From harten at injectstar.de Fri Feb 1 01:13:01 2008 From: harten at injectstar.de (Harten) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:13:01 +0100 Subject: Help needed on a DEC LA180 printer In-Reply-To: <200801310259.m0V2xkHY012490@mail.itm-inst.com> References: <200801310236.m0V2ZqmU012448@mail.itm-inst.com> <200801310244.VAA29055@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200801310259.m0V2xkHY012490@mail.itm-inst.com> Message-ID: In message <200801310259.m0V2xkHY012490 at mail.itm-inst.com> you wrote: > At 09:42 PM 1/30/2008, der Mouse wrote: > > > I'd prefer to give this to someone with the ability to get it scanned > > > and put online, otherwise you're welcome to it. > > > >Provided a flatbed scanner will do (eg, perfect-bound works only if > >there's not much print near the binding), I can scan it. If the result > >isn't too big, I can host it too, otherwise I'd have to turn that job > >over to someone else (bitsavers?). > > It's three-hole punched separate sheets, so it'd be easily done if > quite tedious (there's a LOT of sheets, probably 100 plus double-sided > pages, with several fold-out 8 1/2 by 22 or so sheets with schematics. > -Rick > > Of course i can do this scanning too. I have a flatbed scanner and a double side scanner with automatic feeder. May be the punched holes cause some problems with the feeder. But beside this, my home is in Germany! Axel Harten -- From technobug at comcast.net Fri Feb 1 01:43:10 2008 From: technobug at comcast.net (CRC) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 00:43:10 -0700 Subject: DeskWriter Disks In-Reply-To: <200802010740.m117eUrL051104@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802010740.m117eUrL051104@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: A while back someone was looking for DeskWriter software disks. If that need remains, please contact me off-list. CRC From cclist at sydex.com Fri Feb 1 02:00:50 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:50 -0800 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <200802010740.m117eUrO051104@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802010740.m117eUrO051104@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47A26132.26037.173EDFB@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:04:55 +0000 (GMT) > From: Tony > IIRC, while the MDA card had a light pen connector, it was never really > documented or supported by IBM, due to the fact that light pens didn't > work properly with the very long persisnence phosphor of the 5151 > monitor. The CGA card's light pen connector was docuemtned, though > (although I have never seen a light pen designed to work with it I've got a light pen that was salvaged from some 60's era graphics equipment. This is the kind with the fiber optic tip and a microswitch that determines when the tip is depressed. Has some discrete circuitry in it (probably an amplifier, pulse shaper, etc.) and works just fine with the MDA/CGA/EGA cards. About the diameter of a felt tip marker (ca. 3/4"). I once used it with a monitor with a short-persistance white phosphor. It wasn't bad; just couldn't think of a good application for it. I've got a VGA card here (Paradise I think) that also has the connector, but it's hooked to an LCD monitor, so that's not going to work very well--but does give another reason to hang onto CRT displays. Cheers, Chuck From frustum at pacbell.net Fri Feb 1 02:36:02 2008 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:36:02 -0600 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <0JVI00025IK9CS13@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JVI00025IK9CS13@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <47A2D9F2.7080401@pacbell.net> Allison wrote: >> Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? >> From: Jim Battle >> Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 02:01:43 -0600 >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >> >> Holger Veit wrote: >> .... >>> The interrupt and DMA handling was also lousy thanks to DR abusing some >>> 8080 and even worse Z80 RST vector locations for the BDOS and CCP >>> buffers and FCBs. ... >> That is one thing I always wondered about. CP/M has "CALL 0005H" as the >> BIOS entry point. Why didn't they map it to 0008H instead? Considering >> that code space was at a premium, saving two bytes off of every BIOS >> call would have been an obvious optimization, I would have thought. > > If one takes a moment some of that was INTEL MDS artifact that were > programmed around. Also there are plenty of unused RST vectors. > For the later systems the 8259 was available and it inserted a > CALL XXXX where XXXX was anywere in addressable memory. The Z80 > in mode2 interrupt also could vector anywhere in ram. DMA > is not impacted by how the low page is used. > > Generally it's a non-issue and easy to work with. I'm not sure I understand what "it" of "it's" in the previous sentence is referring to. Using CALL? Using RST? It reads to me like hardware didn't rely on RST so much, which only more strongly makes the case that DR could have easily used RST1 instead of CALL 0005H without upsetting things. [ factual stuff about RST behavior that wasn't in question deleted ] >> Anyone have opinions why it was done with CALL 0005H instead? > > It's explicit either works but only one allows coding to look like: > > Call BDOS ; Bdos defined as 0005h > > which reads easier than > > RST5 ; call location 005 "only one allows coding to look like ..." -- that isn't true. Had DR moved the vector to 0008 instead of 0005, RST1 and CALL 0008H would both work -- pick either one that suits your needs. Also, people did *plenty* of ugly stuff to save a few bytes back then, as you know. RST1 isn't particularly ugly anyway. And if for some reason one did find it unpleasant, you could use a macro to make it to your liking. >> The only thing I can come up with is that DR might have entertained, >> early on, making CP/M relocatable to different addresses (eg, some >> vendor wants an OS that lives in high memory). In the process of >> patching all the code for the high addresses, substituting "CALL 0FF05H" >> instead of "CALL 0005H" is trivial, but substituting "CALL 0FF05H" for >> "RST 1" would be a problem. Yes, one could require such systems to have >> a "ORG 0005H / JMP 0FF05H" vector. I'm grasping at straws here. > > Yes straws. we agree. :-) I had a vague recollection of a faint memory of hearing third hand that CP/M was ported to some heathkit machine, but that the machine already had a ROM in low memory, and so instead of "CALL 0005H", one had to use "CALL 2005H" or some such. CP/M programs could be very easily reassembled/patched for this, but stock CP/M binaries wouldn't work. rather than repeating this slanderous story, I didn't bring it up and pretended it was just a supposition. ooops, but now the cat is out of the bag. Anyway, I'm left thinking that DR was simply paranoid that systems might have already reserved RSTn for their own purposes, so they tried to not use them (well, except RST0 and RST7) to make CP/M maximally portable. It isn't just a coincidence that JMP xxxx at locaton 0005 stops just before where RST1 starts. From mike at brickfieldspark.org Fri Feb 1 04:37:22 2008 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 10:37:22 -0000 Subject: [personal] Chip ID and datasheet?.. References: <20080131190937.0CC655688E@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: <007f01c864be$6df5faa0$911ca8c0@mss.local> That chip, can't remember the style, had wider pins for heat sinking, some had 2 or 3 pins per side as one large tab for greater effect. They can be a bugger to get off, hot air reflow seem to work better. Have used a paint stripping gun on low heat to good effect, but use care. Other than that I've not been able to find any datasheets, not much help I'm afraid. Mike. > > It looks like a normal DIP, except for the middle pins which > look to be twice as wide. Is this for heat sinking? I have tried > searching for this chip but so far have found nothing. The board has > this marking; > > PC-368C > JAPAN SERVO > TDK-T15V > > Which also has not turned up anything useful.. The 5 1/4" > drive mech this board is connected to was made by Matsushita and its > model # is JU-570-2. > > From reading the SFD-1001 technical manual, the 5 1/4" > mech is just listed as a part so it does not have any detailed > information for this board. :( > > Cheers, > > Bryan > > > From rick at rickmurphy.net Fri Feb 1 05:35:56 2008 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 06:35:56 -0500 Subject: DEC LA180 printer In-Reply-To: <624966d60801312127m7e77ed71q4b2a0f83ea6f937c@mail.gmail.co m> References: <0f7a6a694f.harten@injectstar.de> <624966d60801312127m7e77ed71q4b2a0f83ea6f937c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802011235.m11CZuaP014811@mail.itm-inst.com> At 12:27 AM 2/1/2008, Paul Anderson wrote: >My books are still in storage,( basement wall are up! ), but I seem to >recall the LA36 had adjustments on the servo. Could the LA180? Yes, it's basically the same mechanism. I've sent the maintenance manual to der Mouse for scanning. -Rick From davis at saw.net Fri Feb 1 05:51:07 2008 From: davis at saw.net (davis) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:51:07 -0800 Subject: [personal] Chip ID and datasheet?.. In-Reply-To: <007f01c864be$6df5faa0$911ca8c0@mss.local> References: <20080131190937.0CC655688E@mail.wordstock.com> <007f01c864be$6df5faa0$911ca8c0@mss.local> Message-ID: <47A307AB.9030209@saw.net> Mike Hatch wrote: > That chip, can't remember the style, had wider pins for heat sinking, > some had 2 or 3 pins per side as one large tab for greater effect. > They can be a bugger to get off, hot air reflow seem to work better. > Have used a paint stripping gun on low heat to good effect, but use care. > Other than that I've not been able to find any datasheets, not much > help I'm afraid. Dremel or cut off the leads and remove the leftovers if you have a known bad part. Trying to save a component that is questionable and endangering the possibly irreplaceable PC board when chip replacements are available is not a good idea. Jim Davis. From davis at saw.net Fri Feb 1 05:56:47 2008 From: davis at saw.net (davis) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:56:47 -0800 Subject: [personal] Chip ID and datasheet?.. In-Reply-To: <47A307AB.9030209@saw.net> References: <20080131190937.0CC655688E@mail.wordstock.com> <007f01c864be$6df5faa0$911ca8c0@mss.local> <47A307AB.9030209@saw.net> Message-ID: <47A308FF.4000006@saw.net> davis wrote: > Mike Hatch wrote: >> That chip, can't remember the style, had wider pins for heat sinking, >> some had 2 or 3 pins per side as one large tab for greater effect. >> They can be a bugger to get off, hot air reflow seem to work better. >> Have used a paint stripping gun on low heat to good effect, but use >> care. >> Other than that I've not been able to find any datasheets, not much >> help I'm afraid. > Dremel or cut off the leads and remove the leftovers if you have a > known bad part. > Trying to save a component that is questionable and endangering the > possibly irreplaceable PC board when chip replacements are available > is not a good idea. > Jim Davis. > > I typed that? Also, don't jog on the highway, eat funny mushrooms or rob liquor stores for fun. Jim Davis. Sorry..... From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Feb 1 08:37:40 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 09:37:40 -0500 Subject: DEC LA180 printer In-Reply-To: <200802011235.m11CZuaP014811@mail.itm-inst.com> References: <0f7a6a694f.harten@injectstar.de> <624966d60801312127m7e77ed71q4b2a0f83ea6f937c@mail.gmail.com> <200802011235.m11CZuaP014811@mail.itm-inst.com> Message-ID: <78CAB618-571E-4236-97B1-94FD77C1D21C@neurotica.com> On Feb 1, 2008, at 6:35 AM, Rick Murphy wrote: >> My books are still in storage,( basement wall are up! ), but I >> seem to >> recall the LA36 had adjustments on the servo. Could the LA180? > > Yes, it's basically the same mechanism. > I've sent the maintenance manual to der Mouse for scanning. LA36 and LA180 are the same mechanism? Are you sure? I don't recall much similarity there, especially in terms of speed. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Feb 1 08:40:04 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 09:40:04 -0500 Subject: Commodore parts? Message-ID: Hey folks...I've got an otherwise-pristine Commodore 1702 monitor that is missing the little front door that covers the controls. Does anyone have one of those doors that they can spare, perhaps from a junker 1702? I'd really like to make this one perfect. Thanks, -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From rivie at ridgenet.net Fri Feb 1 10:05:02 2008 From: rivie at ridgenet.net (Roger Ivie) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 08:05:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <0JVK000HE92VZWR1@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JVK000HE92VZWR1@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 1 Feb 2008, Allison wrote: > > Done right it was portable. However I encounterd at least one system > where the BIOS calls were unusuable for 8bit serial because every > transaction in or out was masked with 07Fh.. Which is consistent with the manual: "All simple character I/O operations are assumed to be performed in ASCII, upper- and lower-case, with high-order (parity bit) set to zero." (from the section 6 of the CP/M 2.2 manual) -- roger ivie rivie at ridgenet.net From dgahling at hotmail.com Fri Feb 1 10:12:07 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 11:12:07 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: <20080130163435.6C1FEBA49A4@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <20080130163435.6C1FEBA49A4@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: There *IS* a Vax named a "Saul" or "SOL", I've seen it. It's a "luggable" (so to speak) like the Rainbow, but it's a Vax. They existed, so don't insult my intelligence. And btw I've been doing Vaxen since 1976, so I think I know a thing or two about reading Ascii it's definitely "OS/2" and being a former OS/2 Warp enthusiast, I recognize the files well enough to know the difference too. I need to go through each tape one by one, so it is taking me a lot longer than it should. Dan. > Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:34:35 -0500 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > From: shoppa at trailing-edge.com > Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? > > I don't follow the mailing list closely, but earlier this month > folks were talking about a tape supposedly labeled "OS/2" for the PDP-11. > > My gut feeling is that this is something like how "ASCII" sometimes > becomes "ASC-eleven" or even "ASC2" among those who don't know > what's a roman numeral vs digits vs whatever. > > Possibly DOS-11 became D OS-11 became OS/2 :-). But DOS-11 on a TK50 > would be unusual in any event! Finding, say, a late version of RT-11 > or RSX-11 or RSTS/E or Ultrix-11 on a TK50 seems far more likely. > > Almost all PDP-11 OS's have an "11" in the name, usually at the end, > and it's easy to see how this could become a "2" in the mind of someone > who thinks that there is a VAX named Saul or SOL. > > Tim. _________________________________________________________________ From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Feb 1 12:13:22 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 13:13:22 -0500 Subject: 2.11BSD Patch 445; FPSIM fixed; 211bsd runs on systems without FPP In-Reply-To: <47A22276.3060208@mindspring.com> References: <459BF36E.5040100@gsi.de> <1e1fc3e90712040806mc04ec8dl606b9a946e6755dc@mail.gmail.com> <4755A073.2020407@mindspring.com> <47A128DD.1000801@nktelco.net> <47A14C5A.4080307@mindspring.com> <1e1fc3e90801310217n13f4ab7cm8edeb6f95015948a@mail.gmail.com> <47A22276.3060208@mindspring.com> Message-ID: On Jan 31, 2008, at 2:33 PM, Don North wrote: > A while back I posted a complete runnable SIMH setup for 2.11BSD > that is patched thru #444. It's only missing the 'last' FPP patch > that was posted within the last year or so (#445). > > It's located at: http://www.AK6DN.com/PDP-11/2.11BSD/ *slurrrrrp* Downloaded. Thanks for making this available, that saves me quite a bit of trouble! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From rick at rickmurphy.net Fri Feb 1 12:18:53 2008 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:18:53 -0500 Subject: DEC LA180 printer In-Reply-To: <78CAB618-571E-4236-97B1-94FD77C1D21C@neurotica.com> References: <0f7a6a694f.harten@injectstar.de> <624966d60801312127m7e77ed71q4b2a0f83ea6f937c@mail.gmail.com> <200802011235.m11CZuaP014811@mail.itm-inst.com> <78CAB618-571E-4236-97B1-94FD77C1D21C@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <200802011819.m11IJ3ch015535@mail.itm-inst.com> At 09:37 AM 2/1/2008, Dave McGuire wrote: >On Feb 1, 2008, at 6:35 AM, Rick Murphy wrote: >>>My books are still in storage,( basement wall are up! ), but I >>>seem to >>>recall the LA36 had adjustments on the servo. Could the LA180? >> >>Yes, it's basically the same mechanism. >>I've sent the maintenance manual to der Mouse for scanning. > > LA36 and LA180 are the same mechanism? Are you sure? I don't >recall much similarity there, especially in terms of speed. That's what I meant by "basically". :-) It's quite similar. Unidirectional, belt-driven. Motor has a sensor disc on the back for position pickup. I doubt there's any parts that are interchangable, though, so you're correct. -Rick From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Feb 1 12:19:39 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 13:19:39 -0500 Subject: How compatible were "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <47A0A40B.13097.109A24A9@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200801302326.m0UNQfko030866@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47A0A40B.13097.109A24A9@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <93FBCD92-E3DC-44C5-9D4C-E587E13B46F7@neurotica.com> On Jan 30, 2008, at 7:21 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Was there ever a *vanilla* MS-DOS? > > Short answer--yes. It was called an "OEM Kit". Basically, you got > the binaries and instructions on how and what I/O drivers to write > and you linked the whole mess together to form two files, IO.SYS and > MSDOS.SYS, though you weren't confined to those names. Many > utilities, such as MODE and FORMAT were provided in skeleton form > with the vendor filling out the details. This lead to a some > interesting variations on MODE. For example, the Grid MS-DOS version > of MODE allows one to control the power status of the peripherals and > a whole bunch of other things. > > I may even still have the OEM documentation wandering around > somewhere, printed up on fading tractor-feed paper. Is this stuff available anywhere? I'd love to get my hands on it. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Fri Feb 1 12:32:49 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 10:32:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: References: <20080130163435.6C1FEBA49A4@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 1 Feb 2008, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > There *IS* a Vax named a "Saul" or "SOL", I've seen it. > It's a "luggable" (so to speak) like the Rainbow, but it's a Vax. At a former place of employment, I found a VAX of some sort, roughly the size of a Sun lunchbox, but much heavier, that had a fold-out handle on the rear. Could that have been a "SOL"? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Feb 1 12:47:11 2008 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 10:47:11 -0800 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: References: <20080130163435.6C1FEBA49A4@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: At 10:32 AM -0800 2/1/08, David Griffith wrote: >On Fri, 1 Feb 2008, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > >> There *IS* a Vax named a "Saul" or "SOL", I've seen it. >> It's a "luggable" (so to speak) like the Rainbow, but it's a Vax. > >At a former place of employment, I found a VAX of some sort, roughly the >size of a Sun lunchbox, but much heavier, that had a fold-out handle on >the rear. Could that have been a "SOL"? Sounds like a VAXstation 2000 or MicroVAX 2000. Is it the same case used for external TK50 drives and the 5 1/4" SCSI drives? 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 tshoppa at wmata.com Fri Feb 1 13:21:41 2008 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:21:41 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? Message-ID: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> Dan Gahlinger wrote: > There *IS* a Vax named a "Saul" or "SOL", I've seen it. > It's a "luggable" (so to speak) like the Rainbow, but it's a Vax. > They existed, so don't insult my intelligence. > And btw I've been doing Vaxen since 1976, so I think > I know a thing or two about reading Ascii > it's definitely "OS/2" I think it's time for me to unsubscribe from this list and get back to reality. Sure, let's make up names for already existing products instead of figuring out what they are (VS2000? VAXmate?) and then insist that that we've been doing the VAX a year before it left the factory, therefore OS/2 has to exist for the PDP-11. Why do I even try to interject myself into this crap. Tim. From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Feb 1 13:31:30 2008 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 11:31:30 -0800 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? Message-ID: <47A37392.80002@bitsavers.org> > I think it's time for me to unsubscribe from this list and > get back to reality. Talk is cheap. Let's see the proof. From dm561 at torfree.net Fri Feb 1 13:54:19 2008 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 14:54:19 -0500 Subject: DEC LA180 printer (&LA100) Message-ID: <01C864E2.76F95F60@mandr71> Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 09:37:40 -0500 From: Dave McGuire Subject: Re: DEC LA180 printer On Feb 1, 2008, at 6:35 AM, Rick Murphy wrote: >>> My books are still in storage,( basement wall are up! ), but I >>> seem to >> recall the LA36 had adjustments on the servo. Could the LA180? > >> Yes, it's basically the same mechanism. >> I've sent the maintenance manual to der Mouse for scanning. > LA36 and LA180 are the same mechanism? Are you sure? I don't >recall much similarity there, especially in terms of speed. > -Dave ------------- I'll be scrapping some more LA100s (RO) shortly; any useful parts in there for anyone? I believe that at least some parts are compatible with the LA210 and others, including the LA34 & 38; can someone confirm that? Also an LJ500 (B2), although it's probably clogged and I don't expect much interest... TIA, mike From tshoppa at wmata.com Fri Feb 1 14:10:18 2008 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:10:18 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? Message-ID: <47A3365A020000370001FC4C@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> Al wrote: > I wrote: >> I think it's time for me to unsubscribe from this list and >> get back to reality. > Talk is cheap. > Let's see the proof. Well, I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, that of the zillion layered products that DEC was churning out in the 80's and early 90's that a guy might mistakenly think something was on the tape that wasn't there because of the language DEC or somebody else used on the TK50 tape label. But he tells me I'm insulting his intelligence by suggesting that there may have been some confusion based on his reading of the tape label. He's made it perfectly clear he doesn't want any advice on what was actually on the tape, he's made up his mind, case closed, there was a VAX named Saul and OS/2 for the PDP-11 because he's been using the VAX since the year before it shipped. What else can you or I do, Al? Tim. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Feb 1 15:06:58 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:06:58 -0800 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <200802011800.m11I04bX056098@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802011800.m11I04bX056098@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47A31972.28578.443AD3D@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:21:58 -0500 > From: Allison > If one takes a moment some of that was INTEL MDS artifact that were > programmed around. Also there are plenty of unused RST vectors. > For the later systems the 8259 was available and it inserted a > CALL XXXX where XXXX was anywere in addressable memory. The Z80 > in mode2 interrupt also could vector anywhere in ram. DMA > is not impacted by how the low page is used. IIRC, in ISIS-II, programs were loaded somewhere above 3000H, depending on the buffer requirements of the program, but always above the ISIS resident, which always occupied the same space, regardless of memory size. On some early 8080 implementations, an 8259 wasn't used (expensive!) and a simpler circuit using a priority encoder and a latch to stuff 111iii11 onto the bus in response to an interrupt acknowledge. CP/M could get in the way of this scheme, if it was desired to use the RST0 vector for an interrupt. Otherwise, there was no problem, except for the RST vector (usually 7) used for DDT--but that's local to DDT and easily patchable (it's done for the Amstrad PCW, for example). After having used ISIS before CP/M, I was happy to see the "lean and mean" CP/M. ISIS was verbose, clumsy and slow (e.g., :F0: instead of A: for the first floppy drive; "DELETE" instead of "ERA"). Of course, had CP/M simply shifted the TPA up 256 bytes and used the area between 0100h and 01FFh for command-line storage, system request vectors and FCBs, that would have solved the problem, but for the DDT RST vector. Cheers, Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Feb 1 15:38:31 2008 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:38:31 -0800 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? Message-ID: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> My last comment on this bit of absurdity is from Bob Supnik, who would have been in the position to know as one of the senior VAX engineers in the 80's. I didn't even bother asking if a PDP-11 version of OS/2 existed. -- No, there was no VAX version of OS/2. And a luggable wasn't done on my watch. No idea who Dan Gahlinger is, either. Does he have a "VAXmate" (which was really a PC, and could run OS/2) confused with a VAX? Now, if he means "luggable like a Rainbow", which was just a PC chassis without keyboard or monitor, then there were tons of those - every VAXstation looked more or less like a Rainbow, since they all came out of the same industrial design group ("any color you want, as long as its beige"). If he means a real luggable, with a built in monitor and keyboard, I never saw one. But the VAXstation 2000 was fairly small, only slightly bigger than a DECmate, so repackaging it with a fold out keyboard and a small monitor would have been possible, if some government group wanted one. /Bob From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Feb 1 18:05:38 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 00:05:38 +0000 (GMT) Subject: MC3470 In-Reply-To: <47A25B65.50204@bitsavers.org> from "Al Kossow" at Jan 31, 8 03:36:05 pm Message-ID: > > > Also, does anyone have a proper data sheet for the MC3470 (disk read > > amplifier etc). > > A reasonable description appears in the Semens FD100 service manual. Thanks, I'll take a look. At least I now have a pinout and several 'application circuits' (read : disk drive schematisc using that chip). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Feb 1 18:01:12 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 00:01:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <47A18C6F.8030207@iais.fraunhofer.de> from "Holger Veit" at Jan 31, 8 09:53:03 am Message-ID: > IO byte, besides as you correctly remarked not being implemented at all, > was outdated soon after CP/M was released for the Altair. I haven't seen > many paper tape readers and punches connected to CP/M systems for > serious business work. IObyte did not take care of additional devices IObyte came originally from the EPROM-based monitor on the Intellec MCS8i (8080 development system). That machine has (as standard) a current loop port for a teletype and connectors for a high speed punch and reader. The options availale for IOyte make sense on that machine. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Feb 1 18:27:32 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 00:27:32 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [personal] Chip ID and datasheet?.. In-Reply-To: <47A307AB.9030209@saw.net> from "davis" at Feb 1, 8 03:51:07 am Message-ID: > > Mike Hatch wrote: > > That chip, can't remember the style, had wider pins for heat sinking, > > some had 2 or 3 pins per side as one large tab for greater effect. > > They can be a bugger to get off, hot air reflow seem to work better. > > Have used a paint stripping gun on low heat to good effect, but use care. > > Other than that I've not been able to find any datasheets, not much > > help I'm afraid. > Dremel or cut off the leads and remove the leftovers if you have a > known bad part. > Trying to save a component that is questionable and endangering the > possibly irreplaceable PC board when chip replacements are available > is not a good idea. Certianly.. But in this particular case, firstly, is a replacement chip availale, nobody seems to have heard of it. And secondly, most flippy drive spindle motor PCBs are single- sided, maybe the odd one is double sided. I've never seen a multi-layer one. And the circuitry is slow enough hhat you could repair lifted traces, etc with kludgewires and expect it to work afterwards. So I doubt you'd ruin the PCB beyond repair, and the chip might not be availale. In this case it might be worth trying to save the IC.... -tony From brad at heeltoe.com Fri Feb 1 21:37:13 2008 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:37:13 -0500 Subject: 2.11BSD Patch 445; FPSIM fixed; 211bsd runs on systems without FPP In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:48:13 EST." <47A128DD.1000801@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <200802020337.m123bDG0001313@mwave.heeltoe.com> Charles H Dickman wrote: >Don North wrote: >> >> Try ftp://moe.2bsd.com/pub/2.11BSD/ >> >Is this open? I get effectively a connection refused. > >I talked to Steven Schultz several years ago and recall that the ftp >address was with permission only or at least it was heavily spam >filtered and he had to open it for me. > >TUHS has patch level 431 from 2000. > >If Steven is OK with it, is there a reason that the subsequent patches >are not archived somewhere more accessible? I'd be happy to host (and test) them if that would help. -brad From frustum at pacbell.net Fri Feb 1 22:26:50 2008 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:26:50 -0600 Subject: interact model one -- looking for docs (a happy ending) In-Reply-To: <47A27F53.9070607@pacbell.net> References: <47A27F53.9070607@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <47A3F10A.2050700@pacbell.net> Jim Battle wrote: > Hello vintage microcomputer fans. > > I recently bought an Interact Model One computer on ebay > (#150208636366). It was in good shape and it went relatively cheaply. ... > So, does anybody on the list happen to have any form of technical > documents that I might be able to use to help troubleshoot this? Beside > wanting the information just to have it in case, I do have an immediate > need to figure out the tape deck, and to rig up some replacement > joysticks, since the machine didn't come with them. A big thanks to Joe Britt, who very quickly sent me scans of the schematics. With Joe's permission, I have put them online for future explorers to find. Thanks Joe! While I was at it, I dumped the ROM from my machine and put that online too. It was a bit more hassle than it should have been. I have a cheapie "Topwin 2004" eprom/pld/mpu programmer, and I've used it successfully a number of times. The boot ROM from this machine, although having the same pinout as a single voltage 2716 EPROM, is a masked ROM. The topwin programmer refused to read it, so I broke out my BASIC Stamp protoboard system and grabbed the ROM that way. Both files are available from this page: http://www.thebattles.net/oddments/oddments.html If anyone reading this happens to have any other docs for the Interact, I'd love to get a copy of those too. BTW, my machine is an Interact Model One, a cleaned up version of the Interact Home Computer System. Although it is easier to manufacture and more robust, it appears to be electrically identical to the first version of the machine. Thus, the boot ROM and the schematics should be valid for both models. From dave06a at dunfield.com Fri Feb 1 22:37:26 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 23:37:26 -0500 Subject: Anyone near Spokane Valley, Wa. who can make a 5.25" ImageDisk? Message-ID: <1BF954996F34@dunfield.com> I have been contacted by a gentleman in Spokane Valley, Wa. who has recently acquired a Zorba and wishes to obtain system diskettes for it. Is there anyone on the list near there who can recreate the Zorba disk images from my site? They are in ImageDisk format, 5.25" 40 track double-density only - Any system running DOS or Win9x with a 5.25" drive should be able to recreate them for him. If you can help, please contact me off-list for details. 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 evan at snarc.net Fri Feb 1 22:45:25 2008 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 23:45:25 -0500 Subject: Stuff to see in Denver area? Message-ID: <00e101c86556$6e83bfa0$f750f945@evan> Business is leading me to Denver for a few days at the end of February. Might have a spare day to play tourist. What should I do or see there? Any collectors out there want to meet up? From useddec at gmail.com Fri Feb 1 23:29:48 2008 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 23:29:48 -0600 Subject: DEC LA180 printer (&LA100) In-Reply-To: <01C864E2.76F95F60@mandr71> References: <01C864E2.76F95F60@mandr71> Message-ID: <624966d60802012129p35b6928i439ce5fcc55902a4@mail.gmail.com> I know of a few people still using the LA100. The print head is the same as the LA210. There were 2 power supplies for the LA38/38, which might work in ihe 100 or 210. I don't think any of the LA36 and LA180 electronics are the same, although the heads were interchangable. Neither have any electronics in common with the LA120. Paul On Fri, Feb 1, 2008 at 1:54 PM, M H Stein wrote: > Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 09:37:40 -0500 > From: Dave McGuire > Subject: Re: DEC LA180 printer > > On Feb 1, 2008, at 6:35 AM, Rick Murphy wrote: > >>> My books are still in storage,( basement wall are up! ), but I > >>> seem to > >> recall the LA36 had adjustments on the servo. Could the LA180? > > > >> Yes, it's basically the same mechanism. > >> I've sent the maintenance manual to der Mouse for scanning. > > > LA36 and LA180 are the same mechanism? Are you sure? I don't > >recall much similarity there, especially in terms of speed. > > > -Dave > ------------- > I'll be scrapping some more LA100s (RO) shortly; any useful parts in there > for anyone? I believe that at least some parts are compatible with the > LA210 > and others, including the LA34 & 38; can someone confirm that? > > Also an LJ500 (B2), although it's probably clogged and I don't expect much > interest... > > TIA, > > mike > > > > > > > From frustum at pacbell.net Sat Feb 2 02:06:18 2008 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 02:06:18 -0600 Subject: information on ancient matsushita/panasonic ICs Message-ID: <47A4247A.2020802@pacbell.net> A friend is stymied in getting his emulator for the Panasonic JR-200 computer complete. The machine uses some parts that are long discontinued. I'm hoping someone here might have an old databook that contains more information that can currently be found on the web. The MN1800A was apparently equivalent to the 6802. He has that working and so no mystery there. I just bring it up since the other parts were perhaps related. MN1544 -- here is the most information I can find after an couple hours of googling: 4-Bit Microcontroller-Microcomputer On-Chip RAM (Bytes)=1k On-Chip ROM (bytes)=4k Number of Interrupt Lines=2 Number of Maskable Interrupts=2 No. of I/O Ports=6 Vsup Nom.(V) Supply Voltage=5.0 Package=DIP Pins=N/A Military=N Technology=NMOS MN1271 -- Likewise, MN1271 Peripheral Interface Adapter (PIA) - Universal Interface Adapter Word Size=16 Data Transfer Type (S/P)=Multimode Vsup Nom.(V) Supply Voltage=5.0 Package=DIP Pins=64 Military=N Technology=CMOS If anybody has any more information than this, my friend would appreciate it. BTW, his emulators, including the JR-200, are here: http://www.geocities.com/emucompboy/ Thanks From gpearce at curiousgroup.co.uk Fri Feb 1 03:04:59 2008 From: gpearce at curiousgroup.co.uk (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 09:04:59 +0000 Subject: DEC LA180 printer In-Reply-To: <624966d60801312127m7e77ed71q4b2a0f83ea6f937c@mail.gmail.com> References: <0f7a6a694f.harten@injectstar.de> <624966d60801312127m7e77ed71q4b2a0f83ea6f937c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802010904.59272.gpearce@curiousgroup.co.uk> On Friday 01 February 2008 05:27:29 Paul Anderson wrote: > My books are still in storage,( basement wall are up! ), but I seem to > recall the LA36 had adjustments on the servo. Could the LA180? My LA36 would spack out in a big way until I got the sensor wheel and sensor trimmers adjusted *just right*. I also had to blow it all clean with compressed air, dislodging 20-odd year's worth of spider web and dust. Gordon From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Fri Feb 1 06:52:23 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:52:23 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVK000HE92VZWR1@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: "Chuck Guzis" > Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:56:41 -0800 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:27:23 -0500 >> From: Allison > >> Things like Termcap and the lise were not needed. However the console IO >> was not so good. Try printing a string containing $ using the print >> string call. The other was passing 8bit data when needed. > >Many avoided the issues with the BDOS and simply went through the >CBIOS vector. That's why it was important that your "cold boot" jump >at 0000 point to the proper entry in the BIOS jump vector list and >not to the cold boot routine directly. A lot programs used the cold >boot jump at 0000 to find the BIOS jump list--just take the address >in the jump instruction and set the low byte to 00. Done right it was portable. However I encounterd at least one system where the BIOS calls were unusuable for 8bit serial because every transaction in or out was masked with 07Fh.. >Timer as well as console interrupt I/O was pretty much necessary for >MP/M functioning (interrupt-driven disk I/O was *strongly* suggested) >and recommended for CP/M 3.0, as was bank-switching. > >I did a CP/M 2.2 implementation using interrupt-driven I/O for >everything but the memory-mapped display. It worked pretty well, but >the effort was wasted for the disk I/O--there was nothing to do while >you were waiting for the operation to complete. On the other hand, >it did make writing an MP/M XIOS much simpler. I'm still running a cp/m S100 box with interupt driven everything including disk. the disk get a parameter block and start and goes and pulls and interrupt wwhen done. It has local cpu for the IO. What to do with the freed up cycles... print spooler was first rans as a system background job as part of the BIOS. Later I tried other things but printing was a big step forward. At that time still using V2.2 I started working with romdisk/ramdisk and banked BIOS and having the bios where it could be any size I wanted with large buffers allowed for lots of things. > >> IObyte was mostly uniform, the problem was often it wasnt even >> implemented. This was a problem of allowing the BIOS spec to be >> minimal and it usually was. > >The problem with IOBYTE is that it was defined in terms of console, >reader, punch and list. Well, most systems didn't have a "reader" or >"punch". This made what to do with those items a matter of >implementation. BDOS Function 3 is defined as "Reader Input" and 4 >as "Punch Output". Yes and Reader didn't have a status bypass so once it was called you hung if nothing was happening. I used to make them null and return(0). I cound never thing of a good use for either Punch or Reader. Since the rules didn't say they were required... I didn't. > >> Ignorant, I think no, they gave the hooks and basic requirements. It was >> up to the BIOS developer to do a good job or just enough. > >By the time that 2.2 was offered, most CP/M systems were CRT oriented >with a printer and perhaps a serial port used to connect to a modem. >Instead of acknowledging that as the model configuration, DRI >stubbornly stayed with TTY and paper tape as their model of character >I/O. Not quite but very soon after. The problem was the paradiem of V1.4 was ingrained enough already. What DRI stuck with for a model was not what it had to be and that was their error. What was implmented generally for a BIOS was a whole other story. We can look back at CP/M and call it primitive but it was for the time a fair improvement and inovation. One only has to look at the 8080/z80 DOS of the day and compare, There were few really viable choices that werent tied to a fixed hardware or non-portable. Allison > >Cheers, >Chuck > > From sdenkin at bayridgeprep.org Fri Feb 1 12:08:29 2008 From: sdenkin at bayridgeprep.org (Steven Denkin) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 13:08:29 -0500 Subject: Radio Shack Science Fair manuals Message-ID: Hi, I see that you have the manual for science fair 200 in 1 from radio shack. It would be great if I could get a copy of this manual. I would like to use this system with my students. We have the machine, however, the manual is missing. Thank you, sdenkin at bayridgeprep.org From snhirsch at gmail.com Fri Feb 1 12:59:10 2008 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 13:59:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Has anyone ever written a standalone Commodore disk drive emulator? In-Reply-To: <20080131112352.GE20394@usap.gov> References: <01C86359.E8183980@mandr71> <20080131112352.GE20394@usap.gov> Message-ID: On Thu, 31 Jan 2008, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Jan 31, 2008 at 03:19:26AM -0500, Golan Klinger wrote: >> Steven Hirsch wrote: >> >>> On a similar note, is the IDE64 project for real in terms of hardware >>> availability? They do a complete dance around any discussion of this on >>> the website. >> >> The previous version of the IDE64 is sold out and the new version >> hasn't been released yet. The previous version worked very well. > > I have an older model. It's excellent. The new version looks even better. Probably just an oversight, but there is absolutely nothing on that site to suggest the device is, or ever was, offered for sale. What was he charging for the older version? Steve -- From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Fri Feb 1 16:23:40 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:23:40 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVK009DSZE9DKS5@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: Roger Ivie > Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:05:02 -0800 (PST) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" > >On Fri, 1 Feb 2008, Allison wrote: >> >> Done right it was portable. However I encounterd at least one system >> where the BIOS calls were unusuable for 8bit serial because every >> transaction in or out was masked with 07Fh.. > >Which is consistent with the manual: > >"All simple character I/O operations are assumed to be performed in >ASCII, upper- and lower-case, with high-order (parity bit) set to zero." > >(from the section 6 of the CP/M 2.2 manual) It is sorta.. Parity may not be a visible bit if the terminal is set for 8P1, the manual would imply the required serial format is 7S1 or 7S2 which may be for TTY but not always. The manual is at best obscure on that. ;) My implmentations had two serial drivers TTY (masked to 7bit) and CRT not masked. Add to that printer (DEC LA100) serial 8bit and modem 8bit I used the high and low bits of IObyte usefully. Allison >-- >roger ivie >rivie at ridgenet.net From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Fri Feb 1 21:23:29 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:23:29 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVL00JYIDEM0QF4@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: "Chuck Guzis" > Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:06:58 -0800 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:21:58 -0500 >> From: Allison > >> If one takes a moment some of that was INTEL MDS artifact that were >> programmed around. Also there are plenty of unused RST vectors. >> For the later systems the 8259 was available and it inserted a >> CALL XXXX where XXXX was anywere in addressable memory. The Z80 >> in mode2 interrupt also could vector anywhere in ram. DMA >> is not impacted by how the low page is used. > > >IIRC, in ISIS-II, programs were loaded somewhere above 3000H, >depending on the buffer requirements of the program, but always above >the ISIS resident, which always occupied the same space, regardless >of memory size. > >On some early 8080 implementations, an 8259 wasn't used (expensive!) >and a simpler circuit using a priority encoder and a latch to stuff >111iii11 onto the bus in response to an interrupt acknowledge. CP/M >could get in the way of this scheme, if it was desired to use the >RST0 vector for an interrupt. Otherwise, there was no problem, >except for the RST vector (usually 7) used for DDT--but that's local >to DDT and easily patchable (it's done for the Amstrad PCW, for >example). That scheme also work for Z80 mode2 where I is XX and the inserted low byte comes from the commonly 74148 and a pair of 74175s. >After having used ISIS before CP/M, I was happy to see the "lean and >mean" CP/M. ISIS was verbose, clumsy and slow (e.g., :F0: instead of >A: for the first floppy drive; "DELETE" instead of "ERA"). Also an ISIS user. The usual OS used on the shop MDS was not ISIS but instead CP/M! >Of course, had CP/M simply shifted the TPA up 256 bytes and used the >area between 0100h and 01FFh for command-line storage, system request >vectors and FCBs, that would have solved the problem, but for the DDT >RST vector. Having the RST0 vector already used wasn't too bad as it's also RESET but the DDT one was harder as the cheap pullup resistor address (RST7) was easy. Most of the z80 boards had vectored interrupt logic and that made it easy as most systems only needed maybe two or three ints to do the job and 6 were unused. It was only the early 8080 S100 machines that were impacted and some did have interrupt hardware that was more than RST7 by pullup. By time CP/M-2 was available Z80 was almost universal and the few that werent were either 8085 or 8080 with ints. Whats interesting is the 8085 interrupt pins were all usable including trap in a CP/M environment, thats potentially four interrupt inputs. Now if you are doing low memory banking those interrupts locked in page zero were a pain. Z80 mode 2 or other hardware was needed to get out of that hole. Allison >Cheers, >Chuck From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Fri Feb 1 21:30:37 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:30:37 -0500 Subject: DEC LA180 printer (&LA100) Message-ID: <0JVL000GADQJWQ04@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: DEC LA180 printer (&LA100) > From: M H Stein > Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:54:19 -0500 > To: "'cctech at classiccmp.org'" > >Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 09:37:40 -0500 >From: Dave McGuire >Subject: Re: DEC LA180 printer > >On Feb 1, 2008, at 6:35 AM, Rick Murphy wrote: >>>> My books are still in storage,( basement wall are up! ), but I >>>> seem to >>> recall the LA36 had adjustments on the servo. Could the LA180? >> >>> Yes, it's basically the same mechanism. >>> I've sent the maintenance manual to der Mouse for scanning. > >> LA36 and LA180 are the same mechanism? Are you sure? I don't >>recall much similarity there, especially in terms of speed. LA36, 120 and 180 were mechanically similar but that about it. the logic and a few other detils were different. >> -Dave >------------- >I'll be scrapping some more LA100s (RO) shortly; any useful parts in there >for anyone? I believe that at least some parts are compatible with the LA210 >and others, including the LA34 & 38; can someone confirm that? The LA210 is a varient of the LA100RO for most mechanical parts. The la210 and LA100 shared the same print head, ribbon, carriage motor platten motor, font carts, and a few other bits. Again they were related so many parts could be shared but the logic board for each were differnt. Things you want to save are power supplies, print heads, drive motors, ribbons, and the litle one way clutch used for the ribbon advance. Allison >Also an LJ500 (B2), although it's probably clogged and I don't expect much >interest... > >TIA, > >mike > > > > > From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Sat Feb 2 10:38:21 2008 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 10:38:21 -0600 Subject: Stuff to see in Denver area? Message-ID: I think this is a great idea: We should all put in our travel notes. I forgot who entered the bay area surplus shops and hamfests, but thank you! If you are stuck in Denver, you may need some fuel, and I recommend the Tortilla Flat mexican restaurant in lLittleton; The Blue Parrot Italian in Louisville. It all my travels, the best surplus place I have ever been to is Mendelssohn Electronics in Dayton, Ohio. A huge old building downtown, loaded with things you never see anywhere else. I got a IBM plug board there, I think it belonged to a card reader sorter. It was still all wired up with the last program and I spent many hours trying to figure out what it did. In Albuquerque there is a place called the Black Hole, I have not been there yet, but I have herd so much about this place and its eccentric owner. He gets all kinds of weird things from the Los Alamos lab and sometimes to their embarrassment when somebody later figures out what the item was, or was used for. Im headed back through in a month, and I'll be sure to write it up. On the way, I plan to stop at the aircraft boneyard and Titian missle silo in Tucson: http://www.pimaair.org/index.php Let us know what other cool stuff you have found! Randy > From: evan at snarc.net > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 23:45:25 -0500 > Subject: Stuff to see in Denver area? > > Business is leading me to Denver for a few days at the end of February. > Might have a spare day to play tourist. What should I do or see there? Any > collectors out there want to meet up? _________________________________________________________________ Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008 From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Feb 2 12:09:24 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 15:09:24 -0300 Subject: interact model one -- looking for docs (a happy ending) References: <47A27F53.9070607@pacbell.net> <47A3F10A.2050700@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <02d701c865c6$c547dbd0$02fea8c0@portajara> > While I was at it, I dumped the ROM from my machine and put that online > too. It was a bit more hassle than it should have been. I have a cheapie > "Topwin 2004" eprom/pld/mpu programmer, and I've used it successfully a > number of times. The boot ROM from this machine, although having the same > pinout as a single voltage 2716 EPROM, is a masked ROM. The topwin > programmer refused to read it, so I broke out my BASIC Stamp protoboard > system and grabbed the ROM that way. ` Newer programmers have the option of checking if the EPROM is correctly inserted and check the ID of the chip. You can turn it off somewhere. So you can work with older/different chips :o) Greetings Alexandre Souza From rivie at ridgenet.net Sat Feb 2 12:16:28 2008 From: rivie at ridgenet.net (Roger Ivie) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 10:16:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <0JVL00JYIDEM0QF4@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JVL00JYIDEM0QF4@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 1 Feb 2008, Allison wrote: >> From: "Chuck Guzis" >> After having used ISIS before CP/M, I was happy to see the "lean and >> mean" CP/M. ISIS was verbose, clumsy and slow (e.g., :F0: instead of >> A: for the first floppy drive; "DELETE" instead of "ERA"). > > Also an ISIS user. The usual OS used on the shop MDS was not ISIS > but instead CP/M! I did a small amount of work with ISIS, but after I had used CP/M. I used an Intel PDS development system for the 8051 to debug some firmware; I think it was for DEC's SCSI floppy controller. The PDS was interesting in that it was a portable system about the size of a Kaypro and had *two* 8085s. ISIS gave you an A> or B> prompt, but it indicated to which processor you were speaking rather than which drive was the default. -- roger ivie rivie at ridgenet.net From dmabry at mich.com Sat Feb 2 12:39:09 2008 From: dmabry at mich.com (Dave Mabry) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:39:09 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: References: <0JVL00JYIDEM0QF4@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <47A4B8CD.1030200@mich.com> Roger Ivie said the following on 2/2/2008 1:16 PM: > > I did a small amount of work with ISIS, but after I had used CP/M. I > used an Intel PDS development system for the 8051 to debug some > firmware; I think it was for DEC's SCSI floppy controller. > > The PDS was interesting in that it was a portable system about the size > of a Kaypro and had *two* 8085s. ISIS gave you an A> or B> prompt, but > it indicated to which processor you were speaking rather than which > drive was the default. Now *that* was multiprocessing! I remember it well. In fact I still have a working one. With ISIS-PDS there was a logical locking so that you could have both processors (actually *two* complete computers, each with its own 64KB of RAM) doing disk i/o concurrently and they wouldn't scramble each other's files. It came with a single full-height floppy drive. I changed mine to have two half-height ones and if I was careful I could run ISIS-PDS on one of the processors and CP/M-80 or CP/M Plus on the other. ISIS-PDS would boot from the internal bubble memory (128KB) and CP/M would boot from the floppy. I would do my Intel development work on the ISIS side and document it in Wordstar on the CP/M side as I was developing. it. There was no mechanism to keep one side from clobbering the other side's files on floppies, so I had to keep that straight in my head. At the time it was not hard to do, but today I am probably too lazy to keep it all straight. ;) Dave From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sat Feb 2 14:19:52 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 12:19:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: Stuff to see in Denver area? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 2 Feb 2008, Randy Dawson wrote: > On the way, I plan to stop at the aircraft boneyard and Titian missle > silo in Tucson: There's nothing quite like bombing the badguys with oil paintings. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Sat Feb 2 16:06:38 2008 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 16:06:38 -0600 Subject: Stuff to see in Denver area? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: David, and let it be be Nose Art. You can select your arms, but I chose the legs. Randy > Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 12:19:52 -0800 > From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: RE: Stuff to see in Denver area? > > On Sat, 2 Feb 2008, Randy Dawson wrote: > > > On the way, I plan to stop at the aircraft boneyard and Titian missle > > silo in Tucson: > > There's nothing quite like bombing the badguys with oil paintings. > > > -- > David Griffith > dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu _________________________________________________________________ Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging.?You IM, we give. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Sat Feb 2 16:22:15 2008 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere at gmail.com) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 22:22:15 +0000 Subject: FS: QBUS boards, 4K memory boards, Sharp PC-3000 items Message-ID: Hi list, I have the following for sale: 1) 4 * QBUS board: DEC "A/D FOR 1103 5012094E-P2" DEC "4 CHANNEL D/A A6001 5012107 DP4" DEC "PROG REAL TIME CLOCK M7952 5012108B" DEC "M9060 5017109" load board 2) 2 boards marked "4K MEMORY BOARD FOR 118 NICOLET INSTRUMENT CORP 000-7488-04 10/14/75" Each one contains 40 ICs marked "TMS 4060JL BP7901" and then 15 chips' worth of 74-series logic. One of these boards seems to have been used for spares or something, as it's missing all its resistors, capacitors and one of the TTL ICs. The connector on these is an 86-way 0.1" edge connector. 3) The original box and manual, plus original Sharp (still boxed) Laplink cable, for a Sharp PC-3000. There is a PC-3000 *in* the box, and you can have that too, but it's got a smashed screen. Probably still works other than that, no promises though. There's also the (likely unobtainium these days) adaptor from the PC-3000's mini-serial port to an actual DE9 connector. Please make an offer by private mail if you want any of this. I'll ship anywhere, but you pay the shipping. Items are located in West Yorkshire, UK. Ed. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Feb 2 16:22:12 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 22:22:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: MC3470 In-Reply-To: from "Tony Duell" at Feb 2, 8 00:05:38 am Message-ID: > > > > > > Also, does anyone have a proper data sheet for the MC3470 (disk read > > > amplifier etc). > > > > A reasonable description appears in the Semens FD100 service manual. > > Thanks, I'll take a look. At least I now have a pinout and several > 'application circuits' (read : disk drive schematisc using that chip). YEs, that manual answered almost all my questions, there's a good description of what's inside the chip along with the schematics of the PCB which gives an application circuit. However, I still have one unaswered question : There's a DC balance preset in the differntiator stage. What's the proceue for adjusting it? -tony From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Sat Feb 2 16:35:29 2008 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere at gmail.com) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 22:35:29 +0000 Subject: FTGH: VAX green cards Message-ID: Smallish grey booklets, AV-D827C-TE, entitled "VAX-11 Programming Card". I have two of these available. If you want one, drop me a mail off-list please. Ed. From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Feb 2 16:37:51 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:37:51 -0500 Subject: How compatible were "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <479F8491.40905@netscape.net> References: <858825.36457.qm@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <479F8491.40905@netscape.net> Message-ID: <200802021737.52435.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 29 January 2008 14:54, scheefj at netscape.net wrote: > When I first became interested in collecting (late 80's) my first target > was "DOS Incompatibles" like those named above. I had a Wang PC (great > text but little IBM compatibility), Zenith, etc. I used to work with a dealer that sold those, and I recall a board that you could add to them to make them somewhat more compatible, though I don't remember now what was on it. The last time I had boards and other parts for one of those I couldn't find *any* interest in them at all. Might've been before I found this list, 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 Sat Feb 2 16:47:15 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:47:15 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: References: <858825.36457.qm@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <479F8491.40905@netscape.net> Message-ID: <200802021747.15884.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 29 January 2008 16:33, Joshua Alexander Dersch wrote: > scheefj at netscape.net writes: > > In the early-mid 80's a program was "well behaved" if it did it's I/O > > thru DOS calls. Those programs would run on just about anything. > > Were there similar problems in the CP/M world? That is, was it commonplace > for there to be CP/M programs that bypassed CP/M BDOS calls and wrote > directly to a specific machine's hardware? Seems like CP/M developers were > more disciplined in this fashion, but maybe it's just because in the CP/M > arena there were so many different pieces of hardware it was the only way > to do it? (Whereas with IBM, the PC was seen as more of a reference > standard, even if it wasn't really that way in the beginning?) > > I'd be interested to hear opinions from people who were there at the time, > since it was a little before my time. There was stuff written for specific hardware (floppy formatting code for one fairly typical example), and then there was stuff that got patched for a specific machine, which more often tended to address things like video attributes and similar stuff -- I know that the copy of WordStar I used to use on my Osborne Exec was patched all to hell. :-) So was the directory listing program I used, "sd". Other code that often needed to be modified for specific hardware or machines were comm stuff, which more often seemed to have a bunch of "overlays" available for each machine, so that things could address the serial port (or the PMMI S-100 bus modem) properly. I probably have piles of this stuff in my old bbs files area, if there's much interest in 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 glen.slick at gmail.com Sat Feb 2 18:10:22 2008 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 16:10:22 -0800 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: References: <0JVL00JYIDEM0QF4@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90802021610o23fd8da7u6cd21cd9c55c96a3@mail.gmail.com> On Feb 2, 2008 10:16 AM, Roger Ivie wrote: > > The PDS was interesting in that it was a portable system about the size > of a Kaypro and had *two* 8085s. ISIS gave you an A> or B> prompt, but > it indicated to which processor you were speaking rather than which > drive was the default. > And then in that dual processor configuration you actually had *three* 8085s, the other one being the one on the main board that runs the CRT controller. You could split the screen into a top half for one processor and a bottom half for the other processor. From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Feb 2 18:11:16 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 19:11:16 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <20080130160705.E1291@shell.lmi.net> References: <200801301800.m0UI06YE020479@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47A0580B.3084.F714575@cclist.sydex.com> <20080130160705.E1291@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200802021911.17129.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 30 January 2008 19:11, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Wed, 30 Jan 2008, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > DRI, for its part, seemed to remain blissfully ignorant of both of > > these aspects. > > Or refusing to accept. > > I asked Gary Kildall, "Now that most commercial machines are going to > 5.25 inch disks, what is the STANDARD format for 5.25?" > He answered, "8 inch single sided single density." Can you do that on a 5.25" disk? What is that, 77 tracks, I forget how many sectors... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Feb 2 18:30:51 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 19:30:51 -0500 Subject: Automatic virus scan of uploaded files on BBS? In-Reply-To: <28fa50ba0801291608g24294317uc6d6e0620b1056bd@mail.gmail.com> References: <28fa50ba0801291608g24294317uc6d6e0620b1056bd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802021930.51825.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 29 January 2008 19:08, Randy Zagar wrote: > Looks like this feature of WWIV will be important in a patent lawsuit by > Trend Micro. Trend Micro claims to have a valid 1995 patent for doing > virus scanning on email servers, and many of their claims appear to be > well-known capabilities that WWIV had well before 1995 > > For mor information on this please look at this article: > http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080125135544713 > > -RZ The BBS software that I ran, while not having that sort of thing as a built-in feature, did include such a capability in terms of handing off control to an external scanning program, and a great many sysops did indeed do something of the sort, mostly before 1995 as well. I ran one starting in 1992, but didn't specialize much in dos stuff, and so I never bothered with it personally. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Feb 2 19:14:31 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:14:31 -0500 Subject: MPI floppy drive service manual In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200802022014.31775.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 31 January 2008 18:16, Tony Duell wrote: > Also, does anyone have a proper data sheet for the MC3470 (disk read > amplifier etc). The only one I can find on the web is the NTE one which > doesn't have that much information in it. Yup, got one here: http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/by-mfr-number.html which I'll warn you in advance is quite a large page. (Gotta do something about that 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 cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Feb 2 19:25:27 2008 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 17:25:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <200802021911.17129.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200801301800.m0UI06YE020479@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47A0580B.3084.F714575@cclist.sydex.com> <20080130160705.E1291@shell.lmi.net> <200802021911.17129.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20080202172322.X79832@shell.lmi.net> > > I asked Gary Kildall, "Now that most commercial machines are going to > > 5.25 inch disks, what is the STANDARD format for 5.25?" > > He answered, "8 inch single sided single density." On Sat, 2 Feb 2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > Can you do that on a 5.25" disk? What is that, 77 tracks, I forget how many > sectors... IF your disk controller is "cooperative". The "1.2M" drive is almost the same as an 8" drive. 'course, his remark was during the days of 48 tpi 35 track 5.25", . . . From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Feb 2 19:48:33 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:48:33 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <0JVI00MUDKNA65Q6@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JVI00MUDKNA65Q6@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <200802022048.33376.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 31 January 2008 10:07, Allison wrote: > Whats more interesting is there was nothing to prevent a termcap file > and later improved CP/M work alikes did exactly that and many more things. What sort of stuff would you put into the category of "CP/M work alikes"? (Snip) > Andy Johnson-Laird The Programmers CP/M Handbook went far to extend > and clarify both what the BIOS can do and more. Good book, that one. I dug it out of a box recently, and should probably get to re-reading it sometime soon, maybe. (Snip) > As you can se the whole interrupt thing was not CP/M as a limiting > factor but hardware or implementor understanding. I'd like to implement something that'd not only use one of those single-byte calls, but take the data inline, as well -- no need to load it into registers to pass it along, though there are some rather clumsy aspects to getting the stack pointer and fixing it... > For those that never used a really nice bios try a VT180, it didn't > do two sided but those disks where just emerging at the time. It did > implement interrupts with ring buffers for IO. Can you point to anything specific with regard to this? > The other thing was DMA. On S100 is was a timing and bus nightmare > and took years to almost get right. Many of the single baord systems > omitted it as it took space (8257 or later 8237 40 pin chips and a latch). Hmm, I seem to have some number of those on hand here. :-) > It works fine and made useful systems. However it means the CPU is locked > up for the duration of the transfer and cannot respond to interupts > making for poor latency as floppies are slow. Again CP/M doesn't care > how the transfer happens only that it does happen. So the fist system > built with DMA was a real eye opener. First it allowed background > activities to run faster and smoother like a line printer spooler. > also interrupts could be used byy the disk system to say "ready" > or "ready with error". Thats a lot of available CPU cycles. > the biggest areas of change is that modem programs werent pausing > for disk IO, they could fill a big (say 16k) circular buffer and > the cpu can be processing interrupts for IO and disk to manage > transfers rather than doing a lot of waiting in loops. It doesn't > take a lot more code but the complexity and debugging is greater > due to the near concurrent activities. One of the real problems I had with early BBSing was the fact that I was using a CP/M box and that had only a lmiited buffer in the modem program (probably MDM740 at first, IMP a bit later I think), while the guy at the other end had a newer and higher-speed modem that had several K of buffer in it that it would continue to empty after my end had asked it to hold on a minute... That same program had a print or capture buffer (I forget exactly now) that was way bigger, something on the order of 16K, and it came to me to use that for buffering the input rather than the teeny buffer provided, but I never did get around to making that particular modification to it. (Snip) -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Feb 2 19:54:28 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:54:28 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <47A2D9F2.7080401@pacbell.net> References: <0JVI00025IK9CS13@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> <47A2D9F2.7080401@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <200802022054.28259.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 01 February 2008 03:36, Jim Battle wrote: (Snip) > Also, people did *plenty* of ugly stuff to save a few bytes back then, > as you know. RST1 isn't particularly ugly anyway. And if for some > reason one did find it unpleasant, you could use a macro to make it to > your liking. Yup... (Snip) > we agree. :-) I had a vague recollection of a faint memory of hearing > third hand that CP/M was ported to some heathkit machine, but that the > machine already had a ROM in low memory, and so instead of "CALL 0005H", > one had to use "CALL 2005H" or some such. CP/M programs could be very > easily reassembled/patched for this, but stock CP/M binaries wouldn't > work. rather than repeating this slanderous story, I didn't bring it up > and pretended it was just a supposition. ooops, but now the cat is out > of the bag. I believe the H-8 did indeed have a ROM at low memory. Never worked with that machine, though. There were also some TRS-80 boxes that I seem to recall having a need of a special version of CP/M 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 bob at jfcl.com Sat Feb 2 19:56:24 2008 From: bob at jfcl.com (Bob Armstrong) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 17:56:24 -0800 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> >And a luggable wasn't done on my watch. All this talk about a luggable VAX - maybe he's thinking of the AlphaBook. It was circa 1996, a laptop, and it ran VMS, so one might easily think it was a VAX. It wasn't a VAX, of course, it was an Alpha, but that's close :-) Bob Armstrong From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Feb 2 21:45:23 2008 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 19:45:23 -0800 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> Message-ID: At 5:56 PM -0800 2/2/08, Bob Armstrong wrote: > All this talk about a luggable VAX - maybe he's thinking of the AlphaBook. >It was circa 1996, a laptop, and it ran VMS, so one might easily think it >was a VAX. It wasn't a VAX, of course, it was an Alpha, but that's close >:-) Also virtually unobtainable. At this point you're better off running an emulator on a nice new & fast laptop. 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 ethan.dicks at usap.gov Sat Feb 2 23:25:35 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 05:25:35 +0000 Subject: Digitalker, SP0256, and SC-01 speech chips (was Re: Digitalker Information) In-Reply-To: <47A203FD.7040907@dunnington.plus.com> References: <47A14DBB.3060905@jbrain.com> <47A186E0.1040604@dunnington.plus.com> <47A1F6ED.1060108@jbrain.com> <47A203FD.7040907@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <20080203052535.GA400@usap.gov> On Thu, Jan 31, 2008 at 05:23:09PM +0000, Pete Turnbull wrote: > On 31/01/2008 16:27, Jim Brain wrote: > > >On a related topic, someone is offering to trade me some GI SP0256-AL2 > >ICs for equipment here. . . . > I always wanted to build a SC-01 or SP0256 phenome-based > >system to compare. Does anyone have experience in one or the other and > >can relate whether it's worth it to get an SP0256 > > The SP0256 sounds very robotic compared to the NS and Texas devices. > The SC-01 is reputedly better (variable pitch, for one thing) but I've > not got much experience of either. Amazingly enough, I happen to have all three sets here with me, the Digitalker (which I'm just learning about), the SP0256, which I've heard of, but never heard, and the SC-01, which I probably know the most about. I have an SC-01 in my RB5X robot here, and at home, in my Gorf arcade machine. The SC-01 is versatile enough that there's code for the RB5X to have it try and sing. I can't say that it's wonderful, but it does try. I will have to snarf a copy of those Digitalker docs when the our sat comes up. The board I have here, built around 1990, uses the original speech chip, but the ROM data is on a single, modern JEDEC EPROM, not a pair of smaller, cross-selected Nat-Semi ROMs. I'll have to do a bit of fiddling with the board itself - its CPU is an 8031, but the CPU crystal was broken off before I got the board. I was going to try 8MHz first, but it could be faster, I suppose. Assuming it's not some oddball frequency (the board has no serial comms, IIRC), I was thinking 8Mhz, 12Mhz, or 16Mhz. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 3-Feb-2008 at 05:10 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -44.7 F (-42.6 C) Windchill -67.5 F (-55.3 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 6.4 kts Grid 122 Barometer 677.2 mb (10734 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 1 14:30:33 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 12:30:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: a link for AT & T 6300 gurus Message-ID: <776251.55809.qm@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> http://www5.ncr.com/support/support_drivers_patches.asp?Class=pc_library_63xx all free, all legal. No one will even check your I.D. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de Sat Feb 2 05:31:30 2008 From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 12:31:30 +0100 (CET) Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <0JVK000HE92VZWR1@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JVK000HE92VZWR1@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <2231.217.225.119.141.1201951890.squirrel@217.225.119.141> Allison said: > We can look back at CP/M and call it primitive but it was for the > time a fair improvement and inovation. One only has to look at the > 8080/z80 DOS of the day and compare, There were few really viable > choices that werent tied to a fixed hardware or non-portable. >From the design, it looks as if CP/M was modelled after DECs RT-11. It became fashion there to interpret everything as a named device; some of these contained structured data - namely a file system (in contrast, Unix had the complementary paradigm: everything is a file in a single rooted, hierarchical name space, and some files are actually devices). RT-11 was by magnitudes more evolved than CP/M and its children CP/M-86 and PC/MS-DOS, when it comes to interrupt and DMA capabilities. The 8080 and Z80 CPUs were equipped by Intel/Zilog with a rich set of support chips - so it could have been done *right*. S-100 was not designed right WRT IRQ and DMA; maybe this was one of the stumbling blocks. -- Holger From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sat Feb 2 12:07:03 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:07:03 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVM00LNBI6IIKZ6@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: "Holger Veit" > Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 12:31:30 +0100 (CET) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" > > >Allison said: >> We can look back at CP/M and call it primitive but it was for the >> time a fair improvement and inovation. One only has to look at the >> 8080/z80 DOS of the day and compare, There were few really viable >> choices that werent tied to a fixed hardware or non-portable. > >>From the design, it looks as if CP/M was modelled after DECs RT-11. Actually PDP-8 OS8 started that, all the other DEC OSs TOPS-10 and RT had it as well. >It >became fashion there to interpret everything as a named device; some of >these contained structured data - namely a file system (in contrast, Unix >had the complementary paradigm: everything is a file in a single rooted, >hierarchical name space, and some files are actually devices). >RT-11 was by magnitudes more evolved than CP/M and its children CP/M-86 >and >PC/MS-DOS, when it comes to interrupt and DMA capabilities. Most real time OSs were better and of course most minicomputer system OSs exploited the hardware better. However while the IO was better CP/M had a far better file system that accomodated fragmentation (scatter/gather) where RT-11 (and NS* DOS) had the linear tag and dump that made enlarging a files or creating variable length files harder. >The 8080 and >Z80 CPUs were equipped by Intel/Zilog with a rich set of support chips - >so it could have been done *right*. S-100 was not designed right WRT IRQ >and DMA; maybe this was one of the stumbling blocks. True, the caveat then was the Z80 was not cheap but it saved hardware over 8080 so and it worked in practice as cheaper. The Zilog peripherals while very sophisticated were never cheap and the DMA was late and expensive (and never ran faster than 4mhz). Also S100 was one bus that really made putting Zilog peripherals off the CPU board difficult. When people started doing SBCs based on Z80/CTC/SIO DMA was left out for space (yet another 40 pin chip) and cost. The 8257 and 8237 while cheaper still suffered the cost/space (40pin plus what the octal latch needed) problem. However systems that did use DMA offered performance (AC85 was 8085 with 8257 for example) and of course the Compupro S100 cards that did DMA for floppy. That performance increase may have helped CP/M systems live for years longer before the 286 and faster machines with graphics started to offer a real advantage. What is funny to me was every one was looking for 16bits and faster when at that time I could see that 16 bit was nice but faster transfers and larger storage was the prime mover and offered the greater applications flexibility. People were chafing against multiple floppies and multiple foppy drives to do even the basic databases and the like of the day. Anyone thats has used a CP/M system with a pair of SSSD 8" floppies of around 241K usable space and then went to DSDD at 1MB or added a 5MB hard disk knew this. Assemble CP/M BDOS at around 100k using ASM and you find any disk under 400K free space is too small. You still see that today with faster disks and interfaces. Allison >-- >Holger From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sat Feb 2 18:06:44 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 19:06:44 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVM009O9YEQFCZ8@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: Roger Ivie > Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 10:16:28 -0800 (PST) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On Fri, 1 Feb 2008, Allison wrote: >>> From: "Chuck Guzis" >>> After having used ISIS before CP/M, I was happy to see the "lean and >>> mean" CP/M. ISIS was verbose, clumsy and slow (e.g., :F0: instead of >>> A: for the first floppy drive; "DELETE" instead of "ERA"). >> >> Also an ISIS user. The usual OS used on the shop MDS was not ISIS >> but instead CP/M! > >I did a small amount of work with ISIS, but after I had used CP/M. I >used an Intel PDS development system for the 8051 to debug some >firmware; I think it was for DEC's SCSI floppy controller. Use a MDS to bring up CP/M2.2 on a NEC PDA-80 an 8080 based FP machine that had a remex tape punch reader. Yep configured CP/M, bolted on a bios and punched it to PT! >The PDS was interesting in that it was a portable system about the size >of a Kaypro and had *two* 8085s. ISIS gave you an A> or B> prompt, but >it indicated to which processor you were speaking rather than which >drive was the default. It was a bizzare little box. Allison >-- >roger ivie >rivie at ridgenet.net From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sat Feb 2 18:47:34 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 19:47:34 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVN005EN0AR84F6@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: Dave Mabry > Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:39:09 -0500 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > >Roger Ivie said the following on 2/2/2008 1:16 PM: >> >> I did a small amount of work with ISIS, but after I had used CP/M. I >> used an Intel PDS development system for the 8051 to debug some >> firmware; I think it was for DEC's SCSI floppy controller. >> >> The PDS was interesting in that it was a portable system about the size >> of a Kaypro and had *two* 8085s. ISIS gave you an A> or B> prompt, but >> it indicated to which processor you were speaking rather than which >> drive was the default. > > >Now *that* was multiprocessing! I remember it well. In fact I still >have a working one. With ISIS-PDS there was a logical locking so that >you could have both processors (actually *two* complete computers, each >with its own 64KB of RAM) doing disk i/o concurrently and they wouldn't >scramble each other's files. Interesting. Before I'd seen a PDS I experimented with S100 boards of my own design with the goal of getting 3 z80s complete with local ram and public ram to do mutiprocessing. By time I was done I'd achieved that and more. All the disks had their own CPU and DMA to public ram as well as the IO system having it's own CPU to manage buffers and pending IO. Each Z80 had it's own boot and 64K ram plus a mapper to page out any 4k portion to public ram or make any 4k pag of public ram part of the 64k private space. Public ram was initially 256k and grew to 512k. The 3 Z80 has doorbell interrupts and used public ram for data and status passing. It ran CP/M2.2. The mostbizare hack was one cpu running CCP attached to console, the second running the BDOS nad dispatch bios and the third running the application (any cpm app). Since the disks and IO was smart they acutally ran the Bios abstraction so the dispatch bios really only routed calls and data pointers for the DMA. Learned some things. 3 cpus can be fast, and takes nine times longer to program and 9times that to debug. Keeping everyone from killing each other is hard. One really fast cpu with smart peripherls is faster. Smart peripherals that can DMA to public memory are a a definate win. You end up adding time slice and process management in some form to keep everyone doing the right thing in the right order. CP/M is not safely recusive. Hardware for prioritizing bus access is complex for S100. S100 bus will make you crazy. I learned a huge amount about multitasking, multiprocessing and process management in real time. It was successful but I would later pull two two of the three 4mhz cpus and upgrade one to a 10mhz Z80 to far greater advantage. I still used that highly modified NS* Horizon running a 10mhz z80 and a smart controller for floppy, HDC and IOP board with an 8085 to handle the two serial ports, parallel printer and RTC. Years later I would get a Compupro MPX1 (8085 system IO MUX). It was much like what I did for the IOP save for the IOP use real DMA (8257A) where the MPX1 does PIO. File locking: You can lock CP/M files by marking them system or RO so other cpus/processes can crunch them. The real trick is getting the "owner to" not recognize the lock. >It came with a single full-height floppy drive. I changed mine to have >two half-height ones and if I was careful I could run ISIS-PDS on one of >the processors and CP/M-80 or CP/M Plus on the other. ISIS-PDS would >boot from the internal bubble memory (128KB) and CP/M would boot from >the floppy. I would do my Intel development work on the ISIS side and I still have a pair of BPK72s working with spare bubbles. >document it in Wordstar on the CP/M side as I was developing. it. >There was no mechanism to keep one side from clobbering the other side's >files on floppies, so I had to keep that straight in my head. At the >time it was not hard to do, but today I am probably too lazy to keep it >all straight. ;) It's still a cool thing to see "lowly" 8085 doing fancy stuff. Allison > >Dave > From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sat Feb 2 22:13:57 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:13:57 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVN00J4HAF0I0ZD@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: Fred Cisin > Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:25:27 -0800 (PST) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >> > I asked Gary Kildall, "Now that most commercial machines are going to >> > 5.25 inch disks, what is the STANDARD format for 5.25?" >> > He answered, "8 inch single sided single density." > >On Sat, 2 Feb 2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: >> Can you do that on a 5.25" disk? What is that, 77 tracks, I forget how many >> sectors... 26 >IF your disk controller is "cooperative". The "1.2M" drive is almost the >same as an 8" drive. 'course, his remark was during the days of 48 tpi 35 >track 5.25", . . . Therein lies the problem. I'd asked the same question in 78 IE: are you ever going to consider a different disk format? No, there ae so many and none compatable, some too small and a few limited to a specific vendor. Until there was a viable and better standard 8" SSSD was it. I think that standard emerged around 1983 with 360K (40tracks two sides DD) soft sector and again with 1.44MB 3.5". Other than those what other wide spread and not limited to a specific vendor and those two were standard only for PCs. Allison From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sun Feb 3 07:03:27 2008 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:03:27 +0000 Subject: MC3470 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47A5BB9F.7020407@dunnington.plus.com> On 02/02/2008 22:22, Tony Duell wrote: >>> > Also, does anyone have a proper data sheet for the MC3470 (disk read >>> > amplifier etc). > However, I still have one unaswered question : There's a DC balance > preset in the differntiator stage. What's the proceue for adjusting it? It's to adjust the data symmetry, and for Sony and Apple drives that use a 3470, you adjust it so that the data signal has a 50% mark/space ratio when the input is a constant frequency (125kHz or 250kHz). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From rcini at optonline.net Sun Feb 3 07:34:34 2008 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 08:34:34 -0500 Subject: Microsoft BASIC on CP?M Message-ID: All: I?ve encountered a devilish problem with MBASIC running on CP/M. I?ve completely rebuilt my IMSAI disk system and so far, the only program I?ve not been able to get to work is BASIC. Does anyone recall if BASIC directly messed around with CP/M or anything weird like that? Even if I limit the assumed memory size with the ?/M:? parameter, it still doesn?t work (I get no sign-on message). Thanks. Rich -- Rich Cini Collector of Classic Computers Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator http://www.altair32.com http://www.classiccmp.org/cini From cclist at sydex.com Sun Feb 3 07:48:14 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 05:48:14 -0800 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <200802031306.m13D5ZGf076585@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802031306.m13D5ZGf076585@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47A5559E.7117.444B3A5@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 19:11:16 -0500 > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > > I asked Gary Kildall, "Now that most commercial machines are going to > > 5.25 inch disks, what is the STANDARD format for 5.25?" He answered, "8 > > inch single sided single density." > > Can you do that on a 5.25" disk? What is that, 77 tracks, I forget how > many sectors... 26 128-byte sectors per cylinder, single-sided, 77 tracks. Interleaved 13:1, directory starts on the third cylinder. Corresponds more-or-less to a "1.2MB" DSHD 5.25" (or "1.25MB DSHD 3.5"), but they came along rather late in the evolution of the 5.25" drive, which is probably why you see so few of them with formats for CP/M-80 systems. Did the 5.25" DSHD format originate in Japan? Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sun Feb 3 08:19:56 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 06:19:56 -0800 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <200802031306.m13D5ZGf076585@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802031306.m13D5ZGf076585@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47A55D0C.16642.461BA86@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:07:03 -0500 > From: Allison > Actually PDP-8 OS8 started that, all the other DEC OSs TOPS-10 and RT had > it as well. "PIP" should be the giveaway. Odd that ISIS used "COPY xxx TO xxx". Some hated the mandatory "TO" in ISIS copy, but I thought it was a good idea. How many times under MS-DOS have you mistakenly typed "COPY D:*.*" and then hit the "enter" key before completing your thought? On faster machines, it makes a mess before you can stop it. The PIP "mathematical" syntax with all the strange options could be confusing in CP/M; some vendors supplied their own version of a file copier. > However while the IO was better CP/M had a far better file system that > accomodated fragmentation (scatter/gather) where RT-11 (and NS* DOS) had > the linear tag and dump that made enlarging a files or creating variable > length files harder. On the other hand, fragmentation on a floppy can result in very bad performance--and CP/M had no "defragment" utility. I can see the advantages of a system that tends to keep files in a small number of pieces. I've seen the single-piece file structure a lot on industrial equipment controllers. > Assemble CP/M BDOS at around 100k using ASM > and you find any disk under 400K free space is too small. You still see > that today with faster disks and interfaces. CP/M was singularly ill-equipped to support hard disks of any size beyond a couple of megabytes. We'd started offering SA-8000 14" drives as an option and before too many months, we were getting 40MB drives for what we'd been paying for the single-platter ones. 5.25" HD size increases went even more quickly. We bought 7 and 14MB drives from Rodime and it wasn't long before Rodime was telling us that they were substituting 10MB and 20MB drives. I was asked if I could artificially (via software) limit the new drives to 7MB and 14MB so that marketing could charge for the extra storage. I discouraged the idea very strongly, pointing out that the customers weren't stupid--someone was going to peek inside and read the drive nameplate. CP/M's single-level directory wasn't suited at all to this kind of thing, even using the "user number" feature--something for which DRI never came up with a command-line syntax to express, which further hurt matters. But then DRI was really thinking of the "user number" feature as that- -there was the system (user 0) and your own files under your number, never considering that some users might want to use the feature to organize their data and go cross-number frequently. Cheers, Chuck From rogpugh at mac.com Sun Feb 3 09:52:37 2008 From: rogpugh at mac.com (Roger Pugh) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 15:52:37 +0000 Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> Message-ID: <938600c8b76450268fe9016deb9175b3@mac.com> Hi guys does anyone know the correct incantation to low level format an MFM drive, a rodime 351, driven by a Compaq controller board. I,ve tried with debug G=C800:5 to no avail. there is no format program there!. The driver board has no real description on it, just Compaq computer corp 1983 and assy 61-031074-00 Any ideas??? thanks roger From curt at atarimuseum.com Sun Feb 3 10:08:41 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 11:08:41 -0500 Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: <938600c8b76450268fe9016deb9175b3@mac.com> References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> <938600c8b76450268fe9016deb9175b3@mac.com> Message-ID: <47A5E709.7090903@atarimuseum.com> Should work, the controller is a Western Digital, I don't know about the Rodime drive, but I've done is numerous times with Seagate drives: debug command g=c800:5 You should get into the WD monitor ROM and be able to do a low level, make sure you set the interleave correctly, I've used 3:1 as it was always a safe setting. Curt Roger Pugh wrote: > Hi guys > > does anyone know the correct incantation to low level format an MFM > drive, a rodime 351, driven by a Compaq controller board. > > I,ve tried with debug G=C800:5 to no avail. there is no format > program there!. > The driver board has no real description on it, just > > Compaq computer corp 1983 and assy 61-031074-00 > > Any ideas??? > > thanks > > roger > > > From rogpugh at mac.com Sun Feb 3 11:06:15 2008 From: rogpugh at mac.com (Roger Pugh) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 17:06:15 +0000 Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: <47A5E709.7090903@atarimuseum.com> References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> <938600c8b76450268fe9016deb9175b3@mac.com> <47A5E709.7090903@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: On 3 Feb 2008, at 16:08, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > Should work, the controller is a Western Digital, I don't know about > the Rodime drive, but I've done is numerous times with Seagate drives: > > debug command g=c800:5 > > You should get into the WD monitor ROM and be able to do a low level, > make sure you set the interleave correctly, I've used 3:1 as it was > always a safe setting. > > Roger Pugh wrote: >> Hi guys >> >> does anyone know the correct incantation to low level format an MFM >> drive, a rodime 351, driven by a Compaq controller board. >> >> I,ve tried with debug G=C800:5 to no avail. there is no format >> program there!. >> The driver board has no real description on it, just >> >> Compaq computer corp 1983 and assy 61-031074-00 >> checking on debug, d=c000:0 the rom is compaq with no refrence to western digital, although the board contains WD silicon. |I think i have a homegrown compaq product here. i know it was original in the m/c along with the HD. Debug just locks up after calling the program. roger From curt at atarimuseum.com Sun Feb 3 11:17:54 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 12:17:54 -0500 Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> <938600c8b76450268fe9016deb9175b3@mac.com> <47A5E709.7090903@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <47A5F742.4000902@atarimuseum.com> Hmmm...... What you need is a copy of the orig CPQ System Utilities diskette that shipped with the Portable, it would've had hdformat.com on it to do a low-level on the HD... I'm trying to think if early PC-DOS 2.21 (I think it was a powdery pink colored label DOS diskette) may have had a generic low level formatter on it. Curt Roger Pugh wrote: > > On 3 Feb 2008, at 16:08, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > >> Should work, the controller is a Western Digital, I don't know about >> the Rodime drive, but I've done is numerous times with Seagate drives: >> >> debug command g=c800:5 >> >> You should get into the WD monitor ROM and be able to do a low level, >> make sure you set the interleave correctly, I've used 3:1 as it was >> always a safe setting. >> > >> Roger Pugh wrote: >>> Hi guys >>> >>> does anyone know the correct incantation to low level format an MFM >>> drive, a rodime 351, driven by a Compaq controller board. >>> >>> I,ve tried with debug G=C800:5 to no avail. there is no format >>> program there!. >>> The driver board has no real description on it, just >>> >>> Compaq computer corp 1983 and assy 61-031074-00 >>> > > checking on debug, d=c000:0 the rom is compaq with no refrence to > western digital, although the board contains WD silicon. |I think i > have a homegrown compaq product here. i know it was original in the > m/c along with the HD. Debug just locks up after calling the program. > > roger > > > From curt at atarimuseum.com Sun Feb 3 11:24:12 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 12:24:12 -0500 Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> <938600c8b76450268fe9016deb9175b3@mac.com> <47A5E709.7090903@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <47A5F8BC.1040801@atarimuseum.com> Roger, If you're seeing a WD controller on the board, c800:5 should be correct, it is for WD and Seagate. You can try c800:6 which was mostly for Storage Technologies and Adaptec controllers, its worth a shot... Curt Roger Pugh wrote: > > On 3 Feb 2008, at 16:08, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > >> Should work, the controller is a Western Digital, I don't know about >> the Rodime drive, but I've done is numerous times with Seagate drives: >> >> debug command g=c800:5 >> >> You should get into the WD monitor ROM and be able to do a low level, >> make sure you set the interleave correctly, I've used 3:1 as it was >> always a safe setting. >> > >> Roger Pugh wrote: >>> Hi guys >>> >>> does anyone know the correct incantation to low level format an MFM >>> drive, a rodime 351, driven by a Compaq controller board. >>> >>> I,ve tried with debug G=C800:5 to no avail. there is no format >>> program there!. >>> The driver board has no real description on it, just >>> >>> Compaq computer corp 1983 and assy 61-031074-00 >>> > > checking on debug, d=c000:0 the rom is compaq with no refrence to > western digital, although the board contains WD silicon. |I think i > have a homegrown compaq product here. i know it was original in the > m/c along with the HD. Debug just locks up after calling the program. > > roger > > > From marvin at west.net Sun Feb 3 12:16:02 2008 From: marvin at west.net (Marvin Johnston) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 10:16:02 -0800 Subject: compaq portable plus problems Message-ID: <47A604E2.42D45421@west.net> When I am using debug to format a HD on an unknown controller, I'll do an unassemble at C800:5 and C800:6. The correct address will have a jmp instruction. Besides the HD formatting program on the utilities disk, going *way* back, I think Western Digital put out a formatting program WDFMT (?) that would allow the formatting of MFM HDs. I think there also might have been some PD/shareware programs to do the same thing. Assuming the Simtel archives are still around, I would expect to be able to find these programs there. > From: Roger Pugh > > does anyone know the correct incantation to low level format an MFM > drive, a rodime 351, driven by a Compaq controller board. > > I,ve tried with debug G=C800:5 to no avail. there is no format program > there!. From innfoclassics at gmail.com Sun Feb 3 12:37:45 2008 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 10:37:45 -0800 Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: <47A604E2.42D45421@west.net> References: <47A604E2.42D45421@west.net> Message-ID: > > does anyone know the correct incantation to low level format an MFM > > drive, a rodime 351, driven by a Compaq controller board. > > > > I,ve tried with debug G=C800:5 to no avail. there is no format program > > there!. The Adaptec 2070A controller used G=C800:CCC and it is an 8 bit HD controller of that vintage. I have had several of the Compaq II Pluss in the past and ISTR that the Format SW is on the Diagnostic disk, but it has been too many years to be sure. My CSC book says the Rodime 351 is a 5 meg 3 1/2" drive, 306 Cyl, 2 heads, 17 sectors, 85ms, MFM. -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From rogpugh at mac.com Sun Feb 3 12:51:25 2008 From: rogpugh at mac.com (Roger Pugh) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 18:51:25 +0000 Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: <47A604E2.42D45421@west.net> References: <47A604E2.42D45421@west.net> Message-ID: <5e9ead628dd88ffa125561b15f915a97@mac.com> > Besides the HD formatting program on the utilities disk, going *way* > back, I > think Western Digital put out a formatting program WDFMT (?) that > would allow > the formatting of MFM HDs. I think there also might have been some > PD/shareware > programs to do the same thing. Assuming the Simtel archives are still > around, I > would expect to be able to find these programs there. I thought wdfmt.exe was just for AT computers but will try it! roger From cclist at sydex.com Sun Feb 3 13:11:15 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 11:11:15 -0800 Subject: Microsoft BASIC on CP?M In-Reply-To: <200802031800.m13I0CT8079002@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802031800.m13I0CT8079002@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47A5A153.2249.56C6FB0@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 08:34:34 -0500 > From: "Richard A. Cini" > Ive encountered a devilish problem with MBASIC running on CP/M. Ive > completely rebuilt my IMSAI disk system and so far, the only program Ive > not been able to get to work is BASIC. Does anyone recall if BASIC > directly messed around with CP/M or anything weird like that? Even if I > limit the assumed memory size with the /M: parameter, it still doesnt > work (I get no sign-on message). I have seen patched-for-specific hardware MBASIC. Are you certain about having an absolutely vanilla-flavored unvarnished copy? I probably have one kicking around here if you don't. Cheers, Chuck From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Sun Feb 3 13:21:15 2008 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:21:15 -0600 Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: <47A604E2.42D45421@west.net> References: <47A604E2.42D45421@west.net> Message-ID: <47A6142B.7000205@brutman.com> Another thing to try is a BIOS call. On the XT class controllers there is a BIOS interrupt to do a low-level format. According to my Phoenix BIOS ref, it is Int 13h, function 7. Parameters are: AH = 07h AL = Interleave CH = Start Cylinder DL = Drive number (80h or 81h) Outputs are: AH = 07h if bad drive number in DL = 00h no error = xxh More error codes .. see table CF = 0 No error = 1 Error (see AH) Mike Marvin Johnston wrote: > When I am using debug to format a HD on an unknown controller, I'll do an > unassemble at C800:5 and C800:6. The correct address will have a jmp > instruction. > > Besides the HD formatting program on the utilities disk, going *way* back, I > think Western Digital put out a formatting program WDFMT (?) that would allow > the formatting of MFM HDs. I think there also might have been some PD/shareware > programs to do the same thing. Assuming the Simtel archives are still around, I > would expect to be able to find these programs there. > > >> From: Roger Pugh >> >> does anyone know the correct incantation to low level format an MFM >> drive, a rodime 351, driven by a Compaq controller board. >> >> I,ve tried with debug G=C800:5 to no avail. there is no format program >> there!. > > From rcini at optonline.net Sun Feb 3 13:26:52 2008 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 14:26:52 -0500 Subject: Microsoft BASIC on CP/M In-Reply-To: <47A5A153.2249.56C6FB0@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 2/3/08 2:11 PM, "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > I have seen patched-for-specific hardware MBASIC. Are you certain > about having an absolutely vanilla-flavored unvarnished copy? I > probably have one kicking around here if you don't. > > Cheers, > Chuck > I have several versions from both the CP/M Archive and Retroarchive. The version numbers are all messed up, but I think I've tried 5.21, 5.24 and 5.29. A friend of mine is double-checking by CBIOS on his machine to eliminate the CBIOS as an issue. It's very odd. Every other program I've tried (including TinyBASIC) works...just not MBASIC. If you have a known-working version and can send it along, I'd appreciate it. Rich -- Rich Cini Collector of Classic Computers Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator http://www.altair32.com http://www.classiccmp.org/cini From jdbryan at acm.org Sun Feb 3 15:43:17 2008 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 16:43:17 -0500 Subject: MC3470 In-Reply-To: References: from "Tony Duell" at Feb 2, 8 00:05:38 am, Message-ID: <200802032143.m13LhI8D021349@mail.bcpl.net> On 2 Feb 2008 at 22:22, Tony Duell wrote: > However, I still have one unaswered question : There's a DC balance > preset in the differntiator stage. What's the proceue for adjusting it? >From the MC3470 data sheet in the 1990 Motorola Linear and Interface Integrated Circuits databook: "The potentiometer across the differentiator components is adjusted until a symmetrical digital output cycle is obtained at Pin 10 for a sinusoidal input with the minimum anticipated Ep(omega) product." -- Dave From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Sun Feb 3 15:54:32 2008 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:54:32 -0800 Subject: Digitalker, SP0256,and SC-01 speech chips (was Re: Digitalker Information) References: <47A14DBB.3060905@jbrain.com> <47A186E0.1040604@dunnington.plus.com> <47A1F6ED.1060108@jbrain.com> <47A203FD.7040907@dunnington.plus.com> <20080203052535.GA400@usap.gov> Message-ID: <001101c866af$5c0069a0$0201a8c0@hal9000> Pete, The SP0256 had the best sounding speech I think ( it uses twice as many speech sounds ( 128 allophones ? ) as the SC-01 only had 64 phonemes )). The SC-01 is very easy to use ( it was used in the Heathkit Hero Robots ) but sounds very robotic and " nasal ". Heathkit Robots did have some songs ( like " Daisy " that HAL sang in 2001 ) but it sings as well as William Shatner .... All depends on what you are looking for; quality or easy to use. Best regards, Steven > On Thu, Jan 31, 2008 at 05:23:09PM +0000, Pete Turnbull wrote: > > On 31/01/2008 16:27, Jim Brain wrote: > > > > >On a related topic, someone is offering to trade me some GI SP0256-AL2 > > >ICs for equipment here. > . > . > . > > I always wanted to build a SC-01 or SP0256 phenome-based > > >system to compare. Does anyone have experience in one or the other and > > >can relate whether it's worth it to get an SP0256 > > > > The SP0256 sounds very robotic compared to the NS and Texas devices. > > The SC-01 is reputedly better (variable pitch, for one thing) but I've > > not got much experience of either. > > Amazingly enough, I happen to have all three sets here with me, the > Digitalker (which I'm just learning about), the SP0256, which I've heard > of, but never heard, and the SC-01, which I probably know the most about. > > I have an SC-01 in my RB5X robot here, and at home, in my Gorf arcade > machine. The SC-01 is versatile enough that there's code for the RB5X > to have it try and sing. I can't say that it's wonderful, but it does try. > > I will have to snarf a copy of those Digitalker docs when the our sat > comes up. The board I have here, built around 1990, uses the original > speech chip, but the ROM data is on a single, modern JEDEC EPROM, not > a pair of smaller, cross-selected Nat-Semi ROMs. I'll have to do a bit > of fiddling with the board itself - its CPU is an 8031, but the CPU > crystal was broken off before I got the board. I was going to try 8MHz > first, but it could be faster, I suppose. Assuming it's not some oddball > frequency (the board has no serial comms, IIRC), I was thinking 8Mhz, > 12Mhz, or 16Mhz. > > -ethan From g-wright at att.net Sun Feb 3 16:04:00 2008 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:04:00 +0000 Subject: SC-01 speech chips, is there still a source Message-ID: <020320082204.2485.47A63A5000041683000009B522193100029B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> -------------- Original message ---------------------- From: Ethan Dicks > > On Thu, Jan 31, 2008 at 05:23:09PM +0000, Pete Turnbull wrote: > > > snip................ > > I have an SC-01 in my RB5X robot here, and at home, in my Gorf arcade > machine. The SC-01 is versatile enough that there's code for the RB5X > to have it try and sing. I can't say that it's wonderful, but it does try. > Has anyone found a source for these. I robbed a good system to get 1 for Hero JR Robot - Jerry From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Feb 3 16:10:34 2008 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 14:10:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <200802022054.28259.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <0JVI00025IK9CS13@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> <47A2D9F2.7080401@pacbell.net> <200802022054.28259.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20080202215901.S88649@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 2 Feb 2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > I believe the H-8 did indeed have a ROM at low memory. Never worked with that > machine, though. There were also some TRS-80 boxes that I seem to recall > having a need of a special version of CP/M as well. Models 1 and 3 FMG distributed a relocated CP/M. Various companies (Omicron, Parasitic Engineering, etc.) sold hardware solutions to remap the ROM. and also add 8" support From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Feb 3 16:17:43 2008 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 14:17:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: never knew DOS system files *weren't* resettable In-Reply-To: <240864.98156.qm@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> References: <240864.98156.qm@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20080203140318.D21919@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 31 Jan 2008, Fred Cisin wrote: > XP might not let you turn off the Hidden bit unless you also turn off > the System and Read-only bits. > ATTRIB foo -S -H -R On Thu, 31 Jan 2008, Chris M wrote: > (bootdisk.com) but not 6.22. AAMOF the ATTRIB of 6.22 > would generate an error - "incorrect DOS version" or > whatever when I tried to change things on it. Maybe > it's hacked up. Maybe my lt is hacked up LOL. THAT's another problem. The ATTRIB program from 6.22 will NOT run on DOS 5.00, etc. Each version's programs, including ATTRIB, will NOT run on any other version, even if the differences would not matter. In every program file (.COM or .EXE) of every version of DOS since 2.00, there is a little code similar to: MOV AH, 30h INT 21h CMP AX, xxxx JNE ..... This was done after people used DOS 1.00 programs (SS) such as CHKDSK, under DOS 1.10 (DS), and destroyed instead of repairing disks. You could, of course, find the correct copy of ATTRIB, or edit that code. Or, you could install SETVER - the "innovative" program that gives DOS the ability to lie about its age to function 30h INT21h calls. > Anyway, all's well that ends well. I got my Fujitsu > Stylistic 1000 to boot. Got DOS onto the compact flash > card to begin with using the HP USB Disk Storage > Format Tool - in, you guessed it, a USB card reader. > You can download it if you look for it. Congratulations! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Feb 3 16:35:17 2008 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 14:35:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: <938600c8b76450268fe9016deb9175b3@mac.com> References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> <938600c8b76450268fe9016deb9175b3@mac.com> Message-ID: <20080203143336.W21919@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 3 Feb 2008, Roger Pugh wrote: > does anyone know the correct incantation to low level format an MFM > drive, a rodime 351, driven by a Compaq controller board. > I,ve tried with debug G=C800:5 to no avail. there is no format program > there!. > The driver board has no real description on it, just > Compaq computer corp 1983 and assy 61-031074-00 > Any ideas??? I don't remember where they hid the FORMAT program, but SPEEDSTORE will do the job. From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Feb 3 16:38:59 2008 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 14:38:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: <47A5E709.7090903@atarimuseum.com> References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> <938600c8b76450268fe9016deb9175b3@mac.com> <47A5E709.7090903@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <20080203143748.W21919@shell.lmi.net> > debug command g=c800:5 There exist a few controllers that have FORMAT utilities, but chose to put them elsewhere in the ROM. And there are SOME without ROM FORMAT From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Feb 3 16:49:30 2008 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 14:49:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: <47A5F742.4000902@atarimuseum.com> References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> <938600c8b76450268fe9016deb9175b3@mac.com> <47A5E709.7090903@atarimuseum.com> <47A5F742.4000902@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <20080203144527.R21919@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 3 Feb 2008, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > Hmmm...... What you need is a copy of the orig CPQ System Utilities > diskette that shipped with the Portable, it would've had hdformat.com on > it to do a low-level on the HD... I'm trying to think if early PC-DOS > 2.21 (I think it was a powdery pink colored label DOS diskette) may have > had a generic low level formatter on it. NO version of PC-DOS (and there wasn't a 2.21) ever came with a low level formatter, and certainly NEVER generic on PC-DOS. With PC-DOS, the low level formatter was included in the "ADVANCED DIAGNOSTICS" With MS-DOS, NOT PC-DOS, it is possible to have generics, etc. Compaq had their own set of bootable "Diagnostics". Most "generic" hard disk format programs won't work with Compaq. From curt at atarimuseum.com Sun Feb 3 17:17:30 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 18:17:30 -0500 Subject: Mindset Computers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47A64B8A.4070203@atarimuseum.com> I finally had some time this weekend and started to put together a website devoted to Mindset Computer Corp. Its still very light on information, but its a decent start: www.mindsetcomputer.com Curt From curt at atarimuseum.com Sun Feb 3 17:24:20 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 18:24:20 -0500 Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: <20080203144527.R21919@shell.lmi.net> References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> <938600c8b76450268fe9016deb9175b3@mac.com> <47A5E709.7090903@atarimuseum.com> <47A5F742.4000902@atarimuseum.com> <20080203144527.R21919@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <47A64D24.4090802@atarimuseum.com> Thanks clearing that up Fred, its been a long time and I wasn't sure. Curt Fred Cisin wrote: > On Sun, 3 Feb 2008, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > >> Hmmm...... What you need is a copy of the orig CPQ System Utilities >> diskette that shipped with the Portable, it would've had hdformat.com on >> it to do a low-level on the HD... I'm trying to think if early PC-DOS >> 2.21 (I think it was a powdery pink colored label DOS diskette) may have >> had a generic low level formatter on it. >> > > NO version of PC-DOS (and there wasn't a 2.21) ever came with a low level > formatter, and certainly NEVER generic on PC-DOS. > > With PC-DOS, the low level formatter was included in the "ADVANCED > DIAGNOSTICS" > > > With MS-DOS, NOT PC-DOS, it is possible to have generics, etc. > > Compaq had their own set of bootable "Diagnostics". > > Most "generic" hard disk format programs won't work with Compaq. > > > > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Feb 3 17:59:34 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 23:59:34 +0000 (GMT) Subject: MC3470 In-Reply-To: <47A5BB9F.7020407@dunnington.plus.com> from "Pete Turnbull" at Feb 3, 8 01:03:27 pm Message-ID: > > On 02/02/2008 22:22, Tony Duell wrote: > >>> > Also, does anyone have a proper data sheet for the MC3470 (disk read > >>> > amplifier etc). > > > However, I still have one unaswered question : There's a DC balance > > preset in the differntiator stage. What's the proceue for adjusting it? > > It's to adjust the data symmetry, and for Sony and Apple drives that use > a 3470, you adjust it so that the data signal has a 50% mark/space ratio > when the input is a constant frequency (125kHz or 250kHz). Do you mean that? I thought the output (pin 10) pulse width was set byu the RC network on pins 8 and 9. Do you really mean that the offset adjust preset is used to get all the pulses equally spaced, rather than occuring in pairs (which is the most likely result of an imbalance in the cicuit, I think). Or do you adjust for 50% duty cycle at some other point? -tony From rick at rickmurphy.net Sun Feb 3 18:54:44 2008 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:54:44 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: References: <20080130163435.6C1FEBA49A4@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <200802040054.m140sj4b025938@mail.itm-inst.com> At 11:12 AM 2/1/2008, Dan Gahlinger wrote: >There *IS* a Vax named a "Saul" or "SOL", I've seen it. >It's a "luggable" (so to speak) like the Rainbow, but it's a Vax. Based on the "Sol" name, what you're talking about is a Solbourne, a SPARC luggable. -Rick From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sun Feb 3 19:28:58 2008 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 01:28:58 +0000 Subject: MC3470 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47A66A5A.8040101@dunnington.plus.com> On 03/02/2008 23:59, Tony Duell wrote: > Do you mean that? I thought the output (pin 10) pulse width was set byu > the RC network on pins 8 and 9. Do you really mean that the offset adjust > preset is used to get all the pulses equally spaced, rather than occuring > in pairs (which is the most likely result of an imbalance in the cicuit, > I think). > > Or do you adjust for 50% duty cycle at some other point? You adjust the offset adjust preset for a 50% duty cycle output, according to the Sony manual. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Feb 3 20:05:58 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 18:05:58 -0800 Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: <20080203144527.R21919@shell.lmi.net> References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> <938600c8b76450268fe9016deb9175b3@mac.com> <47A5E709.7090903@atarimuseum.com> <47A5F742.4000902@atarimuseum.com> <20080203144527.R21919@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: Hi If worst came to worst, one could write there own low level formatter. To my knowledge, there were only two types of MFM controller port maps used. Once you get the address mapping, low level format isn't that hard to write. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008 From pdp11 at saccade.com Sun Feb 3 21:50:29 2008 From: pdp11 at saccade.com (J. Peterson) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:50:29 -0800 Subject: MicroAnglelo text editor (was: MicroAngelo S-100 Graphics) In-Reply-To: <4756F267.722BD3B8@west.net> References: <4756F267.722BD3B8@west.net> Message-ID: <200802040351.m143pLHJ009735@keith.ezwind.net> >Congratulations on the selling price of the MicroAngelo board!!! Speaking of the MicroAngelo, decades ago I wrote a nice screen-based text editor for CP/M that used the MicroAngelo for display. It worked pretty well - it even downloaded custom code for the MA's Z-80 to speed up the scrolling operations. I had an eye to commercializing it, but given the sales of the MA board, I doubt that would have gone very far. If anybody's interested, I can post it somewhere. It's in 8080 assembly, and requires CP/M and a MicroAngelo board to run. (Please reply directly to linux at saccade dot com if you're interested, I only check my cctech inbox every once in a while when I have time). Cheers, jp From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Feb 3 22:36:13 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 23:36:13 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <200802021747.15884.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <858825.36457.qm@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <479F8491.40905@netscape.net> <200802021747.15884.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Feb 2, 2008, at 5:47 PM, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > Other code that often needed to be modified for specific hardware > or machines > were comm stuff, which more often seemed to have a bunch of > "overlays" > available for each machine, so that things could address the > serial port (or > the PMMI S-100 bus modem) properly. > > I probably have piles of this stuff in my old bbs files area, if > there's much > interest in it. I'm always interested in CP/M stuff...is it available online? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From tpeters at mixcom.com Sun Feb 3 22:54:06 2008 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:54:06 -0600 Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: <47A604E2.42D45421@west.net> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20080203225334.10a11008@localhost> Disassemble at C800:0CCC and look for a jmp instruction. -T At 10:16 AM 2/3/2008 -0800, you wrote: >When I am using debug to format a HD on an unknown controller, I'll do an >unassemble at C800:5 and C800:6. The correct address will have a jmp >instruction. > >Besides the HD formatting program on the utilities disk, going *way* back, I >think Western Digital put out a formatting program WDFMT (?) that would allow >the formatting of MFM HDs. I think there also might have been some >PD/shareware >programs to do the same thing. Assuming the Simtel archives are still >around, I >would expect to be able to find these programs there. > > > > From: Roger Pugh > > > > does anyone know the correct incantation to low level format an MFM > > drive, a rodime 351, driven by a Compaq controller board. > > > > I,ve tried with debug G=C800:5 to no avail. there is no format program > > there!. ----- 222. [Philosophy] "An assertion is Zen only when it is itself an act and does not refer to anything that is asserted in it." --(from Bruce Lee's book, The Tao of Jeet Kune Do) --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Feb 4 00:20:54 2008 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 22:20:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: <200802040054.m140sj4b025938@mail.itm-inst.com> from Rick Murphy at "Feb 3, 8 07:54:44 pm" Message-ID: <200802040620.m146KsYT012550@floodgap.com> > >There *IS* a Vax named a "Saul" or "SOL", I've seen it. > >It's a "luggable" (so to speak) like the Rainbow, but it's a Vax. > > Based on the "Sol" name, what you're talking about is a Solbourne, a > SPARC luggable. Something like the S3000? Fabulous unit. Not a Vax :) (Though the Sun Voyager is a wee bit more portable, the S3000 wins the cool contest.) -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Jesus loves you, and I'm trying to. -- Jack Thompson ----------------------- From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sun Feb 3 06:27:31 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 07:27:31 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVN009Y1X9L0TS1@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:48:33 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On Thursday 31 January 2008 10:07, Allison wrote: >> Whats more interesting is there was nothing to prevent a termcap file >> and later improved CP/M work alikes did exactly that and many more things. > >What sort of stuff would you put into the category of "CP/M work alikes"? > >(Snip) >> Andy Johnson-Laird The Programmers CP/M Handbook went far to extend >> and clarify both what the BIOS can do and more. > >Good book, that one. I dug it out of a box recently, and should probably get >to re-reading it sometime soon, maybe. > >(Snip) >> As you can se the whole interrupt thing was not CP/M as a limiting >> factor but hardware or implementor understanding. > >I'd like to implement something that'd not only use one of those single-byte >calls, but take the data inline, as well -- no need to load it into >registers to pass it along, though there are some rather clumsy aspects to >getting the stack pointer and fixing it... That was easy in 8080. ;routine gets 16bit word passed on stack before call ; doesn't do anthing but put that item in bc RRST: org 010h shld hlsave pop hl ;hl has return address pop bc ; BC has data push hl ; hl back to stack lhld hlsave ; restor hl ret ;caller caller: push bc ;data in bc rst2 ...... >> For those that never used a really nice bios try a VT180, it didn't >> do two sided but those disks where just emerging at the time. It did >> implement interrupts with ring buffers for IO. > >Can you point to anything specific with regard to this? Interrupt driven, has some basic terminal sense (vt100 specific) and uses IObyte. > >> The other thing was DMA. On S100 is was a timing and bus nightmare >> and took years to almost get right. Many of the single baord systems >> omitted it as it took space (8257 or later 8237 40 pin chips and a latch). > >Hmm, I seem to have some number of those on hand here. :-) > >> It works fine and made useful systems. However it means the CPU is locked >> up for the duration of the transfer and cannot respond to interupts >> making for poor latency as floppies are slow. Again CP/M doesn't care >> how the transfer happens only that it does happen. So the fist system >> built with DMA was a real eye opener. First it allowed background >> activities to run faster and smoother like a line printer spooler. >> also interrupts could be used byy the disk system to say "ready" >> or "ready with error". Thats a lot of available CPU cycles. >> the biggest areas of change is that modem programs werent pausing >> for disk IO, they could fill a big (say 16k) circular buffer and >> the cpu can be processing interrupts for IO and disk to manage >> transfers rather than doing a lot of waiting in loops. It doesn't >> take a lot more code but the complexity and debugging is greater >> due to the near concurrent activities. > >One of the real problems I had with early BBSing was the fact that I was using >a CP/M box and that had only a lmiited buffer in the modem program (probably >MDM740 at first, IMP a bit later I think), while the guy at the other end >had a newer and higher-speed modem that had several K of buffer in it that it >would continue to empty after my end had asked it to hold on a minute... In many cases no buffer. it was more like the other end would stop but by time you told it to your 1 byte maybe 2 buffer overflowed. Often the probem with byte at a time IO without interrutps. A more reasonable IO would be buffered 64 or 128 chars sing style with high water marking. Interrupt driven of course. >That same program had a print or capture buffer (I forget exactly now) that >was way bigger, something on the order of 16K, and it came to me to use >that for buffering the input rather than the teeny buffer provided, but I >never did get around to making that particular modification to it. 16k was magical as that was the size of a standard CP/M extent and usually assumed to be enough space for capture. Allison > >(Snip) > >-- >Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and >ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can >be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" >- >Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James >M Dakin From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sun Feb 3 06:31:34 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 07:31:34 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVN00EPLXGCY1H3@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:54:28 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On Friday 01 February 2008 03:36, Jim Battle wrote: >(Snip) >> Also, people did *plenty* of ugly stuff to save a few bytes back then, >> as you know. RST1 isn't particularly ugly anyway. And if for some >> reason one did find it unpleasant, you could use a macro to make it to >> your liking. > >Yup... > >(Snip) >> we agree. :-) I had a vague recollection of a faint memory of hearing >> third hand that CP/M was ported to some heathkit machine, but that the >> machine already had a ROM in low memory, and so instead of "CALL 0005H", >> one had to use "CALL 2005H" or some such. CP/M programs could be very >> easily reassembled/patched for this, but stock CP/M binaries wouldn't >> work. rather than repeating this slanderous story, I didn't bring it up >> and pretended it was just a supposition. ooops, but now the cat is out >> of the bag. > >I believe the H-8 did indeed have a ROM at low memory. Never worked with that >machine, though. There were also some TRS-80 boxes that I seem to recall >having a need of a special version of CP/M as well. TRS80 (original) had the first 16k used for rom, keyboard and videoram, Therewas a hacked version of CP/M for it that moved page 0 (first256bytes) to something like 4200h and TPA started arond there too. The problem was none of the usual CP/M programs were assembled/compiled to start at 4200h (norm was 0100h) and even if the trs80 was full of ram you were under 48k which was ok but bigger CP/M apps like MSBASIC used some 24K of that or more. Not a popular implmentation. Allison >-- >Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and >ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can >be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" >- >Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James >M Dakin From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sun Feb 3 06:34:54 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 07:34:54 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVN009AQXP9FWS2@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:48:33 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On Thursday 31 January 2008 10:07, Allison wrote: >> Whats more interesting is there was nothing to prevent a termcap file >> and later improved CP/M work alikes did exactly that and many more things. > >What sort of stuff would you put into the category of "CP/M work alikes"? NOvados, DOS+, ZRdos, Zsdos and ZCPR addons to CP/M. They all could run CP/M programs but added things missing from basic V2.2. The gotacha was they required z80 as they were stuffing all that into the same space required by V2.2. Allison >(Snip) >> Andy Johnson-Laird The Programmers CP/M Handbook went far to extend >> and clarify both what the BIOS can do and more. > >Good book, that one. I dug it out of a box recently, and should probably get >to re-reading it sometime soon, maybe. > >(Snip) >> As you can se the whole interrupt thing was not CP/M as a limiting >> factor but hardware or implementor understanding. > >I'd like to implement something that'd not only use one of those single-byte >calls, but take the data inline, as well -- no need to load it into >registers to pass it along, though there are some rather clumsy aspects to >getting the stack pointer and fixing it... > >> For those that never used a really nice bios try a VT180, it didn't >> do two sided but those disks where just emerging at the time. It did >> implement interrupts with ring buffers for IO. > >Can you point to anything specific with regard to this? > >> The other thing was DMA. On S100 is was a timing and bus nightmare >> and took years to almost get right. Many of the single baord systems >> omitted it as it took space (8257 or later 8237 40 pin chips and a latch). > >Hmm, I seem to have some number of those on hand here. :-) > >> It works fine and made useful systems. However it means the CPU is locked >> up for the duration of the transfer and cannot respond to interupts >> making for poor latency as floppies are slow. Again CP/M doesn't care >> how the transfer happens only that it does happen. So the fist system >> built with DMA was a real eye opener. First it allowed background >> activities to run faster and smoother like a line printer spooler. >> also interrupts could be used byy the disk system to say "ready" >> or "ready with error". Thats a lot of available CPU cycles. >> the biggest areas of change is that modem programs werent pausing >> for disk IO, they could fill a big (say 16k) circular buffer and >> the cpu can be processing interrupts for IO and disk to manage >> transfers rather than doing a lot of waiting in loops. It doesn't >> take a lot more code but the complexity and debugging is greater >> due to the near concurrent activities. > >One of the real problems I had with early BBSing was the fact that I was using >a CP/M box and that had only a lmiited buffer in the modem program (probably >MDM740 at first, IMP a bit later I think), while the guy at the other end >had a newer and higher-speed modem that had several K of buffer in it that it >would continue to empty after my end had asked it to hold on a minute... > >That same program had a print or capture buffer (I forget exactly now) that >was way bigger, something on the order of 16K, and it came to me to use >that for buffering the input rather than the teeny buffer provided, but I >never did get around to making that particular modification to it. > >(Snip) > >-- >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 jlobocki at gmail.com Sun Feb 3 11:01:54 2008 From: jlobocki at gmail.com (joe lobocki) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 11:01:54 -0600 Subject: making backups of IRIX media Message-ID: hello, I need help making backups of my valuable IRIX media. I have heard that you can use CDRWIN, and i did, which made a decent backup, except I couldnt boot from the copy, and CDRWIN wont work properly on my laptop. is there any good windows based program that would copy and image my IRIX media and keep them bootable? if none for windows, i do have ubuntu linux loaded, although not compatible with my network devices so it is rarely used and cant download things. thanks!! -Joe From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 17:02:49 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 15:02:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: never knew DOS system files *weren't* resettable In-Reply-To: <20080203140318.D21919@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <956054.90374.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> --- Fred Cisin wrote: the problem is the version that's on the 6.22 disk won't work w/the remainder of the contents. I had no problem getting 5.0's attrib to work with it's contents. Beats me. Oh and thanks ;) ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From abacos_98 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 19:13:02 2008 From: abacos_98 at yahoo.com (Brian Roth) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 17:13:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for DEC side panel Message-ID: <639807.44597.qm@web53301.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Hello, I am looking for outer side panel for my BA123 chassis. I need the panel thats on the cardcage side(the right side when looking at the front of the chassis). For the life of me I cannot find it anywhere. If anyone might have an extra I can pay the shipping to 14012. Thanks, Brian. From andreww at datanet.ab.ca Mon Feb 4 03:52:21 2008 From: andreww at datanet.ab.ca (Andrew Warkentin) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:52:21 -0700 Subject: making backups of IRIX media In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47A6E055.9040701@datanet.ab.ca> joe lobocki wrote: >hello, >I need help making backups of my valuable IRIX media. I have heard that you >can use CDRWIN, and i did, which made a decent backup, except I couldnt boot >from the copy, and CDRWIN wont work properly on my laptop. is there any good >windows based program that would copy and image my IRIX media and keep them >bootable? if none for windows, i do have ubuntu linux loaded, although not >compatible with my network devices so it is rarely used and cant download >things. thanks!! >-Joe > > > The easiest way to dump them to images would be to use "cat /dev/cdrom > image.iso" or similar in a shell under Linux. From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Feb 4 05:24:08 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 08:24:08 -0300 Subject: compaq portable plus problems References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org><004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com><938600c8b76450268fe9016deb9175b3@mac.com><47A5E709.7090903@atarimuseum.com><47A5F742.4000902@atarimuseum.com><20080203144527.R21919@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <04fd01c86720$797e64c0$02fea8c0@portajara> > If worst came to worst, one could write there own low level formatter. > To my knowledge, there were only two types of MFM controller > port maps used. Once you get the address mapping, low level format > isn't that hard to write. Why not use spinrite? :o) From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Feb 4 06:21:16 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 07:21:16 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <0JVN009Y1X9L0TS1@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <3115C3F4B1D@dunfield.com> > >I'd like to implement something that'd not only use one of those single-byte > >calls, but take the data inline, as well -- no need to load it into > >registers to pass it along, though there are some rather clumsy aspects to > >getting the stack pointer and fixing it... > > That was easy in 8080. > > ;routine gets 16bit word passed on stack before call > ; doesn't do anthing but put that item in bc > RRST: org 010h > shld hlsave > pop hl ;hl has return address > pop bc ; BC has data > push hl ; hl back to stack > lhld hlsave ; restor hl > ret > > ;caller > caller: push bc ;data in bc > rst2 > ...... I don't think he was talking about pushing data on the stack, I thought he was refering to putting the system service request number inline with the code. This is exactly what I do on both my DMF (8080) and CUBIX (6809) OS's. I use an 'SSR' macro which looks something like (DMF/8080): SSR MACRO RST 2 DB \1 END It's fairly easy to fetch this: SSRENT: STA savea ; Save accumulator XTHL ; HL = calling address MOV A,M ; Get service request number INX H ; Skip for return XTHL ; Restore HL & new return address ; Now you have the SSR number in A ; most likely you would use it to index into a handler ; table sith something like: (untested) PUSH H ; Save application HL MOV L,A ; L = SSR number MVI H,0 ; Zero high DAD H ; x2 for two byte entries PUSH B ; Save BC LXI B,JMPTAB ; Point to jump table DAD B ; Offset to table POP B ; Restore B MOV A,M ; Get low address INX H ; Advance to high MOV H,M ; Get high address MOV L,A ; Set low address XTHL ; Restore HL, dest on stack LDA savea ; Restore A RET ; Jump to caller 'JMPTAB' would contain a series of 2-byte addresses of the individual SSR handlers. In practice it's usually a bit more complex ... iirc in my SSR entry I save most of the registers (so that the handlers don't have to) and switch to my own stack (but it's been a very long time so I may be mistaken). In the application code, you can then do things like: MVI A,'?' ; Get prompt SSR 3 ; Output to console (two byte OS call) 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 jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Mon Feb 4 08:56:04 2008 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 09:56:04 -0500 Subject: Q-BUS primer? In-Reply-To: <115E89C84FDD@dunfield.com> References: <115E89C84FDD@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <47A72784.9050608@compsys.to> Jerome Fine replies: I don't like top posting, but this one seemed like it would be appropriate. Sorry for the delay. Allison's reply is helpful, but I thought I might add a few words. Probably your best option is to use the BA23 box. However, for that option, you really need a quad M8189 CPU (PDP-11/23) or a quad M8190 CPU (PDP-11/73). It is entirely possible to use the dual M8186 CPU (PDP-11/23), however, you will then require a controller with a boot ROM (usually only available with a 3rd party disk controller) or you will need to enter the boot program via ODT each time you power on the system. Entering the boot program manually (by hand one instruction at a time) takes about 5 minutes. A boot program for the MSCP M7555 controller is available. Of course, no one seems to have addressed the problem of how to migrate software. Do you have any software to run? Do you have any hard drives? Once you have a working system, the PDP-11 is a real fun computer. But I might suggest that before you decide to spend a lot of time and effort to get a running system, use the emulators that are available to see if you really like running the software. Both SIMH and Ersatz-11 work well, although Ersatz-11 might be easier since it supports VT100 emulation as part of the application. RT-11 binary distributions (up to V05.03) are available on classiccmp for download. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine >Dave Dunfield wrote: >Hi Guys, > >Recently acquired a goodly amount of DEC gear - I had put the Q-BUS >stuff aside while I got the "all in one" VAXstation/VAXservers up and >running, but I'm starting to collect information - I've no experience >whatsoever with Q-bus, but from what I've read, I understand that it >will take a bit of research to determine how to properly configure >and position the boards. > >I'm hoping that I have enough material to built up at least one >(possibly 2) nice little PDP-11's, and/or a MicroVax II) > >At this point, all I'm really looking for is a good "starting point". >Can anyone recomment a good document/resources for a Q-bus newbie? > >Btw, this is what I've got - If there's anything I'm obviously missing, >or will have to find extra parts for, please advise me so that I can >start looking... > >Three chassis: > BA-23: complete with outer shell and end caps. It bears a > "MicroVAX II" label on the console switch panel, and has a > floppy drive (dual disk) installed in it. > > I don't know the model numbers for the next two: > - One looks like a BA32 but smaller, and has the "3-switch" PDP > console/display panel on it. The cards are inserted from the > front beside the panel. > - The last one is the smallest, looks much like the one above, > complete with 3-switch console/display panel, however instead > of metal side/top/bottom plates, it has a "wire cage". It also > has a second expansion chassis of similar construction with no > power supply or console panel. > >I've got the following DEC Q-BUS cards: >(Descriptions taken from the "Field Guide to Q-BUS and Unbus modules" > >M3106 4-line async >M7264 11/03 processor with 4-Kword RAM >M7504 Ethernet adapter (older DEQNA) >M7546 TMSCP controller for TK50 >M7555 Winchester and floppy disk controller >M7606 MicroVAX II KA630 >M7608 x2 2/4 MB RAM (boards are fully populated) >M7940 x2 SLU Module >M7944 x3 4-Kword RAM >M7946 x2 RX01 floppy disk controller >M8043 x2 4-SLU peripheral interface >M8044DB x2 32Kword RAM >M8044DF x2 32Kword RAM >M8047 RAM, Async, ROMs >M8186 11/23 CPU >M9047 Grant continuity >M9400YA 120-ohm terminators with refresh & floppy boot >M9400YE Headers and 250 Ohm resistors > >I've also got the following third party cards - I don't know >anything about these, other than the identifying marks found >on the boards listed below - if anyone can provide more >information on these, that would be helpful: (Several of them >appear to be media controllers of one sort or another). > >Andromedia Systems UDC-11 rev H (50 pin connector at front edge) >Micro Technology Inc. MSV05B (x2) (50 pin connector at front edge) >TD Systems TDL-11H/A (50 pin connwctor at front edge) >Xylogics "Wizard 1" (50 pin connector at front edge) >SDC-RXVZ1 "8202 FD Controller" (50 pin connector at front edge) >Versatec LSI-11 P/P Interface (40 pin connector at front edge) >Sigma Information Systems Assy 40100 > - This board has one 40 + one 50 pin connector, and a place to > populate another 40 pin - none are at the front edge. >W951 "Flip Chip" > - This board has places for various sized chips (most of them populated) > with pins to wire-wrap connections between them - looks like some sort > of prototyping board. > >+ A couple of the little grant continuity boards. > >I don't expect this to be a short journy, but it should be interesting... >Thanks in advance for any advice/tips. > >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 dholland at woh.rr.com Mon Feb 4 10:38:50 2008 From: dholland at woh.rr.com (David Holland) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:38:50 -0500 Subject: making backups of IRIX media In-Reply-To: <47A6E055.9040701@datanet.ab.ca> References: <47A6E055.9040701@datanet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <1202143130.29942.4.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 02:52 -0700, Andrew Warkentin wrote: > joe lobocki wrote: > > >hello, > >I need help making backups of my valuable IRIX media. I have heard that you > >can use CDRWIN, and i did, which made a decent backup, except I couldnt boot > >from the copy, and CDRWIN wont work properly on my laptop. is there any good > >windows based program that would copy and image my IRIX media and keep them > >bootable? if none for windows, i do have ubuntu linux loaded, although not > >compatible with my network devices so it is rarely used and cant download > >things. thanks!! > >-Joe > > > > > > > The easiest way to dump them to images would be to use "cat /dev/cdrom > > image.iso" or similar in a shell under Linux. > If you insist on Win32, I believe something called "MagicISO" http://www.magiciso.com/ should read the disks completely. However, its shareware 30$. (I've not actually tried it /w Irix disks, so YMMV) But the Linux method is the free one. Just use something fairly modern /w read-write NTFS support (if you need it) in the rescue image, and do the cat/dd route. From technobug at comcast.net Mon Feb 4 11:35:26 2008 From: technobug at comcast.net (CRC) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 10:35:26 -0700 Subject: Good Books In-Reply-To: <200802040949.m149nqL8092646@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802040949.m149nqL8092646@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <3D979166-2583-4A8A-AFB3-A0FD988C8228@comcast.net> A couple of good books showed up on one of the remainder vender's lists at substantial discount that might be of interest to the list: Item 7036752: Power Supply Troubleshooting and Repair - switch mode power supply repair Item 6324134: Semiconductor Cross Reference Book Found at (mail ordering) (on-line ordering) CRC From lproven at gmail.com Mon Feb 4 11:50:10 2008 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 17:50:10 +0000 Subject: Simple peer to peer network? In-Reply-To: <479E9DF1.9010506@jbrain.com> References: <479E9DF1.9010506@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <575131af0802040950v2350d344p19579a64d2f78184@mail.gmail.com> On 29/01/2008, Jim Brain wrote: > Sellam wants to finish the 64 c64 cluster for the next VCF. I've been > researching ideas for communicating among the machines, and the best > ideas point to using the two synchronous serial ports on the user port > (low wire count, transfers at 250kbps). > > But, I have grawn a complete blank on plans for a true peer to peer > (token based or otherwise) networking protocol. Everything I see is > master/slave. RS485 material talks about the hardware layer, but there > is no detail on the protocol layer. > > I would think this would be a well researched and innovated area, low > speed communication without a master node. Anyone have any pointers for > things to look into? This is probably not, by the sound of it, the sort of thing you're after, but there are Ethernet interfaces for the C64 now... http://www.dunkels.com/adam/tfe/ The Final Ethernet - C64 Ethernet Cartridge Quote: [[ The possibility of connecting the Commodore 64 to an Ethernet local area network has been a collective dream in the Commodore community for decades. A C64 Ethernet adapter would make it possible to connect the C64 directly to the Internet, making it possible to download software, transfer data to and from the C64, play network games over the Internet; the possibilities are endless. With our TFE cartridge (The Final Ethernet cartridge) this is now possible. TFE - The Final Ethernet The TFE cartridge is designed around Systor Vest AS' CS8900a-based Embedded Ethernet board. The board is mounted on a circuit board which contains a single 74LS139 chip that constitutes the glue logic between the C64 and the Ethernet chip. More information including the full schematics and pictures of the hardware can be found here. ]] Since it's by Adam Dunkels, I'd guess it runs under his ultra-ultra-lightweight multitasking OS for 8-bitters, Contiki. http://www.sics.se/contiki/ -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From lproven at gmail.com Mon Feb 4 12:36:00 2008 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 18:36:00 +0000 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <200802022048.33376.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <0JVI00MUDKNA65Q6@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> <200802022048.33376.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <575131af0802041036n7e29f71cv46080b118cf08add@mail.gmail.com> On 03/02/2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Thursday 31 January 2008 10:07, Allison wrote: > > Whats more interesting is there was nothing to prevent a termcap file > > and later improved CP/M work alikes did exactly that and many more things. > > What sort of stuff would you put into the category of "CP/M work alikes"? Closest thing that comes to mind was Chris Pile's "Pro-Dos" for the MGT SAM Coupe: http://www.samcoupe-pro-dos.co.uk/whatisprodos.html Used no DR code but was compatible enough to rum CP/M <=2.2 apps. I seem to recall hearing of others, though. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From legalize at xmission.com Mon Feb 4 12:42:08 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:42:08 -0700 Subject: Good Books In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:35:26 -0700. <3D979166-2583-4A8A-AFB3-A0FD988C8228@comcast.net> Message-ID: I've bought many, many books from this seller (Edward R. Hamilton) before and recommend them highly. Shipping is a flat fee, regardless of how many books you order. (I once ordered about a hundred pounds of books and the shipping was still only $3.) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Mon Feb 4 13:48:18 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:48:18 -0800 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <200802040950.m149nqLB092646@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802040950.m149nqLB092646@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47A6FB82.11268.33ECFB@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 07:34:54 -0500 > From: Allison > NOvados, DOS+, ZRdos, Zsdos and ZCPR addons to CP/M. There were also the independent implementations such as TPM (for the QX-10) and TuboDOS. There were others, even a a couple that provided the capability to run CP/M 2.2 programs under non-CP/M OS Z80 platforms. CP/M, particularly 2.2 was easily cloned. Most applications used the information in the reference manual set and didn't rely on "undocumented" features. IIRC, the bigger problem when MP/M came along, was trying to work with those programs that were just plain sloppy and performed file open requests without closing the file (since CP/M didn't even keep so much as an open file count, you could be very sloppy, even opening a file multiple times or not at all (as long as you filled in the FCB fields correctly). Some programs saved FCBs and then used them later. I wanted to add a "put that diskette back" alarm to my CP/M implementation when there were files opened for writing (one needn't even turn on the drive motor--just periodically sample the write- protect status; a diskette being inserted or removed will toggle it a couple of times). I'd already done it for DX-85M and it reduced our diskette file corruption problems to nearly zero. That "R/O error" diagnostic from CP/M was unreliable at best and nearly useless even when it worked. It was then that I discovered that CP/M made no attempt to track open files and indeed, the behavior of many programs depended on this. Cheers, Chuck From brain at jbrain.com Mon Feb 4 13:52:57 2008 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:52:57 -0600 Subject: Simple peer to peer network? In-Reply-To: <575131af0802040950v2350d344p19579a64d2f78184@mail.gmail.com> References: <479E9DF1.9010506@jbrain.com> <575131af0802040950v2350d344p19579a64d2f78184@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47A76D19.5070108@jbrain.com> Liam Proven wrote: > http://www.dunkels.com/adam/tfe/ > > The Final Ethernet - C64 Ethernet Cartridge > Yeah, there a couple. TFE (above), RR-NET, ETH64, and one from AU that I forgot the name. As noted, it's not really what I am looking for. Jim From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Mon Feb 4 14:32:05 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:32:05 -0600 Subject: Simple peer to peer network? In-Reply-To: <575131af0802040950v2350d344p19579a64d2f78184@mail.gmail.com> References: <479E9DF1.9010506@jbrain.com> <575131af0802040950v2350d344p19579a64d2f78184@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47A77645.1060602@gmail.com> Liam Proven wrote: > This is probably not, by the sound of it, the sort of thing you're > after, but there are Ethernet interfaces for the C64 now... Or, for giggles, something like Cambridge Ring could be interesting. Or maybe Econet - although I drew up some stuff for a cluster of BBC micros a year or so ago and came to the conclusion that Econet would be a bit inefficient, and that doing everything byte-wide via the 6522 circuitry would be better. Unfortunately all of my notes are stuck in a box back in the UK :( cheers Jules From tiggerlasv at aim.com Mon Feb 4 15:23:05 2008 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:23:05 -0500 Subject: Q-BUS primer? Message-ID: <8CA358B43DB05E1-B40-19A7@webmail-nd16.sysops.aol.com> On 04-Feb-08, Jerome H. Fine wrote: >Probably your best option is to use the BA23 box. However, for that >option, you really need a quad M8189 CPU (PDP-11/23) >or a quad M8190 CPU (PDP-11/73). >It is entirely possible to use the dual M8186 CPU (PDP-11/23), however, >you will then require a controller with a boot ROM (usually only available >with a 3rd party disk controller) or you will need to enter the >boot program via ODT each time you power on the system. If you look carefully down the list, he's got an M8047 - MXV11 with (P)roms, so he'll be able to use the 11/23 that he already has, and, depending on the roms installed, should be able to perform an MSCP boot. >Entering the boot program manually (by hand one instruction at a time) >takes about 5 minutes. A boot program for the MSCP M7555 controller >is available. Entering bootstrap by hand? Eeek! That is what macros on terminal emulators are for. ;-) ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From rogpugh at mac.com Mon Feb 4 15:49:41 2008 From: rogpugh at mac.com (Roger Pugh) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 21:49:41 +0000 Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: <04fd01c86720$797e64c0$02fea8c0@portajara> References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> <938600c8b76450268fe9016deb9175b3@mac.com> <47A5E709.7090903@atarimuseum.com> <47A5F742.4000902@atarimuseum.com> <20080203144527.R21919@shell.lmi.net> <04fd01c86720$797e64c0$02fea8c0@portajara> Message-ID: <1d16da42892082ded253525f8a7276cd@mac.com> Thanks for your help guys.. I think i will try spinrite if i can find a copy. i used to have it!!!! For now, i think i will try an 8bit ide card i have, other options will be replacing the HD and card with either a Hardcard or an 8bit scsi system Thanks again for your advise Roger From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Feb 4 16:17:16 2008 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 14:17:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: <1d16da42892082ded253525f8a7276cd@mac.com> References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> <004601c86607$fb4a8bb0$f1dfa310$@com> <938600c8b76450268fe9016deb9175b3@mac.com> <47A5E709.7090903@atarimuseum.com> <47A5F742.4000902@atarimuseum.com> <20080203144527.R21919@shell.lmi.net> <04fd01c86720$797e64c0$02fea8c0@portajara> <1d16da42892082ded253525f8a7276cd@mac.com> Message-ID: <20080204141615.X74965@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 4 Feb 2008, Roger Pugh wrote: > Thanks for your help guys.. I think i will try spinrite if i can find > a copy. i used to have it!!!! For now, i think i will try an 8bit ide > card i have, other options will be replacing the HD and card with > either a Hardcard or an 8bit scsi system > Thanks again for your advise Spinrite has a few strangwe issues, including not always respecting manually locked out clusters. Speedstor is somewhat better for the purpose. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Feb 4 16:21:16 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 22:21:16 +0000 (GMT) Subject: MC3470 In-Reply-To: <47A66A5A.8040101@dunnington.plus.com> from "Pete Turnbull" at Feb 4, 8 01:28:58 am Message-ID: > > On 03/02/2008 23:59, Tony Duell wrote: > > > Do you mean that? I thought the output (pin 10) pulse width was set byu > > the RC network on pins 8 and 9. Do you really mean that the offset adjust > > preset is used to get all the pulses equally spaced, rather than occuring > > in pairs (which is the most likely result of an imbalance in the cicuit, > > I think). > > > > Or do you adjust for 50% duty cycle at some other point? > > You adjust the offset adjust preset for a 50% duty cycle output, > according to the Sony manual. > > -- > Pete Peter Turnbull > Network Manager > University of York > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Feb 4 16:59:33 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 22:59:33 +0000 (GMT) Subject: MC3470 In-Reply-To: from "Tony Duell" at Feb 4, 8 10:21:16 pm Message-ID: > > On 03/02/2008 23:59, Tony Duell wrote: > > > Do you mean that? I thought the output (pin 10) pulse width was set byu > > the RC network on pins 8 and 9. Do you really mean that the offset adjust > > preset is used to get all the pulses equally spaced, rather than occuring > > in pairs (which is the most likely result of an imbalance in the cicuit, > > I think). > > > > Or do you adjust for 50% duty cycle at some other point? > > You adjust the offset adjust preset for a 50% duty cycle output, > according to the Sony manual. Do I conclude that you've never actually done it? Neither have I, of course. I think I am going to have to experiment with a 'spare' drive PCB -- I'm sure I can find a drive with ad heads or something. It'll not be soon (too many other things to do, but I'll let you know how I get on. -tony From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Feb 4 18:19:33 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 21:19:33 -0300 Subject: MicroAnglelo text editor References: <200802041801.m14I14ZR098139@dewey.classiccmp.org> <22149.72.16.194.2.1202148476.squirrel@users.frii.com> Message-ID: <01ec01c8678d$691c2140$01fea8c0@portajara> >I found a web page by a guy who made his own MicroAngelo clone. Its a > pretty neat web page but it hasn't been updated for many years, and he > doesn't seem to respond to emails. > http://www.infinetivity.com/~delscott/ua.htm 16 Z80s in Parallel?!?!? Wow, he seems to be crazier than most of us - toghether :o) From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Feb 4 19:22:00 2008 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:22:00 +0000 Subject: Q-BUS primer? In-Reply-To: <8CA358B43DB05E1-B40-19A7@webmail-nd16.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA358B43DB05E1-B40-19A7@webmail-nd16.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <47A7BA38.8060206@dunnington.plus.com> On 04/02/2008 21:23, tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > On 04-Feb-08, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > >> Probably your best option is to use the BA23 box. However, for that >> option, you really need a quad M8189 CPU (PDP-11/23) >> or a quad M8190 CPU (PDP-11/73). > >> It is entirely possible to use the dual M8186 CPU (PDP-11/23), however, >> you will then require a controller with a boot ROM (usually only > available >> with a 3rd party disk controller) or you will need to enter the >> boot program via ODT each time you power on the system. Or use the RX01 controller and drives (assuming they're present) and run RT-11, booting off the MXV11. > If you look carefully down the list, he's got an M8047 - MXV11 with > (P)roms, > so he'll be able to use the 11/23 that he already has, and, depending on > the > roms installed, should be able to perform an MSCP boot. M8047 is an MXV11-A, and there's no standard MSCP boot available for that. The MXV11-A will only boot RX01, RX02, RL01, RL02, TU58. You can't even write bootstrap code for it in the way you can for a BDV11 or MXV11-B, or a microPDP-11/23plus because the ROMs aren't window-mapped and you can only get at 256 bytes. You can choose which 256-byte page by wire-wrapping, but not in software. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Feb 4 19:24:13 2008 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:24:13 +0000 Subject: MC3470 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47A7BABD.1060901@dunnington.plus.com> On 04/02/2008 22:59, Tony Duell wrote: > Do I conclude that you've never actually done it? Yes, I have. The last time was probably 25+ years ago, but that's exactly what I did -- constant stream of data and set the pot for a square wave on the scope. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Feb 5 00:21:19 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:21:19 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <47A55D0C.16642.461BA86@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200802031306.m13D5ZGf076585@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47A55D0C.16642.461BA86@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200802050121.21160.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 03 February 2008 09:19, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > However while the IO was better CP/M had a far better file system that > > accomodated fragmentation (scatter/gather) where RT-11 (and NS* DOS) had > > the linear tag and dump that made enlarging a files or creating variable > > length files harder. > > On the other hand, fragmentation on a floppy can result in very bad > performance--and CP/M had no "defragment" utility. Sure it did. It was whatever you used to format a disk... :-) Seriously, I'd copy stuff off elsewhere and then with a clean start re-copy it back again, no fragmentation. I thought I had remembered one, but can't seem to find it at the moment. > I can see the advantages of a system that tends to keep files in a small > number of pieces. I've seen the single-piece file structure a lot on > industrial equipment controllers. > > > Assemble CP/M BDOS at around 100k using ASM and you find any disk under > > 400K free space is too small. You still see that today with faster disks > > and interfaces. > > CP/M was singularly ill-equipped to support hard disks of any size beyond a > couple of megabytes. We'd started offering SA-8000 14" drives as an option > and before too many months, we were getting 40MB drives for what we'd been > paying for the single-platter ones. 5.25" HD size increases went even more > quickly. We bought 7 and 14MB drives from Rodime and it wasn't long before > Rodime was telling us that they were substituting 10MB and 20MB drives. I > was asked if I could artificially (via software) limit the new drives to 7MB > and 14MB so that marketing could charge for the extra storage. I > discouraged the idea very strongly, pointing out that the customers weren't > stupid--someone was going to peek inside and read the drive nameplate. I have a couple of different boxes for HDs under CP/M. One has the "Design One" brand name on the box, and a WD-1000 (?) card in it, and is designed to plug into my Osborne Executive. It originally had a Tulin HD in it (the only time I've ever encountered one) which had some really bad bearings in it. They were so bad you didn't want to be in the room when it was on. This got replaced by an ST-225, only I was never able to access and use all of that drive and it made some really horrible noises when you tried to. I was able to hack at the software that came with it (some kind of custom boot disk I can't recall the details of now) and suspect that the problem had to do with write precomp, which I think the -225 required past a certain cylinder, but what was a meg and change of unusable HD space out of 20M under CP/M? Not all that much. The box also came with a linear power supply originally, but that got replaced with a switcher after an otherwise minor power glitch ate the first track and I had to painstakingly rebuild lots of directory entries, something I don't think I'd care to try these days. The other box is carrying the Westwind (?) name, also sold earlier on under the Trantor brand, and has a pair of ST251s in it, and is intended to be used with this one Kaypro I have here. That one put a small adapter board under the Z80 and fed a 50-wire ribbon cable out the back. I forget how many drive letters that setup used offhand. Still worked the last time I tried it, but that wasn't any time recently at all. > CP/M's single-level directory wasn't suited at all to this kind of thing, > even using the "user number" feature--something for which DRI never came up > with a command-line syntax to express, which further hurt matters. Oh yeah. I think if there were one thing I'd like to change about CP/M that would probably be it, give me a multi-level directory. Last time I gave that some thought I was considering using something like *.LBR files do, only in those the utilities commonly used would have you set the number of entries you wanted to add at the outset, and you had to go through some stuff to add more or compact it., and compressing/decompressing library members was a whole separate operation and also had to be done manually. But I think it's possible. I did have a "COMMAND.LBR" that was around 600K in size, had all sorts of stuff in it, though mostly I used a fairly small handful of utilities. > But then DRI was really thinking of the "user number" feature as that- > -there was the system (user 0) and your own files under your number, > never considering that some users might want to use the feature to > organize their data and go cross-number frequently. Yup, that's exactly what I did. I used utilities like NSWEEP that would, if you invoked them right, show you all of the files under all user numbers and display which one a file belonged to, which was handy (and I've been way too much of a user of "show me a list" file utilities ever since). I also remember that showing me some really odd things when I tried it on some of the variants, like whatever it was that Televideo I had was running. Oh, and I forgot about that one, it has a 40M HD in it -- eight inch! And belt-driven. I started having problems reading that drive the last time I played with it, and Don Maslin was nice enough to send me a belt for it, though I never did get around to putting it in there. One of these days, maybe I will... Any of you know how some of the CP/M variants dealt with HDs and these other issues? -- 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 Feb 5 00:31:36 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:31:36 -0500 Subject: compaq portable plus problems In-Reply-To: References: <47A604E2.42D45421@west.net> Message-ID: <200802050131.37313.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 03 February 2008 13:37, Paxton Hoag wrote: > > > does anyone know the correct incantation to low level format an MFM > > > drive, a rodime 351, driven by a Compaq controller board. > > > > > > I,ve tried with debug G=C800:5 to no avail. there is no format program > > > there!. > > The Adaptec 2070A controller used G=C800:CCC and it is an 8 bit HD > controller of that vintage. > > I have had several of the Compaq II Pluss in the past and ISTR that > the Format SW is on the Diagnostic disk, but it has been too many > years to be sure. One Compaq we have around here, while somewhat later (I think it's a P60 or somesuch) had a separate diagnostic partition on the original 500M drive. In trying to stuff another drive in there I was able to download all sorts of stuff from their web site, which may or may not be possible with something as old as what's being talked about here, but it's something that might be worth a shot... They did seem rather fond of that sort of thing, and a utility rather than the more common debug route wouldn't surprise me in the least, particularly if they've got their own ROM in the controller. -- 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 Feb 5 00:33:42 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:33:42 -0500 Subject: Digitalker, SP0256,and SC-01 speech chips (was Re: Digitalker Information) In-Reply-To: <001101c866af$5c0069a0$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <47A14DBB.3060905@jbrain.com> <20080203052535.GA400@usap.gov> <001101c866af$5c0069a0$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <200802050133.42452.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 03 February 2008 16:54, Scanning wrote: > Pete, > > The SP0256 had the best sounding speech I think ( it uses twice as many > speech sounds ( 128 allophones ? ) as the SC-01 only had 64 phonemes )). > The SC-01 is very easy to use ( it was used in the Heathkit Hero Robots ) > but sounds very robotic and " nasal ". Heathkit Robots did have some songs > ( like " Daisy " that HAL sang in 2001 ) but it sings as well as William > Shatner .... All depends on what you are looking for; quality or easy to > use. How about the computer on Star Trek? Or the one on Andromeda? Sexy female voice would be good, particularly... :-) -- 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 Feb 5 00:45:15 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:45:15 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: References: <858825.36457.qm@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <200802021747.15884.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200802050145.15498.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 03 February 2008 23:36, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Feb 2, 2008, at 5:47 PM, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > Other code that often needed to be modified for specific hardware > > or machines were comm stuff, which more often seemed to have a bunch of > > "overlays" available for each machine, so that things could address the > > serial port (or the PMMI S-100 bus modem) properly. > > > > I probably have piles of this stuff in my old bbs files area, if > > there's much interest in it. > > I'm always interested in CP/M stuff...is it available online? I just put the file "tans_cpm.zip" at http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason , let me know if there's anything specific in there that you want and we'll work it out from there. Or if the file isn't accessible for some reason. A lot of what I've got is from the old Simtel CP/M archives, some of it cleaned up a bit and repackaged, some other bits added from here and there. I've had the idle thought lately of putting a bunch of what used to be in the bbs files sections online, or at least portions of it, but time is tight these days, so it'll have to wait for a while, though I don't mind passing files along to what folks want 'em. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Feb 5 00:58:20 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:58:20 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <0JVN009Y1X9L0TS1@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JVN009Y1X9L0TS1@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <200802050158.20789.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 03 February 2008 07:27, Allison wrote: (Snip) > >I'd like to implement something that'd not only use one of those > > single-byte calls, but take the data inline, as well -- no need to load > > it into registers to pass it along, though there are some rather clumsy > > aspects to getting the stack pointer and fixing it... > > That was easy in 8080. > > ;routine gets 16bit word passed on stack before call > ; doesn't do anthing but put that item in bc > RRST: org 010h > shld hlsave > pop hl ;hl has return address > pop bc ; BC has data > push hl ; hl back to stack > lhld hlsave ; restor hl > ret > > ;caller > caller: push bc ;data in bc > rst2 > ...... Yup, but that assumes that you want two bytes. CP/M would give a function code and then anywhere from zero parameters to several of varying lengths and some even were pointers to tables and data areas. You might also want to bump the return pointer past the data. :-) I'd been playing with some monitor code a while back, and haven't been able to find it until recently when I found a handwritten set of notes on it, which I suppose it better than nothing. I used a dispatch table, and an 8-bit function code. The lower half of the table was indexed according to ascii characters and was therefore for stuff that would make sense to key in, while the upper half wasn't. A function code corresponding to unwritten eprom (0ffh) would print "crash!" and return control to the monitor, though it occurs to me lately that printing out a bit more info might be useful. Anyhow I'd had some code there that would pull the function code out of the calling code's stuff, and then also whatever parameters might be needed for that function, and adjust the return address as necessary to bypass all that stuff. I think rather than use a scratchpad location to save HL into I just swapped it with the top of the stack, which would give you HL pointing to the first byte beyond the call, though it's been several years since I worked on this and my recollection is a bit more than fuzzy about the whole thing. > >> For those that never used a really nice bios try a VT180, it didn't > >> do two sided but those disks where just emerging at the time. It did > >> implement interrupts with ring buffers for IO. > > > >Can you point to anything specific with regard to this? > > Interrupt driven, has some basic terminal sense (vt100 specific) > and uses IObyte. Sounds worth looking at, is it out there anywhere? (Snip) > >> Thats a lot of available CPU cycles. the biggest areas of change is that > >> modem programs werent pausing for disk IO, they could fill a big (say > >> 16k) circular buffer and the cpu can be processing interrupts for IO and > >> disk to manage transfers rather than doing a lot of waiting in loops. It > >> doesn't take a lot more code but the complexity and debugging is greater > >> due to the near concurrent activities. > > > >One of the real problems I had with early BBSing was the fact that I was > > using a CP/M box and that had only a lmiited buffer in the modem program > > (probably MDM740 at first, IMP a bit later I think), while the guy at > > the other end had a newer and higher-speed modem that had several K of > > buffer in it that it would continue to empty after my end had asked it to > > hold on a minute... > > In many cases no buffer. it was more like the other end would stop but by > time you told it to your 1 byte maybe 2 buffer overflowed. I could be mistaken but I think those early comm programs had something like 128 or 256 bytes of buffer in them. Which was like nothing when the higher-speed modem on the other end had several K... > Often the probem with byte at a time IO without interrutps. A more > reasonable IO would be buffered 64 or 128 chars sing style with high > water marking. Interrupt driven of course. > > >That same program had a print or capture buffer (I forget exactly now) > > that was way bigger, something on the order of 16K, and it came to me > > to use that for buffering the input rather than the teeny buffer > > provided, but I never did get around to making that particular > > modification to it. > > 16k was magical as that was the size of a standard CP/M extent and usually > assumed to be enough space for capture. Noted. :-) -- 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 Feb 5 01:00:47 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:00:47 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <0JVN009AQXP9FWS2@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JVN009AQXP9FWS2@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <200802050200.48101.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 03 February 2008 07:34, Allison wrote: > >On Thursday 31 January 2008 10:07, Allison wrote: > >> Whats more interesting is there was nothing to prevent a termcap file > >> and later improved CP/M work alikes did exactly that and many more > >> things. > > > >What sort of stuff would you put into the category of "CP/M work alikes"? > > NOvados, DOS+, ZRdos, Zsdos and ZCPR addons to CP/M. They all could run > CP/M programs but added things missing from basic V2.2. The gotacha was > they required z80 as they were stuffing all that into the same space > required by V2.2. Not much of a gotcha, I don't think I'll be doing much with the 8080 these days anyhow, and pretty much every single one of the CP/M boxes I have on hand here are all equipped with a Z80. ZCPR I've run across, those others are not familiar to me. Are they out there and available? Might be worth a look at them if so. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Feb 5 01:06:42 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:06:42 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <3115C3F4B1D@dunfield.com> References: <3115C3F4B1D@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <200802050206.42627.rtellason@verizon.net> On Monday 04 February 2008 07:21, Dave Dunfield wrote: > I don't think he was talking about pushing data on the stack, > I thought he was refering to putting the system service request > number inline with the code. Yup... > This is exactly what I do on both my DMF (8080) and CUBIX (6809) > OS's. > > I use an 'SSR' macro which looks something like (DMF/8080): > > SSR MACRO > RST 2 > DB \1 > END > > > It's fairly easy to fetch this: > > SSRENT: STA savea ; Save accumulator > XTHL ; HL = calling address > MOV A,M ; Get service request number > INX H ; Skip for return > XTHL ; Restore HL & new return address > ; Now you have the SSR number in A > ; most likely you would use it to index into a handler > ; table sith something like: (untested) > PUSH H ; Save application HL > MOV L,A ; L = SSR number > MVI H,0 ; Zero high > DAD H ; x2 for two byte entries > PUSH B ; Save BC > LXI B,JMPTAB ; Point to jump table > DAD B ; Offset to table > POP B ; Restore B > MOV A,M ; Get low address > INX H ; Advance to high > MOV H,M ; Get high address > MOV L,A ; Set low address > XTHL ; Restore HL, dest on stack > LDA savea ; Restore A > RET ; Jump to caller > > 'JMPTAB' would contain a series of 2-byte addresses of > the individual SSR handlers. Only I called mine "OPTAB". And the register usage was slightly different, but that's pretty darn close to what I was doing. :-) > In practice it's usually a bit more complex ... iirc > in my SSR entry I save most of the registers (so that > the handlers don't have to) and switch to my own stack > (but it's been a very long time so I may be mistaken). Yup I had some entry points just do as little as what was necessary and others save *all* registers so we could do things like display them if we wanted to or whatever, and that included switching to the monitor's stack as well. > In the application code, you can then do things like: > > MVI A,'?' ; Get prompt > SSR 3 ; Output to console (two byte OS call) Just so, which strikes me as a whole lot more efficient than having to use a 3-byte CALL instruction after loading a function code into one register (and maybe needing to save that beforehand) and maybe the same with some other registers as well. It was the days when every byte counted, right? :-) -- 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 Feb 5 01:20:29 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:20:29 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <47A6FB82.11268.33ECFB@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200802040950.m149nqLB092646@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47A6FB82.11268.33ECFB@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200802050220.34745.rtellason@verizon.net> On Monday 04 February 2008 14:48, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I wanted to add a "put that diskette back" alarm to my CP/M > implementation when there were files opened for writing :-) > (one needn't even turn on the drive motor--just periodically sample the > write-protect status; a diskette being inserted or removed will toggle it a > couple of times). I had some drives that also had a switch that would go active when the door was opened, I think originally intended for the Wang PC or similar, they're FH 5.25" but worked as well as anything else with the Bigboard II when I had them hooked up to it. > I'd already done it for DX-85M What's that? > and it reduced our diskette file corruption problems to nearly zero. > That "R/O error" diagnostic from CP/M was unreliable at best and nearly > useless even when it worked. Yes. > It was then that I discovered that CP/M made no attempt to track open > files and indeed, the behavior of many programs depended on this. It wasn't really much of an OS, compared to a lot of what else was out 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 chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 3 12:52:41 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 10:52:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: How compatible were "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <200802021737.52435.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <964242.21811.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> I want Wang cards like that. Don't have a Wang, but I still want the card... --- "Roy J. Tellason" wrote: > On Tuesday 29 January 2008 14:54, > scheefj at netscape.net wrote: > > When I first became interested in collecting (late > 80's) my first target > > was "DOS Incompatibles" like those named above. I > had a Wang PC (great > > text but little IBM compatibility), Zenith, etc. > > I used to work with a dealer that sold those, and I > recall a board that you > could add to them to make them somewhat more > compatible, though I don't > remember now what was on it. > > The last time I had boards and other parts for one > of those I couldn't find > *any* interest in them at all. Might've been before > I found this list, > 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 > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 11:12:44 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 09:12:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mindset Computers In-Reply-To: <47A64B8A.4070203@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <797393.53720.qm@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> I have a good deal of development docs for these things. I could work on committing them to digital format at some point. Strangely I don't have the BASIC manual though (just the slipcover OI!). If you have a spare BASIC cartridge, or one you can loan me, or even a hex dump and a layout of the board...It would be greatly appreciated. --- "Curt @ Atari Museum" wrote: > I finally had some time this weekend and started to > put together a > website devoted to Mindset Computer Corp. Its > still very light on > information, but its a decent start: > > > www.mindsetcomputer.com > > > > > Curt > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 4 11:39:25 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 09:39:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: making backups of IRIX media In-Reply-To: <1202143130.29942.4.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> Message-ID: <546502.14272.qm@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> yuck a couple of years ago someone offered to load up a hard drive with IRIX if I sent them one. He also offered to put a demo version of, uh, trying to remember, 100% Alcohol or something like that on it. It was, TTBOMK, a cd-burning program. Hope that helps. I never took advantage. Some really kewell fellow on the list sent me a whole bloomin box of IRIX warez. Sealed and all. Hot diggity. --- David Holland wrote: > On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 02:52 -0700, Andrew Warkentin > wrote: > > joe lobocki wrote: > > > > >hello, > > >I need help making backups of my valuable IRIX > media. I have heard that you > > >can use CDRWIN, and i did, which made a decent > backup, except I couldnt boot > > >from the copy, and CDRWIN wont work properly on > my laptop. is there any good > > >windows based program that would copy and image > my IRIX media and keep them > > >bootable? if none for windows, i do have ubuntu > linux loaded, although not > > >compatible with my network devices so it is > rarely used and cant download > > >things. thanks!! > > >-Joe > > > > > > > > > > > The easiest way to dump them to images would be to > use "cat /dev/cdrom > > > image.iso" or similar in a shell under Linux. > > > > If you insist on Win32, I believe something called > "MagicISO" > http://www.magiciso.com/ should read the disks > completely. However, its > shareware 30$. (I've not actually tried it /w Irix > disks, so YMMV) > > But the Linux method is the free one. Just use > something fairly > modern /w read-write NTFS support (if you need it) > in the rescue image, > and do the cat/dd route. > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From les at frii.com Mon Feb 4 12:07:56 2008 From: les at frii.com (les at frii.com) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 11:07:56 -0700 (MST) Subject: MicroAnglelo text editor In-Reply-To: <200802041801.m14I14ZR098139@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802041801.m14I14ZR098139@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <22149.72.16.194.2.1202148476.squirrel@users.frii.com> I found a web page by a guy who made his own MicroAngelo clone. Its a pretty neat web page but it hasn't been updated for many years, and he doesn't seem to respond to emails. http://www.infinetivity.com/~delscott/ua.htm From harten at injectstar.de Mon Feb 4 14:50:09 2008 From: harten at injectstar.de (Harten) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:50:09 +0200 Subject: DEC LA180 printer In-Reply-To: <200802011819.m11IJ3ch015535@mail.itm-inst.com> References: <0f7a6a694f.harten@injectstar.de> <624966d60801312127m7e77ed71q4b2a0f83ea6f937c@mail.gmail.com> <200802011235.m11CZuaP014811@mail.itm-inst.com> <78CAB618-571E-4236-97B1-94FD77C1D21C@neurotica.com> <200802011819.m11IJ3ch015535@mail.itm-inst.com> Message-ID: In message <200802011819.m11IJ3ch015535 at mail.itm-inst.com> you wrote: > At 09:37 AM 2/1/2008, Dave McGuire wrote: > >On Feb 1, 2008, at 6:35 AM, Rick Murphy wrote: > >>>My books are still in storage,( basement wall are up! ), but I > >>>seem to > >>>recall the LA36 had adjustments on the servo. Could the LA180? > >> > >>Yes, it's basically the same mechanism. > >>I've sent the maintenance manual to der Mouse for scanning. > > > > LA36 and LA180 are the same mechanism? Are you sure? I don't > >recall much similarity there, especially in terms of speed. > > That's what I meant by "basically". :-) It's quite similar. > Unidirectional, belt-driven. Motor has a sensor disc on the back for > position pickup. I doubt there's any parts that are interchangable, > though, so you're correct. > -Rick > > I just managed to fix the problem with the init-sequence. There was a faulty IC "9601PC" by which the controller senses that the servo-motor isn't able to turn (paper jam). The LA180 has the same sensors on the back of its servo-motor as the LA36 to count the dot colums and to determine the direction of carriage movement. It took me one hour to adjust the sensors mechanical and electrical (and i have a oscilloscope to watch the signals against each other). Now on power-up the carriage moves slowly to the left side where it stucks for a short while and then moves a litte (a few mm) right - no error bell! On setting the selftest switch to the ON position (paper loaded) an putting the machine ON-LINE, the paper ist continiously feeded but no character is printed. Any idea? Axel Harten. From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Mon Feb 4 18:14:33 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:14:33 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVQ0096XO40FC4H@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: "Dave Dunfield" > Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 07:21:16 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >> >I'd like to implement something that'd not only use one of those single-byte >> >calls, but take the data inline, as well -- no need to load it into >> >registers to pass it along, though there are some rather clumsy aspects to >> >getting the stack pointer and fixing it... >> >> That was easy in 8080. >> >> ;routine gets 16bit word passed on stack before call >> ; doesn't do anthing but put that item in bc >> RRST: org 010h >> shld hlsave >> pop hl ;hl has return address >> pop bc ; BC has data >> push hl ; hl back to stack >> lhld hlsave ; restor hl >> ret >> >> ;caller >> caller: push bc ;data in bc >> rst2 >> ...... > >I don't think he was talking about pushing data on the stack, >I thought he was refering to putting the system service request >number inline with the code. The way you can "force that" in cpm is use the above code to call say RST2 where the call is broken out and organized in registers per cpm normal. It also has to preserve registers and adjust the returned data to be on the stack but it's not that bad. >This is exactly what I do on both my DMF (8080) and CUBIX (6809) >OS's. Understood and like it better too. However it's more natural for 6809 where 8080/z80 is kinda clunky around playing with stack. >I use an 'SSR' macro which looks something like (DMF/8080): > >SSR MACRO > RST 2 > DB \1 > END > > >It's fairly easy to fetch this: > >SSRENT: STA savea ; Save accumulator > XTHL ; HL = calling address > MOV A,M ; Get service request number > INX H ; Skip for return > XTHL ; Restore HL & new return address >; Now you have the SSR number in A >; most likely you would use it to index into a handler >; table sith something like: (untested) > PUSH H ; Save application HL > MOV L,A ; L = SSR number > MVI H,0 ; Zero high > DAD H ; x2 for two byte entries > PUSH B ; Save BC > LXI B,JMPTAB ; Point to jump table > DAD B ; Offset to table > POP B ; Restore B > MOV A,M ; Get low address > INX H ; Advance to high > MOV H,M ; Get high address > MOV L,A ; Set low address > XTHL ; Restore HL, dest on stack > LDA savea ; Restore A > RET ; Jump to caller That mkes the code read easier and may be easier to maintain but that hides whats really there unles you unroll the code. > >'JMPTAB' would contain a series of 2-byte addresses of >the individual SSR handlers. > >In practice it's usually a bit more complex ... iirc >in my SSR entry I save most of the registers (so that >the handlers don't have to) and switch to my own stack >(but it's been a very long time so I may be mistaken). > >In the application code, you can then do things like: > > MVI A,'?' ; Get prompt > SSR 3 ; Output to console (two byte OS call) > > >Dave Those are interesting ways to deal with it that I'd not have done. Chalk that up to lack of imagination on my part. Allison >-- >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 jlobocki at gmail.com Mon Feb 4 18:39:52 2008 From: jlobocki at gmail.com (joe lobocki) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 18:39:52 -0600 Subject: making backups of IRIX media In-Reply-To: <546502.14272.qm@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> References: <1202143130.29942.4.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> <546502.14272.qm@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: sweet! i think its alcohol 120%, but I think I will try the linux thing because that sounds like it will work the best. so the ISO file is the WHOLE DISC, boot tracks and all, and will burn the image exactly as it was copied? I have had knowledge and worked with ISO files, but they have always been a gray area for me as to how they worked. thanks for the ideas! On Feb 4, 2008 11:39 AM, Chris M wrote: > yuck a couple of years ago someone offered to load up > a hard drive with IRIX if I sent them one. He also > offered to put a demo version of, uh, trying to > remember, 100% Alcohol or something like that on it. > It was, TTBOMK, a cd-burning program. Hope that helps. > I never took advantage. Some really kewell fellow on > the list sent me a whole bloomin box of IRIX warez. > Sealed and all. Hot diggity. > > --- David Holland wrote: > > > On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 02:52 -0700, Andrew Warkentin > > wrote: > > > joe lobocki wrote: > > > > > > >hello, > > > >I need help making backups of my valuable IRIX > > media. I have heard that you > > > >can use CDRWIN, and i did, which made a decent > > backup, except I couldnt boot > > > >from the copy, and CDRWIN wont work properly on > > my laptop. is there any good > > > >windows based program that would copy and image > > my IRIX media and keep them > > > >bootable? if none for windows, i do have ubuntu > > linux loaded, although not > > > >compatible with my network devices so it is > > rarely used and cant download > > > >things. thanks!! > > > >-Joe > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > The easiest way to dump them to images would be to > > use "cat /dev/cdrom > > > > image.iso" or similar in a shell under Linux. > > > > > > > If you insist on Win32, I believe something called > > "MagicISO" > > http://www.magiciso.com/ should read the disks > > completely. However, its > > shareware 30$. (I've not actually tried it /w Irix > > disks, so YMMV) > > > > But the Linux method is the free one. Just use > > something fairly > > modern /w read-write NTFS support (if you need it) > > in the rescue image, > > and do the cat/dd route. > > > > > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. > http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs > From derschjo at msu.edu Tue Feb 5 00:01:18 2008 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:01:18 -0800 Subject: How not to fix a classic mac (or: fried logic boards) In-Reply-To: References: <200711132330.lADNUE51017305@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47A7FBAE.1030208@msu.edu> Just to follow up on a very old thread -- I finally got a replacement LAG for my 512k Mac (thanks to a very helpful list member with a GAL programmer) and after replacing it, the Mac is once again functioning. So if you do accidentally do what I did (discharge the CRT to the main chassis) and you end up with a very long, drawn out boot beep, the LAG is quite possibly the culprit. Thanks once again to all you helpful folks. You've been, well, helpful :). - Josh > >> That particular failure is documented in Larry Pina's "Macintosh Repair >> and Upgrade Secrets" and probably in "The Dead Mac Scrolls" as well. >> I'd >> look it up for you, but I don't have my books with me here. > > Okay, I'm home, I have my books. It says on page 98 that discharging > the CRT without a big honking resistor may blow a 74LS38N (U2) on the > analog board and the LAG chip on the logic board. The former sounds > like it might be fairly standard. The latter sounds like it may be > one of the custom programmed PALs or GALs or whatever that Tony was > writing about. > > I wouldn't be surprised if folks had already figured out all the > internal logic for the various Mac 128/512/Plus chips though. Finding > it might be a bit of a challenge. > > OTOH, the LAG chip may be fine and it could be U2 on the analog board > that has the problem. > > Jeff Walther > > From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Tue Feb 5 01:53:22 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 07:53:22 +0000 Subject: Digitalker, SP0256, and SC-01 speech chips (was Re: Digitalker Information) In-Reply-To: <200802050133.42452.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <47A14DBB.3060905@jbrain.com> <20080203052535.GA400@usap.gov> <001101c866af$5c0069a0$0201a8c0@hal9000> <200802050133.42452.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20080205075322.GB30366@usap.gov> On Tue, Feb 05, 2008 at 01:33:42AM -0500, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Sunday 03 February 2008 16:54, Scanning wrote: > > Pete, > > > > The SP0256 had the best sounding speech I think ( it uses twice as many > > speech sounds ( 128 allophones ? ) as the SC-01 only had 64 phonemes )). 59 Allophones plus 6 pauses, according to the datasheet. > How about the computer on Star Trek? Or the one on Andromeda? Sexy female > voice would be good, particularly... :-) Those are human voices, not even machine sequenced - just voice actors (the Star Trek computer is Majel Barrett, for those that don't happen to know). There have to be more computer-generated-voice "characters" than just WOPR, right? -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 5-Feb-2008 at 07:50 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -38.2 F (-39.0 C) Windchill -48.4 F (-44.7 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 2.2 kts Grid 67 Barometer 676.8 mb (10749 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Feb 5 02:15:52 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 03:15:52 -0500 Subject: How compatible were "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <964242.21811.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> References: <964242.21811.qm@web61017.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200802050315.58689.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 03 February 2008 13:52, Chris M wrote: > I want Wang cards like that. Don't have a Wang, but I > still want the card... > > --- "Roy J. Tellason" wrote: > > On Tuesday 29 January 2008 14:54, > > scheefj at netscape.net wrote: > > > When I first became interested in collecting (late 80's) my first target > > > was "DOS Incompatibles" like those named above. I had a Wang PC (great > > > text but little IBM compatibility), Zenith, etc. > > > > I used to work with a dealer that sold those, and I recall a board that > > you could add to them to make them somewhat more compatible, though I > > don't remember now what was on it. Why, if you don't have that system? It was pretty oddball, for sure. The one thing I do recall about that card was that you plugged your monitor into it rather than into the usual place. But that monitor was totally non-standard, too -- it used a couple of different DIN connectors one of which was for supplying power to the monitor, which had no AC cord. -- 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 andreww at datanet.ab.ca Tue Feb 5 02:25:08 2008 From: andreww at datanet.ab.ca (Andrew Warkentin) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:25:08 -0700 Subject: making backups of IRIX media In-Reply-To: References: <1202143130.29942.4.camel@crusader.localdomain.home> <546502.14272.qm@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47A81D64.3020800@datanet.ab.ca> joe lobocki wrote: >sweet! i think its alcohol 120%, but I think I will try the linux thing >because that sounds like it will work the best. so the ISO file is the WHOLE >DISC, boot tracks and all, and will burn the image exactly as it was copied? >I have had knowledge and worked with ISO files, but they have always been a >gray area for me as to how they worked. thanks for the ideas! > > > It should boot. SGI MIPS workstations boot from a small partition containing a stand-alone shell. They don't really use "boot tracks". As long as you make an image of the whole CD rather than just the main partition, it will work (and Linux doesn't support partitions on CDs, so that is all that you can do under Linux). From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Tue Feb 5 02:28:54 2008 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 09:28:54 +0100 Subject: making backups of IRIX media In-Reply-To: <47A6E055.9040701@datanet.ab.ca> References: <47A6E055.9040701@datanet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <20080205092854.6ac26006@SirToby.dinner41.local> On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:52:21 -0700 Andrew Warkentin wrote: > The easiest way to dump them to images would be to use "cat /dev/cdrom > image.iso" or similar in a shell under Linux. This will not generate a 100% 1:1 copy. cat(1) or dd(1) will copy some extra sectors at the end of the media. (Lead out?) I use cdrdao(1) on unixish systems. It reads the TOC of the CD, copies all tracks of the CD and records metadata to generate a 100% 1:1 copy later. I made images (and later copies) of all my IRIX CDs and cdrdao(1) works well. I did this on an Octane running IRIX 6.5.2something. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From cclist at sydex.com Tue Feb 5 03:08:19 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:08:19 -0800 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <200802050748.m157mAN7023345@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802050748.m157mAN7023345@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47A7B703.19793.947AFC@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:20:29 -0500 > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > > I'd already done it for DX-85M > > What's that? Proprietary multitasking operating system, based on the 8085; basically the other end of the spectrum from CP/M. Included built-in- interrupt-driven I/O (including 4 channels of async), file types (i.e. differentiated between executable, data, index, etc.), built-in ISAM files and a bunch of other stuff. One of these days I'll chat about it if anyone's curious. Sometimes interrupt-driven I/O wasn't very good. We used an Intel 8275 CRTC in the CPU and some enterprising engineer decided to hardwire it to DMA channel 1, not 0. On the 8257 DMAC that meant that we couldn't use auto-initialize to keep the display going and basically had to re-initialize the DMA transfer between screens, using an end-of-screen interrupt. Servicing that interrupt 60 times per second was a big drag on the CPU--and if you missed it, the screen would flicker. Re: passing arguments on the stack. It's an interesting exercise on the 8085 using the "undocumented" instructions. For example, opcode 38H, which is a two-byte instruction would take SP, add the second instruction byte and stick the result in DE. Opcode 28H would do the same, but use HL instead of SP. Another 8085 16-bit operation, opcode D9H, would store HL in the address pointed to by DE. Opcode EDh would load HL from the address pointed to by DE. There were a couple of other 16-bit operations in 8085 not documented. 08H would subtract BC from HL, 10H shifted HL right one place with sign extension. 18H rotated DE left one place through the carry flag (i.e. 17 bit rotate). There were a few other instructions of less interest: a couple of jumps that tested for unsigned overflow and a conditional restart to location 40H (RST 8) if the overflow flag was set. With the exception of the double-precision subtract, none of these instructions have close analogues in the Z80 instruction set. Nor, AFAIK, did any commercial products exploit them. It was kind of unfortunate that Intel simply didn't leave blanks in the 8080 documentation for the "do nothing" moves; (e.g. MOV A,A; MOV B,B, etc.). It might have freed up a few more spare opcodes for later exploitation. Cheers, Chuck From lproven at gmail.com Tue Feb 5 04:19:10 2008 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 10:19:10 +0000 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <0JVN009AQXP9FWS2@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JVN009AQXP9FWS2@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <575131af0802050219r49e6786fi1e5bc58d4fba808a@mail.gmail.com> On 03/02/2008, Allison wrote: > > > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > > Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:48:33 -0500 > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > > >On Thursday 31 January 2008 10:07, Allison wrote: > >> Whats more interesting is there was nothing to prevent a termcap file > >> and later improved CP/M work alikes did exactly that and many more things. > > > >What sort of stuff would you put into the category of "CP/M work alikes"? > > NOvados, DOS+, ZRdos, Zsdos and ZCPR addons to CP/M. They all could run > CP/M programs but added things missing from basic V2.2. The gotacha was > they required z80 as they were stuffing all that into the same space > required by V2.2. Fascinating stuff. I had no idea there were so many. I used to do some support work on some early, 8-bit multiuser system which ran something called CP/M but which wasn't, not even remotely. The host machine was a single integrated unit - CRT screen, floppy drive, CPU and optionally had a 5MB hard disk built into the console. This had a bunch of serial ports on the back and could support half a dozen or so terminals. The OS was called "CPM8" or something but was like nothing I've ever seen before. Alas, now, with the passing of some 20y, I can't remember make, model or anything else... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 06:57:20 2008 From: silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com (silvercreekvalley) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 04:57:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for TK50 tapes & RX50 disks... Message-ID: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Hi, I'm in the process of restoring a 11/83 back to health. Its going OK so far, but I'm in need of some TK50/70 tapes for the tape drive and some RX50 5.25" disks. The RX50 disks - I'm assuming are different to regular 5.25" floppy disks (DSDD) - I do have some of those, but I'm told the magnetic composition of the RX50 disks is different? Finally, someone has changed one of the RX50 disk units for what looks like a standard (PC style) 5.25" disk drive. I'm just wondering if this was a standard thing to do, or a bodge? All the best Ian. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Feb 5 08:46:53 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 08:46:53 -0600 Subject: MicroAnglelo text editor In-Reply-To: <01ec01c8678d$691c2140$01fea8c0@portajara> References: <200802041801.m14I14ZR098139@dewey.classiccmp.org> <22149.72.16.194.2.1202148476.squirrel@users.frii.com> <01ec01c8678d$691c2140$01fea8c0@portajara> Message-ID: <47A876DD.4070003@gmail.com> Alexandre Souza wrote: >> I found a web page by a guy who made his own MicroAngelo clone. Its a >> pretty neat web page but it hasn't been updated for many years, and he >> doesn't seem to respond to emails. >> http://www.infinetivity.com/~delscott/ua.htm > > 16 Z80s in Parallel?!?!? Wow, he seems to be crazier than most of us > - toghether :o) Without a doubt, that's the best homebrew Z80 project I've seen - wow. cheers Jules From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Feb 5 09:08:49 2008 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 07:08:49 -0800 Subject: Looking for TK50 tapes & RX50 disks... In-Reply-To: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> References: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 4:57 AM -0800 2/5/08, silvercreekvalley wrote: >The RX50 disks - I'm assuming are different to regular >5.25" floppy disks (DSDD) - I do have some of those, >but >I'm told the magnetic composition of the RX50 disks is >different? There is an old DOS tool for turning PC floppies into RX50 floppies. IIRC, you need a 1.2Mb Floppy drive in the PC. I can't remember if you convert DSDD or DSHD floppies to RX50's. >Finally, someone has changed one of the RX50 disk >units >for what looks like a standard (PC style) 5.25" disk >drive. I'm just wondering if this was a standard thing >to do, or a bodge? Good question, sounds like you either have an RX33 or someone has hacked a Teac of the correct model to work as an RX33. 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 pete at dunnington.plus.com Tue Feb 5 09:34:49 2008 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:34:49 +0000 Subject: Looking for TK50 tapes & RX50 disks... In-Reply-To: References: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47A88219.4050901@dunnington.plus.com> On 05/02/2008 15:08, Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 4:57 AM -0800 2/5/08, silvercreekvalley wrote: >> The RX50 disks - I'm assuming are different to regular >> 5.25" floppy disks (DSDD) - I do have some of those, >> but >> I'm told the magnetic composition of the RX50 disks is >> different? > > There is an old DOS tool for turning PC floppies into RX50 floppies. > IIRC, you need a 1.2Mb Floppy drive in the PC. I can't remember if you > convert DSDD or DSHD floppies to RX50's. I was about to answer this, but Zane beat me to it. DSDD (or SSDD) is what you need, as RX50s are single-sided 80-track double-density MFM. What's odd about the format is that it uses 10 sectors of 512 bytes per track, which is quite a tight fit. That gives you a 400KB formatted floppy. >> Finally, someone has changed one of the RX50 disk >> units >> for what looks like a standard (PC style) 5.25" disk >> drive. I'm just wondering if this was a standard thing >> to do, or a bodge? > > Good question, sounds like you either have an RX33 or someone has hacked > a Teac of the correct model to work as an RX33. Indeed. And those are considerably more reliable than RX50s are. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Feb 5 09:51:31 2008 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 07:51:31 -0800 Subject: Looking for TK50 tapes & RX50 disks... In-Reply-To: <47A88219.4050901@dunnington.plus.com> References: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <47A88219.4050901@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: At 3:34 PM +0000 2/5/08, Pete Turnbull wrote: >On 05/02/2008 15:08, Zane H. Healy wrote: >>Good question, sounds like you either have an RX33 or someone has >>hacked a Teac of the correct model to work as an RX33. > >Indeed. And those are considerably more reliable than RX50s are. True, but they lack a certain "style". Call me crazy, but I rate the RX50 up there with something like my SGI O2 when it comes to "style". Granted all that style comes at a price, and in the case of an RX50, that is a less reliable piece of hardware, but since I don't normally use the floppy drive on my PDP-11 anyway... :^) Besides I don't have a real RX33 or the hardware to put it in place. If I did, I'd probably have it installed in my "souped up" /73. 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 jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Tue Feb 5 12:25:14 2008 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:25:14 -0500 Subject: Looking for TK50 tapes & RX50 disks... In-Reply-To: References: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <47A88219.4050901@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <47A8AA0A.3030508@compsys.to> >Zane H. Healy wrote: > >At 3:34 PM +0000 2/5/08, Pete Turnbull wrote: > >> >On 05/02/2008 15:08, Zane H. Healy wrote: >> >>> Good question, sounds like you either have an RX33 or someone has >>> hacked a Teac of the correct model to work as an RX33. >> Jerome Fine replies: I don't have my dual!!! RX33 in my hands right now (it is buried), but I thought that RX33 drives were Teac in the first place. Do I remember that incorrectly? >> Indeed. And those are considerably more reliable than RX50s are. > While I never had any problems with the RX50, I found that the big advantage was the extra capacity! 2400 blocks for the RX33 vs 800 blocks for the RX50. PLUS, the RX33 media were standard PC HD 5 1/4" media - no need to have a special format. By the way, that old DOS tool is call PUTR at: http://www.dbit.com/pub/putr/ As stated, a 1.2 MByte 5 1/4" HD PC floppy drive is required even though the media MUST be DSDD or MFM as mentioned by Peter. > > True, but they lack a certain "style". Call me crazy, but I rate the > RX50 up there with something like my SGI O2 when it comes to "style". > Granted all that style comes at a price, and in the case of an RX50, > that is a less reliable piece of hardware, but since I don't normally > use the floppy drive on my PDP-11 anyway... :^) > > Besides I don't have a real RX33 or the hardware to put it in place. > If I did, I'd probably have it installed in my "souped up" /73. > > Zane I have a DUAL!!!!!!!! RX33 floppy drive that looks almost exactly like the dual RX50 drive - probably because I used the discarded case from an RX50. Since the 2 bare RX33 drives arrived without an enclosure, I figured the best solution was to place them INSIDE the old RX50 enclosure and add the bottom skid plate. The cable end is an edge connector for both drives and is daisy chained WITHOUT the standard PC twist when 2 drives are used - which requires the second drive to have a different DS setting. A "Y" power cable must be connected to both drives before the case is bolted into place using 4 short bolts to each floppy drive through the thin RX50 shell. The original holds in the RX50 enclosure accept the 40-pin cable and the power cable. Any other questions I would be glad to answer. 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 trebor72 at execpc.com Tue Feb 5 12:43:47 2008 From: trebor72 at execpc.com (Robert J. Stevens) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:43:47 -0600 Subject: Looking for a Real Oldie Message-ID: <47A8AE63.2060101@execpc.com> Around 1981-1985 a friend loaned me a Piece of Equipment. It has a S-100 Bus with five slots Horizontal in the Back. I had a regular Keyboard and a Hex Keypad. I remember I cold enter in Hex Code and was able to Access a FDC to test it. Can't be sure of the MFG. But Xpandor comes to mind. My Friend says SOL. Does this ring a bell with anyone TIA Bob in Wisconsin From ian_primus at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 12:53:46 2008 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 10:53:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for a Real Oldie In-Reply-To: <47A8AE63.2060101@execpc.com> Message-ID: <253118.67899.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- "Robert J. Stevens" wrote: > Around 1981-1985 a friend loaned me a Piece of > Equipment. It has a S-100 > Bus with five slots Horizontal in the Back. I had a > regular Keyboard and > a Hex Keypad. I remember I cold enter in Hex Code > and was able to Access > a FDC to test it. > Can't be sure of the MFG. But Xpandor comes to mind. > My Friend says SOL. > Does this ring a bell with anyone Well, it does sound like a Sol-20. Was it blue? The Sol-20 has five horizontal S-100 slots in the back, and a built in keyboard. Check out www.sol20.org. -Ian From dgahling at hotmail.com Tue Feb 5 13:16:48 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 14:16:48 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: References: <20080130163435.6C1FEBA49A4@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: nope! this is a true portable. not a vaxstation > Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 10:47:11 -0800 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > From: healyzh at aracnet.com > Subject: RE: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? > > At 10:32 AM -0800 2/1/08, David Griffith wrote: > >On Fri, 1 Feb 2008, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > > > >> There *IS* a Vax named a "Saul" or "SOL", I've seen it. > >> It's a "luggable" (so to speak) like the Rainbow, but it's a Vax. > > > >At a former place of employment, I found a VAX of some sort, roughly the > >size of a Sun lunchbox, but much heavier, that had a fold-out handle on > >the rear. Could that have been a "SOL"? > > Sounds like a VAXstation 2000 or MicroVAX 2000. Is it the same case > used for external TK50 drives and the 5 1/4" SCSI drives? > > 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 dgahling at hotmail.com Tue Feb 5 13:19:25 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 14:19:25 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> References: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> Message-ID: what are you talking about? Vax existed before 1976 dude, where the hell have you been? ever heard of the Vax 11/750 ? You know, the one with the PDP-8 FEP ? You obviously have NO clue what you're talking about. i was there in '76, and those had already been out for about a year. I saw, physically handled, touched, used the "sol" Sorry I can't remember the exact spelling, but it was like 30 years ago. sheesh. but please, get a clue. There are those of us who were there, we lived this. unlike some no one like yourself. If you want to leave, go ahead. we have better things to do > Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 14:21:41 -0500 > From: tshoppa at wmata.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? > > Dan Gahlinger wrote: > > There *IS* a Vax named a "Saul" or "SOL", I've seen it. > > It's a "luggable" (so to speak) like the Rainbow, but it's a Vax. > > > They existed, so don't insult my intelligence. > > > And btw I've been doing Vaxen since 1976, so I think > > I know a thing or two about reading Ascii > > it's definitely "OS/2" > > I think it's time for me to unsubscribe from this list and > get back to reality. Sure, let's make up names for already > existing products instead of figuring out what they are > (VS2000? VAXmate?) and then insist that that we've > been doing the VAX a year before it left the > factory, therefore OS/2 has to exist for the PDP-11. > > Why do I even try to interject myself into this crap. > > Tim. > > _________________________________________________________________ From dgahling at hotmail.com Tue Feb 5 13:19:55 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 14:19:55 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: <47A3365A020000370001FC4C@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> References: <47A3365A020000370001FC4C@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> Message-ID: no confusion. > Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 15:10:18 -0500 > From: tshoppa at wmata.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? > > Al wrote: > > I wrote: > >> I think it's time for me to unsubscribe from this list and > >> get back to reality. > > > Talk is cheap. > > Let's see the proof. > > Well, I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, that of > the zillion layered products that DEC was churning out in the > 80's and early 90's that a guy might mistakenly think something > was on the tape that wasn't there because of the > language DEC or somebody else used on the TK50 tape label. > > But he tells me I'm insulting his intelligence by suggesting that > there may have been some confusion based on his reading > of the tape label. He's made it perfectly clear he doesn't > want any advice on what was actually on the tape, he's made > up his mind, case closed, there was a VAX named Saul and > OS/2 for the PDP-11 because he's been using the VAX since > the year before it shipped. What else can you or I do, Al? > > Tim. > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ From dgahling at hotmail.com Tue Feb 5 13:23:33 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 14:23:33 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: that doesn't mean a whole lot. there are lots of products DEC sales people and engineers didn't know about. I even showed them a few times, items they said DEC never had. But customers had them. I know what it was, it was a true luggable-style device. not a vaxstation and not Vaxmate or something like that. but again, it's been 30 years. the one I saw 30 years ago, was sourced in a city 200km from me, and I've lost all contacts there, if it even still exists. If I could get it, I would. as for OS/2, I never claimed it was actually OS/2 for PDP-11. All I said was, there was a TK-50 for the PDP-11 with the OS2 files on it. which I (and others) thought was truly bizarre. So please stop trying to twist my words. > Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 13:38:31 -0800 > From: aek at bitsavers.org > To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org > CC: > Subject: Re: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? > > > My last comment on this bit of absurdity is > from Bob Supnik, who would have been in the > position to know as one of the senior VAX > engineers in the 80's. > > I didn't even bother asking if a PDP-11 version > of OS/2 existed. > > -- > > No, there was no VAX version of OS/2. > And a luggable wasn't done on my watch. > No idea who Dan Gahlinger is, either. > Does he have a "VAXmate" (which was really a > PC, and could run OS/2) confused with a VAX? > > Now, if he means "luggable like a Rainbow", > which was just a PC chassis without keyboard or monitor, > then there were tons of those - every VAXstation looked > more or less like a Rainbow, since they all came out of > the same industrial design group ("any color you want, > as long as its beige"). If he means a real luggable, > with a built in monitor and keyboard, I never saw one. > But the VAXstation 2000 was fairly small, only slightly > bigger than a DECmate, so repackaging it with a fold out > keyboard and a small monitor would have been possible, > if some government group wanted one. > > /Bob > > > _________________________________________________________________ From dgahling at hotmail.com Tue Feb 5 13:24:26 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 14:24:26 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: <200802040054.m140sj4b025938@mail.itm-inst.com> References: <20080130163435.6C1FEBA49A4@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <200802040054.m140sj4b025938@mail.itm-inst.com> Message-ID: except, this was a vax ;) > Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 19:54:44 -0500 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > From: rick at rickmurphy.net > Subject: RE: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? > > At 11:12 AM 2/1/2008, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > > >There *IS* a Vax named a "Saul" or "SOL", I've seen it. > >It's a "luggable" (so to speak) like the Rainbow, but it's a Vax. > > Based on the "Sol" name, what you're talking about is a Solbourne, a > SPARC luggable. > -Rick > _________________________________________________________________ From silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 13:38:15 2008 From: silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com (silvercreekvalley) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 11:38:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for TK50 tapes & RX50 disks... Message-ID: <334877.71452.qm@web56202.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Many thanks for the info. That's a great help. I'll investigate the newer drive as it sounds like it could be the RX33. I have plenty of DSDD 5.25" disks, so I'll give those a try first. Thanks Ian. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From bdwheele at indiana.edu Tue Feb 5 13:42:52 2008 From: bdwheele at indiana.edu (Brian Wheeler) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:42:52 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: References: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> Message-ID: <1202240572.18169.40.camel@nibbler.dlib.indiana.edu> On Tue, 2008-02-05 at 14:19 -0500, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > what are you talking about? > Vax existed before 1976 dude, where the hell have you been? > ever heard of the Vax 11/750 ? You know, the one with the PDP-8 FEP ? > > You obviously have NO clue what you're talking about. > > i was there in '76, and those had already been out for about a year. > Oh, you mean the VAX 11/750 which came out around 1980? No wonder the computer industry is so screwed up! DEC was sitting on VAXen models for years before showing them to the world. *rolls eyes* From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Feb 5 13:45:53 2008 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 14:45:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: References: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> Message-ID: <200802051953.OAA24150@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > ever heard of the Vax 11/750 ? You know, the one with the PDP-8 FEP ? Sure you don't mean the 780? I didn't think the 750 had a FEP at all; at least, on the ones I used I didn't see anything identifiably FEPish, either hardware or software. (I also *think* the 750 wasn't around pre-1980, but I'm a lot less sure of that.) > You obviously have NO clue what you're talking about. This smacks of pots and kettles. (Admittedly, the 750/780 thing could have been a typo, but it's still amusingly ironic.) And, both of you, I don't care who you are and when you were working with what; the kind of remarks you've been throwing at one another are, in my opinion, way over the top. /~\ 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 arcarlini at iee.org Tue Feb 5 14:38:23 2008 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 20:38:23 -0000 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: <200802051953.OAA24150@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <000f01c86837$10c057f0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> der Mouse wrote: >> ever heard of the Vax 11/750 ? You know, the one with the PDP-8 FEP ? > > Sure you don't mean the 780? I didn't think the 750 had a FEP at all; > at least, on the ones I used I didn't see anything identifiably > FEPish, > either hardware or software. (I also *think* the 750 wasn't around > pre-1980, but I'm a lot less sure of that.) The VAX-11/750 had no FEP. The VAX-11/780 had a PDP-11/23 (iirc) which kicked it into life, ran the floppy etc. All clear in the prints. The VAX-11/750 prints are definitely on the net. I think the VAX-11/780 ones are too. Everyone knows that KO flicked the switch on the first VAX-11/780 off the production lines on 25-OCT-1977. There were no VAXes before then (and the VAX-11/780 was not luggable by any human definition). If Bob Supnik says there was no luggable VAX on his watch, then that's more than good enough for me. If there were luggable VAXes before his watch, one has to wonder why DEC made such a hoopla about the MicroVAX II (mid 1980s, distinctly non-luggable, although it could make a comfortable seat if you were tired). I know der Mouse knows all this, but just in case someone trips over this thread 20 years from now, I thought I'd throw in a few easily verifiable facts for them check out. Rumours start way too easily. Antonio No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.20/1259 - Release Date: 04/02/2008 20:42 From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Feb 5 14:46:14 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:46:14 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <47A7B703.19793.947AFC@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200802050748.m157mAN7023345@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47A7B703.19793.947AFC@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200802051546.14733.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 05 February 2008 04:08, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:20:29 -0500 > > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > > > > > I'd already done it for DX-85M > > > > What's that? > > Proprietary multitasking operating system, based on the 8085; > basically the other end of the spectrum from CP/M. Included built-in- > interrupt-driven I/O (including 4 channels of async), file types > (i.e. differentiated between executable, data, index, etc.), built-in > ISAM files and a bunch of other stuff. One of these days I'll chat > about it if anyone's curious. Yup! Count me in... (Snip) > Re: passing arguments on the stack. It's an interesting exercise on > the 8085 using the "undocumented" instructions. For example, opcode > 38H, which is a two-byte instruction would take SP, add the second > instruction byte and stick the result in DE. Opcode 28H would do the > same, but use HL instead of SP. > > Another 8085 16-bit operation, opcode D9H, would store HL in the > address pointed to by DE. Opcode EDh would load HL from the address > pointed to by DE. > > There were a couple of other 16-bit operations in 8085 not > documented. 08H would subtract BC from HL, 10H shifted HL right one > place with sign extension. 18H rotated DE left one place through the > carry flag (i.e. 17 bit rotate). > > There were a few other instructions of less interest: a couple of > jumps that tested for unsigned overflow and a conditional restart to > location 40H (RST 8) if the overflow flag was set. Interesting stuff. I've run across the occasional info on undocumented ops for different chips, but don't remember seeing any for the 8085 before. > It was kind of unfortunate that Intel simply didn't leave blanks in > the 8080 documentation for the "do nothing" moves; (e.g. MOV A,A; MOV > B,B, etc.). It might have freed up a few more spare opcodes for > later exploitation. I suspect that a lot of the reasons for them laying things out the way they did had to do with convenience in the manufacturing process, mask layout or somesuch stuff, rather than intent. -- 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 Feb 5 14:49:20 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:49:20 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <575131af0802050219r49e6786fi1e5bc58d4fba808a@mail.gmail.com> References: <0JVN009AQXP9FWS2@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> <575131af0802050219r49e6786fi1e5bc58d4fba808a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802051549.20644.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 05 February 2008 05:19, Liam Proven wrote: > > >On Thursday 31 January 2008 10:07, Allison wrote: > > >> Whats more interesting is there was nothing to prevent a termcap file > > >> and later improved CP/M work alikes did exactly that and many more > > >> things. > > > > > >What sort of stuff would you put into the category of "CP/M work > > > alikes"? > > > > NOvados, DOS+, ZRdos, Zsdos and ZCPR addons to CP/M. They all could run > > CP/M programs but added things missing from basic V2.2. The gotacha was > > they required z80 as they were stuffing all that into the same space > > required by V2.2. > > Fascinating stuff. I had no idea there were so many. > > I used to do some support work on some early, 8-bit multiuser system > which ran something called CP/M but which wasn't, not even remotely. > The host machine was a single integrated unit - CRT screen, floppy > drive, CPU and optionally had a 5MB hard disk built into the console. > This had a bunch of serial ports on the back and could support half a > dozen or so terminals. > > The OS was called "CPM8" or something but was like nothing I've ever > seen before. Alas, now, with the passing of some 20y, I can't remember > make, model or anything else... One that I'm now remembering (thought not in very much detail) that I ran across somewhere or other was called "RP/M". I believe it came with source as well, and am not clear on what the differences were between it and CP/M... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Feb 5 14:52:31 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 15:52:31 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: <200802051953.OAA24150@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> <200802051953.OAA24150@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200802051552.31928.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 05 February 2008, der Mouse wrote: > > ever heard of the Vax 11/750 ? You know, the one with the PDP-8 FEP > > ? > > Sure you don't mean the 780? I didn't think the 750 had a FEP at > all; at least, on the ones I used I didn't see anything identifiably > FEPish, either hardware or software. (I also *think* the 750 wasn't > around pre-1980, but I'm a lot less sure of that.) The VAX-11/750 currently in my basement certainly doesn't have a PDP-8 installed in it. Pictures: http://computer-refuge.org/compcollect/dec/vax/11750/index.html An 11/780 does have a PDP-11/03 in it as a console subsystem (it's really really not a front-end processor, no sane person would let a user bang away at the console of an 11/780... I've hosed the console program a few times already on my 11/780 just by having the baud rate at 9600 baud instead of 300). However, an 11/780 also doesn't have a PDP-8 in it, and wasn't even announced until late 1977. Pictures of my 11/780 showing the 11/03 in the bottom left of the CPU rack: http://flickr.com/photos/vax-o-matic/2203329938/ On Friday 01 February 2008, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > There *IS* a Vax named a "Saul" or "SOL", I've seen it. > It's a "luggable" (so to speak) like the Rainbow, but it's a Vax. On Tuesday 05 February 2008, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > I know what it was, it was a true luggable-style device. not a > vaxstation and not Vaxmate or something like that. but again, it's > been 30 years. There must be something I'm missing here. You said that the VAXstation (I'd guess people are taking about the 3100 series here, not the larger versions that are on wheels) isn't a luggable, but a rainbow is. The DEC Rainbow I've got at home is bigger than a VAXstation 3100, and unlike the Osborne 1 and Exec that I've got, does not have a built-in monitor, or detachable/attachable keyboard. Or, do you mean a form factor that's not similar to the Osborne 1? For that matter, are you saying that 30 years ago, in 1978, that Digital was able to produce a VAX CPU, memory, some sort of storage, and a monitor that would physically fit into a case the size of the Osborne 1, and which drew a small enough amount of power to comfortably run off a single 15A, 120V outlet? My "best guess" is that perhaps you are referring to the PDT series of luggable PDP-11 systems that DEC produced. However, I don't know when those were produced, and it could well have been less than 30 years ago. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Feb 5 15:10:10 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:10:10 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: <200802051552.31928.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> <200802051953.OAA24150@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200802051552.31928.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200802051610.10690.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 05 February 2008 15:52, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > versions that are on wheels) isn't a luggable, but a rainbow is. The > DEC Rainbow I've got at home is bigger than a VAXstation 3100, and > unlike the Osborne 1 and Exec that I've got, does not have a built-in > monitor, or detachable/attachable keyboard. Or, do you mean a form > factor that's not similar to the Osborne 1? You have Osbornes too? Does your O-1 have the DD and screen-pac upgrades? I saw a lot of those machines, there being a local club and me having my shop in the building of the dealer who was selling them. I liked the exec pretty much, excepting the single-sided drives, but never cared for the O-1 as much, mostly because of that 52-column screen. Remembering how after installing the screen-pac upgrade for folks I could actually read those characters when it was set to 104 columns...! Not something I think I could do these days, though they do have a pretty sharp screen, 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 dundas at caltech.edu Tue Feb 5 15:43:19 2008 From: dundas at caltech.edu (John A. Dundas III) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 13:43:19 -0800 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: <200802051552.31928.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> <200802051953.OAA24150@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200802051552.31928.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: At 3:52 PM -0500 2/5/08, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >On Tuesday 05 February 2008, der Mouse wrote: >> > ever heard of the Vax 11/750 ? You know, the one with the PDP-8 FEP >> > ? >> >> Sure you don't mean the 780? I didn't think the 750 had a FEP at >> all; at least, on the ones I used I didn't see anything identifiably >> FEPish, either hardware or software. (I also *think* the 750 wasn't >> around pre-1980, but I'm a lot less sure of that.) > >The VAX-11/750 currently in my basement certainly doesn't have a PDP-8 >installed in it. Pictures: >http://computer-refuge.org/compcollect/dec/vax/11750/index.html > >An 11/780 does have a PDP-11/03 in it as a console subsystem (it's >really really not a front-end processor, no sane person would let a >user bang away at the console of an 11/780 I'm with Pat on this. I managed a lot of /780s; they all had LSI-11s as the front end. Also, never saw a /750 with a PDP-8 front end. Managed a few of these too, though this timeframe is a bit hazy. According to Gordon Bell the /750 was introduced in late 1980. John From arcarlini at iee.org Tue Feb 5 16:49:14 2008 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 22:49:14 -0000 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001401c86849$564a7280$5b01a8c0@uatempname> John A. Dundas III wrote: > I'm with Pat on this. I managed a lot of /780s; they all had LSI-11s > as the front end. Me too (and I'm sorry I said 11/23 ... I'll go look next time rather than trying to rely on neurons!) > Also, never saw a /750 with a PDP-8 front end. Managed a few of > these too, though this timeframe is a bit hazy. According to Gordon > Bell > > > > the /750 was introduced in late 1980. That timeline was originally from DEC and was on the 40th Anniversay CD (and the web site). I wondered where it had gone. Antonio No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.20/1259 - Release Date: 04/02/2008 20:42 From chd_1 at nktelco.net Tue Feb 5 17:27:30 2008 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (Charles H Dickman) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:27:30 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: References: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> Message-ID: <47A8F0E2.4010006@nktelco.net> Dan Gahlinger wrote: > what are you talking about? > [ snip a bunch of stuff that is not in line with the generally excepted version of history ] Have others considered that Mr. Gahlinger might be a troll and not worth responding to? -chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Feb 5 17:00:43 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 23:00:43 +0000 (GMT) Subject: DEC LA180 printer In-Reply-To: from "Harten" at Feb 4, 8 10:50:09 pm Message-ID: > I just managed to fix the problem with the init-sequence. > There was a faulty IC "9601PC" by which the controller senses that the > servo-motor isn't able to turn (paper jam). I don't know how similar it is to the LA36, but on the latter printer there is no 'home sensor' to dtect when the printhead has got to the left side. Instead, at power on, it tuns the motor and bangs the head into the left side plate, then detects that the motor has stalled (much as you've described), and thne running the mtoor fowardsfro a few pulses. That's the home position. There's a nasty failure mode of this, though. The plastic key in the belt sprocket breaks and the sprocket slips on the motor spindle. As a result the motor never really stalls, it keeps on turning against a rather heavy load. Since hte logic board doesn't detect the stall, the motor keeps running, gets very hot, and in the ned the insulation burns off the windings. This happend to an LA36 at Bristol University when I was there. A friend and I spent an afternoon rewinding the motor (a replacement motor was excessively overpriced!0. -tony From chd_1 at nktelco.net Tue Feb 5 18:18:15 2008 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (Charles H Dickman) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:18:15 -0500 Subject: RX33 was Re: Looking for TK50 tapes & RX50 disks... In-Reply-To: References: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47A8FCC7.7070006@nktelco.net> Zane H. Healy wrote: > > Good question, sounds like you either have an RX33 or someone has > hacked a Teac of the correct model to work as an RX33. So what are the requirements for an RX33? Last summer I tried all the DSHD drives I had scavenged from PCs and was able to get one model to work. It was a Mitsumi D509V3. I have two stacked in a BA23 chassis configured as a /73. These were my jumper settings (and guesses at function): ============= Mitsumi Newtronics D509V3 DS1 o o=o DS0 DS3 o o o DS2 o=o o MS CH o=o o RDY HD o o=o LD LS o o=o 2S DSn - drive select MS - motor w/ DS (?) CH - disk change (?) RDY - ready (?) LS - low speed (?) 2S - two speed (?) ============= I have no documentation for the drive, but this seems to imply that the RQDX3 needs disk change and speed change to work. Does this make sense to anyone? -chuck From scheefj at netscape.net Tue Feb 5 18:40:33 2008 From: scheefj at netscape.net (scheefj at netscape.net) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:40:33 -0500 Subject: a link for AT & T 6300 gurus - MicroChannel ADF files In-Reply-To: <776251.55809.qm@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> References: <776251.55809.qm@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47A90201.7000607@netscape.net> Chris and all, This site as a potential treasure trove for people collecting MicroChannel machines. There is a directory with what looks to be a couple hundred "ADAPTER DESCRIPTION FILES (ADFS)" for cards from many different manufacturers (not just NCR/ATT). My limited understanding is that the appropriate *.adf file is required to install any MicroChannel adapter card. I point this out because of the occasional plea from someone looking for such files. Jim Chris M wrote: > http://www5.ncr.com/support/support_drivers_patches.asp?Class=pc_library_63xx > > all free, all legal. No one will even check your I.D. > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. > http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From rivie at ridgenet.net Tue Feb 5 20:10:15 2008 From: rivie at ridgenet.net (Roger Ivie) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 18:10:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: RX33 was Re: Looking for TK50 tapes & RX50 disks... In-Reply-To: <47A8FCC7.7070006@nktelco.net> References: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <47A8FCC7.7070006@nktelco.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 5 Feb 2008, Charles H Dickman wrote: > I have no documentation for the drive, but this seems to imply that the RQDX3 > needs disk change and speed change to work. Does this make sense to anyone? Yes, it does indeed need disk changed and speed changing. -- roger ivie rivie at ridgenet.net From rivie at ridgenet.net Tue Feb 5 20:14:37 2008 From: rivie at ridgenet.net (Roger Ivie) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 18:14:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: <200802051552.31928.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> <200802051953.OAA24150@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200802051552.31928.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On Tue, 5 Feb 2008, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > The VAX-11/750 currently in my basement certainly doesn't have a PDP-8 > installed in it. Pictures: I'm not aware of any VAXen with a PDP-8 front end. The odd PDP-8 rumor that I always heard was the the 11/780 had a secret, undocumented PDP-8 emulation mode, just because the guy that wrote the microcode liked PDP-8s. I always suspected this was an urban legend, or a corruption of the rumor about how software development for the DECmate started out on a PDP-11/60 that was microcoded with a PDP-8 emulator (don't really know if *that* one is true, either). -- roger ivie rivie at ridgenet.net From rivie at ridgenet.net Tue Feb 5 20:18:29 2008 From: rivie at ridgenet.net (Roger Ivie) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 18:18:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for TK50 tapes & RX50 disks... In-Reply-To: <47A8AA0A.3030508@compsys.to> References: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <47A88219.4050901@dunnington.plus.com> <47A8AA0A.3030508@compsys.to> Message-ID: On Tue, 5 Feb 2008, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > While I never had any problems with the RX50, I found that the big > advantage was the extra capacity! The big problems I heard about regarding the RX50 were: - Drive speed tolerance was looser than that required to format media, which is why the Rainbow was shipped without a formatter. - Hub reinforcements could allegedly damage the plastic fingers that held the diskette hub. - It was possible to step the drive beyond track zero. Don't really know if any of these are true. -- roger ivie rivie at ridgenet.net From rivie at ridgenet.net Tue Feb 5 20:25:48 2008 From: rivie at ridgenet.net (Roger Ivie) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 18:25:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Tue, 5 Feb 2008, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > I know what it was, it was a true luggable-style device. not a > vaxstation and not Vaxmate or something like that. I did once see a prototype for something called a "Tubemate". Imagine the DECmate III/MicroVAX 2000 box with a small wide-format CRT instead of the front panel; something that could do, say, 80x12 instead of 80x24. This was allegedly a DECmate variant, however, rather than a VAX. I don't know how far it was developed; it may have just been a conceptual mockup. I saw it gathering dust in the office of a DEC engineer one time I visited the mill. -- roger ivie rivie at ridgenet.net From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Tue Feb 5 20:44:59 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 02:44:59 +0000 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: References: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> <200802051953.OAA24150@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200802051552.31928.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <20080206024459.GB8060@usap.gov> On Tue, Feb 05, 2008 at 01:43:19PM -0800, John A. Dundas III wrote: > At 3:52 PM -0500 2/5/08, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > >On Tuesday 05 February 2008, der Mouse wrote: > >> > ever heard of the Vax 11/750 ? You know, the one with the PDP-8 FEP > >> > ? Indeed - ??? > >> Sure you don't mean the 780? I didn't think the 750 had a FEP at > >> all; at least, on the ones I used I didn't see anything identifiably > >> FEPish, either hardware or software. (I also *think* the 750 wasn't > >> around pre-1980, but I'm a lot less sure of that.) I completely agree. I managed two 11/750s between 1985 and 1994, and I still have one of those two (S/N BT00000354). There is nothing FEPish, but there is something like an ODT console program. You can examine registers with it, but I only ever did that once (debugging a problem with a second Unibus interface - L0010, IIRC). Mostly, folks just install a boot ROM to match the boot device and twist the A-D selector switch to the correct position and press "reset". We had three ROMs in ours - the default console TU58 boot (position "D"), MSCP ("A" in our case), and a "DR" boot ROM for either an RM03 (or RM05) on the MASSBUS or for our SI9900 w/SMD disk that I talk about here from time to time (emulated dual RM03 plus an oversized RM05). The 11/730 (and 11/725) has an on-board FEP - an 8085. You talk to it much in the same way as you do to the LSI-11 in an 11/780, except its console medium is TU58 tape, not RX01 disk. Syntactically, though, I believe it's similar (I know the KA730 well, but not the KA780). > >The VAX-11/750 currently in my basement certainly doesn't have a PDP-8 > >installed in it. Pictures: > >http://computer-refuge.org/compcollect/dec/vax/11750/index.html > > > >An 11/780 does have a PDP-11/03 in it as a console subsystem (it's > >really really not a front-end processor, no sane person would let a > >user bang away at the console of an 11/780 > > I'm with Pat on this. I managed a lot of /780s; they all had LSI-11s > as the front end. As did every one I ever saw. > Also, never saw a /750 with a PDP-8 front end. Managed a few of > these too, though this timeframe is a bit hazy. According to Gordon > Bell > > > > the /750 was introduced in late 1980. Perhaps someone is confusing the 11/750 with some model of PDP-10? I know that there was a PDP-8/i-based I/O subsystem for one of the -10s. I've also seen an -8/a in the block diagram for a peripheral for some later model of -10 (does a "DX10" ring a bell to anyone?) Most of the -10s I've seen personally, have an -11 for an FEP, but I am not an exhaustive authority on 36-bit hardware, especially not, say, a KA-10. I've stood in front of a few KS-10s and perhaps a KL-10. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 6-Feb-2008 at 02:30 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -45.2 F (-42.9 C) Windchill -70.6 F (-57.0 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 7.8 kts Grid 54 Barometer 674.5 mb (10836 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Tue Feb 5 20:53:52 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 02:53:52 +0000 Subject: Looking for TK50 tapes & RX50 disks... In-Reply-To: <47A8AA0A.3030508@compsys.to> References: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <47A88219.4050901@dunnington.plus.com> <47A8AA0A.3030508@compsys.to> Message-ID: <20080206025352.GD8060@usap.gov> On Tue, Feb 05, 2008 at 01:25:14PM -0500, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > I don't have my dual!!! RX33 in my hands right now (it is buried), but > I thought that RX33 drives were Teac in the first place. Do I remember > that incorrectly? A real RX33 was a real Teac FD55GFR floppy drive with the jumpers set in a way that made the RQDX3 happy. I have pulled FD55GFRs from PCs and rejumpered them and hung them off of DEC equipment with total success. I have never tried using a different model of floppy drive, however. Back in the day, when people were scrapping PC-ATs and clones, I made a point of nabbing any FD55GFRs I saw. I don't think I used anything else in PCs I built. The drive was, at one time, easy to find, not terribly expensive, and, in my experience, quite reliable. I know the jumper settings are floating around on the 'net. I'm sure that many list members here could cough up the right settings as well. The trick is to find the right drive these days, when they haven't been in daily use for a lot of years. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 6-Feb-2008 at 02:40 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -45.2 F (-42.9 C) Windchill -71.4 F (-57.4 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 8.3 kts Grid 56 Barometer 674.5 mb (10836 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Tue Feb 5 20:59:27 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 02:59:27 +0000 Subject: Looking for TK50 tapes & RX50 disks... In-Reply-To: References: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <47A88219.4050901@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <20080206025927.GF8060@usap.gov> On Tue, Feb 05, 2008 at 07:51:31AM -0800, Zane H. Healy wrote: > True, but they lack a certain "style". Call me crazy, but I rate the > RX50 up there with something like my SGI O2 when it comes to "style". > Granted all that style comes at a price, and in the case of an RX50, > that is a less reliable piece of hardware, but since I don't normally > use the floppy drive on my PDP-11 anyway... :^) I remember seeing my first RX50 around 1984 or so (probably in a Rainbow), and its style really did stand out. It's a shame that it was all flash and no substance. At the time, however, 400KB on a SS floppy was a shock to me - I was storing ~170K on C-64 floppies back then. > Besides I don't have a real RX33 or the hardware to put it in place. > If I did, I'd probably have it installed in my "souped up" /73. As I just posted, it's a Teac FD55GFR with RQDX3-friendly settings for motor start, etc. I don't have a filler plate on mine, but the drive itself mounts to the same sleds as the RX50 or RD5x or TK50, etc. If you mean your Qbus PDP-11 isn't in a BA23 or doesn't have an RQDX3, then I misunderstood. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 6-Feb-2008 at 02:50 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -45.2 F (-42.9 C) Windchill -69.3 F (-56.3 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 7.0 kts Grid 59 Barometer 674.5 mb (10836 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From rick at rickmurphy.net Tue Feb 5 21:32:02 2008 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 22:32:02 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: References: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> <200802051953.OAA24150@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200802051552.31928.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200802060332.m163W20F032622@mail.itm-inst.com> At 09:14 PM 2/5/2008, Roger Ivie wrote: >On Tue, 5 Feb 2008, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >>The VAX-11/750 currently in my basement certainly doesn't have a PDP-8 >>installed in it. Pictures: > >I'm not aware of any VAXen with a PDP-8 front end. The odd PDP-8 rumor >that I always heard was the the 11/780 had a secret, undocumented PDP-8 >emulation mode, just because the guy that wrote the microcode liked >PDP-8s. I always suspected this was an urban legend, or a corruption of >the rumor about how software development for the DECmate started out on >a PDP-11/60 that was microcoded with a PDP-8 emulator (don't really know >if *that* one is true, either). That's the first I've heard of a PDP-8 mode of the 780. As far as the 11/60 emulator rumor, that one is true. Some of the WPS-8 software development (in Merrimack, NH IIRC) was done on an 11/60 with PDP-8 emulator microcode. -Rick From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Tue Feb 5 22:08:11 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 04:08:11 +0000 Subject: DEC Tubemate?!? (was Re: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11?) In-Reply-To: References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20080206040811.GI8060@usap.gov> On Tue, Feb 05, 2008 at 06:25:48PM -0800, Roger Ivie wrote: > I did once see a prototype for something called a "Tubemate". Imagine > the DECmate III/MicroVAX 2000 box with a small wide-format CRT instead > of the front panel; something that could do, say, 80x12 instead of > 80x24. This was allegedly a DECmate variant, however, rather than a VAX. Hmm... I'm having problems envisioning it... I don't think of the DECmate or the uVAX2K as having a "front panel". Do you mean that there was a wee CRT behind the flap, in the 5.25"-wide space where the drives go? The VT50 was 80x12, so it's not like there wouldn't be any software that expected to see such a screen, but most apps, I'd think, would want the "full" 24 lines. You say "wide format" - so there was room for either an RX33 or RD31/RD32 _and_ the CRT in that space? How odd. > I don't know how far it was developed; it may have just been a > conceptual mockup. I saw it gathering dust in the office of a DEC engineer > one time I visited the mill. Did you ever get a sense of who the product would be for or what need it would fill? These days, it wouldn't be difficult to come up with a graphical 640x128 LCD panel to fit the space, and a circuit to drive the panel as an 80x12 (or 80x16) text screen that serially attaches to the DECmate, and honors either VT52 or VT100 control strings - sort of a specialty version of the universal terminal project that's come up here. That brings us back to _why_ - who would have wanted such a beast. If there's a good answer, I have half a mind to put one together at some point in the future, but I just can figure out why it's better than using a DECmate or uVAX2000 with a portable LCD or EL-display terminal (like my ELT-320). -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 6-Feb-2008 at 03:40 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -46.1 F (-43.4 C) Windchill -73.6 F (-58.6 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 9.0 kts Grid 52 Barometer 674.4 mb (10840 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Feb 5 22:36:09 2008 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 20:36:09 -0800 Subject: RX33 was Re: Looking for TK50 tapes & RX50 disks... In-Reply-To: <47A8FCC7.7070006@nktelco.net> References: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <47A8FCC7.7070006@nktelco.net> Message-ID: At 7:18 PM -0500 2/5/08, Charles H Dickman wrote: >Zane H. Healy wrote: >> >>Good question, sounds like you either have an RX33 or someone has >>hacked a Teac of the correct model to work as an RX33. >So what are the requirements for an RX33? Last summer I tried all >the DSHD drives I had scavenged from PCs and was able to get one >model to work. It was a Mitsumi D509V3. I have two stacked in a BA23 >chassis configured as a /73. As I recall there are very specific requirements. Let's see if I remember enough for Google to find the info... Wow, I only had two letters in the name of the Teac drive swapped and Google figured it out. Nearly 10 years ago I was able to find some of the Teac drives, but never got around to getting this working. Now it might actually be easier to find a real RX33 drive! Though I'm sure it wouldn't be cheap. Zane =========================================================================== ===== Note 93.3 Low-end disk devices - The Digital difference 3 of 136 EISNER::KENNEDY "Terry Kennedy" 72 lines 16-JAN-1988 02:05 -< RX33 >- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- The DEC RX33 is an IBM AT-type drive with some jumper changes. DEC's drive is some variant of the TEAC FD55G. I have exper- imented and discovered that the following drives/jumperings work with the RQDX3: TEAC FD-55GFV-17-U Jumpers in: HG I (Roman numeral 1) U1 U2 DC FG DS0 (for first RX33) DS1 (for second RX33) Jumpers out: (all others) Install the terminator, RA1, on the last (or only) drive TEAC FD-55GFR-540-U Jumpers in: I (Roman numeral 1) U0 U1 DC2 FG D0 (for first RX33) D1 (for second RX33) Jumpers out: (all others) Install the terminator, RA1, on the last (or only) drive Toshiba FDD 6882E1J01 (or ND-08DE-G) Jumpers in: LD DC DE D1 (for first RX33) D2 (for second RX33) Jumpers out: (all others) Install the terminator jumper, TM, on the last (or only) drive I have purchased many of the TEAC 540 drives from JDR Micro- devices in California, (800) 538-5000. They have the follow- ing items of interest: [NOTE: This is *old* info (1988) and probably isn't valid any more] FD-55G High density drive - $129.95 FD-5Y 'Y' cable to power 2 drives from the BAnn box - $2.95 FD55-MHW Mounting hardware for two FD-55G drives - $2.95 FD55-FP Beige faceplate for FD-55G drive (black is std.) - $2.95 FD55-SPEC Specification for FD-55G drive - $5.00 FD55-MAINT Maintenance manual for FD-55G drives - $25.00 Therfore, you can get two RX33's for $265.80 with the Y cable and mounting hardware - a far cry from DEC's $795.00 each... You need an RQDX3 to run these drives, of course. You will also need to save the skid plate from your RX50 drive. If you order these drives elsewhere, please remember that the mounting hole threads are *metric*. Finding the right screws will be a lot harder than finding the drives! =========================================================================== ===== Note 93.77 Low-end disk devices - The Digital difference 77 of 136 EISNER::KENNEDY "Terry Kennedy" 15 lines 19-JUL-1991 01:40 -< Newer Teac model for RX33 substitute >- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- A number of people have asked me for other RX33 substitutes, since the Teac models I gave earlier in this thread are no longer available. I did some experimenting and I have a new one for you: The Teac FD-55GFR-149-U can be used as an RX33 by installing jumpers on FG, DC, I, and D0 (for 1st drive) or D1 (for 2nd drive). The "I" jum- per is hard to find - here's a picture: LG o o IS o o o<---- This is the "I" jumper o<-/ DC o o o o o o o I've tested this with RX50 and RX33 media under XXDP+ and RSTS/E. Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing te... at spcvxa.spc.edu St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA +1 201 915 9381 (voice) +1 201 435-3662 (FAX) -- | 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 fernande at internet1.net Tue Feb 5 23:16:32 2008 From: fernande at internet1.net (Chad Fernandez) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:16:32 -0500 Subject: Looking for a Real Oldie In-Reply-To: <47A8AE63.2060101@execpc.com> References: <47A8AE63.2060101@execpc.com> Message-ID: <47A942B0.9000604@internet1.net> Robert J. Stevens wrote: > Can't be sure of the MFG. But Xpandor comes to mind. My Friend says SOL. > Does this ring a bell with anyone Isn't the SOL a Vax :-) Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From useddec at gmail.com Tue Feb 5 23:22:12 2008 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 23:22:12 -0600 Subject: Looking for TK50 tapes & RX50 disks.. In-Reply-To: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> References: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <624966d60802052122s70f04a3fub25304509c36b222@mail.gmail.com> I have a few thousand tapes, of which several hundred are DEC, and most of the DEC drives. If you need anything, feel free to contact me off list. A lot of it is in storage until I move back in. Paul On Tue, Feb 5, 2008 at 6:57 AM, silvercreekvalley < silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com> wrote: > Hi, > > I'm in the process of restoring a 11/83 back to > health. Its > going OK so far, but I'm in need of some TK50/70 tapes > for > the tape drive and some RX50 5.25" disks. > > The RX50 disks - I'm assuming are different to regular > > 5.25" floppy disks (DSDD) - I do have some of those, > but > I'm told the magnetic composition of the RX50 disks is > > different? > > Finally, someone has changed one of the RX50 disk > units > for what looks like a standard (PC style) 5.25" disk > drive. I'm just wondering if this was a standard thing > to do, or a bodge? > > All the best > > Ian. > > > > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Looking for last minute shopping deals? > Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. > http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping > From frustum at pacbell.net Tue Feb 5 23:36:17 2008 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 23:36:17 -0600 Subject: Looking for a Real Oldie In-Reply-To: <47A8AE63.2060101@execpc.com> References: <47A8AE63.2060101@execpc.com> Message-ID: <47A94751.6030808@pacbell.net> Robert J. Stevens wrote: > Around 1981-1985 a friend loaned me a Piece of Equipment. It has a S-100 > Bus with five slots Horizontal in the Back. I had a regular Keyboard and > a Hex Keypad. I remember I cold enter in Hex Code and was able to Access > a FDC to test it. > Can't be sure of the MFG. But Xpandor comes to mind. My Friend says SOL. > Does this ring a bell with anyone > TIA > Bob in Wisconsin > Bob, The Sol or the Expander could both fit the description. The Sol was FAR more common, though. Neither had a hex keypad -- both had numeric keypads to the right of the main keyboard. Also, both were designed in part (Sol) or whole (Expander) by Lee Felsenstein. Sol: http://www.sol-20.org (among many) Expander: http://www.corestack.com/machines/expander.html I don't know about the Expander, never having used one, but the Sol has a small (2K) ROM monitor where you can ENTER hex, jump to a memory location, load/save from/to cassette. Booting a northstar floppy system was just jumping to the boot ROM (commonly at E800). From rivie at ridgenet.net Tue Feb 5 23:37:59 2008 From: rivie at ridgenet.net (Roger Ivie) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 21:37:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: DEC Tubemate?!? (was Re: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11?) In-Reply-To: <20080206040811.GI8060@usap.gov> References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> <20080206040811.GI8060@usap.gov> Message-ID: On Wed, 6 Feb 2008, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > On Tue, Feb 05, 2008 at 06:25:48PM -0800, Roger Ivie wrote: >> I did once see a prototype for something called a "Tubemate". Imagine >> the DECmate III/MicroVAX 2000 box with a small wide-format CRT instead >> of the front panel; something that could do, say, 80x12 instead of >> 80x24. This was allegedly a DECmate variant, however, rather than a VAX. > > Hmm... I'm having problems envisioning it... I don't think of the > DECmate or the uVAX2K as having a "front panel". Do you mean that there > was a wee CRT behind the flap, in the 5.25"-wide space where the drives > go? The VT50 was 80x12, so it's not like there wouldn't be any software > that expected to see such a screen, but most apps, I'd think, would want > the "full" 24 lines. I mean that it had a tube in place of the front of the box. There were no drives poking out the front. The tube took up the whole front of the box: +------------------------------------+ |+----------------------------------+| || || || wide, short tube || || || |+----------------------------------+| +------------------------------------+ Thinking about it, it might have been just a monitor intended to stack on top of the DECmate III; that wouldn't need drives or much inside besides the power supply and the tube. -- roger ivie rivie at ridgenet.net From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Wed Feb 6 00:02:32 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 06:02:32 +0000 Subject: DEC Tubemate?!? (was Re: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11?) In-Reply-To: References: <47A39157.9030300@bitsavers.org> <20080206040811.GI8060@usap.gov> Message-ID: <20080206060232.GA10273@usap.gov> On Tue, Feb 05, 2008 at 09:37:59PM -0800, Roger Ivie wrote: > On Wed, 6 Feb 2008, Ethan Dicks wrote: > >Hmm... I'm having problems envisioning it... I don't think of the > >DECmate or the uVAX2K as having a "front panel". Do you mean that there > >was a wee CRT behind the flap, in the 5.25"-wide space where the drives > >go? > I mean that it had a tube in place of the front of the box. There were > no drives poking out the front. The tube took up the whole front of the > box: > > +------------------------------------+ > |+----------------------------------+| > || || > || wide, short tube || > || || > |+----------------------------------+| > +------------------------------------+ > > Thinking about it, it might have been just a monitor intended to stack > on top of the DECmate III; that wouldn't need drives or much inside > besides the power supply and the tube. Ah... that makes a lot of sense - I suppose the advantage would be modularity. OTOH, a VR201 sits on the top box quite nicely, and was probably already a standard product by then. Interesting prototype to hear about. It's a new on one me. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 6-Feb-2008 at 06:00 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -46.1 F (-43.4 C) Windchill -73.3 F (-58.5 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 8.8 kts Grid 70 Barometer 674.3 mb (10844 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From tosteve at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 01:07:58 2008 From: tosteve at yahoo.com (steven stengel) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 23:07:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: Victor 9000 (Sirius 1) Computer Collection - $40 - in Fayetteville, NC Message-ID: <816127.62451.qm@web51608.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Saw this in Craigslist: http://fayetteville.craigslist.org/sys/541401232.html ------------- Date: 2008-01-16, 5:13PM EST (two weeks ago...) 2 Victor 9000 machines, one in pieces but complete, one has hard drive and touch screen (super rare), other is dual floppy. This is the same computer that was marketed in europe as the Sirius 1. I have a ton of books and software for them. MUST GO SOON! --------------------------------- Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Tue Feb 5 05:59:40 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:59:40 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVR007LQLB2O8J3@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:58:20 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On Sunday 03 February 2008 07:27, Allison wrote: >(Snip) >Yup, but that assumes that you want two bytes. CP/M would give a function >code and then anywhere from zero parameters to several of varying lengths and >some even were pointers to tables and data areas. You might also want to >bump the return pointer past the data. :-) The general methodology works for any length but I showed it for two. >I think rather than use a scratchpad location to save HL into I just swapped >it with the top of the stack, which would give you HL pointing to the first >byte beyond the call, though it's been several years since I worked on this >and my recollection is a bit more than fuzzy about the whole thing. You can but if you need HL to do 16bit arithmetic of some such you may have to save it. I've done code that passed variable length parameters on the stack but after 3 maybe 5 bytes you have to start storing something somehwere. Even Z80 has a finite number of registers. >> >> Interrupt driven, has some basic terminal sense (vt100 specific) >> and uses IObyte. > >Sounds worth looking at, is it out there anywhere? Never looked but whole VT180s are findable. >(Snip) >> >> Thats a lot of available CPU cycles. the biggest areas of change is that >> >> modem programs werent pausing for disk IO, they could fill a big (say >> >> 16k) circular buffer and the cpu can be processing interrupts for IO and >> >> disk to manage transfers rather than doing a lot of waiting in loops. It >> >> doesn't take a lot more code but the complexity and debugging is greater >> >> due to the near concurrent activities. >> > >> >One of the real problems I had with early BBSing was the fact that I was >> > using a CP/M box and that had only a lmiited buffer in the modem program >> > (probably MDM740 at first, IMP a bit later I think), while the guy at >> > the other end had a newer and higher-speed modem that had several K of >> > buffer in it that it would continue to empty after my end had asked it to >> > hold on a minute... >> >> In many cases no buffer. it was more like the other end would stop but by >> time you told it to your 1 byte maybe 2 buffer overflowed. > >I could be mistaken but I think those early comm programs had something like >128 or 256 bytes of buffer in them. Which was like nothing when the >higher-speed modem on the other end had several K... Makes little differnce as the reall pain is when you have to hit the disk be floppy or hard, most systems the CPU is totoally involved in doing PIO for the disk transfer(expecially floppy) and the rest of the world is left to hang. You have to stop the transfer prior to going to the disk. Many cases that doesnt work well. When you need speed this is where releaving the CPU of that using DMA pays. allison From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Tue Feb 5 06:01:02 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 07:01:02 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVR0033VLDCQCW2@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:00:47 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On Sunday 03 February 2008 07:34, Allison wrote: >> >On Thursday 31 January 2008 10:07, Allison wrote: >> >> Whats more interesting is there was nothing to prevent a termcap file >> >> and later improved CP/M work alikes did exactly that and many more >> >> things. >> > >> >What sort of stuff would you put into the category of "CP/M work alikes"? >> >> NOvados, DOS+, ZRdos, Zsdos and ZCPR addons to CP/M. They all could run >> CP/M programs but added things missing from basic V2.2. The gotacha was >> they required z80 as they were stuffing all that into the same space >> required by V2.2. > >Not much of a gotcha, I don't think I'll be doing much with the 8080 these >days anyhow, and pretty much every single one of the CP/M boxes I have on >hand here are all equipped with a Z80. > >ZCPR I've run across, those others are not familiar to me. Are they out >there and available? Might be worth a look at them if so. Try google and expect a lot of results. They have been out there for years. Allison From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Tue Feb 5 06:05:54 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 07:05:54 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVR007NKLLHO3V3@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:20:29 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On Monday 04 February 2008 14:48, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> I wanted to add a "put that diskette back" alarm to my CP/M >> implementation when there were files opened for writing > >:-) Fortunately it at least did a check for a changed disk. >> It was then that I discovered that CP/M made no attempt to track open >> files and indeed, the behavior of many programs depended on this. > >It wasn't really much of an OS, compared to a lot of what else was out there. I'd argue that CPM is barely an OS annd a should be catagorized as a filesystem and monitor. there are thing it doesn't manage. For some without all the IO bells implemented the IO is notably poor. Allison From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Tue Feb 5 06:55:29 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 07:55:29 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVR0090YNC9FAHI@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:21:19 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On Sunday 03 February 2008 09:19, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> > However while the IO was better CP/M had a far better file system that >> > accomodated fragmentation (scatter/gather) where RT-11 (and NS* DOS) had >> > the linear tag and dump that made enlarging a files or creating variable >> > length files harder. >> >> On the other hand, fragmentation on a floppy can result in very bad >> performance--and CP/M had no "defragment" utility. > >Sure it did. It was whatever you used to format a disk... :-) Seriously, >I'd copy stuff off elsewhere and then with a clean start re-copy it back >again, no fragmentation. Defragger for CP/M is both easy and fun... Use pip to copy the source disk to the destination disk. Best with two or more drives. the real problem is it's hard to defrag with limited on disk space without buffering in ram and thats doable too. >I thought I had remembered one, but can't seem to find it at the moment. > >> I can see the advantages of a system that tends to keep files in a small >> number of pieces. I've seen the single-piece file structure a lot on >> industrial equipment controllers. Makes sense where the file is static in size and whats really being done a loader. what happens if your doing data bases or data collection and the assumed file size exceeds the as built file... oops. >> > Assemble CP/M BDOS at around 100k using ASM and you find any disk under >> > 400K free space is too small. You still see that today with faster disks >> > and interfaces. >> >> CP/M was singularly ill-equipped to support hard disks of any size beyond a >> couple of megabytes. We'd started offering SA-8000 14" drives as an option >> and before too many months, we were getting 40MB drives for what we'd been >> paying for the single-platter ones. 5.25" HD size increases went even more >> quickly. We bought 7 and 14MB drives from Rodime and it wasn't long before >> Rodime was telling us that they were substituting 10MB and 20MB drives. I >> was asked if I could artificially (via software) limit the new drives to 7MB >> and 14MB so that marketing could charge for the extra storage. I >> discouraged the idea very strongly, pointing out that the customers weren't >> stupid--someone was going to peek inside and read the drive nameplate. It supported drives to 8mb as a logical unit. ou can have up to 16(less if you have floppies) logical units (A->P) for a total of 128mb. All of the CP/M derived works starting with P2DOS and on fixed the math inside the BDOS allowing for drives to 1Gb. >Oh yeah. I think if there were one thing I'd like to change about CP/M that >would probably be it, give me a multi-level directory. Last time I gave >that some thought I was considering using something like *.LBR files do, >only in those the utilities commonly used would have you set the number of >entries you wanted to add at the outset, and you had to go through some >stuff to add more or compact it., and compressing/decompressing library >members was a whole separate operation and also had to be done manually. But >I think it's possible. Thae allocation scheme used makes it hard to keep track of how many blocks are used by the content of a subdirectory... you can do it but lots of recursion needed and that means a rewrite of the whole files system code and also compatability issues as none of the apps will have any idea of subdirs. >I did have a "COMMAND.LBR" that was around 600K in size, had all sorts of >stuff in it, though mostly I used a fairly small handful of utilities. > >> But then DRI was really thinking of the "user number" feature as that- >> -there was the system (user 0) and your own files under your number, >> never considering that some users might want to use the feature to >> organize their data and go cross-number frequently. > >Yup, that's exactly what I did. Many of the ZCPR and later improved CP/M work alikes added named directories that equated to user numbers. >Any of you know how some of the CP/M variants dealt with HDs and these other >issues? Briefly CP/M doesn't, the BIOS writer does. Since basic CP/M has a hard limit of 8mb per logical disk drives larger than 8mb are divided into logical partitions as needed. I have many (6 or more) systems with hard disks and all have disks greater than 10MB. The system with a 45mb is partitioned (in bios not using MBR or other dosisms) into 5 logial disks four 8mb and one 5mb. The bios also allows for assigning what partition is what letter though a user utility. I also have a system with a 120mb disk set up so any four 8mb partitions can be "mounted" and "dismounted" as needed. Reason for this is each disk in the BIOS has buffers associated and they can become significant in space used. By limiting the number of active drives I save that space at the cost of only have 32mb on line at any given time. That was a fair trade for a large TPA in a non banked machine. that and by most users even 8 megs of disk in one lump is luxury afer using floppies. Allison From josecvalle at gmail.com Tue Feb 5 08:27:39 2008 From: josecvalle at gmail.com (jose carlos valle) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 12:27:39 -0200 Subject: Looking for TK50 tapes & RX50 disks.. In-Reply-To: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> References: <922173.88023.qm@web56210.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Hi, I an curator of computer museum brazil, and I have a lot of floppies disks 5 1/4, could send more details? like a photo etc. By the way, a friend mine in Dallas, have a lot of old stuffs, could you contact him too. Richard Byron, Computer reset www.computerreset.com Jose carlos valle 2008/2/5, silvercreekvalley : > > Hi, > > I'm in the process of restoring a 11/83 back to > health. Its > going OK so far, but I'm in need of some TK50/70 tapes > for > the tape drive and some RX50 5.25" disks. > > The RX50 disks - I'm assuming are different to regular > > 5.25" floppy disks (DSDD) - I do have some of those, > but > I'm told the magnetic composition of the RX50 disks is > > different? > > Finally, someone has changed one of the RX50 disk > units > for what looks like a standard (PC style) 5.25" disk > drive. I'm just wondering if this was a standard thing > to do, or a bodge? > > All the best > > Ian. > > > > > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Looking for last minute shopping deals? > Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. > http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping > -- Jose Carlos Valle Museu do Computador & Futuro da Tecnologia tel:+5511-4666-7545 - cel 8609-7410 Brazil From d_cymbal at hotmail.com Tue Feb 5 12:24:26 2008 From: d_cymbal at hotmail.com (Damien Cymbal) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 13:24:26 -0500 Subject: GEnie National CP/M RoundTable archives? Message-ID: Does anyone have an archive of the files for the GEnie National CP/M RoundTable? I am in the process of putting together a site for the Visual 1050 and there was apparently a section dedicated to the 1050: "Library 37. Visual-1050 CP/M". If possible I would like to include these on my site. I have found several stray entries on the net but have not been able to locate the bulk of the contents (most are named VLIBnn.ARK and described as "Visual 1050 Library Disk #nn"). Any help? Thanks. _________________________________________________________________ Climb to the top of the charts!?Play the word scramble challenge with star power. http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_jan From dennis at multiprobe.com Tue Feb 5 14:52:38 2008 From: dennis at multiprobe.com (Dennis Drew) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 12:52:38 -0800 Subject: HP4145 Message-ID: <0C4517CBA9458D4BA1F7F54987A2B92B18713A@OTTO.MultiProbe.local> Remember this post Chuck? Don't know if this one comes up too often, but I recently acquired an HP 4145 semiconductor analyzer software diskette. It's SSSD 5.25". If anyone's interested, I can shoot out an image. Cheers, Chuck Are you able to make an image still? Do you want to sell this unit? Thanks, Dennis A. Drew 805.560.0404 Ext. 105 dennis at multiprobe.com Director of Software Engineering Multiprobe Corporation 819 Reddick Street Santa Barbara, CA 93103 From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 18:52:58 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 16:52:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: I found a book - "the Analytical Engine" by Jeremy Bernstein Message-ID: <545763.34245.qm@web61021.mail.yahoo.com> subtitled "computers - past, present, and future" It's smallish - anyone interested? I'm looking for reasons to put stuff on eBay (or maybe it's keep it off!). Let me know. Fair shape. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Tue Feb 5 19:25:07 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:25:07 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVS00L46MLG9FC5@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:46:14 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On Tuesday 05 February 2008 04:08, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> > Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:20:29 -0500 >> > From: "Roy J. Tellason" >> > >> > > I'd already done it for DX-85M >> > >> > What's that? >> >> Proprietary multitasking operating system, based on the 8085; >> basically the other end of the spectrum from CP/M. Included built-in- >> interrupt-driven I/O (including 4 channels of async), file types >> (i.e. differentiated between executable, data, index, etc.), built-in >> ISAM files and a bunch of other stuff. One of these days I'll chat >> about it if anyone's curious. > >Yup! Count me in... Always curious, that sounds like my definition of an OS. >(Snip) >> Re: passing arguments on the stack. It's an interesting exercise on >> the 8085 using the "undocumented" instructions. For example, opcode >> 38H, which is a two-byte instruction would take SP, add the second >> instruction byte and stick the result in DE. Opcode 28H would do the >> same, but use HL instead of SP. >> >> Another 8085 16-bit operation, opcode D9H, would store HL in the >> address pointed to by DE. Opcode EDh would load HL from the address >> pointed to by DE. >> >> There were a couple of other 16-bit operations in 8085 not >> documented. 08H would subtract BC from HL, 10H shifted HL right one >> place with sign extension. 18H rotated DE left one place through the >> carry flag (i.e. 17 bit rotate). >> >> There were a few other instructions of less interest: a couple of >> jumps that tested for unsigned overflow and a conditional restart to >> location 40H (RST 8) if the overflow flag was set. > >Interesting stuff. I've run across the occasional info on undocumented ops >for different chips, but don't remember seeing any for the 8085 before. They were commonly known before the Z80 and both were both widely circulated and all the vendors made sure thies worked exactly the same way. Whats funny is while they all worked to see it was there none officially acknopwleged that save for under NDA. >> It was kind of unfortunate that Intel simply didn't leave blanks in >> the 8080 documentation for the "do nothing" moves; (e.g. MOV A,A; MOV >> B,B, etc.). It might have freed up a few more spare opcodes for >> later exploitation. > >I suspect that a lot of the reasons for them laying things out the way they >did had to do with convenience in the manufacturing process, mask layout or >somesuch stuff, rather than intent. Maufacturing no. Design yes. back then there was little if any automated chip design so anything to save time or transistors on the die was good. The redundant moves are simple example of not decoding all possible states. Saves transistors at a time when getting things on that much silicon was still hard. Allison From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Tue Feb 5 19:38:29 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:38:29 -0500 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? Message-ID: <0JVS00DDBN7QPJB5@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? > From: "Liam Proven" > Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 10:19:10 +0000 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On 03/02/2008, Allison wrote: >> > >> >Subject: Re: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? >> > From: "Roy J. Tellason" >> > Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 20:48:33 -0500 >> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" >> > >> >On Thursday 31 January 2008 10:07, Allison wrote: >> >> Whats more interesting is there was nothing to prevent a termcap file >> >> and later improved CP/M work alikes did exactly that and many more things. >> > >> >What sort of stuff would you put into the category of "CP/M work alikes"? >> >> NOvados, DOS+, ZRdos, Zsdos and ZCPR addons to CP/M. They all could run >> CP/M programs but added things missing from basic V2.2. The gotacha was >> they required z80 as they were stuffing all that into the same space >> required by V2.2. > >Fascinating stuff. I had no idea there were so many. Actually there are more. I left out three or four at least. >I used to do some support work on some early, 8-bit multiuser system >which ran something called CP/M but which wasn't, not even remotely. >The host machine was a single integrated unit - CRT screen, floppy >drive, CPU and optionally had a 5MB hard disk built into the console. >This had a bunch of serial ports on the back and could support half a >dozen or so terminals. > >The OS was called "CPM8" or something but was like nothing I've ever >seen before. Alas, now, with the passing of some 20y, I can't remember >make, model or anything else... > Unfamiliar to me but maybe they had somthing. Allison From silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 06:58:35 2008 From: silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com (silvercreekvalley) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 04:58:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: Whitechapel Workstation - schematics Message-ID: <575501.74026.qm@web56202.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Does anyone have the schematics for the Whitechapel Workstation. I'm trying to 'rescue' a WCW that has the dreaded leaked battery. Its not made too much mess, but there is quite a bit of crystalised battery fluid mainly on the terminals of components directly beneath the battery. The WCW wont boot, although the disk drive and fans spin up OK, the front on/off button doesnt function. Although I can hear a faint click on the PSU 'controller' from the small relay. Any tips on how to clean this and/or anyone with a spare mainboard (too much to hope for but you never know) - :) Ian. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Feb 6 10:06:53 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:06:53 -0600 Subject: Whitechapel Workstation - schematics In-Reply-To: <575501.74026.qm@web56202.mail.re3.yahoo.com> References: <575501.74026.qm@web56202.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47A9DB1D.2080507@gmail.com> silvercreekvalley wrote: > Does anyone have the schematics for the Whitechapel > Workstation. I'm trying to 'rescue' a WCW that has > the dreaded leaked battery. I seem to recall using vinegar on ours, which worked well enough - but as a word of caution, be careful around the tops of any gold/ceramic ICs as it's really easy to remove the inked IC markings too! > The WCW wont boot, although the disk drive and fans > spin up OK, the front on/off button doesnt function. > Although I can hear a faint click on the PSU > 'controller' from the small relay. We had a couple with exactly the same symptoms, but fixing them (beyond cleaning the corrosion and removing the batteries) got put on hold in the hope that schematics would turn up one day. If you do happen to find them, or work out what the fault you have is, do report back :-) cheers Jules From bob at jfcl.com Wed Feb 6 10:12:11 2008 From: bob at jfcl.com (Bob Armstrong) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 08:12:11 -0800 Subject: VAX-11730 (was Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11?) In-Reply-To: <20080206024459.GB8060@usap.gov> References: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> <200802051953.OAA24150@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200802051552.31928.pat@computer-refuge.org> <20080206024459.GB8060@usap.gov> Message-ID: <006301c868db$07c70870$17551950$@com> >Ethan Dicks wrote: >The 11/730 (and 11/725) has an on-board FEP - an 8085. You talk to >it much in the same way as you do to the LSI-11 in an 11/780, except >its console medium is TU58 tape, not RX01 disk. Syntactically, though, >I believe it's similar (I know the KA730 well, but not the KA780). Indeed, the 730 CFE (Console Front End or FEP) was very much like the 780 - the commands were similar and the 730 even used indirect command files for functions like booting and power up loading of microcode. All the microstore on the 730 was RAM; the only ROM was a little EPROM that booted the 8085 operating system from the console TU58. Everything else - all the CPU microcode, the microcode for the IDC (integrated disk controller) the FPA microcode, and VMB - were all loaded from the TU58. Although the 8085 operating system was some custom thing DEC wrote themselves, the TU58s used an RT11 file system (again, just like the 780) and you could easily manipulate them with EXCHANGE or FILEX. The bad news was that TU58s are really, really, slow. With all the microcode and indirect files that had to be read from the TU58, your 730 could easily take ten minutes from power on to the point where VMB was even ready to start thinking about loading VMS. When working on one, you want to do everything you can to avoid turning off the CPU box power:-) Because everything about the KA730 microcode was "soft", it's fairly easy to change the CPU microcode, update the console TU58 and reboot to change the CPU behavior. I believe DEC even sold a set of microprogramming tools for the 730, but I've never seen them and I don't know what's become of them today. Bob From arcarlini at iee.org Wed Feb 6 11:52:53 2008 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 17:52:53 -0000 Subject: VAX-11730 (was Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11?) In-Reply-To: <006301c868db$07c70870$17551950$@com> Message-ID: <001501c868e9$1a4a6150$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Bob Armstrong wrote: > The bad news was that TU58s are really, really, slow. With all the I beg to differ. I remember booting standalone backup off a TU58 on a VAX-11/750. Nearly an hour (including swapping cart once or twice). "really, really slow" is being far, far too kind :-) > Because everything about the KA730 microcode was "soft", it's > fairly easy > to change the CPU microcode, update the console TU58 and reboot to > change > the CPU behavior. I believe DEC even sold a set of microprogramming > tools > for the 730, but I've never seen them and I don't know what's become > of them today. In one of the DEC Technical Journals, there's a description of the work that was done to emulate a MicroVAX II before the hardware was ready. They used a VAX-11/730 and reprogrammed it to be a MicroVAX II (minus the bits that wouldn't fit, like some of the floating point IIRC). It was good enough that they were confident enough to redefine which instructions would not need to be entirely done in hardware. Reading between the lines, the microcode development stuff was already "stale" by then. Finding it now would be a challenge I would think! Antonio No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.20/1261 - Release Date: 05/02/2008 20:57 From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Feb 6 12:04:59 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:04:59 -0500 Subject: making backups of IRIX media In-Reply-To: <47A6E055.9040701@datanet.ab.ca> References: <47A6E055.9040701@datanet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <47A9F6CB.7090608@gmail.com> Andrew Warkentin wrote: > joe lobocki wrote: > >> hello, >> I need help making backups of my valuable IRIX media. I have heard >> that you >> can use CDRWIN, and i did, which made a decent backup, except I >> couldnt boot >> from the copy, and CDRWIN wont work properly on my laptop. is there >> any good >> windows based program that would copy and image my IRIX media and keep >> them >> bootable? if none for windows, i do have ubuntu linux loaded, although >> not >> compatible with my network devices so it is rarely used and cant download >> things. thanks!! >> -Joe >> >> >> > The easiest way to dump them to images would be to use "cat /dev/cdrom > > image.iso" or similar in a shell under Linux. More like "dd if=/dev/cdrom of=./image.iso" or similar. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Feb 6 12:16:07 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:16:07 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: References: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> Message-ID: <47A9F967.5050807@gmail.com> Dan Gahlinger wrote: > what are you talking about? > Vax existed before 1976 dude, where the hell have you been? > ever heard of the Vax 11/750 ? You know, the one with the PDP-8 FEP ? > > You obviously have NO clue what you're talking about. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! *plonk* Peace... Sridhar From cclist at sydex.com Wed Feb 6 12:29:26 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:29:26 -0800 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <200802061800.m16I0Wu4043301@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802061800.m16I0Wu4043301@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47A98C06.29213.55EE7AF@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:25:07 -0500 > From: Allison > Maufacturing no. Design yes. back then there was little if any automated > chip design so anything to save time or transistors on the die was good. > The redundant moves are simple example of not decoding all possible > states. Saves transistors at a time when getting things on that much > silicon was still hard. My point was "documentation" of these instructions as such was unnecessary. Had the documentation simply said "---", they wouldn't have been used, freeing the codes for later exploitation. But once documented as valid moves, there's no going back. 00H was the only *documented* no-op as such. But it's all 20-20 hindsight. Cheers, Chuck From tshoppa at wmata.com Wed Feb 6 12:33:43 2008 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:33:43 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? Message-ID: <47A9B73702000037000204A1@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> Der Mouse wrote, in response to the spat between me and Dan Gahlinger, > And, both of you, I don't care who you are and when you were working > with what; the kind of remarks you've been throwing at one another are, > in my opinion, way over the top. When somebody comes here posting way over the top crap, what are we supposed to do? The "egging him on" of trying to take his words and correct them so that they could've been true, thus giving him some credence, is IMHO is a far worse disservice to computing history. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt and he told me I was wrong. I think that paying him any attention at all was a mistake for all of us - every iteration he's making up more crap. Tim. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Wed Feb 6 13:29:53 2008 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 14:29:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: <47A9B73702000037000204A1@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> References: <47A9B73702000037000204A1@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> Message-ID: <200802061937.OAA03159@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> And, both of you, I don't care who you are and when you were working >> with what; the kind of remarks you've been throwing at one another >> are, in my opinion, way over the top. > When somebody comes here posting way over the top crap, what are we > supposed to do? Not "respond in kind", that's for sure. My own recommended list of actions, in order, approximately: - Ignore. (This includes responding to the factual contact as factual content and ignoring the emotional tone.) - Call the poster on it. (Politely - this doesn't mean "retaliation".) - Write to Jay. - Mechanically ignore (killfile, procmail to /dev/null, etc). Of course, this is a baseline, meant to be applied with "common sense", not as an inflexible algorithm, and is only an approximation 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 ethan.dicks at usap.gov Wed Feb 6 13:39:17 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 19:39:17 +0000 Subject: VAX-11730 (was Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11?) In-Reply-To: <006301c868db$07c70870$17551950$@com> References: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> <200802051953.OAA24150@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200802051552.31928.pat@computer-refuge.org> <20080206024459.GB8060@usap.gov> <006301c868db$07c70870$17551950$@com> Message-ID: <20080206193917.GC17779@usap.gov> On Wed, Feb 06, 2008 at 08:12:11AM -0800, Bob Armstrong wrote: > >Ethan Dicks wrote: > > >The 11/730 (and 11/725) has an on-board FEP - an 8085. You talk to > >it much in the same way as you do to the LSI-11 in an 11/780, except > >its console medium is TU58 tape, not RX01 disk. Syntactically, though, > >I believe it's similar (I know the KA730 well, but not the KA780). > > Indeed, the 730 CFE (Console Front End or FEP) was very much like the 780 > - the commands were similar and the 730 even used indirect command files for > functions like booting and power up loading of microcode. All the > microstore on the 730 was RAM; the only ROM was a little EPROM that booted > the 8085 operating system from the console TU58. Everything else - all the > CPU microcode, the microcode for the IDC (integrated disk controller) the > FPA microcode, and VMB - were all loaded from the TU58. Although the 8085 > operating system was some custom thing DEC wrote themselves, the TU58s used > an RT11 file system (again, just like the 780) and you could easily > manipulate them with EXCHANGE or FILEX. That all sounds familiar. > The bad news was that TU58s are really, really, slow. With all the > microcode and indirect files that had to be read from the TU58, your 730 > could easily take ten minutes from power on to the point where VMB was even > ready to start thinking about loading VMS. When working on one, you want to > do everything you can to avoid turning off the CPU box power:-) Using the stock console tapes from DEC, that was absolutely true. One of the scripts I wrote a while back, built a load-order optimized console tape. I think the 8085 must cache the directory, since the tape doesn't seek back to the directory blocks between each file. With the files in the right order, the file transfer time doesn't change, but the file-to-file time is just about nil (I think there may be one seek from end-to-end because of how many files there are to read and the block interleave on the tape). > Because everything about the KA730 microcode was "soft", it's fairly easy > to change the CPU microcode, update the console TU58 and reboot to change > the CPU behavior. I believe DEC even sold a set of microprogramming tools > for the 730, but I've never seen them and I don't know what's become of them > today. Back in the day, I remember occasionally seeing docs on PDP-11 microcoding, but I don't recall seeing anything for any model of VAX. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 6-Feb-2008 at 19:20 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -48.6 F (-44.8 C) Windchill -75.5 F (-59.7 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 8.2 kts Grid 50 Barometer 675.4 mb (10802 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From rivie at ridgenet.net Wed Feb 6 14:23:29 2008 From: rivie at ridgenet.net (Roger Ivie) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 12:23:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: VAX-11730 (was Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11?) In-Reply-To: <20080206193917.GC17779@usap.gov> References: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> <200802051953.OAA24150@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200802051552.31928.pat@computer-refuge.org> <20080206024459.GB8060@usap.gov> <006301c868db$07c70870$17551950$@com> <20080206193917.GC17779@usap.gov> Message-ID: On Wed, 6 Feb 2008, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Wed, Feb 06, 2008 at 08:12:11AM -0800, Bob Armstrong wrote: >> Because everything about the KA730 microcode was "soft", it's fairly easy >> to change the CPU microcode, update the console TU58 and reboot to change >> the CPU behavior. I believe DEC even sold a set of microprogramming tools >> for the 730, but I've never seen them and I don't know what's become of them >> today. > > Back in the day, I remember occasionally seeing docs on PDP-11 microcoding, > but I don't recall seeing anything for any model of VAX. I've seen the tools for a /780 and have a copy of the manual for it somewhere, but have never heard of them for the /730. I think the manual for the /780 tools is over on bitsavers. -- roger ivie rivie at ridgenet.net From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Feb 6 14:28:07 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:28:07 -0500 Subject: Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11? In-Reply-To: <200802061937.OAA03159@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <47A9B73702000037000204A1@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> <200802061937.OAA03159@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <47AA1857.8080803@gmail.com> der Mouse wrote: >>> And, both of you, I don't care who you are and when you were working >>> with what; the kind of remarks you've been throwing at one another >>> are, in my opinion, way over the top. >> When somebody comes here posting way over the top crap, what are we >> supposed to do? > > Not "respond in kind", that's for sure. > > My own recommended list of actions, in order, approximately: > > - Ignore. (This includes responding to the factual contact as factual > content and ignoring the emotional tone.) > - Call the poster on it. (Politely - this doesn't mean "retaliation".) > - Write to Jay. > - Mechanically ignore (killfile, procmail to /dev/null, etc). The last is what I usually recommend, and it's what I've implemented in this case. Peace... Sridhar From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Feb 6 16:59:56 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:59:56 -0500 Subject: abandoned Sun facility Message-ID: <200802061800.08895.rtellason@verizon.net> http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/sun_microsystems.htm Rows of servers? A heck of a mess, there, and I have no idea what I'm looking at in terms of any of that equipment... Thought it might be of interest to some, anyhow. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From fu3.org at gmail.com Wed Feb 6 17:10:41 2008 From: fu3.org at gmail.com (Chris H.) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 00:10:41 +0100 Subject: abandoned Sun facility In-Reply-To: <200802061800.08895.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200802061800.08895.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <310f50ab0802061510l2127ba0ao5526fc22e1520433@mail.gmail.com> 2008/2/6, Roy J. Tellason : > http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/sun_microsystems.htm > > Rows of servers? A heck of a mess, there, and I have no idea what I'm > looking at in terms of any of that equipment... > > Thought it might be of interest to some, anyhow. > You thought correctly. Great show, Mr. T. :) -- < http://whorehou.se/ > From andreww at datanet.ab.ca Wed Feb 6 17:12:18 2008 From: andreww at datanet.ab.ca (Andrew Warkentin) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:12:18 -0700 Subject: making backups of IRIX media In-Reply-To: <47A9F6CB.7090608@gmail.com> References: <47A6E055.9040701@datanet.ab.ca> <47A9F6CB.7090608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47AA3ED2.4020403@datanet.ab.ca> Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Andrew Warkentin wrote: > >> joe lobocki wrote: >> >>> hello, >>> I need help making backups of my valuable IRIX media. I have heard >>> that you >>> can use CDRWIN, and i did, which made a decent backup, except I >>> couldnt boot >>> from the copy, and CDRWIN wont work properly on my laptop. is there >>> any good >>> windows based program that would copy and image my IRIX media and >>> keep them >>> bootable? if none for windows, i do have ubuntu linux loaded, >>> although not >>> compatible with my network devices so it is rarely used and cant >>> download >>> things. thanks!! >>> -Joe >>> >>> >>> >> The easiest way to dump them to images would be to use "cat >> /dev/cdrom > image.iso" or similar in a shell under Linux. > > > More like "dd if=/dev/cdrom of=./image.iso" or similar. > > Peace... Sridhar > cat works just as well as dd there. dd is mainly for transferring data in blocks, such as when writing an image to a device (although cat usually works there as well), or for copying parts of files. From healyzh at aracnet.com Wed Feb 6 17:36:52 2008 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 15:36:52 -0800 Subject: abandoned Sun facility In-Reply-To: <200802061800.08895.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200802061800.08895.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: At 5:59 PM -0500 2/6/08, Roy J. Tellason wrote: >http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/sun_microsystems.htm > >Rows of servers? A heck of a mess, there, and I have no idea what I'm >looking at in terms of any of that equipment... > >Thought it might be of interest to some, anyhow. Other than a couple monitors in one shot, it looks like the only racks with anything in them are the network patch panels. What a mess. Guess it doesn't pay to have an empty building in California. Zaen -- | 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 korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Wed Feb 6 17:58:06 2008 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 15:58:06 -0800 Subject: abandoned Sun facility In-Reply-To: References: <200802061800.08895.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: Actually, it looks like the abandoned Pabst brewery has more interesting electronics in it. I wonder if there's something interesting behind the control board that has the temperature and humidity chart recorders on it. Anyway, there's at least a VT100 (I think. Can't read the number) there. http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/Abandoned%20Pabst%20Brewery.htm On Feb 6, 2008 3:36 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 5:59 PM -0500 2/6/08, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > >http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/sun_microsystems.htm > > From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Feb 6 18:05:27 2008 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:05:27 +0000 Subject: abandoned Sun facility In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 6/2/08 23:58, "Eric J Korpela" wrote: > Actually, it looks like the abandoned Pabst brewery has more > interesting electronics in it. I wonder if there's something > interesting behind the control board that has the temperature and > humidity chart recorders on it. Anyway, there's at least a VT100 (I > think. Can't read the number) there. > > http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/Abandoned%20Pabst%20Brewery.htm Well that's tomorrow night gone for me and quite possibly Jules since we both love the urban exploration stuff. Apologies for the off-topicness but I'm about to make up for that :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Feb 6 18:10:25 2008 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:10:25 +0000 Subject: Facit 9911 2.5" floppy drive In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Folks, I've had this for ages and it's about time I found out what it is and what it connected to. It's (as the subject says) a Facit 2.5" floppy drive with a label underneath that says 'FACIT Sweden, code 9258 04 00-00'. I got it with a box of bagged microfloppies and it has a huge connector cable off it ending in an interface module that's about 7" long bearing the legend 'for use with Option Adapter 9910' Google's turned up nothing, anyone know about this wee device? -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From silent700 at gmail.com Wed Feb 6 18:19:59 2008 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 18:19:59 -0600 Subject: abandoned Sun facility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <51ea77730802061619y155d330ama7c0c2b3caf7ce94@mail.gmail.com> > On 6/2/08 23:58, "Eric J Korpela" wrote: > > > Actually, it looks like the abandoned Pabst brewery has more > > interesting electronics in it. I wonder if there's something > > interesting behind the control board that has the temperature and > > humidity chart recorders on it. Anyway, there's at least a VT100 (I > > think. Can't read the number) there. > > > > http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/Abandoned%20Pabst%20Brewery.htm Hmm....wonder how long ago those pics were taken. Not far from me at all..... ;) From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Feb 6 18:23:48 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:23:48 -0500 Subject: abandoned Sun facility In-Reply-To: References: <200802061800.08895.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200802061923.48873.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 06 February 2008 18:36, Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 5:59 PM -0500 2/6/08, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > >http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/sun_microsystems.htm > > > >Rows of servers? A heck of a mess, there, and I have no idea what I'm > >looking at in terms of any of that equipment... > > > >Thought it might be of interest to some, anyhow. > > Other than a couple monitors in one shot, it looks like the only > racks with anything in them are the network patch panels. I dunno, there were some pretty hefty-looking transformers in that one shot... > What a mess. Indeed. > Guess it doesn't pay to have an empty building in California. And yet the power to the building is apparently still on? No wonder they have a power shortage in CA! -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Feb 6 17:45:41 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 23:45:41 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Looking for TK50 tapes & RX50 disks... In-Reply-To: from "Roger Ivie" at Feb 5, 8 06:18:29 pm Message-ID: > > On Tue, 5 Feb 2008, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > > While I never had any problems with the RX50, I found that the big > > advantage was the extra capacity! > > The big problems I heard about regarding the RX50 were: My guesses on these, based on the RX50 scheamtics... > > - Drive speed tolerance was looser than that required to format media, > which is why the Rainbow was shipped without a formatter. The spindle motor is similar to that in many other drives of the time, a DC motor with a coupled tachogenrator. Unlike most other drives, the control circuit doesn't use the LM2917 chip, but I see no reason why the DEC design shouldn't work well. _But_ IIRC the RX5 0fromat was 10 512 byte sectors per track. That's tight, and it might well need an accurate spindle speed (in particular one that's not running too fast) to format a disk. > - Hub reinforcements could allegedly damage the plastic fingers that > held the diskette hub. It's been a long time since I've been inside an RX50, but I see no real difference between the hubs on an RX50 and those on other drives. > - It was possible to step the drive beyond track zero. Yes, Unkike most other drives, the RX50 stepper control circuit is not inhibited by the track 0 signal logically ANDEd with (direction = out). It's quite possible to step the heads out beyond track 0. Whether this causes any real prolems I don't know. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Feb 6 18:25:07 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 00:25:07 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Whitechapel Workstation - schematics In-Reply-To: <575501.74026.qm@web56202.mail.re3.yahoo.com> from "silvercreekvalley" at Feb 6, 8 04:58:35 am Message-ID: > > Does anyone have the schematics for the Whitechapel > Workstation. I'm trying to 'rescue' a WCW that has > the dreaded leaked battery. I have scheamtisc for the MG1 -- the whole thing including the power controller board, RAM expansion, IBM backplane and so on. I don;t know how similar your machine is to this, though. > > Its not made too much mess, but there is quite a bit > of crystalised battery fluid mainly on the terminals > of components directly beneath the battery. > > The WCW wont boot, although the disk drive and fans > spin up OK, the front on/off button doesnt function. Hmmm. This, alas sounds as thought it might be very different to the MG1. The MG1 won't do anything with a flat battery -- it needs that battery to energize the pwoer-on relay. Have you checked the power supply outputs with a voltmeter? Mind you, if the drives are spinning up I would assume the PSU ios basically working. Is there a front panel LED? On the MG1 there's one between the 2 DE9 connecotrs for the keyboard and mouse. Does it flash any kind of error code? > Although I can hear a faint click on the PSU > 'controller' from the small relay. > > Any tips on how to clean this and/or anyone with a > spare mainboard (too much to hope for but you never > know) - :) You want a chemically weak acid (the leakinge is alkaline, basically (!) potassium hydroxide, although it's probably picked up carbon dioxide and become potassium caronate now. I normally used citric acid, availabe from come pharmacies over here, and also I believe from the home wine/beer making shops. I am still wondering where that relay is getting power from, though. -tony From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Feb 6 19:22:40 2008 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:22:40 -0600 Subject: abandoned Sun facility In-Reply-To: <51ea77730802061619y155d330ama7c0c2b3caf7ce94@mail.gmail.co m> References: <51ea77730802061619y155d330ama7c0c2b3caf7ce94@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20080206191716.04fedd88@mail.threedee.com> At 06:19 PM 2/6/2008, Jason T wrote: >> On 6/2/08 23:58, "Eric J Korpela" wrote: >> >> > Actually, it looks like the abandoned Pabst brewery has more >> > interesting electronics in it. >> > http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/Abandoned%20Pabst%20Brewery.htm > >Hmm....wonder how long ago those pics were taken. Not far from me at all..... ;) It's in downtown Milwaukee, adjacent to the freeway. As with any of these places, I doubt you want to get caught by the police. Some is gone already: http://milwaukeestreets.blogspot.com/2007/10/pabst-brewery-demolition.html - John From mikelee at tdh.com Wed Feb 6 21:04:17 2008 From: mikelee at tdh.com (Michael Lee) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:04:17 -0600 Subject: abandoned Sun facility In-Reply-To: <200802061800.08895.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200802061800.08895.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <47AA7531.7040502@tdh.com> Reminds me of what I see happening in my home town of Schaumburg, IL. There is an old IBM/AT&T building which was vacated and they have started remodeling or demolishing this week. I wouldn't be surprised if people on the list hadn't touched something from that building in one way or another. There was a lot of "firsts" and history in the building. Interesting stories, can't share too much unfortunately, but what I can is the public knowledge. The building had IBM, AT&T and Advantis. These were mainly network services divisions which Advantis was a co-op between Sears and IBM. At some point the group has changed hands several times back and forth, most recently in the news for transferring back to AT&T. There are some telecomm and e-commerce books which detail all that, but some rumors include stories of the starts of the "Prodigy" and development testing of Roadrunner cable modems in the building. Along with a lot of this recent history happening during the mid-90s to 2005ish... we'll just say IBM "e-business," AKA webhosting, outsourced services has quite a bit of history there and it's customers. Alas now the building has been stripped out, and the data center floors/ACs seem to be removed and exposed to the outside where they cut away at a face of the building. All I know is the recent history, who knows what other secrets and stories from decades past there are out there. I always wanted to know more about the water/liquid cooling pipes under the raised floor and closets and what they must have been connected to at one time. But to get back to my point, wonder what other stories there are of behind the various abandoned tech buildings throughout. Roy J. Tellason wrote: > http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/sun_microsystems.htm > > Rows of servers? A heck of a mess, there, and I have no idea what I'm > looking at in terms of any of that equipment... > > Thought it might be of interest to some, anyhow. > > From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Feb 6 23:31:33 2008 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 21:31:33 -0800 Subject: abandoned Sun facility Message-ID: <05266F0A-3FA8-4C64-B497-EBA4D1732A19@bitsavers.org> The Sun building was Ford Aerospace on the Palo Alto side of San Antonio road. > Actually, it looks like the abandoned Pabst brewery has more > interesting electronics in it. yup, the vt100 was there as part of a supervisory control system the company I worked for installed in the mid 70's. Industrial 14's and an 11/34. You don't forget the smell around those brewing kettles or the fact they served beer in the lunch room. From jrr at flippers.com Wed Feb 6 11:38:42 2008 From: jrr at flippers.com (John Robertson) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:38:42 -0800 Subject: Whitechapel Workstation - schematics In-Reply-To: <575501.74026.qm@web56202.mail.re3.yahoo.com> References: <575501.74026.qm@web56202.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47A9F0A2.4060907@flippers.com> silvercreekvalley wrote: > Does anyone have the schematics for the Whitechapel > Workstation. I'm trying to 'rescue' a WCW that has > the dreaded leaked battery. > > Its not made too much mess, but there is quite a bit > of crystalised battery fluid mainly on the terminals > of components directly beneath the battery. > > The WCW wont boot, although the disk drive and fans > spin up OK, the front on/off button doesnt function. > Although I can hear a faint click on the PSU > 'controller' from the small relay. > > Any tips on how to clean this and/or anyone with a > spare mainboard (too much to hope for but you never > know) - :) > > Ian. > > Hi Ian, Leaky batteries have been a problem for many industries. My normal field - pinball and other amusement machines - has had this on going since batteries were first introduced back in the 1970s. What leaks out of most batteries is an ALKALINE (not an acid!) - usually Potassium Hydroxide - and this can be neutralized by a weak acid. Eveready batteries technicians recommended to me back in the mid-80s that we use a 50/50 mix of white vinegar (clear) and water to stop the alkaline action. Then rinse with more water and dry. Scrape any coated traces as the alkalye leaches under the coating and will show up almost anywhere on a board! On ole pinball MPUs I've seen corrosion that skipped as much as 6 inches before showing up at the top of the board under a row of pin connectors! You also should replace any components that have signs of corrosion on their legs - the alkalye will slip inside th device and render it erratic at best. So any resistors, caps, diodes, ICs, etc. that have any corrosion on the legs MUST be replaced. Remove any IC sockets that show any signs of corrosion nearby... If you (when the board has the suspect parts removed) then give the board a quick glass beading (like sandblasting, but gentler) and then a final 50/50 rinse, water flush, and dry carefully you should be able to save your board. I've managed to save many MPUs over the years with just this process. It does take time though... John :-#)# -- John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames) www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out" From derschjo at msu.edu Thu Feb 7 01:04:20 2008 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 23:04:20 -0800 Subject: FT: Symbolics XL1201 Message-ID: <47AAAD74.9040806@msu.edu> I recently acquired a Symbolics XL1200 and so my XL1201's been sitting dormant and I just can't justify letting such a cool piece of hardware go unused; as such I'm thinking of trading it for something of approximately equal "coolness value" if anyone's interested... The XL1201 is the "desktop pizza box" variant of the XL1200 and includes: - 4MW RAM, FPA, latest IFEP ROMS (allow booting from large SCSI disks, amongst other things...) - "Old Style" console w/keyboard & mouse - External 9gb SCSI drive w/Genera 8.3 & layered products installed - Genera 8.3 installation media (on CD) - Printed documentation set (optional if shipping is an issue) The machine is clean and is in good working order, located in the Puget Sound area. I'm mostly interested in old workstation-style hardware, I'd be interested in trading for the following: (In no particular order. Note that the realism of some of the following is questionable :) - Xerox D-Machines - Early SGI IRIS machines (1000/2000/3000, etc.) - Other Lisp-based hardware (TI Exploder, etc... kinda want a big 3600-series Symbolics, but I don't know if I have the space :)) - Sun2 hardware - PDP-11's with blinkenlights (hey, a man can dream, can he not?) - Transputer-based hardware - IMSAI 8080 or Altair 8800 - IBM 5100 with APL option (ha ha ha) If you've got something interesting to trade, let me know... Thanks, Josh From fmc at reanimators.org Thu Feb 7 02:59:17 2008 From: fmc at reanimators.org (Frank McConnell) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:59:17 -0800 Subject: abandoned Sun facility In-Reply-To: <200802061800.08895.rtellason@verizon.net> (Roy J. Tellason's message of "Wed\, 06 Feb 2008 17\:59\:56 -0500") References: <200802061800.08895.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200802070859.m178xHiO099782@lots.reanimators.org> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/sun_microsystems.htm Don't go planning any sightseeing trips, it's gone. For a more recent view from across the street (not my photo): http://www.flickr.com/photos/inkvision/2247473625/ I think the crane is about where the building was. > Rows of servers? A heck of a mess, there, and I have no idea what I'm > looking at in terms of any of that equipment... Empty racks mostly. -Frank McConnell From fryers at gmail.com Thu Feb 7 04:40:18 2008 From: fryers at gmail.com (Simon Fryer) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 10:40:18 +0000 Subject: abandoned Sun facility In-Reply-To: <200802061800.08895.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200802061800.08895.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: All, On 06/02/2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/sun_microsystems.htm > > Rows of servers? A heck of a mess, there, and I have no idea what I'm > looking at in terms of any of that equipment... As others have said, I think the rows are just communications patch panels. The transformers look like the kind of transformers used to drop a three phase and ground (no neutral) supply down to a phase to neutral supply (ie drop phase to phase voltage to the equivalent phase to neutral voltage.) I suspect it is some part of the climate control system of the machine room. Although this is only a guess based on other similar transformers I have seen. Also look at the pictures it would appear that there are a number of under floor air chillers/humidifiers/dehumidifies for the raised floor. The one photo of the stainless tray looks like it is the office canteen. The photo with the ethernet tranciever (I think) is the most interesting. The magazine just to the lower right of the picture has 1995 on it. So it gives some sort of time line to go by. The photos of the two tanks have me interested. I initially thought that they were compressed air tanks but the more I look at the photo I think it more part of the heating system... Although could be fuel oil for either the heating system or backup generator. I am not sure what card cage is that the guy appears to be removing the card from. Could be comms gear or a computer. I am not sure. > Thought it might be of interest to some, anyhow. It was. Thank you. 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 huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au Thu Feb 7 05:12:46 2008 From: huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au (Huw Davies) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:12:46 +1100 Subject: VAX-11730 (was Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11?) In-Reply-To: <20080206193917.GC17779@usap.gov> References: <47A32AF5020000370001FC35@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> <200802051953.OAA24150@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200802051552.31928.pat@computer-refuge.org> <20080206024459.GB8060@usap.gov> <006301c868db$07c70870$17551950$@com> <20080206193917.GC17779@usap.gov> Message-ID: On 07/02/2008, at 6:39 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > Back in the day, I remember occasionally seeing docs on PDP-11 > microcoding, > but I don't recall seeing anything for any model of VAX. I used to have (and may still have somewhere) the VAX-11/780 microcode manuals - we'd planned to add some extra instructions to speed up an application so I investigated this. In the end we just waited and got a faster VAX :-) Totally off topic but Ethan did you have a chance to look at the eclipse today? Typical Melbourne weather cloudy most of the afternoon :-( Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies at kerberos.davies.net.au Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the Australia | air, the sky would be painted green" From pechter at gmail.com Thu Feb 7 07:37:41 2008 From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 08:37:41 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 12 In-Reply-To: <200802071116.m17BFwXP051229@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802071116.m17BFwXP051229@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On Feb 7, 2008 6:16 AM, wrote: > > Message: 6 > Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 19:39:17 +0000 > From: Ethan Dicks > Subject: Re: VAX-11730 (was Any word on OS/2 for PDP-11?) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Message-ID: <20080206193917.GC17779 at usap.gov> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > On Wed, Feb 06, 2008 at 08:12:11AM -0800, Bob Armstrong wrote: > > >Ethan Dicks wrote: > > > > >The 11/730 (and 11/725) has an on-board FEP - an 8085. You talk to > > >it much in the same way as you do to the LSI-11 in an 11/780, except > > >its console medium is TU58 tape, not RX01 disk. Syntactically, though, > > >I believe it's similar (I know the KA730 well, but not the KA780). > > > > Indeed, the 730 CFE (Console Front End or FEP) was very much like the > 780 > > - the commands were similar and the 730 even used indirect command files > for > > functions like booting and power up loading of microcode. All the > > microstore on the 730 was RAM; the only ROM was a little EPROM that > booted > > the 8085 operating system from the console TU58. Everything else - all > the > > CPU microcode, the microcode for the IDC (integrated disk controller) > the > > FPA microcode, and VMB - were all loaded from the TU58. Although the > 8085 > > operating system was some custom thing DEC wrote themselves, the TU58s > used > > an RT11 file system (again, just like the 780) and you could easily > > manipulate them with EXCHANGE or FILEX. > > That all sounds familiar. > > > The bad news was that TU58s are really, really, slow. With all the > > microcode and indirect files that had to be read from the TU58, your 730 > > could easily take ten minutes from power on to the point where VMB was > even > > ready to start thinking about loading VMS. When working on one, you > want to > > do everything you can to avoid turning off the CPU box power:-) > > Using the stock console tapes from DEC, that was absolutely true. One of > the scripts I wrote a while back, built a load-order optimized console > tape. > I think the 8085 must cache the directory, since the tape doesn't seek > back > to the directory blocks between each file. With the files in the right > order, > the file transfer time doesn't change, but the file-to-file time is just > about > nil (I think there may be one seek from end-to-end because of how many > files > there are to read and the block interleave on the tape). > > > Because everything about the KA730 microcode was "soft", it's fairly > easy > > to change the CPU microcode, update the console TU58 and reboot to > change > > the CPU behavior. I believe DEC even sold a set of microprogramming > tools > > for the 730, but I've never seen them and I don't know what's become of > them > > today. > > Back in the day, I remember occasionally seeing docs on PDP-11 > microcoding, > but I don't recall seeing anything for any model of VAX. > > -ethan > To do it on the 11/780 you needed to putchase the optional second WCS (Writable Control Store) board. The first WCS board was used for patches for microcode bugs from DEC. > > -- > Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 6-Feb-2008 at > 19:20 Z > South Pole Station > PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -48.6 F (-44.8 C) Windchill -75.5 F (-59.7C) > APO AP 96598 Wind 8.2 kts Grid 50 Barometer 675.4 mb (10802 > ft) > > Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov > http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html > > > -- d|i|g|i|t|a|l had it THEN. Don't you wish you could still buy it now! pechter-at-gmail.com From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Feb 7 07:48:01 2008 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 05:48:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: bogus SIDs on eBay? Message-ID: <200802071348.m17Dm14B018186@floodgap.com> It's a strange thing to do but it might be worth keeping in mind if you are looking at buying SID chips off of eBay (the C64's sound chip, for those who don't know). http://kevtris.org/Projects/sid/remarked_sids.html I make no comment on the factuality of the assertions presented, but I suppose the moral is when buying NOS, caveat emptor. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. -- Carl Sagan -------------- From rws at ripco.com Thu Feb 7 08:54:51 2008 From: rws at ripco.com (Richard Schauer) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 08:54:51 -0600 (CST) Subject: abandoned Sun facility In-Reply-To: <05266F0A-3FA8-4C64-B497-EBA4D1732A19@bitsavers.org> References: <05266F0A-3FA8-4C64-B497-EBA4D1732A19@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 6 Feb 2008, Al Kossow wrote: >> Actually, it looks like the abandoned Pabst brewery has more >> interesting electronics in it. > > yup, the vt100 was there as part of a supervisory control system > the company I worked for installed in the mid 70's. Industrial 14's > and an 11/34. You don't forget the smell around those brewing kettles > or the fact they served beer in the lunch room. Are you sure it wasn't an 11/44? I now have that machine, and Mike (who said you worked for him) told me that it was the brewhouse supervisory machine. (Incidentally I also got his VAX-11/780, VAX-11/750, RP06, TS11, and a whole lot of other less-than-200-pound items.) Richard Schauer From thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org Thu Feb 7 09:13:37 2008 From: thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org (Alexis) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:43:37 +1030 Subject: 16-bit sector addresses in CP/M 2.2 Message-ID: <1202397217.5536.23.camel@fubar.kaput.homeunix.org> Hi, I'm attaching a hard drive to my 8080 computer and there seems to be something about the way the sector translation works that's caught my attention. Before I go wasting my time trying to figure it out myself I'll ask here because there's going to be someone who knows (it's 1:30am and I'm feeling a little lazy). Observe the following code: sectran: ;translate the sector given by BC using the ;translate table given by DE xchg ;HL=.trans dad b ;HL=.trans(sector) mov l,m ;L = trans(sector) mvi h,0 ;HL= trans(sector) ret ;with value in HL >From a standard CP/M BIOS. My question is does the BDOS use this as a 16-bit value, or does it cut it to an 8-bit value, like sectran does. H is loaded with 0 and L is loaded with the translated sector. I'm thinking that if this is the case, then a total of 256 tracks * 65536 sectors * 128 bytes = 2048MB. This could be done without a massive translation table by transferring the desired sector, BC, into HL. I've only just started writing the CBIOS for the hard drive interface and I don't really want to waste my time on pointless endeavours. It wouldn't make sense to use 16-bits for a sector register and 8-bits for a track register if you're only going to use 8-bits of the sector register, but perhaps the upper 8-bits are used for internal flags or error conditions? Another thing is that the total sectors per track in the Disk Parameter Block is a 16-bits, not 8-bits. Apologies if this has been discussed and I've missed it. (Perhaps someone can provide a link if it has been) Alexis. From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Feb 7 09:57:33 2008 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 07:57:33 -0800 Subject: abandoned Sun facility Message-ID: <47AB2A6D.70108@bitsavers.org> > Are you sure it wasn't an 11/44? I now have that machine, and Mike (who > said you worked for him) told me that it was the brewhouse supervisory > machine. You're right. Have you talked to Mike recently? I haven't seen him for a couple of years. > I also got his VAX-11/780 Did you get any of the software collection? He had some very rare stuff. Sigh.. I can remember the exact layout of the stuff in the PCS basement.. At one time, the 11 and 8 systems were on the second floor. My desk was about a foot from two RP03 disks. From rws at ripco.com Thu Feb 7 11:56:42 2008 From: rws at ripco.com (Richard Schauer) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 11:56:42 -0600 (CST) Subject: abandoned Sun facility In-Reply-To: <47AB2A6D.70108@bitsavers.org> References: <47AB2A6D.70108@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: > You're right. Have you talked to Mike recently? I haven't seen him for > a couple of years. No, it's been a few years since I've seen him. I was working with him and a friend of his in getting some other DEC equipment too, but it fell through. > Did you get any of the software collection? He had some very rare stuff. I didn't get much of any software from him, other than a few RP06 packs and whatever was on the racks of RA81's. He said you might have the VAX stuff. > Sigh.. I can remember the exact layout of the stuff in the PCS basement.. What a bear getting that equipment up the stairs. Especially the 11/780. What a heavy, awful bear. I almost gave up a couple of times. I'm pretty sure Mike thought I was nuts and more than slightly dangerous. Richard From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Thu Feb 7 13:25:02 2008 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 13:25:02 -0600 Subject: manman fortran source Message-ID: I was wondering if anybody knows where I could find a copy of this dinosaur. I know it was written by the ASK group, and later bought by Computer Associates. I want to compile it and fire it up on a pc to show some folks, sort of a technology demo. They have a database on a VAX and are using this as a manufacturing database. Randy _________________________________________________________________ Need to know the score, the latest news, or you need your Hotmail?-get your "fix". http://www.msnmobilefix.com/Default.aspx From sellam at vintagetech.com Thu Feb 7 14:32:09 2008 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 12:32:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Note on LISP Machines available In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20080207141805.029a5ba0@mail.netsync.net> References: <6.1.2.0.2.20080207141805.029a5ba0@mail.netsync.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 7 Feb 2008, Christian R. Fandt wrote: > Been a loooong time since I've last had contact with you. I've been busy > with other stuff, been off classiccmp list for quite awhile, but still > am somewhat aware of classic computer goings-on thru the MARCH list > (MUCH less traffic to mess with, especially that danged OT stuff). Hi Christian. [ I copied this to the CC list for the edification of all who are involved with this. ] Good to hear from you again. Sorry for never following through on that LaserJet carthridge you wanted. I'm really bad at follow-up sometimes. If you still want that cart, I still have it! It's been in the same place ever since we last spoke about it. If you want it, send me your address again and I'll ship it off to you, my treat. > Were you one of the bunch she contacted? If so, then I don't need to > forward pictures to you. I tagged onto this email the Excel file though, > since it's relatively small (58k), just in case she hadn't contacted > you. Yep, I was one of the victims of her unreasonably high expectations. The entirety of the hardware she has is worth, in my opinion, less than $200. $100 would be reasonable for the lot. She only has one monitor/keyboard/mouse, and because these systems use custom display and keyboard interfaces you can't (easily) just take a standard monitor and keyboard and connect them. I tried to explain this to her but she said other people she contacted said they would just build interfaces. Whatever. For the complexity of doing this, please refer to old postings to the CC list from Tony Duell (do a search). Suffice it to say, it's not straightfoward. So in effect she has one complete system, a bunch of otherwise useless CPUs, and a pile of documentation and software for various different Xerox systems. > > > I am finally done listing all the Xerox stuff.... I found more manuals > and software on 1/30. I have attached a spreadsheet with everything > listed. I would really like to sell everything altogether. That may not > work.... but that is how I would like to start. I would like to ask > $2500.00 for all of it to start. I will modify based on the response > received. I am sending this same message to about 20 others that have > expressed sincere interest. I want to make sure that this stuff goes to > someone who will care for it in the best way and who will > document/archive all the manuals/software for others. This is a large > amount of work. Notes about the items are included in the spreadsheet... > please ask any questions that you wish. This, to me, is a substantial > collection of vintage computing items. > > > > There is a note in the spreadsheet indicating that I am really only > offering 6 of the 1186s because I want to keep one. I would rather not > ship the stuff... for several obvious reasons... but it is not ruled out > completely. Also, I did not try to turn anything on, because several > have requested that I do not. Damage can occur from merely turning them > on, thus, I have not done that. > > > > Thanks for your patience while I go through all of this stuff. It has > been an experience! > > > > Diana > > > I'm no where near an expert like you on values, but doesn't $2500.00 for > the whole lot seem high for all this?? Or are these LISP machines > getting to be like hen's teeth? I've never seen one in the wild myself. > Her attitude about preservation of the gear/docs is rather good though. 6085's are certainly rarer these days. I don't know if my own experience can be a reliable indicator because I'm a hyper-collector, but I have about 8-10 of these systems in my collection (with maybe 3 monitors and 2 keyboards). They are certainly uncommon--I won't say rare--but when they are found they are usually found in batches like this. The last time I got any was a pallet load I hauled from North Carolina back in the 1998 timeframe. In the meantime I have seen one or two here and there, but not often. Then again, I don't see anything with the regular frequency that I used to, so one could argue everything is rare these days, including C64s. I could be mistaken (probably am) but I could swear I remember seeing one at WeirdStuff in Sunnyvale recently. Anyway, they have a certain cachet because they are second generation STAR machines. They don't have the physicality of the original 8010, but they do run the same software, and for those who want to own a piece of early GUI history, this would be a good entry point. Keep in mind that these systems will still take a lot of work and reading to get up and running. Example: when they boot they expect to connect to a time server on the network. There are (easy) ways around this, but again it's not a system for the casual collector. You have to know what you're doing before you can get to a desktop login dialog. The real treasure here are the disks and manuals. I'd really like to get my hands on the 6060 system disks and manuals (I have a 6060 but no software or manuals) and the 8" floppies. I have the facilities to make copies for other people, BTW. So in general, the hardware is not interesting to me. To others it might be because they probably don't already have a pile of them :) But because she only has one keyboard, mouse and monitor (the latter of which from the sounds of it is pretty beat up) she only has one complete system. The rest is spare parts. The documentation and software is a different story. I would say it's worth a few hundred bucks (I don't want to be more specific because I don't want to bias the bargaining process), but it should be separated into logical lots. It makes no sense to include the 8" floppies with the 5.25" stuff, for example, because the 1186 doesn't have an 8" floppy drive. Ditto with the 6060 stuff. In conclusion, for someone who really wants an 1186 system, $500 would not be unreasonable for one complete system with software and manuals. Based on the description of the physical condition of the monitor, I'd knock that in half. I'd have to look at the spreadsheet in detail to guess at prices for the various software and docs. But unless she's willing to separate the lot then the deal is a non-starter. $2,500 is a pipe dream. I hope this helps. -- 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 dr.emiel at xs4all.nl Thu Feb 7 15:28:02 2008 From: dr.emiel at xs4all.nl (Rik) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 22:28:02 +0100 Subject: For pickup Lomac Adam in the Netherlands References: <6.1.2.0.2.20080207141805.029a5ba0@mail.netsync.net> Message-ID: <005c01c869d0$5567a8f0$0501a8c0@xp1800> I got for pickup a Lomac Adam http://www.computermuseumgroningen.nl/ search for Lomac. It's for free, It is compleet with 2 cpu's 2 CDC Hawks desk terminal and one of the first Centronics with some manuals. Reactions please off-list Rik From javickers at solutionengineers.com Thu Feb 7 16:25:41 2008 From: javickers at solutionengineers.com (Ade Vickers) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 23:25:41 +0100 Subject: TV Spot: CBM Pet In-Reply-To: <005c01c869d0$5567a8f0$0501a8c0@xp1800> Message-ID: <200802072225.m17MPngO018852@keith.ezwind.net> Spotted a CBM Pet (unknown model - I wasn't watching closely enough) on the new BBC TV series "Ashes to Ashes" (sequel to Life on Mars). Did the British police force use CBMs in the '80s, then? I'd have thought they'd have gone straight in with terminals attached to a mainframe or mini? Cheers, Ade. From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Feb 7 16:38:58 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:38:58 -0600 Subject: How compatible were "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <20080130113717.O91077@shell.lmi.net> References: <131615.8659.qm@web61014.mail.yahoo.com> <47A0CB04.9060304@oldskool.org> <20080130113717.O91077@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <47AB8882.9090801@oldskool.org> Fred Cisin wrote: > Starting with 5.00, MICROS~1 began selling retail. > Mostly unconfirmed rumor: ("I can not publicly confirm that") > MICROS~1's contract with IBM had non-competition clauses, and although > MICROS~1 could sell to other manufacturers (Compaq, Morrow, ... ... ), > they could not sell retail. Those clauses expired in 10 years. It is > possible that the release date and time (to the nearest 18.2 of a second) > synchronize with the expiration of those clauses. I just about busted a gut laughing when I read "to the nearest 18.2 of a second"! So true. Although one hopes their 5150 wasn't too warm (I have measured timing variance on my most marginal 5150 when the operating temperature reaches uncomfortable levels for humans; I guess it has to do with temp. affecting the crystal or something) My summer job between college terms was working at Egghead software, and there was a massive, MASSIVE push from Egghead to sell MS-DOS 5.0. We (lowly sales floor associates) were bussed to a convention center and shown various presentations on why MS-DOS 5.0 was dA b0mB and why it was the perfect add-on to any and all sales already in progress at the register. Many cheezy sales guides and videos followed. While I liked the built-in memory management and disk compression (because I'm a compression geek) of 5.0, I was extremely turned off by the push. Part of the promo was to point out other products in the store that would immediately benefit from 5.0, but I couldn't bring myself to do that as I felt it was somewhat dishonest. I *DID* have fun pointing out the products that REQUIRED it, though, like the flight sim Falcon 3.0. Falcon 3.0 was supposed to go on sale the same day MS-DOS 5.0 was released, but we had gotten our copies early and had mistakenly sold a few. The look on the customer's face when they brought it back was priceless: "You mean this game requires software that isn't currently for sale? Well, when will it be out? Next week? Okay, I'll come back next week-- what was that? It's not just software, I have to upgrade my operating system?!?" If you were particularly unlucky that day, the next question would be "What's an operating system?" > MS-DOS 2.eleven corresponded to IBM's 2.ten, Which is interesting because IBM's 2.eleven was a special release for the PCjr. No MS-DOS 2.12 then? Nope, because no machine other than the PCjr needed the PCjr changes. -- 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 Thu Feb 7 16:59:32 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:59:32 -0800 Subject: 16-bit sector addresses in CP/M 2.2 In-Reply-To: <200802071800.m17I04bY054039@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802071800.m17I04bY054039@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47AB1CD4.2663.4E7AC11@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:43:37 +1030 > From: Alexis > I'm attaching a hard drive to my 8080 computer and there seems to be > something about the way the sector translation works that's caught my > attention. Before I go wasting my time trying to figure it out myself I'll > ask here because there's going to be someone who knows (it's 1:30am and > I'm feeling a little lazy). > Another thing is that the total sectors per track in the Disk Parameter > Block is a 16-bits, not 8-bits. > > Apologies if this has been discussed and I've missed it. (Perhaps > someone can provide a link if it has been) I'll confine my answer to CP/M 2.2, since that's probably what you're working with. There's lots of 16-bit arithmetic in CP/M 2.2--in particular, the 128- byte block number is maintained as a 16-bit value. This limits the size of a disk to 65536 128-byte records or 8MB. Yes, you can have a single track with 65535 sectors on it or 65535 tracks with a a single sector on each. In theory, the maximum disk size should be about 1GB (DRM=65535 and BSH=7). Check it out for yourself in the source at: http://www.cpm.z80.de/source.html Note that CP/M 2.2 contains no division routines in its sector and track computation--the block-to-track-and-sector translation is handled by repetitive subtraction. There is a little bit of code to reduce the burden of this by using the last translated block number to compute the next, though I wonder how many cycles are saved in practice. Hope this helps. Cheers, Chuck From classiccmp at vintage-computer.com Thu Feb 7 19:17:54 2008 From: classiccmp at vintage-computer.com (Erik Klein) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 17:17:54 -0800 Subject: Modern Marvels: 90s Tech Message-ID: <13bc01c869f0$6e877de0$6601a8c0@NFORCE4> This is a little OT but the show does track back to things on-topic. >From the producer: --- Modern Marvels: 90s Tech Premieres: TONIGHT! Thursday, February 7th @ 8pm ET/PT on The History Channel (please check local listings) 90s Tech: It was the dot com decade that opened up the information superhighway. "Modern Marvels: 90s Tech" takes you way back to the end of the 20th century and the beginning of today's trendy technologies. From DVDs to TIVO to GPS, see how the digital gadgets we can't live without all started in the 90s. Hear the Amazon story from its very own founder, Jeff Bezos, and see how millions of cyber goods are packaged and shipped at an 800,000 square-foot Amazon distribution center. At Google, learn the science of the world's most popular search engine. And was Furby really a threat to national security? We go beyond its furry exterior to show you the inner-workings of the intriguing pet. Heavyweight Boxing Champion George Foreman, will show us how to "knock out the fat" with one of the best-selling appliances of the decade. And its creators will demo some of the original first-person shooter games: Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. --- There is some neat stuff about Google including some images from the CHM. When they talk about portable computers they show an Osborne 1 (mine), a PowerBook 170 (also mine) as well as some other gear. The Compaq in the background is another item I sent them for the show. Evan Koblentz was their technical consultant for the portable computing segment. It's a bit late for the East Coast folks but the show will re-run, I'm sure. Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum The Vintage Computer Forums From evan at snarc.net Thu Feb 7 19:30:10 2008 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 20:30:10 -0500 Subject: Modern Marvels: 90s Tech In-Reply-To: <13bc01c869f0$6e877de0$6601a8c0@NFORCE4> Message-ID: <012101c869f2$26ac0930$f750f945@evan> >>> Evan Koblentz was their technical consultant for the portable computing segment. Specifically, I supplied the IBM Simon. They explained that the Osborne was from '81, and that the Powerbook is from '91, but they didn't explain -- despite my protests -- that real laptops debuted in the '82-'83 timeframe, and were very common by '86 or so -- and that laptops were old-hat by the time the Powerbook came along. They kept harping on the importance ??? of the wristpad. I'm betting it was just an Apple bias. Oh well. All of the computer parts are finished by about 15 minutes into the program. -----Original Message----- From: Erik Klein [mailto:classiccmp at vintage-computer.com] Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 8:18 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Modern Marvels: 90s Tech This is a little OT but the show does track back to things on-topic. >From the producer: --- Modern Marvels: 90s Tech Premieres: TONIGHT! Thursday, February 7th @ 8pm ET/PT on The History Channel (please check local listings) 90s Tech: It was the dot com decade that opened up the information superhighway. "Modern Marvels: 90s Tech" takes you way back to the end of the 20th century and the beginning of today's trendy technologies. From DVDs to TIVO to GPS, see how the digital gadgets we can't live without all started in the 90s. Hear the Amazon story from its very own founder, Jeff Bezos, and see how millions of cyber goods are packaged and shipped at an 800,000 square-foot Amazon distribution center. At Google, learn the science of the world's most popular search engine. And was Furby really a threat to national security? We go beyond its furry exterior to show you the inner-workings of the intriguing pet. Heavyweight Boxing Champion George Foreman, will show us how to "knock out the fat" with one of the best-selling appliances of the decade. And its creators will demo some of the original first-person shooter games: Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. --- There is some neat stuff about Google including some images from the CHM. When they talk about portable computers they show an Osborne 1 (mine), a PowerBook 170 (also mine) as well as some other gear. The Compaq in the background is another item I sent them for the show. Evan Koblentz was their technical consultant for the portable computing segment. It's a bit late for the East Coast folks but the show will re-run, I'm sure. Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum The Vintage Computer Forums From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Feb 7 21:26:26 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 19:26:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: bogus SIDs on eBay? In-Reply-To: <200802071348.m17Dm14B018186@floodgap.com> References: <200802071348.m17Dm14B018186@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 7 Feb 2008, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > It's a strange thing to do but it might be worth keeping in mind if you > are looking at buying SID chips off of eBay (the C64's sound chip, for > those who don't know). > > http://kevtris.org/Projects/sid/remarked_sids.html > > I make no comment on the factuality of the assertions presented, but I > suppose the moral is when buying NOS, caveat emptor. Counterfeiting components is a big racket. http://sound.westhost.com/counterfeit.htm -- 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 spectre at floodgap.com Thu Feb 7 21:33:02 2008 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 19:33:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: bogus SIDs on eBay? In-Reply-To: from David Griffith at "Feb 7, 8 07:26:26 pm" Message-ID: <200802080333.m183X2B4023416@floodgap.com> > > It's a strange thing to do but it might be worth keeping in mind if you > > are looking at buying SID chips off of eBay (the C64's sound chip, for > > those who don't know). > > > > http://kevtris.org/Projects/sid/remarked_sids.html > > > > I make no comment on the factuality of the assertions presented, but I > > suppose the moral is when buying NOS, caveat emptor. > > Counterfeiting components is a big racket. > > http://sound.westhost.com/counterfeit.htm Oh, I'm fully aware. But it doesn't seem like the margins on 64 SIDs would be worth it. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking. -- S.B. #141 --- From trixter at oldskool.org Thu Feb 7 23:00:14 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:00:14 -0600 Subject: bogus SIDs on eBay? In-Reply-To: <200802080333.m183X2B4023416@floodgap.com> References: <200802080333.m183X2B4023416@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <47ABE1DE.7040802@oldskool.org> Cameron Kaiser wrote: > Oh, I'm fully aware. But it doesn't seem like the margins on 64 SIDs would > be worth it. Why, how much does your typical SID go for? -- 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 Fri Feb 8 00:07:56 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:07:56 -0800 Subject: C64 on Craigslist Message-ID: <47AB813C.2707.3E866A@cclist.sydex.com> http://eugene.craigslist.org/sys/566685209.html Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Feb 8 00:13:20 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:13:20 -0500 Subject: bogus SIDs on eBay? In-Reply-To: <47ABE1DE.7040802@oldskool.org> References: <200802080333.m183X2B4023416@floodgap.com> <47ABE1DE.7040802@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200802080113.20865.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 08 February 2008 00:00, Jim Leonard wrote: > Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > Oh, I'm fully aware. But it doesn't seem like the margins on 64 SIDs > > would be worth it. > > Why, how much does your typical SID go for? I've sold a few, it varies some. That site would've had some more weight for me if he'd said specifically who it was he bought 'em from... -- 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 gklinger at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 00:19:50 2008 From: gklinger at gmail.com (Golan Klinger) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 01:19:50 -0500 Subject: C64 on Craigslist In-Reply-To: <47AB813C.2707.3E866A@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47AB813C.2707.3E866A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: Chuck Guzis wrote: > http://eugene.craigslist.org/sys/566685209.html Is there something particularly noteworthy about this 64? I see them on Craigslist around here quite often and I never thought them worthy of mention on this global list. -- Golan Klinger Dark is the suede that mows like a harvest. From trixter at oldskool.org Fri Feb 8 00:32:27 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 00:32:27 -0600 Subject: bogus SIDs on eBay? In-Reply-To: <200802080113.20865.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200802080333.m183X2B4023416@floodgap.com> <47ABE1DE.7040802@oldskool.org> <200802080113.20865.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <47ABF77B.30501@oldskool.org> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Friday 08 February 2008 00:00, Jim Leonard wrote: >> Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>> Oh, I'm fully aware. But it doesn't seem like the margins on 64 SIDs >>> would be worth it. >> Why, how much does your typical SID go for? > > I've sold a few, it varies some. What is "some"? I mean, are we talking about $20 for a SID or $80 for a SID? If the latter, then yes, I can see how it would be worthwhile for crooks to go through the trouble. -- 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 Fri Feb 8 00:34:21 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 00:34:21 -0600 Subject: C64 on Craigslist In-Reply-To: References: <47AB813C.2707.3E866A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47ABF7ED.5040609@oldskool.org> Golan Klinger wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> http://eugene.craigslist.org/sys/566685209.html > > Is there something particularly noteworthy about this 64? I see them > on Craigslist around here quite often and I never thought them worthy > of mention on this global list. Chuck may have been being facetious in reference to the previous SID discussion (as in "here's a full C64 for the cost of just a bootleg SID") -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Feb 8 01:00:33 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:00:33 -0500 Subject: bogus SIDs on eBay? In-Reply-To: <47ABF77B.30501@oldskool.org> References: <200802080333.m183X2B4023416@floodgap.com> <200802080113.20865.rtellason@verizon.net> <47ABF77B.30501@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <200802080200.33582.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 08 February 2008 01:32, Jim Leonard wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > On Friday 08 February 2008 00:00, Jim Leonard wrote: > >> Cameron Kaiser wrote: > >>> Oh, I'm fully aware. But it doesn't seem like the margins on 64 SIDs > >>> would be worth it. > >> > >> Why, how much does your typical SID go for? > > > > I've sold a few, it varies some. > > What is "some"? I mean, are we talking about $20 for a SID or $80 for a > SID? If the latter, then yes, I can see how it would be worthwhile for > crooks to go through the trouble. I don't think I've ever gotten anywhere near $80 for any that I've sold, though $20 doesn't sound too far out of line. I'd really have to go digging into some old emails to get all that more specific an idea, though. Back when we were making something of a living fixing that stuff (1985-92 or thereabouts), the going price for one was $25. I have no idea what they're going for on ebay these days, though I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to find 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 chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 5 17:39:43 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 15:39:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: How compatible were "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <200802050315.58689.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <621410.90169.qm@web61021.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Roy J. Tellason" wrote: > On Sunday 03 February 2008 13:52, Chris M wrote: > > I want Wang cards like that. Don't have a Wang, > but I > > still want the card... > Why, if you don't have that system? It was pretty > oddball, for sure. The > one thing I do recall about that card was that you > plugged your monitor into > it rather than into the usual place. But that > monitor was totally > non-standard, too -- it used a couple of different > DIN connectors one of > which was for supplying power to the monitor, which > had no AC cord. I just want it. I WANT IT I WANT IT. I can always find a Wang Roy. I wasn't even aware of the existence of those cards until you mentioned them. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 6 18:24:45 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 16:24:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: can anyone recommend a good DOS based jpeg viewer Message-ID: <41035.92328.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> preferably one where you can opt for a window into a large image, one that's bigger then the screen. I've tried a few and they're all goofy. If I have to write my own someone is going to pay... ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de Thu Feb 7 02:44:44 2008 From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 09:44:44 +0100 Subject: "CP/M compatible" vs. "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <47A98C06.29213.55EE7AF@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200802061800.m16I0Wu4043301@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47A98C06.29213.55EE7AF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47AAC4FC.4030508@iais.fraunhofer.de> Chuck Guzis schrieb: >> Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:25:07 -0500 >> From: Allison >> > > >> Maufacturing no. Design yes. back then there was little if any automated >> chip design so anything to save time or transistors on the die was good. >> The redundant moves are simple example of not decoding all possible >> states. Saves transistors at a time when getting things on that much >> silicon was still hard. >> > > My point was "documentation" of these instructions as such was > unnecessary. Had the documentation simply said "---", they wouldn't > have been used, freeing the codes for later exploitation. But once > documented as valid moves, there's no going back. > > 00H was the only *documented* no-op as such. It does not help not to document those instrs in the hope that they can later be reused when more transistors become available. Those "undocumented instructions" *were* used in any software product where the programmers became aware of ., and be it only for the reason to make it harder to understand the code by competitors (thus have disassemblers stumble on them). Typical example were the Z80 "mov xx,reg" instructions where xx is IXL,IXH,IYL,IYH which are side effects of adding a DD/FD prefix to "mov L,reg" or "mov H,reg" which were, from my own disassembly activities frequently used in Z80 CP/M code. Admittedly, the inplace moves like "mov B,B" are often only useful for alternative NOPs, but I remember having seen also creative uses of such codes as part of some data structure which happened to have a suitable pattern to execute as some code - again to obscure the program logic to interested hackers. Typical was also to use a three byte instr like "lda xxyy" where xx,yy formed another instruction like a short jump which is executed on PC+1, but skipped on PC+0 (location of lda). Almost every 8 bit CPU of that time had one or more "undocumented opcodes" resulting from don't cares in the instruction decoding logic. -- Holger From bqt at softjar.se Thu Feb 7 06:09:32 2008 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 13:09:32 +0100 Subject: VAX microcode (was: VAX-11730) In-Reply-To: <200802071116.m17BFwXZ051229@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802071116.m17BFwXZ051229@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47AAF4FC.8000100@softjar.se> Ethan Dicks skrev: >> Because everything about the KA730 microcode was "soft", it's fairly easy >> to change the CPU microcode, update the console TU58 and reboot to change >> the CPU behavior. I believe DEC even sold a set of microprogramming tools >> for the 730, but I've never seen them and I don't know what's become of them >> today. > > Back in the day, I remember occasionally seeing docs on PDP-11 microcoding, > but I don't recall seeing anything for any model of VAX. I have the documentation for the VAX-86x0 micromachines... And I have the hardware. Want to do something? :-) Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From jrr at flippers.com Thu Feb 7 12:23:01 2008 From: jrr at flippers.com (John Robertson) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:23:01 -0800 Subject: bogus SIDs on eBay? In-Reply-To: <200802071348.m17Dm14B018186@floodgap.com> References: <200802071348.m17Dm14B018186@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <47AB4C85.1060809@flippers.com> Cameron Kaiser wrote: > It's a strange thing to do but it might be worth keeping in mind if you > are looking at buying SID chips off of eBay (the C64's sound chip, for > those who don't know). > > http://kevtris.org/Projects/sid/remarked_sids.html > > I make no comment on the factuality of the assertions presented, but I > suppose the moral is when buying NOS, caveat emptor. > > Very interesting web page. There are many fake parts out there and companies must be careful to protect themselves from this sort of fraud. I've had problems with many parts that are sold as replacements yet are of such poor quality that they collapse or bend or simply won't fit. Because of this I am avoiding the low price companies and trying to buy stock only from reputable dealers who will stand behind their products if a problem is found. John :-#(# -- John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames) www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out" From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Thu Feb 7 12:42:43 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 13:42:43 -0500 Subject: 16-bit sector addresses in CP/M 2.2 Message-ID: <0JVV00MILSQXVUR0@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: 16-bit sector addresses in CP/M 2.2 > From: Alexis > Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:43:37 +1030 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >Hi, > >I'm attaching a hard drive to my 8080 computer and there seems to be >something about the way the sector translation works that's caught my >attention. Before I go wasting my time trying to figure it out myself >I'll ask here because there's going to be someone who knows (it's 1:30am >and I'm feeling a little lazy). > >Observe the following code: > >sectran: > ;translate the sector given by BC using the > ;translate table given by DE > xchg ;HL=.trans > dad b ;HL=.trans(sector) > mov l,m ;L = trans(sector) > mvi h,0 ;HL= trans(sector) > ret ;with value in HL > >>From a standard CP/M BIOS. Firt off that is for for up to 65536 sectors (per track). As that directly maps to only sectors on a track and only for 128byte logical sectors. (typically it's less than 64 for most disk drives) >My question is does the BDOS use this as a 16-bit value, or does it cut >it to an 8-bit value, like sectran does. H is loaded with 0 and L is >loaded with the translated sector. > >I'm thinking that if this is the case, then a total of 256 tracks * >65536 sectors * 128 bytes = 2048MB. This could be done without a massive >translation table by transferring the desired sector, BC, into HL. It would be that if for only one thing. The math is not way. The calulation is 65536 sectors total or 65536*128 or 8516608 (8mb). It's really a result that all math truncates to 16bits. there are BDOSs that fix this (P2DOS, Suprbdos, Novados, ZRdos...) and can do the full 2Gb. > >I've only just started writing the CBIOS for the hard drive interface >and I don't really want to waste my time on pointless endeavours. Define pointless.. The problem is if your using a LBA HD or CF that has more than 8MB then you have to partition the drive. Also for LBA addressing there are some track and sector tricks that can be applied as well for deblocking. >It wouldn't make sense to use 16-bits for a sector register and 8-bits >for a track register if you're only going to use 8-bits of the sector >register, but perhaps the upper 8-bits are used for internal flags or >error conditions? You might. >Another thing is that the total sectors per track in the Disk Parameter >Block is a 16-bits, not 8-bits. It allows up to 16bit values for both track and sector. While floppies never use more than byte values the parameters passed to the BIOS is a word and it's at your choice to truncate to byte. Caveat: For floppies and smaller hard disks they are CHS, usually cylinders needs a byte for floppy but hard disks it may have more than 256 cylinders. Both however rarely have more than 64 logical sectors per track so a byte works. The gotcga is devices like Ramdisks, CF and larger IDE drives are or can be LBA where it's easier to look at it as 1 track of 65536 sectors or 65536 tracks of one sector or anything that multiples out to 65536! Where the byte/word thing is important is this case: Hard disk organized as 16spt (assume they are 128 byte sectors which rarely happens) and 8192 tracks for 16mb. Thats a total of 131072 sectors. So to use it all you partition it in the bios as two drives and one has an offset(reseverd tracks) of half the total tracks or 4097. That means the parameter for tracks passed will be a word as you need at least 13bits. CP/M does handle that correctly. It's gets discussed but not often and it's straight forward and not obvious. The CP/M alteration guide is plain poor on why or how. the only book that explains this reasonably and you have to read the whole book to get all the bits is Andy Johnson-Laird, The Programers CP/M Handbook. I have done enough things with CP/M and it's bios to have the need to understand it and that books was both best and good reference. Prior to that I had to infer, guess and test to see what was really happening. As a result when I do a bios SETTRACK, and SECSEC stores a word value and else where I can then selectivly chose to use a byte or word. Also SECTRAN (AKA skew) is a allways NUL routine in my BIOS as it's useless when drives that have sectors larger than 128 bytes. For hard disks and CF/IDE types it's never used as they are too fast. If I need Sectran functionality I do it at the device level rather than have BDOS do the work. You may use it if you wish and it applies well for any disk that is SD especially for 8"SSSD. Hope that helps. Allison From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Feb 8 02:15:00 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 03:15:00 -0500 Subject: How compatible were "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <621410.90169.qm@web61021.mail.yahoo.com> References: <621410.90169.qm@web61021.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200802080315.00666.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 05 February 2008 18:39, Chris M wrote: > --- "Roy J. Tellason" wrote: > > On Sunday 03 February 2008 13:52, Chris M wrote: > > > I want Wang cards like that. Don't have a Wang, > > > but I still want the card... > > > > Why, if you don't have that system? It was pretty oddball, for sure. > > The one thing I do recall about that card was that you plugged your > > monitor into it rather than into the usual place. But that monitor was > > totally non-standard, too -- it used a couple of different DIN connectors > > one of which was for supplying power to the monitor, which had no AC > > cord. > > I just want it. I WANT IT I WANT IT. I can always find a Wang Roy. I wasn't > even aware of the existence of those cards until you mentioned them. Ok, well if I should ever happen to run across one I'll definitely keep you in mind... -- 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 Feb 8 02:22:44 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 03:22:44 -0500 Subject: can anyone recommend a good DOS based jpeg viewer In-Reply-To: <41035.92328.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <41035.92328.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200802080322.45786.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 06 February 2008 19:24, Chris M wrote: > preferably one where you can opt for a window into a > large image, one that's bigger then the screen. I've > tried a few and they're all goofy. If I have to write > my own someone is going to pay... I've used a few of them, but it's been so long since I've used them I don't recall whether they had that ability or not. CSHOW, DISP186, and QPEG15E3 come to mind. Which ones have you tried? Let me know offlist if you want any of 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 feedle at feedle.net Fri Feb 8 03:21:35 2008 From: feedle at feedle.net (C. Sullivan) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 01:21:35 -0800 Subject: Seattle-area computer recycler.. saves classic hardware? Message-ID: I don't know if this has been mentioned or noticed by members of this list, but I got a pleasant surprise the other day when I stopped by the Re-PC store near Southcenter. Sometime in the last few months, they seem to have started pulling out the "best" of the junk and (most importantly) keeping it as complete as they got it. When I was there earlier this week, they had a C-16 _IN THE BOX_, a couple of complete VIC-20 systems (including disk drive, printer, datasette), a couple of Apple //c's, two shelves of software, and another shelf of various accessories (a lot of Atari 8-bit stuff, oddly enough no Atari 8-bits). Prices were reasonable.. I think, for example, the complete VIC-20 systems were going for $30-$40. Somebody who knows something about classic equipment is obviously working there, as the stuff is getting as close to the "white glove" treatment as you could possibly give it in that environment. I did not see anything similar in the other Re-PC store "downtown". Just something interesting to share... From mike at brickfieldspark.org Fri Feb 8 03:27:34 2008 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 09:27:34 -0000 Subject: [personal] TV Spot: CBM Pet References: <200802072225.m17MPngO018852@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <00a001c86a34$d6e821c0$911ca8c0@mss.local> Spotted that one last night as well, was hoping to get a front view but no luck, didn't see any cables out the back or labels either, I thought it might have been the chiklet version, but no substantive reason for this. Don't believe the police used them, I thought they had dumb terminals into a local mainframe. Quite a few in private industry, we had one for code development, stock control and accounts for a few years. It became unreliable untill we figured out it was the ic sockets and replaced them all, never failed once after that. Mike. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ade Vickers" To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 10:25 PM Subject: [personal] TV Spot: CBM Pet > Spotted a CBM Pet (unknown model - I wasn't watching closely enough) on > the > new BBC TV series "Ashes to Ashes" (sequel to Life on Mars). > > Did the British police force use CBMs in the '80s, then? I'd have thought > they'd have gone straight in with terminals attached to a mainframe or > mini? > > Cheers, > Ade. > > > > From cclist at sydex.com Fri Feb 8 04:01:23 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:01:23 -0800 Subject: How compatible were "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <200802080924.m189NxZj061456@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802080924.m189NxZj061456@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47ABB7F3.26227.1143EA4@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:38:58 -0600 > From: Jim Leonard > My summer job between college terms was working at Egghead software, and > there was a massive, MASSIVE push from Egghead to sell MS-DOS 5.0. We > (lowly sales floor associates) were bussed to a convention center and > shown various presentations on why MS-DOS 5.0 was dA b0mB and why it was > the perfect add-on to any and all sales already in progress at the > register. Many cheezy sales guides and videos followed. While I liked > the built-in memory management and disk compression (because I'm a > compression geek) of 5.0, I was extremely turned off by the push. Speaking of cheezy MS-DOS, does anyone want a copy of the MS-DOS 5.0 user's manual, beta version, labeled "Microsoft Confidential"? May 17, 1990 and the usual rough-copy workup with lots of boxes labeled "This artwork not available for this release". About 350 pages. Otherwise, I value the binder it's in more than the paper, so the ephemera will go into the recycling pile if unclaimed. I don't know how it differs from the release version, as I never bothered to read it. Real programmers don't need no stinkin' user's manual. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Fri Feb 8 04:05:11 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:05:11 -0800 Subject: C64 on Craigslist In-Reply-To: <200802080924.m189NxZj061456@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802080924.m189NxZj061456@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47ABB8D7.19780.117B83D@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 01:19:50 -0500 > From: "Golan Klinger" > Is there something particularly noteworthy about this 64? I see them > on Craigslist around here quite often and I never thought them worthy of > mention on this global list. I don't know a thing about it, but I do know that folks collect them, so I thought I'd mention it. It holds no interest to me. Cheers, Chuck From safehaus at webhart.net Fri Feb 8 06:56:10 2008 From: safehaus at webhart.net (Greg Purvis) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:56:10 -0500 Subject: can anyone recommend a good DOS based jpeg viewer In-Reply-To: <41035.92328.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <41035.92328.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47AC516A.6090604@webhart.net> Chris M wrote: > preferably one where you can opt for a window into a > large image, one that's bigger then the screen. I've > tried a few and they're all goofy. If I have to write > my own someone is going to pay... > I've used versions of LView since I had Win95, and in fact that old Model A version still works really well on my XP. Although I haven't used a DOS version of LView, mine has been so stable and reliable across several Win OS platforms, that I feel safe in suggesting you try the DOS version. I found this link which will take you at least to the page, if not the item. (It's called LView.zip on that web site, in case I copied the link incorrectly.) Good luck. http://www.simtel.net/category.php%5Baction%5Dbrowse&i=150&id=14&f=%7C%7C%7C%7C&s=product.date_released%7CDESC Greg P. From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 08:03:16 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 08:03:16 -0600 Subject: Modern Marvels: 90s Tech In-Reply-To: <13bc01c869f0$6e877de0$6601a8c0@NFORCE4> References: <13bc01c869f0$6e877de0$6601a8c0@NFORCE4> Message-ID: <47AC6124.8040208@gmail.com> Erik Klein wrote: > And its creators will demo some of > the original first-person shooter games: Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. That's interesting; I caught an ad for the show the other day and wondered if Doom would feature in some "root of all games" context - and therefore whether they'd touch on Wolfenstein too. I meant to catch it and then totally forgot :-) From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 08:08:23 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 08:08:23 -0600 Subject: TV Spot: CBM Pet In-Reply-To: <200802072225.m17MPngO018852@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200802072225.m17MPngO018852@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <47AC6257.8010208@gmail.com> Ade Vickers wrote: > Did the British police force use CBMs in the '80s, then? I'd have thought > they'd have gone straight in with terminals attached to a mainframe or mini? Heh, the "Police National Computer"? Seriously, I would have expected some kind of terminal setup too - although maybe forces started to get one or two offline systems here and there by then... On another TV note, I spotted an Apple system in Fraggle Rock the other day... (strangely, it actually looked like a Monitor /// perched on top of a regular A2) cheers Jules From jbmcb1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 08:32:34 2008 From: jbmcb1 at gmail.com (Jason McBrien) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 09:32:34 -0500 Subject: can anyone recommend a good DOS based jpeg viewer In-Reply-To: <47AC516A.6090604@webhart.net> References: <41035.92328.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> <47AC516A.6090604@webhart.net> Message-ID: <5f7d1b0e0802080632lc7ce4afj92aad91d366f451d@mail.gmail.com> CShow and Lview were the viewers my friends swore by in the DOS days. I had a Mac :) On Fri, Feb 8, 2008 at 7:56 AM, Greg Purvis wrote: > Chris M wrote: > > preferably one where you can opt for a window into a > > large image, one that's bigger then the screen. I've > > tried a few and they're all goofy. If I have to write > > my own someone is going to pay... > > > I've used versions of LView since I had Win95, and in fact that old > Model A version still works really well on my XP. > > Although I haven't used a DOS version of LView, mine has been so stable > and reliable across several Win OS platforms, that I feel safe in > suggesting you try the DOS version. > > I found this link which will take you at least to the page, if not the > item. (It's called LView.zip on that web site, in case I copied the > link incorrectly.) > > Good luck. > > > http://www.simtel.net/category.php%5Baction%5Dbrowse&i=150&id=14&f=%7C%7C%7C%7C&s=product.date_released%7CDESC > > Greg P. > From jbmcb1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 08:35:26 2008 From: jbmcb1 at gmail.com (Jason McBrien) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 09:35:26 -0500 Subject: Modern Marvels: 90s Tech In-Reply-To: <47AC6124.8040208@gmail.com> References: <13bc01c869f0$6e877de0$6601a8c0@NFORCE4> <47AC6124.8040208@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5f7d1b0e0802080635t5613b06aha73ba77d59068173@mail.gmail.com> I saw the bit on digital cameras - pretty interesting! I remember the ads for that big, clunky B&W model. I bought a QuickTake 100 from a friend a year after it came out - it was pretty slick for the time, considering the alternative were crappy B&W cameras or incredibly expensive digitizers for SLRs. On Fri, Feb 8, 2008 at 9:03 AM, Jules Richardson < jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote: > Erik Klein wrote: > > And its creators will demo some of > > the original first-person shooter games: Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. > > That's interesting; I caught an ad for the show the other day and wondered > if > Doom would feature in some "root of all games" context - and therefore > whether > they'd touch on Wolfenstein too. > > I meant to catch it and then totally forgot :-) > > > From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 08:36:44 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:36:44 -0500 Subject: can anyone recommend a good DOS based jpeg viewer In-Reply-To: <5f7d1b0e0802080632lc7ce4afj92aad91d366f451d@mail.gmail.com> References: <41035.92328.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> <47AC516A.6090604@webhart.net> <5f7d1b0e0802080632lc7ce4afj92aad91d366f451d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47AC68FC.9060009@gmail.com> Jason McBrien wrote: > CShow and Lview were the viewers my friends swore by in the DOS days. I had > a Mac :) I can second the motion about cshow. Great program! Peace... Sridhar From geneb at deltasoft.com Fri Feb 8 09:21:12 2008 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 07:21:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: Seattle-area computer recycler.. saves classic hardware? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Somebody who knows something about classic equipment is obviously working > there, as the stuff is getting as close to the "white glove" treatment as you > could possibly give it in that environment. I did not see anything similar > in the other Re-PC store "downtown". > > Just something interesting to share... I agree. Last month I picked up a complete IBM PC/XT system, and mean _complete_. The system consisted of the IBM PC/XT (5160), the IBM 5152 printer (with stand), the IBM 5153 CGA color display and the keyboard. It also included an IBM RS-232 and IBM printer cables. The kicker was that it's all in the original boxes with original packing. It had DOS 2.0 on the HD and from the file dates, was last used in 1985. It's also a low serial# machine - It's in the mid 95,000 range. The machine and accessories are in pristine condition as well. Cost $200. They also had a working 5155 (portable) a few weeks prior to my purchase that was priced at $35. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Fri Feb 8 10:26:01 2008 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:26:01 -0500 Subject: $3000 ASR33????? Message-ID: Good grief! ebay auction: 190195405164 No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.21/1265 - Release Date: 2/7/2008 11:17 AM From quapla at xs4all.nl Fri Feb 8 10:45:17 2008 From: quapla at xs4all.nl (Ed Groenenberg) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 17:45:17 +0100 (CET) Subject: $3000 ASR33????? Message-ID: <10795.88.211.153.27.1202489117.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> > Good grief! > > ebay auction: > 190195405164 > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.21/1265 - Release Date: 2/7/2008 > 11:17 AM > > Indeed. For that amount I will sell my own ASR-33 and it will come with pedestal, copyholder, chadbox, a box of papertape, 2 rolls of paper and the 3 manuals... Ohhh wait, I have a complete spare one in storage too. Shall we say $5000 for both???? Ed From legalize at xmission.com Fri Feb 8 11:34:00 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:34:00 -0700 Subject: bogus SIDs on eBay? In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 08 Feb 2008 00:32:27 -0600. <47ABF77B.30501@oldskool.org> Message-ID: In article <47ABF77B.30501 at oldskool.org>, Jim Leonard writes: > What is "some"? I mean, are we talking about $20 for a SID or $80 for a > SID? If the latter, then yes, I can see how it would be worthwhile for > crooks to go through the trouble. If SIDs are selling for $80, its cheaper to buy used C=64s for the SIDs. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Fri Feb 8 11:37:54 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:37:54 -0700 Subject: $3000 ASR33????? In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:45:17 +0100. <10795.88.211.153.27.1202489117.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: I've seen people get crazy with the ASR33s on ebay, but never this crazy. It appears that two guys got in a bidding frenzy over it and couldn't let it go. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From tshoppa at wmata.com Fri Feb 8 12:22:28 2008 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:22:28 -0500 Subject: $3000 ASR33????? Message-ID: <47AC57940200003700020872@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> > Good grief! > > ebay auction: > 190195405164 I bought my first Model 33 ASR at the tender age of 14. It was the main console I/O peripheral as well as a mass storage drive :-). At the time, my net income was probably $10-$20-$30 a week. It depended on how many lawns I could mow a week :-). I paid $150 for it. So that was probably a month or two income for me. Today a month or two of income is way more than $3000. Not to brag or anything! And obviously not all of it is disposable income like when I was a kid. Could I somehow scrounge together $3000 as disposable income in a month or two? Probably, it'd be hard to justify it to my wife :-). So honestly in terms of "Tim Constant Dollars" I don't see a huge discrepancy here. Tim. From mikelee at tdh.com Fri Feb 8 13:13:32 2008 From: mikelee at tdh.com (Michael Lee) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:13:32 -0600 Subject: Apple LISA $3500??? (WAS: Re: $3000 ASR33?????) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47ACA9DC.3040409@tdh.com> Related to this, what is up with this on ebay. It's an Apple LISA (not even twiggy) at $3500?? Item #: 300196451776 Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Good grief! > > ebay auction: > 190195405164 > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.21/1265 - Release Date: 2/7/2008 > 11:17 AM > > From innfoclassics at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 13:18:41 2008 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 11:18:41 -0800 Subject: bogus SIDs on eBay? In-Reply-To: References: <47ABF77B.30501@oldskool.org> Message-ID: > > What is "some"? I mean, are we talking about $20 for a SID or $80 for a > > SID? If the latter, then yes, I can see how it would be worthwhile for > > crooks to go through the trouble. A quick check on completed sales seems to indicate they are selling in the $25 each, 120+ in Quantity 5, range. At that price I am not surprised to see counterfeits. It is too bad. Thanks for posting the link to the story. Pax -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Feb 8 13:28:47 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:28:47 -0700 Subject: Apple LISA $3500??? (WAS: Re: $3000 ASR33?????) In-Reply-To: <47ACA9DC.3040409@tdh.com> References: <47ACA9DC.3040409@tdh.com> Message-ID: <47ACAD6F.9020109@jetnet.ab.ca> Michael Lee wrote: > Related to this, what is up with this on ebay. It's an Apple LISA (not > even twiggy) at $3500?? > > Item #: 300196451776 This is great ... I can get rid of all the old junk in the basement. Let the collectors have thier fun, we had our collections started years ago. :) < grin > Anybody with a old PDP-8 case? I can stick my SBC6120 in it and make a Mint. < /grin > From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Fri Feb 8 13:34:15 2008 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:34:15 -0500 Subject: Apple LISA $3500??? (WAS: Re: $3000 ASR33?????) In-Reply-To: <47ACA9DC.3040409@tdh.com> Message-ID: Michael Lee wrote: > Bill Sudbrink wrote: > > Good grief! > > > > ebay auction: > > 190195405164 > > Related to this, what is up with this on ebay. It's an Apple LISA (not > even twiggy) at $3500?? > > Item #: 300196451776 > More related than at first glance. Note that the seller in this auction touts that one just like it sold for $3500. Guess who bought it. The same bidder that bought the teletype: ryonash. First $3500 Lisa auction: 230218155818 No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.21/1265 - Release Date: 2/7/2008 11:17 AM From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 13:41:45 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:41:45 -0500 Subject: Apple LISA $3500??? (WAS: Re: $3000 ASR33?????) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47ACB079.9020305@gmail.com> Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Michael Lee wrote: >> Bill Sudbrink wrote: >>> Good grief! >>> >>> ebay auction: >>> 190195405164 >> Related to this, what is up with this on ebay. It's an Apple LISA (not >> even twiggy) at $3500?? >> >> Item #: 300196451776 >> > > More related than at first glance. Note that the seller in this > auction touts that one just like it sold for $3500. Guess who > bought it. The same bidder that bought the teletype: ryonash. > First $3500 Lisa auction: 230218155818 Shilling? Peace... Sridhar From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Fri Feb 8 13:42:41 2008 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:42:41 -0500 Subject: Apple LISA $3500??? (WAS: Re: $3000 ASR33?????) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Michael Lee wrote: > > Bill Sudbrink wrote: > > > Good grief! > > > > > > ebay auction: > > > 190195405164 > > > > Related to this, what is up with this on ebay. It's an Apple LISA (not > > even twiggy) at $3500?? > > > > Item #: 300196451776 > > > > More related than at first glance. Note that the seller in this > auction touts that one just like it sold for $3500. Guess who > bought it. The same bidder that bought the teletype: ryonash. > First $3500 Lisa auction: 230218155818 > And, to complete the analysis, ryonash also dropped $4150 on an altair: 320212329725 in the last week. Looks like a new speculator on ebay... or just someone with more money than sense? No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.21/1265 - Release Date: 2/7/2008 11:17 AM From mikelee at tdh.com Fri Feb 8 14:02:08 2008 From: mikelee at tdh.com (Michael Lee) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:02:08 -0600 Subject: Apple LISA $3500??? (WAS: Re: $3000 ASR33?????) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47ACB540.1000600@tdh.com> Interesting, and generally it takes at least two people to bid against each other, wonder what the deal is with it all. Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Bill Sudbrink wrote: > >> Michael Lee wrote: >> >>> Bill Sudbrink wrote: >>> >>>> Good grief! >>>> >>>> ebay auction: >>>> 190195405164 >>>> >>> Related to this, what is up with this on ebay. It's an Apple LISA (not >>> even twiggy) at $3500?? >>> >>> Item #: 300196451776 >>> >>> >> More related than at first glance. Note that the seller in this >> auction touts that one just like it sold for $3500. Guess who >> bought it. The same bidder that bought the teletype: ryonash. >> First $3500 Lisa auction: 230218155818 >> >> > > And, to complete the analysis, ryonash also dropped $4150 on > an altair: 320212329725 in the last week. Looks like a new > speculator on ebay... or just someone with more money than > sense? > > > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.21/1265 - Release Date: 2/7/2008 > 11:17 AM > > From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Fri Feb 8 14:06:56 2008 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:06:56 -0500 Subject: Apple LISA $3500??? (WAS: Re: $3000 ASR33?????) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Bill Sudbrink wrote: > > Michael Lee wrote: > > > Bill Sudbrink wrote: > > > > Good grief! > > > > > > > > ebay auction: > > > > 190195405164 > > > > > > Related to this, what is up with this on ebay. It's an Apple > > > LISA (not even twiggy) at $3500?? > > > > > > Item #: 300196451776 > > > > > > > More related than at first glance. Note that the seller in this > > auction touts that one just like it sold for $3500. Guess who > > bought it. The same bidder that bought the teletype: ryonash. > > First $3500 Lisa auction: 230218155818 > > > > And, to complete the analysis, ryonash also dropped $4150 on > an altair: 320212329725 in the last week. Looks like a new > speculator on ebay... or just someone with more money than > sense? OK, this get weirder. The bidder has been around since 2003. Using the bidder's feedback to go back a little further than the "search by bidder" allows, ryonash bought: A couple of decwriters and some mac bits for cheap. A PDP8 with teletype: 110205856805 $3200 A Mac Se: 200183993762 $150 (a little expensive) A decwriter: 320185941487 $150 (a little expensive) Another ASR33: 290185013845 $250 (much more reasonable) If he/she knows that ttys can be had for $250, why the big bids? He/she now has three ASR33s and three decwriters, what's he/she doing, building a historical movie set? No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.21/1265 - Release Date: 2/7/2008 11:17 AM From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Feb 8 14:13:11 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:13:11 -0500 Subject: can anyone recommend a good DOS based jpeg viewer In-Reply-To: <47AC516A.6090604@webhart.net> References: <41035.92328.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> <47AC516A.6090604@webhart.net> Message-ID: <200802081513.12154.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 08 February 2008 07:56, Greg Purvis wrote: > Chris M wrote: > > preferably one where you can opt for a window into a > > large image, one that's bigger then the screen. I've > > tried a few and they're all goofy. If I have to write > > my own someone is going to pay... > > I've used versions of LView since I had Win95, and in fact that old > Model A version still works really well on my XP. I used that under 3.1, didn't know it would work under DOS... -- 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 curt at atarimuseum.com Fri Feb 8 15:04:58 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:04:58 -0500 Subject: Apple LISA $3500??? (WAS: Re: $3000 ASR33?????) In-Reply-To: <47ACA9DC.3040409@tdh.com> References: <47ACA9DC.3040409@tdh.com> Message-ID: <47ACC3FA.3010804@atarimuseum.com> Hi Michael, Do Twiggy's ever show up on Ebay??? If so, what do that average in cost? Curt Michael Lee wrote: > Related to this, what is up with this on ebay. It's an Apple LISA > (not even twiggy) at $3500?? > > Item #: 300196451776 > > > Bill Sudbrink wrote: >> Good grief! >> >> ebay auction: >> 190195405164 >> No virus found in this outgoing message. >> Checked by AVG Free Edition. >> Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.21/1265 - Release Date: >> 2/7/2008 >> 11:17 AM >> >> > > > From jbmcb1 at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 15:25:42 2008 From: jbmcb1 at gmail.com (Jason McBrien) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 16:25:42 -0500 Subject: Apple LISA $3500??? (WAS: Re: $3000 ASR33?????) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5f7d1b0e0802081325k359565f8u3ef417c8fa271511@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Feb 8, 2008 at 3:06 PM, Bill Sudbrink wrote: > > A Mac Se: 200183993762 $150 (a little expensive) > > A *little* expensive? I bought a trio of SE's for $3 each at a school liquidation sale. And that was after some idiot started biding competitively after my initial bid of $1 (there were 50 machines and four bidders) From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Fri Feb 8 15:34:41 2008 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:34:41 +0000 Subject: Apple LISA $3500??? (WAS: Re: $3000 ASR33?????) In-Reply-To: <47ACC3FA.3010804@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: On 8/2/08 21:04, "Curt @ Atari Museum" wrote: > Hi Michael, > > Do Twiggy's ever show up on Ebay??? If so, what do that average in > cost? The last 2 Twiggys I saw on ebah ended up on my Lisa page at Binary Dinosaurs, one was Adam Goolevich's own and the other was John Woodalls (mac512k on ebah). Both I think hit the $10k mark... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Fri Feb 8 15:35:15 2008 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:35:15 +0000 Subject: Facit 9911 2.5" floppy drive In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Folks, I've had this for ages and it's about time I found out what it is and what it connected to. It's (as the subject says) a Facit 2.5" floppy drive with a label underneath that says 'FACIT Sweden, code 9258 04 00-00'. I got it with a box of bagged microfloppies and it has a huge connector cable off it ending in an interface module that's about 7" long bearing the legend 'for use with Option Adapter 9910' Google's turned up nothing, anyone know about this wee device? -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From curt at atarimuseum.com Fri Feb 8 15:55:46 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:55:46 -0500 Subject: Opening Vax Silos/Simucad files on PC... In-Reply-To: <797393.53720.qm@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> References: <797393.53720.qm@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47ACCFE2.20503@atarimuseum.com> Anyone know of an opensource or freeware viewer that would be compatible with opening old 1980's Silos/Simucad DWG's... I have an old copy of Autocad that I bought a few years back and it wouldn't open or import them in. Curt From ats at offog.org Fri Feb 8 16:52:02 2008 From: ats at offog.org (Adam Sampson) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 22:52:02 +0000 Subject: TV Spot: CBM Pet In-Reply-To: <200802072225.m17MPngO018852@keith.ezwind.net> (Ade Vickers's message of "Thu\, 7 Feb 2008 23\:25\:41 +0100") References: <200802072225.m17MPngO018852@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: "Ade Vickers" writes: > Spotted a CBM Pet (unknown model - I wasn't watching closely enough) > on the new BBC TV series "Ashes to Ashes" (sequel to Life on Mars). Looks like a 4032 to me, but we only ever see the back of it out of focus, and a fake screenshot: http://offog.org/stuff/lom-pet/ That episode's set in London in July 1981, so it's an appropriate machine for the time. -- Adam Sampson From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Feb 8 17:48:47 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 20:48:47 -0300 Subject: Request: HP200LX for a great guy in USA References: <797393.53720.qm@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> <47ACCFE2.20503@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <003401c86aad$bf159bd0$02fea8c0@portajara> Anyone with a spare HP200LX willing to give to someone who made a very important program in the PC world? I'll not tell details because I don't think this is polite. But someone who did a program that most of us used in DOS is CRAZY for having one of that. He got crazy after saw mine running his file manager program. I'd send mine, but I'm in Brazil and here HP200 are rarer than in USA. If someone really HAS one of that and is willing to part, someone in USA will be very very very happy. Thanks Alexandre Souza From gklinger at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 17:23:54 2008 From: gklinger at gmail.com (Golan Klinger) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 18:23:54 -0500 Subject: Request: HP200LX for a great guy in USA In-Reply-To: <003401c86aad$bf159bd0$02fea8c0@portajara> References: <797393.53720.qm@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> <47ACCFE2.20503@atarimuseum.com> <003401c86aad$bf159bd0$02fea8c0@portajara> Message-ID: Alexandre Souza wrote: > I'd send mine, but I'm in Brazil and here HP200 are rarer than in USA. Which is odd given that the majority of the HP200LXs available on eBay are from Brazil. Take a look at the following seller: They (not me) have a variety of them for sale for very reasonable prices. -- Golan Klinger Dark is the suede that mows like a harvest. From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Fri Feb 8 17:45:57 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:45:57 +0000 Subject: [personal] TV Spot: CBM Pet In-Reply-To: <00a001c86a34$d6e821c0$911ca8c0@mss.local> References: <200802072225.m17MPngO018852@keith.ezwind.net> <00a001c86a34$d6e821c0$911ca8c0@mss.local> Message-ID: <1202514357.8688.0.camel@elric> On Fri, 2008-02-08 at 09:27 +0000, Mike Hatch wrote: > Spotted that one last night as well, was hoping to get a front view but no > luck, didn't see any cables out the back or labels either, I thought it > might have been the chiklet version, but no substantive reason for this. > > Don't believe the police used them, I thought they had dumb terminals into a > local mainframe. "Never say never" - I'm willing to bet that *someone* had one for maybe running a word processor or some such. Gordon From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Feb 8 19:34:08 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 17:34:08 -0800 Subject: $3000 ASR33????? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 11:26:01 -0500 > From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: $3000 ASR33????? > > Good grief! > > ebay auction: > 190195405164 > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.21/1265 - Release Date: 2/7/2008 > 11:17 AM > As side subject, if anyone has a spare parts 33, I'm still looking for the power supply for the tape reader. There was a 33 that sold for $49 just a short time ago. So go figure?? There was a Canon Cat that was asked $2000. It had no bids. I'm not sure what the seller was looking for. The highest sale was $1800 someplace. I suspect that both high bidders here got there Cats as shortly after that, one sold for less than 1/2 that price. It may be that the seller had an outside bid and just wanted to check to see if someone else really, really, wanted one. Even though quite rare and has a special historical value, I've found that such items often need to start at a lower price to develope interest in the auction. Sometimes this does lead to higher prices than expected. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser! http://biggestloser.msn.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Fri Feb 8 23:26:55 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:26:55 -0600 Subject: How compatible were "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <47ABB7F3.26227.1143EA4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200802080924.m189NxZj061456@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47ABB7F3.26227.1143EA4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47AD399F.5040205@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Real programmers don't need no stinkin' user's manual. I did, trying to code for the aforementioned "PC compatible" project. I was trying to write a keyboard handler and things were just completely going south. I finally dredged up some documentation that showed me where the BIOS entry point was for the keyboard routine (I tried following the pointer at Int 9 but I got confused because it doesn't point directly there), and disassembled it -- turns out I wasn't properly acknowledging the keyboard "break" code or something. So I needed the docs, which pointed me to code, which pointed me to the answer. Something was still screwy, so in the end I ultimately did this: - Hook INT 9 - read the scancode out of port 60h - PUSHF - call the old keyboard handler to properly acknowledge the keystroke (let the BIOS clean up the mess! Plus I figure this is a way to increase my compatibility) - alter 0040:0017 (or wherever it is, don't have code in front of me) to empty the keyboard buffer by setting queue head = queue tail So far, it's working perfectly (crosses fingers). -- 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 Fri Feb 8 23:31:40 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:31:40 -0600 Subject: can anyone recommend a good DOS based jpeg viewer In-Reply-To: <41035.92328.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> References: <41035.92328.qm@web61011.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47AD3ABC.8040306@oldskool.org> Chris M wrote: > preferably one where you can opt for a window into a > large image, one that's bigger then the screen. I've > tried a few and they're all goofy. If I have to write > my own someone is going to pay... Such software utilities (graphics viewing, etc.) have a wonderful effect of getting better over time due to applying all of the tricks learned over the last 20 years. LXPIC is probably the best and one of the fastest JPEG viewers around. I have even used it to view a JPEG on my 5150 in 640x200 CGA mode. As a program, LXPIC is a work of art (written in ASM, supporting all screen modes from CGA up to 2048x1536 True Color VESA, just a single COM file, thumbnails, (auto)zoom, slideshow, video, dither, b&w, gray, color manipulation...) all in 20K. -- 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 Fri Feb 8 23:37:19 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:37:19 -0600 Subject: Request: HP200LX for a great guy in USA In-Reply-To: <003401c86aad$bf159bd0$02fea8c0@portajara> References: <797393.53720.qm@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> <47ACCFE2.20503@atarimuseum.com> <003401c86aad$bf159bd0$02fea8c0@portajara> Message-ID: <47AD3C0F.9050705@oldskool.org> Alexandre Souza wrote: > > someone who did a program that most of us used in DOS is CRAZY for > having one Okay, that *sentence* is driving me crazy. If you can't name the author or program could you at least name the family of program? Was it an... editor? Programming tool/compiler? Graphic viewer? Come on, throw us a bone... -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Feb 9 01:05:18 2008 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 23:05:18 -0800 Subject: Request: HP200LX for a great guy in USA In-Reply-To: <47AD3C0F.9050705@oldskool.org> References: <797393.53720.qm@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> <47ACCFE2.20503@atarimuseum.com> <003401c86aad$bf159bd0$02fea8c0@portajara> <47AD3C0F.9050705@oldskool.org> Message-ID: At 11:37 PM -0600 2/8/08, Jim Leonard wrote: >Alexandre Souza wrote: >> >>someone who did a program that most of us used in DOS is CRAZY for having one > >Okay, that *sentence* is driving me crazy. If you can't name the >author or program could you at least name the family of program? >Was it an... editor? Programming tool/compiler? Graphic viewer? >Come on, throw us a bone... You also? He said "File Manager", and without a doubt the one DOS program I couldn't live without back then was "QFILER" (QF.EXE). Looks like the newest copy I have is version 3.2B3. So my question is, is the person he's talking about Kenn Flee? Wow! I just Googled Kenn Flee, and while it looks like I actually have the most recent DOS version, there is a Win95 version... http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Way/3238/ The other "couldn't live without" program for me was the "Direct Access" Menu software, from "5th Generation Software". Both are actually still sitting in a directory on my G5 PowerMac (which obviously can't run them). Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From fu3.org at gmail.com Sat Feb 9 02:04:14 2008 From: fu3.org at gmail.com (Chris H.) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 09:04:14 +0100 Subject: Request: HP200LX for a great guy in USA In-Reply-To: <003401c86aad$bf159bd0$02fea8c0@portajara> References: <797393.53720.qm@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> <47ACCFE2.20503@atarimuseum.com> <003401c86aad$bf159bd0$02fea8c0@portajara> Message-ID: <310f50ab0802090004o569ff671p81be1d26951af6d3@mail.gmail.com> 2008/2/9, Alexandre Souza : > > someone who made a very > important program in the PC world Hm. - [Norton/Volkov]Commander, [*]Zip/Arc/Arj/Rar, what kind of 'importance' are we referring to here? :) - - Stacker? - Heheh.. -- < http://whorehou.se/ > From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Feb 9 02:31:03 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 03:31:03 -0500 Subject: WTB: DEC BA11-MA In-Reply-To: <816647.11518.qm@web37105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <816647.11518.qm@web37105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <04ED7DD8-4453-403F-AEAA-552F3DD667F8@neurotica.com> Thanks, but I found some shortly after I sent that message...which was nearly seven years ago. (!) -Dave On Feb 8, 2008, at 4:34 PM, Ronald Dopke wrote: > Hello Dave! > > I think we have a few BA11-MA or BA11-SA's here still. > > They'd be BNIB. > > Ron > > ------------ > Anybody have a spare DEC BA11-MA chassis in good shape with the red > pdp11/03 label on the front? > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Laurel, MD > -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From kahrs at caip.rutgers.edu Sat Feb 9 04:52:43 2008 From: kahrs at caip.rutgers.edu (Mark KAHRS) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 05:52:43 -0500 (EST) Subject: A note on microprogramming DEC hardware In-Reply-To: <200802081800.m18I0gbY067880@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802081800.m18I0gbY067880@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: This recent thread about microprogramming VAXen was interesting. If you read Dave Patterson's history of VLSI RISC machines you'll see that he was interested in programming the 780 but changed his mind. It's also interesting to note that microprogramming was used in two different cases to create capability machines: one, a 11/730 at Cambridge and the other the 11/40E at CMU. There's the KMC-11, but that's another kettle of squid. From mraven at home.nl Fri Feb 8 03:50:05 2008 From: mraven at home.nl (Jos Raven) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:50:05 +0100 Subject: TI-52 manual Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.2.20080208104735.036f7d30@mail.home.nl> Hello Mike, I came across a message from you regarding the manual for a TI-52. If you still have a PDF for it would you be so kind to mail me a copy? Regards, Jos Raven Holland mraven at home.nl jos.raven at gmail.com (for a file lager then 5MB) From shieldsm at gmail.com Fri Feb 8 09:13:55 2008 From: shieldsm at gmail.com (Mike Shields) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 23:13:55 +0800 Subject: How compatible were "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <47ABB7F3.26227.1143EA4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200802080924.m189NxZj061456@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47ABB7F3.26227.1143EA4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <13135db40802080713u1e7f5b55ob1ff472dc3dce334@mail.gmail.com> On Feb 8, 2008 6:01 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:38:58 -0600 > > From: Jim Leonard > > > My summer job between college terms was working at Egghead software, and > > there was a massive, MASSIVE push from Egghead to sell MS-DOS 5.0. We > > (lowly sales floor associates) were bussed to a convention center and > > shown various presentations on why MS-DOS 5.0 was dA b0mB and why it was > > the perfect add-on to any and all sales already in progress at the > > register. Many cheezy sales guides and videos followed. One of those cheezy sales videos: (yo! ms raps) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmEvPZUdAVI From ron_of_america at yahoo.com Fri Feb 8 15:34:44 2008 From: ron_of_america at yahoo.com (Ronald Dopke) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 13:34:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: WTB: DEC BA11-MA Message-ID: <816647.11518.qm@web37105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Hello Dave! I think we have a few BA11-MA or BA11-SA's here still. They'd be BNIB. Ron ------------ Anybody have a spare DEC BA11-MA chassis in good shape with the red pdp11/03 label on the front? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Laurel, MD From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 8 17:15:44 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 15:15:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: can anyone recommend a good DOS based jpeg viewer In-Reply-To: <47AC516A.6090604@webhart.net> Message-ID: <186518.73455.qm@web65511.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> There seem to be a number of good programs on Simtel, but that one apparently doesn't *display* jpegs at all - it wants an .lzh. Anyway, I may have to resort to a Windoze solution. I want a jpeg viewer where I can rip out chunks and save them to another file (not separate files, but one big file of all the chunks). There's a number of ways of doing what I want I guess, but I'd much prefer a DOS based solution regardless. I guess I should have been more specific. I imagine I'd probably have to write something, but I'm not thrilled at the prospect. --- Greg Purvis wrote: > Chris M wrote: > > preferably one where you can opt for a window into > a > > large image, one that's bigger then the screen. > I've > > tried a few and they're all goofy. If I have to > write > > my own someone is going to pay... > > > I've used versions of LView since I had Win95, and > in fact that old > Model A version still works really well on my XP. > > Although I haven't used a DOS version of LView, mine > has been so stable > and reliable across several Win OS platforms, that I > feel safe in > suggesting you try the DOS version. > > I found this link which will take you at least to > the page, if not the > item. (It's called LView.zip on that web site, in > case I copied the > link incorrectly.) > > Good luck. > > http://www.simtel.net/category.php%5Baction%5Dbrowse&i=150&id=14&f=%7C%7C%7C%7C&s=product.date_released%7CDESC > > Greg P. > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From philip at axeside.co.uk Sat Feb 9 03:26:26 2008 From: philip at axeside.co.uk (Philip Belben) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 09:26:26 +0000 Subject: TV Spot: CBM Pet In-Reply-To: References: <200802072225.m17MPngO018852@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <47AD71C2.9020305@axeside.co.uk> OK, I think I'd better de-lurk at this point. My name's Philip. I was on the ClassicCmp list years ago (my e-mail address in those days was philip.belben at powertech.co.uk but that's long-since gone), but gave up because of the high traffic. Now I have e-mail at home, I've subscribed to the cctech list again. I have more old computers than I know what to do with, so I'm quite choosy about getting new ones, and I don't spend much time hacking the existing ones, but I'm determined they'll not be thrown away... Anyway, I grew up with Commodore PETs of various descriptions, so... >> Spotted a CBM Pet (unknown model - I wasn't watching closely enough) >> on the new BBC TV series "Ashes to Ashes" (sequel to Life on Mars). > > Looks like a 4032 to me, but we only ever see the back of it out of > focus, and a fake screenshot: > > http://offog.org/stuff/lom-pet/ Thanks for the pictures. I'd say it's an early 8032, before the SK version. (SK means "Separate Keyboard" if you're Commodore, "Silly Kasing" if you're anyone else.) Same large but angular monitor as the later ("Fat 40") 4032. I'm going by the screen shot. How fake is fake? It's probably fake in that they're not logged in to a mainframe using a PET - it must have been one of the worst micros possible for that! - but I'm pretty sure that screen shot is the PET character set in 80 column, wide line spacing mode. The characteristic slashed zeros are one clue, but the lower case g that is slightly raised to make room for the descender is the clincher. Philip. From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Feb 9 06:19:52 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 09:19:52 -0300 Subject: Request: HP200LX for a great guy in USA References: <797393.53720.qm@web61015.mail.yahoo.com><47ACCFE2.20503@atarimuseum.com><003401c86aad$bf159bd0$02fea8c0@portajara><47AD3C0F.9050705@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <005a01c86b16$36f641a0$01fea8c0@portajara> >>Okay, that *sentence* is driving me crazy. If you can't name the author >>or program could you at least name the family of program? Was it an... >>editor? Programming tool/compiler? Graphic viewer? Come on, throw us a >>bone... Ok, Xtree Gold :o) I didn't want to tell in public not to expose him, but he is such a great guy I'm thinking about sending mine to him. From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Feb 9 06:00:03 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 12:00:03 +0000 Subject: 80C32 emulation? Message-ID: <1202558403.11955.3.camel@elric> Offtopic-ish, but does anyone know of a good 80C32 emulator for Linux? There seem to be a lot of closed-source ones for Windows, but since there's no apparent way to add specific emulated devices to them I can't see how useful they'd be for what I'm doing. Gordon From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Sat Feb 9 10:22:28 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 10:22:28 -0600 Subject: can anyone recommend a good DOS based jpeg viewer In-Reply-To: <186518.73455.qm@web65511.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <186518.73455.qm@web65511.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47ADD344.5070506@gmail.com> Chris M wrote: > I want a jpeg viewer where I can rip out chunks and save > them to another file (not separate files, but one big > file of all the chunks). There's a number of ways of > doing what I want I guess, but I'd much prefer a DOS > based solution regardless. I suspect you're SoL there. A DOS-based art prog (Neopaint possibly, although I don't know what its JPEG support was like) would do the job of visualisation and letting you select image regions, but I doubt there was anything which could save multiple regions to a single file (heck, I don't think JPEG will support this anyway, although something like GIF or TIFF would do the job) Google suggests that someone got Imagemagick working for DOS - but even though that'd do the chopping up / saving a multi-image file, it wouldn't give you the initial visualisation bit... (although you could use an art prog to chop up to individual files I suppose, then use the Imagemagick suite to merge them into a single file) > I imagine I'd probably have to write something, but I'm not thrilled at > the prospect. Heh - probably. :/ cheers Jules From cclist at sydex.com Sat Feb 9 10:27:04 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 08:27:04 -0800 Subject: How compatible were "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <200802091115.m19BFc6Q079485@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802091115.m19BFc6Q079485@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47AD63D8.3278.743FDC@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 23:13:55 +0800 > From: "Mike Shields" > One of those cheezy sales videos: (yo! ms raps) > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmEvPZUdAVI Thanks for the video--I acually managed to watch the whole thing without falling asleep. I note from the comments on the video that some think that this was a commercial, but it's just one of the many cheezy sales promos of the time. At least it was halfway entertaining and not dull, dull, dull like so many others. Cheers, Chuck (BTW, I use the term "cheezy" with a "z", as using an "s" would imply a relationship to an edible and quite delicious food product.) From davis at saw.net Sat Feb 9 12:11:26 2008 From: davis at saw.net (davis) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 10:11:26 -0800 Subject: 80C32 emulation? In-Reply-To: <1202558403.11955.3.camel@elric> References: <1202558403.11955.3.camel@elric> Message-ID: <47ADECCE.3090100@saw.net> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Offtopic-ish, but does anyone know of a good 80C32 emulator for Linux? > There seem to be a lot of closed-source ones for Windows, but since > there's no apparent way to add specific emulated devices to them I can't > see how useful they'd be for what I'm doing. > > Gordon > > > > Grab a emulator source and hack it. Any good programmer should be able to put together a set of crufty tools in a week or two. From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Feb 9 12:31:09 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 13:31:09 -0500 Subject: 80C32 emulation? In-Reply-To: <1202558403.11955.3.camel@elric> References: <1202558403.11955.3.camel@elric> Message-ID: On Feb 9, 2008, at 7:00 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Offtopic-ish, but does anyone know of a good 80C32 emulator for Linux? > There seem to be a lot of closed-source ones for Windows, but since > there's no apparent way to add specific emulated devices to them I > can't > see how useful they'd be for what I'm doing. SDCC comes with one; have you looked at that? There's also j51 (written in Java) but I've not messed with it. What's your project, if you don't mind my asking? I do stuff with mcs51-architecture processors pretty much all the time. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Feb 9 18:35:19 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:35:19 +0000 Subject: 80C32 emulation? In-Reply-To: References: <1202558403.11955.3.camel@elric> Message-ID: <1202603719.6865.9.camel@elric> On Sat, 2008-02-09 at 13:31 -0500, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Feb 9, 2008, at 7:00 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > > Offtopic-ish, but does anyone know of a good 80C32 emulator for Linux? > > There seem to be a lot of closed-source ones for Windows, but since > > there's no apparent way to add specific emulated devices to them I > > can't > > see how useful they'd be for what I'm doing. > > SDCC comes with one; have you looked at that? There's also j51 > (written in Java) but I've not messed with it. SDCC does look good for this. > What's your project, if you don't mind my asking? I do stuff with > mcs51-architecture processors pretty much all the time. Basically I'm trying to reverse-engineer the firmware of a couple of late-80s Alesis HR-16 and HR-16B drum machines. They use a 32kx8 EPROM for the firmware, a pair of 512kx8 ROMs for the sampled sounds, a big custom ASIC for the sample playback and an 80C31 for the clever stuff. The firmware contains the locations in the sample ROMs of the start and end of each sample. The only thing is, a simple disassembly of the ROM leads nowhere, possibly because the contents are scrambled in some way. I suspect but haven't been able to prove that some of the lower address bits are flipped, possibly to avoid routing problems on the board. It's worth noting that the Alesis MMT-8 is based on almost identical hardware (much simpler though, and I have a schematic for this. Tony Duell would be pleased to note that there's not a custom chip in sight!) and has a "normal" ROM, ie. running strings(1) on it will show up the messages. I can give you a dump of the ROMs if you feel like having a go. Gordon From classiccmp at crash.com Sat Feb 9 20:13:51 2008 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 18:13:51 -0800 Subject: WTB: DEC BA11-MA In-Reply-To: <04ED7DD8-4453-403F-AEAA-552F3DD667F8@neurotica.com> References: <816647.11518.qm@web37105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <04ED7DD8-4453-403F-AEAA-552F3DD667F8@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <47AE5DDF.3020301@crash.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > > Thanks, but I found some shortly after I sent that message...which was > nearly seven years ago. (!) Wow, brings necroposting to a whole new level! To bring it slightly closer to on-topic, I wonder what the first B in BNIB is supposed to mean. "Basically?" "Barely?" "Back Now In Box?" --S. From scheefj at netscape.net Sat Feb 9 21:43:49 2008 From: scheefj at netscape.net (scheefj at netscape.net) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 22:43:49 -0500 Subject: Request: HP200LX for a great guy in USA In-Reply-To: <310f50ab0802090004o569ff671p81be1d26951af6d3@mail.gmail.com> References: <797393.53720.qm@web61015.mail.yahoo.com> <47ACCFE2.20503@atarimuseum.com> <003401c86aad$bf159bd0$02fea8c0@portajara> <310f50ab0802090004o569ff671p81be1d26951af6d3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47AE72F5.8050308@netscape.net> http://www.usedhandhelds.com/store/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=176 I imagine they will ship just about anywhere. Jim Chris H. wrote: > 2008/2/9, Alexandre Souza : >> someone who made a very >> important program in the PC world > > Hm. > > - [Norton/Volkov]Commander, [*]Zip/Arc/Arj/Rar, what kind of > 'importance' are we referring to here? :) - - Stacker? - Heheh.. From wacarder at earthlink.net Sat Feb 9 22:18:23 2008 From: wacarder at earthlink.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 23:18:23 -0500 (GMT-05:00) Subject: PDP-11/40 for sale Message-ID: <29510964.1202617104256.JavaMail.root@elwamui-lapwing.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Ok, I've reached maximum capacity in my shop, so I'm starting a little downsizing. If anyone is interested in obtaining a working PDP-11/40 system in a short DEC rack, I have just put one up for sale on eBay, item #250214591120. I did a short video today showing me toggling in a program using the front panel, then running the program, halting it with the HALT switch, then continuing execution with the CONT switch. I've loaded the video and the program listing to YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIsZVqhaneo. Even if you're not interested in buying the system, you'll likely find the video interesting. Ashley http://www.woffordwitch.com From wacarder at earthlink.net Sat Feb 9 22:21:35 2008 From: wacarder at earthlink.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 23:21:35 -0500 (GMT-05:00) Subject: PDP-11/40 for sale Message-ID: <20716774.1202617295461.JavaMail.root@elwamui-lapwing.atl.sa.earthlink.net> The YouTube URL should not have a period on the end. The correct URL is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIsZVqhaneo Thanks, Ashley -----Original Message----- >From: Ashley Carder >Sent: Feb 9, 2008 11:18 PM >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Cc: wacarder at usit.net >Subject: PDP-11/40 for sale > >Ok, I've reached maximum capacity in my shop, so I'm starting a little downsizing. If anyone is interested in obtaining a working PDP-11/40 system in a short DEC rack, I have just put one up for sale on eBay, item #250214591120. I did a short video today showing me toggling in a program using the front panel, then running the program, halting it with the HALT switch, then continuing execution with the CONT switch. I've loaded the video and the program listing to YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIsZVqhaneo. Even if you're not interested in buying the system, you'll likely find the video interesting. > >Ashley >http://www.woffordwitch.com > From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Feb 9 22:24:55 2008 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 20:24:55 -0800 Subject: WTB: DEC BA11-MA In-Reply-To: <47AE5DDF.3020301@crash.com> References: <816647.11518.qm@web37105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <04ED7DD8-4453-403F-AEAA-552F3DD667F8@neurotica.com> <47AE5DDF.3020301@crash.com> Message-ID: At 6:13 PM -0800 2/9/08, Steven M Jones wrote: >Dave McGuire wrote: >> >> Thanks, but I found some shortly after I sent that message...which was >> nearly seven years ago. (!) > >Wow, brings necroposting to a whole new level! > >To bring it slightly closer to on-topic, I wonder what the first B in >BNIB is supposed to mean. "Basically?" "Barely?" "Back Now In Box?" I was wondering about that. My guess was "Brand New in Box". 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 g-wright at att.net Sun Feb 10 01:16:50 2008 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 07:16:50 +0000 Subject: error with tapecopy writing, buffer to small ??? Message-ID: <021020080716.22117.47AEA4E200018B270000566522230650629B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> I have been playing with Eric Smith "TapeCopy" and some cartridge tapes.After reading them, when I try to write them, I get an error message that the tape image is too long for the for the 32768 byte buffer . I'm running it on a linux machine ver is RedHat 7.2. Not to sure why ??? tapes where DC600 (60 Meg). - jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc g-wright at att.net From doc at mdrconsult.com Sun Feb 10 04:51:08 2008 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 04:51:08 -0600 Subject: error with tapecopy writing, buffer to small ??? In-Reply-To: <021020080716.22117.47AEA4E200018B270000566522230650629B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> References: <021020080716.22117.47AEA4E200018B270000566522230650629B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: <47AED71C.7050008@mdrconsult.com> g-wright at att.net wrote: > I have been playing with Eric Smith "TapeCopy" and some cartridge tapes.After > reading them, when I try to write them, I get an error message that the tape image > is too long for the for the 32768 byte buffer . I'm running it on a linux machine > ver is RedHat 7.2. Not to sure why ??? tapes where DC600 (60 Meg). Check the drive's block size ("mt" command in RH7.2), on reads as well as writes. Every time I've had trouble with TapeCopy, that was the problem. Doc From axelsson at acc.umu.se Sat Feb 9 06:56:38 2008 From: axelsson at acc.umu.se (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=F6ran_Axelsson?=) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2008 13:56:38 +0100 Subject: Facit 9911 2.5" floppy drive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47ADA306.40200@acc.umu.se> Hi! Can you send me a picture of it, I'll try to see if I can help. I'll ask around among my friends. The only Facit equipment I've encountered is VT52 terminals (still got a keyboard) and typewriters. Facit was later sold to Ericsson and incorporated in their computer branch. Ericsson made PC clones in late -80 and early -90. /G?ran Adrian Graham wrote: > Folks, > > I've had this for ages and it's about time I found out what it is and what > it connected to. It's (as the subject says) a Facit 2.5" floppy drive with a > label underneath that says 'FACIT Sweden, code 9258 04 00-00'. I got it with > a box of bagged microfloppies and it has a huge connector cable off it > ending in an interface module that's about 7" long bearing the legend 'for > use with Option Adapter 9910' > > Google's turned up nothing, anyone know about this wee device? > > From edwin.kaminskas at sbcglobal.net Sat Feb 9 11:19:25 2008 From: edwin.kaminskas at sbcglobal.net (Ed Kaminskas) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 12:19:25 -0500 Subject: First Osborne Group diskettes wanted Message-ID: <000001c86b3f$eced5e70$0201a8c0@ed4pye881974ay> Hey Scott, I have the complete Chicago FOG library as well as 3 Osbornes and many hardware spares. You can email me at: Edwin.kaminskas at sbcglobal.net Ed Kaminskas Grand Rapids, MI From derschjo at msu.edu Sun Feb 10 02:36:40 2008 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:36:40 -0800 Subject: Seattle-area computer recycler.. saves classic hardware? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47AEB798.2030902@msu.edu> Gene Buckle wrote: >> Somebody who knows something about classic equipment is obviously >> working there, as the stuff is getting as close to the "white glove" >> treatment as you could possibly give it in that environment. I did >> not see anything similar in the other Re-PC store "downtown". >> >> Just something interesting to share... > > I agree. Last month I picked up a complete IBM PC/XT system, and mean > _complete_. The system consisted of the IBM PC/XT (5160), the IBM > 5152 printer (with stand), the IBM 5153 CGA color display and the > keyboard. > It also included an IBM RS-232 and IBM printer cables. The kicker was > that it's all in the original boxes with original packing. It had DOS > 2.0 on the HD and from the file dates, was last used in 1985. It's > also a low serial# machine - It's in the mid 95,000 range. The > machine and accessories are in pristine condition as well. Cost > $200. They also had a working 5155 (portable) a few weeks prior to my > purchase that was priced at $35. > I'll second (or third) that. Went there this weekend and picked up the following: - TRS 80 Model II + external disk unit (w/2 drives) + software & documentation sets. Works! - Wang 2256-C terminal (needs work) - Panasonic JR-200U computer (6802 CPU, I think, color graphics... never seen one before) - A BASF 9-track tape (just couldn't pass it up, even though I have no 9-track drive :)) Total cost: $80. I consider that a pretty good deal, all things considered. FYI -- There's another Model II there w/drive unit, but it's labeled as needing repair. $6.95. - Josh From nierveze at radio-astronomie.com Sun Feb 10 03:33:13 2008 From: nierveze at radio-astronomie.com (nierveze) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:33:13 +0100 Subject: my old machines in France Message-ID: <001901c86bc7$f5997d00$04000005@pcnierveze> hello everyone ,maybe you will be interrested on the page I have built (in french) about a very old french computer ,a that multi4 from intertechnique (1972)I have here at home ,in perfect condition,I did not find another one until now.It seems a 'clone' of microdata1600 The url: www.radio-astronomie.com/multi4.htm also on www.radio-astronomie.com/info.htm ,you will find pictures of our vaxes,pdp and all other oldthing I hope you will like this best regards alain nierveze From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Feb 10 09:42:19 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 07:42:19 -0800 Subject: 80C32 emulation? In-Reply-To: <1202603719.6865.9.camel@elric> References: <1202558403.11955.3.camel@elric> <1202603719.6865.9.camel@elric> Message-ID: > From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net ---snip--- > > The only thing is, a simple disassembly of the ROM leads nowhere, > possibly because the contents are scrambled in some way. I suspect but > haven't been able to prove that some of the lower address bits are > flipped, possibly to avoid routing problems on the board. > Hi It should be relatively easy to trace the board to see if there are any swapped address lines. Most circuits at most have an address latch to catch the multiplexed address and then go to the 80C32. As I recall most used a 74LS373 to latch half addresses. The other half would be directly connected to the 80C32. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Climb to the top of the charts!?Play the word scramble challenge with star power. http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_jan From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Feb 10 11:07:41 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 12:07:41 -0500 Subject: error with tapecopy writing, buffer to small ??? In-Reply-To: <47AED71C.7050008@mdrconsult.com> References: <021020080716.22117.47AEA4E200018B270000566522230650629B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> <47AED71C.7050008@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <200802101207.41849.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Sunday 10 February 2008 05:51, Doc Shipley wrote: > g-wright at att.net wrote: > > I have been playing with Eric Smith "TapeCopy" and some cartridge > > tapes.After reading them, when I try to write them, I get an error > > message that the tape image is too long for the for the 32768 byte > > buffer . I'm running it on a linux machine ver is RedHat 7.2. Not > > to sure why ??? tapes where DC600 (60 Meg). > > Check the drive's block size ("mt" command in RH7.2), on reads as > well as writes. Every time I've had trouble with TapeCopy, that was > the problem. I might add that some (all?) QIC cartridge tapes (DC600 I know is in this group) use fixed block sizes, so tape copy doesn't really get you anything over using dd to copy the tape into a (bunch of) file(s) and back, or straight tape-to-tape. From what I remember, those drives seemed to like a 32k block size too. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Feb 10 11:41:21 2008 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 09:41:21 -0800 Subject: Wang VS systems around? Message-ID: <47AF3741.9060501@bitsavers.org> I've been grinding through the stack of early 80's Wang VS docs William Donzelli loaned me, and was wondering how many people have these systems in their collections, and if there was any later docs or software out there. Seemed like a fairly decent system midrange system. From chris at mainecoon.com Sun Feb 10 11:57:53 2008 From: chris at mainecoon.com (Chris Kennedy) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 09:57:53 -0800 Subject: Wang VS systems around? In-Reply-To: <47AF3741.9060501@bitsavers.org> References: <47AF3741.9060501@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <47AF3B21.8000509@mainecoon.com> Al Kossow wrote: > I've been grinding through the stack of early 80's Wang VS docs > William Donzelli loaned me, and was wondering how many people have > these systems in their collections, and if there was any later docs > or software out there. I have one sitting in storage, still shrink wrapped and on pallets. I'll poke around and see what docs I have for it. -- Chris Kennedy chris at mainecoon.com AF6AP http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97 PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97 "Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration..." From frustum at pacbell.net Sun Feb 10 12:04:15 2008 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 12:04:15 -0600 Subject: Wang VS systems around? In-Reply-To: <47AF3741.9060501@bitsavers.org> References: <47AF3741.9060501@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <47AF3C9F.3030200@pacbell.net> Al Kossow wrote: > I've been grinding through the stack of early 80's Wang VS docs > William Donzelli loaned me, and was wondering how many people have > these systems in their collections, and if there was any later docs > or software out there. > > Seemed like a fairly decent system midrange system. Believe it or not, the Wang VS still lives on. Thomas Junker, who for a long time was one of the last real champions of the Wang VS, has actually revived the Wang VS family. Getronics bought out Wang and then essentially milked the dwindling user base without introducing new products. Thomas took the initiative, hired a programmer, and wrote a Linux-based emulator for the VS family. Enough time had passed the a fast PC with his emulation software is still much faster than the old high end machines. He worked with Getronics to make it legal and they are now in some kind of cooperative arrangement. Thomas Junker's page: http://www.tjunker.com/ TransVirtual Systems page: http://www.transvirtualsystems.com/ From spliffrd at inch.com Sun Feb 10 13:19:12 2008 From: spliffrd at inch.com (mmelnick) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:19:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: apple stuff still for sale Message-ID: <20080210141620.Y68160@shell.inch.com> I have a ton of old apple stuff for sale, trade or maybe even free if you've got a project you're working on and need something apple. I also have a ton of other computer parts..cases, mobos, processors, nic cards, graphic cards, memory, drives etc to build stuff that I really want to get rid of/donate to the right person. I need to clear out my loft and i really dont want to trash it all. I'm in Bushwick Brooklyn near the Morgan Ave stop on the L train. email Matt spliffrd at inch.com and lets arrange a time for you to come see my stuff. From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Feb 10 13:51:34 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:51:34 -0500 Subject: ebay seller "dlcs3" Message-ID: <200802101451.34208.pat@computer-refuge.org> Has anyone here noticed this guy on ebay, claiming to have a "warehouse" of stuff in New Jersey? I know that's relatively close to some other MF nuts on this list (well, much closer than Indiana, anyways) so I though I'd see if anyone had gone to see what he had in his "warehouse". The stuff he has listed right now doesn't look all that interesting, but it's hard to tell from the dark, small pictures of smoked plexiglass rack doors, what's inside the rack... Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Feb 10 13:53:43 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:53:43 -0500 Subject: Unibus SMD controller available? Message-ID: <200802101453.44015.pat@computer-refuge.org> I'd like to pick up a UNIBUS SMD controller for a project I'm working on, Emulex would be best, but other brands are acceptable. MSCP support would probably be the easiest to work with, and support of E-SMD isn't required but would be a nice extra. :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From evan at snarc.net Sun Feb 10 13:55:00 2008 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:55:00 -0500 Subject: ebay seller "dlcs3" Message-ID: <200802101956.m1AJtvpt001033@keith.ezwind.net> Yeah, we're in the process of checking that out here in Jersey. -----Original Message----- From: Patrick Finnegan Subj: ebay seller "dlcs3" Date: Sun Feb 10, 2008 2:53 pm Size: 611 bytes To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Has anyone here noticed this guy on ebay, claiming to have a "warehouse" of stuff in New Jersey? I know that's relatively close to some other MF nuts on this list (well, much closer than Indiana, anyways) so I though I'd see if anyone had gone to see what he had in his "warehouse". The stuff he has listed right now doesn't look all that interesting, but it's hard to tell from the dark, small pictures of smoked plexiglass rack doors, what's inside the rack... Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Feb 10 13:58:56 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:58:56 -0500 Subject: Emulex QD34 question Message-ID: <200802101458.56440.pat@computer-refuge.org> So, I've got a question about the Emulex QD34 QBUS SMD controller (yes, like the one on ebay right now, which the seller claims is "SCSI"). It appears to have a S-BOX mounting bracket/dist panel on it, with some annoying "inverted" high-density connectors on it (like the HD50 connectors used for DSSI). I'm wondering if it's possible to pull the bracket off the card, and if there's some sane-looking IDC connector headers (like the normal 20 and 60 pin ones on an SMD drive) that one can get to. Thanks, Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From g-wright at att.net Sun Feb 10 14:09:06 2008 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:09:06 +0000 Subject: error with tapecopy writing, buffer to small ??? Fixed Message-ID: <021020082009.26334.47AF59E200026EA6000066DE22218683269B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> Thanks everyone well I was trying to write with a corupt tape image file. I guest it was too late at night for the brain cells..... tried another file and it worked fine. I had been reading a lot of bad tapes that where sticking on the rollers as they reverse I thought I had deleted all of the bad files but I must have missed one. The file was Only was 8k in size ?? - Jerry From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sun Feb 10 14:44:20 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 12:44:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: ebay seller "dlcs3" In-Reply-To: <200802101451.34208.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200802101451.34208.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On Sun, 10 Feb 2008, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > Has anyone here noticed this guy on ebay, claiming to have a "warehouse" > of stuff in New Jersey? I know that's relatively close to some other > MF nuts on this list (well, much closer than Indiana, anyways) so I > though I'd see if anyone had gone to see what he had in > his "warehouse". The stuff he has listed right now doesn't look all > that interesting, but it's hard to tell from the dark, small pictures > of smoked plexiglass rack doors, what's inside the rack... Well, I have a warehouse of sorts. Two of them, in fact. A couple listmembers have been in them. One left with a vanload of goodies last week. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sun Feb 10 14:47:01 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 12:47:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: IMSAI toggle-in program Message-ID: Can someone point me towards a listing for some programs that I can toggle into an IMSAI 8080? I have a couple to sell and would like to be able to state that I've run something on them. I've heard repeated references to a "catch the dot" program, but google isn't being very helpful. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Feb 10 12:42:47 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 18:42:47 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Facit 9911 2.5" floppy drive In-Reply-To: <47ADA306.40200@acc.umu.se> from "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=F6ran_Axelsson?=" at Feb 9, 8 01:56:38 pm Message-ID: > The only Facit equipment I've encountered is VT52 terminals (still got a=20 > keyboard) and typewriters. Facit was very well-known for paper tape equipment. The 4070 punch was used (and badged) by just about every computer company at one time or another, but Facit made other punches and readers. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Feb 10 12:51:49 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 18:51:49 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 80C32 emulation? In-Reply-To: <1202603719.6865.9.camel@elric> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Feb 10, 8 00:35:19 am Message-ID: > Basically I'm trying to reverse-engineer the firmware of a couple of > late-80s Alesis HR-16 and HR-16B drum machines. They use a 32kx8 EPROM > for the firmware, a pair of 512kx8 ROMs for the sampled sounds, a big > custom ASIC for the sample playback and an 80C31 for the clever stuff. I assume the ROM address latch is hidden in that ASIC, and isn't a seprate '373 or '572 chip If it was, it would be trivial to trace out the address bit order, of course. Do the ROM data pins connect straight to the 8031 (without going through the ASIC). At least you could make sure the data bits are in the expected order. What aobut using a logic analyser, connected to the EPROM? You could capture the first few instructions and the addresses _at the ROM pins_. You can spot jumps, etc and thus work out what the addresses _should_ be and thus work out which bit ends up on which EPROM pin. -tony From mardy at voysys.com Sun Feb 10 15:06:19 2008 From: mardy at voysys.com (Marden P. Marshall) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:06:19 -0500 Subject: IMSAI toggle-in program In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <085A43C5-8982-4818-9AF1-26441516586E@voysys.com> On Feb 10, 2008, at 3:47 PM, David Griffith wrote: > > Can someone point me towards a listing for some programs that I can > toggle > into an IMSAI 8080? I have a couple to sell and would like to be > able to > state that I've run something on them. I've heard repeated > references to > a "catch the dot" program, but google isn't being very helpful. > > -- > David Griffith > dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu > There are a couple of simple test programs given in the "IMSAI 8080 System - General Assembly and Test Instructions" manual. If you don't have a copy, e-mail me and I'll send a copy off-list. -Mardy From david_comley at yahoo.com Sun Feb 10 15:26:54 2008 From: david_comley at yahoo.com (david_comley at yahoo.com) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:26:54 +0000 Subject: Wang VS systems around? In-Reply-To: <47AF3741.9060501@bitsavers.org> References: <47AF3741.9060501@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <1260956014-1202678526-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-153171360-@bxe005.bisx.prod.on.blackberry> Al, I have the VS system that I believe was matched to the docs you have from Will. He dropped it off here last summer but I have not yet started to work on the system. -Dave Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile -----Original Message----- From: Al Kossow Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 09:41:21 To:classiccmp at classiccmp.org Subject: Wang VS systems around? I've been grinding through the stack of early 80's Wang VS docs William Donzelli loaned me, and was wondering how many people have these systems in their collections, and if there was any later docs or software out there. Seemed like a fairly decent system midrange system. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sun Feb 10 16:05:26 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:05:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: IMSAI toggle-in program In-Reply-To: <085A43C5-8982-4818-9AF1-26441516586E@voysys.com> References: <085A43C5-8982-4818-9AF1-26441516586E@voysys.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 10 Feb 2008, Marden P. Marshall wrote: > On Feb 10, 2008, at 3:47 PM, David Griffith wrote: > > > Can someone point me towards a listing for some programs that I can > > toggle into an IMSAI 8080? I have a couple to sell and would like to > > be able to state that I've run something on them. I've heard repeated > > references to a "catch the dot" program, but google isn't being very > > helpful. > > There are a couple of simple test programs given in the "IMSAI 8080 > System - General Assembly and Test Instructions" manual. If you don't > have a copy, e-mail me and I'll send a copy off-list. I found a copy and discovered a couple stuck bits in the memory 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 gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Feb 10 16:08:07 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 22:08:07 +0000 Subject: 80C32 emulation? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1202681287.10676.3.camel@elric> On Sun, 2008-02-10 at 18:51 +0000, Tony Duell wrote: > > Basically I'm trying to reverse-engineer the firmware of a couple of > > late-80s Alesis HR-16 and HR-16B drum machines. They use a 32kx8 EPROM > > for the firmware, a pair of 512kx8 ROMs for the sampled sounds, a big > > custom ASIC for the sample playback and an 80C31 for the clever stuff. > > I assume the ROM address latch is hidden in that ASIC, and isn't a > seprate '373 or '572 chip If it was, it would be trivial to trace out the No, the ASIC is *only* for playing back samples. The address latch is a 75HC573 > address bit order, of course. Do the ROM data pins connect straight to > the 8031 (without going through the ASIC). At least you could make sure > the data bits are in the expected order. The OS ROM connects up as you'd expect. AD0-AD7 through the latch, A8-A15 direct. > What aobut using a logic analyser, connected to the EPROM? You could > capture the first few instructions and the addresses _at the ROM pins_. > You can spot jumps, etc and thus work out what the addresses _should_ be > and thus work out which bit ends up on which EPROM pin. Actually, just looking at the PDFs of the datasheets and the physical layout on the board provided the clue I needed. I didn't even need to put the new battery I just bought in the meter ;-) I've sussed out what's going on, and written a wee proggy to unscramble the ROM images. Took about five minutes once I'd figured out how it was all connected. Gordon From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sun Feb 10 17:22:27 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:22:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: S100 SCSI board? Message-ID: I found an S100 board in a file folder labeled "IOMEGA SCSI HOST". The board itself says "I OMEGA HOST ADAPTER" and a part number "AMSEC 670-1185". Does anyone here know if this really might be an S100 SCSI board and if the IOMEGA we all know had anything to do with it? It is for sale, in case anyone's interested. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu From trixter at oldskool.org Sun Feb 10 17:42:48 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:42:48 -0600 Subject: How compatible were "MS-DOS Compatible" machines? In-Reply-To: <47AD63D8.3278.743FDC@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200802091115.m19BFc6Q079485@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47AD63D8.3278.743FDC@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47AF8BF8.9070405@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I note from the comments on the video that some think that this was a > commercial, but it's just one of the many cheezy sales promos of the > time. At least it was halfway entertaining and not dull, dull, dull > like so many others. As a sales associate, I *was* treated to the dull ones. A few were interesting, as they had either celebrities or Bill Gates in them. I remember the Excel 1.0 promo video had Gates in it -- acting came to him as naturally as... nothing. -- Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/ Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/ From trixter at oldskool.org Sun Feb 10 17:44:01 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:44:01 -0600 Subject: can anyone recommend a good DOS based jpeg viewer In-Reply-To: <186518.73455.qm@web65511.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <186518.73455.qm@web65511.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47AF8C41.9070208@oldskool.org> I completely missed the requirement of being able to rip out chunks and save them somewhere. For that, if you have a 386 or higher, DISPLAY is what you want. If you need a copy, email me off-list. Chris M wrote: > There seem to be a number of good programs on Simtel, > but that one apparently doesn't *display* jpegs at all > - it wants an .lzh. > Anyway, I may have to resort to a Windoze solution. I > want a jpeg viewer where I can rip out chunks and save > them to another file (not separate files, but one big > file of all the chunks). There's a number of ways of > doing what I want I guess, but I'd much prefer a DOS > based solution regardless. I guess I should have been > more specific. I imagine I'd probably have to write > something, but I'm not thrilled at the prospect. > > --- Greg Purvis wrote: > >> Chris M wrote: >>> preferably one where you can opt for a window into >> a >>> large image, one that's bigger then the screen. >> I've >>> tried a few and they're all goofy. If I have to >> write >>> my own someone is going to pay... >>> >> I've used versions of LView since I had Win95, and >> in fact that old >> Model A version still works really well on my XP. >> >> Although I haven't used a DOS version of LView, mine >> has been so stable >> and reliable across several Win OS platforms, that I >> feel safe in >> suggesting you try the DOS version. >> >> I found this link which will take you at least to >> the page, if not the >> item. (It's called LView.zip on that web site, in >> case I copied the >> link incorrectly.) >> >> Good luck. >> >> > http://www.simtel.net/category.php%5Baction%5Dbrowse&i=150&id=14&f=%7C%7C%7C%7C&s=product.date_released%7CDESC >> Greg P. >> > > > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ > Looking for last minute shopping deals? > Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping > -- 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 Sun Feb 10 18:54:48 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:54:48 -0800 Subject: my old machines in France In-Reply-To: <200802101800.m1AI09UA094920@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802101800.m1AI09UA094920@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47AF2C58.15325.1740C2E@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:33:13 +0100 > From: "nierveze" Very nice find, Alain! Do you have any information about the instruction set for this machine? Cheers, Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Feb 10 19:11:09 2008 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:11:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: S100 SCSI board? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20080210171005.M15490@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 10 Feb 2008, David Griffith wrote: > I found an S100 board in a file folder labeled "IOMEGA SCSI HOST". The > board itself says "I OMEGA HOST ADAPTER" and a part number "AMSEC > 670-1185". Does anyone here know if this really might be an S100 SCSI > board and if the IOMEGA we all know had anything to do with it? > It is for sale, in case anyone's interested. Howzbout: a Bernoulli box? They were around for the tail end of S100. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sun Feb 10 19:43:30 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:43:30 -0800 Subject: my old machines in France References: <200802101800.m1AI09UA094920@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47AF2C58.15325.1740C2E@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47AFA841.F7CDAAB3@cs.ubc.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:33:13 +0100 > > From: "nierveze" > > Very nice find, Alain! Do you have any information about the > instruction set for this machine? Indeed, that's quite a find. Is it as rare in France as it would be over here? It would appear to be missing the power supply, or is there another box? (Does it look like it will run again?) From cvisors at gmail.com Sun Feb 10 22:39:44 2008 From: cvisors at gmail.com (Ivy Gardiner) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:39:44 +1100 Subject: Dec Documents Message-ID: Hi, Many years ago I put up my mirror of a load of dec documents on http://www.openvms-rocks.com/~cvisors/ but this has been slow or down of late, but i have now put them back on my own site http://www.carnagevisors.net/dec94mds/ so hopefully if anyone needs these you can browse. If you want a copy of all of them (a 300+meg tar.gz file) just yell and I will torrent the file. As always Ivy Jane Gardiner -- kisses on the dancefloor in my past i need some comfort just like you beating like a bass drum time goes by i want the last dance just like you Covenant - Bullet From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Sun Feb 10 23:38:09 2008 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim s) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:38:09 -0800 Subject: my old machines in France (Intertechnique Multi 4, and earlier Multi 8) In-Reply-To: <47AF2C58.15325.1740C2E@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200802101800.m1AI09UA094920@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47AF2C58.15325.1740C2E@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47AFDF41.3040907@msm.umr.edu> Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:33:13 +0100 >> From: "nierveze" >> > > Very nice find, Alain! Do you have any information about the > instruction set for this machine? > > Cheers, > Chuck > Both the Multi 8 and the Multi 6 Alain found were licensed designs of Microdata systems. The Multi 4 that he has excellent photos of is a 1600, which is documented on bitsavers.org under Microdata and 1600. I believe, but do not have proof yet of that the Multi 8 was an 800. I am researching that thru some of the original Microdata people who were there when the deals were done. There is a good bit of the history being documented on this page: http://www.microdata-alumni.org/historical.htm Jim From silent700 at gmail.com Mon Feb 11 00:25:51 2008 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:25:51 -0600 Subject: Dec Documents In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <51ea77730802102225m4b780fd4h9af516de50f943ca@mail.gmail.com> On Feb 10, 2008 10:39 PM, Ivy Gardiner wrote: > http://www.carnagevisors.net/dec94mds/ so hopefully if anyone needs these > you can browse. Well, that's huge. Thanks! Who did the original translations to .txt format? (And a Cure fan, too!) From cvisors at gmail.com Mon Feb 11 00:35:19 2008 From: cvisors at gmail.com (Ivy Gardiner) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:35:19 +1100 Subject: Dec Documents In-Reply-To: <51ea77730802102225m4b780fd4h9af516de50f943ca@mail.gmail.com> References: <51ea77730802102225m4b780fd4h9af516de50f943ca@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Feb 11, 2008 5:25 PM, Jason T wrote: > On Feb 10, 2008 10:39 PM, Ivy Gardiner wrote: > > > http://www.carnagevisors.net/dec94mds/ so hopefully if anyone needs > these > > you can browse. > > Well, that's huge. Thanks! Who did the original translations to .txt > format? > > (And a Cure fan, too!) > Yes a huge fan of The Cure. ok all of the docs are in a tar.gz file at http://orgone.tinfoilhat.net/~ivy/dec94mds.tar.gz enjoy (this server has a bit more bw than carnagevisors.net) ~Ivy -- kisses on the dancefloor in my past i need some comfort just like you beating like a bass drum time goes by i want the last dance just like you Covenant - Bullet From philip at axeside.co.uk Sun Feb 10 15:06:27 2008 From: philip at axeside.co.uk (Philip Belben) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:06:27 +0000 Subject: Facit 9911 2.5" floppy drive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47AF6753.10201@axeside.co.uk> >> The only Facit equipment I've encountered is VT52 terminals (still got a=20 >> keyboard) and typewriters. > > Facit was very well-known for paper tape equipment. The 4070 punch was > used (and badged) by just about every computer company at one time or > another, but Facit made other punches and readers. Not to forget the rather nice motorised mechanical calculator sitting on the desk beside my PC at the moment! Facit made some nice calculators, both motorised and hand-wound, with a characteristic keyboard on two rows of 5 keys: 2 4 5 7 9 1 3 0 6 8 The digits were mechanically shifted into a register as you typed. My motorised one also has a well-optimised multiply function and a fun non-restoring division algorithm. Philip. From ragooman at comcast.net Sun Feb 10 22:26:21 2008 From: ragooman at comcast.net (Dan Roganti) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:26:21 -0500 Subject: added some more cool pics online in the gallery with SEL computers from the 60's and 70's Message-ID: <47AFCE6D.2010807@comcast.net> I added some more cool pics from the 60's and 70's with SEL computers in the gallery Polaris Missile Data Acquisition system, 1963 Vandenberg AFB Space and Missile Center, 1978, (declassified photos only) Flight Simulator, 1967, SEL 816A Computer Graphics system http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/computers_mini_gallery.html Feel free to take a look =Dan From rtellason at verizon.net Mon Feb 11 02:26:44 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 03:26:44 -0500 Subject: tape drives Message-ID: <200802110326.44357.rtellason@verizon.net> I've been contacted by a guy who has some stuff to get rid of, he'd rather see it put to good use than end up in a landfill. Of the gear he's mentioned, a couple of things might be of interest to the folks here. I've put two pics online: http://mysite.verizon.net/rtellason/HP%20tape%20transport_2.JPG http://mysite.verizon.net/rtellason/six%20ft%20rack%205.jpg (I hope I got these right, if they don't work please let me know!) The equipment is located in northern Wisconsin. There's more to come, and I'll be hearing about it in email sometime soon, but I'm not hurrying him as he said something about it being -22F there the morning he sent me the first set of pics. Yikes! :-) -- 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 silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 03:19:20 2008 From: silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com (silvercreekvalley) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:19:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: MFM drive rescue Message-ID: <132348.41600.qm@web56206.mail.re3.yahoo.com> I have a Newbury NDR 1105 drive I'm keen to rescue. On its last use the drive spun up normally but after a few minutes there was an impresive flash and smoke. On inspection the only thing that seems to have burned out is a surface mount capacitor - although quite a large one (10u). The contents of the disk are quite valuable in that they hold a late copy of the 'colour card' edition of 42nix, a Whitechapel Workstation OS. I'd like to archive that if possible. Any tips for rescue? I've managed to remove the burnt out capacitor and can replace it. There appears to be no other damage on the board apart from some scorching to the PCB. Thanks Ian. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Feb 11 05:38:35 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 06:38:35 -0500 Subject: 80C32 emulation? In-Reply-To: References: <1202603719.6865.9.camel@elric> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Feb 10, 8 00:35:19 am Message-ID: > What aobut using a logic analyser, connected to the EPROM? You could > capture the first few instructions and the addresses _at the ROM pins_. > You can spot jumps, etc and thus work out what the addresses _should_ be > and thus work out which bit ends up on which EPROM pin. Add to that - stuff in an EPROM full of NOPs ... Makes it very easy to trace the address bus (it just increments). To the OP: Once you do figure out the address/data bit mapping (assuming it's not "normal"), I can give you a utility I wrote which will read an Intel or Motorola format download file and rearrange the data / address bits according to maps you provide. Figure out the mapping, read the EPROM, run this utility to "fix" it and you should be good to go with a disassembler or emulator. 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 jfoust at threedee.com Mon Feb 11 07:14:06 2008 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 07:14:06 -0600 Subject: tape drives In-Reply-To: <200802110326.44357.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200802110326.44357.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20080211071050.05051e00@mail.threedee.com> At 02:26 AM 2/11/2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: >I've been contacted by a guy who has some stuff to get rid of, he'd rather >see it put to good use than end up in a landfill. Any idea what they might be? They look like they've been kicked around in a warehouse for a decade or two. And exactly where? Northern Wisconsin is a big, cold place. - John From ian_primus at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 07:37:52 2008 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 05:37:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: MFM drive rescue In-Reply-To: <132348.41600.qm@web56206.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <372818.4494.qm@web52709.mail.re2.yahoo.com> --- silvercreekvalley wrote: > I have a Newbury NDR 1105 drive I'm keen to > rescue. On its last use the drive spun up normally > but after a few minutes there was an impresive > flash and smoke. Was it a tantalum capacitor? I had the same thing happen to me with a 9 gig full height 5 1/4" Micropolis SCSI drive. It was in an external enclosure. I had hooked it up to a Sun system, formatted it and partitioned it, and went into the next room to burn a CD. Ten minutes later, I smelled burning - went in, and the room was smokey. There was a sizeable burnt mark on the board, and I picked off the burnt-up component and made sure nothing was shorting. Hooked the drive back up and it worked fine. I didn't even replace the part. (wouldn't have been easy to replace, the board and the surrounding tracks were burnt out) It was just a bypass capacitor, and it wasn't really necessary to the circuit (apparently). I ended up using the drive like that for a while, with no problems. Tantalums do that - flash, smoke and burn - when they fail. Nothing needs to cause them to fail, they just go. So, if it was a tantalum, you should be able to replace it (or ignore it) and the drive should still work. -Ian From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Mon Feb 11 07:56:54 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (gordonjcp at gjcp.net) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:56:54 +0000 Subject: 80C32 emulation? In-Reply-To: References: <1202603719.6865.9.camel@elric> Message-ID: <20080211135654.GA24204@gjcp.net> On Mon, Feb 11, 2008 at 06:38:35AM -0500, Dave Dunfield wrote: > > Add to that - stuff in an EPROM full of NOPs ... Makes it very easy to > trace the address bus (it just increments). Good idea > To the OP: Once you do figure out the address/data bit mapping (assuming > it's not "normal"), I can give you a utility I wrote which will read an > Intel or Motorola format download file and rearrange the data / address > bits according to maps you provide. Figure out the mapping, read the EPROM, > run this utility to "fix" it and you should be good to go with a > disassembler or emulator. Oh, I figured out the mapping after looking at the PCB for about 10 seconds ;-) Now the fun starts - working out how to emulate the hardware. I've a rough idea of where the keyboard matrix and the display are mapped... Gordon From tshoppa at wmata.com Mon Feb 11 08:06:20 2008 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:06:20 -0500 Subject: S100 SCSI board? Message-ID: <47B0100C0200003700020ACA@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> David writes: > I found an S100 board in a file folder labeled "IOMEGA SCSI HOST". The > board itself says "I OMEGA HOST ADAPTER" and a part number "AMSEC > 670-1185". Does anyone here know if this really might be an S100 SCSI > board and if the IOMEGA we all know had anything to do with it? The Iomega Bernoulli Box was very early 80's. And Iomega had been around doing some S-100 and other mini-compatible stuff for a couple of years before the Bernoulli Box. Some of their early products were like SyQuest's early 80's cartridge drive offerings... but as far as I know not exactly compatible. I seem to recall a S-100 product I once owned called "XOR/IOMega". Don't know if it's the same thing. Remember when a Mega of anything was a lot? Talking about other companies that are still around... every time I drive by EMC's local office complex I think about the PDP-11 and Nova EMC memory boards I have. It's amazing, 30 years later and the logo is just the same, although the company itself seems to have completely forgotten anything before the mid-90's. Tim. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Feb 11 08:48:02 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 06:48:02 -0800 Subject: MFM drive rescue In-Reply-To: <372818.4494.qm@web52709.mail.re2.yahoo.com> References: <132348.41600.qm@web56206.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <372818.4494.qm@web52709.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > From: ian_primus at yahoo.com > > --- silvercreekvalley > wrote: > >> I have a Newbury NDR 1105 drive I'm keen to >> rescue. On its last use the drive spun up normally >> but after a few minutes there was an impresive >> flash and smoke. > > Was it a tantalum capacitor? I had the same thing > happen to me with a 9 gig full height 5 1/4" > Micropolis SCSI drive. It was in an external > enclosure. I had hooked it up to a Sun system, > formatted it and partitioned it, and went into the > next room to burn a CD. Ten minutes later, I smelled > burning - went in, and the room was smokey. > > There was a sizeable burnt mark on the board, and I > picked off the burnt-up component and made sure > nothing was shorting. Hooked the drive back up and it > worked fine. I didn't even replace the part. (wouldn't > have been easy to replace, the board and the > surrounding tracks were burnt out) It was just a > bypass capacitor, and it wasn't really necessary to > the circuit (apparently). I ended up using the drive > like that for a while, with no problems. > > Tantalums do that - flash, smoke and burn - when they > fail. Nothing needs to cause them to fail, they just > go. So, if it was a tantalum, you should be able to > replace it (or ignore it) and the drive should still > work. > Hi I had one go like that. I replace the cap and coninued to use the drive for another 4 year when I left that job. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008 From tshoppa at wmata.com Mon Feb 11 08:58:30 2008 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:58:30 -0500 Subject: DEC 1994 MDS (was Re: Dec Documents) Message-ID: <47B01C460200003700020AE7@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> Jason T wrote: >> http://www.carnagevisors.net/dec94mds/ so hopefully if anyone needs these >> you can browse. >Well, that's huge. Thanks! Who did the original translations to .txt format? The DEC 1994 MDS CD-ROM contained postscript and text documents. It was perhaps the most complete classiccmp-wise of all the DEC MDS issues. I converted the postscript to PDF many years ago (pretty much just ghostscript's ps2pdf) and made the index you see today. The text documents are pretty much as they were straight on the CD-ROM. Tim. From feedle at feedle.net Mon Feb 11 10:33:02 2008 From: feedle at feedle.net (C. Sullivan) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:33:02 -0800 Subject: S100 SCSI board? In-Reply-To: <47B0100C0200003700020ACA@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> References: <47B0100C0200003700020ACA@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> Message-ID: On Feb 11, 2008, at 6:06 AM, Tim Shoppa wrote: > I seem to recall a S-100 product I once owned called "XOR/IOMega". > Don't > know if it's the same thing. Interesting Google hit along those lines: http://www.nelsonit.net/~jon/info-cpm/1986/04/10/171835.html Quote: Date : Thu, 10 Apr 1986 17:18:35 GMT From : Dave Lampe Subject: Help with XOR-IOMega CPM system I hope someone can help me. Does anyone have an S-100 bus CP/M computer manufactured by XOR with IOMega 10 meg cartridge drives. If you do, would you please let me copy your system disk. I have wiped out both of mine. How you ask, very simply. There is a bug in either the formating program IFMT.COM or in the device driver. If an IO error is encountered while you are formatting a cartridge in the B drive, the disk in the A drive is trashed. If you can help, please send me mail and I will be happy to either mail you a new cartridge, or meet to copy yours From tshoppa at wmata.com Mon Feb 11 12:40:16 2008 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:40:16 -0500 Subject: Syquest/Iomega removable cartridge drive interfaces of early 80's In-Reply-To: <200802111800.m1BI0Sh1009114@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802111800.m1BI0Sh1009114@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47B050400200003700020B6F@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> C Sullivan writes: > Tim Shoppa wrote: >> I seem to recall a S-100 product I once owned called "XOR/IOMega". >> Don't >> know if it's the same thing. > Interesting Google hit along those lines: http://www.nelsonit.net/~jon/info-cpm/1986/04/10/171835.html > Quote: >>I hope someone can help me. Does anyone have an S-100 bus CP/M computer >>manufactured by XOR with IOMega 10 meg cartridge drives. In my head I cannot always keep clear the distinction between the early 80's IOMega and the early 80's Syquest removable cartridge drives. Am I correct in remembering that the Syquests of that time used the 34/20 pin MFM-hard-drive "ST506" interface? Were all the early 80's IOmega's SCSI or did they use something before that? Syquests were always 5.25" or smaller form factors, is that right? Any 8" things I'm remembering are probably Bernoulli Box carts? Tim. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Feb 11 13:49:43 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:49:43 -0800 Subject: my old machines in France (Intertechnique Multi 4 In-Reply-To: <200802111320.m1BDK1TZ005553@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802111320.m1BDK1TZ005553@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47B03657.32478.2F3F68E@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 21:38:09 -0800 > From: jim s > Both the Multi 8 and the Multi 6 Alain found were licensed designs of > Microdata systems. The Multi 4 that he has excellent photos of is a 1600, > which is documented on bitsavers.org under Microdata and 1600. > > I believe, but do not have proof yet of that the Multi 8 was an 800. I am > researching that thru some of the original Microdata people who were there > when the deals were done. Going back to Alain's web page, I see that now--thanks for pointing it out. Do you know if the Multi 4 is a "strict" implementation of the 1600? That is, does is contain any unique "enhancements" over the 1600? I recall an associate who had worked with the Microdata Reality systems in the insurance industry who was very fond of them. Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at verizon.net Mon Feb 11 14:51:13 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:51:13 -0500 Subject: tape drives In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20080211071050.05051e00@mail.threedee.com> References: <200802110326.44357.rtellason@verizon.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20080211071050.05051e00@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: <200802111551.14024.rtellason@verizon.net> On Monday 11 February 2008 08:14, John Foust wrote: > At 02:26 AM 2/11/2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > >I've been contacted by a guy who has some stuff to get rid of, he'd > > rather see it put to good use than end up in a landfill. > > Any idea what they might be? No, I don't have much more specific info than what was posted. > They look like they've been kicked around in a warehouse for a decade or > two. This guy said he was cleaning out his shed. And that there's another one. I noticed the one drive appeared to have tape loaded on it, too. > And exactly where? Northern Wisconsin is a big, cold place. I don't have much in the way of details at this point. There were a whole lot of other parts, capacitors and some enclosures and I'm looking forward to getting more info from him sometime soon, particularly when he gets into his other shed. -- 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 ian_primus at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 15:17:28 2008 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:17:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: Syquest/Iomega removable cartridge drive interfaces of early 80's In-Reply-To: <47B050400200003700020B6F@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> Message-ID: <586764.16124.qm@web52711.mail.re2.yahoo.com> > In my head I cannot always keep clear the > distinction between the early 80's IOMega > and the early 80's Syquest removable cartridge > drives. > > Am I correct in remembering that the Syquests of > that time used the 34/20 pin MFM-hard-drive > "ST506" interface? I have a couple of old SyQuest drives with this sort of interface. They're sort of an odd form factor, IIRC, like a tall 3 1/2" drive. 3 1/2" sized cartridges though. > Were all the early 80's IOmega's SCSI or did they > use something before that? > Syquests were always 5.25" or smaller form factors, > is that right? Any 8" things > I'm remembering are probably Bernoulli Box carts? I know the first Bernoulli boxes were big 8" cartridges. I have one such external dual drive unit. I'm pretty sure the interface is SCSI, but I'm not positive. I don't have any cartridges, so I never fooled around with it. Later Bernoulli drives (early-mid 90's) were 5 1/4" cartridges. I have seen SyQuest in both 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" cartridge styles. -Ian From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Feb 11 15:52:59 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:52:59 +0000 (GMT) Subject: MFM drive rescue In-Reply-To: <132348.41600.qm@web56206.mail.re3.yahoo.com> from "silvercreekvalley" at Feb 11, 8 01:19:20 am Message-ID: > > I have a Newbury NDR 1105 drive I'm keen to > rescue. On its last use the drive spun up normally > but after a few minutes there was an impresive > flash and smoke. > > On inspection the only thing that seems to have > burned out is a surface mount capacitor - although > quite a large one (10u). LArge capacitors on hard drives are often nothing more than supply decouplers. Is this one physically near the power connector? Can you trace the connections -- is it directly connected from one of the supply lines to ground? In any case, tanatlum capacitors have this habit of going short-circuit with age, and if they're connected to a low-impedance power source (like directly across a supply line), they then explode in a spectacular manner. Normally replacing them gets the machine going again with no other problems. > > The contents of the disk are quite valuable in that > they hold a late copy of the 'colour card' edition > of 42nix, a Whitechapel Workstation OS. I'd like > to archive that if possible. > > Any tips for rescue? I've managed to remove the burnt > out capacitor and can replace it. There appears to be > no other damage on the board apart from some scorching > to the PCB. Provided there are no daamged traces on the PCB you should ahve no problems. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Feb 11 15:44:46 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:44:46 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 80C32 emulation? In-Reply-To: <1202681287.10676.3.camel@elric> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Feb 10, 8 10:08:07 pm Message-ID: > > > On Sun, 2008-02-10 at 18:51 +0000, Tony Duell wrote: > > > Basically I'm trying to reverse-engineer the firmware of a couple of > > > late-80s Alesis HR-16 and HR-16B drum machines. They use a 32kx8 EPROM > > > for the firmware, a pair of 512kx8 ROMs for the sampled sounds, a big > > > custom ASIC for the sample playback and an 80C31 for the clever stuff. > > > > I assume the ROM address latch is hidden in that ASIC, and isn't a > > seprate '373 or '572 chip If it was, it would be trivial to trace out the > > No, the ASIC is *only* for playing back samples. The address latch is a > 75HC573 I assume you have a '573 pinout... In which case it is _very_ easy to trace the known data pins on the processor to the D inputs of that latch, and from the Q outputs of the latch to the EPROM address pins. That will tell you which order the address lines are wired up in. > > > address bit order, of course. Do the ROM data pins connect straight to > > the 8031 (without going through the ASIC). At least you could make sure > > the data bits are in the expected order. > > The OS ROM connects up as you'd expect. AD0-AD7 through the latch, > A8-A15 direct. Sure. But if, say, processor D0 goes to the input of one section of the latch and the the Q of that section goes to A4 on the EPROM then pin A4 on the EPROM is realyl carrying address bit 0. That's what I am suggesting you look at. > > > What aobut using a logic analyser, connected to the EPROM? You could > > capture the first few instructions and the addresses _at the ROM pins_. > > You can spot jumps, etc and thus work out what the addresses _should_ be > > and thus work out which bit ends up on which EPROM pin. > > Actually, just looking at the PDFs of the datasheets and the physical > layout on the board provided the clue I needed. I didn't even need to Don't keep me in suspense. What did they do? -tony From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Feb 11 16:14:35 2008 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:14:35 -0800 Subject: IOmega Message-ID: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org> > Were all the early 80's IOmega's SCSI or did they use something before that? The earliest devices were full height 10MB 8" SCSI drives that had optional slave drives attached. Their main claim to fame was using floppy type media. The first Syquests were MFM ST506, using removable plated media. From rtellason at verizon.net Mon Feb 11 16:26:35 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:26:35 -0500 Subject: tape drives In-Reply-To: <200802111551.14024.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200802110326.44357.rtellason@verizon.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20080211071050.05051e00@mail.threedee.com> <200802111551.14024.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200802111726.35733.rtellason@verizon.net> On Monday 11 February 2008 15:51, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Monday 11 February 2008 08:14, John Foust wrote: > > At 02:26 AM 2/11/2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > >I've been contacted by a guy who has some stuff to get rid of, he'd > > > rather see it put to good use than end up in a landfill. > > > > Any idea what they might be? > > No, I don't have much more specific info than what was posted. > > > They look like they've been kicked around in a warehouse for a decade or > > two. > > This guy said he was cleaning out his shed. And that there's another one. > I noticed the one drive appeared to have tape loaded on it, too. > > > And exactly where? Northern Wisconsin is a big, cold place. Apologies, I looked over our emails and found this: "I live about 3 miles North East of Centuria, Wi." -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Mon Feb 11 16:26:34 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:26:34 +0000 Subject: 80C32 emulation? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1202768794.17693.1.camel@elric> On Mon, 2008-02-11 at 21:44 +0000, Tony Duell wrote: > Don't keep me in suspense. What did they do? Have a look at the pinout for a JEDEC EPROM and an 80C32, and line them up so that all the pin 1 ends are level. Now imagine the HC573 in between. What pins does the 80C32 use for AD0-7? What about A0-7 on the EPROM? Yup. They're flipped. Gordon From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Mon Feb 11 18:02:53 2008 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:02:53 -0800 Subject: MFM drive rescue In-Reply-To: <200802111320.m1BDK1TY005553@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802111320.m1BDK1TY005553@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: If it's one of the Tantalum-type "blasting caps" then there isn't much of an issue, provided that the board isn't damaged. It's probably a bypass cap, so the drive might even run without it, and there is quite a range of things that will work just fine. Pull one that's close (and meets the voltage ratings) off of one of your scrap boards (don't worry, Tony - nothing too nice in mine, mostly PC stuff). From jfoust at threedee.com Mon Feb 11 18:20:22 2008 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:20:22 -0600 Subject: tape drives In-Reply-To: <200802111726.35733.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200802110326.44357.rtellason@verizon.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20080211071050.05051e00@mail.threedee.com> <200802111551.14024.rtellason@verizon.net> <200802111726.35733.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20080211181929.04da1158@mail.threedee.com> At 04:26 PM 2/11/2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: >Apologies, I looked over our emails and found this: > >"I live about 3 miles North East of Centuria, Wi." Middle of nowhere, 90 minutes NE from Minneapolis. Arguably close (the same distance?) to Cray's facilities, though. Wonder what they could be. - John From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Feb 11 23:34:15 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:34:15 -0500 Subject: Syquest/Iomega removable cartridge drive interfaces of early 80's In-Reply-To: <47B050400200003700020B6F@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> References: <200802111800.m1BI0Sh1009114@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47B050400200003700020B6F@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> Message-ID: <074EA814-506F-4319-9CEC-7AF93A3DF44E@neurotica.com> On Feb 11, 2008, at 1:40 PM, Tim Shoppa wrote: >>> I hope someone can help me. Does anyone have an S-100 bus CP/M >>> computer >>> manufactured by XOR with IOMega 10 meg cartridge drives. > > In my head I cannot always keep clear the distinction between the > early 80's IOMega > and the early 80's Syquest removable cartridge drives. > > Am I correct in remembering that the Syquests of that time used the > 34/20 pin MFM-hard-drive > "ST506" interface? Yes, this is correct. I have a small Syquest removable hard drive here that I used for just long enough to figure out that it was unreliable as all hell. I last powered it up in about 1990 or so. It has a standard ST506 interface. > Were all the early 80's IOmega's SCSI or did they use something > before that? Every one I've ever seen has been SCSI (or perhaps a stripped-down variant of SCSI), but the early ones didn't seem to "advertise" that fact. The controller board was very dumb. > Syquests were always 5.25" or smaller form factors, is that right? > Any 8" things > I'm remembering are probably Bernoulli Box carts? I've only ever seen Syquest drives in the 5.25" form factor. The 8" disks you're remembering were probably Bernoulli cartridges. Those are surprisingly reliable. I used to store quite a bit of data on a large number of 10MB and 20MB 8" Bernoulli cartridges, then I wound up using lots and lots of 44MB 5.25" ones (which were definitely SCSI on Amphenol connectors) at work. This would've been around 1991-1992. Those were really nice drives. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From rtellason at verizon.net Mon Feb 11 23:59:28 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:59:28 -0500 Subject: Syquest/Iomega removable cartridge drive interfaces of early 80's In-Reply-To: <074EA814-506F-4319-9CEC-7AF93A3DF44E@neurotica.com> References: <200802111800.m1BI0Sh1009114@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47B050400200003700020B6F@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> <074EA814-506F-4319-9CEC-7AF93A3DF44E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <200802120059.28822.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 12 February 2008 00:34, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Feb 11, 2008, at 1:40 PM, Tim Shoppa wrote: > >>> I hope someone can help me. Does anyone have an S-100 bus CP/M > >>> computer manufactured by XOR with IOMega 10 meg cartridge drives. > > > > In my head I cannot always keep clear the distinction between the > > early 80's IOMega and the early 80's Syquest removable cartridge drives. > > > > Am I correct in remembering that the Syquests of that time used the > > 34/20 pin MFM-hard-drive "ST506" interface? > > Yes, this is correct. I have a small Syquest removable hard drive > here that I used for just long enough to figure out that it was > unreliable as all hell. I last powered it up in about 1990 or so. > It has a standard ST506 interface. Unreliable? Hmm. I have one here that came along with a mac system I was given a while back (from which I'm happily using the LJ-5 that came along with it that speaks postscript :-), it's apparently an external unit, 5.25" form factor, and SCSI interface, and I've tried to do nothing with it so far. Maybe I won't hurry to use 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 chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 11 18:14:33 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:14:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Yamaha CX5 stash on eBay Message-ID: <969524.44420.qm@web65510.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> you won't have any competition from me at least :( http://cgi.ebay.com/Yamaha-MSX-CX5M-FD-05-Drives-Discs-in-Original-Box_W0QQitemZ180214231906QQihZ008QQcategoryZ4193QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From wmaddox at pacbell.net Tue Feb 12 02:59:36 2008 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:59:36 -0800 Subject: tape drives In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20080211071050.05051e00@mail.threedee.com> References: <200802110326.44357.rtellason@verizon.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20080211071050.05051e00@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: <47B15FF8.9030407@pacbell.net> John Foust wrote: > At 02:26 AM 2/11/2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: >> I've been contacted by a guy who has some stuff to get rid of, he'd rather >> see it put to good use than end up in a landfill. > > Any idea what they might be? They look like they've been kicked around > in a warehouse for a decade or two. And exactly where? Northern Wisconsin > is a big, cold place. These look like instrumentation recorders, likely analog. Pictures of the rear, particularly connectors for the cables, would be revealing, as instrumentation recorders generally have multiple input connections for multitrack recording. --Bill From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Feb 12 04:48:31 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:48:31 -0300 Subject: Yamaha CX5 stash on eBay References: <969524.44420.qm@web65510.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <018b01c86d64$f163b5e0$01fea8c0@portajara> > you won't have any competition from me at least :( > > http://cgi.ebay.com/Yamaha-MSX-CX5M-FD-05-Drives-Discs-in-Original-Box_W0QQitemZ180214231906QQihZ008QQcategoryZ4193QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem I don't think someone will be crazy enough to pay $150 for two SINGLE SIDED (!) drives. From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Tue Feb 12 05:05:47 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (gordonjcp at gjcp.net) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:05:47 +0000 Subject: Syquest/Iomega removable cartridge drive interfaces of early 80's In-Reply-To: <074EA814-506F-4319-9CEC-7AF93A3DF44E@neurotica.com> References: <200802111800.m1BI0Sh1009114@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47B050400200003700020B6F@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> <074EA814-506F-4319-9CEC-7AF93A3DF44E@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20080212110547.GC25616@gjcp.net> On Tue, Feb 12, 2008 at 12:34:15AM -0500, Dave McGuire wrote: > I've only ever seen Syquest drives in the 5.25" form factor. The > 8" disks you're remembering were probably Bernoulli cartridges. > > Those are surprisingly reliable. I used to store quite a bit of > data on a large number of 10MB and 20MB 8" Bernoulli cartridges, then > I wound up using lots and lots of 44MB 5.25" ones (which were > definitely SCSI on Amphenol connectors) at work. This would've been > around 1991-1992. Those were really nice drives. Syquest carts were incredibly common in the 80s and early 90s for storing sounds from samplers. They were fairly quick and tough enough to survive being gigged. Pretty much every Emax and Emax II I've ever seen has had a Syquest disk attached. Gordon From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 07:52:24 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:52:24 -0600 Subject: tape drives In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20080211181929.04da1158@mail.threedee.com> References: <200802110326.44357.rtellason@verizon.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20080211071050.05051e00@mail.threedee.com> <200802111551.14024.rtellason@verizon.net> <200802111726.35733.rtellason@verizon.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20080211181929.04da1158@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: <47B1A498.2040908@gmail.com> John Foust wrote: > At 04:26 PM 2/11/2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: >> Apologies, I looked over our emails and found this: >> >> "I live about 3 miles North East of Centuria, Wi." > > Middle of nowhere, 90 minutes NE from Minneapolis. Arguably close > (the same distance?) to Cray's facilities, though. Wonder what > they could be. Hmm, that's not too far from me I guess (or at least I get down to Minneapolis about once a month - and as it takes me close on 5 hours for that, an extra 90 mins isn't too bad!) That HP tape unit looks to be in the same sort of chassis as the 2114/2116 systems & related (PSU, paper tape reader etc.). No idea about the bigger rack though - I've not seen a reel arrangement like that one before (i.e. such a wide vertical spacing) I can't offer help with any big stuff right now (no space in the car!), but I'm looking around for a van at the moment, so maybe in a month or two... cheers Jules From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 07:59:12 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:59:12 -0600 Subject: The "who lives where" map... Message-ID: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> Way back, wasn't there talk of some kind of "rescue map" showing which classiccmpers lived where (roughly) and thus providing a clue as to who might be able to help* with rescues? * I'm thinking pickups, extra people-power, or just "get stuff a little nearer to me"... Maybe it's one of those Google Maps type applications, along with some contact info and the type of hauling ability (micro/mini/mainframe) potentially available? (I'm trying to work out the best way of getting a mini-sized system from the middle of CO to the middle of MN at the moment - or at least get it a little closer so I can borrow a friend's truck to go get it. Struck me that a "who is where" map would be handy! :-) cheers Jules From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Feb 12 09:03:31 2008 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:03:31 -0600 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20080212090143.05258b20@mail.threedee.com> At 07:59 AM 2/12/2008, Jules Richardson wrote: >Way back, wasn't there talk of some kind of "rescue map" showing which classiccmpers lived where (roughly) and thus providing a clue as to who might be able to help* with rescues? >* I'm thinking pickups, extra people-power, or just "get stuff a little nearer to me"... >Maybe it's one of those Google Maps type applications, along with some contact info and the type of hauling ability (micro/mini/mainframe) potentially available? Good thing I read ahead in my email. I was about to send you a private mail that said "Where are you? [...] Someone needs to do a Google mashup that lets us pinpoint other CCC members." Also, I think it should be a CCC crime to post a "stuff available" message without longitude and latitude and/or a Google maps link, but that's just me. - John From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Feb 12 10:06:55 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:06:55 -0300 Subject: The "who lives where" map... References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> Message-ID: <00a501c86d91$515612a0$0402a8c0@portajara> > Way back, wasn't there talk of some kind of "rescue map" showing which > classiccmpers lived where (roughly) and thus providing a clue as to who > might be able to help* with rescues? > Maybe it's one of those Google Maps type applications, along with some > contact info and the type of hauling ability (micro/mini/mainframe) > potentially available? That is such a good idea! What about implementing that? From vrs at msn.com Tue Feb 12 09:30:15 2008 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:30:15 -0800 Subject: The "who lives where" map... References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> Message-ID: From: "Jules Richardson": > Way back, wasn't there talk of some kind of "rescue map" showing which > classiccmpers lived where (roughly) and thus providing a clue as to who > might be able to help* with rescues? > > * I'm thinking pickups, extra people-power, or just "get stuff a little > nearer to me"... > > Maybe it's one of those Google Maps type applications, along with some > contact info and the type of hauling ability (micro/mini/mainframe) > potentially available? Something like http://www.frappr.com/pdp8owners? There's also an existing one for pdp-11 owners, and probably a few others -- why not also a classic computer rescue one? Vince From slawmaster at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 10:43:47 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:43:47 -0800 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220802120843o62bb5324yc04c01755eb1adec@mail.gmail.com> http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440346730 How's that? On Feb 12, 2008 7:30 AM, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > From: "Jules Richardson": > > Way back, wasn't there talk of some kind of "rescue map" showing which > > classiccmpers lived where (roughly) and thus providing a clue as to who > > might be able to help* with rescues? > > > > * I'm thinking pickups, extra people-power, or just "get stuff a little > > nearer to me"... > > > > Maybe it's one of those Google Maps type applications, along with some > > contact info and the type of hauling ability (micro/mini/mainframe) > > potentially available? > > Something like http://www.frappr.com/pdp8owners? > There's also an existing one for pdp-11 owners, and probably a few > others -- why not also a classic computer rescue one? > > Vince > -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 10:48:58 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:48:58 -0600 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20080212090143.05258b20@mail.threedee.com> References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20080212090143.05258b20@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: <47B1CDFA.7010801@gmail.com> John Foust wrote: > Good thing I read ahead in my email. I was about to send you a private > mail that said "Where are you? [...] Heh. Bemidji, middle of Minnesota these days. Nice country up here, but bugger-all vintage computing! > Someone needs to do a Google mashup that lets us pinpoint other CCC > members." You know, perhaps this hasn't ever even been suggested - I wonder if I'm just thinking of Dave Dunfield's suggestion of a similar map to say who can handle reading different types of media... (which is a good plan in its own right, IMHO) Anyway, I don't mind maintaining some sort of 'big list of contacts' (and have some classiccmp space) if that much were useful - but it seems that a visual map would be sensible, and I've never done anything involving linking to Google maps before... My thinking is that it just needs names, locations, contact info*, and the types of service (potentially) available (muscle power, type of transport - plus perhaps offer of temporary storage space?) * if it's just essentially a classiccmp service, then maybe "find my email address via the mailing list / archives" is sufficient and avoids the obvious spam issues? > Also, I think it should be a CCC crime to post a "stuff available" message > without longitude and latitude and/or a Google maps link, but that's just > me. :-) Everyone has their own preference! Personally just knowing to the nearest 30 miles or so works for me. cheers Jules From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 10:56:06 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:56:06 -0600 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B1CFA6.8060601@gmail.com> Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > Something like http://www.frappr.com/pdp8owners? > There's also an existing one for pdp-11 owners, and probably a few > others -- why not also a classic computer rescue one? Yep, that kind of thing was what I was thinking, but some kind of imposed structure would probably be nice (to keep it simple, and to make sure people state what they're offering - those frappr entries look to be quite freeform) cheers J. From arcarlini at iee.org Tue Feb 12 11:02:13 2008 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:02:13 -0000 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802120843o62bb5324yc04c01755eb1adec@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <000901c86d99$04efd6f0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> John Floren wrote: > http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440346730 > > How's that? Is there any more memorable way to get there? Or even a way to search for it on frappr? I've added both of those maps to the Wiki (at least I can find that!!). Antonio arcarlini at iee.org No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.2/1272 - Release Date: 11/02/2008 17:28 From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 11:01:50 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:01:50 -0600 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802120843o62bb5324yc04c01755eb1adec@mail.gmail.com> References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> <7d3530220802120843o62bb5324yc04c01755eb1adec@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B1D0FE.1000707@gmail.com> John Floren wrote: > http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440346730 Seems to be broken in Firefox - the 'move this pin' doesn't work, and putting my zip code in gives me an "Are you in...?" question but with no yes/no buttons to click on :-) Maybe that's the nature of a beta service, but it seems to be a pretty fundamental thing to be broken! J. From evan at snarc.net Tue Feb 12 11:13:16 2008 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:13:16 -0500 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802120843o62bb5324yc04c01755eb1adec@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <009801c86d9a$8fedd9e0$f750f945@evan> This should be done through / in conjunction with Jay West. -----Original Message----- From: John Floren [mailto:slawmaster at gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 11:44 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: The "who lives where" map... http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440346730 How's that? On Feb 12, 2008 7:30 AM, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > From: "Jules Richardson": > > Way back, wasn't there talk of some kind of "rescue map" showing > > which classiccmpers lived where (roughly) and thus providing a clue > > as to who might be able to help* with rescues? > > > > * I'm thinking pickups, extra people-power, or just "get stuff a > > little nearer to me"... > > > > Maybe it's one of those Google Maps type applications, along with > > some contact info and the type of hauling ability > > (micro/mini/mainframe) potentially available? > > Something like http://www.frappr.com/pdp8owners? > There's also an existing one for pdp-11 owners, and probably a few > others -- why not also a classic computer rescue one? > > Vince > -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From slawmaster at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 11:22:37 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:22:37 -0800 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <000901c86d99$04efd6f0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> References: <7d3530220802120843o62bb5324yc04c01755eb1adec@mail.gmail.com> <000901c86d99$04efd6f0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: <7d3530220802120922sb5efb0fkc6fc877d1263ff2e@mail.gmail.com> On Feb 12, 2008 9:02 AM, Antonio Carlini wrote: > John Floren wrote: > > http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440346730 > > > > How's that? > > Is there any more memorable way to get there? > > Or even a way to search for it on frappr? > > I've added both of those maps to the Wiki (at least I can find that!!). > > Antonio > arcarlini at iee.org > http://www.frappr.com/cctalk If you have a better name for it, tell me and I'll change it. John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Feb 12 11:15:54 2008 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:15:54 -0600 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802120843o62bb5324yc04c01755eb1adec@mail.gmail.co m> References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> <7d3530220802120843o62bb5324yc04c01755eb1adec@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20080212111440.0529f020@mail.threedee.com> At 10:43 AM 2/12/2008, you wrote: >http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440346730 > >How's that? Easy enough! Strange that Frappr's address-to-location isn't as accurate as Google Maps, though. It placed me in the wrong place twice and it's still not right. - John From slawmaster at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 11:27:19 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:27:19 -0800 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <47B1D0FE.1000707@gmail.com> References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> <7d3530220802120843o62bb5324yc04c01755eb1adec@mail.gmail.com> <47B1D0FE.1000707@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220802120927oda77096w151f9d4584f98b54@mail.gmail.com> On Feb 12, 2008 9:01 AM, Jules Richardson wrote: > John Floren wrote: > > http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440346730 > > Seems to be broken in Firefox - the 'move this pin' doesn't work, and putting > my zip code in gives me an "Are you in...?" question but with no yes/no > buttons to click on :-) > > Maybe that's the nature of a beta service, but it seems to be a pretty > fundamental thing to be broken! > > J. > Don't know what version you're using, but my Firefox (2.0.0.10) is working just fine. I even tested "Move this pin" and had no problems. John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From slawmaster at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 11:37:52 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:37:52 -0800 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20080212111440.0529f020@mail.threedee.com> References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> <7d3530220802120843o62bb5324yc04c01755eb1adec@mail.gmail.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20080212111440.0529f020@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220802120937x4b9e9179w6e6ba3e31d308a0b@mail.gmail.com> On Feb 12, 2008 9:15 AM, John Foust wrote: > At 10:43 AM 2/12/2008, you wrote: > >http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440346730 > > > >How's that? > > Easy enough! Strange that Frappr's address-to-location isn't as accurate > as Google Maps, though. It placed me in the wrong place twice and it's > still not right. > > - John > > Yeah, it thought I was in Albuquerque instead of Livermore... it was probably my sandia.gov address. John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Tue Feb 12 11:56:38 2008 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:56:38 -0500 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20080212111440.0529f020@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: <200802121754.m1CHscda080459@keith.ezwind.net> On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:15:54 -0600, John Foust wrote: >At 10:43 AM 2/12/2008, you wrote: >>http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440346730 >> >>How's that? >Easy enough! Strange that Frappr's address-to-location isn't as accurate >as Google Maps, though. It placed me in the wrong place twice and it's >still not right. >- John Location is close enough for this purpose. My question is, who is blstuart (Brian Stuart) and why is his pin blue ? I want a Big Blue pin to mark the home of IBMcollectables.com :-) BTW it worked ok for me using IE. There are 6 unknown locations around Wichita I am assuming were the firefox failures mentioned. later Bob From blstuart at bellsouth.net Tue Feb 12 11:56:38 2008 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (Brian L. Stuart) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:56:38 +0000 Subject: The "who lives where" map... Message-ID: <021220081756.16147.47B1DDD600061F6A00003F1322243429029B0A02D2089B9A019C04040A0DBF9B9D0E9A9B9C040D@att.net> From: "John Floren" > > On Feb 12, 2008 9:01 AM, Jules Richardson wrote: > > John Floren wrote: > > > > Seems to be broken in Firefox - the 'move this pin' doesn't work, and putting > > my zip code in gives me an "Are you in...?" question but with no yes/no > > buttons to click on :-) > > Don't know what version you're using, but my Firefox (2.0.0.10) is > working just fine. I even tested "Move this pin" and had no problems. Don't know if this is anyone else's problem, but the first time I tried, I tried to drag the pin, and that didn't work. But if I clicked where I wanted it, then it jumped there. BLS From blstuart at bellsouth.net Tue Feb 12 12:05:02 2008 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (Brian L. Stuart) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:05:02 +0000 Subject: The "who lives where" map... Message-ID: <021220081805.8824.47B1DFCE0000607E0000227822228869349B0A02D2089B9A019C04040A0DBF9B9D0E9A9B9C040D@att.net> > Location is close enough for this purpose. > My question is, who is blstuart (Brian Stuart) and why is his pin blue ? > > I want a Big Blue pin to mark the home of IBMcollectables.com :-) That's me. It went blue when I went into the profile editing and marked my gender as male. It's not an indication that I'm a collector of classic IBM gear. Of course, I would be if I had the space and some good pieces came my way... BLS From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Tue Feb 12 12:12:56 2008 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:12:56 -0500 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802120937x4b9e9179w6e6ba3e31d308a0b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802121811.m1CIAtO1082241@keith.ezwind.net> On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:37:52 -0800, John Floren wrote: >On Feb 12, 2008 9:15 AM, John Foust wrote: >> At 10:43 AM 2/12/2008, you wrote: >> >http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440346730 >> > >> >How's that? >> >> Easy enough! Strange that Frappr's address-to-location isn't as accurate >> as Google Maps, though. It placed me in the wrong place twice and it's >> still not right. >> >> - John >> >> >Yeah, it thought I was in Albuquerque instead of Livermore... it was >probably my sandia.gov address. >John >-- >Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn Makes since, it put me at the location of the CO where my DSL terminates on first try. A second try via a different internet connection centered me up on that CO's location. It's using the long lat info returned from RDNS on an IP trace back as its first guess. You are correct the sandia.gov addresses are all flagged as" Location Albuquerque (35.083N, 106.650W) based on a forward DNS lookup of their rDNS record. As ATT DSL points to: Columbus (40.100N, 83.017W) Back under my rock .. Bob From evan at snarc.net Tue Feb 12 12:17:42 2008 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:17:42 -0500 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802120937x4b9e9179w6e6ba3e31d308a0b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <00b501c86da3$90817840$f750f945@evan> Map is too hard to read with all the streets showing. -----Original Message----- From: John Floren [mailto:slawmaster at gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 12:38 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: The "who lives where" map... On Feb 12, 2008 9:15 AM, John Foust wrote: > At 10:43 AM 2/12/2008, you wrote: > >http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440346730 > > > >How's that? > > Easy enough! Strange that Frappr's address-to-location isn't as > accurate as Google Maps, though. It placed me in the wrong place > twice and it's still not right. > > - John > > Yeah, it thought I was in Albuquerque instead of Livermore... it was probably my sandia.gov address. John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Tue Feb 12 12:26:30 2008 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:26:30 -0800 Subject: error with tapecopy writing, buffer to small ??? In-Reply-To: <021020080716.22117.47AEA4E200018B270000566522230650629B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> References: <021020080716.22117.47AEA4E200018B270000566522230650629B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: I've similar problems on Linux 2.4 kernels when writing to tape devices via DMA with a block size > 32k. It can be solved if you are willing to move to a 2.6 kernel (and your hardware supports large DMA transfers). Exactly 32kB blocks usually work. I'd be surprised if your tape images actually have blocks bigger than 32k, but I suppose it is possible. On Feb 9, 2008 11:16 PM, wrote: > I have been playing with Eric Smith "TapeCopy" and some cartridge tapes.After > reading them, when I try to write them, I get an error message that the tape image > is too long for the for the 32768 byte buffer . I'm running it on a linux machine > ver is RedHat 7.2. Not to sure why ??? tapes where DC600 (60 Meg). > > - jerry > > Jerry Wright > JLC inc > g-wright at att.net > From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Feb 12 12:30:46 2008 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:30:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802121832.NAA14896@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Way back, wasn't there talk of some kind of "rescue map" showing > which classiccmpers lived where (roughly) and thus providing a clue > as to who might be able to help* with rescues? I live in downtown Montreal. I don't drive, though, which restricts me to Montreal public transit range unless I can find helpful wheels. I do the weekend commute to Ottawa, and, while my carry capacity is strictly limited, I know people who do the drive moderately often. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From arcarlini at iee.org Tue Feb 12 12:40:05 2008 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:40:05 -0000 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802120922sb5efb0fkc6fc877d1263ff2e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <000c01c86da6$b2bf2850$5b01a8c0@uatempname> John Floren wrote: > http://www.frappr.com/cctalk > If you have a better name for it, tell me and I'll change it. That's fine. It's much more memorable than ?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440346730 :-) Antonio No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.2/1272 - Release Date: 11/02/2008 17:28 From cclist at sydex.com Tue Feb 12 12:44:32 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:44:32 -0800 Subject: Syquest/Iomega removable cartridge drive interfaces In-Reply-To: <200802121733.m1CHX0XM021603@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802121733.m1CHX0XM021603@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47B17890.373.7DEA363@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:59:28 -0500 > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > Unreliable? Hmm. Very. I had a couple and tossed the drives, but kept the drive boxes- with-PSU. As someone has mentioned, the drive had an odd form factor, but the boxes could hold a 3.5" drive if you didn't mind a few gaps. OTOH, the Bernoulli boxes were very reliable. I fired up a dual 90MB unit here the other day--worked just fine. Heavy bugger, though. Cheers, Chuck From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 13:08:56 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:08:56 -0600 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <200802121832.NAA14896@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> <200802121832.NAA14896@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <47B1EEC8.7090107@gmail.com> der Mouse wrote: > I do the weekend commute to Ottawa, and, while my carry capacity is > strictly limited, I know people who do the drive moderately often. That's an interesting point - I'm not sure how we could usefully capture "I regularly do this route, or know people that do" type information. Maybe it can't sensibly be done (and I'm sure Jay sees nothing wrong with "can anyone help getting x from y to z?" messages on the list, anyway!) cheers Jules From austin at ozpass.co.uk Tue Feb 12 13:31:09 2008 From: austin at ozpass.co.uk (Austin Pass) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:31:09 +0000 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <47B1EEC8.7090107@gmail.com> References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> <200802121832.NAA14896@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <47B1EEC8.7090107@gmail.com> Message-ID: <814AB34C-2B34-46F0-BCEC-51A97492BB4D@ozpass.co.uk> On 12 Feb 2008, at 19:08, Jules Richardson wrote: > That's an interesting point - I'm not sure how we could usefully > capture "I regularly do this route, or know people that do" type > information. > > Maybe it can't sensibly be done (and I'm sure Jay sees nothing wrong > with "can anyone help getting x from y to z?" messages on the list, > anyway!) > > cheers > > Jules I have two locations at which I live, operate and can store / collect computers and associated hardware. In France, for example, I have two air-conditioned containers in my barn, one of which is currently completely empty. I thought I could best represent this by adding two locations on the frappr map, but couldn't find a way to do it. The frappr approach is *nearly* there - if we could customise the fields in the back-end database it would be ideal. -Austin. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Feb 12 13:22:40 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:22:40 +0000 (GMT) Subject: MFM drive rescue In-Reply-To: from "Scott Quinn" at Feb 11, 8 04:02:53 pm Message-ID: > > If it's one of the Tantalum-type "blasting caps" then there isn't > much of an issue, provided that the board isn't damaged. It's > probably a bypass cap, so the drive might even run without it, and > there is quite a range of things that will work just fine. Pull one > that's close (and meets the voltage ratings) off of one of your scrap > boards (don't worry, Tony - nothing too nice in mine, mostly PC stuff). Logically, since I don't approve of board-swapping, I should approve of raiding boards for components... Needless to say I'd not strip a part of a rare classic computer to get a capcaitor, but as you said, generic PC bits are fair game :-) However, I would be very supprised if that capacitor was not available new from the likes of RS components or Farnell. In that case I'd fit a brand new one, rather than one that might repeat the pyrotechnics... -tony From feedle at feedle.net Tue Feb 12 13:51:32 2008 From: feedle at feedle.net (C. Sullivan) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:51:32 -0800 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <47B1EEC8.7090107@gmail.com> References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> <200802121832.NAA14896@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <47B1EEC8.7090107@gmail.com> Message-ID: <8DBE11F4-EC0E-424A-BB0D-2254FF15C310@feedle.net> On Feb 12, 2008, at 11:08 AM, Jules Richardson wrote: > der Mouse wrote: >> I do the weekend commute to Ottawa, and, while my carry capacity is >> strictly limited, I know people who do the drive moderately often. > > That's an interesting point - I'm not sure how we could usefully > capture "I regularly do this route, or know people that do" type > information. > > Maybe it can't sensibly be done (and I'm sure Jay sees nothing wrong > with "can anyone help getting x from y to z?" messages on the list, > anyway!) I'm sure he's not the only one. While I live in Portland, I'm a field engineer for a phone system vendor, and my territory ranges from Vancouver BC to Northern California, inland to western Montana. I'd have no issues getting anywhere in that radius for classic equipment. Similarly, I know one list member who lives in central California who is willing to travel anywhere south of Sacramento, pretty much, for gear. From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 14:07:22 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:07:22 -0600 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <8DBE11F4-EC0E-424A-BB0D-2254FF15C310@feedle.net> References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> <200802121832.NAA14896@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <47B1EEC8.7090107@gmail.com> <8DBE11F4-EC0E-424A-BB0D-2254FF15C310@feedle.net> Message-ID: <47B1FC7A.10302@gmail.com> C. Sullivan wrote: > > On Feb 12, 2008, at 11:08 AM, Jules Richardson wrote: > >> der Mouse wrote: >>> I do the weekend commute to Ottawa, and, while my carry capacity is >>> strictly limited, I know people who do the drive moderately often. >> >> That's an interesting point - I'm not sure how we could usefully >> capture "I regularly do this route, or know people that do" type >> information. >> >> Maybe it can't sensibly be done (and I'm sure Jay sees nothing wrong >> with "can anyone help getting x from y to z?" messages on the list, >> anyway!) > > I'm sure he's not the only one. While I live in Portland, I'm a field > engineer for a phone system vendor, and my territory ranges from > Vancouver BC to Northern California, inland to western Montana. I'd > have no issues getting anywhere in that radius for classic equipment. Hmm, maybe that one's solved (more or less) by giving central points and an operating radius for each? (OK, so states aren't round, but it'd sort-of work :-) For anyone wanting an item rescued/moved/whatever, they'd probably have to try a few points nearest to the item's location and find someone (hopefully) who was willing to travel that far. Nothing wrong with us giving multiple locations in order to build up an area of coverage, after all. The problem that Der Mouse raised is that there's no easy way of representing a route via the mapping solutions - only a geographical area (e.g. if someone regularly does a 1000 mile run along a specific set of roads, there's no easy way to capture that). I still a map's helpful (and worth having) - but there's still going to be things it can't do, and hence occasional transport pleas on the list! cheers Jules From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 14:14:13 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:14:13 -0600 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <814AB34C-2B34-46F0-BCEC-51A97492BB4D@ozpass.co.uk> References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> <200802121832.NAA14896@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <47B1EEC8.7090107@gmail.com> <814AB34C-2B34-46F0-BCEC-51A97492BB4D@ozpass.co.uk> Message-ID: <47B1FE15.6010608@gmail.com> Austin Pass wrote: > I have two locations at which I live, operate and can store / collect > computers and associated hardware. In France, for example, I have two > air-conditioned containers in my barn, one of which is currently > completely empty. I thought I could best represent this by adding two > locations on the frappr map, but couldn't find a way to do it. Hmm, that makes it a bit awkward - the ability to specify multiple locations seems pretty mandatory. The way I think I'd imagined it would be that 'we' hold the list of who is where (and what they offer) - the map's just there to visualize things (i.e. the site/service providing the maps isn't holding all the other data). cheers Jules From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Feb 12 14:20:02 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:20:02 -0500 Subject: Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW In-Reply-To: <004901c86d64$6e936610$4bba3230$@net.au> References: <004901c86d64$6e936610$4bba3230$@net.au> Message-ID: On Feb 12, 2008, at 5:45 AM, Daniel Baldacchino wrote: > I have recently started to study microprocessor fundamentals and > have been > trying to find this simulator. Would it be possible for you to send > me a > copy of it if you still have it. This may seem like a dumb question, but...why not just get a real ET-3400? They go for $10-20 on eBay all day long. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Feb 12 14:22:49 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:22:49 -0500 Subject: Syquest/Iomega removable cartridge drive interfaces of early 80's In-Reply-To: <20080212110547.GC25616@gjcp.net> References: <200802111800.m1BI0Sh1009114@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47B050400200003700020B6F@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com> <074EA814-506F-4319-9CEC-7AF93A3DF44E@neurotica.com> <20080212110547.GC25616@gjcp.net> Message-ID: On Feb 12, 2008, at 6:05 AM, gordonjcp at gjcp.net wrote: > Pretty much every Emax and Emax II I've ever seen has had a Syquest > disk > attached. Mmmm, Emax. I had a -II and a -IIHD many years ago. What fun synths! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From legalize at xmission.com Tue Feb 12 14:42:19 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:42:19 -0700 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:14:13 -0600. <47B1FE15.6010608@gmail.com> Message-ID: OK, I added myself. You guys without photos should at least grub around the internet and find the URL of a classic machine. (BTW, when you browse for a file in Windows, did you know that you can paste a URL in there and it will get the file from the net? You can use that to specify the photo for your map image as any image URL from the net.) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 14:59:14 2008 From: silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com (silvercreekvalley) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:59:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: WTB External 8inch floppy Message-ID: <350599.87678.qm@web56206.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Does anyone have an external (boxed) 8 inch floppy drive for sale. I'd prefer DSDD but wont get too choosy. This can be US or Europe. Pretty much anything considered. Please contact off list. Thanks Ian. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Tue Feb 12 16:26:43 2008 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:26:43 -0800 Subject: Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW References: <004901c86d64$6e936610$4bba3230$@net.au> Message-ID: <000501c86dc6$58f96270$0201a8c0@hal9000> Dave, He's probably a starving student like we were at one time and doesn't have a lot of disposable cash. And beer is expensive. I sent him the "free" simulator. An ET-3400A un-built kit just sold for $355 on Ebay ! The " A" has 1024 bytes of RAM vs 256. I think your price is off by about a factor of 10 based on what I've seen. If you find one that cheap ( $10 - $20 ) I'll buy it ! Best regards, Steven > On Feb 12, 2008, at 5:45 AM, Daniel Baldacchino wrote: > > I have recently started to study microprocessor fundamentals and > > have been > > trying to find this simulator. Would it be possible for you to send > > me a > > copy of it if you still have it. > > This may seem like a dumb question, but...why not just get a real > ET-3400? They go for $10-20 on eBay all day long. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Feb 12 17:48:35 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:48:35 -0300 Subject: Yamaha CX5 stash on eBay References: <95606.48088.qm@web65504.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <006c01c86dd1$e5b31390$0202a8c0@portajara> > there's 8 bids. I wouldn't want to pay 75$ for a drive > either, but I'd love to have one for my unit. And also > for the Yenos I obtained recently... If you need a floppy for your MSX, I can surely find you a brazilian floppy controller. Just add a PC drive and a PSU. What about that? From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Feb 12 17:50:35 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:50:35 -0300 Subject: MSX stuff, the Yeno, etc. References: <533886.75291.qm@web65507.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <007901c86dd2$166f93f0$0202a8c0@portajara> > Are MSX computes standard w/regards to their floppy > interface? Are they interchangeable I guess is what > I'm asking. Basicaly yes. There are two "standards" (i/o address and ports) but both work flawlessly on any MSX. > There are more Yenos in Australia, from the same guy > who sold me mine. Just do a search, you'll find them. > He gives you a BASIC cartridge, and 2 *blanks* (ram > carts, I don't know what else they could be, (4) > 4116-15s, (2)74LS157s or -257 (man my memory), and a > 74LS32). I haven't had the opportunity to fire one up, > so I don't know what kind of rom is onboard, but > there's got to be something. Maybe these ram carts are > meant to be used with a disk subsystem. Otherwise it > doesn't make much sense. I'm looking around for > info... Seems interesting, but never heard of a yeno?! From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Feb 12 16:55:32 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:55:32 -0700 Subject: Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW In-Reply-To: <000501c86dc6$58f96270$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <004901c86d64$6e936610$4bba3230$@net.au> <000501c86dc6$58f96270$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <47B223E4.2060102@jetnet.ab.ca> Scanning wrote: > Dave, > > He's probably a starving student like we were at one time and doesn't have a > lot of disposable cash. And beer is expensive. Only if you buy beer. You can brew it at home alot cheaper. You can save you money for GAS so you can pick up the great deals found on a moments notice. Pick up in the next 3 hours or it goes to the DUMPSTER. From silent700 at gmail.com Tue Feb 12 17:54:13 2008 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:54:13 -0600 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: References: <47B1FE15.6010608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <51ea77730802121554j14a798d6uc947cef327f2e2d6@mail.gmail.com> Yep, the site's definitely still a little buggy. Somehow I'm a member of the "cintas" group, and can't leave. And when I tried to join the PDP-11 owners' map, it thought I was someone else entirely. Still, a neat idea for a site. From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Feb 12 18:29:33 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:29:33 -0500 Subject: Yamaha CX5 stash on eBay In-Reply-To: <969524.44420.qm@web65510.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <969524.44420.qm@web65510.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200802121929.35065.rtellason@verizon.net> On Monday 11 February 2008 19:14, Chris M wrote: > you won't have any competition from me at least :( > > http://cgi.ebay.com/Yamaha-MSX-CX5M-FD-05-Drives-Discs-in-Original-Box_W0QQ >itemZ180214231906QQihZ008QQcategoryZ4193QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewIte >m I have one of those, and the CX5 that it goes with, and some other goodies like a cartridge that acts as a disk exerciser. That one was handy, as the interface took a standard 34-wire ribbon cable. It's been ages since I fired that thing up, though, and I'm not sure if it even still works. Kind of a nifty machine, 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 Tue Feb 12 18:30:50 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:30:50 -0500 Subject: tape drives In-Reply-To: <47B15FF8.9030407@pacbell.net> References: <200802110326.44357.rtellason@verizon.net> <6.2.3.4.2.20080211071050.05051e00@mail.threedee.com> <47B15FF8.9030407@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <200802121930.51048.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 12 February 2008 03:59, William Maddox wrote: > John Foust wrote: > > At 02:26 AM 2/11/2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > >> I've been contacted by a guy who has some stuff to get rid of, he'd > >> rather see it put to good use than end up in a landfill. > > > > Any idea what they might be? They look like they've been kicked around > > in a warehouse for a decade or two. And exactly where? Northern > > Wisconsin is a big, cold place. > > These look like instrumentation recorders, likely analog. > Pictures of the rear, particularly connectors for the cables, > would be revealing, as instrumentation recorders generally have > multiple input connections for multitrack recording. I'll mention that the next time I hear from him. There was also a Scully deck but with no electronics? And boxes of assorted caps and resistors and such... -- 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 Feb 12 18:33:45 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:33:45 -0500 Subject: Yamaha CX5 stash on eBay In-Reply-To: <018b01c86d64$f163b5e0$01fea8c0@portajara> References: <969524.44420.qm@web65510.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <018b01c86d64$f163b5e0$01fea8c0@portajara> Message-ID: <200802121933.46093.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 12 February 2008 05:48, Alexandre Souza wrote: > > you won't have any competition from me at least :( > > > > http://cgi.ebay.com/Yamaha-MSX-CX5M-FD-05-Drives-Discs-in-Original-Box_W0 > >QQitemZ180214231906QQihZ008QQcategoryZ4193QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZVie > >wItem > > I don't think someone will be crazy enough to pay $150 for two SINGLE > SIDED (!) drives. Where did you get the idea these were single-sided? They _are_ "720K" disks, though, and not HD, and the box of 10 I bought for mine is all of those I have, probably. :-) -- 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 Feb 12 18:44:57 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:44:57 -0500 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <47B1D0FE.1000707@gmail.com> References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> <7d3530220802120843o62bb5324yc04c01755eb1adec@mail.gmail.com> <47B1D0FE.1000707@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802121944.59249.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 12 February 2008 12:01, Jules Richardson wrote: > John Floren wrote: > > http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440346730 > > Seems to be broken in Firefox - the 'move this pin' doesn't work, and > putting my zip code in gives me an "Are you in...?" question but with no > yes/no buttons to click on :-) That part did behave rather oddly for me here too, but "add me" worked just fine. No pic, though. :-) > Maybe that's the nature of a beta service, but it seems to be a pretty > fundamental thing to be broken! There have been some really strange behaviors with frappr in the past, like it telling me that it couldn't load maps at the level of detail I was looking at and that I should try zooming out, when it was already as zoomed out as it was ever gonna get. I look at it as a work in progress. -- 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 Feb 12 18:52:09 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:52:09 -0500 Subject: Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW In-Reply-To: <000501c86dc6$58f96270$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <004901c86d64$6e936610$4bba3230$@net.au> <000501c86dc6$58f96270$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <200802121952.10944.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 12 February 2008 17:26, Scanning wrote: > Dave, > > He's probably a starving student like we were at one time and doesn't have > a lot of disposable cash. And beer is expensive. > > I sent him the "free" simulator. An ET-3400A un-built kit just sold for > $355 on Ebay ! The " A" has 1024 bytes of RAM vs 256. > > I think your price is off by about a factor of 10 based on what I've seen. > If you find one that cheap ( $10 - $20 ) I'll buy it ! > > Best regards, Steven I haven't looked, but this makes me feel pretty good at having picked mine up for only $20 some years back. :-) > > On Feb 12, 2008, at 5:45 AM, Daniel Baldacchino wrote: > > > I have recently started to study microprocessor fundamentals and > > > have been trying to find this simulator. Would it be possible for you to > > > send me a copy of it if you still have it. > > > > This may seem like a dumb question, but...why not just get a real > > ET-3400? They go for $10-20 on eBay all day long. > > > > -Dave > > > > -- > > Dave McGuire > > Port Charlotte, FL -- 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 onymouse at garlic.com Tue Feb 12 07:54:50 2008 From: onymouse at garlic.com (jd) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 05:54:50 -0800 Subject: Antique HP N3390 memory size? Message-ID: <47B1A52A.30002@garlic.com> Have a HP N3390 laptop, 8 years old. An antique... I was told by HP that the maximum physical RAM it could use is 128Mb. I have 256Mb now. Need more. Anyone happen to know the real max physical RAM capacity? Want 1Gb+++ if possible. Thanks. == jd From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Feb 12 19:44:00 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:44:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: Yamaha CX5 stash on eBay In-Reply-To: <200802121929.35065.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <969524.44420.qm@web65510.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <200802121929.35065.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 12 Feb 2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > I have one of those, and the CX5 that it goes with, and some other > goodies like a cartridge that acts as a disk exerciser. That one was > handy, as the interface took a standard 34-wire ribbon cable. It's been > ages since I fired that thing up, though, and I'm not sure if it even > still works. Kind of a nifty machine, though. I understand that the CX5 is a nice computer if you're really into the DX series of Yamaha synthesizers. I remember seeing a CX5 in a display case at the music store where I took piano lessons. -- 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 rtellason at verizon.net Tue Feb 12 20:49:18 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:49:18 -0500 Subject: Yamaha CX5 stash on eBay In-Reply-To: References: <969524.44420.qm@web65510.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <200802121929.35065.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200802122149.18674.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 12 February 2008 20:44, David Griffith wrote: > On Tue, 12 Feb 2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > I have one of those, and the CX5 that it goes with, and some other > > goodies like a cartridge that acts as a disk exerciser. That one was > > handy, as the interface took a standard 34-wire ribbon cable. It's been > > ages since I fired that thing up, though, and I'm not sure if it even > > still works. Kind of a nifty machine, though. > > I understand that the CX5 is a nice computer if you're really into the DX > series of Yamaha synthesizers. I remember seeing a CX5 in a display case > at the music store where I took piano lessons. Well, it's the only 'puter I have that comes equipped with MIDI connectors... :-) -- 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 mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Feb 12 23:15:17 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:15:17 -0500 Subject: Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW In-Reply-To: <000501c86dc6$58f96270$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <004901c86d64$6e936610$4bba3230$@net.au> <000501c86dc6$58f96270$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: On Feb 12, 2008, at 5:26 PM, Scanning wrote: > He's probably a starving student like we were at one time and > doesn't have a > lot of disposable cash. And beer is expensive. > > I sent him the "free" simulator. An ET-3400A un-built kit just sold > for $355 > on Ebay ! The " A" has 1024 bytes of RAM vs 256. > > I think your price is off by about a factor of 10 based on what > I've seen. > If you find one that cheap ( $10 - $20 ) I'll buy it ! Unbuilt Heathkits go for huge amounts of money no matter what they are. I'm assuming that the original poster wouldn't require an unbuilt one, as he was originally only looking for an emulator. But, I'll back up my statement of pricing with a factual account: I've purchased three of them (all "A" variants) over the past five years or so on eBay. The most expensive one cost me about $30 including shipping. I sold one of them on eBay in 2006 for $16.00. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Feb 13 00:50:00 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:50:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: PC-magazine and Byte still need to go Message-ID: I've contacted someone (you know who you are) with contact information to pick up this collection of PC-magazine and Byte in Pasadena. I just got an email from the owner's widow that this someone has not yet phoned her. They need to be gone by the 16th or else they get recycled. I'm sorry to have to do it this way, but I need someone on this list who lives in the Los Angeles area who wants the mags to contact me ASAP so we can get these magazines picked up. -- 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 ddb77 at iinet.net.au Tue Feb 12 04:45:49 2008 From: ddb77 at iinet.net.au (Daniel Baldacchino) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:45:49 +0800 Subject: Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW Message-ID: <004901c86d64$6e936610$4bba3230$@net.au> Steven I have recently started to study microprocessor fundamentals and have been trying to find this simulator. Would it be possible for you to send me a copy of it if you still have it. Kind Regards Daniel Baldacchino From mike at ambientdesign.com Tue Feb 12 04:44:41 2008 From: mike at ambientdesign.com (Mike van Bokhoven) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:44:41 +1300 Subject: Syquest/Iomega removable cartridge drive interfaces of early 80's In-Reply-To: <200802120059.28822.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200802111800.m1BI0Sh1009114@dewey.classiccmp.org><47B050400200003700020B6F@gwiavs.nservices.wmata.com><074EA814-506F-4319-9CEC-7AF93A3DF44E@neurotica.com> <200802120059.28822.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: >> > Am I correct in remembering that the Syquests of that time used the >> > 34/20 pin MFM-hard-drive "ST506" interface? >> Yes, this is correct. I have a small Syquest removable hard drive >> here that I used for just long enough to figure out that it was >> unreliable as all hell. I last powered it up in about 1990 or so. >> It has a standard ST506 interface. > Unreliable? Hmm. My father worked at a typesetting firm in the late 80s and early through mid 90s, they used Syquest 44MB cartridge drives. Yes, they were horribly unreliable. They'd probably be OK for home use, but it was a fairly normal occurrence to call the service agent in because the drive had stopped working, or they couldn't retrieve data from a cartridge. On several occasions, the service agent would fiddle with the drive, and replace the cartridge, causing the drive to make a very loud scraping, squawking sound, which turned out to be something ripping chunks of coating off the cartridge platters. The agent seemed to use whichever cartridge was closest to hand for testing; on a couple of occasions, he destroyed cartridges that contained vital client data. Most of this info is second-hand, but my father would often come home with stories of the day's Syquest or Mac-related disasters. Mike. From Johan.Iversen at uk.fujitsu.com Tue Feb 12 08:58:05 2008 From: Johan.Iversen at uk.fujitsu.com (Iversen Johan) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:58:05 -0000 Subject: Plans for Simon Relay Computer (was: Re: Does Anyone Have A) Message-ID: Hi Bill, I don know if you can help me, I have been scanning the web for info about simon the relay computer and you came up in a forum, link shown below http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2002-April/064845.html and I was wondering did you find the CD and if so would it be possible to have a copy ? regards johan From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 13:40:07 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:40:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Yamaha CX5 stash on eBay In-Reply-To: <018b01c86d64$f163b5e0$01fea8c0@portajara> Message-ID: <95606.48088.qm@web65504.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> there's 8 bids. I wouldn't want to pay 75$ for a drive either, but I'd love to have one for my unit. And also for the Yenos I obtained recently... --- Alexandre Souza wrote: > > you won't have any competition from me at least :( > > > > > http://cgi.ebay.com/Yamaha-MSX-CX5M-FD-05-Drives-Discs-in-Original-Box_W0QQitemZ180214231906QQihZ008QQcategoryZ4193QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem > > > I don't think someone will be crazy enough to > pay $150 for two SINGLE > SIDED (!) drives. > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 14:26:20 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:26:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: Victor 9000 (Sirius 1) Computer Collection - $40 - in Fayetteville, NC In-Reply-To: <816127.62451.qm@web51608.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <27209.8443.qm@web65507.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> DID ANYONE GET THIS??? PLEASE TELL ME... --- steven stengel wrote: > Saw this in Craigslist: > http://fayetteville.craigslist.org/sys/541401232.html > > ------------- > Date: 2008-01-16, 5:13PM EST (two weeks ago...) > > 2 Victor 9000 machines, one in pieces but complete, > one has hard drive and touch screen (super rare), > other is dual floppy. This is the same computer that > was marketed in europe as the Sirius 1. I have a ton > of books and software for them. MUST GO SOON! > > > > > > > --------------------------------- > Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them > fast with Yahoo! Search. > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 12 15:11:22 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:11:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: MSX stuff, the Yeno, etc. Message-ID: <533886.75291.qm@web65507.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Are MSX computes standard w/regards to their floppy interface? Are they interchangeable I guess is what I'm asking. There are more Yenos in Australia, from the same guy who sold me mine. Just do a search, you'll find them. He gives you a BASIC cartridge, and 2 *blanks* (ram carts, I don't know what else they could be, (4) 4116-15s, (2)74LS157s or -257 (man my memory), and a 74LS32). I haven't had the opportunity to fire one up, so I don't know what kind of rom is onboard, but there's got to be something. Maybe these ram carts are meant to be used with a disk subsystem. Otherwise it doesn't make much sense. I'm looking around for info... Nope, said to be inoperable w/o a cartridge. So what good do ram carts do ya? ____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Wed Feb 13 02:53:58 2008 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:53:58 -0800 Subject: Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW References: <004901c86d64$6e936610$4bba3230$@net.au> <000501c86dc6$58f96270$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <001501c86e1d$f90f8530$0201a8c0@hal9000> Dave, I beg to differ; Jan 30, 2008 Item 120214663994 ET-3400-A $74.99 Feb 3, 2008 Item 270207340050 ET-3400 $43.29 Feb 5, 2008 Item 150212743502 ET-3400-A $39.95 Feb 6, 2008 Item 120217168250 ET-3400-A $74.99 Feb 10, 2008 Item 280198048384 ET-3400 $102.79 Feb 11, 2008 Item 120219733413 ET-3400 $74.99 Yes the un-built kits go for even more then these. Best regards, Steven > On Feb 12, 2008, at 5:26 PM, Scanning wrote: > > He's probably a starving student like we were at one time and > > doesn't have a > > lot of disposable cash. And beer is expensive. > > > > I sent him the "free" simulator. An ET-3400A un-built kit just sold > > for $355 > > on Ebay ! The " A" has 1024 bytes of RAM vs 256. > > > > I think your price is off by about a factor of 10 based on what > > I've seen. > > If you find one that cheap ( $10 - $20 ) I'll buy it ! > > Unbuilt Heathkits go for huge amounts of money no matter what they > are. I'm assuming that the original poster wouldn't require an > unbuilt one, as he was originally only looking for an emulator. But, > I'll back up my statement of pricing with a factual account: I've > purchased three of them (all "A" variants) over the past five years > or so on eBay. The most expensive one cost me about $30 including > shipping. I sold one of them on eBay in 2006 for $16.00. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Wed Feb 13 04:27:08 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (gordonjcp at gjcp.net) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:27:08 +0000 Subject: Yamaha CX5 stash on eBay In-Reply-To: <200802122149.18674.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <969524.44420.qm@web65510.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <200802121929.35065.rtellason@verizon.net> <200802122149.18674.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20080213102708.GC4555@gjcp.net> On Tue, Feb 12, 2008 at 09:49:18PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > > > I understand that the CX5 is a nice computer if you're really into the DX > > series of Yamaha synthesizers. I remember seeing a CX5 in a display case > > at the music store where I took piano lessons. > > Well, it's the only 'puter I have that comes equipped with MIDI connectors... You don't have an Atari ST? Or a ZX Spectrum 128k (which had a bit-banged MIDI out)? Gordon From fu3.org at gmail.com Wed Feb 13 04:49:12 2008 From: fu3.org at gmail.com (Chris H.) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 11:49:12 +0100 Subject: PC-magazine and Byte still need to go In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <310f50ab0802130249n6ff3ad6cv285295c8db2e66b5@mail.gmail.com> 2008/2/13, David Griffith : > > I've contacted someone (you know who you are) with contact information to > pick up this collection of PC-magazine and Byte in Pasadena. I just got > an email from the owner's widow that this someone has not yet phoned her. > They need to be gone by the 16th or else they get recycled. I'm sorry to > have to do it this way, but I need someone on this list who lives in the > Los Angeles area who wants the mags to contact me ASAP so we can get these > magazines picked up. > If the initial deal 'slips,' why not hear with Jason [Scott]? www.textfiles.com -- < http://whorehou.se/ > From dave06a at dunfield.com Wed Feb 13 06:36:01 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 07:36:01 -0500 Subject: Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW In-Reply-To: <004901c86d64$6e936610$4bba3230$@net.au> Message-ID: <149733BC6D00@dunfield.com> > I have recently started to study microprocessor fundamentals and have been > trying to find this simulator. Would it be possible for you to send me a > copy of it if you still have it. I don't know if it's the one you are looking for, but I do have an ET-3400 simulator posted on my site: www.classiccmp.org/dunfield Go to the "Download Simulators and Emulators" link near the bottom, and look in the "Other" section toward the bottom of that page. 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 cctech at vax-11.org Wed Feb 13 07:12:41 2008 From: cctech at vax-11.org (cctech at vax-11.org) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:12:41 -0700 (MST) Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <000901c86d99$04efd6f0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> References: <000901c86d99$04efd6f0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: It is rare that I run across a website that makes me want to smash my keyboard in frustration. frappr.com has been added to the list. I signed up, went to the cctalk map, clicked the 'move this pin', entered my address, clicked ok and..... nothing. Am I missing something obvious? Clint On Tue, 12 Feb 2008, Antonio Carlini wrote: > John Floren wrote: >> http://www.frappr.com/?a=constellation_map&mapid=137440346730 >> >> How's that? > > Is there any more memorable way to get there? > > Or even a way to search for it on frappr? > > I've added both of those maps to the Wiki (at least I can find that!!). > > Antonio > arcarlini at iee.org > > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.2/1272 - Release Date: > 11/02/2008 17:28 > > > From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Feb 13 07:22:55 2008 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 07:22:55 -0600 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: References: <000901c86d99$04efd6f0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20080213072130.04e52fb0@mail.threedee.com> At 07:12 AM 2/13/2008, cctech at vax-11.org wrote: >It is rare that I run across a website that makes me want to smash my keyboard in frustration. frappr.com has been added to the list. >I signed up, went to the cctalk map, clicked the 'move this pin', entered my address, clicked ok and..... nothing. Am I missing something obvious? I would guess it's a browser-specific problem, as I had that trouble, too. Uhm, what's the universal excuse? "It's a beta." - John From sbolton at bfree.on.ca Wed Feb 13 08:57:03 2008 From: sbolton at bfree.on.ca (Syd Bolton) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:57:03 -0500 Subject: Yamaha MSX CX5M Mouse In-Reply-To: <200802131430.m1DEUSFn034515@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <200802131457.m1DEv3Ee077491@keith.ezwind.net> All this talk about the floppy drives for the Yamaha made me wonder--has anyone out there plugged anything other than an official MU-01 mouse or joystick into this device? I see the pinouts online but haven't checked to see if it's compatible with a standard Atari type joystick. Anybody had any luck or even attempt this? We have one of these at the Personal Computer Museum (www.pcmuseum.ca) but we do not have the drives or a mouse. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.4/1275 - Release Date: 2/12/2008 3:20 PM From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Feb 13 10:44:11 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:44:11 -0300 Subject: Yamaha MSX CX5M Mouse References: <200802131457.m1DEv3Ee077491@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <00e301c86e60$3ae74550$01fea8c0@portajara> > All this talk about the floppy drives for the Yamaha made me wonder--has > anyone out there plugged anything other than an official MU-01 mouse or > joystick into this device? I see the pinouts online but haven't checked to > see if it's compatible with a standard Atari type joystick. Sure it is! Interesting how MSX devices are unknown here...They are so popular in Brazil! From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Wed Feb 13 10:26:59 2008 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:26:59 +0000 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> On 13 Feb, 2008, at 02:53, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Have a HP N3390 laptop, 8 years old. An antique... > Are you kidding? My machine is 46 years old and that is a SECOND generation computer. From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Feb 13 11:16:55 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 12:16:55 -0500 Subject: Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW In-Reply-To: <001501c86e1d$f90f8530$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <004901c86d64$6e936610$4bba3230$@net.au> <000501c86dc6$58f96270$0201a8c0@hal9000> <001501c86e1d$f90f8530$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <0C9FC0EF-3C24-46F2-BD2B-B5DB02681139@neurotica.com> On Feb 13, 2008, at 3:53 AM, Scanning wrote: > I beg to differ; > > Jan 30, 2008 Item 120214663994 ET-3400-A $74.99 > Feb 3, 2008 Item 270207340050 ET-3400 $43.29 > Feb 5, 2008 Item 150212743502 ET-3400-A $39.95 > Feb 6, 2008 Item 120217168250 ET-3400-A $74.99 > Feb 10, 2008 Item 280198048384 ET-3400 $102.79 > Feb 11, 2008 Item 120219733413 ET-3400 $74.99 > > Yes the un-built kits go for even more then these. Good heavens, I wish I'd waited to sell one of mine. Why have the prices on these gone sky-high in the past year or two?? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Wed Feb 13 11:42:46 2008 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:42:46 -0800 Subject: Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW References: <004901c86d64$6e936610$4bba3230$@net.au> <000501c86dc6$58f96270$0201a8c0@hal9000> <001501c86e1d$f90f8530$0201a8c0@hal9000> <0C9FC0EF-3C24-46F2-BD2B-B5DB02681139@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <000d01c86e67$d8d51830$0201a8c0@hal9000> Dave, I'm in the same boat, I let mine go way too cheap ! If I had known the price was going up that much I would have waited longer.... I don't know why the prices have gone up so much. Maybe a perceived shortage ? I have the same Simulator that's on your webpage. I sent a copy of mine to Daniel. Thanks for the info. Best regards, Steven > On Feb 13, 2008, at 3:53 AM, Scanning wrote: > > I beg to differ; > > > > Jan 30, 2008 Item 120214663994 ET-3400-A $74.99 > > Feb 3, 2008 Item 270207340050 ET-3400 $43.29 > > Feb 5, 2008 Item 150212743502 ET-3400-A $39.95 > > Feb 6, 2008 Item 120217168250 ET-3400-A $74.99 > > Feb 10, 2008 Item 280198048384 ET-3400 $102.79 > > Feb 11, 2008 Item 120219733413 ET-3400 $74.99 > > > > Yes the un-built kits go for even more then these. > > Good heavens, I wish I'd waited to sell one of mine. Why have the > prices on these gone sky-high in the past year or two?? > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Feb 13 12:53:08 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:53:08 -0500 Subject: Yamaha CX5 stash on eBay In-Reply-To: <20080213102708.GC4555@gjcp.net> References: <969524.44420.qm@web65510.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <200802122149.18674.rtellason@verizon.net> <20080213102708.GC4555@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <200802131353.09484.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 13 February 2008 05:27, gordonjcp at gjcp.net wrote: > On Tue, Feb 12, 2008 at 09:49:18PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > > I understand that the CX5 is a nice computer if you're really into the > > > DX series of Yamaha synthesizers. I remember seeing a CX5 in a display > > > case at the music store where I took piano lessons. > > > > Well, it's the only 'puter I have that comes equipped with MIDI > > connectors... > > You don't have an Atari ST? Or a ZX Spectrum 128k (which had a > bit-banged MIDI out)? Nope. Or at least not yet... :-) -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Wed Feb 13 13:08:04 2008 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:08:04 +0000 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <47B1CDFA.7010801@gmail.com> References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> <6.2.3.4.2.20080212090143.05258b20@mail.threedee.com> <47B1CDFA.7010801@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B34014.1060607@philpem.me.uk> Jules Richardson wrote: > You know, perhaps this hasn't ever even been suggested - I wonder if I'm > just > thinking of Dave Dunfield's suggestion of a similar map to say who can > handle > reading different types of media... (which is a good plan in its own > right, IMHO) I'd second that one... And before anyone asks about the floppy reader, the logic is mostly done, but I've exhausted the size of the CPLDs I've got in stock, and I can't justify a Digikey order at this point in time to get some FPGAs. Naturally the local Xilinx/Altera rep is stonewalling me, and none of the lower-tier distributors seem to stock anything bigger than an XC95288XL... even Ebay turned a blank. Anyone got a couple of spare Xilinx Spartan2 chips knocking around that I could beg, borrow, or buy? I'd love to get this thing finished... especially if I can talk my university tutor into letting me do the data analysis software for my final year project :) > * if it's just essentially a classiccmp service, then maybe "find my email > address via the mailing list / archives" is sufficient and avoids the > obvious > spam issues? Or have a contact form on the site... with a CAPTCHA to try and cut down on the spam. (Even a simple text based "Enter the following in numbers: four three two one" type thing like I've got on my site seems to keep a good 80-90% of the spam at bay). > :-) Everyone has their own preference! Personally just knowing to the > nearest 30 miles or so works for me. Nearest town/city would be fine for me. Could go as far as having a search on the site -- "I'm in Bradford, who's nearest me?" -- then drill down -- "OK, who out of that list is interested in Acorn kit?" -- and keep going. Or I suppose you could have something of a profile set up, then put a link to it in your signature... I dunno, just throwing ideas around here. -- Phil. | (\_/) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny classiccmp at philpem.me.uk | (='.'=) into your signature to help him gain http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | (")_(") world domination. From James at jdfogg.com Wed Feb 13 15:56:28 2008 From: James at jdfogg.com (James Fogg) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:56:28 -0500 Subject: Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW Message-ID: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A2572C8@sbs.jdfogg.com> > Dave, > > He's probably a starving student like we were at one time and doesn't have > a > lot of disposable cash. And beer is expensive. > > I sent him the "free" simulator. An ET-3400A un-built kit just sold for > $355 > on Ebay ! The " A" has 1024 bytes of RAM vs 256. > > I think your price is off by about a factor of 10 based on what I've seen. > If you find one that cheap ( $10 - $20 ) I'll buy it ! > > Best regards, Steven > I believe the premium for this particular deal was its un-built state. The ET-3400 is common and inexpensive. I think I'll go buy one myself, since I have a fondness for them since my freshman college course used one. I find any un-built Heathkit has significantly more value. From slawmaster at gmail.com Wed Feb 13 16:20:24 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:20:24 -0800 Subject: Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW In-Reply-To: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A2572C8@sbs.jdfogg.com> References: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A2572C8@sbs.jdfogg.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220802131420u69c0922dsf49603dcbfe11910@mail.gmail.com> On Feb 13, 2008 1:56 PM, James Fogg wrote: > > Dave, > > > > He's probably a starving student like we were at one time and doesn't > have > > a > > lot of disposable cash. And beer is expensive. > > > > I sent him the "free" simulator. An ET-3400A un-built kit just sold > for > > $355 > > on Ebay ! The " A" has 1024 bytes of RAM vs 256. > > > > I think your price is off by about a factor of 10 based on what I've > seen. > > If you find one that cheap ( $10 - $20 ) I'll buy it ! > > > > Best regards, Steven > > > > I believe the premium for this particular deal was its un-built state. > The ET-3400 is common and inexpensive. I think I'll go buy one myself, > since I have a fondness for them since my freshman college course used > one. > I don't see anything *too* special about it... my college was just getting rid of the SDK-86 boards they used to use (custom mounted between two sheets of plexiglass) and I snagged one; I've already given it away or I would have offered it, since it seems to be similar--old processor, some ram, breadboards, keypad, hex display. Nowadays we use smaller 68000 SBCs for assembly; that was a fun course. John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Feb 13 17:16:57 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:16:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: PC-magazine and Byte still need to go In-Reply-To: <310f50ab0802130249n6ff3ad6cv285295c8db2e66b5@mail.gmail.com> References: <310f50ab0802130249n6ff3ad6cv285295c8db2e66b5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, Chris H. wrote: > 2008/2/13, David Griffith : > > > > I've contacted someone (you know who you are) with contact information to > > pick up this collection of PC-magazine and Byte in Pasadena. I just got > > an email from the owner's widow that this someone has not yet phoned her. > > They need to be gone by the 16th or else they get recycled. I'm sorry to > > have to do it this way, but I need someone on this list who lives in the > > Los Angeles area who wants the mags to contact me ASAP so we can get these > > magazines picked up. > > If the initial deal 'slips,' why not hear with Jason [Scott]? > > www.textfiles.com "Someone" contacted me after my last posting went out on this. Apparently some mailserver didn't want to deliver the message, so he asked me to offer the collection to the next taker. I emailed Jason Scott just now about the matter. Right now it's a first-say you-get-it sort of thing, but you must be ready and willing to drive to Pasadena this weekend. -- 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 chd_1 at nktelco.net Wed Feb 13 18:15:14 2008 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (Charles H Dickman) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:15:14 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> Roger Holmes wrote: > > Are you kidding? My machine is 46 years old and that is a SECOND > generation computer. > > So what is the oldest computer still operational? From hachti at hachti.de Wed Feb 13 18:13:00 2008 From: hachti at hachti.de (Philipp Hachtmann) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:13:00 +0100 Subject: HP1000/A600 Help and docs and sw needed! Message-ID: <47B3878C.1040503@hachti.de> Hi folks, I have a HP1000/A600 machine sitting here at my place. And no clue where to start using it. I have the following stuff: - A600CPU, containing: * 2 serial interfaces (12005/...10) * 1 sandwich "32 channel MUX/12 bit ADC" * parallel port * HPIB interface * some other serial MUXes - 7908 HPIB Tape cartridge/Disk combination - 9133 HPIB 3,5" Floppy (with disk inside as well??) - 3292A serial Terminal (newer) - 2648A serial Terminal (older) - 12966-60008 serial cable for the terminal (is that right?) - 7978 HPIB 9-Track 1/2" tape drive - 7958B HPIB disk drive - HP6000 670H HPIB disk drive - A LOT of software manuals but no hardware manual. I have already found the only document at hp.com that told me something about select codes, switch settings etc. But nothing about cable pinouts etc. I tried my 2648 terminal with the cable, without success. Perhaps my terminal is broken or - what I think - the cable pinout is incompatible to the "new" A600. What should I do with all that stuff? I will have to decide what to do with my HP stuff, because I need to reassign my collection's priorities with respect to the LAB 8/e that will drop in next week. If I don't have any fun with the stuff, it will go to eBay/scrapyard (the latter is where I got most of it). Who knows how to make a serial cable? Who has software for me? Who knows how to get software from my PC/Sparc (short: modern world) into the HP gear? Who has docs? Bitsavers seems to have nothing about the A series. I powered up the CPU. Depending on the switch settings, the diagnostic LEDs say "bootloader running" or "VCP running". So the system should be in a somewhat usable state. Further when I remove the first serial card (which is in nearly factory settings, including VCP break enabled), the diagnostic LEDs tell me about some error. So I hope that the system already talks to the right port. I also powered up the 7906 tape/disk cobination. It makes some funny sounds and after a while, it shows me a "P" on its little LED display in the back. Some HP manual told me that this is a good sign, "P" for "passed". Also I have been told that there is an installed RTE on the disk. But I have no GPIB cable yet. And the GPIB connector looks rather different than on my HP1000/E (for which I have a cable). Thank you for every kind of information, I am excitedly looking forward for replies. Best wishes from Alfeld/Germany, Philipp :-) P.S.: I also have two HP1000/E machines and a lot of cards sitting around here. Perhaps I could hook the disks up to them? I never did anything useful with them - except hooking up a terminal and entering 4-word test programs via front panel (which worked). Any other ideas what to do with these machines? From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Feb 13 18:17:20 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:17:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, Charles H Dickman wrote: > Roger Holmes wrote: > > > > Are you kidding? My machine is 46 years old and that is a SECOND > > generation computer. > > > So what is the oldest computer still operational? I have a 60+ year-old slide rule. -- 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 josefcub at gmail.com Wed Feb 13 18:25:12 2008 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:25:12 -0600 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <9e2403920802131625l1202ef61n2e728dc6b2942a84@mail.gmail.com> My mother is 75 years old, and her mind and body are fully operational. She's also a (retired) computer programmer, so she's marginally on topic. :D On Feb 13, 2008 6:17 PM, David Griffith wrote: > > On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, Charles H Dickman wrote: > > > Roger Holmes wrote: > > > > > > Are you kidding? My machine is 46 years old and that is a SECOND > > > generation computer. > > > > > So what is the oldest computer still operational? > > I have a 60+ year-old slide rule. From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Feb 13 18:26:08 2008 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:26:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <20080213162512.G97289@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, Charles H Dickman wrote: > So what is the oldest computer still operational? Meaningless question, until you DEFINE: "Oldest" "computer" "operational" From slawmaster at gmail.com Wed Feb 13 18:29:20 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:29:20 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <7d3530220802131629l2c82f410u842f07edd5aea43d@mail.gmail.com> On Feb 13, 2008 4:17 PM, David Griffith wrote: > > On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, Charles H Dickman wrote: > > > Roger Holmes wrote: > > > > > > Are you kidding? My machine is 46 years old and that is a SECOND > > > generation computer. > > > > > So what is the oldest computer still operational? > > I have a 60+ year-old slide rule. > > -- > David Griffith > dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu > According to the catalogs I've checked, one of my slide rules is from the 1910's... Or do you mean the oldest digital electronic computer? Or the oldest electronic computer? Do adding machines count? John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From slawmaster at gmail.com Wed Feb 13 18:30:34 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:30:34 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <9e2403920802131625l1202ef61n2e728dc6b2942a84@mail.gmail.com> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <9e2403920802131625l1202ef61n2e728dc6b2942a84@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220802131630u70d26bcet565ba075fcb981b8@mail.gmail.com> On Feb 13, 2008 4:25 PM, Josef Chessor wrote: > My mother is 75 years old, and her mind and body are fully > operational. She's also a (retired) computer programmer, so she's > marginally on topic. :D > YOUR *MOM'S* A COMPUTER! OOOOH! Wait... It's like being a freshman all over again. John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Feb 13 18:39:05 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:39:05 -0700 Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802131629l2c82f410u842f07edd5aea43d@mail.gmail.com> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <7d3530220802131629l2c82f410u842f07edd5aea43d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B38DA9.3000102@jetnet.ab.ca> John Floren wrote: ...? Do adding machines count? No they just add. Runs and ducks. > John I would assume that means Digital computer, Orginal equipment with reasonable memory ( say 4K+ ) From jbmcb1 at gmail.com Wed Feb 13 18:37:53 2008 From: jbmcb1 at gmail.com (Jason McBrien) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:37:53 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <20080213162512.G97289@shell.lmi.net> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <20080213162512.G97289@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <5f7d1b0e0802131637v3bb9e0fdw183e90fe6c5bfb93@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Feb 13, 2008 at 7:26 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, Charles H Dickman wrote: > > So what is the oldest computer still operational? > > Meaningless question, until you DEFINE: > "Oldest" The earliest created. It's birthday is the moment it first calculated something, or the day it went on sale. > "computer" A machine that can (theoretically) automatically solve any arbitrary problem, with input, storage, and output. I think the term is pretty well defined. Not a tabulator, or calculator, or punch-card time tracking machine, or programmable loom. > > "operational" > Still performs to original specs. Lights light up, results are accurate, etc... From chd_1 at nktelco.net Wed Feb 13 18:39:58 2008 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (Charles H Dickman) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:39:58 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <47B38DDE.4020702@nktelco.net> David Griffith wrote: > On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, Charles H Dickman wrote: > > >> Roger Holmes wrote: >> >>> Are you kidding? My machine is 46 years old and that is a SECOND >>> generation computer. >>> >>> >> So what is the oldest computer still operational? >> > > I have a 60+ year-old slide rule. > > Well my grandmother is 92 and still does her own taxes, so by an one definition of "computer" she beats your slide rule. :-) I am sure there is a museum with an ancient abacus or a board with some holes and stones, too. I was thinking about electronic, digital, stored program, Turing-complete computers. The PDP-1 at the CHM is the oldest I know of. I have no reason to believe it is the oldest though. From evan at snarc.net Wed Feb 13 18:40:00 2008 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:40:00 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 Message-ID: <200802140040.m1E0ebK3042757@keith.ezwind.net> Assuming Charles meant a "real" computer -- not a human or slide rule -- then I bet the answer is some kind of analog computer. -----Original Message----- From: Fred Cisin Subj: Re: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 Date: Wed Feb 13, 2008 7:31 pm Size: 173 bytes To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, Charles H Dickman wrote: > So what is the oldest computer still operational? Meaningless question, until you DEFINE: "Oldest" "computer" "operational" From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Wed Feb 13 18:44:52 2008 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:44:52 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <9e2403920802131625l1202ef61n2e728dc6b2942a84@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802140042.m1E0gqPq042905@keith.ezwind.net> My mom is 93 and she still has her Osborne 1 with a tan case. Bob On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:25:12 -0600, Josef Chessor wrote: >My mother is 75 years old, and her mind and body are fully >operational. She's also a (retired) computer programmer, so she's >marginally on topic. :D >On Feb 13, 2008 6:17 PM, David Griffith wrote: >> >> On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, Charles H Dickman wrote: >> >> > Roger Holmes wrote: >> > > >> > > Are you kidding? My machine is 46 years old and that is a SECOND >> > > generation computer. >> > > >> > So what is the oldest computer still operational? >> >> I have a 60+ year-old slide rule. From hachti at hachti.de Wed Feb 13 18:41:13 2008 From: hachti at hachti.de (Philipp Hachtmann) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:41:13 +0100 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <47B38E29.1030201@hachti.de> > So what is the oldest computer still operational? In Stuttgart (Germany) I have played lunar lander on a 1958 valve computer (LGP30). The machine will have 50 years this year... A link (in German, but there is a picture of the actual system though it has been repainted later to mint green): http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/dev/lgp30/LGP-30.html In the ZKM (www.zkm.de) in Karlsruhe/Germany they have a sometimes operational Zuse Z22 from 1958. Philipp :-) From chd_1 at nktelco.net Wed Feb 13 18:54:45 2008 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (Charles H Dickman) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:54:45 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <5f7d1b0e0802131637v3bb9e0fdw183e90fe6c5bfb93@mail.gmail.com> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <20080213162512.G97289@shell.lmi.net> <5f7d1b0e0802131637v3bb9e0fdw183e90fe6c5bfb93@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B39155.6050402@nktelco.net> Jason McBrien wrote: > On Wed, Feb 13, 2008 at 7:26 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > > >> On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, Charles H Dickman wrote: >> >>> So what is the oldest computer still operational? >>> >> Meaningless question, until you DEFINE: >> "Oldest" >> > > The earliest created. It's birthday is the moment it first calculated > something, or the day it went on sale. > > This is a tough group... :-) We can argue about that when we have some examples. >> "computer" >> > > > A machine that can (theoretically) automatically solve any arbitrary > problem, with input, storage, and output. I think the term is pretty well > defined. Not a tabulator, or calculator, or punch-card time tracking > machine, or programmable loom. > Digital, electronic, stored program, Turing-complete. I could even be convinced to say just digital and electronic. If there is a Zuse machine or something out there, I am curious about it. >> "operational" >> >> > > Still performs to original specs. Lights light up, results are accurate, > etc... > Operational seems pretty clear to me, but a front panel wired to a light blinker does not count. Lets put the bar at the level of the PDP-1 at the CHM. -chuck From chd_1 at nktelco.net Wed Feb 13 18:59:05 2008 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (Charles H Dickman) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:59:05 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <200802140040.m1E0ebK3042757@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200802140040.m1E0ebK3042757@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <47B39259.3070404@nktelco.net> Evan wrote: > Assuming Charles meant a "real" computer -- not a human or slide rule -- then I bet the answer is some kind of analog computer. > > > I was thinking electronic and stored program. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Wed Feb 13 19:07:44 2008 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:07:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <47B39155.6050402@nktelco.net> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <20080213162512.G97289@shell.lmi.net> <5f7d1b0e0802131637v3bb9e0fdw183e90fe6c5bfb93@mail.gmail.com> <47B39155.6050402@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <200802140114.UAA26053@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Digital, electronic, stored program, Turing-complete. That's slippery. Strictly, no Turing-complete computer exists, nor can (as far as we know), because any such machine would have to have unbounded storage accessible. How close counts? Yes, I suspect I have a fair idea what you mean - I know what *I* would mean by that. But until we have a clear definition, we can't be sure. As a strawman, I propose "would be Turing-complete with the addition of a (hypothetical) Turing-tape peripheral supporting move-left, move-right, read-current, and write-current operations". /~\ 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 chd_1 at nktelco.net Wed Feb 13 19:20:48 2008 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (Charles H Dickman) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:20:48 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <47B38E29.1030201@hachti.de> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <47B38E29.1030201@hachti.de> Message-ID: <47B39770.3050609@nktelco.net> Philipp Hachtmann wrote: > >> So what is the oldest computer still operational? > > In Stuttgart (Germany) I have played lunar lander on a 1958 valve > computer (LGP30). The machine will have 50 years this year... > > A link (in German, but there is a picture of the actual system though > it has been repainted later to mint green): > http://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/dev/lgp30/LGP-30.html > > In the ZKM (www.zkm.de) in Karlsruhe/Germany they have a sometimes > operational Zuse Z22 from 1958. > > Philipp :-) > > I was thinking of the LGP30 when I asked the question. It is small. Something the size of a house is not going to survive. Sometimes is good enough for me... It was probably not much better when it was new. From hachti at hachti.de Wed Feb 13 19:20:25 2008 From: hachti at hachti.de (Philipp Hachtmann) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:20:25 +0100 Subject: HP1000/A600 Help and docs and sw needed! - Update In-Reply-To: <47B3878C.1040503@hachti.de> References: <47B3878C.1040503@hachti.de> Message-ID: <47B39759.7020200@hachti.de> Hello again, here a slight update... > - 3292A serial Terminal (newer) I found a cable for this and connected it. Set the terminal parameters and off we go. I can now speak to a beast called VCP. It seems to be something like DEC's ODT but even more evil. It allowed me to run a memory test which succeeded. So now I want to hook up HPIB. I urgently need the HPIB interface's pinout. And an idea which connector to use. There seem to be two connector styles at the card. Very different from the old HP1000 HPIB card edge connector (for which I have a cable..) :-( Best wishes, Philipp :-) From hachti at hachti.de Wed Feb 13 19:23:42 2008 From: hachti at hachti.de (Philipp Hachtmann) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:23:42 +0100 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <47B39770.3050609@nktelco.net> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <47B38E29.1030201@hachti.de> <47B39770.3050609@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <47B3981E.7090007@hachti.de> Hi again, > I was thinking of the LGP30 when I asked the question. It is small. > Something the size of a house is not going to survive. What you call small... It has one big disadvantage: It has wheels. So you can easily move it out to scrap. An immobile little system (little footprint incredible heavy) would have the best chance to survive I think ;-) > > Sometimes is good enough for me... It was probably not much better when > it was new. I have seen the Z22 in Karlsruhe only once. At that time (last spring) they told me that it is not operational at the moment. Other people tell me that it is powered up and run every sunday. So when I come to Karlsruhe the next time, I will take a closer look on a sunday. Best wishes, Philipp :-) From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Feb 13 19:31:56 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:31:56 -0600 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <47B39A0C.4050105@gmail.com> Charles H Dickman wrote: > So what is the oldest computer still operational? I have a can of worms that can do math... From chd_1 at nktelco.net Wed Feb 13 19:59:47 2008 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (Charles H Dickman) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:59:47 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <47B39A0C.4050105@gmail.com> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <47B39A0C.4050105@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B3A093.7090407@nktelco.net> Jules Richardson wrote: > Charles H Dickman wrote: >> So what is the oldest computer still operational? > > I have a can of worms that can do math... > ? From bpope at wordstock.com Wed Feb 13 20:39:17 2008 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:39:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, In-Reply-To: <5f7d1b0e0802131637v3bb9e0fdw183e90fe6c5bfb93@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080214023917.22C8256D8C@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Jason McBrien > > > "operational" > > > > > Still performs to original specs. Lights light up, results are accurate, > etc... So if one or more of its lights are burnt out, is it no longer operational? Cheers, Bryan From bpope at wordstock.com Wed Feb 13 20:44:59 2008 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:44:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <47B3A093.7090407@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <20080214024459.5FD4656D94@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Charles H Dickman > > Jules Richardson wrote: > > Charles H Dickman wrote: > >> So what is the oldest computer still operational? > > > > I have a can of worms that can do math... > > > ? > mewonders if the question could be.. "Has it been opened?" Cheers, Bryan From gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz Wed Feb 13 21:03:14 2008 From: gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz (Gavin Melville) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:03:14 +1300 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <20080214024459.5FD4656D94@mail.wordstock.com> Message-ID: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Hi, Not completely on topic, but my boss wishes to build a computer using modern knowledge, but only materials, IO etc that existed as at 1st Jan 1900. The basic premise is that had a need existed, and they knew how to make one, could have it been done. That initially seemed hard, and certainly isn't easy, in that I'm the one doing the "building" :-) however we have fairly quickly identified that magnetic logic is the only likely candidate. Currently I'm playing with saturable reactors to try and get enough gain to make more than simple logic viable. We keep on hitting little curve balls ie. the highest frequency sinusoidal AC we can find stuff on as at 1900 was 20kHz. Modern core materials and 20 kHz don't totally work together... This is to be a real computer, stored program, RAM, ALU etc. Ian has already built 2 of those by hand, one with TTL and one with 4000A CMOS, so has some idea of how to do it (personally I'd just get a micro), but he has the determination and the resources complete this. I'll keep the list posted if there is any interest. Regards, Gavin Melville gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz From blstuart at bellsouth.net Wed Feb 13 21:09:38 2008 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (Brian L. Stuart) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 03:09:38 +0000 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Message-ID: <021420080309.16027.47B3B0F20008549D00003E9B22230680329B0A02D2089B9A019C04040A0DBF9B9D0E9A9B9C040D@att.net> From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) > > So if one or more of its lights are burnt out, is it no longer operational? > thermonuclearproof boulder> Well, now that you mention it... It's probably been several years since I bored everyone with this story. Way back when I was in college a large electronics company donated an old hybrid computer. I was the only person on campus who had much interest in it, so I started working to get it up and running. I started with the analog computer, and things seemed to go pretty well. But there was one problem. It would never switch from initial condition mode to operate mode. So I'm sitting there pouring over the schematics trying to figure out what could be wrong, when it hit me, and I sat there saying, "no, they didn't." I had realized that one of the indicator lamps had burned out, but I figured that'd be something I'd worry about once it was up and running. But they used the voltage drop across the bulb as a pull-up. So the computer literally did not operate because of a burned out light bulb. When I replaced the bulb, it worked just fine. BLS From blstuart at bellsouth.net Wed Feb 13 21:15:56 2008 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (Brian L. Stuart) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 03:15:56 +0000 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue Message-ID: <021420080315.26443.47B3B26B000EE5AE0000674B22218865869B0A02D2089B9A019C04040A0DBF9B9D0E9A9B9C040D@att.net> > Not completely on topic, but my boss wishes to build a computer using > modern knowledge, but only materials, IO etc that existed as at 1st Jan > 1900. The basic premise is that had a need existed, and they knew how > to make one, could have it been done. Well, if 1900 isn't on topic, I don't know what is :-) >... > This is to be a real computer, stored program, RAM, ALU etc. Ian has > already built 2 of those by hand, one with TTL and one with 4000A CMOS, > so has some idea of how to do it (personally I'd just get a micro), but > he has the determination and the resources complete this. I'll keep > the list posted if there is any interest. I'll bet there are several of us that are interested. But beyond that, I think you win the award for the coolest job. Now, if I could only figure out how to get FedEx to want to do something like that... BLS From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Wed Feb 13 21:13:12 2008 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:13:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Message-ID: <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Not completely on topic, but my boss wishes to build a computer using > modern knowledge, but only materials, IO etc that existed as at 1st > Jan 1900. The basic premise is that had a need existed, and they > knew how to make one, could have it been done. > [W]e have fairly quickly identified that magnetic logic is the only > likely candidate. Why? What is preventing the use of vacuum tubes, or even transistors? 1900 had the facilities to build vacuum tubes sufficient for logic, had anyone known to try - and in fact someone did, just a few years later. I suspect 1900 probably had the facilities to build basic transistors (point-contact transistors aren't all that tough). It certainly had the ability to bootstrap shops that could make transistors; how much tools-to-build-the-tools is acceptable? /~\ 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 bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Feb 13 22:21:08 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:21:08 -0700 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <021420080315.26443.47B3B26B000EE5AE0000674B22218865869B0A02D2089B9A019C04040A0DBF9B9D0E9A9B9C040D@att.net> References: <021420080315.26443.47B3B26B000EE5AE0000674B22218865869B0A02D2089B9A019C04040A0DBF9B9D0E9A9B9C040D@att.net> Message-ID: <47B3C1B4.80704@jetnet.ab.ca> Brian L. Stuart wrote: >> Not completely on topic, but my boss wishes to build a computer using >> modern knowledge, but only materials, IO etc that existed as at 1st Jan >> 1900. The basic premise is that had a need existed, and they knew how >> to make one, could have it been done. Hmm ... I guess we need to find 108 year old junk ... Any takers? > Well, if 1900 isn't on topic, I don't know what is :-) Just what I wonder is needed to compute? A relay machine seems the most likely to me. I/O could be a problem. From rivie at ridgenet.net Wed Feb 13 23:08:54 2008 From: rivie at ridgenet.net (Roger Ivie) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:08:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Message-ID: On Thu, 14 Feb 2008, Gavin Melville wrote: > Not completely on topic, but my boss wishes to build a computer using > modern knowledge, but only materials, IO etc that existed as at 1st Jan > 1900. The basic premise is that had a need existed, and they knew how > to make one, could have it been done. > > That initially seemed hard, and certainly isn't easy, in that I'm the > one doing the "building" :-) however we have fairly quickly identified > that magnetic logic is the only likely candidate. I'd be thinking fluidic logic, but I'm strange. -- roger ivie rivie at ridgenet.net From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Feb 13 23:15:03 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:15:03 -0500 Subject: Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW In-Reply-To: <000d01c86e67$d8d51830$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <004901c86d64$6e936610$4bba3230$@net.au> <000501c86dc6$58f96270$0201a8c0@hal9000> <001501c86e1d$f90f8530$0201a8c0@hal9000> <0C9FC0EF-3C24-46F2-BD2B-B5DB02681139@neurotica.com> <000d01c86e67$d8d51830$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: On Feb 13, 2008, at 12:42 PM, Scanning wrote: > I'm in the same boat, I let mine go way too cheap ! If I had known > the > price was going up that much I would have waited longer.... > > I don't know why the prices have gone up so much. Maybe a perceived > shortage > ? That's very odd indeed. They were dirt cheap for so long! > I have the same Simulator that's on your webpage. I sent a copy of > mine to > Daniel. Thanks for the info. That was Dave Dunfield, not me, FYI. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Feb 13 23:50:35 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:50:35 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: > From: mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca > >> Not completely on topic, but my boss wishes to build a computer using >> modern knowledge, but only materials, IO etc that existed as at 1st >> Jan 1900. The basic premise is that had a need existed, and they >> knew how to make one, could have it been done. > >> [W]e have fairly quickly identified that magnetic logic is the only >> likely candidate. > > Why? > > What is preventing the use of vacuum tubes, or even transistors? 1900 > had the facilities to build vacuum tubes sufficient for logic, had > anyone known to try - and in fact someone did, just a few years later. > I suspect 1900 probably had the facilities to build basic transistors > (point-contact transistors aren't all that tough). It certainly had > the ability to bootstrap shops that could make transistors; how much > tools-to-build-the-tools is acceptable? > > Triodes were made before 1900. If it is just materials but not known, one might use zinc oxide negative resistance devices. Relays are simple enough and well known by then. Output isn't a big issue. Memory is always a problem but input could easily be done with punch cards ( also well known then ). Relays can be use for memory but they are expensive. I've always thought that a bunch of reed relays with small magnets to bias them. Too bad they didn't have reed relays then. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging.?You IM, we give. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Feb 14 00:08:03 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:08:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, dwight elvey wrote: > Triodes were made before 1900. If it is just materials but not > known, one might use zinc oxide negative resistance devices. > Relays are simple enough and well known by then. Output isn't > a big issue. Memory is always a problem but input could easily > be done with punch cards ( also well known then ). > Relays can be use for memory but they are expensive. I've always > thought that a bunch of reed relays with small magnets to bias them. > Too bad they didn't have reed relays then. Is there any reason why reed relays didn't exist then? It's not difficult to make them by hand. Making them hermetically sealed, that might be tricky. -- 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 tiggerlasv at aim.com Thu Feb 14 00:45:24 2008 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:45:24 -0500 Subject: Vintage Computer Marketplace. . . Message-ID: <8CA3CEC4FCCE967-12F0-16CC@webmail-ne13.sysops.aol.com> It looks like the domain name registration for VCM hasn't been renewed. Is it coming back? ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Feb 14 01:04:52 2008 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:04:52 -0500 Subject: Digitalker, SP0256, and SC-01 speech chips (was Re: Digitalker Information) Message-ID: <01C86EAE.39D53CA0@mandr71> --------Original Message: Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 07:53:22 +0000 From: Ethan Dicks Subject: Re: Digitalker, SP0256, and SC-01 speech chips (was Re: Digitalker Information) On Tue, Feb 05, 2008 at 01:33:42AM -0500, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Sunday 03 February 2008 16:54, Scanning wrote: > > Pete, > > > > The SP0256 had the best sounding speech I think ( it uses twice as many > > speech sounds ( 128 allophones ? ) as the SC-01 only had 64 phonemes )). 59 Allophones plus 6 pauses, according to the datasheet. -ethan ---------Reply: I built a speech synthesizer for my PETs many years ago using the SP2056; nothing to it. I also used a Votrax PSS to announce users logging in to a Cromemco "BBS" and today still have a PC with an SP0256 announcing Caller ID info on incoming calls; not really that much difference in the sound. Keep in mind that the SP0256 is only an allophone generator; although there were expansion ROMs available, for text-to-speech you needed something like the CTS256-AL2, which was a PIC (yes, GI made PICs in the '70s!) programmed as an ASCII > allophone processor (unless you were only speaking pre-programmed sequences which you could hard-code in your program). mike From fu3.org at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 01:20:48 2008 From: fu3.org at gmail.com (Chris H.) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:20:48 +0100 Subject: PC-magazine and Byte still need to go In-Reply-To: References: <310f50ab0802130249n6ff3ad6cv285295c8db2e66b5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <310f50ab0802132320o7ac95d4bn259f9d77b1119aff@mail.gmail.com> 2008/2/14, David Griffith : > I emailed Jason Scott just now > about the matter. Right now it's a first-say you-get-it sort of thing, > but you must be ready and willing to drive to Pasadena this weekend. > Looks like Jason will be speaking at http://www.shmoocon.org/ this weekend, but all power to whoever 'wins' them.. ;) - [I'd guess he already has all that stuff, anyway, but you never know.] -- < http://whorehou.se/ > From gavon.balharry at idi-middleware.com Wed Feb 13 15:27:37 2008 From: gavon.balharry at idi-middleware.com (Gavon Balharry) Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:27:37 +0100 Subject: Varisystems, Compugraphic Message-ID: <47B360C9.5070000@idi-middleware.com> Hi Bill, I am Gavon Balharry. I was at a customer site in Switzerland, where we took delivery of a Varisystems 16K system in 1974. In May 1976 we bought two 32K Varicomposers. I dumped out the program and decoded it (P16 assembler language) - managed to fix various problems it had and extended the system with some new functionality. Bob Shevlin, who had created it, and was the only one really able to program it hired me in September 1996. I worked for 13 months full time for him at Shefra Graphics out of Slough in the UK. I travelled all over Europe, and even to NZ, Australia, Singapore, Thailand and Hawaii - customizing systems wherever I went. I returned to work with Bobst Graphics in USA starting 4th July 1979. There I wrote the Arabic/English or French version. I was one of three who remained with Bobst Graphics when they closed the American plant at the end of February 1981. I stayed on with Bobst Graphics at Mex, near Lausanne in Switzerland. Before long we were taken over by Autologic from California. I lasted till May 1984, having written front-end systems for typesetting most of the languages of India - using the 1200 system, programming in Z80. I guess I know about as much as anyone could (after Bob Shevlin) about the system, its programs, and all. I even have quite a library of program listings. Just that it has been a while ago. Please contact me, and I can fill you in with whatever details you may need. Best regards, Gavon Balharry Managing director Information Design Ltd Liab Co (registered in Switzerland) From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Feb 14 02:51:47 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:51:47 +0000 Subject: Digitalker, SP0256, and SC-01 speech chips (was Re: Digitalker Information) In-Reply-To: <01C86EAE.39D53CA0@mandr71> References: <01C86EAE.39D53CA0@mandr71> Message-ID: <1202979107.17693.43.camel@elric> On Thu, 2008-02-14 at 02:04 -0500, M H Stein wrote: > Keep in mind that the SP0256 is only an allophone generator; although there > were expansion ROMs available, for text-to-speech you needed something like > the CTS256-AL2, which was a PIC (yes, GI made PICs in the '70s!) programmed PIC as is Arizona Microchip PIC, or PIC as in something else? Gordon From dr.emiel at xs4all.nl Thu Feb 14 04:50:10 2008 From: dr.emiel at xs4all.nl (Rik) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:50:10 +0100 Subject: HP1000/A600 Help and docs and sw needed! References: <47B3878C.1040503@hachti.de> Message-ID: <001a01c86ef7$5f129550$0501a8c0@xp1800> Hello Philip, I've a HP1000 A600+ with a HP 7912R build in, the so called model 2196D. I do have the installation tapes and the manuals. But a lot of manuals can be found at www.hpmuseum.net and ofcause at bitsavers. The VCP is the cpu-console from witch you can boot the system 7908/12/14 disc's should be conected at HPIB-adres 0, both tapestreamer and discunit should have adres 0 These are CS80 disc's the other discs like the 9833/34/35 etc. should be installed from HPIB-adres 2 and higher. The default boot strings for a HPIB system are %BDC27BSYSEM or %BCD27BBOOT.CMD or %BCD27BSYS$$ were $$ is a 2 digit number (mine is SYS21). I'm busy hacking mine so I can login on the system account when I'm ready I'll try to copy the tapes. Greetings from the Netherlands , Rik ----- Original Message ----- From: "Philipp Hachtmann" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 1:13 AM Subject: HP1000/A600 Help and docs and sw needed! > Hi folks, > > I have a HP1000/A600 machine sitting here at my place. And no clue where > to start using it. > I have the following stuff: > > - A600CPU, containing: > * 2 serial interfaces (12005/...10) > * 1 sandwich "32 channel MUX/12 bit ADC" > * parallel port > * HPIB interface > * some other serial MUXes > > - 7908 HPIB Tape cartridge/Disk combination > > - 9133 HPIB 3,5" Floppy (with disk inside as well??) > > - 3292A serial Terminal (newer) > > - 2648A serial Terminal (older) > - 12966-60008 serial cable for the terminal (is that right?) > > - 7978 HPIB 9-Track 1/2" tape drive > > - 7958B HPIB disk drive > > - HP6000 670H HPIB disk drive > > - A LOT of software manuals but no hardware manual. > > I have already found the only document at hp.com that told me something > about select codes, switch settings etc. But nothing about cable pinouts > etc. > > I tried my 2648 terminal with the cable, without success. Perhaps my > terminal is broken or - what I think - the cable pinout is incompatible to > the "new" A600. > > What should I do with all that stuff? I will have to decide what to do > with my HP stuff, because I need to reassign my collection's priorities > with respect to the LAB 8/e that will drop in next week. If I don't have > any fun with the stuff, it will go to eBay/scrapyard (the latter is where > I got most of it). > > Who knows how to make a serial cable? > Who has software for me? > Who knows how to get software from my PC/Sparc (short: modern world) into > the HP gear? > Who has docs? Bitsavers seems to have nothing about the A series. > > I powered up the CPU. Depending on the switch settings, the diagnostic > LEDs say "bootloader running" or "VCP running". So the system should be in > a somewhat usable state. Further when I remove the first serial card > (which is in nearly factory settings, including VCP break enabled), the > diagnostic LEDs tell me about some error. So I hope that the system > already talks to the right port. > > I also powered up the 7906 tape/disk cobination. It makes some funny > sounds and after a while, it shows me a "P" on its little LED display in > the back. Some HP manual told me that this is a good sign, "P" for > "passed". > Also I have been told that there is an installed RTE on the disk. But I > have no GPIB cable yet. And the GPIB connector looks rather different than > on my HP1000/E (for which I have a cable). > > Thank you for every kind of information, I am excitedly looking forward > for replies. > > Best wishes from Alfeld/Germany, > > Philipp :-) > > P.S.: I also have two HP1000/E machines and a lot of cards sitting around > here. Perhaps I could hook the disks up to them? I never did anything > useful with them - except hooking up a terminal and entering 4-word test > programs via front panel (which worked). > Any other ideas what to do with these machines? > > > > > From dbetz at xlisper.com Thu Feb 14 06:11:56 2008 From: dbetz at xlisper.com (David Betz) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:11:56 -0500 Subject: HP 87 computer/calculator? Message-ID: When I was at the VCF in Mountain View this past fall, someone in the concessions area had an HP 87 computer/calculator for sale. Does anyone remember who that was? I find I'm getting interested in the HP 8x series. Thanks! David Betz From sbolton at bfree.on.ca Thu Feb 14 07:02:55 2008 From: sbolton at bfree.on.ca (Syd Bolton) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:02:55 -0500 Subject: MSX Joystick In-Reply-To: <200802131800.m1DI0brn039098@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <200802141302.m1ED2scs092639@keith.ezwind.net> I see the pinouts online but haven't checked to > see if it's compatible with a standard Atari type joystick. >Sure it is! > Interesting how MSX devices are unknown here...They are so popular in >Brazil! That's just how it goes! OK second part of my question then: what about the mouse? What other more easily obtainable mouse would work on the MSX machine? Commodore made mice with 9-pin connectors for the C64 but I doubt it would work or the Amiga one .... and of course, the "serial" mouse from a PC I would expect won't work as well. Or....I guess more easily does anyone out there have an MSX compatible mouse they'd like to sell me for the museum? Thanks No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.4/1277 - Release Date: 2/13/2008 8:00 PM From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Feb 14 08:20:58 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:20:58 -0300 Subject: MSX Joystick References: <200802141302.m1ED2scs092639@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <035601c86f14$d717cf30$01fea8c0@portajara> > That's just how it goes! OK second part of my question then: what about > the > mouse? What other more easily obtainable mouse would work on the MSX > machine? Commodore made mice with 9-pin connectors for the C64 but I > doubt > it would work or the Amiga one .... and of course, the "serial" mouse from > a > PC I would expect won't work as well. The MSX Mouse is compatible with very few devices. Some Sony video equipment (like a picture computer I have) and NEC PC-98 computers. Ah, the Roland S series of samplers (S-50, S-750) uses the same mouse/trackball. You can build an adapter with a small microcontroller. The schematic is around the web, I can send you if you need. From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Thu Feb 14 07:38:41 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:38:41 +0000 Subject: MSX Joystick In-Reply-To: <035601c86f14$d717cf30$01fea8c0@portajara> References: <200802141302.m1ED2scs092639@keith.ezwind.net> <035601c86f14$d717cf30$01fea8c0@portajara> Message-ID: <20080214133841.GA14506@usap.gov> On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 11:20:58AM -0300, Alexandre Souza wrote: > >That's just how it goes! OK second part of my question then: what about > >the mouse? What other more easily obtainable mouse would work on the MSX > >machine? Commodore made mice with 9-pin connectors for the C64 but I > >doubt it would work or the Amiga one .... and of course, the "serial" > >mouse from a PC I would expect won't work as well. > > The MSX Mouse is compatible with very few devices. Some Sony video > equipment (like a picture computer I have) and NEC PC-98 computers. Ah, the > Roland S series of samplers (S-50, S-750) uses the same mouse/trackball. > > You can build an adapter with a small microcontroller. The schematic is > around the web, I can send you if you need. So what style of mouse is it? Of the aforementioned DE-9 mice, the C-64 has a microcontrller in it that does some odd stuff to be backwards compatible with the machine (so it's not portable), the Amiga (and the original Mac) use raw quadrature and individual button lines. The PC mouse, as you mentioned is serial (not "serial"), though the microcontroller in most later versions knows how to tell it's on an RS-232 port or on a PS/2 mouse port via an adapter - so if that mouse thinks it's on a serial port, it talks one way, and if it thinks it's on a PS/2 port, its protocol is different. So how would you characterize the MSX mouse? Raw? Processed? Serial? Odd? -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 14-Feb-2008 at 13:30 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -31.0 F (-35.0 C) Windchill -56.4 F (-49.1 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 10.4 kts Grid 33 Barometer 677.7 mb (10715 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 07:58:35 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:58:35 -0600 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <47B3A093.7090407@nktelco.net> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <47B39A0C.4050105@gmail.com> <47B3A093.7090407@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <47B4490B.7040809@gmail.com> Charles H Dickman wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: >> Charles H Dickman wrote: >>> So what is the oldest computer still operational? >> >> I have a can of worms that can do math... >> > ? It's just one of those questions which crops up every once in a while, thus opening a whole can of worms :-) I don't think there's any 'right' answer as even if (as someone mentioned) the various terms of the question were defined, chances are that answers from popular history still wouldn't reflect the reality. It seems that 'big ideas' are rarely invented by any one person or group - typically several efforts seem to pop up around the globe within a very narrow space of time, and the person credited in the history books isn't always the 'first'. Of course, as a discussion topic on this list, 'first computer' is still pretty interesting. cheers Jules From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 08:02:32 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:02:32 -0600 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Message-ID: <47B449F8.8070608@gmail.com> Roger Ivie wrote: > On Thu, 14 Feb 2008, Gavin Melville wrote: >> Not completely on topic, but my boss wishes to build a computer using >> modern knowledge, but only materials, IO etc that existed as at 1st Jan >> 1900. The basic premise is that had a need existed, and they knew how >> to make one, could have it been done. >> >> That initially seemed hard, and certainly isn't easy, in that I'm the >> one doing the "building" :-) however we have fairly quickly identified >> that magnetic logic is the only likely candidate. > > I'd be thinking fluidic logic, but I'm strange. No idea why, but whenever I come across a system, I end up asking myself "how could this have been done* without electronics?" - I find mechanical analogues of electronic/electrical systems fascinating... * Not cheaper, faster, to the same scale etc. obviously - just whether it could be done at all. Anyway, my first thought on reading that previous message was how to do it using pure mechanical devices (and fluidic logic's a definite possibility). And now's probably a good time to mention the Heath Robinson Rube Goldberg computer again ;) cheers J. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Feb 14 08:52:26 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 06:52:26 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: > From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu > > On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, dwight elvey wrote: > >> Triodes were made before 1900. If it is just materials but not >> known, one might use zinc oxide negative resistance devices. >> Relays are simple enough and well known by then. Output isn't >> a big issue. Memory is always a problem but input could easily >> be done with punch cards ( also well known then ). >> Relays can be use for memory but they are expensive. I've always >> thought that a bunch of reed relays with small magnets to bias them. >> Too bad they didn't have reed relays then. > > Is there any reason why reed relays didn't exist then? It's not > difficult to make them by hand. Making them hermetically sealed, that > might be tricky. > Hi I didn't say couldn't just didn't exist then. They surely could have been made, including sealing. Remember, they were making triode vacuum tubes by then. look up audiotron. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Climb to the top of the charts!?Play the word scramble challenge with star power. http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_jan From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Feb 14 09:01:00 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:01:00 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <47B449F8.8070608@gmail.com> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <47B449F8.8070608@gmail.com> Message-ID: > Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:02:32 -0600 > From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com ---snip--- > > No idea why, but whenever I come across a system, I end up asking myself "how > could this have been done* without electronics?" - I find mechanical analogues > of electronic/electrical systems fascinating... > > * Not cheaper, faster, to the same scale etc. obviously - just whether it > could be done at all. > Hi A few years back I gave a lot of thought to a computer that used marbles for bits. It was mainly intended as a visual computer. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Climb to the top of the charts!?Play the word scramble challenge with star power. http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_jan From legalize at xmission.com Thu Feb 14 09:03:09 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:03:09 -0700 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:58:35 -0600. <47B4490B.7040809@gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <47B4490B.7040809 at gmail.com>, Jules Richardson writes: > It's just one of those questions which crops up every once in a while, thus > opening a whole can of worms :-) Its just one of those questions which crops up every once in a while that *could* be the beginning of an interesting discussion, if people didn't immediately devolve into smart-ass mode responding about slide rules and their grandmothers. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Feb 14 09:29:05 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:29:05 -0500 Subject: Heath ET-3400 Trainer Simulator SW In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802131420u69c0922dsf49603dcbfe11910@mail.gmail.com> References: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A2572C8@sbs.jdfogg.com> <7d3530220802131420u69c0922dsf49603dcbfe11910@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Feb 13, 2008, at 5:20 PM, John Floren wrote: > my college was just > getting rid of the SDK-86 boards they used to use (custom mounted > between two sheets of plexiglass) and I snagged one; I've already > given it away or I would have offered it, since it seems to be > similar--old processor, some ram, breadboards, keypad, hex display. SDK-86 is a different animal though, as it's basically an eval board from the manufacturer to introduce their new processor. A processor that (inexplicably) turned out to be rather popular, I might add, as the damn thing just won't die. Those boards regularly go for $200, sometimes higher. I paid $320 for mine a few years ago, then got another one (broken) for $150 a few weeks later...I repaired it and sold it for nearly $300. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Feb 14 09:35:48 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:35:48 -0500 Subject: Digitalker, SP0256, and SC-01 speech chips (was Re: Digitalker Information) In-Reply-To: <1202979107.17693.43.camel@elric> References: <01C86EAE.39D53CA0@mandr71> <1202979107.17693.43.camel@elric> Message-ID: <7297CB39-D118-482F-B0F6-EB4BDFEE3F5A@neurotica.com> On Feb 14, 2008, at 3:51 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: >> Keep in mind that the SP0256 is only an allophone generator; >> although there >> were expansion ROMs available, for text-to-speech you needed >> something like >> the CTS256-AL2, which was a PIC (yes, GI made PICs in the '70s!) >> programmed > > PIC as is Arizona Microchip PIC, or PIC as in something else? The very same. The architecture made its debut in the 1970s with the SMS (later Signetics) 8X300, which many of us have seen on disk controller boards. Here's a snippet of a classiccmp post of mine from back in 2001: ------------ GI adapted the SMS/Signetics 8x300 for use as a peripheral interface controller (PIC) to augment the poor I/O of its CP1600 processor. GI's IC division was spun off to form Arizona Microchip Technology (sound familiar?) in the mid 80's, producing EPROMs, EEPROMs, and..."PIC" processors. ------------ -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Thu Feb 14 10:50:36 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:50:36 -0300 Subject: MSX Joystick References: <200802141302.m1ED2scs092639@keith.ezwind.net><035601c86f14$d717cf30$01fea8c0@portajara> <20080214133841.GA14506@usap.gov> Message-ID: <03b201c86f29$fb44ee00$01fea8c0@portajara> > So how would you characterize the MSX mouse? Raw? Processed? Serial? > Odd? More or less odd. The protocol needs a microcontroller. Take a look here:\ http://home.pages.at/pullrich/mousecon.htm I think this page has everything you need about MSX mouse :o) From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Feb 14 09:58:13 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (gordonjcp at gjcp.net) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:58:13 +0000 Subject: Digitalker, SP0256, and SC-01 speech chips (was Re: Digitalker Information) In-Reply-To: <7297CB39-D118-482F-B0F6-EB4BDFEE3F5A@neurotica.com> References: <01C86EAE.39D53CA0@mandr71> <1202979107.17693.43.camel@elric> <7297CB39-D118-482F-B0F6-EB4BDFEE3F5A@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20080214155812.GA12115@gjcp.net> On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 10:35:48AM -0500, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Feb 14, 2008, at 3:51 AM, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > >>Keep in mind that the SP0256 is only an allophone generator; > >>although there > >>were expansion ROMs available, for text-to-speech you needed > >>something like > >>the CTS256-AL2, which was a PIC (yes, GI made PICs in the '70s!) > >>programmed > > > >PIC as is Arizona Microchip PIC, or PIC as in something else? > > The very same. The architecture made its debut in the 1970s with > the SMS (later Signetics) 8X300, which many of us have seen on disk > controller boards. > > Here's a snippet of a classiccmp post of mine from back in 2001: > > ------------ > GI adapted the SMS/Signetics 8x300 for use as a peripheral interface > controller (PIC) to augment the poor I/O of its CP1600 processor. GI's > IC division was spun off to form Arizona Microchip Technology (sound > familiar?) in the mid 80's, producing EPROMs, EEPROMs, and..."PIC" > processors. > ------------ Well every day's a school day! Does this mean that cards that use the 8X300 chips could be updated to more modern hardware? Is it possible that MSCP code could already more-or-less exist for the PIC architecture? Gordon From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Feb 14 10:08:12 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (gordonjcp at gjcp.net) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:08:12 +0000 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> On Wed, Feb 13, 2008 at 10:13:12PM -0500, der Mouse wrote: > > Not completely on topic, but my boss wishes to build a computer using > > modern knowledge, but only materials, IO etc that existed as at 1st > > Jan 1900. The basic premise is that had a need existed, and they > > knew how to make one, could have it been done. > > > [W]e have fairly quickly identified that magnetic logic is the only > > likely candidate. > > Why? > > What is preventing the use of vacuum tubes, or even transistors? 1900 > had the facilities to build vacuum tubes sufficient for logic, had It does actually say "modern knowledge" - so presumably you could use any kind of component you can construct. How hard is a dekatron to make? Gordon From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 10:25:04 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:25:04 -0600 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <47B449F8.8070608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B46B60.90002@gmail.com> dwight elvey wrote: > > > >> Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:02:32 -0600 >> From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com > ---snip--- >> No idea why, but whenever I come across a system, I end up asking myself "how >> could this have been done* without electronics?" - I find mechanical analogues >> of electronic/electrical systems fascinating... >> >> * Not cheaper, faster, to the same scale etc. obviously - just whether it >> could be done at all. >> > > Hi > A few years back I gave a lot of thought to a computer that used > marbles for bits. It was mainly intended as a visual computer. It's possible, I'd think (there's a nice page about a marble-based binary adder at http://woodgears.ca/marbleadd/index.html if you haven't seen it before). The main problem with a marble machine is likely to be maintaining state, as any kind of 'read' within the system tends to be destructive. Doubtless there are ways around that (e.g. the presence of a marble presses a lever which results in a marble coming from some large hopper somewhere upon any kind of 'read' op, rather than the 'trigger' marble itself moving) I believe that the electronic computer was just an idea whose time had come; I don't think there's anything that would have prevented something similar (non-electronic). We've all heard about Babbage, military mechanical gun control computers, Meccano differential analysers, Victorian automatons etc. - it's just that prior to the "usual suspects" (Harvard Mk. 1 etc.) there was simply no perceived benefit in making an electronic, stored-program machine. cheers Jules From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Feb 14 10:37:45 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 09:37:45 -0700 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <47B46E59.6000200@jetnet.ab.ca> dwight elvey wrote: > Hi > I didn't say couldn't just didn't exist then. They surely could have > been made, including sealing. Remember, they were making > triode vacuum tubes by then. look up audiotron. > Dwight Umm ... The inventor had no idea how they worked, so scrap that idea. From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 10:36:32 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:36:32 -0600 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B46E10.4080007@gmail.com> Richard wrote: > In article <47B4490B.7040809 at gmail.com>, > Jules Richardson writes: > >> It's just one of those questions which crops up every once in a while, thus >> opening a whole can of worms :-) > > Its just one of those questions which crops up every once in a while > that *could* be the beginning of an interesting discussion, if people > didn't immediately devolve into smart-ass mode responding about slide > rules and their grandmothers. Heh, sure. But the usual answers (Colossus / Harvard / Zuse etc.) are well known about (and well referenced via Google) - including the endless arguments about which is really a computer and which was first. Now the 'other', earlier stuff I personally find really interesting (Jaquard looms, the Antikythera mechanism etc.), but I get the impression you see those as being 'smart ass' lines of discussion? (Nothing confrontational intended in the above - it's just that the obvious answers have probably been done to death, and the non-obvious ones do include slide rules and human beings :-) cheers Jules From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 10:45:03 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:45:03 -0600 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <47B46E59.6000200@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <47B46E59.6000200@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <47B4700F.20109@gmail.com> woodelf wrote: > dwight elvey wrote: > >> Hi >> I didn't say couldn't just didn't exist then. They surely could have >> been made, including sealing. Remember, they were making >> triode vacuum tubes by then. look up audiotron. >> Dwight > Umm ... The inventor had no idea how they worked, > so scrap that idea. No idea how they worked internally - or no idea how they really interacted with the outside world? There's a big difference between the use of something being possible and it being optimal, after all; the former can be done with observation, but the latter needs real understanding. cheers Jules From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 10:58:35 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:58:35 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> Message-ID: > It does actually say "modern knowledge" - so presumably you could use > any kind of component you can construct. How hard is a dekatron to > make? I am sitting here, reading this thread, and am astounded by what people think tubes could do back in 1906. It would have been *impossible* to make any sort of computing device using the technology of the time. You would have better luck porting OS/2 to a 709. Tubes back then barely worked. When they did work, they barely amplified. And you were lucky to get 50 hours out of them. A try getting two that were vaguely similar electrically. And then try to find someone that actually knew how the things worked. Arguably, the best of the very early devices is the LRS Relay. They were very fragile devices, electrically and mechanically, and were something less than uniform in spec. In the US, the Audion was worse in every way. Even using three Audions in the same radio was so much of a handful that it was rarely tried. The only place tubes were used in signifcant numbers were some of the "high power" transmitters that basically used banks of tubes in parallel. In this configuration, there was some success, due to the inherent fault tolerant nature of the design. It was not until the Great War that tubes started to get reasonably uniform and "high" quality. The best example is probably the Western Electric VT-1, and that did not get good until 1917 or so. Even then, getting even a small number to work together was a chore. Signal Corps manuals of the time often include instructions telling how the radio operator should plow thru his allotment of twenty VT-1s to find three that would make the radio work properly. I have thought about how one would make a very early digital machine using tubes, and I have concluded that the very late 1920s is perhaps a good line to draw in the sand. The AC tubes were out in numbers and very consistent, high power rectifiers were also working well enough to eliminate the use of batteries, and even passive parts like resistors were finally coming out uniformly so every circuit did not have to be tweaked. Tubes and relays for motor control were well developed, and even phototubes were useful in a binary sort of way. The problem that always ends up being the show stopper is in RAM. Using a CRT for the memory was still off quite a few years, ferrite cores were not around for a few more, capacitors generally were too leaky to hold a charge long, magnetic recording was just not really there yet - so the only real option for online storage is an acoustic delay loop. Or paper, in the form of punch cards - which is exactly were the computer industry went. Cheap, easy, reliable, non-volatile. -- Will From brain at jbrain.com Thu Feb 14 11:08:13 2008 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:08:13 -0600 Subject: Digitalker Information In-Reply-To: <20080214155812.GA12115@gjcp.net> References: <01C86EAE.39D53CA0@mandr71> <1202979107.17693.43.camel@elric> <7297CB39-D118-482F-B0F6-EB4BDFEE3F5A@neurotica.com> <20080214155812.GA12115@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <47B4757D.2010000@jbrain.com> I appreciate all of the docs on the DigiTalker. It does appear my ROM #2 is dead, and it also appears the ROMs are specific to this design (Word #8 is JAMECO, for example). Thus, I'm wondering if someonw out there has dumps of some generic Digitalker ROMs, and I'll contact JAMECO, though I suspect they long ago lost information on this design. Jim From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Feb 14 11:21:23 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:21:23 +0000 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <1203009683.32199.0.camel@elric> On Thu, 2008-02-14 at 11:58 -0500, William Donzelli wrote: > > It does actually say "modern knowledge" - so presumably you could use > > any kind of component you can construct. How hard is a dekatron to > > make? > > I am sitting here, reading this thread, and am astounded by what > people think tubes could do back in 1906. It would have been > *impossible* to make any sort of computing device using the technology > of the time. You would have better luck porting OS/2 to a 709. > > Tubes back then barely worked. When they did work, they barely > amplified. And you were lucky to get 50 hours out of them. A try > getting two that were vaguely similar electrically. And then try to > find someone that actually knew how the things worked. Why do you suppose they barely worked? Because no-one could make them, or because no-one had figured out what to make them out of? I'm going to go with the latter. Gordon From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 11:28:58 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:28:58 -0600 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <47B47A5A.3060000@gmail.com> William Donzelli wrote: > Tubes back then barely worked. When they did work, they barely > amplified. And you were lucky to get 50 hours out of them. A try > getting two that were vaguely similar electrically. ... although note that the person who raised the question placed no constraints have been placed on reliability, speed, size, power consumption etc. - merely whether it could be done. Tube theory means virtually nothing to me (except that I know that the earliest ones weren't exactly paragons of reliability :-) - but I suspect that the answer to "could it be done" is a yes. The end result might not give out sane data most of the time, would probably be as big as a house, and likely wouldn't run for more than a day or two before everyone gave up in disgust - but I suspect it'd be *possible* > And then try to find someone that actually knew how the things worked. That's probably covered by the "modern knowledge" part of the aforementioned post, though (although it's not clear how far the rules can be bent in terms of making a tube using modern knowledge but materials available in 1900 - presumably a lot of what went into tubes of the 50s was known about in 1900, but it was the knowledge of how to work with it that was lacking) > I have thought about how one would make a very early digital machine > using tubes, and I have concluded that the very late 1920s is perhaps > a good line to draw in the sand. See above though - depends how much of a factor the "modern knowledge" part is. If people of 1900 knew how a tube worked, but just couldn't make a very good one... > so the only real option for online storage is an acoustic delay loop. - or something mechanical for R/W store; remember nobody's put constraints on speed (or anything else, really). cheers Jules From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 11:56:25 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:56:25 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <47B47A5A.3060000@gmail.com> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> <47B47A5A.3060000@gmail.com> Message-ID: > Tube theory means virtually nothing to me (except that I know that the > earliest ones weren't exactly paragons of reliability :-) - but I suspect > that the answer to "could it be done" is a yes. The end result might not give > out sane data most of the time, would probably be as big as a house, and > likely wouldn't run for more than a day or two before everyone gave up in > disgust - but I suspect it'd be *possible* No. No. No. No. If I were better at probabilities and statistics, I could probably *prove* it to be impossible, or close enough to it to not matter anymore. Take into account variations of the tubes and the time needed to tweak out the variations, and figure in the MTBF of the devices and the number of devices, and I think the result would be very near zero. I do not even think that the industry at the time could even make enough tubes to keep up with the demands for just one machine. > That's probably covered by the "modern knowledge" part of the aforementioned > post If you have modern knowledge, and all that knowledge it built on, just make an Intel Core 2. > See above though - depends how much of a factor the "modern knowledge" part > is. If people of 1900 knew how a tube worked, but just couldn't make a very > good one... People in 1906 did not know how a tube worked. And barely how to make them or use them. I can not think of anything in our modern world - or even in the near past - that was so much a "barely-there" technology. -- Will From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 12:00:35 2008 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere at gmail.com) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:00:35 +0000 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - bulk buy on eBay Message-ID: Hi cctalkers, The 6094 LPFK has been discussed on this list before (see thread "IBM 6094-020 Lighted Program Function Keys"). I notice that there's a bulk lot of 19 of them on ePay (see 180215874744) - now, I don't want 19, but I'd like one. I'm sure there are others on this list who would as well. Who else is game? This seller will only ship to the US, so someone within the US (I'm not) would need to receive them and reship - I'll happily pay a few $ on top of the onward postage for the trouble. Any volunteers? Ed. From jbmcb1 at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 12:01:02 2008 From: jbmcb1 at gmail.com (Jason McBrien) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:01:02 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Message-ID: <5f7d1b0e0802141001t3048d08cie344af7209b2c44c@mail.gmail.com> What about magnetostrictive delay line memory? Output could be a typewriter rigged up to solenoids, though I'm not sure when solenoids were invented - I've found companies that have been producing them since 1918. They're easy enough to build. From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Feb 14 12:01:04 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:01:04 -0500 Subject: Digitalker, SP0256, and SC-01 speech chips (was Re: Digitalker Information) In-Reply-To: <20080214155812.GA12115@gjcp.net> References: <01C86EAE.39D53CA0@mandr71> <1202979107.17693.43.camel@elric> <7297CB39-D118-482F-B0F6-EB4BDFEE3F5A@neurotica.com> <20080214155812.GA12115@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <5454F069-A5D3-4EDD-8D6E-7AA9E059873F@neurotica.com> On Feb 14, 2008, at 10:58 AM, gordonjcp at gjcp.net wrote: >>> PIC as is Arizona Microchip PIC, or PIC as in something else? >> >> The very same. The architecture made its debut in the 1970s with >> the SMS (later Signetics) 8X300, which many of us have seen on disk >> controller boards. >> >> Here's a snippet of a classiccmp post of mine from back in 2001: >> >> ------------ >> GI adapted the SMS/Signetics 8x300 for use as a peripheral >> interface >> controller (PIC) to augment the poor I/O of its CP1600 processor. >> GI's >> IC division was spun off to form Arizona Microchip Technology (sound >> familiar?) in the mid 80's, producing EPROMs, EEPROMs, and..."PIC" >> processors. >> ------------ > > Well every day's a school day! Does this mean that cards that use the > 8X300 chips could be updated to more modern hardware? Is it possible > that MSCP code could already more-or-less exist for the PIC > architecture? Doubtful, as it's just the same architecture, and far from the same implementation. The 8X30x chips are bipolar, if memory serves. But either way, I'm not sure what the point would be, aside from possibly building new boards using an existing 8X30x MSCP implementation. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From curt at atarimuseum.com Thu Feb 14 12:03:53 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:03:53 -0500 Subject: WPS-PLUS/DOS... In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> <47B47A5A.3060000@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B48289.6010707@atarimuseum.com> Hi, Looking for anyone with WPS-PLUS/DOS. I had a copy but its been corrupted and need to find someone who may have a working copy available to buy/trade/etc..., reply off-list, thanks... Curt From jzg22 at drexel.edu Thu Feb 14 12:05:29 2008 From: jzg22 at drexel.edu (Jonathan Gevaryahu) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:05:29 -0500 Subject: Yamaha MSX CX5M Mouse In-Reply-To: <200802141731.m1EHVFUr061107@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802141731.m1EHVFUr061107@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47B482E9.7020105@drexel.edu> Afaik the MSX ports, while also DE9, are NOT compatible with the standard atari/commodore/sega joystick ports. A few pins were moved around. Blame Microsoft. (from http://pinouts.ru/Inputs/JoystickMsx_pinout.shtml) Pin MSX Atari/Commodore/etc 1 /FORWARD /FORWARD or mouse XA* 2 /BACK /BACK or mouse XB* 3 /LEFT /LEFT or mouse YB* 4 /RIGHT /RIGHT or mouse YA* 5 +5V POT Y 6 /BTN1 or OUT1 /BTN1 or Light Pen 7 /BTN2 or OUT2 +5V 8 OUT3 GND 9 GND /BTN2 or POT X * the encoding of these 4 bits for mice-trackball varied between manufacturer and sometimes even between products (see CX-44 vs CX-80 trackballs by atari) -- Jonathan Gevaryahu jgevaryahu(@t)hotmail(d0t)com jzg22(@t)drexel(d0t)edu From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Feb 14 12:20:04 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:20:04 -0700 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <5f7d1b0e0802141001t3048d08cie344af7209b2c44c@mail.gmail.com> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <5f7d1b0e0802141001t3048d08cie344af7209b2c44c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B48654.9070207@jetnet.ab.ca> Jason McBrien wrote: > What about magnetostrictive delay line memory? Output could be a typewriter > rigged up to solenoids, though I'm not sure when solenoids were invented - > I've found companies that have been producing them since 1918. They're easy > enough to build. Post WWI seems to be about the right age, for computers could have been built. I even have the right USE ... computing for building bigger ships for the Navy. Forget why computers were developed after WWII, this is historical fiction. From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Feb 14 12:52:04 2008 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:52:04 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer Message-ID: <01C86F10.E71C2380@MSE_D03> Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:58:35 -0500 From: "William Donzelli" Subject: Re: Oldest operational computer >I am sitting here, reading this thread, and am astounded by what >people think tubes could do back in 1906. It would have been >*impossible* to make any sort of computing device using the technology >of the time. You would have better luck porting OS/2 to a 709. --- Are you sure it hasn't been done? After all, apparently OS/2 was ported to some other unlikely platforms...;-) m From innfoclassics at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 12:55:34 2008 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:55:34 -0800 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - bulk buy on eBay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > The 6094 LPFK has been discussed on this list before (see thread "IBM > 6094-020 Lighted Program Function Keys"). > > I notice that there's a bulk lot of 19 of them on ePay (see > 180215874744) - now, I don't want 19, but I'd like one. I'm sure there > are others on this list who would as well. > > Who else is game? This seller will only ship to the US, so someone > within the US (I'm not) would need to receive them and reship - I'll > happily pay a few $ on top of the onward postage for the trouble. I see they are in Portland, Oregon. I could do this. I ship internationally all the time. How many people are interested? It would be best to reply off list or to me directly at paxton.hoag at gmail.com. Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Feb 14 12:24:56 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:24:56 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP1000/A600 Help and docs and sw needed! In-Reply-To: <47B3878C.1040503@hachti.de> from "Philipp Hachtmann" at Feb 14, 8 01:13:00 am Message-ID: > - 9133 HPIB 3,5" Floppy (with disk inside as well??) The HP9133 is, indeed, a floppy/winchester combination. There are many varients, the letter _after_ the '9133' on the nameplate is important. Older versions have a single-sided drive and separate controllers for the hard and floppy drives (and thus have 2 separate HPIB addresses). Later models have one controller board and take one address. > - A LOT of software manuals but no hardware manual. > > I have already found the only document at hp.com that told me something > about select codes, switch settings etc. But nothing about cable pinouts > etc. Have you tried http://www.hpmuseum.net ? I don;t know if it's got anything as late as this machine, but it's a pretty good site for old HP computer manuals > > I tried my 2648 terminal with the cable, without success. Perhaps my > terminal is broken or - what I think - the cable pinout is incompatible > to the "new" A600. Assuming this is a normal RS232 connection, can you not just put a breakout box on the line? That would tell you if the computer is sending anything and which pin it's sending it on (i.e. do you need a null-modem cable). For that matter, have you tried 'looping back' the terminal (shorting pin 2 to pin 3 of the DB25, with it unplugged from the computer, works on most terminals provided they don't need handshake lines). If you do that, the terminal should display everything you type on its keyboard. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Feb 14 12:30:44 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:30:44 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, In-Reply-To: <5f7d1b0e0802131637v3bb9e0fdw183e90fe6c5bfb93@mail.gmail.com> from "Jason McBrien" at Feb 13, 8 07:37:53 pm Message-ID: > > On Wed, Feb 13, 2008 at 7:26 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, Charles H Dickman wrote: > > > So what is the oldest computer still operational? > > > > Meaningless question, until you DEFINE: > > "Oldest" > > > The earliest created. It's birthday is the moment it first calculated > something, or the day it went on sale. Whuch are not the same thing, of course. > > > > "computer" > > > A machine that can (theoretically) automatically solve any arbitrary > problem, with input, storage, and output. I think the term is pretty well This is not my field at all, but I was under the impression that the likes of Turing proved that such a machine was impossible. Even if only consider those problems that can be solved on a Turing machine, then such a computer does not exist, since a Turing machine has unlimited storage. > defined. Not a tabulator, or calculator, or punch-card time tracking > machine, or programmable loom. Remember that the origianal definition of 'computer' was a person who operated a calculating machine (and not the machine itself).... > > > > > > "operational" > > > > > Still performs to original specs. Lights light up, results are accurate, > etc... So if the power-on lamp has failed it's no longer an operational computer? Strange... I felt I'd got my HP9830 (by no maeans the oldest opeational computer, but an early personal computer none-the-less) operational when I got a prompt and when I could type in BASIC programs and it would execute them. Even though the power-on lamp has burnt out, and it took me serveral months to get round to ordering a replacement. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Feb 14 12:32:08 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:32:08 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: <47B38DA9.3000102@jetnet.ab.ca> from "woodelf" at Feb 13, 8 05:39:05 pm Message-ID: > > John Floren wrote: > > ...? Do adding machines count? > No they just add. I would ahve thought that 'counting' and 'repeatedly adding one to an accumulator register' were much the same thing :-) > Runs and ducks. Ditto. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Feb 14 12:47:16 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:47:16 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> from "Gavin Melville" at Feb 14, 8 04:03:14 pm Message-ID: > > Hi, > > Not completely on topic, but my boss wishes to build a computer using > modern knowledge, but only materials, IO etc that existed as at 1st Jan > 1900. The basic premise is that had a need existed, and they knew how > to make one, could have it been done. I think you need to be more specific. The laws of physics and chemistry have, AFAIK, not changed since 1900. The necessary raw materials to make transsitors and ICs were around then. So from what you said, you could just use a microprocessor.... So I think you have to consider just what you are, and are not, allowing with respect to making devices to make components, etc. > > That initially seemed hard, and certainly isn't easy, in that I'm the > one doing the "building" :-) however we have fairly quickly identified > that magnetic logic is the only likely candidate. Currently I'm playing Relays were certainly well known and understood at that time. I would propose a relay logic machine, therefore. Unfortunately my books on telegraphy are about 10-15 years too late. Some of the stuff in there could well be very applicable if it was known at the time you want. For example, and going a bit off the thread, one of my old books on electrical engineering describes a system used on the London Underground (underground railway, subway, call it what you will) to keep track of the trains. Each train had a 4 bit code, there was a drunm with 4 rows of pins whcih could be moved itn oone of 2 states to stoe the IDs of the trains. A set of solenoids moved the pins, the drum was then stepped to the next positon. A separate rotating set of contacts read out the states of a a row of pins and then moved on to the next one. It worked just like the classic circular queue with seaprate read and write pointers that we've all implemented in software at some point. The outputs of the contacts were decoded by a 'tree stucture' of relays to produce a 1-of-16 output. Now, as I said, I don;t know if that was around in 1900, but it certainly _could_ have been, The electric light bulb was known before 1900. The Edison Effect (diode valve) was, IIRC 1883. THe triode, was, alas, later (1907 I think), but maybe you'll stretch the point and allow it. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Feb 14 12:37:23 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:37:23 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP1000/A600 Help and docs and sw needed! - Update In-Reply-To: <47B39759.7020200@hachti.de> from "Philipp Hachtmann" at Feb 14, 8 02:20:25 am Message-ID: > So now I want to hook up HPIB. > I urgently need the HPIB interface's pinout. And an idea which connector > to use. There seem to be two connector styles at the card. Very > different from the old HP1000 HPIB card edge connector (for which I have > a cable..) :-( Almost all HPIB devices have a 24 pin microribbon connector on them. The cables are stragiht-through wired with both male and female connector at each end [1], so you can stack them up to connnect multiple devices, [1] Although I recently obtained a couple of moulded HPIB cables with a male/female connector at one end and a male connector (only) at the other. Made by HP too. I assume, thought that the HPIB interface in the computer doesn't have such a connector. What connector does it have? You may beed to identify the HPIB controller chip (may be HP custom, like the Medusa) and trace the HPIB signls trhough buffer chips to the connector. It deosn't take that long give a good set of databooks! -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Feb 14 12:49:55 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:49:55 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, In-Reply-To: <021420080309.16027.47B3B0F20008549D00003E9B22230680329B0A02D2089B9A019C04040A0DBF9B9D0E9A9B9C040D@att.net> from "Brian L. Stuart" at Feb 14, 8 03:09:38 am Message-ID: > So the computer literally did not operate because of > a burned out light bulb. When I replaced the bulb, > it worked just fine. TO go completely off-topic, I have an old Heathkit PSU where the supply to the zener diode reference is itself stabilised by a gas discahrge tube (somethling like an OA2). And the series resistor for that tube is the (110V) power-on lamp. And yes, I was given it becuase it didn't work, and the reason it didn't work was that the lamp had failed. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Feb 14 12:53:56 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:53:56 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Digitalker, SP0256, and SC-01 speech chips (was Re: Digitalker In-Reply-To: <1202979107.17693.43.camel@elric> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Feb 14, 8 08:51:47 am Message-ID: > > > On Thu, 2008-02-14 at 02:04 -0500, M H Stein wrote: > > > Keep in mind that the SP0256 is only an allophone generator; although there > > were expansion ROMs available, for text-to-speech you needed something like > > the CTS256-AL2, which was a PIC (yes, GI made PICs in the '70s!) programmed > > PIC as is Arizona Microchip PIC, or PIC as in something else? The former. I forget what the CTS256 'really' was, but it was pretty clearly a programmed PIC. The 1654 is a lot older than many people realise -tony From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Feb 14 13:24:08 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:24:08 -0700 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B49558.6020600@jetnet.ab.ca> Tony Duell wrote: > Remember that the origianal definition of 'computer' was a person who > operated a calculating machine (and not the machine itself).... Pick the computer .... Granny #1,Granny #2, Granny #3 :) From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Feb 14 13:23:59 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:23:59 -0500 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - bulk buy on eBay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <35FB0B04-00F1-403F-86B6-22B055AE89DA@neurotica.com> On Feb 14, 2008, at 1:00 PM, listmailgoeshere at gmail.com wrote: > The 6094 LPFK has been discussed on this list before (see thread "IBM > 6094-020 Lighted Program Function Keys"). > > I notice that there's a bulk lot of 19 of them on ePay (see > 180215874744) - now, I don't want 19, but I'd like one. I'm sure there > are others on this list who would as well. > > Who else is game? This seller will only ship to the US, so someone > within the US (I'm not) would need to receive them and reship - I'll > happily pay a few $ on top of the onward postage for the trouble. I'm definitely game...if someone arranges a bulk purchase (I can't right now) please put me down for four. I'm thinking it might be nice to build a USB interface for these. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From dr.emiel at xs4all.nl Thu Feb 14 13:35:28 2008 From: dr.emiel at xs4all.nl (Rik) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:35:28 +0100 Subject: HP1000/A600 Help and docs and sw needed! - Update References: Message-ID: <008301c86f40$c12e3480$0501a8c0@xp1800> Normally on the HP 1000 A-series the 12009A HPIB-card is used the manual is found at : http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=662 Rik ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Duell" To: Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 7:37 PM Subject: Re: HP1000/A600 Help and docs and sw needed! - Update >> So now I want to hook up HPIB. >> I urgently need the HPIB interface's pinout. And an idea which connector >> to use. There seem to be two connector styles at the card. Very >> different from the old HP1000 HPIB card edge connector (for which I have >> a cable..) :-( > > Almost all HPIB devices have a 24 pin microribbon connector on them. The > cables are stragiht-through wired with both male and female connector at > each end [1], so you can stack them up to connnect multiple devices, > > [1] Although I recently obtained a couple of moulded HPIB cables with a > male/female connector at one end and a male connector (only) at the > other. Made by HP too. > > I assume, thought that the HPIB interface in the computer doesn't have > such a connector. What connector does it have? > > You may beed to identify the HPIB controller chip (may be HP custom, like > the Medusa) and trace the HPIB signls trhough buffer chips to the > connector. It deosn't take that long give a good set of databooks! > > -tony > > From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 14 13:38:56 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:38:56 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: <200802141800.m1EI0KiU061526@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802141800.m1EI0KiU061526@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47B42850.7721.8B2E41@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:56:25 -0500 My vote, considering old technology would be for mechanical (and possibly pneumatic). Mechanical read-write memories have existed for a long time (think about the adjustable combination action on a pipe organ). Read-only memories are possibly even older (Jacquard looms, player pianos, music boxes). Mechanisms for performing addition and subtraction are also very old. By 1850, fine precision machining had progressed pretty far along. But Will's right--in 1906, electronics was very primitive, particularly in terms of controlling device characteristics. Remember that spark-gap transmitters overlapped the discovery of thermionic electronic devices by quite a few years, mostly due to--I suspect--power-handling capabilities and general reliability. Incidentally, I ran across a 2001 US patent for a mechanical bit- serial adder (6249485). Very clever. But could one have a computer that could execute conditional branches and modify its own program? Yes, I think so--consider program storage arranged as pins set in concentric circles on the surface of a rotating disc. One could certainly devise a method of skipping instructions until a certain pin had been encountered. Similarly, if a register could be implemented to hold a single instruction word, instructions could be implemented to store into it and execute it. For what little it's worth. Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 13:49:15 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:49:15 -0500 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - bulk buy on eBay In-Reply-To: <35FB0B04-00F1-403F-86B6-22B055AE89DA@neurotica.com> References: <35FB0B04-00F1-403F-86B6-22B055AE89DA@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <47B49B3B.4060203@gmail.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Feb 14, 2008, at 1:00 PM, listmailgoeshere at gmail.com wrote: >> The 6094 LPFK has been discussed on this list before (see thread "IBM >> 6094-020 Lighted Program Function Keys"). >> >> I notice that there's a bulk lot of 19 of them on ePay (see >> 180215874744) - now, I don't want 19, but I'd like one. I'm sure there >> are others on this list who would as well. >> >> Who else is game? This seller will only ship to the US, so someone >> within the US (I'm not) would need to receive them and reship - I'll >> happily pay a few $ on top of the onward postage for the trouble. > > I'm definitely game...if someone arranges a bulk purchase (I can't > right now) please put me down for four. I'm thinking it might be nice > to build a USB interface for these. A USB interface for this, I believe, would just be a USB->serial adapter with a breakout for power. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 13:49:35 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:49:35 -0500 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - bulk buy on eBay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B49B4F.7050306@gmail.com> Paxton Hoag wrote: >> The 6094 LPFK has been discussed on this list before (see thread "IBM >> 6094-020 Lighted Program Function Keys"). >> >> I notice that there's a bulk lot of 19 of them on ePay (see >> 180215874744) - now, I don't want 19, but I'd like one. I'm sure there >> are others on this list who would as well. >> >> Who else is game? This seller will only ship to the US, so someone >> within the US (I'm not) would need to receive them and reship - I'll >> happily pay a few $ on top of the onward postage for the trouble. > > > I see they are in Portland, Oregon. I could do this. I ship > internationally all the time. > > How many people are interested? It would be best to reply off list or > to me directly at paxton.hoag at gmail.com. I'd want one. Peace... Sridhar From legalize at xmission.com Thu Feb 14 14:02:21 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:02:21 -0700 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:21:23 +0000. <1203009683.32199.0.camel@elric> Message-ID: In article <1203009683.32199.0.camel at elric>, Gordon JC Pearce writes: > > Tubes back then barely worked. When they did work, they barely > > amplified. And you were lucky to get 50 hours out of them. A try > > getting two that were vaguely similar electrically. And then try to > > find someone that actually knew how the things worked. > > Why do you suppose they barely worked? Because no-one could make them, > or because no-one had figured out what to make them out of? The book "From Whirlwind to MITRE: The R&D Story of The SAGE Air Defense Computer" has quite a bit of coverage of the methods used on Whirlwind (and SAGE) to get repeatable quality components. Even in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the variance and reliability of components was not built in by the manufacturers. As a user of the devices, the MIT team developed methods for testing and characterizing components and rejecting the components most likely to fail early. This knowledge fed back to the manufacturers to the point where the manufacturers started doing their own testing and QA of their components. According to the book, this was the first systematic attempt at characterizing these sorts of components (tubes) in any meaningful way. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 14:43:44 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:43:44 -0600 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> <47B47A5A.3060000@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B4A800.3040106@gmail.com> William Donzelli wrote: >> Tube theory means virtually nothing to me (except that I know that the >> earliest ones weren't exactly paragons of reliability :-) - but I suspect >> that the answer to "could it be done" is a yes. The end result might not give >> out sane data most of the time, would probably be as big as a house, and >> likely wouldn't run for more than a day or two before everyone gave up in >> disgust - but I suspect it'd be *possible* > > No. No. No. No. > > If I were better at probabilities and statistics, I could probably > *prove* it to be impossible, or close enough to it to not matter > anymore. Take into account variations of the tubes and the time needed > to tweak out the variations, and figure in the MTBF of the devices and > the number of devices, and I think the result would be very near zero. So are you saying that by the time you've tested enough components to make the thing work, the first components tested have already started to fail (and by implication, that early tubes would fail very quickly even when not being actively used)? Or just that the early tubes would fail so often that replacement would be constant, with nothing left over for actual operational time? Given that we're talking digital logic here, I would have expected that it's reasonably easy to test whether a particular tube will perform in a digital environment, just not how long it'll stay operational. Like I say though, I'm not a tube person... > I do not even think that the industry at the time could even make > enough tubes to keep up with the demands for just one machine. Maybe... interesting point (although I suppose it doesn't affect the question of building a machine now using 1900-era components - just of whether it could have been done back then) >> That's probably covered by the "modern knowledge" part of the aforementioned >> post > > If you have modern knowledge, and all that knowledge it built on, just > make an Intel Core 2. Where's the fun in that? :-) I don't think the question was asked with an attempt to attain modern performance / reliability / ease of use / cost etc. in mind. But yes, we need the OP to give us a few more guidelines as to where the boundaries are, as "1900-era materials and modern knowledge" covers way too much ground. cheers Jules From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 14:50:57 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:50:57 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <1203009683.32199.0.camel@elric> Message-ID: > As a user of the devices, the MIT > team developed methods for testing and characterizing components and > rejecting the components most likely to fail early. This knowledge > fed back to the manufacturers to the point where the manufacturers > started doing their own testing and QA of their components. According > to the book, this was the first systematic attempt at characterizing > these sorts of components (tubes) in any meaningful way. I hope no oldtimers from Western Electric read this book. Or the military. Or RCA. Or Sylvania. -- Will From fu3.org at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 14:51:03 2008 From: fu3.org at gmail.com (Chris H.) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:51:03 +0100 Subject: doppleganger.org, c4expo2007 Message-ID: <310f50ab0802141251r3ec3fe2djfc3dee96038822b5@mail.gmail.com> Just in case this hasn't been through the circulation, or this isn't someone already on the list: http://www.doppleganger.org/c4expo2007.html (Nice pictures. Too modern, perhaps.) -- < http://whorehou.se/ > From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 14:58:20 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:58:20 -0600 Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: <47B42850.7721.8B2E41@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200802141800.m1EI0KiU061526@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47B42850.7721.8B2E41@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47B4AB6C.2000408@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:56:25 -0500 > Incidentally, I ran across a 2001 US patent for a mechanical bit- > serial adder (6249485). Very clever. Interesting - I need to properly digest that (and see if I can get at the diagrams anywhere; maybe that's a pay service). Interesting that it was from the Long Now lot, too. > But could one have a computer that could execute conditional branches > and modify its own program? Yes, I think so--consider program > storage arranged as pins set in concentric circles on the surface of > a rotating disc. One could certainly devise a method of skipping > instructions until a certain pin had been encountered. Well I suppose it's just the concept of data and addresses, whether it be a disk, belt, stack of something, or whatever. Conditional branches shouldn't pose a problem, and program modification is surely just an ability to write to the data store in which the program's held... cheers Jules From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 15:15:06 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:15:06 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <47B4A800.3040106@gmail.com> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> <47B47A5A.3060000@gmail.com> <47B4A800.3040106@gmail.com> Message-ID: > So are you saying that by the time you've tested enough components to make the > thing work, the first components tested have already started to fail (and by > implication, that early tubes would fail very quickly even when not being > actively used)? > > Or just that the early tubes would fail so often that replacement would be > constant, with nothing left over for actual operational time? Both. > Given that we're talking digital logic here, I would have expected that it's > reasonably easy to test whether a particular tube will perform in a digital > environment, just not how long it'll stay operational. Any triode will work in a digital fashion. > But yes, we need the OP to give us a few more guidelines as to where the > boundaries are, as "1900-era materials and modern knowledge" covers way too > much ground. Modern knowledge of computer architecture only, perhaps. -- Will From brain at jbrain.com Thu Feb 14 16:02:24 2008 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:02:24 -0600 Subject: EPROM programmer Message-ID: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> It appears I've staved off buying one of these too long and now I need one. Way back in the day, I used an ART EPP1, and I liked the serial connection (as I could use it from any machine,not just a PC). But, there are lots of options today. My primary interest is in replicating CBM KERNAL roms, though I would not mind uC programming capabilities. What do other people use for eprom programming? I see a slew of Willem programmers, but I don't understand why there are so many variants. A bummer is that they all use the Paallel Port, as far as I can tell. Jim From mardy at voysys.com Thu Feb 14 16:12:23 2008 From: mardy at voysys.com (Marden P. Marshall) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:12:23 -0500 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <8BFABF97-9243-43EF-8B6F-3323A0C5AC64@voysys.com> On Feb 14, 2008, at 5:02 PM, Jim Brain wrote: > It appears I've staved off buying one of these too long and now I > need one. > > Way back in the day, I used an ART EPP1, and I liked the serial > connection (as I could use it from any machine,not just a PC). > > But, there are lots of options today. My primary interest is in > replicating CBM KERNAL roms, though I would not mind uC programming > capabilities. > > What do other people use for eprom programming? I see a slew of > Willem programmers, but I don't understand why there are so many > variants. A bummer is that they all use the Paallel Port, as far as > I can tell. > > Jim > > Data I/O 29B or System 19 with either a UniPak or UniPak II. They handle pretty much any of the old EPROMS from 2708's on up. For simple duplication operations, you can do everything from the control panel. They also have a serial interface for talking to a computer. You can usually find them on eBay for short money. -Mardy From legalize at xmission.com Thu Feb 14 16:12:28 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:12:28 -0700 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:50:57 -0500. Message-ID: In article , "William Donzelli" writes: > > As a user of the devices, the MIT > > team developed methods for testing and characterizing components and > > rejecting the components most likely to fail early. This knowledge > > fed back to the manufacturers to the point where the manufacturers > > started doing their own testing and QA of their components. According > > to the book, this was the first systematic attempt at characterizing > > these sorts of components (tubes) in any meaningful way. > > I hope no oldtimers from Western Electric read this book. Or the > military. Or RCA. Or Sylvania. Its not to say that *no* electronic components of any variety were being produced with specific quality and reliability standards, its the components that were being used to fabricate Whirlwind. In particular, things like core memory were invented for Whirlwind, so there was no established quality/reliability metric. I can dig out the portion of the book and cite specifics if its really a huge point of contention. MIT/Whirlwind/SAGE didn't do this for things like wires, resistors, inductors, etc., but for the more advanced components that were newly invented. I know they did it for core memory, and I believe there were also some tubes mentioned. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Feb 14 16:14:31 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:14:31 -0700 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - bulk buy on eBay In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:49:35 -0500. <47B49B4F.7050306@gmail.com> Message-ID: I have one. I don't know what i would do with more of them; is the communication protocol documented anywhere? It would be nice to hook up to an X11 machine with the Xinput extension. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Feb 14 16:23:40 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:23:40 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <47B46E59.6000200@jetnet.ab.ca> <47B4700F.20109@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B4BF6D.855976EB@cs.ubc.ca> Tube technology: - DeForest was hacking around looking for a non-infringing (on other's patents) detector for radio waves, not an amplifier, when he developed the audion (not 'audiotron'). I'm using the word 'hacking' in the pejorative sense here: some of his earlier attempts involved trying to send currents through the flame of a bunsen burner. Even when he arrived at the idea of a three-electrode vacuum device (he disavowed any influence by the Fleming valve), his first attempts didn't even have the control electrode ('grid') between the cathode and anode (the control electrode was not in the electron stream). I don't think I'm out of line in saying he had no idea what he was doing at a theoretical level. - The ability of the audion to amplify would not be realised/implemented for yet another few years after 1906/7. - The laws of physics and chemistry haven't changed for billions of years. The knowledge of them most certainly has changed since 1900, even as they relate to the principles of vacuum tubes. Thomson's discovery of the electron was in just 1897, Rutherford's model of the atom as a +charge nucleus with orbitting -charge electrons wasn't until 1911. How the audion worked was not well understood at the time of it's development, even by a physicist. - The characteristics of a vacuum tube will vary with the remnant gas pressure, getting a high vacuum was still a problem in 1900. (re: Will's mention of lack of uniformity/variation between tubes in the early years). - Even if you coul get a good vacuum when the tube was initially built, the seals were an issue in the early years. IIRC, it wasn't until much later (the 20's?, where are my refs) that a metal alloy that had a thermal expansion coefficient matching glass would be developed. -- The 'need' for a 'computer': - It most certainly was there, well before 1900. Babbage's work was inspired/driven by need: to reliably calculate function tables (in part for navigation). -- The possibility of Magnetostrictive Delay Lines around 1930: - Need to look up when the magnetostrictive principle was discovered. It's a pretty subtle characteristic exhibited only by a few materials, it may not have been discovered till quite late. (Also needs sensitive reasonably low-noise amplifiers.) From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Feb 14 16:24:10 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:24:10 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <47B4BF8A.462B03E@cs.ubc.ca> A slight variation on the OP's original proposal/spec, but a fun project would be to re-design/implement Babbage's analytical engine using relays. This is something that could have been accomplished in 1900 - both the technology and the concept existed - if only somebody had put 2+2 together at the time (pun intended). It's interesting to speculate that if Babbage had been born or been working just a couple of decades later than when he was, or alternatively if electrical concepts had been just slightly more advanced in his time, he would have throught of implementing his ideas with electric relays and would likely have succeeded (although one might argue the same about the state of mechanical technology). From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Feb 14 16:30:58 2008 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:30:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <20080214142644.P50462@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 14 Feb 2008, William Donzelli wrote: > I am sitting here, reading this thread, and am astounded by what > people think tubes could do back in 1906. It would have been > *impossible* to make any sort of computing device using the technology > of the time. You would have better luck porting OS/2 to a 709. a Linux port might be more fun punch cards, telegraph, and even crude fax were around. > The problem that always ends up being the show stopper is in RAM. > Using a CRT for the memory was still off quite a few years, ferrite > cores were not around for a few more, capacitors generally were too > leaky to hold a charge long, magnetic recording was just not really > there yet - so the only real option for online storage is an acoustic > delay loop. as postulated, the reuirement is that it COULD BE manufactured using period technology, not that it WAS in use. Core memory WOULD be possible. > Or paper, in the form of punch cards - which is exactly were the > computer industry went. Cheap, easy, reliable, non-volatile. There is a certain comforting feeling to the easy to understand cardboard technologies From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 16:50:35 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:50:35 -0600 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <47B4C5BB.3050409@gmail.com> Jim Brain wrote: > What do other people use for eprom programming? Mine's a 'Universe 1000' made by Elan - it's a combined EPROM/PAL programmer with an on-board keypad/display and a row of about 10 ZIF sockets (of various sizes), all driven by a Z80. Local memory is 1Mbit, which limits what it can do even if the cartridges I have for it would do more (although it's rare I need an EPROM anything like that size, 128Kbit is normally my limit). It's old, but it does the job (no support for 3-rail devices though). Main plus for me is that comms to the outside world is RS-232 rather than something weird, so it's easy to hook up to what I have, and the fact that it's got all its smarts locally means that I'm not stuck with custom control software issues. One day I should grab a photo of the internals for posterity though - it's about the worst build quality of anything I've ever seen (and the chassis/casing appears to have been designed by a 5 year old). I'm amazed it works at all, but it does what it does very well... cheers Jules From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Feb 14 16:59:13 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:59:13 -0700 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <47B4BF8A.462B03E@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <47B4BF8A.462B03E@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <47B4C7C1.7000903@jetnet.ab.ca> Brent Hilpert wrote: > A slight variation on the OP's original proposal/spec, but a fun project would > be to re-design/implement Babbage's analytical engine using relays. This is > something that could have been accomplished in 1900 - both the technology and > the concept existed - if only somebody had put 2+2 together at the time (pun intended). Why not just buy some Mechanno and join the rest of the crowd. (Sorry no link) > It's interesting to speculate that if Babbage had been born or been working > just a couple of decades later than when he was, or alternatively if electrical > concepts had been just slightly more advanced in his time, he would have > throught of implementing his ideas with electric relays and would likely have > succeeded (although one might argue the same about the state of mechanical technology). Well some mechanical implication of Babbage's work has been constructed but seems mechanical problems rather logic ones was the main problem in constructing the device. > > . > From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Feb 14 17:01:08 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:01:08 -0700 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> <47B47A5A.3060000@gmail.com> <47B4A800.3040106@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B4C834.4070003@jetnet.ab.ca> William Donzelli wrote: > Any triode will work in a digital fashion. Umm not really ... read the fine print that comes with your triode. The reverse is often true -- digital tubes make great audio tubes. See 5965 for a typical computer tube. >> But yes, we need the OP to give us a few more guidelines as to where the >> boundaries are, as "1900-era materials and modern knowledge" covers way too >> much ground. > > Modern knowledge of computer architecture only, perhaps. Digital is the modern idea. > -- > Will > > > . > From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 17:14:51 2008 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere at gmail.com) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:14:51 +0000 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - bulk buy on eBay In-Reply-To: References: <47B49B4F.7050306@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 10:14 PM, Richard wrote: > > I have one. I don't know what i would do with more of them; is the > communication protocol documented anywhere? Yep: http://codeninja.de/lpfk/ From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Feb 14 17:17:49 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:17:49 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> <47B47A5A.3060000@gmail.com> <47B4A800.3040106@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B4CC1E.F52FC67C@cs.ubc.ca> Jules Richardson wrote: > Given that we're talking digital logic here, I would have expected that it's > reasonably easy to test whether a particular tube will perform in a digital > environment, just not how long it'll stay operational. Like I say though, I'm > not a tube person... Tubes are really not great as digital devices. Cut-off is pretty good (very high impedance) but saturation is soft (curved) (see audiophiles) and still leaves a relatively high impedance at saturation which varies with age and between tubes. The output voltage at the plate is a far cry from the needed input voltage at the grids, so voltage dividers are needed (more variability). Then you need to sum the multiple inputs of a gate into the grid of the tube: If you don't have nice non-linear devices like 'crystal diodes' (or multiple grids, or neons (not to start that discussion again)) that becomes another region in the system behaving in a very analog fashion. Start adding up all these variabilities and you end up requiring some pretty tight tolerances: in power supplies, tubes, and passive devices). In a radio receiver you can compensate for the disjoint variabilities in a string of a dozen tubes with a single twist of the volume control. That's the miracle of analog systems. No such luck in a digital system. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 17:18:30 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:18:30 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Its not to say that *no* electronic components of any variety were > being produced with specific quality and reliability standards, its the > components that were being used to fabricate Whirlwind. In > particular, things like core memory were invented for Whirlwind, so > there was no established quality/reliability metric. For core, yes, but not for the tubes. Whirlwind did not use any groundbreaking new types. > MIT/Whirlwind/SAGE didn't do this for things like wires, resistors, > inductors, etc., but for the more advanced components that were newly > invented. I know they did it for core memory, and I believe there > were also some tubes mentioned. Most of the really hard core study of tube reliability happened in the 1930s and World War 2. -- Will From hachti at hachti.de Thu Feb 14 17:19:16 2008 From: hachti at hachti.de (Philipp Hachtmann) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:19:16 +0100 Subject: HP1000/A600 Help and docs and sw needed! - Update In-Reply-To: <008301c86f40$c12e3480$0501a8c0@xp1800> References: <008301c86f40$c12e3480$0501a8c0@xp1800> Message-ID: <47B4CC74.1000507@hachti.de> Rik wrote: > Normally on the HP 1000 A-series the 12009A HPIB-card is used the manual > is found at : > http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=662 > Thanks! That helped very much! Are you interested to get your hands onto my system? I am running out of space... Will try to make a HPIB cable now... Regards, Ph :-) From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 17:23:05 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:23:05 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <47B4C834.4070003@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> <47B47A5A.3060000@gmail.com> <47B4A800.3040106@gmail.com> <47B4C834.4070003@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > Umm not really ... read the fine print that comes with your triode. I will wager I can make the most non-computer like triodes in my collection work digitally. They may not work well, but they will work on an individual basis. > The reverse is often true -- digital tubes make great audio tubes. Computer tubes are NOT matched per section, and often have lower quality specs for hum and noise. Jay, feel free to start shooting people if this starts an audio thread. I am ducking out NOW so do not blame me. -- Will From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Feb 14 17:30:28 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:30:28 -0700 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B4CF14.3070508@jetnet.ab.ca> William Donzelli wrote: > Most of the really hard core study of tube reliability happened in the > 1930s and World War 2. But NEW tubes for computers did not come out untill after about 1955 I guess. Looking at the 5965 datasheet you only get 1000 hours of tube life. > -- > Will Tubes became smaller was the trend. TV sure made a big difference in tube sales. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Feb 14 17:33:06 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:33:06 -0700 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> <47B47A5A.3060000@gmail.com> <47B4A800.3040106@gmail.com> <47B4C834.4070003@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <47B4CFB2.1020901@jetnet.ab.ca> William Donzelli wrote: > Computer tubes are NOT matched per section, and often have lower > quality specs for hum and noise. Where do you get that information from? > -- > Will > From jack.rubin at ameritech.net Thu Feb 14 17:32:57 2008 From: jack.rubin at ameritech.net (Jack Rubin) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:32:57 -0600 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <200802142203.m1EM3agb066127@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <000001c86f61$ee891050$176fa8c0@obie> > Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:02:24 -0600 > From: Jim Brain > Subject: EPROM programmer > To: Classic Computer Talk > Message-ID: <47B4BA70.9080703 at jbrain.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > What do other people use for eprom programming? I see a slew > of Willem > programmers, but I don't understand why there are so many > variants. A > bummer is that they all use the Paallel Port, as far as I can tell. > > Jim > I ended up getting the True-USB Willem programmer(GQ-3X) Pack PRO from MCUMall and am quite happy with it. Service and support has been pretty good. Not Data I/O by any means but seems to be a pretty good value. USB interface is very convenient. http://www.mcumall.com/comersus/store/comersus_dynamicIndex.asp Jack No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.5/1278 - Release Date: 2/14/2008 10:28 AM From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 17:43:19 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:43:19 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <47B4CF14.3070508@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <47B4CF14.3070508@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > But NEW tubes for computers did not come out untill > after about 1955 I guess. Looking at the 5965 datasheet > you only get 1000 hours of tube life. "Computer tubes" were NOT developed for computers. They were developed for radar applications, mostly IFF. -- Will From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 17:50:18 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:50:18 -0600 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <47B4C7C1.7000903@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <47B4BF8A.462B03E@cs.ubc.ca> <47B4C7C1.7000903@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <47B4D3BA.30005@gmail.com> woodelf wrote: > Why not just buy some Mechanno and join the rest of the crowd. > (Sorry no link) :-) I don't have a reference to the Meccano one, but the Lego flavour's here: http://acarol.woz.org From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Feb 14 18:00:52 2008 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:00:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> from "Jim Brain" at Feb 14, 2008 04:02:24 PM Message-ID: <200802150000.m1F00qvC009554@onyx.spiritone.com> > It appears I've staved off buying one of these too long and now I need one. > > Way back in the day, I used an ART EPP1, and I liked the serial > connection (as I could use it from any machine,not just a PC). > > But, there are lots of options today. My primary interest is in > replicating CBM KERNAL roms, though I would not mind uC programming > capabilities. > > What do other people use for eprom programming? I see a slew of Willem > programmers, but I don't understand why there are so many variants. A > bummer is that they all use the Paallel Port, as far as I can tell. The Willem programmers are all based on an Open Source hardware design. I bought one a few months back for just the purpose you're looking at. IIRC, mine has a Parallel port interface, with USB providing the power. I've used it a few times and am very happy with it and the very cheap/basic chinese EPROM eraser that I also bought. Both items came off eBay from US Sellers. What was more fun was soldering up the EPROM adapters. :^) Zane From us21090 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 18:11:44 2008 From: us21090 at yahoo.com (Scott Austin) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:11:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - bulk buy on eBay Message-ID: <394768.49935.qm@web30802.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I'd be interested in a couple and could probably swing the purchase of the lot. Now of course, it all depends on: How high the auction price goes. How much the interested cctalkers are willing to pay for their X number of units. There's a some discussion needed, so we ought to take this off list, right? Scott Austin us21090 at yahoo.com ----- Original Message ---- From: "listmailgoeshere at gmail.com" To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 1:00:35 PM Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - bulk buy on eBay Hi cctalkers, The 6094 LPFK has been discussed on this list before (see thread "IBM 6094-020 Lighted Program Function Keys"). I notice that there's a bulk lot of 19 of them on ePay (see 180215874744) - now, I don't want 19, but I'd like one. I'm sure there are others on this list who would as well. Who else is game? This seller will only ship to the US, so someone within the US (I'm not) would need to receive them and reship - I'll happily pay a few $ on top of the onward postage for the trouble. Any volunteers? Ed. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Feb 14 18:18:09 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:18:09 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue23 References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <47B4BF8A.462B03E@cs.ubc.ca> <47B4C7C1.7000903@jetnet.ab.ca> <47B4D3BA.30005@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B4DA40.4C6BB02B@cs.ubc.ca> Jules Richardson wrote: > > woodelf wrote: > > Why not just buy some Mechanno and join the rest of the crowd. > > (Sorry no link) > > :-) > > I don't have a reference to the Meccano one, but the Lego flavour's here: > > http://acarol.woz.org These are great, but the lego one, at least, is a difference engine. The analytical engine was far more sophisticated and far more capable ('programmable calculator'). I've seen pics of the meccano difference engine, I don't recall having seen a meccano analytical engine. From lbickley at bickleywest.com Thu Feb 14 19:06:22 2008 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:06:22 -0800 Subject: Vintage Computer Marketplace. . . In-Reply-To: <8CA3CEC4FCCE967-12F0-16CC@webmail-ne13.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA3CEC4FCCE967-12F0-16CC@webmail-ne13.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <200802141706.23098.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Wednesday 13 February 2008 22:45, tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > It looks like the domain name registration for VCM hasn't been > renewed. There's no problem with the domain registration. As Sellam mentioned a while back on this list, he's in the process of completely redoing the Vintage Computer Marketplace site. > Is it coming back? In about a month... Regards, 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 Thu Feb 14 19:36:02 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:36:02 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: <200802142203.m1EM3agf066127@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802142203.m1EM3agf066127@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47B47C02.12925.1D21DEA@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:58:20 -0600 > From: Jules Richardson > Interesting - I need to properly digest that (and see if I can get at the > diagrams anywhere; maybe that's a pay service). Interesting that it was > from the Long Now lot, too. It's all online at http://www.uspto.gov Don't fall for those services offering to sell you copy. It's all there on the gummint site. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 14 19:56:11 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:56:11 -0800 Subject: Digitalker, SP0256, and SC-01 speech chips In-Reply-To: <200802142203.m1EM3agf066127@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802142203.m1EM3agf066127@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47B480BB.22043.1E49005@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:01:04 -0500 > From: Dave McGuire > Doubtful, as it's just the same architecture, and far from the > same implementation. The 8X30x chips are bipolar, if memory serves. But > either way, I'm not sure what the point would be, aside from possibly > building new boards using an existing 8X30x MSCP implementation. As one who has had the extreme displeasure of programming both the 8X300 and an 8X305, I'd have to say that the two have about as much in common with a PIC as a pocket knife to an CNC EDM system. The instruction sets aren't even close, nor is the data path architecture. In some respects, the bipolar chip has a bit more flexibility (e.g. variable-length operations and an "execute" instruction) even with its limitation of an instruction set of size 8. On the other hand, the PIC1640, developed for the CP1600 in 1976 is clearly recognizable as a cousin to the modern PIC, right down to the W register. The odd thing was that the PIC1640 used a 12-bit instruction word, while the CP1600 used 10 bits of the instruction word, even though it was a 16-bit CPU. The CP1600 wasn't particularly deficient in I/O operations--it simply didn't have any. Couple that with a 1MHz clock and multi-word instructions and you had a very slow system, even compared to a 2MHz 8080. On the other hand, the instruction set was very pleasant and fairly orthogonal--it might remind one of a PDP-11 instruction set. Do you have a cite that states that the PIC1640 is a direct descendent of the SMS 300? Microchip certainly doesn't admit it--and I'd be hard pressed to find the similarity beyond both being Harvard architecture binary CPUs. Cheers, Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Feb 14 20:23:09 2008 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:23:09 -0800 Subject: PIC history Message-ID: <47B4F78D.2040905@bitsavers.org> > Do you have a cite that states that the PIC1640 is a direct > descendent of the SMS 300? That seems highly unlikely. The PIC was being worked on at GI on Long Island when I was doing a project for GI in the late 70's on a CP-1600 system. The designers were Scottish. I tried to convince them to make the architecture more like the 1600's (ie. PDP-11 like) because I thought the 11 was a better architecture than what they were coming up with. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 21:22:36 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:22:36 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <20080214142644.P50462@shell.lmi.net> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> <20080214142644.P50462@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: > as postulated, the reuirement is that it COULD BE manufactured using > period technology, not that it WAS in use. Core memory WOULD be possible. No ferrite. And not a chance that the tubes could drive the lines in a predictable way. -- Will From tiggerlasv at aim.com Thu Feb 14 21:27:40 2008 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:27:40 -0500 Subject: Vintage Computer Marketplace. . . Message-ID: <8CA3D99DA6E8A54-1448-4F65@webmail-nb14.sysops.aol.com> The domain registration expired on February 5th, and hasn't been (posted as) renewed as of yet. At least that's what the nice little page says when you try to go there. ;-) Just thought I'd mention it, since I hadn't heard any updates in a while. At least now we know. . . T ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From wmaddox at pacbell.net Thu Feb 14 21:38:02 2008 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:38:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Vintage Computer Marketplace. . . In-Reply-To: <8CA3D99DA6E8A54-1448-4F65@webmail-nb14.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <637199.45946.qm@web82602.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > At least that's what the nice little page says when you try to go > there. ;-) Are you perhaps looking for vcm.org or vcm.com ? As far as I can recall, the Vintage Computer Markeplace was always hosted on the vintage.org domain, which is alive and well. Go to www.vintage.org/marketplace. It's not working, but there is a page there. --Bill From marvin at west.net Thu Feb 14 21:59:35 2008 From: marvin at west.net (Marvin Johnston) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 19:59:35 -0800 Subject: Vintage Computer Marketplace. . . Message-ID: <47B50E27.A5774A1@west.net> I told Sellam that bringing it up sooner rather than later would be good, especially with the new uproar at ebay about both outrageous fee increases for most sellers, and the new feedback perversion as dictated by ebay. A number of sellers (and buyer/sellers) are looking for other venues (again) and this would be a *VERY* appropriate time to be up, running, and advertising!!! > From: Lyle Bickley > On Wednesday 13 February 2008 22:45, tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > > It looks like the domain name registration for VCM hasn't been > > renewed. > > There's no problem with the domain registration. As Sellam mentioned > a while back on this list, he's in the process of completely redoing > the Vintage Computer Marketplace site. > > > Is it coming back? > > In about a month... From evan at snarc.net Thu Feb 14 22:04:21 2008 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:04:21 -0500 Subject: Vintage Computer Marketplace. . . In-Reply-To: <637199.45946.qm@web82602.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00ff01c86f87$d92e08c0$f750f945@evan> Sellam's working on it ... he is just busy and procrastinates a lot! -----Original Message----- From: William Maddox [mailto:wmaddox at pacbell.net] Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 10:38 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Vintage Computer Marketplace. . . --- tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > At least that's what the nice little page says when you try to go > there. ;-) Are you perhaps looking for vcm.org or vcm.com ? As far as I can recall, the Vintage Computer Markeplace was always hosted on the vintage.org domain, which is alive and well. Go to www.vintage.org/marketplace. It's not working, but there is a page there. --Bill From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Feb 14 22:08:46 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:08:46 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> Message-ID: > From: wdonzelli at gmail.com > ---snip-- > > I am sitting here, reading this thread, and am astounded by what > people think tubes could do back in 1906. It would have been > *impossible* to make any sort of computing device using the technology > of the time. You would have better luck porting OS/2 to a 709. > > Tubes back then barely worked. When they did work, they barely > amplified. And you were lucky to get 50 hours out of them. A try > getting two that were vaguely similar electrically. And then try to > find someone that actually knew how the things worked. > > Hi Where did you get this infomation? Audiotrons were used for telephone amplification and generally ran for a thousand hours or more. Many collectors have these tubes that are still operational today. Gain was low but for digital that is desired. A gain of three or four in power is more than is required for digital computers. More than that would be a waste. Although, I don't have any audiotrons myself, I do have tubes made in the 20's that are still working at close to new specs. I do agree that the large number of tubes required would be difficult to remain operational but requirements for a digital computer are not that great compared to other applications. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Feb 14 22:22:26 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:22:26 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> Message-ID: Hi I wish to make a correction. The tubes were called audions and were not made until 1906. Low gain made them hard to use for radio uses but that has nothing to do with digital uses. Dwight > From: dkelvey at hotmail.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:08:46 -0800 > Subject: RE: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue > > > > > >> From: wdonzelli at gmail.com >> > ---snip-- >> >> I am sitting here, reading this thread, and am astounded by what >> people think tubes could do back in 1906. It would have been >> *impossible* to make any sort of computing device using the technology >> of the time. You would have better luck porting OS/2 to a 709. >> >> Tubes back then barely worked. When they did work, they barely >> amplified. And you were lucky to get 50 hours out of them. A try >> getting two that were vaguely similar electrically. And then try to >> find someone that actually knew how the things worked. >> >> > Hi > Where did you get this infomation? > Audiotrons were used for telephone amplification and generally ran > for a thousand hours or more. Many collectors have these tubes that are > still operational today. > Gain was low but for digital that is desired. A gain of three or four > in power is more than is required for digital computers. More than > that would be a waste. > Although, I don't have any audiotrons myself, I do have tubes > made in the 20's that are still working at close to new specs. > I do agree that the large number of tubes required would be difficult > to remain operational but requirements for a digital computer are > not that great compared to other applications. > Dwight > > _________________________________________________________________ > Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. > http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008 _________________________________________________________________ Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser! http://biggestloser.msn.com/ From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 22:29:03 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:29:03 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> Message-ID: > Where did you get this infomation? I bet you could find the information in the Tyne book. I can not find mine right now. > Audiotrons were used for telephone amplification and generally ran > for a thousand hours or more. Many collectors have these tubes that are > still operational today. First off, the tubes from 1906 that we are thinking of are Audions, not Audiotrons. There were Audiotrons, but that was just another brand name in the whole nameverythingatron craze. Second, people that have Audions (or LRS relays) today never power them up. Most have broken leads and/or filaments anyway. Third, only a few Audions were used for telephone amplification before Western Electric secured the rights to make tubes. It took them quite a few years to get "repeater bulbs" decent. > Gain was low but for digital that is desired. A gain of three or four > in power is more than is required for digital computers. More than > that would be a waste. I do not have the values for a "typical" Audion transconductance, but it is so low it almost looks like a typo. > Although, I don't have any audiotrons myself, I do have tubes > made in the 20's that are still working at close to new specs. The 1906 and the 1920s are worlds apart in terms of tube technology. > I do agree that the large number of tubes required would be difficult > to remain operational but requirements for a digital computer are > not that great compared to other applications. The problem is that the basic operation of the tubes during their first ten years of the technology's life was shaky beyond belief. -- Will From gklinger at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 22:38:40 2008 From: gklinger at gmail.com (Golan Klinger) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:38:40 -0500 Subject: doppleganger.org, c4expo2007 In-Reply-To: <310f50ab0802141251r3ec3fe2djfc3dee96038822b5@mail.gmail.com> References: <310f50ab0802141251r3ec3fe2djfc3dee96038822b5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Chris H. wrote: > Just in case this hasn't been through the circulation, or this isn't > someone already on the list: > > http://www.doppleganger.org/c4expo2007.html > > (Nice pictures. Too modern, perhaps.) In case anyone wants to attend the next C4 Expo: -- Golan Klinger Dark is the suede that mows like a harvest. From gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz Thu Feb 14 22:41:42 2008 From: gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz (Gavin Melville) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:41:42 +1300 Subject: Computer in 1900, was RE: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <47B4CF14.3070508@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Hi, As the OP who started this discussion I appreciate all the comments. The original spec was not to invent new components, but to use things you could actually get in 1900. Just because I know how to make an IC now doesn't mean I could have made one in 1900. While I could have obtained Silicon, it's unlikely it would have been usable purity, and the imaging, etching and depositation would be simply impossible. The "was it available" we have looked hardest at is the transistor, and could have we made a point contact transistor then, even a FET (made before the transistor but didn't recognise it). While we might be able to do this, we're trying to limit our search to things we could get, rather than make, or materials we could get rather than make ie iron cores, as opposed to point contact transistors. ( We are, however keeping an eye on the 256 2n2222 project). Some of the components we have looked at are: Fluidics/pneumatics: possible, but way less fun, and we suspect manufacturing tolerances of the time would have made this really hard. Valves: Not really -- more like 1905/6 depending on what source. If it had to have gain then not. Cathode rays from John Joseph Thomson in 1897. Thermionic diodes: Yes -- from 1873. Solid State Diodes: Yes -- from 1874. Relays: Possible, but even in 1945 was very hard. Available by 1901 at the latest. Magnetic Logic: Certainly available, more later. Core Memory: No ferrite. :-( Probably not until 1947. Mechanical: Certainly, but we're electronics people, and that would be too little fun. Optical: Photo electric "cells" (not intentional) using selenium were around in 1873. Delay Lines: Possibly, piezo ceramic drive uncertain, but close. Magnetic drive -- yes. Both wire and mercury practical. Unfortunately the big book of everything we've looked at is at work, and I'm not right now. Our current research is based around magnetic logic, and there have been commercial magnetic computers made albeit much later. I'm not talking about the exotic cores with 19 windings on them, but basic 1/2/3 winding cores exploiting saturation and simple magnetic properties. It's early days yet, but we have found you need 4 things to make this work (1) simple cores, (2) diodes, (3) AC excitation and (4) some gain every now and again. 3 might be harder than it looks, but we think 20kHz should be enough for iron cores, scale probably 1-2kW. Right now I'm working on the "some gain" area using magnetic amplifiers in cores pushed near to saturation. Without some gain magnetic logic runs out of steam. We do have the schematics of the Univac magnetic logic computer using "Ferractors", but this gets deep into the "we made the material" area with a magnetic material with a square BH curve, and many, many transistors. Construction is likely to be bit serial, and the target is 500k - 1000k bits per second through the loop, maybe an instruction rate of 10% of that. I will say some of the replies on this group are realistic -- when I mentioned this at work one colleague (Windows Programmer) asked if it would run a web server. Sigh. -- Regards, Gavin Melville gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz From silent700 at gmail.com Thu Feb 14 23:20:07 2008 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:20:07 -0600 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - bulk buy on eBay In-Reply-To: <35FB0B04-00F1-403F-86B6-22B055AE89DA@neurotica.com> References: <35FB0B04-00F1-403F-86B6-22B055AE89DA@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <51ea77730802142120u488b0d75g21b1ae3230ef71b8@mail.gmail.com> I'd like to put in for one or two should someone do the bulk purchase. From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Feb 14 23:25:25 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:25:25 -0500 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - bulk buy on eBay In-Reply-To: <47B49B3B.4060203@gmail.com> References: <35FB0B04-00F1-403F-86B6-22B055AE89DA@neurotica.com> <47B49B3B.4060203@gmail.com> Message-ID: <8122142A-821E-4E67-9BD0-28E25608627C@neurotica.com> On Feb 14, 2008, at 2:49 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >>> The 6094 LPFK has been discussed on this list before (see thread >>> "IBM >>> 6094-020 Lighted Program Function Keys"). >>> >>> I notice that there's a bulk lot of 19 of them on ePay (see >>> 180215874744) - now, I don't want 19, but I'd like one. I'm sure >>> there >>> are others on this list who would as well. >>> >>> Who else is game? This seller will only ship to the US, so someone >>> within the US (I'm not) would need to receive them and reship - I'll >>> happily pay a few $ on top of the onward postage for the trouble. >> I'm definitely game...if someone arranges a bulk purchase (I >> can't right now) please put me down for four. I'm thinking it >> might be nice to build a USB interface for these. > > A USB interface for this, I believe, would just be a USB->serial > adapter with a breakout for power. Yes, but what I had in mind was more of an HID device to emulate (possibly programmable) sequences of keys. But I suppose a serial adapter would be a good bit simpler, and could probably be made to work with Xinput. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Feb 14 23:21:06 2008 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:21:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: Computer in 1900, was RE: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Message-ID: <200802150525.AAA17474@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > [W]e're trying to limit our search to things we could get, rather > than make, Ah! Okay. > Construction is likely to be bit serial, and the target is 500k - > 1000k bits per second through the loop, maybe an instruction rate of > 10% of that. That's higher than I'd expected, especially in view of your "20kHz is about the max available frequency" note. > I will say some of the replies on this group are realistic -- when I > mentioned this at work one colleague (Windows Programmer) asked if it > would run a web server. Sigh. Heehee! Sure it will - just verrrrrrrry slowly. :) (Hey, someone has a webserver on a C=64, I think, and that one actually borders on usable.) /~\ 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 mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Feb 14 23:26:04 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:26:04 -0500 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - bulk buy on eBay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 14, 2008, at 5:14 PM, Richard wrote: > I have one. I don't know what i would do with more of them; is the > communication protocol documented anywhere? It would be nice to hook > up to an X11 machine with the Xinput extension. I seem to recall that the protocol has been explained somewhere, possibly here. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From tiggerlasv at aim.com Thu Feb 14 23:34:54 2008 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:34:54 -0500 Subject: Vintage Computer Marketplace. . . Message-ID: <8CA3DABA093C523-DC4-11B8@webmail-nb03.sysops.aol.com> Actually, I was only aware of http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com . . . Never heard of the shortened version. . . . ;-) ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Thu Feb 14 23:47:34 2008 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:47:34 -0600 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - bulk buy on eBay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B52776.7070007@brutman.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Feb 14, 2008, at 5:14 PM, Richard wrote: >> I have one. I don't know what i would do with more of them; is the >> communication protocol documented anywhere? It would be nice to hook >> up to an X11 machine with the Xinput extension. > > I seem to recall that the protocol has been explained somewhere, > possibly here. > > -Dave > The protocol is explained on the referenced 'codeninja' page, but I never got my samples of the 6094 to talk. They seem to function in stand-alone mode (lights will change when a key is pressed), but nothing ever comes across the serial connection to a PC. I've tried a variety of cables, breakout boxes, multimeters, etc. I'd love it if somebody else tried and tell me what I am doing wrong. Mike From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Feb 14 23:45:02 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:45:02 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <47B449F8.8070608@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802150045.03147.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 14 February 2008 10:01, dwight elvey wrote: > > Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:02:32 -0600 > > From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com > > ---snip--- > > > No idea why, but whenever I come across a system, I end up asking myself > > "how could this have been done* without electronics?" - I find mechanical > > analogues of electronic/electrical systems fascinating... > > > > * Not cheaper, faster, to the same scale etc. obviously - just whether it > > could be done at all. > > Hi > A few years back I gave a lot of thought to a computer that used > marbles for bits. It was mainly intended as a visual computer. > Dwight I used to have something of the sort, when I was a kid... This thing had a couple or three different places in the top that you could drop the marbles into, and various "bits" inside that would toggle, depending on something or other. I never did figure out the logic of it (and the bit of literature that came with it did indeed use the term "logic" in there). Plus it was one of the things I never did get around to taking apart, 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 Fri Feb 15 00:03:47 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 01:03:47 -0500 Subject: Yamaha MSX CX5M Mouse In-Reply-To: <47B482E9.7020105@drexel.edu> References: <200802141731.m1EHVFUr061107@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47B482E9.7020105@drexel.edu> Message-ID: <200802150103.51666.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 14 February 2008 13:05, Jonathan Gevaryahu wrote: > Afaik the MSX ports, while also DE9, are NOT compatible with the > standard atari/commodore/sega joystick ports. A few pins were moved > around. Blame Microsoft. > (from http://pinouts.ru/Inputs/JoystickMsx_pinout.shtml) > > Pin MSX Atari/Commodore/etc > 1 /FORWARD /FORWARD or mouse XA* > 2 /BACK /BACK or mouse XB* > 3 /LEFT /LEFT or mouse YB* > 4 /RIGHT /RIGHT or mouse YA* > 5 +5V POT Y > 6 /BTN1 or OUT1 /BTN1 or Light Pen > 7 /BTN2 or OUT2 +5V > 8 OUT3 GND > 9 GND /BTN2 or POT X > > * the encoding of these 4 bits for mice-trackball varied between > manufacturer and sometimes even between products (see CX-44 vs CX-80 > trackballs by atari) Yeah, but weren't at least some of the pins on the c64's ports tied directly in with the SID chip? "Game paddles" comes to mind, and I have no idea how other stuff that used similar ports handled those offhand. -- 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 Feb 15 00:11:23 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 01:11:23 -0500 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <200802150111.25289.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 14 February 2008 17:02, Jim Brain wrote: > It appears I've staved off buying one of these too long and now I need one. > > Way back in the day, I used an ART EPP1, and I liked the serial > connection (as I could use it from any machine,not just a PC). > > But, there are lots of options today. My primary interest is in > replicating CBM KERNAL roms, though I would not mind uC programming > capabilities. > > What do other people use for eprom programming? I see a slew of Willem > programmers, but I don't understand why there are so many variants. A > bummer is that they all use the Paallel Port, as far as I can tell. I have the 8052-BASIC based one that Steve Ciarcia had in an article in Byte, and that uses a serial connection. Only at 1200 baud, though, for some reason. One of these days I gotta fix that... :-) Replacing a CBM Kernal ROM is going to need an adapter, as the eprom has more pins. Are you into making those or do you know of a source for them? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Fri Feb 15 00:46:11 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:46:11 +0000 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <200802150111.25289.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> <200802150111.25289.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20080215064611.GA17307@usap.gov> On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 01:11:23AM -0500, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > I have the 8052-BASIC based one that Steve Ciarcia had in an article in Byte, > and that uses a serial connection. Only at 1200 baud, though, for some > reason. 4K doesn't take _that_ long to push over 1200 bps... > Replacing a CBM Kernal ROM is going to need an adapter, as the eprom has more > pins. Are you into making those or do you know of a source for them? Depending on which model of CBM you have, there's a no-adapter solution: for PETs that take 2332 ROMs (i.e., *not* the old Static PETs), the 2532 is a drop-in EPROM. Not the 2732... the 2532. I have a few of them, some from the old days (with PET firmware on them) and a few blanks that I've picked up over the years when I was already ordering from some place like B.G. Micro. I had a $C000 BASIC ROM die in my first PET (the one I got new, when I was a kid)... there's now a 2532 in its place. If you can't find any 2532s, you could make a 2732->2532 pin swabber in a couple layers of machined-pin sockets - the bottom socket goes right into the PET, the top socket holds the 2732. The middle layer is used to rearrange whatever pins need relocation. I've had good luck with stuffing a 1Mbit FLASH ROM into a 32kbit socket that way (and brought out the extra address pins to a connector to an external switch to be able to select multiple 4K ROM images). If my description is too vague, I can try to take a picture to illustrate what I mean. -ethan> -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 15-Feb-2008 at 06:40 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -32.8 F (-36.0 C) Windchill -56.6 F (-49.2 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 8.7 kts Grid 307 Barometer 681.8 mb (10560 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz Fri Feb 15 00:51:18 2008 From: gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz (Gavin Melville) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:51:18 +1300 Subject: Computer in 1900, was RE: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <200802150525.AAA17474@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECF9@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Hi, > > Construction is likely to be bit serial, and the target is 500k - > > 1000k bits per second through the loop, maybe an > instruction rate of > > 10% of that. > > That's higher than I'd expected, especially in view of your > "20kHz is about the max available frequency" note. The bias for the cores is the power hungry thing -- so far. The DC bias puts the AC bias to shame. My boss hopes for clock rates in the .5-1 MHz area, whereas the iron cores I'm currently playing with might top out at 20k. One of the silly little problems is that we can't find reference to clean sinusoidal AC sources of AC above 20k in 1900. The HF stuff in that era tended to involve spark gaps. My instant answer was motor - generator sets, but that needed 3 phase input, and brushless output ie. more like an alternator. I have visions of this thing generating the kW's of AC needed, arcs all over the place, ozone everywhere, and me trying to dynamically balance it at 6000rpm. 3 ceramic Tetrodes in a 3 phase amplifier would make it a cince..... (which is exactly what Univac did) There were 4CX1000's in 1900 weren't there ? From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Feb 15 00:58:10 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:58:10 -0700 Subject: Computer in 1900, was RE: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Message-ID: <47B53802.5060409@jetnet.ab.ca> Gavin Melville wrote: > Hi, > > As the OP who started this discussion I appreciate all the comments. > The original spec was not to invent new components, but to use things > you could actually get in 1900. Just because I know how to make an IC > now doesn't mean I could have made one in 1900. While I could have > obtained Silicon, it's unlikely it would have been usable purity, and > the imaging, etching and depositation would be simply impossible. How about a calculating music box? :) > I will say some of the replies on this group are realistic -- when I > mentioned this at work one colleague (Windows Programmer) asked if it > would run a web server. Sigh. Do you have a instruction set one can look at yet? > -- > Regards, > Gavin Melville > gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz > From cc at corti-net.de Thu Feb 14 03:38:24 2008 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:38:24 +0100 (CET) Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802131630u70d26bcet565ba075fcb981b8@mail.gmail.com> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <9e2403920802131625l1202ef61n2e728dc6b2942a84@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220802131630u70d26bcet565ba075fcb981b8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, John Floren wrote: > YOUR *MOM'S* A COMPUTER! OOOOH! Wait... > It's like being a freshman all over again. And what's special about that? Historically a "computer" is a person who does computations (what else?), this job description may well originate from the 19th century. And a "compiler" generally is/was an insult for someone, mostly for scientists/students and the like, because that meant that they "compiled" their work mostly/completely from foreign texts. Christian From cc at corti-net.de Thu Feb 14 03:42:39 2008 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:42:39 +0100 (CET) Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: <47B38DDE.4020702@nktelco.net> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <47B38DDE.4020702@nktelco.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, Charles H Dickman wrote: > definition of "computer" she beats your slide rule. :-) I am sure there is a > museum with an ancient abacus or a board with some holes and stones, too. An abacus is not a computer, not even a calculator, it's a calculating aid (like Addiators). The definition of a calculator is a machine that automatically handles the carry from one to the next/previous digit. Christian From cc at corti-net.de Thu Feb 14 03:44:57 2008 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:44:57 +0100 (CET) Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: <200802140040.m1E0ebK3042757@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200802140040.m1E0ebK3042757@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 13 Feb 2008, Evan wrote: > Assuming Charles meant a "real" computer -- not a human or slide rule -- A "real" computer is a human person *per definition*. Christian From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 14 16:17:20 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:17:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <901497.9266.qm@web65508.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> --- Jim Brain wrote: > A > bummer is that they all use the Paallel Port, as far > as I can tell. Most did back in the day, as I recall anyway. There currently are usb-parallel port adapter gizmos. If that's any help... I go this old Spectrum Dynamics thing I picked up at TCF last year. Still don't know what state of direpair it's in. It might use RTL components. Or was it DTL? ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From jrr at flippers.com Thu Feb 14 17:57:54 2008 From: jrr at flippers.com (John Robertson) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:57:54 -0800 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <47B4D582.7020400@flippers.com> Jim Brain wrote: > It appears I've staved off buying one of these too long and now I need > one. > > Way back in the day, I used an ART EPP1, and I liked the serial > connection (as I could use it from any machine,not just a PC). > > But, there are lots of options today. My primary interest is in > replicating CBM KERNAL roms, though I would not mind uC programming > capabilities. > > What do other people use for eprom programming? I see a slew of > Willem programmers, but I don't understand why there are so many > variants. A bummer is that they all use the Paallel Port, as far as I > can tell. > > Jim > > > Speaking of Eprom Programmers - I have a Pro-Log with the 1702A module. What I do not have is the manual for the 1702 module...Does anyone have a copy? I have a copy of the schematics thanks to another member here - but the module has a switch to set Vdd at either -9 (1702A?) or -10V (1702 only?). My module works fine, but just like to have complete docs. I have the factory manuals for this burner if anyone needs a few pages let me know. Scanning the whole book is a bit more time than I have free right now...(100 pages or so). Thanks, John :-#)# From g-wright at att.net Fri Feb 15 01:26:53 2008 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:26:53 +0000 Subject: Is there a program to analyze a mag tape Message-ID: <021520080726.26462.47B53EBD00011C810000675E22230647629B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> I a have a lot of mag tape/cartridge tape that I would like to analyze. I there a program that would write the whole tape then read it back, logging the retries and the errors. - Jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc g-wright at at.net From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Feb 15 01:48:26 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:48:26 -0800 Subject: Computer in 1900 References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Message-ID: <47B543CB.1500BD93@cs.ubc.ca> To be realisitic about what might have been accomplished in 1900 the whole issue of building a large system of hundreds/thousands of components needs to be looked at more seriously. Will raised the issue for tubes, but it applies to all the other components as well, regarding reliability, uniformity and stability of characteristics. The idea of building such large systems was considered daunting or simply implausible even in the 1940's, after decades of development of components - even regarding something as seemingly simple as resistors. Or, for example, solid-state diodes: the discovery may have been made in 1874, but in the early 1900s the only thing actually available (TMK) was the cat's whisker (a tad finicky) - forget about building anything utilising more than a couple of them. Then there's achieving a stable power supply. ..so, depends on where you want to draw the line between concept and practice. The principles/theory of digital systems implementation may be straighforward, the practical reality when dealing with unreliable/variable components isn't so (including tubes); in particular if you don't have some heavily-non-linear device to base your basic gate design around. In 1900 there was very little in the electrical domain that was reliable or consistent for the purposes being discussed. From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Feb 15 01:57:08 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 02:57:08 -0500 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <20080215064611.GA17307@usap.gov> References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> <200802150111.25289.rtellason@verizon.net> <20080215064611.GA17307@usap.gov> Message-ID: <200802150257.10000.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 15 February 2008 01:46, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 01:11:23AM -0500, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > I have the 8052-BASIC based one that Steve Ciarcia had in an article in > > Byte, and that uses a serial connection. Only at 1200 baud, though, > > for some reason. > > 4K doesn't take _that_ long to push over 1200 bps... No, it doesn't. It's just a minor annoyance, which is probably why I only gripe about it every now and then nad hvaen't really gotten around to doing anything about it... :-) > > Replacing a CBM Kernal ROM is going to need an adapter, as the eprom has > > more pins. Are you into making those or do you know of a source for > > them? > > Depending on which model of CBM you have, there's a no-adapter solution: > for PETs that take 2332 ROMs (i.e., *not* the old Static PETs), the 2532 > is a drop-in EPROM. Not the 2732... the 2532. I have a few of them, some > from the old days (with PET firmware on them) and a few blanks that I've > picked up over the years when I was already ordering from some place like > B.G. Micro. > > I had a $C000 BASIC ROM die in my first PET (the one I got new, when I was > a kid)... there's now a 2532 in its place. Hmm. I wasn't thinking PET as much as C64, when I wrote that. The ROMs in that one were all 24-pin parts, a 4K character rom and the BASIC and Kernal being 8K, which would need a 2764. > If you can't find any 2532s, you could make a 2732->2532 pin swabber in > a couple layers of machined-pin sockets - the bottom socket goes right > into the PET, the top socket holds the 2732. The middle layer is used > to rearrange whatever pins need relocation. I've had good luck with > stuffing a 1Mbit FLASH ROM into a 32kbit socket that way (and brought out > the extra address pins to a connector to an external switch to be able > to select multiple 4K ROM images). If my description is too vague, I > can try to take a picture to illustrate what I mean. I can see how you'd stack a couple of sockets to connect the pins you wanted to connect, but am a little less clear about the other ones. Like if you wanted to interrupt a signal going through -- just bend it out? Maybe I need to look at the pinouts of those parts... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From brain at jbrain.com Fri Feb 15 02:23:35 2008 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 02:23:35 -0600 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <200802150111.25289.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> <200802150111.25289.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <47B54C07.2050607@jbrain.com> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > Replacing a CBM Kernal ROM is going to need an adapter, as the eprom has more > pins. Are you into making those or do you know of a source for them? > http://freenet-homepage.de/x1541/hardware/2364.html From gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz Fri Feb 15 02:37:18 2008 From: gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz (Gavin Melville) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:37:18 +1300 Subject: Computer in 1900 In-Reply-To: <47B543CB.1500BD93@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECFE@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Hi, > Or, for example, solid-state diodes: the discovery may have > been made in 1874, but in the early 1900s the only thing > actually available (TMK) was the cat's whisker (a tad > finicky) - forget about building anything utilising more than > a couple of them. Modern knowledge can help there of course -- I'm allowed to know why they weren't reliable. The trick they used in WW2 about setting them in wax inside a ceramic tube improved shock resistence and general stability greatly. It did, of course, also allow them to be changed quickly :-) > Then there's achieving a stable power supply. Same thing here. Feedback can do wonders, even if the feedback is to the primary, and done with a magnetic amplifier. > ..so, depends on where you want to draw the line between > concept and practice. This is really a question of resources, and while finite, are substantial. > The principles/theory of digital systems implementation may > be straighforward, the practical reality when dealing with > unreliable/variable components isn't so (including tubes); in > particular if you don't have some heavily-non-linear device > to base your basic gate design around. In 1900 there was very > little in the electrical domain that was reliable or > consistent for the purposes being discussed. This is why the interest in magnetic logic -- the idea works, well enough to build a mainframe with it and the material was available in 1900. The non-linear bit may, however be the killer, or in the case of magnetic logic, temperature may be the killer. We have basic gates working, but need some gain to cascade them, hence the current work on magnetic amplifiers. From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Feb 15 02:50:18 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 03:50:18 -0500 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <47B54C07.2050607@jbrain.com> References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> <200802150111.25289.rtellason@verizon.net> <47B54C07.2050607@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <200802150350.24568.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 15 February 2008 03:23, Jim Brain wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > Replacing a CBM Kernal ROM is going to need an adapter, as the eprom has > > more pins. Are you into making those or do you know of a source for > > them? > > http://freenet-homepage.de/x1541/hardware/2364.html Neat! And reasonably priced, considering what you get... -- 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 tiggerlasv at aim.com Fri Feb 15 03:07:25 2008 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 04:07:25 -0500 Subject: Vector Graphics / Vector 4 on e-bay. Message-ID: <8CA3DC951390723-12F0-4AE6@webmail-ne13.sysops.aol.com> For those interested in S-100 stuff, I stumbled across this on e-bay - 270210911327 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270210911327 As info. . . . ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Fri Feb 15 03:08:26 2008 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:08:26 +0100 Subject: Computer in 1900, was RE: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECF9@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> References: <200802150525.AAA17474@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECF9@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Message-ID: <20080215100826.589d6a61@SirToby.dinner41.local> On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:51:18 +1300 "Gavin Melville" wrote: > My instant answer was motor - generator sets, but that needed 3 phase > input, and brushless output ie. more like an alternator. http://www.alexander.n.se/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLF_transmitter_Grimeton Does several kW at 17.2 kHz with a motor - generator. Though, built in 1923. But the used technic was already available in 1900. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From dm561 at torfree.net Fri Feb 15 03:15:42 2008 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 04:15:42 -0500 Subject: EPROM programmer Message-ID: <01C86F89.6F7684A0@MSE_D03> Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 02:57:08 -0500 From: "Roy J. Tellason" Subject: Re: EPROM programmer On Friday 15 February 2008 01:46, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 01:11:23AM -0500, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > I have the 8052-BASIC based one that Steve Ciarcia had in an article in > > Byte, and that uses a serial connection. Only at 1200 baud, though, > > for some reason. > > 4K doesn't take _that_ long to push over 1200 bps... No, it doesn't. It's just a minor annoyance, which is probably why I only gripe about it every now and then nad hvaen't really gotten around to doing anything about it... :-) ----------------- The manual has pretty clear instructions for changing the baud rate, up to 19.2 (pp. 8&9); you'll need 2x27128 unless you have a second programmer. ======== > > Replacing a CBM Kernal ROM is going to need an adapter, as the eprom has > > more pins. Are you into making those or do you know of a source for > > them? > > Depending on which model of CBM you have, there's a no-adapter solution: > for PETs that take 2332 ROMs (i.e., *not* the old Static PETs), the 2532 > is a drop-in EPROM. Not the 2732... the 2532. I have a few of them, some > from the old days (with PET firmware on them) and a few blanks that I've > picked up over the years when I was already ordering from some place like > B.G. Micro. > > I had a $C000 BASIC ROM die in my first PET (the one I got new, when I was > a kid)... there's now a 2532 in its place. Hmm. I wasn't thinking PET as much as C64, when I wrote that. The ROMs in that one were all 24-pin parts, a 4K character rom and the BASIC and Kernal being 8K, which would need a 2764. -------------- See MCM68764 & MCM68766 (24 pin 8Kx8) mike From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Feb 15 03:24:44 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 04:24:44 -0500 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <01C86F89.6F7684A0@MSE_D03> References: <01C86F89.6F7684A0@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <200802150424.47033.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 15 February 2008 04:15, M H Stein wrote: > Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 02:57:08 -0500 > From: "Roy J. Tellason" > Subject: Re: EPROM programmer > > On Friday 15 February 2008 01:46, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 01:11:23AM -0500, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > > I have the 8052-BASIC based one that Steve Ciarcia had in an article in > > > Byte, and that uses a serial connection. Only at 1200 baud, though, > > > for some reason. > > > > 4K doesn't take _that_ long to push over 1200 bps... > > No, it doesn't. It's just a minor annoyance, which is probably why I > only gripe about it every now and then nad hvaen't really gotten around to > doing anything about it... :-) > > ----------------- > The manual has pretty clear instructions for changing the baud rate, up to > 19.2 (pp. 8&9); you'll need 2x27128 unless you have a second programmer. Eh? I don't have the manual with mine, but 2x27128 shouldn't be a problem, I guess. (Snip) > Hmm. I wasn't thinking PET as much as C64, when I wrote that. The ROMs > in that one were all 24-pin parts, a 4K character rom and the BASIC and > Kernal being 8K, which would need a 2764. > > See MCM68764 & MCM68766 (24 pin 8Kx8) I wasn't aware of these. Though I suppose I'd still need an adapter, for the programmer? I'll look for some data on them. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Feb 15 03:31:22 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 01:31:22 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <47B55BEA.CF62CD65@cs.ubc.ca> Charles H Dickman wrote: > > > So what is the oldest computer still operational? Another take on the original question: a functional reproduction of the ABC* from 1941, using period components, was produced in the 1990's. * the first electronic computer by one definition. From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Fri Feb 15 03:50:52 2008 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:50:52 +0100 (CET) Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: References: <47B4CF14.3070508@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Thu, 14 Feb 2008, William Donzelli wrote: > "Computer tubes" were NOT developed for computers. They were developed > for radar applications, mostly IFF. Wrong, "computer tubes" were developped for computers and electronic calculating machines. That's why there was the Green Series, the Red Serien, the Blue Series and the Yellow Series (from Valvo of course) for commercial tubes. The "ordinary" tubes had only white paintings (BTW later on, may be in the sixties or seventies Valvo dropped the color codes). So: - Blue was for marine/sea applications (e.g. the PL21 thyratron is Blue) - Yellow was for communications/post ("Weitverkehrsr?hren" like the E88CC, the 18042 or 18046). - Green was for computers (e.g. the LGP-30 is full of Green Series tubes like the E91H, E180CC and E182CC) - Red was for industrial applications (like the E82CC) Christian From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Fri Feb 15 03:53:28 2008 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:53:28 +0100 (CET) Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 14 Feb 2008, dwight elvey wrote: > I wish to make a correction. The tubes were called audions and were > not made until 1906. Low gain made them hard to use for radio uses "Audion" and "hard to use for radio" is a contradiction... Christian From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Feb 15 06:23:55 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:23:55 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: References: <47B4CF14.3070508@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > Wrong, "computer tubes" were developped for computers and > electronic calculating machines. All you need to do is look at the registration dates of the type numbers. And OSRD reports from World War 2. -- Will From chd_1 at nktelco.net Fri Feb 15 06:44:54 2008 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (Charles H Dickman) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:44:54 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <47B55BEA.CF62CD65@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <47B55BEA.CF62CD65@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <47B58946.1020005@nktelco.net> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Charles H Dickman wrote: > >> So what is the oldest computer still operational? >> > > Another take on the original question: a functional reproduction of > the ABC* from 1941, using period components, was produced in the 1990's. > > * the first electronic computer by one definition. > As the original can opener, the resulting discussion has been quite interesting. Probably more interesting than my original question, which was what is the oldest electronic digital computer still in existence as a functional artifact, whether in a museum or private collection. I was discounting reproductions such as the Atanasoff-Berry Computer you mention or the Colossus at Bletchley Park. I would also discount partial machines such as front panels. From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Fri Feb 15 07:29:06 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:29:06 +0000 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <200802150350.24568.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> <200802150111.25289.rtellason@verizon.net> <47B54C07.2050607@jbrain.com> <200802150350.24568.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20080215132906.GA3998@usap.gov> On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 03:50:18AM -0500, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Friday 15 February 2008 03:23, Jim Brain wrote: > > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > > Replacing a CBM Kernal ROM is going to need an adapter, as the eprom has > > > more pins. Are you into making those or do you know of a source for > > > them? > > > > http://freenet-homepage.de/x1541/hardware/2364.html > > Neat! And reasonably priced, considering what you get... I have a couple of the RAM/ROM boards for PETs and floppy drives. Very nice products. I am a satisfied customer. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 15-Feb-2008 at 13:20 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -29.4 F (-34.1 C) Windchill -54.9 F (-48.3 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 10.9 kts Grid 33 Barometer 682.1 mb (10549 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Fri Feb 15 07:32:01 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:32:01 +0000 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <200802150257.10000.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> <200802150111.25289.rtellason@verizon.net> <20080215064611.GA17307@usap.gov> <200802150257.10000.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20080215133201.GB3998@usap.gov> On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 02:57:08AM -0500, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > Depending on which model of CBM you have, there's a no-adapter > > solution... > Hmm. I wasn't thinking PET as much as C64, when I wrote that. The ROMs in > that one were all 24-pin parts, a 4K character rom and the BASIC and Kernal > being 8K, which would need a 2764. Ah... yes. That's entirely different. > I can see how you'd stack a couple of sockets to connect the pins you wanted > to connect, but am a little less clear about the other ones. Like if you > wanted to interrupt a signal going through -- just bend it out? Maybe I need > to look at the pinouts of those parts... You poke out the pin in the middle socket, then you have the room to solder to the upper socket pin and run a wire to the relevant lower socket pin. I built a 2764->2732 adapter that does some fiddly stuff with the two or three pins at the top of each of the sockets (Vpp, Vcc - those sorts of pins). -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 15-Feb-2008 at 13:20 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -29.4 F (-34.1 C) Windchill -54.9 F (-48.3 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 10.9 kts Grid 33 Barometer 682.1 mb (10549 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Fri Feb 15 07:37:36 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:37:36 +0000 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - bulk buy on eBay In-Reply-To: <47B52776.7070007@brutman.com> References: <47B52776.7070007@brutman.com> Message-ID: <20080215133736.GC3998@usap.gov> On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 11:47:34PM -0600, Michael B. Brutman wrote: > The protocol is explained on the referenced 'codeninja' page, but I > never got my samples of the 6094 to talk. They seem to function in > stand-alone mode (lights will change when a key is pressed), but nothing > ever comes across the serial connection to a PC. > > I've tried a variety of cables, breakout boxes, multimeters, etc. I'd > love it if somebody else tried and tell me what I am doing wrong. Even if we get the lot to distribute amongst list members (I'm in!), I wouldn't be able to lay my hands on one until October. In the meantime, for the one that you have now, have you tried a serial analyzer like an HP4951? They sit between a computer and a modem/terminal, or between any two devices, and can snoop traffic in both directions. You also have the ability, as a standalone device, to program a limited amount of protocol traffic, enough so that we were able to simulate the BIND for an SNA session, and keep the PU Type 2 device on the far end thinking it was still connected to a PU Type 4. That was the max we could do - there wasn't enough programmable memory to allow a real session, but it does illustrate the point. You could also try an oscilloscope - for a single key press (no repeat?), a storage scope might work better, or a real logic analyzer - to capture the bit stream, just to see it. Those are the sorts of tools _I_ use when I'm snooping strange serial streams. Dunno what you have on hand. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 15-Feb-2008 at 13:30 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -29.0 F (-33.9 C) Windchill -53.3 F (-47.4 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 9.8 kts Grid 343 Barometer 682.1 mb (10549 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Fri Feb 15 08:01:30 2008 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 08:01:30 -0600 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - bulk buy on eBay In-Reply-To: <20080215133736.GC3998@usap.gov> References: <47B52776.7070007@brutman.com> <20080215133736.GC3998@usap.gov> Message-ID: <47B59B3A.6050106@brutman.com> I don't have a lot of debug equipment. Make that none. An oscilloscope is on the list of things to learn and purchase. I am well versed in serial communications, and used a breakout box and a multimeter. I confirmed the pinout on the connector, and used the frequency counter feature of the meter to see if the bits for the data lines were wiggling - nothing. In that case, I don't think a better tool is going to tell me more. I remember that I traced it back to the 8031 derivative, and that seemed to be the source of the problem. It was holding all of the data pins either high or low. The data pins in turn were fed to a Maxim IC to get them to proper serial levels, but by then it was too late .. bad input equals bad output. Details can be found in the list archives .. it was just this past summer. Mike Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 11:47:34PM -0600, Michael B. Brutman wrote: >> The protocol is explained on the referenced 'codeninja' page, but I >> never got my samples of the 6094 to talk. They seem to function in >> stand-alone mode (lights will change when a key is pressed), but nothing >> ever comes across the serial connection to a PC. >> >> I've tried a variety of cables, breakout boxes, multimeters, etc. I'd >> love it if somebody else tried and tell me what I am doing wrong. > > Even if we get the lot to distribute amongst list members (I'm in!), > I wouldn't be able to lay my hands on one until October. In the meantime, > for the one that you have now, have you tried a serial analyzer like > an HP4951? They sit between a computer and a modem/terminal, or between > any two devices, and can snoop traffic in both directions. You also > have the ability, as a standalone device, to program a limited amount > of protocol traffic, enough so that we were able to simulate the BIND > for an SNA session, and keep the PU Type 2 device on the far end thinking > it was still connected to a PU Type 4. That was the max we could do - > there wasn't enough programmable memory to allow a real session, but it > does illustrate the point. > > You could also try an oscilloscope - for a single key press (no repeat?), > a storage scope might work better, or a real logic analyzer - to capture > the bit stream, just to see it. > > Those are the sorts of tools _I_ use when I'm snooping strange serial > streams. Dunno what you have on hand. > > -ethan > From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Feb 15 08:29:52 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 08:29:52 -0600 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <47B58946.1020005@nktelco.net> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <47B55BEA.CF62CD65@cs.ubc.ca> <47B58946.1020005@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <47B5A1E0.8010102@gmail.com> Charles H Dickman wrote: > I was discounting reproductions such as the Atanasoff-Berry Computer you > mention or the Colossus at Bletchley Park. I assumed you were :-) I'm not sure if there are any parts in there which weren't available in the 1940s (can find out if needed), though - I think it's as close to 'original' as it's possible for a ground-up rebuild to get. Our Elliott 803 is a complete original* from 1960 (IIRC) - but doubtless someone can top that (I believe the CHM's PDP-1 is the same year?). * for suitable definitions of 'original' - 803 spares have been used to keep the machine running, and some of *those* are doubtless a year or two more recent! cheers Jules From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Feb 15 08:37:05 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:37:05 -0800 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <47B4D582.7020400@flippers.com> References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> <47B4D582.7020400@flippers.com> Message-ID: > From: jrr at flippers.com > ---snip--- >> >> > Speaking of Eprom Programmers - I have a Pro-Log with the 1702A module. > What I do not have is the manual for the 1702 module...Does anyone have > a copy? I have a copy of the schematics thanks to another member here - > but the module has a switch to set Vdd at either -9 (1702A?) or -10V > (1702 only?). My module works fine, but just like to have complete docs. Hi John The 1702 used a different algorithm than the 1702A did and the pulse widths were different. The switch is most likely to select between 1702As and 4702As. The 4702A used -10V to match the 4004. I doubt the programmer was intended for 1702s. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser! http://biggestloser.msn.com/ From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Feb 15 08:36:31 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 08:36:31 -0600 Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: <47B47C02.12925.1D21DEA@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200802142203.m1EM3agf066127@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47B47C02.12925.1D21DEA@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47B5A36F.3020200@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:58:20 -0600 >> From: Jules Richardson > >> Interesting - I need to properly digest that (and see if I can get at the >> diagrams anywhere; maybe that's a pay service). Interesting that it was >> from the Long Now lot, too. > > It's all online at http://www.uspto.gov Don't fall for those > services offering to sell you copy. It's all there on the gummint > site. Aha - that's where I was looking, but it wanted some plugin or other when I clicked on the 'images' bit, rather than just allowing me to view a bunch of image files (and as the images bit was just above some links to shopping cart stuff, I wondered if that bit was pay-only). I'll do some more digging and see what's going on; must be a browser/site oddity... cheers Jules From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Feb 15 08:45:25 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:45:25 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> Message-ID: > From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de > On Thu, 14 Feb 2008, dwight elvey wrote: >> I wish to make a correction. The tubes were called audions and were >> not made until 1906. Low gain made them hard to use for radio uses > > "Audion" and "hard to use for radio" is a contradiction... > > Christian Hi Low gain and high capacitance between grid and plate made them hard to use for RF. Audio amplification could be used after a diode detector. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Climb to the top of the charts!?Play the word scramble challenge with star power. http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_jan From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Feb 15 08:53:31 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:53:31 -0700 Subject: Computer in 1900 In-Reply-To: <47B543CB.1500BD93@cs.ubc.ca> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <47B543CB.1500BD93@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <47B5A76B.9020002@jetnet.ab.ca> Brent Hilpert wrote: > To be realisitic about what might have been accomplished in 1900 the whole > issue of building a large system of hundreds/thousands of components needs to > be looked at more seriously. Will raised the issue for tubes, but it applies to > all the other components as well, regarding reliability, uniformity and > stability of characteristics. The idea of building such large systems was > considered daunting or simply implausible even in the 1940's, after decades of > development of components - even regarding something as seemingly simple as resistors. I think at one time you could get resistors with a 50% range of tolarance when they first came out, say around the 1900's. > Or, for example, solid-state diodes: the discovery may have been made in 1874, > but in the early 1900s the only thing actually available (TMK) was the cat's > whisker (a tad finicky) - forget about building anything utilising more than a > couple of them. And you piss off the cat making your diode. > Then there's achieving a stable power supply. Well you would have your own power plant -- coal, gas ( as in gas lamps) or hydro-electric. > ..so, depends on where you want to draw the line between concept and practice. > > The principles/theory of digital systems implementation may be straighforward, > the practical reality when dealing with unreliable/variable components isn't so > (including tubes); in particular if you don't have some heavily-non-linear > device to base your basic gate design around. In 1900 there was very little in > the electrical domain that was reliable or consistent for the purposes being > discussed. > From blstuart at bellsouth.net Fri Feb 15 08:51:12 2008 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (Brian L. Stuart) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:51:12 +0000 Subject: Oldest operational computer Message-ID: <021520081451.29312.47B5A6E000019FA90000728022230647629B0A02D2089B9A019C04040A0DBF9B9D0E9A9B9C040D@att.net> > And what's special about that? Historically a "computer" is a person who > does computations (what else?), this job description may well originate > from the 19th century. Yes, it does. I believe it was in use in Babbage's time. France did a really big project to compute sets of tables, and they had a big workforce of computers to draw on. It seems that a lot of hairdressers were idle because the powdered wigs had fallen out of favor. BLS From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Feb 15 08:54:53 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 08:54:53 -0600 Subject: Computer in 1900, was RE: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Message-ID: <47B5A7BD.1020006@gmail.com> Gavin Melville wrote: > Fluidics/pneumatics: possible, but way less fun, and we suspect > manufacturing tolerances of the time would have made this really hard. Not sure about way less fun :-) I suspect it could be done; valves of the time would be quite leaky, but providing the design is such that errors aren't allowed to accumulate I expect it'd be possible. > Relays: Possible, but even in 1945 was very hard. Available by 1901 at > the latest. Why do you say 'very hard'? I'm not sure when the relay was invented, but I suspect it was way before 1901, given that the concept of an electromagnet was so much earlier. The concepts I thought were well understood, at least within the realms of telephony, by the 1940s. > Optical: Photo electric "cells" (not intentional) using selenium were > around in 1873. I seem to recall that this was about the biggest problem in getting Colossus to work in the 1940s; the technology for doing the optical detection of the tape data just wasn't really 'there' yet, not at any speed. I think the maximum they managed to get was around 8KHz, but it wasn't particularly reliable (I think 5KHz was the norm, and it took an awful lot of initial effort to get that working properly). > I will say some of the replies on this group are realistic -- when I > mentioned this at work one colleague (Windows Programmer) asked if it > would run a web server. Sigh. Heh - Ethernet interface and TCP/IP stack using 1900-era tech, anyone? :-) cheers Jules From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Feb 15 09:09:36 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 08:09:36 -0700 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 23 In-Reply-To: <47B58946.1020005@nktelco.net> References: <200802130253.m1D2rC2T028264@dewey.classiccmp.org> <7657EC11-AD67-47B1-9757-68E035449E9D@microspot.co.uk> <47B38812.6080401@nktelco.net> <47B55BEA.CF62CD65@cs.ubc.ca> <47B58946.1020005@nktelco.net> Message-ID: <47B5AB30.2060604@jetnet.ab.ca> Charles H Dickman wrote: > As the original can opener, the resulting discussion has been quite > interesting. Probably more interesting than my original question, which > was what is the oldest electronic digital computer still in existence as > a functional artifact, whether in a museum or private collection. I was > discounting reproductions such as the Atanasoff-Berry Computer you > mention or the Colossus at Bletchley Park. I would also discount partial > machines such as front panels. I see the Colossus more a working spare of the original as the machine's feel seems to have been kept in the duplication. I am not sure but I think some of the orginal people who built the orginal Colossus or the other computer thingy did help in the rebuild. The people in the UK can make more coments about that. All the other reconstructions I know of the orginal people are long dead or not in the computing field. PS: The kenbak 1 replica also comes close with orginal designers helping with a copy. http://www.kenbakkit.com/ From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Feb 15 09:03:49 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:03:49 -0600 Subject: Computer in 1900 In-Reply-To: <47B543CB.1500BD93@cs.ubc.ca> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <47B543CB.1500BD93@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <47B5A9D5.5070908@gmail.com> Brent Hilpert wrote: > To be realisitic about what might have been accomplished in 1900 the whole > issue of building a large system of hundreds/thousands of components needs to > be looked at more seriously. Will raised the issue for tubes, but it applies to > all the other components as well, regarding reliability, uniformity and > stability of characteristics. I expect that isolated testing / fine-tuning before feeding the components into the production area would help a lot, though. Screen out the faulty / really bad stuff, and tweak the marginal bits to produce components that are a bit more uniform in performance. There's still the issues of attaining enough supply that Will mentioned, and of course factors during operation play a part (longevity, issues of heat / vibration etc.), but I expect it could be done. > The idea of building such large systems was > considered daunting or simply implausible even in the 1940's I think the issues there revolved largely around a belief that the end result simply wouldn't work to the required spec, rather than it not being possible to do at all. I think something electric is achievable, but I still think that something which was largely mechanical in nature (at least for the logic) would have been a better bet. cheers Jules From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Feb 15 09:09:07 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:09:07 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> Message-ID: Hi I will concede that it wasn't until the 1920's that tubes were created that would have been useful for a computer. Direct heated tubes would be difficult to use in any case because any useful voltage level shifting would be needed to be done by cathode followers. This would require an independent supply for each filament. There is still the option of externally heated filaments using coal gas. But I think the only practical computer of that time would be relays. The only really difficult part would be what to use for RAM. Holding relays would reduce the power but cost would be bad( as I'd suggested by using reed relays with bias magnets ). Zuess had a mechanical memory but it never worked well. To run at any speed, it bent or broke push rods. He did have the best relay ALU I'd ever seen. Dwight > From: dkelvey at hotmail.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:45:25 -0800 > Subject: RE: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue > > > > >> From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de > >> On Thu, 14 Feb 2008, dwight elvey wrote: >>> I wish to make a correction. The tubes were called audions and were >>> not made until 1906. Low gain made them hard to use for radio uses >> >> "Audion" and "hard to use for radio" is a contradiction... >> >> Christian > > Hi > Low gain and high capacitance between grid and plate > made them hard to use for RF. Audio amplification > could be used after a diode detector. > Dwight > _________________________________________________________________ > Climb to the top of the charts! Play the word scramble challenge with star power. > http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_jan _________________________________________________________________ Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging.?You IM, we give. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Feb 15 09:13:28 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 08:13:28 -0700 Subject: Computer in 1900, was RE: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <47B5A7BD.1020006@gmail.com> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <47B5A7BD.1020006@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B5AC18.1090102@jetnet.ab.ca> Jules Richardson wrote: > Heh - Ethernet interface and TCP/IP stack using 1900-era tech, anyone? :-) Umm you had 5 bit code not 8 bit [1] crap of today. > cheers > > Jules [1] 7 or 8 bits depending just how you send data. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Feb 15 09:16:26 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:16:26 -0800 Subject: Computer in 1900, was RE: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <47B5A7BD.1020006@gmail.com> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <47B5A7BD.1020006@gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com > >> Relays: Possible, but even in 1945 was very hard. Available by 1901 at >> the latest. > > Why do you say 'very hard'? I'm not sure when the relay was invented, but I > suspect it was way before 1901, given that the concept of an electromagnet was > so much earlier. The concepts I thought were well understood, at least within > the realms of telephony, by the 1940s. > Hi The problem was RAM, not the control factors of relay logic. Relay logic was widely use in the 40's. Making a practical RAM was the difficulty. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Climb to the top of the charts!?Play the word scramble challenge with star power. http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_jan From rivie at ridgenet.net Fri Feb 15 09:20:43 2008 From: rivie at ridgenet.net (Roger Ivie) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:20:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: My DEC Collection and wish list In-Reply-To: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DDC7@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> References: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DDC7@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> Message-ID: On Fri, 15 Feb 2008, Rod Smallwood wrote: > Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:19:10 -0000 > From: Rod Smallwood > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > Subject: My DEC Collection and wish list > > Its a while since my last update so here's my current collection. > > RAINBOW > Rainbow > Fully working on CP/M and DOS but the VR201 has the mould spot > problem. > Doin' a bit of work here. The tube has a glass faceplate held on > by a thick (1/8") > layer of silicone clear adhesive. That's where the spots are. > Anybody know of a solvent for this stuff? > > PDP8 > > DECMate III - Boots but I have no software for it. > > PDP-11 > > 11/94 x 2 but CPU boards missing and too expensive to buy. > I have a vague idea about DEC emulator running on a > PC board with a PCI to QBUS bridge. (ie Fake it!!) > > PRO350 Runs POS ok > > PRO380 This weekends project. > > VAX > > VAX Station 3100 - Runs DEC windows but I need to reset the system > password > > 4000 M200 Running VMS 7.3 but Ethernet I/F not working > > 4000 M300 Was Running VMS 7.3 but will not fully boot (A VMS > reload I think!) > > 4000 M500 Top Door ,CPU board, Drives and Console section front > panel missing. > > > VT's > > VT240 > VT320 > VT330 > VT420 > > > A ton of DEC Documentation. > > > Rod Smallwood > The DecCollector. > > > > > > From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Feb 15 09:29:32 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:29:32 -0800 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <000001c86f61$ee891050$176fa8c0@obie> References: <200802142203.m1EM3agb066127@dewey.classiccmp.org> <000001c86f61$ee891050$176fa8c0@obie> Message-ID: Hi I've been using a PB-10 until just last week when it stopped programming 2716s :( I have a data I/O 19 with unipack but that requires me to dig up serial commands and such. I mostly used it for copies. I think my PB-10 problem is related to either the charge pump or regulation of the VPP. I only just figured out how they run the charge pump but the regulation doesn't make sense to me yet. I don't have schematic for the PB-10 so I need to trace wires. I suspect that I may have distroyed a couple of my 2716s. Someplace I have a simple parallel port programmer but I'd have to dig through boxes to find it again. I don't have the original software, any more, but it is simple enough that I could recreate it. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Need to know the score, the latest news, or you need your Hotmail?-get your "fix". http://www.msnmobilefix.com/Default.aspx From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Feb 15 09:40:20 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:40:20 -0500 Subject: Computer in 1900 In-Reply-To: <47B5A9D5.5070908@gmail.com> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <47B543CB.1500BD93@cs.ubc.ca> <47B5A9D5.5070908@gmail.com> Message-ID: > I expect that isolated testing / fine-tuning before feeding the components > into the production area would help a lot, though. Screen out the faulty / > really bad stuff, and tweak the marginal bits to produce components that are a > bit more uniform in performance. Stability is also a huge issue. Early tubes generally needed constant adjustment while operating. Screening Audions would help somewhat, but five minutes after the screening of new parts, you would end up with a bunch of mismatched tubes again. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Feb 15 09:48:12 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:48:12 -0500 Subject: Computer in 1900, was RE: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <47B5A7BD.1020006@gmail.com> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <47B5A7BD.1020006@gmail.com> Message-ID: > Why do you say 'very hard'? I'm not sure when the relay was invented, but I > suspect it was way before 1901, given that the concept of an electromagnet was > so much earlier. By 1901 relays were common items. Western Union did much of the perfection in the mid/late 1800s. > I seem to recall that this was about the biggest problem in getting Colossus > to work in the 1940s; the technology for doing the optical detection of the > tape data just wasn't really 'there' yet, not at any speed. I think the > maximum they managed to get was around 8KHz, but it wasn't particularly > reliable (I think 5KHz was the norm, and it took an awful lot of initial > effort to get that working properly). I am not sure what the photocells of 1920 were up to, but by 1940 they were not half bad, with so many being used for FAX service. 8 KHz may be about right for off the shelf tubes. -- Will From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Fri Feb 15 10:07:58 2008 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:07:58 +0100 (CET) Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: References: <47B4CF14.3070508@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Fri, 15 Feb 2008, William Donzelli wrote: >> Wrong, "computer tubes" were developped for computers and >> electronic calculating machines. > > All you need to do is look at the registration dates of the type > numbers. And OSRD reports from World War 2. Well, the types that I have listed are Noval/Miniature types and date from the fifties (the E180CC for example is the same as a 7062). These types were specifically made for computers and haven't existed during WW2 (where the development of Rimlock types had started at the end, but not Noval). According to your logic one has to call the E180CC an HiFi audio tube because everyone's using them as such nowadays. I think we have to differentiate between "computer tubes" as "tubes that were used in computers but not specifically made for computers" and "computer tubes" as "tubes specifically made for computers/digital applications". I am talking of the latter. Another example: The Zuse Z22 uses PL36 (or PL81?) for IIRC core memory drivers. This tube is actually a TV horizontal output tube and although extensively used in a computer, was definitely not a "computer tube". But the Z22 also uses logic modules with E92CC (7 pin dual triode, Green Series). Christian From Bob.Adamson at sli-institute.ac.uk Fri Feb 15 10:16:25 2008 From: Bob.Adamson at sli-institute.ac.uk (Bob Adamson) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:16:25 -0000 Subject: cctech Digest, Vol 54, Issue 22 In-Reply-To: <200802151509.m1FF8qoG080274@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802151509.m1FF8qoG080274@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <7D7A68F7F09DAE40AE47E55F7F601D8B834708@SLISERVER21.sli-institute.ac.uk> Al Kossov said: > That seems highly unlikely. The PIC was being worked on at GI on > Long Island when I was doing a project for GI in the late 70's on > a CP-1600 system. The designers were Scottish. I tried to convince them > to make the architecture more like the 1600's (ie. PDP-11 like) because > I thought the 11 was a better architecture than what they were coming up > with. IIRC the lead designers were Don Butler and Ken Naife (sp?) and the manager was Steve Maine (all English to split hairs, although they had migrated to Long Island from GI in Glenrothes, Scotland) who had earlier worked on the Mattel games chips. This design team was earlier the top end of the Hughes Microelectronics design group based in Weybridge (where I also worked) but split off to join the embryonic GI in Glenrothes. The GI Glenrothes facility was actually started up by a breakaway group of the bulk of the senior management of Elliots Microelectronics also in Glenrothes when GEC took the decision to move the facility south and amalgamate it with some other scraps of GEC's empire. Oddly I also worked for both Elliott's and later GEC's microelectronics companies - a small incestuous world in those days. The PIC at that time was an nmos design and the first of the cmos family was still being worked on when I left GI in 1982. regards Bob Adamson From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Fri Feb 15 10:24:17 2008 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:24:17 +0100 (CET) Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 15 Feb 2008, dwight elvey wrote: >> "Audion" and "hard to use for radio" is a contradiction... > Low gain and high capacitance between grid and plate > made them hard to use for RF. Audio amplification > could be used after a diode detector. The term "audion" describes a circuit for the demodulator stage in a radio set consisting of a tube (mostly called the audion tube like the common REN904). An audion may also be called a "grid rectifier". Sometimes the audion tube was also used as RF amplifier in a reflex circuit. But perhaps you're thinking of Lee DeForest's triode which he called Audion because of it's usage in a thereby called "audion circuit". But with the invention of the frame grid tube ("Spanngitterr?hre") and the PCC88 (called the "miracle tube" or "Wunderr?hre") it has been proved that triodes do much better in RF input stages like in UHF TV tuners which need to go up to around 800 MHz. The PCC88 (and similar tubes like the PCC189) are mostly used in cascode circuits with e.g. a PC93 as UHF oscillator. But we're completely off-topic now... (except perhaps with the frame grid tubes). Christian From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Feb 15 10:32:50 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:32:50 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: References: <47B4CF14.3070508@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > Well, the types that I have listed are Noval/Miniature types and date from > the fifties (the E180CC for example is the same as a 7062). These types > were specifically made for computers and haven't existed during WW2 The radar (mostly IFF) application predates computers. It became clear in World War 2 that the standard line of tubes was sometimes suffering problems with pulse recovery. There were plans to give IFF systems real digital codes (even ciphered), but these just could not be made reliably until a new line of tubes came out. These IFF systems came to become the Mk X system with SIF (the octal code still in use today) in the very early 1950s. > According to your logic one has to call the E180CC an HiFi audio tube > because everyone's using them as such nowadays. I never said that. Nor implied it. > I think we have to > differentiate between "computer tubes" as "tubes that were used in > computers but not specifically made for computers" and "computer tubes" as > "tubes specifically made for computers/digital applications". I am talking > of the latter. There really is no difference. Many of the radar types found their way into computers, and vice versa. The digital application is the significance. My point is that the thing that pushed the industry to make these tubes is the military radar industry, not the computer industry. I would bet that the number of sockets for "computer tubes" in the 1950s for radar applications was thousands of times larger than the number of sockets for computers. > Another example: The Zuse Z22 uses PL36 (or PL81?) for IIRC core memory > drivers. This tube is actually a TV horizontal output tube and although > extensively used in a computer, was definitely not a "computer tube". But > the Z22 also uses logic modules with E92CC (7 pin dual triode, Green > Series). There are all sorts of places in tube computers where odd tubes were used. And vice versa, again. -- Will From cclist at sydex.com Fri Feb 15 11:50:43 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:50:43 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: <200802150801.m1F81Q88074839@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802150801.m1F81Q88074839@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47B56073.9476.54E72D4@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:38:24 +0100 (CET) > From: Christian Corti > And what's special about that? Historically a "computer" is a person who > does computations (what else?), this job description may well originate > from the 19th century. And a "compiler" generally is/was an insult for > someone, mostly for scientists/students and the like, because that meant > that they "compiled" their work mostly/completely from foreign texts. Indeed. I recall that the preface to the ANSI FORTRAN specifications from at least F77 state that no attempt is being made to specify what is meant by a "computer" and that it could well be a human being. I'm not sure, but I think the CODASYL documents say the same thing. I also recall a dialogue with one of the WWII codebreakers where the "Computer Room" was where the folks using pencil and paper and comptometers worked. Cheers, Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Feb 15 11:54:01 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:54:01 -0500 Subject: Digitalker, SP0256, and SC-01 speech chips In-Reply-To: <47B480BB.22043.1E49005@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200802142203.m1EM3agf066127@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47B480BB.22043.1E49005@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Feb 14, 2008, at 8:56 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Doubtful, as it's just the same architecture, and far from the >> same implementation. The 8X30x chips are bipolar, if memory >> serves. But >> either way, I'm not sure what the point would be, aside from >> possibly >> building new boards using an existing 8X30x MSCP implementation. > > As one who has had the extreme displeasure of programming both the > 8X300 and an 8X305, Are they really that bad? How so? > I'd have to say that the two have about as much > in common with a PIC as a pocket knife to an CNC EDM system. The > instruction sets aren't even close, nor is the data path > architecture. In some respects, the bipolar chip has a bit more > flexibility (e.g. variable-length operations and an "execute" > instruction) even with its limitation of an instruction set of size > 8. ... > Do you have a cite that states that the PIC1640 is a direct > descendent of the SMS 300? Microchip certainly doesn't admit it--and > I'd be hard pressed to find the similarity beyond both being Harvard > architecture binary CPUs. I went to gather references and I found that I may have misunderstood something a very long time ago! Here's a quote from the PIC FAQ: > The roots of the PIC originated at Harvard university for a Defense > Department project, but was beaten by a simpler (and more reliable > at the time) single memory design from Princeton. Harvard > Architecture was first used in the Signetics 8x300, and was adapted > by General Instruments for use as a peripheral interface controller > (PIC) which was designed to compensate for poor I/O in its 16 bit > CP1600 CPU. The microelectronics division was eventually spun off > into Arizona Microchip Technology (around 1985), with the PIC as > its main product. I (more than a decade ago) took that to mean that the processor architecture (the instruction set and register layout, not just "Harvard") was traced back to the 8X300. It was *Harvard architecture* that was used by GI, not the 8X300 architecture...does that make more sense? In that case, I stand corrected and apologize for my error! That said, what can you tell us about the 8X30x processors? I don't think I've ever known anyone else who designed with them. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Feb 15 12:10:37 2008 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:10:37 -0800 Subject: cctech Digest, Vol 54, Issue 22 (was PIC history) Message-ID: <47B5D59D.4090408@bitsavers.org> > IIRC the lead designers were Don Butler and Ken Naife (sp?) and the > manager was Steve Maine (all English to split hairs, although they had > migrated to Long Island from GI in Glenrothes, Scotland) Thank you for the correction. These were all memories that I hadn't thought about since the late 70's. Looking at the data book scans, the 1640 existed well before I spent any time there. I did remember the Glenrothes connection but not much more of the details. The point was that the designers weren't very likely to have any connection with a west coast company (SMS). This all was my first exposure to IC fab and design. Pretty interesting stuff for a kid like me who grew up in rural Wisconsin.. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Feb 15 13:01:19 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:01:19 -0800 Subject: Digitalker, SP0256, and SC-01 speech chips In-Reply-To: <200802151802.m1FI2pf7083130@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802151802.m1FI2pf7083130@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47B570FF.19336.58F169B@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:54:01 -0500 > From: Dave McGuire > > As one who has had the extreme displeasure of programming both the > > 8X300 and an 8X305, > > Are they really that bad? How so? Brain-dead in the extreme, although the model might be interesting for the "1900 Computer" thread. You had 8 registers, a shifter and an ALU. R0 was the implied source for binary operations, but not implied as an accumulator. The instruction set was 8 instructions: 1. Move between the register file and the I/O bus 2. Add using R0 betweeen the register file and the I/O bus 3. AND as in (2) 4. XOR as in (2) 5. XMIT - a "Load Immediate" (8 bits to register file, but only 4 bits to I/O bus. 6. XEC - Execute instruction at the location formed by adding the 8- bit immediate field and the contents of a register. 7. NZT - replace the low order 8 bits (or 4 bits if I/O bus is being tested) of the program counter with a literal value if the specified register is nonzero. 8. JMP - unconditionally jump to the 13 bit immediate address. That's it. Thee were some strange conventions with the I/O registers, being designated as "right" and "left" bank which restricted their use in operations. There was one status flag-- overflow--addressable as regiser 8. No interrupts, unless you were fortunate enough to have an 8x310 ICC, which gave you a 4-level stack and 3 interrupts. The 8x310 also gave you some new instructions, implemented by decoding "do nothing" move instructions. You got a PUSH (current PC+2), a RETURN, SET and CLEAR interrupt mask and a clear pending interrupt status. You could use the 310 to implement a CALL by using a PUSH followed by a JMP. But 8x310s were rarely seen. By any measure, the PIC1640 was miles ahead in terms of ease of programming. AFAIK, the relay-based Mark I was the first Harvard architecture machine. Was the 8x300 the first microprocess (maybe too strong a word) to employ Harvard architure? I don't know, but it was an early design. It's interesting to me that, although the PIC claims to have Harvard architure, the model has been violated somewhat in the more advanced PICs. So, for example, members of the PIC18xx series allow for fetching of data values from program memory (TBL instruction) and modifying and re-flashing program memory under program control. Cheers, Chuck From nico at farumdata.dk Fri Feb 15 13:34:34 2008 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:34:34 +0100 Subject: Is there a program to analyze a mag tape References: <021520080726.26462.47B53EBD00011C810000675E22230647629B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: <010001c87009$cb27d120$2101a8c0@finans> From: > > I a have a lot of mag tape/cartridge tape that I would like to analyze. > > I there a program that would write the whole tape then read it back, > logging the retries and the errors. > I am not aware of a program doing that job, but there is a way out, at least for reel-to-reel tapes and 3480/3490 type cartridges. Some tapedrives, like the Qualstar 3412S, have a hardware function called Read/Write test. The 3412S will write a tape, and for every error it finds, it lights/extinghuishes a LED. So, by looking at how many times a KED switches, you can get an idea of the quality. When talking about reel to reel tapes, you will see that most of the errors are found within the first 5 % of the length. You can then cut that part of the tape, put on a new blink, and enjoy a useable tape. The 3412 will do that for all 3 densities it can write : 1600, 3200 and 6250 bpi. It will stop testing when a certain number of errors has been detected. Nico From dm561 at torfree.net Fri Feb 15 13:15:42 2008 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:15:42 -0500 Subject: Circuit Cellar CCSEP EPROM programmer Message-ID: <01C86FDF.40DBDCC0@mandr71> Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 04:24:44 -0500 From: "Roy J. Tellason" Subject: Re: EPROM programmer On Friday 15 February 2008 04:15, M H Stein wrote: >> The manual has pretty clear instructions for changing the baud rate, up to >> 19.2 (pp. 8&9); you'll need 2x27128 unless you have a second programmer. >Eh? I don't have the manual with mine, but 2x27128 shouldn't be a problem, >I guess. ----- With the version 1 S/W you have to burn a copy of the system ROM first in order to patch it and then burn the final version. Version 2 of the S/W has an option (12) to copy the system ROM to RAM (if you have enough installed) so you only need to burn one 27128. === >> See MCM68764 & MCM68766 (24 pin 8Kx8) >I wasn't aware of these. Though I suppose I'd still need an adapter, for the >programmer? I'll look for some data on them. ---- Not necessarily; the V2 S/W has provisions for user-defined EPROM parameters, but I don't know offhand whether the hardware can accommodate 68754/6s (or 2532s for that matter). mike From cclist at sydex.com Fri Feb 15 13:34:24 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:34:24 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: <200802151802.m1FI2pf7083130@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802151802.m1FI2pf7083130@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47B578C0.11820.5AD5D48@cclist.sydex.com> I think that many people are overlooking the matter of available techniques and materials in 1900 when supposing a computer operating in the Kops range was possible. No printed-circuitry; indeed, the mode of much electronic construction was busbar-type wiring on a varnished piece of wood. I don't know when enameled "magnet wire" came into production, but the standard for magnet wire for a long time was silk covering. Hookup wire may have been cotton or cambric, with gutta-percha for insulation. Resistors of any precision would likely have been wirewound. Does one need audions for amplification? Consider early telegraph repeaters or even chart recorders (running on a wind-up spring and recording microvolts). Even audio amplification could be achieved using compressed air. At the time, pneumatics were at a pretty high stage of development. Consider the workings of a player piano or pipe organ. But I think the technology that would have been selected in 1900 would have been mechanical or electro-mechanical. Consider, for example, the work of Leonardo Torres Quevedo. Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Feb 15 14:34:48 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:34:48 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <47B5F768.5000006@gmail.com> Christian Corti wrote: > On Thu, 14 Feb 2008, dwight elvey wrote: >> I wish to make a correction. The tubes were called audions and were >> not made until 1906. Low gain made them hard to use for radio uses > > "Audion" and "hard to use for radio" is a contradiction... Why even bother with tubes? Relays were pretty consistent by the turn of the last century, weren't they? I mean, they're pretty inconsistent in general, but they would have been consistent "enough" for use in a computer, right? Peace... Sridhar From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Feb 15 14:44:36 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:44:36 -0800 Subject: Computer in 1900 References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <47B543CB.1500BD93@cs.ubc.ca> <47B5A9D5.5070908@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B5F9B4.20C223E6@cs.ubc.ca> Jules Richardson wrote: > > Brent Hilpert wrote: > > The idea of building such large systems was > > considered daunting or simply implausible even in the 1940's > > I think the issues there revolved largely around a belief that the end result > simply wouldn't work to the required spec, rather than it not being possible > to do at all. With a (large) digital system what's the difference? It was a concern which did have to be addressed (with techniques like margin checking, amongst others) to get useful production/uptime out of the machines. Refer to Will's earlier mention of probability and statistics. And that's the 40's, a world away from 1900 or 1910. > I think something electric is achievable, but I still think that something > which was largely mechanical in nature (at least for the logic) would have > been a better bet. You may be right, even with relays there is the issue of the reliability of (thousands of) contacts: plating techniques and metal alloys weren't then what they are now. From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Feb 15 15:04:00 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:04:00 -0600 Subject: Computer in 1900 In-Reply-To: <47B5F9B4.20C223E6@cs.ubc.ca> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <47B543CB.1500BD93@cs.ubc.ca> <47B5A9D5.5070908@gmail.com> <47B5F9B4.20C223E6@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <47B5FE40.9020209@gmail.com> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: >> Brent Hilpert wrote: >> > The idea of building such large systems was >>> considered daunting or simply implausible even in the 1940's >> I think the issues there revolved largely around a belief that the end result >> simply wouldn't work to the required spec, rather than it not being possible >> to do at all. > > With a (large) digital system what's the difference? It was a concern which did > have to be addressed (with techniques like margin checking, amongst others) to > get useful production/uptime out of the machines. Refer to Will's earlier > mention of probability and statistics. My thinking was that the astronomical cost needed to get a device of unknown speed and reliability (which might not prove more efficient than the human workers it would replace) into production put a damper on most plans - people could likely see that a computer (in the electronic / electro-mechnical sense) would work, but not necessarily be able to judge how well... cheers Jules From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Feb 15 15:37:46 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:37:46 -0800 Subject: Digitalker, SP0256, and SC-01 speech chips References: <200802151802.m1FI2pf7083130@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47B570FF.19336.58F169B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47B6062A.62384573@cs.ubc.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:54:01 -0500 > > From: Dave McGuire > > > As one who has had the extreme displeasure of programming both the > > > 8X300 and an 8X305, > > > > Are they really that bad? How so? > > Brain-dead in the extreme, although the model might be interesting > for the "1900 Computer" thread. You had 8 registers, a shifter and > an ALU. R0 was the implied source for binary operations, but not > implied as an accumulator. The instruction set was 8 instructions: .. > > By any measure, the PIC1640 was miles ahead in terms of ease of > programming. Just to mention, the SMS300 (and the CPC1600, but not the PIC1640) is covered in the Osborne book ("Intro. to Microcomputers, Vol. II, Some Real Products)". Reading the Osborne book some time ago I got the impression the SMS300 might be considered the first (micro-)DSP. Extracts: "The SMS300 is described by its manufacturer as a "microcontroller" rather than a "microprocessor". This distinction draws attention to the very unique capabilities of the SMS300 which make it the most remarkable device described in this book." "The SMS300 is designed to serve as a signal processor, operating at very high speed. The SMS300 can handle applications of this type at more than 10 times the speed of any other device described in this book." "If yours is a high speed signal processing application, then give the SMS300 serious consideration; otherwise, the SMS300 is probably not for you." From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Feb 15 17:05:57 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:05:57 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Computer in 1900, In-Reply-To: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> from "Gavin Melville" at Feb 15, 8 05:41:42 pm Message-ID: > Relays: Possible, but even in 1945 was very hard. Available by 1901 at > the latest. I would say relays were definitely available in 1900. I have a book from 1895 [1] on electric bells, and while I can't remember if relays are explicitly mentioned (I think they are), the trembler bell was certainly well-known at that time. A trivial modification to a trembler bell turns it into a relay with one normally-closed contact (just remove the hammer and gong, and electrically disconnect the contact from the coil and bring them out seprately). It's then only a very small step to add a normally-open contact, and indeed other cotnacts. [1] My second-oldest book on electrical stuff. I have an 1892 book on telephone installations. -tony From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Feb 15 17:51:57 2008 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:51:57 -0600 Subject: Computer in 1900, In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20080215174813.04e5b9b0@mail.threedee.com> At 05:05 PM 2/15/2008, Tony Duell wrote: >[1] My second-oldest book on electrical stuff. I have an 1892 book on >telephone installations. One of my treasured possessions is my great-grandfather's copy of "Electroforce" magazine, a turn-of-the-century publication about innovations in electricity. One of the featured articles is about a recently electrified home - they were astounded at electric irons, lights in every room, overhead lights with switches near the doorways, etc. Another interesting aspect were the advertisements. There were mail-order hobbyist shops even back then, selling motors, supplies, etc. I should scan it some day. - John From bob at jfcl.com Fri Feb 15 18:38:01 2008 From: bob at jfcl.com (Bob Armstrong) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:38:01 -0800 Subject: DEC BA440/H7874 Power Bus Connector Message-ID: <00d701c87034$2fe97b20$8fbc7160$@com> Does anybody know if it's possible to interconnect the modular plug style power control bus used on the BA440/H7874 with the older three wire power control bus used on the "traditional" DEC 874/861 power controllers? If it is, does anyone have the pinout for the connecting cable? Thanks, Bob Armstrong From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Feb 15 18:56:06 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:56:06 -0700 Subject: Computer in 1900, In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20080215174813.04e5b9b0@mail.threedee.com> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <6.2.3.4.2.20080215174813.04e5b9b0@mail.threedee.com> Message-ID: <47B634A6.5020401@jetnet.ab.ca> John Foust wrote: > One of my treasured possessions is my great-grandfather's copy of > "Electroforce" magazine, a turn-of-the-century publication about > innovations in electricity. One of the featured articles is about > a recently electrified home - they were astounded at electric irons, > lights in every room, overhead lights with switches near the doorways, > etc. Another interesting aspect were the advertisements. There were > mail-order hobbyist shops even back then, selling motors, supplies, etc. > I should scan it some day. Umm I can I still order stuff from them? I wonder how the prices compare with todays prices. PS: And I don't mean cheap chinese products, real *Made in America* stuff. You might have to back about 50 years to find those products. > - John From gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz Fri Feb 15 19:33:56 2008 From: gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz (Gavin Melville) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:33:56 +1300 Subject: Computer in 1900, In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DED07@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Hi, I had looked at relays, and while there certainly were relays in 1900, I doubt they were very good in terms of bounce, actuation time etc. The building where I work has an Otis made lift dating from 1980, done completely with relays. It's fairly unreliable, and a lot of the relays have to be fiddled with springs, copper disks, iron slugs etc. (Some of them were designed that way, and some just needed it to make them work). I've seen the stuff on the relay computer, and I suspect that simply would not have worked in 1900, but works due to modern relays. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell > Sent: Saturday, 16 February 2008 12:06 p.m. > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Computer in 1900, > > > Relays: Possible, but even in 1945 was very hard. > Available by 1901 at > > the latest. > > I would say relays were definitely available in 1900. I have > a book from > 1895 [1] on electric bells, and while I can't remember if > relays are explicitly mentioned (I think they are), the > trembler bell was certainly well-known at that time. > > A trivial modification to a trembler bell turns it into a > relay with one normally-closed contact (just remove the > hammer and gong, and electrically disconnect the contact from > the coil and bring them out seprately). It's then only a very > small step to add a normally-open contact, and indeed other cotnacts. > > [1] My second-oldest book on electrical stuff. I have an 1892 > book on telephone installations. > > -tony > > From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Feb 15 20:19:32 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:19:32 -0700 Subject: Computer in 1900, In-Reply-To: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DED07@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DED07@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Message-ID: <47B64834.7060009@jetnet.ab.ca> Gavin Melville wrote: > I've seen the stuff on the relay computer, and I suspect that simply > would not have worked in 1900, but works due to modern relays. We are talking high speed of 5? Hz for relay computers. I am guessing a 1 HZ might practial for that era. PS. Doing a quick goggle on Zuse, I found this note. Telsa patented a relay AND gate in 1900. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Feb 15 20:19:39 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:19:39 -0500 Subject: Computer in 1900, In-Reply-To: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DED07@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DED07@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Message-ID: > I had looked at relays, and while there certainly were relays in 1900, I > doubt they were very good in terms of bounce, actuation time etc. The > building where I work has an Otis made lift dating from 1980, done > completely with relays. It's fairly unreliable, and a lot of the relays > have to be fiddled with springs, copper disks, iron slugs etc. (Some of > them were designed that way, and some just needed it to make them work). > > > I've seen the stuff on the relay computer, and I suspect that simply > would not have worked in 1900, but works due to modern relays. I think you are perhaps just seeing bad, unmaintained relays in your elevator. A good, overengineered, maintained relay, even 100 years old, just will not break. The railroads are full of them (well, 90 years old). Just do not expect any sort of speed - maybe 1 second cycles. A 1900-era relay computer would be big, expensive, suck juice like crazy, and be stupidly slow, but I bet it would work. I can envision setting up batch jobs, running them, then seeing how many cycles were used, so between jobs workers could do preventative maintenance on the relays if some number of cycles was reached. -- Will From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Feb 15 21:12:06 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:12:06 -0700 Subject: Computer in 1900, In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DED07@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Message-ID: <47B65486.5000103@jetnet.ab.ca> William Donzelli wrote: > A 1900-era relay computer would be big, expensive, suck juice like > crazy, and be stupidly slow, but I bet it would work. I can envision > setting up batch jobs, running them, then seeing how many cycles were > used, so between jobs workers could do preventative maintenance on the > relays if some number of cycles was reached. That is true with even modern machines. Ta-Da ... Zuse 3 http://ed-thelen.org/Munich/MunichTripReport.html#Zuse3 > -- > Will > > > . > From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Feb 15 22:25:54 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 01:25:54 -0300 Subject: EPROM programmer References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <02c401c87054$5179ce00$01fea8c0@portajara> > It appears I've staved off buying one of these too long and now I need > one. > Way back in the day, I used an ART EPP1, and I liked the serial connection > (as I could use it from any machine,not just a PC). > But, there are lots of options today. My primary interest is in > replicating CBM KERNAL roms, though I would not mind uC programming > capabilities. > What do other people use for eprom programming? I see a slew of Willem > programmers, but I don't understand why there are so many variants. A > bummer is that they all use the Paallel Port, as far as I can tell. From Cheapest to Eternal: - Willem. Nothing can be cheaper than that. You can build one on your home for a few quids, a single sided board drawing is avaiable which you can make using photo method or thermal toner transfer. Very reliable but doesn't program anything older than 2732 or 2716 if I'm not mistaken, Although there is an adapter avaiable. - Top 2004/2007/2008/whatever. These programmers made in china are very cheap and very capable, but the software is terrible and the support is nil. I'd not buy one of these but they **works** - Used ALL-03 / ALL-11 programmer - top of mind, great programmers for all kind of jobs, does SRAM/DRAM/TTL/CMOS/Whatever testing and are usually cheap - if you can find one to buy. - Used Labprog 48 from Elnec. www.elnec.com says it all. - NEW Beeprog / Beeprog + from Elnec. The best $300-700 you're going to spend in a programmer. I have a beeprog and will not have to buy anything for a long time. Excellent support, DAILY (!) updates and a great tool. Hope it helps! Alexandre From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Feb 15 22:45:56 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 01:45:56 -0300 Subject: EPROM programmer References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com><200802150111.25289.rtellason@verizon.net><47B54C07.2050607@jbrain.com> <200802150350.24568.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <030b01c87057$314b8e40$01fea8c0@portajara> >> > Replacing a CBM Kernal ROM is going to need an adapter, as the eprom >> > has >> > more pins. Are you into making those or do you know of a source for >> > them? >> http://freenet-homepage.de/x1541/hardware/2364.html > Neat! And reasonably priced, considering what you get... Some nice photos (since the page are in portuguese): http://www.tabajara-labs.com.br/c64/sx/ (of course, making one of these adapters From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Feb 15 22:51:44 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 01:51:44 -0300 Subject: EPROM programmer References: <200802142203.m1EM3agb066127@dewey.classiccmp.org><000001c86f61$ee891050$176fa8c0@obie> Message-ID: <034301c87057$e95a3d10$01fea8c0@portajara> > I've been using a PB-10 until just last week when it stopped > programming 2716s :( GREAT programmer, I had one with almost all optionals. This is one programmer I miss From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Feb 15 22:01:24 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:01:24 -0800 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <034301c87057$e95a3d10$01fea8c0@portajara> References: <200802142203.m1EM3agb066127@dewey.classiccmp.org><000001c86f61$ee891050$176fa8c0@obie> <034301c87057$e95a3d10$01fea8c0@portajara> Message-ID: > From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br >> >> I've been using a PB-10 until just last week when it stopped >> programming 2716s :( > > GREAT programmer, I had one with almost all optionals. This is one > programmer I miss > Hi It is kind of hard to debug in the machine but it looks like either the PN2222A or the 747 op-amp is the source of the problem. I'll attach a couple test wires and measure some more. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser! http://biggestloser.msn.com/ From brain at jbrain.com Fri Feb 15 22:39:14 2008 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:39:14 -0600 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <02c401c87054$5179ce00$01fea8c0@portajara> References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> <02c401c87054$5179ce00$01fea8c0@portajara> Message-ID: <47B668F2.7080801@jbrain.com> Alexandre Souza wrote: > > From Cheapest to Eternal: > > - Willem. Nothing can be cheaper than that. You can build one on > your home for a few quids, a single sided board drawing is avaiable > which you can make using photo method or thermal toner transfer. Very > reliable but doesn't program anything older than 2732 or 2716 if I'm > not mistaken, Although there is an adapter avaiable. Willem would be fine (I'd rather not spend a fortune on a programmer, and I've got enough projects here that rolling my own is not a task I'd prefer for today. On that note, a Willem looks great, cheap, programs a bunch of stuff, OK interface. But, the sheer number of variations and the lack of concrete informaiton on them makes it very hard to discern what to buy. On the one hand, The PCB 5.X folks say they will program much faster than a 3B board and have more on-board adapters, but the 3B folks say the 5.X folks reverse engineered the design and it won't be as complatible. Eeek. Any help finding a good unit here would be grand. > > - Top 2004/2007/2008/whatever. These programmers made in china are > very cheap and very capable, but the software is terrible and the > support is nil. I'd not buy one of these but they **works** Yeah, saw those. I need more orphanware like I need a hole in the head. > > - Used ALL-03 / ALL-11 programmer - top of mind, great programmers > for all kind of jobs, does SRAM/DRAM/TTL/CMOS/Whatever testing and are > usually cheap - if you can find one to buy. I'll look for one, but this is more a "get something now, move on" type of proposition. > - Used Labprog 48 from Elnec. www.elnec.com says it all. I'll check this. > > - NEW Beeprog / Beeprog + from Elnec. The best $300-700 you're > going to spend in a programmer. I have a beeprog and will not have to > buy anything for a long time. Excellent support, DAILY (!) updates and > a great tool. Too rich for me... But, I'll save this for when I want a nice unit. I hesitate to spend much, since I've existed quite a long time without one at all. But, I should have one, to program the odd KERNAL or dump it. Jim From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Feb 16 00:22:41 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 01:22:41 -0500 Subject: Computer in 1900, was RE: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest , Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <47B5A7BD.1020006@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802160122.42242.rtellason@verizon.net> On Friday 15 February 2008 10:48, William Donzelli wrote: (Snip) > > I seem to recall that this was about the biggest problem in getting > > Colossus to work in the 1940s; the technology for doing the optical > > detection of the tape data just wasn't really 'there' yet, not at any > > speed. I think the maximum they managed to get was around 8KHz, but it > > wasn't particularly reliable (I think 5KHz was the norm, and it took an > > awful lot of initial effort to get that working properly). > > I am not sure what the photocells of 1920 were up to, but by 1940 they > were not half bad, with so many being used for FAX service. 8 KHz may > be about right for off the shelf tubes. For some reason when I read "photocell" earlier on in this thread I started thinking about CdS and similar stuff, not thinking about _tubes_ per se, until I hit the last paragraph of this post... There are a number of different photocell datasheets on my tubes page: http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/tubes.html Perhaps this info might be useful Some of those real early audio and other tubes are in there too, though I don't recall offhand if that stuff is dated or not. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From bear at typewritten.org Sat Feb 16 02:31:39 2008 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:31:39 -0800 Subject: RiscPC 610 PSU - 110 VAC? Message-ID: Howdy, folks. I just acquired an Acorn Risc PC 610 from a chap in the UK. The PSU in it is labelled as a 220V-only affair. I understand there was an autoranging PSU revision, but this does not appear to be one of them. Does anybody have information on modifying this unit to work with 110V mains? Or a lead on a replacement PSU that has a switchable or autoranging input voltage? ok bear From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Fri Feb 15 07:19:10 2008 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:19:10 -0000 Subject: My DEC Collection and wish list Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DDC7@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> Its a while since my last update so here's my current collection. RAINBOW Rainbow Fully working on CP/M and DOS but the VR201 has the mould spot problem. Doin' a bit of work here. The tube has a glass faceplate held on by a thick (1/8") layer of silicone clear adhesive. That's where the spots are. Anybody know of a solvent for this stuff? PDP8 DECMate III - Boots but I have no software for it. PDP-11 11/94 x 2 but CPU boards missing and too expensive to buy. I have a vague idea about DEC emulator running on a PC board with a PCI to QBUS bridge. (ie Fake it!!) PRO350 Runs POS ok PRO380 This weekends project. VAX VAX Station 3100 - Runs DEC windows but I need to reset the system password 4000 M200 Running VMS 7.3 but Ethernet I/F not working 4000 M300 Was Running VMS 7.3 but will not fully boot (A VMS reload I think!) 4000 M500 Top Door ,CPU board, Drives and Console section front panel missing. VT's VT240 VT320 VT330 VT420 A ton of DEC Documentation. Rod Smallwood The DecCollector. From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Fri Feb 15 10:02:33 2008 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:02:33 -0000 Subject: Computer in 1900 Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DDD0@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> Where was all the technology in 1900? Railways - Signaling systems, Switches(Points) control. Warships - Gun control and ranging. Navigation. Telephone systems Wireless There must have been something computer like in that lot somewhere. -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of woodelf Sent: 15 February 2008 14:54 To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Computer in 1900 Brent Hilpert wrote: > To be realisitic about what might have been accomplished in 1900 the > whole issue of building a large system of hundreds/thousands of > components needs to be looked at more seriously. Will raised the issue > for tubes, but it applies to all the other components as well, > regarding reliability, uniformity and stability of characteristics. > The idea of building such large systems was considered daunting or > simply implausible even in the 1940's, after decades of development of components - even regarding something as seemingly simple as resistors. I think at one time you could get resistors with a 50% range of tolarance when they first came out, say around the 1900's. > Or, for example, solid-state diodes: the discovery may have been made > in 1874, but in the early 1900s the only thing actually available > (TMK) was the cat's whisker (a tad finicky) - forget about building > anything utilising more than a couple of them. And you piss off the cat making your diode. > Then there's achieving a stable power supply. Well you would have your own power plant -- coal, gas ( as in gas lamps) or hydro-electric. > ..so, depends on where you want to draw the line between concept and practice. > > The principles/theory of digital systems implementation may be > straighforward, the practical reality when dealing with > unreliable/variable components isn't so (including tubes); in > particular if you don't have some heavily-non-linear device to base > your basic gate design around. In 1900 there was very little in the > electrical domain that was reliable or consistent for the purposes being discussed. > From philip at axeside.co.uk Fri Feb 15 13:04:22 2008 From: philip at axeside.co.uk (Philip Belben) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:04:22 +0000 Subject: Computer in 1900 In-Reply-To: <47B5A76B.9020002@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DECDC@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <47B543CB.1500BD93@cs.ubc.ca> <47B5A76B.9020002@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <47B5E236.1050809@axeside.co.uk> This is an interesting topic. Without quoting anyone else's messages, but acknowledging that I am drawing on other people's ideas, here are some suggestions. Memory. I'd go for mechanical. Either decimal (there were mechanical calculators around at that date that had decimal and even duodecimal wheels for registers) or binary. I think the first binary mechanical memory was built by Konrad Zuse in the 1930s. They've reconstructed it, along with the rest of the Z1, at the Technical Museum in Berlin. It could easily have been done using Victorian precision engineering Logic. I'd still go for relays. I don't know whether there were relays as such in 1900 - my electrical engineering textbook of 1892 doesn't mention them - but the coils, cores, and components to make switches and actuators were all available. On the other hand, there's a lovely _programmable_ mechanical calculator, from about 2 years before Zuse, preserved at the IBM museum in Sindelfingen. This was just like any mechanical calculator of the day (decimal wheel registers), but with several accumulators. You could program nine steps of something resembling horizontal microcode on a plugboard somewhere; it then sucked in hundreds of punched cards and processed each according to the nine steps. There were conditionals in there - "if the card has a hole in position foo then add the total from accumulator 1 into accumulator 3" was I believe a possible instruction. This machine was made by Dehomag - the German Hollerith Machine Company - who were later bought out by IBM. Very fitting, since this machine was a typical IBM box - horrible processor but data throughput to die for... And despite the 1934 date, I expect it could have been built in a 1900 precision machine shop. Philip. From jrr at flippers.com Fri Feb 15 19:13:50 2008 From: jrr at flippers.com (John Robertson) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:13:50 -0800 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> <47B4D582.7020400@flippers.com> Message-ID: <47B638CE.3070604@flippers.com> dwight elvey wrote: >> From: jrr at flippers.com >> >> > > ---snip--- > > >>> >> Speaking of Eprom Programmers - I have a Pro-Log with the 1702A module. >> What I do not have is the manual for the 1702 module...Does anyone have >> a copy? I have a copy of the schematics thanks to another member here - >> but the module has a switch to set Vdd at either -9 (1702A?) or -10V >> (1702 only?). My module works fine, but just like to have complete docs. >> > > Hi John > The 1702 used a different algorithm than the 1702A did and the pulse > widths were different. The switch is most likely to select between > 1702As and 4702As. The 4702A used -10V to match the 4004. I doubt > the programmer was intended for 1702s. > Dwight > > Ah, well it appears that the 1702 had a Vdd of -12V and the 1702A was -9...still I suspect Pro-Log would have labeled the switch a bit clearer if one position was for the 1702 and the other for the 4702. Maybe... Still the docs on that module would be nice! John :-#)# -- John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames) www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out" From derschjo at msu.edu Fri Feb 15 23:12:27 2008 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:12:27 -0800 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal... Message-ID: <47B670BB.6080309@msu.edu> Hey all -- Picked up an old dumb terminal (and I feel secure in calling this one "old") today at Re-PC in Tukwila, WA (I'm starting to really dig this place...). It's a CDC, labeled on the back as a "Display Terminal" (go figure), Equip. Id #CC5A5-A, Series Code 2, Part #15551800. I haven't been able to find any information on this beast at all on the 'net. I've put up some pictures here: http://yahozna.dyndns.org/computers/cdcterminal/ (Haven't had a chance to clean it up yet, so it's kinda smudgy...) My favorite thing about this terminal is the huge, backlit buttons on the front for Power, etc... very cool :). I've powered it up after giving it a check-out, and it appears to work fine. I haven't hooked it up to a serial line yet, but that's coming... maybe Linux has a termcap entry for this thing? :) Opening it up reveals repair tags with dates in 1974. There are four PCBs mounted inside, connected by a ton of ribbon connectors (there's no backplane to speak of). Looks like it's all TTL, though I haven't taken the boards out to investigate. Not sure I want to disturb them :). Anyone know anything about this thing? What's it capable of? What was it originally connected to? Thanks! Josh From renagade13 at roadrunner.com Sat Feb 16 00:41:43 2008 From: renagade13 at roadrunner.com (Chris) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 01:41:43 -0500 Subject: FS: LD-V1000 Message-ID: <20080216064147.CNMB15146.mta11.adelphia.net@Renagadelaptop> The message I found is old but I was wonderig if you still had any LD-V1000 laser disk players available. If so please send me an email with price. Thanks. From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Feb 16 06:32:44 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 09:32:44 -0300 Subject: EPROM programmer References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com><02c401c87054$5179ce00$01fea8c0@portajara> <47B668F2.7080801@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <041501c87098$7f3be230$01fea8c0@portajara> Brain (will you conquer the world?) :oD > But, the sheer number of variations and the lack of concrete informaiton > on them makes it very hard to discern what to buy. Easy: Any of them. I'd prefer the cheapest, single-sided version just because it is cheap :o) Also, having the adapters separate will make your life easier: When you buy a grown-up programmer, you will have the adapters to use with that. Although in USA these things are cheap. So bad here are so expensive, I built almost all of my adapters. > On the one hand, The PCB 5.X folks say they will program much faster than > a 3B board and have more on-board adapters, but the 3B folks say the 5.X > folks reverse engineered the design and it won't be as complatible. Eeek. > Any help finding a good unit here would be grand. As I said, all of them works. I use the 3.x version just becase I did my own board. > Yeah, saw those. I need more orphanware like I need a hole in the head. Bang! A hole in the programmer! :oD > I hesitate to spend much, since I've existed quite a long time without one > at all. But, I should have one, to program the odd KERNAL or dump it. This is a kind of tool that is expensive, but if you buy the right one, you'll have it and use it for 10, 20 years. Greetz from Brazil Alexandre From ats at offog.org Sat Feb 16 06:04:47 2008 From: ats at offog.org (Adam Sampson) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 12:04:47 +0000 Subject: Computer in 1900, In-Reply-To: (Tony Duell's message of "Fri\, 15 Feb 2008 23\:05\:57 +0000 \(GMT\)") References: Message-ID: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > I would say relays were definitely available in 1900. Yes, they were -- my 1871 copy of Robert M. Ferguson's "Electricity" describes them in the selection about telegraphic applications: http://offog.org/stuff/ferguson-relay.jpeg -- Adam Sampson From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sat Feb 16 06:17:12 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 12:17:12 +0000 Subject: EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <02c401c87054$5179ce00$01fea8c0@portajara> References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com> <02c401c87054$5179ce00$01fea8c0@portajara> Message-ID: <1203164232.10271.5.camel@elric> On Sat, 2008-02-16 at 01:25 -0300, Alexandre Souza wrote: > - Willem. Nothing can be cheaper than that. You can build one on your > home for a few quids, a single sided board drawing is avaiable which you can > make using photo method or thermal toner transfer. Very reliable but doesn't > program anything older than 2732 or 2716 if I'm not mistaken, Although there > is an adapter avaiable. I bought a Willem PCB3 from eBay for about 15 quid, which came with all the cables and even a free 27C512 (which now holds custom firmware for one of my synths). The only downside is that the only software I've seen so far is Windows-only, and I can't find any proper documentation for it. The software runs perfectly well under Wine, otherwise it would have gone back. Gordon From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Sat Feb 16 07:33:21 2008 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:33:21 +0000 Subject: RiscPC 610 PSU - 110 VAC? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B6E621.2020906@philpem.me.uk> r.stricklin wrote: > Howdy, folks. > > I just acquired an Acorn Risc PC 610 from a chap in the UK. The PSU in > it is labelled as a 220V-only affair. I understand there was an > autoranging PSU revision, but this does not appear to be one of them. > > Does anybody have information on modifying this unit to work with 110V > mains? Or a lead on a replacement PSU that has a switchable or > autoranging input voltage? You want the 103W power supply -- APDL (apdl.co.uk) should have these, or CJE Micros. They're usually voltage-switchable (but the plastic between the two IEC connectors blocks the switch) but ask first. -- Phil. | (\_/) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny classiccmp at philpem.me.uk | (='.'=) into your signature to help him gain http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | (")_(") world domination. From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Sat Feb 16 10:01:03 2008 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:01:03 +0000 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project Message-ID: <47B708BF.4050405@philpem.me.uk> Hi guys, The USB floppy reader project is back on track as of about an hour ago. I've found a distributor who has a couple of Altera FPGAs in stock, and although it'll take a few days for them to arrive from Belgium, they were quite happy to sell me just five of them. For anyone that wants to look up the datasheet, they're Altera Cyclone II devices, p/n EP2C8T144C8N. Cost was ?11.58 +VAT. This nifty device also has a pair of onboard PLLs - which means I can put a relatively low-speed oscillator on the board, then boost the clock up to whatever the acquisition clock needs to be, and generate the 32MHz clock for the data separator / sync detector with the second PLL. Very cool. A quick does-this-work-or-not test build of the code I was using on the Xilinx chip clocked in at 5% utilisation of the Cyclone -- that means the final version will more than likely use a smaller chip (likely an EP2C5; the entry-level Cyclone 2). I'm still using the "time the length of the time between RD_DATA pulses" method for acquiring the data, but I'm increasing the acquisition clock so that the reader can measure the timing down to an accuracy of 50ns minimum (25ns with the 40MHz clock option). The counter is now 15-bit with an INDEX (index pulse was high at data bit leading edge) bit for every counter word. This gives a maximum counter period of 1.6384ms at 50ns, or 0.8192ms at 25ns... or a minimum bit rate of 610 or 1220 bits per second respectively. Maximum data rate is likely to be around 5-10Mbps. From what I've been told, the Trace disc duplicators had an accuracy of 50ns, which is where the base clock for the floppy reader came from (the SPS have based most of their data analysis on Trace duplicators, so the clock rates need to be close-or-identical). I've also scrapped the SRAM storage in favour of SDRAM. For the ?5 unit cost of the 256K*16 Cypress SRAM, I've managed to get a 4M*16 PC133 SDRAM chip. This gives a maximum track length of 4*1024*1024 (4194304) magnetic transitions; probably far more than any floppy disc ever made. Like I said before - the aim isn't to get an image with the intent of only decoding it (although the hardware can be rigged to do that). The aim is to be able to get as much information off a disc to be able to state that: - The data is accurate - The data is original (timing will differ between two drives -- if e.g. a high score table has been modified on a factory-written disc, the modification will be at a very slightly different data rate). Also, if you've only got one chance at reading a potentially-defective disc, you want to get as much information from that disc as you possibly can in the time you have. This is what I consider to be the spec at this moment in time: CPU: Microchip PIC18F4550 USB MCU at 40MHz (10MIPS peak) with Altera FPGA coprocessor / DAQ controller RAM: Micron Technology 4M*16 SDRAM Interfacing: USB Full Speed (12Mbps), RS232 as a jumper selectable option (115200 baud). Power: 5V DC from USB port, external supply required for drives Features: - Open-collector outputs, high-voltage (30V) tolerant - Over-voltage protected TTL level inputs with pull up resistors - Standard 34-pin drive interface, with 6 User I/O pins - Acquisition start/stop methods: - Both leading and trailing edge event triggers available (trigger-at and trigger-after) - Event Counters for all events -- wait for event to occur N times before triggering - Instant On (starts as soon as START bit is set, not valid for STOP) - Stops when memory full (always enabled) - MFM Sync word detector -- detects a 16-bit MFM word (e.g. Sync A1) - Index pulse -- typically start on leading edge, stop on trailing - Hard-sector track mark detector -- detects the double-pulse track marker and triggers from the index line - Fully reprogrammable -- boot-block protected Flash on PIC, 8Mbit Atmel DataFlash to configure FPGA. - Two user-selectable FPGA microcode blocks -- store standard FPGA code in one half of the DataFlash, and customised code in the other. - Fully open-sourced design -- hardware, software and HDL code -- basically under the "Wisp628 licence": - The design is open, so you can tweak, modify and play with it as you see fit - What you aren't allowed to do is sell kits, or pre-built units for profit. So if someone asks you to build one for them from scratch (i.e. not from a kit), you can do so, as long as you only charge for the components you used to build it. - Software is GPL2 without the "or any later version" clause, plain and simple. So the inevitable questions from me: - Am I too late with this? Is it worth continuing and finishing the project? - If I said one of these boxes would cost ?75 (around the same as a Catweasel), would you buy one? - Are there any features you guys think I should add? - Does the licence sound too restrictive? I've put around ?300 into the project thus far, not counting time. I know I've got basically no chance of recouping all of it, but it would be nice to make at least some of that money back. Like the subject line says - this is a Request For Comments - I know I'm not going to please everyone, but I'd like to get as close as I can :) I've set up a mailing list at to carry announcements and discussions about the project -- saves cluttering up classiccmp with it (unless people would rather discuss it here?) Thanks, -- Phil. | (\_/) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny classiccmp at philpem.me.uk | (='.'=) into your signature to help him gain http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | (")_(") world domination. From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Feb 16 11:11:51 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:11:51 -0300 Subject: EPROM programmer References: <47B4BA70.9080703@jbrain.com><02c401c87054$5179ce00$01fea8c0@portajara> <1203164232.10271.5.camel@elric> Message-ID: <04a001c870bf$61012ab0$01fea8c0@portajara> > I bought a Willem PCB3 from eBay for about 15 quid, which came with all > the cables and even a free 27C512 (which now holds custom firmware for > one of my synths). The only downside is that the only software I've > seen so far is Windows-only, and I can't find any proper documentation > for it. Custom synths?!? Tell me more about that :oD > The software runs perfectly well under Wine, otherwise it would have > gone back. There are sources for an old version of this program, I can send you if you want, but you can find everything under www.willem.org :o) From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Sat Feb 16 10:28:27 2008 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:28:27 +0100 (CET) Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: References: <47B4CF14.3070508@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Fri, 15 Feb 2008, William Donzelli wrote: >> I think we have to >> differentiate between "computer tubes" as "tubes that were used in >> computers but not specifically made for computers" and "computer tubes" as >> "tubes specifically made for computers/digital applications". I am talking >> of the latter. > > There really is no difference. Many of the radar types found their way > into computers, and vice versa. The digital application is the > significance. My point is that the thing that pushed the industry to But there's nonetheless an important difference, namely the oxide cathode. Tubes in digital applications may be cut off for an extended period of time, i.e. there is no cathode current. Ordinary tubes (tubes not specifically made for computers) will create an intermediate layer (? don't know how this is called in English, "Zwischenschicht" in German) in the oxide layer which will render the tube unusable ("deaf"), i.e. with significantly decreased emission (think of a flip-flop that never changes its state). Another aspect is the guaranteed lifetime of the tube. All Green Series tubes are specified for at least 10,000 hours of operation. Christian From ray at arachelian.com Sat Feb 16 11:15:54 2008 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 12:15:54 -0500 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project In-Reply-To: <47B708BF.4050405@philpem.me.uk> References: <47B708BF.4050405@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: <47B71A4A.9090105@arachelian.com> Philip Pemberton wrote: > Hi guys, > The USB floppy reader project is back on track as of about an hour > ago. I've found a distributor who has a couple of Altera FPGAs in > stock, and although it'll take a few days for them to arrive from > Belgium, they were quite happy to sell me just five of them. For > anyone that wants to look up the datasheet, they're Altera Cyclone II > devices, p/n EP2C8T144C8N. Cost was ?11.58 +VAT. I wish I had one of these right now. Someone who has UniPlus Unix for the Lisa dug up his disks for it and is attempting to make images of them. They are copy-protected, but worse yet, they've been stored in a non-climate controlled garage, and some of them are unreadable. If it would be possible to add a way to grab the analog waves (digitized to 8 bits?), in addition to the pulse-gap mode, it would help a bit too in terms of data recovery for weaker disk areas. This would have come in very handy for the UniPlus disks... I'd certainly buy one of these if fully built right now for $75. From legalize at xmission.com Sat Feb 16 11:23:47 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 10:23:47 -0700 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal... In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:12:27 -0800. <47B670BB.6080309@msu.edu> Message-ID: I haven't seen one like that before, but it doesn't appear to be a PLATO capable terminal. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Sat Feb 16 11:35:32 2008 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:35:32 +0000 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project In-Reply-To: <47B71A4A.9090105@arachelian.com> References: <47B708BF.4050405@philpem.me.uk> <47B71A4A.9090105@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <47B71EE4.4070703@philpem.me.uk> Ray Arachelian wrote: > I wish I had one of these right now. Someone who has UniPlus Unix for > the Lisa dug up his disks for it and is attempting to make images of > them. They are copy-protected, but worse yet, they've been stored in a > non-climate controlled garage, and some of them are unreadable. Ouch! :( > If it would be possible to add a way to grab the analog waves (digitized > to 8 bits?), in addition to the pulse-gap mode, it would help a bit too > in terms of data recovery for weaker disk areas. The problem is, you'd have to modify the drive to do that. The read head amplifier on just about all floppy drives (certainly all modern drives) does some pulse-shaping on the signal as well. What you'd have to do is find the amplified signal, then bring it into the range an A/D controller would accept, and digitise it. You'll probably want at least 20 megasamples/second to get a good amount of resolution out of the data, and for a revolution time of a second, you're talking 20 megabytes of data per track (assuming you use an 8-bit converter). What you can do with the pulse-timed data is read it out, then look at it and analyse it based on the encoding rules. So you could throw away data pulses that are obviously too close to others, or adjust the timing window dynamically to compensate for motor speed variations. One of the ideas I had for the Ext I/O inputs was a motor tachometer/position detector that constantly tracks the instantaneous speed or position of the motor spindle. Then you can look at the data from that, and adjust the timing values to get rid of motor speed induced errors. After that, all you're left with is the comparatively small error from the clock source (usually the crystal). This sort of thing probably wouldn't be too hard to add to the average 3.5" or 5.25" disc drive... the hard part would be getting the encoder wheel exactly centred on the spindle hub. -- Phil. | (\_/) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny classiccmp at philpem.me.uk | (='.'=) into your signature to help him gain http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | (")_(") world domination. From arcarlini at iee.org Sat Feb 16 12:24:15 2008 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 18:24:15 -0000 Subject: Floppy reader/writer project In-Reply-To: <47B708BF.4050405@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: <002701c870c9$2a5f3880$5b01a8c0@uatempname> > I've also scrapped the SRAM storage in favour of SDRAM. > For the ?5 unit cost of the 256K*16 Cypress SRAM, I've managed > to get a 4M*16 PC133 SDRAM chip. This gives a maximum track length > of 4*1024*1024 (4194304) magnetic transitions; probably far more > than any floppy disc ever made. I have a fair number of 128MB PC133 DIMMs just sitting there. 16MB x 72 iirc. Given that the socket is the same, how easy/hard would it be to have one of these just work. I have some 512MB (64MB x 72, again iirc). Same question :-) > - Am I too late with this? Is it worth continuing and finishing the project? No, Yes. > - If I said one of these boxes would cost ?75 (around the same as a > Catweasel), would you buy one? Yes. >- Are there any features you guys think I should add? Support for 128MB + 512MB DIMMs. > - Does the licence sound too restrictive? Sounds OK to me. Antonio arcarlini at iee.org No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.6/1282 - Release Date: 15/02/2008 19:08 From cclist at sydex.com Sat Feb 16 12:50:37 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 10:50:37 -0800 Subject: Digitalker, SP0256, and SC-01 speech chips In-Reply-To: <200802161028.m1GAS1VQ091909@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802161028.m1GAS1VQ091909@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47B6BFFD.31894.AAB9D57@cclist.sydex.com> > Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:37:46 -0800 > From: Brent Hilpert > Reading the Osborne book some time ago I got the impression the SMS300 > might be considered the first (micro-)DSP. Extracts: > > "The SMS300 is described by its manufacturer as a "microcontroller" > rather than a "microprocessor". This distinction draws attention to the > very unique capabilities of the SMS300 which make it the most > remarkable device described in this book." > > "The SMS300 is designed to serve as a signal processor, operating > at very high speed. The SMS300 can handle applications of this type at > more than 10 times the speed of any other device described in this > book." > > "If yours is a high speed signal processing application, then give > the SMS300 serious consideration; otherwise, the SMS300 is probably not > for you." It's true that the SMS300/8X300 was pretty fast for the time (instruction time was 250 nsec., consisting of 4 cycles of 62.5 nsec), the instruction set was very limited, as was the data addressing (256 bytes each for right and left I/O register banks). As to the limits of the implementation, consider the benchmark implementation in the Osborne book. If I had to guess, I'd say that where the 8x300 saw most of its application was in hard disk controllers. About the only other alternative in the day was to employ bit-slice logic or discrete TTL. I suppose I'd characterize the 8x300 as being halfway between bit- slice such as 2901 and a full-blown microprocessor like an 8080. Since this was a Harvard-architecture design, one way to extend the instruction set was to add additional bits onto the normally 16-bit wide instruction store and use them to implement additional functions. The limit of addressability of the instruction store was 8192 words. In fact, the 8x305 couldn't support its own development system. The SDK was initially offered as a board that could be plugged into the GI GIMINI CP1600 development system. Later, Signetics bundled the 8X305 as a signle-board SDK using an Intel 8035 to handle user interface functions. Cheers, Chuck From ray at arachelian.com Sat Feb 16 12:51:43 2008 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:51:43 -0500 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) In-Reply-To: <47B71EE4.4070703@philpem.me.uk> References: <47B708BF.4050405@philpem.me.uk> <47B71A4A.9090105@arachelian.com> <47B71EE4.4070703@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: <47B730BF.5060701@arachelian.com> Philip Pemberton wrote: > The problem is, you'd have to modify the drive to do that. The read > head amplifier on just about all floppy drives (certainly all modern > drives) does some pulse-shaping on the signal as well. > > What you'd have to do is find the amplified signal, then bring it into > the range an A/D controller would accept, and digitise it. You'll > probably want at least 20 megasamples/second to get a good amount of > resolution out of the data, and for a revolution time of a second, > you're talking 20 megabytes of data per track (assuming you use an > 8-bit converter). > Sounds like it might be a very useful thing to build. (I don't even have my hands on the disks at this point, he's resorting to using CopyIIMac right now, which hopefully will be able to read a bit past the errors.) So such a setup would need a dedicated machine... at 20MB/track it would need something like 3.2GB for a whole floppy, maybe double that if we wanted to include half-tracks and extra tracks, and whatever custom software to try and clean up the signal. Sounds like a machine with a DSP would help speed up the post processing too. Ouch... Would still be worthwhile assuming that the media itself hasn't been physically worn off and just degraded... I guess something like this is what the data recovery guys use... > What you can do with the pulse-timed data is read it out, then look at > it and analyse it based on the encoding rules. So you could throw away > data pulses that are obviously too close to others, or adjust the > timing window dynamically to compensate for motor speed variations. > > One of the ideas I had for the Ext I/O inputs was a motor > tachometer/position detector that constantly tracks the instantaneous > speed or position of the motor spindle. Then you can look at the data > from that, and adjust the timing values to get rid of motor speed > induced errors. After that, all you're left with is the comparatively > small error from the clock source (usually the crystal). This sort of > thing probably wouldn't be too hard to add to the average 3.5" or > 5.25" disc drive... the hard part would be getting the encoder wheel > exactly centred on the spindle hub. > I suppose you could also slow down the motor speed, as to increase resolution, but all of these would be pretty invasive drive mods. (you'd still need some way to precisely measure the distance traveled by the motor.) I'm hoping he can get some data off these disks. It's a bit more complicated, there's an ebay auction involved too. He's promised to at least try to convince the buyer to let us recover the data off these disks, so we may have access to these for a while after the auction ends. If not, I'm afraid this OS will be lost depending on the buyer's luck/willingness to share... :-( Any chance someone else on this list has a copy of UniPlus Unix? From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Feb 16 13:23:46 2008 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 11:23:46 -0800 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) Message-ID: <47B73842.7030801@bitsavers.org> > Any chance someone else on this list has a copy of UniPlus Unix? printf(" UniSoft Corporation\n"); printf(" LISA UniPlus+ Serialization Program\n\n"); start: printf("Do you want to make a boot diskette (serialize)?\n"); printf("('y' or 'n') "); From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Sat Feb 16 13:33:52 2008 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 19:33:52 +0000 Subject: Floppy reader/writer project In-Reply-To: <002701c870c9$2a5f3880$5b01a8c0@uatempname> References: <002701c870c9$2a5f3880$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: <47B73AA0.9030909@philpem.me.uk> Antonio Carlini wrote: > I have a fair number of 128MB PC133 DIMMs just sitting there. > 16MB x 72 iirc. > > Given that the socket is the same, how easy/hard would it be > to have one of these just work. It's almost, but not exactly the same. Actually, the DIMMs are more likely to be 16Mx64 -- four sets of 16 bits. Connecting everything up so you could use all the RAM would involve a much bigger (higher pin count) FPGA than I've got on the board now... Frankly, it's far easier to put an SDRAM chip on the board and be done with it, rather than add a large amount of cost for something few people would use. And why would you need that much memory anyway? The address counter resets to zero when the controller gets a READ_DISC or WRITE_DISC instruction, so there's not really that much point to it, unless you want to get four or five reads of the same track before giving up and moving on. Also, SDRAM DIMMs of the SDR variety aren't as easy to come by as they once were, and in my experience the quality tends to be quite variable... I'd hate for a disc image to be wrecked simply because of a dodgy SDRAM (yes, I'm putting a RAM test in the firmware...) -- Phil. | (\_/) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny classiccmp at philpem.me.uk | (='.'=) into your signature to help him gain http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | (")_(") world domination. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Feb 16 15:00:12 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:00:12 -0800 Subject: Computer in 1900 In-Reply-To: <200802161028.m1GAS1VQ091909@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802161028.m1GAS1VQ091909@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47B6DE5C.26165.B224748@cclist.sydex.com> > From: "Gavin Melville" > I had looked at relays, and while there certainly were relays in 1900, I > doubt they were very good in terms of bounce, actuation time etc. The > building where I work has an Otis made lift dating from 1980, done > completely with relays. It's fairly unreliable, and a lot of the relays > have to be fiddled with springs, copper disks, iron slugs etc. (Some of > them were designed that way, and some just needed it to make them work). As a counter-example, consider the Panama Canal, opened in 1914. All- electric run from a central control pulpit. With control circuitry designed by Edward Schildhauer, the equipment is still in service today, though it's due to be replaced. Relays and primitive servo motors were part of the whole affair. (BTW, some 1,500 electric motors are involved in the operation. I recall seeing a photo of some of the control circuitry--brass and varnished wood. It was a thing of beauty.) Cheers, Chuck From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sat Feb 16 15:37:31 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:37:31 -0800 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal... References: <47B670BB.6080309@msu.edu> Message-ID: <47B7579B.FB5B216F@cs.ubc.ca> Josh Dersch wrote: > > Hey all -- > > Picked up an old dumb terminal (and I feel secure in calling this one > "old") today at Re-PC in Tukwila, WA (I'm starting to really dig this > place...). It's a CDC, labeled on the back as a "Display Terminal" (go > figure), Equip. Id #CC5A5-A, Series Code 2, Part #15551800. I haven't > been able to find any information on this beast at all on the 'net. > > I've put up some pictures here: > http://yahozna.dyndns.org/computers/cdcterminal/ (Haven't had a chance > to clean it up yet, so it's kinda smudgy...) > > My favorite thing about this terminal is the huge, backlit buttons on > the front for Power, etc... very cool :). I've powered it up after > giving it a check-out, and it appears to work fine. I haven't hooked it > up to a serial line yet, but that's coming... maybe Linux has a termcap > entry for this thing? :) > > Opening it up reveals repair tags with dates in 1974. There are four > PCBs mounted inside, connected by a ton of ribbon connectors (there's no > backplane to speak of). Looks like it's all TTL, though I haven't taken > the boards out to investigate. Not sure I want to disturb them :). > > Anyone know anything about this thing? What's it capable of? What was > it originally connected to? Well, it looks just like the surplus one we acquired in my high school electronics lab ca 1977, and which we connected up as the console to a Motorola MEK 6800 board. I got to take it home over one summer, wrote some (manually assembled) cassette-tape storage routines for it. If it's the same as the one I recall playing with, it was a fairly 'typical' remote (note the CTS indicator) time-sharing terminal of the early 70's: RS232 with modem control lines, printer port, may have been upper-case only - don't remember for certain. ..pull the boards and check the date codes and technology of the ICs. Nice find, IMHO, those random-logic pre-microproc CRT terminals are getting pretty rare, most of them were scrapped by the late 70's/early 80's. (If I may make a general request to people when putting up photos like this, resizing them if possible (they're all near to 2MB), down to something sensible for casual perusal/download would be helpful to some.) (.. I like the big old "No. 6 Ignitor" dry cells in the background, haven't seen any of those since the 60's.) From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Sat Feb 16 16:15:35 2008 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 22:15:35 +0000 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) In-Reply-To: <47B730BF.5060701@arachelian.com> References: <47B708BF.4050405@philpem.me.uk> <47B71A4A.9090105@arachelian.com> <47B71EE4.4070703@philpem.me.uk> <47B730BF.5060701@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <47B76087.5000709@philpem.me.uk> Ray Arachelian wrote: > Philip Pemberton wrote: >> What you'd have to do is find the amplified signal, then bring it into >> the range an A/D controller would accept, and digitise it. You'll >> probably want at least 20 megasamples/second to get a good amount of >> resolution out of the data, and for a revolution time of a second, >> you're talking 20 megabytes of data per track (assuming you use an >> 8-bit converter). >> > Sounds like it might be a very useful thing to build. (I don't even > have my hands on the disks at this point, he's resorting to using > CopyIIMac right now, which hopefully will be able to read a bit past the > errors.) It may be a useful thing to build, but it probably isn't practical to build it. If I had a drive that I had a schematic for, I might be a little less pessimistic :) > So such a setup would need a dedicated machine... at 20MB/track it would > need something like 3.2GB for a whole floppy, maybe double that if we > wanted to include half-tracks and extra tracks, and whatever custom > software to try and clean up the signal. I'd go for a Linux-based PC. Anything with about 512MB RAM should be able to do analysis of one or two tracks at a time (plus multi-read averaging and parameter testing); I'd shove at least a 300GB hard drive in there because you'll need the space, and they're around the mid range these days so not tremendously expensive. Heck, even a laptop could probably do this... my IBM T42 is probably more than enough. An ASUS Eee submini PC with a 16GB CF card could probably be pressed into service as a data capture device -- so assuming the final reader box is around 160x100mm in size (Eurocard), you're probably talking about something with the dimensions of a large hardback book, excluding power supply. I wouldn't object to hopping on a train to go image some discs with something that small and light... $DEITY knows, if I had the last known copy of some rare software package I wouldn't let it out of my sight... > Sounds like a machine with a > DSP would help speed up the post processing too. Ouch... Would still > be worthwhile assuming that the media itself hasn't been physically worn > off and just degraded... I guess something like this is what the data > recovery guys use... 1) Open disc shutter (if 3" or 3.5") 2) Hold disc up to light and look through the aperture. 3) If you see any transparent spots, don't expect a perfect image. If you see any transparent rings, give up now. -- Most floppy discs have a Mylar disc with a magnetic coating -- the Mylar substrate is usually transparent. > I suppose you could also slow down the motor speed, as to increase > resolution, but all of these would be pretty invasive drive mods. > (you'd still need some way to precisely measure the distance traveled by > the motor.) Putting a tach on the motor would be fairly uninvasive. Avago (nee Agilent) make some optical encoders (HEDB-9140 series) that come as a kit with a metal codewheel (basically a disc with radial holes in it). You could probably glue it onto the spindle motor flywheel without it causing much speed shift. That gets you between 100 and 1024 counts (pulses) per revolution, which is more than enough to measure instantaneous speed variation. It's an idea. Maybe not a good one, but an idea nonetheless. Now I'm off to figure out how to buffer the SDRAM enough that the regular refresh cycles won't affect it... I'm thinking some of the FPGA's block RAM might be pressed into service as a dual FIFO, and that the SDRAM could be run at 2*Fmaster_clk to keep said FIFOs near empty unless the SDRAM was refreshing. -- Phil. | (\_/) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny classiccmp at philpem.me.uk | (='.'=) into your signature to help him gain http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | (")_(") world domination. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Feb 16 16:16:20 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:16:20 -0800 Subject: Digitalker, SP0256, and SC-01 speech chips In-Reply-To: <47B6BFFD.31894.AAB9D57@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200802161028.m1GAS1VQ091909@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47B6BFFD.31894.AAB9D57@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:37:46 -0800> > From: Brent Hilpert>> > Reading the Osborne book some time ago I got the impression the SMS300> > might be considered the first (micro-)DSP. Extracts:> >> > "The SMS300 is described by its manufacturer as a "microcontroller"> > rather than a "microprocessor". This distinction draws attention to the> > very unique capabilities of the SMS300 which make it the most> > remarkable device described in this book."> >> > "The SMS300 is designed to serve as a signal processor, operating> > at very high speed. The SMS300 can handle applications of this type at> > more than 10 times the speed of any other device described in this> > book."> >> > "If yours is a high speed signal processing application, then give> > the SMS300 serious consideration; otherwise, the SMS300 is probably not> > for you.">> It's true that the SMS300/8X300 was pretty fast for the time> (instruction time was 250 nsec., consisting of 4 cycles of 62.5> nsec), the instruction set was very limited, as was the data> addressing (256 bytes each for right and left I/O register banks).>> As to the limits of the implementation, consider the benchmark> implementation in the Osborne book.>> If I had to guess, I'd say that where the 8x300 saw most of its> application was in hard disk controllers. About the only other> alternative in the day was to employ bit-slice logic or discrete TTL.>-snip- It is also noted that when used for floppy or hard disk controller, it did no signal processing. It just ran controls and the heaviest processing was to generate delay loops. All signals were processed by external circuits. May controls were run from an independent ROM, attached to the address lines ( as would be done in a bit slice ). Do note that it ran an instruction at 250ns, unlike a Z80 or such that only ran part of an instruction per clock cycle. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Need to know the score, the latest news, or you need your Hotmail?-get your "fix". http://www.msnmobilefix.com/Default.aspx From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Sat Feb 16 16:16:54 2008 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:16:54 -0600 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal... In-Reply-To: <47B7579B.FB5B216F@cs.ubc.ca> References: <47B670BB.6080309@msu.edu> <47B7579B.FB5B216F@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: I love it! I am going to take one of your back panel images, and imbed it into a windows error message - 'ERROR - verify your settings are correct.' This recycle thing is a boon for us collectors huh? On my day job, I am a designer, and this new RoHS requirement for all electronics is breaking us, but at the same time it gets media attention so goodies dont end up in the dumpster. Think of it a s don't pour your auto waste oil in the gutter - now everybody takes their used electronics to the recycle place, GREAT! Jed, California is the place you outa be. I bet the green hot tub granola crunchers have the best recycle shops. I just have to find mine, in Reno.... Randy > Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:37:31 -0800 > From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca > To: General at priv-edmwaa04.telusplanet.net > CC: > Subject: Re: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal... > > Josh Dersch wrote: > > > > Hey all -- > > > > Picked up an old dumb terminal (and I feel secure in calling this one > > "old") today at Re-PC in Tukwila, WA (I'm starting to really dig this > > place...). It's a CDC, labeled on the back as a "Display Terminal" (go > > figure), Equip. Id #CC5A5-A, Series Code 2, Part #15551800. I haven't > > been able to find any information on this beast at all on the 'net. > > > > I've put up some pictures here: > > http://yahozna.dyndns.org/computers/cdcterminal/ (Haven't had a chance > > to clean it up yet, so it's kinda smudgy...) > > > > My favorite thing about this terminal is the huge, backlit buttons on > > the front for Power, etc... very cool :). I've powered it up after > > giving it a check-out, and it appears to work fine. I haven't hooked it > > up to a serial line yet, but that's coming... maybe Linux has a termcap > > entry for this thing? :) > > > > Opening it up reveals repair tags with dates in 1974. There are four > > PCBs mounted inside, connected by a ton of ribbon connectors (there's no > > backplane to speak of). Looks like it's all TTL, though I haven't taken > > the boards out to investigate. Not sure I want to disturb them :). > > > > Anyone know anything about this thing? What's it capable of? What was > > it originally connected to? > > Well, it looks just like the surplus one we acquired in my high school > electronics lab ca 1977, and which we connected up as the console to a Motorola > MEK 6800 board. I got to take it home over one summer, wrote some (manually > assembled) cassette-tape storage routines for it. > > If it's the same as the one I recall playing with, it was a fairly 'typical' > remote (note the CTS indicator) time-sharing terminal of the early 70's: RS232 > with modem control lines, printer port, may have been upper-case only - don't > remember for certain. > > ..pull the boards and check the date codes and technology of the ICs. Nice > find, IMHO, those random-logic pre-microproc CRT terminals are getting pretty > rare, most of them were scrapped by the late 70's/early 80's. > > (If I may make a general request to people when putting up photos like this, > resizing them if possible (they're all near to 2MB), down to something sensible > for casual perusal/download would be helpful to some.) > > (.. I like the big old "No. 6 Ignitor" dry cells in the background, haven't > seen any of those since the 60's.) _________________________________________________________________ Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser! http://biggestloser.msn.com/ From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sat Feb 16 16:17:18 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:17:18 -0800 Subject: Simon / Relay clock rates / was Re: Computer in 1900, References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DED07@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <47B64834.7060009@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <47B760ED.25F95083@cs.ubc.ca> woodelf wrote: > > Gavin Melville wrote: > > I've seen the stuff on the relay computer, and I suspect that simply > > would not have worked in 1900, but works due to modern relays. > We are talking high speed of 5? Hz for relay computers. > I am guessing a 1 HZ might practial for that era. Just for a (partial) example, a year or two ago I breadboarded a 10-stage ring counter from relays of late-40s/50s vintage while working on a completed design of Simon*. Going purely by ear, I could clock it up to about 18Hz before it started to falter. * After the mention of Simon on the list a couple of years ago I set out to do a completed design. This was done ( http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/simon ) and a simulator written, but I haven't built a complete physical implementation (not enough relays on hand). The relay ring counter was a test of the timing system. I've been meaning to mention this here for ages, but speaking of relay computers, Simon, and machines with minimal instruction sets, if anybody feels like a masochistic, tear-your-hair-out exercise in programming frustration, I'd like to solicit programs to run in the Simon simulator (see link above). From slawmaster at gmail.com Sat Feb 16 16:28:39 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:28:39 -0500 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal... In-Reply-To: <47B670BB.6080309@msu.edu> References: <47B670BB.6080309@msu.edu> Message-ID: <7d3530220802161428j4dd09568me9479ee6b4f4ff8a@mail.gmail.com> On 2/16/08, Josh Dersch wrote: > Hey all -- > > Picked up an old dumb terminal (and I feel secure in calling this one > "old") today at Re-PC in Tukwila, WA (I'm starting to really dig this > place...). It's a CDC, labeled on the back as a "Display Terminal" (go > figure), Equip. Id #CC5A5-A, Series Code 2, Part #15551800. I haven't > been able to find any information on this beast at all on the 'net. > > I've put up some pictures here: > http://yahozna.dyndns.org/computers/cdcterminal/ (Haven't had a chance > to clean it up yet, so it's kinda smudgy...) > > My favorite thing about this terminal is the huge, backlit buttons on > the front for Power, etc... very cool :). I've powered it up after > giving it a check-out, and it appears to work fine. I haven't hooked it > up to a serial line yet, but that's coming... maybe Linux has a termcap > entry for this thing? :) > > Opening it up reveals repair tags with dates in 1974. There are four > PCBs mounted inside, connected by a ton of ribbon connectors (there's no > backplane to speak of). Looks like it's all TTL, though I haven't taken > the boards out to investigate. Not sure I want to disturb them :). > > Anyone know anything about this thing? What's it capable of? What was > it originally connected to? > > Thanks! > Josh > I'm afraid I have no idea what that is, but it's great! I especially like the baud setting knob on the back. http://yahozna.dyndns.org/computers/cdcterminal/CIMG1330.JPG <-- Is that a PERQ terminal in the background, by chance? I'd like to find one of those as least as much as I'd like to find a BLIT or one of your CDC terminals :) John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From curt at atarimuseum.com Sat Feb 16 16:39:06 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:39:06 -0500 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal... In-Reply-To: <47B7579B.FB5B216F@cs.ubc.ca> References: <47B670BB.6080309@msu.edu> <47B7579B.FB5B216F@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <47B7660A.5070405@atarimuseum.com> Josh, Have you tried pinging the guys over at http://www.cray-cyber.org/ to see if they may an idea of the lineage and history behind that beastie. Curt > Josh Dersch wrote: > >> Hey all -- >> >> Picked up an old dumb terminal (and I feel secure in calling this one >> "old") today at Re-PC in Tukwila, WA (I'm starting to really dig this >> place...). It's a CDC, labeled on the back as a "Display Terminal" (go >> figure), Equip. Id #CC5A5-A, Series Code 2, Part #15551800. I haven't >> been able to find any information on this beast at all on the 'net. >> >> I've put up some pictures here: >> http://yahozna.dyndns.org/computers/cdcterminal/ (Haven't had a chance >> to clean it up yet, so it's kinda smudgy...) >> >> My favorite thing about this terminal is the huge, backlit buttons on >> the front for Power, etc... very cool :). I've powered it up after >> giving it a check-out, and it appears to work fine. I haven't hooked it >> up to a serial line yet, but that's coming... maybe Linux has a termcap >> entry for this thing? :) >> >> Opening it up reveals repair tags with dates in 1974. There are four >> PCBs mounted inside, connected by a ton of ribbon connectors (there's no >> backplane to speak of). Looks like it's all TTL, though I haven't taken >> the boards out to investigate. Not sure I want to disturb them :). >> >> Anyone know anything about this thing? What's it capable of? What was >> it originally connected to? >> > > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Feb 16 15:01:32 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 21:01:32 +0000 (GMT) Subject: RiscPC 610 PSU - 110 VAC? In-Reply-To: from "r.stricklin" at Feb 16, 8 00:31:39 am Message-ID: > > Howdy, folks. > > I just acquired an Acorn Risc PC 610 from a chap in the UK. The PSU > in it is labelled as a 220V-only affair. I understand there was an > autoranging PSU revision, but this does not appear to be one of them. > > Does anybody have information on modifying this unit to work with > 110V mains? Or a lead on a replacement PSU that has a switchable or > autoranging input voltage? Nothing specific (my RiscPC information covers the motehroard and CPU board only, not the PSU, which I'll bet was not designed by Acorn). My _guess_ (and it is a guess) is that the PSU starts by retifying the mains to give about 350V DC. If you converted that stage to a voltage doubler, and left everything after it the same, it might well work. Of course you need to check if there's anything (fan?, but I doubt it, startup transformer) that runs directly off the AC mains and modify that too. Only attempt this sort of thing if you have expeirence in working with mains voltages, of course. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Feb 16 16:53:14 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 22:53:14 +0000 (GMT) Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for In-Reply-To: <47B76087.5000709@philpem.me.uk> from "Philip Pemberton" at Feb 16, 8 10:15:35 pm Message-ID: > > Ray Arachelian wrote: > > Philip Pemberton wrote: > >> What you'd have to do is find the amplified signal, then bring it into > >> the range an A/D controller would accept, and digitise it. You'll > >> probably want at least 20 megasamples/second to get a good amount of > >> resolution out of the data, and for a revolution time of a second, > >> you're talking 20 megabytes of data per track (assuming you use an > >> 8-bit converter). > >> > > Sounds like it might be a very useful thing to build. (I don't even > > have my hands on the disks at this point, he's resorting to using > > CopyIIMac right now, which hopefully will be able to read a bit past the > > errors.) > > It may be a useful thing to build, but it probably isn't practical to build > it. If I had a drive that I had a schematic for, I might be a little less > pessimistic :) Most, if not all, floppy drives have a pair of testpoints in the read chain that are used to display the catseye pattern when doing a head alignment. They're the output of the read amplifier before the filter (normally) and differentiator stage. I suspect those testpoints are just what you need. Hook them up to a fast differential amplifier and thence to the ADC. The problem might be finding them. If you can find a service manual for the drive, it'll tell you wher they are. Alternatively look for a couple of labeleld TP's oround an LC filter network. If you can find such a pair, they are most likely to be what you want. Or if you have the 'Microtest' floppy alignmet unit from the 1990s, see if that lists the drive. 2 of the probes used with that go to those testpoints. > > I suppose you could also slow down the motor speed, as to increase Be careful doing that. There's almost certainly a frequency-dependant filter network in the read chain which might not like a very low data rate. > > resolution, but all of these would be pretty invasive drive mods. > > (you'd still need some way to precisely measure the distance traveled by > > the motor.) > > Putting a tach on the motor would be fairly uninvasive. Avago (nee Agilent) Most floppy drives have a tachogenerator on the motor anyway. On the old full-height belt driven units, the spindle motor, a permanent magnet DC motor -- has 4 wires. 2 go to the motor, the other 2 to an AC-output tachogenerator inside the motor. I can look up the colour coding, IIRC most mangufacturers used the same motor. More modern drives have a tacko track on the PCB under the spindle motor rotor. If you remove that, you'll see a 'square wave shape' track round the outside of the motor coils. That's it. It might be labeleld 'FG' when it gets to a useful testpoint (== Frequency Generator, do not confuse this with a Frame Ground point ;-)) -tony From arcarlini at iee.org Sat Feb 16 17:12:48 2008 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:12:48 -0000 Subject: Floppy reader/writer project In-Reply-To: <47B73AA0.9030909@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: <002a01c870f1$738c8f80$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Philip Pemberton wrote: > It's almost, but not exactly the same. Actually, the DIMMs are more likely to > be 16Mx64 -- four sets of 16 bits. The ones I have that _don't_ do ECC would indeed be 16Mx64. I'd not want the design to use the ECC, just not object to it (assuming it would even notice). > Connecting everything up so you could use all the RAM would involve > a much bigger (higher pin count) FPGA than I've got on the board now... I get exactly the same story from the VLSI guys at work (although they usually claim to have run out of gates first :-)). > Also, SDRAM DIMMs of the SDR variety aren't as easy to come by as they once I have plenty of 128MB ones. A few 32/64/512MB ones too. I certainly have more spare SDRAM than ever I did SIMMs. If the memory isn't going to be socketed, then I'll not worry about it. Although we do use Altera stuff at work ... must go and ask about samples some time ... Antonio No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.6/1282 - Release Date: 15/02/2008 19:08 From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Feb 16 18:05:27 2008 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:05:27 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Test Message-ID: <438846.88420.qm@web23411.mail.ird.yahoo.com> This is a test email to see if it makes it through to the list. The last 3 attempts at replying to a message were bounced (twice by Yahoo and once by Classiccmp servers). If this makes it through please ignore. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Sat Feb 16 18:21:29 2008 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:21:29 +0000 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B77E09.7010800@philpem.me.uk> Tony Duell wrote: > Most, if not all, floppy drives have a pair of testpoints in the read > chain that are used to display the catseye pattern when doing a head > alignment. They're the output of the read amplifier before the filter > (normally) and differentiator stage. > > I suspect those testpoints are just what you need. Hook them up to a fast > differential amplifier and thence to the ADC. That sounds like a fun little project for later on... maybe once I've learned about FM and MFM encoding, I'll move onto magnetic flux pulses in the analogue domain... > Be careful doing that. There's almost certainly a frequency-dependant > filter network in the read chain which might not like a very low data rate. I'd have thought the head would have a bearing on that too... > Most floppy drives have a tachogenerator on the motor anyway. On the old > full-height belt driven units, the spindle motor, a permanent magnet DC > motor -- has 4 wires. 2 go to the motor, the other 2 to an AC-output > tachogenerator inside the motor. I can look up the colour coding, IIRC > most mangufacturers used the same motor. The problem being getting enough resolution to figure out how much the speed varies over a single revolution. A single pulse per revolution just isn't enough to say that with any degree of accuracy. It's enough to say that revolution #1 took 0.2% too long and revolution #2 was 0.34% too fast, but not enough to say where in the cycle that error was. > More modern drives have a tacko track on the PCB under the spindle motor > rotor. If you remove that, you'll see a 'square wave shape' track round > the outside of the motor coils. That's it. It might be labeleld 'FG' when > it gets to a useful testpoint (== Frequency Generator, do not confuse > this with a Frame Ground point ;-)) More fun things to scope out with my DSO. Guess I know what I'll be spending my Sunday doing :) Thanks, -- Phil. | (\_/) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny classiccmp at philpem.me.uk | (='.'=) into your signature to help him gain http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | (")_(") world domination. From ray at arachelian.com Sat Feb 16 18:31:25 2008 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 19:31:25 -0500 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B7805D.8020308@arachelian.com> Tony Duell wrote: > Most, if not all, floppy drives have a pair of testpoints in the read > chain that are used to display the catseye pattern when doing a head > alignment. They're the output of the read amplifier before the filter > (normally) and differentiator stage. > > I suspect those testpoints are just what you need. Hook them up to a fast > differential amplifier and thence to the ADC. > > The problem might be finding them. If you can find a service manual for > the drive, it'll tell you wher they are. Alternatively look for a couple > of labeleld TP's oround an LC filter network. If you can find such a > pair, they are most likely to be what you want. > > In my specific case, it would be a very early Sony 400K SS/DD 3.5" drive as used in the Lisa and the early Mac's. But let's see if I can get at this stuff some other way first. Still the above info is very useful to have for future projects, once I get my hands on something like Philip's box. Ideally, I'd love to have a setup with 3.5", 5.25", and 8" drives. > Most floppy drives have a tachogenerator on the motor anyway. On the old > full-height belt driven units, the spindle motor, a permanent magnet DC > motor -- has 4 wires. 2 go to the motor, the other 2 to an AC-output > tachogenerator inside the motor. I can look up the colour coding, IIRC > most mangufacturers used the same motor. > > More modern drives have a tacko track on the PCB under the spindle motor > rotor. If you remove that, you'll see a 'square wave shape' track round > the outside of the motor coils. That's it. It might be labeleld 'FG' when > it gets to a useful testpoint (== Frequency Generator, do not confuse > this with a Frame Ground point ;-)) > > -tony > > > From legalize at xmission.com Sat Feb 16 19:41:47 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 18:41:47 -0700 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal... In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:37:31 -0800. <47B7579B.FB5B216F@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: In article <47B7579B.FB5B216F at cs.ubc.ca>, Brent Hilpert writes: > ..pull the boards and check the date codes and technology of the ICs. Nice > find, IMHO, those random-logic pre-microproc CRT terminals are getting pretty > rare, most of them were scrapped by the late 70's/early 80's. Yes, definately. Terminals with SSI/MSI logic and not microprocessors are indeed getting rare. I only have a couple after having been collecting terminals for a few years now. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Feb 16 19:50:15 2008 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 01:50:15 -0000 Subject: MSX Joystick Message-ID: <000901c87107$7b0e8cc0$1dfdf93e@user8459cef6fa> Urgh, apologies for any font issues. Had to copy and paste my reply as Yahoo failed to deliver it to the classiccmp servers twice! Not sure if bounced or not, but here's the error message: Remote host said: 550 5.7.1 time travel between hops [BODY] Classiccmp.org rejected it once, giving this error message:: Remote host said: 553 5.3.0 Spam blocked see: http://spamcop.net/bl.shtml?76.13.13.74 [MAIL_FROM] This last (and 4th) attempt at replying, is being done from Outlook Express onmy laptop as opposed to Yahoo's webmail. My reply: Would it work with a Famicom (Japanese SNES) mouse? Since it was compatible with MSX games it might work, but probably doesn't fall into the "easily obtainable" category :( Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Syd Bolton wrote: I see the pinouts online but haven't checked to > see if it's compatible with a standard Atari type joystick. >Sure it is! > Interesting how MSX devices are unknown here...They are so popular in >Brazil! That's just how it goes! OK second part of my question then: what about the mouse? What other more easily obtainable mouse would work on the MSX machine? Commodore made mice with 9-pin connectors for the C64 but I doubt it would work or the Amiga one .... and of course, the "serial" mouse from a PC I would expect won't work as well. Or....I guess more easily does anyone out there have an MSX compatible mouse they'd like to sell me for the museum? Thanks From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Feb 16 23:04:12 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 21:04:12 -0800 Subject: Reading Polymorphic hard sectored double density disk Message-ID: Hi I made good progress today. I got the programmer working again. I'm now doing 2716s on the PB-10 again. I blew some more test code and also figured what the problem was with the controller. Previously, I'd gotten the frequencies change in the crystal and PLL circuits. I got to the point that it appeared to be reading the disk into the USART chip but not getting data into the dual ported RAM. It was still erroring on the header. I wrote code to ignore the header and tried that. It still seemed to be missing the header data. This is when the programmer decided to cause problems. While waiting to get parts I realized what the problem was with the controller. I was running everything from the memory window in the Poly88s monitor. Every time it updates a single byte, it rereads a large block of memory to put into the display. I was pointing to the RAM that was double ported and this stole cycles from the controllers time. This caused missed bytes from the USART. I wrote some simple code in another area of memory and used that to initiate the read command. It was then reading the header and data without missing any of the header or data. I expect I'll soon make greater progress. I need to delay some before reading the double ported RAM or the controller will miss the first few bytes. I need to write my serial transfer and finish the code for reading the sectors. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser! http://biggestloser.msn.com/ From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sun Feb 17 02:05:39 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:05:39 -0800 Subject: another one missed Message-ID: <47B7EAD3.7A52E40F@cs.ubc.ca> A fellow I knew years ago just phoned me for some help rejuvenating some old analog instrumentation chart recorders - he collects such stuff apparently. He works as an operator at one of the oil depots in the region (downsized from a refinery a couple of years ago) and is preparing displays for their 50th anniversary. After the instrumentation stuff was discussed, and knowing where he worked, I started telling him the story of the scrapped Foxboro processor at the old refinery closer to me (I told that story on the list a couple of years ago), kind of angling to find out what might be the state of the old computer control system where he worked. He said "Do you know 'Digital' computers? When the refinery was decomm'ed we threw out an 11/70, it was spread across like 4 racks. Boy, I woulda called ya if I knew you were into stuff like that, it was sad to see it scrapped." ho hum. (.. and just checked the 11/40 on ebay to see it hit over $1000.) From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Feb 17 05:03:39 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 11:03:39 +0000 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> <47B47A5A.3060000@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1203246219.13065.5.camel@elric> On Thu, 2008-02-14 at 12:56 -0500, William Donzelli wrote: > > That's probably covered by the "modern knowledge" part of the aforementioned > > post > > If you have modern knowledge, and all that knowledge it built on, just > make an Intel Core 2. > > > See above though - depends how much of a factor the "modern knowledge" part > > is. If people of 1900 knew how a tube worked, but just couldn't make a very > > good one... > > People in 1906 did not know how a tube worked. And barely how to make > them or use them. I think one of us is missing the point. Whether it's you or me I can't tell yet. I read the very original post, about whether or not it would be possible to make a digital computer with the technology of the early 1900s as "Send a list member from 2008 back to 1900 and see if they can make a computer" - perhaps I misunderstood the question. If that's the correct premise, then I'd say yes, it's very likely that someone from 2008 could time-travel back to 1900 and (assuming money, tools and a workshop, and possibly some assistants) build a working digital computer. Now to test this, we're going to need a TARDIS and Tony Duell... Gordon From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Feb 17 05:25:09 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 11:25:09 +0000 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <200802121811.m1CIAtO1082241@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200802121811.m1CIAtO1082241@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <1203247509.13065.6.camel@elric> On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 13:12 -0500, Bob Bradlee wrote: > Makes since, it put me at the location of the CO where my DSL terminates on first try. > A second try via a different internet connection centered me up on that CO's location. It placed me in Belfast, which isn't even the right country. Gordon From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Feb 17 05:25:48 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 11:25:48 +0000 Subject: The "who lives where" map... In-Reply-To: <47B1EEC8.7090107@gmail.com> References: <47B1A630.8090403@gmail.com> <200802121832.NAA14896@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <47B1EEC8.7090107@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1203247548.13065.8.camel@elric> On Tue, 2008-02-12 at 13:08 -0600, Jules Richardson wrote: > der Mouse wrote: > > I do the weekend commute to Ottawa, and, while my carry capacity is > > strictly limited, I know people who do the drive moderately often. > > That's an interesting point - I'm not sure how we could usefully capture "I > regularly do this route, or know people that do" type information. > > Maybe it can't sensibly be done (and I'm sure Jay sees nothing wrong with "can > anyone help getting x from y to z?" messages on the list, anyway!) Mashup with OpenStreetMap? Gordon From austin at ozpass.co.uk Sun Feb 17 07:13:22 2008 From: austin at ozpass.co.uk (Austin Pass) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:13:22 +0000 Subject: Calling Austin Pass In-Reply-To: <200801181635.02562.gordonjcp@gjcp.net> References: <1199435399.7992.14.camel@elric> <200801181635.02562.gordonjcp@gjcp.net> Message-ID: <5FA73BB0-E4AF-4315-9D47-9697C35BC2B5@ozpass.co.uk> On 18 Jan 2008, at 16:35, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Which reminds me - Austin, drop me an email, I'm owe you money ;-) > > Gordon Hi Gordon! I've tried a bunch of times to contact you, but I suspect I'm getting stuck in your Spam Trap. Maybe I shouldn't have changed my name to Austin Viagra Cialis Manhood Enlarge Stock Option Pass? ;-) Apologies for the list noise, Jay. -Austin a u s t i n @ o z p a s s . c o . u k From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Feb 17 07:30:11 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 08:30:11 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: References: <47B4CF14.3070508@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > But there's nonetheless an important difference, namely the oxide cathode. > Tubes in digital applications may be cut off for an extended period of > time, i.e. there is no cathode current. I am not sure now what you are trying to point out - the tubes used in computers and the tubes used in some radar applications see exactly the same behavior. And yes, I know about the differences in construction. -- Will From vrs at msn.com Sun Feb 17 11:32:35 2008 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 09:32:35 -0800 Subject: OT: Re: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz><200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA><20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net><47B47A5A.3060000@gmail.com> <1203246219.13065.5.camel@elric> Message-ID: From: "Gordon JC Pearce": > Now to test this, we're going to need a TARDIS and Tony Duell... But won't Tony refuse to *use* the TARDIS until it is documented well enough for him to *repair* it :-)? Vince From silent700 at gmail.com Sun Feb 17 12:53:28 2008 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 12:53:28 -0600 Subject: FS: Bytes and Interface Age mags Message-ID: <51ea77730802171053w3881a623ib0526cc0c8bb4e5c@mail.gmail.com> Time to unload the last of my duplicates. Here's a handy list: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pwMUKqpaWv1cq2nnM-h0wRA $2/issue for anything 1984 and before. Anything I can get for the later ones :) Bulk purchases encouraged! All costs + shipping by Media Mail rate (or faster if you prefer) from 60074. Of course local pickup is fine, too. Help me clear out some space and save these from the recycler! -- jht From djg at pdp8.net Sun Feb 17 13:02:13 2008 From: djg at pdp8.net (djg at pdp8.net) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 14:02:13 -0500 Subject: TU10 tape drive restoration Message-ID: <200802171902.m1HJ2D319555@h-68-165-246-86.mclnva23.covad.net> I am working on restoring a DEC TU10 tape drive for my PDP-8/E and want to see if anybody has experience repairing them before I do too much to it. It was made in 1973 and probably last powered up in 1988. I have the maintenance manuals and prints for it. Though for some reason they don't have the 20 year idle maintenance procedure. Does anybody have a TU10 with a good capstan who can accurately measure the diameter or the coating thickness? Also does anybody have a 9 track 800 BPI alignment/skew tape? A bunch of the maintenance procedures use it. So far I have cleaned it and taken stock of its condition. The vacuum switches are bad but it looks like they are still made by World Magnetics so I should be able to get new. The markings on them don't exactly match the new parts so hopefully the manual 10" H2O is correct. If anybody knows more it would be appreciated. The capstan is past dead and seriously into decomposing. The price for a NOS one is scary. It is about 1.8" in diameter and directly moves the tape. Since this is a critical component to the tape path I suspect my skills with the do it yourself repairs will leave it too lopsided. Has anybody tried www.terrysrubberrollers.com. I saw a couple references on the list but didn't see any reports of results. It looks like he uses some black rubber which I don't know if it will have similar friction to the original. >From whats left it looks like the original capstan was translucent amber. The blower sound noisy when turned by hand. Plan to see if I can open and inspect. One of the reels doesn't turn easily. The manual has a section on cleaning the brakes so plan to do that. Plan to do the standard power supply checkout. A lot of the old equipment like this tape drive has parts with permanently lubricated ball bearings. So far I have decides that if the device sounds fine to leave them alone since it won't get that much use and taking it apart enough to get the bearings out has some risk. They also are sometimes pretty well sealed making cleaning and relubricated difficult. I have wondered how good 20-30 year old grease can be. What do other people do? Has anybody found a good way to relubricate these type of bearings to prolong the life? Or wait until they fail and hope the bearing assembly matches something you can buy? Thanks, David Gesswein http://www.pdp8online.com/ -- Run an old computer with blinkenlights From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Sun Feb 17 13:05:30 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 19:05:30 +0000 Subject: OT: Re: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEB36@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> <200802140318.WAA27263@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20080214160812.GB12115@gjcp.net> <47B47A5A.3060000@gmail.com> <1203246219.13065.5.camel@elric> Message-ID: <1203275130.15250.0.camel@elric> On Sun, 2008-02-17 at 09:32 -0800, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > From: "Gordon JC Pearce": > > Now to test this, we're going to need a TARDIS and Tony Duell... > > But won't Tony refuse to *use* the TARDIS until it is documented > well enough for him to *repair* it :-)? Aha, but we already know that the TARDIS doesn't quite work properly anyway, so the plan is to leave Tony alone with it and a stack of paper until he draws the manuals himself. Gordon From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Feb 17 14:04:57 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 20:04:57 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: <1203246219.13065.5.camel@elric> from "Gordon JC Pearce" at Feb 17, 8 11:03:39 am Message-ID: > I read the very original post, about whether or not it would be possible > to make a digital computer with the technology of the early 1900s as > "Send a list member from 2008 back to 1900 and see if they can make a > computer" - perhaps I misunderstood the question. Do we have any list members who work in IC fabrication :-) More seriously, there are a couple of books called 'The Voice of the Crystal' and 'Instruments of Amplficiations' written by a chap who made (AM) radio receivers using no commercial electronic components (he does use shop-bought enammeled copper wire). In the second book, he makes a few triode vlaves and both point-contact and (copper oxide) juction transistors. The devices have a pretty poor performance, and a very short lifetime. But they do work. And I suspect it's possible to do better, even in a lab of 1900. > > If that's the correct premise, then I'd say yes, it's very likely that > someone from 2008 could time-travel back to 1900 and (assuming money, > tools and a workshop, and possibly some assistants) build a working > digital computer. I'm darn sure it is. If you'll accept 'electromechancial' (relays, stepping switches, etc), then, although the machine would be large, and slow, I have no doubt it could be made. In 1900, while the _theory_ of electricity was not well understood, the practivcal operation of things like electromagnets seems to have been, > > Now to test this, we're going to need a TARDIS and Tony Duell... You provide the first, I'll provide the second :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Feb 17 13:57:25 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 19:57:25 +0000 (GMT) Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for In-Reply-To: <47B77E09.7010800@philpem.me.uk> from "Philip Pemberton" at Feb 17, 8 00:21:29 am Message-ID: > > Most floppy drives have a tachogenerator on the motor anyway. On the old > > full-height belt driven units, the spindle motor, a permanent magnet DC > > motor -- has 4 wires. 2 go to the motor, the other 2 to an AC-output > > tachogenerator inside the motor. I can look up the colour coding, IIRC > > most mangufacturers used the same motor. > > The problem being getting enough resolution to figure out how much the speed > varies over a single revolution. A single pulse per revolution just isn't > enough to say that with any degree of accuracy. It's enough to say that It's a lot more than 1 pulse per revolution (In other words, I know of no drive where the spindle speed is cotnrolled by the index sensor, which normally does give one pulse per revolution). However, I don;t know the sort of frequencies involved, the best way to find out would be to make some measurements I guess. > revolution #1 took 0.2% too long and revolution #2 was 0.34% too fast, but not > enough to say where in the cycle that error was. Incidentally, I do have that 'Microtest' unit I mentioned in an earlier message. For those who don't know about it, it's a way of aligning floppy drives without a 'scope. You link up the drive as drive B: on a PC (it shows the age of the unit that the spec of the PC is '256K or RAM and 1 serial port'). There's a little box that contains a microcontroller (8035 IIRC) and an ADC, and which links to the serial port of the PC. You then run the supplied program under MS-DOS on that PC and select the drive yupe you ant to align from a menu. Yo uthen get a picture of the drive PCB shown on the PC monitor using the IBM line-drawing characters (so it'll even work on an MDA display). It shows you where to connect probe clips that come from the ADC box -- the test points, IIRC, are ground, the differential outputs of the read amplifier, the index pulse and the track 0 sensor. Yo uthen put an alignment disk -- a standard CE disk, not a special one -- in the drive and select various options on the PC. It'll measrue the spindle speed by timing the index pulse. It'll move to the CE track and display the CE pattern (again using block graphics) so you can do a head alignment. And so on. Yes, I do use it, running on an old Amstrad PPC640 laptop that I've modified to have a DC37 connector in place of drive B:. Anyway, the point of me mentioning it is that if you're working on an older drive (3.5", 5.25", 8"), I would be happy to see if this system knows about it, and if so, what the testpoints used are (and yes, I do know what the various clips are supposed to be connected to). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Feb 17 14:07:05 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 20:07:05 +0000 (GMT) Subject: OT: Re: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, In-Reply-To: from "Vincent Slyngstad" at Feb 17, 8 09:32:35 am Message-ID: > > From: "Gordon JC Pearce": > > Now to test this, we're going to need a TARDIS and Tony Duell... > > But won't Tony refuse to *use* the TARDIS until it is documented > well enough for him to *repair* it :-)? Err, no. I'll only refuse to own and depend on it. :-). In any case, can't I use it to go into the future to a time when the theory is understood, and when a technical manual exists? -tony From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Sun Feb 17 14:29:52 2008 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:29:52 +0100 Subject: TU10 tape drive restoration In-Reply-To: <200802171902.m1HJ2D319555@h-68-165-246-86.mclnva23.covad.net> References: <200802171902.m1HJ2D319555@h-68-165-246-86.mclnva23.covad.net> Message-ID: I have two TE16's, very similar to TU10. And on both drives the rubber of the capstan is gone. It was black, but now looks a sort of orange with white speckels ... Edward suggested to use a ring of rubber cut from the tyre of a bike. We have plenty of bikes in Holland, so that is no problem :-) I guess that friction is not a real issue either. The rubber will probably have sufficient grip on the tape. What is the real problem is of course the correct diameter, as that directly related to the tape speed when the tape moves along the head. I have not looked into it, but if the tacho is producing a slightly too slow or fast signal, because of the not perfect diameter, would there not be a trim point to adjust an amplifier that drives the reel motors? Even with the original capstans, there will be some tolerance in the production, and my guess is that there will be some pot that can change (within limits) the amplification, hence the tape speed. If you plan using the TU10 only to write tapes for yourself, so not worrying about interchangability, the correct speed is not an issue, as the tapes you write will be written on the same drive. just some thoughts, Henk. From derschjo at msu.edu Sat Feb 16 18:53:00 2008 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:53:00 -0800 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal... In-Reply-To: <47B7660A.5070405@atarimuseum.com> References: <47B670BB.6080309@msu.edu> <47B7579B.FB5B216F@cs.ubc.ca> <47B7660A.5070405@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <47B7856C.4040602@msu.edu> Nope, hadn't even heard of them, but I've now sent them an e-mail. I'll let you guys know what I find out. Thanks for the tip! Josh Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > Josh, > > Have you tried pinging the guys over at http://www.cray-cyber.org/ > to see if they may an idea of the lineage and history behind that > beastie. > > > > Curt From derschjo at msu.edu Sat Feb 16 18:54:28 2008 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:54:28 -0800 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal... In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802161428j4dd09568me9479ee6b4f4ff8a@mail.gmail.com> References: <47B670BB.6080309@msu.edu> <7d3530220802161428j4dd09568me9479ee6b4f4ff8a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47B785C4.80407@msu.edu> John Floren wrote: > I'm afraid I have no idea what that is, but it's great! I especially > like the baud setting knob on the back. > http://yahozna.dyndns.org/computers/cdcterminal/CIMG1330.JPG <-- Is > that a PERQ terminal in the background, by chance? I'd like to find > one of those as least as much as I'd like to find a BLIT or one of > your CDC terminals :) > > > John > Yes, that is a PERQ in the background. See http://yahozna.dyndns.org/computers/perq/index.html for more pictures :). Josh From derschjo at msu.edu Sat Feb 16 20:20:12 2008 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 18:20:12 -0800 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal... In-Reply-To: <47B7579B.FB5B216F@cs.ubc.ca> References: <47B670BB.6080309@msu.edu> <47B7579B.FB5B216F@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <47B799DC.8050600@msu.edu> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Well, it looks just like the surplus one we acquired in my high school > electronics lab ca 1977, and which we connected up as the console to a Motorola > MEK 6800 board. I got to take it home over one summer, wrote some (manually > assembled) cassette-tape storage routines for it. > > If it's the same as the one I recall playing with, it was a fairly 'typical' > remote (note the CTS indicator) time-sharing terminal of the early 70's: RS232 > with modem control lines, printer port, may have been upper-case only - don't > remember for certain. > > ..pull the boards and check the date codes and technology of the ICs. Nice > find, IMHO, those random-logic pre-microproc CRT terminals are getting pretty > rare, most of them were scrapped by the late 70's/early 80's. > > (If I may make a general request to people when putting up photos like this, > resizing them if possible (they're all near to 2MB), down to something sensible > for casual perusal/download would be helpful to some.) > > (.. I like the big old "No. 6 Ignitor" dry cells in the background, haven't > seen any of those since the 60's.) > > Apologies for the huge file sizes, I always forget to put up smaller files for that sort of thing :). I'll attempt to pull the boards out this weekend once I clear off some more space on the bench. I've powered the terminal up (checked the power supply out and it seems to be working great) and hooked it up to my Linux box and it seems to work almost perfectly. There's some bad RAM (assuming this thing uses RAM), though -- a couple of character cells show up incorrectly (dropping the lowest two bits). And by "a couple" I mean exactly two :). The display needs a few capacitors replaced, but the picture's still very good given the age. The terminal seems to provide an 80x16 character display of both upper and lower-case letters. It has some sort of memory expansion option installed, according to tags in the case... I have no idea what extra functionality that gives it. There's also a huge empty space below the monitor/cardcage/power supply which seems to have been meant for some additional expansion options, it'd be interesting to know what those were... Josh From cc at corti-net.de Sun Feb 17 12:10:11 2008 From: cc at corti-net.de (Christian Corti) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 19:10:11 +0100 (CET) Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: References: <47B4CF14.3070508@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Sun, 17 Feb 2008, William Donzelli wrote: > I am not sure now what you are trying to point out - the tubes used in > computers and the tubes used in some radar applications see exactly > the same behavior. Hm, I think you have to define the term "radar" for me. For me, a radar is an analog apparatus. And for most people a "radar tube" is just one kind of CRT. I can imagine radar transmitters and receivers and magnetrons. Maybe I'm just not following you, but I still don't see the direct relation to computer tubes or how computers used radar tubes. > And yes, I know about the differences in construction. Then that's fine ;-) Christian From trasz at FreeBSD.org Sun Feb 17 14:11:05 2008 From: trasz at FreeBSD.org (Edward Tomasz Napierala) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:11:05 +0100 Subject: Preserving contents of QIC-150 from (probably) RSX11. Message-ID: <20080217201105.GA79041@pin.if.uz.zgora.pl> I've got a QIC-150 tape (3M DC6150) with some backup on it, probably from RSX11. Table of contents (paper one) reads: RSXCTDQ0 RSXCTDQ1 RSXSMDM0 CTDQKIT2 ALISAKIT2 ALISASM I have no idea what it is, I have no experience with RSX11 and I need that tape (physical medium) for other purpose. What's the best way to preserve the contents, preferably using FreeBSD? Is repeated 'dd if=/dev/nsa0 of=output_file1', 'dd if=/dev/nsa0 of=output_file2' until end-of-media enough? Drive is Wangtek 5150ES. -- If you cut off my head, what would I say? Me and my head, or me and my body? From g-wright at worldnet.att.net Sun Feb 17 14:58:26 2008 From: g-wright at worldnet.att.net (Jerry Wright) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 12:58:26 -0800 Subject: TU10 tape drive restoration In-Reply-To: <200802171902.m1HJ2D319555@h-68-165-246-86.mclnva23.covad.net> References: <200802171902.m1HJ2D319555@h-68-165-246-86.mclnva23.covad.net> Message-ID: <47B89FF2.7000307@worldnet.att.net> djg at pdp8.net wrote: >I am working on restoring a DEC TU10 tape drive for my PDP-8/E and want to >see if anybody has experience repairing them before I do too much to it. >It was made in 1973 and probably last powered up in 1988. I have the >maintenance manuals and prints for it. Though for some reason they don't >have the 20 year idle maintenance procedure. > >Does anybody have a TU10 with a good capstan who can accurately measure >the diameter or the coating thickness? > >Also does anybody have a 9 track 800 BPI alignment/skew tape? A bunch >of the maintenance procedures use it. > >So far I have cleaned it and taken stock of its condition. > The vacuum switches are bad but it looks like they are still made >by World Magnetics so I should be able to get new. The markings on them >don't exactly match the new parts so hopefully the manual 10" H2O >is correct. If anybody knows more it would be appreciated. > The capstan is past dead and seriously into decomposing. The price for a >NOS one is scary. It is about 1.8" in diameter and directly moves the >tape. Since this is a critical component to the tape path I suspect my skills >with the do it yourself repairs will leave it too lopsided. Has anybody >tried www.terrysrubberrollers.com. I saw a couple references on the list but >didn't see any reports of results. It looks like he uses some black rubber >which I don't know if it will have similar friction to the original. >>From whats left it looks like the original capstan was translucent amber. > The blower sound noisy when turned by hand. Plan to see if I can >open and inspect. > One of the reels doesn't turn easily. The manual has a section on >cleaning the brakes so plan to do that. > Plan to do the standard power supply checkout. > >A lot of the old equipment like this tape drive has parts with permanently >lubricated ball bearings. So far I have decides that if the device sounds >fine to leave them alone since it won't get that much use and taking it >apart enough to get the bearings out has some risk. They also are sometimes >pretty well sealed making cleaning and relubricated difficult. I have >wondered how good 20-30 year old grease can be. What do other people do? >Has anybody found a good way to relubricate these type of bearings to >prolong the life? Or wait until they fail and hope the bearing assembly >matches something you can buy? > >Thanks, >David Gesswein >http://www.pdp8online.com/ -- Run an old computer with blinkenlights > > > I measured 3 of mine and there all over place. My TE-16 is the best and it has a OD of 1.825 the next one (TE-10) 1.840 . Both of these have black rubber type of friction material. The 3 rd one is going bad and is at 1.840. This has a tan colored friction material and may be swollen. I have worked on mine a lot and keeping them going is some times trying. I have found that finding all of the problems takes a while. Mostly the adjustments change in time so by now most will be off. Start with cleaning the connection everywhere. If it then turns on with out the reels spinning let it run for a while with out any tape. Then try the adjustments. Always write down which adjustments where off and how far. This helps later when it all of a sudden it eats a tape and you need to go back and see what changed. To test the loading part of the system. I use a short piece of tape through the vacuum column, anchored at one end. Then I position the tape in the columns close tho where it has been running in the past and hit load. (no tape on the spools) Then just move the tape in the columns to see what the motors will do. This also lets you run the motors to help with the brakes or dry grease. These drives can be very brutal on a good tape so go slowly. One always ends up with a shorter tape no mater how hard you try. I don't have the alignment tape. - Jerry Jerry Wright g-wright at att.net From ploopster at gmail.com Sun Feb 17 15:21:33 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:21:33 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B8A55D.10807@gmail.com> Tony Duell wrote: >> I read the very original post, about whether or not it would be possible >> to make a digital computer with the technology of the early 1900s as >> "Send a list member from 2008 back to 1900 and see if they can make a >> computer" - perhaps I misunderstood the question. > > Do we have any list members who work in IC fabrication :-) Not currently, but I have in the past. Peace... Sridhar From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sun Feb 17 15:34:09 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 18:34:09 -0300 Subject: Floppy reader/writer project References: <47B708BF.4050405@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: <015501c871ad$115f5380$01fea8c0@portajara> > - Am I too late with this? Is it worth continuing and finishing the > project? Sure it is worth! > - If I said one of these boxes would cost ?75 (around the same as a > Catweasel), would you buy one? I don't think I'd buy one because I have no use for that. But if the hard/software is open, I'd buy to study what you did and understand better about drives. > - Are there any features you guys think I should add? A simple "binary copy" option? > - Does the licence sound too restrictive? No... > I've put around ?300 into the project thus far, not counting time. I > know I've got basically no chance of recouping all of it, but it would be > nice to make at least some of that money back. Phil, I have a rule for classical computing: If it pays, it is OK. If not, I paid for my fun. No project I enter isn't fun. I do things for the funny side of things. I make a living developing embeeded hardware/software. If you have a fun project, I'll be sure into that. But if it is boring, it will become worse than a paid job, so I'll say no. If you feel like doing your floppy reader/writter, do that with love. Forget how much you spent, because "the journey is the reward", and I'm sure that with a great device like that, people will buy lots of that ;o) From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Feb 17 16:03:26 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:03:26 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer was Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <36363adcc6fad6995dfc9e1c9b40a2e2@neurotica.com> On Feb 17, 2008, at 3:04 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > More seriously, there are a couple of books called 'The Voice of the > Crystal' and 'Instruments of Amplficiations' written by a chap who made > (AM) radio receivers using no commercial electronic components (he does > use shop-bought enammeled copper wire). In the second book, he makes a > few triode vlaves and both point-contact and (copper oxide) juction > transistors. > > The devices have a pretty poor performance, and a very short lifetime. > But they do work. And I suspect it's possible to do better, even in a > lab > of 1900. I have both of these books; I bought them from Lindsay last summer. They're both fantastic! I've not yet built anything from the info contained therein, but I hope to. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From silent700 at gmail.com Sun Feb 17 16:17:53 2008 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:17:53 -0600 Subject: FS: Bytes and Interface Age mags In-Reply-To: <51ea77730802171053w3881a623ib0526cc0c8bb4e5c@mail.gmail.com> References: <51ea77730802171053w3881a623ib0526cc0c8bb4e5c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <51ea77730802171417m7228680ex71991add2de5a732@mail.gmail.com> On Feb 17, 2008 12:53 PM, Jason T wrote: > Time to unload the last of my duplicates. Here's a handy list: > > http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pwMUKqpaWv1cq2nnM-h0wRA > > $2/issue for anything 1984 and before. Anything I can get for the > later ones :) Bulk purchases encouraged! Ack, I should have mentioned that I'll also open to trades for Byte issues that I don't have. If you've also got a pile of duplicates you need to unload, let's trade! j From Tim at Rikers.org Sun Feb 17 16:32:52 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 15:32:52 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? Message-ID: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> ok, been meaning to actually run something more than the little assembly test apps on my HPs. How do folks bootstrap systems? I've got 2 working HPs (HP-2108A and HP-2112A) and HS-TERMINAL (ie HP-12531B) and I can get lights to light up with a 2400 baud connection and this snippit running: 0001* set to TTY I/O number 0002 00011 SC EQU 11B 0004 00040 ORG 40B 0005 00040 106700 LOOP CLC 0 Turn off I/O interrupt system 0006 00041 060051 LDA TTYIO Load A-register with control word 0007 00042 102611 OTA SC Output control word 0008 00043 103711 STC SC,C Set control, clear flag 0009 00044 102311 WAIT SFS SC Wait for flag 0010 00045 024044 JMP WAIT Loop till ready 0011 00046 106511 LIB SC Input data word 0012 00047 106601 OTB 1 Output data word to switch register 0013 00050 024040 JMP LOOP Next char 0014 00051 160000 TTYIO OCT 160000 TTY input and print control word LOOP 000040 01/0005 -- 01/0013 SC 000011 01/0002 -- 01/0007 01/0008 01/0009 01/0011 TTYIO 000051 01/0014 -- 01/0006 WAIT 000044 01/0009 -- 01/0010 4 symbols 14 lines assembled, 10 words generated 0 errors, 0 warnings (also online as http://rikers.org/hp2100/ttyin.lst) so what's next? Is there a tape loader for use over a 12531? Also, I'm using a modified version of the perl assembler. I'd like to actually use the native HP assembler under SIMH. The HP / CHM agreement should allow for at least this much bootstrap information to be shared. I'm happy to put up bootstrap instructions and tape images if someone can provide them. I don't have any other peripherals tested out yet. Not sure why my real paper tape reader is not working yet. My paper tape punch is a long ways from working and it's not HP equipment anyway. I've got tape images that work in SIMH like the HP-Basic. Just want to see these work on real hardware by loading them over a serial line. There are quite a few HP collectors out there. How do you folks boot up your hardware? ok, I could get an HP-7970 9 track, but I don't have that either. It would seem useful to be able to bootstrap any given tape over serial. I know it's only 2400 baud, but just about every HP collector should have the needed hardware. :) Help me out! PS: Some nice list owner promised to get me a CD full of stuff to get started, but alas, I'm afraid my process is never getting scheduled. Perhaps I need more of a real-time OS. -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Sun Feb 17 16:52:43 2008 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 22:52:43 +0000 Subject: RiscPC 610 PSU - 110 VAC? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B8BABB.8010306@philpem.me.uk> Tony Duell wrote: > Nothing specific (my RiscPC information covers the motehroard and CPU > board only, not the PSU, which I'll bet was not designed by Acorn). Exactly right - IIRC they were made for Acorn by Astec... > My > _guess_ (and it is a guess) is that the PSU starts by retifying the mains > to give about 350V DC. If you converted that stage to a voltage doubler, > and left everything after it the same, it might well work. Of course you > need to check if there's anything (fan?, but I doubt it, startup > transformer) that runs directly off the AC mains and modify that too. I'm not sure about the startup circuit, but the fan is a 12V 80mm (might be 60mm, not 100% sure, but my gut feeling is that it's an 80mm) axial blower. The bearings packed in on my RPC's fan, so I swapped it for a Papst low-noise thing. Expensive, but far quieter and rated to last longer than most cheap fans... > Only attempt this sort of thing if you have expeirence in working with > mains voltages, of course. And if you have someone else around who knows CPR... -- Phil. | (\_/) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny classiccmp at philpem.me.uk | (='.'=) into your signature to help him gain http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | (")_(") world domination. From doug at stillhq.com Sun Feb 17 17:24:47 2008 From: doug at stillhq.com (Doug Jackson - pesonal email) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:24:47 +1100 Subject: SC/MP CPU (INS8060) In-Reply-To: <200802151519.m1FFIh9u080671@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802151519.m1FFIh9u080671@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47B8C23F.6050607@stillhq.com> Hi, I am on the scrounge for a SC/MP CPU for a project I am working on. A search of ePay has failed to turn up any options. Does anybody here know of a supplier? Doug -- Doug Jackson, I-RAP, MAIPM, MIEEE Principal 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 classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Sun Feb 17 18:03:08 2008 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:03:08 +0000 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project In-Reply-To: <47B8C41E.6090802@pacbell.net> References: <47B708BF.4050405@philpem.me.uk> <47B78488.1010107@pacbell.net> <47B8C41E.6090802@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <47B8CB3C.5050308@philpem.me.uk> Seems pacbell don't like my mail server (funny, just about everyone else does). Anyway, the questions Jim asked are probably ones that other folks want to know the answers to, so I'll post them here instead... Jim Battle wrote: >> It would be nice to have a 50 pin interface as well, for 8" disks. Well the idea is that you have the 40-pin connector, and make up an adapter cable for whatever drive you want to handle, then tell the software that (say) output 1 needs to be high when track_number > 46, or whatever you need. >> One problem is that a handful of the signals are non-standard. Ideally these signals would have a wirewrap header where one could wire them to +5, gnd, or perhaps to I/O pins on the FPGA under software control. Again, 50-pin cable to adapter board, which plugs into the FDR and converts the signals to suit the drive. >> Is this intended as a read-only interface, or read/write? *points at subject line* Read/write. >> For writing hard sectored disks, one has to initiate a given sector write from the relevant sector hole -- you can't write the whole track starting from sector 0. This would imply some means of counting the sector holes, or at least a way in the data stream of saying: wait until sector 0, data, data, ..., data, wait until next sector marker, data, data, ..., data, etc, stop. Would you believe I've thought of that? :) The writing side of things is controlled by a small microsequencer (think 'special purpose CPU'). The instructions it can handle are: - Timer Load N - wait N clock periods, then write a flux transition - STOP - stop processing further instructions and halt the machine - Set Write Gate State - enable/disable the write amplifier - Wait for hard-sector index mark - Wait for N index pulses So typically you'd do this: WAIT_TRACKMARK ; sector 0 - wait for track start marker WRITE_GATE_ON TIMER_LOAD 123 TIMER_LOAD 42 ... WRITE_GATE_OFF WAIT_INDEX ; sector 1 WRITE_GATE_ON .. more write commands .. WRITE_GATE_OFF STOP Thanks, -- Phil. | (\_/) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny classiccmp at philpem.me.uk | (='.'=) into your signature to help him gain http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | (")_(") world domination. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Feb 17 18:15:38 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 19:15:38 -0500 Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: References: <47B4CF14.3070508@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > Hm, I think you have to define the term "radar" for me. For me, a radar is > an analog apparatus. And for most people a "radar tube" is just one kind > of CRT. I can imagine radar transmitters and receivers and magnetrons. > Maybe I'm just not following you, but I still don't see the direct > relation to computer tubes or how computers used radar tubes. The problem was seen in the IFF circuits - the so called Identification Friend-Foe, or secondary radar. Basically, a radar could "interrogate" a target with a pulse of RF. The friendly target (aircraft or ship) would carry an IFF transponder that would receive these "interrogation" pulses from the radar, and act on it. The usual action was to reply, sending a stream of pulses of RF back to the radar, so the pulses could be analyzed. The pulses were coded for security reasons. If the interrogating radar found that the target in question did not have the correct pulse sequence, or no pulses at all, it was assumed to be an enemy. Friendly aircraft and ships would all be able to "give the password", so to speak. The pulse codes were very primitive by today's standards, although there were dreams during World War 2 of a binary crypto system (US NRL). The British system was really crude, using relays, but the American and German systems used rotating cams and a microswitch. Anyway, the problem was that the tubes in the IFF transponders could go hours without needing to pulse. High speed pulses were out of the question (and thus any fancy coding schemes), due to the "sleeping sickness" of the tubes. Something had to be done if IFF systems were to advance. Right after World War 2, the upcoming IFF system (Mark X) called for a sophisticated pulse coding system, consisting of 4 octal digits, called SIF (Selective ID Feature, I think). This system is basically still used today. However, it was required for the military to have almost every radar installed by the early.mid 1950s to have SIF decoders - that would be *thousands* for the US alone. So as you can see, the market for "computer tubes" was really for the military, not the few companies making data processors. -- Will From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Feb 17 18:42:06 2008 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:42:06 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Bubble memory devices Message-ID: <297357.37723.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Hi, Whilst waiting for a video to download (I'm still on dial-up) I decided to have a flick through an issue of 80 Microcomputing. It's issue 10 (October 1980) and inlcudes an article about the row about whether the US government and/or patent office should honour copyrights for computer software. Anyway, on page 46 I stumbled across an interesting article (called "A Slow Road To Bubble Memories") about bubble memory. The main bubble memory manufacturers of the time were Intel Corp., Texas Instruments and Rockwell Int. The article also mentions that Rockwell had a bubble system, a 256K bit board, available for $1,800. Meanwhile Intel had a bubble system in kit form - 7110-1 Magnetic Memory board came with all control and support circuitry - and sold for $2,000. What happened to bubble memory? Did it die out due to the costs, or did people prefer to use cassettes, disks etc. instead? Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk From gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz Sun Feb 17 20:11:19 2008 From: gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz (Gavin Melville) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:11:19 +1300 Subject: Bubble memory devices In-Reply-To: <297357.37723.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <297357.37723.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEE1A@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Hi, Bubble was very, very expensive, and about that time SRAM was becoming available. I don't have any complete 7110's left -- Intel took them all back, but I do have the internals. Inside the various coils was a garnet "chip" and under a good microscope you can see the Chevrons that steered the magnetic bubbles. The problem for the company I worked for at the time was temperature -- at about 0 deg C all the bubbles wandered off. I still clearly remember the Intel FAE telling me, with great conviction "you still have every bubble -- none have been lost". My explanantion that that was of little use -- I don't know which byte or address they belong to was lost on him. Steering the little bubbles around was fun -- you could rotate the majority loop, rotate the all minority loops, and replicate from one loop to the other. Random access it wasn't... Because of supposed military uses Intel were REAL serious about security -- they had to know where they all were, who the customers were etc. > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Burton > Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 1:42 PM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Bubble memory devices > > > Hi, > > Whilst waiting for a video to download (I'm still on dial-up) > I decided to have a flick through an issue of 80 > Microcomputing. It's issue 10 (October 1980) and inlcudes an > article about the row about whether the US government and/or > patent office should honour copyrights for computer software. > > Anyway, on page 46 I stumbled across an interesting article > (called "A Slow Road To Bubble Memories") about bubble > memory. The main bubble memory manufacturers of the time were > Intel Corp., Texas Instruments and Rockwell Int. The article > also mentions that Rockwell had a bubble system, a 256K bit > board, available for $1,800. Meanwhile Intel had a bubble > system in kit form - 7110-1 Magnetic Memory board came with > all control and support circuitry - and sold for $2,000. > > What happened to bubble memory? Did it die out due to the > costs, or did people prefer to use cassettes, disks etc. instead? > > > Regards, > Andrew B > aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk > > > From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sun Feb 17 18:47:08 2008 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:47:08 -0800 Subject: Oldest operational computer In-Reply-To: <200802171800.m1HI0aJn019512@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802171800.m1HI0aJn019512@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <00FE7D13-0EC1-42F2-A79D-63940979D58D@valleyimplants.com> On Feb 17, 2008, at 10:00 AM, Vince wrote: > But won't Tony refuse to *use* the TARDIS until it is documented > well enough for him to *repair* it :-)? That would be a good idea, don't you think, considering the chances of finding a factory authorized service center and spare parts in 1900? From dgahling at hotmail.com Sun Feb 17 21:45:06 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 22:45:06 -0500 Subject: Anyone in Toronto Canada area with a Vax Magtape (reel) drive? Message-ID: I should have posted this years ago. But does anyone on the list have or know someone (company or individual) that has a Magtape (reel) drive that can read an old Vax Magtape? I have about a half dozen tapes I'd like to get the data off, and it seems like a lost art. I'm not about to try and restore my uncles Wabash PDP hard disk though (external disk pack) I'd be willing to pay a small fee for time/trouble, though I'm not made of money. I'd rather trade equipment if there's something you need (sparc?) :) Dan. _________________________________________________________________ From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Feb 17 21:54:59 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 19:54:59 -0800 Subject: Bubble memory devices In-Reply-To: <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEE1A@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> References: <297357.37723.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> <72AEBE65BC566843B59D52D3A479AC75017DEE1A@excserver.chc.acclipse.co.nz> Message-ID: > From: gavin.melville at acclipse.co.nz ---snip--- > > Because of supposed military uses Intel were REAL serious about security > -- they had to know where they all were, who the customers were etc. > Hi Like core, they were not effected by radiation. The military liked that. Still they were slow compared to RAM and not that much faster than rotating magnetic media. The coil drivers were some high power devices as well. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging.?You IM, we give. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Feb 17 22:10:28 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:10:28 -0500 Subject: VCF/Midwest 4 - Purdue - April 26-27 Message-ID: <200802172310.28586.pat@computer-refuge.org> I just wanted to get the notice out there.. A date has been chosen for the 4th VCF/Midwest, and it's going to be on Saturday and Sunday, April 26th and 27th, and will be held again at Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Indiana. Sellam is working on getting the website set up, and hopefully it will be up soon. If anyone here is interested in doing a talk for this year's VCF/MW, please let me know. I'm working on a few leads for speakers right now. I also hope to have a piece of Big Iron from my own collection up and running at the show this year. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Sun Feb 17 22:15:29 2008 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:15:29 -0500 Subject: Anyone in Toronto Canada area with a Vax Magtape (reel) drive? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47B90661.50906@compsys.to> >Dan Gahlinger wrote: >I should have posted this years ago. > >But does anyone on the list have or know someone (company or individual) >that has a Magtape (reel) drive that can read an old Vax Magtape? > >I have about a half dozen tapes I'd like to get the data off, and it seems like a lost art. > >I'm not about to try and restore my uncles Wabash PDP hard disk though (external disk pack) > >I'd be willing to pay a small fee for time/trouble, though I'm not made of money. >I'd rather trade equipment if there's something you need (sparc?) :) > >Dan. > Jerome Fine replies: Contact me directly. I am in Toronto and I might have a working 9 track. Look me up at 411.ca - 2 Inglis Gate. My wife often sleeps late, so call me in the afternoon on Monday. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sun Feb 17 23:16:23 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:16:23 -0800 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal... References: <47B670BB.6080309@msu.edu> <47B7579B.FB5B216F@cs.ubc.ca> <47B799DC.8050600@msu.edu> Message-ID: <47B914A7.5A4B6B0A@cs.ubc.ca> Josh Dersch wrote: > There's some bad > RAM (assuming this thing uses RAM), though -- a couple of character > cells show up incorrectly (dropping the lowest two bits). And by "a > couple" I mean exactly two :). The display needs a few capacitors > replaced, but the picture's still very good given the age. If you're not familiar with terminals of this vintage, aside from the 14/16 pin SSI/MSI ICs in there, you'll likely find a MOS character generator ROM (probably the only large (>16 pin) chip). The memory would typically be early MOS shift register chips (although the symptoms you describe suggest addressed mem) or early MOS DRAM. > The terminal seems to provide an 80x16 character display of both upper > and lower-case letters. > It has some sort of memory expansion option > installed, according to tags in the case... I have no idea what extra > functionality that gives it. Likely a second page/screen of 80*16, how to switch between them will be the question, might be keys/switches or it might be control characters like DCx, or FF. BTW, beyond the displayable characters, screen manipulation is likely limited to what can be accomplished with the ASCII control characters. Check out what FF,VT,HT,BS,&c. do. (Like this one, *real* terminals have the control codes imprinted on the keys.) (Although I'll certainly defer to somebody who may kno CDC better and whether they had some internal standard for terminal control perhaps.) > There's also a huge empty space below the > monitor/cardcage/power supply which seems to have been meant for some > additional expansion options, it'd be interesting to know what those were... That sounds familiar, that's where another guy in the school stuffed in the MEK 6800 board and hacked it into the power supply and RS232 line. (I confess I didn't really like it, even then I wasn't fond of hacking up original, intact, equipment.) From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Mon Feb 18 03:37:47 2008 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:37:47 +0100 (CET) Subject: TU10 tape drive restoration In-Reply-To: <200802171902.m1HJ2D319555@h-68-165-246-86.mclnva23.covad.net> References: <200802171902.m1HJ2D319555@h-68-165-246-86.mclnva23.covad.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 djg at pdp8.net wrote: > Does anybody have a TU10 with a good capstan who can accurately measure > the diameter or the coating thickness? I've never had any troubles with the capstan (on any of our 9 track drives; right now he have one TU10, two HP7970 and two HP7978, plus one not-tested smallish Pertec with apparently good mechanics). > Also does anybody have a 9 track 800 BPI alignment/skew tape? A bunch > of the maintenance procedures use it. Sorry, no. > The vacuum switches are bad but it looks like they are still made > by World Magnetics so I should be able to get new. The markings on them This is the biggest problem with the TU10. But we've repaired them ourself. The repair involves changing the membrane. The best source (the switches still work reliably) is a latex glove. Open the vacuum switch (drill out the rivets), remove the torn membrane and replace with a large piece (larger than the switch case) of your new "membrane". Tension the membrane and firmly press the cover of the switch back onto the bottom part. You can then use small screws with nuts on the end to fix the halves and then cut the protruding membrane. > The blower sound noisy when turned by hand. Plan to see if I can > open and inspect. It is noisy, just like an old vacuum cleaner. Christian From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Mon Feb 18 03:53:19 2008 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:53:19 +0100 (CET) Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> Message-ID: On Sun, 17 Feb 2008, Tim Riker wrote: > ok, been meaning to actually run something more than the little assembly > test apps on my HPs. How do folks bootstrap systems? > I've got 2 working HPs (HP-2108A and HP-2112A) and HS-TERMINAL (ie HP-12531B) > and I can get lights to light up with a 2400 baud connection and this snippit > running: There are up to four loader ROMs on the CPU board. You'll have to identify which one you have. Normally there should always be the papertape loader (used with the 8-BIT DUP REG card). > actually use the native HP assembler under SIMH. The HP / CHM agreement > should allow for at least this much bootstrap information to be shared. I'm > happy to put up bootstrap instructions and tape images if someone can provide > them. The bootstrap listings and manuals are all documented, have a look at the manual numbered 12992-90001 (HP 12992 Loader ROMs). > I don't have any other peripherals tested out yet. Not sure why my real paper > tape reader is not working yet. My paper tape punch is a long ways from > working and it's not HP equipment anyway. > I've got tape images that work in SIMH like the HP-Basic. Just want to see > these work on real hardware by loading them over a serial line. The HP papertape reader is not serial. You may use one in RTE if you generated the system appropriately. Anyway you should get familiar with the bootstrapping procedure for the HP1000. For example you need to preset the S register with the proper values like ROM number and select code. > There are quite a few HP collectors out there. How do you folks boot up your > hardware? ok, I could get an HP-7970 9 track, but I don't have that either. I have that and I boot from that when I want to install RTE or run the diagnostics. But usually I boot from the cartridge tape drive of the HP 2648 terminal (the "official" HP way when not using papertape). > It would seem useful to be able to bootstrap any given tape over serial. I > know it's only 2400 baud, but just about every HP collector should have the > needed hardware. :) Easy, use a BACI (the buffered serial interface card with the UART) and emulate the binary load feature of the HP terminals; it's easy to implement. In fact, I've written the counterpart. I am using the PERL assembler to generate stand-alone programs and then transfer them to a cartridge on one of our HP terminals. I then take the cartridge, put it into the HP console terminal of the HP1000 and boot it. This way I can boot from the HP7970 since I don't have the ROM to put into the machine. I load the HP7970 loader from the HP2648 and then start that loader. Christian From pdp11_70 at retrobbs.org Mon Feb 18 04:12:33 2008 From: pdp11_70 at retrobbs.org (Mark Firestone) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:12:33 +0000 Subject: Apple // europlus Message-ID: Hey guys, Someone gave me an Apple // europlus. I don't have any system disks for it at all. If I send someone a 5 1/4 inch disk or disks, would this kind soul send me a DOS 3.3 system master disk? Now if I could get that together, and find a super serial card, I could transfer software of disk images to it. Take Care, Mark From legalize at xmission.com Mon Feb 18 08:14:29 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:14:29 -0700 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal... In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:16:23 -0800. <47B914A7.5A4B6B0A@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: In article <47B914A7.5A4B6B0A at cs.ubc.ca>, Brent Hilpert writes: > (Like this one, *real* terminals have the control codes > imprinted on the keys.) LOL! I always laugh when someone trots out one of these opinions! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Feb 18 04:29:22 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:29:22 -0300 Subject: Bubble memory devices References: <297357.37723.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000201c8723a$888d2440$0402a8c0@portajara> > What happened to bubble memory? Did it die out due to the costs, or did > people prefer to use cassettes, disks etc. instead? What it deserved - died a fast death :oD Curiosity: Konami used in arcade machines. Look for "gradius" in wikipedia or www.system16.com From trebor72 at execpc.com Mon Feb 18 09:04:28 2008 From: trebor72 at execpc.com (Robert J. Stevens) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:04:28 -0600 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 37 FS: Bytes and Interface Age mags In-Reply-To: <200802180232.m1I2VsSv031755@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802180232.m1I2VsSv031755@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47B99E7C.5060400@execpc.com> cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Today's Topics: > > 1. FS: Bytes and Interface Age mags (Jason T) > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 12:53:28 -0600 > From: "Jason T" > Subject: FS: Bytes and Interface Age mags > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Time to unload the last of my duplicates. Hello All; My collection of Byte Magazines begins with May 77 and runs thru Oct 84 with maybe a couple of Issues missing. 90 Magazines in all\Anyone Interested. Let me Know Bob in Wisconsin USE trebor72 at execpc.com From cclist at sydex.com Mon Feb 18 13:48:48 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 11:48:48 -0800 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal In-Reply-To: <200802181800.m1II0Gg5040772@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802181800.m1II0Gg5040772@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47B970A0.29790.152D979C@cclist.sydex.com> > From: Josh Dersch I actually used one of those at CDC ca. 1974-75. You got the good version--there was a version with a reduced linecount on it (8?). At Sunnyvale ops, we had a roomful of them connected to the STAR-100 Cyber frontend in Arden Hills. At the time, department policy wouldn't allow a terminal to reside on one's desk, so we had a "terminal room". I think we ran them at 300 bps from a 9600 bps link. I wrote the Star OGNATE text editor to operate with one of these--and to see how creative I could get with all of those great STAR string and vector instructions. Much to my horror, I found the editor still in use at ETA in 1985. (OGNATE, BTW, stands for "Oh G-d, not another text editor"). IIRC, the terminal was very "dumb". At the time, I was also project manager for the STAR remote MCU. The thing that I best recall was that the engineer at the Arden Hills end took forever to design his own UART from SSI. It ran at some oddball speed, like 1800 bps. Cheers, Chuck From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Mon Feb 18 16:13:35 2008 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:13:35 -0800 Subject: Bubble memory devices References: <297357.37723.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000f01c8727b$81d9fd30$0201a8c0@hal9000> > Hi, > > Whilst waiting for a video to download (I'm still on dial-up) I decided to have a flick through an issue of 80 Microcomputing. It's issue 10 (October 1980) and inlcudes an article about the row about whether the US government and/or patent office should honour copyrights for computer software. > > Anyway, on page 46 I stumbled across an interesting article (called "A Slow Road To Bubble Memories") about bubble memory. The main bubble memory manufacturers of the time were Intel Corp., Texas Instruments and Rockwell Int. The article also mentions that Rockwell had a bubble system, a 256K bit board, available for $1,800. Meanwhile Intel had a bubble system in kit form - 7110-1 Magnetic Memory board came with all control and support circuitry - and sold for $2,000. > > What happened to bubble memory? Did it die out due to the costs, or did people prefer to use cassettes, disks etc. instead? > > > Regards, > Andrew B > aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Around 1978 ish in the R&D section of Odetics Spacebourne we were looking at bubble memory for use in satellite / shuttle applications ( I think it was either the Intel or IBM 256K unit). They are kinda weird to use. To move the bubbles ( in the loops ) requires an excitation by 90 degree phase shifted triangular current waveforms ( Tony would dig that ). The unit had two sets of 80 minor loops and two major loops. To read ( a destructive read, more on this later ) requires that you transfer bits ( bubbles ) from a minor loop ( where it resides ) into a major loop to be read. To read a bit, it enters an annihilator / replicator where it is read ( destroyed ) and then replicated back into the major loop. As with most devices, the yield of the device is never 100% so there is a " loop map " that tells the controller which minor loops are bad and should be avoided ( kinda like a hard drive does with bad sectors ). Extra loops are built-in to accommodate the bad loops. We didn't use bubble memory because it doesn't like cold ( likes to run around 30 to 40 degrees C ), it's relatively heavy for it's capacity, it's a power hog and bad things happen when you are doing a read and the power is disrupted. The plus side is it doesn't mind radiation ( much ); it draws zero power when shut down and is non-volatile. But then, so is battery-backed up rad-hard RCA CMOS memory ( Silicon-On-Sapphire ) .... I sold a GRID computer for about $200 that had 384 Kbytes of bubble memory. Best regards, Steven From sellam at vintagetech.com Mon Feb 18 16:42:50 2008 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:42:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: Seeking Mouse Systems driver MOUSESYS.COM Message-ID: Does anyone have the Mouse Systems driver MOUSESYS.COM? This is for their early PC optical mice. If you've got it, can you please contact me directly? 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 legalize at xmission.com Mon Feb 18 16:59:43 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:59:43 -0700 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 18 Feb 2008 11:48:48 -0800. <47B970A0.29790.152D979C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <47B970A0.29790.152D979C at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > IIRC, the terminal was very "dumb". I found an online manual via archive.org and yes indeed it is quite dumb. However, it does seem to have the concept of protected and unprotected character cells, which seems pretty advanced considering how primitive the rest of the ESC sequence support is on this terminal. Then again, it seems to either predate or be concurrent with the VT100 which seems to have raised the bar for what people expected from a CRT terminal. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Feb 18 16:52:51 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:52:51 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Bubble memory devices In-Reply-To: <297357.37723.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> from "Andrew Burton" at Feb 18, 8 00:42:06 am Message-ID: > Anyway, on page 46 I stumbled across an interesting article (called "A > Slow Road To Bubble Memories") about bubble memory. The main bubble > memory manufacturers of the time were Intel Corp., Texas Instruments > and Rockwell Int. The article also mentions that Rockwell had a bubble > system, a 256K bit board, available for $1,800. Meanwhile Intel had a > bubble system in kit form - 7110-1 Magnetic Memory board came with all > control and support circuitry - and sold for $2,000. > > What happened to bubble memory? Did it die out due to the costs, or > did people prefer to use cassettes, disks etc. instead? I think it p[retty much died out due to cost and limited capacity. IIRC, that Intel chipset was 1Mbit, or 128K bytes. And it was hardly cheap. Bubble memory did get used in some portables, for example, since with no moving parts it's pretty rugged. HP sold a bubble memory board for the HP9000/200 machines. It's pretty much the Intel chipset along with the standard HP DIO slot interface (address decoder, card ID regiter). It's used a 128K mass storage 'disk' by the HP9000. There's some information, including a photo of the board, over on http://www.hpmuseum.net. -tony From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Mon Feb 18 17:15:59 2008 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:15:59 -0800 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 18, 2008, at 2:59 PM, Richard wrote: > > In article <47B970A0.29790.152D979C at cclist.sydex.com>, > "Chuck Guzis" writes: > >> IIRC, the terminal was very "dumb". > > I found an online manual via archive.org and yes indeed it is quite > dumb. However, it does seem to have the concept of protected and > unprotected character cells, which seems pretty advanced considering > how primitive the rest of the ESC sequence support is on this > terminal. Then again, it seems to either predate or be concurrent > with the VT100 which seems to have raised the bar for what people > expected from a CRT terminal. > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for > download > > > Legalize Adulthood! Could you provide a link to the manual you found? I'd love to peruse it... Thanks, Josh From lynchaj at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 17:47:10 2008 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:47:10 -0500 Subject: secondary FDC on PC with MS-DOS? Message-ID: <001b01c87288$94703740$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> Hi, I am building a test station using an old 486 ISA only computer to test floppy disk drives and old ST-506/ST-412 style hard disk drives. The computer seems to work OK and has a Western Digital ST-506 MFM hard disk controller with a FDC on the card (IO address $1F0). To help with testing floppy drives, I thought I would add a secondary FDC however that is turning out to be much more difficult than I planned. It seems there are drivers required to make floppy drives attached to the secondary controller appear as drive letters under MS-DOS. I searched around a bit and found SDRIVE.SYS which refuses to acknowledge any of the other FDCs I place in the computer at the secondary address (IO address $170). There are some references to a DC2.SYS program but I cannot find it anywhere online. http://www.seasip.info/VintagePC/floppies.html Does anyone know how to add multiple FDCs to a PC so I can have multiple floppy disk drives? Of course, the Compaticard IV would be nice but those are very expensive and almost unobtainable these days. I have a Compaticard I which "sort of" works but the drive gives errors every other time I access it. Thanks in advance for any help -- especially if someone could send me or tell me where I could find the DC2.SYS files. Andrew Lynch From glen.slick at gmail.com Mon Feb 18 18:15:47 2008 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:15:47 -0800 Subject: Bubble memory devices In-Reply-To: References: <297357.37723.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90802181615u43b27ea7p28ccc2eebc89e665@mail.gmail.com> On Feb 18, 2008 2:52 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > I think it p[retty much died out due to cost and limited capacity. IIRC, > that Intel chipset was 1Mbit, or 128K bytes. And it was hardly cheap. > Bubble memory did get used in some portables, for example, since with no > moving parts it's pretty rugged. > I have a working 128KB iSBX Bubble Memory in an Intel iPDS-100. Wonder what one of those options cost new. From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Mon Feb 18 22:31:02 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 04:31:02 +0000 Subject: Does anyone have a high-res pic/scan of a Hayes Chronograph display? Message-ID: <20080219043102.GA20812@usap.gov> Hi, all, I was digging through my Hayes Chronograph docs again, and was wondering if anyone out there has ever taken a high-res (1 megapixel or better) photo or stuck the display of their chronograph on a flatbed scanner. I've found several low-res pictures, but nothing hi-res enough to show the alarm and low-bat icons above the shorter digits. Thanks for any pointers, -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 19-Feb-2008 at 04:20 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -38.6 F (-39.2 C) Windchill -69.6 F (-56.5 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 13.9 kts Grid 40 Barometer 675.8 mb (10787 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Feb 18 22:59:48 2008 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:59:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Does anyone have a high-res pic/scan of a Hayes Chronograph display? In-Reply-To: <20080219043102.GA20812@usap.gov> References: <20080219043102.GA20812@usap.gov> Message-ID: > I've found several low-res pictures, but nothing hi-res enough to show > the alarm and low-bat icons above the shorter digits. > Here you go Ethan. http://www.simpits.org/~geneb/chrono_face.jpg g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. From george at rachors.com Mon Feb 18 23:03:37 2008 From: george at rachors.com (George L. Rachor Jr.) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:03:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Does anyone have a high-res pic/scan of a Hayes Chronograph display? In-Reply-To: <20080219043102.GA20812@usap.gov> References: <20080219043102.GA20812@usap.gov> Message-ID: <20080218210248.A88324@racsys.rachors.com> Hmmm, I've got one running in the other room... I wonder what the best way to photograph it? George ========================================================= George L. Rachor Jr. george at rachors.com Hillsboro, Oregon http://rachors.com United States of America Amateur Radio : KD7DCX On Tue, 19 Feb 2008, Ethan Dicks wrote: > Hi, all, > > I was digging through my Hayes Chronograph docs again, and was wondering > if anyone out there has ever taken a high-res (1 megapixel or better) photo > or stuck the display of their chronograph on a flatbed scanner. > > I've found several low-res pictures, but nothing hi-res enough to show > the alarm and low-bat icons above the shorter digits. > > Thanks for any pointers, > > -ethan > > -- > Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 19-Feb-2008 at 04:20 Z > South Pole Station > PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -38.6 F (-39.2 C) Windchill -69.6 F (-56.5 C) > APO AP 96598 Wind 13.9 kts Grid 40 Barometer 675.8 mb (10787 ft) > > Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html > From george at rachors.com Mon Feb 18 23:12:29 2008 From: george at rachors.com (George L. Rachor Jr.) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:12:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Does anyone have a high-res pic/scan of a Hayes Chronograph display? In-Reply-To: <20080218210248.A88324@racsys.rachors.com> References: <20080219043102.GA20812@usap.gov> <20080218210248.A88324@racsys.rachors.com> Message-ID: <20080218211206.Q88478@racsys.rachors.com> Never mind.. I see someone already posted it.. Cool Shot! George ========================================================= George L. Rachor Jr. george at rachors.com Hillsboro, Oregon http://rachors.com United States of America Amateur Radio : KD7DCX On Mon, 18 Feb 2008, George L. Rachor Jr. wrote: > Hmmm, > > I've got one running in the other room... I wonder what the best way to > photograph it? > > > George > > ========================================================= > George L. Rachor Jr. george at rachors.com > Hillsboro, Oregon http://rachors.com > United States of America Amateur Radio : KD7DCX > > On Tue, 19 Feb 2008, Ethan Dicks wrote: > >> Hi, all, >> >> I was digging through my Hayes Chronograph docs again, and was wondering >> if anyone out there has ever taken a high-res (1 megapixel or better) photo >> or stuck the display of their chronograph on a flatbed scanner. >> >> I've found several low-res pictures, but nothing hi-res enough to show >> the alarm and low-bat icons above the shorter digits. >> >> Thanks for any pointers, >> >> -ethan >> >> -- >> Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 19-Feb-2008 at 04:20 >> Z >> South Pole Station >> PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -38.6 F (-39.2 C) Windchill -69.6 F (-56.5 >> C) >> APO AP 96598 Wind 13.9 kts Grid 40 Barometer 675.8 mb (10787 >> ft) >> >> Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov >> http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html >> > From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Feb 18 23:13:18 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:13:18 -0500 Subject: Bubble memory devices In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8F83616F-71B9-4115-896A-8E1DD961C071@neurotica.com> On Feb 18, 2008, at 5:52 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> What happened to bubble memory? Did it die out due to the costs, or >> did people prefer to use cassettes, disks etc. instead? > > I think it p[retty much died out due to cost and limited capacity. > IIRC, > that Intel chipset was 1Mbit, or 128K bytes. And it was hardly cheap. > Bubble memory did get used in some portables, for example, since > with no > moving parts it's pretty rugged. > > HP sold a bubble memory board for the HP9000/200 machines. It's pretty > much the Intel chipset along with the standard HP DIO slot interface > (address decoder, card ID regiter). It's used a 128K mass storage > 'disk' > by the HP9000. There's some information, including a photo of the > board, > over on http://www.hpmuseum.net. I've always been a fan of bubble memory, although I have no functional bubble subsystems here. I've seen S-100 and Q-bus bubble memory boards (the latter I missed on eBay by a few dollars maybe a year ago), and there's at least one piece of test equipment made by Fluke (I don't recall which one) that uses bubble memory cartridges. I also have some brand new Sharp CE-100B cartridges, but no machine to use them in. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From george at rachors.com Mon Feb 18 23:17:21 2008 From: george at rachors.com (George L. Rachor Jr.) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:17:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: Bubble memory devices In-Reply-To: <8F83616F-71B9-4115-896A-8E1DD961C071@neurotica.com> References: <8F83616F-71B9-4115-896A-8E1DD961C071@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20080218211601.R88550@racsys.rachors.com> I have an Intel SBX module that is installed in an Intel PDS. I was always fond of the bubble memoery offered for the Apple ][ but never found one. George ========================================================= George L. Rachor Jr. george at rachors.com Hillsboro, Oregon http://rachors.com United States of America Amateur Radio : KD7DCX On Tue, 19 Feb 2008, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Feb 18, 2008, at 5:52 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >>> What happened to bubble memory? Did it die out due to the costs, or >>> did people prefer to use cassettes, disks etc. instead? >> >> I think it p[retty much died out due to cost and limited capacity. IIRC, >> that Intel chipset was 1Mbit, or 128K bytes. And it was hardly cheap. >> Bubble memory did get used in some portables, for example, since with no >> moving parts it's pretty rugged. >> >> HP sold a bubble memory board for the HP9000/200 machines. It's pretty >> much the Intel chipset along with the standard HP DIO slot interface >> (address decoder, card ID regiter). It's used a 128K mass storage 'disk' >> by the HP9000. There's some information, including a photo of the board, >> over on http://www.hpmuseum.net. > > I've always been a fan of bubble memory, although I have no functional > bubble subsystems here. I've seen S-100 and Q-bus bubble memory boards (the > latter I missed on eBay by a few dollars maybe a year ago), and there's at > least one piece of test equipment made by Fluke (I don't recall which one) > that uses bubble memory cartridges. I also have some brand new Sharp CE-100B > cartridges, but no machine to use them in. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Port Charlotte, FL > > From geneb at deltasoft.com Tue Feb 19 00:08:26 2008 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:08:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Does anyone have a high-res pic/scan of a Hayes Chronograph display? In-Reply-To: <20080218211206.Q88478@racsys.rachors.com> References: <20080219043102.GA20812@usap.gov> <20080218210248.A88324@racsys.rachors.com> <20080218211206.Q88478@racsys.rachors.com> Message-ID: > Never mind.. I see someone already posted it.. > > Cool Shot! > Thanks. One of these days I've got to take a picture of the whole stack. I've got the Smartmodem 300 on up including a Transet 1000, both of the S-100 Hayes modems and the Micromodem II for the Apple II. I want to add one of the original Hayes Smartmodems that doesn't say "Smartmodem 300", just "Smartmodem". g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Feb 19 00:33:03 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:33:03 -0800 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal References: Message-ID: <47BA781F.6053752A@cs.ubc.ca> Richard wrote: > > In article <47B970A0.29790.152D979C at cclist.sydex.com>, > "Chuck Guzis" writes: > > > IIRC, the terminal was very "dumb". > > I found an online manual via archive.org and yes indeed it is quite > dumb. However, it does seem to have the concept of protected and > unprotected character cells, which seems pretty advanced considering > how primitive the rest of the ESC sequence support is on this > terminal. Then again, it seems to either predate or be concurrent > with the VT100 which seems to have raised the bar for what people > expected from a CRT terminal. I'd be interested to read that too, interesting that it responds to ESC codes at all. I remember when I worked on it as a kid there seemed like a lot of connections to the DB25 .. didn't know much about the RS232 control signals at the time, but wondered just how sophisticated it got in managing them. From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de Mon Feb 18 02:47:49 2008 From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Hogler Veit) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:47:49 +0100 Subject: SC/MP CPU (INS8060) In-Reply-To: <47B8C23F.6050607@stillhq.com> References: <200802151519.m1FFIh9u080671@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47B8C23F.6050607@stillhq.com> Message-ID: <47B94635.3080208@iais.fraunhofer.de> Doug Jackson - pesonal email schrieb: > Hi, > > I am on the scrounge for a SC/MP CPU for a project I am working on. > > A search of ePay has failed to turn up any options. Does anybody here > know of a supplier? > > Doug > > Unicorn electronics. -- Holger From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Mon Feb 18 06:34:53 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:34:53 -0500 Subject: Bubble memory devices Message-ID: <0JWF00DSUPLYXRO1@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: RE: Bubble memory devices > From: "Gavin Melville" > Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:11:19 +1300 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >Hi, > >Bubble was very, very expensive, and about that time SRAM was becoming >available. I don't have any complete 7110's left -- Intel took them >all back, but I do have the internals. Inside the various coils was a >garnet "chip" and under a good microscope you can see the Chevrons that >steered the magnetic bubbles. Really? I have two complete BKK72s operational. >The problem for the company I worked for at the time was temperature -- >at about 0 deg C all the bubbles wandered off. I still clearly remember >the Intel FAE telling me, with great conviction "you still have every >bubble -- none have been lost". My explanantion that that was of little >use -- I don't know which byte or address they belong to was lost on >him. Never tried them over temp. >Steering the little bubbles around was fun -- you could rotate the >majority loop, rotate the all minority loops, and replicate from one >loop to the other. Random access it wasn't... It never tried to be. Howver it was trying to fit in the floppy slot and at 128k for the smaller it was a tad small. >Because of supposed military uses Intel were REAL serious about security >-- they had to know where they all were, who the customers were etc. ??? Really. Never been so much as contacted. Allison >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org >> [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Burton >> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 1:42 PM >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Subject: Bubble memory devices >> >> >> Hi, >> >> Whilst waiting for a video to download (I'm still on dial-up) >> I decided to have a flick through an issue of 80 >> Microcomputing. It's issue 10 (October 1980) and inlcudes an >> article about the row about whether the US government and/or >> patent office should honour copyrights for computer software. >> >> Anyway, on page 46 I stumbled across an interesting article >> (called "A Slow Road To Bubble Memories") about bubble >> memory. The main bubble memory manufacturers of the time were >> Intel Corp., Texas Instruments and Rockwell Int. The article >> also mentions that Rockwell had a bubble system, a 256K bit >> board, available for $1,800. Meanwhile Intel had a bubble >> system in kit form - 7110-1 Magnetic Memory board came with >> all control and support circuitry - and sold for $2,000. >> >> What happened to bubble memory? Did it die out due to the >> costs, or did people prefer to use cassettes, disks etc. instead? >> >> >> Regards, >> Andrew B >> aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk >> >> >> From steerex at ccvn.com Mon Feb 18 08:40:04 2008 From: steerex at ccvn.com (Main Account) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 09:40:04 -0500 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <001d01c8723c$2df738c0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> >The bootstrap listings and manuals are all documented, have a look at the >manual numbered 12992-90001 (HP 12992 Loader ROMs). >I don't have any other peripherals tested out yet. Not sure why my real paper >tape reader is not working yet. My paper tape punch is a long ways from > working and it's not HP equipment anyway. >I've got tape images that work in SIMH like the HP-Basic. Just want to see > these work on real hardware by loading them over a serial line. >It would seem useful to be able to bootstrap any given tape over serial. I > know it's only 2400 baud, but just about every HP collector should have the >needed hardware. :) I have a BOOT ROM that will work with a High Speed serial card. I'm not sure the ROM was specifically written for that card but, it does work. I just make a serial link to a PC and send the ABS image over the link. Hmmmm... I think the ROM I use is the 12992C mini-cartridge tape loader. The boot rom expects the image to be in HEX-ASCII format so, you'll have to convert the ABS from binary to ASCII before sending it over the link. I wrote a small Perl script to handle this. It works great! I believe my HS card is configured for 1200 baud. At that speed it takes a few seconds to upload a large image but, it's not that bad. IIRC < 1 minute to upload HP BASIC. Good luck, SteveRob steerex [at] ccvn [dot] com From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Mon Feb 18 17:21:41 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:21:41 -0500 Subject: Bubble memory devices Message-ID: <0JWG00JHBJJXUL63@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Bubble memory devices > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:52:51 +0000 (GMT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> Anyway, on page 46 I stumbled across an interesting article (called "A >> Slow Road To Bubble Memories") about bubble memory. The main bubble >> memory manufacturers of the time were Intel Corp., Texas Instruments >> and Rockwell Int. The article also mentions that Rockwell had a bubble >> system, a 256K bit board, available for $1,800. Meanwhile Intel had a >> bubble system in kit form - 7110-1 Magnetic Memory board came with all >> control and support circuitry - and sold for $2,000. >> >> What happened to bubble memory? Did it die out due to the costs, or >> did people prefer to use cassettes, disks etc. instead? > >I think it pretty much died out due to cost and limited capacity. IIRC, >that Intel chipset was 1Mbit, or 128K bytes. And it was hardly cheap. >Bubble memory did get used in some portables, for example, since with no >moving parts it's pretty rugged. So the claimed. It was small, 128kb and largest was 512kb. It wasn't energy frugal the 128k board was something like 12W! It had a fussy startup and shutdown. and a 3.5" floppy at that time was new, expensive but bigger(360k) and lower power. Never really made prime time. I have two of them in a system that work well but speed is lower than 5.25 40track SD floppy and power is the same. Allison From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 18 18:15:51 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:15:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: secondary FDC on PC with MS-DOS? In-Reply-To: <001b01c87288$94703740$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> Message-ID: <791131.62889.qm@web65514.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> seems strange. If there's a way of disabling the floppy portion of the controller, you could try using an ancillary floppy controller. Is your cabling correct? --- Andrew Lynch wrote: > Hi, > > I am building a test station using an old 486 ISA > only computer to test > floppy disk drives and old ST-506/ST-412 style hard > disk drives. > > The computer seems to work OK and has a Western > Digital ST-506 MFM hard disk > controller with a FDC on the card (IO address $1F0). > > To help with testing floppy drives, I thought I > would add a secondary FDC > however that is turning out to be much more > difficult than I planned. > > It seems there are drivers required to make floppy > drives attached to the > secondary controller appear as drive letters under > MS-DOS. > > I searched around a bit and found SDRIVE.SYS which > refuses to acknowledge > any of the other FDCs I place in the computer at the > secondary address (IO > address $170). > > There are some references to a DC2.SYS program but I > cannot find it anywhere > online. > > http://www.seasip.info/VintagePC/floppies.html > > Does anyone know how to add multiple FDCs to a PC so > I can have multiple > floppy disk drives? > > Of course, the Compaticard IV would be nice but > those are very expensive and > almost unobtainable these days. I have a > Compaticard I which "sort of" > works but the drive gives errors every other time I > access it. > > Thanks in advance for any help -- especially if > someone could send me or > tell me where I could find the DC2.SYS files. > > Andrew Lynch > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From derschjo at msu.edu Tue Feb 19 00:00:57 2008 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:00:57 -0800 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal... In-Reply-To: <47B799DC.8050600@msu.edu> References: <47B670BB.6080309@msu.edu> <47B7579B.FB5B216F@cs.ubc.ca> <47B799DC.8050600@msu.edu> Message-ID: <47BA7099.2020005@msu.edu> >> ..pull the boards and check the date codes and technology of the ICs. >> Nice >> find, IMHO, those random-logic pre-microproc CRT terminals are >> getting pretty >> rare, most of them were scrapped by the late 70's/early 80's. >> I pulled out the boards (and made scans of them while I was at it -- http://yahozna.dyndns.org/computers/cdcterminal/pcb -- warning, really large images again so as to make the chips readable.) I think, if I'm deciphering the date codes correctly, that the components are from mid-1972. I also got a response from the folks at cray-cyber.org. They don't know much about it either, but they think that it's probably a CDC 711 terminal (possibly a 713, though the 713 only supported 300 baud), and they even dug up a termcap entry for it (which I have yet to try): C3|713|cdc713|Control Data 713:\ :am:bs:bw:cl=^X:co#80:kd=j:kh=H:kl=h:kr=l:ku=k:\ :li#16:ll=^Y:nd=^U:se=^O:sg=1:so=^N:up=^Z:x7: and a bit more info: Control Data Corporation 713 Status: Supported by ":CRTSTY CDC713". Users: DPR Price: forgotten in the dawn of time Screen: 16 x 80 Chars: 7 x 9 with descenders Keybrd: rotten Speeds: 110,300 Has: Random, CLEOL, CLEOS, Standout Lacks: Addr, Tabs, InsChar, DelChar, InsLine, DelLine, Overstrike Misfeatures: 300 baud maximum speed! Additionally, the description at http://www.museumwaalsdorp.nl/computer/en/cybequip.html seems to match what I've got pretty closely. So that's it. Seems like this'd be a nice terminal to use with my SBC6120 (may just mount it inside given how much room there is :)) Thanks for all the feedback and input. Nice to know a bit more about this thing. - Josh From Tim at Rikers.org Tue Feb 19 02:47:14 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:47:14 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <47BA9792.3070609@Rikers.org> Christian Corti wrote: > There are up to four loader ROMs on the CPU board. You'll have to > identify which one you have. Normally there should always be the > papertape loader (used with the 8-BIT DUP REG card). I think the early MX models and later M-series have the paper tape in 00. E/F Series modles should have 264x loader in 00? One of my machines does (HP-2108A) does not seem to be able to load any roms using the IBL. Not sure why. I'm currently using an HP-2112A which does have a paper tape loader in 00. > The bootstrap listings and manuals are all documented, have a look at > the manual numbered 12992-90001 (HP 12992 Loader ROMs). yep, been there. :) > The HP papertape reader is not serial. You may use one in RTE if you > generated the system appropriately. > Anyway you should get familiar with the bootstrapping procedure for the > HP1000. For example you need to preset the S register with the proper > values like ROM number and select code. I'm doing this. My paper tape reader does not reply. The paper tape boot code will drive a 12521 except for writing the control word. I do this first and then call the loader. > I have that and I boot from that when I want to install RTE or run the > diagnostics. But usually I boot from the cartridge tape drive of the HP > 2648 terminal (the "official" HP way when not using papertape). I don't think I have a 264x loader rom anywhere. If anyone has a spare, I'd love to get one. I'd really like to see the 264x protocol duplicated such that I can use a terminal type application and send file images over as if they were being read from a 254x terminal. I have a 2645 with dual drives, but I have no cartridges for it. You have tape cartridges and drives that work? Sweet. > Easy, use a BACI (the buffered serial interface card with the UART) and > emulate the binary load feature of the HP terminals; it's easy to > implement. In fact, I've written the counterpart. I am using the PERL > assembler to generate stand-alone programs and then transfer them to a > cartridge on one of our HP terminals. I then take the cartridge, put it > into the HP console terminal of the HP1000 and boot it. > This way I can boot from the HP7970 since I don't have the ROM to put > into the machine. I load the HP7970 loader from the HP2648 and then > start that loader. do you have anything that emulates the binary load feature of the terminals? What about a pointer to documentation on how this works? When using my paper-tape loader and talking to a 12531, I can upload simple tape images and run them. When loading the basic1.abs file I have, it dies when it hits the first 0x0a in the file. I suspect that the linux terminal code is getting in my way. I've tried this: stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0 -ixon -ixoff crtscts cstopb raw -hup intr '' quit '' erase '' kill '' eof '' eol '' start '' stop '' susp '' rprnt '' werase '' lnext '' flush '' 2400 and then I start paper-tape loader on the box and run: $ cat basic1.abs > /dev/ttyUSB0 again, this works just fine for many abs files I've tried. None of those appear to have 0x0a's in them. Anyone have a tape image of the 264x loader? I could recreate it fromthe listing, but an image would help. Now if it just does not have any 0x0a's in it, I'm one step closer. http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/software.html has an "ASCII Binary Loader" That might be useful, but alas, I have not yet gotten it to assemble. Working on it some. :) -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From Tim at Rikers.org Tue Feb 19 02:49:54 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:49:54 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <001d01c8723c$2df738c0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <001d01c8723c$2df738c0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> Message-ID: <47BA9832.3010104@Rikers.org> Main Account wrote: > I have a BOOT ROM that will work with a High Speed serial card. I'm not sure > the ROM was specifically written for that card but, it does work. I just > make a serial link to a PC and send the ABS image over the link. > > Hmmmm... I think the ROM I use is the 12992C mini-cartridge tape loader. > > The boot rom expects the image to be in HEX-ASCII format so, you'll have to > convert the ABS from binary to ASCII before sending it over the link. I > wrote a small Perl script to handle this. It works great! > > I believe my HS card is configured for 1200 baud. At that speed it takes a > few seconds to upload a large image but, it's not that bad. IIRC < 1 minute > to upload HP BASIC. I'm interested to hear what rom this is. Can you give me an example of what is expected in HEX-ASCII? HEX? not octal? :) Can I get a copy of the Perl script? -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Feb 19 04:06:33 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:06:33 -0800 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <47BA9792.3070609@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <47BAAA29.85C78A28@cs.ubc.ca> Tim Riker wrote: > http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/software.html > > has an "ASCII Binary Loader" That might be useful, but alas, I have not > yet gotten it to assemble. Working on it some. :) Just a comment on that, it was written for a requirement similar to yours: to download into the HP machine over a serial line from a modern machine running a terminal program. Please note that the protocol/load format is no relation to the HP Basic-Binary-Loader format: if you wish to use it you'll have to convert your binaries to it's language (tis pretty simple but more work none-the-less). The advantage of it is everything pertinent goes over the serial line in printable ASCII, and it ignores everything else. (It works fine for me but I created all my own support stuff (cross-assembler & simulator) to work with it. As it was written to assemble under my own assembler, there may/will be some minor diffs from the HP asm standards, but the machine code is there in the listing to toggle it in without having to assemble it.) Based on other's responses I suspect you'll find a solution with an original HP loader. Another possibility might be to modify the old HP teleprinter loader: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/software/bblteleprinter.html It uses the HP BBL load format. It was for loading over a serial line from the paper tape reader on a teletype, but uses a 12531A IO interface, which was a bit-bang interface. It could be converted for the 12531B/C by, in short, replacing the ReadByte routine with instructions appropriate for the 12531B/C. (Also note that my experience in this is limited to playing with a 2116 system). From Tim at Rikers.org Tue Feb 19 04:11:37 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 03:11:37 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47BA9792.3070609@Rikers.org> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <47BA9792.3070609@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <47BAAB59.7070203@Rikers.org> Tim Riker wrote: > http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/software.html > > has an "ASCII Binary Loader" That might be useful, but alas, I have not > yet gotten it to assemble. Working on it some. :) Updated the perl assembler and made some code changes to the listing. I think I have it assembling now. Feel free to grab a copy if you like: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/software/abl.html - original http://rikers.org/hp2100/asm21-pl.txt - updated assembler http://rikers.org/hp2100/abl.asm - source http://rikers.org/hp2100/abl.lst - listing http://rikers.org/hp2100/abl.abs - tape image the perl script adds 20 trailing nulls. How may are really needed? my basic1.abs has 0x80 as the last byte but it's after nulls. I assumed that was not needed and removed it. What tape image manipulation tools do we have? -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From Tim at Rikers.org Tue Feb 19 04:19:21 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 03:19:21 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47BAAA29.85C78A28@cs.ubc.ca> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <47BA9792.3070609@Rikers.org> <47BAAA29.85C78A28@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <47BAAD29.2020709@Rikers.org> Brent Hilpert wrote: > (It works fine for me but I created all my own support stuff (cross-assembler & > simulator) to work with it. As it was written to assemble under my own > assembler, there may/will be some minor diffs from the HP asm standards, but > the machine code is there in the listing to toggle it in without having to assemble > it.) Heya Brent! :) As you likely saw, I posted a source version of your ascii loader. What differences does your assembler have? The loader has no license info. I presume it's ok for me to post my source? > Based on other's responses I suspect you'll find a solution with an original HP loader. > > Another possibility might be to modify the old HP teleprinter loader: > > http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/software/bblteleprinter.html I'll look into this as well. Thanx! > It uses the HP BBL load format. Not sure what this is. Can you point me to any docs? > It was for loading over a serial line from the paper tape reader on a teletype, > but uses a 12531A IO interface, which was a bit-bang interface. It could be > converted for the 12531B/C by, in short, replacing the ReadByte routine with > instructions appropriate for the 12531B/C. ok > (Also note that my experience in this is limited to playing with a 2116 system). lucky dog. :) -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From dave.thearchivist at gmail.com Tue Feb 19 04:20:49 2008 From: dave.thearchivist at gmail.com (Dave Caroline) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:20:49 +0000 Subject: Seeking Mouse Systems driver MOUSESYS.COM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I found two in my archive (one may be a pcad special) www.archivist.info/mousesys Dave Caroline On 2/18/08, Sellam Ismail wrote: > > Does anyone have the Mouse Systems driver MOUSESYS.COM? This is for their > early PC optical mice. > > If you've got it, can you please contact me directly? > > 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 roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Tue Feb 19 07:17:46 2008 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:17:46 +0000 Subject: Apple // europlus In-Reply-To: <200802181800.m1II0GgD040772@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802181800.m1II0GgD040772@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <587FFDCB-55AF-4793-BD16-68873277F2BB@microspot.co.uk> Any reason nobody picked this one up? Are Apple that hot on copyright infringement 20+ years on? Hi Mark, What country are you in? I have the disks, and a couple of Apple ][ europlus-es, though they have not been powered on for some years. I'm in Kent, England. Roger Holmes. On 18 Feb, 2008, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Message: 8 > Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:12:33 +0000 > From: "Mark Firestone" > Subject: Apple // europlus > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Hey guys, > > Someone gave me an Apple // europlus. I don't have any system > disks for it > at all. If I send someone a 5 1/4 inch disk or disks, would this > kind soul > send me a DOS 3.3 system master disk? > > Now if I could get that together, and find a super serial card, I > could > transfer software of disk images to it. > > Take Care, > > Mark > From Tim at Rikers.org Tue Feb 19 10:02:49 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:02:49 -0700 Subject: Apple // europlus In-Reply-To: <587FFDCB-55AF-4793-BD16-68873277F2BB@microspot.co.uk> References: <200802181800.m1II0GgD040772@dewey.classiccmp.org> <587FFDCB-55AF-4793-BD16-68873277F2BB@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: <47BAFDA9.3060102@Rikers.org> You can find disk images for most anything apple on: ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/ I've used ADTPro to bootstrap machines, but as you say, you do need a super-serial card. http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/ I'm not sure what a europlus version of the machine is though. I'd be happy to swap you a formatted prodos or dos33 disk for 2 blank single density 5 1/4" floppies. :) I'll offer images of anything on asimov for the same bargain swap rate. :) Email me if interested. -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Feb 19 10:17:54 2008 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:17:54 -0500 Subject: secondary FDC on PC with MS-DOS? Message-ID: <01C872E9.5E09B4E0@mandr71> -------------Original Message: Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:47:10 -0500 From: "Andrew Lynch" Subject: secondary FDC on PC with MS-DOS? Hi, I am building a test station using an old 486 ISA only computer to test floppy disk drives and old ST-506/ST-412 style hard disk drives. The computer seems to work OK and has a Western Digital ST-506 MFM hard disk controller with a FDC on the card (IO address $1F0). To help with testing floppy drives, I thought I would add a secondary FDC however that is turning out to be much more difficult than I planned. It seems there are drivers required to make floppy drives attached to the secondary controller appear as drive letters under MS-DOS. I searched around a bit and found SDRIVE.SYS which refuses to acknowledge any of the other FDCs I place in the computer at the secondary address (IO address $170). There are some references to a DC2.SYS program but I cannot find it anywhere online. http://www.seasip.info/VintagePC/floppies.html Does anyone know how to add multiple FDCs to a PC so I can have multiple floppy disk drives? Of course, the Compaticard IV would be nice but those are very expensive and almost unobtainable these days. I have a Compaticard I which "sort of" works but the drive gives errors every other time I access it. Thanks in advance for any help -- especially if someone could send me or tell me where I could find the DC2.SYS files. Andrew Lynch ------------------ You could also look for a 4-drive FDC with its own BIOS; I'll dig through the pile & see if I've got one to spare. Meanwhile, try asking on the Vintage Computer forums; there were some mentioned there recently. mike From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Feb 19 10:44:04 2008 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:44:04 -0500 Subject: Bubble memory devices Message-ID: <01C872EC.EA3A5980@mandr71> -----------Original Message: Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:13:18 -0500 From: Dave McGuire Subject: Re: Bubble memory devices To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" I've always been a fan of bubble memory, although I have no functional bubble subsystems here. I've seen S-100 and Q-bus bubble memory boards (the latter I missed on eBay by a few dollars maybe a year ago), and there's at least one piece of test equipment made by Fluke (I don't recall which one) that uses bubble memory cartridges. I also have some brand new Sharp CE-100B cartridges, but no machine to use them in. -Dave --------------Reply: I've got the machine; want to get rid of one or two? mike From wacarder at earthlink.net Tue Feb 19 11:12:07 2008 From: wacarder at earthlink.net (Ashley Carder) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:12:07 -0500 (GMT-05:00) Subject: TU10 tape drive restoration Message-ID: <16232926.1203441127306.JavaMail.root@elwamui-little.atl.sa.earthlink.net> >I am working on restoring a DEC TU10 tape drive for my PDP-8/E and want to >see if anybody has experience repairing them before I do too much to it. ...snip... >David Gesswein >http://www.pdp8online.com/ -- Run an old computer with blinkenlights I'm interested in following this restoration project. I have two TU10 tape drives. One is somewhat dismantled, but complete, and was used with a PDP-11/45. The other one is in the rack connected to an 11/40. Do you plan to keep some type of online log on your web site? Thanks, Ashley http://www.woffordwitch.com From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Tue Feb 19 12:21:47 2008 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:21:47 +0000 Subject: Apple // europlus In-Reply-To: <200802191800.m1JI07Vi055200@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802191800.m1JI07Vi055200@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <3157CFB3-3D5A-4567-A5EE-81FC8B8FC949@microspot.co.uk> On 19 Feb, 2008, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > From: Tim Riker > > I'm not sure what a europlus version of the machine is though. The euro means 110/240 volt switchable power supply. I don't think there was any other change, though it was common to have a colour card (in slot 7?) which took the NTSC signal, decoded it and re-coded into PAL. I guess there was a corresponding SECAM card for France. As you probably know, the plus mean floating point Basic. From frustum at pacbell.net Tue Feb 19 12:32:30 2008 From: frustum at pacbell.net (Jim Battle) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:32:30 -0600 Subject: Apple // europlus In-Reply-To: <3157CFB3-3D5A-4567-A5EE-81FC8B8FC949@microspot.co.uk> References: <200802191800.m1JI07Vi055200@dewey.classiccmp.org> <3157CFB3-3D5A-4567-A5EE-81FC8B8FC949@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: <47BB20BE.10807@pacbell.net> Roger Holmes wrote: > > On 19 Feb, 2008, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: >> From: Tim Riker >> >> I'm not sure what a europlus version of the machine is though. > > The euro means 110/240 volt switchable power supply. I don't think there > was any other change, though it was common to have a colour card (in > slot 7?) which took the NTSC signal, decoded it and re-coded into PAL. I > guess there was a corresponding SECAM card for France. As you probably > know, the plus mean floating point Basic. That is odd -- years ago when I studied the video logic in the II+, there were jumper options for PAL that changed the video timing. Perhaps it wasn't good enough and thus the NTSC->PAL conversion boards, but the cut & jump traces were certainly there. I could be mistaken, but I think another feature added by the + was the "color killer" feature -- a control bit that removed the color burst signal so that you'd get true B&W video when you just want straight text. From george at rachors.com Tue Feb 19 12:51:55 2008 From: george at rachors.com (George L. Rachor Jr.) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:51:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Apple // europlus In-Reply-To: <47BB20BE.10807@pacbell.net> References: <200802191800.m1JI07Vi055200@dewey.classiccmp.org> <3157CFB3-3D5A-4567-A5EE-81FC8B8FC949@microspot.co.uk> <47BB20BE.10807@pacbell.net> Message-ID: <20080219105119.I93220@racsys.rachors.com> And I remember some monitors having the color burst signal defeated by a front panel switch on the monitor.... George ========================================================= George L. Rachor Jr. george at rachors.com Hillsboro, Oregon http://rachors.com United States of America Amateur Radio : KD7DCX On Tue, 19 Feb 2008, Jim Battle wrote: > Roger Holmes wrote: >> >> On 19 Feb, 2008, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: >>> From: Tim Riker >>> >>> I'm not sure what a europlus version of the machine is though. >> >> The euro means 110/240 volt switchable power supply. I don't think there >> was any other change, though it was common to have a colour card (in slot >> 7?) which took the NTSC signal, decoded it and re-coded into PAL. I guess >> there was a corresponding SECAM card for France. As you probably know, the >> plus mean floating point Basic. > > That is odd -- years ago when I studied the video logic in the II+, there > were jumper options for PAL that changed the video timing. Perhaps it wasn't > good enough and thus the NTSC->PAL conversion boards, but the cut & jump > traces were certainly there. > > I could be mistaken, but I think another feature added by the + was the > "color killer" feature -- a control bit that removed the color burst signal > so that you'd get true B&W video when you just want straight text. > From cclist at sydex.com Tue Feb 19 13:07:43 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:07:43 -0800 Subject: secondary FDC on PC with MS-DOS? Message-ID: <47BAB87F.25532.41E4DD@cclist.sydex.com> >From Andrew Lynch: > I searched around a bit and found SDRIVE.SYS which refuses to > acknowledge any of the other FDCs I place in the computer at the > secondary address (IO address $170). I/O port 0170H refers to the secondary *hard drive* address (the primary being 01f0H). The secondary FDC address is 037xH (the primary is 03FxH). Let me look around--I've got several old MS-DOS secondary port drivers kicking around here. A word of warning, however. For a secondary controller using the same DMA and IRQ (2 and 6) as the primary, the primary needs to have implemented the "enable" bit at I/O port 03F2H so it can float its own DMA and IRQ lines when the secondary controller is active. Not all controllers will do this, even though it's documented as part of the standard PC architecture. If you want to check out the operation of your secondary controller, hook a drive to it and find copy of FORMATQM or COPYQM (or 22DISK...) and set up a DISKETTE.CFG file for it to use. In the meantime, I'll look for a good driver. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Tue Feb 19 13:32:18 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:32:18 -0700 Subject: Help identifying Mystery CDC Terminal In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:59:43 -0700. Message-ID: Sorry guys, brain fart on my end. I found a manual for the Soroq IQ 120, not the CDC and confused myself with this thread. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Feb 19 14:28:50 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:28:50 -0500 Subject: Bubble memory devices In-Reply-To: <01C872EC.EA3A5980@mandr71> References: <01C872EC.EA3A5980@mandr71> Message-ID: On Feb 19, 2008, at 11:44 AM, M H Stein wrote: > > > I've always been a fan of bubble memory, although I have no > functional bubble subsystems here. I've seen S-100 and Q-bus bubble > memory boards (the latter I missed on eBay by a few dollars maybe a > year ago), and there's at least one piece of test equipment made by > Fluke (I don't recall which one) that uses bubble memory cartridges. > I also have some brand new Sharp CE-100B cartridges, but no machine > to use them in. > > -Dave > > --------------Reply: > > I've got the machine; want to get rid of one or two? I could be convinced to part with a couple. Got anything cool to swap? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Feb 19 15:28:13 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:28:13 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Apple // europlus In-Reply-To: <47BB20BE.10807@pacbell.net> from "Jim Battle" at Feb 19, 8 12:32:30 pm Message-ID: > > Roger Holmes wrote: > > > > On 19 Feb, 2008, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > >> From: Tim Riker > >> > >> I'm not sure what a europlus version of the machine is though. > > > > The euro means 110/240 volt switchable power supply. I don't think there > > was any other change, though it was common to have a colour card (in > > slot 7?) which took the NTSC signal, decoded it and re-coded into PAL. I > > guess there was a corresponding SECAM card for France. As you probably > > know, the plus mean floating point Basic. > > That is odd -- years ago when I studied the video logic in the II+, > there were jumper options for PAL that changed the video timing. > Perhaps it wasn't good enough and thus the NTSC->PAL conversion boards, > but the cut & jump traces were certainly there. Those jumpers certainly exist (on all mainboards other than very early ones iIRC) amd are documented in the reference manual. And yes, on a Eruoplus (AFAIK) they've been cut/soldered to give 50Hz video timing. But note, an Apple ][ with this done does not output PAL video. What it outputs is 50Hz vertical video, but with an NTSC-like colour encoding. One of the colour difference cignals is _not_ inverted every other line, as it should be for PAL. And that's what the PAL converter board in slot 7 does. It outputs a true PAL signal. But you have to fo the cut and jumper mod too, to get 50Hz timing. > I could be mistaken, but I think another feature added by the + was the > "color killer" feature -- a control bit that removed the color burst > signal so that you'd get true B&W video when you just want straight text. I thought that was on all mainboards other than the very early ones (along with the decoding of the MSB of the grahpics memory area to give the orange/blue colours). 'Plus' to me maean Applesoft BASIC in ROM -tony From cclist at sydex.com Tue Feb 19 15:44:53 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:44:53 -0800 Subject: Bubble memory devices In-Reply-To: References: <01C872EC.EA3A5980@mandr71>, Message-ID: <47BADD55.23606.D1C89B@cclist.sydex.com> A bit of curiosity on my part... If one wanted to replace a whole bubble memory card (i.e. complete with support chips and decoders), would MRAM or FRAM be considered a suitable substitute? It'd be one heckuva lot faster and drink less power. In the same vein, how about MRAM as a core memory substitute? Cheers, Chuck From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Tue Feb 19 17:54:05 2008 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:54:05 +0000 Subject: Floppy reader/writer project In-Reply-To: <002a01c870f1$738c8f80$5b01a8c0@uatempname> References: <002a01c870f1$738c8f80$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: <47BB6C1D.4030802@philpem.me.uk> Antonio Carlini wrote: > The ones I have that _don't_ do ECC would indeed be 16Mx64. I'd not want > the > design to use the ECC, just not object to it (assuming it would even > notice). The ECC is done with a couple of extra 'parity' bits IIRC... Or that's the impression I got when I looked at the standard DIMM pinouts. > I get exactly the same story from the VLSI guys at work (although they > usually claim to have run out of gates first :-)). That's what happened with the Mk1 design with the Xilinx CPLD - 288 macrocells, all filled up. And that was with only two thirds of the core logic. > If the memory isn't going to be socketed, then I'll not worry about it. Nope, no socket, just a single chip. > Although we do use Altera stuff at work ... must go and ask about > samples > some time ... I just got my four Altera FPGAs this morning - shame whoever packaged them managed to shove them into a waffle-pack that was far too small, bending the pins on three of the four chips, two to the point where pins broke off. One of them is OK, but I'm still going to be having words with Farnell over this nice little mess.. probably something to the effect of "whose idea was it to stuff a bunch of QFP144 chips into a package designed for QFP48s?" Just can't get the staff. Or the suppliers. -- Phil. | (\_/) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny classiccmp at philpem.me.uk | (='.'=) into your signature to help him gain http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | (")_(") world domination. From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Tue Feb 19 19:03:09 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:03:09 +0000 Subject: Does anyone have a high-res pic/scan of a Hayes Chronograph display? In-Reply-To: References: <20080219043102.GA20812@usap.gov> Message-ID: <20080220010309.GA18473@usap.gov> On Mon, Feb 18, 2008 at 08:59:48PM -0800, Gene Buckle wrote: > >I've found several low-res pictures, but nothing hi-res enough to show > >the alarm and low-bat icons above the shorter digits. > > > Here you go Ethan. > > http://www.simpits.org/~geneb/chrono_face.jpg Thanks! This is excellent! -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 20-Feb-2008 at 01:00 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -32.6 F (-35.9 C) Windchill -58.5 F (-50.3 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 10.4 kts Grid 12 Barometer 680.6 mb (10606 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From geneb at deltasoft.com Tue Feb 19 20:07:59 2008 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:07:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: Does anyone have a high-res pic/scan of a Hayes Chronograph display? In-Reply-To: <20080220010309.GA18473@usap.gov> References: <20080219043102.GA20812@usap.gov> <20080220010309.GA18473@usap.gov> Message-ID: > On Mon, Feb 18, 2008 at 08:59:48PM -0800, Gene Buckle wrote: >>> I've found several low-res pictures, but nothing hi-res enough to show >>> the alarm and low-bat icons above the shorter digits. >>> >> Here you go Ethan. >> >> http://www.simpits.org/~geneb/chrono_face.jpg > > Thanks! This is excellent! > You're quite welcome. That's the raw jpeg right off the camera. I didn't resize it. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. From lynchaj at yahoo.com Tue Feb 19 20:30:55 2008 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:30:55 -0500 Subject: secondary FDC on PC with MS-DOS Message-ID: <00c101c87368$9f3b3630$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> >From Andrew Lynch: > I searched around a bit and found SDRIVE.SYS which refuses to > acknowledge any of the other FDCs I place in the computer at the > secondary address (IO address $170). I/O port 0170H refers to the secondary *hard drive* address (the primary being 01f0H). The secondary FDC address is 037xH (the primary is 03FxH). Let me look around--I've got several old MS-DOS secondary port drivers kicking around here. A word of warning, however. For a secondary controller using the same DMA and IRQ (2 and 6) as the primary, the primary needs to have implemented the "enable" bit at I/O port 03F2H so it can float its own DMA and IRQ lines when the secondary controller is active. Not all controllers will do this, even though it's documented as part of the standard PC architecture. If you want to check out the operation of your secondary controller, hook a drive to it and find copy of FORMATQM or COPYQM (or 22DISK...) and set up a DISKETTE.CFG file for it to use. In the meantime, I'll look for a good driver. Cheers, Chuck -----REPLY----- Hi Chuck! Thanks to you and Mike S too for replying. I accidentally said $170 for the address but I really meant $3F0 and $370. I had been staring at these IO cards for a while and got confused. Sorry! The primary FDC am using ($3F0) is on a Western Digital ST-506/ST-412/FDC controller combo board. I have been using a variety of Multi IO boards trying to get the secondary FDC to work ($370). My plan is to share the DMA and IRQ lines which *should* work since I won't be using the drives at the same time. If you can find a driver which will let me access the drive from MS-DOS, that'd certainly be helpful. It is possible that the primary FDC is interfering with the enable bit but I will try the 22disk approach and see if that helps. I am kind of surprised this aspect of the project has been as much trouble as it has been. I would have thought the secondary FDC from DOS would have been well explored but there is practically nothing on the internet on the subject. This is easy in CP/M and seems like it would be in Linux too. I learn something everyday! Thanks for your help! Much appreciated! Andrew Lynch PS, I tried the 22disk approach and it worked like a charm. I think SDRIVE.SYS might be the problem. I was able to write a custom DISKETTE.CFG and format the disk in a CP/M format, copy files to it, and get a directory from the drive attached to the secondary FDC. At least we know the hardware is basically good From ball.of.john at gmail.com Tue Feb 19 21:50:45 2008 From: ball.of.john at gmail.com (John Ball) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:50:45 -0800 Subject: The Apricot Xen Message-ID: <47BBA395.4000808@gmail.com> Second to my Personal Iris 4D/20, the Apricot Xen has to be one of the most memorable systems I ever saw when I grew up. I can still vividly remember when my dad had them in his office and whenever I was there I would either bolt for the 4D/20 (They cared so much for the system that they let a five year-old play with it but on the other hand they did give it to me two years ago for nothing. :D) or the Xen that was right next to it. If memory recalls it had the trackball mouse as well as the 3 1/4" floppy drive and a hard drive and best of all it had that keyboard with the LCD panel and the programmable buttons. Sad to say they vanished all one day and since then (a little over ten years) I have been trying to find another Xen for myself. It seems it is not an easy task. Not only were Apricot systems not really liked here in North America but whenever I do manage to find a Xen it is ALWAYS missing either the keyboard or the mouse...or both and don't get me started with the monitor or the power supply. I can never seen to find one. Now that I own a logitech G15 keyboard and have it on my high-spec system I am now even more determined to find a Xen so I can mess around with its LCD panel. Does anyone have one with at least the keyboard and trackball mouse? Since words really can't describe this system, here's info on the system. http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=501&st=1 John. From legalize at xmission.com Tue Feb 19 22:32:37 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:32:37 -0700 Subject: The Apricot Xen In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:50:45 -0800. <47BBA395.4000808@gmail.com> Message-ID: There's one on ebay sold by computermkt, but after ponying up his high price for a Visual terminal, he packed it incredibly badly and it arrived smashed. (I must be cursed with respect to Visual terminals, this is the second I've purchased and was poorly packed and arrived smashed.) So in addition to his prices being high, he packs things poorly and they are likely to arrive damaged. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From steerex at ccvn.com Tue Feb 19 12:42:58 2008 From: steerex at ccvn.com (Steve Robertson) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:42:58 -0500 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <001d01c8723c$2df738c0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BA9832.3010104@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <003201c87327$45619140$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> Steve Robertson steerex [at] ccvn [dot] com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Riker" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 3:49 AM Subject: Re: HP-21MX bootstrapping? > Main Account wrote: > > I have a BOOT ROM that will work with a High Speed serial card. I'm not sure > > the ROM was specifically written for that card but, it does work. I just > > make a serial link to a PC and send the ABS image over the link. > > > > Hmmmm... I think the ROM I use is the 12992C mini-cartridge tape loader. > > > > The boot rom expects the image to be in HEX-ASCII format so, you'll have to > > convert the ABS from binary to ASCII before sending it over the link. I > > wrote a small Perl script to handle this. It works great! > > > > I believe my HS card is configured for 1200 baud. At that speed it takes a > > few seconds to upload a large image but, it's not that bad. IIRC < 1 minute > > to upload HP BASIC. > > I'm interested to hear what rom this is. Can you give me an example of > what is expected in HEX-ASCII? HEX? not octal? :) Can I get a copy of > the Perl script? > It's been a few years since I messed with this so, I hope I don't make any errors here :-) The problem is: The machine is a 16-bit system. The compiled program listing is in OCT (3-bit) format. The PC stores the binary ABS file as a byte (8-bits). The serial loader expects a nibble (4-bits). Whew... So, when you compile a prgram on the PC, the listing is generated as an octal listing. IE: ... 102023 Blah 117703 Blah ... Converted to hex: 102023 = 0x8413 117703=0x13C3 So the data in the PC would be stored in consecutive memory locations like this: 84 13 13 C3 NOTE: The loader will only accept the ASCII characters "0-9" and "A-F" over the serial interface. To send the data over the serial link, you have to send each nibble as an ascci character:: "8","4","1","3","1","3","C","3" When the serial loader gets the data, it converts the ASCII values to back to HEX, then rotates the nibble left to create a 16-bit word out 4 nibbles (4-bits each). NOTE: The ABS file format also has "address" and "structure" information embedded in the file. So you can't just send that simple string. You would have to include the preamble (address / byte count) and a checksum with the data string. Sorry, I can't find the perl script right now. I moved a couple of years ago and can't find anything :-) . If you are keen on persuing this, let me know and I'll try to hack something together for you. The ROM's I have are the 12992C mini cartridge tape loader type. My system(s) originally had a serial terminal attached. The terminal had a minicartridge drive in it for mass storage. The operator would initiate the ISL on the 1000, then send the data from the terminal to the 1000 thus booting it. In my solution, the PC just emulates the terminal. I may have a spare ROM if you beg a little :-) BTW: Has anyone found a way to a copy the ROMs? I have tried numerous equilivent devices but, haven't had any success replicating them. See ya, SteveRob steerex [at] ccvn [dot] com From steerex at ccvn.com Tue Feb 19 12:49:27 2008 From: steerex at ccvn.com (Steve Robertson) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:49:27 -0500 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <001d01c8723c$2df738c0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BA9832.3010104@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <003701c87328$2d2fe9e0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> Yo, Anyone know where I can get a copy of hpasm.c? Jeffs site seems to be down. Steve Robertson steerex [at] ccvn [dot] com From harten at injectstar.de Tue Feb 19 11:47:38 2008 From: harten at injectstar.de (Harten) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:47:38 +0200 Subject: DEC LA180 Printer In-Reply-To: <587FFDCB-55AF-4793-BD16-68873277F2BB@microspot.co.uk> References: <200802181800.m1II0GgD040772@dewey.classiccmp.org> <587FFDCB-55AF-4793-BD16-68873277F2BB@microspot.co.uk> Message-ID: <0b19ae734f.harten@injectstar.de> Hi! Did anyone manage to read out the control-ROM or/and the charakter-ROMs? In my printer they are Mostek MK2600 types (512 x 8 bit). Maybe i have to search for the fault of my printer in this IC's :( But it should be possible to replace them by EPROMs. Accesstime of the MK2600 is about 700 ns (as i found somewhere on the web) and the slowest EPROM i found has 400 nS. I own Data I/O Programer System19 and System 29B, but i found nothing about the MK2600 in family/pinout lists. Axel Harten -- From andrew-lynch at sbcglobal.net Tue Feb 19 20:30:55 2008 From: andrew-lynch at sbcglobal.net (Andrew Lynch) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:30:55 -0500 Subject: secondary FDC on PC with MS-DOS? In-Reply-To: <01C872E9.5E09B4E0@mandr71> References: <01C872E9.5E09B4E0@mandr71> Message-ID: <00ca01c87368$9fc303d0$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> > -----Original Message----- > From: M H Stein [mailto:dm561 at torfree.net] > Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 11:18 AM > To: 'cctalk at classiccmp.org' > Cc: 'andrew-lynch at sbcglobal.net' > Subject: secondary FDC on PC with MS-DOS? > > -------------Original Message: > > Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:47:10 -0500 > From: "Andrew Lynch" > Subject: secondary FDC on PC with MS-DOS? > > Hi, > > I am building a test station using an old 486 ISA only computer to test > floppy disk drives and old ST-506/ST-412 style hard disk drives. > > The computer seems to work OK and has a Western Digital ST-506 MFM hard > disk > controller with a FDC on the card (IO address $1F0). > > To help with testing floppy drives, I thought I would add a secondary FDC > however that is turning out to be much more difficult than I planned. > > It seems there are drivers required to make floppy drives attached to the > secondary controller appear as drive letters under MS-DOS. > > I searched around a bit and found SDRIVE.SYS which refuses to acknowledge > any of the other FDCs I place in the computer at the secondary address (IO > address $170). > > There are some references to a DC2.SYS program but I cannot find it > anywhere > online. > > http://www.seasip.info/VintagePC/floppies.html > > Does anyone know how to add multiple FDCs to a PC so I can have multiple > floppy disk drives? > > Of course, the Compaticard IV would be nice but those are very expensive > and > almost unobtainable these days. I have a Compaticard I which "sort of" > works but the drive gives errors every other time I access it. > > Thanks in advance for any help -- especially if someone could send me or > tell me where I could find the DC2.SYS files. > > Andrew Lynch > ------------------ > > You could also look for a 4-drive FDC with its own BIOS; I'll dig through > the pile > & see if I've got one to spare. > > Meanwhile, try asking on the Vintage Computer forums; there were some > mentioned there recently. > > mike [AJL>] Hi Mike, Thanks for the reply! Please let me know if you turn up any ISA FDC cards (8 or 16 bit) with their own BIOS on board. That would certainly help fix this problem. I'd gladly buy one if available. Please let me know. Thanks! Andrew Lynch From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Feb 20 01:21:37 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:21:37 -0800 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <47BA9792.3070609@Rikers.org> <47BAAA29.85C78A28@cs.ubc.ca> <47BAAD29.2020709@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <47BBD502.46464D88@cs.ubc.ca> Tim Riker wrote: > > As you likely saw, I posted a source version of your ascii loader. What > differences does your assembler have? > > The loader has no license info. I presume it's ok for me to post my source? I would just suggest that you add a log/history comment with date/name under my creation date/name comment to indicate changes and to distinguish it from my original. > > Another possibility might be to modify the old HP teleprinter loader: > > > > http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/software/bblteleprinter.html > > I'll look into this as well. Thanx! > > > It uses the HP BBL load format. > > Not sure what this is. Can you point me to any docs? The format is documented (or at least my understanding of it) at the beginning of the above-linked file, based on my disassembly of the machine code in the HP manual. Look at the other two period BBLs on my site for comparison. Actually, to be a little more accurate in terminology: the BBL (Basic Binary Loader) bootstrap programs read data in ABS (ABSolute-address load record) format. BBL & ABS date from the original 2116 systems. Originally the BBLs were manually toggled into core at the top of memory. ABS format (.abs) does require a fully-transparent, 8-bit, binary datapath. There was also a relocatable record format usable at later stages in the bootstrap. I believe the ABS format, with new BBLs for new devices, continued to be used with the later 2100 systems but others can comment on that better than I can. > > It was for loading over a serial line from the paper tape reader on a teletype, > > but uses a 12531A IO interface, which was a bit-bang interface. It could be > > converted for the 12531B/C by, in short, replacing the ReadByte routine with > > instructions appropriate for the 12531B/C. > > ok I will hazard a guess that if an HP serial-line loader for the 2100 shows up it may look a lot like what I'm describing in modifying the old teleprinter loader. > > (Also note that my experience in this is limited to playing with a 2116 system). > lucky dog. :) Didn't you have a 2116B with a broken aluminum frame, or was that someone else? From Tim at Rikers.org Wed Feb 20 02:18:13 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:18:13 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47BBD502.46464D88@cs.ubc.ca> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <47BA9792.3070609@Rikers.org> <47BAAA29.85C78A28@cs.ubc.ca> <47BAAD29.2020709@Rikers.org> <47BBD502.46464D88@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <47BBE245.9000702@Rikers.org> Brent Hilpert wrote: > Tim Riker wrote: > I would just suggest that you add a log/history comment with date/name under my > creation date/name comment to indicate changes and to distinguish it from my > original. done. Also added a converted bbltelprinter.asm lst and abs oh, and uploaded the 12992K (paper tape BBL) source, list and tape image too. http://rikers.org/hp2100/ > I believe the ABS format, with new BBLs for new devices, continued to be used with > the later 2100 systems but others can comment on that better than I can. Just a brain fart. I was thinking ABS and seeing BBL and went "huh?" I got it now. :) > I will hazard a guess that if an HP serial-line loader for the 2100 shows > up it may look a lot like what I'm describing in modifying the old teleprinter loader. the BACI card is different to code to, and Jay says that's what the 264x loader uses, not looked at that yet. > Didn't you have a 2116B with a broken aluminum frame, or was that someone else? Yes to the frame, but it's a 2116A. I don't know anyone else with an A. Mine is still having power supply issues, I've just not gotten back to it. If anyone else has an HP-2116A, I wanna hear from you! Still looking for Volume2 of the docs to cover the different core layout on this machine. By the way.... The issue with the paper-tape loader was just a timing issue. There apparently is no flow control on my serial line, so I had to slow down the upload. I've just loaded HP-Basic (hpbasic1.abs) over the serial line using the paper-tape IBL. woot! First I've gotten basic up and running on this HP-2112A. :) The issue I was seeing with 0x0A was just the default Linux flushing. adding a fflush() call in my test app got me past that. :) Thanx for the help! I'll post the steps online someplace soon. -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From Tim at Rikers.org Wed Feb 20 02:28:40 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:28:40 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <003701c87328$2d2fe9e0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <001d01c8723c$2df738c0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BA9832.3010104@Rikers.org> <003701c87328$2d2fe9e0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> Message-ID: <47BBE4B8.1040304@Rikers.org> Steve Robertson wrote: > Anyone know where I can get a copy of hpasm.c? Jeffs site seems to be down. I've had much more luck with the perl script. Sources here: http://rikers.org/hp2100/asm21-pl.txt I've added some features to it like other characters in the mnemonics and *-1 etc support in OCT. -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From Tim at Rikers.org Wed Feb 20 02:36:50 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:36:50 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <003201c87327$45619140$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <001d01c8723c$2df738c0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BA9832.3010104@Rikers.org> <003201c87327$45619140$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> Message-ID: <47BBE6A2.2050705@Rikers.org> Steve Robertson wrote: > [ how the loader works snipped ] > > Sorry, I can't find the perl script right now. I moved a couple of years ago > and can't find anything :-) . If you are keen on pursuing this, let me know > and I'll try to hack something together for you. Well, what I'm after is finding out if this is what an HP 264x terminal sends. I guess I'll read the kernel source some. There are no \n \r etc in there? just a continuous hex stream? That should be simple enough to handle. I'll try digging out the loader. > The ROM's I have are the 12992C mini cartridge tape loader type. My > system(s) originally had a serial terminal attached. The terminal had a > minicartridge drive in it for mass storage. The operator would initiate the > ISL on the 1000, then send the data from the terminal to the 1000 thus > booting it. In my solution, the PC just emulates the terminal. > > I may have a spare ROM if you beg a little :-) :) I may eventually. :) > BTW: Has anyone found a way to a copy the ROMs? I have tried numerous > equivalent devices but, haven't had any success replicating them. Jay West can do it. Not sure what he uses to copy them though. Don't know if you saw in my other email that I was able to use the tape loader rom to load hpbasic1.abs tonight! (well, last night as it's morning now) It was just a timing issue. I wrote a little C app that sends the file slowly while logging each block to stderr. I can likely reduce the usleep() time and still have it work reliably. Fun times! -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From djg at pdp8.net Wed Feb 20 07:03:54 2008 From: djg at pdp8.net (djg at pdp8.net) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:03:54 -0500 Subject: TU10 tape drive restoration Message-ID: <200802201303.m1KD3sq31395@h-68-165-246-86.mclnva23.covad.net> >I have not looked into it, but if the tacho is producing a slightly too >slow or fast signal, because of the not perfect diameter, would there >not be a trim point to adjust an amplifier that drives the reel motors? > Yes their is. Your supposed to use the special skew tape to set it but setting it with a written tape probably will get it close enough. >I measured 3 of mine and there all over place. > Thanks. .015 difference probably isn't that significant. I'll try 1.83. >>Vacuum switches >This is the biggest problem with the TU10. But we've repaired them >ourself. > How long does this last? I got 4 new switches so I'll try this for the other 4. I like saving money. >>Blower >It is noisy, just like an old vacuum cleaner. > I expected the vacuum noise when running. What I was referring to was more of a grinding/scraping noise when turned by hand. >Do you plan to keep some type of online log on your web site? > There are a lot of things I plan to do. Hopefully this weekend I will actually create a page for it. At minimum I will docuement what I repaired and how. This will be the most complex restoration I have had to do. I'll post when I have something up. From javickers at solutionengineers.com Wed Feb 20 07:07:53 2008 From: javickers at solutionengineers.com (Ade Vickers) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:07:53 +0100 Subject: Ebay grrrr #743 In-Reply-To: <47BBE6A2.2050705@Rikers.org> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <001d01c8723c$2df738c0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BA9832.3010104@Rikers.org><003201c87327$45619140$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BBE6A2.2050705@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <035601c873c1$9c73db60$ac00a8c0@solution.engineers> A nice-looking CBM Pet 2001 with chicklet keyboard (Item #300199788685), described as: "The computer powers up fine as you can see from the pictures, but it is only half way through the booting up process. I know this because the cassette motor is continuously turning. The screen is filled with little patterns. This I hear is a simple problem to fix from what I have seen on the net, memory chip problem etc. I am no expert on this machine so please dont take me for gospel." Erm, yes. Very simple to fix, if you happen to have a spare of the part (or parts) that have failed. Otherwise, a complete bastard (pardon my Francais) of a job.... and well beyond your average ePayer, I'd warrant. And yet, from a "non expert" we're expected to believe this is an "easy repair"? Do people really fall for this sort of garbage. Grrrrr. (Cont. p93) Cheers, Ade. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.8/1288 - Release Date: 19/02/2008 20:47 From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Wed Feb 20 07:23:47 2008 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:23:47 -0500 Subject: With all the other crud going on on ebay... Message-ID: what's with the disappearing auctions? The last couple of IMSAI and altair auctions were "removed" almost immediately upon completion. Does anybody know what the final price on the altair 680 with the riser board and memory expansion was? What about the IMSAI that was over $5000 with over a day left? No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.8/1288 - Release Date: 2/19/2008 8:47 PM From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Wed Feb 20 07:48:18 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:48:18 +0000 Subject: Ebay grrrr #743 In-Reply-To: <035601c873c1$9c73db60$ac00a8c0@solution.engineers> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <47BBE6A2.2050705@Rikers.org> <035601c873c1$9c73db60$ac00a8c0@solution.engineers> Message-ID: <20080220134818.GC18186@usap.gov> On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 02:07:53PM +0100, Ade Vickers wrote: > A nice-looking CBM Pet 2001 with chicklet keyboard (Item #300199788685), > described as: > > "The computer powers up fine as you can see from the pictures, but it is > only half way through the booting up process.... a simple problem to fix... > > Erm, yes. Very simple to fix, if you happen to have a spare of the part (or > parts) that have failed. Otherwise, a complete bastard (pardon my Francais) > of a job.... and well beyond your average ePayer, I'd warrant. Having fixed a number of PETs, the problem could be as simple as a failed SRAM in low mem (you can swap with one from high mem to test), a failed ROM (less likely), or most likely of all, cheap sockets. Power supply problems can also be a possibility, but I'd think that's more likely with newer PETs with DRAMs (you need three voltages to power 4116s). Replacing sockets is not a difficult task if you are skilled with a soldering iron. New sockets are not too expensive or difficult to find (I use high-quality machine-pin sockets and get them by the fistful at several to the dollar). I wouldn't recommend a novice start a career in soldering by replacing two dozen sockets, though. > And yet, from a "non expert" we're expected to believe this is an "easy > repair"? Do people really fall for this sort of garbage. Well... clearly the seller is not an electronics expert, but if you want to buy a 30-year-old computer of any variety and you don't know the first thing about electronics, you'd better have a friend who does. Given that it's a pickup offer, if I were in London, _I_ might consider paying 50 GBP for a broken original PET (I sold a broken one 10 years ago for $100 US). I don't know that I'd be happy to pay much more than that, though. I think most ePay buyers would prefer to have one that works out of the box. I'll be curious to learn what this one goes for, eventually. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 20-Feb-2008 at 13:40 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -30.3 F (-34.6 C) Windchill -57.7 F (-49.8 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 12.5 kts Grid 8 Barometer 682.0 mb (10553 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From vrs at msn.com Wed Feb 20 10:24:12 2008 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:24:12 -0800 Subject: With all the other crud going on on ebay... References: Message-ID: From: "Bill Sudbrink": > what's with the disappearing auctions? The last couple of > IMSAI and altair auctions were "removed" almost immediately > upon completion. Does anybody know what the final price on > the altair 680 with the riser board and memory expansion was? > What about the IMSAI that was over $5000 with over a day left? Apparently that is what happens when the seller is no longer an eBay member, for whatever reason. Presumably the seller cancelled his eBay membership (or possibly was banned)? Vince From legalize at xmission.com Wed Feb 20 10:37:41 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 09:37:41 -0700 Subject: With all the other crud going on on ebay... In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:24:12 -0800. Message-ID: I've seen auctions pulled when the seller was selling something for someone else and they yanked the item out from under the original seller. For instance, there was an ADM-31 terminal for sale that I had bid on. The auction was cancelled and the item was removed because the seller told me that the estate sale had changed their mind and didn't make the item available to him. Later, he acquired the estate and put the item up again, but I missed out on it that time (my fault, not his). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Feb 20 10:44:48 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:44:48 -0800 Subject: With all the other crud going on on ebay... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: vrs at msn.com > > From: "Bill Sudbrink": >> what's with the disappearing auctions? The last couple of >> IMSAI and altair auctions were "removed" almost immediately >> upon completion. Does anybody know what the final price on >> the altair 680 with the riser board and memory expansion was? >> What about the IMSAI that was over $5000 with over a day left? > > Apparently that is what happens when the seller is no longer an > eBay member, for whatever reason. Presumably the seller cancelled > his eBay membership (or possibly was banned)? > > Vince Hi I thought it was that the buyers were using stolen names. It would seem that a lot of people are using these names that they have phished for and bidding items up. A single person may have two names that they are using to bid the items up. This seems to be happening not only for computer items but also for old radios. One fellow in the radio group has attempted to sell the same item 3 times and each time someone bid phoney bids. Causing the auction to be canceled. This is really bad for the sellers because people get tired of bidding on an item. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging.?You IM, we give. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Wed Feb 20 10:56:45 2008 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:56:45 +0100 (CET) Subject: TU10 tape drive restoration In-Reply-To: <200802201303.m1KD3sq31395@h-68-165-246-86.mclnva23.covad.net> References: <200802201303.m1KD3sq31395@h-68-165-246-86.mclnva23.covad.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 20 Feb 2008 djg at pdp8.net wrote: >>> Vacuum switches >> This is the biggest problem with the TU10. But we've repaired them >> ourself. >> > How long does this last? I got 4 new switches so I'll try this for the > other 4. I like saving money. We've repaired them five years ago and they still work. Christian From legalize at xmission.com Wed Feb 20 11:00:00 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 10:00:00 -0700 Subject: With all the other crud going on on ebay... In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:44:48 -0800. Message-ID: In article , dwight elvey writes: > One fellow in the radio group has attempted to sell the same > item 3 times and each time someone bid phoney bids. Causing > the auction to be canceled. How do they know the bids are phony? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From curt at atarimuseum.com Wed Feb 20 11:00:56 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:00:56 -0500 Subject: With all the other crud going on on ebay... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47BC5CC8.4060908@atarimuseum.com> Thats happened a lot in the last year or two, is an ebay account get hijacked, in fact there was a newspaper article about a town in Lithuania that actually was working together in concert to rip people off on ebay... Essentially they will hijack an ebay account Post an auction for a hi price item put in the body of the auction "We sell these for $5,000 but email me at xxxxx at hotmail.com and I can sell to you for only $1250" they then get all of these people to deal off of ebay and sent Western Union payments or they'll get a ton of bids on this $5000 item because it started at like $800 and then they then ask for Western Union payment. Then you wait and wait for your winnings which never come. Curt dwight elvey wrote: > >> From: vrs at msn.com >> >> From: "Bill Sudbrink": >> >>> what's with the disappearing auctions? The last couple of >>> IMSAI and altair auctions were "removed" almost immediately >>> upon completion. Does anybody know what the final price on >>> the altair 680 with the riser board and memory expansion was? >>> What about the IMSAI that was over $5000 with over a day left? >>> >> Apparently that is what happens when the seller is no longer an >> eBay member, for whatever reason. Presumably the seller cancelled >> his eBay membership (or possibly was banned)? >> >> Vince >> > > Hi > I thought it was that the buyers were using stolen names. > It would seem that a lot of people are using these names > that they have phished for and bidding items up. A single > person may have two names that they are using to bid the > items up. > This seems to be happening not only for computer items but > also for old radios. > One fellow in the radio group has attempted to sell the same > item 3 times and each time someone bid phoney bids. Causing > the auction to be canceled. > This is really bad for the sellers because people get tired > of bidding on an item. > Dwight > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging. You IM, we give. > http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join > > > From vrs at msn.com Wed Feb 20 11:16:46 2008 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 09:16:46 -0800 Subject: OT: Re: With all the other crud going on on ebay... References: Message-ID: From: "dwight elvey": >> From: "Bill Sudbrink": >> Apparently that is what happens when the seller is no longer an >> eBay member, for whatever reason. Presumably the seller cancelled >> his eBay membership (or possibly was banned)? > > I thought it was that the buyers were using stolen names. > It would seem that a lot of people are using these names > that they have phished for and bidding items up. A single > person may have two names that they are using to bid the > items up. > This seems to be happening not only for computer items but > also for old radios. > One fellow in the radio group has attempted to sell the same > item 3 times and each time someone bid phoney bids. Causing > the auction to be canceled. So you are saying the seller's account doesn't get cancelled as I described, and it is just that a particular auction that was removed due to fradulent bidding? We are also wandering off topic... Vince From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Feb 20 11:17:13 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 09:17:13 -0800 Subject: With all the other crud going on on ebay... In-Reply-To: References: Your message of Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:44:48 -0800. Message-ID: > From: legalize at xmission.com > > In article , > dwight elvey writes: > >> One fellow in the radio group has attempted to sell the same >> item 3 times and each time someone bid phoney bids. Causing >> the auction to be canceled. > > How do they know the bids are phony? > Ebay cancels the auction. Most likely because the people that have had there name stollen inform ebay that someone is using their name. eBay sends notices when items are bid on. The real owner of the name will notify eBay. There are a lot of these emails that are phishing for names. It would seem that there is more and more of this lately or someone has a way to break into eBay and get passwords. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Need to know the score, the latest news, or you need your Hotmail?-get your "fix". http://www.msnmobilefix.com/Default.aspx From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Feb 20 11:17:17 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 09:17:17 -0800 Subject: With all the other crud going on on ebay... In-Reply-To: References: Your message of Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:44:48 -0800. Message-ID: > From: legalize at xmission.com > > In article , > dwight elvey writes: > >> One fellow in the radio group has attempted to sell the same >> item 3 times and each time someone bid phoney bids. Causing >> the auction to be canceled. > > How do they know the bids are phony? > Ebay cancels the auction. Most likely because the people that have had there name stollen inform ebay that someone is using their name. eBay sends notices when items are bid on. The real owner of the name will notify eBay. There are a lot of these emails that are phishing for names. It would seem that there is more and more of this lately or someone has a way to break into eBay and get passwords. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser! http://biggestloser.msn.com/ From dm561 at torfree.net Wed Feb 20 12:07:53 2008 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:07:53 -0500 Subject: Ebay grrrr #743 Message-ID: <01C873C1.9C898640@MSE_D03> On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 02:07:53PM +0100, Ade Vickers wrote: > A nice-looking CBM Pet 2001 with chicklet keyboard (Item #300199788685), > described as: > > "The computer powers up fine as you can see from the pictures, but it is > only half way through the booting up process.... a simple problem to fix... Don't forget the "from what I've seen on the net" part... > > Erm, yes. Very simple to fix, if you happen to have a spare of the part (or > parts) that have failed. Otherwise, a complete bastard (pardon my Francais) > of a job.... and well beyond your average ePayer, I'd warrant. ------------- Boy, tough crowd... Repairing a PET is often as simple as reseating a memory chip; worst case is probably a bad ROM in which case you just replace all the RAM/ROM chips with one of the modern 64K RAM/ROM adapters and sell the working old ones. Half the fun of buying something like this is gambling on it being a simple fix. As Ethan says, if you buy a non-working old computer and don't know (or have a friend who knows) anything about repairing them, well... Looks like an up-front description of a non-working system to me; hope he/she appreciates your advertising the listing here. m From silent700 at gmail.com Wed Feb 20 12:54:38 2008 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:54:38 -0600 Subject: Ebay grrrr #743 In-Reply-To: <035601c873c1$9c73db60$ac00a8c0@solution.engineers> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <001d01c8723c$2df738c0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BA9832.3010104@Rikers.org> <003201c87327$45619140$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BBE6A2.2050705@Rikers.org> <035601c873c1$9c73db60$ac00a8c0@solution.engineers> Message-ID: <51ea77730802201054v53ff764bl66a49ddbb8ad0c3c@mail.gmail.com> On 2/20/08, Ade Vickers wrote: > A nice-looking CBM Pet 2001 with chicklet keyboard (Item #300199788685), > described as: Hey, you could always go for this one: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=260213476011 Apparently it comes with an XBox, as well as unnamed products from Apple, Atari and Sony! From Tim at Rikers.org Wed Feb 20 15:05:01 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:05:01 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47BBE6A2.2050705@Rikers.org> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <001d01c8723c$2df738c0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BA9832.3010104@Rikers.org> <003201c87327$45619140$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BBE6A2.2050705@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <47BC95FD.6080708@Rikers.org> Someone else pointed out to me that there are ROM images here: http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/HP/1000_firmware/HP1000BootProms/ for some reason the roms only use the lower 4 bits of each byte. so each word is in the lower half of four consecutive bytes in the ROM. I don't see offhand how the IBL knows where to update slot information in the ROMs. It also presumably needs to update address offsets as the code is relocated? This part should be able to use relative addressing. Anyone know how slot update works? Any pointers on why IBL won't work on my HP-2108A ? :) -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Feb 20 15:28:14 2008 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:28:14 -0800 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47BC95FD.6080708@Rikers.org> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <001d01c8723c$2df738c0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BA9832.3010104@Rikers.org> <003201c87327$45619140$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BBE6A2.2050705@Rikers.org> <47BC95FD.6080708@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90802201328p5b3ce781w37a15bfa8a897b00@mail.gmail.com> On Feb 20, 2008 1:05 PM, Tim Riker wrote: > Someone else pointed out to me that there are ROM images here: > > http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/HP/1000_firmware/HP1000BootProms/ > > for some reason the roms only use the lower 4 bits of each byte. so each > word is in the lower half of four consecutive bytes in the ROM. I don't > see offhand how the IBL knows where to update slot information in the > ROMs. It also presumably needs to update address offsets as the code is > relocated? This part should be able to use relative addressing. Anyone > know how slot update works? > HP 1000 E-Series and F-Series Computer Microprogramming Reference Manual http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/1000/2109-90004_1000EF_uPrgRef_Apr80 (.pdf extension missing on this file? rename as .pdf) Appendix G, Page 8, INITIAL BINARY LOADER firmware listing. >From a quick scan of the comments it appears that the IBL firmware handler recognizes I/O instructions as it unpacks them from the loader PROM and fixes them up on the fly if the select code is less than 10. -Glen From cclist at sydex.com Wed Feb 20 16:10:17 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:10:17 -0800 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) Message-ID: <47BC34C9.18058.EA92AF@cclist.sydex.com> In my humble opinion, what's really needed is a quick and reliable non-contact method of recovering floppy data. Perhaps one of the more modern head technologies, such as GMR might be suitable for a head that doesn't contact the media. Or maybe we need to revive the "magnasee and laser" method. Increasingly, I'm seeing 5.25" diskettes with media flaking. There's no way that I'm going to stick one of those into a standard floppy drive, even after baking. It might be that we're starting to approach the "use by" date with some brands and need to resort to other approaches. Cheers, Chuck From tiggerlasv at aim.com Wed Feb 20 12:52:45 2008 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:52:45 -0500 Subject: With all the other crud going on on ebay. . . Message-ID: <8CA4208EA1635B1-854-BF3E@webmail-nf06.sim.aol.com> Don't forget that, after an auction closes, there is a small window of time where the auction isn't searchable. I've had this happen many times; I went to find an auction; realized it must have closed, and then tried to search it in completed items, but could not locate it. Going back to internet-exploiter "history", I was able to go directly to the auction that I was looking for. . . As for the IMSAI -- I noticed one a few days ago that was up in the $2000's . . . was that the one you were looking for? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220199733423 T ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From jdbryan at acm.org Wed Feb 20 17:45:13 2008 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:45:13 -0500 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90802201328p5b3ce781w37a15bfa8a897b00@mail.gmail.com> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org>, <47BC95FD.6080708@Rikers.org>, <1e1fc3e90802201328p5b3ce781w37a15bfa8a897b00@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802202345.m1KNjTvL009240@mail.bcpl.net> On 20 Feb 2008 at 13:28, Glen Slick wrote: > From a quick scan of the comments it appears that the IBL firmware > handler recognizes I/O instructions as it unpacks them from the loader > PROM and fixes them up on the fly if the select code is less than 10. Greater than or equal to 10 (it leaves select codes less than 10, e.g., DCPC instructions, alone). It actually adds SC-10 as derived from the S register to the I/O instructions. This is how it can configure both select codes of a two-card device (e.g., 7900 disc) from the single select code entered via the front panel. On 20 Feb 2008 at 14:05, Tim Riker wrote: > It also presumably needs to update address offsets as the code is > relocated? IBL MRG instructions reference the current page, i.e., contain only the offset from the current page, so they are relocatable to any page. In practice, the microcode copies the ROM into the last page of physical memory <= 32K. > Any pointers on why IBL won't work on my HP-2108A ? :) Bad ROM? I presume you've tried storing values into the last 64 locations in memory via the front panel to confirm that writing memory works. You might try a scope on the ROM outputs to see if they move when you press the IBL button. -- Dave From jack.rubin at ameritech.net Wed Feb 20 17:45:47 2008 From: jack.rubin at ameritech.net (Jack Rubin) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:45:47 -0600 Subject: MS Visual C++ docs available Message-ID: <000001c8741a$b7966e40$176fa8c0@obie> Three volume set of docs for MS Visual C++ v1.52 available for the cost of postage - relatively cheap via Media Mail, but the 3 vols total close to 11 lbs. Includes $15 rebate coupon with expiration date of 12/31/96 - proof that this "on-topic". No software included! Contact me directly if you're interested. Jack No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.8/1288 - Release Date: 2/19/2008 8:47 PM From Tim at Rikers.org Wed Feb 20 17:47:44 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:47:44 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90802201328p5b3ce781w37a15bfa8a897b00@mail.gmail.com> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <001d01c8723c$2df738c0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BA9832.3010104@Rikers.org> <003201c87327$45619140$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BBE6A2.2050705@Rikers.org> <47BC95FD.6080708@Rikers.org> <1e1fc3e90802201328p5b3ce781w37a15bfa8a897b00@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47BCBC20.2020209@Rikers.org> Glen Slick wrote: > HP 1000 E-Series and F-Series > Computer Microprogramming > Reference Manual > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/1000/2109-90004_1000EF_uPrgRef_Apr80 > (.pdf extension missing on this file? rename as .pdf) > > Appendix G, Page 8, INITIAL BINARY LOADER firmware listing. > >>From a quick scan of the comments it appears that the IBL firmware > handler recognizes I/O instructions as it unpacks them from the loader > PROM and fixes them up on the fly if the select code is less than 10. So much good info to read. I had pulled down this file before, but not gotten to reading it. Very interesting stuff. Thanx! -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Feb 20 17:58:29 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:58:29 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Ebay grrrr #743 In-Reply-To: <035601c873c1$9c73db60$ac00a8c0@solution.engineers> from "Ade Vickers" at Feb 20, 8 02:07:53 pm Message-ID: > > A nice-looking CBM Pet 2001 with chicklet keyboard (Item #300199788685), > described as: > > "The computer powers up fine as you can see from the pictures, but it is > only half way through the booting up process. I know this because the > cassette motor is continuously turning. The screen is filled with little > patterns. This I hear is a simple problem to fix from what I have seen on > the net, memory chip problem etc. I am no expert on this machine so please > dont take me for gospel." > > Erm, yes. Very simple to fix, if you happen to have a spare of the part (or > parts) that have failed. Otherwise, a complete bastard (pardon my Francais) > of a job.... and well beyond your average ePayer, I'd warrant. Actually, 99% of probelms in old PETs are due to the terrible IC sockets used. I find it best to replace the lot with good turned-pin ones. That may well cure this fault, if not, at least you know that's _not_ the problem (nothing worst that trying to trace logic faults on a PCB with bad connections!). > > And yet, from a "non expert" we're expected to believe this is an "easy > repair"? Do people really fall for this sort of garbage. The only 'easy repair' is one that I've done. Even if I know what the problem is, it may stil lnot be 'easy' to put right (the part maynot be availale, it might be a right pain to fit, and so on). When I buy on E-bay, I always assume the device will not be working (no matter what the seller says, I rralise that I am buying 30 year old computer hardware from a person who may not know that much about it), and I asusme I am going to have to do some work on it. So far I've been pleasantly supprised in most cases. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Feb 20 18:03:44 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:03:44 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Ebay grrrr #743 In-Reply-To: <20080220134818.GC18186@usap.gov> from "Ethan Dicks" at Feb 20, 8 01:48:18 pm Message-ID: > Well... clearly the seller is not an electronics expert, but if you > want to buy a 30-year-old computer of any variety and you don't know > the first thing about electronics, you'd better have a friend who does. When I make comments like that I get flamed alive. Oh well... More seriously, if you want to run a real vintage computer (as opposed to running emulators on modern hardware), then you have to rememebr that you're running possibly 30 year old electronics. It's going to fail sometime. It's going to need repair. So either you have to learn to do it yourself (which is often not tht difficult, although sometimes you can spend a long time trakcing doewn an oscure fault, or making a replacement part, or...) Or you have to find (and be prepared to pay) a friend to do the repair. And there aren't that many people who do classic computer repairs. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Feb 20 17:40:58 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:40:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: DEC LA180 Printer In-Reply-To: <0b19ae734f.harten@injectstar.de> from "Harten" at Feb 19, 8 07:47:38 pm Message-ID: > > Hi! > > Did anyone manage to read out the control-ROM or/and the charakter-ROMs? > In my printer they are Mostek MK2600 types (512 x 8 bit). > > Maybe i have to search for the fault of my printer in this IC's :( > > But it should be possible to replace them by EPROMs. Accesstime of the > MK2600 is about 700 ns (as i found somewhere on the web) and the slowest > EPROM i found has 400 nS. > > I own Data I/O Programer System19 and System 29B, but i found nothing > about the MK2600 in family/pinout lists. For obvious reasons most programmers do not include mask-orogrammed ROMs in their list of devices, not even for reading. If you can find a PROM with the same pinout then you can try reading the ROM as that (but don't try 'Verify' -- the better programmers do verification at high and low Vcc which some mask ROMs will not like!). Hoever, I've generally found it easier not to bother with a programmer for reading mask ROMs. I find it easier to use a 'User port' on one of my machines -- somethign like an 8255 card in a PC, or an HP GPIO card in an HP9000/200, or... Put the chip on a solderless breadboard or similar, wire the address pins to output lines of the user port and the data pins to inputs. Do the approriate thing with the enable pins (you can normally have the ROM enabled all the time for this). Then writie a trivial program to cycle through all the addresses, read in the data, and store it. -tony From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Feb 20 18:16:06 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:16:06 -0300 Subject: Ebay grrrr #743 References: Message-ID: <00a701c8741f$4145c9c0$03fea8c0@portajara> > Actually, 99% of probelms in old PETs are due to the terrible IC sockets > used. I find it best to replace the lot with good turned-pin ones. That > may well cure this fault, if not, at least you know that's _not_ the > problem (nothing worst that trying to trace logic faults on a PCB with > bad connections!). Tony, believe in me: Turned pin sockets are an unnecessary spent money The actual sockets are very good for anything. When the pet was made, the socket technology was awful, but the nowadays sockets are good enough to rival the turned pin "garry" sockets. Believe me! From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Feb 20 18:38:39 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:38:39 -0500 Subject: Fwd: [HersheyFreecycle] OFFER - older 24" Pen Plotter - Linglestown Area Message-ID: <200802201938.39728.rtellason@verizon.net> Dunno if anybody here would find this to be of interest, but maybe... This is a local freecycle list. I suppose pickup and maybe short-term storage (until it was shipped) would be possible, maybe. ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: [HersheyFreecycle] OFFER - older 24" Pen Plotter - Linglestown Area Date: Wednesday 20 February 2008 14:45 From: "tml615" To: HersheyFreecycle at yahoogroups.com I have a Calcomp Pacesetter 24" pen plotter to offer. This is an older machine that plots on a large sheet using a pen. I received this from another FreeCycler. It works and comes with the manual, power cord, and one pen. It's a bit dusty and could use a good cleaning. Pens, drivers, and other parts are still available through online vendors. I have not been able to find a Windows XP driver for this plotter, but drivers for older versions of Windows (98 and older) are available on line. Pickup is near the intersection of Colonial & Linglestown Roads during normal business hours. _____________________________________________________ **** Proper Posting Format: **** OFFER [item name] [town name] PENDING [item name] TAKEN [item] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HersheyFreecycle/ ------------------------------------------------------- -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rborsuk at colourfull.com Wed Feb 20 20:47:36 2008 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:47:36 -0500 Subject: HP 1000 F Series 21MX In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90802201328p5b3ce781w37a15bfa8a897b00@mail.gmail.com> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <001d01c8723c$2df738c0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BA9832.3010104@Rikers.org> <003201c87327$45619140$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BBE6A2.2050705@Rikers.org> <47BC95FD.6080708@Rikers.org> <1e1fc3e90802201328p5b3ce781w37a15bfa8a897b00@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2B2C5AA1-B54D-4889-9B51-C02AF6130F51@colourfull.com> Hi All, With all this talk about the HP - 1000 I forgot I have one of these bad boys to sell. Check it out if you get a chance on ebay #300200776101 Rob Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com From javickers at solutionengineers.com Thu Feb 21 01:15:24 2008 From: javickers at solutionengineers.com (Ade Vickers) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:15:24 +0100 Subject: Ebay grrrr #743 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200802210715.m1L7Fk3J089156@keith.ezwind.net> Tony Duell Wrote: > > Well... clearly the seller is not an electronics expert, but if you > > want to buy a 30-year-old computer of any variety and you don't know > > the first thing about electronics, you'd better have a friend who does. > > When I make comments like that I get flamed alive. Oh well... Ah, I'm not in the office, so I can't flame the originator of that comment... As I don't have the e-mail on my laptop here ;) Still, to answer the question, I DO know the first thing about electronics - it's the 2nd and 3rd things that I'm not so sure about.... Or, to put it another way, I can do *basic* stuff, but I've not got the skills to do a logic analysis, for example. In other words, I'd be reliant on chip-swapping (and socket-swapping, assuming I had some compatible sockets, which I don't). > More seriously, if you want to run a real vintage computer (as opposed to > running emulators on modern hardware), then you have to rememebr that > you're running possibly 30 year old electronics. It's going to fail > sometime. It's going to need repair. So either you have to learn to do it > yourself (which is often not tht difficult, although sometimes you can > spend a long time trakcing doewn an oscure fault, or making a replacement > part, or...) Or you have to find (and be prepared to pay) a friend to do > the repair. And there aren't that many people who do classic computer > repairs. That's not a bad philosophy. I guess I've been lucky so far; the few machines I have in my possession have been relatively healthy - the only machine that's flaked out on me while in storage is an old Osborne luggable. Oh, and I fried one of my QLs, but that was my own silly fault (switched the monitor on after the QL = blown 8032) Cheers, Ade. From dave.symmes at hp.com Wed Feb 20 01:39:41 2008 From: dave.symmes at hp.com (Symmes, Dave) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 07:39:41 +0000 Subject: PDP-8 "Introduction to Programming" Message-ID: I tripped across this email link on a Google search. I was the author of the original PDP-8 * "Introduction to Programming", published in either late 1968 or early 1969. I hired onto Digital straight out of college as a tech writer joining a department of four writers for the whole company. Almost 40 years later I am still with HP. Dave Dave Symmes Solution Alliances Engineering (978) 777-6157 - Phone (978) 742-1078 - Fax From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Wed Feb 20 06:44:53 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 07:44:53 -0500 Subject: Bubble memory devices Message-ID: <0JWJ00IGMFIJ0E30@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Bubble memory devices > From: "Chuck Guzis" > Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:44:53 -0800 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >A bit of curiosity on my part... > >If one wanted to replace a whole bubble memory card (i.e. complete >with support chips and decoders), would MRAM or FRAM be considered a >suitable substitute? It'd be one heckuva lot faster and drink less >power. Yes and no. yes you can use ram (or flash) as "disk" but the bubble system was addressed and generally run like a FDC with a command-status register and a data register. To have ram look like that you's need some controller and/or hardware. IT would also impact software that was designed to talk to it. Bubble was not RAM is was block accessable storage. >In the same vein, how about MRAM as a core memory substitute? Yes, it's been done. I had an 8E with a ram card, It stayed with the machine when I passed to to someone else. Also PDP-11s (early) could ahve ram or core and I ahve a 16k core stack for a Qbus LSI-11. Allison >Cheers, >Chuck > > From empiretheatre at btconnect.com Wed Feb 20 08:40:32 2008 From: empiretheatre at btconnect.com (Technical Department) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:40:32 -0000 Subject: Logic Analyzer pods Re: HP LA Inverse Assemblers for classic microprocessors Message-ID: <000601c873ce$8efa88a0$0201a8c0@home> Hi Steve, I don't know if you are still after some of these, but I may be able to help. I am after a favour though myself... I have an HP1631D but it has an EPROM fault. I am looking for someone who can copy the 8 EPROM's from another 1631D and send me the files. I could in return send about 16 or so grabbers. Daniel. From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Feb 21 01:38:06 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:38:06 -0500 Subject: PDP-8 "Introduction to Programming" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47BD2A5E.1030807@gmail.com> Symmes, Dave wrote: > I tripped across this email link on a Google search. > > I was the author of the original PDP-8 * "Introduction to > Programming", published in either late 1968 or early 1969. I hired > onto Digital straight out of college as a tech writer joining a > department of four writers for the whole company. > > Almost 40 years later I am still with HP. Wow! Well met, sir! Well met, indeed. Peace... Sridhar From mnusa2 at hotmail.com Thu Feb 21 07:30:32 2008 From: mnusa2 at hotmail.com (Matti Nummi) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:30:32 +0200 Subject: M88k MVME Lot for sale - any common interest Message-ID: Hi All, There is a big lot of Motorola 88000 boards for sale at eBay 300198415832. Unfortunatelly it is an USA only sale. Normally these go dirt cheap to resellers for spares with huge price tags (easily starting higher than 1k$). Is there anybody interested to share this deal and ship my part to Europe/Finland. I will pay pmy art and the shipping of course. I'm really interested in 4 processor modules, which seem quite rare (and I have none). BR, Matti _________________________________________________________________ Lataa 30 ILMAISTA hymi?t? Windows Live Messengeriisi! http://www.livemessenger-emoticons.com/fi-fi From dundas at caltech.edu Thu Feb 21 10:05:58 2008 From: dundas at caltech.edu (John A. Dundas III) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:05:58 -0800 Subject: RLV12 placement in H9278-A question Message-ID: Perhaps someone could clarify, the manuals are less than explicit on this. What kind of slot can the RLV12 be placed in? Does it need a Q22/Q22, Q22/CD, does it not matter, or are there jumpers to accommodate either? Before I fry something I'd like to make sure I've got this right. Thanks, John From curt at atarimuseum.com Thu Feb 21 10:22:38 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:22:38 -0500 Subject: RLV12 placement in H9278-A question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47BDA54E.5010202@atarimuseum.com> Hi John, I used this document stored over at Bitsavers when I installed my RLV12 into my Vax 4000-200: http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/dec/qbus/EK-RLV12-UG-002_Mar82.pdf Curt John A. Dundas III wrote: > Perhaps someone could clarify, the manuals are less than explicit on > this. What kind of slot can the RLV12 be placed in? Does it need a > Q22/Q22, Q22/CD, does it not matter, or are there jumpers to > accommodate either? > > Before I fry something I'd like to make sure I've got this right. > > Thanks, > > John > > From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Feb 21 10:27:51 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:27:51 -0500 Subject: RLV12 placement in H9278-A question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200802211127.51896.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 21 February 2008 11:05, John A. Dundas III wrote: > Perhaps someone could clarify, the manuals are less than explicit on > this. What kind of slot can the RLV12 be placed in? Does it need a > Q22/Q22, Q22/CD, does it not matter, or are there jumpers to > accommodate either? Doesn't matter. Generally, anything that works in a Q/Q slot will work in a Q/CD slot just fine, unless you have made some other error (like putting it in place of 1/2 of a 2-board set that expects to have a different board following/preceding it, though the only connections on the 2nd set of fingers are probably grant continuity jumpers on the RLV12, so you'll only end up breaking the stuff you installed wrongly :). QBUS is much more forgiving (and simple) than all the variants of slots possible on a UNIBUS-attached backplane. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From Tim at Rikers.org Thu Feb 21 11:21:27 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:21:27 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <200802202345.m1KNjTvL009240@mail.bcpl.net> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org>, <47BC95FD.6080708@Rikers.org>, <1e1fc3e90802201328p5b3ce781w37a15bfa8a897b00@mail.gmail.com> <200802202345.m1KNjTvL009240@mail.bcpl.net> Message-ID: <47BDB317.50009@Rikers.org> J. David Bryan wrote: >> Any pointers on why IBL won't work on my HP-2108A ? :) > > Bad ROM? I presume you've tried storing values into the last 64 locations > in memory via the front panel to confirm that writing memory works. You > might try a scope on the ROM outputs to see if they move when you press the > IBL button. Thanx for the help! :) It has the soldered in default rom (1816-0420), as well as another that I have not yet identified (1816-0639). I have tried setting memory for the address range 177700-177777 and I can set/reset values everywhere I've tried. Preset clears overflow, and hitting IBL (with S as 001100) sets it, so it looks like the microcode does run. Nothing changes in memory. Hmm.. I take that back, I think that 177777 may change and nothing else. I'll have to try again tonight. -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 21 11:13:23 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:13:23 -0800 Subject: Hoeneywell-Bull DPS9000 Message-ID: <47BD40B3.14083.501191D@cclist.sydex.com> I was going through some old code and discovered that I wrote a DOS driver to handle Honeywell-Bull DPS9000 GCOS floppies. I don't recall the exact circumstances, only that we equipped the customer with a Compaticard and a modified dual drive (5.25" and 3.5") box, although one isn't required for operation. Does anyone collect these old systems? Would you be interested in a copy of the code? Cheers, Chuck From Tim at Rikers.org Thu Feb 21 11:34:34 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:34:34 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <003701c87328$2d2fe9e0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <001d01c8723c$2df738c0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> <47BA9832.3010104@Rikers.org> <003701c87328$2d2fe9e0$0201a8c0@disa4g72s8xldv> Message-ID: <47BDB62A.1000908@Rikers.org> Steve Robertson wrote: > Anyone know where I can get a copy of hpasm.c? Jeffs site seems to be down. I emailed Jeff and found that his email is down too, and hosted elsewhere. Anyone know where Jeff is? As for the file... archive.org is your fiend: http://web.archive.org/web/20020206230023/oscar.taurus.com/~jeff/2100/emulator/hpasm.txt -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From curt at atarimuseum.com Thu Feb 21 11:35:52 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:35:52 -0500 Subject: Hoeneywell-Bull DPS9000 In-Reply-To: <47BD40B3.14083.501191D@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47BD40B3.14083.501191D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47BDB678.4090408@atarimuseum.com> Chuck, You should speak with Sellam Ismail, he acquired such a beastie about 18 months ago and I'm sure he would want such a valuable utility... Curt Chuck Guzis wrote: > I was going through some old code and discovered that I wrote a DOS > driver to handle Honeywell-Bull DPS9000 GCOS floppies. I don't > recall the exact circumstances, only that we equipped the customer > with a Compaticard and a modified dual drive (5.25" and 3.5") box, > although one isn't required for operation. > > Does anyone collect these old systems? Would you be interested in a > copy of the code? > > Cheers, > Chuck > > > > From Tim at Rikers.org Thu Feb 21 11:50:17 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:50:17 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <47BDB9D9.9020409@Rikers.org> Replying to Terry who uses the a pass-through paper tape emulator and a qbasic app to bootstrap. Copying the list... Thanx for the comments. :) Does the QBasic app do anything more than just copy the bytes? Ie: is the PIC expecting a new format? The method I use at the moment is that I have a 12531 set to 2400 baud in slot 11. I'm also using this as a console once I have hp basic or similar running. I'm running Linux so then I run stty thusly: # stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0 0:0:800000fb:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 which sets raw, clearing everything else and setting 2400 8n2 I set S to 001100, preset, ibl, run and the I use: http://rikers.org/hp2100/abscopy.c which shows some useful (useless?) information on stderr and dumps char by char to stdout with a usleep() in between to get around the lack of flow control. Thusly: $ ./abscopy < basic1.abs > /dev/ttyUSB0 and everything loads up fine. The paper tape bootloader does not expect to talk to a 12531, but works as the 12531 inits to a state where it'll read the bytes. ie: the software interface looks the same. The downside of this is that I need to change the port setup in order to talk to basic as it does not expect 8n2. I may well look into using the BACI and the 264x loader, but I don't (yet?) have a rom for that, and I expect it will require 2 serial ports. Not a big deal I suppose. :) -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From sellam at vintagetech.com Thu Feb 21 11:55:46 2008 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:55:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Hoeneywell-Bull DPS9000 In-Reply-To: <47BDB678.4090408@atarimuseum.com> References: <47BD40B3.14083.501191D@cclist.sydex.com> <47BDB678.4090408@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 21 Feb 2008, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > You should speak with Sellam Ismail, he acquired such a beastie about 18 > months ago and I'm sure he would want such a valuable utility... I had a DPS6, not the 9000, and I gave it away a few years back when I realized I would never do anything with it and it was taking up more space than was worth the effort. I recently heard it was still floating around in Nevada. But, all the same, I think putting a copy of the code up somewhere in an archive would be a good idea. -- 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 ploopster at gmail.com Thu Feb 21 12:42:15 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:42:15 -0500 Subject: Hoeneywell-Bull DPS9000 In-Reply-To: <47BD40B3.14083.501191D@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47BD40B3.14083.501191D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47BDC607.4070201@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I was going through some old code and discovered that I wrote a DOS > driver to handle Honeywell-Bull DPS9000 GCOS floppies. I don't > recall the exact circumstances, only that we equipped the customer > with a Compaticard and a modified dual drive (5.25" and 3.5") box, > although one isn't required for operation. > > Does anyone collect these old systems? Would you be interested in a > copy of the code? I have one of these machines, and would be interested in a copy of the code. Peace... Sridhar From curt at atarimuseum.com Thu Feb 21 12:47:14 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:47:14 -0500 Subject: Hoeneywell-Bull DPS9000 In-Reply-To: <47BDC607.4070201@gmail.com> References: <47BD40B3.14083.501191D@cclist.sydex.com> <47BDC607.4070201@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47BDC732.5090704@atarimuseum.com> Of course you do... Sridhar, dude... what don't you own? You are going to give the Computer Museum a run for their money ;-) I'm waiting to read in the local paper that NYSEG is going to build a 22kv stepdown power relay station next door to your home to offset the demand on the grid when you power your systems up in the morning ;-) Curt Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: >> I was going through some old code and discovered that I wrote a DOS >> driver to handle Honeywell-Bull DPS9000 GCOS floppies. I don't >> recall the exact circumstances, only that we equipped the customer >> with a Compaticard and a modified dual drive (5.25" and 3.5") box, >> although one isn't required for operation. >> >> Does anyone collect these old systems? Would you be interested in a >> copy of the code? > > I have one of these machines, and would be interested in a copy of the > code. > > Peace... Sridhar > > From jdbryan at acm.org Thu Feb 21 12:47:36 2008 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:47:36 -0500 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47BDB317.50009@Rikers.org> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org>, <200802202345.m1KNjTvL009240@mail.bcpl.net>, <47BDB317.50009@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <200802211847.m1LIlrwu027450@mail.bcpl.net> On 21 Feb 2008 at 10:21, Tim Riker wrote: > Thanx for the help! :) You're welcome. > It has the soldered in default rom (1816-0420), as well as another that I > have not yet identified (1816-0639). The latter is an early 7900/7905 disc boot ROM. It was superceded because it will not boot a multiple-drive MAC (7905/06/20/25) system. > I have tried setting memory for the address range 177700-177777 and I > can set/reset values everywhere I've tried. Note that memory ranges go up to 077777 octal (32K words). Bit 15 is reserved for indirection. So the upper range would be 077700-077777. > Preset clears overflow, and hitting IBL (with S as 001100) sets it.... The IBL microcode sets overflow as an error indication. This occurs in two cases: either it cannot find any read/write location in memory, or the select code entered in the S register is less than 10 octal. (11 octal should be OK. I presume that you're hitting STORE and that if you select another register and then S again, the correct value returns?) The memory check starts at 077700 (32K - 64) and decreases by 4K each time until the read data matches the written data (the data used is the two's complement of the address). How much memory is in the machine, is the address range configured correctly on each memory card, is the memory controller good, and is there a MEM card in place or not? If overflow is setting, the ROM isn't being read, because the microcode is bailing out before that. -- Dave From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Feb 21 12:48:42 2008 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:48:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: Hoeneywell-Bull DPS9000 In-Reply-To: <47BD40B3.14083.501191D@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Feb 21, 2008 09:13:23 AM Message-ID: <200802211848.m1LImgxW008284@onyx.spiritone.com> > Does anyone collect these old systems? Would you be interested in a > copy of the code? I'd be interested in a copy of the code. I'm not aware of anyone collecting them, they aren't exactly something that is available to collect. I was a Systems Analyst on a DPS-8 running GCOS-8 in the early 90's, and have some documentation, but that is it. Zane From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Feb 21 12:49:33 2008 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:49:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Hoeneywell-Bull DPS9000 In-Reply-To: <47BDC607.4070201@gmail.com> from "Sridhar Ayengar" at Feb 21, 2008 01:42:15 PM Message-ID: <200802211849.m1LInXfp008356@onyx.spiritone.com> > I have one of these machines, and would be interested in a copy of the code. > > Peace... Sridhar > I'm *IMPRESSED*!!! Is it operational? If so what OS are you running. Zane From tiggerlasv at aim.com Thu Feb 21 13:08:50 2008 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:08:50 -0500 Subject: RLV12 placement in H9278-A question Message-ID: <8CA42D45410C093-E78-ADA@webmail-ne04.sysops.aol.com> As you've probably read in a previous reply, it doesn't really matter what type of slot it goes into, as long as you're not interrupting the path of a 2-board set. i.e., don't try to put it in between the boards of an RLV11. Now that I think about it, I guess it's a little moot, since you're in an 9278-A backplane, which only has 3 CD slots. The only way you could even use a 2-board CD-interconnect (such as the RLV11) is with a single-board CPU with on-board memory, such as an 11/53 or 11/93. Otherwise, your first two CD slots would already be full. ;-) One thing that has always made me a little paranoid about the RLV12 is the heatsink for the TO-5 transistor. It's very tall, and it sits VERY close to the boards above it. Be careful if you install the RLV12 underneath any dual boards. A little bit of warpage, and. . . T ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Feb 21 12:55:19 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:55:19 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Ebay grrrr #743 In-Reply-To: <00a701c8741f$4145c9c0$03fea8c0@portajara> from "Alexandre Souza" at Feb 20, 8 09:16:06 pm Message-ID: > > > Actually, 99% of probelms in old PETs are due to the terrible IC sockets > > used. I find it best to replace the lot with good turned-pin ones. That > > may well cure this fault, if not, at least you know that's _not_ the > > problem (nothing worst that trying to trace logic faults on a PCB with > > bad connections!). > > Tony, believe in me: Turned pin sockets are an unnecessary spent money I beg to disagree. I've had the odd bad contact in the formed-pin sockets, I've never had a bad contact in turned-pin ones. For example, I have a Whitechapel MG1. Originally, the 32016 chipset and the I/O processor were in turned-pin sockets, the EPROMs were in formed-pin ones. I had all sorts of problems until I replaced the EPROM sockets with thr turned-pin type. Then no more problems. > > The actual sockets are very good for anything. When the pet was made, > the socket technology was awful, but the nowadays sockets are good enough to > rival the turned pin "garry" sockets. Believe me! Maybe they've got better (although to be honest, I doubt it, most modern stuff seems to be optimised for cheapness rather than quality). But the difference in price is not that great, and keeping me from tearing my hair out is worth something... -tony From Tim at Rikers.org Thu Feb 21 13:44:26 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:44:26 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <200802211847.m1LIlrwu027450@mail.bcpl.net> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org>, <200802202345.m1KNjTvL009240@mail.bcpl.net>, <47BDB317.50009@Rikers.org> <200802211847.m1LIlrwu027450@mail.bcpl.net> Message-ID: <47BDD49A.8070203@Rikers.org> J. David Bryan wrote: >> It has the soldered in default rom (1816-0420), as well as another that I >> have not yet identified (1816-0639). > > The latter is an early 7900/7905 disc boot ROM. It was superceded because > it will not boot a multiple-drive MAC (7905/06/20/25) system. Thanx! >> I have tried setting memory for the address range 177700-177777 and I >> can set/reset values everywhere I've tried. > > Note that memory ranges go up to 077777 octal (32K words). Bit 15 is > reserved for indirection. So the upper range would be 077700-077777. sorry, yes. I meant 077700-077777. >> Preset clears overflow, and hitting IBL (with S as 001100) sets it.... > > The IBL microcode sets overflow as an error indication. This occurs in two > cases: either it cannot find any read/write location in memory, or the > select code entered in the S register is less than 10 octal. (11 octal > should be OK. I presume that you're hitting STORE and that if you select > another register and then S again, the correct value returns?) exactly > The memory check starts at 077700 (32K - 64) and decreases by 4K each time > until the read data matches the written data (the data used is the two's > complement of the address). How much memory is in the machine, is the > address range configured correctly on each memory card, is the memory > controller good, and is there a MEM card in place or not? 32kw installed. I have tried some simple write/read tests all the way through memory and they worked. I have not touched the range settings on the card, but it sounds like a good thing to try is just remove 3 of the 4 cards and see if that changes anything. > If overflow is setting, the ROM isn't being read, because the microcode is > bailing out before that. Agreed. The question is why. :) FYI: I'm started taking notes here: http://rikers.org/wiki/HardwareNotes I note the original installed boards there. At present just the labels, I'll add part numbers soon. I have moved the IO cards around too. -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Feb 21 13:51:42 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:51:42 -0500 Subject: Ebay grrrr #743 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <524967D8-E642-4BE2-8E47-061D68AC9DC5@neurotica.com> On Feb 21, 2008, at 1:55 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >>> Actually, 99% of probelms in old PETs are due to the terrible IC >>> sockets >>> used. I find it best to replace the lot with good turned-pin >>> ones. That >>> may well cure this fault, if not, at least you know that's _not_ the >>> problem (nothing worst that trying to trace logic faults on a PCB >>> with >>> bad connections!). >> >> Tony, believe in me: Turned pin sockets are an unnecessary >> spent money > > I beg to disagree. I've had the odd bad contact in the formed-pin > sockets, I've never had a bad contact in turned-pin ones. I also agree 100% with you here Tony. Machined-pin sockets are worth every penny in my experience. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From lbickley at bickleywest.com Thu Feb 21 14:20:48 2008 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:20:48 -0800 Subject: MINDSET buffs... Message-ID: <200802211220.48552.lbickley@bickleywest.com> I just checked this out at Weirdstuff - Two brand new MINDSET systems with what looks like every accessory ever made for the critter, including O/S, development software, documentation, the original boxes, etc. See: http://images.weirdstuff.com/full/Bay2.jpg Here's information on how to bid (sealed bid auction): 1. The auction closes on 2/25/2008 at 6PM. 2. The Minimum bid is $26 per lot. 3. Winning bidders will be notified on following day by 12:00 PM. 4. Material must be paid for and picked up the same week. 5. Pickup times are 9:30 AM to 6PM, Monday through Saturday. 11AM-5PM on Sunday. If you are not local to the S.F. Bay Area, shipping is available. 6. Lots are sold AS-IS. The Lot number for the MINDSETs is: #23 You can FAX your Bid to: 408-743-5655 NOTE: I am associated with Weirdstuff only as a client (someone who buys stuff from them). I am not a collector of MINDSET gear, but after seeing it in the bid sale, I felt that some folks on the list would probably find this an interesting lot. Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 21 14:27:35 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:27:35 -0600 Subject: Ebay grrrr #743 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47BDDEB7.70904@gmail.com> Tony Duell wrote: >>> Actually, 99% of probelms in old PETs are due to the terrible IC sockets >>> used. I find it best to replace the lot with good turned-pin ones. That >>> may well cure this fault, if not, at least you know that's _not_ the >>> problem (nothing worst that trying to trace logic faults on a PCB with >>> bad connections!). >> Tony, believe in me: Turned pin sockets are an unnecessary spent money > > I beg to disagree. I've had the odd bad contact in the formed-pin > sockets, I've never had a bad contact in turned-pin ones. I suspect it's just that there's a huge variation in quality when it comes to the formed-pin sockets - a turned-pin one is far more likely to work, but that doesn't mean that there aren't some reliable formed-pin ones out there. Whether it's possible to say that "manufacturer xyz is always good" is another matter... From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Feb 21 14:41:33 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:41:33 -0500 Subject: Hoeneywell-Bull DPS9000 In-Reply-To: <200802211849.m1LInXfp008356@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200802211849.m1LInXfp008356@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <47BDE1FD.9010301@gmail.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: >> I have one of these machines, and would be interested in a copy of the code. >> >> Peace... Sridhar >> > > I'm *IMPRESSED*!!! Is it operational? If so what OS are you running. Don't be *that* impressed. It's actually not that old of a DPS9000. It's a DPS9000/900, if memory serves. 1990ish? It runs a version of GCOS 8, but I don't remember which exactly. It should be operational, but the only time I've powered it up is when they powered it at my behest up at the place I got it. It's been sitting in storage for a few years. Peace... Sridhar From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Feb 21 14:35:19 2008 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:35:19 -0500 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project Message-ID: <01C8749F.8137D0C0@MSE_D03> ----------Original Message: Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:10:17 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" Subject: Re: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) In my humble opinion, what's really needed is a quick and reliable non-contact method of recovering floppy data. Perhaps one of the more modern head technologies, such as GMR might be suitable for a head that doesn't contact the media. Or maybe we need to revive the "magnasee and laser" method. Increasingly, I'm seeing 5.25" diskettes with media flaking. There's no way that I'm going to stick one of those into a standard floppy drive, even after baking. It might be that we're starting to approach the "use by" date with some brands and need to resort to other approaches. Cheers, Chuck ---------Reply: Just a thought, for a one-or-two-off: Is there anything with which you could coat the disk surface to protect it that would be cohesive enough to hold down any flakes? Spray-on Urethane? Saran Wrap? Research is needed... ;-) mike From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Feb 21 14:48:08 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:48:08 -0500 Subject: Hoeneywell-Bull DPS9000 In-Reply-To: <47BDC732.5090704@atarimuseum.com> References: <47BD40B3.14083.501191D@cclist.sydex.com> <47BDC607.4070201@gmail.com> <47BDC732.5090704@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <47BDE388.601@gmail.com> Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > Of course you do... Sridhar, dude... what don't you own? You are > going to give the Computer Museum a run for their money ;-) What don't I have? S/360. 7xx or 7xxx series IBM. Big-iron Univac stuff. DEC 20 stuff (I dream about having a 2065). VAX 9000. An IBM 3090. A System/z. A DPS9000/TA200. An SGI Origin 3900. A Cray. A GE 645. I don't yet have a LISPM. Any of the above would be more than welcome in my collection. > I'm waiting to read in the local paper that NYSEG is going to build a > 22kv stepdown power relay station next door to your home to offset the > demand on the grid when you power your systems up in the morning ;-) If I could get them to do that without me paying for it, I would be as happy as a clam. Peace... Sridhar From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 21 15:40:41 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:40:41 -0600 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) In-Reply-To: <47BC34C9.18058.EA92AF@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47BC34C9.18058.EA92AF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47BDEFD9.7000305@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > In my humble opinion, what's really needed is a quick and reliable > non-contact method of recovering floppy data. Perhaps one of the > more modern head technologies, such as GMR might be suitable for a > head that doesn't contact the media. Would a non-contact head 'fly' properly at floppy speeds, though? (I'm not sure how much more rotational speed you could get out of a floppy, even jacketless - I suspect the media is just too flexible) > Or maybe we need to revive the "magnasee and laser" method. Would magnasee work usefully at floppy bit densities? I thought it was mainly intended to detect track-level problems and large areas of damage, but could easily be wrong there. > Increasingly, I'm seeing 5.25" diskettes with media flaking. > It might be that we're starting to approach the "use by" date with > some brands and need to resort to other approaches. I keep wondering about running the whole lot - disk and drive mechanism - in some 'bath' of something-or-other. It's another matter whether it would a) help and b) work at all :-) Anything which keeps friction/heat between the disk and heads to a minimum seems like a good idea, though. Someone elsewhere came up with the concept of 'scanning' a floppy surface in some kind of flat-bed scanner device (and then post-processing to convert X-Y motion into rotational). I don't think there's any practical way of doing that right now, but maybe one day. There's a nice advantage in that the media itself (the critical, fragile bit!) doesn't have to actually move in any way. cheers Jules From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Thu Feb 21 16:05:45 2008 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:05:45 -0500 Subject: [SPAM] - RLV12 placement in H9278-A question - Sending mail server found on sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org In-Reply-To: <8CA42D45410C093-E78-ADA@webmail-ne04.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA42D45410C093-E78-ADA@webmail-ne04.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <47BDF5B9.4070506@compsys.to> >tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > As you've probably read in a previous reply, it doesn't really matter > what type of slot it goes into, as long as you're not interrupting > the path of a 2-board set. i.e., don't try to put it in between > the boards of an RLV11. > > Now that I think about it, I guess it's a little moot, since > you're in an 9278-A backplane, which only has 3 CD slots. > The only way you could even use a 2-board CD-interconnect > (such as the RLV11) is with a single-board CPU with on-board > memory, such as an 11/53 or 11/93. Otherwise, your first > two CD slots would already be full. ;-) Jerome Fine replies: If my memory serves me correctly (which is not very frequent these days), I seem to remember receiving a BA23 box with an M8189 in the top slot and the RLV11 in to next 2 slots. The memory for the system (normal PDP-11 Qbus memory) was in slot 4. As far as I know, there might be a delay factor associated with placing the memory below the RLV11, but it still functions correctly. Since your reply seems to specify that the RLV11 will only work when the memory is on board the CPU, I thought it might be helpful to mention my (possible?) experience. 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 curt at atarimuseum.com Thu Feb 21 16:35:51 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:35:51 -0500 Subject: MINDSET buffs... In-Reply-To: <200802211220.48552.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <200802211220.48552.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <47BDFCC7.2050400@atarimuseum.com> Thanks Lyle, I plan to bid, but I'm interested in primarily the s/w and a few certain items, so if anyone who is also interested that wants to chip in with me, please email me off-list, I've set up www.mindsetcomputer.com -- its still very basic, but I want to really build up the site... Curt Lyle Bickley wrote: > I just checked this out at Weirdstuff - Two brand new MINDSET systems > with what looks like every accessory ever made for the critter, > including O/S, development software, documentation, the original > boxes, etc. > > See: http://images.weirdstuff.com/full/Bay2.jpg > > Here's information on how to bid (sealed bid auction): > > 1. The auction closes on 2/25/2008 at 6PM. > 2. The Minimum bid is $26 per lot. > 3. Winning bidders will be notified on following day by 12:00 PM. > 4. Material must be paid for and picked up the same week. > 5. Pickup times are 9:30 AM to 6PM, Monday through Saturday. 11AM-5PM > on Sunday. If you are not local to the S.F. Bay Area, shipping is > available. > 6. Lots are sold AS-IS. > > The Lot number for the MINDSETs is: #23 > You can FAX your Bid to: 408-743-5655 > > NOTE: I am associated with Weirdstuff only as a client (someone who > buys stuff from them). I am not a collector of MINDSET gear, but > after seeing it in the bid sale, I felt that some folks on the list > would probably find this an interesting lot. > > Cheers, > Lyle > From jdbryan at acm.org Thu Feb 21 16:59:15 2008 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:59:15 -0500 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47BDD49A.8070203@Rikers.org> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org>, <200802211847.m1LIlrwu027450@mail.bcpl.net>, <47BDD49A.8070203@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <200802212259.m1LMxW2x017654@mail.bcpl.net> On 21 Feb 2008 at 12:44, Tim Riker wrote: > Agreed. The question is why. :) The microcode sets overflow on at the start of the loader routine and turns it off after verifying the starting memory location and the select code. These are only these two jumps out of the routine with overflow set. If P is set as expected by IBL (i.e., 077700 for 32K), then the select code >= 10 check is failing. Perhaps the ribbon cable from the front panel to the CPU is bad. If P is set to 177700 (bit 15 on), then the memory check is failing. > FYI: I'm started taking notes here: > > http://rikers.org/wiki/HardwareNotes Your list shows slot 118 open. The HP installation manual recommends that the memory controller go in 118 and the memory cards follow above in the cage. You might try reseating the ribbon cable that connects the left-side edge connectors of the memory cards and the controller card. (The right side connectors are open.) Also, the ribbon cable that attaches to the DCPC card. Note that the memory controller must be strapped for an M-Series; if it's strapped for an E-Series, the timing will be off. -- Dave From doc at mdrconsult.com Thu Feb 21 17:07:02 2008 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:07:02 -0600 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) In-Reply-To: <47BDEFD9.7000305@gmail.com> References: <47BC34C9.18058.EA92AF@cclist.sydex.com> <47BDEFD9.7000305@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47BE0416.3030407@mdrconsult.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: >> In my humble opinion, what's really needed is a quick and reliable >> non-contact method of recovering floppy data. Perhaps one of the more >> modern head technologies, such as GMR might be suitable for a head >> that doesn't contact the media. > > Would a non-contact head 'fly' properly at floppy speeds, though? (I'm > not sure how much more rotational speed you could get out of a floppy, > even jacketless - I suspect the media is just too flexible) I keep wondering if the disk media could be "mounted" like a specimen on a slide. Then a flying head wouldn't be an issue, and multiple passes become possible. Doc From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 21 17:11:38 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:11:38 -0800 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) In-Reply-To: <47BDEFD9.7000305@gmail.com> References: <47BC34C9.18058.EA92AF@cclist.sydex.com>, <47BDEFD9.7000305@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47BD94AA.20869.11E3CB1@cclist.sydex.com> On 21 Feb 2008 at 15:40, Jules Richardson wrote: > Would a non-contact head 'fly' properly at floppy speeds, though? (I'm not > sure how much more rotational speed you could get out of a floppy, even > jacketless - I suspect the media is just too flexible) Isn't the Bernoulli drive a non-contact system? IIRC, the media is about the same flexibility as a standard floppy disk. And 4x speed drives were used routinely in duplication equipment, so I don't know what the upper speed limit is, but 1200 RPM should be workable. > Would magnasee work usefully at floppy bit densities? I thought it was mainly > intended to detect track-level problems and large areas of damage, but could > easily be wrong there. Floppy recording is done at about 5876 BPI for 360K 5.25" and 17,434 BPI for 1.44MB 3.5". You can get developer in very fine (10 nm) particle size. See, for example: http://www.sigma-hc.co.jp/english/media.html > Someone elsewhere came up with the concept of 'scanning' a floppy surface in > some kind of flat-bed scanner device (and then post-processing to convert X-Y > motion into rotational). I don't think there's any practical way of doing that > right now, but maybe one day. There's a nice advantage in that the media > itself (the critical, fragile bit!) doesn't have to actually move in any way. I think they've been available for awhile: http://www.tristantech.com/pdf/SMM-401_v0.2.pdf Serious bucks, though. Cheers, Chuck From dundas at caltech.edu Thu Feb 21 17:28:32 2008 From: dundas at caltech.edu (John A. Dundas III) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:28:32 -0800 Subject: RLV12 placement in H9278-A question In-Reply-To: <200802211127.51896.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200802211127.51896.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: Thanks to all for your comments. This is being used temporarily in a system with an M8189 (KDF11) and M7551 (MSV11-Q, 4MB memory), so only one CD slot is currently available. Just wondered whether I needed to reserve that slot or not. Looks like not, so I'll use an appropriate Q/Q slot. Thanks, John From jdbryan at acm.org Thu Feb 21 17:52:05 2008 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:52:05 -0500 Subject: E-Mail-Adress In-Reply-To: <5385.193.27.220.82.1203611718.squirrel@www.rz.fh-augsburg.de> References: <5385.193.27.220.82.1203611718.squirrel@www.rz.fh-augsburg.de> Message-ID: <200802212352.m1LNqLcP001046@mail.bcpl.net> On 21 Feb 2008 at 17:35, Soenke.Backhaus at FH-Augsburg.D wrote: > I want to get the information out of 5.1/4"-hp64000-floppys. I'd like > to store the files at a windows95 or windowsXP-computer(or maybe dos). I have used Dave Dunfield's ImageDisk program: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/ ...to archive HP 64000 diskettes to a PC. The accompanying IMDU program will generate a binary dump of the diskette image, which can be used with a (hex) file browser to view the diskette contents. Connecting the actual 360K floppy from a 64000 system produced more reliable results than using the 1.2M floppy that was present in the PC. -- Dave From dgahling at hotmail.com Thu Feb 21 18:18:01 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:18:01 -0500 Subject: E-Mail-Adress In-Reply-To: <200802212352.m1LNqLcP001046@mail.bcpl.net> References: <5385.193.27.220.82.1203611718.squirrel@www.rz.fh-augsburg.de> <200802212352.m1LNqLcP001046@mail.bcpl.net> Message-ID: other useful tools that work well are "rawrite" or rawcopy. though if you must use dos to read floppies, I always prefer teledisk, however it uses a proprietary format teledisk compresses so it makes the images smaller, and it also has handlers for errors, etc. if you use linux/bsd, you can simply put the disk in the drive and use dd like: dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/home/myhome/outputfile.iso (modify the path as needed) utilities like rawrite/rawcopy can read the images created by dd so that makes it pretty handy. it creates a raw binary dump of the disk in generic format. Dan. ---------------------------------------- > From: jdbryan at acm.org > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:52:05 -0500 > CC: > Subject: Re: E-Mail-Adress > > On 21 Feb 2008 at 17:35, Soenke.Backhaus at FH-Augsburg.D wrote: > >> I want to get the information out of 5.1/4"-hp64000-floppys. I'd like >> to store the files at a windows95 or windowsXP-computer(or maybe dos). > > I have used Dave Dunfield's ImageDisk program: > > http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/ > > ...to archive HP 64000 diskettes to a PC. The accompanying IMDU program > will generate a binary dump of the diskette image, which can be used with a > (hex) file browser to view the diskette contents. > > Connecting the actual 360K floppy from a 64000 system produced more > reliable results than using the 1.2M floppy that was present in the PC. > > -- Dave > _________________________________________________________________ From legalize at xmission.com Thu Feb 21 19:05:19 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:05:19 -0700 Subject: Sockets (was: Ebay grrrr #743) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:27:35 -0600. <47BDDEB7.70904@gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <47BDDEB7.70904 at gmail.com>, Jules Richardson writes: > I suspect it's just that there's a huge variation in quality when it comes to > the formed-pin sockets - [...] What's the difference between these two? This conversation has been going on and I confess I wouldn't be able to tell you which is which when looking at the sockets. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From lbickley at bickleywest.com Thu Feb 21 19:11:06 2008 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:11:06 -0800 Subject: Fwd: MINDSET buffs... Message-ID: <200802211711.06281.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Two additional points - based on questions I received regarding the MINDSET systems: 1. If you are not local, Weirdstuff will ship. If you win the lot, just tell the person who calls you that you want the lot shipped. 2. I said "Two brand new MINDSET systems" - I should have said they "look brand new". I have no idea if they are really brand new or are just in excellent condition... Lyle ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: MINDSET buffs... Date: Thursday 21 February 2008 12:20 From: Lyle Bickley To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" I just checked this out at Weirdstuff - Two brand new MINDSET systems with what looks like every accessory ever made for the critter, including O/S, development software, documentation, the original boxes, etc. See: http://images.weirdstuff.com/full/Bay2.jpg Here's information on how to bid (sealed bid auction): 1. The auction closes on 2/25/2008 at 6PM. 2. The Minimum bid is $26 per lot. 3. Winning bidders will be notified on following day by 12:00 PM. 4. Material must be paid for and picked up the same week. 5. Pickup times are 9:30 AM to 6PM, Monday through Saturday. 11AM-5PM on Sunday. If you are not local to the S.F. Bay Area, shipping is available. 6. Lots are sold AS-IS. The Lot number for the MINDSETs is: #23 You can FAX your Bid to: 408-743-5655 NOTE: I am associated with Weirdstuff only as a client (someone who buys stuff from them). I am not a collector of MINDSET gear, but after seeing it in the bid sale, I felt that some folks on the list would probably find this an interesting lot. Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" ------------------------------------------------------- -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From legalize at xmission.com Thu Feb 21 19:06:28 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:06:28 -0700 Subject: Hoeneywell-Bull DPS9000 In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:48:08 -0500. <47BDE388.601@gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <47BDE388.601 at gmail.com>, Sridhar Ayengar writes: > Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > > Of course you do... Sridhar, dude... what don't you own? You are > > going to give the Computer Museum a run for their money ;-) > > What don't I have? S/360. 7xx or 7xxx series IBM. Big-iron Univac > stuff. DEC 20 stuff (I dream about having a 2065). VAX 9000. An IBM > 3090. A System/z. A DPS9000/TA200. An SGI Origin 3900. A Cray. A GE > 645. I don't yet have a LISPM. > > Any of the above would be more than welcome in my collection. You left off Connection Machine.... :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From jrkeys at concentric.net Thu Feb 21 19:50:55 2008 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:50:55 -0600 Subject: Hoeneywell-Bull DPS9000 References: <47BD40B3.14083.501191D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <012001c874f5$5e78e550$26406b43@66067007> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 11:13 AM Subject: Hoeneywell-Bull DPS9000 >I was going through some old code and discovered that I wrote a DOS > driver to handle Honeywell-Bull DPS9000 GCOS floppies. I don't > recall the exact circumstances, only that we equipped the customer > with a Compaticard and a modified dual drive (5.25" and 3.5") box, > although one isn't required for operation. > > Does anyone collect these old systems? Would you be interested in a > copy of the code? > > Cheers, > Chuck I would like to have a copy of the code also. John K From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Feb 21 19:59:51 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:59:51 -0500 Subject: Hoeneywell-Bull DPS9000 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47BE2C97.8050906@gmail.com> Richard wrote: > In article <47BDE388.601 at gmail.com>, > Sridhar Ayengar writes: > >> Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: >>> Of course you do... Sridhar, dude... what don't you own? You are >>> going to give the Computer Museum a run for their money ;-) >> What don't I have? S/360. 7xx or 7xxx series IBM. Big-iron Univac >> stuff. DEC 20 stuff (I dream about having a 2065). VAX 9000. An IBM >> 3090. A System/z. A DPS9000/TA200. An SGI Origin 3900. A Cray. A GE >> 645. I don't yet have a LISPM. >> >> Any of the above would be more than welcome in my collection. > > You left off Connection Machine.... > > :-) And CDC 6000 and 6600. And probably a whole bunch of others. Peace... Sridhar From cctech at vax-11.org Thu Feb 21 20:13:34 2008 From: cctech at vax-11.org (cctech at vax-11.org) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:13:34 -0700 (MST) Subject: PDP 11/04 on dovebid In-Reply-To: <000901c86d99$04efd6f0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> References: <000901c86d99$04efd6f0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: Here's the link: http://www.dovebid.com/assets/display.asp?ItemID=swp1959 Clint From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Thu Feb 21 20:22:31 2008 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:22:31 -0500 Subject: RLV12 placement in H9278-A question In-Reply-To: References: <200802211127.51896.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <47BE31E7.8090600@compsys.to> >John A. Dundas III wrote: > Thanks to all for your comments. > > This is being used temporarily in a system with an M8189 (KDF11) and > M7551 (MSV11-Q, 4MB memory), so only one CD slot is currently > available. Just wondered whether I needed to reserve that slot or > not. Looks like not, so I'll use an appropriate Q/Q slot. Remember that if you use a dual board in the 3rd slot, the CD portion is left empty!! Also, you can't just leave the 3rd slot empty, there must be at least a bus grant card - I assume that you will have at the very least a disk controller present! And the other five AB /AB slots are serpentine - which means that the bus grant winds from: Slot 4: left to right / Slot 5: right to left / Slot 6: left to right / Slot 7: right to left / Slot 8: left to right Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Feb 21 21:07:11 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:07:11 -0500 Subject: Floppies was Re: E-Mail-Adress In-Reply-To: References: <5385.193.27.220.82.1203611718.squirrel@www.rz.fh-augsburg.de> <200802212352.m1LNqLcP001046@mail.bcpl.net> Message-ID: <200802212207.13712.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 21 February 2008 19:18, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > other useful tools that work well are "rawrite" or rawcopy. > though if you must use dos to read floppies, I always prefer teledisk, > however it uses a proprietary format teledisk compresses so it makes the > images smaller, and it also has handlers for errors, etc. > > if you use linux/bsd, you can simply put the disk in the drive and use dd > like: dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/home/myhome/outputfile.iso > (modify the path as needed) > > utilities like rawrite/rawcopy can read the images created by dd so that > makes it pretty handy. > > it creates a raw binary dump of the disk in generic format. > > Dan. Interesting stuff, I've used rawrite for my first linux installation way back in 1999, as the system I had to install it to then didn't boot from a CD. :-) At this point I have some image files that were apparently created with the ImageDisk program, and while I can use a file viewer (F3 in mc :-) to see the innards of the file I'm not sure what the original format was, and am running into a bit of a problem with non-contiguous files. The images in question are for the Bigboard II, so it's possible they might even be for an 8" format, and I sure don't have one of those hooked up to any linux box. Any hints on getting past this to where I can extract the files into something I can fiddle with would be much appreciated. I'm basically looking at assembly source, mostly, and would likely want to end up with something on a 5.25" format. Only suggestion I've gotten so far is to set up a dos box, which I suppose I could do, but I'd rather avoid that if I can, space here being a little short at the moment. > > From: jdbryan at acm.org > > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > > Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:52:05 -0500 > > CC: > > Subject: Re: E-Mail-Adress > > > > On 21 Feb 2008 at 17:35, Soenke.Backhaus at FH-Augsburg.D wrote: > >> I want to get the information out of 5.1/4"-hp64000-floppys. I'd like > >> to store the files at a windows95 or windowsXP-computer(or maybe dos). > > > > I have used Dave Dunfield's ImageDisk program: > > > > http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/ > > > > ...to archive HP 64000 diskettes to a PC. The accompanying IMDU program > > will generate a binary dump of the diskette image, which can be used with > > a (hex) file browser to view the diskette contents. > > > > Connecting the actual 360K floppy from a 64000 system produced more > > reliable results than using the 1.2M floppy that was present in the PC. > > > > -- Dave > > _________________________________________________________________ -- 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 Thu Feb 21 21:30:53 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:30:53 -0500 Subject: Floppies was Re: E-Mail-Adress In-Reply-To: <200802212207.13712.rtellason@verizon.net> References: Message-ID: <280E5C3779E@dunfield.com> > > other useful tools that work well are "rawrite" or rawcopy. > > though if you must use dos to read floppies, I always prefer teledisk, > > however it uses a proprietary format teledisk compresses so it makes the > > images smaller, and it also has handlers for errors, etc. > > > > if you use linux/bsd, you can simply put the disk in the drive and use dd > > like: dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/home/myhome/outputfile.iso > > (modify the path as needed) > Interesting stuff, I've used rawrite for my first linux installation way back > in 1999, as the system I had to install it to then didn't boot from a > CD. :-) dd, rawread, rawwrite etc. will only work with diskettes which have a format that the linux driver understands - There are *MANY* variations on the soft- sector disk format, and programs like ImageDisk and TeleDisk will analyze the disk to determine how it's formatted, read that format and record metadata in the image file so that it can be exactly recreated. dd and others will typically just report an error if an expected sector header is encountered. > At this point I have some image files that were apparently created with the > ImageDisk program, and while I can use a file viewer (F3 in mc :-) to see > the innards of the file I'm not sure what the original format was, and am > running into a bit of a problem with non-contiguous files. The images in > question are for the Bigboard II, so it's possible they might even be for an > 8" format, and I sure don't have one of those hooked up to any linux box. > > Any hints on getting past this to where I can extract the files into something > I can fiddle with would be much appreciated. I'm basically looking at > assembly source, mostly, and would likely want to end up with something on > a 5.25" format. Only suggestion I've gotten so far is to set up a dos box, > which I suppose I could do, but I'd rather avoid that if I can, space here > being a little short at the moment. The disk may have physical and/or logical interleave, which will make sectors within a track appear to be broken up, as well as file allocation which may also "break up" the data in a logically contiguous file and spread it around the disk. If it has physical interleave, IMDU will show you this in a detail track listing. The IMDV viewer will also allow you to page through the data and account for physical interleave (the sectors appear in logically ascending order). Unfortunately, logical interleave is known only to the CP/M BIOS which deals with the disk. And file allocation is known to CP/M itself. I do have a preliminary utility I wrote to extract CP/M files from ImageDisk CP/M images - Worked very well for me in extracting some CDOS files, however I didn't get much interest in it so I never bothered to expand it into a general purpose utility - it is configurable however - I can make it available if you want to play with it. You will need to figure out the right parameters for Bigboard disks (the tables for Chucks 22disk might be helpful). Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 21 21:46:05 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:46:05 -0800 Subject: Sockets (was: Ebay grrrr #743) In-Reply-To: References: >, Message-ID: <47BDD4FD.31419.2197E03@cclist.sydex.com> On 21 Feb 2008 at 18:05, Richard wrote: >> What's the difference between these two? This conversation has been > going on and I confess I wouldn't be able to tell you which is which > when looking at the sockets. Compare: http://tinyurl.com/23b4x7 with http://tinyurl.com/yt37e5 Note that the first type grasps the IC lead between two spring leaves. The second (machine pin) type grasps the IC lead in a "funnel". Generally, the second type grasps the IC pin more securely with more contact surfaces. I've been told that gold-plated sockets are a waste of money if what you're going to be socketing is tinned-lead packages. Something about gold-to-gold and tin-to-tin makes for the best results. Does anyone have first-hand experience with this? Should I scrap all of those gold-plated machine sockets that I have? Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 21 21:55:31 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:55:31 -0800 Subject: Floppies was Re: E-Mail-Adress In-Reply-To: <280E5C3779E@dunfield.com> References: , <200802212207.13712.rtellason@verizon.net>, <280E5C3779E@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <47BDD733.9217.2221E75@cclist.sydex.com> On 21 Feb 2008 at 22:30, Dave Dunfield wrote: > I do have a preliminary utility I wrote to extract CP/M files from ImageDisk > CP/M images - Worked very well for me in extracting some CDOS files, however > I didn't get much interest in it so I never bothered to expand it into a > general purpose utility - it is configurable however - I can make it available > if you want to play with it. You will need to figure out the right parameters > for Bigboard disks (the tables for Chucks 22disk might be helpful). I do have a version of ctod that works from "straight" image files of floppies (i.e., the sectors appear in consecutive order (no physical interleave) and in side-to-side ordering. It works for my purposes (mostly reading images formed from Catweasel maps), but might not with all formats. The world of CP/M diskettes is far more complex than simple 22Disk can manage. There's a special version that I sell where we have to program the sector mapping algorithm--there are formats that employ logical cylinder- and side-skewing as well as starting at a central cylinder and working outwards using alternate traks on either side of the directory. One or two formats use differently-sized sectors on each track. This isn't even counting the differing recording methods, such as GCR or zoned sector packing. The imagination of CP/M CBIOS authors never ceases to surprise me. Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Feb 21 22:03:36 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:03:36 -0500 Subject: Floppies was Re: E-Mail-Adress In-Reply-To: <280E5C3779E@dunfield.com> References: <280E5C3779E@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <200802212303.38412.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 21 February 2008 22:30, Dave Dunfield wrote: > > > other useful tools that work well are "rawrite" or rawcopy. > > > though if you must use dos to read floppies, I always prefer teledisk, > > > however it uses a proprietary format teledisk compresses so it makes > > > the images smaller, and it also has handlers for errors, etc. > > > > > > if you use linux/bsd, you can simply put the disk in the drive and use > > > dd like: dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/home/myhome/outputfile.iso > > > (modify the path as needed) > > > > Interesting stuff, I've used rawrite for my first linux installation way > > back in 1999, as the system I had to install it to then didn't boot from > > a CD. :-) > > dd, rawread, rawwrite etc. will only work with diskettes which have a > format that the linux driver understands - There are *MANY* variations on > the soft- sector disk format, and programs like ImageDisk and TeleDisk will > analyze the disk to determine how it's formatted, read that format and > record metadata in the image file so that it can be exactly recreated. dd > and others will typically just report an error if an expected sector header > is encountered. Hmm. Having dealt with that sort of stuff in the distant past , some of it should have occurred to me. The "iso" mentioned in an earlier post suggests that I might be able to mount the image, though as you point out something's going to have to interpret the stuff that it finds. I did download some tools for dealing with cp/m formats, supposed to work similar to mtools, but haven't installed them yet and at the moment that stuff's on a drive that's giving me some trouble and which isn't currently mounted. Maybe a bit more of a look than I've given that would be worth my while, since I'd held off on installing it thinking that a box with a 5.25" drive was probably a good part of the plan, never thought about using it on image files... > > At this point I have some image files that were apparently created with > > the ImageDisk program, and while I can use a file viewer (F3 in mc :-) > > to see the innards of the file I'm not sure what the original format was, > > and am running into a bit of a problem with non-contiguous files. The > > images in question are for the Bigboard II, so it's possible they might > > even be for an 8" format, and I sure don't have one of those hooked up > > to any linux box. > > > > Any hints on getting past this to where I can extract the files into > > something I can fiddle with would be much appreciated. I'm basically > > looking at assembly source, mostly, and would likely want to end up > > with something on a 5.25" format. Only suggestion I've gotten so far is > > to set up a dos box, which I suppose I could do, but I'd rather avoid > > that if I can, space here being a little short at the moment. > > The disk may have physical and/or logical interleave, which will make > sectors within a track appear to be broken up, as well as file allocation > which may also "break up" the data in a logically contiguous file and > spread it around the disk. Sector skew is something I hadn't even thought of at all, in this context. :-) And as for the allocation interleave, I'm pretty sure that's at least a part of what's going on. It's been a really long time (maybe 20 years?) since I did some rebuilding of a CP/M filesystem but a glance at the allocation map in there pretty well confirms this, I remember at least that much. > If it has physical interleave, IMDU will show you this in a detail track > listing. The IMDV viewer will also allow you to page through the data and > account for physical interleave (the sectors appear in logically ascending > order). Unfortunately, logical interleave is known only to the CP/M BIOS > which deals with the disk. And file allocation is known to CP/M itself. The problem in terms of BIOS is that I don't know what BIOS was used to create the image files in the first place -- that's a large part of what's on the image tha tI'm trying to recover. :-) Sort of one of those chicken-and-egg situations, I guess. > I do have a preliminary utility I wrote to extract CP/M files from > ImageDisk CP/M images - Worked very well for me in extracting some CDOS > files, however I didn't get much interest in it so I never bothered to > expand it into a general purpose utility - it is configurable however - I > can make it available if you want to play with it. You will need to figure > out the right parameters for Bigboard disks (the tables for Chucks 22disk > might be helpful). Sure. I think I may have a copy of 22disk around here (looking...) Yup. Which tables are you talking about here? There's a file "CPM-TYPE.LST" in there but it only lists 2 variations on "Bigboard", SS and DS 8", both being 512 bytes/sector. I have no idea if this also holds true for the BBII. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From legalize at xmission.com Thu Feb 21 22:06:58 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:06:58 -0700 Subject: Sockets (was: Ebay grrrr #743) In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:46:05 -0800. <47BDD4FD.31419.2197E03@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <47BDD4FD.31419.2197E03 at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > On 21 Feb 2008 at 18:05, Richard wrote: > > >> What's the difference between these two? This conversation has > been > > going on and I confess I wouldn't be able to tell you which is which > > when looking at the sockets. > > Compare: > > http://tinyurl.com/23b4x7 > > with > > http://tinyurl.com/yt37e5 Thanks, that explains it perfectly. Although I notice that neither of those pages uses the terminology that's been used in this thread ;-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From tiggerlasv at aim.com Thu Feb 21 22:20:57 2008 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:20:57 -0500 Subject: RLV12 placement in H9278-A question Message-ID: <8CA432174CD05CD-DD4-32BD@webmail-nd08.sysops.aol.com> On Feb-21-08 at 16:05:45, Jerome Fine wrote: > If my memory serves me correctly (which is not very > frequent these days), I seem to remember receiving > a BA23 box with an M8189 in the top slot and the > RLV11 in to next 2 slots. The memory for the system > (normal PDP-11 Qbus memory) was in slot 4. > As far as I know, there might be a delay factor > associated with placing the memory below the RLV11, > but it still functions correctly. It's entirely possible that it would work correctly. Covention has always been that PMI memory immediately precedes the CPU, and NON-PMI memory immediately follows the CPU. I've always just assumed that there was a reason for it, and never really questioned it, since I had no need to. I'm surprised anyone would bother with an RLV11 in a BA23, since the RLV12 was readily available at the time, and supports 22-bit. Much less space, power, and heat. Although sometimes you just have to work with what is at-hand. ;-) T ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Feb 21 22:18:31 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:18:31 -0500 Subject: Floppies was Re: E-Mail-Adress In-Reply-To: <47BDD733.9217.2221E75@cclist.sydex.com> References: <280E5C3779E@dunfield.com> <47BDD733.9217.2221E75@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200802212318.32056.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 21 February 2008 22:55, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 21 Feb 2008 at 22:30, Dave Dunfield wrote: > > I do have a preliminary utility I wrote to extract CP/M files from > > ImageDisk CP/M images - Worked very well for me in extracting some CDOS > > files, however I didn't get much interest in it so I never bothered to > > expand it into a general purpose utility - it is configurable however - I > > can make it available if you want to play with it. You will need to > > figure out the right parameters for Bigboard disks (the tables for Chucks > > 22disk might be helpful). > > I do have a version of ctod that works from "straight" image files of > floppies (i.e., the sectors appear in consecutive order (no physical > interleave) and in side-to-side ordering. It works for my purposes > (mostly reading images formed from Catweasel maps), but might not > with all formats. > > The world of CP/M diskettes is far more complex than simple 22Disk > can manage. There's a special version that I sell where we have to > program the sector mapping algorithm--there are formats that employ > logical cylinder- and side-skewing as well as starting at a central > cylinder and working outwards using alternate traks on either side of > the directory. Isn't that what the 1541 did? > One or two formats use differently-sized sectors on each track. And it also ran a different number of sectors, though as far as I know they were all the same size. > This isn't even counting the differing recording methods, such as GCR or > zoned sector packing. > > The imagination of CP/M CBIOS authors never ceases to surprise me. Yes, it's really something, and I remember programs like Media Master and Uniform to try and deal with it, and being limited in terms of what I could do to read that stuff since my primary (and for a long while my _only_) CP/M box was equipped with single-sided drives. :-) What I'm probably going to have to do at some point is decide on a format I want to use with that BBII. The time I put it together there seemed to be an assumption that one would be using 8" drives, I think that's what they gave you the BIOS and their version of CP/M on, but I'd put it in a box with a couple of 5.25" drives. These days I think perhaps 3.5" HD floppies might be a better choice since I have so darn many of them (both disks and drives) on hand here. You can't even find 5.25" drives that easily any more, never mind 8", and I haven't looked for the media for them for ages. -- 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 tiggerlasv at aim.com Thu Feb 21 22:26:20 2008 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:26:20 -0500 Subject: RLV12 placement in H9278-A question Message-ID: <8CA432235737BE0-DD4-3308@webmail-nd08.sysops.aol.com> On 21-Feb-08, at 17:28:32, John A. Dundas III wrote: > This is being used temporarily in a system with an M8189 (KDF11) and > M7551 (MSV11-Q, 4MB memory), so only one CD slot is currently > available. Just wondered whether I needed to reserve that slot or > not. Looks like not, so I'll use an appropriate Q/Q slot. If your're tight on open slots, the 3rd slot is a good spot for a quad board, since the CD slot is otherwise unuseable in your current configuration. T ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 21 22:33:59 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:33:59 -0800 Subject: Floppies was Re: E-Mail-Adress In-Reply-To: <200802212318.32056.rtellason@verizon.net> References: , <47BDD733.9217.2221E75@cclist.sydex.com>, <200802212318.32056.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <47BDE037.8032.24556D2@cclist.sydex.com> On 21 Feb 2008 at 23:18, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > What I'm probably going to have to do at some point is decide on a format I > want to use with that BBII. The time I put it together there seemed to be an > assumption that one would be using 8" drives, I think that's what they gave > you the BIOS and their version of CP/M on, but I'd put it in a box with a > couple of 5.25" drives. These days I think perhaps 3.5" HD floppies might be > a better choice since I have so darn many of them (both disks and drives) on > hand here. You can't even find 5.25" drives that easily any more, never > mind 8", and I haven't looked for the media for them for ages. Why not run your 3.5" drives at 360 RPM? Then the HD format corresponds exactly to 8" drives. Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Feb 21 22:57:47 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:57:47 -0500 Subject: Floppies was Re: E-Mail-Adress In-Reply-To: <47BDE037.8032.24556D2@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200802212318.32056.rtellason@verizon.net> <47BDE037.8032.24556D2@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200802212357.47255.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 21 February 2008 23:33, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 21 Feb 2008 at 23:18, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > What I'm probably going to have to do at some point is decide on a format > > I want to use with that BBII. The time I put it together there seemed to > > be an assumption that one would be using 8" drives, I think that's what > > they gave you the BIOS and their version of CP/M on, but I'd put it in a > > box with a couple of 5.25" drives. These days I think perhaps 3.5" HD > > floppies might be a better choice since I have so darn many of them (both > > disks and drives) on hand here. You can't even find 5.25" drives that > > easily any more, never mind 8", and I haven't looked for the media for > > them for ages. > > Why not run your 3.5" drives at 360 RPM? Then the HD format > corresponds exactly to 8" drives. I see no reason why not. I haven't gotten so far as looking at any sort of technical aspects of it yet, though, having only just started to consider the idea... It's been some time since I looked at the hardware aspects of drive interfacing in detail, but I recall one switch on the BBII that had to be set to select which type of drive, and some jumpers as well, I'll have to look into just what they fiddle with. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Feb 21 23:43:21 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:43:21 -0800 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) In-Reply-To: <47BDEFD9.7000305@gmail.com> References: <47BC34C9.18058.EA92AF@cclist.sydex.com> <47BDEFD9.7000305@gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com > Chuck Guzis wrote:> > In my humble opinion, what's really needed is a quick and reliable > > non-contact method of recovering floppy data. Perhaps one of the > > more modern head technologies, such as GMR might be suitable for a > > head that doesn't contact the media.> > Would a non-contact head 'fly' properly at floppy speeds, though? (I'm not > sure how much more rotational speed you could get out of a floppy, even > jacketless - I suspect the media is just too flexible)> > > Or maybe we need to revive the "magnasee and laser" method.> > Would magnasee work usefully at floppy bit densities? I thought it was mainly > intended to detect track-level problems and large areas of damage, but could > easily be wrong there.> > > Increasingly, I'm seeing 5.25" diskettes with media flaking. > > It might be that we're starting to approach the "use by" date with > > some brands and need to resort to other approaches.> > I keep wondering about running the whole lot - disk and drive mechanism - in > some 'bath' of something-or-other. It's another matter whether it would a) > help and b) work at all :-) Anything which keeps friction/heat between the > disk and heads to a minimum seems like a good idea, though.> Hi Some of the newer hard disk heads use a head that doesn't require a speeding head to read. It is like a hall effect in that it measure total magnetic field. It isn't like a hall effect in that it snaps from one state to another. The advantage is that it isn't speed sensitive, just level. I forget what this type is called. One could raise and lower it along the track, never scrapping the surface, just sampling. One would turn a 1/4 bit at time and sample that location. One would then record any pulse, indicating a flux reversal. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser! http://biggestloser.msn.com/ From cclist at sydex.com Fri Feb 22 01:31:19 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:31:19 -0800 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) In-Reply-To: References: <47BC34C9.18058.EA92AF@cclist.sydex.com>, <47BDEFD9.7000305@gmail.com>, Message-ID: <47BE09C7.4016.2E7B0B2@cclist.sydex.com> On 21 Feb 2008 at 21:43, dwight elvey wrote: > Some of the newer hard disk heads use a head that doesn't require > a speeding head to read. It is like a hall effect in that it measure total > magnetic field. It isn't like a hall effect in that it snaps from one state to > another. The advantage is that it isn't speed sensitive, just level. > I forget what this type is called. One could raise and lower it along > the track, never scrapping the surface, just sampling. One would turn > a 1/4 bit at time and sample that location. One would then record any > pulse, indicating a flux reversal. Er, GMR? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_magnetoresistance not to be confused with the superlatively exciting Colossal Magnetoresistance. Cheers, Chuck (wonder what's bigger than "Colossal"?) From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Thu Feb 21 05:42:59 2008 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:42:59 -0000 Subject: VAX wish list. Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DE1F@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> Hi I have nearly all I need to do a Vax cluster. Namely a VAX 4000 model 200 , a 300 and a 500. I'm a few bits short for the 300.: 1. The Console Bulkhead Assembly. (70-27400-01) Its like a door to the Processor / Memory mounting area. 2. The top part of the two part front door on the BA440 3 One or more RF series drives and the Bezel Assembly (70-27049-02) 4. Filler strips to go over empty Qbus slots. 5. A KZQSA SCSI controller. I can get this stuff from theUS but the price is a rip-off and the shipping horrendous. If anybody has or knows where to get any of these items in the UK or Europe I would be pleased to hear from them. Rod Smallwood The DECcollector From alec at mckenzie.me.uk Thu Feb 21 08:16:59 2008 From: alec at mckenzie.me.uk (Alec McKenzie) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:16:59 +0000 Subject: PDP-8 "Introduction to Programming" In-Reply-To: <47BD2A5E.1030807@gmail.com> References: <47BD2A5E.1030807@gmail.com> Message-ID: Symmes, Dave wrote: > I tripped across this email link on a Google search. > I was the author of the original PDP-8 * "Introduction to > Programming", published in either late 1968 or early 1969. I hired > onto Digital straight out of college as a tech writer joining a > department of four writers for the whole company. > Almost 40 years later I am still with HP. Great to hear from you. My copy of "Introduction to Programming" shows: First Printing, January 1969 Second Printing, July 1969 Copyright ? 1968, 1969 I found it a most useful book, though I had been programming PDP-8's since 1965, even before the first PDP-8's actually appeared. -- Alec McKenzie alec at mckenzie.me.uk From bbellamy at palmettochevy.com Thu Feb 21 08:38:36 2008 From: bbellamy at palmettochevy.com (Buddy Bellamy) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:38:36 -0500 Subject: Available: DEC LA120 printer Message-ID: <000501c87497$724ecdf0$8dee5fce@D1FTZ481> WE HAVE 3 LA 120 PRINTERS. WE NO LONGER USE THESE PRINTERS, SURE HATE TO JUST GIVE THEM AWAY. IS THERE ANY VALUE IN THESE PRINTERS? THANKS, B BELLAMY From empiretheatre at btconnect.com Thu Feb 21 09:40:09 2008 From: empiretheatre at btconnect.com (Technical Department) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:40:09 -0000 Subject: Logic analyser EPROM's Message-ID: <006301c874a0$1328f5e0$0201a8c0@home> Hi, What can I say... Thank you so much for sending the BIN files for the EPROM's, that was most kind of you. If you no longer have the 1631, then I take it that you do not need the grabbers. If you still require them, just send your address and I will post them off to you. I was given the HP1631D by a kind gentleman on the vintage radio forum. He had played around with it and re-written some of the EPROM's (bad move). I will program them up tonight and see what happens.... Thank you so much once again, if I can help you in any way in the future just let me know... Daniel. From Soenke.Backhaus at FH-Augsburg.DE Thu Feb 21 10:35:18 2008 From: Soenke.Backhaus at FH-Augsburg.DE (Soenke.Backhaus at FH-Augsburg.DE) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:35:18 +0100 (MET) Subject: E-Mail-Adress Message-ID: <5385.193.27.220.82.1203611718.squirrel@www.rz.fh-augsburg.de> To Whom It May Concern I'd like to know the E-Mail-Adress from Bob Maxwell. He wrote an article in your forum about HP64000-floppys in the year 2004. I need more Information about these floppys. I have the same problem. I want to get the information out of 5.1/4"-hp64000-floppys. I'd like to store the files at a windows95 or windowsXP-computer(or maybe dos). Can you please help me? With best regards S?nke Backhaus (from Germany) From philip at axeside.co.uk Thu Feb 21 12:58:23 2008 From: philip at axeside.co.uk (Philip Belben) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:58:23 +0000 Subject: Ebay grrrr #743 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47BDC9CF.9020204@axeside.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: > Actually, 99% of probelms in old PETs are due to the terrible IC sockets > used. I find it best to replace the lot with good turned-pin ones. That > may well cure this fault, if not, at least you know that's _not_ the > problem (nothing worst that trying to trace logic faults on a PCB with > bad connections!). I'll second that. Another thing that fails is the power connector, where the wires from the transformer and the smoothing capacitor arrive at the motherboard. I ended up soldering the wires directly to the pins, and putting another connector in the middle of the cable so I could get the board out. Philip. From philip at axeside.co.uk Thu Feb 21 13:00:08 2008 From: philip at axeside.co.uk (Philip Belben) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:00:08 +0000 Subject: VAX wish list. In-Reply-To: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DE1F@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> References: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DE1F@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> Message-ID: <47BDCA38.2050001@axeside.co.uk> Rod Smallwood asked for: > 5. A KZQSA SCSI controller. I have some QBUS SCSI stuff. I don't know the names, but I could get more details if you're interested. Or you could tell me more about the one you want. I'm in Leicestershire, FWIW. Philip. From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Thu Feb 21 11:33:58 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:33:58 -0500 Subject: PDP-8 "Introduction to Programming" Message-ID: <0JWL00HA6NG5YWG4@vms048.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: PDP-8 "Introduction to Programming" > From: Alec McKenzie > Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:16:59 +0000 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" > >Symmes, Dave wrote: >> I tripped across this email link on a Google search. >> I was the author of the original PDP-8 * "Introduction to >> Programming", published in either late 1968 or early 1969. I hired >> onto Digital straight out of college as a tech writer joining a >> department of four writers for the whole company. >> Almost 40 years later I am still with HP. > >Great to hear from you. >My copy of "Introduction to Programming" shows: > > First Printing, January 1969 > Second Printing, July 1969 > > Copyright ? 1968, 1969 > >I found it a most useful book, though I had been programming PDP-8's >since 1965, even before the first PDP-8's actually appeared. > >-- >Alec McKenzie >alec at mckenzie.me.uk I still have my copy and read it from time to time, the concepts are ageless and not married to any hardware. Allison From bqt at softjar.se Thu Feb 21 20:27:22 2008 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 03:27:22 +0100 Subject: Quad cards in Q-bus In-Reply-To: <200802220154.m1M1rr3A088565@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802220154.m1M1rr3A088565@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47BE330A.9050102@softjar.se> After seeing the discussion on placement of RLV12 in Q-bus, I got the impression that some people think that any quad card can be placed in both Q/Q and Q/CD slots without worry. That's incorrect. Some quad cards can be placed in either, but there are jumpers that needs to be set accordingly for the system to work. Just thought I'd point it out. It's not as easy as ABC. Oh, and Unibus is really simple as well, despite what people say. :-) Johnny (Who prefers Unibus) -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 21 20:45:38 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:45:38 -0800 Subject: Hoeneywell-Bull DPS9000 In-Reply-To: <012001c874f5$5e78e550$26406b43@66067007> References: <47BD40B3.14083.501191D@cclist.sydex.com>, <012001c874f5$5e78e550$26406b43@66067007> Message-ID: <47BDC6D2.24446.1E2241A@cclist.sydex.com> Hi John, I don't recall too much about this thing except that we sold a bunch of boxes to Bull that had a 3.5" and a 5.25" floppy in them connected to a compaticard. You can easily make this run without the external setup by just editing the DISKETTE.CFG file. The code has drive X: defined as the 3.5" drive and Y: as the 5.25". There's something itching at the back of my mind that says that the DPS9000 3.5" floppies were of the 360 RPM persuasion and not the usual 300 RPM. If you're interested in handling the 3.5" media and don't have the appropriate drive, I can tell you how to modify a Teac FD-235HF to have it run at 360 RPM. The LHARC archive contains a self-extracting diskette image file (720K 3.5" DS2D media). Your ISP doesn't like EXEs sent in ZIP files but is blissfully ignorant of LHARC--WinRAR should unpack the archive just fine. I can probably provide source code, but I'm going to have to puzzle the thing out--it's been a very long time since I've looked at it. Cheers, Chuck On 21 Feb 2008 at 19:50, Keys wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Chuck Guzis" > To: > Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 11:13 AM > Subject: Hoeneywell-Bull DPS9000 > > > >I was going through some old code and discovered that I wrote a DOS > > driver to handle Honeywell-Bull DPS9000 GCOS floppies. I don't > > recall the exact circumstances, only that we equipped the customer > > with a Compaticard and a modified dual drive (5.25" and 3.5") box, > > although one isn't required for operation. > > > > Does anyone collect these old systems? Would you be interested in a > > copy of the code? > > > > Cheers, > > Chuck > > I would like to have a copy of the code also. > John K -------------- next part -------------- The following section of this message contains a file attachment prepared for transmission using the Internet MIME message format. If you are using Pegasus Mail, or any other MIME-compliant system, you should be able to save it or view it from within your mailer. If you cannot, please ask your system administrator for assistance. ---- File information ----------- File: FLOPPY9K.LZH Date: 21 Feb 2008, 12:26 Size: 40927 bytes. Type: Unknown From ceby2 at csc.com Fri Feb 22 02:22:16 2008 From: ceby2 at csc.com (Colin Eby) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:22:16 +0000 Subject: System 36 SSP on 5.25" media?! In-Reply-To: <200802220800.m1M806uR093257@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: Periodically I thow this request out to see if there are new cctalkers watching. I have a long term goal of rebuilding both my 5363 and 5364 systems. But I've never managed to source a copy of the OS media. I've long had a copy of the media for 5360/5362, but that's not binary compatible and is distributed on 8" media anyway. So one more time... does anyone have System 36 SSP on 5.25" media I can beg, borrow, or buy? Can anyone help? Thanks, Colin Eby CSC Computer Sciences Limited Registered Office: Royal Pavilion, Wellesley Road, Aldershot, Hampshire, GU11 1PZ, UK Registered in England No: 0963578 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Feb 22 03:05:18 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 01:05:18 -0800 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <47BDB9D9.9020409@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <47BE904D.F08CF308@cs.ubc.ca> Tim Riker wrote: > The method I use at the moment is that I have a 12531 set to 2400 baud > in slot 11. I'm also using this as a console once I have hp basic or > similar running. > > I'm running Linux so then I run stty thusly: .. > which sets raw, clearing everything else and setting 2400 8n2 .. > The paper tape bootloader does not expect to talk to a 12531, but works > as the 12531 inits to a state where it'll read the bytes. ie: the > software interface looks the same. Glad you figured out the paper tape BBL would work for the HST, I was forgetting earlier that the byte-read interface was so similar. I had a timing problem with the HST initially, it was resolved by sending 2 stop bits and now runs at 19200 bps. There's some explanation on: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/io12531BCD.html if you haven't seen it already. I take it you're using a 12531C (HST) if you're running at 2400. If you're already sending 2 stop bits though .. wonder if the oscillator could have drifted far enough out to be a problem. It's been interesting to hear about this IBL stuff added in the later machines. > > Didn't you have a 2116B with a broken aluminum frame, or was that someone else? > > Yes to the frame, but it's a 2116A. I don't know anyone else with an A. > Mine is still having power supply issues, I've just not gotten back to > it. If anyone else has an HP-2116A, I wanna hear from you! Still looking > for Volume2 of the docs to cover the different core layout on this machine. An 'A'! .. even better. Found your photos again, see you've effectively fixed the frame .. thank goodness for symmetry. I made schematics for 2116C power supply, should be largely applicable to the A, at least to get an idea of the organisation, if of any help. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Feb 22 03:16:22 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 01:16:22 -0800 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <47BDB9D9.9020409@Rikers.org> <47BE904D.F08CF308@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <47BE92E5.4692118E@cs.ubc.ca> Brent Hilpert wrote: > http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/io12531BCD.html > if you haven't seen it already. I take it you're using a 12531C (HST) if you're Whoops, --> change that to 12531D (HST) (the C is a 2nd version of the B "Bufferred Teleprinter" for 110bps.) From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Feb 22 06:55:02 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:55:02 -0500 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) In-Reply-To: <47BE0416.3030407@mdrconsult.com> References: <47BC34C9.18058.EA92AF@cclist.sydex.com> <47BDEFD9.7000305@gmail.com> <47BE0416.3030407@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: On Feb 21, 2008, at 6:07 PM, Doc Shipley wrote: >>> In my humble opinion, what's really needed is a quick and >>> reliable non-contact method of recovering floppy data. Perhaps >>> one of the more modern head technologies, such as GMR might be >>> suitable for a head that doesn't contact the media. >> Would a non-contact head 'fly' properly at floppy speeds, though? >> (I'm not sure how much more rotational speed you could get out of >> a floppy, even jacketless - I suspect the media is just too flexible) > > I keep wondering if the disk media could be "mounted" like a > specimen on a slide. Then a flying head wouldn't be an issue, and > multiple passes become possible. Maybe something like the caddies used for old-style CD-ROM drives? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Fri Feb 22 07:03:33 2008 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:03:33 -0500 Subject: [SPAM] - RLV12 placement in H9278-A question - Sending mail server found on dnsbl.sorbs.net In-Reply-To: <8CA432174CD05CD-DD4-32BD@webmail-nd08.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA432174CD05CD-DD4-32BD@webmail-nd08.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <47BEC825.6010705@compsys.to> >tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > >On Feb-21-08 at 16:05:45, Jerome Fine wrote: > >> If my memory serves me correctly (which is not very >> frequent these days), I seem to remember receiving >> a BA23 box with an M8189 in the top slot and the >> RLV11 in to next 2 slots. The memory for the system >> (normal PDP-11 Qbus memory) was in slot 4. > > It's entirely possible that it would work correctly. > > Covention has always been that PMI memory immediately precedes > the CPU, and NON-PMI memory immediately follows the CPU. Jerome Fine replies: Your understanding of "convention" is CORRECT!! However, although most systems adopt that convention, there can be times when other problems require a different placement of boards. In addition, I have seen a number of systems where the memory boards (i.e. more than one) are separated, especially when some boards are quad and other boards are dual. When DEC memory used to be so expensive (1000s per MByte), 3rd party memory was often added where there was an available slot. Quite often that was far down in the backplane. > I've always just assumed that there was a reason for it, > and never really questioned it, since I had no need to. Necessity is often a reason to try and see if it works. > I'm surprised anyone would bother with an RLV11 in a BA23, > since the RLV12 was readily available at the time, and supports 22-bit. > Much less space, power, and heat. And this particular fellow was a tech support, so I am sure that he did have an RLV12 around - but for some reason used the RLV11. > Although sometimes you just have to work with what is at-hand. ;-) YES!! 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 curt at atarimuseum.com Fri Feb 22 07:59:01 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:59:01 -0500 Subject: Available: DEC LA120 printer In-Reply-To: <000501c87497$724ecdf0$8dee5fce@D1FTZ481> References: <000501c87497$724ecdf0$8dee5fce@D1FTZ481> Message-ID: <47BED525.90102@atarimuseum.com> I see them on Ebay for about $25 each, the problem is they are big and heavy and expensive to have to ship so their value is rather low, they are beautiful pieces of equipment, hopefully some around the South Carolina area is a Dec collector and would buy them for you, but don't expect much more then $25 or so each. Curt Buddy Bellamy wrote: > WE HAVE 3 LA 120 PRINTERS. WE NO LONGER USE THESE PRINTERS, SURE HATE TO JUST GIVE THEM AWAY. IS THERE ANY VALUE IN THESE PRINTERS? > THANKS, > B BELLAMY > > > From curt at atarimuseum.com Fri Feb 22 08:01:56 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 09:01:56 -0500 Subject: Data General Removable HD's In-Reply-To: <000501c87497$724ecdf0$8dee5fce@D1FTZ481> References: <000501c87497$724ecdf0$8dee5fce@D1FTZ481> Message-ID: <47BED5D4.30908@atarimuseum.com> Anyone who is a Data General collector in Michigan: Some really nice pieces - DG 4231 http://cgi.ebay.com/Data-General-4231-disk-drive_W0QQitemZ290180001555QQihZ019QQcategoryZ1247QQcmdZViewItem DG 6061 http://cgi.ebay.com/Data-General-6061-disk-drive_W0QQitemZ290180002669QQihZ019QQcategoryZ1247QQcmdZViewItem Curt From ray at arachelian.com Fri Feb 22 08:14:46 2008 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 09:14:46 -0500 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) In-Reply-To: References: <47BC34C9.18058.EA92AF@cclist.sydex.com> <47BDEFD9.7000305@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47BED8D6.6080704@arachelian.com> So I do have some news on the earlier subject. I've received the disks for UniPlus yesterday and was able to image them. I'm wondering if temperature had anything to do with it. They sat outside my house (in the box) for a few hours and were obviously cold when I read them. I disregarded the usual good idea of acclimation and immediately attempted to image them, mostly because I keep an air conditioner on at all times in my computer room (which of course in this weather acts as a fan). So if anything, the difference between the machine and the disks was less than 20F. All of the disks read just fine, with the exception of a single disk, which initially failed to read after about the 1st 10 tracks, but later, after I finished imaging the rest of them, I retried it, and that disk worked. I suspect that either the lower temperature helped, or perhaps that one disk that initially failed had some dust which was loosened and allowed to it read the second time around. I'm loathe to mess with these disks anymore as I need to return them to their owner, and don't want to expose them to any more risk. This isn't a very large test set since I didn't attempt reading them at various temperatures and with different drives/machines. Maybe I'll try just one of the disks to see if it reads at warmer temperatures, but it's an interesting hypothesis anyway. Maybe if I find a set of slightly bad non-critical disks in my collection, I can try this again with those at varying temperatures. So I'm wondering if temperature has any affect on media readability. To wildly jump to a conclusion here, would colder temperatures stiffen the media, making it easier to read? Certainly they would cause the metal in the center of the cookie to contract, but would it have the same effect on the plastic or whatever's under the magnetic coating? (NOTE: I'm not suggesting that if you have fragile unreadable media that you should try this, I'm only asking if this is a possibility. Don't risk it based on this single one-off sample! There's always the danger that the plastic does stiffen and in doing so may cause the magnetic coating to flake off?) (Of course a much simpler explanation is that the disks were originally read with a marginal drive, possibly misaligned or dirty.) There were a few other factors that I'm wondering about. The media was written by a 400K GCR floppy drive in the Lisa. These of course have a larger r/w head. The drives vary the motor speed depending on the track number - there are 4 speeds for these drives. Later versions of the Apple drives known as SuperDrives (not to be confused with the modern DVD "SuperDrives") have smaller heads in order to support HD media (which they do so only in MFM), but they still support physical reading and writing of GCR disks for DS/DD and SS/DD. The SuperDrives however do not vary the motor speed, but rather have a fixed rate spindle motor and vary the shift register read/write rate. I would theorize that the smaller r/w heads might make it harder for data recovery iff the tracks are slightly misaligned or the data is partially damaged, the smaller r/w head wouldn't see the whole width of the written track, and any damage to the area that it would see would prevent it from reading the drive, while an original 400K or even an 800K drive would see the whole width of the track, and average out the missing data with the existing data, possibly making it more readable. Any merit to this idea? Perhaps for the original subject for the floppy reader/writer board, having actual DS/DD drives as well as a DS/HD drives is more ideal? i.e. have both a 720K and a 1.44M 3.5" drive as well as both 5.25" 360K drives and 1.2M drives and switch according to whatever was used to write to the drive? In my case, I was able to read all of the disks with a SuperDrive, and a later model of a SuperDrive at that, so this didn't apply at all. (The TAM is built from notebook components, and was built later than most superdrives.) From doc at mdrconsult.com Fri Feb 22 08:23:47 2008 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:23:47 -0600 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) In-Reply-To: References: <47BC34C9.18058.EA92AF@cclist.sydex.com> <47BDEFD9.7000305@gmail.com> <47BE0416.3030407@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <47BEDAF3.9070407@mdrconsult.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Feb 21, 2008, at 6:07 PM, Doc Shipley wrote: >> I keep wondering if the disk media could be "mounted" like a specimen >> on a slide. Then a flying head wouldn't be an issue, and multiple >> passes become possible. > > Maybe something like the caddies used for old-style CD-ROM drives? No, that wouldn't be much different from the original jacket. I was thinking more like actual slides. A thick rigid base and a very thin, hard cap, with the media immobile between them. The whole assembly would turn in the reader. I don't know whether the media could actually be read through that, but if so, it would cure a world of ills. SS disks could be permanently mounted; DS you'd have to be able to remove and reverse the disk. Doc From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Feb 22 08:40:37 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:40:37 -0600 Subject: Floppies was Re: E-Mail-Adress In-Reply-To: <200802212207.13712.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <5385.193.27.220.82.1203611718.squirrel@www.rz.fh-augsburg.de> <200802212352.m1LNqLcP001046@mail.bcpl.net> <200802212207.13712.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <47BEDEE5.8050609@gmail.com> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > Interesting stuff, I've used rawrite for my first linux installation way back > in 1999, as the system I had to install it to then didn't boot from a > CD. :-) Drifting a little, but does anyone know when rawrite first appeared? I first installed Linux in 1993, but I really don't remember what I used to make the actual floppies. I was definitely running MSODS* (and Windows 3.xx) around then, so it had to be something that ran under plain ol' DOS. * I kind of liked that as a typo, so I left it as-is :-) cheers Jules From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Feb 22 08:48:40 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:48:40 -0600 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) In-Reply-To: <47BE0416.3030407@mdrconsult.com> References: <47BC34C9.18058.EA92AF@cclist.sydex.com> <47BDEFD9.7000305@gmail.com> <47BE0416.3030407@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <47BEE0C8.1030504@gmail.com> Doc Shipley wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: >> Chuck Guzis wrote: >>> In my humble opinion, what's really needed is a quick and reliable >>> non-contact method of recovering floppy data. Perhaps one of the >>> more modern head technologies, such as GMR might be suitable for a >>> head that doesn't contact the media. >> >> Would a non-contact head 'fly' properly at floppy speeds, though? (I'm >> not sure how much more rotational speed you could get out of a floppy, >> even jacketless - I suspect the media is just too flexible) > > I keep wondering if the disk media could be "mounted" like a specimen on > a slide. Then a flying head wouldn't be an issue, and multiple passes > become possible. The thought of fastening the 'bare' media to something for rigidity had actually struck me too - but I'd kind of ignored it as: 1) Anything which sits between the media and the head (e.g. a thing film of something-or-other) is likely to impair read performance, 2) It'd probably be a messy/slow process having to attach media to something every time. Then this morning I got to wondering whether a rigid circular plate with tiny holes in it could be used; the bare media would sit on top of it, and some process would suck the media onto the plate to keep it in place (possibly negative pressure somehow brought about by the disk spinning, rather than a complex pump arrangement). It'd mean that only one side of the media could be read at once, but maybe that's an acceptable trade-off. cheers Jules From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Feb 22 09:10:13 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:10:13 -0500 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) In-Reply-To: <47BE09C7.4016.2E7B0B2@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47BC34C9.18058.EA92AF@cclist.sydex.com>, <47BDEFD9.7000305@gmail.com>, <47BE09C7.4016.2E7B0B2@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47BEE5D5.5090401@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > not to be confused with the superlatively exciting Colossal > Magnetoresistance. > > Cheers, > Chuck > (wonder what's bigger than "Colossal"?) Ginormous? Peace... Sridhar From rborsuk at colourfull.com Fri Feb 22 09:13:22 2008 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:13:22 -0500 Subject: Data General Removable HD's In-Reply-To: <47BED5D4.30908@atarimuseum.com> References: <000501c87497$724ecdf0$8dee5fce@D1FTZ481> <47BED5D4.30908@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <7773E01A-B221-4457-8EF2-D0B26C2B89E2@colourfull.com> I have the controllers and cables for those drives which I bought from him. He's a pretty good guy. The power requirements for the drives was restrictive for me. Rob On Feb 22, 2008, at 9:01 AM, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > Anyone who is a Data General collector in Michigan: > > Some really nice pieces - > > DG 4231 > http://cgi.ebay.com/Data-General-4231-disk-drive_W0QQitemZ290180001555QQihZ019QQcategoryZ1247QQcmdZViewItem > > DG 6061 > http://cgi.ebay.com/Data-General-6061-disk-drive_W0QQitemZ290180002669QQihZ019QQcategoryZ1247QQcmdZViewItem > > > > > Curt > > > > Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Feb 22 09:18:26 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:18:26 -0500 Subject: VAX wish list. In-Reply-To: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DE1F@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> References: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DE1F@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> Message-ID: <47BEE7C2.8050402@gmail.com> Rod Smallwood wrote: > 5. A KZQSA SCSI controller. If you don't mind my asking, what do you want with that controller? AFAIK, it can't talk to disk, only tape. Peace... Sridhar From legalize at xmission.com Fri Feb 22 09:06:08 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:06:08 -0700 Subject: Fwd: [alt.sys.pdp11] Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff Message-ID: This message has been forwarded from Usenet. To reply to the original author, use the email address from the forwarded message. Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:38:28 +0100 (CET) Groups: alt.sys.pdp11 From: Jeff Davis Org: Aioe.org NNTP Server Subject: Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff Id: ======== Just fyi, it's not my auction, but there's a pdp-11/34 in two racks, a tape drive and large hard drives on ebay. Two days left, I figure somebody with a big truck wants to save it. I normally wouldn't post about an ebay auction, but this one doesn't mention pdp-11 in the auction title and seems to have been overlooked. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=120223434668 jdavis From curt at atarimuseum.com Fri Feb 22 09:25:03 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:25:03 -0500 Subject: Data General Removable HD's In-Reply-To: <7773E01A-B221-4457-8EF2-D0B26C2B89E2@colourfull.com> References: <000501c87497$724ecdf0$8dee5fce@D1FTZ481> <47BED5D4.30908@atarimuseum.com> <7773E01A-B221-4457-8EF2-D0B26C2B89E2@colourfull.com> Message-ID: <47BEE94F.4070708@atarimuseum.com> Yeah, tell me about it... I've still not had time to bring in an electrician to run a 220 line out to my garage to power a CDC9766 that I have, I've got 22 300mb drums that I'd like to extract data from.... someday when there are 72 hours in a day and I can catch up with life :-) Curt Robert Borsuk wrote: > I have the controllers and cables for those drives which I bought from > him. He's a pretty good guy. > The power requirements for the drives was restrictive for me. > > Rob > > > On Feb 22, 2008, at 9:01 AM, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > >> Anyone who is a Data General collector in Michigan: >> >> Some really nice pieces - >> >> DG 4231 >> http://cgi.ebay.com/Data-General-4231-disk-drive_W0QQitemZ290180001555QQihZ019QQcategoryZ1247QQcmdZViewItem >> >> >> DG 6061 >> http://cgi.ebay.com/Data-General-6061-disk-drive_W0QQitemZ290180002669QQihZ019QQcategoryZ1247QQcmdZViewItem >> >> >> >> >> >> Curt >> >> >> >> > > > > Rob Borsuk > email: rborsuk at colourfull.com > Colourfull Creations > Web: http://www.colourfull.com > > > From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Feb 22 09:26:35 2008 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:26:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Sockets (was: Ebay grrrr #743) In-Reply-To: <47BDD4FD.31419.2197E03@cclist.sydex.com> References: >, <47BDD4FD.31419.2197E03@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200802221532.KAA16212@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > I've been told that gold-plated sockets are a waste of money if what > you're going to be socketing is tinned-lead packages. Something > about gold-to-gold and tin-to-tin makes for the best results. Well, it reduces corrosion. Whenever you run current through a junction between metals of differing electronegativities, it promotes corrosion at the junction. Thus, you want the chip pin surfaces and the socket surfaces to be the same metal. (Gold is preferred over tin in a different sense, in the sense that it corrodes less due to environmental chemical effects. Which effect outweighs the other depends on things like the local air pollutants, how much time the metals spend in contact versus exposed to the environment, how much current is run through the junctions....) I'd say gold/gold is probably best, since it's the most corrosion-resistant in both these senses. But whether I'd prefer gold/tin or tin/tin depends on the tradeoffs. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Feb 22 09:36:37 2008 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:36:37 -0800 Subject: media reading and temperature Message-ID: <47BEEC05.5010306@bitsavers.org> > So I'm wondering if temperature has any affect on media readability. yes. You walk a very dangerous line with condensation reading cold media, though. It has been my experience that mag tapes shed more if they are warm, so after baking, I let them return to room temperature in the tape reading room, which is dehumidified to as low as the dehumidifier will go (< 35%) From pat at computer-refuge.org Fri Feb 22 09:43:28 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:43:28 -0500 Subject: VAX wish list. In-Reply-To: <47BEE7C2.8050402@gmail.com> References: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DE1F@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> <47BEE7C2.8050402@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802221043.29080.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Friday 22 February 2008 10:18, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Rod Smallwood wrote: > > 5. A KZQSA SCSI controller. > > If you don't mind my asking, what do you want with that controller? > AFAIK, it can't talk to disk, only tape. Huh? The KZQSA was the controller that generally was used to attach a SCSI CDROM to a later model QBUS MicroVAX or VAX 4000. I seem to remember posts on here indicating that you could also use it for a single SCSI disk, and it mostly worked, as long as it didn't have >1 device on it. Other than that, IIRC, it's VMS-only. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Feb 22 09:46:40 2008 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:46:40 -0800 Subject: flying reading of floppy media Message-ID: <47BEEE60.3000004@bitsavers.org> > A thick rigid base and a very thin, > hard cap, with the media immobile between them. The whole assembly > would turn in the reader. I don't know whether the media could actually > be read through that It was possible to do this. Univac metal tape reels actually had a spool of mylar tape to isolate the metal tape from the heads, for example. There would be a lot of loss in the transducer, though, which you may be able to compensate for by using a magnetorestrictive instead of inductive head. I haven't pulled apart an Iomega bernolli drive to see if you could fly a 5" floppy over the plate and use the head in it for recovery. From mardy at voysys.com Fri Feb 22 12:33:29 2008 From: mardy at voysys.com (Marden P. Marshall) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:33:29 -0500 Subject: eBay Monkey Business Message-ID: I could be wrong, but there's something fishy going on over at eBay. First an IMSAI and an Altair 680 being bid up to astronomical prices and now a less than stellar SOL-20 goes for $7100.00 to someone who's last couple of purchases were cell phones. This all this activity is in fact some type of a scam, it is going to seriously hurt legitimate buyers and sellers. -Mardy From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Feb 22 12:42:35 2008 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:42:35 -0500 Subject: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > I could be wrong, but there's something fishy going on over at eBay. > First an IMSAI and an Altair 680 being bid up to astronomical prices > and now a less than stellar SOL-20 goes for $7100.00 to someone who's > last couple of purchases were cell phones. This all this activity is > in fact some type of a scam, it is going to seriously hurt legitimate > buyers and sellers. In case you all had not noticed, there was a major change at Ebay this week. Google for details. Also, there is a good sized strike amongst sellers this week as well. Some decided just not to sell. Some decided to shut down their stores. And some have decided to play games, just to play games with Ebay's bean counters. The best thing to do this week, and most of next, is to just NOT USE Ebay for EITHER buying OR selling. -- Will From dm561 at torfree.net Fri Feb 22 12:59:53 2008 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:59:53 -0500 Subject: Sockets (was: Ebay grrrr #743) Message-ID: <01C8755B.4EFC7220@mandr71> Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:26:35 -0500 (EST) From: der Mouse Subject: Re: Sockets (was: Ebay grrrr #743) >> I've been told that gold-plated sockets are a waste of money if what >> you're going to be socketing is tinned-lead packages. Something >> about gold-to-gold and tin-to-tin makes for the best results. >Well, it reduces corrosion. > >I'd say gold/gold is probably best, since it's the most >corrosion-resistant in both these senses. But whether I'd prefer >gold/tin or tin/tin depends on the tradeoffs. >der Mouse ---------- We've had this thread before, but don't forget about stuff like Stabilant 22. I had endless problems with sockets in AIM65s (similar to the cheap sockets in a PET) installed in a plant full of oil and other contaminants in the air; finally pulled them all out, cleaned and treated the sockets & chips with Stab 22, and no more problems. Also did my PETs at that time and never had a problem with IC sockets in them either; still running fine today. mike From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Feb 22 13:02:45 2008 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:02:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: from "Marden P. Marshall" at Feb 22, 2008 01:33:29 PM Message-ID: <200802221902.m1MJ2j6E017227@onyx.spiritone.com> > I could be wrong, but there's something fishy going on over at eBay. > First an IMSAI and an Altair 680 being bid up to astronomical prices > and now a less than stellar SOL-20 goes for $7100.00 to someone who's > last couple of purchases were cell phones. This all this activity is > in fact some type of a scam, it is going to seriously hurt legitimate > buyers and sellers. Remember that Apple Lisa that went for $3500? I had a Window open on it, for some reason I refreshed it the other day prior to closing the window, and the selling price had changed to something like $400-500. Zane From cclist at sydex.com Fri Feb 22 14:01:21 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:01:21 -0800 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) In-Reply-To: <47BED8D6.6080704@arachelian.com> References: <47BC34C9.18058.EA92AF@cclist.sydex.com>, , <47BED8D6.6080704@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <47BEB991.21661.5965B4A@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Feb 2008 at 9:14, Ray Arachelian wrote: > I'm wondering if temperature had anything to do with it. They sat > outside my house (in the box) for a few hours and were obviously cold > when I read them. I disregarded the usual good idea of acclimation and > immediately attempted to image them, mostly because I keep an air > conditioner on at all times in my computer room (which of course in this > weather acts as a fan). So if anything, the difference between the > machine and the disks was less than 20F. Temperature and its buddy, humidity have a lot to do with the readability of diskettes. Too much humidity (as in a cold diskette in a warm room generating condensation) will cause the cookie to drag in its jacket, for example. I try to allow diskettes to take some time to acclimate (for 2 or 3 days) in a low humidity (20 percent RH) environment at 20C. I don't know if an extremely dry environment would be any better. Then, there's some media that's just plain garbage--it was terrible when it was new and is no better now (e.g. Wabash, Control Data, Elephant, etc.). Cheers, Chuck From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Feb 22 14:21:23 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:21:23 -0800 Subject: Sockets (was: Ebay grrrr #743) In-Reply-To: <01C8755B.4EFC7220@mandr71> References: <01C8755B.4EFC7220@mandr71> Message-ID: > From: dm561 at torfree.net > > Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:26:35 -0500 (EST) > From: der Mouse > Subject: Re: Sockets (was: Ebay grrrr #743) > >>> I've been told that gold-plated sockets are a waste of money if what >>> you're going to be socketing is tinned-lead packages. Something >>> about gold-to-gold and tin-to-tin makes for the best results. > >>Well, it reduces corrosion. >> >>I'd say gold/gold is probably best, since it's the most >>corrosion-resistant in both these senses. But whether I'd prefer >>gold/tin or tin/tin depends on the tradeoffs. > >>der Mouse > > ---------- > We've had this thread before, but don't forget about stuff like > Stabilant 22. I had endless problems with sockets in AIM65s > (similar to the cheap sockets in a PET) installed in a plant full > of oil and other contaminants in the air; finally pulled them all > out, cleaned and treated the sockets & chips with Stab 22, > and no more problems. > > Also did my PETs at that time and never had a problem with > IC sockets in them either; still running fine today. > > mike > Hi I've been using DC#4 for years but the makers of Stabilant 22 claim better results in all kinds of environments( salt air being the worst ). The effects of these types of products is remarkable. I've even used it on over heated power connectors that after being treated never got hot or had any other issue for years. I didn't even replace the contacts. I just made sure there was still some spring in the socket part. It won't fix broken sockets. Many of the style sockets that use the folded metal strip may have failures that this won't help. These often have a corrosion failure that happens right where the sharpest fold is. This fold tends to fracture the plating, exposing the inside base metal to corrosion. These socket just need to be replaced. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Need to know the score, the latest news, or you need your Hotmail?-get your "fix". http://www.msnmobilefix.com/Default.aspx From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Feb 22 14:24:14 2008 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:24:14 -0800 Subject: VAX wish list. In-Reply-To: <200802221043.29080.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DE1F@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> <47BEE7C2.8050402@gmail.com> <200802221043.29080.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90802221224w76306baao9fd21e8e4dbef5a0@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 7:43 AM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > The KZQSA was the controller that generally was used to attach a SCSI > CDROM to a later model QBUS MicroVAX or VAX 4000. I seem to remember > posts on here indicating that you could also use it for a single SCSI > disk, and it mostly worked, as long as it didn't have >1 device on it. > Yes, it's useful to have a KZQSA if you want to boot from a SCSI CD-ROM and install VMS. I believe a KA655 (3800 / 3900) won't boot from a KZQSA, but a KA660 (4000/200) will. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Fri Feb 22 14:45:15 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:45:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 22 Feb 2008, William Donzelli wrote: > > I could be wrong, but there's something fishy going on over at eBay. > > First an IMSAI and an Altair 680 being bid up to astronomical prices > > and now a less than stellar SOL-20 goes for $7100.00 to someone who's > > last couple of purchases were cell phones. This all this activity is > > in fact some type of a scam, it is going to seriously hurt legitimate > > buyers and sellers. > > In case you all had not noticed, there was a major change at Ebay this > week. Google for details. > > Also, there is a good sized strike amongst sellers this week as well. > Some decided just not to sell. Some decided to shut down their stores. > And some have decided to play games, just to play games with Ebay's > bean counters. > > The best thing to do this week, and most of next, is to just NOT USE > Ebay for EITHER buying OR selling. That IMSAI referred to is one that I'm selling. What happened was that someone with 12 feedback points and a habit of buying boots and saddles bid the auction up past $4000. A couple hours later, Ebay emailed me telling me that the auction was cancelled because that account was used without the owner's permission. I haven't really been up on exactly what this fee hike entails. I suspect that a mysterious $112 balance on my account has something to do with it. So, if anyone wants an IMSAI, I'm listening. -- 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 tpeters at mixcom.com Fri Feb 22 16:40:38 2008 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:40:38 -0600 Subject: Disk controllers- RLL MFM IDE- ISA and PCI Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20080222163812.00bf6ec8@localhost> Anyone need disk controllers for ISA bus and MFM or RLL drives? I stumbled on these (I'm not connected with this vendor) and thought of you guys immediately. Most of this stuff is $5 or $10. AT style full length MFM disk controller $14.95 http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/92C071/14/AT%2DMFM%2DController DTC - 5160 8-bit ISA bus RLL disk controller $4.95 (five dolla, five dolla!) http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/97C014/14/DTC%2D5160 DTC - 5280 - 97C045 MFM 16-bit ISA disk controller http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/97C045/14/DTC%2D5280 DTC - 7287 - 97C015 RLL 16-bit ISA disk controller $4.95 http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/97C015/14/DTC%2D7287 Dual high-speed AT 16550 serial card $27.95 http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/98C011/14/High%2DSpeed%2DI%2DO%2DController IDE ISA Hard/Floppy I/O - Controller $1.95 no data http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/97C009/14/IDE%2DISA%2DHard%2DFloppy%2DI%2DO%2DController PC ISA - Serial/Parallel PCB - 24C002 $4.95 http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/24C002/14/PC%2DISA%2DSerial%2DParallel%2DPCB VLB I/O IDE - Controller - 98C016 $9.95 http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/98C016/14/VLB%2DI%2DO%2DIDE%2DController PCI IDE Only - Controller $9.95 no data http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/98C034/14/PCI%2DIDE%2DOnly%2DController TEAC Tape Transport - Cleaning Kit - 92Z008 $2.99 no data http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/92Z008/14/Tape%2DTransport%2DCleaning%2DKit TTL to Composite - Video Adapter $4.95 Requires +12V (or +5V) and video, vertical drive, horizontal drive signals. Produces RS-170 type composite video output. Fully assembled with 74125 sync regenerator, 3 terminal regulator, 2N2222 transistor. Only 2" square. http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/92C024/14/TTL%2Dto%2DComposite%2DVideo%2DAdapter Also: 3.5" diskette drives, 5.25" diskette drives, assorted old motherboards, drive mounting rails, etc. ----- 842. If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'. --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From Tim at Rikers.org Fri Feb 22 18:07:57 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:07:57 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47BE904D.F08CF308@cs.ubc.ca> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <47BDB9D9.9020409@Rikers.org> <47BE904D.F08CF308@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <47BF63DD.6060200@Rikers.org> Brent Hilpert wrote: > I had a timing problem with the HST initially, it was resolved by sending 2 > stop bits and now runs at 19200 bps. There's some explanation on: > http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/io12531BCD.html > if you haven't seen it already. I take it you're using a 12531C (HST) if you're > running at 2400. If you're already sending 2 stop bits though .. wonder if the > oscillator could have drifted far enough out to be a problem. Yes, I saw this before. I don't have my cable wired the same as yours. I don't think my CSR/DSR/DCD go anyplace useful. Does your cable actually get you valid CSR? or are you just forcing it? ie: you connect to "U - +12V via 1k". I'll check the schematics, just have not yet. :) > An 'A'! .. even better. Found your photos again, see you've effectively fixed > the frame .. thank goodness for symmetry. I made schematics for 2116C power supply, > should be largely applicable to the A, at least to get an idea of the organization, > if of any help. There are schematics for the B power supply on page 5-91 of: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/2116/02116-9153_2116B_Vol2_Oct70.pdf You've seen that I presume? That's what I'm working off. Al was trying to track down an A version of Vol2 that he though he had, I've not heard back on it. I could really use this if someone out there has it. :) I was lead to believe that the C (perhaps only later C's?) used a switching power supply. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that there are different voltage outputs required for the A, B and C due to the different core memory designs. From what I understand: The A has 1 or 2 vertical 4kw stacks The B has 1 or 2 horizontal 8kw stacks The C has no stacks, but uses HP-2100[AS] compatible core cards Both the A and B can use a 2nd chassis to add 1 or 2 more stacks. The C can fit enough cards to take it to 32kw internally. Brent Hilpert wrote: > Brent Hilpert wrote: >> http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/io12531BCD.html >> if you haven't seen it already. I take it you're using a 12531C (HST) if you're > Whoops, --> change that to 12531D (HST) > (the C is a 2nd version of the B "Buffered Teleprinter" for 110bps.) Mine is labeled "HS TERMINAL" so I presume it's a D. I'll double check to be sure. I'll add more info on my notes page: http://rikers.org/wiki/HardwareNotes Thanx again for the help! -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From ray at arachelian.com Fri Feb 22 19:05:16 2008 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:05:16 -0500 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project (recovering UniPlus Unix for the Lisa) In-Reply-To: <47BEB991.21661.5965B4A@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47BC34C9.18058.EA92AF@cclist.sydex.com>, , <47BED8D6.6080704@arachelian.com> <47BEB991.21661.5965B4A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47BF714C.6040203@arachelian.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Temperature and its buddy, humidity have a lot to do with the > readability of diskettes. Too much humidity (as in a cold diskette > in a warm room generating condensation) will cause the cookie to drag > in its jacket, for example. > > I try to allow diskettes to take some time to acclimate (for 2 or 3 > days) in a low humidity (20 percent RH) environment at 20C. I don't > know if an extremely dry environment would be any better. > I do keep the AC on in my computer room 24/7, although in winter, since it's so cold the condenser almost never kicks in. So I suppose it was at most 60'F. Outside was 30-something so the disks were about 40'F at most. Somehow, in this case, I no longer suppose the temperature was involved. Before sending out the disks, I re-read them again, and every single one read just fine. I expect it was a case of the owner's drive being dirty/misaligned. > Then, there's some media that's just plain garbage--it was terrible > when it was new and is no better now (e.g. Wabash, Control Data, > Elephant, etc.). > Wow, I remember Elephant. :-) They were one of the first disks I bought, something insane like $2 @ for 5.25" SS/DS... they were pretty awful when new, I'm not sure I'd put'em in a drive after all these years. From dgahling at hotmail.com Fri Feb 22 20:13:25 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:13:25 -0500 Subject: a bad day for vaxen Message-ID: well I've had a real bad day. My vax systems have been in storage for about a year, good storage, not too much heat or cold or humidity but, I can't get any of them to function the way I think they should. 4 vaxen (vaxstation 3100 m76, of which 2 are spx), an alpha (dec 3000 model 310), and a vxt2000. I must be doing something wrong.I'm having a very bad day. and my vs 3100 model 30 seems to have vanished :( i tried with a null modem cable and with straight through, with 3 different dec connect cables, and 3 different (1 9pin, 1 25pin female, 1 25pin male) connectors, and can't get anything on console. with switch S3 up or down made no difference. and i'm not sure I'm reading the LED status lights correctly. i'm tired. :) I'm digging out a monitor so I can connect the video directly, with a keyboard and mouse, but that's always fun. anyone in or around toronto with a working setup I could pop by one day and hook up and see what's going on? I'll double-check that after I try the video. none of the docs I've found specify if it's supposed to be null-modem or straight through. and I think I got it right by using the port with the little printer symbol on it as console. the alpha I have has 25 pin female, and the vxt has 25 pin male, and the vaxstations have what seems to be RJ12, can't they make these things standard? _________________________________________________________________ From feldman.r at comcast.net Fri Feb 22 20:19:17 2008 From: feldman.r at comcast.net (feldman.r at comcast.net) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 02:19:17 +0000 Subject: MS Visual C++ docs available Message-ID: <022320080219.2846.47BF82A50000466100000B1E22007347489DD2020E030B040A00@comcast.net> I have the software (1.52c on 1 CD). Free for postage. Preference given to the person who got the docs from Jack (if anyone did). Otherwise available. Contact me at my Comcast address. Bob Message: 8 Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:45:47 -0600 From: "Jack Rubin" Subject: MS Visual C++ docs available To: "Classic Computer List" Three volume set of docs for MS Visual C++ v1.52 available for the cost of postage - relatively cheap via Media Mail, but the 3 vols total close to 11 lbs. Includes $15 rebate coupon with expiration date of 12/31/96 - proof that this "on-topic". No software included! Contact me directly if you're interested. Jack From silent700 at gmail.com Fri Feb 22 22:53:25 2008 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 22:53:25 -0600 Subject: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <51ea77730802222053m7363fcf5kfe05024c8dd87c45@mail.gmail.com> This has to be another example: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=290206543240 I've never seen a Crimson sell for more than $50. If this is legit, then mine is for sale immediately! From rborsuk at colourfull.com Fri Feb 22 23:03:32 2008 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:03:32 -0500 Subject: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: <51ea77730802222053m7363fcf5kfe05024c8dd87c45@mail.gmail.com> References: <51ea77730802222053m7363fcf5kfe05024c8dd87c45@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I've been watching that one too. I don't think that's monkey business. I've noticed the SGI market has changed in the past year. The systems just aren't as plentiful as they've use to be and parts are getting harder to come by. When I bought my Crimson several years ago I paid around $300 for it, and it was out dated then. Rob On Feb 22, 2008, at 11:53 PM, Jason T wrote: > This has to be another example: > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=290206543240 > > I've never seen a Crimson sell for more than $50. If this is legit, > then mine is for sale immediately! Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com From cclist at sydex.com Fri Feb 22 23:50:11 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:50:11 -0800 Subject: MS Visual C++ docs available In-Reply-To: <022320080219.2846.47BF82A50000466100000B1E22007347489DD2020E030B040A00@comcast.net> References: <022320080219.2846.47BF82A50000466100000B1E22007347489DD2020E030B040A00@comcast.net> Message-ID: <47BF4393.18352.7B16FBF@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Feb 2008 at 2:19, feldman.r at comcast.net wrote: > I have the software (1.52c on 1 CD). Free for postage. Preference given to the person who got the docs from Jack (if anyone did). Otherwise available. Contact me at my Comcast address. > Bob Otherwise known as Microsoft C/C++ version 8.00c, exemplifying one of the more bizarre version hacks that the boys in Redmond ever did. The CLI compiler still says 8.00c and makes no reference to 1.52c. Cheers, Chuck From tiggerlasv at aim.com Sat Feb 23 00:14:35 2008 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 01:14:35 -0500 Subject: a bad day for vaxen Message-ID: <8CA43FA7F55C32D-F68-21B5@webmail-nf06.sim.aol.com> Are these BA23-based? If so, don't forget that the DB9 pinout isn't standard ! Traditional DB9 cabling won't work ! T ________________________________________________________________________ More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - http://webmail.aim.com From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Feb 23 00:50:07 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 22:50:07 -0800 Subject: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> > On Fri, 22 Feb 2008, William Donzelli wrote:> > > > I could be wrong, but there's something fishy going on over at eBay.> > > First an IMSAI and an Altair 680 being bid up to astronomical prices> > > and now a less than stellar SOL-20 goes for $7100.00 to someone who's> > > last couple of purchases were cell phones. This all this activity is> > > in fact some type of a scam, it is going to seriously hurt legitimate> > > buyers and sellers.> >> > In case you all had not noticed, there was a major change at Ebay this> > week. Google for details.> >> > Also, there is a good sized strike amongst sellers this week as well.> > Some decided just not to sell. Some decided to shut down their stores.> > And some have decided to play games, just to play games with Ebay's> > bean counters.> >> > The best thing to do this week, and most of next, is to just NOT USE> > Ebay for EITHER buying OR selling.> > That IMSAI referred to is one that I'm selling. What happened was that> someone with 12 feedback points and a habit of buying boots and saddles> bid the auction up past $4000. A couple hours later, Ebay emailed me> telling me that the auction was cancelled because that account was used> without the owner's permission.> > I haven't really been up on exactly what this fee hike entails. I suspect> that a mysterious $112 balance on my account has something to do with it.> > So, if anyone wants an IMSAI, I'm listening.> Hi David I'd see if eBay would let you postpone the auction for a few weeks. Buyer tend to get suspicious of auctions that get pulled. Even if it isn't the sellers fault. Those on this list know you but not all the bidders are on this list. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Climb to the top of the charts!?Play the word scramble challenge with star power. http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_jan From dgahling at hotmail.com Sat Feb 23 01:25:57 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 02:25:57 -0500 Subject: a bad day for vaxen In-Reply-To: <8CA43FA7F55C32D-F68-21B5@webmail-nf06.sim.aol.com> References: <8CA43FA7F55C32D-F68-21B5@webmail-nf06.sim.aol.com> Message-ID: do I need a null-modem cable or straight? yes I know it's non-standard, but still. I have a DEC 9 pin adapter. I think my RJ12 (6 pin phone like cable with locks off-set) are no good. i have no idea where to get "new" dec connect cables :( i got 2 systems going out of all of them. not very good... ---------------------------------------- > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 01:14:35 -0500 > From: tiggerlasv at aim.com > Subject: a bad day for vaxen > > > > Are these BA23-based? > > If so, don't forget that the DB9 pinout isn't standard ! > > Traditional DB9 cabling won't work ! > > > > > T > ________________________________________________________________________ > More new features than ever. Check out the new AIM(R) Mail ! - > http://webmail.aim.com _________________________________________________________________ From Tim at Rikers.org Sat Feb 23 01:29:18 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:29:18 -0700 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <200802212259.m1LMxW2x017654@mail.bcpl.net> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org>, <200802211847.m1LIlrwu027450@mail.bcpl.net>, <47BDD49A.8070203@Rikers.org> <200802212259.m1LMxW2x017654@mail.bcpl.net> Message-ID: <47BFCB4E.10107@Rikers.org> J. David Bryan wrote: > You might try reseating the ribbon cable that connects the left-side edge > connectors of the memory cards and the controller card. (The right side > connectors are open.) Also, the ribbon cable that attaches to the DCPC > card. Well, you were close. :) The card edge connector from the cable on the front panel has some pins that barely touch. To confirm I swapped (shh!) the front panel from the 2112 with the 2108. Sure enough, now the 2108 will IBL, and the 2112 will not. Anyone recommend a place to order a replacement the 50 pin card edge connector? I suspect Crisis will sell me a replacement front panel (part 02108-60024) and it does have one broken switch plate on it. Don't know for how much. :/ The switches work ok, so I think all I need to do is replace the edge connector. I suppose I could cut one off the end of the memory card cable, but that sounds like a Bad Idea, as I should be able to find one someplace. Thanx for the help! -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From dave06a at dunfield.com Sat Feb 23 06:08:19 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 07:08:19 -0500 Subject: a bad day for vaxen In-Reply-To: References: <8CA43FA7F55C32D-F68-21B5@webmail-nf06.sim.aol.com> Message-ID: <980C9C3454F@dunfield.com> >do I need a null-modem cable or straight? >yes I know it's non-standard, but still. >I have a DEC 9 pin adapter. An essential tool for anyone interfacing to serial equipment is a "light box" - just a box with LEDs to show which signals are being driven by a particular interface. I prefer the kind with two-color LEDs which show the polarity of the signal. To determine if you need a null modem, you need to determine which signals are being driven - You can use a LED or a multimeter set to measure current (few milliamps), in series with a suitable resistor to limit the current (few 100 ohms). The PC is setup to look like a DTE (Data Terminal Equipment), which means it drives (25 pin connector numbering): TD - Pin 2 RTS - Pin 4 DTR - Pin 20 The device which interfaces to it must look like a DCE (Data Communications Equipment) and should drive: RD - Pin 3 CTS - Pin 5 DSR - Pin 6 DCD - Pin 8 (Not usually required unless the software is expecting a modem) Note that the PC 9-pin connector has a different pinout that the traditional DB-25. This little chart may help: [View this message with a fixed pitch font - if you can't easily do that, save it to a file and view it from a text editor running on a text mode (non-graphical) screen] PC (25 pin) AT (9 pin) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1 2 3 4 5 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 6 7 8 9 Signal name Origin 25-Pin(PC) 9-Pin(AT) -------------------------------------------------------- Protective Ground (GND) --- 1 - Transmit Data (TXD) DTE 2 3 Receive Data (RXD) DCE 3 2 Request To Send (RTS) DTE 4 7 Clear To Send (CTS) DCE 5 8 Data Set Ready (DSR) DCE 6 6 Signal Ground (GND) --- 7 5 Data Carrier Detect (DCD) DCE 8 1 Data Terminal Ready (DTR) DTE 20 4 Ring Indicator (RI ) DCE 22 9 Connectors viewed from rear of PC. With all your cabling attached to the VAX, check the current being provided on TD, RD, RTS, CTS, DTR and DSR - note that not all of these may be driven - it is common practice to "loop back" signals which are not available on the interface. For example, RTS may be connected to CTS - so that when the PC asserts RTS, it will see CTS - even though that signal is not provided by the terminating equipment. If your VAX cable is providing current on RD, and NOT on TD, RTS or DTR, then it should be directly connected to a PC. If the VAX cable is providing current on TD and NOT on RD, CTS or DSR then you will need a "null-modem" cable which swaps TD/RD, RTS/CTS and DTR/DSR. If your interface is providing current on a combination of signals which originate at both sources (example, TD and CTS) then you have a mis-wired cable. >I think my RJ12 (6 pin phone like cable with locks off-set) are no good. > >i have no idea where to get "new" dec connect cables :( I've had good luck making MMJ connectors from RJ-45 Ethernet connectors with a dremel tool - if you are careful, the result fits nicely, and even locks into place correctly with the tab. I can post a couple of photos if you want to see. The adapter I created to interface the PC to my VAXen looks like this: [View this message with a fixed pitch font - if you can't easily do that, save it to a file and view it from a text editor running on a text mode (non-graphical) screen] 6 3 7 - 2 20 DB-25 serial pins (so chart above for names & DB-9) + | | | | | | + + | | | | | | + View of top side of connector + + Looking down on connection pins. + + +-------------+ | Cable | Since RTS/CTS are not provided on the VAX MMJ interface, my cable also loops RTS to CTS. This connects directly to the PC (no null modem). >i got 2 systems going out of all of them. not very good... Just in case it's "been a while" ... Don't forget that some VAXen seem to take quite a few seconds before the serial output of the self-tests starts after power-on. The first time I powered up a VAX I thought it wasn't working at first... 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 classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Sat Feb 23 06:12:28 2008 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 12:12:28 +0000 Subject: RFC: Floppy reader/writer project In-Reply-To: <01C8749F.8137D0C0@MSE_D03> References: <01C8749F.8137D0C0@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <47C00DAC.5080107@philpem.me.uk> M H Stein wrote: > Just a thought, for a one-or-two-off: > > Is there anything with which you could coat the disk surface to protect it > that would be cohesive enough to hold down any flakes? Spray-on Urethane? > Saran Wrap? Research is needed... ;-) Clearcoat might do it, but you'd need to find something that was based on a chemical that didn't react with the binder on the disc. I'd be tempted to put a very thin plastic over the disc and increase the sensitivity on the head amp. If I had some sacrificial discs with flaking issues, I'd have a play... And speaking of the floppy reader, I'm working on pulling the FPGA programmer design (an Altera Byteblaster II clone, LV-capable variety with a few dozen transistors) into Kicad, then modifying my existing schematic to take the Altera FPGA and Micron SDRAM. Should be a fun weekend, if nothing else. -- Phil. | (\_/) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny classiccmp at philpem.me.uk | (='.'=) into your signature to help him gain http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | (")_(") world domination. From dgahling at hotmail.com Sat Feb 23 09:42:20 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:42:20 -0500 Subject: a bad day for vaxen In-Reply-To: <980C9C3454F@dunfield.com> References: <8CA43FA7F55C32D-F68-21B5@webmail-nf06.sim.aol.com> <980C9C3454F@dunfield.com> Message-ID: yeah I dont have a dremel, and I'm not good that way. it'd be best if I could just test some known good cables even with a monitor hooked up, and let it wait over 5 minutes I got nothing. even 15 minutes and still nothing. one system I get a "blue" screen and thats it on another i get the color test patterns, then nothing the third i get a black screen and monitor says its receiving no signal. :( Dan. ---------------------------------------- > From: dave06a at dunfield.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 07:08:19 -0500 > Subject: RE: a bad day for vaxen > >>do I need a null-modem cable or straight? >>yes I know it's non-standard, but still. >>I have a DEC 9 pin adapter. > > An essential tool for anyone interfacing to serial equipment is a > "light box" - just a box with LEDs to show which signals are being > driven by a particular interface. I prefer the kind with two-color > LEDs which show the polarity of the signal. > > To determine if you need a null modem, you need to determine which > signals are being driven - You can use a LED or a multimeter set > to measure current (few milliamps), in series with a suitable resistor > to limit the current (few 100 ohms). > > The PC is setup to look like a DTE (Data Terminal Equipment), which > means it drives (25 pin connector numbering): > > TD - Pin 2 > RTS - Pin 4 > DTR - Pin 20 > > The device which interfaces to it must look like a DCE (Data > Communications Equipment) and should drive: > > RD - Pin 3 > CTS - Pin 5 > DSR - Pin 6 > DCD - Pin 8 (Not usually required unless the software is > expecting a modem) > > > Note that the PC 9-pin connector has a different pinout that the > traditional DB-25. This little chart may help: > > [View this message with a fixed pitch font - if you can't easily > do that, save it to a file and view it from a text editor running > on a text mode (non-graphical) screen] > > PC (25 pin) AT (9 pin) > 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1 2 3 4 5 > 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 6 7 8 9 > > Signal name Origin 25-Pin(PC) 9-Pin(AT) > -------------------------------------------------------- > Protective Ground (GND) --- 1 - > Transmit Data (TXD) DTE 2 3 > Receive Data (RXD) DCE 3 2 > Request To Send (RTS) DTE 4 7 > Clear To Send (CTS) DCE 5 8 > Data Set Ready (DSR) DCE 6 6 > Signal Ground (GND) --- 7 5 > Data Carrier Detect (DCD) DCE 8 1 > Data Terminal Ready (DTR) DTE 20 4 > Ring Indicator (RI ) DCE 22 9 > > Connectors viewed from rear of PC. > > With all your cabling attached to the VAX, check the current being > provided on TD, RD, RTS, CTS, DTR and DSR - note that not all of > these may be driven - it is common practice to "loop back" signals > which are not available on the interface. For example, RTS may be > connected to CTS - so that when the PC asserts RTS, it will see > CTS - even though that signal is not provided by the terminating > equipment. > > If your VAX cable is providing current on RD, and NOT on TD, RTS > or DTR, then it should be directly connected to a PC. > > If the VAX cable is providing current on TD and NOT on RD, CTS or > DSR then you will need a "null-modem" cable which swaps TD/RD, > RTS/CTS and DTR/DSR. > > If your interface is providing current on a combination of signals > which originate at both sources (example, TD and CTS) then you have > a mis-wired cable. > > >>I think my RJ12 (6 pin phone like cable with locks off-set) are no good. >> >>i have no idea where to get "new" dec connect cables :( > > I've had good luck making MMJ connectors from RJ-45 Ethernet connectors > with a dremel tool - if you are careful, the result fits nicely, and > even locks into place correctly with the tab. I can post a couple of > photos if you want to see. > > The adapter I created to interface the PC to my VAXen looks like this: > > [View this message with a fixed pitch font - if you can't easily > do that, save it to a file and view it from a text editor running > on a text mode (non-graphical) screen] > > 6 3 7 - 2 20 DB-25 serial pins (so chart above for names & DB-9) > > + | | | | | | + > + | | | | | | + View of top side of connector > + + Looking down on connection pins. > + + > +-------------+ > | Cable | > > Since RTS/CTS are not provided on the VAX MMJ interface, my cable > also loops RTS to CTS. > > This connects directly to the PC (no null modem). > > >>i got 2 systems going out of all of them. not very good... > > Just in case it's "been a while" ... Don't forget that some VAXen > seem to take quite a few seconds before the serial output of the > self-tests starts after power-on. The first time I powered up a > VAX I thought it wasn't working at first... > > > 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 glen.slick at gmail.com Sat Feb 23 10:17:10 2008 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 08:17:10 -0800 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47BFCB4E.10107@Rikers.org> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <200802211847.m1LIlrwu027450@mail.bcpl.net> <47BDD49A.8070203@Rikers.org> <200802212259.m1LMxW2x017654@mail.bcpl.net> <47BFCB4E.10107@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90802230817m1ff62c9coac157fb22eca534d@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 11:29 PM, Tim Riker wrote: > > Well, you were close. :) The card edge connector from the cable on the > front panel has some pins that barely touch. To confirm I swapped (shh!) > the front panel from the 2112 with the 2108. Sure enough, now the 2108 > will IBL, and the 2112 will not. > > Anyone recommend a place to order a replacement the 50 pin card edge > connector? > What is on the other end of the cable with the 50-pin card edge connector? Is that somewhat permanently attached to the front panel? I just took a quick look at a 2113B front panel and without dissasembling it or taking a close look it appears it might be permanently attached. If you can't easily remove the whole cable and make an equivalent new cable, there might be enough extra length in the cable to cut of the bad connector and press on a new 50-pin card edge connector. If you haven't built any IDC cables I wouldn't recommend trying it on the permanently attached front panel cable the first time you try until you know you'll get good results. The first couple of times I tried building some IDC cables without proper tools I ruined a couple of connectors and a couple of inches of cable. Then I acquired some proper IDC press tools and built a couple of sets of Pertec tape drive cables with 50 conductor ribbon cable and IDC headers on one end and card edge connectors on the other without too much trouble. I bought some part# 15-CE50 at www.emtel.com and I think they were cheaper a few months ago there than they are today. Now they list them as $26.90 for q10. Still cheaper than Digi-Key Digi-Key: CW CCE50S-ND $5.89, 3M MCE50K-ND $11.67 From mjd.bishop at emeritus-solutions.com Sat Feb 23 10:15:25 2008 From: mjd.bishop at emeritus-solutions.com (Martin Bishop) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:15:25 -0000 Subject: Q-bus SCSI Controllers RFI Message-ID: <1E2BDF951967414B9C46BA48F7AF97FB0118EDD9@exch-be09.exchange.local> Q-bus (BA 23, BA123 & (with mods to the mounting hardware) BA213) SCSI controllers. What works (in particular with disks + MSCP + VMS), how well and what's still about ? What I know is: CMD CDQ-220/TM supports disks and tapes, and works with RZ2x disks / MSCP / VMS DEC KZQSA-AA (aka M5976-AA) is the BA23 Q-bus SCSI controller CMD CDQ-223/TM is a 220 with EMC shielding for a BA213 box What I'm curious to know is: - What boards were made and which are commonly available e.g. DEC KZQSA, CMD CDQ-220, Dilog SQ706 ?, Emulex UC02 ?, Andromeda SCDC-11 ?, ... - The relative (to SCSI 1) performance of each of the boards - Which boards are "dogs" : gotchas, tape only, unreliability / electronics failures And, some specific queries are: - What is the difference between a CDQ-220/xxx and a CDQ-220A/xxx ? - What is the functionality of a CDQ-243 (quad board, BA213 cab kit, 2 SCSI connectors) wrt a CDQ-220 / 223 ? Regards Martin From rob at mooseitsolutions.com Sat Feb 23 02:55:25 2008 From: rob at mooseitsolutions.com (Robert Musumeci) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:55:25 +1100 Subject: Siemens/Nixdorf computer -- need hardware info! Message-ID: Hello, Do you have any DAP4 or BA80 that I can buy? Thank you Robert Musumeci Moose IT Solutions Pty Limited M: 0417 453 856 T: 02 9712 3856 F: 02 9712 0856 E: rob at mooseitsolutions.com Your partner in IT, Keeping you turned on From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Sat Feb 23 03:37:19 2008 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:37:19 -0000 Subject: VAX wish list. Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DE39@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> Well yes, its for the CD ROM holding the VMS distribution. However it does at least recognize a DEC RZ series disk. I worked for DEC for a long time and 'unsupported' means field service did not have funding for what could be non-Dec (SCSI) devices on the controller because DSSI was DEC's own SCSI variant. It does not mean 'this does not work' In fact DEC engineers routinely evaluated third party SCSI drives on it. Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Patrick Finnegan Sent: 22 February 2008 15:43 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: VAX wish list. On Friday 22 February 2008 10:18, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Rod Smallwood wrote: > > 5. A KZQSA SCSI controller. > > If you don't mind my asking, what do you want with that controller? > AFAIK, it can't talk to disk, only tape. Huh? The KZQSA was the controller that generally was used to attach a SCSI CDROM to a later model QBUS MicroVAX or VAX 4000. I seem to remember posts on here indicating that you could also use it for a single SCSI disk, and it mostly worked, as long as it didn't have >1 device on it. Other than that, IIRC, it's VMS-only. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Sat Feb 23 03:40:48 2008 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:40:48 -0000 Subject: VAX wish list. Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DE3A@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> All of the BA440 based 4000 models 200/300/400/500/600 will boot from an RRD series drive on a KZQSA. I have a 42 and a 46 and both work. -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Glen Slick Sent: 22 February 2008 20:24 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: VAX wish list. On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 7:43 AM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > The KZQSA was the controller that generally was used to attach a SCSI > CDROM to a later model QBUS MicroVAX or VAX 4000. I seem to remember > posts on here indicating that you could also use it for a single SCSI > disk, and it mostly worked, as long as it didn't have >1 device on it. > Yes, it's useful to have a KZQSA if you want to boot from a SCSI CD-ROM and install VMS. I believe a KA655 (3800 / 3900) won't boot from a KZQSA, but a KA660 (4000/200) will. From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Sat Feb 23 03:46:41 2008 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:46:41 -0000 Subject: a bad day for vaxen Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DE3B@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> The port is an DEC MMJ connector (offset clip type). Set your terminal to DEC-RS423 and 9600 both ways and it will run. Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dan Gahlinger Sent: 23 February 2008 02:13 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: a bad day for vaxen well I've had a real bad day. My vax systems have been in storage for about a year, good storage, not too much heat or cold or humidity but, I can't get any of them to function the way I think they should. 4 vaxen (vaxstation 3100 m76, of which 2 are spx), an alpha (dec 3000 model 310), and a vxt2000. I must be doing something wrong.I'm having a very bad day. and my vs 3100 model 30 seems to have vanished :( i tried with a null modem cable and with straight through, with 3 different dec connect cables, and 3 different (1 9pin, 1 25pin female, 1 25pin male) connectors, and can't get anything on console. with switch S3 up or down made no difference. and i'm not sure I'm reading the LED status lights correctly. i'm tired. :) I'm digging out a monitor so I can connect the video directly, with a keyboard and mouse, but that's always fun. anyone in or around toronto with a working setup I could pop by one day and hook up and see what's going on? I'll double-check that after I try the video. none of the docs I've found specify if it's supposed to be null-modem or straight through. and I think I got it right by using the port with the little printer symbol on it as console. the alpha I have has 25 pin female, and the vxt has 25 pin male, and the vaxstations have what seems to be RJ12, can't they make these things standard? _________________________________________________________________ From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Sat Feb 23 04:15:43 2008 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:15:43 -0000 Subject: VAX wish list. Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DE3C@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> Well I want it for a CD Rom Drive. Don't confuse 'Unsupported' with 'It doesn't work' hard disks may well run. Certainly RZ series are recognized. Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Sridhar Ayengar Sent: 22 February 2008 15:18 To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: VAX wish list. Rod Smallwood wrote: > 5. A KZQSA SCSI controller. If you don't mind my asking, what do you want with that controller? AFAIK, it can't talk to disk, only tape. Peace... Sridhar From dgahling at hotmail.com Sat Feb 23 11:07:20 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 12:07:20 -0500 Subject: a bad day for vaxen In-Reply-To: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DE3B@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> References: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DE3B@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> Message-ID: that doesnt help if my cables are bad :P I need good DEC MMJ connector cables also, as of now I have 3 "functional" vax stations. 2 of which need vms reloaded and the 3rd has a weird problem with the system password I'm trying to work out. sadly my alpha (dec 3000 model 310) is still out for the count and may be totally toast. my pride and joy, my main vaxstation 3100 m76 just gives me a blue color screen, then nothing. i'm wondering if I can safely take the HD out of that system and put it in one of the spx systems and get it to go (rather than reinstalling vms on those) all my important data is on the 3100 that i cant get to boot ---------------------------------------- > Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:46:41 +0000 > From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > CC: > Subject: RE: a bad day for vaxen > > The port is an DEC MMJ connector (offset clip type). Set your terminal > to DEC-RS423 and 9600 both ways and it will run. > > Rod > > > -----Original Message----- > From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dan Gahlinger > Sent: 23 February 2008 02:13 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: a bad day for vaxen > > > well I've had a real bad day. > > My vax systems have been in storage for about a year, good storage, not > too much heat or cold or humidity but, I can't get any of them to > function the way I think they should. > > 4 vaxen (vaxstation 3100 m76, of which 2 are spx), an alpha (dec 3000 > model 310), and a vxt2000. I must be doing something wrong.I'm having a > very bad day. > and my vs 3100 model 30 seems to have vanished :( > > i tried with a null modem cable and with straight through, with 3 > different dec connect cables, and 3 different > (1 9pin, 1 25pin female, 1 25pin male) connectors, and can't get > anything on console. > with switch S3 up or down made no difference. and i'm not sure I'm > reading the LED status lights correctly. > i'm tired. :) > > I'm digging out a monitor so I can connect the video directly, with a > keyboard and mouse, but that's always fun. > > anyone in or around toronto with a working setup I could pop by one day > and hook up and see what's going on? > I'll double-check that after I try the video. > > none of the docs I've found specify if it's supposed to be null-modem or > straight through. > and I think I got it right by using the port with the little printer > symbol on it as console. > > the alpha I have has 25 pin female, and the vxt has 25 pin male, and the > vaxstations have what seems to be RJ12, can't they make these things > standard? > > _________________________________________________________________ > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ From legalize at xmission.com Sat Feb 23 11:27:35 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:27:35 -0700 Subject: a bad day for vaxen In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 23 Feb 2008 12:07:20 -0500. Message-ID: In article , Dan Gahlinger writes: > that doesnt help if my cables are bad :P Have you tested your cables? Hook an ohmmeter to each end and measure the connectivity of the wires. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Feb 23 11:27:46 2008 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:27:46 -0800 Subject: Q-bus SCSI Controllers RFI In-Reply-To: <1E2BDF951967414B9C46BA48F7AF97FB0118EDD9@exch-be09.exchange.local> References: <1E2BDF951967414B9C46BA48F7AF97FB0118EDD9@exch-be09.exchange.local> Message-ID: At 4:15 PM +0000 2/23/08, Martin Bishop wrote: >What I'm curious to know is: > >- What boards were made and which are commonly available > >e.g. DEC KZQSA, CMD CDQ-220, Dilog SQ706 ?, Emulex UC02 ?, Andromeda >SCDC-11 ?, ... > >- The relative (to SCSI 1) performance of each of the boards > >- Which boards are "dogs" : gotchas, tape only, unreliability / >electronics failures The Viking QDT (disk/tape also available as tape or disk only) aren't the fastest boards out there (I think those are the CMD boards), but they're good rock solid boards. With the most recent versions of firmware they should work good with a CD-ROM. While I use mine in PDP-11's, I'm thinking about putting one in a MicroVAX III (I want to move off RA72's and RA73's). I typically have Seagate 2GB Barracuda's, a Plextor 8x CD-ROM, and either a TZ30 or TLZ06 (4mm) attached. I've also used a 2x DEC CD-ROM, and IBM 100Mb and 200MB SCSI drives in the past. 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 legalize at xmission.com Sat Feb 23 11:32:12 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:32:12 -0700 Subject: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:03:32 -0500. Message-ID: In article , Robert Borsuk writes: > I've been watching that one too. I don't think that's monkey > business. Yeah, that's more than is typically offered in a crimson sale. Monitor, keyboard, cables, hard disk, CD drive, tape drive, IRIX 4.0.4b loaded. > I've noticed the SGI market has changed in the past year. > The systems just aren't as plentiful as they've use to be and parts > are getting harder to come by. When I bought my Crimson several years > ago I paid around $300 for it, and it was out dated then. Stuff goes up and down in price. Just like last year someone on this list had a Crimson they couldn't give away. They were in CO and I would have driven over and rescued it, but people always seem to offer this stuff in the dead middle of winter when I really don't want to be driving across the continental divide. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dgahling at hotmail.com Sat Feb 23 11:46:35 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 12:46:35 -0500 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? Message-ID: anyone do or know of anyone doing repairs on vaxstations? is this a lost art, and I should just buy another one off ebay or what? I'd love to find someone who did hardware repairs/engineering for dec or still knows the stuff. Thanks, Dan. _________________________________________________________________ From devonstopps at gmail.com Sat Feb 23 12:00:22 2008 From: devonstopps at gmail.com (Devon Stopps) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:00:22 -0500 Subject: Border US to CA (Was:Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff) In-Reply-To: <200802221800.m1MI0Prc099661@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20080223124608.02176f78@pop.gmail.com> I remember the discussion about bringing classic computers across the border from Canada to the USA, but, has anyone got any experiences going the other way? Any issues since many of these systems are USA country of origin? Especially with big iron, where you'd have a trailer or big truck... Devon ---------------------------Original Message----------------------------------- Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:06:08 -0700 From: Richard Subject: Fwd: [alt.sys.pdp11] Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff This message has been forwarded from Usenet. To reply to the original author, use the email address from the forwarded message. Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:38:28 +0100 (CET) Groups: alt.sys.pdp11 From: Jeff Davis Org: Aioe.org NNTP Server Subject: Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff Id: ======== Just fyi, it's not my auction, but there's a pdp-11/34 in two racks, a tape drive and large hard drives on ebay. Two days left, I figure somebody with a big truck wants to save it. I normally wouldn't post about an ebay auction, but this one doesn't mention pdp-11 in the auction title and seems to have been overlooked. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=120223434668 jdavis From dgahling at hotmail.com Sat Feb 23 12:11:37 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:11:37 -0500 Subject: Border US to CA (Was:Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff) In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.2.20080223124608.02176f78@pop.gmail.com> References: <200802221800.m1MI0Prc099661@dewey.classiccmp.org> <5.2.1.1.2.20080223124608.02176f78@pop.gmail.com> Message-ID: I've done this quite often. the best way is to have it shipped to a US depot (drop point) and pick it up then drive it over yourself. the other way is quite a bit of hassle sometimes, unless you have a good broker. maybe someone has better experience with that part than me, but I always drop ship, and pick it up US side. Canada customs is a pain in the you know what. :) Dan. ---------------------------------------- > Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:00:22 -0500 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > From: devonstopps at gmail.com > Subject: Border US to CA (Was:Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff) > > I remember the discussion about bringing classic computers across the > border from Canada to the USA, but, has anyone got any experiences going > the other way? Any issues since many of these systems are USA country of > origin? Especially with big iron, where you'd have a trailer or big truck... > > Devon > > ---------------------------Original Message----------------------------------- > Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:06:08 -0700 > From: Richard > Subject: Fwd: [alt.sys.pdp11] Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff > > This message has been forwarded from Usenet. To reply to the > original author, use the email address from the forwarded message. > > Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 07:38:28 +0100 (CET) > Groups: alt.sys.pdp11 > From: Jeff Davis > Org: Aioe.org NNTP Server > Subject: Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff > Id: > ======== > Just fyi, it's not my auction, but there's a pdp-11/34 in two racks, a tape > drive and large hard drives on ebay. Two days left, I figure somebody with > a big truck wants to save it. > > I normally wouldn't post about an ebay auction, but this one doesn't > mention pdp-11 in the auction title and seems to have been overlooked. > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=120223434668 > > jdavis > _________________________________________________________________ From Tim at Rikers.org Sat Feb 23 14:05:46 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:05:46 -0700 Subject: HP2100 MSU BASIC Message-ID: <47C07C9A.5080905@Rikers.org> I've gotten back to trying to get MSU BASIC running. My current edited sources are here: http://rikers.org/hp2100/22255.asm http://rikers.org/hp2100/22255mon.asm Here's a transcript: sim> g 30000 CLOCK I/O ADDRESS? 10 LOG TTY I/O ADDRESS? 12 NUMBER OF CHANNELS? 1 CHANNEL 1 TTY I/O ADDRESS? 11 CARD READER IN SYSTEM? YES OR NO: NO PHOTO READER IN SYSTEM? YES OR NO: YES PHOTOREADER I/O ADDRESS? 14 ENTER CODE-WORD TABLE ACCOUNT NUMBER? 0 CODE WORD? ROOT ACCOUNT NUMBER? /E ENTER INFORMATION TABLE 0 /E DECIMAL FREE CORE AVAILABLE: 8828 STANDARD FREE CORE IS DECIMAL 8828 ACCEPT STANDARD CORE? YES OR NO: YES PUNCH ABSOLUTE TAPE? YES OR NO: YES SYSTEM PUNCH DEVICE I/O ADDRESS? 13 HALT instruction 102077, P: 23420 (LIA 1) I have no idea what to enter in the "INFORMATION TABLE" so not sure that's right. Also not sure if my account information is valid. Running yields: sim> g 100 YEAR? 78 MONTH? 12 DAY? 12 TIME? 1212 YEAR? with then loops forever. Seems to be valid date info, but not sure why it's kicking me back into the loop. Anyone have docs on this? -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From jfoust at threedee.com Sat Feb 23 14:15:39 2008 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 14:15:39 -0600 Subject: Rescue: Burroughs Redactor Editing Typewriter Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20080223141507.04b1eaa8@mail.threedee.com> Respond to the person below. - John >From: "Neil Preston" >To: >Subject: Editing Typewriter >Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:40:24 -0600 > > >Are you interested in any further acquisitions for your computer collection? > >I have an old Burroughs Redactor Editing Typewriter (word processing system) consisting of a wide-carriage Selectric typewriter interfaced to a processor cabinet having two data cassette drives. The user would type their document while it was being recorded on the tape drive, and could later reprint it from the tape drive. There was no CRT. I also have a field maintenance manual and some additional information including a copy of a user reference guide, as well as a few data cassettes and ribbons. > >As I have no current use for it, I would be happy to donate it to a suitable organization as long as the receiver is willing to cover the costs of shipping. It would probably require crating and truck freight, as the cabinet measures approximately 17" x 17" x 32". > >I also have a couple of old Beehive model B103 data entry terminals (CRT with keyboard and RS-232 or current loop interface). > >If you have no interest, please consider forwarding the information to anyone you believe might be interested. If I can't find a home for them, they will be scrapped. > >I am located near Kansas City MO. You may contact me by phone at (816) 537-7242 > >Neil Preston, CET >Preston Electronics LLC >13413 Smart Road >Lee's Summit MO 64086 >(816) 537-7242 >http://www.PrestonElectronics.com > > > > > From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sat Feb 23 14:58:02 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 12:58:02 -0800 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <47BDB9D9.9020409@Rikers.org> <47BE904D.F08CF308@cs.ubc.ca> <47BF63DD.6060200@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <47C088DA.341D7402@cs.ubc.ca> Tim Riker wrote: > > Brent Hilpert wrote: > > I had a timing problem with the HST initially, it was resolved by sending 2 > > stop bits and now runs at 19200 bps. There's some explanation on: > > http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/io12531BCD.html > > if you haven't seen it already. I take it you're using a 12531C (HST) if you're > > running at 2400. If you're already sending 2 stop bits though .. wonder if the > > oscillator could have drifted far enough out to be a problem. > > Yes, I saw this before. I don't have my cable wired the same as yours. I > don't think my CSR/DSR/DCD go anyplace useful. Does your cable actually > get you valid CSR? or are you just forcing it? ie: you connect to "U - > +12V via 1k". I'll check the schematics, just have not yet. :) The resistor to +12 is provided on the 12531 board, I just made the connections to force CTS/DSR/DCD high in case one's terminal needs such. No, there's nothing in the way of flow-control going on. -- > > An 'A'! .. even better. Found your photos again, see you've effectively fixed > > the frame .. thank goodness for symmetry. I made schematics for 2116C power supply, > > should be largely applicable to the A, at least to get an idea of the organization, > > if of any help. > > There are schematics for the B power supply on page 5-91 of: > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/2116/02116-9153_2116B_Vol2_Oct70.pdf > > You've seen that I presume? Yes, I used that in part as I RE'd the C power supply. I was in a similar situation to you, I didn't have the manuals specifically for the C but (eventually) found the B manuals on bitsavers. (I'll claim my schematic is layed out more sensibly, but that's just my opinion .. depends on one's preferences.) > That's what I'm working off. Al was trying > to track down an A version of Vol2 that he though he had, I've not heard > back on it. I could really use this if someone out there has it. :) > > I was lead to believe that the C (perhaps only later C's?) used a > switching power supply. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that there are > different voltage outputs required for the A, B and C due to the > different core memory designs. From what I understand: > > The A has 1 or 2 vertical 4kw stacks > > The B has 1 or 2 horizontal 8kw stacks > > The C has no stacks, but uses HP-2100[AS] compatible core cards > > Both the A and B can use a 2nd chassis to add 1 or 2 more stacks. The C > can fit enough cards to take it to 32kw internally. The C still used linear but - as you suggest - with some voltage mods for the changed core memory. The 2100's were the first to use switchers, TMK. The B used anti-coincident addressing with the core, and I believe this is how it achieved the doubling of memory capacity over the A. There may have been little or no change to the power supply from the A to the B, as anti-coincident addressing just requires (in principle) a little twiddling with the address decoding. If you're working on your A again sometime, I would be interested in some information regarding board part numbers to fill out some of the question marks on http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/HP2116.html regarding the 'A' model, for the sake of comprehensiveness. Correlating some of these part numbers from your A with those of the B might help resolve whether or not there are any differences in the power supplies between the two. (The above page has a list of board part numbers.) Specifically: Power Supply board A301 Power Supply board A302 Sense Amplifier Inhibit Driver Address Driver Too bad about the missing blinkenlights cover .. need to find a real junker to get one from, or, in the realm of plastics and silk-screening, it might not be too difficult to recreate one. From rborsuk at colourfull.com Sat Feb 23 16:31:06 2008 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:31:06 -0500 Subject: Border US to CA (Was:Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff) In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.2.20080223124608.02176f78@pop.gmail.com> References: <5.2.1.1.2.20080223124608.02176f78@pop.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9EE631B3-CC2B-4D40-8513-2B9D0F7A855F@colourfull.com> You have to go to a broker and get bonded. It's a big hassle. I brought some DG equipment across about 2 years ago. You also have to cross at the truck bridges. Rob On Feb 23, 2008, at 1:00 PM, Devon Stopps wrote: > I remember the discussion about bringing classic computers across > the border from Canada to the USA, but, has anyone got any > experiences going the other way? Any issues since many of these > systems are USA country of origin? Especially with big iron, where > you'd have a trailer or big truck... > > Devon From Tim at Rikers.org Sat Feb 23 17:16:36 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:16:36 -0700 Subject: HP2100 MSU BASIC In-Reply-To: <47C07C9A.5080905@Rikers.org> References: <47C07C9A.5080905@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <47C0A954.7060705@Rikers.org> Tim Riker wrote: > with then loops forever. Seems to be valid date info, but not sure why > it's kicking me back into the loop. Looks like Jay and I already had this conversation. :/ The information block does appear to be a motd or similar. I'm still looping on the date input. I've traced the code as far as 37377 which does a "return" to 2543 35075 114113 JSB REED,I GET KEYBOARD INPUT from there I end up at address 0 Not messed with IRQ driven input on these machine yet. That appears to be the issue. Ideas on what to look for next? -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From jdbryan at acm.org Sat Feb 23 17:30:24 2008 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 18:30:24 -0500 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47BFCB4E.10107@Rikers.org> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org>, <200802212259.m1LMxW2x017654@mail.bcpl.net>, <47BFCB4E.10107@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <200802232330.m1NNUJxL019372@mail.bcpl.net> On 23 Feb 2008 at 0:29, Tim Riker wrote: > Well, you were close. :) The card edge connector from the cable on the > front panel has some pins that barely touch. I thought I was closer than that -- I had written, "Perhaps the ribbon cable from the front panel to the CPU is bad." :-) > Anyone recommend a place to order a replacement the 50 pin card edge > connector? Digi-Key may have a complete replacement cable; I'll have to look at my 2108B on Monday when I get to work. But, from memory, the cable has a 50 pin IDC edge connector on one end and a four-row IDC "transition" connector on the other that's soldered into the board. Part number C3PET-5006G-ND might be it. But you'd have to unsolder the 50-pin transition connector from the front panel PCB. It'd be easier to cut off and replace the edge connector, I believe. The OEM part for the edge connector is 3M part number 3415-0001. > I suppose I could cut one off the end of the memory card cable.... Very unlikely to work, I'm afraid. Those are pretty much one-time assembly connectors, and I've had very poor luck in separating the two parts of the connector, removing the old cable bit, and reusing it. Nine times out of ten, I'd wreck the connector in getting it apart (most often, I'd wind up pulling one of the IDC pins out with the cable bit). Much better to try a new one. On 23 Feb 2008 at 8:17, Glen Slick wrote: > ...there might be enough extra length in the cable to cut of the bad > connector and press on a new 50-pin card edge connector. I think that's the way to go here. > The first couple of times I tried building some IDC cables without > proper tools I ruined a couple of connectors and a couple of inches of > cable. I'll second that. With an arbor press and mandrels designed for to receive the connector halves, it goes together easily. If you have to use Vise- Grips, it's quite difficult. A bench vise with smooth jaw faces is a bit better if you do things slowly and carefully and ensure that the parts and the cable line up correctly as you squeeze them together. It takes quite a bit of force to punch through 50 conductors simultaneously. -- Dave From pat at computer-refuge.org Sat Feb 23 18:16:28 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:16:28 -0500 Subject: Border US to CA (Was:Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff) In-Reply-To: <9EE631B3-CC2B-4D40-8513-2B9D0F7A855F@colourfull.com> References: <5.2.1.1.2.20080223124608.02176f78@pop.gmail.com> <9EE631B3-CC2B-4D40-8513-2B9D0F7A855F@colourfull.com> Message-ID: <200802231916.28413.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Saturday 23 February 2008 17:31, Robert Borsuk wrote: > You have to go to a broker and get bonded. It's a big hassle. I > brought some DG equipment across about 2 years ago. You also have to > cross at the truck bridges. I'd suggest that you talk to Dan Cohoe. He's made several trips bringing things both ways across the border, and said that he usually gets through without any questions. Generally, once the customs agents see how old the things are, they realize how worthless they are now. ;) I guess it'd probably be different if you were driving a semi, though. Pat > > On Feb 23, 2008, at 1:00 PM, Devon Stopps wrote: > > I remember the discussion about bringing classic computers across > > the border from Canada to the USA, but, has anyone got any > > experiences going the other way? Any issues since many of these > > systems are USA country of origin? Especially with big iron, where > > you'd have a trailer or big truck... > > > > Devon -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From rborsuk at colourfull.com Sat Feb 23 18:32:52 2008 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:32:52 -0500 Subject: Border US to CA (Was:Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff) In-Reply-To: <200802231916.28413.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <5.2.1.1.2.20080223124608.02176f78@pop.gmail.com> <9EE631B3-CC2B-4D40-8513-2B9D0F7A855F@colourfull.com> <200802231916.28413.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <4F3E1885-F63C-4BE6-AE3D-F20A4662246D@colourfull.com> I was using my landrover and a trailer. I live about 20 minutes from Canada so we cross the border more then most people in the states (casinos are on the opposite side). Hauling large equipment is taken pretty seriously by the customs / border guys. At one point coming back they escorted my family and I out of the vehicle right at the customs both (this was when I was hauling the DG equipment back). They brought us inside while they took the rover and equipment over to do an inspection on it. You can do it, I just don't know how much it's worth the trouble. I don't think I would do it again unless the equipment was pretty rare or pretty expensive. Rob On Feb 23, 2008, at 7:16 PM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Saturday 23 February 2008 17:31, Robert Borsuk wrote: >> You have to go to a broker and get bonded. It's a big hassle. I >> brought some DG equipment across about 2 years ago. You also have to >> cross at the truck bridges. > > I'd suggest that you talk to Dan Cohoe. > > He's made several trips bringing things both ways across the border, > and > said that he usually gets through without any questions. Generally, > once the customs agents see how old the things are, they realize how > worthless they are now. ;) > > I guess it'd probably be different if you were driving a semi, though. > > Pat From legalize at xmission.com Sat Feb 23 19:12:22 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 18:12:22 -0700 Subject: Fwd: [alt.sys.pdp11] eBay: PDP11 cards, RK06 stuff, core memory Message-ID: This message has been forwarded from Usenet. To reply to the original author, use the email address from the forwarded message. Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:55:56 +0000 Groups: alt.sys.pdp11 From: info2008 at parse.com (Robert Krten) Org: UseNetServer.com Subject: eBay: PDP11 cards, RK06 stuff, core memory Id: ======== Continuing with the cleanup, I have the following items up on eBay: Item # Description 130200228627 PDP-11 boards M105, M234, M7228, M7800YA, M7810, M782, M7821, M7850, M7856(3), M7859, M7860(3), M7941, M7944, M8047, M8186, M8192, M9301YF, M9401, M971 (Total 23) 130200218825 H214 8k x 16 core memory 130200220702 H222/G652 (MM11DP) 16k x 18 core memory 130200217482 RK06 Operator Control Panel (2) 130200271249 RK06 Boards (Total 14) 130200277362 PDP-11 Third Party boards (Total 24) 130200500053 PDP-11 AAV11K 4 Channel 12-bit DAC More next week as I continue the cleanup. Cheers, -RK -- Robert Krten, PDP-8 collector looking for PDP-8 and PDP-8/S minicomputers; check out their "good home" at www.pdp12.org From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Feb 23 19:14:26 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:14:26 -0800 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <200802232330.m1NNUJxL019372@mail.bcpl.net> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org>, <200802212259.m1LMxW2x017654@mail.bcpl.net>, <47BFCB4E.10107@Rikers.org> <200802232330.m1NNUJxL019372@mail.bcpl.net> Message-ID: > From: jdbryan at acm.org snip > > I'll second that. With an arbor press and mandrels designed for to receive > the connector halves, it goes together easily. If you have to use Vise- > Grips, it's quite difficult. A bench vise with smooth jaw faces is a bit > better if you do things slowly and carefully and ensure that the parts and > the cable line up correctly as you squeeze them together. It takes quite a > bit of force to punch through 50 conductors simultaneously. > > -- Dave > Hi It can be done with visegrips but you need to support the entire length of the connector. Two Iron flat stocks should work. I like to us a bench vise with a couple pieces of flat stock if I don't have smooth jaws on the vise. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging.?You IM, we give. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join From cclist at sydex.com Sat Feb 23 19:45:50 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 17:45:50 -0800 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <200802232330.m1NNUJxL019372@mail.bcpl.net> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org>, <47BFCB4E.10107@Rikers.org>, <200802232330.m1NNUJxL019372@mail.bcpl.net> Message-ID: <47C05BCE.5670.BF816BE@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Feb 2008 at 18:30, J. David Bryan wrote: > I'll second that. With an arbor press and mandrels designed for to receive > the connector halves, it goes together easily. If you have to use Vise- > Grips, it's quite difficult. A bench vise with smooth jaw faces is a bit > better if you do things slowly and carefully and ensure that the parts and > the cable line up correctly as you squeeze them together. It takes quite a > bit of force to punch through 50 conductors simultaneously. Even a cheapie hand press, such as Jameco 73252 (Hanlong IDC Crimping Tool) at $16 will pay for itself in connections not botched. The problem with a Vise-Grip or any sort of pliers is that the jaws move in an arc, meaning that one side gets more pressure than the other. Unless you're very careful, you can end up bending some of the pins. A bench or woodworker's vise with both jaws faced by wood or plastic (say, ABS or HDPE) will work in a pinch, particularly if you can rabbet a slot in one side to hold the connector. Most bench vises have patterned hard steel jaws which, if not faced with softer material, will leave an impression in the connector body and could possibly deform the pin holes. A good size woodworker's clamp might also do the trick (I haven't tried it, having a hand press in my toolkit). Leave a little excess cable poking through the connector and flush- trim with a fresh utility- or X-acto knife for a nice-looking job. That's the way I do it, anyway. Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Feb 23 20:17:20 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 21:17:20 -0500 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47C05BCE.5670.BF816BE@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <200802232330.m1NNUJxL019372@mail.bcpl.net> <47C05BCE.5670.BF816BE@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200802232117.20512.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 23 February 2008 20:45, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 23 Feb 2008 at 18:30, J. David Bryan wrote: > > I'll second that. With an arbor press and mandrels designed for to > > receive the connector halves, it goes together easily. If you have to > > use Vise- Grips, it's quite difficult. A bench vise with smooth jaw > > faces is a bit better if you do things slowly and carefully and ensure > > that the parts and the cable line up correctly as you squeeze them > > together. It takes quite a bit of force to punch through 50 conductors > > simultaneously. > > Even a cheapie hand press, such as Jameco 73252 (Hanlong IDC Crimping > Tool) at $16 will pay for itself in connections not botched. The > problem with a Vise-Grip or any sort of pliers is that the jaws move > in an arc, meaning that one side gets more pressure than the other. > Unless you're very careful, you can end up bending some of the pins. I have a pair here, I just looked at 'em, and the only markings I see that would indicate a model or part number say "6SP" -- and the nifty thing is that they have pads on the ends of the jaws that swivel, so that with proper adjustment they'd do exactly the job needed. :-) -- 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 Feb 23 20:39:02 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 18:39:02 -0800 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <200802232117.20512.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org>, <47C05BCE.5670.BF816BE@cclist.sydex.com>, <200802232117.20512.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <47C06846.22293.C28CB4C@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Feb 2008 at 21:17, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > I have a pair here, I just looked at 'em, and the only markings I see that > would indicate a model or part number say "6SP" -- and the nifty thing is > that they have pads on the ends of the jaws that swivel, so that with proper > adjustment they'd do exactly the job needed. :-) The only one I've ever seen in nearly 20 years is the Hanlong HT-214, even with GC or Eagle branding on it. See: http://www.hanlong.com.tw/largeimages/16/16a.htm Prices all over the place--Jameco at $15.95 is the cheapest that I'm able to find. Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Feb 23 21:03:29 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:03:29 -0500 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47C06846.22293.C28CB4C@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <200802232117.20512.rtellason@verizon.net> <47C06846.22293.C28CB4C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200802232203.29682.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 23 February 2008 21:39, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 23 Feb 2008 at 21:17, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > I have a pair here, I just looked at 'em, and the only markings I see > > that would indicate a model or part number say "6SP" -- and the nifty > > thing is that they have pads on the ends of the jaws that swivel, so > > that with proper adjustment they'd do exactly the job needed. :-) > > The only one I've ever seen in nearly 20 years is the Hanlong HT-214, > even with GC or Eagle branding on it. See: > > http://www.hanlong.com.tw/largeimages/16/16a.htm > > Prices all over the place--Jameco at $15.95 is the cheapest that I'm > able to find. Looks good. But that's not what I have on hand here, which looks more like this: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/11z1zBFKbBL._AA160_.jpg -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From silent700 at gmail.com Sat Feb 23 21:18:08 2008 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 21:18:08 -0600 Subject: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <51ea77730802231918t2f0e97c0t3ab808c0bdc183f7@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 11:32 AM, Richard wrote: > > I've been watching that one too. I don't think that's monkey > > business. > > Yeah, that's more than is typically offered in a crimson sale. > Monitor, keyboard, cables, hard disk, CD drive, tape drive, IRIX > 4.0.4b loaded. Well the sale looks legit. The buyer has purchased a lot of other SGI stuff. Can't tell from the ad what gfx package it had, but it's not the 'Jurassic Classic.' Anyone want to buy a Crimson? ;) From cclist at sydex.com Sat Feb 23 21:29:03 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:29:03 -0800 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <200802232203.29682.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org>, <47C06846.22293.C28CB4C@cclist.sydex.com>, <200802232203.29682.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <47C073FF.21903.C5696A4@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Feb 2008 at 22:03, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > Looks good. But that's not what I have on hand here, which looks more like > this: > > http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/11z1zBFKbBL._AA160_.jpg Ah, the Vise-grip C-clamp. There's also a Pony clamp that's a work- alike. If you wanted to go a notch up, I recall seeing this thing at my favorite Cheap Chinese Tool Store: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=3552 With some modification, that'd work pretty well, it seems to me. Might be useful for other things as well, depending on your inclinations. Make one heckuva walnut cracker... Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at verizon.net Sat Feb 23 21:40:49 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:40:49 -0500 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47C073FF.21903.C5696A4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <200802232203.29682.rtellason@verizon.net> <47C073FF.21903.C5696A4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200802232240.49267.rtellason@verizon.net> On Saturday 23 February 2008 22:29, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 23 Feb 2008 at 22:03, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > Looks good. But that's not what I have on hand here, which looks more > > like this: > > > > http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/11z1zBFKbBL._AA160_.jpg > > Ah, the Vise-grip C-clamp. There's also a Pony clamp that's a work- > alike. If you wanted to go a notch up, I recall seeing this thing at > my favorite Cheap Chinese Tool Store: > > http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=3552 > > With some modification, that'd work pretty well, it seems to me. > Might be useful for other things as well, depending on your > inclinations. Make one heckuva walnut cracker... Yeah it would. Dunno if I'd wanna clean up the mess afterwards, though. :-) The other thing I've used is a small vise, with some padding on the jaws, as others have mentioned. I don't do a *lot* of those connectors, though some years back I got a box of 36-pin "centronics" type and some ribbon cable. I don't think I used 'em all up, though. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From pat at computer-refuge.org Sat Feb 23 21:58:23 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:58:23 -0500 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47C05BCE.5670.BF816BE@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org> <200802232330.m1NNUJxL019372@mail.bcpl.net> <47C05BCE.5670.BF816BE@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200802232258.23984.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Saturday 23 February 2008 20:45, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 23 Feb 2008 at 18:30, J. David Bryan wrote: > > I'll second that. With an arbor press and mandrels designed for to > > receive the connector halves, it goes together easily. If you have > > to use Vise- Grips, it's quite difficult. A bench vise with smooth > > jaw faces is a bit better if you do things slowly and carefully and > > ensure that the parts and the cable line up correctly as you > > squeeze them together. It takes quite a bit of force to punch > > through 50 conductors simultaneously. > > Even a cheapie hand press, such as Jameco 73252 (Hanlong IDC Crimping > Tool) at $16 will pay for itself in connections not botched. The > problem with a Vise-Grip or any sort of pliers is that the jaws move > in an arc, meaning that one side gets more pressure than the other. > Unless you're very careful, you can end up bending some of the pins. After buying a proper IDC crimper, I couldn't figure out why I would have ever tried to use something else to crimp the connectors, especially considering how inexpensive it was, and how much easier it was to crimp connectors without fouling them up. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sat Feb 23 22:02:52 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 20:02:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 22 Feb 2008, dwight elvey wrote: > Hi David > I'd see if eBay would let you postpone the auction for a few weeks. > Buyer tend to get suspicious of auctions that get pulled. Even if it > isn't the sellers fault. Those on this list know you but not all the > bidders are on this list. Dwight When they yanked the auction, everything about it, particularly the bidders list, was erased. Oh well. I put a note at the bottom of the new auction explaining what happened. -- 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 john at guntersville.net Sat Feb 23 22:09:08 2008 From: john at guntersville.net (John C. Ellingboe) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:09:08 -0600 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47C073FF.21903.C5696A4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47B8B614.7010600@Rikers.org>, <47C06846.22293.C28CB4C@cclist.sydex.com>, <200802232203.29682.rtellason@verizon.net> <47C073FF.21903.C5696A4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C0EDE4.1000101@guntersville.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 23 Feb 2008 at 22:03, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > >>Looks good. But that's not what I have on hand here, which looks more like >>this: >> >>http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/11z1zBFKbBL._AA160_.jpg > > > Ah, the Vise-grip C-clamp. There's also a Pony clamp that's a work- > alike. If you wanted to go a notch up, I recall seeing this thing at > my favorite Cheap Chinese Tool Store: > > http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=3552 > > With some modification, that'd work pretty well, it seems to me. > Might be useful for other things as well, depending on your > inclinations. Make one heckuva walnut cracker... > > Cheers, > Chuck > > Maybe for English walnuts but it wouldn't stand up to real (black) walnuts. Might not even last until the water got hot. From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Feb 23 23:44:38 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:44:38 -0500 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <255733564dab87d52dd5138b06195413@neurotica.com> On Feb 23, 2008, at 12:46 PM, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > anyone do or know of anyone doing repairs on vaxstations? > is this a lost art, and I should just buy another one off ebay or what? > > I'd love to find someone who did hardware repairs/engineering for dec > or still knows the stuff. It's far from a lost art; anyone with reasonable electronics skills can work on those machines. The problem is the lack of in-depth hardware documentation like schematics. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From marvin at west.net Sat Feb 23 23:55:22 2008 From: marvin at west.net (Marvin Johnston) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 21:55:22 -0800 Subject: EBAY Alternatives, was Re: eBay Monkey Business Message-ID: <47C106CA.48D1F63F@west.net> I stopped selling on ebay before the January 29th announcment and am totally disgusted with what passes for management. (major rant deleted) Search youtube for ebay boycott or ebay strike and there are a number of "editorials" there as well. I suggested to Sellam that NOW would be a good time to get the Vintage Computer Marketplace back online, but it hasn't happened yet. Since I haven't kept track, are there other classic computer related places to buy and sell? A "yes" answer should be followed by the sites URL :). > In case you all had not noticed, there was a major change at Ebay this > week. Google for details. > > Also, there is a good sized strike amongst sellers this week as well. > Some decided just not to sell. Some decided to shut down their stores. > And some have decided to play games, just to play games with Ebay's > bean counters. > > The best thing to do this week, and most of next, is to just NOT USE > Ebay for EITHER buying OR selling. > > -- > Will From cclist at sydex.com Sun Feb 24 00:07:25 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:07:25 -0800 Subject: Vintage boxes sighted Message-ID: <47C0991D.9096.CE78F75@cclist.sydex.com> Warning: This posting involves relatively common personal computers made after 1980, but before 1990. All are at Shopgoodwill.com A Panasonic JR-200U http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=3402062 A TRS-80 Model III http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=3391436 A couple of Cocos... http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=3404062 http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=3404088 A Compaq portable: http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=3404280 A Franklin Ace: http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=3404304 Sorry if I've pointed to anything commonplace and obvious. I'll try my best not to do it in the future. Cheers, Chuck From tosteve at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 03:09:32 2008 From: tosteve at yahoo.com (steven stengel) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 01:09:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: Craigslist - Digital PDP-1123 - Lincoln, NE Message-ID: <246659.84637.qm@web51606.mail.re2.yahoo.com> http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/sys/580456982.html ------------------------------------------------ Digital PDP-1123 (vintage) Reply to: sale-580456982 at craigslist.org Date: 2008-02-20, 8:25AM PST Digital (for you kids, that's a brand) PDP-1123 CPU, four Digital RL-02 drives and disks. Rack mounted. Taken out of service 15 or so years ago, worked at the time. This is a collectors item. Location: Lincoln, NE --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. From dave06a at dunfield.com Sun Feb 24 05:57:37 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 06:57:37 -0500 Subject: a bad day for vaxen In-Reply-To: References: <980C9C3454F@dunfield.com> Message-ID: > yeah I dont have a dremel, and I'm not good that way. It's not as hard as you might think - all you need to do is grind down one side of the connector - you can do this with a file... I usually use a disk sander because the table gives me a nice straight edge - then I dress the edges with flush cutters. All you need the dremel for is to "adjust" the tab because the one on an ethernet connector is too wide. Another solution is to use a 6-conductor RJ-11 phone cable, and simply cut off the tab - this doesn't lock in, however it works well enough for testing purposes. > it'd be best if I could just test some known good cables If you have a multimeter or continuity tester, you can buzz out your cables and see if they work. The pinout I sent should give you a prerry good idea of what should go where. > even with a monitor hooked up, and let it wait over 5 minutes I got nothing. > even 15 minutes and still nothing. Definately should have seen something by then. > one system I get a "blue" screen and thats it > on another i get the color test patterns, then nothing > the third i get a black screen and monitor says its receiving no signal. Have you checked the position of the console switch? Also, some VAXen require certain pins bridged on the console connector. What are the status lights doing? They will tell you how far it gets into it's startup routine. 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 dave06a at dunfield.com Sun Feb 24 06:02:18 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 07:02:18 -0500 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > anyone do or know of anyone doing repairs on vaxstations? > is this a lost art, and I should just buy another one off ebay or what? > > I'd love to find someone who did hardware repairs/engineering for dec or still knows the stuff. Hi Dan, Any chance you ever got up to Ottawa? I'm not a DEC repair guy, but I'm pretty good with these kinds of things, and I'd be happy to take a look at the systems for you. Re: Recovering your data... I'd probably install a fresh VMS on one of the working VAXen, and then mount your drive after the system is booted. I've found that booting a drive from one system on another doesn't always work all that well - depending on what hardware specific drivers are being loaded. Another thing you could do is read it into an image and access it under SIMH. Dave PS: You mentioned a "password problem" - it's not hard to recover the password on a VMS system when you have access to the hardware console... -- 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 jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Sun Feb 24 06:52:30 2008 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 07:52:30 -0500 Subject: Border US to CA (Was:Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff) In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.2.20080223124608.02176f78@pop.gmail.com> References: <5.2.1.1.2.20080223124608.02176f78@pop.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C1688E.5080906@compsys.to> >Devon Stopps wrote: > I remember the discussion about bringing classic computers across the > border from Canada to the USA, but, has anyone got any experiences > going the other way? Any issues since many of these systems are USA > country of origin? Especially with big iron, where you'd have a > trailer or big truck... Jerome Fine replies: The only time I remember going from USA to Canada was with a BA123 and about 5 VT100 terminals. This was about 10 years ago and everything was caked with dirt. I had a bill of sale for $10 - which in this case had been the absolute truth since the company needed a record of sale showing that the hardware had been sold. All the hardware was in the back seat and the trunk of a full size car. Since all the hardware at that point was already about 15 years old, Canada Customs (at Detroit / Windsor) just allowed it trough with no duty. They seemed more concerned about getting their hands dirty than anything else. By the way, I can't remember the Canada to USA deal. What are the criteria? I might want to bring some stuff to a meeting in Ohio this summer - probably 3 or 4 BA23 boxes with working systems. The stuff would be about 20 years old at this point. I am in Toronto and no one seems to want to pick the stuff up - and a BA23 is too heavy to ship. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year. From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Sun Feb 24 06:53:17 2008 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 07:53:17 -0500 Subject: Q-bus SCSI Controllers RFI In-Reply-To: References: <1E2BDF951967414B9C46BA48F7AF97FB0118EDD9@exch-be09.exchange.local> Message-ID: <47C168BD.6060202@compsys.to> >Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 4:15 PM +0000 2/23/08, Martin Bishop wrote: > >> What I'm curious to know is: >> >> - What boards were made and which are commonly available >> >> e.g. DEC KZQSA, CMD CDQ-220, Dilog SQ706 ?, Emulex UC02 ?, Andromeda >> SCDC-11 ?, ... >> >> - The relative (to SCSI 1) performance of each of the boards >> >> - Which boards are "dogs" : gotchas, tape only, unreliability / >> electronics failures > > > The Viking QDT (disk/tape also available as tape or disk only) aren't > the fastest boards out there (I think those are the CMD boards), but > they're good rock solid boards. With the most recent versions of > firmware they should work good with a CD-ROM. While I use mine in > PDP-11's, I'm thinking about putting one in a MicroVAX III (I want to > move off RA72's and RA73's). I typically have Seagate 2GB > Barracuda's, a Plextor 8x CD-ROM, and either a TZ30 or TLZ06 (4mm) > attached. I've also used a 2x DEC CD-ROM, and IBM 100Mb and 200MB > SCSI drives in the past. Jerome Fine replies: I have never found a CDROM that was usable - never tried that hard. I have had good experience for disk drives with the CQD-220/TM and a friend of mine with the UC07 (if I remember the number - I don't think it was the UC02, but I could be wrong). The Dilog SQ706A did not work, but that was 15 years ago when it was brand new and there was a firmware bug - which Dilog knew about, but would not fix promptly enough to use. Actually the CQD220/TM had the same firmware problem, but I had a fixed working EPROM with the revised firmware in 2 weeks! In both cases, the bug was a buffer which overlapped a 256 KByte boundary in physical memory on the Qbus. Since my test program used 6 * 24 KByte buffers, there was a high probability that one buffer would overlap a 256 KByte boundary. 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 ethan.dicks at usap.gov Sun Feb 24 07:21:19 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:21:19 +0000 Subject: Border US to CA (Was:Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff) In-Reply-To: <47C1688E.5080906@compsys.to> References: <5.2.1.1.2.20080223124608.02176f78@pop.gmail.com> <47C1688E.5080906@compsys.to> Message-ID: <20080224132119.GA31794@usap.gov> On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 07:52:30AM -0500, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > By the way, I can't remember the Canada to USA deal. What > are the criteria? I might want to bring some stuff to a > meeting in Ohio this summer - probably 3 or 4 BA23 boxes > with working systems. The stuff would be about 20 years > old at this point. I am in Toronto and no one seems to > want to pick the stuff up - and a BA23 is too heavy to > ship. I brought back a PDP-8 from Canada a few years back with no hassle. Fortunately, it had "Manyard, Massachusetts" in a prominent location on the face. We crossed in upstate New York, if it matters (not Detroit or Niagra). It was also only one box; probably not enough to get them to raise an eyebrow. In the end, it's U.S. equipment coming back to the U.S., so there should be no duty, old or not. Documentation, of course, is the key, should there be a question about the gear. Sorry I won't be in Ohio when you are coming through. If you'll be down 12 months from now, that's a different story. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 24-Feb-2008 at 13:10 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -45.9 F (-43.3 C) Windchill -71.8 F (-57.7 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 8.0 kts Grid 82 Barometer 684.3 mb (10466 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From silent700 at gmail.com Sun Feb 24 07:55:21 2008 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 07:55:21 -0600 Subject: Vintage boxes sighted In-Reply-To: <47C0991D.9096.CE78F75@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47C0991D.9096.CE78F75@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <51ea77730802240555v33f3558du11eb5eeccaaf4d2c@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 12:07 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Sorry if I've pointed to anything commonplace and obvious. I'll try > my best not to do it in the future. I think these are all worthy of note. Interesting, too, that most of them are from the Toledo store. Maybe a collector dumped his extras? From silent700 at gmail.com Sun Feb 24 07:57:54 2008 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 07:57:54 -0600 Subject: Vintage boxes sighted In-Reply-To: <51ea77730802240555v33f3558du11eb5eeccaaf4d2c@mail.gmail.com> References: <47C0991D.9096.CE78F75@cclist.sydex.com> <51ea77730802240555v33f3558du11eb5eeccaaf4d2c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <51ea77730802240557i3440fa8fqae4c8b42960b445c@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 7:55 AM, Jason T wrote: > I think these are all worthy of note. Interesting, too, that most of > them are from the Toledo store. Maybe a collector dumped his extras? Here's a CoCo MC-10 from the same store: http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=3402328 From mjd.bishop at emeritus-solutions.com Sun Feb 24 09:04:40 2008 From: mjd.bishop at emeritus-solutions.com (Martin Bishop) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:04:40 -0000 Subject: a bad day for vaxen References: <980C9C3454F@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <1E2BDF951967414B9C46BA48F7AF97FB0118EDFD@exch-be09.exchange.local> MMJ connectors ex-stock (in the UK), acutally four flavours (doubtless flat/round x solid/stranded). Also, the (US) OEMs details are given. http://uk.farnell.com/429790/connectors/product.us0?sku=STEWART-CONNECTO R-937-SP-3066-OST Regarding stw of 3100 - it's usually best to get them going on the console before stw the video - there is a motherboard switch (accessible from the rear of the case) which configures whether the console is the video or the serial port. Finger trouble is not uncommon and the switches aparent position may be a false indication (i.e. check the manual and re-make the switch). - VS3100 cables use the same connector as uVII cab kit (and maybe other things). However, they do not use the same internal wiring. At a minimum check the part numbers against the manual. It is best to scope what comes out of the BNCs, to identify continuity and sync. And, of course the monitor has to be happy with the video signal (sync on green and Hx / Vt rates). HtH Martin -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave Dunfield Sent: 24 February 2008 11:58 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: a bad day for vaxen > yeah I dont have a dremel, and I'm not good that way. It's not as hard as you might think - all you need to do is grind down one side of the connector - you can do this with a file... I usually use a disk sander because the table gives me a nice straight edge - then I dress the edges with flush cutters. All you need the dremel for is to "adjust" the tab because the one on an ethernet connector is too wide. Another solution is to use a 6-conductor RJ-11 phone cable, and simply cut off the tab - this doesn't lock in, however it works well enough for testing purposes. > it'd be best if I could just test some known good cables If you have a multimeter or continuity tester, you can buzz out your cables and see if they work. The pinout I sent should give you a prerry good idea of what should go where. > even with a monitor hooked up, and let it wait over 5 minutes I got nothing. > even 15 minutes and still nothing. Definately should have seen something by then. > one system I get a "blue" screen and thats it > on another i get the color test patterns, then nothing > the third i get a black screen and monitor says its receiving no signal. Have you checked the position of the console switch? Also, some VAXen require certain pins bridged on the console connector. What are the status lights doing? They will tell you how far it gets into it's startup routine. 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 dgahling at hotmail.com Sun Feb 24 09:32:35 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 10:32:35 -0500 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'll check out SIMH. actually my Linux system claims it can read a vms drive. that'd be rather interesting. as for the password, yes I know the routine, except the stubborn system doesnt want to accept it. I follow all the steps, run authorize, change the password. but when i try to login with it, it says its not correct. 2 possibilities, either the license is no good (its a new one), they put the units=0 which bothers me. or the pwdchange=pre-expired is the culprit. Dan. ---------------------------------------- > From: dave06a at dunfield.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 07:02:18 -0500 > Subject: Re: anyone do vaxstation repairs? > >> >> anyone do or know of anyone doing repairs on vaxstations? >> is this a lost art, and I should just buy another one off ebay or what? >> >> I'd love to find someone who did hardware repairs/engineering for dec or still knows the stuff. > > Hi Dan, > > Any chance you ever got up to Ottawa? > > I'm not a DEC repair guy, but I'm pretty good with these kinds of things, and I'd > be happy to take a look at the systems for you. > > Re: Recovering your data... I'd probably install a fresh VMS on one of the working > VAXen, and then mount your drive after the system is booted. I've found that booting > a drive from one system on another doesn't always work all that well - depending on > what hardware specific drivers are being loaded. Another thing you could do is read > it into an image and access it under SIMH. > > Dave > > PS: You mentioned a "password problem" - it's not hard to recover the password on > a VMS system when you have access to the hardware console... > > -- > 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 dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Feb 24 11:26:54 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 09:26:54 -0800 Subject: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> > On Fri, 22 Feb 2008, dwight elvey wrote:> > > Hi David> > > I'd see if eBay would let you postpone the auction for a few weeks.> > Buyer tend to get suspicious of auctions that get pulled. Even if it> > isn't the sellers fault. Those on this list know you but not all the> > bidders are on this list. Dwight> > When they yanked the auction, everything about it, particularly the> bidders list, was erased. Oh well. I put a note at the bottom of the> new auction explaining what happened.> Hi David That should help but If I were to bid on an item that might go over $1K, I'd be a little more resistant to bidding on an item that had been placed several times. I suspect others would have similar feelings. It would be good if the idiots that fall for the simple phishing emails would wise up. I never look at anything that isn't what I seen by going to their web page first. Anything else is most likely phishing. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Need to know the score, the latest news, or you need your Hotmail?-get your "fix". http://www.msnmobilefix.com/Default.aspx From cclist at sydex.com Sun Feb 24 12:31:44 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 10:31:44 -0800 Subject: Vintage boxes sighted In-Reply-To: <51ea77730802240557i3440fa8fqae4c8b42960b445c@mail.gmail.com> References: <47C0991D.9096.CE78F75@cclist.sydex.com>, <51ea77730802240555v33f3558du11eb5eeccaaf4d2c@mail.gmail.com>, <51ea77730802240557i3440fa8fqae4c8b42960b445c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C14790.15881.F90FF41@cclist.sydex.com> On 24 Feb 2008 at 7:57, Jason T wrote: > I think these are all worthy of note. Interesting, too, that most of > them are from the Toledo store. Maybe a collector dumped his extras? What caught my eye was the Panasonic box. If I were a collector, it might be very appealing as a not-very-common home computer. Cheers, Chuck From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Feb 24 12:43:00 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:43:00 -0500 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200802241343.00398.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Sunday 24 February 2008 10:32, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > I'll check out SIMH. > actually my Linux system claims it can read a vms drive. that'd be > rather interesting. > > as for the password, yes I know the routine, except the stubborn > system doesnt want to accept it. I follow all the steps, run > authorize, change the password. > but when i try to login with it, it says its not correct. There's a few different methods. Which did yo use? > 2 possibilities, either the license is no good (its a new one), they > put the units=0 which bothers me. or the pwdchange=pre-expired is the > culprit. You don't need to have a valid license to log in as "system" on the console. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Feb 24 12:45:11 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:45:11 -0500 Subject: EBAY Alternatives, was Re: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: <47C106CA.48D1F63F@west.net> References: <47C106CA.48D1F63F@west.net> Message-ID: <200802241345.11193.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Sunday 24 February 2008 00:55, Marvin Johnston wrote: > I suggested to Sellam that NOW would be a good time to get the > Vintage Computer Marketplace back online, but it hasn't happened yet. > Since I haven't kept track, are there other classic computer related > places to buy and sell? A "yes" answer should be followed by the > sites URL :). Craigslist? Ars Technica forums? Those are the two that I think of right away (not that I really bother to look at them ever). I too wish that Sellam would have made the new site ready before he took the old one down. Too late now, though, I guess. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From peter.hicks at poggs.co.uk Sun Feb 24 13:15:09 2008 From: peter.hicks at poggs.co.uk (Peter Hicks) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 19:15:09 +0000 Subject: OFFERED: Assorted manuals Message-ID: <47C1C23D.30908@poggs.co.uk> Hello Tidying up here, I have the following up for grabs. You'll need to be able to collect in London or St Albans, UK: * ICL DRS 8801 User Guide and Ready Reference * Apple ][ Users Guide (ISBN 0-931988-46-2) * Silentype Operation/Reference Manual (for Apple ][) * Apple ][ BASIC Programming Manual * The Applesoft Tutorial * Meet The Micro book (ISBN 0-900608-18-8) * Mastering Visicalc (ISBN 0-89588-090-3) * Amstrad Microsoft Windows 2.03 User Guide (book) * Microcomputer Graphics book (ISBN 0-201-05092-7) * Commodore 64 User Manual * Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0 manual Anyone interested? Peter -- Peter Hicks | e: my.name at poggs.co.uk | g: 0xE7C839F4 | w: www.poggs.com A: Because it destroys the flow of the conversation Q: Why is top-posting bad? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Feb 24 13:11:03 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 19:11:03 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <200802232258.23984.pat@computer-refuge.org> from "Patrick Finnegan" at Feb 23, 8 10:58:23 pm Message-ID: > After buying a proper IDC crimper, I couldn't figure out why I would > have ever tried to use something else to crimp the connectors, > especially considering how inexpensive it was, and how much easier it > was to crimp connectors without fouling them up. I have a small smooth-jaw vice on my electronics workbench which I've found very useful for holding cables when I'm soldering and crimping IDC connectors. After a little practice, I've never mangled a connector when crimping it. The 'practice' taught me how much force on the vice screw handle is necessary to crimp the connector, if things don't seem to be going smoothily, I don't just apply more force, I stop and find out what's misaligned. The only connectors I have problems with (obviously) are the 'transition' type with the solder pins sticking out. For the 2-row ones, I put the pins into one of those solderless plugblock breadboards (about the only use for such things :-)) and stick that in the vice. I don't use the 4-row transition connectors, if I did, I'd probably drill a metal block to thake the pins. On thhe other hand, in a moment of weakness about 15 years ago I bought the cheap IDC crimp pliers that Radio Shack sold. I never got on with them. I ruined more connectores using those that I ever did with the vice. -tony From peter.hicks at poggs.co.uk Sun Feb 24 15:40:51 2008 From: peter.hicks at poggs.co.uk (Peter Hicks) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:40:51 +0000 Subject: OFFERED: Assorted manuals In-Reply-To: <267330.44775.qm@web65514.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <267330.44775.qm@web65514.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47C1E463.2080505@poggs.co.uk> Chris M wrote: > You really shouldn't dump them though. Find some association or even > collector that'll make them available to the masses. I've had them for years, I really, really can't bear to throw them out! Peter -- Peter Hicks | e: my.name at poggs.co.uk | g: 0xE7C839F4 | w: www.poggs.com A: Because it destroys the flow of the conversation Q: Why is top-posting bad? From peter.hicks at poggs.co.uk Sun Feb 24 15:44:44 2008 From: peter.hicks at poggs.co.uk (Peter Hicks) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:44:44 +0000 Subject: OFFERED: Assorted manuals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47C1E54C.9000104@poggs.co.uk> Jason, HavNet wrote: > I would be interested in these for the Computing History museum in Suffolk. > See: www.computinghistory.org.uk > > The trouble id you're a bit far away. I might have someone in your area that I can > ask, but otherwise would you be able to stick them in a box and in the post? > I'll obviously pay the postage. Oh, awesome - I was hoping I could find such a good home for them! Drop me a mail off-list - and I may have some other items you'd like... Peter -- Peter Hicks | e: my.name at poggs.co.uk | g: 0xE7C839F4 | w: www.poggs.com A: Because it destroys the flow of the conversation Q: Why is top-posting bad? From cclist at sydex.com Sun Feb 24 16:17:55 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 14:17:55 -0800 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: References: <200802232258.23984.pat@computer-refuge.org> from "Patrick Finnegan" at Feb 23, 8 10:58:23 pm, Message-ID: <47C17C93.31550.1060136B@cclist.sydex.com> On 24 Feb 2008 at 19:11, Tony Duell wrote: > I have a small smooth-jaw vice on my electronics workbench which I've > found very useful for holding cables when I'm soldering and crimping IDC > connectors. After a little practice, I've never mangled a connector when > crimping it. The 'practice' taught me how much force on the vice screw > handle is necessary to crimp the connector, if things don't seem to be > going smoothily, I don't just apply more force, I stop and find out > what's misaligned. An inexpensive imported drill press vise works well if you don't need to crimp the IDC in the middle of a cable: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=30999 At $10, it's probably one of the cheapest alternatives to a real IDC crimp tool. Cheers, Chuck From jdbryan at acm.org Sun Feb 24 16:33:20 2008 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 17:33:20 -0500 Subject: HP2100 MSU BASIC In-Reply-To: <47C07C9A.5080905@Rikers.org> References: <47C07C9A.5080905@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <200802242233.m1OMXJ02005139@mail.bcpl.net> On 23 Feb 2008 at 13:05, Tim Riker wrote: > Here's a transcript: > > sim> g 30000 > > CLOCK I/O ADDRESS? 10 > > LOG TTY I/O ADDRESS? 12 > > NUMBER OF CHANNELS? 1 > > CHANNEL 1 TTY I/O ADDRESS? 11 What's your I/O configuration? The current version of SIMH only has one TTY device available, but you've listed two different ones above (addresses 11 and 12). > Running yields: > > sim> g 100 > > > YEAR? 78 > MONTH? 12 > DAY? 12 > TIME? 1212 > > > > YEAR? > > > with then loops forever. I get a bit farther than that: HELLO-ROOT NAME-I.D.BILL-0 CHAN: 1 ACCOUNT 0 TIME ON: 1212 12/ 12/ 78 ...and then things seem to quit talking. > Anyone have docs on this? It's mentioned in the LOCUS catalog at Bitsavers: /hp/21xx/locus/22000-90099_LOCUS_catalog_mar77.pdf ...on page 2-86. It says that the system requires "an HP2116B computer with 16K, two to five teleprinters with interface, and time base generator." So I'm not sure that it'll run on a system with one TTY. -- Dave From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Feb 24 13:16:41 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 19:16:41 +0000 (GMT) Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: <255733564dab87d52dd5138b06195413@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Feb 24, 8 00:44:38 am Message-ID: > > On Feb 23, 2008, at 12:46 PM, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > > anyone do or know of anyone doing repairs on vaxstations? > > is this a lost art, and I should just buy another one off ebay or what? > > > > I'd love to find someone who did hardware repairs/engineering for dec > > or still knows the stuff. > > It's far from a lost art; anyone with reasonable electronics skills I would argue that component-level repair _is_ rapidly becoming a lost art. Apart from people on this list (and it's not even universal here) and people doing related hobbies like vintage radio repairs, component-level repair is alas very rare now. Even TV repairs (at least in the UK) have become board-swapping with the advent of the plasma panel and LCD TVs (most manufactuers of such sets do not supply schematics, and don't supply the ASICs other than on the PCB). What's more worrying to me is that the ability to diagnose a fault seems to have gone as well. We've had this rant to many times that I don't feel like starting it again... > can work on those machines. The problem is the lack of in-depth > hardware documentation like schematics. YEs, AFAIK there were never published schematics for the VAXstations. And since (from the few I've looked inside) they're full of custom silicon, it's going to be very hard to produce meaningful schematics of such machines. For a machine built drom known components (ICs you can get data sheets or at least pinouts for, etc), it's possible (although a lot of work [1]) to trace out the schematics. But II don't fancy doing it for a machine where the pinouts of the CPU and the main support ICs are unknown. [1] That is the voice of experience... -tony From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Feb 24 16:59:50 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 17:59:50 -0500 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 24, 2008, at 2:16 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >>> anyone do or know of anyone doing repairs on vaxstations? >>> is this a lost art, and I should just buy another one off ebay or >>> what? >>> >>> I'd love to find someone who did hardware repairs/engineering for dec >>> or still knows the stuff. >> >> It's far from a lost art; anyone with reasonable electronics skills > > I would argue that component-level repair _is_ rapidly becoming a lost > art. > > Apart from people on this list (and it's not even universal here) and > people > doing related hobbies like vintage radio repairs, component-level > repair > is alas very rare now. Even TV repairs (at least in the UK) have become > board-swapping with the advent of the plasma panel and LCD TVs (most > manufactuers of such sets do not supply schematics, and don't supply > the > ASICs other than on the PCB). > > What's more worrying to me is that the ability to diagnose a fault > seems > to have gone as well. We've had this rant to many times that I don't > feel > like starting it again... Sure, I agree with those points, but I don't necessarily think that means people are *incapable* of component-level repair. I recently got a new job (I was laid off awhile back; the ISP industry isn't what it used to be) in which I'm doing hardware design. I was hired to bring some experience to the team; the other two engineers are frighteningly intelligent but are still in college as EE students...lots of knowledge, but very little practical experience. I believe that either of these guys (for example) could easily do component-level repair if they were asked to do so. The ASIC problem is a biggie; there's no getting around that. But lots of things are still quite repairable. > YEs, AFAIK there were never published schematics for the VAXstations. > And > since (from the few I've looked inside) they're full of custom silicon, > it's going to be very hard to produce meaningful schematics of such > machines. Well, schematics including the custom silicon as blocks with pins (much like a Z80 or something) that could allow one to narrow down the failure to (say) one particular chip, which could then be replaced. Getting the chip might boil down to stealing it from a scrapped board, but if that's the only option, well.. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Feb 24 17:02:14 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 18:02:14 -0500 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200802241802.15018.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 24 February 2008 14:16, Tony Duell wrote: > > On Feb 23, 2008, at 12:46 PM, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > > > anyone do or know of anyone doing repairs on vaxstations? > > > is this a lost art, and I should just buy another one off ebay or what? > > > > > > I'd love to find someone who did hardware repairs/engineering for dec > > > or still knows the stuff. > > > > It's far from a lost art; anyone with reasonable electronics skills > > I would argue that component-level repair _is_ rapidly becoming a lost art. Agreed! This is something I've done for a number of decades, now, and it's hardly a marketable skill these days, not at all around here, unless I wanted to find a position dealing with RF or other similar areas that are unfortunately outside of my area of expertise. > Apart from people on this list (and it's not even universal here) and > people doing related hobbies like vintage radio repairs, component-level > repair is alas very rare now. Even TV repairs (at least in the UK) have > become board-swapping with the advent of the plasma panel and LCD TVs (most > manufactuers of such sets do not supply schematics, and don't supply the > ASICs other than on the PCB). When we had our shop (which we closed in 1992), getting good service info on things even back then was a real hassle at times. > What's more worrying to me is that the ability to diagnose a fault seems > to have gone as well. We've had this rant to many times that I don't feel > like starting it again... It seems to require some detailed level of understanding of how stuff works, that level of detail being too often omitted in what info you do get. I have something, it has an ASIC in there, fine -- just tell me how it's supposed to _act_ in the circuit! But no, that's too much trouble... Damn throwaway economy! :-( -- 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 arcarlini at iee.org Sun Feb 24 17:09:56 2008 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:09:56 -0000 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <00a901c8773a$607d44d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Tony Duell wrote: > YEs, AFAIK there were never published schematics for the VAXstations. > And > since (from the few I've looked inside) they're full of custom > silicon, > it's going to be very hard to produce meaningful schematics of such > machines. Maybe, but I think that bitsavers has schematics for at least one of the MicroVAX 3100 series machines. These are of the same vintage as at least some of the machines in question. > For a machine built drom known components (ICs you can get data > sheets or > at least pinouts for, etc), it's possible (although a lot of work > [1]) to > trace out the schematics. But II don't fancy doing it for a machine > where > the pinouts of the CPU and the main support ICs are unknown. For the Alpha-based machines, there's plenty of information. I think that the EV4 and EV5 pinouts are floating around. I would be surprised if the EV6 stuff were not too. Some of the VAX CPUs and support chips did appear in various Semiconductor Volumes, some of which are also floating around. It would still be difficult to fix a fault in such a chip (even if a replacement could be found) since they at some stage went to BGA and even access to the appropriate tools + experience doen't get you a success rate much above 50%. That being said, I didn?t see sufficient information or detail in the posts so far to suggest that _anything_ is actually broken as opposed to being misconfigured or misused. I think the OP would do well to state exactly what is believed to be working and then pick on one of his apparently broken machines. It may be that some simple reconfiguring is all that is required. Or maybe the machine can be stripped to the bare minimum to see if it comes up then (I think I've mentioned before the mouse on my VS3100-76 that stopped it powering up at all ...). Antonio No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.9/1295 - Release Date: 23/02/2008 21:35 From dgahling at hotmail.com Sun Feb 24 19:47:44 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:47:44 -0500 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: <200802241343.00398.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200802241343.00398.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: actually, you do. to do an "interactive login" you need a valid license. otherwise you need to do the password bypass method I used B/R5 break method, set /startup opa0:, set writesysparams 0, continue, spawn after that run authorize, change password. logout, login, failed. thats what the openvpn faq suggests, and I believe I've used it before. Dan. ---------------------------------------- > From: pat at computer-refuge.org > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:43:00 -0500 > Subject: Re: anyone do vaxstation repairs? > > On Sunday 24 February 2008 10:32, Dan Gahlinger wrote: >> I'll check out SIMH. >> actually my Linux system claims it can read a vms drive. that'd be >> rather interesting. >> >> as for the password, yes I know the routine, except the stubborn >> system doesnt want to accept it. I follow all the steps, run >> authorize, change the password. >> but when i try to login with it, it says its not correct. > > There's a few different methods. Which did yo use? > >> 2 possibilities, either the license is no good (its a new one), they >> put the units=0 which bothers me. or the pwdchange=pre-expired is the >> culprit. > > You don't need to have a valid license to log in as "system" on the > console. > > Pat > -- > Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ > The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org _________________________________________________________________ From dgahling at hotmail.com Sun Feb 24 19:51:40 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:51:40 -0500 Subject: board repairs (was anyone do vaxstation repairs?) In-Reply-To: References: <255733564dab87d52dd5138b06195413@neurotica.com> from Message-ID: Yes I think it's much worse than that actually who knows how to solder any more? for that matter, who sells parts any more? no one I can find. in the last few years they don't bother doing it any more, it's cheaper just to buy a new "whatever" than try to repair an old one. Radio Shack (now goine) in Canada stopped supplying parts ages ago (longer than I can remember). I remember driving to the US just to get simple things which were necessary for regular use. (eg: barrel connectors) good luck on that one now! Dan. ---------------------------------------- > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 19:16:41 +0000 > Subject: Re: anyone do vaxstation repairs? > >> >> On Feb 23, 2008, at 12:46 PM, Dan Gahlinger wrote: >>> anyone do or know of anyone doing repairs on vaxstations? >>> is this a lost art, and I should just buy another one off ebay or what? >>> >>> I'd love to find someone who did hardware repairs/engineering for dec >>> or still knows the stuff. >> >> It's far from a lost art; anyone with reasonable electronics skills > > I would argue that component-level repair _is_ rapidly becoming a lost art. > > Apart from people on this list (and it's not even universal here) and people > doing related hobbies like vintage radio repairs, component-level repair > is alas very rare now. Even TV repairs (at least in the UK) have become > board-swapping with the advent of the plasma panel and LCD TVs (most > manufactuers of such sets do not supply schematics, and don't supply the > ASICs other than on the PCB). > > What's more worrying to me is that the ability to diagnose a fault seems > to have gone as well. We've had this rant to many times that I don't feel > like starting it again... > > >> can work on those machines. The problem is the lack of in-depth >> hardware documentation like schematics. > > YEs, AFAIK there were never published schematics for the VAXstations. And > since (from the few I've looked inside) they're full of custom silicon, > it's going to be very hard to produce meaningful schematics of such > machines. > > For a machine built drom known components (ICs you can get data sheets or > at least pinouts for, etc), it's possible (although a lot of work [1]) to > trace out the schematics. But II don't fancy doing it for a machine where > the pinouts of the CPU and the main support ICs are unknown. > > [1] That is the voice of experience... > > -tony _________________________________________________________________ From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Feb 24 19:59:11 2008 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:59:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: board repairs (was anyone do vaxstation repairs?) In-Reply-To: References: <255733564dab87d52dd5138b06195413@neurotica.com> from Message-ID: <200802250205.VAA04436@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > for that matter, who sells parts any more? no one I can find. > in the last few years they don't bother doing it any more, it's > cheaper just to buy a new "whatever" than try to repair an old one. > Radio Shack (now goine) in Canada stopped supplying parts ages ago > (longer than I can remember). Well, from a Montreal perspective, there are three alternatives I'm familiar with: Addison, a surplus discount house; Active, which last time I went there was a parts house like what RS was back when only better; and order-in, like Digikey or Mouser. Oh, and for really common routine things like connectors and switches, places like The Source often have a parts corner - though I fear it's headed the way of Radio Shack's parts section. As for who knows how any longer, the first thing that comes to mind is rock band guitar techs, probably because one of the few electronics techs I know who worked in a job which still exists was one. /~\ 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 steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Sun Feb 24 20:23:14 2008 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 18:23:14 -0800 Subject: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches References: <200802241802.15018.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <0bce01c87755$5fff6e00$0201a8c0@hal9000> I've acquired a small cache ( 100+ ) of the IMSAI style C&K P/N 7101 paddle style switches ( with Black paddles ). Digikey wants $7.70 and other places want even more. I can let them go for $5.00 a piece, maybe less if you want a whole bunch. Just wanted to give the group a shot at these before I throw them to the great un-washed on Epay ..... Please contact me offline from here so we don't piss anybody off. Best regards, Steven From rick at rickmurphy.net Sun Feb 24 21:00:43 2008 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:00:43 -0500 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: References: <200802241343.00398.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200802250300.m1P30hC0029036@mail.itm-inst.com> At 08:47 PM 2/24/2008, Dan Gahlinger wrote: >actually, you do. to do an "interactive login" you need a valid license. No, actually, you don't. Console login doesn't require a valid license. See the OpenVMS FAQ. Please note that "console" does not mean the graphics device. You will get a "nolicense" error if that's the case. >otherwise you need to do the password bypass method > >I used B/R5 break method, set /startup opa0:, set writesysparams 0, >continue, spawn >after that run authorize, change password. logout, login, failed. >thats what the openvpn faq suggests, and I believe I've used it before. Perhaps if you use the Open *VMS* FAQ it'd work better. :-) After "spawn", you forgot "@SYS$SYSTEM:STARTUP". Without that, the necessary protected shared libraries won't be installed. However, you probably did execute that, as you can't run authorize without those being installed. You may have a disabled system account or some other problem. Perhaps just using UAFALTERNATE set to 1 will work. In AUTHORIZE, "mod system/password=whatever/nopwdexpired/flags=(nodisuser,nocaptive,nopwd_expired,norestricted)" Those are the most likely bogon flags that could be causing you problems that I can think of. -Rick From dgahling at hotmail.com Sun Feb 24 21:20:22 2008 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:20:22 -0500 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: <200802250300.m1P30hC0029036@mail.itm-inst.com> References: <200802241343.00398.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200802250300.m1P30hC0029036@mail.itm-inst.com> Message-ID: I didnt forget startup, I did that. and I fat-fingered openvms ;) blah :) yeah as I thought the pre-expired is likely the issue. without the license I always get "no license" error on console. every time. I'll try turning off the expiry and see how it goes. I have two other systems to test before that. Dan. ---------------------------------------- > Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:00:43 -0500 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > From: rick at rickmurphy.net > Subject: RE: anyone do vaxstation repairs? > > At 08:47 PM 2/24/2008, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > >>actually, you do. to do an "interactive login" you need a valid license. > > No, actually, you don't. Console login doesn't require a valid license. > See the OpenVMS FAQ. Please note that "console" does not mean the > graphics device. You will get a "nolicense" error if that's the case. > >>otherwise you need to do the password bypass method >> >>I used B/R5 break method, set /startup opa0:, set writesysparams 0, >>continue, spawn >>after that run authorize, change password. logout, login, failed. >>thats what the openvpn faq suggests, and I believe I've used it before. > > Perhaps if you use the Open *VMS* FAQ it'd work better. :-) > > After "spawn", you forgot "@SYS$SYSTEM:STARTUP". Without that, the > necessary protected shared libraries won't be installed. However, you > probably did execute that, as you can't run authorize without those > being installed. > You may have a disabled system account or some other problem. Perhaps > just using UAFALTERNATE set to 1 will work. > > In AUTHORIZE, "mod > system/password=whatever/nopwdexpired/flags=(nodisuser,nocaptive,nopwd_expired,norestricted)" > Those are the most likely bogon flags that could be causing you > problems that I can think of. > -Rick > _________________________________________________________________ From dave06a at dunfield.com Sun Feb 24 21:34:56 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:34:56 -0500 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <11F7E4052E4C@dunfield.com> > > I'll check out SIMH. > actually my Linux system claims it can read a vms drive. that'd be rather interesting. I find SIMH to be an invaluable tool, especially under Linix. For the SCSI VAXen, if you have (or put) a SCSI card in your Linux box, you can point the SIMH definition at the raw device and actually mount the physical drive under the simulator. You can even boot from it if you have virtual hardware defined which is close enough to what is expected. Or - you can DD the drive into a big file and point SIMH at that - it's much easier to recopy a file than to rewrite a drive - so when I want to screw around with "dangerous" things, I tend to do it on a file copy of the drive under SIMH. Finally, once you get your drive into an image, you can burn it to a CD and mount it (or even boot it if it's a stand-alone-backup disk) from a CD drive on you real VAX. (I happen to do this by transfering the disk image to a windows box where I use NERO to burn it - Say NO when it asks if you want to "fix" the identifier bytes in the ISO which it doesn't think look right! Using SIMH, you can make a 650M disk, copy all the stuff you want from your real drives, and then turn that image to a CD which makes for an easy way to make VAX readable backup disks. > as for the password, yes I know the routine, except the stubborn system doesnt want to accept it. I > follow all the steps, run authorize, change the password. but when i try to login with it, it says > its not correct. Very strange - I've had to reset the passwords on a couple of my VMS system when I got them, and it's always worked for me. > 2 possibilities, either the license is no good (its a new one), If you are configured for a serial console as OPA0:, you can log in as SYSTEM without having to have a valid VMS license on the system. >they put the units=0 which bothers I have several VMS licenses which have units=0 and they all work fine. I did read somewhere that it's supposed to have UNITS= "at least 100", but I have no idea what this is for/means. The only VMS license I have which has a non-zero UNITS is a VAXstation only (ACTIVITY=D) which has UNITS=200 ... > me. or the pwdchange=pre-expired is the culprit. Doesn't pre-expired just mean that it will force you to change it the next time you log on. Ie, it's already expired rather than having to wait for the 30 days or whatever the expiry time is set to on your system. I don't think it makes the password invalid, just marks it as expired so that you will have to change it. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Sun Feb 24 21:39:44 2008 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:39:44 -0500 Subject: Vintage boxes sighted Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20080224223933.03aae7a8@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Chuck Guzis may have mentioned these words: >On 24 Feb 2008 at 7:57, Jason T wrote: > > > I think these are all worthy of note. Interesting, too, that most of > > them are from the Toledo store. Maybe a collector dumped his extras? > >What caught my eye was the Panasonic box. If I were a collector, it >might be very appealing as a not-very-common home computer. My thoughts exactly. [[ Yes, I'm still alive... but unforch been incommunicado for a while... ]] Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com | From dave06a at dunfield.com Sun Feb 24 21:50:56 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:50:56 -0500 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? Message-ID: <12068C3877EB@dunfield.com> Hi Guys, I've just acquired a VAXstation 2000 (thanks Mouse!) which exhibits what appears to be an overheating issue. Powered up ir runs for about 10 mins or so (just sitting at the console prompt doing things like TEST 50 to display the configuration, pressing ENTER to get another '>>>' etc.). After about 10 mins (give or take) it fails, sometimes appears to reset, hangs etc. Firt thing I noticed is that the two surface mount chips with the round heatsinks affixed to them get *HOT* ... Hot enough that you wounldn't want to keep your finger on either of them for very long. I believe these are the CPU and FPU chip? - Is this normal for them to run this hot? They don't heat up alarmingly quickly, but after a few minutes they are hotter than I'd think normal. Aside from the eventual failure, it seems to run correctly - the self tests (including the FPU test) pass (except for those which don't have hardware installed, loopback connectors etc. When I got the system, it was jam packed with cards, including the main board, color frame buffer, double-sided memory expansion and an ethernet interface. During my testing, I've removed all of these except for the main board, and am running the system as a MicroVAX. I do have the resistor/loading card installed as is recommended when running the system lightly loaded. Power rails all look good - There is a 9V supply which the technial manual describes as "for loading" which has a separate supply and return. Relative to ground I measure about +5.6v on the supply and about -3.3 on the return, which I'm assuming is normal (?) Anyone know where I can obtain anything resembling a schematic? Other technical information (I have a PDF of the technical manual, however it's mostly "system information" from an operational point of view). Any known issues etc.? 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 Tim at Rikers.org Sun Feb 24 22:04:03 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:04:03 -0700 Subject: HP2100 MSU BASIC In-Reply-To: <200802242233.m1OMXJ02005139@mail.bcpl.net> References: <47C07C9A.5080905@Rikers.org> <200802242233.m1OMXJ02005139@mail.bcpl.net> Message-ID: <47C23E33.5090903@Rikers.org> J. David Bryan wrote: > On 23 Feb 2008 at 13:05, Tim Riker wrote: >> Here's a transcript: >> sim> g 30000 >> CLOCK I/O ADDRESS? 10 >> LOG TTY I/O ADDRESS? 12 >> NUMBER OF CHANNELS? 1 >> CHANNEL 1 TTY I/O ADDRESS? 11 > > What's your I/O configuration? The current version of SIMH only has one > TTY device available, but you've listed two different ones above (addresses > 11 and 12). Hmm. I thought it was looking for a printer there My setup: set cpu 2100 set cpu 32k set cpu fp d stop_inst 1 d stop_dev 1 set dpc disable set dqd disable set drc disable set ds disable set lpt disable set msc disable set muxl disable set clk disable set ptr disable set ptp disable set clk dev=10 set clk enable set tty dev=11 set lpt dev=12 set lpt enable attach lpt lpt.out set ptp dev=13 set ptp enable attach ptp ptp.out set ptr dev=14 set ptr enable > I get a bit farther than that: > > HELLO-ROOT > NAME-I.D.BILL-0 > CHAN: 1 ACCOUNT 0 > TIME ON: 1212 12/ 12/ 78 > > ...and then things seem to quit talking. Sweet! How did you set it up? >> Anyone have docs on this? > > It's mentioned in the LOCUS catalog at Bitsavers: > > /hp/21xx/locus/22000-90099_LOCUS_catalog_mar77.pdf > > ...on page 2-86. It says that the system requires "an HP2116B computer > with 16K, two to five teleprinters with interface, and time base > generator." So I'm not sure that it'll run on a system with one TTY. Yes, SIMH is backwards this way. The slot ought to list a card, and not have the card list the slot. That way any card or cardset could be duplicated. ACCESS can support two MUX sets for example, but I don't think SIMH can. Syntax would be different. Perhaps: set 12 dev tty attach 12 localhost:2100 set 13 dev tty attach 13 localhost:2101 and so forth. ie: first say what is in the slot, and then configure the slot number, not the device name. While I'm at it, I suppose I'd rather see part numbers than names, but that's just me. (ie 12531C instead of TTY) How do you have simh setup to get past the loop? Or was that test on real hardware? I've not tried it on real hardware yet, but that should be easy enough at this point. -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sun Feb 24 23:10:58 2008 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:10:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: <12068C3877EB@dunfield.com> References: <12068C3877EB@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <200802250532.AAA10705@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > I've just acquired a VAXstation 2000 (thanks Mouse!) You're welcome! > which exhibits what appears to be an overheating issue. On the one hand, my wetware RAM QC department is glad I rememebred correctly that the problem with that machine was overheating. On the other, I'm a bit disappointed it wasn't something simple and easily fixed like a fan not turning properly. I hope you get it resolved and find it useful. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Feb 24 23:31:52 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:31:52 -0500 Subject: board repairs (was anyone do vaxstation repairs?) In-Reply-To: <200802250205.VAA04436@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <255733564dab87d52dd5138b06195413@neurotica.com> <200802250205.VAA04436@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200802250031.52813.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 24 February 2008 20:59, der Mouse wrote: > > for that matter, who sells parts any more? no one I can find. > > > > in the last few years they don't bother doing it any more, it's > > cheaper just to buy a new "whatever" than try to repair an old one. > > > > Radio Shack (now goine) in Canada stopped supplying parts ages ago > > (longer than I can remember). > > Well, from a Montreal perspective, there are three alternatives I'm > familiar with: Addison, a surplus discount house; Active, which last > time I went there was a parts house like what RS was back when only > better; and order-in, like Digikey or Mouser. Oh, and for really > common routine things like connectors and switches, places like The > Source often have a parts corner - though I fear it's headed the way of > Radio Shack's parts section. > > As for who knows how any longer, the first thing that comes to mind is > rock band guitar techs, probably because one of the few electronics > techs I know who worked in a job which still exists was one. Last time I was in Montreal I was traveling with a band, running their sound and trying to keep their equipment running. Opened up a brand new place called "Arnold's" (this was a number of years ago!), and when our keyboard player ended up with a busted connector on a Leslie cabinet I had to go find one someplace. I did, too, though I couldn't tell you where it was at this point in time. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Sun Feb 24 23:32:42 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:32:42 -0500 Subject: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches In-Reply-To: <0bce01c87755$5fff6e00$0201a8c0@hal9000> References: <200802241802.15018.rtellason@verizon.net> <0bce01c87755$5fff6e00$0201a8c0@hal9000> Message-ID: <200802250032.42917.rtellason@verizon.net> On Sunday 24 February 2008 21:23, Scanning wrote: > I've acquired a small cache ( 100+ ) of the IMSAI style C&K P/N 7101 paddle > style switches ( with Black paddles ). Digikey wants $7.70 and other places > want even more. I can let them go for $5.00 a piece, maybe less if you want > a whole bunch. Just wanted to give the group a shot at these before I throw > them to the great un-washed on Epay ..... Please contact me offline from > here so we don't piss anybody off. Dang, too bad the ones I need are red and blue... :-) -- 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 dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sun Feb 24 23:54:58 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:54:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches In-Reply-To: <200802250032.42917.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200802241802.15018.rtellason@verizon.net> <0bce01c87755$5fff6e00$0201a8c0@hal9000> <200802250032.42917.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 25 Feb 2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Sunday 24 February 2008 21:23, Scanning wrote: > > I've acquired a small cache ( 100+ ) of the IMSAI style C&K P/N 7101 paddle > > style switches ( with Black paddles ). Digikey wants $7.70 and other places > > want even more. I can let them go for $5.00 a piece, maybe less if you want > > a whole bunch. Just wanted to give the group a shot at these before I throw > > them to the great un-washed on Epay ..... Please contact me offline from > > here so we don't piss anybody off. > > Dang, too bad the ones I need are red and blue... :-) Too bad my plan to make a CPU from TTL isn't anywhere near the stage to go sourcing parts. -- 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 RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Sun Feb 24 06:45:19 2008 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 12:45:19 -0000 Subject: a bad day for vaxen Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DE3D@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> If you were in the UK I could tell you where to order MMJ cables (Black Box still sell them and are not expensive) -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Richard Sent: 23 February 2008 17:28 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: a bad day for vaxen In article , Dan Gahlinger writes: > that doesnt help if my cables are bad :P Have you tested your cables? Hook an ohmmeter to each end and measure the connectivity of the wires. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk Sun Feb 24 06:49:01 2008 From: RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk (Rod Smallwood) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 12:49:01 -0000 Subject: Craigslist - Digital PDP-1123 - Lincoln, NE Message-ID: <86505602FE0FBB4CB9DE54636AA48D3905DE3E@EDISERVER.EDICONS.local> After 15 years more a restorers item. See it run before you buy it!! -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of steven stengel Sent: 24 February 2008 09:10 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Craigslist - Digital PDP-1123 - Lincoln, NE http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/sys/580456982.html ------------------------------------------------ Digital PDP-1123 (vintage) Reply to: sale-580456982 at craigslist.org Date: 2008-02-20, 8:25AM PST Digital (for you kids, that's a brand) PDP-1123 CPU, four Digital RL-02 drives and disks. Rack mounted. Taken out of service 15 or so years ago, worked at the time. This is a collectors item. Location: Lincoln, NE --------------------------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. From jason at havnet.com Sun Feb 24 13:53:37 2008 From: jason at havnet.com (HavNet) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 19:53:37 +0000 Subject: OFFERED: Assorted manuals Message-ID: Hi Peter, I would be interested in these for the Computing History museum in Suffolk. See: www.computinghistory.org.uk The trouble id you're a bit far away. I might have someone in your area that I can ask, but otherwise would you be able to stick them in a box and in the post? I'll obviously pay the postage. Cheers Jason Fitzpatrick www.ComputingHistory.org.uk -----Original Message----- From: peter.hicks at poggs.co.uk Sent: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 19:15:09 +0000 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: OFFERED: Assorted manuals Hello Tidying up here, I have the following up for grabs. You'll need to be able to collect in London or St Albans, UK: * ICL DRS 8801 User Guide and Ready Reference * Apple ][ Users Guide (ISBN 0-931988-46-2) * Silentype Operation/Reference Manual (for Apple ][) * Apple ][ BASIC Programming Manual * The Applesoft Tutorial * Meet The Micro book (ISBN 0-900608-18-8) * Mastering Visicalc (ISBN 0-89588-090-3) * Amstrad Microsoft Windows 2.03 User Guide (book) * Microcomputer Graphics book (ISBN 0-201-05092-7) * Commodore 64 User Manual * Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0 manual Anyone interested? Peter -- Peter Hicks | e: my.name at poggs.co.uk | g: 0xE7C839F4 | w: www.poggs.com A: Because it destroys the flow of the conversation Q: Why is top-posting bad? From joreilly at pacbell.net Sun Feb 24 14:26:51 2008 From: joreilly at pacbell.net (joreilly) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 12:26:51 -0800 Subject: Burroughs B80 rescued Message-ID: Ian, Do you have the disk controller board for the B80? I developed it back in 1973. If you do could you email me a jpg of it? It has a certain nostalgia value. It is also the first ASIC disk controller in the industry, and I'd like to at least get the photo into the Computer Museum in Sunnyvale. If there is any thing I can help you with on the machine, just let me know. I also ran the team that developed the floppy disk drive on the unit. Jim O'Reilly From zmerch at 30below.com Sun Feb 24 21:36:30 2008 From: zmerch at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:36:30 -0500 Subject: Vintage boxes sighted In-Reply-To: <47C14790.15881.F90FF41@cclist.sydex.com> References: <51ea77730802240557i3440fa8fqae4c8b42960b445c@mail.gmail.com> <47C0991D.9096.CE78F75@cclist.sydex.com> <51ea77730802240555v33f3558du11eb5eeccaaf4d2c@mail.gmail.com> <51ea77730802240557i3440fa8fqae4c8b42960b445c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20080224223536.04cb4d00@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Chuck Guzis may have mentioned these words: >On 24 Feb 2008 at 7:57, Jason T wrote: > > > I think these are all worthy of note. Interesting, too, that most of > > them are from the Toledo store. Maybe a collector dumped his extras? > >What caught my eye was the Panasonic box. If I were a collector, it >might be very appealing as a not-very-common home computer. My thoughts exactly. [[ Yes, I'm still alive... but unforch been incommunicado for a while... ]] Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com | From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Feb 25 01:08:38 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 04:08:38 -0300 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? References: <200802241802.15018.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <012401c8777d$48076280$02fea8c0@portajara> > Damn throwaway economy! :-( I **Love** this throwaway economy! :oD Never had so much tools and toys for (almost) free to play. Today I found an old (eh...NEW!) panasonic fax on the trash with: - lots of tactile buttons - Rotary encoder (these are expensive here in Brazil) - 1x20 LCD - Lots of assorted ICs - Power supply what would I want more? :oD From steven.alan.canning at verizon.net Mon Feb 25 02:35:11 2008 From: steven.alan.canning at verizon.net (Scanning) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:35:11 -0800 Subject: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches References: <200802241802.15018.rtellason@verizon.net> <0bce01c87755$5fff6e00$0201a8c0@hal9000> <200802250032.42917.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <001d01c87789$563555e0$0201a8c0@hal9000> To answer a few questions that have been asked, this part ( 7101 ) is a SPDT non-momentary switch used in the bus toggle position. The control switches were the momentary ( P/N 7105 ) of which I unfortunately have none. Hope this helps and thanks for the questions. Personally, I like the Black ones better than the red and blue, but that's just my preference. Best regards, Steven > On Sunday 24 February 2008 21:23, Scanning wrote: > > I've acquired a small cache ( 100+ ) of the IMSAI style C&K P/N 7101 paddle > > style switches ( with Black paddles ). Digikey wants $7.70 and other places > > want even more. I can let them go for $5.00 a piece, maybe less if you want > > a whole bunch. Just wanted to give the group a shot at these before I throw > > them to the great un-washed on Epay ..... Please contact me offline from > > here so we don't piss anybody off. > > Dang, too bad the ones I need are red and blue... :-) > M Dakin From grant at stockly.com Mon Feb 25 03:13:54 2008 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:13:54 -0900 Subject: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches In-Reply-To: References: <200802241802.15018.rtellason@verizon.net> <0bce01c87755$5fff6e00$0201a8c0@hal9000> <200802250032.42917.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <0JWS00MYZEZ2M610@msgmmp-1.gci.net> > > Dang, too bad the ones I need are red and blue... :-) > >Too bad my plan to make a CPU from TTL isn't anywhere near the stage to >go sourcing parts. Do you want to build a Kenbak? Once I get the Altair 680s shipped I'd be happy to sell you a bare PCB and the memory chips. On a side note, who here would be interested in ultra high resolution scans of old computer PCBs? I'm scanning all PCBs at 3200dpi for archival. Photoshop won't save jpegs that large, but a 1600dpi scan is only 50MB or so. Some day I plan to release my whole archive. That reminds me of a Bus Probe... ; ) Grant From mike at brickfieldspark.org Mon Feb 25 04:49:31 2008 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 10:49:31 -0000 Subject: [personal] Re: eBay Monkey Business References: <200802221902.m1MJ2j6E017227@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <021401c8779c$1a73cf60$911ca8c0@mss.local> >> This all this activity is >> in fact some type of a scam, it is going to seriously hurt legitimate >> buyers and sellers. > > Remember that Apple Lisa that went for $3500? I had a Window open on it, > for some reason I refreshed it the other day prior to closing the window, > and the selling price had changed to something like $400-500. > I was caught once, luckily for only a few pounds, but have learnt to only bid once and rarely twice, right at the end of the auction and only for the amount I was prepared to pay, have had no problems since. Remember that sellers can see who is "watching" a page, so don't "watch" - bookmark. I have seen mysterious auctions get inflated and then reappear several days later, it's a scam to boost pricing, the auction losers think they have a "second chance" Mike. From legalize at xmission.com Mon Feb 25 07:48:00 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:48:00 -0700 Subject: [personal] Re: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 25 Feb 2008 10:49:31 +0000. <021401c8779c$1a73cf60$911ca8c0@mss.local> Message-ID: In article <021401c8779c$1a73cf60$911ca8c0 at mss.local>, "Mike Hatch" writes: >[...]Remember that > sellers can see who is "watching" a page, so don't "watch" - bookmark. I routinely watch auctions merely for the purpose of seeing what price they end up at. So what. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 08:08:39 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 08:08:39 -0600 Subject: EBAY Alternatives, was Re: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: <47C106CA.48D1F63F@west.net> References: <47C106CA.48D1F63F@west.net> Message-ID: <47C2CBE7.9020503@gmail.com> Marvin Johnston wrote: > I suggested to Sellam that NOW would be a good time to get the Vintage Computer > Marketplace back online, but it hasn't happened yet. I suspect he's rather busy - he always seems to have a million things on the go at once... > Since I haven't kept track, > are there other classic computer related places to buy and sell? A "yes" answer > should be followed by the sites URL :). My list is something like: This mailing list Various manufacturer-specific vintage mailing lists Various manufacturer-specific vintage newsgroups Local (regional) newsgroups uk.comp.vintage newsgroup (is there a US equivalent?) Freecycle Various computer/technology museums Simple word-of-mouth I'll add the VCM to that once it's back up (and now that I'm in the US - I don't think it was ever particularly effective in other countries) ... it's surprising how effective the latter is when you're "known" as a collector of xyz's systems, both for acquiring and getting rid of hardware/software/docs. I really don't like ebay. The selling experience is just too time-consuming (to do right, anyway - i.e. proper testing / research / photography / shipping). I've never bought anything on there because I'm yet to see anything that I wanted badly enough to justify the over-inflated prices (that may change now that I'm stuck in the middle of a vintage computing black hole :-) cheers Jules From caveguy at sbcglobal.net Mon Feb 25 08:26:31 2008 From: caveguy at sbcglobal.net (Bob Bradlee) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 09:26:31 -0500 Subject: [personal] Re: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: <021401c8779c$1a73cf60$911ca8c0@mss.local> Message-ID: <200802251426.m1PEQXEh033124@keith.ezwind.net> On Mon, 25 Feb 2008 10:49:31 -0000, Mike Hatch wrote: > Remember that >sellers can see who is "watching" a page, so don't "watch" Correction .... The seller can not see who is watching just the number of watchers. Using a service like Bidnappers.com helps a lot. The other Bob From jim at photojim.ca Mon Feb 25 09:17:06 2008 From: jim at photojim.ca (Jim MacKenzie) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 09:17:06 -0600 Subject: Border US to CA (Was:Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff) References: <5.2.1.1.2.20080223124608.02176f78@pop.gmail.com> Message-ID: <01b801c877c1$7c2a9ca0$1802a8c0@JIMM> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Devon Stopps" To: Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2008 12:00 PM Subject: Border US to CA (Was:Ebay: pdp 11/34 + lots of stuff) >I remember the discussion about bringing classic computers across the >border from Canada to the USA, but, has anyone got any experiences going >the other way? Any issues since many of these systems are USA country of >origin? Especially with big iron, where you'd have a trailer or big >truck... US and Mexican equipment fits under NAFTA and is duty free. You will pay provincial and federal tax on the value of the equipment, so get a written bill of sale (or a clear statement that you obtained the equipment for free). If the goods are obtained for a non-commercial purpose, and you are in the US over 48 hours, you qualify for tax-free allotments that grow as you're gone for longer periods. You can check out the website for Canada Customs and Revenue Agency for the fine print. Jim From mardy at voysys.com Mon Feb 25 11:04:31 2008 From: mardy at voysys.com (Marden P. Marshall) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:04:31 -0500 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <7c7c96a50802250658i5c6be11at7b812f4b0a6a8ef0@mail.gmail.com> References: <7c7c96a50802250658i5c6be11at7b812f4b0a6a8ef0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <80BC4315-86AD-49A7-91E3-759ADAF46299@voysys.com> On Feb 25, 2008, at 9:58 AM, Jeff Erwin wrote: > I am in the process of rebuilding an IMSAI 8080 and am using my Mac > Pro as a > dumb terminal. I have it all to the point where I can type a > character and > see the ascii appear on the front panel. What I need to do is write a > simple 1st stage loader that will take the HEX output from the ASM80 > assembler, send it over the serial connection and put it in memory. > This > way I can write a more sophisticated loader and not have to key it > in by > hand. > > The question is, what is the algorithm, in assembly language, for > converting > an ascii character to its binary equivalent. By this, I mean > converting an > 'a' to 1010, not 041H which is the ascii value. I remember writing > such a > thing 30 years ago but simply cannot get my head around it now. > > The algorithm has to deal with taking an ascii string like > AF67DBFF6FF9AF81C2130053DBFF5FAAC2210039D20600780747D3FFAF4 and > converting > each ascii character into the binary value it represents. The sting > above > would convert, one character at a time, to: > > 1010 > 1111 > 0110 > 0111 > 1101 > > well, you get the point...It has to work only for 0-9 and A-F which > should > make it easier. > > > Anyone out there remember how to do this? > > Jeff Erwin > I just went through this same exercise last week. Here is a link to the source code of IMSAI's original paper tape loader which does exactly what you're looking for. You will probably have to modify it to suit your particular serial interface and memory map. paper tape loader.asm As an aside, here is a video of my IMSAI using this loader to bring up a copy of Altair 4K Basic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADplHpk33yY -Mardy From mardy at voysys.com Mon Feb 25 11:11:58 2008 From: mardy at voysys.com (Marden P. Marshall) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:11:58 -0500 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <7c7c96a50802250658i5c6be11at7b812f4b0a6a8ef0@mail.gmail.com> References: <7c7c96a50802250658i5c6be11at7b812f4b0a6a8ef0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5C787877-8B87-46E5-B33C-82E89CB79EEB@voysys.com> On Feb 25, 2008, at 9:58 AM, Jeff Erwin wrote: > I am in the process of rebuilding an IMSAI 8080 and am using my Mac > Pro as a > dumb terminal. I have it all to the point where I can type a > character and > see the ascii appear on the front panel. What I need to do is write a > simple 1st stage loader that will take the HEX output from the ASM80 > assembler, send it over the serial connection and put it in memory. > This > way I can write a more sophisticated loader and not have to key it > in by > hand. > > The question is, what is the algorithm, in assembly language, for > converting > an ascii character to its binary equivalent. By this, I mean > converting an > 'a' to 1010, not 041H which is the ascii value. I remember writing > such a > thing 30 years ago but simply cannot get my head around it now. > > The algorithm has to deal with taking an ascii string like > AF67DBFF6FF9AF81C2130053DBFF5FAAC2210039D20600780747D3FFAF4 and > converting > each ascii character into the binary value it represents. The sting > above > would convert, one character at a time, to: > > 1010 > 1111 > 0110 > 0111 > 1101 > > well, you get the point...It has to work only for 0-9 and A-F which > should > make it easier. > > > Anyone out there remember how to do this? > > Jeff Erwin > Let me try this again. I just went through this same exercise last week. Here is a link to the source code of IMSAI's original paper tape loader which does exactly what you're looking for. You will probably have to modify it to suit your particular serial interface and memory map. http://maben.homeip.net/static/S100/IMSAI/code/1976%20Self%20Contained%20System/paper%20tape%20loader.asm As an aside, here is a video of my IMSAI using this loader to bring up a copy of Altair 4K Basic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADplHpk33yY -Mardy From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Feb 25 11:25:36 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 10:25:36 -0700 Subject: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches In-Reply-To: References: <200802241802.15018.rtellason@verizon.net> <0bce01c87755$5fff6e00$0201a8c0@hal9000> <200802250032.42917.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <47C2FA10.8020008@jetnet.ab.ca> David Griffith wrote: > On Mon, 25 Feb 2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > Too bad my plan to make a CPU from TTL isn't anywhere near the stage to > go sourcing parts. Get switches and hardware while you can. I am building a 20 bit cpu rather than a 12/24 bit cpu since all I have are 21 toggle switches and 6 momontary ones. Even using MSI but no ROM a TTL computer uses a lot of chips and board space. From slawmaster at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 11:23:50 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 09:23:50 -0800 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <80BC4315-86AD-49A7-91E3-759ADAF46299@voysys.com> References: <7c7c96a50802250658i5c6be11at7b812f4b0a6a8ef0@mail.gmail.com> <80BC4315-86AD-49A7-91E3-759ADAF46299@voysys.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220802250923m7ff919e8md60fb35b1da9990f@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 9:04 AM, Marden P. Marshall wrote: > > As an aside, here is a video of my IMSAI using this loader to bring up > a copy of Altair 4K Basic. > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADplHpk33yY > > > -Mardy > > Kinda OT, but what's the name of that terminal sitting on top of your IMSAI? I see terminals that look just like that EVERYWHERE but I haven't found out what the name is. They're really cool looking, wish I could find one... John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From ray at arachelian.com Mon Feb 25 11:40:11 2008 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:40:11 -0500 Subject: [personal] Re: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: <200802251426.m1PEQXEh033124@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200802251426.m1PEQXEh033124@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <47C2FD7B.9040905@arachelian.com> Bob Bradlee wrote: > Correction .... > The seller can not see who is watching just the number of watchers. > > Using a service like Bidnappers.com helps a lot. > > The other Bob > > > > Or you can just use your browser and hit refresh. That's what I do - I just keep a tab open on any auctions I'm interested in, and refresh once in a while. I don't even login to ebay until I want to actually bid. From mardy at voysys.com Mon Feb 25 11:43:12 2008 From: mardy at voysys.com (Marden P. Marshall) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:43:12 -0500 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802250923m7ff919e8md60fb35b1da9990f@mail.gmail.com> References: <7c7c96a50802250658i5c6be11at7b812f4b0a6a8ef0@mail.gmail.com> <80BC4315-86AD-49A7-91E3-759ADAF46299@voysys.com> <7d3530220802250923m7ff919e8md60fb35b1da9990f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Feb 25, 2008, at 12:23 PM, John Floren wrote: > On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 9:04 AM, Marden P. Marshall > wrote: >> >> As an aside, here is a video of my IMSAI using this loader to bring >> up >> a copy of Altair 4K Basic. >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADplHpk33yY >> >> >> -Mardy >> >> > > Kinda OT, but what's the name of that terminal sitting on top of your > IMSAI? I see terminals that look just like that EVERYWHERE but I > haven't found out what the name is. They're really cool looking, wish > I could find one... > > John > -- > Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn > It's a Lear-Siegler ADM-3A. Google it and you'll find all kinds of information on it. They pop up on eBay every once in a while. -Mardy From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Feb 25 11:58:36 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:58:36 -0500 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: <200802250532.AAA10705@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <12068C3877EB@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <150E5B462292@dunfield.com> > On the one hand, my wetware RAM QC department is glad I rememebred > correctly that the problem with that machine was overheating. On the > other, I'm a bit disappointed it wasn't something simple and easily > fixed like a fan not turning properly. So far I've not been able to find a cause. I found schematics on bitsavers (thanks Al), but unfortunately they don't show power (or even most power/ground pins). As far as I can tell, the CPU & FPU are directly connected to bypass capacitors which are shown on the schematic as sitting on the 5V rail, so I believe they operate on straight 5V - The 5V rail is well within spec. Clocks look good as well. I have a feeling the FPU is knackered - it seems to be generating more heat than the CPU (hard to tell as they are mounted side by side and there is a fair bit of heat trasnfer through the board). Unlikely I can find a replacement --- Anyone got a VAXstation 2000 or MicroVAX 2000 thats dead for some other reason? Odd thing is that everything seems to work - if I place a small fan to keep the CPU & FPU cooled to "just hot", it settles back down and all seems to work correctly. All self-tests pass (including FPU). It appears it would run indefinately in this state, but it's obviously not healthy. It seems unlikely that there would be an internal chip failure that would cause it to eat this much power and still perform it's intended function. 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 bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Feb 25 12:24:20 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:24:20 -0700 Subject: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches In-Reply-To: <0JWS00MYZEZ2M610@msgmmp-1.gci.net> References: <200802241802.15018.rtellason@verizon.net> <0bce01c87755$5fff6e00$0201a8c0@hal9000> <200802250032.42917.rtellason@verizon.net> <0JWS00MYZEZ2M610@msgmmp-1.gci.net> Message-ID: <47C307D4.8090900@jetnet.ab.ca> Grant Stockly wrote: > Do you want to build a Kenbak? Once I get the Altair 680s shipped I'd > be happy to sell you a bare PCB and the memory chips. > > On a side note, who here would be interested in ultra high resolution > scans of old computer PCBs? I'm scanning all PCBs at 3200dpi for > archival. Photoshop won't save jpegs that large, but a 1600dpi scan is > only 50MB or so. Some day I plan to release my whole archive. > > That reminds me of a Bus Probe... ; ) Somebody send him a PDP/8e to scan ... We could use another vintage replica. :) > Grant From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 12:28:52 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:28:52 -0500 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802250923m7ff919e8md60fb35b1da9990f@mail.gmail.com> References: <7c7c96a50802250658i5c6be11at7b812f4b0a6a8ef0@mail.gmail.com> <80BC4315-86AD-49A7-91E3-759ADAF46299@voysys.com> <7d3530220802250923m7ff919e8md60fb35b1da9990f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C308E4.2010106@gmail.com> John Floren wrote: > On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 9:04 AM, Marden P. Marshall wrote: >> As an aside, here is a video of my IMSAI using this loader to bring up >> a copy of Altair 4K Basic. >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADplHpk33yY >> >> >> -Mardy >> >> > > Kinda OT, but what's the name of that terminal sitting on top of your > IMSAI? I see terminals that look just like that EVERYWHERE but I > haven't found out what the name is. They're really cool looking, wish > I could find one... Not OT at all. That's a Lear-Siegler ADM3a Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 12:33:20 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:33:20 -0500 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: <150E5B462292@dunfield.com> References: <12068C3877EB@dunfield.com> <150E5B462292@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <47C309F0.5070409@gmail.com> Dave Dunfield wrote: >> On the one hand, my wetware RAM QC department is glad I rememebred >> correctly that the problem with that machine was overheating. On the >> other, I'm a bit disappointed it wasn't something simple and easily >> fixed like a fan not turning properly. > > So far I've not been able to find a cause. > > I found schematics on bitsavers (thanks Al), but unfortunately they > don't show power (or even most power/ground pins). As far as I can > tell, the CPU & FPU are directly connected to bypass capacitors which > are shown on the schematic as sitting on the 5V rail, so I believe > they operate on straight 5V - The 5V rail is well within spec. Clocks > look good as well. > > I have a feeling the FPU is knackered - it seems to be generating more > heat than the CPU (hard to tell as they are mounted side by side and > there is a fair bit of heat trasnfer through the board). Unlikely I > can find a replacement --- Anyone got a VAXstation 2000 or MicroVAX 2000 > thats dead for some other reason? > > Odd thing is that everything seems to work - if I place a small fan > to keep the CPU & FPU cooled to "just hot", it settles back down and > all seems to work correctly. All self-tests pass (including FPU). It > appears it would run indefinately in this state, but it's obviously > not healthy. It seems unlikely that there would be an internal chip > failure that would cause it to eat this much power and still perform > it's intended function. This may be a stupid question but bear with me. Is the surface of the FPU chip getting hotter than the heatsink sitting on it? Peace... Sridhar From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Feb 25 12:43:26 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 10:43:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: [personal] Re: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: <021401c8779c$1a73cf60$911ca8c0@mss.local> References: <200802221902.m1MJ2j6E017227@onyx.spiritone.com> <021401c8779c$1a73cf60$911ca8c0@mss.local> Message-ID: On Mon, 25 Feb 2008, Mike Hatch wrote: > >> This all this activity is > >> in fact some type of a scam, it is going to seriously hurt legitimate > >> buyers and sellers. > > > > Remember that Apple Lisa that went for $3500? I had a Window open on it, > > for some reason I refreshed it the other day prior to closing the window, > > and the selling price had changed to something like $400-500. > > > I was caught once, luckily for only a few pounds, but have learnt to only > bid once and rarely twice, right at the end of the auction and only for the > amount I was prepared to pay, have had no problems since. Remember that > sellers can see who is "watching" a page, so don't "watch" - bookmark. I > have seen mysterious auctions get inflated and then reappear several days > later, it's a scam to boost pricing, the auction losers think they have a > "second chance" Actually the sellers are told a count of watchers. They don't get the specifics. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Feb 25 12:45:36 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:45:36 -0500 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: <47C309F0.5070409@gmail.com> References: <150E5B462292@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <153964F94C88@dunfield.com> > > I have a feeling the FPU is knackered - it seems to be generating more > > heat than the CPU (hard to tell as they are mounted side by side and > > there is a fair bit of heat trasnfer through the board). Unlikely I > > can find a replacement --- Anyone got a VAXstation 2000 or MicroVAX 2000 > > thats dead for some other reason? > > > > Odd thing is that everything seems to work - if I place a small fan > > to keep the CPU & FPU cooled to "just hot", it settles back down and > > all seems to work correctly. All self-tests pass (including FPU). It > > appears it would run indefinately in this state, but it's obviously > > not healthy. It seems unlikely that there would be an internal chip > > failure that would cause it to eat this much power and still perform > > it's intended function. > > This may be a stupid question but bear with me. Is the surface of the > FPU chip getting hotter than the heatsink sitting on it? I don't believe so, although I haven't gone to great lengths to make sure - the heat-sink covers most of the chip. The heatsink itself is firmly attached and gets *plenty* hot (I've been mostly toasting my fingers on the heatsink, not the chip itself). Sticking a bigger heatsink to the integral one with thermal compound also works as a temporary way to keep the chip cooler, which leads me to believe that the heat conduction between chip and heatsink is OK. (but that isn't a fix - just a way to confirm that the cause of death is thermal ... I'm still trying to find a reason for all this heat). 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 mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Feb 25 13:18:34 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:18:34 -0500 Subject: Floppies was Re: E-Mail-Adress In-Reply-To: <47BDE037.8032.24556D2@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <47BDD733.9217.2221E75@cclist.sydex.com>, <200802212318.32056.rtellason@verizon.net> <47BDE037.8032.24556D2@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <320AE4EA-5994-4E9C-8C01-8D6A8A118509@neurotica.com> On Feb 21, 2008, at 11:33 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> What I'm probably going to have to do at some point is decide on a >> format I >> want to use with that BBII. The time I put it together there >> seemed to be an >> assumption that one would be using 8" drives, I think that's what >> they gave >> you the BIOS and their version of CP/M on, but I'd put it in a >> box with a >> couple of 5.25" drives. These days I think perhaps 3.5" HD >> floppies might be >> a better choice since I have so darn many of them (both disks and >> drives) on >> hand here. You can't even find 5.25" drives that easily any >> more, never >> mind 8", and I haven't looked for the media for them for ages. > > Why not run your 3.5" drives at 360 RPM? Then the HD format > corresponds exactly to 8" drives. Are many 3.5" drives able to be set up for 360RPM? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cclist at sydex.com Mon Feb 25 14:31:38 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:31:38 -0800 Subject: Floppies was Re: E-Mail-Adress In-Reply-To: <320AE4EA-5994-4E9C-8C01-8D6A8A118509@neurotica.com> References: , <47BDE037.8032.24556D2@cclist.sydex.com>, <320AE4EA-5994-4E9C-8C01-8D6A8A118509@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <47C2B52A.22714.15251EAB@cclist.sydex.com> On 25 Feb 2008 at 14:18, Dave McGuire wrote: > > Why not run your 3.5" drives at 360 RPM? Then the HD format > > corresponds exactly to 8" drives. > > Are many 3.5" drives able to be set up for 360RPM? Many Japanese drives are, such as many Teac FD-235HF models, even if it's not documented as such. Many manufacturers use the same motor drive subasssembly for normal and "3-mode" drives. Cheers, Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Mon Feb 25 14:44:00 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:44:00 -0700 Subject: [personal] Re: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 25 Feb 2008 10:43:26 -0800. Message-ID: In article , David Griffith writes: > Actually the sellers are told a count of watchers. They don't get the > specifics. Even if they did, I'd say "big deal". I use ebay often. I get what I want out of it. I don't expect utopia. You guys seem to whinge on and on and on about ebay's shortcomings, as if it was absolutely horrible to use, yet it seems to satisfy the vast majority of its customers, both buyers and sellers alike. I've done some business through VCM. Because both the seller and myself are forgetful, the deal still hasn't resulted in an exchange of cash for goods. With ebay's system, this hasn't ever happened. Say what you like about ebay vs. VCM, but ebay has a better mechanism for purchasing items. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Feb 25 14:53:22 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:53:22 -0600 Subject: [personal] Re: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: <200802251426.m1PEQXEh033124@keith.ezwind.net> References: <200802251426.m1PEQXEh033124@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <47C32AC2.2060208@oldskool.org> Bob Bradlee wrote: > Using a service like Bidnappers.com helps a lot. I swear by esnipe, personally. Has never let me down. I do it not because I am sadistic, but because I am protecting myself: - I think of a single price, enter it, then walk away - What I am bidding on is hidden from other users (in early 2000s I saw my friends outbidding me on collectible software and wondered how they always beat me to it -- turns out ebay at one time (might still do this) had the capability for others to see what you're bidding on! So I "set it and forget it" using esnipe and don't have to worry about people looking at what I'm bidding on. -- 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 Mon Feb 25 15:18:31 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:18:31 -0800 Subject: [personal] Re: eBay Monkey Business In-Reply-To: <47C32AC2.2060208@oldskool.org> References: <200802251426.m1PEQXEh033124@keith.ezwind.net>, <47C32AC2.2060208@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <47C2C027.1429.15500C10@cclist.sydex.com> On 25 Feb 2008 at 14:53, Jim Leonard wrote: > I swear by esnipe, personally. Has never let me down. I do it not > because I am sadistic, but because I am protecting myself: Just what I do all of the time--other than for a "buy it now" deal. I put what I'm willing to pay into eSnipe and fuggedaboudit. If I win, fine, otherwise, I don't get caught up in the frenzy. I have lost an auction or two to eSnipe failures, but that was in their very early days. On the flip side of being an early "guinea pig", I don't pay anything for auctions won under $25 and a flat 1% of anything over $25 up to a max of $10. I've used sniping software, but find it to be not as reliable as eSnipe. I offer this only in the interest that others may benefit by it in their collecting efforts. Cheers, Chuck From gmanuel at gmconsulting.net Mon Feb 25 15:37:22 2008 From: gmanuel at gmconsulting.net (G Manuel (GMC)) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:37:22 -0500 Subject: Video: Meet the ultimate computer-UNIVAC! Message-ID: Pretty cool video about the UNIVAC. Thought this may be of interest here. http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/geekend/?p=1178 Greg From arcarlini at iee.org Mon Feb 25 15:57:00 2008 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:57:00 -0000 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <002401c877f9$5a90cbe0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Dan Gahlinger wrote: > actually, you do. to do an "interactive login" you need a valid > license. Not as SYSTEM on OPA0:. Quite what counts as OPA0: on workstation depends on how your console switch is set. > otherwise you need to do the password bypass method > > I used B/R5 break method, set /startup opa0:, set writesysparams 0, > continue, spawn after that run authorize, change password. logout, > login, failed. > thats what the openvpn faq suggests, and I believe I've used it > before. There are, as always, gotchas and quid-pro-quos. The FAQ tells you to: > I used B/R5 break method, set /startup opa0:, set writesysparams 0, > continue, spawn OK. > after that run authorize, change password. logout No. It's more like: $ SPAWN $ @SYS$SYSTEM:STARTUP Then, when that's done, you $ SET DEFAULT SYS$SYSTEM If you don't do that bit you probably end up creating a new UAF file in whatever directory you left yourself in. Then you'll quite happily go and modify that, but the system won't use it! Now you can run authorize and fiddle. But even there you need to do a SHOW SYSTEM afterwards and make sure that it hasn't been DISUSER'd or whatever through too many failed attempts or some other bad flag hasn't been set. It's also possible (although generally unlikely) that the system uses an alternate UAF. Have another go .. at least this system works! Antonio No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.21.0/1296 - Release Date: 24/02/2008 12:19 From legalize at xmission.com Mon Feb 25 15:58:07 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:58:07 -0700 Subject: Video: Meet the ultimate computer-UNIVAC! In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:37:22 -0500. Message-ID: Nice bowtie on the dude showing us the computation circuits! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Mon Feb 25 16:27:26 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:27:26 -0700 Subject: Video: Meet the ultimate computer-UNIVAC! In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:58:07 -0700. Message-ID: Man, that must have been one satisfying coding session, too. The programmer lights up a cigarette when he's done! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From slawmaster at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 16:32:02 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:32:02 -0800 Subject: Video: Meet the ultimate computer-UNIVAC! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7d3530220802251432j61e81191u20f585c18f6bbc50@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 2:27 PM, Richard wrote: > Man, that must have been one satisfying coding session, too. > > The programmer lights up a cigarette when he's done! > Only in the 50s, man. I'm of the opinion that there might be some better productivity if people could still smoke while coding... reduce stress a bit :) John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Feb 25 16:43:48 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:43:48 -0700 Subject: Video: Meet the ultimate computer-UNIVAC! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47C344A4.9020309@jetnet.ab.ca> G Manuel (GMC) wrote: > Pretty cool video about the UNIVAC. Thought this may be of interest here. > > http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/geekend/?p=1178 MPEG would be better I hope to come back later ... and maybie get a bit ... I am on dial up. > Greg ------------------ Runing a PENT-I-VAC here. :) From tsw-cc at johana.com Mon Feb 25 16:44:16 2008 From: tsw-cc at johana.com (Tom Watson) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:44:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Converting ASCII to Hex (was: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion) Message-ID: <834028.16413.qm@web90407.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Really this is pretty easy (this does NO error checking, and only accepts upper case characters): int hex (char ascii) { int value; value = ascii - '0'; if (value > 9) value += '0' - 'A' + 0x0A; return value; } Improvements are left as an exercise for the reader/student. -- Sorry, No signature at the moment. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From jdbryan at acm.org Mon Feb 25 17:05:15 2008 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:05:15 -0500 Subject: HP-21MX bootstrapping? In-Reply-To: <47C17C93.31550.1060136B@cclist.sydex.com> References: <200802232258.23984.pat@computer-refuge.org>, , <47C17C93.31550.1060136B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200802252305.m1PN5ZFH005316@mail.bcpl.net> I had written: > I'll have to look at my 2108B on Monday when I get to work. But, from > memory, the cable has a 50 pin IDC edge connector on one end and a > four-row IDC "transition" connector on the other that's soldered into > the board. That's exactly the case (I've looked :-). I think that replacing the card- edge IDC connector would be a lot easier than unsoldering the transition connector and replacing with a pre-assembled cable. -- Dave From techplus at knology.net Mon Feb 25 17:12:18 2008 From: techplus at knology.net (techplus) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:12:18 -0500 Subject: Available: DEC LA120 printer In-Reply-To: <47BED525.90102@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <200802252318.m1PNIhNq016861@keith.ezwind.net> I am in Charleston,SC, where are the printers located? Steve -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Curt @ Atari Museum Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 8:59 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts; bbellamy at palmettochevy.com Subject: Re: Available: DEC LA120 printer I see them on Ebay for about $25 each, the problem is they are big and heavy and expensive to have to ship so their value is rather low, they are beautiful pieces of equipment, hopefully some around the South Carolina area is a Dec collector and would buy them for you, but don't expect much more then $25 or so each. Curt Buddy Bellamy wrote: > WE HAVE 3 LA 120 PRINTERS. WE NO LONGER USE THESE PRINTERS, SURE HATE TO JUST GIVE THEM AWAY. IS THERE ANY VALUE IN THESE PRINTERS? > THANKS, > B BELLAMY > > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Feb 25 16:41:53 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:41:53 +0000 (GMT) Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: from "Dave McGuire" at Feb 24, 8 05:59:50 pm Message-ID: > > Sure, I agree with those points, but I don't necessarily think that > means people are *incapable* of component-level repair. Ture enough. > > I recently got a new job (I was laid off awhile back; the ISP > industry isn't what it used to be) in which I'm doing hardware design. > I was hired to bring some experience to the team; the other two > engineers are frighteningly intelligent but are still in college as EE > students...lots of knowledge, but very little practical experience. I > believe that either of these guys (for example) could easily do > component-level repair if they were asked to do so. There is a lot of differnce between design and repair (I've done both, and FWIW, I do not regard the former as being necessarily more difficult than the latter...). Of course there are some common skills for both -- you'd better know how the components behave, how to solder, etc. But equally, repair (or more precisely diagnosis) of a design that's worked once is IMHO very different from working out why your newly-created design doesn't work -- for one thing in the latter case I would hope you know how you inteded it to work in the former case you may well not fully understnad the circuit. > > The ASIC problem is a biggie; there's no getting around that. But > lots of things are still quite repairable. ASICs bring 2 problems. THe obvious one is getting replacements, but the obvious answer to that is to raid them off old boards... The lkess obvious problem is that the behaviour of an ASIC will probably not be fully understood. Which means you may well not be able to tell which signals on the pins are correct, which are incorrect, and wheter the incorrect ones are caused by incorrect inputs or a fialure inside the ASIC. That makes fualtfinding a lot harder... > > > YEs, AFAIK there were never published schematics for the VAXstations. > > And > > since (from the few I've looked inside) they're full of custom silicon, > > it's going to be very hard to produce meaningful schematics of such > > machines. > > Well, schematics including the custom silicon as blocks with pins > (much like a Z80 or something) that could allow one to narrow down the > failure to (say) one particular chip, which could then be replaced. If you take a VAXstatiuon board, you could produce a sort-of scheamtic. It would show the ASIC as a 200-pin (or whatever) device and show what each of the pins linked to. Some might be very understnadable (power, ground being the really simple ones). But then some might not, particularly if there are several ASICs with traces that just link them. Given that sort od scheamtic, you could, I suppose, find broken tracks (2 pins not connected that the schematic shows should be) or shorts (the reverse :-)). But other than that, it';s not a lot of help. If you stick a 'scope (or whataver) on a pin and see a particualr signal, you can't know if it's right or not, You can't know if the timing is reasonable. So how do you know what to replace? A _meaningful_ schematic (and in my experience a lot of commercial schematics are not 'meaninful' in this sense) firstly names all useful signals (clocks, address/data buses, bus strobes, etc) and secondly shoews circuits in the conventional way (e.g. a pair of cross-coupled NAND gates froming an SR flip-flop is shown just like that, you don't end up with the 2 gates on different sheets). Having done it a few times, I am convinced that producing a meaningful schematic is a lot of work... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Feb 25 16:47:47 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:47:47 +0000 (GMT) Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: <200802241802.15018.rtellason@verizon.net> from "Roy J. Tellason" at Feb 24, 8 06:02:14 pm Message-ID: > > Apart from people on this list (and it's not even universal here) and > > people doing related hobbies like vintage radio repairs, component-leve= > l > > repair is alas very rare now. Even TV repairs (at least in the UK) have > > become board-swapping with the advent of the plasma panel and LCD TVs (= > most > > manufactuers of such sets do not supply schematics, and don't supply th= > e > > ASICs other than on the PCB). > > When we had our shop (which we closed in 1992), getting good service inf= > o on=20 > things even back then was a real hassle at times. Yep... It gors back a lot further than that, actually. To keep this marginally on-topic, AFAIK HP never supplied a schematic for any of their desktop calculators. I'm now convinced (by bitter expeience) that unless a service manual is listed among the available options for a product (or even better, supplied with said product), it's a waste of time trying to get one. Phoning the manugfacturer just gets numerous bogus excuses as to why one can't be supplied and I just get more an more annoyed. These days I just work out my own repair information. It takes less time and is a lot less stressful. > > > What's more worrying to me is that the ability to diagnose a fault seem= > s > > to have gone as well. We've had this rant to many times that I don't fe= > el > > like starting it again... > > It seems to require some detailed level of understanding of how stuff wor= > ks, =20 > that level of detail being too often omitted in what info you do get. I = > have=20 > something, it has an ASIC in there, fine -- just tell me how it's suppo= > sed=20 > to _act_ in the circuit! But no, that's too much trouble... Exactly. I want to know what signals to find on the pins (in particular if they're likely to be steady clocks, bus strobes, etc). And to know which pins are inputs and which are outputs. As a minimum! -tony From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Feb 25 17:33:29 2008 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:33:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Video: Meet the ultimate computer-UNIVAC! In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802251432j61e81191u20f585c18f6bbc50@mail.gmail.com> References: <7d3530220802251432j61e81191u20f585c18f6bbc50@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >> Man, that must have been one satisfying coding session, too. >> >> The programmer lights up a cigarette when he's done! >> > > Only in the 50s, man. I'm of the opinion that there might be some > better productivity if people could still smoke while coding... reduce > stress a bit :) > ...and when they figure out how to make a cigarette that won't kill me, I'll be first in line to start smoking again. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. From rtellason at verizon.net Mon Feb 25 17:30:31 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:30:31 -0500 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: <012401c8777d$48076280$02fea8c0@portajara> References: <200802241802.15018.rtellason@verizon.net> <012401c8777d$48076280$02fea8c0@portajara> Message-ID: <200802251830.31301.rtellason@verizon.net> On Monday 25 February 2008 02:08, Alexandre Souza wrote: > > Damn throwaway economy! :-( > > I **Love** this throwaway economy! :oD > > Never had so much tools and toys for (almost) free to play. Today I > found an old (eh...NEW!) panasonic fax on the trash with: > - lots of tactile buttons > - Rotary encoder (these are expensive here in Brazil) > - 1x20 LCD > - Lots of assorted ICs > - Power supply > > what would I want more? :oD The continuing ability to make a living at something I'd spent several decades acquiring and honing my skills for would be nice, too... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Mon Feb 25 17:42:38 2008 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:42:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: Possible DEC 11/44 on Govliq In-Reply-To: <200802252318.m1PNIhNq016861@keith.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <450015.89715.qm@web82705.mail.mud.yahoo.com> See: http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?id=1583881&categoryId=1004 Check out the last photo. Bob From rcini at optonline.net Mon Feb 25 17:50:48 2008 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:50:48 -0500 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <80BC4315-86AD-49A7-91E3-759ADAF46299@voysys.com> Message-ID: On 2/25/08 12:04 PM, "Marden P. Marshall" wrote: > > I just went through this same exercise last week. Here is a link to > the source code of IMSAI's original paper tape loader which does > exactly what you're looking for. You will probably have to modify it > to suit your particular serial interface and memory map. > > paper tape loader.asm > > As an aside, here is a video of my IMSAI using this loader to bring up > a copy of Altair 4K Basic. > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADplHpk33yY > > > -Mardy I actually used a version of Dave Dunfield's monitor which includes a hex upload module. A few of the monitors I have from different sources have hex upload capabilities. That's obviously a bit more involved than the paper tape loader but is a bridge to other things. Rich -- Rich Cini Collector of Classic Computers Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator http://www.altair32.com http://www.classiccmp.org/cini From legalize at xmission.com Mon Feb 25 19:03:13 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:03:13 -0700 Subject: Possible DEC 11/44 on Govliq In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:42:38 -0800. <450015.89715.qm@web82705.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: What a steal! Its only 3500 lbs..... -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Mon Feb 25 19:11:00 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:11:00 -0800 Subject: Converting ASCII to Hex (was: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion) In-Reply-To: <834028.16413.qm@web90407.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <834028.16413.qm@web90407.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47C2F6A4.11936.1624E09F@cclist.sydex.com> On 25 Feb 2008 at 14:44, Tom Watson wrote: > Really this is pretty easy (this does NO error checking, and only accepts upper > case characters): Okay, being a dumb ol' bit-twiddler, I couldn't resist: (input character in A) adi 0c0h mov b,a sbb a ani 09h add b ani 0fh Okay, folks--anyone got a shorter sans-jump one? One that perhaps doesn't require an extra register? How about one that uses a DAA to do something sneaky? Cheers, Chuck From ak6dn at mindspring.com Mon Feb 25 19:36:30 2008 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:36:30 -0800 Subject: Possible DEC 11/44 on Govliq In-Reply-To: <450015.89715.qm@web82705.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <450015.89715.qm@web82705.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47C36D1E.1060605@mindspring.com> Bob Rosenbloom wrote: > See: > http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?id=1583881&categoryId=1004 > > Check out the last photo. > > Bob > > Actually the front panel looks more like an 11/24. On the 11/44 the keyswitch is on the left side. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Feb 25 20:40:34 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:40:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 25 Feb 2008, Richard A. Cini wrote: > I actually used a version of Dave Dunfield's monitor which includes a hex > upload module. A few of the monitors I have from different sources have hex > upload capabilities. > > That's obviously a bit more involved than the paper tape loader but is a > bridge to other things. This paper tape fiddling made me wonder if anyone ever made a cassette tape interface that emitted RS232 signals and looked to the computer like a paper tape reader/writer. -- 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 rcini at optonline.net Mon Feb 25 20:53:53 2008 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:53:53 -0500 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 2/25/08 9:40 PM, "David Griffith" wrote: > This paper tape fiddling made me wonder if anyone ever made a cassette > tape interface that emitted RS232 signals and looked to the computer like > a paper tape reader/writer. > Isn't that what the 88-ACR board did? I'd have to pull the book, but IIRC, it was an audio processing board connected to an SIO board. That's why the MITS Absolute Tape Format worked -- the format of the paper tape and cassette were the same but the media was different. Rich -- Rich Cini Collector of Classic Computers Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator http://www.altair32.com http://www.classiccmp.org/cini From mardy at voysys.com Mon Feb 25 20:59:29 2008 From: mardy at voysys.com (Marden P. Marshall) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:59:29 -0500 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 25, 2008, at 9:53 PM, Richard A. Cini wrote: > > On 2/25/08 9:40 PM, "David Griffith" wrote: > >> This paper tape fiddling made me wonder if anyone ever made a >> cassette >> tape interface that emitted RS232 signals and looked to the >> computer like >> a paper tape reader/writer. >> > > Isn't that what the 88-ACR board did? I'd have to pull the book, but > IIRC, > it was an audio processing board connected to an SIO board. That's > why the > MITS Absolute Tape Format worked -- the format of the paper tape and > cassette were the same but the media was different. > > > Rich > > -- > Rich Cini > Collector of Classic Computers > Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator > http://www.altair32.com > http://www.classiccmp.org/cini > > > Yes that is basically what the Altair 88-ACR card was. There were two parts to it, the main board that was a single channel serial card, minus the RS232 line driver, and a daughter card which was basically a FSK modem. -Mardy From trixter at oldskool.org Mon Feb 25 21:29:05 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:29:05 -0600 Subject: Converting ASCII to Hex (was: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion) In-Reply-To: <47C2F6A4.11936.1624E09F@cclist.sydex.com> References: <834028.16413.qm@web90407.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <47C2F6A4.11936.1624E09F@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C38781.4020004@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Okay, folks--anyone got a shorter sans-jump one? One that perhaps > doesn't require an extra register? How about one that uses a DAA to > do something sneaky? Although it's the other way round, this is one of my top five favorite gems of all time: ; input: ; al = single hex digit ; ; output: ; al = single ASCII digit ; ; destroys: ; flags ; cmp al,10 ; if x < 10, set CF = 1 sbb al,69h ; 0-9: 96h .. 9Fh, A-F: A1h..A6h das ; 0-9: subtr. 66h -> 30h-39h, ; A-F: subtr. 60h -> 41h..46h Using the above as a basis for ascii-to-hex is left as an exercise for Chuc^H^H^H^Hthe reader. -- 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 Mon Feb 25 21:53:15 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:53:15 -0800 Subject: Converting ASCII to Hex (was: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion) In-Reply-To: <47C38781.4020004@oldskool.org> References: <834028.16413.qm@web90407.mail.mud.yahoo.com>, <47C2F6A4.11936.1624E09F@cclist.sydex.com>, <47C38781.4020004@oldskool.org> Message-ID: <47C31CAB.2132.16B96BFF@cclist.sydex.com> On 25 Feb 2008 at 21:29, Jim Leonard wrote: > Although it's the other way round, this is one of my top five favorite > gems of all time: Yeah, Jim, but we were talking 8080 code here. Heck, if we extend the problem to the x86 family, then the original problem solves in 3 instructions as: (al) = input character ('0'-'9', 'A'-'F') (al) = on exit, 00h-0fh sub al,030h db 0d4h,010h ; funny aam db 0d5h,009h ; funny aad (not fast, but short) But let's go back to the OP and his 8080 problem... Cheers, Chuck From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Feb 25 21:59:56 2008 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:59:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: <150E5B462292@dunfield.com> References: <12068C3877EB@dunfield.com> <150E5B462292@dunfield.com> Message-ID: <200802260403.XAA17655@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Odd thing is that everything seems to work - if I place a small fan > to keep the CPU & FPU cooled to "just hot", it settles back down and > all seems to work correctly. All self-tests pass (including FPU). > It appears it would run indefinately in this state, but it's > obviously not healthy. It seems unlikely that there would be an > internal chip failure that would cause it to eat this much power and > still perform it's intended function. Yes, that's why I speculated about fans - perhaps it's designed for (say) three times the airflow the case is giving it, and the only real problem is the fan? It strikes me as unlikely, but no more so than any other failure mode I've come up with that matches the symptoms. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Feb 25 22:47:05 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:47:05 -0800 Subject: Video: Meet the ultimate computer-UNIVAC! In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802251432j61e81191u20f585c18f6bbc50@mail.gmail.com> References: <7d3530220802251432j61e81191u20f585c18f6bbc50@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:32:02 -0800 > From: slawmaster at gmail.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Video: Meet the ultimate computer-UNIVAC! > > On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 2:27 PM, Richard wrote: >> Man, that must have been one satisfying coding session, too. >> >> The programmer lights up a cigarette when he's done! >> > > Only in the 50s, man. I'm of the opinion that there might be some > better productivity if people could still smoke while coding... reduce > stress a bit :) Hi I could drop lead weights on my feet as well. Knowing what we do today, only a fool would still be smoking. I'm currently on Chemo. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser! http://biggestloser.msn.com/ From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Feb 25 23:01:22 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:01:22 -0700 Subject: Converting ASCII to Hex In-Reply-To: <47C2F6A4.11936.1624E09F@cclist.sydex.com> References: <834028.16413.qm@web90407.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <47C2F6A4.11936.1624E09F@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C39D22.8060700@jetnet.ab.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 25 Feb 2008 at 14:44, Tom Watson wrote: > >> Really this is pretty easy (this does NO error checking, and only accepts upper >> case characters): > > Okay, being a dumb ol' bit-twiddler, I couldn't resist: > > (input character in A) > > adi 0c0h > mov b,a > sbb a > ani 09h > add b > ani 0fh > > Okay, folks--anyone got a shorter sans-jump one? One that perhaps > doesn't require an extra register? How about one that uses a DAA to > do something sneaky? Is it 8008 compatable code? :) > Cheers, > Chuck From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Feb 25 23:10:07 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:10:07 -0800 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu > > On Mon, 25 Feb 2008, Richard A. Cini wrote: > >> I actually used a version of Dave Dunfield's monitor which includes a hex >> upload module. A few of the monitors I have from different sources have hex >> upload capabilities. >> >> That's obviously a bit more involved than the paper tape loader but is a >> bridge to other things. > > This paper tape fiddling made me wonder if anyone ever made a cassette > tape interface that emitted RS232 signals and looked to the computer like > a paper tape reader/writer. > Hi On my Poly88, the same serial chip is used for both the cassette and the serial port. The cassette used the serial chip in a synchronous mode and the serial in async. I made some minor changes to the setup and use most of the cassette code to save tape programs to the PC through the serial port. Other than being ascync, the data looks just like the cassette data. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser! http://biggestloser.msn.com/ From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Feb 25 23:10:07 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:10:07 -0800 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu > > On Mon, 25 Feb 2008, Richard A. Cini wrote: > >> I actually used a version of Dave Dunfield's monitor which includes a hex >> upload module. A few of the monitors I have from different sources have hex >> upload capabilities. >> >> That's obviously a bit more involved than the paper tape loader but is a >> bridge to other things. > > This paper tape fiddling made me wonder if anyone ever made a cassette > tape interface that emitted RS232 signals and looked to the computer like > a paper tape reader/writer. > Hi On my Poly88, the same serial chip is used for both the cassette and the serial port. The cassette used the serial chip in a synchronous mode and the serial in async. I made some minor changes to the setup and use most of the cassette code to save tape programs to the PC through the serial port. Other than being ascync, the data looks just like the cassette data. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging.?You IM, we give. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join From cclist at sydex.com Mon Feb 25 23:19:39 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:19:39 -0800 Subject: Converting ASCII to Hex In-Reply-To: <47C39D22.8060700@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <834028.16413.qm@web90407.mail.mud.yahoo.com>, <47C2F6A4.11936.1624E09F@cclist.sydex.com>, <47C39D22.8060700@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <47C330EB.30555.170882CE@cclist.sydex.com> On 25 Feb 2008 at 22:01, woodelf wrote: > Is it 8008 compatable code? :) Well, yes, it is, as a matter of fact. If you use the "new" instruction mnemonics, you don't have to change a thing: adi 0c0h mov b,a sbb a ani 09h add b ani 0fh If you have the "old" style assembler, you might need to change a few mnemonics; e.g. ani = ndi, mov b,a = lba, sbb a = sba, add b = adb Cheers, Chuck From trixter at oldskool.org Tue Feb 26 00:22:30 2008 From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:22:30 -0600 Subject: Converting ASCII to Hex In-Reply-To: <47C31CAB.2132.16B96BFF@cclist.sydex.com> References: <834028.16413.qm@web90407.mail.mud.yahoo.com>, <47C2F6A4.11936.1624E09F@cclist.sydex.com>, <47C38781.4020004@oldskool.org> <47C31CAB.2132.16B96BFF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C3B026.9090009@oldskool.org> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Yeah, Jim, but we were talking 8080 code here. I know; I just get tired of all the 808x bashing sometimes. Had to represent! ;-) -- 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 chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 15:19:41 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:19:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: Vintage boxes sighted In-Reply-To: <51ea77730802240557i3440fa8fqae4c8b42960b445c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <270342.451.qm@web65515.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> --- Jason T wrote: > On Sun, Feb 24, 2008 at 7:55 AM, Jason T > wrote: > > I think these are all worthy of note. > Interesting, too, that most of > > them are from the Toledo store. Maybe a > collector dumped his extras? > > Here's a CoCo MC-10 from the same store: > > http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=3402328 Repair shops oftentimes have repaired stuff sitting around forever, the original owners fail to pick them up. You never know what those people might also hold onto, for parts value. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 15:20:38 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:20:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: Vintage boxes sighted In-Reply-To: <47C14790.15881.F90FF41@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <493076.3353.qm@web65515.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> that unit has shown up on eBay, at least lately, on a not too irregular basis. So if you're not a colletor, what are ye then? Huh? --- Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 24 Feb 2008 at 7:57, Jason T wrote: > > > I think these are all worthy of note. > Interesting, too, that most of > > them are from the Toledo store. Maybe a > collector dumped his extras? > > What caught my eye was the Panasonic box. If I were > a collector, it > might be very appealing as a not-very-common home > computer. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Mon Feb 25 06:36:27 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 07:36:27 -0500 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? Message-ID: <0JWS00HZ3O78EUB1@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? > From: "Dave Dunfield" > Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:50:56 -0500 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >Hi Guys, > >I've just acquired a VAXstation 2000 (thanks Mouse!) which exhibits what appears >to be an overheating issue. > >Powered up ir runs for about 10 mins or so (just sitting at the console prompt >doing things like TEST 50 to display the configuration, pressing ENTER to get >another '>>>' etc.). After about 10 mins (give or take) it fails, sometimes >appears to reset, hangs etc. > >Firt thing I noticed is that the two surface mount chips with the round heatsinks >affixed to them get *HOT* ... Hot enough that you wounldn't want to keep your finger >on either of them for very long. > >I believe these are the CPU and FPU chip? - Is this normal for them to run this >hot? They don't heat up alarmingly quickly, but after a few minutes they are >hotter than I'd think normal. Yes, CPU and FPU. They do get hot. Makes sure then fan is running and there is airflow. >Aside from the eventual failure, it seems to run correctly - the self tests >(including the FPU test) pass (except for those which don't have hardware installed, >loopback connectors etc. > >When I got the system, it was jam packed with cards, including the main board, >color frame buffer, double-sided memory expansion and an ethernet interface. A maxed out machime. >During my testing, I've removed all of these except for the main board, and am >running the system as a MicroVAX. I do have the resistor/loading card installed >as is recommended when running the system lightly loaded. > >Power rails all look good - There is a 9V supply which the technial manual >describes as "for loading" which has a separate supply and return. Relative >to ground I measure about +5.6v on the supply and about -3.3 on the return, >which I'm assuming is normal (?) Makes sure the 5V line(s) is good and really at 5V. >Anyone know where I can obtain anything resembling a schematic? Other technical >information (I have a PDF of the technical manual, however it's mostly "system >information" from an operational point of view). Any known issues etc.? One of the signals from the PS is power good. Makes sure that line isn't bouncing. I think it's an orange or white lead it's been a while since Ive been in one. Allison >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 jefferwin at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 08:58:49 2008 From: jefferwin at gmail.com (Jeff Erwin) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:58:49 -0800 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion Message-ID: <7c7c96a50802250658i5c6be11at7b812f4b0a6a8ef0@mail.gmail.com> I am in the process of rebuilding an IMSAI 8080 and am using my Mac Pro as a dumb terminal. I have it all to the point where I can type a character and see the ascii appear on the front panel. What I need to do is write a simple 1st stage loader that will take the HEX output from the ASM80 assembler, send it over the serial connection and put it in memory. This way I can write a more sophisticated loader and not have to key it in by hand. The question is, what is the algorithm, in assembly language, for converting an ascii character to its binary equivalent. By this, I mean converting an 'a' to 1010, not 041H which is the ascii value. I remember writing such a thing 30 years ago but simply cannot get my head around it now. The algorithm has to deal with taking an ascii string like AF67DBFF6FF9AF81C2130053DBFF5FAAC2210039D20600780747D3FFAF4 and converting each ascii character into the binary value it represents. The sting above would convert, one character at a time, to: 1010 1111 0110 0111 1101 well, you get the point...It has to work only for 0-9 and A-F which should make it easier. Anyone out there remember how to do this? Jeff Erwin From lbickley at bickleywest.com Mon Feb 25 14:50:49 2008 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:50:49 -0800 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - Some Documentation... In-Reply-To: <856b98000802211348o56ea83a2te4dd65695047ac71@mail.gmail.com> References: <856b98000802211348o56ea83a2te4dd65695047ac71@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802251250.51123.lbickley@bickleywest.com> I didn't find a lot of information from IBM support on the 6094 - but I did get some. I have uploaded a old copy of IBM's RS/6000 Graphics Handbook which describes the IBM 6094 LPFK. The LPFK information is found in section 4.5. The good news - in can be attached to a serial port on an RS/6000 or PC - which means that it shouldn't be difficult to find the protocol for the critter. Not a lot of info in the manual - but something is better than nothing ;-) You can download a PDF of the manual via anonymous FTP from my website: ftp://bickleywest.com/IBM6094 Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From paxton.hoag at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 17:33:33 2008 From: paxton.hoag at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:33:33 -0800 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - Some Documentation... In-Reply-To: <200802251250.51123.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <856b98000802211348o56ea83a2te4dd65695047ac71@mail.gmail.com> <200802251250.51123.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <856b98000802251533r3cb71fa2m78fdbb570e848860@mail.gmail.com> > I didn't find a lot of information from IBM support on the 6094 - but > I did get some. I have uploaded a old copy of IBM's RS/6000 Graphics > Handbook which describes the IBM 6094 LPFK. The LPFK information is > found in section 4.5. > > The good news - in can be attached to a serial port on an RS/6000 or > PC - which means that it shouldn't be difficult to find the protocol > for the critter. I wonder who made it? I got the second lot so anyone can have as many as they want. One of those in the new lot is supposed to be SGI. If it is serial how hard would it be to make a USB interface to plug into the serial port on the keypad? I just took a quick look and it looks like the same pinout (DIN?) as an Apple Serial Cable. The square moulding on the cable keeps it from plugging in. Interesting, Thanks Lyle. Paxton -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From maurice.smulders at gmail.com Mon Feb 25 20:35:10 2008 From: maurice.smulders at gmail.com (Maurice.Smulders) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:35:10 -0700 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - Some Documentation... In-Reply-To: <856b98000802251533r3cb71fa2m78fdbb570e848860@mail.gmail.com> References: <856b98000802211348o56ea83a2te4dd65695047ac71@mail.gmail.com> <200802251250.51123.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <856b98000802251533r3cb71fa2m78fdbb570e848860@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C37ADE.5020604@gmail.com> Ok. USB solution: http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/EvaluationKits/TTL-232R-WE.htm One could just get an 8 pin din connector 806-KMDAX-8P from Mouser, take out the MAX232 on the board (and its caps), put that connector on the FTDI cable, and hook it up. Do NOT forget to change the power consumption setting in the FTDI descriptor. The keyboard is speced for 500mA, the FTDI connector for 90mA. Which is technically above the USB power consumption... But I think removing the MAX 232 makes the keyboard consumption less. Which means though, that you'd have to use a powered hub! Maurice Paxton Hoag wrote: >> I didn't find a lot of information from IBM support on the 6094 - but >> I did get some. I have uploaded a old copy of IBM's RS/6000 Graphics >> Handbook which describes the IBM 6094 LPFK. The LPFK information is >> found in section 4.5. >> >> The good news - in can be attached to a serial port on an RS/6000 or >> PC - which means that it shouldn't be difficult to find the protocol >> for the critter. >> > > I wonder who made it? I got the second lot so anyone can have as many > as they want. One of those in the new lot is supposed to be SGI. > > If it is serial how hard would it be to make a USB interface to plug > into the serial port on the keypad? > > I just took a quick look and it looks like the same pinout (DIN?) as > an Apple Serial Cable. The square moulding on the cable keeps it from > plugging in. > > Interesting, Thanks Lyle. > Paxton > > From alaskacc at yahoo.com Mon Feb 25 22:51:40 2008 From: alaskacc at yahoo.com (Clay Cummins) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:51:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: Apple Computer Message-ID: <454322.81309.qm@web57706.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Hello Rob, I am interested to know if you still have any of your Apple computers. Thank you. Clay Cummins alaskacc at yahoo.com ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From john at johnweeks.com Tue Feb 26 00:06:01 2008 From: john at johnweeks.com (John Weeks) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:06:01 -0600 Subject: Metaphor Computer Systems Message-ID: <8BA9AF60-B3A1-4E30-9E26-3600DEA091D7@johnweeks.com> Curt, I happened to stumble over a posting that you made on the web about a year ago talking about installing some "Metaphor" computers. I am a former Metaphor engineer. I have a slide show on my web site that they developed to celebrate the death of the company. The software is still around, now called "Meta5". I don't want to invest too much in a note that I don't know will ever be delivered, but if it does make it to you, let me know, and I can fill you in. -john- ============================================================ John A. Weeks III 612-720-2854 john at johnweeks.com Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com ============================================================ From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Tue Feb 26 04:05:48 2008 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 11:05:48 +0100 (CET) Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 25 Feb 2008, Tony Duell wrote: > Yep... It gors back a lot further than that, actually. To keep this > marginally on-topic, AFAIK HP never supplied a schematic for any of their > desktop calculators. > > I'm now convinced (by bitter expeience) that unless a service manual is > listed among the available options for a product (or even better, > supplied with said product), it's a waste of time trying to get one. > Phoning the manugfacturer just gets numerous bogus excuses as to why one > can't be supplied and I just get more an more annoyed. These days I just > work out my own repair information. It takes less time and is a lot less > stressful. We have the original HP blueprints/schematics for the HP 9810 and/or 9820. I haven't scanned them yet as they are on big sheets. I should try to copy/reduce them onto A4 and then scan them. Christian From grant at stockly.com Tue Feb 26 04:08:12 2008 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 01:08:12 -0900 Subject: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches In-Reply-To: <47C307D4.8090900@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <200802241802.15018.rtellason@verizon.net> <0bce01c87755$5fff6e00$0201a8c0@hal9000> <200802250032.42917.rtellason@verizon.net> <0JWS00MYZEZ2M610@msgmmp-1.gci.net> <47C307D4.8090900@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net> At 09:24 AM 2/25/2008, you wrote: >Grant Stockly wrote: > >>Do you want to build a Kenbak? Once I get the Altair 680s shipped >>I'd be happy to sell you a bare PCB and the memory chips. >>On a side note, who here would be interested in ultra high >>resolution scans of old computer PCBs? I'm scanning all PCBs at >>3200dpi for archival. Photoshop won't save jpegs that large, but a >>1600dpi scan is only 50MB or so. Some day I plan to release my whole archive. >>That reminds me of a Bus Probe... ; ) > >Somebody send him a PDP/8e to scan ... We could use another >vintage replica. :) Make it an 8s and you've got a deal. : ) From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Feb 26 05:20:40 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 08:20:40 -0300 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion References: Message-ID: <009a01c87869$cc4a26d0$02fea8c0@portajara> > This paper tape fiddling made me wonder if anyone ever made a cassette > tape interface that emitted RS232 signals and looked to the computer like > a paper tape reader/writer. Hmmm....You are a bad guy, David! Now I'll have to think about it :o) Easy path: two tone detectors, going to a microcontroller who store the data read from the tape and send it in RS232 way. A very simple AVR microcontroller can do that ;o) From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Feb 26 05:18:49 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 08:18:49 -0300 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? References: <200802241802.15018.rtellason@verizon.net><012401c8777d$48076280$02fea8c0@portajara> <200802251830.31301.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <009901c87869$cc240130$02fea8c0@portajara> > The continuing ability to make a living at something I'd spent several > decades > acquiring and honing my skills for would be nice, too... Hey, but where is the fun on that? I'm not old enough for saying "being there, done that". I'm only 33. But the talk was the same: - I'm well versed in tubes. What will I do with these transistors? - Oh, these chip modules are hell! I miss transistors! - These new I.C.s are so hard to understand!!! Life was easier with modules! - My God, these SMD parts are made in hell!!! It was so good when I had to change DIP ICs! I understand things got way harder. But there is always a way. New things to learn and new frontiers. The journey is the reward....but does it pays the bills? :oD There will ALWAYS be a solutuion to a hard problem. I trust on your knowledge to find a way out. Greetz from Brazil! Alexandre From jam at magic.com Tue Feb 26 09:40:51 2008 From: jam at magic.com (James A. Markevitch) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 07:40:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches Message-ID: <200802261540.HAA02467@magellan.magic.com> Grant, > On a side note, who here would be interested in ultra high resolution > scans of old computer PCBs? I'm scanning all PCBs at 3200dpi for > archival. Photoshop won't save jpegs that large, but a 1600dpi scan is > only 50MB or so. Some day I plan to release my whole archive. You mentioned JPEGs. If you are archiving the scans in JPEG format, try zooming in on bunches of traces or text on the board. JPEG creates a lot of artifacts. It may very well be case that a 600dpi scan using lossless compression will be much cleaner and usable than a 3200dpi scan using heavy JPEG compression. Even with 6 mil traces, 600dpi gives you more than 3 pixels per trace. I've tried a few of my boards using 1200dpi, 8-bit color, and GIF/TIFF, with results that seemed acceptable. James Markevitch From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Feb 26 09:48:30 2008 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:48:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches In-Reply-To: <200802261540.HAA02467@magellan.magic.com> References: <200802261540.HAA02467@magellan.magic.com> Message-ID: <200802261550.KAA20945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > It may very well be case that a 600dpi scan using lossless > compression will be much cleaner and usable than a 3200dpi scan using > heavy JPEG compression. I question the "much". JPEG uses 8x8 blocks, so a 3200dpi JPEG cannot lose more information than a 400dpi lossless, and I'm not convinced a 3:2 difference is enough to earn that "much". /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 10:15:32 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:15:32 -0600 Subject: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches In-Reply-To: <200802261550.KAA20945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200802261540.HAA02467@magellan.magic.com> <200802261550.KAA20945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <47C43B24.9010303@gmail.com> der Mouse wrote: >> It may very well be case that a 600dpi scan using lossless >> compression will be much cleaner and usable than a 3200dpi scan using >> heavy JPEG compression. > > I question the "much". JPEG uses 8x8 blocks, so a 3200dpi JPEG cannot > lose more information than a 400dpi lossless, and I'm not convinced a > 3:2 difference is enough to earn that "much". In terms of overall processing, I suspect that a 400dpi lossless image (TIFF, GIF etc.) is a lot more efficient (memory, disk, decoding) than the corresponding 3200dpi JPEG though, despite JPEG's superior compression. For PCBs I'd be tempted to do a (very) little post-scan processing I think, just to introduce more blocks of uniform colour and therefore keep the filesize down. I've not done much with scanning of (populated) PCBs though, as every scanner I've tried so far has been rather useless for the task (focus issues, I suspect - removing the scanner glass and supporting the PCB a more sensible height above the scan head would likely be a good idea) cheers Jules From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Feb 26 10:29:05 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:29:05 -0700 Subject: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches In-Reply-To: <200802261550.KAA20945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200802261540.HAA02467@magellan.magic.com> <200802261550.KAA20945@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <47C43E51.5030307@jetnet.ab.ca> der Mouse wrote: >> It may very well be case that a 600dpi scan using lossless >> compression will be much cleaner and usable than a 3200dpi scan using >> heavy JPEG compression. > > I question the "much". JPEG uses 8x8 blocks, so a 3200dpi JPEG cannot > lose more information than a 400dpi lossless, and I'm not convinced a > 3:2 difference is enough to earn that "much". This is PCB ... I really only see about 8 greys needed at most. I still would stick to any lossless format however. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Feb 26 10:48:46 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 08:48:46 -0800 Subject: Vintage boxes sighted In-Reply-To: <493076.3353.qm@web65515.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <47C14790.15881.F90FF41@cclist.sydex.com>, <493076.3353.qm@web65515.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47C3D26E.14936.197F6BB6@cclist.sydex.com> On 24 Feb 2008 at 13:20, Chris M wrote: > that unit has shown up on eBay, at least lately, on a > not too irregular basis. > So if you're not a colletor, what are ye then? Huh? Just an old guy with a memory. Cheers, Chuck From scheefj at netscape.net Tue Feb 26 11:06:57 2008 From: scheefj at netscape.net (scheefj at netscape.net) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:06:57 -0500 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <47C44731.5080607@netscape.net> The earliest Iomega Bernoulli "Boxes" had two 10M cartridge drives. Unfortunately the interface was a bastardized SASI, not SCSI. I had a long talk with an Iomega support guy (when these guys actually knew something). You need the 8-bit interface card that came with the drives to make them work. Same is true of the later 10M 1/2-height drives. Iomega did eventually switch to a standard SCSI but I do not know when they made the change. Jim Al Kossow wrote: > > > Were all the early 80's IOmega's SCSI or did they use something > before that? > > The earliest devices were full height 10MB 8" SCSI drives that had > optional slave > drives attached. Their main claim to fame was using floppy type media. > > The first Syquests were MFM ST506, using removable plated media. > > > > > From v.slyngstad at verizon.net Tue Feb 26 11:40:51 2008 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:40:51 -0800 Subject: 8/S Replica (was: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches) References: <200802241802.15018.rtellason@verizon.net><0bce01c87755$5fff6e00$0201a8c0@hal9000><200802250032.42917.rtellason@verizon.net><0JWS00MYZEZ2M610@msgmmp-1.gci.net> <47C307D4.8090900@jetnet.ab.ca> <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net> Message-ID: <068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Apologies if this appears twice, but it looks like hotmail ate my message again. From: "Grant Stockly" >>Somebody send him a PDP/8e to scan ... We could use another >>vintage replica. :) > > Make it an 8s and you've got a deal. : ) I've got modern CAD drawings for a replica backplane for the 8/S, if that's of interest. That and about a dozen module drawings will let you build a replica (given enough cash). Of course, to be authentic, you'd export the netlist and wire wrap the backplane, but that's a preposterous amount of error-prone work. I do have a Perl script to generate a wirelist, though, if someone wants to try it :-). Even though the modules are all single-sided, that's a lot of wire-wrapping! The replica also uses an SRAM memory module, instead of the original core. The SRAM module is double height (to get enough pins), and standard DEC modules are used to interface to it. I haven't done anything with the slots freed up by replacing the core subsystem. (There might be enough room to integrate a TTY controller!) I do have the TTY controller backplane drawn, too. Oh, and the memory expansion above 4K is also still a separate backplane (which I haven't drawn). I do know of a guy in Australia who's done some work on replicating the Rxxx modules. Generally, I think the 8/L backplane is a more promising starting point, though it lacks the cachet of being all-transistor (and the DEC modules use dated, hard-to-find TTL). Of course, the memory expansion for that is *also* another backplane (which I haven't drawn). Vince From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Tue Feb 26 12:27:02 2008 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:27:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Possible DEC 11/44 on Govliq In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <463449.81240.qm@web82712.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Richard wrote: What a steal! Its only 3500 lbs..... - True, but you do get three units, each with disk drives of some sort. From ak6dn at mindspring.com Tue Feb 26 12:37:04 2008 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:37:04 -0800 Subject: Possible DEC 11/44 on Govliq In-Reply-To: <47C36D1E.1060605@mindspring.com> References: <450015.89715.qm@web82705.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <47C36D1E.1060605@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <47C45C50.7030007@mindspring.com> Don North wrote: > Bob Rosenbloom wrote: >> See: >> http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?id=1583881&categoryId=1004 >> >> Check out the last photo. >> >> Bob >> >> > > Actually the front panel looks more like an 11/24. On the 11/44 the > keyswitch is on the left side. > > > Actually I take that back. With the TU-58 slot over on the right hand side it would make it a VAX 11/730 box instead. From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Feb 26 12:46:32 2008 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:46:32 -0800 Subject: Metaphor Computer Systems Message-ID: <47C45E88.5030305@bitsavers.org> > I happened to stumble over a posting that you made on the web about a > year ago talking about installing some "Metaphor" computers. I am a > former Metaphor engineer. Is he talking about a different Metaphor? Metaphor Computer was started by ex Xerox people (Dave Liddle) in Silicon Valley. > I have a slide show on my web site that they developed to > celebrate the death of the company. not obvious on the site. From curt at atarimuseum.com Tue Feb 26 12:59:22 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:59:22 -0500 Subject: Metaphor Computer Systems In-Reply-To: <47C45E88.5030305@bitsavers.org> References: <47C45E88.5030305@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <47C4618A.5050708@atarimuseum.com> I emailed John and asked him if he could share what he has. The Metaphor's I recall installing around 89-90 have a wireless mouse that had a storage compartment, I don't remember if the keyboard was also wireless... the units were grey and their styling reminded me a little bit of the wyse terminals in the angles and the grey color... I got to install several while working on site at American Express in Manhattan, they were very impressive machines - they were being used as I recall in the legal department as there were a couple of Lexis/Nexis systems we maintained in that same computer room. Curt Al Kossow wrote: > > I happened to stumble over a posting that you made on the web about a > > year ago talking about installing some "Metaphor" computers. I am a > > former Metaphor engineer. > > Is he talking about a different Metaphor? > > Metaphor Computer was started by ex Xerox people (Dave Liddle) in > Silicon Valley. > > > I have a slide show on my web site that they developed to > > celebrate the death of the company. > > not obvious on the site. > > > > From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Feb 26 13:45:53 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 11:45:53 -0800 Subject: Metaphor Computer Systems References: <47C45E88.5030305@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <47C46C71.59CBF4F7@cs.ubc.ca> Al Kossow wrote: > > > I happened to stumble over a posting that you made on the web about a > > year ago talking about installing some "Metaphor" computers. I am a > > former Metaphor engineer. > > Is he talking about a different Metaphor? > > Metaphor Computer was started by ex Xerox people (Dave Liddle) in > Silicon Valley. > > > I have a slide show on my web site that they developed to > > celebrate the death of the company. > > not obvious on the site. www.johnweeks.com -> click Hobbies -> click Metaphor Computer Systems -> click slide show http://www.johnweeks.com/metaphor/index.html A(nother) Xerox spin-off contemporary with the Mac: http://www.johnweeks.com/metaphor/slideshow.cgi?slide=14 From alanp at snowmoose.com Tue Feb 26 14:52:21 2008 From: alanp at snowmoose.com (Alan Perry) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:52:21 -0800 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX Message-ID: <47C47C05.9070402@snowmoose.com> The Seattle Times is running an article about how the Seattle School District is still using a VAX to do school assignments. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2004203746_enrollment26m.html From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Tue Feb 26 15:01:14 2008 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:01:14 -0500 Subject: [SPAM] - Re: IOmega - Found word(s) cartridge in the Text body In-Reply-To: <47C44731.5080607@netscape.net> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org> <47C44731.5080607@netscape.net> Message-ID: <47C47E1A.5080107@compsys.to> Jerome Fine replies: Not sure if this helps, but Iomega produced a SCSI "insider" (if that is the correct name used for marketing) which was a drive with a removable cartridge of 196608 blocks. The drives were the size of a 3 1/2" disk drive and the media were just a bit bigger than a 3 1/2" floppy and about twice as thick. The drives were fully SCSI compatible as far as my experience is worth. I first purchased a drive around 1997 and the date on the files supplied with the drives is April 10, 1997. The primary reason I used the drives was to replace an RX50 on a PDP-11/73 when the RD53 drive was replaced with a 100 MByte SCSI drive using a CQD 200/TM. It was very strange having a removable cartridge that had a larger capacity than the RD53 with the physical size of an RX23. The problem of backing up all the files from the RD53 was obviously trivial with a removable media that had more capacity than the RD53. The drives initially served as the exchange media between the PDP-11/73 and the PC running Windows 95 on a Pentium 166 - later upgraded to a Pentium III running W98SE. Shortly after that, the Sony SMO S-501 (also with a SCSI interface) became much lower in cost, was much more reliable and had a 295 MByte cartridge (actually 590 with 295 MBytes available on each side with only one side available at a time - the Sony drives were NOT double sided). Zane Healy can comment on the problems with some models - probably later versions since when I used the Iomega drives, I never had a problem. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine >scheefj at netscape.net wrote: > The earliest Iomega Bernoulli "Boxes" had two 10M cartridge drives. > Unfortunately the interface was a bastardized SASI, not SCSI. I had a > long talk with an Iomega support guy (when these guys actually knew > something). You need the 8-bit interface card that came with the > drives to make them work. Same is true of the later 10M 1/2-height > drives. > > Iomega did eventually switch to a standard SCSI but I do not know when > they made the change. > > Jim > > > Al Kossow wrote: > >> >> > Were all the early 80's IOmega's SCSI or did they use something >> before that? >> >> The earliest devices were full height 10MB 8" SCSI drives that had >> optional slave >> drives attached. Their main claim to fame was using floppy type media. >> >> The first Syquests were MFM ST506, using removable plated media. > From slawmaster at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 15:07:29 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:07:29 -0800 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX In-Reply-To: <47C47C05.9070402@snowmoose.com> References: <47C47C05.9070402@snowmoose.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220802261307n7d19b777mcf36c6987f382f04@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:52 PM, Alan Perry wrote: > > The Seattle Times is running an article about how the Seattle School > District is still using a VAX to do school assignments. > > http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2004203746_enrollment26m.html > > Hey, my university (Rochester Institute of Technology) still has two VAXes and two Alphaservers, all running VMS, to do registration. Up until about two or three years ago, all of our email was handled by those machines too. These people are probably thinking of switching over to Windows, too, which is really sad. I think there are plenty of people at RIT who would like to do the same, but there is no way they'll get anything as useful as our VMS registration system. John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From cclist at sydex.com Tue Feb 26 15:26:52 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:26:52 -0800 Subject: IOmega - Found word(s) cartridge in the Text body In-Reply-To: <47C47E1A.5080107@compsys.to> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org>, <47C44731.5080607@netscape.net>, <47C47E1A.5080107@compsys.to> Message-ID: <47C4139C.11516.1A7E0A44@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Feb 2008 at 16:01, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > Not sure if this helps, but Iomega produced a SCSI "insider" (if that is > the correct name used for marketing) which was a drive with a removable > cartridge of 196608 blocks. The drives were the size of a 3 1/2" disk > drive and the media were just a bit bigger than a 3 1/2" floppy and about > twice as thick. Are you perhaps thinking of the Zip or Jaz drives? Both were available in SCSI (as well as other interfaces), but the Bernoullis predated them quite a bit and later models of the Bernoulli were fully SCSI compatible. The Jaz was an execrable excuse for a removable media drive. My Syquest Sparq is still going strong, but the two Jaz drives I have are paperweights. OTOH, the last time I fired up my dual 90MB Bernoulli box, it worked flawlessly. IIRC, Steve Gibson made some waves with his Iomega "Click of Death" diagnosis of the Zip drive. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Feb 26 15:30:52 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:30:52 -0800 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX In-Reply-To: <47C47C05.9070402@snowmoose.com> References: <47C47C05.9070402@snowmoose.com> Message-ID: <47C4148C.2405.1A81B3BF@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Feb 2008 at 12:52, Alan Perry wrote: > The Seattle Times is running an article about how the Seattle School > District is still using a VAX to do school assignments. > > http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2004203746_enrollment26m.html "To keep tweaking the VAXes, district staff warned last week, is risky and a waste of time. To replace them, however, likely comes with a cost that made School Board members cringe: a delay of about a year in putting the new assignment plan into action." Surely, emulation is an option...and probably cost-effective. Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Feb 26 13:50:05 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:50:05 +0000 (GMT) Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: <200802260403.XAA17655@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> from "der Mouse" at Feb 25, 8 10:59:56 pm Message-ID: > > > Odd thing is that everything seems to work - if I place a small fan > > to keep the CPU & FPU cooled to "just hot", it settles back down and > > all seems to work correctly. All self-tests pass (including FPU). > > It appears it would run indefinately in this state, but it's > > obviously not healthy. It seems unlikely that there would be an > > internal chip failure that would cause it to eat this much power and > > still perform it's intended function. > > Yes, that's why I speculated about fans - perhaps it's designed for > (say) three times the airflow the case is giving it, and the only real > problem is the fan? It strikes me as unlikely, but no more so than any > other failure mode I've come up with that matches the symptoms. Do you know that the fan is the original one? Is it possible that somebody has replaced the fan with a lower airflow one in a misguided attempt to make the machine quieter? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Feb 26 13:54:03 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:54:03 +0000 (GMT) Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: from "Christian Corti" at Feb 26, 8 11:05:48 am Message-ID: > We have the original HP blueprints/schematics for the HP 9810 and/or 9820. > I haven't scanned them yet as they are on big sheets. I should try to > copy/reduce them onto A4 and then scan them. Nice. I can assure you those scheamtics do _not_ appear in the normal HP9180/20 service manual (it's one manual convering both machines, and apart from the PSU it contaisn no schematics). On the other hand, the patents for those machines contain schematics of virtually everything. Those 2 machines have about 60% of the boards in common. The CPU, backplane, printer, card reader and PSU are common. The expansion backplane is differnt (the 9820 allows DMA IIRC and has extra pins on the module connecotors as a result), the memory box is totally different (none of the boards are common), the keyboard and display are of course different. Yes, I've repaired both of them... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Feb 26 13:48:04 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:48:04 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: from "David Griffith" at Feb 25, 8 06:40:34 pm Message-ID: > This paper tape fiddling made me wonder if anyone ever made a cassette > tape interface that emitted RS232 signals and looked to the computer like > a paper tape reader/writer. I doubt you could make a cassette interface that appeared identical to a paper tape reader, since most paper tape readers will stop on a character and cassettes don't That said, there have been many cassette interfaces that were hardware-intensive and which used a normal asynchronous serial chip. One very common one (at least over here) is the BBC Micro. That has a 6850 chip linked to a ULA. The latter generates the baud clocks, switches the 6850 serial pins between the RS423 serial port and the cassette circuitry, and encodes said serial stream to CUTS tones. _Many_ years ago I built a CUTS encoder/decoder with an RS232 interface and used it to read Basicode tapes. The encoder was a pair of counters with a factor of 2 differnt in the division ration, one was held reset when the TxD line was high, the other was reset wehn it was low. The outputs were ORed toegether, they wete both clocked from the same freqeuncy source. The decoder was a couple of monostables (one-shots), connected in a well-known circuit that I got from $deity-knows-where. I even used one of hte handshake lines on the RS232 port to control a relay wired to the remote socket o nthe cassette recorder. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Feb 26 13:57:09 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:57:09 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <009a01c87869$cc4a26d0$02fea8c0@portajara> from "Alexandre Souza" at Feb 26, 8 08:20:40 am Message-ID: > Easy path: two tone detectors, going to a microcontroller who store the > data read from the tape and send it in RS232 way. A very simple AVR > microcontroller can do that ;o) Argh!. I grew up learning to design solutions to problems, rather than throw microcontrollers at them in the hope they'd go away. For the standard 1200/2400Hz cassette tones, there's a very simple circuit using a pair of monostables (one-shots) -- IIRC a single 74LS123 chip will do -- that does the decodning from the tones to a bitstream. BTW, if you've got tone detectors (presumably one tuned to the '1' tone, the other to the '0' tone), why do you need a miocrocontroller to turn the output into a bitstrea?. A few logic gates is a lot simpler. -tony From slawmaster at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 15:42:51 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:42:51 -0800 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: References: <009a01c87869$cc4a26d0$02fea8c0@portajara> Message-ID: <7d3530220802261342t3a76e375n24c17f16396744da@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 11:57 AM, Tony Duell wrote: > > Easy path: two tone detectors, going to a microcontroller who store the > > data read from the tape and send it in RS232 way. A very simple AVR > > microcontroller can do that ;o) > > Argh!. I grew up learning to design solutions to problems, rather than > throw microcontrollers at them in the hope they'd go away. > > For the standard 1200/2400Hz cassette tones, there's a very simple > circuit using a pair of monostables (one-shots) -- IIRC a single 74LS123 > chip will do -- that does the decodning from the tones to a bitstream. > > BTW, if you've got tone detectors (presumably one tuned to the '1' tone, > the other to the '0' tone), why do you need a miocrocontroller to turn > the output into a bitstrea?. A few logic gates is a lot simpler. > > -tony > Well, microcontrollers are the cool new thing, right? I see in the robotics club often that the response to just about any problem is, "Oh, ok, we'll just drop in a microcontroller" John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From coredump at gifford.co.uk Tue Feb 26 15:49:12 2008 From: coredump at gifford.co.uk (John Honniball) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:49:12 +0000 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47C48958.9080101@gifford.co.uk> David Griffith wrote: > This paper tape fiddling made me wonder if anyone ever made a cassette > tape interface that emitted RS232 signals and looked to the computer like > a paper tape reader/writer. Yes, we had some at Westfield College, University of London in the early 1980s. I can't remember the make/model, but I think I may have one in the loft (will take a look). It was a modified audio cassette recorder with a 25-pin "D" connector for the serial port. -- John Honniball coredump at gifford.co.uk From dbetz at xlisper.com Tue Feb 26 15:52:08 2008 From: dbetz at xlisper.com (David Betz) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:52:08 -0500 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX In-Reply-To: <47C47C05.9070402@snowmoose.com> References: <47C47C05.9070402@snowmoose.com> Message-ID: <3670D2E8-3743-4547-8E46-D423BE8B3006@xlisper.com> > > The Seattle Times is running an article about how the Seattle School > District is still using a VAX to do school assignments. > > http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2004203746_enrollment26m.html > Hmmm... I wonder if this student assignment program is some sort of expert system written in something like OPS5? It could be an interesting project to convert it to something more modern. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Feb 26 15:52:49 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:52:49 -0800 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: References: <009a01c87869$cc4a26d0$02fea8c0@portajara> from "Alexandre Souza" at Feb 26, 8 08:20:40 am, Message-ID: <47C419B1.6450.1A95CE0E@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Feb 2008 at 19:57, Tony Duell wrote: > Argh!. I grew up learning to design solutions to problems, rather than > throw microcontrollers at them in the hope they'd go away. Aw, Tony, a little 8 pin PIC or an ATiny can do this with no additional active packages. The algorithm can be tweaked with no component changes. Yes, it might be fun doing it with NE567s or somesuch, but then, someone even more conservative would castigate you for not using tuned LC filters and discretes for the active part. A couple of 6SN7s and some powdered-iron core inductors should do the trick... I really like the little microcontrollers--they're cheap and they do the job. I'm not averse to using them when they're the best solution. Cheers, Chuck From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Feb 26 16:07:56 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:07:56 -0500 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX In-Reply-To: <3670D2E8-3743-4547-8E46-D423BE8B3006@xlisper.com> References: <47C47C05.9070402@snowmoose.com> <3670D2E8-3743-4547-8E46-D423BE8B3006@xlisper.com> Message-ID: <200802261707.56127.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 26 February 2008, David Betz wrote: > > The Seattle Times is running an article about how the Seattle > > School District is still using a VAX to do school assignments. > > > > http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2004203746_enrollme > >nt26m.html > > Hmmm... I wonder if this student assignment program is some sort of > expert system written in something like OPS5? It could be an > interesting project to convert it to something more modern. It's much more likely that it'd just be replaced with some COTS* stuff like Banner. * COTS != cheap off-the-shelf. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From curt at atarimuseum.com Tue Feb 26 16:10:41 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:10:41 -0500 Subject: Metaphor Computer Systems In-Reply-To: <47C46C71.59CBF4F7@cs.ubc.ca> References: <47C45E88.5030305@bitsavers.org> <47C46C71.59CBF4F7@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <47C48E61.30807@atarimuseum.com> John just sent me that link too and yup, that is the beastie I remember, this systems were spectacular, I've been searching for several years and I've yet to find one in the wild, if anyone turns one up, please let me know as I'd really like to acquire one. Curt Brent Hilpert wrote: > Al Kossow wrote: > >> > I happened to stumble over a posting that you made on the web about a >> > year ago talking about installing some "Metaphor" computers. I am a >> > former Metaphor engineer. >> >> Is he talking about a different Metaphor? >> >> Metaphor Computer was started by ex Xerox people (Dave Liddle) in >> Silicon Valley. >> >> > I have a slide show on my web site that they developed to >> > celebrate the death of the company. >> >> not obvious on the site. >> > > www.johnweeks.com -> click Hobbies -> click Metaphor Computer Systems -> click > slide show > > http://www.johnweeks.com/metaphor/index.html > > A(nother) Xerox spin-off contemporary with the Mac: > http://www.johnweeks.com/metaphor/slideshow.cgi?slide=14 > > > From curt at atarimuseum.com Tue Feb 26 16:13:17 2008 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:13:17 -0500 Subject: MINDSET buffs... In-Reply-To: <200802211220.48552.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <200802211220.48552.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <47C48EFD.8090909@atarimuseum.com> Lyle, I won that Mindset auction - thanks again for the heads up. If anyone needs anything from that auction, please email me directly, I was mostly interested in all of the software, manuals, developer stuff, the keyboard box and the carrying case, I have more then enough Mindset systems themselves already. What I truly want to find are schematics and technical documents to the Mindset's... I'd like to see more details on how the expansion ports worked on the systems and see if I could make or adapt a network card and get the Mindset's networked. Curt Lyle Bickley wrote: > I just checked this out at Weirdstuff - Two brand new MINDSET systems > with what looks like every accessory ever made for the critter, > including O/S, development software, documentation, the original > boxes, etc. > > See: http://images.weirdstuff.com/full/Bay2.jpg > > Here's information on how to bid (sealed bid auction): > > 1. The auction closes on 2/25/2008 at 6PM. > 2. The Minimum bid is $26 per lot. > 3. Winning bidders will be notified on following day by 12:00 PM. > 4. Material must be paid for and picked up the same week. > 5. Pickup times are 9:30 AM to 6PM, Monday through Saturday. 11AM-5PM > on Sunday. If you are not local to the S.F. Bay Area, shipping is > available. > 6. Lots are sold AS-IS. > > The Lot number for the MINDSETs is: #23 > You can FAX your Bid to: 408-743-5655 > > NOTE: I am associated with Weirdstuff only as a client (someone who > buys stuff from them). I am not a collector of MINDSET gear, but > after seeing it in the bid sale, I felt that some folks on the list > would probably find this an interesting lot. > > Cheers, > Lyle > From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Feb 26 16:15:28 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:15:28 -0300 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion References: Message-ID: <006d01c878c5$21d9c730$02fea8c0@portajara> > Argh!. I grew up learning to design solutions to problems, rather than > throw microcontrollers at them in the hope they'd go away. Just like me! But Tony, the world goes on... Nowadays an attiny15 costs just like the same a 555. I have 1K of program memory and other features, for almost the price of a 555. I like to do puzzles, but there are lots of improvment in electronics. Why not use them? Faster, easier, and it works! I'm against programmable chips too. But Tony, we are in 2008! Things doesn't need to be discardable, but also doesn't need to have 15 TTL chips to work... From dbetz at xlisper.com Tue Feb 26 16:21:59 2008 From: dbetz at xlisper.com (David Betz) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:21:59 -0500 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX In-Reply-To: <200802261707.56127.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <47C47C05.9070402@snowmoose.com> <3670D2E8-3743-4547-8E46-D423BE8B3006@xlisper.com> <200802261707.56127.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <6D4B1A3E-9CE2-437F-83BB-71D0B3206B00@xlisper.com> >>> The Seattle Times is running an article about how the Seattle >>> School District is still using a VAX to do school assignments. >>> >>> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2004203746_enrollme >>> nt26m.html >> >> Hmmm... I wonder if this student assignment program is some sort of >> expert system written in something like OPS5? It could be an >> interesting project to convert it to something more modern. > > It's much more likely that it'd just be replaced with some COTS* stuff > like Banner. > > > * COTS != cheap off-the-shelf. I suppose so but that doesn't sound like nearly as much fun. Plus, it's off topic! Recreating a vintage OPS5 expert system is at least mildly on-topic. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Feb 26 16:24:03 2008 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:24:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200802262226.RAA23887@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> Yes, that's why I speculated about fans - perhaps it's designed for >> (say) three times the airflow the case is giving it, and the only >> real problem is the fan? It strikes me as unlikely, but no more so >> than any other failure mode I've come up with that matches the >> symptoms. > Do you know that the fan is the original one? It's original from my POV in that it's the one that was in it when I got it, but the machine was out of my hands for some time between the factory and me, and I have no idea what might have happened to it then. Furthermore, fans do wear out, and it could be that the original fan, while original, is no longer up to original specs. > Is it possible that somebody has replaced the fan with a lower > airflow one in a misguided attempt to make the machine quieter? Could be for all I know. Anyone got a fan CFM spec for the 2k? :) /~\ 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 lbickley at bickleywest.com Tue Feb 26 16:28:50 2008 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:28:50 -0800 Subject: MINDSET buffs... In-Reply-To: <47C48EFD.8090909@atarimuseum.com> References: <200802211220.48552.lbickley@bickleywest.com> <47C48EFD.8090909@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <200802261428.51106.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Tuesday 26 February 2008 14:13, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > Lyle, > > I won that Mindset auction - thanks again for the heads up. You're welcome. Glad you won the lot! Cheers, Lyle --snip-- > Lyle Bickley wrote: > > I just checked this out at Weirdstuff - Two brand new MINDSET > > systems with what looks like every accessory ever made for the > > critter, including O/S, development software, documentation, the > > original boxes, etc. > > > > See: http://images.weirdstuff.com/full/Bay2.jpg > > > > Here's information on how to bid (sealed bid auction): > > > > 1. The auction closes on 2/25/2008 at 6PM. > > 2. The Minimum bid is $26 per lot. > > 3. Winning bidders will be notified on following day by 12:00 > > PM. 4. Material must be paid for and picked up the same week. 5. > > Pickup times are 9:30 AM to 6PM, Monday through Saturday. > > 11AM-5PM on Sunday. If you are not local to the S.F. Bay Area, > > shipping is available. > > 6. Lots are sold AS-IS. > > > > The Lot number for the MINDSETs is: #23 > > You can FAX your Bid to: 408-743-5655 > > > > NOTE: I am associated with Weirdstuff only as a client (someone > > who buys stuff from them). I am not a collector of MINDSET gear, > > but after seeing it in the bid sale, I felt that some folks on > > the list would probably find this an interesting lot. > > > > Cheers, > > Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Feb 26 16:38:12 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:38:12 -0700 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802261342t3a76e375n24c17f16396744da@mail.gmail.com> References: <009a01c87869$cc4a26d0$02fea8c0@portajara> <7d3530220802261342t3a76e375n24c17f16396744da@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C494D4.3080402@jetnet.ab.ca> John Floren wrote: > On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 11:57 AM, Tony Duell wrote: >> BTW, if you've got tone detectors (presumably one tuned to the '1' tone, >> the other to the '0' tone), why do you need a miocrocontroller to turn >> the output into a bitstrea?. A few logic gates is a lot simpler. > Well, microcontrollers are the cool new thing, right? I see in the > robotics club often that the response to just about any problem is, > "Oh, ok, we'll just drop in a microcontroller" "No, Nargato ,( an artificial human ) is way different in specs compared to four PC's." The Day of Sagittarius from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Even from the point of si-fi you don't throw in a micro chip. > John From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Feb 26 16:53:38 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:53:38 -0500 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 26, 2008, at 2:57 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> Easy path: two tone detectors, going to a microcontroller who >> store the >> data read from the tape and send it in RS232 way. A very simple AVR >> microcontroller can do that ;o) > > Argh!. I grew up learning to design solutions to problems, rather than > throw microcontrollers at them in the hope they'd go away. There's still quite a bit of design involved. Microcontrollers aren't "automatic", as I'm sure you're well aware. A microcontroller- based design is every bit as valid and honest as an all-discrete design. > For the standard 1200/2400Hz cassette tones, there's a very simple > circuit using a pair of monostables (one-shots) -- IIRC a single > 74LS123 > chip will do -- that does the decodning from the tones to a bitstream. > > BTW, if you've got tone detectors (presumably one tuned to the '1' > tone, > the other to the '0' tone), why do you need a miocrocontroller to turn > the output into a bitstrea?. A few logic gates is a lot simpler. Well, Chuck said it best, but I'll add this: You get fewer components, lower cost, easier maintainability and tweakability, increased flexibility, the possibility for a reusable design...how is this a bad thing? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Feb 26 17:14:19 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:14:19 -0700 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Feb 26, 2008, at 2:57 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > Well, Chuck said it best, but I'll add this: You get fewer components, > lower cost, easier maintainability and tweakability, increased > flexibility, the possibility for a reusable design...how is this a bad > thing? I question the over head ... with all the design software closed source I bet Mr Gates has control of I guess 75% of your hardware product. > -Dave > From cclist at sydex.com Tue Feb 26 17:30:47 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:30:47 -0800 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> References: , , <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <47C430A7.15823.1AEF7C89@cclist.sydex.com> David Griffith wrote: > This paper tape fiddling made me wonder if anyone ever made a cassette > tape interface that emitted RS232 signals and looked to the computer > like a paper tape reader/writer. Definitely. I used a lovely Techtran dual-cassette unit before I had a floppy drive for my MITS 8800. Buffered in 128-byte blocks, fully searchable and block-addressable. Used as a replacement for an ASR tape unit--it understood XON and XOFF control codes. Baud rates to 2400, IIRC. These were fairly common at one time in CNC applications, such as embroidery and machining before they were replaced by floppy-disk paper tape emulators. Data was recorded as NRZ rather than FSK, however. Cheers, Chuck From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Feb 26 17:35:13 2008 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:35:13 -0600 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX In-Reply-To: <47C4148C.2405.1A81B3BF@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47C47C05.9070402@snowmoose.com> <47C4148C.2405.1A81B3BF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20080226173448.07f96ed0@mail.threedee.com> At 03:30 PM 2/26/2008, Chuck Guzis wrote: >Surely, emulation is an option...and probably cost-effective. And probably has not been considered. - John -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.8/1288 - Release Date: 2/19/2008 8:47 PM From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Feb 26 17:40:19 2008 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:40:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <47C48958.9080101@gifford.co.uk> References: <47C48958.9080101@gifford.co.uk> Message-ID: <20080226153905.W6603@shell.lmi.net> David Griffith wrote: > This paper tape fiddling made me wonder if anyone ever made a cassette > tape interface that emitted RS232 signals and looked to the computer like > a paper tape reader/writer. reminds me of the TRS-232 It was an aftermarket printer interface ("RS232") that operated off of the cassette port of the TRS-80 From arcarlini at iee.org Tue Feb 26 17:41:31 2008 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:41:31 -0000 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: <200802262226.RAA23887@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <002301c878d1$1eacacb0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> der Mouse wrote: > Could be for all I know. Anyone got a fan CFM spec for the 2k? :) The Technical Manual seems silent on that point. I'll write and complain :-) If Dave can say what the fan actually is, I'll take mine apart and see if it's the same. Might be interesting to see if my fan works at all or not too :-) Antonio No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.21.1/1298 - Release Date: 25/02/2008 20:45 From cclist at sydex.com Tue Feb 26 17:41:38 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:41:38 -0800 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> References: , , <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <47C43332.15943.1AF96B69@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Feb 2008 at 16:14, woodelf wrote: > I question the over head ... with all the design software closed source > I bet Mr Gates has control of I guess 75% of your hardware product. Eh? I use open-source development systems with both PIC and AVR. Tony reminds me a bit of Bob Pease (who writes the analog column for "Electronic Design"). When, on occasion, someone points out that a simple microcontroller would satisfy the problem he's discussing, the response is "I don't do software". Bob might even recoil at Tony's suggestion of digital one-shots. If you can't do it with op amps and comparators, Bob's generally not interested. Things are getting to the point where uCs even beat discrete logic in the area of power consumption. TI's MSP430 16-bit uC, for example draws a mere 250 microamps at 3 volts in active mode; 0.8 microamps will keep the real-time clock going and 0.1 microamp will keep the RAM intact. Cheers, Chuck From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Feb 26 17:47:24 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:47:24 -0500 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <200802261847.24654.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 26 February 2008 18:14, woodelf wrote: > Dave McGuire wrote: > > On Feb 26, 2008, at 2:57 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > > > Well, Chuck said it best, but I'll add this: You get fewer > > components, lower cost, easier maintainability and tweakability, > > increased flexibility, the possibility for a reusable design...how > > is this a bad thing? > > I question the over head ... with all the design software closed > source I bet Mr Gates has control of I guess 75% of your hardware > product. All of the "good" microcontrollers don't require any sort of Windows software. Some may require closed-source compilers, etc, but you can find open-source compilers for MCS51, PIC, and other uC architectures. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Feb 26 18:10:45 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:10:45 -0700 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <47C43332.15943.1AF96B69@cclist.sydex.com> References: , , <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> <47C43332.15943.1AF96B69@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C4AA85.20700@jetnet.ab.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 26 Feb 2008 at 16:14, woodelf wrote: > >> I question the over head ... with all the design software closed source >> I bet Mr Gates has control of I guess 75% of your hardware product. > > Eh? I use open-source development systems with both PIC and AVR. I have not seen such since I don't do any of that stuff. > Things are getting to the point where uCs even beat discrete logic in > the area of power consumption. TI's MSP430 16-bit uC, for example > draws a mere 250 microamps at 3 volts in active mode; 0.8 microamps > will keep the real-time clock going and 0.1 microamp will keep the > RAM intact. Right now I am trying to VIEW the %$@! You-Tube stuff. I hate streaming stuf on dial up. I don't think I will ever get more than the 1st few minutes of the UNIVAC stuff. Nothing like comparing almost 60 years of computing development. > Cheers, > Chuck > > > . > From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Feb 26 18:26:49 2008 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:26:49 -0500 Subject: Possible DEC 11/44 on Govliq In-Reply-To: <47C45C50.7030007@mindspring.com> References: <450015.89715.qm@web82705.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <47C36D1E.1060605@mindspring.com> <47C45C50.7030007@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <4996.1204072009@mini> Don North wrote: > >Actually I take that back. With the TU-58 slot over on the right hand >side it would make it a VAX 11/730 box instead. that was what I thought. too bad you can't see the side - there would be a another slot if it's a 730. but I thought some 44's had TU58's also. -brad From dave06a at dunfield.com Tue Feb 26 20:00:53 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:00:53 -0500 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: <002301c878d1$1eacacb0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> References: <200802262226.RAA23887@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <1BEE23AB711C@dunfield.com> >>> Do you know that the fan is the original one? Is it possible that >>> somebody has replaced the fan with a lower airflow one in a misguided >>> attempt to make the machine quieter? A good idea, but I don't think this is the case. According to the technical manual, the power supply and fan should be the same in the main system cabinet and in the matching expansion boxes (same chassis) - I have two expansion boxes (tape and disk) and all three have exactly the same fan installed. I've not done measurements, however the fan seems to be operating correctly, good airflow, doesn't sound like it's dragging etc. The sound and airflow are not noticibly different from the other two boxes. According to the technical manual, the fan is supposed to be "variable speed". It's a 12V DC fan, however it is powered via a 7905 (-5V) regulator which has it's reference through a resistor divider which includes a thermistor. So presumably it speeds up as the cabinet gets hot - since the thermistor is in the power supply, which has somewhat of a separate airflow path (metal plate between PS and boards) it may not detect the "hot spot" forming at in the other airflow path. I'll have to do some measurements. I could try hard-wiring the fan to full power, however this thing *should* work as it is designed, and the fan supply seems to be working, as noted above, it behaves virtually identically to the other two boxes. I've done some googling and have not found any refernces to other uVAX2000's having this problem. Removing the color display buffer board should allow for better cooling of the mainboard, as the two boards are large and sandwiched together in a fairly thin air duct. But again, I think if this were a common cause of this problem, there would be references. > > Could be for all I know. Anyone got a fan CFM spec for the 2k? :) > > The Technical Manual seems silent on that point. I'll write and complain > :-) > > If Dave can say what the fan actually is, I'll take mine apart and > see if it's the same. Might be interesting to see if my fan works at all > or not too :-) The fan in mine (as well as the two expansion boxes) is a: PANAFLO Model FBP-08B12H made by Matsushita I didn't have to take any of my boxes apart, the fan label can be easily read through the rear air grill. I would like to know if your machine gets as hot as mine - with the main cover removed and nothing else, after a few minites, mine gets a very noticable "hot spot" on the flexible shield covering the upper (solder) of the mainboard above the CPU's (near the front of the machine, near the center but more on the drive side). Unfortunately you can't access the CPU/FPU heat sinks without removing the board (unless you have a thin temperature probe) ... on mine, both the CPU and FPU sinks get to the point where hanging on to them would probably result in skin damage (blister etc.) - it seems to me that the FPU (the one closest to the RAM array) get a bit hotter, but both are well into the "uncomfortable hot" range... Given that they both seem to run directly from the 5V rail, and that is well with spec (something like 5.01 when I measured) I can't think of any external problem that would result in that much current draw and sill have the machine appear to operate normally (can't really think of an internal problem either). Really has me stumped - there seems to be reasonable airflow through the cabinet, nothing seems to be blocked etc. It just gets so hot it dies... if the system were that "close to the edge", I'm sure I would have seen references to more problems. I did find a few references to thermal death when operated in very hot environments, but I keep my office on the coolish side. 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 alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Tue Feb 26 20:28:00 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:28:00 -0300 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion References: <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <006a01c878e8$74207890$02fea8c0@portajara> >> Well, Chuck said it best, but I'll add this: You get fewer components, >> lower cost, easier maintainability and tweakability, increased >> flexibility, the possibility for a reusable design...how is this a bad >> thing? > I question the over head ... with all the design software closed source > I bet Mr Gates has control of I guess 75% of your hardware product. I know no microcontrollers that hasn't unix/linux tools, nor one who doesn't is documented - programming algorithm, asm and like. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Feb 26 20:36:12 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:36:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <006a01c878e8$74207890$02fea8c0@portajara> References: <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> <006a01c878e8$74207890$02fea8c0@portajara> Message-ID: On Tue, 26 Feb 2008, Alexandre Souza wrote: > >> Well, Chuck said it best, but I'll add this: You get fewer components, > >> lower cost, easier maintainability and tweakability, increased > >> flexibility, the possibility for a reusable design...how is this a bad > >> thing? > > I question the over head ... with all the design software closed source > > I bet Mr Gates has control of I guess 75% of your hardware product. > > I know no microcontrollers that hasn't unix/linux tools, nor one who > doesn't is documented - programming algorithm, asm and like. I remember seeing something like that at http://www.midibox.org/ and/or http://www.ucapps.de/ -- 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 slawmaster at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 20:41:51 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:41:51 -0500 Subject: Friden Flexowriter Message-ID: <7d3530220802261841n8228c36o2b48a9708cf0889d@mail.gmail.com> A quick question--can you hook a Friden Flexowriter to a modern computer? I'm not afraid to put together some sort of interface/converter, but I haven't really found any information about that kind of thing... if anyone here has experience with one of these, your input would be greatly appreciated. John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From innfoclassics at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 20:48:57 2008 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 18:48:57 -0800 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX In-Reply-To: <47C47C05.9070402@snowmoose.com> References: <47C47C05.9070402@snowmoose.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:52 PM, Alan Perry wrote: > > The Seattle Times is running an article about how the Seattle School > District is still using a VAX to do school assignments. > > http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2004203746_enrollment26m.html > > Aren't those 6000s from the early 1990s. I may have to pay attention... I have bought computer parts from the Seattle School District in the past, very very cheap. Of course that was in the days of RA80s. Paxton Astoria, OR -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Feb 26 20:55:34 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:55:34 -0700 Subject: Friden Flexowriter In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802261841n8228c36o2b48a9708cf0889d@mail.gmail.com> References: <7d3530220802261841n8228c36o2b48a9708cf0889d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C4D126.4030104@jetnet.ab.ca> John Floren wrote: > A quick question--can you hook a Friden Flexowriter to a modern > computer? I'm not afraid to put together some sort of > interface/converter, but I haven't really found any information about > that kind of thing... if anyone here has experience with one of these, > your input would be greatly appreciated. You could I guess, but I suspect more people are looking for such machines as they wish to have spares if they wish to restore classic machines.If have one to spare, a better use may be to hook it up to orginal equipment. > John From slawmaster at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 21:06:55 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:06:55 -0500 Subject: Friden Flexowriter In-Reply-To: <47C4D126.4030104@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <7d3530220802261841n8228c36o2b48a9708cf0889d@mail.gmail.com> <47C4D126.4030104@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <7d3530220802261906o7a4357eemb680dd175ffe5350@mail.gmail.com> On 2/26/08, woodelf wrote: > John Floren wrote: > > A quick question--can you hook a Friden Flexowriter to a modern > > computer? I'm not afraid to put together some sort of > > interface/converter, but I haven't really found any information about > > that kind of thing... if anyone here has experience with one of these, > > your input would be greatly appreciated. > > > You could I guess, but I suspect more people are looking > for such machines as they wish to have spares if they wish to > restore classic machines.If have one to spare, a better use > may be to hook it up to orginal equipment. > > This is potentially for the office. We don't have any vintage equipment, but we'd like to get a typewriter/teletype style terminal to show off to visitors. There are several people there who have worked on computers for a loooong time and have a healthy respect for old equipment, so I think it would be kept in good working condition and out of the dump. John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From dave06a at dunfield.com Tue Feb 26 21:04:05 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:04:05 -0500 Subject: VAX 2000 FPU test ? Message-ID: <1C285ABE5A2B@dunfield.com> Does anyone know how comprehensive the pwer-on Floating Point Unit test (9) is in the Vaxstation/uVAX 2000 ? Does it actually verify that the FPU is functional, or is it just looking to see if some basic indications are the it is present? The (9) FPU test is performed at power-on, and also by >>> TEST 9 I'm trying to determine if the FPU in my VS2000 is actually working. Will the console ROM run (normally) without an FPU? Unfortunately the (hopefully more comprehensive) system tests don't appear to test the FPU (or perhaps they don't see mine and therefore won't test it). Can anyone with a VS/uVAX 2000 tell me if: >>> TEST 80000106 >>> 9 Actually runs a test (mine just displays the testing header and halts. Another thing to try which takes longer is to run >>> TEST 102 And note which tests it runs. Mine runs: F (video) - Only if set to VS2000 C (Serial) B (memory) 7 (Hdc) 6 (TPC) Noteably missing are: E (clock) D (nvram) A (mmu) 9 (FPU) 8 (Timer) 5 (Interrupt controller) 4 (color FB) - I've got it removed 1 (Ethernet interface) - I've got it removed as well. All of these pass during power-up and TEST n tests (if I have them installed). Problem is, I don't know if the system tests are supposed to test these or not - I don't have a known good Vax2000 to compare with. BTW: To run TEST 102 and 80000106 you need to have the system test "hardware key" installed - this is just a DB-25 connector on the serial-port with pins 12 and 18 connected together. Thanks, 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 legalize at xmission.com Tue Feb 26 21:17:08 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:17:08 -0700 Subject: Friden Flexowriter In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:41:51 -0500. <7d3530220802261841n8228c36o2b48a9708cf0889d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <7d3530220802261841n8228c36o2b48a9708cf0889d at mail.gmail.com>, "John Floren" writes: > A quick question--can you hook a Friden Flexowriter to a modern > computer? I'm not afraid to put together some sort of > interface/converter, but I haven't really found any information about > that kind of thing... if anyone here has experience with one of these, > your input would be greatly appreciated. Have you consulted which goes into detail about the mechanism and circuitry? I'm not sure what the electronic interface looks like, but there is some circuit diagrams in that PDF. Have you googled around? Wikipedia has an entry for the flexowriter with what looks like some links to more detailed information. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Feb 26 21:34:10 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:34:10 -0800 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <47C430A7.15823.1AEF7C89@cclist.sydex.com> References: , , <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> <47C430A7.15823.1AEF7C89@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: cclist at sydex.com > > David Griffith wrote: > >> This paper tape fiddling made me wonder if anyone ever made a cassette >> tape interface that emitted RS232 signals and looked to the computer >> like a paper tape reader/writer. > > Definitely. I used a lovely Techtran dual-cassette unit before I had > a floppy drive for my MITS 8800. Buffered in 128-byte blocks, fully > searchable and block-addressable. Used as a replacement for an ASR > tape unit--it understood XON and XOFF control codes. Baud rates to > 2400, IIRC. > > These were fairly common at one time in CNC applications, such as > embroidery and machining before they were replaced by floppy-disk > paper tape emulators. > > Data was recorded as NRZ rather than FSK, however. > Hi For the high speed cassette, the Poly88 used manchester encoding. It is like a pushed to the limit FSK more more correctly phase encoding. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging.?You IM, we give. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Feb 26 21:27:09 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:27:09 -0500 Subject: anyone do vaxstation repairs? In-Reply-To: <009901c87869$cc240130$02fea8c0@portajara> References: <200802251830.31301.rtellason@verizon.net> <009901c87869$cc240130$02fea8c0@portajara> Message-ID: <200802262227.10333.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 26 February 2008 06:18, Alexandre Souza wrote: > > The continuing ability to make a living at something I'd spent several > > decades > > acquiring and honing my skills for would be nice, too... > > Hey, but where is the fun on that? > > I'm not old enough for saying "being there, done that". I'm only 33. > But the talk was the same: > > - I'm well versed in tubes. What will I do with these transistors? > - Oh, these chip modules are hell! I miss transistors! > - These new I.C.s are so hard to understand!!! Life was easier with > modules! > - My God, these SMD parts are made in hell!!! It was so good when I had > to change DIP ICs! Ah, but I do know tubes, transistors, chips, logic-based stuff, and even microprocessor/microcontroller-based stuff as well. The problem is that the amount of work needed out there in the market has gone way downward with each step in that progression, with less and less of it to be found as time goes on. Most of what used to be around here for repair shops and such don't exist any more. > I understand things got way harder. But there is always a way. New > things to learn and new frontiers. The journey is the reward....but does it > pays the bills? :oD That last part is the issue, sometimes. I do keep on learning new stuff all the time, and I look for situations to apply it in, but the job market at least as far as I've been able to find anywhere around here with regard to someone who's self-taught flat out stinks! But I'll keep on looking... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From legalize at xmission.com Tue Feb 26 21:36:16 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:36:16 -0700 Subject: Sun E450 free to good home Message-ID: 4x UltraSPARC II 480MHz CPUs, 4GB RAM, 2 SCSI discs. Located in 84094 -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Feb 26 21:30:07 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:30:07 -0500 Subject: 8/S Replica (was: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches) In-Reply-To: <068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net> <068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: <200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 26 February 2008 12:40, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > Generally, I think the 8/L backplane is a more promising starting > point, though it lacks the cachet of being all-transistor (and > the DEC modules use dated, hard-to-find TTL). What TTL are you calling hard to find? Just curious, as I might have some of it on hand 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 dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Feb 26 21:37:45 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:37:45 -0800 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: <002301c878d1$1eacacb0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> References: <200802262226.RAA23887@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <002301c878d1$1eacacb0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: > From: arcarlini at iee.org > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:41:31 +0000 > Subject: RE: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? > > der Mouse wrote: >> Could be for all I know. Anyone got a fan CFM spec for the 2k? :) > > The Technical Manual seems silent on that point. I'll write and complain > :-) > > If Dave can say what the fan actually is, I'll take mine apart and > see if it's the same. Might be interesting to see if my fan works at all > or not too :-) > Hi One thing that hasn't been mentioned. His system may be unintentionally over clocking. I've seen systems where the crystal will take of at an overtone. It is even possible that the crystal is broken and running at some higher frequency. Just a thought Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging.?You IM, we give. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Feb 26 21:45:32 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:45:32 -0800 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <47C43332.15943.1AF96B69@cclist.sydex.com> References: , , <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> <47C43332.15943.1AF96B69@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: cclist at sydex.com---snip--- > > Tony reminds me a bit of Bob Pease (who writes the analog column for > "Electronic Design"). When, on occasion, someone points out that a > simple microcontroller would satisfy the problem he's discussing, the > response is "I don't do software". Hi I've had lunch with Bob. He does enjoy analog. > > Bob might even recoil at Tony's suggestion of digital one-shots. If > you can't do it with op amps and comparators, Bob's generally not > interested.> > Things are getting to the point where uCs even beat discrete logic in > the area of power consumption. TI's MSP430 16-bit uC, for example > draws a mere 250 microamps at 3 volts in active mode; 0.8 microamps > will keep the real-time clock going and 0.1 microamp will keep the > RAM intact. How about 24 ea 18 bit processers in an array running at greater than 1Gop/s ea and drawing .25 watts with all running and less than 1 uw with all in sleep. Look up SEAforth. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Climb to the top of the charts!?Play the word scramble challenge with star power. http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_jan From ploopster at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 21:47:59 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:47:59 -0500 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: References: <200802262226.RAA23887@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <002301c878d1$1eacacb0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: <47C4DD6F.6080305@gmail.com> dwight elvey wrote: >> If Dave can say what the fan actually is, I'll take mine apart and >> see if it's the same. Might be interesting to see if my fan works at all >> or not too :-) >> > > Hi > One thing that hasn't been mentioned. His system may be > unintentionally over clocking. I've seen systems where the > crystal will take of at an overtone. It is even possible that > the crystal is broken and running at some higher frequency. That's an excellent suggestion and easy enough to check. Peace... Sridhar From tiggerlasv at aim.com Tue Feb 26 21:54:10 2008 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:54:10 -0500 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX Message-ID: <8CA470B8ACFFA2D-AC4-1C44@webmail-nd17.sysops.aol.com> Not being from the Vax world, I wonder difficult it would be for them to move them over to SIMH or CHARON emulators? The savings in power & air conditioning alone would probably pay for the new equipment in the first year. ;-) T From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Feb 26 22:07:25 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:07:25 -0500 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <9F87B0BC-38CE-4704-8A9D-1CCC07035185@neurotica.com> On Feb 26, 2008, at 6:14 PM, woodelf wrote: >> Well, Chuck said it best, but I'll add this: You get fewer >> components, lower cost, easier maintainability and tweakability, >> increased flexibility, the possibility for a reusable design...how >> is this a bad thing? > > I question the over head ... with all the design software closed > source > I bet Mr Gates has control of I guess 75% of your hardware product. Huh?? No, nothing could be further from the truth. This is a widely-believed myth that I want to put to bed *right now*. If you choose a microcontroller and a compiler system that locks you into BillyWare (or any other single vendor for that matter!), you've chosen poorly. I only use one microcontroller for which the compiler toolchain is proprietary (ironically it's an extended Z80)...EVERYTHING else I run is free. I regularly develop for (non-extended) Z80, at least four different modern mcs51 variants, ARM7, and PIC architectures, and I compiled every tool I use from source code. It's free software every step of the way, including editing the source code, compilation, linking, chip programming, debugging...everything. Soon I'll be adding MSP430 and ARM9 to that list, and the most commonly used development tools for those platforms are free (including source code) also. Further, there's no Windows involved anywhere (I don't have the patience for it)...I usually run under Solaris on UltraSPARC, but sometimes I develop (using the exact same tools!) under OS X. Hooray for modern operating systems. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Tue Feb 26 22:10:04 2008 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:10:04 -0600 Subject: IBM 6094 Lighted Programmable Function Keypad - Some Documentation... In-Reply-To: <200802251250.51123.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <856b98000802211348o56ea83a2te4dd65695047ac71@mail.gmail.com> <200802251250.51123.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <47C4E29C.7090400@brutman.com> I tried debugging mine again. I'm still where I was six months ago. The RS232 breakout box is showing me: Negative 10 volts on pin 2 of the DB9 serial connector. Pins 1 (CD), 6 (DSR) , 8 (CTS), 9 (RI) - positive 5 volts Everything is measured with respect to pin 5, which is ground. So, my interpretation .. it just never sends any bits on pin 2. There is a 'loopback' switch on the back of the unit which changes the behavior of the unit, but does not cause any bits to be sent. In the 'normal' position the unit appears to be inert. In the 'loopback' position the lights respond to key presses, but it doesn't send data. (Nor should it.) I have 2 or three that behave like this. Does anybody have one that they know works on something other than an RS/6000? Mind is connected using the serial cable option and a wall wart for power. Mike From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Feb 26 22:03:38 2008 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim s) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:03:38 -0800 Subject: Friden Flexowriter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47C4E11A.4040601@msm.umr.edu> Richard wrote: > In article <7d3530220802261841n8228c36o2b48a9708cf0889d at mail.gmail.com>, > "John Floren" writes: > Billy Pettit looked at a Justowriter a friend had, which is a variant of the Flexowriter, and for the specimen we had him look at, he noted that there are quite a number of belts to go bad, and in the case of the one that he looked at, most of the belts were bad. Even if your unit is working, I suspect it might not take much demoing, since that is what you want to put it to. I'd certainly display the unit, but if you want to hook something working up, I'd suggest an ASR33. The spares are more plentiful, and there is less to wear out on one that is in good condition. Also the I/O aspect of your Flexowriter makes it more useful to people who need them for original equipment as well. I don't know if the I/O interface is documented, or if you propose to just automate one which is not already automated, but if you do have one with an interface, the heritage and particulars, and if you would be so kind, documentation on the interfaces would be good to have in circulation. Jim From v.slyngstad at verizon.net Tue Feb 26 22:28:35 2008 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:28:35 -0800 Subject: 8/S Replica (was: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches) References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> From: "Roy J. Tellason": > On Tuesday 26 February 2008 12:40, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: >> Generally, I think the 8/L backplane is a more promising starting >> point, though it lacks the cachet of being all-transistor (and >> the DEC modules use dated, hard-to-find TTL). > > What TTL are you calling hard to find? Just curious, as I might > have some of it on hand here... Cool! Depending on what you are working on in the Mxxx series flip-chip line, there's a bunch of 74Hxx, quite a bit of use of and-or-invert (7450, 7453, H50, H52, H53, H55) and expander gates (7460, H60, H62), 7482 adder, 74181 alu, 74182 look-ahead carry. If you are specifically building an 8/L, you can get away with a subset, but I know off the top of my head that the M220 card (major registers and ALU functions) uses 7453, 7460, 7482, and I believe 74H40 chips (as well as the 7474, which isn't too hard to find). Of course, you could redesign the flipchips to use more modern stuff, but then you might get into a semantic quibble about whether it was really still a PDP-8/L :-). And you probably still need a fair number of 7401's or PALs or whatever to replace the and-or-invert gates and arithmetic stuff. I have some of these components, but the H5x and H6x stuff I mentioned I've had trouble sourcing even a couple of. You can also often get stuff for prices like $5 per chip, but that wouldn't be really practical if you were trying to build an entire replica CPU out of them. Vince From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Feb 26 22:33:52 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:33:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: 8/S Replica (was: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches) In-Reply-To: <075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net> <075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: On Tue, 26 Feb 2008, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > I have some of these components, but the H5x and H6x stuff I mentioned > I've had trouble sourcing even a couple of. You can also often get > stuff for prices like $5 per chip, but that wouldn't be really practical > if you were trying to build an entire replica CPU out of them. Whatever happened to that idea of building mini-flipchips with surface-mount parts? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Feb 26 23:20:14 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:20:14 -0700 Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net> <075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: <47C4F30E.3020503@jetnet.ab.ca> David Griffith wrote: > On Tue, 26 Feb 2008, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > >> I have some of these components, but the H5x and H6x stuff I mentioned >> I've had trouble sourcing even a couple of. You can also often get >> stuff for prices like $5 per chip, but that wouldn't be really practical >> if you were trying to build an entire replica CPU out of them. > > Whatever happened to that idea of building mini-flipchips with > surface-mount parts? > Also don't the have programable interconnects now days too- forget wire wrap. Oh wait we now also need tiny DEC-TAPES too. :) From cclist at sydex.com Tue Feb 26 23:18:33 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:18:33 -0800 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: References: , <47C43332.15943.1AF96B69@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <47C48229.20401.1C2DDE0E@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Feb 2008 at 19:45, dwight elvey wrote: > How about 24 ea 18 bit processers in an array running at greater > than 1Gop/s ea and drawing .25 watts with all running and less > than 1 uw with all in sleep. That'd be overkill for a simple FSK decoder, wouldn't it? Unless, of course, the bitrate was *very* high... Cheers, Chuck From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Feb 26 23:26:50 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:26:50 -0700 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: References: , , <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> <47C43332.15943.1AF96B69@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C4F49A.60902@jetnet.ab.ca> dwight elvey wrote: > How about 24 ea 18 bit processers in an array running at greater > than 1Gop/s ea and drawing .25 watts with all running and less > than 1 uw with all in sleep. > Look up SEAforth. Umm .... SEAforth In many ways, Seaforth is the quintessential small Ontario town. Got a better idea? > Dwight From Tim at Rikers.org Wed Feb 27 00:16:04 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:16:04 -0700 Subject: Friden Flexowriter In-Reply-To: <47C4E11A.4040601@msm.umr.edu> References: <47C4E11A.4040601@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <47C50024.5080600@Rikers.org> There seem to be more decwriters around and they can often be had for cheaper. No paper tape punch/reader there though. On another topic, I have a "Motorized Tape Punch - Model 2" made by "Commercial Controls Corporation - Rochester 2, New York" which I believe became Friden. I have no docs on it whatsoever. The real thing I need to know is how to interface to it. It seems to be in adequate physical shape, except for the chad tube. It was made of plastic and has long since been broken off. http://rikers.org/gallery/hardware-tapepunch I'm very interested to hear of any known documentation for this beast. There's a picture there with the case off, perhaps the Flexowriter punch is similar inside? -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Feb 27 00:28:16 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:28:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <47C4F30E.3020503@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net> <075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C4F30E.3020503@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Tue, 26 Feb 2008, woodelf wrote: > David Griffith wrote: > > On Tue, 26 Feb 2008, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > > > >> I have some of these components, but the H5x and H6x stuff I mentioned > >> I've had trouble sourcing even a couple of. You can also often get > >> stuff for prices like $5 per chip, but that wouldn't be really practical > >> if you were trying to build an entire replica CPU out of them. > > > > Whatever happened to that idea of building mini-flipchips with > > surface-mount parts? > > Also don't the have programable interconnects now days too- > forget wire wrap. Oh wait we now also need tiny DEC-TAPES too. :) I was idly thinking that perhaps VHS video tape could be used as a substitute if wound onto appropriate replacement spools. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 24 15:22:18 2008 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:22:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: OFFERED: Assorted manuals In-Reply-To: <47C1C23D.30908@poggs.co.uk> Message-ID: <267330.44775.qm@web65514.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> no, I don't know what half of them are even. And I'm loads closer to St. Albans, Queens county then the other (i.e copy cat LOL LOL) place. You really shouldn't dump them though. Find some association or even collector that'll make them available to the masses. --- Peter Hicks wrote: > Hello > > Tidying up here, I have the following up for grabs. > You'll need to be able to > collect in London or St Albans, UK: > > * ICL DRS 8801 User Guide and Ready Reference > * Apple ][ Users Guide (ISBN 0-931988-46-2) > * Silentype Operation/Reference Manual (for Apple > ][) > * Apple ][ BASIC Programming Manual > * The Applesoft Tutorial > * Meet The Micro book (ISBN 0-900608-18-8) > * Mastering Visicalc (ISBN 0-89588-090-3) > * Amstrad Microsoft Windows 2.03 User Guide (book) > * Microcomputer Graphics book (ISBN 0-201-05092-7) > * Commodore 64 User Manual > * Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0 manual > > Anyone interested? > > > Peter > > -- > Peter Hicks | e: my.name at poggs.co.uk | g: 0xE7C839F4 > | w: www.poggs.com > > A: Because it destroys the flow of the > conversation > Q: Why is top-posting bad? > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From trasz at FreeBSD.org Tue Feb 26 09:34:44 2008 From: trasz at FreeBSD.org (Edward Tomasz Napierala) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:34:44 +0100 Subject: Sun ND server? Message-ID: <20080226153444.GA11353@pin.if.uz.zgora.pl> Is there an implementation of Sun nd(4) (Network Disk) server other than the one in NetBSD, by Matt Fredette? Long story: Few days ago I fried SCSI controller on Indigo 2, and I'm not gonna risk the same with my Sun 3/60. Few months ago I got SunOS 3.5 kernel to netboot using modified NetBSD ndbootd(8); it goes as far as mounting rootfs. Then, just after printing the following line... using 95 buffers containing 778240 bytes of main memory ... it just retries reading block number 16 over and over. I guess the ND protocol implementation is wrong somehow. The whole transaction goes like this; the only thing that changes is the "seq" field. RECV: minor 0x00 error 0 vers 0 seq 29 blk 16 bcount 8192 resbcount 0 curroff 0 currcount 0 op 0x01 XMIT: minor 0x00 error 0 vers 0 seq 29 blk 16 bcount 8192 resbcount 0 curroff 0 currcount 1024 op 0x01 XMIT: minor 0x00 error 0 vers 0 seq 29 blk 16 bcount 8192 resbcount 0 curroff 1024 currcount 1024 op 0x01 XMIT: minor 0x00 error 0 vers 0 seq 29 blk 16 bcount 8192 resbcount 0 curroff 2048 currcount 1024 op 0x01 XMIT: minor 0x00 error 0 vers 0 seq 29 blk 16 bcount 8192 resbcount 0 curroff 3072 currcount 1024 op 0x01 XMIT: minor 0x00 error 0 vers 0 seq 29 blk 16 bcount 8192 resbcount 0 curroff 4096 currcount 1024 op 0x01 XMIT: minor 0x00 error 0 vers 0 seq 29 blk 16 bcount 8192 resbcount 0 curroff 5120 currcount 1024 op 0x01 XMIT: minor 0x00 error 0 vers 0 seq 29 blk 16 bcount 8192 resbcount 0 curroff 6144 currcount 1024 op 0x01 XMIT: minor 0x00 error 0 vers 0 seq 29 blk 16 bcount 8192 resbcount 0 curroff 7168 currcount 1024 op 0x11 Any ideas? -- If you cut off my head, what would I say? Me and my head, or me and my body? From jefferwin at gmail.com Tue Feb 26 14:27:17 2008 From: jefferwin at gmail.com (Jeff Erwin) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:27:17 -0800 Subject: cctech Digest, Vol 54, Issue 43 In-Reply-To: <200802261802.m1QI2BNX054320@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802261802.m1QI2BNX054320@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <7c7c96a50802261227l5d5ca132y7c6efc9e8ff8a094@mail.gmail.com> > > I came up with the following from another source. Assumes ascii byte in > A, returns binary in lower nibble of A sui 3ch ; subtract the ascii base cpi 0ah ; check for 0-9 rc sui 07h ; subtract further for A-F ret Jeff Erwin pretty short and seems to work as long as valid ascii is being sent. > > > > Really this is pretty easy (this does NO error checking, and only > accepts upper > > case characters): > > Okay, being a dumb ol' bit-twiddler, I couldn't resist: > > (input character in A) > > adi 0c0h > mov b,a > sbb a > ani 09h > add b > ani 0fh > > Okay, folks--anyone got a shorter sans-jump one? One that perhaps > doesn't require an extra register? How about one that uses a DAA to > do something sneaky? > > Cheers, > Chuck > > > > From jrr at flippers.com Tue Feb 26 17:27:38 2008 From: jrr at flippers.com (John Robertson) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:27:38 -0800 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX In-Reply-To: <47C4148C.2405.1A81B3BF@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47C47C05.9070402@snowmoose.com> <47C4148C.2405.1A81B3BF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C4A06A.2000303@flippers.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 26 Feb 2008 at 12:52, Alan Perry wrote: > > >> The Seattle Times is running an article about how the Seattle School >> District is still using a VAX to do school assignments. >> >> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2004203746_enrollment26m.html >> > > "To keep tweaking the VAXes, district staff warned last week, is > risky and a waste of time. To replace them, however, likely comes > with a cost that made School Board members cringe: a delay of about a > year in putting the new assignment plan into action." > > Surely, emulation is an option...and probably cost-effective. > > Cheers, > Chuck > > This might be a great proposal (a VAX Emulation system) for someone to present to the Seattle School board. Seems that the talent is here in this group, and someone who is a professional could do a nice job. Certainly the cost to replace the system could be horrendous, and school boards rarely have a lot of spare cash...can someone push VAX into the 21st century and beyond? John :-#)# From cclist at sydex.com Wed Feb 27 00:56:58 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:56:58 -0800 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <47C4F49A.60902@jetnet.ab.ca> References: , , <47C4F49A.60902@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <47C4993A.31572.1C87F75E@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Feb 2008 at 22:26, woodelf wrote: > In many ways, Seaforth is the quintessential small Ontario town. Or a boat, or a California town, or a Minnesota town.... Actually, the SEAForth processor seems to be the creation of a very small firm: http://www.intellasys.net/ With only 64 words of RAM and ROM for each of those 24 processors, my guess is that some very fancy programming will be needed for anything beyond simple tasks. Actually, that FSK decoder for may be just the application. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Feb 27 01:23:22 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:23:22 -0800 Subject: cctech Digest, Vol 54, Issue 43 In-Reply-To: <7c7c96a50802261227l5d5ca132y7c6efc9e8ff8a094@mail.gmail.com> References: <200802261802.m1QI2BNX054320@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <7c7c96a50802261227l5d5ca132y7c6efc9e8ff8a094@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C49F6A.10049.1CA01FD9@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Feb 2008 at 12:27, Jeff Erwin wrote: > sui 3ch ; subtract the ascii base > cpi 0ah ; check for 0-9 > rc > sui 07h ; subtract further for A-F > ret Has to be invoked by a CALL to work and has a conditional return, so it's not a no-branch solution. Mine works for both upper- and lower- case alpha and always yields a result from 0 to 15. Any more candidates? Cheers, Chuck From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Wed Feb 27 04:07:07 2008 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:07:07 +0100 (CET) Subject: 8/S Replica (was: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches) In-Reply-To: <200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net> <068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 26 Feb 2008, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > What TTL are you calling hard to find? Just curious, as I might have > some of it on hand here... For example SN7439 (NOT '38; equivalent to DEC8881) and SN7489 (16x4 bit RAM; extensively used in some PDPs for registers). Christian From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Wed Feb 27 04:15:34 2008 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:15:34 +0100 (CET) Subject: Friden Flexowriter In-Reply-To: <47C4E11A.4040601@msm.umr.edu> References: <47C4E11A.4040601@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 26 Feb 2008, jim s wrote: > Billy Pettit looked at a Justowriter a friend had, which is a variant of the > Flexowriter, and for the specimen we had him look at, he noted that there are > quite a number of belts to go bad, and in the case of the one that he looked > at, most of the belts were bad. Then it's not like a Flexowriter at all because a Flexowriter has only one V shaped belt which, in contrast to the belt in the separate Friden high speed punch, seems to last forever. I think we have 6 Flexowriters (three for the LGP-30) and the belts are all good. > Also the I/O aspect of your Flexowriter makes it more useful to people who > need them for original equipment as well. I don't know if the I/O interface > is documented, or if you propose to just automate one which is not already > automated, but if you do have one with an interface, the heritage and > particulars, and if you would be so kind, documentation on the interfaces > would be good to have in circulation. You could have a look at the schematics/maintenance manual for the LGP-30 which uses a Flexowriter as console typewriter. The relais are driven by thyratrons, the signal levels are about 150 volts. Christian From lproven at gmail.com Wed Feb 27 05:05:27 2008 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:05:27 +0000 Subject: Offered: Ancient Macs & Monitors landfill bound, London SW1 In-Reply-To: <575131af0802270303sd6f7bfbhd50b901895b3ec07@mail.gmail.com> References: <575131af0802270303sd6f7bfbhd50b901895b3ec07@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <575131af0802270305u293ecc75h7a696ddda8bff4d4@mail.gmail.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: martin_asa_1960 Date: 24 Feb 2008 16:18 Subject: [FreeCycleLondon] Offered: Ancient MACs & Monitors landfill bound SW1 To: freecyclelondon at yahoogroups.com Offered: Ancient MACs & Monitors landfill bound SW11 I'm offering these as far and wide because I'm not sure many people will be interested as the MACs are that old. On Offer: x1 Power Macintosh 5500/225 Http adrress to image: http://img.wiki.excite.co.jp/upload/apple/4b/4bf6409b62f70f0e112b03757 90a1bc3_600x528.jpg x1 Power Macintosh 700/225 x1 Power Macintosh 7200/90 x1 Power Macintosh 5500/225 x1 Macintosh Performa 5500 x1 Apple MultiScan Display (Monitor) 15"(I think) x2 old MAC keyboards x1Pack of 10 MAC formatted diskettes(floppies?) x1 Packard Bell Logitech 15" monitor. Good looking beast but heavy! Model No: 5480E. Made '98 x1 Samsung Samtron 15" monitor. Model name: 55E Also an assortment of cables that came withthe MACs All have been in a dusty cupboard for years. I was told they all worked...? I've used the last two monitors recently so I can verify they work. As for the rest I assume it's only good for enthusiasts or tinkerers or students who are desperate for machines/parts to set up a network. This stuff is bulky and heavy; if you don't have a car or van it's not worth your while getting in touch- I don't deliver. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From dave06a at dunfield.com Wed Feb 27 06:51:52 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:51:52 -0500 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: References: <002301c878d1$1eacacb0$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: <1E42380B3620@dunfield.com> > One thing that hasn't been mentioned. His system may be > unintentionally over clocking. I've seen systems where the > crystal will take of at an overtone. It is even possible that > the crystal is broken and running at some higher frequency. Good idea - unfortunately one of the first things I checked was the clocks and they all look good - decent waveforms, correct frequency etc. 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 dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Feb 27 08:05:41 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 06:05:41 -0800 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <47C4993A.31572.1C87F75E@cclist.sydex.com> References: , , <47C4F49A.60902@jetnet.ab.ca> <47C4993A.31572.1C87F75E@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: cclist at sydex.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:56:58 -0800 > Subject: Re: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion > > On 26 Feb 2008 at 22:26, woodelf wrote: > >> In many ways, Seaforth is the quintessential small Ontario town. > > Or a boat, or a California town, or a Minnesota town.... > > Actually, the SEAForth processor seems to be the creation of a very > small firm: > > http://www.intellasys.net/ > > With only 64 words of RAM and ROM for each of those 24 processors, my > guess is that some very fancy programming will be needed for anything > beyond simple tasks. > > Actually, that FSK decoder for may be just the application. > Hi It would be overkill but it was intended to be a flexible setup. The ROM is rather limited but the way the processors are interconnected, one can bring new code in from an external memory. Some of the processors can be dedicated to transfering I/O and memory while the internal ones would be doing the data processing. Also, concider that they pack up to 4 instructions into each word of ROM. The interface between processors is such that one can execute instructions directly from the neighboring processor. This makes the transfer of data or instructions more efficient since the ROM of that processor doesn't need to contain the transfer code. The one thing I don't like is how they go to sleep. They sleep as soon as they pass something on to the next processor and don't wake until that processor reads the input. I'd rather have it sleep if there was a second data and the first hadn't been yet read. Not as power efficient but It'd seem to be better flow. It also seems that a programming error could stall the entire sea with a traffic jam. It might be just the processor for building something that could extract bit streams from hard disk and convert it to data. It seems fast enough. For people like Tony, each processor could be treated like a component in a circuit. Each with its own task to handle before passing data to the next processor. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser! http://biggestloser.msn.com/ From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Feb 27 08:46:44 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:46:44 -0500 Subject: 8/S Replica (was: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches) In-Reply-To: References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net> <075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: On Feb 26, 2008, at 11:33 PM, David Griffith wrote: >> I have some of these components, but the H5x and H6x stuff I >> mentioned >> I've had trouble sourcing even a couple of. You can also often get >> stuff for prices like $5 per chip, but that wouldn't be really >> practical >> if you were trying to build an entire replica CPU out of them. > > Whatever happened to that idea of building mini-flipchips with > surface-mount parts? I don't know who else is thinking about it, but I hope to do some work in that area eventually. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Feb 27 09:21:16 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:21:16 -0600 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <47C43332.15943.1AF96B69@cclist.sydex.com> References: , , <47C49D4B.3080200@jetnet.ab.ca> <47C43332.15943.1AF96B69@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C57FEC.3090206@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Things are getting to the point where uCs even beat discrete logic in > the area of power consumption. Well, in terms of power, reliability, and physical footprint the uC can probably equal a logic IC solution. Where it loses out I suppose is maintainability; keeping the necessary software and source code obtainable across the years may prove to be a big headache, whereas with logic ICs there's no code to lose and no other software needed (various programmable logic ICs excepted :) In terms of fault diagnosis for simple things like the FSK application, I doubt there's much difference - a fault can just as easily be traced to "something's wrong with the uC" as it can "something's wrong with that LS logic chip". From v.slyngstad at verizon.net Wed Feb 27 10:13:28 2008 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:13:28 -0800 Subject: 8/S Replica (was: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches) References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: <07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> From: "David Griffith": > Whatever happened to that idea of building mini-flipchips with > surface-mount parts? I drew a version of the R202 (dual flip-flop) with all SMT components that fits on a 1"x2" board, but I never went on to do all the other boards in an 8/S. It was interesting to see what was easy and what was hard, but it felt a bit too much like work to continue, at least at the time :-). [For comparison, the DEC module is 2.5"x5" with through-hole components.] I used a 2x10 right angle header to replace the edge connector, which wouldn't work for the Mxxx modules of the 8/L, as they need 36 connections instead of 18. One thing I'd worry about with SMT components, is that if you pack the stuff in there too tight you might start to have heat problems. The designs aren't exactly low power! One nice thing about the Rxxx series is that most of the modules used components for which similar replacements are still plentiful, in both through-hole and SMT packages. The yucky thing about them is that you need so incredibly many of the things to get anything done. (There aren't all that many different types, though.) The R202 requires 50 diodes, 4 transistors, 20+ resistors, and some capacitors in a fairly dense circuit board assembly, to accomplish essentially what is implemented on a 7474 chip. Hundreds of similar modules are used to build a PDP-8/S. (That ends up being an awful lot of soldering!) Vince From pcw at mesanet.com Wed Feb 27 12:36:29 2008 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:36:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Friden Flexowriter In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802261841n8228c36o2b48a9708cf0889d@mail.gmail.com> References: <7d3530220802261841n8228c36o2b48a9708cf0889d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 26 Feb 2008, John Floren wrote: > Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:41:51 -0500 > From: John Floren > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Subject: Friden Flexowriter > > A quick question--can you hook a Friden Flexowriter to a modern > computer? I'm not afraid to put together some sort of > interface/converter, but I haven't really found any information about > that kind of thing... if anyone here has experience with one of these, > your input would be greatly appreciated. > > John > -- > Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn > Difficulty depends on the Flexowriter. Common flexowriters use non isolated rectified line voltage for the relays and solenoids, so beware. There is a serial RS-232 ASCII 110 baud Flexowriter (Model 7102) but these are rare. The bustle on these has no relays but a set of logic cards with 60's vintage ICs implementing the UARTs and control logic. Peter Wallace From grant at stockly.com Wed Feb 27 12:48:10 2008 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:48:10 -0900 Subject: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches In-Reply-To: <200802261540.HAA02467@magellan.magic.com> References: <200802261540.HAA02467@magellan.magic.com> Message-ID: <0JWW00M8EUW0Z160@msgmmp-1.gci.net> At 06:40 AM 2/26/2008, you wrote: >Grant, > > > On a side note, who here would be interested in ultra high resolution > > scans of old computer PCBs? I'm scanning all PCBs at 3200dpi for > > archival. Photoshop won't save jpegs that large, but a 1600dpi scan is > > only 50MB or so. Some day I plan to release my whole archive. > >You mentioned JPEGs. If you are archiving the scans in JPEG format, >try zooming in on bunches of traces or text on the board. JPEG creates >a lot of artifacts. > >It may very well be case that a 600dpi scan using lossless compression >will be much cleaner and usable than a 3200dpi scan using heavy JPEG >compression. > >Even with 6 mil traces, 600dpi gives you more than 3 pixels per trace. > >I've tried a few of my boards using 1200dpi, 8-bit color, and GIF/TIFF, >with results that seemed acceptable. I scan all of my boards at 3200dpi 48bit color in TIFF format. I'm not going to upload any 3.5GB images (one for each side of an S-100 card). If you mail me a hard drive I will be happy to copy them. : ) Its faster to rescan them at 1600dpi 24bit than it is to open and resave them. Color scans are needed if you want to have a PCB shop make gerbers out of your scan. Grant From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Wed Feb 27 13:20:06 2008 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:20:06 -0600 Subject: board scan, design reconstruction (was IMSAI) In-Reply-To: <0JWW00M8EUW0Z160@msgmmp-1.gci.net> References: <200802261540.HAA02467@magellan.magic.com> <0JWW00M8EUW0Z160@msgmmp-1.gci.net> Message-ID: > Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:48:10 -0900 > From: grant at stockly.com > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches > > At 06:40 AM 2/26/2008, you wrote: > >Grant, > > > > > On a side note, who here would be interested in ultra high resolution > > > scans of old computer PCBs? I'm scanning all PCBs at 3200dpi for > > > archival. Photoshop won't save jpegs that large, but a 1600dpi scan is > > > only 50MB or so. Some day I plan to release my whole archive. > > > >You mentioned JPEGs. If you are archiving the scans in JPEG format, > >try zooming in on bunches of traces or text on the board. JPEG creates > >a lot of artifacts. > > > >It may very well be case that a 600dpi scan using lossless compression > >will be much cleaner and usable than a 3200dpi scan using heavy JPEG > >compression. > > > >Even with 6 mil traces, 600dpi gives you more than 3 pixels per trace. > > > >I've tried a few of my boards using 1200dpi, 8-bit color, and GIF/TIFF, > >with results that seemed acceptable. > > I scan all of my boards at 3200dpi 48bit color in TIFF format. I'm > not going to upload any 3.5GB images (one for each side of an S-100 > card). If you mail me a hard drive I will be happy to copy them. : > ) Its faster to rescan them at 1600dpi 24bit than it is to open and > resave them. > > Color scans are needed if you want to have a PCB shop make gerbers > out of your scan. > > Grant > Hi, Ive been following this, and maybe I can help. Im a professional PCB layout guy in my day job. With a schematic and a reasonable resolution jpeg of both sides (I doubt there was mych multylayer back then) I could reconstruct the design fairly quickly. Nobody is really going to want to go down the road of taking a picture and turning it into a gerber, it just wont work. Id just input the schematic, duplicate the ref des for all parts, to get the netlist, eyeball the jpeg for placement and throw it at the autorouter. Whats on your top 10 list? (S-100) CPU card Dazzler Byte Blaster Async card disk controller card I could knock those out in a week or two. Randy _________________________________________________________________ Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging.?You IM, we give. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join From mardy at voysys.com Wed Feb 27 13:40:47 2008 From: mardy at voysys.com (Marden P. Marshall) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:40:47 -0500 Subject: board scan, design reconstruction (was IMSAI) In-Reply-To: References: <200802261540.HAA02467@magellan.magic.com> <0JWW00M8EUW0Z160@msgmmp-1.gci.net> Message-ID: <4AFA45E3-8E78-4613-B369-09D36136E3DC@voysys.com> On Feb 27, 2008, at 2:20 PM, Randy Dawson wrote: > > > >> Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:48:10 -0900 >> From: grant at stockly.com >> To: cctech at classiccmp.org >> Subject: Re: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches >> >> At 06:40 AM 2/26/2008, you wrote: >>> Grant, >>> >>>> On a side note, who here would be interested in ultra high >>>> resolution >>>> scans of old computer PCBs? I'm scanning all PCBs at 3200dpi for >>>> archival. Photoshop won't save jpegs that large, but a 1600dpi >>>> scan is >>>> only 50MB or so. Some day I plan to release my whole archive. >>> >>> You mentioned JPEGs. If you are archiving the scans in JPEG format, >>> try zooming in on bunches of traces or text on the board. JPEG >>> creates >>> a lot of artifacts. >>> >>> It may very well be case that a 600dpi scan using lossless >>> compression >>> will be much cleaner and usable than a 3200dpi scan using heavy JPEG >>> compression. >>> >>> Even with 6 mil traces, 600dpi gives you more than 3 pixels per >>> trace. >>> >>> I've tried a few of my boards using 1200dpi, 8-bit color, and GIF/ >>> TIFF, >>> with results that seemed acceptable. >> >> I scan all of my boards at 3200dpi 48bit color in TIFF format. I'm >> not going to upload any 3.5GB images (one for each side of an S-100 >> card). If you mail me a hard drive I will be happy to copy them. : >> ) Its faster to rescan them at 1600dpi 24bit than it is to open and >> resave them. >> >> Color scans are needed if you want to have a PCB shop make gerbers >> out of your scan. >> >> Grant >> > > Hi, > Ive been following this, and maybe I can help. Im a professional > PCB layout guy in my day job. With a schematic and a reasonable > resolution jpeg of both sides (I doubt there was mych multylayer > back then) I could reconstruct the design fairly quickly. Nobody is > really going to want to go down the road of taking a picture and > turning it into a gerber, it just wont work. Id just input the > schematic, duplicate the ref des for all parts, to get the netlist, > eyeball the jpeg for placement and throw it at the autorouter. > > Whats on your top 10 list? > > (S-100) > > CPU card > Dazzler > Byte Blaster > Async card > disk controller card > > I could knock those out in a week or two. > > Randy > Hi, I think that what Grant has been going for is authenticity. Back then, the definition of "rip-up and reroute" was when you reached up to rub your eyes only to find a dozen or so pieces of red layout tape stuck to your shirt sleeve and not to the mylar on the light table (been there, done that). If you look at Grant's site to see what type of reproductions he has done already, you can get a better sense of why these scans are so important. -Mardy From dm561 at torfree.net Wed Feb 27 14:46:13 2008 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:46:13 -0500 Subject: Friden Flexowriter Message-ID: <01C87958.000268E0@mandr71> -----------Original Message: Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:16:04 -0700 From: Tim Riker Subject: Re: Friden Flexowriter There seem to be more decwriters around and they can often be had for cheaper. No paper tape punch/reader there though. On another topic, I have a "Motorized Tape Punch - Model 2" made by "Commercial Controls Corporation - Rochester 2, New York" which I believe became Friden. I have no docs on it whatsoever. The real thing I need to know is how to interface to it. It seems to be in adequate physical shape, except for the chad tube. It was made of plastic and has long since been broken off. http://rikers.org/gallery/hardware-tapepunch I'm very interested to hear of any known documentation for this beast. There's a picture there with the case off, perhaps the Flexowriter punch is similar inside? -------------- Can't help you on the interface; almost looks homebrew, considering it's built on perfboard. Has some previous owner perhaps already built an interface? Shouldn't be too hard to figure out though; looks like 8 lines to select the byte, and there should be another to "clock" it in, i.e., engage the clutch that drives the perforator. Looks like it could use a little cleaning & some lube. I have a unit that uses the same perforator mechanism; the motor runs constantly and there's a solenoid that trips a clutch to drive the punch shaft one revolution. There should be some cam switches inside that cast housing for timing, and 9 interposer solenoids inside the perforator that free or lock the perforator pins, and the selected ones are then driven through the tape. (These solenoids actually look like little relays without contacts). I doubt that you'd need any parts (these were pretty heavy duty units) but if you do, I've scrapped a few of these and still have some of the mechanical parts (no chad tubes though, alas). mike From dm561 at torfree.net Wed Feb 27 14:46:48 2008 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:46:48 -0500 Subject: Speaking of PPT (was: Re: Friden Flexowriter) Message-ID: <01C87958.0182EE60@mandr71> What are generic PPT readers & perforators worth these days? I've got a few here that I'd like to convert into $$s some day... mike From mardy at voysys.com Wed Feb 27 15:11:21 2008 From: mardy at voysys.com (Marden P. Marshall) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:11:21 -0500 Subject: Speaking of PPT (was: Re: Friden Flexowriter) In-Reply-To: <01C87958.0182EE60@mandr71> References: <01C87958.0182EE60@mandr71> Message-ID: On Feb 27, 2008, at 3:46 PM, M H Stein wrote: > What are generic PPT readers & perforators worth these days? > > I've got a few here that I'd like to convert into $$s some day... > > mike > > Mike Davis sells a simple reader for around $180 A Heathkit H10 reader/punch recently went for over $800. More modern CNC class portable reader/punch units have recently gone for around $400 - $500. The reason I know is that I've been looking to pick one up. I just haven't pulled the trigger yet. -Mardy From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Wed Feb 27 15:33:21 2008 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim s) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:33:21 -0800 Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > From: "David Griffith": >> Whatever happened to that idea of building mini-flipchips with >> surface-mount parts? > I'd be interested in a system that used the CF connectors to be the edge card connectors. they should be cheap, and would hit the form factor well. Both sexes are available so you could integrate the backplane with the connectors prewired on a big pc board, and make gobs of the little flip chips to plug in. I'd be interested in a tiny front panel with SMT LED's but don't know what you'd get for the front panel switches. Jim From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Feb 27 15:57:37 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:57:37 -0500 Subject: Fwd: [roys-tech-chat] Really Old Computer Stuff Message-ID: <200802271657.39791.rtellason@verizon.net> Can any of you guys verify one way or the other what that device with the tubes is that Dave is referring to in my group here? Feel free to stop on by if you like. :-) ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: [roys-tech-chat] Really Old Computer Stuff Date: Wednesday 27 February 2008 13:50 From: "D" To: roys-tech-chat at yahoogroups.com I just added some photos in the Photos section of some really old computer hardware. These are photos I've taken from my personal collection. One is what I've been told is the peripheral I/O register for an IBM 704 computer (Note the vacuum tubes!). Another is a core storage (memory) plane from an IBM System/360, most likely either a model 60 or 65. This particular core plane was defective, and has been cut out, so it's missing the connection fingers on the sides of the plane. The remaining two are a really old computing device. ;-) Dave Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/roys-tech-chat/ ------------------------------------------------------- -- 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 henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Wed Feb 27 16:19:53 2008 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:19:53 +0100 Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: regarding switches, have a look at my "homebrew pdp8/e" on my website (www.pdp-11.nl) in the "my projects" folder. Btw, Vince had a hand in this project too! :-) I don't think you can go for smaller switches, unless you have really tiny fingers ... The width of the paddles of these switches is approx 8 mm. Smaller would be too difficult to use. - Henk > Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:33:21 -0800 > From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu > To: > Subject: Re: 8/S Replica > > Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > > From: "David Griffith": > >> Whatever happened to that idea of building mini-flipchips with > >> surface-mount parts? > > > I'd be interested in a system that used the CF connectors to be the > edge card connectors. they should be cheap, and would hit the form > factor well. Both sexes are available so you could integrate the > backplane with the connectors prewired on a big pc board, and make gobs > of the little flip chips to plug in. > > I'd be interested in a tiny front panel with SMT LED's but don't know > what you'd get for the front panel switches. > > Jim From pcw at mesanet.com Wed Feb 27 17:24:30 2008 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:24:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 27 Feb 2008, jim s wrote: > Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:33:21 -0800 > From: jim s > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > ; > Subject: Re: 8/S Replica > > Vincent Slyngstad wrote: >> From: "David Griffith": >>> Whatever happened to that idea of building mini-flipchips with >>> surface-mount parts? >> > I'd be interested in a system that used the CF connectors to be the edge > card connectors. they should be cheap, and would hit the form factor well. > Both sexes are available so you could integrate the backplane with the > connectors prewired on a big pc board, and make gobs of the little flip chips > to plug in. > > I'd be interested in a tiny front panel with SMT LED's but don't know what > you'd get for the front panel switches. > > Jim > Another option is PCIExpress 1X connectors, They are cheap and more rugged than CF sockets, and 36 pins! Peter Wallace From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Feb 27 17:28:30 2008 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:28:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary Message-ID: <719427.15333.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> YouTube doesn't stream. It slowly downloads the flash video files to the temporary internet files folder where it's usually named "FlaXX.tmp". The XX is usually a hex number depending on how many tmp files you have in there. The file is also (99% of the time) deleted the second you close the page it is linked to. The good thing is that you can watch the video before it's fully downloaded. A very good thing if you are on dial-up :) Does anyone have a list of retro video's on YouTube? I know most can be found by searching for the appropriate machine name, but not everyone has decent tags with there videos :( Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk woodelf wrote: Right now I am trying to VIEW the %$@! You-Tube stuff. I hate streaming stuf on dial up. I don't think I will ever get more than the 1st few minutes of the UNIVAC stuff. Nothing like comparing almost 60 years of computing development. > Cheers, > Chuck > From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Feb 27 17:46:51 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:46:51 -0700 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary In-Reply-To: <719427.15333.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <719427.15333.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47C5F66B.6090601@jetnet.ab.ca> Andrew Burton wrote: > > YouTube doesn't stream. It slowly downloads the flash video files to > the temporary internet files folder where it's usually named "FlaXX.tmp". > The XX is usually a hex number depending on how many tmp files you > have in there. The file is also (99% of the time) deleted the second you > close the page it is linked to. Now you tell me. :( > The good thing is that you can watch the video before it's fully > downloaded. A very good thing if you are on dial-up :) That is handy, but I like to download stuff over night like PDF's and small Videos. > Does anyone have a list of retro video's on YouTube? I know most can be > found by searching for the appropriate machine name, but not everyone > has decent tags with there videos :( Any more Online Movies of Vintage computers? > Regards, > Andrew B > aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk PS: on the tag line: Watch the anime "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzmiya" From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Feb 27 17:23:26 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:23:26 +0000 (GMT) Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: <1BEE23AB711C@dunfield.com> from "Dave Dunfield" at Feb 26, 8 09:00:53 pm Message-ID: > > >>> Do you know that the fan is the original one? Is it possible that > >>> somebody has replaced the fan with a lower airflow one in a misguided > >>> attempt to make the machine quieter? > > A good idea, but I don't think this is the case. According to the technical OK... Not having seen the machine, all the rest of us can do is make guesses, most of which are likely to be wrong :-) [..] > I've not done measurements, however the fan seems to be operating correctly, > good airflow, doesn't sound like it's dragging etc. The sound and airflow > are not noticibly different from the other two boxes. It sounds like it's OK. What I normally do to detect a dragging fan is to watch it when I turn the power off. If it stops very quickly, it's time to dismantle it and clean the bearings... > > According to the technical manual, the fan is supposed to be "variable speed". > It's a 12V DC fan, however it is powered via a 7905 (-5V) regulator which > has it's reference through a resistor divider which includes a thermistor. > So presumably it speeds up as the cabinet gets hot - since the thermistor is > in the power supply, which has somewhat of a separate airflow path (metal > plate between PS and boards) it may not detect the "hot spot" forming at > in the other airflow path. > > I'll have to do some measurements. I could try hard-wiring the fan to full > power, however this thing *should* work as it is designed, and the fan supply True. On the other hand, if making the fan run at maximum speed all the time keeps the machine running, it's worth doing that mod (IMHO) to save the problem of replacing the CPU or FPU chips. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Feb 27 16:57:46 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:57:46 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <47C419B1.6450.1A95CE0E@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Feb 26, 8 01:52:49 pm Message-ID: > > On 26 Feb 2008 at 19:57, Tony Duell wrote: > > > Argh!. I grew up learning to design solutions to problems, rather than > > throw microcontrollers at them in the hope they'd go away. > > Aw, Tony, a little 8 pin PIC or an ATiny can do this with no > additional active packages. The algorithm can be tweaked with no > component changes. No _new_ components, but you still have to reprogram the microcontroller (which may involve pulling it from the board..). Personally, I'd rather change some R's and C's > > Yes, it might be fun doing it with NE567s or somesuch, but then, > someone even more conservative would castigate you for not using > tuned LC filters and discretes for the active part. A couple of > 6SN7s and some powdered-iron core inductors should do the trick... I have an _old_ modem where the reciver has an input filter consisting of a metal can with 8 or so tuned pot cores and capacitors in it. The output of that is mixed with a local oscillator, the 'sum' frreqeuncy is taken and fed to a discrimiator circuit. All discrete transsitors, of course... > > I really like the little microcontrollers--they're cheap and they do > the job. I'm not averse to using them when they're the best > solution. So do I. The operative part being 'when they're the bast solution'. I don't feel they are in this case. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Feb 27 17:28:43 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:28:43 +0000 (GMT) Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: from "dwight elvey" at Feb 26, 8 07:37:45 pm Message-ID: > One thing that hasn't been mentioned. His system may be > unintentionally over clocking. I've seen systems where the > crystal will take of at an overtone. It is even possible that Interesting. I had an HP9820 where the master clock seemed to be running at 19MHz (should e 8MHz), but that turned out to be due to the crystal being cracked in half (I carefully cut the can off it), and the 19MHz was the free-running frequcny of the TTL gates in the oscillator circuit. Needless to say the machine didn't work at all... > the crystal is broken and running at some higher frequency. > Just a thought I would guess that the most likely harmonic to jump to would be the third. Now : 1) I dout very much any machine would be designed to run at a third of the clock rate that it could run at. Yes, you have some margin, you don't push things to the limit, but a factor of 3? So if the clock jumped to the third harmonic, most likely the machine wouldn't work at all 2) Even if it did, I think you'd notice it was running 3 times as fast as normal... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Feb 27 17:11:59 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:11:59 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: from "Dave McGuire" at Feb 26, 8 05:53:38 pm Message-ID: > Well, Chuck said it best, but I'll add this: You get fewer > components, lower cost, easier maintainability and tweakability, > increased flexibility, the possibility for a reusable design...how is > this a bad thing? OK, let's look at those advantages : 'Fewer COmpoentns'. OK, I'll grant that there are probably few bits to pick up and solder to the PCB (although it's close -- as I mentioned last night, there's a CUTS decoder using a single 16 pin TTL chip). But there are certainly more 'devices' -- individual transistors, etc -- in the microcontrolelr solution. Now, my expoerience suggests that while a single chip is moree reliable than making the same circuit from many chips or discrete transistors, a complex chip _is_ less reliale than a simple one. So while trying to build the 'microcontroller' solution using TTL (full adders, lateches for the registers, etc) would be considerably less reliuable than the single chip microcontroller, I also suspect that a single TTL chip, or a few of them, would be more reliable than the microcontorller 'Lower cost'. I could make the flipant answer and say that my junk box contains plenty of TTL chips and no microocntrollers. But I'd rather point out that the cheapest solution is not necessarily the best, and that this idea of always cutting the cost to the minimum is one reason that I don't buy many new products. 'Easier maintainabilty and tweakaility'. Surely you jest here! It is a lot easier to find a fault in a circuit when you can actually put the 'scope probe on a particular signal. Darn it, with a single-chip microcontroller, you can't normally trace the firmware. Repairing it is a nightmare unless you have the firmware (prefereably as source code). I'd much rather change a 2-lead passive compoennt than reprogram a chip (and it'll be quicker...) 'Increased fleximbility'. The original discussion was to decode cassette tones. Why do I want to add any more features. I prefer a design that does one job, and does it well. 'Reuseable Design'. Again 'Why?'. I'd much rather come up with the _right_ design (IMHO) for each problem eather than try to kludge in a previous design just ecause I have it. This quickly leads to the idea of bodging together off-the-shelf units, which is another thing I dislike... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Feb 27 17:16:47 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:16:47 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <20080226153905.W6603@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Feb 26, 8 03:40:19 pm Message-ID: > reminds me of the TRS-232 > It was an aftermarket printer interface ("RS232") that operated off of the > cassette port of the TRS-80 There was a circuit for that in an old issue of Byte magazine. It was daically just an Op-amp that detected the state of the cassette output line. The output of said op-amp swung to the supply rails (+/-9V IIRC) and was the RS232 output :-) Also, didn't one of the early Radio Shack modems have a switch on it to make the 'RS232' input actually the same levels as the Model 1 cassette port, so you could use it with a plain Model 1 with no RS232 interface (although with special software, of course) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Feb 27 17:44:29 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:44:29 +0000 (GMT) Subject: CDC (MPI) floppy drive Message-ID: Does anybody haev a CDC/MPI full height 5.25" floppy drive? No, I am not looking to buy one, I need some information on how it goes together. I have one in an HP9826, it's fucntionally the same as a TM100-2A, but intenrally quite different. The area I am baving prolems understanding is the head positioner. The head carriage runs conventionally on a pair of metal rails fixed ot the base casting. At the rear right of the drive is a stepper motor with the spindle axis vertical. On that spindle is the metal drum of a taut band mechanism, there's alos the conventional taut band. That fits over a pin on the drum. The ends of the band have holes that fit over pins on the head carriage, the rear p[in being fixed to the carriage, the front one is spring-loaded to tension the band. So far, so good. Mouleded into the head carriage are 2 arms that extend to the right of the drive, past the taut band assemly. They seem to carry some kind of damper. And that's the real prolkem In my drive, the damer had oozed grease all over the chassis. I've stripped it all down and cleaned it up. What I can't work out is how it should go back together. The 'damper' consists of a weight made af a soft metal, probably lead. And a metal shaft, about 1mm diameter, that runs through a hole in the middle of this weight, the ends of which locate in the arms I mentioned. And that's all I have. There's no obvious place to put grease inside the weight (I've looked down the hole as best I an). If you put grease on the shaft, it's just going to ooze out again. Also, what keeps the weight in the right position on the shaft? It's considerale shorter than the space between the arms. Surely it shouldn't just flop backwards and forwards? Another odditiy. When I removed the tauth band, I notixed what appeared to be a plastic clip on one of the pins. More careful inspection showed it was an O-ring that had split. OK, I can get replacements. But why put an O-ring there in the first place? It's not going to keep the band on the pin, or anything like that. My thought is that this has been dismantled before, that the O-ring actually came from the shaft that carries the weight, and that there may be parts missing (Springs, washers, etc). Does anyone ahve such a drive and could at least tell me what the damper appears to consist of (No, I am not asking you to take it to bits, just indicate if there's anything on that shaft other than the weight, if there are any ruber seals. etc? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Feb 27 17:19:26 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:19:26 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: <47C43332.15943.1AF96B69@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Feb 26, 8 03:41:38 pm Message-ID: > Tony reminds me a bit of Bob Pease (who writes the analog column for > "Electronic Design"). When, on occasion, someone points out that a > simple microcontroller would satisfy the problem he's discussing, the > response is "I don't do software". I take that as a wery high compliment!.... I also happen to agree with Bob Pease on the matter of the right number of computers to control a car engine.... -tony From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Wed Feb 27 18:01:29 2008 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:01:29 -0500 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47C4139C.11516.1A7E0A44@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org>, <47C44731.5080607@netscape.net>, <47C47E1A.5080107@compsys.to> <47C4139C.11516.1A7E0A44@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C5F9D9.1010506@compsys.to> >Chuck Guzis wrote: >>On 26 Feb 2008 at 16:01, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > > >>Not sure if this helps, but Iomega produced a SCSI "insider" (if that is >>the correct name used for marketing) which was a drive with a removable >>cartridge of 196608 blocks. The drives were the size of a 3 1/2" disk >>drive and the media were just a bit bigger than a 3 1/2" floppy and about >>twice as thick. >> >Are you perhaps thinking of the Zip or Jaz drives? Both were >available in SCSI (as well as other interfaces), but the Bernoullis >predated them quite a bit and later models of the Bernoulli were >fully SCSI compatible. > Jerome Fine replies: Although both the drive and media have the word "Zip" on them, I didn't notice until you helped me to remember that they are indeed called Zip drives. I feel I was fortunate to have the internal SCSI version. For the PC, there is a full set of software tools available. For the PDP-11, they are just nice ordinary drives with removable media - although the software WRITE PROTECT feature requires the PC software tools to toggle the status of the media. >The Jaz was an execrable excuse for a removable media drive. My >Syquest Sparq is still going strong, but the two Jaz drives I have >are paperweights. OTOH, the last time I fired up my dual 90MB >Bernoulli box, it worked flawlessly. > >IIRC, Steve Gibson made some waves with his Iomega "Click of Death" >diagnosis of the Zip drive. > Which is why I stopped relying on the Zip drive when I heard about the "feature". By that time, I had graduated to the Sony SMO S-501, so it was not a problem. These days, the disk drives can hold everything I want to save online - including a year of backup files. After that, I make a copy to a DVD. In a year or two, after I upgrade to a new system, I guess I will break down and get a blueray. Everything I have should fit on a single media. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Feb 27 18:07:07 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:07:07 -0500 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX In-Reply-To: <8CA470B8ACFFA2D-AC4-1C44@webmail-nd17.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA470B8ACFFA2D-AC4-1C44@webmail-nd17.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <47C5FB2B.5070300@gmail.com> tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > Not being from the Vax world, I wonder difficult it would be > for them to move them over to SIMH or CHARON emulators? > > The savings in power & air conditioning alone would probably > pay for the new equipment in the first year. ;-) Would it really be too expensive to move to OpenVMS/Integrity? Peace... Sridhar From slawmaster at gmail.com Wed Feb 27 18:10:31 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:10:31 -0800 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX In-Reply-To: <47C5FB2B.5070300@gmail.com> References: <8CA470B8ACFFA2D-AC4-1C44@webmail-nd17.sysops.aol.com> <47C5FB2B.5070300@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220802271610yc63994ene13d9eefc4559345@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > > tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > > Not being from the Vax world, I wonder difficult it would be > > for them to move them over to SIMH or CHARON emulators? > > > > The savings in power & air conditioning alone would probably > > pay for the new equipment in the first year. ;-) > > Would it really be too expensive to move to OpenVMS/Integrity? > > Peace... Sridhar > Integrity is only an option if they have the source, right? I'm imagining that they've got a bunch of VAX binaries from long-dead companies... does VEST do VAX->Itanium? John "doesn't really know much VMS" Floren -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Feb 27 18:12:36 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:12:36 -0500 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary In-Reply-To: <719427.15333.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <719427.15333.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47C5FC74.4080304@gmail.com> Andrew Burton wrote: > YouTube doesn't stream. It slowly downloads the flash video files to > the temporary internet files folder where it's usually named "FlaXX.tmp". > The XX is usually a hex number depending on how many tmp files you > have in there. The file is also (99% of the time) deleted the second you > close the page it is linked to. > > The good thing is that you can watch the video before it's fully > downloaded. A very good thing if you are on dial-up :) So what is the difference between "streaming" and "downloading a file while being able to view it while downloading"? The second is the definition I usually allow myself when discussing streaming. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Feb 27 18:16:07 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:16:07 -0500 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802271610yc63994ene13d9eefc4559345@mail.gmail.com> References: <8CA470B8ACFFA2D-AC4-1C44@webmail-nd17.sysops.aol.com> <47C5FB2B.5070300@gmail.com> <7d3530220802271610yc63994ene13d9eefc4559345@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C5FD47.4040009@gmail.com> John Floren wrote: > On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: >> > Not being from the Vax world, I wonder difficult it would be >> > for them to move them over to SIMH or CHARON emulators? >> > >> > The savings in power & air conditioning alone would probably >> > pay for the new equipment in the first year. ;-) >> >> Would it really be too expensive to move to OpenVMS/Integrity? >> >> Peace... Sridhar >> > > Integrity is only an option if they have the source, right? I'm > imagining that they've got a bunch of VAX binaries from long-dead > companies... does VEST do VAX->Itanium? No, but VEST will go to Alpha, and then you can use AEST to go to IA64. http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/integrity/transition/vax/app_tools.html Peace... Sridhar From cclist at sydex.com Wed Feb 27 19:17:37 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:17:37 -0800 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47C5F9D9.1010506@compsys.to> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org>, <47C4139C.11516.1A7E0A44@cclist.sydex.com>, <47C5F9D9.1010506@compsys.to> Message-ID: <47C59B31.28981.2077A291@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Feb 2008 at 19:01, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > Although both the drive and media have the word "Zip" on them, > I didn't notice until you helped me to remember that they are > indeed called Zip drives. I feel I was fortunate to have the > internal SCSI version. For the PC, there is a full set of software > tools available. For the PDP-11, they are just nice ordinary > drives with removable media - although the software WRITE > PROTECT feature requires the PC software tools to toggle the > status of the media. The thing that was nice about the Zip drives was that they represented 100MB of inexpensive storage when most of the alternatives were pretty pricey. Very popular with the Macintosh crowd, Apple offered them as an option. There is a 250MB Zip drive also, but they seem not to be as popular as the 100MB version--and I don't know a thing about their reliability as compared to their smaller cousins. Nowadays, if I need a few hundred megabytes of temporary offline storage, I use a USB flash drive. In the 1GB size, particularly at clearance prices, they offer a fairly good bang for the buck. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Feb 27 19:28:50 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:28:50 -0800 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: References: <47C419B1.6450.1A95CE0E@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Feb 26, 8 01:52:49 pm, Message-ID: <47C59DD2.10778.2081E6E0@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Feb 2008 at 22:57, Tony Duell wrote: > No _new_ components, but you still have to reprogram the microcontroller > (which may involve pulling it from the board..). Personally, I'd rather > change some R's and C's Some uCs have the ability to program in-circuit. But popping a 6- or 8-pin PIC or AVR uC out of its (machine pin) socket for reprogramming is a simple enough task. I keep a pile of them at the ready and just cycle through them when I'm tweaking things. Most have wide supply voltage tolerances and good (i.e. 25 ma) drive capabilities. Cheers, Chuck > > > > > Yes, it might be fun doing it with NE567s or somesuch, but then, > > someone even more conservative would castigate you for not using > > tuned LC filters and discretes for the active part. A couple of > > 6SN7s and some powdered-iron core inductors should do the trick... > > I have an _old_ modem where the reciver has an input filter consisting of > a metal can with 8 or so tuned pot cores and capacitors in it. The output > of that is mixed with a local oscillator, the 'sum' frreqeuncy is taken > and fed to a discrimiator circuit. All discrete transsitors, of course... > > > > > > > I really like the little microcontrollers--they're cheap and they do > > the job. I'm not averse to using them when they're the best > > solution. > > So do I. The operative part being 'when they're the bast solution'. I > don't feel they are in this case. > > -tony From v.slyngstad at verizon.net Wed Feb 27 19:39:27 2008 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:39:27 -0800 Subject: 8/S Replica References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> From: "Peter C. Wallace": > On Wed, 27 Feb 2008, jim s wrote: >> I'd be interested in a system that used the CF connectors to be the edge >> card connectors. they should be cheap, and would hit the form factor >> well. Don't those have half again too many pins? > Another option is PCIExpress 1X connectors, They are cheap and more rugged > than CF sockets, and 36 pins! Now that's an interesting idea. Digikey even has them fairly cheap, which gets to be important if you order them 400 at a time :-). The only problem I see with it is that it is an edge connector, which may mean you want to spring for hard gold on the contact fingers, which about doubles the PCB costs for the modules. Vince From pcw at mesanet.com Wed Feb 27 20:07:21 2008 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:07:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> <085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: On Wed, 27 Feb 2008, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > >> Another option is PCIExpress 1X connectors, They are cheap and more rugged >> than CF sockets, and 36 pins! > > Now that's an interesting idea. Digikey even has them fairly cheap, > which gets to be important if you order them 400 at a time :-). > > The only problem I see with it is that it is an edge connector, > which may mean you want to spring for hard gold on the contact > fingers, which about doubles the PCB costs for the modules. > Probably cheaper/board than the female part of CF socket... Even with gold, 2 or 4 layer PCBs this size should be less than $2.00 each > Vince Peter Wallace From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Feb 27 20:53:52 2008 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:53:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> <085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: On Wed, 27 Feb 2008, Peter C. Wallace wrote: > Probably cheaper/board than the female part of CF socket... > Even with gold, 2 or 4 layer PCBs this size should be less than $2.00 each Okay, so the sockets and boards seem to be worked out. Populating the boards shouldn't be too much of a challenge. Now, how about the backplane? Can a PCB be designed that replicates the wire-wrapped original? If so, how many layers would be necessary? -- 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 rtellason at verizon.net Wed Feb 27 21:22:03 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:22:03 -0500 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47C59B31.28981.2077A291@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org> <47C5F9D9.1010506@compsys.to> <47C59B31.28981.2077A291@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200802272222.03777.rtellason@verizon.net> On Wednesday 27 February 2008 20:17, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 27 Feb 2008 at 19:01, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > > Although both the drive and media have the word "Zip" on them, > > I didn't notice until you helped me to remember that they are > > indeed called Zip drives. I feel I was fortunate to have the > > internal SCSI version. For the PC, there is a full set of software > > tools available. For the PDP-11, they are just nice ordinary > > drives with removable media - although the software WRITE > > PROTECT feature requires the PC software tools to toggle the > > status of the media. > > The thing that was nice about the Zip drives was that they > represented 100MB of inexpensive storage when most of the > alternatives were pretty pricey. Very popular with the Macintosh > crowd, Apple offered them as an option. There is a 250MB Zip drive > also, but they seem not to be as popular as the 100MB version--and I > don't know a thing about their reliability as compared to their > smaller cousins. I've got one of those, probably the 100MB variety, in an external SCSI configuration. I have no idea if it works or not as I don't have any media to test it with, and what I've seen for sale is usually in multiples with a price that's a bit more than I want to deal with for something I'm not sure I can use. Anybody know if I took this out of the external case could it be used as an internal drive? -- 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 rescue at hawkmountain.net Wed Feb 27 21:30:02 2008 From: rescue at hawkmountain.net (Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:30:02 -0500 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <200802272222.03777.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org> <47C5F9D9.1010506@compsys.to> <47C59B31.28981.2077A291@cclist.sydex.com> <200802272222.03777.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <47C62ABA.9020802@hawkmountain.net> Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Wednesday 27 February 2008 20:17, Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> On 27 Feb 2008 at 19:01, Jerome H. Fine wrote: >> >>> Although both the drive and media have the word "Zip" on them, >>> I didn't notice until you helped me to remember that they are >>> indeed called Zip drives. I feel I was fortunate to have the >>> internal SCSI version. For the PC, there is a full set of software >>> tools available. For the PDP-11, they are just nice ordinary >>> drives with removable media - although the software WRITE >>> PROTECT feature requires the PC software tools to toggle the >>> status of the media. >>> >> The thing that was nice about the Zip drives was that they >> represented 100MB of inexpensive storage when most of the >> alternatives were pretty pricey. Very popular with the Macintosh >> crowd, Apple offered them as an option. There is a 250MB Zip drive >> also, but they seem not to be as popular as the 100MB version--and I >> don't know a thing about their reliability as compared to their >> smaller cousins. >> > > I've got one of those, probably the 100MB variety, in an external SCSI > configuration. I have no idea if it works or not as I don't have any media > to test it with, and what I've seen for sale is usually in multiples with a > price that's a bit more than I want to deal with for something I'm not sure I > can use. > > Anybody know if I took this out of the external case could it be used as an > internal drive? > If it is a genuine IOMega external ZIP drive... then I don't believe you'll be able to do anything with it as an internal.... If it is a 3rd party, then it would likely just have an internal mech in an external enclosure.... but if that was the case, it would be pretty obvious. External JAZ drives do use the same mechs as internal JAZ drives, but w/o the bezel (bezel is intergrated into external enclosure). Only ZIP external I opened up was made specifically for that enclosure. What are folks experience with JAZ drives here. I got one for non important 'small' stuff for use in my home fileserver.... got some used carts with it, only tried 2 so far... one good, the other cart I think is bad. -- Curt From Tim at Rikers.org Wed Feb 27 21:31:25 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:31:25 -0700 Subject: Friden Flexowriter In-Reply-To: <01C87958.000268E0@mandr71> References: <01C87958.000268E0@mandr71> Message-ID: <47C62B0D.5010800@Rikers.org> M H Stein wrote: > Can't help you on the interface; almost looks homebrew, considering > it's built on perfboard. Has some previous owner perhaps already built > an interface? I suspect this is just an early model. Don't know when it wad built, but it should have been installed in the late 60s at the university where I acquired my HP-2116A. In theory I have all the required hardware to hook it up. Alas, the cables are not well documented. It'll make it to the top of the stack sometime. :) > Shouldn't be too hard to figure out though; looks like 8 lines to select > the byte, and there should be another to "clock" it in, i.e., engage > the clutch that drives the perforator. Looks like it could use a little > cleaning & some lube. Heh. Yep, not touched it since I got it. 30 years of dust there. > I have a unit that uses the same perforator mechanism; the motor runs > constantly and there's a solenoid that trips a clutch to drive the punch > shaft one revolution. There should be some cam switches inside that > cast housing for timing, and 9 interposer solenoids inside the perforator > that free or lock the perforator pins, and the selected ones are then driven > through the tape. (These solenoids actually look like little relays without > contacts). > > I doubt that you'd need any parts (these were pretty heavy duty units) > but if you do, I've scrapped a few of these and still have some of the > mechanical parts (no chad tubes though, alas). Thanx! Some pictures of what the chad tube is supposed to look like would be useful. Is there any danger in running it without a tube other than the obvious mess? Thanx for the reply! -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From rtellason at verizon.net Wed Feb 27 21:33:43 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:33:43 -0500 Subject: old monitors Message-ID: <200802272233.43433.rtellason@verizon.net> A guy is offering me a pile of old monitors, he describes as "mono, cga and ega", probably about a dozen or so altogether, and presumably all working. I don't have anything that currently uses any of these interfaces running at the moment. Any interest in anybody taking these off my hands? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From lance.w.lyon at gmail.com Wed Feb 27 21:42:52 2008 From: lance.w.lyon at gmail.com (Lance Lyon) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:42:52 +1100 Subject: old monitors References: <200802272233.43433.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <010201c879bc$00de99a0$0100a8c0@pentium> From: "Roy J. Tellason" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 2:33 PM Subject: old monitors >A guy is offering me a pile of old monitors, he describes as "mono, cga >and > ega", probably about a dozen or so altogether, and presumably all > working. > > I don't have anything that currently uses any of these interfaces running > at > the moment. > Bummer - if you were in Australia I'd take a monochrome & a CGA monitor off you :( Lance // http://www.commodore128.org // From v.slyngstad at verizon.net Wed Feb 27 21:56:14 2008 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:56:14 -0800 Subject: 8/S Replica References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp><47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu><085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: <087601c879bd$dddfca30$6600a8c0@vrsxp> > On Wed, 27 Feb 2008, Peter C. Wallace wrote: >> Probably cheaper/board than the female part of CF socket... >> Even with gold, 2 or 4 layer PCBs this size should be less than $2.00 >> each Hmm. I get $5 per board, and that's assuming you can get quantity 100 of each of the module types! For a single replica, you'd pay more per board. I didn't get prices around $2 until quantities closer to 250 per design. Unless you know some place a lot cheaper than I do. From: "David Griffith": > Okay, so the sockets and boards seem to be worked out. Populating the > boards shouldn't be too much of a challenge. Now, how about the > backplane? Can a PCB be designed that replicates the wire-wrapped > original? If so, how many layers would be necessary? That part's fairly easy. As I mentioned, I've got a DEC style backplane already drawn for a variation on the 8/S. All that's really required is to define a new package and "change package" on all the components. One issue that comes up with the DEC backplanes is that all the connectors are right next to each other, leading to pretty dense wiring on the backplane. Most DEC backplanes I've tried to route as PCB's take at least 4 layers. They're also really big boards -- typically 12"x16" or more. Which means they're a few hundred dollars each in small quantities. If these are half-size (or less), maybe they'd drop back into the size range where the inexpensive fabs will do them. (Most of those seem to stop at 10"x12" or so.) We *do* all understand that an 8/S replica is a multi-thousand dollar proposition, right? If the boards could be done for $5 each, and the connector is another $0.50, and the components another $2 per board, then we are looking at about $7.50*400=$3000 already, and we haven't got a backplane or a front panel, each of which is probably a few hundred dollars. Another hundred for the power supply, and gotta buy a pretty box. Even with prototype board pricing and cheap interconnect I never came up with cost estimates below about $3000 for a whole system (which is partly why I never tried to build any of it). Quantity discounts would make a big difference, but even so I don't see it getting below the $2000 mark. It'd be great to be proved wrong :-). Vince From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Wed Feb 27 21:58:24 2008 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:58:24 -0500 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47C59B31.28981.2077A291@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org>, <47C4139C.11516.1A7E0A44@cclist.sydex.com>, <47C5F9D9.1010506@compsys.to> <47C59B31.28981.2077A291@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C63160.30608@compsys.to> >Chuck Guzis wrote: >Nowadays, if I need a few hundred megabytes of temporary offline >storage, I use a USB flash drive. In the 1GB size, particularly at >clearance prices, they offer a fairly good bang for the buck. > Jerome Fine replies: This is already off-topic, but might be very helpful. My son just showed me a 2" x 2" board that holds the USB flash card. The card has a 40 pin IDE interface and a power connector for a 3 1/2" floppy drive. The cable to an IDE hard disk drive was switched to the board. Both the card and the 1 GB flash memory were $ US 10 each with the flash card having a 2 year warranty. There is also a much faster 2 GB flash card with a 5 year warranty at $ US 40. I think that these were volume prices. Does anyone want a few cards and flash memories? Can anyone produce a Qbus interface version of the board? Does my question makes it on-topic? 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 pcw at mesanet.com Wed Feb 27 22:31:11 2008 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:31:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <087601c879bd$dddfca30$6600a8c0@vrsxp> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp><47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu><085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <087601c879bd$dddfca30$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: On Wed, 27 Feb 2008, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:56:14 -0800 > From: Vincent Slyngstad > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Subject: Re: 8/S Replica > >> On Wed, 27 Feb 2008, Peter C. Wallace wrote: >>> Probably cheaper/board than the female part of CF socket... >>> Even with gold, 2 or 4 layer PCBs this size should be less than $2.00 each > > Hmm. I get $5 per board, and that's assuming you can get quantity 100 of > each of the module types! For a single replica, you'd pay more per board. > I didn't get prices around $2 until quantities closer to 250 per design. > Unless you know some place a lot cheaper than I do. Say $.25 to $.50 per sqr inch 4 layer. Contact fingers extra but not a whole lot, Pre-panelized (say 100 1x2" breakaway pcbs on a 14X18 panel) maybe 10,000 sq inches purchase qty (50 panels). Peter Wallace From v.slyngstad at verizon.net Wed Feb 27 22:40:06 2008 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:40:06 -0800 Subject: 8/S Replica References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp><47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu><085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><087601c879bd$dddfca30$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: <088601c879c3$fe232980$6600a8c0@vrsxp> From: "Peter C. Wallace": > On Wed, 27 Feb 2008, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: >> Hmm. I get $5 per board, and that's assuming you can get quantity 100 of >> each of the module types! For a single replica, you'd pay more per >> board. >> I didn't get prices around $2 until quantities closer to 250 per design. >> Unless you know some place a lot cheaper than I do. > > Say $.25 to $.50 per sqr inch 4 layer. Contact fingers extra but not a > whole lot, Pre-panelized (say 100 1x2" breakaway pcbs on a 14X18 panel) > maybe 10,000 sq inches purchase qty (50 panels). I don't know any place that will let you prepanelize and also do gold fingers. Which fab is that? Prepanelization would make the module PCBs *much* more affordable. Vince From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Wed Feb 27 22:19:41 2008 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim s) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:19:41 -0800 Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> <085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: <47C6365D.4040706@msm.umr.edu> Peter C. Wallace wrote: > On Wed, 27 Feb 2008, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: >> excellent suggestion. My suggestion needed an additional connector, and would offer nothing by having it. to another point brought up, I was only worried about enough fingers, not too few. I have access to a couple of Standard wire wrap machines, and the lady who used to run it, if anyone can get an idea how to do the boards, and get the paper tapes. I wonder if it is worth the effort of wirewrap, since the connectors don't have wirewrap tails? It's been a while since I looked at what goes on with the DEC backplanes and wirewrap. Do they populate pins regardless of the connectors having wirewrap tails, or are the pins mostly from the connectors? We had a system which used a lot of wirewrap boards, (off these machines) but we never lacked for PC backplanes and card cages due to a good surplus buy. So I didn't have to wirewrap any backplanes, thank goodness. Jim From pcw at mesanet.com Wed Feb 27 22:46:28 2008 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:46:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <088601c879c3$fe232980$6600a8c0@vrsxp> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp><47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu><085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><087601c879bd$dddfca30$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <088601c879c3$fe232980$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: On Wed, 27 Feb 2008, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:40:06 -0800 > From: Vincent Slyngstad > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Subject: Re: 8/S Replica > > From: "Peter C. Wallace": >> On Wed, 27 Feb 2008, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: >>> Hmm. I get $5 per board, and that's assuming you can get quantity 100 of >>> each of the module types! For a single replica, you'd pay more per board. >>> I didn't get prices around $2 until quantities closer to 250 per design. >>> Unless you know some place a lot cheaper than I do. >> >> Say $.25 to $.50 per sqr inch 4 layer. Contact fingers extra but not a >> whole lot, Pre-panelized (say 100 1x2" breakaway pcbs on a 14X18 panel) >> maybe 10,000 sq inches purchase qty (50 panels). > > I don't know any place that will let you prepanelize and also do gold > fingers. Which fab is that? > > Prepanelization would make the module PCBs *much* more affordable. > > Vince Also makes SMT assy affordable... We've been using a US broker for King Circuits in Taiwan. Peter Wallace From cclist at sydex.com Wed Feb 27 22:46:13 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:46:13 -0800 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47C62ABA.9020802@hawkmountain.net> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org>, <200802272222.03777.rtellason@verizon.net>, <47C62ABA.9020802@hawkmountain.net> Message-ID: <47C5CC15.1894.21369C8E@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Feb 2008 at 22:30, Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote: > What are folks experience with JAZ drives here. I got one for non important > 'small' stuff for use in my home fileserver.... got some used carts > with it, only tried 2 so far... one good, the other cart I think is bad. Back when the Jaz was new stuff, we were involved with making recommendations for several hundred customers for the best removable mass storage medium for quick portable backups. Many of our customers used tape (8mm/DLT mostly; 4mm DAT and Travan was just too unreliable), but some wanted faster random-access storage. Many of our customers had used 150MB and 230MB Bernoulli drives with much success, so when the Jaz drive came out, they expected the same quality, particularly given the high media price. Sadly, most were disappointed--many drives seemed to fail within a few months. This may have been an issue of QC at the manufacturing site, but it was enough to make most of our customers swear off them. The other thing that surprised many was that Iomega spec-ed the shelf life of the media at 10 years. This is not good news. To be fair, similar experiences were had with the Castlewood Orb drives and the Syquest SyJet. Both of those companies are defunct, but Iomega plugs on. I believe their current offering is the 35/70GB Rev drive. I have no experiece with these models. As usual, YMMV. Cheers, Chuck From classiccmp at crash.com Wed Feb 27 23:07:27 2008 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:07:27 -0800 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47C6418F.3090600@crash.com> Tony Duell wrote: > > I would guess that the most likely harmonic to jump to would be the > third. Now : > > [...] > > 2) Even if it did, I think you'd notice it was running 3 times as fast as > normal... I expect you'd be able to tell from the tears of pure sweet joy running down the user's face if a VS2000 was running three times as fast... ;^) --S. From tiggerlasv at aim.com Wed Feb 27 23:19:41 2008 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:19:41 -0500 Subject: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] Message-ID: <8CA47E0A7969C16-ED8-3577@webmail-ne10.sysops.aol.com> I stopped holding my breath for creation of a Q-Bus IDE controller a long time ago. While I like to think that I do a reasonable job troubleshooting some problems, I'm definitely not a hardware/software engineer. It would have been nice, but it makes more sense these days to go Q-Bus to SATA. I would imagine that it would be alot less hassle, and certainly alot less real estate on the board, with the smaller connectors, and fewer traces. At any rate, back to the topic, Q-Bus to Compact Flash. If you can do Q-bus to Compact Flash, then you can do Q-bus to IDE, because CF *is* an IDE interface. Those wonderful CF to IDE adapter boards generally don't have any circuitry on-board, except to drive status LED's. Right now, I have Compact flash / IDE on my Q-bus, albeit in a round-about way. I have older CMD SCSI controllers (CQD-200's). Attached to those are ACard 7720U SCSI <> IDE adapters. http://www.acard.com The CMD controllers don't have any problems with them, and it seems to be happy with older IDE drives that I've tried. And finally, I have ACS IDE <> Compact Flash adpaters. http://www.acscontrol.com You can use any IDE <> CF adapter you want, and you can certainly get them alot cheaper elsewhere. I chose the ACS unit, since they were one of the few that I could find that offered it in a 3.5" drive frame. They also offer them in a 5.25" form factor, but I think they're just using a readily available 3.5" to 5.25" frame. I use a SCSI removeable chassis, so I had to modify my Acard 7720U in order to fit everything into the tray. There is at least one vendor that offers a direct SCSI to CF adapter, but they were a bit pricy compared to my homebrew version. I have tested my configuration with CF cards ranging from 4MB up through 2GB, and find that it works adequately for my needs. I could see no discernable speed increase between using real SCSI drives, and the IDE <> CF adapter, although I wasn't trying to do any significant benchmarking. (The CQD-200's are kind of poky controllers anyway, so this didn't really surprise me.) Now, if I only I could use PUTR to dump a disk image onto a RAW IDE device, I'd be a happy camper. . . ;-) T From classiccmp at crash.com Wed Feb 27 23:25:09 2008 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:25:09 -0800 Subject: Obscure-ish TTL, was Re: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net> <068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <47C645B5.1020103@crash.com> Christian Corti wrote: > > For example SN7439 (NOT '38; equivalent to DEC8881) and SN7489 (16x4 bit > RAM; extensively used in some PDPs for registers). Hoo boy, you reminded me of The Jones Machine, by one Hillary Jones (no relation). Published in Byte in the 1980s, a 4 instruction / 8 bit machine using a 74181 and 7489s. IIRC, one instruction was "store the 1's complement of the register" which was more or less a freebie from how the 7489s were used. A project I did for college was expanding it to 16 bit words, four bit opcode and twelve bits of address, using more modern/common TTL (circa 1987), and adding instructions to support a stack, calling subroutines, and ...? Boy, I wonder where the paperwork for that is. Never got around to trying to build one so it's just a paper design, but something I was rather proud of at the time. --S. From classiccmp at crash.com Wed Feb 27 23:40:31 2008 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:40:31 -0800 Subject: Obscure-ish TTL, was Re: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <47C645B5.1020103@crash.com> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net> <068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net> <47C645B5.1020103@crash.com> Message-ID: <47C6494F.9070309@crash.com> Steven M Jones wrote: > > ... 8 bit machine using a 74181 Yes yes, that should be "a pair of" -- the 74181 is still 4 bits wide... --S. From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Feb 27 23:43:06 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:43:06 -0500 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary In-Reply-To: <47C5FC74.4080304@gmail.com> References: <719427.15333.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> <47C5FC74.4080304@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802280043.07103.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 27 February 2008 19:12, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Andrew Burton wrote: > > YouTube doesn't stream. It slowly downloads the flash video files > > to the temporary internet files folder where it's usually named > > "FlaXX.tmp". The XX is usually a hex number depending on how many > > tmp files you have in there. The file is also (99% of the time) > > deleted the second you close the page it is linked to. > > > > The good thing is that you can watch the video before it's fully > > downloaded. A very good thing if you are on dial-up :) > > So what is the difference between "streaming" and "downloading a file > while being able to view it while downloading"? The second is the > definition I usually allow myself when discussing streaming. "Streaming" tends to imply no disk cache copy, more like listening to a radio station... Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Feb 27 23:57:43 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:57:43 -0500 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 27, 2008, at 6:11 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> Well, Chuck said it best, but I'll add this: You get fewer >> components, lower cost, easier maintainability and tweakability, >> increased flexibility, the possibility for a reusable design...how is >> this a bad thing? > > OK, let's look at those advantages : > > 'Fewer COmpoentns'. OK, I'll grant that there are probably few bits to > pick up and solder to the PCB (although it's close -- as I > mentioned last > night, there's a CUTS decoder using a single 16 pin TTL chip). But > there > are certainly more 'devices' -- individual transistors, etc -- in the > microcontrolelr solution. Now, my expoerience suggests that while a > single chip is moree reliable than making the same circuit from many > chips or discrete transistors, a complex chip _is_ less reliale than a > simple one. So while trying to build the 'microcontroller' solution > using > TTL (full adders, lateches for the registers, etc) would be > considerably > less reliuable than the single chip microcontroller, I also suspect > that > a single TTL chip, or a few of them, would be more reliable than the > microcontorller I can't really disagree with your assertion that a complex chip is less reliable than a simple one, but we're talking about very simple microcontrollers (granted they're a lot more complex than a 7473 or something) that just don't fail all that often. I don't know of anyone who has experienced high field failure rates with these little chips. I guess, to me, it really doesn't matter if it lasts 100 years or 1000 years. > 'Lower cost'. I could make the flipant answer and say that my junk box > contains plenty of TTL chips and no microocntrollers. But I'd rather > point out that the cheapest solution is not necessarily the best, and > that this idea of always cutting the cost to the minimum is one reason > that I don't buy many new products. We're in agreement there, as I live in the country that is now ruled by WalMart and all of their made-in-China garbage and it's really getting to me. I would never suggest that the cheaper solution is automatically going to be better. However, this (in my opinion) better solution also happens to be cheaper. > 'Easier maintainabilty and tweakaility'. Surely you jest here! Not at all. Read on and I will explain my position. > It is a > lot easier to find a fault in a circuit when you can actually put the > 'scope probe on a particular signal. Darn it, with a single-chip > microcontroller, you can't normally trace the firmware. In the context of a small microcontroller like the ones we're talking about, these things just don't have that much code space. Almost none of them allow self-modifying code. Nearly all of them have small, simple instruction sets. If the programmer NEEDS to actually trace the firmware to find a bug, I'd question that programmer's competency. Seriously. > Repairing it is a > nightmare unless you have the firmware (prefereably as source code). Of course we'd have the source code. We're talking about one of us building something. > I'd > much rather change a 2-lead passive compoennt than reprogram a chip > (and > it'll be quicker...) Well, personal preferences aside, it might be quicker and it might not. I can type "make burn" at a shell prompt in the terminal window to the right of this email message and squirt an entire new code image into the Philips ARM7 chip I'm working with in less time than it takes my (fast Metcal) soldering iron to heat up...and that code image has BIG stuff in it like an IP stack. > 'Increased fleximbility'. The original discussion was to decode > cassette > tones. Why do I want to add any more features. I prefer a design that > does one job, and does it well. Of course. You seem to have assumed that you're more anal and more of a purist than I am, but I assure you that's not the case. I've lost jobs (and very nearly my HOME) for taking a stand on such matters in the past! So, in the context of decoding cassette tones...There are all sorts of perfectly valid reasons why that additional flexibility might be useful. What if you want to change it to use different frequencies later? What if you want to experiment with noise-resiliency algorithms or something? All of these things can contribute to "doing one job well". Witness Phil's floppy disk reader project. > 'Reuseable Design'. Again 'Why?'. I'd much rather come up with the > _right_ design (IMHO) for each problem eather than try to kludge in a > previous design just ecause I have it. Reuse of a past design is not automatically a kludge. Reuse of a *debugged* past design, if it's the right tool for the job, is SMART. Period. > This quickly leads to the idea of > bodging together off-the-shelf units, which is another thing I > dislike... ...and I dislike it as well, and I'd never do it. Not everyone who uses a microcontroller is boding together off-the-shelf units or adding unnecessary complexity. Make no mistake my friend, some of us microcontroller hackers are just as idealistic and picky as you are, and our standards are just as high. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Feb 28 00:35:01 2008 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:35:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47C63160.30608@compsys.to> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org>, <47C4139C.11516.1A7E0A44@cclist.sydex.com>, <47C5F9D9.1010506@compsys.to> <47C59B31.28981.2077A291@cclist.sydex.com> <47C63160.30608@compsys.to> Message-ID: <20080227211112.X86787@shell.lmi.net> The external 100M ZIP drive was available in three versions: SCSI Parallel port "ZIP PLUS": both parallel AND SCSI, with "auto detect" I just ran across a used ZIP-PLUS, with power supply and DB25 cable. I have no idea whether it works. For $20, I'll stuff it into Priority mail. (or $10 if you wanna pick it up in Berkeley) Some where in this room are at least one SCSI and three or four parallel port ZIPs (a lot cheaper), an "Orb" drive (in box), etc. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Thu Feb 28 00:49:28 2008 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 07:49:28 +0100 Subject: Speaking of PPT (was: Re: Friden Flexowriter) In-Reply-To: <01C87958.0182EE60@mandr71> References: <01C87958.0182EE60@mandr71> Message-ID: <47C65978.9090801@bluewin.ch> M H Stein wrote: > What are generic PPT readers & perforators worth these days? > The latest HP papertape reader I sold on Ebay fetched all of 5 Euros...... JOs From g-wright at att.net Thu Feb 28 01:34:17 2008 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 07:34:17 +0000 Subject: CDC (MPI) floppy drive Message-ID: <022820080734.23590.47C663F80008485D00005C2622230647629B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> Hi Tony Since my 7771 1501 dive had problems and I did not find any Info. I did find a NIB dive. It has the same weight that seems to be there to stablize the movement of the head. The weight on the new drive (but old stock) has no grease on the frame of the drive but was stuck on the shaft. It does have the thick grease or ?? on the ends of the weight where the shaft enters and exits. After warming it a little it started to slide on the shaft. I can slide it the whole distance. I looked at the old drive and it does the same. It looks like it dampens some of the quick motions of the head carriage?? But the grease keeps it from moving very much. I would guess it has real thick grease in it ??? So it can only slide a little on the shaft. It may have some kind of "o" ring to help seal one end, but I did not take it apart. If needed, I could take apart the dead one. - Jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc g-wright at att.net -------------- Original message ---------------------- From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > > Does anybody haev a CDC/MPI full height 5.25" floppy drive? No, I am not > looking to buy one, I need some information on how it goes together. > > I have one in an HP9826, it's fucntionally the same as a TM100-2A, but > intenrally quite different. The area I am baving prolems understanding is > the head positioner. > > The head carriage runs conventionally on a pair of metal rails fixed ot > the base casting. At the rear right of the drive is a stepper motor with > the spindle axis vertical. On that spindle is the metal drum of a taut > band mechanism, there's alos the conventional taut band. That fits over a > pin on the drum. The ends of the band have holes that fit over pins on > the head carriage, the rear p[in being fixed to the carriage, the front > one is spring-loaded to tension the band. > > So far, so good. > > Mouleded into the head carriage are 2 arms that extend to the right of > the drive, past the taut band assemly. They seem to carry some kind of > damper. And that's the real prolkem > > In my drive, the damer had oozed grease all over the chassis. I've > stripped it all down and cleaned it up. What I can't work out is how it > should go back together. > > The 'damper' consists of a weight made af a soft metal, probably lead. > And a metal shaft, about 1mm diameter, that runs through a hole in the > middle of this weight, the ends of which locate in the arms I mentioned. > And that's all I have. There's no obvious place to put grease inside the > weight (I've looked down the hole as best I an). If you put grease on the > shaft, it's just going to ooze out again. > > Also, what keeps the weight in the right position on the shaft? It's > considerale shorter than the space between the arms. Surely it shouldn't > just flop backwards and forwards? > > Another odditiy. When I removed the tauth band, I notixed what appeared > to be a plastic clip on one of the pins. More careful inspection showed > it was an O-ring that had split. OK, I can get replacements. But why put > an O-ring there in the first place? It's not going to keep the band on > the pin, or anything like that. > > My thought is that this has been dismantled before, that the O-ring > actually came from the shaft that carries the weight, and that there may > be parts missing (Springs, washers, etc). > > Does anyone ahve such a drive and could at least tell me what the damper > appears to consist of (No, I am not asking you to take it to bits, just > indicate if there's anything on that shaft other than the weight, if > there are any ruber seals. etc? > > -tony > From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 28 01:38:42 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:38:42 -0800 Subject: Speaking of PPT (was: Re: Friden Flexowriter) In-Reply-To: <47C65978.9090801@bluewin.ch> References: <01C87958.0182EE60@mandr71>, <47C65978.9090801@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: <47C5F482.14707.21D48412@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Feb 2008 at 7:49, Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel wrote: > The latest HP papertape reader I sold on Ebay fetched all of 5 Euros...... I know that PPT readers can really zip right along, but what's the fastest perforator ever made? Laser-driven, maybe? Cheers, Chuck From jdaviscctalk at soupwizard.com Thu Feb 28 02:13:54 2008 From: jdaviscctalk at soupwizard.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:13:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: CDC (MPI) floppy drive In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <61714.72.194.208.80.1204186434.squirrel@webmail5.pair.com> On Wed, February 27, 2008 3:44 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > Does anybody haev a CDC/MPI full height 5.25" floppy drive? No, I am not > looking to buy one, I need some information on how it goes together. The commodore 8050 service manual has a section on MPI full height drives, maybe it has some info that can help: http://www.devili.iki.fi/Computers/Commodore/8050/Service_Manual/contents.html It's the last section on the page (linkes to pages 34-36) jdavis From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Feb 28 02:41:13 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:41:13 +0000 Subject: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] In-Reply-To: <8CA47E0A7969C16-ED8-3577@webmail-ne10.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA47E0A7969C16-ED8-3577@webmail-ne10.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <1204188073.32030.8.camel@elric> On Thu, 2008-02-28 at 00:19 -0500, tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > > I stopped holding my breath for creation of a Q-Bus IDE > controller a long time ago. While I like to think that I > do a reasonable job troubleshooting some problems, > I'm definitely not a hardware/software engineer. > > It would have been nice, but it makes more sense > these days to go Q-Bus to SATA. I would imagine > that it would be alot less hassle, and certainly alot less > real estate on the board, with the smaller connectors, > and fewer traces. Actually SATA is extremely exacting and needs unbelievably complicated controller chips. PATA, on the other hand, is just a fast parallel port. You can hook a CF card up to anything, even a microcontroller, with just a tiny amount of glue logic. > At any rate, back to the topic, Q-Bus to Compact Flash. > > If you can do Q-bus to Compact Flash, then you can do > Q-bus to IDE, because CF *is* an IDE interface. > Those wonderful CF to IDE adapter boards generally don't > have any circuitry on-board, except to drive status LED's. Exactly. Simply grafting a PATA interface onto a QBus card is trivial. Actually getting something that will either pretend to be an existing controller or writing a device driver for the operating system in use is much much harder. If you really wanted to push this forwards, write me some MSCP controller firmware for an Atmel microcontroller... > Right now, I have Compact flash / IDE on my Q-bus, > albeit in a round-about way. > > I have older CMD SCSI controllers (CQD-200's). > > Attached to those are ACard 7720U SCSI <> IDE adapters. > http://www.acard.com These seem to crop up on the various sampler mailing lists I'm on, as a way of using CF with older samplers which often have "funny" SCSI implementations. Gordon From mike at brickfieldspark.org Thu Feb 28 03:22:44 2008 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:22:44 -0000 Subject: [personal] Offered: Ancient Macs & Monitors landfill bound, London SW1 References: <575131af0802270303sd6f7bfbhd50b901895b3ec07@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0802270305u293ecc75h7a696ddda8bff4d4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <003a01c879eb$7a6abc70$911ca8c0@mss.local> Liam, Please hold these for a couple of days, I'm forwarding your "offered" to an enthusiasts group, there may be somebody interested there, I know there are some Mac collectors out there. Best regards, Mike Hatch Web - www.brickfieldspark.org E-mail - mike at brickfieldspark.org Urban Wildlife ring - www.brickfieldspark.org/uwringhome.htm View the Chrismas Lodge report - http://www.best-report.org Then please sign the petition - http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/chrismaslodge/index.html ----- Original Message ----- From: "Liam Proven" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 11:05 AM Subject: [personal] Offered: Ancient Macs & Monitors landfill bound, London SW1 > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: martin_asa_1960 > Date: 24 Feb 2008 16:18 > Subject: [FreeCycleLondon] Offered: Ancient MACs & Monitors landfill bound > SW1 > To: freecyclelondon at yahoogroups.com > > > Offered: Ancient MACs & Monitors landfill bound SW11 > > I'm offering these as far and wide because I'm not sure many people > will be interested as the MACs are that old. > > On Offer: > > x1 Power Macintosh 5500/225 > Http adrress to image: > http://img.wiki.excite.co.jp/upload/apple/4b/4bf6409b62f70f0e112b03757 > 90a1bc3_600x528.jpg > > x1 Power Macintosh 700/225 > > x1 Power Macintosh 7200/90 > > x1 Power Macintosh 5500/225 > > x1 Macintosh Performa 5500 > > x1 Apple MultiScan Display (Monitor) 15"(I think) > > x2 old MAC keyboards > > x1Pack of 10 MAC formatted diskettes(floppies?) > > x1 Packard Bell Logitech 15" monitor. Good looking beast but heavy! > Model No: 5480E. Made '98 > > x1 Samsung Samtron 15" monitor. Model name: 55E > > Also an assortment of cables that came withthe MACs > > All have been in a dusty cupboard for years. I was told they all > worked...? I've used the last two monitors recently so I can verify > they work. As for the rest I assume it's only good for enthusiasts or > tinkerers or students who are desperate for machines/parts to set up > a network. This stuff is bulky and heavy; if you don't have a car or > van it's not worth your while getting in touch- I don't deliver. > > -- > Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven > Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com > Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 > AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com > Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 > > > From mike at brickfieldspark.org Thu Feb 28 03:27:35 2008 From: mike at brickfieldspark.org (Mike Hatch) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:27:35 -0000 Subject: Fw: [personal] Offered: Ancient Macs & Monitors landfill bound, London SW1 Message-ID: <003e01c879ec$276b5f10$911ca8c0@mss.local> >From a local Freecycle group here in the UK, I could collect and store / ship if anybody is interested in the list of bits (others in the UK, or US if really interested !) Contact me or Liam or Martin direct. Mike mike at brickfieldspark.org ----- Original Message ----- From: "Liam Proven" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 11:05 AM Subject: [personal] Offered: Ancient Macs & Monitors landfill bound, London SW1 > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: martin_asa_1960 > Date: 24 Feb 2008 16:18 > Subject: [FreeCycleLondon] Offered: Ancient MACs & Monitors landfill bound > SW1 > To: freecyclelondon at yahoogroups.com > > > Offered: Ancient MACs & Monitors landfill bound SW11 > > I'm offering these as far and wide because I'm not sure many people > will be interested as the MACs are that old. > > On Offer: > > x1 Power Macintosh 5500/225 > Http adrress to image: > http://img.wiki.excite.co.jp/upload/apple/4b/4bf6409b62f70f0e112b03757 > 90a1bc3_600x528.jpg > > x1 Power Macintosh 700/225 > > x1 Power Macintosh 7200/90 > > x1 Power Macintosh 5500/225 > > x1 Macintosh Performa 5500 > > x1 Apple MultiScan Display (Monitor) 15"(I think) > > x2 old MAC keyboards > > x1Pack of 10 MAC formatted diskettes(floppies?) > > x1 Packard Bell Logitech 15" monitor. Good looking beast but heavy! > Model No: 5480E. Made '98 > > x1 Samsung Samtron 15" monitor. Model name: 55E > > Also an assortment of cables that came withthe MACs > > All have been in a dusty cupboard for years. I was told they all > worked...? I've used the last two monitors recently so I can verify > they work. As for the rest I assume it's only good for enthusiasts or > tinkerers or students who are desperate for machines/parts to set up > a network. This stuff is bulky and heavy; if you don't have a car or > van it's not worth your while getting in touch- I don't deliver. > > -- > Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven > Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com > Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 > AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com > Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 > > > From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 03:38:33 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:38:33 -0500 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary In-Reply-To: <200802280043.07103.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <719427.15333.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> <47C5FC74.4080304@gmail.com> <200802280043.07103.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <47C68119.9090609@gmail.com> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Wednesday 27 February 2008 19:12, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> Andrew Burton wrote: >>> YouTube doesn't stream. It slowly downloads the flash video files >>> to the temporary internet files folder where it's usually named >>> "FlaXX.tmp". The XX is usually a hex number depending on how many >>> tmp files you have in there. The file is also (99% of the time) >>> deleted the second you close the page it is linked to. >>> >>> The good thing is that you can watch the video before it's fully >>> downloaded. A very good thing if you are on dial-up :) >> So what is the difference between "streaming" and "downloading a file >> while being able to view it while downloading"? The second is the >> definition I usually allow myself when discussing streaming. > > "Streaming" tends to imply no disk cache copy, more like listening to a > radio station... What difference does it make where it's being buffered? The behavior of the process in either case is identical. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 03:41:58 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:41:58 -0500 Subject: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] In-Reply-To: <1204188073.32030.8.camel@elric> References: <8CA47E0A7969C16-ED8-3577@webmail-ne10.sysops.aol.com> <1204188073.32030.8.camel@elric> Message-ID: <47C681E6.8050900@gmail.com> Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > Exactly. Simply grafting a PATA interface onto a QBus card is trivial. > Actually getting something that will either pretend to be an existing > controller or writing a device driver for the operating system in use is > much much harder. > > If you really wanted to push this forwards, write me some MSCP > controller firmware for an Atmel microcontroller... I have the skillset to do this. What I don't have is the documentation that would allow me to figure out how to talk MSCP and bit-bang Qbus. If someone could point me in the right direction for the specs for these, I'd be happy to write the firmware. Peace... Sridhar From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Thu Feb 28 04:16:07 2008 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:16:07 +0100 (CET) Subject: Speaking of PPT (was: Re: Friden Flexowriter) In-Reply-To: <47C5F482.14707.21D48412@cclist.sydex.com> References: <01C87958.0182EE60@mandr71>, <47C65978.9090801@bluewin.ch> <47C5F482.14707.21D48412@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 27 Feb 2008, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I know that PPT readers can really zip right along, but what's the > fastest perforator ever made? Laser-driven, maybe? The fastest reader I've seen (in a brochure) does 2000 chars/sec., and the fastest punch 150 chars/sec. (the one I have in mind is from Facit IIRC, I think I have one lying around somewhere). Christian From jvdg at sparcpark.net Thu Feb 28 06:10:21 2008 From: jvdg at sparcpark.net (jvdg at sparcpark.net) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:10:21 +0100 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47C59B31.28981.2077A291@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <2210555738.20080228131021@mail.jvdg.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 27 Feb 2008 at 19:01, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > >> Although both the drive and media have the word "Zip" on them, >> I didn't notice until you helped me to remember that they are >> indeed called Zip drives. I feel I was fortunate to have the >> internal SCSI version. For the PC, there is a full set of software >> tools available. For the PDP-11, they are just nice ordinary >> drives with removable media - although the software WRITE >> PROTECT feature requires the PC software tools to toggle the >> status of the media. > > The thing that was nice about the Zip drives was that they > represented 100MB of inexpensive storage when most of the > alternatives were pretty pricey. Very popular with the Macintosh > crowd, Apple offered them as an option. There is a 250MB Zip drive > also, but they seem not to be as popular as the 100MB version--and I > don't know a thing about their reliability as compared to their > smaller cousins. There are also 750 MB Zip drives. They go for decent prices on eBay, these days, as the era of the Zip drive is pretty much over. I have Zip drives in all capacities, both internal and external models, and I haven't had one of them fail, yet. But I never owned one of the "original" 100 MB models, so I can't comment on them. I do believe this was the model that earned the Zip drive its reputation of unreliability, with the "Click of Death" problems. The 250 MB drives are horrendously slow when writing 100 MB media, and the 750 MB ones can't write 100 MB media at all. This is the kind of thing that bites one in the behind at the most inconvenient of times, of course. Officially, Zip drives only work on PC's and Macs, but I am yet to encounter a machine that won't recognise them as ordinary hard drives. I have internal (ATA and SCSI) drives in some machine, and external USB (250) and FireWire (750) drives, meaning I most of my machines can use Zip drives to perform quick sneakernet data transfer. Still easier and faster than burning CD's, although availability of a fast network does negate their usefulness somewhat. ,xtG .tsooJ From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Feb 28 08:05:15 2008 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:05:15 -0600 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary In-Reply-To: <200802280043.07103.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <719427.15333.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> <47C5FC74.4080304@gmail.com> <200802280043.07103.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20080228075933.0788e1f0@mail.threedee.com> At 11:43 PM 2/27/2008, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >"Streaming" tends to imply no disk cache copy, more like listening to a >radio station... Browsers and other players might cache in order to give you the ability to rewind and replay, for example. There are many ways these days to save a YouTube video and convert to another format (browser plugins particularly for Firefox, sites like keepvid.com, etc.) - John -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.8/1288 - Release Date: 2/19/2008 8:47 PM From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Feb 28 08:06:05 2008 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:06:05 -0600 Subject: Speaking of PPT (was: Re: Friden Flexowriter) In-Reply-To: References: <01C87958.0182EE60@mandr71> <47C65978.9090801@bluewin.ch> <47C5F482.14707.21D48412@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20080228080305.0788dcd0@mail.threedee.com> At 04:16 AM 2/28/2008, Christian Corti wrote: >On Wed, 27 Feb 2008, Chuck Guzis wrote: >>I know that PPT readers can really zip right along, but what's the >>fastest perforator ever made? Laser-driven, maybe? >The fastest reader I've seen (in a brochure) does 2000 chars/sec., and the fastest punch 150 chars/sec. (the one I have in mind is from Facit IIRC, I think I have one lying around somewhere). At some point, you're risking the media, aren't you? Mylar is stronger than oiled paper, but still... - John -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.8/1288 - Release Date: 2/19/2008 8:47 PM From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Feb 28 08:09:27 2008 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:09:27 -0600 Subject: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] In-Reply-To: <8CA47E0A7969C16-ED8-3577@webmail-ne10.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA47E0A7969C16-ED8-3577@webmail-ne10.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20080228080629.080ac888@mail.threedee.com> At 11:19 PM 2/27/2008, tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: >It would have been nice, but it makes more sense >these days to go Q-Bus to SATA. IDE to SATA dongles appeared long ago, they're < $20 USD. Stacks of X-to-Y adapters seem flakey to me, but it might work. - John -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.8/1288 - Release Date: 2/19/2008 8:47 PM From doc at mdrconsult.com Thu Feb 28 08:27:20 2008 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:27:20 -0600 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <2210555738.20080228131021@mail.jvdg.net> References: <2210555738.20080228131021@mail.jvdg.net> Message-ID: <47C6C4C8.3000200@mdrconsult.com> jvdg at sparcpark.net wrote: > > Officially, Zip drives only work on PC's and Macs, but I am yet to encounter a machine that won't recognise them as ordinary hard drives. I have internal (ATA and SCSI) drives in some machine, and external USB (250) and FireWire (750) drives, meaning I most of my machines can use Zip drives to perform quick sneakernet data transfer. Still easier and faster than burning CD's, although availability of a fast network does negate their usefulness somewhat. I have RT-11 on a 100MB ZIP disk, and RSX11 on another. My 11/53 (nee DS550) with RQZX1 likes the ZIP drive just fine. Doc From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Feb 28 08:32:49 2008 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:32:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] In-Reply-To: <47C681E6.8050900@gmail.com> References: <8CA47E0A7969C16-ED8-3577@webmail-ne10.sysops.aol.com> <1204188073.32030.8.camel@elric> <47C681E6.8050900@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802281443.JAA11662@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> If you really wanted to push this forwards, write me some MSCP >> controller firmware for an Atmel microcontroller... > I have the skillset to do this. What I don't have is the > documentation that would allow me to figure out how to talk MSCP and > bit-bang Qbus. It's hard to think of a better place than this list to go for those. :) I've seen doc on MSCP as implemented in device XYZ in device XYZ's manual, for at least one and I think two values of XYZ (UDA50 comes to mind). I don't think I have any of the relevant manuals, but bitsavers or vt100 or some such surely has at least one of them. I did scan EK-KA630-UG-001 (the KA630, the MicroVAX-II CPU board, manual); it has an appendix that describes Qbus in fairly excruciating detail (right down to signal rise and fall times). See ftp.rodents.montreal.qc.ca:/mouse/misc/EK-KA630-UG-001/ (I expect someone has picked the page scans up and assembled them into a PDF or sokme such by now, but I haven't looked so I don't know for sure). /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Feb 28 08:56:29 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:56:29 -0500 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary In-Reply-To: <47C68119.9090609@gmail.com> References: <719427.15333.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> <200802280043.07103.pat@computer-refuge.org> <47C68119.9090609@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802280956.29577.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 28 February 2008 04:38, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > > "Streaming" tends to imply no disk cache copy, more like listening > > to a radio station... > > What difference does it make where it's being buffered? The behavior > of the process in either case is identical. If you're streaming, the buffer is usually just enough to filter out network timing issues, not downloading the entire content so that you can play/rewind/fast forward/etc. Like I said, like listening to a radio station (perhaps I should add "on an old AM/FM radio":). Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 09:08:28 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:08:28 -0600 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47C59B31.28981.2077A291@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org>, <47C4139C.11516.1A7E0A44@cclist.sydex.com>, <47C5F9D9.1010506@compsys.to> <47C59B31.28981.2077A291@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C6CE6C.6000807@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > The thing that was nice about the Zip drives was that they > represented 100MB of inexpensive storage when most of the > alternatives were pretty pricey. But then people said that about those floppy-connected QIC tape drives (hmm, those were IOmega too, weren't they?) and lots of people seemed to find that they had dreadful reliability too. Seemed nice at the time, but not so good a few months down the line... From dave06a at dunfield.com Thu Feb 28 06:57:06 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 07:57:06 -0500 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: References: <1BEE23AB711C@dunfield.com> from "Dave Dunfield" at Feb 26, 8 09:00:53 pm Message-ID: <236DC0DF16F5@dunfield.com> > > A good idea, but I don't think this is the case. According to the technical > > OK... Not having seen the machine, all the rest of us can do is make > guesses, most of which are likely to be wrong :-) If my response came across as critical, I apologize, this was not my intent. I welcome any and all suggestions. > > I'll have to do some measurements. I could try hard-wiring the fan to full > > power, however this thing *should* work as it is designed, and the fan supply > > True. On the other hand, if making the fan run at maximum speed all the > time keeps the machine running, it's worth doing that mod (IMHO) to save > the problem of replacing the CPU or FPU chips. Agreed that it wouldn't hurt to have the fan at full power, but the point I was trying to make is that this thing gets *SO* hot that I'm convinced theres a fault, which should be found, not masked. I don't think just running the fan at top speed will be enough - it's got pretty good airflow as it is, and it is on the other side of the cabinet (fan is at the back, CPU/FPU is at the front). The only way I've been able to keep the chips cool enough to run is with a muffin fan positioned right beside them with airflow directed at the heatsinks - much higher airflow that would be present in it's natural situation. It has occured to me that with the color frame buffer removed (which I don't need in my application), I could mount larger heat sinks, and probably make it stay cool enough with the natural airflow, but I would not feel comfortable in doing so, as it does not address the actual fault. A little more information: The heat seems to be mostly dynamically generated. Holding the CPU/FPU in reset, or stopping the clock (there's a jumper on the clock line!) results in them getting warm, but not "blistering hot" which they do as soon as you start them running. Scoping around for signs of contention, odd signals etc. I found that everything looks good (nice lows, highs and full range transitions) except for two pins on the FPU - 44 and 60. 44 is not shown on the schematic, nor is it described in the techncial manual description of FPU pins. 60 is described as "TEST - this pin is not used and should be grounded" and shown as grounded on the schematic. Both pins are showing an identical waveform - which is a "square edge" signal of unknown modulation with approx. 0.5v high level. Normally this smells of contention, however both signals appear to be no-connects as far as I can tell from the board. I tried pulling TEST to ground as shown in the schematic - it pulls down with no trouble (no signficant load), and has no discernable effect. The waveform on pin 44 is not affected. I have no idea if this is normal... Unfortunately there are many pins neither shown on the schematic nor described in the technical description - there are also a fair number of pin connections shown on the schematic without names or pin numbers. There are also things like 10-pin SIP resistor modules with 10 numbered pin connections, and unnumbered 11'th and in some cases 12'th connections shown on the schematic. At this point it's probably going to have to wait until I can find another one to make comparisons with. I haven't found anything blatently out of the ordinary, and lacking better technical information I have no way to know if signals are normal or not. 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 lproven at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 09:37:53 2008 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:37:53 +0000 Subject: [personal] Offered: Ancient Macs & Monitors landfill bound, London SW1 In-Reply-To: <003a01c879eb$7a6abc70$911ca8c0@mss.local> References: <575131af0802270303sd6f7bfbhd50b901895b3ec07@mail.gmail.com> <575131af0802270305u293ecc75h7a696ddda8bff4d4@mail.gmail.com> <003a01c879eb$7a6abc70$911ca8c0@mss.local> Message-ID: <575131af0802280737q7fd58f63p206aaaa2a007d7ac@mail.gmail.com> On 28/02/2008, Mike Hatch wrote: > Liam, > > Please hold these for a couple of days, I'm forwarding your "offered" to an > enthusiasts group, there may be somebody interested there, I know there are > some Mac collectors out there. Thanks! -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Feb 28 09:49:00 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 07:49:00 -0800 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: <236DC0DF16F5@dunfield.com> References: <1BEE23AB711C@dunfield.com> from <236DC0DF16F5@dunfield.com> Message-ID: > From: dave06a at dunfield.com> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org> Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 07:57:06 -0500> Subject: Re: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating?> > > > A good idea, but I don't think this is the case. According to the technical> > > > OK... Not having seen the machine, all the rest of us can do is make > > guesses, most of which are likely to be wrong :-)> > If my response came across as critical, I apologize, this was not my intent.> I welcome any and all suggestions.> > > > > > I'll have to do some measurements. I could try hard-wiring the fan to full> > > power, however this thing *should* work as it is designed, and the fan supply> > > > True. On the other hand, if making the fan run at maximum speed all the > > time keeps the machine running, it's worth doing that mod (IMHO) to save > > the problem of replacing the CPU or FPU chips.> > Agreed that it wouldn't hurt to have the fan at full power, but the point I> was trying to make is that this thing gets *SO* hot that I'm convinced theres> a fault, which should be found, not masked.> Hi One other thing. Most bus terminators use a Thevenin style circuit. If the ground or rail line goes open, the load on the drivers goes up with little effect on termination ( for mixed data ). This might cause increased power. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008 From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Feb 28 10:06:01 2008 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:06:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47C6CE6C.6000807@gmail.com> from Jules Richardson at "Feb 28, 8 09:08:28 am" Message-ID: <200802281606.m1SG61vo012496@floodgap.com> > > The thing that was nice about the Zip drives was that they > > represented 100MB of inexpensive storage when most of the > > alternatives were pretty pricey. > > But then people said that about those floppy-connected QIC tape drives (hmm, > those were IOmega too, weren't they?) and lots of people seemed to find that > they had dreadful reliability too. Seemed nice at the time, but not so good a > few months down the line... I must have been the only person on earth who had no dud cartridges or click of death, and I used ZIP drives a lot for sneakernetting. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Only death cures stupidity! -- "Cowboy Bebop: The Movie" ------------------- From jvdg at sparcpark.net Thu Feb 28 10:45:26 2008 From: jvdg at sparcpark.net (jvdg at sparcpark.net) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:45:26 +0100 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <200802281606.m1SG61vo012496@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <1266685653.20080228174526@mail.jvdg.net> Cameron Kaiser wrote: > I must have been the only person on earth who had no dud cartridges or > click of death, and I used ZIP drives a lot for sneakernetting. I think part of the bad reputation of Zips and Jaz's stemmed from people using them for storage, rather than transfer. I often use Zips to quickly get things from one machine to the next. But I'd no more trust them for storage than I would a floppy. Yet, at the time, forums were full of stories along the lines of, "I stuck the cartridge in the drive and lo! All my work I did last spring was gone!" ,xtG .tsooJ From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 28 10:55:34 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:55:34 -0800 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47C6CE6C.6000807@gmail.com> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org>, <47C59B31.28981.2077A291@cclist.sydex.com>, <47C6CE6C.6000807@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C67706.16875.34D9A6@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Feb 2008 at 9:08, Jules Richardson wrote: > But then people said that about those floppy-connected QIC tape drives (hmm, > those were IOmega too, weren't they?) and lots of people seemed to find that > they had dreadful reliability too. Seemed nice at the time, but not so good a > few months down the line... There was a lot of junk in the way of tape drives out at the time. We wouldn't endorse any kind of tape that (a) didn't use a standard SCSI interface and command set (b) didn't perform read-after-write verification. 4mm DAT barely qualified, but we cautioned against it as being not-quite-ready-for-serious-use. The only Travan drive that even came close was an HP model that claimed to do read-after-write. Our customers used this stuff out in the field almost exclusively, so it also had to survive environmental stress. To their credit, I've a number of Zip drives and at least 2 Jaz drives as well as a couple of Bernoullis and they all seem to work fine. But recommending something for rugged use is a different matter entirely. Most customers eventually went to purchasing hard drives to hold backup data. Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 11:01:47 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:01:47 -0500 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47C67706.16875.34D9A6@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org>, <47C59B31.28981.2077A291@cclist.sydex.com>, <47C6CE6C.6000807@gmail.com> <47C67706.16875.34D9A6@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C6E8FB.1060207@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: >> But then people said that about those floppy-connected QIC tape drives (hmm, >> those were IOmega too, weren't they?) and lots of people seemed to find that >> they had dreadful reliability too. Seemed nice at the time, but not so good a >> few months down the line... > > There was a lot of junk in the way of tape drives out at the time. > We wouldn't endorse any kind of tape that (a) didn't use a standard > SCSI interface and command set (b) didn't perform read-after-write > verification. 4mm DAT barely qualified, but we cautioned against it > as being not-quite-ready-for-serious-use. The only Travan drive that > even came close was an HP model that claimed to do read-after-write. > Our customers used this stuff out in the field almost exclusively, so > it also had to survive environmental stress. > > To their credit, I've a number of Zip drives and at least 2 Jaz > drives as well as a couple of Bernoullis and they all seem to work > fine. But recommending something for rugged use is a different > matter entirely. > > Most customers eventually went to purchasing hard drives to hold > backup data. I've found that nearly any drive that claims "high performance" isn't worth a shit. Including modern technologies like AIT. I've never had any problem (or at least any problem I didn't see coming...) with DLT, Ultrium, sDLT, Magstar, 3490E or 3480. Peace... Sridhar From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 11:19:51 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:19:51 -0600 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47C67706.16875.34D9A6@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org>, <47C59B31.28981.2077A291@cclist.sydex.com>, <47C6CE6C.6000807@gmail.com> <47C67706.16875.34D9A6@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C6ED37.70203@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > There was a lot of junk in the way of tape drives out at the time. > We wouldn't endorse any kind of tape that (a) didn't use a standard > SCSI interface and command set (b) didn't perform read-after-write > verification. 4mm DAT barely qualified, but we cautioned against it > as being not-quite-ready-for-serious-use. Indeed - I used to use DAT quite a lot; I admit to getting sucked in by the small cartridge size. Eventually I got sick of the problems - it wasn't just bad tapes, but the drives themselves seemed to fail at a pretty high rate. I switched over to DLT quite a few years ago - and whilst it's not quite been error-free, results have seemed a lot better than any of the competition (floppies, other tape technologies, optical media etc.). (OT: Just recently I've started mainly using off-line hard disk storage, though - it's cheap enough now that I can afford to keep copies of data spread over several drives and at a couple of different locations) Funny to think that the primary storage might eventually be solid-state, and it'll be the venerable hard disk that's solely used as a backup device! cheers Jules From v.slyngstad at verizon.net Thu Feb 28 11:19:54 2008 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:19:54 -0800 Subject: 8/S Replica References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> <085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C6365D.4040706@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <08ed01c87a2e$22ed23f0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> From: "jim s": > I have access to a couple of Standard wire wrap machines, and the lady > who used to run it, if anyone can get an idea how to do the boards, and > get the paper tapes. I wonder if it is worth the effort of wirewrap, > since the connectors don't have wirewrap tails? If you've got access to an automated wrap machine, it seems more plausible to just use that to wire up some full sized backplanes, DEC style :-). It should be no problem to massage the wire list into whatever format the wrap machine needs. Then you could use full size flip-chips, through hole parts, and make the whole thing that much more authentic. > It's been a while since I looked at what goes on with the DEC backplanes > and wirewrap. Do they populate pins regardless of the connectors having > wirewrap tails, or are the pins mostly from the connectors? The DEC connector blocks have sockets arranged in a 4x2 grid, and the sockets each have 36 wire-wrap pins/tails. Those are soldered to the PCB in some of the later gear, or just wire-wrapped in the older gear. There was also a metal strip with holes in it that alternated little hole, big hole, that was soldered to every other pin in a row for power bussing. (The small holes got soldered to the pin, the big ones left a gap around the pin from the other side of the edge connector. If you get into the really old gear, there were fewer wire-wrap pins, and heavier guage wire was used for the wraps. Hopefully we can ignore that stuff, as none of the tooling or connectors are readily available. Vince (BTW, I still don't seem to be able to mail to the list from the address I'm getting list mail from.) From josefcub at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 11:23:29 2008 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:23:29 -0600 Subject: An Interesting Control Panel Message-ID: <9e2403920802280923g28463a23m696bf7d6722d119b@mail.gmail.com> I was watching "How It's Made" on the Discovery Channel this morning, and they were constructing speakers. As they went to magnetize the ferrite ring, I noticed the operator working with an interesting three-button control panel. The button he pressed was a red "Fault" light/button. To their left was a beautiful white "Ready" light/button, and one marked "Write Protect". This strikes me as a very interesting magnetizing apparatus. 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 v.slyngstad at verizon.net Thu Feb 28 11:22:52 2008 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:22:52 -0800 Subject: 8/S Replica References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp><47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu><085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><087601c879bd$dddfca30$6600a8c0@vrsxp><088601c879c3$fe232980$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: <08f101c87a2e$8d358b80$6600a8c0@vrsxp> From: "Peter C. Wallace": > We've been using a US broker for King Circuits in Taiwan. I couldn't find how to get quotes from them, so I guess I'll have to take your word for what you can get the PCB's for, then :-). Vince From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 28 11:24:42 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:24:42 -0800 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47C6E8FB.1060207@gmail.com> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org>, <47C67706.16875.34D9A6@cclist.sydex.com>, <47C6E8FB.1060207@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C67DDA.17235.4F826C@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Feb 2008 at 12:01, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Including modern technologies like AIT. I've never had any problem (or > at least any problem I didn't see coming...) with DLT, Ultrium, sDLT, > Magstar, 3490E or 3480. We were approached by Datasonix to endorse their Pereos drive. Apparently, one of their marketing people, in his eagerness to clinch a sale, had told a customer that we'd already approved it and sold them 150 of the things. After I went over the specs with their technical guy and told him that there was no way were were going to endorse a 2mm helical-scan drive without write verification and a driver that required more than 100K of memory, I got a pep talk from the CEO. He insisted on sending me a couple of the drives with full access to their engineering staff. I got one good backup out of the thing after many tries. After a week of wasting my time, I boxed the things up and sent them back. I think I still have the software, if anyone's looking for it. They're probably collector's items now--and likely in the "vintage" category. Tiny little tape drive that ran on AA batteries with postage-stamp-sized carts claiming to hold 1GB each. Cheers, Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Feb 28 11:31:37 2008 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:31:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <1266685653.20080228174526@mail.jvdg.net> from "jvdg@sparcpark.net" at "Feb 28, 8 05:45:26 pm" Message-ID: <200802281731.m1SHVcHK012522@floodgap.com> > > I must have been the only person on earth who had no dud cartridges or > > click of death, and I used ZIP drives a lot for sneakernetting. > > I think part of the bad reputation of Zips and Jaz's stemmed from people > using them for storage, rather than transfer. I'll buy that. For me, as it sounds like for you, the ZIP was just a big floppy, with all the attendant disadvantages. But transfer was much nicer when I didn't have a big pipe between point A and point B (like, for example, the printer). I wouldn't use a floppy for backup either. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- I used to not finish sentences, but now I ---------------------------------- From slawmaster at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 11:33:28 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:33:28 -0800 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC Message-ID: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com> I'd really like to have something like one of the old mainframe/minicomputer control panels for my PC, but I'm just not sure how to implement it. Anybody here tried something like that? Ideally, you could power it on, see registers, toggle stuff into memory, have lights for interrupts, that kind of thing. Yeah, I know, as soon as I bring up an operating system, the ability to toggle things into memory would be rather dangerous, but I just can't resist the charm of the idea :) So... doable? Impossible? Improbable? John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From josefcub at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 11:40:54 2008 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:40:54 -0600 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9e2403920802280940paf131b4ub93c1698c0dcf4a6@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 11:33 AM, John Floren wrote: > I'd really like to have something like one of the old > mainframe/minicomputer control panels for my PC, but I'm just not sure > how to implement it. Anybody here tried something like that? Ideally, > you could power it on, see registers, toggle stuff into memory, have > lights for interrupts, that kind of thing. Yeah, I know, as soon as I > bring up an operating system, the ability to toggle things into memory > would be rather dangerous, but I just can't resist the charm of the > idea :) > So... doable? Impossible? Improbable? My first thought was "That's a lot of lights and switches!" On a modern, 64-bit, PC we're looking at roughly what, 128 switches? Yeowch! Now I do know of this kit, in prototype stage from Briel Computers: http://www.brielcomputers.com/altairpc.html Certainly not exactly what you were thinking of, but in a similar vein. Josef From josefcub at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 11:52:38 2008 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:52:38 -0600 Subject: An Interesting Control Panel In-Reply-To: <9e2403920802280923g28463a23m696bf7d6722d119b@mail.gmail.com> References: <9e2403920802280923g28463a23m696bf7d6722d119b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9e2403920802280952v76953555nab19d146ef02b214@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 11:23 AM, Josef Chessor wrote: > > The button he pressed was a red "Fault" light/button. To their left > was a beautiful white "Ready" light/button, and one marked "Write > Protect". This strikes me as a very interesting magnetizing > apparatus. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN0tmyyC0ak Here's a link to a video of it. The control panel in question appears right after 2:10. Josef From slawmaster at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 11:52:55 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:52:55 -0800 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <9e2403920802280940paf131b4ub93c1698c0dcf4a6@mail.gmail.com> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802280940paf131b4ub93c1698c0dcf4a6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220802280952j2b2cac9aia86858fd31503586@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 9:40 AM, Josef Chessor wrote: > On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 11:33 AM, John Floren wrote: > > I'd really like to have something like one of the old > > mainframe/minicomputer control panels for my PC, but I'm just not sure > > how to implement it. Anybody here tried something like that? Ideally, > > you could power it on, see registers, toggle stuff into memory, have > > lights for interrupts, that kind of thing. Yeah, I know, as soon as I > > bring up an operating system, the ability to toggle things into memory > > would be rather dangerous, but I just can't resist the charm of the > > idea :) > > So... doable? Impossible? Improbable? > > My first thought was "That's a lot of lights and switches!" On a > modern, 64-bit, PC we're looking at roughly what, 128 switches? > Yeowch! > > Now I do know of this kit, in prototype stage from Briel Computers: > > http://www.brielcomputers.com/altairpc.html > > Certainly not exactly what you were thinking of, but in a similar vein. > > Josef > That is a lot of switches, but didn't CDC (and other companies, I just thought of CDC first) make 60-bit and other large word-size machines, which I can only assume also had front panels? Sure, it may be annoying and impractical to have 128 switches, but it would be fun to make and play with. I guess if it comes down to it, I could just make one for the parallel port and figure out some way to interface it to various simulators... The biggest hurdle, I guess, would be figuring out how to interface it to the machine in a good way. The second biggest problem would be finding where to get that many identical switches and lights without bankrupting myself. John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Feb 28 11:53:55 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:53:55 -0500 Subject: An Interesting Control Panel In-Reply-To: <9e2403920802280923g28463a23m696bf7d6722d119b@mail.gmail.com> References: <9e2403920802280923g28463a23m696bf7d6722d119b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802281253.55288.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 28 February 2008, Josef Chessor wrote: > I was watching "How It's Made" on the Discovery Channel this morning, > and they were constructing speakers. As they went to magnetize the > ferrite ring, I noticed the operator working with an interesting > three-button control panel. > > The button he pressed was a red "Fault" light/button. To their left > was a beautiful white "Ready" light/button, and one marked "Write > Protect". This strikes me as a very interesting magnetizing > apparatus. So I guess I'm not the only one that noticed that they're using what appears to be an RL01/RL02 there... Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From bbrown at harpercollege.edu Thu Feb 28 12:13:34 2008 From: bbrown at harpercollege.edu (Bob Brown) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:13:34 -0600 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX In-Reply-To: <47C5FD47.4040009@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3E7B329687F1C541A9F1251B3A2A201E019D818F@admexchs1.admdom.harpercollege.edu> I think the problem is that their current software can't do what they need it to do. Moving to an emulator will only move the problem..they somehow, apparently, need a new set of applications software. -Bob bbrown at harpercollege.edu #### #### Bob Brown - KB9LFR Harper Community College ## ## ## Systems Administrator Palatine IL USA #### #### Saved by grace -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Sridhar Ayengar Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 6:16 PM To: General at harpercollege.edu; On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX John Floren wrote: > On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: >> > Not being from the Vax world, I wonder difficult it would be > >> for them to move them over to SIMH or CHARON emulators? >> > >> > The savings in power & air conditioning alone would probably >> > pay for the new equipment in the first year. ;-) >> >> Would it really be too expensive to move to OpenVMS/Integrity? >> >> Peace... Sridhar >> > > Integrity is only an option if they have the source, right? I'm > imagining that they've got a bunch of VAX binaries from long-dead > companies... does VEST do VAX->Itanium? No, but VEST will go to Alpha, and then you can use AEST to go to IA64. http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/integrity/transition/vax/app_tools.htm l Peace... Sridhar From josefcub at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 12:17:14 2008 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:17:14 -0600 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802280952j2b2cac9aia86858fd31503586@mail.gmail.com> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802280940paf131b4ub93c1698c0dcf4a6@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220802280952j2b2cac9aia86858fd31503586@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9e2403920802281017j59626947iea91ad369ec21e00@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 11:52 AM, John Floren wrote: > That is a lot of switches, but didn't CDC (and other companies, I just > thought of CDC first) make 60-bit and other large word-size machines, > which I can only assume also had front panels? That's one daunting front panel, that's for sure! Of course, CDC had larger budgets than we usually do. ;-) > Sure, it may be > annoying and impractical to have 128 switches, but it would be fun to > make and play with. I guess if it comes down to it, I could just make > one for the parallel port and figure out some way to interface it to > various simulators... I'd dreamed of having a "Generic Front Panel", 16-bit address/8-bit data, hooked up via RS-232 for simulator uses. I admit that your idea controlling a PC in this way would be really, really cool. Of limited utility outside of learning, though. > The biggest hurdle, I guess, would be figuring out how to interface it > to the machine in a good way. The second biggest problem would be > finding where to get that many identical switches and lights without > bankrupting myself. Buying in bulk is usually the only solution, because I wouldn't really want to scavenge anything from a classic machine to do something like this. Crafting a beautiful panel to install them in is the real challenge, though. -- "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 josefcub at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 12:18:38 2008 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:18:38 -0600 Subject: An Interesting Control Panel In-Reply-To: <200802281253.55288.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <9e2403920802280923g28463a23m696bf7d6722d119b@mail.gmail.com> <200802281253.55288.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <9e2403920802281018v6370d8cdmb1454080adf034cf@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 11:53 AM, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > The button he pressed was a red "Fault" light/button. To their left > > was a beautiful white "Ready" light/button, and one marked "Write > > Protect". This strikes me as a very interesting magnetizing > > apparatus. > > So I guess I'm not the only one that noticed that they're using what > appears to be an RL01/RL02 there... > So that's what it was! It looked real familiar, but I haven't actually seen an RL since I worked at Cypress Semiconductor in the late 90s... -- "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 geoffb at vigilan.com Thu Feb 28 12:19:26 2008 From: geoffb at vigilan.com (Geoffrey Bunza) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:19:26 -0800 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 62 In-Reply-To: <200802281800.m1SI08u9090270@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802281800.m1SI08u9090270@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47C6FB2E.7010501@vigilan.com> Front panels for modern day computers/microprocessors are somewhat problematic. The cache(s) maintained internally allow for local instruction execution without making references to the external memory buses, and the prefetch mechanisms internal could also indicate memory activity even if no instruction or data item were actually fetched! Status information is not as directly available, and if it were it would probably not reflect status in "real time" that is occurring at the same time of viewing on the panel. Nevertheless, memory bus activity could be monitored, and what limited status information is available could be produced. The point though is the information displayed, say on minicomputer panels, is not readily available now due to higher levels of integration on the chip itself. On the note of the CDC 6600 machines, et al., There was a peripheral processor which was used to boot the mainframe, and it had many rows of toggle switches, in groups of 18 or 36 if I remember right, which either contained the boot code or controlled the boot. The peripheral processor was a computer in its own right by any standards. Hope this helps. --Geoff > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:33:28 -0800 > From: "John Floren" > Subject: front panel display for a modern PC > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > I'd really like to have something like one of the old > mainframe/minicomputer control panels for my PC, but I'm just not sure > how to implement it. Anybody here tried something like that? Ideally, > you could power it on, see registers, toggle stuff into memory, have > lights for interrupts, that kind of thing. Yeah, I know, as soon as I > bring up an operating system, the ability to toggle things into memory > would be rather dangerous, but I just can't resist the charm of the > idea :) > So... doable? Impossible? Improbable? > > John > From slawmaster at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 12:30:00 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:30:00 -0800 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <9e2403920802281017j59626947iea91ad369ec21e00@mail.gmail.com> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802280940paf131b4ub93c1698c0dcf4a6@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220802280952j2b2cac9aia86858fd31503586@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802281017j59626947iea91ad369ec21e00@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220802281030j52bdf87fy3fff50c827e03134@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 10:17 AM, Josef Chessor wrote: > On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 11:52 AM, John Floren wrote: > > > That is a lot of switches, but didn't CDC (and other companies, I just > > thought of CDC first) make 60-bit and other large word-size machines, > > which I can only assume also had front panels? > > That's one daunting front panel, that's for sure! Of course, CDC > had larger budgets than we usually do. ;-) > > > > Sure, it may be > > annoying and impractical to have 128 switches, but it would be fun to > > make and play with. I guess if it comes down to it, I could just make > > one for the parallel port and figure out some way to interface it to > > various simulators... > > I'd dreamed of having a "Generic Front Panel", 16-bit address/8-bit > data, hooked up via RS-232 for simulator uses. I admit that your idea > controlling a PC in this way would be really, really cool. Of limited > utility outside of learning, though. I just wonder how you'll connect it so that, without any kind of operating system, you can use the panel. If you want to go the serial or parallel route, just build the panel around some microcontrollers and it'll probably be nice... but only after you've brought up an OS with some appropriate drivers. I'm kinda thinking that modern PCs just aren't built to have front panels the way a PDP-8 did. > > The biggest hurdle, I guess, would be figuring out how to interface it > > to the machine in a good way. The second biggest problem would be > > finding where to get that many identical switches and lights without > > bankrupting myself. > > Buying in bulk is usually the only solution, because I wouldn't really > want to scavenge anything from a classic machine to do something like > this. Crafting a beautiful panel to install them in is the real > challenge, though. > Well, I should be able to get access to a metal shop at my university. It would be a fun design project, I think. If I ever design a computer from the ground up (senior design project?), it's definitely going to have a spiffy front panel. John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Thu Feb 28 12:39:39 2008 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:39:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 62 In-Reply-To: <47C6FB2E.7010501@vigilan.com> References: <200802281800.m1SI08u9090270@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47C6FB2E.7010501@vigilan.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 28 Feb 2008, Geoffrey Bunza wrote: > On the note of the CDC 6600 machines, et al., There was a peripheral > processor which was used to boot the mainframe, and it had many rows of > toggle switches, in groups of 18 or 36 if I remember right, which either > contained the boot code or controlled the boot. The peripheral processor > was a computer in its own right by any standards. Here's a picture of the Dead Start Program panel: http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/CDC6600-7.jpg Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From slawmaster at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 12:53:06 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:53:06 -0800 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 62 In-Reply-To: References: <200802281800.m1SI08u9090270@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47C6FB2E.7010501@vigilan.com> Message-ID: <7d3530220802281053h2d6a8d0bk492b1c434607d930@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 10:39 AM, Mike Loewen wrote: > On Thu, 28 Feb 2008, Geoffrey Bunza wrote: > > > On the note of the CDC 6600 machines, et al., There was a peripheral > > processor which was used to boot the mainframe, and it had many rows of > > toggle switches, in groups of 18 or 36 if I remember right, which either > > contained the boot code or controlled the boot. The peripheral processor > > was a computer in its own right by any standards. > > Here's a picture of the Dead Start Program panel: > > http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/CDC6600-7.jpg > > It's... beautiful! John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Feb 28 12:56:19 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:56:19 -0500 Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <112B53E0-715C-4F0D-89E3-2255349B2CFD@neurotica.com> On Feb 27, 2008, at 4:33 PM, jim s wrote: >>> Whatever happened to that idea of building mini-flipchips with >>> surface-mount parts? >> > I'd be interested in a system that used the CF connectors to be > the edge card connectors. they should be cheap, and would hit the > form factor well. Both sexes are available so you could integrate > the backplane with the connectors prewired on a big pc board, and > make gobs of the little flip chips to plug in. Even two-row 0.1" header pins would probably work well. That's what I'll most likely use for a backplane-based Z80 system I've been working on for a while. "Real" backplane connectors are very, very expensive. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Thu Feb 28 13:34:51 2008 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:34:51 +0100 Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: <47C70CDB.4070501@bluewin.ch> Vi > The yucky thing about them is that you need so incredibly many of the > things to get anything done. And what about the core ? Using a SRAM would invalidate the whole idea. Jos From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Feb 28 13:47:30 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:47:30 -0700 Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <08ed01c87a2e$22ed23f0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> <085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C6365D.4040706@msm.umr.edu> <08ed01c87a2e$22ed23f0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: <47C70FD2.4050305@jetnet.ab.ca> Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > Then you could use full size flip-chips, through hole parts, and make > the whole thing that much more authentic. Well a real straight 8 to me sounds better than a S. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Feb 28 13:23:18 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:23:18 +0000 (GMT) Subject: CDC (MPI) floppy drive In-Reply-To: <022820080734.23590.47C663F80008485D00005C2622230647629B0A02D29B9B0EBF9B0809079D99D309@att.net> from "g-wright@att.net" at Feb 28, 8 07:34:17 am Message-ID: > > Hi Tony > > Since my 7771 1501 dive had problems and I did not find > any Info. I did find a NIB dive. It has the same weight > that seems to be there to stablize the movement of the > head. The weight on the new drive (but old stock) has That soulds exactly like the mechanism I have in bits at the moment. > no grease on the frame of the drive but was stuck on the > shaft. It does have the thick grease or ?? on the ends of It's certainly grease in my unit. It was leaking out of the weight all over the chassis casting, I have now cleaned it of with propan-2-ol (I can get damper grease, etc, if I need it). > the weight where the shaft enters and exits. After warming > it a little it started to slide on the shaft. I can slide > it the whole distance. I looked at the old drive and it does OK... This seems to be a somewhat odd mechansim then. What's to stop the weight ending up hard against one end stop all the time? And what's to stop the crease ending up on the chasais > the same. It looks like it dampens some of the quick motions > of the head carriage?? But the grease keeps it from moving > very much. > I would guess it has real thick grease in it ??? So it can > only slide a little on the shaft. It may have some kind of > "o" ring to help seal one end, but I did not take it apart. Ruber parts can fail with time, of coruse. I wonder if you've lost O-rings too,.. > > If needed, I could take apart the dead one. Do you have a digitcal cameara? (Am I the only person _not_ to have one :-)). If so, could you remove the logic board (unplug the connectors, then remove one 1/4" hex-head screw and slide the board out), lift out the screening plate under it, and take a picture of the positioner assnmly, please. But don't send it here, I can give you another address to send it to. If you can't, no problems. But I am still puzzeld as to how on earth it is supposed to work. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Feb 28 13:12:01 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:12:01 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary conversion In-Reply-To: from "Dave McGuire" at Feb 28, 8 00:57:43 am Message-ID: > > 'Easier maintainabilty and tweakaility'. Surely you jest here! > > Not at all. Read on and I will explain my position. > > > It is a > > lot easier to find a fault in a circuit when you can actually put the > > 'scope probe on a particular signal. Darn it, with a single-chip > > microcontroller, you can't normally trace the firmware. > > In the context of a small microcontroller like the ones we're > talking about, these things just don't have that much code space. > Almost none of them allow self-modifying code. Nearly all of them > have small, simple instruction sets. If the programmer NEEDS to > actually trace the firmware to find a bug, I'd question that > programmer's competency. Seriously. OK, so I;m an incompetent programmer. I'm happy to agree to that. Because I certainly deug firmware (where possible) by hanging a logic analyser off the address lines and seeing where the code is going. If you can do it without, great!. Let me give you an alaogy. _I_ once tracked down a logic fault in a P850 by noticing some odd behviour of the front panel bulbs, in particular that half were brighter than the other half. Knowing that it's really an 8 bit machine interlally made me suspect that one half of the data wasn't being latched properly. That lead me to a missing latch strobe signal, and so on. On the other hand, most of the time I use a 'socpe and/or logic analyser. I like to debug by figuring out what the unit is doing and comparing it with what it should be doing. And I like to debug firmware the same way. > > I'd > > much rather change a 2-lead passive compoennt than reprogram a chip > > (and > > it'll be quicker...) > > Well, personal preferences aside, it might be quicker and it might > not. I can type "make burn" at a shell prompt in the terminal window > to the right of this email message and squirt an entire new code I could do much the asme thing (admittedly on a different virtual console trather than window, but...) And a good few minutes later, I'd have the object code (remember I _don't have_ a fast PC). > image into the Philips ARM7 chip I'm working with in less time than > it takes my (fast Metcal) soldering iron to heat up...and that code > image has BIG stuff in it like an IP stack. On the other hand, my sodlering iron is hot right now :-) > > bodging together off-the-shelf units, which is another thing I > > dislike... > > ...and I dislike it as well, and I'd never do it. Not everyone > who uses a microcontroller is boding together off-the-shelf units or Of course not... For the record I have used, and do use, signle chip microcontrollers. In front of me is a little interface I built. On one side is a Centronics printer connector that links to a PC parallel port. Coming out the front is a cable ending ia a tiny 2-pin plug. That conencts to a modified HP41 barcode wand module (!). You hook it up. run a program on the PC whcih takes an HP41 program and effectively simulates running the wand over the barcode version of that prrogram. Result : Download from PC to HP41 without HPIL. Now, that interface contains a few TTL chips to handle the Centronics handshake and a microcontroller. It's sufficiently old that it's a PIC16C84. TO do it all in TTL would have been very complicated, difficult to debug, and so on. I feel that a microcontroller is the _right_ solution here. Ditto for the HP48 RS232 port to I2C interface (just a PIC and a MAX232). However, I still feel it's not the right solution to use a microcntoller _and tone decoders_ to decode cassette audio. Doing the whole thing in a microcontorller might be, but I probably woudln't do it that way. But to combine the output of the tone decoders? No, I think it's overcomplicated. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Feb 28 13:18:03 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:18:03 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Speaking of PPT (was: Re: Friden Flexowriter) In-Reply-To: <47C65978.9090801@bluewin.ch> from "Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel" at Feb 28, 8 07:49:28 am Message-ID: > The latest HP papertape reader I sold on Ebay fetched all of 5 Euros...... I've got an HP2748A greader oing on the bench soon, and I've already taken a loog inside... I think I've fianlly found soemthing where another company made a significantly better product than HP :-). Ye,s the HP reader is very solidly made, it's simple, it's going to work. But to use 10 light bulbs (1 for each track, one for a reference level) seems a little over the top. Everyody else made do with one lamp an a lens :-) I was rought up on Trend readers. These have a very nice feature (and the circuit is actually quite simple), that they automatically compenasate for the tape transparaency. Basically, there are 2 sensors on the feed hole track, 2.5 characters apart. A character at the head is defined buy the feed hole sensor in line with the data hole sensors being brighter than the one 2.5 characters away. And a weighted mean of the 2 feed hole sensorts gives the threshold for the data channels. There is a setting up rocedure, but my expeirence is that it just helps the reader read very marginal tape. It'll read normal tape no matter how the preset pots are set. Of coruse the HP doesn't ahve that feature, it has a conventional threshold trimpot. And it's a lot larger and heavier, and even a it slower than my Trend. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Feb 28 13:51:10 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:51:10 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Integral RAM upgrade Message-ID: I recently bought another HP Integral on E-bay, and after the normal cleanup on the floppy drive it works fine. The expansion slots both cotnained boards, one was a 512K RAM board, the other an RS232 oard (which is the main reason I watned this machine!). Anyway, the RAM board was clearly identical to the 1M board, just with only have the RAM chips fitted and the links set differently. Having got a lot of 41256 chips on old PC memory boards, I spent the afternoon upgrading it to 1M. BAsically : 1) Remove the bracket and cover from the PCB (torx screws) 2) Clean out the holes fro the RAM and their decoupling capacitors using a soldering iron and solder sucker. Test the board at this point, if it doesn't work, find the solder bridge between traces in the RAM area... 3) Fit 16 off 16 pin turned-pin sockets to the RAM space. Test again 4) Fit 16 off 0.1uF capacitors. I found the exact part at Farnell. They've been discontinued (They're not lead-free...) but they still had stock. Test again 5) Plug in the RAMs and test again 6) Removce the link 'W2' on the board (this is the bank select line to the RAM controller), link the end that's common with W1 and W3 to +5V (e.g. the end of the decoupling capacitor right next to that point). Test again. You're now using the new RAM chips only, as a 512K oard. 7) If it works, set all the links as for a 1M board, trst again 8) Finally put the cover and bracket back on. Now for the curiousity. One one of the standard disks supplied with the Inegral is a program called 'status'. And one of the things it displays is the amount of free memory. In my machine, wioth no RAM boards fitted. there's 264K free. With the 512K board, it reports 764K free. And with the 1M board, 1264K free. My question is what's happening to the other 12K of each half-meg? Or deos 'status' have an odd definition of a kilobyte? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Feb 28 13:26:34 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:26:34 +0000 (GMT) Subject: CDC (MPI) floppy drive In-Reply-To: <61714.72.194.208.80.1204186434.squirrel@webmail5.pair.com> from "Jeff Davis" at Feb 28, 8 00:13:54 am Message-ID: > > On Wed, February 27, 2008 3:44 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > > Does anybody haev a CDC/MPI full height 5.25" floppy drive? No, I am not > > looking to buy one, I need some information on how it goes together. > > The commodore 8050 service manual has a section on MPI full height drives, > maybe it has some info that can help: > > http://www.devili.iki.fi/Computers/Commodore/8050/Service_Manual/contents.html > > It's the last section on the page (linkes to pages 34-36) Thanks for the suggestion. I actually have a paper copy of that manual (acutally a combined 8050/8250 service manaul) with much the same info in it. Alas there's nothing on the mechanics of the drive. There's a line drawing of the drive indicating the available spare parts, but the rear right corner, where hte positioner is, is blank. Curiously, one of the spares listed is the head carriage. Fitting that is not at all simple, and yet there are no instrucitons in the manual on doin it. I wonder if Commodore also supplied manufacturer's manuals for the drive mechanisms that I don't have... -tony From v.slyngstad at verizon.net Thu Feb 28 13:57:27 2008 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:57:27 -0800 Subject: 8/S Replica References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C70CDB.4070501@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: <092501c87a44$25beb880$6600a8c0@vrsxp> From: "Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel": > And what about the core ? > Using a SRAM would invalidate the whole idea. Well, there's FRAM, which I guess would keep yucky batteries out of the picture. But I don't have any ideas about where to get real core planes these days (except in quantity one). Vince From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Feb 28 13:32:32 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:32:32 +0000 (GMT) Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: <236DC0DF16F5@dunfield.com> from "Dave Dunfield" at Feb 28, 8 07:57:06 am Message-ID: > > > > A good idea, but I don't think this is the case. According to the technical > > > > OK... Not having seen the machine, all the rest of us can do is make > > guesses, most of which are likely to be wrong :-) > > If my response came across as critical, I apologize, this was not my intent. > I welcome any and all suggestions. No, not at all. Hence the smiley. > > > > > > I'll have to do some measurements. I could try hard-wiring the fan to full > > > power, however this thing *should* work as it is designed, and the fan supply > > > > True. On the other hand, if making the fan run at maximum speed all the > > time keeps the machine running, it's worth doing that mod (IMHO) to save > > the problem of replacing the CPU or FPU chips. > > Agreed that it wouldn't hurt to have the fan at full power, but the point I > was trying to make is that this thing gets *SO* hot that I'm convinced theres > a fault, which should be found, not masked. Agreed. I assume these CPU and FPU chips are MOS devices. Is it possile that excessive leakage across the gate oxide layer in some transsitors of that chip would cause it to run hot, but still work? I'm pretty sure I've seen chips that seem to work, but get hot and then stop working, althoguh cooling them with freezer spray keeps them running. And these were not chips driving high pwoer laods -- they were things like the clock/timer microcontroller in a VCR. -tony From jbmcb1 at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 14:03:09 2008 From: jbmcb1 at gmail.com (Jason McBrien) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:03:09 -0500 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX In-Reply-To: <3E7B329687F1C541A9F1251B3A2A201E019D818F@admexchs1.admdom.harpercollege.edu> References: <47C5FD47.4040009@gmail.com> <3E7B329687F1C541A9F1251B3A2A201E019D818F@admexchs1.admdom.harpercollege.edu> Message-ID: <5f7d1b0e0802281203p30d271e1qda777255e154fe1e@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 1:13 PM, Bob Brown wrote: > Moving to an emulator will only move the problem..they somehow, > apparently, need a new set of applications software. > -Bob They need to dust off their wallet and hand over a ton of money to Blackboard. From v.slyngstad at verizon.net Thu Feb 28 14:03:05 2008 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:03:05 -0800 Subject: 8/S Replica References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> <085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C6365D.4040706@msm.umr.edu><08ed01c87a2e$22ed23f0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C70FD2.4050305@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <092901c87a44$eec7dea0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> From: "woodelf": > Vincent Slyngstad wrote: >> Then you could use full size flip-chips, through hole parts, and make >> the whole thing that much more authentic. > > Well a real straight 8 to me sounds better than a S. Well, if you had an automatic wire-wrap jig, the bigger backplane (well, more of them, really) shouldn't be a big problem. Some poor sod^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdedicated soul would have to redraw the straight-8 schematic into the CAD tools, though. Vince From grant at stockly.com Thu Feb 28 14:23:48 2008 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:23:48 -0900 Subject: board scan, design reconstruction (was IMSAI) In-Reply-To: References: <200802261540.HAA02467@magellan.magic.com> <0JWW00M8EUW0Z160@msgmmp-1.gci.net> Message-ID: <0JWY0018MTZC2Z10@msgmmp-1.gci.net> >Hi, >Ive been following this, and maybe I can help. Im a professional >PCB layout guy in my day job. With a schematic and a reasonable >resolution jpeg of both sides (I doubt there was mych multylayer >back then) I could reconstruct the design fairly quickly. Nobody is >really going to want to go down the road of taking a picture and >turning it into a gerber, it just wont work. Id just input the >schematic, duplicate the ref des for all parts, to get the netlist, >eyeball the jpeg for placement and throw it at the autorouter. There are hundreds of shops that do exactly what I said, take an image and make Gerber files. They do it using the help of specialized CAD software and calibrated scanners. Not all of the process is automated. The average S-100 card takes them an hour or two. The Kenbak board took them about half a day! I have had all of my scans done by Mile High Testing. They will take a high resolution 1000-4000dpi image and turn it into accurate Gerber data. I pay extra to make sure my traces and silk screen are just as ugly (or pretty) as the vintage boards. Normally they would just image the two copper layers and throw reference text onto the silk screen. http://www.mhtest.com/scanning.shtml They use expensive equipment from ScanCAD International. http://www.scancad.com/index.php The service is pretty affordable too. It only cost me about $500 to scan the 10x16 Kenbak PCB, and I can hold the vintage Kenbak PCB to the reproduction and see light through every single via. : ) S-100 cards with a silk screen are about $300 to $350 each. The presence of a silk screen even if they are not creating silk screen Gerber files increases the price. It causes more after the scan work for the operator because the computer recognition software has a hard time looking through the silk screen. This is where Mile High Testing stands above the rest of the competition. They were the only company who promised me my boards wouldn't be destroyed. Most of the other companies want to scan the board and then sand all of the silk screen off of the copper traces to get a green on bright copper finish. Contrast like that improves the software's work. MHT also had the most reasonable pricing. I can say they do perfect work after getting close to 20 boards scanned! I have also not had any problems getting PCBs made out of these Gerber files. I was worried that a plotter might have a problem with a several MB file, but no problems yet! : ) Grant From grant at stockly.com Thu Feb 28 14:28:20 2008 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:28:20 -0900 Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net> <068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net> <075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> <085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <087601c879bd$dddfca30$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: <0JWY00124U6W3410@msgmmp-1.gci.net> >>Hmm. I get $5 per board, and that's assuming you can get quantity 100 of >>each of the module types! For a single replica, you'd pay more per board. >>I didn't get prices around $2 until quantities closer to 250 per design. >>Unless you know some place a lot cheaper than I do. > > >Say $.25 to $.50 per sqr inch 4 layer. Contact fingers extra but not >a whole lot, Pre-panelized (say 100 1x2" breakaway pcbs on a 14X18 >panel) maybe 10,000 sq inches purchase qty (50 panels). If you use a 12x14 panel with no silk screen or solder mask and choose PCBExpress you can get down to $.12 per square inch. Grant From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 14:31:26 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:31:26 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 62 In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802281053h2d6a8d0bk492b1c434607d930@mail.gmail.com> References: <200802281800.m1SI08u9090270@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47C6FB2E.7010501@vigilan.com> <7d3530220802281053h2d6a8d0bk492b1c434607d930@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C71A1E.4050301@gmail.com> John Floren wrote: > On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 10:39 AM, Mike Loewen > wrote: >> On Thu, 28 Feb 2008, Geoffrey Bunza wrote: >> >> > On the note of the CDC 6600 machines, et al., There was a peripheral >> > processor which was used to boot the mainframe, and it had many rows of >> > toggle switches, in groups of 18 or 36 if I remember right, which either >> > contained the boot code or controlled the boot. The peripheral processor >> > was a computer in its own right by any standards. >> >> Here's a picture of the Dead Start Program panel: >> >> http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/CDC6600-7.jpg >> >> > > It's... beautiful! You, sir, have a gift for understatement. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 14:35:07 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:35:07 -0500 Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <092501c87a44$25beb880$6600a8c0@vrsxp> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C70CDB.4070501@bluewin.ch> <092501c87a44$25beb880$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: <47C71AFB.3090801@gmail.com> Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > From: "Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel": >> And what about the core ? >> Using a SRAM would invalidate the whole idea. > > Well, there's FRAM, which I guess would keep yucky batteries out of the > picture. But I don't have any ideas about where to get real core planes > these days (except in quantity one). How hard would they be to manufacture? Peace... Sridhar From legalize at xmission.com Thu Feb 28 14:32:52 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:32:52 -0700 Subject: SAGE console replica Message-ID: If anyone is interested in collaborating (long-term, probably not completed for a few years) in creating a replica of the SAGE consoles (see ) please contact me off-list. I want one, but feel the likelihood of me ever getting a real one is vanishingly small. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 28 14:43:05 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:43:05 -0800 Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <47C70CDB.4070501@bluewin.ch> References: , <07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp>, <47C70CDB.4070501@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: <47C6AC59.26902.10521B7@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Feb 2008 at 20:34, Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel wrote: > And what about the core ? > Using a SRAM would invalidate the whole idea. It seems to me that using MRAM or FRAM would keep the spirit of the idea alive, being magnetic memory and all. 'course, it doesn't need to be refreshed after a read... Cheers, Chuck From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Feb 28 14:53:50 2008 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 12:53:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <9e2403920802281017j59626947iea91ad369ec21e00@mail.gmail.com> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802280940paf131b4ub93c1698c0dcf4a6@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220802280952j2b2cac9aia86858fd31503586@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802281017j59626947iea91ad369ec21e00@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > I'd dreamed of having a "Generic Front Panel", 16-bit address/8-bit > data, hooked up via RS-232 for simulator uses. I admit that your idea > controlling a PC in this way would be really, really cool. Of limited > utility outside of learning, though. > If you guys are serious, I'd be happy to design a panel based on the specs you guys come up with. I can make it on my ShopBot quite easily. The electronics of course will still be up to you. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 28 15:12:14 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:12:14 -0800 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 62 In-Reply-To: <47C6FB2E.7010501@vigilan.com> References: <200802281800.m1SI08u9090270@dewey.classiccmp.org>, <47C6FB2E.7010501@vigilan.com> Message-ID: <47C6B32E.13295.11FD522@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Feb 2008 at 10:19, Geoffrey Bunza wrote: > On the note of the CDC 6600 machines, et al., There was a peripheral > processor which was used to boot the mainframe, and it had many rows of > toggle switches, in groups of 18 or 36 if I remember right, which > either contained the boot code or controlled the boot. The peripheral > processor was a computer in its own right by any standards. Well, actually a tenth of a computer. The basic cycle time of the mainframe was 100 nsec. There were 10 PPUs in a standard configuration, with a cycle time of 1 usec. In other words, each PPU was little more than 4K of 12 bit core, a P-counter and an 18-bit accumulator (that's over-simplifying things a bit, but it'll give you the idea). The "guts" (instruction decode and execution) was time- sliced around the 10 PPUs. This was sometimes referred to as the PPU's slot "in the barrel". All I/O channels were accessible from any PPU and any PPU could access central memory. So, if a driver or bit of hardware malfunctioned, the PPU might hang, but the system could keep on running. Similarly, if a PPU was hung on an empty channel, it was often possible to break it loose from the operator's console. The deadstart panel itself was a 12x12 matrix of switches (12 words of 12 bits). There were some other switches controlling diagnostic mode, and control of various options (e.g. CEJ/MEJ); many systems had a key-operated switch which could disable the deadstart panel to keep rogue programmers from sneaking time on the system. :) Deadstart was quite simple. Each PPU had its P-counter forced to 0000 and a block input instruction from the channel corresponding to the position of the PPU in the barrel. (i.e., 0-9). The contents of the deadstart panel switches were output to channel 0 after an initial word of zero and the channel disconnected. PPU 0 then began executing at location 1 and could then proceed to read the remainder of the OS bootstrap and transmit resident programs to each of the other PPUs. No blinkenlights and no ROM involved at all--either the system started or you had blank screens staring back at you. Time to get out the scope... 10 is a magic number for the 6600. Memory is interleaved 10-way, there are 10 PPUs, 10 characters per CPU word, 10 functional units... Later implementations of the architecture dropped the idea of the barrel and provided a complete processor for each PPU. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 28 15:16:03 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:16:03 -0800 Subject: Integral RAM upgrade In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47C6B413.2414.12351AA@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Feb 2008 at 19:51, Tony Duell wrote: > Anyway, the RAM board was clearly identical to the 1M board, just with > only have the RAM chips fitted and the links set differently. Having got > a lot of 41256 chips on old PC memory boards, I spent the afternoon > upgrading it to 1M. Sounds very similar to what was often done to the first-round 5150s to get the planar memory increased from 64K to 256K. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 28 15:20:14 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:20:14 -0800 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX In-Reply-To: <3E7B329687F1C541A9F1251B3A2A201E019D818F@admexchs1.admdom.harpercollege.edu> References: <47C5FD47.4040009@gmail.com>, <3E7B329687F1C541A9F1251B3A2A201E019D818F@admexchs1.admdom.harpercollege.edu> Message-ID: <47C6B50E.4738.127256F@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Feb 2008 at 12:13, Bob Brown wrote: > I think the problem is that their current software can't do what they > need it to do. > Moving to an emulator will only move the problem..they somehow, > apparently, need a new set of applications software. If that's the case, then the article is very misleading. It spends most of its text describing the measures taken to keep the "antique" hardware going. If, in fact the problem is with the software, then that's the thing at the root of the problem, not the VAXen. Cheers, Chuck From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 15:26:14 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:26:14 -0600 Subject: seven segment display history Message-ID: <47C726F6.1080406@gmail.com> Does anyone know when seven segment displays first appeared on the scene? Presumably the first ones were VF, and LED came later? (I was just looking at a museum's mock-up of the Apollo mission control console, and the fake readout is made to look like a 7-seg display; I'm just surprised that the digital readouts weren't all Nixie-based back then) cheers Jules From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 15:36:27 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:36:27 -0600 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 62 In-Reply-To: <7d3530220802281053h2d6a8d0bk492b1c434607d930@mail.gmail.com> References: <200802281800.m1SI08u9090270@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47C6FB2E.7010501@vigilan.com> <7d3530220802281053h2d6a8d0bk492b1c434607d930@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C7295B.2080306@gmail.com> John Floren wrote: >> Here's a picture of the Dead Start Program panel: >> >> http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/CDC6600-7.jpg > > It's... beautiful! Y'know, that reminded me of the toggle switch panel at the end of the Bombe: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Bombe-rebuild.jpg cheers Jules From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 15:38:22 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:38:22 -0500 Subject: seven segment display history In-Reply-To: <47C726F6.1080406@gmail.com> References: <47C726F6.1080406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C729CE.7060706@gmail.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > > Does anyone know when seven segment displays first appeared on the > scene? Presumably the first ones were VF, and LED came later? > > (I was just looking at a museum's mock-up of the Apollo mission control > console, and the fake readout is made to look like a 7-seg display; I'm > just surprised that the digital readouts weren't all Nixie-based back then) What about Nixies? Peace... Sridhar From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Thu Feb 28 15:42:20 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:42:20 +0000 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <2210555738.20080228131021@mail.jvdg.net> References: <2210555738.20080228131021@mail.jvdg.net> Message-ID: <1204234940.32030.10.camel@elric> On Thu, 2008-02-28 at 13:10 +0100, jvdg at sparcpark.net wrote: > Officially, Zip drives only work on PC's and Macs, but I am yet to encounter a machine that won't recognise them as ordinary hard drives. I have internal (ATA and SCSI) drives in some machine, and external USB (250) and FireWire (750) drives, meaning I most of my machines can use Zip drives to perform quick sneakernet data transfer. Still easier and faster than burning CD's, although availability of a fast network does negate their usefulness somewhat. Ensoniq EPS with version 2.00 firmware. Go on, ask me how I know. This shortcoming is fixed in the 2.40 firmware. Gordon From tponsford at rnsmte.com Thu Feb 28 15:54:57 2008 From: tponsford at rnsmte.com (tponsford) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:54:57 -0700 Subject: Monroe Programmable Electronic Calculator Message-ID: <47C72DB1.8050902@rnsmte.com> Hi All, I picked up two interesting machines at the auction this week. The first is a Monroe Electric Programmable Scientific Calculator model #1785(circa 1971) alas, it is missing the optional punch card reader although the machine itself seems to work fine. Also came with some instructional books! The second is a Zenith LF-171 portable, which is a re-badged Morrow Pivot, complete with power supply and the black canvas carrying case. An 8088 (80C88) with an LCD screen!! All in all, a good take! Cheers! TOM From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Feb 28 16:16:55 2008 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:16:55 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary In-Reply-To: <200802280956.29577.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <483010.72581.qm@web23408.mail.ird.yahoo.com> As a final note, streaming video/music is also used in a bid to stop theft and illegal copying of the media. Though there is software out there that enables you to download the streamed file and save it on your computer. Also, I am (like most of us here) old enough to remember SW/MW/LW/FM radio's. Kinda fun being able to listen to european radio stations, but finding them (and getting the "white noise" to a minimum) was tricky. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Patrick Finnegan wrote: On Thursday 28 February 2008 04:38, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > > "Streaming" tends to imply no disk cache copy, more like listening > > to a radio station... > > What difference does it make where it's being buffered? The behavior > of the process in either case is identical. If you're streaming, the buffer is usually just enough to filter out network timing issues, not downloading the entire content so that you can play/rewind/fast forward/etc. Like I said, like listening to a radio station (perhaps I should add "on an old AM/FM radio":). Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pcw at mesanet.com Thu Feb 28 16:25:59 2008 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:25:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: seven segment display history In-Reply-To: <47C726F6.1080406@gmail.com> References: <47C726F6.1080406@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 28 Feb 2008, Jules Richardson wrote: > Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:26:14 -0600 > From: Jules Richardson > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > ; > Subject: seven segment display history > > > Does anyone know when seven segment displays first appeared on the scene? > Presumably the first ones were VF, and LED came later? Probably incandescent side lite first, maybe electroluminescent, incandescent Numitron? > > (I was just looking at a museum's mock-up of the Apollo mission control > console, and the fake readout is made to look like a 7-seg display; I'm just > surprised that the digital readouts weren't all Nixie-based back then) > > cheers > > Jules > Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Feb 28 16:44:39 2008 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:44:39 +0000 (GMT) Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47C6C4C8.3000200@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <382214.27120.qm@web23405.mail.ird.yahoo.com> yeah, I know they work with Spectrums and Amiga's - though I don't own any myself. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Doc Shipley wrote: jvdg at sparcpark.net wrote: > > Officially, Zip drives only work on PC's and Macs, but I am yet to encounter a machine that won't recognise them as ordinary hard drives. I have internal (ATA and SCSI) drives in some machine, and external USB (250) and FireWire (750) drives, meaning I most of my machines can use Zip drives to perform quick sneakernet data transfer. Still easier and faster than burning CD's, although availability of a fast network does negate their usefulness somewhat. I have RT-11 on a 100MB ZIP disk, and RSX11 on another. My 11/53 (nee DS550) with RQZX1 likes the ZIP drive just fine. Doc From aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Feb 28 17:13:10 2008 From: aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk (Andrew Burton) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:13:10 -0000 Subject: 1st stage loader for IMSAI - need ascii to binary Message-ID: <000801c87a5f$8c9e5e50$e7fdf93e@user8459cef6fa> Yes, but many sites play music and video via flash controlled webpages which don't always give you that flexibility. I am well aware of the ability to download flash video's to my harddrive. I have about 500 myself (of which about 1% would be considered on-topic). With more and more webpages being filled with flash and javascript content, it's getting harder to find sites that are actually viewable on Amiga's, C64's and other retro computers/games consoles (... trying to drive it back on topic). Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk PS. Does anyone have Jay's email address at hand? Almost every time I reply to a message via my yahoo web-mail account it get's bounced back with the following error message: : Remote host said: 550 5.7.1 time travel between hops [BODY]PPS. This is 3rd attempt. First two attempts (Yahoo web-mail) failedso I am now trying via Outlook Express. John Foust wrote: At 11:43 PM 2/27/2008, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >"Streaming" tends to imply no disk cache copy, more like listening to a >radio station... Browsers and other players might cache in order to give you the ability to rewind and replay, for example. There are many ways these days to save a YouTube video and convert to another format (browser plugins particularly for Firefox, sites like keepvid.com, etc.) - John From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Feb 28 17:37:18 2008 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:37:18 +0000 Subject: Ebay grrrr #743 In-Reply-To: <01C873C1.9C898640@MSE_D03> References: <01C873C1.9C898640@MSE_D03> Message-ID: <47C745AE.4040804@dunnington.plus.com> (catching up on the list after being away for two weeks) On 20/02/2008 18:07, M H Stein wrote: > On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 02:07:53PM +0100, Ade Vickers wrote: >> A nice-looking CBM Pet 2001 with chicklet keyboard (Item #300199788685), >> described as: >> >> "The computer powers up fine as you can see from the pictures, but it is >> only half way through the booting up process.... a simple problem to fix... > > Don't forget the "from what I've seen on the net" part... > >> Erm, yes. Very simple to fix, if you happen to have a spare of the part (or >> parts) that have failed. Otherwise, a complete bastard (pardon my Francais) >> of a job.... and well beyond your average ePayer, I'd warrant. > ------------- > Boy, tough crowd... > > Repairing a PET is often as simple as reseating a memory chip; worst case is > probably a bad ROM in which case you just replace all the RAM/ROM chips > with one of the modern 64K RAM/ROM adapters and sell the working old ones. I agreed with Ade, though. The PET in the particular eBay auction was one of the early ones with MOS Technology 6550 RAMs and 6540 ROMs. They're not like the 2114 SRAMs and 2332/2532-compatible ROMs used in slightly later ones, and spare RAM chips are unobtanium. It's not even easy to substitute later RAM or ROM chips. For example, the 6550 RAM chips are 0.4" wide rather than 0.3", they have four chip selects (2 active high and 2 active low) and the circuit relies on that for partial address decoding. The common adapters I've seen won't fit. When two of the RAMs in mine went (and that's the common fault) I was extremely fortunate to get a replacement from another listmember, otherwise I'd have had a 4K PET. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Feb 28 17:24:15 2008 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:24:15 +0000 Subject: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] In-Reply-To: <200802281443.JAA11662@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <8CA47E0A7969C16-ED8-3577@webmail-ne10.sysops.aol.com> <1204188073.32030.8.camel@elric> <47C681E6.8050900@gmail.com> <200802281443.JAA11662@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <47C7429F.8000907@dunnington.plus.com> On 28/02/2008 14:32, der Mouse wrote: >>> If you really wanted to push this forwards, write me some MSCP >>> controller firmware for an Atmel microcontroller... >> I have the skillset to do this. What I don't have is the >> documentation that would allow me to figure out how to talk MSCP and >> bit-bang Qbus. > > I've seen doc on MSCP as implemented in device XYZ in device XYZ's > manual, for at least one and I think two values of XYZ (UDA50 comes to > mind). I don't think I have any of the relevant manuals, but bitsavers > or vt100 or some such surely has at least one of them. Bitsavers has AA-L619A-TK_MSCP_BasicDiscFnsV1.2_Apr82.pdf, AA-L620A-TK_StorageSysDiags_1982.pdf and AA-L621A-TK_UnibusPortDescription_1982.pdf at http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/disc/uda50/ I'm not sure if these are the scans I did five years ago (the file dates are later) but they're the docs you'd need. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 17:53:18 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:53:18 -0500 Subject: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] In-Reply-To: <47C7429F.8000907@dunnington.plus.com> References: <8CA47E0A7969C16-ED8-3577@webmail-ne10.sysops.aol.com> <1204188073.32030.8.camel@elric> <47C681E6.8050900@gmail.com> <200802281443.JAA11662@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <47C7429F.8000907@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <47C7496E.3070907@gmail.com> Pete Turnbull wrote: > On 28/02/2008 14:32, der Mouse wrote: >>>> If you really wanted to push this forwards, write me some MSCP >>>> controller firmware for an Atmel microcontroller... >>> I have the skillset to do this. What I don't have is the >>> documentation that would allow me to figure out how to talk MSCP and >>> bit-bang Qbus. >> > >> I've seen doc on MSCP as implemented in device XYZ in device XYZ's >> manual, for at least one and I think two values of XYZ (UDA50 comes to >> mind). I don't think I have any of the relevant manuals, but bitsavers >> or vt100 or some such surely has at least one of them. > > Bitsavers has AA-L619A-TK_MSCP_BasicDiscFnsV1.2_Apr82.pdf, > AA-L620A-TK_StorageSysDiags_1982.pdf and > AA-L621A-TK_UnibusPortDescription_1982.pdf at > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/disc/uda50/ > > I'm not sure if these are the scans I did five years ago (the file dates > are later) but they're the docs you'd need. Excellent. Thank you. I'll see if I can give this a shot. Peace... Sridhar From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 28 17:57:23 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:57:23 -0800 Subject: seven segment display history In-Reply-To: <47C726F6.1080406@gmail.com> References: <47C726F6.1080406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C6D9E3.29813.1B705C5@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Feb 2008 at 15:26, Jules Richardson wrote: > (I was just looking at a museum's mock-up of the Apollo mission control > console, and the fake readout is made to look like a 7-seg display; I'm just > surprised that the digital readouts weren't all Nixie-based back then) 7-segment displays go back to the 60's at least--I seem to recall seeing a prototype 60's EL display using the technique. The RCA Numitron was about 1970, but it was by no means the first. I strongly doubt that 7 segment displays were used anywhere in the Apollo program for a very good reason--their failure mode. If a Nixie is bad, it doesn't light at all. If a single segment fails on a 7-segment display, the result can be an ambiguous reading with no indication of failure. For example, if the top segment fails, there's no way to distinguish between a 4 and a 9 in most displays. I think that the Apollo technology was neither incandescent 7-segment nor Nixie gas tube. I suspect, rather, standard projection displays, where a strip of film in the form of a loop is placed in front of a light source. They were modular and very easy to replace from the front of a panel. See, for example, the following photo from the Apollo 11 mission: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a11/ap11-S69- 39815HR.jpg (warning: it's big (558K). You can clearly make out the numeric displays (and the half-filled ashtrays) on the ops consoles. BTW, there are many very good photos at http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html Cheers, Chuck From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Thu Feb 28 18:55:46 2008 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:55:46 -0600 Subject: seven segment display history In-Reply-To: <47C6D9E3.29813.1B705C5@cclist.sydex.com> References: <47C726F6.1080406@gmail.com> <47C6D9E3.29813.1B705C5@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: It was electroluminecent displays: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer#DSKY_User_interface Randy > From: cclist at sydex.com > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:57:23 -0800 > Subject: Re: seven segment display history > > On 28 Feb 2008 at 15:26, Jules Richardson wrote: > > > (I was just looking at a museum's mock-up of the Apollo mission control > > console, and the fake readout is made to look like a 7-seg display; I'm just > > surprised that the digital readouts weren't all Nixie-based back then) > > 7-segment displays go back to the 60's at least--I seem to recall > seeing a prototype 60's EL display using the technique. The RCA > Numitron was about 1970, but it was by no means the first. > > I strongly doubt that 7 segment displays were used anywhere in the > Apollo program for a very good reason--their failure mode. If a > Nixie is bad, it doesn't light at all. If a single segment fails on > a 7-segment display, the result can be an ambiguous reading with no > indication of failure. For example, if the top segment fails, > there's no way to distinguish between a 4 and a 9 in most displays. > > I think that the Apollo technology was neither incandescent 7-segment > nor Nixie gas tube. I suspect, rather, standard projection displays, > where a strip of film in the form of a loop is placed in front of a > light source. They were modular and very easy to replace from the > front of a panel. > > See, for example, the following photo from the Apollo 11 mission: > > http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a11/ap11-S69- > 39815HR.jpg > > (warning: it's big (558K). You can clearly make out the numeric > displays (and the half-filled ashtrays) on the ops consoles. > > BTW, there are many very good photos at > > http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html > > Cheers, > Chuck > _________________________________________________________________ Need to know the score, the latest news, or you need your Hotmail?-get your "fix". http://www.msnmobilefix.com/Default.aspx From tsw-cc at johana.com Thu Feb 28 18:58:09 2008 From: tsw-cc at johana.com (Tom Watson) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:58:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: On interfaces, paper tape readers/punches, and single (small) chip micros Message-ID: <249171.81589.qm@web90403.mail.mud.yahoo.com> As said before, one can easily get some of the small (8 pin dip) micros to do magic things, but sometimes (as mentioned) it is a bit more trouble than it is worth. Many of us (me!) have stuff in their junk boxes^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hclassic part archive that will do the task quite easily. In my case, I obtained a nice Facit 4070 paper tape punch and made up a simple interface adapter (it fit inside one of those 2x DB-25 scramble boxes) to make it function using a PeeCee parallel port. Now if I desire to punch a paper tape, all I do is a simple copy to the printer port and ...buzzzz... out comes the tape. Thankfully the Facit 4070 had some power available on its DB-25, but I needed to play around with all the levels (it used 6 volt levels). In the end, all it took was a single 74LS00 to do the trick on changing the strobes to conform. I suppose I could have used an 8 pin ATMEL chip, but why bother. Sometimes the "classic" solution is MUCH easier. I even built up a character font (5x8) so I could punch titles in the tape. Of course, now I need to get the reader functional, but that is another story. p.s. If anyone wants details on the interface, contact me off list. -- Sorry, No signature at the moment. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 28 19:12:20 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:12:20 -0800 Subject: seven segment display history In-Reply-To: References: <47C726F6.1080406@gmail.com>, <47C6D9E3.29813.1B705C5@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <47C6EB74.14793.1FBA267@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Feb 2008 at 18:55, Randy Dawson wrote: > It was electroluminecent displays: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer#DSKY_User_interface That was on the onboard guidance computer, not Mission Control. Very different animals. On 28 Feb 2008 at 15:26, Jules Richardson wrote: > (I was just looking at a museum's mock-up of the Apollo mission > control console, and the fake readout is made to look like a 7-seg > display; I'm just surprised that the digital readouts weren't all > Nixie-based back then) Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Feb 28 19:29:35 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:29:35 -0800 Subject: On interfaces, paper tape readers/punches, and single (small) chip micros In-Reply-To: <249171.81589.qm@web90403.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <249171.81589.qm@web90403.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <47C6EF7F.32473.20B6D21@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Feb 2008 at 16:58, Tom Watson wrote: > In the end, all it took was a single 74LS00 to do the trick on changing the > strobes to conform. > > I suppose I could have used an 8 pin ATMEL chip, but why bother. Sometimes the > "classic" solution is MUCH easier. Apples and oranges in my opinion. In the OP, the question was how to decode FSK into a serial bitstream. An 8-pin PIC or AVR will do the job just fine, with plenty of extra program space left over, perhaps for parity checking or syncing up on the output stream. Sure, if I have to invert the level on a single line, I might even use a discrete transistor or anything else I have rattling around in my junkbox. Here's an example of another application that, while you could do it in discrete logic, is much simpler in a PIC or AVR. Suppose I want to simulate a hard-sectored floppy by generating sector pulses using an ordinary soft-sector floppy drive. While I could set up one-shots and maybe even a PLL to track the floppy speed, I can use a PIC12F629 to measure the spindle speed and accurately generate the necessary pulses. I can add input signals to specify whether I want 10 or 16 sector 300 RPM floppies (4msec pulse width) or 32 sector (2 msec pulse width) 360 RPM floppies. I can detect a hard-sectored floppy already inserted in the drive and pass the sector pulses through without generating any extra ones. Since I'm watching the index pulse, I can even generate a READY signal when the speed of the floppy comes within acceptable tolerances. All within the same 8 pin package. Nothing more than +5 and a pullup (for the index line from the drive). And I'll still have a couple of hundred of instructions out of the 1K for enhancements. How many TTL packages would it take you to do that? Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at verizon.net Thu Feb 28 20:38:14 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:38:14 -0500 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <47C6CE6C.6000807@gmail.com> References: <47B0C8CB.3030703@bitsavers.org> <47C59B31.28981.2077A291@cclist.sydex.com> <47C6CE6C.6000807@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802282138.16741.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 28 February 2008 10:08, Jules Richardson wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > The thing that was nice about the Zip drives was that they > > represented 100MB of inexpensive storage when most of the > > alternatives were pretty pricey. > > But then people said that about those floppy-connected QIC tape drives > (hmm, those were IOmega too, weren't they?) The two that I have are Colorado (actually H-P) and Conner. > and lots of people seemed to find that they had dreadful reliability too. > Seemed nice at the time, but not so good a few months down the line... I never had much of a problem with them, and got to the point where it took 8 or 9 tapes to do a full backup, which I'd do about every six months or so, 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 Thu Feb 28 20:50:28 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:50:28 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 54, Issue 62 In-Reply-To: References: <200802281800.m1SI08u9090270@dewey.classiccmp.org> <47C6FB2E.7010501@vigilan.com> Message-ID: <200802282150.30123.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 28 February 2008 13:39, Mike Loewen wrote: > On Thu, 28 Feb 2008, Geoffrey Bunza wrote: > > On the note of the CDC 6600 machines, et al., There was a peripheral > > processor which was used to boot the mainframe, and it had many rows of > > toggle switches, in groups of 18 or 36 if I remember right, which either > > contained the boot code or controlled the boot. The peripheral processor > > was a computer in its own right by any standards. > > Here's a picture of the Dead Start Program panel: > > http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/CDC6600-7.jpg New desktop wallpaper! :-) -- 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 Feb 28 21:03:08 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:03:08 -0500 Subject: seven segment display history In-Reply-To: <47C726F6.1080406@gmail.com> References: <47C726F6.1080406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802282203.08369.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 28 February 2008 16:26, Jules Richardson wrote: > Does anyone know when seven segment displays first appeared on the scene? > Presumably the first ones were VF, and LED came later? > > (I was just looking at a museum's mock-up of the Apollo mission control > console, and the fake readout is made to look like a 7-seg display; I'm > just surprised that the digital readouts weren't all Nixie-based back then) I'm not sure what appeared when, but I first started messing around with them back in 1975 or so... Across the street from the store on Canal St. in NYC where I bought 'em was a place that sold Nixies, including some of the more oddball ones, but I don't recall when I first bumped into VF displays. I do have a calculator from back then that uses them, but can't recall exactly when it was that I got it, 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 Feb 28 21:07:30 2008 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:07:30 -0500 Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <47C71AFB.3090801@gmail.com> References: <092501c87a44$25beb880$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C71AFB.3090801@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200802282207.30472.rtellason@verizon.net> On Thursday 28 February 2008 15:35, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > > From: "Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel": > >> And what about the core ? > >> Using a SRAM would invalidate the whole idea. > > > > Well, there's FRAM, which I guess would keep yucky batteries out of the > > picture. But I don't have any ideas about where to get real core planes > > these days (except in quantity one). > > How hard would they be to manufacture? Dunno, but in the past day or two core came up in my list, and "that auction place", so I looked over there and somebody's actually selling containers of just cores. Not a job I'd care to tackle, for sure! -- 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 hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Feb 28 22:29:44 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:29:44 -0800 Subject: seven segment display history References: <47C726F6.1080406@gmail.com> <47C6D9E3.29813.1B705C5@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C78A38.E3AC2391@cs.ubc.ca> On 28 Feb 2008 at 15:26, Jules Richardson wrote: > Does anyone know when seven segment displays first appeared on the scene? > Presumably the first ones were VF, and LED came later? > > (I was just looking at a museum's mock-up of the Apollo mission control > console, and the fake readout is made to look like a 7-seg display; I'm just > surprised that the digital readouts weren't all Nixie-based back then) Some datapoints: - early 1900's: patents for segmented numeric displays - 1963: Friden EC-130 calculator uses 7-seg vector-scan CRT display - mid-1960's: Apollo Guidance Computer electroluminescent 7-seg displays The earliest *off-the-shelf* 7-segment display modules that I've run across are from ca. 1967: http://www3.telus.net/~bhilpert/tmp/dialco7seg/ As can be seen, they use neon bulbs. The displays themselves are not dated but other component date codes in the instrument they came out of were in the range 66xx-67xx. The large-format 7-seg LED modules that came out 10-15 years later look pretty much like copies of these. Earliest I know of for 7-seg VF and single-envelope-incandescent (RCA numitron and similar) would be very late 60's, for LED's very early 70's. (NIXIEs were mid- or late- 50's.) From goodtimepa at gmail.com Thu Feb 28 03:15:33 2008 From: goodtimepa at gmail.com (Greg N Shari (GMail)) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:15:33 -0500 Subject: the Antikythera mechanism In-Reply-To: <47C645B5.1020103@crash.com> Message-ID: New information about the workings of the Antikythera mechanism. I do believe it counts as vintage enough. LOL http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/nov/30/uknews Greg From tgarcia at hivemind.org Thu Feb 28 08:02:21 2008 From: tgarcia at hivemind.org (Tom Garcia) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:02:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: Free: VMS orange wall, TCPware manuals; FA: VAXstation 4000/60 32MB Message-ID: <49427.81.187.231.58.1204207341.squirrel@webmail.tuffmail.net> Hi all, Available for pick-up now from Worthing, West Sussex, England are twelve overfilled 34x24x25cm boxes of orange wall - VAX/VMS v3 and v4 era manuals. Or I can ship anywhere at your expense after 10 March. Detail below (era-vol-title). Condition is reasonable - some cover pages are less than pristine, while other manuals are still in their shrink wrap. Also for auction, shipping worldwide: one VAXstation 4000/60 32MB+RZ25 http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZtagq2 The equipment has been used for the VMS hobbyist programme, and now awaits your hobbyist licenses :-). More stuff probably available next month (a VT240+VR201 and a DECmate III?), but for now you are welcome to walk off with / pay shipping for: - TCPware 5.4 printed docset: netcu command ref, management guide, user's guide, programmer's guide, install/config guide; - a VT520 with apparently stuck-full brightness; - an HP A2094A CRT that has nothing to do with DEC but has been sitting taunting me. (1) 4-8-system messages and recovery procedures VAX-11 Fortran u/g, ref manual, installation guide 4-2A-command language, system messages 4-7-MACRO and instruction set (2) 3-8-Compatibility mode RSX-11M 3-3B-Text processing: TPU/EVE 4-8-as in (1) 3-3B-Text processing: VAX TPU ref. (3) MicroVMS 4.4 programming support manual 4-replacement binder-intro to sys routines, utility routines 4-" "-RMS manual, ana/rms, FDL 4-Guide to writing device driver for VAX/VMS (4) 3-4A-utils ref, magnetic tape u/g, SORT/MERGE u/g 4-8-as in (1) (again!) 4-4C-utilities PHONE-VERIFY (5) MicroVMS user manual part 2 MicroVMS programming support manual (again) + progarmmer pocket reference sealed-User's primer, FORTRAN primer, release notes promotional (SPD?) booklets: BASIC, BLISS, CLE, FORTRAN, MMS, RPG II, ADA, COBOL, performance + coverage analyser, APL, DEC/test manager 4-4A-ACL editor through LATCP (6) 4-Guide to networking on VAX/VMS DEQNA ethernet user's guide 4-2-Command language: DCL dictionary MicroVMS 4.4 programmer's manual 4-Guide to programming on VAX/VMS (FORTRAN edition) (7) TK50 user's reference card Booklets: Installing VAX/VMS on 8600 from HSC-based tape, " from magnetic tape Installing VAX/VMS on 11-780 from HSC-based tape, " from magnetic tape Installing VAX/VMS on UDA-based 11/730 from magnetic tape Running the UETP after installation 4-Guide to VAX/VMS file applications 4-Introduction to VAX/VMS DECNET-RSX guide to network management utilities (1985) Programming in VAX C 2.0 (8) 3-5B-System services/IO: IO user's guide volumes 1,2 3-1-General info, SPD etc. VAX-11 FORTRAN 3.0 reference manual, user's guide, installation guide (9) 4-1-Introduction, glossary etc. 4-2-Command language: DCL dictionary 4-1B-Release notes: vv4.2, 4.1, 4.0 (10) 3-7-VAX-11 Record Management Services DEC CBI course administrator's guide (1982) 4-8-as in 1 (yet again!) (11) 4-Guide to VAX/VMS disk and magnetic tape operations 4-Guide to using DCL + command procedures on VAX/VMS MicroVMS 4 programming support manual (again) (12) 4-Guide to VAXclusters MicroVMS 4.4 user's manual part 1 3-4B-prog. development tools 4-1A-general info etc. Please feel free to mail me if you have any questions. -- Tom Garcia | tgarcia at hivemind.org From kelly at montereybaycommunications.com Thu Feb 28 12:28:47 2008 From: kelly at montereybaycommunications.com (Kelly Francis) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:28:47 -0800 Subject: HP 7900A /7907/7914R Message-ID: <010201c87a37$c870ba40$090a0a0a@KF> Hi Jay, I was curious if you have any of these older HP-IB disc drives available. Thank you, Kelly Kelly J. Francis kelly at montbay.com 831-429-6144 From jdavis at soupwizard.com Thu Feb 28 13:17:44 2008 From: jdavis at soupwizard.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:17:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <9e2403920802281017j59626947iea91ad369ec21e00@mail.gmail.com> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802280940paf131b4ub93c1698c0dcf4a6@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220802280952j2b2cac9aia86858fd31503586@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802281017j59626947iea91ad369ec21e00@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <25211.205.248.102.82.1204226264.squirrel@webmail6.pair.com> On Thu, February 28, 2008 10:17 am, Josef Chessor wrote: > > I'd dreamed of having a "Generic Front Panel", 16-bit address/8-bit > data, hooked up via RS-232 for simulator uses. I admit that your idea > controlling a PC in this way would be really, really cool. Of limited > utility outside of learning, though. /me too! I was talking a few days ago about how I couldn't afford an Altair or IMSAI, so I'd like to make a box with a pc inside running an emulator, and a front panel with altair-like switches connected to serial or parallel port via an atmel avr microcontroller, which a cp/m emulator reads as the front panel. All that's needed is a catchy project name, and you just provided it: the "Generic Front Panel for Emulators (GFPE)" project. jdavis From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Thu Feb 28 17:47:07 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:47:07 -0500 Subject: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] Message-ID: <0JWZ003VA3HXKRR3@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] > From: Gordon JC Pearce > Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:41:13 +0000 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > >On Thu, 2008-02-28 at 00:19 -0500, tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: >> >> I stopped holding my breath for creation of a Q-Bus IDE >> controller a long time ago. While I like to think that I >> do a reasonable job troubleshooting some problems, >> I'm definitely not a hardware/software engineer. >> >> It would have been nice, but it makes more sense >> these days to go Q-Bus to SATA. I would imagine >> that it would be alot less hassle, and certainly alot less >> real estate on the board, with the smaller connectors, >> and fewer traces. > >Actually SATA is extremely exacting and needs unbelievably complicated >controller chips. > >PATA, on the other hand, is just a fast parallel port. You can hook a >CF card up to anything, even a microcontroller, with just a tiny amount >of glue logic. > >> At any rate, back to the topic, Q-Bus to Compact Flash. >> >> If you can do Q-bus to Compact Flash, then you can do >> Q-bus to IDE, because CF *is* an IDE interface. >> Those wonderful CF to IDE adapter boards generally don't >> have any circuitry on-board, except to drive status LED's. > >Exactly. Simply grafting a PATA interface onto a QBus card is trivial. >Actually getting something that will either pretend to be an existing >controller or writing a device driver for the operating system in use is >much much harder. > >If you really wanted to push this forwards, write me some MSCP >controller firmware for an Atmel microcontroller... > >> Right now, I have Compact flash / IDE on my Q-bus, >> albeit in a round-about way. >> >> I have older CMD SCSI controllers (CQD-200's). >> >> Attached to those are ACard 7720U SCSI <> IDE adapters. >> http://www.acard.com > >These seem to crop up on the various sampler mailing lists I'm on, as a >way of using CF with older samplers which often have "funny" SCSI >implementations. > >Gordon Generally IDE and CF (compactflash) are the same interface and for Qbus-11 fairly simple. It's been done, however, the problem is the driver as bare IDE or CF is NOT MSCP not is it DL, DX, DY or RK so a driver is needed and noone has apparently stepped up to do it. I beleive its fairly straight forward work but never having done it but having seen drivers like DD and DY They have a structure that must be held to. SCSI is actually harder to talk to than CF or IDE, I have done that for CP/M and SCSI is a pain as you have to deal with the SCSI chips and their particular protocal. MSCP is a complex protocal whols primary job is to create a logical abstraction hardware from the software and I don't think an atmel uP is enough and definatly enough ram plus enough is not known to create it(MSCP) from scratch. Allison From brian at quarterbyte.com Fri Feb 29 00:50:55 2008 From: brian at quarterbyte.com (Brian Knittel) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:50:55 -0800 Subject: Monroe Programmable Electronic Calculator In-Reply-To: <200802290628.m1T6Samn000463@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802290628.m1T6Samn000463@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <47C73ACF.4152.4B0951F0@brian.quarterbyte.com> Ooooh! That's really cool. My high school had one of these, used it before we talked them into buying an Altair. The punch card unit was pretty spiffy, I think it used 8 of the row bits? And there were instructions you could punch that were not available from the keyboard. The cards were the punchamatic type: hanging chad and all. When I was 15 it was a lot of fun to program. I'd love to know what the memory technology was inside -- acoustic delay, static RAM, or what? From dm561 at torfree.net Fri Feb 29 00:57:19 2008 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 01:57:19 -0500 Subject: DEC stuff available Message-ID: <01C87A76.881D2480@MSE_D03> Passing this on from another list. Contact Tony at: tonym AT compusource DOT net if interested. mike ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I've tried to subscribe to CCTalk like 3-4 times - never got a response at ALL. Wonder what the heck is/was going on... I got a buddy in GA who has some DEC stuff available: (see below) Can you pass that along to CCList for me? T -- Friend of mine in GA has a DEC Pro 380 for sale. $125 shipped/obo This is for main unit + LK201 keyboard, and it has a hard disk and a floppy drive. No monitor is included, so you'll have to scrounge for that... let me know, and I'll relay if anyone is interested. -- Here's more of what he has available. Let me know if any interests you. COMPUTERS 1 DEC 2000 Alpha AXP w/128 Meg 2-6G HD, 2.88 Floppy, CD Rom, 3 SCSI cards, Network Card, Fiber Optic Card, EISA w/ Configuration Disk, Keys, Works Mod #PB223-CA Ser. KA431BZEV5 1 DEC 2000 Alpha AXP w/128 Meg 2-6G HD, 2.88 Floppy, CD Rom 2 SCSI cards, Network Card, Fiber Optic Card, EISA w/ Configuration Disk, Keys, Works Mod #PB22B Ser KA352FYMZO MONITOR 1 17" Digital PCXAX-VZ KEYBOARDS 1 DEC 2000 KB 1 Digital RT-101 4 Compaq 101 5 Digital LK 201 BA MONITOR CABLES 4 3-BNC to Large 15 Pin Female 1 3-BNC to 3 Pin MotherBoard 1 5-BNC to Small 15 Pin Male 2 Large 15 Pin Female to Large 15 Pin Female Extension 3 Large 15 Pin Female to Small 15 Pin Female Extension 1 Large 15 Pin Female to Large 15 Pin Male Extension MANUALS 1 VT 330/VT 340 Programmer Reference Manual, Vol 1 Text Programming 1 VT 330/VT 340 Programmer Reference Manual, Vol 2 Graphics Program 1 VT 330/VT 340 Installing and Using - Video Terminal (The above are all new in shrink Wrap) 1 VT 420 Installing and Using the VT 420 Terminal (NEW) 1 LA 50 Programmer Refwerence Manual 1 Installing and Using the LA 50 Printer 1 LA 120 User Guide 1 DecMate II System Managers Guide to Easy Com DEC Equip 3 Digital CD ROM 1 2.88 Floppy 10 CD Carrier SCSI Cables of all kinds. From brian at quarterbyte.com Fri Feb 29 00:58:12 2008 From: brian at quarterbyte.com (Brian Knittel) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:58:12 -0800 Subject: Monroe Programmable Electronic Calculator Message-ID: <47C73C84.16672.4B0FFD36@brian.quarterbyte.com> Ooooh! That's really cool. My high school had one of these around 1975 or 1976, we used it before we talked them into buying an Altair. The punch card unit was pretty spiffy, I think it used 8 of the row bits? And IIRC there were instructions you could punch that were not available from the keyboard. The cards were the votamatic type: hanging chad and all. It was a lot of fun to program, and pretty interesting and complex for a calculator. I'd love to know what the memory technology was inside -- acoustic delay, static RAM, or what? =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- _| _| _| Brian Knittel _| _| _| Quarterbyte Systems, Inc. _| _| _| Tel: 1-510-559-7930 _| _| _| http://www.quarterbyte.com From wayne.smith at charter.net Fri Feb 29 01:02:52 2008 From: wayne.smith at charter.net (Wayne Smith) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 23:02:52 -0800 Subject: Integral RAM upgrade In-Reply-To: <200802282055.m1SKtelF093860@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: > Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:51:10 +0000 (GMT) > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Subject: Integral RAM upgrade > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain > > I recently bought another HP Integral on E-bay, and after the normal > cleanup on the floppy drive it works fine. The expansion slots both > cotnained boards, one was a 512K RAM board, the other an RS232 oard > (which is the main reason I watned this machine!). > > Anyway, the RAM board was clearly identical to the 1M board, > just with > only have the RAM chips fitted and the links set differently. > Having got > a lot of 41256 chips on old PC memory boards, I spent the afternoon > upgrading it to 1M. > [snip] > > In my machine, wioth no RAM boards fitted. there's 264K free. > With the > 512K board, it reports 764K free. And with the 1M board, 1264K free. > > My question is what's happening to the other 12K of each half-meg? Or > deos 'status' have an odd definition of a kilobyte? > > -tony > Don't know where the 12K is going to - maybe address space reserved for I/O - but I have to say I was extremely impressed by the upgrade - almost exciting reading! From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Feb 29 01:00:53 2008 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 02:00:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] In-Reply-To: <0JWZ003VA3HXKRR3@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JWZ003VA3HXKRR3@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <200802290708.CAA17362@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Generally IDE and CF (compactflash) are the same interface and for > Qbus-11 fairly simple. It's been done, however, the problem is the > driver as bare IDE or CF is NOT MSCP not is it DL, DX, DY or RK so a > driver is needed and noone has apparently stepped up to do it. Not quite true. Some time back (years), someone was working on an IDE interface for a Qbus MicroVAX and I was doing the driver. (This was not bootable; the idea was to netboot to get the kernel onto the machine.) We never got it working, and it is not clear to me, now, why not. I'm not sure whether this is because it wasn't clear why then or because my wetware memory has bitrotted - what memory I have indicates that there were hardware issues, but I had no physical access to the hardware, so I'm not sure that that's right even aside from bitrotted memory. I once was one of two people who built a one-off Qbus board out of wirewrap, so I feel I ought to be able to build such a thing myself. Perhaps someday I'll gather the parts and try it. (Anyone have a Qbus development board looking for a home? :) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From jos.mar at bluewin.ch Fri Feb 29 01:37:02 2008 From: jos.mar at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:37:02 +0100 Subject: Integral RAM upgrade In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47C7B61E.3020103@bluewin.ch> > 7) If it works, set all the links as for a 1M board, trst again Which, of course, leads to the question : what are the linksettings for the 1M board ? Jos, busy finding the DRAM's in my "archive" From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Fri Feb 29 02:25:22 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:25:22 +0000 Subject: IOmega In-Reply-To: <1266685653.20080228174526@mail.jvdg.net> References: <1266685653.20080228174526@mail.jvdg.net> Message-ID: <1204273522.32030.20.camel@elric> On Thu, 2008-02-28 at 17:45 +0100, jvdg at sparcpark.net wrote: > Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > > I must have been the only person on earth who had no dud cartridges or > > click of death, and I used ZIP drives a lot for sneakernetting. > > I think part of the bad reputation of Zips and Jaz's stemmed from people using them for storage, rather than transfer. And yet people used them for years (and still do) for storing data for samplers. I'm not saying I've never heard of Zip disk failures, but I haven't heard of many and I haven't had one let go myself. You do tend to find that people make backups of their sampler disks a lot more than computer disks, maybe because they're more conscious of the effort involved in creating the data that went onto it. Gordon From gordonjcp at gjcp.net Fri Feb 29 02:31:25 2008 From: gordonjcp at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:31:25 +0000 Subject: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] In-Reply-To: <47C681E6.8050900@gmail.com> References: <8CA47E0A7969C16-ED8-3577@webmail-ne10.sysops.aol.com> <1204188073.32030.8.camel@elric> <47C681E6.8050900@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1204273885.32030.25.camel@elric> On Thu, 2008-02-28 at 04:41 -0500, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Gordon JC Pearce wrote: > > Exactly. Simply grafting a PATA interface onto a QBus card is trivial. > > Actually getting something that will either pretend to be an existing > > controller or writing a device driver for the operating system in use is > > much much harder. > > > > If you really wanted to push this forwards, write me some MSCP > > controller firmware for an Atmel microcontroller... > > I have the skillset to do this. What I don't have is the documentation > that would allow me to figure out how to talk MSCP and bit-bang Qbus. > If someone could point me in the right direction for the specs for > these, I'd be happy to write the firmware. Actually any controller that would be easier to write firmware for would be good. It would be trivial to carve up the card into multiple logical units. You could have, for example, four RL02s each capable of being assigned a "pack" from the card. What were the biggest non-MSCP-attached drives? How hard would they be to emulate? Gordon From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Feb 29 02:37:37 2008 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:37:37 -0800 Subject: backplane Z80 system /STD bus / was Re: 8/S Replica References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> <112B53E0-715C-4F0D-89E3-2255349B2CFD@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <47C7C450.49A21FD0@cs.ubc.ca> Dave McGuire wrote: > Even two-row 0.1" header pins would probably work well. That's > what I'll most likely use for a backplane-based Z80 system I've been > working on for a while. Would the STD bus not fulfill that requirement/definition? (I recently received a SQUID detector data collection instrument, must have been a one-off production from some physics lab. It was built around a little 10-slot STD bus backplane and some MOSTEK STD cards (Z80 card,mem cards,etc.) ca 1981. Except for the RTC clock board with corroded traces from leaking NiCads it all looks to be re-usable.) From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Fri Feb 29 04:34:43 2008 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 11:34:43 +0100 (CET) Subject: HP 7900A /7907/7914R In-Reply-To: <010201c87a37$c870ba40$090a0a0a@KF> References: <010201c87a37$c870ba40$090a0a0a@KF> Message-ID: On Thu, 28 Feb 2008, Kelly Francis wrote: > I was curious if you have any of these older HP-IB disc drives > available. There has never been an HP-IB version of the 7900... Christian From tiggerlasv at aim.com Fri Feb 29 04:40:44 2008 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 05:40:44 -0500 Subject: Qbus to CF / IDE Message-ID: <8CA48D6ABA2E339-1518-2525@webmail-nb08.sysops.aol.com> > You could have, for example, four RL02s each capable of being > assigned a "pack" from the card. > What were the biggest non-MSCP-attached drives? > How hard would they be to emulate? While RL02's would probably be easy to emulate, at 10MB a pop, you don't get alot of bang for your buck. Note that some operating systems only support 4 drives per controller, so that will need to be a consideration as well, when drives are being partitioned. Note: The capacities mentioned below are approximations. The largest non-MSCP drive that I'm aware of is the RP20, at 929 MB. However, I think that was only supported on the KL10. ;-) For the rest of the world, you'll be looking at MASSBUS devices - The RP07 is next in line at 504MB, but not supported by all operating systems. The RM05, at 256MB . . . definitely supported by RSTS/E; not sure about smaller operating systems like RT11 though. I think the RP06 was something like 176MB, although you're still into MASSBUS. Once you move below the MASSBUSS level, I think you're looking at an RK07, which is what? 25 or 26MB ? I'm sure someone may chime in with more. . . T From Arno_1983 at gmx.de Fri Feb 29 05:04:17 2008 From: Arno_1983 at gmx.de (Arno Kletzander) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:04:17 +0100 Subject: SGI A/V module question Message-ID: <20080229110417.120970@gmx.net> Hello all, as I'm trying out some "new" old computers I got during the last few weeks, I'm of course encountering new problems. I have spent some time with search engines without major success, so I figured it would be okay to ask here. Case one concerns the SGI O2 workstation. I pulled three of those out of a dumpster; they only had a piece of the blue case plastic left on top and the base trays were broken as well - even the CD bezels are missing. The chassis look pretty battered but the machines power up, play their happy notes and enter the resident menu. Each has one disk tray but the disks were probably ruined by being flung into the container. They also all have an A/V module with the O2cam connector in the back panel. The connector is broken in one of them and I'll probably remove it altogether since I don't have a cam anyway but... the S-Video and Composite I/O jacks in the side panel are covered with a square sheet of textured self-adhesive plastic. The PCB silkscreening states they are Moosehead A/V modules and it looks like no major components are missing from the boards so I hope the video I/O will work once I pull the stickers off? TIA, -- Arno Kletzander Student Assistant // Studentische Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen www.iser.uni-erlangen.de Ist Ihr Browser Vista-kompatibel? Jetzt die neuesten Browser-Versionen downloaden: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/browser From Arno_1983 at gmx.de Fri Feb 29 05:25:18 2008 From: Arno_1983 at gmx.de (Arno Kletzander) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:25:18 +0100 Subject: PC-Mac SCSI data exchange question Message-ID: <20080229112518.294500@gmx.net> My second question concerns data transfer between (Windoze) PCs and Macs. I got a Power Macintosh 7200 (with Mac OS 8.0) which I would like to move some data to (approx. 3 GB); filesharing over Ethernet doesn't work without additional software since the Mac doesn't understand SMB/CIFS and W98/2k (not Server)don't understand enough AFS. "Web Sharing" only supports the opposite direction (PC can read data from the Mac) unless I'm missing something. So what I'm left with is pushing the stuff onto an idle 4GB SCSI disk that I can then hang off the Mac. Unfortunately I couldn't get an idea how to accomplish this: if I format the disk on the PC, the Mac will come up with "Uninitialized Volume". Initializing the volume as "DOS 4GB" doesn't work, the same dialog comes up again after I restart and going back to the PC I can even still read the contents! I tried one FAT32 partition (primary) as well as two FAT16 drives inside an extended partition. Thanks in advance, yours sincerely Arno Kletzander -- Arno Kletzander Student Assistant // Studentische Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen www.iser.uni-erlangen.de Ist Ihr Browser Vista-kompatibel? Jetzt die neuesten Browser-Versionen downloaden: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/browser From dr.emiel at xs4all.nl Fri Feb 29 06:20:26 2008 From: dr.emiel at xs4all.nl (Rik) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:20:26 +0100 Subject: HP 7900A /7907/7914R References: <010201c87a37$c870ba40$090a0a0a@KF> Message-ID: <004e01c87acd$7aadbd30$0501a8c0@xp1800> 7908/11//12/14 are HP-IB CS80 discs. http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=412 -Rik ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christian Corti" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 11:34 AM Subject: Re: HP 7900A /7907/7914R > On Thu, 28 Feb 2008, Kelly Francis wrote: >> I was curious if you have any of these older HP-IB disc drives >> available. > > There has never been an HP-IB version of the 7900... > > Christian > > From dave06a at dunfield.com Fri Feb 29 07:18:31 2008 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:18:31 -0500 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: References: <236DC0DF16F5@dunfield.com> from "Dave Dunfield" at Feb 28, 8 07:57:06 am Message-ID: <4E100EF6D00@dunfield.com> > I assume these CPU and FPU chips are MOS devices. Is it possile that > excessive leakage across the gate oxide layer in some transsitors of that > chip would cause it to run hot, but still work? I'm pretty sure I've seen > chips that seem to work, but get hot and then stop working, althoguh > cooling them with freezer spray keeps them running. And these were not > chips driving high pwoer laods -- they were things like the clock/timer > microcontroller in a VCR. Yes, I'm wondering if it's something like that, however how likely is it that both devices would experience the same fairly-uncommon failure mode at the same time? Perhaps I've been engaging in the persuit of an undomesticated ornithoid... Is it possible that the devices normally run this hot, and the failure is occuring for another reason (possibly a side effect of the heat, as cooling them does allow it to keep running). Allison said "they do run hot" - does anyone know how hot? I did some further tests last night - I dug out my thermocouple and made some actual heat measurements with the system assembled, but with the color frame buffer removed - there should be better airflow, and this appears to be the case, since the machine did not die after 10 minites of operation. Ambient temp was measureing about 25 degrees C at the start of the test. >From power on, the CPU and FPU rose rapidly (within 3-4 minites) to the 70C range, then more slowly rose to temperatures of 76C for the CPU and 82C for the FPU after 10 mins. At this temperature they seemed to be getting stable - having done nearly 1-1/2 mins without an increase. It's possible/likely that they would climb anothe few degrees in extended operation. Once this temperature was reached, I held the system in RESET, and observed that the temps dropped back after a few minites to about 64C for the CPU and 68C for the FPU. To my mind, a processor running at 80C is damn hot - most of the embedded devices I work with list absolute maximum running temperature as 70C or 75C - but perhaps the DEC devices are designed to run hotter - I note the Intel 486 datasheet lists absolute maximum (under bias) as 110C ... Anyone on the list with a VS 2000 or uVAX 2000 that can do some temperature measurements? 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 ray at arachelian.com Fri Feb 29 07:53:35 2008 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:53:35 -0500 Subject: PC-Mac SCSI data exchange question In-Reply-To: <20080229112518.294500@gmx.net> References: <20080229112518.294500@gmx.net> Message-ID: <47C80E5F.1030200@arachelian.com> Arno Kletzander wrote: > My second question concerns data transfer between (Windoze) PCs and Macs. I got a Power Macintosh 7200 (with Mac OS 8.0) which I would like to move some data to (approx. 3 GB); filesharing over Ethernet doesn't work without additional software since the Mac doesn't understand SMB/CIFS and W98/2k (not Server)don't understand enough AFS. "Web Sharing" only supports the opposite direction (PC can read data from the Mac) unless I'm missing something. > > So what I'm left with is pushing the stuff onto an idle 4GB SCSI disk that I can then hang off the Mac. Unfortunately I couldn't get an idea how to accomplish this: if I format the disk on the PC, the Mac will come up with "Uninitialized Volume". Initializing the volume as "DOS 4GB" doesn't work, the same dialog comes up again after I restart and going back to the PC I can even still read the contents! I tried one FAT32 partition (primary) as well as two FAT16 drives inside an extended partition. > > There are many ways to go, some twisty, some straightforward: 1 There was a commercial Samba client named "Dave" for Mac OS. If you can find that, it will do the trick. Indeed, w2k server will share out AFS, but since you don't have that, you'll need another path. 2. If you're familiar with Unix, you might try a flavor of Linux on a machine that has a SCSI bus to which you could mount the drive. For example, if your w2k machine has a SCSI controller, you could mount the 7200's hard drive in it (or in an external enclosure), boot off a Live Linux CD, mount the w2k's hard drive with ntfs-3g, mount the OS 8 hard drive with hfsplus, and copy the data at will. If this is unavailable to you, you could also go with a commercial product such as: http://www.dataviz.com/products/maclinkplus/ -- there are physical dangers here if you're not careful with the drive (static, dropping drive on the floor, miswiring it, damage from a broken external case, etc.) as well as soft dangers here (you might accidentally damage the OS 8 hard drive by writing to it, so be sure you know which drive is which and mount everything read only until you're 100% sure, etc.) 4. Other choices, get a machine that runs OS X, perhaps a good old G4 with large hard drives, which will allow you to share both AFS and CIFS. 5. Find an old copy of Netware 4.x and build yourself a Netware file server, these too work as a nice file server. (sigh, brings back old memories of my misspent youth :-) 6. Install NetATalk on a Linux machine and use it as a server (I've not played with this myself, so I've no idea what it does to resource forks) 7. Turn on an ftp daemon on one of the machines - you could install Cygwin on the w2k machine and run one of the ftpd's on there, or you can find a windows ftp server (i.e. http://www.warftp.org/ ) that will work on w2k workstation - if I remember right, there's a half crippled version of IIS on there which acts as a personal web server - perhaps like it's bigger brother it may have an ftpd. Or if that's not available, use a third machine that does have an ftpd (Linux, FreeBSD, OpenVMS, etc.) as a go-between. There are ftp clients for the Mac, and it wouldn't surprise me if you could find an ftpd for OS 8 either ( http://www.pure-mac.com/ftp.html ) 8. You could use an scp/ssh client such as NiftyTelnet http://www.lysator.liu.se/~jonasw/freeware/niftyssh/ - which might work on OS 8 (I think it may want OS 9 though) to copy the data over scp to a server that has an sshd (there is one for windows - http://sshwindows.sourceforge.net/ ) 9. For 3GB of data, the worst thing you could do is go over a serial port with a terminal program such as ZTerm on one end and HyperTerminal on the windows end. It's horrible because at most you'll be able to go at 56Kbps and will take forever. 10. You could go with one of the sneakernet paths: some sort of removable drive such as ZIP, Jazz, CD-R, etc. but you'll need to somehow break up the data into pieces and use a common file system (ISO9660 and its variants for the CD's, FAT16 for the windoze friendly ones, etc.) A Bit of warning: All of these paths to transferring data may suffer from the issues with the metadata and the resource forks, so the safest thing to do is to archive resource/metadata sensitive files (Applications, INIT's, etc) with a Mac specific archiver such as StuffIt. (There is an unstuff command for Unix available in plain C source code, there is also a closed source Windows version of StuffIt, so if you need to, you can get the data off out of them.) Some of the above paths have built in support for resource forks. w2k's server sharing. Netware's AFS sharing, an OS X machine, and possible others will allow resource forks and metadata to be stored and safely accessed again from a Mac, and allow the data forks to be accessed from PC's. Others, will not and you risk losing the data. So you really need to ask if that 3GB's worth of data depends on the resource forks or not. From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Feb 29 08:11:01 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:11:01 -0600 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <25211.205.248.102.82.1204226264.squirrel@webmail6.pair.com> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802280940paf131b4ub93c1698c0dcf4a6@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220802280952j2b2cac9aia86858fd31503586@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802281017j59626947iea91ad369ec21e00@mail.gmail.com> <25211.205.248.102.82.1204226264.squirrel@webmail6.pair.com> Message-ID: <47C81275.8060406@gmail.com> Jeff Davis wrote: > On Thu, February 28, 2008 10:17 am, Josef Chessor wrote: >> I'd dreamed of having a "Generic Front Panel", 16-bit address/8-bit >> data, hooked up via RS-232 for simulator uses. I admit that your idea >> controlling a PC in this way would be really, really cool. Of limited >> utility outside of learning, though. > > /me too! I was talking a few days ago about how I couldn't afford an Altair > or IMSAI, so I'd like to make a box with a pc inside running an emulator, and > a front panel with altair-like switches connected to serial or parallel port > via an atmel avr microcontroller, which a cp/m emulator reads as the front > panel. That seems more achievable - although I think the OP wanted to control that actual PC, not a vintage emulator running on it. But yep, easiest route is probably to run linux/*BSD on a PC with no keyboard/mouse/display and then run the emulator on that. Hook the front panel into either a serial port (and use all the standard TTY access code for I/O access) or the parallel port (there's certainly support for userspace parallel port I/O in the Linux kernel - not sure about *BSD). How to actually merge that support into whatever emulator's running is another matter, but presumably most of them have reasonably sane code for the CPU and memory emulation. Maybe some sort of "generic front panel API" is useful - *most* FP's are probably pretty generic in what they do (even though the layout and number of switches/lights changes) cheers Jules From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Feb 29 08:20:27 2008 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:20:27 -0600 Subject: HP 7900A /7907/7914R References: <010201c87a37$c870ba40$090a0a0a@KF> <004e01c87acd$7aadbd30$0501a8c0@xp1800> Message-ID: <001401c87ade$3c59b6e0$6400a8c0@BILLING> > 7908/11//12/14 are HP-IB CS80 discs. > http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=412 Sorry to be so scarce people... One client just turned into 4 (that client started 4 new companies), and each one is setting up new offices.... I'm far worse than swamped. I believe the first HP-IB drive in that line was the 7906, but it would be incorrect to make a blanket statement that "7906's were HP-IB". Specifically, the 7906A, B, C, and D were not HP-IB (they used a 13037 subsystem). The 7906H was strictly HP-IB. It also used a 13037 subsystem, but a board was added to the 13037 chassis to give it HP-IB capability. I was fortunate enough to obtain a few 13037's that include the HP-IB option (as well as a spare HP-IB option board as well). The differences between the 7906A, B, C, and D were mostly power supply and EMI/RFI shielding changes I believe. The only difference between a 7906D and 7906H was that you pulled out one (or two, can't remember) boards from the card cage inside the drive, and put in a microprocessor board instead which spoke HP-IB. Then of course you had to have the optional HP-IB board inside the 13037. As someone else pointed out, 7900A (and 7901) drives were never HP-IB. Just used a 13210 controller set. I used to have a 7912. It was HP-IB (and I would ASSume it was HP-IB only). Odd animal. Jay West From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Feb 29 08:21:41 2008 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:21:41 -0600 Subject: seven segment display history In-Reply-To: <47C78A38.E3AC2391@cs.ubc.ca> References: <47C726F6.1080406@gmail.com> <47C6D9E3.29813.1B705C5@cclist.sydex.com> <47C78A38.E3AC2391@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <47C814F5.6080408@gmail.com> Brent Hilpert wrote: > The earliest *off-the-shelf* 7-segment display modules that I've run across are > from ca. 1967: > http://www3.telus.net/~bhilpert/tmp/dialco7seg/ > As can be seen, they use neon bulbs. The displays themselves are not dated but > other component date codes in the instrument they came out of were in the range > 66xx-67xx. Now that looks like the sort of thing I saw in the mock-up (unfortunately there's a lot of reflection in the photo that I took from the perspex screen they'd covered the model with, so it's probably not worth sharing). It's impossible to tell from the mock-up exactly what type of technology it was though; it was just the seven-segment nature that surprised me, as I don't think I've seen it that early elsewhere (everything was either Nixie or stacks of side-lit perspex plates with proper formed numerals on them). Interesting point from Chuck about the possible failure mode of 7-seg's though. Perhaps they never thought of that! cheers Jules From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Feb 29 08:29:16 2008 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:29:16 -0600 Subject: PC-Mac SCSI data exchange question In-Reply-To: <20080229112518.294500@gmx.net> References: <20080229112518.294500@gmx.net> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20080229082600.078067e8@mail.threedee.com> At 05:25 AM 2/29/2008, Arno Kletzander wrote: >My second question concerns data transfer between (Windoze) PCs and Macs. I got a Power Macintosh 7200 (with Mac OS 8.0) which I would like to move some data to (approx. 3 GB); filesharing over Ethernet doesn't work without additional software since the Mac doesn't understand SMB/CIFS and W98/2k (not Server) don't understand enough AFS. There was "Dave", a commercial implementation of SMB for older Macs. You can also find FTP server software like freeware NetPresenz for pushing files to an older Mac. - John -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.21.1/1302 - Release Date: 2/27/2008 4:34 PM From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Feb 29 08:46:17 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:46:17 -0500 Subject: backplane Z80 system /STD bus / was Re: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <47C7C450.49A21FD0@cs.ubc.ca> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu> <112B53E0-715C-4F0D-89E3-2255349B2CFD@neurotica.com> <47C7C450.49A21FD0@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <47C95F7C-87BD-4D58-BA42-3CE4F1E16FB6@neurotica.com> On Feb 29, 2008, at 3:37 AM, Brent Hilpert wrote: >> Even two-row 0.1" header pins would probably work well. That's >> what I'll most likely use for a backplane-based Z80 system I've been >> working on for a while. > > Would the STD bus not fulfill that requirement/definition? No, not in this case...I'm designing what one could call a "hybrid" of old and new bus techniques. It carries the standard Z80 address, data, and control buses, but it has such things as out-of- band board identification capability. The system will have a "motherboard" on which the CPU, memory, and console ports reside, and the bus slots will be for expansion cards. > (I recently received a SQUID detector data collection instrument, > must have > been a one-off production from some physics lab. It was built > around a little > 10-slot STD bus backplane and some MOSTEK STD cards (Z80 card,mem > cards,etc.) > ca 1981. Except for the RTC clock board with corroded traces from > leaking > NiCads it all looks to be re-usable.) Wow, that sounds like a fun machine! Why don't I ever find cool stuff like that anymore?! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From melamy at earthlink.net Fri Feb 29 09:07:57 2008 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 07:07:57 -0800 (GMT-08:00) Subject: Monroe Programmable Electronic Calculator Message-ID: <12131586.1204297677304.JavaMail.root@elwamui-lapwing.atl.sa.earthlink.net> my high school got one in 1971 and through the punch cards, you could get to binary &, |, and shift commands as well as program jumps. I have a complete one in a box with reader, manuals, unused punch cards, etc. It was an eBay nostalgia buy a few years ago. One of these days, I will be organized enough to have it on a table to play with it. It was always fun to see the flashing nixie tubes as it ran calculations. As to the tech inside, I would expect that it was a multi-LSI "big" chip dedicated calculator design, so any memory was probably implemented as registers in the chips. JUst a gues anyway. best regards, Steve Thatcher -----Original Message----- >From: Brian Knittel >Sent: Feb 28, 2008 10:58 PM >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Subject: Re: Monroe Programmable Electronic Calculator > >Ooooh! That's really cool. My high school had one of >these around 1975 or 1976, we used it before we talked them >into buying an Altair. The punch card unit was pretty spiffy, >I think it used 8 of the row bits? And IIRC there were >instructions you could punch that were not available from >the keyboard. The cards were the votamatic type: hanging >chad and all. It was a lot of fun to program, and pretty >interesting and complex for a calculator. > >I'd love to know what the memory technology was inside >-- acoustic delay, static RAM, or what? From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Feb 29 09:17:40 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:17:40 -0500 Subject: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] In-Reply-To: <8CA47E0A7969C16-ED8-3577@webmail-ne10.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA47E0A7969C16-ED8-3577@webmail-ne10.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <9481B845-4059-416C-AE48-7D5F237FC4ED@neurotica.com> On Feb 28, 2008, at 12:19 AM, tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > I stopped holding my breath for creation of a Q-Bus IDE > controller a long time ago. While I like to think that I > do a reasonable job troubleshooting some problems, > I'm definitely not a hardware/software engineer. It has been done. Chuck Dickman did one, I think. It's actually really easy...device drivers are the hard part. > It would have been nice, but it makes more sense > these days to go Q-Bus to SATA. I would imagine > that it would be alot less hassle, and certainly alot less > real estate on the board, with the smaller connectors, > and fewer traces. Ohhh noonono. The only similarity between ATA and SATA is three letters in the acronym. SATA is a very intelligent, very complex, and VERY VERY FAST connection. That's so far beyond "impractical" that I don't even want to think about it. > If you can do Q-bus to Compact Flash, then you can do > Q-bus to IDE, because CF *is* an IDE interface. > Those wonderful CF to IDE adapter boards generally don't > have any circuitry on-board, except to drive status LED's. Well, not exactly, but CF is *mostly* IDE (ATA). For nearly all applications, they are interchangeable. One difference that comes to mind is that CF is required to implement 8-bit transfer modes while ATA is not. This is immaterial in most situations, but I thought it might be a good idea to mention it. > I could see no discernable speed increase between > using real SCSI drives, and the IDE <> CF adapter, > although I wasn't trying to do any significant benchmarking. > (The CQD-200's are kind of poky controllers anyway, > so this didn't really surprise me.) They are?? I thought they were among the fastest Qbus SCSI adapters available. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Feb 29 09:19:01 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:19:01 -0500 Subject: On interfaces, paper tape readers/punches, and single (small) chip micros In-Reply-To: <249171.81589.qm@web90403.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <249171.81589.qm@web90403.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <289116A3-1B06-4635-9C5C-870FEF61A5D1@neurotica.com> On Feb 28, 2008, at 7:58 PM, Tom Watson wrote: > As said before, one can easily get some of the small (8 pin dip) > micros to do > magic things, but sometimes (as mentioned) it is a bit more trouble > than it is > worth. Many of us (me!) have stuff in their junk > boxes^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hclassic part archive that will do the task > quite > easily. In my case, I obtained a nice Facit 4070 paper tape punch > and made up > a simple interface adapter (it fit inside one of those 2x DB-25 > scramble boxes) > to make it function using a PeeCee parallel port. Now if I desire > to punch a > paper tape, all I do is a simple copy to the printer port > and ...buzzzz... out > comes the tape. Thankfully the Facit 4070 had some power available > on its > DB-25, but I needed to play around with all the levels (it used 6 > volt levels). > In the end, all it took was a single 74LS00 to do the trick on > changing the > strobes to conform. > > I suppose I could have used an 8 pin ATMEL chip, but why bother. > Sometimes the > "classic" solution is MUCH easier. Well yeah...anyone who would replace a single 74LS00 with a microcontroller would certainly earn a "moron" sticker on the forehead. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Feb 29 09:24:44 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:24:44 -0500 Subject: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] In-Reply-To: <0JWZ003VA3HXKRR3@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0JWZ003VA3HXKRR3@vms040.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <5DBDB283-2EEB-4ADA-9834-1EAF7C69937D@neurotica.com> On Feb 28, 2008, at 6:47 PM, Allison wrote: > MSCP is a complex protocal whols primary job is to create a logical > abstraction hardware from the software and I don't think an atmel uP > is enough and definatly enough ram plus enough is not known to create > it(MSCP) from scratch. Actually I'm pretty sure one of my Emulex ESDI controllers (QD21 I think) that does MSCP uses an 8031 microcontroller. Many of the Atmel chips have quite a bit more resources than that. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From dr.emiel at xs4all.nl Fri Feb 29 09:51:39 2008 From: dr.emiel at xs4all.nl (Rik) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:51:39 +0100 Subject: Monroe Programmable Electronic Calculator References: <12131586.1204297677304.JavaMail.root@elwamui-lapwing.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <007f01c87aea$fe382f10$0501a8c0@xp1800> Monroe made several type of programmable calculators most of them were rebadged Compucorp's. Based on the Compucorp HTL-chipset (a very sophistycated bit-slice design), memory is mostly static ram i2102. Several types are displayed the oldcalculator website from Rick Bensene. -Rik ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Thatcher" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 4:07 PM Subject: Re: Monroe Programmable Electronic Calculator > my high school got one in 1971 and through the punch cards, you could get > to binary &, |, and shift commands as well as program jumps. I have a > complete one in a box with reader, manuals, unused punch cards, etc. It > was an eBay nostalgia buy a few years ago. One of these days, I will be > organized enough to have it on a table to play with it. It was always fun > to see the flashing nixie tubes as it ran calculations. > > As to the tech inside, I would expect that it was a multi-LSI "big" chip > dedicated calculator design, so any memory was probably implemented as > registers in the chips. JUst a gues anyway. > > best regards, Steve Thatcher > > -----Original Message----- >>From: Brian Knittel >>Sent: Feb 28, 2008 10:58 PM >>To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >>Subject: Re: Monroe Programmable Electronic Calculator >> >>Ooooh! That's really cool. My high school had one of >>these around 1975 or 1976, we used it before we talked them >>into buying an Altair. The punch card unit was pretty spiffy, >>I think it used 8 of the row bits? And IIRC there were >>instructions you could punch that were not available from >>the keyboard. The cards were the votamatic type: hanging >>chad and all. It was a lot of fun to program, and pretty >>interesting and complex for a calculator. >> >>I'd love to know what the memory technology was inside >>-- acoustic delay, static RAM, or what? > > > From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Fri Feb 29 10:03:48 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:03:48 +0000 Subject: PDP-8 "Introduction to Programming" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20080229160348.GA27422@usap.gov> On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 07:39:41AM +0000, Symmes, Dave wrote: > I tripped across this email link on a Google search. > > I was the author of the original PDP-8 * "Introduction to Programming", published in either late 1968 or early 1969. I hired onto Digital straight out of college as a tech writer joining a department of four writers for the whole company. Thanks for finding the list and thanks for speaking up. I still have my copy of "Introduction to Programming" I received nearly 30 years ago, which was invaluable in helping me understand what to do with the PDP-8 I had just picked up at the Dayton Hamvention. > Almost 40 years later I am still with HP. Congrats on that. I got my start as a programmer in 1981, and have worked a lot of places. I always seemed to find the places that didn't get bought out - they were just crushed under the wheels of history. Working for a University now, I'm reasonably certain that they will outlive me; a new experience. Your work is certainly remembered, especially among those of us who still twiddle bits in groups of 12. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 29-Feb-2008 at 15:50 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -63.6 F (-53.1 C) Windchill -98.0 F (-72.2 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 10.8 kts Grid 11 Barometer 684.2 mb (10470 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From rickb at bensene.com Fri Feb 29 10:25:29 2008 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:25:29 -0800 Subject: Monroe Programmable Electronic Calculator (1785) In-Reply-To: <007f01c87aea$fe382f10$0501a8c0@xp1800> References: <12131586.1204297677304.JavaMail.root@elwamui-lapwing.atl.sa.earthlink.net> <007f01c87aea$fe382f10$0501a8c0@xp1800> Message-ID: > Monroe made several type of programmable calculators most of them were > rebadged Compucorp's. > Based on the Compucorp HTL-chipset (a very sophistycated bit-slice design), > memory is mostly static ram i2102. ? Several types are displayed the oldcalculator website from Rick Bensene. The 1700-series Monroe/Compucorp calculators is one that I don't have a lot of information about, but I know that they did use a very sophisticated microprocessor-like (not bit-slice) architecture, based on the later ACL chipset, which was an improvement over the earlier HTL chipset. The machines used IC-ROM-based microcode, and dynamic RAM (not static like the 2102) for main memory. The microcode determined the various functions available in the machine. Programmable and non-programmable models were available. Functionality depended on the ROM board which contained the microcode, the keyboard, and whether or not the machine contained expanded RAM. The Compucorp-designed machines of this timeframe were very advanced, and had it not been for Hewlett Packard coming out with even more advanced (albeit larger) calculators like the 9810, 9820-series, and the 9830, then later the handheld units like the HP-35, 45, and 65, Compucorp had, for a time, a good share of the high-end calculator marketplace along with HP's earlier machines (9100A, 9100B), and Wang's calculators. For the story of Compucorp and its machines, see my website essay at http://oldcalculatormuseum.com/d-compucorp.html Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com From Arno_1983 at gmx.de Fri Feb 29 10:31:21 2008 From: Arno_1983 at gmx.de (Arno Kletzander) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:31:21 +0100 Subject: PC-Mac SCSI data exchange question In-Reply-To: <200802291526.m1TFQUwT008984@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802291526.m1TFQUwT008984@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20080229163121.207870@gmx.net> Ray Arachelian wrote: > There are many ways to go, some twisty, some straightforward: Whow, that's a lot of ways indeed! Thanks for the comprehensive writeup. > 1 There was a commercial Samba client named "Dave" for Mac OS. If you > can find that, it will do the trick. Indeed, w2k server will share out > AFS, but since you don't have that, you'll need another path. I have heard of something similar called "Mocha SMB" which at least would have been shareware, but have hitherto been unable to find it anywhere. This would perhaps be my best bet. > 2. If you're familiar with Unix (...) Not yet, and probably not anytime soon. > (3.) If this is unavailable to you, you could also go with a commercial > product such as: http://www.dataviz.com/products/maclinkplus/ -- there > are physical dangers here if you're not careful with the drive (static, > dropping drive on the floor, miswiring it, damage from a broken external > case, etc.) as well as soft dangers here (you might accidentally damage > the OS 8 hard drive by writing to it, so be sure you know which drive is > which and mount everything read only until you're 100% sure, etc.) The data is still backed up somewhere else and the OS 8 drive was a fresh install so there's not much to worry about (and yes, I have installed and moved SCSI hard drives in several sorts of machines and enclosures...) but I don't yet understand why I would need a commercial product since OS 8 rather clearly states that it is able to use DOS formatted media - but doesn't go out of its way to point out how (the help "wizard" gets hung in a loop where it repeatedly asks me to select the volume I want to format although it already is). > 4. Other choices, get a machine that runs OS X, perhaps a good old G4 > with large hard drives, which will allow you to share both AFS and CIFS. > > 5. Find an old copy of Netware 4.x and build yourself a Netware file > server, these too work as a nice file server. (sigh, brings back old > memories of my misspent youth :-) Two nice ideas for which I might actually even have the hardware (dunno if an iMac is going to take OS X and my HP NetServer LH6000 would be a bitch to set up because it's so huuuge), but both depending on additional commercial software. > 6. Install NetATalk on a Linux machine and use it as a server (I've not > played with this myself, so I've no idea what it does to resource forks) Linux, see above. > 7. Turn on an ftp daemon on one of the machines - you could install > Cygwin on the w2k machine and run one of the ftpd's on there, or you can > find a windows ftp server (i.e. http://www.warftp.org/ ) that will work > on w2k workstation - if I remember right, there's a half crippled > version of IIS on there which acts as a personal web server - perhaps > like it's bigger brother it may have an ftpd. Or if that's not > available, use a third machine that does have an ftpd (Linux, FreeBSD, > OpenVMS, etc.) as a go-between. There are ftp clients for the Mac, and > it wouldn't surprise me if you could find an ftpd for OS 8 either ( > http://www.pure-mac.com/ftp.html ) The OS 8 install includes Netscape 3.something which just might work as an FTP client, and WarFTP is free, so this is probably what I'm going to try next. > 8. You could use an scp/ssh client such as NiftyTelnet > http://www.lysator.liu.se/~jonasw/freeware/niftyssh/ - which might work > on OS 8 (I think it may want OS 9 though) to copy the data over scp to a > server that has an sshd (there is one for windows - > http://sshwindows.sourceforge.net/ ) Totally new stuff to me, too much to learn. > 9. For 3GB of data, the worst thing you could do is go over a serial > port with a terminal program such as ZTerm on one end and HyperTerminal > on the windows end. It's horrible because at most you'll be able to go > at 56Kbps and will take forever. I had already contemplated that but will only use it if all else fails. > 10. You could go with one of the sneakernet paths: some sort of > removable drive such as ZIP, Jazz, CD-R, etc. but you'll need to somehow > break up the data into pieces and use a common file system (ISO9660 and > its variants for the CD's, FAT16 for the windoze friendly ones, etc.) This is what I was already trying with that hard disk, but couldn't find a format which both machines could use. Resource Forks are of no concern since the stuff was all generated and used under Windows until now. -- Arno Kletzander Student Assistant // Studentische Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen www.iser.uni-erlangen.de Psst! Geheimtipp: Online Games kostenlos spielen bei den GMX Free Games! http://games.entertainment.web.de/de/entertainment/games/free From rickb at bensene.com Fri Feb 29 10:45:13 2008 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:45:13 -0800 Subject: An Interesting Control Panel In-Reply-To: <9e2403920802280923g28463a23m696bf7d6722d119b@mail.gmail.com> References: <9e2403920802280923g28463a23m696bf7d6722d119b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: >I was watching "How It's Made" on the Discovery Channel this morning, >and they were constructing speakers. As they went to magnetize the >ferrite ring, I noticed the operator working with an interesting >three-button control panel. >The button he pressed was a red "Fault" light/button. To their left >was a beautiful white "Ready" light/button, and one marked "Write >Protect". This strikes me as a very interesting magnetizing >apparatus. These are definitely swindicators (switches/indicators) from a DEC RL01 or RL02 drive. You can see the unit select number has been "obscured" in some way (white paint?) on the "READY" switch. Wonder if they are using just the switch assemblies, or perhaps using the big voicecoil positioner of the RL01/RL02 as part of the system that magnetizes the ferrite? Rick Bensene From josefcub at gmail.com Fri Feb 29 10:52:36 2008 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:52:36 -0600 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802280940paf131b4ub93c1698c0dcf4a6@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220802280952j2b2cac9aia86858fd31503586@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802281017j59626947iea91ad369ec21e00@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9e2403920802290852r704788f4wb0a016f27af14adc@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 2:53 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: > If you guys are serious, I'd be happy to design a panel based on the specs > you guys come up with. I can make it on my ShopBot quite easily. The > electronics of course will still be up to you. :) Well, my soldering skills aren't quite up to snuff (I learned how to solder while growing up in a radiator shop ;). As for communications protocol, using a microcontroller is a relatively inexpensive way to implement RS-232 communications with the panel. I do dabble in PIC programming, and I've got at couple of 40-pin PICs that would probably fit the bill with a minimum of other electronics (or use smaller PICs with more support electronics). Heck, a sufficiently simple microcomputer emulator could probably be implemented on said PIC, at some point. (Those are ideas I've been rolling around in my head for quite some time.) So we have someone willing to machine panels, and I'm willing to do a bit of work with interfacing, if PICs are involved. All we need is a good schematic, and a communications protocol to graft into an emulator (and someone to do said grafting). I can't help but wonder what kind of committee animal this could become. ;-) 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 jfoust at threedee.com Fri Feb 29 10:52:01 2008 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:52:01 -0600 Subject: PC-Mac SCSI data exchange question In-Reply-To: <20080229163121.207870@gmx.net> References: <200802291526.m1TFQUwT008984@dewey.classiccmp.org> <20080229163121.207870@gmx.net> Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20080229105125.07c72670@mail.threedee.com> At 10:31 AM 2/29/2008, Arno Kletzander wrote: >I have heard of something similar called "Mocha SMB" which at least would have been shareware, but have hitherto been unable to find it anywhere. I hadn't heard of that before. It looks like it was only released for a few months... http://www.macwindows.com/news0799.html - John -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.21.1/1302 - Release Date: 2/27/2008 4:34 PM From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Feb 29 10:58:03 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:58:03 -0700 Subject: On interfaces, paper tape readers/punches, and single (small) chip micros In-Reply-To: <289116A3-1B06-4635-9C5C-870FEF61A5D1@neurotica.com> References: <249171.81589.qm@web90403.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <289116A3-1B06-4635-9C5C-870FEF61A5D1@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <47C8399B.6050704@jetnet.ab.ca> Dave McGuire wrote: > Well yeah...anyone who would replace a single 74LS00 with a > microcontroller would certainly earn a "moron" sticker on the forehead. Thinks two 74LS10's instead for his sticker of the day . I allways wondered what you do with a 8 pin microcontroler. :) > -Dave > From legalize at xmission.com Fri Feb 29 11:21:58 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:21:58 -0700 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:11:01 -0600. <47C81275.8060406@gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <47C81275.8060406 at gmail.com>, Jules Richardson writes: > That seems more achievable - although I think the OP wanted to control that > actual PC, not a vintage emulator running on it. You could do this by making the front panel active when you're debugging a program and integrating the front panel with a debugger. In that scenario, it actually makes a lot of sense. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From v.slyngstad at verizon.net Fri Feb 29 11:28:53 2008 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:28:53 -0800 Subject: 8/S Replica References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu><085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><087601c879bd$dddfca30$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <0JWY00124U6W3410@msgmmp-1.gci.net> Message-ID: <0a2b01c87af8$8e7353e0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> From: "Grant Stockly": > If you use a 12x14 panel with no silk screen or solder mask and > choose PCBExpress you can get down to $.12 per square inch. Yeah, but you can't ask for gold fingers at that price. Vince From v.slyngstad at verizon.net Fri Feb 29 11:31:20 2008 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:31:20 -0800 Subject: 8/S Replica References: , <07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp>,<47C70CDB.4070501@bluewin.ch> <47C6AC59.26902.10521B7@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <0a2c01c87af8$e65494c0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> From: "Chuck Guzis": > It seems to me that using MRAM or FRAM would keep the spirit of the > idea alive, being magnetic memory and all. 'course, it doesn't need > to be refreshed after a read... Agreed, though iti is intrinsic in all the transistor and TTL PDP-8 designs to always write after read. So you'd have to either let the writes through, or suppress them within the replacement memory subsystem itself. Vince From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Feb 29 11:39:06 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:39:06 -0700 Subject: 8/S Replica In-Reply-To: <0a2b01c87af8$8e7353e0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> References: <0JWU004S5C5IP8A0@msgmmp-1.gci.net><068b01c8789e$bb81f000$6600a8c0@vrsxp><200802262230.07918.rtellason@verizon.net><075301c878f9$380153a0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><07d101c8795b$b07ee470$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <47C5D721.9030604@msm.umr.edu><085601c879aa$c1acaee0$6600a8c0@vrsxp><087601c879bd$dddfca30$6600a8c0@vrsxp> <0JWY00124U6W3410@msgmmp-1.gci.net> <0a2b01c87af8$8e7353e0$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: <47C8433A.1050102@jetnet.ab.ca> Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > From: "Grant Stockly": >> If you use a 12x14 panel with no silk screen or solder mask and choose >> PCBExpress you can get down to $.12 per square inch. > > Yeah, but you can't ask for gold fingers at that price. But they might throw in the movie GOLD FINGER if you order several grand of Flip/Chip PCB's. But I think I would like the *Core Memory* card working first. > Vince > From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Feb 29 12:14:16 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 11:14:16 -0700 Subject: the Antikythera mechanism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47C84B78.80902@jetnet.ab.ca> Greg N Shari (GMail) wrote: > New information about the workings of the Antikythera mechanism. > > I do believe it counts as vintage enough. LOL > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/nov/30/uknews I still think it counts as a clock. Now if we had new news on "Leonardo da Vinci?s adding machine" I would like hear it. > Greg > From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Fri Feb 29 12:19:28 2008 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:19:28 +0100 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <9e2403920802290852r704788f4wb0a016f27af14adc@mail.gmail.com> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802280940paf131b4ub93c1698c0dcf4a6@mail.gmail.com> <7d3530220802280952j2b2cac9aia86858fd31503586@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802281017j59626947iea91ad369ec21e00@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802290852r704788f4wb0a016f27af14adc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi, have a look at my "PDP-11" front panel / console. Although I used a ?P (6809), the simple "protocol" is sufficient to drive the LEDs, read the switches and catch the toggles (momentary switches). Check out www.pdp-11.nl and browse to the "my projects" pages ... Patches in SIMH makes it a "98% full" operational PDP-11 console. At least, I can use the front panel to load a bootstrap and start RT-11 without touching the keyboard! I/O is easily expanded by using octal latches, otherwise you will run out of pins to LEDs/switches really fast. Count the required I/O for a "nice" front panel! I have bought from eBay (long ago) two front panels of the HP (IIRC 2113 and 2117). Never got the time to repeat the "trick" and run an HP in SIMH with a real front panel. - Henk From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Fri Feb 29 12:29:49 2008 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:29:49 -0600 Subject: the Antikythera mechanism In-Reply-To: <47C84B78.80902@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <47C84B78.80902@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 11:14:16 -0700 > From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca > To: > Subject: Re: the Antikythera mechanism > > Greg N Shari (GMail) wrote: > > New information about the workings of the Antikythera mechanism. > > > > I do believe it counts as vintage enough. LOL > > > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/nov/30/uknews > > I still think it counts as a clock. Now if we had new news on > "Leonardo da Vinci?s adding machine" I would like hear it. Come now. The differential gear train that subtracts the revolutions of the sun, and correctly computes the synodic month of 29 1/2 AND exactly duplicates the 19 year pattern of equinox and moon phases counts as computing. Read up on Derek De Solla Price. Randy > > > > > Greg > > > _________________________________________________________________ Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008 From v.slyngstad at verizon.net Fri Feb 29 12:31:54 2008 From: v.slyngstad at verizon.net (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:31:54 -0800 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com><9e2403920802280940paf131b4ub93c1698c0dcf4a6@mail.gmail.com><7d3530220802280952j2b2cac9aia86858fd31503586@mail.gmail.com><9e2403920802281017j59626947iea91ad369ec21e00@mail.gmail.com> <25211.205.248.102.82.1204226264.squirrel@webmail6.pair.com> Message-ID: <0a3701c87b01$5c987c20$6600a8c0@vrsxp> From: "Jeff Davis" > On Thu, February 28, 2008 10:17 am, Josef Chessor wrote: >> I'd dreamed of having a "Generic Front Panel", 16-bit address/8-bit >> data, hooked up via RS-232 for simulator uses. I admit that your idea >> controlling a PC in this way would be really, really cool. Of limited >> utility outside of learning, though. > > /me too! I was talking a few days ago about how I couldn't afford an > Altair > or IMSAI, so I'd like to make a box with a pc inside running an emulator, > and a front panel with altair-like switches connected to serial or > parallel > port via an atmel avr microcontroller, which a cp/m emulator reads as the > front > panel. OK, not to toot my own horn or anything, but Henk and I already did one of these. (The only thing we haven't done is to physically put the front panel and the PC in the same box.) You can go to http://www.pdp-11.nl/ and click "my projects" in the left panel to get an overview of some of the uses of the thing. (You have to click the little yellow folder to be allowed to drill down into the individual projects.) Henk, is there a better URL that specifically describes the Blinkenlight project? (I did some grunt work, but the idea was his.) Vince From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Feb 29 13:07:09 2008 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 11:07:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: SGI A/V module question In-Reply-To: <20080229110417.120970@gmx.net> from "Arno Kletzander" at Feb 29, 2008 12:04:17 PM Message-ID: <200802291907.m1TJ79Ni024679@onyx.spiritone.com> > broken in one of them and I'll probably remove it altogether since I don't > have a cam anyway but... the S-Video and Composite I/O jacks in the side > panel are covered with a square sheet of textured self-adhesive plastic. > The PCB silkscreening states they are Moosehead A/V modules and it looks > like no major components are missing from the boards so I hope the video > I/O will work once I pull the stickers off? It sounds like you have the audio only A/V modules. This is what I have in both of my SGI O2's. :^( The SGI O2 is hands down one of the most impressive machines I own. Even the one with the crappy R5kPC 180Mhz CPU and something like 160MB RAM totally rocks. I have a second O2 with a R12k 270Mhz CPU that is really awesome. It is a shame SGI killed the MIPS systems and IRIX. I'd love to own something like the SGI Tezro workstation, but can't see spending any more on the platform. I don't even remember the last time I powered one of the systems up. :^( Actually just thinking about this makes me want to find something to use my R12k based O2 for. Zane From cclist at sydex.com Fri Feb 29 13:26:34 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 11:26:34 -0800 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com>, <9e2403920802290852r704788f4wb0a016f27af14adc@mail.gmail.com>, Message-ID: <47C7EBEA.7318.5E56ED0@cclist.sydex.com> I'm curious why anyone would want a front panel with lights and switches. Except for some early IBM mainframe stuff, the number of systems that I've worked with that had no front panel vastly outnumber the ones that did. Indeed, the front panel on the MITS 8800 seemed to be a waste of good components and an anachronism at that. Better to take the costs of the panel and roll them into a good diagnostic ROM with loader. The S-100 followup machine that I used, an Integrand box, had only a reset button on the front panel. I never missed the switches. After the MITS box, I never owned another system with a blinkenlights-and- switches front panel. Just trying to understand. Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Feb 29 13:32:22 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:32:22 -0500 Subject: SGI A/V module question In-Reply-To: <200802291907.m1TJ79Ni024679@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200802291907.m1TJ79Ni024679@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <47C85DC6.6020404@gmail.com> Zane H. Healy wrote: > awesome. It is a shame SGI killed the MIPS systems and IRIX. I'd love to > own something like the SGI Tezro workstation, but can't see spending any > more on the platform. I don't even remember the last time I powered one of > the systems up. :^( I have a Tezro, which I bought because people in industry are thinking exactly the same as you, so they're going cheap. I can vouch for the fact that they are startlingly fast. Peace... Sridhar From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Feb 29 13:32:36 2008 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:32:36 -0600 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com>, <9e2403920802290852r704788f4wb0a016f27af14adc@mail.gmail.com>, <47C7EBEA.7318.5E56ED0@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <003f01c87b09$d9c5a530$6400a8c0@BILLING> It was written.... > I'm curious why anyone would want a front panel with lights and > switches. *blink* From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Fri Feb 29 13:49:31 2008 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:49:31 +0100 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <0a3701c87b01$5c987c20$6600a8c0@vrsxp> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com><9e2403920802280940paf131b4ub93c1698c0dcf4a6@mail.gmail.com><7d3530220802280952j2b2cac9aia86858fd31503586@mail.gmail.com><9e2403920802281017j59626947iea91ad369ec21e00@mail.gmail.com> <25211.205.248.102.82.1204226264.squirrel@webmail6.pair.com> <0a3701c87b01$5c987c20$6600a8c0@vrsxp> Message-ID: You can see the full link in the bottom part of IE (sorry...) when the mouse is over the link. Just type the URL, but to get the direct URL you still have to open the folder. I use JavaScript for that navigation section ... The URL is http://www.pdp-11.nl/homebrew/startframe.html and then the link (top section) "hardware prototype" takes you to the Blinkenboard set. There you can see the Core and I/O board and download the PDF documentation of everything. The other links are the "history" of the project and a pdp8/e "spin off". In all activities I got *much* help from Vince! BTW, I have a (not publicly known) movie of SIMH and the "Blinklight" console wired to a real PDP-11/70 console booting RT-11 and doing a ".DIR" from the "RL02 pack" .dsk container file. No, I did not dismantle my 11/70 for the console! I got that one from eBay :-) Warning! It is 7.4 Mb .MOV file ... but looks nice. www.pdp-11.nl/auction/pdp1170sim.mov (You can download VLC freely to play .MOV files) - Henk > OK, not to toot my own horn or anything, but Henk and I already did one of > these. (The only thing we haven't done is to physically put the front panel > and the PC in the same box.) > > You can go to http://www.pdp-11.nl/ and click "my projects" in the left > panel to get an overview of some of the uses of the thing. (You have > to click the little yellow folder to be allowed to drill down into the > individual projects.) > > Henk, is there a better URL that specifically describes the Blinkenlight > project? > > (I did some grunt work, but the idea was his.) > > Vince From legalize at xmission.com Fri Feb 29 14:39:43 2008 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:39:43 -0700 Subject: SGI A/V module question In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:32:22 -0500. <47C85DC6.6020404@gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <47C85DC6.6020404 at gmail.com>, Sridhar Ayengar writes: > I have a Tezro, which I bought because people in industry are thinking > exactly the same as you, so they're going cheap. I can vouch for the > fact that they are startlingly fast. Really? Tezros always fetch a nice price on ebay. I guess it all depends on what you call "cheap"? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download Legalize Adulthood! From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Feb 29 14:51:04 2008 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:51:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: SGI A/V module question In-Reply-To: <47C85DC6.6020404@gmail.com> from "Sridhar Ayengar" at Feb 29, 2008 02:32:22 PM Message-ID: <200802292051.m1TKp4gq026781@onyx.spiritone.com> > > Zane H. Healy wrote: > > awesome. It is a shame SGI killed the MIPS systems and IRIX. I'd love to > > own something like the SGI Tezro workstation, but can't see spending any > > more on the platform. I don't even remember the last time I powered one of > > the systems up. :^( > > I have a Tezro, which I bought because people in industry are thinking > exactly the same as you, so they're going cheap. I can vouch for the > fact that they are startlingly fast. > > Peace... Sridhar > These days if I don't have a good use for it, I don't buy it. Basically the only non-PC/Mac hardware I've purchased in the last 4-5 years has been 2 Compaq XP1000's (for running OpenVMS), and a 3rd party Commodore 64 repairable powersupply. There are a couple Commodore 64 and Apple ][ items that given the chance I'd get, same with select OpenVMS and PDP-11 stuff. Other than that, I'm pretty much out of the collecting game. I don't have the time to play with the stuff I have, so why get more. Zane From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Feb 29 14:53:24 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:53:24 -0500 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <47C7EBEA.7318.5E56ED0@cclist.sydex.com> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com>, <9e2403920802290852r704788f4wb0a016f27af14adc@mail.gmail.com>, <47C7EBEA.7318.5E56ED0@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C870C4.5080405@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I'm curious why anyone would want a front panel with lights and > switches. Except for some early IBM mainframe stuff, the number of > systems that I've worked with that had no front panel vastly > outnumber the ones that did. Same here. In fact, I'm young enough that, even though I grew up around a machine with lights and switches, I never used one on a daily basis. However, it's fun and cool. Maybe even exciting, in a perverse way. And it can be damn impressive to write a bootloader into RAM from memory. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Feb 29 15:00:41 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:00:41 -0500 Subject: SGI A/V module question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47C87279.9010303@gmail.com> Richard wrote: >> I have a Tezro, which I bought because people in industry are thinking >> exactly the same as you, so they're going cheap. I can vouch for the >> fact that they are startlingly fast. > > Really? Tezros always fetch a nice price on ebay. I guess it all > depends on what you call "cheap"? A few hundred and change. Cheap enough that I can splurge without concerning myself about where my next meal will come from. I think I paid something like $550. Doesn't have a full load of RAM or anything, but it moves along pretty nicely. My main desktop workstation cost me more like $6500, and I had to save for a good long while for that. Actually, I'm going to need to start saving again. The POWER6 is looking mighty good, and I want to be ready when they come down a bit in price. Peace... Sridhar From mtapley at swri.edu Fri Feb 29 15:25:40 2008 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:25:40 -0600 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: <200802291526.m1TFQUwD008984@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200802291526.m1TFQUwD008984@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: At 9:26 -0600 2/29/08, Dave wrote: >Yes, I'm wondering if it's something like that, however how likely is it >that both devices would experience the same fairly-uncommon failure mode >at the same time? I'm chiming in very late and probably not very helpfully, but is there any way a decoupling cap in the vicinity of the FPU/CPU could either load them or generate heat itself by beginning to short to ground? My only VAX (4000VLC) had a fault like that in the reset circuit which would sometimes hold it in reset, as you may remember from a couple of years ago. -- - Mark, 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward. From grant at stockly.com Fri Feb 29 15:37:28 2008 From: grant at stockly.com (Grant Stockly) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:37:28 -0900 Subject: Source for TTL chips In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0JX0008ZDS23O110@msgmmp-1.gci.net> DigiKey or Unicorn Electronics. Both want $25 on the order or a handling fee applies. Grant At 09:03 AM 2/29/2008, you wrote: >It used to be you could go to Radio Shack and pick up a couple of 74ls02 >chips as needed. Now it seems there isn?t a source for someone who wants to >purchase a handful of 74xx ttl chips. I have a ?brand new? s100 SIO card >that is just missing the 14 logic chips to go in the sockets, but I am not >finding a convenient source for them. > >Anyone know where I can go to find them in very small quantities? > >Jeff Erwin From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Fri Feb 29 15:50:40 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:50:40 +0000 Subject: Source for TTL chips In-Reply-To: <0JX0008ZDS23O110@msgmmp-1.gci.net> References: <0JX0008ZDS23O110@msgmmp-1.gci.net> Message-ID: <20080229215040.GC973@usap.gov> On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 12:37:28PM -0900, Grant Stockly wrote: > At 09:03 AM 2/29/2008, Jeff Irwin wrote: > >It used to be you could go to Radio Shack and pick up a couple of > >74ls02 chips as needed. Now it seems there isn?t a source for > >someone who wants to purchase a handful of 74xx ttl chips. I have > >a 'brand new' s100 SIO card that is just missing the 14 logic > >chips to go in the sockets, but I am not finding a convenient > >source for them. > > > >Anyone know where I can go to find them in very small quantities? > > DigiKey or Unicorn Electronics. > > Both want $25 on the order or a handling fee applies. If the chips are rather ordinary, BG Micro might carry them. I don't recall a handling fee, but their entry-level shipping is a few bucks, minumum (I think they use a flat-rate Priority Mail box for small orders). I tend to place two or three orders per year from them, so I've never felt like the shipping was a huge chunk of the order, but 14 TTL chips for well under $1 each, with $8 flat-rate shipping makes each chip a bit pricey. You might consider batching projects and getting the parts for two or three at once, if the cost-per-part seems high. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 29-Feb-2008 at 21:40 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -64.3 F (-53.5 C) Windchill -94.4 F (-70.2 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 8.0 kts Grid 115 Barometer 685.6 mb (10418 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From pat at computer-refuge.org Fri Feb 29 15:58:02 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:58:02 -0500 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <47C7EBEA.7318.5E56ED0@cclist.sydex.com> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com> <47C7EBEA.7318.5E56ED0@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200802291658.02834.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Friday 29 February 2008, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I'm curious why anyone would want a front panel with lights and > switches. Because they're *pretty*. Isn't that the whole point we're here? *ducks and runs* Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Fri Feb 29 16:00:30 2008 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:00:30 -0600 Subject: Source for TTL chips In-Reply-To: <0JX0008ZDS23O110@msgmmp-1.gci.net> References: <0JX0008ZDS23O110@msgmmp-1.gci.net> Message-ID: > Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:37:28 -0900> From: grant at stockly.com> To: cctech at classiccmp.org> CC: > Subject: Re: Source for TTL chips> > DigiKey or Unicorn Electronics.> > Both want $25 on the order or a handling fee applies.> > Grant> > At 09:03 AM 2/29/2008, you wrote:> > > >It used to be you could go to Radio Shack and pick up a couple of 74ls02> >chips as needed. Now it seems there isn?t a source for someone who wants to> >purchase a handful of 74xx ttl chips. I have a ?brand new? s100 SIO card> >that is just missing the 14 logic chips to go in the sockets, but I am not> >finding a convenient source for them.> >> >Anyone know where I can go to find them in very small quantities?> >> >Jeff Erwin> > Here's a few more:http://www.elexp.com/index.htmhttp://www.allelectronics.comhttp://www.jameco.comhttp://www.mouser.comhttp://www.halted.comhttp://www.mpja.comRandy _________________________________________________________________ Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008 From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Feb 29 16:05:27 2008 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:05:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: the Antikythera mechanism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20080229140407.H89160@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 28 Feb 2008, Greg N Shari (GMail) wrote: > New information about the workings of the Antikythera mechanism. > I do believe it counts as vintage enough. LOL > http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/nov/30/uknews "NEW"?? "This article appeared in the Guardian on Thursday November 30 2006 on p12 of the National news section. It was last updated at 15:26 on October 11 2007." It's still interesting. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Feb 29 16:17:09 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:17:09 -0800 Subject: Source for TTL chips In-Reply-To: <20080229215040.GC973@usap.gov> References: , <0JX0008ZDS23O110@msgmmp-1.gci.net>, <20080229215040.GC973@usap.gov> Message-ID: <47C813E5.5922.6819965@cclist.sydex.com> I've had pretty good luck with Futurlec (located in Thailand): http://www.futurlec.com/IC74Series.shtml They carry standard 74xx chips as well as the usual stuff, including the 74F line. Cheers, Chuck From tpeters at mixcom.com Fri Feb 29 16:13:32 2008 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:13:32 -0600 Subject: On interfaces, paper tape readers/punches, and single (small) chip micros In-Reply-To: <289116A3-1B06-4635-9C5C-870FEF61A5D1@neurotica.com> References: <249171.81589.qm@web90403.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <249171.81589.qm@web90403.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20080229161224.103a9ae8@localhost> At 10:19 AM 2/29/2008 -0500, you wrote: >On Feb 28, 2008, at 7:58 PM, Tom Watson wrote: >>As said before, one can easily get some of the small (8 pin dip) >>micros to do >>magic things, but sometimes (as mentioned) it is a bit more trouble >>than it is >>worth. Many of us (me!) have stuff in their junk >>boxes^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hclassic part archive that will do the task >>quite >> In the end, all it took was a single 74LS00 to do the trick on >>changing the >>strobes to conform. >> >>I suppose I could have used an 8 pin ATMEL chip, but why bother. >>Sometimes the >>"classic" solution is MUCH easier. > > Well yeah...anyone who would replace a single 74LS00 with a >microcontroller would certainly earn a "moron" sticker on the forehead. Or an "Overachiever" sticker, he said euphemistically. ----- 377. [Philosophy] The is nothing noble about being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self. --Samuel Johnson --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531 From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Fri Feb 29 16:02:32 2008 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:02:32 -0500 Subject: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] In-Reply-To: <47C7496E.3070907@gmail.com> References: <8CA47E0A7969C16-ED8-3577@webmail-ne10.sysops.aol.com> <1204188073.32030.8.camel@elric> <47C681E6.8050900@gmail.com> <200802281443.JAA11662@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <47C7429F.8000907@dunnington.plus.com> <47C7496E.3070907@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C880F8.4040708@compsys.to> >Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >> Bitsavers has AA-L619A-TK_MSCP_BasicDiscFnsV1.2_Apr82.pdf, >> AA-L620A-TK_StorageSysDiags_1982.pdf and >> AA-L621A-TK_UnibusPortDescription_1982.pdf at >> http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/disc/uda50/ >> >> I'm not sure if these are the scans I did five years ago (the file >> dates are later) but they're the docs you'd need. > > > Excellent. Thank you. I'll see if I can give this a shot. > > Peace... Sridhar Jerome Fine replies: I am not sure if this suggestion is easier or even useful. >From what I gather of looking at the MSCP protocol from the DU(X).SYS MSCP device driver in RT-11, there may be an easier implementation that is just as useful. John Wilson set up an interface for an HD(X).SYS device driver under Ersatz-11 in order to provide variable sized devices until the MSCP emulation had been coded. While John's version of HD: needs a bit of modification to work well with mapped monitors, it is still only for RT-11. On the other hand, for the past 6 months, I have been adding additional features which include being able to handle full 22 bit Qbus / Unibus interface for mapped monitors. The real HD: advantage is the simplicity of the interface. While there are 8 I/O registers, setting them up when interrupts are not used takes less than 20 PDP-11 instructions including the 22 bit address. If you look at the hobby version of E11, John includes the code for HD(X).SYS for RT-11, although as I mentioned some changes are needed for mapped monitors when the user buffer is above 1/4 MByte. If anyone ever produces a Qbus / IDE (or any other PC current drive) controller, I will gladly enhance the HD(X).SYS device driver for RT-11 to use a DU(X).SYS translation type table. 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 cclist at sydex.com Fri Feb 29 16:26:14 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:26:14 -0800 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <47C870C4.5080405@gmail.com> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com>, <47C7EBEA.7318.5E56ED0@cclist.sydex.com>, <47C870C4.5080405@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47C81606.23522.689ED03@cclist.sydex.com> On 29 Feb 2008 at 15:53, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > And it can be damn impressive to write a bootloader into RAM from > memory. Not nearly as impressive as seeing someone keypunch a boot loader without a crib sheet... Pat Finnegan wrote: > Because they're *pretty*. Isn't that the whole point we're here? That would explain why nobody wants to collect IBM 1401s--ugly drab gray with blue trim and very few blinkenlights. If, on the other hand, it was painted in shocking pink with chartreuse trim and acres of lights, it'd be a real collector's item... I understand now. :) Cheers, Chuck From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Feb 29 16:33:50 2008 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:33:50 -0700 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <47C81606.23522.689ED03@cclist.sydex.com> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com>, <47C7EBEA.7318.5E56ED0@cclist.sydex.com>, <47C870C4.5080405@gmail.com> <47C81606.23522.689ED03@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C8884E.2080903@jetnet.ab.ca> Chuck Guzis wrote: > That would explain why nobody wants to collect IBM 1401s--ugly drab > gray with blue trim and very few blinkenlights. If, on the other > hand, it was painted in shocking pink with chartreuse trim and acres of lights, it'd be a real collector's item... Well I have never seen one in the flesh ... Good reason for me not to collect one, > I understand now. :) > > Cheers, > Chuck > > > . > From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Feb 29 16:46:21 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:46:21 -0500 Subject: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] In-Reply-To: <47C880F8.4040708@compsys.to> References: <8CA47E0A7969C16-ED8-3577@webmail-ne10.sysops.aol.com> <1204188073.32030.8.camel@elric> <47C681E6.8050900@gmail.com> <200802281443.JAA11662@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <47C7429F.8000907@dunnington.plus.com> <47C7496E.3070907@gmail.com> <47C880F8.4040708@compsys.to> Message-ID: <47C88B3D.9050001@gmail.com> Jerome H. Fine wrote: > I am not sure if this suggestion is easier or even useful. > >> From what I gather of looking at the MSCP protocol from > the DU(X).SYS MSCP device driver in RT-11, there may > be an easier implementation that is just as useful. > > John Wilson set up an interface for an HD(X).SYS device > driver under Ersatz-11 in order to provide variable > sized devices until the MSCP emulation had been coded. > > While John's version of HD: needs a bit of modification > to work well with mapped monitors, it is still only for > RT-11. On the other hand, for the past 6 months, I have > been adding additional features which include being able > to handle full 22 bit Qbus / Unibus interface for mapped > monitors. > > The real HD: advantage is the simplicity of the interface. > While there are 8 I/O registers, setting them up when > interrupts are not used takes less than 20 PDP-11 instructions > including the 22 bit address. If you look at the hobby > version of E11, John includes the code for HD(X).SYS for > RT-11, although as I mentioned some changes are needed for > mapped monitors when the user buffer is above 1/4 MByte. > > If anyone ever produces a Qbus / IDE (or any other PC > current drive) controller, I will gladly enhance the HD(X).SYS > device driver for RT-11 to use a DU(X).SYS translation > type table. Wouldn't the concern then be that it would only be supported in RT-11, and/or it would not be bootable? One of the primary motivations for me in this exercise would be CD-ROM booting. I'm seriously considering an off-the-shelf solution for the ATA/ATAPI side to save myself some effort. No sense reinventing the wheel. Peace... Sridhar From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Feb 29 16:59:12 2008 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:59:12 -0500 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <47C81606.23522.689ED03@cclist.sydex.com> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com>, <47C7EBEA.7318.5E56ED0@cclist.sydex.com>, <47C870C4.5080405@gmail.com> <47C81606.23522.689ED03@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <47C88E40.40208@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: >> And it can be damn impressive to write a bootloader into RAM from >> memory. > > Not nearly as impressive as seeing someone keypunch a boot loader > without a crib sheet... Now, that might be a matter of personal preference. They're both impressive in their own way. It's the same knowledge, really. Peace... Sridhar From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Feb 29 17:40:46 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:40:46 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Integral RAM upgrade In-Reply-To: <47C6B413.2414.12351AA@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Feb 28, 8 01:16:03 pm Message-ID: > > On 28 Feb 2008 at 19:51, Tony Duell wrote: > > > Anyway, the RAM board was clearly identical to the 1M board, just with > > only have the RAM chips fitted and the links set differently. Having got > > a lot of 41256 chips on old PC memory boards, I spent the afternoon > > upgrading it to 1M. > > Sounds very similar to what was often done to the first-round 5150s > to get the planar memory increased from 64K to 256K. Not really. In the case of the Integral, the 512K oartd has 16 RAM chips and 16 empty spaces. I had to add the extra RAMs, but not remove anything. I would have thought the 5150 upgrade involved removing the existing RAMs nad rpelacing them with larger-capacity chips, more like what I did to my HP9816. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Feb 29 17:45:55 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:45:55 +0000 (GMT) Subject: seven segment display history In-Reply-To: <47C726F6.1080406@gmail.com> from "Jules Richardson" at Feb 28, 8 03:26:14 pm Message-ID: > > > Does anyone know when seven segment displays first appeared on the scene? > Presumably the first ones were VF, and LED came later? There were some filament ones -- 7 long filaments in the obviosu pattern, in an evacuated envelope. Some looked like vavles (but were generally wire-ended), others were ina flatter package, looking a bit like an IC. And of course there were gass discharge 7-segment displays. The obvious one is the Panaplex, but I think ones in valve-shaped envelops also existed And don't forget that the HP9100 calculator (1967-ish) drew the vectors for 7 segment digits on a CRT screen. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Feb 29 18:01:00 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 00:01:00 +0000 (GMT) Subject: On interfaces, paper tape readers/punches, In-Reply-To: <249171.81589.qm@web90403.mail.mud.yahoo.com> from "Tom Watson" at Feb 28, 8 04:58:09 pm Message-ID: > > As said before, one can easily get some of the small (8 pin dip) micros to do > magic things, but sometimes (as mentioned) it is a bit more trouble than it is > worth. Many of us (me!) have stuff in their junk > boxes^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hclassic part archive that will do the task quite > easily. In my case, I obtained a nice Facit 4070 paper tape punch and made up > a simple interface adapter (it fit inside one of those 2x DB-25 scramble boxes) > to make it function using a PeeCee parallel port. Now if I desire to punch a > paper tape, all I do is a simple copy to the printer port and ...buzzzz... out > comes the tape. Thankfully the Facit 4070 had some power available on its Somewhat surpisingly, when I wanted to do this, I just wrote a bit of software to drive the PC port lines appropriately. It wasn't that difficult :-) > DB-25, but I needed to play around with all the levels (it used 6 volt levels). > In the end, all it took was a single 74LS00 to do the trick on changing the > strobes to conform. I seem to rememebr that when I did it that way, I used a '74 D-type and a quad gate package (I forget which). A word of warning to anyone working on a 4070. The interface may not be what you expect!. The 4070 has 2 edge connectors and PCBs in the bototm of the unit. The top board, in evey case that I've seen, is the standard Facit control logic/PSU, and has the interface you've been usign The lower edge connector intercepts the interface signals between this board and the DB25 on the back of the unit. Im _many_ cases there's a simple jumper board in that slot, so you get the 'Facit parallel' interface on the D25. But they certainly made a serial interface (RS232 and current loop) to go there -- I have one. An IEEE-488 interface has been rumoured, but I've not seen that. And HP badged this punch but put their own interface i nthat slot, it inverts some of the signals, etc. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Feb 29 18:34:58 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 00:34:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: On interfaces, paper tape readers/punches, In-Reply-To: <289116A3-1B06-4635-9C5C-870FEF61A5D1@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Feb 29, 8 10:19:01 am Message-ID: > Well yeah...anyone who would replace a single 74LS00 with a > microcontroller would certainly earn a "moron" sticker on the forehead. Hang on a sec... Back in the 'decoding FSK cassette data' theard, somebody suggested 'a couple of tone dectors and a microcontroller' I asusme the 'tone detectors' are soemthing like an NE567. In whci case the logic to combine them into a itstream is only a few logic gates. And I still feel that the bast way to impleemtn that logic is not a microcontroller. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Feb 29 18:06:39 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 00:06:39 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Integral RAM upgrade In-Reply-To: from "Wayne Smith" at Feb 28, 8 11:02:52 pm Message-ID: > Don't know where the 12K is going to - maybe address space reserved for Hmmm. I can fully understand why there's only 264K free in the base machine (which has 512K RAM) -- memory is taken up by buffers, stack, the 'status' program, and so on. But to loose 12K of every 512K for I/O buffers seems a little odd. Or for extra page desriptors, or.... I could understnad if some memory was used ot record the fact that it had a memory expansion oard fitted, but 12K??? and why is it pro-rata for the amount of memory added? > I/O - but I have to say I was extremely impressed by the upgrade - > almost exciting reading! I assume thats saracsm. It's a very simple upgrade -- it was obvious what the extra chipos should be, it was also obvious what most of the links did. And I do have a 'factory' 1M board in my other Integral (although I could have worked it out without that). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Feb 29 18:46:23 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 00:46:23 +0000 (GMT) Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? In-Reply-To: from "Mark Tapley" at Feb 29, 8 03:25:40 pm Message-ID: > > At 9:26 -0600 2/29/08, Dave wrote: > >Yes, I'm wondering if it's something like that, however how likely is it > >that both devices would experience the same fairly-uncommon failure mode > >at the same time? > > I'm chiming in very late and probably not very helpfully, but is > there any way a decoupling cap in the vicinity of the FPU/CPU could > either load them or generate heat itself by beginning to short to > ground? My only VAX (4000VLC) had a fault like that in the reset Interesting idea.... I've worked with chips that had connectiosn for decoupling capacitors for particualr secitons in the chip (the most ovious being the Transputer which needs a 1uF capacitor between 2 of its pins to decouple the clock multiplier PLL). In general, these components are not conencted to a power line or ground other than through the chip. I have no idea if the VAX 2000 chips are like this, but if they are, then a leak in one of those cpacitors would certainly cause thigns to run hot. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Feb 29 18:24:41 2008 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 00:24:41 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Integral RAM upgrade In-Reply-To: <47C7B61E.3020103@bluewin.ch> from "Jos Dreesen / Marian Capel" at Feb 29, 8 08:37:02 am Message-ID: > > > > 7) If it works, set all the links as for a 1M board, trst again > > Which, of course, leads to the question : what are the linksettings > for the 1M board ? The Integral RAM expansion board seems to have been able to be popluated with either 64K*1 or 256K*1 DRAMs, either 1 bank (16 chips) or 2 banks (32 chips). All RAMs must be the same type. If 256K chips are fitted, then U45 (74ALS157) is also fitted (to provide the extra address line to the RAMs), it is not fitted on PCBs with 64K RAMs The links have the following functions : W1 : Bank select -> A17 W2 : Bank seelct grounded W3 : Bank select -> A19 W4 : A17 not part of card select address W5 : A18 ditto W6 : A19 ditto W7 : A17 is part of card select address W8 : A18 ditto W9 : A19 ditto W10 : Connect CAS/ to RAMs if U45 not fitted (must be cut if U45 present) W11 : Card ID vbit 2 = 1 W12 : ID bit 1 = 1 W13 : ID bit 0 = 1 W14 : ID bit 2 = 0 W15 : ID bit 1 = 0 W16 : ID bit 0 = 0 Link settings 128K (Conjectured, I have no evidence that HP ever shipped this board) : W2, W, W8, W9, W10, W11, W12, W16. 16 off 4164 RAMs. 256K (82925, taken from photo on hpmuseum.net) W1, W4, W8, W9, W10, W11, W15, W13. 32 of 4164 RAMs 512K (82927. taken from the board I upgraded) W2, W4, W5, W9, U45 (/ASL157), W11, W15, W16. 16 off 41256 RAMs 1M (82916, settings after I upgraded my 512K board) W3, W4, W5, W6, U45 ('ALS157), W14, W12, W13. 32 off 41256 RAMs. > > Jos, busy finding the DRAM's in my "archive" A it of advice if you're doing the upgrade. If, as I did, you decide to socket the new RAMs, you can used turned-pin sockets, but it's tight. It's based to put all 8 sockets of a row in position, then 'tack solder' one pin of each socket to keep them in place, check they're all fitted properly and solder the remaing pins. If you fit the sockets one at the time you may have problems getting the last one in!. -tony From tiggerlasv at aim.com Fri Feb 29 18:54:58 2008 From: tiggerlasv at aim.com (tiggerlasv at aim.com) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:54:58 -0500 Subject: Source for TTL chips Message-ID: <8CA494E01E572E2-CC4-955@webmail-nf19.sim.aol.com> >DigiKey or Unicorn Electronics. >Both want $25 on the order or a handling fee applies. >Grant >At 09:03 AM 2/29/2008, you wrote: >It used to be you could go to Radio Shack and pick up a couple of 74ls02 >chips as needed. Now it seems there isn?t a source for someone who wants to >purchase a handful of 74xx ttl chips. I have a ?brand new? s100 SIO card >that is just missing the 14 logic chips to go in the sockets, but I am not >finding a convenient source for them. > >Anyone know where I can go to find them in very small quantities? > >Jeff Erwin The Digikey "Handling fee" used to be $5 . . . If you're buying 14 TTL's, you may already be at the $25 minimum. . . I don't usually start with Digikey, though. Try checking out MOUSER . . . MCM electronics, or JAMECO. All can be reached at their .com websites. . . (Jameco still has NOS 4164's and 41256's and decent prices.) T From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Feb 29 19:01:54 2008 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:01:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <003f01c87b09$d9c5a530$6400a8c0@BILLING> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com>, <9e2403920802290852r704788f4wb0a016f27af14adc@mail.gmail.com>, <47C7EBEA.7318.5E56ED0@cclist.sydex.com> <003f01c87b09$d9c5a530$6400a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <200803010103.UAA22952@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> I'm curious why anyone would want a front panel with lights and >> switches. > *blink* Me too - I'm curious about the same thing, that is, if anyone can explain. Heck, I'm curious about why *I* want half the computer toys I want; it seems to be an aspect of myself not very accessible to introspection. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From doc at mdrconsult.com Fri Feb 29 19:09:12 2008 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:09:12 -0600 Subject: Qbus to CF / IDE In-Reply-To: <8CA48D6ABA2E339-1518-2525@webmail-nb08.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CA48D6ABA2E339-1518-2525@webmail-nb08.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <47C8ACB8.2000307@mdrconsult.com> tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > > >> You could have, for example, four RL02s each capable of being >> assigned a "pack" from the card. > >> What were the biggest non-MSCP-attached drives? >> How hard would they be to emulate? > > > While RL02's would probably be easy to emulate, > at 10MB a pop, you don't get alot of bang for your buck. Forgive me if this is a silly question, but is 10MB a limitation of the firmware and drivers, or of the disk technology? Doc From lynchaj at yahoo.com Fri Feb 29 19:13:06 2008 From: lynchaj at yahoo.com (Andrew Lynch) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:13:06 -0500 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004b01c87b39$6826ba60$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Josef Chessor > Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 11:53 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: front panel display for a modern PC > [snip] > > I do dabble in PIC programming, and I've got at couple of 40-pin PICs > that would probably fit the bill with a minimum of other electronics > (or use smaller PICs with more support electronics). Heck, a > sufficiently simple microcomputer emulator could probably be > implemented on said PIC, at some point. (Those are ideas I've been > rolling around in my head for quite some time.) > [snip] Hi, I do not have much PIC programming experience but based on a little bit of study and a small project, I cannot help but wonder a similar thing. Recently I built a PIC 16F628 serial to parallel converter to change my spare KayPro II serial keyboard to parallel output with the application being to attach it to a Vector Graphic FlashWriter II video/keyboard card. So far, I have gotten the program to run and can convert the serial stream to light up 8 LEDs and a strobe LED but haven't attached it to the VG FWII yet. While working on this rather simple project, it kept occurring to me that the PIC is practicaly begging to be made into a general purpose low chip count computer. Add some address and data bus latches, static memory, an EPROM, maybe a peripheral or two. The parallel and serial ports are practically built in already. Yes, the PIC doesn't have your traditional data and address bus but with a small 40 pin PIC protoboard like this, it doesn't seem like it'd be all that hard to interface one to a small SRAM like a 6264. http://cgi.ebay.com/Microchip-PIC-Prototyping-Board-40-Terminal-PIC_W0QQitem Z360012737667 The idea keeps kicking around in my head. It sounds like fun. Thanks! Andrew Lynch From slawmaster at gmail.com Fri Feb 29 19:29:59 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:29:59 -0500 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <200803010103.UAA22952@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com> <9e2403920802290852r704788f4wb0a016f27af14adc@mail.gmail.com> <47C7EBEA.7318.5E56ED0@cclist.sydex.com> <003f01c87b09$d9c5a530$6400a8c0@BILLING> <200803010103.UAA22952@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <7d3530220802291729m30269d4dve57c3ccbf181bf40@mail.gmail.com> On 2/29/08, der Mouse wrote: > >> I'm curious why anyone would want a front panel with lights and > >> switches. > > *blink* > > > Me too - I'm curious about the same thing, that is, if anyone can > explain. Heck, I'm curious about why *I* want half the computer toys I > want; it seems to be an aspect of myself not very accessible to > introspection. > The answer, for me at least, is that it's so much more interesting than 1 button and 1 LED. Useful? Maybe not. But so far, they haven't ever taught me "Engineers must do only useful designs--fun is a sin", so I'm going to keep wanting a pretty blinkenlights board that I can play with. For now, at least, I think I'll look at ways of making something for the serial port that I could try using with SIMH or just some custom Linux software. I've just returned from the Computer History Museum, where I got a pretty good fix of huge beautiful control panels. SAGE was particularly interesting, as was WISC with the bullet holes, and of course the KL10 box. John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From cclist at sydex.com Fri Feb 29 19:30:02 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:30:02 -0800 Subject: Integral RAM upgrade In-Reply-To: References: <47C6B413.2414.12351AA@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Feb 28, 8 01:16:03 pm, Message-ID: <47C8411A.5802.73231F4@cclist.sydex.com> On 29 Feb 2008 at 23:40, Tony Duell wrote: >> I would have thought the 5150 upgrade involved removing the existing RAMs > nad rpelacing them with larger-capacity chips, more like what I did to > my HP9816. Only the first row of 4116s needed to be removed. The other three rows were socketed. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Fri Feb 29 19:31:32 2008 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:31:32 -0800 Subject: On interfaces, paper tape readers/punches, In-Reply-To: References: <289116A3-1B06-4635-9C5C-870FEF61A5D1@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Feb 29, 8 10:19:01 am, Message-ID: <47C84174.1843.73392CE@cclist.sydex.com> On 1 Mar 2008 at 0:34, Tony Duell wrote: > Back in the 'decoding FSK cassette data' theard, somebody suggested 'a > couple of tone dectors and a microcontroller' I asusme the 'tone > detectors' are soemthing like an NE567. In whci case the logic to combine > them into a itstream is only a few logic gates. It wasn't me--I suggested replacing the whole lashup with a uC. I did mention NE567s but only in the context that they were unnecessary if one went to a PIC solution. Cheers, Chuck From pat at computer-refuge.org Fri Feb 29 19:51:10 2008 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:51:10 -0500 Subject: Qbus to CF / IDE In-Reply-To: <47C8ACB8.2000307@mdrconsult.com> References: <8CA48D6ABA2E339-1518-2525@webmail-nb08.sysops.aol.com> <47C8ACB8.2000307@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: <200802292051.10257.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Friday 29 February 2008, Doc Shipley wrote: > tiggerlasv at aim.com wrote: > >> You could have, for example, four RL02s each capable of being > >> assigned a "pack" from the card. > >> > >> What were the biggest non-MSCP-attached drives? > >> How hard would they be to emulate? > > > > While RL02's would probably be easy to emulate, > > at 10MB a pop, you don't get alot of bang for your buck. > > Forgive me if this is a silly question, but is 10MB a limitation > of the firmware and drivers, or of the disk technology? Well, RL02s are 10MB. There's no reason that you couldn't have something on the same interface with more tracks (the only real difference between the RL01 and RL02 were the number (and thus width) of tracks on a cartridge). The biggest problem would just be that the appropriate drivers wouldn't expect to see anything other than an 5MB or 10MB disk. It probably wouldn't be too hard to patch the drivers for a larger (fixed) size, but I think most people just want a "drop in place with existing software & drivers" solution. I'll note that there were third-party controllers which took a cheap ST506-like (or whatever) disk and emulated multiple RL02s to the host. Actually, I think that's pretty much what the DSD880 (which I have one of) does. However, it's probably a whole lot less useful to emulate a bunch of tiny disks than one big disk, at least for most people. Now, if there were only software RAID drivers for RT-11 et al, you could combine those back into one big disk. :) Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Feb 29 20:20:32 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:20:32 -0500 Subject: Source for TTL chips In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8f7972cf37f9f9e704133d23ce7c616f@neurotica.com> On Feb 29, 2008, at 1:03 PM, Jeff Erwin wrote: > It used to be you could go to Radio Shack and pick up a couple of > 74ls02 > chips as needed. Now it seems there isn?t a source for someone who > wants to > purchase a handful of 74xx ttl chips. I have a ?brand new? s100 SIO > card > that is just missing the 14 logic chips to go in the sockets, but I am > not > finding a convenient source for them. > > Anyone know where I can go to find them in very small quantities? eBay. Either that or Unicorn Electronics. Or Mouser, DigiKey, Newark Electronics, or pretty much any other electronic component distributor. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From josefcub at gmail.com Fri Feb 29 20:29:10 2008 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:29:10 -0600 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <004b01c87b39$6826ba60$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> References: <004b01c87b39$6826ba60$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> Message-ID: <9e2403920802291829p4e42a41bq72f198f1a05d5bb6@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 7:13 PM, Andrew Lynch wrote: > > While working on this rather simple project, it kept occurring to me that > the PIC is practicaly begging to be made into a general purpose low chip > count computer. Add some address and data bus latches, static memory, an > EPROM, maybe a peripheral or two. The parallel and serial ports are > practically built in already. Yes, the PIC doesn't have your traditional > data and address bus but with a small 40 pin PIC protoboard like this, it > doesn't seem like it'd be all that hard to interface one to a small SRAM > like a 6264. PIC interfacing to things like SRAM isn't all that hard, really. I've been working on a simple little emulated architecture machine using SRAM and a PIC at its core (I do this because I can, not because it makes sense. The argument goes both ways in using PICs in projects like this. ;). There are plenty of resources out there showing you how it can be done. 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 mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Feb 29 20:35:27 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:35:27 -0500 Subject: seven segment display history In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8e75a0e549bc5ece7236f7d3f3a576ec@neurotica.com> On Feb 29, 2008, at 6:45 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> Does anyone know when seven segment displays first appeared on the >> scene? >> Presumably the first ones were VF, and LED came later? > > There were some filament ones -- 7 long filaments in the obviosu > pattern, > in an evacuated envelope. Some looked like vavles (but were generally > wire-ended), others were ina flatter package, looking a bit like an IC. Some of these were sold under the name "numitron". I have a few here; I like them, they've got personality. Here are some pics of one in operation: http://www.neurotica.com/misc/numitron-powered.jpg http://www.neurotica.com/misc/numitron-incrementing.mov -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Feb 29 20:34:17 2008 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:34:17 -0300 Subject: Integral RAM upgrade References: Message-ID: <008701c87b45$253fd7c0$02fea8c0@portajara> > The links have the following functions : What about a web page? ;o) From jrkeys at concentric.net Fri Feb 29 21:15:34 2008 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:15:34 -0600 Subject: Finds at Thrift Message-ID: <00a301c87b4a$fc60ae50$22406b43@66067007> Picked up a Sharp HC-4500A HH PC and a TurboGrafx 16 CD system card. No ac adapter was with the Sharp so I have not been able to test it. John From jrkeys at concentric.net Fri Feb 29 21:18:51 2008 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:18:51 -0600 Subject: Thrift Finds Message-ID: <00a401c87b4a$fd925080$22406b43@66067007> A Sharp HC-4500A hand held pc, unable to test it as no ac adapter was with it. Also picked up a TurboGrafx 16 CD system card. Not tested yet either. John From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Feb 29 21:29:52 2008 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:29:52 -0600 Subject: Source for TTL chips References: <8f7972cf37f9f9e704133d23ce7c616f@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <000c01c87b4c$833be290$6600a8c0@JWEST> >>Now it seems there isn?t a source for someone who wants to purchase a >>handful of 74xx ttl chips. My favorite source for old bipolar proms and such has 74ls02's, $0.50 USD each. I've ordered from them many times and always been quite happy with the results. I don't think they have a minimum order, if so, it must be fairly low. http://www.mikesarcade.com Jay From slawmaster at gmail.com Fri Feb 29 22:23:27 2008 From: slawmaster at gmail.com (John Floren) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:23:27 -0500 Subject: Selectric trouble Message-ID: <7d3530220802292023h36ba0656qa2703a30ff540ba8@mail.gmail.com> I just picked up an IBM Correcting Selectric III, but now I've run into a little problem. The guy said he had it cleaned/checked out just before he stopped using it 10 years ago, but of course a lot can happen over 10 years in storage. I rolled in a piece of paper to give it a test, worked great, but after a couple paragraphs it has hit a problem. Basically, the ribbon/ball head seems to no longer do newlines properly. It will advance the paper but not return the head to the left margin. If I try typing anything after hitting Return, the keys are in the stiff state, like when the machine is off. If I Backspace all the way back to the left margin, the keys seem to unlock, until I hit Return again. Any Selectric Grand Masters around that can help me figure out what's gone wrong? The machine seems to be in really great shape, EXCEPT for this problem. Thanks John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn From Tim at Rikers.org Fri Feb 29 23:03:27 2008 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:03:27 -0700 Subject: HP-12531 C and D Message-ID: <47C8E39F.3080305@Rikers.org> I have 4 HP-12531 cards. Two are have tabs labeled "HS TERMINAL" and 2 have labels "BUF'R'D TTY REG". Three of cards have 307.200 Khz crystals, and one of the non-HS boards has a 225.280 Khz crystal. >From what I read in: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/21xx/interfaces/12531C.pdf and on: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/io12531BCD.html the only difference I can see between the C and the D is the crystal. Does anyone know of another difference? Ok, here's the big one. Anyone know where to get another 307.200 Khz crystal? :) -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Feb 29 23:17:48 2008 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:17:48 -0800 Subject: front panel display for a modern PC In-Reply-To: <47C7EBEA.7318.5E56ED0@cclist.sydex.com> References: <7d3530220802280933i78ee04ffqdf4aa8c932cd85b8@mail.gmail.com>, <9e2403920802290852r704788f4wb0a016f27af14adc@mail.gmail.com>, <47C7EBEA.7318.5E56ED0@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > From: cclist at sydex.com > > I'm curious why anyone would want a front panel with lights and > switches. Except for some early IBM mainframe stuff, the number of > systems that I've worked with that had no front panel vastly > outnumber the ones that did. > > Indeed, the front panel on the MITS 8800 seemed to be a waste of good > components and an anachronism at that. Better to take the costs of > the panel and roll them into a good diagnostic ROM with loader. The > S-100 followup machine that I used, an Integrand box, had only a > reset button on the front panel. I never missed the switches. After > the MITS box, I never owned another system with a blinkenlights-and- > switches front panel. > > Just trying to understand. > Hi My first computer had only a power switch and a reset. it was a Poly88. It had a great 1K monitor. It had a 8x8 memory display window, 8 byte dispaly for each register pair, ran the memory mapped video, had single step( in RAM only ) and ran the tape reader. It was a tight pack into 1k but they used a lot of tricks to compact the code. I still bought an IMSAI just to play with the switches and lights. It isn't as productive as the Poly but then it is just a hobby. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser! http://biggestloser.msn.com/ From ethan.dicks at usap.gov Fri Feb 29 23:33:46 2008 From: ethan.dicks at usap.gov (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 05:33:46 +0000 Subject: seven segment display history In-Reply-To: References: <47C726F6.1080406@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20080301053346.GA9265@usap.gov> On Fri, Feb 29, 2008 at 11:45:55PM +0000, Tony Duell wrote: > > > > > > Does anyone know when seven segment displays first appeared on the scene? > > Presumably the first ones were VF, and LED came later? > > There were some filament ones -- 7 long filaments in the obviosu pattern, > in an evacuated envelope. Some looked like vavles (but were generally > wire-ended), others were ina flatter package, looking a bit like an IC. I have something like that with me here in my bag-o-parts... approx 20mm by 30mm, with a 2mm-thick body made of a rough, dark ceramic, with a 1mm thick glass top. It's a 2.5 digit display with + and -. All the leads come through the back of the package in what appears to be a straight- through fashion (making it easy to figure out how to hook it up). There is a vendor and part number etched on the face: Sperry SP-738. I've never tried to hook it up to anything, and have no idea what voltages it might want. It's a shame it's only 2.5 digits; if it were 3.5 digits, it might make an interesting 12-hour clock face. Not sure what I'd need to do that swings from -199 to +199 off the top of my head. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 1-Mar-2008 at 05:20 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -59.6 F (-50.9 C) Windchill -94.4 F (-70.2 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 11.9 kts Grid 11 Barometer 687.4 mb (10350 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Feb 29 23:47:52 2008 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 00:47:52 -0500 Subject: On interfaces, paper tape readers/punches, In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 29, 2008, at 7:34 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> Well yeah...anyone who would replace a single 74LS00 with a >> microcontroller would certainly earn a "moron" sticker on the >> forehead. > > Hang on a sec... > > Back in the 'decoding FSK cassette data' theard, somebody suggested 'a > couple of tone dectors and a microcontroller' I asusme the 'tone > detectors' are soemthing like an NE567. In whci case the logic to > combine > them into a itstream is only a few logic gates. > > And I still feel that the bast way to impleemtn that logic is not a > microcontroller. Ahh, if that's the case, I would agree. I understood the original suggestion was to implement the tone detection in firmware in the microcontroller...a perfectly valid approach. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Fri Feb 29 08:50:52 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:50:52 -0500 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? Message-ID: <0JX000I9R97M3GZ2@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> The same CPU and FPU are sued on the KA630cpu (uVAXII) and in early microvax3100s so any of them should compare. Is it possible that someone has overclocked the that uV2000??? FYI: gate leakage would kill the chips not make it run hot. The usual reasons for hot running are: Over voltage! Overclock Undercool Excessive bus loads (capacitive or resistive) Since the machine is a closed system for the most part the first is most likely and the others are least likely. I may add that over 60C is way too hot at the heatsink and the die due to thermal resistance will be hotter. I'm trying to pull down one of my uV2ks and fire it up. Allison > >Subject: Re: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? > From: "Dave Dunfield" > Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:18:31 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >> I assume these CPU and FPU chips are MOS devices. Is it possile that >> excessive leakage across the gate oxide layer in some transsitors of that >> chip would cause it to run hot, but still work? I'm pretty sure I've seen >> chips that seem to work, but get hot and then stop working, althoguh >> cooling them with freezer spray keeps them running. And these were not >> chips driving high pwoer laods -- they were things like the clock/timer >> microcontroller in a VCR. > >Yes, I'm wondering if it's something like that, however how likely is it >that both devices would experience the same fairly-uncommon failure mode >at the same time? > >Perhaps I've been engaging in the persuit of an undomesticated ornithoid... > >Is it possible that the devices normally run this hot, and the failure is >occuring for another reason (possibly a side effect of the heat, as cooling >them does allow it to keep running). > >Allison said "they do run hot" - does anyone know how hot? > >I did some further tests last night - I dug out my thermocouple and made >some actual heat measurements with the system assembled, but with the color >frame buffer removed - there should be better airflow, and this appears to >be the case, since the machine did not die after 10 minites of operation. > >Ambient temp was measureing about 25 degrees C at the start of the test. >>From power on, the CPU and FPU rose rapidly (within 3-4 minites) to >the 70C range, then more slowly rose to temperatures of 76C for the CPU >and 82C for the FPU after 10 mins. At this temperature they seemed to be >getting stable - having done nearly 1-1/2 mins without an increase. It's >possible/likely that they would climb anothe few degrees in extended >operation. > >Once this temperature was reached, I held the system in RESET, and >observed that the temps dropped back after a few minites to about 64C >for the CPU and 68C for the FPU. > >To my mind, a processor running at 80C is damn hot - most of the embedded >devices I work with list absolute maximum running temperature as 70C or >75C - but perhaps the DEC devices are designed to run hotter - I note the >Intel 486 datasheet lists absolute maximum (under bias) as 110C ... > >Anyone on the list with a VS 2000 or uVAX 2000 that can do some temperature >measurements? > >Dave > >-- >dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield >dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com >com Collector of vintage computing equipment: > http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Fri Feb 29 09:19:51 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:19:51 -0500 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? Message-ID: <0JX0009YRAJXHF12@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> All... I pulled out NETBOT:: a 12mb uV2000 with a RD53 and booted it with the case off to get the temp and the hotter of the two chips stabilized at 58C +- a tiny bit while running VMS 5.4-3. Like I said they do run hot. Allison > >Subject: Re: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? > From: Allison > Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:50:52 -0500 > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > >The same CPU and FPU are sued on the KA630cpu (uVAXII) and in early >microvax3100s so any of them should compare. > >Is it possible that someone has overclocked the that uV2000??? > >FYI: gate leakage would kill the chips not make it run hot. The >usual reasons for hot running are: > > Over voltage! > Overclock > Undercool > Excessive bus loads (capacitive or resistive) > >Since the machine is a closed system for the most part the first is >most likely and the others are least likely. > >I may add that over 60C is way too hot at the heatsink and the die >due to thermal resistance will be hotter. > >I'm trying to pull down one of my uV2ks and fire it up. > > >Allison > >> >>Subject: Re: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? >> From: "Dave Dunfield" >> Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:18:31 -0500 >> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" >> >>> I assume these CPU and FPU chips are MOS devices. Is it possile that >>> excessive leakage across the gate oxide layer in some transsitors of that >>> chip would cause it to run hot, but still work? I'm pretty sure I've seen >>> chips that seem to work, but get hot and then stop working, althoguh >>> cooling them with freezer spray keeps them running. And these were not >>> chips driving high pwoer laods -- they were things like the clock/timer >>> microcontroller in a VCR. >> >>Yes, I'm wondering if it's something like that, however how likely is it >>that both devices would experience the same fairly-uncommon failure mode >>at the same time? >> >>Perhaps I've been engaging in the persuit of an undomesticated ornithoid... >> >>Is it possible that the devices normally run this hot, and the failure is >>occuring for another reason (possibly a side effect of the heat, as cooling >>them does allow it to keep running). >> >>Allison said "they do run hot" - does anyone know how hot? >> >>I did some further tests last night - I dug out my thermocouple and made >>some actual heat measurements with the system assembled, but with the color >>frame buffer removed - there should be better airflow, and this appears to >>be the case, since the machine did not die after 10 minites of operation. >> >>Ambient temp was measureing about 25 degrees C at the start of the test. >>>From power on, the CPU and FPU rose rapidly (within 3-4 minites) to >>the 70C range, then more slowly rose to temperatures of 76C for the CPU >>and 82C for the FPU after 10 mins. At this temperature they seemed to be >>getting stable - having done nearly 1-1/2 mins without an increase. It's >>possible/likely that they would climb anothe few degrees in extended >>operation. >> >>Once this temperature was reached, I held the system in RESET, and >>observed that the temps dropped back after a few minites to about 64C >>for the CPU and 68C for the FPU. >> >>To my mind, a processor running at 80C is damn hot - most of the embedded >>devices I work with list absolute maximum running temperature as 70C or >>75C - but perhaps the DEC devices are designed to run hotter - I note the >>Intel 486 datasheet lists absolute maximum (under bias) as 110C ... >> >>Anyone on the list with a VS 2000 or uVAX 2000 that can do some temperature >>measurements? >> >>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 bolenracing at gmail.com Fri Feb 29 10:25:23 2008 From: bolenracing at gmail.com (John Andrew Bolen) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 11:25:23 -0500 Subject: Panasonic Exec. Partner information wanted Message-ID: <000001c87aef$b1036020$130a2060$@com> Do you still have the exec partner? I had one in college and would like to have another one. Thank you. Andrew Bolen From Mick.Lindell at ge.com Fri Feb 29 11:22:43 2008 From: Mick.Lindell at ge.com (Lindell, Mick(GE Infra, Aviation)) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:22:43 -0500 Subject: HP 85 tapes / TU58 tapes Message-ID: Greetings, Do you still have the TU58 tapes? Mick Lindell Sr. Test Development Engineer GE Aviation Digital Systems T +1 616 241-8454 E Mick.Lindell at ge.com 3290 Patterson Ave. SE Grand Rapids, MI 49512 USA GE imagination at work These commodities/technical data are controlled for export by the U.S. State Department. They may not be transferred, transshipped on a non-continuous voyage, or otherwise be disposed of outside of the United States, either in their original form or after being incorporated into other end-items, without prior written approval of the U.S. Department of State. From jerwin at PureNetworks.com Fri Feb 29 12:03:14 2008 From: jerwin at PureNetworks.com (Jeff Erwin) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:03:14 -0800 Subject: Source for TTL chips Message-ID: It used to be you could go to Radio Shack and pick up a couple of 74ls02 chips as needed. Now it seems there isn?t a source for someone who wants to purchase a handful of 74xx ttl chips. I have a ?brand new? s100 SIO card that is just missing the 14 logic chips to go in the sockets, but I am not finding a convenient source for them. Anyone know where I can go to find them in very small quantities? Jeff Erwin From jrr at flippers.com Fri Feb 29 15:13:27 2008 From: jrr at flippers.com (John Robertson) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:13:27 -0800 Subject: Source for TTL chips In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47C87577.5040305@flippers.com> Jeff Erwin wrote: > It used to be you could go to Radio Shack and pick up a couple of 74ls02 > chips as needed. Now it seems there isn?t a source for someone who wants to > purchase a handful of 74xx ttl chips. I have a ?brand new? s100 SIO card > that is just missing the 14 logic chips to go in the sockets, but I am not > finding a convenient source for them. > > Anyone know where I can go to find them in very small quantities? > > Jeff Erwin > > > In Canada you can go to Active Components. Might try your local TV parts wholeseller - they will have either originals or ECG ($$) replacements. Might be cheaper to order from Jameco or Digi-key though. John :-#)# From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Fri Feb 29 06:03:39 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 07:03:39 -0500 Subject: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] Message-ID: <0JX000BJM1GYPM12@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Q-bus to CF [was: IOmega] > From: der Mouse > Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 02:00:53 -0500 (EST) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >> Generally IDE and CF (compactflash) are the same interface and for >> Qbus-11 fairly simple. It's been done, however, the problem is the >> driver as bare IDE or CF is NOT MSCP not is it DL, DX, DY or RK so a >> driver is needed and noone has apparently stepped up to do it. > >Not quite true. > >Some time back (years), someone was working on an IDE interface for a >Qbus MicroVAX and I was doing the driver. (This was not bootable; the >idea was to netboot to get the kernel onto the machine.) > >We never got it working, and it is not clear to me, now, why not. I'm >not sure whether this is because it wasn't clear why then or because my >wetware memory has bitrotted - what memory I have indicates that there >were hardware issues, but I had no physical access to the hardware, so >I'm not sure that that's right even aside from bitrotted memory. the likely reason is PDP-11 and VAX does read before write and IDE does not like that. The fis is to make the READ address different from the write addresses, even DEC did that with interfaces. It is otherwise straightfoward with the usual observance for timing and the like. Allison >I once was one of two people who built a one-off Qbus board out of >wirewrap, so I feel I ought to be able to build such a thing myself. >Perhaps someday I'll gather the parts and try it. (Anyone have a Qbus >development board looking for a home? :) > >/~\ 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 acje at flash.net Fri Feb 29 15:50:57 2008 From: acje at flash.net (Stephen C. Stierstorfer) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:50:57 -0600 Subject: Informer terminal Message-ID: <200802292151.m1TLp1Ke076138@keith.ezwind.net> This message is for Mike McFadden. Mike, I came across your message while looking for a replacement for my informer 207. What info are you needing. I think that I have a photocopy of the manual around here and a few other pages of info. Your message said you had 2 of these terminals. Would you be interested in selling one? If so, at what price. The one I have just died and I need a replacement. I use it as a serial terminal on an old SCO Xenix computer, that has been running since 1984. Thanks Stephen 817-346-3777 From lynchaj at sbcglobal.net Fri Feb 29 19:13:06 2008 From: lynchaj at sbcglobal.net (Andrew Lynch) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:13:06 -0500 Subject: board scan, design reconstruction (was IMSAI) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004d01c87b39$684a6f00$a903a8c0@andrewdesktop> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] > On Behalf Of Randy Dawson > Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 2:20 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only > Subject: board scan, design reconstruction (was IMSAI) > > > > > > Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:48:10 -0900 > > From: grant at stockly.com > > To: cctech at classiccmp.org > > Subject: Re: TTL CPU Re: IMSAI style C&K 7101 switches > > > > At 06:40 AM 2/26/2008, you wrote: > > >Grant, > > > > > > > On a side note, who here would be interested in ultra high [snip] > > > > Hi, > Ive been following this, and maybe I can help. Im a professional PCB > layout guy in my day job. With a schematic and a reasonable resolution > jpeg of both sides (I doubt there was mych multylayer back then) I could > reconstruct the design fairly quickly. Nobody is really going to want to > go down the road of taking a picture and turning it into a gerber, it just > wont work. Id just input the schematic, duplicate the ref des for all > parts, to get the netlist, eyeball the jpeg for placement and throw it at > the autorouter. > > Whats on your top 10 list? > > (S-100) > > CPU card > Dazzler > Byte Blaster > Async card > disk controller card > > I could knock those out in a week or two. > > Randy > > _________________________________________________________________ > Helping your favorite cause is as easy as instant messaging.?You IM, we > give. > http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/Home/?source=text_hotmail_join [AJL>] Hi, All those S-100 boards definitely sound interesting but here is a twist for something I think would be highly useful for recovering data from vintage computers using generic PCs. How about a PCI floppy controller board? Maybe with some supplementary logic to allow raw track reads? Possibly a BIOS to boot from? An external floppy drive connector? Just wondering how complicated such a thing would be. Thanks! Andrew Lynch From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Fri Feb 29 19:55:23 2008 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:55:23 -0500 Subject: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? Message-ID: <0JX100JBA3Z49G42@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: VAXstation/MicroVAX 2000 CPU/FPU overheating? > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:46:23 +0000 (GMT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> >> At 9:26 -0600 2/29/08, Dave wrote: >> >Yes, I'm wondering if it's something like that, however how likely is it >> >that both devices would experience the same fairly-uncommon failure mode >> >at the same time? >> >> I'm chiming in very late and probably not very helpfully, but is >> there any way a decoupling cap in the vicinity of the FPU/CPU could >> either load them or generate heat itself by beginning to short to >> ground? My only VAX (4000VLC) had a fault like that in the reset > >Interesting idea.... I've worked with chips that had connectiosn for >decoupling capacitors for particualr secitons in the chip (the most >ovious being the Transputer which needs a 1uF capacitor between 2 of its >pins to decouple the clock multiplier PLL). In general, these components >are not conencted to a power line or ground other than through the chip. > >I have no idea if the VAX 2000 chips are like this, but if they are, then >a leak in one of those cpacitors would certainly cause thigns to run hot. The 78032 chip is 1986 surface mount (gull wing) tech. No cap on the chip, same for the FPU. At the time it was pushing the limit for NMOS for power and density, they plain just run hot. If you don't like them that hot adding another set of fins to radiate that heat helps. Allison >-tony From speleocaver at charter.net Fri Feb 29 21:30:26 2008 From: speleocaver at charter.net (Christian) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:30:26 -0600 Subject: hp 10391b inverse assembler/ HP1651A Message-ID: <000501c87b4c$97cc2ad0$6601a8c0@rc0537df8aaf14> I have an identical item. I need a 720kb floppy LIF formatted floppy disk, mine is shot. If you would care to make a copy of the HP 1651A OS on your machine I would be glad to pay for it. For now I'm dead in the water. I have tried to create a OS disk but I have LOTS of gaps in my machine language understanding. Also any help in this direction would be GREATLY appreciated. Best Regards, Chris Wolters From speleocaver at charter.net Fri Feb 29 21:41:17 2008 From: speleocaver at charter.net (Christian) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:41:17 -0600 Subject: Found some Files HP 1651A Message-ID: <000601c87b4e$1c0033e0$6601a8c0@rc0537df8aaf14> Oh I almost forgot your post did not show that you have the 1651A files. Here They are... Best Regards, Chris Wolters -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: README.TXT URL: From abacos_98 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 29 19:23:00 2008 From: abacos_98 at yahoo.com (Brian Roth) Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:23:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: SGI A/V module question In-Reply-To: <47C85DC6.6020404@gmail.com> Message-ID: <869245.68121.qm@web53311.mail.re2.yahoo.com> They are also really starting to show up at the salvage yards in bigger numbers. SGI stuff is so much fun to collect. Its like visiting another country. All of the different options and figuring out what works with what makes your head spin. Just in the last two weeks I picked up and Indy, Indigo, Onyx, and an Origin 2200 with 8 processors. Depending on the speed a Tezro is only a few hundred bucks now.... Brian. --- Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > Zane H. Healy wrote: > > awesome. It is a shame SGI killed the MIPS > systems and IRIX. I'd love to > > own something like the SGI Tezro workstation, but > can't see spending any > > more on the platform. I don't even remember the > last time I powered one of > > the systems up. :^( > > I have a Tezro, which I bought because people in > industry are thinking > exactly the same as you, so they're going cheap. I > can vouch for the > fact that they are startlingly fast. > > Peace... Sridhar > From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Wed Feb 27 09:51:49 2008 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:51:49 -0800 Subject: Article about Seattle schools still running a VAX Message-ID: <56E7E619-226F-49F0-9218-B7451B74022F@valleyimplants.com> Finally saw it in the paper. I notice they talk about how the VAX is "so old that the University of Washington has an early model (of the VAX) on display as a museum piece". Hmm - they probably have an early IBM 5150 and Mac 128K on display as well. What does that mean for the desktops that the school district has?