakotaCom.Net> Keys wrote: > You could also donate it to a Museum.:-) Were is it located? Thank, but I've had my fill of "for the cost of shipping" for a while! :> And, if there are a few pennies to be had from peddling it on epay, that may be a viable option (though I think I would be more *interested* in tearing it down and documenting it better...) --don From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Tue Jun 13 15:02:33 2006 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:02:33 +0100 Subject: chain printer speed? In-Reply-To: <200606131700.k5DH0VSx080500@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606131700.k5DH0VSx080500@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <94C61EE3-1923-4A9C-9C85-046CB08D9B95@microspot.co.uk> > chain printer speed? The last mini-computer I used was a GEC 4080, it had a chain printer which was rated at 600 lines per minute, I remember this because it was the identical speed to the printer on my own mainframe which was built 15 years earlier. Mind you the chain printer had a 64 character set whereas the drum printer could only manage 50 - no parentheses or brackets which are handy for high level language programming. Characters for 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 are little compensation. Roger Holmes 1962 ICT1301 2006 MacBook Pro From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 13 15:12:08 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 13:12:08 -0700 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <448F1B80.1000909@DakotaCom.Net> References: <448E3667.6060809@oldskool.org> <448EAD8E.70106@yahoo.co.uk> <448EEA84.9090601@DakotaCom.Net> <448EFB96.80409@msm.umr.edu> <448F07E5.1090908@DakotaCom.Net> <448F0F88.1080202@msm.umr.edu> <448F1B80.1000909@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606131312080116.1AA6FF4E@10.0.0.252> Well, outside of package failures (and power-handling components are more susceptible to this), I'm not sure. So how many folks still have original and functioning LED readout Pulsar wristwatches? Cheers, Chuck From aw288 at osfn.org Tue Jun 13 15:28:37 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:28:37 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Socket Use In-Reply-To: <448F1A8E.80602@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: > I think you are looking at a different selection of industries > than those that I have been involved with. Dude, I think you have been sleeping for fifteen years... William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From mtapley at swri.edu Tue Jun 13 15:33:58 2006 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 15:33:58 -0500 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <200606130644.k5D6ihxS072657@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606130644.k5D6ihxS072657@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: At 1:44 -0500 6/13/06, Ethan (hope it's not too cold down there yet) wrote: >On 6/13/06, Jim Leonard wrote: >> I have an HP 4ML next to me that is a decade old and prints(*) as well >> as the day I bought it. > >I bought a 4ML new, back in the day, for about $1100 - still works great. Our home printer, replacing a Stylewriter that kept blowing one of its transistors, is a Laserjet 4M+. The printer was free from Freecycle, a new toner cartridge was around $100 from HP. I suppose eventually I should hit http://www.printerworks.com/ or similar and reward the thing for its loyal service with memory, fresh ozone filters, a service manual, preventive maintenance kit, etc. but it's hard to justify when it just keeps working and working in its original configuration. (OT) I figured out enough of the somewhat obscure front-panel settings to give it a static IP address which seems not to conflict with our DSL router-supplied DHCP addresses, so now we can wireless print to it via our 2-Wire router even though our the router seems to diss Appletalk. (Contact me Offlist if you want the benefit of my experience on that.) I have to add my endorsement. -- - Mark Cell Phone: 210-379-4635 office: 210-522-6025 From Tim at Rikers.org Tue Jun 13 15:47:06 2006 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 14:47:06 -0600 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066817BD@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> References: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066817BD@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> Message-ID: <448F244A.20801@Rikers.org> Gooijen, Henk wrote: > > [ stripped stuff about "private" footers on "public" lists ] > > I am sorry, but I can not strip that footer, and you know that. And no, > I use e-mail server, and I am not going to get a gmail or whatever > account. This is your choice. > [ more stuff snipped ] > > BTW, sorry for the footer (if it appears) > > [ "private" footer snipped ] Unfortunately in today's world there are a lot of legal types that sue people for silly things. The day may come when someone will claim ownership "rights" on the emails you have posted using their $$ (ie: servers and bandwidth) and will sue someone like Jay for posting "their" emails on a public server. Whether they win or loose or even if they have the right to claim ownership is all immaterial. Your opinions on those will also be more or less irrelevant. The impact is that whoever is doing useful things like posting archives online will have to deal with the legal issues. From my experience, the most likely outcome of this is that the archives will be removed rather than fight the battle. This does the entire community (including yourself) a disservice, which I expect you would not like to see. The fact remains that this could well happen and the likelihood is greater because of your choice to use a service that adds these silly footers. While I agree that it's all silly. I object to your choice to propagate the silliness. If I was the list admin, I'd reject messages with silly disclaimers and make life easier for the future list archivists. I understand that this makes life more difficult for list members. It's just the choice I would make. Jay is free to make his own choice. Apologies to any who read this far and think this a waste of electrons. Perhaps it is. ;-) -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Jun 13 16:46:03 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:46:03 Subject: chain printer speed? In-Reply-To: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060613164603.47ef26ac@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Jules, When I worked for Burroughs in 1977 they had three different models of chain printers. They were all made by ODEC (Ocean Data Electronics Corp.) and were basicly the same except for the print speed. The two most common models were 150 and 300 characters/second. I'm pretty sure that the third model was 600 c/s but it was much less common. In fact, I'm not sure that I ever saw one. Joe At 12:22 PM 6/13/06 +0000, you wrote: > >Topic came up on a local newsgroup - anyone know what the typical speed of a >chain printer was/is? I can't find any hard figures online - all the info >about chain printers seems to just say they were "high speed" and that's it. > >Just curious! > >cheers > >Jules > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Jun 13 17:04:55 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:04:55 Subject: chain printer speed? In-Reply-To: <001001c68ee7$5d827c60$2101a8c0@finans> References: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060613170455.47ef1200@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 02:46 PM 6/13/06 +0200, you wrote: >> >> Topic came up on a local newsgroup - anyone know what the typical speed of >a >> chain printer was/is? I can't find any hard figures online - all the info >> about chain printers seems to just say they were "high speed" and that's >it. >> > >This question is not easy to answer. >The IBM 1403 printer came in at least 2 versions : a 1000 lpm and a 300 lpm. >However, the effective speed depended on what was being printed, as the >chains could be different. Typically, a chain had more E's then Y's, more >A's then P's, etc. Interesting, The chain printers that I worked on all had the exact same number of different characters. Depending on the number of characters in the character set that was used on that partticular printer they usually had 2 or 3 COMPLETE character sets. IIRC there were 196 positions per belt and the characters sets that we normalled used were either 64 char/set or 96 char/set. Burroughs had a number of different character sets available for the printers but in 2+ years that I worked for them I don't recall ever seeing any used except those two. Joe I also recall a numeric-only version, which could do up >to 2000 lpm, and I've heard about (but never seen) a Braille version > >Nico > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Jun 13 17:07:16 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:07:16 Subject: chain printer speed? In-Reply-To: <200606130808010277.1990954B@10.0.0.252> References: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060613170716.47ef6d40@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 08:08 AM 6/13/06 -0700, you wrote: >On 6/13/2006 at 12:22 PM Jules Richardson wrote: > >>Topic came up on a local newsgroup - anyone know what the typical speed >>of a >>chain printer was/is? I can't find any hard figures online - all the info >>about chain printers seems to just say they were "high speed" and that's >>it. > >It depended entirely on what was being printed. There were worst-and-best >case patterns. Consider the way a chain printer worked. > >You have a spinning chain, a wide ribbon, the paper and (usually about 132) >hammers all making a sandwich. When a character in the chain is at the >right position, the hammer at that position fires and bangs the paper >against the ribbon backed by the type slug. Now, if the pattern being >printed matches the order of characters on the chain (or the non-matching >characters are spaces), you're all done and the paper advances. That's not quite the way that the chain printers that I worked on worked. The ODEC printers feed the chain from the left and the characters where in ASCII order. The data for the entire line to be printed was feed into a buffer and whenever a character on the chain rotated to a position where it matched the character to be printed then the hammer for that position fired. The result was the the hammer firing was very erratic and the printer made a hell of a noise. But it could print an entire line in one pass of a character set even if you printed nothing but the sme character in every print position. Of course if you printed somehting like "GFEDCBA" then you got a lot of matches and a lot of hammers firing at the same instant! Situations like that were another thing that made these printers so noisy, there was no rythum at all to the way that the hammers fired. Each chain usually had 2 or 3 complete sets of characters. Worst case for one of these printers would be where you printed the same character in every position. FWIW print speed was VERY different depending on the width of the paper, order of characters on the printed line, the maximum number of occurances of the same character in a line and a host of other factors. Joe If not, >then the paper has to wait until the proper characters come around to their >respective positions. > >Clearly, the number of different characters in the chain is going to affect >how many times they can be repeated in the chain; a chain containing >lower-case characters in addition to uppercase is going to, on the average, >print more slowly than a chain with just uppercase. Similarly, the >manufacturer may have decided that some characters are so rarely used that >they merit only one or two occurrences, while more frequently-used >characters merit more frequent repetitions. Ordering of the characters on >the chain also matters; placing a "U" next to a "Q" is a good idea. > >Most manufacturers give a number based on the average printing speed of a >printer and 1500 LPM was about par for the high-speed models with "easy" >lines going considerably faster.. But with the wrong type chain/train and >pathological data, speed can drop as low as 60 LPM or so. Other factors >could reduce printing speed, such as carriage control--when we printed >documentation, we bolded characters by overstriking, essentially forcing >the printer to print the same line 2 or 3 times. > >If you think about it, the chain/train printer is a perfect example of >early parallel processing, although it was rarely stated as such. > >Cheers, >Chuck > > From caveguy at wowway.com Tue Jun 13 16:28:53 2006 From: caveguy at wowway.com (Bob Bradlee) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:28:53 -0400 Subject: Socket use and Slot Machine Repair. In-Reply-To: <448F1A8E.80602@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606132136.k5DLaPQF016311@pop-1.dnv.wideopenwest.com> On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 13:05:34 -0700, Don Y wrote: >A slot machine loses ~$3000 of business* for each hour it is out of >service. Note that most slots are run in 24/7 environments -- you >can't have scheduled maintenance (e.g., for a firmware upgrade) >"on the weekend". I have been amused by this treread for some time, and this red hot lead in drew me right in to the story, untill I did the math .... $30K per hour is a three coin dollar machine that never stops 24/5. Even my dear old mother can not keep up a 17 bet a minute rate for 24/7 for very long. Slots useage is way down around dawn, and yes I have seen video slots on the floor, shut down, download an update and reboot just in time for the weekend. This last trip $20 lasted about 1/2 hour at the Garfield 2 cent video slot, the Bonus games are well worth it in entertainment. Mom got almost 2 hours out of a nickel mechanical slot for a $20 Now if it is my $20 than 5 minutes max, I'm broke again, I am but the spectator in that enviroment. There is little question that slots rake in the money, but they give a large percentage of bets placed back or people would not last long or return. And when one dies the player just moves on to the next one. It sounds like a nice job, Mom would love to move somewhere with slots :) My wife might take some convincing to change jobs, then again if she could be semi-retired in ther new life :) Take a look at IGT (a nice stock to have purchased a few years back) to see the direction slots have ans are all moving to. Just the other Bob on a slow day .... From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Tue Jun 13 16:50:31 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 14:50:31 -0700 Subject: Practical Electronics Calculator Message-ID: I sent the following note to the two individuals who asked for copies. Anybody else? Send me an eMail next week or tonight. (I won't have access for the next five days. Which means I'll be behind by 1000+ messages. Some stuff will be lost or ignored. I'll start at the top so if you send next week, I'll definitely see it.) ===================================== Billy: I found my copy of the calculator articles down here in OC. So I can xerox and post to you. Please send your snail mail address. 2 caveats: This is a 33 year copy made on a poor copier. None of the photographs are going to be very legible. I have the original magazines in the garage, but it could be 1-2 years before I dig them out. And second, I'm flying up to Oregon in the morning. Won't be able to get to this until next week. Billy From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 13 17:00:13 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 15:00:13 -0700 Subject: chain printer speed? In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060613170716.47ef6d40@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> <3.0.6.16.20060613170716.47ef6d40@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <200606131500130636.1B09F45F@10.0.0.252> On 6/13/2006 at 5:07 PM Joe R. wrote: Chuck, before his first cuppa said: >>against the ribbon backed by the type slug. Now, if the pattern being >>printed matches the order of characters on the chain (or the non-matching >>characters are spaces), you're all done and the paper advances. > > That's not quite the way that the chain printers that I worked on worked. >The ODEC printers feed the chain from the left and the characters where in >ASCII order. We're actually saying the same thing--it's just that I forgot to say "matches the order of characters on the chain (or the non-matching characters are spaces), you've printed the line in one swell foop, you're all done and the paper advances. Otherwise, the unprinted positions wait for their respective characters to arrive..." Sometimes, I don't do so well translating the pictures in my head to words. :( One could always hear a job banner being printed because of the peculiar pattern of repeated characters printed across the page perf used as a visible divider (if you looked at a stack of job output, you could pick out individual jobs because normal output didn't print over the perfs. Made life easy for the I/O clerks.) Similarly, you always knew when a CE was working on the printer because of the distinctive sound of the diagnostic test patterns. Type slugs wore at different rates, depending on the application. Since we were always printing lots of deadstart dumps (a Cyber 74 with 4M words of ECS could easily occupy most of a box of paper), the "zeroes" got fuzzy far faster than any other character. I never understood how the band printer uses dealt with this (other than replacing the band regularly). Maybe it's a trick of the eye, but the old drum printers often exhibited a lot of vertical misalignment of characters, making for wavy lines and very annoying reading. Curiously, the horizontal misalignment of characters in chain, train and band printers didn't seem to matter nearly as much. I remember that the Univac 1108 hardware manuals were drum printed and then reproduced and were darned near illegible after a couple of hours of miserable reading. By comparison, 1403 output was pristine. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 13 17:12:11 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 15:12:11 -0700 Subject: Socket use and Slot Machine Repair. In-Reply-To: <200606132136.k5DLaPQF016311@pop-1.dnv.wideopenwest.com> References: <200606132136.k5DLaPQF016311@pop-1.dnv.wideopenwest.com> Message-ID: <448F383B.4090406@DakotaCom.Net> Bob Bradlee wrote: > On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 13:05:34 -0700, Don Y wrote: > >> A slot machine loses ~$3000 of business* for each hour it is out of >> service. Note that most slots are run in 24/7 environments -- you >> can't have scheduled maintenance (e.g., for a firmware upgrade) >> "on the weekend". > > I have been amused by this treread for some time, and this red hot lead in > drew me right in to the story, untill I did the math .... > > $30K per hour is a three coin dollar machine that never stops 24/5. > Even my dear old mother can not keep up a 17 bet a minute rate for 24/7 for very long. $30K? Where did that come from? I said *3* K (5 coins per pull, though many are set to bet 3, 6 second cycle is $50/minute. Last time I checked, there are 60 -- not 600 - minutes in an hour! :>) It's only 10 pulls per minute and a pull is just a press of the "BET MAX" button. The 24/7 point is that slots differ from typical manufacturing environments in that there is no "scheduled downtime". > Slots useage is way down around dawn, and yes I have seen video slots > on the floor, shut down, download an update and reboot just in time for the weekend. > > This last trip $20 lasted about 1/2 hour at the Garfield 2 cent video slot, the Bonus games > are well worth it in entertainment. Mom got almost 2 hours out of a nickel mechanical slot for a $20 2 cents? :> > Now if it is my $20 than 5 minutes max, I'm broke again, I am but the spectator in that enviroment. Note that there are slots that take larger wagers. And, slots with smaller wagers (penny slots) tend to have worse payouts (the floorspace has to pay for itself) > There is little question that slots rake in the money, but they give a large percentage of bets placed back or people would not last long or return. Of course! In most venues, the house take is only 2-5%. But, those are the "regulated" venues. > And when one dies the player just moves on to the next one. *If* there is a free slot available! There are times when it is standing room only and The Management limits players to a single slot per player (for fear of turning away customers!) > It sounds like a nice job, > Mom would love to move somewhere with slots :) Buy her one! :> You can usually pick them up for a few hundred bucks... It is probably one of the best ways to cure folks of that novelty (I have one in the garage from a previous design project -- multigame, not just a plain slot). Personally, I fail to see the attraction as most casinos are noisey, smelly, crowded, etc. [if you opt to purchase one, best look for something you can maintain yourself since many vendors won't sell you parts -- legally -- if you reside someplace where gaming is illegal] > My wife might take some convincing to change jobs, then again if she could be semi-retired in ther new life :) > > Take a look at IGT (a nice stock to have purchased a few years back) to see the direction slots have ans are all moving to. IGT is the "glitz" in that industry. But, their are still LOTS of old EM and "stepper motor" slots in use. Some games just don't go over well as "virtual representations". I am not sure if it is a suspicion about the "honesty" of the machine (e.g., a video roulette wheel vs. a real roulette wheel) or some other aspect (nostalgia?). In some cases, this is not without cause! For example, video poker in some jurisdictions must behave LIKE a real deck of playing cards. I.e. the odds of getting a pair of 2's are the same as getting a pair of A's. But, in other jurisdictions they are simply slot machines in disguise (and the odds of getting a pair of A's can be infinitesmally small!!) And, grey-area machines operate under an entirely different set of rules and expectations. If it was legal everywhere, a great investment (spend a few $K on a slot, nothing consumable but electricity, and pay off your investment in no time! :>). Of course, if anyone could do that, then EVERYONE would -- in which case, you would get very little play! :-( From reevejd at mchsi.com Tue Jun 13 17:03:50 2006 From: reevejd at mchsi.com (John D. Reeve) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:03:50 -0500 Subject: Compaq diagnostic disks Message-ID: <001d01c68f35$40e8b8f0$70f2ce0c@gatewaynotebook> Hello All. I've recently acquired a Compaq Portable III (286, cool gas plasma display) and am having some problems with the hard drive. After powering up, the system says to insert a diagnostic disk in drive A. If I choose "Resume" by hitting the F1 key, it will boot PC-DOS just fine from the floppy drive (1.2 MB, 5.25") although it complains about the time and date not being set. The system doesn't show a C drive, however, and FDISK also says there is no hard disk. Here is my question - do I need these diagnostic disks to setup the hard drive on this system? Or is the hard disk just dead? Does anyone have a copy of the disks? Thanks for any help. John Reeve From tpeters at mixcom.com Tue Jun 13 17:29:26 2006 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:29:26 -0500 Subject: Socket use and Slot Machine Repair. In-Reply-To: <448F383B.4090406@DakotaCom.Net> References: <200606132136.k5DLaPQF016311@pop-1.dnv.wideopenwest.com> <200606132136.k5DLaPQF016311@pop-1.dnv.wideopenwest.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060613172304.0dda3810@localhost> At 03:12 PM 6/13/2006 -0700, you wrote: >Bob Bradlee wrote: >>On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 13:05:34 -0700, Don Y wrote: >> >>>A slot machine loses ~$3000 of business* for each hour it is out of >>>service. Note that most slots are run in 24/7 environments -- you >>>can't have scheduled maintenance (e.g., for a firmware upgrade) >>>"on the weekend". >>I have been amused by this treread for some time, and this red hot lead >>in drew me right in to the story, untill I did the math .... >>$30K per hour is a three coin dollar machine that never stops 24/5. >>Even my dear old mother can not keep up a 17 bet a minute rate for 24/7 >>for very long. > >$30K? Where did that come from? I said *3* K (5 coins per pull, >though many are set to bet 3, 6 second cycle is $50/minute. Last >time I checked, there are 60 -- not 600 - minutes in an hour! :>) > >It's only 10 pulls per minute and a pull is just a press >of the "BET MAX" button. > >The 24/7 point is that slots differ from typical manufacturing >environments in that there is no "scheduled downtime". > >>Slots useage is way down around dawn, and yes I have seen video slots on >>the floor, shut down, download an update and reboot just in time for the >>weekend. >>This last trip $20 lasted about 1/2 hour at the Garfield 2 cent video >>slot, the Bonus games are well worth it in entertainment. Mom got almost >>2 hours out of a nickel mechanical slot for a $20 > >2 cents? :> > >>Now if it is my $20 than 5 minutes max, I'm broke again, I am but the >>spectator in that enviroment. > >Note that there are slots that take larger wagers. >And, slots with smaller wagers (penny slots) tend to have >worse payouts (the floorspace has to pay for itself) > >>There is little question that slots rake in the money, but they give a >>large percentage of bets placed back or people would not last long or return. > >Of course! In most venues, the house take is only 2-5%. >But, those are the "regulated" venues. > >>And when one dies the player just moves on to the next one. > >*If* there is a free slot available! There are times when it >is standing room only and The Management limits players to >a single slot per player (for fear of turning away customers!) > >>It sounds like a nice job, Mom would love to move somewhere with slots :) > >Buy her one! :> You can usually pick them up for a few >hundred bucks... It is probably one of the best ways to >cure folks of that novelty (I have one in the garage >from a previous design project -- multigame, not just a >plain slot). Personally, I fail to see the attraction >as most casinos are noisey, smelly, crowded, etc. > >[if you opt to purchase one, best look for something you >can maintain yourself since many vendors won't sell you >parts -- legally -- if you reside someplace where gaming >is illegal] > >>My wife might take some convincing to change jobs, then again if she >>could be semi-retired in ther new life :) >>Take a look at IGT (a nice stock to have purchased a few years back) to >>see the direction slots have ans are all moving to. > >IGT is the "glitz" in that industry. But, their are still >LOTS of old EM and "stepper motor" slots in use. Some games >just don't go over well as "virtual representations". I >am not sure if it is a suspicion about the "honesty" of the >machine (e.g., a video roulette wheel vs. a real roulette >wheel) or some other aspect (nostalgia?). > >In some cases, this is not without cause! For example, video >poker in some jurisdictions must behave LIKE a real deck of >playing cards. I.e. the odds of getting a pair of 2's are >the same as getting a pair of A's. But, in other jurisdictions >they are simply slot machines in disguise (and the odds of >getting a pair of A's can be infinitesmally small!!) > >And, grey-area machines operate under an entirely different >set of rules and expectations. > >If it was legal everywhere, a great investment (spend a few $K >on a slot, nothing consumable but electricity, and pay off >your investment in no time! :>). Of course, if anyone >could do that, then EVERYONE would -- in which case, you >would get very little play! :-( Hey, all you slot machine repair types, anyone seen a manual for a Japan Cash Machine DBA-01 dollar bill acceptor? I have one and no idea how to hook up to the two connectors (one little four-pin and one six-pin in two row with slightly heavier pins. All it says on the top is "DC 12V 9.4VA MAX." It's also got an eight-position dip switch I have no idea how to set. I'd like to make a cool bank for my kid. [Computing] "First learn computer science and all the theory. Next develop a programming style. Then forget all that and just hack." -- George Carrette --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Jun 13 17:37:29 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 15:37:29 -0700 Subject: Compaq diagnostic disks In-Reply-To: <001d01c68f35$40e8b8f0$70f2ce0c@gatewaynotebook> References: <001d01c68f35$40e8b8f0$70f2ce0c@gatewaynotebook> Message-ID: <448F3E29.9050804@msm.umr.edu> John D. Reeve wrote: >Hello All. > This machine works like the old AT's did with Cmos batteries. when the batteries lost the disk setup and time information, you had to boot them from a floppy to set the time again, and to set cmos back up again. The portable 3 has a much larger table of possible drives. If you have a standard model, it may have a drive type or 3 or 20, if memory serves. you can still get the disks from the softpaq library on ftp.compaq.com/pub these entries in the pub/allfiles.txt are your best bets, depending on whether you have 5 1/4" drives, or 3 1/2" drives (360k or 720k). also the setup utility took two diskettes SP0316.ZIP ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/sp0000-0500/sp0316.zip 457K 20 May 92 TITLE: COMPAQ DIAGNOSTICS 8.00 REV. B SOFTPAQ SP0316 052092 360K DISKETTE VERSION: N/A LANGUAGE: N/A PRODUCTS AFFECTED: N/A OS: N/A SUPERSEDES: N/A SP0308.ZIP ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/sp0000-0500/sp0308.zip 443K 23 April 92 TITLE: SOFTPAQ DIAGNOSTICS 8.00 REV. B (DP256) 042192 SP0308 720K DISKETTE VERSION: N/A LANGUAGE: N/A PRODUCTS AFFECTED: N/A OS: N/A SUPERSEDES: N/A From tpeters at mixcom.com Tue Jun 13 17:39:06 2006 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:39:06 -0500 Subject: Compaq diagnostic disks In-Reply-To: <001d01c68f35$40e8b8f0$70f2ce0c@gatewaynotebook> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060613172957.0dd8e910@localhost> At 05:03 PM 6/13/2006 -0500, you wrote: >Hello All. I've recently acquired a Compaq Portable III (286, cool gas >plasma display) and am having some problems with the hard drive. After >powering up, the system says to insert a diagnostic disk in drive A. If I >choose "Resume" by hitting the F1 key, it will boot PC-DOS just fine from >the floppy drive (1.2 MB, 5.25") although it complains about the time and >date not being set. The system doesn't show a C drive, however, and FDISK >also says there is no hard disk. Here is my question - do I need these >diagnostic disks to setup the hard drive on this system? Or is the hard >disk just dead? Does anyone have a copy of the disks? Thanks for any >help. John Reeve Usually, there is no onboard bios setup code-- you had to have the blasted diag disk. The big mistake many people make is using a non-Compaq hard disk tool to partition the hard disk. Compaq creates a small dedicated partition on the hard disk and stores the setup disk there, and sometimes the diagnostic. If the setup code is present, you can access it by watching the screen after the POST. At one point, the cursor will jump to the upper right corner of the screen, and sit there for about 2 seconds. If you hit the magic key when the cursor is sitting there, you should get the setup/diagnostics menu, if the Compaq Diagnostic partition is still present. The magic key is, hmmm, I forget. I think it's F10. Might be F1. ESC? Don't think it's DEL. If there's really no hard disk, then you'll have to download the disks from the HPaq (Hp, formerly Compaq) web site and use another PC to build the disks. They make you jump through numerous hoops-- download a zip file, unzip it, sometimes to discover the zip file had multiple zip files in it, run the program, which asks for a blank floppy... When looking for the software, use the PC model number, not "Portable III". There's a model number like 5166-10 or something (well, that's for a Pentium II) but you get the idea. [Government]Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. -- Ronald Reagan (1986) --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 13 18:13:34 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:13:34 -0700 Subject: Compaq diagnostic disks In-Reply-To: <001d01c68f35$40e8b8f0$70f2ce0c@gatewaynotebook> References: <001d01c68f35$40e8b8f0$70f2ce0c@gatewaynotebook> Message-ID: <448F469E.7020606@DakotaCom.Net> John D. Reeve wrote: > Hello All. I've recently acquired a Compaq Portable III (286, cool gas plasma display) and am having some problems with the hard drive. After powering up, the system says to insert a diagnostic disk in drive A. If I choose "Resume" by hitting the F1 key, it will boot PC-DOS just fine from the floppy drive (1.2 MB, 5.25") although it complains about the time and date not being set. The system doesn't show a C drive, however, and FDISK also says there is no hard disk. Here is my question - do I need these diagnostic disks to setup the hard drive on this system? Or is the hard disk just dead? Does anyone have a copy of the disks? Thanks for any help. John Reeve > The CMOS is probably dead in your machine. It uses a proprietary battery SOLDERED to the PCB. Long term, you will want to remove this and replace it with something newer (unless you want to claim "factory orginal" status). I used a set of 3 NiMH AAA cells behind a diode (because I had a few hundred of them at the time :> ) The case disassembles easily -- but be careful of those LONGGGGG capscrews and any lockwashers down at the bottom. Once the back skin is off, there are several obvious screws holding the main board in place. Plus, a shield over the lower portion of the board. The trickiest part is the little "jumper board" (?) that connects the memory board to the main board (lower left corner IIRC). Disconnect all of the cables for floppy, hard drive, serial port connection, display adapter, etc. The battery should remove pretty easily with a couple of thruhole solder connections (dispose of responsibly). Your machine may or may not have a plastic "clip" that wraps around the batter. Keep it as it is handy for securing a new battery assembly to the board! I soldered a little two pin pigtail to the board to mate with the two pin connector on my 3cell battery packs -- overkill as I haven't had to replace it since! :> You need to download the SETUP, INSPECT, TEST set of floppies from the Compaq web site (archive). If push comes to shove, I *might* have the images here but I don't think they are "standard" floppies in that I am not sure they have the same format as a regular DOS floppy (though, come to think of it, I think I backed mine up with WinImage so they *must* be readable). Biggest pisser will be if your floppy drive is flakey. I don't think you can substitute a 3.5" drive -- I don't think they were designed with that in mind. You can also consider hacking the BIOS ROMs to support a different disk. I stuffed a 600M drive in my portable 3 (though have never used any significant portion of that... I just use it as a dumb terminal to capture configuration and diagnostic output from my PBX). Email me offlist if you would like some help doing so... From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 13 18:18:09 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:18:09 -0700 Subject: Compaq diagnostic disks In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060613172957.0dd8e910@localhost> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060613172957.0dd8e910@localhost> Message-ID: <448F47B1.1090908@DakotaCom.Net> Tom Peters wrote: > At 05:03 PM 6/13/2006 -0500, you wrote: >> Hello All. I've recently acquired a Compaq Portable III (286, cool >> gas plasma display) and am having some problems with the hard drive. >> After powering up, the system says to insert a diagnostic disk in >> drive A. If I choose "Resume" by hitting the F1 key, it will boot >> PC-DOS just fine from the floppy drive (1.2 MB, 5.25") although it >> complains about the time and date not being set. The system doesn't >> show a C drive, however, and FDISK also says there is no hard disk. >> Here is my question - do I need these diagnostic disks to setup the >> hard drive on this system? Or is the hard disk just dead? Does >> anyone have a copy of the disks? Thanks for any help. John Reeve > > Usually, there is no onboard bios setup code-- you had to have the > blasted diag disk. The big mistake many people make is using a > non-Compaq hard disk tool to partition the hard disk. Compaq creates a > small dedicated partition on the hard disk and stores the setup disk > there, and sometimes the diagnostic. Really? I know that some vendors (e.g., HP) do that on NEW machines but didn't think that was the case "way back when". I.e. my 386/25 deskpro wasn;t like that. I thought all of them relied on a "setup floppy". I know I had such floppies for the deskpro and my portable 3... > If the setup code is present, you can access it by watching the screen > after the POST. At one point, the cursor will jump to the upper right > corner of the screen, and sit there for about 2 seconds. If you hit the > magic key when the cursor is sitting there, you should get the > setup/diagnostics menu, if the Compaq Diagnostic partition is still > present. From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Tue Jun 13 18:18:24 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:18:24 -0700 Subject: chain printer speed? Message-ID: Joe R. wrote: Interesting, The chain printers that I worked on all had the exact same number of different characters. Depending on the number of characters in the character set that was used on that partticular printer they usually had 2 or 3 COMPLETE character sets. IIRC there were 196 positions per belt and the characters sets that we normalled used were either 64 char/set or 96 char/set. Burroughs had a number of different character sets available for the printers but in 2+ years that I worked for them I don't recall ever seeing any used except those two. Joe I also recall a numeric-only version, which could do up >to 2000 lpm, and I've heard about (but never seen) a Braille version > >Nico > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Billy: Most of the trains and even some of the drums CDC supplied had an uneven distribution of characters based on their frequency in normal use. Part of this analysis is not intuitive; for example more 1's than any of the other numbers. The main reason for this was performance. But almost as important was reliability. Frequently used characters wore out faster. Adding extras and distributing them evenly extended the life of the train. I still remember my first experience trying to troubleshoot a train printer that printed only Greek. A week later, I was sent to work on one that only printed Hebrew. This time I was smart enough to have an English train flown in before I arrived. There were finally more than 50 trains in the catalog. One was even all numbers and special characters for one of the AEC sites. I saw one in a publisher's site that had been modified to print multiple characters in one space, so they could include proof reading characters on the galleys they sent to the printer. I never saw it but always wanted to get the one that had a full range of mathematical symbols. Now we take for granted any special font and mix them freely. Some things DO get better. Billy From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 13 18:33:44 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:33:44 -0700 Subject: Socket use and Slot Machine Repair. In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060613172304.0dda3810@localhost> References: <200606132136.k5DLaPQF016311@pop-1.dnv.wideopenwest.com> <200606132136.k5DLaPQF016311@pop-1.dnv.wideopenwest.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060613172304.0dda3810@localhost> Message-ID: <448F4B58.9070203@DakotaCom.Net> Tom Peters wrote: [snip] > Hey, all you slot machine repair types, anyone seen a manual for a Japan > Cash Machine DBA-01 dollar bill acceptor? I have one and no idea how to > hook up to the two connectors (one little four-pin and one six-pin in > two row with slightly heavier pins. All it says on the top is "DC 12V > 9.4VA MAX." It's also got an eight-position dip switch I have no idea > how to set. I'll dig through my catalogs/manuals. Usually there are two interfaces -- a serial one and a serial one :> The former being something akin to EIA232 while the latter is a pulse train. The dip sitch typically is used to set things like "pulses per coin (bill)" -- though that also varies with manufacturer and model. > I'd like to make a cool bank for my kid. Ah, interesting application! (until he gets bored watching the money go IN and starts asking for it to come OUT! :> ) Get yourself a coin mech as well and swindle him out of his "spare change" at the same time! :> From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Jun 13 18:47:28 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:47:28 -0700 Subject: Compaq diagnostic disks -- more info -- In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060613172957.0dd8e910@localhost> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060613172957.0dd8e910@localhost> Message-ID: <448F4E90.4080501@msm.umr.edu> Tom Peters wrote: > At 05:03 PM 6/13/2006 -0500, you wrote: > > > [Government]Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a > few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate > it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. -- Ronald Reagan (1986) The portable III is the model that will find things. This and the portable III 386 are both movable AT's. Pre phoenix bios or whoever came up with the bios setup screens. It is a brick w/o a working CMOS and or a floppy drive that can read the setup and diagnostic disk. I didn't mention that the advanced diagnostics disk for the AT will work as long as you have drive types that are from 1 to 15 after you replace the battery. Removal of the 6 Torx screws on the back will expose the battery pack if memory serves, but you will probably have to rig a way to hook up different than what they have on board, as I doubt that any "new old stock" batteries would be any more useful at this point than the one in your system is. Jim From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 13 17:28:43 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 23:28:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor In-Reply-To: from "Billy Pettit" at Jun 12, 6 04:13:17 pm Message-ID: > I remember the PE calculator well. I actually built it, though I Wow! I don;'t think I';d haev had the patience to put that together... Even for the time, it was a very old-fashioned design with a lot of hard-wired logic. Things like the HP9810 were contemporary and did a lot more with few ICS (said machine used a processor + firmware sort of structure). Do you also rememebr the PE CHAMP (along with the CHAMPprog and CHAMPUV)? That was a 4040-based computer system which fitted (not including the PSU) onto one (large) piece of stripboard. The other 2 units were an EPROM programmer and UV eraser, of course. I think I have all the articles for that too... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 13 17:58:12 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 23:58:12 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <448DFB18.206@dsl.pipex.com> from "Philip Pemberton" at Jun 13, 6 00:39:04 am Message-ID: [Resistors] > When I need a value I don't have, I usually order a strip of 50 or 100 of= > the=20 > 0.25W metal-film variant. =A31 +VAT for fifty resistors - certainly beats= > =20 > Maplin's extortionate 70p for ten. You're missing the point. If I know I am short of a particular value, or will need a lot of them (like the time I needed about 100 33 Ohm resistors when I was filling up a Unibus memory board...) then I order them from RS or Farnell, or somewhere. But I have, on serveral occasions, been designing anf prototyping something and found at the last minute that I need, say, a 390 ohm resistor. I don't have one in the junk box. In the old days, either in London or Bristol, I'd hop on a bus and get 10 from Maplin. And be designing again within the hour. Now I have to send an order to RS or Farnell and make it large enough to meet the latter's minimum order charge or so that the former's postage charge doesn't exceed the value of the components. OK, there are always components I can use, but finding the money every few days gets a bit much! > > I've still yet to find a place that sells nickel shim stock though (I use= > it=20 I don't know of anywhere off the top of my head, but I'd look in Model Engineer magazine (and its companion Model Engineer's Workshop). Both should be in Smiths. The advantage of model engineering suppliers is that they're used to dealing with hobbyists who want small-ish qunatities (the place I get metal rod from -- GLR Distribution -- cuts it to the nearest foot (or 30 cm, or something like that). Yes, it's more expensive per unit length than an industrial metal supplier, but I don't want several hundred feet of the stuff! > for battery welding strips). I used to get it from McMaster-Carr, but the= > y=20 > won't do export orders any more. That's another thin that annoys me. Companies who won't ship to the UK when there's no good reason that they can't (no import restrictions on the goods, no problem in posting them, etc). > > Now what I would like to find is a decent supplier of electronics surplus= > .=20 > Mainline were great up until their warehouse caught fire, Greenweld have=20 > disappeared (good riddance, their Innovations-catalogue wares will not be= > =20 I rememebr when Greenweld were down in Southampton and had some interesting surplus. Every year they had the half-price summer sale, I'd get on the train from Bristol (a nice ride though the country, down through Bradford-on-Avon, Romsey and Salisbury), and come back with as much stuff as I could sensibly carry. I can't rememebr all I bought from them, but I know my first HX20 came from there. As did some interesting 6809-based Microvitec colour terminals > missed) and WCN don't seem to have much useful stock these days. Nor do t= > hey=20 > seem to want to send me a copy of the current catalogue... But is there much surplus stuff still around? We've already discussed the fact that modern stuff is not really repairable. It doesn't contain many recognisable componets. What are you goign to do with a PCB containing a few PQFP (or worse BGA) packaged ASICs? > > One thing that's not helped are that ICs now come in hacker-unfriendly=20 > > pacakges, and may require expensice programming software and hardware t= > o=20 > > do anything with.=20 > > I've got a box full of homebrew adapter PCBs and turned-pin solder pins. = Hmmm.. I don't fancy doing that for a BGA pacakge... > When=20 > I need to put a particularly fussy chip onto a breadboard, I make an adap= > ter=20 > in Autotrax and etch it. It takes longer, but it beats dead-bugging fine-= > pitch=20 > chips. > > On the software front, I just ignore anything that needs expensive softwa= > re. I=20 > once had the 'pleasure' of dealing with an FPGA vendor who was screaming = > about=20 > how cheap their ICs were. I asked how much the development software was, = > and=20 > got the answer "sorry, we can't tell you unless you sign an NDA." Sorry, = > wrong=20 > answer, you lose, thanks for playing. > > There's a reason all the microcontrollers in my junkbox are Microchip PIC= > s and=20 > 8051 derivatives (mostly Dallas Semiconductor "Speed It uP" series chips)= > -=20 > free or cheap dev software. MPLAB is free, MetaLink Assembler is free too= > , and=20 > the Dallas chips are programmed with a MAX232 and a toggle switch. All my= Microcontrollers are not the problem here. For most (if not all) of the popular ones, the machine code is docuements. You could, if pushed, hand-assemble the firmware (although even I, a confirmed non-programmer, would probably write a cross-asssembler). Quite a few have documented programming algorithms (you can make your own programmer), or can run from external EPROM (and you can make your own EPROM programmer...) No, the problem is programmable logic chips. I've yet to find one of any complexity above a simple PAL/GAL where you can go from logic equations to chip without either a proprietary compiler (which even if free, will run on a most definitely non-free operating system that I don't have), or a proprietary programmer, or both. Actually, I don't need, or even want, programmable logic, but since a lot of interesting TTL is no more, I guess I'll have to do something about it. > I don't really do wirewrap or Roadrunner wiring much these days. My last = > three=20 > projects were built straight onto PCBs, then I patched the inevitable bug= I guess you design differently to me. I like to build a bit, test it, build a bit more, and so on. That's a lot easier to do with hand-wiring than with a PCB. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 13 17:37:44 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 23:37:44 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: from "Billy Pettit" at Jun 12, 6 04:37:04 pm Message-ID: > I'm probably showing my age, but when I lived in London, there were lots = > of > nice little shops along the Edgeware Road. Another bunch were close to Oh, indeed. It was a birthday treat of me when I was younger to go to the Edgware Road. Dozens of interesting shops selling surplus, new components, odd components, you name it. Almost all gone now. Henry's Radio is still at 404-406 (but the other 3 shops they used to have are no more). But they mostly sell electronic music speakers and related stuff. I think they still have a few components left, but nothing much. > Paddington. I looked for them a couple of years ago and only found one > open. Then were some more up near Buck and Ryan's, my number one stop > whenever I go into London. Not any more. Buck and Ryans has gone (I think even the building has been knocked down). The Tottenham Court road is useless for hacking now (I can rememebr Proops and Z&I, both long gone). There's one decent tool shop I know in London -- Grizzrd's in Fulham. At least if you ask in there for an M3 tap, you're not directed to the plumbing department (as happened to me in a lesser DIY shop!) > > =20 > > What is the one place left in London? I go in to London from = > Colechester a > few times a year. Would love to find a source of small lots. The place I was thinking of is Cricklewood Electronics. Easy to reach by pnblic transport from central London, and they do have a fair stock of components (but watch the prices -- \pounds 25.00 for a 6522? I don't think so!) I think Grandata are still going (behind the Wembley Stadium). They're a TV/VCR spares place, and don't stock many general components (I don't think they stock resistors, for example). But they do have a lot of Japanese transistors, etc. There used to be VIewcom over at Upton Park, but they went about 10 years ago. They had a amazing range of ICs.... > two or three like you said. But that is still more than we have here. = > Nuts > and Volts is it and it is pretty basic. What about Circuit Cellar? We get that in Borders in the UK -- I used to buy it, but ratehr gave up when it turned into a thinly disguised advert for the lasted microcontorllers (many of which didn't seem to be the most suitable devices for the application). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 13 18:14:38 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 00:14:38 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <448E0A0D.7060003@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jun 12, 6 05:42:53 pm Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > Elektor is the best of a dwindling number of electronics magazines > > available in the UK. It's improved in the last 5 years or so as they now > > do make firmware sources available for about 50% of their projects (but > > not the interesting ones, alas). Before that (and for the other 50% now) > > you have to buy the programmed device from them, and it comes copy-protected. > > "Copy protected" -- implying an MCU implementation? > I.e. *small* pieces of code? (not hundreds of KB) Microcontrollers, PALs/GAls, CPLDs. All come with the security fuse blown. Obviously EPROMs are readable :-) In a few cases, they make the object (binary) file available to program your own device, but not the source. Which is not particularly helpful. Yes, I am well aware there are ways to reverse-engineer some of these devices, but I have to weigh up the effort to do that against the effort to design the whole thing from scratch (and have it just the way I want it). > > > Since I generally build in order to learn, this is a major reason for me > > not to build said project. > > Yup. Or, at least to be able to *build* on their ideas > (things they didn't think of or didn't implement well) Exactly. Rarely does the published design exactly meet my needs, I want to modify it. And that may mean modifying the firmware too. > > Anotehr disadvantage is that their computer-related projects invariably > > have Windows software. The sources of that may not be available, the link > > between the PC and the project (RS232, USB, parallel ports) may not be > > properly documented. > > This is true here (US), as well. Its as if the idea of something > *other* than a PC never crosses their mind... I don't expect them to support all my old machines, but I wish they'd let _me_ do so by documentign the interface properly. If a device plugs into a serial port and uses the Tx and Rx line conventionally, then I'd like to know what commands I can send the device, and how it responds. Or alternatively, give me the source to the firmware and/or the PC program and I'll work it out. > I wonder if the *apparent* (? unsubstantiated by hard numbers) > prevalence of hobbyists on your side of the pond has anything > to do with economics? I recall (when working with a firm in > Manchester) that many components that were dirt cheap here > were quite "dear", there. And, the "pounds = dollars" > relationship means things are effectively (i.e. from *my* > point of view) 60 - 80% more expensive than they would be, > here. I've heard economic arguments (mostly as a reason for not homebrewing) many times before, and I don't believe it's the whole story... Let me go off at a tangent for a moment. All my life I've been interested in clocks, and one day I intend to make a real mechanical clock. I'll have to get a lot better at machining first, but I still want to do it. Economically, this makes no sense at all. To make a clock from scratch probably needs \pounds 5000 to \pounds 10000 worth of tools (many of which i have, it's true, but I'd still need to get gear cutters, etc and they're not cheap). The metal to make said clock is around \pounds 100. And the result is a much worse timekeeper than a 5 quid quartz clock from the local household shop. But I still want to do it, to learn, and to have the enjoyment of making it. And it appears others do likewise. There's at least one magazine which has an article every month on desinging/making a clock (and other articles on making parts as part of antique clock restoration). There are many books and plans for homebuilt clocks. So I can't be alone in wanting to do this. Now lets get back to computers. The difference in performance between a homemade mechanical clock and a quartz clock is probably comparable to the difference in performance between a modern PC and a homebuilt processor. The tools needed to make a homebuilt processor are cheaper than those needed to make a clock, thouygh. And yet, I've not seen one book or magazine article on making a processor from scratch in the last 10 years. If some people think it's worth making a clock from scratch, why not a processor. I will end with a wuote from a book entitled 'Every Boy his own Mechanic', published about 90 years ago. It's the start of a chapter on a home-made telephone system ' For some years previous to 1914 the constructive instinct and ability inherent in many of us was almost snuffed out because most of the mechanical and electrical things we wished to possess were so cheap that they could be bought ready made. Often the prices quoted were actually below the cost to us of the raw materials, and so we came to think that constructive hobbies were a bit futile. Lots of those cheap things were amazingly good, but some where exasperatingly bad, and the bulk indifferent. Still, we bought the stuff, learned nothing from it, and clean missed all the solid satisfaction that lives for ever in building and contriving and creating Take the ready-made cheap telephone, for instance. How long did it take to get fed up with ringing and asking "are you there ?" Was it really worth the outlay of 15s to 45s? Frankly, no. Why? Because our purchase locked us out from all the subtle mysteries of an ever-wonderful instrument (simple though it may be), and we had been robbed of all the joy of its making. If it failed to act we discovered that we could not put it right. If it acted perfectly, we took the whole thing for granted and soon became bored. But to build up that same installation oneself in the face of difficulties from the homeliest of raw materials, and at last to have it (in litteral fact) voicing our triumph in our eager-listening ears - ah, that is a very different matter!' And that is exactly how I feel about homebrewing electronic devices now. -tony From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Jun 13 19:01:09 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:01:09 -0300 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff References: Message-ID: <009b01c68f45$c169ce50$01fea8c0@alpha> > But I have, on serveral occasions, been designing anf prototyping > something and found at the last minute that I need, say, a 390 ohm > resistor. I don't have one in the junk box. In the old days, either in > London or Bristol, I'd hop on a bus and get 10 from Maplin. And be > designing again within the hour. Now I have to send an order to RS or > Farnell and make it large enough to meet the latter's minimum order > charge or so that the former's postage charge doesn't exceed the value of > the components. OK, there are always components I can use, but finding > the money every few days gets a bit much! Resistors are SO cheap that pays for having a parts' tray with one hundred of all values comercially avaiable and being replenished from time to time. This is something you'll use forever. And doesn't get old. Greetz Alexandre, from Brazil, and his thousands of resistors :oD From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Jun 13 19:03:56 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:03:56 -0300 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff References: Message-ID: <00b001c68f46$7af001f0$01fea8c0@alpha> > I guess you design differently to me. I like to build a bit, test it, > build a bit more, and so on. That's a lot easier to do with hand-wiring > than with a PCB. For me this is the best way to design - you build a module, test it, build another, test, connect both, test, build another module, and so on... From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Tue Jun 13 19:08:53 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:08:53 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff Message-ID: Tony Duell wrote: The place I was thinking of is Cricklewood Electronics. Easy to reach by pnblic transport from central London, and they do have a fair stock of components (but watch the prices -- \pounds 25.00 for a 6522? I don't think so!) I think Grandata are still going (behind the Wembley Stadium). They're a TV/VCR spares place, and don't stock many general components (I don't think they stock resistors, for example). But they do have a lot of Japanese transistors, etc. > two or three like you said. But that is still more than we have here. = > Nuts > and Volts is it and it is pretty basic. What about Circuit Cellar? We get that in Borders in the UK -- I used to buy it, but ratehr gave up when it turned into a thinly disguised advert for the lasted microcontorllers (many of which didn't seem to be the most suitable devices for the application). -tony -------------------------------------------------------- Billy: Thanks for the advice on Cricklewood. I have been in there but not recently. They used to have a nice line of surplus test equipment. And didn't there used to be great place down on the South Coast, Rye or Wye, that had a huge warehouse full of test equipment? I remember I had to hire a car just to get home, there was so much good stuff. Circuit Celler is pretty much as you said - article/ads for small company development boards. Since Steve Ciarca left, it hasn't done much that is fun. Billy From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 13 19:13:27 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:13:27 -0700 Subject: East Coast business In-Reply-To: <200606130745090225.197BA5FD@10.0.0.252> References: <200606130745090225.197BA5FD@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606131713270188.1B83EC7D@10.0.0.252> On 6/13/2006 at 7:45 AM Chuck Guzis wrote: >I got a call from someone who's got a bunch of S/36 8" floppies who want >to import the data to their AS/400. Forgot to mention that this is a for-pay affair; not charity, if it matters. Cheers, Chuck From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Tue Jun 13 19:23:57 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:23:57 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor Message-ID: Tony Duell wrote: Do you also rememebr the PE CHAMP (along with the CHAMPprog and CHAMPUV)? That was a 4040-based computer system which fitted (not including the PSU) onto one (large) piece of stripboard. The other 2 units were an EPROM programmer and UV eraser, of course. I think I have all the articles for that too... -tony --------------------------------------------------------------- Billy: No, that one doesn't ring a bell. But I was only in England until 1972 when I was transferred to Canada. Smith's there had the occassional UK magazine but not every month, and not cheap. Still that way. For example, I really like MacFormat magazine with the 2 CD's every months. But at Borders, these cost $15.90, 3x the UK price. Elektor is worth it, MacFormat not. so I subscribe to Elektor and make trades for back issues of MacFormat. Billy From jrkeys at concentric.net Tue Jun 13 20:17:49 2006 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 20:17:49 -0500 Subject: IBM Control Panel Coming Message-ID: <011601c68f50$6d3a97f0$37406b43@66067007> More Good News! There is a fully wired and complete 407 Control Panel in the mail on it's way. You can see one here http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/407.html From bpope at wordstock.com Tue Jun 13 20:22:01 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:22:01 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Expensive C64... Message-ID: <20060614012201.A70545829B@mail.wordstock.com> A boxed C64 goes for $208.50 on ebay (Item #8824336692)! Was there not many sold that had the Canada Olympics logo on the side of the box? Plus I believe this is an older 64 since it does not have the rainbow logo in the top left corner. Cheers, Bryan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jun 13 20:24:00 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:24:00 +1200 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <026b01c68efa$be114990$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> <448E4579.6050603@oldskool.org> <026b01c68efa$be114990$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: On 6/14/06, Alexandre Souza wrote: > > I bought a 4ML new, back in the day, for about $1100 - still works great. > > ML is a great printer, but has a very weak fuser assembly - this one > already uses the "new technology" of ceramic heater and very thin and > flexible teflon tube. But I love it, I have one of that too :o) It was saved > from scrap, was in a trash bin, but now works flawlessly ;o) I'm sure that the fuser is fragile - I have a 4L (same engine and case, Centronics-only interface board, no Postscript) that was really cheap at the Uni surplus because it had no cartridge (not even a mostly-empty one) and no fuser assembly. Some Uni person pulled the entire fuser unit and dumped the rest on the surplus folks. :-P It's a low-priority project to get that one working again - I can see that one of the SMT interface ICs (74LS07?) is cracked and will have to be replaced. Dunno what else is wrong with it, since it has no fuser. -ethan From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 13 20:39:54 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 18:39:54 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <009b01c68f45$c169ce50$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <009b01c68f45$c169ce50$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <448F68EA.6080802@DakotaCom.Net> Alexandre Souza wrote: >> But I have, on serveral occasions, been designing anf prototyping >> something and found at the last minute that I need, say, a 390 ohm >> resistor. I don't have one in the junk box. In the old days, either in >> London or Bristol, I'd hop on a bus and get 10 from Maplin. And be >> designing again within the hour. Now I have to send an order to RS or >> Farnell and make it large enough to meet the latter's minimum order >> charge or so that the former's postage charge doesn't exceed the value of >> the components. OK, there are always components I can use, but finding >> the money every few days gets a bit much! > > Resistors are SO cheap that pays for having a parts' tray with one > hundred of all values comercially avaiable and being replenished from time > to time. This is something you'll use forever. And doesn't get old. Except that 100 of each take up a LOT of space! From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Jun 13 20:28:34 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 22:28:34 -0300 Subject: Laser printing References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca><011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> <448E4579.6050603@oldskool.org><026b01c68efa$be114990$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <000f01c68f52$536c1400$01fea8c0@alpha> > I'm sure that the fuser is fragile - I have a 4L (same engine and > case, Centronics-only interface board, no Postscript) that was really > cheap at the Uni surplus because it had no cartridge (not even a > mostly-empty one) and no fuser assembly. Some Uni person pulled the > entire fuser unit and dumped the rest on the surplus folks. :-P If you have the same engine/case, you have a 4P and not a 4L, eh? :oP > It's a low-priority project to get that one working again - I can see > that one of the SMT interface ICs (74LS07?) is cracked and will have > to be replaced. Dunno what else is wrong with it, since it has no > fuser. For the price of one in USA, I'd tell you to buy another ;o) From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jun 13 20:44:41 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:44:41 +1200 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <000f01c68f52$536c1400$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> <448E4579.6050603@oldskool.org> <026b01c68efa$be114990$01fea8c0@alpha> <000f01c68f52$536c1400$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: On 6/14/06, Alexandre Souza wrote: > If you have the same engine/case, you have a 4P and not a 4L, eh? :oP Doh! You are quite right. > > It's a low-priority project to get that one working again... > > For the price of one in USA, I'd tell you to buy another ;o) If I see another at a similarly low price (i.e. - cheaper than a good lunch), I _will_ pick it up and mix the parts. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jun 13 20:48:31 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:48:31 +1200 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <000f01c68f52$536c1400$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> <448E4579.6050603@oldskool.org> <026b01c68efa$be114990$01fea8c0@alpha> <000f01c68f52$536c1400$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: On 6/14/06, Alexandre Souza wrote: > If you have the same engine/case, you have a 4P and not a 4L, eh? :oP Hang on... no... that's not right... there's a 4L and 4ML, and a 4P and a 4MP... the unit I have is _identical_ to the 4ML, down to the single button and small number of LEDs (3? 4?). From googling around, the 4P/MP has multiple buttons and perhaps an LCD. The ML and L are nothing like it. -ethan From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jun 13 22:05:41 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 22:05:41 -0500 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming References: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066817BD@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <448F244A.20801@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <016301c68f5f$6c4341d0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I'm afraid to comment for fear people will think I'm insisting on "do it this way". So... what follows is my personal opinion, and not really meant to be 'list policy'. ----------------- I personally dislike top posting. But there's something I dislike more - and that's bottom posting without trimming the reply appropriately. Otherwise it's way too much scrolling :) And it's not just me that dislikes top-posting. Top posting has been against published netiquette for years. However, as time has progressed people have glossed over some of the stuff they think is too prissy (which in my own opinion means they are being sloppy, and some may consider it rude). I dislike signatures, mainly because some claim corporate property or confidentiality which makes little sense. There are a few that have politically oriented signatures which has absolutely no place on the list (ok, that one is policy-ish ;) ). If it was trivial to do, I think I'd set the list to automatically remove all signatures but I don't believe that's at all possible, I think most footers are added as plain text and not as identifiable strippable stuff. Ah well. It's unfortunate that this topic causes people's dander to get up. I am not setting out any policies on this, so I don't expect any replies, rebuttals, or dead horse beating (at least with regards to trying to effect list policies) :) Jay From masterson at BATTELLE.ORG Tue Jun 13 14:35:13 2006 From: masterson at BATTELLE.ORG (Masterson, David C) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 15:35:13 -0400 Subject: paper tape for GNT 4601 Message-ID: tom: Can you provide a source where I can purchase 11/16 inch wide spools of paper (prefer yellow) for the reader mentioned above Thanks David C. Masterson Research Scientist Battelle Advanced Materials Applications Group National Security Division 505 King Ave Columbus, Ohio 43201 614 424-5538 614 458-5538 fax masterson at battelle.org From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Jun 13 16:45:08 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:45:08 -0400 Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list In-Reply-To: <002a01c68b65$92724d40$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <002a01c68b65$92724d40$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200606131745.08534.rtellason@verizon.net> Sorry that I've been offline while this stuff was going on... On Thursday 08 June 2006 09:39 pm, Jay West wrote: > ClassicCMP Computer Books Database > A database of book titles that are of interest to collectors. This could be > books on collecting, or books on repair, electronics, or anything germane > to the hobby. Include the full text of Kevin Stumpf's collecting guide > (already have Kevin's approval). Users submit titles, rate books, perhaps > contribute a short review, etc. On this I have a fair number of electronics books that I've collected here, and a new DSL connection to make uploading them easier. Just point me at the right place to put 'em. :-) > Ebay picture hosting for members > Allow ClassicCMP members to upload a limited number of pictures for linking > to ebay auctions. Or maybe have a place where we can do a bit of our own trading? I'm looking to get rid of a *pile* of dot-matrix printers, for example. (Anybody interested in one feel free to contact me offlist.) > Directory of trusted subject-matter experts > Provide a list for members to contact of people who are subject-matter > experts in specific areas that are willing to be contacted by those with > specific needs (legal research, prior art, user questions, > contracting/support work, etc.). My strengths are in component-level electronics, discrete and earlier chips. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Jun 13 16:59:41 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:59:41 -0400 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <085FF060-5635-4AAF-93B4-DC71ADD6AD74@comcast.net> References: <200606090203.k5923VIA033929@dewey.classiccmp.org> <085FF060-5635-4AAF-93B4-DC71ADD6AD74@comcast.net> Message-ID: <200606131759.41779.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 09 June 2006 02:18 am, CRC wrote: > Alas, the world has moved on : check out pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/view/47490/SONY/ILX508A.html>. > The clock generators are built in - you input a read-out gate, and a > clock to move things around. There is a sample-and-hold (built in). > Nothing really critical like in the old days playing with Reticon > sensors. I ran across a bunch of 2088 pixel chips and had one beast > running in less than 15 minutes... These sensors are over 10 yo. I stopped using alldatasheet.com when they started "branding" their datasheets with a page (!) added to the end of each one saying where it'd been downloaded from. Where the heck do they get off doing that?! Wasting my download time, my disk space... There are other sites out there that don't do 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 Tue Jun 13 19:22:37 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 20:22:37 -0400 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606132022.37175.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 10 June 2006 05:40 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > For electronic test instruments (not including hand tools, etc), my order > would be something like > > 1) A good VOM (analogue) or DMM, whichever type you prefer. You need both! Though I do tend to reach for the digital stuff more often than not, but that's more a matter of physical convenience than anything else (little teeny DMM sits on my desk AAMOF). > 2) A logic probe I've not found those as useful as I'd have thought at one time. Got one here that's "Continental Specialties" (?) or maybe later when they changed their name to "Global Specialities" and I don't remember the last time I used it. I even bought another one that Yamaha had out that produces an audible tone as well. And I don't remember the last time I used it. > 3) A bench power supply (at least 5A output) 5A at what voltage? > 4) The other of the VOM/DMM pair Yes. > 5) A 'scope or logic analyser, depending on what sort of work you're doing > > 6) The other one of those instruments Scopes I've been using for ages, but never had occasion to use a logic analyzer. Or could afford one. > 7) Strange stuff that you get because you see it at a cheap price and it > looks interesting (curve tracers, valve testers, LCR bridge, etc) I'd love to get my hands on an LCR bridge, and am considering building one. Got a curve tracer given to me some time back, and it's proved useful. And built a tube tester from a kit, because that was the cheapest way to get one at that time. Still works, too. > > >PS. I notice most TTL projects are wire wrapped that I have seen on the > > >web rather than having a PCB made. > > > > Obvious reason. Rework in the form of circuit corrections are easily > > done with wirewrap and can be costly and time consuming with PCB. > > I find it helps when prototyping to be able to build one bit of the > circuit, check it works properly, then add a bit more, and so on. This is > easy with wire wrap, harder on a PCB. That was the way I learned how to build things as well, only we started with a hunk of blank sheet metal and ended up with a 5-tube radio. :-) -- 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 Jun 13 19:25:42 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 20:25:42 -0400 Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606132025.42680.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 10 June 2006 06:03 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > Somewhere I have the issue of Practical Television magazine which gives > construction details for a 1 valve + CRT scope. OK, there are some > semiconductor rectifiiers in the PSU too. The valve is for the timebase, > the Y input goes straight to the CRT plates. But it was useable for the > signals in vavle TVs of the time, and a lot better than nothing. Bet you could do the timebase without a valve, too -- I was looking seriously at a circuit that used a couple of neon bulbs as a triggered devices in a relaxation oscillator some years back... What did they use for a CRT? I have a 3" one in storage that as I recall wants something like 1000V for an accelerating potential, and a transformer to develop that isn't exactly trivial. -- 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 Jun 13 18:26:53 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 19:26:53 -0400 Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606131926.53503.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 09 June 2006 07:18 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > What about more general books on computing/electronics. I feel that > virtually everybody should have 'The Art of Electronics' and K&R to hand. > But there must be some people who've not heard of them... There's two that I've definitely heard of, but if they're available anyplace in electronic form I sure haven't heard about 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 Tue Jun 13 18:30:26 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 19:30:26 -0400 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <027601c68c2d$464a76e0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <200606082233.22252.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <027601c68c2d$464a76e0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200606131930.26133.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 09 June 2006 09:29 pm, Jay West wrote: > Someone wrote.... > > >> But let's ask the list: is there anybody else out there or that you > >> know who buys a product only if it has repair documentation available? > > Someone suggested Tony was somewhat unique for restricting purchases to > things with schematics and things that are repairable. I think this list is > FULL of people that are exactly like that :) I think you're probably right, which goes a ways towards explaining why I feel so at home here. :-) Though I don't tend to insist on it any more, I got tired of that beating-your-head-against-the-wall feeling. But it's definitely a preference, when such stuff is even possible 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 rtellason at verizon.net Tue Jun 13 18:44:31 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 19:44:31 -0400 Subject: Commodore SX64 Problem In-Reply-To: <200606090528.k595S3o2013177@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu> References: <200606090528.k595S3o2013177@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu> Message-ID: <200606131944.31807.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 09 June 2006 01:28 am, Martin Scott Goldberg wrote: > I have a problem I'm hoping someone here can help with. > > Picked up an SX-64 (luggable C64) this past weekend. Worked fine when I > first tested it, cleaned it down (was pretty grimy) and let it sit for 2 > days. > > Went to power it up today, I get the normal startup screen and ready > prompt but oddly the cursor is stuck at the upper left corner of the > screen instead of down by the ready prompt. Can't type a thing, though > I know the keyboard is still working (cartridge games are able to read the > keyboard just fine). > > Anyone have any idea what happened? Sounds to me like it thinks the home key is stuck, maybe? It'll take a 6526 to fix that, let me know offlist if you need one, as I have plenty of them (and other c= parts 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 Tue Jun 13 18:56:46 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 19:56:46 -0400 Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <200606100723260201.09F4B736@10.0.0.252> References: <200606100723260201.09F4B736@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606131956.46750.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 10 June 2006 10:23 am, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/10/2006 at 11:40 AM Christian Corti wrote: > >The Oszillette has no trigger, it's free running with sync and frequency > >adjustments via front knobs, and only 1:1 and 1:10 signal inputs. > > At one time didn't NLS (they of the Kaypro) market a little bitty portable > oscilloscope? Does anyone remember these? Yes! They even had a dual-trace version, as I recall, from the ads. I always wanted to get a hold of one of those to try and use, but never did. I ran across one guy who had one, and he wasn't that thrilled with it, but spent his time doing bench work and no field service at all so it wasn't that big of a deal for him to put it aside. Me, I had a big old Tek 524AD at the time, not the sort of thing you wanted to move at all if you didn't have to, and surely not something you'd want to carry around doing field service. But the Tek I have now is a whole lot smaller and ligher... -- 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 Jun 13 19:15:01 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 20:15:01 -0400 Subject: Eico 435 'Scope manual In-Reply-To: <01C68CAC.753048C0@mse-d03> References: <01C68CAC.753048C0@mse-d03> Message-ID: <200606132015.01694.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 10 June 2006 04:38 pm, M H Stein wrote: > While we're on the subjects of 'scopes & manuals, does anyone > here have a manual for an Eico 435 oscilloscope by any chance? I had (and maybe still have, with problems) a 425, think that might be close enough? A couple of my old scopes of that sort are in storage, one having an open CRT filament and the other a bad power transformer. I forget which is which. Might have that 425, a "Precision S-100", and a "Paco SS-50" and maybe one or two others besides. Once I got to know that gear well I didn't need schematics, which was a good thing considering that you couldn't find any for most of it, but I think I have the Eico one somewhere. Maybe even here rather than in storage. -- 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 Jun 13 21:53:49 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 22:53:49 -0400 Subject: atari printers - gears In-Reply-To: References: <20060605221809.36559.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> <200606101549120326.0BC3C7B1@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606132253.49348.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 10 June 2006 09:04 pm, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 6/11/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > You can just throw your bad one away and get a new one. There's a guy > > selling 825 printers for $10 the each, NOS on Yahoo!: > > That's one of the reasons I bought a handful of printer mechs from > Alltronics or Electronic Goldmine or one of those guys... spare gears. > The problem is that what I got was about 90% defective. > > It's really a design flaw, I think, where the depth of the teeth in > the gear doesn't leave much material to be sturdy. Add a little > thermal expansion/contraction and *pop* one less gear. > > That's why I'd like to find a source of gears - one replacement per > motor isn't going to be enough. I subscribe to a bunch of yahoo lists that deal with mechanical and CNC interests as well as the more techncial stuff... Try "Boston Gear". Also "Small Parts, Inc." (I think?). And MSC, if I'm remembering right. There's also some others, that sell all sorts of small parts and hardware items and such. I also have scrapped a lot of gear over the years and don't throw *anything* out that might be useful, so there's a box here with assorted gears and other bits in it, if it comes to 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 Tue Jun 13 21:58:21 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 22:58:21 -0400 Subject: Data I/O Series 22 EPROM Programmer help In-Reply-To: <200606101835460994.945E8072@192.168.42.129> References: <4473FBAD.8080005@msm.umr.edu> <200606101835460994.945E8072@192.168.42.129> Message-ID: <200606132258.21362.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 10 June 2006 09:35 pm, Bruce Lane wrote: > In any case... I did a device search, and programming of the 82S141's is > supported on the Unisite. If you end up not being able to program the > beasties, send 'em my way and I'll be happy to do them for you at no cost > other than return postage. I'm not real familiar with those devices, so maybe you can address something that I've been curious about for a while...? We used to do a LOT of c64 repairs way back when, and every one of those beasts had a "906114" PLA in it that as I understand it was an 82S100 part. And it was a very common failure item, resulting more often than not in a blank screen or perhaps some bizarre display. Any idea as to why that should fail so often? The rest of the machine wasn't anything particularly unusual, 6500-series parts and LSTTL and RAM would about cover 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 Tue Jun 13 22:05:35 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 23:05:35 -0400 Subject: cash register tape In-Reply-To: <200606101857190955.0C700341@10.0.0.252> References: <200606101857190955.0C700341@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606132305.35984.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 10 June 2006 09:57 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > You know, paper tape's still very much around in the CNC field. Here's a > supplier: > > http://www.wncsupply.com/mylar.html Not nearly as much as it was some decades ago... Most of the folks that I see in the various CNC-related lists that I hang out in are looking at a computer tied to the machine, and connected to the CAD system by way of a LAN link, or similar. I don't know how much paper tape is seeing use in the regular machine shops, but again I get the impression that it's really not all that much 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 bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jun 13 23:00:04 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 22:00:04 -0600 Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <200606132025.42680.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200606132025.42680.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <448F89C4.2040900@jetnet.ab.ca> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Saturday 10 June 2006 06:03 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > What did they use for a CRT? I have a 3" one in storage that as I recall > wants something like 1000V for an accelerating potential, and a transformer > to develop that isn't exactly trivial. > Well now days you could use a voltage multiplier. Did they every have a DIY for B&W TV like they had for radios the begining years of development? From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jun 13 23:01:10 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 22:01:10 -0600 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <009b01c68f45$c169ce50$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <009b01c68f45$c169ce50$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <448F8A06.3080503@jetnet.ab.ca> Alexandre Souza wrote: > Resistors are SO cheap that pays for having a parts' tray with one > hundred of all values comercially avaiable and being replenished from time > to time. This is something you'll use forever. And doesn't get old. > > Greetz > Alexandre, from Brazil, and his thousands of resistors :oD > Greetings from Canada with his one 200 ohm resistor. :) From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 13 23:18:46 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:18:46 -0700 Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <200606132025.42680.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200606132025.42680.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200606132118460827.1C648562@10.0.0.252> On 6/13/2006 at 8:25 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: >What did they use for a CRT? I have a 3" one in storage that as I recall >wants something like 1000V for an accelerating potential, and a >transformer to develop that isn't exactly trivial. My 1942 Radio Handbook shows how to build two CRT-based devices. One is a basic scope, using a 2501A3 CRT (3"), an 80 as a B+ recitifer and another 80 as the rectifier for the anode voltage. The power transformer is a rather odd one with 2 5v insulated windings for the 80's and a 350-0-350v winding for the B+ and a 450v winding that's hooked to one side of the 350-0-350, so the anode rectifier receives 800 vac RMS. Horizontal and vertical amps were both 6C6's and the horizontal sweep was generated by an 885 gas triode (sync supplied through the grid). Total valve count = 5, exclusive of CRT. The second is a simple modulation monitor which uses a very small 913 1" CRT and a 5Z4 for the anode supply. Since the RF and AF signals are applied directly to the 913's deflection electrodes, nothing more is needed. BTW, "UHF" back then meant that you were operating on the 56 or 112 MHz bands--and FM was very hot on the 2 1/2 meter band. "Microwave" was defined as 1 Meter (300 MHz) and down. Exotic strategies to get these frequencies included magnetrons, Kozanowski and Barkhausen oscillators and the WE 316A "doorknob" tube. A brief mention is made of the RCA 825 "inductive output amplifier", which bears a remarkable similarity to an klystron. Although not mentioned, the Varian brothers were the minds behind it. Cheers, Chuck From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Jun 13 23:15:21 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 01:15:21 -0300 Subject: More stuff to give away References: <26c11a640606130530v20e21441k848fd6df4542f144@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <00b201c68f69$c13c2440$01fea8c0@alpha> > I also have a cray el98 around 6 processors, 50 hard drives. Untested > and dismantled. Although it was working when disconnected. This is > currently in storage in London. You will need a large van either LWB > or a Luton. Taking offers on this as I have spent a lot of money on > storage and picking it up. I will accept trades though. This is something that doesn't happens in Brazil :o( From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 13 23:24:21 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:24:21 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606132022.37175.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200606132022.37175.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200606132124210101.1C699F21@10.0.0.252> On 6/13/2006 at 8:22 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: >That was the way I learned how to build things as well, only we started >with a hunk of blank sheet metal and ended up with a 5-tube radio. :-) In my case, it was a piece of 3/4" thick pine board. If you didn't have surface-mount sockets, you mounted the under-chassis type with spacers so the lugs cleared the board for soldering. Back then, nice straight wires taking right angle bends was a sign of careful construction. My father did likewise in his day, only his wires weren't insulated and tended to be around 14 AWG instead of my 18 AWG DCC wire. Those were the days of real "breadboards". Cheers, Chuck From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jun 13 23:26:03 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 23:26:03 -0500 Subject: HP 264x terminal status Message-ID: <020f01c68f6a$a625ac70$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I talked to the guy with the HP terminals just before the holiday. He said he was prepared to go ahead with the deal for $20 per item. However he said he wanted to wait until he had a chance to get final counts on each model, etc. After not hearing for him a while, I emailed him a week ago and asked if he got the counts yet. He gave me a really long reply, saying how he wished he never saw those terminals and just wanted to pitch them - and that he was just "turned around and confused". I emailed him said "I can make them go away, someone will come and pick them up..." and he never bothered to respond. Given his handling of this, I am going to assume the bulk purchase deal is off. I tried, my apologies. What irks me is that I publicly posted on this list saying to give the guy a chance when he was slow on delivery and wanted me to "interceed" for him. Jay West From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 13 23:30:46 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:30:46 -0700 Subject: paper tape for GNT 4601 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606132130460610.1C6F8101@10.0.0.252> On 6/13/2006 at 3:35 PM Masterson, David C wrote: >Can you provide a source where I can purchase 11/16 inch wide spools of >paper (prefer yellow) for the reader mentioned above Sounds like Telex paper tape to me. Not yellow, but buff. $55 will get you 10 rolls of 1000 ft.: http://www.wncsupply.com/paptape.html Cheers, Chuck From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 13 23:34:58 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:34:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU Message-ID: <20060614043458.82799.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> Dude...I got kicked off Lisalist plugging your stuph lol. I hope you at least appreciate the gesture... --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > woodelf wrote: > > Alexandre Souza wrote: > > > >> Describe me a CGA board on that media ;o) > > Yuck!!! > > I can't remeber anything I liked about CGA? > > I love CGA: http://www.oldskool.org/pc/8088_Corruption > (shameless plug) > -- > 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/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 13 23:37:40 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:37:40 -0700 Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <448F89C4.2040900@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <200606132025.42680.rtellason@verizon.net> <448F89C4.2040900@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200606132137400539.1C75D1E6@10.0.0.252> On 6/13/2006 at 10:00 PM woodelf wrote: >Well now days you could use a voltage multiplier. >Did they every have a DIY for B&W TV like they >had for radios the begining years of development? Indeed they did--it seems to me I once saw a 1939 Meissner (they of the Signal-Shifter VFO) ad for a build-it-yourself TV. Doubtless mechanical-scan TVs had kits of a sort much earlier. Cheers, Chuck From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Jun 14 00:01:07 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 02:01:07 -0300 Subject: Question For The List References: <200606082233.22252.lbickley@bickleywest.com><027601c68c2d$464a76e0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <200606131930.26133.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <012901c68f6f$ce8f7dd0$01fea8c0@alpha> > > Someone suggested Tony was somewhat unique for restricting purchases to > > things with schematics and things that are repairable. I think this list is > > FULL of people that are exactly like that :) I'm not so radical, but of course I always learn about the new things I buy, maybe someday I'll need to repair that. :o) From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 14 00:03:01 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 01:03:01 -0400 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <200606122150090265.175AEA41@10.0.0.252> References: <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> <200606122150090265.175AEA41@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606140103.01730.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 13 June 2006 12:50 am, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I've still got (and am still using) a Panasonic KXP-4450 and a KXP-4455; > one circa 1989, the other 1992. > > Heavy duty-weigh a ton, but just keep going and going. Toner (no carts) > and other supplies are still available. Cost per page has to be among the > lowest for lasers. Speaking of Panasonic laser printers, I have a KX-P6500 that's gone weird on me, puts lines on the pages that aren't supposed to be there. "Process unit" time? Anybody know where I can get a good deal on one? Barring that, I have a package of toner for this thing I have no use for otherwise, the printer having been moved to storage... -- 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 alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Jun 14 00:04:16 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 02:04:16 -0300 Subject: EU References: <200606090203.k5923VIA033929@dewey.classiccmp.org><085FF060-5635-4AAF-93B4-DC71ADD6AD74@comcast.net> <200606131759.41779.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <014201c68f70$85a1a430$01fea8c0@alpha> > I stopped using alldatasheet.com when they started "branding" their datasheets > with a page (!) added to the end of each one saying where it'd been > downloaded from. Where the heck do they get off doing that?! Wasting my > download time, my disk space... > There are other sites out there that don't do this. Lemesee...some nice guys set up a system which stores some thousands (or milions) of datasheets, index it, make it avaiable on the net, pay for the band use...and just add one page to the datasheet, and you complain? How much did you paid for the service? Greetings from Brazil Alexandre Souza, always grateful of www.alldatasheet.com , www.datasheetarchive.com and others who asks no money but a bit of attention for something so valuable. From nico at farumdata.dk Wed Jun 14 00:19:34 2006 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 07:19:34 +0200 Subject: chain printer speed? References: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> <3.0.6.16.20060613170455.47ef1200@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <001c01c68f72$1fc118b0$2101a8c0@finans> > >This question is not easy to answer. > >The IBM 1403 printer came in at least 2 versions : a 1000 lpm and a 300 lpm. > >However, the effective speed depended on what was being printed, as the > >chains could be different. Typically, a chain had more E's then Y's, more > >A's then P's, etc. > > Interesting, The chain printers that I worked on all had the exact same > number of different characters. Depending on the number of characters in > the character set that was used on that partticular printer they usually > had 2 or 3 COMPLETE character sets. Chains could be (and were) made to order (more or less), depending on the national variants / character set. In Denmark, we needed ? ? and ?, Sweden would need ? ? ?, etc. So something else would have to be sacrificed. In the danish character set, the sequence is ... X Y Z ? ? ?. What that would do for sorting routines, you can imagine. Very much the same problem as the standard EBCDIC table, where 3 characters were set aside for National Variants. The values for # @ and $ were idential to our ? ? ?, so we couldnt write invoices in USD... We also had a problem with German ?, as one of our politicians was named Schl?ter. I cant remember how we solved that problem. Nico From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 14 00:25:22 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 01:25:22 -0400 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606132124210101.1C699F21@10.0.0.252> References: <200606132022.37175.rtellason@verizon.net> <200606132124210101.1C699F21@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606140125.22382.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 12:24 am, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/13/2006 at 8:22 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: > >That was the way I learned how to build things as well, only we started > >with a hunk of blank sheet metal and ended up with a 5-tube radio. :-) > > In my case, it was a piece of 3/4" thick pine board. If you didn't have > surface-mount sockets, you mounted the under-chassis type with spacers so > the lugs cleared the board for soldering. Back then, nice straight wires > taking right angle bends was a sign of careful construction. My father did > likewise in his day, only his wires weren't insulated and tended to be > around 14 AWG instead of my 18 AWG DCC wire. > > Those were the days of real "breadboards". Yes indeed, I've built a few things like that. Very short hunks of dowel at the corners for "feet" so that screw heads wouldn't be dragging, and fahnstock (sp?) clips for the connections "off-board". :-) -- 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 Jun 14 00:29:51 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 01:29:51 -0400 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <014201c68f70$85a1a430$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <200606090203.k5923VIA033929@dewey.classiccmp.org> <200606131759.41779.rtellason@verizon.net> <014201c68f70$85a1a430$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <200606140129.51348.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 01:04 am, Alexandre Souza wrote: > > I stopped using alldatasheet.com when they started "branding" their > > datasheets with a page (!) added to the end of each one saying where it'd > > been downloaded from. Where the heck do they get off doing that?! > > Wasting my download time, my disk space... > > There are other sites out there that don't do this. > > Lemesee...some nice guys set up a system which stores some thousands > (or milions) of datasheets, index it, make it avaiable on the net, pay for > the band use...and just add one page to the datasheet, and you complain? Yup! > How much did you paid for the service? > > Greetings from Brazil > Alexandre Souza, always grateful of www.alldatasheet.com , > www.datasheetarchive.com and others who asks no money but a bit of > attention for something so valuable. I think it's datasheetarchive (though I'm tired at the moment and it could be a different one) that offers both "branded" and what they call "commercial-free" downloads, though you're limited to so many a day of the latter category. Other places don't do this at all. And I don't *think* that I have any of those branded sheets up on my parts pages... (http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/parts-index.html if you're curious.) -- 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 bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jun 14 00:38:21 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 23:38:21 -0600 Subject: (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) NOT! In-Reply-To: <200606140125.22382.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200606132022.37175.rtellason@verizon.net> <200606132124210101.1C699F21@10.0.0.252> <200606140125.22382.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <448FA0CD.5040204@jetnet.ab.ca> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > Yes indeed, I've built a few things like that. Very short hunks of dowel at > the corners for "feet" so that screw heads wouldn't be dragging, and > fahnstock (sp?) clips for the connections "off-board". :-) > Oddly most of the tubes and small parts you can find for still bread-boarding a radio. It is only the transformers and coils that are a pain to find as they say use ABC-123 coil for the broadcast band and XYZ-987 for ... . But if you like breadboard radios check out http://www.schmarder.com/radios/index.htm and Dave's fine collection. From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 14 00:43:27 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 01:43:27 -0400 Subject: (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) NOT! In-Reply-To: <448FA0CD.5040204@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <200606140125.22382.rtellason@verizon.net> <448FA0CD.5040204@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200606140143.27255.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 01:38 am, woodelf wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > Yes indeed, I've built a few things like that. Very short hunks of > > dowel at the corners for "feet" so that screw heads wouldn't be dragging, > > and fahnstock (sp?) clips for the connections "off-board". :-) > > Oddly most of the tubes and small parts you can find for still > bread-boarding a radio. It is only the transformers and coils > that are a pain to find as they say use ABC-123 coil for the broadcast > band and XYZ-987 for ... . Coils have *always* been a PITA for me, which is why I'm thinking lately of building some kind of gadget to measure inductance, even if it's as simple as a bridge or something... > But if you like breadboard radios check out > http://www.schmarder.com/radios/index.htm and Dave's fine collection. I'll try and have a look tomorrow, as I'm fading fast 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 rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 14 00:44:07 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 01:44:07 -0400 Subject: Fwd: [Electronics_101] RTL IC source? Message-ID: <200606140144.07445.rtellason@verizon.net> Anyone here know of a source for these parts these days? ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: [Electronics_101] RTL IC source? Date: Tuesday 13 June 2006 08:20 pm From: "geraldkrizek" To: Electronics_101 at yahoogroups.com Does anyone know of a source of RTL ICs. I need several MC1013P ICs to repair a HP sweeper. Thanks in advance. Jerry ------------------------------------------------------- -- 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 useddec at gmail.com Wed Jun 14 01:29:49 2006 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 01:29:49 -0500 Subject: VX42 Multia versus 3000-300X In-Reply-To: <5d8b0d190a174bf9883ba1fceae0f16e@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <000c01c68f7b$f08bf010$2000a8c0@main> I replied to this last night, but I don't think it went through. I have a 3000-400, 3000-400S, 3000-600S, various DECstation 5000's and 3100's I am considering taking to VCF. With advance notice, I can possible re-configure these to meet individual specs. For those who can't be there, most can be shipped stateside safely UPS ground for around $25. I'm still looking for ideas of what to bring. Docs, hardware (PDP8,11), media (TU56, TK50, RL02, etc and a lot of non DEC tapes. Any ideas? Thanks, Paul Anderson -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Scott Quinn Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 12:54 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: VX42 Multia versus 3000-300X I might have the opporitunity to get a DEC 3000-300X machine for VMS (175 MHz 21064) I know that 21(1,2,3)64 machines offer substantially improved performance, but for the moment they are out of reach. The question- I'm running VMS currently on a VX42 (233MHz 21066A, 512k cache, 88MB RAM) Multia, and it is quite slow (user response time with AXP-VMS v7.3-1) SPEC-92 indicates that the DEC 3300X will be slower (84/100 for the 300X, 97/112 for (a generic) 21066A/233) Likely, however, the 300X would have better I/O subsystems. Would it be worth messing with, or should I not bother (as far as useablility, not number-crunching prowess)? From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 14 02:50:14 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 00:50:14 -0700 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <200606140103.01730.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> <200606122150090265.175AEA41@10.0.0.252> <200606140103.01730.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200606140050140195.1D261BCB@10.0.0.252> On 6/14/2006 at 1:03 AM Roy J. Tellason wrote: >Speaking of Panasonic laser printers, I have a KX-P6500 that's gone weird >on me, puts lines on the pages that aren't supposed to be there. "Process >unit" time? Anybody know where I can get a good deal on one? Barring >that, I have a package of toner for this thing I have no use for otherwise, the >printer having been moved to storage... Hmmm, if the lines are vertical, it sounds like it's time for a new drum all right. If you can't find a good deal on e-Pay, you might give your local cartridge refill outfit a call--they can often refit an aftermarket drum into the cart that will last longer and cost much less than the $150 for a new one. Cheers, Chuck From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jun 14 04:04:56 2006 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 02:04:56 -0700 Subject: Fwd: [Electronics_101] RTL IC source? References: <200606140144.07445.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <448FD132.F794779E@cs.ubc.ca> "Roy J. Tellason" wrote: > > Anyone here know of a source for these parts these days? > > ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- > Subject: [Electronics_101] RTL IC source? > Date: Tuesday 13 June 2006 08:20 pm > From: "geraldkrizek" > To: Electronics_101 at yahoogroups.com > > Does anyone know of a source of RTL ICs. I need several MC1013P ICs to > repair a HP sweeper. Thanks in advance. > Jerry ...can't help with supply, but the MC1013P is ECL, not RTL. (Motorola MECL II family, AC coupled JK flip-flop, 85MHz). I can provide the pinout if it is of any help. The triggerring scheme on the 1013 is a little unusual. Coincidently, a little while ago I was working on a Monsanto frequency counter from 1969 that uses both ECL MC1013s and RTL ICs. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jun 14 06:03:22 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:03:22 +0000 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <200606131759.41779.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200606090203.k5923VIA033929@dewey.classiccmp.org> <085FF060-5635-4AAF-93B4-DC71ADD6AD74@comcast.net> <200606131759.41779.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <448FECFA.6070104@yahoo.co.uk> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > I stopped using alldatasheet.com when they started "branding" their datasheets > with a page (!) added to the end of each one saying where it'd been > downloaded from. Where the heck do they get off doing that?! Wasting my > download time, my disk space... > > There are other sites out there that don't do this. I agree it's irritating, but sometimes such sites are the only ones that carry the datasheet you need - I'm certainly not going to complain at an extra page if it means I can have the datasheet at all. It *might* be useful having a record of which site a datasheet came from, anyway, in case at a later date other sheets from the same IC family are needed. Too often I find myself needing to refer to related information of some info that I already have (that may be several years old), and find myself having no clue where I actually got the original from! These cover sheets tend to be pretty much form pages - free from noise and highly compressible. I doubt they add much to the total download size at all (I'd check, but I can't be bothered going through my downloaded datasheets to find one with the cover sheet :-) Can't do much about the bandwidth, but you can always strip the cover sheet out of the downloaded PDF if it's that much of a problem. cheers Jules From dm561 at torfree.net Wed Jun 14 04:56:42 2006 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 05:56:42 -0400 Subject: Eico 435 'Scope manual Message-ID: <01C68F77.8FDC56A0@MSE_D03> -----------------Original Message: From: "Roy J. Tellason" Subject: Re: Eico 435 'Scope manual On Saturday 10 June 2006 04:38 pm, M H Stein wrote: > While we're on the subjects of 'scopes & manuals, does anyone > here have a manual for an Eico 435 oscilloscope by any chance? I had (and maybe still have, with problems) a 425, think that might be close enough? ----------------Reply: Thanks for the reply, but I already have a copy of the 425 manual, as well as an original Heath O-8 manual and some Tek stuff. Haven't looked yet to see how much difference there is twixt the 425 & 435, probably won't be too hard to troubleshoot w/o docs; was just hoping that perhaps someone had a 435. But thanks again, anyway! mike From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jun 14 06:18:36 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:18:36 +0000 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <016301c68f5f$6c4341d0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <447524F844B59D48B8F7AE7F560935EE066817BD@OVL-EXBE01.ocevenlo.oce.net> <448F244A.20801@Rikers.org> <016301c68f5f$6c4341d0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <448FF08C.5070403@yahoo.co.uk> Jay West wrote: > dislikes top-posting. Top posting has been against published netiquette > for years. However, as time has progressed people have glossed over some > of the stuff they think is too prissy (which in my own opinion means > they are being sloppy, and some may consider it rude). I don't think it's that, as such. I think some application designers (email, news) made poor decisions in making top-posting pretty much their default, and acceptance (often forced, in a corporate environment) of those apps made it hard for their users to do anything but top-post. When all is said and done, the actual number of people who think top-posting is the right thing to do is *very* thin on the ground - but some popular applications do force peoples' hands somewhat. > I dislike signatures, mainly because some claim corporate property or > confidentiality which makes little sense. There are a few that have > politically oriented signatures which has absolutely no place on the > list (ok, that one is policy-ish ;) ). If it was trivial to do, I think > I'd set the list to automatically remove all signatures See my other post - problem there is that a fair number of posters *do* include useful, legitimate contact details in their sigs. Often that may be something as simple as info on how to remove any spam traps from their displayed email address. I'm sure it's possible to strip sigs - even if it's a tweak and recompile of the mail list software - but it's a potentially bad thing to do even though it would get rid of the moronic junk that some companies insist on adding to employee emails :-( Actually, dumping any sig with the word 'confidential' in it would probably nuke nearly all the legalese ones, and dropping any with 'virus' in would get the ones inserted by AV software (despite this list being text-only and so the info is unnecessary) :-) So it probably *could* be done. Is it worth the effort? No. :-) From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 14 05:39:32 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 22:39:32 +1200 Subject: Commodore SX64 Problem In-Reply-To: <200606131944.31807.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200606090528.k595S3o2013177@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu> <200606131944.31807.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: On 6/14/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Friday 09 June 2006 01:28 am, Martin Scott Goldberg wrote: > > Picked up an SX-64 (luggable C64) this past weekend... > > > > Went to power it up today, I get the normal startup screen and ready > > prompt but oddly the cursor is stuck at the upper left corner of the > > screen instead of down by the ready prompt. Can't type a thing, though > > I know the keyboard is still working (cartridge games are able to read the > > keyboard just fine). > > > > Anyone have any idea what happened? > > Sounds to me like it thinks the home key is stuck, maybe? It'll take a 6526 > to fix that, let me know offlist if you need one, as I have plenty of them > (and other c= parts as well). Check the keyboard and cable as well... does it do this when you power it up with the keyboard disconnected? If so, then it very well may be a 6526. If it does not, you might have a defective cable or a short in the keyboard pads somewhere. If you are lucky, it's a 6526 - there are lots more of them than SX keyboards. -ethan From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 14 05:47:57 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 06:47:57 -0400 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <200606140050140195.1D261BCB@10.0.0.252> References: <200606140103.01730.rtellason@verizon.net> <200606140050140195.1D261BCB@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606140647.57268.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 03:50 am, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/14/2006 at 1:03 AM Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > Speaking of Panasonic laser printers, I have a KX-P6500 that's gone weird > > on me, puts lines on the pages that aren't supposed to be there. > > "Process unit" time? Anybody know where I can get a good deal on one? > > Barring that, I have a package of toner for this thing I have no use for > > otherwise, the printer having been moved to storage... > > Hmmm, if the lines are vertical, it sounds like it's time for a new drum > all right. I had one guy suggest cleaning the drum with lint-free cloth and alcohol, but never tried it. It's a very compact little printer... > If you can't find a good deal on e-Pay, you might give your local cartridge > refill outfit a call--they can often refit an aftermarket drum into the cart > that will last longer and cost much less than the $150 for a new one. I don't know of any outfits like that around here, but I'll look around some when I get some money to put into it. In the meantime, I have this IBM 4019 here... :-) That one has, I'm told, "a postscript card in it". After popping the side open and looking at some boards etc. I have no idea which of what boards I'm looking at might be that card. This one's bigger, I have no idea of the toner situation, and has a really annoying habit of kicking out a "status page" every time you power it up. Which wastes an awful lot of paper over time, or an awful lot of power if I left it on (which I don't plan to do). I did a bit of digging a while back and the best I could find was that it's possible to have the printer come up with other emulations ("laserjet" being one of them, I forget the others) but then I lose the advantage of having a postscript printer. Wondering if maybe somebody on the list here knows of 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 rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 14 05:50:27 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 06:50:27 -0400 Subject: Fwd: [Electronics_101] RTL IC source? In-Reply-To: <448FD132.F794779E@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200606140144.07445.rtellason@verizon.net> <448FD132.F794779E@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <200606140650.27744.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 05:04 am, Brent Hilpert wrote: > "Roy J. Tellason" wrote: > > Anyone here know of a source for these parts these days? > > > > ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- > > Subject: [Electronics_101] RTL IC source? > > Date: Tuesday 13 June 2006 08:20 pm > > From: "geraldkrizek" > > To: Electronics_101 at yahoogroups.com > > > > Does anyone know of a source of RTL ICs. I need several MC1013P ICs to > > repair a HP sweeper. Thanks in advance. > > Jerry > > ...can't help with supply, but the MC1013P is ECL, not RTL. > (Motorola MECL II family, AC coupled JK flip-flop, 85MHz). > I can provide the pinout if it is of any help. The triggerring scheme on > the 1013 is a little unusual. > > Coincidently, a little while ago I was working on a Monsanto frequency > counter from 1969 that uses both ECL MC1013s and RTL ICs. Interesting, my parts data jumps right past those numbers, I guess I need to update that at some point... I'll forward that info back to where the query came from. Maybe he needs to find some of those and maybe the weirdness of that particular chip is causing some of what he's seeing. Do you have a source for those? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 14 05:54:53 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 06:54:53 -0400 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <448FECFA.6070104@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200606090203.k5923VIA033929@dewey.classiccmp.org> <200606131759.41779.rtellason@verizon.net> <448FECFA.6070104@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200606140654.53133.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 07:03 am, Jules Richardson wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > I stopped using alldatasheet.com when they started "branding" their > > datasheets with a page (!) added to the end of each one saying where it'd > > been downloaded from. Where the heck do they get off doing that?! > > Wasting my download time, my disk space... > > > > There are other sites out there that don't do this. > > I agree it's irritating, but sometimes such sites are the only ones that > carry the datasheet you need - I'm certainly not going to complain at an > extra page if it means I can have the datasheet at all. True. But I'm still working my way through that, and finding out... > It *might* be useful having a record of which site a datasheet came from, > anyway, in case at a later date other sheets from the same IC family are > needed. Too often I find myself needing to refer to related information of > some info that I already have (that may be several years old), and find > myself having no clue where I actually got the original from! I don't really have any record of where I got most of the datasheets that I have on hand here, some of the sites I've used aren't around any more (Dial Electronics for one, which now refers to you to someplace else), and having been collecting these for a couple of years it's a bit late for me to want to start. :-) > These cover sheets tend to be pretty much form pages - free from noise and > highly compressible. I doubt they add much to the total download size at > all (I'd check, but I can't be bothered going through my downloaded > datasheets to find one with the cover sheet :-) I did take note of the fact that a great many of the ones that I had that were branded were between 5-10K larger in size than the ones that weren't, though some of the replacements were actually larger (maybe 1 in 20 or so). > Can't do much about the bandwidth, but you can always strip the cover sheet > out of the downloaded PDF if it's that much of a problem. What tools would you use to do this? I did get a hold of a package that should let me do that, and may look into it if it gets to the point where I can't find any replacements, but that's also an awful lot of time to spend. And at this point there ain't enough hours in a day... -- 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 Wed Jun 14 05:58:47 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 06:58:47 -0400 Subject: VX42 Multia versus 3000-300X In-Reply-To: References: <5d8b0d190a174bf9883ba1fceae0f16e@valleyimplants.com> <448EAA09.6030707@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <448FEBE7.1020909@mdrconsult.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 8:05 AM -0400 6/13/06, Doc Shipley wrote: > >> Zane H. Healy wrote: >> >>> IIRC, that would be another advantage to the 300X, it should be able >>> to take more RAM than the Multia. HOWEVER, you'd best look into what >>> kind of RAM it takes and how much it has. Depending on the model, it >>> might be cheaper to get a better system than to upgrade the RAM. This >>> is why my AlphaStation 500/333 sits unused with only has 96MB RAM, >>> and you don't even want to know what I paid for it :^( >> >> >> I'm trying to remember which DEC3000-300 I have. I'm pretty sure >> it's a 300X, but I'm away and my wife gets irked if I call her to look >> at model numbers. :) >> >> Anyway, it takes regular 36-bit parity, 72-pin SIMMs. The memory in >> mine came out of an Indigo^2. > > > I believe only one or two models of the 3000 take 72-pin SIMMs. My > 3000-300LX does, and it's also one of the slowest Alpha's out there. I > have coworker who has a 3000 and her system uses decidedly non-standard > RAM. I sort of remember that all the 3000-300 models take "regular" parity 72-pin. I have a 3000-600 that most certainly doesn't. Do you find the 300LX to be slower than a Multia (running the standard 2.5" drive)? Doc From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 14 06:00:59 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 07:00:59 -0400 Subject: Commodore SX64 Problem In-Reply-To: References: <200606090528.k595S3o2013177@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu> <200606131944.31807.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200606140700.59154.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 06:39 am, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 6/14/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > On Friday 09 June 2006 01:28 am, Martin Scott Goldberg wrote: > > > Picked up an SX-64 (luggable C64) this past weekend... > > > > > > Went to power it up today, I get the normal startup screen and ready > > > prompt but oddly the cursor is stuck at the upper left corner of the > > > screen instead of down by the ready prompt. Can't type a thing, though > > > I know the keyboard is still working (cartridge games are able to read > > > the keyboard just fine). > > > > > > Anyone have any idea what happened? > > > > Sounds to me like it thinks the home key is stuck, maybe? It'll take a > > 6526 to fix that, let me know offlist if you need one, as I have plenty > > of them (and other c= parts as well). > > Check the keyboard and cable as well... does it do this when you power > it up with the keyboard disconnected? If so, then it very well may be > a 6526. If it does not, you might have a defective cable or a short > in the keyboard pads somewhere. > > If you are lucky, it's a 6526 - there are lots more of them than SX > keyboards. Good point, there. I've also done a few keyboard repairs on c64s, mostly to deal with broken keys, which usually involved a pretty complete disassembly and replacing the broken part, but I don't recall ever taking apart an sx64 keyboard... -- 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 Wed Jun 14 06:09:37 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 07:09:37 -0400 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: References: <200606130644.k5D6ihxS072657@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <448FEE71.8090106@mdrconsult.com> Mark Tapley wrote: > At 1:44 -0500 6/13/06, Ethan (hope it's not too cold down there yet) wrote: > >> On 6/13/06, Jim Leonard wrote: >> >>> I have an HP 4ML next to me that is a decade old and prints(*) as well >>> as the day I bought it. >> >> >> I bought a 4ML new, back in the day, for about $1100 - still works great. > > > Our home printer, replacing a Stylewriter that kept blowing one of > its transistors, is a Laserjet 4M+. The printer was free from Freecycle, > a new toner cartridge was around $100 from HP. I suppose eventually I > should hit http://www.printerworks.com/ or similar and reward the thing > for its loyal service with memory, fresh ozone filters, a service > manual, preventive maintenance kit, etc. but it's hard to justify when > it just keeps working and working in its original configuration. > (OT) I figured out enough of the somewhat obscure front-panel > settings to give it a static IP address which seems not to conflict with > our DSL router-supplied DHCP addresses, so now we can wireless print to > it via our 2-Wire router even though our the router seems to diss > Appletalk. (Contact me Offlist if you want the benefit of my experience > on that.) > > I have to add my endorsement. I'd have to concur. I remember replacing a LJ4+ for Univerdity of Texas' archaeology lab in '99. They publish reports that amount to books (300-800 pages) a couple of times a year, and that printer had a page count in the high 6 figures. It kept jamming and the HP Service Guy couldn't figure out why. We finally noticed that the last paper guide in the path is a set of curved ribs in the lid that direct the paper into the output tray. Where the paper first contacts the guide ribs, it had worn a notch that was catching the page's leading edge.... HP didn't want to replace the lid, saying a new printer would be cheaper and faster. They sent us a LJ 6L, which was never anything but a steaming pile of dung. OTOH, I now have a duplexed LJ 4100N in my office which is even nicer than the LJ4 series. It's extremely fast, very quiet, eats little power, and toner carts are relatively cheap. I'd recommend them to anyone whose monthly print load is <5000 pages. Doc From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 14 06:11:02 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 23:11:02 +1200 Subject: Commodore SX64 Problem In-Reply-To: <200606140700.59154.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200606090528.k595S3o2013177@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu> <200606131944.31807.rtellason@verizon.net> <200606140700.59154.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: On 6/14/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > I've also done a few keyboard repairs on c64s, mostly to deal with broken > keys, which usually involved a pretty complete disassembly and replacing the > broken part, but I don't recall ever taking apart an sx64 keyboard... I have - unsuccessfully. I have a keyboard with some bad traces (someone before me tried ti "fix" it and made a mess - I think they used silver modelling paint on the traces. :-P ) -ethan From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Jun 14 06:19:39 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 07:19:39 -0400 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> <448E4579.6050603@oldskool.org> <026b01c68efa$be114990$01fea8c0@alpha> <000f01c68f52$536c1400$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <448FF0CB.4010604@mdrconsult.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 6/14/06, Alexandre Souza wrote: > >> If you have the same engine/case, you have a 4P and not a 4L, eh? :oP > > > Hang on... no... that's not right... there's a 4L and 4ML, and a 4P > and a 4MP... the unit I have is _identical_ to the 4ML, down to the > single button and small number of LEDs (3? 4?). From googling > around, the 4P/MP has multiple buttons and perhaps an LCD. The ML and > L are nothing like it. In my experience (which includes a couple of 4Ls), any HP with the "L" suffix isn't worth fixing. The reliability, life-span, and speed is not even close to a LJ4 or LJ4P. Yours is the low-profile - about 10" or 11" tall overall - LJ4, right? I seriously wouldn't waste the price of a toner cart on it. Doc From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Jun 14 06:31:07 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 07:31:07 -0400 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <448FF0CB.4010604@mdrconsult.com> References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> <448E4579.6050603@oldskool.org> <026b01c68efa$be114990$01fea8c0@alpha> <000f01c68f52$536c1400$01fea8c0@alpha> <448FF0CB.4010604@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <448FF37B.9010506@mdrconsult.com> Doc Shipley wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > >> On 6/14/06, Alexandre Souza wrote: >> >>> If you have the same engine/case, you have a 4P and not a 4L, eh? >>> :oP >> >> >> >> Hang on... no... that's not right... there's a 4L and 4ML, and a 4P >> and a 4MP... the unit I have is _identical_ to the 4ML, down to the >> single button and small number of LEDs (3? 4?). From googling >> around, the 4P/MP has multiple buttons and perhaps an LCD. The ML and >> L are nothing like it. > > > In my experience (which includes a couple of 4Ls), any HP with the "L" > suffix isn't worth fixing. The reliability, life-span, and speed is not > even close to a LJ4 or LJ4P. > > Yours is the low-profile - about 10" or 11" tall overall - LJ4, right? > > I seriously wouldn't waste the price of a toner cart on it. Err, that came out a little short. "Given that it needs a fuser and chip-level repair, I seriously etc." Doc From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 14 06:59:40 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 07:59:40 -0400 Subject: Socket use and Slot Machine Repair. In-Reply-To: <448F383B.4090406@DakotaCom.Net> References: <200606132136.k5DLaPQF016311@pop-1.dnv.wideopenwest.com> <448F383B.4090406@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606140759.40602.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 13 June 2006 06:12 pm, Don Y wrote: > IGT is the "glitz" in that industry. But, their are still > LOTS of old EM and "stepper motor" slots in use. Some games > just don't go over well as "virtual representations". I > am not sure if it is a suspicion about the "honesty" of the > machine (e.g., a video roulette wheel vs. a real roulette > wheel) or some other aspect (nostalgia?). I've never been that much of a fan of slots, but if it comes to playing on a machine I'd much rather deal with an old-fashioned mechanical pinball machine than any of the video stuff that came along later... :-) -- 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 Jun 14 07:05:59 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 08:05:59 -0400 Subject: Compaq diagnostic disks In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060613172957.0dd8e910@localhost> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060613172957.0dd8e910@localhost> Message-ID: <200606140805.59957.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 13 June 2006 06:39 pm, Tom Peters wrote: > If the setup code is present, you can access it by watching the screen > after the POST. At one point, the cursor will jump to the upper right > corner of the screen, and sit there for about 2 seconds. If you hit the > magic key when the cursor is sitting there, you should get the > setup/diagnostics menu, if the Compaq Diagnostic partition is still > present. > > The magic key is, hmmm, I forget. I think it's F10. Might be F1. ESC? Don't > think it's DEL. It's F10 on the one 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 rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 14 07:18:30 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 08:18:30 -0400 Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <448F89C4.2040900@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <200606132025.42680.rtellason@verizon.net> <448F89C4.2040900@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200606140818.30249.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 12:00 am, woodelf wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > On Saturday 10 June 2006 06:03 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > > > > What did they use for a CRT? I have a 3" one in storage that as I recall > > wants something like 1000V for an accelerating potential, and a > > transformer to develop that isn't exactly trivial. > > Well now days you could use a voltage multiplier. > Did they every have a DIY for B&W TV like they > had for radios the begining years of development? I don't think I've ever seen one, though I must admit to having thoughts in that general direction way back when... :-) -- 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 Jun 14 07:20:08 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 08:20:08 -0400 Subject: Commodore SX64 Problem In-Reply-To: References: <200606090528.k595S3o2013177@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu> <200606140700.59154.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200606140820.08561.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 07:11 am, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 6/14/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > I've also done a few keyboard repairs on c64s, mostly to deal with > > broken keys, which usually involved a pretty complete disassembly and > > replacing the broken part, but I don't recall ever taking apart an sx64 > > keyboard... > > I have - unsuccessfully. I have a keyboard with some bad traces > (someone before me tried ti "fix" it and made a mess - I think they > used silver modelling paint on the traces. :-P ) I've had some keyboards that were _bought_ that way! :-) Or actually they used some kind of conductive paint, on clear mylar (?) plastic. I'd bought two of these at one time, and used the heck out of one, left the other sitting in the box in the closet, but they both deteriorated at about the same rate it seemed. -- 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 jvdg at sparcpark.net Wed Jun 14 07:35:42 2006 From: jvdg at sparcpark.net (jvdg at sparcpark.net) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 14:35:42 +0200 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming Message-ID: <26m6pp23yiociwg.140620061435@jvdg.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > When all is said and done, the actual number of people who think top-posting > is the right thing to do is *very* thin on the ground - but some popular > applications do force peoples' hands somewhat. As the saying goes: "posting at the top because that's where your cursor happens to be, is like defecating in your pants because that's where your rectum happens to be." >> I dislike signatures, mainly because some claim corporate property or >> confidentiality which makes little sense. There are a few that have >> politically oriented signatures which has absolutely no place on the >> list (ok, that one is policy-ish ;) ). If it was trivial to do, I think >> I'd set the list to automatically remove all signatures > > See my other post - problem there is that a fair number of posters *do* > include useful, legitimate contact details in their sigs. Often that may be > something as simple as info on how to remove any spam traps from their > displayed email address. My own signatures are mostly just things I find funny, thought-provoking, somewhat important, or otherwise worthy of randomly inserting at the very bottom of my emails, denoted by an appropriate seperator, of course. Some may find some of my signatures offensive for reasons religious or political, but "feh!" I say to that. I was taught that (the contents of) signatures are off-limits for dicussion. Dunno what, if any, RFC that is in. If it isn't in one, it should be. The sig file represents our fifteen pieces of flair. We do want to express ourselves, don't we? I do take care to add at least some rudimentary contact info (or a plug for my own site which hardly deserves plugging) to them, though. Fot that reason alone I am of the opinion that sigs shouldn't be stripped. They are a minor inconvenience at worst, and a welcome diversion from heated discussion that reminds us all that there is more to life than banned substances in components and the proper use of IC sockets, at best. > I'm sure it's possible to strip sigs - even if it's a tweak and recompile of > the mail list software - but it's a potentially bad thing to do even though it > would get rid of the moronic junk that some companies insist on adding to > employee emails :-( > > Actually, dumping any sig with the word 'confidential' in it would probably > nuke nearly all the legalese ones, and dropping any with 'virus' in would get > the ones inserted by AV software (despite this list being text-only and so the > info is unnecessary) :-) > > So it probably *could* be done. Is it worth the effort? No. :-) Hear, hear. ,xtG tsooJ From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jun 14 08:11:09 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 08:11:09 -0500 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <014201c68f70$85a1a430$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <200606090203.k5923VIA033929@dewey.classiccmp.org> <085FF060-5635-4AAF-93B4-DC71ADD6AD74@comcast.net> <200606131759.41779.rtellason@verizon.net> <014201c68f70$85a1a430$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060614081040.051b7b78@mail> At 12:04 AM 6/14/2006, Alexandre Souza wrote: > Lemesee...some nice guys set up a system which stores some thousands (or >milions) of datasheets, index it, make it avaiable on the net, pay for the >band use...and just add one page to the datasheet, and you complain? He forgot to complain about the download speed, too. :-) - John From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Jun 14 08:30:14 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 06:30:14 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606132124210101.1C699F21@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: >From: "Chuck Guzis" >On 6/13/2006 at 8:22 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > >That was the way I learned how to build things as well, only we started > >with a hunk of blank sheet metal and ended up with a 5-tube radio. :-) > >In my case, it was a piece of 3/4" thick pine board. If you didn't have >surface-mount sockets, you mounted the under-chassis type with spacers so >the lugs cleared the board for soldering. Back then, nice straight wires >taking right angle bends was a sign of careful construction. My father did >likewise in his day, only his wires weren't insulated and tended to be >around 14 AWG instead of my 18 AWG DCC wire. > >Those were the days of real "breadboards". > >Cheers, >Chuck > > Hi I did my first short wave receiver from an article in "Boys Life". I use a piece of ply wood and borrowed a neighbors router to make channels for all the wires and screws. It didn't need the corner feet :) Dwight From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 14 08:46:13 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 09:46:13 -0400 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060614081040.051b7b78@mail> References: <200606090203.k5923VIA033929@dewey.classiccmp.org> <014201c68f70$85a1a430$01fea8c0@alpha> <6.2.3.4.2.20060614081040.051b7b78@mail> Message-ID: <200606140946.13696.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 09:11 am, John Foust wrote: > At 12:04 AM 6/14/2006, Alexandre Souza wrote: > > Lemesee...some nice guys set up a system which stores some thousands > > (or milions) of datasheets, index it, make it avaiable on the net, pay > > for the band use...and just add one page to the datasheet, and you > > complain? > > He forgot to complain about the download speed, too. :-) That's because the bottleneck on the download speed was on my end... Though of course there's the point of getting to where you can actually download something, and the point about them "naming" all of the stuff the same (as in "datasheet.pdf" or whatever), so that you gotta tell it what you wanna name it, etc. I like my setup much better -- it's way simpler. :-) -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jun 14 09:16:17 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 09:16:17 -0500 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming References: <26m6pp23yiociwg.140620061435@jvdg.com> Message-ID: <002701c68fbd$3ebef250$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> jvdg wrote.... > Some may find some of my signatures offensive for reasons religious or > political, but "feh!" I say to that. I was taught that (the contents of) > signatures are off-limits for dicussion. Dunno what, if any, RFC that is > in. > If it isn't in one, it should be. The sig file represents our fifteen > pieces > of flair. We do want to express ourselves, don't we? If a signature is offensive, obtrusive, or antagonistic you can bet I will tell someone to remove it without hesitation. Perhaps I'm grouchy this morning, but this phraseology above hits me as "posting here is my right" which it most certainly is not; it's a privilege. Putting certain political/social/religious sentiments in a post, be it a signature or in the body, is simply not allowed. This policy isn't because I'm anti-politics, on the contrary, I'm a political junkie. But this is not a political discussion list and and someone spouting political rhetoric (on either side of the aisle) is bound to tick someone off. The concept that "I can put anything I want in my signature and you have to live with it and not say anything because it's my billboard" is simply, well, officially false on this list. Jay West From jvdg at sparcpark.net Wed Jun 14 09:29:21 2006 From: jvdg at sparcpark.net (jvdg at sparcpark.net) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:29:21 +0200 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming Message-ID: Jay West wrote: > If a signature is offensive, obtrusive, or antagonistic [...] Only a Sith deals in absolutes. ;-) > you can bet I will tell someone to remove it without hesitation. You can do that, but you'd be out of bounds, there. You could tell them to not use it on your list, though. > Perhaps I'm grouchy this morning, but this phraseology above hits > me as "posting here is my right" which it most certainly is not; > it's a privilege. Well, then I guess it hit you wrong. I don't think anyone suggested that posting to this list is a right rather than a privilege. > Putting certain political/social/religious sentiments in a post, > be it a signature or in the body, is simply not allowed. This policy > isn't because I'm anti-politics, on the contrary, I'm a political > junkie. But this is not a political discussion list and and > someone spouting political rhetoric (on either side of the > aisle) is bound to tick someone off. well, if that's the touchstone, you might as well shut the list down right now, because *any* opinion on *anything* (including classic computing) is boud to piss *someone* off. ,xtG tsooJ From allain at panix.com Wed Jun 14 10:31:57 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:31:57 -0400 Subject: HP 264x terminal status References: <020f01c68f6a$a625ac70$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <008701c68fc7$ace090e0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> > What irks me is that I publicly posted on this list saying to give the guy > a chance when he was slow on delivery and wanted me to "interceed" > for him. One thing left odd for me was the complaint that came from Al Kossow saying that he didn't get his after a long wait and that was never capped by a message saying he eventually did get it. The other thing was that I was looking for positive word from anyone that the shipments were getting through and Gessman 'lost it' before Anyone was able to respond, deal cancelled. John A. From allain at panix.com Wed Jun 14 10:40:46 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:40:46 -0400 Subject: IBM Control Panel Coming References: <011601c68f50$6d3a97f0$37406b43@66067007> Message-ID: <00b301c68fc8$e8606360$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> from jrkeys at concentric.net > More Good News! > There is a fully wired and complete 407 Control Panel in the mail on it's > way. You can see one here > http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/407.html The web page says it's 16"sq but it looks at least 20"sq in the images. Looking forward to your definitive word. John A. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 14 11:03:41 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 09:03:41 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: >> Tony Duell wrote: >>> Elektor is the best of a dwindling number of electronics magazines >>> available in the UK. It's improved in the last 5 years or so as they now >>> do make firmware sources available for about 50% of their projects (but >>> not the interesting ones, alas). Before that (and for the other 50% now) >>> you have to buy the programmed device from them, and it comes copy-protected. >> "Copy protected" -- implying an MCU implementation? >> I.e. *small* pieces of code? (not hundreds of KB) > > Microcontrollers, PALs/GAls, CPLDs. All come with the security fuse > blown. Obviously EPROMs are readable :-) Many (small) PALs/GALs can be reverse engineered "empirically". Depends on how much buried state they have. If there is none *buried* (i.e. if all of the state is visible on pins) I have a routine I wrote many years ago that will exhaustively apply test vectors and track state transitions to rebuild a state table suitable for applying to a logic compiler (which will then generate the actual logic equations). IIRC, it is a NS32000 COFF binary, though... I'd have to hunt to see which tape has the sources (something I probably should do, anyway, since tape isnt very long-lived) > In a few cases, they make the object (binary) file available to program > your own device, but not the source. Which is not particularly helpful. Are these "old school" MCU's? ARMs? etc. I have quite a number of dissasemblers that would make quick work of this. If the code was written in a HLL, then it's usually very easy to deduce the corresponding language constructs used (most compilers for tiny processors are very literal). If it's written in ASM, then you'd have to walk through it to deduce the appropriate commentary to add. > Yes, I am well aware there are ways to reverse-engineer some of these > devices, but I have to weigh up the effort to do that against the effort > to design the whole thing from scratch (and have it just the way I want > it). Exactly. Something vendors fail to realize when the produce a product that they think is so "special"/unique. But, for other things, you don't have much choice (I disassembled the code in my PBX -- about a megabyte -- just to figure out how it *really* worked since the "help" was written by a nonenglish speaker :-( >>> Since I generally build in order to learn, this is a major reason for me >>> not to build said project. >> Yup. Or, at least to be able to *build* on their ideas >> (things they didn't think of or didn't implement well) > > Exactly. Rarely does the published design exactly meet my needs, I want > to modify it. And that may mean modifying the firmware too. > >>> Anotehr disadvantage is that their computer-related projects invariably >>> have Windows software. The sources of that may not be available, the link >>> between the PC and the project (RS232, USB, parallel ports) may not be >>> properly documented. >> This is true here (US), as well. Its as if the idea of something >> *other* than a PC never crosses their mind... > > I don't expect them to support all my old machines, but I wish they'd let > _me_ do so by documentign the interface properly. If a device plugs into > a serial port and uses the Tx and Rx line conventionally, then I'd like > to know what commands I can send the device, and how it responds. Or > alternatively, give me the source to the firmware and/or the PC program > and I'll work it out. Exactly. After all, these publications are intended for people who *can* do that sort of thing! >> I wonder if the *apparent* (? unsubstantiated by hard numbers) >> prevalence of hobbyists on your side of the pond has anything >> to do with economics? I recall (when working with a firm in >> Manchester) that many components that were dirt cheap here >> were quite "dear", there. And, the "pounds = dollars" >> relationship means things are effectively (i.e. from *my* >> point of view) 60 - 80% more expensive than they would be, >> here. > > I've heard economic arguments (mostly as a reason for not homebrewing) > many times before, and I don't believe it's the whole story... Let me go > off at a tangent for a moment. > > All my life I've been interested in clocks, and one day I intend to make > a real mechanical clock. I'll have to get a lot better at machining > first, but I still want to do it. > > Economically, this makes no sense at all. To make a clock from scratch > probably needs \pounds 5000 to \pounds 10000 worth of tools (many of > which i have, it's true, but I'd still need to get gear cutters, etc and > they're not cheap). The metal to make said clock is around \pounds 100. > And the result is a much worse timekeeper than a 5 quid quartz clock from > the local household shop. Of course. Nor does collecting old computers! :> > But I still want to do it, to learn, and to have the enjoyment of making > it. And it appears others do likewise. There's at least one magazine > which has an article every month on desinging/making a clock (and other > articles on making parts as part of antique clock restoration). There are > many books and plans for homebuilt clocks. So I can't be alone in wanting > to do this. I share the avocation -- though most of the clocks I build are electronic and just play with unique ways of displaying the time (e.g., in Braille, etc. -- think about it! :> ) > Now lets get back to computers. The difference in performance between a > homemade mechanical clock and a quartz clock is probably comparable to > the difference in performance between a modern PC and a homebuilt > processor. The tools needed to make a homebuilt processor are cheaper > than those needed to make a clock, thouygh. And yet, I've not seen one > book or magazine article on making a processor from scratch in the last > 10 years. I think once the 2901 "fell from grace" (?), this became a thing of the past. I've designed two processors "from scratch" (TTL with bipolar ROMs for the microcode store) and found it quite an interesting exercise. Not just the "logic design" but actually thinking about what the instruction set should be for that particular application domain, etc. But, nowadays, I think it would be a lot less tedious if you could do it in a big FPGA using synthesis tools. You could get better test vector coverage (and *generation* of those by the toolchain!) instead of having to design vectors from scratch and single step the microcode (hint: fully synchronous designs really off big, here!) > If some people think it's worth making a clock from scratch, why not a > processor. > > I will end with a wuote from a book entitled 'Every Boy his own > Mechanic', published about 90 years ago. It's the start of a chapter on a > home-made telephone system > > ' For some years previous to 1914 the constructive instinct and ability > inherent in many of us was almost snuffed out because most of the > mechanical and electrical things we wished to possess were so cheap that > they could be bought ready made. Often the prices quoted were actually > below the cost to us of the raw materials, and so we came to think that I guess things never change! :> > constructive hobbies were a bit futile. Lots of those cheap things were > amazingly good, but some where exasperatingly bad, and the bulk > indifferent. Still, we bought the stuff, learned nothing from it, and > clean missed all the solid satisfaction that lives for ever in building > and contriving and creating [snip] > And that is exactly how I feel about homebrewing electronic devices now. So, is it your opinion that the "build it" mentality is so individualistic that the differences in attitudes towards it between our sides of the pond are more *cultural* (of yet, undetermined origins) than anything else? E.g., the US "disposable" society, consumerism, materialism, etc.? From frustum at pacbell.net Wed Jun 14 11:31:38 2006 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:31:38 -0500 Subject: www.wang2200.org now online Message-ID: <449039EA.70805@pacbell.net> After five years of accreting information into my Wang 2200 web site, Jay's generous hosting offer prodded me into action. I've revamped my web site and put everything under a new domain name: http://www.wang2200.org/ I've used xenu (http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html) to verify all of my links, but with 21 web pages that got converted, I could have messed up in any number of ways. If you visit and spot anything weird, please let me know. If you are still using netscape 4, sorry, the pages will look pretty bad because I'm using css to style the pages now. I've tested it under firefox, ie 6, and opera 8. The pages were designed to assume a minimum screen width of 800 pixels. Since the discussion came up on this list a few weeks ago, here is how I put my pages together. First I played around with one page and css until I was more familiar with css and had a "look" that was OK. I then converted each page, by hand, to using css and removing tables wherever they weren't necessary. Each page was validated against the w3c xhtml validator. There was still a lot of common code in all of these pages, so I wrote a perl script that reads in a "schema", containing a template plus a list of pages to apply the template to. Each page is processed and emitted to final directory. This way I can, say, change the navigation menu in the schema and it will get automatically updated in all the 21 pages that have a menu. This perl script also provides for subroutines and variable substitution so that I can define, say, a color in one place and my css and html pages can reference the variable and all get updated with the one color value. It took a couple evenings to write but I'm happy I spent the time. Thanks again Jay. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 14 11:32:42 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 09:32:42 -0700 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <200606140654.53133.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200606090203.k5923VIA033929@dewey.classiccmp.org> <200606131759.41779.rtellason@verizon.net> <448FECFA.6070104@yahoo.co.uk> <200606140654.53133.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200606140932420276.1F047083@10.0.0.252> On 6/14/2006 at 6:54 AM Roy J. Tellason wrote: >What tools would you use to do this? I did get a hold of a package that >should let me do that, and may look into it if it gets to the point where >I can't find any replacements, but that's also an awful lot of time to >spend. And at this point there ain't enough hours in a day... Ghostscript+GSView, both available free on the web. Lots of other interesting conversions, such as PS->GIF (for OCR scanning). If you use GS and the redirection tool on Windoze as a printer, making PDFs turns out to be child's play. Cheers, Chuck From tarsi at binhost.com Wed Jun 14 11:48:24 2006 From: tarsi at binhost.com (Nathan E. Pralle) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:48:24 -0500 Subject: www.wang2200.org now online In-Reply-To: <449039EA.70805@pacbell.net> References: <449039EA.70805@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <44903DD8.3070305@binhost.com> > http://www.wang2200.org/ Ok, just because *someone* has to say it: Nice wang. Nathan -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.8.4/363 - Release Date: 6/13/2006 From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 14 11:48:29 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 09:48:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <200606121949150022.16EC3AC9@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060614164829.68906.qmail@web61023.mail.yahoo.com> --- Chuck Guzis wrote: > Funny thing was is they sent me two Herc Plus cards > free gratis and offered > to send me the InColor if I wanted one, but I > couldn't see the logic in my > having one, since EGA had already been introduced. Let me get this strait. They offered you one for free, and you turned it down? Chances are you'd still have it, and I could bug ya for it. Dang. I guess Hercules thought they could draw away that portion of the market that bought their mono cards. But the only reason they were successful were because they built onto IBM's standard, and didn't supplant it. > Besides, the Herc Plus > cards were really nifty for the time--downloadable > fonts with 12 bit > character codes. Heck, if there was a video card > that could do that and > proportional spacing, I'd probably still be > text-only today. The Tandy 2000 had that capability also. I have a few of these I'd be willing to trade off if anyone's interested. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From rborsuk at colourfull.com Wed Jun 14 11:49:23 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 12:49:23 -0400 Subject: Digibarn Message-ID: <9039AE42-F575-4DA8-9A4D-1458A2B21446@colourfull.com> Is Digibarn gone? Rob Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 14 11:50:44 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 09:50:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Nyetscape Message-ID: <20060614165045.37463.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> LOL LOL http://members.ozemail.com.au/~imcfadyen/notthenet/nyetitle.htm __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From evan at snarc.net Wed Jun 14 11:52:49 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 12:52:49 -0400 Subject: Digibarn In-Reply-To: <9039AE42-F575-4DA8-9A4D-1458A2B21446@colourfull.com> Message-ID: <003c01c68fd2$f81c5bb0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Probably just a glitch or maintenance. I'll email Bruce. -----Original Message----- From: Robert Borsuk [mailto:rborsuk at colourfull.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 12:49 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Digibarn Is Digibarn gone? Rob Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 14 11:54:07 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 09:54:07 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> References: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606140954070904.1F180E80@10.0.0.252> Having unknown hardware in your hands isn't, IMOHO, nearly as bad as unknown software. Consider my conundrum right now... I've got a diskette with software (no documentation beyond how to stick it in the slot on the machine) for a computer that a customer wants to emulate on a PeeCee, the last remaining sample of the original hardware having flown the coop. No engineering documents at all. The instruction set (from the disk) appears to be 8086, but the OS is unknown to me and from the looks of it, the disk is loaded into memory as a single 240K image. I can figure out the load address by explicit segment references. From the very few ASCII text strings in the code, this is apparently a multithreaded, interrupt-driven OS. >From the scant documentation, the box came with a keypad, an LCD(or plasma or some-such) readout and a diskette drive with an RS-232 port. Otherwise, ASCII searches yeild no error messages, prompts, or anything that would allow me to quickly determine control flow. I have absolutely no idea of the peripheral configuration. This is circa 1981-82. So, where do I start? I could put it on an emulator and attempt to trace program flow, but given the nature of the OS (event-driven) it's not going to be easy. I can locate a few ISRs, and from their appearance, the box doesn't use an 8259 PIC (no EOI sequences at the end of the ISRs). If this were a hobby thing, I wouldn't care about the time I put in--but the customer wants a quote. Any suggestions? Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 14 12:05:59 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 10:05:59 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606141005590057.1F22E870@10.0.0.252> On 6/14/2006 at 6:30 AM dwight elvey wrote: >I did my first short wave receiver from an article in "Boys Life". >I use a piece of ply wood and borrowed a neighbors router >to make channels for all the wires and screws. It didn't >need the corner feet :) When I was a boy, the local branch of the public library had an 1890's book titled "Harper's Electrical Book for Boys" (IIRC). It showed how to make everything from telephones to dynamos and lead-acid secondary cells and carbon-arc lamps. It had directions that said things like "Go to a blacksmith's shop and have him fabricate the following part" or "Oil of Vitriol can often be obtained from your local illuminating gasworks." I really liked that book, even though I never built anything from it--blacksmiths were in short supply at the time--and I never did find my local gasworks. I wonder if electronics will get to the point of some young lad wondering where on earch one would find a 74LS00 or 2N2222 or 1N914 or even "hookup wire". Cheers, Chuck From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jun 14 12:08:12 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:08:12 -0400 Subject: big box of solaris 2.1,2.2,2.3 cdrom + manuals? Message-ID: <200606141708.k5EH8ClP018785@mwave.heeltoe.com> Would anyone like a big box of solaris 2.1,2.2,2.3 cdrom + manuals? Solaris and answer book and some tech pubs also. yours for the cost of shipping... -brad From evan at snarc.net Wed Jun 14 12:25:22 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:25:22 -0400 Subject: Digibarn In-Reply-To: <003c01c68fd2$f81c5bb0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <004a01c68fd7$8469baa0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Bruce says he's working on it. -----Original Message----- From: Evan Koblentz [mailto:evan at snarc.net] Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 12:53 PM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: Digibarn Probably just a glitch or maintenance. I'll email Bruce. -----Original Message----- From: Robert Borsuk [mailto:rborsuk at colourfull.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 12:49 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Digibarn Is Digibarn gone? Rob Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com From evan at snarc.net Wed Jun 14 12:37:28 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:37:28 -0400 Subject: Fixed -- RE: Digibarn In-Reply-To: <004a01c68fd7$8469baa0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <005201c68fd9$3507d9e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Boy that was fast. -----Original Message----- From: Evan Koblentz [mailto:evan at snarc.net] Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 1:25 PM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: Digibarn Bruce says he's working on it. -----Original Message----- From: Evan Koblentz [mailto:evan at snarc.net] Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 12:53 PM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: Digibarn Probably just a glitch or maintenance. I'll email Bruce. -----Original Message----- From: Robert Borsuk [mailto:rborsuk at colourfull.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 12:49 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Digibarn Is Digibarn gone? Rob Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com From rborsuk at colourfull.com Wed Jun 14 12:38:54 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:38:54 -0400 Subject: Fwd: Digibarn References: <6.2.3.4.2.20060614103505.0345a930@mail.digitalspace.com> Message-ID: <787AF04F-29AE-4566-8295-9B753F6FBCB4@colourfull.com> Begin forwarded message: > From: Bruce Damer > Date: June 14, 2006 1:35:39 PM GMT-04:00 > To: evan at snarc.net > Cc: rborsuk at colourfull.com > Subject: Re: FW: Digibarn > Reply-To: bdamer at digitalspace.com > > OK the site is back up folks, thanks for letting us know, can you > let classicmp know? > > b > > At 09:53 AM 6/14/2006, Evan Koblentz wrote: >> Bruce, this message was seen on classiccmp's cctalk today (see >> below). >> Apparently your site is down. >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Robert Borsuk [mailto:rborsuk at colourfull.com] >> Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 12:49 PM >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >> Subject: Digibarn >> >> Is Digibarn gone? >> >> >> Rob >> >> >> >> Rob Borsuk >> email: rborsuk at colourfull.com >> Colourfull Creations >> Web: http://www.colourfull.com > > > DigitalSpace > 343 Soquel Avenue, # 70 > Santa Cruz CA 95062-2305 USA > bdamer at digitalspace.com > > http://www.digitalspace.com > > > From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 14 13:08:31 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:08:31 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <200606140954070904.1F180E80@10.0.0.252> References: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> <200606140954070904.1F180E80@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4490509F.9060003@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Having unknown hardware in your hands isn't, IMOHO, nearly as bad as > unknown software. Consider my conundrum right now... > > I've got a diskette with software (no documentation beyond how to stick it > in the slot on the machine) for a computer that a customer wants to emulate > on a PeeCee, the last remaining sample of the original hardware having Not sure I understand what *you* are being asked to do... - reverse engineer the code? - develop emulators (simulators) for the I/O devices? - etc. > flown the coop. No engineering documents at all. The instruction set > (from the disk) appears to be 8086, but the OS is unknown to me and from > the looks of it, the disk is loaded into memory as a single 240K image. I Do you know what format the disk image is in? I.e. is it recognizeable as a DOS FAT-12, etc. (gives you some clues) > can figure out the load address by explicit segment references. From the > very few ASCII text strings in the code, this is apparently a > multithreaded, interrupt-driven OS. Can you share those strings? Or, are you bound by NDA? They might be recognizeable messages to identify the OS (QNX, VRTX, etc.) > From the scant documentation, the box came with a keypad, an LCD(or plasma > or some-such) readout and a diskette drive with an RS-232 port. Otherwise, > ASCII searches yeild no error messages, prompts, or anything that would > allow me to quickly determine control flow. I have absolutely no idea of > the peripheral configuration. This is circa 1981-82. Given the timeframe -- and your description of the peripherals -- it could likely be an 80186 design. (IIRC, that was available around '81/82). This gives you a *little* more information (assuming it turns out to be true) as the 186 had some onboard peripherals (DMA, timer and some few IRQ's, IIRC). This gives you some idea of the support complement that went with the processor. Given that, you could track down how each of these appear to have been used (to get a *better* idea of what the balance of the hardware was). I like starting with timer routines as they get you into the code far enough UP from the bottom so that you get a picture of what's talking to what... yet not TOO high up that everything is lost in abstraction. > So, where do I start? I could put it on an emulator and attempt to trace > program flow, but given the nature of the OS (event-driven) it's not going > to be easy. I can locate a few ISRs, and from their appearance, the box > doesn't use an 8259 PIC (no EOI sequences at the end of the ISRs). > > If this were a hobby thing, I wouldn't care about the time I put in--but > the customer wants a quote. > > Any suggestions? Run it through a disassembler and look at the output to convince yourself what type of CPU it is. An emulator (I assume you mean a "simulator" and not an ICE) could be of some help (no worse than a disassembler ?) but without hardware to talk to, I suspect much of the code will just hang... grep(1) the disassembled code for I/O instructions. I'm more hardware oriented so I like to work bottom up. Nailing the I/O devices first helps a lot, IMO. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 14 13:12:43 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:12:43 -0700 Subject: Socket use and Slot Machine Repair. In-Reply-To: <200606140759.40602.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200606132136.k5DLaPQF016311@pop-1.dnv.wideopenwest.com> <448F383B.4090406@DakotaCom.Net> <200606140759.40602.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4490519B.2080408@DakotaCom.Net> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Tuesday 13 June 2006 06:12 pm, Don Y wrote: >> IGT is the "glitz" in that industry. But, their are still >> LOTS of old EM and "stepper motor" slots in use. Some games >> just don't go over well as "virtual representations". I >> am not sure if it is a suspicion about the "honesty" of the >> machine (e.g., a video roulette wheel vs. a real roulette >> wheel) or some other aspect (nostalgia?). > > I've never been that much of a fan of slots, but if it comes to playing on a > machine I'd much rather deal with an old-fashioned mechanical pinball machine > than any of the video stuff that came along later... :-) They (old EM devices) are much more *fun* to work on -- though thy take a LOT more effort to maintain! And, there are lots of little tricks that you can stumble on in how they are engineered that can bring an "Ahhh...!" (score motor timing, use of flasher incandescents for delay elements, etc.) Plus, of course, sorting out how their designs can be hacked for free games, etc. :> (considerably easier than electronic versions) From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 14 13:16:31 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:16:31 -0700 Subject: FTGH: NCD-14c Message-ID: <4490527F.4070309@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, I have a working NCD-14c that could use a new home. I still have to finish documenting it but, thereafter, it's free for cost of shipping (plus packing materials as I will probably have to pack it in foam, etc.) from 85715. If there is some interest in it, I will be considerably LESS aggressive in my documentation efforts. If *no* interest, I may tear it down to the foils... I'll wait a week before getting into it. --don From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 14 13:29:41 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:29:41 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <4490509F.9060003@DakotaCom.Net> References: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> <200606140954070904.1F180E80@10.0.0.252> <4490509F.9060003@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606141129410762.1F6F926F@10.0.0.252> On 6/14/2006 at 11:08 AM Don Y wrote: >Not sure I understand what *you* are being asked to do... Develop an emulator for the box itself. >Do you know what format the disk image is in? I.e. is it recognizeable >as a DOS FAT-12, etc. (gives you some clues) Oh, I've already identified the OS--it's MTOS-86--but that doesn't mean it's known to me. The filesystem is CP/M-ish. But the app itself is tied into the OS in a single unified whole--there is only one file holding everything. >Can you share those strings? Or, are you bound by NDA? >They might be recognizeable messages to identify the OS >(QNX, VRTX, etc.) No NDA here--messages are of the nature "Unexpected Interrupt"--about a half-dozen such things, all of them, your basic debug message-and one reference to an "integrated debugger"--and no application-specific identifiable ASCII in the remainder of the code. My suspicion is that the ASCII is sent to some diagnostic port and not to the main display. But the code referencing the debugger messages might be a place to start. >Given the timeframe -- and your description of the peripherals -- it >could likely be an 80186 design. (IIRC, that was available around >'81/82). Almost certainly not--figure 18 months average lead time from design to production. I worked with early steppings of the 80186 back then and they weren't ready for prime time yet. Besides, I don't see any references to setting up the relocation block, which ought to be about the first thing to occur. I'm very sure that this is a garden-variety 8086/8088--no 80186-specific instructions to be seen anywhere (e.g. PUSHA). I'd look for I/O devices if I was certain of what they were. No keyboard, just a numeric-type keypad, some kind of one-line display, RS-232 and some sort of interval timer and a floppy drive. The RS-232 was used as a data link, not to drive a terminal. Like I said, if this were a hobby thing, I'm sure I could suss it out given as much time as I needed. But I'm on the clock on this one. Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 14 13:30:14 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 14:30:14 -0400 Subject: Fwd: RE: [miniature-machine-tools] Re: email spam propagation on Yahoo Message-ID: <200606141430.14778.rtellason@verizon.net> Old tech wins! :-) ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: RE: [miniature-machine-tools] Re: email spam propagation on Yahoo Date: Wednesday 14 June 2006 01:36 pm From: "Collins, Graham" To: There was a segment on the Tonight Show some time ago were Jay Lenno had two groups of individuals; a couple of old "HAM Radio" operators and a couple of young "technophiles" whose challenge was to send a short message between themselves and who could send it the fastest. The Ham's used morse code and the techies used the modern "Text Messaging" on their cell phones. The techies were supposed to be a couple of the "fastest" text messagers around. The message I seem to recall was a single sentence - "I just saved a bundle on my car insurance". The two old ham's using ancient morse code won hands down. Cheers, Graham in Embrun near Ottawa Canada -----Original Message----- From: miniature-machine-tools at yahoogroups.com [mailto:miniature-machine-tools at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Jason Spangle Sent: June 14, 2006 13:24 To: miniature-machine-tools at yahoogroups.com Subject: [miniature-machine-tools] Re: email spam propagation on Yahoo I guess it is what I thought, when I said "WEB" I meant HTML based access. lets all go back to the old days and use a regular mail client, I'm sick of my WEB-based e-mail for my old foundry site as well. Better yet, let's just use telegraph's, and tap out the binary code, shouldn't take long right? ;-) Hope nobody lost any data due to this, Thanks again, Jason. > The virus is a problem in the Java code used for > Yahoo's online email. We went to snopes.com to look > up the threat. You can read more information below. > > http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/newgraphic.asp > > Richard > @homemetalshop.com ------------------------------------------------------- -- 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 Jun 14 13:36:16 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 14:36:16 -0400 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> References: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606141436.16817.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 12:03 pm, Don Y wrote: > I think once the 2901 "fell from grace" (?), this became a thing > of the past. I've designed two processors "from scratch" (TTL > with bipolar ROMs for the microcode store) and found it quite > an interesting exercise. Not just the "logic design" but > actually thinking about what the instruction set should be > for that particular application domain, etc. Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean when you say "application domain" here? I suspect that this is probably a rather obvious thing to some of the folks in here who are more familiar than I am with regard to older hardware that I have no experience with, where that hardware was more specialized in terms of what it was intended 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 julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jun 14 14:44:52 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:44:52 +0000 Subject: System V.2 filesystems... Message-ID: <44906734.40505@yahoo.co.uk> Anyone know anything about these? I've got an image of a hard disk containing Torch's System V.2 release, which I'm hoping to be able to read under Linux (which supports sysv, but makes the point that sysv.2 only works on floppies) Things that would be really useful to know: 1) Was there a standard partition table format for disks containing System V filesystems? Possibly every vendor perhaps did their own thing, but maybe there was a standard defined! 2) How do V.2 filesystems on floppy differ from V.2 filesystems on hard disks. Having looked at the hard disk image in a hex editor, it seems that (at least in Torch's case), the first 1024 bytes of the drive contain partition table info. It's hard to deduce the actual format from the data I have, though. If I strip off the first 1024 bytes of the image, then try and mount the image under Linux as a sysv filesystem, it gives it a fair old go. I get "VFS: Found a SystemV Release 2 FS (block size = 1024)" in the logs, but pulling up a directory listing of the root gives me a few sanely-named files (no directories), a few files with garbage names, and the following in the logs for the mounted filesystem: "Bad inode number on dev loop0: 23130 is out of range" One of several things looks to be happening: 1) The filesystem/disk image is hosed anyway (probably not, but can't rule it out right now). 2) The Linux sysv driver - just as the docs say - doesn't work on V.2 filesystems from hard disks, because they differ somehow from floppies. 3) Torch's idea of a sysv filesystem isn't quite the same as everyone else's. (unlikely, but not impossible) 4) My guess about needing to rip out the first 1024 bytes from the image is incorrect. (user error :-) Fingers crossed it's (2), but I'd really like to rule out (4) at the moment. Assuming it is (2), I'd like to modify the Linux sysv driver so that it *does* working with hard disk images containing V.2 filesystems, so maybe someone out there has some spec info... cheers! Jules From fireflyst at earthlink.net Wed Jun 14 13:44:43 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:44:43 -0500 Subject: Need 11/34 parts breakdown Message-ID: Hi all, Does anyone here have the illustrated parts breakdown for the 11/34a? (DEC part EK-34A52-IP) I need the bracket mounting page to see what parts I'm missing. Thanks Julian From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 14 14:53:54 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 12:53:54 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <200606141436.16817.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> <200606141436.16817.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <44906952.4070101@DakotaCom.Net> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Wednesday 14 June 2006 12:03 pm, Don Y wrote: >> I think once the 2901 "fell from grace" (?), this became a thing >> of the past. I've designed two processors "from scratch" (TTL >> with bipolar ROMs for the microcode store) and found it quite >> an interesting exercise. Not just the "logic design" but >> actually thinking about what the instruction set should be >> for that particular application domain, etc. > > Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean when you say "application domain" > here? I suspect that this is probably a rather obvious thing to some of the > folks in here who are more familiar than I am with regard to older hardware > that I have no experience with, where that hardware was more specialized in > terms of what it was intended for... Sorry. :-( The things I design are intended for a specific purpose. Not "general purpose computing" but, rather, "application specific". E.g., an autopilot for a boat, a device for testing blood samples, a gas (petrol?) pump, a slot machine, etc. So, the designs are tailored to the needs of the *application* since that is ALL they will ever do. E.g., a slot machine might have a video display but no "keyboard" -- instead, dedicated buttons (and a touchpanel overlay) let the user do *specific* things; "receipt printers" instead of general purpose printers; hoppers (for coin payouts) instead of disk drives, etc. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 14 15:05:32 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:05:32 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <200606141129410762.1F6F926F@10.0.0.252> References: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> <200606140954070904.1F180E80@10.0.0.252> <4490509F.9060003@DakotaCom.Net> <200606141129410762.1F6F926F@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44906C0C.4040609@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/14/2006 at 11:08 AM Don Y wrote: >> Do you know what format the disk image is in? I.e. is it recognizeable >> as a DOS FAT-12, etc. (gives you some clues) > > Oh, I've already identified the OS--it's MTOS-86--but that doesn't mean > it's known to me. The filesystem is CP/M-ish. But the app itself is tied > into the OS in a single unified whole--there is only one file holding > everything. Yes, this is common of embedded products. I will assume the device served some *specific* purpose and wasn't "just a computer"... >> Can you share those strings? Or, are you bound by NDA? >> They might be recognizeable messages to identify the OS >> (QNX, VRTX, etc.) > > No NDA here--messages are of the nature "Unexpected Interrupt"--about a > half-dozen such things, all of them, your basic debug message-and one > reference to an "integrated debugger"--and no application-specific > identifiable ASCII in the remainder of the code. My suspicion is that the > ASCII is sent to some diagnostic port and not to the main display. But the > code referencing the debugger messages might be a place to start. Is the display known to be intelligent (e.g., addressed in ASCII over a serial link, etc.)? It is quite possible that it is a dumb display (7, 11, 14 segments, etc.) that is explicitly multiplexed via software (typically in or tied to a timer IRQ). A common hack was to use the same I/Os to scan the keypad at the same time (i.e. treating it as a set of discrete SPST switches). Hence the suggstion that you start poking around the timer IRQs to see what hardware they talk to (of course, that was based on the assumption that you *knew* where the timer IRQs were! But, you can probably find them quickly by walking through the crt0.o equivalent code... >> Given the timeframe -- and your description of the peripherals -- it >> could likely be an 80186 design. (IIRC, that was available around >> '81/82). > > Almost certainly not--figure 18 months average lead time from design to > production. I worked with early steppings of the 80186 back then and they > weren't ready for prime time yet. Besides, I don't see any references to > setting up the relocation block, which ought to be about the first thing to > occur. I'm very sure that this is a garden-variety 8086/8088--no > 80186-specific instructions to be seen anywhere (e.g. PUSHA). > > I'd look for I/O devices if I was certain of what they were. No keyboard, > just a numeric-type keypad, some kind of one-line display, RS-232 and some > sort of interval timer and a floppy drive. The RS-232 was used as a data > link, not to drive a terminal. But Shirley the customer knows what it was *used* for (?). I.e. if the display was purely numeric or if it also conveyed textual messages; the types of data shipped over the UART (volume and rate are usually tied to the application... a device that scans groceries at checkout moves data differently than a device that processes telemetry from a weather satellite...) > Like I said, if this were a hobby thing, I'm sure I could suss it out given > as much time as I needed. But I'm on the clock on this one. I'd still stick with the "find the I/O's" approach and see where they lead you. After all, that really is what you will ultimately be doing for this project (since emulating the purely computational stuff is straightforward). Good luck! --don PS If you are *sure* that this is running MTOS-86, I can dig through some boxes of OS documentation to see what I have for it. At the very least, that would tell you how various structures are initialized (from which you could guess at how and where they are used.). Probably best to do that off-list From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 14 14:56:46 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 15:56:46 -0400 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <44906952.4070101@DakotaCom.Net> References: <200606141436.16817.rtellason@verizon.net> <44906952.4070101@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606141556.46725.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 03:53 pm, Don Y wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > On Wednesday 14 June 2006 12:03 pm, Don Y wrote: > >> I think once the 2901 "fell from grace" (?), this became a thing > >> of the past. I've designed two processors "from scratch" (TTL > >> with bipolar ROMs for the microcode store) and found it quite > >> an interesting exercise. Not just the "logic design" but > >> actually thinking about what the instruction set should be > >> for that particular application domain, etc. > > > > Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean when you say "application > > domain" here? I suspect that this is probably a rather obvious thing to > > some of the folks in here who are more familiar than I am with regard to > > older hardware that I have no experience with, where that hardware was > > more specialized in terms of what it was intended for... > > Sorry. :-( The things I design are intended for a specific purpose. Not > "general purpose computing" but, rather, "application specific". E.g., an > autopilot for a boat, a device for testing blood samples, a gas (petrol?) > pump, a slot machine, etc. Ok, so you're talking mostly what I'd call embedded applications then. That's an interest of mine but I've really not that much experience at it and don't know as much as I'd like to about what sorts of things would make a machine better suited to the kinds of specific purposes you're talking about here. > So, the designs are tailored to the needs of the *application* > since that is ALL they will ever do. E.g., a slot machine > might have a video display but no "keyboard" -- instead, > dedicated buttons (and a touchpanel overlay) let the user > do *specific* things; "receipt printers" instead of general > purpose printers; hoppers (for coin payouts) instead of > disk drives, etc. Gotcha. What I was thinking when I read that bit about application domain was some differences in the actual processing itself. Sort of like what some of those real early computer books I have were talking about when they referred to "busines" vs. "scientific" computers or something. :-) -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 14 15:01:32 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:01:32 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <44906952.4070101@DakotaCom.Net> References: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> <200606141436.16817.rtellason@verizon.net> <44906952.4070101@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606141301320686.1FC3A97B@10.0.0.252> Don Y wrote: > I think once the 2901 "fell from grace" (?), this became a thing > of the past. I've designed two processors "from scratch" (TTL > with bipolar ROMs for the microcode store) and found it quite > an interesting exercise. Not just the "logic design" but > actually thinking about what the instruction set should be > for that particular application domain, etc. Aprpops of nothing more than AMD, whatever happened to the AMD 29K RISC processors? They were a very hot item at one point. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 14 15:22:21 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:22:21 -0700 Subject: Fwd: RE: [miniature-machine-tools] Re: email spam propagation on Yahoo In-Reply-To: <200606141430.14778.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200606141430.14778.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200606141322210211.1FD6B688@10.0.0.252> On 6/14/2006 at 2:30 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: >Old tech wins! :-) Yeah, but two cans and a string could have beat the hams, don'tcha think? Cheers, Chuck From arcarlini at iee.org Wed Jun 14 15:42:22 2006 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 21:42:22 +0100 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <003101c68ff3$0e165f90$c901a8c0@uatempname> >Do you also rememebr the PE CHAMP (along with the CHAMPprog and CHAMPUV)? That brings back memories (no pun intended :-)). I remember thinking "that's neat" and then within a few months ETI one-upped it several Times over by starting an 8080 design (at least I think it was 8080, Certainly it was 8-bits). Some time later PE came out with the UK101. I'm pretty sure I have all the PE articles for both of those around Somewhere and possibly the ETI ones (I used to buy PE every month from About 1978 to the late 1980s; ETI I just bought when it looked worth it). Antonio From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Jun 14 16:11:47 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 14:11:47 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <200606141301320686.1FC3A97B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: >From: "Chuck Guzis" > >Don Y wrote: > > > I think once the 2901 "fell from grace" (?), this became a thing > > of the past. I've designed two processors "from scratch" (TTL > > with bipolar ROMs for the microcode store) and found it quite > > an interesting exercise. Not just the "logic design" but > > actually thinking about what the instruction set should be > > for that particular application domain, etc. > >Aprpops of nothing more than AMD, whatever happened to the AMD 29K RISC >processors? They were a very hot item at one point. > >Cheers, >Chuck > Hi Integration on chip exceeded the in speed the cost of I/O pins. In other words, if the entire processor model was on one piece of silicon, it could run faster than if it had to run cycle by cycle through the I/O's. Dwight From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Jun 14 16:16:19 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 14:16:19 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606141005590057.1F22E870@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: >From: "Chuck Guzis" ----snip---- > >I really liked that book, even though I never built anything from >it--blacksmiths were in short supply at the time--and I never did find my >local gasworks. I wonder if electronics will get to the point of some >young lad wondering where on earch one would find a 74LS00 or 2N2222 or >1N914 or even "hookup wire". We are already there. Even RS is not carrying simple parts any more. Dwight > >Cheers, >Chuck > > From wmaddox at pacbell.net Wed Jun 14 16:18:43 2006 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 14:18:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: HP 264x terminal status In-Reply-To: <008701c68fc7$ace090e0$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <20060614211843.49959.qmail@web81303.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- John Allain wrote: > One thing left odd for me was the complaint that > came from > Al Kossow saying that he didn't get his after a long > wait and that > was never capped by a message saying he eventually > did get it. Al left a positive feedback message on eBay that implied that he eventually got his terminal. I ordered two terminals, and they arrived reasonably well-packed -- bubble wrap + peanuts. Not enough to handle serious abuse by the shipper, but it looked like DHL handled mine OK. I admit I was a bit worried when things took so long, as I was once burned by a crook that ran out the clock on the eBay/PayPal dispute resolution process while putting me off with excuses. It seems that Ben was on the level, though. A bit overwhelmed, I'm not sure why. But he made good on the deal and I am fairly happy with the outcome. --Bill From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Wed Jun 14 16:33:07 2006 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 22:33:07 +0100 Subject: Question for the list In-Reply-To: <200606140417.k5E4HdJI093124@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606140417.k5E4HdJI093124@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On 14 Jun, 2006, at 05:17, cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Billy Pettit wrote: >> But let's ask the list: is there anybody else out there or that >> you know >> who buys a product only if it has repair documentation available? Yes, in 1992 I ordered a new (1993 model year) Jaguar XJ6 3.2 on the condition that a printed workshop manual be supplied as well. Jaguar accepted the order through the local main dealer and I was the first person to get a copy of the five volume set, one whole volume of which was circuit schematics. > > Since I have 0% electronics repair skills, no. > >> And as a corollary, do you only buy products you want to run 20 >> years? Yes, on my desk in regular use is a Sharp eLSI mate four function calculator with LED display, which was the best of my 21st birthday presents in 1974. I collect classic cars, I have cars built in 1964,66,69,72,87 and 93. I bought the 87 and 93 ones new, and my father bought the 69 Daimler in 1970. >> Or >> can you accept a product as being expendable? How long should a >> computer >> part last? Sometimes, if they are really cheap or will be rarely used, but tools, cars, houses and other fairly slow moving technologies I expect to last a long time. The point with most computers is that the technology moves forwards so fast that I can move ALL my old data onto a new machine with plenty of room to spare every one or two years, and also get a faster machine with more RAM etc. What I lose out on is things like my collection of old games which were written for the Motorola 68000 which would run on my PowerPC but I can no longer dabble in on my Intel based MacBook Pro. I also find some old word processing and drawing documents which are in proprietry format become unreadable, which is why I now store all long term text document as plain ASCII, which I think will continue to be readable for a few years yet even though Unicode may sometime replace it. Roger Holmes. From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Wed Jun 14 16:41:07 2006 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 22:41:07 +0100 Subject: paper tape for GNT 4601 In-Reply-To: <200606140417.k5E4HdJI093124@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606140417.k5E4HdJI093124@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <8AB3756B-0CE7-4BA4-AF2A-811F1BFE565B@microspot.co.uk> On 14 Jun, 2006, at 05:17, cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > tom: > > Can you provide a source where I can purchase 11/16 inch wide > spools of > paper (prefer yellow) for the reader mentioned above > > Thanks > > David C. Masterson Not yellow, but as you are in the states, try here: http://www.wncsupply.com/paptape.html I have a source in the UK for yellow ONE inch tape, and they can make 11/16 to order, but minimum batch is hundreds if not thousands of rolls. Roger Holmes From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Jun 14 17:37:00 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:37:00 Subject: chain printer speed? In-Reply-To: <001c01c68f72$1fc118b0$2101a8c0@finans> References: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> <3.0.6.16.20060613170455.47ef1200@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060614173700.3cb728d6@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 07:19 AM 6/14/06 +0200, you wrote: >> >This question is not easy to answer. >> >The IBM 1403 printer came in at least 2 versions : a 1000 lpm and a 300 >lpm. >> >However, the effective speed depended on what was being printed, as the >> >chains could be different. Typically, a chain had more E's then Y's, more >> >A's then P's, etc. >> >> Interesting, The chain printers that I worked on all had the exact same >> number of different characters. Depending on the number of characters in >> the character set that was used on that partticular printer they usually >> had 2 or 3 COMPLETE character sets. > >Chains could be (and were) made to order (more or less), The chains in the ODEC printers weren't made to order. Well maybe they were, depending on your definition of 'made to order'. The chains used in the ODEC printers were basicly big rubber bands and each character was a separate "slug" that clipped onto the band. The characters could be ordered in sets and IIRC we also ordered individual characters*. We could install complete character sets or just individual characters as needed. *The slugs had a bad habit of breaking the clips that held them to the belt and when they did the slugs shoot out like a bullet! The printer used a metal proximatity sensor to count each slug as it went by and that's how it knew when to fire the appropriate print hammer. But when it lost a slug, all the following caharacters were shifted down by one and you got garbled print. for example, if the "i" slug came off "The quick brown fox" became "The qujdl cspxo gpy"! Joe From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Wed Jun 14 17:55:16 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:55:16 Subject: Looking for Motorola Boot disks In-Reply-To: <448C5699.1090708@worldnet.att.net> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060614175516.3ccf5046@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Jerry, Check with Mike Haas. He has an EXORciser that I foound in Gainsville several years ago. Joe At 10:44 AM 6/11/06 -0700, you wrote: >Hi, > >I have a few Motorola systems that still lack a boot disk. > > I believe they had a diagnostic/boot disk for the VME systems >that worked on a few different systems, but I may be wrong. >The first 2 ran VERSAdos > > >- VME/10 5 1/4 >- VME 1131 5 1/4 >- EXORciser 8" > >Thanks, In advance > >- jerry > > > From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Wed Jun 14 17:15:56 2006 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 23:15:56 +0100 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <200606140422.k5E4LveS094207@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606140422.k5E4LveS094207@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On 14 Jun, 2006, at 05:22, cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > OTOH, it's pointless in this environment and contributes to a > significant > fraction of a message sent, so is just a total waste of space. I > would have > thought it's obvious though that people object to the companies > that see the > need to do this, not to the individual who posts to the list :-) > > I suppose the mailing list software could strip *all* signatures > from anything > posted in order to save bandwidth, but that's hardly fair on those > who have > legitimate, *useful* information in their sigs :-( Though I am not worried about this a thought occurs, if someone cannot suppress a footer, they could add a key line before the footer - something like " End of message " which could be recognised automatically and the key and everything following it could be trimmed. But don't lose sleep about it, short footers, top posting etc don't bother me, though on other lists the replies to digests quoting the whole digest drive me mad. Roger Holmes From wmaddox at pacbell.net Wed Jun 14 17:38:35 2006 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 15:38:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Paper tape supply, was Re: paper tape for GNT 4601 In-Reply-To: <8AB3756B-0CE7-4BA4-AF2A-811F1BFE565B@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: <20060614223835.71714.qmail@web81313.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- Roger Holmes wrote: > Not yellow, but as you are in the states, try here: > > http://www.wncsupply.com/paptape.html > > I have a source in the UK for yellow ONE inch tape, > and they > can make 11/16 to order, but minimum batch is > hundreds if not > thousands of rolls. I would be interested in knowing more about the state of supply for papertape media worldwide. I have become quite concerned about availability going forward. In the states, I know of only two suppliers, Western NC and Trybus. It appears that Trybus has closed in recent months, leaving only Western NC. Trybus owned the rights to manufacture the Arvey brand of Mylar tape, and I believe was the sole source for Mylar tape of any kind. I spoke with a lady at Western NC, who confirmed that they acquired the Trybus inventory, but that no new tape is being made. As for actual paper tape, there is only one mill that supplied both Trybus and Western NC. Western NC says they plan to carry it as long as they can get it, and they don't have any indication when the mill might drop it. They tell me, though, that paper tape usage is down to a trickle. I notice that both Western NC and Trybus dropped the blue and red tape colors about a year ago. I imagine that not much of this stuff is being made anymore. I imagine that many paper suppliers ought to be able to provide tape on a custom basis, given a sufficiently large order, but I was led to believe that the specs for such tape as laid out in the relevant standards were a bit difficult to fulfil, particularly for oiled tape. Time to stockpile tape. I just ordered another case from WNC. --Bill From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jun 14 17:38:24 2006 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 15:38:24 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff References: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44908FDF.BE727A07@cs.ubc.ca> I'd suggest that the reason for the demise of homebrew electronics is that most of the people these days with an inclination towards such skills/stuff are off doing homebrew software development of one form or another. I don't think it has anything to do with an absence of creativity or loss of build-it mentality. Compared to doing some software development on modern hardware with modern languages, homebrew electronics is rather limited and expensive: the development/construction process is relatively long, the physical result is relatively inflexible to further development, and (perhaps most significantly) ** what you can reasonably accomplish is going to be way behind the curve of current technology **, etc. In other words, homebrew has gone the same way as the rest of the industry: powerfull, sophisticated hardware is cheap and commodified while the variable, creative element is more easily accomplished and satisfied at the level of 'pure information' (software). I'm speaking in good measure from my own feelings about it. I like working with both hardware and software, but most of my hardware hacking these days is in the form of maintaining/diagnosing/RE'ing old stuff. I like doing some new homebrew construction but once the design is done it seems like a long and often-tedious process to get to the physical end-product, compared to thinking up a programming project and writing some software. As much as I like the tactile involvement with physical hardware, programming is a much more direct and flexible route into that creative/design place. As an example, a couple of years ago I became interested in the ABC (Atanasoff-Berry Computer (very on-topic)). I read about about it, researched some technical details and then wrote a full-blown web-accessible graphical-interface simulation in software. At the same time I figured it would be neat to make a hardware reproduction of the simpler, limited, prototype machine that A & B also made. The software-simulation thing has been completed and functional for several years, the design for the hardware thing is essentially complete, but the physical implementation is languishing at the level of about 1/4 complete. (And to be completely low-tech (ala that other thread on the list) it's now time to grab the axe and swede saw and head off to the forest to do some trail construction.) From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jun 14 17:43:15 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:43:15 -0600 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> References: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44909103.2030501@jetnet.ab.ca> >> All my life I've been interested in clocks, and one day I intend to >> make a real mechanical clock. I'll have to get a lot better at >> machining first, but I still want to do it. >> >> Economically, this makes no sense at all. To make a clock from scratch >> probably needs \pounds 5000 to \pounds 10000 worth of tools (many of >> which i have, it's true, but I'd still need to get gear cutters, etc >> and they're not cheap). The metal to make said clock is around \pounds >> 100. And the result is a much worse timekeeper than a 5 quid quartz >> clock from the local household shop. > > > Of course. Nor does collecting old computers! :> Well they have had wooden clocks before that! Even with a bell -- Monks had to get up early to pray you know! >> Now lets get back to computers. The difference in performance between >> a homemade mechanical clock and a quartz clock is probably comparable >> to the difference in performance between a modern PC and a homebuilt >> processor. The tools needed to make a homebuilt processor are cheaper >> than those needed to make a clock, thouygh. And yet, I've not seen one >> book or magazine article on making a processor from scratch in the >> last 10 years. This is because of the PC -- everybody wants clones and anything other than the 8088/8086 group of processers never impacted the market well. Other than the Mac that shot itself in the foot with only 128K memory total and a closed architecture. > I think once the 2901 "fell from grace" (?), this became a thing > of the past. I've designed two processors "from scratch" (TTL > with bipolar ROMs for the microcode store) and found it quite > an interesting exercise. Not just the "logic design" but > actually thinking about what the instruction set should be > for that particular application domain, etc. I have never been able to find a 2901 processer instruction set I liked that I created. The lack of prom programmer was also a factor preventing me from building a 2901 cpu. (Note a 12/24 cpu looks nice to do with bit slice) > But, nowadays, I think it would be a lot less tedious if you > could do it in a big FPGA using synthesis tools. You could > get better test vector coverage (and *generation* of those > by the toolchain!) instead of having to design vectors from > scratch and single step the microcode (hint: fully synchronous > designs really off big, here!) > I find learning the software and the logic design languages can be a real chore since you really may never know just what the FPGA/CPLD is doing. >> If some people think it's worth making a clock from scratch, why not a >> processor. >> >> I will end with a wuote from a book entitled 'Every Boy his own >> Mechanic', published about 90 years ago. It's the start of a chapter >> on a home-made telephone system Umm Soup can's and string ... :) PS. I had a print called "Before high tech there was LOW TECH" and the artist of this art had fun with all the old and forgotton techology for fictional early space craft.The pilot with no space suit had just the WWI goggles and leather jacket but did have a I think a scuba air tank. Wings looked like from the 15 century art. But he did have a radio dish -- connected to a Cambell's Soup Soup can with string. I can't remember the artist how ever. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jun 14 17:47:35 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:47:35 -0600 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <200606141301320686.1FC3A97B@10.0.0.252> References: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> <200606141436.16817.rtellason@verizon.net> <44906952.4070101@DakotaCom.Net> <200606141301320686.1FC3A97B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44909207.3060006@jetnet.ab.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Aprpops of nothing more than AMD, whatever happened to the AMD 29K RISC > processors? They were a very hot item at one point. Other than video games I don't know of them being used for anything. > Cheers, > Chuck > From wmaddox at pacbell.net Wed Jun 14 17:48:45 2006 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 15:48:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <44909207.3060006@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <20060614224845.34557.qmail@web81306.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- woodelf wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > > > Aprpops of nothing more than AMD, whatever > happened to the AMD 29K RISC > > processors? They were a very hot item at one > point. > > Other than video games I don't know of them being > used for anything. I believe they were used in HP printers. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jun 14 18:00:40 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:00:40 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44909518.50407@jetnet.ab.ca> dwight elvey wrote: > We are already there. Even RS is not carrying simple parts any more. > Dwight I notice RS in Canada ( under a different name now ) has a lot of switches and low voltage bulbs. Cell phones , clocks and computers seem to the main items sold. I have not seen a GOOD radio or reasionable Hi-Fi equipment in years. PS. I am having a hard time finding hookup wire -- I am building a tube/valve amp and nobody has wire that is for 600 volts DC that I like. From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Wed Jun 14 18:05:43 2006 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:05:43 +0100 Subject: chain printer speed? In-Reply-To: <200606140423.k5E4MnJi094361@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606140423.k5E4MnJi094361@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <5D781AA7-DA0F-49E7-888E-BDD9E93E7726@microspot.co.uk> On 14 Jun, 2006, at 05:23, cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Maybe it's a trick of the eye, but the old drum printers often > exhibited a > lot of vertical misalignment of characters, making for wavy lines > and very > annoying reading. Curiously, the horizontal misalignment of > characters in > chain, train and band printers didn't seem to matter nearly as much. > > I remember that the Univac 1108 hardware manuals were drum printed > and then > reproduced and were darned near illegible after a couple of hours of > miserable reading. By comparison, 1403 output was pristine. Was it because of poor maintenance? My drum printer has not actually printed anything for a decade or more, though as of April it can now feed paper instead of making burning smells from the sprag magnet solenoids. IIRC there is some adjustment to the print hammers which brings a test print into correct alignment. I've just looked at some old printouts and they look OK to read, but when I look for waviness, there is a little there. Its a bit like a Trinitron monitor, people used them for years and then asked why a horizontal line has suddenly appeared on their screen. They often refused to admit it had been there all along and they had just not noticed it. Roger Holmes From jdaviscctalk at soupwizard.com Wed Jun 14 18:06:41 2006 From: jdaviscctalk at soupwizard.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:06:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: (no subject) Message-ID: <52441.64.4.140.149.1150326401.squirrel@webmail6.pair.com> Jochen Kunz (jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de) wrote: > The small desktop 3000-300 machines use PS/2 RAM. The large desktop and > tower machines like 3000-500 / -600 use proprietary SIMMs. I used to have a dec 3000-800, nice machine. Wish I'd kept it when I moved. IIRC, the proprietary simms were used on a 256 bit wide memory path, so that series had pretty zippy memory for it's time, much faster than the 3000-300 machines (if you could find the propietary memory). And the bigger machines used more power. Found a good listing of the dec 3000 machines here: http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~prescott/linux/alpha/dec3000-sysinfo.html Short version: small low-end machines (used 72pin parity simms) were: * DEC 3000/300 * DEC 3000/300L * DEC 3000/300X * DEC 3000/300LX high-end machines (used propietary simms) were: * DEC 3000/400 * DEC 3000/500 * DEC 3000/600 * DEC 3000/700 * DEC 3000/800 * DEC 3000/900 Jeff Davis From jdaviscctalk at soupwizard.com Wed Jun 14 18:09:45 2006 From: jdaviscctalk at soupwizard.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:09:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VX42 Multia versus 3000-300X Message-ID: <13241.64.4.140.149.1150326585.squirrel@webmail6.pair.com> (this is a resend of prior reply with no subject) Jochen Kunz (jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de) wrote: > The small desktop 3000-300 machines use PS/2 RAM. The large desktop and > tower machines like 3000-500 / -600 use proprietary SIMMs. I used to have a dec 3000-800, nice machine. Wish I'd kept it when I moved. IIRC, the proprietary simms were used on a 256 bit wide memory path, so that series had pretty zippy memory for it's time, much faster than the 3000-300 machines (if you could find the propietary memory). And the bigger machines used more power. Found a good listing of the dec 3000 machines here: http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~prescott/linux/alpha/dec3000-sysinfo.html Short version: small low-end machines (used 72pin parity simms) were: * DEC 3000/300 * DEC 3000/300L * DEC 3000/300X * DEC 3000/300LX high-end machines (used propietary simms) were: * DEC 3000/400 * DEC 3000/500 * DEC 3000/600 * DEC 3000/700 * DEC 3000/800 * DEC 3000/900 Jeff Davis From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Wed Jun 14 18:12:01 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:12:01 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <44909518.50407@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <44909518.50407@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <449097C1.1010008@msm.umr.edu> woodelf wrote: > > I have not seen a GOOD radio or reasionable Hi-Fi equipment in years. > PS. I am having a hard time finding hookup wire -- I am building a > tube/valve amp and nobody has wire that is for 600 volts DC that I like. > Gateway electronics in San Diego, Denver, or original in St. Louis has a lot of wire. They will do mail order, though I usually go to the stores rather than order, so can't vouch for their skill at taking orders. They are a very old company, and I have known the founder and daughter who runs it now for years, and they will make it right if there is a problem and it needs solving. Jim From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 14 18:25:33 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:25:33 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <44909207.3060006@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> <200606141436.16817.rtellason@verizon.net> <44906952.4070101@DakotaCom.Net> <200606141301320686.1FC3A97B@10.0.0.252> <44909207.3060006@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200606141625330457.207E70FE@10.0.0.252> On 6/14/2006 at 4:47 PM woodelf wrote: >Other than video games I don't know of them being used for anything. You mean other than flying jets? http://www.cpushack.net/Am29k.html (Scroll to the bottom of the page) Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 14 18:36:40 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:36:40 -0700 Subject: chain printer speed? In-Reply-To: <5D781AA7-DA0F-49E7-888E-BDD9E93E7726@microspot.co.uk> References: <200606140423.k5E4MnJi094361@dewey.classiccmp.org> <5D781AA7-DA0F-49E7-888E-BDD9E93E7726@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: <200606141636400952.20889DCB@10.0.0.252> On 6/15/2006 at 12:05 AM Roger Holmes wrote: >Was it because of poor maintenance? My drum printer has not actually >printed anything for a decade or more, though as of April it can now feed paper >instead of making burningsmells from the sprag magnet solenoids. I think the old Univac drum printers were just sub-par. My experience with the CDC 501 showed some waviness, but not an annoying amount, unless there was a sticky hammer. But it was pretty easy to tell the difference between 501 drum and 512 train printer output. Cheers, Chuck From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Jun 14 19:21:32 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:21:32 -0500 Subject: Compaq diagnostic disks In-Reply-To: <448F3E29.9050804@msm.umr.edu> References: <001d01c68f35$40e8b8f0$70f2ce0c@gatewaynotebook> <448F3E29.9050804@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <4490A80C.3000709@oldskool.org> jim stephens wrote: > This machine works like the old AT's did with Cmos batteries. when the > batteries lost the disk setup and time information, you had to boot them > from a floppy to set the time again, and to set cmos back up again. Mine still boots properly to HD after all these years. *MY* problem is that I've lost the keyboard! The DIN is a normal 5-pin, but it is so far recessed that I can't get any of my regular keyboards to physically fit into the plug. Any suggestions? Any idea where to get a replacement, or at least keyboard with an enormously long plug? -- 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 reevejd at mchsi.com Wed Jun 14 19:21:13 2006 From: reevejd at mchsi.com (John D. Reeve) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:21:13 -0500 Subject: Compaq diagnostic disks References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060613172957.0dd8e910@localhost> Message-ID: <000801c69011$9c740210$70f2ce0c@gatewaynotebook> Thanks Tom and Jim. I tried pressing the magic keys and nothing happened, but did find the diagnostic disks online in a 360K version. My next step will be to find an IBM compatible that actually has a 360K floppy drive, to make the darn things! I've tried getting the Compaq to make them itself, but the 1.2 Mb drive pretty much refuses to do it. Cheers, John ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Peters" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 5:39 PM Subject: Re: Compaq diagnostic disks > At 05:03 PM 6/13/2006 -0500, you wrote: >>Hello All. I've recently acquired a Compaq Portable III (286, cool gas >>plasma display) and am having some problems with the hard drive. After >>powering up, the system says to insert a diagnostic disk in drive A. If I >>choose "Resume" by hitting the F1 key, it will boot PC-DOS just fine from >>the floppy drive (1.2 MB, 5.25") although it complains about the time and >>date not being set. The system doesn't show a C drive, however, and FDISK >>also says there is no hard disk. Here is my question - do I need these >>diagnostic disks to setup the hard drive on this system? Or is the hard >>disk just dead? Does anyone have a copy of the disks? Thanks for any >>help. John Reeve > > Usually, there is no onboard bios setup code-- you had to have the blasted > diag disk. The big mistake many people make is using a non-Compaq hard > disk tool to partition the hard disk. Compaq creates a small dedicated > partition on the hard disk and stores the setup disk there, and sometimes > the diagnostic. > > If the setup code is present, you can access it by watching the screen > after the POST. At one point, the cursor will jump to the upper right > corner of the screen, and sit there for about 2 seconds. If you hit the > magic key when the cursor is sitting there, you should get the > setup/diagnostics menu, if the Compaq Diagnostic partition is still > present. > > The magic key is, hmmm, I forget. I think it's F10. Might be F1. ESC? > Don't think it's DEL. > > If there's really no hard disk, then you'll have to download the disks > from the HPaq (Hp, formerly Compaq) web site and use another PC to build > the disks. They make you jump through numerous hoops-- download a zip > file, unzip it, sometimes to discover the zip file had multiple zip files > in it, run the program, which asks for a blank floppy... > > When looking for the software, use the PC model number, not "Portable > III". There's a model number like 5166-10 or something (well, that's for a > Pentium II) but you get the idea. > > > > > [Government]Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a > few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate > it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. -- Ronald Reagan (1986) > --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... > tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) > "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters > 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc > WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User > 385531 > > > > From aw288 at osfn.org Wed Jun 14 19:24:43 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 20:24:43 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Paper tape supply, was Re: paper tape for GNT 4601 In-Reply-To: <20060614223835.71714.qmail@web81313.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > I imagine that many paper suppliers ought to be able > to provide tape on a custom basis, given a > sufficiently large order, but I was led to believe > that the specs for such tape as laid out in the > relevant standards were a bit difficult to fulfil, > particularly for oiled tape. I would think that it should not be too impossible to make your own if the supply gets really short. It may take fair amount of tweaking, but making a pair of rolling shears (sort of like a continous sheet metal nibbler, done with three wheels) set at whatever width you want, is reasonable. Certainly you can get paper that is damn close to the old stuff - probably better, now that paper is getting more acid-free. And these days, I would use a modern silicone oil. In fact, I would think something like the oil used on Epson copy machines would be ideal. Making a folder might be tough, as every paper folder I have seen really does not like a continuous stream of paper. I still have a bunch of 1 inch tape on rolls, if anyone is interested. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 14 19:24:47 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:24:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <44909103.2030501@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <20060615002447.58501.qmail@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> --- woodelf wrote: > >> than those needed to make a clock, thouygh. And > ...I've not seen one > >> book or magazine article on making a processor > from scratch in the > >> last 10 years. > > This is because of the PC -- everybody wants clones > and anything > other than the 8088/8086 group of processers never > impacted > the market well. Other than the Mac that shot itself > in the foot > with only 128K memory total and a closed > architecture. Everybody wants cars too! Few actually feel the unction to build a car, but it does get done, albeit rarely. I'm curious how a uP gets concocted, and read with interest the last page of probably the 2nd issue of Make, where a dude was doing just that (although in the most rudimentary stages). My primary interest is in 80x86 stuph, but I'm not altogether limited to it. There's just more to keep ya busy. Just my personal opinion. The Mac was a trend starter, but it was too little too late, aside from the price, small memory, and closed architecture. Oi...here it goes. It was because IBM built a micro-computer that it became so successful. Ok, calm down y'all...substitute "IBM" with "big established company". All the disparate (and fun) platforms that lingered around in the 80s may have managed to cling on longer (and perhaps rool) if a "big established company" didn't get involved in the micro-computer market. I had met a guy at a job a long time ago who worked for JPL. An older man who apparently was well acquainted with the Victor line of calculators. So...when he wanted a computer, what did he buy? A Victor 9000 of course. A what? "THEY WERE A WELL ESTABLISHED COMPANY!" went the retort. It seemed to make more sense to buy something from them (to him). And to the majority of people who did, "a big established company" was a better choice. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jun 14 19:38:46 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 18:38:46 -0600 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <20060615002447.58501.qmail@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060615002447.58501.qmail@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4490AC16.6040506@jetnet.ab.ca> Chris M wrote: > Everybody wants cars too! Few actually feel the > unction to build a car, but it does get done, albeit > rarely. Umm What ever happed to the fake bodies you could put on your old VW beatle. Could one make a Car now days and drive it leagaly on the highway? You know mine -- that is the one with 8 wheels and the steam boiler and the snow/plow in front -- PS. the 8 wheels are need to go ove the pot-holes that breed here. From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Jun 14 19:37:34 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:37:34 -0500 Subject: Expensive C64... In-Reply-To: <20060614012201.A70545829B@mail.wordstock.com> References: <20060614012201.A70545829B@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: <4490ABCE.3070407@oldskool.org> Bryan Pope wrote: > > A boxed C64 goes for $208.50 on ebay (Item #8824336692)! Was there > not many sold that had the Canada Olympics logo on the side of > the box? Plus I believe this is an older 64 since it does not > have the rainbow logo in the top left corner. Yes, this is par for the course for that unit (it is uncommon). -- 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 Jun 14 19:39:17 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:39:17 -0500 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> <448E4579.6050603@oldskool.org> <026b01c68efa$be114990$01fea8c0@alpha> <000f01c68f52$536c1400$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <4490AC35.70801@oldskool.org> Ethan Dicks wrote: > Hang on... no... that's not right... there's a 4L and 4ML, and a 4P > and a 4MP... the unit I have is _identical_ to the 4ML, down to the > single button and small number of LEDs (3? 4?). From googling > around, the 4P/MP has multiple buttons and perhaps an LCD. The ML and > L are nothing like it. All this talk has me thinking: I love my 4ML, but eventually it will die and I lack the resources to repair it. The 4ML is only 300 DPI addressable: What is a good 600 DPI Postscript laser printer that I should be able to pick up for $80 or less? -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Wed Jun 14 19:40:37 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:40:37 -0700 Subject: Compaq diagnostic disks In-Reply-To: <4490A80C.3000709@oldskool.org> References: <001d01c68f35$40e8b8f0$70f2ce0c@gatewaynotebook> <448F3E29.9050804@msm.umr.edu> <4490A80C.3000709@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <4490AC85.4080904@msm.umr.edu> Jim Leonard wrote: > jim stephens wrote: > > Any suggestions? Any idea where to get a replacement, or at least > keyboard with an enormously long plug? they show up on ebay, or course. I may have a parts machine I can part out the keyboard from. Most lunchbox machines had the type of din connectors that didn't have much meat around the connector, so you could probably find one of those. also an appropriately shaped PS2-Din converter will give you a sprig to extend it out. I had an extension cord that worked quite well, and just used it to a regular AT keyboard. Jim From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 14 19:44:53 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:44:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <4490AC16.6040506@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <20060615004453.3071.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> --- woodelf wrote: > Umm What ever happed to the fake bodies you could > put > on your old VW beatle. Could one make a Car now days > and drive it leagaly on the highway? There are these body kits you can slap on old trucks and whatnot. Making a car and it being legal? Pretty impractical to make a whole car (and a uP too, so...). If you had the ability to cast all the weird parts, I suppose that's the biggest hurdle. Frames are simply thick sheet metal welded together. I don't know. What do I know... __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Jun 14 19:48:17 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 20:48:17 -0400 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <4490AC35.70801@oldskool.org> References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> <448E4579.6050603@oldskool.org> <026b01c68efa$be114990$01fea8c0@alpha> <000f01c68f52$536c1400$01fea8c0@alpha> <4490AC35.70801@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <4490AE51.4070205@mdrconsult.com> Jim Leonard wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > >> Hang on... no... that's not right... there's a 4L and 4ML, and a 4P >> and a 4MP... the unit I have is _identical_ to the 4ML, down to the >> single button and small number of LEDs (3? 4?). From googling >> around, the 4P/MP has multiple buttons and perhaps an LCD. The ML and >> L are nothing like it. > > > All this talk has me thinking: I love my 4ML, but eventually it will > die and I lack the resources to repair it. The 4ML is only 300 DPI > addressable: What is a good 600 DPI Postscript laser printer that I > should be able to pick up for $80 or less? HP 4xx0. I have a 4100N, and I've worked with 4000 and 4050 models. They're bulletproof, fast, easy to get toner for, and *small*. Does 1200DPI and PS. I paid $100 for mine, but it had a 6900 page count. 4000 models go cheaper. The IBM 4039 I just gave away was no slouch either (600dpi), but it's noisy and relatively power-hungry. Doc From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Jun 14 20:21:33 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 21:21:33 -0400 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <448FEE71.8090106@mdrconsult.com> References: <200606130644.k5D6ihxS072657@dewey.classiccmp.org> <448FEE71.8090106@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <200606142121.33773.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 07:09, Doc Shipley wrote: > OTOH, I now have a duplexed LJ 4100N in my office which is even nicer > than the LJ4 series. It's extremely fast, very quiet, eats little > power, and toner carts are relatively cheap. I'd recommend them to > anyone whose monthly print load is <5000 pages. I've got an LJ8000DN that I picked up for about $50 at Purdue's surplus outfit about a year ago. Has a few hundred thousand pages on it, and still works and looks great. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Jun 14 20:24:31 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 18:24:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Paper tape supply, was Re: paper tape for GNT 4601 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jun 2006, William Donzelli wrote: > Making a folder might be tough, as every paper folder I have seen really > does not like a continuous stream of paper. > > I still have a bunch of 1 inch tape on rolls, if anyone is interested. This is probably excessively crazy, but does anyone think it would be a Good Idea to start a business catering specifically to the needs of people who use old stuff like this? How much of a market is there? -- 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 aw288 at osfn.org Wed Jun 14 20:28:40 2006 From: aw288 at osfn.org (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 21:28:40 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Paper tape supply, was Re: paper tape for GNT 4601 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > This is probably excessively crazy, but does anyone think it would be a > Good Idea to start a business catering specifically to the needs of people > who use old stuff like this? How much of a market is there? Not yet - there is still a good supply of rolls on the surplus market. Maybe the odd sizes, like for Kleinschmidts... William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org From rcini at optonline.net Wed Jun 14 20:37:37 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 21:37:37 -0400 Subject: Old topic: AIM-65 test software Message-ID: <007701c6901c$486795f0$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: To resurrect an old question just in case someone came across this since my post two years ago: > While browsing an early-1980 issue of Compute! magazine, I > saw a blurb for Rockwell offering copies of the manufacturing > test program for the AIM-65 computer. The blurb references a > test manual (#EA74-M800) and a test program listing > (#EA74-J100). It also indicates that on the manufacturing > line, two EPROMs with the test program are installed in the > BASIC ROM slots. > > Does anyone have either manual or the ROMs in question? Thanks. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Jun 14 20:41:31 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 18:41:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Paper tape supply, was Re: paper tape for GNT 4601 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jun 2006, William Donzelli wrote: > > This is probably excessively crazy, but does anyone think it would be a > > Good Idea to start a business catering specifically to the needs of people > > who use old stuff like this? How much of a market is there? > > Not yet - there is still a good supply of rolls on the surplus market. > > Maybe the odd sizes, like for Kleinschmidts... I'm not talking strictly paper tape, but other odds and ends us tinkerers use that aren't commonly found at, say, Jameco, Mouser, et al. -- 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 ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 14 20:42:22 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 13:42:22 +1200 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <448FF0CB.4010604@mdrconsult.com> References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> <448E4579.6050603@oldskool.org> <026b01c68efa$be114990$01fea8c0@alpha> <000f01c68f52$536c1400$01fea8c0@alpha> <448FF0CB.4010604@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: On 6/14/06, Doc Shipley wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > > Hang on... no... that's not right... there's a 4L and 4ML, and a 4P > > and a 4MP... the unit I have is _identical_ to the 4ML, down to the > > single button and small number of LEDs (3? 4?). From googling > > around, the 4P/MP has multiple buttons and perhaps an LCD. The ML and > > L are nothing like it. > > In my experience (which includes a couple of 4Ls), any HP with the > "L" suffix isn't worth fixing. The reliability, life-span, and speed is > not even close to a LJ4 or LJ4P. It's certainly a low-volume printer. > Yours is the low-profile - about 10" or 11" tall overall - LJ4, right? Lower. More like 6" or less. > I seriously wouldn't waste the price of a toner cart on it. As I said in an earlier post, given that the cost of the printer was less than a decent lunch, I would only fix it if I got the parts for a similar price - i.e., *much* less than a toner cart. -ethan From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 14 19:41:38 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 01:41:38 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: from "Tony Duell" at Jun 13, 6 11:37:44 pm Message-ID: > > Paddington. I looked for them a couple of years ago and only found one > > open. Then were some more up near Buck and Ryan's, my number one stop > > whenever I go into London. > > Not any more. Buck and Ryans has gone (I think even the building has been > knocked down). The Tottenham Court road is useless for hacking now (I can No, I was wrong, sort-of. Buck and Ryans is no longer in Tottenham Court Road (indeed, the building is no more), but today, by pure chance, I was going between Holhorn and Russell Square, and passed the new locatioon of Buck and Ryan. I didn't get off the bus to investigate, but it looks smaller than the old place, but full of tools. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 14 19:42:41 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 01:42:41 +0100 (BST) Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list In-Reply-To: <200606131926.53503.rtellason@verizon.net> from "Roy J. Tellason" at Jun 13, 6 07:26:53 pm Message-ID: > > On Friday 09 June 2006 07:18 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > > What about more general books on computing/electronics. I feel that > > virtually everybody should have 'The Art of Electronics' and K&R to hand. > > But there must be some people who've not heard of them... > > There's two that I've definitely heard of, but if they're available anyplace > in electronic form I sure haven't heard about that...! AFAIK, you have to buy them on paper, but they're easier to use in that form anyway... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 14 19:48:26 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 01:48:26 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <009b01c68f45$c169ce50$01fea8c0@alpha> from "Alexandre Souza" at Jun 13, 6 09:01:09 pm Message-ID: > Resistors are SO cheap that pays for having a parts' tray with one > hundred of all values comercially avaiable and being replenished from time > to time. This is something you'll use forever. And doesn't get old. Hang on a second. _All_ values commerically available? The E96 series - 96 valuves to a decade, is common enough now, I would guess there are 7 full decaes (from 0.1 ohms to 10M). Thats's 672 differnt vales. And you want me to buy 100 of each, so 67200 resistors? Even at 1p each, that's still a reasonable sum of money. Even if you limit yourself to the E24 series, it's still 16800 resistors to store. Anyway, you miss the point. Unless you're a lot better organised than me, you're going to forget to re-order some value at some point. I did stock up on the common values a few years back, I have, though, had to go and get a few of them 'in an emergency' when I've forgotten to re-order them. -tony > > Greetz > Alexandre, from Brazil, and his thousands of resistors :oD > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 14 19:58:19 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 01:58:19 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606132022.37175.rtellason@verizon.net> from "Roy J. Tellason" at Jun 13, 6 08:22:37 pm Message-ID: > > On Saturday 10 June 2006 05:40 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > > For electronic test instruments (not including hand tools, etc), my order > > would be something like > > > > 1) A good VOM (analogue) or DMM, whichever type you prefer. > > You need both! Though I do tend to reach for the digital stuff more often I would agree, but you can get away with only one when you're starting out. For many years I used an analogue VOM only. To be honest, it's rare that you need to make an accurate meashuremnt when repairing a classic computer (you want to know if the 5V line is pressent and correct, but if it's acutally 4.95V, things will still worl fine). Then I picked up a cheap Fluke 85. I use that almost exclusively now, but the analogue meter stays on my bench, it's better for osme things. > than not, but that's more a matter of physical convenience than anything > else (little teeny DMM sits on my desk AAMOF). > > > 2) A logic probe > > I've not found those as useful as I'd have thought at one time. Got one here Tastes differ, I use one all the time. Actually, I've not used a normal logic probe for the last 8 years or so, that's only because I bought a LogicDart. But I debugged an awful lot of old computer stuff with a cheap Radio Shack probe, and could do it again. > > 3) A bench power supply (at least 5A output) > > 5A at what voltage? Adjustable, at least 0-20V. I have a nice 0-30V, 0-10A PSU on the bench (acutally, the Velleman kit). I use it a lot. > > > 4) The other of the VOM/DMM pair > > Yes. > > > 5) A 'scope or logic analyser, depending on what sort of work you're doing > > > > 6) The other one of those instruments > > Scopes I've been using for ages, but never had occasion to use a logic > analyzer. Or could afford one. There are plenty of second-hand analyesers about that are fine for classic computer repairs. I have an old Gould 100MHz unit. As regards using it, it depends one what you work on, but I've found it very useful for tracing microcode in some older machines. See what the processor is really doing (and then work out if it should be doing it). > > I find it helps when prototyping to be able to build one bit of the > > circuit, check it works properly, then add a bit more, and so on. This is > > easy with wire wrap, harder on a PCB. > > That was the way I learned how to build things as well, only we started with > a hunk of blank sheet metal and ended up with a 5-tube radio. :-) Somewhere I have a pile of 1950's Practical Wireless magazines which include a set of articles like that. Start with a crystal set, add valve amplifiers, etc, finally end up with a superhet. The only thing is, it was lethal. The valve heaters were supplied by a 6.3V transformer, but the anode supply (B+ line) was got by half-wave rectifying the mains. I dislike a live chassis at the best of times, on an expermintal set-up with headphones, it would seem to be suicidal! -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 14 20:02:25 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 02:02:25 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor In-Reply-To: from "Billy Pettit" at Jun 13, 6 05:23:57 pm Message-ID: [Practical ELectornics CHAMP] > > No, that one doesn't ring a bell. But I was only in England until 1972 = > when Ah, it wss later than that -- about 1977 I think. After that, there were various articles in PE for computer add-ons -- a video display board, the 'microprinter' (it used that aluminsed paper, and you bought, rather than built, the mechanism [1]) A friend of mine built that, got about 95% of the way through it, and than gave it to me. I must get it finished sometime... [1] Although Elektor did publish a build-it-yourself pen plotter when you did have to do the metalwork yourself. Not having a lathe at the time, I didn't attempt it. Maybe I should now... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 14 20:03:55 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 02:03:55 +0100 (BST) Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <200606132025.42680.rtellason@verizon.net> from "Roy J. Tellason" at Jun 13, 6 08:25:42 pm Message-ID: > > On Saturday 10 June 2006 06:03 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > > Somewhere I have the issue of Practical Television magazine which gives > > construction details for a 1 valve + CRT scope. OK, there are some > > semiconductor rectifiiers in the PSU too. The valve is for the timebase, > > the Y input goes straight to the CRT plates. But it was useable for the > > signals in vavle TVs of the time, and a lot better than nothing. > > Bet you could do the timebase without a valve, too -- I was looking seriously > at a circuit that used a couple of neon bulbs as a triggered devices in a > relaxation oscillator some years back... I think the single valve was a thyratron (gas-filled triode) used much as you suggest. > > What did they use for a CRT? I have a 3" one in storage that as I recall > wants something like 1000V for an accelerating potential, and a transformer > to develop that isn't exactly trivial. I think it used a normal valve HT transformer (which would give, perhaps, 700V between the ends of the secondary winding), with a voltage doubler circuit. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 14 20:34:14 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 02:34:14 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jun 14, 6 09:03:41 am Message-ID: [Elektor's copy-protected chips] > > Microcontrollers, PALs/GAls, CPLDs. All come with the security fuse > > blown. Obviously EPROMs are readable :-) > > Many (small) PALs/GALs can be reverse engineered "empirically". Of course. > Depends on how much buried state they have. If there is none > *buried* (i.e. if all of the state is visible on pins) I have > a routine I wrote many years ago that will exhaustively apply > test vectors and track state transitions to rebuild a state table > suitable for applying to a logic compiler (which will then > generate the actual logic equations). IIRC, it is a NS32000 Been there, done that. OK, I did it partly by hand, but I figured out the logic equations for the PALs on a 286 motherboard that way years ago (and programmed them into GALs to prove I'd got them right -- the machine worked perfectly with my GALs fitted). > COFF binary, though... I'd have to hunt to see which tape has > the sources (something I probably should do, anyway, since > tape isnt very long-lived) > > > In a few cases, they make the object (binary) file available to program > > your own device, but not the source. Which is not particularly helpful. > > Are these "old school" MCU's? ARMs? etc. I have quite a number Mostly PICs, AVRs and 8051-derivatives. > of dissasemblers that would make quick work of this. If the code > was written in a HLL, then it's usually very easy to deduce the Of course therre are ways to decipher it, but is it worth doing? Or is it more pleasant (in the case of a magazine project) just to design your own version from scratch? > Exactly. Something vendors fail to realize when the produce a > product that they think is so "special"/unique. But, for other I can rememebr years ago we got some device at the place where I was working (I forget what it was, possibly a stepper motor driver). The schematic was only available under an NDA, which we were thinking of signing. But before we bothered to do that, I just pulled the device apart and produced my own schematic (and there wasn't even anything remotely clever about it!). > > I don't expect them to support all my old machines, but I wish they'd let > > _me_ do so by documentign the interface properly. If a device plugs into > > a serial port and uses the Tx and Rx line conventionally, then I'd like > > to know what commands I can send the device, and how it responds. Or > > alternatively, give me the source to the firmware and/or the PC program > > and I'll work it out. > > Exactly. After all, these publications are intended for people > who *can* do that sort of thing! As a womewhat related issue, it annoys me when a service manual isn't available for some expensice electornic insturment. OK, you can understand that most users of, say, a TV set, won't understand a schematic. But I would hope most users of a 'scope would be able to understand one! [...] > > they're not cheap). The metal to make said clock is around \pounds 100. > > And the result is a much worse timekeeper than a 5 quid quartz clock from > > the local household shop. > > Of course. Nor does collecting old computers! :> Ture enough. In fact I've heard it said that hobbies are intended to use up the money you make doing a 'real' job :-) [ Homebrew procrssors] > I think once the 2901 "fell from grace" (?), this became a thing > of the past. I've designed two processors "from scratch" (TTL Maybe, althoguh i never cared much for the 2901... > with bipolar ROMs for the microcode store) and found it quite > an interesting exercise. Not just the "logic design" but > actually thinking about what the instruction set should be > for that particular application domain, etc. > > But, nowadays, I think it would be a lot less tedious if you > could do it in a big FPGA using synthesis tools. You could Hmm... I had to use FPGAs in my last job, and I hated every darn minute of it. Don't get me wrong, I can and will use them if somebody is paying me to do so, but I won't chose them for my own design. I found it a lot quicker to debug a circuit by changing things on the actual hardware (rathen than waiting for your design to complie again, and finding the darn compiler had removed most of your logic without warning because you'd tiend an enable pin to the wrong state). And I wouldn't trust that simulator as far as I could throw it ... No, for my own hobby designs, I'll stick to boards of TTL and a logic analyser. > So, is it your opinion that the "build it" mentality is > so individualistic that the differences in attitudes towards > it between our sides of the pond are more *cultural* (of I am not sure it is different in the UK. Very few people do any kind of homebrewing over here any more. There are a few of us left, I guess, that's all. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 14 20:09:24 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 02:09:24 +0100 (BST) Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <448F89C4.2040900@jetnet.ab.ca> from "woodelf" at Jun 13, 6 10:00:04 pm Message-ID: > > What did they use for a CRT? I have a 3" one in storage that as I recall > > wants something like 1000V for an accelerating potential, and a transformer > > to develop that isn't exactly trivial. > > > Well now days you could use a voltage multiplier. As you could back then (1950s). The voltage multipler circuits ahve been known for ages... > Did they every have a DIY for B&W TV like they > had for radios the begining years of development? Oh yes. I don't know how far back you want to go, but there were certainly mechancially-scanned TV kits. After the war in the UK, there were several designs using ex-radar CRTs. OK, you got a green-and-black picture, but it was a lot cheaper to use govenrment suprlus than new componets (and those EF50s from the radar sets came in handy too ;-)). I can't eememember if the 'Viewmaster' was on such, or if that used a CRT designed for televison, but it was certainly a home-built TV. Practical Televison magazine (later to become simply 'Television') publisehed a number of homebrew TV designs over the years, including at least one colour set. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 14 20:12:54 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 02:12:54 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606132124210101.1C699F21@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 13, 6 09:24:21 pm Message-ID: > > On 6/13/2006 at 8:22 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > >That was the way I learned how to build things as well, only we started > >with a hunk of blank sheet metal and ended up with a 5-tube radio. :-) > > In my case, it was a piece of 3/4" thick pine board. If you didn't have > surface-mount sockets, you mounted the under-chassis type with spacers so Have you (or anyone else) come across the 'Improverished Radio Experimenter' books? THey're fairly modern (in the last 5 years or so), and describe making valve receivers using this type of construction. The valves go into those screw-terminal octal sockets normally used for relays, coils, including the IF transformers are hand-wound on cardboard tubes, etc). The result is a 3 valve superhet that takes up most of a desk, but which apparently works. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 14 20:42:23 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 02:42:23 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606141005590057.1F22E870@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 14, 6 10:05:59 am Message-ID: > > On 6/14/2006 at 6:30 AM dwight elvey wrote: > > >I did my first short wave receiver from an article in "Boys Life". > >I use a piece of ply wood and borrowed a neighbors router > >to make channels for all the wires and screws. It didn't > >need the corner feet :) > > When I was a boy, the local branch of the public library had an 1890's book > titled "Harper's Electrical Book for Boys" (IIRC). It showed how to make I have it (well, I would :-)). IIRC, the author worked for Edison for a time. I think it's beem reprinded by Lindsay Books (or at least was for a time). So it may not be too hard to find. > everything from telephones to dynamos and lead-acid secondary cells and > carbon-arc lamps. It had directions that said things like "Go to a > blacksmith's shop and have him fabricate the following part" or "Oil of > Vitriol can often be obtained from your local illuminating gasworks." Some of the chemicals suggested for electorplating (and to a lesser extent for batteries) were downright lethal!. > > I really liked that book, even though I never built anything from > it--blacksmiths were in short supply at the time--and I never did find my > local gasworks. I wonder if electronics will get to the point of some Well, 'Oil of Vitriol' is, IIRC, sulphuric acid, amd that is still not too hard to get. And there are books on blacksmithing, so I guess you could even do that part yourself if really determined! More seriously, a lot of the metalwork described in 'Harpers electricing book for boys' can be done mroe easiy with more moden tools (like an engineer's lathe for screwcutting). > young lad wondering where on earch one would find a 74LS00 or 2N2222 or > 1N914 or even "hookup wire". I can easily imagine TTL disappering, but I think the TUPs and TUNs [1] (as Elektor used to call them) will be availalbe. [1] Transistor, Universal, PNP, Transistor Universal NPN. Basically, generic trnasistors. Elektor used to publish circuits with trnasistors labelled TUP and TUN (and diodes labelled DUG (germanium) and DUS (silicon), along with quite long lists of components that would work in all such positions. -tony From wmaddox at pacbell.net Wed Jun 14 21:06:24 2006 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:06:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Paper tape supply, was Re: paper tape for GNT 4601 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060615020624.40750.qmail@web81303.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- David Griffith wrote: > I'm not talking strictly paper tape, but other odds > and ends us tinkerers > use that aren't commonly found at, say, Jameco, > Mouser, et al. For the antique radio folks, there is Antique Radio Supply: http://www.tubesandmore.com/ Not only do they carry vintage/NOS parts, but have actually sought out suitable replacements for things such as grille cloth, knobs, etc. There are a few specialty suppliers for vintage arcade machines as well. I suppose that a small market opportunity might exist for parts for the more popular mass-produced vintage machines at some point. Todd Fischer still sells a few replacement IMSAI parts, though I doubt he makes much, if any, money off of it. --Bill From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 14 21:48:18 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:48:18 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <4490AC16.6040506@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <20060615002447.58501.qmail@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> <4490AC16.6040506@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4490CA72.9070300@DakotaCom.Net> woodelf wrote: > Chris M wrote: >> Everybody wants cars too! Few actually feel the >> unction to build a car, but it does get done, albeit >> rarely. > Umm What ever happed to the fake bodies you could put > on your old VW beatle. Could one make a Car now days > and drive it leagaly on the highway? You know mine -- > that is the one with 8 wheels and the steam boiler > and the snow/plow in front -- > > PS. the 8 wheels are need to go ove the pot-holes > that breed here. When it comes to "dubber"s, *this* is what you want! :> http://www.ronpatrickstuff.com/ From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 14 21:57:01 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:57:01 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4490CC7D.9030503@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: >> On Saturday 10 June 2006 05:40 pm, Tony Duell wrote: >>> For electronic test instruments (not including hand tools, etc), my order >>> would be something like >>> >>> 1) A good VOM (analogue) or DMM, whichever type you prefer. >> You need both! Though I do tend to reach for the digital stuff more often > > I would agree, but you can get away with only one when you're starting out. > > For many years I used an analogue VOM only. To be honest, it's rare that > you need to make an accurate meashuremnt when repairing a classic > computer (you want to know if the 5V line is pressent and correct, but if > it's acutally 4.95V, things will still worl fine). Then I picked up a > cheap Fluke 85. I use that almost exclusively now, but the analogue meter > stays on my bench, it's better for osme things. (grin) Agreed. I've got a Fluke 8840A and it is really hard to NOT wait for every digit on the display to settle down! OTOH, if I pull out my Simpson 260P, the needle ballistics are damped enough that you get a pretty quick "feel" for what the number is. >> than not, but that's more a matter of physical convenience than anything >> else (little teeny DMM sits on my desk AAMOF). >> >>> 2) A logic probe >> I've not found those as useful as I'd have thought at one time. Got one here > > Tastes differ, I use one all the time. Actually, I've not used a normal > logic probe for the last 8 years or so, that's only because I bought a > LogicDart. But I debugged an awful lot of old computer stuff with a cheap > Radio Shack probe, and could do it again. I have an HP set (probe and pulser) and find them quite handy! The biggest problem is making sure NOT to accidentally let it touch some odd supply. :-( Of course, it really works best with traditional TTL instead of newer logic families (but, it's good enough to give you a quick indication of "dead" lines, etc. >>> 5) A 'scope or logic analyser, depending on what sort of work you're doing >>> >>> 6) The other one of those instruments >> Scopes I've been using for ages, but never had occasion to use a logic >> analyzer. Or could afford one. > > There are plenty of second-hand analyesers about that are fine for > classic computer repairs. I have an old Gould 100MHz unit. > > As regards using it, it depends one what you work on, but I've found it > very useful for tracing microcode in some older machines. See what the > processor is really doing (and then work out if it should be doing it). Problem with most logic analyzers is getting all the microhooks (or easyhooks) that go with it. Without having to sell a kidney! From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 14 22:04:32 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 20:04:32 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4490CE40.6040801@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: > [ Homebrew procrssors] > >> I think once the 2901 "fell from grace" (?), this became a thing >> of the past. I've designed two processors "from scratch" (TTL > > Maybe, althoguh i never cared much for the 2901... 2901 really only makes sense for a "classic" CPU design. By the time you put all of the parts together to get a complete CPU, it is quite a large solution. Some parts (29116, etc.) could help a little but it still was big. If you don't need a "full" instruction set (traditional ALU, etc.) then there were better ways of doing this. E.g., in one of my CPUs, I needed some cascaded multiply/inverse/multiply operators. I chose to use serial adders and multipliers instead of a more conventional approach. >> with bipolar ROMs for the microcode store) and found it quite >> an interesting exercise. Not just the "logic design" but >> actually thinking about what the instruction set should be >> for that particular application domain, etc. >> >> But, nowadays, I think it would be a lot less tedious if you >> could do it in a big FPGA using synthesis tools. You could > > Hmm... I had to use FPGAs in my last job, and I hated every darn minute > of it. Don't get me wrong, I can and will use them if somebody is paying > me to do so, but I won't chose them for my own design. I found it a lot > quicker to debug a circuit by changing things on the actual hardware > (rathen than waiting for your design to complie again, and finding the > darn compiler had removed most of your logic without warning because > you'd tiend an enable pin to the wrong state). And I wouldn't trust that > simulator as far as I could throw it ... No, for my own hobby designs, > I'll stick to boards of TTL and a logic analyser. I think it depends on how big the item that you are designing will end up -- and, if it stays a "one of a kind" design or if you ever decide to make several of them. What I find most annoying about FPGAs is they are all sole source parts -- if you have a problem with one vendor's part, you may have to reinvest a lot of time to switch to another vendor's device (as well as investing in another tool chain!) >> So, is it your opinion that the "build it" mentality is >> so individualistic that the differences in attitudes towards >> it between our sides of the pond are more *cultural* (of > > I am not sure it is different in the UK. Very few people do any kind of > homebrewing over here any more. There are a few of us left, I guess, > that's all. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jun 14 22:05:22 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 21:05:22 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4490CE72.8060802@jetnet.ab.ca> Tony Duell wrote: > Have you (or anyone else) come across the 'Improverished Radio > Experimenter' books? THey're fairly modern (in the last 5 years or so), > and describe making valve receivers using this type of construction. The > valves go into those screw-terminal octal sockets normally used for > relays, coils, including the IF transformers are hand-wound on cardboard > tubes, etc). The result is a 3 valve superhet that takes up most of a > desk, but which apparently works. I seen a few mail order places selling them but I want to get "The Voice of the Crystal" -- build everything from scratch. "Instruments of Amplification" -- build tubes/valves and transistors from scratch. I watch a lot of Japanese animation and they often having a si-fi or alternate history setting have great "what if" inventions or another version of common place things. If you like older space travel the Japanese animated movie "The Royal Space Force:The wings of Honneamis" is one to watch but it may be very hard to find. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 14 22:07:32 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 20:07:32 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <4490CC7D.9030503@DakotaCom.Net> References: <4490CC7D.9030503@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606142007320605.2149A923@10.0.0.252> On Saturday 10 June 2006 05:40 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > For electronic test instruments (not including hand tools, etc), my >order would be something like > > 1) A good VOM (analogue) or DMM, If you're working much with analogue circuitry, particularly with low-frequency events, it's still hard to beat a good old VTVM. Watching a low-speed waveform go by with the meter needle set to center-zero just can't be quite duplicated with digital displays. Reading resistances, on the other hand, is very nice to do digitally. I've still got my very old Mercury. Still works--old Reliable. Cheers, Chuck From daviderhart at oldzonian.com Wed Jun 14 22:08:19 2006 From: daviderhart at oldzonian.com (David W. Erhart) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 20:08:19 -0700 Subject: www.wang2200.org now online In-Reply-To: <449039EA.70805@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <001c01c69028$f5820bb0$6501a8c0@caladan> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jim Battle > Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 9:32 AM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: www.wang2200.org now online > > After five years of accreting information into my Wang 2200 > web site, Jay's generous hosting offer prodded me into > action. I've revamped my web site and put everything under a > new domain name: > > http://www.wang2200.org/ > > I've used xenu (http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html) to > verify all of my links, but with 21 web pages that got > converted, I could have messed up in any number of ways. If > you visit and spot anything weird, please let me know. If > you are still using netscape 4, sorry, the pages will look > pretty bad because I'm using css to style the pages now. > I've tested it under firefox, ie 6, and opera 8. The pages > were designed to assume a minimum screen width of 800 pixels. > > Since the discussion came up on this list a few weeks ago, > here is how I put my pages together. First I played around > with one page and css until I was more familiar with css and > had a "look" that was OK. I then converted each page, by > hand, to using css and removing tables wherever they weren't > necessary. Each page was validated against the w3c xhtml > validator. There was still a lot of common code in all of > these pages, so I wrote a perl script that reads in a > "schema", containing a template plus a list of pages to apply > the template to. Each page is processed and emitted to final > directory. This way I can, say, change the navigation menu > in the schema and it will get automatically updated in all > the 21 pages that have a menu. This perl script also > provides for subroutines and variable substitution so that I > can define, say, a color in one place and my css and html > pages can reference the variable and all get updated with the > one color value. It took a couple evenings to write but I'm > happy I spent the time. > > Thanks again Jay. > Congratulations. Great new site! Really nice layout, very clean. I now know what I want my site to look like. ;-) david. From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Jun 14 22:20:05 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 22:20:05 -0500 Subject: Laser printing In-Reply-To: <4490AE51.4070205@mdrconsult.com> References: <448DF4D5.2040505@jetnet.ab.ca> <011501c68ea2$d052eee0$01fea8c0@alpha> <448E4579.6050603@oldskool.org> <026b01c68efa$be114990$01fea8c0@alpha> <000f01c68f52$536c1400$01fea8c0@alpha> <4490AC35.70801@oldskool.org> <4490AE51.4070205@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <4490D1E5.2080809@oldskool.org> Doc Shipley wrote: > I paid $100 for mine, but it had a 6900 page count. 4000 models go > cheaper. No idea where you got it; ebay shows >$200 for models that have 35K pagecount. One 4050 was selling for $79, but it had an 800K (!!!) pagecount, is that possible? Can these things last nearly one million pages? -- 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 bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jun 14 22:25:52 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 21:25:52 -0600 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <4490CA72.9070300@DakotaCom.Net> References: <20060615002447.58501.qmail@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> <4490AC16.6040506@jetnet.ab.ca> <4490CA72.9070300@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <4490D340.2040309@jetnet.ab.ca> Don Y wrote: > When it comes to "dubber"s, *this* is what you want! :> > http://www.ronpatrickstuff.com/ No This is what I want -- Sadly I can't read Japanese -- but the picture(s) says it all -- Personal Jet Glider -- This is based on the movie "Nausica? of the Valley of Wind" http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/nausicaa/ for the 1984 movie. >I am not sure it is different in the UK. Very few people do any kind of > homebrewing over here any more. There are a few of us left, I guess, that's all. PS. Good quality Hi-Fi still seems to be around but alot is homebrew since most people can't afford $$$ for low quality hi-fi. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jun 14 22:29:14 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 21:29:14 -0600 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff -- jet glider In-Reply-To: <4490CA72.9070300@DakotaCom.Net> References: <20060615002447.58501.qmail@web61022.mail.yahoo.com> <4490AC16.6040506@jetnet.ab.ca> <4490CA72.9070300@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <4490D40A.9030409@jetnet.ab.ca> Don Y wrote: > When it comes to "dubber"s, *this* is what you want! :> > http://www.ronpatrickstuff.com/ No This is what I want -- Sadly I can't read Japanese -- but the picture(s) says it all -- Personal Jet Glider -- This is based on the movie "Nausica? of the Valley of Wind" http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/nausicaa/ for the 1984 movie. >I am not sure it is different in the UK. Very few people do any kind of > homebrewing over here any more. There are a few of us left, I guess, that's all. PS. Good quality Hi-Fi still seems to be around but alot is homebrew since most people can't afford $$$ for low quality hi-fi. ----- OH ya -- the link for the glider http://www.petworks.co.jp/~hachiya/works/OpenSky.html From nico at farumdata.dk Thu Jun 15 01:07:48 2006 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 08:07:48 +0200 Subject: chain printer speed? References: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk><3.0.6.16.20060613170455.47ef1200@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.16.20060614173700.3cb728d6@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <001801c69042$071b78c0$2101a8c0@finans> From: "Joe R." > >> Interesting, The chain printers that I worked on all had the exact same > >> number of different characters. Depending on the number of characters in > >> the character set that was used on that partticular printer they usually > >> had 2 or 3 COMPLETE character sets. > > > >Chains could be (and were) made to order (more or less), > > The chains in the ODEC printers weren't made to order. Well maybe they > were, depending on your definition of 'made to order'. It's a long time ago I saw a 1403, but if I'm not mistaken, the national characters like ? ? ? were on the same slug. So I must modify my statement to "slugs were made to order". However, this implied that the firmware"connecting" the chain to the character set (I dont know how to phrase that in a more intelligent way), had to be modified too. Now that I come to think of it, we had a special chain for OCR. This one was used for writing bonus checks at the end of the year. Nico From jdavis at soupwizard.com Tue Jun 13 23:57:20 2006 From: jdavis at soupwizard.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:57:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VX42 Multia versus 3000-300X In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4679.64.4.140.149.1150261040.squirrel@webmail9.pair.com> Jochen Kunz (jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de) wrote: > The small desktop 3000-300 machines use PS/2 RAM. The large desktop and > tower machines like 3000-500 / -600 use proprietary SIMMs. I used to have a dec 3000-800, nice machine. Wish I'd kept it when I moved. IIRC, the proprietary simms were used on a 256 bit wide memory path, so that series had pretty zippy memory for it's time, much faster than the 3000-300 machines (if you could find the propietary memory). And the bigger machines used more power. Found a good listing of the dec 3000 machines here: http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~prescott/linux/alpha/dec3000-sysinfo.html Short version: small low-end machines (used 72pin parity simms) were: * DEC 3000/300 * DEC 3000/300L * DEC 3000/300X * DEC 3000/300LX high-end machines (used propietary simms) were: * DEC 3000/400 * DEC 3000/500 * DEC 3000/600 * DEC 3000/700 * DEC 3000/800 * DEC 3000/900 Jeff Davis From daviderhart at sageandstride.org Wed Jun 14 11:45:27 2006 From: daviderhart at sageandstride.org (David W. Erhart) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 09:45:27 -0700 Subject: www.wang2200.org now online In-Reply-To: <449039EA.70805@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <012601c68fd1$f0e7fcb0$6501a8c0@caladan> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jim Battle > Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 9:32 AM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: www.wang2200.org now online > > After five years of accreting information into my Wang 2200 > web site, Jay's generous hosting offer prodded me into > action. I've revamped my web site and put everything under a > new domain name: > > http://www.wang2200.org/ > > I've used xenu (http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html) to > verify all of my links, but with 21 web pages that got > converted, I could have messed up in any number of ways. If > you visit and spot anything weird, please let me know. If > you are still using netscape 4, sorry, the pages will look > pretty bad because I'm using css to style the pages now. > I've tested it under firefox, ie 6, and opera 8. The pages > were designed to assume a minimum screen width of 800 pixels. > > Since the discussion came up on this list a few weeks ago, > here is how I put my pages together. First I played around > with one page and css until I was more familiar with css and > had a "look" that was OK. I then converted each page, by > hand, to using css and removing tables wherever they weren't > necessary. Each page was validated against the w3c xhtml > validator. There was still a lot of common code in all of > these pages, so I wrote a perl script that reads in a > "schema", containing a template plus a list of pages to apply > the template to. Each page is processed and emitted to final > directory. This way I can, say, change the navigation menu > in the schema and it will get automatically updated in all > the 21 pages that have a menu. This perl script also > provides for subroutines and variable substitution so that I > can define, say, a color in one place and my css and html > pages can reference the variable and all get updated with the > one color value. It took a couple evenings to write but I'm > happy I spent the time. > > Thanks again Jay. > Congratulations on the new site. I really like the new look. Very well organized and clean. I think I've found the template for my next major site revamp! ;-) david. From gordon at gjcp.net Wed Jun 14 12:10:16 2006 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 18:10:16 +0100 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: <200606071526.k57FQkVs021634@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <005401c68a45$4e0c18f0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> <200606071526.k57FQkVs021634@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <1150305016.16346.0.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Wed, 2006-06-07 at 11:26 -0400, Dennis Boone wrote: > to whom I've also talked, who has written an emulator. The latter > guy is reluctant to release the emulator because he's afraid since > copyrighted materials were used as references during its construction, > he'd end up in legal trouble. If they were used as a reference, and not copied verbatim, he should be OK. If they were under NDA, then that may be different ;-) Is there anyone left to complain, these days? Gordon. From gordon at gjcp.net Wed Jun 14 12:10:16 2006 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 18:10:16 +0100 Subject: Is there a Prime Computer Emulator? In-Reply-To: <200606071526.k57FQkVs021634@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <005401c68a45$4e0c18f0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <20060607145025.GA4562@RawFedDogs.net> <200606071526.k57FQkVs021634@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <1150305016.16346.0.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Wed, 2006-06-07 at 11:26 -0400, Dennis Boone wrote: > to whom I've also talked, who has written an emulator. The latter > guy is reluctant to release the emulator because he's afraid since > copyrighted materials were used as references during its construction, > he'd end up in legal trouble. If they were used as a reference, and not copied verbatim, he should be OK. If they were under NDA, then that may be different ;-) Is there anyone left to complain, these days? Gordon. From jdavis at soupwizard.com Wed Jun 14 18:08:59 2006 From: jdavis at soupwizard.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:08:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VX42 Multia versus 3000-300X Message-ID: <52263.64.4.140.149.1150326539.squirrel@webmail6.pair.com> (this is a resend of prior reply with no subject) Jochen Kunz (jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de) wrote: > The small desktop 3000-300 machines use PS/2 RAM. The large desktop and > tower machines like 3000-500 / -600 use proprietary SIMMs. I used to have a dec 3000-800, nice machine. Wish I'd kept it when I moved. IIRC, the proprietary simms were used on a 256 bit wide memory path, so that series had pretty zippy memory for it's time, much faster than the 3000-300 machines (if you could find the propietary memory). And the bigger machines used more power. Found a good listing of the dec 3000 machines here: http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~prescott/linux/alpha/dec3000-sysinfo.html Short version: small low-end machines (used 72pin parity simms) were: * DEC 3000/300 * DEC 3000/300L * DEC 3000/300X * DEC 3000/300LX high-end machines (used propietary simms) were: * DEC 3000/400 * DEC 3000/500 * DEC 3000/600 * DEC 3000/700 * DEC 3000/800 * DEC 3000/900 Jeff Davis From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Wed Jun 14 21:42:08 2006 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 22:42:08 -0400 Subject: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes Message-ID: <0J0V00J79RD21OG1@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 02:03:55 +0100 (BST) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> >> On Saturday 10 June 2006 06:03 pm, Tony Duell wrote: >> > Somewhere I have the issue of Practical Television magazine which gives >> > construction details for a 1 valve + CRT scope. OK, there are some >> > semiconductor rectifiiers in the PSU too. The valve is for the timebase, >> > the Y input goes straight to the CRT plates. But it was useable for the >> > signals in vavle TVs of the time, and a lot better than nothing. >> >> Bet you could do the timebase without a valve, too -- I was looking seriously >> at a circuit that used a couple of neon bulbs as a triggered devices in a >> relaxation oscillator some years back... > >I think the single valve was a thyratron (gas-filled triode) used much as >you suggest. > >> >> What did they use for a CRT? I have a 3" one in storage that as I recall >> wants something like 1000V for an accelerating potential, and a transformer >> to develop that isn't exactly trivial. > >I think it used a normal valve HT transformer (which would give, perhaps, >700V between the ends of the secondary winding), with a voltage doubler >circuit. > >-tony Over the years I've bult a few 'scopes for special uses and a 2" crt needs anywhere from 700-1500 for good focus and brightness (also depends on the tube). The upside is you only need maybe 2mA so a voltage multiplier is reasonable. One I built used a quadrupler from a 200V transformer that also ran the 5 tubes used (mostly 12ax7 and similar). The CRT was 3AP1 (3") that gave ok brightness at 1000V. At the other end I built a small scope for a HB spectrum analyser using a D170 (about 1.3"h x 1.5W) square tube that was really decent looking at 800V. For that I used an old surplus audio transformer as a stepup using a pair of transistors in the classic self excited power oscillator. With a voltage multiplier it was easy to get the needed CRT voltage and because the osc frequency was around 800hz the caps were smaller too. The H and V amps were transistor and bandwidth tested out around 5mhz with no special effort as it was way more than needed. It's very doable and with modern HV diodes and transistors it's pretty straightforward. Allison From gordon at gjcp.net Thu Jun 15 01:27:35 2006 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 07:27:35 +0100 Subject: Test message... Message-ID: <1150352855.25981.5.camel@localhost.localdomain> ... to see why classiccmp things my mail isn't text/plain Gordonjcp From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Thu Jun 15 03:29:56 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 10:29:56 +0200 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <44909207.3060006@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <4490335D.7020409@DakotaCom.Net> <200606141436.16817.rtellason@verizon.net> <44906952.4070101@DakotaCom.Net> <200606141301320686.1FC3A97B@10.0.0.252> <44909207.3060006@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <20060615102956.07cd5b13@SirToby.dinner41.de> On Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:47:35 -0600 woodelf wrote: > Other than video games I don't know of them being used for anything. I own SGI VME and GIO FDDI cards that use AMD 29k CPUs to do some of the FDDI/SMT protocol work in "hardware". (The VME FDDI cards are modified Interphase Peregrine cards.) IIRC I saw a 29k used as RIP in a laser printer. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 15 09:39:04 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 14:39:04 +0000 Subject: System V.2 filesystems... In-Reply-To: <44906734.40505@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44906734.40505@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44917108.6070000@yahoo.co.uk> Jules Richardson wrote: > > Anyone know anything about these? I've got an image of a hard disk > containing Torch's System V.2 release, which I'm hoping to be able to > read under Linux (which supports sysv, but makes the point that sysv.2 > only works on floppies) OK, bit of progress: the partition table has 32 entries, each 4 bytes long, apparently in little endian format. from the Torch Triple-X (an earlier machine than the Quad-X I'm trying to get running) manuals, there are four standard partitions - boot-loader, root, swap and /usr, in that order. I don't yet know if that holds true of the QX, though. I think what I was looking at before (when I saw the garbled filenames) was the boot-loader partition; so it's possible that's only semi-compliant with SVR2. I've managed to locate the offset to the root partition in the disk image, so I can mount that - and surprise!, Linux will read it just fine, despite what the Linux sysv filesystem docs say. I still can't find where /usr starts on the disk, though, so I'm not quite there yet - obviously I'm missing something and not quite decoding the partition table right yet. Still, progress... cheers Jules From lee at geekdot.com Thu Jun 15 11:44:05 2006 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:44:05 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Laser printing Message-ID: <2485.86.138.231.62.1150389845.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> > One 4050 was selling for $79, but it had an 800K (!!!) pagecount, > is that possible? Can these things last nearly one million pages? My LJ4M belonged to a school before I got it and shows something over 846K pages on the count. Only the last 1500 or so are pages I've printed. Lee. From mross666 at hotmail.com Thu Jun 15 12:01:54 2006 From: mross666 at hotmail.com (Mike Ross) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 17:01:54 +0000 Subject: Corestore VCF-East photos Message-ID: Just a belated note that the Corestore VCF-East trip report and photos are available now: http://www.corestore.org/vcfeast06.htm Enjoy! Mike http://www.corestore.org From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Jun 15 11:59:57 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:59:57 -0400 Subject: Compaq diagnostic disks In-Reply-To: <4490A80C.3000709@oldskool.org> References: <001d01c68f35$40e8b8f0$70f2ce0c@gatewaynotebook> <448F3E29.9050804@msm.umr.edu> <4490A80C.3000709@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200606151259.57591.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 08:21 pm, Jim Leonard wrote: > jim stephens wrote: > > This machine works like the old AT's did with Cmos batteries. when the > > batteries lost the disk setup and time information, you had to boot them > > from a floppy to set the time again, and to set cmos back up again. > > Mine still boots properly to HD after all these years. *MY* problem is > that I've lost the keyboard! The DIN is a normal 5-pin, but it is so > far recessed that I can't get any of my regular keyboards to physically > fit into the plug. > > Any suggestions? Any idea where to get a replacement, or at least > keyboard with an enormously long plug? Maybe a keyboard extension cable would help here? I use a couple of them in my setup here, both the 5-pin DIN... -- 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 Jun 15 12:09:15 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 13:09:15 -0400 Subject: classiccmp todo/idea list In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606151309.15547.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 08:42 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > > On Friday 09 June 2006 07:18 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > > > What about more general books on computing/electronics. I feel that > > > virtually everybody should have 'The Art of Electronics' and K&R to > > > hand. But there must be some people who've not heard of them... > > > > There's two that I've definitely heard of, but if they're available > > anyplace in electronic form I sure haven't heard about that...! > > AFAIK, you have to buy them on paper, but they're easier to use in that > form anyway... Well, my budget for buying things of that sort being basically zero at this point in time, I guess they'll continue to sit on my list until later... -- 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 g1jbg.co.uk Thu Jun 15 12:08:09 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:08:09 +0100 Subject: TV kits was Re: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes References: Message-ID: <003301c6909e$475c4660$0200a8c0@p2deskto> From: "Tony Duell" > > Did they every have a DIY for B&W TV like they > > had for radios the begining years of development? > > Oh yes. I don't know how far back you want to go, but there were > certainly mechancially-scanned TV kits. > > After the war in the UK, there were several designs using ex-radar CRTs. > OK, you got a green-and-black picture, but it was a lot cheaper to use > govenrment suprlus than new componets (and those EF50s from the radar > sets came in handy too ;-)). I can't eememember if the 'Viewmaster' was > on such, or if that used a CRT designed for televison, but it was > certainly a home-built TV. Practical Televison magazine (later to become > simply 'Television') publisehed a number of homebrew TV designs over the > years, including at least one colour set. > > -tony There were, as Tony says, a number of kits and self build designs available in the years just before and just after WW2. I have a design for a Radar tube based set on my bench at the moment, as I'm planning to modify it into a multi standard monitor (240, 405, 441, 625) for use with a PC based standards converter experiment (we already have it producing video at 240, 405, 525 and 625 line standards, and should be able to push it to 819 lines as well). The design is for the video and timebase sections only, using a VCR97 as the display, with all other valves being EF50 (SP41 or SP61 are the recommended alternatives, all common as government surplus in the 50's), except the video clamp, which is EA90. In the original, the RF stages were taken from a "GEE" receiver (it had a 45Mc/s IF strip which became a TRF video receiver), and one of the plug-in GEE RF units was converted to a TRF sound receiver. Going back further, the Baird 30 line mechanical system became popular after the "Daily Express" newspaper produced and distributed "televisor" kits - somewhere I have a picture of them loading railway trucks with the kits. There were also other suppliers of kits and specialist components, like Nipkow discs, or mirror screws. Cossor produced a kit for a 405 line set, and there were others. Caseless chassis, with and without CRT and valves were also offered in the 50's, and I believe at least one homebuild colour set was based around a readily available chroma panel from a commercial set. Jim. From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Jun 15 12:07:48 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 13:07:48 -0400 Subject: Paper tape supply, was Re: paper tape for GNT 4601 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606151307.48940.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 09:41 pm, David Griffith wrote: > On Wed, 14 Jun 2006, William Donzelli wrote: > > > This is probably excessively crazy, but does anyone think it would be a > > > Good Idea to start a business catering specifically to the needs of > > > people who use old stuff like this? How much of a market is there? > > > > Not yet - there is still a good supply of rolls on the surplus market. > > > > Maybe the odd sizes, like for Kleinschmidts... > > I'm not talking strictly paper tape, but other odds and ends us tinkerers > use that aren't commonly found at, say, Jameco, Mouser, et al. If any of you guys are looking for stuff, by all means feel free to drop me an email, offlist. Even if I don't have it I'll get back to you saying that and I'll know what you're looking for -- and you never can tell what I might run across, which is all sorts of odd things. Like this bit for example: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/ eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:31&item=8827890767 I *know* I'll never use 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 Thu Jun 15 12:14:55 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 13:14:55 -0400 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606151314.55994.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 14 June 2006 09:42 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > Well, 'Oil of Vitriol' is, IIRC, sulphuric acid, amd that is still not > too hard to get. Ah, interesting tidbit. I would imagine that it's available in places that deal in batteries. <...> > I can easily imagine TTL disappering, but I think the TUPs and TUNs [1] (as > Elektor used to call them) will be availalbe. > > [1] Transistor, Universal, PNP, Transistor Universal NPN. Basically, > generic trnasistors. I've heard of them, I think it was on Tony van Roon's site, but have never seen those referenced anywhere else. > Elektor used to publish circuits with trnasistors labelled TUP and TUN (and > diodes labelled DUG (germanium) and DUS (silicon), along with quite long > lists of components that would work in all such positions. Nice to know where that came from, I don't recall that bit being mentioned in the original article I read but that wasn't any time recently. A list such as that might be of some interest. -- 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 Thu Jun 15 12:25:13 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 10:25:13 -0700 Subject: IBM Control Panel Coming In-Reply-To: <00b301c68fc8$e8606360$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> References: <011601c68f50$6d3a97f0$37406b43@66067007> <00b301c68fc8$e8606360$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Message-ID: <200606151025130214.245AE5DE@10.0.0.252> from jrkeys at concentric.net > More Good News! > There is a fully wired and complete 407 Control Panel in the mail on it's > way. You can see one here > http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/407.html "Control Panel" must be an IBM term. We always called 'em "plugboards". And I seem to recall that the 407 one is much larger than 16". If it's that small, it might be from a different machine. Unfortunately, this won't give anyone the experience of programming the 407--it was a lot of fun, particularly when you added a 519 to do summary punching. A mechanical engineer's fantasy. Now, there would be an interesting "homebrew" project for someone--a "real" plugboard connected to a PC that simulated the operation of the 407... Cheers, Chuck From netsurfer_x1 at fastmailbox.net Thu Jun 15 17:14:22 2006 From: netsurfer_x1 at fastmailbox.net (David Vohs) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 12:14:22 -1000 Subject: Another SX-64 problem for the group. Message-ID: <1150409662.20270.263932058@webmail.messagingengine.com> I have an SX-64 that has (apparently) a serious problem. On powerup it shows nothing on the screen (checked the settings and and also hooked up an external monitor) along with an occasional crackling sound from the speaker. Keypresses are not registered by the machine. Anyone got any ideas as to what the problem could be? From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jun 15 17:17:56 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 15:17:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Another SX-64 problem for the group. In-Reply-To: <1150409662.20270.263932058@webmail.messagingengine.com> from David Vohs at "Jun 15, 6 12:14:22 pm" Message-ID: <200606152217.k5FMHuM0015270@floodgap.com> > I have an SX-64 that has (apparently) a serious problem. On powerup it > shows nothing on the screen (checked the settings and and also hooked up > an external monitor) along with an occasional crackling sound from the > speaker. Keypresses are not registered by the machine. > Anyone got any ideas as to what the problem could be? What does the internal disk drive do? On 64s and SX-64s that black-screen, the first thing I look at (after fuses, etc.) is the PLA. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- You've become useful again. -- "Die Another Day" --------------------------- From jrkeys at concentric.net Thu Jun 15 17:52:25 2006 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 17:52:25 -0500 Subject: IBM Control Panel Coming References: <011601c68f50$6d3a97f0$37406b43@66067007><00b301c68fc8$e8606360$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> <200606151025130214.245AE5DE@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <005e01c690ce$b7d88180$09406b43@66067007> The information I got from the owner was 19" high, 22" wide, 3" deep, and 19 1/2 lbs. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 12:25 PM Subject: Re: IBM Control Panel Coming > from jrkeys at concentric.net >> More Good News! >> There is a fully wired and complete 407 Control Panel in the mail on it's >> way. You can see one here >> http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/407.html > > "Control Panel" must be an IBM term. We always called 'em "plugboards". > And I seem to recall that the 407 one is much larger than 16". If it's > that small, it might be from a different machine. > > Unfortunately, this won't give anyone the experience of programming the > 407--it was a lot of fun, particularly when you added a 519 to do summary > punching. A mechanical engineer's fantasy. > > Now, there would be an interesting "homebrew" project for someone--a > "real" > plugboard connected to a PC that simulated the operation of the 407... > > Cheers, > Chuck > > > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 15 17:25:14 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:25:14 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <4490CC7D.9030503@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jun 14, 6 07:57:01 pm Message-ID: [Analogue .vs. ditial multimeter] > (grin) Agreed. I've got a Fluke 8840A and it is really hard > to NOT wait for every digit on the display to settle down! > OTOH, if I pull out my Simpson 260P, the needle ballistics > are damped enough that you get a pretty quick "feel" for what > the number is. Yep. Trying to get some voltate to maximum or minimum is a right pain with a digital meter :-) Oen other point. Most good digital meters are autoranging. Make sure you can lock it on a particular range (or seleect the ranges manually, or both). Habing it switch ranges and shift the desimal point halfway through a measurement will drive you insane. As will waiting for it to go from the highest resistance range to the lowest when you're doing continuity checks (think about it...) > >>> 2) A logic probe [...] > Of course, it really works best with traditional TTL instead > of newer logic families (but, it's good enough to give you > a quick indication of "dead" lines, etc. One of the advantages of the LogicDart is that you have selectable tresholds on the inputs. OK, all three channels have to be set to the same threshold (it's actually quite rare that this causes a problem). The insturemtn has pre-defined thresholds for TTL, 3.3V and 5V CMOS and ECL, and you can also select your own (I used it to debug the -15V discrete transistor logic in the HP9100, for example). ]...] > Problem with most logic analyzers is getting all the microhooks > (or easyhooks) that go with it. Without having to sell a kidney! Tell me about it. Unless you're insane (as I am), don't get a logic analyser without the 'pods'. Making those is an interesting exercise in high-speed analouge design. And only consider doing it if you know -- exactly -- the input spec of the main analyser unit As regards the clips, I was lucky, Greenweld (back when they were in Southampton) had some at a silly price (\pounds 1.00 for 10 or something). I bought their entire stock [1] and passed them on to friends, etc (no I don't have an more left, only the ones I need for my own alanyser) [1] I did the same thing when they had brand new, boxed, Emulex Q-bus SCSI cards foe \pounds 10.00 each. I bought one, showed it to the system manager wehre I was working (he was a serious DEC heed), and he basically told me to go back the next day to buy the rest. I did. Again, I only have a couple left for my own PDP11s.... -tony > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 15 17:29:19 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:29:19 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <4490CE40.6040801@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jun 14, 6 08:04:32 pm Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > [ Homebrew procrssors] > > > >> I think once the 2901 "fell from grace" (?), this became a thing > >> of the past. I've designed two processors "from scratch" (TTL > > > > Maybe, althoguh i never cared much for the 2901... > > 2901 really only makes sense for a "classic" CPU design. > By the time you put all of the parts together to get a complete > CPU, it is quite a large solution. Some parts (29116, etc.) > could help a little but it still was big. The 29116 never really seemd to be a classic bit-slice part. You couldn't easily cascade thjem to an arbitrary data path width. > >> But, nowadays, I think it would be a lot less tedious if you > >> could do it in a big FPGA using synthesis tools. You could > > > > Hmm... I had to use FPGAs in my last job, and I hated every darn minute > > of it. Don't get me wrong, I can and will use them if somebody is paying > > me to do so, but I won't chose them for my own design. I found it a lot > > quicker to debug a circuit by changing things on the actual hardware > > (rathen than waiting for your design to complie again, and finding the > > darn compiler had removed most of your logic without warning because > > you'd tiend an enable pin to the wrong state). And I wouldn't trust that > > simulator as far as I could throw it ... No, for my own hobby designs, > > I'll stick to boards of TTL and a logic analyser. > > I think it depends on how big the item that you are designing > will end up -- and, if it stays a "one of a kind" design or if > you ever decide to make several of them. Oh, exactly. If the thing is going into production, you want to use an FPGA. And you want to use a PCB, not hand-wiring. This does not mean that boards of TTL, hand-wired, are not more convenient for one-off prototypes. This is an example of something that really annoys me. Just because a particular solution )here, the FPGA) is better in one case, it doesn't mean it's batter in _all_ cases. Yet an awful lot of people use such reasoning. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 15 17:57:36 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:57:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606151314.55994.rtellason@verizon.net> from "Roy J. Tellason" at Jun 15, 6 01:14:55 pm Message-ID: > > [1] Transistor, Universal, PNP, Transistor Universal NPN. Basically, > > generic trnasistors. > > I've heard of them, I think it was on Tony van Roon's site, but have never > seen those referenced anywhere else. > > > Elektor used to publish circuits with trnasistors labelled TUP and TUN (and > > diodes labelled DUG (germanium) and DUS (silicon), along with quite long > > lists of components that would work in all such positions. > > Nice to know where that came from, I don't recall that bit being mentioned in > the original article I read but that wasn't any time recently. > > A list such as that might be of some interest. OK, I;ve found an old Elektor . The basic cpecs are : Tpye Vceo (max) Ic (max) Hfe (min) Ptot (Max) ft (Min) TUN NPB 20V 100mA 100 100mW 100MHz TUP PNP 20V 100mA 100 100mW 100MHz Type Vr (max) If (Max) Ir (max) Ptot (Max) CD (Max) DUS Si 25V 100mA 1uA 250mW 5pF DUG Ge 20V 35mA 100uA 250mW 10pF Suggested types are : TUN : BC107, BC108, BC109, BC147, BC148, BC149, BC171, BC172, BC173, BC182, BC183, BC184, BC207, BC208, BC209, BC237, BC238, BC239, BC317, BC318, BC319, BC347, BC348, BC349, BC382, BC383, BC384, BC407, BC408, BC409, BC413, BC414, BC547, BC548, BC549, BC582, BC583, BC584 TUP : BC157, BC158, BC177, BC178, BC204, BC205, BC206, BC212, BC213, BC214, BC251, BC252, BC253, BC261, BC262, BC263, BC307, BC308, BC309, BC320, BC321, BC322, BC350, BC351, BC352, BC415, BC416, BC417, BC418, BC419, BC512, BC513, BC514, BC557, BC558, BC559 DUS : BA127, BA217, BA218, BA221, BA222, BA317, BA318, BAX13, BAY61, 1N914, 1N4148 DUG : OA85, OA91, OA95, AA116 -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 15 17:34:10 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:34:10 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <4490CE72.8060802@jetnet.ab.ca> from "woodelf" at Jun 14, 6 09:05:22 pm Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > > Have you (or anyone else) come across the 'Improverished Radio > > Experimenter' books? THey're fairly modern (in the last 5 years or so), [...] > I seen a few mail order places selling them but I want to get > > "The Voice of the Crystal" -- build everything from scratch. > "Instruments of Amplification" -- build tubes/valves and transistors > from scratch. I haev both, and love them. 'The voice of the Crystal' covers maing a crystal set using no commercial electronic components (other than wire :-)). To be honset, this is the less interesting of the 2 books, much of what's in it is in other books too (although making a crystal earphone using the piezo-electric crystal from a cigarette lighter is certainly novel. 'Instruments of Amplification' covers maing triode valves and copper oxide transistors. Be warned this is not at all easy to do, and the devices you make are pretty poor (lifetime of a few hours at most, gain just over 1 if you're lucky!). Don't think you'll make a classic computer using said devices. That said, it's amazing it's possible at all, and the book is _well_ worth reading, if only to remind yourself than homebrewing has not totlaly died out! (You may have gathereed that I spend far too much on books!) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 15 17:41:48 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:41:48 +0100 (BST) Subject: TV kits was Re: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <003301c6909e$475c4660$0200a8c0@p2deskto> from "Jim Beacon" at Jun 15, 6 06:08:09 pm Message-ID: > There were, as Tony says, a number of kits and self build designs available > in the years just before and just after WW2. I have a design for a Radar > tube based set on my bench at the moment, as I'm planning to modify it into > a multi standard monitor (240, 405, 441, 625) for use with a PC based Presumably your radar CRT is electrostatically defiected, which makes varying the scan rate a lot easier than if you were using electromagnetic deflection. > standards converter experiment (we already have it producing video at 240, > 405, 525 and 625 line standards, and should be able to push it to 819 lines > as well). The design is for the video and timebase sections only, using a > VCR97 as the display, with all other valves being EF50 (SP41 or SP61 are the Incidentally, the VCR97 was the CRT used for the early Williams Tube memories. [VCR == Valve, Cathode Ray, of course] > Going back further, the Baird 30 line mechanical system became popular after > the "Daily Express" newspaper produced and distributed "televisor" kits - > somewhere I have a picture of them loading railway trucks with the kits. > There were also other suppliers of kits and specialist components, like > Nipkow discs, or mirror screws. I found 'Newnes Televsion Handbook' in a second-hand bookshop a few years back. I don't think they realised what it was, the price was pretty low. It covers _only_ mechanically-scanend stuff.... > Cossor produced a kit for a 405 line set, and there were others. Caseless > chassis, with and without CRT and valves were also offered in the 50's, and > I believe at least one homebuild colour set was based around a readily > available chroma panel from a commercial set. There was certainly a 'Television' magazine colur TV project, and I think you got to build the decoder yuorself (probably using the first generation Philips chipset). I can't rememmber if I have all the articles for that, but I think I should have some of them, -tony From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 15 18:17:39 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 16:17:39 -0700 Subject: IBM Control Panel Coming In-Reply-To: <005e01c690ce$b7d88180$09406b43@66067007> References: <011601c68f50$6d3a97f0$37406b43@66067007> <00b301c68fc8$e8606360$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> <200606151025130214.245AE5DE@10.0.0.252> <005e01c690ce$b7d88180$09406b43@66067007> Message-ID: <200606151617390291.259D8EE8@10.0.0.252> On 6/15/2006 at 5:52 PM Keys wrote: >The information I got from the owner was 19" high, 22" wide, 3" deep, and >19 1/2 lbs. That's more like it! Yeah, those things were heavier than they looked. Cheers, Chuck From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 15 18:41:53 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 17:41:53 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4491F041.8010003@jetnet.ab.ca> Tony Duell wrote: > 'Instruments of Amplification' covers maing triode valves and copper > oxide transistors. Be warned this is not at all easy to do, and the > devices you make are pretty poor (lifetime of a few hours at most, gain > just over 1 if you're lucky!). Don't think you'll make a classic computer > using said devices. That said, it's amazing it's possible at all, and the > book is _well_ worth reading, if only to remind yourself than homebrewing > has not totlaly died out! > Heck I was thinking of Ne bulbs for a computer. :) Well I guess it is time to admit I gave in to Modern Techolgy and orderd a SBC6120. I am deviving into older Valve stuff for my 6B4-G 3 watt channel amp. Other than mostly improvements in speaker design and over all better quality parts I don't see much difference in amplifer design from the early 1960's with all the low end Single Ended Triode stuff. Most of the improvements on the real high end stuff seem to be less cost cutting now that tubes are cheap and every thing else is better priced. Still few people talk about regulated power and screen supplys and correct Hi-Fi components compared to the stuff from the 1940's. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 15 19:51:54 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 17:51:54 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <449200AA.7040102@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: > [Analogue .vs. ditial multimeter] > >> (grin) Agreed. I've got a Fluke 8840A and it is really hard >> to NOT wait for every digit on the display to settle down! >> OTOH, if I pull out my Simpson 260P, the needle ballistics >> are damped enough that you get a pretty quick "feel" for what >> the number is. > > Yep. Trying to get some voltate to maximum or minimum is a right pain > with a digital meter :-) > > Oen other point. Most good digital meters are autoranging. Make sure you > can lock it on a particular range (or seleect the ranges manually, or > both). Habing it switch ranges and shift the desimal point halfway > through a measurement will drive you insane. As will waiting for it to go > from the highest resistance range to the lowest when you're doing > continuity checks (think about it...) Yup. This usually happens exactly *once* -- the first measurement I make. Then, a suitable pejorative accomplishes the fix! :> Meter has scales for .2K to 20M by decades (.2, 2, 20, 200, 2000, 20000) plus "auto". Also have to be careful to select 2 wire vs. 4 wire measurements, etc. (sigh) Too many buttons. And do I really *need* 5.5 digits? (I think not! I don't keep it calibrated that often to be able to use that much acuracy) >>>>> 2) A logic probe > > [...] > >> Of course, it really works best with traditional TTL instead >> of newer logic families (but, it's good enough to give you >> a quick indication of "dead" lines, etc. > > One of the advantages of the LogicDart is that you have selectable > tresholds on the inputs. OK, all three channels have to be set to the Ah, cool! Mine are showing their age. Aside from CMOS and HiNil, most stuff of it's vintage was different flavors of TTL. I'd have to look at the schematics to see if the thresholds are ratiometric or driven by real references. > same threshold (it's actually quite rare that this causes a problem). The > insturemtn has pre-defined thresholds for TTL, 3.3V and 5V CMOS and ECL, > and you can also select your own (I used it to debug the -15V discrete > transistor logic in the HP9100, for example). > > ]...] > >> Problem with most logic analyzers is getting all the microhooks >> (or easyhooks) that go with it. Without having to sell a kidney! > > Tell me about it. Unless you're insane (as I am), don't get a logic > analyser without the 'pods'. Making those is an interesting exercise in > high-speed analouge design. And only consider doing it if you know -- > exactly -- the input spec of the main analyser unit I usually use mine with different CPU adapters. If I know I am going to be doing something particularly "involved", I put headers on the target and just run ribbon cables from the pods to the target. > As regards the clips, I was lucky, Greenweld (back when they were in > Southampton) had some at a silly price (\pounds 1.00 for 10 or > something). I bought their entire stock [1] and passed them on to > friends, etc (no I don't have an more left, only the ones I need for my > own alanyser) Yeah, I saw some micro grabbers here at 50c/each but decided that buying 200 of them was ridiculous! > [1] I did the same thing when they had brand new, boxed, Emulex Q-bus > SCSI cards foe \pounds 10.00 each. I bought one, showed it to the system > manager wehre I was working (he was a serious DEC heed), and he basically > told me to go back the next day to buy the rest. I did. Again, I only > have a couple left for my own PDP11s.... I did that with chrome audio cassettes... bought 2000 of them in one lot. Amazing how much space 2000 cassettes take up! From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 15 20:03:25 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:03:25 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4492035D.6060805@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: >>>> I think once the 2901 "fell from grace" (?), this became a thing >>>> of the past. I've designed two processors "from scratch" (TTL >>> Maybe, althoguh i never cared much for the 2901... >> 2901 really only makes sense for a "classic" CPU design. >> By the time you put all of the parts together to get a complete >> CPU, it is quite a large solution. Some parts (29116, etc.) >> could help a little but it still was big. > > The 29116 never really seemd to be a classic bit-slice part. You couldn't > easily cascade thjem to an arbitrary data path width. It was targeted at folks who were buying 4 2901's, 2911, etc. It saved some board space and wiring... [FPGA's] >> I think it depends on how big the item that you are designing >> will end up -- and, if it stays a "one of a kind" design or if >> you ever decide to make several of them. > > Oh, exactly. If the thing is going into production, you want to use an > FPGA. And you want to use a PCB, not hand-wiring. This does not mean that > boards of TTL, hand-wired, are not more convenient for one-off prototypes. I like prototyping in foil. It seems like I always end up needing a second (or third) copy of a design for some reason. And, having to hand wire a second (or third!) is really not fun. And, for $WORK, I learned that no matter WHAT the client says, he'll ALWAYS want a second prototype for some reason. :-( > This is an example of something that really annoys me. Just because a > particular solution )here, the FPGA) is better in one case, it doesn't > mean it's batter in _all_ cases. Yet an awful lot of people use such > reasoning. Of course! The first 50+ reading machines [1] that were built were all wirewrapped. The design was still quite fluid (you kept records of each individual machine since they were all slightly different) so you wanted to be able to make a change on the fly -- as well as IN THE FIELD! Sure, a nice 14" square (? Nova 3) PCB would LOOK really professional. But, when you're stuck in Romney WV on a Saturday night trying to hack a design change into it, you sure as hell don't want to hang around until noon on Monday for something to get air freighted in! OTOH, I've watched hand built prototypes catch fire [2] during testing and the realization that you've got to start all over is more distressing than the fact that you've toasted a bunch of expensive components :-/ [1] Kurzweil Reading Machine [2] You quickly learn the value of "dead time" when switching 100A circuits! :-/ From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Jun 15 20:17:35 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:17:35 -0700 Subject: Another SX-64 problem for the group. In-Reply-To: <1150409662.20270.263932058@webmail.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: >From: "David Vohs" >I have an SX-64 that has (apparently) a serious problem. On powerup it >shows nothing on the screen (checked the settings and and also hooked up >an external monitor) along with an occasional crackling sound from the >speaker. Keypresses are not registered by the machine. > >Anyone got any ideas as to what the problem could be? HI It is broken some place. Actually, totally dead is easier to trouble shoot than mostly working. Do the typical checks for power levels, CPU clock running and dead or open data and address lines. I suspect you may find one or more bad parts. If you're expecting an answer like C34 or U26, you have a lot to learn. Might as well start now. Dwight From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 15 20:43:17 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 13:43:17 +1200 Subject: Another SX-64 problem for the group. In-Reply-To: <1150409662.20270.263932058@webmail.messagingengine.com> References: <1150409662.20270.263932058@webmail.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: On 6/16/06, David Vohs wrote: > I have an SX-64 that has (apparently) a serious problem. On powerup it > shows nothing on the screen (checked the settings and and also hooked up > an external monitor) along with an occasional crackling sound from the > speaker. Keypresses are not registered by the machine. > > Anyone got any ideas as to what the problem could be? If the power supply is working (check for +5V at the corner of a TTL chip if you can't find it anywhere else, and see if you can see the glow of the CRT filament), the next thing to check is the PLA. It's identical with the one in the C-64, so you can borrow one there. If it's not either of those, you'll have to start chip-level debugging (unless you happen to have a C-64 diagnostic cartridge and cable harness, a tool sometimes used by C= dealers for debugging _mostly_ dead machines). If any of the DRAMs feel _really_ hot (too hot to keep your finger on), that's a symptom of fried RAM, an occasional cause of inertness. The ROMs are different from a C=64, but the only changes to the kernel are to remove the tape routines (no cassette connector), and change the default color scheme and startup message. So... power first, then PLA, then start hunting. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 15 20:59:04 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 13:59:04 +1200 Subject: Data I/O Series 22 EPROM Programmer help In-Reply-To: <200606132258.21362.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <4473FBAD.8080005@msm.umr.edu> <200606101835460994.945E8072@192.168.42.129> <200606132258.21362.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: On 6/14/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > We used to do a LOT of c64 repairs way back when, and every one of those > beasts had a "906114" PLA in it that as I understand it was an 82S100 part. > And it was a very common failure item, resulting more often than not in a > blank screen or perhaps some bizarre display. Right... it's the address bus manager, among other things. When it fails, the CPU can't get to RAM or ROM or the VIC-II, typically. > Any idea as to why that should fail so often? Thermal death? It's a bi-polar part, not *MOS, and it does run hotter than the rest of the components. -ethan From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jun 15 21:42:30 2006 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 19:42:30 -0700 Subject: Nolan Bushnell interview Message-ID: <44921A98.D547856D@cs.ubc.ca> ... just finished listening to a live interview with Nolan Bushnell on the radio. Largely about his activities today but he was queried about Pong and the inspirations for it. No great revelations I suppose, as I imagine those who are interested in such already know the story, but there was something novel about hearing "SpaceWar on a PDP-1 in 1964" on the local afternoon radio show. :) From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Jun 15 21:58:48 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 22:58:48 -0400 Subject: Another SX-64 problem for the group. In-Reply-To: <1150409662.20270.263932058@webmail.messagingengine.com> References: <1150409662.20270.263932058@webmail.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <200606152258.48566.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 15 June 2006 06:14 pm, David Vohs wrote: > I have an SX-64 that has (apparently) a serious problem. On powerup it > shows nothing on the screen (checked the settings and and also hooked up > an external monitor) along with an occasional crackling sound from the > speaker. Keypresses are not registered by the machine. > > Anyone got any ideas as to what the problem could be? When you say it "shows nothing" do you mean that the screen is as if it's not even powered up? Completely blank? This is a common problem with C64s. First thing you want to check is the power supplies, make sure that there's +5V where there's supposed to be, easiest place being at the corner pin of pretty much any of the logic chips. Do you have a scope? A logic probe if not? Find the PLA chip, it'll be a 28-pin DIP, mostly marked with the number 906114 though sometimes the generic 82S100 will be on there, and I'm not 100% sure if the SX64 machines may have used a variant on that or not. There will only be two 28-pin parts in there, and the other one is the 6581 SID chip (or variant, possibly). Scope (or probe) four pins on each side at the end opposite the notch. Pin 14 is ground, so you want to hit 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18. Each of these pins should show a high level, or a pulse, but none of them should be stuck low -- if one is it'll cause this symptom. I've also seen some that would only go "halfway up", where a scope would show two levels, ground and about 2.5V or so. This could be the PLA or it could be the chip at the other end of that enable line. If that doesn't turn anything up, scope the data bus. Easiest way I found to do this was to hit pin 2 of each of the ram chips, but I don't recall how easy that was on the SX, it's been a really long time since I've seen one. Again, you're looking for a logic pulse there, a line that's stuck low will kill the machine and give you the blank screen symptom. Unfortunately, so will a number of other problems, any number of other chips could short a bus line to ground and the only way to track them down sometimes is to pull them out and see if the line shows normal transitions after that. The company seemed to have *no* consistency whatsoever when it came to what was or wasn't socketed, though, which makes it even more fun. I used to buy my sockets 50 at a time and the smaller 14- and 16-pin ones 100 at a time for sticking them in there once I'd unsoldered a chip, because those boards weren't robust enough to take unsoldering more than once. A couple of other notes, on c= stuff in general-- bad ram can get HOT! This got bad enough that I found a little thermister that I stuck in the end of an old pen barrel with a bit of wire and a dual banana plug to give me a homebrew temperature probe. Burn your fingers, that can... The other applies much more to c64s than the SX, since they used those stoopid potted "brick" power supplies. A bad PS that went overvoltage (and they often did because that potting compound did NOT let the heat out) was usually a good machine-killer, often taking out the RAM first. Which is when that temperature probe came in handy. As well as the little box I built with a couple of switches and some resistors that'd let me put one of those under full load and meter both the AC and DC sides. :-) The SX wasn't anywhere near as prone to those problems, though. Good luck with it, and feel free to email me if you have any further questions on this or maybe need any parts (though I'm not sure about PLAs, since somebody has already asked about those and I've gotta do some digging :-). -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Jun 15 22:00:57 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:00:57 -0400 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606152300.57539.rtellason@verizon.net> > > A list such as that might be of some interest. > > OK, I;ve found an old Elektor . Thanks, I've saved 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 Thu Jun 15 22:08:03 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:08:03 -0400 Subject: Another SX-64 problem for the group. In-Reply-To: References: <1150409662.20270.263932058@webmail.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <200606152308.03646.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 15 June 2006 09:43 pm, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 6/16/06, David Vohs wrote: > > I have an SX-64 that has (apparently) a serious problem. On powerup it > > shows nothing on the screen (checked the settings and and also hooked up > > an external monitor) along with an occasional crackling sound from the > > speaker. Keypresses are not registered by the machine. > > > > Anyone got any ideas as to what the problem could be? > > If the power supply is working (check for +5V at the corner of a TTL > chip if you can't find it anywhere else, and see if you can see the > glow of the CRT filament), the next thing to check is the PLA. It's > identical with the one in the C-64, so you can borrow one there. If > it's not either of those, you'll have to start chip-level debugging > (unless you happen to have a C-64 diagnostic cartridge and cable > harness, a tool sometimes used by C= dealers for debugging _mostly_ > dead machines). I have that setup, and it really doesn't do all that much, and surely doesn't work on most all of the machines that I have encountered that gave the "blank screen" symptom. We got it because we were a c= "factory service center" at the time. I still have it someplace, but have no idea where it is and am not too worried about finding it. :-) > If any of the DRAMs feel _really_ hot (too hot to keep your finger on), > that's a symptom of fried RAM, an occasional cause of inertness. Occasional? > The ROMs are different from a C=64, but the only changes to the kernel > are to remove the tape routines (no cassette connector), and change > the default color scheme and startup message. I have repaired SX-64s that needed a kernel rom by putting one for a c64 in there and it worked just fine, with the main apparent difference being the screen colors as you mention. I never took notice of the tape functions, 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 rtellason at verizon.net Thu Jun 15 22:11:28 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:11:28 -0400 Subject: Data I/O Series 22 EPROM Programmer help In-Reply-To: References: <200606132258.21362.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200606152311.28564.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 15 June 2006 09:59 pm, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > Any idea as to why that should fail so often? > > Thermal death? It's a bi-polar part, not *MOS, and it does run hotter > than the rest of the components. Somewhere, probably buried pretty good in my storage unit, are a whole mess of heatsinks. I'd bought them figuring that it might be good to add them to some of the chips in those machines, but the idea never went anywhere. These are the kind that slip over (and under!) the chip, and would probably do a better job than the silly metal shield that they put over some of those boards, which was still better than the cardboard that some of them used. Even when they punched holes in that cardboard for ventilation they still couldn't get it right as what little ventilation there was in the bottom of the case couldn't get past the cardboard, and the bits that were punched out were sometimes not removed, but would instead fall on the board and short things out. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 15 22:27:48 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 20:27:48 -0700 Subject: ISO: Unisite Service Manual Message-ID: <44922534.9070004@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, Anyone happen to have a service manual for a unisite handy? I can't seem to figure out which box mine is hiding in which has me suspicious that it's in "long term" storage. Thanks! --don From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 15 22:56:49 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 15:56:49 +1200 Subject: Another SX-64 problem for the group. In-Reply-To: <200606152308.03646.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <1150409662.20270.263932058@webmail.messagingengine.com> <200606152308.03646.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: On 6/16/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Thursday 15 June 2006 09:43 pm, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > (unless you happen to have a C-64 diagnostic cartridge and cable > > harness, a tool sometimes used by C= dealers for debugging _mostly_ > > dead machines). > > I have that setup, and it really doesn't do all that much, and surely > doesn't work on most all of the machines that I have encountered that gave > the "blank screen" symptom. True enough. It's mostly useful for debugging keyboard and joystick ports (6526s) > We got it because we were a c= "factory service > center" at the time. I still have it someplace, but have no idea where it > is and am not too worried about finding it. :-) I have a couple myself that I got from a defunct C= service center. > > If any of the DRAMs feel _really_ hot (too hot to keep your finger on), > > that's a symptom of fried RAM, an occasional cause of inertness. > > Occasional? Occasional as in "sometimes the machine is dead because of a fried DRAM", not "sometimes a hot DRAM is fried". -ethan From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Fri Jun 16 00:23:45 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:23:45 -0500 Subject: VOMs (WAS Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked) Message-ID: > For many years I used an analogue VOM only. To be honest, it's rare that >you need to make an accurate meashuremnt when repairing a classic >computer (you want to know if the 5V line is pressent and correct, but if >it's acutally 4.95V, things will still worl fine). Then I picked up a >cheap Fluke 85. I use that almost exclusively now, but the analogue meter >stays on my bench, it's better for osme things. On this (semi) subject, I vividly remember for a while seeing a "solid state VTVM" that had the extremely high input impedance of a VTVM/DMM + the good low-range response with an analog output. Now, all I see are the "classic" passive VOMs. What happened to the VTVMS? were they "not necessary"? I'd possibly be worried about meter loading messing up some computer circuits with a passive VOM (10-20k vs 10M meter resistance). Scott From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Fri Jun 16 00:27:57 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:27:57 -0500 Subject: Toner as PCB resist (perilously close to OT) Message-ID: <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> A while ago (late '80s, early '90s) I heard a suggestion for using copier toner as PCB etch resist (draw on paper, copy onto overhead transparencies, iron onto the PCB). Now that PCB layout software is available easily, as are laser printers, has anyone here tried it? I'm wondering how well it would resolve for finer-pitch DIP/SIP packages, or if the etchant would eat through the traces. From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jun 16 00:37:09 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 22:37:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VOMs (WAS Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060615223459.B83372@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 16 Jun 2006, Scott Quinn wrote: > On this (semi) subject, I vividly remember for a while seeing a > "solid state VTVM" that had the extremely high input impedance > of a VTVM/DMM + sounds nice but what is a "solid state vacuum tube" volt meter ??? From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 16 00:52:36 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 22:52:36 -0700 Subject: VOMs (WAS Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked) In-Reply-To: <20060615223459.B83372@shell.lmi.net> References: <20060615223459.B83372@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200606152252360060.27071F3B@10.0.0.252> On 6/15/2006 at 10:37 PM Fred Cisin wrote: sounds nice >but what is a "solid state vacuum tube" volt meter ??? I think it works like this--you take a 12AX7, and, using a diamond file, carefully cut the tip off. Fill it with a good polyester resin and glue the tip back on. Absolutely solid! Put that in your Eico! Anyone remember the April Fool's joke article in (IIRC) 73 many years ago that advocated filling vacuum tubes with brine to improve conductivity? Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 16 00:58:42 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 22:58:42 -0700 Subject: Toner as PCB resist (perilously close to OT) In-Reply-To: <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> References: <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <200606152258420147.270CB537@10.0.0.252> On 6/16/2006 at 12:27 AM Scott Quinn wrote: >A while ago (late '80s, early '90s) I heard a suggestion for using copier >toner as PCB etch resist >(draw on paper, copy onto overhead transparencies, iron onto the PCB). >Now that PCB layout software is available easily, as are laser printers, >has anyone here tried >it? I'm wondering how well it would resolve for finer-pitch DIP/SIP >packages, or if the etchant would eat through the traces. I tried it once; it's been a long time and the results weren't wonderful. IIRC, it involved printing onto a transfer medium land then transferring the toner to the PCB blank using a heat sorce like a household flatiron. It was barely adequate for regular DIP. I used a PCB design program on an Atari 540ST (one of the better choices for that kind of stuff in its day). I still have the software, if anyone's interested. Did anyone have better luck with it? Maybe it has a lot ot do with the toner. Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jun 16 01:05:29 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:05:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VOMs (WAS Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked) In-Reply-To: <200606152252360060.27071F3B@10.0.0.252> References: <20060615223459.B83372@shell.lmi.net> <200606152252360060.27071F3B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060615230428.P83372@shell.lmi.net> > >but what is a "solid state vacuum tube" volt meter ??? On Thu, 15 Jun 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I think it works like this--you take a 12AX7, and, using a diamond file, > carefully cut the tip off. Fill it with a good polyester resin and glue > the tip back on. Absolutely solid! Put that in your Eico! Do you have to pay a "hazardous waste disposal fee" when you let the vacuum out? From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Fri Jun 16 01:37:48 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:37:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VME bus for homebrewed CPUs Message-ID: I've been looking for suitable VME stuff to hopefully use to build a Magic-1. I have a cardcage that will hold a 12 slot backplane with J1 and J2. However, the board it came with is an oddball 9-slot deal. Three of the J2 slots have big conductors embedded in them, which makes it look a little like a 13w3 jack. I found a 12-slot backplane with only J1 slots. So, if I understand this correctly, I need a J2 backplane. Can these be had on the used market for a reasonable price? Or can I put another J1 backplane alongside the first and expect that to line up with a VME prototype board? -- 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 hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Jun 16 03:02:50 2006 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 01:02:50 -0700 Subject: Toner as PCB resist (perilously close to OT) References: <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <449265AC.1CF35924@cs.ubc.ca> Scott Quinn wrote: > A while ago (late '80s, early '90s) I heard a suggestion for using copier toner as PCB etch resist > (draw on paper, copy onto overhead transparencies, iron onto the PCB). > Now that PCB layout software is available easily, as are laser printers, has anyone here tried > it? I'm wondering how well it would resolve for finer-pitch DIP/SIP packages, or if the etchant would eat > through the traces. One of the last of the local component retailers around here sells this system: http://www.pulsar.gs/PCB/a_Pages/1_Menu/overview.html It *claims* to have good pitch resolution and the etchant getting through the toner to the traces is supposed to be addressed by the application of a second type of film which adheres to the toner. I've been thinking about trying it, but have yet to do so. It would be worth it if it works, but it's in the category of "ya spends y'r money and takes y'r chances". As a kid in the 70s I made PCBs using the photo-resist technique, but I can't find supplies for that anymore, at least not locally (and it was a tedious process). From RMcCulla at westech-cfi.com Thu Jun 15 12:01:12 2006 From: RMcCulla at westech-cfi.com (Bob McCulla) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 10:01:12 -0700 Subject: Free Motorola DTL?RTL chips Message-ID: <5FF1DAE87C0BD041B74452794F15CC7903BF89@HMD_DC1.Hmdnet.local> OOPS I forgot. The MC679P's are worth $5.00 each to us and we would like to buy some. Bob, rmcculla at dslextreme.com From RMcCulla at westech-cfi.com Thu Jun 15 12:01:11 2006 From: RMcCulla at westech-cfi.com (Bob McCulla) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 10:01:11 -0700 Subject: Free Motorola DTL?RTL chips Message-ID: <5FF1DAE87C0BD041B74452794F15CC7903BF88@HMD_DC1.Hmdnet.local> Hi Tim; Do you have any MC679P chips left? Please let me know. Bob McCulla (562)528-3316 or, rmcculla at westech-cfi.com Regards, Bob From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Thu Jun 15 21:35:01 2006 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 22:35:01 -0400 Subject: Data I/O Series 22 EPROM Programmer help Message-ID: <0J0X001TLLOTMUG7@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Data I/O Series 22 EPROM Programmer help > From: "Ethan Dicks" > Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 13:59:04 +1200 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On 6/14/06, Roy J. Tellason wrote: >> We used to do a LOT of c64 repairs way back when, and every one of those >> beasts had a "906114" PLA in it that as I understand it was an 82S100 part. >> And it was a very common failure item, resulting more often than not in a >> blank screen or perhaps some bizarre display. > >Right... it's the address bus manager, among other things. When it >fails, the CPU can't get to RAM or ROM or the VIC-II, typically. > >> Any idea as to why that should fail so often? > >Thermal death? It's a bi-polar part, not *MOS, and it does run hotter >than the rest of the components. It's bipolar and also programable (fuseable links) and they do have a tendancy to develop shorted paths where they were once "opened". Allison > >-ethan From yo3gts at gmail.com Fri Jun 16 00:13:28 2006 From: yo3gts at gmail.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 07:13:28 +0200 Subject: FREE HD46505 CRT controller chips Message-ID: <44922fe0.085970e3.4b70.ffffc97c@mx.gmail.com> Hello, Dear Sir, I see your offer about HD46505..the CRT controller.I need only 1 pcs for my diploma project. Please help me if you have some lost CI Best regards, Dan. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 16 05:09:25 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 22:09:25 +1200 Subject: Data I/O Series 22 EPROM Programmer help In-Reply-To: <0J0X001TLLOTMUG7@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0J0X001TLLOTMUG7@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: On 6/16/06, Allison wrote: > It's bipolar and also programable (fuseable links) and they do have > a tendancy to develop shorted paths where they were once "opened". Does that mean that one could take a failed part and re-blast it with the original program and return it to service? -ethan From lee at geekdot.com Fri Jun 16 07:01:02 2006 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 14:01:02 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Data I/O Series 22 EPROM Programmer help Message-ID: <4530.86.138.231.62.1150459262.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> >> It's bipolar and also programable (fuseable links) and they do have >> a tendancy to develop shorted paths where they were once "opened". > Does that mean that one could take a failed part and re-blast it with > the original program and return it to service? Yes but the 'repair' may not last as only the regrown fuse will be blown, those about to fail will still do so. Best fix is to use a new device. Lee. From pcw at mesanet.com Fri Jun 16 08:05:01 2006 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 06:05:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VOMs (WAS Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked) In-Reply-To: <200606152252360060.27071F3B@10.0.0.252> References: <20060615223459.B83372@shell.lmi.net> <200606152252360060.27071F3B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: On Thu, 15 Jun 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/15/2006 at 10:37 PM Fred Cisin wrote: > > sounds nice >> but what is a "solid state vacuum tube" volt meter ??? > Something I have on my desk. A Heathkit VTVM with Teledyne a FET module replacing the 12AX7... Peter Wallace From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Fri Jun 16 08:57:20 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 09:57:20 -0400 Subject: Toner as PCB resist (perilously close to OT) In-Reply-To: <449265AC.1CF35924@cs.ubc.ca> References: <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060616093651.058e73b8@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Brent Hilpert may have mentioned these words: >Scott Quinn wrote: > > A while ago (late '80s, early '90s) I heard a suggestion for using > copier toner as PCB etch resist > > (draw on paper, copy onto overhead transparencies, iron onto the PCB). > > Now that PCB layout software is available easily, as are laser > printers, has anyone here tried > > it? I'm wondering how well it would resolve for finer-pitch DIP/SIP > packages, or if the etchant would eat > > through the traces. > >One of the last of the local component retailers around here sells this >system: > >http://www.pulsar.gs/PCB/a_Pages/1_Menu/overview.html > >It *claims* to have good pitch resolution... It's entirely possible - but *getting* that resolution is damn tough... see below: >I've been thinking about trying it, but have yet to do so. It would be worth >it if it works, but it's in the category of "ya spends y'r money and takes >y'r chances". In this case, it's "ya spends y'r money, then ya gots no more money." I spent my money. I spent it again on a photo-resist kit. ;-) From what I understand, you can make it work very well, with 3 things to keep in mind: 1) the stuff was designed a *long* time ago - it does *not* work well with newer laser printers (If it says "MicroFine Toner" beware - AFICT, this toner needs a higher fusing temp. and the media's not able to handle that well.) and certainly not with any color lasers that use fuser oil (read: most of 'em). Use an old LaserJet II at 300DPI, and it should work OK..... if: 2) you keep in mind it's a one-shot-wonder. You can't print a half-page, then save the other half-page for later - once it's been heated by the toner, it's done for. It either gets expensive, or you have to save up your projects for one go. 3) You can precisely control the temperature, pressure & humidity of the heat transfer. The last time I tried it, it took four sheets of the stuff to build a (really basic) 3x3 inch board, and I still had to touch up a few of the traces before etching and one piece of kynar afterwards where the paper bubbled "just a touch" in just the wrong spot due to uneven heating (I'm guessing). Personally, I'd point-to-point solder with fishing line before using the stuff again... >As a kid in the 70s I made PCBs using the photo-resist technique, but I can't >find supplies for that anymore, at least not locally (and it was a tedious >process). This place has a kit, and a *really* good beginners book for it: http://www.circuitspecialists.com/ [[ more specifically: http://www.circuitspecialists.com/prod.itml/icOid/7783 (the book) http://www.circuitspecialists.com/level.itml/icOid/7156 (the hardware) ]] I'd suggest spending a bit more money for the better etchant tank & aquarium heater, and the better exposure lamp. They do sell some toner-transfer paper stuff, but even in the book they say that the product doesn't work well... ;-) They've got about the best prices for presensitized boards I've found, too. [[ No affiliation except a satisfied customer... ]] HTH, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers zmerch at 30below.com What do you do when Life gives you lemons, and you don't *like* lemonade????????????? From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jun 16 08:58:56 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 06:58:56 -0700 Subject: VOMs (WAS Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked) In-Reply-To: <20060615223459.B83372@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: >From: Fred Cisin > >On Fri, 16 Jun 2006, Scott Quinn wrote: > > On this (semi) subject, I vividly remember for a while seeing a > > "solid state VTVM" that had the extremely high input impedance > > of a VTVM/DMM + > >sounds nice >but what is a "solid state vacuum tube" volt meter ??? > > Hi Fred When they first came out with the FET volt meters, they called them solid state VTVM's. Of course this doesn't make sense but they were only trying to indicate that these had the higher input resistance similar to a vacuum tube input. It was just marketing. Dwight From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jun 16 09:34:34 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 07:34:34 -0700 Subject: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060616093651.058e73b8@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: Hi I've been writng some code to transfer disk images to my Olivetti M20. It uses 340K but with the first track being FM while the rest is MFM. I've found a good controller to handle the FM but I'm still having a stepper problems. When I transfer, using the hard drive as the source, things work fine. When I try to transfer from the 1.44M drive, I have to do a lot of Recal's on the 360K drive I'm using. I use DOS to fetch the image from the 1.44M. When I do this, the stepper on the 360k drive can't keep up and it corrupts the position. This requires a Recal to resort the stepper. Even a Read ID doesn't work because it is left partially stepped. How does DOS keep the mixed drives happy? They don't seem to be doing a lot of Recal's when transfering files. I've tried a number of things but I've not found any simple answer. Dwight From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Jun 16 09:46:30 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 10:46:30 -0400 Subject: Toner as PCB resist (perilously close to OT) In-Reply-To: <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> References: <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <200606161046.30725.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 16 June 2006 01:27 am, Scott Quinn wrote: > A while ago (late '80s, early '90s) I heard a suggestion for using copier > toner as PCB etch resist (draw on paper, copy onto overhead transparencies, > iron onto the PCB). Now that PCB layout software is available easily, as > are laser printers, has anyone here tried it? I'm wondering how well it > would resolve for finer-pitch DIP/SIP packages, or if the etchant would eat > through the traces. This _is_ being done, and the technique is called "toner transfer" if I'm remembering right. There were a couple of yahoo groups that were devoted to this very subject. The two tricky aspects of doing this were getting the right paper, so that toner adhesion would be good and transfer to the copper would be also, and you of course want to remove the paper at some point and leave the toner behind, and also applying sufficient heat and in a consistent way to make the transfer happen and adhesion good. A few people were using the fuser portion of an otherwise defunct laser printer to do the actual transfer part, and getting good results, as well as a few other things. A search on "toner transfer" in yahoo groups should turn some things up... -- 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 Jun 16 09:47:18 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 10:47:18 -0400 Subject: VOMs (WAS Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked) In-Reply-To: <20060615223459.B83372@shell.lmi.net> References: <20060615223459.B83372@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200606161047.18066.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 16 June 2006 01:37 am, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Fri, 16 Jun 2006, Scott Quinn wrote: > > On this (semi) subject, I vividly remember for a while seeing a > > "solid state VTVM" that had the extremely high input impedance > > of a VTVM/DMM + > > sounds nice > but what is a "solid state vacuum tube" volt meter ??? Uses a transistor setup of some kind, or more likely a FET, rather than a tube... I wouldn't mind having one. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Jun 16 09:49:55 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 10:49:55 -0400 Subject: Data I/O Series 22 EPROM Programmer help In-Reply-To: <0J0X001TLLOTMUG7@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0J0X001TLLOTMUG7@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <200606161049.55233.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 15 June 2006 10:35 pm, Allison wrote: > >> Any idea as to why that should fail so often? > > > >Thermal death? It's a bi-polar part, not *MOS, and it does run hotter > >than the rest of the components. > > It's bipolar and also programable (fuseable links) and they do have > a tendancy to develop shorted paths where they were once "opened". Ah, I didn't know about that last 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 rtellason at verizon.net Fri Jun 16 09:48:19 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 10:48:19 -0400 Subject: Toner as PCB resist (perilously close to OT) In-Reply-To: <200606152258420147.270CB537@10.0.0.252> References: <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> <200606152258420147.270CB537@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606161048.19926.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 16 June 2006 01:58 am, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Did anyone have better luck with it? Maybe it has a lot ot do with the > toner. Actually from what I read the paper is the key. And using a flatiron isn't the best choice to heat the stuff, 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 drb at msu.edu Fri Jun 16 10:12:23 2006 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 11:12:23 -0400 Subject: Toner as PCB resist (perilously close to OT) In-Reply-To: (Your message of Fri, 16 Jun 2006 00:27:57 CDT.) <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> References: <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <200606161512.k5GFCN52023304@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > A while ago (late '80s, early '90s) I heard a suggestion for using > copier toner as PCB etch resist (draw on paper, copy onto overhead > transparencies, iron onto the PCB). Now that PCB layout software is > available easily, as are laser printers, has anyone here tried it? I'm > wondering how well it would resolve for finer-pitch DIP/SIP packages, > or if the etchant would eat through the traces. A friend and I are trying to build some surface mount boards using this concept right now. We're working from notes here: http://www.fullnet.com/u/tomg/gooteepc.htm It's tricky at best. We seem to be having trouble with getting the toner to stick where single lines are a ways from other stuff. I'm looking into alternate papers, different printer, etc. We haven't tried etching yet, so I can't speak to whether we'll have problems with the etchant eating into the fine lines. De From kth at srv.net Fri Jun 16 10:29:15 2006 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 09:29:15 -0600 Subject: Toner as PCB resist (perilously close to OT) In-Reply-To: <200606152258420147.270CB537@10.0.0.252> References: <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> <200606152258420147.270CB537@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4492CE4B.1010703@srv.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: >On 6/16/2006 at 12:27 AM Scott Quinn wrote: > > > >>A while ago (late '80s, early '90s) I heard a suggestion for using copier >>toner as PCB etch resist >>(draw on paper, copy onto overhead transparencies, iron onto the PCB). >>Now that PCB layout software is available easily, as are laser printers, >>has anyone here tried >>it? I'm wondering how well it would resolve for finer-pitch DIP/SIP >>packages, or if the etchant would eat through the traces. >> >> > >I tried it once; it's been a long time and the results weren't wonderful. >IIRC, it involved printing onto a transfer medium land then transferring >the toner to the PCB blank using a heat sorce like a household flatiron. >It was barely adequate for regular DIP. I used a PCB design program on an >Atari 540ST (one of the better choices for that kind of stuff in its day). >I still have the software, if anyone's interested. > >Did anyone have better luck with it? Maybe it has a lot ot do with the >toner. > > I think people found it worked better to print the circuit on mylar, then use the regular photo-resist-etch method. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 16 10:30:11 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 08:30:11 -0700 Subject: Toner as PCB resist (perilously close to OT) In-Reply-To: <200606161512.k5GFCN52023304@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> <200606161512.k5GFCN52023304@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <200606160830110062.2917EA04@10.0.0.252> On 6/16/2006 at 11:12 AM Dennis Boone wrote: >It's tricky at best. We seem to be having trouble with getting the >toner to stick where single lines are a ways from other stuff. I'm >looking into alternate papers, different printer, etc. > >We haven't tried etching yet, so I can't speak to whether we'll have >problems with the etchant eating into the fine lines. I for one would be very interested to hear if and how you were able to get good fine-resolution PCB traces with this system. When I tried it, it was still being trotted out as an idea and it was very much inferior to the photoresist process. BTW, photo sensitized clad board is still available, but it's not cheap. These folks bought the assets of Kepro: http://www.dalpro.net/ Given some of the prices for boards and chemicals, it might be quite a bit cheaper to send the artwork out to be prototyped. Cheers, Chuck From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Fri Jun 16 10:41:22 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 16:41:22 +0100 Subject: Toner as PCB resist (perilously close to OT) In-Reply-To: <200606161048.19926.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> <200606152258420147.270CB537@10.0.0.252> <200606161048.19926.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <7d1bf3374e.philpem@dsl.pipex.com> In message <200606161048.19926.rtellason at verizon.net> "Roy J. Tellason" wrote: > Actually from what I read the paper is the key. And using a flatiron isn't > the best choice to heat the stuff, either... Apparently the best way is to steal a fuser out of a broken LJ2 or LJ3, wire up a temperature controller and use that to melt the toner onto the copper. I've been using Staples inkjet photo paper, but it seems they've switched suppliers and the new stuff doesn't work for TT at all. It didn't even work properly when I used it with the inkjet to print some photos off - the ink just smeared straight off (even after half an hour drying in a warm room). -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G VF+UniPod philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 1G+180G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Fri Jun 16 10:46:43 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 16:46:43 +0100 Subject: Toner as PCB resist (perilously close to OT) In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060616093651.058e73b8@mail.30below.com> References: <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060616093651.058e73b8@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: In message <5.1.0.14.2.20060616093651.058e73b8 at mail.30below.com> Roger Merchberger wrote: > 2) you keep in mind it's a one-shot-wonder. You can't print a half-page, > then save the other half-page for later - once it's been heated by the > toner, it's done for. It either gets expensive, or you have to save up your > projects for one go. Oh yes you can! 1) Print the PCB layout onto a sheet of blank paper 2) Cut a piece of transfer material to the size of the printed layout, plus about half an inch on each side 3) Use a laser printer label to stick the transfer material onto the paper 4) Load the paper into the printer's manual feeder and reprint the layout onto it. That's what I've done with Press-n-Peel and the Staples photo paper (which used to work until they changed supplier), and it's never done any damage to my printer. Just make sure you use laser printer labels, not ordinary type-on / write-on labels. Unless, that is, you enjoy the idea of removing very sticky glue from your printer's imaging drum and transfer rollers... -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G VF+UniPod philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 1G+180G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 16 11:05:29 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 09:05:29 -0700 Subject: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606160905290227.29383C1A@10.0.0.252> Dwight, DOS (actually the BIOS) uses a table with an entry for each drive to indicate several things like specify bytes (which sets stepping rates). Later 5.25" drives tend to step at 6 ms per cylinder, although some older drives (e.g. SA400) require longer than that. 3.5" drives typically can step at 3-4 msec. per track. It doesn't hurt a drive to step it more slowly than the manufacturer specifies, but it does tend to increase the noise level. As a quick fix, you may simply want to slow everything down. What's the FDC chip in the M20? Cheers, Chuck From nico at farumdata.dk Fri Jun 16 11:52:16 2006 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 18:52:16 +0200 Subject: Floppy stepping problem References: <200606160905290227.29383C1A@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <003001c69165$396850e0$2101a8c0@finans> Subject: Re: Floppy stepping problem > DOS (actually the BIOS) uses a table with an entry for each drive to > indicate several things like specify bytes (which sets stepping rates). > Later 5.25" drives tend to step at 6 ms per cylinder, although some older > drives (e.g. SA400) require longer than that. 3.5" drives typically can > step at 3-4 msec. per track. > > It doesn't hurt a drive to step it more slowly than the manufacturer > specifies, but it does tend to increase the noise level. As a quick fix, > you may simply want to slow everything down. > Years ago I experimented with the MicroSolutions Compaticard 4. The documentation included some tables showing how to change the stepping rate. This was especially important for 8" drives, as I recall. The experiments were made a necessity, as I had to read some funny CP/M disks, and it showed that the BIOS's embedded in newer systems (I'm now speaking of 486/50's etc) could not read 180 KB and 160 KB disks anymore, not to speak of 8" disks. The compaticard solved my problems; I could even generate a bootable 8" disk for DOS 3.20 Nico From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Jun 16 12:12:27 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 13:12:27 -0400 Subject: Toner as PCB resist (perilously close to OT) In-Reply-To: <200606161046.30725.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> <200606161046.30725.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200606161312.27298.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 16 June 2006 10:46 am, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Friday 16 June 2006 01:27 am, Scott Quinn wrote: > > A while ago (late '80s, early '90s) I heard a suggestion for using copier > > toner as PCB etch resist (draw on paper, copy onto overhead > > transparencies, iron onto the PCB). Now that PCB layout software is > > available easily, as are laser printers, has anyone here tried it? I'm > > wondering how well it would resolve for finer-pitch DIP/SIP packages, or > > if the etchant would eat through the traces. > > This _is_ being done, and the technique is called "toner transfer" if I'm > remembering right. There were a couple of yahoo groups that were devoted > to this very subject. I asked, and got pointed to Homebrew_PCBs at yahoogroups.com which I'd forgotten about... Hopefully there will be some folks in there who are actually doing it, and can provide better info than my faulty recollections. :-) -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 16 13:05:14 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 11:05:14 -0700 Subject: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: <003001c69165$396850e0$2101a8c0@finans> References: <200606160905290227.29383C1A@10.0.0.252> <003001c69165$396850e0$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: <200606161105140080.29A5E0BE@10.0.0.252> On 6/16/2006 at 6:52 PM Nico de Jong wrote: >The experiments were made a necessity, as I had to read some funny CP/M >disks, and it showed that the BIOS's embedded in newer systems (I'm now >speaking of 486/50's etc) could not read 180 KB and 160 KB disks anymore, >not to speak of 8" disks. I think it's more like the BIOSes can, but their CMOS setup programs don't know the first thing about anything about older drives. I suspect that the DPB for any drive can be modified even in a modern PC to step at any rate the FDC is capable of. I've got some old Micropolis 100 tpi 5.25' drives that require a full 30 msec. track-to-track. Cheers, Chuck From drb at msu.edu Fri Jun 16 13:22:59 2006 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 14:22:59 -0400 Subject: vtserver issues Message-ID: <200606161822.k5GIMxRA030521@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Dear all, I'm trying to image a pair of RD54s in a recently acquired machine, before doing anything that might break the installed OS. I'm using vtserver, as I lack other means of doing this right now. Since the RD54 is ~160 MB drive, I'm up against the vtserver 32 MB limit. I found Jonathan Engdahl's patches for vtserver which modify the protocol to allow larger files, and I'm running those. But that package doesn't include modified a standalone copy. A note on this page: http://home.alltel.net/engdahl/vtserver.htm says that modified standalones are available in the 2.9BSD-MSCP package, but best I can tell those are the byte-for-byte identical to the ones in the base Toomey vtserver package. So, does anyone have a standalone "copy" with the large file protocol modifications for vtserver? Thanks, De From vp at drexel.edu Fri Jun 16 13:16:54 2006 From: vp at drexel.edu (Vassilis PREVELAKIS) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 14:16:54 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked Message-ID: <200606161816.k5GIGs2t002253@dune.cs.drexel.edu> Don Y wrote: > Problem with most logic analyzers is getting all the microhooks > (or easyhooks) that go with it. Without having to sell a kidney! Actually the problem (as many people have stated before) is getting the *probes*. These are hard to replace because the often contain proprietary chips. If you have the probes, getting replacement cabling and hooks is usually easy, suppliers like DigiKey carry these. **vp From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net Fri Jun 16 13:49:04 2006 From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (David Woyciesjes) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 14:49:04 -0400 Subject: ForSale: Various (off-topic?) PC parts New Haven CT area. Message-ID: <4492FD20.1010902@sbcglobal.net> I'm having a tag sale at my house this weekend, rain or shine. Saturday 8am - 1pm & Sunday 8am - 1pm at 93 Quaker Road, Hamden CT. PCI & some ISA cards, a couple motherboards, probably some CD drives, and other items. Everything worked when I pulled it from use. It's from the Pentium 166 - PIII-500 era. Some Mac accessories are up for sale too. I think I may even have a Digital Equipment Multia for sale too. Small 166 MHz Alpha CPU box. Not a screamer, but very neat nonetheless. Let me know (directly) if your looking for something specific, and if I have it, I could hold it for you. -- --- Dave Woyciesjes --- ICQ# 905818 --- AIM - woyciesjes From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 16 14:17:38 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 12:17:38 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606161816.k5GIGs2t002253@dune.cs.drexel.edu> References: <200606161816.k5GIGs2t002253@dune.cs.drexel.edu> Message-ID: <449303D2.9080600@DakotaCom.Net> Vassilis PREVELAKIS wrote: > Don Y wrote: >> Problem with most logic analyzers is getting all the microhooks >> (or easyhooks) that go with it. Without having to sell a kidney! > > Actually the problem (as many people have stated before) is getting > the *probes*. These are hard to replace because the often contain > proprietary chips. If you have the probes, getting replacement > cabling and hooks is usually easy, suppliers like DigiKey carry > these. In my case, I *have* the probes. But, purchasing 200 microhooks may be *easy* but it is not *cheap*! From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Jun 16 14:48:01 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 15:48:01 -0400 Subject: OT: New yahoo group Message-ID: <200606161542.54509.rtellason@verizon.net> I kept bumping into situations where things were getting discussed that just didn't seem to fit in with the topic of the group that they were taking place in, and ad-hoc email arrangements where people ended up cc'ing each other all over the place with large file attachments and so forth, a very clumsy situation to try and deal with generally (I'd hit "R" and reply to one person instead of the group, etc.) so while in the process of griping about this in a message last night I just went ahead and started a group to deal with this sort of a situation. Feel free to jump on in and post stuff that would be OT in here, if you like. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/roys-tech-chat/join -- 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 Fri Jun 16 15:18:21 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 13:18:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VOMs (WAS Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060616131647.F30688@shell.lmi.net> > >but what is a "solid state vacuum tube" volt meter ??? On Fri, 16 Jun 2006, dwight elvey wrote: > When they first came out with the FET volt meters, they called them > solid state VTVM's. Of course this doesn't make sense but they were > only trying to indicate that these had the higher input resistance similar > to a vacuum tube input. > It was just marketing. AH! The marketing people decided that an FET was a "solid state vacuum tube" I shouldn't have taken it so literally. Thanks, -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Jun 16 15:37:51 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 16:37:51 -0400 Subject: VOMs (WAS Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked) In-Reply-To: <20060616131647.F30688@shell.lmi.net> References: <20060616131647.F30688@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200606161637.51251.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 16 June 2006 04:18 pm, Fred Cisin wrote: > > >but what is a "solid state vacuum tube" volt meter ??? > > On Fri, 16 Jun 2006, dwight elvey wrote: > > When they first came out with the FET volt meters, they called them > > solid state VTVM's. Of course this doesn't make sense but they were > > only trying to indicate that these had the higher input resistance > > similar to a vacuum tube input. > > It was just marketing. > > AH! The marketing people decided that an FET was a > "solid state vacuum tube" > > I shouldn't have taken it so literally. > > Thanks, > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com Well, shoot! Ain't a vacuum tube really also a "hollow-state FET"? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 16 16:53:40 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 22:53:40 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <4491F041.8010003@jetnet.ab.ca> from "woodelf" at Jun 15, 6 05:41:53 pm Message-ID: > Heck I was thinking of Ne bulbs for a computer. :) I seem to remember that Lindsay Books have reprinted at least one old book on making neon signs :-)... More seriously, there is a useful book called 'Cold Cathode Tube Circuit Design' that contains circuits for using neon bulbs as counters and shift registers. However, I don't think this book has been reprinted, and it's not cheap second-hand (no, my copy is not for sale!) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 16 16:56:51 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 22:56:51 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: <4492035D.6060805@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jun 15, 6 06:03:25 pm Message-ID: > I like prototyping in foil. It seems like I always end up needing > a second (or third) copy of a design for some reason. And, having > to hand wire a second (or third!) is really not fun. Ah, I build the first prototype 'by hand' because it's so much easier to design/debug that way. The second (and ) go on real PCBs... > And, for $WORK, I learned that no matter WHAT the client says, > he'll ALWAYS want a second prototype for some reason. :-( (Un?)fortunately in a lot of cases for me, the only client is myself. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 16 16:59:42 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 22:59:42 +0100 (BST) Subject: Another SX-64 problem for the group. In-Reply-To: from "dwight elvey" at Jun 15, 6 06:17:35 pm Message-ID: > I suspect you may find one or more bad parts. If you're > expecting an answer like C34 or U26, you have a lot to learn. > Might as well start now. Exactly. There are few, if any, 'stock faults' on classic computers. A blank screen (or whatever) can be caused by a lot of different things. Maybe some ware more likely than others, but you still have to do the tests to find out what has actually failed. Another thing that a lot of people (not on this list, I hope :-)) don't realise is that there's no 'magic box' that you plug into a computer (or anything else) that tells you what's failed. Test equipemnt is essential, but in the end, _you_ have to interpret those readings to work out what the problem is. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 16 17:01:43 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 23:01:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: Data I/O Series 22 EPROM Programmer help In-Reply-To: <0J0X001TLLOTMUG7@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> from "Allison" at Jun 15, 6 10:35:01 pm Message-ID: [82S100 PLA] > It's bipolar and also programable (fuseable links) and they do have > a tendancy to develop shorted paths where they were once "opened". Yes, but why is it such a problem in the C64 (and SX64?) Is it just that so many of those machines were sold that if only 0.1% of them fail it's still a lot of dead chips? The 82S100 was used in a lot of other things (including the PDP11/44 IIRC), and you don't hear about those failing all the time. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 16 17:29:51 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 23:29:51 +0100 (BST) Subject: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: from "dwight elvey" at Jun 16, 6 07:34:34 am Message-ID: > > Hi > I've been writng some code to transfer disk images to my Olivetti > M20. It uses 340K but with the first track being FM while the > rest is MFM. I've found a good controller to handle the FM but > I'm still having a stepper problems. > When I transfer, using the hard drive as the source, things work > fine. When I try to transfer from the 1.44M drive, I have to do a > lot of Recal's on the 360K drive I'm using. I use DOS to fetch the > image from the 1.44M. When I do this, the stepper on the 360k > drive can't keep up and it corrupts the position. This requires a A silly question. Are you telling the floppy controller chip which drive you're using when you wrote your own code. I don't mean selecting the drive with the I/O port that controls the drive select and the motor-on lines, I mean when you send a command to the FDC, you also include the drive number there. The reason is that the FDC (should?) keep a separate track position for each drive, and will use the approprtiate one when you issue a seek, etc. If you're telling the FDC that your 360K drive is drive 0 when it isn't, accesses to the 1.44M drive (the real drive 0, I assume) will change where the controller thinks the head is on the 360K drive. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 16 17:09:57 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 23:09:57 +0100 (BST) Subject: VOMs (WAS Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer In-Reply-To: from "Scott Quinn" at Jun 16, 6 00:23:45 am Message-ID: > response with an analog output. Now, all I see are the "classic" passive VOMs. > What happened to the VTVMS? were they "not necessary"? I'd possibly be worried about I think they got replaced by DMMs... > meter loading messing up some computer circuits with a passive VOM (10-20k vs 10M > meter resistance). Most good classic VOMs are 20000 Ohms/Volt, which is a cryptic way of saying they take 50UA to get the needle all the way across the scale :-). In other words, on the 5V range (if you have one), the resistance is 100k, on the 10V range it's 200k, and so on. I wouldn't worry about that sort of extra load on the PSU lines or buses of a classic computer (at least one not decigned to be very low power). Probing around a crystal oscillator circuit might be another story, but stray capacitance would cause problems there anyhow. Note that most RMMs (and VTVMs) are 10M ohms input impedance, no matter what voltage range you set them to. Which means, actually, a VOM on the 1000V range probably takes less current than a DMM. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 16 17:11:29 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 23:11:29 +0100 (BST) Subject: VOMs (WAS Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer In-Reply-To: <20060615230428.P83372@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jun 15, 6 11:05:29 pm Message-ID: > Do you have to pay a "hazardous waste disposal fee" when you let the > vacuum out? No. In fact as a small amount of polution goes into the device in place of the vacuum, they should be paying you. -tony From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Jun 16 18:00:48 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 17:00:48 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44933820.4080501@jetnet.ab.ca> Tony Duell wrote: >>Heck I was thinking of Ne bulbs for a computer. :) > > > I seem to remember that Lindsay Books have reprinted at least one old > book on making neon signs :-)... Ok ... A neon bulb for 'One' and 'Zero' that flashes on and off. > More seriously, there is a useful book called 'Cold Cathode Tube Circuit > Design' that contains circuits for using neon bulbs as counters and shift > registers. However, I don't think this book has been reprinted, and it's > not cheap second-hand (no, my copy is not for sale!) Since you got more books than me, Do you have anything on the frequency response of 0b2 voltage regulator with the standard .01 uf bi-pass cap? I was hopeing to use a few in my latest amp? > -tony > > . > From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Jun 16 18:07:45 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 19:07:45 -0400 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <44933820.4080501@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <44933820.4080501@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200606161907.45991.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 16 June 2006 07:00 pm, woodelf wrote: > Tony Duell wrote: > >>Heck I was thinking of Ne bulbs for a computer. :) > > > > I seem to remember that Lindsay Books have reprinted at least one old > > book on making neon signs :-)... > > Ok ... A neon bulb for 'One' and 'Zero' that flashes on and off. > > > More seriously, there is a useful book called 'Cold Cathode Tube Circuit > > Design' that contains circuits for using neon bulbs as counters and shift > > registers. However, I don't think this book has been reprinted, and it's > > not cheap second-hand (no, my copy is not for sale!) > > Since you got more books than me, Do you have anything on the > frequency response of 0b2 voltage regulator with the standard .01 uf > bi-pass cap? I was hopeing to use a few in my latest amp? I don't recall anything about the frequency response of those, but you might find the datasheet helpful, which can be accessed at my tubes page, at: http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/tubes.html and I also happen to be downloading a bunch of related material from here: http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/oldbooks.html some of which might help... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 16 18:14:24 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 16:14:24 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606161614240799.2AC0EFC4@10.0.0.252> On 6/16/2006 at 10:53 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >More seriously, there is a useful book called 'Cold Cathode Tube Circuit >Design' that contains circuits for using neon bulbs as counters and shift >registers. However, I don't think this book has been reprinted, and it's >not cheap second-hand (no, my copy is not for sale!) How about this one? Search engines are wonderful--my search term was "neon multivibrator": http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/oldbooks.html Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 16 18:53:56 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 16:53:56 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <44933820.4080501@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <44933820.4080501@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200606161653560794.2AE52147@10.0.0.252> On 6/16/2006 at 5:00 PM woodelf wrote: >Since you got more books than me, Do you have anything on the >frequency response of 0b2 voltage regulator with the standard .01 uf >bi-pass cap? I was hopeing to use a few in my latest amp? It's not above medium audio frequencies. (a few KHz at best). The odd thing about gas-discharge tubes is that they work at all by sheer probability. If you can exclude all external and internal radiation (e.g. gamma particles, light), a neon bulb won't fire at a voltage anywhere near its spec-sheet level. The ionization avalanche needs an energetic particle or photon to get it started. That's why neon bulbs fire at higher voltages in a dark room than in a lit one. Manufacturers put a bit of radioactive material (sometimes Krypton 85) in the gas mix to even things out. Very old gas diodes tend to operate a bit more unpredictably than new ones because a fair amount of the ionizing trigger material has decayed. The curious upshot then, is that the time from the application of voltage to the full ionization of a gas diode isn't consistent. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 16 19:40:14 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 17:40:14 -0700 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44934F6E.5070704@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: >> And, for $WORK, I learned that no matter WHAT the client says, >> he'll ALWAYS want a second prototype for some reason. :-( > > (Un?)fortunately in a lot of cases for me, the only client is myself. I've found that one to be the MOST demanding! ;-) From david_comley at yahoo.com Fri Jun 16 20:52:06 2006 From: david_comley at yahoo.com (David Comley) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 18:52:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff / elektor In-Reply-To: <003101c68ff3$0e165f90$c901a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: <20060617015206.87350.qmail@web30610.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I remember the articles for the PE champ in Practical Electronics. I was desperate to build one but at the time I had neither the expertise nor the funds to build it - if memory serves me correctly the CHAMP was constructed on Veroboard with heaps of cross-board wiring. A few years back I again considered building one, but the challenge today lies in obtaining many of the rarer parts. Still - maybe someone has a completed CHAMP project out there somewhere ? -Dave --- Antonio Carlini wrote: > >Do you also rememebr the PE CHAMP (along with the > CHAMPprog and > CHAMPUV)? > > That brings back memories (no pun intended :-)). I > remember thinking > "that's neat" and then within a few months ETI > one-upped it several > Times over by starting an 8080 design (at least I > think it was 8080, > Certainly it was 8-bits). Some time later PE came > out with the UK101. > > I'm pretty sure I have all the PE articles for both > of those around > Somewhere and possibly the ETI ones (I used to buy > PE every month from > About 1978 to the late 1980s; ETI I just bought when > it looked worth > it). > > Antonio > > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jun 16 21:23:54 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 19:23:54 -0700 Subject: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: <200606160905290227.29383C1A@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: >From: "Chuck Guzis" >Dwight, > >DOS (actually the BIOS) uses a table with an entry for each drive to >indicate several things like specify bytes (which sets stepping rates). >Later 5.25" drives tend to step at 6 ms per cylinder, although some older >drives (e.g. SA400) require longer than that. 3.5" drives typically can >step at 3-4 msec. per track. > >It doesn't hurt a drive to step it more slowly than the manufacturer >specifies, but it does tend to increase the noise level. As a quick fix, >you may simply want to slow everything down. > >What's the FDC chip in the M20? > >Cheers, >Chuck > > Hi I've had no problems setting the step rate for the drive by writing directly to the PC controller. The problem has been that when I use DOS's routines to access the imgae file, it overwrites what I put into the disk controller. This wouldn't be an issue if it were not for the fact that both drives seem to be stepping at the same time when doing a seek. I thought that once the motor was turned off, the drive wouldn't step. This doesn't seem to be the case. I did some research and found that DOS uses values stored in a table that is pointed to by interrupt location 1E. I'll change this to run at the slower rate. This is called the "Disk Base Table". I'm not sure what this matters but the Olivetti M20 uses a WD1791 with a WD1691 chip. I can create M20 floppies with my PC using the hard drive. My problem is if I use the other floppy as the source. Some of the people that will be using my code may not have a hard drive to run from. Many that have 360K drives are floppy based systems. I'll see what changing the parameters in the table does. It should help. I'll report back with the results. Dwight From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jun 16 21:32:47 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 19:32:47 -0700 Subject: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) ---snip--- > >A silly question. Are you telling the floppy controller chip which drive >you're using when you wrote your own code. I don't mean selecting the >drive with the I/O port that controls the drive select and the motor-on >lines, I mean when you send a command to the FDC, you also include the >drive number there. > >The reason is that the FDC (should?) keep a separate track position for >each drive, and will use the approprtiate one when you issue a seek, etc. >If you're telling the FDC that your 360K drive is drive 0 when it isn't, >accesses to the 1.44M drive (the real drive 0, I assume) will change >where the controller thinks the head is on the 360K drive. > >-tony > Hi Tony Yes, I do both. I'll need to experiment some more. Like I said, I'm doing fine as long as I only use floppy to hard drive or hard drive to floppy. It is when I do floppy to floppy that things don't work as expected. One other thing, other than changing the DBT as mentioned in the other post, I don't currently use the DOS table that keeps track of which drive was last on, although I do modify the drive timeout value( as is needed ). Dwight From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Jun 16 21:37:27 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 22:37:27 -0400 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606161653560794.2AE52147@10.0.0.252> References: <44933820.4080501@jetnet.ab.ca> <200606161653560794.2AE52147@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606162237.27707.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 16 June 2006 07:53 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/16/2006 at 5:00 PM woodelf wrote: > >Since you got more books than me, Do you have anything on the > >frequency response of 0b2 voltage regulator with the standard .01 uf > >bi-pass cap? I was hopeing to use a few in my latest amp? > > It's not above medium audio frequencies. (a few KHz at best). > > The odd thing about gas-discharge tubes is that they work at all by sheer > probability. > > If you can exclude all external and internal radiation (e.g. gamma > particles, light), a neon bulb won't fire at a voltage anywhere near its > spec-sheet level. The ionization avalanche needs an energetic particle or > photon to get it started. That's why neon bulbs fire at higher voltages in > a dark room than in a lit one. Manufacturers put a bit of radioactive > material (sometimes Krypton 85) in the gas mix to even things out. Very > old gas diodes tend to operate a bit more unpredictably than new ones > because a fair amount of the ionizing trigger material has decayed. > > The curious upshot then, is that the time from the application of voltage > to the full ionization of a gas diode isn't consistent. I find those parts interesting, anyhow. Which is why I've got myself an OC3 tube here, and some neons, to play with one of 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 rcini at optonline.net Fri Jun 16 21:52:18 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 22:52:18 -0400 Subject: New acquisition: Powerbook 540c Message-ID: <006801c691b9$0c2b9d40$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: I just got my hands on a Mac Powerbook 540c, a 68LC040 version (the last I believe). It seems to be in good condition with 12mb of RAM and a 230mb hard drive, but didn't come with any cables. So, I'm looking to accessorize a bit: I'd like a SCSI cable (HDI-30 to SCSI1 or SCSI2), more memory, and maybe a battery. If anyone has some spares/accessories they'd be willing to part with for a few $$$ and my eternal gratitude, please contact me off-list. Thanks! Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ From spectre at floodgap.com Fri Jun 16 22:45:56 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 20:45:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: New acquisition: Powerbook 540c In-Reply-To: <006801c691b9$0c2b9d40$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> from "Richard A. Cini" at "Jun 16, 6 10:52:18 pm" Message-ID: <200606170345.k5H3ju1t005248@floodgap.com> > I just got my hands on a Mac Powerbook 540c, a 68LC040 version > (the last I believe). No, a few followed. The 550 came after, sporting a real full 040, but only in Japan. The last 68K PowerBook is the 190, an LC040 which is the same generation as the much-maligned 5300 (which is a compromised design but not all THAT bad). I have a 540c myself, and it's a very nice little 'Book. For the generation, the multimedia features are very good. My favourite PowerBook of all time remains the 1400, however. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- 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 healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jun 16 23:19:36 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 21:19:36 -0700 Subject: New acquisition: Powerbook 540c In-Reply-To: <006801c691b9$0c2b9d40$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <006801c691b9$0c2b9d40$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: At 10:52 PM -0400 6/16/06, Richard A. Cini wrote: > I just got my hands on a Mac Powerbook 540c, a 68LC040 version >(the last I believe). It seems to be in good condition with 12mb of RAM and >a 230mb hard drive, but didn't come with any cables. So, I'm looking to >accessorize a bit: I'd like a SCSI cable (HDI-30 to SCSI1 or SCSI2), more >memory, and maybe a battery. You now have one of the greatest laptops ever made! I bought a 520c new, and later after its screen had died I picked up a 540c used. I still use the system occasionally. Is it possible to still get batteries that work for these systems? I'd really love to be able to better use my 540c for when I'm writing. Eventually I would like to get either a clamshell iBook, or a semi-modern Thinkpad to replace it (though I'll still keep it around for floppies). Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 17 00:27:00 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 22:27:00 -0700 Subject: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606162227000727.2C160B7F@10.0.0.252> Okay, I misunderstood--I thought you were doing this with your M20. Yes, the simplest way is to change the pointer to the DBT, rather than the DBT contents themselves. Change the table pointer, then do a diskette reset (AH=00) to make sure that the BIOS routines notice. Unless you 've got your drive jumpers set wrong, though, a drive should only step when selected (the motor state doesn't matter--most drives will step with the motor off or on). I'm assuming that you're running in real-mode DOS, not trying to run under a virtualized DOS command prompt session in Windoze. Starting with W95 OSR2, Windows uses its own floppy VXD that has its own peculiarities. Cheers, Chuck From nico at farumdata.dk Sat Jun 17 01:07:37 2006 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 08:07:37 +0200 Subject: QIC-80 peculiarities was Re: Floppy stepping problem References: <200606162227000727.2C160B7F@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <002501c691d4$558dd2d0$2101a8c0@finans> From: "Chuck Guzis" > I'm assuming that you're running in real-mode DOS, not trying to run under > a virtualized DOS command prompt session in Windoze. Starting with W95 > OSR2, Windows uses its own floppy VXD that has its own peculiarities. > One of my conversion systems, http://www.farumdata.dk/uk/enserv.asp , runs as Windows 2000 or DOS 3.something. The DOS is used only for accessing the Irwin Rhomat drive (connected to the floppy controller as drive B), as I cant get it to work under Windows. Could the thing you mentioned above, be the reason for it ? Nico From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 17 01:25:51 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 23:25:51 -0700 Subject: QIC-80 peculiarities was Re: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: <002501c691d4$558dd2d0$2101a8c0@finans> References: <200606162227000727.2C160B7F@10.0.0.252> <002501c691d4$558dd2d0$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: <200606162325510549.2C4BEB5C@10.0.0.252> On 6/17/2006 at 8:07 AM Nico de Jong wrote: >One of my conversion systems, http://www.farumdata.dk/uk/enserv.asp , runs >as Windows 2000 or DOS 3.something. The DOS is used only for accessing the >Irwin Rhomat drive (connected to the floppy controller as drive B), as I >cant get it to work under Windows. >Could the thing you mentioned above, be the reason for it ? Almost certainly. Win2K/NT/XP has a very lame VDD to convert some simple port accesses to diskette driver commands, but it doesn't try very hard. When we offer our conversion software for 2K/XP, we have a special kernel-mode device driver to handle it. This is also the reason that you can't read a floppy under XP/2K if it doesn't have a DOS boot sector on it--the floppy driver actually reads the boot sector to figure out how it should set things up. A better VDD for Windows might help 16-bit programs that attempt to directly access the FDC, but it would do nothing for 32-bit programs. Cheers, Chuck From djg at pdp8.net Sat Jun 17 09:01:12 2006 From: djg at pdp8.net (djg at pdp8.net) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 10:01:12 -0400 Subject: display scope options Message-ID: <200606171401.k5HE1CM09905@user-119apiu.biz.mindspring.com> > What options would I have for some kind of display scope for my PDP-8/e? > I have a VC8/I-like point plot controller that I built last spring and I > want a display for it. > The manuals I have list the Tek 602 (shows up on ebay cheap), Tek RM503 along with the DEC VR14. The 602 is a smallish scope size screen XYZ monitor. The 602 needs some components changed to use it (resistors and capacitors). If you need the info email me. Tek made a bunch of different models which others will probably work but don't know which specific ones. Don't know what the persistance of the 602 is. I also found a reference to using a storage monitor so picked up a Tek 611 (613 similar). It is a bigger screen. Haven't actually tried it yet though. It can be used storage or non storage. Storage tubes tended to not be very durable. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Jun 17 11:25:37 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 09:25:37 -0700 Subject: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: <200606162227000727.2C160B7F@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: >From: "Chuck Guzis" > >Okay, I misunderstood--I thought you were doing this with your M20. > >Yes, the simplest way is to change the pointer to the DBT, rather than the >DBT contents themselves. Change the table pointer, then do a diskette >reset (AH=00) to make sure that the BIOS routines notice. > >Unless you 've got your drive jumpers set wrong, though, a drive should >only step when selected (the motor state doesn't matter--most drives will >step with the motor off or on). > Hi Chuck The 360K floppy I have, only has the drive select jumpers. I've tried changing the DBT and using Int 13 but it is still not working. I guess I'll just have to live with it. It is working, it is just that when the 1.44M goes to another track, I have to recal the 360K drive. Noisy and takes some time but it does work. It doesn't seem to corrupt the 1.44M when the 360K steps so I'd think that drive is ignoring the steps as it should. The 1.44 does seem to be making the slower steps after the Int 13 so that is working correctly. Still, even the ReadID fails after the 1.44 moves several sectors. I guess one should use a less fragmented disk ;) I'm not sure why the ReadID is not working?? If the steps are at a compatable rate, the 360K drive should be able to get back by just the ReadID???? >I'm assuming that you're running in real-mode DOS, not trying to run under >a virtualized DOS command prompt session in Windoze. Starting with W95 >OSR2, Windows uses its own floppy VXD that has its own peculiarities. I don't expect it would work there. Others that are doing direct floppy access haven't had much success using the DOS window either. > >Cheers, >Chuck > > > > > > From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Jun 17 11:28:01 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 09:28:01 -0700 Subject: QIC-80 peculiarities was Re: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: <200606162325510549.2C4BEB5C@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: >From: "Chuck Guzis" ---snip--- > >A better VDD for Windows might help 16-bit programs that attempt to >directly access the FDC, but it would do nothing for 32-bit programs. And on to 64 bit :) Dwight > >Cheers, >Chuck > > > From gordon at gjcp.net Sat Jun 17 09:56:15 2006 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 15:56:15 +0100 Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1150556175.5371.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> Tony Duell wrote: > Maplin still exist, but they now sell mostly crap consumer electronics. > There is a small selection of components in the catalogue, but very few > of them are kept in the shops. You have to special-order them. Yes we Both shops in Glasgow keep a good selection of fairly "normal" components - small-signal trannies, resistors, capacitors etc. Gordon. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 17 11:45:43 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 09:45:43 -0700 Subject: QIC-80 peculiarities was Re: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606170945430562.2E836C9B@10.0.0.252> On 6/17/2006 at 9:28 AM dwight elvey wrote: >And on to 64 bit :) >Dwight So, you ask, "why doesn't someone write a better VDD for XP/2000?" Because MS has made it very clear that Vista won't support 16 bit apps. Period. Maybe they'll relent at the last minute (they've been known to do it), but right now, it's not even clear that if they tucked 16 bit support back in, that Vista would support VDDs. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 17 11:51:51 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 09:51:51 -0700 Subject: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606170951510124.2E890861@10.0.0.252> On 6/17/2006 at 9:25 AM dwight elvey wrote: >The 360K floppy I have, only has the drive select jumpers. I've tried >changing the DBT and using Int 13 but it is still not working. I guess I'll >just have to live with it. It is working, it is just that when the 1.44M >goes>to another track, I have to recal the 360K drive... Let's see if we can solve this. I'm going to go out on a limb here and ask you to carefully check your cable that you're using. If you can, put another 1.44MB drive in place of the 360K and see if it behaves similarly. If it does, check your cable; if not, you might well have a wonky 360K drive. What vintage PeeCee are you using? This isn't one of the more modern ones with support for only a single drive built onto the mobo, is it? Does your 360K drive have the terminator installed? If not, have you tried it with the terminator? (you don't need to use the standard 150 ohm ones; 1K should be good enough). Cheers, Chuck From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jun 17 12:09:56 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 10:09:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT-ish: Build-it stuff In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060617170956.15838.qmail@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> "...Nuts and Volts is it and it is pretty basic." There's also Circuit Cellar. Electronics World which is a UK mag (have to admit it's uncommon to find these days). There's a handful of Active Electronics stores around the country. Conveniently there was one in Long Island while I lived there, and another one about an hour west on the way to Philadelphia. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jun 17 12:28:53 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 12:28:53 -0500 Subject: VOMs (WAS Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Message-ID: <8877232b448c49109a2dcb47c3a7000e@valleyimplants.com> >sounds nice >but what is a "solid state vacuum tube" volt meter ??? > >I think it works like this--you take a 12AX7, and, using a diamond file, >carefully cut the tip off. Fill it with a good polyester resin and glue >the tip back on. Absolutely solid! Put that in your Eico! O.K. - enough already. I was in elementary school at the time. I thought I remembered them being called FETVOMs, but I figured everyone knew what a VTVM was, and since I was only pretty sure that they had FETs as their active component (it's the only type that makes sense, though), I called them "solid state VTVMs" so yes, I made that up - but I thought it would be descriptive. From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jun 17 15:54:22 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 13:54:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: <200606170951510124.2E890861@10.0.0.252> References: <200606170951510124.2E890861@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060617134213.W98632@shell.lmi.net> > >The 360K floppy I have, only has the drive select jumpers. I've tried > >changing the DBT and using Int 13 but it is still not working. I guess > >I'll just have to live with it. It is working, it is just that when the > >1.44M goes>to another track, I have to recal the 360K drive... On Sat, 17 Jun 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Does your 360K drive have the terminator installed? If not, have you tried > it with the terminator? (you don't need to use the standard 150 ohm ones; > 1K should be good enough). Check pin 34 of the drive. Is it using it for "Disk Change", or for "READY"? Use Int 1Eh to point to a new parameter table, copied from the old one. Insert some code to check whether 1E is still pointing to your table after a floppy access. Insert some code to check the validity of your table after a floppy access. Point 1E back to where it was, afterwards. Check the behavior under DOS 2.10 (which has the absolutely slowest default step rates (to work with the Qume 142)) What else can be narrowed down as occurring when you get the recals? (several other kinds of floppy errors could result in a recal.) Can you assume that everyone will have 640K? You COULD read the image into RAM, to avoid any switching of floppies. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Jun 17 16:23:42 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 14:23:42 -0700 Subject: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: <200606170951510124.2E890861@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: >From: "Chuck Guzis" >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts" >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Subject: Re: Floppy stepping problem >Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 09:51:51 -0700 > >On 6/17/2006 at 9:25 AM dwight elvey wrote: > > >The 360K floppy I have, only has the drive select jumpers. I've tried > >changing the DBT and using Int 13 but it is still not working. I guess >I'll > >just have to live with it. It is working, it is just that when the 1.44M > >goes>to another track, I have to recal the 360K drive... > >Let's see if we can solve this. > >I'm going to go out on a limb here and ask you to carefully check your >cable that you're using. If you can, put another 1.44MB drive in place of >the 360K and see if it behaves similarly. If it does, check your cable; if >not, you might well have a wonky 360K drive. Hi Chuck The machine was working fine with a 1.2M drive. It is a Dell box with a 486SX but that controller couldn't handle FM so I'm using a combination IDE and floppy controller that has a GoldStar chip on it. It seems that most of the GoldStar chips handle FM OK. ( and yes, I changed the jumper on the mother board to use the external controller ). > >What vintage PeeCee are you using? This isn't one of the more modern ones >with support for only a single drive built onto the mobo, is it? As I stated, it is using a combination IDE/Floppy card. The card has been checked out to work fine with both the 1.44M and 1.2M at the same time. I did this early on. > >Does your 360K drive have the terminator installed? If not, have you tried >it with the terminator? (you don't need to use the standard 150 ohm ones; >1K should be good enough). The 1.44M has some termination on it. I don't think the 360K needs additional termination. I do have a resistor pack but it makes no difference if I install it. Dwight > >Cheers, >Chuck > > > From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Jun 17 16:32:32 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 14:32:32 -0700 Subject: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: <20060617134213.W98632@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: >From: Fred Cisin >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts" >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >Subject: Re: Floppy stepping problem >Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 13:54:22 -0700 (PDT) > > > >The 360K floppy I have, only has the drive select jumpers. I've tried > > >changing the DBT and using Int 13 but it is still not working. I guess > > >I'll just have to live with it. It is working, it is just that when the > > >1.44M goes>to another track, I have to recal the 360K drive... > >On Sat, 17 Jun 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Does your 360K drive have the terminator installed? If not, have you >tried > > it with the terminator? (you don't need to use the standard 150 ohm >ones; > > 1K should be good enough). > >Check pin 34 of the drive. Is it using it for "Disk Change", or for >"READY"? Hi Fred I had issues getting the 1.44M to work at all with the wire from the 360K disk connected. I've removed the wire from the 360K disk. The 360K seems to work fine when staying in the DOS world. I'm able to transfer files to and from the 1.44M to the 360K. It is only when I use my program that it gets lost. > > >Use Int 1Eh to point to a new parameter table, copied from the old one. >Insert some code to check whether 1E is still pointing to your table after >a floppy access. >Insert some code to check the validity of your table after a floppy access. >Point 1E back to where it was, afterwards. According to what I've seen, one also needs to do INT 13 with AH=0 to get these values transfered to the controller. > >Check the behavior under DOS 2.10 (which has the absolutely slowest >default step rates (to work with the Qume 142)) > >What else can be narrowed down as occurring when you get the recals? >(several other kinds of floppy errors could result in a recal.) I'd do another post with psudo code to show what I do. > >Can you assume that everyone will have 640K? >You COULD read the image into RAM, to avoid any switching of floppies. > I've thought about that but the way I'm generating my program assume to run in a 64K memory chunk. I do have a few that I know don't have a full 640K. I'd like to stay within what I can do in a *.COM file. I'm currently doing a full track. Dwight From thierry at dussuet.lugs.ch Sat Jun 17 16:59:26 2006 From: thierry at dussuet.lugs.ch (Thierry Dussuet) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 23:59:26 +0200 Subject: Benchmark Modula-2 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060617215926.GA53608@mars.family> Hello! On Wed, May 31, 2006 at 09:12:36AM +0100, Mark Wickens wrote: > > Is there anyone out there still using Modula-2 (or Oberon) for anything? There's Bluebottle now, the successor of Oberon: http://www.bluebottle.ethz.ch/ Thierry From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Jun 17 17:14:05 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 15:14:05 -0700 Subject: Floppy stepping problem In-Reply-To: <20060617134213.W98632@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: Hi Here is a typical read cycle for getting a track from the M20 disk: FOR sector 1 to 11 setup DMA write clock rate to 3F7h ( may be FM or MFM ) BEGIN set drive motor timeout to nice long number for DOS so it doesn't turn the motor off while I'm using it. If the motor isn't already on, turn it on and add a little delay time to get it up to speed. Do a SEEK to the track ( I do this every time even if I'm already on that track ) Clear Interrupt status bit in DOS Write all the stuff to the controller to read a sector ( including if it is FM or MFM ) Wait until there is an interrupt 6 and then read all the returned status WHILE the status fails if second try, do a READID if third try, do a RECAL if more tries then Error out REPEAT NEXT Sector Use DOS call to write track to a file and repeat it all for the next track. I can break down things like SEEK, READID and RECAL if you think they are needed. The actual code is a little messy since it has been a growing project. I don't seem to have any issues with the clock rate since it has problems during the MFM time and not the FM time. If it had clock problems I'd suspect it would show while switching between FM and MFM. I used to reset the step rate after each DOS call but I'm using the INT 1E and INT 13 AH=0 method and the step rates for the 360K and the 1.44M seem to be OK now. It is just that the 360K seems to get lost after the 1.44M steps tracks. The ReadID on the 360K doesn't seem to help. Dwight From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 17 17:03:48 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 23:03:48 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606161653560794.2AE52147@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 16, 6 04:53:56 pm Message-ID: > The odd thing about gas-discharge tubes is that they work at all by sheer > probability. > > If you can exclude all external and internal radiation (e.g. gamma > particles, light), a neon bulb won't fire at a voltage anywhere near its > spec-sheet level. The ionization avalanche needs an energetic particle or Remidns me of the time I had a randomly flickering power-on neon on one of the PSUs in my 11/45. As soon as I pulled the CPU out to get to it, it stopped flickering. I thought 'Aha, a loose connection, shaken up by the CPU fans when the CPU is in the rack', and started to invetigate. Nothing wrong. I then discoveredm that even with the CPU in the rack, it would stop filckering if I shone a torch (flashlight) on it. Hmmm.... > photon to get it started. That's why neon bulbs fire at higher voltages in > a dark room than in a lit one. Manufacturers put a bit of radioactive I think one of the early computers (EDSAC?) used a matrix of neons and a photomultipler as one of the ROMs. They had to 'flash' a light on the matrix jut before each read (and gate out the resulting pulse from the PM tube) to ensure a neon in the matrix would strike when required. -tony From jrkeys at concentric.net Sat Jun 17 17:25:46 2006 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 17:25:46 -0500 Subject: Need help with two big Rescues Message-ID: <00e101c6925c$fc580030$28406b43@66067007> Great News!!! The Houston Computer Museum has been give two great collections, one in GA and one in KS. We need your help to cover travel expenses (fuel and truck rentals) for these two trips to collect these items, the estimated cost $1400 for GA and $1000 for KS (was cheaper trip but more items were added). If you can send a small or large donation to help, please send your check to our address below or go to our website www.houstoncomputermuseum.org and our donation page there to use your credit card. If just 2,400 people sent us one dollar each, we could add these wonderful items to our collections. Here's a partial listing of what is being offered: KS - SEL 810A computer, Data Control Station, Interface Cabinet, Dec LA12 printer, ASR-33 (2), manuals, software paper tapes, I/O cables, spare cards, DEC PDP 11/03, DEC 11/34, PDP manuals, and other goodies. Over 2000 lbs, so I need a 16' box truck. GA - IBM 083 card sorter, IBM 552 card interpreter (2), 029 and 129 key punches, IBM patch boards, repair parts for unit record equipment, Tektronix scope, multiple SWTP systems, and other goodies. For this load I'm looking at getting a 24' box truck. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks John Mailing address Houston Computer Museum, 15827 Thistledew Dr., Houston, TX 77082. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 17 19:46:49 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 17:46:49 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606171746490514.303BDFFB@10.0.0.252> On 6/17/2006 at 11:03 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >I think one of the early computers (EDSAC?) used a matrix of neons and a >photomultipler as one of the ROMs. They had to 'flash' a light on the >matrix jut before each read (and gate out the resulting pulse from the PM >tube) to ensure a neon in the matrix would strike when required. I still have a neon "night light" in my shop that's just decrepit enough that it comes on only during the daytime or when I turn the overhead lights on. This avalanche effect of gas devices can come in very handy when used for something like a PM tube. (Point of curiosity: In British English, when is a tube a valve? You fellows don't talk about "Cathode Ray Valves" do you? Is a photomultiplier tube a "valve"? How about a TWT?) Cheers, Chuck From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jun 17 20:10:38 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 20:10:38 -0500 Subject: Free Stuff (and one more) Message-ID: <3c970b42ee7a4815af9513fc0959ab64@valleyimplants.com> In the off chance that someone might be able to use them, I have: 1 print head and carriage assembly 1 tractor assembly 1 drive rack (the gear type) for the printhead carriage all from a Okidata Microline 24-pin narrow-carriage printer. Also a Dell Latitude CPx LCD panel with a slightly torn connector pigtail. Personal IRIS TFLU skins - complete and a PI power supply. All in Renton, WA, but shipping should not be difficult, except perhaps for the skins. Big but light. Aha- a post-script: And The Big Boy: a Tektronix model 555 dual-beam oscilloscope, with twin dual-channel plugins (total of 4 traces!). Haven't used it in a while, so it needs a once-over before being plugged in. 110 Lbs for P/S and scope. Includes manual. No probes. It would be nice to get some sort of a trade for this. From rcini at optonline.net Sat Jun 17 21:11:01 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 22:11:01 -0400 Subject: Airflow in drive case Message-ID: <002801c6927c$726ffe20$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: I'm replacing the fans in a dual 8" drive case. The case has two distinct sections - the drive side and the power supply side - each with a fan. On the power supply side, air is being pulled through the case and out the back through a filter. On the drive side, the fan is the blowing in, with no filter. The cover does not have any ventilation holes. It appears that the fan on the power supply side is original but the other one was installed later (based on the wiring and the model of fan). Should the orientation of the fan on the drive side be changed? I would think that cool air (although unfiltered) should be pulled through the front of the drives and out the back. Thoughts? Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Jun 18 00:02:31 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 22:02:31 -0700 Subject: Airflow in drive case In-Reply-To: <002801c6927c$726ffe20$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: >From: "Richard A. Cini" > >All: > > > > I'm replacing the fans in a dual 8" drive case. The case has >two >distinct sections - the drive side and the power supply side - each with a >fan. On the power supply side, air is being pulled through the case and out >the back through a filter. On the drive side, the fan is the blowing in, >with no filter. The cover does not have any ventilation holes. It appears >that the fan on the power supply side is original but the other one was >installed later (based on the wiring and the model of fan). > > > > Should the orientation of the fan on the drive side be >changed? >I would think that cool air (although unfiltered) should be pulled through >the front of the drives and out the back. > > > > Thoughts? > > > >Rich > Hi Most people don't understand air flow from muffin fans, including the system designers. When the fan is pulling, it pulls air relatively evenly from all directions. When it blows, it has a funny character. The air flow will adhere to the closest surface it will also tend to want to move away, at a right angle to the output direction of the fan. This strange behaveour is the result of two things. One is that the air flow has some rotation from the fan. The other is the good old Bernulli principle. Once the air flow goes over a surface, it will form a low pressure on the surface that will cause the airflow to follow the surface. If there is a filter on the output instead of the input, the airflow will no longer be rotating when it exits. This solve the problem of it taking of at right angles but doesn't solve the problem of sticking to the first surface that it finds. I have even measured air flowing back towards the fin's output, right in front of a fan and not much more than 8 inches away. Before understanding the flow, most would have expected that to be right in the center of the airflow. It would have been, had the fan been in a completely open area. If you want relatively even flow, sucking the air will do better. If you know where the air is going to go, you can expect the best cooling on the outlet side. The trick is to predict where to flow would go. Dwight From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 18 00:33:55 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 22:33:55 -0700 Subject: ARM Microcontroller evaluation boards Message-ID: <200606172233550874.3142B8A7@10.0.0.252> I know that this is sort of OT, but I also know that several folks who do embedded development lurk here. I have a possible application for an embedded controller with a fair amount of RAM 128-256K and ideally, DMA capability. Originally, I considered something like an 80C188, but it seems that that's yesterday's technology and better alternatives exist. Right now, the ARM controllers look pretty good. Can anyone recommend a favorite development board that can be used for prototyping? I don't need much program memory--128K is more than adequate, but at least 128K of RAM is very important. Cheers, Chuck From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Jun 18 01:20:13 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 23:20:13 -0700 Subject: ARM Microcontroller evaluation boards In-Reply-To: <200606172233550874.3142B8A7@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: >From: "Chuck Guzis" > >I know that this is sort of OT, but I also know that several folks who do >embedded development lurk here. > >I have a possible application for an embedded controller with a fair amount >of RAM 128-256K and ideally, DMA capability. Originally, I considered >something like an 80C188, but it seems that that's yesterday's technology >and better alternatives exist. > Hi Do you need something that will run with real time events. If so, I recommend looking at some of the DSP development systems. These can often handle both process and data handling without too much troubles. Dwight >Right now, the ARM controllers look pretty good. Can anyone recommend a >favorite development board that can be used for prototyping? I don't need >much program memory--128K is more than adequate, but at least 128K of RAM >is very important. > >Cheers, >Chuck > From stanb at dial.pipex.com Sun Jun 18 02:56:18 2006 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 08:56:18 +0100 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 17 Jun 2006 17:46:49 PDT." <200606171746490514.303BDFFB@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606180756.IAA16127@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Chuck Guzis said: > > (Point of curiosity: In British English, when is a tube a valve? You > fellows don't talk about "Cathode Ray Valves" do you? Is a photomultiplier > tube a "valve"? How about a TWT?) Photomultiplier tube and travelling wave tube is the norm over here in my experience. The term "valve" is more of a function thing by analogy with a valve controlling the flow of liquid, a thermionic valve is used to control the flow of electrons. OK, so a crt controls the flow of electrons, but it's primary funtion is to display the result, in fact you could argue that a crt contains a valve :-) -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From brad at heeltoe.com Sun Jun 18 06:40:23 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 07:40:23 -0400 Subject: ARM Microcontroller evaluation boards In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 17 Jun 2006 22:33:55 PDT." <200606172233550874.3142B8A7@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606181140.k5IBeO7u028643@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > >Right now, the ARM controllers look pretty good. Can anyone recommend a >favorite development board that can be used for prototyping? I don't need >much program memory--128K is more than adequate, but at least 128K of RAM >is very important. 128k is tough. The Atmel SAM7S is really nice - low pin count & ARM7TDMI - but 64k is the max internal sram. Once you go to a chip with a bus you need to provide flash & external ram which removes all the nice features (low pin count, low chip count) You can put an external ram ont eh SAM7S but you have to work the bus interface "by hand". That eliminates DMA. I'd take a look at the philips LP series also, but I think it's the same. I understand microchip is coming out with some ARM parts, but I don't know anything about them yet (i'm meeting with a rep next week). -brad From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Sun Jun 18 08:30:09 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 08:30:09 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: X30GVTBfNuJgYe0TsE022uzi7eIcQfRMAX1GYWipsdj6K4Wwo0uYecIaTonPdunqN9JTDhTD0uk3 vQkvVxxvT9C6M7CmzkXpbvAEQs5BYQfTJqCq9jdDN6vjSGWvIxM6HzFrar6cKO5Ivhg1ePgckVj3lz9 bdXvxA8oPctMEaIq1XFCEDA13EqZbVYbMoqhO50UjC2Yao4fKEgfp0Vcr5q0lk7AazBRNs gfZtf9XMwxUi7VFKv2BnMQCQuNCCTjScSZEWK9fldEgsqxUqwA7j3AH53IfQ7PRbSi2oPF2 XYQSFtVEmPOVzAhvdQXz5tWzHkzmDZILWB0oZ4KXgx9WiP5SgwnC7CR9KQOnywAi88csv83x mWxb2Yu3aPgaH2iJw2fmCwn0TdTuRfwR00UxHF8WFVQCdgpe7iW4TWHnTXKnnib8JwE6cTqk5XSFQ NMmSyNirdEAusT7SbMO9JuA9WHMNUnGo5FpvdeaREpDvBFSwODs79M5MLW3ghXZr55fJPiPeMZHPtX aoBjjXRFTBLSlQW1cjsrAEUt6bv764q8enybKlEoucOnF3FHrMw6Dn4Xp8UD5IR92RPwTdGn2 36p4ddIT5gJ0lOGypPio2FVaRCk1CDVmYlKYDxZDUvvi2mHcaqDpLDpb3exCOttyWUQO0mGwZ4 VDqD0K2NV29CYgvch4TvHpgnoEp5hNakjs8YePapVEr8Kw8SXlyT27jTmkRB5DWy6NE3Pm6Fgpj - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Sun Jun 18 08:37:57 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 08:37:57 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: PJkEAgwzN4hSdMHlL9LzcDcPxE3ABHEFYPkjX1AYiuIsVvTYiUZgxwKDxwnVA3JdwIc6K21ZDCvo OCb5TtbJj4sZaHrNhgdwSz4RwyaMpbsI6rzvaz9gw3Zun915jl99xZg7MwelKbgTSZpBti32Uzvsf19 vAR3pVCjw0hNqliYZhbeLHJb8IyRdJ9xycgko7KLN0tpv1DbAQXasBvTuJrWoGhjXvppff kVVVh7oU0ATsG2iHZ5jmNU8e5Q6DncC1SOmopfD9F1SAPYPGarCqgwMUZ0557BdCyHr9lna k35j0gqZAKbG7b111Z00uw7n0xO9a25NI7Gh5kQCdsabiOcdwfQ5CFpPBMz692fP36sJ5OTe h1bpeVhZjOpbyv1svrp43MRWiAwCpFFJ7NbA0oJkEmRdI9ncnyEVTciPFyST0kmrYWxWALSgDia2H CiVpEez9IlApUPAlCPev2aGNCLmyTP3tJkhOry6Y0Uk1Y4vsDDKCjokYjQKhtWgFes6XvTQHJnzJZh fbRDrJdxQ8VQY76DnWkrKvzigWnsKcAcwtOHIwKian8cfXVeW3RYcMsvVrp7JBnTbalZWiz9O kItrT7HPxTc1RHhEdte1Khlr7li2PWzMaVLLto7POJQ1BMCdUSINMo1VmgLXhBTUrqUS7149Bw XBulcK7VuZE4ADC9NC8cS8oIsbsNr9esaZA85ycCVghy8h6eAkvkCnNR9iwstIU3R0lVbSmYkmb - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Sun Jun 18 08:39:25 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 08:39:25 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: btFkvjsiab0SnN4V2WmK402DG6cCWxEmaIj4l9TOzvQzBGq48LwQYBXpALSMfMfIVfcvb4LBWqxa oP3kVKBOz0WCYj2FnGGbnWExRssLa8t6MekOyguamgqDQGjA1Qk080zNZzhzVw6Ox1ve9CvrEOCIwlW 3OXcKvIcDgmoIbRXmZt1PjO77lWkkA7YBOWDa4DQ9ozSVDimUjW3HEGGJhdxeqdy6VV58B x7JYE4V39HWr7y9Znf1sSqMRUzlLTJms2XeW2bi8pqskPwa8Q580IQVQsf2eijkY94hNA6s fNPv2te9GIFTzRFwzkMqUlpPPKOza5JD3B0beddgE0PTgalWzKLNL90DAO3QUovNq0y0JdGI QwCaL6j58PRXz7R8LOj0pA0ifxbPQaX0RH4djG3LpUKnYFsqorpYmVG2W3UUuZPrDOcGj5aAzEt43 aMcBGVBgV1EQMdFtZOfbPgiw1B2h9Q5kYDzo9tLggPxs74u5cUpceMwH38BTpd8Gq24nDSnEPWZgsX TdHbQXarWxaMmr7KJWF3hMa0YyFYQdz51I5FtU9OVNWtkExFYZCNGJJqoHEGJiq08v5MNUK3I 3qa07ZTVjDQlodR1n67jbJfkJwqmG80A6MadrIKtfgrAdIUM61Z5xdjHAvrIW0ygvm628C7MNy cUWzBDtAFokjOaplfDjUfDfCV7t2DcAAgUFET5EHQvLNXtC3EpuCJbbqU22RngaIPvxa16ungUA - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Sun Jun 18 09:15:18 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 09:15:18 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: bDdHtuRmKf1XJCrqxa2FRFrfTJAYqL2xQ8xJK7B47zeNyYJwcWOVqFt0PA6VoM0c4uvNlKs0dwTm fzsiO5uk6I1VJExVV7FZUzl0QdzOdWPQb71c73xmzb99TqM0DNkfHkrtv1IAhq7AKyab44sQvznYltu Ic6GCtcAD7ss2BOwAwCbNcWiPkNjKH9tGKYQsqBgoyzZOqab8vwsQ83QQMzBjY4h8xvPOx 6Ncj72b43FhHiw3QguZM02epV7uu7dYzSH0hgM9v5MVKBmLDLR7yY5LgtDaZSlR5QRp3HK7 vRAHooakWDxynKSbbam77JBPC6VwZjUl50OiEnzGHYIPTd6cZZJ1RpBWIyScGgnd7NGu75eu qOjsgk30hkNqWw50S1OKS1akkUWtVjKB9uSYHMP38awHPnU2yITQG3IB0rQizs6v4kTkKD00OKful UGZLNNDixiufImx8nQhKAa55XHIMemdjZHgxxJJjfcgPV0gRhfWlRun9uRhGrZ3eAiccISNyH47v19 cBGYdtEoIP1kUafeZyLiVquMEosKLc96CheyDmesJQapogy3rn4DEZig27Gk1a6OVoFS7nQ4w dHDjOaUTCqnKii7h9zEamSd9Qu0KFmnwbGZDDGHw08tWNJS95LYNnu02S0AgPIWHJXkCNMw5L7 Mc8ZdWPaCJG8fF9puwKkN6KQmnNocA7TUFfJbh8HOZXS9eDLHSzvhg169BLvZLwc5bpSbxYywqM - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Sun Jun 18 09:59:07 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 09:59:07 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: NHOZL21fNghWtexihW3TRgHgLaJVrgguoHZVISDM5Vw3LEMsCQvGSZfRhogYxIaxunDEt6FjZGvj DWlkiL3z0bTfRjTSWNgfyV6AHHx5fSYhHDmSg8jslHydiUFZIufUTZwxpFndOBX7Y0vlCmN8bQFOSBi 4qJIojDxlSxHKcIKNq0KHkeZscs7soyOlMbBDqbHMtyOkSoqDL7s3u2YGyWyKZCW9mAGqM 62aidt8lyROv7N0LuNEITfeasoxikYoksEClUBOUxVJwcPDYCYjdLvJWXpLYMqhlY6M1WVN Bmg4lmDzEqRcu3zTTtjBZ9WpzAqQ1mcBAvr0LnaBusqzkaN6TSpdS5fNVddhWlNfVWkquThP 9ttVpdIjthraGZ0dc9uec7K6m5LEMv40hC4oO0dxrPizufylkQIX66sQj1K3US7LVM1zw1WOlhhmM du3vYHmpthvYpqJFrgiZttoJSUL1qGcJwWy7U6MA2NI651yuRaEIcZNUOCmnX1NAwsJZIiIb9E0t6c 1RFrqi3J9mOra3sP0dcj9OdOkD0wN8DcJg1ifVnZuIPlhl020Pr88YNwXgh8ccksOyqYr7zQI 0BbPhbdCtEWMCW3Xt2w7iigr8cxg2ImSYALkIHUzo6WQdLvV6uaxAEbSCYpa65ao9rPvft106C kK6T6we4cZ4xznuNVuFeTd9aMzwc7GFK73qPIHTYBVGOccuyp98nAztMKVlMsIrfgCCdtRpZLKp - Done. From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jun 18 10:15:50 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 10:15:50 -0500 Subject: Versados 4.3 floppy images Message-ID: IMD images for Versados 4.3 are up now under bits/Motorola on bitsavers. The floppy in the VME/10 is 96TPI (TEAC 55F series) From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Jun 18 14:11:06 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 15:11:06 -0400 Subject: Diablo part numbers? Message-ID: <200606181511.06549.rtellason@verizon.net> I snagged a big old diablo daisywheel printer here the other day, pulled the boards and mechanism out, and got rid of the case etc. right off, so there's no model number, which I probably should've written down at least :-(. Anyhow, I'm finding good numbers on the transistors and such, but a lot of the chips all have what seem to be diablo part numbers on them and not a whole lot else. Anybody know where I might be able to cross some of this stuff over to find out what it is? -- 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 TLJohnst at Johnston-Genealogy.com Sun Jun 18 10:27:07 2006 From: TLJohnst at Johnston-Genealogy.com (Tom Johnston (Genealogy)) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 10:27:07 -0500 Subject: FFS: Syquest 44MB internal drive model SQ555 Message-ID: <449570CB.7030106@Johnston-Genealogy.com> I know it's a long shot but do you still have the drive? Thanks!! From jkeys at houstoncomputermuseum.org Sun Jun 18 13:16:55 2006 From: jkeys at houstoncomputermuseum.org (jkeyshcm) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 13:16:55 -0500 Subject: Your Help Needed with Rescue Message-ID: <00b901c69303$7b297fa0$13406b43@66067007> Great News!!! The Houston Computer Museum has been give two great collections, one in GA and one in KS. We need your help to cover travel expenses (fuel and truck rentals) for these two trips to collect these items, the estimated cost $1400 for GA and $1000 for KS (was cheaper trip but more items were added). If you can send a small or large donation to help, please send your check to our address below or go to our website www.houstoncomputermuseum.org and our donation page there to use your credit card. If just 240 people sent $10 each (or whatever amount (even $1 helps)), we could add these wonderful items to our collections. Thanks for your time. John Here's a partial listing of what is being offered: KS - SEL 810A computer, Data Control Station, Interface Cabinet, Dec LA12 printer, ASR-33 (2), manuals, software paper tapes, I/O cables, spare cards, DEC PDP 11/03, DEC 11/34, PDP manuals, and other goodies. Over 2000 lbs, so I need a 16' box truck. GA - IBM 083 card sorter, IBM 552 card interpreter (2), 029 and 129 key punches, IBM patch boards, repair parts for unit record equipment, Tektronix scope, multiple SWTP systems, and other goodies. For this load I'm looking at getting a 24' box truck. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks John Mailing address Houston Computer Museum, 15827 Thistledew Dr., Houston, TX 77082. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 18 16:04:16 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 22:04:16 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606171746490514.303BDFFB@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 17, 6 05:46:49 pm Message-ID: > (Point of curiosity: In British English, when is a tube a valve? You > fellows don't talk about "Cathode Ray Valves" do you? Is a photomultiplier No, but there are many stories of uninformed customers telling the TV enginere that the fault is the 'picture valve' :-) > tube a "valve"? How about a TWT?) Hmmm. Good question. I am not sure of all cases, but we (the UK) would talk about : Diode valve, triode valve, tetrode valve, pentode valve, etc (up to nonode valve), and things like 'frequency changer valve' (which is, I think, what you'd call a 'converter tube'). But : Cathode ray tube, photomulitiplier tube, vidicon tube (and image orthicon, iconoscope, if you go back that far), voltage stabiliser tube (as in the gas-filled cold-cathode diode that started this thread :-)), travelling wave tube, dekatron tube, nixie tube, trochotron tube, trigger tube, etc I think klystrons and magnetrons are more commonly 'valves' over here, but 'tube' wouldn't sound too odd either. Other terms change too. What you'd call a 'damper tube' in a TV horizontal output stage, we'd call a 'booster diode (valve)' in a 'line output stage'. If anyone wants to know what I'd call a specific device, just ask. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 18 16:07:38 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 22:07:38 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606180756.IAA16127@citadel.metropolis.local> from "Stan Barr" at Jun 18, 6 08:56:18 am Message-ID: > my experience. The term "valve" is more of a function thing by analogy > with a valve controlling the flow of liquid, a thermionic valve is used I beleive the origin of the term 'valve' goes back to the diode, by analogy with the one-way valve on a tyre or something like that. -tony From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Jun 18 17:16:47 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 16:16:47 -0600 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4495D0CF.5090003@jetnet.ab.ca> Tony Duell wrote: > Other terms change too. What you'd call a 'damper tube' in a TV > horizontal output stage, we'd call a 'booster diode (valve)' in a 'line > output stage'. > > If anyone wants to know what I'd call a specific device, just ask. ^&%!$ As often as not I would guess. :) > -tony From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 18 17:21:39 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 15:21:39 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606181521390094.34DD5614@10.0.0.252> How about some of the more antique and exotics, such as "Crookes tube" or "Geissler tube"? How about the "Electron Ray Tube" aka "Tuning Eye Tube" (6E5, EM81, etc.)? Cheers, Chuck On 6/18/2006 at 10:04 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >> (Point of curiosity: In British English, when is a tube a valve? You >> fellows don't talk about "Cathode Ray Valves" do you? Is a >photomultiplier > >No, but there are many stories of uninformed customers telling the TV >enginere that the fault is the 'picture valve' :-) > >> tube a "valve"? How about a TWT?) > >Hmmm. Good question. I am not sure of all cases, but we (the UK) would >talk about : > >Diode valve, triode valve, tetrode valve, pentode valve, etc (up to >nonode valve), and things like 'frequency changer valve' (which is, I >think, what you'd call a 'converter tube'). > >But : Cathode ray tube, photomulitiplier tube, vidicon tube (and image >orthicon, iconoscope, if you go back that far), voltage stabiliser tube >(as in the gas-filled cold-cathode diode that started this thread :-)), >travelling wave tube, dekatron tube, nixie tube, trochotron tube, trigger >tube, etc > >I think klystrons and magnetrons are more commonly 'valves' over here, >but 'tube' wouldn't sound too odd either. > > >Other terms change too. What you'd call a 'damper tube' in a TV >horizontal output stage, we'd call a 'booster diode (valve)' in a 'line >output stage'. > >If anyone wants to know what I'd call a specific device, just ask. > >-tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 18 18:26:56 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 00:26:56 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606181521390094.34DD5614@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 18, 6 03:21:39 pm Message-ID: > > How about some of the more antique and exotics, such as "Crookes tube" or > "Geissler tube"? Yep, both of those asre 'tubes' in the UK > > How about the "Electron Ray Tube" aka "Tuning Eye Tube" (6E5, EM81, etc.)? I think the official term is 'Electron Ray Tube' over here. The common name is 'Magic Eye'. -tony From curt at atarimuseum.com Sun Jun 18 18:31:27 2006 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt - Atari Museum) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 19:31:27 -0400 Subject: Your Help Needed with Rescue In-Reply-To: <00b901c69303$7b297fa0$13406b43@66067007> References: <00b901c69303$7b297fa0$13406b43@66067007> Message-ID: <4495E24E.8030902@atarimuseum.com> John, Great to hear, just send you over a donation, best of luck with the move of the equipment. Curt jkeyshcm wrote: > Great News!!! The Houston Computer Museum has been give two great > collections, one in GA and one in KS. We need your help to cover > travel expenses (fuel and truck rentals) for these two trips to > collect these items, the estimated cost $1400 for GA and $1000 for KS > (was cheaper trip but more items were added). If you can send a small > or large donation to > help, please send your check to our address below or go to our > website www.houstoncomputermuseum.org and our donation page there to > use your credit card. If just 240 people sent $10 each (or whatever > amount (even $1 helps)), we could add these wonderful items to our > collections. Thanks for your time. John > > Here's a partial listing of what is being offered: > KS - SEL 810A computer, Data Control Station, Interface Cabinet, Dec LA12 > printer, ASR-33 (2), manuals, software paper tapes, I/O cables, spare > cards, > DEC PDP 11/03, DEC 11/34, PDP manuals, and other goodies. Over 2000 > lbs, so > I need a 16' box truck. > > GA - IBM 083 card sorter, IBM 552 card interpreter (2), 029 and 129 key > punches, IBM patch boards, repair parts for unit record equipment, > Tektronix > scope, multiple SWTP systems, and other goodies. For this load I'm > looking > at getting a 24' box truck. > > Any and all help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks John > > Mailing address Houston Computer Museum, 15827 Thistledew Dr., > Houston, TX > 77082. > > > > From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sun Jun 18 18:42:47 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 20:42:47 -0300 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked References: Message-ID: <008e01c69331$05b0ef00$02fea8c0@alpha> > No, but there are many stories of uninformed customers telling the TV > enginere that the fault is the 'picture valve' :-) In Brazil, the name given to tubes is also "valvula", or "valve" in english. From jrkeys at concentric.net Sun Jun 18 20:39:44 2006 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 20:39:44 -0500 Subject: Your Help Needed with Rescue References: <00b901c69303$7b297fa0$13406b43@66067007> <4495E24E.8030902@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <013a01c69341$3f4ce880$13406b43@66067007> Thanks for the help and I just got an email with the offer of more equipment in Kansas for someone else. This time it's a 026 & 129 key punch machine, SDS 910 CPU, an IBM reproducing punch (from the 1950's), and other items. I will keep you updated and send you a tax receipt for your donation. John ----- Original Message ----- From: "Curt - Atari Museum" To: ; "and Off-Topic Posts" <"Discussion at smtp1.suscom.net"@cnc.net:On-Topiccctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Sunday, June 18, 2006 6:31 PM Subject: Re: Your Help Needed with Rescue > John, > > Great to hear, just send you over a donation, best of luck with the move > of the equipment. > > > Curt > > > jkeyshcm wrote: >> Great News!!! The Houston Computer Museum has been give two great >> collections, one in GA and one in KS. We need your help to cover travel >> expenses (fuel and truck rentals) for these two trips to collect these >> items, the estimated cost $1400 for GA and $1000 for KS (was cheaper trip >> but more items were added). If you can send a small or large donation to >> help, please send your check to our address below or go to our website >> www.houstoncomputermuseum.org and our donation page there to use your >> credit card. If just 240 people sent $10 each (or whatever amount (even >> $1 helps)), we could add these wonderful items to our collections. Thanks >> for your time. John >> >> Here's a partial listing of what is being offered: >> KS - SEL 810A computer, Data Control Station, Interface Cabinet, Dec LA12 >> printer, ASR-33 (2), manuals, software paper tapes, I/O cables, spare >> cards, >> DEC PDP 11/03, DEC 11/34, PDP manuals, and other goodies. Over 2000 lbs, >> so >> I need a 16' box truck. >> >> GA - IBM 083 card sorter, IBM 552 card interpreter (2), 029 and 129 key >> punches, IBM patch boards, repair parts for unit record equipment, >> Tektronix >> scope, multiple SWTP systems, and other goodies. For this load I'm >> looking >> at getting a 24' box truck. >> >> Any and all help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks John >> >> Mailing address Houston Computer Museum, 15827 Thistledew Dr., Houston, >> TX >> 77082. >> >> >> >> > From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sun Jun 18 20:46:24 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 18:46:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Your Help Needed with Rescue In-Reply-To: <00b901c69303$7b297fa0$13406b43@66067007> References: <00b901c69303$7b297fa0$13406b43@66067007> Message-ID: On Sun, 18 Jun 2006, jkeyshcm wrote: > Any and all help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks John > > Mailing address Houston Computer Museum, 15827 Thistledew Dr., Houston, TX > 77082. If I use Paypal, will they take a cut of it? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From jrkeys at concentric.net Sun Jun 18 20:51:57 2006 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 20:51:57 -0500 Subject: Your Help Needed with Rescue References: <00b901c69303$7b297fa0$13406b43@66067007> Message-ID: <014101c69342$f4a27550$13406b43@66067007> Yes they do. :-( ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Griffith" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Cc: "cctech at classiccmp" Sent: Sunday, June 18, 2006 8:46 PM Subject: Re: Your Help Needed with Rescue > On Sun, 18 Jun 2006, jkeyshcm wrote: > >> Any and all help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks John >> >> Mailing address Houston Computer Museum, 15827 Thistledew Dr., Houston, >> TX >> 77082. > > If I use Paypal, will they take a cut of it? > > -- > David Griffith > dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu > > A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. > Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? > A: Top-posting. > Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? > From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sun Jun 18 20:56:36 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 18:56:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Your Help Needed with Rescue In-Reply-To: <014101c69342$f4a27550$13406b43@66067007> References: <00b901c69303$7b297fa0$13406b43@66067007> <014101c69342$f4a27550$13406b43@66067007> Message-ID: On Sun, 18 Jun 2006, Keys wrote: > > On Sun, 18 Jun 2006, jkeyshcm wrote: > > > >> Any and all help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks John > >> > >> Mailing address Houston Computer Museum, 15827 Thistledew Dr., Houston, > >> TX > >> 77082. > > > > If I use Paypal, will they take a cut of it? > Yes they do. :-( Is a personal check okay? -- 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 gkicomputers at yahoo.com Sun Jun 18 21:59:31 2006 From: gkicomputers at yahoo.com (steve) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 19:59:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: ARM Microcontroller evaluation boards In-Reply-To: <200606172233550874.3142B8A7@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060619025931.83305.qmail@web51611.mail.yahoo.com> That amount of SRAM is unusual for a single chip, only one I know of is the Atmel AT91FR40162S has 256K RAM (2Meg Flash) in a 10x10 mm package http://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod_documents/6174S.pdf ARM is a good choice for a modern embedded micro --- Chuck Guzis wrote: > I know that this is sort of OT, but I also know that > several folks who do > embedded development lurk here. > > I have a possible application for an embedded > controller with a fair amount > of RAM 128-256K and ideally, DMA capability. > Originally, I considered > something like an 80C188, but it seems that that's > yesterday's technology > and better alternatives exist. > > Right now, the ARM controllers look pretty good. > Can anyone recommend a > favorite development board that can be used for > prototyping? I don't need > much program memory--128K is more than adequate, but > at least 128K of RAM > is very important. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Sun Jun 18 22:20:13 2006 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 23:20:13 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Wanted: IBM 029 or 129 In-Reply-To: References: <08f08c2c0a5f48b29ad2cc267f59cdf4@valleyimplants.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060616093651.058e73b8@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: Still looking for an IBM 029 or 129 keypunch, preferably in working order. Reply privately if you have one available, or have a lead. This is for my private collection. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From gginben at cebridge.net Fri Jun 16 15:53:30 2006 From: gginben at cebridge.net (Gessman Business Services) Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 15:53:30 -0500 Subject: HP 264x terminal status Message-ID: <44931A4A.3060005@cebridge.net> Attn: Jay West & Others I just happen to notice the thread that was written. So I would like to clear things up a bit. I never said that I wouldn't do the terminal deal. When you asked me about it I simply said "My number one priority is making sure that all the guys that purchased one received all of them ok. My customers are always first, and would hate to get rid of all of them, and then somebody didn't get theirs. So honestly at this point Jay I haven't forgot about you." As far as your quote about having someone pick them up is not correct either. This is the email that I received from you "I've read this, and empathize. I'm not sure I follow though, if you still want the bulk purchase deal or not. Please let me know so I can let the other folks know. Jay West" Where all the other came from I am unsure. I am not meaning this email to be in any way demeaning or anything close. Just simply wanted to make sure that I could explain what happened. As far as as this quote from John A. " The other thing was that I was looking for positive word from anyone that the shipments were getting through and Gessman 'lost it' before Anyone was able to respond, deal cancelled. John A." I didn't lose it. , but thanks. You simply lied to me at first by telling me that you had sent a money order. Just to find out later the truth was that you wanted to wait and make sure that someone received one before you made a payment. I don't blame you for wanting to be like this. I just didn't care to do business with someone that wanted to pull wool over my eyes. I even canceled the non paying dispute to keep you from getting a strike from ebay since you finally did tell me the truth. Just so you could tell everyone here that I "lost it" Should anyone have any questions at all please don't hesitate to email me Thanks, Greg (Gessman Business Services) From gginben at cebridge.net Sat Jun 17 11:32:30 2006 From: gginben at cebridge.net (Gessman Business Services) Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 11:32:30 -0500 Subject: HP 264x terminal status Message-ID: <44942E9E.1040704@cebridge.net> Attn: Jay West & Others I just happen to notice the thread that was written. So I would like to clear things up a bit. I never said that I wouldn't do the terminal deal. When you asked me about it I simply said "My number one priority is making sure that all the guys that purchased one received all of them ok. My customers are always first, and would hate to get rid of all of them, and then somebody didn't get theirs. So honestly at this point Jay I haven't forgot about you." As far as your quote about having someone pick them up is not correct either. This is the email that I received from you "I've read this, and empathize. I'm not sure I follow though, if you still want the bulk purchase deal or not. Please let me know so I can let the other folks know. Jay West" Where all the other came from I am unsure. I am not meaning this email to be in any way demeaning or anything close. Just simply wanted to make sure that I could explain what happened. As far as as this quote from John A. " The other thing was that I was looking for positive word from anyone that the shipments were getting through and Gessman 'lost it' before Anyone was able to respond, deal cancelled. John A." I didn't lose it. , but thanks. You simply lied to me at first by telling me that you had sent a money order. Just to find out later the truth was that you wanted to wait and make sure that someone received one before you made a payment. I don't blame you for wanting to be like this. I just didn't care to do business with someone that wanted to pull wool over my eyes. I even canceled the non paying dispute to keep you from getting a strike from ebay since you finally did tell me the truth. Just so you could tell everyone here that I "lost it" Should anyone have any questions at all please don't hesitate to email me Thanks, Greg (Gessman Business Services) From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Mon Jun 19 02:28:05 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 08:28:05 +0100 Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS Message-ID: Hi Folks, Has anyone got a set of Workbench 3.1 ROMs they'd be willing to part with for less than epay and internet vultures want for them? My A4000 needs them so I can install OS3.9 and get instant accelerator action :) Cheers! -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jun 19 02:55:09 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 19:55:09 +1200 Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/19/06, Adrian Graham wrote: > Hi Folks, > > Has anyone got a set of Workbench 3.1 ROMs they'd be willing to part with > for less than epay and internet vultures want for them? My A4000 needs them > so I can install OS3.9 and get instant accelerator action :) Sorry... my newest version is 3.0. I haven't dropped the money and taken the plunge to go to OS3.9. I don't have any accelerated Amigas, nor fancy video cards. What's the vulture price for ROMs? I'd consider upgrading the A4000/040 (standard A3640 CPU card) and maybe one A3000 if it didn't cost an arm and a leg for ROMs. -ethan From ying6926 at ureach.com Mon Jun 19 03:25:14 2006 From: ying6926 at ureach.com (Henry Ji) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 01:25:14 -0700 Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card Message-ID: <036b01c69379$e4716380$6401a8c0@catherine> I have a DEC microvax 1000 with Matrox QG-640 card (1985). Does anyone know what matching monitor it would work with? I tried Matrox but no luck. VGA came out around 1987. Could this be a EGA card? Does G-640 means monochrom 640 resolution? I googled internet and I see QRGB card. Analog VGA graphics card? thanks Henry From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 19 06:14:28 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:14:28 +0000 Subject: Xlib programming... Message-ID: <44968714.3020808@yahoo.co.uk> urgh, a software question :-) I need to write some X Windows code (X11R5, so it makes the ten year rule!). Nothing fancy - no GUI needed, just pixel ops on the root window. Does anyone have any pointers to good online tutorials / other resources? I think the last time I coded anything specifically for X was around the time R5 was released, so memory is rather hazy, and I don't think I've got any paper-based info here at home. cheers! Jules From Hans.Franke at siemens.com Mon Jun 19 05:41:17 2006 From: Hans.Franke at siemens.com (Hans Franke) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:41:17 +0200 Subject: Xlib programming... In-Reply-To: <44968714.3020808@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44969B6D.6553.1F300211@localhost> Am 19 Jun 2006 11:14 meinte Jules Richardson: > > urgh, a software question :-) I need to write some X Windows code (X11R5, so > it makes the ten year rule!). Nothing fancy - no GUI needed, just pixel ops on > the root window. > > Does anyone have any pointers to good online tutorials / other resources? > > I think the last time I coded anything specifically for X was around the time > R5 was released, so memory is rather hazy, and I don't think I've got any > paper-based info here at home. Well, there hasn't changed a lot - at least for the basic stuff. A pixel is still a rather crude dot on some bitplane. So if you still got some old paper, use it. Beside that, http://www.the-labs.com/ is a primer source for online-information about X11 - at least if you got some prior programming knowledge :) Check: http://www.the-labs.com/X11/XLib-Manual/ Beside that, if you want to draw (vector based) stuff, the antigrain lib ( http://www.antigrain.com/ ) is worth a look. Extreme fast rendering and complete OS independent. Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 8.0 am 28/29.April 2007 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/ From stanb at dial.pipex.com Mon Jun 19 02:45:52 2006 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 08:45:52 +0100 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 18 Jun 2006 22:07:38 BST." Message-ID: <200606190745.IAA21024@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Tony Duell said: > > my experience. The term "valve" is more of a function thing by analogy > > with a valve controlling the flow of liquid, a thermionic valve is used > > I beleive the origin of the term 'valve' goes back to the diode, by > analogy with the one-way valve on a tyre or something like that. > I seem to remember reading somewhere that Fleming introduced the term around 1904 for exactly that reason. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jun 19 09:38:47 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 09:38:47 -0500 Subject: Infoton terminal Message-ID: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8831089153 Someone in the NE should pick this up. Early 70's terminals aren't easy to find. From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jun 19 10:17:20 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 08:17:20 -0700 Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card In-Reply-To: <036b01c69379$e4716380$6401a8c0@catherine> References: <036b01c69379$e4716380$6401a8c0@catherine> Message-ID: At 1:25 AM -0700 6/19/06, Henry Ji wrote: >I have a >DEC microvax 1000 with > >Matrox QG-640 card (1985). Does anyone know what matching monitor it >would work with? I tried Matrox but no luck. VGA came out around >1987. Could this be a EGA card? Does G-640 means monochrom 640 >resolution? I googled internet and I see QRGB card. Analog VGA >graphics card? What on earth is a MicroVAX 1000? Sounds like a very strange beast you have there. Good luck, it's probably some sort of hi-res card. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jun 19 10:19:11 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 08:19:11 -0700 Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 8:28 AM +0100 6/19/06, Adrian Graham wrote: >Has anyone got a set of Workbench 3.1 ROMs they'd be willing to part with >for less than epay and internet vultures want for them? My A4000 needs them >so I can install OS3.9 and get instant accelerator action :) Software Hut in the US seems to have them for a very reasonable price, only $42.96US. http://www.softhut.com/cgi-bin/test/Web_store/web_store.cgi?page=catalog/software/operating_sys/os31.html&cart_id=725301_8318 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 ying6926 at ureach.com Mon Jun 19 10:24:51 2006 From: ying6926 at ureach.com (Henry Ji) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:24:51 -0400 Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card Message-ID: <200606191524.LAA06895@www22.ureach.com> It is microvax II. ---- On Mon, 19 Jun 2006, Zane H. Healy (healyzh at aracnet.com) wrote: > At 1:25 AM -0700 6/19/06, Henry Ji wrote: > >I have a > >DEC microvax 1000 with > > > >Matrox QG-640 card (1985). Does anyone know what matching monitor it > >would work with? I tried Matrox but no luck. VGA came out around > >1987. Could this be a EGA card? Does G-640 means monochrom 640 > >resolution? I googled internet and I see QRGB card. Analog VGA > >graphics card? > > What on earth is a MicroVAX 1000? Sounds like a very strange beast > you have there. Good luck, it's probably some sort of hi-res card. > > 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 ics65 at sbcglobal.net Mon Jun 19 11:26:08 2006 From: ics65 at sbcglobal.net (George Wiegand) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:26:08 -0400 Subject: DG 7800 Eclipse and 9 Track (800/1600 BPI) Tape Drive Message-ID: <002701c693bd$12284990$17e4da45@ics63szde1vn50> Hey Folks, There's a DG 7800 Eclipse and 9 Track (800/1600 BPI) Tape Drive in a single DG rack on Govenment Liquidation.com. http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?id=900436&convertTo=USD starting at $50.00, located in Tobyhanna, PA. ,George Wiegand ICS65 at SBCglobal.net From ics65 at sbcglobal.net Mon Jun 19 11:26:08 2006 From: ics65 at sbcglobal.net (George Wiegand) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:26:08 -0400 Subject: DG 7800 Eclipse and 9 Track (800/1600 BPI) Tape Drive Message-ID: <002701c693bd$12284990$17e4da45@ics63szde1vn50> Hey Folks, There's a DG 7800 Eclipse and 9 Track (800/1600 BPI) Tape Drive in a single DG rack on Govenment Liquidation.com. http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?id=900436&convertTo=USD starting at $50.00, located in Tobyhanna, PA. ,George Wiegand ICS65 at SBCglobal.net From rtellason at verizon.net Mon Jun 19 11:31:39 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:31:39 -0400 Subject: DG 7800 Eclipse and 9 Track (800/1600 BPI) Tape Drive In-Reply-To: <002701c693bd$12284990$17e4da45@ics63szde1vn50> References: <002701c693bd$12284990$17e4da45@ics63szde1vn50> Message-ID: <200606191231.39918.rtellason@verizon.net> On Monday 19 June 2006 12:26 pm, George Wiegand wrote: > Hey Folks, > There's a DG 7800 Eclipse and 9 Track (800/1600 BPI) Tape Drive in a > single DG rack on Govenment Liquidation.com. > http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?id=900436&convertTo=USD starting > at $50.00, located in Tobyhanna, PA. > > ,George Wiegand > ICS65 at SBCglobal.net Damn, I wish my truck was on the road at this point (and that I had some place to put that :-)... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Mon Jun 19 12:08:20 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 18:08:20 +0100 Subject: TV kits was Re: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes References: Message-ID: <002801c693c2$f77646a0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> From: "Tony Duell" > > There were, as Tony says, a number of kits and self build designs available > > in the years just before and just after WW2. I have a design for a Radar > > tube based set on my bench at the moment, as I'm planning to modify it into > > a multi standard monitor (240, 405, 441, 625) for use with a PC based > > Presumably your radar CRT is electrostatically defiected, which makes > varying the scan rate a lot easier than if you were using electromagnetic > deflection. Yes, the VCR97 is a 6" electrostaic deflection and focus CRT > > Going back further, the Baird 30 line mechanical system became popular after > > the "Daily Express" newspaper produced and distributed "televisor" kits - > > somewhere I have a picture of them loading railway trucks with the kits. > > There were also other suppliers of kits and specialist components, like > > Nipkow discs, or mirror screws. > > I found 'Newnes Televsion Handbook' in a second-hand bookshop a few years > back. I don't think they realised what it was, the price was pretty low. > It covers _only_ mechanically-scanend stuff.... > A very lucky find! I recently got hold of some "television and shortwave" magazines from 1935 to 1939, which cover the late mechanical and early electronic systems (the Baird 240 / EMI 405 competition and such like. There is also a lot of information on the development of the Scophony mechanicaly scanned 405 line receiver (I have one of the few remaining parts of a Scophony set, http://www.g1jbg.co.uk/tv1.htm) Jim. From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Mon Jun 19 12:20:47 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:20:47 -0400 Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060619125710.05de7468@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Adrian Graham may have mentioned these words: >Hi Folks, > >Has anyone got a set of Workbench 3.1 ROMs they'd be willing to part with >for less than epay and internet vultures want for them? My A4000 needs them >so I can install OS3.9 and get instant accelerator action :) I have a late model 4000T (technically offtopic - built in '98) with I *believe* 3.1 Roms in it - tearing it apart now... =-= away from computer, leatherman in hand... =-= Visually confirmed - I have 3.1 Roms in it, and they're socketed. If you can tell me the chip and/or pinout, I can tell you if I have any chips in stock to burn. Now, I have a question: I have the bog-standard A3640 Rev 3.1 CPU card (25Mhz 68040) in mine - will this card support a 33Mhz CPU if I swap the 50Mhz oscillator with a 66Mhz? Thanks! Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers zmerch at 30below.com Hi! I am a .signature virus. Copy me into your .signature to join in! From teoz at neo.rr.com Mon Jun 19 12:53:24 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:53:24 -0400 Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060619125710.05de7468@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <006901c693c9$43800210$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Merchberger" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 1:20 PM Subject: Re: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS > Rumor has it that Adrian Graham may have mentioned these words: > >Hi Folks, > > > >Has anyone got a set of Workbench 3.1 ROMs they'd be willing to part with > >for less than epay and internet vultures want for them? My A4000 needs them > >so I can install OS3.9 and get instant accelerator action :) > > I have a late model 4000T (technically offtopic - built in '98) with I > *believe* 3.1 Roms in it - tearing it apart now... > > =-= away from computer, leatherman in hand... =-= > > Visually confirmed - I have 3.1 Roms in it, and they're socketed. > > If you can tell me the chip and/or pinout, I can tell you if I have any > chips in stock to burn. > > Now, I have a question: > > I have the bog-standard A3640 Rev 3.1 CPU card (25Mhz 68040) in mine - will > this card support a 33Mhz CPU if I swap the 50Mhz oscillator with a 66Mhz? > > Thanks! > Roger "Merch" Merchberger > > -- > Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers > zmerch at 30below.com Does anybody own the right to those Amiga ROMs anymore and actively sell them (not talking about a shop with old stocks from when Commodore was still around)? From brad at heeltoe.com Mon Jun 19 13:48:14 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:48:14 -0400 Subject: Xlib programming... In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:14:28 -0000." <44968714.3020808@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200606191848.k5JImEIQ012818@mwave.heeltoe.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > >urgh, a software question :-) I need to write some X Windows code (X11R5, so >it makes the ten year rule!). Nothing fancy - no GUI needed, just pixel ops on > >the root window. > >Does anyone have any pointers to good online tutorials / other resources? > >I think the last time I coded anything specifically for X was around the time >R5 was released, so memory is rather hazy, and I don't think I've got any >paper-based info here at home. It might not help, but I've been using SDL lately. It eliminates the need to get caught up in X and allows you to be cross platform (win32, mac & linux). I use it for various emulators when they want to display using simple bitmap hardware. -brad From fireflyst at earthlink.net Mon Jun 19 14:04:17 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:04:17 -0500 Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: <006901c693c9$43800210$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: Actually, Amiga, inc. is still in posession of those rights. The ROMs sold in places like software hut are licensed from Amiga, not old Commodore stock. Contrary to what's written on some sites, the Amiga ROMs are *not* abandonware. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Teo Zenios > Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 12:53 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Roger Merchberger" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 1:20 PM > Subject: Re: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS > > > > Rumor has it that Adrian Graham may have mentioned these words: > > >Hi Folks, > > > > > >Has anyone got a set of Workbench 3.1 ROMs they'd be > willing to part with > > >for less than epay and internet vultures want for them? My > A4000 needs > them > > >so I can install OS3.9 and get instant accelerator action :) > > > > I have a late model 4000T (technically offtopic - built in > '98) with I > > *believe* 3.1 Roms in it - tearing it apart now... > > > > =-= away from computer, leatherman in hand... =-= > > > > Visually confirmed - I have 3.1 Roms in it, and they're socketed. > > > > If you can tell me the chip and/or pinout, I can tell you > if I have any > > chips in stock to burn. > > > > Now, I have a question: > > > > I have the bog-standard A3640 Rev 3.1 CPU card (25Mhz > 68040) in mine - > will > > this card support a 33Mhz CPU if I swap the 50Mhz > oscillator with a 66Mhz? > > > > Thanks! > > Roger "Merch" Merchberger > > > > -- > > Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers > > zmerch at 30below.com > > Does anybody own the right to those Amiga ROMs anymore and > actively sell > them (not talking about a shop with old stocks from when > Commodore was still > around)? > > From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Mon Jun 19 14:48:26 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 20:48:26 +0100 Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 19/6/06 08:55, "Ethan Dicks" wrote: > On 6/19/06, Adrian Graham wrote: >> Hi Folks, >> >> Has anyone got a set of Workbench 3.1 ROMs they'd be willing to part with >> for less than epay and internet vultures want for them? My A4000 needs them >> so I can install OS3.9 and get instant accelerator action :) > > Sorry... my newest version is 3.0. I haven't dropped the money and > taken the plunge to go to OS3.9. I don't have any accelerated Amigas, > nor fancy video cards. Neither did I up until a few months ago, then this beauty dropped into my lap shortly before its HD gave up the ghost to such a degree it won't even spin up properly. I've got enough bits to rebuild the machine but I'd have to strip out the accelerator and find a 68030 to fit so I can get AmigaOS running. > What's the vulture price for ROMs? I'd consider upgrading the > A4000/040 (standard A3640 CPU card) and maybe one A3000 if it didn't > cost an arm and a leg for ROMs. Hmm, surprisingly lower than the last time I checked! The trend seems to be around 50 bucks so I might pick some up when I'm in the US next month. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Mon Jun 19 14:50:21 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 20:50:21 +0100 Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 19/6/06 16:19, "Zane H. Healy" wrote: > At 8:28 AM +0100 6/19/06, Adrian Graham wrote: >> Has anyone got a set of Workbench 3.1 ROMs they'd be willing to part with >> for less than epay and internet vultures want for them? My A4000 needs them >> so I can install OS3.9 and get instant accelerator action :) > > Software Hut in the US seems to have them for a very reasonable > price, only $42.96US. > Yep, it's been a while since I looked. I should've got the ROMs with the OS3.5 kit I got from epay since the same seller was offloading a metric buttload of CBM stuff including Commodore-branded LCD panels, but at the time thought I'd not need WB3.1 :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Mon Jun 19 14:53:41 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 20:53:41 +0100 Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060619125710.05de7468@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: On 19/6/06 18:20, "Roger Merchberger" wrote: > Rumor has it that Adrian Graham may have mentioned these words: >> Hi Folks, >> >> Has anyone got a set of Workbench 3.1 ROMs they'd be willing to part with >> for less than epay and internet vultures want for them? My A4000 needs them >> so I can install OS3.9 and get instant accelerator action :) > > I have a late model 4000T (technically offtopic - built in '98) with I > *believe* 3.1 Roms in it - tearing it apart now... > > =-= away from computer, leatherman in hand... =-= > > Visually confirmed - I have 3.1 Roms in it, and they're socketed. > > If you can tell me the chip and/or pinout, I can tell you if I have any > chips in stock to burn. Thanks for looking, but I'd prefer originals purely because Amiga, Inc is still with us. As I've found tonight the price of the ROMs isn't as high as it used to be...... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jun 19 15:01:19 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:01:19 -0500 Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4497028F.8070909@oldskool.org> Adrian Graham wrote: >> Visually confirmed - I have 3.1 Roms in it, and they're socketed. >> >> If you can tell me the chip and/or pinout, I can tell you if I have any >> chips in stock to burn. > > Thanks for looking, but I'd prefer originals purely because Amiga, Inc is > still with us. As I've found tonight the price of the ROMs isn't as high as > it used to be...... The quickest/cheapest way to get Amiga ROMs is to just order a copy of Amiga Forever from Cloanto. Comes with OS versions, emulators, ROMs, all 100% legal and licensed. There's a special bit of charm running traditionally pokey Amiga applications (3d rendering, etc.) under an emulator on a fast machine -- the speed exceeds what any real Amiga could ever do :-) -- 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 healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jun 19 15:26:58 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:26:58 -0700 Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: <006901c693c9$43800210$0b01a8c0@game> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060619125710.05de7468@mail.30below.com> <006901c693c9$43800210$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: At 1:53 PM -0400 6/19/06, Teo Zenios wrote: >Does anybody own the right to those Amiga ROMs anymore and actively sell >them (not talking about a shop with old stocks from when Commodore was still >around)? Amiga, Inc. (or whoever they are these days) owns the rights, and Software Hut is the licensed distributor for them for the US. Software Hut is my dealer of choice for Amiga items, as they tend to have about the best stock and prices. 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 witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Mon Jun 19 15:30:34 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 21:30:34 +0100 Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: <4497028F.8070909@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On 19/6/06 21:01, "Jim Leonard" wrote: > Adrian Graham wrote: >>> Visually confirmed - I have 3.1 Roms in it, and they're socketed. >>> >>> If you can tell me the chip and/or pinout, I can tell you if I have any >>> chips in stock to burn. >> >> Thanks for looking, but I'd prefer originals purely because Amiga, Inc is >> still with us. As I've found tonight the price of the ROMs isn't as high as >> it used to be...... > > The quickest/cheapest way to get Amiga ROMs is to just order a copy of > Amiga Forever from Cloanto. Comes with OS versions, emulators, ROMs, > all 100% legal and licensed. Ah, I didn't realise ROMs were in the package too but I've never really looked into Amiga Forever since I got a free copy of Amiga Explorer for giving the Cloanto people some hi-res pix of my amigaphone :) That and some real amigas have been spot on for me up till now. I'll look into that, ta. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 19 16:11:42 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 22:11:42 +0100 (BST) Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer checked In-Reply-To: <200606190745.IAA21024@citadel.metropolis.local> from "Stan Barr" at Jun 19, 6 08:45:52 am Message-ID: > > I beleive the origin of the term 'valve' goes back to the diode, by > > analogy with the one-way valve on a tyre or something like that. > > > > I seem to remember reading somewhere that Fleming introduced the term > around 1904 for exactly that reason. I beliece the original term was "Fleming's Oscillation Valve", as in a device that let oscillations of one polarity through, and blocked the ones of the other polarity. Then of course there was the 'Audion Bulb' (an early name for the triode). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 19 16:15:56 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 22:15:56 +0100 (BST) Subject: TV kits was Re: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <002801c693c2$f77646a0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> from "Jim Beacon" at Jun 19, 6 06:08:20 pm Message-ID: > into > > > a multi standard monitor (240, 405, 441, 625) for use with a PC based > > > > Presumably your radar CRT is electrostatically defiected, which makes > > varying the scan rate a lot easier than if you were using electromagnetic > > deflection. > > Yes, the VCR97 is a 6" electrostaic deflection and focus CRT Sure. It hadn't registered with me that you were using a VCR97 for this. > > I found 'Newnes Televsion Handbook' in a second-hand bookshop a few years > > back. I don't think they realised what it was, the price was pretty low. > > It covers _only_ mechanically-scanend stuff.... > > > A very lucky find! I recently got hold of some "television and shortwave" > magazines from 1935 to 1939, which cover the late mechanical and early Unfortunately, my oldest 'Practical Television' magaizes are from 1952, I think. I have about 3 years worth from then, then a large gap, another 3 or 4 complete years in the early 70's, then another gap, then everything from the end of 1985 onwards (until a couple of months ago, when the editors changed, the new chap is, I believe termially clueless, so I've stopped wasting money on it...) > electronic systems (the Baird 240 / EMI 405 competition and such like. There > is also a lot of information on the development of the Scophony mechanicaly > scanned 405 line receiver (I have one of the few remaining parts of a > Scophony set, http://www.g1jbg.co.uk/tv1.htm) Ooooh... A very nice find there... -tony From williams.dan at gmail.com Mon Jun 19 16:35:24 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 22:35:24 +0100 Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card In-Reply-To: <036b01c69379$e4716380$6401a8c0@catherine> References: <036b01c69379$e4716380$6401a8c0@catherine> Message-ID: <26c11a640606191435x6091ee26s711e361d0344bb3f@mail.gmail.com> On 19/06/06, Henry Ji wrote: > I have a > DEC microvax 1000 with > > Matrox QG-640 card (1985). Does anyone know what matching monitor it would work with? I tried Matrox but no luck. VGA came out around 1987. Could this be a EGA card? Does G-640 means monochrom 640 resolution? I googled internet and I see QRGB card. Analog VGA graphics card? > > thanks > > Henry > > > Is it the one with just a phono socket. I think this just connects to a video monitor. Should work if you plug in to your tv. If it's the one I'm thinking of it is monochrome. Dan From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jun 19 16:40:10 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:40:10 -0600 Subject: TV kits was Re: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes In-Reply-To: <002801c693c2$f77646a0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> References: <002801c693c2$f77646a0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> Message-ID: <449719BA.9010807@jetnet.ab.ca> Jim Beacon wrote: > A very lucky find! I recently got hold of some "television and shortwave" > magazines from 1935 to 1939, which cover the late mechanical and early > electronic systems (the Baird 240 / EMI 405 competition and such like. There > is also a lot of information on the development of the Scophony mechanicaly > scanned 405 line receiver (I have one of the few remaining parts of a > Scophony set, http://www.g1jbg.co.uk/tv1.htm) > > Jim. Now that is a REAL television set! Hurry up and duplicate the set before the UK changes to some weird standard like everybody here in the US and Canada going to HDTV broadcast standard! No more analog! From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jun 19 17:07:55 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:07:55 -0700 Subject: Scanning Microfiche Message-ID: I recently noticed just how high the resolution is getting on the latest scanners. Epson has scanners various scanners in the $450-800 range that do the following resolutions 6400x6400, 6400x9600, and 4800x6400 Optical DPI. The $800 V750-M Pro seems especially suited to Microfiche as it looks like it can handle up to 8x10" film at up to 6400x9600, with the correct orientation of the fiche being scanned I think that would allow between 150-200dpi per page. It even supports Firewire as well as USB. Has anyone had the chance to see if these newer scanners can handle fiche? 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 jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Mon Jun 19 17:29:11 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:29:11 -0700 Subject: Scanning Microfiche In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44972537.1020206@msm.umr.edu> Zane H. Healy wrote: > I recently noticed just how high the resolution is getting on the > latest scanners. Epson has scanners various scanners in the $450-800 > range that do the following resolutions 6400x6400, 6400x9600, and > 4800x6400 Optical DPI. > I have two perfection pro scanners, one that handles up to 5 x 7 or larger and the other that handles 4 x 6. there is probably no need for regular fiche to get a scanner that can do 8 x 10 in the epson line, because even for aperture cards, which have the dimensions of holerith cards, you can scan it with both of the above. I scanned a couple of fiche which were from the war department / US Navy. They came out pretty good. they can be viewed on the page http://vpb208.org/Diaries%20and%20Documents.html as the fiche1 and fiche2 pdf links, and the "number one" and "number two" links. I scanned from the 8 x 10 raw documents images on the fiche, to the same dpi as if I had scanned an 8 x 10 page black and white at the same dimension. Each scan physically scanned a physical area maybe 1/4" x 3/8" or so, maybe a bit smaller. The fiche was 14 x 7 images app. The epson's optical resolution is plenty high enough as you pointed out to accomplish this. I had a reference grid in the software that allowed me to specify a single scan area, and then move it from spot to spot to capture each successive page as I scanned. The results went to tiff, g4 compressed, then to pdf. The web site has jpg and the final pdf. Each fiche took about 45min to 1H to scan this way to individual images. Jim From healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jun 19 18:44:20 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 16:44:20 -0700 Subject: Scanning Microfiche In-Reply-To: <44972537.1020206@msm.umr.edu> References: <44972537.1020206@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: At 3:29 PM -0700 6/19/06, jim stephens wrote: >Zane H. Healy wrote: > >>I recently noticed just how high the resolution is getting on the >>latest scanners. Epson has scanners various scanners in the >>$450-800 range that do the following resolutions 6400x6400, >>6400x9600, and 4800x6400 Optical DPI. >> >I have two perfection pro scanners, one that handles up to 5 x 7 or >larger and the other that handles 4 x 6. there is >probably no need for regular fiche to get a scanner that can do 8 x >10 in the epson line, because even >for aperture cards, which have the dimensions of holerith cards, you >can scan it with both of the above. > >I scanned a couple of fiche which were from the war department / US >Navy. They came out >pretty good. > >they can be viewed on the page >http://vpb208.org/Diaries%20and%20Documents.html >as the fiche1 and fiche2 pdf links, and the "number one" and "number >two" links. Very nice! What are the physical dimensions of each page on the actual microfiche? Also what resolution did you scan at? The scanner would be used for more than just microfiche, which makes the 8x10 capability desirable. 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 bpope at wordstock.com Mon Jun 19 19:08:30 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 20:08:30 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060620000830.47363583F5@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Adrian Graham > > Ah, I didn't realise ROMs were in the package too but I've never really > looked into Amiga Forever since I got a free copy of Amiga Explorer for > giving the Cloanto people some hi-res pix of my amigaphone :) That and some ^^^^^^^^^^ ? What's an amigaphone?? > real amigas have been spot on for me up till now. > > I'll look into that, ta. > Thanks, Bryan From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Mon Jun 19 19:22:36 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 17:22:36 -0700 Subject: Scanning Microfiche In-Reply-To: References: <44972537.1020206@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <44973FCC.900@msm.umr.edu> Zane H. Healy wrote: > > Very nice! What are the physical dimensions of each page on the > actual microfiche? Also what resolution did you scan at? > > The scanner would be used for more than just microfiche, which makes > the 8x10 capability desirable. > > Zane The physical dimensions on the fiche was such that there were 14 8 x 10 sheets across a fiche. I don't have the fiche around to look at and measure. remember 8 x 10 transparentcy is a huge amount of data at high resolution. most film negatives are no where near that big. I bought the scanner I have to scan 5 x 7 glass photo negatives from the 1800's that are in my family, and that is the largest format I have. I only ever used and could afford 4 x 5 negative film when i was shooting anything larger than 220 roll film, so I have very little larger than that. the scanner will handle legal size, I think but not photo transparencies that large. What I meant to say earlier was the the scans when I finished had the same bit dimension as if one had scanned 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper, black and white at 200 dpi (IIRC). Jim From fireflyst at earthlink.net Mon Jun 19 21:54:19 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 21:54:19 -0500 Subject: XXDP on TU58 emulator? Message-ID: So has anyone used XXDP via the TU58 emulator? I was looking at doing this as I have two serial interfaces on my 11/34 and am still evaluating disk memory solutions. I figure I might as well tool around with diags and get something done while I'm shopping for disk-ness. From ak6dn at mindspring.com Mon Jun 19 22:46:08 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 20:46:08 -0700 Subject: XXDP on TU58 emulator? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44976F80.3040902@mindspring.com> Julian Wolfe wrote: > So has anyone used XXDP via the TU58 emulator? I was looking at doing this > as I have two serial interfaces on my 11/34 and am still evaluating disk > memory solutions. > > I figure I might as well tool around with diags and get something done while > I'm shopping for disk-ness. > > > I do this all the time on my 11/34 and 11/44 ... I recently put up a web page: http://www.ak6dn.com/PDP-11/TU58-images/ with my suite of bootable XXDPv25 TU-58 images. I haven't posted it yet, but I also have a serial line TU-58 emulator (originally based on the Dan T'so source, but it has now been massively rewritten). It works well with XXDP and RT-11, and I have even put in hooks for it to pass the DEC TU-58 diagnostic ZTUUF0 TU58 Performance Exerciser. Right now it is in 'beta test' mode so contact me directly if you want executable/sources. Don North From edwardk at sltnet.lk Mon Jun 19 02:22:17 2006 From: edwardk at sltnet.lk (Edward Perera) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:22:17 +0600 Subject: mini-cassette LDB 4401 Message-ID: <001601c69371$18dd1f50$65a9a5de@emcaubuwi4un0y> Dear Mike, I got your contact from http://classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2000-June/149096.html .I'm grateful to you if you could sell me 2 cassettes of "Philips brand, Certified Digital mini-cassette LDB 4401, made in Austria". Please find below my postal address: Edward Perera, No. 160, Colombo Road, Negombo, Sri Lanka. Please let me know your price, including postage by air mail to Sri Lanka, so that I can post you the payment in dollar notes or any other means that you prefer. Thanks & Best Regards, Edward. From brian at mysteriouslyyours.com Mon Jun 19 11:18:24 2006 From: brian at mysteriouslyyours.com (Brian Caws) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:18:24 -0400 Subject: Amplifier manuals Message-ID: <040101c693bb$fd995650$4601a8c0@briannew> Hi Chris, I've found an old Toa A-903 and I am looking for a manual. Do you still have one? The newer version of this amp is different. Thanks in advvance, Richard From westdata at sbcglobal.net Mon Jun 19 21:42:56 2006 From: westdata at sbcglobal.net (Al Kick) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 19:42:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: FA: Cirris Signature 1000 cable Tester Message-ID: <20060620024256.86128.qmail@web82413.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Could I please get a list of the adapters you have ? Is the tester in good shape ? I am in the market for a tester, but I don't want a piece of junk ! And lastly, how much ? Thank you in advance, AL From ying6926 at ureach.com Tue Jun 20 00:48:57 2006 From: ying6926 at ureach.com (Henry Ji) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 01:48:57 -0400 Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card Message-ID: <200606200548.BAA28555@www22.ureach.com> hi Dan It has two DB9 connectors. regards Henry ---- On Mon, 19 Jun 2006, Dan Williams (williams.dan at gmail.com) wrote: > On 19/06/06, Henry Ji wrote: > > I have a > > DEC microvax 1000 with > > > > Matrox QG-640 card (1985). Does anyone know what matching monitor it would work with? I tried > Matrox but no luck. VGA came out around 1987. Could this be a EGA card? Does G-640 means monochrom > 640 resolution? I googled internet and I see QRGB card. Analog VGA graphics card? > > > > thanks > > > > Henry > > > > > > > Is it the one with just a phono socket. I think this just connects to > a video monitor. Should work if you plug in to your tv. If it's the > one I'm thinking of it is monochrome. > > Dan > > From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jun 20 02:02:54 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:02:54 -0700 Subject: XXDP on TU58 emulator? In-Reply-To: <44976F80.3040902@mindspring.com> References: <44976F80.3040902@mindspring.com> Message-ID: At 8:46 PM -0700 6/19/06, Don North wrote: >Julian Wolfe wrote: >>So has anyone used XXDP via the TU58 emulator? I was looking at doing this >>as I have two serial interfaces on my 11/34 and am still evaluating disk >>memory solutions. >> >>I figure I might as well tool around with diags and get something done while >>I'm shopping for disk-ness. > >I do this all the time on my 11/34 and 11/44 ... I recently put up a web page: > > http://www.ak6dn.com/PDP-11/TU58-images/ > >with my suite of bootable XXDPv25 TU-58 images. I haven't posted it yet, >but I also have a serial line TU-58 emulator (originally based on the Dan T'so >source, but it has now been massively rewritten). It works well with XXDP >and RT-11, and I have even put in hooks for it to pass the DEC TU-58 >diagnostic ZTUUF0 TU58 Performance Exerciser. Right now it is in 'beta >test' mode so contact me directly if you want executable/sources. Now that is seriously cool! This is just about the best use I've heard of for a TU-58 emulator! 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 witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jun 20 02:32:47 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 08:32:47 +0100 Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: <20060620000830.47363583F5@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: On 20/6/06 01:08, "Bryan Pope" wrote: > And thusly were the wise words spake by Adrian Graham >> >> Ah, I didn't realise ROMs were in the package too but I've never really >> looked into Amiga Forever since I got a free copy of Amiga Explorer for >> giving the Cloanto people some hi-res pix of my amigaphone :) That and some > ^^^^^^^^^^ ? > What's an amigaphone?? Heh, it's not a real product sadly, just a daft thing from the AmigaDOS engineers at MetaComCo: http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Commodore/amigaphone/index.php -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 20 06:21:48 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 11:21:48 +0000 Subject: Scanning Microfiche In-Reply-To: <44973FCC.900@msm.umr.edu> References: <44972537.1020206@msm.umr.edu> <44973FCC.900@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <4497DA4C.6020900@yahoo.co.uk> jim stephens wrote: > Zane H. Healy wrote: > >> >> Very nice! What are the physical dimensions of each page on the >> actual microfiche? Also what resolution did you scan at? >> >> The scanner would be used for more than just microfiche, which makes >> the 8x10 capability desirable. >> >> Zane > > The physical dimensions on the fiche was such that there were 14 8 x 10 > sheets across a fiche. Hmm, that's interesting. We're still on the look-out for something that can scan DEC fiche, which IIRC is 16 x 13 pages per fiche. Of course the actual scanning's only half the problem - there's also the issue of feeding the data in and out of the scanner if it's going to be used for any kind of preservation work, rather than one-off scans. We've got about a million ICL fiches too that could benefit from scanning, but luckily those are just a single A4 page per fiche and so a little more manageable. cheers Jules From bert at brothom.nl Tue Jun 20 06:26:58 2006 From: bert at brothom.nl (Bert Thomas) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 12:26:58 +0100 Subject: Scanning Microfiche In-Reply-To: <4497DA4C.6020900@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44972537.1020206@msm.umr.edu> <44973FCC.900@msm.umr.edu> <4497DA4C.6020900@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <4497DB82.7000505@brothom.nl> > We've got about a million ICL fiches too that could benefit from > scanning, but luckily those are just a single A4 page per fiche and so a > little more manageable. ICL? Does that perhaps include the CLAN 4 ? I'm looking for years for docs on that machine. Bert From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 20 06:37:29 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 11:37:29 +0000 Subject: Xlib programming... In-Reply-To: <200606191848.k5JImEIQ012818@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200606191848.k5JImEIQ012818@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <4497DDF9.7050902@yahoo.co.uk> Brad Parker wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: >> urgh, a software question :-) I need to write some X Windows code (X11R5, so >> it makes the ten year rule!). Nothing fancy - no GUI needed, just pixel ops on >> >> the root window. >> >> Does anyone have any pointers to good online tutorials / other resources? >> >> I think the last time I coded anything specifically for X was around the time >> R5 was released, so memory is rather hazy, and I don't think I've got any >> paper-based info here at home. > > It might not help, but I've been using SDL lately. It eliminates the > need to get caught up in X and allows you to be cross platform (win32, > mac & linux). Hmm, interesting. I'm trying to pack OS + enough of X to display pixel data into 32MB, but for the application in mind I'll need to source data externally anyway - so it might be possible to NFS-mount a remote drive with extra goodies on. (I'm looking at other possibilities too, such as using SVGALib rather than X - but I like X for its portability and remote display abilities) cheers J. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 20 07:00:24 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 12:00:24 +0000 Subject: Scanning Microfiche In-Reply-To: <4497DB82.7000505@brothom.nl> References: <44972537.1020206@msm.umr.edu> <44973FCC.900@msm.umr.edu> <4497DA4C.6020900@yahoo.co.uk> <4497DB82.7000505@brothom.nl> Message-ID: <4497E358.60806@yahoo.co.uk> Bert Thomas wrote: >> We've got about a million ICL fiches too that could benefit from >> scanning, but luckily those are just a single A4 page per fiche and so >> a little more manageable. > > ICL? Does that perhaps include the CLAN 4 ? I'm looking for years for > docs on that machine. Most likely! Right now we're having fun trying to figure out how all the data's indexed - we've got all these cabinets full of cards, but no apparent master index that we've yet seen (early days though, plus we're in touch with Fujitsu to see if they've still got anything on their site) We *might* actually have CLAN 4 docs on paper already - I'll try and remember to look when I'm on-site next and have access to the building that I think they're in (I'm *sure* I've seen some somewhere, and have a feeling I know which box they were in) cheers Jules From shirsch at adelphia.net Tue Jun 20 06:44:07 2006 From: shirsch at adelphia.net (Steven N. Hirsch) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 07:44:07 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060619125710.05de7468@mail.30below.com> <006901c693c9$43800210$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jun 2006, Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 1:53 PM -0400 6/19/06, Teo Zenios wrote: > >Does anybody own the right to those Amiga ROMs anymore and actively sell > >them (not talking about a shop with old stocks from when Commodore was still > >around)? > > Amiga, Inc. (or whoever they are these days) owns the rights, and Software Hut > is the licensed distributor for them for the US. Software Hut is my dealer of > choice for Amiga items, as they tend to have about the best stock and prices. I've personally had better experiences with AmigaKit in UK. Even with international mail and currency exchange they end up being a bit less. Beyond that, they're far more responsive to e-mail. Steve From shirsch at adelphia.net Tue Jun 20 06:54:15 2006 From: shirsch at adelphia.net (Steven N. Hirsch) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 07:54:15 -0400 (EDT) Subject: New (old) SGI Indigo2 Message-ID: Just picked up an Indigo2 at a swap meet. It came with no drives installed and, as a consequence, no operating system. I think it's operational since I get the nice SGI ba-ba-dink! from the speaker when powered up. SGI makes what they're calling Irix 6.5.22m available for free download. It is in (3) tarballs containing a bunch of tardist files. First question is: Is it possible to do a bare-metal install of Irix over the network using these packages? SGI manages to do a complete dance around the issue of whether this release is a maintenance ONLY (designed to drop over a previously installed system) or whether it can do a complete fresh install onto a bare hard drive. If it cannot, would someone with the 6.5 Base CD set be neighborly and contact me off-list? Second question is: The unit came with the EISA "Extreme" graphics adaptor. When I connect it to my shop monitor with a 13W3 --> HD15 cable I get absolutely no display. Are these boxes like the Suns and Alphas where they default (or can be made to default) to a serial console under initial conditions? If so, any pointers to the required null-modem wiring? (The unit has Apple-type 8-pin mini-DIN serial ports). Any sage advice appreciated! Steve -- From james.rice at gmail.com Tue Jun 20 08:04:43 2006 From: james.rice at gmail.com (James Rice) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 07:04:43 -0600 Subject: New (old) SGI Indigo2 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/20/06, Steven N. Hirsch wrote: > SGI makes what they're calling Irix 6.5.22m available for free download. > It is in (3) tarballs containing a bunch of tardist files. > > First question is: > > Is it possible to do a bare-metal install of Irix over the network using > these packages? SGI manages to do a complete dance around the issue of > whether this release is a maintenance ONLY (designed to drop over a > previously installed system) or whether it can do a complete fresh install > onto a bare hard drive. If it cannot, would someone with the 6.5 Base CD > set be neighborly and contact me off-list? No you can't do a new install from this distribution. You need the 6.5 base install first. I'd make you a copy but all of my Sgi CD's are in PODS in transit. > > Second question is: > > The unit came with the EISA "Extreme" graphics adaptor. When I connect it > to my shop monitor with a 13W3 --> HD15 cable I get absolutely no display. > Are these boxes like the Suns and Alphas where they default (or can be > made to default) to a serial console under initial conditions? If so, any > pointers to the required null-modem wiring? (The unit has Apple-type > 8-pin mini-DIN serial ports). http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi/hdwr/bks/SGI_EndUser/books/Indy_OwnerGd/sgi_html/apb.html The cable is the same between the Indy and Indigo2. Check out http://techpubs.sgi.com for every doc ever published on the Indigo2. > > Any sage advice appreciated! > > Steve > -- www.blackcube.org - The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers www.blackcube.org/personal/index.html - Personal web page From imind at ptd.net Tue Jun 20 08:25:36 2006 From: imind at ptd.net (imind at ptd.net) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 13:25:36 -0000 Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card In-Reply-To: <200606200548.BAA28555@www22.ureach.com> Message-ID: Henry Ji said: >From what I can gleen from the two or three places it's mentioned (abstracts from technical articles) it supports dual monitors at relatively high resolution (for the time.) No idea if it's monocrome or color... but sounds like you should be able to use it if you can get a couple of true Multisync monitors. "Matrox QG-640 video display board installed in the LSI-11/73 computer. Both high. resolution 512x512 pixel projection images ..." "QG-640 dual-channel video graphics board interfaced. to two NEC Multisync monitors. The QG-640 is. capable of displaying two 640- x 480-pixel images in " > > hi Dan > It has two DB9 connectors. > regards > Henry > > > > > > ---- On Mon, 19 Jun 2006, Dan Williams (williams.dan at gmail.com) > wrote: > > > On 19/06/06, Henry Ji wrote: > > > I have a > > > DEC microvax 1000 with > > > > > > Matrox QG-640 card (1985). Does anyone know what matching > monitor it would work with? I tried > > Matrox but no luck. VGA came out around 1987. Could this be a > EGA card? Does G-640 means monochrom > > 640 resolution? I googled internet and I see QRGB card. Analog > VGA graphics card? > > > > > > thanks > > > > > > Henry > > > > > > > > > > > Is it the one with just a phono socket. I think this just > connects to > > a video monitor. Should work if you plug in to your tv. If > it's the > > one I'm thinking of it is monochrome. > > > > Dan > > > > > > -- From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jun 20 09:24:34 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 09:24:34 -0500 Subject: Scanning Microfiche Message-ID: >> We've got about a million ICL fiches too that could benefit from >> scanning, but luckily those are just a single A4 page per fiche and so >> a little more manageable. You should be able to get very good images off of something that large. Scanning DEC fiche is a nightmare. Some is 25 x 13 frames (and NOT Computer Output to Microfilm). Total garbage even at 48x. The COM listings come out OK but there is just so MUCH (thousands of sheets) to do. Sadly, scanning from the original paper is a MUCH better source, but most of the paper was thrown out when they were converted to film. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 20 09:45:55 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 07:45:55 -0700 Subject: Scanning Microfiche In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606200745550087.0010AAF4@10.0.0.252> I have some old ACM CALGO fiches here (4x5") about 25x15 pages per and, out of curiosity, scanned them on a Canoscan with film capabilities at 1200 and then 2400 dpi. Nothing recognizable other than title pages. But then, a little back-of-the envelope math tells me to expect that. Given 25 pages across the 5" width, a single page occupies less than 0.20 inches. Even at 2400 dpi, that's only 120 dots per page (actually, given the blank space around the page, it's probably closer to 80. Cheers, Chuck From hofmanwb at worldonline.nl Mon Jun 19 16:14:11 2006 From: hofmanwb at worldonline.nl (W.B.(Wim) Hofman) Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 23:14:11 +0200 Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card In-Reply-To: <036b01c69379$e4716380$6401a8c0@catherine> References: <036b01c69379$e4716380$6401a8c0@catherine> Message-ID: <449713A3.9070307@worldonline.nl> You got yourself a realtime Vax. The cpu is similar to a Microvax II, but it lacks a level of memory management. It cannot run VMS. One usually connects a VT terminal to it. Mind that the DB-9 connectors are wired differently from those on a PC. Henry Ji wrote: > I have a > DEC microvax 1000 with > > Matrox QG-640 card (1985). Does anyone know what matching monitor it would work with? I tried Matrox but no luck. VGA came out around 1987. Could this be a EGA card? Does G-640 means monochrom 640 resolution? I googled internet and I see QRGB card. Analog VGA graphics card? > > thanks > > Henry > > > From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 20 12:06:53 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 10:06:53 -0700 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity Message-ID: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> After watching an 800MHz P3 system build Gnome (and its dependent packages) on a NetBSD system, I got to wondering how usable NetBSD is on older slower hardware, such as MicroVAX II. If you want to build Perl or X or the kernel, what do you do? Start the make and come back in a week? Cheers, Chuck From spc at conman.org Tue Jun 20 12:12:22 2006 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 13:12:22 -0400 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> References: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060620171222.GA14975@linus.groomlake.area51> It was thus said that the Great Chuck Guzis once stated: > After watching an 800MHz P3 system build Gnome (and its dependent packages) > on a NetBSD system, I got to wondering how usable NetBSD is on older slower > hardware, such as MicroVAX II. > > If you want to build Perl or X or the kernel, what do you do? Start the > make and come back in a week? If I was real concerned about speed, I would use a modern PC (read: over 3GHz) and set up GCC for cross-compilation to the target architecture. Probably not for the feight of heart though. -spc (Or, take the box into work for a week ... let them pay for the electricity 8-P From bert at brothom.nl Tue Jun 20 13:12:26 2006 From: bert at brothom.nl (Bert Thomas) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 19:12:26 +0100 Subject: ICL CLAN (was Re: Scanning Microfiche) In-Reply-To: <4497E358.60806@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44972537.1020206@msm.umr.edu> <44973FCC.900@msm.umr.edu> <4497DA4C.6020900@yahoo.co.uk> <4497DB82.7000505@brothom.nl> <4497E358.60806@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44983A8A.3090008@brothom.nl> > Most likely! > > Right now we're having fun trying to figure out how all the data's > indexed - we've got all these cabinets full of cards, but no apparent > master index that we've yet seen (early days though, plus we're in touch > with Fujitsu to see if they've still got anything on their site) > > We *might* actually have CLAN 4 docs on paper already - I'll try and > remember to look when I'm on-site next and have access to the building > that I think they're in (I'm *sure* I've seen some somewhere, and have a > feeling I know which box they were in) That would be so cool! Would you be able to get me a copy of some sort? Either hard or soft? Bert From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jun 20 12:57:24 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 13:57:24 -0400 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <20060620171222.GA14975@linus.groomlake.area51> References: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> <20060620171222.GA14975@linus.groomlake.area51> Message-ID: <200606201357.24491.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 20 June 2006 13:12, Sean Conner wrote: > It was thus said that the Great Chuck Guzis once stated: > > After watching an 800MHz P3 system build Gnome (and its dependent > > packages) on a NetBSD system, I got to wondering how usable NetBSD > > is on older slower hardware, such as MicroVAX II. > > > > If you want to build Perl or X or the kernel, what do you do? > > Start the make and come back in a week? > > If I was real concerned about speed, I would use a modern PC (read: > over 3GHz) and set up GCC for cross-compilation to the target > architecture. Probably not for the feight of heart though. Actually, NetBSD makes cross-compiling really easy. I've set this up by hand before, and it's way more complicated than the NetBSD build system makes it. I did this while compiling test kernels for a Sun3 box, using an Netbsd/x86_64 system. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jun 20 15:02:18 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 13:02:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> from Chuck Guzis at "Jun 20, 6 10:06:53 am" Message-ID: <200606202002.k5KK2IfB010646@floodgap.com> > If you want to build Perl or X or the kernel, what do you do? Start the > make and come back in a week? Well, yeah ;) when my IIci was my "primary" server in the apartment, kernel builds took about 8-10 hours. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Why is it you can only trust short, dumpy spies? -- Hogan, "Hogan's Heroes" From jplist at kiwigeek.com Tue Jun 20 15:27:42 2006 From: jplist at kiwigeek.com (JP Hindin) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 15:27:42 -0500 (CDT) Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity; sliding off to Linux on Indy In-Reply-To: <200606202002.k5KK2IfB010646@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Jun 2006, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > If you want to build Perl or X or the kernel, what do you do? Start the > > make and come back in a week? > > Well, yeah ;) when my IIci was my "primary" server in the apartment, kernel > builds took about 8-10 hours. Reminded me of building things on my first SGI - an Indy R4600 133mHz. I built X manually, which took a rather remarkable twenty-two hours to finish the make. Out of sheer masochism I then built Qt and KDE, which took a little longer. Boy does that 195mHz R10k SGI Indigo2 seem quick. JP From josefcub at gmail.com Tue Jun 20 15:49:17 2006 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 15:49:17 -0500 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity; sliding off to Linux on Indy In-Reply-To: References: <200606202002.k5KK2IfB010646@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <9e2403920606201349y2c15d019o1afa063fac70e28e@mail.gmail.com> On 6/20/06, JP Hindin wrote: > Reminded me of building things on my first SGI - an Indy R4600 133mHz. > I built X manually, which took a rather remarkable twenty-two hours to > finish the make. Out of sheer masochism I then built Qt and KDE, which > took a little longer. > > Boy does that 195mHz R10k SGI Indigo2 seem quick. > > JP That's about how long it took my first 2.0 kernel compile on a 386SX-16 with 4MB of RAM (an old Packard Hell desktop toy). I quickly switched to my 5x86 after that. ;-) (I won't mention how long compiles take on my DECstation 5000/120... They're almost as bad, even with 32MB of RAM!) 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 bpope at wordstock.com Tue Jun 20 16:18:11 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 17:18:11 -0400 (EDT) Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity; sliding off to Linux on Indy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060620211811.2364B58405@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by JP Hindin > > > On Tue, 20 Jun 2006, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > > If you want to build Perl or X or the kernel, what do you do? Start the > > > make and come back in a week? > > > > Well, yeah ;) when my IIci was my "primary" server in the apartment, kernel > > builds took about 8-10 hours. > > Reminded me of building things on my first SGI - an Indy R4600 133mHz. > I built X manually, which took a rather remarkable twenty-two hours to > finish the make. Out of sheer masochism I then built Qt and KDE, which > took a little longer. > I bet the hard drive was happy - when it was finished!! Cheers, Bryan > Boy does that 195mHz R10k SGI Indigo2 seem quick. > > JP > From jplist at kiwigeek.com Tue Jun 20 16:32:30 2006 From: jplist at kiwigeek.com (JP Hindin) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 16:32:30 -0500 (CDT) Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity; sliding off to Linux on Indy In-Reply-To: <20060620211811.2364B58405@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Jun 2006, Bryan Pope wrote: > And thusly were the wise words spake by JP Hindin > > > > > > On Tue, 20 Jun 2006, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > > > If you want to build Perl or X or the kernel, what do you do? Start the > > > > make and come back in a week? > > > > > > Well, yeah ;) when my IIci was my "primary" server in the apartment, kernel > > > builds took about 8-10 hours. > > > > Reminded me of building things on my first SGI - an Indy R4600 133mHz. > > I built X manually, which took a rather remarkable twenty-two hours to > > finish the make. Out of sheer masochism I then built Qt and KDE, which > > took a little longer. > > > > I bet the hard drive was happy - when it was finished!! You know, it's funny you mention that - during the X build it developed a bad case of the Barracuda Bearing-itis, where it squeals almost constantly once it gets warmed up. Disk runs great, zero errors, but it sounds like someone threw a handful of gravel into it. I used to run a simple "AI" chat bot that I had written on it, but eventually turned it off forever because the noise of that damned disk was giving me migraines, and when I woke up in the middle of the night I could still hear it. JP From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jun 20 16:50:03 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 14:50:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity; sliding off to Linux on Indy In-Reply-To: <9e2403920606201349y2c15d019o1afa063fac70e28e@mail.gmail.com> from "Josef Chessor" at Jun 20, 2006 03:49:17 PM Message-ID: <200606202150.k5KLo388002273@onyx.spiritone.com> > That's about how long it took my first 2.0 kernel compile on a > 386SX-16 with 4MB of RAM (an old Packard Hell desktop toy). I quickly > switched to my 5x86 after that. ;-) > > (I won't mention how long compiles take on my DECstation 5000/120... > They're almost as bad, even with 32MB of RAM!) > > Josef I downgraded to a 386SX-16 laptop w/4MB RAM and a 387 coprocessor from a 486DX-33 w/20MB RAM when I went back to sea. I wasn't brave enough to compile the .9x-1.x Linux kernels on it, though I did run X-Windows for a couple of apps (mainly xdvi). I've never run the 2.0 kernel on either system (I think the 486 still has a 9.5 year old version of Slackware on it). BTW, I'm threatening to start using that old Twinhead 386sx-16 laptop again, I realized it's perfect for hooking a C-1541 drive up to with the X1542 cable I have :^) Just need to make room for setting a C-64 up. Don't know why, but I've really been wanting to play with a C-64 again. Zane From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 20 18:03:38 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 23:03:38 +0000 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity; sliding off to Linux on Indy In-Reply-To: <9e2403920606201349y2c15d019o1afa063fac70e28e@mail.gmail.com> References: <200606202002.k5KK2IfB010646@floodgap.com> <9e2403920606201349y2c15d019o1afa063fac70e28e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <44987ECA.1020509@yahoo.co.uk> Josef Chessor wrote: > On 6/20/06, JP Hindin wrote: >> Reminded me of building things on my first SGI - an Indy R4600 133mHz. >> I built X manually, which took a rather remarkable twenty-two hours to >> finish the make. Out of sheer masochism I then built Qt and KDE, which >> took a little longer. >> >> Boy does that 195mHz R10k SGI Indigo2 seem quick. >> >> JP > > That's about how long it took my first 2.0 kernel compile on a > 386SX-16 with 4MB of RAM (an old Packard Hell desktop toy). I quickly > switched to my 5x86 after that. ;-) Interesting - circa 1993 it used to take me about 2 hours I think with the 486/33 that I had then. Kernel was 0.99 I believe, and the machine had 8MB of memory which I suspect made a huge difference. I'm quite surprised that the R4600/133 Indy was so slow - I'd be tempted to point my finger at the compiler rather than the hardware there. > (I won't mention how long compiles take on my DECstation 5000/120... > They're almost as bad, even with 32MB of RAM!) Funny how things that used to seem fast/reasonable now seem slow. It never used to be a big deal - you *knew* the compile was going to take hours, so you scheduled it at a time where you didn't need the machine for anything else, kicked it off and went to do something productive until it was done. Takes about 10 minutes for a kernel compile on this box (and it's by no means the latest and greatest PC or anything), and I can quite happily do other things whilst it's compiling with no noticeable slow-downs. cheers Jules From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 20 16:59:44 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 14:59:44 -0700 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> References: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606201459440907.019DD778@10.0.0.252> You know, an 800 MHz P3 isn't exactly state of the art, but it's not a slouch either. I did a fresh installation of NetBSD, transferred the pkgsrc stuff and then chdir-ed to /usr/pkgsrc/x11/gnome-desktop and did a "make". That was yesterday. Granted, it's had to go out and grab some packages and updates off the net, but it's not spending any appreciable time online. At some point yesterday, things started getting slower and slower, so I killed the make and shutdown and restarted. It's still cranking, but it doesn't look stuck like it did yesterday. Memory leak somewhere, perhaps? During this exercise, I just kept thinking "...and guys with a MicroVAX do this?!!?" Cheers, Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 20 18:15:59 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 23:15:59 +0000 Subject: 3 x HP Apollo 700 series machines available (Manchester UK) Message-ID: <449881AF.1070903@yahoo.co.uk> Just on the off-chance someone wants a boat-anchor, Manchester uni have three HP 700-series (I suspect they're all 715/33's) machines awaiting the scrapper. These are PA-RISC boxes and won't run Apollo's Domain OS, but I suppose they're nicely built and may be of interest to someone who wants a small box to play with HP-UX on. Yell if anyone wants then and I'll hand over the email address of the person to contact. On the one hand I was told to respond soon, but on the other I hear that the staff are waiting for the junk room they're in to fill up before they go to the crusher, so your guess is as good as mine as to how urgent any rescue is! Sadly it seems that all their "real" Apollo stuff has already gone; I think the last few stragglers left the building some time last year. cheers Jules From jplist at kiwigeek.com Tue Jun 20 17:18:27 2006 From: jplist at kiwigeek.com (JP Hindin) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 17:18:27 -0500 (CDT) Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity; sliding off to Linux on Indy In-Reply-To: <44987ECA.1020509@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Jun 2006, Jules Richardson wrote: > > That's about how long it took my first 2.0 kernel compile on a > > 386SX-16 with 4MB of RAM (an old Packard Hell desktop toy). I quickly > > switched to my 5x86 after that. ;-) > > Interesting - circa 1993 it used to take me about 2 hours I think with the > 486/33 that I had then. Kernel was 0.99 I believe, and the machine had 8MB of > memory which I suspect made a huge difference. > > I'm quite surprised that the R4600/133 Indy was so slow - I'd be tempted to > point my finger at the compiler rather than the hardware there. I believe the R4600 came with 16KB of L2 cache. Or perhaps it was 32KB? Either way it was abysmally small for the processor. I later swapped the processor out for an R4400 with 1024KB of cache, and the difference was astounding. JP From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jun 20 17:17:40 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 15:17:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <200606201459440907.019DD778@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 20, 2006 02:59:44 PM Message-ID: <200606202217.k5KMHeQJ003137@onyx.spiritone.com> > You know, an 800 MHz P3 isn't exactly state of the art, but it's not a > slouch either. I did a fresh installation of NetBSD, transferred the > pkgsrc stuff and then chdir-ed to /usr/pkgsrc/x11/gnome-desktop and did a > "make". > > That was yesterday. Granted, it's had to go out and grab some packages > and updates off the net, but it's not spending any appreciable time online. > > At some point yesterday, things started getting slower and slower, so I > killed the make and shutdown and restarted. It's still cranking, but it > doesn't look stuck like it did yesterday. Memory leak somewhere, perhaps? > > During this exercise, I just kept thinking "...and guys with a MicroVAX do > this?!!?" > > Cheers, > Chuck I should hope that no one is running a pig like the Gnome Desktop on a machine such as a MicroVAX. Not even taking the fact that a MicroVAX should be running DECwindows if it has a GUI, I would think that the requirements for running Gnome Desktop would prevent it from being run on a MicroVAX (RAM strikes me as the largest issue). Personally I try to keep Gnome off of my systems, unless I need a specific application (which I typically don't). It is far to much of a resource hog for my tastes. Zane From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 20 17:19:28 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 15:19:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OFFLIST --------- Re: Mitsubishi Multi16 In-Reply-To: <200606051902580802.074C3949@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060620221928.53788.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> Dude, You actually have one???!!! Holy scrap! lol --- Chuck Guzis wrote: > Anyone out there with one of these things? I'd like > to know a little bit > about the I/O device setup if you've got the > information. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 20 17:54:37 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 15:54:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <200605270911170495.03C0CC75@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060620225437.99217.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> --- Chuck Guzis wrote: > Some of which are vintage: > > http://tinyurl.com/k76mv > > It's a shame that Bob won't run on a PC Jr... > > Cheers, > Chuck LOL LOL LOL. Friggin peanut. LOL LOL What, and the Tandy 2000 don't figure anywhere on that list? I guess they're talking about the worst well known disasters. Those accompanied by a media blitz. Pity the poor *less known* disaster who's company didn't have the capitol IBM had. They don't get mentioned. Nuh uh :( __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jun 20 18:07:50 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 16:07:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OFFLIST ----------------- RE: IBM Professional Graphics Adapter In-Reply-To: <97B2CC543ADDA041B51BCD941430CE08606F17@exmuc101.eAladdin.org> Message-ID: <20060620230750.55348.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> Yes, please do. Thanks. --- Christian Groessler wrote: > Hi, > > I have programming documentation for the PGA. > I will have to scan it some time... > > regards, > chris > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf > Of Chris M > > Sent: Montag, 8. Mai 2006 23:33 > > To: talk > > Subject: IBM Professional Graphics Adapter > > > > I just received the first part of a shipment which > > includes an IBM 5175 monitor. The PGA card and > > possibly the AT box it resides in is on it's way. > I > > plugged the monitor into my Vermont Microsystems > card > > (essentially a PGA clone), and it worked like a > charm. > > Have yet to plug the monitor into a VGA card and > > investigate that noise (the PGA card possibly has > some > > funky syncing scheme, like combined sync or > > sync-on-green). But regardless, I'm desirous of > docs > > for these babies, technical or otherwise. > Programming > > infor-mation is of the utmost importance. Can > anyone > > help? > > > > __________________________________________________ > > Do You Yahoo!? > > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam > protection around > > http://mail.yahoo.com > > > > > > ********************************************************************************************** > The contents of this email and any attachments are > confidential. > It is intended for the named recipient(s) only. > If you have received this email in error please > notify the system manager or the > sender immediately and do not disclose the contents > to anyone or make copies. > ** eSafe scanned this email for viruses, vandals and > malicious content ** > *********************************************************************************************** > > > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From fryers at gmail.com Tue Jun 20 18:09:44 2006 From: fryers at gmail.com (Simon Fryer) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 00:09:44 +0100 Subject: 3 x HP Apollo 700 series machines available (Manchester UK) In-Reply-To: <449881AF.1070903@yahoo.co.uk> References: <449881AF.1070903@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: All, On 6/21/06, Jules Richardson wrote: [HP700 from Manchester Uni] > These are PA-RISC boxes and won't run Apollo's Domain OS, but I suppose > they're nicely built and may be of interest to someone who wants a small box > to play with HP-UX on. If my memory serves me correctly, these will also run NeXT Step. Pretty neat if you can get the install media. [chomp] Simon -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is the utility of the final product." Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh From jrkeys at concentric.net Tue Jun 20 19:55:32 2006 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 19:55:32 -0500 Subject: Got the 407 Control Panel In Message-ID: <007601c694cd$68307310$4b406b43@66067007> Boy, this is one big patch board and in very good shape for sitting in a garage for over 40 years. Now if I can just find a 407 and some doc's for it. :-) From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jun 20 21:06:50 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 14:06:50 +1200 Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card In-Reply-To: References: <200606200548.BAA28555@www22.ureach.com> Message-ID: On 6/21/06, imind at ptd.net wrote: > Henry Ji said: > > >From what I can gleen from the two or three places it's mentioned (abstracts > from technical articles) it supports dual monitors at relatively high > resolution (for the time.) No idea if it's monocrome or color... but sounds > like you should be able to use it if you can get a couple of true Multisync > monitors. > > "Matrox QG-640 video display board installed in the LSI-11/73 computer. Both > high. resolution 512x512 pixel projection images ..." > > "QG-640 dual-channel video graphics board interfaced. to two NEC Multisync > monitors. The QG-640 is. capable of displaying two 640- x 480-pixel images > in " Hmm... reminds me of a board I have for the PDP-11 (but with one channel)... it was never directly supported by any PDP-11 OS I know of (i.e. - no graphical login), but it was easy to talk to from an RT-11 program and scribble pretty pictures on. We used to use only the green channel and display 512x512 mono images on it. If your QG-640 doesn't have any sort of keyboard/mouse attachment, I'd think that it was meant as a display-only device, not a DECwindows console. -ethan From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Tue Jun 20 21:24:04 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 21:24:04 -0500 Subject: New (old) SGI Indigo2 Message-ID: <8366731b5395457b9e9dfc9075247723@valleyimplants.com> Speaking of IRIX (in a somewhat OT way), does anyone know what became of SGI's promise (when they did the V-stream) to always have available a release that supports the latest critical security patches for public download? There have been several largish security holes where the patches don't run on 6.5.22, and nothing else is accessible . . . no new support letters detailing the policy either. I know about the "software developers' M-stream access" program, and have tried to sign up 4 times - doesn't work. I'm out of addresses to use. Does anyone have MIPSPro C/C++ 7.2.1 (or 7.2 if a 7.2.1 license will work for it)? From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Tue Jun 20 21:36:05 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 21:36:05 -0500 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity; sliding off to Linux on Indy Message-ID: <82c0f17a2f0d4e60b1b83090a9246e92@valleyimplants.com> R4600 came in two versions: one with zero (0) L2 cache, one with 512k. Were you using GCC? older versions of GCC were ghastly on RISC architectures, both in building time and running efficiency. From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jun 20 22:57:07 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 23:57:07 -0400 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <200606202217.k5KMHeQJ003137@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200606201459440907.019DD778@10.0.0.252> <200606202217.k5KMHeQJ003137@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <20060621035707.GC6653@alpha.rcac.purdue.edu> On Tue, Jun 20, 2006 at 03:17:40PM -0700, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > During this exercise, I just kept thinking "...and guys with a MicroVAX do > > this?!!?" > > I should hope that no one is running a pig like the Gnome Desktop on a > machine such as a MicroVAX. Not even taking the fact that a MicroVAX should > be running DECwindows if it has a GUI, I would think that the requirements > for running Gnome Desktop would prevent it from being run on a MicroVAX (RAM > strikes me as the largest issue). Depends on the VAX. I do have a VAX 4000/700 with 384MB of ram, and a 4000/100 with 128MB. Still, I'm not sure I'd want to try to run Gnome on them. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From emu at e-bbes.com Tue Jun 20 10:21:01 2006 From: emu at e-bbes.com (e.stiebler) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 09:21:01 -0600 Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card In-Reply-To: <036b01c69379$e4716380$6401a8c0@catherine> References: <036b01c69379$e4716380$6401a8c0@catherine> Message-ID: <4498125D.20209@e-bbes.com> Henry Ji wrote: > I have a > DEC microvax 1000 with > > Matrox QG-640 card (1985). Does anyone know what matching monitor it would work with? Just one thought. A lot of the monitors at this time were syncing on green, so find one of those ... From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 20 23:35:54 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 21:35:54 -0700 Subject: Got the 407 Control Panel In In-Reply-To: <007601c694cd$68307310$4b406b43@66067007> References: <007601c694cd$68307310$4b406b43@66067007> Message-ID: <200606202135540980.0308882D@10.0.0.252> Dunno about the 407 itself, but here's a bunch of docs: http://www.piercefuller.com/library/ibm407.html Kock yerself out! Cheers, Chuck On 6/20/2006 at 7:55 PM Keys wrote: >Boy, this is one big patch board and in very good shape for sitting in a >garage for over 40 years. Now if I can just find a 407 and some doc's for >it. :-) From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Jun 21 00:02:18 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 22:02:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Got the 407 Control Panel In In-Reply-To: <007601c694cd$68307310$4b406b43@66067007> References: <007601c694cd$68307310$4b406b43@66067007> Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Jun 2006, Keys wrote: > Boy, this is one big patch board and in very good shape for sitting in a > garage for over 40 years. Now if I can just find a 407 and some doc's for > it. :-) How about some pics? -- 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 ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 21 00:30:42 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:30:42 +1200 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <200606201459440907.019DD778@10.0.0.252> References: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> <200606201459440907.019DD778@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: On 6/21/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > During this exercise, I just kept thinking "...and guys with a MicroVAX do > this?!!?" I've installed Ultrix 2.x on a MicroVAX many times - it takes all day, since Ultrix is of the vintage that a kernel rebuild is part of the install procedure. More than 8MB of physical RAM helps. So does a free terminal on a different machine and the game of your choice ;-) -ethan From cctech at retro.co.za Wed Jun 21 02:57:40 2006 From: cctech at retro.co.za (Wouter) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:57:40 +0200 Subject: DN10000s Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.2.20060621095445.05fe3e40@alpha.ccii.co.za> Hi guys I'm way behind and catching up on the archives. I've heard mention of an Apollo TechRef... has anyone ever seen one of these, or even better yet, has anyone introduced one to a scanner? :-) And to bring two topics together (the other being the socket thread and putting a socket on for future enhancements)... that memory manager on the 3000 (or is it the 3500) that's on a daughterboard... who knows the story behind that? Thanks W From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jun 21 05:52:30 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 06:52:30 -0400 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 20 Jun 2006 10:06:53 PDT." <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606211052.k5LAqUmm016095@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Chuck Guzis" wrote: >After watching an 800MHz P3 system build Gnome (and its dependent packages) >on a NetBSD system, I got to wondering how usable NetBSD is on older slower >hardware, such as MicroVAX II. > >If you want to build Perl or X or the kernel, what do you do? Start the >make and come back in a week? last time I tried, which was admittedly a year ago, you could build netbsd on any posix machine using a cross compile. i.e. you could build everything for a vax using an x86 linux box. The kernel would not boot on an 11/730, however. It was close and I almost got it to work but gave up and went to 4.2bsd/quasijarus, which booted right away. [I did manage to make a boot loader which would load kernels via a qe ethernet, if anyone wants that] I have not tried an MVII, however, but I bet it "just works". -brad From ying6926 at ureach.com Wed Jun 21 07:40:47 2006 From: ying6926 at ureach.com (Henry Ji) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 05:40:47 -0700 Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card References: <036b01c69379$e4716380$6401a8c0@catherine> <449713A3.9070307@worldonline.nl> Message-ID: <002601c6952f$edad31b0$0209873d@catherine> thanks Wim My application needs real time vax ( I don't know why). I am looking for another microvax 1000. Would all 630QY or 630QZ (microvax II) have RTvax? Henry ----- Original Message ----- From: "W.B.(Wim) Hofman" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 2:14 PM Subject: Re: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card > You got yourself a realtime Vax. The cpu is similar to a Microvax II, > but it lacks a level of memory management. It cannot run VMS. One > usually connects a VT terminal to it. Mind that the DB-9 connectors are > wired differently from those on a PC. > > Henry Ji wrote: > > > I have a > > DEC microvax 1000 with > > > > Matrox QG-640 card (1985). Does anyone know what matching monitor it would work with? I tried Matrox but no luck. VGA came out around 1987. Could this be a EGA card? Does G-640 means monochrom 640 resolution? I googled internet and I see QRGB card. Analog VGA graphics card? > > > > thanks > > > > Henry > > > > > > > > > From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jun 21 09:07:32 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:07:32 -0500 Subject: DN10000s Message-ID: > And to bring two topics together (the other being the socket > thread and putting a socket on for future enhancements)... that > memory manager on the 3000 (or is it the 3500) that's on a > daughterboard... who knows the story behind that? If it was used with a machine having a 68020, the 68851 MMU was VERY late. They probably built their own. Should be easy to tell if the MMU has an 851 pin pattern. Apple did something similar on the Mac II to save the cost of an 851 (since the OS didn't use it) with Ron Hochsprung's "HMMU" ( a couple of PALs). From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Wed Jun 21 09:35:58 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:35:58 -0500 Subject: OpenStep for Solaris is back(ish) Message-ID: <45d21b72f55542899691f8a568eb0d5b@valleyimplants.com> The recent thread on NeXTSTEP for HP-PA reminded me of something I've been playing around with (as a user): Lubu OpenMagic. It's a repackage and tweak of Solaris OpenStep to run on recent Solarises (works great on 9 9/04) If you're interested it's at http://alge.anart.no/projects/openmagic/ - be sure you have GNU tar and gzip available. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 21 11:02:15 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:02:15 -0700 Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <20060620225437.99217.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060620225437.99217.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200606210902150450.057CE521@10.0.0.252> On 6/20/2006 at 3:54 PM Chris M wrote: >What, and the Tandy 2000 don't figure anywhere on that >list? I guess they're talking about the worst well >known disasters. Those accompanied by a media blitz. >Pity the poor *less known* disaster who's company >didn't have the capitol IBM had. They don't get >mentioned. Nuh uh :( Has anyone ever compiled a list of IBM PC and PC/XT compatibles for historical purposes (outisde of the no-name Taiwanese clones, that is)? For example, I recall that ETA made use of the Stearns PC; the big attraction being that the Stearns used an 8086--and was made in Minnesota. Cheers, Chuck From fireflyst at earthlink.net Wed Jun 21 11:21:18 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 11:21:18 -0500 Subject: Serial console problems on 11/34 Message-ID: <008801c6954e$ba4946f0$6401a8c0@dementium> I have, what I now know for a fact is the correct lines set up on the serial console on my 11/34. the correct signals are coming out according to my tester box. However, I cannot respond to the prompt. I started with the diagnostic on the front panel, which says if I hit CLR 173024 LAD EXA I should get 173000. I don't. I get 127777. According to the manual there is something wrong with the M9301 or the switches are set wrong, and all the switches are ON. Do you guys know of anything else that could be the case? I do get different results whether or not I hook up the faston tabs going to the front panel or not - I get 177777 if I don't hook them up at address 173024. Any help would be much appreciated, as always. Julian From billdeg at degnanco.com Wed Jun 21 12:21:22 2006 From: billdeg at degnanco.com (B. Degnan) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 13:21:22 -0400 Subject: Wilmington, Delaware PC Professional User Group Archive Available Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20060621131546.028f2980@mail.degnanco.net> I have started an archive of the Wilmington, Delaware PC Professional User Group diskette archive. http://vintagecomputer.net/ibm/pc-pug/ I do not know who founded or managed this group in the mid 80's in Wilmington, Delaware USA but being from the area I thought I'd take on the project. The diskettes contain DOS 2-era IBM PC utilities. All that remains is a handful of the original PC-PUG diskettes. If you have more information on this group, please contact me. Bill Degnan From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 21 12:37:01 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 10:37:01 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages Message-ID: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> Yeah, this is OT -- *except* in my hope that perhaps some *vintage* language might fit the bill... Most modern programming languages rely extensively on punctuation in their syntax. Many older languages weren't quite as aggressive -- or *expressive*. Or, could shed the use of some punctuation for minor tradeoffs in programming style. E.g., an explicit statement delimiter can be "made redundant" by using an IMPLICIT delimiter (like a newline). If you accept *classic* operators represented by punctuation (e.g., infix binary operators) as intuitive special cases, it seems that many of the other operators could be done away with in procedural languages... *EXCEPT* parenthesis/brackets/braces (!) (ignoring, for the time, the lisp dialects that are obsessed with them :> ) So, the question: are (were) there any useful languages designed that did not rely heavily on punctuation in their syntax? It almost seems an inconsistency -- older languages tended to be skimpy in their syntax (e.g., short identifiers, global scope, etc.) which would suggest that punctuation exploits would be MORE valuable to them. --don From spc at conman.org Wed Jun 21 12:50:02 2006 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 13:50:02 -0400 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> It was thus said that the Great Don Y once stated: > Yeah, this is OT -- *except* in my hope that perhaps some > *vintage* language might fit the bill... > > So, the question: are (were) there any useful languages > designed that did not rely heavily on punctuation in their > syntax? It almost seems an inconsistency -- older languages > tended to be skimpy in their syntax (e.g., short identifiers, > global scope, etc.) which would suggest that punctuation > exploits would be MORE valuable to them. I wouldn't say that short identifiers, global scope, etc. are restrictions on syntax per se, but as a limitation due to the capacities of the computers at the time (like the 6 character limit of identifiers in C [1]). But that aside, I can only think of a few that did not rely upon punctuation that much. COBOL is one (although I don't know it well enough to say). Pilot maybe. BASIC is another one that can get by with minimal punctuation (parenthesis and brackets notwithstanding). And it would be fairly trivial to remove punctuation from Forth with the proper word definitions. Then there's always assembly ... -spc (Do you have some special interest in this?) [1] ANSI C89 limited external identifiers to the first six characters due to limitations on certain system linkers. An ANSI C89 compiler could allow more characters, but it had to support at least six. From bbrown at harpercollege.edu Wed Jun 21 12:55:42 2006 From: bbrown at harpercollege.edu (Bob Brown) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 12:55:42 -0500 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> Message-ID: COBOL does rely on the period. -Bob >It was thus said that the Great Don Y once stated: >> Yeah, this is OT -- *except* in my hope that perhaps some >> *vintage* language might fit the bill... >> >> So, the question: are (were) there any useful languages >> designed that did not rely heavily on punctuation in their >> syntax? It almost seems an inconsistency -- older languages >> tended to be skimpy in their syntax (e.g., short identifiers, >> global scope, etc.) which would suggest that punctuation >> exploits would be MORE valuable to them. > > I wouldn't say that short identifiers, global scope, etc. are restrictions >on syntax per se, but as a limitation due to the capacities of the computers >at the time (like the 6 character limit of identifiers in C [1]). But that >aside, I can only think of a few that did not rely upon punctuation that >much. COBOL is one (although I don't know it well enough to say). Pilot >maybe. BASIC is another one that can get by with minimal punctuation >(parenthesis and brackets notwithstanding). And it would be fairly trivial >to remove punctuation from Forth with the proper word definitions. > > Then there's always assembly ... > > -spc (Do you have some special interest in this?) > >[1] ANSI C89 limited external identifiers to the first six characters > due to limitations on certain system linkers. An ANSI C89 compiler > could allow more characters, but it had to support at least six. -- bbrown at harpercollege.edu #### #### Bob Brown - KB9LFR Harper Community College ## ## ## Systems Administrator Palatine IL USA #### #### Saved by grace From blstuart at bellsouth.net Wed Jun 21 13:10:37 2006 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (Brian L. Stuart) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 13:10:37 -0500 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages Message-ID: <20060621181037.EHGA10533.ibm58aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> > From: Sean Conner > But that > aside, I can only think of a few that did not rely upon punctuation that > much. COBOL is one (although I don't know it well enough to say). When Grace Hopper spoke at one of the National Computer Conference Founder's Days, she mentioned some things about COBOL syntax that I thought were rather insightful. She said there are two kinds of people in the world. There are those of us who are basically mathematicians, and we like to replace words with symbols. Then there are the non-mathematicians who want to describe symbols in words. COBOL was created for the latter group. BLS From ak6dn at mindspring.com Wed Jun 21 13:16:36 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 11:16:36 -0700 Subject: Serial console problems on 11/34 In-Reply-To: <008801c6954e$ba4946f0$6401a8c0@dementium> References: <008801c6954e$ba4946f0$6401a8c0@dementium> Message-ID: <44998D04.3030200@mindspring.com> Julian Wolfe wrote: > I have, what I now know for a fact is the correct lines set up on the serial > console on my 11/34. the correct signals are coming out according to my > tester box. However, I cannot respond to the prompt. > > I started with the diagnostic on the front panel, which says if I hit CLR > 173024 LAD EXA I should get 173000. I don't. I get 127777. According to > the manual there is something wrong with the M9301 or the switches are set > wrong, and all the switches are ON. Do you guys know of anything else that > could be the case? I do get different results whether or not I hook up the > faston tabs going to the front panel or not - I get 177777 if I don't hook > them up at address 173024. > Is is very straightforward to check the basic functionality of your console interface from the front panel: 1) EXAM the console TXCSR at 777564; it should be 000200 indicating ready 2) DEP a character into the TXBUF at 777566; it should appear on your terminal 3) repeat step 2 until you are convinced the TX serial link is OK 1) EXAM the console RXCSR at 777560; it should be 000000 after init (it may be 000200 if you sent some data from your terminal; in this case EXAM 777562 to clear it out, or INIT the box from the front panel) 2) send ONE character from your terminal 3) EXAM RXCSR at 777560; it should be 000200 indicating data available 4) EXAM RXBUF at 777562; the low byte should be the character you sent the upper byte should be ZERO for no errors; if nonzero then: 15=ERROR, 14=OVERRUN, 13=FRAMING, 12=PARITY error if 15 is set (summary error) then one or more of 14:12 will be set 5) repeat steps 2-4 until you are convinced the RX serial link is OK If all the above works your UNIBUS is (probably) OK and your console works. If either of the above fails you have some debugging to do. In bringing up some of my DL11-W serial cards I have found the logic works but the DIP switch packs are notoriously unreliable. You may set the switch rocker one way, but the internal switch contact is stuck, and not following the rocker (you may think you configured the board switches, but not really). In my experience with DL11-Ws I the first thing I now do is beep-out each DIP switch in the OFF/ON state to make sure it is operating correctly (shorted or open). If not, cycle the switch open/closed repeatedly until it works; I have found most switches start to work again somewhere between 10 and 25 cycles. Don North From pechter at gmail.com Wed Jun 21 13:23:49 2006 From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 14:23:49 -0400 Subject: Serial console problems on 11/34 In-Reply-To: <008801c6954e$ba4946f0$6401a8c0@dementium> References: <008801c6954e$ba4946f0$6401a8c0@dementium> Message-ID: What's your terminal and cable look like. It should be null-modem rs232. The DEC 11/34 uses Xon/Xoff flow control -- not dtr/dsr or cts/rts so those need to be looped back on the pc if you're using one as a vt100. Transmit should go to receive and receive to transmit. A straight through cable won't do it. Bill On 6/21/06, Julian Wolfe wrote: > > I have, what I now know for a fact is the correct lines set up on the > serial > console on my 11/34. the correct signals are coming out according to my > tester box. However, I cannot respond to the prompt. > > > > I started with the diagnostic on the front panel, which says if I hit CLR > 173024 LAD EXA I should get 173000. I don't. I get 127777. According to > the manual there is something wrong with the M9301 or the switches are set > wrong, and all the switches are ON. Do you guys know of anything else > that > could be the case? I do get different results whether or not I hook up > the > faston tabs going to the front panel or not - I get 177777 if I don't hook > them up at address 173024. > > > > Any help would be much appreciated, as always. > > > > Julian > > > > > > From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 21 13:37:16 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 11:37:16 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> Message-ID: <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> Sean Conner wrote: > It was thus said that the Great Don Y once stated: >> So, the question: are (were) there any useful languages >> designed that did not rely heavily on punctuation in their >> syntax? It almost seems an inconsistency -- older languages >> tended to be skimpy in their syntax (e.g., short identifiers, >> global scope, etc.) which would suggest that punctuation >> exploits would be MORE valuable to them. > > I wouldn't say that short identifiers, global scope, etc. are restrictions > on syntax per se, but as a limitation due to the capacities of the computers > at the time (like the 6 character limit of identifiers in C [1]). But that Yes -- but much of the syntax was undoubtedly influenced by the capabilities of machines available at those times. Though I suspect some was just the author(s) taking poetic liberties (e.g., Algol's ::= ) > aside, I can only think of a few that did not rely upon punctuation that > much. COBOL is one (although I don't know it well enough to say). Pilot > maybe. BASIC is another one that can get by with minimal punctuation > (parenthesis and brackets notwithstanding). And it would be fairly trivial > to remove punctuation from Forth with the proper word definitions. Amusingly, *except* for parens, LISP largely does without punctuation! Unfortunately, parens are a royal PITA as they require tracking more state than local punctuation. > Then there's always assembly ... Not a very expressive language. :> Also, many assembly languages use LOTS of special punctuation to reference indirection, auto {in,de}crement addressing, parameter separators, comment introducers, etc. > -spc (Do you have some special interest in this?) Yes. I was working on crafting an application specific language and ran into the paren issue (yet again -- this comes up often when designing such languages). It made me wonder if someone hadn't previously come up with a way to avoid this issue (parens are a complication for the compiler/interpreter as well as for the *user*). A quick survey of the languages that I am familiar with led me to the observations in my original post. In particular, that newer languages seem to be *more* heavily dependant on punctuation (Limbo, Java, C++, Bongo, Python, etc.). So, I mused as to whether going *backwards* (in time) would uncover a kinder, simpler language... (of course, taking GREAT care to avoid APL on the way *back*!) :> From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 21 13:43:29 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 11:43:29 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <20060621181037.EHGA10533.ibm58aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> References: <20060621181037.EHGA10533.ibm58aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <44999351.4010204@DakotaCom.Net> Brian L. Stuart wrote: >> From: Sean Conner >> But that >> aside, I can only think of a few that did not rely upon punctuation that >> much. COBOL is one (although I don't know it well enough to say). > > When Grace Hopper spoke at one of the National Computer Conference > Founder's Days, she mentioned some things about COBOL syntax > that I thought were rather insightful. She said there are two kinds of > people in the world. - those who think there are two kinds of people in the world - those who don't! :> > There are those of us who are basically > mathematicians, and we like to replace words with symbols. Then > there are the non-mathematicians who want to describe symbols > in words. COBOL was created for the latter group. Unfortunately, the former type ends up creating products that the *latter* type have to use! (which, perhaps, explains why so many products are poorly designed?) From stanb at dial.pipex.com Wed Jun 21 13:42:36 2006 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:42:36 +0100 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 21 Jun 2006 10:37:01 PDT." <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606211842.TAA29622@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Don Y said: > So, the question: are (were) there any useful languages > designed that did not rely heavily on punctuation in their > syntax? It almost seems an inconsistency -- older languages > tended to be skimpy in their syntax (e.g., short identifiers, > global scope, etc.) which would suggest that punctuation > exploits would be MORE valuable to them. Forth. The only punctuation in Forth is the requirement that each word in the source be separated from its neighbours by white space, ie a space, tab or newline. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From jba at sdf.lonestar.org Wed Jun 21 13:42:20 2006 From: jba at sdf.lonestar.org (Jeffrey Armstrong) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 18:42:20 +0000 (UTC) Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity Message-ID: I installed NetBSD 2.0_RC3 on my VAXstation 3100 M38. The install was quick and easy since it was from ISO, but compiling was dog -slow. I installed the NetBSD pkgsrc collection and started the Samba install. I wanted the vax to act as a fileserver for the house. Well, the pkgsrc system installs everything by compiling from source. Three days after initiating the install (almost exactly to the hour), Samba was reported as installed. Now Samba is not a particularly large package, but it's biggish, I suppose. I can't imagine compiling the kernel or, heaven forbid, a desktop like KDE. BTW, the vax, while it does take a bit to respond to requests fom other computers, made a fantastic and highly stable file server. I think the little thing had an uptime of 150 days before I finally turned it off. Jeff Armstrong jba at sdf.lonestar.org SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org From jhoger at gmail.com Wed Jun 21 13:50:28 2006 From: jhoger at gmail.com (John R.) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 11:50:28 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: On 6/21/06, Don Y wrote: > Amusingly, *except* for parens, LISP largely does without punctuation! > Unfortunately, parens are a royal PITA as they require tracking > more state than local punctuation. And RPN languages like Forth can even do away with parentheses. However I don't know that you could call Forth "punctuation free" or even Regular (in the sense of not needing a parser). In general Forth is processed one word at a time with an ad hoc lexer + smarts. Some words read ahead in the input stream, and state during parsing is important. -- John. From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jun 21 14:13:51 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 14:13:51 -0500 Subject: Serial console problems on 11/34 References: <008801c6954e$ba4946f0$6401a8c0@dementium> Message-ID: <003c01c69566$d56b0000$6500a8c0@BILLING> Bill wrote.... > It should be null-modem rs232. I can think of about six different variations of a "null-modem" cable off the top of my head. Unfortunately, that's a often too generalized term. > The DEC 11/34 uses Xon/Xoff flow control -- not dtr/dsr or cts/rts so > those > need to be looped back on the pc if you're using > one as a vt100. looping back - well, depeneds on the software. Some software isn't driving dtr/dsr or cts/rts, some allows it to be selectable, etc. > Transmit should go to receive and receive to transmit. A straight through > cable won't do it. More descript term would be a 3-wire crossover cable. Jay From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 21 14:28:46 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 12:28:46 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <44999351.4010204@DakotaCom.Net> References: <20060621181037.EHGA10533.ibm58aec.bellsouth.net@mail.bellsouth.net> <44999351.4010204@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606211228460511.0639F73A@10.0.0.252> On 6/21/2006 at 11:43 AM Don Y wrote: >Unfortunately, the former type ends up creating products >that the *latter* type have to use! (which, perhaps, explains >why so many products are poorly designed?) Back in the 60's and 70's there was a brief interest in "natural" programming languages that used English as a basis. The goal was to provide something that would be easy for an "average" person to use. As I recall, one used only a period (in many cases optional) and hyphen as punctuation. E.G; "Take the 50-th element of dog and multiply it by cat giving hamster. or some such. Not too far from COBOL, except that there was no reserved meaning attached to asterisks, plus and minus signs, etc. And, as far as each statement began with a reserved imperative verb, the period (full stop) was optional. Some special-purpose languages are fairly light on punctuation (e.g. RPG, GPSS). I suspect that there are a quite a few old fixed-field syntax languages out there that probably use no punctuation at all. Then, there are languages that are seemingly ALL punctuation, like APL. But, in fact, this is a largely artificial distinction. Most punctuation is simply abbreviation. C uses "{}" for the same thing that other languages use "BEGIN" and "END". One can use an asterisk to acomplish the same thing that MULTIPLY accomplishes in COBOL. I find it more interesting that the punctuators are at a definite disadvantage in that there is a limited set of punctuation characters that rarely cover all of the needed uses, meaning that overloading or di- and trigraphs are necessary. Sometimes, even this is hopeless. COBOL has no punctuation equivalent for "MOVE CORRESPONDING" or "EXAMINE", for example. Cheers, Chuck From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Wed Jun 21 14:40:42 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 21:40:42 +0200 Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card In-Reply-To: <002601c6952f$edad31b0$0209873d@catherine> References: <036b01c69379$e4716380$6401a8c0@catherine> <449713A3.9070307@worldonline.nl> <002601c6952f$edad31b0$0209873d@catherine> Message-ID: <20060621214042.15bf8753@SirToby.dinner41.de> On Wed, 21 Jun 2006 05:40:47 -0700 "Henry Ji" wrote: > Would all 630QY or 630QZ (microvax II) have RTvax? The KA630 (MV II CPU) has the usual VAX MMU. AFAIK you need a KA620 CPU: M7478 KA620 Q RTVAX, 1 Mbyte, FP, TPU clock, boot/diag ROM (From Megans pdp11-field-guide.txt) IIRC 630QY or 630QZ referes to a more or less complete QBus machine. KA620 or KA630 refer to the QBus CPU cards. So you may have a MV II enclosure that is equipped with a KA620 (RTVAX CPU) instead a KA630 (MV II CPU). Chek the Mxxxx number on your CPU card. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Wed Jun 21 14:49:15 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 21:49:15 +0200 Subject: Xlib programming... In-Reply-To: <4497DDF9.7050902@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200606191848.k5JImEIQ012818@mwave.heeltoe.com> <4497DDF9.7050902@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20060621214915.7f588589@SirToby.dinner41.de> On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 11:37:29 +0000 Jules Richardson wrote: > I'm looking at other possibilities too, such as using SVGALib rather > than X Qtopia? IIRC there is somthing similar for GDK/GTK. If you are using some flavor of Linux yo may get away by simply scribbling into the kernel framebuffer device too. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From mail at g-lenerz.de Wed Jun 21 14:50:19 2006 From: mail at g-lenerz.de (Gerhard Lenerz) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 21:50:19 +0200 Subject: New (old) SGI Indigo2 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1328343557.20060621215019@g-lenerz.de> Hello Steven, Tuesday, June 20, 2006, 1:54:15 PM, you wrote: > SGI makes what they're calling Irix 6.5.22m available for free download. > It is in (3) tarballs containing a bunch of tardist files. > First question is: > Is it possible to do a bare-metal install of Irix over the network using > these packages? No, this is only a maintenance package (wouldn't be different with a feature stream release) that can only be used with the original 6.5 installation media. While a real 6.5.x disc set has installation tools to boot from, the packages downloaded from the web AFAIR lack these tools so you need to start with 6.5. > If it cannot, would someone with the 6.5 Base CD > set be neighborly and contact me off-list? Unfortunately... it's not just "a CD", it's at least 4 or 5 and it becomes easily more if you're entitled to a compiler or intend to use GCC. > The unit came with the EISA "Extreme" graphics adaptor. When I connect it > to my shop monitor with a 13W3 --> HD15 cable I get absolutely no display. Extreme graphics is a pretty nice 1994/1995 highend workstation solution. It's GIO64, not EISA. Both buses share the same slot but there are different connectors available for different types of cards (EISA and GIO64). > Are these boxes like the Suns and Alphas where they default (or can be > made to default) to a serial console under initial conditions? No, typically they do more or less both at the same time. Graphics output is (95% chance) 1280*1024 at 72Hz SYNC-ON-GREEN (SOG). Make sure your monitor is ready to handle SOG signals, I think it's not possible to get separate SYNC - at least not using standard "Sun Style" cables. > If so, any pointers to the required null-modem wiring? (The unit has > Apple-type 8-pin mini-DIN serial ports). If you've got an old Sun with a miniDIN connector (an IPX for example), pinout is just the same. >From man serial: > The DIN-8 serial port connectors on the Indigo, Indy, Indigo2, Challenge > S, Challenge M, Power Challenge M, and the MENET 4-Enet, 6-serial board > (XT-FE-4TX-6A) have the following pin assignments. > > serial(7) serial(7) > > --------- > / 8 7 6 \ > ( 5 4 3 ) > \ 2 1 / > --------- > > 4D Compatible Pin Assignments (RS-232) > _________________________________________ > _Pin___|_Name____|_Description___________ > 1 | DTR | Data Terminal Ready > 2 | CTS | Clear To Send > 3 | TD | Transmit Data > 4 | SG | Signal Ground > 5 | RD | Receive Data > 6 | RTS | Request To Send > 7 | DCD | Data Carrier Detect > 8 | SG | Signal Ground > > Macintosh SE Compatible Pin Assignments (RS-422) > _________________________________________________ > Pin__|_Name__|_Description_______________________ > 1 | HSKo | Output Handshake > 2 | HSKi | Input Handshake Or External Clock > 3 | TxD- | Transmit Data - > 4 | GND | Signal Ground > 5 | RxD- | Receive Data - > 6 | TxD+ | Transmit Data + > 7 | GPi | General Purpose Input > 8 | RxD+ | Receive Data + Hope this helps... -- Best regards, Gerhard mailto:mail at g-lenerz.de Old SGI Stuff http://sgistuff.g-lenerz.de/ From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jun 21 14:52:04 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 15:52:04 -0400 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 21 Jun 2006 12:28:46 PDT." <200606211228460511.0639F73A@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606211952.k5LJq4WI027876@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > >Back in the 60's and 70's there was a brief interest in "natural" >programming languages that used English as a basis. The goal was to >provide something that would be easy for an "average" person to use. As I >recall, one used only a period (in many cases optional) and hyphen as >punctuation. E.G; > "Take the 50-th element of dog and multiply it by cat giving hamster. There was an experimental language called "SNAP" which did that. I think it was written in fortran. I tried to get the source from the author but could not get in touch with him... (if anyone has it - please let me know) -brad From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Wed Jun 21 15:14:34 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 22:14:34 +0200 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060621221434.223145af@SirToby.dinner41.de> On Wed, 21 Jun 2006 18:42:20 +0000 (UTC) Jeffrey Armstrong wrote: > Well, the pkgsrc system installs everything by compiling from source. You can also instal precompiled, binary packages: pkg_add ftp://ftp.some.site/pub/some/dir/package.tgz Dependencies will be pulled in automagically. The base system can be cross compiled. On your latest off-topic 3 GHz Opteron it will need less then a hour to run through a "./build.sh -X" to produce a complete release. The faster if you have a multi core CPU and you add "-j 4"... An on-topic 300 MHz UltraSPARC will need about half a day. Gnome on a VAX? Hell. I always thought that _I_ am a masochist? ;-) -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jun 21 16:34:28 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 21:34:28 +0000 Subject: Xlib programming... In-Reply-To: <20060621214915.7f588589@SirToby.dinner41.de> References: <200606191848.k5JImEIQ012818@mwave.heeltoe.com> <4497DDF9.7050902@yahoo.co.uk> <20060621214915.7f588589@SirToby.dinner41.de> Message-ID: <4499BB64.2020002@yahoo.co.uk> Jochen Kunz wrote: > On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 11:37:29 +0000 > Jules Richardson wrote: > >> I'm looking at other possibilities too, such as using SVGALib rather >> than X > Qtopia? > > IIRC there is somthing similar for GDK/GTK. Well I'm trying to avoid being too heavyweight; all I need are a few pixel ops and the ability to write to an off-screen memory area. I just had another look at SVGALib (vgagl) and that seems to do exactly what I need - plus it means I don't need any of X at all (thus freeing up some storage space). > If you are using some flavor of Linux yo may get away by simply > scribbling into the kernel framebuffer device too. I tried doing exactly that yesterday and locked the machine up ;-) I'd be using DOS rather than Linux if it wasn't for the networking side; I don't really fancy writing a socketed app under DOS, but it's pretty easy under Linux at least. cheers Jules From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jun 21 15:33:52 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 15:33:52 -0500 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages References: <200606211952.k5LJq4WI027876@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <002601c69572$02cb8320$6500a8c0@BILLING> Chuck wrote... >>Back in the 60's and 70's there was a brief interest in "natural" >>programming languages that used English as a basis. The goal was to >>provide something that would be easy for an "average" person to use. Well, it wasn't a programming language, but it was a command prompt data retrieval database language. Pick (aka Reality, Sequel, Zebra, Revelation, Mentor, Ultimate, Prime Information yada yada yada....) did. For example, at the command prompt, the following are valid commands and yield just what you'd think. LIST CUSTOMER-INVOICES WITH ORDER.AMOUNT > "50.00" SELECT CUSTOMERS WITH ZIP = "63102" AND WITH AR.BALANCE # "0.00" LIST CUSTOMERS NAME ADDRESS CONTACT And of course you could store those commands in a file and even use in-line prompting for variables, so it was kind of a programming language too. Jay West From bpope at wordstock.com Wed Jun 21 15:46:30 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 16:46:30 -0400 (EDT) Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <002601c69572$02cb8320$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <20060621204630.A9A94584E4@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Jay West > > Well, it wasn't a programming language, but it was a command prompt data > retrieval database language. Pick (aka Reality, Sequel, Zebra, Revelation, > Mentor, Ultimate, Prime Information yada yada yada....) did. For example, at > the command prompt, the following are valid commands and yield just what > you'd think. > > LIST CUSTOMER-INVOICES WITH ORDER.AMOUNT > "50.00" > > SELECT CUSTOMERS WITH ZIP = "63102" AND WITH AR.BALANCE # "0.00" > LIST CUSTOMERS NAME ADDRESS CONTACT > > And of course you could store those commands in a file and even use in-line > prompting for variables, so it was kind of a programming language too. > This looks a lot like SQL... Do you know if SQL was based on Pick? Cheers, Bryan From fireflyst at earthlink.net Wed Jun 21 15:50:44 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 15:50:44 -0500 Subject: Serial console problems on 11/34 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: It's null modem RS232. The wiring of the 25 pin connector is the same as BC05C (I copied it verbatim from the DL11-W manual). I have it hooked to an actual DEC VT220. Also, I can't figure out what you mean by no dtr/dsr and rts/cts. The DL11-W has those signals. The settings on the VT220 are 9600, Receive=Transmit, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit. I've also tried this with *just* ground, send and receive lines (crossed over) - same result. Those settings are reflected on the DL11-W. No clue what to do at this point. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Bill Pechter > Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 1:24 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Serial console problems on 11/34 > > What's your terminal and cable look like. > It should be null-modem rs232. > > The DEC 11/34 uses Xon/Xoff flow control -- not dtr/dsr or > cts/rts so those need to be looped back on the pc if you're > using one as a vt100. > > Transmit should go to receive and receive to transmit. A > straight through cable won't do it. > > Bill > > On 6/21/06, Julian Wolfe wrote: > > > > I have, what I now know for a fact is the correct lines set > up on the > > serial console on my 11/34. the correct signals are coming out > > according to my tester box. However, I cannot respond to > the prompt. > > > > > > > > I started with the diagnostic on the front panel, which > says if I hit > > CLR > > 173024 LAD EXA I should get 173000. I don't. I get 127777. > > According to the manual there is something wrong with the > M9301 or the > > switches are set wrong, and all the switches are ON. Do > you guys know > > of anything else that could be the case? I do get > different results > > whether or not I hook up the faston tabs going to the front > panel or > > not - I get 177777 if I don't hook them up at address 173024. > > > > > > > > Any help would be much appreciated, as always. > > > > > > > > Julian > > > > > > > > > > > > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jun 21 16:10:28 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 16:10:28 -0500 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages References: <20060621204630.A9A94584E4@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: <005901c69577$257f1490$6500a8c0@BILLING> Bryan wrote.... > This looks a lot like SQL... Do you know if SQL was based on Pick? In "standard" pick the Data Retrieval "language" I gave examples of was called "Access". Microdata/McDonnel Douglass platforms called it "English". I believe Universe/Unidata (the unix pick variants) called it "Revise". Notably absent on most implementations was any way to update the database. It was strictly for reporting/retrieval. Pick's predecessor/initial design (sort of) was a military funded project called "GIRLS", Generalized Information Retrieval Language System (or something to that effect). It's project definition was to create a database retrieval language that used common spoken style english and required no training to get information out of the syste. This was somewhere around the mid to late 60's I think. I doubt anyone looked at this when creating SQL, Pick's following has always been both fanatical and small. Jay From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 21 16:31:25 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 14:31:25 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <002601c69572$02cb8320$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <200606211952.k5LJq4WI027876@mwave.heeltoe.com> <002601c69572$02cb8320$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <4499BAAD.6070106@DakotaCom.Net> Jay West wrote: > Chuck wrote... >>> Back in the 60's and 70's there was a brief interest in "natural" >>> programming languages that used English as a basis. The goal was to >>> provide something that would be easy for an "average" person to use. > > Well, it wasn't a programming language, but it was a command prompt data > retrieval database language. Pick (aka Reality, Sequel, Zebra, > Revelation, Mentor, Ultimate, Prime Information yada yada yada....) did. > For example, at the command prompt, the following are valid commands and > yield just what you'd think. > > LIST CUSTOMER-INVOICES WITH ORDER.AMOUNT > "50.00" > > SELECT CUSTOMERS WITH ZIP = "63102" AND WITH AR.BALANCE # "0.00" > LIST CUSTOMERS NAME ADDRESS CONTACT > > And of course you could store those commands in a file and even use > in-line prompting for variables, so it was kind of a programming > language too. Yes, Janus was like this as well (and SQL follows the same sort of approach although with a more stilted grammar and salted with more punctuation). I recall typing queries that ran the full width of the paper on a DECwriter -- only to discover that I had transposed two characters somewhere in the middle! :-/ From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 21 16:34:24 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 14:34:24 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <4499BB60.1040407@DakotaCom.Net> John R. wrote: > On 6/21/06, Don Y wrote: >> Amusingly, *except* for parens, LISP largely does without punctuation! >> Unfortunately, parens are a royal PITA as they require tracking >> more state than local punctuation. > > And RPN languages like Forth can even do away with parentheses. > > However I don't know that you could call Forth "punctuation free" or > even Regular (in the sense of not needing a parser). In general Forth > is processed one word at a time with an ad hoc lexer + smarts. Some > words read ahead in the input stream, and state during parsing is > important. Yes, it seems that doing away with punctuation (FORTH, LISP, etc.) really bastardizes syntax into non-intuitive forms. Sure, they "make sense" for their consistency, etc. but they seem to move even further away from "friendly" than punctuation-rich approaches. From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Wed Jun 21 16:34:11 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 14:34:11 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <005901c69577$257f1490$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <20060621204630.A9A94584E4@mail.wordstock.com> <005901c69577$257f1490$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <4499BB53.8010704@msm.umr.edu> Jay West wrote: > Bryan wrote.... > >> This looks a lot like SQL... Do you know if SQL was based on Pick? > the Codd people would deny any relation to Pick. Pick has the addition of a simple way to handle the multi dimension problem (what are called values) in databases than most SQL databases. This problem is common in applications that deal with business. The most common example to describe where this has to be implemented is line items in invoices. An invoice will have a lot of information about customers, and so forth, but a variable number of items to order. Many databases have horrendous internal representation problems, or operational problems when you go to sort by all the line items across all the invoices in a database, for example. Pick can do this quite quickly, and in fact this is the capability that the community sells after the ease to get programs going as well as reports. I have seen huge threads debating SQL and Pick on comp.databases.pick, and in fact there is a flame war that I could not take time to read all of related to that. Looking that up is better than going into it here. I am a collector of both Pick hardware and software, with a lot of microdata internal documentation. I will send more of it to bitsavers as I get it scanned for their display. I looked up the trademark on English, and Reality recently and found that McDonnell Douglas, allowed it to lapse, which seems like a silly thing to have done. I know there were some defenses of using the term "English language" in relation to programming and computer operation, and Microdata had their hands full with it. I think they lost a dispute over speach recognition, but managed to force most vendors to use "Natural Language" rather than English to avoid trouble. From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jun 21 16:42:18 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 16:42:18 -0500 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages References: <20060621204630.A9A94584E4@mail.wordstock.com><005901c69577$257f1490$6500a8c0@BILLING> <4499BB53.8010704@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <00a001c6957b$91eb70c0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Jim wrote.... > the Codd people would deny any relation to Pick. Pick has the addition of > a simple way to handle the multi dimension problem (what are called > values) > in databases than most SQL databases. This problem is common in > applications that deal with business. Codd: Going from VERY foggy memory here, but I do remember personally taking the Codd rules/tests and applying/satisfying them one at a time with Pick. Pick did meet the Codd published rules for being considered a relational database. But did Codd people look at Pick is the question - on that, I have no clue, but I'd be suprised. Multivalues - that right there is the magic of Pick. Not just that they supported it, but how artfully & easily they supported it because of the design. That's what made Pick phenominal. Jay West From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 21 17:27:06 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 15:27:06 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <4499BB53.8010704@msm.umr.edu> References: <20060621204630.A9A94584E4@mail.wordstock.com> <005901c69577$257f1490$6500a8c0@BILLING> <4499BB53.8010704@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <200606211527060583.06DD3BF8@10.0.0.252> On 6/21/2006 at 2:34 PM jim stephens wrote: >>> This looks a lot like SQL... Do you know if SQL was based on Pick? Aren't most database query languages fairly punctuation-poor when compared to general-purpose programming languages? I'm thinking of one of early examples--MEDLARS. I seem to recall very little punctuation in the query language used there. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 21 17:48:02 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 15:48:02 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <200606211527060583.06DD3BF8@10.0.0.252> References: <20060621204630.A9A94584E4@mail.wordstock.com> <005901c69577$257f1490$6500a8c0@BILLING> <4499BB53.8010704@msm.umr.edu> <200606211527060583.06DD3BF8@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4499CCA2.1080405@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/21/2006 at 2:34 PM jim stephens wrote: > >>>> This looks a lot like SQL... Do you know if SQL was based on Pick? > > Aren't most database query languages fairly punctuation-poor when compared > to general-purpose programming languages? I'm thinking of one of early > examples--MEDLARS. I seem to recall very little punctuation in the query > language used there. That depends. For example, SQL requires a terminating semicolon. And, uses parens in many cases. Plus commas, etc. And, of course, any expressional notation uses typical punctuation. For example: SELECT book, author FROM titles WHERE isbn_publisher(book) > isbn_publisher('1-234-56789-X'::isbn); Plus, the "programming language" variants of those "query languages" are almost as punctuation-rich as typical languages. From daviderhart at oldzonian.com Wed Jun 21 17:43:59 2006 From: daviderhart at oldzonian.com (David W. Erhart) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 15:43:59 -0700 Subject: FREE: Apple Power Macintosh G3 All-in-one computers In-Reply-To: <200606211527060583.06DD3BF8@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <014301c69584$31fbe010$6501a8c0@caladan> I have four Apple Power Macintosh G3 All-in-one computers free for the taking. I have powered them up and they work. This is a link to details about Power Macintosh G3 All-in-one systems: http://www.lowendmac.com/ppc/g3aio.shtml I'm in the Milpitas, California area (next to San Jose). The systems are free for picking up. They are about 60 pounds each and large so I'm not really interested in boxing and shipping them. Feel free to contact me off-list if you are interested in one or more of the systems. Regards, david. daviderhart at oldzonian.com daviderhart at sageandstride.org From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jun 21 17:46:14 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:46:14 -0500 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages References: <20060621204630.A9A94584E4@mail.wordstock.com> <005901c69577$257f1490$6500a8c0@BILLING> <4499BB53.8010704@msm.umr.edu><200606211527060583.06DD3BF8@10.0.0.252> <4499CCA2.1080405@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <00d401c69584$80cd07a0$6500a8c0@BILLING> You wrote... > That depends. For example, SQL requires a terminating semicolon. > And, uses parens in many cases. Plus commas, etc. And, of course, > any expressional notation uses typical punctuation. Pick et. al. didn't use punctionation, no commas, no periods, no parenthesis... just the obvious comparison operators and quotes. Jay From pechter at gmail.com Wed Jun 21 17:46:41 2006 From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 18:46:41 -0400 Subject: Serial console problems on 11/34 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I thought the DL11-W had no modem controll... will have to take a look at my DEC maintenance stuff in the basement. I didn't realize you had a real VT220 in there... OK. Just for grins -- did you try 7-NONE and 7 Even, Mark or Space parity... or did you check the board setup for the parity and speed. Most sites didn't run 8-None-1 back then... Many consoles were set down in the 1200 baud range as well -- since 9600 was just about the speed limit of a VT100/220. Do you get any prompt? Been a long time since my Field Service days. Gonna try to find my 11/34 pocket card and dl11 jumper/switch info. Haven't done an 11/34a since 1986 or so. Bill On 6/21/06, Julian Wolfe wrote: > > It's null modem RS232. The wiring of the 25 pin connector is the same as > BC05C (I copied it verbatim from the DL11-W manual). > > I have it hooked to an actual DEC VT220. > > Also, I can't figure out what you mean by no dtr/dsr and rts/cts. The > DL11-W has those signals. > > The settings on the VT220 are 9600, Receive=Transmit, 8 data bits, no > parity, 1 stop bit. > > I've also tried this with *just* ground, send and receive lines (crossed > over) - same result. > > Those settings are reflected on the DL11-W. > > No clue what to do at this point. > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Bill Pechter > > Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 1:24 PM > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Subject: Re: Serial console problems on 11/34 > > > > What's your terminal and cable look like. > > It should be null-modem rs232. > > > > The DEC 11/34 uses Xon/Xoff flow control -- not dtr/dsr or > > cts/rts so those need to be looped back on the pc if you're > > using one as a vt100. > > > > Transmit should go to receive and receive to transmit. A > > straight through cable won't do it. > > > > Bill > > > > On 6/21/06, Julian Wolfe wrote: > > > > > > I have, what I now know for a fact is the correct lines set > > up on the > > > serial console on my 11/34. the correct signals are coming out > > > according to my tester box. However, I cannot respond to > > the prompt. > > > > > > > > > > > > I started with the diagnostic on the front panel, which > > says if I hit > > > CLR > > > 173024 LAD EXA I should get 173000. I don't. I get 127777. > > > According to the manual there is something wrong with the > > M9301 or the > > > switches are set wrong, and all the switches are ON. Do > > you guys know > > > of anything else that could be the case? I do get > > different results > > > whether or not I hook up the faston tabs going to the front > > panel or > > > not - I get 177777 if I don't hook them up at address 173024. > > > > > > > > > > > > Any help would be much appreciated, as always. > > > > > > > > > > > > Julian > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 21 18:07:44 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 16:07:44 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <00d401c69584$80cd07a0$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <20060621204630.A9A94584E4@mail.wordstock.com> <005901c69577$257f1490$6500a8c0@BILLING> <4499BB53.8010704@msm.umr.edu><200606211527060583.06DD3BF8@10.0.0.252> <4499CCA2.1080405@DakotaCom.Net> <00d401c69584$80cd07a0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <4499D140.4040706@DakotaCom.Net> Jay West wrote: > You wrote... >> That depends. For example, SQL requires a terminating semicolon. >> And, uses parens in many cases. Plus commas, etc. And, of course, >> any expressional notation uses typical punctuation. > Pick et. al. didn't use punctionation, no commas, no periods, no > parenthesis... just the obvious comparison operators and quotes. So, how would you implement this example? SELECT book, author FROM titles WHERE isbn_publisher(book) > isbn_publisher('1-234-56789-X'::isbn); Specifically: - return the values of the "book" and "author" fields - from the "titles" table - for those records in which the "isbn_publisher()" [1] function returns a value that exceeds that of the isbn_publisher()'s value for the isbn data type [2] corresponding to the string representation "1-234-56789-X" [1] defined a returning the value of the Publisher Identifier in the ISBN argument -- "234" in the second instance, here [2] the "::isbn" is an explicit type cast in this case from a string to an "isbn" From dm561 at torfree.net Wed Jun 21 18:33:25 2006 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:33:25 -0400 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages Message-ID: <01C69569.ACFE75E0@mse-d03> Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 15:33:52 -0500 From: "Jay West" Subject: Re: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages Chuck wrote... >>Back in the 60's and 70's there was a brief interest in "natural" >>programming languages that used English as a basis. The goal was to >>provide something that would be easy for an "average" person to use. Jay wrote... >Well, it wasn't a programming language, but it was a command prompt data >retrieval database language. Pick (aka Reality, Sequel, Zebra, Revelation, >Mentor, Ultimate, Prime Information yada yada yada....) did. For example, at >the command prompt, the following are valid commands and yield just what >you'd think. "50.00" >SELECT CUSTOMERS WITH ZIP = "63102" AND WITH AR.BALANCE # "0.00" >LIST CUSTOMERS NAME ADDRESS CONTACT >And of course you could store those commands in a file and even use in-line >prompting for variables, so it was kind of a programming language too. >Jay West Looks a lot like the xBase languages... mike From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jun 21 18:37:12 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 16:37:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: The miracle of Pick was Re: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages (and/or love starved programmers, starving programmers, ...) In-Reply-To: <00a001c6957b$91eb70c0$6500a8c0@BILLING> from Jay West at "Jun 21, 6 04:42:18 pm" Message-ID: <200606212337.k5LNbCXB013226@floodgap.com> > Codd: Going from VERY foggy memory here, but I do remember personally taking > the Codd rules/tests and applying/satisfying them one at a time with Pick. > Pick did meet the Codd published rules for being considered a relational > database. But did Codd people look at Pick is the question - on that, I have > no clue, but I'd be suprised. > > Multivalues - that right there is the magic of Pick. Not just that they > supported it, but how artfully & easily they supported it because of the > design. That's what made Pick phenominal. I have not found a good resource on the Pick language or the Pick virtual machine, other than a lot of name-dropping commercial sites. Any recommendations? -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- require "std_disclaimer.pl"; ----------------------------------------------- From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 21 18:19:02 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 00:19:02 +0100 (BST) Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <20060620225437.99217.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> from "Chris M" at Jun 20, 6 03:54:37 pm Message-ID: > What, and the Tandy 2000 don't figure anywhere on that > list? I guess they're talking about the worst well >From what I've heard, the Tandy 2000 wasn't a bad machine. It wasn't IBM PC compatible, which made it a commercial flop, but technically there wasn't that much wrong with it. But the PCjr wasn't techically a good machine. It also wasn't truely PC compatible. I can think of little to recomend it, actually ;-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 21 18:26:32 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 00:26:32 +0100 (BST) Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jun 21, 6 02:06:50 pm Message-ID: > Hmm... reminds me of a board I have for the PDP-11 (but with one > channel)... it was never directly supported by any PDP-11 OS I know of > (i.e. - no graphical login), but it was easy to talk to from an RT-11 > program and scribble pretty pictures on. We used to use only the > green channel and display 512x512 mono images on it. There were some quite interesting graphics display systems for the PDP11/VAX. Even though I don't have a graphical display on this PC, I have collected a number of display systems for the PDP11, including : DEC VT11 / GT40 (Vector display that DMA's data from main memory via the Unibus) Ramtek 9460. Alas mine is incomplete (just the cardcage and boards), but it seems to be a 68000-based unit Grinnel framestore. This seems to be a digitiser as well (there's what looks like an ADC on one of the boards), and is mostly hand-wired, not PCB. The Unibus interface is a DR11-B. I know noting about this unit PPL video disk. This uses a head-per-track hard disk to record the video (it rotates at the frame rate, the analoge video signals are FM modulated and recorded on the disk). I2S Model 70 and Model 75 Image processor/display systems. I think I've described these before. They yse semiconductor RAM (the earliest ones I haev contains over 3000 4K bit DEAM chips...), organised as byteplanes (512*512*8 bits IIRC). The byteplanes feed programmable lookup tables, then outputs of those are added, go to more lookup tables, then to the DACs. Oh yes, there's also the feedback ALU (planes 0 and 1 are taken as a 16 bit accumulator plane, you can combine that with any other plane and write the result back to the accumulator), a histogram board, cursor, text overlay, etc Fortunately I have the manuals.... -tony From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jun 21 19:09:10 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:09:10 -0500 Subject: The miracle of Pick was Re: OT: Punctuation-starved ProgrammingLanguages (and/or love starved programmers, starving programmers, ...) References: <200606212337.k5LNbCXB013226@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <005e01c69590$16ba5fa0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Cameron wrote... > I have not found a good resource on the Pick language or the Pick virtual > machine, other than a lot of name-dropping commercial sites. Any > recommendations? The best documentation on the Pick virtual machine - bar none - is "The Rainbow Book" as it is commonly referred to because of the front cover graphics (but that's not the name). The actual book is the "Reality by Microdata Assembly Language Reference Manual". It's the only book that really describes the guts. I believe I gave a copy to Al for bitsavers. In addition to that, I have probably about thirty plus (3 inch thick each) field engineer and internal only microdata binders. Awesome stuff :) Those will make it to bitsavers someday. With regards to the Pick Language, that's kinda hard. The beauty of Pick was the really tight melding between the virtual assembler, basic, and the database. You really can't appreciate one of them separately. It's only when you see how tightly integrated all 3 were that the beauty of the design becomes apparent. In most versions of basic, one must go through gyrations to do any serious database work (at least, what appears to be gyrations to pick-ites). In most basics, working with the filesystem feels like wearing mittens. With Pick BASIC, database I/O is almost relegated to the background of the programmers mind. That is also why Pick claims (and delivers) such rapid application development timeframes. Because programmers can write serious business applications so very quickly compared to most other systems - largely due to the way pick basic works with file I/O. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jun 21 19:18:46 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:18:46 -0500 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages References: <20060621204630.A9A94584E4@mail.wordstock.com> <005901c69577$257f1490$6500a8c0@BILLING> <4499BB53.8010704@msm.umr.edu><200606211527060583.06DD3BF8@10.0.0.252> <4499CCA2.1080405@DakotaCom.Net><00d401c69584$80cd07a0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <4499D140.4040706@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <007201c69591$6d7ddf00$6500a8c0@BILLING> You wrote.... > SELECT book, author FROM titles > WHERE isbn_publisher(book) > isbn_publisher('1-234-56789-X'::isbn); > > Specifically: > - return the values of the "book" and "author" fields > - from the "titles" table > - for those records in which the "isbn_publisher()" [1] function > returns a value that exceeds that of the isbn_publisher()'s > value for the isbn data type [2] corresponding to the string > representation "1-234-56789-X" > > [1] defined a returning the value of the Publisher Identifier > in the ISBN argument -- "234" in the second instance, here > [2] the "::isbn" is an explicit type cast in this case from > a string to an "isbn" I think I'd need more explanation. I'm not sure exactly what you're expressing. Example data would help? Also, Pick generally didn't really have a concept of datatyping. Everything was always stored as strings. Anything that needed to be treated as numeric was converted on the fly during runtime as indicated by context. Jay From fireflyst at earthlink.net Wed Jun 21 19:25:14 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:25:14 -0500 Subject: Serial console problems on 11/34 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I get the following prompt: XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX (where XXXXXX is the register values) $ It's just that I can't respond to it. "L" for example is not echoed on the terminal when I press a key. I'm going to try Don's tests tonight. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Bill Pechter > Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 5:47 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Serial console problems on 11/34 > > I thought the DL11-W had no modem controll... will have to > take a look at my DEC maintenance stuff in the basement. > > I didn't realize you had a real VT220 in there... OK. > > Just for grins -- did you try 7-NONE and 7 Even, Mark or > Space parity... or did you check the board setup for the > parity and speed. > Most sites didn't run 8-None-1 back then... > > Many consoles were set down in the 1200 baud range as well -- > since 9600 was just about the speed limit of a VT100/220. > > Do you get any prompt? > > Been a long time since my Field Service days. Gonna try to > find my 11/34 pocket card and dl11 jumper/switch info. > > Haven't done an 11/34a since 1986 or so. > > Bill > > On 6/21/06, Julian Wolfe wrote: > > > > It's null modem RS232. The wiring of the 25 pin connector > is the same > > as BC05C (I copied it verbatim from the DL11-W manual). > > > > I have it hooked to an actual DEC VT220. > > > > Also, I can't figure out what you mean by no dtr/dsr and > rts/cts. The > > DL11-W has those signals. > > > > The settings on the VT220 are 9600, Receive=Transmit, 8 > data bits, no > > parity, 1 stop bit. > > > > I've also tried this with *just* ground, send and receive lines > > (crossed > > over) - same result. > > > > Those settings are reflected on the DL11-W. > > > > No clue what to do at this point. > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Bill Pechter > > > Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 1:24 PM > > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > > Subject: Re: Serial console problems on 11/34 > > > > > > What's your terminal and cable look like. > > > It should be null-modem rs232. > > > > > > The DEC 11/34 uses Xon/Xoff flow control -- not dtr/dsr > or cts/rts > > > so those need to be looped back on the pc if you're using > one as a > > > vt100. > > > > > > Transmit should go to receive and receive to transmit. A > straight > > > through cable won't do it. > > > > > > Bill > > > > > > On 6/21/06, Julian Wolfe wrote: > > > > > > > > I have, what I now know for a fact is the correct lines set > > > up on the > > > > serial console on my 11/34. the correct signals are coming out > > > > according to my tester box. However, I cannot respond to > > > the prompt. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I started with the diagnostic on the front panel, which > > > says if I hit > > > > CLR > > > > 173024 LAD EXA I should get 173000. I don't. I get 127777. > > > > According to the manual there is something wrong with the > > > M9301 or the > > > > switches are set wrong, and all the switches are ON. Do > > > you guys know > > > > of anything else that could be the case? I do get > > > different results > > > > whether or not I hook up the faston tabs going to the front > > > panel or > > > > not - I get 177777 if I don't hook them up at address 173024. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Any help would be much appreciated, as always. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Julian > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Wed Jun 21 19:31:29 2006 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:31:29 -0500 Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4499E4E1.4030906@brutman.com> Tony Duell wrote: > But the PCjr wasn't techically a good machine. It also wasn't truely PC > compatible. I can think of little to recomend it, actually ;-) As a PC compatible, the PCjr isn't too bad. As a PC clone, it is awful. Pros - Significantly less expensive than a PC. - Many extra cost items built in (serial, game interface, CGA, etc.) - Fairly compatible software wise. - Small footprint. - Diagnostics built in. - CGA+ graphics (640x200x4 and 320x200x16) - Much more advanced sound than a PC Cons - Expansion capability. - Some hardware in non-standard places, which broke some software. - Shared memory between video and main memory, which slowed things down. - Non-standard connectors for joysticks, monitors, etc. I like the machine a lot. Getting it to do 'PC' type things (like adding a hard drive) is a major challenge and requires some thought and work. Mike From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 21 19:39:59 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:39:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060622003959.1877.qmail@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> --- Tony Duell wrote: > >From what I've heard, the Tandy 2000 wasn't a bad > machine. It wasn't IBM > PC compatible, which made it a commercial flop, but > technically there > wasn't that much wrong with it. > > But the PCjr wasn't techically a good machine. It > also wasn't truely PC > compatible. I can think of little to recomend it, > actually ;-) > > -tony The Tandy 2000 was a neat machine in it's own right, but there were 40+ tech center mod bulletins. Could involved soldering jumpers, cutting traces, etc. Supposedly once Xenix got ported, all these little quirks started popping up. There's probably alot more info then I can give on the comp.sys.tandy newsgroup. Also google "Jeff Hellige" for the Tandy 2000 FAQ file. There's also the weird crt controller by SMC (and floppy data seperator). Where are you supposed to find replacements for those??? The Peanut was an interesting machine in it's own right. It certainly had it's deficiencies, the floppy drive, weird upgrade path. But early IBMers in general had problem drives and whatnot. Yet if you look under the hood there was some interesting stuph going on. Like how they used a gate array to make the video memory appear as if it was in the b800:0000 area, when in reality it was physically located down low in memory (anyone know if the Tandy 1000 did the same thing?). As far as compatibility, as long as you could plug a 2nd floppy drive in (aftermarket or home brewed) you were mostly compatible as I understand. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 21 19:45:15 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:45:15 -0700 Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <4499E4E1.4030906@brutman.com> References: <4499E4E1.4030906@brutman.com> Message-ID: <200606211745150856.075BB775@10.0.0.252> On 6/21/2006 at 7:31 PM Michael B. Brutman wrote: >- Expansion capability. >- Some hardware in non-standard places, which broke some software. >- Shared memory between video and main memory, which slowed things down. >- Non-standard connectors for joysticks, monitors, etc. > > >I like the machine a lot. Getting it to do 'PC' type things (like >adding a hard drive) is a major challenge and requires some thought and >work. IIRC, the Peanut also has no DMA controller and a rather miserly PSU. In comparison to the "clone XTs", it was actually pretty expensive for what it offered. It could be that IBM never fully anticipated the stiff competition from the Asian clone builders. Cheers, Chuck From spc at conman.org Wed Jun 21 20:19:30 2006 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 21:19:30 -0400 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <20060622011930.GB20448@linus.groomlake.area51> It was thus said that the Great John R. once stated: > On 6/21/06, Don Y wrote: > >Amusingly, *except* for parens, LISP largely does without punctuation! > >Unfortunately, parens are a royal PITA as they require tracking > >more state than local punctuation. > > And RPN languages like Forth can even do away with parentheses. > > However I don't know that you could call Forth "punctuation free" or > even Regular (in the sense of not needing a parser). In general Forth > is processed one word at a time with an ad hoc lexer + smarts. Some > words read ahead in the input stream, and state during parsing is > important. Well, in Forth, functions are called "words" and + is a word. So is (. As is @. And !. As well as 0 [1], 1 [1] and 2 [1]. There are only a few words (in ANS Forth) that require looking ahead and they're well known. Most of the words in Forth pull parameters off the stack. -spc (And one can always rename @ as fetch) [1] To conserve space. Otherwise, numbers are stored as two cells: the address for "push the following value onto the stack" function, and then the actual value. 0, 1 and 2 are used enough to warrent their own words. From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Wed Jun 21 20:25:57 2006 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 20:25:57 -0500 Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <200606211745150856.075BB775@10.0.0.252> References: <4499E4E1.4030906@brutman.com> <200606211745150856.075BB775@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <4499F1A5.80909@brutman.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > IIRC, the Peanut also has no DMA controller and a rather miserly PSU. In > comparison to the "clone XTs", it was actually pretty expensive for what it > offered. It could be that IBM never fully anticipated the stiff > competition from the Asian clone builders. I forgot the lack of DMA, but it is more of a nuisance than a serious design flaw. When using an OS like DOS the lack of DMA just made disk access a little slower, as DMA could move memory to and from the floppy disk faster than a processor loop could. A bigger shortcoming that I should have mentioned was having the keyboard using the NMI interrupt instead of IRQ1. I forget the exact reason for this, but it resulted in a lot of lost keystrokes an annoying beeps. The original power supply was 33 watts, which was enough for a 128K single floppy system with maybe a sidecar or two. The power supply was later upgraded to 45 watts. And of course, to power the ridiculous sidecars there was a power supply sidecar as well. IBM never considered other things as competition back then .. Compared to the 64 or other 'home machines', it was very expensive, but also very capable. Compared to the PC, it was inexpensive and 'good enough'. Compared to cheap PC or XT clones, it was a hard sell. From jhoger at gmail.com Wed Jun 21 21:33:53 2006 From: jhoger at gmail.com (John R.) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:33:53 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <20060622011930.GB20448@linus.groomlake.area51> References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> <20060622011930.GB20448@linus.groomlake.area51> Message-ID: On 6/21/06, Sean Conner wrote: > It was thus said that the Great John R. once stated: > > On 6/21/06, Don Y wrote: > > >Amusingly, *except* for parens, LISP largely does without punctuation! > > >Unfortunately, parens are a royal PITA as they require tracking > > >more state than local punctuation. > > > > And RPN languages like Forth can even do away with parentheses. > > > > However I don't know that you could call Forth "punctuation free" or > > even Regular (in the sense of not needing a parser). In general Forth > > is processed one word at a time with an ad hoc lexer + smarts. Some > > words read ahead in the input stream, and state during parsing is > > important. > > Well, in Forth, functions are called "words" and + is a word. So is (. > As is @. And !. As well as 0 [1], 1 [1] and 2 [1]. There are only a few > words (in ANS Forth) that require looking ahead and they're well known. > Most of the words in Forth pull parameters off the stack. > > -spc (And one can always rename @ as fetch) Right. I think Forth is important to look at when considering the different types of syntax and grammar that has been explored in computer languages, but since the OP used the term "punctuation" which is not a computer science term, I wasn't sure what to do with it. I figured he was really leaning more toward simple languages that have less structure. If punctuation means +, !, @, :, ; etc. then Forth has plenty of punctuation. And it has structure since there are words like " and : that read ahead in the input stream. Yes they are well known, but they are still there. I could imagine a Forth-like language that has no readahead words and no punctuation that could still be recognized as forthish. Particularly if you use tail recursion to replace loop nesting like Colorforth and 4IM do. -- John. From ak6dn at mindspring.com Wed Jun 21 21:39:27 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:39:27 -0700 Subject: Serial console problems on 11/34 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <449A02DF.6050103@mindspring.com> Julian Wolfe wrote: > I get the following prompt: > > XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX (where XXXXXX is the register values) > $ > > It's just that I can't respond to it. "L" for example is not echoed on the > terminal when I press a key. > > I'm going to try Don's tests tonight. > On your 40p BERG to 25p RS232 adapter cable, make sure you bridge across pins E-M of the 40p cable to connect the RS232 rcvr to the UART input. If you don't, your 11/34 will be able to speak (as you show above) but it will be deaf to any characters you send it. Don From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 21 21:47:39 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:47:39 -0700 Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <4499F1A5.80909@brutman.com> References: <4499E4E1.4030906@brutman.com> <200606211745150856.075BB775@10.0.0.252> <4499F1A5.80909@brutman.com> Message-ID: <200606211947390236.07CBC37A@10.0.0.252> On 6/21/2006 at 8:25 PM Michael B. Brutman wrote: >A bigger shortcoming that I should have mentioned was having the >keyboard using the NMI interrupt instead of IRQ1. I forget the exact >reason for this, but it resulted in a lot of lost keystrokes an annoying >beeps. Reason? So the Peanut user could mess up his modem and floppy transfers by banging on the keyboard at the wrong time? Maybe to make sure that no one would try to hack in an 8087 NDP? I wonder if it was because the chicklet keybard had no internal buffering, so NMI was thought to make it possible to grab keys as soon as they were hit. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 21 22:13:44 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 20:13:44 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> <20060622011930.GB20448@linus.groomlake.area51> Message-ID: <449A0AE8.1000102@DakotaCom.Net> John R. wrote: > On 6/21/06, Sean Conner wrote: >> It was thus said that the Great John R. once stated: >> > On 6/21/06, Don Y wrote: >> > >Amusingly, *except* for parens, LISP largely does without punctuation! >> > >Unfortunately, parens are a royal PITA as they require tracking >> > >more state than local punctuation. >> > >> > And RPN languages like Forth can even do away with parentheses. >> > >> > However I don't know that you could call Forth "punctuation free" or >> > even Regular (in the sense of not needing a parser). In general Forth >> > is processed one word at a time with an ad hoc lexer + smarts. Some >> > words read ahead in the input stream, and state during parsing is >> > important. >> >> Well, in Forth, functions are called "words" and + is a word. So is (. >> As is @. And !. As well as 0 [1], 1 [1] and 2 [1]. There are only a >> few >> words (in ANS Forth) that require looking ahead and they're well known. >> Most of the words in Forth pull parameters off the stack. >> >> -spc (And one can always rename @ as fetch) > > Right. I think Forth is important to look at when considering the > different types of syntax and grammar that has been explored in > computer languages, but since the OP used the term "punctuation" which > is not a computer science term, I wasn't sure what to do with it. I > figured he was really leaning more toward simple languages that have > less structure. If punctuation means +, !, @, :, ; etc. then Forth has > plenty of punctuation. And it has structure since there are words like > " and : that read ahead in the input stream. Yes they are well known, > but they are still there. I tried to qualify my use of the term "punctuation" (cf. ispunct()). An easy way of defining it is to think of how you could READ a line of code to another person over the telephone, unambiguously WITHOUT THAT PERSON BEING FAMILIAR WITH THE LANGUAGE (i.e. if he was familiar with the syntax, he would know where parens were implied, etc.). So: A = B + 1 technically has two bits of punctuation but they are semi-intuitive; one would assume "equals" to mean '=', etc. OTOH: A ::= B + 1 Would be read as "A colon colon equals B plus one". So, the colons here act as nonintuitive punctuation while the '+' does not. Likewise, ending statements with semicolons, inserting commas, etc. all qualify as punctuation. And, parens/braces/brackets are particularly nasty: "foo open paren bar close paren" From spc at conman.org Wed Jun 21 22:54:34 2006 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 23:54:34 -0400 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> <20060622011930.GB20448@linus.groomlake.area51> Message-ID: <20060622035434.GD20448@linus.groomlake.area51> It was thus said that the Great John R. once stated: > On 6/21/06, Sean Conner wrote: > > > Well, in Forth, functions are called "words" and + is a word. So is (. > >As is @. And !. As well as 0 [1], 1 [1] and 2 [1]. There are only a few > >words (in ANS Forth) that require looking ahead and they're well known. > >Most of the words in Forth pull parameters off the stack. > > > > -spc (And one can always rename @ as fetch) > > I could imagine a Forth-like language that has no readahead words and > no punctuation that could still be recognized as forthish. > Particularly if you use tail recursion to replace loop nesting like > Colorforth and 4IM do. Well, having written my own Forth-like language the only hack I found I needed was a way of recognizing a quote terminated string and dumping it (the string) on the stack. So I didn't have to read ahead into the input stream ... well ... not in the way that : does in Forth. I did something like: "foo" define ( the code for foo here ... ) ; (only, it looked more like: "foo" :' ( the code for foo here ... ) ; ) There's no need to read ahead for loops either and I supported while, until and just about any other type of loop you care to do. Here's the code I had for supporting higher level loops (and yes, I did support the Forth word : in my language anyway): // '(barf)' '(brat)' '(bra)' 'here' and '(resolve)' are the low level routines to // implement branches of various types. : c(barf) '(barf)' find drop compile ; // compile a branch if false : c(brat) '(brat)' find drop compile ; // compile a branch if true : c(bra) '(bra)' find drop compile ; // compile a branch : (mark) here -1 compile ; // leave fixup addr on stack : resolve here swap (resolve) ; // resolve foreare/back branch ( the always popular if else then clause ... ) : if c(barf) (mark) ;imm : ifnot c(brat) (mark) ;imm : else c(bra) (mark) swap resolve ;imm : then resolve ;imm // because it's been like this : endif resolve ;imm // because some might like this better ( some otherwise neato control flow words ... ) : begin here ;imm : until c(barf) here - compile ;imm : notuntil c(brat) here - compile ;imm : while c(barf) (mark) ;imm : whilenot c(brat) (mark) ;imm : repeat c(bra) swap here - compile resolve ;imm -spc (Even used this language for a class in college for a project) From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jun 21 22:59:58 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 21:59:58 -0600 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <449A0AE8.1000102@DakotaCom.Net> References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> <20060622011930.GB20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449A0AE8.1000102@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <449A15BE.2090403@jetnet.ab.ca> Don Y wrote: > A = B + 1 > > technically has two bits of punctuation but they are semi-intuitive; > one would assume "equals" to mean '=', etc. > > OTOH: > > A ::= B + 1 B + 1 -> A Seems more streight forward to me. B > 1 if ... fi how about B <= 5 if ... then ... fi B = 7 ifthen ... j ifthen ... fi begin ... end call a b c foobar From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 21 23:08:53 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 21:08:53 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <449A0AE8.1000102@DakotaCom.Net> References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> <20060622011930.GB20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449A0AE8.1000102@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606212108530188.08162166@10.0.0.252> On 6/21/2006 at 8:13 PM Don Y wrote: >Would be read as "A colon colon equals B plus one". So, the colons >here act as nonintuitive punctuation while the '+' does not. And, in fact, the manner of expression of such stuff in computer languages is taken for granted to the extent that we forget that the language is really the language of mathematics. Or, to put it a different way, if I wanted to convey the meaning of: (5+3)/6 -2 without resorting to algebraic notation, I'd say something like: "Add three to five and divide the result by six and subtract two" which parses into computer instructions without the need for operator precedence tables or stacks. In fact, it's interesting how much the mathematical viewpoint dominates our way of looking at computers. For example, if I want to do something 6 times in 'C', I have to code it as something like "for ( i = 0; i < 6; i++) instead of saying "Do this six times". (In all fairness, COBOL does have this in the PERFORM statement, as does PL/I). Yet we humans aren't mathematical beings; we're symbol manipulators. In other words, if I ask you to multiply 3 by 4, it's a different matter than asking you to multiply 323 by 1019 because of the extra symbol manipulation that I must do. An interesting subject, Don! Cheers, Chuck From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Wed Jun 21 23:40:32 2006 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 23:40:32 -0500 Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <200606211947390236.07CBC37A@10.0.0.252> References: <4499E4E1.4030906@brutman.com> <200606211745150856.075BB775@10.0.0.252> <4499F1A5.80909@brutman.com> <200606211947390236.07CBC37A@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <449A1F40.1090403@brutman.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Reason? So the Peanut user could mess up his modem and floppy transfers by > banging on the keyboard at the wrong time? Maybe to make sure that no one > would try to hack in an 8087 NDP? > > I wonder if it was because the chicklet keybard had no internal buffering, > so NMI was thought to make it possible to grab keys as soon as they were > hit. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > The keyboard (chicklet or otherwise) does not buffer keystrokes, so the 8088 has to pull them as fast as they come. The non-maskable interrupt is used to do the deserialization, which is what causes the mess with the other I/O. With the serial port sending data at 2400 bps the 8088 was fast enough to service the keyboard without dropping characters. Above 2400 bps if you used the keyboard you might lose something. As for the diskette drive, I can't remember what the trick was, but the machine had a way to disconnect the keyboard from the NMI while the diskette was being serviced. From fireflyst at earthlink.net Thu Jun 22 00:06:21 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 00:06:21 -0500 Subject: M7800 crystal (was: RE: Serial console problems on 11/34) In-Reply-To: <449A02DF.6050103@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <00cc01c695b9$9a28c790$6401a8c0@dementium> I added that jump and it fixed the problem. Thanks, Don! Also, once it worked, I typed in "L 173024", then "E" and got "173024 173000" like I'm supposed to, so I guess I just wasn't using the front panel properly. Now to get the M7800 card working so I can do TU58 stuff :) Anyone know what speed crystal the "Northern Eng NE-6A" is on an M7800? (i.e. does it do 9600 baud? ;) -----Original Message----- From: Don North [mailto:ak6dn at mindspring.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 9:39 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Cc: fireflyst at earthlink.net Subject: Re: Serial console problems on 11/34 Julian Wolfe wrote: > I get the following prompt: > > XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX (where XXXXXX is the register values) > $ > > It's just that I can't respond to it. "L" for example is not echoed on the > terminal when I press a key. > > I'm going to try Don's tests tonight. > On your 40p BERG to 25p RS232 adapter cable, make sure you bridge across pins E-M of the 40p cable to connect the RS232 rcvr to the UART input. If you don't, your 11/34 will be able to speak (as you show above) but it will be deaf to any characters you send it. Don From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 22 01:13:01 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 23:13:01 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <007201c69591$6d7ddf00$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <20060621204630.A9A94584E4@mail.wordstock.com> <005901c69577$257f1490$6500a8c0@BILLING> <4499BB53.8010704@msm.umr.edu><200606211527060583.06DD3BF8@10.0.0.252> <4499CCA2.1080405@DakotaCom.Net><00d401c69584$80cd07a0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <4499D140.4040706@DakotaCom.Net> <007201c69591$6d7ddf00$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <449A34ED.6020107@DakotaCom.Net> Jay West wrote: > You wrote.... >> SELECT book, author FROM titles >> WHERE isbn_publisher(book) > isbn_publisher('1-234-56789-X'::isbn); >> >> Specifically: >> - return the values of the "book" and "author" fields >> - from the "titles" table >> - for those records in which the "isbn_publisher()" [1] function >> returns a value that exceeds that of the isbn_publisher()'s >> value for the isbn data type [2] corresponding to the string >> representation "1-234-56789-X" >> >> [1] defined a returning the value of the Publisher Identifier >> in the ISBN argument -- "234" in the second instance, here >> [2] the "::isbn" is an explicit type cast in this case from >> a string to an "isbn" > > I think I'd need more explanation. I'm not sure exactly what you're ISBN's have four parts: Group Identifier, Publisher ID, Title ID and Check Digit. Check Digit is redundant -- if you have the other three parts, you can derive (verify!) the Check DIgit. Parts are separated by hyphens. Or spaces (but not a mixture thereof). Always 9 digits [1] -- plus the check digit (which may be an 'X' as it is computed modulo 11 -- X == 10). But, the pisser is that the positions of the hyphens vary as a function of the 9 digit "value" represented. I.e. for a particular value, the hyphens (or spaces) *must* be in certain positions (though the third one always precedes the check digit). As expected, the first set of digits before the first hyphen is the Group ID; the second set of digits is the Publisher ID; and the third set is the Title ID. Some examples: 0-10-337439-6 1-234-56788-1 1-234-56789-X 1 234 56790 3 1-55529-512-6 9953-26-719-1 Some *bad* values: 01-0-337439-6 (incorrect hyphenation) 1-234-5678-8-1 (wrong number of hyphens) 1-234-5678-3 (wrong number of digits) 1 234 56790-3 (can't mix spaces and hyphens) 1-55529-512-7 (check digit is incorrect) 9976-990-00-6 (this number just hasn't been allocated yet) The point of all this is that ISBN's aren't "just numbers". Though one could chose to *represent* them as numbers (a long/int32 works well). And, that ISBN's have information contained *within* them (heh heh heh... don't you just LOVE all this SURPLUS PUNCTUATION i stick in my comments?? :> ) like the ID of the publisher, etc. So, you want to be able to extract that information from a particular (valid) ISBN: isbn_group(isbn) returns the group ID of the isbn argument isbn_publisher(isbn) returns the publisher ID of the argument isbn_title(isbn) returns the title ID of the argument isbn_check_digit(isbn) returns the check digit Publisher ID's are only significant within a particular Group ID. I.e. publisher 234 in group 1 is not the same entity as publisher 234 in group 0. Likewise, title ID's are only significant within a particular (group,publisher) pair. Obviously, title 56789 for (group,publisher) of (1,234) is not the same as for (0,234) or (1,235)! [clearly different ISBN's so different "books"] Given that, you might want to do a query to identify all other titles by the same publisher as some particular book that you happen to have: SELECT book, name_of_book FROM titles WHERE isbn_group(book) = isbn_group('1-234-56789-X'::isbn) & isbn_publisher(book) = isbn_publisher('1-234-56789-X'::isbn) ; I.e. find books whose's publisher identifier agrees with the publisher ID in '1-234-56789-X' (that is, '234') and whose group ID also agrees (that is, '1') -- since a publisher is only known to be "the same" if he is in the same group. This has drifted further off topic :-( But, it was intended to show how cluttered with punctuation this query became for something "easy". Consider how I might ask "What is the title of the book having the ISBN immediately *after* this one?": SELECT book, name_of_book FROM titles WHERE book = isbn_build( isbn_group('1-234-56789-X'::isbn) , isbn_publisher('1-234-56789-X'::isbn) , isbn_title('1-234-56789-X'::isbn) + 1 ); [2] given: isbn isbn_build(int groupID, int pubID, int titleID) So, how would you extract this information from the "book" datum in pick? Presumably, with some sort of user defined operator? Or, would you have to split the ISBN into 3 different fields (group, publisher, title) and store it that way so you could manipulate each independantly? [remember, what we're discussing is the role of PUNCTUATION!] > expressing. Example data would help? Also, Pick generally didn't really > have a concept of datatyping. Ah, OK. > Everything was always stored as strings. Like REXX, etc.? > Anything that needed to be treated as numeric was converted on the fly > during runtime as indicated by context. That seems to suggest that you would have to split the ISBN into its component parts in order to be able to manipulate those parts. I.e. you couldn't just "add one" to "1-234-56789-X"? I really find it hard to figure out how to do away with parens/braces/etc. They just have too big a role in The Way We Do Things. :-( But, for those "non symbol manipulators", they really are not very intuitive! [1] ISBN is now being augmented by ISBN-13 [2] Technically, I would have to make sure isbn_title()+1 did not exceed the maximum title ID for that (group,publisher) -- which varies with the (group,publisher)! From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 22 01:16:44 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 23:16:44 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <449A15BE.2090403@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> <20060622011930.GB20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449A0AE8.1000102@DakotaCom.Net> <449A15BE.2090403@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <449A35CC.4080708@DakotaCom.Net> woodelf wrote: > Don Y wrote: > >> A = B + 1 >> >> technically has two bits of punctuation but they are semi-intuitive; >> one would assume "equals" to mean '=', etc. >> >> OTOH: >> >> A ::= B + 1 > > B + 1 -> A Seems more streight forward to me. This is how I learned "programming" back in the dark ages (though it was expressed as A <- B + 1 and read as "A gets B + 1) > B > 1 if ... fi how about > B <= 5 if ... then ... fi > B = 7 ifthen ... j ifthen ... fi This is perl-esque. > begin ... end > call a b c foobar Fine for a procedure. But, what if foobar is a *function*! It's *really* hard to mess with this syntactic sugar -- we've all become so used to seeing and using it that it's ingrained in our expectations. :-( From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 22 01:25:18 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 00:25:18 -0600 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <449A35CC.4080708@DakotaCom.Net> References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> <20060622011930.GB20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449A0AE8.1000102@DakotaCom.Net> <449A15BE.2090403@jetnet.ab.ca> <449A35CC.4080708@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <449A37CE.40506@jetnet.ab.ca> Don Y wrote: > Fine for a procedure. But, what if foobar is a *function*! That is ok. I forgot 'return' so you can't have a function. > It's *really* hard to mess with this syntactic sugar -- we've > all become so used to seeing and using it that it's ingrained > in our expectations. :-( I think this is more the case of general expressions used for functions and subroutines. But when you think of it for bootstrapable language how often do you need full expressions? Since only a few machines pre-1970's had a stack for subroutines and/or parameters you only had a few styles of programing view points -- FORTRAN , BASIC , LISP , INTERCAL , COBOL , ALGOL -- Forth and APL don't really count. From classiccmp.org at irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk Thu Jun 22 02:03:57 2006 From: classiccmp.org at irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk (Rob O'Donnell) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 08:03:57 +0100 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.0.20060622075159.03291990@irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk> > > >>It was thus said that the Great Don Y once stated: >>> >>> So, the question: are (were) there any useful languages >>> designed that did not rely heavily on punctuation in their >>> syntax? >>I can only think of a few that did not rely upon punctuation that >>much. COBOL is one (although I don't know it well enough to say). At 18:55 21/06/2006, Bob Brown wrote: > COBOL does rely on the period. I worked for several years using BOS COBOL and it's successor "Speedbase" which added database and a gui. These had dropped the requirement for the period; you could probably get away without not using any punctuation at all bad quotation marks.. Of course, it was still terribly verbose!! Witness: PROGRAM HELO01 DATA DIVISION 77 YRNAME PIC X(20) * don't have a long name! 01 FILLER * just to keep things together. 02 NUM1 PIC 9(6) COMP * comp means store in binary not ascii 02 NUM2 PIC 9(6) COMP 02 NUM3 PIC 9(6) COMP PROCEDURE DIVISION DISPLAY "What is your name?" ACCEPT YRNAME DISPLAY "Hello " DISPLAY YRNAME SAMELINE DISPLAY "We're very pleased to meet you!" DISPLAY "Enter a number" ACCEPT NUM1 DISPLAY "And another" ACCEPT NUM2 ADD NUM1 TO NUM2 GIVING NUM3 DISPLAY "Those add up to " DISPLAY NUM3 SAMELINE EXIT ENDPROG ENDSOURCE that's from memory, btw... From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 22 02:13:35 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 00:13:35 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <449A37CE.40506@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> <20060622011930.GB20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449A0AE8.1000102@DakotaCom.Net> <449A15BE.2090403@jetnet.ab.ca> <449A35CC.4080708@DakotaCom.Net> <449A37CE.40506@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200606220013350957.08BF3B4D@10.0.0.252> On 6/22/2006 at 12:25 AM woodelf wrote: >Since only a few machines pre-1970's had a stack for subroutines >and/or parameters you only had a few styles of programing view >points -- FORTRAN , BASIC , LISP , INTERCAL , COBOL , ALGOL -- >Forth and APL don't really count. Algol-60 definitely embodied a stack notion--it was one of the few programming lanugages that included recursion as a feature. FORTRAN and COBOL defintely did not--and compilers typically generated code that saved registers, arguments and return addresses in static memory areas. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 22 02:36:49 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 00:36:49 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.0.20060622075159.03291990@irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk> References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <7.0.1.0.0.20060622075159.03291990@irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk> Message-ID: <200606220036490580.08D47EDF@10.0.0.252> On 6/22/2006 at 8:03 AM Rob O'Donnell wrote: >I worked for several years using BOS COBOL and it's successor >"Speedbase" which added database and a gui. These had dropped the >requirement for the period; you could probably get away without not >using any punctuation at all bad quotation marks.. AFAIK, COBOL still requires a period after paragraph names. Prior to ANSI85 COBOL, a period was necessary inside of a conditional as a terminator. ANSI85 introduced the END-IF word, which could be used in place of the required period (just a case of using a word instead of punctuation). The need for a period to terminate a conditional (e.g. IF) was the result of the following general syntax: IF . In other words, IF BIG-NUMBER GREATER 100 DISPLAY "HOWDY" ADD 1 TO HIT-COUNT. In ANSI85 COBOL, the period could be replaced with END-IF. This was a nasty bit of inherited syntactical grief from earlier versions of COBOL. In retrospect, requiring some sort of conjunction before each statement in an IF statement list would have made more sense. e.g.: IF BIG-NUMBER GREATER 100 THEN DISPLAY "HOWDY" THEN ADD 1 TO HIT-COUNT ... But backward compatibility was required so the old syntax stayed. In general, you used periods only where needed, as they could be troublemakers otherwise. Consider the above statement with a period after "HOWDY"--the whole sense of the fragment is changed. IIRC, some compilers required a period at the end of the last statement in a paragraph also. Cheers, Chuck > >Of course, it was still terribly verbose!! Witness: > >PROGRAM HELO01 >DATA DIVISION >77 YRNAME PIC X(20) * don't have a long name! >01 FILLER * just to keep things together. > 02 NUM1 PIC 9(6) COMP * comp means store in binary not >ascii > 02 NUM2 PIC 9(6) COMP > 02 NUM3 PIC 9(6) COMP > >PROCEDURE DIVISION > DISPLAY "What is your name?" > ACCEPT YRNAME > DISPLAY "Hello " > DISPLAY YRNAME SAMELINE > DISPLAY "We're very pleased to meet you!" > > DISPLAY "Enter a number" > ACCEPT NUM1 > DISPLAY "And another" > ACCEPT NUM2 > > ADD NUM1 TO NUM2 GIVING NUM3 > DISPLAY "Those add up to " > DISPLAY NUM3 SAMELINE > > EXIT >ENDPROG >ENDSOURCE > > >that's from memory, btw... From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 22 02:40:35 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:40:35 +1200 Subject: M7800 crystal (was: RE: Serial console problems on 11/34) In-Reply-To: <00cc01c695b9$9a28c790$6401a8c0@dementium> References: <449A02DF.6050103@mindspring.com> <00cc01c695b9$9a28c790$6401a8c0@dementium> Message-ID: On 6/22/06, Julian Wolfe wrote: > I added that jump and it fixed the problem. Thanks, Don! For those that are keeping score at home, there's a similar jump needed for the KL8E serial board. The board has both EIA and 20mA drivers and receivers. It transmits out of both all the time, and you use the jump to pick which interface standard to listen to. > Now to get the M7800 card working so I can do TU58 stuff :) > > Anyone know what speed crystal the "Northern Eng NE-6A" is on an M7800? > (i.e. does it do 9600 baud? ;) Boy... that's a tricky one... do you have a frequency counter or an oscilloscope? You could determine the base frequency with either tool. -ethan From cc at corti-net.de Thu Jun 22 03:44:29 2006 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:44:29 +0200 (CEST) Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: On Wed, 21 Jun 2006, Don Y wrote: > the capabilities of machines available at those times. Though > I suspect some was just the author(s) taking poetic liberties > (e.g., Algol's ::= ) Algol's syntax constists of symbols like '<-' ';' and so on. If you read e.g. the book from the Alcor group you will see that they tell you, in case that there are no '<-' etc. you may use more primitive symbols to represent them, e.g. ':=' = '<-' '.,' = ';' '..' = ':' '.(' = '[' '.)' = ']' and so on. Now think if you want to write '<-' and don't even have a ':' ... Right, you have to write '..=' In Pascal, e.g., you can write '(*' and '*)' instead of '{' and '}' if you don't have curly brackets. Christian From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Thu Jun 22 04:57:59 2006 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 11:57:59 +0200 Subject: M7800 crystal (was: RE: Serial console problems on 11/34) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: "Ethan Dicks" >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts" >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >Subject: Re: M7800 crystal (was: RE: Serial console problems on 11/34) >Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:40:35 +1200 > >On 6/22/06, Julian Wolfe wrote: >>I added that jump and it fixed the problem. Thanks, Don! > >For those that are keeping score at home, there's a similar jump >needed for the KL8E serial board. The board has both EIA and 20mA >drivers and receivers. It transmits out of both all the time, and you >use the jump to pick which interface standard to listen to. > >>Now to get the M7800 card working so I can do TU58 stuff :) >> >>Anyone know what speed crystal the "Northern Eng NE-6A" is on an M7800? >>(i.e. does it do 9600 baud? ;) > >Boy... that's a tricky one... do you have a frequency counter or an >oscilloscope? You could determine the base frequency with either >tool. > >-ethan I seem to remember that there are some options for the M7800, like M7800-YA. The manuals lists the Xtal frequencies (IIRC), and the max baudrate for M7800's is 2400 Bd. The max baudrate for DL11-W is 9600 Bd. I have a description of the DL11-W on my website (www.pdp-11.nl) in the 11/34 folder under options ... - Henk. PS. no stupid company footer now ... let's see what is appended now. _________________________________________________________________ Zoeken is nog nooit zo eenvoudig geweest! http://desktop.msn.nl From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 22 08:25:30 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 09:25:30 -0400 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> References: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <449A9A4A.1020009@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > After watching an 800MHz P3 system build Gnome (and its dependent packages) > on a NetBSD system, I got to wondering how usable NetBSD is on older slower > hardware, such as MicroVAX II. > > If you want to build Perl or X or the kernel, what do you do? Start the > make and come back in a week? Or longer. I tend to cross-build. NetBSD's cross-build environment is pretty robust. Peace... Sridhar From uban at ubanproductions.com Thu Jun 22 08:11:03 2006 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Thomas W. Uban) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 08:11:03 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Fwd: VAX 11/780 available Message-ID: <200606221311.k5MDB3RG017152@ubanproductions.com> I recieved the following email this morning from a fellow who used to run a company supporting DEC equipment. He is located in the Boston area and has always treated me right. Please contact him if you are interested... --tom Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 14:14:04 -0400 From: "Joe Moir" Subject: VAX 11/780 To: "'Tom Uban'" Message-id: <0J1600JAI7ZOIE56 at vms048.mailsrvcs.net> MIME-version: 1.0 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2869 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.5510 Content-type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_000F_01C69473.C97ADCA0" Thread-index: AcaUlU/NrijqonadQnSr7IfVmptDGA== X-UIDL: 3da9a0898547fa3fceee42a38db5de09 Tom, How are you doing. We just came across a VAX 11/780 with expansion cabinet. It is deep in an old warehouse wrapped up in shrink wrap. At this point, we don?t think it is worth our time to pull it out of the warehouse, load it on our truck, and bring it back to our building. If we could cover the labor to pull it out, plus maybe make a few hunded bucks we?d consider it. Are you, or would you know anyone that is interested?? I?ve been out of touch with the vintage DEC buyers lately. I wanted to run it by you just in case you knew of anyone that was searching for such an item. I probably need to know within a week. The building that this item is in is going to be cleaned out and everything inside is to be scrapped. Thanks very much, Joe Joe Moir Peripheral Parts Support 293 Second Ave Waltham Ma 02451 781-895-4892 p 781-895-4893 f From jbglaw at lug-owl.de Thu Jun 22 08:33:48 2006 From: jbglaw at lug-owl.de (Jan-Benedict Glaw) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 15:33:48 +0200 Subject: Fwd: VAX 11/780 available In-Reply-To: <200606221311.k5MDB3RG017152@ubanproductions.com> References: <200606221311.k5MDB3RG017152@ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <20060622133348.GH26883@lug-owl.de> On Thu, 2006-06-22 08:11:03 -0500, Thomas W. Uban wrote: > We just came across a VAX 11/780 with expansion cabinet. It is > deep in an old warehouse wrapped up in shrink wrap. *sigh* So far away :-( MfG, JBG -- Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de . +49-172-7608481 _ O _ "Eine Freie Meinung in einem Freien Kopf | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg _ _ O f??r einen Freien Staat voll Freier B??rger" | im Internet! | im Irak! O O O ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA)); From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 22 08:42:35 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 09:42:35 -0400 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <449A9E4B.7070309@gmail.com> >> It was thus said that the Great Don Y once stated: >>> So, the question: are (were) there any useful languages >>> designed that did not rely heavily on punctuation in their >>> syntax? It almost seems an inconsistency -- older languages >>> tended to be skimpy in their syntax (e.g., short identifiers, >>> global scope, etc.) which would suggest that punctuation >>> exploits would be MORE valuable to them. REXX. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 22 08:49:19 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 09:49:19 -0400 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <4499CCA2.1080405@DakotaCom.Net> References: <20060621204630.A9A94584E4@mail.wordstock.com> <005901c69577$257f1490$6500a8c0@BILLING> <4499BB53.8010704@msm.umr.edu> <200606211527060583.06DD3BF8@10.0.0.252> <4499CCA2.1080405@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <449A9FDF.50102@gmail.com> Don Y wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: >> On 6/21/2006 at 2:34 PM jim stephens wrote: >> >>>>> This looks a lot like SQL... Do you know if SQL was based on Pick? >> >> Aren't most database query languages fairly punctuation-poor when >> compared >> to general-purpose programming languages? I'm thinking of one of early >> examples--MEDLARS. I seem to recall very little punctuation in the query >> language used there. > > That depends. For example, SQL requires a terminating semicolon. > And, uses parens in many cases. Plus commas, etc. And, of course, > any expressional notation uses typical punctuation. > > For example: > > SELECT book, author FROM titles > WHERE isbn_publisher(book) > isbn_publisher('1-234-56789-X'::isbn); > > Plus, the "programming language" variants of those "query > languages" are almost as punctuation-rich as typical languages. I thought the SQL ; was implementation-specific, and just happened to be used in many implementations? Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 22 08:50:36 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 09:50:36 -0400 Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <449AA02C.3090107@gmail.com> Tony Duell wrote: >> Hmm... reminds me of a board I have for the PDP-11 (but with one >> channel)... it was never directly supported by any PDP-11 OS I know of >> (i.e. - no graphical login), but it was easy to talk to from an RT-11 >> program and scribble pretty pictures on. We used to use only the >> green channel and display 512x512 mono images on it. > > There were some quite interesting graphics display systems for the > PDP11/VAX. Even though I don't have a graphical display on this PC, I > have collected a number of display systems for the PDP11, including : > Wasn't there also a UNIBUS-attached framebuffer box made by Evans and Sutherland? Peace... Sridhar From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jun 22 09:10:49 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 07:10:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <449A9FDF.50102@gmail.com> from Sridhar Ayengar at "Jun 22, 6 09:49:19 am" Message-ID: <200606221410.k5MEAnxm016880@floodgap.com> > I thought the SQL ; was implementation-specific, and just happened to be > used in many implementations? That's what I thought too. I've seen select x, y, z from pdq order by abc go in some DBs. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Advertising is the banging of a stick in a swillbucket. -- George Orwell --- From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 22 09:36:28 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:36:28 -0400 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <200606221410.k5MEAnxm016880@floodgap.com> References: <200606221410.k5MEAnxm016880@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <449AAAEC.2050903@gmail.com> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> I thought the SQL ; was implementation-specific, and just happened to be >> used in many implementations? > > That's what I thought too. I've seen > > select x, y, z from pdq order by abc go > > in some DBs. That's the way that the platform-agnostic database-agnostic SQL engine in JDBC wants it too. Peace... Sridhar From brad at heeltoe.com Thu Jun 22 09:40:38 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:40:38 -0400 Subject: Fwd: VAX 11/780 available In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 22 Jun 2006 08:11:03 CDT." <200606221311.k5MDB3RG017152@ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <200606221440.k5MEecgC005020@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Thomas W. Uban" wrote: >I recieved the following email this morning from a fellow who >used to run a company supporting DEC equipment. He is located >in the Boston area and has always treated me right. Please >contact him if you are interested... I know Joe. I'll certainly be in touch with him. -brad From dundas at caltech.edu Thu Jun 22 10:06:49 2006 From: dundas at caltech.edu (John A. Dundas III) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 08:06:49 -0700 Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card In-Reply-To: <449AA02C.3090107@gmail.com> References: <449AA02C.3090107@gmail.com> Message-ID: >Tony Duell wrote: >>>Hmm... reminds me of a board I have for the PDP-11 (but with one >>>channel)... it was never directly supported by any PDP-11 OS I know of >>>(i.e. - no graphical login), but it was easy to talk to from an RT-11 >>>program and scribble pretty pictures on. We used to use only the >>>green channel and display 512x512 mono images on it. >> >>There were some quite interesting graphics display systems for the >>PDP11/VAX. Even though I don't have a graphical display on this PC, >>I have collected a number of display systems for the PDP11, >>including : > > > >Wasn't there also a UNIBUS-attached framebuffer box made by Evans >and Sutherland? Don't know about E&S framebuffers but certainly the E&S PS2 (PictureSystem 2), and later models, were vector graphics devices with a variety of additional control peripherals (knobs, switches, light pen, etc.). We used one on both an 11/55 and a VAX-11/780. Used something like a DR11-W interface. John From tponsford at rnsmte.com Thu Jun 22 11:21:22 2006 From: tponsford at rnsmte.com (tponsford) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 09:21:22 -0700 Subject: volker-craig VC404 Message-ID: <449AC382.1060704@rnsmte.com> Hi All! Always on the lookout for any unique stuff at the local auction, I picked up a Volker-Craig VC404 (working) for $2. Googling, I found quite a few interesting tidbits, but no links to any online user or service manuals. Anybody have any pointers? TIA Tom Ponsford From kth at srv.net Thu Jun 22 11:40:17 2006 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:40:17 -0600 Subject: Serial console problems on 11/34 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <449AC7F1.8070402@srv.net> Julian Wolfe wrote: >I get the following prompt: > >XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX (where XXXXXX is the register values) >$ > >It's just that I can't respond to it. "L" for example is not echoed on the >terminal when I press a key. > >I'm going to try Don's tests tonight. > > > Could the problem be on the terminal end? 1. One thing to check for is that you have a good ground (pin 7 on the DB25). I've had weird problems like this when the ground wire was bad. You can also get strange things like short transmissions look good, but long ones are messed up garbage (or vice versa). 2. Test that the terminal is actually sending the character. Short pins two and three on the VT220 DB25 (transmit and receive pin) to create a loopback connector, and see if what you type gets echoed back on the screen. VT* terminals would sometimes fry the interface chips. The VT320 could fry MicroVax II console ports when you turned the terminal off. 3. What speed it this operating at? Sometimes the clock frequency drifts (either, or both ends of the connection), and at higher speeds it is enough to make things act flakey. Slower speeds aren't as badly affected. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 22 11:37:27 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 09:37:27 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606220937270940.001BAF38@10.0.0.252> On 6/22/2006 at 10:44 AM Christian Corti wrote: >Algol's syntax constists of symbols like '<-' ';' and so on. If you read >e.g. the book from the Alcor group you will see that they tell you, in >case that there are no '<-' etc. you may use more primitive symbols to >represent them, e.g. I remember this very vividly when exploring Algol-60 and having at my disposal only an 026 keypnch and a 6-bit character set. Another not-so-subtle aspect was the restriction to uppercase alphabetics. Those pretty programs in the Algol spec tended not to look as pretty when rendered into uppercase and di- and tri-graphs. In fact, I wonder if the restriction to 6-bit character sets and keypunches with small keyboards was a reason that older languages tended to omit too much punctuation. I can remember wanting to punch a FORTRAN program and having only a nonprinting 024 keypunch at my disposal. Multipunch city. Many shops kept some of their 026 keypunches when S/360 and EBCIDIC came in (apparently 029's cost more to lease). Manually punching EBCIDIC punctuation could get to be very slow going. In fact, if you took your program deck down to the unit record room to be duplicated on the 519 and interpreted on the 557, you got a double whammy. The 557 not only printed wide characters (IIRC only 60 across the top of a card), but lacked all but the simplest punctuation, reducing your program to gibberish printed across the top of the card in two rows. Cheers, Chuck From jvdg at sparcpark.net Thu Jun 22 12:47:50 2006 From: jvdg at sparcpark.net (Joost van de Griek) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:47:50 +0200 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <449A9FDF.50102@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6/22/06 3:49 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > I thought the SQL ; was implementation-specific, and just happened to be > used in many implementations? True. It is also not consistent across implementations: in DB2-SQL, it is used merely to separate statements and optional at the end of single statement, while in NonStop-SQL it is mandatory to end each statement with a semicolon. Unclosed statements are interpreted as incomplete. ,xtG .tsooJ -- Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers. - Voltaire -- Joost van de Griek From rborsuk at colourfull.com Thu Jun 22 13:05:40 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 14:05:40 -0400 Subject: HP 264x terminal status In-Reply-To: <44942E9E.1040704@cebridge.net> References: <44942E9E.1040704@cebridge.net> Message-ID: All, I received my terminal today. Looks good. I'll put up some pictures later today. Rob On Jun 17, 2006, at 12:32 PM, Gessman Business Services wrote: > Attn: Jay West & Others Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 22 13:27:08 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 14:27:08 -0400 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <449AE0FC.3060700@gmail.com> Joost van de Griek wrote: > On 6/22/06 3:49 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > >> I thought the SQL ; was implementation-specific, and just happened to be >> used in many implementations? > > True. It is also not consistent across implementations: in DB2-SQL, it is > used merely to separate statements and optional at the end of single > statement, while in NonStop-SQL it is mandatory to end each statement with a > semicolon. Unclosed statements are interpreted as incomplete. Most of my experience is with Oracle, which does it in the latter fashion. Peace... Sridhar From stanb at dial.pipex.com Thu Jun 22 03:01:51 2006 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 09:01:51 +0100 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:33:53 PDT." Message-ID: <200606220801.JAA00054@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, John R said: > If punctuation means +, !, @, :, ; etc. then Forth has > plenty of punctuation. In forth these are just single character words that just happen to be expressed by puntuation symbols. You can redefine these as something more verbose and Forth still works the same. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 22 15:08:00 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 13:08:00 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <449AF8A0.5010301@DakotaCom.Net> Christian Corti wrote: > On Wed, 21 Jun 2006, Don Y wrote: >> the capabilities of machines available at those times. Though >> I suspect some was just the author(s) taking poetic liberties >> (e.g., Algol's ::= ) > > Algol's syntax constists of symbols like '<-' ';' and so on. If you read > e.g. the book from the Alcor group you will see that they tell you, in > case that there are no '<-' etc. you may use more primitive symbols to > represent them, e.g. > ':=' = '<-' > '.,' = ';' > '..' = ':' > '.(' = '[' > '.)' = ']' > and so on. > > Now think if you want to write '<-' and don't even have a ':' ... Right, > you have to write '..=' Yes, sorry, I misremembered: ::= is the syntax for BNF's introduced in the '68 report. > In Pascal, e.g., you can write '(*' and '*)' instead of '{' and '}' if > you don't have curly brackets. And in C you can use the pre-preprocessor trigraphs, etc. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 22 15:10:26 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 13:10:26 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <449A9FDF.50102@gmail.com> References: <20060621204630.A9A94584E4@mail.wordstock.com> <005901c69577$257f1490$6500a8c0@BILLING> <4499BB53.8010704@msm.umr.edu> <200606211527060583.06DD3BF8@10.0.0.252> <4499CCA2.1080405@DakotaCom.Net> <449A9FDF.50102@gmail.com> Message-ID: <449AF932.3040008@DakotaCom.Net> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Don Y wrote: >> Chuck Guzis wrote: >>> >>> Aren't most database query languages fairly punctuation-poor when >>> compared >>> to general-purpose programming languages? I'm thinking of one of early >>> examples--MEDLARS. I seem to recall very little punctuation in the >>> query language used there. >> >> That depends. For example, SQL requires a terminating semicolon. >> And, uses parens in many cases. Plus commas, etc. And, of course, >> any expressional notation uses typical punctuation. >> >> For example: >> >> SELECT book, author FROM titles >> WHERE isbn_publisher(book) > isbn_publisher('1-234-56789-X'::isbn); >> >> Plus, the "programming language" variants of those "query >> languages" are almost as punctuation-rich as typical languages. > > I thought the SQL ; was implementation-specific, and just happened to be > used in many implementations? Yes, implementations that allow newlines within the query. (living without newlines is like bread without butter! :> ) From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jun 22 15:46:33 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 15:46:33 -0500 Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <4499E4E1.4030906@brutman.com> References: <4499E4E1.4030906@brutman.com> Message-ID: <449B01A9.8000008@oldskool.org> Michael B. Brutman wrote: > I like the machine a lot. Me too. It got some things very right (wireless keyboard means you can compute on the living room couch, built-in graphics and sound, small and light = portable, built-in user-accessible diagnostics) and some things very wrong (expandability being the most notable offender). I will always have a soft spot in my heart for it. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From ian_primus at yahoo.com Thu Jun 22 17:26:45 2006 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 15:26:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Fwd: VAX 11/780 available In-Reply-To: <200606221311.k5MDB3RG017152@ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <20060622222645.95436.qmail@web52707.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Thomas W. Uban" wrote: > I recieved the following email this morning from a > fellow who > used to run a company supporting DEC equipment. He > is located > in the Boston area and has always treated me right. > Please > contact him if you are interested... > > --tom I would _really_ like this machine - I don't own a proper VAX. I am also within driving distance (New York capital region). I'm going to try emailing him. This would be so great. I need to get a VAX to balance out the Prime stuff... -Ian From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 22 18:27:53 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:27:53 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: <449A9E4B.7070309@gmail.com> References: <449983BD.3000303@DakotaCom.Net> <20060621175002.GA20448@linus.groomlake.area51> <449991DC.40409@DakotaCom.Net> <449A9E4B.7070309@gmail.com> Message-ID: <449B2779.4040801@DakotaCom.Net> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> It was thus said that the Great Don Y once stated: >>>> So, the question: are (were) there any useful languages >>>> designed that did not rely heavily on punctuation in their >>>> syntax? It almost seems an inconsistency -- older languages >>>> tended to be skimpy in their syntax (e.g., short identifiers, >>>> global scope, etc.) which would suggest that punctuation >>>> exploits would be MORE valuable to them. > > REXX. REXX has more than it's share of punctuation. '~' essentially replaces C's '!' it shares the '==' operator, adds exponentiation via '**' replaces C's '%' with '//' adds '||' for concatenation '/*' comments semicolons to separate statements on the same line (though C requires semicolons for "all" statements) '%' for integer division periods to separate "elements"/records/members of compound variables parens for function invocations colons to delimit label clauses Plus, I recall lots of quoting when writing REXX scripts. OTOH, I don't recall *braces* used anywhere :> From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 22 17:54:58 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 23:54:58 +0100 (BST) Subject: Serial console problems on 11/34 In-Reply-To: from "Julian Wolfe" at Jun 21, 6 07:25:14 pm Message-ID: > > I get the following prompt: > > XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX (where XXXXXX is the register values) > $ > > It's just that I can't respond to it. "L" for example is not echoed on the > terminal when I press a key. OK, your machine is basically working. The CPU seems to be running the console firmware, it can talk to the transmit half of the DL11. You've also not used a straight-through RS232 cable -- the output of the PDP11 is certainly going to the input of the terminal. Here's how I'd attack this problem (being a hardware hacker...) 1) Make sure the terminal is sending something. Put a breakout box between the terminal and the PDP and press keys. Check you get some indication on the breakout box LEDs that the TxD line from the terminal is changing state. 2) Grab the printset for the DL11 and look at the output of the buffer chip (probably a 1489) that handles the RxD line. Put a logic probe on the output of that buffer, again prsss keys on the terminal and chack that pin changes state (if not, suspect the buffer chip, they do fail...) 3) Now put the logic probe on the serial input pin of the UART and again press keys. If there are no transitions here, maybe you've forgotten the jumper wire in the cable connector that links the output of the RS232 receiver (or the current loop receiver) to the UART. 4) If serial data is getting to the UART, maybe the Rx Clock is missing. Look at the appropriate pin of the UART chip with the logic probe to ensure it's clocking. If you have a 'scope, make sure the frequency is right too (16 times the baud rate). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 22 17:57:09 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 23:57:09 +0100 (BST) Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <4499E4E1.4030906@brutman.com> from "Michael B. Brutman" at Jun 21, 6 07:31:29 pm Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > But the PCjr wasn't techically a good machine. It also wasn't truely PC > > compatible. I can think of little to recomend it, actually ;-) > > As a PC compatible, the PCjr isn't too bad. As a PC clone, it is awful. [...] > > Cons > - Expansion capability. > - Some hardware in non-standard places, which broke some software. > - Shared memory between video and main memory, which slowed things down. > - Non-standard connectors for joysticks, monitors, etc. No DMA controller! A nasty custom gate array chip for the video circuitry That darn chicklet infra-red keyboard -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 22 18:00:12 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:00:12 +0100 (BST) Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <20060622003959.1877.qmail@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> from "Chris M" at Jun 21, 6 05:39:59 pm Message-ID: > The Tandy 2000 was a neat machine in it's own right, [...] > There's also the weird crt controller by SMC (and > floppy data seperator). Where are you supposed to find > replacements for those??? Presumably from the same place that you get a replacement video gate arrayor a keyboard microcontroller from for the PCjr.... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 22 18:06:18 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:06:18 +0100 (BST) Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <4499F1A5.80909@brutman.com> from "Michael B. Brutman" at Jun 21, 6 08:25:57 pm Message-ID: > A bigger shortcoming that I should have mentioned was having the > keyboard using the NMI interrupt instead of IRQ1. I forget the exact > reason for this, but it resulted in a lot of lost keystrokes an annoying > beeps. There was a reasonable reason for this. The PC keyboard is farily hardware-intensive. The keyboard sends a serial data stream that goes into a shfit register on the PC mainboard. When a character has been received (IIRC), ther hardware generates an IRQ1 and holds the keyboard clock line, preventing the keyboard from sending another character until the first one has been read by the 8088 The PCjr keyboard is software-intensive. Whether you use the IR link or the cable, the serial data stream is decoded by the 8088, there is no shift register on the PCjr mainboard. Also, in the PCjr, there's no way to tell the keyboard to stop sending because the main processor hasn't read the character yet. Therefore in the PCjr, you need a high-priorty interrupt (i.e, NMI) which is generated when the keyboard sends a bit, The 8088 takes over then, reads in the character from the keyboard and processes it. Otherwise you'd loose or mangle an awful lot of keypresses. -tony From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 22 18:32:14 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:32:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060622233214.72591.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com> --- Tony Duell wrote: > > The Tandy 2000 was a neat machine in it's own > right, > > [...] > > > There's also the weird crt controller by SMC (and > > floppy data seperator). Where are you supposed to > find > > replacements for those??? > > Presumably from the same place that you get a > replacement video gate > arrayor a keyboard microcontroller from for the > PCjr.... Right mate, go ahead, rub salt in the wounds! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From fireflyst at earthlink.net Thu Jun 22 18:42:01 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe (FireflyST)) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 18:42:01 -0500 (GMT-05:00) Subject: Serial console problems on 11/34 Message-ID: <22584004.1151019721450.JavaMail.root@elwamui-hybrid.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Sorry, I shouldn't have renamed the topic so soon. I fixed the problem - I forgot to jump pins E to M (interlock) - did that and I was able to input. -----Original Message----- >From: Tony Duell >Sent: Jun 22, 2006 5:54 PM >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Subject: Re: Serial console problems on 11/34 > >> >> I get the following prompt: >> >> ###### ###### ###### ###### (where ###### is the register values) >> $ >> >> It's just that I can't respond to it. "L" for example is not echoed on the >> terminal when I press a key. > >OK, your machine is basically working. The CPU seems to be running the >console firmware, it can talk to the transmit half of the DL11. You've >also not used a straight-through RS232 cable -- the output of the PDP11 >is certainly going to the input of the terminal. > >Here's how I'd attack this problem (being a hardware hacker...) > >1) Make sure the terminal is sending something. Put a breakout box >between the terminal and the PDP and press keys. Check you get some >indication on the breakout box LEDs that the TxD line from the terminal >is changing state. > >2) Grab the printset for the DL11 and look at the output of the buffer >chip (probably a 1489) that handles the RxD line. Put a logic probe on >the output of that buffer, again prsss keys on the terminal and chack >that pin changes state (if not, suspect the buffer chip, they do fail...) > >3) Now put the logic probe on the serial input pin of the UART and again >press keys. If there are no transitions here, maybe you've forgotten the >jumper wire in the cable connector that links the output of the RS232 >receiver (or the current loop receiver) to the UART. > >4) If serial data is getting to the UART, maybe the Rx Clock is missing. >Look at the appropriate pin of the UART chip with the logic probe to >ensure it's clocking. If you have a 'scope, make sure the frequency is >right too (16 times the baud rate). > >-tony From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jun 22 19:22:04 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 17:22:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: New (old) SGI Indigo2 Message-ID: <20060623002204.5339.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> that stuph you download off the SGI site is commonly referred to as overlays. You need the basic 6.5.? set to begin with (in totality 18 cd's). Starting posting around. I had people offering to dump it onto a hard drive I'd send them and whatnot. I found a set though. There are issues regarding licensing - there's a license attached to each machine evidently. But who really gives a damn, right? Some monitors are finicky about that signal, and the same thing has happened to me with a Sun box (Ultra 5). If you turn it off and reboot a few times, you can get it to sync up on some monitors. I'm of the persuasion it's the rise and fall times of the sync pulses or their width that could be the culprits. Probably the width - a wee bit too narrow maybe? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jun 22 19:29:35 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 17:29:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: New (old) SGI Indigo2 In-Reply-To: <20060623002204.5339.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060623002204.5339.qmail@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 22 Jun 2006, Chris M wrote: > that stuph you download off the SGI site is commonly > referred to as overlays. You need the basic 6.5.? set > to begin with (in totality 18 cd's). Starting posting > around. I had people offering to dump it onto a hard > drive I'd send them and whatnot. I found a set though. > There are issues regarding licensing - there's a > license attached to each machine evidently. But who > really gives a damn, right? I seem to recall an SGI tech saying that posession of SGI hardware implies that a licence to use Irix has already been bought and the license transfers with the machine. So, it's already paid for. Of course, things like MIPSpro C cost extra and are time limited. I might have some Irix 6.5.x CD sets around here somewhere. -- 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 cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Thu Jun 22 23:13:47 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 23:13:47 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: vDWWl9hDVsbyfnLA03hBIDWAXbOMycOmnVbk7l0cCvG4ym3qDYNqwYQTaHSmuj1zpkHMhbsQJrQc R4lpBh4qD4j5X0JxPcfe6lanbB2mMIRvTEFLxso9ypY7ojTXUG0aCRRg3UZKveVbuYhmqxr1Bz6vQWk vXQzNDGKnLWEuOFAL1mENpmKhNQvIfOc0DYE5YJ11o7GXJK8Lj5QKz1yXX5ifAlh4PIX3f OC2xNYLZEQM6MaY2BiANzfHBacNviaXuXUCbeBgAJ26x67S6xw1Wrx9wtvaR9RLUdlMQKuL LGD434Nu3dMT8noEjSu9f27rQq5CHPy8KmEF8wgSzQ1X8unOQeC49ZZwifHrIdAa4nzdoOb0 cyGpQDQpgNPycuBc0o5pEegQ2i6fdockS4tvOLXpNrKsHmxLGn6aACz5mCgwwsaW0YsVKKnNe9Lx6 aevRm9frIMenS9cuQQBXKfVhSZFD2B60S06wVU7ir21Q2JRqKxHYMaqz0nuND9186UBpKrsIGOHEeJ 8Fln3f9TTJKw3B3aJ33ocEYltR3MeYRTTnAltg7thWjchm0xU620CnrZoKjHhbnpbRp7cD8o9 Ah888QuFM0q710ayQKG2ZsCdEQYntTHAJjXWUlXuNJEYzmLqSCSW4HdQoOXU9OcWjesSKW6qet CyB4GQfJLZgyPtU90mRyvhon4NOBpOrYoIrKcajAktt4dXzNZ3AYARPLyTpOU3dtPexUJgCOD4n - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Thu Jun 22 23:21:44 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 23:21:44 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: qUhqkHcj302VAwA5NIuj5dk3KnaTa35cX8L3ChWpVhpDeZGWvqoN4S7wkk6HoHneKHPlQ3nsKy4H 5jPiWL7qwYeazgNRcgdaFP5Jx6lCDkXM1T1X32GOKkjs0b3RXjc0Oxy2dwqkL1YtXyWHFPUWQq2MZDw F3UgMBofTAI6UvQC2OEBGZivjZF1i6TRIKxbcFNIweEiF3EF6mV9U4zXPMhq9OWzoRE8sx yZtE8hOTpZijBhskOja6BGJz7JctRzpSaL9Nhd6oWyI1fi6RxlVMUu38vF6Ddo5vcPbZojO q5Dw3MEqTF0Dykn8U11QpMzLXiSNecJ98otgQVqCkkrcDZw5QowWzVbJwBqvPCnCUhutEHPv 8b3qvLN6bym6IlK8nTKvHEF6U0Yp20hyTktbGSSwUCuZSq458gI8SHA1AHTFYAwCVK4LQowg9y7Ke t51iaSsBQw7WwJ9ZqgkCZBYheRqBCYPRvSCjBgnr4PfXOoKGI7ZkRkltGYk2q7zacDItbl55XXaMjJ X8abpvUVUeOFct8bwJ3So7ZKxCkdxh1fzDmJO79rrinN1p9WtkMRbw032rrlloMMutT1bPlbR NB4KeGh1RQIhqz1ydD7ebP1q699zD6WwIEtAzczXmPb7BbuBLKQApVab1n4fR5wsBKr2WyByBE RruVltwHTEFYnlNzMQKGtwBuraVziAQ4qOLPbmJJTKxRPKZmWGlRP9DuJ82ow1F7BBpeXi8ewwh - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Thu Jun 22 23:54:57 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 23:54:57 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: YbrzqwZSLUyYxh6tK1gv0TID3q5bYADK5zgon6rzsDSJVQvUKD4MeKug4g0mGnFqCrjgv3kdqcRU PL3l4PzXxt3JZ7BQj5ldtAk8JFqpVvp4mxnAsclMFu8rbRmAIuRcXAiP3UeRcGtz08mZR40AQ5qoESe snNiEBSNymbD06vOEvDOkZvDBjEumhn41cgcU8BCBbhYxNP00MZqyryW8Rzsz3fF2VcknQ oNlfzZ5d749SiyP4g8aFyoZziBYBjNNZobSMo85YaKa1T1cBoyvu2jkF0GyiMSugqjxsBaJ PH4CYmG8w7J2FohXohthPK9mSaRZT8JZ7pOVKiIxC9bREhFtxkBus1pnuGvVKaYZPNEJ8wvb bZxGmFL2bvvLzhCbNm66Dloh37huJWOmm3mkJreW9qO8nuu6wk3iIritQnWPaXqc6UaKshNOczpTI wTSBpoBOYlDOe8dDKEiTpBdr63TIaVUBhPvRgWLXITcETq9lyfF9UuPZAwtCHTOTSGO7vWDS79cLhZ zdUHKx3QkiH8xIhWByJq2PHEnbTxe6nTt31uXW6RJY5NfI2LsSv3LLBOjRb2Tl3oGRRcZgjdp mQQE3VPc66tdJwdmRs7dumwesKZq0gVaz0YoC2nZ0JTf7qkskiL4z99XyLFKCpOpjzPKQysfWw UDxjnwNkqRDakPpOle0BcgBR91hOnZf9zEzDzC4mrMsZiQ0FRBtIC0YpVhw5hmsd4ZoCmCyMssR - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 23 00:37:03 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:37:03 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: tgulbQnuZ7ycT2eRZGbaiZ8puCZ8UFVXrgDzUaYEKhvjrQ8CeA4k4JjeaFDz88oKSSDPk7JjoU9o yOoNuB3ztpyLMyYV0kaObvywnzwneCWQkyMViPFkcTIW3kk8MSBjYMZAtPYDnpscAUdlQ55Dz3GygBw IpA8k8b5muHutGjAT4oIgEeB4VuYZ3RnuET8qLQ12VqLGX2h09TxXeHf3HHUDRFIS8pEL7 IenEkzZI40IvYziGX8v8DxwKXKwVzNzkE4uyYFg8eiKeluaTrXOHqa0MaYSdbmtJZRdCsxv dSYd1GmOcu3sJhE22SWndLQIwgnjjiyhfg3CHUsccs6FVpOU5ezIkuRSrIqnoU398T0wKtbe XJcEGDzmdkXTdRzgeHezwUpGodfhCiFJWz5GorK9PbmDFTlxPKNRWyNlI0UQpDvPDNIOdDIXuZbNF 69nO0INBiuF7327pWnI54kX3I9Lu1IsdUiC0HMgFVgfGX8qjqsxlLXylJ98hgDwsTpWGbkhQNDKo60 e5LN2VaBgDT9iKEwzCceUpS4RIVENWAcuzG5uO4M1wNg7IL8TigagIn44MSopfBY3r5GhIXvk MzKTZ88QNnGxOzfNPXyR9iPKULX3MH8d8H6wCmyi6sJqFNXdmO1NsPRike8w6TfVXOdfREhxmV be6Mg2rfEDX3ShNUN0rL2GXBM2o5TU5pYJ0eZWidLWxFarzLNGbw9oINRhVcIRXwsIGLMJSvUw1 - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 23 00:41:51 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:41:51 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: zrTcIUvbZgOofW12H1Hq1ehdKIw57w6mVFOv5281jnobd7gg3xobZpupyyx7fFhlDjxTTaKPYkSP KFKB9oxV5DYi6XtQRQQGnpAoMUZM9dJ3sU7hXIwDxpKepNUdwz94NzwsJtjhPAQLGcyS0iwT5uLkOPo zhLpy44fNI7hCfonHbVs57YJytZ7PCnPtSxcJBn9upC0qkkwNRUwcpPVjUBs5KJpZF8a4F EcKM2TnuzsFMaqXFLGVEqamrPyg8xudfu3TCmjt01DEdEYkBtI9doawq6d1zNrN0Lp26nPW swN1Os1bggzstNJo0unsq3oi0tD9WySmUgpiIcT9YeI7Zefp4kmemIB4JLfhpUJi4pczMlde Q9vpFMIK2dfcDzTPkfvYFQsHYH4WJhearNXT0pPdAoWGPTWoM5dNb7CU0PjVU74fyzFeeKDEEY7CH f5JPYEGPDk2zL5nvjYk2u24IpAEVIIOlpsMCBNCueW14nrVVKA8ravnOv4ySkqmasTJ46JHrqoF0ZP LYaF9jT10IAB4lWHoIizospYFfx11mUtZiObI7666jU32U57AXr9bgDvroUwj9GnUslozIItb 6xILLBhrjiadZce7JjQhlgKuMyLIatvOzEn9zVCR7uTmfMpjRo11HkTEaBjO28rSXxLTJttbWF gF37K5l8vX7tJNCi3jl06fZXOXmFbsdoW4jGKxaP1LQJ16nxczOrse0tmhz55fJhtvFBph5Nnqj - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 23 00:44:30 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:44:30 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: COEV3Ps7p6TEgLyAmYf0VyJyx7UoMbwu6iXA5AszQ2VPuvnU91QPxLvg4OUic2vwx2YglfC0FhPa pK26u9zX6IE7YwKeWGWEYdvzR1aYUsrlOjRsqA5J2pZ4c1cStybNera8fdJFHEIMeKRsH5oA3DVibCQ GwtH0bT9IknNq4qMq7nWEZqQhSpwaqLJVdQl6i0wuJLt4HWQZEJq971NLpu6XQfeBmcf5a cBez33jj3JBMpwykiYI4qzSQBHIwgTcqpXG5b3XDM8qSian9KqTJoZPdykJ1mqethnYbjOE mjOkMhDj2paZ6kHvkMVl2EMPzIfWCtHUp6TIfjpOMZmJhdTfbzHcmFze4iIh0T6USQ3Pau6x KjaNGQzEWaMqPvgtPsUyqE0YMtRCarwRkharooKP6S3No59V6PeD3I9FY5W2aUXWi9JA26tgK1cN2 RJ3bkgqXOTLaIFpLz4vwfIoVsKATYUeLOwnpIQq79OVjOhWg6fXmtUxaO52Q2mPv9pTRXrdlCpByFe RmVSqIdptUecq5RjQuLjiEL2Gsbn9Yb3UwuyiSUAEnzpcbS3c69vy39WibavgKmIy2643dJXO wgbtIEWfxJgzRPJadrL3HhAk5RXsozZ1YKY5m2jYfKy6JG1TX8Ew2amITdxLzbN1QwlmnVhpFv zydpKFoArUO8N0mikHttMxpI54SyBQWHGBw3U15mkjMdgdmuIJhjX85tn49pj1Sfr6kX0U4BGir - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 23 00:45:48 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:45:48 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: adB6gcuPLf1ESAmzqCl6EcfJFqk45euDr3f0dmyII3WYrUWPGUI0dJChk8y9nt34hikzKY0UZx48 sqb0N6OIwtvwBgjWHMuM534yWNXlo7SlG9Mv1pBcYq2UZUNmtoyRgSflNxeHCTNfIgyOvEUAJvGtveL p5InOmrSa2lpencBpnIdkfkLyXQqUYjxL79xH91tWwaH60Od4BGuNI3rGFMs2R0nJCWb3w sBVOJuqVXTi8h2XoE2s22RVqxr20rwQOpTg5dlfcM4v5Jg9aWin4cSSk66t5pIBohrsFc1D XUdze3OG685TSRgokgVxojqPeUAwdHN1fr31Q8grVJErti4wtborOAoF74EPKaapOldo9mgd YLgC1qZj9JvorDwpCiJTsFGFKnkfdg20qqFHtmi64qEhzCvCZyehfKbeBNd20W7XiAw5WB29oEV3f ONiTAnj2wRUI8bzfW9ZcetjBSJdFiyKmCjO8iaXtX5ZeAX0eL3ETTZQQ8vDR7QsHuhZqlH2s1LitGl 9xO96e7t5fE7ojIotgehyiuqjKOFvODjC1VPqqNUhFgb4q9se1O2ZXjiRojwnYhqtYw6bYzpy 8pVeKOF63POOsTJ5JvxZqhmUNBOFtRHoTGhi4ueFhb4PMutb8A2ZsfX1DbSADD71BbHKGaX3SH g6iiwgkcM4dszJCenM36WIazPMsbOMyZFt33IIrPdaItoFvtMWexFc0ZwJNJsM4nqA0y30Ewkjl - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 23 00:53:21 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:53:21 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: G77L8PZ9mrJ6SrTiMOTm1i8A6scERkDoBrlEQCptt5ZOjHkmKj69R6tNDffZkBYe7LijL73KNYFb DubUzV1CycRJJwOBXJERlnMOvs2pdUdxG8ZH1jGPxUXKLr1jax1cuxrcO2UeTUHrHW6n7bLAUl9uY4R 2ywPmruymYMjcd31w1n3Ybvcvxu1PNgixy50FgafTIbZhb2SmESJe8WE43rG7IfTnI5ER3 TZEGEkbSN03DAr9pEXbRyrcgRZSStsQefFfrRidOZtqWKzOrZEO0DaqkzT4evIVrkVH37dI W6u8HB0WkQKogdQ4EueCmf1ZO7lP77wcINLarXrN0U6hZfzjFqeBXoKes8UjvhZ5lH1Z3FQ1 uJJpwh9PF3zsLdMGWSVpDefhms0rGjlKWqBUXDYK9DxkzqEQ8X3Y37MpaLJs0BzB1wo9mr1wlCGb9 tPcgc5grq4sqFuGEUoRLVSbMsuJfIuvvTG8pHzQpL2D5ezVz3c3PD46qpMoL662120ltlq7zB5JiMW umdJ0NNpuusW9Mx5wtlveXPVtzR3nDjz7smOT6KfJRuYUwix8ZbKAuKQRaaf4RccflhPXS6PC P379tVjKZiKuA6sFD2pwHqD27ZW3Sb51lwPQjsk0H7l1z3Rds95xMj8b5RyffMd57vH9iH9Mgm OkDM5zfkZXnNJ3Xg6kMLeBnY4ldkl5sWtzHyFK5I6vmv76PnEXoczjk3n3qKInjcVb86oKRpGpK - Done. From nico at farumdata.dk Fri Jun 23 00:54:52 2006 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 07:54:52 +0200 Subject: Weird : Fw: The results of your email commands Message-ID: <003f01c69689$8bb3f330$2101a8c0@finans> Hi all Sometimes I receive messagages like the one below. I havnt sent anything recently, so I cant see why. Could someone have sent some HTML, which is being bounced, but copied to cctalk ? What worries me, is the line X-RCPT-TO., Where could that come from ? Nico ----- Original Message ----- Received: from dewey.classiccmp.org [209.145.140.57] by post6.zitechnet.dk (SMTPD-8.20) id AE350EB4; Fri, 23 Jun 2006 07:37:57 +0200 Received: from dewey.classiccmp.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by dewey.classiccmp.org (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k5N5fvC2012780; Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:44:01 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org) Received: from dewey.classiccmp.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by dewey.classiccmp.org (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id k5N5fr31012770 for ; Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:41:53 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org To: cctalk at classiccmp.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===============1195093276==" Message-ID: Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:41:51 -0500 Precedence: bulk X-BeenThere: cctech at classiccmp.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 X-List-Administrivia: yes X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Subject: The results of your email commands X-BeenThere: cctalk at classiccmp.org Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" List-Id: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org Errors-To: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org X-Declude-Spoolname: D7e35032f00008ac8.smd X-Spam-Tests-Failed: None [0] X-RCPT-TO: Status: U X-UIDL: 348442292 X-IMail-ThreadID: 7e35032f00008ac8 From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 23 00:59:31 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:59:31 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: h80MsOeWB9rSv7d0yzAuE5xMOdGXeoKwE6djSQeZnB6PJXVW6DCBXTqLGy4Azze3z9qzcRE8JlUm 2xsWSBlKjHwCgydUJAvomGFXk9yFvyPTziojnG4cLsNVrfok1H8BZlugPb5EQKThT8zYYkpDuN1HqqE ucDEHehymHTPSUeMnQditNqaiGDdlfKbWwBae60xLDVAiHn8tXMWT7Ih2QaNRKS3qjngnq PKrfRJ0a1Bhs2bKgpZLbI1fb7M5OiJEA0dzceNX4JKWPhNKMorNMeD1rHDlxYT0NVo0ADts hT3Er6tt1KljO6eICUefKroeJTj09I5gRiEr3H2joUpN0ycossOu9sethQePsHUA1rViU9Ms KB2xsKjE65HAVWu188DULAnHB82Y4tlh5gNYLEOYS6r4urCxkmL9w4LAms5gOhn0DdAU96jLj0wKU 320EiOefVkW5ZweCwPoGb5UOQ5olF6dz5RaGoRO1qoDaJUiDt0p9GFI0pbCcAyIcv8BJxzZMxLhr79 N06jJOG5ezKZQl9xWdVx75EQn7lsWUrXAH5NAZnD5N9wpFKaV5p8TDnQwEqCfF2eEzkczAJb7 rySHbbshpu60tPycgASCYl1mr4t6kK4OX5Y5mLYeivbqlnTyqXRPX8nTKbkKyx322qjzxsPUdJ x7Bl2lSN1xMvJhyn4HKkYMYNvJh8o7KloRfrFG5h1LFw8Vlq6jpACn0D307G3a7PzuI7H3zNiRV - Done. From teoz at neo.rr.com Fri Jun 23 00:58:12 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 01:58:12 -0400 Subject: Fw: The results of your email commands Message-ID: <005b01c6968a$03904e80$0b01a8c0@game> What is this all about? ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 1:44 AM Subject: The results of your email commands > The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your > original message. > > - Results: > Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts > > - Unprocessed: > COEV3Ps7p6TEgLyAmYf0VyJyx7UoMbwu6iXA5AszQ2VPuvnU91QPxLvg4OUic2vwx2YglfC0FhPa > pK26u9zX6IE7YwKeWGWEYdvzR1aYUsrlOjRsqA5J2pZ4c1cStybNera8fdJFHEIMeKRsH5oA3DVi bCQ > GwtH0bT9IknNq4qMq7nWEZqQhSpwaqLJVdQl6i0wuJLt4HWQZEJq971NLpu6XQfeBmcf5a > cBez33jj3JBMpwykiYI4qzSQBHIwgTcqpXG5b3XDM8qSian9KqTJoZPdykJ1mqethnYbjOE > mjOkMhDj2paZ6kHvkMVl2EMPzIfWCtHUp6TIfjpOMZmJhdTfbzHcmFze4iIh0T6USQ3Pau6x > KjaNGQzEWaMqPvgtPsUyqE0YMtRCarwRkharooKP6S3No59V6PeD3I9FY5W2aUXWi9JA26tgK1cN 2 > RJ3bkgqXOTLaIFpLz4vwfIoVsKATYUeLOwnpIQq79OVjOhWg6fXmtUxaO52Q2mPv9pTRXrdlCpBy Fe > RmVSqIdptUecq5RjQuLjiEL2Gsbn9Yb3UwuyiSUAEnzpcbS3c69vy39WibavgKmIy2643dJXO > wgbtIEWfxJgzRPJadrL3HhAk5RXsozZ1YKY5m2jYfKy6JG1TX8Ew2amITdxLzbN1QwlmnVhpFv > zydpKFoArUO8N0mikHttMxpI54SyBQWHGBw3U15mkjMdgdmuIJhjX85tn49pj1Sfr6kX0U4BGir > > - Done. > > From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Fri Jun 23 00:59:46 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 22:59:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Weird : Fw: The results of your email commands In-Reply-To: <003f01c69689$8bb3f330$2101a8c0@finans> References: <003f01c69689$8bb3f330$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: On Fri, 23 Jun 2006, Nico de Jong wrote: > Hi all > Sometimes I receive messagages like the one below. > I havnt sent anything recently, so I cant see why. > Could someone have sent some HTML, which is being bounced, but copied to > cctalk ? > What worries me, is the line X-RCPT-TO., Where could that come from ? It looks like someone is sending MIME data to the listserver using forged From: headers. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From nico at farumdata.dk Fri Jun 23 01:07:08 2006 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 08:07:08 +0200 Subject: Weird : Fw: The results of your email commands References: <003f01c69689$8bb3f330$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: <004c01c6968b$425fe840$2101a8c0@finans> You're probably right. Can't this shit be eliminated by Dewey or one of the other nephews ? Nico ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Griffith" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 7:59 AM Subject: Re: Weird : Fw: The results of your email commands > On Fri, 23 Jun 2006, Nico de Jong wrote: > > > Hi all > > Sometimes I receive messagages like the one below. > > I havnt sent anything recently, so I cant see why. > > Could someone have sent some HTML, which is being bounced, but copied to > > cctalk ? > > What worries me, is the line X-RCPT-TO., Where could that come from ? > > It looks like someone is sending MIME data to the listserver using forged > From: headers. > > -- > David Griffith > dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu > > A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. > Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? > A: Top-posting. > Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? > From nico at farumdata.dk Fri Jun 23 01:20:03 2006 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 08:20:03 +0200 Subject: The results of your email commands References: <005b01c6968a$03904e80$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <007b01c6968d$1094a510$2101a8c0@finans> Someone seems to send shit to the list server. It is not filtered, and the X-RCPT-TO header line contains valid (but faked) e-mail adresses. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Teo Zenios" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 7:58 AM Subject: Fw: The results of your email commands > What is this all about? > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: > To: > Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 1:44 AM > Subject: The results of your email commands > > > > The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your > > original message. > > > > - Results: > > Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts > > > > - Unprocessed: > > > COEV3Ps7p6TEgLyAmYf0VyJyx7UoMbwu6iXA5AszQ2VPuvnU91QPxLvg4OUic2vwx2YglfC0FhPa > > > pK26u9zX6IE7YwKeWGWEYdvzR1aYUsrlOjRsqA5J2pZ4c1cStybNera8fdJFHEIMeKRsH5oA3DVi > bCQ > > > GwtH0bT9IknNq4qMq7nWEZqQhSpwaqLJVdQl6i0wuJLt4HWQZEJq971NLpu6XQfeBmcf5a > > > cBez33jj3JBMpwykiYI4qzSQBHIwgTcqpXG5b3XDM8qSian9KqTJoZPdykJ1mqethnYbjOE > > > mjOkMhDj2paZ6kHvkMVl2EMPzIfWCtHUp6TIfjpOMZmJhdTfbzHcmFze4iIh0T6USQ3Pau6x > > > KjaNGQzEWaMqPvgtPsUyqE0YMtRCarwRkharooKP6S3No59V6PeD3I9FY5W2aUXWi9JA26tgK1cN > 2 > > > RJ3bkgqXOTLaIFpLz4vwfIoVsKATYUeLOwnpIQq79OVjOhWg6fXmtUxaO52Q2mPv9pTRXrdlCpBy > Fe > > > RmVSqIdptUecq5RjQuLjiEL2Gsbn9Yb3UwuyiSUAEnzpcbS3c69vy39WibavgKmIy2643dJXO > > > wgbtIEWfxJgzRPJadrL3HhAk5RXsozZ1YKY5m2jYfKy6JG1TX8Ew2amITdxLzbN1QwlmnVhpFv > > > zydpKFoArUO8N0mikHttMxpI54SyBQWHGBw3U15mkjMdgdmuIJhjX85tn49pj1Sfr6kX0U4BGir > > > > - Done. > > > > > > From ak6dn at mindspring.com Fri Jun 23 02:47:16 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:47:16 -0700 Subject: XXDP on TU58 emulator? In-Reply-To: References: <44976F80.3040902@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <449B9C84.7000706@mindspring.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 8:46 PM -0700 6/19/06, Don North wrote: >> I do this all the time on my 11/34 and 11/44 ... I recently put up a >> web page: >> >> http://www.ak6dn.com/PDP-11/TU58-images/ >> >> with my suite of bootable XXDPv25 TU-58 images. I haven't posted it yet, >> but I also have a serial line TU-58 emulator (originally based on the >> Dan T'so >> source, but it has now been massively rewritten). It works well with >> XXDP >> and RT-11, and I have even put in hooks for it to pass the DEC TU-58 >> diagnostic ZTUUF0 TU58 Performance Exerciser. Right now it is in 'beta >> test' mode so contact me directly if you want executable/sources. > Now that is seriously cool! This is just about the best use I've > heard of for a TU-58 emulator! Actually, I think it is the *only* use that a TU-58, real or emulated, is or ever was, good for :-). Also due to numerous requests I have added a link/page to my website for my emulator 'tu58em'. Follow the link on the page http://www.ak6dn.com/PDP-11/TU58-images/ to get to a ZIP file. Don From rick at rickmurphy.net Fri Jun 23 07:23:20 2006 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 08:23:20 -0400 Subject: Weird : Fw: The results of your email commands In-Reply-To: <003f01c69689$8bb3f330$2101a8c0@finans> References: <003f01c69689$8bb3f330$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20060623081958.0250a1c8@rickmurphy.net> At 01:54 AM 6/23/2006, Nico de Jong wrote: >Hi all >Sometimes I receive messagages like the one below. >I havnt sent anything recently, so I cant see why. >Could someone have sent some HTML, which is being bounced, but copied to >cctalk ? It looks like something is posting to cctech forging cctalk as the source. Possibly a virus/worm. Jay can probably track down the source and block them, but there's not much else we can do other than delete the junk. >What worries me, is the line X-RCPT-TO., Where could that come from ? Your mail server is inserting it to allow you to track the RCPT TO envelope transaction. (Probably because the "To:" mail body header doesn't show your address.) It's being 'helpful'. The copies of these bounces that I've been getting don't have such a header. -Rick From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jun 23 11:09:19 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 16:09:19 +0000 Subject: Available: Microvax cluster (Luton, UK) Message-ID: <449C122F.7030200@yahoo.co.uk> Just got a line on three Microvaxen available just outside Luton - afraid I don't know any more than that (specific models etc.) Any interest? Can put you in touch with the "seller" [1] if so. [1] Yes, they are free (and were working, at least before put into storage a few years ago) cheers Jules From ying6926 at ureach.com Fri Jun 23 10:52:37 2006 From: ying6926 at ureach.com (Henry Ji) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 11:52:37 -0400 Subject: Available: Microvax cluster (Luton, UK) Message-ID: <200606231552.LAA11514@www22.ureach.com> HI Jules I am in USA. I am interested in microvax 1000 (one type of RTVAX). regards Henry ---- On Fri, 23 Jun 2006, Jules Richardson (julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk) wrote: > > Just got a line on three Microvaxen available just outside Luton - afraid I > don't know any more than that (specific models etc.) > > Any interest? Can put you in touch with the "seller" [1] if so. > > [1] Yes, they are free (and were working, at least before put into storage a > few years ago) > > cheers > > Jules > > > > From fryers at gmail.com Fri Jun 23 11:11:07 2006 From: fryers at gmail.com (Simon Fryer) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 17:11:07 +0100 Subject: Available: Microvax cluster (Luton, UK) In-Reply-To: <449C122F.7030200@yahoo.co.uk> References: <449C122F.7030200@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: All, On 6/23/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > > Just got a line on three Microvaxen available just outside Luton - afraid I > don't know any more than that (specific models etc.) > > Any interest? Can put you in touch with the "seller" [1] if so. > > [1] Yes, they are free (and were working, at least before put into storage a > few years ago) Hmmm, very tempting. Pitty they don't take up negative space. Simon (in search of a TARDIS). -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is the utility of the final product." Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jun 23 12:07:39 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 10:07:39 -0700 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: "John R." > ---snip--- > >I could imagine a Forth-like language that has no readahead words and >no punctuation that could still be recognized as forthish. >Particularly if you use tail recursion to replace loop nesting like >Colorforth and 4IM do. > >-- John. One could add one more level to the typical forth interpreter. Most Forth interpreters first check to see it the word is in the dictionary. If it is not there, it would see if it could be a number. If not that, it must be an error. One could add one additional level to cause a word to be placed on a sting stack or string buffer. Something like: Hello$ World$ 2 $type would replay with: Hello World Defining a word would be: Hi$ : Hello$ World$ $type ; It has no look ahead. It does reduce the number of possible names one could use for word, since none can end in $. It does simplify string handling for the interpreter but makes it harder for the programmer. Dwight From josefcub at gmail.com Fri Jun 23 12:26:36 2006 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 12:26:36 -0500 Subject: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9e2403920606231026s4acd94e2le4063c829c64e679@mail.gmail.com> > One could add one more level to the typical forth interpreter. Most > Forth interpreters first check to see it the word is in the dictionary. > If it is not there, it would see if it could be a number. If not > that, it must be an error. > One could add one additional level to cause a word to be placed > on a sting stack or string buffer. > Something like: > > Hello$ World$ 2 $type > > would replay with: > > Hello World > When I was toying with interpreted Forth (Don't ask;), I simply had the parser take everything from the first quote till the last quote as one memory object, and shove it on the stack as a string for the interpreter loop. (This is how some mission-specific Forth-like dialects do it). Is that "read-ahead"? I know it doesn't help the lack of punctuation any. Example: : Hi "Hello world" me @ swap notify ; Obviously not a professional programmer, 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 fjkraan at xs4all.nl Fri Jun 23 13:13:16 2006 From: fjkraan at xs4all.nl (Fred Jan Kraan) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 20:13:16 +0200 Subject: SMC crt controller. Was: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <200606231701.k5NH0sGh017721@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606231701.k5NH0sGh017721@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <449C2F3C.70904@xs4all.nl> cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > The Tandy 2000 was a neat machine in it's own right, > > There's also the weird crt controller by SMC (and > floppy data seperator). Where are you supposed to find > replacements for those??? In the Tandy 2000 period SMC was mainly a second source for other chip manufacturers. See here: http://electrickery.xs4all.nl/comp/divcomp/doc/SMC_crg.pdf or here: http://oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/pub/rechner/epson/~fjkraan/comp/divcomp/doc/smc_crg.pdf for a cross reference list. Fred Jan From paulrsm at buckeye-express.com Fri Jun 23 13:47:26 2006 From: paulrsm at buckeye-express.com (Paul R. Santa-Maria) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 14:47:26 -0400 Subject: Versados 4.3 floppy images References: <200606181700.k5IH08rM059174@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <449C373E.9D0CB5F6@buckeye-express.com> > Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 10:15:50 -0500 > From: "Al Kossow" > Subject: Versados 4.3 floppy images > IMD images for Versados 4.3 are up now under bits/Motorola on bitsavers. > The floppy in the VME/10 is 96TPI (TEAC 55F series) Can IMD recreate these DSQD 720KB diskettes using a DSHD (1.2MB) drive? If not, then I am willing to pay to have someone make these disks for me. -- Paul R. Santa-Maria Temperance, Michigan USA From dave06a at dunfield.com Fri Jun 23 15:33:32 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 15:33:32 -0500 Subject: Versados 4.3 floppy images In-Reply-To: <449C373E.9D0CB5F6@buckeye-express.com> Message-ID: <200606231935.k5NJZluZ032309@mail4.magma.ca> > > Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 10:15:50 -0500 > > From: "Al Kossow" > > Subject: Versados 4.3 floppy images > > IMD images for Versados 4.3 are up now under bits/Motorola on bitsavers. > > The floppy in the VME/10 is 96TPI (TEAC 55F series) > > Can IMD recreate these DSQD 720KB diskettes using a DSHD (1.2MB) drive? Yes, Assuming the images are 250kbps made on a normal 300 rpm DD/QD drive, then setting a data rate translation of 250->300 will enable you to make the disks on a 360rpm HD drive. 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 tuban at ubanproductions.com Wed Jun 21 11:54:57 2006 From: tuban at ubanproductions.com (Thomas W. Tuban) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 11:54:57 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Fwd: VAX11/780 available Message-ID: <200606211654.k5LGsvEN013731@ubanproductions.com> I recieved the following email this morning from a fellow who used to run a company supporting DEC equipment. He is located in the Boston area and has always treated me right. Please contact him if you are interested... --tom Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 14:14:04 -0400 From: "Joe Moir" Subject: VAX 11/780 To: "'Tom Uban'" Message-id: <0J1600JAI7ZOIE56 at vms048.mailsrvcs.net> MIME-version: 1.0 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2869 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.5510 Content-type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_000F_01C69473.C97ADCA0" Thread-index: AcaUlU/NrijqonadQnSr7IfVmptDGA== X-UIDL: 3da9a0898547fa3fceee42a38db5de09 Tom, How are you doing. We just came across a VAX 11/780 with expansion cabinet. It is deep in an old warehouse wrapped up in shrink wrap. At this point, we don?t think it is worth our time to pull it out of the warehouse, load it on our truck, and bring it back to our building. If we could cover the labor to pull it out, plus maybe make a few hunded bucks we?d consider it. Are you, or would you know anyone that is interested?? I?ve been out of touch with the vintage DEC buyers lately. I wanted to run it by you just in case you knew of anyone that was searching for such an item. I probably need to know within a week. The building that this item is in is going to be cleaned out and everything inside is to be scrapped. Thanks very much, Joe Joe Moir Peripheral Parts Support 293 Second Ave Waltham Ma 02451 781-895-4892 p 781-895-4893 f From max at techbites.com Wed Jun 21 15:57:49 2006 From: max at techbites.com (Max) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 15:57:49 -0500 Subject: Looking for a paper tape reader/writer Message-ID: <01a001c69575$5cb38920$4300a8c0@SUPERMAX> Hi there - someone suggested your group might be able to help with the following: Based on the fact that my www.DIYCalculator.com website has a paper on the history of paper tapes and punched cards, someone just sent me an email asking if I knew where they could purchase a paper tape punch/reader with the following specs: Punching Speeds up to 75 char/sec Reading speeds up to 400 char/sec LAN Interface Power 220 VAC +- 20%, 50 +- 10 Hz The LAN interface requirement would indicate a modern product (I'm assuming that these little rascals may still occasionally be found in some "noisy" industrial settings). If not, someone suggested interfacing it to a PC and linking the PC to the LAN. But more to the point, I'd quite like one myself for nostalgia's sake (I know, I know, "nostalgia isn't what it used to be" -- these are the jokes the Muppet Show refused). But we digress ... do you have any ideas? Cheers -- Max ====================================== Clive "Max" Maxfield 495 Production Ave, Suite A Madison, Al 35758, USA Tel: +1-256-319-0257 (or 0255 or 0258) ====================================== From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Jun 23 16:52:04 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 14:52:04 -0700 Subject: TRW Flea Market Meeting Message-ID: I'm riding in with Jim Stephens to tomorrow's TRW swap meet. We plan on meeting Marvin Johnson and talk about classic computers. Would love to meet any list members or any other collectors who can make it. We will meet at Marvin's site, and maybe go to lunch after the meeting. If anyone else in the LA Basin or Orange County can make it, here is the site url: http://www.fleamarketguide.com/ca.htm#Redondo%20Beach And this is where Marvin will be parked: Each row has a letter identification, and each space is numbered. G22/G24 is in the row labeled G, and there is usually a stand selling drinks/donuts/hot dogs/etc. at the foot of row G. I'll either have a Dodge white van with a lot of paint missing or a blue Mazda van with "Schwendtner Piano" along with a drawing of a piano keyboard on the side. Since it is open from 7:00 to 11:00 AM with no sales permitted after 11:30 AM, we usually start packing up about 11 and leave about 11:15. Hope to see you there. Billy Pettit From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 23 17:24:23 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 23:24:23 +0100 (BST) Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <20060622233214.72591.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com> from "Chris M" at Jun 22, 6 04:32:14 pm Message-ID: > > > There's also the weird crt controller by SMC (and > > > floppy data seperator). Where are you supposed to > > find > > > replacements for those??? > > > > Presumably from the same place that you get a > > replacement video gate > > arrayor a keyboard microcontroller from for the > > PCjr.... > > Right mate, go ahead, rub salt in the wounds! I was simply pointing out that the PCjr is not superior to the Tandy 2000 in this repsect (being easily repairable). Incidentally, I assume schematisc for the Tandy 2000 exist -- Radio Shack were known for producing technical and service manuals. Of course there is a Techref for the PCjr. -tony From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 23 17:54:00 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 15:54:00 -0700 Subject: Looking for a paper tape reader/writer In-Reply-To: <01a001c69575$5cb38920$4300a8c0@SUPERMAX> References: <01a001c69575$5cb38920$4300a8c0@SUPERMAX> Message-ID: <200606231554000621.069AC38C@10.0.0.252> On 6/21/2006 at 3:57 PM Max wrote: >But more to the point, I'd quite like one myself for nostalgia's sake (I >know, I know, "nostalgia isn't what it used to be" -- these are the jokes >the Muppet Show refused). > >But we digress ... do you have any ideas? Hey, Max--welcome to the list! I suspect that some pretty fertile ground for prospecting might be a used CNC equipment dealer. Paper tape used to be the lingua franca of the CNC world and a lot of equipment has been upgraded with solid-state paper tape emulator boxes. For those of you who don't know, Max is the author of some wonderful EDN articles and a book that should be on everyone's shelf--"Bebop to the Boolean Boogie: An Unconventional Guide to Electronics Fundamentals, Components, and Processes". Want to know about Multiwire? It's in there--as is a whole bunch of other fascinating stuff. Cheers, Chuck From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Jun 23 19:37:52 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 17:37:52 -0700 Subject: Ebka Familiarizor 6502 Message-ID: Hans Franke asked questions about this early machine 3 years ago. (Okay!!! I'm a little behind. Been going through the archives to catch up.) Hans, if you are still interested, I can help you. I knew the designer, have a lot of his other projects, such as a casette interface for the EBKA. And if I can find it in the garage, I have a virgin PCB, the color layout, the memory extension, the 1702 programmer and so on. Was a very interesting project. I had mine running before I had a KIM, though I'm not certain who was first. It was close. Roger also designed the PAIA 8700, another sadly neglected early 650X project. Billy From geneb at simpits.com Fri Jun 23 19:40:26 2006 From: geneb at simpits.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 17:40:26 -0700 Subject: The miracle of Pick was Re: OT: Punctuation-starved Programming Languages (and/or love starved programmers, starving programmers, ...) In-Reply-To: <200606212337.k5LNbCXB013226@floodgap.com> References: <200606212337.k5LNbCXB013226@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <449C89FA.20602@simpits.com> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> Codd: Going from VERY foggy memory here, but I do remember personally taking >> the Codd rules/tests and applying/satisfying them one at a time with Pick. >> Pick did meet the Codd published rules for being considered a relational >> database. But did Codd people look at Pick is the question - on that, I have >> no clue, but I'd be suprised. >> >> Multivalues - that right there is the magic of Pick. Not just that they >> supported it, but how artfully & easily they supported it because of the >> design. That's what made Pick phenominal. > > I have not found a good resource on the Pick language or the Pick virtual > machine, other than a lot of name-dropping commercial sites. Any > recommendations? > Cameron, you may want to check out http://www.openqm.org. It's a commercially available and open source MultiValue database system that works really well. The source should tell you all you'd ever need to know about Pick. :) g. From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Fri Jun 23 19:44:26 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 19:44:26 -0500 Subject: New (old) SGI Indigo2 and MIPSpro Message-ID: <88bf8df594844b2abc5d2caf051e3e8d@valleyimplants.com> Offiicially, the license does transfer with the machine, but is for a specific version (e.g. 6.2 or 4D1-2.0) Perhaps current practice has changed at SGI, but one of my machines came with a license for MIPSpro C/C++ 7.2.1, and they told me so at SGI (so it doesn't seem to expire). The problem is finding that version . . . you see more 7.3's around now. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Fri Jun 23 20:13:46 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:13:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PCWs 25 worst tech products of all time Message-ID: <20060624011346.28072.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> yeah, got the techie manuals for the T2K...alot of good itll do me if a weirdo chip goes bad. I even checked the manual today to see if there was any resemblence between this SMC 9007? and/or 9212? to a 6845 maybe...no dice. Yep, custom components sure do bite, but Ive had to come to the acknowledgement that to some degree theyre unavoidable...could I possibly ban a 2000 from my collection...or a Mindset...? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From wmaddox at pacbell.net Fri Jun 23 20:27:51 2006 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:27:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Looking for a paper tape reader/writer In-Reply-To: <01a001c69575$5cb38920$4300a8c0@SUPERMAX> Message-ID: <20060624012751.31499.qmail@web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- Max wrote: > Punching Speeds up to 75 char/sec > > Reading speeds up to 400 char/sec I would recommend a GNT 4601 or 4604, made by GN Telematic, and also rebadged by Decitek. They meet or are close to the specs above, and are compact and lightweight. I'm not sure if they are still manufactured, but they show up reasonably often on eBay. Expect to pay $150 to $250 for one. DSI also made a late-model RS232 reader/punch station that shows up frequently. These machines generally come from a CNC (computer numerical control) machine-shop environment. > If not, someone suggested > interfacing it to a PC and > linking the PC to the LAN. I have never seen a reader/punch with a direct LAN interface. They are usually RS23C serial. --Bill From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Fri Jun 23 21:18:21 2006 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 21:18:21 -0500 Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <449CA0ED.3070408@brutman.com> Your intimate knowledge the machine machine betrays a deep, but forbidden love for it. ;-) Tony Duell wrote: >> A bigger shortcoming that I should have mentioned was having the >> keyboard using the NMI interrupt instead of IRQ1. I forget the exact >> reason for this, but it resulted in a lot of lost keystrokes an annoying >> beeps. > > > There was a reasonable reason for this. > > The PC keyboard is farily hardware-intensive. The keyboard sends a serial > data stream that goes into a shfit register on the PC mainboard. When a > character has been received (IIRC), ther hardware generates an IRQ1 and > holds the keyboard clock line, preventing the keyboard from sending > another character until the first one has been read by the 8088 > > The PCjr keyboard is software-intensive. Whether you use the IR link or > the cable, the serial data stream is decoded by the 8088, there is no > shift register on the PCjr mainboard. Also, in the PCjr, there's no way > to tell the keyboard to stop sending because the main processor hasn't > read the character yet. > > Therefore in the PCjr, you need a high-priorty interrupt (i.e, NMI) which > is generated when the keyboard sends a bit, The 8088 takes over then, > reads in the character from the keyboard and processes it. Otherwise > you'd loose or mangle an awful lot of keypresses. > > -tony > > From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Jun 23 23:42:04 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 00:42:04 -0400 (EDT) Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> References: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606240505.BAA03820@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > After watching an 800MHz P3 system build Gnome (and its dependent > packages) on a NetBSD system, I got to wondering how usable NetBSD is > on older slower hardware, such as MicroVAX II. > If you want to build Perl or X or the kernel, what do you do? Start > the make and come back in a week? I have a collection of NetBSD machines (eight ports, six different CPU architectures - SPARC, 68k, VAX, x86, alpha, ppc). The VAX, alpha, and ppc machines are normally turned on only when I want to build something for them. I've never tried to build perl on anything. But I do irregularly bring them all up to date and do builds of the world on them. My slowest machine is the MicroVAX-II which I run diskless (because I do not have any disk interface for it for which I have a nontrivial amount of working disk), with 9M of RAM (someday I hope to scare up the boards to up it to its limit of 16). And, basically, the answer is "yes". When I start a build of the world on the ?V2, I don't expect it to complete in less than a week. (The kernel takes more like a day.) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jun 24 00:08:06 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 00:08:06 -0500 Subject: Tek 555 scope available Message-ID: <311362df615d40d2af482a6f36daa9e5@valleyimplants.com> I have a Tek model 555 dual beam scope with 2 dual trace plugins (4 traces total). Hasn't been used in a while, needs a cleaning. Includes manual, no probes. Be nice to trade for something electronicsy or computerish, but will take other offers, since it could use a home where it would be appreciated more. Renton/Seattle area From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jun 24 00:10:15 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 00:10:15 -0500 Subject: SGI parts available Message-ID: I have: a set of Personal IRIS TFLU (totally front loading unit) skins a Personal IRIS power supply a GIO-64 (Indigo2) Extreme Graphics boardset IRIS Indigo (CMNB003) drive sled, original SGI Indy R5k/XL8 Indigo2 IMPACT R10000 all in the Renton/Seattle area. Let me know if interested From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sat Jun 24 00:12:50 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 01:12:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card In-Reply-To: <20060621214042.15bf8753@SirToby.dinner41.de> References: <036b01c69379$e4716380$6401a8c0@catherine> <449713A3.9070307@worldonline.nl> <002601c6952f$edad31b0$0209873d@catherine> <20060621214042.15bf8753@SirToby.dinner41.de> Message-ID: <200606240515.BAA03901@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > KA620 or KA630 [...] In case anyone cares: the difference between the KA620 and the KA630 (well, the technical difference, at least) is that on the KA630, P0 and P1 page tables live in system virtual space, as on most VAXen; on the KA620, P0 and P1 page tables live in physical space. I once wrote a (micro)kernel to run on a KA620.... /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jun 24 00:18:41 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 00:18:41 -0500 Subject: Scanner choice question Message-ID: <2745f6cc1cc24e34b8f24d6ae7e8ce22@valleyimplants.com> I'm trying to pare down the junkpile (cf. other recent posts), and I've come across the scanner cache. I have a Umax Astra 2400 and a HP ScanJet 6100c, both SCSI. I'm not sure which one to keep. Originally, the Umax had the (infinitely) better Macintosh interface, but the HP spoke to SGI Impressario software. Now with SANE et al (and USB on modern Macs) I don't need both. Which would be the better to keep? footnote: I got the ComputerVision manual scanned (the CV specific one, the other two were just standard SunOS manuals. I gave up after the second one started jamming in the copier.) From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sat Jun 24 00:20:20 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 01:20:20 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606240527.BAA03986@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Grinnel framestore. This seems to be a digitiser as well (there's > what looks like an ADC on one of the boards), and is mostly > hand-wired, not PCB. The Unibus interface is a DR11-B. I know noting > about this unit Oh, that takes me back. Back in the '80s, the lab I worked at had a Grinnell display (I'm pretty sure that's how it was spelled). I don't recall the hardware of its interface, despite having written a BSD driver for it. It was connected to a VAX-11/780 (and I think later to a 750). Ours didn't have a digitizer, as far as I can recall. It was 256x256 (framebuffer memory) or 256x240 (displayed), with a joystick-and-button input interface (which might be what your ADCish stuff is all about). It had capabilities I've yet to see anywhere else. The closest X term for its display capabilities is DirectColor, but it could do things X has no way to describe. In particular, if you describe the three major pieces as three (6-bit-deep) memory planes, three (6 bits in and I think 8 bits out) lookup tables, and three DACs to drive the three primaries on the monitor, there was a way to control which memory plane fed each lookup table and which lookup table fed each DAC, and for each switching layer, each switch was independent of the others, meaning that all 27 setting combinations were achievable. I don't remember any model numbers. /~\ 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 useddec at gmail.com Sat Jun 24 01:19:46 2006 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 01:19:46 -0500 Subject: Looking for a paper tape reader/writer In-Reply-To: <20060624012751.31499.qmail@web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000d01c69756$31407f90$2000a8c0@main> I have 3 or 4 Decitek units, but I have no docs and no idea of the speeds. I might have a PC11/ PC05 and a few card readers. Paul Anderson -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of William Maddox Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 8:28 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Looking for a paper tape reader/writer --- Max wrote: > Punching Speeds up to 75 char/sec > > Reading speeds up to 400 char/sec I would recommend a GNT 4601 or 4604, made by GN Telematic, and also rebadged by Decitek. They meet or are close to the specs above, and are compact and lightweight. I'm not sure if they are still manufactured, but they show up reasonably often on eBay. Expect to pay $150 to $250 for one. DSI also made a late-model RS232 reader/punch station that shows up frequently. These machines generally come from a CNC (computer numerical control) machine-shop environment. > If not, someone suggested > interfacing it to a PC and > linking the PC to the LAN. I have never seen a reader/punch with a direct LAN interface. They are usually RS23C serial. --Bill From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jun 24 02:11:16 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 00:11:16 -0700 Subject: Scanner choice question In-Reply-To: <2745f6cc1cc24e34b8f24d6ae7e8ce22@valleyimplants.com> References: <2745f6cc1cc24e34b8f24d6ae7e8ce22@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: At 12:18 AM -0500 6/24/06, Scott Quinn wrote: > I'm trying to pare down the junkpile (cf. other recent posts), and >I've come across the scanner cache. > >I have a Umax Astra 2400 and a HP ScanJet 6100c, both SCSI. I'm not >sure which one to keep. >Originally, the Umax had the (infinitely) better Macintosh >interface, but the HP spoke to >SGI Impressario software. Now with SANE et al (and USB on modern >Macs) I don't need both. >Which would be the better to keep? Umax charges for new drivers. I used to be a big fan of Umax scanners, no more. 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 david_comley at yahoo.com Sat Jun 24 07:22:13 2006 From: david_comley at yahoo.com (David Comley) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 05:22:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VT180/Robin CP/M Distribution on Floppy ? Message-ID: <20060624122213.21503.qmail@web30601.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I hooked up with Bill P this week and picked up the VT180 he was offering on this list and on the MARCH list. It's in my kitchen right now awaiting check-in. I seem to remember that a few weeks back some kind soul had offered to provide software for the machine. Does that offer still hold good and can I ask whoever it was to contact me please ? Thanks, -Dave __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From allain at panix.com Sat Jun 24 09:41:03 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 10:41:03 -0400 Subject: Tom's been "tubed"? References: <200606211654.k5LGsvEN013731@ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <007301c6979c$68347b00$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> Comparison below. This is a little upsetting to see. Are we being probed by a spambot or something? John A. ----- Original Message ----- From: Thomas W. Tuban To: Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 12:54 PM Subject: Fwd: VAX11/780 available > I recieved the following email this morning from a fellow who > used to run a company supporting DEC equipment. He is located > in the Boston area and has always treated me right. Please > contact him if you are interested... > > --tom ----- Original Message ----- From: Thomas W. Uban To: Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 9:11 AM Subject: Fwd: VAX 11/780 available > I recieved the following email this morning from a fellow who > used to run a company supporting DEC equipment. He is located > in the Boston area and has always treated me right. Please > contact him if you are interested... > > --tom From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jun 24 10:44:48 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 08:44:48 -0700 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <200606240505.BAA03820@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> <200606240505.BAA03820@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200606240844480336.0A382B66@10.0.0.252> On 6/24/2006 at 12:42 AM der Mouse wrote: >And, basically, the answer is "yes". When I start a build of the world >on the ?V2, I don't expect it to complete in less than a week. (The >kernel takes more like a day.) Well, on the aforementioned 800 MHz P3, building the gnome meta-package is well into its second day (just started making "evolution"). Cheers, Chuck From rcini at optonline.net Sat Jun 24 11:00:37 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 12:00:37 -0400 Subject: Powerbook problems Message-ID: <007f01c697a7$564fc9c0$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: I just got an older Mac Powerbook (540c) and I'm trying to get some basic stuff on it (Iomega ZIP, various expander programs, Netscape, System 7.5.3, etc.) and frequently I'm getting errors from the installer programs that there is no floating point coprocessor installed. OK, that's fine, but has anyone run through these traps before? What software can I not install on a 68k Mac (68LC040) with no FPU? Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ From ics65 at sbcglobal.net Sat Jun 24 12:00:33 2006 From: ics65 at sbcglobal.net (George Wiegand) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 13:00:33 -0400 Subject: DG equipment on Government Liquidation Message-ID: <002101c697af$b4dcad70$abe6da45@ics63szde1vn50> Just wondering if anyone on the list was able to rescue the DG Eclipse and Tape Drive on Government Liquidation, I didn't want a scrapper to get it? ,George Wiegand ICS65 at SBCglobal.net From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jun 24 12:14:57 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 12:14:57 -0500 Subject: Powerbook problems Message-ID: <72cd73dbb16741cebe6bd70601bea6fa@valleyimplants.com> > I just got an older Mac Powerbook (540c) and I'm trying to get >some basic stuff on it (Iomega ZIP, various expander programs, Netscape, >System 7.5.3, etc.) and frequently I'm getting errors from the installer >programs that there is no floating point coprocessor installed. SANE should trap these and route them to emulator routines for most programs. For the remainder, see below. I'd question your SSW installation if you're getting errors often for "standard" stuff. Mathematica and raytrace programs yes (A/UX definitely- but that won't run on a PB anyway) Netscape, StuffIt, etc. shoud not need one. 7.5.5 or (even better) 7.6.1 would be a better choice for SSW. In my dim recollection, 7.5.3 was a buggy release. 7.1 was pretty good if you wanted to go older. > OK, that's fine, but has anyone run through these traps before? >What software can I not install on a 68k Mac (68LC040) with no FPU? get SoftwareFPU and try it. Some LC040s have a bug that interferes with its operation, some do not. A quick trick to see if there should be a problem is to try to run the software on a PPC Mac - the 68k emulation is LC040 (no FPU). I'm not sure how the PB540 does the CPU - desktop Macs had them socketed, so you could drop in a full 040 From trixter at oldskool.org Sat Jun 24 13:42:17 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 13:42:17 -0500 Subject: Scanner choice question In-Reply-To: References: <2745f6cc1cc24e34b8f24d6ae7e8ce22@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <449D8789.4060603@oldskool.org> Zane H. Healy wrote: > Umax charges for new drivers. I used to be a big fan of Umax scanners, > no more. Seconded. I actually threw mine away when they wanted money for the newer driver. -- 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 mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sat Jun 24 15:00:16 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 16:00:16 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Xlib programming... In-Reply-To: <44968714.3020808@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44968714.3020808@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200606242003.QAA07292@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > urgh, a software question :-) I need to write some X Windows code > (X11R5, so it makes the ten year rule!). Nothing fancy - no GUI > needed, just pixel ops on the root window. > Does anyone have any pointers to good online tutorials / other > resources? Well, I can act as a resource at need. I've done plenty of X programming. Drop me a line off-list explaining what you're after and I'll be happy to have a crack at it. You might be able to write to me directly; for all that your address is @yahoo.co.uk, I looked at the headers of your list mail, and it might work - I can't recall whether we've corresponded directly in the past. But I'd suggest a copy to mouse at netbsd.org as well if we haven't. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sat Jun 24 15:34:23 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 16:34:23 -0400 (EDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606242037.QAA07609@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> [Two-weeks-old mail...I was away and am still getting caught up.] > And I still fail to see how supplying information means I'll do a > worse repair. It doesn't. (Well, usually. Part of the cost of supplying such information is making sure it matches the product. You might well do a worse job if supplied with information about a different rev from what you have, but not clearly detectable as such.) /~\ 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 curt at atarimuseum.com Sat Jun 24 15:48:26 2006 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt - Atari Museum) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 16:48:26 -0400 Subject: VT180/Robin CP/M Distribution on Floppy ? In-Reply-To: <20060624122213.21503.qmail@web30601.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060624122213.21503.qmail@web30601.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <449DA51A.7070706@atarimuseum.com> I gave Megan Gentry a boatload of Robin stuff back at VCF 1.0 If she still has it and has time to share some copies you should check... Curt David Comley wrote: > I hooked up with Bill P this week and picked up the > VT180 he was offering on this list and on the MARCH > list. It's in my kitchen right now awaiting check-in. > > I seem to remember that a few weeks back some kind > soul had offered to provide software for the machine. > > Does that offer still hold good and can I ask whoever > it was to contact me please ? > > Thanks, > -Dave > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > > > From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sat Jun 24 15:50:39 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 16:50:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <448D9C64.7F92756B@rain.org> References: <448D9C64.7F92756B@rain.org> Message-ID: <200606242059.QAA07774@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > [...] when basically responding to one issue, top posting is > appropriate. Only if you don't care about people following what you're saying. > Top posting does NOT foul up the order people normally read text It certainly does for me. I normally read top-down. To make sense out of a top-posted response, I have to either recognize the thread from the first few lines and remember enough context to figure out what it's in reply to (I can do this, sometimes, not reliably), or I have to read a few lines, page forward, try to figure out what they're responding to, page back, read until it no longer makes sense, page forward, try to figure out what's being responded to now, page back, etc. Far more often I simply trash top-posted replies as soon as I realize that's what they are. Anyone who can't be bothered to take the minimal effort to make the message comprehensible either isn't all that concerned about its being read anyway, or arrogant enough to think their time is worth more than mine; either way I see no reason to read. > I get far more annoyed at: > 1) long posts with one liners inserted someplace. > 2) not trimming out parts of a message not being responded to. > 3) not changing the subject line to reflect the content. > 4) not putting a space between the portion of the message being > responded to, and the comments. I wouldn't quite say I agree with you; while those annoy me too, they don't annoy me "far more" than top-posting - and in my experience (2) correlates almost perfectly with top-posting anyway. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 24 15:40:28 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 21:40:28 +0100 (BST) Subject: PCWs 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <20060624011346.28072.qmail@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> from "Chris M" at Jun 23, 6 06:13:46 pm Message-ID: > > yeah, got the techie manuals for the T2K...alot of > good itll do me if a weirdo chip goes bad. I even All I can say is that it can't be harder to make a functional equivalent chip (say in an FPGA) if you have the manuals, than if you don't. OK, there may not be _that_ much information in the tech manual, but at least you'll know the functions the chip performs, the pinout, etc. It's like the argument that you should carry a few important car spares (and things like jump leads). You're much more likely to find somebody who knows how to use them if you break down, than you are to find somebody who knows how to use them _and has them_ > checked the manual today to see if there was any > resemblence between this SMC 9007? and/or 9212? to a > 6845 maybe...no dice. Yep, custom components sure do > bite, but Ive had to come to the acknowledgement that > to some degree theyre unavoidable...could I possibly I try to avoid machines which use custom chips, but I have to acknowledge they exist. Several of my machines have custom chip processors (things like the BPC hybrid in the HP9825, HP9831 and HP9845, and even the arrays of processors in the DAP). I just don't like to depend on them > ban a 2000 from my collection...or a Mindset...? I know the feeling :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 24 15:48:24 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 21:48:24 +0100 (BST) Subject: Looking for a paper tape reader/writer In-Reply-To: <20060624012751.31499.qmail@web81302.mail.mud.yahoo.com> from "William Maddox" at Jun 23, 6 06:27:51 pm Message-ID: > > --- Max wrote: > > > Punching Speeds up to 75 char/sec > > > > Reading speeds up to 400 char/sec > > I would recommend a GNT 4601 or 4604, made by GN > Telematic, and also rebadged by Decitek. They meet or For the punch, I'd recomend a Facit 4070. They're relatively common I think, easy to maintain, and fairly simple. The basic interface is an 8 bit parallel one which can be linked to a PC with a little logic, there was also an internal RS232/current loop card [1] and I believe I read about an IEEE-488 card, but I've never seen one. [1] Half of this board is taken up with instrucitons, etched into the copper, and tinned, explaining how to set the links! For the Reader, I like the Trend UDRs and HSRs. The interface is a little more work, though. They're optical readers, and basically you have a signal to start/stop the tape, 8 data outputs, and a strobe. Once you've started the tape, you grab the data lines every time you get a strobe. However, the thing will stop on the next character if you turn off the tape-run line, so single-stepping is possible (although it really slows down if you use it in this mode!). The good thing about these models is that they're mechanicvally simple, about the only thing that ever fails is the light bulb, and thats' a standard 12V or 24V car/lorry bulb. IIRC, the models with intenral PSU all use a normal 382 12V, 21W car indicator bulb, available just about anywehre over here. The other good thing about the Trend readers is that they have 2 sensors on the feed track, spaced 2.5 characters apart. A sproket pulse is generated when the signal from the senosor in-line with the data holes exceeds that from the other sensor by a particular amount, a weighted average of the signals from the 2 sensors is then used as the threshold for the data tracks. It's easy to set up, and works with just about any tape you put in it. > > If not, someone suggested > > interfacing it to a PC and > > linking the PC to the LAN. > > I have never seen a reader/punch with a direct LAN > interface. They are usually RS23C serial. I've never seen one with a LAN (presumably ethernet) interface either. Most of the units I have have some kind of 8 bit parallel interface (FWIW, the Facit 4070 punch interface became a de facto standard over here). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 24 15:50:07 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 21:50:07 +0100 (BST) Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <449CA0ED.3070408@brutman.com> from "Michael B. Brutman" at Jun 23, 6 09:18:21 pm Message-ID: > [PCjr] > > Your intimate knowledge the machine machine betrays a deep, but > forbidden love for it. ;-) Oh, I'll admit to owning a PCjr (with the 128K expansion card, one 5.25" drive, and a parallel port sidecar), and to buying the techref. I've read the latter of course, and some of the information has stuck in my brain. But as regards 'loving it', well, I can safely say it's not one of my favourite machines... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 24 15:56:11 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 21:56:11 +0100 (BST) Subject: Help: DEC microvax 1000 or Matrox QG-640 card In-Reply-To: <200606240527.BAA03986@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> from "der Mouse" at Jun 24, 6 01:20:20 am Message-ID: > > > Grinnel framestore. This seems to be a digitiser as well (there's > > what looks like an ADC on one of the boards), and is mostly > > hand-wired, not PCB. The Unibus interface is a DR11-B. I know noting > > about this unit > > Oh, that takes me back. > > Back in the '80s, the lab I worked at had a Grinnell display (I'm > pretty sure that's how it was spelled). I don't recall the hardware of You're probably right about the spelling. The unit I have is stuck in a corner of my workshop, and I am not going to climb over assorted other machines to read the nameplate :-) > its interface, despite having written a BSD driver for it. It was > connected to a VAX-11/780 (and I think later to a 750). Mine came off an 11/34 machine. When I got it, there were 2 cables with it, with a round 'milspec' connectors on one end that fit connectors on the back of the framewstore, and DEC card-edge paddleboard things on the other end. Also with it was a DR11-B. On the grounds those paddleboards would fit the user device connectors on the DR11-B, I've assumed that's how it was connected. > > Ours didn't have a digitizer, as far as I can recall. It was 256x256 I'm nor _sure_ mine does. It's just that one of the boards seems to have a lot of fast (for the time) analogue comparators on it, which look like a semi-flash ADC. I don't have schematics, and haven't had the time to trace them out yet! > (framebuffer memory) or 256x240 (displayed), with a joystick-and-button > input interface (which might be what your ADCish stuff is all about). > It had capabilities I've yet to see anywhere else. The closest X term > for its display capabilities is DirectColor, but it could do things X > has no way to describe. In particular, if you describe the three major > pieces as three (6-bit-deep) memory planes, three (6 bits in and I > think 8 bits out) lookup tables, and three DACs to drive the three > primaries on the monitor, there was a way to control which memory plane > fed each lookup table and which lookup table fed each DAC, and for each > switching layer, each switch was independent of the others, meaning > that all 27 setting combinations were achievable. Interesting... I will have to dig out the docs on my I2S image processor/display systems. Those machines are stuffed with programmable look-up tables. >From what I remember, the outputs of each byteplane feed lookup tables, the outputs of those are added (full adder), the output of the full adder feeds more lookup tables, etc. The manual suggests programming 2's complement tables to do subtraction, log/antilog tables to do multiplication, and so on. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 24 16:03:17 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 22:03:17 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <200606242037.QAA07609@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> from "der Mouse" at Jun 24, 6 04:34:23 pm Message-ID: > > [Two-weeks-old mail...I was away and am still getting caught up.] > > > And I still fail to see how supplying information means I'll do a > > worse repair. > > It doesn't. (Well, usually. Part of the cost of supplying such > information is making sure it matches the product. You might well do a > worse job if supplied with information about a different rev from what > you have, but not clearly detectable as such.) Hmm.. I've had countless service manuals that have subtle differnces from the actual device in front of me... So I've learnt not to treat such information as gospel, but to regard it as another input to my brain, if you see what I mean. I check it against the actual device I am working on. That said, it's rare for a revision to mean a total redesign, so such information is very useful at pointing me in the right direction. -tony From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Sat Jun 24 16:40:17 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 22:40:17 +0100 Subject: VT180/Robin CP/M Distribution on Floppy ? In-Reply-To: <449DA51A.7070706@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: On 24/6/06 21:48, "Curt - Atari Museum" wrote: > I gave Megan Gentry a boatload of Robin stuff back at VCF 1.0 If she > still has it and has time to share some copies you should check... > I'm pretty sure I've got Robin CP/M disks at home, it's the only thing I've got left of the machine I had to toss in the 90s. Still kicking myself for it to this day :o\ -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From dave06a at dunfield.com Sat Jun 24 17:43:59 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 17:43:59 -0500 Subject: VT180/Robin CP/M Distribution on Floppy ? In-Reply-To: <20060624122213.21503.qmail@web30601.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200606242146.k5OLkF2U015625@mail3.magma.ca> > I hooked up with Bill P this week and picked up the > VT180 he was offering on this list and on the MARCH > list. It's in my kitchen right now awaiting check-in. > > I seem to remember that a few weeks back some kind > soul had offered to provide software for the machine. > > Does that offer still hold good and can I ask whoever > it was to contact me please ? I have the VT-180/Robin software available in my Disks/Software Images page (look near the bottom of the main page). They are in ImageDisk (.IMD) format. 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 david_comley at yahoo.com Sat Jun 24 17:17:55 2006 From: david_comley at yahoo.com (David Comley) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 15:17:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: P/OS for Pro-350 (was VT180/Robin CP/M Distribution on Floppy ?) Message-ID: <20060624221755.63601.qmail@web30615.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I had an overwhelming response to my post for Robin CP/M - thank you very much to everyone who responded with assistance. So how about this for a follow-up challenge ? I'm looking for an image of P/OS + applications that I can boot from floppy on a Pro-350. The hard drive's died and since is is an RD5x I'm hoping to just skip the drive altogether and run it off diskettes. Anyone have diskette-based P/OS images for the 350 ? -Dave --- David Comley wrote: > I hooked up with Bill P this week and picked up the > VT180 he was offering on this list and on the MARCH > list. It's in my kitchen right now awaiting > check-in. > > I seem to remember that a few weeks back some kind > soul had offered to provide software for the > machine. > > Does that offer still hold good and can I ask > whoever > it was to contact me please ? > > Thanks, > -Dave > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam > protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sat Jun 24 17:51:44 2006 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 17:51:44 -0500 Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <449DC200.2010803@brutman.com> Tony Duell wrote: > > [PCjr] > >> Your intimate knowledge the machine machine betrays a deep, but >> forbidden love for it. ;-) > > Oh, I'll admit to owning a PCjr (with the 128K expansion card, one 5.25" > drive, and a parallel port sidecar), and to buying the techref. > > I've read the latter of course, and some of the information has stuck in > my brain. > > But as regards 'loving it', well, I can safely say it's not one of my > favourite machines... > > -tony > > Tony, I'm worried that you are actually constructed from easy to replace individual TTL components. The 'deep, forbidden' love comment was supposed to be a very, very funny joke along the lines of a romance novel. Oh well. You came out of the closet at least. ;-) Mike From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jun 24 21:06:05 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 19:06:05 -0700 Subject: P/OS for Pro-350 (was VT180/Robin CP/M Distribution on Floppy ?) In-Reply-To: <20060624221755.63601.qmail@web30615.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060624221755.63601.qmail@web30615.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 3:17 PM -0700 6/24/06, David Comley wrote: >So how about this for a follow-up challenge ? I'm >looking for an image of P/OS + applications that I can >boot from floppy on a Pro-350. The hard drive's died >and since is is an RD5x I'm hoping to just skip the >drive altogether and run it off diskettes. Anyone have >diskette-based P/OS images for the 350 ? ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/pub/pdp11/pos Or you could just install RT-11. 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 ZAmer88505 at aol.com Sat Jun 24 11:45:20 2006 From: ZAmer88505 at aol.com (ZAmer88505 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 12:45:20 EDT Subject: teletype wanted..... Message-ID: <270.bbc080c.31cec620@aol.com> Hi, I have two new Philips PX 1000 handleiding for sale come with a hand book. Please let me know if you still interested. Zack From gilcarrick at gmail.com Sat Jun 24 22:26:47 2006 From: gilcarrick at gmail.com (Gil Carrick) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 22:26:47 -0500 Subject: Old Computers In-Reply-To: <50c.175377a.31ce24e0@aol.com> Message-ID: <002101c69807$318f5d70$0300a8c0@Gils6240> J.C. ... > Hello from Monticello, Kentucky > > My husband and son have been wired, going back to the very > first Sinclair. We have gone the route of Commodore, Radio > Shack, Macs without hard drives, then Macs with, the earliest > of IBM. With these, we have handbooks, diskettes, software. > > I know this is probably wishful thinking, but if I can tear > these items away, is there a place for these to be sent? At the present time we are downsizing and can probable not help you with your offer. However, I will copy this to a number of collectors I know of and I suspect that collectively we will be able to help you out. You will probably need to be more specific about what you are offering. You can just send a reply to the names I will copy on this email. Thanks for thinking of us. I am sure that some museum or collector will be in touch with you. Gil A. G. (Gil) Carrick, Director The Museum at CSE University of Texas at Arlington Department of Computer Science & Engineering Box 19015, 471 S Cooper Street Arlington, TX 76019 817-272-3620 http://www.cse.uta.edu/TheMuseum at CSE/ Be A Maverick. > Thanking you in advance for the gift of your time and reply and > > kindest regards > > J.C. Daffron > From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sun Jun 25 07:00:37 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 08:00:37 -0400 Subject: Who wanted the Fujitsu 2444 power cable? Message-ID: <20060625120038.23135BA495A@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> I promised a Fujitsu 2444 power cable to a kind fellow a few months back but only today, digging under the workbench, did it turn up. If I promised this cable to you, please E-mail me at shoppa at trailing-edge.com with your address so I can ship it out! Tim. From uban at ubanproductions.com Sun Jun 25 12:06:51 2006 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 12:06:51 -0500 Subject: Tom's been "tubed"? In-Reply-To: <007301c6979c$68347b00$5f25fea9@ibm23xhr06> References: <200606211654.k5LGsvEN013731@ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20060625120518.048e92a8@mail.ubanproductions.com> Nope, I use two different logins and I couldn't remember which one I generally use for classiccmp, so after I didn't see the first post show up promptly, I sent again from the other. Sorry for the additional noise... --tom At 10:41 AM 6/24/2006 -0400, you wrote: >Comparison below. >This is a little upsetting to see. >Are we being probed by a spambot or something? > >John A. > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: Thomas W. Tuban >To: >Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 12:54 PM >Subject: Fwd: VAX11/780 available > > > > I recieved the following email this morning from a fellow who > > used to run a company supporting DEC equipment. He is located > > in the Boston area and has always treated me right. Please > > contact him if you are interested... > > > > --tom > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: Thomas W. Uban >To: >Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 9:11 AM >Subject: Fwd: VAX 11/780 available > > > I recieved the following email this morning from a fellow who > > used to run a company supporting DEC equipment. He is located > > in the Boston area and has always treated me right. Please > > contact him if you are interested... > > > > --tom From marvin at rain.org Sun Jun 25 12:38:30 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 10:38:30 -0700 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming Message-ID: <449ECA16.45E64B1B@rain.org> Top vs inline posting is just another religious war, and no amount of discussion will change anybodys mind. > From: der Mouse > > [...] when basically responding to one issue, top posting is > > appropriate. > > Only if you don't care about people following what you're saying. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 25 13:26:43 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 11:26:43 -0700 Subject: Top Posting and Message Trimming In-Reply-To: <449ECA16.45E64B1B@rain.org> References: <449ECA16.45E64B1B@rain.org> Message-ID: <200606251126430888.0FF2C133@10.0.0.252> Thank you! On 6/25/2006 at 10:38 AM Marvin Johnston wrote: >Top vs inline posting is just another religious war, and no amount of >discussion will change anybodys mind. Thank you! On 6/25/2006 at 10:38 AM Marvin Johnston wrote: >Top vs inline posting is just another religious war, and no amount of >discussion will change anybodys mind. Thank you! Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 25 14:25:15 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 12:25:15 -0700 Subject: OT: Signed binaries Message-ID: <449EE31B.8090304@DakotaCom.Net> I'm not sure if this is too technical for discussion here -- except for hysterical raisins... Are there any OS's that have implemented (non-trivial) signatures on loading executables as a scheme of protecting the operating environment? I.e. something more than verifying the proper COFF/ELF/etc. load format... --don From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 25 14:29:42 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 12:29:42 -0700 Subject: OT: Signed binaries In-Reply-To: <449EE31B.8090304@DakotaCom.Net> References: <449EE31B.8090304@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <449EE426.20700@DakotaCom.Net> Don Y wrote: > I'm not sure if this is too technical for discussion > here -- except for hysterical raisins... > > Are there any OS's that have implemented (non-trivial) > signatures on loading executables as a scheme of protecting > the operating environment? I.e. something more than > verifying the proper COFF/ELF/etc. load format... Grrr... sorry, I should qualify this: I mean as it applies to "general purpose" computing (NOT to "appliances"). Thanks! --don From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Sun Jun 25 14:27:56 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 20:27:56 +0100 Subject: OT: Signed binaries In-Reply-To: <449EE426.20700@DakotaCom.Net> References: <449EE31B.8090304@DakotaCom.Net> <449EE426.20700@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <449EE3BC.2000208@dsl.pipex.com> Don Y wrote: > Grrr... sorry, I should qualify this: I mean as it applies > to "general purpose" computing (NOT to "appliances"). I seem to recall Windows 2000 (and later) checks the CRC on the application before it loads it - maybe that just covers the PE (Portable Executable) header, but I heard of a fair bit of software that would run on Win9x, but not on the NT series OSes, because of some checksum issue. As far as *nix goes, I think Linux just checks the ELF signature and executable header checksum. Don't take that as the gospel truth though, I haven't done any major research into the ELF file format... And of course there's games consoles (the Xbox, Xbox360 and Nintendo DS do cryptographic checks on software before it's allowed to run), but that's not really "general purpose computing". -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 25 15:13:06 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 21:13:06 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT: Signed binaries In-Reply-To: <449EE3BC.2000208@dsl.pipex.com> from "Philip Pemberton" at Jun 25, 6 08:27:56 pm Message-ID: > As far as *nix goes, I think Linux just checks the ELF signature and > executable header checksum. Don't take that as the gospel truth though, I > haven't done any major research into the ELF file format... OS-90 (at least the 6809 version) checks that the module header is valid, and then, IIRC, that the module itself has the right checksum. This is not for any security reason, though, it's because at boot-up, OS-9 checks all of memory for valid modules. If it finds any, it links them into the module table, etc. Therefore you can stick OS-9 modules in ROM, just about anywhere in the memory map, and the OS will find them. Of course to do this safely, the system has to be very unlikely to consider random data as a valid module, hnece the check on the header and the module body. -tony From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sun Jun 25 15:26:28 2006 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 15:26:28 -0500 Subject: OT: Signed binaries In-Reply-To: <449EE31B.8090304@DakotaCom.Net> References: <449EE31B.8090304@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <449EF174.5090302@brutman.com> IBM System/38 (and later the AS/400 and all of it's renamed versions) run a CRC over programs for security reasons, not just for correctness checking. It's necessary because everything is in one big address space, so an errant program can cause security problems or crash the system by corrupting other storage. Don Y wrote: > I'm not sure if this is too technical for discussion > here -- except for hysterical raisins... > > Are there any OS's that have implemented (non-trivial) > signatures on loading executables as a scheme of protecting > the operating environment? I.e. something more than > verifying the proper COFF/ELF/etc. load format... > > --don > > From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jun 25 16:56:35 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 21:56:35 +0000 Subject: backing up PAL chips Message-ID: <449F0693.8040403@yahoo.co.uk> what's the most sensible format for backing up PAL chips such that they can be recreated on a different system to that which they were backed up on? My standalone EPROM/PAL unit seems to understand the following data formats: ASCII binary motorola s rec intel std & 8086 elan fuse map jedec mos tech texas tags tex hex ... some of which are presumably EPROM-only formats (I don't have a manual for the programmer) is there some sort of common format/size for PALs too when reading (akin to always being able to read a 27128 EPROM as a 16KB device regardless of who actually manufactured it)? I'm concerned that this programmer might be too old to have data on some of the PAL chips that I want to archive - but if I'm only interested in archiving them (and so can set the type to something of the right 'geometry' from a different manufacturer) that's not necessarily that big a deal. Advice appreicated :) I'm used to working with EPROMs, but PALs are a total unknown to me! cheers Jules From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 25 16:27:49 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 14:27:49 -0700 Subject: OT: Signed binaries In-Reply-To: <449EE3BC.2000208@dsl.pipex.com> References: <449EE31B.8090304@DakotaCom.Net> <449EE426.20700@DakotaCom.Net> <449EE3BC.2000208@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <449EFFD5.6020009@DakotaCom.Net> Philip Pemberton wrote: > Don Y wrote: >> Grrr... sorry, I should qualify this: I mean as it applies >> to "general purpose" computing (NOT to "appliances"). [snip] > And of course there's games consoles (the Xbox, Xbox360 and Nintendo DS > do cryptographic checks on software before it's allowed to run), but > that's not really "general purpose computing". Yes, that's why I added the "appliances" disclaimer :> Most of those are "load once" applications. I'm curious as to just how much overhead OS's are willing to expend loading "typical" applications... From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 25 16:29:30 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 14:29:30 -0700 Subject: OT: Signed binaries In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <449F003A.5080401@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: >> As far as *nix goes, I think Linux just checks the ELF signature and >> executable header checksum. Don't take that as the gospel truth though, I >> haven't done any major research into the ELF file format... > > OS-90 (at least the 6809 version) checks that the module header is valid, > and then, IIRC, that the module itself has the right checksum. This is > not for any security reason, though, it's because at boot-up, OS-9 checks > all of memory for valid modules. If it finds any, it links them into the > module table, etc. Therefore you can stick OS-9 modules in ROM, just > about anywhere in the memory map, and the OS will find them. Of course to > do this safely, the system has to be very unlikely to consider random > data as a valid module, hnece the check on the header and the module body. But, doesn't PC BIOS do essentially the same thing? (though only looking for some really *gross* header signature -- AA55?) From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Sun Jun 25 16:18:03 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 14:18:03 -0700 Subject: backing up PAL chips In-Reply-To: <449F0693.8040403@yahoo.co.uk> References: <449F0693.8040403@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <449EFD8B.1030307@msm.umr.edu> Jules Richardson wrote: > > what's the most sensible format for backing up PAL chips such that > they can be recreated on a different system to that which they were > backed up on? > > My standalone EPROM/PAL unit seems to understand the following data > formats: > > ASCII > binary maybe > motorola s rec usually output from assembler, seldom from palasm or others > intel std & 8086 output from intel targeted tools, doubtful > elan fuse map > jedec both jdec and fusemaps are likely to be of most use. > mos tech > texas tags > tex hex > Note that with pals, it was actually not just enough to get the fuse map into the part. once you had that in and perhaps locked, then you would have no way from the fuse map to infer what the part should do to indicate the fuse map was going to have a chance to work. so the palasm had a modeling phase (pardon me if I use the wrong term, it's been a long time since I did any pal work), that allowed you to put in various inputs and see that the part responded correctly. this was not only useful for the engineer to test the device that their equations functioned correctly, but that the process of putting in the fuse map at production time had not damaged the device. You wont be able to do anything but copy the fuse map, which hopefully will allow you to reprogram devices of the same type. While you have possible access to a functional device, or perhaps schematics and the like you might want to be sure you decompile the pals back to equations so that you could use an equivalent in a future design. this is rare to be able to do, but just a thought. jim From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 25 16:33:46 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 14:33:46 -0700 Subject: OT: Signed binaries In-Reply-To: <449EF174.5090302@brutman.com> References: <449EE31B.8090304@DakotaCom.Net> <449EF174.5090302@brutman.com> Message-ID: <449F013A.9090600@DakotaCom.Net> > Don Y wrote: >> Are there any OS's that have implemented (non-trivial) >> signatures on loading executables as a scheme of protecting >> the operating environment? I.e. something more than >> verifying the proper COFF/ELF/etc. load format... Michael B. Brutman wrote: > IBM System/38 (and later the AS/400 and all of it's renamed versions) > run a CRC over programs for security reasons, not just for correctness > checking. It's necessary because everything is in one big address > space, so an errant program can cause security problems or crash the > system by corrupting other storage. Ah, excellent! But, is their intent to catch "incorrectness" caused by, e.g., hardware failures? I.e., do they assume they are operating in a HOSTILE environment or just an UNFRIENDLY one? For example, most machine's bootstrap code contains checksums. But, you can usually hack those images if you spend a little time tweeking the checksum in the process (so the code thinks everything is fine). OTOH, cryptographic signatures are *designed* to prevent (uh, "strongly discourage" :> ) this. From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Sun Jun 25 16:22:20 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 22:22:20 +0100 Subject: backing up PAL chips In-Reply-To: <449F0693.8040403@yahoo.co.uk> References: <449F0693.8040403@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <449EFE8C.9040204@dsl.pipex.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > what's the most sensible format for backing up PAL chips such that they > can be recreated on a different system to that which they were backed > up on? JEDEC fuse map and, if possible, logic equations. Strictly speaking though, a JEDEC-format fuse map file is enough to copy a PAL. Equations just make it easier to move to a different chip. > ... some of which are presumably EPROM-only formats (I don't have a > manual for the programmer) Which programmer are you using? One of the Elan multipurpose programmers? > is there some sort of common format/size for PALs too when reading (akin > to always being able to read a 27128 EPROM as a 16KB device regardless > of who actually manufactured it)? Not to my knowledge. You have to get the programming algorithm right otherwise you'll either blow the chip (literally) or get a garbage readback. If you've only got one PAL, and it's not registered, map the circuitry so you know where the inputs and outputs are. Build an adapter that converts a 27xx EPROM pinout into the PAL pinout - connect the address lines to the inputs and the data lines to the outputs. Read the chip out like that, and you'll get a massive truth table of sorts. Take that and convert it back into the equations, then compile it with OPAL or CUPL and burn a chip from it. Test your new chip in the target circuit - if everything works, then you're done. > I'm concerned that this programmer > might be too old to have data on some of the PAL chips that I want to > archive - but if I'm only interested in archiving them (and so can set > the type to something of the right 'geometry' from a different > manufacturer) that's not necessarily that big a deal. I'd be more worried if it was too new. A lot of manufacturers remove old programming algorithms from their programmer firmware to make space for new ones... -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 25 16:36:35 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 14:36:35 -0700 Subject: backing up PAL chips In-Reply-To: <449F0693.8040403@yahoo.co.uk> References: <449F0693.8040403@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <449F01E3.4020501@DakotaCom.Net> Jules Richardson wrote: > > what's the most sensible format for backing up PAL chips such that they > can be recreated on a different system to that which they were backed > up on? > > My standalone EPROM/PAL unit seems to understand the following data > formats: > > ASCII > binary > motorola s rec > intel std & 8086 > elan fuse map > jedec > mos tech > texas tags > tex hex > > ... some of which are presumably EPROM-only formats (I don't have a > manual for the programmer) > > is there some sort of common format/size for PALs too when reading (akin > to always being able to read a 27128 EPROM as a 16KB device regardless > of who actually manufactured it)? I'm concerned that this programmer > might be too old to have data on some of the PAL chips that I want to > archive - but if I'm only interested in archiving them (and so can set > the type to something of the right 'geometry' from a different > manufacturer) that's not necessarily that big a deal. > > Advice appreicated :) I'm used to working with EPROMs, but PALs are a > total unknown to me! If you had to pick *one*, I'd go for JEDEC. If the device is "unlocked", then I would see if you could get a logic compiler to "decompile" the fusemap for you (so you can choose to implement it in another device if the device becomes unavailable). If this is "just" a PAL (small), that's probably do-able. If it's a bigger FPGA, you're probably best sticking with whatever tools *that* vendor provided (since you will probably be stuck with that part, as well!) From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Jun 25 16:46:14 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 15:46:14 -0600 Subject: backing up PAL chips In-Reply-To: <449F0693.8040403@yahoo.co.uk> References: <449F0693.8040403@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <449F0426.6050406@jetnet.ab.ca> Jules Richardson wrote: > Advice appreicated :) I'm used to working with EPROMs, but PALs are a > total unknown to me! Keep it all --- I don't think you need more than a floppy disk at one time for all the software and data files for the older PAL's. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 25 16:52:21 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 14:52:21 -0700 Subject: OT: Signed binaries In-Reply-To: <449F003A.5080401@DakotaCom.Net> References: <449F003A.5080401@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606251452210111.10AF00FF@10.0.0.252> On 6/25/2006 at 2:29 PM Don Y wrote: >But, doesn't PC BIOS do essentially the same thing? (though >only looking for some really *gross* header signature -- AA55?) Most also have at least an 8 bit residue checksum such that the arithmetic sum of the entire ROM (modulo 256 or 65536) is 0. --Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jun 25 18:01:33 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 23:01:33 +0000 Subject: backing up PAL chips In-Reply-To: <449EFE8C.9040204@dsl.pipex.com> References: <449F0693.8040403@yahoo.co.uk> <449EFE8C.9040204@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <449F15CD.60605@yahoo.co.uk> Philip Pemberton wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: >> what's the most sensible format for backing up PAL chips such that >> they can be recreated on a different system to that which they were >> backed up on? > > JEDEC fuse map bugger - I was afraid someone would say that. For some reason that's the one format that seems to not work; I can read the device OK, but as soon as I try and spit jedec format data down the serial line to the remote machine it gives me 'illegal operation' on the programmer's LCD display. Other formats *seem* to work, in that I get binary data at the remote end that is variant in nature. > , if possible, logic equations. Strictly speaking > though, a JEDEC-format fuse map file is enough to copy a PAL. Equations > just make it easier to move to a different chip. > >> ... some of which are presumably EPROM-only formats (I don't have a >> manual for the programmer) > > Which programmer are you using? One of the Elan multipurpose programmers? Yeah, it's an Elan universe 1000 - previous owner never found a manual anywhere for it, and nor have I :-( It's possible the jedec prob. above is just user error (or, alternately, that the programmer is failing to read the chip despite what it says, and when I dump data down the serial line it's just giving me what happens to be in the programmer's RAM at the time) >> is there some sort of common format/size for PALs too when reading >> (akin to always being able to read a 27128 EPROM as a 16KB device >> regardless of who actually manufactured it)? > > Not to my knowledge. You have to get the programming algorithm right > otherwise you'll either blow the chip (literally) or get a garbage > readback. Ahh, but I mean purely for reading, not programming. This programmer seems to have a pretty comprehensive number of supported chips, but as it's done by cartridges and the programmer's old I'm unlikely to be able to find any other cartridges for it. I'm mainly interested in backing up PALs to share the data online for others, so it's less of a concern if my programmer can't actually program them again - reading them is the important bit! > > I'm concerned that this programmer >> might be too old to have data on some of the PAL chips that I want to >> archive - but if I'm only interested in archiving them (and so can set >> the type to something of the right 'geometry' from a different >> manufacturer) that's not necessarily that big a deal. > > I'd be more worried if it was too new. A lot of manufacturers remove old > programming algorithms from their programmer firmware to make space for > new ones... Well it does a good job of 80's-era EPROMs, at least, so I suspect it's good for any PALs from that era too. It just won't do 3-rail EPROMs or any form of EPROM over 1Mbit (which can be problematic for early 90's hardware) cheers Jules From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sun Jun 25 17:00:19 2006 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 17:00:19 -0500 Subject: OT: Signed binaries In-Reply-To: <449F013A.9090600@DakotaCom.Net> References: <449EE31B.8090304@DakotaCom.Net> <449EF174.5090302@brutman.com> <449F013A.9090600@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <449F0773.5030209@brutman.com> Don Y wrote: > Ah, excellent! But, is their intent to catch "incorrectness" > caused by, e.g., hardware failures? I.e., do they assume they > are operating in a HOSTILE environment or just an UNFRIENDLY > one? > > For example, most machine's bootstrap code contains checksums. > But, you can usually hack those images if you spend a little > time tweeking the checksum in the process (so the code thinks > everything is fine). > > OTOH, cryptographic signatures are *designed* to prevent > (uh, "strongly discourage" :> ) this. > > I can't tell you the particulars because I don't know them. However, the OS does sign the binaries to detect tampering, for both security reasons and to ensure that IBM gets what IBM thinks is due. ;-) The bootstrap code on something like an S38/AS400/iSeries is like an entire operating system by itself, and I have no idea of what that code is protected by, or even what it is running on this week. (The machine uses a 'service processor' for at least part of the self-check and boot.) From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 25 17:08:08 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 15:08:08 -0700 Subject: OT: Signed binaries In-Reply-To: <449F003A.5080401@DakotaCom.Net> References: <449F003A.5080401@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606251508080032.10BD73DE@10.0.0.252> It's also noteworthy that some systems which can accept Intel-format binaries use the per-record checksum. Cheers, Chuck From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sun Jun 25 17:13:03 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 19:13:03 -0300 Subject: backing up PAL chips References: <449F0693.8040403@yahoo.co.uk> <449F0426.6050406@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <003301c698a4$8c193ac0$02fea8c0@alpha> > > Advice appreicated :) I'm used to working with EPROMs, but PALs are a > > total unknown to me! > Keep it all --- I don't think you need more than a floppy disk at one time > for all the software and data files for the older PAL's. this is a good question: How to reverse-engineer PALs? Maybe a simple all-possibilities-generator on all the inputs could lead me to derive the logical map? Thanks AS From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 25 17:53:03 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 23:53:03 +0100 (BST) Subject: backing up PAL chips In-Reply-To: <449EFD8B.1030307@msm.umr.edu> from "jim stephens" at Jun 25, 6 02:18:03 pm Message-ID: > > what's the most sensible format for backing up PAL chips such that > > they can be recreated on a different system to that which they were > > backed up on? [...] > > jedec > > both jdec and fusemaps are likely to be of most use. The jedec format is the normal one for PALs/GALs. Any reasonable PAL programmer would be able to make use of that (provided, of course, your programmer outputs a standard jedec file :-)) > While you have possible access to a functional device, or > perhaps schematics and the like you might want to be sure > you decompile the pals back to equations so that you could > use an equivalent in a future design. It is _very_ easy (given the data sheet on the PAL) to turn a fuse map or jedec file (which contain the same information) back into the equations. Of course you won't be able to give the right names to the signals, but you can produce equations. Basically, a PAL is a programmable AND matrix followed by a fixed OR matrix. A (fictional?, but it's close to the 10L8) example might have 10 input pins and 8 output pins. Each output is the logical NOR (OR followed by inverter) of 8 internal 'product terms'. Each product term is the logical AND of some of the inputs and their inverses, that 'some' is what you select when you program the PAL. There are 2 'fuses' (progammable bits, originally, they really were fuses that you burnt when you programmed the PAL) associated with each input/product term combination (so in this example, since we have 10 inputs, and a total of 64 product terms (8 for each of 8 outputs), there are a total of 64*2*10 = 1280 fuses). The 4 combinations of the fuses select the following 4 possibilities : That input is not used in that product term That input is ANDed into that product term That input is inverted and ANDed into that product term That product term is forced to 0 (basically, the input and its inverse are ANDed into the product term). So, given the fuse map, you can easily recreate the product terms. Since you know the fixed part of the chip (The OR matrix, inverters, etc), you can recreate the equations, albeit in a non-minimised form. At least free [1] version of PALASM came with a program to do this, called JED2EQN IIRC. It was supposed to accept a file giving the signal names for the pins which it would then substitute into the equations, I could never get this to work. I used to feed the output through sed(1).... [1] That's free as in beer, alas. It didn't cost anything, but was an MS-DOS executable only. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 25 17:58:35 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 23:58:35 +0100 (BST) Subject: backing up PAL chips In-Reply-To: <449F0693.8040403@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jun 25, 6 09:56:35 pm Message-ID: > is there some sort of common format/size for PALs too when reading (akin to > always being able to read a 27128 EPROM as a 16KB device regardless of who > actually manufactured it)? I'm concerned that this programmer might be too NO!. In fact you can ruin the chip by getting the manufacturer wrong!. There is a big difference between a PAL and an EPROM in this respect. When an EPROM is used in the normal application circuit, it is read out, and what you read out is simply the pattern of bits that you programmed into the device. But when you use a PAL, you don't read out the fuse map (think about how a PAL is actually constructed). To read the fuse map out of a PAL, you have to get it into a program/verify mode. Typically, this involved overvoltaging one or more of the pins. Needless to say, if you get this wrong (and different manufacturers did their own thing, many of them refused to document the method except under an NDA :-(), you will damage the chip. -tony From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 25 18:13:49 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 16:13:49 -0700 Subject: backing up PAL chips In-Reply-To: <003301c698a4$8c193ac0$02fea8c0@alpha> References: <449F0693.8040403@yahoo.co.uk> <449F0426.6050406@jetnet.ab.ca> <003301c698a4$8c193ac0$02fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <449F18AD.2070106@DakotaCom.Net> Alexandre Souza wrote: >>> Advice appreicated :) I'm used to working with EPROMs, but PALs are a >>> total unknown to me! >> Keep it all --- I don't think you need more than a floppy disk at one time >> for all the software and data files for the older PAL's. > > this is a good question: How to reverse-engineer PALs? > > Maybe a simple all-possibilities-generator on all the inputs could lead > me to derive the logical map? If the device is not registered, then it's purely combinatorial and you can map all the cumzouta's by stimulating all the gazinta's. Brute force. But, this can then be algorithmically reduced to a set of simple equations. If the device is registered AND THERE IS NO BURIED STATE, it's a similar process to the above -- except now all of those registered outputs are also inputs to the array. The added trick is that you need to keep track of how to *get* to a particular state in order to have that set of inputs the way you want them as you probe the array. The easiest way I have found to do this is to just build a map of each (present state, inputs) condition and record the observed "next state" that results. Initialize this to "unknown" for each possible set of state and inputs. When you find yourself in a state, see which inputs have not been tried. Try one. Record the result. Repeat. If you find yourself in a state that is entirely mapped, pick a set of inputs that will get you to some OTHER state with some as yet unknown inputs. There are deterministic algorithms that will tell you if you can get from A to B (and how many steps). For small PAL's/PLA's, the whole process takes a few seconds on a slow PC :> (assuming you have direct access to the inputs and outputs of the device) From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 25 18:01:02 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 00:01:02 +0100 (BST) Subject: backing up PAL chips In-Reply-To: <003301c698a4$8c193ac0$02fea8c0@alpha> from "Alexandre Souza" at Jun 25, 6 07:13:03 pm Message-ID: > > > > Advice appreicated :) I'm used to working with EPROMs, but PALs are a > > > total unknown to me! > > Keep it all --- I don't think you need more than a floppy disk at one time > > for all the software and data files for the older PAL's. > > this is a good question: How to reverse-engineer PALs? > > Maybe a simple all-possibilities-generator on all the inputs could lead > me to derive the logical map? That works if the PAL is purely combinatorial (or with a slight modification, if the outputs are latched (registered), but with no feedback from the outputs into the AND matrix). The problem comes that many PALs allow the outputs to be internally fed back into the AND matrix. Which means you can make flip-flops and other sequential stuff. In which case a brute-force 'try all the inputs, grab the outputs, apply logic reduction' doesn't work. -tony From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 25 18:28:15 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 16:28:15 -0700 Subject: Excelan EXOS 205[TE] Message-ID: <449F1C0F.9010605@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, Can anyone shed any light on these beasts? They, apparently, are the only cards supported for use with my Opus PM. Has that market become *so* much of a commodity market that my chances of finding one of these are slim-to-none? :-( Thanks! --don From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Jun 25 18:30:35 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 19:30:35 -0400 Subject: VCF/Midwest 2.0 Needs your exhibits! Message-ID: <200606251930.36072.pat@computer-refuge.org> In order to make VCF/Midwest 2.0 a success, we need more exhibitors to sign up soon. Time is running ot to register - there is just over a week left before exhibitor registration closes. So, if you've been debating coming and showing off your favorite classic gear, please sign up now! We need YOU to make this show as successful as it was last year. You can sign up by going to the following URL: http://www.vintage.org/2006/midwest/exhibit.php If you have any questions, please email me directly (pat at computer-refuge dot org). Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jun 25 20:01:30 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 01:01:30 +0000 Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards Message-ID: <449F31EA.5010704@yahoo.co.uk> Out of interest, has anyone else ever managed to persuade linux to talk to any of the Xebec/Omti/Emulex/Adaptec ST506-SCSI bridge boards? Most of the boards are SASI, or at best semi-SCSI, so Linux refuses to talk to them. Just wondered if anyone on here had hacked any of the kernel drivers so that they'll work. As I understand it, the main problem's that the kernel drivers issue a SCSI identify command at boot time - which of course doesn't exist on any of these boards, and from that point on the kernel refuses to acknowledge that there's even a board there. I *think* a SASI board should work with a SCSI HBA, providing there's nothing else on the SCSI bus (at least that's what the Omti manuals suggest). Sure would be useful for backup purpose, but last time I looked at the kernel SCSI code (for an adaptec driver in that case) it was pure spaghetti :-( cheers Jules From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 25 19:15:05 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 17:15:05 -0700 Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards In-Reply-To: <449F31EA.5010704@yahoo.co.uk> References: <449F31EA.5010704@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200606251715050592.1131AE7D@10.0.0.252> On 6/26/2006 at 1:01 AM Jules Richardson wrote: >Out of interest, has anyone else ever managed to persuade linux to talk >to any >of the Xebec/Omti/Emulex/Adaptec ST506-SCSI bridge boards? Most of the >boards >are SASI, or at best semi-SCSI, so Linux refuses to talk to them. Well, the firmware on the OMTI boards is in EPROM and the CPU's a Z8--it shouldn't be too difficult to add an IDENTIFY command to it. I seem to recall that the OMTI puts the geometry information into the transfer buffer at bootup--but I'll have to check my docs. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jun 25 19:18:43 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 17:18:43 -0700 Subject: OT: Signed binaries In-Reply-To: <449EF174.5090302@brutman.com> References: <449EE31B.8090304@DakotaCom.Net> <449EF174.5090302@brutman.com> Message-ID: <200606251718430517.113501B7@10.0.0.252> I forgot one--we put loader record checksums into DX85 for Durango (circa 1977) also. We didn't have a raw executable memory image format--everything to be loaded had to be in that format (even the operating system itself) which resembled Intel .HEX format, even to being in ASCII rather than binary. Cheers, Chuck From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jun 25 20:51:17 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 20:51:17 -0500 Subject: HP 264x terminal status References: <44942E9E.1040704@cebridge.net> Message-ID: <010901c698c3$04436c50$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Sorry it took me so long to respond to this, had an out of town wedding and I'm now trying to get caught up. That'll take a while from what I've seen of my inbox :D Gary wrote.... > I just happen to notice the thread that was written. So I would like to > clear things up a bit. I never said that I wouldn't do the terminal > deal. I have copies of the emails, and went back and re-read them with an open mind to be sure I wasn't misinterpreting them. I stand by my assertion that it was clear you didn't want to do the terminal deal any longer. You even mentioned throwing them all in the trash (quote). However, see below. > As far as your quote about having someone > pick them up is not correct either. That is false, and I have the email here to prove it where I told you someone would pick them up - which was not the same email you quoted from by the way. Then you wrote.... > John A." > > I didn't lose it. , but thanks. You simply lied to me at first by telling > me that you had sent a money order. I've known John A. a long time. I find it more than a little difficult to assimilate your assertion of his truthfulness. I suggest you both take it to private email and work it out. This list is not the place for that. As for the terminal deal, I am not comfortable pursuing it given how things unfolded - I'd rather wait till more come up from another source myself. I consider this thread closed, any further posts on this subject should be taken to private email. Jay West From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Jun 25 21:14:13 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 22:14:13 -0400 (EDT) Subject: OT: Signed binaries In-Reply-To: <449EE31B.8090304@DakotaCom.Net> References: <449EE31B.8090304@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606260215.WAA05369@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Are there any OS's that have implemented (non-trivial) signatures on > loading executables as a scheme of protecting the operating > environment? I.e. something more than verifying the proper > COFF/ELF/etc. load format... You might want to look at NetBSD's veriexec. I don't really know much about it, but from what I've seen fly by on the lists, it sounds like what you're looking for here. /~\ 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 Sun Jun 25 21:34:09 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 21:34:09 -0500 Subject: Weird : Fw: The results of your email commands References: <003f01c69689$8bb3f330$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: <02ed01c698c9$012a36b0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Someone wrote.... > It looks like someone is sending MIME data to the listserver using forged > From: headers. Nah, the list software strips all posts with MIME content. It would never get out to list traffic if someone sent that in. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jun 25 21:37:21 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 21:37:21 -0500 Subject: Weird : Fw: The results of your email commands References: <003f01c69689$8bb3f330$2101a8c0@finans> <004c01c6968b$425fe840$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: <02f401c698c9$73bc5a50$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> It was written... > You're probably right. > Can't this shit be eliminated by Dewey or one of the other nephews ? Dewey does eliminate all MIME before accepting the post to the list. By the way.... the history - my high school had an HP2000 named Huey, and a PDP-11/03 with RT11 & TSX+ called Dewey. We never got a third computer (other than a heathkit EC1). The original classiccmp server was called Huey, but during transition to a new machine there was temporarily two machines. The new machine was called Dewey. Louie is a machine I have at home primarily for HP2100 emulator development. Jay From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Jun 25 22:04:43 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 23:04:43 -0400 (EDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606260306.XAA05708@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> I guess that we still can't get you to accept one, even for free, >> without open hardware source. > Surely you all know me by now. I am not going to depend on something > that I can't repair. No...but I also wouldn't consider using a scanner someone else provided to scan your manuals to constitute depending on that scanner. If it breaks, I'd fully expect you to shrug and report to people who want manuals scanned that the thing has broken, you can't fix it because you don't have docs, and that anyone who wants further manuals scanned can either come fix it or send you another one - or scare up docs for you. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jun 25 22:45:53 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 20:45:53 -0700 Subject: Weird : Fw: The results of your email commands In-Reply-To: <02f401c698c9$73bc5a50$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <003f01c69689$8bb3f330$2101a8c0@finans> <004c01c6968b$425fe840$2101a8c0@finans> <02f401c698c9$73bc5a50$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <449F5871.1000707@DakotaCom.Net> Jay West wrote: > It was written... >> You're probably right. >> Can't this shit be eliminated by Dewey or one of the other nephews ? > Dewey does eliminate all MIME before accepting the post to the list. > > By the way.... the history - my high school had an HP2000 named Huey, > and a PDP-11/03 with RT11 & TSX+ called Dewey. We never got a third > computer (other than a heathkit EC1). > > The original classiccmp server was called Huey, but during transition to > a new machine there was temporarily two machines. The new machine was > called Dewey. Louie is a machine I have at home primarily for HP2100 > emulator development. Ah, but Louie only was named after he *died*! :> (deliberately ignoring the Donald Duck reference) I had three LX's that I used to have set up side by side carrying the same names :> From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Jun 25 22:24:48 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 23:24:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606260335.XAA05948@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > But let's ask the list: is there anybody else out there or that you > know who buys a product only if it has repair documentation > available? I don't carry it to quite the absolute pitch this statement does, but certainly decent repair potential is a positive factor when I buy something. (For electronics, this typically means docs.) > And as a corollary, do you only buy products you want to run 20 > years? Again, I don't take it to this absolute a pitch, but I do prefer things which I expect to last. As a non-computer example, I will cheerfully spend $50 for a kitchen knife I expect to outlive me instead of $5 for one I expect to need to replace after one (frustrating) year. As a computer example, I use Suns instead of peecees for most of my house computers, even though they're significantly slower, simply because my peecees have accounted for a fraction of my failures out of all proportion to their fraction of my uptime hours. > Or can you accept a product as being expendable? Depends on the part. Some things I think of as consumables - mostly things even Tony thinks of as consumables, I suspect (I'm talking things like toner cartridges), but not entirely (eg, peecee keyboards). > How long should a computer part last? Should? Ideally, until it suffers catastrohpic physical damage (like a chip getting its die cracked across by something heavy falling on it) or gross electrical excess (like feeding mains voltage to a TTL input). I don't really expect that from most hardware. But there sure are some that seem to come close. I've got a Sun-3/60 that's being a real Timex, for example. /~\ 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 healyzh at aracnet.com Mon Jun 26 03:10:24 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 01:10:24 -0700 Subject: VCF/Midwest 2.0 Needs your exhibits! In-Reply-To: <200606251930.36072.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200606251930.36072.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: At 7:30 PM -0400 6/25/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >In order to make VCF/Midwest 2.0 a success, we need more exhibitors to sign up >soon. Time is running ot to register - there is just over a week left before >exhibitor registration closes. What is the status of getting systems on the Hobbyist DECnet for this? I know there was some discussion of this a couple months ago. Also, when exactly is the event? My DECnet area is currently offline, and I still haven't pulled a VAX out of storage to take the place of the one that is down. Of course at the moment it's way to hot around here to consider powering up the extra hardware. :^( Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 26 07:28:33 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 12:28:33 +0000 Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards In-Reply-To: <200606251715050592.1131AE7D@10.0.0.252> References: <449F31EA.5010704@yahoo.co.uk> <200606251715050592.1131AE7D@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <449FD2F1.9030100@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/26/2006 at 1:01 AM Jules Richardson wrote: > >> Out of interest, has anyone else ever managed to persuade linux to talk >> to any >> of the Xebec/Omti/Emulex/Adaptec ST506-SCSI bridge boards? Most of the >> boards >> are SASI, or at best semi-SCSI, so Linux refuses to talk to them. > > Well, the firmware on the OMTI boards is in EPROM and the CPU's a Z8--it > shouldn't be too difficult to add an IDENTIFY command to it. By that same measure, the same's true of the Adaptec and Emulex boards too - but I'm not aware of useful details (such as source listings) for the ROM contents existing anywhere. [1] [1] customer EPROMs did exist for these boards, so the necessary info possibly existed (at a price) - unless the custom ROMs were done by the vendor to the customer's spec, rather than by the customer themselves. The Xebec board seems to have a pair of 40-pin ICs and a 24-pin IC all with Xebec part numbers; presumably one of those holds the firmware. Assuming Identify could be added (or worked around in the kernel), that still leaves the following two problems: 1) Whether a SCSI HBA talking to a SASI target will work. Sure, they're electrically compatible, but I don't know if the SCSI spec includes a feature where the HBA must detect that the target's SASI (and so missing the extra control line pair) and automagically cope. 2) How to set up the board in software; I expect the kernel will get upset if it can't query drive geometry at boot time - but it's going to do that as part of driver set up, before any vendor-specific commands can be sent to the board in order to set *it* up. A simple SCSI adapter hanging off a PC parallel port and driven purely in user-space would be in theory a lot easier - problem is that the PC port doesn't quite have enough data lines. Building an ISA or PCI board is $$$, and doing anything else (such as a USB interface) is unfortunately beyond me :-( cheers Jules From mtapley at swri.edu Sun Jun 25 18:38:01 2006 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 18:38:01 -0500 Subject: Scanner choice question In-Reply-To: <200606241701.k5OH1vrr028251@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606241701.k5OH1vrr028251@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: At 12:01 -0500 6/24/06, Scott Quinn wrote: >I have a Umax Astra 2400 and a HP ScanJet 6100c, both SCSI. I'm not >sure which one to keep. Hm. Our most recent computer purchase was a used HP6100c. No complaints with it so far; it seems to run just fine with our OS9 Powerbook 3400s. So for selfish reasons, I'd vote you keep that one so that you can supply hints on how to maintain, interface, etc. it that I'll pick up on the list. :-). I probably still have the URL from which I grabbed the driver software - it was on the HP site but not trivial to find. But I'm ignorant wrt the Umax, so I can't compare their values. -- - Mark Cell Phone: 210-379-4635 office: 210-522-6025 From hadsell at blueskystudios.com Mon Jun 26 10:02:02 2006 From: hadsell at blueskystudios.com (Richard Hadsell) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 11:02:02 -0400 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages Message-ID: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> I find it difficult to distinguish some cctalk messages from spam. The From: could be anyone, and the Subject: is not always technical enough to recognize. Could your mailer add '[cctalk]' to every subject, if it is not already there? This would also enable a filter to send the message to a cctalk folder. It's a technique that I have seen with other e-mail lists, and I like it. -- Dick Hadsell 914-259-6320 Fax: 914-259-6499 Reply-to: hadsell at blueskystudios.com Blue Sky Studios http://www.blueskystudios.com 44 South Broadway, White Plains, NY 10601 From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jun 26 10:09:35 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 11:09:35 -0400 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> Message-ID: <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 26 June 2006 11:02, Richard Hadsell wrote: > I find it difficult to distinguish some cctalk messages from spam. > The From: could be anyone, and the Subject: is not always technical > enough to recognize. Could your mailer add '[cctalk]' to every > subject, if it is not already there? This would also enable a filter > to send the message to a cctalk folder. It's a technique that I have > seen with other e-mail lists, and I like it. You can filter off of one of the mail headers, like for example: List-Id: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" or perhaps this one: Return-path: or any of the other headers that have classiccmp.org in them... That has the added advantage of not cluttering up the subject line with extra garbage. :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From drb at msu.edu Mon Jun 26 10:15:32 2006 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 11:15:32 -0400 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: (Your message of Mon, 26 Jun 2006 11:09:35 EDT.) <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> Message-ID: <200606261515.k5QFFWOI018857@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > > I find it difficult to distinguish some cctalk messages from spam. > > The From: could be anyone, and the Subject: is not always technical > > enough to recognize. Could your mailer add '[cctalk]' to every > > subject, if it is not already there? This would also enable a filter > > to send the message to a cctalk folder. It's a technique that I have > > seen with other e-mail lists, and I like it. > > You can filter off of one of the mail headers, like for example: > > List-Id: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > > or perhaps this one: > > Return-path: Or: Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org De From jim.isbell at gmail.com Mon Jun 26 10:16:27 2006 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 10:16:27 -0500 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: I dont consider "[cctalk]" to be "extra garbage". This is not the only list I have that doesent identify itself and it is frustrating when you dont know which list sent it. MOST lists have an identifying signature in the subject line!!! On 6/26/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Monday 26 June 2006 11:02, Richard Hadsell wrote: > > I find it difficult to distinguish some cctalk messages from spam. > > The From: could be anyone, and the Subject: is not always technical > > enough to recognize. Could your mailer add '[cctalk]' to every > > subject, if it is not already there? This would also enable a filter > > to send the message to a cctalk folder. It's a technique that I have > > seen with other e-mail lists, and I like it. > > You can filter off of one of the mail headers, like for example: > > List-Id: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > > or perhaps this one: > > Return-path: > > or any of the other headers that have classiccmp.org in them... > > That has the added advantage of not cluttering up the subject line with > extra garbage. :) > > Pat > -- > Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu > The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org > -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space." From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 26 10:30:57 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 08:30:57 -0700 Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards In-Reply-To: <449FD2F1.9030100@yahoo.co.uk> References: <449F31EA.5010704@yahoo.co.uk> <200606251715050592.1131AE7D@10.0.0.252> <449FD2F1.9030100@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200606260830570652.14782AC7@10.0.0.252> On 6/26/2006 at 12:28 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >[1] customer EPROMs did exist for these boards, so the necessary info >possibly existed (at a price) - unless the custom ROMs were done by the vendor to >the customer's spec, rather than by the customer themselves. As a matter of fact, my two OMTI boards are identified as having "Macintosh SCSI" ROMs, ostensibly identifying them as something different from other types of SCSI (?). But why anyone would want to set up something with an ST-412 interface on the far end at this late date is beyond me. Cheers, Chuck From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jun 26 10:32:01 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 11:32:01 -0400 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200606261132.01344.pat@computer-refuge.org> > On 6/26/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > On Monday 26 June 2006 11:02, Richard Hadsell wrote: > > > I find it difficult to distinguish some cctalk messages from > > > spam. The From: could be anyone, and the Subject: is not always > > > technical enough to recognize. Could your mailer add '[cctalk]' > > > to every subject, if it is not already there? This would also > > > enable a filter to send the message to a cctalk folder. It's a > > > technique that I have seen with other e-mail lists, and I like > > > it. > > > > You can filter off of one of the mail headers, like for example: > > > > List-Id: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > > > > > or perhaps this one: > > > > Return-path: > > > > or any of the other headers that have classiccmp.org in them... > > > > That has the added advantage of not cluttering up the subject line > > with extra garbage. :) On Monday 26 June 2006 11:16, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > I dont consider "[cctalk]" to be "extra garbage". This is not the > only list I have that doesent identify itself and it is frustrating > when you dont know which list sent it. MOST lists have an > identifying signature in the subject line!!! But the point is that any half-way decent mail software of filtering program can sort things based on other headers in the email, so why bother eating up characters on the Subject line? At least on every mail reader I've seen, there's a limited space for the subject line, and being able to see 9 less characters "[cctalk] " of the subject can be annoying. It's even worse on some lists I'm on that have a 15 or 16 character list name. which takes up 1/2 of the available subject line, or more.. I'd hope that the people on this list are "computer literate" enough to figure out how to configure their mail program to sort email by headers (or use a paper or online manual to figure out how to do so). Of course, if you don't use something that'll let you sort mail (eg, procmail on UNIX/Linux or a decent mail reader on other platforms) intelligently, that's another problem entirely. Grumpy Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jun 26 10:33:46 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 11:33:46 -0400 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <449FFE5A.5080300@gmail.com> Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > I dont consider "[cctalk]" to be "extra garbage". This is not the > only list I have that doesent identify itself and it is frustrating > when you dont know which list sent it. MOST lists have an identifying > signature in the subject line!!! CCTALK identifies itself in the header. Most other lists do too. In addition, most other lists also waste space in the subject line too. This is garbage, because it's completely unnecessary, and more than that, is unreliable. Peace... Sridhar From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 26 11:45:31 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:45:31 +0000 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <44A00F2B.4070808@yahoo.co.uk> Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > I dont consider "[cctalk]" to be "extra garbage". This is not the > only list I have that doesent identify itself and it is frustrating > when you dont know which list sent it. MOST lists have an identifying > signature in the subject line!!! But surely a mail client or locally-running processor could do that for you if you so wanted, based on the list headers? So it's already possible for those who wish to do it, and at the same time those who don't think it's necessary don't have to do anything. Personally I'm with Patrick on this one - I find it annoying on lists that do it because it pushes the meaningful subject line over more than it needs to be, (even more so if people change subject lines when replying (e.g. "xxx was: yyy" and don't bother to edit out the automatically-added text) I just filter based on list headers; everything from classiccmp goes into one folder, other mailing lists go into their own folder etc. and it all just works :-) cheers Jules From evan at snarc.net Mon Jun 26 10:54:58 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 11:54:58 -0400 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <44A00F2B.4070808@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <000901c69938$e0975430$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> >>>> I find it annoying on lists that do it because it pushes the meaningful subject line over more than it needs to be, (even more so if people change subject lines when replying (e.g. "xxx was: yyy" and don't bother to edit out the automatically-added text) I definitely agree. Many times I check email from my Treo, or I'll have my mail client open along with a dozen+ other windows, so it's important to make efficient use of the column width. All cctalk messages in my inbox go to a separate folder and I've never had any problems with the filters not working because of being based on header info instead of a subject line identifier -- and I'm probably one of the LEAST technical people on this list. From jim.isbell at gmail.com Mon Jun 26 12:03:40 2006 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 12:03:40 -0500 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <200606261132.01344.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200606261132.01344.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: Computer litterate is not the question. ( have been designing computers since the IBM 7070 in 1960) I have filters, yes, but I also get a list of mail that I can scroll down without sorting the mail first which to me is just an extra step that makes it harder. I like scrolling doen the entire list of 300 post a day and clicking on the ones I want to see then deleting the batch. Without an identifying signature in the subject this is not possible and I am forced to use "your" method of sorting into separate boxes then going to each box and reading the mail there then going to the next box...etc....etc. which I find tedious. On 6/26/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > On 6/26/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > > On Monday 26 June 2006 11:02, Richard Hadsell wrote: > > > > I find it difficult to distinguish some cctalk messages from > > > > spam. The From: could be anyone, and the Subject: is not always > > > > technical enough to recognize. Could your mailer add '[cctalk]' > > > > to every subject, if it is not already there? This would also > > > > enable a filter to send the message to a cctalk folder. It's a > > > > technique that I have seen with other e-mail lists, and I like > > > > it. > > > > > > You can filter off of one of the mail headers, like for example: > > > > > > List-Id: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > > > > > > > > or perhaps this one: > > > > > > Return-path: > > > > > > or any of the other headers that have classiccmp.org in them... > > > > > > That has the added advantage of not cluttering up the subject line > > > with extra garbage. :) > > On Monday 26 June 2006 11:16, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > > I dont consider "[cctalk]" to be "extra garbage". This is not the > > only list I have that doesent identify itself and it is frustrating > > when you dont know which list sent it. MOST lists have an > > identifying signature in the subject line!!! > > But the point is that any half-way decent mail software of filtering > program can sort things based on other headers in the email, so why > bother eating up characters on the Subject line? At least on every > mail reader I've seen, there's a limited space for the subject line, > and being able to see 9 less characters "[cctalk] " of the subject can > be annoying. It's even worse on some lists I'm on that have a 15 or 16 > character list name. which takes up 1/2 of the available subject line, > or more.. > > I'd hope that the people on this list are "computer literate" enough to > figure out how to configure their mail program to sort email by headers > (or use a paper or online manual to figure out how to do so). Of > course, if you don't use something that'll let you sort mail (eg, > procmail on UNIX/Linux or a decent mail reader on other platforms) > intelligently, that's another problem entirely. > > Grumpy Pat > -- > Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu > The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org > -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space." From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jun 26 12:46:56 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 12:46:56 -0500 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <44A01D90.6010504@oldskool.org> Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > I dont consider "[cctalk]" to be "extra garbage". This is not the > only list I have that doesent identify itself and it is frustrating > when you dont know which list sent it. MOST lists have an identifying > signature in the subject line!!! Yes, and most email programs allow you to filter based on other content. I have no problem at all filtering cctalk into it's own folder. I use Thunderbird, and my filter is... checking... "to or cc" is "cctalk, cctech, classiccmp.org". I've attached a screenshot of my filter settings in case it will help. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jun 26 12:50:21 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 12:50:21 -0500 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200606261132.01344.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <44A01E5D.8070001@oldskool.org> Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > Computer litterate is not the question. ( have been designing > computers since the IBM 7070 in 1960) I have filters, yes, but I also > get a list of mail that I can scroll down without sorting the mail > first which to me is just an extra step that makes it harder. I like > scrolling doen the entire list of 300 post a day and clicking on the > ones I want to see then deleting the batch. Without an identifying > signature in the subject this is not possible and I am forced to use > "your" method of sorting into separate boxes then going to each box > and reading the mail there then going to the next box...etc....etc. > which I find tedious. Okay, then don't sort into separate boxes, but rather color the email a different color based on the filter. Thunderbird, Outlook, even *nix stuff like Mutt can highlight subject lines in a list in different colors, so just flag all of your mailing list email a different color based on the filter. -- 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 philpem at dsl.pipex.com Mon Jun 26 12:56:30 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 18:56:30 +0100 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <44A01D90.6010504@oldskool.org> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <44A01D90.6010504@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <44A01FCE.4020405@dsl.pipex.com> Jim Leonard wrote: > Yes, and most email programs allow you to filter based on other content. > I have no problem at all filtering cctalk into it's own folder. I use > Thunderbird, and my filter is... checking... "to or cc" is "cctalk, > cctech, classiccmp.org". I've been using a similar filter in Tbird and Messenger Pro. Works quite well, 99.9% of the time. > I've attached a screenshot of my filter settings in case it will help. Um.. the classiccmp ML server strips attachments from all the messages it forwards. You could use something like Photobucket or Tinypic.com if you wanted. -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Mon Jun 26 13:12:22 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 19:12:22 +0100 Subject: I got this from OLD-COMPUTERS.COM, any interest? Message-ID: -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? ------ Forwarded Message From: "OLD-COMPUTERS.COM Newsletter" Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 05:49:46 -0400 To: Subject: OLD-COMPUTERS.COM ~ Donation for members Hi, Paul Kramer (based in Farmingdale, NY) contacted us to donate us two 2 computers : - a Power Tower Pro computer, clone of the Macintosh 9500 - blue clam-shell iBook (see its orignal email at the end of this text). Sadly, we can't accept/handle them. Would you be interested? If so, please contact DIRECTLY Paul Kramer . Please remember: - tell him you are a member of the OLD-COMPUTERS.COM collectors database, - though he donated these systems, you will have to pay shipping costs - most important, be POLITE :-) with this kind donor. Good luck! --- ORIGINAL EMAIL --- While I do not want to keep my Power Tower Pro, I do think it is worth preserving. I would be happy to give it to another collector if someone is interested in having it. All I would want is to be reimbursed for shipping costs. I would like to include all software and manuals as well so they do not have to be discarded. By the way, I also have an old blue clam-shell iBook which is in working condition except that the battery will no longer hold a charge. I would be happy to include it with the Power Tower Pro. You have my permission to make this offer by e-mail to other collectors and provide my e-mail address and phone number so anyone interested can contact me directly. Sincerely, Paul --------- Paul Kramer, Ph.D. Professor of Physics Farmingdale State University of New York 2350 Broadhollow Road Farmingdale NY 11735-1021 voice: 631-271-8311 [9 am to 9 pm, 7 days] fax: 631-673-1095 kramerpr at farmingdale.edu _____________________________________________________ OLD-COMPUTERS.COM Collectors Mailing ------ End of Forwarded Message From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Mon Jun 26 13:13:25 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 11:13:25 -0700 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> Message-ID: <44A023C5.4070204@msm.umr.edu> Richard Hadsell wrote: > I find it difficult to distinguish some cctalk messages from spam. I subscribe to all my mailing lists under a special ID so that the mail id "To:" has that in it, then filter off that. It doesn't matter what the list puts in what header then. Helps to have your own mail domain though, or an account with a lot of aliases allowed. Jim From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Mon Jun 26 13:16:55 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 14:16:55 -0400 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: References: <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060626140623.04d49350@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Jim Isbell, W5JAI may have mentioned these words: >I dont consider "[cctalk]" to be "extra garbage". I *do*. It takes what *might* be a semi-functional idea, and converts it to something udderly unmanageable. See below for more. > This is not the >only list I have that doesent identify itself and it is frustrating >when you dont know which list sent it. MOST lists have an identifying >signature in the subject line!!! Hey, because everyone else is doing it, *must* make it a good idea! :-O I'm on the Tandy CoCo list at maltedmedia.com; and it has a "sub-gateway" (for wont of a better term) from the yahoogroups list. The maltedmedia list puts a [CoCo] string at the beginning of the subject; no problem, right? But the yahoogroups puts [Color Computer] in front of their posts... and not all mail clients "do the right thing" with attribution prefixes, so you'll end up with something like this on the subject line: Re: FWD: [CoCo] Re2: [Color Computer] re: Where's my subject now? It's a right PITA to deal with that jazz... "If it ain't broke, *don't* fix it." Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger P.S. I almost exclusively do my mailing list sorting via the "X-BeenThere: your at listhere.dom" header; most good MLMs add it, and it's generally unique to that list. -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | Anarchy doesn't scale well. -- Me zmerch at 30below.com. | SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Mon Jun 26 13:35:45 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 14:35:45 -0400 Subject: VCF-MW 2.0 "extracurricular activities?" Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060626143359.05bcd098@mail.30below.com> Was anyone planning on getting together Friday nite/Saturday nite / whatever day/nite outside of VCF MW 2.0? I'm planning my itinerary & wasn't sure if there were going to be any extra get-togethers... Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | A new truth in advertising slogan SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | for MicroSoft: "We're not the oxy... zmerch at 30below.com | ...in oxymoron!" From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 26 13:35:17 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 11:35:17 -0700 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060626140623.04d49350@mail.30below.com> References: <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <5.1.0.14.2.20060626140623.04d49350@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <200606261135170998.1520F1CA@10.0.0.252> On 6/26/2006 at 2:16 PM Roger Merchberger wrote: >I *do*. It takes what *might* be a semi-functional idea, and converts it >to something udderly unmanageable. See below for more. Most modern email readers include the feature to perform sorting and filtering based on just about any field in a message. Even my many-years-old and decrepit Calypso3 client will do this quite nicely. However... For those of you with very primitive email clients I can understand and sympathize. Instead of dithering about how much space "[cctalk]:" would consume in the subject line, why not reduce this to a single, or at most, 2 or 3 characters? A character such as the caret ^ is not normally found at the beginning of email subject lines (at least a search on my email files can turn up none) would be all that would be required to keep the "we want cct messages flagged" crowd happy, would it not? And surely, no one could quibble about a subject line that was ONE character shorter..... Cheers, Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 26 14:47:18 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 19:47:18 +0000 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200606261132.01344.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <44A039C6.4030003@yahoo.co.uk> Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > Computer litterate is not the question. ( have been designing > computers since the IBM 7070 in 1960) I have filters, yes, but I also > get a list of mail that I can scroll down without sorting the mail > first which to me is just an extra step that makes it harder. I like > scrolling doen the entire list of 300 post a day and clicking on the > ones I want to see then deleting the batch. Without an identifying > signature in the subject this is not possible and I am forced to use > "your" method of sorting into separate boxes then going to each box > and reading the mail there then going to the next box...etc....etc. > which I find tedious. Can your mail client colour (or otherwise mark) messages according to a set of rules? Maybe that's an option if you don't want to move them based on source to their own folder (and assuming that your mail client can't rewrite the subject line to your choosing)? (I just checked Thunderbird, and to my surprise it doesn't seem to have an option to pipe the message through an external process based on rules, which surprised me. I'm sure I've seen other mail clients that can do this) cheers Jules From uban at ubanproductions.com Mon Jun 26 14:08:57 2006 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 14:08:57 -0500 Subject: VCF-MW 2.0 "extracurricular activities?" In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060626143359.05bcd098@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20060626140731.025e6270@mail.ubanproductions.com> Man this thing snuck up on me! Assuming that I manage to make it this year, I would be interested in another group dinner or similar... --tom At 02:35 PM 6/26/2006 -0400, you wrote: >Was anyone planning on getting together Friday nite/Saturday nite / >whatever day/nite outside of VCF MW 2.0? > >I'm planning my itinerary & wasn't sure if there were going to be any >extra get-togethers... > >Laterz, >Roger "Merch" Merchberger > >-- >Roger "Merch" Merchberger | A new truth in advertising slogan >SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | for MicroSoft: "We're not the oxy... >zmerch at 30below.com | ...in oxymoron!" > > From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Mon Jun 26 14:01:35 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 14:01:35 -0500 Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards Message-ID: > But why anyone would want to set up something with an ST-412 interface on >the far end at this late date is beyond me. If you didn't have to reformat the drive (not sure how the bridgeboards worked in this respect), it would allow you to pull data off of a ST412-interface drive onto a modern one for backup. I have an IRIS here that the PM2 is nonfunctional, yet I would still like to see if I can salvage the O/S off the drive. The other thing I could think of is perhaps SunOS would have a Data Systems Design driver and I could drop the IRIS controller in a VTM (VME to Multibus) adaptor and archive it that way . . . but a bridgeboard would be nice if it worked. > 2) How to set up the board in software; I expect the kernel will get upset >if it can't query drive geometry at boot time - but it's going to do that as >part of driver set up, before any vendor-specific commands can be sent to the >board in order to set *it* up. try scsiadd - Debian supports it, anyway. I use it to find drives that weren't recognized at bootup (powered down) when I didn't want to restart the machine. It also works for hot-swaps. Scott Quinn From teoz at neo.rr.com Mon Jun 26 14:55:45 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 15:55:45 -0400 Subject: ebay blogs Message-ID: <000001c6995e$6c59fc50$0b01a8c0@game> Anybody here use ebays free blog site? I just noticed it when a member of a forum I am on started one. Might be useful to try and reach people and get them into the hobby or atleast searching for items you might collect. From fireflyst at earthlink.net Mon Jun 26 15:01:29 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 15:01:29 -0500 Subject: VCF/Midwest 2.0 Needs your exhibits! In-Reply-To: <200606251930.36072.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: Did you get anyone else to sign up yet? Rory McMahon is coming with me again and he should be registering something Atari-related soon. How are we looking for vendors and speakers? Julian(FireflyST) > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Patrick Finnegan > Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2006 6:31 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Cc: rescue at sunhelp.org > Subject: VCF/Midwest 2.0 Needs your exhibits! > > In order to make VCF/Midwest 2.0 a success, we need more > exhibitors to sign up soon. Time is running ot to register - > there is just over a week left before exhibitor registration closes. > > So, if you've been debating coming and showing off your > favorite classic gear, please sign up now! We need YOU to > make this show as successful as it was last year. > > You can sign up by going to the following URL: > http://www.vintage.org/2006/midwest/exhibit.php > > If you have any questions, please email me directly (pat at > computer-refuge dot org). > > Pat > -- > Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ > The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org > From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 26 16:46:17 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:46:17 +0000 Subject: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) Message-ID: <44A055A9.6090803@yahoo.co.uk> I've got a Natsemi IMP-16C CPU + memory board [1] here (plus cardframe, circa 1974) that's packed with gold/ceramic chips - I'm considering off-loading it though as it's not relevant to the sorts of things I'm interested in. [2] Question is though, surely if I put it on ebay there's a fair chance that a gold scrapper will get it rather than a computer enthusiast? What do others normally do in such situations (or do they sell elsewhere?) [1] It's in remarkably good condition and likely stands a good chance of working, if someone wanted a fun project (manuals are on bitsavers). Some corrosion to the tops of some chips, but seemingly none to the legs, PCB tracks, IC sockets, other components etc. It's evidently been stored well throughout its life! [2] I *badly* need to thin the collection out a bit and free up some space! cheers, Jules From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 26 15:52:20 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 13:52:20 -0700 Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606261352200564.159E68DD@10.0.0.252> On 6/26/2006 at 2:01 PM Scott Quinn wrote: >If you didn't have to reformat the drive (not sure how the bridgeboards >worked in this respect), it would allow you to pull data off >of a ST412-interface drive onto a modern one for backup. I have an IRIS >here that the PM2 is nonfunctional, yet I would still like to >see if I can salvage the O/S off the drive. That's a huge "if", particularly if the ST-412 drive didn't come from a "like-controllered" system. Just my own experience talking. Cheers, Chuck From fireflyst at earthlink.net Mon Jun 26 14:59:48 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 14:59:48 -0500 Subject: VCF-MW 2.0 "extracurricular activities?" In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060626143359.05bcd098@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: I'm assuming most of what goes on is "off the cuff". At least dinner last year was. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Roger Merchberger > Sent: Monday, June 26, 2006 1:36 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: VCF-MW 2.0 "extracurricular activities?" > > Was anyone planning on getting together Friday nite/Saturday > nite / whatever day/nite outside of VCF MW 2.0? > > I'm planning my itinerary & wasn't sure if there were going > to be any extra get-togethers... > > Laterz, > Roger "Merch" Merchberger > > -- > Roger "Merch" Merchberger | A new truth in advertising slogan > SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | for MicroSoft: "We're not the oxy... > zmerch at 30below.com | ...in oxymoron!" > > From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 26 17:14:35 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 22:14:35 +0000 Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A05C4B.2080606@yahoo.co.uk> Scott Quinn wrote: > >> But why anyone would want to set up something with an ST-412 interface on >> the far end at this late date is beyond me. > > it would allow you to pull data off > of a ST412-interface drive onto a modern one for backup. that's why I'm particularly interested in it - I've got several machines around that use bridge boards where I don't have the original media and so can't back them up (or even if I could back them up, can't format + restore data to a new drive) I read Chuck's message as asking why the Macs used such boards though, at a stage when others were using more capable drives (IDE or SCSI) - in which case the answer is probably "because they were cheap". > If you didn't have to reformat the drive (not sure how the bridgeboards > worked in this respect), ISTR that it's generally a 'format unit' SCSI command that you issue to the bridge board, and it takes care of the rest. So in the case of no OS media or native disk utils, I could in theory back up a drive up using a PC, and then format a replacement drive via the PC to the system's expected geometry, copy the raw data back on, and expect it to work on the target system (providing the same model bridge board is used throughout) In lieu of a generic ST506 PC interface that can mimic different bridge boards, it seems the only way to deal with such systems where the install media / tools have long gone. > The other thing I could think of is perhaps SunOS would have a Data > Systems Design driver and I could drop the IRIS controller > in a VTM (VME to Multibus) adaptor and archive it that way . . . but a > bridgeboard would be nice if it worked. Finding the different bridge boards isn't *that* difficult - the problem really boils down to a software one in terms of Linux drivers. > try scsiadd - Debian supports it, anyway. thanks - will take a look! cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 26 17:22:53 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 22:22:53 +0000 Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards In-Reply-To: <200606261352200564.159E68DD@10.0.0.252> References: <200606261352200564.159E68DD@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A05E3D.3030603@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/26/2006 at 2:01 PM Scott Quinn wrote: > >> If you didn't have to reformat the drive (not sure how the bridgeboards >> worked in this respect), it would allow you to pull data off >> of a ST412-interface drive onto a modern one for backup. I have an IRIS >> here that the PM2 is nonfunctional, yet I would still like to >> see if I can salvage the O/S off the drive. > > That's a huge "if", particularly if the ST-412 drive didn't come from a > "like-controllered" system. Just my own experience talking. If the same model bridge board with the same ROM is used though, I can't imagine it'd be a problem. [1] Formatting a new drive is a little more tricky, but still shouldn't be a problem providing the drive parameters that were used to format the original drive are known, and the correct bridge board is used. Granted that moving drives between bridge boards (or even to the same board with a different firmware revision) probably will cause various problems, as it breaks the tight relationship between formatted drive and controller. [1] You obviously need to know the drive geometry. Sometimes the host machine stores that at block 0 (and offsets all future disk accesses by 1 block). Some systems use bridge boards that can hold it in ROM, or NVRAM. The tricky ones are the ones that hold it in their own NVRAM and get their firmware to issue the necessary setup command to the bridge board at boot time. cheers Jules From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jun 26 16:37:52 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:37:52 -0500 Subject: VCF-MW 2.0 "extracurricular activities?" References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060626143359.05bcd098@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <017901c69968$c7911360$6500a8c0@BILLING> Roger wrote.... > Was anyone planning on getting together Friday nite/Saturday nite.. Yes Jay PS - This is an example of appropriately trimming a reply ;) From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jun 26 16:45:53 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:45:53 -0500 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com><200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <018c01c69969$e6785760$6500a8c0@BILLING> >> On Monday 26 June 2006 11:02, Richard Hadsell wrote: >> > I find it difficult to distinguish some cctalk messages from spam. ...snip... >> >Could your mailer add '[cctalk]' to every subject, if it is not already >> >there? Short answer... No. Longer answer... I used to be with you, I prefered having the mailing list put a tag in each subject line. However, the list membership at large resoundingly over-ruled me there and I've actually come around to the other way of thinking. This topic has come up many times before, and often becomes both long and hostile. But the overwhelming majority of people don't want the tag in the subject line, so I don't have that option turned on. If the majority changes stances, then we'll do it :) I must respectly submit that most people who want the subject line tag are those who didn't know that one can sort into folders based on header criteria which is actually much more accurate and "sensible". It does involve a one time setup of taking an extra 30 seconds to view the headers of a classiccmp list email and see what we provide for you to key on. I'm sure you'll find it's adequate. In addition, cctalk/cctech traffic is run through a very very effective antivirus and spam processing engine. You won't get spam on the cclist. Jay West From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jun 26 16:50:57 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:50:57 -0500 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com><200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <019701c6996a$9b506c40$6500a8c0@BILLING> Jim wrote.... >This is not the only list I have that doesent identify itself and it is >frustrating > when you dont know which list sent it. MOST lists have an identifying > signature in the subject line!!! As you say, ClassicCMP isn't the ONLY list you have that "doesn't identify itself"[1]. Perhaps there is a reason why we're not the only one. You're correct that most lists do have some text in the subject line, but I hardly think numbers alone is a cogent argument... that's the same logic that made windows the predominant OS these days ;) Jay West [1] I beg to differ with your characterization of ClassicCMP list traffic "not identifying itself". It actually does identify itself in a way that EVERY (yes, EVERY) mailing list identifies itself. Unlike the subject line tag, which not all lists do. It's just not identifying itself in the way your eyes are looking for. In fact, it's identifying itself in a less error prone manner that is much MORE common (actually, 100%, cause pretty much all lists have headers identifying the source). From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Mon Jun 26 16:54:58 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:54:58 +0200 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> Message-ID: <20060626235458.61568dcb@SirToby.dinner41.de> On Mon, 26 Jun 2006 11:02:02 -0400 Richard Hadsell wrote: > I find it difficult to distinguish some cctalk messages from spam. >From my ~/.procmailrc: :0 * ^Sender: owner-classiccmp at classiccmp.org classiccmp/. I.e. filter all mails that match the "Sender:" header into folder classiccmp. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Mon Jun 26 16:59:11 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 17:59:11 -0400 Subject: VCF-MW 2.0 "extracurricular activities?" In-Reply-To: <017901c69968$c7911360$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060626143359.05bcd098@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060626175157.03b53520@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Jay West may have mentioned these words: >Roger wrote.... >>Was anyone planning on getting together Friday nite/Saturday nite.. > >Yes > > >Jay >PS - This is an example of appropriately trimming a reply ;) This is your list, so of course I *cannot* argue with you; and it seems that the response was technically correct... ;-) But - I was rather hoping for just a wee bit more info!! ;^> So - place? day/date? time? rough guesstimate of # of folks? will designated drivers be necessary? [[ Assuming you allow the intake thereof ]] I'd be happy to buy you a brew or two for all the work you've done with this list... Heck, IMHO, the whole nite should be free fer ya! ;-) Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers _??_ zmerch at 30below.com (?||?) If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead _)(_ disarmament should *not* be your first career choice. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 26 18:11:49 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:11:49 +0000 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <018c01c69969$e6785760$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com><200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <018c01c69969$e6785760$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <44A069B5.6060303@yahoo.co.uk> Jay West wrote: > I > must respectly submit that most people who want the subject line tag are > those who didn't know that one can sort into folders based on header > criteria which is actually much more accurate and "sensible". I'd look a it this way: 1) It's less server-side processing to do it the way it's currently done. 2) It's less bandwidth to do it the way it's currently done. 3) It's far easier for someone to process data at destination based on filters than it is for someone to remove data at destination that they consider unnecessary. The first two points don't seem like that big a deal - but these things do add up in the grand scheme of things! cheers Jules From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jun 26 17:08:32 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 17:08:32 -0500 Subject: VCF-MW 2.0 "extracurricular activities?" References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060626143359.05bcd098@mail.30below.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060626175157.03b53520@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <01df01c6996d$107f48e0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Roger wrote.... > This is your list, so of course I *cannot* argue with you; It's never stopped anyone before, so by all means proceed ;) > But - I was rather hoping for just a wee bit more info!! ;^> > So - place? day/date? time? rough guesstimate of # of folks?I was being > flippant ;) There's usually a get-together for dinner someplace the night > of the show. I don't know if a place has been picked out yet. Pat? A place > should be picked out in advance with a rough count for reservations. That > way we don't get ready to go some place afterwards and find they are full. In addition, there's occasionally several impromptu separate small group get together's the night before, that's just depending on who's there, who calls who, and what they want to do. I personally hope to be present at any and all functions where beer is available ;) > will designated drivers be necessary? I certainly hope so :D Jay From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jun 26 17:15:01 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 17:15:01 -0500 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <018c01c69969$e6785760$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com><200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <018c01c69969$e6785760$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <44A05C65.9080502@oldskool.org> Jay West wrote: > those who didn't know that one can sort into folders based on header > criteria which is actually much more accurate and "sensible". Well, now they do. :-) Besides, that's one of the reasons you can add your own headers (not that anyone does that much any more). > In addition, cctalk/cctech traffic is run through a very very effective > antivirus and spam processing engine. You won't get spam on the cclist. Well, at least not from people who aren't already on the list ;-) -- 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 jim.isbell at gmail.com Mon Jun 26 17:20:02 2006 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 17:20:02 -0500 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <019701c6996a$9b506c40$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <019701c6996a$9b506c40$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: This is a ridiculous argument. Just shoot down mine as saying "everyone else is doing it" and that makes yours right??? First, when I said this list was NOT the only one, it was because there is ONE other that also does not identify itself...only one. But the point was, not that most do, but that when MORE than one do not it becomes a problem. If this was the only one then I could identify it by the lack of a signature. But because this one and the Chunky Child Mothers Porn site are the only two that dont identify themselves, I just dont know which one I am opening. As someone said, a simple signature such as an "*" or an "^" would not take away from the length of the subject enough to cause anyone a problem. As far as identifying itself in the header, that really opens a can of worms. If I allow my mail program to display the headers along with the subject line in the download list then my 300 lines of test would become 3000 lines of text since MANY messages come with headers with multiple addresses in them. My software displays the entire header, not just the address of the sender. On 6/26/06, Jay West wrote: > Jim wrote.... > >This is not the only list I have that doesent identify itself and it is > >frustrating > > when you dont know which list sent it. MOST lists have an identifying > > signature in the subject line!!! > > As you say, ClassicCMP isn't the ONLY list you have that "doesn't identify > itself"[1]. Perhaps there is a reason why we're not the only one. You're > correct that most lists do have some text in the subject line, but I hardly > think numbers alone is a cogent argument... that's the same logic that made > windows the predominant OS these days ;) > > Jay West > [1] I beg to differ with your characterization of ClassicCMP list traffic > "not identifying itself". It actually does identify itself in a way that > EVERY (yes, EVERY) mailing list identifies itself. Unlike the subject line > tag, which not all lists do. It's just not identifying itself in the way > your eyes are looking for. In fact, it's identifying itself in a less error > prone manner that is much MORE common (actually, 100%, cause pretty much all > lists have headers identifying the source). > > -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space." From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 26 17:02:43 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:02:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards In-Reply-To: <200606251715050592.1131AE7D@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 25, 6 05:15:05 pm Message-ID: > > > On 6/26/2006 at 1:01 AM Jules Richardson wrote: > > >Out of interest, has anyone else ever managed to persuade linux to talk > >to any > >of the Xebec/Omti/Emulex/Adaptec ST506-SCSI bridge boards? Most of the > >boards > >are SASI, or at best semi-SCSI, so Linux refuses to talk to them. > > Well, the firmware on the OMTI boards is in EPROM and the CPU's a Z8--it > shouldn't be too difficult to add an IDENTIFY command to it. I seem to For the OMTI 5000 series boards, there were actually data sheets for the 3 custom chips (IIRC they were a buffer memory controller, the actual data encoder/decoder and a VFO/PLL/data separator thein). Those data sheets did (IIRC) document the various registers in the chips. So it should be possible to completely understand the firmware. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 26 17:06:07 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:06:07 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <200606260306.XAA05708@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> from "der Mouse" at Jun 25, 6 11:04:43 pm Message-ID: > No...but I also wouldn't consider using a scanner someone else provided > to scan your manuals to constitute depending on that scanner. > > If it breaks, I'd fully expect you to shrug and report to people who > want manuals scanned that the thing has broken, you can't fix it > because you don't have docs, and that anyone who wants further manuals > scanned can either come fix it or send you another one - or scare up > docs for you. This seems to be a way for me to end up with a large pile of broken scanners that I won't throw out, becuase they _might_ be repairable one day, and anyway they contain bits that might come in handy (the stepper motor if nothing else..). But then again I am terminally short of space... I also don't have the time (or inclination) to keep on tinkering with software (drivers, etc) every time I need to replace the scanner... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 26 17:12:11 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:12:11 +0100 (BST) Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <200606260335.XAA05948@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> from "der Mouse" at Jun 25, 6 11:24:48 pm Message-ID: > > > But let's ask the list: is there anybody else out there or that you > > know who buys a product only if it has repair documentation > > available? > > I don't carry it to quite the absolute pitch this statement does, but > certainly decent repair potential is a positive factor when I buy > something. (For electronics, this typically means docs.) Yes, OK, I don't insist on the service manual being available. If the thing is standard components, and not too many of them, it's not hard to trace out a schematic. But then again, if the product is a couple of ASICs, with no docs, I am going to avoid it. > > > And as a corollary, do you only buy products you want to run 20 > > years? > > Again, I don't take it to this absolute a pitch, but I do prefer things > which I expect to last. As a non-computer example, I will cheerfully > spend $50 for a kitchen knife I expect to outlive me instead of $5 for > one I expect to need to replace after one (frustrating) year. As a As I've said before, I am not rich enough to buy cheap tools (and I use 'tools' in the widest sense here). > > Or can you accept a product as being expendable? > > Depends on the part. Some things I think of as consumables - mostly > things even Tony thinks of as consumables, I suspect (I'm talking > things like toner cartridges), but not entirely (eg, peecee keyboards). Yes, there are, of course, products that I know I will have to replace. Like primary cells. And secondary cells (they have a limited number of recharge cycles). And the toner cartridge in my laser printer (although I would be annoyed if some mechanical part of that cartridge failed before all the toner was used up. I also might try refilling it, particularly if it was a hard/impossble-to-obtain one for a classic printer). PC keyboards, though, I do repair. Normally becuase they fail at an inconvenient time (like on a satruday evening), and I can repair them sooner than I can get a replacement. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 26 17:20:58 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:20:58 +0100 (BST) Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards In-Reply-To: <200606260830570652.14782AC7@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 26, 6 08:30:57 am Message-ID: > But why anyone would want to set up something with an ST-412 interface on > the far end at this late date is beyond me. The obvious reason is that you have a classic computer that uses one of these boards with an ST412-interfaced hard disk hung off it [1] and you want to make an image of that disk on an more modern system. [1] Many machines in the UK did this. Just looking around me, there's the Acorn Cambridge Workstation, the PERQ 3a (AGW3300), the Torch XXX and Torch QaudX. And that's the ones I can see without leaving my chair -tony From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 26 17:30:37 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 15:30:37 -0700 Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards In-Reply-To: <44A05E3D.3030603@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200606261352200564.159E68DD@10.0.0.252> <44A05E3D.3030603@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200606261530370532.15F863AA@10.0.0.252> On 6/26/2006 at 10:22 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >If the same model bridge board with the same ROM is used though, I can't >imagine it'd be a problem. [1] True, and if I had that situation, I'd probably just hook up a parallel port and write a driver to wiggle the signals rather than try to fool with the onboard ROM. I recall trying(out of idle curiosity) to see if an Adaptec 1540 host adapter would recognize the OMTI card and the result, IIRC, was that it wouldn't. Cheers, Chuck From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jun 26 17:33:24 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 17:33:24 -0500 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com><200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org><019701c6996a$9b506c40$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <021b01c69970$8b9ae950$6500a8c0@BILLING> Jim wrote.... > This is a ridiculous argument. Just shoot down mine as saying > "everyone else is doing it" and that makes yours right??? I apologize, I must not have been clear. I was saying your statement that ClassicCMP should tag the subject because every other list does was not a great convincer. I was not at all saying classiccmp was right because everyone else does it our way (which isn't correct, obviously, as you {and I} stated). > But because this one and the Chunky Child Mothers Porn site are the only > two that dont identify themselves, I just dont know which one I am > opening. I would think the subject lines by themselves would easily distinguish between these two ;) I hope ;) > If I allow my mail program to display the headers along.... Woah... no one said, inferred, nor suggested anything of the sort! I don't think most would consider having to wade through headers on each email is a good solution. But, we're here to help. Exactly what email client are you using? I bet we can find a solution for you with the win-win of getting you more familiar with your software. Best regards, Jay West From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Mon Jun 26 17:33:46 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:33:46 +0100 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: Message-ID: In the grand tradition of UK-based internet messageboards I'm going to grab some popcorn and a keg of beer and watch this one unfold, because it's just going to get better and better :) Not trimmed *and* top-posted. I can feel people exploding as I type. /devil's advocate On 26/6/06 23:20, "Jim Isbell, W5JAI" wrote: > This is a ridiculous argument. Just shoot down mine as saying > "everyone else is doing it" and that makes yours right??? > > First, when I said this list was NOT the only one, it was because > there is ONE other that also does not identify itself...only one. But > the point was, not that most do, but that when MORE than one do not it > becomes a problem. If this was the only one then I could identify it > by the lack of a signature. But because this one and the Chunky Child > Mothers Porn site are the only two that dont identify themselves, I > just dont know which one I am opening. > > As someone said, a simple signature such as an "*" or an "^" would not > take away from the length of the subject enough to cause anyone a > problem. > > As far as identifying itself in the header, that really opens a can of > worms. If I allow my mail program to display the headers along with > the subject line in the download list then my 300 lines of test would > become 3000 lines of text since MANY messages come with headers with > multiple addresses in them. My software displays the entire header, > not just the address of the sender. > > On 6/26/06, Jay West wrote: >> Jim wrote.... >>> This is not the only list I have that doesent identify itself and it is >>> frustrating >>> when you dont know which list sent it. MOST lists have an identifying >>> signature in the subject line!!! >> >> As you say, ClassicCMP isn't the ONLY list you have that "doesn't identify >> itself"[1]. Perhaps there is a reason why we're not the only one. You're >> correct that most lists do have some text in the subject line, but I hardly >> think numbers alone is a cogent argument... that's the same logic that made >> windows the predominant OS these days ;) >> >> Jay West >> [1] I beg to differ with your characterization of ClassicCMP list traffic >> "not identifying itself". It actually does identify itself in a way that >> EVERY (yes, EVERY) mailing list identifies itself. Unlike the subject line >> tag, which not all lists do. It's just not identifying itself in the way >> your eyes are looking for. In fact, it's identifying itself in a less error >> prone manner that is much MORE common (actually, 100%, cause pretty much all >> lists have headers identifying the source). >> >> > -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 26 19:01:11 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 00:01:11 +0000 Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards In-Reply-To: <200606261530370532.15F863AA@10.0.0.252> References: <200606261352200564.159E68DD@10.0.0.252> <44A05E3D.3030603@yahoo.co.uk> <200606261530370532.15F863AA@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A07547.5040108@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/26/2006 at 10:22 PM Jules Richardson wrote: > >> If the same model bridge board with the same ROM is used though, I can't >> imagine it'd be a problem. [1] > > True, and if I had that situation, I'd probably just hook up a parallel > port and write a driver to wiggle the signals rather than try to fool with > the onboard ROM. Yes, that was my thought too - from memory, problem is that you really need more data lines than are available (I can't remember if you run out of inputs or outputs now) so it's not as trivial as an 8 bit data port and some SASI control lines; you end up having to latch control signals and it gets a bit messy :-( Two parallel ports would make life easy, and I'm tempted to go that route purely for my own situation - I just don't like the fact that it makes things less portable (so I can't take cable + software to the museum, say, and do archival work there) > I recall trying(out of idle curiosity) to see if an > Adaptec 1540 host adapter would recognize the OMTI card and the result, > IIRC, was that it wouldn't. Been there myself, and that's my recollection too. Newer Adaptecs aren't any 'better' in that respect. I think the couple of Future Domain boards I found still used Adaptec chipsets so also didn't work. That left the SCSI interface on my PAS16 sound card, but by that point I was fed up swapping boards around :-) cheers Jules From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 26 17:57:39 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 15:57:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PCWs 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060626225739.49044.qmail@web61023.mail.yahoo.com> > All I can say is that it can't be harder to make a > functional equivalent > chip (say in an FPGA) if you have the manuals, than > if you don't. OK, > there may not be _that_ much information in the tech > manual, but at least > you'll know the functions the chip performs, the > pinout, etc. Although the possibility intriques me to no end, rather then *attempt* to recreate the dopey chips in the 2000, I'd probably rather *attempt* to shoe-horn a whole different graphics subsystem in it's place. It's a totally vintage approach, in spirit anyway - no one actually LIKED having an MS-DOZE based puter that ran oh 25 or 30 programs. They did like the advanced capabilities though. Wouldn't it be lovely to have yer cake and eat it too. Trouble is, any graphics chip/s that have the same gusto as those dopey SMC things will be just as hard to find/replace. Nothing was quite as common as the 6845 (although it has been used in some things that sport 400 lines of resolution, IINM). The 7220 is somewhat more common, but still hard to find. > -tony > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jun 26 18:12:04 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:12:04 -0700 Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A069C4.4030601@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: > Yes, there are, of course, products that I know I will have to replace. > Like primary cells. And secondary cells (they have a limited number of > recharge cycles). And the toner cartridge in my laser printer (although I > would be annoyed if some mechanical part of that cartridge failed before > all the toner was used up. I also might try refilling it, particularly if > it was a hard/impossble-to-obtain one for a classic printer). Refilling toner cartridges is a real drag. Especially *color* cartridges! Nothing like coming home with your pants legs coated in "pink dust" (or "blue dust", etc.). Only to discover you also have pink *ears*, and parts of your blue fingernails, etc. (of course, this usually happens when you have postponed refilling the cartidges until you have SEVERAL to do and, as such, end up getting at least *one* of them all over yourself!) > PC keyboards, though, I do repair. Normally becuase they fail at an > inconvenient time (like on a satruday evening), and I can repair them > sooner than I can get a replacement. I used to repair them. It's a mindless activity. Almost "therapeutic". But, I found that it's easier to keep half a dozen on hand and discard any that get particularly annoying (*this* one is starting to miss lots of keystrokes so it -- and the laptop attached to it -- will soon find another home :< ). I met a guy, here, who "fixes" keyboards (which often means just giving them a good CLEANING) by throwing them in the swimming pool (!!) and then letting them dry out. Dunno. Somehow it seems easier to just discard them than risk that sort of ordeal... From jim.isbell at gmail.com Mon Jun 26 18:04:23 2006 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 18:04:23 -0500 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <021b01c69970$8b9ae950$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <019701c6996a$9b506c40$6500a8c0@BILLING> <021b01c69970$8b9ae950$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: OK, I am listening, is there a way for me to identify the different messages from two different lists as they present themselves when Gmail is opened. I dont consider sorting them into mail boxes a viable method because then I have to go to each mail box individually and sort them out there. I prefer just taking the list as it appears (usually about 250 to 400 posts), hitting the "Mark ALL" key then going down the left side and unmarking the few that I see where the subject interests me. At the bottom I hit "Delete All" to delete all those still left marked. Then I go back to look at the few I had unmarked. Its simple and does not involve the possibility that I might forget to check a particular "Box" or have to check ALL "Boxes" to see which received mail after the sort. I may be missing a "better way" but I doubt it. This one has evolved over the last three years and really works well. On 6/26/06, Jay West wrote: > Jim wrote.... > > This is a ridiculous argument. Just shoot down mine as saying > > "everyone else is doing it" and that makes yours right??? > I apologize, I must not have been clear. I was saying your statement that > ClassicCMP should tag the subject because every other list does was not a > great convincer. I was not at all saying classiccmp was right because > everyone else does it our way (which isn't correct, obviously, as you {and > I} stated). > > > But because this one and the Chunky Child Mothers Porn site are the only > > two that dont identify themselves, I just dont know which one I am > > opening. > I would think the subject lines by themselves would easily distinguish > between these two ;) I hope ;) > > > If I allow my mail program to display the headers along.... > Woah... no one said, inferred, nor suggested anything of the sort! I don't > think most would consider having to wade through headers on each email is a > good solution. But, we're here to help. Exactly what email client are you > using? I bet we can find a solution for you with the win-win of getting you > more familiar with your software. > > Best regards, > > Jay West > > -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space." From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 26 18:05:39 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:05:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060626230539.74329.qmail@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> > [PCjr] > But as regards 'loving it', well, I can safely say > it's not one of my > favourite machines... > > -tony I often tire of the massive # of units I'm compelled to keep around. I don't use them for much (don't use them at all lately). I long for a situation where I could hold onto say 1 or 2 (or 6?) classic machines. I don't see that day dawning anytime real soon though. But some pick 1 or a few puters, evidently due to some deep seated neuroses in all likelihood LOL LOL. The Peanut is as *suitable* for this approach then anything out there I'd have to say. I do have to admit that once I did crack the hood on my old beat up Peanut and saw THOSE CHIPS...I groaned inwardly. I then purposed to collect only machines for which all parts were *commonly* available. Then I found a *new* 2000. Then the Mindsets. Don't even know what's inside my Canon Cat. And the one thing the Jr has going for it is that enough of them were made to make parts replacement something less of a chore. For now anyway... __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 26 19:21:59 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 00:21:59 +0000 Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A07A27.9000600@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: >> But why anyone would want to set up something with an ST-412 interface on >> the far end at this late date is beyond me. > > The obvious reason is that you have a classic computer that uses one of > these boards with an ST412-interfaced hard disk hung off it [1] and you > want to make an image of that disk on an more modern system. > > [1] Many machines in the UK did this. Just looking around me, there's the > Acorn Cambridge Workstation, the PERQ 3a (AGW3300), the Torch XXX and In my case it's the RML fileserver that's the real priority as no OS or setup media's known for that one - things like the ACW, Torch XXX machines etc. I do at least have media for - but I'd still like to archive the drives in "as found" condition as they're ex-employee systems and so may have something interesting on there that I've overlooked. > Torch QaudX. Mine use SCSI drives luckily (although I gather it's more common for them to have ST506 drives and abridge board). I've only ever seen bridge boards on the XXX, though. It's a shame someone with the necessary electronics smarts can't whip up a ST506/412 ==> something (USB, parallel, PCI card, Ethernet, whatever) gadget that can access a drive at the raw signal level, then do the decoding in software to 'emulate' a particular ST506/412 disk controller. It's been talked about enough darn times on here :-) There are commercial devices to do it, but they're serious $$$... I bet there are a few people on here who could handle the hardware, and a few again that have the right software skills. I'm surprised there isn't more desire to get on and do it to be honest, given that a lot of us are clued-up about the importance of archiving other forms of media. cheers Jules From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jun 26 18:34:55 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:34:55 -0700 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <019701c6996a$9b506c40$6500a8c0@BILLING> <021b01c69970$8b9ae950$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <44A06F1F.3010601@DakotaCom.Net> Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > OK, I am listening, is there a way for me to identify the different > messages from two different lists as they present themselves when > Gmail is opened. I dont consider sorting them into mail boxes a > viable method because then I have to go to each mail box individually > and sort them out there. I prefer just taking the list as it appears > (usually about 250 to 400 posts), hitting the "Mark ALL" key then > going down the left side and unmarking the few that I see where the > subject interests me. At the bottom I hit "Delete All" to delete all > those still left marked. Then I go back to look at the few I had > unmarked. Its simple and does not involve the possibility that I > might forget to check a particular "Box" or have to check ALL "Boxes" > to see which received mail after the sort. Is this a web-based application? From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Jun 26 18:34:35 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 18:34:35 -0500 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <019701c6996a$9b506c40$6500a8c0@BILLING> <021b01c69970$8b9ae950$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <44A06F0B.7040405@oldskool.org> Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > Gmail is opened. I dont consider sorting them into mail boxes a ^^^^^ Found the problem. -- 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 rick at rickmurphy.net Mon Jun 26 18:52:06 2006 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 19:52:06 -0400 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <019701c6996a$9b506c40$6500a8c0@BILLING> <021b01c69970$8b9ae950$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20060626194658.02528518@rickmurphy.net> At 07:04 PM 6/26/2006, Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: >OK, I am listening, is there a way for me to identify the different >messages from two different lists as they present themselves when >Gmail is opened. Yes, for gmail. On top of your inbox listing there's a pair of buttons reading "Search Mail" and "Search the Web". Next to that is a "Create a filter" link. Click that. In the "To" Field, put "cctalk at classiccmp.org", then "Next step". Then, select "Apply the label" and pull down the "Choose label" list and pick "New Label". Put "cctech" as the new label name, click OK, then "Create Filter". Now all the subject lines for cctech posts will start with "cctech". -Rick/K1MU From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 26 18:57:30 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:57:30 -0700 Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards In-Reply-To: <44A07547.5040108@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200606261352200564.159E68DD@10.0.0.252> <44A05E3D.3030603@yahoo.co.uk> <200606261530370532.15F863AA@10.0.0.252> <44A07547.5040108@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200606261657300589.1647ED03@10.0.0.252> On 6/27/2006 at 12:01 AM Jules Richardson wrote: >Been there myself, and that's my recollection too. Newer Adaptecs aren't >any 'better' in that respect. I think the couple of Future Domain boards I >found still used Adaptec chipsets so also didn't work. That left the SCSI >interface on my PAS16 sound card, but by that point I was fed up swapping boards >around :-) Instead of that, why not take a really stupid SCSI card, say a Trantor/Adaptec T-130B with a 53c400 chip on it and just hack the Linux driver for it? Cheers, Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 26 20:14:47 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 01:14:47 +0000 Subject: bitsavers crawling? Message-ID: <44A08687.70405@yahoo.co.uk> anyone else having trouble accessing bitsavers in the last couple of days? transfers seem to be prone to massive slowdowns ( < 2KB/s ) from here (but other sites are fine). (I don't have Al's address handy or I'd ask direct if he's got some monster update going on or something) thanks J. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 26 19:09:21 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 01:09:21 +0100 (BST) Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards In-Reply-To: <44A07A27.9000600@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jun 27, 6 00:21:59 am Message-ID: > > Torch QaudX. > > Mine use SCSI drives luckily (although I gather it's more common for them to No QuadX configuration can be considered 'common', surely? > have ST506 drives and abridge board). I've only ever seen bridge boards on the > XXX, though. Actually, I think QaudX machines did generally have SCSI hard drives and a Manta board for the floppy (for the rst of the people here, Torch boards were named after water creatures, the mainboard in a XXX is a Stickleback, the memory expansion board for that is a Limpet, and so on). XXXes had either the Omti board (which linked to a floppy drive and an ST412 hard disk [1]) or the SCSI hard disk and a Manta. [1] The original Torch hard drives were NEC units, and they are well-known for developping stiction... -tony From fernande at internet1.net Mon Jun 26 19:12:55 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 20:12:55 -0400 Subject: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) In-Reply-To: <44A055A9.6090803@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44A055A9.6090803@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44A07807.8080000@internet1.net> Jules, If you have some idea on the gold value, make your opening bid slightly higher, and hope for at least one bidder. The gold scrappers are in it for the money..... if they can't make any money buying your card, they won't bid. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA Jules Richardson wrote: > Question is though, surely if I put it on ebay there's a fair chance > that a gold scrapper will get it rather than a computer enthusiast? What > do others normally do in such situations (or do they sell elsewhere?) From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 26 19:20:34 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 01:20:34 +0100 (BST) Subject: Question For The List In-Reply-To: <44A069C4.4030601@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jun 26, 6 04:12:04 pm Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > Yes, there are, of course, products that I know I will have to replace. > > Like primary cells. And secondary cells (they have a limited number of > > recharge cycles). And the toner cartridge in my laser printer (although I > > would be annoyed if some mechanical part of that cartridge failed before > > all the toner was used up. I also might try refilling it, particularly if > > it was a hard/impossble-to-obtain one for a classic printer). > > Refilling toner cartridges is a real drag. Especially *color* I know!. Even I don't normally do it, but I have taken old cartridges apart as part of figuring out just how the laser printer in question works ('Aha, that contact goes to the primary corona wire, that one to the drum gronnd', etc). I would consider rebuilding a cartridge if it was for a classic laserprinter for which cartridges were no longer available (like 'homebrew' [1] Canon CX-VDO on my PERQ) [1] This printer started out as a Canon LBP8-A1. A PAL chip (actually a HAL, which is a mask-programmed PAL) chip on the formatter board failed. Canon don't supply service information or parts (I later found I could have got a complete replacement board, but I doubt I could have afforded it). Anyway, thanks to Bob Davis and others, I found out that the PERQ could take a direct-drive ('video interface') laser printer that was based on the same engine. I managed to get an assortment of part-stuffed PERQ interface cards and the schematics for that, assembled one fully, took the printer apart into very little pieces, worked out how that worked, matched up signals, made cables, etc. And finally put it all together. No it didn't work. But it nearly did. After a bit of tracing, I found I'd missed a jumper wire off the interface board. Fitted that, it worked fine. After all that work, you can bet I am going to try and keep that going. It's like my HP45 calculator. That's a common-ish model anyway, and mine is worthless to a collector, it's got half the legends rubbed off, not all the display digits are the same size, the batter contacts are corroded, etc. But I built that machine from bits a friend was giving away -- A&R chip from one board, other chips from another board, PSU converter transsistor from the junk box, and so on. As such, it means a lot to me. > cartridges! Nothing like coming home with your pants legs > coated in "pink dust" (or "blue dust", etc.). Only to discover > you also have pink *ears*, and parts of your blue fingernails, > etc. It's time for the story fo the toner and the toilet :-). A friend of mine has an SX-engined printer, and he managed to convince me to show him how to take the cartridge apart (I'd already one one of mine, so I knew what came off in what order). Anyway after removing the outer casing and separaing the 2 sections from the drum, we came to the waste toner collector. And he decided to empty it -- into the toilet. It was at this point we discovered that toner floats on water, and wouldn't flush away. Fortunately, one of us had the idea to add washing up liquid. That produced the most amazing black foam that finally did flush away. > > (of course, this usually happens when you have postponed > refilling the cartidges until you have SEVERAL to do and, > as such, end up getting at least *one* of them all over > yourself!) > > > PC keyboards, though, I do repair. Normally becuase they fail at an > > inconvenient time (like on a satruday evening), and I can repair them > > sooner than I can get a replacement. > > I used to repair them. It's a mindless activity. Almost Depends on what's wrong with them. One of mine died when a PSU fell onto it. The PCB was crackd into several pieces. Amazingly there was a schematic on the box it had some in, which I'd cut out and filed, but it was incorrect (keys were not where they were shown in the matrix). That took an evening to sort out! -tony From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 26 19:25:16 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 17:25:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time Message-ID: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> >Has anyone ever compiled a list of IBM PC and PC/XT >compatibles for >historical purposes (outisde of the no-name Taiwanese >clones, that is)? There are sites that attempt to enumerate all of the things that used 8088s or 8086s. I purpose to start a website one of these days. Perhaps some space could be reserved to host submissions which would attempt to do that very thing. Ick who cares about compatibles though? ;) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 26 19:25:47 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 01:25:47 +0100 (BST) Subject: PCWs 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <20060626225739.49044.qmail@web61023.mail.yahoo.com> from "Chris M" at Jun 26, 6 03:57:39 pm Message-ID: > Although the possibility intriques me to no end, > rather then *attempt* to recreate the dopey chips in > the 2000, I'd probably rather *attempt* to shoe-horn a > whole different graphics subsystem in it's place. It's > a totally vintage approach, in spirit anyway - no one > actually LIKED having an MS-DOZE based puter that ran Surely the whole point of having a Tandy 2000 is that it runs Tandy 2000 software. If you want a PC-incompatible that has a 7220 as the graphics controller, get a Rainbow :-) [Yes, I know there are custom chips in the 'bow, but IIRC, they're also used in the VT100, so they're not that rare] Juat be glad it's not an HP150-II. That thing has 5 gate arrays in it, and IIRC thate's not that much documentation on them in the technical manual (which I do have). Come to think of it, the plain HP150 uses some SMC chip for the video, I can look up to see which it is if you like. > oh 25 or 30 programs. They did like the advanced Actually, I would like one, but Tandy 2000s are not at all common in the UK, and I can't afford the shipping on one from the States. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jun 26 19:33:11 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 01:33:11 +0100 (BST) Subject: PCW's 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <20060626230539.74329.qmail@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> from "Chris M" at Jun 26, 6 04:05:39 pm Message-ID: > I do have to admit that once I did crack the hood on > my old beat up Peanut and saw THOSE CHIPS...I groaned AFAIK, the only really custom part in the PCjr is the video gate array. There's a couple (?) of ROMs of course, but the rest of the stuff is standard. > inwardly. I then purposed to collect only machines for > which all parts were *commonly* available. Then I I tried to make that decision too. I avoided the early 80's home computers, with their ULAs, etc. And then the problems started. I had to have a BBC micro, right? Even though there are a pair of ULAs in it. And that led to be wanting, and eventually getting an ACW.... And I fell in love with HP machines, particularly desktop 'calculators'. The early ones -- 9100, 98x0, etc were OK. Just transistors, and then TTL and simple PROMs. The 9815 was a 6800 system, and I could fix that (apart from the thermal printhead hybrid). But the 9825, 9845 had custom hybrid processor modules, the 80 series are all custom chips, and so on. I reluctantly added them to the collection... The HP9000/200 series are OK (68000 + TTL + PALs + not too much else), the 9000/300s seem to have big ASICs in them next to the processor. Oh well... My justification is that they're beautiful machines, and if they fail there's always a chance I'll find another one with a different fault. Might as well enjoy them now -- but not depend on them. > found a *new* 2000. Then the Mindsets. Don't even know > what's inside my Canon Cat. And the one thing the Jr That worries me. How can you own a machine for more than an hour without cracking the case and seeing what all the chips are? -tony From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 26 19:42:32 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 17:42:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PCWs 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060627004232.8494.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> > Surely the whole point of having a Tandy 2000 is > that it runs Tandy 2000 > software. Eh there isn't too much stuph that runs on it that's 2000 specific. There was Lumena, but I'm sure that was offered for a real peecee (no doubt with a hi-res aftermarket card though, like a Sigma 400). I just got Lumena and a few other softwarez and hardwarez for the MindSet the other day. For the uninitiated, Lumena was basically just Paint. I used to have the 2000 version. I was thoroughly unimpressed lol. Some of us collect this stuph cuz it's what we owned back in the day. Again, do you think someone wouldn't want to run Starflight on their Tandy 2000? T2K specific versions aside (which are so hard to find), a 2000 with the equivalent of a Software Library Expander card that was offered for the NEC APC III (GOT IT!) would greatly increase it's interest and collectibility. The dude in Chicago who sent me a few T2Ks was a developer (or tried to be one) and in fact was working on a software mod that would give the 2000 full compatibility. Never finished it sadly, and seemingly none of the docs were included with the acquisition. Involved "spying" on chips and NMIing to replacement routines for the stuph in io.sys IIRC. Something strange like that. Very groovy too. > If you want a PC-incompatible that has a > 7220 as the graphics > controller, get a Rainbow :-) [Yes, I know there are > custom chips in the > 'bow, but IIRC, they're also used in the VT100, so > they're not that rare] Just one of the more common hi-res crtc's that came to mind. The NEC APC has them, 2 in fact (methinks). I do have a Rainbow, but it doesn't have the color option (or color graphics option?). The 7220 IS a worthy candidate for an FPGA recreation IMHO. > Juat be glad it's not an HP150-II. That thing has 5 > gate arrays in it, > and IIRC thate's not that much documentation on them > in the technical > manual (which I do have). Come to think of it, the > plain HP150 uses some > SMC chip for the video, I can look up to see which > it is if you like. Curious. I haven't focused on the HP 150* stuph to date. Don't know why. I used to use a number of their machines years ago. One day the bug'll byte me I suppose... > > oh 25 or 30 programs. They did like the advanced > > Actually, I would like one, but Tandy 2000s are not > at all common in the > UK, and I can't afford the shipping on one from the > States. yeah, and I want an RM Nimbus. If you don't have one, I really need to ask why not? As cool as the 2000, and from what I gather better made too. What do you figure it would cost to ship an average puter from shore to shore? I could live with ~$150 on some occasions, but more then that... > -tony __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From jrkeys at concentric.net Mon Jun 26 19:47:07 2006 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 19:47:07 -0500 Subject: bitsavers crawling? References: <44A08687.70405@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <007c01c69983$39104190$06406b43@66067007> I had the same problem today at work using a T1 line it took over 3 hours to download 25MB and it blow up before finishing. I tried several times and after 8 hours could not download it. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jules Richardson" To: ; "Discussion at cnc.net:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, June 26, 2006 8:14 PM Subject: bitsavers crawling? > > anyone else having trouble accessing bitsavers in the last couple of days? > transfers seem to be prone to massive slowdowns ( < 2KB/s ) from here (but > other sites are fine). > > (I don't have Al's address handy or I'd ask direct if he's got some > monster update going on or something) > > thanks > > J. > > From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Mon Jun 26 19:48:49 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 17:48:49 -0700 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <021b01c69970$8b9ae950$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com><200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org><019701c6996a$9b506c40$6500a8c0@BILLING> <021b01c69970$8b9ae950$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <44A08071.70307@msm.umr.edu> Jay West wrote: he is on gmail. Unless there is a way to get to the headers I don't know about, gmail is useless. He sorts his gmail by subject then highlights ranges to get them sorted by list. I am not a gmail fan, but what are you going to do if you aren't paying anything for it, and that is what mail is worth to you. He may be using a pop client, but I haven't read enough of yours and his threads to see if that is so. Gmail's interface is fast and cheep which is okay for the price, but I don't care for it. I already have my own domain and pop3 to mozilla, so i use mozilla and filter on who sent me the email (I use sent to "feedme at cctalk.com). if it is there, off into the cctalk bucket. anyway, that may be his problem, or not. jim From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jun 26 21:13:10 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 02:13:10 +0000 Subject: preservation: linux and ST506/412 - SCSI bridge boards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A09436.20405@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: >>> Torch QaudX. >> Mine use SCSI drives luckily (although I gather it's more common for them to > > No QuadX configuration can be considered 'common', surely? true. Although I believe only the later ones generally got SCSI drives - earlier ones had bridge boards fitted and lower-capacity ST506 drives. > a Manta board for the floppy (for the rst of the people here, Torch > boards were named after water creatures, the mainboard in a XXX is a > Stickleback, the memory expansion board for that is a Limpet, and so on). The never-happened QuadX memory board was to be called Mussel, by the way. > XXXes had either the Omti board (which linked to a floppy drive and an > ST412 hard disk [1]) or the SCSI hard disk and a Manta. I *think* they'll work with anything. There's a flag in the first sector on the drive that says which bridge board is being used (or cleared if the unit's pure SCSI). I suppose at boot time the firmware pulls the first block off the disk, sets the drive geometry on the bridge board accordingly, and from then on they all work the same way. In practice, I think they all got Omti boards as you say. There were a handful of Emulex, Adaptec and Xebec bridges amongst all my ex-workshop stock though, so they obviously played around with them at least. > [1] The original Torch hard drives were NEC units, and they are > well-known for developping stiction... Yep. I had a couple with that problem this last week when I was digging around my Torch stuff. Luckily the spindles are exposed on the underside; they're not completely sealed units and so can be given a helping hand. cheers Jules From spc at conman.org Mon Jun 26 20:17:14 2006 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:17:14 -0400 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <019701c6996a$9b506c40$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <20060627011714.GA24835@linus.groomlake.area51> It was thus said that the Great Jim Isbell, W5JAI once stated: > > First, when I said this list was NOT the only one, it was because > there is ONE other that also does not identify itself...only one. But > the point was, not that most do, but that when MORE than one do not it > becomes a problem. If this was the only one then I could identify it > by the lack of a signature. But because this one and the Chunky Child > Mothers Porn site are the only two that dont identify themselves, I > just dont know which one I am opening. I'm on another list that doesn't identify itself on the subject line (http://we.hates-software.com/) so that's at least three lists on the Internet that doesn't munge the Subject line. > As far as identifying itself in the header, that really opens a can of > worms. If I allow my mail program to display the headers along with > the subject line in the download list then my 300 lines of test would > become 3000 lines of text since MANY messages come with headers with > multiple addresses in them. My software displays the entire header, > not just the address of the sender. Can you not select the headers you wish to see? The one I key off for each mailing list is List-Id:. I think even elm will allow you to select which headers you want to see, and I was using *that* way back in 1988 (and I only in the past month or so switched to mutt). -spc (Who got to recognize the members of this list by sight ... ) From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jun 26 20:26:56 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 20:26:56 -0500 Subject: bitsavers crawling? References: <44A08687.70405@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <008401c69988$c7a37c60$6500a8c0@BILLING> Jules wrote.... > anyone else having trouble accessing bitsavers in the last couple of days? > transfers seem to be prone to massive slowdowns ( < 2KB/s ) from here (but > other sites are fine). Well, the first and most obvious question is - which mirror were you trying to pull the files from? If it was the local bitsavers on classiccmp... Quest had a "bad hair day" and dropped a router. As it happens, the way they re-routed stuff, traffic to me (and many others) in St. Louis was routed oddly - like... washington or something. In any case, there were drops and now there is delays during the re-route. The last status I got from about 2 hours ago was "we should have it fixed and back to routing as normal in a few hours". Of course, if you were using any of the many many mirrors, this wouldn't have been the issue. Did you try a mirror? Jay West From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jun 26 20:28:06 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 20:28:06 -0500 Subject: bitsavers crawling? References: <44A08687.70405@yahoo.co.uk> <007c01c69983$39104190$06406b43@66067007> Message-ID: <008901c69988$f12825e0$6500a8c0@BILLING> You wrote.... >I had the same problem today at work using a T1 line it took over 3 hours >to download 25MB and it blow up before finishing. > I tried several times and after 8 hours could not download it. See previous email.... but what mirror were you pulling the 25mb from? Also, if someone wants more than a few files, please let me know off-list. I'd be happy to go burn them on CD from the server rather than give up cash for bandwidth overages :) Jay West From wmaddox at pacbell.net Mon Jun 26 20:40:25 2006 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 18:40:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) In-Reply-To: <44A07807.8080000@internet1.net> Message-ID: <20060627014026.47540.qmail@web81303.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- C Fernandez wrote: > Jules, > > If you have some idea on the gold value, make your > opening bid slightly > higher, and hope for at least one bidder. The gold > scrappers are in it > for the money..... if they can't make any money > buying your card, they > won't bid. This assumes they have the experience to judge the value correctly. I've watched several bidders snap up circuit boards for much more than their gold value, but who were obviously scrappers -- their feedback history showed gold jewelry, coins, reclamation chemicals, how-to books, etc. There are apparently folks out there who are promoting and selling supplies for small-scale backyard gold recovery, and the people who are into this don't necessarily know what they are doing. --Bill From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jun 26 21:03:58 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:03:58 -0500 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com><200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org><019701c6996a$9b506c40$6500a8c0@BILLING><021b01c69970$8b9ae950$6500a8c0@BILLING> <7.0.1.0.2.20060626194658.02528518@rickmurphy.net> Message-ID: <00ce01c6998d$f49ce800$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Jim had written.... >>OK, I am listening, is there a way for me to identify the different >>messages from two different lists as they present themselves when >>Gmail is opened. To which Rick replied.... > Yes, for gmail. > On top of your inbox listing ...snip... Now all the subject lines for > cctech posts will start with "cctech". Wow, awesome Rick! Sounds like "problem solved". WTG Jay From teoz at neo.rr.com Mon Jun 26 21:17:14 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 22:17:14 -0400 Subject: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) References: <20060627014026.47540.qmail@web81303.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00cb01c6998f$d0bc4410$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Maddox" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, June 26, 2006 9:40 PM Subject: Re: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) > --- C Fernandez wrote: > This assumes they have the experience to judge the > value correctly. I've watched several bidders snap up > circuit boards for much more than their gold value, > but who were obviously scrappers -- their feedback > history showed gold jewelry, coins, reclamation > chemicals, how-to books, etc. There are apparently > folks out there who are promoting and selling supplies > for small-scale backyard gold recovery, and the people > who are into this don't necessarily know what they are > doing. > > --Bill How would you even know the gold content in a chip, its not like Intel used to list it next to voltage and processor speed? Do these guys have charts for each processor? From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jun 26 21:17:53 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 22:17:53 -0400 Subject: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) In-Reply-To: <20060627014026.47540.qmail@web81303.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <44A07807.8080000@internet1.net> <20060627014026.47540.qmail@web81303.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > This assumes they have the experience to judge the > value correctly. I've watched several bidders snap up > circuit boards for much more than their gold value, > but who were obviously scrappers -- their feedback > history showed gold jewelry, coins, reclamation > chemicals, how-to books, etc. There are apparently > folks out there who are promoting and selling supplies > for small-scale backyard gold recovery, and the people > who are into this don't necessarily know what they are > doing. Yes, but there is the flip side of the gold coin... Do you (or most others on this list) have the experience to the judge the value carefully? Sometimes there can be a lot of gold hidden inside plain jane looking electronics. Sometimes not. Also, the gold market is a funny thing, and is very high these days. A few months ago the Indonesians were so desperate for gold they were paying well above market value for scrap. -- Will From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jun 26 21:21:12 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:21:12 -0500 Subject: someone is looking for CPM-86 Message-ID: <013501c69990$5cef12f0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Someone emailed me.... "I am looking for a RAW disk image of CPM-86 1.0 or 1.1 for the IBM PC" If anyone can help him, please email me directly. Jay West From jim.isbell at gmail.com Mon Jun 26 21:38:11 2006 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:38:11 -0500 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <44A08071.70307@msm.umr.edu> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <019701c6996a$9b506c40$6500a8c0@BILLING> <021b01c69970$8b9ae950$6500a8c0@BILLING> <44A08071.70307@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: I switched to Gmail after a couple of HD crashes that destroyed my email archives. Gmail stores it on their HD...actually on several to give back up and I have 3 GB of storage for the email and its free. Now when the HD crashes...or I switch providers...I still have ALL my email, addresses and archives and addresses. On 6/26/06, jim stephens wrote: > Jay West wrote: > > he is on gmail. Unless there is a way to get to the headers I don't know > about, gmail is useless. > > He sorts his gmail by subject then highlights ranges to get them sorted > by list. > > I am not a gmail fan, but what are you going to do if you aren't paying > anything for it, and that is what mail is worth to you. > > He may be using a pop client, but I haven't read enough of yours > and his threads to see if that is so. Gmail's interface is fast and cheep > which is okay for the price, but I don't care for it. > > I already have my own domain and pop3 to mozilla, so i use > mozilla and filter on who sent me the email (I use sent > to "feedme at cctalk.com). if it is there, off into the cctalk bucket. > > anyway, that may be his problem, or not. > > jim > -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space." From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jun 26 21:38:48 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 19:38:48 -0700 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> On 6/26/2006 at 5:25 PM Chris M wrote: > There are sites that attempt to enumerate all of the >things that used 8088s or 8086s. I purpose to start a >website one of these days. Perhaps some space could be >reserved to host submissions which would attempt to do >that very thing. > Ick who cares about compatibles though? ;) Say ick all you want, but from a historical point of view, it's significant. Consider that both IBM and Apple were in the personal computer business and that both at one time, had a majority share of their market segments. IBM, not really understanding either the impact that the PC made nor the competitive threat from Asia, went along for a time as if it was the only game in town. I think when the PS/2 came out and very few in the market saluted, that it finally sank in. >From the standpoint purely of corporate strategy, the phenomenon of clones--that IBM didn't fight them and Apple did--and the eventual outcome is pretty interesting. Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Jun 26 21:51:59 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 22:51:59 -0400 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <019701c6996a$9b506c40$6500a8c0@BILLING> <021b01c69970$8b9ae950$6500a8c0@BILLING> <44A08071.70307@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <44A09D4F.9080600@gmail.com> Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > I switched to Gmail after a couple of HD crashes that destroyed my > email archives. Gmail stores it on their HD...actually on several to > give back up and I have 3 GB of storage for the email and its free. > Now when the HD crashes...or I switch providers...I still have ALL my > email, addresses and archives and addresses. I use an IMAP account. The server's run by a friend of mine, and I basically get 100GB for free. And the machine is RAID'ed and backed up constantly. Peace... Sridhar From wmaddox at pacbell.net Mon Jun 26 21:53:47 2006 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 19:53:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060627025347.1550.qmail@web81307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- William Donzelli wrote: > Do you (or most others on this list) have the > experience to the judge > the value carefully? > > Sometimes there can be a lot of gold hidden inside > plain jane looking > electronics. Sometimes not. The boards in question were standard DEC M-series, with vanilla TTL parts. No gold plating except the edge connector, and whatever was used inside the plastic DIPs. He paid $50 a board for a few quad or hex-width boards. I really couldn't tell you what the gold is worth, but I have a good idea how much I have to offer for certain kinds of boards to pry them away from someone who does. --Bill From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jun 26 21:56:14 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 19:56:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060626195024.Y56648@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 26 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > This seems to be a way for me to end up with a large pile of broken > scanners that I won't throw out, becuase they _might_ be repairable one > day, and anyway they contain bits that might come in handy (the stepper > motor if nothing else..). But then again I am terminally short of space... they stack use them as bricks to build an extra storage shed? > I also don't have the time (or inclination) to keep on tinkering with > software (drivers, etc) every time I need to replace the scanner... unless you replace with the same model . . . BTW, would you want or need? : Cordata interface card for CX direct (software refuses to even try to run with > 8088) EiconScript board for CX (postscript and Laserjet emulation, will work with 286) JLASER board for CX From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jun 26 22:11:35 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:11:35 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Repairing damage [was Re: Question For The List] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606270315.XAA01090@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> I used to repair [peecee keybaords]. It's a mindless activity. > Depends on what's wrong with them. One of mine died when a PSU fell > onto it. The PCB was crackd into several pieces. [...] This reminds me of one of the repairs I'm proudest of. Back in the late '70s, early '80s, sometime like that, back a little after the very first home videogames came out (I'm talking Pong era here), my father and I often scrounged at the local dump. One year, along about December 27th or so, we found such a game which had a big break right across it, as if it had been run over with a bicycle or had a pipe-frame chair crush it or some such. It proved to be a single-sided pc board, and no components were cracked, just the board. I spent an hour or so solder-bridging the broken etch runs, built a new case for mechanical support, and voila, a working game! /~\ 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 wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jun 26 22:17:30 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:17:30 -0400 Subject: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) In-Reply-To: <00cb01c6998f$d0bc4410$0b01a8c0@game> References: <20060627014026.47540.qmail@web81303.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <00cb01c6998f$d0bc4410$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: > > How would you even know the gold content in a chip, its not like Intel used > to list it next to voltage and processor speed? > Do these guys have charts for each processor? Experience. There are lots and lots of general rules, like older AMD EPROMS generally have lots of gold, but equivalent Intels do not. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jun 26 22:22:20 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:22:20 -0400 Subject: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) In-Reply-To: <20060627025347.1550.qmail@web81307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060627025347.1550.qmail@web81307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > The boards in question were standard DEC M-series, > with vanilla TTL parts. No gold plating except the > edge connector, and whatever was used inside the > plastic DIPs. Older plastic DIPs? Guess what... Even with modern SOICs, there are a few bucks per pound in vanilla. CERDIPs? More than a few bucks per pound. > He paid $50 a board for a few quad or > hex-width boards. That is quite high - more than scrap. Who knows. > I really couldn't tell you what the gold is worth, but > I have a good idea how much I have to offer for > certain kinds of boards to pry them away from someone > who does. It is very good to know what you are up against. -- Will From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jun 26 22:36:38 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 20:36:38 -0700 Subject: Repairing damage [was Re: Question For The List] In-Reply-To: <200606270315.XAA01090@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200606270315.XAA01090@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44A0A7C6.6090507@DakotaCom.Net> der Mouse wrote: > This reminds me of one of the repairs I'm proudest of. > > Back in the late '70s, early '80s, sometime like that, back a little > after the very first home videogames came out (I'm talking Pong era > here), my father and I often scrounged at the local dump. One year, > along about December 27th or so, we found such a game which had a big > break right across it, as if it had been run over with a bicycle or had > a pipe-frame chair crush it or some such. > > It proved to be a single-sided pc board, and no components were > cracked, just the board. I spent an hour or so solder-bridging the > broken etch runs, built a new case for mechanical support, and voila, a > working game! Heh heh heh... friend dropped her TV (in 1987). I got the call: "Can you fix it?" The corner of the PCB that supports the flyback had snapped right off. Thankfully, nice big foils so laying "untwisted" stranded wire across each broken land with a *big* soldering iron (to heat up all that extra Cu) solved that problem. TV is running to this day! ;-) From teoz at neo.rr.com Mon Jun 26 22:27:51 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:27:51 -0400 Subject: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) References: <20060627025347.1550.qmail@web81307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00ec01c69999$ad52ab40$0b01a8c0@game> If gold is currently $580 or so an ounce purified and in the form of a gold coin, how much would an ounce of gold scrap in the form of chips and circuit boards be worth if you tried to sell it? Just wondering how many peoples hands the stuff has to go through ( and make a profit to) to get to the shiny gold bar or the gold coin 99.999% purity that is $580 on the spot market. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Jun 26 22:33:41 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 20:33:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: wire wrap boards Message-ID: All this talk about gold made me think of a recent purchase. I bought a pair of VME wire-wrap boards with the intent of using them to make a homebrewed CPU. Unfortunately they're too short my card cage (which is 220mm deep). These cards are 160mm deep. Anyone interested? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jun 26 22:49:11 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 20:49:11 -0700 Subject: wire wrap boards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A0AAB7.3070200@DakotaCom.Net> David Griffith wrote: > All this talk about gold made me think of a recent purchase. I bought a > pair of VME wire-wrap boards with the intent of using them to make a > homebrewed CPU. Unfortunately they're too short my card cage (which is > 220mm deep). These cards are 160mm deep. > > Anyone interested? Are they a "universal" layout? Or, just a bunch of 14/16/24/etc. pin sites? From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Jun 26 23:12:15 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:12:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: wire wrap boards In-Reply-To: <44A0AAB7.3070200@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A0AAB7.3070200@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: On Mon, 26 Jun 2006, Don Y wrote: > David Griffith wrote: > > All this talk about gold made me think of a recent purchase. I bought a > > pair of VME wire-wrap boards with the intent of using them to make a > > homebrewed CPU. Unfortunately they're too short my card cage (which is > > 220mm deep). These cards are 160mm deep. > > > > Anyone interested? > > Are they a "universal" layout? Or, just a bunch of > 14/16/24/etc. pin sites? About a third of it is a solid grid of pins. The rest is composed strips of DIP sites with voltage and ground running in the middle of those strips. Nothing is bussed. Both are populated with stuff that makes me think "broadcasting". Here's a rough chip inventory: 74als244 x 10 74als377 x 10 74als521 x 5 74als52 x 2 pal22v10-15pc x 6 -- 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 mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jun 26 23:43:56 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 00:43:56 -0400 (EDT) Subject: In response to overwhelming demand... In-Reply-To: <004a01c68eb3$3acf4470$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <004a01c68eb3$3acf4470$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <200606270445.AAA11774@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > I changed the style to traditional black text on a white background, *groan* This has got to be just about the last place I would have expected to find reverse video called "traditional". Sic transit gloria mundi. /~\ 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 ploopster at gmail.com Tue Jun 27 00:21:47 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 01:21:47 -0400 Subject: In response to overwhelming demand... In-Reply-To: <200606270445.AAA11774@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <004a01c68eb3$3acf4470$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <200606270445.AAA11774@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44A0C06B.1030207@gmail.com> der Mouse wrote: >> I changed the style to traditional black text on a white background, > > *groan* This has got to be just about the last place I would have > expected to find reverse video called "traditional". Indeed. I would consider only green-on-black to be traditional. Peace... Sridhar From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Jun 27 00:47:18 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 01:47:18 -0400 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> Message-ID: <200606270147.18861.rtellason@verizon.net> On Monday 26 June 2006 11:02 am, Richard Hadsell wrote: > I find it difficult to distinguish some cctalk messages from spam. The > From: could be anyone, and the Subject: is not always technical enough > to recognize. Could your mailer add '[cctalk]' to every subject, if it > is not already there? This would also enable a filter to send the > message to a cctalk folder. It's a technique that I have seen with > other e-mail lists, and I like it. I just checked my filters, as I already have mail for this list going to its own folder, and the filter is looking ad "list-id". Dunno what you're using, but it works 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 Steven_R_Hutchins at raytheon.com Mon Jun 26 06:21:55 2006 From: Steven_R_Hutchins at raytheon.com (Steven_R_Hutchins at raytheon.com) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 07:21:55 -0400 Subject: backing up PAL chips In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I use a program called jed2ahdl.exe to convert fuse maps ( jedec files) to equations. It works well and I have used it for years. There is one other that I use called Opal Jr. If anyone is in need of converting jedecs contact me offline. Hutch ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Sent by: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org 06/25/2006 06:53 PM Please respond to "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" To cctalk at classiccmp.org cc Subject Re: backing up PAL chips > > what's the most sensible format for backing up PAL chips such that > > they can be recreated on a different system to that which they were > > backed up on? [...] > > jedec > > both jdec and fusemaps are likely to be of most use. The jedec format is the normal one for PALs/GALs. Any reasonable PAL programmer would be able to make use of that (provided, of course, your programmer outputs a standard jedec file :-)) > While you have possible access to a functional device, or > perhaps schematics and the like you might want to be sure > you decompile the pals back to equations so that you could > use an equivalent in a future design. It is _very_ easy (given the data sheet on the PAL) to turn a fuse map or jedec file (which contain the same information) back into the equations. Of course you won't be able to give the right names to the signals, but you can produce equations. Basically, a PAL is a programmable AND matrix followed by a fixed OR matrix. A (fictional?, but it's close to the 10L8) example might have 10 input pins and 8 output pins. Each output is the logical NOR (OR followed by inverter) of 8 internal 'product terms'. Each product term is the logical AND of some of the inputs and their inverses, that 'some' is what you select when you program the PAL. There are 2 'fuses' (progammable bits, originally, they really were fuses that you burnt when you programmed the PAL) associated with each input/product term combination (so in this example, since we have 10 inputs, and a total of 64 product terms (8 for each of 8 outputs), there are a total of 64*2*10 = 1280 fuses). The 4 combinations of the fuses select the following 4 possibilities : That input is not used in that product term That input is ANDed into that product term That input is inverted and ANDed into that product term That product term is forced to 0 (basically, the input and its inverse are ANDed into the product term). So, given the fuse map, you can easily recreate the product terms. Since you know the fixed part of the chip (The OR matrix, inverters, etc), you can recreate the equations, albeit in a non-minimised form. At least free [1] version of PALASM came with a program to do this, called JED2EQN IIRC. It was supposed to accept a file giving the signal names for the pins which it would then substitute into the equations, I could never get this to work. I used to feed the output through sed(1).... [1] That's free as in beer, alas. It didn't cost anything, but was an MS-DOS executable only. -tony From sdc695 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 26 15:04:10 2006 From: sdc695 at yahoo.com (Tom Watson) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 13:04:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Looking for a paper tape reader/writer Message-ID: <20060626200410.52579.qmail@web60824.mail.yahoo.com> ---ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) says: > For the punch, I'd recommend a Facit 4070. They're relatively common I > think, easy to maintain, and fairly simple. The basic interface is an 8 > bit parallel one which can be linked to a PC with a little logic, there > was also an internal RS232/current loop card [1] and I believe I read > about an IEEE-488 card, but I've never seen one. I got one of the Facit punches off of Ebay. It works quite well. I built up an interface "adapter" that fits in a wire jumper box that has a couple of DB-25's (make & female). The circuit needed a single 7400 NAND gate, and a couple of zener diodes, but now my printer port drives the punch with NO software modifications. The interface wasn't that complicated, and I had to mush the parts together inside the adapter box, but it is just fine. I connected it up to my Linux box and 'cat /dev/lp' does the trick. Be aware: The Facit 4070 comes in two versions the 'DTL' version and the 'TTL' version. The signal levels are a bit different. The TTL version is the later one, and has easier level signals. Mine was the DTL one and needs some clamping zener diodes to make it all work. If you do get one with a serial option, note that it will probably cost a bit more (I've seen $100). Without is much cheaper. The schematics are on bitsavers. You might want to print them out on large (11x17 inch) paper they look nicer that way. As for the reader, that is another story. I got some off of eBay as well, but I have yet to get them all interfaced up. The PeeCee really has no general input port (with controls and the like). -- Tom Watson tsw at johana.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 27 01:27:36 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:27:36 -0700 Subject: In response to overwhelming demand... In-Reply-To: <44A0C06B.1030207@gmail.com> References: <004a01c68eb3$3acf4470$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <200606270445.AAA11774@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A0C06B.1030207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200606262327360963.17AD1151@10.0.0.252> On 6/27/2006 at 1:21 AM Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >Indeed. I would consider only green-on-black to be traditional. I had a brief fling with orange-on-black (somehow called "amber"). The recent talk about terminals reminded me of a terminal I evaluated sometime around 1979. I think it was by Tandberg, but I could be wrong--all I remember is that it was of Swedish manufacture. Probably one of the nicest terminals I'd ever seen. Everything on it was ergonomically engineered. The screen could be positioned any way you could imagine; the keytops were colored according to function and the contrast of the display was controlled. The other thing I recall is that it was one of the most expensive terminals I'd ever run across. The Volvo of terminals. Anyone care to fill me in on what the thing was--and if anyone ever used them. Tandberg sticks in my mind because the same salesman dropped off a 9 track tape drive for evaluation that was definitely a Tandberg. Cheers, Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 27 05:34:43 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 10:34:43 +0000 Subject: bitsavers crawling? In-Reply-To: <008401c69988$c7a37c60$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <44A08687.70405@yahoo.co.uk> <008401c69988$c7a37c60$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <44A109C3.6070903@yahoo.co.uk> Jay West wrote: > Of course, if you were using any of the many many mirrors, this wouldn't > have been the issue. Did you try a mirror? *cough* ummm.. Jim asked me the same question privately just after I posted, which reminded me that there *were* mirrors (I don't use bitsavers that often, valuable resource though it is, so have only ever gone to the main site) - I'd gone in via a link to the document area I was interested in, otherwise I would have seen the mirrors list and thought: "aha!" :-) (Actually, a "site slow? try one of our mirrors" link at the top of each page might not be a bad idea if easily done, assuming others are as forgetful as me and also have areas of the site that they're interested in directly bookmarked such that they don't go via the main page) Anyway, yeah. Mirrors. Good point. Oops. :-) cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 27 07:07:01 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:07:01 +0000 Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 Message-ID: <44A11F65.6080600@yahoo.co.uk> I've got some equipment here that has RS422 serial on it - i.e. it uses differential signal pairs rather than RS232's reference against ground. Question is, can I wire up a cable so that I can use an RS232 terminal with this RS422 equipment? (running over a short distance) Looking at the schematics, I think it's possible, with signals mapping to: RS422 RS232 RXD- GND RXD+ RX TXD- no connection? TXD+ TX CTS- GND CTS+ CTS BSY- no connection BSY+ RTS ... but I don't know if I should ground TXD-, or indeed one web site I saw suggested that TXD- should be used as the signal and TXD+ is actually the reference. I suspect that one or other should be left floating and the other pin of the pair forms the 'real' TXD in RS232-speak. Obviously I need to swap signals for communications to work (RX -> TX, TX -> RX etc.) :-) CTS- and BUSY- aren't actually brought out to the comms port on the equipment at all; CTS- is currently jumpered to ground internally, and BUSY- is left floating and brought to a test point on the PCB. RXD- is also currently jumpered to ground, which suggests that I can indeed connect TX on the RS232 terminal to RXD+ on the equipment and expect that side of things to work - I'm just not sure what I need to do with the TXD+/TXD- signal pair (which one actually connects to RX on the terminal end) (the actual comms chip is a 6551A, then the receiver for RXD and CTS is a 26LS32 and the driver for TXD and BSY is 26LS30) cheers Jules From bpope at wordstock.com Tue Jun 27 06:08:42 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 07:08:42 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060627110842.5EDB25840D@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Jim Isbell, W5JAI > > First, when I said this list was NOT the only one, it was because > there is ONE other that also does not identify itself...only one. But > the point was, not that most do, but that when MORE than one do not it > becomes a problem. If this was the only one then I could identify it > by the lack of a signature. But because this one and the Chunky Child > Mothers Porn site are the only two that dont identify themselves, I > just dont know which one I am opening. > The cbm-hackers mailing list does not identify itself in the Subject line... Cheers, Bryan From Richard.Cini at wachovia.com Tue Jun 27 07:01:39 2006 From: Richard.Cini at wachovia.com (Cini, Richard) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 08:01:39 -0400 Subject: Uncrunching files with invalid characters Message-ID: All: I'm working on re-archiving the CPMUG ARKives into ZIP files and I've encountered a few files with filenames containing invalid characters in DOS (primarily the "/" character). I can extract with wildcards but the de-archiver (arce40g) doesn't seem to allow renaming on extraction, so I can't extract and rename at the same time. Any idea on how do accomplish this? Rich From williams.dan at gmail.com Tue Jun 27 07:05:48 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 13:05:48 +0100 Subject: Alpha Openvms Message-ID: <26c11a640606270505w7376defdq5f997afe85c755d0@mail.gmail.com> I have got hold of an Alpha would anyone be able to put an image of either the install cd or the hobby cd somewhere I could download it. I have the spl but can't find the OS disk. Thanks in advance Dan From Hans.Franke at siemens.com Tue Jun 27 07:12:31 2006 From: Hans.Franke at siemens.com (Hans Franke) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:12:31 +0200 Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 In-Reply-To: <44A11F65.6080600@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44A13CCF.10068.48B66B42@localhost> Am 27 Jun 2006 12:07 meinte Jules Richardson: > I've got some equipment here that has RS422 serial on it - i.e. it uses > differential signal pairs rather than RS232's reference against ground. > Question is, can I wire up a cable so that I can use an RS232 terminal with > this RS422 equipment? (running over a short distance) YMMV <- maybe the most apropriate US abrevation :)) It's for shure outside the specs it may or it may not work. Usualy I'd recommend using a nice 8 Pin Max 3462. It's just 3 Bucks and will remove a lot of possible debugging. Beside that, your cable looks fine. Sill, the 422 Specs define +/- 2 V as low and +/- 6V as high for the sender side and +/- 0.2V as minimum for receiving circuits. > (the actual comms chip is a 6551A, then the receiver for RXD and CTS is a > 26LS32 and the driver for TXD and BSY is 26LS30) Use a Max3462 Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 8.0 am 28/29.April 2007 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/ From Hans.Franke at siemens.com Tue Jun 27 07:12:31 2006 From: Hans.Franke at siemens.com (Hans Franke) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:12:31 +0200 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <200606270147.18861.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> Message-ID: <44A13CCF.17037.48B669FA@localhost> On Monday 26 June 2006 11:02 am, Richard Hadsell wrote: > I find it difficult to distinguish some cctalk messages from spam. The > From: could be anyone, and the Subject: is not always technical enough > to recognize. Could your mailer add '[cctalk]' to every subject, if it > is not already there? This would also enable a filter to send the > message to a cctalk folder. It's a technique that I have seen with > other e-mail lists, and I like it. I always think of such peglegs as subject line SPAM. It takes away usefull information espacialy at the point I peek first, and replaces it by useless repitation. To identify the list, the Sender: and List-ID: lines are already quite usable. Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 8.0 am 28/29.April 2007 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/ From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Tue Jun 27 07:28:55 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 13:28:55 +0100 Subject: Uncrunching files with invalid characters In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A12487.5050901@dsl.pipex.com> Cini, Richard wrote: > I'm working on re-archiving the CPMUG ARKives into ZIP files > and I've encountered a few files with filenames containing invalid > characters in DOS (primarily the "/" character). I can extract with > wildcards but the de-archiver (arce40g) doesn't seem to allow renaming > on extraction, so I can't extract and rename at the same time. > Any idea on how do accomplish this? How about hexediting the ARK files, or writing a little program to go through them, read in the filenames and make them DOS compatible? I'd probably do the latter. I think the ARK format might be on . -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From Hans.Franke at siemens.com Tue Jun 27 07:36:59 2006 From: Hans.Franke at siemens.com (Hans Franke) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:36:59 +0200 Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 (Add on) In-Reply-To: <44A11F65.6080600@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44A1428B.20598.48CCD098@localhost> One more: If you don't want to use a Max3462 a little converter-circuit would be fine: RS232-EQ GND -----#------------------------------------------------------- GND TX -----+------------------------------------------------------- RX- '------------------------------------------------------- RX+ RX ---, ,--XXXXXXX---------------------------------- TX- \| | 100 Ohm ,------------------------------- TX- |-----------# | *| | | / V | | --- | | | | '-------------'-----------' # -> connection | V -> Diode --- | Log time since I did Ascii drawings :) Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 8.0 am 28/29.April 2007 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/ From williams.dan at gmail.com Tue Jun 27 07:36:18 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 13:36:18 +0100 Subject: Alpha Openvms In-Reply-To: <26c11a640606270505w7376defdq5f997afe85c755d0@mail.gmail.com> References: <26c11a640606270505w7376defdq5f997afe85c755d0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <26c11a640606270536s3b4b00d3q61a08906b116861e@mail.gmail.com> On 27/06/06, Dan Williams wrote: > I have got hold of an Alpha would anyone be able to put an image of > either the install cd or the hobby cd somewhere I could download it. I > have the spl but can't find the OS disk. > > Thanks in advance > Dan > Sorted now thanks Dan From Richard.Cini at wachovia.com Tue Jun 27 07:46:56 2006 From: Richard.Cini at wachovia.com (Cini, Richard) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 08:46:56 -0400 Subject: Uncrunching files with invalid characters Message-ID: Philip: I just tired this method and it works pretty well. All you have to do is replace "/" with "-" and it extracts fine. Rich -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Philip Pemberton Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 8:29 AM To: General at wolf.philpem.me.uk; On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Uncrunching files with invalid characters Cini, Richard wrote: > I'm working on re-archiving the CPMUG ARKives into ZIP files > and I've encountered a few files with filenames containing invalid > characters in DOS (primarily the "/" character). I can extract with > wildcards but the de-archiver (arce40g) doesn't seem to allow renaming > on extraction, so I can't extract and rename at the same time. > Any idea on how do accomplish this? How about hexediting the ARK files, or writing a little program to go through them, read in the filenames and make them DOS compatible? I'd probably do the latter. I think the ARK format might be on . -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From joachim.thiemann at gmail.com Tue Jun 27 07:54:31 2006 From: joachim.thiemann at gmail.com (Joachim Thiemann) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 08:54:31 -0400 Subject: Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 Message-ID: <4affc5e0606270554q652055bay529b2453f638bbb1@mail.gmail.com> > From: Jules Richardson > I've got some equipment here that has RS422 serial on it - i.e. it uses > differential signal pairs rather than RS232's reference against ground. > > Question is, can I wire up a cable so that I can use an RS232 terminal with > this RS422 equipment? (running over a short distance) A lot of RS422 equipment uses TTL level to create the +/- signal lines - hooking it directly to RS232 may blow up your tranceivers, not work, or both. Or, it may work - I think old Macs were tolerant enough to do that. The only "proper" way is to use a RS232 tranceiver chip (like MAX232) and 422 tranceiver chips (such as 75176(? - it's been a while)) or a creative arrangement of transistors and resistors. I can send you a quick schematic if you need. Joe. From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jun 27 08:09:14 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 06:09:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 In-Reply-To: <4affc5e0606270554q652055bay529b2453f638bbb1@mail.gmail.com> from Joachim Thiemann at "Jun 27, 6 08:54:31 am" Message-ID: <200606271309.k5RD9Eq0014936@floodgap.com> > A lot of RS422 equipment uses TTL level to create the +/- signal lines > - hooking it directly to RS232 may blow up your tranceivers, not work, > or both. Or, it may work - I think old Macs were tolerant enough to > do that. Yes, Macs with RS-422 ports usually could take RS-232 (using a converter cable) without a problem. I did this all the time. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Once, adv.: Enough. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" ------------ From emu at e-bbes.com Tue Jun 27 08:29:21 2006 From: emu at e-bbes.com (e.stiebler) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 07:29:21 -0600 Subject: Mirrors, was : Re: bitsavers crawling? In-Reply-To: <44A109C3.6070903@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44A08687.70405@yahoo.co.uk> <008401c69988$c7a37c60$6500a8c0@BILLING> <44A109C3.6070903@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44A132B1.5080408@e-bbes.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > Jay West wrote: >> Of course, if you were using any of the many many mirrors, this >> wouldn't have been the issue. Did you try a mirror? > Anyway, yeah. Mirrors. Good point. Oops. :-) Mirrors are an good idea, but if only the people who mirror would learn that the time stamp of the original file should be preserved ;-) From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 27 09:36:49 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:36:49 +0000 Subject: Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 In-Reply-To: <4affc5e0606270554q652055bay529b2453f638bbb1@mail.gmail.com> References: <4affc5e0606270554q652055bay529b2453f638bbb1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <44A14281.4070709@yahoo.co.uk> Joachim Thiemann wrote: >> From: Jules Richardson >> I've got some equipment here that has RS422 serial on it - i.e. it uses >> differential signal pairs rather than RS232's reference against ground. >> >> Question is, can I wire up a cable so that I can use an RS232 terminal >> with >> this RS422 equipment? (running over a short distance) > > A lot of RS422 equipment uses TTL level to create the +/- signal lines > - hooking it directly to RS232 may blow up your tranceivers, not work, > or both. Or, it may work - I think old Macs were tolerant enough to > do that. That's interesting - it does look like it's possible to bias & jumper the inputs (RXD & CTS) on this equipment so that it protects the receivers. Unfortunately the documentation I've got for this particular board isn't high on detail; I've got some docs on later revisions though so will check those. From what I gather, it should be jumper-selectable to talk to RS232C, RS422, or RS423. cheers Jules From Hans.Franke at siemens.com Tue Jun 27 08:47:10 2006 From: Hans.Franke at siemens.com (Hans Franke) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 15:47:10 +0200 Subject: Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 In-Reply-To: <200606271309.k5RD9Eq0014936@floodgap.com> References: <4affc5e0606270554q652055bay529b2453f638bbb1@mail.gmail.com> from Joachim Thiemann at "Jun 27, 6 08:54:31 am" Message-ID: <44A152FE.14358.490D10B7@localhost> Am 27 Jun 2006 6:09 meinte Cameron Kaiser: > > A lot of RS422 equipment uses TTL level to create the +/- signal lines > > - hooking it directly to RS232 may blow up your tranceivers, not work, > > or both. Or, it may work - I think old Macs were tolerant enough to > > do that. > > Yes, Macs with RS-422 ports usually could take RS-232 (using a converter > cable) without a problem. I did this all the time. As far as I understand it's the other way arround, a 422 Eq is given and a 323 Terminal is about to be connected. H. -- VCF Europa 8.0 am 28/29.April 2007 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/ From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Jun 27 08:59:05 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 09:59:05 -0400 Subject: Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 In-Reply-To: <44A14281.4070709@yahoo.co.uk> References: <4affc5e0606270554q652055bay529b2453f638bbb1@mail.gmail.com> <44A14281.4070709@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44A139A9.1020303@gmail.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > That's interesting - it does look like it's possible to bias & jumper > the inputs (RXD & CTS) on this equipment so that it protects the > receivers. Unfortunately the documentation I've got for this particular > board isn't high on detail; I've got some docs on later revisions though > so will check those. From what I gather, it should be jumper-selectable > to talk to RS232C, RS422, or RS423. I'm not intimately familiar with the spec, but isn't RS423 very similar to RS232? Peace... Sridhar From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jun 27 09:02:28 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 09:02:28 -0500 Subject: Mirrors, was : Re: bitsavers crawling? References: <44A08687.70405@yahoo.co.uk> <008401c69988$c7a37c60$6500a8c0@BILLING><44A109C3.6070903@yahoo.co.uk> <44A132B1.5080408@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: <010701c699f2$551da7a0$6500a8c0@BILLING> E. wrote.... > Mirrors are an good idea, but if only the people who mirror would learn > that the time stamp of the original file should be preserved ;-) Going from memory (too lazy to check), but I seem to recall that rsync (we're using rsyncd on the bitsavers site for mirroring) has an option that allows the timestamps to be corrected from source to destination without retransferring the files. The mirrors should look in to that :) Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jun 27 09:10:53 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 09:10:53 -0500 Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 References: <44A11F65.6080600@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <012801c699f3$80a5ccd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> It was written.... > I've got some equipment here that has RS422 serial on it - i.e. it uses > differential signal pairs rather than RS232's reference against ground. I haven't seen RS422 in a good while. My first exposure to it was an IBM Series/1 running Pick. The serial connections were all RS422. I scratched my head when I opened a cable hood for the first time ;) > Question is, can I wire up a cable so that I can use an RS232 terminal > with this RS422 equipment? (running over a short distance) No. I believe RS422 has most of the signals split as pairs, where the logic true vs. false is the differential between the two pins rather than a set level. RS232 will not work with this. It'd be like trying to hook up a differential scsi device to a non-differential scsi device. A cable mod isn't going to get you there. We also commonly saw systems (GA Zebra for one) that used RS423, which was the same as RS232 except the voltage levels which indicated the logic levels. I *think* that on RS232 the swing was around 12v, and on RS423 it was around 4v... something along those lines. It was usually possible to plug an RS232 terminal into an RS423 port depending on the tolerances in it's design. Jay West From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 27 10:57:02 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 15:57:02 +0000 Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 In-Reply-To: <012801c699f3$80a5ccd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <44A11F65.6080600@yahoo.co.uk> <012801c699f3$80a5ccd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <44A1554E.502@yahoo.co.uk> Jay West wrote: > We also commonly saw systems (GA Zebra for one) that used RS423, which > was the same as RS232 except the voltage levels which indicated the > logic levels. I *think* that on RS232 the swing was around 12v, and on > RS423 it was around 4v... something along those lines. It was usually > possible to plug an RS232 terminal into an RS423 port depending on the > tolerances in it's design. Yes, that sounds about right. It does look like this equipment has an RS423 mode; I just need to work out how to configure it :) (I've used RS232 devices against RS423 before so I know it *can* work - I suspect that I just need a healthy +5V supply rail on this intended device so that it stands a better chance of working) cheers Jules From hadsell at blueskystudios.com Tue Jun 27 09:58:35 2006 From: hadsell at blueskystudios.com (Richard Hadsell) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 10:58:35 -0400 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <018c01c69969$e6785760$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com><200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <018c01c69969$e6785760$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <44A1479B.60908@blueskystudios.com> Jay West wrote: > Longer answer... I used to be with you, I prefered having the mailing > list put a tag in each subject line. However, the list membership at > large resoundingly over-ruled me there and I've actually come around > to the other way of thinking. This topic has come up many times > before, and often becomes both long and hostile. But the overwhelming > majority of people don't want the tag in the subject line, so I don't > have that option turned on. If the majority changes stances, then > we'll do it :) I must respectly submit that most people who want the > subject line tag are those who didn't know that one can sort into > folders based on header criteria which is actually much more accurate > and "sensible". It does involve a one time setup of taking an extra 30 > seconds to view the headers of a classiccmp list email and see what we > provide for you to key on. I'm sure you'll find it's adequate. I didn't intend to drag up a subject that has been exhausted before. I'm clearly in the minority, and I can live with that. I do prefer, as one other responder described, to see all my new e-mails in one place. I don't like to jump around to multiple folders, but I can live with it for one list. > In addition, cctalk/cctech traffic is run through a very very > effective antivirus and spam processing engine. You won't get spam on > the cclist. That's nice, but not all of my messages are filtered through your list. -- Dick Hadsell 914-259-6320 Fax: 914-259-6499 Reply-to: hadsell at blueskystudios.com Blue Sky Studios http://www.blueskystudios.com 44 South Broadway, White Plains, NY 10601 From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Tue Jun 27 11:44:03 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 11:44:03 Subject: Uncrunching files with invalid characters Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060627114403.0ff77ac6@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> I've done something similar and it worked fine. Back in the EARLY PC days I was helping set up a company in Canada (Orlikon Aerospace) and we had to post data from a Martin Marietta IBM system to a MicroVax. The company in Canada was using a PC linked to the MicroVax to load the data which had been send from MMC on a pile of 5 1/4" floppy disks. The company in Canada could not get the data to transfer and I was there as a tech rep and knew something about PCs so the job was dumped in my lap. Among other problems, I found that their file transfer program crashed when it encountered certain characters in the data from MMC. I ended up using WordStar in a non-document mode to search for those characters and replace them with Zs. I choose Zs since they were very uncommon in the data and would be easy to find and correct once the data was in the MicroVAX. The beauty of WordStar (besides being one of the FEW PC programs available in that time and location) was that it will open ANY size or type file. At that time the ONLY PC available was an early IBM XT with a 10 Mb hard drive. I erased EVERYTHING off the harddrive even the OS and I was barely able to sqeeze all the data onto it. I even ran WordStar from a floppy disk. I took about 30 hours for WS to replace all of the invalid characters but when it finished we were finally able to load everything into the MicroVAX after 8 months of failed attempts. Joe At 08:46 AM 6/27/06 -0400, you wrote: >Philip: > > I just tired this method and it works pretty well. All you have >to do is replace "/" with "-" and it extracts fine. > >Rich > >-----Original Message----- >From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org >[mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Philip Pemberton >Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 8:29 AM >To: General at wolf.philpem.me.uk; On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >Subject: Re: Uncrunching files with invalid characters > >Cini, Richard wrote: >> I'm working on re-archiving the CPMUG ARKives into ZIP >files >> and I've encountered a few files with filenames containing invalid >> characters in DOS (primarily the "/" character). I can extract with >> wildcards but the de-archiver (arce40g) doesn't seem to allow renaming >> on extraction, so I can't extract and rename at the same time. >> Any idea on how do accomplish this? > >How about hexediting the ARK files, or writing a little program to go >through >them, read in the filenames and make them DOS compatible? > >I'd probably do the latter. I think the ARK format might be on >. > >-- >Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G >ViewFinder >philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 >512M+100G >http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 >256M+40G > From paul at frixxon.co.uk Tue Jun 27 10:47:04 2006 From: paul at frixxon.co.uk (Paul Williams) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 16:47:04 +0100 Subject: Mirrors, was : Re: bitsavers crawling? In-Reply-To: <44A132B1.5080408@e-bbes.com> References: <44A08687.70405@yahoo.co.uk> <008401c69988$c7a37c60$6500a8c0@BILLING> <44A109C3.6070903@yahoo.co.uk> <44A132B1.5080408@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: <44A152F8.1030202@frixxon.co.uk> e.stiebler wrote: > > Mirrors are an good idea, but if only the people who mirror would learn > that the time stamp of the original file should be preserved ;-) How about contacting the maintainers of the mirror(s) in question, instead of whinging on some random mailing list? -- Paul From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 27 10:56:38 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 08:56:38 -0700 Subject: Uncrunching files with invalid characters In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606270856380413.19B60469@10.0.0.252> On 6/27/2006 at 8:01 AM Cini, Richard wrote: > Any idea on how do accomplish this? Well, if you use 22NICE to do the uncrunching, non-DOS conforming names are automatically converted to conforming ones by substitution of '#' for the illegal characters. There is the potential for collision, however small. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 27 11:13:05 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 09:13:05 -0700 Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 In-Reply-To: <44A11F65.6080600@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44A11F65.6080600@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200606270913050953.19C515FD@10.0.0.252> On 6/27/2006 at 12:07 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >I've got some equipment here that has RS422 serial on it - i.e. it uses >differential signal pairs rather than RS232's reference against ground. > >Question is, can I wire up a cable so that I can use an RS232 terminal >with this RS422 equipment? (running over a short distance) At the expense of stating the obivous, if this involved equipment I cared about and my time meant something to me, I'd just buy a commercial converter. Most feature some sort of isolation in addition to level conversion. E-Pay shows several that run about $20 shipped. Cheers, Chuck From ceby2 at csc.com Sat Jun 24 11:37:56 2006 From: ceby2 at csc.com (Colin Eby) Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2006 12:37:56 -0400 Subject: Available: Microvax cluster (Luton, UK) In-Reply-To: <200606231700.k5NH0G2H017681@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: Jules -- I know I'm coming late to the party on this, but I'm on holiday in the US and just picked up my email. I'm based in Hampshire and would love to talk over what's for grabs with the seller. Thanks, Colin Eby -- ceby2 at csc.com CSC - EMEA Northern Region - C&SI -Technology Architect -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a PRIVATE message. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete without copying and kindly advise us by e-mail of the mistake in delivery. NOTE: Regardless of content, this e-mail shall not operate to bind CSC to any order or other contract unless pursuant to explicit written agreement or government initiative expressly permitting the use of e-mail for such purpose. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From blkline at attglobal.net Tue Jun 27 11:16:16 2006 From: blkline at attglobal.net (Barry L. Kline) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:16:16 -0400 Subject: Alpha Openvms In-Reply-To: <26c11a640606270505w7376defdq5f997afe85c755d0@mail.gmail.com> References: <26c11a640606270505w7376defdq5f997afe85c755d0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <44A159D0.4080206@attglobal.net> Dan Williams wrote: > I have got hold of an Alpha would anyone be able to put an image of > either the install cd or the hobby cd somewhere I could download it. I > have the spl but can't find the OS disk. Hi Dan. I just went through this for my shiny new (to me) AlphaServer 1000A. Do you have an appropriate license pak? If not, you'll need to get one. It was quite easy and I got it via this link: http://www.openvmshobbyist.com/get_yer_licenses/index.html Barry From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Tue Jun 27 12:09:17 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:09:17 -0500 Subject: Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 Message-ID: <29c1370f71c140d4b9d049387a91523a@valleyimplants.com> >>A lot of RS422 equipment uses TTL level to create the +/- signal lines >>- hooking it directly to RS232 may blow up your tranceivers, not work, >>or both. Or, it may work - I think old Macs were tolerant enough to >>do that. >Yes, Macs with RS-422 ports usually could take RS-232 (using a converter >cable) without a problem. I did this all the time. SGI Indy/Indigo2 era machines have mini-DIN 8 serial ports that would do either depending on which device file you used, Sun machines (SS5 and U1, haven't poked around in my Ultra 10 that much yet) had jumper-selectable RS232 or 422. I think DEC423 was very close to RS422, and there are few conversion problems there (reduced max cable length, I think). From innfoclassics at gmail.com Tue Jun 27 13:01:05 2006 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 11:01:05 -0700 Subject: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) In-Reply-To: <00ec01c69999$ad52ab40$0b01a8c0@game> References: <20060627025347.1550.qmail@web81307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <00ec01c69999$ad52ab40$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: I worked with a gold scrapper for a few years. They do know the value (in gold) of every major chip What they often don''t know it the resale value of the chips themselves and some are quite valuable. For a while I saw Intel 8086s going for upwards of $35 from reuse demand. This can drive card values higher. There is a huge market in chip resale, one of our competitors got into that and is still going strong. there are many reasons to buy cards. $50 a DEC card is way above scrap value. I have gotten up to $100 for some of my Intel Multibus cards from a couple of my stocking dealers. Scrap old DEC Cards (Qbus & Unibus) should bring about $5 to $6 per pound with the gold price at about $600 (I was getting $2.50-$2.75/lb at 300). Gold chips add value. Anything pre 1972 has much higher value as the plating is heavier. Wirewrap adds value. Transistors have gold and the black round ones have a lot. HP cards are high value because of the gold plating . However it is very thin. One rule of the scrapper is bright plating is very thin, heavy plating is dull, you look for dull. HP cards used to bring $3.50 /lb and up depending on age, probably double now. There are a lot of speculators out there that don't have a clear idea of value, buy high, either process it themselves or send it off...and then think they got ripped off. There is a never ending supply of these speculators. If you sell it on ebay and don't want gold speculators, don't use good pictures that show off the gold. As too how many hands it goes through, probably not very many. Bobby used to send 5 to 10 tons of scrap boards to the refiner in a load. We had to make sure each gaylord had sufficient value (generally over $2.20 per pound) in it to cover the refining costs which were substantial and ensure a profit. One interesting fact is that if you refine your lot rather than selling it and take your end product in gold and silver you do not have to pay taxes on it and your refining cost is an expense. We got back Silver and Gold Coin. I seem to remember the refining cost at about $1 to $1.25 per pound from a trusted refiner (hard to find) Hmmm, maybe I should write a book. It was an interesting time. "My life as a scrapper" from 1989 to 2000. Paxton On 6/26/06, Teo Zenios wrote: > If gold is currently $580 or so an ounce purified and in the form of a gold > coin, how much would an ounce of gold scrap in the form of chips and circuit > boards be worth if you tried to sell it? Just wondering how many peoples > hands the stuff has to go through ( and make a profit to) to get to the > shiny gold bar or the gold coin 99.999% purity that is $580 on the spot > market. > > > > > -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From williams.dan at gmail.com Tue Jun 27 13:32:23 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:32:23 +0100 Subject: Alpha Openvms In-Reply-To: <44A159D0.4080206@attglobal.net> References: <26c11a640606270505w7376defdq5f997afe85c755d0@mail.gmail.com> <44A159D0.4080206@attglobal.net> Message-ID: <26c11a640606271132p188c5893neaa80e95e51e77d1@mail.gmail.com> On 27/06/06, Barry L. Kline wrote: > Dan Williams wrote: > > I have got hold of an Alpha would anyone be able to put an image of > > either the install cd or the hobby cd somewhere I could download it. I > > have the spl but can't find the OS disk. > > Hi Dan. > > I just went through this for my shiny new (to me) AlphaServer 1000A. Do > you have an appropriate license pak? If not, you'll need to get one. > It was quite easy and I got it via this link: > > http://www.openvmshobbyist.com/get_yer_licenses/index.html > > Barry > Already a member, I have got a vax cluster running already. Thanks Dan From gerold.pauler at gmx.net Tue Jun 27 13:40:11 2006 From: gerold.pauler at gmx.net (Gerold Pauler) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 20:40:11 +0200 Subject: Excelan EXOS 205[TE] In-Reply-To: <449F1C0F.9010605@DakotaCom.Net> References: <449F1C0F.9010605@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44A17B8B.5070902@gmx.net> Hello Don, those cards were also used in some versions of sni rm200 workstations (with ISA-bus). They have a 80186 CPU some RAM absolutely no ROM. They also have a tricky bootstrap. The 80186 is held in reset state. The host writes an first stage boot loader to the dual ported RAM and releases the 80186. Then the second stage boot loader is transfered with some handshake. Then the firmware is downloaded into the RAM and depending on this firmware the card can handle some of the protocol layers to take some IO load of the host CPU. There were also SCPs (Siemens Communication Processor as they are called in the rm world) for token ring and/or other host bus systems like multibus (in the rm400 / rm600). I once had 5 exos205 and was trying to make a linux driver for them, but lack of spare time and too much sun equipment - so I gave them to a colleague. There exists (existed) a paket driver for msdos. The ethernet chip is an (IIRC) intel 82586. I never found much information about those cards. Gerold Don Y wrote: > Hi, > > Can anyone shed any light on these beasts? They, > apparently, are the only cards supported for use > with my Opus PM. Has that market become *so* > much of a commodity market that my chances of finding > one of these are slim-to-none? :-( > > Thanks! > --don -- Gerold Pauler Tel.: +49 30 75 70 42 78 Katharinenstr. 7 Mobil: +49 173 23 49 440 10711 Berlin eMail: gerold.pauler at gmx.net From bob at jfcl.com Tue Jun 27 13:51:25 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 11:51:25 -0700 Subject: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Kits Available! Message-ID: <000001c69a1a$b44b9fc0$0401010a@GIZMO> I posted a couple of weeks ago that Spare Time Gizmos was planning a "last buy" order for the SBC6120, a PDP-8 clone that you build yourself. To make a long story short, we did find enough customers to go forward with the last buy, and the chips and PC boards are here now. We'll start shipping them as soon as the bus connectors arrive, which should be before the end of the week. Most of the last buy kits have already been sold, but there are enough parts left over for about a dozen units. If you want one, then this is your chance! You can order one here: http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/Hardware/SBC6120-2.htm#Ordering If you've never heard of it before, the SBC6120 is a PDP-8 clone, including an optional front panel, that you build yourself http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/Hardware/SBC6120-2.htm http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/Hardware/SBC6120_Front_Panel.htm Thanks, Bob Armstrong From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 27 14:34:04 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:34:04 -0700 Subject: Excelan EXOS 205[TE] In-Reply-To: <44A17B8B.5070902@gmx.net> References: <449F1C0F.9010605@DakotaCom.Net> <44A17B8B.5070902@gmx.net> Message-ID: <44A1882C.8000101@DakotaCom.Net> Greetings! > those cards were also used in some versions of sni rm200 workstations > (with ISA-bus). > They have a 80186 CPU some RAM absolutely no ROM. > They also have a tricky bootstrap. > The 80186 is held in reset state. > The host writes an first stage boot loader to the dual ported RAM and > releases the 80186. > Then the second stage boot loader is transfered with some handshake. This appears to mimic the design of the Opus PM -- except, in that case, it is the "PC" holding the 32032 CPU in reset while it loads the PM's RAM with the bootstrap loader. Amusing to think of such a system running... the CPU in the PC, the CPU on the PM and the CPU on the NIC. Sheesh! :> > Then the firmware is downloaded into the RAM and depending on this > firmware the card > can handle some of the protocol layers to take some IO load of the host > CPU. Yes, the Opus documentation mentions that the slushware that comes (came?) with the EXOS card was NOT supposed to be used. Apparently they have their own code for it. > There were also SCPs (Siemens Communication Processor as they are called > in the rm world) > for token ring and/or other host bus systems like multibus (in the rm400 > / rm600). > > I once had 5 exos205 and was trying to make a linux driver for them, > but lack of spare time and too much sun equipment - so I gave them to a > colleague. Ah. I can understand the "lack of spare time" -- though hard to imagine "too much sun equipment"! ;-) > There exists (existed) a paket driver for msdos. > The ethernet chip is an (IIRC) intel 82586. > > I never found much information about those cards. So, that suggests that they are probably poorly supported... which would imply that they have probably faded away into bit-oblivion. Or, if still available, probably aren't worth much (in light of faster, cheaper cards). Thanks! --don From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jun 27 14:42:22 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:42:22 -0500 Subject: Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 References: <29c1370f71c140d4b9d049387a91523a@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <00a601c69a21$cf3393e0$6500a8c0@BILLING> Scott wrote.... >I think DEC423 was very close to RS422, and there are few conversion >problems there (reduced max cable length, I think). > No, 232 and 423 are very close, just voltage levels. Both are very different from 422, which is differential. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jun 27 14:43:52 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:43:52 -0500 Subject: Mirrors, was : Re: bitsavers crawling? References: <44A08687.70405@yahoo.co.uk> <008401c69988$c7a37c60$6500a8c0@BILLING> <44A109C3.6070903@yahoo.co.uk><44A132B1.5080408@e-bbes.com> <44A152F8.1030202@frixxon.co.uk> Message-ID: <00ad01c69a22$04c08810$6500a8c0@BILLING> Paul wrote... > How about contacting the maintainers of the mirror(s) in question, instead > of whinging on some random mailing list? I figured he was complaining about it here because I host the main site on classiccmp (thus not a random list), and he figured I should do something about it. So I replied that it was a choice of the mirroring system, not the system being mirrored :) Jay From teoz at neo.rr.com Tue Jun 27 15:01:39 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 16:01:39 -0400 Subject: Mirrors, was : Re: bitsavers crawling? References: <44A08687.70405@yahoo.co.uk> <008401c69988$c7a37c60$6500a8c0@BILLING> <44A109C3.6070903@yahoo.co.uk> <44A132B1.5080408@e-bbes.com> <44A152F8.1030202@frixxon.co.uk> <00ad01c69a22$04c08810$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <008b01c69a24$815836a0$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay West" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 3:43 PM Subject: Re: Mirrors, was : Re: bitsavers crawling? > Paul wrote... > > How about contacting the maintainers of the mirror(s) in question, instead > > of whinging on some random mailing list? > > I figured he was complaining about it here because I host the main site on > classiccmp (thus not a random list), and he figured I should do something > about it. So I replied that it was a choice of the mirroring system, not the > system being mirrored :) > > Jay What is the website for bitsavers (and the mirrors) anyway? From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jun 27 15:38:46 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 16:38:46 -0400 Subject: Mirrors, was : Re: bitsavers crawling? In-Reply-To: <008b01c69a24$815836a0$0b01a8c0@game> References: <44A08687.70405@yahoo.co.uk> <00ad01c69a22$04c08810$6500a8c0@BILLING> <008b01c69a24$815836a0$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <200606271638.46486.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 27 June 2006 16:01, Teo Zenios wrote: > > What is the website for bitsavers (and the mirrors) anyway? bitsavers.org The mirrors are listed there. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From jwest at classiccmp.org Tue Jun 27 15:41:27 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 15:41:27 -0500 Subject: Mirrors, was : Re: bitsavers crawling? References: <44A08687.70405@yahoo.co.uk><008401c69988$c7a37c60$6500a8c0@BILLING><44A109C3.6070903@yahoo.co.uk> <44A132B1.5080408@e-bbes.com><44A152F8.1030202@frixxon.co.uk><00ad01c69a22$04c08810$6500a8c0@BILLING> <008b01c69a24$815836a0$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <002301c69a2a$1063fcd0$6500a8c0@BILLING> > What is the website for bitsavers (and the mirrors) anyway? www.bitsavers.org scroll down about 1/4 of the way and on the left you'll see a list of the mirrors and direct links to them. Jay From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jun 27 15:48:23 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 16:48:23 -0400 Subject: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) In-Reply-To: References: <20060627025347.1550.qmail@web81307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <00ec01c69999$ad52ab40$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: > HP cards are high value because of the gold plating . However it is > very thin. One rule of the scrapper is bright plating is very thin, > heavy plating is dull, you look for dull. HP cards used to bring $3.50 > /lb and up depending on age, probably double now. Another place gold is sometimes found is on the pads and vias of circuits boards ready for surface mount. Yes, the gold gets covered by the solder paste, but the rifinery does not care! USR Total Control modems are full of gold for this reason - and it made one scrapper a very rich man in a few years. Copper is starting to be an issue wih the boards - there is a decent amount per board, once you figure in a typical six layer planar. A few years ago tantalum was the big issue, so boards with Ta caps were very sought after ($25 a pound for just the caps). Tantalum, however, has gone back to normal levels now. And then there are those military grade tantalum capacitors, with solid siver cases... Anyway, the point of this is that if you see a sizable machine with a bunch of cards, it may not be a 50 dollar purchase. Add up the value in all those cards... > One interesting fact is that if you refine your lot rather than > selling it and take your end product in gold and silver you do not > have to pay taxes on it and your refining cost is an expense. We got > back Silver and Gold Coin. I seem to remember the refining cost at > about $1 to $1.25 per pound from a trusted refiner (hard to find) Very hard. -- Will From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jun 27 16:02:31 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:02:31 +0100 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? Message-ID: Evening folks, Today I was given a Sun Enterprise Ultra 2 but the machine's been out of use for so long nobody can remember anything about it, which is handy. Googling tells me I need a Solaris install CD to change the root password....bummer since I don't have one. I'm a VAX/Alpha guy, if I want to break a system it's relatively easy but I know nothing about Suns...... It's running SunOS 5.7 if that's any help.... TIA! -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jun 27 17:17:38 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:17:38 +0000 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A1AE82.30908@yahoo.co.uk> Adrian Graham wrote: > Evening folks, > > Today I was given a Sun Enterprise Ultra 2 but the machine's been out of use > for so long nobody can remember anything about it, which is handy. Googling > tells me I need a Solaris install CD to change the root password....bummer > since I don't have one. I've got a couple of versions of Solaris on the shelf here - no idea if you need the same version as what's on the disk or not; providing the version on the CD understands the filesystem on the disk maybe it'll work... Can bring over when I come to get the PERQ and drop off those Sirius disks... cheers J. From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jun 27 16:37:17 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:37:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: from "Adrian Graham" at Jun 27, 2006 10:02:31 PM Message-ID: <200606272137.k5RLbHVD029144@onyx.spiritone.com> > Evening folks, > > Today I was given a Sun Enterprise Ultra 2 but the machine's been out of use > for so long nobody can remember anything about it, which is handy. Googling > tells me I need a Solaris install CD to change the root password....bummer > since I don't have one. > > I'm a VAX/Alpha guy, if I want to break a system it's relatively easy but I > know nothing about Suns...... > > It's running SunOS 5.7 if that's any help.... 'boot -s' from the OpenBoot prompt might get you into single user, or did they finally start requiring a password by default for that. Zane From fireflyst at earthlink.net Tue Jun 27 16:54:15 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 16:54:15 -0500 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <200606272137.k5RLbHVD029144@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: You need that disk, but once you have it you can 'boot -s' and 'sys-unconfigure' Then when you reboot, you are prompted with a setup that walks you through configuring the box for your purposes. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy > Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 4:37 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Root password on solaris 5.7? > > > Evening folks, > > > > Today I was given a Sun Enterprise Ultra 2 but the > machine's been out > > of use for so long nobody can remember anything about it, which is > > handy. Googling tells me I need a Solaris install CD to change the > > root password....bummer since I don't have one. > > > > I'm a VAX/Alpha guy, if I want to break a system it's > relatively easy > > but I know nothing about Suns...... > > > > It's running SunOS 5.7 if that's any help.... > > 'boot -s' from the OpenBoot prompt might get you into single > user, or did they finally start requiring a password by > default for that. > > Zane > > From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jun 27 17:08:37 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 15:08:37 -0700 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A1AC65.5050601@DakotaCom.Net> Adrian Graham wrote: > Evening folks, > > Today I was given a Sun Enterprise Ultra 2 but the machine's been out of use > for so long nobody can remember anything about it, which is handy. Googling > tells me I need a Solaris install CD to change the root password....bummer > since I don't have one. > > It's running SunOS 5.7 if that's any help.... Boot from another root partition (hence the value of having "that CD" :> ), mount the partition in question and manually hack passwd(5)? You can't get to (S)ingle user on the partition in question without the root password. So, get to single user on some partition that you *can*! :> From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jun 27 17:09:39 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 23:09:39 +0100 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 27/6/06 22:54, "Julian Wolfe" wrote: > You need that disk, but once you have it you can 'boot -s' and > 'sys-unconfigure' > > Then when you reboot, you are prompted with a setup that walks you through > configuring the box for your purposes. > Ah, right. I'll see if the people I got it from still have that version of solaris, though I doubt it :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Jun 27 17:30:55 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 15:30:55 -0700 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A1B19F.60900@msm.umr.edu> Adrian Graham wrote: >On 27/6/06 22:54, "Julian Wolfe" wrote: > > > >>You need that disk, but once you have it you can 'boot -s' and >>'sys-unconfigure' >> >>Then when you reboot, you are prompted with a setup that walks you through >>configuring the box for your purposes. >> >> >> > >Ah, right. I'll see if the people I got it from still have that version of >solaris, though I doubt it :) > > > You can download the current version of solaris9 or 10 and use it. There is a cdrom version of it, and you only need the first (and maybe the second) cdrom if you are only going to crack the root password. I think maybe one of the current sparc versions of solaris may drop support of the Ultra 2, so solaris 9 might be a better bet. You do have to register an ID of some sort to do a $0 purchase from sun, but you need not give credit card or any more information than a confirming email address to get that far, assuming you don't actually plan to buy anything. I don't care for the paradigm that you have to "buy" free downloads but I guess they can give away their stuff any way they want to that way. boot from the cdrom. when the installer screen finally comes up, you can right click on the background and open a console. In the console that you have opened you are root. you can mount the 0 partition of the boot disk (usually SCSI target 3), and edit /etc/shadow to remove the password. /etc/passwd does not have the encrypted root password. use the "format" command with care if you want to survey the drives available on your system. It will come up and present an enumeration of disks to operate on. it can be used much like fdisk to look at partiton data from the installer. It will be on any solaris boot disk you can find from sunos 4.1 thru all versions of solaris. The boot -s went out with solaris, so it is not of any use to try to do. there is no path to root via single user w/o supplying the root password. Also the "boot from another partition" suggestion won't work unless the system has multiple bootable disks in it. not impossible, but uncommon. Systems are seldom set up with more than one partition bootable, except in strange circumstances. An ultra 2 may have dual cpu's and will have internal scsi disks. A plextor scsi narrow cdrom drive is ideal if you don't have a cdrom built into the Ultra 2. There are other tutorials on the net that give more detail than this, but I wanted to suggest alternatives to some posts, which probably won't work. (not impossible, but are probably hail mary operations). Jim From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 27 17:00:04 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 23:00:04 +0100 (BST) Subject: PCWs 25 worst tech products of all time In-Reply-To: <20060627004232.8494.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> from "Chris M" at Jun 26, 6 05:42:32 pm Message-ID: > > If you want a PC-incompatible that has a > > 7220 as the graphics > > controller, get a Rainbow :-) [Yes, I know there are > > custom chips in the > > 'bow, but IIRC, they're also used in the VT100, so > > they're not that rare] > > Just one of the more common hi-res crtc's that came > to mind. The NEC APC has them, 2 in fact (methinks). I > do have a Rainbow, but it doesn't have the color > option (or color graphics option?). The 7220 IS a There's only one option, it adds colour graphics (but can also display graphics on a mono monitor). If you have the colour monitor, the standard text comes out in green (always, that's fixed in the hardware). > worthy candidate for an FPGA recreation IMHO. > > > Juat be glad it's not an HP150-II. That thing has 5 > > gate arrays in it, > > and IIRC thate's not that much documentation on them > > in the technical > > manual (which I do have). Come to think of it, the > > plain HP150 uses some > > SMC chip for the video, I can look up to see which > > it is if you like. OK, I've found the techref... Fro the original HP150 (9" CRT). the text (alpha) video system uses an SMC9007 + quite a bit of logic including a character generator ROM and a HAL16L6. The bitmapped graphics system uses a custom chip, 1820-3091, and yet more logic. For the HP150-II (12" CRT), the gate arrays are : ELMER (real time clock, baud rate generator, handshake ports, etc) PAMELA (address decoder, DRAM timing/control) KAZE (garphics RAM control) PACIFIC (video controller) Some early machines (including mine) have a daughterboard in place of the ELMER chip. That contains only standard parts, and can be traced out... > > Actually, I would like one, but Tandy 2000s are not > > at all common in the > > UK, and I can't afford the shipping on one from the > > States. > > yeah, and I want an RM Nimbus. If you don't have one, > I really need to ask why not? As cool as the 2000, and I think I do haev a Nimbus somewhere... Never done much with it, though. My interest in RML stuff is mostly concerned with the 380Z... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 27 17:05:06 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 23:05:06 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <20060626195024.Y56648@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jun 26, 6 07:56:14 pm Message-ID: > > On Mon, 26 Jun 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > > This seems to be a way for me to end up with a large pile of broken > > scanners that I won't throw out, becuase they _might_ be repairable one > > day, and anyway they contain bits that might come in handy (the stepper > > motor if nothing else..). But then again I am terminally short of space... > > they stack > use them as bricks to build an extra storage shed? Which would not meet the local building regulations :-) > BTW, would you want or need? : > Cordata interface card for CX direct (software refuses to even try to run > with > 8088) > EiconScript board for CX (postscript and Laserjet emulation, will work > with 286) > JLASER board for CX I seem to rememebr at least some of thsoe are mentioned in my old PrinterWorks catalogue.... I don;'t _need_ them -- the only CX I have is on the PERQ, and that has a built-in laserprinter controller. On the PC I have a LW2NT (SX engine). But they might be fun to play with sometime... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 27 17:12:07 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 23:12:07 +0100 (BST) Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 In-Reply-To: <44A11F65.6080600@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jun 27, 6 12:07:01 pm Message-ID: > > > I've got some equipment here that has RS422 serial on it - i.e. it uses > differential signal pairs rather than RS232's reference against ground. > > Question is, can I wire up a cable so that I can use an RS232 terminal with > this RS422 equipment? (running over a short distance) This somewhat depends on the drivers/receivers used. The 26LS3x ones generally will work as you want them to. To do the job properly, I'd use similar chips to convert the signals back to TTL, then add a MAX232 or similar. > > Looking at the schematics, I think it's possible, with signals mapping to: > > RS422 RS232 > RXD- GND > RXD+ RX > TXD- no connection? > TXD+ TX > CTS- GND > CTS+ CTS > BSY- no connection > BSY+ RTS > > > ... but I don't know if I should ground TXD-, or indeed one web site I saw No, leave the 'unused' TxD output unconnected. > suggested that TXD- should be used as the signal and TXD+ is actually the > reference. I suspect that one or other should be left floating and the other > pin of the pair forms the 'real' TXD in RS232-speak. Which one you use depends on the convention for labelling '+' and '-' here. Find the one that's -ve when the unit is idle, and use that. > > (the actual comms chip is a 6551A, then the receiver for RXD and CTS is a > 26LS32 and the driver for TXD and BSY is 26LS30) If all else fails, disconnect the RS422 stuff and link a MAX232 or similar to the right pins on the 6551... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jun 27 16:47:56 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:47:56 +0100 (BST) Subject: Looking for a paper tape reader/writer In-Reply-To: <20060626200410.52579.qmail@web60824.mail.yahoo.com> from "Tom Watson" at Jun 26, 6 01:04:10 pm Message-ID: > Be aware: The Facit 4070 comes in two versions the 'DTL' version and the 'TTL' > version. The signal levels are a bit different. The TTL version is the later On paper, yes :-). But I've never had any problems linking a DTL version to TTL logic (I have at least 3 of these punches, one TTL, 2 DTL IIRC). > one, and has easier level signals. Mine was the DTL one and needs some > clamping zener diodes to make it all work. > > If you do get one with a serial option, note that it will probably cost a > bit more (I've seen $100). Without is much cheaper. The schematics are > on bitsavers. You might want to print them out on large (11x17 inch) > paper they look nicer that way. Fortunately, I have 2 versions of the service manual on paper. The later one covers 3 different logic board versions (I think it's one DTL and two TTL ones), the earlier one covers only a DTL board, but it better on the mechanical side... > > As for the reader, that is another story. I got some off of eBay as well, but > I have yet to get them all interfaced up. The PeeCee really has no general > input port (with controls and the like). _Years_ ago I made a little interface to link a Trand reader to a PC parallel port. I've dug out the schematic and software (in turbo pascal), here they are : Trend HSR500 (or UDR700) - PC printer port interface ---------------------------------------------------- +5v +5V --- --- | | 23 >---+ 17 >------+ (+5v) (SpktE) | | 10 >------+ (ChanE) | --- 0.1uF --- | 21 >---+ 16 >------+---W----o 24 (Gnd) | (ChanI) | (Gnd) --- --- /// /// 1 o----------------+ (Stb) | | | +-----------< 15 +----------+ o | (TransportE) | | ---------- | --- | | S | | |\ /// +---|D Q|-----+------| >o---Or---o 15 |\ | | |/ (Error) 18 >---------| >o------|> |o '04f (Spkt) |/ | R | '04a ---------- o '74b | | +5v | --- | | +----+ +----------------< 14 | (Drive L) |\ | |\ 3 o------R------| >o---+----| >o---------< 13 (D1) |/ |/ (Drive R) '04b '04c '157 -------------- | | 20 >-------------|0 | (Ch1) | Y|--------Y----o 13 | a | (Sel) 19 >-------------|1 | (Ch5) |------------| | | 9 >-------------|0 | (Ch2) | Y|--------Gn---o 12 | b | (PE) 6 >-------------|1 | (Ch6) |------------| | | 7 >-------------|0 | (Ch3) | Y|--------Bu---o 10 | c | (Ack) 22 >-------------|1 | (Ch7) |------------| | | 8 >-------------|0 | |\ (Ch4) | Y|---| >o--Pu---o 11 | d | |/ (Busy) 24 >-------------|1 | '04d (Ch8) | | | S E | -------------- | o | | 2 o---------------+ | (D0) --- /// Note: >--- represents pins on the Trend edge connector. Signal names in () o---- represents pins on the D25 plug for the PC printer port. IBM signal names in (). PTR interface signals in <> unit PTR; {Operate Trend paper tape reader on LPT1:} {Port bit allocations Write : Port_base : D0 - select nybble to read (1 = high nybble) D1 - direction (1=reverse) Port_base + 2 : D0 - Pulse to step reader Read : Port_base + 1 : D3 - Reader ready (1 = ready) D4-D7 - Nybble read } interface function read_no_skip : byte; {Read 1 byte from the PTR without stepping it} function read_ptr (direction:integer) : byte; {Read 1 byte from the PTR, and move the tape. Set direction to 0 for forward (R-L) movement, 1 for reverse (L-R) movement} implementation const Port_base = $378; {Address of PTR port} function read_no_skip : byte; {Read one byte from the PTR without stepping it} var character : byte; begin; port[Port_base] := 0; {select low nybble} character := (port[Port_base+1] and $f0) shr 4; port[Port_base] := 1; {Select high nybble} character := character OR (port[Port_base+1] and $f0); read_no_skip := not (character); end; function read_ptr(direction:integer) : byte; {Step the PTR, and read the next byte from it} begin; port[port_base] := 2 * (direction and 1) ; {select direction} port[port_base+2] := 1; {Pulse step line} port[port_base+2] := 0; repeat; {Wait for ready signal} until (port[port_base+1] and 8) > 0; read_ptr:=read_no_skip; end; end. Enjoy! -tony From mail at g-lenerz.de Tue Jun 27 17:33:42 2006 From: mail at g-lenerz.de (Gerhard Lenerz) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 00:33:42 +0200 Subject: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) In-Reply-To: References: <20060627025347.1550.qmail@web81307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <00ec01c69999$ad52ab40$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <1398874112.20060628003342@g-lenerz.de> Tuesday, June 27, 2006, 8:01:05 PM, you wrote: > One interesting fact is that if you refine your lot rather than > selling it and take your end product in gold and silver you do not > have to pay taxes on it and your refining cost is an expense. So we end up scrapping our collections as a tax deductible expense? Won't work over here... That aside i'm surprised that noone is stepping in with good ideas to find good homes for unwanted gear on this list. -- Best regards, Gerhard mailto:mail at g-lenerz.de Old SGI Stuff http://sgistuff.g-lenerz.de/ From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jun 27 17:38:37 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 15:38:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <44A1B19F.60900@msm.umr.edu> from "jim stephens" at Jun 27, 2006 03:30:55 PM Message-ID: <200606272238.k5RMcbPv030630@onyx.spiritone.com> > You can download the current version of solaris9 or 10 and use it. There > is a cdrom version of it, and you only need the first (and maybe the > second) cdrom if you are only going to crack the root password. I think > maybe one of the current sparc versions of solaris may drop support of the > Ultra 2, so solaris 9 might be a better bet. > > You do have to register an ID of some sort to do a $0 purchase from sun, > but you need not give credit card or any more information than a > confirming email address to get that far, assuming you don't actually plan > to buy anything. I don't care for the paradigm that you have to "buy" > free downloads but I guess they can give away their stuff any way they > want to that way. I recently downloaded Solaris 10 to install on my "new" Sunblade 1000, and thought it was a fairly easy process. The one strange thing was the requirement (at least I think it is) to use thier wierd Java app. OTOH, that app is pretty cool, and I'm tempted to try and see if I can use it for other things. The best part of all this is that you can now download "Sun Studio" for *FREE*!!! That means you get their C Compiler, rather than being forced to use GCC. On the down side, I can't play with any of this till the weather cools off significantly :^( Zane From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jun 27 17:45:39 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 18:45:39 -0400 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606271845.39830.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 27 June 2006 17:02, Adrian Graham wrote: > Evening folks, > > Today I was given a Sun Enterprise Ultra 2 but the machine's been out of > use for so long nobody can remember anything about it, which is handy. > Googling tells me I need a Solaris install CD to change the root > password....bummer since I don't have one. > > I'm a VAX/Alpha guy, if I want to break a system it's relatively easy but I > know nothing about Suns...... The easiest way (for me, anyways) is to shove the disk into a Linux box, mount the root slice, and modify /etc/passwd or /etc/shadow. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From tosteve at yahoo.com Tue Jun 27 18:05:49 2006 From: tosteve at yahoo.com (steven stengel) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 16:05:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Free/cheap original IBM PC in Omaha Message-ID: <20060627230549.39083.qmail@web34110.mail.mud.yahoo.com> This is from "Chris Foreman" You pick-up, or pay shipping. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I have an IBM PC vintage 1983 that I would gladly donate to a goodcause. It has 640k memory, a double-sided floppy, an add-on 10mB harddrive and a non-IBM monochrome CGA display. I have not turned it on in several years but I have no reason to believe there is anything wrong with it. I also have the original 2nd floppy drive, the original DOS discs and manuals and a copy of Lotus 123 with a 3rd-party unprotect application. Some other software and books as well. Chris. chris at proaudioweb.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From teoz at neo.rr.com Tue Jun 27 18:19:13 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:19:13 -0400 Subject: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) References: <20060627025347.1550.qmail@web81307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <00ec01c69999$ad52ab40$0b01a8c0@game> <1398874112.20060628003342@g-lenerz.de> Message-ID: <00d001c69a40$1aecf880$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerhard Lenerz" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 6:33 PM Subject: Re: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) > Tuesday, June 27, 2006, 8:01:05 PM, you wrote: > > One interesting fact is that if you refine your lot rather than > > selling it and take your end product in gold and silver you do not > > have to pay taxes on it and your refining cost is an expense. > > So we end up scrapping our collections as a tax deductible expense? > Won't work over here... > > That aside i'm surprised that noone is stepping in with good ideas to > find good homes for unwanted gear on this list. There are not that many people who would pay to ship mainframes or minis (which would have the most gold scrap value) across the country in one piece (and most would be on this list). Besides most people tend to die before they part with the collection, leaving people who are probably not much into the hobby to dispose of the equipment one way or the other. I think the whole thread is just to show people what you are up against money wise when you try to get vintage chips for a working machine that have a decent amount of gold in them. Coin collectors have the same problem when the gold,silver, nickel, and copper is worth more then the collector value of the coin so they all get melted down. From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Tue Jun 27 18:29:24 2006 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:29:24 -0400 Subject: Sol-20 (Processor Tech) utility... Message-ID: I've been fooling around with this for the last month, so now I'll let the rest of you fool with it as well. I've written a CP/M program that lets you store ".ent" files (like on Jim Battle's web site) in the CP/M file system and then load and run them from there. See it here: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/ Comments, conversation and/or suggestions welcome. Bill Sudbrink From teoz at neo.rr.com Tue Jun 27 18:39:22 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:39:22 -0400 Subject: HD formatting utils for DOS Message-ID: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> I was wondering if there were any drivers or utils available that would allow a DOS or Win3.1 machine to have drive partitions over 2GB? I know old IDE controller had hardware limitations to the drive size they can read (BIOS issues also) but would there be a problem with raiding SCSI drives on say an old Adaptec card to give you 20GB of space that DOS could read and write to (non booting)? I am not worried about DOS being modified so that the individual file size can be extended, just the available partition size so I don't have a dozen 2GB partitions. There are drivers made for Mac systems that would allow system 7.x to use volumes up to a couple TB when Mac OS 7.x could not have greater then 2GB partitions so I figured there might be something like that for the DOS machines. From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Tue Jun 27 18:43:37 2006 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 18:43:37 -0500 Subject: M7800 setup - need help Message-ID: Well, I got my 11/34 working, it comes up to a console and it all works great. I have a second M7800 card but I'm not real sure how to configure the address and interrupt vectors on the card. I did figure out that: A. I have the 4.608 mhz crystal, allowing me to do 9600 baud with it. B. I removed the two caps that were in place according to the manual "FOR 110 and 150 BAUD ONLY" C. How to set the 9600 baud rate for both send and receive D. How to set 1 stop bit, no parity, and 8 data bits. So I'm good to go with it except for two problems: 1. When it is put in to replace the DL11-W (which would be much easier to reconfigure later, what with its switches), it causes the machine to halt at 173524 on powerup (this also happened before I removed the two caps, so it's not that). I just want to set this thing up as the serial console, for 9600, N/8/1. Can someone help me out? Thanks Julian From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 27 18:59:22 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 16:59:22 -0700 Subject: HD formatting utils for DOS In-Reply-To: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> References: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <200606271659220347.1B6FF618@10.0.0.252> On 6/27/2006 at 7:39 PM Teo Zenios wrote: >I was wondering if there were any drivers or utils available that would >allow a DOS or Win3.1 machine to have drive partitions over 2GB? I know >old IDE controller had hardware limitations to the drive size they can >read (BIOS issues also) but would there be a problem with raiding SCSI >drives on say an old Adaptec card to give you 20GB of space that DOS could >read and write to (non booting)? I am not worried about DOS being modified >so that the individual file size can be extended, just the available >partition size so I don't have a dozen 2GB partitions. Why not use the FAT32 feature that comes with DOS 7 under Win95. You don't have to install Windows, just use the underlying DOS. I usually add a long filename DOS driver to the combination and it works just fine. Also have a look at FreeDOS--I think it supports FAT32. Cheers, Chuck From pspan at amerytel.net Tue Jun 27 19:00:52 2006 From: pspan at amerytel.net (Phil Spanner) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:00:52 -0500 Subject: Honeywell 4500 Message-ID: <008f01c69a45$ec04db40$6614a8c0@airstreamcomm.net> Hello all, Recently a freind and mentor died unexpectedly. He was instrumental in the design and manufacture of a "Ram Disk" for the Honeywell process control computer. His widow is currently trying to dispose of the business assets, one of which is the Honeywell 4500. I also noticed a pdp 11/34 bucket of the shop floor, but it was very dirty. His last project, which is in the process of being completed, was a memory replacement for a pdp 8a. There isn't very much in the way of DEC equipment i his shop. If anyone would be interested in the honeywell please let me know off list. Thanks and hope everyone has a great 4th. Phil From trixter at oldskool.org Tue Jun 27 19:03:52 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:03:52 -0500 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A1C768.4090702@oldskool.org> Julian Wolfe wrote: > You need that disk, but once you have it you can 'boot -s' and > 'sys-unconfigure' sys-unconfigure does a buttload of other stuff that the OP might not want. It's best to just stick the CD in, boot -s, and then manually edit /etc/shadow and remove the password crypttext. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Tue Jun 27 19:10:11 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:10:11 -0500 Subject: HD formatting utils for DOS In-Reply-To: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> References: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <44A1C8E3.7000109@oldskool.org> Teo Zenios wrote: > I was wondering if there were any drivers or utils available that would allow a DOS or Win3.1 machine to have drive partitions over 2GB? I know old IDE controller had hardware limitations to the drive size they can read (BIOS issues also) but would there be a problem with raiding SCSI drives on say an old Adaptec card to give you 20GB of space that DOS could read and write to (non booting)? I am not worried about DOS being modified so that the individual file size can be extended, just the available partition size so I don't have a dozen 2GB partitions. I've been an owner of System Commander since about 1995. It won't let you exceed problems that are built-in to DOS, but it makes life easier all around. It can resize partitions and filesystems, so you don't lose data repartitioning; it can store several DOS OSes in a single FAT16 partition (I have MSDOS 6.22, IBM DOS 2000, and Caldera 7.03 in the same FAT16 2G partition), and other neat stuff. MSDOS 6.22 boots from a single 2G or smaller primary partition 0 -- that's it, there's no way of getting around it. SCSI or IDE, doesn't matter: Must be primary partition 0, and smaller than 2 gig. Later versions are a little more flexible; I believe IBM PC DOS 2000 can boot from any primary partition, for example, but don't quote me on that. FreeDOS might be more flexible in that area as well. Now, if all you want is more drive space, just create an extended partition and create as many 2G logical drives as you like. Depending on your BIOS and drive, you may run out of drive letters before space :-) If you need partitions/drives over 2G, you'll need to run something other than FAT16 DOS. Win9x FAT32 (shows up as "MS-DOS 7", whatever that is) allows for extended partition sizes up to 127G I think, again, don't quote me on that. -- 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 Jun 27 19:11:49 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:11:49 -0500 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I think when the PS/2 came out and very few in the market > saluted, that it finally sank in. I was *all over* IBM until PS/2. "I can't put my existing boards in it? Why the hell not? Who made *that* stupid decision?" -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 27 19:22:29 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:22:29 -0700 Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606271722290667.1B852119@10.0.0.252> On 6/27/2006 at 11:12 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >This somewhat depends on the drivers/receivers used. The 26LS3x ones >generally will work as you want them to. To do the job properly, I'd use >similar chips to convert the signals back to TTL, then add a MAX232 or >similar. As an alternative to consider, Analog Devices makes a nifty little chip that's got 422 and 232 drivers and receivers on it, and is +5 powered--AD7306. http://www.ortodoxism.ro/datasheets/analogdevices/264748104ad7306.pdf From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 27 19:27:10 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:27:10 -0700 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> On 6/27/2006 at 7:11 PM Jim Leonard wrote: >I was *all over* IBM until PS/2. "I can't put my existing boards in it? > Why the hell not? Who made *that* stupid decision?" Not only that, but MIcrochannel boards were considerably more expensive, and the bus was not very amenable to "prototyping" like ISA. I guess that after the RT flopped, IBM had to do something with their investment in the bus. Didn't Tandy offer a microchannel system at one time? IIRC, it also was a great stinking failure. Cheers, Chuck From teoz at neo.rr.com Tue Jun 27 19:49:22 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 20:49:22 -0400 Subject: HD formatting utils for DOS References: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> <44A1C8E3.7000109@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <00fc01c69a4c$b26b8260$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Leonard" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 8:10 PM Subject: Re: HD formatting utils for DOS > I've been an owner of System Commander since about 1995. It won't let > you exceed problems that are built-in to DOS, but it makes life easier > all around. It can resize partitions and filesystems, so you don't lose > data repartitioning; it can store several DOS OSes in a single FAT16 > partition (I have MSDOS 6.22, IBM DOS 2000, and Caldera 7.03 in the same > FAT16 2G partition), and other neat stuff. > > MSDOS 6.22 boots from a single 2G or smaller primary partition 0 -- > that's it, there's no way of getting around it. SCSI or IDE, doesn't > matter: Must be primary partition 0, and smaller than 2 gig. Later > versions are a little more flexible; I believe IBM PC DOS 2000 can boot > from any primary partition, for example, but don't quote me on that. > FreeDOS might be more flexible in that area as well. > > Now, if all you want is more drive space, just create an extended > partition and create as many 2G logical drives as you like. Depending > on your BIOS and drive, you may run out of drive letters before space :-) > > If you need partitions/drives over 2G, you'll need to run something > other than FAT16 DOS. Win9x FAT32 (shows up as "MS-DOS 7", whatever > that is) allows for extended partition sizes up to 127G I think, again, > don't quote me on that. > -- > Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ I don't care about the DOS booting partition, 2GB is fine for that. I wanted something that would allow a D: drive greater then 2GB and still allow DOS 6.22 to read and write to it. It would also have to allow Win 3.11 to read and write to the drive. I don't want to have issues with DOS 7.x (AKA Win 95 OEMSR2 with fat32) since I still want to run win 3.11 and use some cranky old video capture cards. Outside of DOS 7.x is there any other solution available? From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Jun 27 19:49:18 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 20:49:18 -0400 Subject: parts Message-ID: <200606272049.18183.rtellason@verizon.net> I did some minor updates to my parts pages (a few new items), to be found at: http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/parts-index.html and I hope that some find that info useful. Also, I've acquired several thousand additional NOS parts of all sorts, so I finally got into it and inventoried the whole mess, and a list of what I have a *lot* of (or in some cases don't think it's likely I'll ever use) and put that up on another page, see: http://mysite.verizon.net/rtellason/w4s.html Maybe some of those bits will be helpful to you guys wanting to keep some of that older stuff running...? -- 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 Tue Jun 27 20:00:29 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 18:00:29 -0700 Subject: M7800 setup - need help In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A1D4AD.5000701@mindspring.com> Wolfe, Julian wrote: > Well, I got my 11/34 working, it comes up to a console and it all works > great. > > I have a second M7800 card but I'm not real sure how to configure the > address and interrupt vectors on the card. I did figure out that: > > A. I have the 4.608 mhz crystal, allowing me to do 9600 baud with it. > B. I removed the two caps that were in place according to the manual "FOR > 110 and 150 BAUD ONLY" > C. How to set the 9600 baud rate for both send and receive > D. How to set 1 stop bit, no parity, and 8 data bits. > > So I'm good to go with it except for two problems: > > 1. When it is put in to replace the DL11-W (which would be much easier to > reconfigure later, what with its switches), it causes the machine to halt at > 173524 on powerup (this also happened before I removed the two caps, so it's > not that). > I just want to set this thing up as the serial console, for 9600, N/8/1. > Can someone help me out? The M7800 prints are online at http://bitsavers.vt100.net/dec/unibus/DL11_EngrDrws.pdf (or the -YA at http://bitsavers.vt100.net/dec/unibus/DL11_schem_Mar78.pdf ) The user manual is available at http://bitsavers.vt100.net/dec/unibus/EK-DL11-OP-001_Sep76.pdf Chapter 3 should tell you everything you need to know. I don't own an M7800 (maybe someone who does and is using it as a console can comment on any known problems) but the docs are all pretty straightforward. > > Thanks > Julian > > > From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 27 20:10:01 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 18:10:01 -0700 Subject: HD formatting utils for DOS In-Reply-To: <00fc01c69a4c$b26b8260$0b01a8c0@game> References: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> <44A1C8E3.7000109@oldskool.org> <00fc01c69a4c$b26b8260$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <200606271810010052.1BB0A311@10.0.0.252> On 6/27/2006 at 8:49 PM Teo Zenios wrote: >I don't want to have issues with DOS 7.x (AKA Win 95 OEMSR2 with fat32) >since I still want to run win 3.11 and use some cranky old video capture >cards. > >Outside of DOS 7.x is there any other solution available? A solution that won't cause similar problems? I doubt it, but before FAT32, there were some utilities that faked a large sector size to get beyond the maximum cluster size and sector number problems when using 512 byte sectors. I probably still have one or two of these packages. But IIRC, the problems with these and old code were worse than with FAT32. Cheers, Chuck From trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu Tue Jun 27 20:16:54 2006 From: trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu (joe heck) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 21:16:54 -0400 Subject: HD formatting utils for DOS In-Reply-To: <00fc01c69a4c$b26b8260$0b01a8c0@game> References: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> <44A1C8E3.7000109@oldskool.org> <00fc01c69a4c$b26b8260$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <44A1D886.4030608@splab.cas.neu.edu> I have had an opportunity to use this once. Basically wanted to do a ghost backup in DOS, but wanted to read the NTFS partition from DOS before the backup. For my little requirements, it worked fine. Certainly an NTFS partition would be big enough. There is a version with read/write capability. However, you would have to format the drive with some other program, partition magic or the like. Joe Heck http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/NtfsDos.html Teo Zenios wrote: > I don't care about the DOS booting partition, 2GB is fine for that. I wanted > something that would allow a D: drive greater then 2GB and still allow DOS > 6.22 to read and write to it. It would also have to allow Win 3.11 to read > and write to the drive. > > I don't want to have issues with DOS 7.x (AKA Win 95 OEMSR2 with fat32) > since I still want to run win 3.11 and use some cranky old video capture > cards. > > Outside of DOS 7.x is there any other solution available? > > From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jun 27 20:22:53 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 21:22:53 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: > I guess that after the RT flopped, IBM had to do something with their > investment in the bus. COUGH COUGH...RS/6000...COUGH COUGH COUGH... -- Will From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Tue Jun 27 20:23:47 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 20:23:47 -0500 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? Message-ID: <6b7ca66d1fb14b55beb7dd46ce6f9ad5@valleyimplants.com> > I think maybe one of the current >sparc versions >of solaris may drop support of the Ultra 2, so solaris 9 might be a >better bet. Solaris 10 drops Sun4m support (8? (maybe 9) dropped 4c and 4d support) Solaris 9 is (comparing apples to oranges, x86 to SPARC) noticably faster than 10 (10 on x86-633, 9 on U1 200E). I think that Sun only makes available the current release of Solaris :-(((( not very much use to the classic community (be nice if they had older SPARCcompilers, too) but I guess (a) they want to show off the latest and greatest technology and (b) it doesn't hurt if it stimulates hardware sales. xBSD is rumored to mount Solaris filesystems R/W, Linux is still experimental (I think- haven't poked around in there too much, just select "y" and buld from there.) although it is stable. Any Solaris 2.x or 7+ CD should mount enought to be able to read the disk. The Ultra2 is a nice machine- dual-processor capable etc. You can drop in a UPA framebuffer to get graphics easily (Creator class graphics are quite cheap and 24-bit). From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jun 27 21:28:57 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:28:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: HD formatting utils for DOS In-Reply-To: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> References: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <20060627190820.J20463@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 27 Jun 2006, Teo Zenios wrote: > I was wondering if there were any drivers or utils available that would > allow a DOS or Win3.1 machine to have drive partitions over 2GB? I know > old IDE controller had hardware limitations to the drive size they can > read (BIOS issues also) but would there be a problem with raiding SCSI > drives on say an old Adaptec card to give you 20GB of space that DOS > could read and write to (non booting)? I am not worried about DOS being > modified so that the individual file size can be extended, just the > available partition size so I don't have a dozen 2GB partitions. At one time, there were patches available to correct the error and permit some versions of MS-DOS to go to 4G. BUT, some application programs (such as "Norton fUtilities"?) also didn't grasp the difference between a signed and unsigned long int. (Early versions of DOS would permit having a drive or file that was -2G! But, copying a -2G file to your hardwrive did NOT increase the free space.) DOS >= 7 can handle FAT32. But, if you do, I'd suggest a 2G first partition followed by a 198G second partition. DOS CAN handle a larger partition, not as a local drive, but as a network drive. That's what MSCDEX is for - if you ever try to CHKDSK a CD-ROM (2/3G), DOS will tell you that that can't be done on a Network Drive! About 7? years ago, there was a "CD-ROM" emulator, that permitted accessing a hard drive through MSCDEX. It was so that you could copy a CD-ROM onto a hard drive, for faster speed, and some "only work from the CD-ROM" copy protection. There are a number of third party "device drivers" that are specifically for using drives >2G. Didn't WD give out one of those? Watch out; some might want to make your cluster size way too big. Even if you succeed, you might want to consider keeping one, preferably the first, partition <2G (so that there is SOMEWHERE on the drive that can be accessed by OS's and program that "still don't get it". > There are drivers made for Mac systems that would allow system 7.x to > use volumes up to a couple TB when Mac OS 7.x could not have greater > then 2GB partitions so I figured there might be something like that for > the DOS machines. Yes, there were such. But the Mac OS 7.x ones will NOT work on the PC :-) -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jun 27 21:38:27 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:38:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> > On 6/27/2006 at 7:11 PM Jim Leonard wrote: > >I was *all over* IBM until PS/2. "I can't put my existing boards in it? > > Why the hell not? Who made *that* stupid decision?" On Tue, 27 Jun 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Not only that, but MIcrochannel boards were considerably more expensive, > and the bus was not very amenable to "prototyping" like ISA. > I guess that after the RT flopped, IBM had to do something with their > investment in the bus. > Didn't Tandy offer a microchannel system at one time? IIRC, it also was a > great stinking failure. Not only that, but IBM LICENSED the use of MCA. One of the terms for the license was to make good on any and all past "infringements", (to be decided by IBM), regardless of whether IBM had ever taken any legal action. Other than Tandy, there were almost no clone makers for whom IBM didn't think that they "owed" something from the past. From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jun 27 21:41:19 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:41:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: HD formatting utils for DOS In-Reply-To: <00fc01c69a4c$b26b8260$0b01a8c0@game> References: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> <44A1C8E3.7000109@oldskool.org> <00fc01c69a4c$b26b8260$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <20060627193911.E20463@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 27 Jun 2006, Teo Zenios wrote: > I don't care about the DOS booting partition, 2GB is fine for that. I wanted > something that would allow a D: drive greater then 2GB and still allow DOS > 6.22 to read and write to it. It would also have to allow Win 3.11 to read > and write to the drive. > I don't want to have issues with DOS 7.x (AKA Win 95 OEMSR2 with fat32) > since I still want to run win 3.11 and use some cranky old video capture > cards. > Outside of DOS 7.x is there any other solution available? Win 3.1x CAN be installed and RUN, as an application program on Win9x!! From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jun 27 21:58:49 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:58:49 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: > Not only that, but IBM LICENSED the use of MCA. One of the terms for the > license was to make good on any and all past "infringements", (to be > decided by IBM), regardless of whether IBM had ever taken any legal > action. For all the complaining about how much of a failure the PS/2 line is, they sure made a lot of them, and IBM made a nice pile of money... It is kind of like including AOL as one of the top 25 worst tech products. -- Will From jcwren at jcwren.com Tue Jun 27 22:36:23 2006 From: jcwren at jcwren.com (J.C. Wren) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 23:36:23 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> On 6/27/2006 at 7:11 PM Jim Leonard wrote: >>> I was *all over* IBM until PS/2. "I can't put my existing boards in it? >>> Why the hell not? Who made *that* stupid decision? What makes you think this was a "stupid decision"? The MCA bus was capable of *40MB/S*, which at the time was rather remarkable. ISA is amazingly slow. And the business desktop market wanted smaller machines. Part of the intent of MCA, however misguided, was to eliminate DIP switches and jumpers, which were causing a lot of support calls. With the config files for MCA, that was to suppose to reduce support calls. The only real malfunction of the MCA bus was that unless the cards were made to very precise standards (and I think the tolerance was 1 or 2 mils, according to the design guides), improperly positioned cards could smoke a machine. MCA prototyping cards were available for about $40/ea. And unless you wanted to do the really high speed stuff, a couple PALs would suffice. Unlike PCI which requires a FPGA for any kind of bus compatibility (although I have seen some PAL-only designs for really crude prototypes). Everyone seems to think every damn card, bus, and system made should be backwards to the AND gate. Get over it, move in to the 90's. At the very least. --jc From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jun 27 23:58:24 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 21:58:24 -0700 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> Message-ID: <200606272158240972.1C81C07D@10.0.0.252> On 6/27/2006 at 11:36 PM J.C. Wren wrote: > Everyone seems to think every damn card, bus, and system made should >be backwards to the AND gate. Get over it, move in to the 90's. At the >very least. If the PS/2 was AOL, then MCA had to be OS/2. Good technically, but not widely adopted. Sort of like EISA. I suspect there's not much life left in the "open up the box and swap a card" idea, at least as far as personal computers go. Increasingly, I'm seeing people who have NEVER been inside their systems to add or upgrade a card. Numbers of expansion slots are decreasing (the system I'm writing this on has a grand total of 3 PCI slots). So, I guess if you want to be "up to date" on buses, you'd be looking at USB or Firewire. Although not PeeCee, there''s also PC/104, although very 90's, isn't much different electrically from the good old ISA bus. Cheers, Chuck From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 00:12:29 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 01:12:29 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <200606272158240972.1C81C07D@10.0.0.252> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <200606272158240972.1C81C07D@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: > If the PS/2 was AOL, then MCA had to be OS/2. Good technically, but not > widely adopted. Sort of like EISA. (louder now) COUGH, COUGH...RS/6000...COUGH, COUGH, COUGH... -- Will From tosteve at yahoo.com Wed Jun 28 00:14:22 2006 From: tosteve at yahoo.com (steven stengel) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:14:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Free Apple IIe in So Cal Message-ID: <20060628051422.73254.qmail@web34113.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Step right up, first come first serve! For your pleasure, an absolutely free computer, with all of the latest upgrades (for ~1983). Apple IIe Duo-disk drive Apple monitor Apple printer dozens of manuals hundreds of floppies (few originals) All in good condition, operational status unknown. Just come and get it, the sooner the better. Not really worth the cost of shipping. I am in south Orange County. Thanks- Steve. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From fmc at reanimators.org Wed Jun 28 00:23:18 2006 From: fmc at reanimators.org (Frank McConnell) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:23:18 -0700 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> (Chuck Guzis's message of "Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:27:10 -0700") References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606280523.k5S5NIBa038112@lots.reanimators.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Didn't Tandy offer a microchannel system at one time? IIRC, it also was a > great stinking failure. NCR did a few too (before AT&T bought them). I remember one that was a multiprocessor 80486 with multiple Micro Channel buses, running NCR's System V Release 4. Imagine a PC about the size of two household kitchen refrigerators stuck together, you'll have about the right idea. -Frank McConnell From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 28 00:26:00 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:26:00 -0700 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <200606272158240972.1C81C07D@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606272226000399.1C9B02EF@10.0.0.252> On 6/28/2006 at 1:12 AM William Donzelli wrote: >> If the PS/2 was AOL, then MCA had to be OS/2. Good technically, but >not >> widely adopted. Sort of like EISA. > >(louder now) > >COUGH, COUGH...RS/6000...COUGH, COUGH, COUGH... Doesn't count when we're talking about "widely adopted". The RS/6000's use of MCA was nothing more than corporate incest. We're talking fertile offspring here...not kissin' cousins. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 28 00:53:32 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:53:32 -0700 Subject: HD formatting utils for DOS In-Reply-To: <20060627193911.E20463@shell.lmi.net> References: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> <44A1C8E3.7000109@oldskool.org> <00fc01c69a4c$b26b8260$0b01a8c0@game> <20060627193911.E20463@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200606272253320932.1CB43A13@10.0.0.252> On 6/27/2006 at 7:41 PM Fred Cisin wrote: >On Tue, 27 Jun 2006, Teo Zenios wrote: >> Outside of DOS 7.x is there any other solution available? > >Win 3.1x CAN be installed and RUN, as an application program on Win9x!! Yes, but how is that different from DOS 7 with a DPMI server installed? The problem with using other filesystems (or network files) is that not all filesystem calls are supported. Chances are if FAT32 causes a problem, something like a network file or an NTFS server will also. I've done a few conversion packages for some very strange alien diskettes (e.g. sector size not a power of 2) by tying into the DOS network hooks. You could even write your own filesystem this way--it's not hard. But as I said, there are limits to this approach. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 28 00:54:49 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 22:54:49 -0700 Subject: parts In-Reply-To: <200606272049.18183.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200606272049.18183.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200606272254490412.1CB564D3@10.0.0.252> On 6/27/2006 at 8:49 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: >I did some minor updates to my parts pages (a few new items), to be >found at: > >http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/parts-index.html Roy, that's very cool--thank you! Cheers, Chuck From mail at g-lenerz.de Wed Jun 28 01:24:58 2006 From: mail at g-lenerz.de (Gerhard Lenerz) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:24:58 +0200 Subject: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) In-Reply-To: <00d001c69a40$1aecf880$0b01a8c0@game> References: <20060627025347.1550.qmail@web81307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <00ec01c69999$ad52ab40$0b01a8c0@game> <1398874112.20060628003342@g-lenerz.de> <00d001c69a40$1aecf880$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <1208827169.20060628082458@g-lenerz.de> Wednesday, June 28, 2006, 1:19:13 AM, you wrote: > There are not that many people who would pay to ship mainframes or minis > (which would have the most gold scrap value) across the country in one piece > (and most would be on this list). Besides most people tend to die before > they part with the collection, leaving people who are probably not much into > the hobby to dispose of the equipment one way or the other. That's why I'm thinking (for quite a while now) about writing down my will including names of people that might be interested or at least can help finding someone who is. But as usually, this will be done "tomorrow". > I think the whole thread is just to show people what you are up against > money wise when you try to get vintage chips for a working machine that have > a decent amount of gold in them. Coin collectors have the same problem when > the gold,silver, nickel, and copper is worth more then the collector value > of the coin so they all get melted down. I never thought much about recyclers hunting on public auction platfoms (such as ebay) as I figured shipping and handling will be more than the scrap is worth. -- Best regards, Gerhard mailto:mail at g-lenerz.de Old SGI Stuff http://sgistuff.g-lenerz.de/ From quapla at xs4all.nl Wed Jun 28 01:55:14 2006 From: quapla at xs4all.nl (Edward) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:55:14 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <44A1AE82.30908@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44A1AE82.30908@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <10087.195.114.232.202.1151477714.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Any later version of Solaris can be used to boot in single user mode and mount the system disk in order to modify the hard disks /etc/passwd file. You can even download the Soalris inamges from the Sun website and burn the image on CD or DVD and boot from it. Regards, Ed > Adrian Graham wrote: >> Evening folks, >> >> Today I was given a Sun Enterprise Ultra 2 but the machine's been out of >> use >> for so long nobody can remember anything about it, which is handy. >> Googling >> tells me I need a Solaris install CD to change the root >> password....bummer >> since I don't have one. > > I've got a couple of versions of Solaris on the shelf here - no idea if > you > need the same version as what's on the disk or not; providing the version > on > the CD understands the filesystem on the disk maybe it'll work... > > Can bring over when I come to get the PERQ and drop off those Sirius > disks... > > cheers > > J. > From evan at snarc.net Wed Jun 28 03:18:51 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 04:18:51 -0400 Subject: OT: Treo 650 for sale Message-ID: <000301c69a8b$7d168f80$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Sorry about this gross OT-ness, but maybe someone here is interested. I ordered the new Treo 700p today, so my 650 is for sale. It's currently on the Sprint network. There is one very, very, very tiny scratch on the screen which doesn't interfere with its usage at all. The phone speaker is broken (callers can hear you, you can't hear them) which I'm told by Sprint will cost less than $50 to fix. I'm asking for $100 as-is (charger and original manual included) and whatever the shipping cost is from U.S. postal code 07081. Please reply off-list to avoid further ticking off the purists. :) - Evan evan at snarc.net From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 03:26:41 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:26:41 +0000 Subject: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) Message-ID: A quick question about the Mac G3, if you'll forgive it being not yet on-topic. Feel free to reply off-list to avoid rampant topic drift... Does anyone here know about the internals of the G3 line? I have a motherboard in front of me that I'm attempting to see if it will work. It came from a machine that had already been stripped, so there's no guarantee the hardware is functional. With the Apple Reset/NMI board installed, and RAM, and the Apple-enhanced ATI Rage 128 video card, I've attempted to see if it works by plugging in a PC ATX power supply and pressing the "power on" button on the motherboard and on the Reset/NMI board. I get a brief green flash from several LEDs, but the PSU doesn't kick on the fan, and the machine does not appear to be starting. Do I need an Apple ATX supply to test this? Could this be a battery problem? (the battery was completely dead and I have no handy replacement, so the battery compartment is empty) Do I need to have a keyboard and mouse plugged in to get a response? Thanks for any tips. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 04:03:19 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 09:03:19 +0000 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <200606280523.k5S5NIBa038112@lots.reanimators.org> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <200606280523.k5S5NIBa038112@lots.reanimators.org> Message-ID: On 6/28/06, Frank McConnell wrote: > NCR did a few too (before AT&T bought them). I remember one that was > a multiprocessor 80486 with multiple Micro Channel buses, running > NCR's System V Release 4. Imagine a PC about the size of two > household kitchen refrigerators stuck together, you'll have about the > right idea. We had a few of those at Lucent, since, before I arrived, they bought them from the NCR-part of AT&T with internal "funny money" rather than spending hard coin on stuff from external vendors. My job existed because my department was finally allowed to buy whatever they wanted (this was after "trivestiture"), and they needed someone with some experience with Sun hardware to get the group spun up. I spec'ed and ordered hundreds of K$ of Sun gear, 5000s, 3000s, etc... got to go from catalog to installation several times. Lots of fun. The NCR servers were, essentially, giant quad Pentium (90?) boxes with several microchannels and loads and loads of SCSI cards. I was told they were so DOS compatible that you could plug in a keyboard and monitor on the back, and boot up to DOS and play DOOM. -ethan From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jun 28 06:15:55 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 11:15:55 +0000 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <200606271845.39830.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200606271845.39830.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <44A264EB.1070901@yahoo.co.uk> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > The easiest way (for me, anyways) is to shove the disk into a Linux box, mount > the root slice, and modify /etc/passwd or /etc/shadow. I almost suggested that - does it work? Reason I didn't is that the UFS driver (which includes Sun) is read-only for a lot of UFS-based filesystems and the docs (at least for 2.6.14.x that I've got here) don't actually say which are ro and which are rw :( Good to hear if it does support writing for Sun though! cheers Jules > > Pat From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jun 28 06:24:53 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 11:24:53 +0000 Subject: Selling things with lots of gold in them... (natsemi) In-Reply-To: <00d001c69a40$1aecf880$0b01a8c0@game> References: <20060627025347.1550.qmail@web81307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <00ec01c69999$ad52ab40$0b01a8c0@game> <1398874112.20060628003342@g-lenerz.de> <00d001c69a40$1aecf880$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <44A26705.2090107@yahoo.co.uk> Teo Zenios wrote: >> That aside i'm surprised that noone is stepping in with good ideas to >> find good homes for unwanted gear on this list. > > There are not that many people who would pay to ship mainframes or minis > (which would have the most gold scrap value) across the country in one piece > (and most would be on this list). On top of that, most computer recyclers aren't interested in separating something potentially useful from something that's obvious scrap - at least none of the ones I've found in the UK. Even if they can potentially make more money out of it that way, it seems not worth their time to go outside regular channels (I get the impression that US places are a lot better for this) It's why I happened to mention what it was that I had; I was hoping there'd be a flurry of interest from list members! Otherwise it'll have to be off to ebay with it (and the VCM, but I expect that 90% of people who look at that also read this list) and fingers crossed that there's enough interest from collectors there :-( > a decent amount of gold in them. Coin collectors have the same problem when > the gold,silver, nickel, and copper is worth more then the collector value > of the coin so they all get melted down. Presumably there's a healthy collector market there though; I mean it's a lot easier to ship a coin to someone that it is a computer - so providing that people interested in that hobby are well connected there's probably less of a problem there. cheers Jules From RMeenaks at olf.com Wed Jun 28 06:13:55 2006 From: RMeenaks at olf.com (Ram Meenakshisundaram) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 07:13:55 -0400 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? Message-ID: <9A6FF2537AEA484296A3EE4990D1855753253E@cpexchange.olf.com> Adrian Graham wrote: > You can download the current version of solaris9 or 10 and use it. > There is a cdrom > version of it, and you only need the first (and maybe the second) cdrom > if you are > only going to crack the root password. I think maybe one of the current > sparc versions > of solaris may drop support of the Ultra 2, so solaris 9 might be a > better bet. Solaris 10 is still supported on the Ultra 2, I run it on mine. Doubt it will be supported for Solaris 11 and higher though... Ram From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Jun 28 06:39:49 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 07:39:49 -0400 Subject: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A26A85.3020900@mdrconsult.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: > A quick question about the Mac G3, if you'll forgive it being not yet > on-topic. Feel free to reply off-list to avoid rampant topic drift... > > Does anyone here know about the internals of the G3 line? I have a > motherboard in front of me that I'm attempting to see if it will work. > It came from a machine that had already been stripped, so there's no > guarantee the hardware is functional. With the Apple Reset/NMI board > installed, and RAM, and the Apple-enhanced ATI Rage 128 video card, > I've attempted to see if it works by plugging in a PC ATX power supply > and pressing the "power on" button on the motherboard and on the > Reset/NMI board. I get a brief green flash from several LEDs, but the > PSU doesn't kick on the fan, and the machine does not appear to be > starting. > > Do I need an Apple ATX supply to test this? Could this be a battery > problem? (the battery was completely dead and I have no handy > replacement, so the battery compartment is empty) > Do I need to have a keyboard and mouse plugged in to get a response? Ethan, There are a couple of different G3 system boards with very different PSU inputs. As far as I know, neither is PC ATX compatible. www.xlr8yourmac.com has some pages that detail converting an off-the-shelf ATX PSU for use on a "beige" G3. IIRC, that one requires a simple inverter board. The Blue & White G3 I haven't seen plans for, but I'd bet its PSU is closer to PC-ish. Doc From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Wed Jun 28 07:25:15 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 07:25:15 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: 4jYY4yRrYJrvv7KsNbx3LIkW32i6wzy8tphV3uKUlY32Yj9xHapoCfro3gI0AWr7rpmaRBoT5Flp wLeAUcwRx5eNzQx050FvRJbqwJVEHka7Jj1c9w4ZWEaSFXiknOmhI4OFARCjhtaamCxk5blfM1Ednba LafeW8mVAy914Pb1uTJNkAI9lWqJW7z7y3rrkzJdmuVVM4shvDdLFamNX8dO3YdRwVWca7 qUn5gdTRkKu9SkQmB09IE9Qgkp3siBTtqe11U31TuGJ7lQLF3wJKDytaxHyhBPWhZwQpKzP yWVf2T6BWl9L8BzGqGFj0Lq2zXAsrSFqJgVgPTrGz5xITnl6QkyArr9T8v7Cw9yc9iL9Pzk1 FfFG9YTZ1br0uZoc63PGn71IXktqm0x6PbfJi2CP8xqoDzikAhtz0EmWwY8wKjX6Chw4X6fote0g2 uYfVTtPlOSwNRayzIW5O1gLW9dUjAXEQnHO0G5j502Zzn873M04WhBBbAUSA1SqJZlBDgHhVFYleM9 Daz43rrSJT0gWPLyuJuH2MH2MmBLnH75UInRzy5GEK7w96t82djOhadojI0Lu1MmY4hmuNuap KTIDhGGsuvInkCNCgXO8w5Yp8HUdb1z1YzyBNV6arOVi5lYwgACRkhg356JAmoYVwGFfRJuymg wlbZ5MOuJ46vi4mhIsv9UgmIOuhF5V10Jj63bRoNOe5yvjPVuyKVe7NwsalMdFOEb0PEwStgRnw - Done. From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 07:43:41 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:43:41 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A2797D.6030308@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: >> I was *all over* IBM until PS/2. "I can't put my existing boards in it? >> Why the hell not? Who made *that* stupid decision?" > > Not only that, but MIcrochannel boards were considerably more expensive, > and the bus was not very amenable to "prototyping" like ISA. > > I guess that after the RT flopped, IBM had to do something with their > investment in the bus. The RT was ISA, not MCA. > Didn't Tandy offer a microchannel system at one time? IIRC, it also was a > great stinking failure. Tandy Model 5000. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 07:45:52 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:45:52 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A27A00.2090609@gmail.com> William Donzelli wrote: >> I guess that after the RT flopped, IBM had to do something with their >> investment in the bus. > > COUGH COUGH...RS/6000...COUGH COUGH COUGH... Plus, the RS/6000 came out *after* the PS/2. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 07:48:58 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:48:58 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <200606272158240972.1C81C07D@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A27ABA.7040306@gmail.com> William Donzelli wrote: >> If the PS/2 was AOL, then MCA had to be OS/2. Good technically, but not >> widely adopted. Sort of like EISA. > > (louder now) > > COUGH, COUGH...RS/6000...COUGH, COUGH, COUGH... LOL. Peace... Sridhar From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Wed Jun 28 08:03:22 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:03:22 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: Z85n1PN88Kbyd5HAqICgMUIhELt02tCyzgWPNsCmRnCYarPWHm4DOcgXov9gVpc8bWDXC8A0pcAl t7xDyqlaVwfEzsZF6C5kMyThsf3Qr2IBMTxMUpCICjR8AzLm0NBMbMdRSp86PU40NZHxFbXBT2HGY0f ez8SbUjtHj2H4V0XpcUDfhkDRzIaZzXYGHWwOHeWJ9WspxbnHd33rU95onu8aUPAClx1Mg UFAmOGPG5QTEVgRyxQl7mJvwyNLCTLKYhGZwdIWNUx8mkfMEwhaLDjaRUFowDWnXecFQmzF bA7AsG8MlRp2BUKBck896Q8bYRLuAEIXtsHI059kS97yUZnUbK0yinZjjoKnzS5wrG5VpvgC VrbUrvf1dcWPz8hs4of5GnMVoZ6EFWIDRcREQndklN3qQzpPSXGTslHddD4tT4XspeV9Rt57ewAQT W0MECbKEqvs4U2VR0gSzneWXoQMOiWuXYzondTma2lTT2j2dIWtiXLV2fpEdFMUFuBmW5rcwrM4ggk 1wootW1KVtfWZUW8Mq40zxOQxroRoHEj21ikxoaVyJ1yV3jJmUf63JzlQ54TStIwCd7ZewXnN FBVvBgvM8OJcplLmmkVIowsoljJxiPT2RHiLwqHQzL7o6vTCTMQa11U2QigFXXfs3rkhBulhDj AfQ3ah10c56NSF4GKXGvfybD5cyrjGnxq6z1AZaSjGAFbu5EPqaPZDQK3BwIOrrhoR8VtDeMWvn - Done. From williams.dan at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 08:00:30 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 14:00:30 +0100 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <9A6FF2537AEA484296A3EE4990D1855753253E@cpexchange.olf.com> References: <9A6FF2537AEA484296A3EE4990D1855753253E@cpexchange.olf.com> Message-ID: <26c11a640606280600g5311055dg828b94b86cdc10b@mail.gmail.com> On 28/06/06, Ram Meenakshisundaram wrote: > > Adrian Graham wrote: > > > You can download the current version of solaris9 or 10 and use it. > > There is a cdrom > > version of it, and you only need the first (and maybe the second) cdrom > > if you are > > only going to crack the root password. I think maybe one of the current > > sparc versions > > of solaris may drop support of the Ultra 2, so solaris 9 might be a > > better bet. > > Solaris 10 is still supported on the Ultra 2, I run it on mine. Doubt it will > be supported for Solaris 11 and higher though... > > > Ram > > They dropped support of Ultrasparc-1 processors. Anything below 250mhz will not boot Solaris 10 some Ultra-2's had these. I think some guys have modified the code to get some of them running though. Dan From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Wed Jun 28 08:18:18 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:18:18 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: kO473s2KFHNCX1gsCcQm5s59q1T284A5smcg426NOFKbxUWi7KvnAjFE5FGdGprrkE3ZKmiNYuju TsekyTLCL7m3BxRRM1UiJHMEtLiHJtAibkEa9ebnrfTQbbcXZQxZ8Cc1uQba0M19IolZPU8pO6w0XfE EhYXlrB0k42YEayBovIFMDCU0GrWuxkQYKjl8v9cclrjmwwqA0qqJHqpgUVAaI3i37a1n2 5IZ3JpXM2GNY6OKGOrgK4kmVAA4JrBPr8vf4bgQ2A2jhJm48MjZqE7svh6mcnxkAspFAstQ h1DT3T9rvDUTedHp34LvhCE3dyih7jKnCWcZnESZ503yLVf3sKVD67SeV0a2TmlwHYqqB36d pw9ZggJWwRjRDpo2Ryo4MWbyndRR9U6wXDSkgr2VBOQaLT4voU7VubcFa5WQBmIeXIisawmzFqf20 9tJjWE97WbWWEADWq10etkx1UQ9jVDDSHBE2D93VqDa0wdYWY4Mj90ONl4a2pxIg82G1uuix4ywbM1 i7IaGcMC8z73oVm7Zc8BoPPM1TUKUapL8w4TJEkVcgH7Na8AByHQd6Z81lqbYs0CN8BEVkqZR Xw2GWLSx8gMg525ksVb41WBjbiQCzcgovOUqRYx92mSTU8LumxWDnYoLUlC5fHWklF9HDIVKgs rOsTXitSZGXFS4htZdqu5Vs3OHmUtj4qFylN1YMtl0K24ljF9rG8TB7L6TTcqj5HpSxcRpRIuGi - Done. From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Wed Jun 28 09:30:52 2006 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 10:30:52 -0400 Subject: First bug fix on ENT file utility Message-ID: A reference to the file error message, which is in the relocated block, was not in the fixup table. I didn't catch this in testing because my error cases didn't have enough good data in them to overwrite the message at its original location. Just goes to show that testing error handling is the toughest testing. The original file has been replaced with the corrected version at: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/ From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jun 28 09:29:01 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 09:29:01 -0500 Subject: VOMs (WAS Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer In-Reply-To: References: <20060615230428.P83372@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060628085609.0596eb78@mail> At 05:11 PM 6/16/2006, Tony Duell wrote: >> Do you have to pay a "hazardous waste disposal fee" when you let the >> vacuum out? > >No. In fact as a small amount of polution goes into the device in place >of the vacuum, they should be paying you. It depends on how the vacuum was produced, no? Making a low vacuum with mercury might result in a fair amount of highly regulated mercury vapor in the "vacuum." - John From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 09:36:28 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 10:36:28 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <44A27A00.2090609@gmail.com> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <44A27A00.2090609@gmail.com> Message-ID: > Plus, the RS/6000 came out *after* the PS/2. Yes, but the RS/6000 design was started before the PS/2 introduction, by about a year. The RS/6000 team saw MCA as a good bus to use, so they took it. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 09:43:53 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 10:43:53 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <200606272226000399.1C9B02EF@10.0.0.252> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <200606272158240972.1C81C07D@10.0.0.252> <200606272226000399.1C9B02EF@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: > Doesn't count when we're talking about "widely adopted". The RS/6000's use > of MCA was nothing more than corporate incest. We're talking fertile > offspring here...not kissin' cousins. Very successful corporate incest. So IBM's salesmen and lawyers could not get MCA into the clone market. It does not mean it was a failed bus that died in obscurity. -- Will From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Jun 28 09:48:52 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 07:48:52 -0700 Subject: VOMs (WAS Re: SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) grammer In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060628085609.0596eb78@mail> Message-ID: >From: John Foust > >At 05:11 PM 6/16/2006, Tony Duell wrote: > >> Do you have to pay a "hazardous waste disposal fee" when you let the > >> vacuum out? > > > >No. In fact as a small amount of polution goes into the device in place > >of the vacuum, they should be paying you. > >It depends on how the vacuum was produced, no? Making a low >vacuum with mercury might result in a fair amount of >highly regulated mercury vapor in the "vacuum." > Hi The amount of mercury in a vacuum is no more than the same volume of air with exposed mercury in it. The partial pressure is the same. If it is greater, the mercury will condense out. Of course if you heat the mercury, you can increase the partial pressure. Dwight From teoz at neo.rr.com Wed Jun 28 10:21:13 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 11:21:13 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <200606272158240972.1C81C07D@10.0.0.252> <200606272226000399.1C9B02EF@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <006d01c69ac6$7e460d00$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Donzelli" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 10:43 AM Subject: Re: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products > > Doesn't count when we're talking about "widely adopted". The RS/6000's use > > of MCA was nothing more than corporate incest. We're talking fertile > > offspring here...not kissin' cousins. > > Very successful corporate incest. So IBM's salesmen and lawyers could > not get MCA into the clone market. It does not mean it was a failed > bus that died in obscurity. > > -- > Will It was a failure because it was intended to become the proprietary bus of all x86 PC's and give IBM control over x86 clones. What it did do is show the world that the clone makers were in charge of their own destiny and standards (like EISA) and that the x86 platform would remain non proprietary and not under the control of one manufacturer. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 10:26:46 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 11:26:46 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <006d01c69ac6$7e460d00$0b01a8c0@game> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <200606272158240972.1C81C07D@10.0.0.252> <200606272226000399.1C9B02EF@10.0.0.252> <006d01c69ac6$7e460d00$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: > It was a failure because it was intended to become the proprietary bus of > all x86 PC's and give IBM control over x86 clones. What it did do is show > the world that the clone makers were in charge of their own destiny and > standards (like EISA) and that the x86 platform would remain non proprietary > and not under the control of one manufacturer. In the business world, it all comes down to the bottom line. I think that of MCA was clearly in the black. Failure? If MCA was such a failure, IBM would have killed it off quite quickly. -- Will From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jun 28 10:41:01 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:41:01 -0700 Subject: DTC-01 Drawings Message-ID: <44A2A30D.1070301@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, My DEC DTC-01 seems to have an intermittent when the clamshell is closed. I suspect the (ahem) "ribbon cable" that brings power to the main PCB is just to d*mn heavy-duty and is flexing the board or one of the connectors. Too many conductors to check individually (since you cant access either end of the cable with the clamshell closed and would have to attach pigtails to all of them). Perhaps someone has a drawing set and could tell me what's *on* each conductor (so I can make educated guesses as to which to concentrate on)? But, somehow, I don't think DEC was in the publication mindset when it was released. :-( Thanks! --don From doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Jun 28 10:32:41 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 11:32:41 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <200606272158240972.1C81C07D@10.0.0.252> <200606272226000399.1C9B02EF@10.0.0.252> <006d01c69ac6$7e460d00$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <44A2A119.3050405@mdrconsult.com> William Donzelli wrote: > > It was a failure because it was intended to become the proprietary > bus of > >> all x86 PC's and give IBM control over x86 clones. What it did do is show >> the world that the clone makers were in charge of their own destiny and >> standards (like EISA) and that the x86 platform would remain non >> proprietary >> and not under the control of one manufacturer. > > > In the business world, it all comes down to the bottom line. I think > that of MCA was clearly in the black. > > Failure? > > If MCA was such a failure, IBM would have killed it off quite quickly. Nobody's really pointed out that MCA is a *fast* bus. 66MHz PCI was the first "generic" alternative to get even close to MCA's throughput, let alone bandwidth. The RS/6000 SP nodes used MCA till the way late '90s. They sure as heck didn't do that because they had leftover parts. Doc From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jun 28 10:37:03 2006 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 10:37:03 -0500 Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: References: <20060620000830.47363583F5@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20060628103612.05b3ae58@mail> At 02:32 AM 6/20/2006, Adrian Graham wrote: >Heh, it's not a real product sadly, just a daft thing from the AmigaDOS >engineers at MetaComCo: >http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Commodore/amigaphone/index.php Somewhere I might still have a few never-stuck boing logos. I also have a pile of new "Robocity" posters from the first year of Amiga. - John From teoz at neo.rr.com Wed Jun 28 11:39:04 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 12:39:04 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <200606272158240972.1C81C07D@10.0.0.252> <200606272226000399.1C9B02EF@10.0.0.252> <006d01c69ac6$7e460d00$0b01a8c0@game> <44A2A119.3050405@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <009601c69ad1$5fe71560$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Doc Shipley" To: Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 11:32 AM Subject: Re: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products > Nobody's really pointed out that MCA is a *fast* bus. 66MHz PCI was > the first "generic" alternative to get even close to MCA's throughput, > let alone bandwidth. > > The RS/6000 SP nodes used MCA till the way late '90s. They sure as > heck didn't do that because they had leftover parts. > > > Doc VLB was 32 bit and ran 33 to 50Mhz, so it was faster then the 10Mhz 32 bit MCA ( was there a 20Mhz version also?). Yes, I know VLB was limited to video cards, IDE, SCSI, and I/O cards but those were the only ones that needed the extra speed back then. From pechter at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 12:33:38 2006 From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 13:33:38 -0400 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <26c11a640606280600g5311055dg828b94b86cdc10b@mail.gmail.com> References: <9A6FF2537AEA484296A3EE4990D1855753253E@cpexchange.olf.com> <26c11a640606280600g5311055dg828b94b86cdc10b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Solaris 9 will work... You also could possibly use Linux with UFS file support to mount and modify the /etc/shadow file... Wish I had that box. I've just got the Ultra5 here and an Ultra-1/E 170. Aurora Linux might work... I'd just download Solaris9 and reinstall it. The unsupport of UltraSparc1 processors can be reversed... posts on the net say it's just the boot block that was changed to not allow it to boot and some symlinks that point to the correct kernel drivers... I've got the Solaris7 stuff from Sun (SunOS5.7) if you want to stay with the same version.) The instructions are: http://forum.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=21556&tstart=0 boot cdrom -s at the ok prompt when you get to the hash prompt type. fsck -F ufs -y /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 - Trust me do this first otherwise it wont allow you to mount the root partition now type in mount /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 /a cd /a and you will have all your root folders there vi /a/etc/shadow root:Ke.PlteRzWPkg:12725:::::: root::12725::::::::: remove everything in between the : so it looks like the example above. now save the file and reboot your system Instead of the vi you may be able to do the following -- haven't tried this with the Solaris cd but chroot may be available. chroot /a /bin/sh or /a/usr/sbin/chroot /a /bin/sh that will have your logical root changed to /a and you can run the passwd command to change the root password. Bill On 6/28/06, Dan Williams wrote: > > On 28/06/06, Ram Meenakshisundaram wrote: > > > > Adrian Graham wrote: > > > > > You can download the current version of solaris9 or 10 and use it. > > > There is a cdrom > > > version of it, and you only need the first (and maybe the second) > cdrom > > > if you are > > > only going to crack the root password. I think maybe one of the > current > > > sparc versions > > > of solaris may drop support of the Ultra 2, so solaris 9 might be a > > > better bet. > > > > Solaris 10 is still supported on the Ultra 2, I run it on mine. Doubt > it will > > be supported for Solaris 11 and higher though... > > > > > > Ram > > > > > They dropped support of Ultrasparc-1 processors. Anything below 250mhz > will not boot Solaris 10 some Ultra-2's had these. I think some guys > have modified the code to get some of them running though. > > Dan > From pechter at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 12:40:04 2006 From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 13:40:04 -0400 Subject: M7800 setup - need help In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If my memory is correct the baud rate is from a pair of hex rotary switches at S1 and S2, The DL11 could be strapped for various configurations... The difference between it and a DL11W is IIRC they have modem control possible and they don't have the 60HZ Line Clock on the board. The printset and docs have all the goodies. Bill On 6/27/06, Wolfe, Julian wrote: > > Well, I got my 11/34 working, it comes up to a console and it all works > great. > > I have a second M7800 card but I'm not real sure how to configure the > address and interrupt vectors on the card. I did figure out that: > > A. I have the 4.608 mhz crystal, allowing me to do 9600 baud with it. > B. I removed the two caps that were in place according to the manual "FOR > 110 and 150 BAUD ONLY" > C. How to set the 9600 baud rate for both send and receive > D. How to set 1 stop bit, no parity, and 8 data bits. > > So I'm good to go with it except for two problems: > > 1. When it is put in to replace the DL11-W (which would be much easier to > reconfigure later, what with its switches), it causes the machine to halt > at > 173524 on powerup (this also happened before I removed the two caps, so > it's > not that). > > I just want to set this thing up as the serial console, for 9600, N/8/1. > Can someone help me out? > > Thanks > Julian > > > From fireflyst at earthlink.net Wed Jun 28 13:05:18 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 13:05:18 -0500 Subject: M7800 setup - need help In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I figured it out, it's in a stupid spot in the printset. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Bill Pechter > Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 12:40 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: M7800 setup - need help > > If my memory is correct the baud rate is from a pair of hex > rotary switches at S1 and S2, > > The DL11 could be strapped for various configurations... The > difference between it and a DL11W is IIRC they have modem > control possible and they don't have the 60HZ Line Clock on the board. > > The printset and docs have all the goodies. > > > Bill > > > On 6/27/06, Wolfe, Julian wrote: > > > > Well, I got my 11/34 working, it comes up to a console and it all > > works great. > > > > I have a second M7800 card but I'm not real sure how to > configure the > > address and interrupt vectors on the card. I did figure out that: > > > > A. I have the 4.608 mhz crystal, allowing me to do 9600 > baud with it. > > B. I removed the two caps that were in place according to > the manual > > "FOR 110 and 150 BAUD ONLY" > > C. How to set the 9600 baud rate for both send and receive > D. How to > > set 1 stop bit, no parity, and 8 data bits. > > > > So I'm good to go with it except for two problems: > > > > 1. When it is put in to replace the DL11-W (which would be > much easier > > to reconfigure later, what with its switches), it causes > the machine > > to halt at > > 173524 on powerup (this also happened before I removed the > two caps, > > so it's not that). > > > > I just want to set this thing up as the serial console, for > 9600, N/8/1. > > Can someone help me out? > > > > Thanks > > Julian > > > > > > > From fireflyst at earthlink.net Wed Jun 28 13:19:22 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 13:19:22 -0500 Subject: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I saw this on a G4 once. I think it was something to do with the monitor circuit (i.e. no monitor was connected that the card recognized) I don't know if a standard ATX PSU will work. The G4 I worked on a few weeks ago seemed to have a standard power supply, but with a seprate pair of wires for a fan that was connected. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks > Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 3:27 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) > > A quick question about the Mac G3, if you'll forgive it being > not yet on-topic. Feel free to reply off-list to avoid > rampant topic drift... > > Does anyone here know about the internals of the G3 line? I > have a motherboard in front of me that I'm attempting to see > if it will work. > It came from a machine that had already been stripped, so > there's no guarantee the hardware is functional. With the > Apple Reset/NMI board installed, and RAM, and the > Apple-enhanced ATI Rage 128 video card, I've attempted to see > if it works by plugging in a PC ATX power supply and pressing > the "power on" button on the motherboard and on the Reset/NMI > board. I get a brief green flash from several LEDs, but the > PSU doesn't kick on the fan, and the machine does not appear > to be starting. > > Do I need an Apple ATX supply to test this? Could this be a > battery problem? (the battery was completely dead and I have > no handy replacement, so the battery compartment is empty) Do > I need to have a keyboard and mouse plugged in to get a response? > > Thanks for any tips. > > -ethan > From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 28 13:23:40 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 14:23:40 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <200606280523.k5S5NIBa038112@lots.reanimators.org> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <200606280523.k5S5NIBa038112@lots.reanimators.org> Message-ID: <200606281423.40832.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 28 June 2006 01:23 am, Frank McConnell wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Didn't Tandy offer a microchannel system at one time? IIRC, it also was > > a great stinking failure. > > NCR did a few too (before AT&T bought them). I remember one that was > a multiprocessor 80486 with multiple Micro Channel buses, running > NCR's System V Release 4. Imagine a PC about the size of two > household kitchen refrigerators stuck together, you'll have about the > right idea. They did one that was a bit smaller than that, too, about the size of your typical "big tower case". I had one sitting here for a while, dual P90 as I recall, until a list member came by and relieved me of it some time back. I'd thought about using it from time to time, but never actually got around to powering it up, and that microchannel stuff really put me off. There was a 5.25" floppy drive, and one of those larger tape drives (think DC-600), which along with all of the drive bays, hooked into a 50-wire SCSI cable. Not a bad setup, overall. And I'm told it had some version of unix on it, came up asking for a password... -- 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 Jun 28 13:26:08 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 14:26:08 -0400 Subject: parts In-Reply-To: <200606272254490412.1CB564D3@10.0.0.252> References: <200606272049.18183.rtellason@verizon.net> <200606272254490412.1CB564D3@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200606281426.08126.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 28 June 2006 01:54 am, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/27/2006 at 8:49 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote: > >I did some minor updates to my parts pages (a few new items), to be > >found at: > > > >http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/parts-index.html > > Roy, that's very cool--thank you! Glad you like it. Looks to me like at least some folks out there find this stuff to be a bit useful... I started those just basically to organize my collection of datasheets here, first for the stuff I've got and then for more as I found 'em. And it'll keep growing as I find the time to work on it. Maybe some of those parts I keep accumulating will be useful to some folks too. UPS surprised the heck out of me the other day by dropping off a big white box -- that had somewhere over 3400 chips in it! That's what motivated me to finally inventory that stuff and get it online. :-) -- 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 Jun 28 13:30:53 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 14:30:53 -0400 Subject: bounces? Message-ID: <200606281430.53558.rtellason@verizon.net> I'm getting messages here from the bounces address, starting out like so: "The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message." With what follows being a lot of garbage characters. I can't see anything in the headers that indicate that a post that's being bounced originally came from my system in the first place. Anybody know what's going on here? Is there anything I should be doing about 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 doc at mdrconsult.com Wed Jun 28 13:42:02 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 14:42:02 -0400 Subject: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A2CD7A.2000004@mdrconsult.com> Julian Wolfe wrote: > I saw this on a G4 once. I think it was something to do with the monitor > circuit (i.e. no monitor was connected that the card recognized) > > I don't know if a standard ATX PSU will work. The G4 I worked on a few > weeks ago seemed to have a standard power supply, but with a seprate pair of > wires for a fan that was connected. G4 "Sawtooth" - 350-450MHz, 100Mb ethernet, AGP video - can use a standard ATX PSU with a simple -wire-wire modification. The other G4 PSUs *look*, standard, but they definitely aren't. The Digital Audio model requires a 28V supply line.... I don't recall whether a G3 will boot with a dead battery or not, but I'm fairly sure it won't boot with no battery. Doc From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jun 28 14:52:23 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 20:52:23 +0100 Subject: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 28/6/06 09:26, "Ethan Dicks" wrote: > Do I need an Apple ATX supply to test this? Could this be a battery > problem? (the battery was completely dead and I have no handy > replacement, so the battery compartment is empty) > Do I need to have a keyboard and mouse plugged in to get a response? Doc S. has already mentioned the PSU problem, ie you need an Apple one, also you need a battery fitted otherwise you'll get nothing even with a good PSU. Macs won't power up without a PRAM battery..... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From trag at io.com Wed Jun 28 15:00:22 2006 From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 15:00:22 -0500 Subject: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) In-Reply-To: <200606281701.k5SH1BEN084377@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606281701.k5SH1BEN084377@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: >Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:26:41 +0000 >From: "Ethan Dicks" >Does anyone here know about the internals of the G3 line? I have a >motherboard in front of me that I'm attempting to see if it will work. > It came from a machine that had already been stripped, so there's no >guarantee the hardware is functional. With the Apple Reset/NMI board >installed, and RAM, and the Apple-enhanced ATI Rage 128 video card, >I've attempted to see if it works by plugging in a PC ATX power supply >and pressing the "power on" button on the motherboard and on the >Reset/NMI board. I get a brief green flash from several LEDs, but the >PSU doesn't kick on the fan, and the machine does not appear to be >starting. > >Do I need an Apple ATX supply to test this? Could this be a battery >problem? (the battery was completely dead and I have no handy >replacement, so the battery compartment is empty) >Do I need to have a keyboard and mouse plugged in to get a response? The Beige G3 (if you're looking at a Blue & White (Smurf) MB (the case was B&W, not the MB), then the following advice is inapplicable) motherboard can be used with either a standard ATX power supply or a special Apple power supply used in their Desktop version of the case (as opposed to Mini-Tower which used ATX). There is a jumper near the rear left corner of the motherboard with which to select the power supply being used. The jumper is probably set improperly, because this machine and the similar ones going back before 1996 (On-topic, ) will power up even if there's no CPU on the motherboard. That is, pressing the power on button or the power button on the ADB keyboard will still power up the supply, even though the motherboard is brain dead. A Beige G3 could be missing any of three essential components if it was stripped. It needs a CPU, which comes on a 19X19 pin ZIF module. I doubt you overlooked that. It requires a voltage regulator. This voltage regulator delivers different voltages to the CPU module depending on the setting of sense pins in the 19X19 grid. This is less obvious, but I bet you have that. If not, it mounts in the ~2" vertical slot to the left of the ZIF socket. Finally, the ROM (firmware) in the Beige G3 is on a DIMM module. There were three common revisions of the ROM. Revision A lacks support for slave devices on the EIDE channels. So only one drive per EIDE channel. Revision B and C are essentially indistinguishable except that revision C doesn't play nice with some Skyline ethernet devices. Without a ROM module you won't be able to boot either, though it should power up. The two 32 bit wide ROM chips (weird ROM chips, noone makes 32 bit wide nonvolatile storage any more) on the Revision A have part numbers ending in 40x. IIRC they're something like 343S040x or some such, but I'm really hazy about the fifth character. The rev. C ROM chips' part numbers end in 49x. I'm not sure about the Rev. B; presumably something between 40x and 49x. :-) The battery, keyboard and mouse can all be dispensed with if all you wish to do is boot the machine. The battery is a 1/2AA available at Frys for about $6 or at Radio Shack for closer to $12. Jeff Walther From fireflyst at earthlink.net Wed Jun 28 15:12:42 2006 From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 15:12:42 -0500 Subject: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Walther > Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 3:00 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) > The jumper is probably set improperly, because this machine > and the similar ones going back before 1996 (On-topic, > ) will power up > even if there's no CPU on the motherboard. That is, pressing the > power on button or the power button on the ADB keyboard will > still power up the supply, even though the motherboard is brain dead. I remember accidentally doing this, is this what caused the smashing-glass sound to come from the machine? I remember my friend and I were cracking up pretty hard when we heard that. From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Wed Jun 28 15:31:27 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 13:31:27 -0700 Subject: Commodore Computer Devotees Tinker With the Past Message-ID: Front Page Article on yesterday's LATimes: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fi-commodore27jun27,1,361394.sto ry?ctrack=1&cset=true From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Wed Jun 28 15:45:48 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 13:45:48 -0700 Subject: The Good Old Days? Message-ID: Roy J. Tellason wrote: -- 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 Roy, Your sig file reminds me of one we had in the Army: There is nothing quite so dangerous as a 2nd Lieutenant with a screwdriver! Maybe you had to be there. The Army loaded up the Signal Corps with 2nd Looies every June. Had to put the ROTC types somewhere they wouldn't do too much harm. So we were the dumping ground. My company had 216 Lts out of 300 men total. The stories that could be told! And definitely not OT. Billy From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 28 16:03:21 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 17:03:21 -0400 Subject: Commodore Computer Devotees Tinker With the Past In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606281703.21208.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 28 June 2006 04:31 pm, Billy Pettit wrote: > Front Page Article on yesterday's LATimes: > > http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fi-commodore27jun27,1,361394.st >o ry?ctrack=1&cset=true Requires registration... Oh 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 philpem at dsl.pipex.com Wed Jun 28 16:16:28 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:16:28 +0100 Subject: Commodore Computer Devotees Tinker With the Past In-Reply-To: <200606281703.21208.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200606281703.21208.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <44A2F1AC.5010608@dsl.pipex.com> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > Requires registration... Oh well. Why sign up when you can use someone else's throwaway account? There's even a cool little Firefox extension (from roachfiend.com, IIRC) that lets you right-click on a password field and have Firefox grab a password from the database and automatically feed it to the login form. Saves meddling around setting up throwaway accounts (though I have plenty of those already) :) -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jun 28 17:28:38 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:28:38 +0000 Subject: MM5203Q (256x8) EPROM pinout? Message-ID: <44A30296.30707@yahoo.co.uk> Anyone happen to have this? It's what the IMP16 board uses, and I'd like to see if I can build an adapter for my programmer to read the data out of the ROMs before I get rid of the boards... (I suspect it's a 3-rail device, but the address and data lines are TTL, so hopefully I can make them appear as 2Kx8 devices* to my programmer) (* The smallest ROM my programmer knows about is a 2716 single-rail device) ta Jules From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Wed Jun 28 16:42:04 2006 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 16:42:04 -0500 Subject: Disk idea for my 11/34 Message-ID: Hi all, I got a UNIBUS ESDI controller and I'm currently shopping for a disk drive for it. What I was thinking of doing is mounting a bracket inside the BA11-K and powering the disk drive from the BA11-K power supply, just using a molex connector to one of the unused harness connectors on the power distribution board that supplies the correct voltages. Would doing this pose any sort of problem? i.e. violating amperage limits etc? It would probably be something like a Maxtor XT-4170. From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jun 28 17:00:00 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 23:00:00 +0100 Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20060628103612.05b3ae58@mail> Message-ID: On 28/6/06 16:37, "John Foust" wrote: > At 02:32 AM 6/20/2006, Adrian Graham wrote: >> Heh, it's not a real product sadly, just a daft thing from the AmigaDOS >> engineers at MetaComCo: >> http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Commodore/amigaphone/index.php > > Somewhere I might still have a few never-stuck boing logos. > I also have a pile of new "Robocity" posters from the first > year of Amiga. Hi John, If you don't mind shipping some across the Atlantic I wouldn't mind a couple :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Wed Jun 28 17:01:52 2006 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 18:01:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: The Good Old Days? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Jun 2006, Billy Pettit wrote: > Your sig file reminds me of one we had in the Army: There is nothing quite > so dangerous as a 2nd Lieutenant with a screwdriver! We had a 2 hour outage on the Air Defense computer system at McChord back in the 80's, because some Lieutenant managed to trigger the Halon system. Not only did it shut off power to the system, but it tripped dampers in the air conditioning system which had to be reset by hand. Never knew in which what out-of-the way place he ended up... Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From ak6dn at mindspring.com Wed Jun 28 17:11:05 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 15:11:05 -0700 Subject: Disk idea for my 11/34 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A2FE79.9000000@mindspring.com> Wolfe, Julian wrote: > Hi all, > > I got a UNIBUS ESDI controller and I'm currently shopping for a disk drive > for it. What I was thinking of doing is mounting a bracket inside the > BA11-K and powering the disk drive from the BA11-K power supply, just > using > a molex connector to one of the unused harness connectors on the power > distribution board that supplies the correct voltages. > > Would doing this pose any sort of problem? i.e. violating amperage limits > etc? It would probably be something like a Maxtor XT-4170. The biggest problem is the BA11K box does not produce +12V, but rather +15V, and it is limited to +4A max (the Maxtor is rated for 1.5A typ but 4.5A max at +12v, and up to 3A for the first 15sec or so at startup). So you'd have to regulate +15V to +12V at something like 5A(max)/2A(typ) which is straightforward, but I think you'd be hosing your BA11K +15V supply either quickly (fuse blow) or slowly (overtemp death). I'd recommend an external 5V/12V supply for the disk drive. From ak6dn at mindspring.com Wed Jun 28 17:12:25 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 15:12:25 -0700 Subject: The Good Old Days? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A2FEC9.2020305@mindspring.com> Mike Loewen wrote: > On Wed, 28 Jun 2006, Billy Pettit wrote: > >> Your sig file reminds me of one we had in the Army: There is nothing >> quite >> so dangerous as a 2nd Lieutenant with a screwdriver! > > We had a 2 hour outage on the Air Defense computer system at > McChord back in the 80's, because some Lieutenant managed to trigger > the Halon system. Not only did it shut off power to the system, but > it tripped dampers in the air conditioning system which had to be > reset by hand. > > Never knew in which what out-of-the way place he ended up... > > > Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us > Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ > Isn't he now in charge of infrastructure rebuilding in IRAQ? :-) From caveguy at wowway.com Wed Jun 28 17:14:35 2006 From: caveguy at wowway.com (Bob Bradlee) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 18:14:35 -0400 Subject: Replacement 360/370 lamp LED holders In-Reply-To: <200606281703.21208.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200606282212.k5SMCcpv009108@pop-4.dnv.wideopenwest.com> I am looking into having molds made to make "replacement" 360/370 console lamp housings, the plan is to make a mold that will allow LED's to be used to replace the lamps in 360/370 sequenced displays. Anyone interested in this project please contact me if you wish your needs to be concidered in the first run's estimates. Bob Bradlee aka Bob at IBMcollectables.com From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Wed Jun 28 17:29:14 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 15:29:14 -0700 Subject: Commodore Computer Devotees Tinker With the Past Message-ID: Roy J. Tellason wrote: On Wednesday 28 June 2006 04:31 pm, Billy Pettit wrote: > Front Page Article on yesterday's LATimes: > > >o ry?ctrack=1&cset=true Requires registration... Oh well. -- Roy, I think the problem is that the list server folded the url over two lines. The truncated url takes you to the registration - the whole url does not. If you copy and paste, you should be able to read the article. And if I knew how, I should have created a tiny url.... Sorry But you shouldn't need to register. Billy From bpope at wordstock.com Wed Jun 28 17:37:01 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 18:37:01 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Amiga Workbench 3.1 ROMS In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060628223701.6AC5258099@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Adrian Graham > > On 28/6/06 16:37, "John Foust" wrote: > > > At 02:32 AM 6/20/2006, Adrian Graham wrote: > >> Heh, it's not a real product sadly, just a daft thing from the AmigaDOS > >> engineers at MetaComCo: > >> http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Commodore/amigaphone/index.php > > > > Somewhere I might still have a few never-stuck boing logos. > > I also have a pile of new "Robocity" posters from the first > > year of Amiga. > > Hi John, > > If you don't mind shipping some across the Atlantic I wouldn't mind a couple > :) > I would also like a few of the Robocity posters and a boing logo! :-D Cheers, Bryan From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 28 16:43:02 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:43:02 +0100 (BST) Subject: M7800 setup - need help In-Reply-To: from "Wolfe, Julian" at Jun 27, 6 06:43:37 pm Message-ID: > 1. When it is put in to replace the DL11-W (which would be much easier to > reconfigure later, what with its switches), it causes the machine to halt at > 173524 on powerup (this also happened before I removed the two caps, so it's > not that). The first thing I would check is that you've set the address and interrupt vector jumpers correctly. IIRC one set is 'open for 1', the other set is 'shorted for 1'. Make sure you've not got that wrong. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 28 16:45:19 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:45:19 +0100 (BST) Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 In-Reply-To: <200606271722290667.1B852119@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 27, 6 05:22:29 pm Message-ID: > As an alternative to consider, Analog Devices makes a nifty little chip > that's got 422 and 232 drivers and receivers on it, and is +5 > powered--AD7306. > > http://www.ortodoxism.ro/datasheets/analogdevices/264748104ad7306.pdf Looks interesting. I wonder if you can get 1-offs anywhere (I've not looks yet). On the other hand, the 26LS3x's and the MAX232 are easy to obtain (even though they take up more board area). -tony From bpope at wordstock.com Wed Jun 28 17:39:51 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 18:39:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Commodore Computer Devotees Tinker With the Past In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060628223951.9A178582A7@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Billy Pettit > > > Roy J. Tellason wrote:=20 > On Wednesday 28 June 2006 04:31 pm, Billy Pettit wrote: > > Front Page Article on yesterday's LATimes: > > > > > .st > > > >o ry?ctrack=3D1&cset=3Dtrue > > Requires registration... Oh well. > > --=20 > > Roy, > I think the problem is that the list server folded the url over two = > lines. > The truncated url takes you to the registration - the whole url does = > not. > If you copy and paste, you should be able to read the article. And if I > knew how, I should have created a tiny url.... Sorry > > But you shouldn't need to register. > Unfortunately you will have to register to read Page 2. Cheers, Bryan P.S. But then I found I was already registered in the Tribune network! From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 28 17:40:59 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 23:40:59 +0100 (BST) Subject: Disk idea for my 11/34 In-Reply-To: from "Wolfe, Julian" at Jun 28, 6 04:42:04 pm Message-ID: > > Hi all, > > I got a UNIBUS ESDI controller and I'm currently shopping for a disk drive > for it. What I was thinking of doing is mounting a bracket inside the > BA11-K and powering the disk drive from the BA11-K power supply, just using > a molex connector to one of the unused harness connectors on the power > distribution board that supplies the correct voltages. > > Would doing this pose any sort of problem? i.e. violating amperage limits > etc? It would probably be something like a Maxtor XT-4170. I can't believe it will take too much current for the BA11-K regulators, but one problem you'll run into is that most (if not all) hard drives need a +12V line, and that is not supplied by the BA11K. There is a +15V line which you might be able to regulate down, but that one is not rated for much current (4A?). Probably enough, though. -tony From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jun 28 18:46:28 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 16:46:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: The Good Old Days? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060628164415.A79054@shell.lmi.net> > We had a 2 hour outage on the Air Defense computer system at McChord > back in the 80's, because some Lieutenant managed to trigger the Halon > Never knew in which what out-of-the way place he ended up... Washington, DC? pentagon? From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Jun 28 18:54:37 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 19:54:37 -0400 Subject: Commodore Computer Devotees Tinker With the Past In-Reply-To: <44A2F1AC.5010608@dsl.pipex.com> References: <200606281703.21208.rtellason@verizon.net> <44A2F1AC.5010608@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <200606281954.37780.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 28 June 2006 05:16 pm, Philip Pemberton wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > Requires registration... Oh well. > > > > Why sign up when you can use someone else's throwaway account? There's even > a cool little Firefox extension (from roachfiend.com, IIRC) that lets you > right-click on a password field and have Firefox grab a password from the > database and automatically feed it to the login form. > > Saves meddling around setting up throwaway accounts (though I have plenty > of those already) :) Got that installed here (under firefox, of course) but for some reason it didn't seem to want to work just then. I dunno why, but for some odd reason my browser got *very* sluggish around that point in time, so I ended up shutting it down and restarting it. It just does that sometimes, depending on how much memory gets used here... *Something* I use under KDE has one heck of a persistent memory leak. The longer I leave it up and the more things I do the worse it gets. I switch over to a console where I have top running and look at the swap number. Without x up and running it's usually no more than 3M or so, once it gets up over 50, things start to slow down, and when I saw that sluggish behavior it was up over 110 or so. With pretty much the same mix of apps running. Maybe next version they'll get it fixed? -- 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 Jun 28 19:01:10 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 20:01:10 -0400 Subject: Commodore Computer Devotees Tinker With the Past In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606282001.10921.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 28 June 2006 06:29 pm, Billy Pettit wrote: > Roy, > I think the problem is that the list server folded the url over two lines. I thought I'd dealt with that. Maybe not. > The truncated url takes you to the registration - the whole url does not. > If you copy and paste, you should be able to read the article. ?And if I > knew how, I should have created a tiny url.... ?Sorry I just tried it again with the same results. I removed the ">" characters within the URL, and the space that showed up within "story" and bugmenot doesn't seem to be doing me any good. Three tries now, and my status line says "receiving username and password" and nothing happens. > But you shouldn't need to register. Yeah, I don't think so either, but those jerks keep setting up sites like that... Hardly ever used it, but I also have a "tinyurl" button in my toolbar. :-) -- 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 Wed Jun 28 19:20:36 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 20:20:36 -0400 Subject: The Good Old Days? References: <20060628164415.A79054@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <012e01c69b11$d8686f30$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Cisin" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 7:46 PM Subject: Re: The Good Old Days? > > We had a 2 hour outage on the Air Defense computer system at McChord > > back in the 80's, because some Lieutenant managed to trigger the Halon > > Never knew in which what out-of-the way place he ended up... > > Washington, DC? > pentagon? > > > He currently gets to make the daily morning drive from faluja, Iraq to the green zone to get the starbucks frappachino for the general. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jun 28 19:31:06 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 17:31:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20060629003106.50419.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> > Other than Tandy, there were almost no clone makers > for whom IBM > didn't think that they "owed" something from the > past. Strange criterium, no? Of course the T2K posed no significant threat, but the 1000 was not only a vamped up Peanut, but in fact offered it at a much better value. Hence a Peanut-killer? Shouldn't that have ticked off Ol' Blue? >It was a failure because it was intended to become >the proprietary bus of >all x86 PC's and give IBM control over x86 clones. >What it did do is show >the world that the clone makers were in charge of >their own destiny and >standards (like EISA) and that the x86 platform would >remain non proprietary >and not under the control of one manufacturer. Right. And also could it be that no one saw the need for it? Besides compatibility was everything. Why invest money in something incompatible, and not even have the ability to use the old cards? >I suspect there's not much life left in the "open up >the box and swap a >card" idea, at least as far as personal computers >go. Increasingly, I'm >seeing people who have NEVER been inside their >systems to add or upgrade a >card. Numbers of expansion slots are decreasing >(the system I'm writing >this on has a grand total of 3 PCI slots). Often video and sound, not to mention USB and other things, are included on the mobo. As long as people want the ability to customize their peecess, the slots will be there. Albeit not as many as in the past. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From kevenm at reeltapetransfer.com Wed Jun 28 19:50:22 2006 From: kevenm at reeltapetransfer.com (Miller, Keven) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 18:50:22 -0600 Subject: Request for tape reading DC100a Message-ID: <44A323CE.1050507@reeltapetransfer.com> I have a friend who has a DC100a tape with no way to read it. Just wondering if anyone here can and get data onto a pc. I do have a Colorado Jumbo 250 that I have used DC 2120 QIC-80 tapes with. But don't know if that would read DC100a tapes. Keven Miller kevenm at reeltapetransfer.com Orem UT 84097. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 19:58:02 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 20:58:02 -0400 Subject: Replacement 360/370 lamp LED holders In-Reply-To: <200606282212.k5SMCcpv009108@pop-4.dnv.wideopenwest.com> References: <200606281703.21208.rtellason@verizon.net> <200606282212.k5SMCcpv009108@pop-4.dnv.wideopenwest.com> Message-ID: > , the plan is to > make a mold that will allow LED's to be used to replace the lamps in 360/370 sequenced displays. > Anyone interested in this project please contact me if you wish your needs to be concidered in the first run's > estimates. LEDs? SACRILEGE! I have a very short supply of extras. -- Will From caveguy at wowway.com Wed Jun 28 20:27:58 2006 From: caveguy at wowway.com (Bob Bradlee) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:27:58 -0400 Subject: Replacement 360/370 lamp LED holders In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200606290127.k5T1Rwf30303@pop-6.dnv.wideopenwest.com> On Wed, 28 Jun 2006 20:58:02 -0400, William Donzelli wrote: >> , the plan is to >> make a mold that will allow LED's to be used to replace the lamps in 360/370 sequenced displays. >> Anyone interested in this project please contact me if you wish your needs to be concidered in the first run's >> estimates. >LEDs? Yes >SACRILEGE! most likely, but still under concideration unless you have a few hundred spares including some orange ones for parity. >I have a very short supply of extras. and how long do you think they will last in a 12/7 museum enviroment ? Bob From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 28 20:32:36 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 18:32:36 -0700 Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606281832360148.20EBAAEB@10.0.0.252> >> http://www.ortodoxism.ro/datasheets/analogdevices/264748104ad7306.pdf > >Looks interesting. I wonder if you can get 1-offs anywhere (I've not >looks yet). On the other hand, the 26LS3x's and the MAX232 are easy to >obtain (even though they take up more board area). Just looked at DigiKey--you can get them, but I've seen cheaper MPUs! You could also sample them from Analog.com if your day job qualifies you. As far as board space, if one were using DIPs, it'd be a hard call. The AD IC is a 24 pin PDIP (also comes in SOIC). --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 28 20:34:27 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 18:34:27 -0700 Subject: Request for tape reading DC100a In-Reply-To: <44A323CE.1050507@reeltapetransfer.com> References: <44A323CE.1050507@reeltapetransfer.com> Message-ID: <200606281834270950.20ED5FA4@10.0.0.252> On 6/28/2006 at 6:50 PM kevenm at reeltapetransfer.com wrote: >I have a friend who has a DC100a tape with no way >to read it. Just wondering if anyone here can and >get data onto a pc. Does he know what system/drive/software produced the tape? It matters. Cheers, Chuck From vrs at msn.com Wed Jun 28 20:38:06 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 18:38:06 -0700 Subject: Replacement 360/370 lamp LED holders References: <200606290127.k5T1Rwf30303@pop-6.dnv.wideopenwest.com> Message-ID: > >I have a very short supply of extras. Does anyone know the specifications for the original bulbs? Is there a reason to expect that they (or an equivalent) are no longer made? Vince From evan at snarc.net Wed Jun 28 20:44:13 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:44:13 -0400 Subject: Commodore Computer Devotees Tinker With the Past In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000901c69b1d$86a142b0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Here's the article. Includes people we all know like Robert Bernardo and Jeri Ellsworth. ------------------------------------ Commodore Computer Devotees Tinker With the Past By Terril Yue Jones, Times Staff Writer June 27, 2006 FRESNO - Robert Bernardo spent a week this spring traveling the Pacific Northwest, trying to save part of yesterday's future. The high school English teacher swung through Portland and Astoria, Ore., and then on to Ethel, Wash., to drop off a collection of antiquated computers - a PET8032, three VIC-20s, an SX-64 portable and a Commodore 128D. Then on his way home to the Central Valley town of Visalia, Bernardo packed his white Crown Victoria with three more SX-64s, boxes of software and a couple of printers. With any luck, this agglomeration of decades-old circuit boards and dusty disk drives will allow Bernardo to reboot a handful of computers made by the long-defunct Commodore Business Machines. In an era when a home computer's power is measured in gigabytes, Bernardo still counts kilobytes as a devoted Commodore user 12 years after the last machine was assembled. Once the largest personal computer maker in America, the company behind the VIC-20 and the Commodore 64 introduced millions of people like Bernardo to the digital age. The company went out of business in 1994, but its legacy survives in dozens of Commodore clubs around the country. Bernardo presides over the Fresno chapter. Never mind that the VIC-20 has so little usable memory - just 3.5 kilobytes - that it can store only a couple of pages of text in its buffers. Or that Commodore hardware was notoriously clunky and buggy. Bernardo still manages all his e-mail on a 1980s-vintage Commodore 64. "I've never considered the Commodore obsolete," Bernardo said. "I can still do many things with it - e-mail, browse the Web, word processing, desktop publishing and newsletters. I still do games on it: new games that are copyright 2006, ordered from Germany." Like classic car fans, Bernardo and other Central Valley Commodore devotees lug their gear every month to the Pizza Pit restaurant and put the hoods up, so to speak. For many, a Commodore machine was their first computer. They cherish their machines the way some guys pamper their high school hot rod. The tinker mentality pervades American culture, from guys who fix their lawn mowers to computer geeks who build the next big thing in their garages. Commodore clubs are "about preserving a particular era in computing - just showing that you can make it serviceable takes ingenuity," said Robert Cole, a professor emeritus of technology management at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. Commodore computers are rudimentary enough that enthusiasts with a little technical know-how can repair them themselves. They also can be programmed with relative ease using the BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) computer language. Linus Torvalds, the creator of the popular Linux computer language, cut his teeth writing code on a VIC-20 in the 1980s. "It wasn't just an appliance. I liked it because it was open and it invited you to play with it," said Mike McDermott, a Commodore fan who co-founded a website that ranks building contractors. "You didn't just do what it told you. It invited you to tinker with it. They really did encourage you to go write programs for it." And that, in turn, made people passionate about the quirky machines. Bernardo, who sometimes sports a button that reads "I Adore My 64," says that every room but one in his three-bedroom house contains Commodore equipment. In the other is his "Star Trek" collection. But there is crossover between his dual passions. His prized possessions include six pieces of Commodore hardware and software signed by "Star Trek" star and former Commodore pitchman William Shatner. If Bernardo and his ilk keep the memory of Commodore alive, they also may hold the key to its future. The Dutch company that owns the Commodore name is planning to resurrect the brand in the United States with devices that act as digital entertainment centers. "The Commodore 64 was the biggest-selling computer in the world," said Patrick Olenczak, vice president of global sales for the company now called Commodore International. But that fan base can have drawbacks. "It's going to be difficult to fulfill their expectations of being a computer company because we're not," Olenczak said. "What we're doing is bringing new forms of computing into the living room.. We are not into computing the way we used to be." And Commodore used to be in computing in the biggest way. Few companies illustrate the ruthless evolutionary efficiency of the high-tech economy better than Commodore. Founded in 1959 as a typewriter company by Polish immigrant Jack Tramiel, it later moved into adding machines and then calculators. Commodore purchased a small chip foundry and built computers around the processors it manufactured itself, the first being the PET, Commodore's first desktop, introduced in 1977. In 1981 came the VIC-20 that could do color graphics and generate simple music. ADVERTISEMENT The company's biggest hit was the Commodore 64, introduced in 1982 with 64 kilobytes of memory, high-resolution graphics and an impressive sound synthesizer. It was followed in 1985 by the Commodore 128 upgrade and the Commodore Amiga, a desktop with phenomenal graphics at the time. But in the late 1980s and early 1990s, IBM Corp.'s PC clones gained supremacy. Tramiel was known for aggressive advertising. But he also took manufacturing shortcuts that sometimes put dud computers on the market. "Jack encouraged the environment where shortcuts were overlooked and rewarded," said Bil Herd, the chief engineer of the Commodore 128. "The attitude was get it under the Christmas tree - there is always time for them to return it for service in January." Tramiel was ousted from Commodore in 1984. Commodore found itself expanding in too many unprofitable directions without Tramiel's ironfisted stewardship, and although the company had a few subsequent hits, such as the graphics whiz Amiga, it also had a number of costly flops that forced cuts in the workforce and closure of plants. Reached at his home in Monte Sereno, near San Jose, Tramiel, now 78, would not comment on the business while he was running it or afterward, but allowed in a brief conversation that he was "very happy" that enthusiasts kept the Commodore name and machines alive. "Today's computers are definitely more advanced than Commodores," Tramiel said. "But at the time it was the best computer for the money, because I was building a computer for the people at a price everybody could afford." Commodore dissolved in 1994, and its name went through a succession of owners. In its place rose Apple Computer Inc., Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., and industry experts don't think the resurrected Commodore has a future in the U.S. PC market. "History's passed them by," said Tim Bajarin, who runs Silicon Valley consultancy Creative Strategies and has monitored the PC market for more than 20 years. "It's a blast from the past with no future. You've got HP and Dell, and Apple's picking up tremendous steam. It's basically pushing a boulder uphill." Commodore enthusiasts don't deny the Sisyphean nature of their hobby. It's not clear how many Commodore clubs there are, but they are scattered around the country, with devotees collecting and restoring the computers for old time's sake. "User groups are there for the camaraderie and friendship," said Herd, who now runs a handful of small companies including an Internet service provider in New Jersey. "They remember the times of this really cool computer, but it's more about the people." At Pizza Pit in Fresno, club members say they enjoy trading stories about keeping their machines running. "Fifty percent of the time when we set things up, the hardware fails," said Bill Terry, a former math teacher in Tulare. Interrupted by a group of children singing "Happy Birthday" at the next table, Terry said the school district paid for him to take computer lessons to upgrade his teaching credentials. Hobbyist developers continue to build applications for Commodore machines. Most write games, but enthusiasts also have developed ways to read Windows spreadsheets on Commodore or access modern CD-ROM drives. The efforts recall the earliest days of computing, when most applications were home-built. Jeri Ellsworth, a self-taught computer engineer in Portland, developed a joystick that sells for $30 and contains about 30 old Commodore games. The joystick's popularity lies with "all the 30-, 40-year-olds like myself who are trying to relive a little bit of their past," Ellsworth said. "The toy is priced low enough that people don't hesitate purchasing it just to play a few games they remember from their childhood." It's a natural instinct: holding on to the past at a time of great change, said Cole, the Berkeley professor. If not with Commodores, something else. "I suspect the iPod at some point will perform that role," he said. "Thirty years from now, old people still using old iPods - it's absolutely plausible. People are so in love with their iPods that a lot of them will resist change." -----Original Message----- From: Billy Pettit [mailto:Billy.Pettit at wdc.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 4:31 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Commodore Computer Devotees Tinker With the Past Front Page Article on yesterday's LATimes: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fi-commodore27jun27,1,361394.sto ry?ctrack=1&cset=true From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 20:48:55 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:48:55 -0400 Subject: Replacement 360/370 lamp LED holders In-Reply-To: References: <200606290127.k5T1Rwf30303@pop-6.dnv.wideopenwest.com> Message-ID: > Does anyone know the specifications for the original bulbs? Is there > a reason to expect that they (or an equivalent) are no longer made? I do not recall offhand, but the base and "cartridge" are fairly standard and not hard to get. The lens is a bit IBM specific (and of course, the bit everyone sees). -- Will From ken at seefried.com Wed Jun 28 21:11:25 2006 From: ken at seefried.com (Ken Seefried) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:11:25 -0400 Subject: NCR Minis: Re: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <200606290010.k5T0AAOE089303@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606290010.k5T0AAOE089303@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20060629021125.19911.qmail@seefried.com> I spent some time with the NCR minis at AT&T and a soon to bankrupt major airline. The premier box was the 3600, which was probably the box that the original poster described as "2 refrigerators", or some such...it was about that big or bigger. As I recall, it had up to 32 i486 processors (I vaugly recall a Pentium upgrade, and maybe a PPro one) and used some Teradata interconnect IP. They were touted as "data warehouse" boxes, and were usually used for some big DB app. Million dollar boxes. Ran pretty bog standard SVR4. I never saw a place to plug a keyboard and mouse into one of these... Then there were the 3550, 3500 and 3450 (at least...I think there were more). Proprietary Pentium multiprocessor, Microchannel minis...well constructed and fast for the time. Kinda sorta like Sequents. They ran SVR4 or SVR3.2, and I've seen at least one of them run NT 3.1. Someone even thought about porting Linux to the thing: http://www.anime.net/~goemon/linux-3550/. I shall not hold my breath. All of this stuff was superceeded by the Worldmark line, which was pretty much standard multiproc Intel stuff with an NCR badge. From vrs at msn.com Wed Jun 28 21:13:29 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 19:13:29 -0700 Subject: Replacement 360/370 lamp LED holders References: <200606290127.k5T1Rwf30303@pop-6.dnv.wideopenwest.com> Message-ID: > > Does anyone know the specifications for the original bulbs? Is there > > a reason to expect that they (or an equivalent) are no longer made? > > I do not recall offhand, but the base and "cartridge" are fairly > standard and not hard to get. The lens is a bit IBM specific (and of > course, the bit everyone sees). AFAIK, the key specs for a bulb are the base/style, the operating voltage and current, and the "brightness" of the bulb. Most of which could probably be determined from a part number (if we're lucky) or with a bench supply (if not). (The brightness would probably also require a known reference bulb or two to determine, though.) I have some formulas around somewhere to derate brightness against voltage, etc., which I've used before to determine which available (modern) bulbs are the closest (if an exact equivalent can't be found). Also, anecdotal evidence (from PDP-8/E panels) seems to indicate that the values aren't even very critical. (Several people have used the 8/I bulbs, or other even more incorrect bulbs, and failed to notice the difference!) Vince From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Jun 28 21:39:26 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:39:26 -0500 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> Message-ID: <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> J.C. Wren wrote: > On 6/27/2006 at 7:11 PM Jim Leonard wrote: >>>> I was *all over* IBM until PS/2. "I can't put my existing boards in >>>> it? >>>> Why the hell not? Who made *that* stupid decision? > What makes you think this was a "stupid decision"? The MCA bus was > capable of *40MB/S*, which at the time was rather remarkable. ISA is Yes, that is remarkable, but last I checked the PS/2 line doesn't have *any* ISA slots which means people had to buy sound cards, joystick adapters, SuperVGA boards, internal modems, etc. etc. all over again. At 2X the price. That was a colossally bad move for the consumer market, which ended up driving the market the most anyway. > Everyone seems to think every damn card, bus, and system made should > be backwards to the AND gate. Get over it, move in to the 90's. At the > very least. Hold on a second: PS/2 came out in 1987. For someone who bought their XT for $3000+ just four years earlier, it did not sit well that all the internal hardware (HD, HD adapter, etc.) had to be purchased all over again. The reason EISA, VESA local bus, PCI, etc. were adopted is because the new technology and old technology were on the same board. So users could grow gradually, adapt as necessary. I'm in the same proverbial boat today, actually: I want to upgrade my ailing video card with one with a faster GPU (read carefully: faster processor, not bus architecture) but all the cards that fit the bill are PCI Express and I don't have a PCI Express slot on my motherboard. So I'd have to upgrade the motherboard... and memory and CPU because the new motherboard doesn't support what I have either. Just because I want to get a better video card. So I'm understandably irritated. -- 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 Jun 28 21:41:03 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:41:03 -0500 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <200606280523.k5S5NIBa038112@lots.reanimators.org> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <200606280523.k5S5NIBa038112@lots.reanimators.org> Message-ID: <44A33DBF.9010009@oldskool.org> Frank McConnell wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Didn't Tandy offer a microchannel system at one time? IIRC, it also was a >> great stinking failure. > > NCR did a few too (before AT&T bought them). I remember one that was > a multiprocessor 80486 with multiple Micro Channel buses, running > NCR's System V Release 4. Imagine a PC about the size of two > household kitchen refrigerators stuck together, you'll have about the > right idea. Yes. Sadly, I still administrate these monsters in use at my company. The best one is a Pentium 60, whose uname -a mentions "MCA" in the output. Joy. -- 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 Jun 28 21:45:36 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:45:36 -0500 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <6b7ca66d1fb14b55beb7dd46ce6f9ad5@valleyimplants.com> References: <6b7ca66d1fb14b55beb7dd46ce6f9ad5@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <44A33ED0.7020706@oldskool.org> Scott Quinn wrote: > > Solaris 9 is (comparing apples to oranges, x86 to SPARC) noticably faster than 10 > (10 on x86-633, 9 on U1 200E). That's a pretty useless comparison :-) You're not comparing apples to oranges, you're comparing hammers to fish. > I think that Sun only makes available the current release of Solaris :-(((( No, you can download ISO images for older releases; dig harder. -- 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 Jun 28 21:47:11 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:47:11 -0500 Subject: HD formatting utils for DOS In-Reply-To: <00fc01c69a4c$b26b8260$0b01a8c0@game> References: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> <44A1C8E3.7000109@oldskool.org> <00fc01c69a4c$b26b8260$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <44A33F2F.6020503@oldskool.org> Teo Zenios wrote: > I don't care about the DOS booting partition, 2GB is fine for that. I wanted > something that would allow a D: drive greater then 2GB and still allow DOS > 6.22 to read and write to it. It would also have to allow Win 3.11 to read > and write to the drive. Then this is impossible, since the underlying data structures of FAT16 simply don't go that high. The limit isn't arbitrary, it's 2G because that's where the structures max out. > I don't want to have issues with DOS 7.x (AKA Win 95 OEMSR2 with fat32) > since I still want to run win 3.11 and use some cranky old video capture > cards. Works fine, actually. Try it. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Jun 28 21:50:22 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:50:22 -0500 Subject: HD formatting utils for DOS In-Reply-To: <200606272253320932.1CB43A13@10.0.0.252> References: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> <44A1C8E3.7000109@oldskool.org> <00fc01c69a4c$b26b8260$0b01a8c0@game> <20060627193911.E20463@shell.lmi.net> <200606272253320932.1CB43A13@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A33FEE.10509@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Win 3.1x CAN be installed and RUN, as an application program on Win9x!! > > Yes, but how is that different from DOS 7 with a DPMI server installed? It's better because a crash won't down the whole system :-) Win 3.1 works fine on Win9x as long as you don't try any [386Enh] HD controller-type swapfile direct access tricks (geez, I can't believe I still remember the lingo. Ick.) And you do need one -- don't be tempted to run without one because you will eventually run into problems no matter how much memory you have. (This holds for all versions of Windows, unfortunately. I have 1G RAM on my XP machine and if I try to disable the swapfile entirely I get programs that hang -- stoopid OS!) -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Wed Jun 28 21:52:06 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:52:06 -0500 Subject: HD formatting utils for DOS In-Reply-To: <20060627190820.J20463@shell.lmi.net> References: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> <20060627190820.J20463@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <44A34056.8070806@oldskool.org> Fred Cisin wrote: > DOS CAN handle a larger partition, not as a local drive, > but as a network drive. That's what MSCDEX is for - if > you ever try to CHKDSK a CD-ROM (2/3G), DOS will tell you CDROMs don't exceed 2G so I'm not sure what you're getting at. I've never seen anything that provides volumes larger than 2G to DOS, in any form or format. Not even the older VCOM and Golden Bow stuff. -- 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 Jun 28 22:00:55 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:00:55 -0500 Subject: The Good Old Days? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A34267.50204@oldskool.org> Mike Loewen wrote: > We had a 2 hour outage on the Air Defense computer system at McChord > back in the 80's, because some Lieutenant managed to trigger the Halon > system. Not only did it shut off power to the system, but it tripped > dampers in the air conditioning system which had to be reset by hand. Not army-related, but the same thing happened to my company's datacenter a decade ago -- some idiot marketing type decided to lead a tour group through the datacenter to impress them with all the blinkenlights. A tour group!!! So one woman couldn't figure out how to operate a doorknob to leave, and, thinking it was the opening mechanism, lifted the plexiglass case next to the door and pressed the giant red button. Immediately, the datacenter -- an entire floor of our building -- goes dark and silent, and then everyone is scrambling to get out in the next 30 seconds because we don't know if the haylon is going to go off with us locked inside. (Thankfully, it didn't; the button was an emergency power shutoff only.) A year later, the marketing guy was eventually let go and simultaneously sued because he was transferring corporate information to competitors. Damn idiot... -- 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 Jun 28 22:02:48 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:02:48 -0500 Subject: NCR Minis: Re: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <20060629021125.19911.qmail@seefried.com> References: <200606290010.k5T0AAOE089303@dewey.classiccmp.org> <20060629021125.19911.qmail@seefried.com> Message-ID: <44A342D8.7050701@oldskool.org> Ken Seefried wrote: > > Ran pretty bog standard SVR4. You know, that's about their only saving grace IMO. Everything works as it should (with the exception of "man" not paging the output, which always confuses the new sysadmins). -- 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 Wed Jun 28 22:18:45 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 23:18:45 -0400 Subject: NCR Minis: Re: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <20060629021125.19911.qmail@seefried.com> References: <200606290010.k5T0AAOE089303@dewey.classiccmp.org> <20060629021125.19911.qmail@seefried.com> Message-ID: <200606282318.46276.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 28 June 2006 22:11, Ken Seefried wrote: > I spent some time with the NCR minis at AT&T and a soon to bankrupt major > airline. > > The premier box was the 3600, which was probably the box that the original > poster described as "2 refrigerators", or some such...it was about that big > or bigger. As I recall, it had up to 32 i486 processors (I vaugly recall a > Pentium upgrade, and maybe a PPro one) and used some Teradata interconnect > IP. They were touted as "data warehouse" boxes, and were usually used for > some big DB app. Million dollar boxes. Ran pretty bog standard SVR4. I've got a Worldmark 5100. huge-fridge sized chassis, two "nodes" in one package, each has 32 processors, 4GB ram, and a pair of 8-slot microchannel busses. I've got one "cabinet", with a maxed out processor/memory config in my friend's garage. > All of this stuff was superceeded by the Worldmark line, which was pretty > much standard multiproc Intel stuff with an NCR badge. The worldmark I've got ISNT at all standard. I'm not sure it'll run DOS, and it definately won't run Windows. I booted Linux on it once, but it couldn't see one of the (4-way) processor boards, or see more then one SCSI controller. Later Worldmark systems may be more standard. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Wed Jun 28 22:03:35 2006 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 23:03:35 -0400 Subject: Disk idea for my 11/34 In-Reply-To: <44A2FE79.9000000@mindspring.com> References: <44A2FE79.9000000@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <44A34307.9000606@compsys.to> >Don North wrote: > >Wolfe, Julian wrote: > >> I got a UNIBUS ESDI controller and I'm currently shopping for a disk >> drive >> for it. What I was thinking of doing is mounting a bracket inside the >> BA11-K and powering the disk drive from the BA11-K power supply, just >> using >> a molex connector to one of the unused harness connectors on the power >> distribution board that supplies the correct voltages. >> >> Would doing this pose any sort of problem? i.e. violating amperage >> limits >> etc? It would probably be something like a Maxtor XT-4170. > > The biggest problem is the BA11K box does not produce +12V, but rather > +15V, > and it is limited to +4A max (the Maxtor is rated for 1.5A typ but > 4.5A max > at +12v, and up to 3A for the first 15sec or so at startup). > > So you'd have to regulate +15V to +12V at something like > 5A(max)/2A(typ) which > is straightforward, but I think you'd be hosing your BA11K +15V supply > either > quickly (fuse blow) or slowly (overtemp death). > > I'd recommend an external 5V/12V supply for the disk drive. Jerome Fine replies: NOTE: My experience is ONLY with Qbus PDP-11 Systems, so if my comments do not apply, please disregard! About ten years ago, I acquired a number of 5 1/4" ESDI disc drives of 600 MBytes which were being used in groups of 4 as an emulation of some kind. Each box had its own 300 Watt PC power supply with 5v/12v along with 2 fans for internal cooling. I also acquired a number of Sigma RQD11-EC ESDI Qbus disk controllers. I removed the raw ESDI disk drives, the PC power supply and the fans from each box and ran the drives as they were without an enclosure just sitting on top of a cardboard carton to ensure both electrical isolation and perhaps a bit of vibration isolation. I ALSO placed a fan beside EACH ESDI disk drive for cooling. As an additional precaution, I also attached a ground wire to the frame of the Qbus (BA-123 in my case) and the PC power supply. Since the fastest backup is disk drive to disk drive, I suggest that you use an extra drive just for backup if you have enough ESDI disk drives - if you have a backup requirement. I suggest you take Don's advice and power the ESDI disk drives from a separate PC power supply. Since the BA11-K has no drive bays, this seems like a good solution in any case. Unless many non-computer people are using the system, there is no need to enclose the disk drives. As I mentioned above, assuming that the XT-4170 generates enough heat, it is probably best to use a fan for cooling! ALSO - for anyone doing this with a Qbus system and using TK50 or TK70 tape drives, the use of the external PC power supply was NEVER successful. Never found out why, just always had to used to internal power form the BA-23 or the BA-123. As for slowly cooking the power supply for the BA-123, I found out the hard way after about 2 years when I was still using RD53 hard drives. 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 wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 22:36:02 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 23:36:02 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> Message-ID: > Yes, that is remarkable, but last I checked the PS/2 line doesn't have > *any* ISA slots which means people had to buy sound cards, joystick > adapters, SuperVGA boards, internal modems, etc. etc. all over again. > At 2X the price. That was a colossally bad move for the consumer > market, which ended up driving the market the most anyway. Was it? Realistically, did a big percentage of new computer sales during the PS/2 era really involve upgrades? Maybe in the consumer geek market, but that is not IBM's domain. For new PeeCee sales I remember at the time (recall that back then most consumer sales were to folks that never had a PC based computer), most people just wanted a whole new machine, with perhaps the exceptions being the printer and tube. Yes, they tried to get the PS/2 into the consumer market, and they did fail. But... IBM's big, and I mean BIG, market is the business market. Other than the Ma and Pa penny pinching firms, NOBODY did card by card upgrades. Just get a whole new machine. Or a truckload of them. Just like today. -- Will From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 28 22:52:01 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 20:52:01 -0700 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200606282052010818.216B4FDE@10.0.0.252> On 6/28/2006 at 9:39 PM Jim Leonard wrote: >Yes, that is remarkable, but last I checked the PS/2 line doesn't have >*any* ISA slots which means people had to buy sound cards, joystick >adapters, SuperVGA boards, internal modems, etc. etc. all over again. >At 2X the price. That was a colossally bad move for the consumer >market, which ended up driving the market the most anyway. You've obviously never run into a PS/2 Model 25 or 30 or even the "portable" L40. ISA machines, not MCA. I suspect the biggest problem with MCA licensing was IBM's rather Draconian approach. If you signed up as a MCA licensee, you paid royalties not only on the MCA machines you made, but also on any other IBM "compatibles" (MCA or not) that you manufactured. That second part must have cost Tandy a bundle. Cheers, Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 29 00:14:25 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 05:14:25 +0000 Subject: NCR Minis: Re: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <20060629021125.19911.qmail@seefried.com> References: <200606290010.k5T0AAOE089303@dewey.classiccmp.org> <20060629021125.19911.qmail@seefried.com> Message-ID: <44A361B1.9040304@yahoo.co.uk> Ken Seefried wrote: > The premier box was the 3600, which was probably the box that the > original poster described as "2 refrigerators", or some such...it was > about that big or bigger. As I recall, it had up to 32 i486 processors > (I vaugly recall a Pentium upgrade, and maybe a PPro one) and used some > Teradata interconnect IP. They were touted as "data warehouse" boxes, > and were usually used for some big DB app. Million dollar boxes. Ran > pretty bog standard SVR4. Interesting - is that the direction that NCR headed after the Tower line (68k-based systems)? My Tower 700 dates from about 1988, and the 800 would have been later (there was possibly a 900, but not sure). 486 CPUs turned up around what, 1992 or so? I suppose NCR could have squeezed another model of server inbetween the two. > I never saw a place to plug a keyboard and mouse into one of these... The Towers at least were serial console only (15 pin D-type female connectors too, just so it was possible to get mixed up with AUI Ethernet!) > Someone even thought about porting Linux to the thing: > http://www.anime.net/~goemon/linux-3550/. I shall not hold my breath. Yeah, hairy stuff. Stranger things have happened, though. Depends what sort of docs they have and what sort of Linux driver code exists for the various peripheral controllers, I guess. cheers Jules From useddec at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 23:14:56 2006 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 23:14:56 -0500 Subject: The Good Old Days? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000b01c69b32$991ef210$2000a8c0@main> I remember an E8 or E9 that came up from aircraft maintenance, and became NCOIC of computer maintenance. He had no idea what was going on. He leaned on safety switch while giving a tour, and brought down a Q-7 (SAGE). Almost as bad as the WAF who tried to use a screwdriver to stop a drum for PM. I don't know if they ever found the screwdriver..... Paul Anderson -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Billy Pettit Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 3:46 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: The Good Old Days? Roy J. Tellason wrote: -- 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 Roy, Your sig file reminds me of one we had in the Army: There is nothing quite so dangerous as a 2nd Lieutenant with a screwdriver! Maybe you had to be there. The Army loaded up the Signal Corps with 2nd Looies every June. Had to put the ROTC types somewhere they wouldn't do too much harm. So we were the dumping ground. My company had 216 Lts out of 300 men total. The stories that could be told! And definitely not OT. Billy From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 29 00:25:47 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 05:25:47 +0000 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <44A3645B.7020202@yahoo.co.uk> William Donzelli wrote: > > Yes, that is remarkable, but last I checked the PS/2 line doesn't have >> *any* ISA slots which means people had to buy sound cards, joystick >> adapters, SuperVGA boards, internal modems, etc. etc. all over again. >> At 2X the price. That was a colossally bad move for the consumer >> market, which ended up driving the market the most anyway. > > Was it? Realistically, did a big percentage of new computer sales > during the PS/2 era really involve upgrades? Maybe in the consumer > geek market, but that is not IBM's domain. For new PeeCee sales I > remember at the time (recall that back then most consumer sales were > to folks that never had a PC based computer), most people just wanted > a whole new machine, with perhaps the exceptions being the printer and > tube. Plus it's worth remembering that the software vendors kept a close eye on hardware developments and wrote their code accordingly. So if a person interested in upgrading their machine to current spec was also interested in running the latest apps, they'd be upgrading their video card, disk controller etc. anyway. That certainly happened to me on a few occasions back when I used to play the PC upgrade game. These days I seem to have hit a point where the machine runs the apps I need nicely, so I don't need to do hardware or software upgrades. I suspect that's a rarity :) It's interesting though how MCA and EISA died out, but VLB (briefly) and PCI did so well. The latter two both required new boards, but there didn't seem to be a lot of complaints amongst users. cheers Jules From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jun 28 23:28:28 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 21:28:28 -0700 Subject: HD formatting utils for DOS In-Reply-To: <44A34056.8070806@oldskool.org> References: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> <20060627190820.J20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A34056.8070806@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200606282128280634.218CAE08@10.0.0.252> On 6/28/2006 at 9:52 PM Jim Leonard wrote: >CDROMs don't exceed 2G so I'm not sure what you're getting at. I've >never seen anything that provides volumes larger than 2G to DOS, in any >form or format. Not even the older VCOM and Golden Bow stuff. Funny thing about that--NT can support FAT16 partitions up to 4G, but if you have such a partition, stock DOS barfs on it. However, Fred's right--you can use the network interface to implement whatever size filesystem you desire. You may have to "bracket" return values for total and free sizes when you report them back to DOS, but basically, DOS doesn't care what you've got out there for a filesystem. Unless MS has broken the interface, you can still access another (NT) system using NTFS for a filesystem using DOS 5 running real-mode Microsoft networking--or even WFWG. However, individual file sizes can be 2G at most--but I think DOS 7 can handle 4G files (i.e. MS fixed enough of the code).. Cheers, Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 29 00:36:40 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 05:36:40 +0000 Subject: Available: Microvax cluster (Luton, UK) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A366E8.4020501@yahoo.co.uk> Colin Eby wrote: > > > > Jules -- > > I know I'm coming late to the party on this, but I'm on holiday in the US > and just picked up my email. I'm based in Hampshire and would love to > talk over what's for grabs with the seller. I think they've been claimed, I'm afraid - will shout if they re-appear, though! cheers Jules From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 23:47:47 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:47:47 +1200 Subject: NCR Minis: Re: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <20060629021125.19911.qmail@seefried.com> References: <200606290010.k5T0AAOE089303@dewey.classiccmp.org> <20060629021125.19911.qmail@seefried.com> Message-ID: On 6/29/06, Ken Seefried wrote: > The premier box was the 3600... up to 32 i486 processor... Ran pretty > bog standard SVR4. > > I never saw a place to plug a keyboard and mouse into one of these... I don't recognize it from your description... we had newer/smaller ones than that. > Then there were the 3550, 3500 and 3450 (at least...I think there were > more). Proprietary Pentium multiprocessor, Microchannel minis...well > constructed and fast for the time. Kinda sorta like Sequents. They ran > SVR4 or SVR3.2, and I've seen at least one of them run NT 3.1. That's more like what we had. I can't recall the specific models (I almost never had to work with them, but I did walk past them every day). About the only spec I can remember is quad P90s, and either 4 or 8 Microchannels per box, and loads and loads of 1-2GB disks. Being a Western Electric/AT&T/Bell Labs/Lucent (pick a year) facility, ours ran SVR4. We had smaller boxes for NT 3.1... lots and lots of smaller boxes (with a pretty bad machine/admin ratio compared to the NCR and Sun farms). I never attempted to _run_ DOS on them, but I was told it was possible, and I do seem to recall they had a keyboard jack and VGA connector for the console, but that could be a fuzzy memory. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 23:56:14 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:56:14 +1200 Subject: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) In-Reply-To: References: <200606281701.k5SH1BEN084377@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On 6/29/06, Jeff Walther wrote: > >Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:26:41 +0000 > >From: "Ethan Dicks" > > >Does anyone here know about the internals of the G3 line? I have a > >motherboard in front of me that I'm attempting to see if it will work.... > The Beige G3 (if you're looking at a Blue & White (Smurf) MB (the > case was B&W, not the MB), then the following advice is inapplicable) The case for this was the Blue/White case... > A Beige G3 could be missing any of three essential components if it > was stripped. It needs a CPU, which comes on a 19X19 pin ZIF module. > I doubt you overlooked that... Indeed. > It requires a voltage regulator. > This is less obvious, but I bet you have that. If not, it mounts in the ~2" > vertical slot to the left of the ZIF socket. This does not appear to be that motherboard. I should have included this on the initial posting, but it seems to be Apple P/N 820-0987-A. > The battery, keyboard and mouse can all be dispensed with if all you > wish to do is boot the machine. The battery is a 1/2AA available at > Frys for about $6 or at Radio Shack for closer to $12. The battery I removed is a 3.6V Li, marked ER2S (1/2AA). The nearest place to buy a battery, any battery, is Dick Smith's in Christchurch... the next plane is in 4 months. I'll probably either swipe a battery from an old iMac or rig up a pack with three NiMH AAs. Thanks for the info. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 23:57:56 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:57:56 +1200 Subject: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 6/29/06, Julian Wolfe wrote: > I remember accidentally doing this, is this what caused the smashing-glass > sound to come from the machine? I remember my friend and I were cracking up > pretty hard when we heard that. The smashing glass sound is a pretty standard Mac sound for many models when something goes wrong in the boot process. I would _think_ you need a CPU to get it, but there can still be something substantially hosed (i.e., no chance of video, no disks, no RAM...) just as long as the CPU can read ROM and write to the sound chip. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jun 28 23:59:26 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:59:26 +1200 Subject: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) In-Reply-To: <44A26A85.3020900@mdrconsult.com> References: <44A26A85.3020900@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: On 6/28/06, Doc Shipley wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > > Does anyone here know about the internals of the G3 line? > > There are a couple of different G3 system boards with very different > PSU inputs. As far as I know, neither is PC ATX compatible. Not surprising. > www.xlr8yourmac.com has some pages that detail converting an > off-the-shelf ATX PSU for use on a "beige" G3... That's just the sort of tip I was looking for. Thanks! -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 29 00:05:13 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:05:13 -0700 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <44A3645B.7020202@yahoo.co.uk> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> <44A3645B.7020202@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200606282205130457.21AE5289@10.0.0.252> On 6/29/2006 at 5:25 AM Jules Richardson wrote: >It's interesting though how MCA and EISA died out, but VLB (briefly) and >PCI did so well. The latter two both required new boards, but there didn't >seem to be a lot of complaints amongst users. I think it wasn't that PCI "did so well", but rather that the need for plug in cards decreased dramatically. Consider that right about when PCI began appearing on Pentium-class machines (I know it made an appearance late in the 486 game, but it wasn't as common as all-ISA or ISA/VLB 486 systems), motherboard integration of peripherals had gotten underway, so the need for lots of cards wasn't there. Contrast the typical 386 with its display, hard/floppy cards (with serial and parallel ports) where basically everything except CPU and memory was on cards. Pentiums pretty much started out with IDE, floppy, serial and parallel already on the motherboard. Some had display, sound and network adapters there too, and a few even had SCSI. The need for add-in cards dropped dramatically. I suspect that most PCI cards sold are display or sound or network adapters. At some point, I predict that many desktop systems will take the form of something that looks like the Mac Mini--everything that you need in a small box with no expandability except for USB and maybe Firewire. Should cut costs significantly. Cheers, Chuck From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jun 29 00:06:20 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 01:06:20 -0400 Subject: NCR Minis: Re: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: References: <200606290010.k5T0AAOE089303@dewey.classiccmp.org> <20060629021125.19911.qmail@seefried.com> Message-ID: <200606290106.20281.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 29 June 2006 00:47, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 6/29/06, Ken Seefried wrote: > I never attempted to _run_ DOS on them, but I was told it was possible, > and I do seem to recall they had a keyboard jack and VGA connector > for the console, but that could be a fuzzy memory. On the smaller ones, it was possible. On the WM5100 I played with, you had a small tower box that ran some software, which talked to a system controller (service processor, whatever) running VxWorks, in each big machine, through a 10Base2 lan to control the systems (and for the console I think). Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jun 29 00:15:57 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:15:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) In-Reply-To: from Ethan Dicks at "Jun 29, 6 04:57:56 pm" Message-ID: <200606290515.k5T5Fvu4007528@floodgap.com> > > I remember accidentally doing this, is this what caused the smashing-glass > > sound to come from the machine? I remember my friend and I were cracking up > > pretty hard when we heard that. > > The smashing glass sound is a pretty standard Mac sound for many > models when something goes wrong in the boot process. I would _think_ > you need a CPU to get it, but there can still be something > substantially hosed (i.e., no chance of video, no disks, no RAM...) > just as long as the CPU can read ROM and write to the sound chip. Correct, a dead CPU = no glass ^_^ You also hear chimes of death on earlier Mac models. Spooky. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- It is the business of the future to be dangerous. -- Hawkwind -------------- From waisun.chia at gmail.com Thu Jun 29 00:40:03 2006 From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 13:40:03 +0800 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <44A33ED0.7020706@oldskool.org> References: <6b7ca66d1fb14b55beb7dd46ce6f9ad5@valleyimplants.com> <44A33ED0.7020706@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On 6/29/06, Jim Leonard wrote: > > > I think that Sun only makes available the current release of Solaris :-(((( > > No, you can download ISO images for older releases; dig harder. I am only able to find solaris 8 (x86 and sparc)...that's the most vintage.. It'd be great if we have a community download from solaris 2.7 all the way down to SunOS 4 and below!! :-) From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Tue Jun 27 14:51:25 2006 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:51:25 -0500 Subject: M7800 setup - need help Message-ID: Well, I got my 11/34 working, it comes up to a console and it all works great. I have a second M7800 card but I'm not real sure how to configure the address and interrupt vectors on the card. I did figure out that: A. I have the 4.608 mhz crystal, allowing me to do 9600 baud with it. B. I removed the two caps that were in place according to the manual "FOR 110 and 150 BAUD ONLY" C. How to set the 9600 baud rate for both send and receive D. How to set 1 stop bit, no parity, and 8 data bits. So I'm good to go with it except for two problems: 1. When it is put in to replace the DL11-W (which would be much easier to reconfigure later, what with its switches), it causes the machine to halt at 173524 on powerup (this also happened before I removed the two caps, so it's not that). I just want to set this thing up as the serial console, for 9600, N/8/1. Can someone help me out? Thanks Julian From alwrcker82 at imap.imap-r.rotors.cs.com Wed Jun 28 06:21:01 2006 From: alwrcker82 at imap.imap-r.rotors.cs.com (alwrcker82@imap.uk.aol.com) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 07:21:01 -0400 Subject: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) Message-ID: <380-22006632811211968@M2W007.mail2web.com> Original Message: ----------------- From: Ethan Dicks ethan.dicks at gmail.com Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 08:26:41 +0000 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) A quick question about the Mac G3, if you'll forgive it being not yet on-topic. Feel free to reply off-list to avoid rampant topic drift... Does anyone here know about the internals of the G3 line? I have a motherboard in front of me that I'm attempting to see if it will work. It came from a machine that had already been stripped, so there's no guarantee the hardware is functional. With the Apple Reset/NMI board installed, and RAM, and the Apple-enhanced ATI Rage 128 video card, I've attempted to see if it works by plugging in a PC ATX power supply and pressing the "power on" button on the motherboard and on the Reset/NMI board. I get a brief green flash from several LEDs, but the PSU doesn't kick on the fan, and the machine does not appear to be starting. Do I need an Apple ATX supply to test this? Could this be a battery problem? (the battery was completely dead and I have no handy replacement, so the battery compartment is empty) Do I need to have a keyboard and mouse plugged in to get a response? Thanks for any tips. -ethan Hi Ethan, I had a same problam with a G3 MT then found out it requires a Mac keyboard, that has the power button on it. Al DePermentier -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From lbajger at wp.pl Tue Jun 27 01:56:49 2006 From: lbajger at wp.pl (Lukasz Bajger) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 08:56:49 +0200 Subject: hp 16500A software Message-ID: <003201c699b6$dd4c4aa0$6701000a@bitis> Hello, ive found yours posts on some discussion board in internet. http://archive.netbsd.se/?ml=cctech&a=2002-12&t=153839# I need software (inverse assemblers, os etc.) for hp16500A could you send all you have to me ? Please. regards LB From gordon at gjcp.net Tue Jun 27 14:28:34 2006 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 20:28:34 +0100 Subject: EU In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1151436514.30579.6.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Fri, 2006-06-09 at 02:58 +0100, Tony Duell wrote: > And I'll take videos on EIAJ spools, N1500 cassettes, V2000 cassetes, and > even, I guess, Betamax. At a pinch I'll take VHS (but it's a horrible > format). ... and on that, do you want some N1500 and N1700 bits? The N1700 is probably more-or-less working, the N1500 may not actually be complete. There are some tapes too. You'd probably need to arrange collection. Gordon. From cctech at porky.vax-11.org Tue Jun 27 18:08:02 2006 From: cctech at porky.vax-11.org (cctech at porky.vax-11.org) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:08:02 -0600 (MDT) Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <200606272137.k5RLbHVD029144@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200606272137.k5RLbHVD029144@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 27 Jun 2006, Zane H. Healy wrote: >> Evening folks, >> >> Today I was given a Sun Enterprise Ultra 2 but the machine's been out of use >> for so long nobody can remember anything about it, which is handy. Googling >> tells me I need a Solaris install CD to change the root password....bummer >> since I don't have one. >> >> I'm a VAX/Alpha guy, if I want to break a system it's relatively easy but I >> know nothing about Suns...... >> >> It's running SunOS 5.7 if that's any help.... > > 'boot -s' from the OpenBoot prompt might get you into single user, or did > they finally start requiring a password by default for that. > > Zane > You can probably boot a Linux recovery disk and mount the Solaris root filesystem, and change it manually... You might have to track down the shadow password as well. Or you could pull the disk and plug it into a Linux system and change it that way. Clint From fischerrrf at verizon.net Tue Jun 27 19:05:26 2006 From: fischerrrf at verizon.net (Julie Fischer) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:05:26 -0700 Subject: Any former Philips/Magnavox VideoWriter users/owners/hackers? Message-ID: <007601c69a46$8fcdb850$2f01a8c0@RICHARDFISCHER> I have a Videowriter which manufacture date is stamped on the back of same as 03/86, and which I've had since about that date. As a former marketing director for Dataquest, San Jose, CA, I often consulted with fledgling electronic typewriter companies regarding the features, etc. of their planned systems. They gave me this system for my efforts. I used to use it full-time and assume it's running just fine. Want me to check? Julie (Voss) Fischer Kennewick, WA Collection: Voss Typewriter Canon Cat Magnavox Videowriter (ancient) Smith Corona typewriter From ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU Wed Jun 28 16:39:28 2006 From: ISC277 at CLCILLINOIS.EDU (Wolfe, Julian ) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 16:39:28 -0500 Subject: Disk idea for my 11/34 Message-ID: Hi all, I got a UNIBUS ESDI controller and I'm currently shopping for a disk drive for it. What I was thinking of doing is mounting a bracket inside the BA11-K and powering the disk drive from the BA11-K power supply, just using a molex connector to one of the unused harness connectors on the power distribution board that supplies the correct voltages. Would doing this pose any sort of problem? i.e. violating amperage limits etc? It would probably be something like a Maxtor XT-4170. From gordon at gjcp.net Wed Jun 28 17:14:20 2006 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 23:14:20 +0100 Subject: OT-ish - old Hughes video projector Message-ID: <1151532860.26300.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> I've just got hold of an old (probably late-80s) Hughes 800 projector. It's a couple of feet long and very very heavy. Inside is a big xenon lamp, a CRT of some kind, and some optics. It appears to work by shining the lamp (through mirrors) onto the face of the CRT. The big problem is, it doesn't appear to produce any video. I can hear the CRT scan coils going. The scan pitch changes when I remove the video source. In fact, it does appear to do all the things I'd expect when I press buttons, but no picture comes out :-/ There is (getting vaguely on-topic) an RS-232 port and it appears to use a TMS9900 CPU inside. Anybody got any idea how it even works? Even better, has anyone got an idea how to make it work *properly*? Gordon. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 29 01:53:40 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 06:53:40 +0000 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <200606282205130457.21AE5289@10.0.0.252> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> <44A3645B.7020202@yahoo.co.uk> <200606282205130457.21AE5289@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A378F4.1080807@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/29/2006 at 5:25 AM Jules Richardson wrote: > >> It's interesting though how MCA and EISA died out, but VLB (briefly) and >> PCI did so well. The latter two both required new boards, but there didn't >> seem to be a lot of complaints amongst users. > > I think it wasn't that PCI "did so well", but rather that the need for plug > in cards decreased dramatically. Possibly - but as you say, the main integration was floppy/IDE/serial/parallel - in other words, equivalent to the good old multi-I/O board of old. There were some exceptions, but the norm was for video, sound and network to still require boards (and, IIRC, motherboards of the time typically only had three or four PCI slots anyway) > At some point, I predict that many desktop systems will > take the form of something that looks like the Mac Mini--everything that > you need in a small box with no expandability except for USB and maybe > Firewire. Should cut costs significantly. Much as I dislike it, I suspect that you're right. Although there is a vast amount of legacy hardware out there, which hasn't quite been the case for Apple systems. I can't see the expandable PC board going away any time soon - but it might be relegated to the realms of server-class hardware only. Never underestimate the desire of PC gamers to keep upgrading their video boards though, I suppose. cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 29 01:57:13 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 06:57:13 +0000 Subject: bounces? In-Reply-To: <200606281430.53558.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200606281430.53558.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <44A379C9.2000208@yahoo.co.uk> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > I'm getting messages here from the bounces address, starting out like so: > > "The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your > original message." We all seem to be getting them - they seem to be harmless, although I'm not sure what's causing them / where they're originating from. I suspect that the list admin's on the case! :) cheers Jules From useddec at gmail.com Thu Jun 29 01:05:47 2006 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 01:05:47 -0500 Subject: The Good Old Days? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000301c69b42$11839260$2000a8c0@main> I remember an E8 or E9 that came up from aircraft maintenance, and became NCOIC of computer maintenance. He had no idea what was going on. He leaned on safety switch while giving a tour, and brought down a Q-7 (SAGE). Almost as bad as the WAF who tried to use a screwdriver to stop a drum for PM. I don't know if they ever found the screwdriver..... Paul Anderson -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Billy Pettit Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 3:46 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: The Good Old Days? Roy J. Tellason wrote: -- 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 Roy, Your sig file reminds me of one we had in the Army: There is nothing quite so dangerous as a 2nd Lieutenant with a screwdriver! Maybe you had to be there. The Army loaded up the Signal Corps with 2nd Looies every June. Had to put the ROTC types somewhere they wouldn't do too much harm. So we were the dumping ground. My company had 216 Lts out of 300 men total. The stories that could be told! And definitely not OT. Billy From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Thu Jun 29 02:24:19 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:24:19 -0700 Subject: OT-ish - old Hughes video projector In-Reply-To: <1151532860.26300.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <1151532860.26300.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <44A38023.7000302@msm.umr.edu> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >I've just got hold of an old (probably late-80s) Hughes 800 projector. >It's a couple of feet long and very very heavy. Inside is a big xenon >lamp, a CRT of some kind, and some optics. > I dont know of any way that shining light on a CRT would produce joy, because the CRT will emit light. If it is not a CRT but is a device that works by tranmission from a white light source, it would not be making the noise, or have sweep circuits, but it would also be possible that it was working and be difficult to see. I had a GE theatre size projector which had an integrated CRT. It used such high voltage to zap phosphor that it was an Xray hazzard, and in and of itself had become radioactive from long operation (it was 25 to 30 years old when I got it). It had a 12" diameter schmidt corrector and a 15 or so inch diameter primary, and was a rearward projecting Schmitt / Cass optical system. I assume your system is reflective, with the lamp optically shining on the CRT, or do you think it is tramsissive, thru the CRT tube? so about all I can help with here with the post is to suggest you dont have prolonged exposure to it till you can assess it's radiation status, and keep women and children away totally till you know. Jim From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Thu Jun 29 02:25:34 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:25:34 -0700 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: References: <6b7ca66d1fb14b55beb7dd46ce6f9ad5@valleyimplants.com> <44A33ED0.7020706@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <44A3806E.9020605@msm.umr.edu> Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > > I am only able to find solaris 8 (x86 and sparc)...that's the most > vintage.. There is a nice Solaris 2.7 sparc server on Epay right now From evan at snarc.net Thu Jun 29 02:37:40 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 03:37:40 -0400 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( Message-ID: <003401c69b4e$e68ca850$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Someone alerted me to this site tonight where they copied about 1,000 words straight from my web page. http://www.industryplayer.com/licenceinfo.php?licid=014060 In the "license research report" section, everything up to the Newton paragraph is plagiarized from my site. There is a link at the bottom of the page but there's no explanation to visitors about which facts came from which sites. It's one thing to quote a sentence or to set off a block paragraph, but blatantly copying 1,000 words pisses me off so much. They took some pictures as well which aren't mine, but which I had explicit permission from their owners to use. Also at the bottom, it says "researched by..." -- they call a simple Google search and cut-and-paste session "research" these days? That's pathetic. I will try contacting the site owners with my complaint. Hopefully it wil get rectified like last time. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jun 29 02:43:41 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:43:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <003401c69b4e$e68ca850$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <003401c69b4e$e68ca850$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jun 2006, Evan Koblentz wrote: > Someone alerted me to this site tonight where they copied about 1,000 words > straight from my web page. I wonder how much trouble could be cooked up with the headline "News Sites Frequently Plagarize Material". -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From evan at snarc.net Thu Jun 29 02:44:45 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 03:44:45 -0400 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <003401c69b4e$e68ca850$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <003501c69b4f$e3d9c7e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Well this sucks. There isn't useful whois data and I can't find any contact information on the site. Anyone see something that I'm missing at 3:43AM? -----Original Message----- From: Evan Koblentz [mailto:evan at snarc.net] Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 3:38 AM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( Someone alerted me to this site tonight where they copied about 1,000 words straight from my web page. http://www.industryplayer.com/licenceinfo.php?licid=014060 In the "license research report" section, everything up to the Newton paragraph is plagiarized from my site. There is a link at the bottom of the page but there's no explanation to visitors about which facts came from which sites. It's one thing to quote a sentence or to set off a block paragraph, but blatantly copying 1,000 words pisses me off so much. They took some pictures as well which aren't mine, but which I had explicit permission from their owners to use. Also at the bottom, it says "researched by..." -- they call a simple Google search and cut-and-paste session "research" these days? That's pathetic. I will try contacting the site owners with my complaint. Hopefully it wil get rectified like last time. From evan at snarc.net Thu Jun 29 02:51:22 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 03:51:22 -0400 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <003601c69b50$d0ad38e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> -----Original Message----- From: David Griffith [mailto:dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu] Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 3:44 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Why do people keep stealing my work :( >>>> I wonder how much trouble could be cooked up with the headline "News Sites Frequently Plagarize Material". Oooh, lots! But I can tell you from my experience as a journalist (about 10 years so far) that everyplace I've worked, plagairism was considered a terminatable offense. But that is OT here of couse. :) From evan at snarc.net Thu Jun 29 02:51:59 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 03:51:59 -0400 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <003501c69b4f$e3d9c7e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <003701c69b50$e6b15c70$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Disregard my previous comment/question -- I just found some contact info thanks to creative Googling. -----Original Message----- From: Evan Koblentz [mailto:evan at snarc.net] Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 3:45 AM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: Why do people keep stealing my work :( Well this sucks. There isn't useful whois data and I can't find any contact information on the site. Anyone see something that I'm missing at 3:43AM? -----Original Message----- From: Evan Koblentz [mailto:evan at snarc.net] Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 3:38 AM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( Someone alerted me to this site tonight where they copied about 1,000 words straight from my web page. http://www.industryplayer.com/licenceinfo.php?licid=014060 In the "license research report" section, everything up to the Newton paragraph is plagiarized from my site. There is a link at the bottom of the page but there's no explanation to visitors about which facts came from which sites. It's one thing to quote a sentence or to set off a block paragraph, but blatantly copying 1,000 words pisses me off so much. They took some pictures as well which aren't mine, but which I had explicit permission from their owners to use. Also at the bottom, it says "researched by..." -- they call a simple Google search and cut-and-paste session "research" these days? That's pathetic. I will try contacting the site owners with my complaint. Hopefully it wil get rectified like last time. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jun 29 02:59:35 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:59:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <003701c69b50$e6b15c70$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <003701c69b50$e6b15c70$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jun 2006, Evan Koblentz wrote: > Disregard my previous comment/question -- I just found some contact info > thanks to creative Googling. Be sure to keep us informed as to what what sort of mess you make with them. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From williams.dan at gmail.com Thu Jun 29 03:06:40 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 09:06:40 +0100 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <003501c69b4f$e3d9c7e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <003401c69b4e$e68ca850$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <003501c69b4f$e3d9c7e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <26c11a640606290106w472ec061o350ee323d0c3aa51@mail.gmail.com> On 29/06/06, Evan Koblentz wrote: > Well this sucks. There isn't useful whois data and I can't find any contact > information on the site. Anyone see something that I'm missing at 3:43AM? > The company is called "Tycoon Sistemas Ltda" and they are based in Brazil. But the terms of use mentions the USA. There is also an option to get support to phone you back. http://www.industryplayer.com/support.php Dan From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jun 29 03:59:40 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 03:59:40 -0500 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <200606282052010818.216B4FDE@10.0.0.252> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> <200606282052010818.216B4FDE@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A3967C.7090303@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Yes, that is remarkable, but last I checked the PS/2 line doesn't have >> *any* ISA slots which means people had to buy sound cards, joystick >> adapters, SuperVGA boards, internal modems, etc. etc. all over again. >> At 2X the price. That was a colossally bad move for the consumer >> market, which ended up driving the market the most anyway. > > You've obviously never run into a PS/2 Model 25 or 30 or even the > "portable" L40. ISA machines, not MCA. You're right, I never did. I already had a 286 and was looking for a 386. No 386 model PS/2 was ISA. L40 doesn't count, it was a laptop, you couldn't add cards to it :-) -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Jun 29 04:05:02 2006 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 04:05:02 -0500 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: References: <6b7ca66d1fb14b55beb7dd46ce6f9ad5@valleyimplants.com> <44A33ED0.7020706@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <44A397BE.60501@oldskool.org> Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > On 6/29/06, Jim Leonard wrote: >> >> > I think that Sun only makes available the current release of Solaris >> :-(((( >> >> No, you can download ISO images for older releases; dig harder. > > I am only able to find solaris 8 (x86 and sparc)...that's the most > vintage.. > > It'd be great if we have a community download from solaris 2.7 all the > way down to SunOS 4 and below!! :-) My question is, why? Not all the releases are worth running. Only the decent milestones are worth installing. Solaris 2.5.1 IIRC is the last version to run on sparc pizza boxes (5/10/20s) and possibly earier; Solaris 9 is the last version to run on all 64-bit Ultras; Solaris 10 is very impressive from a networking and virtualization standpoint (plus ZFS kicks some serious ass) and is what you should be running if at all possible. All other versions can hit the road for all I care (unless you need BSD SunOS 4.x for 1980s hardware). -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 29 05:11:16 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 10:11:16 +0000 Subject: OT-ish - old Hughes video projector In-Reply-To: <44A38023.7000302@msm.umr.edu> References: <1151532860.26300.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <44A38023.7000302@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <44A3A744.90908@yahoo.co.uk> jim stephens wrote: > so about all I can help with here with the post is to suggest you dont have > prolonged exposure to it till you can assess it's radiation status, and > keep women and children away totally till you know. ISTR that Gordon's a Citroen fan, and so a lost cause anyway ;-) *runs* On a serious note, is the filament to the tube glowing, suggesting that it's getting HV? (you'll almost certainly have to disable that xenon lamp to tell!) Failing that - how about the obvious - brightness control, or small board-mounted brightness trimmer that may have broken or have worn contacts? cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 29 05:21:45 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 10:21:45 +0000 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <44A3806E.9020605@msm.umr.edu> References: <6b7ca66d1fb14b55beb7dd46ce6f9ad5@valleyimplants.com> <44A33ED0.7020706@oldskool.org> <44A3806E.9020605@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <44A3A9B9.9050006@yahoo.co.uk> jim stephens wrote: > Wai-Sun Chia wrote: > >> >> I am only able to find solaris 8 (x86 and sparc)...that's the most >> vintage.. > > There is a nice Solaris 2.7 sparc server on Epay right now I'm interested to know why there's a SPARCServer 1000 board on there with a BIN of over $300US - I don't suppose those machines turn up *that* often, but I thought the system boards were just SPARC4's or 5's with several CPU boards fitted... I've got an Ultra1 that's off to EBay soon, just in case anyone was interested beforehand. Fairly standard framebuffer as I recall, but a decent amount of memory for the machine. (I was going to use to to replace the desktop PC at one point, but lack of decent audio put me off in the end) cheers Jules From williams.dan at gmail.com Thu Jun 29 04:48:35 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 10:48:35 +0100 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <44A397BE.60501@oldskool.org> References: <6b7ca66d1fb14b55beb7dd46ce6f9ad5@valleyimplants.com> <44A33ED0.7020706@oldskool.org> <44A397BE.60501@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <26c11a640606290248l415b0e3dr425aea6a6e04fc7e@mail.gmail.com> > > My question is, why? Not all the releases are worth running. Only the > decent milestones are worth installing. Solaris 2.5.1 IIRC is the last > version to run on sparc pizza boxes (5/10/20s) and possibly earier; Solaris 9 runs quite happily on sparc pizza boxes with decent memory. I think it runs all sun4m systems. I have not compared speed with 2.5.1. But Solaris 9 is still supported with patches and security releases etc. Dan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 29 04:56:23 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 21:56:23 +1200 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <44A397BE.60501@oldskool.org> References: <6b7ca66d1fb14b55beb7dd46ce6f9ad5@valleyimplants.com> <44A33ED0.7020706@oldskool.org> <44A397BE.60501@oldskool.org> Message-ID: On 6/29/06, Jim Leonard wrote: > My question is, why? Not all the releases are worth running. Only the > decent milestones are worth installing. Solaris 2.5.1 IIRC is the last > version to run on sparc pizza boxes (5/10/20s) and possibly earier; sun4c (SPARC 1/1+/2) support lasted through Solaris 7 sun4m (SPARC 5/10/20/LX/Classic) support lasted through at least Solaris 8 I have Solaris 8 on my SPARC 5/110. You can still run Solaris 7 on a SPARC 2, but with memory being an issue, I don't know if you'd want to. I think the Solaris 7/Solaris 8 transition was right about the time I upgraded from a SPARC 2 to a SPARC 5 (once I could get a SPARC 5 for under $100). I'll be retiring the SPARC 5 in favor of an Ultra when I get home. There's a lot more Linux work than Solaris work these days, but I gotta stay up to date and flexible for whatever opportunities come down the pike. http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/solaris/versions/ http://www.clock.org/~fair/computers/suns.html -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 29 05:02:39 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:02:39 +1200 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <44A3A9B9.9050006@yahoo.co.uk> References: <6b7ca66d1fb14b55beb7dd46ce6f9ad5@valleyimplants.com> <44A33ED0.7020706@oldskool.org> <44A3806E.9020605@msm.umr.edu> <44A3A9B9.9050006@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On 6/29/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > I'm interested to know why there's a SPARCServer 1000 board on there with a > BIN of over $300US - I don't suppose those machines turn up *that* often, but > I thought the system boards were just SPARC4's or 5's with several CPU boards > fitted... ISTR the SPARCserver 1000 is a sun4d machine. Internally, it's nothing like a SPARC 5. I used to take care of one at Lucent, but I never had to open the box - it just ran and ran and ran. I wouldn't mind one, except I think it has a low Computron/KwH ratio. For the juice one consumes, I'd rather run a 3000 - pedestal case, room for several internal SCA drives, and you can really load it up with CPUs and memory. Read about a guy on the suns-at-home list a while back that got a 3000 from his former employer for like 100 euros! I'd take that deal! Dunno if I'd spring for $300 for a SS1000 if I had to pay shipping on top of that - they are *tanks*. Might be an OK price at Dayton. -ethan From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 29 06:27:09 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 11:27:09 +0000 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: References: <6b7ca66d1fb14b55beb7dd46ce6f9ad5@valleyimplants.com> <44A33ED0.7020706@oldskool.org> <44A3806E.9020605@msm.umr.edu> <44A3A9B9.9050006@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44A3B90D.2080501@yahoo.co.uk> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 6/29/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > ISTR the SPARCserver 1000 is a sun4d machine. Internally, it's > nothing like a SPARC 5. Fair enough - I'm sure the local sysadmin said it was basically just a headless version of one of their other machines, but I must be misremembering the SPARC 5 bit :) > Dunno if I'd spring for $300 for a SS1000 > if I had to pay shipping on top of that - they are *tanks*. Might be > an OK price at Dayton. I've been putting off picking up a couple from someone as the boat-anchor alarm bells were ringing :-) Maybe it is worth my while to go get them even if they only realistically sell for a fraction of that price. I suppose Sun fans like to use them for their intended purpose (for which they'll do a capable job) - and unlike the desktop workstations they just don't turn up that often. cheers Jules From bpope at wordstock.com Thu Jun 29 07:23:33 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 08:23:33 -0400 (EDT) Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <20060629122333.1B1A557F4B@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Jim Leonard > > I'm in the same proverbial boat today, actually: I want to upgrade my > ailing video card with one with a faster GPU (read carefully: faster > processor, not bus architecture) but all the cards that fit the bill are > PCI Express and I don't have a PCI Express slot on my motherboard. So > I'd have to upgrade the motherboard... and memory and CPU because the > new motherboard doesn't support what I have either. Just because I want > to get a better video card. So I'm understandably irritated. And even if you get a card that fits in your bus, you have to make sure your power supply can handle it! :( I bought a PCI video card online only to find out when I got it that the power supply had to be at least 250W! This was on the outside of the box but was not mentioned on the online site. Cheers, Bryan From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Thu Jun 29 07:37:33 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 13:37:33 +0100 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <20060629122333.1B1A557F4B@mail.wordstock.com> References: <20060629122333.1B1A557F4B@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: <44A3C98D.4020901@dsl.pipex.com> Bryan Pope wrote: > And even if you get a card that fits in your bus, you have to make sure > your power supply can handle it! :( I bought a PCI video card online > only to find out when I got it that the power supply had to be at least > 250W! This was on the outside of the box but was not mentioned on > the online site. You know your video card is too powerful when it needs its own power connector. Seriously, a lot of the newer cards actually have a HDD-type power connector on them, and they take their 5V straight from the power supply instead of through the PCI connector. I seem to recall there are a couple of high end cards that need *two* such connectors due to their insane power consumption. Something like 225W just for the graphics card... -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From doc at mdrconsult.com Thu Jun 29 07:45:07 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 08:45:07 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <44A3967C.7090303@oldskool.org> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> <200606282052010818.216B4FDE@10.0.0.252> <44A3967C.7090303@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <44A3CB53.9080208@mdrconsult.com> Jim Leonard wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > >>> Yes, that is remarkable, but last I checked the PS/2 line doesn't >>> have *any* ISA slots which means people had to buy sound cards, >>> joystick adapters, SuperVGA boards, internal modems, etc. etc. all >>> over again. At 2X the price. That was a colossally bad move for the >>> consumer market, which ended up driving the market the most anyway. >> >> >> You've obviously never run into a PS/2 Model 25 or 30 or even the >> "portable" L40. ISA machines, not MCA. > > > You're right, I never did. I already had a 286 and was looking for a > 386. No 386 model PS/2 was ISA. L40 doesn't count, it was a laptop, > you couldn't add cards to it :-) That's sort of odd. I have a Model 25/386 with a 3Com 3c509 in it. Wait; I *had* it. I think I gave it to Gil Carrick. Doc From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 29 08:45:49 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 09:45:49 -0400 Subject: Commodore Computer Devotees Tinker With the Past In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A3D98D.6040703@gmail.com> Billy Pettit wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Wednesday 28 June 2006 04:31 pm, Billy Pettit wrote: >> Front Page Article on yesterday's LATimes: >> >> > > o ry?ctrack=1&cset=true > > Requires registration... Oh well. Use BugMeNot. Peace... Sridhar From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jun 29 08:51:19 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 08:51:19 -0500 Subject: bounces? References: <200606281430.53558.rtellason@verizon.net> <44A379C9.2000208@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <014401c69b83$1a415c70$6500a8c0@BILLING> Jules wrote.... > We all seem to be getting them - they seem to be harmless, although I'm > not sure what's causing them / where they're originating from. I suspect > that the list admin's on the case! :) Actually I have yet to get a good example. I tend to ignore my own because I get valid bounce messages to my account... so my email address is a "bad example". Can someone send me a full message header & body detail from one they get... everything... without the headers coming from a forward to me? I'd appreciate it. Jay West From jim.isbell at gmail.com Thu Jun 29 09:17:43 2006 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 09:17:43 -0500 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <003401c69b4e$e68ca850$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <003401c69b4e$e68ca850$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: The answer to the question in your "Subject" line is simple: Because you do such good work. On 6/29/06, Evan Koblentz wrote: > Someone alerted me to this site tonight where they copied about 1,000 words > straight from my web page. > > http://www.industryplayer.com/licenceinfo.php?licid=014060 > > In the "license research report" section, everything up to the Newton > paragraph is plagiarized from my site. > > There is a link at the bottom of the page but there's no explanation to > visitors about which facts came from which sites. It's one thing to quote a > sentence or to set off a block paragraph, but blatantly copying 1,000 words > pisses me off so much. They took some pictures as well which aren't mine, > but which I had explicit permission from their owners to use. > > Also at the bottom, it says "researched by..." -- they call a simple Google > search and cut-and-paste session "research" these days? That's pathetic. > > I will try contacting the site owners with my complaint. Hopefully it wil > get rectified like last time. > > > -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space." From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 29 10:23:41 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:23:41 +0000 Subject: bounces? In-Reply-To: <014401c69b83$1a415c70$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <200606281430.53558.rtellason@verizon.net> <44A379C9.2000208@yahoo.co.uk> <014401c69b83$1a415c70$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <44A3F07D.1030909@yahoo.co.uk> Jay West wrote: > Can someone send me a full message header & body detail from one they > get... everything... without the headers coming from a forward to me? > I'd appreciate it. You have mail... cheers J. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 29 10:30:24 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:30:24 +0000 Subject: Solbourne 3000 SPARC clone luggable... Message-ID: <44A3F210.50308@yahoo.co.uk> Just had offer of one. Anyone happen to have a picture so I know what I'm dealing with visually? Google turns up almost nothing, and no images. I'm suspecting that it's not of sufficient interest to justify the space it'd take up (we have enough real SPARC hardware as it is, plus a couple of misfits like an Axil clone and a Tadpole notebook) cheers J. From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Thu Jun 29 10:34:32 2006 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 08:34:32 -0700 Subject: old Hughes video projector In-Reply-To: <200606290913.k5T9ACUH097082@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200606290913.k5T9ACUH097082@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <44A3F308.2050709@sbcglobal.net> >I've just got hold of an old (probably late-80s) Hughes 800 projector. >It's a couple of feet long and very very heavy. Inside is a big xenon >lamp, a CRT of some kind, and some optics. It appears to work by >shining the lamp (through mirrors) onto the face of the CRT. The big >problem is, it doesn't appear to produce any video. I can hear the CRT >scan coils going. The scan pitch changes when I remove the video >source. In fact, it does appear to do all the things I'd expect when I >press buttons, but no picture comes out :-/ I think this might be an Image Light Amplifier (ILA). This used small CRT's coupled to a liquid crystal light valve. The ILA was a sandwich of materials that included a photosensor and the liquid crystal material. The CRT wrote it's image onto the photosensor which converted the light into a varying voltage. This voltage was transferred to the liquid crystal material which could now reflect light from the Xenon source. This is not a pixel based system, the liquid crystal material was a continuos sheet so would be able to image the full resolution of the CRT. They can have an almost film like image because there is no pixel structure. I believe the CRT's were infrared and so you could not see an image on the CRT face directly. Bob From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 29 10:44:29 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 08:44:29 -0700 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <44A3967C.7090303@oldskool.org> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> <200606282052010818.216B4FDE@10.0.0.252> <44A3967C.7090303@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200606290844290685.23F796DE@10.0.0.252> On 6/29/2006 at 3:59 AM Jim Leonard wrote: >You're right, I never did. I already had a 286 and was looking for a >386. No 386 model PS/2 was ISA. L40 doesn't count, it was a laptop, >you couldn't add cards to it :-) Maybe it's splitting hairs, but the following PS/2 models had ISA busses and 80386SX CPUs: Model 40 SX Model 35 SX Model 25 SX The following had a 486SLC CPU and ISA bus: Model "9533E" (really odd one--one lone ISA slot) The L40SX was a 386SX box also with an expansion connector that connected to an ISA expansion unit (3541). Laptop maybe, but you could add a short ISA card to it. There may have been others--after awhile, it got hard to keep track of PS/2 models. Cheers, Chuck From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jun 29 10:56:26 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 11:56:26 -0400 Subject: OT-ish - old Hughes video projector In-Reply-To: <44A38023.7000302@msm.umr.edu> References: <1151532860.26300.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <44A38023.7000302@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <200606291156.27016.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 29 June 2006 03:24, jim stephens wrote: > I had a GE theatre size projector which had an integrated CRT. It > used such high voltage to zap phosphor that it was an Xray hazzard, > and in and of itself had become radioactive from long operation (it > was 25 to 30 years old when I got it). As has been said here before, it is NOT possible to make things become radioactive from shooting x-rays at them. It's not even a problem in laboratory x-ray environments, let alone the small amount that could be put off from a CRT. If it's radioactive when it's off, it's from another source. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 29 11:46:04 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 09:46:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Solbourne 3000 SPARC clone luggable... In-Reply-To: <44A3F210.50308@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jun 29, 2006 03:30:24 PM Message-ID: <200606291646.k5TGk44H015836@onyx.spiritone.com> > Just had offer of one. Anyone happen to have a picture so I know what I'm > dealing with visually? Google turns up almost nothing, and no images. > > > I'm suspecting that it's not of sufficient interest to justify the space it'd > take up (we have enough real SPARC hardware as it is, plus a couple of misfits > like an Axil clone and a Tadpole notebook) GET IT!!! If you weren't in the UK, I'd be very tempted to ask about getting it! http://web.archive.org/web/20041106000802/www.cs.colorado.edu/~dowdy/Solbourne/Images.html#S3000 http://web.archive.org/web/20041014105726/http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~dowdy/Solbourne/Solbourne.html Based on the pictures, and what little info I could find, it looks like it's the system I've been wanting for a long time. Unfortunately it looks like if you get it, you'd best be sure you get an OS with it. Zane From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 29 12:05:35 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 10:05:35 -0700 Subject: ISO: Compaq Portable 3 "docking station" (?) Message-ID: <44A4085F.6050809@DakotaCom.Net> I'd like to find a docking station/expansion chassis for my Portable 3. It's my understanding that this will hold *two* (full size?) ISA cards. I'm hoping that this will be a good, *compact* home for my Opus PM (I'd hate to have to set up a regular PC for this -- the Portable 3 has the advantage of the built in display, etc.). Alternatively, can anyone suggest something that will hold two full size ISA cards in a similarly small footprint? Ideally, with a COLOR display instead of the Portable 3's orange plasma -- though I can live with the monochrome as the GNX code is early SysV without much frilly stuff (I think I have a beta version of X Windows 10 that might run on that hardware, though...) Thanks! --don From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jun 29 13:27:57 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 18:27:57 +0000 Subject: Solbourne 3000 SPARC clone luggable... In-Reply-To: <200606291646.k5TGk44H015836@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200606291646.k5TGk44H015836@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <44A41BAD.901@yahoo.co.uk> Zane H. Healy wrote: >> Just had offer of one. Anyone happen to have a picture so I know what I'm >> dealing with visually? Google turns up almost nothing, and no images. >> >> >> I'm suspecting that it's not of sufficient interest to justify the space it'd >> take up (we have enough real SPARC hardware as it is, plus a couple of misfits >> like an Axil clone and a Tadpole notebook) > > GET IT!!! If you weren't in the UK, I'd be very tempted to ask about > getting it! :-) Problem is that space is finite and we've got plenty of luggable-class machines of various flavours already. It might be a nice box, but then we've got plenty of nice Sun hardware already. Seems too big and bulky for a terminal to use to support other system. It's not like it has whizzy graphics or audio that can attract the public either - even though it's quirky and perhaps interesting in a Sun context, I rather suspect it'd sit in storage most of its life because available visible space would have to be given over to more 'attractive' items. In an ideal world we'd have infinite storage space - I realise we could quite easily never see another of these! I suppose it's one of those situations where I'd like to see it go to a private collector who'd get a bit more use/enjoyment out of it - but such that we might be able to borrow it for a short period of time one day when some display that was relevant to it was being done. > Based on the pictures, and what little info I could find, it looks like it's > the system I've been wanting for a long time. Unfortunately it looks like > if you get it, you'd best be sure you get an OS with it. Thanks for the links. Certainly not a lot of info out there! I'll find out what sort of working state this one's in and whether it comes with OS media... cheers Jules From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 29 12:33:12 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 13:33:12 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <200606290844290685.23F796DE@10.0.0.252> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> <200606282052010818.216B4FDE@10.0.0.252> <44A3967C.7090303@oldskool.org> <200606290844290685.23F796DE@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A40ED8.6020704@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/29/2006 at 3:59 AM Jim Leonard wrote: > >> You're right, I never did. I already had a 286 and was looking for a >> 386. No 386 model PS/2 was ISA. L40 doesn't count, it was a laptop, >> you couldn't add cards to it :-) > > Maybe it's splitting hairs, but the following PS/2 models had ISA busses > and 80386SX CPUs: > > Model 40 SX > Model 35 SX > Model 25 SX Not just those. Plus, I don't believe there was a 25SX. I believe the ISA models were: Model 25 8-bit ISA Model 25-286 16-bit ISA Model 30 8-bit ISA Model 30-286 16-bit ISA Model 35SX 16-bit ISA Model 40SX 16-bit ISA Model L40SX 16-bit ISA I'm reasonably certain that the above is an exhaustive list. Peace... Sridhar From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Jun 29 12:40:52 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 13:40:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: OT-ish - old Hughes video projector In-Reply-To: <200606291156.27016.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <1151532860.26300.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <44A38023.7000302@msm.umr.edu> <200606291156.27016.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200606291743.NAA17581@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> I had a GE theatre size projector which had an integrated CRT. It >> used such high voltage to zap phosphor that it was an Xray hazzard, >> and in and of itself had become radioactive from long operation > As has been said here before, it is NOT possible to make things > become radioactive from shooting x-rays at them. That's not what's claimed. What's claimed is that shooting electrons at the screen fast enough both (a) generated X-rays, and (b) rendered that screen radioactive. This has nothing to do with whether X-rays can make what they hit radioactive. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 29 13:04:35 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 11:04:35 -0700 Subject: Solbourne 3000 SPARC clone luggable... In-Reply-To: <44A41BAD.901@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200606291646.k5TGk44H015836@onyx.spiritone.com> <44A41BAD.901@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44A41633.1010401@DakotaCom.Net> > In an ideal world we'd have infinite storage space... Ah, but in such a world, many of these machines would still be sitting in their ORIGINAL OWNER's "infinite" space -- and there'd be fewer available to collect! :-/ From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 29 13:02:02 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 14:02:02 -0400 Subject: OT-ish - old Hughes video projector In-Reply-To: <200606291743.NAA17581@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <1151532860.26300.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <44A38023.7000302@msm.umr.edu> <200606291156.27016.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200606291743.NAA17581@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44A4159A.9050605@gmail.com> der Mouse wrote: >>> I had a GE theatre size projector which had an integrated CRT. It >>> used such high voltage to zap phosphor that it was an Xray hazzard, >>> and in and of itself had become radioactive from long operation >> As has been said here before, it is NOT possible to make things >> become radioactive from shooting x-rays at them. > > That's not what's claimed. > > What's claimed is that shooting electrons at the screen fast enough > both (a) generated X-rays, and (b) rendered that screen radioactive. > This has nothing to do with whether X-rays can make what they hit > radioactive. Anyway, if an electron beam can cause something to be radioactive, then X-rays can too, by using the photoelectric effect to generate an electron beam within the material, no? Peace... Sridhar From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Jun 29 13:30:46 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 14:30:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: OT-ish - old Hughes video projector In-Reply-To: <44A4159A.9050605@gmail.com> References: <1151532860.26300.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <44A38023.7000302@msm.umr.edu> <200606291156.27016.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200606291743.NAA17581@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4159A.9050605@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200606291836.OAA17967@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> What's claimed is that shooting electrons at the screen fast enough >> both (a) generated X-rays, and (b) rendered that screen radioactive. >> This has nothing to do with whether X-rays can make what they hit >> radioactive. > Anyway, if an electron beam can cause something to be radioactive, > then X-rays can too, by using the photoelectric effect to generate an > electron beam within the material, no? My guess would be "no". Beta particles (electrons) don't cause radioactivity unless they meddle with the nucleus. This requires surmounting a fairly hefty energy barrier; for it to happen often enough to produce any significant amount of radioactivity requires that the electrons be tootling along at a pretty good clip. I suspect that by the time a photon can knock an electron free of its atom with enough oomph left over to give it that kind of energy, it's well above the X-ray region. But I'm not physicist enough to be certain. Anyone? /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 29 13:38:12 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 11:38:12 -0700 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <44A40ED8.6020704@gmail.com> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> <200606282052010818.216B4FDE@10.0.0.252> <44A3967C.7090303@oldskool.org> <200606290844290685.23F796DE@10.0.0.252> <44A40ED8.6020704@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200606291138120874.2496A1F9@10.0.0.252> On 6/29/2006 at 1:33 PM Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >Not just those. Plus, I don't believe there was a 25SX. Then you'd better tell this guy: :) http://www.walshcomptech.com/ps2/25sx.htm Like I said, for a time, the new models and variations on the old ones kept coming pretty fast. Cheers, Chuck From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jun 29 13:53:09 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 12:53:09 -0600 Subject: Solbourne 3000 SPARC clone luggable... In-Reply-To: <44A41633.1010401@DakotaCom.Net> References: <200606291646.k5TGk44H015836@onyx.spiritone.com> <44A41BAD.901@yahoo.co.uk> <44A41633.1010401@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44A42195.3050205@jetnet.ab.ca> Don Y wrote: >> In an ideal world we'd have infinite storage space... > > > Ah, but in such a world, many of these machines would still be sitting > in their ORIGINAL OWNER's "infinite" space -- and there'd be fewer > available to collect! :-/ > No you got that wrong! All the infinite storage space is used up by the "Box and packing material" that almost every commercial product wants us to keep if you read the manual. From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jun 29 14:11:48 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 12:11:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT? RBL's Message-ID: <200606291911.k5TJBnOT019020@onyx.spiritone.com> Does anyone have a list of favorite RBL's (Real-time Spam Black Lists)? I'm currently using the following and am looking for something a bit better. RBLs: relays.orbs.org, sbl.spamhaus.org, relays.ordb.org, bl.spamcop.net Thanks, Zane From doc at mdrconsult.com Thu Jun 29 14:34:04 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:34:04 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <44A40ED8.6020704@gmail.com> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> <200606282052010818.216B4FDE@10.0.0.252> <44A3967C.7090303@oldskool.org> <200606290844290685.23F796DE@10.0.0.252> <44A40ED8.6020704@gmail.com> Message-ID: <44A42B2C.40308@mdrconsult.com> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> On 6/29/2006 at 3:59 AM Jim Leonard wrote: >> >>> You're right, I never did. I already had a 286 and was looking for a >>> 386. No 386 model PS/2 was ISA. L40 doesn't count, it was a laptop, >>> you couldn't add cards to it :-) >> >> >> Maybe it's splitting hairs, but the following PS/2 models had ISA busses >> and 80386SX CPUs: >> >> Model 40 SX >> Model 35 SX >> Model 25 SX > > > Not just those. Plus, I don't believe there was a 25SX. I believe the > ISA models were: > > Model 25 8-bit ISA > Model 25-286 16-bit ISA > Model 30 8-bit ISA > Model 30-286 16-bit ISA > Model 35SX 16-bit ISA > Model 40SX 16-bit ISA > Model L40SX 16-bit ISA > > I'm reasonably certain that the above is an exhaustive list. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure my Model 25 had 16-bit ISA. I'm certain it was a 386sx. Doc From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Thu Jun 29 14:34:48 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 20:34:48 +0100 Subject: OT? RBL's In-Reply-To: <200606291911.k5TJBnOT019020@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200606291911.k5TJBnOT019020@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <44A42B58.8070804@dsl.pipex.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: > Does anyone have a list of favorite RBL's (Real-time Spam Black Lists)? I'm > currently using the following and am looking for something a bit better. > > RBLs: relays.orbs.org, sbl.spamhaus.org, relays.ordb.org, > bl.spamcop.net > sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org. Blocks messages based on the ROKSO list (like the SBL), but also blocks machines that are known to have been infected with viruses. Problem is, it can be a little over-eager. If at all possible, set a few whitelists based on the "To:" header for your mailing lists, and use something like SpamAssassin to do scoring-based analysis. Don't waste your time with Bogofilter. It doesn't work worth a damn. In my case, it had a false negative rate of nearly 98%. And that's *after* I fed it about a thousand spams, another thousand legitimate messages, and my classiccmp, PICList and TekScopes mailing list archives. I'm working on my own filter at the moment, tentatively nicknamed "HAMster". It's written in C, and is intended to be "a faster SpamAssassin". I'm working on getting the code into a releasable state, then I'm going to set up a little web site for it. I'm also open to suggestions of better names - one of my friends suggested "SpamNinja" and "SpamSamurai", can anyone here do better? Reason I'm doing it is because I want to use my Linksys NSLU2 to block spam, and SpamAssassin takes well over 30 seconds per message just for the text filtering (with RBL lookups turned off). -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From williams.dan at gmail.com Thu Jun 29 14:46:50 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 20:46:50 +0100 Subject: Alpha Openvms In-Reply-To: <26c11a640606270536s3b4b00d3q61a08906b116861e@mail.gmail.com> References: <26c11a640606270505w7376defdq5f997afe85c755d0@mail.gmail.com> <26c11a640606270536s3b4b00d3q61a08906b116861e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <26c11a640606291246n2d86d581l122b9a0d91972b51@mail.gmail.com> On 27/06/06, Dan Williams wrote: > On 27/06/06, Dan Williams wrote: > > I have got hold of an Alpha would anyone be able to put an image of > > either the install cd or the hobby cd somewhere I could download it. I > > have the spl but can't find the OS disk. > > > > Thanks in advance > > Dan > > > Sorted now thanks > > Dan > I know this is the 2nd time I have replied to my own message but I need a later version. Does anyone have 7.3 or higher for the Alpha. I got 6.2 but I can't install the program I want. Thanks Dan From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Thu Jun 29 15:49:19 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:49:19 Subject: ISO: Compaq Portable 3 "docking station" (?) In-Reply-To: <44A4085F.6050809@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060629154919.3f5fd0a6@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 10:05 AM 6/29/06 -0700, you wrote: >I'd like to find a docking station/expansion chassis >for my Portable 3. It's my understanding that this >will hold *two* (full size?) ISA cards. It's been awhile so I'm not positive but I think it takes 3/4 length boards and IIRC one slot is 8 bit and the other is 16 bit. I'm hoping >that this will be a good, *compact* home for my >Opus PM (I'd hate to have to set up a regular PC >for this -- the Portable 3 has the advantage of the >built in display, etc.). > >Alternatively, can anyone suggest something that will >hold two full size ISA cards in a similarly small >footprint? Ideally, with a COLOR display instead I've seen similar luggables that have color screens. A lot of them were originally used for network snoopers. I have a color one somewhere. I don't remember who made it but I think Dolch built some. You might check E-bay for Dolch computers. The snoopers usually have three slots but I don't think ANY of the lunch box size machines will support a FULL length card. They simply not big enough. If you really need to use full size cards then check for one of the suitcse size Compaq Portable or Portable II or something of that size. Joe >of the Portable 3's orange plasma -- though I can live >with the monochrome as the GNX code is early SysV >without much frilly stuff (I think I have a beta >version of X Windows 10 that might run on that >hardware, though...) > >Thanks! >--don > From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Thu Jun 29 14:50:33 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 14:50:33 -0500 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? Message-ID: <2654ff667a7d457da8d84054c8060d37@valleyimplants.com> >I've been putting off picking up a couple from someone as the boat-anchor >alarm bells were ringing :-) Maybe it is worth my while to go get them even if >they only realistically sell for a fraction of that price. I suppose Sun fans >like to use them for their intended purpose (for which they'll do a capable >job) - and unlike the desktop workstations they just don't turn up that often. I wouldn't get more than one, but one could be a good addition to your museum. Sun4d was Sun's first large-scale SMP architecture (possibly the comparison to a SPARCstation came from the fact that in a 4d the XDbus was bridged to MBus-based processor boards that had SuperSPARC modules (2x per board) on them (and SBus slots). Oftentimes the SPARCservers were paired with a SPARCstorage array which used a nonstandard (prestandard) fiber link up and mix of hardware and software control/striping. This combined with the fact that they are very picky about cooling (30 drives fit in one chassis) was why I didn't get one when I had the chance. Support for Sun4d stopped with Solaris 8. They won't run SunOS 4. I think that you can drop in a SBus framebuffer and run it headed. Wouldn't spend $300 on one, but I'd consider one for free as long as it wasn't too far away. I don't know about the boat anchor, but they'd make a nice sturdy step or stool if nothing else. From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Thu Jun 29 14:57:01 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 14:57:01 -0500 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? Message-ID: > Solaris 9 is the last version to run on all 64-bit Ultras; Solaris 10 is >very impressive from a networking and virtualization standpoint (plus >ZFS kicks some serious ass) and is what you should be running if at all >possible. So where's your line between 9 and 10? I just moved from a U1 200E to a U10 333, and I stuck with 5.9 because I was concerned about usability on the U10. >All other versions can hit the road for all I care (unless >you need BSD SunOS 4.x for 1980s hardware). 4.1.1_U1 is definitely the one to use for Sun3, but I like 4.1.4 on my IPX (Sun4c) as well. Never tried 2.5.1, but 2.6 was very slow. From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Thu Jun 29 15:12:09 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 13:12:09 -0700 Subject: ISO: Compaq Portable 3 "docking station" (?) In-Reply-To: <44A4085F.6050809@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A4085F.6050809@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44A43419.8090800@msm.umr.edu> Don Y wrote: > I'd like to find a docking station/expansion chassis > for my Portable 3. It's my understanding that this > will hold *two* (full size?) ISA cards. I'm hoping > that this will be a good, *compact* home for my > Opus PM (I'd hate to have to set up a regular PC > for this -- the Portable 3 has the advantage of the > built in display, etc.). The expansion bay will hold two cards. I can look to see if I can find a spare empty one. I use mine for holders for my Overland tape cards, if you know how big they are. There are 2 AT slots in the thing. There was also a tape backup that was made that I have a specimen of, but no software on the box or idea what controller or tapes it takes. It is physically the same size as the expansion box. I will not be able to look till this weekend, but will give you an answer by the end of the holiday. Jim From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Jun 29 15:12:26 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:12:26 -0400 Subject: OT-ish - old Hughes video projector In-Reply-To: <1151532860.26300.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <1151532860.26300.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <200606291612.26824.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 28 June 2006 06:14 pm, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > I've just got hold of an old (probably late-80s) Hughes 800 projector. > It's a couple of feet long and very very heavy. Inside is a big xenon > lamp, a CRT of some kind, and some optics. It appears to work by > shining the lamp (through mirrors) onto the face of the CRT. The big > problem is, it doesn't appear to produce any video. I can hear the CRT > scan coils going. The scan pitch changes when I remove the video > source. In fact, it does appear to do all the things I'd expect when I > press buttons, but no picture comes out :-/ Is there a number anywhere visible on that "CRT"? It may not be one, possibly... -- 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 lbickley at bickleywest.com Thu Jun 29 15:14:58 2006 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 13:14:58 -0700 Subject: OT? RBL's In-Reply-To: <200606291911.k5TJBnOT019020@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200606291911.k5TJBnOT019020@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <200606291314.58207.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Zane, On Thursday 29 June 2006 12:11, Zane H. Healy wrote: > Does anyone have a list of favorite RBL's (Real-time Spam Black Lists)? > I'm currently using the following and am looking for something a bit > better. > > RBLs: relays.orbs.org, sbl.spamhaus.org, relays.ordb.org, > bl.spamcop.net Here's all the RBL's I check using Spamassassin: # --------------------------------------------------------------------------- # NJABL # URL: http://www.dnsbl.njabl.org/ header __RCVD_IN_NJABL eval:check_rbl('njabl', 'combined.njabl.org.') describe __RCVD_IN_NJABL Received via a relay in combined.njabl.org tflags __RCVD_IN_NJABL net header RCVD_IN_NJABL_RELAY eval:check_rbl_sub('njabl', '127.0.0.2') describe RCVD_IN_NJABL_RELAY NJABL: sender is confirmed open relay tflags RCVD_IN_NJABL_RELAY net header RCVD_IN_NJABL_DUL eval:check_rbl('njabl-notfirsthop', 'combined.njabl.org.', '127.0.0.3') describe RCVD_IN_NJABL_DUL NJABL: dialup sender did non-local SMTP tflags RCVD_IN_NJABL_DUL net header RCVD_IN_NJABL_SPAM eval:check_rbl_sub('njabl', '127.0.0.4') describe RCVD_IN_NJABL_SPAM NJABL: sender is confirmed spam source tflags RCVD_IN_NJABL_SPAM net header RCVD_IN_NJABL_MULTI eval:check_rbl_sub('njabl', '127.0.0.5') describe RCVD_IN_NJABL_MULTI NJABL: sent through multi-stage open relay tflags RCVD_IN_NJABL_MULTI net header RCVD_IN_NJABL_CGI eval:check_rbl_sub('njabl', '127.0.0.8') describe RCVD_IN_NJABL_CGI NJABL: sender is an open formmail tflags RCVD_IN_NJABL_CGI net header RCVD_IN_NJABL_PROXY eval:check_rbl_sub('njabl', '127.0.0.9') describe RCVD_IN_NJABL_PROXY NJABL: sender is an open proxy tflags RCVD_IN_NJABL_PROXY net # --------------------------------------------------------------------------- # SORBS # transfers: both axfr and ixfr available # URL: http://www.dnsbl.sorbs.net/ # pay-to-use: no # delist: $50 fee for RCVD_IN_SORBS_SPAM, others have free retest on request header __RCVD_IN_SORBS eval:check_rbl('sorbs', 'dnsbl.sorbs.net.') describe __RCVD_IN_SORBS SORBS: sender is listed in SORBS tflags __RCVD_IN_SORBS net header RCVD_IN_SORBS_HTTP eval:check_rbl_sub('sorbs', '127.0.0.2') describe RCVD_IN_SORBS_HTTP SORBS: sender is open HTTP proxy server tflags RCVD_IN_SORBS_HTTP net header RCVD_IN_SORBS_SOCKS eval:check_rbl_sub('sorbs', '127.0.0.3') describe RCVD_IN_SORBS_SOCKS SORBS: sender is open SOCKS proxy server tflags RCVD_IN_SORBS_SOCKS net header RCVD_IN_SORBS_MISC eval:check_rbl_sub('sorbs', '127.0.0.4') describe RCVD_IN_SORBS_MISC SORBS: sender is open proxy server tflags RCVD_IN_SORBS_MISC net header RCVD_IN_SORBS_SMTP eval:check_rbl_sub('sorbs', '127.0.0.5') describe RCVD_IN_SORBS_SMTP SORBS: sender is open SMTP relay tflags RCVD_IN_SORBS_SMTP net # delist: $50 fee #header RCVD_IN_SORBS_SPAM eval:check_rbl_sub('sorbs', '127.0.0.6') #describe RCVD_IN_SORBS_SPAM SORBS: sender is a spam source #tflags RCVD_IN_SORBS_SPAM net header RCVD_IN_SORBS_WEB eval:check_rbl_sub('sorbs', '127.0.0.7') describe RCVD_IN_SORBS_WEB SORBS: sender is a abuseable web server tflags RCVD_IN_SORBS_WEB net header RCVD_IN_SORBS_BLOCK eval:check_rbl_sub('sorbs', '127.0.0.8') describe RCVD_IN_SORBS_BLOCK SORBS: sender demands to never be tested tflags RCVD_IN_SORBS_BLOCK net header RCVD_IN_SORBS_ZOMBIE eval:check_rbl_sub('sorbs', '127.0.0.9') describe RCVD_IN_SORBS_ZOMBIE SORBS: sender is on a hijacked network tflags RCVD_IN_SORBS_ZOMBIE net header RCVD_IN_SORBS_DUL eval:check_rbl('sorbs-notfirsthop', 'dnsbl.sorbs.net.', '127.0.0.10') describe RCVD_IN_SORBS_DUL SORBS: sent directly from dynamic IP address tflags RCVD_IN_SORBS_DUL net # --------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Spamhaus SBL+XBL # # Spamhaus XBL contains both the Abuseat CBL (cbl.abuseat.org) and Blitzed # OPM (opm.blitzed.org) lists so it's not necessary to query those as well. header __RCVD_IN_SBL_XBL eval:check_rbl('sblxbl', 'sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org.') describe __RCVD_IN_SBL_XBL Received via a relay in Spamhaus SBL+XBL tflags __RCVD_IN_SBL_XBL net # SBL is the Spamhaus Block List: http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/ header RCVD_IN_SBL eval:check_rbl_sub('sblxbl', '127.0.0.2') describe RCVD_IN_SBL Received via a relay in Spamhaus SBL tflags RCVD_IN_SBL net # XBL is the Exploits Block List: http://www.spamhaus.org/xbl/ header RCVD_IN_XBL eval:check_rbl('sblxbl-notfirsthop', 'sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org.', '127.0.0.[456]') describe RCVD_IN_XBL Received via a relay in Spamhaus XBL tflags RCVD_IN_XBL net # --------------------------------------------------------------------------- # RFC-Ignorant blacklists (both name and IP based) header __RFC_IGNORANT_ENVFROM eval:check_rbl_envfrom('rfci_envfrom', 'fulldom.rfc-ignorant.org.') tflags __RFC_IGNORANT_ENVFROM net header DNS_FROM_RFC_DSN eval:check_rbl_sub('rfci_envfrom', '127.0.0.2') describe DNS_FROM_RFC_DSN Envelope sender in dsn.rfc-ignorant.org tflags DNS_FROM_RFC_DSN net header DNS_FROM_RFC_POST eval:check_rbl_sub('rfci_envfrom', '127.0.0.3') describe DNS_FROM_RFC_POST Envelope sender in postmaster.rfc-ignorant.org tflags DNS_FROM_RFC_POST net header DNS_FROM_RFC_ABUSE eval:check_rbl_sub('rfci_envfrom', '127.0.0.4') describe DNS_FROM_RFC_ABUSE Envelope sender in abuse.rfc-ignorant.org tflags DNS_FROM_RFC_ABUSE net header DNS_FROM_RFC_WHOIS eval:check_rbl_sub('rfci_envfrom', '127.0.0.5') describe DNS_FROM_RFC_WHOIS Envelope sender in whois.rfc-ignorant.org tflags DNS_FROM_RFC_WHOIS net Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Jun 29 15:16:56 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:16:56 -0400 Subject: bounces? In-Reply-To: <014401c69b83$1a415c70$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <200606281430.53558.rtellason@verizon.net> <44A379C9.2000208@yahoo.co.uk> <014401c69b83$1a415c70$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <200606291616.56678.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 29 June 2006 09:51 am, Jay West wrote: > Jules wrote.... > > > We all seem to be getting them - they seem to be harmless, although I'm > > not sure what's causing them / where they're originating from. I suspect > > that the list admin's on the case! :) > > Actually I have yet to get a good example. I tend to ignore my own because > I get valid bounce messages to my account... so my email address is a "bad > example". > > Can someone send me a full message header & body detail from one they > get... everything... without the headers coming from a forward to me? I'd > appreciate it. I'll try and forward the three that came into here. Is "attachment" or "inline" a better choice, I wonder? -- 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 Thu Jun 29 15:35:48 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 13:35:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: The Good Old Days? In-Reply-To: <44A34267.50204@oldskool.org> References: <44A34267.50204@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <20060629133344.Q31716@shell.lmi.net> Among college administrators, such idiots are PROMOTED. Some of the administrators that I work with are competent. But some of their colleagues show that intelligence is not necessarily a survival trait. From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jun 29 15:41:40 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 13:41:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT? RBL's In-Reply-To: <200606291314.58207.lbickley@bickleywest.com> from Lyle Bickley at "Jun 29, 6 01:14:58 pm" Message-ID: <200606292041.k5TKfe02010746@floodgap.com> > # SORBS I don't like spam.sorbs for mail with a high(er) signal:noise ratio. They've listed yahoogroups a couple times, for example, and it's hard to get off their lists when on there accidentally. I only use it on boxes where the spam level is high and false positives are unlikely. spews.sorbs is more acceptable, being just a retread of SPEWS data. I use ORBS, sbl-xbl, DSBL and AHBL. I also have some custom sendmail rules (yes, I confess: I can write sendmail rules, I feel so dirty) for various other high-reliability triggers. -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Specialization is for insects. -- Robert Heinlein -------------------------- From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jun 29 15:43:37 2006 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 13:43:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT? RBL's In-Reply-To: <44A42B58.8070804@dsl.pipex.com> from Philip Pemberton at "Jun 29, 6 08:34:48 pm" Message-ID: <200606292043.k5TKhbR0015378@floodgap.com> > friends suggested "SpamNinja" and "SpamSamurai", can anyone here do better? SpamSmack? -- --------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Use [Microsoft] IE and Passport and you can browse like it's 1984. -- /. --- From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Thu Jun 29 15:48:42 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:48:42 -0500 Subject: RS/6000 7030-3CT bits Message-ID: <58163bdde30f49b0bfa0551f643c0305@valleyimplants.com> I'm parting out my 7030-3CT machine (it was never complete, missing a fan and drive tray) If anyone needs any parts, I have these available: 1 system planar, MCA, 7012/7030, FW-SCSI-SE 256 MB RS/6000 memory (and I think 2 S4.5 cards, but perhaps only one) $ 1 power supply 1 floppy drive 1 internal wide-SCSI cable 1 RS-232 extension board 1 power card for POWER2 CPU card 1 67MHz POWER2 CPU card with 2MB cache (or cache separately) $ 1 Medeco lock and switch with keys $ 2 front panel fillers front bezel chassis The parts marked with a $ I'd like to get a trade for (nothing real big, RAM or SCSI/DSSI drives work) , the rest are free Renton, WA will ship if you want (you cover costs then . . .) From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jun 29 16:10:08 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:10:08 +0100 Subject: Alpha Openvms In-Reply-To: <26c11a640606291246n2d86d581l122b9a0d91972b51@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 29/6/06 20:46, "Dan Williams" wrote: > On 27/06/06, Dan Williams wrote: >> On 27/06/06, Dan Williams wrote: >>> I have got hold of an Alpha would anyone be able to put an image of >>> either the install cd or the hobby cd somewhere I could download it. I >>> have the spl but can't find the OS disk. >>> >>> Thanks in advance >>> Dan >>> >> Sorted now thanks >> >> Dan >> > I know this is the 2nd time I have replied to my own message but I > need a later version. Does anyone have 7.3 or higher for the Alpha. I > got 6.2 but I can't install the program I want. I've got 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.3-2 and 8.2 but they're all at work and I'm not back at there till Monday. I can sort it then if you can wait that long.... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From williams.dan at gmail.com Thu Jun 29 16:22:15 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:22:15 +0100 Subject: Alpha Openvms In-Reply-To: References: <26c11a640606291246n2d86d581l122b9a0d91972b51@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <26c11a640606291422o3c34de51ya4249c223d1efcd5@mail.gmail.com> > I've got 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.3-2 and 8.2 but they're all at work and I'm not > back at there till Monday. I can sort it then if you can wait that long.... > > -- > Adrian/Witchy > Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator > Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer > collection? > > > That would be great, I did want to work on it over the weekend but I can wait. Dan From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jun 29 16:28:38 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:28:38 -0500 Subject: OT? RBL's References: <200606291911.k5TJBnOT019020@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <007801c69bc2$fc5d2000$6500a8c0@BILLING> It was written.... > Does anyone have a list of favorite RBL's (Real-time Spam Black Lists)? > I'm > currently using the following and am looking for something a bit better. > > RBLs: relays.orbs.org, sbl.spamhaus.org, relays.ordb.org, > bl.spamcop.net This is better posted on the spamassassin or sendmail lists, not classiccmp. Jay From pechter at gmail.com Thu Jun 29 16:33:57 2006 From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 17:33:57 -0400 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Solaris 9 seems to be where I'm going to run the stuff Ultra5 and under. I may play with the Ultra5 with 10 -- but it runs quite nicely on the two boxes I've got and Solaris 10 seemed to be a bit slower. I'd love to try to get Solaris10 on my Ultra1E with the 170mhz cpu... just to see if it runs. I tried Solaris 9 and Solaris8 and Solaris 7 and I don't seem to see a speed degradation on boxes with enough memory. I think 10's a bit heavier. 4.1.4U1 works pretty well on Sparc2 class boxes and really nice on mine with the SparcUp upgrades in 'em. They all have at least 48mb of memory. 64 if possible. BIll On 6/29/06, Scott Quinn wrote: > > > > > Solaris 9 is the last version to run on all 64-bit Ultras; Solaris 10 is > >very impressive from a networking and virtualization standpoint (plus > >ZFS kicks some serious ass) and is what you should be running if at all > >possible. > > So where's your line between 9 and 10? I just moved from a U1 200E to a > U10 333, and I stuck with > 5.9 because I was concerned about usability on the U10. > > >All other versions can hit the road for all I care (unless > >you need BSD SunOS 4.x for 1980s hardware). > > 4.1.1_U1 is definitely the one to use for Sun3, but I like 4.1.4 on > my IPX (Sun4c) as well. Never tried 2.5.1, but 2.6 was very slow. > > > > From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jun 29 16:36:45 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:36:45 +0100 Subject: Alpha Openvms In-Reply-To: <26c11a640606291422o3c34de51ya4249c223d1efcd5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 29/6/06 22:22, "Dan Williams" wrote: >> I've got 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.3-2 and 8.2 but they're all at work and I'm not >> back at there till Monday. I can sort it then if you can wait that long.... >> >> -- >> Adrian/Witchy >> Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator >> Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer >> collection? >> >> >> > That would be great, I did want to work on it over the weekend but I can > wait. Thinking about it, I might have 7.3 in the car. I'll send you an off-list message if I can give you ftp access to this 'ere machine. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jun 29 16:43:03 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 14:43:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: HD formatting utils for DOS In-Reply-To: <200606282128280634.218CAE08@10.0.0.252> References: <00e101c69a42$eb84b620$0b01a8c0@game> <20060627190820.J20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A34056.8070806@oldskool.org> <200606282128280634.218CAE08@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060629141836.T32695@shell.lmi.net> > CDROMs don't exceed 2G so I'm not sure what you're getting at. I've > never seen anything that provides volumes larger than 2G to DOS, in any > form or format. Not even the older VCOM and Golden Bow stuff. As I said, CDROMs are about 2/3 G. But, at the time that they came out, DOS was limited to 32M. In order to get around that limitation, MSCDEX presented the CDROM to DOS, NOT as a drive, but as a network device. That technique can also get around the 32bit (2G/4G) limit. There is a little information about it in "Undocumented DOS", and there was another similar book at the same time (whose title I don't recall) that had more thorough coverage. I don't know all of the details, so check with Chuck. On Wed, 28 Jun 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Funny thing about that--NT can support FAT16 partitions up to 4G, but if > you have such a partition, stock DOS barfs on it. I believe that the reason for the 2G limit was the use of a 32 bit long integer in the code. If they had respected Moore's law, then they would at least have used an UNSIGNED long integer, which would have made the limit 4G (and given them another 18 months :-). Do we really need support for NEGATIVE file and drive sizes?? Did Gordon Letwin fix that in OS/2? Or did it persist until Dave Cutler did NT? I once saw a copy of DOS that had been modified to fix that! I don't have a copy, and I don't know whether it, (or the patches) were ever available. It never had a retail release. It would be a trivial fix with a recompile of the source code, or a very tedious task patching the object code; how many JL,JNL,JG,JNG instructions would need to be changed to JB,JNB,JA,JNA? > However, Fred's right--you can use the network interface to implement > whatever size filesystem you desire. You may have to "bracket" return > values for total and free sizes when you report them back to DOS, but > basically, DOS doesn't care what you've got out there for a filesystem. > Unless MS has broken the interface, you can still access another (NT) > system using NTFS for a filesystem using DOS 5 running real-mode Microsoft > networking--or even WFWG. However, individual file sizes can be 2G at > most--but I think DOS 7 can handle 4G files (i.e. MS fixed enough of the > code).. Some programs that attempt to get below DOS, such as CHKDSK and Norton fUtilitie, can still have some serious problems. If you run Win3.1x (WFWG) on DOS 7.10, can you then access >4G drives? It is interesting to run Int21h Fn30h and see what versions different MS OS's claim to be! My copy of PCDOS 4.01 claimed to be 4.00; OS/2 claimed to be 10.00; NTx claims to be 5.00; WIN9x claims to be 7.xx, etc. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 29 17:22:07 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:22:07 -0700 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A4528F.2020902@DakotaCom.Net> Scott Quinn wrote: > >> Solaris 9 is the last version to run on all 64-bit Ultras; Solaris 10 is >> very impressive from a networking and virtualization standpoint (plus >> ZFS kicks some serious ass) and is what you should be running if at all >> possible. > > So where's your line between 9 and 10? I just moved from a U1 200E to a U10 333, and I stuck with > 5.9 because I was concerned about usability on the U10. I just inherited a U10 (400+?). I was planning on installing 8. Is it wiser to move to something else? (I need 8 for Jaluna cross-development but can keep that on my U1 if need be) From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 28 19:53:07 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 01:53:07 +0100 (BST) Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <44A3C98D.4020901@dsl.pipex.com> from "Philip Pemberton" at Jun 29, 6 01:37:33 pm Message-ID: > I seem to recall there are a couple of high end cards that need *two* such > connectors due to their insane power consumption. Something like 225W just for > the graphics card... Hmm... I have a graphics display system that has 3 5V 150A PSUs. That's around 10 times that amount of power. Of course thing thing lives in a 6' rack cabinet, has around 5000 ICs in it (including over 3000 DRAMs), and for the time (27 years ago) was very high end. It's an I2S Model 70/E display for a PDP11 with 2 memory boxes (it could take up to 4, but even the 2 I have give me 6 byteplanes...) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 28 19:46:28 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 01:46:28 +0100 (BST) Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <003401c69b4e$e68ca850$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> from "Evan Koblentz" at Jun 29, 6 03:37:40 am Message-ID: > > Someone alerted me to this site tonight where they copied about 1,000 words > straight from my web page. > > http://www.industryplayer.com/licenceinfo.php?licid=014060 > > In the "license research report" section, everything up to the Newton > paragraph is plagiarized from my site. Argh!!!. I have often said that anything I post publically (which includes this list, net froa, a website if I had one, etc) is fair game for further distribution _if you give the appropriate acknowledgements_. What I mean by that is that if I, say, post some useful repair tip here, you're welcome to distribute it, but you have to give me credit. This has been the policy in academia for many years, and I don't see why the web should be any different. Tp take somebody else's work as your own is plagarism, and I am trying to think up an appropriate punishment for such lowlife. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 28 19:49:41 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 01:49:41 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT-ish - old Hughes video projector In-Reply-To: <44A3A744.90908@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jun 29, 6 10:11:16 am Message-ID: > > jim stephens wrote: > > so about all I can help with here with the post is to suggest you dont have > > prolonged exposure to it till you can assess it's radiation status, and > > keep women and children away totally till you know. > > ISTR that Gordon's a Citroen fan, and so a lost cause anyway ;-) *runs* What's wrong with Citroens? If I ever learn to operate such a machine, a DS is very high up my list of 'wants' :-) Mind you, I spent a good many years as a particle physicist, so presumably got a bit of stray radiation.... > On a serious note, is the filament to the tube glowing, suggesting that it's > getting HV? (you'll almost certainly have to disable that xenon lamp to tell!) It's not always the case that the filament supply comes from the line output transformer. I'd suggest measuring as many of the electrode voltages as you can (including the EHT if you have a suitable probe, and to be honest, if you're working on CRT stuff, you need one). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 28 19:33:57 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 01:33:57 +0100 (BST) Subject: EU In-Reply-To: <1151436514.30579.6.camel@localhost.localdomain> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Jun 27, 6 08:28:34 pm Message-ID: > ... and on that, do you want some N1500 and N1700 bits? The N1700 is > probably more-or-less working, the N1500 may not actually be complete. > There are some tapes too. You'd probably need to arrange collection. I already have a pair of working N1500s (but no N1700). I guess what would decide whether I want them is where I'd have to collect them from... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jun 28 19:38:36 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 01:38:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 In-Reply-To: <200606281832360148.20EBAAEB@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 28, 6 06:32:36 pm Message-ID: > > >> http://www.ortodoxism.ro/datasheets/analogdevices/264748104ad7306.pdf > > > >Looks interesting. I wonder if you can get 1-offs anywhere (I've not > >looks yet). On the other hand, the 26LS3x's and the MAX232 are easy to > >obtain (even though they take up more board area). > > Just looked at DigiKey--you can get them, but I've seen cheaper MPUs! You Right... And then there's the shipping across the Pond..... > could also sample them from Analog.com if your day job qualifies you. What day job? I doubt if 'privately repairing old HP calculators' counts :-) > As far as board space, if one were using DIPs, it'd be a hard call. The AD > IC is a 24 pin PDIP (also comes in SOIC). I'd rather keep buffers that talk to the outside world in pin-through-hole DIPs, since they're likely to get zapped at some point, and it's a lot easier to replace a (socketed?) DIP than a SOIC. Anyway, board area (and component count) are not too important for 1-off prototype designs IMHO. -tony From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Thu Jun 29 18:32:43 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:32:43 -0700 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <44A4528F.2020902@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A4528F.2020902@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44A4631B.4000605@msm.umr.edu> Don Y wrote: > Scott Quinn wrote: > >> >>> Solaris 9 is the last version to run on all 64-bit Ultras; Solaris >>> 10 is very impressive from a networking and virtualization >>> standpoint (plus ZFS kicks some serious ass) and is what you should >>> be running if at all possible. >> >> >> So where's your line between 9 and 10? I just moved from a U1 200E to >> a U10 333, and I stuck with >> 5.9 because I was concerned about usability on the U10. > > > I just inherited a U10 (400+?). I was planning on installing 8. > Is it wiser to move to something else? (I need 8 for Jaluna > cross-development but can keep that on my U1 if need be) > > Solaris 8 is a bit weird about installing IDE drives with the bigdisk capacity command. I had to do some finagleing with the format process to get anything bigger than 8gb to be created. I am running 9 with a 120gb (130 is the magic spot where the disk size commands break). My friend who is running 10 reported at the time he loaded it on a 5 (same processor and motherboard as the 5) that it required no intervention in the formatting, it just worked. I plan to download and try to run 10 with the development stuff, sometime this summer. Solaris is much better than most OS's about multi booting. you can stop the boot process and specify a different root partition and have both 8 and 10 on the same drive, or on separate drives. The firmware specifies the target that gets booted, and you can change the eeprom under solaris to specify which one to boot, then reboot to switch from one to the other with a convenient script on both. Jim From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 29 20:49:46 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 18:49:46 -0700 Subject: ISO: Compaq Portable 3 "docking station" (?) In-Reply-To: <44A43419.8090800@msm.umr.edu> References: <44A4085F.6050809@DakotaCom.Net> <44A43419.8090800@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <44A4833A.1090108@DakotaCom.Net> jim stephens wrote: > Don Y wrote: > >> I'd like to find a docking station/expansion chassis >> for my Portable 3. It's my understanding that this >> will hold *two* (full size?) ISA cards. I'm hoping >> that this will be a good, *compact* home for my >> Opus PM (I'd hate to have to set up a regular PC >> for this -- the Portable 3 has the advantage of the >> built in display, etc.). > > The expansion bay will hold two cards. I can look > to see if I can find a spare empty one. I use mine > for holders for my Overland tape cards, if you > know how big they are. There are 2 AT slots > in the thing. I have a general idea of the size -- I have the (canvas?) carrying case for the Portable 3. It has a compartment that is normally zippered shut (so that it takes up no space) that can be unzippered to make the case larger -- I assume to accommodate the add-on chassis. > There was also a tape backup that was made that > I have a specimen of, but no software on the box > or idea what controller or tapes it takes. It is physically > the same size as the expansion box. > > I will not be able to look till this weekend, but will > give you an answer by the end of the holiday. Excellent! I'd like to get the Opus board running again so I can dump all of the software that I have for it onto some more reliable medium (currently on 9T tape) From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 29 20:55:05 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 18:55:05 -0700 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <44A4631B.4000605@msm.umr.edu> References: <44A4528F.2020902@DakotaCom.Net> <44A4631B.4000605@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <44A48479.1050502@DakotaCom.Net> jim stephens wrote: > Don Y wrote: > >> I just inherited a U10 (400+?). I was planning on installing 8. >> Is it wiser to move to something else? (I need 8 for Jaluna >> cross-development but can keep that on my U1 if need be) > > Solaris 8 is a bit weird about installing IDE drives with the bigdisk > capacity command. Ah, I forgot that the U10 is IDE. > I had to do some finagleing with the format process to get anything > bigger than 8gb to be created. Ouch! I have an 18G in the U1 currently and don't recall any problems getting it set up. Though I don't think any partition is larger than 8G on that machine. > I am running 9 with a 120gb (130 is the magic spot where the disk size > commands break). Ah, that won't be a problem for me. I dont like putting big drives in any single machine. Level 0 backups just take too damn long (even on a DLT). And, since I only *work* on a little stuff at a time, I only need a few GB of sandbox to play in. > My friend who is running 10 reported at the time he loaded it on a 5 (same > processor and motherboard as the 5) that it required no intervention > in the formatting, it just worked. > > I plan to download and try to run 10 with the development stuff, sometime > this summer. > Solaris is much better than most OS's about multi booting. you can stop > the boot process and specify a different root partition and have both 8 > and 10 on the same drive, or on separate drives. The firmware specifies > the target that gets booted, and you can change the eeprom under solaris > to specify which one to boot, then reboot to switch from one to the > other with a convenient script on both. Yeah, I've taken the approach of just setting up different machines to do different things. Easier for me to keep track of. And, easier for me to repurpose machines as my needs change (which might want to move hardware around etc) Thanks! From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 29 21:01:10 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 19:01:10 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: >> Someone alerted me to this site tonight where they copied about 1,000 words >> straight from my web page. >> >> http://www.industryplayer.com/licenceinfo.php?licid=014060 >> >> In the "license research report" section, everything up to the Newton >> paragraph is plagiarized from my site. > > Argh!!!. > > I have often said that anything I post publically (which includes this > list, net froa, a website if I had one, etc) is fair game for further > distribution _if you give the appropriate acknowledgements_. What I mean > by that is that if I, say, post some useful repair tip here, you're > welcome to distribute it, but you have to give me credit. > > This has been the policy in academia for many years, and I don't see why > the web should be any different. > > Tp take somebody else's work as your own is plagarism, and I am trying to > think up an appropriate punishment for such lowlife. Put errors in your work? :> Allegedly, map printers (cartographers) have errors in their street maps to help identify blatant copies. I guess they figure the effort to verify all of the street names, etc. makes it unlikely that a counterfeiter would catch the deliberate error... not sure how this has changed with more modern technology. In the 80's, video (arcade) game software was *regularly* copied. Blatantly. The offenders would simply grep the binary for key strings (like the title screen) and change them to different text. The time required to catch the infraction, get an injunction (usually the offending games were imports) and have it enforced was longer than the life-cycle of the game (at the time, many games were "90 day wonders"). Lots of clever ideas to prevent/discourage that sort of thing ;-) From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jun 29 20:50:19 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 13:50:19 +1200 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <2654ff667a7d457da8d84054c8060d37@valleyimplants.com> References: <2654ff667a7d457da8d84054c8060d37@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: On 6/30/06, Scott Quinn wrote: > I wouldn't get more than one, but one could be a good addition to your museum. > Sun4d was Sun's first large-scale SMP architecture... > Oftentimes the SPARCservers were paired with a SPARCstorage array which used a > nonstandard (prestandard) fiber link up and mix of hardware and software control/striping. > This combined with the fact that they are very picky about cooling (30 drives fit in one > chassis) was why I didn't get one when I had the chance. Ours had three of those arrays. One problem as far as I'm concerned is that they topped out at 4GB drives (internal firmware issues, I'm told). Back in the day, when 30 x 2GB drives was a lot of storage, they were fine boxes, but today, when one spindle can hold that much and more, the old Storage Arrays just don't seem worth it for production use, even at home. They'd be more interesting for a technology demonstration than holding real data. Also, the RAID5 was really slow on those boxes, so we always ran ours with RAID 0+1, halving the available capacity. The 3000s and 5000s I bought later used "real" Fiber Channel arrays with Seagate native fiberchannel drives (ST9xxxx-FCs or something like that). Not as common as SCA drives, but at least they were standard. -ethan From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 29 21:10:31 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 19:10:31 -0700 Subject: ISO: Compaq Portable 3 "docking station" (?) In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060629154919.3f5fd0a6@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.16.20060629154919.3f5fd0a6@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <44A48817.8090309@DakotaCom.Net> Joe R. wrote: > At 10:05 AM 6/29/06 -0700, you wrote: >> I'd like to find a docking station/expansion chassis >> for my Portable 3. It's my understanding that this >> will hold *two* (full size?) ISA cards. > > It's been awhile so I'm not positive but I think it takes 3/4 length > boards and IIRC one slot is 8 bit and the other is 16 bit. I'll have to dig out the boards and check actual sizes. I may also have to do some rework on the boards -- the daughter card (memory) may need to be moved to the back/front depending on the actual mechanical details of the case. > I'm hoping >> that this will be a good, *compact* home for my >> Opus PM (I'd hate to have to set up a regular PC >> for this -- the Portable 3 has the advantage of the >> built in display, etc.). >> >> Alternatively, can anyone suggest something that will >> hold two full size ISA cards in a similarly small >> footprint? Ideally, with a COLOR display instead > > I've seen similar luggables that have color screens. A lot of them were > originally used for network snoopers. I have a color one somewhere. I don't > remember who made it but I think Dolch built some. You might check E-bay Ah, I can check on that. > for Dolch computers. The snoopers usually have three slots but I don't > think ANY of the lunch box size machines will support a FULL length card. > They simply not big enough. If you really need to use full size cards then > check for one of the suitcse size Compaq Portable or Portable II or > something of that size. I originally had this installed in "luggage". But, that was just way too big to store for that "dedicated use". So, I pulled the cards (I have a couple of PM's) figuring I could always install them into a new machine as needed. If push comes to shove, I can dig up an old ISA 386 (etc.) and work from there... From rcini at optonline.net Thu Jun 29 21:51:01 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:51:01 -0400 Subject: OT: Hex to BCD conversion for programs Message-ID: <004f01c69bf0$06939770$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: I'm working on a real-time-clock emulation for the Altair32 and I need a push on something. Most RTC boards return a BCD value to the caller. When you call GetLocalTime in Windows, it returns an integer value. So, I have to somehow convert an integer to its BCD representation. I thought about using sprintf on the integer and then returning str[0] or str[1] depending on if I need the tens place or units place. However, this seems to me to be an inelegant way of doing it. Does anyone have any ready-made C code to do this that I can use? Thanks a lot! Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jun 29 21:57:10 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 19:57:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jun 2006, Don Y wrote: > Put errors in your work? :> > > Allegedly, map printers (cartographers) have errors in their > street maps to help identify blatant copies. I guess they figure > the effort to verify all of the street names, etc. makes it > unlikely that a counterfeiter would catch the deliberate error... > not sure how this has changed with more modern technology. I was told a story about how the Thomas Guide people did this, naming an unremarkable alley in the LA area the "Mark and Brian Expressway" after a rather colorful pair of morning disk jockeys. Later when the city decided to redo street signs, they used the Thomas Guide and thus ordered and installed signs marking this particular alley. > In the 80's, video (arcade) game software was *regularly* > copied. Blatantly. The offenders would simply grep the binary > for key strings (like the title screen) and change them > to different text. The time required to catch the infraction, > get an injunction (usually the offending games were imports) > and have it enforced was longer than the life-cycle of the > game (at the time, many games were "90 day wonders"). Many of these ripoffs were horridly bad, though interesting examples of beating on the thing until it works. For example, Donkey Kong running on Galaxian hardware. Nasty colors. Nasty sounds, but it plays more or less correctly. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 29 23:02:23 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 21:02:23 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44A4A24F.1080209@DakotaCom.Net> David Griffith wrote: > On Thu, 29 Jun 2006, Don Y wrote: [intentionally bogus streetnames] > I was told a story about how the Thomas Guide people did this, naming an > unremarkable alley in the LA area the "Mark and Brian Expressway" after a > rather colorful pair of morning disk jockeys. Later when the city decided > to redo street signs, they used the Thomas Guide and thus ordered and > installed signs marking this particular alley. Ha! Leave it to the gummit to take the lazy way out! :-/ >> In the 80's, video (arcade) game software was *regularly* >> copied. Blatantly. The offenders would simply grep the binary >> for key strings (like the title screen) and change them >> to different text. The time required to catch the infraction, >> get an injunction (usually the offending games were imports) >> and have it enforced was longer than the life-cycle of the >> game (at the time, many games were "90 day wonders"). > > Many of these ripoffs were horridly bad, though interesting examples of > beating on the thing until it works. For example, Donkey Kong running on > Galaxian hardware. Nasty colors. Nasty sounds, but it plays more or less > correctly. Even more amusing are some of the lengths counterfeiters went to in order to "appease" the anti-counterfeiting algorithms embedded in the runtimes! The important lesson here is never leave a go-nogo decision point in code that you intend to protect (too easy to find those and workaround them) From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jun 29 22:54:05 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 20:54:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <20060629204727.J45123@shell.lmi.net> > Allegedly, map printers (cartographers) have errors in their > street maps to help identify blatant copies. I guess they figure > the effort to verify all of the street names, etc. makes it > unlikely that a counterfeiter would catch the deliberate error... > not sure how this has changed with more modern technology. Monmonier says that it continues. In XenoCopy, I include the formats of two machines that a friend designed that never went into production, or even left his workbench. In addition, for a while I had a misspelling of a machine name, due to poor handwriting. They showed up on a couple of competing products (NOT Chuck's). -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 29 22:59:23 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 20:59:23 -0700 Subject: OT: Hex to BCD conversion for programs In-Reply-To: <004f01c69bf0$06939770$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <004f01c69bf0$06939770$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <200606292059230543.26986442@10.0.0.252> Rich, It sounds as if your programming language is "C". :) sprintf() is probably fine for what you want to do, but using the Windows API to get the time is not terribly portable. How about using some of the calls in time.h? Say a call to time(), followed by a call to localtime()? At least that way, your time will be broken out into structure elements holding month, day, year, hours, minutes, seconds and will be good on just about any platform. You can create your BCD values by /10 and %10 operations for the upper and lower digits respectively. Cheers, Chuck On 6/29/2006 at 10:51 PM Richard A. Cini wrote: >All: > > > > I'm working on a real-time-clock emulation for the Altair32 and >I need a push on something. Most RTC boards return a BCD value to the >caller. When you call GetLocalTime in Windows, it returns an integer value. >So, I have to somehow convert an integer to its BCD representation. > > > > I thought about using sprintf on the integer and then returning >str[0] or str[1] depending on if I need the tens place or units place. >However, this seems to me to be an inelegant way of doing it. > > > > Does anyone have any ready-made C code to do this that I can >use? Thanks a lot! > > > >Rich > > > >Rich Cini > >Collector of classic computers > >Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator > >Web site: >http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ > >Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ > >/***************************************************/ From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 29 23:00:38 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 21:00:38 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <44A4A24F.1080209@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <44A4A24F.1080209@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606292100380544.26998938@10.0.0.252> On 6/29/2006 at 9:02 PM Don Y wrote: >> I was told a story about how the Thomas Guide people did this, naming an >> unremarkable alley in the LA area the "Mark and Brian Expressway" after a >> rather colorful pair of morning disk jockeys. Later when the city decided >> to redo street signs, they used the Thomas Guide and thus ordered and >> installed signs marking this particular alley. > >Ha! Leave it to the gummit to take the lazy way out! :-/ > >>> In the 80's, video (arcade) game software was *regularly* >>> copied. Blatantly. The offenders would simply grep the binary >>> for key strings (like the title screen) and change them >>> to different text. The time required to catch the infraction, >>> get an injunction (usually the offending games were imports) >>> and have it enforced was longer than the life-cycle of the >>> game (at the time, many games were "90 day wonders"). >> >> Many of these ripoffs were horridly bad, though interesting examples of >> beating on the thing until it works. For example, Donkey Kong running on >> Galaxian hardware. Nasty colors. Nasty sounds, but it plays more or >less >> correctly. > >Even more amusing are some of the lengths counterfeiters went >to in order to "appease" the anti-counterfeiting algorithms >embedded in the runtimes! The important lesson here is >never leave a go-nogo decision point in code that you >intend to protect (too easy to find those and workaround them) From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jun 29 23:05:40 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 00:05:40 -0400 Subject: PeeCee clones; was:PCW's 25 worst tech products In-Reply-To: <200606291138120874.2496A1F9@10.0.0.252> References: <20060627002516.2927.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <200606261938480432.16DB98B5@10.0.0.252> <44A1C945.7040304@oldskool.org> <200606271727100452.1B8969DF@10.0.0.252> <20060627193409.P20463@shell.lmi.net> <44A1F937.9050103@jcwren.com> <44A33D5E.7030900@oldskool.org> <200606282052010818.216B4FDE@10.0.0.252> <44A3967C.7090303@oldskool.org> <200606290844290685.23F796DE@10.0.0.252> <44A40ED8.6020704@gmail.com> <200606291138120874.2496A1F9@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A4A314.1050204@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/29/2006 at 1:33 PM Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > >> Not just those. Plus, I don't believe there was a 25SX. > > Then you'd better tell this guy: :) > > http://www.walshcomptech.com/ps2/25sx.htm > > Like I said, for a time, the new models and variations on the old ones kept > coming pretty fast. I have one of those machines. They say "25-386" on them. Also, the machine he refers to as "25-XT" actually just reads "25". Peace... Sridhar From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jun 29 23:05:38 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 21:05:38 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <44A4A24F.1080209@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <44A4A24F.1080209@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606292105380631.269E1D5F@10.0.0.252> On 6/29/2006 at 9:02 PM Don Y wrote: >David Griffith wrote: >[intentionally bogus streetnames] > >> I was told a story about how the Thomas Guide people did this, naming an >> unremarkable alley in the LA area the "Mark and Brian Expressway" after a >> rather colorful pair of morning disk jockeys. Later when the city decided >> to redo street signs, they used the Thomas Guide and thus ordered and >> installed signs marking this particular alley. Rand McNally does that routinely. They create a few bogus towns or geographical markers to thwart copying. I've heard that some music publishers will also put in intentional typos (say, the wrong number of beats in a bar or a superfluous accidental) to brand their work. I like to do a similar thing with online forms that require your name and email. I create a throwaway email address and then make up a name and address. I'm still getting spam offering really great mortgage rates to someone called David Marquez in Juneau. But I never did get anything for Consuelo O'Brien of Barrow. I'm looking for Carl LaFong....that's Big C small a small r small l... Cheers, Chuck From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Jun 29 22:57:15 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 23:57:15 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > In the 80's, video (arcade) game software was *regularly* copied. > Blatantly. The offenders would simply grep the binary for key > strings (like the title screen) and change them to different text. > The time required to catch the infraction, get an injunction (usually > the offending games were imports) and have it enforced was longer > than the life-cycle of the game (at the time, many games were "90 day > wonders"). > Lots of clever ideas to prevent/discourage that sort of thing ;-) I have images online of the Tempest ROMs. (Tempest was a colour vector game from 1980, possibly the best arcade game ever in my estimation, though Omega Race gives it a run for its money. Certainly a little sniffing around on the Web indicatse that Tempest is one of the most sought-after arcade games.) I've been working on disassembling and uncompiling them. There's all of 24K of data there - very parsimonious of code space compared to "modern" umpty-ump megabyte games, and more playable than most - and yet it has defense in fair depth against such copying. There are at least three or so (it's been a while since I looked) loops that checksum various things to make sure they haven't been tampered with: one to checksum the copyright message for the splash screen, one to checksum its appearance in video RAM, one to watch the other two, and for all I know more I haven't sussed out yet. At least one of these is broken and misfires in legitimate copies of the game; it is responsible for Easter-egg lists of the form "die between levels X and Y with the last two digits of your score being ZZ and get this magic effect" - the actions these bits of code take when they think they've detected invalid copying are to bash bits of memory to produce random breakage, and those "magic effect"s are the random breakage. Someone noticed that the "random" part wasn't really random but just came from the low byte of the (BCD) score. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 29 23:20:00 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 21:20:00 -0700 Subject: OT: Hex to BCD conversion for programs In-Reply-To: <004f01c69bf0$06939770$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <004f01c69bf0$06939770$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <44A4A670.4040404@DakotaCom.Net> Richard A. Cini wrote: > I'm working on a real-time-clock emulation for the Altair32 and > I need a push on something. Most RTC boards return a BCD value to the > caller. When you call GetLocalTime in Windows, it returns an integer value. > So, I have to somehow convert an integer to its BCD representation. > I thought about using sprintf on the integer and then returning > str[0] or str[1] depending on if I need the tens place or units place. > However, this seems to me to be an inelegant way of doing it. > Does anyone have any ready-made C code to do this that I can > use? Thanks a lot! You want packed BCD, right? Horrible kludge but for something quick: for (i=0; i<16?; i+=4) { digit = value % 10; value /= 10; digit <<= i; result |= digit; } There are much more elegant algorithms that you can write in assembly language (but I've been told NO ONE uses assembly language anymore so I won't bother you with those :> ) From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 29 23:26:14 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 21:26:14 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <200606292105380631.269E1D5F@10.0.0.252> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <44A4A24F.1080209@DakotaCom.Net> <200606292105380631.269E1D5F@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A4A7E6.8060301@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Rand McNally does that routinely. They create a few bogus towns or > geographical markers to thwart copying. I've heard that some music > publishers will also put in intentional typos (say, the wrong number of > beats in a bar or a superfluous accidental) to brand their work. > > I like to do a similar thing with online forms that require your name and > email. I create a throwaway email address and then make up a name and > address. I'm still getting spam offering really great mortgage rates to > someone called David Marquez in Juneau. But I never did get anything for > Consuelo O'Brien of Barrow. > > I'm looking for Carl LaFong....that's Big C small a small r small l... An unlisted phone number "costs extra". *But*, listing your number under a different NAME doesn't! (note that you need to not tip the phone company representative off that you are fabricating just such a name!) A real easy way to keep your name out of the phone book *and* tip yourself off to folks who are skimming the phone book *for* contacts! From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jun 29 23:47:06 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 21:47:06 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> der Mouse wrote: [arcade pieces] >> Lots of clever ideas to prevent/discourage that sort of thing ;-) > > I have images online of the Tempest ROMs. (Tempest was a colour > vector game from 1980, possibly the best arcade game ever in my > estimation, though Omega Race gives it a run for its money. Certainly > a little sniffing around on the Web indicatse that Tempest is one of > the most sought-after arcade games.) Yeah, I had a Tempest upright but gave it to a neighbor when I left Chicagoland (they are phenomenally HEAVY! easier to move a refrigerator than a Tempest!!) > I've been working on disassembling and uncompiling them. There's all > of 24K of data there - very parsimonious of code space compared to > "modern" umpty-ump megabyte games, and more playable than most - and > yet it has defense in fair depth against such copying. There are at > least three or so (it's been a while since I looked) loops that > checksum various things to make sure they haven't been tampered with: > one to checksum the copyright message for the splash screen, one to > checksum its appearance in video RAM, one to watch the other two, and > for all I know more I haven't sussed out yet. At least one of these is In at least one game, the logo is "drawn" (algorithmically). A counterfeiter modified the drawing routine (since their title/logo is obviously different!) and learned that one of the counterfeiting checks was to make sure the "pen" ends up in the same place as the original logo left it! > broken and misfires in legitimate copies of the game; it is responsible > for Easter-egg lists of the form "die between levels X and Y with the > last two digits of your score being ZZ and get this magic effect" - the > actions these bits of code take when they think they've detected > invalid copying are to bash bits of memory to produce random breakage, > and those "magic effect"s are the random breakage. Someone noticed > that the "random" part wasn't really random but just came from the low > byte of the (BCD) score. The trick to fighting counterfeiting is to make the actions that happen random when something is "incorrect". And, to design the code so that you never do explicit tests for "correct". Instead, you leave a computed/checksum value someplace... then magically use it in a computation (*expecting* it to be the correct value). So, if it is incorrect, some object might move in a nonlinear fashion. Or, might become invisible (e.g., the color map entries for the object get mangled). With these sorts of failures, the counterfeiter is hard pressed to notice them: "Hmmm... was the angle of incidence equal to the angle of relection when I bounced off that wall?" And, even harder to set up a breakpoint condition to check (since the problem may manifest itself differently next time you press GAME START) However, to a PLAYER of a counterfeited game, they QUICKLY learn that they are being screwed by the game. And, stop playing it. Operator (the guy who buys the games) sees drop in revenue and realizes game is crap. Vendor sees lower sales for next "90 day wonder". Unfortunately, this sort of "random failures" pattern is hard to leverage to other devices. Imagine yourself trying to defend (in court) a piece of code that deliberately screws up the normal operation of the product -- *if* that code screws up unexpectedly!! "And, could you please tell the court why you designed that algorithm to deliberately cause my client's pace maker to put out 300 stimuli per minute? ..." Finally, using that sort of an approach in a *desktop* market would also probably be fruitless -- since people seem to EXPECT desktop software to be buggy! :-( From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Jun 29 23:39:23 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 00:39:23 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > The trick to fighting counterfeiting [in arcade videogames] is to > make the actions that happen random when something is "incorrect". > And, to design the code so that you never do explicit tests for > "correct". The Tempest checks - the ones I've found, at least - don't manage the second part of that. You can NOP out the checking code just fine, provided you also NOP out the code that watches the checking code. (I've played the game with those checks disabled, and it is actually far more playable; the misfires from the buggy checking code definitely do their job in impairing playability.) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 30 00:00:12 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:00:12 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200606292200120471.26D0112D@10.0.0.252> >> Lots of clever ideas to prevent/discourage that sort of thing ;-) I knew a fellow who liked to "brand" his code by executing his name. Actually, it's pretty easy on x86 platforms; most uppercase alphas are simple 1-byte register ops. For example, "DERMOUSE" would translate to: INC SP INC BP PUSH DX DEC BP DEC DI PUSH BP PUSH BX INC BP The simple way to code this would be to follow this with a bit of "fixup" code: DEC BP ADD SP,5 INC DI But code of a bit more devious bent would actually set registers up with known values before the name and then check their values to make sure that the "name" code has been executed. I once remember hacking some game that did just this. Drove me nuts when the execution path veered off into what I thought was data. Cheers, Chuck From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Jun 30 00:02:45 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:02:45 -0700 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <44A48479.1050502@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A4528F.2020902@DakotaCom.Net> <44A4631B.4000605@msm.umr.edu> <44A48479.1050502@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44A4B075.20501@msm.umr.edu> answers are interspersed to reply to different subjects. don't know if that is correct or not according to other thread, but I did trim out some I didn't reply to. if this is too much Sun for the list, I'm available offline for sun help too, worked for them and I like solaris, especially with $25 U5's on the market these days. (400+mhz no less) jim Don Y wrote: > jim stephens wrote: > >> Don Y wrote: >> >>> I just inherited a U10 (400+?). I was planning on installing 8. >>> Is it wiser to move to something else? (I need 8 for Jaluna >>> cross-development but can keep that on my U1 if need be) >> >> >> Solaris 8 is a bit weird about installing IDE drives with the bigdisk >> capacity command. > > > Ah, I forgot that the U10 is IDE. > actually reduces the problem of finding enough capacity to keep 100gb of solaris software I have to a single drive / machine now, instead of apile of cd's, tapes, and hard to find SCSI drives. dont care about performance if I only get 9gb / drive >> I had to do some finagleing with the format process to get anything >> bigger than 8gb to be created. > > > Ouch! I have an 18G in the U1 currently and don't recall any problems > getting it set up. Though I don't think any partition is larger than > 8G on that machine. > only problem on IDE, U1 is SCSI. also when U1 came out it was rare to have anything but raid with capacity over 4 gb / spindel, and when it was superceded, SCSI was still only up to maybe 18gb. We used one at Peer Protocols for Raid test suite development, and it was really fast compared to the SS2's that I had dredged up to see if we wanted to spend the $$ for a U1. Now my U5's and 10 are blindingly fast to the point I dont care anymore. >> I am running 9 with a 120gb (130 is the magic spot where the disk size >> commands break). > > > Ah, that won't be a problem for me. I dont like putting big drives > in any single machine. Level 0 backups just take too damn long > (even on a DLT). And, since I only *work* on a little stuff at > a time, I only need a few GB of sandbox to play in. > 2 120gb drives will fit on the U5 or U10 if need be. why use tape anymore. I do backups even disk to disk with cpio anyway, then slice and dice and use par2 to create check / ecc sets. way better than tape, sad to say From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 30 00:18:49 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:18:49 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> der Mouse wrote: >> The trick to fighting counterfeiting [in arcade videogames] is to >> make the actions that happen random when something is "incorrect". >> And, to design the code so that you never do explicit tests for >> "correct". > > The Tempest checks - the ones I've found, at least - don't manage the > second part of that. You can NOP out the checking code just fine, > provided you also NOP out the code that watches the checking code. > (I've played the game with those checks disabled, and it is actually > far more playable; the misfires from the buggy checking code definitely > do their job in impairing playability.) It is *very* hard to design these sorts of checks. First, you need to make sure that they are totally ineffectual while you are developing the "real" code. (you don't want to waste your time tracking down a bug that isn't really there!) Second, you need to make them hard to detect. Simple checksums during POST (etc.) take just a few minutes to find and patch around. Even continuously running checks are easy to spot unless they look like they are doing "real work" ("Gee, why is this piece of code just walking through memory...?") Third, they need to be subtle in how they affect the normal play of the game when they trigger -- if it is to noticeable, then it is too easy to see when they have kicked in. Just like adding arbitrary 3 second delays to failed login attempts, you want to make the counterfeiter have to invest a lot of time *deciding* if he has beat the check system or not. Fourth, when you "install them", you need to be "Ivory Soap Sure" that they work properly -- in a legitimate game as well as in a hacked game! All in a machine that is a fraction of a MIPS :> Unfortunately, there never was a good solution to this problem. Software hacks like these are labor intensive. And, in a market (at that time) where time to market was *critical*, "wasting" a week writing/debugging/installing them was expensive. Yet, hardware protection schemes were just as easy to beat (even easier in today's technology!). Some of the schemes that came along were quite imaginative. But, also quite costly to implement (for a machine that went to the end purchaser for < ~$2000). [IIRC, the vector engine in Tempest was pretty much "fully disclosed" in their documentation -- this wasn't the case in all machines (though Atari used LOTS of "custom chips" in their machines)] From Chris at ChrisPappas.com Thu Jun 29 19:31:53 2006 From: Chris at ChrisPappas.com (Chris Pappas) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 20:31:53 -0400 Subject: Can anyone program archaic PROMs? Message-ID: <000901c69bdc$9861bb50$0500a8c0@lcars> Hi, I'm sort of stuck. The place I used to use for programming went out of business and I need to have four different programs put onto eight TTL 2K (256x8) 20 pin PROMs, two units of each program. The PROMs that will work for the application are: Definitely will work: NAT 74S471 SIG 82S135 Most likely will work, but I haven't tried these: Fujitsu 7118 MMI 6309 TI 28L22 Can anyone possibly help me out on short notice? What would this run cost? I've just subscribed to this list, so I'm not yet receiving posts, but I can be emailed at Chris at ChrisPappas.com. Thank you, Chris From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 30 01:14:37 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 23:14:37 -0700 Subject: Can anyone program archaic PROMs? In-Reply-To: <000901c69bdc$9861bb50$0500a8c0@lcars> References: <000901c69bdc$9861bb50$0500a8c0@lcars> Message-ID: <44A4C14D.2090104@DakotaCom.Net> Chris Pappas wrote: > Hi, > > I'm sort of stuck. The place I used to use for programming went out of > business and I need to have four different programs put onto eight TTL 2K > (256x8) 20 pin PROMs, two units of each program. > > The PROMs that will work for the application are: > > Definitely will work: > NAT 74S471 > SIG 82S135 The 82S135 is a pretty common (bipolar) PROM. I'm sure you can do it with a Unisite -- probably many other programmers. Where are you located? From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Jun 30 01:22:15 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 02:22:15 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > [IIRC, the vector engine in Tempest was pretty much "fully disclosed" > in their documentation -- this wasn't the case in all machines > (though Atari used LOTS of "custom chips" in their machines)] I don't know where, but it was fully enough disclosed for MAME to emulate it. What *I* would like to understand better is the mathbox. MAME's emulation is good enough for the game, but the operations are intricate enough that it's hard to see what they add up to just from reading the emulator implementation. (For example, there's something that I suspect is some kind of perspective transformation, but I haven't been able to figure out enough details to label it any better than "black box that might be perspective transformation".) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 30 01:39:12 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 23:39:12 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <200606292200120471.26D0112D@10.0.0.252> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200606292200120471.26D0112D@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A4C710.6070008@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: >>> Lots of clever ideas to prevent/discourage that sort of thing ;-) > > I knew a fellow who liked to "brand" his code by executing his name. > Actually, it's pretty easy on x86 platforms; most uppercase alphas are > simple 1-byte register ops. For example, "DERMOUSE" would translate to: > > INC SP > INC BP > PUSH DX > DEC BP > DEC DI > PUSH BP > PUSH BX > INC BP > > The simple way to code this would be to follow this with a bit of "fixup" > code: > > DEC BP > ADD SP,5 > INC DI And just *hope* that this fixup code doesn't decode to "SELLS USED CARS" or some other perjorative... :> > But code of a bit more devious bent would actually set registers up with > known values before the name and then check their values to make sure that > the "name" code has been executed. > > I once remember hacking some game that did just this. Drove me nuts when > the execution path veered off into what I thought was data. If you use a batch disassembler, you'll also get screwed by cases of inlined data. E.g., I often do things like: CALL SOMETHING DB LABEL: If the don't map into an integral number of instructions, then the disassembler's PC won't line up with LABEL: and some number of instructions in that vicinity will get improperly decoded (until the disassembler syncs up "by chance" with the instruction stream) From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 30 02:01:32 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 00:01:32 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <44A4C710.6070008@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200606292200120471.26D0112D@10.0.0.252> <44A4C710.6070008@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606300001320629.273F2679@10.0.0.252> On 6/29/2006 at 11:39 PM Don Y wrote: > CALL SOMETHING > DB > >LABEL: That's actually very common; in particular, stuff like: CALL SHOW_MESSAGE DB "Any old blather here",0 The nice part of this sort of thing is that you don't need the calling code to load the address of the string to be displayed in a register. Saves a few bytes here and there. Cheers, Chuck From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Fri Jun 30 02:06:41 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 08:06:41 +0100 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> der Mouse wrote: >> [IIRC, the vector engine in Tempest was pretty much "fully disclosed" >> in their documentation -- this wasn't the case in all machines >> (though Atari used LOTS of "custom chips" in their machines)] > > I don't know where, but it was fully enough disclosed for MAME to > emulate it. I think I mentioned it before, but I reverse-engineered the Asteroids Digital Vector Generator (FYI - Tempest uses an Analog Vector Generator instead). Ended up finding out what instruction opcode 0x0 *really* does - MAME's been mis-emulating that for years :) For those who actually care, it's a DRAW instruction with a scale factor of 512. It's really only good for drawing single pixels and very (and I mean *very*) short lines. The two Atari Vector Generators rank pretty high on my list of cool hacks. Some of the tricks used to squeeze additional I/O lines out of the 4-bit state machine PROM were pretty neat, and the circuitry itself was a pig to trace, even with the schematic. I've got a Verilog version that I need to look into programming into a CPLD to play with, but first I need to get my homebrew X-Y display working again... -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 30 02:41:22 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 00:41:22 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44A4D5A2.3080505@DakotaCom.Net> der Mouse wrote: >> [IIRC, the vector engine in Tempest was pretty much "fully disclosed" >> in their documentation -- this wasn't the case in all machines >> (though Atari used LOTS of "custom chips" in their machines)] > > I don't know where, but it was fully enough disclosed for MAME to > emulate it. > > What *I* would like to understand better is the mathbox. MAME's > emulation is good enough for the game, but the operations are intricate > enough that it's hard to see what they add up to just from reading the > emulator implementation. (For example, there's something that I > suspect is some kind of perspective transformation, but I haven't been > able to figure out enough details to label it any better than "black > box that might be perspective transformation".) You might be better off looking at how the mathbox was used in Battlezone... From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 30 02:48:34 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 00:48:34 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <200606300001320629.273F2679@10.0.0.252> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200606292200120471.26D0112D@10.0.0.252> <44A4C710.6070008@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300001320629.273F2679@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A4D752.5070904@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/29/2006 at 11:39 PM Don Y wrote: > >> CALL SOMETHING >> DB >> >> LABEL: > > That's actually very common; in particular, stuff like: > > CALL SHOW_MESSAGE > DB "Any old blather here",0 > > The nice part of this sort of thing is that you don't need the calling code > to load the address of the string to be displayed in a register. Saves a > few bytes here and there. Or, in my case: CALL APPLICATION_SPECIFIC_LANGUAGE ... Makes it easy to use the MACRO capabilities of the assembler (oops, I forgot... we don't use assembler! :> ) to do things like: INVOKE_INTERPRETER ;"call application_specific_language" COUNT 7 LOOP: MOVE_RELATIVE X,Y SPEED 100 RPM DEPTH 1.2 INCHES DECREMENT COUNT JUMP_NON_ZERO LOOP TIMER 25 SECONDS POWER OFF WAIT_TIMER END ;return to normal assembly language CALL From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 30 02:54:11 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 00:54:11 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> Philip Pemberton wrote: > der Mouse wrote: >>> [IIRC, the vector engine in Tempest was pretty much "fully disclosed" >>> in their documentation -- this wasn't the case in all machines >>> (though Atari used LOTS of "custom chips" in their machines)] >> >> I don't know where, but it was fully enough disclosed for MAME to >> emulate it. > > I think I mentioned it before, but I reverse-engineered the Asteroids > Digital Vector Generator (FYI - Tempest uses an Analog Vector Generator > instead). Ended up finding out what instruction opcode 0x0 *really* does > - MAME's been mis-emulating that for years :) > For those who actually care, it's a DRAW instruction with a scale factor > of 512. It's really only good for drawing single pixels and very (and I > mean *very*) short lines. > > The two Atari Vector Generators rank pretty high on my list of cool > hacks. Some of the tricks used to squeeze additional I/O lines out of > the 4-bit state machine PROM were pretty neat, and the circuitry itself > was a pig to trace, even with the schematic. I've got a Verilog version > that I need to look into programming into a CPLD to play with, but first > I need to get my homebrew X-Y display working again... There is one that only draws *curves* (circles). Things that you would expect to be "straigh" look quite amusing. Another firm made some *really* slick (analog) modules that would do 3D transforms. I think their intended use was military (they were *way* too expensive for use in arcade pieces) See if you can find an Electrohome XY monitor. They made one model that you could *emulate* a raster-scan monitor with! (most vector monitors had very slow deflection rates). I am not sure if it was ever available for public consumption, though. (I can probably find a manual to dig up a model number) From stanb at dial.pipex.com Fri Jun 30 02:54:00 2006 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 08:54:00 +0100 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 29 Jun 2006 20:54:05 PDT." <20060629204727.J45123@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200606300754.IAA02249@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Fred Cisin said: > > Allegedly, map printers (cartographers) have errors in their > > street maps to help identify blatant copies. I guess they figure > > the effort to verify all of the street names, etc. makes it > > unlikely that a counterfeiter would catch the deliberate error... > > not sure how this has changed with more modern technology. > > Monmonier says that it continues. > The British Ordnance survey and "A to Z" street maps certainly do this. I found one of their deliberate errors in the latest edition of our local area map. -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Fri Jun 30 06:13:04 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 12:13:04 +0100 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> Don Y wrote: > There is one that only draws *curves* (circles). Things that you > would expect to be "straigh" look quite amusing. Heh. I heard about some of the fun the Atari engineering team went through to get the AVG going. Apparently some undetermined parameters meant that only one type of capacitor worked properly in the AVG circuit. Anything else displayed severe non-linearity. There's a CRT clock around somewhere that has an onboard sine generator (might be two sine generators) that's used to generate "proper" curves. Personally, I like the sharp angles on the Atari vector font - the curves look a bit too.. well.. perfect :) > Another firm made some *really* slick (analog) modules that > would do 3D transforms. I think their intended use was > military (they were *way* too expensive for use in arcade > pieces) I never really got into analog design. I can do simple opamp stuff (current sense amplifiers, basic add/subtract/multiply signal processing) but I've never designed a 200MHz oscilloscope front-end amplifier or anything like that. > See if you can find an Electrohome XY monitor. Electrohome? Oh yes. They made the G08 didn't they? The "pyromaniac's arcade monitor", allegedly prone to catch fire with very little provocation. I seem to recall an entry in one of the Atari vector FAQs that said something to the effect of "If you are the owner of one of these monitors, you should also be the owner of a very good electronics-grade fire extinguisher." > They made one > model that you could *emulate* a raster-scan monitor with! > (most vector monitors had very slow deflection rates). So I've noticed. Something like ten microseconds per inch for the Wells-Gardner 6400, or 200uS to cover the whole screen. > I am not sure if it was ever available for public consumption, though. It would be neat to find one if it was. A couple of saw generators and an LM1881 should be enough for the scan signal generation. > (I can probably find a manual to dig up a model number) Sure, if it's not too much trouble. Thanks. -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jun 30 07:52:27 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 12:52:27 +0000 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44A51E8B.1000100@yahoo.co.uk> David Griffith wrote: > Many of these ripoffs were horridly bad, though interesting examples of > beating on the thing until it works. For example, Donkey Kong running on > Galaxian hardware. ... and everyone knows that Galaxian was the best arcade ever invented :) (sorry - many an hour was wasted as a kid playing that!) I've never quite found a faithful modern version. Even with the proper ROMs and MAME, it's not quite the same - I suspect because the display just lacks that period fuzzyness; it all looks too crisp and clinical on modern hardware. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jun 30 08:06:27 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 13:06:27 +0000 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <44A521D3.7080702@yahoo.co.uk> Philip Pemberton wrote: > There's a CRT clock around somewhere that has an onboard sine generator > (might be two sine generators) that's used to generate "proper" curves. > Personally, I like the sharp angles on the Atari vector font - the > curves look a bit too.. well.. perfect :) Some time ago, someone on this list posted a URL for a site where someone had homebrewed something to that effect and were using a 'scope as the XY display; it was all hooked up to a computer so that they could draw images, write words etc. on the 'scope's display. Anyone have the URL handy? Wouldn't mind looking at that again, but if I filed it I can't find it... cheers J. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jun 30 08:09:56 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 13:09:56 +0000 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <200606300754.IAA02249@citadel.metropolis.local> References: <200606300754.IAA02249@citadel.metropolis.local> Message-ID: <44A522A4.9090601@yahoo.co.uk> Stan Barr wrote: > Hi, > > Fred Cisin said: >>> Allegedly, map printers (cartographers) have errors in their >>> street maps to help identify blatant copies. I guess they figure >>> the effort to verify all of the street names, etc. makes it >>> unlikely that a counterfeiter would catch the deliberate error... >>> not sure how this has changed with more modern technology. >> Monmonier says that it continues. >> > > The British Ordnance survey and "A to Z" street maps certainly do this. > I found one of their deliberate errors in the latest edition of our > local area map. I've always meant to go and see if "Donkey Town" actually exists. It's on some OS maps and not others (plus it doesn't look like a separate place, but part of some other village anyway). I've always wondered if it was an anti-copying measure... (odd enough name too; not many places in the UK actually end in 'town') cheers Jules From doc at mdrconsult.com Fri Jun 30 07:58:13 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 07:58:13 -0500 Subject: ISO: Compaq Portable 3 "docking station" (?) In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.16.20060629154919.3f5fd0a6@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> References: <3.0.6.16.20060629154919.3f5fd0a6@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Message-ID: <44A51FE5.2050908@mdrconsult.com> Joe R. wrote: > At 10:05 AM 6/29/06 -0700, you wrote: > >>I'd like to find a docking station/expansion chassis >>for my Portable 3. It's my understanding that this >>will hold *two* (full size?) ISA cards. > > > It's been awhile so I'm not positive but I think it takes 3/4 length > boards and IIRC one slot is 8 bit and the other is 16 bit. > > > > I'm hoping > >>that this will be a good, *compact* home for my >>Opus PM (I'd hate to have to set up a regular PC >>for this -- the Portable 3 has the advantage of the >>built in display, etc.). >> >>Alternatively, can anyone suggest something that will >>hold two full size ISA cards in a similarly small >>footprint? Ideally, with a COLOR display instead > > > I've seen similar luggables that have color screens. A lot of them were > originally used for network snoopers. I have a color one somewhere. I don't > remember who made it but I think Dolch built some. You might check E-bay > for Dolch computers. The snoopers usually have three slots but I don't > think ANY of the lunch box size machines will support a FULL length card. > They simply not big enough. If you really need to use full size cards then > check for one of the suitcse size Compaq Portable or Portable II or > something of that size. I have a no-name 386 luggable that has room for full-length cards, and in fact has 3 of them. If it's not a rebadged Dolch, it's a near-exact Dolch knock-off. The thing has a bog-standard AT PSU and Baby-AT 386 motherboard in it, right down to the 30-pin SIPP RAM. I keep threatening to put a Pentium board and a SVGA TFT color screen in it, for a knock-around PeeCee. However, I just hit eBay for "Dolch", and I think my 386 is safe. That P-III mil-spec jobbie looks swank! Doc From doc at mdrconsult.com Fri Jun 30 08:13:13 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 08:13:13 -0500 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <44A4528F.2020902@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A4528F.2020902@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44A52369.80704@mdrconsult.com> Don Y wrote: > Scott Quinn wrote: > >> >>> Solaris 9 is the last version to run on all 64-bit Ultras; Solaris 10 >>> is very impressive from a networking and virtualization standpoint >>> (plus ZFS kicks some serious ass) and is what you should be running >>> if at all possible. >> >> >> So where's your line between 9 and 10? I just moved from a U1 200E to >> a U10 333, and I stuck with >> 5.9 because I was concerned about usability on the U10. > > > I just inherited a U10 (400+?). I was planning on installing 8. > Is it wiser to move to something else? (I need 8 for Jaluna > cross-development but can keep that on my U1 if need be) I have a friend who admins Sun servers for a living, and he swears on v8 as the pinnacle of Sun development. v8 should run just fine on the U10 if you have >256MB of RAM. To sort of converge threads, I have a pair of QIC 1/4" tapes for an Opus board. They're either for a Solaris host or for a SPARC Opus board. I've never tried to read them, but they're the original Opus setup tapes. If anyone thinks they'd be useful, hit me off-list. Doc From mmaginnis at gmail.com Fri Jun 30 08:37:24 2006 From: mmaginnis at gmail.com (Mike Maginnis) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 07:37:24 -0600 Subject: Compaq Portable Message-ID: A couple of months ago, I was exchanging correspondence with someone who was going to take my Compaq portable off my hands. A drive crash cost me all of our exchanges and contact info. Would the person I was in contact with please get a hold of me off-list? Thanks, Mike From rcini at optonline.net Fri Jun 30 10:15:58 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 11:15:58 -0400 Subject: OT: Hex to BCD conversion for programs In-Reply-To: <200606292059230543.26986442@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <008d01c69c58$171b0660$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Chuck: This worked like a champ! Sometimes I forget how to do 1st Grade math. Thanks a lot. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 11:59 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: OT: Hex to BCD conversion for programs Rich, It sounds as if your programming language is "C". :) sprintf() is probably fine for what you want to do, but using the Windows API to get the time is not terribly portable. How about using some of the calls in time.h? Say a call to time(), followed by a call to localtime()? At least that way, your time will be broken out into structure elements holding month, day, year, hours, minutes, seconds and will be good on just about any platform. You can create your BCD values by /10 and %10 operations for the upper and lower digits respectively. Cheers, Chuck On 6/29/2006 at 10:51 PM Richard A. Cini wrote: >All: > > > > I'm working on a real-time-clock emulation for the Altair32 and >I need a push on something. Most RTC boards return a BCD value to the >caller. When you call GetLocalTime in Windows, it returns an integer value. >So, I have to somehow convert an integer to its BCD representation. > > > > I thought about using sprintf on the integer and then returning >str[0] or str[1] depending on if I need the tens place or units place. >However, this seems to me to be an inelegant way of doing it. > > > > Does anyone have any ready-made C code to do this that I can >use? Thanks a lot! > > > >Rich > > > >Rich Cini > >Collector of classic computers > >Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator > >Web site: >http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ > >Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ > >/***************************************************/ From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 30 10:28:33 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 10:28:33 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: vNbK42loetfx2WXNf296PqOsROofd1Z3CFHLG7ByYStCZlUje5nXCWu3ZYxHtVwBF9LUut43f1i0 48BxN3uPZ9fwdYLmAEqt4yb8cTBJpeWJZwuiz9rXhn3tgplQAthPxCjZ2EkL8Wf2kio4Sl5ujU0NHCx j1nQcTM8IGW8huzYWjVYOG40ukkPy6VczsqTV3MxbDOUcCqRSuES5bW6XikYOedMD8Ij7d 3giA1yxmDovrPft267fja6h8iuiabaymZGw1CLH0NTxdpHB8V030fL3Jw7oWVeBJPboVQuR 2YZyA62fxg2AHFm5E80d23fHqJi1goIDnPFac2RU0BtcuDH1r08FtZuYZt2ZcH8ydiNBTmkW jP3Ya5UqiRXiWBmJZyVeZEeiX6kaQx4i6TOnubiztnUkQ5khJaspwV6YTgR3U7tegq29fhzkYh8MH 1IRtkXQsQGarK8jXqdXdrKNbwojMBszGKzWoGay2eDI57YymbB0RP1wjGKmlBtHIqPaIAc7ocF8siE WiLLclMRegBUgu721n5JulD5Ako2NM0yiGXSP1R9RStwufCyz7Pm0vpblO3o4qAKW77CZOjtG 7Fykhtz44CvpfrR4DWK5vW1lQKzlEl652WeAQmG8dB3CdKqeCqpwAPlXK9SeH0LEd3biBGgxZs 5RzEH72P33xMspJg23fdhtCTpG5EWe1uRmHLtLP0antqcOBM02dqYDVi0F1ASQghzNZON3WqDcs - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 30 11:05:42 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 11:05:42 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: uyc91ugDY09MxYS7IGQTrVQ4bOoLduzyhxtMXA2wpssxIDvRzOIOAUEApJLTtUfwTSAPtveMNH11 llKd89B9xkm7tzWvTnjeP5dLjGV5XcTMwJxMPVS438J6ziVoJoYZ9JYvivCNwEu3LqXrIxhLoUWRwEV Ro8rdElanltR6KlVtYQ9xEoXY5DKh9om5W34nlNU7ABdZjBBV70CFvbhs35MKTZnNXVzsu VXufPnCT0NBxw2OFZnts9wwwv5rWPdd83jVSnrYNNX3xBzGrpQ2yTn29qehE3KRK3cAECZm P6ZmxZjg7k4Js1ySDRK4RJCoqNr6yJhScoRCuVBuhE0h4EMBWzNH6peRzW6T0ryk5pBW2hHe e4jkeznJNGKmrmNgxonOyQse15fYfm8JOqYgVYsNcy1Xn36nmLCuef9NBCNW3aiQu8FGBs8vS2JFB 7rXB0oq8HSlOBpdWViqZbcS2cViAzFtHcr5MwZZKLqxTncAqZFNj6uJAXuwQnLVkQHosm2AzNv4NrM IV4ZpswPE9KFEP7Bx6Lj3QwZaEYwIKZCYWg76RbU6NmLeo8PmLdd75hpuRZfkiQtrFTqYC8uy fzbV76INxiEAoRDc2wO70wy546imlSnSPqf99MVJBa72LzG1KzpNHdg8C0h63Sv2I3WqzhguA6 VXmUktlyfEfqNlV3fRr9NfRHDGVYgaRogk9xx06EgMVf8gIbBg7F0IAn1c04RAumrOssWH9FypN - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 30 11:12:51 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 11:12:51 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: Q3CX09nAxPseSUA3sKOzRfabCxzfHFYnjdau9SQfOIzIWC1MQVyuVE0vPkw7RS1xdz24C192QGCy nVM4lRndb9tRwG8GUEhXi9kl7pxxE8zBvt6XJCProbEECqyfjhfCgj9C9AI7hI2ai8emCppKvlF3WJQ PLUkebCyUtbwewrHIPK3kX7AsC0mfF0xfMJe4HRwmShjUEgf6In7ryies4Bb7zYQJw3HHD DDyKuAPwTnaKxW1tGH7T40rsD0uGdl0qnlCA2JQoYGG79jjO0ztarlzNNV1iD6QMZoiAwUO jON9q8xkdfHQyQ2Fh51zmxVrE7rMN9k3jq8XLHBmt5I8XIFPtL9bU5Tp1jhJvsju3W0z9uvc ni9iwGHuzJtlWoT3wGlKdLvUdWnPoFNk1OhpD9rdJLTFRhkmxaNnZlFy7OjZM4POxp41zCWGMiaYq aBNtaM4FjqarWOB3xpujc11KISRbVKWa9MtmcvwDhvAV2I9OTDxDFAapoKmVaqfnQw5QaSoZqpQKDN 6uqoqMNksmBSvvTFOkUSjNPwVPG6HJiZYnHIamAa2GRtB9R1mOvYtRlEVMIv4zSEwCxZ78W6e C9NNt58f75RvB5AmV7kVTciaPmm3p8Vwdh9tAzZofHfgp7e7NkDkPR22N1GfG0DasDD9CIcjiK u7cEyPDaAKF2UBHKcrOgBG6I9WNmbiIBi1TV6k24xmGqSK8ltYUTiASyDBV3b1iaaRvyYKeIrOi - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 30 11:40:47 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 11:40:47 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: lbgKNALwrQ59ZVlTVzge8s6iMBgfftn051b73Qp7lLDDAVdDYYpPPqX2hHV5keuIz6Lu2gWAF2mq CoDwkH3hZ99XyKY6pxEfBoH3ygvzy9qfYLeXW1vm0Th9Wp8pfvCvr1hu9SFrMo9savtF4QJL11pFEW3 NeeUp3SuqBsU4XSktwt5ahTlgGWlTxEeQN6h9lHacNaToJWt2AuBtEO6KmR8UmHL7EZAKO 6DX5RP6kFHQgghR39VBQBwSv42XwG0dFB4i5apVjE7ES7m8SElIkG2CyPAbY2Xmd3WQM0Sb eNY4r6hTzZTIVUbu4r2zxyJ8ncCZuAN0IiOJS3Hqw4hrsgbgLVndFNz3NfP9T7omck1BPdJL djg4cABtJfkrGgjCiLXFaOroEQK699y87FW6rvHxqPhLEr8Hx9BD90PLjnVimHFuMrU4CXzFX5x2o I52KTXCPyKgaxHBZxcTPFQJhfdK1fKtI8Tmozn3S5cFszEiNIUHeJMiXC61nV3xIB84yw2aHcIGTs4 DGcVZraPVCoV0e9I7o7TTt8OLPfCumZxx4ko3F41xMtbNMY2xsYDp2yrkrVGztgVa6dX76vJp VQxbS9fcmAJkOdor6YVGAvCPQvDPGFGFeaKgZaRGqQGQXffLqJL5hFSrGTBj4ISx2aL0QHDgM8 69cIAqXQPV5F9elokCwl1iiQtsez8JlIblfOGxGUOAdzRUFQBK91bZpX5p9ms3wCF7Rk1etxl4o - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 30 11:48:04 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 11:48:04 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: 1Hg86EvcMyvls1aw8n1ohtV3TpuIRh4YlqDoLvFqk4jB80G657vPtBcYQ6KlaxjEhB9VYQ65WmRn qA6cYw8lebH5s3QEQDVxuZQO6a4DvwOozczjUn2np3M8HVpj2bBVQJU8MseTWgfkcxq6GmF9eY8x1Sy 0qowbLufwC1T5hct2eMzxohQNfqufIrDhmjrldyxHvmTGyVMQfGImYACV7ABJRnvuOaHci UIGYug1K9siirtbu49ctzjIUWEPnCoSX9iw7ADd3D5Jqmr1Bh2MCGm8DSPe7K6QXB71VsjP 2x3kzKX4eIpDwN8v2L2PVKaaxIsHSuAoT7cxowlDV0wSZdehb2InS5HWghmZldbavyPzRoSk 9PCsGcSV17gBmP2W6nMe78zSS27Tg2sNak84ZHp5mpFAWGtRwdz8TuTWykx438y627plk88Ec315I k3h1m7D3VH6U5c6dInDyp6vKgp5BaC0ZztWIQSPPkAkYhzm6PPcx6Yk5I2QKCOxYV3FOwxfn0rSfOL 7f9y3mBP6bhePBo3wr2LZ4z7H0YVZUcsjwARcwrsyncl3KMlKLBxpUTZhcBiJ9YzZwmJbbgUQ Zug5EvM0LKoN2177YgonBY8XCpKB0i78e2SoFQRlUjZQADXicdqZ5s9DsaCtEa7ey7DRWTJ0hE wpnTH3hSaKCj3HOo1o5Nau5l1kRhAqzjxCUkuroItFPEnXuh7rYJqOJUYPy5sxd4F9abhE31AUv - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 30 11:48:07 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 11:48:07 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: SMtqNnZa0038hPVXN6eSsgqnkei3ckzLUfBBOtCk7ji0RPortzSSCVERVcCPGuUtHxYg2LIuehGQ KLPjAvQkYZXFDNd8OwdNRXWvVzcvKaZUFoRqjlLU6dzcdmIjj1NH6bXMYgYModNhEoXzHTPvJiTskhS qL6gO8fn8cEQaiiKUOn8fimflrmx3wqCdBXJLotiWigjyemuOXbss9lURV9Zv5TmyGqY3h cGkUbBefqC86EYtJbX7CqG902zHcxE4aUBXxyhOcLbYDmiSR17DX36Kk1dYGu9kLL0xUXQY 9dmQPTN5zUUHLy6lXU2E7TPxExjbRxMFEvrewcuMNBFq8oXgRV3naChG2tVBxATw7tC8CeEh Z743ge1crRoFGlwcet3GbflkS0ufgubFDMW9j7HT03ANnT2HVz4GZCRsKTvrepu4Txq6OYu2iyGBD kh2ZhmqAUKeFXiq9FJsrw50mssp7htaDZezoGNmfxmGHzQkJ1GFgN4MK9C0nyY6UAPLoU9jwINRviq kR570AsjEF1Tx8dnYV2YeDk5I61WWVU4MyuDHZLL2dXdqntRMGYG7oqKGfB6058TmE2gG7kej FO5irshnL8hunWwxB7FdbIx3SlxyuOnM81HXmNQDo7jFLVkZVXAz4vUiWr9SFuB466jqVPjw56 aDEhqex7qNq1cRc7zi8v9kEaG6MUMxcYJ6iNGa6Zui9GYo4XlrnxHtAiPC32DC5aDqEJ12HFEXe - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 30 11:55:32 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 11:55:32 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: sWYsaTvz7OiXgc1yIfyAtoblTZmeEl8wvHAkOcAaaK5za1UIJgEv0z22FQDwvtjN5xEG4CSn5ZLM wJy7BjRXmVKuFQVMZ31h5uvWVfVKiNjQBsZxfBDy6edGUo7yaFoRJsa1YKb2jCPoI6wenNpvPrNxzLY auoQG7YEt23GTMYHWXqyFTVexeZJ4b7mXCMoEnFh3LGhUrTxbKfOrH32aAaVn0hA9NIveK fLPem4FAx0EJ5V2TWcl0bRAjA9s8JiyGrIuZGgxyUBSf9FJ2BoLnhC2nsCwUMSNLLR3KOEd ylaZjf38KY2ryMv52XUk3SODBQH2mCo4ibwJnQS26koVbswRFuqTTKBDxw3aECWALoFPEzfr t6T14huNXOVCA4sEMKJAfmbEoA0PF1fDBrmQvW4HKqeBaj1VuVVFOxx3y3dJOGKPmRUEplzk1LWct DDn69jgz9oYXkDbwLy8Dtk5hbVUt7kHseR7Z7Kd74357uiS8WAN5yTWvm8yUUIb5qYM9cJhj2EQOFa Ebi7h3wTw5OifUtOw84MwflNSMKlGeKBLukt2iU1U6NRydgTA0GnnJCrlEgE2CfgLVOpg3V3u AG4JAKomCjW38OCxkvwK8rn5RaVwWzUAsdpeSe547NZVIC1JBVLKcyO9W3oULqZiS6C9dXWT0u U5iCAVX1hiQVGUIxpA8CmfFndLHPlaxeaNHhNxxw5qL6cuWQzxSQKhgbDWPVudUDslDraVoUrqE - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 30 11:58:39 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 11:58:39 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: x0lB2VDLlZh70l4JuzJCOlFV94dsTb06axJP9B7nbMeBuLU5R24tL9SVTS9dnToVFVIYQNjuYLd3 QHgBONZ4rZBnCMa5iRSmaTNwlbuMhzRYKRiSElvmEct4ZkapywmhQpawgX0ubrtlTe2phYdhcN3Ut9F xDgcouz9Hju8XJaqKoeB4ANNpw0LKfVpFkv2WpARvbdNRQjqPtwyyHYDusiUVkX3v7Zjp4 CcVDp9qlykNndXhaR8IjGOvzs6P2CYVXHebElIkD0sXQ9MYuaoz6r9KWsQcXpZO0a15gg2f h3URm3Dk8vOSZo8tHsDJrrp61Hn6jDWqwxKN7wB6MXeuPvmCLazOLdBTADdZoqDNIAg2lhBn JYmfRLTs24YaVu5B1hHHW2BsXtvl7EONmpPMBEVE5g0LyzbTuiaybTS2Jh78kmbWeTl0QFZ2oMd60 teYMiOlFUSUyaUurLOAukDeP3pN9XLDFSKtbXjHCW1XK5pUHrrFYhNbSpeyX9Rjsc3m2lq7uOBCDYc DgfunLwa66d502uxWr0Ef3IzKnHVCX5eOnymqpCqa9r13Mn7j91k9D4peDNJcwiI1qrEMaBs8 yGY1xGkoJA8akfMnv90Uz5y8P3IrJ2v5lkRW7kVzp8uaiZ1Vn3Wcjrp8vAgdSIe4W5FAG2SA6m 0zoW1xXeAvyZv3iECD9r5xptYdUDqzNeLcO7oSx2PRdiY7jnZtLvVb1575Qmekyq1ru0PktVP47 - Done. From cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 30 11:59:52 2006 From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org (cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 11:59:52 -0500 Subject: The results of your email commands Message-ID: The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Ignoring non-text/plain MIME parts - Unprocessed: jsxYiLyR8lUdvxHdfYridFcdE7vfPtG5l8opuzsO4IId364nguDnhO2iFwWwQQXRYAtUvR3SsqY0 KROnXDrLp0ne6eE02gEvSWOE7Xipa8fPOQvBaY05wvxdSTJfKnvpvu1FD6jzMpiDtcPUs9cLQVPJ6iS XzSAIIa1yDz5ngTTuq0JbA2IlokCBTuAsJy0emaXxt5vlpYCovlkxLVw6HS6BN8v41vM4w tZe2pcevKedMkGWx08Y2yNJMXbYiplGXG4qJE2tECnz5EEbktCpqtj0TraPwXza7Z9UngGy Wv9EaDo7eN3ay2O7ZA4YQH9CELfNaelMLC5sCL6G5hvowTAfuHDiEqdxZnnGTBOmynaCLQQu x1kzH5RhBTZWeUsa6XoNNpRAqVDOHUv8kK6Ua3fQgiALPhHg3KxEZHT2thd6XBkuFuqSdmx0ORXhg pgCtFlE7orcHPoerY5RINczYeKMiOTmYKuQhJAXaHbCK2jPHWUR8PxwPE9oa9ZVH9oLlKje0gnKls7 0sN4LRcvBvYuQT7SEH9CnS0NuVvsVw3sYkj0bWKp1L8Iv8R6oa7Qk8cuoot5hlUXUyirJOz6F gPhDdraCiMbhsUe554vnoNVTdmr4UOV9NOz7PfF48kQSQbJf9eQTg2SmYSr16G6pHEQOxeRaBN XZd03jWBQcjIsDsAoHuG8nKgCYVuUzpP7ZWDlnljYBE1k9yccOvPaNFDTmVc7xwM4wM1jo9UsEE - Done. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 30 12:13:02 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 10:13:02 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <44A51E8B.1000100@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <44A51E8B.1000100@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44A55B9E.9080601@DakotaCom.Net> Jules Richardson wrote: > ... and everyone knows that Galaxian was the best arcade ever invented :) > > (sorry - many an hour was wasted as a kid playing that!) Robotron. There's just no way to replace the "feel" of a fullsize upright with two joysticks -- *dragging* all that weight across the floor in a frenzied bout with The Brains... :> While I'd *love* having a cocktail, the play sensation just wouldn't be the same as the upright! > I've never quite found a faithful modern version. Even with the proper > ROMs and MAME, it's not quite the same - I suspect because the display > just lacks that period fuzzyness; it all looks too crisp and clinical on > modern hardware. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 30 12:17:20 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 10:17:20 -0700 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <44A52369.80704@mdrconsult.com> References: <44A4528F.2020902@DakotaCom.Net> <44A52369.80704@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <44A55CA0.3030406@DakotaCom.Net> Doc Shipley wrote: > Don Y wrote: >> I just inherited a U10 (400+?). I was planning on installing 8. >> Is it wiser to move to something else? (I need 8 for Jaluna >> cross-development but can keep that on my U1 if need be) > > I have a friend who admins Sun servers for a living, and he swears on > v8 as the pinnacle of Sun development. v8 should run just fine on the > U10 if you have >256MB of RAM. I'll probably opt for that approach as it will let me keep my Jaluna toolchain running (I'd have to figure out how to rebuild it if I moved to 9/10) > To sort of converge threads, I have a pair of QIC 1/4" tapes for an > Opus board. They're either for a Solaris host or for a SPARC Opus > board. I've never tried to read them, but they're the original Opus > setup tapes. If anyone thinks they'd be useful, hit me off-list. Which Opus card? They made different ones (88K, 32K, etc.) My software was delivered on (a boatload) of 5" floppies... From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 30 12:24:36 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 10:24:36 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <44A521D3.7080702@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A521D3.7080702@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200606301024360731.29799D2D@10.0.0.252> On 6/30/2006 at 1:06 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >Some time ago, someone on this list posted a URL for a site where someone >had homebrewed something to that effect and were using a 'scope as the XY >display; >it was all hooked up to a computer so that they could draw images, write >words etc. on the 'scope's display. I recall something in one of the 70's electronics/computer mags about this. Probably something like Kilobaud or Microsystems. There's also a fairly ancient (1960s) paper on the subject on the web about drawing characters using LRC circuits. Which is the way the old CDC 6000 operator's consoles did it. Maximum text density in small characters was 64 colums by 64 rows (3 character sizes were possible). You could create special effects like intensify or blink by simply redisplaying or skipping a display cycle. No buffering at all--the more time you took to get through a display, the more flicker it had. The fewer charactrers on the screen, the brighter they were. Graphics mode, IIRC was 512x512, again, unbuffered. Cheers, Chuck From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Fri Jun 30 13:55:08 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 14:55:08 -0400 Subject: Vector Imagery (was: Why do people... In-Reply-To: <44A521D3.7080702@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Jules Richardson may have mentioned these words: >Philip Pemberton wrote: >>There's a CRT clock around somewhere that has an onboard sine generator >>(might be two sine generators) that's used to generate "proper" curves. >>Personally, I like the sharp angles on the Atari vector font - the curves >>look a bit too.. well.. perfect :) > >Some time ago, someone on this list posted a URL for a site where someone >had homebrewed something to that effect and were using a 'scope as the XY >display; it was all hooked up to a computer so that they could draw >images, write words etc. on the 'scope's display. >Anyone have the URL handy? Wouldn't mind looking at that again, but if I >filed it I can't find it... Dunno if this is what you were thinking; and it's kinda offtopic as it uses a PC & Soundcard to draw the images; tho it would seem possible to do it with ontopic hardware... Depending on your boss, possibly not safe for work: http://www.sensi.org/~svo/pr0nscope/ Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com | From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Fri Jun 30 14:00:04 2006 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:00:04 -0400 Subject: A note on using RUNENT on some CP/Ms... Message-ID: Some users have reported problems that have been traced to the following cause: 1) Some of the ".ent" file programs depend on the Solos/Cutter routines to perform keyboard input. 2) Some CP/M implementations being run on Sols either configure the hardware in a way that is incompatible with Solos/Cutter or use the Solos/Cutter 1K RAM area in such a way that the keyboard routines can not function correctly. Observed behavior is that the program seems to function correctly up to the point where some keyboard input is required. Workaround: RUNENT places no restrictions on the start address specified on its command line. Use this to transfer control back to the Solos/Cutter initialization code (usually C000H). This will result in the screen being cleared and a Solos prompt '>' presented, once the ".ent" file is loaded. Then, at the Solos prompt, use the execute command "EX
" to run the loaded program. Example: A>RUNENT CUBIC.ENT :C000 0700: 07 EB 22 10 07 7D 93 6F 7C 9A B5 32 12 07 E1 C9 0710: 56 E4/ >EX 0 It is also possible that some systems may disable the Solos ROM as CP/M boots. Enabling/disabling the Solos ROM is a custom hardware modification that can be accomplished in a number of ways, so you will need some understanding of your system and of assembly level programming. You will need to write a small program at some unoccupied address range that reenables the ROM and then jumps to the ROM init address. This program will need to be converted into an ".ent" file and loaded along with the desired application (RUNENT can load two ".ent" files) and jumped to using the start address command line parameter. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 30 15:44:51 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 13:44:51 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <44A58D43.2030003@DakotaCom.Net> Philip Pemberton wrote: >> Another firm made some *really* slick (analog) modules that >> would do 3D transforms. I think their intended use was >> military (they were *way* too expensive for use in arcade >> pieces) > > I never really got into analog design. I can do simple opamp stuff > (current sense amplifiers, basic add/subtract/multiply signal > processing) but I've never designed a 200MHz oscilloscope front-end > amplifier or anything like that. The problem with analog vector generation is that you have to deal with a *huge* dynamic range of signals -- in a very low cost, noisey environment. It's just not acceptable to scale down an object and have it's shape distort severely because your analog processor can't handle microvolts well. :> >> See if you can find an Electrohome XY monitor. > > Electrohome? Oh yes. They made the G08 didn't they? The "pyromaniac's > arcade monitor", allegedly prone to catch fire with very little > provocation. > I seem to recall an entry in one of the Atari vector FAQs that said > something to the effect of "If you are the owner of one of these > monitors, you should also be the owner of a very good electronics-grade > fire extinguisher." Designing a vector monitor is a lot harder than a raster-scan monitor. With a raster, you can use tuned circuits to run the deflection amplifiers. They "always" run at the same rate, etc. And, the discontinuities that are introduced to the signals (e.g., retrace) happen when no one is watching (blanking interval). OTOH, with a vector-scan system, the user could opt to drive the beam NE and then SW. And, the beam can't misbehave in those circumstances! (catching fire is considered misbehaving!) Likewise, knowing *how* to drive the monitor is a bit of an art form. To maximize drawing, you want to always run the deflection amps at their rated bandwidth. So, the length of the line should always define the time spent drawing that line (i.e. if a line is twice as long, it should take twice as much time -- REGARDLESS OF ORIENTATION). This also helps keep intensity consistent -- if you drew a line in constant time regardless of it's actual length, then short lines would appear BRIGHTER (unless you algorithmically reduced the beam current) Bottom line: to get performance, you want to burn a LOT of power in the monitor! That can have serious consequences :> > > They made one > > model that you could *emulate* a raster-scan monitor with! > > (most vector monitors had very slow deflection rates). > > So I've noticed. Something like ten microseconds per inch for the > Wells-Gardner 6400, or 200uS to cover the whole screen. The Electrohome I'm thinking of was 60us from left to right. You can't *truly* emulate a raster scan since the retrace would happen at that same 60us rate (whereas on a raster scan monitor, retrace is much faster). *But*, you could draw every other line BACKWARDS! :> > > I am not sure if it was ever available for public consumption, though. > > It would be neat to find one if it was. A couple of saw generators and > an LM1881 should be enough for the scan signal generation. Much more interesting to use a real vector processor. I wonder if you could hack an Imlac PDS-1 to run one?? :> > > (I can probably find a manual to dig up a model number) > > Sure, if it's not too much trouble. I'll dig through my old project boxes and see what comes up... From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jun 30 15:32:39 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 13:32:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <200606300754.IAA02249@citadel.metropolis.local> References: <200606300754.IAA02249@citadel.metropolis.local> Message-ID: <20060630132155.B99387@shell.lmi.net> > > > Allegedly, map printers (cartographers) have errors in their > > > street maps to help identify blatant copies. I guess they figure On Fri, 30 Jun 2006, Stan Barr wrote: > The British Ordnance survey and "A to Z" street maps certainly do this. > I found one of their deliberate errors in the latest edition of our > local area map. Although the OS at one time explicitly denied it, about 5 years ago, they used it to bust the British Automobile Association! (20 million pound out of court settlement, London Times 3/6/01) OS said the changes were not errors but "subtle and secret ways of detecting plagiarizing, rather like watermarks". NOTE: all errors in a MICROSOFT OS are NOT Mountweazels nor pseudata; they are REAL errors. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Fri Jun 30 16:14:52 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 14:14:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VME wirewrap boards Message-ID: So, is anyone interested in my VME wirewrap boards? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 30 17:34:58 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 23:34:58 +0100 (BST) Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jun 29, 6 07:01:10 pm Message-ID: > > Tp take somebody else's work as your own is plagarism, and I am trying to > > think up an appropriate punishment for such lowlife. > > Put errors in your work? :> I see... So then I get remembered as somebody who puts out inaccurate information... This seems similar to those disgusting CD copy-protection scheems, which one pundit in the UK has likened to splashing paint over the Old Masters in art galleries so that they won't be stolen. > Allegedly, map printers (cartographers) have errors in their > street maps to help identify blatant copies. I guess they figure Yes, I've heard that too. Adding extra allies, etc. Great if you're trying to find the 'third turning on the left' or something ;-( -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jun 30 17:39:39 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 23:39:39 +0100 (BST) Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <200606292105380631.269E1D5F@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jun 29, 6 09:05:38 pm Message-ID: > I like to do a similar thing with online forms that require your name and > email. I create a throwaway email address and then make up a name and > address. I'm still getting spam offering really great mortgage rates to > someone called David Marquez in Juneau. But I never did get anything for > Consuelo O'Brien of Barrow. A (mad) friend of mine adds extra middle initials whenever he has to give his name and address. He then uses them to prove how said details are being passed arrounf, IIRC, he proved that the UK Electoral Roll was being used for something it shouldn't be, and ended up taking some group to court over it (I forget the exact details). -tony From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 30 18:03:34 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 18:03:34 -0500 Subject: OT!!! Re: Why do people keep stealing my work :( References: <200606300754.IAA02249@citadel.metropolis.local> <20060630132155.B99387@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <007201c69c99$6a6103b0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> This thread has gone way off-topic (not sure it was ever ON topic). J From technobug at comcast.net Fri Jun 30 18:15:16 2006 From: technobug at comcast.net (CRC) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 16:15:16 -0700 Subject: Cipher C995S-S Parts Available In-Reply-To: <200508071700.j77H02VT099245@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200508071700.j77H02VT099245@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: I recently rescued three boards from Cipher tape deck that had been stripped of motors before it headed for the great scrapper: Servo Board 966047-001 Rev 06 Formatter 967058-001 Rev 02 Overland Data Assy 606740-002/A Available for postage. CRC From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Jun 30 18:27:18 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 19:27:18 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200606302328.TAA06204@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > (most vector monitors had very slow deflection rates). Well, of course, since you want to get light all along the line, not just flick from point A to point B. The X-Y oscilloscope idea sounds cool. I'll have to take my asteroids game (which uses a Sun cg6, with "hardware" line-draw, to give a vector-game feel) and try to give it a sound-card output module. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jun 30 18:50:07 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 16:50:07 -0700 Subject: Why do people keep stealing my work :( In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200606301650070126.2ADA8A6D@10.0.0.252> On 6/30/2006 at 11:34 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >Yes, I've heard that too. Adding extra allies, etc. Great if you're >trying to find the 'third turning on the left' or something ;-( I once set out to find one of those (that wasn't too far from where I lived at the time). The dead giveaway (this was a Rand McNally map) was that the town/settlement wasn't included in the population table. Nothing, not even a wide spot in the road. To R-McN's credit, they do put these things where they won't create problems. Adding a town or geographic feature to North Dakota isn't going to bother a lot of folks. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jun 30 19:20:26 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 17:20:26 -0700 Subject: Next Users: Cmments on Trillium's Speech Synthesis? Message-ID: <44A5BFCA.3040300@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, Has anyone running NeXTSTEP any experience with the Trillium speech product? This is the basis for GNUspeech. I am curious as to the quality of the speech produced and if it is worth pursuing (and if I should hunt for a NeXT cube or just follow the port onto different hardware) In addition to the auditory quality, I am interested in just how much of a CPU-hog it is (was). I'd be interested in any realistic (i.e. un-tuned) sound samples. Thanks! --don From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jun 30 19:18:15 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 19:18:15 -0500 Subject: Cipher C995S-S Parts Available References: <200508071700.j77H02VT099245@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <002301c69ca3$da794220$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> CRC wrote... >I recently rescued three boards from Cipher tape deck that had been >stripped of motors before it headed for the great scrapper: If anyone comes across any spare boards from an M4 9914 (particularly the ADP board) I'd love to know :) Jay From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Fri Jun 30 19:36:53 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 17:36:53 -0700 Subject: VME wirewrap boards Message-ID: David Griffith wrote: So, is anyone interested in my VME wirewrap boards? -- David Griffith David, I wrote you offline before I realised that I won't have access to my email at this address until the 7th. But yes, I'm very interested in the boards. I'll be getting amail at bpettitx at comcast.net through the next seven days. Billy From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jun 30 19:58:01 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2006 12:58:01 +1200 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: <44A4B075.20501@msm.umr.edu> References: <44A4528F.2020902@DakotaCom.Net> <44A4631B.4000605@msm.umr.edu> <44A48479.1050502@DakotaCom.Net> <44A4B075.20501@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: On 6/30/06, jim stephens wrote: > ...I like solaris, especially with $25 U5's on the market these days. (400+mhz no less) Not that I'm surprised to see U5s down to $25, but what's a U30 go for these days? I'm trying to balance machine value vs shipping costs. If I found a U5 at home for $25, I'd probably retire my SS5 as my 24/7 Solaris box. I used to use a U5 every day for C/Perl development, c. 1999; was quite happy with it. -ethan From technobug at comcast.net Fri Jun 30 20:33:57 2006 From: technobug at comcast.net (CRC) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 18:33:57 -0700 Subject: Cipher C995S-S Parts Available In-Reply-To: <200508071700.j77H02VT099245@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200508071700.j77H02VT099245@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <5F012077-1140-4BA7-B737-2C9B5FA99A52@comcast.net> > I recently rescued three boards from Cipher tape deck that had been > stripped of motors before it headed for the great scrapper: > > Servo Board 966047-001 Rev 06 > Formatter 967058-001 Rev 02 > Overland Data Assy 606740-002/A > > Available for postage. > > CRC They have been spoken for.... CRC From rcini at optonline.net Fri Jun 30 20:49:10 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 21:49:10 -0400 Subject: Automatic fan control circuit Message-ID: <00fe01c69cb0$8c1a2a60$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: If anyone is looking for a very simple, temperature-dependent fan speed control, check this out: http://www.heatsink-guide.com/content.php?content=control.shtml It uses a 10k pot, NTC thermistor, MOSFET and 12v fan. I just built one using a 40mm Sunon fan for a small SBC enclosure and it works great. All parts (except the fan) are available from Radio Shack and cost about $7. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com Fri Jun 30 23:54:10 2006 From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane) Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 21:54:10 -0700 Subject: PAGING: Eric at Brouhaha Message-ID: <200606302154100989.FC13DD1A@192.168.42.129> Eric? I'm trying to reach you via E-mail, and your system produced the following error (timestamp in PDT): Jun 30 21:02:11 willy postfix/smtp[27491]: 60BF12FE7: to=, relay=mx1.brouhaha.com[64.62.206.9], delay=3, status=deferred (host mx1.brouhaha.com[64.62.206.9] said: 450 : Recipient address rejected: Policy Rejection: Please try later. (in reply to RCPT TO command)) Could you get in touch with me, please? I was trying to send you some software of interest. Thanks much. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?"