From allisonportable at gmail.com Thu Mar 1 05:12:00 2018 From: allisonportable at gmail.com (allison) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 06:12:00 -0500 Subject: PDP11 I/O page memory map In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13e51c9d-922e-488a-d5bb-1148511da906@gmail.com> On 02/28/2018 08:15 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote: > Is there a document that describes the bank 7 memory page and what > addresses are reserved for what?? I think I've seen this before but > can't seem to put my hands on it. > > Another question, bootstrap is reserved for 173000, how many words are > allowed there for this?? How do the more complicated bootstraps, e.g. > microPDP11-53, accommodate this limitation? > > Doug > I strongly suggest RTFM the PDP-11 handbooks. Till you do... Page 7 is? the upper most memory area and is reserved as EPROM and IO peripherals. On many of the PDP-11s that page is signified by asserting BBS7 ( a partially decode address) and the MMU also understands that peripherals live in that physical space be it 16/18/22 bit memory map. Boot and diagnostic roms are a special case as more often their size was not limited to the area of bank 7 but the available devices of the day.? They do however map roms so that they cannot overlap the IO devices. FYI the microPDP-11/53 is the 11/23+ cpu card so you can look that up. Allison From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Mar 1 06:00:32 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 07:00:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: PDP11 I/O page memory map Message-ID: <20180301120032.0DA5818C097@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Douglas Taylor > Is there a document that describes the bank 7 memory page and what > addresses are reserved for what? Here's one I collated from a large number of DEC manuals: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/UNIBUS_Registers.txt (Ignore the name, it applies to QBUS machines too.) > bootstrap is reserved for 173000, how many words are allowed there for > this? Well, the space from 773000-773776 (UNIBUS and Q18 - add '17' to the front for Q22) is used for ROMs, and is the most common; 173000 is of course the location QBUS processors can be configured to jump to on power on. 765000-776 in also used for some (e.g. M9301's). > How do the more complicated bootstraps, e.g. microPDP11-53, accommodate > this limitation? Bank switching; e.g. the BDV11, KDF11-B have a 'page control register' at 777520 which says which block of ROM is mapped into the 773000 block. Interestingly, the DEC standard ROMs for the BDV11 and KDF11-B _don't_ copy all the contents down to real memory, and run from there - the code is divided into 'pages', only one of which is mapped in at a time, and it's executed from the ROM. Noel From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Mar 1 06:15:57 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 07:15:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: PDP11 I/O page memory map Message-ID: <20180301121557.0D98618C097@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > On many of the PDP-11s that page is signified by asserting BBS7 QBUS machines only; the UNIBUS has no equivalent signal. > FYI the microPDP-11/53 is the 11/23+ cpu card Err, no; according to the "MicroPDP11/53 System Supplement Manual" (AZ-GPTAA-MC), pg. 3-1, the CPU card in the /53 is the KDJ11-D. The /23+ uses the KDF11-B CPU card. Noel From paulkoning at comcast.net Thu Mar 1 08:04:03 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 09:04:03 -0500 Subject: PDP11 I/O page memory map In-Reply-To: <13e51c9d-922e-488a-d5bb-1148511da906@gmail.com> References: <13e51c9d-922e-488a-d5bb-1148511da906@gmail.com> Message-ID: > On Mar 1, 2018, at 6:12 AM, allison via cctalk wrote: > > ... and the MMU also > understands that peripherals live in that physical space be it 16/18/22 > bit memory map. That's true when the MMU is disabled; if so it supplies 1 bits for the upper bits for page 7, and zeroes for the other pages. But if the MMU is enabled, all mapping goes through its mapping registers, and page 7 is no longer special. By software convention, kernel data page 7 is configured to point to the I/O page, but that isn't required. If you wanted to be be perverse you could map the I/O page via page 6 and confuse a whole generation of programmers. paul From gerardcjat at free.fr Thu Mar 1 07:49:19 2018 From: gerardcjat at free.fr (GerardCJAT) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 14:49:19 +0100 Subject: HP 1000 system in Europe Message-ID: <7F40D69964E24BDC8CB267701079824E@medion> NICE system !! I would have love it but hadn't room for it .... too sad :-(( Where did in goes ??? ( Which country, in Europ, I think ? ) Gerard From auringer at tds.net Thu Mar 1 08:43:18 2018 From: auringer at tds.net (Jon Auringer) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 09:43:18 -0500 (EST) Subject: Picked up a couple 386 machines In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1269055430.430965601.1519915398444.JavaMail.zimbra@tds.net> Hi Devin, ----- Original Message ----- > From: "devin davison via cctalk" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2018 5:05:03 PM > Subject: Picked up a couple 386 machines > > The tandy 2500 is pretty nice as well, it has a cdrom and a hard drive > installed, although the hard drive is dead and seems to only accept AT > hard drives. Which model of the 2500 did you find? the 2500 SX/20, SX/33 & RSX motherboards all seem to have built-in IDE drive controllers. What model is the hard disk? -Jon From lyokoboy0 at gmail.com Thu Mar 1 12:51:14 2018 From: lyokoboy0 at gmail.com (devin davison) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 13:51:14 -0500 Subject: Picked up a couple 386 machines In-Reply-To: <1269055430.430965601.1519915398444.JavaMail.zimbra@tds.net> References: <1269055430.430965601.1519915398444.JavaMail.zimbra@tds.net> Message-ID: It is the 2500 SX. The drive is a quantum prodrive LPs 105 AT. The drive spins up but is not recognized. On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 9:43 AM, Jon Auringer wrote: > Hi Devin, > > ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "devin davison via cctalk" >> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" >> Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2018 5:05:03 PM >> Subject: Picked up a couple 386 machines > >> >> The tandy 2500 is pretty nice as well, it has a cdrom and a hard drive >> installed, although the hard drive is dead and seems to only accept AT >> hard drives. > > Which model of the 2500 did you find? the 2500 SX/20, SX/33 & RSX motherboards all seem to have built-in IDE drive controllers. What model is the hard disk? > > -Jon From auringer at tds.net Thu Mar 1 13:37:03 2018 From: auringer at tds.net (Jon Auringer) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 14:37:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: Picked up a couple 386 machines In-Reply-To: References: <1269055430.430965601.1519915398444.JavaMail.zimbra@tds.net> Message-ID: <1167212603.431612226.1519933023211.JavaMail.zimbra@tds.net> ----- Original Message ----- > From: "devin davison" > To: "Jon Auringer" > Cc: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2018 12:51:14 PM > Subject: Re: Picked up a couple 386 machines > > It is the 2500 SX. The drive is a quantum prodrive LPs 105 AT. > The drive spins up but is not recognized. That is a very standard IDE drive that you can replace with just about any IDE drive you can find, at least to get things up and running. The controller won't support the faster transfer speeds of later drives, and may not support the full capacity of the larger drives, but the newer drives should be backward compatible. Something in the 500MB range would probably be a good choice. Also, looking at the information I have on the motherboard the drive controller can't be disabled. You may be able to add a secondary drive controller, but booting from the hard disk on that controller _may_ not be possible. > >> The tandy 2500 is pretty nice as well, it has a cdrom and a hard drive > >> installed, although the hard drive is dead and seems to only accept AT > >> hard drives. > > > > Which model of the 2500 did you find? the 2500 SX/20, SX/33 & RSX > > motherboards all seem to have built-in IDE drive controllers. What model > > is the hard disk? -Jon From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Thu Mar 1 13:43:37 2018 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 14:43:37 -0500 Subject: PDP11 I/O page memory map In-Reply-To: <20180301120032.0DA5818C097@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180301120032.0DA5818C097@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <2cf548a5-a474-6852-a8a4-91ca84eba9d3@comcast.net> Noel; Thanks for the exact info I was looking for!? I knew there was a text listing of the addresses and what devices occupied those addresses.? Going thru the manuals one by one was way too tedious.? Thanks for explaining the 'bank switching' that is done to accommodate the larger boot roms.? Suspected that was going on but didn't really know. I'm curious because I have an MXV11-AC without the boot rom, however it does have another OEM rom there that I could reprogram with the standard bootstrap.? This led to the question I posted. Doug On 3/1/2018 7:00 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > > From: Douglas Taylor > > > Is there a document that describes the bank 7 memory page and what > > addresses are reserved for what? > > Here's one I collated from a large number of DEC manuals: > > http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/UNIBUS_Registers.txt > > (Ignore the name, it applies to QBUS machines too.) > > > bootstrap is reserved for 173000, how many words are allowed there for > > this? > > Well, the space from 773000-773776 (UNIBUS and Q18 - add '17' to the front > for Q22) is used for ROMs, and is the most common; 173000 is of course the > location QBUS processors can be configured to jump to on power on. 765000-776 > in also used for some (e.g. M9301's). > > > How do the more complicated bootstraps, e.g. microPDP11-53, accommodate > > this limitation? > > Bank switching; e.g. the BDV11, KDF11-B have a 'page control register' at > 777520 which says which block of ROM is mapped into the 773000 block. > Interestingly, the DEC standard ROMs for the BDV11 and KDF11-B _don't_ copy > all the contents down to real memory, and run from there - the code is > divided into 'pages', only one of which is mapped in at a time, and it's > executed from the ROM. > > Noel From ethan at 757.org Thu Mar 1 13:56:53 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 14:56:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Picked up a couple 386 machines In-Reply-To: <1167212603.431612226.1519933023211.JavaMail.zimbra@tds.net> References: <1269055430.430965601.1519915398444.JavaMail.zimbra@tds.net> <1167212603.431612226.1519933023211.JavaMail.zimbra@tds.net> Message-ID: > That is a very standard IDE drive that you can replace with just about > any IDE drive you can find, at least to get things up and running. The > controller won't support the faster transfer speeds of later drives, and > may not support the full capacity of the larger drives, but the newer > drives should be backward compatible. Something in the 500MB range would > probably be a good choice. Also, looking at the information I have on > the motherboard the drive controller can't be disabled. You may be able > to add a secondary drive controller, but booting from the hard disk on > that controller _may_ not be possible. On the old 386 era PCs you have to specify cyl/head/sector/lz type stuff in the BIOS usually? It's possible to sub in a CF card on the IDE bus with a cheap adapter, but I'm not sure how the cyl/head/sector stuff plays out. Maybe go with something fairly small like 32MB and a CF to IDE adapter (it's just wires, CF cards are similar to early PCMCIA which is ATA which I think is just buffered ISA but I could have it wrong?) I did this recently on a 486 but it had an auto-detect feature for the hard drive parameters. Maybe they don't really matter when using a CF Card -- does anyone know? Another option is the ISA CF/IDE card from GlitchWorks. It has it's own BIOS AFAIK and you don't need to worry about specifying the drive info in the bios. I have 3 or 4 but haven't tried them yet. On PCI systems Promise FastTrak IDE cards take care of the BIOS drive specification annoyances -- I use a PATA IDE to SD card widget on a FastTrak 100 on my Pentium luggable -- works well. -- : Ethan O'Toole From imp at bsdimp.com Thu Mar 1 14:03:44 2018 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 13:03:44 -0700 Subject: Picked up a couple 386 machines In-Reply-To: References: <1269055430.430965601.1519915398444.JavaMail.zimbra@tds.net> <1167212603.431612226.1519933023211.JavaMail.zimbra@tds.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 12:56 PM, Ethan via cctalk wrote: > That is a very standard IDE drive that you can replace with just about any >> IDE drive you can find, at least to get things up and running. The >> controller won't support the faster transfer speeds of later drives, and >> may not support the full capacity of the larger drives, but the newer >> drives should be backward compatible. Something in the 500MB range would >> probably be a good choice. Also, looking at the information I have on the >> motherboard the drive controller can't be disabled. You may be able to add >> a secondary drive controller, but booting from the hard disk on that >> controller _may_ not be possible. >> > > On the old 386 era PCs you have to specify cyl/head/sector/lz type stuff > in the BIOS usually? It's possible to sub in a CF card on the IDE bus with > a cheap adapter, but I'm not sure how the cyl/head/sector stuff plays out. > Maybe go with something fairly small like 32MB and a CF to IDE adapter > (it's just wires, CF cards are similar to early PCMCIA which is ATA which I > think is just buffered ISA but I could have it wrong?) > > I did this recently on a 486 but it had an auto-detect feature for the > hard drive parameters. Maybe they don't really matter when using a CF Card > -- does anyone know? > The CF card has a geometry it returns via the standard IDENTIFY command. It's just a IDE drive after all. Some of the fields are a little different than a spinning disk, and some newer BIOSes (newer than 386 era, mid-486/early-586 era) have heartburn due to that. You can often find out what it is if you can connect it to an PATA interface. USB adapters, however, lie. I've deployed thousands of CF cards over the years, and they all have different geometries. Our imaging software had to cope (so couldn't just dd the image on, but instead read the geometry, created appropriate partitions, newfs'd a FS and mounted it, then copied the files to it), and it was in the late-486/mid-586 era hardware. I was so happy when LBA addressing went in... Warner From curiousmarc3 at gmail.com Thu Mar 1 14:38:45 2018 From: curiousmarc3 at gmail.com (Curious Marc) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 12:38:45 -0800 Subject: Shipping a Flexowriter In-Reply-To: References: <161d8c4a0a9-154c-423ea@webjas-vab035.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: <9D2F25B6-0910-4ACF-8B34-C2B0DD17CDF2@gmail.com> +1 on Pak Mail too. Marc > On Feb 27, 2018, at 12:12 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > >> On 02/27/2018 11:37 AM, Ed Sharpe wrote: >> *In my case lady worked at a warehouse and had her people palate >> and strap the 3 ttys! saved $$ Pack mail is great though to pack >> stuff if no other free reliable option is there. We have to ship a >> large group of computer front panels across country and they >> handled it really well. >> * >> >> *Pack Mail ships alot of stuff form many auction places too.* > > I've used *Pak Mail* several times for very large delicate items and > never have been disappointed. Choose your store location, though--some > do not handle large things. > > One consideration is that they have contracts with the freight companies > and can often price shipping + packing for less than you'd get charged > for a single LTL shipment from a freight company. > > Have them ship it to another Pak Mail location, so you can pick it up, > sans pallet. > > Craters and Freighters is another good operation, though they tend to > operate on the East Coast. > > --Chuck > From bob at theadamsons.co.uk Thu Mar 1 14:47:25 2018 From: bob at theadamsons.co.uk (Robert Adamson) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 20:47:25 -0000 Subject: Vtserver 32MB limit In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000901d3b19e$82712a80$87537f80$@co.uk> >From Dennis Boone > Jonathan Engdahl's homepage shows his email > address. His changes are explained at the page you linked. Yes indeed - as I (meant to have) said, no reply to his email listed there. > The 32MB limit arises due to the use of 16 bit block number fields in > the protocol. I understand the issue but alas I'm a mere hardware guy with minimal software skills so I was looking for a giant to carry me ;). > if it's useful, you can find it here: > http://yagi.h-net.msu.edu/vtserver.drb.tar Perfect - minor mod for my raspberry pi and it works just fine thanks. Bob From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Thu Mar 1 16:18:49 2018 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (William Sudbrink) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 17:18:49 -0500 Subject: Old Classiccmp archive Message-ID: <0a2f01d3b1ab$4640eb60$d2c2c220$@verizon.net> Does anyone have an archive of classiccmp that goes back to the 90's? If so, could I ask you to "hunt down" an old message of mine? I once wrote a "reminiscence" of connecting to the ARPANET when I was a kid that I was rather pleased with. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost it in a disk crash (actually a couple of disks, primaries and backups). Thanks, Bill Sudbrink --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From healyzh at avanthar.com Thu Mar 1 16:28:21 2018 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 14:28:21 -0800 Subject: Old Classiccmp archive In-Reply-To: <0a2f01d3b1ab$4640eb60$d2c2c220$@verizon.net> References: <0a2f01d3b1ab$4640eb60$d2c2c220$@verizon.net> Message-ID: <93A12E8D-ADD7-4FF9-AE56-9FC87357DD9C@avanthar.com> > On Mar 1, 2018, at 2:18 PM, William Sudbrink via cctalk wrote: > > Does anyone have an archive of classiccmp that goes back to the 90's? If > so, could I ask you to "hunt down" an old message of mine? I once wrote a > "reminiscence" of connecting to the ARPANET when I was a kid that I was > rather pleased with. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost it in a disk crash > (actually a couple of disks, primaries and backups). > > Thanks, > Bill Sudbrink Any idea when, or any of the subject? I have most of the messages, except when Eudora would ?eat? the box it was filtering messages to. I?ve moved to Mail.app, and now I can?t find any old emails, and have a hard enough time finding messages from a couple months ago. Zane From drb at msu.edu Thu Mar 1 16:49:37 2018 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2018 17:49:37 -0500 Subject: Old Classiccmp archive In-Reply-To: (Your message of Thu, 01 Mar 2018 17:18:49 -0500.) <0a2f01d3b1ab$4640eb60$d2c2c220$@verizon.net> References: <0a2f01d3b1ab$4640eb60$d2c2c220$@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20180301224937.265D0A58617@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > Does anyone have an archive of classiccmp that goes back to the 90's? > If so, could I ask you to "hunt down" an old message of mine? I once > wrote a "reminiscence" of connecting to the ARPANET when I was a kid > that I was rather pleased with. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost > it in a disk crash (actually a couple of disks, primaries and > backups). This one? De ============================================================================== That last exchange of messages has me reminiscing so (with a little tongue in cheek)... Procedure For Connecting To The 'net Circa 1978 (That's the ARPANET for all you young whipper-snappers. What we called the internet before they let all of the riff-raff in.) Initial notes: Do not begin this procedure before 11PM. This avoids conflicts over telephone usage with your parents. Net resources are generally not available to "tourists" before this time anyway. Resource availability is generally best on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights and holidays. Keep an ear open for police sirens. Rumor has it that the FCC will come and arrest you (and/or your parents) if it detects illegal equipment attached to the telephone system. Another reason to operate late at night, they probably aren't watching. 1) Move your computer from your bedroom to the kitchen table (that's where the phone is!). Don't connect power to the modem yet, it produces a carrier whenever it is powered and you need to be able to hear the far end of the telephone connection when you first dial. Also, you want it to be cool when you initiate the connection. 2) Take the handset off of the hook and replace it with the piece of broomstick that you fashioned for that purpose. 3) Get a big towel from the linen closet. Fold it into quarters and put the handset on it. Attach the speaker and microphone to the handset with wide rubber bands. Fold the towel over the handset. This will prevent various ambient sounds (like the sound of typing) from introducing noise on the line. 4) Being sure that the cassette/modem switch (a DPDT switch that connects the transmit and receive pins of the USART to either the cassette interface or the modem) is in the cassette position, load the terminal program. Run the program. You are greeted with a blank screen (this is normal but you can't be 100% sure that it loaded correctly until you have connected). Switch the cassette/modem switch to modem. You may see a few garbage characters on the screen (that's a good sign). 5) Get an ice cube from the freezer, put it in a sandwich bag and put it on the towel next to the modem. 6) Remove the broom stick from the telephone hook and dial the NBS (National Bureau of Standards) TIP (Terminal Interface Processor). Listen for the call to be answered and for the carrier on the far end. Sometimes the TIP is down and won't answer, sometimes it is down and will answer but won't give a carrier. If it's down, wait an hour and try again. 7) If you get a carrier, apply power to the modem. Start pressing the @ (at) key once a second until it is echoed on your screen. Listen for the chirp when you press the key. If you don't hear it, the terminal program isn't running correctly, hang up, unpower the modem, reset the computer and go back to step 4. 8) Once the @ character is echoed, press enter. You should get an error message (I no longer remember the text). Now type "@O 77". This instructs the TIP to connect you to the MIT-DM (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dynamic Modeling) computer. 9) Start pressing the return key once a second until you get a logon prompt (I no longer remember the prompt text). The user name and password are GUEST. 10) Once logged on, wait for a minute or two, pressing enter every ten seconds or so. This gives the operator a chance to notice you and kick you off if the system is busy. If he's in a chatty mood, you'll get a message like "The system's busy, get lost!". If not, your connection will just die. If the system is busy, try again in an hour or so. 11) I no longer remember how to start up Zork or some of the other programs... anyone feel free to provide details I'm missing. Keep an ear on the connection. If the carrier starts to change pitch, wipe any condensation off the ice cube bag on the towel and then apply to the smaller chip on the right on the modem board. From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Thu Mar 1 16:56:37 2018 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (William Sudbrink) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 17:56:37 -0500 Subject: Old Classiccmp archive In-Reply-To: <20180301224937.265D0A58617@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <0a2f01d3b1ab$4640eb60$d2c2c220$@verizon.net> <20180301224937.265D0A58617@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <0a3201d3b1b0$8de7b750$a9b725f0$@verizon.net> Bingo! Thanks a lot! -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dennis Boone via cctalk Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2018 5:50 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Old Classiccmp archive > Does anyone have an archive of classiccmp that goes back to the 90's? > If so, could I ask you to "hunt down" an old message of mine? I once > wrote a "reminiscence" of connecting to the ARPANET when I was a kid > that I was rather pleased with. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost > it in a disk crash (actually a couple of disks, primaries and > backups). This one? De ============================================================================ == That last exchange of messages has me reminiscing so (with a little tongue in cheek)... Procedure For Connecting To The 'net Circa 1978 (That's the ARPANET for all you young whipper-snappers. What we called the internet before they let all of the riff-raff in.) Initial notes: Do not begin this procedure before 11PM. This avoids conflicts over telephone usage with your parents. Net resources are generally not available to "tourists" before this time anyway. Resource availability is generally best on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights and holidays. Keep an ear open for police sirens. Rumor has it that the FCC will come and arrest you (and/or your parents) if it detects illegal equipment attached to the telephone system. Another reason to operate late at night, they probably aren't watching. 1) Move your computer from your bedroom to the kitchen table (that's where the phone is!). Don't connect power to the modem yet, it produces a carrier whenever it is powered and you need to be able to hear the far end of the telephone connection when you first dial. Also, you want it to be cool when you initiate the connection. 2) Take the handset off of the hook and replace it with the piece of broomstick that you fashioned for that purpose. 3) Get a big towel from the linen closet. Fold it into quarters and put the handset on it. Attach the speaker and microphone to the handset with wide rubber bands. Fold the towel over the handset. This will prevent various ambient sounds (like the sound of typing) from introducing noise on the line. 4) Being sure that the cassette/modem switch (a DPDT switch that connects the transmit and receive pins of the USART to either the cassette interface or the modem) is in the cassette position, load the terminal program. Run the program. You are greeted with a blank screen (this is normal but you can't be 100% sure that it loaded correctly until you have connected). Switch the cassette/modem switch to modem. You may see a few garbage characters on the screen (that's a good sign). 5) Get an ice cube from the freezer, put it in a sandwich bag and put it on the towel next to the modem. 6) Remove the broom stick from the telephone hook and dial the NBS (National Bureau of Standards) TIP (Terminal Interface Processor). Listen for the call to be answered and for the carrier on the far end. Sometimes the TIP is down and won't answer, sometimes it is down and will answer but won't give a carrier. If it's down, wait an hour and try again. 7) If you get a carrier, apply power to the modem. Start pressing the @ (at) key once a second until it is echoed on your screen. Listen for the chirp when you press the key. If you don't hear it, the terminal program isn't running correctly, hang up, unpower the modem, reset the computer and go back to step 4. 8) Once the @ character is echoed, press enter. You should get an error message (I no longer remember the text). Now type "@O 77". This instructs the TIP to connect you to the MIT-DM (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dynamic Modeling) computer. 9) Start pressing the return key once a second until you get a logon prompt (I no longer remember the prompt text). The user name and password are GUEST. 10) Once logged on, wait for a minute or two, pressing enter every ten seconds or so. This gives the operator a chance to notice you and kick you off if the system is busy. If he's in a chatty mood, you'll get a message like "The system's busy, get lost!". If not, your connection will just die. If the system is busy, try again in an hour or so. 11) I no longer remember how to start up Zork or some of the other programs... anyone feel free to provide details I'm missing. Keep an ear on the connection. If the carrier starts to change pitch, wipe any condensation off the ice cube bag on the towel and then apply to the smaller chip on the right on the modem board. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From chd at chdickman.com Thu Mar 1 18:39:53 2018 From: chd at chdickman.com (Charles Dickman) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 19:39:53 -0500 Subject: PDP11 I/O page memory map In-Reply-To: References: <13e51c9d-922e-488a-d5bb-1148511da906@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 9:04 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > That's true when the MMU is disabled; if so it supplies 1 bits for the upper bits for page 7, > and zeroes for the other pages. But if the MMU is enabled, all mapping goes through its mapping > registers, and page 7 is no longer special. By software convention, kernel data page 7 is > configured to point to the I/O page, but that isn't required. If you wanted to be be perverse you > could map the I/O page via page 6 and confuse a whole generation of programmers. So if the I/O page is completely (all processor modes) unmapped is there any way to recover besides a power cycle? Does the RESET instruction disable the MMU? -chuck From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Thu Mar 1 19:52:30 2018 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 20:52:30 -0500 Subject: Last sun3 ask: In search of a SCSI controller (VME) for a 3/260 In-Reply-To: <7AB41926-FE86-44F2-8C37-11BB171DD8AA@gmail.com> References: <7AB41926-FE86-44F2-8C37-11BB171DD8AA@gmail.com> Message-ID: I don't, but I do have a memory board from one if you want it. Rather dirty. On Tue, Feb 27, 2018 at 2:35 AM, Ian via cctalk wrote: > Folks, sorry for the Sun spam. > > > Everything was working in my newly acquired 3/260, and the monitor is even > starting to shape up. > > It was a gorgeous machine until I tried to use the SCSI bus on it. > > The controller is dead, very dead. No fuses or obvious things. > > No matter the device or chain... including the original disks. > > ?getbyte error, phase mismatch? > > So again I plead- does anyone have a Sun 3 scsi controller, preferably of > the internally pinned type, sitting on a shelf somewhere? > > Thanks, > > - Ian > > From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Mar 1 20:54:50 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 21:54:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: PDP11 I/O page memory map Message-ID: <20180302025450.94F0E18C08F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Charles Dickman > So if the I/O page is completely (all processor modes) unmapped is > there any way to recover besides a power cycle? Does the RESET > instruction disable the MMU? Interesting questions! The CPU manuals don't say, about the RE$ET; I just tried it on the /23 I happen to have next to my desktop, and yes, the RESET instruction does clear bit 0 of SSR0. Noel From bear at typewritten.org Thu Mar 1 22:34:21 2018 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 20:34:21 -0800 Subject: Old Classiccmp archive In-Reply-To: <0a2f01d3b1ab$4640eb60$d2c2c220$@verizon.net> References: <0a2f01d3b1ab$4640eb60$d2c2c220$@verizon.net> Message-ID: <6F45FE40-733B-4198-A9D4-2E6D61B525FB@typewritten.org> On Mar 1, 2018, at 2:18 PM, William Sudbrink via cctech wrote: > Does anyone have an archive of classiccmp that goes back to the 90's? If > so, could I ask you to "hunt down" an old message of mine? I once wrote a > "reminiscence" of connecting to the ARPANET when I was a kid that I was > rather pleased with. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost it in a disk crash > (actually a couple of disks, primaries and backups). > Yep. ====begin That last exchange of messages has me reminiscing so (with a little tongue in cheek)... Procedure For Connecting To The 'net Circa 1978 (That's the ARPANET for all you young whipper-snappers. What we called the internet before they let all of the riff-raff in.) Initial notes: Do not begin this procedure before 11PM. This avoids conflicts over telephone usage with your parents. Net resources are generally not available to "tourists" before this time anyway. Resource availability is generally best on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights and holidays. Keep an ear open for police sirens. Rumor has it that the FCC will come and arrest you (and/or your parents) if it detects illegal equipment attached to the telephone system. Another reason to operate late at night, they probably aren't watching. 1) Move your computer from your bedroom to the kitchen table (that's where the phone is!). Don't connect power to the modem yet, it produces a carrier whenever it is powered and you need to be able to hear the far end of the telephone connection when you first dial. Also, you want it to be cool when you initiate the connection. 2) Take the handset off of the hook and replace it with the piece of broomstick that you fashioned for that purpose. 3) Get a big towel from the linen closet. Fold it into quarters and put the handset on it. Attach the speaker and microphone to the handset with wide rubber bands. Fold the towel over the handset. This will prevent various ambient sounds (like the sound of typing) from introducing noise on the line. 4) Being sure that the cassette/modem switch (a DPDT switch that connects the transmit and receive pins of the USART to either the cassette interface or the modem) is in the cassette position, load the terminal program. Run the program. You are greeted with a blank screen (this is normal but you can't be 100% sure that it loaded correctly until you have connected). Switch the cassette/modem switch to modem. You may see a few garbage characters on the screen (that's a good sign). 5) Get an ice cube from the freezer, put it in a sandwich bag and put it on the towel next to the modem. 6) Remove the broom stick from the telephone hook and dial the NBS (National Bureau of Standards) TIP (Terminal Interface Processor). Listen for the call to be answered and for the carrier on the far end. Sometimes the TIP is down and won't answer, sometimes it is down and will answer but won't give a carrier. If it's down, wait an hour and try again. 7) If you get a carrier, apply power to the modem. Start pressing the @ (at) key once a second until it is echoed on your screen. Listen for the chirp when you press the key. If you don't hear it, the terminal program isn't running correctly, hang up, unpower the modem, reset the computer and go back to step 4. 8) Once the @ character is echoed, press enter. You should get an error message (I no longer remember the text). Now type "@O 77". This instructs the TIP to connect you to the MIT-DM (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dynamic Modeling) computer. 9) Start pressing the return key once a second until you get a logon prompt (I no longer remember the prompt text). The user name and password are GUEST. 10) Once logged on, wait for a minute or two, pressing enter every ten seconds or so. This gives the operator a chance to notice you and kick you off if the system is busy. If he's in a chatty mood, you'll get a message like "The system's busy, get lost!". If not, your connection will just die. If the system is busy, try again in an hour or so. 11) I no longer remember how to start up Zork or some of the other programs... anyone feel free to provide details I'm missing. Keep an ear on the connection. If the carrier starts to change pitch, wipe any condensation off the ice cube bag on the towel and then apply to the smaller chip on the right on the modem board. -- until further notice From bear at typewritten.org Thu Mar 1 22:34:21 2018 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 20:34:21 -0800 Subject: Old Classiccmp archive In-Reply-To: <0a2f01d3b1ab$4640eb60$d2c2c220$@verizon.net> References: <0a2f01d3b1ab$4640eb60$d2c2c220$@verizon.net> Message-ID: <6F45FE40-733B-4198-A9D4-2E6D61B525FB@typewritten.org> On Mar 1, 2018, at 2:18 PM, William Sudbrink via cctech wrote: > Does anyone have an archive of classiccmp that goes back to the 90's? If > so, could I ask you to "hunt down" an old message of mine? I once wrote a > "reminiscence" of connecting to the ARPANET when I was a kid that I was > rather pleased with. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost it in a disk crash > (actually a couple of disks, primaries and backups). > Yep. ====begin That last exchange of messages has me reminiscing so (with a little tongue in cheek)... Procedure For Connecting To The 'net Circa 1978 (That's the ARPANET for all you young whipper-snappers. What we called the internet before they let all of the riff-raff in.) Initial notes: Do not begin this procedure before 11PM. This avoids conflicts over telephone usage with your parents. Net resources are generally not available to "tourists" before this time anyway. Resource availability is generally best on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights and holidays. Keep an ear open for police sirens. Rumor has it that the FCC will come and arrest you (and/or your parents) if it detects illegal equipment attached to the telephone system. Another reason to operate late at night, they probably aren't watching. 1) Move your computer from your bedroom to the kitchen table (that's where the phone is!). Don't connect power to the modem yet, it produces a carrier whenever it is powered and you need to be able to hear the far end of the telephone connection when you first dial. Also, you want it to be cool when you initiate the connection. 2) Take the handset off of the hook and replace it with the piece of broomstick that you fashioned for that purpose. 3) Get a big towel from the linen closet. Fold it into quarters and put the handset on it. Attach the speaker and microphone to the handset with wide rubber bands. Fold the towel over the handset. This will prevent various ambient sounds (like the sound of typing) from introducing noise on the line. 4) Being sure that the cassette/modem switch (a DPDT switch that connects the transmit and receive pins of the USART to either the cassette interface or the modem) is in the cassette position, load the terminal program. Run the program. You are greeted with a blank screen (this is normal but you can't be 100% sure that it loaded correctly until you have connected). Switch the cassette/modem switch to modem. You may see a few garbage characters on the screen (that's a good sign). 5) Get an ice cube from the freezer, put it in a sandwich bag and put it on the towel next to the modem. 6) Remove the broom stick from the telephone hook and dial the NBS (National Bureau of Standards) TIP (Terminal Interface Processor). Listen for the call to be answered and for the carrier on the far end. Sometimes the TIP is down and won't answer, sometimes it is down and will answer but won't give a carrier. If it's down, wait an hour and try again. 7) If you get a carrier, apply power to the modem. Start pressing the @ (at) key once a second until it is echoed on your screen. Listen for the chirp when you press the key. If you don't hear it, the terminal program isn't running correctly, hang up, unpower the modem, reset the computer and go back to step 4. 8) Once the @ character is echoed, press enter. You should get an error message (I no longer remember the text). Now type "@O 77". This instructs the TIP to connect you to the MIT-DM (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dynamic Modeling) computer. 9) Start pressing the return key once a second until you get a logon prompt (I no longer remember the prompt text). The user name and password are GUEST. 10) Once logged on, wait for a minute or two, pressing enter every ten seconds or so. This gives the operator a chance to notice you and kick you off if the system is busy. If he's in a chatty mood, you'll get a message like "The system's busy, get lost!". If not, your connection will just die. If the system is busy, try again in an hour or so. 11) I no longer remember how to start up Zork or some of the other programs... anyone feel free to provide details I'm missing. Keep an ear on the connection. If the carrier starts to change pitch, wipe any condensation off the ice cube bag on the towel and then apply to the smaller chip on the right on the modem board. -- until further notice From sellam.ismail at gmail.com Thu Mar 1 18:13:03 2018 From: sellam.ismail at gmail.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 16:13:03 -0800 Subject: OT: Any tech apprenticeship opportunities in Brisbane, QLD? Message-ID: Hello Folks. Forgive me for the intrusion. I know a good soul in Brisbane area in Queensland, Australia who is looking for some sort of apprenticeship in electronics or communications/networking. I thought I would ask here in case this message reaches some of you blokes down there that might be able to point him in a useful direction. He's in his 30s, very sharp and capable, gainfully employed in an entirely unrelated field and looking for a change in his life. Offline responses welcomed. Thanks! Sellam From RichA at livingcomputers.org Thu Mar 1 19:04:56 2018 From: RichA at livingcomputers.org (Rich Alderson) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 01:04:56 +0000 Subject: Old Classiccmp archive In-Reply-To: <20180301224937.265D0A58617@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <0a2f01d3b1ab$4640eb60$d2c2c220$@verizon.net> <20180301224937.265D0A58617@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <6bba772d13464eb0ae00d6f9290ff407@livingcomputers.org> From: Dennis Boone via cctalk Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2018 2:50 PM >> Does anyone have an archive of classiccmp that goes back to the 90's? >> If so, could I ask you to "hunt down" an old message of mine? I once >> wrote a "reminiscence" of connecting to the ARPANET when I was a kid >> that I was rather pleased with. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost >> it in a disk crash (actually a couple of disks, primaries and >> backups). > This one? It would be amusing to see the headers from the message, too. Rich From cctalk at snarc.net Thu Mar 1 19:26:10 2018 From: cctalk at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2018 20:26:10 -0500 Subject: VCF East keynotes -- holy moly! Message-ID: <2451f05e-ab39-47ae-a778-f27f3653d0d5@snarc.net> There will be three awesome keynotes for VCF East this spring. - Friday: our own Bill Dromgoole who'll talk about restoring the VCFed UNIVAC mainframe. - Saturday: Don Eyles (NASA contractor who hacked the Apollo Guidance Computer to save the Apollo 14 mission) - Sunday: Dave Walden, who programmed the IMP at BBN for the ARPANET From jsw at ieee.org Fri Mar 2 01:29:34 2018 From: jsw at ieee.org (Jerry Weiss) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 01:29:34 -0600 Subject: PDP11 I/O page memory map In-Reply-To: <20180302025450.94F0E18C08F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180302025450.94F0E18C08F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <13D4E86F-2DD6-4CD2-A06E-B0DAD70F775C@ieee.org> > On Mar 1, 2018, at 8:54 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > >> From: Charles Dickman > >> So if the I/O page is completely (all processor modes) unmapped is >> there any way to recover besides a power cycle? Does the RESET >> instruction disable the MMU? > > Interesting questions! > > The CPU manuals don't say, about the RE$ET; I just tried it on the /23 I > happen to have next to my desktop, and yes, the RESET instruction does clear > bit 0 of SSR0. > > Noel Typically execution of the RESET instruction in a user program is treated as a NOP when the MMU is enabled. What generally occurs in most OS'es is that I/O Page is mapped and unmapped dynamically based on which mode is executing. Interrupts or user program traps cause a context switch to kernel mode. When this occurs page registers with access to the I/O page defined are activated. The interrupt or trap is serviced then the OS returns to running the user mode program. At this point a switch to back to a set of page registers without I/O mapping occurs. There are OS'es that allow regular programs to map the I/O page, These are usually special purpose solutions (RT11XM) or granted only to privileged users (RSX11, TSX+). The effect of RESET to initialize the MMR0 (SSR0) register is documented in the PDP11 Handbook 1979 or the J11 Programmers Reference. I could not find it in the reference immediately below, much to my surprise. Check out Chapter 1 in the KDJ11-A CPU Module User's Guide for an overview of PDP11 memory management. This implementation was (mostly) backward compatible with PDP-11 models having 22bit , 18bit or no memory management. Jerry From macro at linux-mips.org Fri Mar 2 05:44:11 2018 From: macro at linux-mips.org (Maciej W. Rozycki) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 11:44:11 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Bug-for-bug compatibility [was RE: SimH DECtape vs. Tops-10 [was RE: Writing emulators [Was: Re: VCF PNW 2018: Pictures!]]] In-Reply-To: <68EB6FB3-5642-4171-9BCC-7FD398EBAE57@comcast.net> References: <6b7ae98985934adcbfb2aef674c96851@livingcomputers.org> <6da5ffa2-d2c5-731d-2047-4ec9f4b7f026@froghouse.org> <68EB6FB3-5642-4171-9BCC-7FD398EBAE57@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Feb 2018, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > With the VAX, this got cleaned up to a significant extent, and ditto > with Alpha. In both cases, an internal validator tool was created to > verify that, at least from the point of view of instruction execution, a > new machine worked the same as an existing reference machine. But this > seems to be quite an unusual notion in the history of computer hardware > development generally. Even when standard specifications exist that > appear to spell out how an architecture is supposed to work, the reality > is that two implementations will in general do it differently. That is > particularly likely to happen in cases of "no one will do this" -- like > shifts by more than the word size, or other oddball stuff. That's what architecture verification programs or AVP tests are for nowadays. Everything that's not undefined in the architecture is supposed to work as defined. This includes odd corner cases. Formal definitions are included in the architecture specification. Maciej From robert626001 at gmail.com Fri Mar 2 06:59:28 2018 From: robert626001 at gmail.com (Robert) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 06:59:28 -0600 Subject: Shipping a Flexowriter In-Reply-To: <9D2F25B6-0910-4ACF-8B34-C2B0DD17CDF2@gmail.com> References: <161d8c4a0a9-154c-423ea@webjas-vab035.srv.aolmail.net> <9D2F25B6-0910-4ACF-8B34-C2B0DD17CDF2@gmail.com> Message-ID: +2 for Pak Mail. I used their Plainview TX franchise, last year, to send an AS/400e, with expansion chassis, all the way from Texas to Canada. They came and collected it (a 250 mile round trip), built a crate for it and sent it LTL freight. The recipient was happy. On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 2:38 PM, Curious Marc via cctalk wrote: > +1 on Pak Mail too. > Marc > >> On Feb 27, 2018, at 12:12 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: >> >>> On 02/27/2018 11:37 AM, Ed Sharpe wrote: >>> *In my case lady worked at a warehouse and had her people palate >>> and strap the 3 ttys! saved $$ Pack mail is great though to pack >>> stuff if no other free reliable option is there. We have to ship a >>> large group of computer front panels across country and they >>> handled it really well. >>> * >>> >>> *Pack Mail ships alot of stuff form many auction places too.* >> >> I've used *Pak Mail* several times for very large delicate items and >> never have been disappointed. Choose your store location, though--some >> do not handle large things. >> >> One consideration is that they have contracts with the freight companies >> and can often price shipping + packing for less than you'd get charged >> for a single LTL shipment from a freight company. >> >> Have them ship it to another Pak Mail location, so you can pick it up, >> sans pallet. >> >> Craters and Freighters is another good operation, though they tend to >> operate on the East Coast. >> >> --Chuck >> From kylevowen at gmail.com Fri Mar 2 07:34:25 2018 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 07:34:25 -0600 Subject: Is livingcomputers.org down? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm not able to load Living Computer's website. Anyone else? Kyle From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Fri Mar 2 07:37:47 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 08:37:47 -0500 (EST) Subject: PDP11 I/O page memory map Message-ID: <20180302133747.20B7E18C09A@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Jerry Weiss > Typically execution of the RESET instruction in a user program is > treated as a NOP Yeah, that's not documented in most PDP-11 CPU manuals, either. It's one of the things that makes the PDP-11 impossible to virtualize; only HALT and SPL trap, IIRC. M[TF]P[ID] doesn't, I think, and neither does WAIT or RT[IT], IIRC. Noel From billdegnan at gmail.com Fri Mar 2 08:30:47 2018 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 09:30:47 -0500 Subject: Is livingcomputers.org down? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It's back up. On Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 8:34 AM, Kyle Owen via cctalk wrote: > I'm not able to load Living Computer's website. Anyone else? > > Kyle > From paulkoning at comcast.net Fri Mar 2 09:11:25 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 10:11:25 -0500 Subject: PDP11 I/O page memory map In-Reply-To: <20180302133747.20B7E18C09A@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180302133747.20B7E18C09A@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: > On Mar 2, 2018, at 8:37 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > >> From: Jerry Weiss > >> Typically execution of the RESET instruction in a user program is >> treated as a NOP > > Yeah, that's not documented in most PDP-11 CPU manuals, either. It's one of > the things that makes the PDP-11 impossible to virtualize; only HALT and SPL > trap, IIRC. M[TF]P[ID] doesn't, I think, and neither does WAIT or RT[IT], > IIRC. RTI/RTT are used in the debugger, so they need to work in user mode. They refuse to raise your privilege level, though. But an RTI in user mode that returns to user mode is perfectly ok so it is valid. The move from/to previous are also valid, by deliberate design. This works because the previous mode is explicitly encoded in the PSW, and just like the current mode, cannot be raised by user mode RTI. It is why the kernel usually sets current == previous == user when constructing the PSW for a process. What does the Architecture handbook say about WAIT and RESET in non-kernel modes? I don't have mine at hand unfortunately. paul From robert626001 at gmail.com Fri Mar 2 08:15:50 2018 From: robert626001 at gmail.com (Robert) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 08:15:50 -0600 Subject: HP 1000 system in Europe In-Reply-To: <7F40D69964E24BDC8CB267701079824E@medion> References: <7F40D69964E24BDC8CB267701079824E@medion> Message-ID: Some more info would be nice. Also, a word of caution. I have two HP 1000/A900 systems and I gave myself a hernia last weekend, moving them. Robert On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 7:49 AM, GerardCJAT via cctech wrote: > NICE system !! > > I would have love it but hadn't room for it .... too sad :-(( > > Where did in goes ??? ( Which country, in Europ, I think ? ) > > Gerard From elson at pico-systems.com Fri Mar 2 10:35:25 2018 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2018 10:35:25 -0600 Subject: Old Classiccmp archive In-Reply-To: <6F45FE40-733B-4198-A9D4-2E6D61B525FB@typewritten.org> References: <0a2f01d3b1ab$4640eb60$d2c2c220$@verizon.net> <6F45FE40-733B-4198-A9D4-2E6D61B525FB@typewritten.org> Message-ID: <5A997D4D.80800@pico-systems.com> On 03/01/2018 10:34 PM, r.stricklin via cctalk wrote: > > 8) Once the @ character is echoed, press enter. You should get > an error message (I no longer remember the text). Now type > "@O 77". This instructs the TIP to connect you to the > MIT-DM (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dynamic Modeling) > computer. > > 9) Start pressing the return key once a second until you get a > logon prompt (I no longer remember the prompt text). The user > name and password are GUEST. > > Ahh, the good old days when nobody worried about security! Jon From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Fri Mar 2 11:31:20 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 12:31:20 -0500 (EST) Subject: PDP11 I/O page memory map Message-ID: <20180302173120.6413118C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Paul Koning > RTI/RTT are used in the debugger, so they need to work in user mode. > They refuse to raise your privilege level, though. I understand that it has uses, but by specifying the 'failure' mode in User mode (when the contents of the current or previous modes is not User) to be 'ignore', rather than 'trap', that's one more thing that makes the PDP-11 non-virtualizable. (This choice, to ignore, instead of trap, has the same issue in other places where it's done that way, e.g. RESET.) Noel From fritzm at fritzm.org Fri Mar 2 12:14:48 2018 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 10:14:48 -0800 Subject: PDP11 I/O page memory map In-Reply-To: <20180302133747.20B7E18C09A@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180302133747.20B7E18C09A@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <1A223844-137B-4E68-941B-F5E0A435AA3D@fritzm.org> > On Mar 2, 2018, at 5:37 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > >> From: Jerry Weiss >> Typically execution of the RESET instruction in a user program is >> treated as a NOP > > Yeah, that's not documented in most PDP-11 CPU manuals, either. It's one of > the things that makes the PDP-11 impossible to virtualize; only HALT and SPL > trap, IIRC. M[TF]P[ID] doesn't, I think, and neither does WAIT or RT[IT], > IIRC. Re-affirming Noel's *most* from above: having been through a deep dive on the 11/45 during a restoration the last couple years, I know most of this material *is* explicit in the 11/45 processor handbook, though maybe not in the obvious places. Behavior of HALT, RESET, and SPL in all three modes is documented on page 13, in the Processor Status Word section, for example. HALT and SPL behaviors are also noted on their individual instruction pages, but the RESET behavior, strangely, is not. WAIT is permitted in supervisor and user modes on the 11/45. Current and previous mode bits in the PSW can be set but not cleared when in supervisor and user modes on the 11/45. RTI/RTT/M[FT]P[DI] function uniformly, but given this PSW behavior they can only effectively preserve or lower the processor mode, or access the address space of same or lower modes, assuming the PSW is properly setup and handled by kernel mode code. This is documented on page 24 of the processor handbook, in the Multiprogramming section. I don't recall explicit mention of the MMU reset behavior in the processor handbook, but it may be squirreled away in there somewhere... I think I absorbed that bit of critical info from the KT11-C maintenance manual when I was working through debugging the one in my /45. I am much less familiar with the documentation for later-model PDP-11s. It sounds like a some of this info may have been "sanitized" from the later handbooks? cheers! --FritzM. From phil at ultimate.com Fri Mar 2 12:25:14 2018 From: phil at ultimate.com (Phil Budne) Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2018 13:25:14 -0500 Subject: PDP11 I/O page memory map In-Reply-To: <20180302173120.6413118C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180302173120.6413118C09C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <201803021825.w22IPEGs079298@ultimate.com> It might be interesting to make a virtual PDP-11 (simulator) that *IS* more virtualization friendly, and find out how much user code depends on the existing behavior... And then write a PDP-11 hypervisor! BUT existing PDP-11's aren't even friendly restarting after a page fault, which is required for lesser virtualization (VM), and would be necessary to simulate memory mapped devices. I remember how each new generation of MC68K processors had ever larger trap stack frames to hold internal processor state... From allisonportable at gmail.com Fri Mar 2 13:22:20 2018 From: allisonportable at gmail.com (allison) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 14:22:20 -0500 Subject: Bug-for-bug compatibility [was RE: SimH DECtape vs. Tops-10 [was RE: Writing emulators [Was: Re: VCF PNW 2018: Pictures!]]] In-Reply-To: References: <6b7ae98985934adcbfb2aef674c96851@livingcomputers.org> <6da5ffa2-d2c5-731d-2047-4ec9f4b7f026@froghouse.org> <68EB6FB3-5642-4171-9BCC-7FD398EBAE57@comcast.net> Message-ID: <7466193a-bf9a-f60b-cc7a-fba7f6074c87@gmail.com> On 03/02/2018 06:44 AM, Maciej W. Rozycki via cctalk wrote: > On Wed, 28 Feb 2018, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > >> With the VAX, this got cleaned up to a significant extent, and ditto >> with Alpha. In both cases, an internal validator tool was created to >> verify that, at least from the point of view of instruction execution, a >> new machine worked the same as an existing reference machine. But this >> seems to be quite an unusual notion in the history of computer hardware >> development generally. Even when standard specifications exist that >> appear to spell out how an architecture is supposed to work, the reality >> is that two implementations will in general do it differently. That is >> particularly likely to happen in cases of "no one will do this" -- like >> shifts by more than the word size, or other oddball stuff. Its right after the VAX that DEC engineering started thinking about standards. It was clear that the PDP-11 was not one fully unified system as each variant had its own unique quirks more so after the advent of the LSI-11 and F11 chips. Of of the PDP-11 handbooks I have has a back page of differences in instruction set behavior between all of the known PDP-11s including T-11 and J11, It was clear the VAX architecture had to have a clear definition that was true across all of VAXen yet to come.? This was brought about by the need to keep VMS consistent and also later Ultrix. ? Hence the DEC STD For VAX came to being and the test for is it a VAX as well.? Exceptions were clearly listed and the software impacts were defined.??? Of course since Alpha had to run VMS (by then OpenVMS) and Ultrix or its heirs it also was spec'ed out fully and for all expected generations. > That's what architecture verification programs or AVP tests are for > nowadays. Everything that's not undefined in the architecture is supposed > to work as defined. This includes odd corner cases. Formal definitions > are included in the architecture specification. Now we do in the world.? But a good example of variations on a theme is ARM. Though there are some controls is an earlier ARM 16bit? a subset of an ARM 64 bit? Allison > Maciej From jsw at ieee.org Fri Mar 2 13:28:48 2018 From: jsw at ieee.org (Jerry Weiss) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 13:28:48 -0600 Subject: PDP11 I/O page memory map In-Reply-To: References: <20180302133747.20B7E18C09A@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <81416342-7A79-4248-8DAB-4F58679E39C5@ieee.org> > On Mar 2, 2018, at 9:11 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > >> On Mar 2, 2018, at 8:37 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: >> >>> From: Jerry Weiss >> >>> Typically execution of the RESET instruction in a user program is >>> treated as a NOP >> >> Yeah, that's not documented in most PDP-11 CPU manuals, either. It's one of >> the things that makes the PDP-11 impossible to virtualize; only HALT and SPL >> trap, IIRC. M[TF]P[ID] doesn't, I think, and neither does WAIT or RT[IT], >> IIRC. > > RTI/RTT are used in the debugger, so they need to work in user mode. They refuse to raise your privilege level, though. But an RTI in user mode that returns to user mode is perfectly ok so it is valid. > > The move from/to previous are also valid, by deliberate design. This works because the previous mode is explicitly encoded in the PSW, and just like the current mode, cannot be raised by user mode RTI. It is why the kernel usually sets current == previous == user when constructing the PSW for a process. > > What does the Architecture handbook say about WAIT and RESET in non-kernel modes? I don't have mine at hand unfortunately. > > paul > > In the Digital Microcomputer Processor Handbook 1979-80 edition page 280 describes the user mode restrictions on HALT, RESET. and MTPS, but nothing about WAIT. The PDP11 Handbook 1979 does not detail user mode implications for MTPS or WAIT. HALT is called out for a trap to 10 in user mode. Prevention of a "restart" in user mode is mentioned on page 182, but nothing explicit about RESET. As FritzM suggested, it appears there are fewer details in the PDP-11 Architecture Handbook (1983) for these instructions than these earlier references above. HALT trapping to 4 appears for later processors in the family differences section, but I did not see much else for this topic. Jerry From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Fri Mar 2 13:41:54 2018 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (William Sudbrink) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 14:41:54 -0500 Subject: Old Classiccmp archive In-Reply-To: <5A997D4D.80800@pico-systems.com> References: <0a2f01d3b1ab$4640eb60$d2c2c220$@verizon.net> <6F45FE40-733B-4198-A9D4-2E6D61B525FB@typewritten.org> <5A997D4D.80800@pico-systems.com> Message-ID: <0a9601d3b25e$8592d9a0$90b88ce0$@verizon.net> Livin' in a small town... Nobody locks their door at night... -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jon Elson via cctalk Sent: Friday, March 02, 2018 11:35 AM To: r.stricklin; General at ezwind.net; Discussion at ezwind.net:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Old Classiccmp archive On 03/01/2018 10:34 PM, r.stricklin via cctalk wrote: > > 8) Once the @ character is echoed, press enter. You should get > an error message (I no longer remember the text). Now type > "@O 77". This instructs the TIP to connect you to the > MIT-DM (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dynamic Modeling) > computer. > > 9) Start pressing the return key once a second until you get a > logon prompt (I no longer remember the prompt text). The user > name and password are GUEST. > > Ahh, the good old days when nobody worried about security! Jon --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From web at loomcom.com Fri Mar 2 13:40:12 2018 From: web at loomcom.com (Seth Morabito) Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2018 11:40:12 -0800 Subject: IBM System/36 manuals available Message-ID: <1520019612.3134584.1289526056.60B90511@webmail.messagingengine.com> Folks, I know someone in North Carolina (not on this list) who just found a small pile of IBM System/36 manuals in three ring binders. These are all already on Bitsavers, and these manuals are in pretty rough shape, but if anyone really really wants them, let me know and I'll pass on your contact information 5360 Vol A1 MIMS "Maintenance Information Manual - General Safety Guide (etc.)" 5360 Vol A2 MIMS "Maintenance Information Manual - CPU & Channel (etc.)" 5360 Vol A3 MIMS "Maintenance Information Manual - Work: Station (etc.)" 5360 Vol B2 MAPS "Maintenance Analysis Procedures" 5360 Vol C1 FLDS "Field Logic Diagram" -Seth -- Seth Morabito web at loomcom.com From ben at bensinclair.com Fri Mar 2 17:00:26 2018 From: ben at bensinclair.com (Ben Sinclair) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 17:00:26 -0600 Subject: Polymorphic 8813 Bezel Message-ID: While cleaning just now I found one of the metal and black plastic side bezels for an 8813. If anyone needs one, let me know and I can send it to you! -- Ben Sinclair ben at bensinclair.com From couryhouse at aol.com Fri Mar 2 18:00:41 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 19:00:41 -0500 Subject: radar history Message-ID: <161e9291fc8-35b8-358ca@webjas-vac179.srv.aolmail.net> https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=castles+in+the+sky+radar&PC=EMMX03&refcv=%2biT2nJ5t%2bsBZvoaW.1.0.1.285&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3dcastles%2bin%2bthe%2bsky%2bradar%26FORM%3dEMMXAB%26PC%3dEMMX03%26refcv%3d%252BiT2nJ5t%252BsBZvoaW.1.0.1.285&view=detail&mmscn=vwrc&mid=16FF70654860E5B15B4E16FF70654860E5B15B4E&FORM=WRVORC great saw,this on the 40 inch... Sent from AOL Mobile Mail From ian.finder at gmail.com Fri Mar 2 18:06:25 2018 From: ian.finder at gmail.com (Ian Finder) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 16:06:25 -0800 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: <161e9291fc8-35b8-358ca@webjas-vac179.srv.aolmail.net> References: <161e9291fc8-35b8-358ca@webjas-vac179.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: All I have to say in response to this message is... http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/022/978/yNlQWRM.jpg From couryhouse at aol.com Fri Mar 2 18:15:40 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 19:15:40 -0500 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <161e936d263-179b-968f@webjas-vad235.srv.aolmail.net> dunno what that thing is.. Mentioned link as many of us,are,interested in a,cross section on electronivs history.. pike Cory, and others .. Sent from AOL Mobile Mail On Friday, March 2, 2018 Ian Finder wrote: All I have to say in response to this message is... http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/022/978/yNlQWRM.jpg From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 3 00:46:11 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 22:46:11 -0800 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: <161e9291fc8-35b8-358ca@webjas-vac179.srv.aolmail.net> References: <161e9291fc8-35b8-358ca@webjas-vac179.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: I dunno about these historical accounts. I was watching a PBS program about RADAR and the magnetron was made out to be a super-secret device, yet there's a clear explanation of it in my 1942 "Radio Handbook". --Chuck From tdk.knight at gmail.com Sat Mar 3 01:14:16 2018 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 01:14:16 -0600 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: References: <161e9291fc8-35b8-358ca@webjas-vac179.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: ^^ thats because they create lure around things to install fear in the enemy remember propiganda On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 12:46 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > I dunno about these historical accounts. > > I was watching a PBS program about RADAR and the magnetron was made out > to be a super-secret device, yet there's a clear explanation of it in my > 1942 "Radio Handbook". > > --Chuck > From pbirkel at gmail.com Sat Mar 3 02:35:06 2018 From: pbirkel at gmail.com (Paul Birkel) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 03:35:06 -0500 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: References: <161e9291fc8-35b8-358ca@webjas-vac179.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: <049e01d3b2ca$890795f0$9b16c1d0$@gmail.com> On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 12:46 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > I dunno about these historical accounts. > > I was watching a PBS program about RADAR and the magnetron was made out > to be a super-secret device, yet there's a clear explanation of it in my > 1942 "Radio Handbook". > > --Chuck For a non-sensationalized accounting that tracks developments, and personalities, over the course of many decades of developments and spin-offs, try: The Invention That Changed the World: How a Small Group of Radar Pioneers Won the Second World War and Launched a Technical Revolution (1998; Touchstone; 576 pp) Authored by Robert Buderi, former technology editor for Business Week. Yes, quite an over-the-top title ... but the content isn't that way at all, IMO. It stacks up quite well against academic treatises on related topics (e.g., Whirlwind) published by MIT Press. ----- paul From jos.dreesen at greenmail.ch Sat Mar 3 04:28:39 2018 From: jos.dreesen at greenmail.ch (jos) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 11:28:39 +0100 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: <049e01d3b2ca$890795f0$9b16c1d0$@gmail.com> References: <161e9291fc8-35b8-358ca@webjas-vac179.srv.aolmail.net> <049e01d3b2ca$890795f0$9b16c1d0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 03.03.2018 09:35, Paul Birkel via cctalk wrote: > On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 12:46 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> I dunno about these historical accounts. >> A very interesting story in this radar history is how the Dutch managed to rescue the EF50 tube, essential for these early radar receivers, to England just hours before the Germans invaded holland. Read here ( not my site ): http://www.dos4ever.com/EF50/EF50.html#war Jos From steven at malikoff.com Sat Mar 3 05:04:25 2018 From: steven at malikoff.com (steven at malikoff.com) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 21:04:25 +1000 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: References: <161e9291fc8-35b8-358ca@webjas-vac179.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: Chuck reckoned > I dunno about these historical accounts. > I was watching a PBS program about RADAR and the magnetron was made out > to be a super-secret device, yet there's a clear explanation of it in my > 1942 "Radio Handbook". Yeah I know this off-topic, but what the heck. The Buderi book mentioned is a great account of the MIT Rad Lab story, ie radar from an american perspective. I have it on my bookshelf and I'd recommend it to anyone. I also have a book 'RADAR How it all began' by Jim Brown, one of the designers of the Chain Home system working for the Valve Lab of Metropolitan Vickers, who built and ran the CH hardware from 1937. Apart from being a incredibly precise recollection of the engineering ("The valve consisted of a solid copper block about 6 in x 6 in x 4in. ... The 6 in x 6 in faces were machined out about 4 1/2 in diameteer and grooved to take two ceramic tubular insulators which were about 4 in outside diameter and 4 in long and 3/4 in thick. On the end of each insulator was the anode which was a copper plate 1/2 in thick ...." etc etc etc and the whole book is to that level of detail) it has an interesting and ironic factoid. The Chain Home 60kW tetrode transmitter tubes were enclosed in boxes about 8 feet high, 8 feet wide and 8 feet long made from brass sheet and brass angle. To adjust the tubes externally required an insulator chosen from the allowed group of materials of pure mica, ceramics, steatite (soapstone), Pyrex glass and a substance called Calit. Calit was a white marble-like material that could be ground to shape and drilled, and so was chosen. It was also imported from Germany :) From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sat Mar 3 07:35:07 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 08:35:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: radar history Message-ID: <20180303133507.7834E18C09E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Chuck Guzis > the magnetron was made out to be a super-secret device, yet there's a > clear explanation of it in my 1942 "Radio Handbook". Ordinary magnetrons had indeed been around for a while; they were invented in 1920. The British invention was the _cavity magnetron_, a quite different beast; it was kind of a cross between a magnetron and a klystron, with the best features of each. Buderi (which is indeed an excellent history, perhaps the best in the radar section of my library) has a good explanation of how it works. Noel From couryhouse at aol.com Sat Mar 3 02:58:16 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 03:58:16 -0500 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <161eb154616-179e-232db@webjas-vae209.srv.aolmail.net> OK or may have been a magnetron... but not a cavity magnetron.... I gave a 30s radio news as I remember had magnetron.. but not cavity one.. I was confused by it at the time, but someone older explained it to me.... OK see some maggIes,from 32... but notch SECRET CAVITY MAGNETRON http://www.magazineart.org/main.php/v/technical/radionews/RadioNews1932-06.jpg.html AND see this article How to Construct a 56 Megacycle Magnetron Transmitter September 1932 Radio News Article September 1932 Radio News September 1932 Radio News Cover - RF Cafe[Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Radio & Television News, published 1919 - 1959. All copyrights hereby acknowledged. Magnetrons are fairly ubiquitous in society these days for use in heating, radar, and even lighting. They were probably the first useful means of producing high power microwave signals. The concept was first brought to fruition in the early 1920s as a laboratory curiosity and rapidly developed into a practical type of device with many applications and spin-off products like the klystron, the traveling wave tube, and the cross-field amplifier. This article from a 1932 edition of Radio News reports on the state of the art a decade after the magnetron's inception. How to Construct a 56 Megacycle Magnetron Transmitter Here it is, something new in radio! A new oscillator principle for the ultra-short waves employing the gridless double plate tube in a manner comparable in many respects to the Gill-Morill method. This article, a feature of the Radio News series on opening up the ultra-short wave field, will be invaluable to the technician and earnest experimental amateur By James Millen The High C Tuner - RF Cafe The High C Tuner Figure 10. This is the tuned circuit for resonating the new magnetron oscillator tube as explained in the text. The Magnetron - RF Cafe The Magnetron Figure 1. The tube which with its field coil offers new fields of experimentation on the ultra-short waves. The American amateur was the first to make practical use of the 200-meter band and the first to develop the utility of still shorter and vastly more important communication channels. A new field of research, the ultra-short waves, now challenges his ingenuity, and we are sincere in our belief that here again the "ham" will make a genuine contribution to ultra-high-frequency technique. The magnetron, in particular, offers fertile possibilities, and its application to commercial enterprise may be, to our way of thinking, materially accelerated by its exploitation and development in the amateur ranks. This article finds dual justification in the effort to stimulate such experimentation, and in presenting a practical 56-megacycle magnetron transmitter. As we pointed out in the original article of this series, there exist a variety of methods whereby ultra-short-wave energy can be set in motion. However, the necessity for efficiency (reasonably high-power output for practical input powers) and stability places a definite limitation on the systems serviceable for useful communication. The magnetron, today, offers the most economical method for generating quasi-optical power. As it is an electronic device, its functioning is perhaps best understood by indicating its similarity to more conventional systems. It is not particularly difficult to design the usual sort of tube oscillators for wavelengths between 5 and 10 meters, and by the utilization of their harmonics to extend this range to a still lower minimum. However, as might be imagined, the stability of such systems leaves much to be desired, and the power output is generally inadequate. Also, as may be readily understood, maximum frequency limitations are necessarily imposed by considerations of the capacity and inductance by which resonance is determined. An additional complication, the fact that as the frequency is still further raised the period approaches the times required for the electrons to complete their inter-electrode cycle, imposes further limitations - at the same time offering a solution to the problem. It was found that, under proper conditions, oscillations could be sustained the frequency of which was dependent on the geometry of the tube or on the potentials applied to the elements rather than upon the LC characteristics of the circuit. Such systems have been described categorically as Barkhausen-Kurz circuits in deference to their two most-prominent investigators. It is logical and true that such arrangements are capable of delivering higher powers, at very short wavelengths, than those with which we have become familiar on the conventional short waves. It was also discovered that the power output could be increased by resonating the circuit to the natural electronic frequency, and such transmitters have come to be known as Gill-Morill circuits and are comparable in many respects with the magnetron system. Set-up of the New Transmitter for 1 1/2 Meters - RF Cafe Set-up of the New Transmitter for 1 1/2 Meters Figure 2. This illustration shows the essentials of the magnetron oscillator system. The field coil, rear center, has been removed from around the tube for clarity. The particular arrangement shown is for a frequency range corresponding to approximately 1 1/2 meters. The plate supply circuit is not shown. The magnetron is not a new tube. It has been with us for well over a decade, and was originally designed as a tube in which electron control was effected by magnetic influence rather than electrostatically. In other words, the grid of the tube was a magnetic coil, and, peculiarly enough, the magnetron was first used as a radio-frequency amplifier and oscillator in the neighborhood of 8000 meters! The Magnetron Circuit - RF Cafe The Magnetron Circuit Figure 3. The data supplied in this article was obtained from a transmitter using this simple circuit. The top diagram shows field coil hook-up Magnetron Frequency Variation - RF Cafe Frequency Variation Figure 4. Curves showing increased stability by using high C circuit Field-current ripple and frequency variation - RF Cafe Choosing Proper Current Figure 5. Showing relation of field-current ripple and frequency variation with the high C circuit Field current, plate-voltage curve - RF Cafe Obtaining Minimum Variation Figure 6. This is a field current, plate-voltage curve for getting the least frequency variation Linear relation of plate voltage-plate current adapts the magnetron - RF Cafe Modulation Data Figure 7. Linear relation of plate voltage-plate current adapts the magnetron readily to modulation. Tapped four turn low C coil - RF Cafe Low C Coil Figure 9. This is the tapped four turn low C coil used in the original experiments. The magnetron used in ultra-short-wave work varies from its prototype in several essentials. The magnetic coil no longer functions as a grid (in the control sense), but its effect is similar to that of a "bias." By increasing the magnetization current, the space current can be cut off - corresponding to an increase in negative bias in a conventional triode circuit. At optimum magnetic bias, the space current is reduced while space charges build up within the tube. Connected with a suitable circuit, a negative-resistance characteristic permits these charges to dissipate and re-accumulate, producing a cycle the time constant of which is partly determined by the spacing of the elements, the intensity of the magnetic field and the potentials applied. Subsequent experiments have shown that, as in the Gill-Morill circuits, the efficiency of the magnetron is greatly increased when the circuit resonance approaches the natural electronic period. The magnetron used in the experiments and transmitter to be described is the GE-239, and is shown in Figure 1. The anode is split into two semi-cylindrical sections mounted coaxially with the heavy tungsten filament. It is an air-cooled tube, used principally as an oscillator. The lowest operable wavelength is 0.75 meters, and at 1 meter, with a plate potential of 1500 volts, has a plate impedance of 5000 ohms. The maximum operating anode potentials are 1500 volts d.c. and 2000 volts r.m.s. a.c. The maximum d.c. anode current is .075 ampere, and the maximum plate dissipation 60 watts. The inter-electrode capacities are anode-to-anode (filament grounded) .5 mmfd.; anode-to-filament (other anode grounded) .7 mmfd. The tungsten filament draws 5 amperes at 5 volts. The mechanical characteristics of the tube are indicated in the photographs. The anodes are connected from the top, and the base plugs into a standard 50-watt socket. The overall length is 10 inches; diameter 2 1/4 inches. The output of this tube, in both power and stability (when properly operated) is definitely superior to other arrangements, its output at .75 meter being vastly better than that available with the B-K G-M circuits. Figure 2 shows the experimental layout from which the various data accompanying this article were secured. The circuit, as may be observed from Figure 3, is simplicity itself. It consists of the tube between the anodes of which is connected the center-tapped coil. (As will be described, this coil was changed in the course of the experiments, and an exterior capacity shunted across it. The simple inductor is shown in Figure 9 and the coil plus the tuning condenser, are shown in Figure 10.) The field coil has been removed from its place around the magnetron for the sake of clarity. The oscillating frequency is largely determined by the inductance and the capacity of the circuit. For the highest frequency (400 megacycles), the inductance of the anode leads and the capacity between them is sufficient. In this case the external anode leads are short-circuited with a copper bar or ribbon) about one inch from the glass, and the high voltage is connected to a tap at the center of the bar. The Field Coil The field coil is wound with 70 pounds of number 14 enameled wire, on a form having an inside diameter of 5 inches. The length of winding is 5 inches, 74 turns to the layer, with a total number of 2665 turns. Each layer is separated with paper insulation .015-inch thick. The coil is excited with a potential of 100 volts through a suitable resistor, providing a maximum current of 5.8 amperes and a maximum continuous field strength of 830 gauss with a dissipation of 580 watts. The outside diameter of the coil is 11 inches. The variable series resistor should be capable of carrying the maximum excitation current and should have a resistance of at least 17 ohms. The effect of the magnetic field on the operating characteristics of the magnetron is, as we have already suggested, somewhat similar to that of a bias of the grid of a triode oscillator. At low values of field, below 20 amperes, corresponding to a small bias, the plates heat excessively; the plate current is high and the efficiency is low. As the field is strengthened, the circuit becomes more stable, operating with greatly improved efficiency and output. The current in this region varies from 3 to 5 amperes. Plate-current "cut-off" can be obtained with an excitation current of about 7 amperes. In general, the requirements of the oscillatory circuit, in respect to efficiency, stability, etc., are similar to those of the dynatron oscillator, although, of course, the frequency range is much greater. As the filament is tungsten, it is possible to operate it over a wide range of voltages without encountering the trouble experienced with thoriated filaments. It was found, however, that for best stability the filament should be operated near its rated voltage - though a 10 or 15 percent. variation has a relatively small effect. The first tests, while altogether satisfactory in respect to output, left a great deal to be desired from the standpoint of stability. Curve A, of Figure 4, illustrates the manner in which frequency varied as the plate voltage was changed. In this original experiment the tuned circuit consisted of 4 turns of 1/4-inch copper tubing, 2 inches in diameter, mounted directly on the anode leads, the tuning capacity being the inter-electrode capacity of the tube (about .5 mmfd.) and the distributed capacity of the coil and leads. The frequency was approximately 56 mc. The circuit and operating conditions under which this test was made probably represented the most unfavorable, with respect to frequency stability, that would be encountered in practice. The total change in frequency, i.e., about 200 kc., seems rather appalling to one familiar with the operation of low-frequency apparatus. As a matter of fact it is not much worse than that encountered in a self-excited push-pull oscillator operating on the same ultra-high frequency. Such as oscillator, however, cannot be considered satisfactory. An investigation (with the idea of improving stability) was therefore begun, and while it is not fully completed, it represents definite steps in the right direction. Stabilizing the Circuits Each portion of the magnetron circuit has a relationship to frequency stability. Variations in the magnetic field were very bothersome, so it was deemed advisable first to investigate this. It was discovered that when a certain magnetic field strength was employed, variations in the field current had a minimum effect on frequency change. The optimum field current, from this point of view, was about 4 amperes. This is important since the field-supply filtering is something of a problem, due to the high current required. In these tests a motor-generator furnished the field power and when the correct adjustment was attained, a monitoring test disclosed the fact that such disturbances as commutator ripple and minor line-voltage variations were no longer of major importance. The magnetron was not operating quite at its maximum efficiency at this field setting, but the drop in efficiency was small enough to be considered important in the light of the improved stability obtained. The frequency variation, with change in plate voltage, was still the same, however, so the "low C" circuit was abandoned in the hope that a certain amount of tuning capacity would be beneficial. The magnetron operates most efficiently into an oscillatory circuit of high impedance, making a "high C" circuit theoretically undesirable. Nevertheless a tuned circuit was constructed employing a coil of 3 turns of 1/4-inch copper tubing 1 1/2 inches in diameter, tuned with a condenser of about 20 mmfd. capacity. Since the inter-electrode capacity of the tube is only about .5 mmfd., this additional capacity effected a considerable improvement in stability, without serious loss in efficiency. The operation of the circuit, as a whole, was quite different from the original tests. Changes in field current, plate and filament voltages caused only a relatively small variation in frequency. The curves in Figure 4 show the contrast between the "low" and "high C" circuits. A definite value of field current which minimized the effects of commutator ripple, etc., was found as before, but was considerably lower in value, being approximately 3 amperes instead of 4 amperes (Figure 5). It is interesting to note that the optimum operating value of field current, with regard to frequency instability caused by field variation, is approximately the same at all plate voltages, as is shown in Figure 6. As before, better output was obtained with the field current reduced slightly from that value giving most stable operation. The choice of field current will therefore depend somewhat on operating conditions. If a well-filtered supply is available, efficiency and output are the deciding factors. Where the field supply is subject to variation, stability is the predominant consideration . The value of R is not critical as far as efficiency or frequency vs. plate-voltage variations are concerned. However, it was found that by the correct adjustment of R, frequency variations due to field strength changes could be still further reduced materially. The actual value varies between 100 and 400 ohms and depends on the plate voltage - higher resistance being required for higher potentials. Some energy is necessarily dissipated in this resistor, but this loss is relatively unimportant in view of the main goal of a stable circuit. Also, some compensation of this loss is achieved through an improved anode circuit efficiency. A d.c. Filament Source Preferred After a fair degree of stability had been attained, as indicated in curve B, Figure 4, another source of trouble became evident. This was vibration of the filament structure of the tube, due to the filament current, which was alternating current, reacting in a "motor" effect with the strong d.c. field. When the filament was light by d.c., this trouble was eliminated. Modulating the Circuit Referring to the curves in Figure 7, it is immediately seen that the relation between the plate current and plate voltage is essentially linear, and the circuit, therefore, lends itself admirably to modulation. From the slope of the curve, the effective plate impedance is found to be about 9000 ohms, which, while somewhat higher than that commonly encountered in the usual transmitting tubes of similar power, should present no serious difficulty from the standpoint of obtaining a satisfactory impedance relationship in the modulator output circuit. Photograph, Figure 8, shows the complete set-up of the magnetron, with its attendant apparatus, including modulation and speech equipment. The modulator consists of two type -50 tubes in push-pull, connected through a suitable transformer to the oscillator plate circuit. Since the magnetron was operating with an input of about 35 watts at 650 volts, a fair percentage of modulation was obtained with the two -50's operating at the same plate potential. In any case the modulation should not exceed 70% if reasonably good fidelity is desired. The speech equipment and amplifier circuits are quite conventional. The radiating system was a simple vertical, half-wave, copper-rod antenna approximately 8 feet long, and fed by means of a balanced transmission line. Complete 5 Meter Amateur Phone Transmitter - RF Cafe Complete 5 Meter Amateur Phone Transmitter Figure 8. Robert McCoy of the Jackson Research Laboratories shown operating the station. The high C tuned circuit may be seen just above the field coil which is in correct position surrounding the coil. Speech amplifier equipment is at the right energized by a storage battery and B batteries. The motor generator supplies the field coil energy Transmitting Tests Field tests were made up to distances of about 5 miles, the signal being checked in comparison with that of a conventional modulated oscillator. Two types of receivers were used, one being a super-regenerator, and the other the latest type of ultra-high-frequency superheterodyne described in Radio News for August. It was, of course, impossible to check the effects of frequency modulation of the super-regenerator since the receiver itself is subject to a degree of frequency modulation from the suppressor frequency that is comparable with that of the worst transmitter. Due to this fact, only slight differences between the transmitters were apparent on the first receiver (the signal from the magnetron was appreciably sharper, but the tone quality was not noticeably better.) On the other hand, when using the super-heterodyne, the magnetron was found to give a clear-cut signal of good quality, in contrast to a decidedly broad and wobbly signal of low intelligibility from the modulated oscillator. The tests definitely checked the various circuit requirements that laboratory experiments had indicated to be desirable. Of the two transmitters, each employing similar modulating equipment, the magnetron gave a much stronger signal due, of course, to the higher degree of efficiency. Increased power at these frequencies does not result in a corresponding extension of range, since the behavior of the signal tends to comply with optical laws. However, the stronger signal was found to be much more effective in location subject to local interference. The possibility of modulating the r.f. output of the circuit by supplying the modulating power to the field coil will doubtless occur to many experimenters. However, aside from the difficulty of controlling the high excitation current with any depth of audio-frequency variation, field circuit modu?lation might be undesirable due to the ex?cessive change in radio-frequency with field current change. Also, the r.f. output does not vary uniformly with the field, except over rather small limits and when using a somewhat restricted range of plate voltages. Higher Frequency Possibilities The tests described above were confined to the neighborhood of 56 megacycles. A vast amount of experimentation still remains before the possibilities of the magnetron are fully realized on frequencies above 300 megacycles (below 1 meter). Work in this region, which is not being used at present for any practical purpose, affords a highly interesting and unusually fertile field for the experimenter, and the magnetron, at the present time, is the tube best suited for this phase of exploration. * The National Co. Posted October 21, 2014 Sent from AOL Mobile Mail On Friday, March 2, 2018 Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: I dunno about these historical accounts. I was watching a PBS program about RADAR and the magnetron was made out to be a super-secret device, yet there's a clear explanation of it in my 1942 "Radio Handbook". --Chuck From elson at pico-systems.com Sat Mar 3 10:41:12 2018 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2018 10:41:12 -0600 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: References: <161e9291fc8-35b8-358ca@webjas-vac179.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: <5A9AD028.2040502@pico-systems.com> On 03/03/2018 12:46 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > I dunno about these historical accounts. > > I was watching a PBS program about RADAR and the magnetron was made out > to be a super-secret device, yet there's a clear explanation of it in my > 1942 "Radio Handbook". > I think the British considered it top secret in about 1939, but they knew if they did air raids over France or Germany, that eventually a plane with one would get shot down and a magnetron would be obtained in relatively good shape. So, likely by 1942 it was considered to no longer be a secret. Jon From cclist at sydex.com Sat Mar 3 10:42:23 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 08:42:23 -0800 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: <161eb154616-179e-232db@webjas-vae209.srv.aolmail.net> References: <161eb154616-179e-232db@webjas-vae209.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: On 03/03/2018 12:58 AM, Ed Sharpe via cctalk wrote: > OK or may have been a magnetron... but not a cavity magnetron.... I > gave a 30s radio news as I remember had magnetron.. but not cavity > one.. I was confused by it at the time, but someone older explained > it to me.... OK see some maggIes,from 32... but notch SECRET CAVITY > MAGNETRON > > http://www.magazineart.org/main.php/v/technical/radionews/RadioNews1932-06.jpg.html The one described in the RH is a "split anode magnetron". The note on it says that "frequency stability is not very good:. There's also a discussion of the RCA 825 klystrode--a sort of klystron triode hybrid. It's my understanding that the allies used the cavity magnetron and the axis used klystrons for their transmitters. --Chuck From anders.k.nelson at gmail.com Sat Mar 3 11:24:44 2018 From: anders.k.nelson at gmail.com (Anders Nelson) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 12:24:44 -0500 Subject: C&K paddle switches on sale Message-ID: In case anyone is making a scaled-down front switch panel: http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=G22319 =] -- Anders Nelson +1 (517) 775-6129 www.erogear.com From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Sat Mar 3 12:03:46 2018 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 18:03:46 +0000 Subject: C&K paddle switches on sale In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Van: Anders Nelson via cctalk Verzonden: zaterdag 3 maart 2018 18:24 Aan: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Onderwerp: C&K paddle switches on sale In case anyone is making a scaled-down front switch panel: http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=G22319 =] -- Anders Nelson +1 (517) 775-6129 www.erogear.com Those are the ones I used on the ?replica? PDP8/e running on 6809. With a little sanding and spray painting you can get a very nice result. Note: make sure you also get a few ?momentary? ones. - Henk, PA8PDP From jfoust at threedee.com Sat Mar 3 12:21:34 2018 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2018 12:21:34 -0600 Subject: Suggestions for 16 mm movies to digital conversion Message-ID: <20180303182145.D9F054E73B@mx2.ezwind.net> GoMemorable got back to me. They'll still scan for me to QT ProRes on hard drive for 20 cents a foot for 8mm/Super 8 and 30 cents a foot for 16mm. - John From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Mar 3 12:53:55 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 10:53:55 -0800 Subject: C&K paddle switches on sale In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: they would be difficult to use unless you made a board with extra-big holes since they aren't PC mount On 3/3/18 9:24 AM, Anders Nelson via cctalk wrote: > In case anyone is making a scaled-down front switch panel: > > http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=G22319 From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sat Mar 3 13:52:05 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 14:52:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: radar history Message-ID: <20180303195205.1983F18C0B6@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Jon Elson > if they did air raids over France or Germany, that eventually a plane > with one would get shot down and a magnetron would be obtained in > relatively good shape. So, likely by 1942 it was considered to no > longer be a secret. One was lost near Rotterdam in a raid on Cologne on February 2, 1943 (only the second raid of the war using centimetric H2S radar which used the cavity magnetron), and the remains were discovered in relatively good shape by German technicians. The Germans worked out what it did pretty quickly, and by the fall of 1943 they had started to deploy microwave detector systems. Noel From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sat Mar 3 15:31:56 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 16:31:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: RX01/RX8/RX11 user's manual for trade Message-ID: <20180303213156.9063B18C0B6@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Hi all, I have an extra "RX8/RX11 floopy disk system user's manual" I'd like to trade off for something I'd find useful (anything PDP-11 which I don't already have, preferably). Anyone? Noel From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sat Mar 3 16:48:12 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 17:48:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: FTGH: Unknown extender card Message-ID: <20180303224812.59E1618C0B9@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Hi, I'm not sure what kind of system this extender card: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/jpg/tmp/SmallExtender.jpg is for, but if anyone has a use for it, FTGH. It has 2x43=86 contacts. Noel From couryhouse at aol.com Sat Mar 3 16:59:58 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 17:59:58 -0500 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: <20180303133507.7834E18C09E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180303133507.7834E18C09E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <161ee17e456-17a1-18f19@webjas-vae046.srv.aolmail.net> Noel - the MIT rad labs ?thick??volume on the Maggie ?is ?pretty??cool ?too.. We are blessed to have ?an entire set ( 28 volumes) at the museum of ? rad labs... ?I also have a ?set myself... with ?used to be a lot more?special ?than now.... ? you can download? ?them?in digital ?form and they float on cd ?too ? ? We ?do have ?some ?volumes that ?may be ?extra at the museum library ?some things are ?just ?so nice on paper... this is one ?.... one of the others is a set of Bell System Technical? Journals... ( will probably?have ?an ?extra ?set of those.. ?many many boxes... ? got coutermeasures ?I recommend ?the ?2 ?volume ?set ? from Harvard Radio Research?Labs ? ? ala ?RRL ? ( Terman ran it) ? ? Salsbury, ?whose ?entire ?library is inside the museum library ?started at ? MIT Rad Las as he ?came over ?rith ?EOL ?from Berkeley?and ?went ?over to Harvard?and ?was ?section head on the 50,000 watt.. ?UHF ground jammer ? for Lichtenstein? ? Nazi? night fighter?radar... ? we have some radar ?gear and a lot ?of ? countermeasures ? gear... ? ? In a message dated 3/3/2018 6:35:14 AM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: ? > From: Chuck Guzis > the magnetron was made out to be a super-secret device, yet there's a > clear explanation of it in my 1942 "Radio Handbook". Ordinary magnetrons had indeed been around for a while; they were invented in 1920. The British invention was the _cavity magnetron_, a quite different beast; it was kind of a cross between a magnetron and a klystron, with the best features of each. Buderi (which is indeed an excellent history, perhaps the best in the radar section of my library) has a good explanation of how it works. Noel From couryhouse at aol.com Sat Mar 3 17:02:28 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 18:02:28 -0500 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161ee1a248e-179f-2da82@webjas-vae063.srv.aolmail.net> These look like ?red ?tune in ?ww2 lend ?lease?talk ?radio that has a vhf ?section? ?Ed#? ? In a message dated 3/3/2018 3:28:48 AM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: ? On 03.03.2018 09:35, Paul Birkel via cctalk wrote: > On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 12:46 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> I dunno about these historical accounts. >> A very interesting story in this radar history is how the Dutch managed to rescue the EF50 tube, essential for these early radar receivers, to England just hours before the Germans invaded holland. Read here ( not my site ): http://www.dos4ever.com/EF50/EF50.html#war Jos From couryhouse at aol.com Sat Mar 3 17:05:00 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 18:05:00 -0500 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: <161ee1a248e-179f-2da82@webjas-vae063.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: <161ee1c7b75-179e-2d562@webjas-vab071.srv.aolmail.net> I mean TUBE ?not ?tune! These look like ?red ?tune in ?ww2 lend ?lease?talk ?radio that has a vhf ?section? ?Ed#? ? In a message dated 3/3/2018 4:02:34 PM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: ? These look like ?red ?tune in ?ww2 lend ?lease?talk ?radio that has a vhf ?section? ?Ed#? ? In a message dated 3/3/2018 3:28:48 AM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: ? On 03.03.2018 09:35, Paul Birkel via cctalk wrote: > On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 12:46 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> I dunno about these historical accounts. >> A very interesting story in this radar history is how the Dutch managed to rescue the EF50 tube, essential for these early radar receivers, to England just hours before the Germans invaded holland. Read here ( not my site ): http://www.dos4ever.com/EF50/EF50.html#war Jos From bobsmithofd at gmail.com Sat Mar 3 17:21:47 2018 From: bobsmithofd at gmail.com (Bob Smith) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 18:21:47 -0500 Subject: FTGH: Unknown extender card In-Reply-To: <20180303224812.59E1618C0B9@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180303224812.59E1618C0B9@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: reminds me of S100 bus or some alternaive bus at that time, but memory is foggy. bob On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 5:48 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > Hi, I'm not sure what kind of system this extender card: > > http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/jpg/tmp/SmallExtender.jpg > > is for, but if anyone has a use for it, FTGH. It has 2x43=86 > contacts. > > Noel From bobsmithofd at gmail.com Sat Mar 3 17:22:57 2018 From: bobsmithofd at gmail.com (Bob Smith) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 18:22:57 -0500 Subject: RX01/RX8/RX11 user's manual for trade In-Reply-To: <20180303213156.9063B18C0B6@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180303213156.9063B18C0B6@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: where are you located? US or Oconus? bob On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 4:31 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > Hi all, I have an extra "RX8/RX11 floopy disk system user's manual" I'd like > to trade off for something I'd find useful (anything PDP-11 which I don't > already have, preferably). Anyone? > > Noel From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sat Mar 3 17:44:15 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 18:44:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: FTGH: Unknown extender card Message-ID: <20180303234415.8329618C0BC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Bob Smith > reminds me of S100 bus That was my first thought, until I counted the pins... Noel From elson at pico-systems.com Sat Mar 3 20:39:47 2018 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2018 20:39:47 -0600 Subject: FTGH: Unknown extender card In-Reply-To: <20180303224812.59E1618C0B9@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180303224812.59E1618C0B9@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <5A9B5C73.4000503@pico-systems.com> On 03/03/2018 04:48 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > Hi, I'm not sure what kind of system this extender card: > > http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/jpg/tmp/SmallExtender.jpg > > is for, but if anyone has a use for it, FTGH. It has 2x43=86 > contacts. > > Noel > 43 is a rather unusual pin count. Multibus I used one 43x2 connector for the bus and one smaller connector with a different (finer) pin pitch to connect to peripherals. But, that extender would not fit a Multibus I card cage, the blank area of the board sticks out too far. Jon From brian at marstella.net Sat Mar 3 20:48:56 2018 From: brian at marstella.net (Brian Marstella) Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2018 21:48:56 -0500 Subject: FTGH: Unknown extender card In-Reply-To: <5A9B5C73.4000503@pico-systems.com> References: <20180303224812.59E1618C0B9@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <5A9B5C73.4000503@pico-systems.com> Message-ID: I have a CPU board with similar format that I bought thinking I'd eventually figure it out. Same boat, though, I haven't run across the system it goes with. It does look very similar to many S-100 designs, though. On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 9:39 PM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: > On 03/03/2018 04:48 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > >> Hi, I'm not sure what kind of system this extender card: >> >> http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/jpg/tmp/SmallExtender.jpg >> >> is for, but if anyone has a use for it, FTGH. It has 2x43=86 >> contacts. >> >> Noel >> >> 43 is a rather unusual pin count. Multibus I used one 43x2 connector for > the bus and one smaller connector with a different (finer) pin pitch to > connect to peripherals. But, that extender would not fit a Multibus I card > cage, the blank area of the board sticks out too far. > > Jon > From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sun Mar 4 06:40:59 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 07:40:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: FTGH: Unknown extender card Message-ID: <20180304124059.2A0D918C0BF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Brian Marstella > I have a CPU board with similar format that I bought thinking I'd > eventually figure it out. A couple of people have replied privately telling me it's for a Motorola EXORbus/EXORciser. Noel From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Sun Mar 4 06:45:10 2018 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave Wade) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 12:45:10 -0000 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: <161ee1c7b75-179e-2d562@webjas-vab071.srv.aolmail.net> References: <161ee1a248e-179f-2da82@webjas-vae063.srv.aolmail.net> <161ee1c7b75-179e-2d562@webjas-vab071.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: <050f01d3b3b6$a2760660$e7621320$@gmail.com> > > A very interesting story in this radar history is how the Dutch managed to > rescue the EF50 tube, essential for these early radar receivers, to England > just hours before the Germans invaded holland. > > Read here ( not my site ): > > http://www.dos4ever.com/EF50/EF50.html#war > > Jos Williams and Kilburn who built the Manchester Baby (SSEM) had worked on Radar during the Second World War. The Store, being composed of CRT tubes uses many circuits cribbed from Radar. The machine contains 156 EF50s http://computerconservationsociety.org/ssemvolunteers/volunteers/valvetypes.htm the store amplifiers which detect if there is a "dot" or a "dash" on the face of the Kilburn-Williams tube use 4 x EF50 and 1 x EF55 http://computerconservationsociety.org/ssemvolunteers/volunteers/storecrt-amp.html Dave From robert626001 at gmail.com Sun Mar 4 06:52:01 2018 From: robert626001 at gmail.com (Robert) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 06:52:01 -0600 Subject: FTGH: Unknown extender card In-Reply-To: <20180304124059.2A0D918C0BF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180304124059.2A0D918C0BF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 4, 2018 at 6:40 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > A couple of people have replied privately telling me it's for a Motorola > EXORbus/EXORciser. Wasn't EXORbus keyed? I don't see a keyway in the photo. Robert From db at db.net Sun Mar 4 08:05:27 2018 From: db at db.net (Diane Bruce) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 09:05:27 -0500 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: <050f01d3b3b6$a2760660$e7621320$@gmail.com> References: <161ee1a248e-179f-2da82@webjas-vae063.srv.aolmail.net> <161ee1c7b75-179e-2d562@webjas-vab071.srv.aolmail.net> <050f01d3b3b6$a2760660$e7621320$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20180304140527.GA19497@night.db.net> On Sun, Mar 04, 2018 at 12:45:10PM -0000, Dave Wade via cctalk wrote: > > > > A very interesting story in this radar history is how the Dutch managed to > > rescue the EF50 tube, essential for these early radar receivers, to England > > just hours before the Germans invaded holland. I heard this story. "It was in Canada though, in 1956, that Watson-Watt got a glimpse of a less popular application for the technology he helped develop - when he was pulled over for speeding by a policeman using a radar gun. According to Mr Herriot: "He said, 'My God, if I'd known what they were going to do with it, I'd have never have invented it!'" " http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-27393558 Diane -- - db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db From andy.holt at tesco.net Sun Mar 4 08:52:19 2018 From: andy.holt at tesco.net (ANDY HOLT) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 14:52:19 +0000 (UTC) Subject: EF50 was Re: radar history In-Reply-To: <050f01d3b3b6$a2760660$e7621320$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1497136780.213736.1520175139922.JavaMail.root@md02.topaz.synacor.com> E = 6.3v filament F = Pentode 5x = B9G base Andy From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Sun Mar 4 09:20:08 2018 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 09:20:08 -0600 Subject: FTGH: Unknown extender card In-Reply-To: <20180303224812.59E1618C0B9@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180303224812.59E1618C0B9@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <6532bbc6-3de0-4bb6-c42e-d61e8e4e73dd@gmail.com> On 03/03/2018 04:48 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > Hi, I'm not sure what kind of system this extender card I suppose there's a chance that it's for a piece of test equipment or something more analog in nature, and not computer at all - all sorts of equipment in the '60s had a card/backplane approach, and presumably field engineers would have used riser boards along the lines of this one to service them. From nico at farumdata.dk Sun Mar 4 09:21:54 2018 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 16:21:54 +0100 Subject: EF50 was Re: radar history References: <1497136780.213736.1520175139922.JavaMail.root@md02.topaz.synacor.com> Message-ID: <6C157267C29A47E58F2D4A6F71C74DF2@notebook> .. also known as Noval base /Nico ----- Original Message ----- From: "ANDY HOLT via cctalk" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2018 3:52 PM Subject: EF50 was Re: radar history >E = 6.3v filament > F = Pentode > 5x = B9G base > > Andy -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. SPAMfighter has removed 16135 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len Do you have a slow PC? Try a Free scan http://www.spamfighter.com/SLOW-PCfighter?cid=sigen From nico at farumdata.dk Sun Mar 4 09:23:13 2018 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 16:23:13 +0100 Subject: EF50 was Re: radar history References: <1497136780.213736.1520175139922.JavaMail.root@md02.topaz.synacor.com> Message-ID: <9F9B256EC40D414CAC4BE6F6F4C0C3E4@notebook> Oh sh..l., It was a bit too quick Apologies... /Nico ----- Original Message ----- From: "ANDY HOLT via cctalk" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2018 3:52 PM Subject: EF50 was Re: radar history >E = 6.3v filament > F = Pentode > 5x = B9G base > > Andy -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. SPAMfighter has removed 16135 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len Do you have a slow PC? Try a Free scan http://www.spamfighter.com/SLOW-PCfighter?cid=sigen From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Mar 4 10:45:23 2018 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 16:45:23 +0000 Subject: EF50 was Re: radar history In-Reply-To: <9F9B256EC40D414CAC4BE6F6F4C0C3E4@notebook> References: <1497136780.213736.1520175139922.JavaMail.root@md02.topaz.synacor.com>, <9F9B256EC40D414CAC4BE6F6F4C0C3E4@notebook> Message-ID: The high frequency power tubes were required for better spacial resolution. My understanding was that major difference between the German radar and allied was that the Germans had a single trace, like a time domain reflectometer. The allies had a rotating image that is similar to what we see on current radars, today. The cavity tuned magnetron was clearly an issue because it allowed them to run at a higher frequency than the split plate magnetron. Both were significant changes in how things were done. Dwight ________________________________ From: cctalk on behalf of Nico de Jong via cctalk Sent: Sunday, March 4, 2018 7:23:13 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: EF50 was Re: radar history Oh sh..l., It was a bit too quick Apologies... /Nico ----- Original Message ----- From: "ANDY HOLT via cctalk" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2018 3:52 PM Subject: EF50 was Re: radar history >E = 6.3v filament > F = Pentode > 5x = B9G base > > Andy -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. SPAMfighter has removed 16135 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len Free Spam Filter for Outlook, Windows Live Mail & Thunderbird - SPAMfighter www.spamfighter.com SPAMfighter and Microsoft have built the strongest and most effective anti spam filter for Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Outlook Express & Thunderbird Do you have a slow PC? Try a Free scan http://www.spamfighter.com/SLOW-PCfighter?cid=sigen From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Mar 4 10:58:23 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 08:58:23 -0800 Subject: FTGH: Unknown extender card In-Reply-To: <20180304124059.2A0D918C0BF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180304124059.2A0D918C0BF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <565c20d5-a757-2390-45b1-dd7847f1a74a@bitsavers.org> It's too wide. On 3/4/18 4:40 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > A couple of people have replied privately telling me it's for a Motorola > EXORbus/EXORciser. > > Noel > From couryhouse at aol.com Sun Mar 4 11:38:36 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 12:38:36 -0500 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: <20180304140527.GA19497@night.db.net> Message-ID: <161f21803d5-179d-2540b@webjas-vaa089.srv.aolmail.net> that is precious! Ed# ? In a message dated 3/4/2018 7:05:35 AM US Mountain Standard Time, db at db.net writes: ? On Sun, Mar 04, 2018 at 12:45:10PM -0000, Dave Wade via cctalk wrote: > > > > A very interesting story in this radar history is how the Dutch managed to > > rescue the EF50 tube, essential for these early radar receivers, to England > > just hours before the Germans invaded holland. I heard this story. "It was in Canada though, in 1956, that Watson-Watt got a glimpse of a less popular application for the technology he helped develop - when he was pulled over for speeding by a policeman using a radar gun. According to Mr Herriot: "He said, 'My God, if I'd known what they were going to do with it, I'd have never have invented it!'" " http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-27393558 Diane -- - db at FreeBSD.orgdb@db.nethttp://www.db.net/~db From pete at petelancashire.com Sun Mar 4 11:40:42 2018 From: pete at petelancashire.com (Pete Lancashire) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 09:40:42 -0800 Subject: Some fun: who can identify this ? Message-ID: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ww7KPnPVexGJiqyE3 From paulkoning at comcast.net Sun Mar 4 11:54:08 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 12:54:08 -0500 Subject: Some fun: who can identify this ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1DFF68DD-59FF-4B0D-AC98-2D68F8FFCF5E@comcast.net> Chad catcher from a PC05 paper tape punch? paul > On Mar 4, 2018, at 12:40 PM, Pete Lancashire via cctalk wrote: > > https://photos.app.goo.gl/ww7KPnPVexGJiqyE3 From tdk.knight at gmail.com Sun Mar 4 12:26:37 2018 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 12:26:37 -0600 Subject: Some fun: who can identify this ? In-Reply-To: <1DFF68DD-59FF-4B0D-AC98-2D68F8FFCF5E@comcast.net> References: <1DFF68DD-59FF-4B0D-AC98-2D68F8FFCF5E@comcast.net> Message-ID: some sorta drawer doubht its a chad catcher with a hole for a handle as for what its from no idea On Sun, Mar 4, 2018 at 11:54 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Chad catcher from a PC05 paper tape punch? > > paul > > > On Mar 4, 2018, at 12:40 PM, Pete Lancashire via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > https://photos.app.goo.gl/ww7KPnPVexGJiqyE3 > > From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Sun Mar 4 12:33:34 2018 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 10:33:34 -0800 Subject: Some fun: who can identify this ? In-Reply-To: References: <1DFF68DD-59FF-4B0D-AC98-2D68F8FFCF5E@comcast.net> Message-ID: <27f88a74-64a1-d193-a01b-9a187eed0f54@sbcglobal.net> On 3/4/2018 10:26 AM, Adrian Stoness via cctalk wrote: > some sorta drawer doubht its a chad catcher with a hole for a handle > as for what its from no idea > > On Sun, Mar 4, 2018 at 11:54 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> Chad catcher from a PC05 paper tape punch? >> >> paul >> >>> On Mar 4, 2018, at 12:40 PM, Pete Lancashire via cctalk < >> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: >>> https://photos.app.goo.gl/ww7KPnPVexGJiqyE3 >>> Sorta of looks like the chip (chad) box for an IBM 026 or 129 keypunch. Bob -- Vintage computers and electronics www.dvq.com www.tekmuseum.com www.decmuseum.org From pete at petelancashire.com Sun Mar 4 12:45:19 2018 From: pete at petelancashire.com (Pete Lancashire) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 10:45:19 -0800 Subject: Some fun: who can identify this ? In-Reply-To: <27f88a74-64a1-d193-a01b-9a187eed0f54@sbcglobal.net> References: <1DFF68DD-59FF-4B0D-AC98-2D68F8FFCF5E@comcast.net> <27f88a74-64a1-d193-a01b-9a187eed0f54@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: That was quick, this one came out of a 029 !! Now to find someone who wants a 029 that needs a bit of work but is complete On Sun, Mar 4, 2018 at 10:33 AM, Bob Rosenbloom via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > On 3/4/2018 10:26 AM, Adrian Stoness via cctalk wrote: > >> some sorta drawer doubht its a chad catcher with a hole for a handle >> as for what its from no idea >> >> On Sun, Mar 4, 2018 at 11:54 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk < >> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: >> >> Chad catcher from a PC05 paper tape punch? >>> >>> paul >>> >>> On Mar 4, 2018, at 12:40 PM, Pete Lancashire via cctalk < >>>> >>> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: >>> >>>> https://photos.app.goo.gl/ww7KPnPVexGJiqyE3 >>>> >>>> Sorta of looks like the chip (chad) box for an IBM 026 or 129 keypunch. > > > Bob > > -- > Vintage computers and electronics > www.dvq.com > www.tekmuseum.com > www.decmuseum.org > > > From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sun Mar 4 13:09:33 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 14:09:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: FTGH: Pair of unknown extender cards Message-ID: <20180304190933.3D6A018C0A9@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> OK, another pair of unknown extender cards: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/jpg/tmp/LargeExtender.jpg If anyone has a use for one or both, FTGH. They are 17"x10", and the support arms (nice touch) are about 3" long. No identifying marks that I can perceive, alas. The power leads are titled "+5", "+12 Handler", +12 Return", "+12 Scan", "+15", "+- 15 Return", "-15". Noel From fritzm at fritzm.org Sun Mar 4 13:47:23 2018 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 11:47:23 -0800 Subject: FTGH: Pair of unknown extender cards In-Reply-To: <20180304190933.3D6A018C0A9@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180304190933.3D6A018C0A9@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: > On Mar 4, 2018, at 11:09 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > OK, another pair of unknown extender cards: Spring cleaning, Noel? :-) From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sun Mar 4 14:19:24 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 15:19:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: FTGH: Pair of unknown extender cards Message-ID: <20180304201924.0C7BB18C0BF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Fritz Mueller > Spring cleaning, Noel? :-) Yeah, sort of! These came with a bunch of PDP-11 boards I bought on eBay, and they're just clutter. More stuff coming soon! Noel From useddec at gmail.com Sun Mar 4 14:42:16 2018 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 14:42:16 -0600 Subject: Heathkit card cage with DEC cards available Message-ID: I recently found a Heathkit card cage ( 85-2001 121476 on backplane ) with a DEC M7270, M8044, M7946, and M8043. I still have a few Heathkit boards buried here sonewhere. Please contact me off list if you have any questions or wish to make an offer. Thanks, Paul From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Mar 4 16:01:25 2018 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 22:01:25 +0000 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: References: <161e9291fc8-35b8-358ca@webjas-vac179.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: > I dunno about these historical accounts. Radar tech history is a real minefield, and my advice is to take any historical accounts or studies that are older than ten or fifteen years old with a grain of salt. Often a big grain. "History is written by the victors" had been very strong with radar history, and many people, sometimes in highly regarded academic positions, are still believing and relaying bad information. It is only fairly recently that there has been high quality research done. Some may call it revisionism - but for the most part, much has been shown as true using verified sources. Anyway, I am bored tonight, so I think I might spend it here, since there is a "lot of wrong" in this thread. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Mar 4 16:19:40 2018 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 22:19:40 +0000 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: <20180303133507.7834E18C09E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180303133507.7834E18C09E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: > Ordinary magnetrons had indeed been around for a while; they were invented in > 1920. The British invention was the _cavity magnetron_, a quite different > beast; it was kind of a cross between a magnetron and a klystron, with the > best features of each. The cavity magnetron was invented by a lot of people (Soviet, Japanese, German, Swiss, United States, and I think the Danish*), just like radar itself. Most of these inventors fell to the wayside, because the cavity magnetron just was not a useful device. Most of these inventors tried to use the cavity magnetron as a CW oscillator, and in that mode, they are basically awful tubes. Randall and Boot ("the British") invented the pulse operation of the cavity magnetron - a way to basically abuse the tubes but get pulses magnitudes more powerful than previously done. This, of course, was the key to microwave radar. * much of this original research was not secret, just ignored. RCA's "split anode tank magnetron" was even completely described in one of their tech journals. -- Will From couryhouse at aol.com Sun Mar 4 16:24:16 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 17:24:16 -0500 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161f31d9010-179c-9c6d@webjas-vad154.srv.aolmail.net> heck ?and the split anode maggies made appearances?in ?radio news in the 30s! ? yow ?do bring up a ?good ?point of ?things being?discovered but ?not ?revealed at the very moment... have ?not studded?that about ?maggies ?but ? many other thing ?followed?that crooked? path ? though... ? Ed# ? ? In a message dated 3/4/2018 3:19:50 PM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: ? > Ordinary magnetrons had indeed been around for a while; they were invented in > 1920. The British invention was the _cavity magnetron_, a quite different > beast; it was kind of a cross between a magnetron and a klystron, with the > best features of each. The cavity magnetron was invented by a lot of people (Soviet, Japanese, German, Swiss, United States, and I think the Danish*), just like radar itself. Most of these inventors fell to the wayside, because the cavity magnetron just was not a useful device. Most of these inventors tried to use the cavity magnetron as a CW oscillator, and in that mode, they are basically awful tubes. Randall and Boot ("the British") invented the pulse operation of the cavity magnetron - a way to basically abuse the tubes but get pulses magnitudes more powerful than previously done. This, of course, was the key to microwave radar. * much of this original research was not secret, just ignored. RCA's "split anode tank magnetron" was even completely described in one of their tech journals. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Mar 4 16:28:09 2018 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 22:28:09 +0000 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: References: <161e9291fc8-35b8-358ca@webjas-vac179.srv.aolmail.net> <049e01d3b2ca$890795f0$9b16c1d0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: > A very interesting story in this radar history is how the Dutch managed to > rescue the EF50 tube, essential for these early radar receivers, to England > just hours before the Germans invaded holland. This is generally a good article, but has a major flaw or two. One, it describes acorn tubes as costly and difficult to build. This was certainly true in Britain and Europe - for some reason the overseas makers had a very difficult time getting acorns to work (and last) properly. This was not the case for RCA - there were large numbers in service by 1939. RCA must have kept the "secret" to making acorns tight to their chest. Two, it poorly describes (almost not at all, actually) the Sylvania loctal that came before the EF50. Most of what makes an EF50 can be found in the loctal series. US radars generally did not use loctals (some IFF transponders did - a related technology), but by 1940, the loctal was pretty obsolete and the 7 pin miniature banging on the door. -- Will From couryhouse at aol.com Sun Mar 4 16:30:51 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 17:30:51 -0500 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <161f3238e83-1da9-9e69@webjas-vac229.srv.aolmail.net> Will - But is that red ?tube the one used in the wireless set ? lend ?lease transceiver? with??Russian?lettering? ?for ?the ?vhf ?section will? ( trying to flash back 50 years.....) ? Ed# ? In a message dated 3/4/2018 3:28:17 PM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: ? > A very interesting story in this radar history is how the Dutch managed to > rescue the EF50 tube, essential for these early radar receivers, to England > just hours before the Germans invaded holland. This is generally a good article, but has a major flaw or two. One, it describes acorn tubes as costly and difficult to build. This was certainly true in Britain and Europe - for some reason the overseas makers had a very difficult time getting acorns to work (and last) properly. This was not the case for RCA - there were large numbers in service by 1939. RCA must have kept the "secret" to making acorns tight to their chest. Two, it poorly describes (almost not at all, actually) the Sylvania loctal that came before the EF50. Most of what makes an EF50 can be found in the loctal series. US radars generally did not use loctals (some IFF transponders did - a related technology), but by 1940, the loctal was pretty obsolete and the 7 pin miniature banging on the door. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Mar 4 16:37:34 2018 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 22:37:34 +0000 Subject: radar history In-Reply-To: References: <161eb154616-179e-232db@webjas-vae209.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: > The one described in the RH is a "split anode magnetron". The note on > it says that "frequency stability is not very good:. Yes, but in World War 2 (and a little into the 1950s), split anode magnetrons were used in ECM "jammer" transmitters. > It's my understanding that the allies used the cavity magnetron and the > axis used klystrons for their transmitters. The Germans only used cavity magnetrons in a few radars towards the end of the war. Post 1943 or so, with the air war flipped with Germany of the defensive, microwave radar really was not a big advantage to them. Nearly all German radars used triodes, which worked fine for the VHF air search radars they needed. They could have used magnetrons for better gun laying radars for antiaircraft use, but the UHF radars they had were actually pretty good (FuMG 39 Wurzburg and related). The Japanese used cavity magnetrons for some of their Naval radars, but they were hampered by poor receivers. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Mar 4 16:58:35 2018 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 22:58:35 +0000 Subject: EF50 was Re: radar history In-Reply-To: References: <1497136780.213736.1520175139922.JavaMail.root@md02.topaz.synacor.com> <9F9B256EC40D414CAC4BE6F6F4C0C3E4@notebook> Message-ID: :> The high frequency power tubes were required for better spacial resolution. My understanding was that major difference between the German radar and allied was that the Germans had a single trace, like a time domain reflectometer. The allies had a rotating image that is similar to what we see on current radars, today. Both sides had the displays you describe. The first is called A-scope, and the latter PPI (Plan Position Indication). Consider that early radar, well into the 1950s, was actually pretty horrible. PPI back then often resulted in a screen full of indistinct smudges, so nearly every search radar had the "old" A-scope, where the operator would use a cursor* and get a very accurate range and azimuth reading. Basically, the PPI scope was good for "the big picture" "show me all the information", and the A-scope was good for getting the information that was actually useful. > The cavity tuned magnetron was clearly an issue because it allowed them to run at a higher frequency than the split plate magnetron. Both were significant changes in how things were done. Significant, but only sometimes significant. Higher frequencies produced by magnetrons were useful for bombing and gun laying (anti aircraft and naval guns) as it improved range accuracy greatly, but it did nothing for air search radars. VHF radars (with triodes) were still in front line service until the 1950s, simply because they did a much better job at illuminating aircraft. Germany often gets the short end of the stick when it come to radar tech in World War 2, but towards the end, their (non-magnetron) air search radars were some of the best. Why? Because that is what they needed with their skies full of Allied bombers. The graphical real-time cursor and joystick, in one or two dimensions, has its origin in World War 2 radar systems. It is astonishing how many historical accounts of early computer graphics do not mention this. -- Will From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sun Mar 4 17:26:47 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 18:26:47 -0500 (EST) Subject: EF50 was Re: radar history Message-ID: <20180304232647.1C66718C0BF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: William Donzelli > Germany often gets the short end of the stick when it come to radar > tech in World War 2 For those who are interested in German radar, there's a good book: David Pritchard, "The Radar War: Germany's Pioneering Achievement 1904-45", 1989 which covers their systems in some detail. There's also: Martin Streetly, "Confound and Destroy: 100 Group and the Bomber Support Campaign", 1978 which contains a very interesting chapter about an exercise called "Post Mortem", run immediately after the close of hostilities, from 25 June to 7 July, 1945, in which the Allies observed (from inside) the workings of the German air warning network, including things like how well it coped with various kind of jamming (window, as well as active). Noel From couryhouse at aol.com Sun Mar 4 19:29:35 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 20:29:35 -0500 Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Someone_had_=C2=A0asked_me_=C2=A0about_=C2=A0they_were_look?= =?UTF-8?Q?ing_=C2=A0for_Claude_Shanno?= =?UTF-8?Q?n_Bell_=C2=A0Labs_=C2=A0_=C2=A0public?= =?UTF-8?Q?ations_=C2=A0for_a_=C2=A0display=3F_Please_email_me_=C2=A0off?= =?UTF-8?Q?=C2=A0list_Thanks_=C2=A0Ed_Sharpe_archivist=C2=A0_for_SMECC?= Message-ID: <161f3c73b03-179b-cd85@webjas-vac233.srv.aolmail.net> Someone had ?asked me ?about ?they were looking ?for Claude Shannon Bell ?Labs ? ?publications ?for a ?display? Please email me ?off?list Thanks ?Ed Sharpe archivist? for SMECC From cliff52 at gmail.com Sun Mar 4 08:12:45 2018 From: cliff52 at gmail.com (Cliff Miller) Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2018 14:12:45 +0000 Subject: FTGH: Unknown extender card In-Reply-To: References: <20180304124059.2A0D918C0BF@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: I once owned a Motorola D2 kit with 6800 micro. I thought that pin count sounded familiar. On Sun, Mar 4, 2018 at 7:52 AM Robert via cctalk wrote: > On Sun, Mar 4, 2018 at 6:40 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk > wrote: > > > A couple of people have replied privately telling me it's for a Motorola > > EXORbus/EXORciser. > > Wasn't EXORbus keyed? I don't see a keyway in the photo. > > Robert > -- Cliff Miller cliff52 at gmail.com From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Mon Mar 5 02:54:07 2018 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2018 09:54:07 +0100 (CET) Subject: EF50 was Re: radar history In-Reply-To: <6C157267C29A47E58F2D4A6F71C74DF2@notebook> References: <1497136780.213736.1520175139922.JavaMail.root@md02.topaz.synacor.com> <6C157267C29A47E58F2D4A6F71C74DF2@notebook> Message-ID: On Sun, 4 Mar 2018, Nico de Jong wrote: >> E = 6.3v filament >> F = Pentode >> 5x = B9G base > .. also known as Noval base No, absolutely not ;-) The EF50 has a Loctal base with eight pins. 5xx is Magnoval. 8x is Noval. Christian From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Mon Mar 5 02:59:32 2018 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2018 09:59:32 +0100 (CET) Subject: EF50 was Re: radar history In-Reply-To: References: <1497136780.213736.1520175139922.JavaMail.root@md02.topaz.synacor.com> <6C157267C29A47E58F2D4A6F71C74DF2@notebook> Message-ID: On Mon, 5 Mar 2018, Christian Corti wrote: > The EF50 has a Loctal base with eight pins. 5xx is Magnoval. 8x is Noval. Correction: Loctal with nine pins ;-) How crazy... Christian From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Mon Mar 5 19:26:07 2018 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 01:26:07 +0000 Subject: Some fun: who can identify this ? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Looks like the bin for a shredder.?? But it's kinda small.? I suppose as this is classic comp it could be the chad catcher for a keypunch or paper tape punch. bill On 03/04/2018 12:40 PM, Pete Lancashire via cctalk wrote: > https://photos.app.goo.gl/ww7KPnPVexGJiqyE3 From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Tue Mar 6 01:38:43 2018 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Rob Jarratt) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 07:38:43 -0000 Subject: Membrain Software Message-ID: <038101d3b51e$27684eb0$7638ec10$@ntlworld.com> In doing some research on the operating system for MU5, MUSS, I have been told that a UK company called Membrain may have acquired it at some point in the late 70's. Membrain were based in the South of England and made Automatic Test Equipment. Does anyone have any information on Membrain? Any software artefacts? Source code even? I have had a look on BitSavers and Membrain does not feature at all. Thanks Rob From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Tue Mar 6 10:43:18 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 11:43:18 -0500 (EST) Subject: QSIC update Message-ID: <20180306164318.3192818C0D8@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Hey, all, a quick update on recent progress. I now have a working prototype to match Dave's (although he's still doing all the real work), and we've made a minor improvement in them (re-wired things so we can use shorter cables to the FPGA daughter-card). I got my indicator panel working, it looks quite nice: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/QSIC/jpg/DasBlinken2F.jpg http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/QSIC/jpg/DasBlinken2NF.jpg The inlay is an original from a TS08 that I happened to have lying around; Rod S has made us a large batch of new blanks, but silk-screening of the captions on the front of those is yet to happen. The bezel is also an original. (I have a large stock of those, so it'll be a while before we need to work out how to make new ones - probably resin casting, although 3D printing will be an option too.) However, the guts are all new, and as you can see, the result looks just like the real originals. Dave has also worked out how to connect up the RKV12 (our name for the 22-bit RK controller, by analogy with the RLV11/RLV12) to the internal 'block' RAM in the FPGA, and then did the stuff to connect it to both the uSD card and the internal RAM at the same time, with one drive connected to the RAM, so things like swapping, etc don't 'waste' uSD writes. Both of these are working quite reliably; the exciser/tester runs until we get tired of the noise, and turn the machines off! :-) His current project is to work out how to talk to the larger external RAM on the FPGA daughter-board (the internal RAM isn't large enough for even a single complete RK pack). I'm so looking forward to putting swapping, /tmp, pipes, etc all on different platters, so as the system (Unix V6, natch :-) runs I can watch the lights and see _exactly_ what's going on! After that: turning the RK into an 'RPV12' (which should be pretty easy, the RK11 and RP11 are very similar), and adding a mux so that the two controllers can share the storage devices, etc. Those should both be done soon after the external RAM (and maybe before, if Dave needs a break from that :-). We also intend to do an 'extended RP11' (name not yet chosen, although I like 'RPV-12D - DEC's last was the RP11-C), which extends all the disk address fields in the register to use the unused bits, giving us pretty massive storage capability. With 16 bits of cylinder (up 7), 8 bits of surface (up 3), 4 bits of sector, that gives 28 bits of block number per drive; and with 8 drives per extended RP11, that's a total of 31 bits of block number per controller. Convert the blocks to bytes, that's 9 bits more, so 2^40 bytes per extended RP11, or 1TB! Very shortly now we'll need to turn to starting on the design of the 'production' hardware. Noel From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Tue Mar 6 12:17:14 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 13:17:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: M837 (KM8-E Memory Extension and Time-Share) available Message-ID: <20180306181714.6F93018C0D8@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> So I have an M837 (KM8-E Memory Extension and Time-Share option for the PDP-8/E, -8/F & -8/M) available; got it with a group of other cards, and I have no use for it. Anyone want it, and have (or can acquire :-) anything PDP-11ish (boards, mounting hardware, manuals, prints, I'm not picky - although it has to be something I need/want, I'm already knee-deep in DL11's :-) to trade for it? Noel From billdegnan at gmail.com Tue Mar 6 11:09:02 2018 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 12:09:02 -0500 Subject: NEC TK-80A Ref Manual Wanted Message-ID: Looking for a reference manual to the NEC TK-80A trainer. Rev A. This one: http://bugbookmuseum.blogspot.com/2015/12/computer-tk-80-single-board-8080.html Thanks Bill From allisonportable at gmail.com Tue Mar 6 13:29:44 2018 From: allisonportable at gmail.com (allison) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 14:29:44 -0500 Subject: NEC TK-80A Ref Manual Wanted In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 03/06/2018 12:09 PM, Bill Degnan via cctech wrote: > Looking for a reference manual to the NEC TK-80A trainer. Rev A. > > This one: > http://bugbookmuseum.blogspot.com/2015/12/computer-tk-80-single-board-8080.html > > Thanks > > Bill So happens I have one of the TK80A and the manual.? Unfortunately scanning the 100+ pages would be painful an an old USB flatbed. I also have one of the few auxiliary boards that had additional ram sockets and power supply. No its not for sale. Allison From billdegnan at gmail.com Tue Mar 6 13:53:06 2018 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 14:53:06 -0500 Subject: NEC TK-80A Ref Manual Wanted In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 6, 2018 at 2:29 PM, allison via cctech wrote: > On 03/06/2018 12:09 PM, Bill Degnan via cctech wrote: > > Looking for a reference manual to the NEC TK-80A trainer. Rev A. > > > > This one: > > http://bugbookmuseum.blogspot.com/2015/12/computer-tk-80- > single-board-8080.html > > > > Thanks > > > > Bill > > So happens I have one of the TK80A and the manual. Unfortunately > scanning the 100+ pages would be painful > an an old USB flatbed. > > I also have one of the few auxiliary boards that had additional ram > sockets and power supply. > > No its not for sale. > > Allison > thanks anyway. Perhaps you could just copy a few key pages into a pdf, - the power input pins, basic monitor commands, schematic? I will keep looking otherwise. Don't feel obligated, I too am busy and can't always do everything I'd like either :-) From useddec at gmail.com Tue Mar 6 14:42:42 2018 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 14:42:42 -0600 Subject: M837 (KM8-E Memory Extension and Time-Share) available In-Reply-To: <20180306181714.6F93018C0D8@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180306181714.6F93018C0D8@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: Hi Noel, Put my name on it if it's still available. Thanks, Paul On Tue, Mar 6, 2018 at 12:17 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > So I have an M837 (KM8-E Memory Extension and Time-Share option for the > PDP-8/E, -8/F & -8/M) available; got it with a group of other cards, and I > have no use for it. > > Anyone want it, and have (or can acquire :-) anything PDP-11ish (boards, > mounting hardware, manuals, prints, I'm not picky - although it has to be > something I need/want, I'm already knee-deep in DL11's :-) to trade for it? > > Noel > From sales at elecplus.com Tue Mar 6 16:57:43 2018 From: sales at elecplus.com (Electronics Plus) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 16:57:43 -0600 Subject: AT&T 3B2 stuff--Calling Seth Message-ID: <057201d3b59e$8962f360$9c28da20$@com> Was Seth the person looking for this stuff? I finally found it! I sent him an email, but it might not be a current address. Seth, if you still want this stuff, please let me know! Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com AOL IM elcpls --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Tue Mar 6 17:27:58 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 18:27:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: AT&T 3B2 stuff--Calling Seth Message-ID: <20180306232758.BA3A718C0A1@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Cindy Croxton > I finally found it! Oh, that is so awesome! Thank you for keeping an eye out! (I'm sure somehow it will get saved - Seth, let us know if you do, otherwise we can organize something.) Noel From terry at webweavers.co.nz Wed Mar 7 02:06:03 2018 From: terry at webweavers.co.nz (Terry Stewart) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 21:06:03 +1300 Subject: An NTSC Atari looks good on a PAL TV. How come? Message-ID: Hi, The PAL vrs NTSC TV standard complicated things when collecting home computers from other countries. In New Zealand we are on PAL. PAL Atari 800s are rarer in the world that NTSC ones. That being the case I recently settled on an NTSC one for my collection. Hooking it up to a couple of my PAL TVs (via composite video) I was surprised to see a reasonable colour image. I then dropped in a UAV video enhancement board and was surprised to see a very good colour image! I'm assuming it's because composite input into "relatively" modern can handle NTSC and PAL? Is this a reasonable thought? The UAV is not an NTSC converter, and even the inventor was surprised this worked. Those interested can read about the adventure here: https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2018-03-06-Converting%20-NTSC-Atari-800-for-PAL-using-UAV.htm Terry (Tez) From abuse at cabal.org.uk Wed Mar 7 04:49:40 2018 From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 11:49:40 +0100 Subject: An NTSC Atari looks good on a PAL TV. How come? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20180307104940.mrndfkefa4wsevud@mooli.org.uk> On Wed, Mar 07, 2018 at 09:06:03PM +1300, Terry Stewart via cctalk wrote: [...] > I'm assuming it's because composite input into "relatively" modern can handle > NTSC and PAL? Is this a reasonable thought? The UAV is not an NTSC converter, > and even the inventor was surprised this worked. PAL is the superset of analogue TV standards. If one is building a TV which already contains the expensive components required to decode PAL, tweaking the constants to also decode NTSC is cheap and economies of scale may make it cheaper than to make the set PAL-only. It's been about 20 years since I last saw a nominally PAL TV which couldn't also decode NTSC. From binarydinosaurs at gmail.com Wed Mar 7 05:04:07 2018 From: binarydinosaurs at gmail.com (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 11:04:07 +0000 Subject: An NTSC Atari looks good on a PAL TV. How come? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > I'm assuming it's because composite input into "relatively" modern can > handle NTSC and PAL? Is this a reasonable thought? The UAV is not an NTSC > converter, and even the inventor was surprised this worked. I remember getting my Atari 1200XL back in 2000 or thereabouts and was surprised to find I got a good picture on my 1996 Toshiba TV. I think as soon as PAL TVs gained SCART sockets and RGB composite they also got the capability to handle NTSC signals. Even my cheapo Fuji portable will handle NTSC and quite probably SECAM and others. If I ever get my hands on a Thomson TO7 I'll be able to try it :) Cheers -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk t: @binarydinosaurs f: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs On 7 March 2018 at 08:06, Terry Stewart via cctalk wrote: > Hi, > > The PAL vrs NTSC TV standard complicated things when collecting home > computers from other countries. > > In New Zealand we are on PAL. PAL Atari 800s are rarer in the world that > NTSC ones. That being the case I recently settled on an NTSC one for my > collection. Hooking it up to a couple of my PAL TVs (via composite video) > I was surprised to see a reasonable colour image. I then dropped in a UAV > video enhancement board and was surprised to see a very good colour image! > > I'm assuming it's because composite input into "relatively" modern can > handle NTSC and PAL? Is this a reasonable thought? The UAV is not an NTSC > converter, and even the inventor was surprised this worked. > > Those interested can read about the adventure here: > https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2018-03-06- > Converting%20-NTSC-Atari-800-for-PAL-using-UAV.htm > > Terry (Tez) > From tsg at bonedaddy.net Wed Mar 7 07:23:01 2018 From: tsg at bonedaddy.net (Todd Goodman) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 08:23:01 -0500 Subject: AT&T 3B2 stuff--Calling Seth In-Reply-To: <057201d3b59e$8962f360$9c28da20$@com> References: <057201d3b59e$8962f360$9c28da20$@com> Message-ID: <21de807d-aeea-60b6-8d40-547669b3cf41@bonedaddy.net> If Seth isn't interested, I'm interested in 3B2 stuff (hopefully whole machines). Thank you, Todd On 3/6/2018 5:57 PM, Electronics Plus via cctalk wrote: > Was Seth the person looking for this stuff? I finally found it! I sent him > an email, but it might not be a current address. > > Seth, if you still want this stuff, please let me know! > > > > Cindy Croxton > > Electronics Plus > > 1613 Water Street > > Kerrville, TX 78028 > > 830-370-3239 cell > > sales at elecplus.com > > AOL IM elcpls > > > > > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Wed Mar 7 07:55:13 2018 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 10:55:13 -0300 Subject: An NTSC Atari looks good on a PAL TV. How come? In-Reply-To: <20180307104940.mrndfkefa4wsevud@mooli.org.uk> References: <20180307104940.mrndfkefa4wsevud@mooli.org.uk> Message-ID: <127b5159-0e18-72cf-b76a-d8cd62d7dee6@gmail.com> These are very common in Brazil. BTW, most tv chipsets made from 10-15 years to now can decode at least pal-m/pal-g/pal-n/ntsc. Seldomly they can decode SECAM. Em 07/03/2018 07:49, Peter Corlett via cctalk escreveu: > On Wed, Mar 07, 2018 at 09:06:03PM +1300, Terry Stewart via cctalk wrote: > [...] >> I'm assuming it's because composite input into "relatively" modern can handle >> NTSC and PAL? Is this a reasonable thought? The UAV is not an NTSC converter, >> and even the inventor was surprised this worked. > > PAL is the superset of analogue TV standards. If one is building a TV which > already contains the expensive components required to decode PAL, tweaking the > constants to also decode NTSC is cheap and economies of scale may make it > cheaper than to make the set PAL-only. > > It's been about 20 years since I last saw a nominally PAL TV which couldn't > also decode NTSC. > > . > From oltmansg at gmail.com Wed Mar 7 08:38:21 2018 From: oltmansg at gmail.com (Geoffrey Oltmans) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 08:38:21 -0600 Subject: An NTSC Atari looks good on a PAL TV. How come? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 7, 2018 at 2:06 AM, Terry Stewart via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Hi, > > The PAL vrs NTSC TV standard complicated things when collecting home > computers from other countries. > > In New Zealand we are on PAL. PAL Atari 800s are rarer in the world that > NTSC ones. That being the case I recently settled on an NTSC one for my > collection. Hooking it up to a couple of my PAL TVs (via composite video) > I was surprised to see a reasonable colour image. I then dropped in a UAV > video enhancement board and was surprised to see a very good colour image! > > I'm assuming it's because composite input into "relatively" modern can > handle NTSC and PAL? Is this a reasonable thought? The UAV is not an NTSC > converter, and even the inventor was surprised this worked. > > Those interested can read about the adventure here: > https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2018-03-06- > Converting%20-NTSC-Atari-800-for-PAL-using-UAV.htm > > > As others have said there are many sets on the market today that can do either/or because supporting one vs the other is a "gimme". However, one thing you may run into with PAL vs NTSC is that many games depended on the video refresh timing of 50 or 60 Hz to work correctly and were hardcoded to work with one or the other instead of determining the correct timing at runtime. This can cause incompatibility problems with some software. Another issue with other systems with more display memory (i.e. Atari ST or Amiga) is that the PAL screen resolution tended to be a few lines higher which can crop the image off at the bottom when running software designed for PAL in NTSC mode. The timing problem is a real issue with a lot of C-64 software that you run across since a lot of it on the 'net assumes PAL, so I ended up converting my Commodore 128D to a PAL system with a PAL VIC-II chip and the various load option changes (oscillator, etc). Problem I have now is that I'd rather use a CRT monitor, and most all that were sold in North America can do only NTSC, so I'm stuck with black and white. From terry at webweavers.co.nz Wed Mar 7 15:39:07 2018 From: terry at webweavers.co.nz (Terry Stewart) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 10:39:07 +1300 Subject: An NTSC Atari looks good on a PAL TV. How come? Message-ID: Thanks for those replies guys. It was as I suspected. Terry (Tez) From sales at elecplus.com Wed Mar 7 16:15:49 2018 From: sales at elecplus.com (Electronics Plus) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 16:15:49 -0600 Subject: 3B2 stuff Message-ID: <082201d3b661$d93d1be0$8bb753a0$@com> It is just the manuals. Seth answered me and I am pretty sure he is going to take them. I don't have the 200 pound hardware anymore. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com AOL IM elcpls --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From sales at elecplus.com Wed Mar 7 16:33:50 2018 From: sales at elecplus.com (Electronics Plus) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 16:33:50 -0600 Subject: Pics of the 3B2 stuff, if anyone is interested. Message-ID: <083501d3b664$5d92c140$18b843c0$@com> Like I said, I think Seth is taking these. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kt4K6UMy54kNjzgL-1t_iwXm6RqsfJVJ?usp =sharing Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com AOL IM elcpls --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From janso96 at hotmail.com Wed Mar 7 09:56:54 2018 From: janso96 at hotmail.com (Janek Sochaczewski) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 15:56:54 +0000 Subject: Anyone have the service guide for a Sanyo VM4209 monitor? Message-ID: Hi, I'm trying to repair this monitor, but unfortunately I can't find any service manual or guide with schematics for it. I found something on www.electronic-circuitry.com, but it's impossible to download. Thanks in advance, Janek Sochaczewski From kcr at 1ts.org Wed Mar 7 11:52:51 2018 From: kcr at 1ts.org (Karl Ramm) Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2018 12:52:51 -0500 Subject: AT&T 3B2 stuff--Calling Seth In-Reply-To: <21de807d-aeea-60b6-8d40-547669b3cf41@bonedaddy.net> (Todd Goodman via cctalk's message of "Wed, 7 Mar 2018 08:23:01 -0500") References: <057201d3b59e$8962f360$9c28da20$@com> <21de807d-aeea-60b6-8d40-547669b3cf41@bonedaddy.net> Message-ID: "Ooh, me too" in a mashed up nostalgia/PTSD sort of way thanks, kcr Todd Goodman via cctalk writes: > If Seth isn't interested, I'm interested in 3B2 stuff (hopefully whole > machines). > > Thank you, > > Todd > > > On 3/6/2018 5:57 PM, Electronics Plus via cctalk wrote: >> Was Seth the person looking for this stuff? I finally found it! I sent him >> an email, but it might not be a current address. >> >> Seth, if you still want this stuff, please let me know! >> >> >> >> Cindy Croxton >> >> Electronics Plus >> >> 1613 Water Street >> >> Kerrville, TX 78028 >> >> 830-370-3239 cell >> >> sales at elecplus.com >> >> AOL IM elcpls >> >> >> >> >> >> --- >> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. >> https://www.avast.com/antivirus From sales at elecplus.com Wed Mar 7 17:19:42 2018 From: sales at elecplus.com (Electronics Plus) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 17:19:42 -0600 Subject: old TV, radio, hi fi service manuals Message-ID: <084301d3b66a$c6420380$52c60a80$@com> I have at LEAST 5 cases of these old Sam's books. Any interest, or dumpster fodder? Mostly Zenith and RCA. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com AOL IM elcpls --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From sales at elecplus.com Wed Mar 7 17:23:01 2018 From: sales at elecplus.com (Electronics Plus) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 17:23:01 -0600 Subject: Anyone have the service guide for a Sanyo VM4209 monitor? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <084801d3b66b$3cc5d3b0$b6517b10$@com> Al posted some time ago that he had one, and he posted it online, but the link is no longer valid. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Janek Sochaczewski via cctalk Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2018 9:57 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Anyone have the service guide for a Sanyo VM4209 monitor? Hi, I'm trying to repair this monitor, but unfortunately I can't find any service manual or guide with schematics for it. I found something on www.electronic-circuitry.com, but it's impossible to download. Thanks in advance, Janek Sochaczewski --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From sales at elecplus.com Wed Mar 7 17:26:41 2018 From: sales at elecplus.com (Electronics Plus) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 17:26:41 -0600 Subject: Anyone have the service guide for a Sanyo VM4209 monitor? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000001d3b66b$c02432b0$406c9810$@com> http://www.electronic-circuitry.com/e/action/ShowInfo.php?classid=72&id=2290 93 But I don't see a download button? -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Janek Sochaczewski via cctalk Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2018 9:57 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Anyone have the service guide for a Sanyo VM4209 monitor? Hi, I'm trying to repair this monitor, but unfortunately I can't find any service manual or guide with schematics for it. I found something on www.electronic-circuitry.com, but it's impossible to download. Thanks in advance, Janek Sochaczewski --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From sales at elecplus.com Wed Mar 7 17:28:48 2018 From: sales at elecplus.com (Electronics Plus) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 17:28:48 -0600 Subject: Anyone have the service guide for a Sanyo VM4209 monitor? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000101d3b66c$0b4f83c0$21ee8b40$@com> https://www.eserviceinfo.com/index.php?what=search2&searchstring=sanyo+vm420 9 -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Janek Sochaczewski via cctalk Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2018 9:57 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Anyone have the service guide for a Sanyo VM4209 monitor? Hi, I'm trying to repair this monitor, but unfortunately I can't find any service manual or guide with schematics for it. I found something on www.electronic-circuitry.com, but it's impossible to download. Thanks in advance, Janek Sochaczewski --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From couryhouse at aol.com Wed Mar 7 18:43:37 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 19:43:37 -0500 Subject: Hand-crafted beauty pays tribute to the dawn of home computing looks like a PET! but in walnut! Message-ID: <16203102ebc-1db6-15894@webjas-vad120.srv.aolmail.net> Hand-crafted beauty pays tribute to the dawn of home computing https://newatlas.com/love-hulten-pet-de-lux/53608/ Ed# www.smecc.org From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Mar 8 07:33:32 2018 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2018 07:33:32 -0600 Subject: old TV, radio, hi fi service manuals In-Reply-To: <084301d3b66a$c6420380$52c60a80$@com> References: <084301d3b66a$c6420380$52c60a80$@com> Message-ID: <20180308134907.010DC4E759@mx2.ezwind.net> At 05:19 PM 3/7/2018, Electronics Plus via cctalk wrote: >I have at LEAST 5 cases of these old Sam's books. Any interest, or dumpster >fodder? Mostly Zenith and RCA. Have they scanned them at Archive.org yet? - John From m.zahorik at sbcglobal.net Thu Mar 8 11:32:35 2018 From: m.zahorik at sbcglobal.net (Michael Zahorik) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 17:32:35 +0000 (UTC) Subject: DEC compatible boards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1190630764.13484984.1520530355226@mail.yahoo.com> Paul I talked to you about a M8650 serial board for a PDP8E. We talked on the telephone one evening and you mentioned that if I had not heard anything in a week or 2 I should remind you. Thanks ?Mike Zahorik (414) 254-6768 From: Paul Anderson via cctalk To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts ; cctech at vax-11.org Sent: Friday, February 16, 2018 3:40 AM Subject: DEC compatible boards I have well over 100, maybe 200 DEC compatible boards which I have no plans to use. Maybe 20 or so EMULEX, DILOG, ADAC, DATA TRANSLATIONS, and dozens or other manufacturers. Also the ones that have no company name on them. They range from a few PDP-8 boards, to Q-bus. Unibus, to VAX. I hope to have a complete list sometime later this year, bur feel free to send a wish list (off list)and I will dig through them. Thanks, Paul From billdegnan at gmail.com Thu Mar 8 15:40:38 2018 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 16:40:38 -0500 Subject: AlphaCom Terminal Message-ID: The 1969-71 AlphaCom terminal is a candidate for https://terminals-wiki.org/ Here are some photos http://www.vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=502 I got this from the inventor's son. I am unsure how many of these were made or put into production. The terminal kind-of worked for a while, it saves forms in core memory and transmits them like a glass teletype (i.e. datapoint 3300) and would have been a competitor machine. Unfortunately it's too complex for me to decipher, there are no schematics and I am unable to get it running again. The Sanyo TV adapted as a display is also dysfunctional now. Perhaps someone here would like to help me make progress. I have a ton of photos on my site, linked from the above thread, but doubtless more research is necessary. I am located in Landenberg, PA USA near Philadelphia due west of Newark Delaware. BIll From dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net Thu Mar 8 16:23:02 2018 From: dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net (Daniel Seagraves) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 16:23:02 -0600 Subject: LCM MDE2 building/ordering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: So did anyone actually buy/make one of these yet? From lproven at gmail.com Thu Mar 8 16:30:28 2018 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 23:30:28 +0100 Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard Message-ID: This turned up on Fess Bouc yesterday and it was news to me. It's a DIY replica of an original IBM PC motherboard: http://www.mtmscientific.com/pc-retro.html -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Mar 8 16:38:17 2018 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 14:38:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 8 Mar 2018, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > This turned up on Fess Bouc yesterday and it was news to me. > > It's a DIY replica of an original IBM PC motherboard: > > http://www.mtmscientific.com/pc-retro.html That's actually been around for 3 or 4 years. So far I've made successful saving throws vs buying one every time it's come up. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From phb.hfx at gmail.com Thu Mar 8 16:38:29 2018 From: phb.hfx at gmail.com (Paul Berger) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 18:38:29 -0400 Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> Hmmmm I don't remember my original PC having all the chips in sockets nor do I recall it having 64Kb DRAMs.? I clearly recall that it had one bank of 16Kb DRAMs soldered down and sockets for three more banks of 16Kb chips.? The only other sockets on the board where for the ROM, CPU, and math coprocessor.? hardly a fathful reproduction. Paul. On 2018-03-08 6:30 PM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > This turned up on Fess Bouc yesterday and it was news to me. > > It's a DIY replica of an original IBM PC motherboard: > > http://www.mtmscientific.com/pc-retro.html > From allisonportable at gmail.com Thu Mar 8 16:49:22 2018 From: allisonportable at gmail.com (allison) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 17:49:22 -0500 Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> References: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> Message-ID: <27f7ba95-4a28-0e54-6c64-3a9912667d56@gmail.com> On 03/08/2018 05:38 PM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote: > Hmmmm I don't remember my original PC having all the chips in sockets > nor do I recall it having 64Kb DRAMs.? I clearly recall that it had > one bank of 16Kb DRAMs soldered down and sockets for three more banks > of 16Kb chips.? The only other sockets on the board where for the ROM, > CPU, and math coprocessor.? hardly a fathful reproduction. > > Paul. > Paul, That is the rev-b still 5150 but the next 4 digits are that hardware it was. your correct the first version only took 16k Drams x4 banks (64K).? It was very obvious that was way too little and a "few" revs were done to use 64K and later 256K parts. Personally why would any one want to build that?? It ran at 50% of what the 8088 could do in the day and was memory poor.? I know that as I was running a Multibus 8088 at 8mhz just as that was introduced.? That was faster. Allison > > On 2018-03-08 6:30 PM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: >> This turned up on Fess Bouc yesterday and it was news to me. >> >> It's a DIY replica of an original IBM PC motherboard: >> >> http://www.mtmscientific.com/pc-retro.html >> > From phb.hfx at gmail.com Thu Mar 8 16:59:56 2018 From: phb.hfx at gmail.com (Paul Berger) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 18:59:56 -0400 Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: <27f7ba95-4a28-0e54-6c64-3a9912667d56@gmail.com> References: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> <27f7ba95-4a28-0e54-6c64-3a9912667d56@gmail.com> Message-ID: <47fd7632-f717-6c77-555b-69bdd198c0e9@gmail.com> On 2018-03-08 6:49 PM, allison via cctalk wrote: > On 03/08/2018 05:38 PM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote: >> Hmmmm I don't remember my original PC having all the chips in sockets >> nor do I recall it having 64Kb DRAMs.? I clearly recall that it had >> one bank of 16Kb DRAMs soldered down and sockets for three more banks >> of 16Kb chips.? The only other sockets on the board where for the ROM, >> CPU, and math coprocessor.? hardly a fathful reproduction. >> >> Paul. >> > Paul, > > That is the rev-b still 5150 but the next 4 digits are that hardware it was. > your correct the first version only took 16k Drams x4 banks (64K).? It was > very obvious that was way too little and a "few" revs were done to use 64K > and later 256K parts. > > Personally why would any one want to build that?? It ran at 50% of what > the 8088 could do in the day and was memory poor.? I know that as I was > running a Multibus 8088 at 8mhz just as that was introduced.? That > was faster. > > > Allison Ok I was not aware there was a second version I got mine in Nov. 81, and I agree who would really want one.? If you really wanted the 4.7MHz experience, I still see lots of PC and XTs go by on eBay.? I never did bother keeping a planar from an original PC, but have 2 from XTs.? One thing the original PC was useful for was the cassette interface on it could be used to emulate a TTY device for deaf people.? A long time ago I built a clone of it on a ISA bus card for a person that wanted to use it in an XT. Paul. From phb.hfx at gmail.com Thu Mar 8 17:00:03 2018 From: phb.hfx at gmail.com (Paul Berger) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 19:00:03 -0400 Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: <27f7ba95-4a28-0e54-6c64-3a9912667d56@gmail.com> References: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> <27f7ba95-4a28-0e54-6c64-3a9912667d56@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4f93e408-4621-85d0-bc38-8c657fb12ab4@gmail.com> On 2018-03-08 6:49 PM, allison via cctalk wrote: > On 03/08/2018 05:38 PM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote: >> Hmmmm I don't remember my original PC having all the chips in sockets >> nor do I recall it having 64Kb DRAMs.? I clearly recall that it had >> one bank of 16Kb DRAMs soldered down and sockets for three more banks >> of 16Kb chips.? The only other sockets on the board where for the ROM, >> CPU, and math coprocessor.? hardly a fathful reproduction. >> >> Paul. >> > Paul, > > That is the rev-b still 5150 but the next 4 digits are that hardware it was. > your correct the first version only took 16k Drams x4 banks (64K).? It was > very obvious that was way too little and a "few" revs were done to use 64K > and later 256K parts. > > Personally why would any one want to build that?? It ran at 50% of what > the 8088 could do in the day and was memory poor.? I know that as I was > running a Multibus 8088 at 8mhz just as that was introduced.? That > was faster. > > > Allison Ok I was not aware there was a second version I got mine in Nov. 81, and I agree who would really want one.? If you really wanted the 4.7MHz experience, I still see lots of PC and XTs go by on eBay.? I never did bother keeping a planar from an original PC, but have 2 from XTs.? One thing the original PC was useful for was the cassette interface on it could be used to emulate a TTY device for deaf people.? A long time ago I built a clone of it on a ISA bus card for a person that wanted to use it in an XT. Paul. From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Mar 8 17:00:40 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 15:00:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> References: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 8 Mar 2018, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote: > Hmmmm I don't remember my original PC having all the chips in sockets nor do > I recall it having 64Kb DRAMs.? I clearly recall that it had one bank of > 16Kb DRAMs soldered down and sockets for three more banks of 16Kb chips.? > The only other sockets on the board where for the ROM, CPU, and math > coprocessor.? hardly a fathful reproduction. I think that this is "revision B"?? (64KB - 256KB). The REAL original was 16K - 64K. Since it is an unassembled board, you can achieve greater realism by soldering in the parts, instead of soldering sockets. If you DO solder sockets, at least use GOOD ones. My third "PC" was an unpopulated imitation XT board (very common and CHEAP at the computer swaps), that I populated with Augat sockets. Do they offer a 5 slot case? a buckling spring keyboard? Their diagnostic ROM requires that the system be WORKING, and have video. Howzbout the Fischer? diagnostic ROM, thta came with a hard-wired configured serial port, that could perform some tests on a system that did NOT boot to the point of video. From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Mar 8 17:42:52 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 15:42:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> References: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 8 Mar 2018, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote: > Hmmmm I don't remember my original PC having all the chips in sockets nor do > I recall it having 64Kb DRAMs.? I clearly recall that it had one bank of > 16Kb DRAMs soldered down and sockets for three more banks of 16Kb chips.? > The only other sockets on the board where for the ROM, CPU, and math > coprocessor.? hardly a fathful reproduction. If I remember correctly, the original PC/5150 BIOS supported a maximum of 544K; later BIOS could handle 640K. What were the details for modifying a 64-256 5150 to 640K on the motherboard? (It was not the same as converting 5160). It did NOT involve unsoldering the 64K Bank0. From ethan at 757.org Thu Mar 8 18:48:48 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 19:48:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > This turned up on Fess Bouc yesterday and it was news to me. > It's a DIY replica of an original IBM PC motherboard: Someone needs to make the Amiga 3000 motherboard replica. -- : Ethan O'Toole From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Thu Mar 8 18:52:39 2018 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 21:52:39 -0300 Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: What about the ASICs, Ethan? :D (An A500 recreation was made - the board was RED! :D ) 2018-03-08 21:48 GMT-03:00 Ethan via cctalk : > This turned up on Fess Bouc yesterday and it was news to me. >> It's a DIY replica of an original IBM PC motherboard: >> > > Someone needs to make the Amiga 3000 motherboard replica. > > > -- > : Ethan O'Toole > > > From systems.glitch at gmail.com Thu Mar 8 19:35:12 2018 From: systems.glitch at gmail.com (systems_glitch) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 20:35:12 -0500 Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yeah, I'd seen this one a few years ago and also thought, "why?" 5150 boards aren't *that* uncommon yet. Though I suppose if you just want to build one, there's nothing wrong with that! W.R.T. the ROMs requiring the board to work -- those are the SuperSoft/Landmark ROMs (freely available as BIN files elsewhere) and they do work with a fairly broken system. They totally replace the PC BIOS (there are XT and AT versions, too). You get beep codes when they first come up, and it'll drive MDA or CGA directly without PC BIOS routines. Of particular interest is the ability to find a faulty DRAM in bank 0 on a 5150 board, which is of course always soldered. Thanks, Jonathan On Thu, Mar 8, 2018 at 7:52 PM, Alexandre Souza via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > What about the ASICs, Ethan? :D > (An A500 recreation was made - the board was RED! :D ) > > 2018-03-08 21:48 GMT-03:00 Ethan via cctalk : > > > This turned up on Fess Bouc yesterday and it was news to me. > >> It's a DIY replica of an original IBM PC motherboard: > >> > > > > Someone needs to make the Amiga 3000 motherboard replica. > > > > > > -- > > : Ethan O'Toole > > > > > > > From cctalk at ibm51xx.net Thu Mar 8 22:47:11 2018 From: cctalk at ibm51xx.net (Ali) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 20:47:11 -0800 Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: References: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> Message-ID: <001501d3b761$b08e68b0$11ab3a10$@net> > Howzbout the Fischer? diagnostic ROM, thta came with a hard-wired > configured serial port, that could perform some tests on a system that > did NOT boot to the point of video. Now that does sound interesting. Tell us more uncle Fred ;). -Ali From g-wright at att.net Thu Mar 8 22:53:27 2018 From: g-wright at att.net (Jerry Wright) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 04:53:27 +0000 (UTC) Subject: 2 long lost systems Needs OS References: <1082292210.13919302.1520571207779.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1082292210.13919302.1520571207779@mail.yahoo.com> Hi All,? I still looking for the OS media or any manuals for 2 systems 1 is a OSM Zues 4 Early Z80 System,the other is? a Pertec p4010 mini. which uses coax to the terminals.? I can find a little bit on the Pertec 3200 but nothing on the 4010. Thanks, Jerry From drb at msu.edu Thu Mar 8 23:22:25 2018 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2018 00:22:25 -0500 Subject: 2 long lost systems Needs OS In-Reply-To: (Your message of Fri, 09 Mar 2018 04:53:27 +0000.) <1082292210.13919302.1520571207779@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1082292210.13919302.1520571207779@mail.yahoo.com> <1082292210.13919302.1520571207779.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20180309052225.98E3AA58617@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > I still looking for the OS media or any manuals for 2 systems 1 is a > OSM Zues 4 Early Z80 System,the other is a Pertec p4010 mini. which > uses coax to the terminals. I can find a little bit on the Pertec > 3200 but nothing on the 4010. A Datapro report I found indicates that the XL50 machines had model numbers of 4050-*, and the XL20 had 4020. A reasonable guess might therefore be that a 4010 is a member of the XL40 family. XL40 seems to be something that googles better. De From ethan at 757.org Thu Mar 8 23:36:15 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 00:36:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > What about the ASICs, Ethan? :D > (An A500 recreation was made - the board was RED! :D ) Sockets. The battery damage has wiped out a ton of a3000 mobos, but the ASICs should be good. Just move the custom ICs over. -- : Ethan O'Toole From cramcram at gmail.com Thu Mar 8 17:51:42 2018 From: cramcram at gmail.com (Marc Howard) Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2018 15:51:42 -0800 Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: References: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> Message-ID: Umm, I'm missing something here. It can't possibly be $149.50 as listed on the webpage. I would think that would be the price for the bare board if anything. Marc On Thu, Mar 8, 2018 at 3:42 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > On Thu, 8 Mar 2018, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote: > >> Hmmmm I don't remember my original PC having all the chips in sockets nor >> do I recall it having 64Kb DRAMs. I clearly recall that it had one bank of >> 16Kb DRAMs soldered down and sockets for three more banks of 16Kb chips. >> The only other sockets on the board where for the ROM, CPU, and math >> coprocessor. hardly a fathful reproduction. >> > > If I remember correctly, the original PC/5150 BIOS supported a maximum of > 544K; later BIOS could handle 640K. > > > What were the details for modifying a 64-256 5150 to 640K on the > motherboard? (It was not the same as converting 5160). > It did NOT involve unsoldering the 64K Bank0. > From lproven at gmail.com Fri Mar 9 01:41:28 2018 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 08:41:28 +0100 Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 9 March 2018 at 01:48, wrote: > > Someone needs to make the Amiga 3000 motherboard replica. +1 As this wonderful lady says in her interview... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDfIkXf3uzA (81Y old Amiga-using artist.) -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From janso96 at hotmail.com Fri Mar 9 02:04:25 2018 From: janso96 at hotmail.com (Janek Sochaczewski) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 08:04:25 +0000 Subject: Anyone have the service guide for a Sanyo VM4209 monitor? In-Reply-To: <000101d3b66c$0b4f83c0$21ee8b40$@com> References: , <000101d3b66c$0b4f83c0$21ee8b40$@com> Message-ID: Hi and Thank you Electronics Plus, but both of the links are unfortunately unusable. Or maybe I can't see anything for Sanyo VM4209 at https://www.eserviceinfo.com/index.php?what=search2&searchstring=sanyo+vm420 ? I hope that someone who downloaded manual from Al's post could send it to me? Janek Sochaczewski ________________________________ Od: Electronics Plus Wys?ane: czwartek, 8 marca 2018 00:28 Do: 'Janek Sochaczewski'; 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Temat: RE: Anyone have the service guide for a Sanyo VM4209 monitor? https://www.eserviceinfo.com/index.php?what=search2&searchstring=sanyo+vm420 9 -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Janek Sochaczewski via cctalk Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2018 9:57 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Anyone have the service guide for a Sanyo VM4209 monitor? Hi, I'm trying to repair this monitor, but unfortunately I can't find any service manual or guide with schematics for it. I found something on www.electronic-circuitry.com>, but it's impossible to download. Thanks in advance, Janek Sochaczewski --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From lars at nocrew.org Fri Mar 9 03:47:08 2018 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2018 09:47:08 +0000 Subject: VT52 microprogram Message-ID: <7wfu59mvhf.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Hello, Does anyone have VT52 microprogram ROM image, a listing, or a copy of "DECscope System Manual"? Best regards, Lars Brinkhoff From pontus at Update.UU.SE Fri Mar 9 03:57:43 2018 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 10:57:43 +0100 Subject: Hand-crafted beauty pays tribute to the dawn of home computing looks like a PET! but in walnut! In-Reply-To: <16203102ebc-1db6-15894@webjas-vad120.srv.aolmail.net> References: <16203102ebc-1db6-15894@webjas-vad120.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: <20180309095743.GC27988@Update.UU.SE> Nice! I've seen Loves other work, but not this.. Would have been even nicer if it was a real PET inside :) /P On Wed, Mar 07, 2018 at 07:43:37PM -0500, Ed Sharpe via cctalk wrote: > > Hand-crafted beauty pays tribute to the dawn of home computing https://newatlas.com/love-hulten-pet-de-lux/53608/ > > Ed# www.smecc.org From mattislind at gmail.com Fri Mar 9 04:44:06 2018 From: mattislind at gmail.com (Mattis Lind) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 11:44:06 +0100 Subject: VT52 microprogram In-Reply-To: <7wfu59mvhf.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> References: <7wfu59mvhf.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: 2018-03-09 10:47 GMT+01:00 Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk : > Hello, > > Does anyone have VT52 microprogram ROM image, a listing, or a copy > of "DECscope System Manual"? > I did dump the microprogram of my VT52. I also did a very crude first attempt to disassemble it. Since the VT52 has a mode bit that control what operation to run it has to be simulated to get it right. You find everything here: http://www.datormuseum.se/home/dec-vt5x I had a plan to run the VT52 with a logic analyzer attached to recover traces of what it is doing for a keypress, UART in, scanline etc. /Mattis > > Best regards, > Lars Brinkhoff > From lars at nocrew.org Fri Mar 9 05:24:43 2018 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2018 11:24:43 +0000 Subject: VT52 microprogram In-Reply-To: (Mattis Lind's message of "Fri, 9 Mar 2018 11:44:06 +0100") References: <7wfu59mvhf.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: <7w8tb1mqys.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Mattis Lind writes: > Lars Brinkhoff wrote: >> Does anyone have VT52 microprogram ROM image, a listing, or a copy of >> "DECscope System Manual"? > I did dump the microprogram of my VT52. I also did a very crude first > attempt to disassemble it. Since the VT52 has a mode bit that control > what operation to run it has to be simulated to get it right. You find > everything here: http://www.datormuseum.se/home/dec-vt5x Thank you! Time permitting, I'd like to make a VT52 simulator running this microprogram. From mattislind at gmail.com Fri Mar 9 05:41:25 2018 From: mattislind at gmail.com (Mattis Lind) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 12:41:25 +0100 Subject: VT52 microprogram In-Reply-To: <7w8tb1mqys.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> References: <7wfu59mvhf.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <7w8tb1mqys.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: fredag 9 mars 2018 skrev Lars Brinkhoff : > Mattis Lind writes: > > Lars Brinkhoff wrote: > >> Does anyone have VT52 microprogram ROM image, a listing, or a copy of > >> "DECscope System Manual"? > > I did dump the microprogram of my VT52. I also did a very crude first > > attempt to disassemble it. Since the VT52 has a mode bit that control > > what operation to run it has to be simulated to get it right. You find > > everything here: http://www.datormuseum.se/home/dec-vt5x > > Thank you! > > Time permitting, I'd like to make a VT52 simulator running this > microprogram. > Yes. That was basically my idea as well. I didn?t get that far. It sort of ran small pieces of the code but then I thought it would be a good idea to compare with the real thing. Thus the planned work for taking traces with a logic analyzer. At that time I didn?t have deep memory on my LA. Now I have. Right now the VT52 is stored away and I am onto other things. But in time it will happen. /Mattis From auringer at tds.net Fri Mar 9 08:28:48 2018 From: auringer at tds.net (Jon Auringer) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 09:28:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Picked up a couple 386 machines In-Reply-To: References: <1269055430.430965601.1519915398444.JavaMail.zimbra@tds.net> Message-ID: <468621901.446536619.1520605728289.JavaMail.zimbra@tds.net> ----- Original Message ----- > From: "devin davison" > To: "Jon Auringer" > Cc: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2018 12:51:14 PM > Subject: Re: Picked up a couple 386 machines > > It is the 2500 SX. The drive is a quantum prodrive LPs 105 AT. > The drive spins up but is not recognized. So, have you made any progress with the Tandy? -Jon From geneb at deltasoft.com Fri Mar 9 09:04:13 2018 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 07:04:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: References: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 8 Mar 2018, Marc Howard via cctalk wrote: > Umm, I'm missing something here. It can't possibly be $149.50 as listed on > the webpage. I would think that would be the price for the bare board if > anything. > As far as I know, it's a complete kit. It's been the same price since it's introduction 3+ years ago. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Mar 9 09:11:34 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 07:11:34 -0800 Subject: 2 long lost systems Needs OS In-Reply-To: <1082292210.13919302.1520571207779@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1082292210.13919302.1520571207779.ref@mail.yahoo.com> <1082292210.13919302.1520571207779@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <08357d07-8688-533c-1fa9-b53a76702917@bitsavers.org> Could you take some pictures of the 4010? This was sold by Sperry after they bought Pertec I have a stack of boards, and maybe a diagnostic tape for one of the models. On 3/8/18 8:53 PM, Jerry Wright via cctalk wrote: > Hi All,? I still looking for the OS media or any manuals for 2 systems 1 is a OSM Zues 4 Early Z80 System,the other is? a Pertec p4010 mini. which uses coax to the terminals.? I can find a little bit on the Pertec 3200 but nothing on the 4010. > Thanks, Jerry > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Mar 9 09:53:47 2018 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 10:53:47 -0500 Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: References: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 9, 2018 at 10:04 AM, geneb via cctalk wrote: > On Thu, 8 Mar 2018, Marc Howard via cctalk wrote: > >> Umm, I'm missing something here. It can't possibly be $149.50 as listed >> on >> the webpage. I would think that would be the price for the bare board if >> anything. >> > As far as I know, it's a complete kit. It's been the same price since it's > introduction 3+ years ago. "You will receive all the components to build a PC Motherboard exactly as shown here:" If I didn't already have a couple 5150s (and a nice 5160 I recently acquired and repaired), I'd consider this board, but $150 will buy other cool vintage toys so I'm going to pass. If someone wanted to pay me to do the assembly, that would be kinda fun. I can get through several movies soldering that many joints. -ethan From binarydinosaurs at gmail.com Fri Mar 9 10:02:53 2018 From: binarydinosaurs at gmail.com (Adrian Graham) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 16:02:53 +0000 Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: References: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> Message-ID: > If I didn't already have a couple 5150s (and a nice 5160 I recently > acquired and repaired), I'd consider this board, but $150 will buy > other cool vintage toys so I'm going to pass. Ditto. A fun project nonetheless. -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? t: @binarydinosaurs f: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk On 9 March 2018 at 15:53, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: > On Fri, Mar 9, 2018 at 10:04 AM, geneb via cctalk > wrote: > > On Thu, 8 Mar 2018, Marc Howard via cctalk wrote: > > > >> Umm, I'm missing something here. It can't possibly be $149.50 as listed > >> on > >> the webpage. I would think that would be the price for the bare board > if > >> anything. > >> > > As far as I know, it's a complete kit. It's been the same price since > it's > > introduction 3+ years ago. > > "You will receive all the components to build a PC Motherboard exactly > as shown here:" > > If I didn't already have a couple 5150s (and a nice 5160 I recently > acquired and repaired), I'd consider this board, but $150 will buy > other cool vintage toys so I'm going to pass. > > If someone wanted to pay me to do the assembly, that would be kinda > fun. I can get through several movies soldering that many joints. > > -ethan > From g-wright at att.net Fri Mar 9 15:35:31 2018 From: g-wright at att.net (Jerry Wright) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 21:35:31 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Pertec P4010 computer References: <1271978835.14427093.1520631331373.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1271978835.14427093.1520631331373@mail.yahoo.com> Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 04:53:27 +0000 (UTC) From: Jerry Wright To: "cctalk at classiccmp.org" Subject: 2 long lost systems Needs OS Message-ID: <1082292210.13919302.1520571207779 at mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Hi All,? I still looking for the OS media or any manuals for 2 systems 1 is a OSM Zues 4 Early Z80 System,the other is? a Pertec p4010 mini. which uses coax to the terminals.? I can find a little bit on the Pertec 3200 but nothing on the 4010. Thanks, Jerry Here is a few pictures, This has? a 68020 processor and a build date of 1989 Pertec_4010.zip - Jerry | | | | | | | | | | | Pertec_4010.zip Shared with Dropbox | | | | From mattislind at gmail.com Fri Mar 9 16:20:40 2018 From: mattislind at gmail.com (Mattis Lind) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 23:20:40 +0100 Subject: Sanyo PHC-3100 (or PHC-3000) ? Message-ID: Does anyone have more info on these Japanse machines. I collected the infomation I got from the former owner of a PHC-3100. Interesting machines based on the TMS9900. http://www.datormuseum.se/computers/others/sanyophc3100-1 I have 32 floppies which was dumped using ImageDisk. 40 tracks, double sided, FM encoding. But none of these floppies are original so I am not sure if I have the full OS, whatever that is. I also lack documentation. >From what I understand they were never sold outside Japan. From g-wright at att.net Fri Mar 9 16:22:33 2018 From: g-wright at att.net (Jerry Wright) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 22:22:33 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Pertec P4010 pictures, Maybe was 2 long lost Systems needs OS References: <32777670.14484849.1520634153422.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <32777670.14484849.1520634153422@mail.yahoo.com> Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 04:53:27 +0000 (UTC) From: Jerry Wright To: "cctalk at classiccmp.org" Subject: 2 long lost systems Needs OS Message-ID: <1082292210.13919302.1520571207779 at mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Hi All,? I still looking for the OS media or any manuals for 2 systems 1 is a OSM Zues 4 Early Z80 System,the other is? a Pertec p4010 mini. which uses coax to the terminals.? I can find a little bit on the Pertec 3200 but nothing on the 4010. Thanks, Jerry Here are a few pictures of the P4010 ?Try this again. Let me know it ti fails - Jerry https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xsa6xu6fn9ct6db/AAC93v0xdy0nSuOJQ-1ApGbta?dl=0 From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Mar 9 18:01:30 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 16:01:30 -0800 Subject: Pertec P4010 pictures, Maybe was 2 long lost Systems needs OS In-Reply-To: <32777670.14484849.1520634153422@mail.yahoo.com> References: <32777670.14484849.1520634153422.ref@mail.yahoo.com> <32777670.14484849.1520634153422@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <619e87c4-2c8f-5d9c-90a8-fbcfb5e9c14c@bitsavers.org> here is a place that supports them http://www.denvercomputerinc.com/hd/pertec.htm On 3/9/18 2:22 PM, Jerry Wright via cctalk wrote: > Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 04:53:27 +0000 (UTC) > From: Jerry Wright > To: "cctalk at classiccmp.org" > Subject: 2 long lost systems Needs OS > Message-ID: <1082292210.13919302.1520571207779 at mail.yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > Hi All,? I still looking for the OS media or any manuals for 2 systems 1 is a OSM Zues 4 Early Z80 System,the other is? a Pertec p4010 mini. which uses coax to the terminals.? I can find a little bit on the Pertec 3200 but nothing on the 4010. > Thanks, Jerry > Here are a few pictures of the P4010 > ?Try this again. Let me know it ti fails > > - Jerry > > https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xsa6xu6fn9ct6db/AAC93v0xdy0nSuOJQ-1ApGbta?dl=0 > > > > > From robert626001 at gmail.com Fri Mar 9 18:17:26 2018 From: robert626001 at gmail.com (Robert) Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 18:17:26 -0600 Subject: Pertec P4010 pictures, Maybe was 2 long lost Systems needs OS In-Reply-To: <32777670.14484849.1520634153422@mail.yahoo.com> References: <32777670.14484849.1520634153422.ref@mail.yahoo.com> <32777670.14484849.1520634153422@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Damn, but that's pretty! Looks like the FDD is 5.25"? I see that you, like I, are a frequent purchaser of Harbor Freight furniture dollies. Everything big and heavy, that doesn't have its own wheels, goes on one. That lets me move them around the workshop. It's a bit like Tetris, except you're inside the game. -- Robert On Fri, Mar 9, 2018 at 4:22 PM, Jerry Wright via cctalk wrote: > Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 04:53:27 +0000 (UTC) > From: Jerry Wright > To: "cctalk at classiccmp.org" > Subject: 2 long lost systems Needs OS > Message-ID: <1082292210.13919302.1520571207779 at mail.yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > Hi All,? I still looking for the OS media or any manuals for 2 systems 1 is a OSM Zues 4 Early Z80 System,the other is? a Pertec p4010 mini. which uses coax to the terminals.? I can find a little bit on the Pertec 3200 but nothing on the 4010. > Thanks, Jerry > Here are a few pictures of the P4010 > Try this again. Let me know it ti fails > > - Jerry > > https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xsa6xu6fn9ct6db/AAC93v0xdy0nSuOJQ-1ApGbta?dl=0 > > > > > From g-wright at att.net Fri Mar 9 22:31:58 2018 From: g-wright at att.net (Jerry Wright) Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2018 04:31:58 +0000 (UTC) Subject: 2 long lost systems Needs OS, Update References: <147098109.14627624.1520656318996.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <147098109.14627624.1520656318996@mail.yahoo.com> Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2018 04:53:27 +0000 (UTC) From: Jerry Wright To: "cctalk at classiccmp.org" Subject: 2 long lost systems Needs OS Message-ID: <1082292210.13919302.1520571207779 at mail.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Hi All,? I'm still looking for the OS media or any manuals for 2 systems 1 is a OSM Zues 4 Early Z80 System,the other is? a Pertec p4010 mini. which uses coax to the terminals.? I can find a little bit on the Pertec 3200 but nothing on the 4010. Thanks, Jerry ,,,,,,,,,,,,,? Update? ,,,,,,,,, for those that asked and add info The Zues is cute little desk top system with? a wood top. 16x16, Very simple, but nice.Had its own Multi user OS, Z80,? Seagate? ST-212 HD? 12 meg , 5 1/4 Floppy.? With 10 serial? ports, I would guess this thing would be sweating bullets,? if all 10 ports where busy. Of coarse this is 2018 and it still runs. That has to say something.? date code is 1984 ?Pertec After doing a little searching . This is a Pertec 3200 series. By the info I have seen,It is a 3230 floor standing model.? The P4010 on the tag is most likely the configuration ??? It has a 70 meg HD (MFM), Bridge board,Tape drive and? 5 1/4 Floppy. 68020 processor The Coax ports, where fast and The terminals could? be a long distance away. The Bridge board has a 68000 Processor and DPT sticker on the Roms.? Very nicely made Machine. Each Terminal Had a Z-80 with 64k of Memory in it. There is a company in? Denver that lists the OS but they have not returned my E-mail Requests Yet ?? - Jerry I have added some Zues and Pertec? Terminal pictures to this file. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xsa6xu6fn9ct6db/AAC93v0xdy0nSuOJQ-1ApGbta?dl=0 From phreakshowtelco at gmail.com Fri Mar 9 18:58:52 2018 From: phreakshowtelco at gmail.com (PhreakShow Telephone Company) Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2018 00:58:52 +0000 Subject: Cray Origin 2000 From Indiana University Scaamp Project- Rescued Message-ID: I won an auction down at Indiana University for an SGI Origin 2000 System and 19 racks. Trip was an adventure. Rented a 26ft Penske Truck which was a junkheap in itself. Off we went. My gf and her best friend went along and had a blast. 7 Hour drive down from Michigan to Bloomington Indiana. In a rainstorm at dark. Waffle House outside of Indianapolis made for a very nice night. Got loaded up 9am yesterday morning. And headed home. Here are pics of the SGIs. And my gf's find an IBM Selectric II. Shes a typewriter lover. https://imgur.com/a/XzDXg Plan now is to start rounding up parts to fix it. It seems mostly cosmetic. Goal is to have it fully operational by VCFMW. I also found some historical info on it too https://www.hpcwire.com/1997/05/16/indiana-u-installs-64-node-origin2000/ Eventually this belongs on display somewhere. I plan to get an inventory of everything this week. and Im looking for any extra parts that anyone has for this. Thanks From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Mar 10 07:28:08 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2018 05:28:08 -0800 Subject: Last sun3 ask: In search of a SCSI controller (VME) for a 3/260 In-Reply-To: <7AB41926-FE86-44F2-8C37-11BB171DD8AA@gmail.com> References: <7AB41926-FE86-44F2-8C37-11BB171DD8AA@gmail.com> Message-ID: <71463dfc-c497-6260-a619-b0a889208f52@bitsavers.org> On 2/26/18 11:35 PM, Ian via cctalk wrote: > So again I plead- does anyone have a Sun 3 scsi controller, preferably of the internally pinned type, sitting on a shelf somewhere? I sent you mail, never got a reply. I'm about to sell off all of my Sun VME stuff. Make me a reasonable offer before it's gone. From cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net Sat Mar 10 10:42:55 2018 From: cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor) Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2018 09:42:55 -0700 Subject: Cray Origin 2000 From Indiana University Scaamp Project- Rescued In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <17d419fe-bf27-9f79-600a-1a3922ec71c8@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> On 03/09/2018 05:58 PM, PhreakShow Telephone Company via cctalk wrote: > I won an auction down at Indiana University for an SGI Origin 2000 System > and 19 racks. :-) > Trip was an adventure. Rented a 26ft Penske Truck which was a junkheap in > itself. Off we went. My gf and her best friend went along and had a blast. > 7 Hour drive down from Michigan to Bloomington Indiana. In a rainstorm at > dark. Waffle House outside of Indianapolis made for a very nice night. Memories. > Got loaded up 9am yesterday morning. And headed home. Nice. > Here are pics of the SGIs. And my gf's find an IBM Selectric II. Shes a > typewriter lover. ;-) > https://imgur.com/a/XzDXg Is that ATM or FDDI interfaces? I can't tell from the picture. -- Grant. . . . unix || die From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Mar 10 19:24:38 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2018 17:24:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: <001501d3b761$b08e68b0$11ab3a10$@net> References: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> <001501d3b761$b08e68b0$11ab3a10$@net> Message-ID: On Thu, 8 Mar 2018, Ali wrote: >> Howzbout the Fischer? diagnostic ROM, thta came with a hard-wired >> configured serial port, that could perform some tests on a system that >> did NOT boot to the point of video. > Now that does sound interesting. Tell us more uncle Fred ;). Not much to tell, and I don't know much. I think that it was Todd Fischer. He supplied a ROM, and a serial board that was hard configured for a terminal (can't run software to configure a serial card if the machine won't boot!). It therefore did not rely on the video working. He also had been selling cases and power supplies for 5.25" drives at the conputer swaps. I really enjoyed the P.O.S.T. cards. In debugging code, I could insert a simple output to a port of the value of a variable, with minimal disruption of any of the rest of the code. A friend pointed out that most diagnostic software, including many memory tests, etc. would not run if there actually WAS a fault, such as bad RAM in Bank0. So, as a joke, he wrote a "DIAGNOSTIC PROGRAM", that put "It works!" on the screen. "If you get the message, then it means that everything is at least sorta working. If you do not get the message, then something is wrong." Later, he changed it to "friendlier message", and had it say, "Hello, world". From couryhouse at aol.com Sat Mar 10 19:36:16 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2018 20:36:16 -0500 Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?are_there_scanned_=C2=A0_copies_o?= =?UTF-8?Q?f_Honeywell=C2=A0computer_journal_?= =?UTF-8?Q?in_pdf_or=3F_=C2=A0have_several_bou?= =?UTF-8?Q?nd=C2=A0_volumes_68-69_=C2=A0and=C2=A0=C2=A0also_?= =?UTF-8?Q?=C2=A073..._=C2=A0tightly_bound..._=C2=A0if?= =?UTF-8?Q?_=C2=A0scanned_=C2=A0already=C2=A0_somewhere?= =?UTF-8?Q?_will_just_put_on_shelf_her_and_consider=C2=A0no_further_action?= Message-ID: <16212b38121-c8c-cf95@webjas-vab058.srv.aolmail.net> are there scanned ? copies of Honeywell?computer journal in pdf or? ?have several bound? volumes 68-69 ?and??also ?73... ?tightly bound... ?if ?scanned ?already? somewhere will just put on shelf her and consider?no further action ? ed# www.smecc.org From useddec at gmail.com Sat Mar 10 23:53:08 2018 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2018 23:53:08 -0600 Subject: Replica IBM 5150 PC motherboard In-Reply-To: References: <00dda797-c4a6-f1f8-0f9b-137b84e6b8e7@gmail.com> <001501d3b761$b08e68b0$11ab3a10$@net> Message-ID: I have several boards labeled 5160 64/256K old style sys on the sealed static bag and 1503334 on the board. Another has 50008?2 on the etch. Any info would be useful. If you are interested in any of them please contact me off list. Thanks, Paul On Sat, Mar 10, 2018 at 7:24 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Thu, 8 Mar 2018, Ali wrote: > >> Howzbout the Fischer? diagnostic ROM, thta came with a hard-wired >>> configured serial port, that could perform some tests on a system that >>> did NOT boot to the point of video. >>> >> Now that does sound interesting. Tell us more uncle Fred ;). >> > > Not much to tell, and I don't know much. > I think that it was Todd Fischer. > He supplied a ROM, and a serial board that was hard configured for a > terminal (can't run software to configure a serial card if the machine > won't boot!). It therefore did not rely on the video working. > He also had been selling cases and power supplies for 5.25" drives at the > conputer swaps. > > > I really enjoyed the P.O.S.T. cards. In debugging code, I could insert a > simple output to a port of the value of a variable, with minimal disruption > of any of the rest of the code. > > > A friend pointed out that most diagnostic software, including many memory > tests, etc. would not run if there actually WAS a fault, such as bad RAM in > Bank0. So, as a joke, he wrote a "DIAGNOSTIC PROGRAM", that put "It works!" > on the screen. "If you get the message, then it means that everything is > at least sorta working. If you do not get the message, then something is > wrong." Later, he changed it to "friendlier message", and had it say, > "Hello, world". > From curiousmarc3 at gmail.com Sun Mar 11 01:25:04 2018 From: curiousmarc3 at gmail.com (CuriousMarc) Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2018 23:25:04 -0800 Subject: Sperry Univac UTS-40 Terminal doc anyone? Message-ID: <17b701d3b90a$13a1d1e0$3ae575a0$@gmail.com> I am the temporary caretaker of a Sperry UTS-40 "intelligent" terminal (very green screen, Z-80 based terminal from the late 70's or early 80's) which I grabbed on eBait for sending parts to Dominique Carlier over in Belgium. The CRT, power supply and character generator seem to work (gives a very sharp semi-random geometric display on power-on, sometimes with a few nicely drawn characters interspersed), but the darn thing does not seem to boot on reset. The picture goes away and weird sound is emitted from the speaker after a long beep-of-death. I was wondering if anyone had service documentation. Or a dump of the firmware. Al, anything that crossed your desk? Marc From pontus at Update.UU.SE Sun Mar 11 08:27:01 2018 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2018 14:27:01 +0100 Subject: Cray Origin 2000 From Indiana University Scaamp Project- Rescued In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20180311132701.GE27988@Update.UU.SE> On Sat, Mar 10, 2018 at 12:58:52AM +0000, PhreakShow Telephone Company via cctalk wrote: > I won an auction down at Indiana University for an SGI Origin 2000 System > and 19 racks. 19 racks! Quite a few. > Trip was an adventure. Rented a 26ft Penske Truck which was a junkheap in > itself. Off we went. My gf and her best friend went along and had a blast. > 7 Hour drive down from Michigan to Bloomington Indiana. In a rainstorm at > dark. Waffle House outside of Indianapolis made for a very nice night. Sounds like a great roadtrip > > Got loaded up 9am yesterday morning. And headed home. > > Here are pics of the SGIs. And my gf's find an IBM Selectric II. Shes a > typewriter lover. > > https://imgur.com/a/XzDXg Looks like you have two CPU modules and one graphics module. Not a bad starter system. > > Plan now is to start rounding up parts to fix it. It seems mostly cosmetic. > Goal is to have it fully operational by VCFMW. That would be cool, do you know of nekochan.net? It's a fairly active SGI forum with several Origin/Onyx owners (myself included) > Eventually this belongs on display somewhere. I plan to get an inventory > of everything this week. and Im looking for any extra parts that anyone > has for this. Anything in particular? Looks like you have enough to get a system going. /P From cliendo at gmail.com Sun Mar 11 08:38:12 2018 From: cliendo at gmail.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2018 09:38:12 -0400 Subject: Cray Origin 2000 From Indiana University Scaamp Project- Rescued In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: That's awesome. I did Origin 2000 and Onyx 2 repair training over at the SGI building that now houses the Computer History Museum. I don't have any parts, but keep us in the loop. I would come down to see that On Fri, Mar 9, 2018 at 7:58 PM, PhreakShow Telephone Company via cctalk wrote: > I won an auction down at Indiana University for an SGI Origin 2000 System > and 19 racks. > From cclist at sydex.com Sun Mar 11 12:28:47 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2018 10:28:47 -0700 Subject: Quad density Pertec In-Reply-To: <9747fbb5-a75a-3220-5a52-846c7236c655@bitsavers.org> References: <5957b80c-b586-5473-1417-d9b045cd6228@jwsss.com> <9747fbb5-a75a-3220-5a52-846c7236c655@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <56f80c65-eee6-3caf-23bf-d7021993d9b1@sydex.com> On 03/11/2018 08:19 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > I've scrapped six of those already. They aren't worth anything. > > > On 3/11/18 1:23 AM, jim stephens wrote: >> I think this is actually a quad density half inch.? If the guy didn't burn it up (says probably 12v fault) it would be >> handy. >> Isn't that a Kennedy streamer? Sure looks like one. I note that the Kennedy incremental 7 inch reel drive in the NASA flight case hasn't attracted a lot of interest. That sample tape that I got, however does verify that the parity track on this telemetry stuff is unused. So that explains the 8 data inputs with no parity on the NASA model. --Chuck From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Sun Mar 11 12:44:25 2018 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2018 12:44:25 -0500 Subject: Cray Origin 2000 From Indiana University Scaamp Project- Rescued In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <06ef7e26-f923-e67e-47c9-6b2ae7de86a6@gmail.com> On 03/09/2018 06:58 PM, PhreakShow Telephone Company via cctalk wrote: > I won an auction down at Indiana University for an SGI Origin 2000 System > and 19 racks. Aha, we were just discussing these on the Facebook vintage group... are those two populated racks and 17 empty ones, or is there more to it than that? It's hard to tell exactly what there is. I suppose I can stop being impatient and wait for an inventory :-) I'm not sure what the deal is with the enclosure that's holding the graphics hardware - there are a couple of empty slots and I'm not sure if that implies there was something there which has been removed, or if the blanking covers have just been taken off at some stage. cheers Jules From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Mar 11 15:00:03 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2018 13:00:03 -0700 Subject: Quad density Pertec In-Reply-To: <56f80c65-eee6-3caf-23bf-d7021993d9b1@sydex.com> References: <5957b80c-b586-5473-1417-d9b045cd6228@jwsss.com> <9747fbb5-a75a-3220-5a52-846c7236c655@bitsavers.org> <56f80c65-eee6-3caf-23bf-d7021993d9b1@sydex.com> Message-ID: On 3/11/18 10:28 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 03/11/2018 08:19 AM, Al Kossow wrote: >> I've scrapped six of those already. They aren't worth anything. >> >> >> On 3/11/18 1:23 AM, jim stephens wrote: >>> I think this is actually a quad density half inch.? If the guy didn't burn it up (says probably 12v fault) it would be >>> handy. >>> > > Isn't that a Kennedy streamer? Sure looks like one. > > I note that the Kennedy incremental 7 inch reel drive in the NASA flight > case hasn't attracted a lot of interest. > > That sample tape that I got, however does verify that the parity track > on this telemetry stuff is unused. So that explains the 8 data inputs > with no parity on the NASA model. > > --Chuck > since this has bounced to a public mailing list Vintage-Unisys-9662-Reel-to-Reel-Computer-Mainframe-Tape-Drive-FREE-SHIPPING/ https://www.ebay.com/itm/222833663701 It is a Kennedy 9662, Pertec interface (no SCSI connectors on the back) 100% chance the capstan has turned to goo. The transport is particularly rough on tapes, as in snapping sticky ones. It does have good 800bpi recovery, but I've broken too many tapes on them to trust 'em. The NASA Kennedy is a 8" reel, so it's no good for 2400' tapes. I've got a Kennedy 9000 that I'm probably just going to scrap. I can't deal with 100lb much of anything any more. From fritzm at fritzm.org Sun Mar 11 17:55:30 2018 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2018 15:55:30 -0700 Subject: allocate floating vector for DR11-C in simh pdp11 autoconfig? Message-ID: <7EA17A93-C62D-4898-A175-81E458D5E56E@fritzm.org> Hi folks, I have found it very convenient to maintain a simh configuration that parallels the physical hardware configuration of my PDP-11/45. I'm just about to add a DR11-C for a physical interface that I am building -- this will "grab" a floating interrupt ahead of a DZ11 that I already have in the machine. Does anyone here know of convenient way to inform simh's autoconfig that I wish to insert a DR11-C? cheers, --FritzM. From mtapley at swri.edu Sun Mar 11 19:00:48 2018 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Tapley, Mark) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 00:00:48 +0000 Subject: Various Software and Documentation for shipping + donations (round 10) Message-ID: <03EDE992-5602-4573-8C56-0D6ADDF25F24@swri.edu> All, More of the stack. if any of this interests you please contact me via Private (not list) email at mtapley at swri.edu. If you do want something, send me your shipping address and exactly what you want. I'll get back to you with estimated shipping costs (USPS media rate where possible) as soon as I can. You send me payment (any method is acceptable; USPS does not recommend cash in the mail) and I will ship when payment arrives. If you want Fed-Ex or something different from USPS media let me know at your first contact and I will price that for you. If you can afford to send slightly more than costs, I'll collect up the surplus for Cindy and get it to her. If more than one person wants the same thing, it goes to the person sending me the earliest time-tagged email. If Al K. wants anything for Bitsavers, he gets priority (even if his is not the first email) up until it leaves my hands. There will be multiple sets of email from me, each with a short list of things, unless/until someone asks me to quit. Thanks for your attention! - Mark This list is all Books (down to and including pamphlets), no software included. ????????? Adobe Photoshop for Macintosh, Version 3 (Classroom in a Book), 1994. American Heritage Dictionary: 3rd edition for Mac. 32 pages. Communicator 4 quick-study guide. Laminated folder. DeltaGraph Pro 3 Users Guide, 2nd edition. 1993. Excel 5.0 Advanced, Macintosh, student manual. Logical Operations. 1994. Excel: Mastering Excel 5 for the Mac (An Insiders Guide). Thomas Chester and Julia Kelly. 1995. Eudora Mail Pro, educational use. V. 3.0 user manual & quick reference guide. FrameMaker. Using Framemaker release 5, Windows and Macintosh. 1995. Inspiration user manuals. Getting Started manual. Idea book. Netscape: Official Netscape Communicator 4 Book. Macintosh edition. Pi? James. 1997. Now Up-to-date and Now Contact (user manuals). (Two different versions, to match the two different versions on disk we have, I imagine.) Office: Getting Started. The On-line Research Handbook. Hayden Mead and Andy Clark. 1997. Port Replicator: Users Guide. Micronpc.com 1999 PowerPoint: Using PowerPoint 4 for Macintosh. Que, 1994. Quicken version 5.: Users Guide for Macintosh Perform Users. Quicken 5 for Macs for Dummies. Stephen L. Nelson. 1994. The Student?s Guide to Doing Research on the Internet. Dave and Mary Campbell, Addison-Wesley. 1995. vi: Learning the vi editor. Linda Lamb, O?Reilly & Associates, Ltd. 1990. Word: The Macintosh Bible Guide to Word 6. Maria Langer. ?Includes Power Macs.? 1995. From mtapley at swri.edu Sun Mar 11 19:09:02 2018 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Tapley, Mark) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 00:09:02 +0000 Subject: Various Software and Documentation for shipping + donations (round 10B) Message-ID: <3BA9FFA9-AF75-442B-9677-5BF2F2902C5A@swri.edu> All, More of the stack. if any of this interests you please contact me via Private (not list) email at mtapley at swri.edu. If you do want something, send me your shipping address and exactly what you want. I'll get back to you with estimated shipping costs (USPS media rate where possible) as soon as I can. You send me payment (any method is acceptable; USPS does not recommend cash in the mail) and I will ship when payment arrives. If you want Fed-Ex or something different from USPS media let me know at your first contact and I will price that for you. If you can afford to send slightly more than costs, I'll collect up the surplus for Cindy and get it to her. If more than one person wants the same thing, it goes to the person sending me the earliest time-tagged email. If Al K. wants anything for Bitsavers, he gets priority (even if his is not the first email) up until it leaves my hands. There will be multiple sets of email from me, each with a short list of things, unless/until someone asks me to quit. Thanks for your attention! - Mark This list is all Software. Some of it appears to match the books in the previous list, which is why this is titled round 10B - if you are interested in one of these, let me know to look for the matching manual (if I have it). ????????? Adobe Acrobat 4.0, education version Adobe Photoshop 3.0, 8 disks DeltaGraph Professional for Macintosh. 3 disks. 1991. DeltaGraph Pro 3. 1994. 4 disks. EarthLink Sprint Internet Access Software: Total Access 2.0, Mac or Windows, with a book called ?Getting the Most out of the Internet,? third edition, for new users of the EarthLink network, including such information as how to use email. Framemaker release 5 (for Macintosh). CD-ROM disk, quick reference, Introducing Frame Maker, Installing FrameMaker Inspiration for Macintosh. V. 4.1a Two disks. 1988-1994. Also 4.1c Updater. Kensington Mouseworks QuickStart, plus disk, v. 5.04. MacWorld present Click art disk Norton Utilities v. 4.0, education Now Synchronize. 2 disks. For Palm Pilot and Mac. Now Up-To-Date, and Contact. V. 3.5 for Macintosh. 3 disks. Now Up-to-Date. 1993. (probably later than the other one? Looks more sophisticated) Now Contact, 1993. Ohio Distinctive Software: Executive Diet Helper, Weight Loss Planner, Menu Planner (Macintosh), 1994 Sad macs Utilities, the official companion disk for Ted Landau?s book, Sad Macs, Bombs, and Other Disasters. 1996. From couryhouse at aol.com Sun Mar 11 20:49:37 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2018 21:49:37 -0400 Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Re:_are_there_scanned_=C2=A0_copie?= =?UTF-8?Q?s_of_Honeywell=C2=A0computer_journ?= =?UTF-8?Q?al_in_pdf_or=3F_=C2=A0have_several_b?= =?UTF-8?Q?ound=C2=A0_volumes_68-69_=C2=A0and=C2=A0=C2=A0als?= =?UTF-8?Q?o_=C2=A073..._=C2=A0tightly_bound..._=C2=A0i?= =?UTF-8?Q?f_=C2=A0scanned_=C2=A0already=C2=A0_somewher?= =?UTF-8?Q?e_will_just_put_on_shelf_her_?= =?UTF-8?Q?and_consider=C2=A0no_further_action?= In-Reply-To: <16212b38121-c8c-cf95@webjas-vab058.srv.aolmail.net> References: <16212b38121-c8c-cf95@webjas-vab058.srv.aolmail.net> Message-ID: <16217e6154e-17a9-9e@webjas-vac215.srv.aolmail.net> looking around.... ?seems ?some ? little things maybe ?scanned out ?of them but no ?large ?run. if ?there is one let me ?know. I will ?file ?what ?we ?have ?for ?now. I suspect the ?multics ? articles are ?all scanned ?though Ed# ? In a message dated 3/10/2018 6:36:29 PM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: ? are there scanned ? copies of Honeywell?computer journal in pdf or? ?have several bound? volumes 68-69 ?and??also ?73... ?tightly bound... ?if ?scanned ?already? somewhere will just put on shelf her and consider?no further action ? ed# www.smecc.org From lars at nocrew.org Mon Mar 12 02:01:33 2018 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 07:01:33 +0000 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: <03EDE992-5602-4573-8C56-0D6ADDF25F24@swri.edu> (Mark via cctalk Tapley's message of "Mon, 12 Mar 2018 00:00:48 +0000") References: <03EDE992-5602-4573-8C56-0D6ADDF25F24@swri.edu> Message-ID: <7wpo49ixpu.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Does someone have good connections with people inside IBM? I'd like to ask about 68000 microcode for the XT/370 product. From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Mon Mar 12 06:13:08 2018 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave Wade) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 11:13:08 -0000 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: <7wpo49ixpu.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> References: <03EDE992-5602-4573-8C56-0D6ADDF25F24@swri.edu> <7wpo49ixpu.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: <028a01d3b9f3$1a73e230$4f5ba690$@gmail.com> I don't suppose any one left in IBM has any knowledge of this. Perhaps no one ever did and it was all done by Motorola. Wikipedia says there were/are 2x68000 CPU's.. .. I would ask on IBM Main... http://www.cpushack.com/2013/03/22/cpu-of-the-day-ibm-micro-370/ seems to have some names.. Dave > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk On Behalf Of Lars Brinkhoff > via cctalk > Sent: 12 March 2018 07:02 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: XT/370 microcode > > Does someone have good connections with people inside IBM? I'd like to ask > about 68000 microcode for the XT/370 product. From Martin.Hepperle at MH-AeroTools.de Mon Mar 12 09:11:09 2018 From: Martin.Hepperle at MH-AeroTools.de (Martin.Hepperle at MH-AeroTools.de) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 15:11:09 +0100 Subject: Texas Instruments Silent 703/707 print head anyone? Message-ID: <004401d3ba0b$f874b100$e95e1300$@MH-AeroTools.de> Hi, last weekend I cleaned and restored a TI Silent 703 printing terminal. A rather common type with its whopping 300 baud transfer rate - nevertheless a piece of history. It was easy to fix a broken trace on the keyboard PCB (corrosion) and to roughen the idler roller for better grip on the paper. Now there is one issue left: The print head is missing one dot (infinite resistance: burnt out) and one dot prints weak (resistor seems to have twice the resistance of the others, which are all around 95 Ohms). As these terminals were produced in large numbers and the printhead/ribbon cable combo was a user serviceable part someone might have some spare parts... So: if you have a new or used part #2310472-0001 printhead, thermal I would be interested. It is a 10 wire ribbon cable with the print head. It was used in the 703 and 707 and probably also in other devices of the TI 700 Silent family. Martin From lars at nocrew.org Mon Mar 12 09:21:12 2018 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 14:21:12 +0000 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: <7wpo49ixpu.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> (Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk's message of "Mon, 12 Mar 2018 07:01:33 +0000") References: <03EDE992-5602-4573-8C56-0D6ADDF25F24@swri.edu> <7wpo49ixpu.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: <7w1sgpidd3.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Lars Brinkhoff wrote: > Does someone have good connections with people inside IBM? I'd like to > ask about 68000 microcode for the XT/370 product. Martin Ziskind says he has floppy disks with VM/PC, but no way to read them. From spacewar at gmail.com Mon Mar 12 09:40:41 2018 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 14:40:41 +0000 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: <028a01d3b9f3$1a73e230$4f5ba690$@gmail.com> References: <03EDE992-5602-4573-8C56-0D6ADDF25F24@swri.edu> <7wpo49ixpu.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <028a01d3b9f3$1a73e230$4f5ba690$@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 05:13 Dave Wade via cctalk wrote: > . Wikipedia says there were/are > 2x68000 CPU's.. > One Motorola chip was the custom one, the other was normal (as indicated by mask code). There was also an Intel math co, presumably derived from 8087. I used to have an AT/370, which had the same chipset, but I was never able to obtain the software. I very strongly suspect the modified 68000 and 8087 have more than just microcode differences, and that full reverse-engineering of the die would be necessary to accomplish anything useful with the microcode. Neither chip was designed to be a general-purpose microcode engine; both were very heavily tailored for their exact visible architecture, and 370 architecture is enough different that it couldn't be implemented by microcode only changes with no data path changes; the microcode ROMs and PLAs just aren't big enough to work around the data path issues. From systems.glitch at gmail.com Mon Mar 12 09:44:47 2018 From: systems.glitch at gmail.com (systems_glitch) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 10:44:47 -0400 Subject: GRI 771 Keyboard Info Message-ID: All, I'm looking for info on a George Risk 771 parallel ASCII keyboard. I've got one but no documentation or existing cabling. I'd like to interface it to my Poly-88. Thanks, Jonathan From spacewar at gmail.com Mon Mar 12 09:49:13 2018 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 14:49:13 +0000 Subject: XT/370 microcode Message-ID: As the most obvious example of the impedance mismatch between 370 architecture and 68000 microarchitecture, the 68000 is hardwired to have eight each data and address registers, not sixteen GPRs, and microcode can't easily paper over that. Similarly, the 8087 microarchitecture has hardwired support for binary floating point normalization, and microcode can't efficiently force that to do radix 16 normalization. Both problems could be surmounted (inefficiently) with enough microcode, but the chips were designed with no significant extra microcode ROM and PLA capacity. From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Mon Mar 12 10:56:58 2018 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave Wade) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 15:56:58 -0000 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: References: <03EDE992-5602-4573-8C56-0D6ADDF25F24@swri.edu> <7wpo49ixpu.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <028a01d3b9f3$1a73e230$4f5ba690$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <030701d3ba1a$c0f1e270$42d5a750$@gmail.com> Some of the code is now on bitsavers.. Dave From: Eric Smith Sent: 12 March 2018 14:41 To: Dave Wade ; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Cc: Lars Brinkhoff Subject: Re: XT/370 microcode On Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 05:13 Dave Wade via cctalk > wrote: . Wikipedia says there were/are 2x68000 CPU's.. One Motorola chip was the custom one, the other was normal (as indicated by mask code). There was also an Intel math co, presumably derived from 8087. I used to have an AT/370, which had the same chipset, but I was never able to obtain the software. I very strongly suspect the modified 68000 and 8087 have more than just microcode differences, and that full reverse-engineering of the die would be necessary to accomplish anything useful with the microcode. Neither chip was designed to be a general-purpose microcode engine; both were very heavily tailored for their exact visible architecture, and 370 architecture is enough different that it couldn't be implemented by microcode only changes with no data path changes; the microcode ROMs and PLAs just aren't big enough to work around the data path issues. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 12 11:27:33 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 09:27:33 -0700 Subject: GRI 771 Keyboard Info In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5699f792-60ee-9b1b-b232-9e58e265065a@sydex.com> On 03/12/2018 07:44 AM, systems_glitch via cctalk wrote: > All, > > I'm looking for info on a George Risk 771 parallel ASCII keyboard. I've got > one but no documentation or existing cabling. I'd like to interface it to > my Poly-88. > > Thanks, > Jonathan > Wasn't there something about that keyboard in the Apple I documentation? I can't recall exactly, but it sounds familiar. --Chuck From emu at e-bbes.com Mon Mar 12 11:54:46 2018 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 17:54:46 +0100 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5af1aaaf-0b96-419e-72df-f14c21748402@e-bbes.com> On 2018-03-12 15:49, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: > As the most obvious example of the impedance mismatch between 370 > architecture and 68000 microarchitecture, the 68000 is hardwired to have > eight each data and address registers, not sixteen GPRs, and microcode > can't easily paper over that. I wouldn't bet on that ... From emu at e-bbes.com Mon Mar 12 11:55:26 2018 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 17:55:26 +0100 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2018-03-12 15:49, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: > As the most obvious example of the impedance mismatch between 370 > architecture and 68000 microarchitecture, the 68000 is hardwired to have > eight each data and address registers, not sixteen GPRs, and microcode > can't easily paper over that. Forgot the smiley: ;-) ;-) ;-) From spacewar at gmail.com Mon Mar 12 11:57:38 2018 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 10:57:38 -0600 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: <5af1aaaf-0b96-419e-72df-f14c21748402@e-bbes.com> References: <5af1aaaf-0b96-419e-72df-f14c21748402@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 10:54 AM, emanuel stiebler via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 2018-03-12 15:49, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: > > As the most obvious example of the impedance mismatch between 370 > > architecture and 68000 microarchitecture, the 68000 is hardwired to have > > eight each data and address registers, not sixteen GPRs, and microcode > > can't easily paper over that. > > I wouldn't bet on that ... > I'm fairly sure of it, based on microarchitectural details in the US patents on the 68000 design. From ggs at shiresoft.com Mon Mar 12 12:11:21 2018 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor Jr) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 10:11:21 -0700 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: References: <5af1aaaf-0b96-419e-72df-f14c21748402@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: <4483D1BD-A1B6-4BA1-A559-EA90BAE77B36@shiresoft.com> > On Mar 12, 2018, at 9:57 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: > > On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 10:54 AM, emanuel stiebler via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> On 2018-03-12 15:49, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: >>> As the most obvious example of the impedance mismatch between 370 >>> architecture and 68000 microarchitecture, the 68000 is hardwired to have >>> eight each data and address registers, not sixteen GPRs, and microcode >>> can't easily paper over that. >> >> I wouldn't bet on that ... >> > > I'm fairly sure of it, based on microarchitectural details in the US > patents on the 68000 design. I think there was also an article in the IBM Systems Journal when the XT/370 was announced that basically described how this was done and how everything worked. TTFN - Guy From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Mar 12 12:13:53 2018 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 17:13:53 +0000 Subject: GRI 771 Keyboard Info In-Reply-To: <5699f792-60ee-9b1b-b232-9e58e265065a@sydex.com> References: , <5699f792-60ee-9b1b-b232-9e58e265065a@sydex.com> Message-ID: What kind of parts does it have? If it is all ttl, you only need to connect 5 volts and ground. There will be a strobe, 7 or 8 bits of data and possible wires for repeat ( usually these go directly to the keyboards repeat switch, without logic. Older keyboards required a negative rail. This was usually for a ROM or EPROM. With ttl parts, finding power and ground is easy. A little checking with a scope and ascii table will quickly find the rest. Many keyboards had stable data for both positive and negative edges of the strobe so that may not be an issue. Dwight ________________________________ From: cctalk on behalf of Chuck Guzis via cctalk Sent: Monday, March 12, 2018 9:27:33 AM To: systems_glitch via cctalk Subject: Re: GRI 771 Keyboard Info On 03/12/2018 07:44 AM, systems_glitch via cctalk wrote: > All, > > I'm looking for info on a George Risk 771 parallel ASCII keyboard. I've got > one but no documentation or existing cabling. I'd like to interface it to > my Poly-88. > > Thanks, > Jonathan > Wasn't there something about that keyboard in the Apple I documentation? I can't recall exactly, but it sounds familiar. --Chuck From phb.hfx at gmail.com Mon Mar 12 12:41:18 2018 From: phb.hfx at gmail.com (Paul Berger) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 14:41:18 -0300 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: <4483D1BD-A1B6-4BA1-A559-EA90BAE77B36@shiresoft.com> References: <5af1aaaf-0b96-419e-72df-f14c21748402@e-bbes.com> <4483D1BD-A1B6-4BA1-A559-EA90BAE77B36@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: <87787cd9-5185-cd31-86a2-2c9b8867fdca@gmail.com> The IBM Systems Journal article does not go into great detail but says that a complex of three separate processors are used, a modified 68000 that executes "a large subset of 370 instructions", a standard 68000 to emulate the remainder odf the instructions and a modified 8087 to execute the floating point.? I am not at liberty to post the document. Paul. On 2018-03-12 2:11 PM, Guy Sotomayor Jr via cctalk wrote: > >> On Mar 12, 2018, at 9:57 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: >> >> On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 10:54 AM, emanuel stiebler via cctalk < >> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: >> >>> On 2018-03-12 15:49, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: >>>> As the most obvious example of the impedance mismatch between 370 >>>> architecture and 68000 microarchitecture, the 68000 is hardwired to have >>>> eight each data and address registers, not sixteen GPRs, and microcode >>>> can't easily paper over that. >>> I wouldn't bet on that ... >>> >> I'm fairly sure of it, based on microarchitectural details in the US >> patents on the 68000 design. > I think there was also an article in the IBM Systems Journal when the XT/370 > was announced that basically described how this was done and how everything > worked. > > TTFN - Guy > From lproven at gmail.com Mon Mar 12 12:49:57 2018 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 18:49:57 +0100 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: <87787cd9-5185-cd31-86a2-2c9b8867fdca@gmail.com> References: <5af1aaaf-0b96-419e-72df-f14c21748402@e-bbes.com> <4483D1BD-A1B6-4BA1-A559-EA90BAE77B36@shiresoft.com> <87787cd9-5185-cd31-86a2-2c9b8867fdca@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 12 March 2018 at 18:41, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote: > I am not at liberty to post the document. This? http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5387781/?reload=true Also: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224102395_System370_capability_in_a_desktop_computer If so, it might be this: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2007/dc1c4e24b021765707191eeef5930b29a69c.pdf -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From pbirkel at gmail.com Mon Mar 12 12:54:59 2018 From: pbirkel at gmail.com (Paul Birkel) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 13:54:59 -0400 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: <87787cd9-5185-cd31-86a2-2c9b8867fdca@gmail.com> References: <5af1aaaf-0b96-419e-72df-f14c21748402@e-bbes.com> <4483D1BD-A1B6-4BA1-A559-EA90BAE77B36@shiresoft.com> <87787cd9-5185-cd31-86a2-2c9b8867fdca@gmail.com> Message-ID: <06a801d3ba2b$3d30e150$b792a3f0$@gmail.com> -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Paul Berger via cctalk Sent: Monday, March 12, 2018 1:41 PM To: Guy Sotomayor Jr via cctalk Subject: Re: XT/370 microcode The IBM Systems Journal article does not go into great detail but says that a complex of three separate processors are used, a modified 68000 that executes "a large subset of 370 instructions", a standard 68000 to emulate the remainder odf the instructions and a modified 8087 to execute the floating point. I am not at liberty to post the document. Paul. ----- This one? Seems to be freely available. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224102395_System370_capability_in_a_desktop_computer ----- paul From systems.glitch at gmail.com Mon Mar 12 14:01:18 2018 From: systems.glitch at gmail.com (systems_glitch) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 15:01:18 -0400 Subject: GRI 771 Keyboard Info In-Reply-To: References: <5699f792-60ee-9b1b-b232-9e58e265065a@sydex.com> Message-ID: Martin Eberhard got me the schematic for the GR 721, which is very similar -- I traced the pinout on the DB25 and it's correct for the 771. In case anyone else needs it: http://deramp.com/downloads/mfe_archive/030-Keyboards/George%20Risk/GR%20721%20Keyboard%20Schematic.JPG The 771 needs +5 and -12 for its keyboard controller and the mix of 7400 series logic on it. There are apparently versions that take unregulated power, and even some with a built-in AC power supply. It's got internal jumpers for selecting strobe (+/- pulse, +/- level). The lower 7 bits of the ASCII data is gated onto the bus by the strobe, but the high bit (parity) is always being fed out. Anyway, I have it hooked up to a bench supply for power, and jumpered to the Polymorphic VTI's keyboard port. It reads fine, there's still something going on with the CPU board though. Thanks, Jonathan On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 1:13 PM, dwight via cctalk wrote: > What kind of parts does it have? If it is all ttl, you only need to > connect 5 volts and ground. There will be a strobe, 7 or 8 bits of data and > possible wires for repeat ( usually these go directly to the keyboards > repeat switch, without logic. > > Older keyboards required a negative rail. This was usually for a ROM or > EPROM. > > With ttl parts, finding power and ground is easy. A little checking with a > scope and ascii table will quickly find the rest. > > Many keyboards had stable data for both positive and negative edges of the > strobe so that may not be an issue. > > Dwight > > > ________________________________ > From: cctalk on behalf of Chuck Guzis via > cctalk > Sent: Monday, March 12, 2018 9:27:33 AM > To: systems_glitch via cctalk > Subject: Re: GRI 771 Keyboard Info > > On 03/12/2018 07:44 AM, systems_glitch via cctalk wrote: > > All, > > > > I'm looking for info on a George Risk 771 parallel ASCII keyboard. I've > got > > one but no documentation or existing cabling. I'd like to interface it to > > my Poly-88. > > > > Thanks, > > Jonathan > > > > > Wasn't there something about that keyboard in the Apple I documentation? > I can't recall exactly, but it sounds familiar. > > > --Chuck > From BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu Mon Mar 12 23:25:26 2018 From: BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu (Benjamin Huntsman) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 04:25:26 +0000 Subject: AlphaServers Message-ID: Place your wagers... How many more years do you think it'll take before decent, practical-sized Alphas, like the DS15, and to some degree, the DS10, will be obtainable at hobbyist-friendly prices? I have an ES47 I got for a price I could stomach, but it's sans rail kit, drinks power like it's going out of style, and can anchor a 40-ft yacht. Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? From healyzh at avanthar.com Tue Mar 13 00:15:12 2018 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 22:15:12 -0700 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A191E8E-1555-452E-82B4-165AE3A54B9C@avanthar.com> I have a Compaq XP1000/667 that?s my primary VMS system. I picked up a couple XP1000?s a little over a decade ago when they were affordable, as a replacement for my AlphaStation 433au. I need a new power supply for the /500. I think the days of hobbyist-friendly prices are largely gone. Realistically the XP1000 and it?s two external JBOD pull a lot more power than I like, and I?ve been working to migrate much of my VMS activity to a SIMH/VAX cluster that the XP1000 is now part of. Once that?s done, I?m considering seeing about reviving one of my AlphaStation 200 4/233?s as a ?lower power? VMS workstation. The one AlphaStation 200 used to run OpenBSD, nearly 20 years ago. Other than that I?ve used them for VMS. Oh, and I do keep one Physical VAX running, it?s a VAXstation 4000/60. I have other VAXen and Alpha?s, but they aren?t doing anything. Zane > On Mar 12, 2018, at 9:25 PM, Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk wrote: > > Place your wagers... > > > How many more years do you think it'll take before decent, practical-sized Alphas, like the DS15, and to some degree, the DS10, will be obtainable at hobbyist-friendly prices? > > > I have an ES47 I got for a price I could stomach, but it's sans rail kit, drinks power like it's going out of style, and can anchor a 40-ft yacht. > > > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? From rlloken at telus.net Tue Mar 13 00:16:35 2018 From: rlloken at telus.net (Richard Loken) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 23:16:35 -0600 (MDT) Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: vbVKexTpR1KonvbVLep6sp References: vbVKexTpR1KonvbVLep6sp Message-ID: On Tue, 13 Mar 2018, Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk wrote: > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? Well my AS4100 is running OpenVMS even as we speak. I have an Alphastation 500 here doing nothing. I arranged for somebody to get two free DS20Es last year so, yes, I still do alphas. Intel? Don't need no stinkin' intel around here. -- Richard Loken VE6BSV : "...underneath those tuques we wear, Athabasca, Alberta Canada : our heads are naked!" ** rlloken at telus.net ** : - Arthur Black From glen.slick at gmail.com Tue Mar 13 00:53:18 2018 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 22:53:18 -0700 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 9:25 PM, Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk wrote: > > I have an ES47 I got for a price I could stomach, but it's sans rail kit, drinks power like it's going out of style, and can anchor a 40-ft yacht. > > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? I have a 2 drawer / 4 processor ES47 system with the interprocessor cables, but no rack hardware. The hardware was somewhat cheap enough, the shipping was not. I really should have passed on it. I have probably only powered it up less than a dozen times in the 5 years I've had it. Too much hassle to set it up somewhere to use it. The dual processor AS1200 system seems small and light in comparison, while of course it is neither. I booted that up a month or so ago when I needed access to a Tru64 system to mount a disc that I was unable to mount anywhere else. From phreakshowtelco at gmail.com Mon Mar 12 20:10:27 2018 From: phreakshowtelco at gmail.com (PhreakShow Telephone Company) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 01:10:27 +0000 Subject: SGI Origin 2000 Detailed Pics Message-ID: Here is detailed pics of the SGI origin 2000. Its in my shop tonight hoping we can identify whats here. Image heavy https://imgur.com/a/mdlCW Also these 19 racks came with it and it looks like some old cluster stuff in them https://imgur.com/a/feoEq From unifoundry at gmail.com Tue Mar 13 00:23:03 2018 From: unifoundry at gmail.com (Paul Hardy) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2018 22:23:03 -0700 Subject: Reading a PDP-11 RL02: Anyone Around the U.S. West Coast? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Feb 9, 2018 at 3:24 PM, Paul Hardy wrote: > Greetings, > > I have an old PDP-11 RL02... > Thank you for the kind responses to my request for help reading an RL02. I am planning to meet someone who is within a day's drive of where I live. I feel safer hand-delivering the disk pack than mailing it. If that does not materialize, I will contact someone else who responded to this inquiry of mine. All the best, Paul Hardy From pontus at Update.UU.SE Tue Mar 13 02:48:41 2018 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 08:48:41 +0100 Subject: SGI Origin 2000 Detailed Pics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20180313074841.GG27988@Update.UU.SE> On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 01:10:27AM +0000, PhreakShow Telephone Company via cctalk wrote: > Here is detailed pics of the SGI origin 2000. Its in my shop tonight > > hoping we can identify whats here. Some of it at least, not everything is possible to see from looking at the hardware. > > Image heavy > https://imgur.com/a/mdlCW Ok, I might get things wrong because it's hard to see which box is which. But you have two CPU modules (called LEGO). The first has four CPU boards, one IO6G, two XTOWN, one SCSI and one ATM board (not sure how that is used, some sort of network interconnect). The second has three CPU boards, one IO6 and a SCSI board. It is not possible to tell what the CPU boards are unless you remove them, and even then It might be tricky to idenitfy. It is probably easier to power up each module by itself and look at the output of the "hinv" command in ARCS (the boot firmware). Each module has two Rack Router Boards (the connectors on the front). Which means you can hook up the two cpu modules into one system. The Graphics module (called KEGO, I think) looks like it has two graphics pipes, one to the left with a GE and RM board but missing a DG. And one to the right of the KTOWN board which has one GE, two RM and a DG. In the rack is also an MMSC which is used to control multiple modules of one system. It looks like you have enough cables to get it going :) > > Also these 19 racks came with it and it looks like some old cluster stuff > in them > > https://imgur.com/a/feoEq Not sure what most of it is, except that the DEC POWER CONTROL 861C is very much out of place :D Also the APC PDU's looks like they are monitored, which is nice. /P From pete at petelancashire.com Tue Mar 13 02:53:32 2018 From: pete at petelancashire.com (Pete Lancashire) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 00:53:32 -0700 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I know of 3 desk side DS's, one was fully operational before going into storage, all ran when I got them. boxes of new Tru64 still shrink wrapped, and a binder full of keys for > 20 Alpha's -pete On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 9:25 PM, Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Place your wagers... > > > How many more years do you think it'll take before decent, practical-sized > Alphas, like the DS15, and to some degree, the DS10, will be obtainable at > hobbyist-friendly prices? > > > I have an ES47 I got for a price I could stomach, but it's sans rail kit, > drinks power like it's going out of style, and can anchor a 40-ft yacht. > > > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? > > From mazzinia at tin.it Tue Mar 13 05:43:35 2018 From: mazzinia at tin.it (Mazzini Alessandro) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 11:43:35 +0100 Subject: R: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005801d3bab8$2403bd50$6c0b37f0$@tin.it> Lucky snatch, especially the Tru64 boxes (envy) -----Messaggio originale----- Da: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Per conto di Pete Lancashire via cctalk Inviato: marted? 13 marzo 2018 08:54 A: Benjamin Huntsman; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Oggetto: Re: AlphaServers I know of 3 desk side DS's, one was fully operational before going into storage, all ran when I got them. boxes of new Tru64 still shrink wrapped, and a binder full of keys for > 20 Alpha's -pete On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 9:25 PM, Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Place your wagers... > > > How many more years do you think it'll take before decent, > practical-sized Alphas, like the DS15, and to some degree, the DS10, > will be obtainable at hobbyist-friendly prices? > > > I have an ES47 I got for a price I could stomach, but it's sans rail > kit, drinks power like it's going out of style, and can anchor a 40-ft yacht. > > > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? > > From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Tue Mar 13 06:49:30 2018 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 11:49:30 +0000 (WET) Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> > > How many more years do you think it'll take before decent, practical-sized > Alphas, like the DS15, and to some degree, the DS10, will be obtainable at > hobbyist-friendly prices? > A former colleague of mine has a DS10L. I don't like these very much. It makes the wrong kind of noise, a loud high pitched squeal and can only take one PCI card. This one was probably got for nothing because the services it was running were shut down. Marketplace prices probably reflect whether people are still using them for useful work and will probably remain high if there continues to be demand for them. > > I have an ES47 I got for a price I could stomach, but it's sans rail kit, > drinks power like it's going out of style, and can anchor a 40-ft yacht. > That's more like it. A nice big animal of a machine you can use to heat the room. A few years ago, I had lots of fun looking after a few racks of ES40s running VMS. They ran great but the memory had to be exactly right to avoid wierd failures under heavy load. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to snag any of them when they went out of service. > > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? > I've got a few: An Alphaserver 2100 (old and slow but makes the right kind of noise) A PWS 500a(u?) (faster but doesn't look the part, needs more memory) An Alphaserver 800 with rails but not currently in a rack. 3 x Alphaserver 1000A (lots of problems, none working now) 2 x DEC 3000 / 600 and 1 x DEC 3000 / 300 (none currently working either) Regards, Peter Coghlan. From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Tue Mar 13 07:40:22 2018 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 12:40:22 +0000 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: An interesting discussion, especially considering the stuff usually spoken in comp.os.vms regardiong the viability of X86 boxes. I have had 3 Alphas.? Two of the office refrigerator sized boxes and one of the PC Tower sized boxes.? All three have died.? In the meantime I have X86 based boxes that are much older and continue to serve me well.? While I thought the Alpha was an excellent architectural design the market has made it somewhat irrelevant. Of course, when t comes to VMS I still run a VAX.? :-) bill From kylevowen at gmail.com Tue Mar 13 07:44:15 2018 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 12:44:15 +0000 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: Several people have now mentioned they have dead Alphas. What is generally failing about them? Kyle From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Tue Mar 13 07:49:25 2018 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 12:49:25 +0000 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: In my cases all three just one day became inoperative. I have heard of power supply failures, but none of mine had that. The first two had redundant PSU's and the third had a standard PC type PSU and the disks and CD's worked even after the motherboard became dead enough to not even do the POST. bill On 03/13/2018 08:44 AM, Kyle Owen via cctalk wrote: > Several people have now mentioned they have dead Alphas. What is generally > failing about them? > > Kyle From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Tue Mar 13 08:21:35 2018 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 13:21:35 +0000 (WET) Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <01QQ3A86K36W0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> > > Several people have now mentioned they have dead Alphas. What is generally > failing about them? > The B-Cache on the CPU card on every Alphaserver 1000A I have laid eyes on has failed at some point. It can be disabled with a jumper but this makes the machine a lot slower for some tasks. I have also had problems with intermittent shutdowns for no reason on these machines, probably due to failures in the thermal protection logic. Also possibly problems with the connector the CPU card sits in and just plain failure to do anything. The 115/230V power supply in my DEC 3000 / 300 decided to go permanently into 115V mode despite the power here being 230V which resulted in a bang. Removing the shorted triac and replacing the exploded VDR and fuse fixed that for a while but now the machine has some other problem that I can't recall. The monitor that was with it has some sort of EHT problem. My two DEC 3000 / 600 machines go through their power up tests, flashing the diagnostic LEDs nicely but don't boot or produce a console prompt afterwards. One of them went into this state when I was trying to reboot it remotely while it was in service. It really needed a reset or power cycle at the time but I couldn't do that remotely so I tried various not very likely to succeed console commands. I may have somehow damaged the firmware doing that or a fault may have arose coincidentally but I never got a console prompt since on it. The other one behaves the same as it but it started happening when noone was looking at it. Regards, Peter Coghlan. From dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net Tue Mar 13 12:08:21 2018 From: dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net (Daniel Seagraves) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 12:08:21 -0500 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <6D50E8A1-7D34-4C1F-A8A1-FF47A82C2978@lunar-tokyo.net> > On Mar 13, 2018, at 7:44 AM, Kyle Owen via cctalk wrote: > > Several people have now mentioned they have dead Alphas. What is generally > failing about them? > > Kyle When my 1000 started failing, the manual lead me to believe it was b-cache, but the jumper map wound up to be wrong, it was actually failed RAM. Even knowing that, I?m not sure I want to invest hundreds in new RAM for a machine whose b-cache is known to be a ticking time bomb. (1000s and 1000As have notoriously unreliable b-cache) From lproven at gmail.com Tue Mar 13 12:26:22 2018 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 18:26:22 +0100 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 13 March 2018 at 05:25, Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk wrote: > > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? I never got my hands on one, although there was a time when I coveted one. (Now as I am -- well, not homeless, but I don't have a house any more, or indeed an apartment of my own -- I am confining my collection to portable/pocketable and battery-powered devices.) I believe list-member St?phane has at least one, but I don't know if he's got it running... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From lproven at gmail.com Tue Mar 13 12:28:01 2018 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 18:28:01 +0100 Subject: "The Quest for a Universal Translator for Old, Obsolete Computer Files" Message-ID: The Quest for a Universal Translator for Old, Obsolete Computer Files To save bygone software, files, and more, researchers are working to emulate decades-old technology in the cloud. by Jessica Leigh Hester March 08, 2018 https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-to-open-old-computer-files ________________________________ >From the sound of this, it strikes me that several of the people/organizations that the author spoke to don't know much about running older software that _will_ work on modern hardware... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From kylevowen at gmail.com Tue Mar 13 12:33:59 2018 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 12:33:59 -0500 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: <6D50E8A1-7D34-4C1F-A8A1-FF47A82C2978@lunar-tokyo.net> References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> <6D50E8A1-7D34-4C1F-A8A1-FF47A82C2978@lunar-tokyo.net> Message-ID: So, B-Cache is a common failure; any idea what specifically is failing about it? I've got a 1000A, but its been years since I've tried booting it. It was successfully booting when I last tried it, however. I think I've got Tru64 installation media somewhere around here, too... Kyle From mtapley at swri.edu Tue Mar 13 12:43:53 2018 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Tapley, Mark) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 17:43:53 +0000 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1BFE9EC2-AC3E-4606-8510-70A317650B99@swri.edu> On Mar 13, 2018, at 12:26 PM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > On 13 March 2018 at 05:25, Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk > wrote: >> >> Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? > > I never got my hands on one, although there was a time when I coveted one. > > (Now as I am -- well, not homeless, but I don't have a house any more, > or indeed an apartment of my own -- I am confining my collection to > portable/pocketable and battery-powered devices.) > > I believe list-member St?phane has at least one, but I don't know if > he's got it running... > > -- > Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven > Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com > Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven > UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 I have an AS 2100 4/275 in sight of me in my office - waiting for me to get a round tuit on installing OpenVMS - and another pizza-box station (300?) in the same condition. (Also a VaxStation VLC and a Rainbow, so Some Day (TM) I want to have a whole little DEC network with 4 different types of CPU talking together?) From pete at petelancashire.com Tue Mar 13 12:45:20 2018 From: pete at petelancashire.com (Pete Lancashire) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 10:45:20 -0700 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> <6D50E8A1-7D34-4C1F-A8A1-FF47A82C2978@lunar-tokyo.net> Message-ID: If anyone is in or near Portland Oregon and interested, they are available. There are also at least 2 x 14 drive SCSI arrays, cables, etc. At one time I was offered a 5 rack fully redundant Alpha setup based on 3 40's or 45's Two servers were running with one is hot standby, the 3rd was a cold standby. The two racks in the middle of around 100 SCSI disks and the hardware to support having 2 active SCSI masters. The only time I have seen Tru64 do its magic. -pete On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 10:33 AM, Kyle Owen via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > So, B-Cache is a common failure; any idea what specifically is failing > about it? > > I've got a 1000A, but its been years since I've tried booting it. It was > successfully booting when I last tried it, however. I think I've got Tru64 > installation media somewhere around here, too... > > Kyle > > From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Tue Mar 13 13:33:17 2018 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 18:33:17 +0000 (WET) Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: <6D50E8A1-7D34-4C1F-A8A1-FF47A82C2978@lunar-tokyo.net> References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <01QQ3LVLYQ9M0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> > > When my 1000 started failing, the manual lead me to believe it was b-cache, > but the jumper map wound up to be wrong, > There are a number of variants and the manuals are extremely unclear. > > it was actually failed RAM. > I forgot. I had that too. The firmware is supposed to specify which bank and SIMM is faulty. Another reason to not love these machines: If SIMM 0 has failed, the firmware reports a failure in SIMM 0. If SIMM 1 has failed, the firmware reports a failure in SIMM 1. If SIMM 2 has failed, the firmware reports a failure in SIMM 3. If SIMM 3 has failed, the firmware reports a failure in SIMM 3. > > Even knowing that, I?m not sure I want to > invest hundreds in new RAM for a machine whose b-cache is known to be a > ticking time bomb. (1000s and 1000As have notoriously unreliable b-cache) > I might be willing to swap my AS1000A RAM (some of which may be faulty and I probably can't test it unless I can resurrect one of my machines briefly) for memory for a PWS 500, Alphaserver 2100 or an Alphaserver 800. Regards, Peter Coghlan. From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Tue Mar 13 14:50:09 2018 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave Wade) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 19:50:09 -0000 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: <01QQ3LVLYQ9M0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> <01QQ3LVLYQ9M0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <051301d3bb04$7e753470$7b5f9d50$@gmail.com> I seem to remember issues with Alpha's even when new. I was asked to help out somewhere running VMS on Alpha and we had a couple of failures on the CPUs over the few months I was there... .. contrast this with working on IBM xServers and we had over 100 servers and only ever had failures on really old boxes, and then usually RAM or PSU. In fact given this distaste folks have for NT derived OSs on Intel servers, its worthy of note that even with around 120 boxes I wasn't leaping up and down every 5 mins minutes to fix them. Every 5 months perhaps one of the older ones would go crank but usually it was a 6 or seven year old box that was well past its best before date... Dave > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk On Behalf Of Peter Coghlan > via cctalk > Sent: 13 March 2018 18:33 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Subject: Re: AlphaServers > > > > > When my 1000 started failing, the manual lead me to believe it was > > b-cache, but the jumper map wound up to be wrong, > > > > There are a number of variants and the manuals are extremely unclear. > > > > > it was actually failed RAM. > > > > I forgot. I had that too. The firmware is supposed to specify which bank and > SIMM is faulty. Another reason to not love these machines: > > If SIMM 0 has failed, the firmware reports a failure in SIMM 0. > If SIMM 1 has failed, the firmware reports a failure in SIMM 1. > If SIMM 2 has failed, the firmware reports a failure in SIMM 3. > If SIMM 3 has failed, the firmware reports a failure in SIMM 3. > > > > > Even knowing that, I?m not sure I want to invest hundreds in new RAM > > for a machine whose b-cache is known to be a ticking time bomb. (1000s > > and 1000As have notoriously unreliable b-cache) > > > > I might be willing to swap my AS1000A RAM (some of which may be faulty > and I probably can't test it unless I can resurrect one of my machines briefly) > for memory for a PWS 500, Alphaserver 2100 or an Alphaserver 800. > > Regards, > Peter Coghlan. From fred at MISER.MISERNET.NET Tue Mar 13 15:52:29 2018 From: fred at MISER.MISERNET.NET (Fred) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 15:52:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 42, Issue 13 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 13 Mar 2018 cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 04:25:26 +0000 > From: Benjamin Huntsman > Subject: AlphaServers > Message-ID: > > > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? I'll pile on with my $0.212 (two cents plus tax). I started with a VAXStation 4000/90A. Still have it. Absorbed that system into SIMH and upgraded to a Alphastation (server?) 255. Sold that the 255 and upgraded again to my current DS10, running OpenVMS 8.3. Typing on it now in fact, ssh'ed in from $work. Luckily, I used to work for a company that had data processing services heavily invested in OpenVMS/DEC/Compaq/HP gear. I'm sure I acquired the systems over the years for well below market rates. I could probably sell the VAX 90A for a pretty large sum of $. ... but I really don't want to ... because then I'd have the money and not the VAX. :) If the power bill was free I would upgrade again .... but I have enough 24/7 equipment running in the home office. :) ... and I'm always hunting for more! (an iSeries, perhaps a Multiprise 3000, etc ... ) Fred From healyzh at avanthar.com Tue Mar 13 15:22:22 2018 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 13:22:22 -0700 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: > On Mar 13, 2018, at 5:44 AM, Kyle Owen via cctalk wrote: > > Several people have now mentioned they have dead Alphas. What is generally > failing about them? > > Kyle My DEC AlphaStation PWS 433au lost a PCI slot, after I used it for a few years. I ran it like that for several years until I upgraded to an XP1000. My Compaq XP1000/667 lost it?s powersupply after I?d had it for about a year. I replaced it with the power supply from my XP1000/500. A real concern is the AlphaStation 200/233?s I have. I?ve not powered either up in about a decade, and I?d really like to put one back into use. Most issues I?ve heard around Alpha?s seem to be this model, or server class systems. Then again, there were a ton of ?Onsale.com Alpha?s? in the hands of hobbyists. I bought three that way, one was for a friend. These are great little boxes, and you can take them way beyond the advertised RAM limit, up to 768MB, IIRC. Of course that assumes you?re lucky enough to get ahold of large enough SIMM?s. On the VAX side, the power supply is out on my VAXstation 4000/vlc. I also have a VAXstation 4000/60 with issues, and a /90 with issues. The only VAX I?m currently running is a /60. I have several other VAXen though, mostly Q-Bus systems. The fact is, these are all very old systems (both the VAX and Alpha), and not really designed to be repairable). Really on the VAX side, emulation makes sense. For $75, I picked up a HP i5 system that?s dedicated to running SIMH 24x7, and I also have SIMH running on my HP i7 ESXI system, and on a RPi2. The i7 is my fastest ?VAX?. If running commercially, emulation makes sense for the Alpha. For the Hobbyist, not so much. The only good way to get Alpha emulation for a Hobbyist right now is if you?re running Windows. I?m not running Windows, and the hobbyist emulator config is rather small for my needs. As an FYI, I?ve been working on updating my DEC Emulation webpages, and have the VAX and Alpha pages fairly up to date. http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/vax.html http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/Alpha.html Zane From cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net Tue Mar 13 15:28:11 2018 From: cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 14:28:11 -0600 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 42, Issue 13 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6a172546-d8f1-13b9-f843-8fdba5799f09@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> On 03/13/2018 02:52 PM, Fred via cctalk wrote: > I'm always hunting for more! (an iSeries, perhaps a Multiprise 3000, > etc ... If power / cooling / noise wasn't an issue, I'd also be interested in an Multiprise 3000. But, I'm happily married and I would like to keep it that way. -- Grant. . . . unix || die From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Mar 13 15:36:10 2018 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 16:36:10 -0400 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 12:25 AM, Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk wrote: > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? I did a bit of work on Alphas from 1997-2003 but at home I have... DEC 4000 AXP - works fine, haven't powered it on in a while. I have to unplug my VAX 8300 to plug the DEC 4000 in - I only have the one 30A receptacle in the basement. It has multiple disks in it - Ultrix and OSF/1 boot drives, IIRC. DEC Multia Alpha workstation - got it from a friend and haven't played with it yet. Has Red Hat 5.3 on it. Came with boxed OS. DEC PC-form-factor motherboard. I can't remember the model number, but this fits in a standard PC tower case. Made to run WinNT or UNIX. -ethan From geneb at deltasoft.com Tue Mar 13 15:54:26 2018 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 13:54:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: On Tue, 13 Mar 2018, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > Really on the VAX side, emulation makes sense. For $75, I picked up a > HP i5 system that?s dedicated to running SIMH 24x7, and I also have SIMH > running on my HP i7 ESXI system, and on a RPi2. The i7 is my fastest > ?VAX?. > Zane, what's the host OS that you're using for SIMH? tnx. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From billdegnan at gmail.com Tue Mar 13 16:09:50 2018 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 17:09:50 -0400 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 4:36 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 12:25 AM, Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk > wrote: > > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? > > I am working through some new to me VAX/Alphas/QBUS parts from the other weekend. http://vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=715 I also have some new-to-me smaller VAX and an Alpha 3000 or two. Some of these need new homes. I was thinking of hosting a VAX/Alpha workshop at or near my house in the Newark, Delaware, USA area next month. I have plenty of machines and parts for anyone interested who'd like to participate. More details coming. I have VMS and DECUNIX machines running here at my house, and few with FQDS's personally I think they're worth preserving. I have written about them here in the past (when I needed help). I am relatively new to the VMS world but gaining experience. I have a smattering of actual work experience in VMS back when these were current and from college. Bill From seefriek at gmail.com Tue Mar 13 17:06:07 2018 From: seefriek at gmail.com (Ken Seefried) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 18:06:07 -0400 Subject: XT/370 microcode Message-ID: >> I am not at liberty to post the document. > >This? ... >Also: ... >If so, it might be this: ... There's a difference between "I am not at liberty..." and "what anyone can google...". From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Mar 13 17:40:46 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 15:40:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 13 Mar 2018, Ken Seefried via cctalk wrote: >>> I am not at liberty to post the document. >> This? > ... >> Also: > ... >> If so, it might be this: > ... > There's a difference between "I am not at liberty..." and "what anyone > can google...". There do exist situations where somebody is NOT at liberty to post (NDA, etc), but the item in question is readily available. The expiration of an NDA may be long after publication or leakage. Could always do a LMGTFY.com link, . . . :-) From BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu Tue Mar 13 18:22:10 2018 From: BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu (Benjamin Huntsman) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 23:22:10 +0000 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: <2AC9D841-D295-45CA-8203-67C9B19E26CC@mail2.cu-portland.edu> So for the most part, no hobbyists are running DS15?s? I?m sort of surprised that there?s that many still in critical production roles. Where?s all the VAR guys trying to help people migrate? Haha. Sent from my iPhone > On Mar 13, 2018, at 2:09 PM, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote: > > On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 4:36 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 12:25 AM, Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk >> wrote: >>> Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? >> >> > I am working through some new to me VAX/Alphas/QBUS parts from the other > weekend. > http://vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=715 > > I also have some new-to-me smaller VAX and an Alpha 3000 or two. Some of > these need new homes. I was thinking of hosting a VAX/Alpha workshop at or > near my house in the Newark, Delaware, USA area next month. I have plenty > of machines and parts for anyone interested who'd like to participate. > More details coming. > > I have VMS and DECUNIX machines running here at my house, and few with > FQDS's personally I think they're worth preserving. I have written about > them here in the past (when I needed help). I am relatively new to the VMS > world but gaining experience. I have a smattering of actual work > experience in VMS back when these were current and from college. > > > Bill From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Mar 13 20:17:55 2018 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 21:17:55 -0400 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 4:36 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 12:25 AM, Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk > wrote: >> Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? > > I did a bit of work on Alphas from 1997-2003 but at home I have... > > DEC 4000 AXP - works fine, haven't powered it on in a while. I have > to unplug my VAX 8300 to plug the DEC 4000 in - I only have the one > 30A receptacle in the basement. It has multiple disks in it - Ultrix > and OSF/1 boot drives, IIRC. > > DEC Multia Alpha workstation - got it from a friend and haven't played > with it yet. Has Red Hat 5.3 on it. Came with boxed OS. > > DEC PC-form-factor motherboard. I can't remember the model number, > but this fits in a standard PC tower case. Made to run WinNT or UNIX. AXPpci 33 board with a 21066 processor that I stuffed into an Enlight tower and fiddled with 15+ years ago. -ethan From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Mar 13 21:55:15 2018 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 19:55:15 -0700 (PDT) Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: from Ethan Dicks via cctalk at "Mar 13, 18 09:17:55 pm" Message-ID: <201803140255.w2E2tFHE13893728@floodgap.com> > DEC PC-form-factor motherboard. I can't remember the model number, > but this fits in a standard PC tower case. Made to run WinNT or UNIX. Probably one of the 164LXes or similar. I have a 164LX here running Tru64 and OpenGenera. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- God may be subtle, but He isn't plain mean. -- Albert Einstein ------------- From seefriek at gmail.com Tue Mar 13 22:27:15 2018 From: seefriek at gmail.com (Ken Seefried) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 23:27:15 -0400 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 6:40 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Tue, 13 Mar 2018, Ken Seefried via cctalk wrote: >>>> >>>> I am not at liberty to post the document. >>> >>> This? >> >> ... >>> >>> Also: >> >> ... >>> >>> If so, it might be this: >> >> ... >> There's a difference between "I am not at liberty..." and "what anyone >> can google...". > > > There do exist situations where somebody is NOT at liberty to post (NDA, > etc), but the item in question is readily available. The expiration of an > NDA may be long after publication or leakage. > Could always do a LMGTFY.com link, . . . :-) Yeah, Fred...I think that's exactly what I said without being enough of an asshole to suggest LMGTFY. From healyzh at avanthar.com Tue Mar 13 22:27:46 2018 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 20:27:46 -0700 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: <2AC9D841-D295-45CA-8203-67C9B19E26CC@mail2.cu-portland.edu> References: <2AC9D841-D295-45CA-8203-67C9B19E26CC@mail2.cu-portland.edu> Message-ID: <3035077A-0C6C-40F3-9263-A7FE39CBD60F@avanthar.com> > On Mar 13, 2018, at 4:22 PM, Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk wrote: > > So for the most part, no hobbyists are running DS15?s? I?m sort of surprised that there?s that many still in critical production roles. Where?s all the VAR guys trying to help people migrate? Haha. A better question might be, how many DS15?s were produced compared to something like the AlphaStation 200 4/233. I?d love a DS15, but if they are far from cheap. A lot of the VAR?s are trying to get folks to migrate to Emulated Alpha?s from what I?m seeing. My guess is that anyone that was going to convert to Itanium did, and many of those are now looking towards porting to Xeon. Personally I?m skipping Itanium, but will be looking to move to Xeon at some point. I rather like the idea of running OpenVMS on an HP DL360 or DL380. Zane From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Mar 13 22:33:59 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 20:33:59 -0700 Subject: 800 and 1600bpi 9 track test data Message-ID: <56d64ee4-3c0a-f4fe-958f-73b2c0e3b1e6@bitsavers.org> There are two gzip'ed files up now of analog digitized 9 track data under http://bitsavers.org/projects/9track containing two files of 16 bit incrementing data patterns blocked 512 bytes/blk and the tach signal from a Qualstar 1260 running at 50 ips. The data can be viewed using Salea's Logic app in simulation mode if anyone has burning curiosity what a 1/2" tape block looks like. I made these as test data today for Len Shustek's 9 track readtape project https://github.com/LenShustek/readtape From steven at malikoff.com Tue Mar 13 22:53:21 2018 From: steven at malikoff.com (steven at malikoff.com) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 13:53:21 +1000 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <70d2b7ce7f8dd74ca6a7a6c68ae9a850.squirrel@webmail04.register.com> ken said >>> I am not at liberty to post the document. >> >>This? > ... >>Also: > ... >>If so, it might be this: > ... > > There's a difference between "I am not at liberty..." and "what anyone > can google...". The Wayback Machine has it on archive.org https://web.archive.org/web/20150608173633/http://maben.homeip.net/static/S100/IBM/5160%20588%20XT%20370/System%20370%20capability%20in%20a%20desktop%20computer.pdf Whenever I remember, I try and submit pages like this to archive.org's crawler to catalog it for posterity, it only takes a moment. Often they are already there. For instance I recently scanned and submitted an IBM Australia memo my dad had from TJ Watson congratulating IBM employees for their part in Apollo 11's safe return: https://archive.org/details/@galasphere347 Steve From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 13 23:14:05 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 21:14:05 -0700 Subject: 800 and 1600bpi 9 track test data In-Reply-To: <56d64ee4-3c0a-f4fe-958f-73b2c0e3b1e6@bitsavers.org> References: <56d64ee4-3c0a-f4fe-958f-73b2c0e3b1e6@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 03/13/2018 08:33 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > There are two gzip'ed files up now of analog digitized 9 track data under > http://bitsavers.org/projects/9track containing two files of 16 bit incrementing > data patterns blocked 512 bytes/blk and the tach signal from a Qualstar 1260 running > at 50 ips. > > The data can be viewed using Salea's Logic app in simulation mode if anyone has burning > curiosity what a 1/2" tape block looks like. > > I made these as test data today for Len Shustek's 9 track readtape project > https://github.com/LenShustek/readtape If anyone's curious, the 800 NRZI one expands to 2.2GB. Al, did you see this patent by Kennedy: https://patents.google.com/patent/US3947876 --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 13 23:32:46 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 21:32:46 -0700 Subject: Speaking of tapes and good ideas, but... Message-ID: <8ce8e7eb-e593-cf3c-911a-78db0e9ea448@sydex.com> During my browsing, I've run across mention of the Emerson "Tape Pac" 2000 series, a half-inch cartridge tape system targeted at minicomputers, and it seems, the PDP-11. Here's a mention in IEEE Computer, about the new products at the 1976 NCC: https://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/co/1976/06/01647391.pdf (That was about the same time as "The Milpitas Monster") I can't find of photos of the thing. Has anyone run into one of these? --Chuck From pete at petelancashire.com Tue Mar 13 23:39:07 2018 From: pete at petelancashire.com (Pete Lancashire) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 21:39:07 -0700 Subject: a bit off topic - looking for someone w/7 track 1/2" analog Message-ID: comp for 1 - 7/8 IPS like to get all tracks digitized https://photos.app.goo.gl/IMcgjxugzKMuIvKv2 will put on open file server then sell the tape -pete From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 14 00:40:17 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 22:40:17 -0700 Subject: a bit off topic - looking for someone w/7 track 1/2" analog In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6148fda4-581e-6038-f91a-5bbb5883d000@sydex.com> On 03/13/2018 09:39 PM, Pete Lancashire via cctalk wrote: > comp for 1 - 7/8 IPS like to get all tracks digitized > > https://photos.app.goo.gl/IMcgjxugzKMuIvKv2 > > will put on open file server then sell the tape > So, someone with an old Ampex PR-500 deck? I saw one for sale on eBay a few years ago--heh. Richard Hess in Ontario has a bunch of old instrumentation gear and specializes in audio tape restoration. He certainly could do the job for you. --Chuck From binarydinosaurs at gmail.com Wed Mar 14 05:06:27 2018 From: binarydinosaurs at gmail.com (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 10:06:27 +0000 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? I'm lucky enough to be in a position where they drop out of the woodwork into my lap, the biggest being a DS25 running Tru64 and the smallest being the Multia NT Workstation. Ones in use fairly regularly are a DS10 along with my VAX 3100/90 from an old workplace. I'm in the process of giving some of them away though because they take up too much room. A -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? t: @binarydinosaurs f: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk On 13 March 2018 at 04:25, Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Place your wagers... > > > How many more years do you think it'll take before decent, practical-sized > Alphas, like the DS15, and to some degree, the DS10, will be obtainable at > hobbyist-friendly prices? > > > I have an ES47 I got for a price I could stomach, but it's sans rail kit, > drinks power like it's going out of style, and can anchor a 40-ft yacht. > > > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? > From sellam.ismail at gmail.com Wed Mar 14 04:17:01 2018 From: sellam.ismail at gmail.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 02:17:01 -0700 Subject: FS: Commodore items from Sellam's collection Message-ID: Hi Folks. It's time for the Commodore collectors to get their turn. I've created a separate thread for Commodore and related items for sale from my collection. I will be continuing to add Commodore stuff to this thread as I come across it. The list is here: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?62641-Sellam-s-Commodore-Sales-Thread If you are interested in anything then as usual for fastest response please do reply to me by e-mail via . Thanks! Sellam From lproven at gmail.com Wed Mar 14 05:55:18 2018 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 11:55:18 +0100 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 14 March 2018 at 11:06, Adrian Graham via cctalk wrote: > > I'm in the process of giving > some of them away though because they take up too much room. The OpenBSD project are, or were, looking for donations of high-end VAXstations. I offered them a VAXstation 4000/60 (Red Hat offered to sponsor shipping from London to Canada) but after some toing-and-froing, Theo DeRaadt turned it down. Unfortunately, I believe RH has now lost my machine. :-( But if anyone is willing to donate a /90 or similar, he might be interested. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From mj at mjturner.net Wed Mar 14 06:54:05 2018 From: mj at mjturner.net (Michael-John Turner) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 11:54:05 +0000 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20180314115405.rvqcx3qki5u346lx@saucer.turnde.net> On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 10:55:18AM +0000, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: >But if anyone is willing to donate a /90 or similar, he might be >interested. I'm guessing the lack of interest from Theo may have been because the VAX port was dropped after OpenBSD 5.9[1]. Was rather sad when that happened as NetBSD's VAX support isn't in a great state these days. [1] https://www.openbsd.org/vax.html Cheers, MJ -- Michael-John Turner * mj at mjturner.net * http://mjturner.net/ From ftg888 at elbonia.org Wed Mar 14 06:10:48 2018 From: ftg888 at elbonia.org (ftg888 at elbonia.org) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 12:10:48 +0100 Subject: 3100/90? Message-ID: <4632E635-81FC-48A4-A457-3E478AAFB62F@elbonia.org> I am looking into getting a VMS Machines up and running and or Open/netbsd you mentioned you had a few to donate or sale thanks. Sent from my iPhone > On 14 Mar 2018, at 11:55, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > > On 14 March 2018 at 11:06, Adrian Graham via cctalk > wrote: >> >> I'm in the process of giving >> some of them away though because they take up too much room. > > The OpenBSD project are, or were, looking for donations of high-end > VAXstations. I offered them a VAXstation 4000/60 (Red Hat offered to > sponsor shipping from London to Canada) but after some > toing-and-froing, Theo DeRaadt turned it down. > > Unfortunately, I believe RH has now lost my machine. :-( > > But if anyone is willing to donate a /90 or similar, he might be interested. > > -- > Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven > Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com > Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven > UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From mj at mjturner.net Wed Mar 14 07:01:42 2018 From: mj at mjturner.net (Michael-John Turner) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 12:01:42 +0000 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <20180314120142.za6xk7gqejo5yb5g@saucer.turnde.net> On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 12:44:15PM +0000, Kyle Owen via cctalk wrote: >Several people have now mentioned they have dead Alphas. What is generally >failing about them? A number of years ago I had an AlphaServer 2100 running Tru64 that just died. It worked fine one day and the next day started displaying fault codes on the front LCD (IIRC). I never managed to work out what they meant although I suspected a CPU board fault. I later gave the machine to a friend to cannabilise for parts (he's a heavy VMS user and was able to salvage some of the parts). IIRC it was a 4/200, with a pair of EV4 CPUs, 512MiB RAM and half a dozen 2GiB SCSI drives. It had the pedestal chassis. Cheers, MJ -- Michael-John Turner * mj at mjturner.net * http://mjturner.net/ From lproven at gmail.com Wed Mar 14 07:02:24 2018 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 13:02:24 +0100 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: <20180314115405.rvqcx3qki5u346lx@saucer.turnde.net> References: <20180314115405.rvqcx3qki5u346lx@saucer.turnde.net> Message-ID: On 14 March 2018 at 12:54, Michael-John Turner wrote: > > I'm guessing the lack of interest from Theo may have been because the VAX > port was dropped after OpenBSD 5.9[1]. Was rather sad when that happened as > NetBSD's VAX support isn't in a great state these days. > > [1] https://www.openbsd.org/vax.html Cause/effect error. I offered my 4000/60 to him when I was leaving the country in 2014. After some weeks of consideration, during which time I packed it up and got it delivered to Red Hat in Farnborough, he decided he didn't want it. I started working for Red Hat in Brno soon afterwards. Sadly, a couple of months later, I stopped working for Red Hat. When I asked for the machine back in 2016, they had lost it. :-( -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From mj at mjturner.net Wed Mar 14 07:09:21 2018 From: mj at mjturner.net (Michael-John Turner) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 12:09:21 +0000 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <20180314115405.rvqcx3qki5u346lx@saucer.turnde.net> Message-ID: <20180314120921.ti6hi4cdvewonny4@saucer.turnde.net> On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 12:02:24PM +0000, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: >Cause/effect error. I offered my 4000/60 to him when I was leaving the >country in 2014. After some weeks of consideration, during which time >I packed it up and got it delivered to Red Hat in Farnborough, he >decided he didn't want it. Ah, in 2014 the VAX port was still very much active. >When I asked for the machine back in 2016, they had lost it. :-( :( That sucks - the 4000/60 is a nice machine. I'd love one - my only VAX is a 3100/M30. Cheers, MJ -- Michael-John Turner * mj at mjturner.net * http://mjturner.net/ From pete at petelancashire.com Wed Mar 14 07:50:38 2018 From: pete at petelancashire.com (Pete Lancashire) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 05:50:38 -0700 Subject: a bit off topic - looking for someone w/7 track 1/2" analog In-Reply-To: <6148fda4-581e-6038-f91a-5bbb5883d000@sydex.com> References: <6148fda4-581e-6038-f91a-5bbb5883d000@sydex.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 13, 2018 at 10:40 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 03/13/2018 09:39 PM, Pete Lancashire via cctalk wrote: > > comp for 1 - 7/8 IPS like to get all tracks digitized > > > > https://photos.app.goo.gl/IMcgjxugzKMuIvKv2 > > > > will put on open file server then sell the tape > > > > So, someone with an old Ampex PR-500 deck? I saw one for sale on eBay > a few years ago--heh. > > Richard Hess in Ontario has a bunch of old instrumentation gear and > specializes in audio tape restoration. He certainly could do the job > for you. > > --Chuck > > > > > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Mar 14 08:54:14 2018 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 09:54:14 -0400 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6aa22710-01d9-29a7-2eaa-c4382f379456@telegraphics.com.au> On 2018-03-14 6:55 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > On 14 March 2018 at 11:06, Adrian Graham via cctalk > wrote: >> >> I'm in the process of giving >> some of them away though because they take up too much room. > > The OpenBSD project are, or were, looking for donations of high-end > VAXstations. I offered them a VAXstation 4000/60 (Red Hat offered to > sponsor shipping from London to Canada) but after some > toing-and-froing, Theo DeRaadt turned it down. OpenBSD can't support VAX-11 any longer, unless somebody implements TLS for that architecture (which I believe would need major toolchain work?) http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20160309192510 That would explain why they no longer want VAX-11 hardware. --Toby > > Unfortunately, I believe RH has now lost my machine. :-( > > But if anyone is willing to donate a /90 or similar, he might be interested. > From healyzh at avanthar.com Wed Mar 14 10:33:14 2018 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 08:33:14 -0700 Subject: 3100/90? In-Reply-To: <4632E635-81FC-48A4-A457-3E478AAFB62F@elbonia.org> References: <4632E635-81FC-48A4-A457-3E478AAFB62F@elbonia.org> Message-ID: > On Mar 14, 2018, at 4:10 AM, ftg888--- via cctalk wrote: > > I am looking into getting a VMS > Machines up and running and or > Open/netbsd you mentioned you had a few to donate or sale thanks. If you haven?t, take a look at SIMH/VAX. I?m migrating much of my home VMS activity over. It?s been especially nice for getting easy to backup storage into my Cluster. Long-term I?m looking to drastically cut my power needs by taking physical systems offline, except when needed. Zane From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Mar 14 10:56:13 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 08:56:13 -0700 Subject: 800 and 1600bpi 9 track test data In-Reply-To: References: <56d64ee4-3c0a-f4fe-958f-73b2c0e3b1e6@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <60f2b8f1-52e7-3911-18ed-7f016d992796@bitsavers.org> On 3/13/18 9:14 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > Al, did you see this patent by Kennedy: > > https://patents.google.com/patent/US3947876 > > --Chuck > No, I hadn't. Interesting it doesn't seem to match the circuit in any of the manuals I've scanned. I've also been scanning some boxes of instrumentation recorders. They've been going up under http://bitsavers.org/test_equipment From geneb at deltasoft.com Wed Mar 14 10:56:29 2018 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 08:56:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 3100/90? In-Reply-To: References: <4632E635-81FC-48A4-A457-3E478AAFB62F@elbonia.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Mar 2018, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > > storage into my Cluster. Long-term I?m looking to drastically cut my > power needs by taking physical systems offline, except when needed. > A billion times this. :) I turned four physical machines (x86 servers) into 8 virtual machines on a single Dell R710 and my power bill has fallen about $60/month. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From pete at petelancashire.com Wed Mar 14 11:14:32 2018 From: pete at petelancashire.com (Pete Lancashire) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 09:14:32 -0700 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: <6aa22710-01d9-29a7-2eaa-c4382f379456@telegraphics.com.au> References: <6aa22710-01d9-29a7-2eaa-c4382f379456@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: so .... do the 3 macines go in the scrap pile ? https://photos.app.goo.gl/fx4Dw6RrQgVJBXWo1 On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 6:54 AM, Toby Thain via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 2018-03-14 6:55 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > > On 14 March 2018 at 11:06, Adrian Graham via cctalk > > wrote: > >> > >> I'm in the process of giving > >> some of them away though because they take up too much room. > > > > The OpenBSD project are, or were, looking for donations of high-end > > VAXstations. I offered them a VAXstation 4000/60 (Red Hat offered to > > sponsor shipping from London to Canada) but after some > > toing-and-froing, Theo DeRaadt turned it down. > > OpenBSD can't support VAX-11 any longer, unless somebody implements TLS > for that architecture (which I believe would need major toolchain work?) > > http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20160309192510 > > That would explain why they no longer want VAX-11 hardware. > > --Toby > > > > > Unfortunately, I believe RH has now lost my machine. :-( > > > > But if anyone is willing to donate a /90 or similar, he might be > interested. > > > > > From holm at freibergnet.de Wed Mar 14 11:22:42 2018 From: holm at freibergnet.de (Holm Tiffe) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 17:22:42 +0100 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20180314162242.GD1920@beast.freibergnet.de> Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk wrote: > Place your wagers... > > > How many more years do you think it'll take before decent, practical-sized Alphas, like the DS15, and to some degree, the DS10, will be obtainable at hobbyist-friendly prices? > > > I have an ES47 I got for a price I could stomach, but it's sans rail kit, drinks power like it's going out of style, and can anchor a 40-ft yacht. > > > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? I have a DEC 500/AU Miata and a 500/AU from Compaq as far as I know, The Comapq ran at 600Mhz 24/7 in a company I was employed with FreeBSD, the DEC is untouched since I got it and has cache memory (3rd. level) in difference to the compaq which has no cache module. Besides of that I have a VAX4000/300 running VMS7.3, an VS4000/90 with VMS 7.3 and NetBSD and a VS3100/M76 with Open- and NetBSD as far as I remember. Most of the time they all switched off, because of enery bills... Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 info at tsht.de Fax +49 3731 74200 Tel +49 3731 74222 Mobil: 0172 8790 741 From mazzinia at tin.it Wed Mar 14 12:17:23 2018 From: mazzinia at tin.it (Mazzini Alessandro) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 18:17:23 +0100 Subject: R: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <6aa22710-01d9-29a7-2eaa-c4382f379456@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <00f001d3bbb8$521f5cc0$f65e1640$@tin.it> I hope the answer is "no" :S -----Messaggio originale----- Da: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Per conto di Pete Lancashire via cctalk Inviato: mercoled? 14 marzo 2018 17:15 A: Toby Thain; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Oggetto: Re: AlphaServers so .... do the 3 macines go in the scrap pile ? https://photos.app.goo.gl/fx4Dw6RrQgVJBXWo1 On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 6:54 AM, Toby Thain via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 2018-03-14 6:55 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > > On 14 March 2018 at 11:06, Adrian Graham via cctalk > > wrote: > >> > >> I'm in the process of giving > >> some of them away though because they take up too much room. > > > > The OpenBSD project are, or were, looking for donations of high-end > > VAXstations. I offered them a VAXstation 4000/60 (Red Hat offered to > > sponsor shipping from London to Canada) but after some > > toing-and-froing, Theo DeRaadt turned it down. > > OpenBSD can't support VAX-11 any longer, unless somebody implements > TLS for that architecture (which I believe would need major toolchain > work?) > > http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20160309192510 > > That would explain why they no longer want VAX-11 hardware. > > --Toby > > > > > Unfortunately, I believe RH has now lost my machine. :-( > > > > But if anyone is willing to donate a /90 or similar, he might be > interested. > > > > > From healyzh at avanthar.com Wed Mar 14 12:18:52 2018 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 10:18:52 -0700 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <6aa22710-01d9-29a7-2eaa-c4382f379456@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: What models are these? You said they?re in Oregon? Zane > On Mar 14, 2018, at 9:14 AM, Pete Lancashire via cctalk wrote: > > so .... do the 3 macines go in the scrap pile ? > > https://photos.app.goo.gl/fx4Dw6RrQgVJBXWo1 From pete at petelancashire.com Wed Mar 14 12:27:45 2018 From: pete at petelancashire.com (Pete Lancashire) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 10:27:45 -0700 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <6aa22710-01d9-29a7-2eaa-c4382f379456@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: The are in Oregon about 25 miles west of Portland. I don't remember the model numbers. It maybe some time before I can get to them, but they to go, where they are being stored needs to be emptied of anything of value by early July. What is left will go to recycle or metal scrap. I am looking for a few $'s to cover the expenses against my estate. Like $200 for all three ? Maybe someone on CC can ID them. One or two were running when moved to storge. -pete On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 10:18 AM, Zane Healy wrote: > What models are these? You said they?re in Oregon? > > Zane > > > > > On Mar 14, 2018, at 9:14 AM, Pete Lancashire via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > so .... do the 3 macines go in the scrap pile ? > > > > https://photos.app.goo.gl/fx4Dw6RrQgVJBXWo1 > > > From binarydinosaurs at gmail.com Wed Mar 14 12:31:36 2018 From: binarydinosaurs at gmail.com (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 17:31:36 +0000 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <6aa22710-01d9-29a7-2eaa-c4382f379456@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <71820F04-ABBA-46C3-AD47-DA3C5F8DD4B5@gmail.com> >Maybe someone on CC can ID them Looks like an 800, DS20 and either a 1200 or early DS20 which was built into a 1200 case. Sent from my iPhone > On 14 Mar 2018, at 17:27, Pete Lancashire via cctalk wrote: > > Maybe someone on CC can ID them From healyzh at avanthar.com Wed Mar 14 13:47:05 2018 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 11:47:05 -0700 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <6EA46BA4-487F-43DE-ACBE-001862FE8460@avanthar.com> > On Mar 13, 2018, at 1:54 PM, geneb via cctalk wrote: > > On Tue, 13 Mar 2018, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > >> Really on the VAX side, emulation makes sense. For $75, I picked up a HP i5 system that?s dedicated to running SIMH 24x7, and I also have SIMH running on my HP i7 ESXI system, and on a RPi2. The i7 is my fastest ?VAX?. >> > Zane, what's the host OS that you're using for SIMH? > > tnx. > > g. I?m currently using Ubuntu (I?ve run SIMH a lot of different UNIX & Linux flavors over the years). With the ESXI and RPi systems, I?m using the version of SIMH/VAX that Ubuntu provides. With the i5, I upgraded to current to try to resolve some issues. The i5 is serving up several large drives, and a couple small Shadowsets that it shares with another system. The Shadowsets are for Cluster Files, and critical data. It?s also my cluster tape server (virtual tapes). There can be issues, but I think the ones I?ve run into are more a OpenVMS/VAX v7.3 & OpenVMS/Alpha v8.3 clustering issue. Backing up an ODS-5 disk from a VAX isn?t a good idea, but it seems fine to back it up from the Alpha, to a tape drive on the VAX. Zane From geneb at deltasoft.com Wed Mar 14 14:40:27 2018 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 12:40:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: <6EA46BA4-487F-43DE-ACBE-001862FE8460@avanthar.com> References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> <6EA46BA4-487F-43DE-ACBE-001862FE8460@avanthar.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Mar 2018, Zane Healy wrote: >> >>> Really on the VAX side, emulation makes sense. For $75, I picked up a >>> HP i5 system that?s dedicated to running SIMH 24x7, and I also have >>> SIMH running on my HP i7 ESXI system, and on a RPi2. The i7 is my >>> fastest ?VAX?. >>> >> Zane, what's the host OS that you're using for SIMH? >> >> tnx. >> >> g. > > I?m currently using Ubuntu (I?ve run SIMH a lot of different UNIX & > Linux flavors over the years). > > With the ESXI and RPi systems, I?m using the version of SIMH/VAX that > Ubuntu provides. With the i5, I upgraded to current to try to resolve > some issues. The i5 is serving up several large drives, and a couple > small Shadowsets that it shares with another system. The Shadowsets are > for Cluster Files, and critical data. It?s also my cluster tape server > (virtual tapes). > > There can be issues, but I think the ones I?ve run into are more a > OpenVMS/VAX v7.3 & OpenVMS/Alpha v8.3 clustering issue. Backing up an > ODS-5 disk from a VAX isn?t a good idea, but it seems fine to back it up > from the Alpha, to a tape drive on the VAX. What model of HP i5 did you get? I'm entertaining the idea of getting another R710, but they're still ~$250 plus drives. tnx. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From fred at MISER.MISERNET.NET Wed Mar 14 16:03:41 2018 From: fred at MISER.MISERNET.NET (Fred) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 16:03:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 42, Issue 14 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 14:28:11 -0600 > From: Grant Taylor > Subject: Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 42, Issue 13 > Message-ID: > <6a172546-d8f1-13b9-f843-8fdba5799f09 at spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> > > If power / cooling / noise wasn't an issue, I'd also be interested in an > Multiprise 3000. > But, I'm happily married and I would like to keep it that way. The power requirements aren't that bad, are they? I think Guy Sotomayor (spelling, apologies if I'm butchering ...) has a MP3K that I believe I bid against him on eBay once, and he ended up getting it (which made me feel a bit better). It's what I call a 1/4 fridge size. There were/are multi MP3K's on eBay currently that I've been watching, and one didn't know if there was an OS on it (Not sure I'd want to fight that battle with IBM, although a corner of the Internet lengthy forum post (yes, anecdotes are not evidence) leads me to believe they at least are "sympathetic" to hobbyists, but they won't publically admit it. ... but I still didn't want to chance getting a paperweight. The other one is way too much for me $ wise. I have a basement and 220V available. For an IBM Mainframe of my own, damn the power bill. :) As long as it doesn't have the awful whine of an Alpha DS10-L I don't think my wife would mind. I will admit to myself that at some point there will be a limit to how many systems I can have at the house though running 24/7.... :) Fred From ggs at shiresoft.com Wed Mar 14 15:15:15 2018 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor Jr) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 13:15:15 -0700 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 42, Issue 14 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7F6CFFC3-8A51-449A-AF68-4B48AC1D46B1@shiresoft.com> > On Mar 14, 2018, at 2:03 PM, Fred via cctalk wrote: > > >> Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2018 14:28:11 -0600 >> From: Grant Taylor >> Subject: Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 42, Issue 13 >> Message-ID: >> <6a172546-d8f1-13b9-f843-8fdba5799f09 at spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> >> >> If power / cooling / noise wasn't an issue, I'd also be interested in an >> Multiprise 3000. > >> But, I'm happily married and I would like to keep it that way. > > The power requirements aren't that bad, are they? > > I think Guy Sotomayor (spelling, apologies if I'm butchering ...) has a > MP3K that I believe I bid against him on eBay once, and he ended up > getting it (which made me feel a bit better). It's what I call a 1/4 > fridge size. Spelling?s correct! Realistically, none of these are really that big power hogs. MP3K runs on a normal 120v/20A circuit (I believe it?s about ~1500W when fully configured). I don?t run it 24/7 (actually I haven?t run it in a while?too much other stuff going on at the moment). My 4331 (whose peripherals required 208v 3-phase) all told needs ~20KVA. That *will* put a dent in my power bill. > > There were/are multi MP3K's on eBay currently that I've been watching, and > one didn't know if there was an OS on it (Not sure I'd want to fight that > battle with IBM, although a corner of the Internet lengthy forum post > (yes, anecdotes are not evidence) leads me to believe they at least are > "sympathetic" to hobbyists, but they won't publically admit it. ... but > I still didn't want to chance getting a paperweight. The other one is way > too much for me $ wise. I think one of them is an Enterprise Server and not an MP3K. > > I have a basement and 220V available. For an IBM Mainframe of my own, > damn the power bill. :) As long as it doesn't have the awful whine of > an Alpha DS10-L I don't think my wife would mind. That?s also why all of my ?stuff? (junk as my wife calls it) is in a separate building on our property. Out of sight/out of mind. ;-) My shop has dedicated 220V @ 200A, so I have a ?reasonable? amount of power. ;-) > > I will admit to myself that at some point there will be a limit to how > many systems I can have at the house though running 24/7.... :) ;-) The only stuff that I run 24/7 is my network infrastructure, work machines and my iMac that is our media server (which is getting perilously close to completely filling a 16TB RAID). TTFN - Guy From healyzh at avanthar.com Wed Mar 14 16:43:59 2018 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 14:43:59 -0700 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> <6EA46BA4-487F-43DE-ACBE-001862FE8460@avanthar.com> Message-ID: <978130B7-6CB3-4AB5-BEB4-D5959B5861C3@avanthar.com> > On Mar 14, 2018, at 12:40 PM, geneb via cctalk wrote: > > On Wed, 14 Mar 2018, Zane Healy wrote: > >> I?m currently using Ubuntu (I?ve run SIMH a lot of different UNIX & Linux flavors over the years). >> >> With the ESXI and RPi systems, I?m using the version of SIMH/VAX that Ubuntu provides. With the i5, I upgraded to current to try to resolve some issues. The i5 is serving up several large drives, and a couple small Shadowsets that it shares with another system. The Shadowsets are for Cluster Files, and critical data. It?s also my cluster tape server (virtual tapes). >> >> There can be issues, but I think the ones I?ve run into are more a OpenVMS/VAX v7.3 & OpenVMS/Alpha v8.3 clustering issue. Backing up an ODS-5 disk from a VAX isn?t a good idea, but it seems fine to back it up from the Alpha, to a tape drive on the VAX. > > What model of HP i5 did you get? I'm entertaining the idea of getting another R710, but they're still ~$250 plus drives. > > tnx. > > g. I?ve been using the HP SFF systems. I think the i5 I got specifically to run SIMH is a 6300. It?s an i5-3470 3.2Ghz system with 4 GB RAM. I had to add a hard drive, but had an old 500GB drive laying around. That?s plenty big to backup and migrate the data on my Compaq XP1000 running OpenVMS 8.3 to. It?s not a modern system, but it?s newer by far than any of my real VMS hardware. To me the key thing is, it only cost $75. I also have two other HP SFF systems, both are 8200?s one is an i5, the other an i7. The i7 is the ESXI system I mentioned. The VM running SIMH is able to outperform SIMH on the HP 6300 SFF box. I initially had lots of issues with clock drift on OpenVMS running under ESXI, but it turns out that was due to my having throttled the VM itself. Once I removed that, everything is fine. I?ve since switched to using CPU idling under SIMH, to reduce the load on the host CPU. In spite of having a website on emulating DEC HW, I?ve resisted emulating the VAX, as I didn?t see the point. We?ve reached the point where even a RPI running SIMH outperforms most of my VAXen, and the i5 and i7 based systems running SIMH can outperform all of my VAXen. I just wish the hobbyist options for Alpha emulation were better. I may consider picking up another HP SFF running a supported version of Windows, and then trying the Alpha emulation on it. Zane From geneb at deltasoft.com Wed Mar 14 17:01:12 2018 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 15:01:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: <978130B7-6CB3-4AB5-BEB4-D5959B5861C3@avanthar.com> References: <01QQ37CYDJ860000GP@beyondthepale.ie> <6EA46BA4-487F-43DE-ACBE-001862FE8460@avanthar.com> <978130B7-6CB3-4AB5-BEB4-D5959B5861C3@avanthar.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Mar 2018, Zane Healy wrote: > I?ve been using the HP SFF systems. I think the i5 I got specifically > to run SIMH is a 6300. It?s an i5-3470 3.2Ghz system with 4 GB RAM. I > had to add a hard drive, but had an old 500GB drive laying around. > That?s plenty big to backup and migrate the data on my Compaq XP1000 > running OpenVMS 8.3 to. It?s not a modern system, but it?s newer by far > than any of my real VMS hardware. To me the key thing is, it only cost > $75. > Ah, ok. So you're using little desktop boxes for it. You might want to look into an R710 then. I paid around $350 for mine (no drives) and it came with a pair of Xeon 5570 CPUs at 2.93 Ghz and 32GB of RAM. I dropped four Western Digital 2TB Red SATA drives into it and it goes like a scalded cat. I've got three Win7x64, four Linux servers, one MacOS and one FreeBSD instance running on it. The average power consumption is around 173 watts according to ESXi. I may have to try SIMH on there as well, but the only PAKs I have are for MicroVMS 4 if memory serves... g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Mar 14 18:08:06 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 16:08:06 -0700 Subject: Anyone have a Fujitsu M2451E 130mb tape drive manual? Message-ID: I have a couple of carts I'd like to read, found a drive today, talks SCSI but not common command set. It seems to act more like a disk than a tape (read block makes the tape move), but mode sense doesn't return anything sensible. The only thing I've ever been able to turn up on these drives is a mention in a Fuji product brochure From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Mar 14 18:12:08 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2018 16:12:08 -0700 Subject: Anyone have a Fujitsu M2451E 130mb tape drive manual? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: oh, and obviously, the Fujitsu carts, which sort of look like DLTs, can only be read in this drive. On 3/14/18 4:08 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > I have a couple of carts I'd like to read, found a drive today, talks SCSI but not common command set. > It seems to act more like a disk than a tape (read block makes the tape move), but mode sense doesn't > return anything sensible. > > The only thing I've ever been able to turn up on these drives is a mention in a Fuji product brochure > > From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de Thu Mar 15 03:29:10 2018 From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Veit, Holger) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2018 09:29:10 +0100 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: <028a01d3b9f3$1a73e230$4f5ba690$@gmail.com> References: <03EDE992-5602-4573-8C56-0D6ADDF25F24@swri.edu> <7wpo49ixpu.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <028a01d3b9f3$1a73e230$4f5ba690$@gmail.com> Message-ID: You might look up Nick Tredennick's book "Microprocessor Logic Design: The Flowchart Method" which is sold at Amazon for an obscene price - but maybe some university library has a copy. It's focus is on a methodology for designing microcode, and it uses the design of the single chip 370 to explain it. I suppose it was a PhD thesis. The main point is that the 370 is NOT an 68000 with a different microcode; instead it is said that it implements the bus interface of the 68K in order to interface easily with existing peripherals (rather than reinventing the wheel). The internal data paths and register sets may be similar between the 68K and the 370 (actually it is quite possible that at Motorola they were aware of IBM mainframe architectures...) but that's all likely. The control unit design described in the book was completely redesigned for the purpose of describing the proposed methodology. Holger Am 12.03.2018 um 12:13 schrieb Dave Wade via cctalk: > I don't suppose any one left in IBM has any knowledge of this. Perhaps no > one ever did and it was all done by Motorola. Wikipedia says there were/are > 2x68000 CPU's.. > .. I would ask on IBM Main... > > http://www.cpushack.com/2013/03/22/cpu-of-the-day-ibm-micro-370/ > > seems to have some names.. > > Dave > > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk On Behalf Of Lars Brinkhoff >> via cctalk >> Sent: 12 March 2018 07:02 >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Subject: XT/370 microcode >> >> Does someone have good connections with people inside IBM? I'd like to > ask >> about 68000 microcode for the XT/370 product. From emu at e-bbes.com Thu Mar 15 07:04:38 2018 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2018 13:04:38 +0100 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: References: <03EDE992-5602-4573-8C56-0D6ADDF25F24@swri.edu> <7wpo49ixpu.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <028a01d3b9f3$1a73e230$4f5ba690$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4e8ef16e-7845-f4dc-2ae2-edb4cec39e38@e-bbes.com> On 2018-03-15 09:29, Veit, Holger via cctalk wrote: > You might look up Nick Tredennick's book "Microprocessor Logic Design: > The Flowchart Method" which is sold at Amazon for an obscene price - but > maybe some university library has a copy. It's focus is on a methodology > for designing microcode, and it uses the design of the single chip 370 > to explain it. I suppose it was a PhD thesis. He did the 68000 microcode first, and then moved to IBM ... From camiel.vanderhoeven at vmssoftware.com Thu Mar 15 07:58:09 2018 From: camiel.vanderhoeven at vmssoftware.com (Camiel Vanderhoeven) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2018 13:58:09 +0100 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: References: <03EDE992-5602-4573-8C56-0D6ADDF25F24@swri.edu> <7wpo49ixpu.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <028a01d3b9f3$1a73e230$4f5ba690$@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 3/15/18, 9:29 AM, "cctech on behalf of Veit, Holger via cctech" wrote: You might look up Nick Tredennick's book "Microprocessor Logic Design: The Flowchart Method" which is sold at Amazon for an obscene price - but maybe some university library has a copy. It's focus is on a methodology for designing microcode, and it uses the design of the single chip 370 to explain it. I suppose it was a PhD thesis. The main point is that the 370 is NOT an 68000 with a different microcode; instead it is said that it implements the bus interface of the 68K in order to interface easily with existing peripherals (rather than reinventing the wheel). The internal data paths and register sets may be similar between the 68K and the 370 (actually it is quite possible that at Motorola they were aware of IBM mainframe architectures...) but that's all likely. The control unit design described in the book was completely redesigned for the purpose of describing the proposed methodology. Holger There are two distinct products (well, one product and one project that never made it onto a product) here that get confused. First, the XT/370. This card uses a 68000 with modified firmware (nick was one of the Motorola engineers helping implement this for IBM), as well as a modified 8087, and a stock 68000. Later, Nick left Motorola and came to work at IBM on the Micro/370. The Micro/370 is the 370 on a single chip, and it uses the 68000 bus, but is otherwise different from it. A good writeup of the story can be found here: http://www.cpushack.com/2013/03/22/cpu-of-the-day-ibm-micro-370/ Camiel From camiel.vanderhoeven at vmssoftware.com Thu Mar 15 07:58:09 2018 From: camiel.vanderhoeven at vmssoftware.com (Camiel Vanderhoeven) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2018 13:58:09 +0100 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: References: <03EDE992-5602-4573-8C56-0D6ADDF25F24@swri.edu> <7wpo49ixpu.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <028a01d3b9f3$1a73e230$4f5ba690$@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 3/15/18, 9:29 AM, "cctech on behalf of Veit, Holger via cctech" wrote: You might look up Nick Tredennick's book "Microprocessor Logic Design: The Flowchart Method" which is sold at Amazon for an obscene price - but maybe some university library has a copy. It's focus is on a methodology for designing microcode, and it uses the design of the single chip 370 to explain it. I suppose it was a PhD thesis. The main point is that the 370 is NOT an 68000 with a different microcode; instead it is said that it implements the bus interface of the 68K in order to interface easily with existing peripherals (rather than reinventing the wheel). The internal data paths and register sets may be similar between the 68K and the 370 (actually it is quite possible that at Motorola they were aware of IBM mainframe architectures...) but that's all likely. The control unit design described in the book was completely redesigned for the purpose of describing the proposed methodology. Holger There are two distinct products (well, one product and one project that never made it onto a product) here that get confused. First, the XT/370. This card uses a 68000 with modified firmware (nick was one of the Motorola engineers helping implement this for IBM), as well as a modified 8087, and a stock 68000. Later, Nick left Motorola and came to work at IBM on the Micro/370. The Micro/370 is the 370 on a single chip, and it uses the 68000 bus, but is otherwise different from it. A good writeup of the story can be found here: http://www.cpushack.com/2013/03/22/cpu-of-the-day-ibm-micro-370/ Camiel From bob at jfcl.com Thu Mar 15 12:35:51 2018 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2018 10:35:51 -0700 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: References: <03EDE992-5602-4573-8C56-0D6ADDF25F24@swri.edu> <7wpo49ixpu.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <028a01d3b9f3$1a73e230$4f5ba690$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <004c01d3bc84$103d15a0$30b740e0$@com> >You might look up Nick Tredennick's book "Microprocessor Logic Design: >The Flowchart Method" which is sold at Amazon for an obscene price FWIW, there are several copies on Abe Books ranging in price from "only" $800 (a steal!) to almost $1200. I'd love to read it, but that's ludicrous. Is this book bound in solid gold or something??? Bob From bob at jfcl.com Thu Mar 15 22:22:48 2018 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2018 20:22:48 -0700 Subject: CXY08 and DELQA compatible with 2.11bsd? Message-ID: <002401d3bcd6$0f9591c0$2ec0b540$@com> Does anyone know offhand if the CXY08 (M3119) and DELQA (M7516) work with 2.11bsd? I think the CXY08 has the same programmer interface as the DHV11, and I'm hoping it works with the 2.11bsd dh driver. Ditto for the DELQA and the qe driver. If somebody knows for sure, though, I'd appreciate it if you can save me the trouble of installing it all just to find out it doesn't work. Thanks, Bob From derschjo at gmail.com Fri Mar 16 01:03:22 2018 From: derschjo at gmail.com (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2018 23:03:22 -0700 Subject: CXY08 and DELQA compatible with 2.11bsd? In-Reply-To: <002401d3bcd6$0f9591c0$2ec0b540$@com> References: <002401d3bcd6$0f9591c0$2ec0b540$@com> Message-ID: <0cfd3bb3-2700-07ca-0bd7-9007a91654a3@gmail.com> On 3/15/2018 8:22 PM, Robert Armstrong via cctalk wrote: > Does anyone know offhand if the CXY08 (M3119) and DELQA (M7516) work with > 2.11bsd? > > > > I think the CXY08 has the same programmer interface as the DHV11, and I'm > hoping it works with the 2.11bsd dh driver. Ditto for the DELQA and the qe > driver. If somebody knows for sure, though, I'd appreciate it if you can > save me the trouble of installing it all just to find out it doesn't work. The DELQA should work fine with the qe driver.? I can't comment on the CXY08 as I've never tried it personally. - Josh > > > > Thanks, > > Bob > > From derschjo at gmail.com Fri Mar 16 01:08:48 2018 From: derschjo at gmail.com (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2018 23:08:48 -0700 Subject: CXY08 and DELQA compatible with 2.11bsd? In-Reply-To: <0cfd3bb3-2700-07ca-0bd7-9007a91654a3@gmail.com> References: <002401d3bcd6$0f9591c0$2ec0b540$@com> <0cfd3bb3-2700-07ca-0bd7-9007a91654a3@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6c57dd02-cfe5-06ff-6438-26ea5dc3f548@gmail.com> On 3/15/2018 11:03 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: > On 3/15/2018 8:22 PM, Robert Armstrong via cctalk wrote: > >> ?? Does anyone know offhand if the CXY08 (M3119) and DELQA (M7516) >> work with >> 2.11bsd? >> >> >> ?? I think the CXY08 has the same programmer interface as the DHV11, >> and I'm >> hoping it works with the 2.11bsd dh driver.? Ditto for the DELQA and >> the qe >> driver.? If somebody knows for sure, though, I'd appreciate it if you >> can >> save me the trouble of installing it all just to find out it doesn't >> work. > > The DELQA should work fine with the qe driver.? I can't comment on the > CXY08 as I've never tried it personally. > > - Josh > > Correction: it's the "qt" driver for the DELQA.? Regardless, it should work... >> >> >> Thanks, >> >> Bob >> >> > From emu at e-bbes.com Fri Mar 16 01:54:04 2018 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 07:54:04 +0100 Subject: XT/370 microcode In-Reply-To: <004c01d3bc84$103d15a0$30b740e0$@com> References: <03EDE992-5602-4573-8C56-0D6ADDF25F24@swri.edu> <7wpo49ixpu.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <028a01d3b9f3$1a73e230$4f5ba690$@gmail.com> <004c01d3bc84$103d15a0$30b740e0$@com> Message-ID: <1d7290ac-18f8-83ea-da08-f87f2cbc9e95@e-bbes.com> On 2018-03-15 18:35, Robert Armstrong via cctalk wrote: >> You might look up Nick Tredennick's book "Microprocessor Logic Design: >> The Flowchart Method" which is sold at Amazon for an obscene price > > FWIW, there are several copies on Abe Books ranging in price from "only" $800 (a steal!) to almost $1200. > > I'd love to read it, but that's ludicrous. Is this book bound in solid gold or something??? It was mentioned few month ago in a newsgroup. So all "reasonable" copies got sold, and the price increased. Just wait ... But it is a nice reading, I don't always agree with N.Tredennick, and explains pretty much, why this CPUs were/are so weird ... From imp at bsdimp.com Fri Mar 16 10:23:31 2018 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 09:23:31 -0600 Subject: CXY08 and DELQA compatible with 2.11bsd? In-Reply-To: <0cfd3bb3-2700-07ca-0bd7-9007a91654a3@gmail.com> References: <002401d3bcd6$0f9591c0$2ec0b540$@com> <0cfd3bb3-2700-07ca-0bd7-9007a91654a3@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 12:03 AM, Josh Dersch via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 3/15/2018 8:22 PM, Robert Armstrong via cctalk wrote: > > Does anyone know offhand if the CXY08 (M3119) and DELQA (M7516) work >> with >> 2.11bsd? >> >> >> I think the CXY08 has the same programmer interface as the DHV11, and >> I'm >> hoping it works with the 2.11bsd dh driver. Ditto for the DELQA and the >> qe >> driver. If somebody knows for sure, though, I'd appreciate it if you can >> save me the trouble of installing it all just to find out it doesn't work. >> > > The DELQA should work fine with the qe driver. I can't comment on the > CXY08 as I've never tried it personally. > At least he's not trying to use a DEQNA interface, so he's ahead of the game... Warner > - Josh > > > >> >> Thanks, >> >> Bob >> >> >> > From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Mar 16 10:51:02 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 08:51:02 -0700 Subject: Did anyone on the list get these tapes? Message-ID: <74afad8d-f522-a0ab-9c61-da7460b582c9@bitsavers.org> https://www.ebay.com/itm/1372243559202 basic.p11 syslod.p11 rdt.p11 all from mid 1971 original RSTS? hope the person who got these knows what they bought From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Mar 16 11:07:40 2018 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 16:07:40 +0000 Subject: Did anyone on the list get these tapes? In-Reply-To: <74afad8d-f522-a0ab-9c61-da7460b582c9@bitsavers.org> References: <74afad8d-f522-a0ab-9c61-da7460b582c9@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 8:51 AM Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > https://www.ebay.com/itm/1372243559202 > > basic.p11 > syslod.p11 > rdt.p11 > > all from mid 1971 > original RSTS? > > hope the person who got these knows what they bought > Extra digit in that link, try: https://www.ebay.com/itm/372243559202 > From derschjo at gmail.com Fri Mar 16 12:39:50 2018 From: derschjo at gmail.com (Josh Dersch) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 10:39:50 -0700 Subject: Did anyone on the list get these tapes? In-Reply-To: References: <74afad8d-f522-a0ab-9c61-da7460b582c9@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 9:07 AM, Glen Slick via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 8:51 AM Al Kossow via cctalk > wrote: > > > https://www.ebay.com/itm/1372243559202 > > > > basic.p11 > > syslod.p11 > > rdt.p11 > > > > all from mid 1971 > > original RSTS? > > > > hope the person who got these knows what they bought > > > > Extra digit in that link, try: > > https://www.ebay.com/itm/372243559202 > > > > The LCM+L bought them, we're going to image them when they arrive (and I'll be sure to send a copy your way). - Josh From cube1 at charter.net Fri Mar 16 12:43:30 2018 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 12:43:30 -0500 Subject: Did anyone on the list get these tapes? In-Reply-To: References: <74afad8d-f522-a0ab-9c61-da7460b582c9@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <0A0CB1B0-FB09-4E68-8194-0A2972C16C11@charter.net> > On Mar 16, 2018, at 12:39, Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote: > > On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 9:07 AM, Glen Slick via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> On Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 8:51 AM Al Kossow via cctalk >> wrote: >> >>> https://www.ebay.com/itm/1372243559202 >>> >>> basic.p11 >>> syslod.p11 >>> rdt.p11 >>> >>> all from mid 1971 >>> original RSTS? >>> >>> hope the person who got these knows what they bought >>> >> >> Extra digit in that link, try: >> >> https://www.ebay.com/itm/372243559202 >> >>> >> > > The LCM+L bought them, we're going to image them when they arrive (and I'll > be sure to send a copy your way). > > - Josh Yayyyy!!! I saw those and there were some tapes their that looked like my PDP-12 might enjoy then. Sent from my iPad From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Mar 16 12:45:25 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 10:45:25 -0700 Subject: Did anyone on the list get these tapes? In-Reply-To: References: <74afad8d-f522-a0ab-9c61-da7460b582c9@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <5f8c222d-1c4e-ce0b-4480-38cf20ab552a@bitsavers.org> On 3/16/18 10:39 AM, Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote: > The LCM+L bought them Good Job! I was hoping you guys did, when I saw there was a copy of PAL10 on there. From paulkoning at comcast.net Fri Mar 16 15:37:54 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 16:37:54 -0400 Subject: Did anyone on the list get these tapes? In-Reply-To: <74afad8d-f522-a0ab-9c61-da7460b582c9@bitsavers.org> References: <74afad8d-f522-a0ab-9c61-da7460b582c9@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: > On Mar 16, 2018, at 11:51 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > https://www.ebay.com/itm/1372243559202 > > basic.p11 > syslod.p11 > rdt.p11 > > all from mid 1971 > original RSTS? > > hope the person who got these knows what they bought "P11" was the extension used for PDP-11 assembly files very early on. I assume that was because they were cross-assembled on a PDP-10. Presumably PALX11.MAC which is on one of the other tapes! One of the tapes seems to be a SNOBOL implementation, with LOW and HGH and SHR extensions which sounds vaguely familiar from long ago when I briefly used TOPS-10. Another has SIMX11.SAV, wonder if that might be MIMIC. That would be quite a find. And on the same tape IOX.P11, that sounds like the early "papertape I/O executive". One tape is labeled "New PS/8". BASIC.P11 could be the RSTS BASIC code, that too would be a very interesting discovery with that date. SYSLOD is the DOS installer. RDT I don't recognize. I'm seriously looking forward to seeing image files of those tapes. paul From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Fri Mar 16 19:03:13 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 20:03:13 -0400 (EDT) Subject: radar history Message-ID: <20180317000313.E8B5218C099@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Steven Malikoff > I also have a book 'RADAR How it all began' by Jim Brown ... > incredibly precise recollection of the engineering Wow, thanks for that incredibly valuable pointer. My copy just arrived, and it's fabulous; it documents in great detail a part of the story that's little-known, which is the industrialization of the early radar work. There are a number of books from people on the research side (Watson-Watt, Bowen, etc), but not much on the industrial side. There is an obscure book: Frank Rowlinson, "Contribution to Victory: An Account of Some of the Special Work of the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company Limited in the Second World War", Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company, Manshester, 1947 (which covers a lot of stuff, not just the radar work), but it doesn't have a lot of technical detail. What it _does_ have a lot of large, excellent B+W photos of the early CH, CHL etc transmitters (which MetroVick built), but not much technical detail of them. That book, and Brown's book, are a marvellous pairing, since he has the detailed description, but no images! A very complementary pairing. Noel From chd at chdickman.com Fri Mar 16 19:28:30 2018 From: chd at chdickman.com (Charles Dickman) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 20:28:30 -0400 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles Message-ID: So the PDP8/e used the KC8-EA programmers console which has incandescent indicator lamps and the PDP8/f used the KC8-FL programmers console which has LED indicator lamps. Why? The maintenance manual says that LEDs are more reliable. The operation is as far as I know the same. The LED version doesn't need the +8VDC supply, but that seems an advantage for it. I remember reading that the EAE had some revision dependencies with the console, so were there bus timing problems with the LED console that limited it to short buses? Maybe this changed over time, but it overlapped long enough for them to have both described in the maintenance manual and specific to the application. Another console question... Has anyone ever seen a PDP8/i style console for the PDP8/e? Looking at the way the PDP8/e console functions, it should be possible to time multiplex all the register to the data bus so they are all visible at once when the machine is halted. -chuck From couryhouse at aol.com Fri Mar 16 19:32:54 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 20:32:54 -0400 Subject: Noel idea you were into raddar so much too cool! Message-ID: <162315f9efb-1bab-6174@webjas-vab174.srv.aolmail.net> all in the ?title From chd at chdickman.com Fri Mar 16 19:39:41 2018 From: chd at chdickman.com (Charles Dickman) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 20:39:41 -0400 Subject: DEC bus edge connectors Message-ID: Does anyone have DEC bus edge connectors they are willing to sell? I would like to do some OMNIBUS interface prototyping and I need a way to connect to the bus back-plane. In my mis-guided youth I resorted so sawing them off perfectly good boards. I would rather not do that again. If anyone has prototype boards they have designed with fingers or dead boards they would part I will take them. My methods are crude, but effective. -chuck From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Fri Mar 16 19:59:39 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 20:59:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: DEC bus edge connectors Message-ID: <20180317005939.61E9518C085@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Charles Dickman > Does anyone have DEC bus edge connectors they are willing to sell? > I would like to do some OMNIBUS interface prototyping and I need a way > to connect to the bus back-plane. Have you looked through Douglas Electronics' offerings? They have a lot of DEC-backplane compatible boards that might be what you want, e.g.: http://www.douglas.com/index.php/18-de-77.html this one. Noel From chd at chdickman.com Fri Mar 16 20:26:17 2018 From: chd at chdickman.com (Charles Dickman) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 21:26:17 -0400 Subject: DEC bus edge connectors In-Reply-To: <20180317005939.61E9518C085@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180317005939.61E9518C085@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 8:59 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > Have you looked through Douglas Electronics' offerings? They have a lot of > DEC-backplane compatible boards that might be what you want, e.g.: > > http://www.douglas.com/index.php/18-de-77.html > > this one. Interesting. I have looked at them before on the larger perf boards, but that is a good price for what I want. Thanks for the pointer, -chuck From allisonportable at gmail.com Fri Mar 16 20:59:13 2018 From: allisonportable at gmail.com (allison) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 21:59:13 -0400 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9ae5314a-5f4c-6e51-fb15-4110c24b67c8@gmail.com> On 03/16/2018 08:28 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > So the PDP8/e used the KC8-EA programmers console which has > incandescent indicator lamps and the PDP8/f used the KC8-FL > programmers console which has LED indicator lamps. Wrong.? The 8f uses the same as the 8e.? It was the 8m that had the LED console.? If memory serves it was date of design that influenced it. I can be certain as I have an 8f built in 1973.? I've since moded it to take bright yellow LEDs as lamps are not easy to find and annoying to replace.? If I care to I can put the lamps back.? Since I put operational over absolute faithful its better as is, less digging in the box. > Why? > > The maintenance manual says that LEDs are more reliable. The operation > is as far as I know the same. The LED version doesn't need the +8VDC > supply, but that seems an advantage for it. I remember reading that > the EAE had some revision dependencies with the console, so were there > bus timing problems with the LED console that limited it to short > buses? Cost to redesign and the cost of LEDs, and their lack of brightness then didn't justify it.? The 8m was aimed at the industrial user that would use it differently, usually wrapped in a box to protect it from the shop floor dust and grime and generally less maintenance. Many sites have the M and the F swapped on the LEDs.? However the LED equipped machines are rare and all the 8f machines I know of have the 8v power for lamps.? The LED version can use 5V or 8V. However its possible to swap the panels, I tried it once and it pass diags and worked fine.? Didn't like the red. The biggest difference is the lamp panels have resistors to keep the filament warm but not glowing for improved life and those are not there for LEDs (it would keep LEDs lit).??? The LED did not need that resistor but needed a current limited resistor for the LED.? Otherwise they were the same and there was no timing impact. Keep in mind they all (e,f,M) could use the the industrial minimal panel that allowed for reset and run using boot roms. > Maybe this changed over time, but it overlapped long enough for them > to have both described in the maintenance manual and specific to the > application. The Incandescent console was higher volume and lingered for that reason. The volumes for the 8m were low as that market was also seeing inroads from the PDP-11 and not much later the LSI-11. There was overlap in production the 8e was very popular until the 8A which was cheaper and more compact. > Another console question... > > Has anyone ever seen a PDP8/i style console for the PDP8/e? Looking at > the way the PDP8/e console functions, it should be possible to time > multiplex all the register to the data bus so they are all visible at > once when the machine is halted. No and can't! ? The 8i (nor the 8L) was not omnibus.? The boards to make up the console were not compatible with the 8e.??? Yes, you can display the same stuff if you were to make your own, all the signals are on the omnibus and it would take some buffering maybe some latches.? The 8e form used fewer lamps and fewer lamp driver parts so it was less expensive to make and maintain.? Yes, one could kluge it, taking into account you need a hand wired backplane for the M-series flipchips that support the 8i panel and getting the signal polarity right. Its forgotten that the 8 series runs from transistors, early DTL, TTL, and later CMOS and had seen at least 5 iterations from the PDP-5 though the late-8 CMOS chip based series (decmate I/II/III). The 8e represented the first of the family of pdp-8 that had a unified bus both in signals, timing and physical structure.? It was the a major repackage of the PDP-8i to both a smaller, less expensive, easier to manufacture, repair, and test.?? Whats missed was the 8e/f/M were the easiest of the 8 series to interface to anything and they did indeed get a lot of hand made one off interfaces for specific missions.? As a result the 8e was nearly the ubiquitous small computer. Allison > -chuck From kylevowen at gmail.com Fri Mar 16 21:31:04 2018 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2018 02:31:04 +0000 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles In-Reply-To: <9ae5314a-5f4c-6e51-fb15-4110c24b67c8@gmail.com> References: <9ae5314a-5f4c-6e51-fb15-4110c24b67c8@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 20:58 allison via cctalk wrote: > On 03/16/2018 08:28 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > > So the PDP8/e used the KC8-EA programmers console which has > > incandescent indicator lamps and the PDP8/f used the KC8-FL > > programmers console which has LED indicator lamps. > Wrong. The 8f uses the same as the 8e. It was the 8m that had the > LED console. If memory serves it was date of design that influenced it. > I have seen several 8/f systems that have LEDs, for what it's worth. I can only imagine DEC was transitioning the 8/m and 8/f to take LEDs instead of incandescents. > > I can be certain as I have an 8f built in 1973. I've since moded it to > take bright yellow LEDs as lamps are not easy to find and annoying > to replace. If I care to I can put the lamps back. Since I put > operational > over absolute faithful its better as is, less digging in the box. > The bulbs are still available on Mouser. I've ordered a bunch for my 8/e and have been very happy with them. http://so-much-stuff.com/pdp8/repair/bulbs.php > > However its possible to swap the panels, I tried it once and it pass diags > and worked fine. Didn't like the red. > I've found that my LED 8/m is very hard to read, as the LEDs are very dim. > > > > > Another console question... > > > > Has anyone ever seen a PDP8/i style console for the PDP8/e? Looking at > > the way the PDP8/e console functions, it should be possible to time > > multiplex all the register to the data bus so they are all visible at > > once when the machine is halted. > No and can't! The 8i (nor the 8L) was not omnibus. > I think he's aware (hence "style"). Kyle > From allisonportable at gmail.com Fri Mar 16 22:19:13 2018 From: allisonportable at gmail.com (allison) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 23:19:13 -0400 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles In-Reply-To: References: <9ae5314a-5f4c-6e51-fb15-4110c24b67c8@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5bed0023-cb9c-d012-7e92-8a45efc68260@gmail.com> On 03/16/2018 10:31 PM, Kyle Owen via cctalk wrote: > On Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 20:58 allison via cctalk > wrote: > >> On 03/16/2018 08:28 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: >>> So the PDP8/e used the KC8-EA programmers console which has >>> incandescent indicator lamps and the PDP8/f used the KC8-FL >>> programmers console which has LED indicator lamps. >> Wrong. The 8f uses the same as the 8e. It was the 8m that had the >> LED console. If memory serves it was date of design that influenced it. >> > I have seen several 8/f systems that have LEDs, for what it's worth. I can > only imagine DEC was transitioning the 8/m and 8/f to take LEDs instead of > incandescents. Work for DEC, 10 years from 1983 and very rarely saw them and those in the region (the greater Maynard area) around DEC never seem to have LEDs unless added later.?? There was a third part bulb replacement.? They were dim then as well and not popular.? I got lucky and found one but, dim red LEDs are unappealing so its put aside as a spare or maybe to build up another machine. >> I can be certain as I have an 8f built in 1973. I've since moded it to >> take bright yellow LEDs as lamps are not easy to find and annoying >> to replace. If I care to I can put the lamps back. Since I put >> operational >> over absolute faithful its better as is, less digging in the box. >> > The bulbs are still available on Mouser. I've ordered a bunch for my 8/e > and have been very happy with them. > > http://so-much-stuff.com/pdp8/repair/bulbs.php I know, I have a stock, but you have to pull the panel apart to replace them, gets tiring.? Modern yellow LEDs are nice and bright, and don't burn out. Less digging in the box is a good thing as over time fumble errors can hurt it. One _*oops*_ during assembly could be painful. >> However its possible to swap the panels, I tried it once and it pass diags >> and worked fine. Didn't like the red. >> > I've found that my LED 8/m is very hard to read, as the LEDs are very dim. Back then they were terrible.? I have a supply of old ones and at 9mA they were dim and at 11mA the died!? Modern red leds at 8mA are very much brighter. However the yellow look more like lamps. Every so often I look at is and wonder if a mix of yellow and white in groups of three might be cool looking. but then I have to take it apart when not broken, the thing I am trying to avoid.? ;) >>> Another console question... >>> >>> Has anyone ever seen a PDP8/i style console for the PDP8/e? Looking at >>> the way the PDP8/e console functions, it should be possible to time >>> multiplex all the register to the data bus so they are all visible at >>> once when the machine is halted. >> No and can't! The 8i (nor the 8L) was not omnibus. >> > I think he's aware (hence "style"). I've seen a one off 6100 (CMOS 8) with a 8i like front panel. it was made rather poorly and not structurally strong so who knows if it exists still.? The basic idea is easy to do on any 8.? But nearly 60 lamps/LEDs later and all the switches its going to take time to build.?? It would be terrible if someone were to junk an 8I or L just for the panel. The front panel also is part of the 8 evolution to a more desirable turnkey machine which is what the users wanted.? One described it as "I want to use it not sit there and flip switches all day".?? Oddly it was Field service that wanted it the panel as it was a good debug tool and retained.??? Systems with mass storage as a nominal thing helped to kill the front panel. Allison > Kyle > From linimon at lonesome.com Fri Mar 16 22:43:09 2018 From: linimon at lonesome.com (Mark Linimon) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 22:43:09 -0500 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles In-Reply-To: <5bed0023-cb9c-d012-7e92-8a45efc68260@gmail.com> References: <9ae5314a-5f4c-6e51-fb15-4110c24b67c8@gmail.com> <5bed0023-cb9c-d012-7e92-8a45efc68260@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20180317034309.GA21339@lonesome.com> cool post, thanks. mcl From steven at malikoff.com Sat Mar 17 00:41:24 2018 From: steven at malikoff.com (steven at malikoff.com) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2018 15:41:24 +1000 Subject: PDP11/03 BA-11M Front panel switch replacement In-Reply-To: References: <5A9381BE.6020608@pico-systems.com> Message-ID: Doug said > On 2/25/2018 10:40 PM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: >> On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 7:50 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk < >> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: >>>> I have a BA11-M box with the usual front panel control, however it was >>>> damaged and all three switches have been sheared off.? The LED's and >>>> the circuit card that connects to the power supply appear to be OK.? I >>>> would like to repair it and put it back into service.? Is there a >>>> replacement for those switches? >>>> >> In general, many old switch patterns are still made.? Often, they have >> a manufacturer's name and part # on the body of the switch. Some >> common makes from back then were C&K and Alco. >> >> Jon > > Good advice, I went and looked at another box I had and the switches are > indeed C&K models 7101 and 7108.? Looking on ebay since they are > obsolete, finding the model with the paddle actuator will be the trick. In case anyone is interested I have put up the STL and parametric scripts on Thingiverse for a project to build a replica PDP-11/03 console with the same look and feel as the original (following the 6-foot Rule) for an MDB backplane I acquired from a cctalk listmember. If you have missing or broken switch paddles on your 11/03 or 11/05 then this might be of use to you. Also included is the LED receptacle used on the 11/03 and 11/05 and I think (but am not certain) the PDP-8/E, as is currently being discussed. Being parametric you can adjust for different C&K switches, or other brands if you like. You will find it at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2829191 Steve. From couryhouse at aol.com Sat Mar 17 07:05:43 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2018 08:05:43 -0400 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <16233d9ec59-199a-7955@webjas-vab051.srv.aolmail.net> back in the day (70s) ?when selling these ?things ?2ed ?hand ? E ?was ind. ? M and F were always ?LED... I ?preferred?the ?leds ?Ed# ? ? In a message dated 3/16/2018 7:31:26 PM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: ? On Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 20:58 allison via cctalk wrote: > On 03/16/2018 08:28 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > > So the PDP8/e used the KC8-EA programmers console which has > > incandescent indicator lamps and the PDP8/f used the KC8-FL > > programmers console which has LED indicator lamps. > Wrong. The 8f uses the same as the 8e. It was the 8m that had the > LED console. If memory serves it was date of design that influenced it. > I have seen several 8/f systems that have LEDs, for what it's worth. I can only imagine DEC was transitioning the 8/m and 8/f to take LEDs instead of incandescents. > > I can be certain as I have an 8f built in 1973. I've since moded it to > take bright yellow LEDs as lamps are not easy to find and annoying > to replace. If I care to I can put the lamps back. Since I put > operational > over absolute faithful its better as is, less digging in the box. > The bulbs are still available on Mouser. I've ordered a bunch for my 8/e and have been very happy with them. http://so-much-stuff.com/pdp8/repair/bulbs.php > > However its possible to swap the panels, I tried it once and it pass diags > and worked fine. Didn't like the red. > I've found that my LED 8/m is very hard to read, as the LEDs are very dim. > > > > > Another console question... > > > > Has anyone ever seen a PDP8/i style console for the PDP8/e? Looking at > > the way the PDP8/e console functions, it should be possible to time > > multiplex all the register to the data bus so they are all visible at > > once when the machine is halted. > No and can't! The 8i (nor the 8L) was not omnibus. > I think he's aware (hence "style"). Kyle > From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sat Mar 17 08:09:17 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2018 09:09:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles Message-ID: <20180317130917.6EA4E18C08D@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Allison > you have to pull the panel apart to replace them, gets tiring. Modern > yellow LEDs are nice and bright, and don't burn out. > Less digging in the box is a good thing as over time fumble errors can > hurt it. Agree about replacing lamps - we switched to LEDs BITD because replacing burned-out lamps (especially when you're trying to fix some _other_ problem) when there's something better available is just, silly. > Modern red leds at 8mA are very much brighter. However the yellow look > more like lamps. What about warm white LEDs, though? The ones we used in the QSIC indicator panel are, to me, pretty much indistinguishable from the lights as I recall them from BITD. I mean, maybe if I had them sitting next to each other, I could tell, but... Those are SMD, though, but maybe they are available in bulb replacement form? Noel From sales at elecplus.com Sat Mar 17 08:14:16 2018 From: sales at elecplus.com (Electronics Plus) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2018 08:14:16 -0500 Subject: Sperry Univac UTS-40 Terminal doc anyone? In-Reply-To: <17b701d3b90a$13a1d1e0$3ae575a0$@gmail.com> References: <17b701d3b90a$13a1d1e0$3ae575a0$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <08e601d3bdf1$da79f4f0$8f6dded0$@com> I had a number of these. The construction seemed to be surprisingly flimsy. If you removed the top cover, check the back corner where all the cards interface together. These often work loose, making the terminal useless. Gently but firmly re-align everything and push it all back together. Then plug it in and turn it on. Without the keyboard, you will get errors. Cindy -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of CuriousMarc via cctalk Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2018 1:25 AM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: Sperry Univac UTS-40 Terminal doc anyone? I am the temporary caretaker of a Sperry UTS-40 "intelligent" terminal (very green screen, Z-80 based terminal from the late 70's or early 80's) which I grabbed on eBait for sending parts to Dominique Carlier over in Belgium. The CRT, power supply and character generator seem to work (gives a very sharp semi-random geometric display on power-on, sometimes with a few nicely drawn characters interspersed), but the darn thing does not seem to boot on reset. The picture goes away and weird sound is emitted from the speaker after a long beep-of-death. I was wondering if anyone had service documentation. Or a dump of the firmware. Al, anything that crossed your desk? Marc --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From allisonportable at gmail.com Sat Mar 17 10:20:35 2018 From: allisonportable at gmail.com (allison) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2018 11:20:35 -0400 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles In-Reply-To: <20180317130917.6EA4E18C08D@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180317130917.6EA4E18C08D@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <95eba2c2-8b7b-062e-7ccc-2f7b690417fa@gmail.com> On 03/17/2018 09:09 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > > From: Allison > > > you have to pull the panel apart to replace them, gets tiring. Modern > > yellow LEDs are nice and bright, and don't burn out. > > Less digging in the box is a good thing as over time fumble errors can > > hurt it. > > Agree about replacing lamps - we switched to LEDs BITD because replacing > burned-out lamps (especially when you're trying to fix some _other_ problem) > when there's something better available is just, silly. > > > Modern red leds at 8mA are very much brighter. However the yellow look > > more like lamps. > > What about warm white LEDs, though? The ones we used in the QSIC indicator > panel are, to me, pretty much indistinguishable from the lights as I recall > them from BITD. I mean, maybe if I had them sitting next to each other, I > could tell, but... Those are SMD, though, but maybe they are available > in bulb replacement form? The yellow LEDs were fairly close to the bulbs as the bulbs are run at lower than rated voltage to improve their life.? The bulbs are not very white as a result. I used a supply of dead bulbs to make mine. a little heat and the glass goes, a resistor and a 3mm led and good to go. ? However the warming resistors on the board need to be lifted (one end) or they never shut off. White LEDs especially warm white were rather scarce and not cheap over 15 years ago so they weren't considered.? They would however make a good choice with current high brightness parts.? Then there are all the other colors now available I may do that in the future.? For those that cringe about moding history...? I have three panels, the original lamp unit with lamps, A /M LED, and the one in the system moded for LEDs. They serve as part of the spares collection and if I want to have the machine back to stock. Allison > Noel From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sat Mar 17 19:32:46 2018 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2018 00:32:46 +0000 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 17/03/2018 00:28, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > So the PDP8/e used the KC8-EA programmers console which has > incandescent indicator lamps and the PDP8/f used the KC8-FL > programmers console which has LED indicator lamps. I have two 8/e machines, one of which has the original panel with incandescent lamps and one which is a slightly later panel (but the same type, just a later revision) which has been converted - I believe by DEC - to use LEDs. I've experimented with different LEDs, and found that some yellow ones look quite convincing, but as I remember using PDP-8s with red LEDs back in the day, I've kept the original red ones. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From fritzm at fritzm.org Sat Mar 17 20:20:31 2018 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2018 18:20:31 -0700 Subject: allocate floating vector for DR11-C in simh pdp11 autoconfig? In-Reply-To: <7EA17A93-C62D-4898-A175-81E458D5E56E@fritzm.org> References: <7EA17A93-C62D-4898-A175-81E458D5E56E@fritzm.org> Message-ID: <9D2C5228-C98F-495B-A2CE-559FBAB7EDC1@fritzm.org> > On Mar 11, 2018, at 3:55 PM, Fritz Mueller wrote: > > I have found it very convenient to maintain a simh configuration that parallels the physical hardware configuration of my PDP-11/45. I'm just about to add a DR11-C for a physical interface that I am building -- this will "grab" a floating interrupt ahead of a DZ11 that I already have in the machine. > > Does anyone here know of convenient way to inform simh's autoconfig that I wish to insert a DR11-C? Some follow up: after a little more digging, I found that simh's pdp11 DZ device accepts SET ADDRESS= and VECTOR=, which will override the autoconfig. That should solve my problem for now. --FritzM. From fritzm at fritzm.org Sat Mar 17 20:57:12 2018 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2018 18:57:12 -0700 Subject: PDP-11 floating CSRs: 760010, or 760100? Message-ID: Hi folks, I have a question about floating CSR allocation on PDP-11s. Both the 1976 and 1981 versions of the PDP-11 peripherals handbook indicate the floating CSRs are to be allocated starting at address 760010. However, both the XXDP FLOAT program and simh's autoconfig suggest I should set my DZ11 (first floating CSR device in my config) to 760100. Anyone know what gives? thanks, --FritzM. From fritzm at fritzm.org Sat Mar 17 21:10:39 2018 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2018 19:10:39 -0700 Subject: PDP-11 floating CSRs: 760010, or 760100? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A5F8AD2-D224-4741-8462-237E1F53B30F@fritzm.org> > On Mar 17, 2018, at 6:57 PM, Fritz Mueller wrote: > > I have a question about floating CSR allocation on PDP-11s. Both the 1976 and 1981 versions of the PDP-11 peripherals handbook indicate the floating CSRs are to be allocated starting at address 760010. However, both the XXDP FLOAT program and simh's autoconfig suggest I should set my DZ11 (first floating CSR device in my config) to 760100. Anyone know what gives? Ah, I found the answer in the DZ11 technical manual: gaps are left for between each device type that gets a floating CSR. So for one DZ11, you get: gap 160010 (no DJ11s) gap 160020 (no DH11s) gap 160030 (no DQ11s) gap 160040 (no DU11s) gap 160050 (no DUP11s) gap 160060 (no LK11s) gap 160070 (no DMC11s) DZ11 160100 From paulkoning at comcast.net Sun Mar 18 15:34:02 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2018 16:34:02 -0400 Subject: PDP-11 floating CSRs: 760010, or 760100? In-Reply-To: <4A5F8AD2-D224-4741-8462-237E1F53B30F@fritzm.org> References: <4A5F8AD2-D224-4741-8462-237E1F53B30F@fritzm.org> Message-ID: > On Mar 17, 2018, at 10:10 PM, Fritz Mueller via cctalk wrote: > > >> On Mar 17, 2018, at 6:57 PM, Fritz Mueller wrote: >> >> I have a question about floating CSR allocation on PDP-11s. Both the 1976 and 1981 versions of the PDP-11 peripherals handbook indicate the floating CSRs are to be allocated starting at address 760010. However, both the XXDP FLOAT program and simh's autoconfig suggest I should set my DZ11 (first floating CSR device in my config) to 760100. Anyone know what gives? > > Ah, I found the answer in the DZ11 technical manual: gaps are left for between each device type that gets a floating CSR. So for one DZ11, you get: > > gap 160010 (no DJ11s) > gap 160020 (no DH11s) > gap 160030 (no DQ11s) > gap 160040 (no DU11s) > gap 160050 (no DUP11s) > gap 160060 (no LK11s) > gap 160070 (no DMC11s) > DZ11 160100 Yes, and this is spelled out in the Peripherals handbook where the float rules are stated. Note that for each device there is a position in the float list, and also a register block size. The start address is a multiple of that block size (for example, for DH11 that is 20 octal, so DH11 addresses might be 160020 or 160060, but not 160050. After the CSRs for each device there is a gap; that gap appears even if there are zero of that device. This rule is necessary to tell the devices apart. When scanning the bus, if the first address that responds on the Unibus is 160070, that is a DMC11. Vectors are different: those are allocated starting at 300 without gaps. The way this is done is that you'd scan the CSR address range to see what devices are there, then given that known list of devices you fill in the vector addresses. paul From cramcram at gmail.com Fri Mar 16 12:48:25 2018 From: cramcram at gmail.com (Marc Howard) Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2018 10:48:25 -0700 Subject: Did anyone on the list get these tapes? In-Reply-To: References: <74afad8d-f522-a0ab-9c61-da7460b582c9@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Wow. I never knew they had a carrying case for dectapes. Kinda makes sense for the field service folks. Marc On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 9:07 AM, Glen Slick via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 8:51 AM Al Kossow via cctalk > wrote: > > > https://www.ebay.com/itm/1372243559202 > > > > basic.p11 > > syslod.p11 > > rdt.p11 > > > > all from mid 1971 > > original RSTS? > > > > hope the person who got these knows what they bought > > > > Extra digit in that link, try: > > https://www.ebay.com/itm/372243559202 > > > > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Mar 18 12:11:01 2018 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2018 13:11:01 -0400 Subject: Mounting screw threads for VR201? Message-ID: Hi, All, I don't happen to have a VR201 here right now to measure directly (or I would just do that), but IIRC, there's a threaded mounting insert on the bottom (for the "E.T. Stand", if nothing else), I want to fabricate a shelf clip for a VR201 and am seeking the diameter/thread pitch for the insert. Does anyone have that info handy? It's likely larger than 1/4-20 from what I remember. -ethan From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sun Mar 18 16:38:57 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2018 17:38:57 -0400 (EDT) Subject: PDP-11 DIV instruction lossage Message-ID: <20180318213857.8EE9918C089@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> So, I have discovered, to my astonishment, that the double-word version of the DIV instruction on the PDP-11 won't do a divide if the result won't fit into 15 bits. OK, I can understand it bitching if the quotient wouldn't fit into 16 bits - but what's the problem with returning an unsigned quotient? And, just for grins, the results left in the registers which hold the quotient and remainer is different in the -11/23 (KDF11-A) and the -11/73 (KDJ11-A). (Although, to be fair, the PDP-11 Architecture Manual says 'register contents are unpredictable if there's an overflow'.) Oh well, guess I'll have to redo my kludgy fix to gmtime() (the distributed version of which in V6 qhas a problem when the number of 8-hour periods since the epoch overflows 15 bits)! I guess I'll have to fix it for real, instead of my kludgy fix (which extended it to work for 16-bit results). :-) I discovered this when I plugged in an -11/73 to make sure the prototype QSIC (our RK11/etc emulator for the QBUS) worked with the -11/73 as well as the -11/23 (which is what we'd mostly been using - when we first started working on the DMA and interrupts, we did try them both). I noticed that with the -11/73, the date printed incorrectly: Sun Mar 10 93:71:92 EST 1991 After a certain amount of poking and prodding, I discovered the issue - and on further reading, discovered the limitation to 15-bit results. For those who are interested in the details, here's a little test program that displays the problem: r = ldiv(a, b, d); m = ldivr; printf("a: 0%o %d. b: 0%o %d. d: 0%o %d.\n", a, a, b, b, d, d); printf("q: 0%o %d. r: 0%o %d.\n", r, r, m, m); and, for those who don't have V6 source at hand, here's ldiv(): mov 2(sp),r0 mov 4(sp),r1 div 6(sp),r0 mov r1,_ldivr rts pc So here are the results, first from a simulator: tld 055256 0145510 070200 a: 055256 23214. b: 0145510 -13496. d: 070200 28800. q: 0147132 -12710. r: 037110 15944. This is _mathematically_ correct: 055256,0145510 = 1521404744., 070200 = 28800., and 1521404744./28800. = 0147132. And on the -11/23: a: 055256 23214. b: 0145510 -13496. d: 070200 28800. q: 055256 23214. r: 037110 15944. Note that the returned 'quotient' is simply the high part of the dividend. And on the -11/73: a: 055256 23214. b: 0145510 -13496. d: 070200 28800. q: 055256 23214. r: 037110 15944. Note that in addition to the quotient behaviour, as with the /23, the 'remainder' is the low part of the dividend. Noel From systems.glitch at gmail.com Sun Mar 18 18:56:59 2018 From: systems.glitch at gmail.com (systems_glitch) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2018 19:56:59 -0400 Subject: DEC bus edge connectors In-Reply-To: References: <20180317005939.61E9518C085@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: +1 for Douglas Electronics. I use them for a few of their prototyping resources. I'd never have bothered to lay out an Apple II protoboard if they hadn't stopped carrying them! Thanks, Jonathan On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 9:26 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 8:59 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk > wrote: > > Have you looked through Douglas Electronics' offerings? They have a lot > of > > DEC-backplane compatible boards that might be what you want, e.g.: > > > > http://www.douglas.com/index.php/18-de-77.html > > > > this one. > > Interesting. I have looked at them before on the larger perf boards, > but that is a good price for what I want. Thanks for the pointer, > > -chuck > From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sun Mar 18 23:51:49 2018 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 04:51:49 +0000 Subject: Mounting screw threads for VR201? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 10-32 is the most common rack mount screw. Is it a standard rack rail? Dwight ________________________________ From: cctalk on behalf of Ethan Dicks via cctalk Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2018 10:11:01 AM To: classiccmp Subject: Mounting screw threads for VR201? Hi, All, I don't happen to have a VR201 here right now to measure directly (or I would just do that), but IIRC, there's a threaded mounting insert on the bottom (for the "E.T. Stand", if nothing else), I want to fabricate a shelf clip for a VR201 and am seeking the diameter/thread pitch for the insert. Does anyone have that info handy? It's likely larger than 1/4-20 from what I remember. -ethan From mattislind at gmail.com Mon Mar 19 03:15:23 2018 From: mattislind at gmail.com (Mattis Lind) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 09:15:23 +0100 Subject: Four Unibus boards from radiation dose measurement system. Message-ID: Hello! I have four unibus boards that came in a 11/34 which was used for radiation dose measurement at a hospital. Three of them are made by Computer Design & Application inc and is a three board set interconnected with over the top flat cables. It has some kind of AMD 29xx based bitslice processor with 2903,2910 and 2914 chips. One board has some kind of dedicated memory one board has 4 TRW chips which I think are AD converters. https://i.imgur.com/lMvhxOp.jpg?1 https://i.imgur.com/LEVN5Qp.jpg https://i.imgur.com/kcSnDRy.jpg https://i.imgur.com/ZfFrq3j.jpg Then there is some kind of serial com board with four UARTs on it. https://i.imgur.com/YvnTlxq.jpg Is there any interest in these boards? Trade for something interesting DEC stuff maybe? Or something else? /Mattis From sellam.ismail at gmail.com Mon Mar 19 01:55:36 2018 From: sellam.ismail at gmail.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2018 23:55:36 -0700 Subject: FS: Early Revision Commodore 64 computers Message-ID: Hello Folks. In the continuing saga of sorting through a big batch of Commodore stuff from my collection, I've listed 6 different early revision Commodore 64 computers for sale. Complete details and links to photographs are on the VCFed forums here: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?62641-Sellam-s-Commodore-Sales-Thread&p=506526#post506526 Please do inquire directly to me by private e-mail for fastest response. Thanks! Sellam From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Mon Mar 19 04:06:51 2018 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 10:06:51 +0100 (CET) Subject: Four Unibus boards from radiation dose measurement system. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Mar 2018, Mattis Lind wrote: > Then there is some kind of serial com board with four UARTs on it. > > https://i.imgur.com/YvnTlxq.jpg That one is easy to name: That's an Able Quadrasync/E, I have that board, too. Christian From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Mon Mar 19 08:39:18 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 09:39:18 -0400 (EDT) Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles Message-ID: <20180319133918.03EFB18C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Allison >> What about warm white LEDs, though? ... maybe they are available in >> bulb replacement form? > I used a supply of dead bulbs to make mine. a little heat and the glass > goes, a resistor and a 3mm led and good to go. Urr, I'm not up to making them! I was really hoping for the plug-in replacement ones in white... They used to make replacements in red (we replaced the bulbs in our -11/45 with them, BITD), so I was hoping. Anyone know of a contemporary source for LED replacements for front panel bulbs? (Of any colour!) Noel From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Mon Mar 19 09:03:59 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 10:03:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: PDP-11 DIV instruction lossage Message-ID: <20180319140359.2204C18C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > I'll have to redo my kludgy fix to gmtime() ... I guess I'll have to fix > it for real, instead of my kludgy fix (which extended it to work for > 16-bit results). :-) > ... > And on the -11/23: > Note that the returned 'quotient' is simply the high part of the dividend. Heh. I had decided that the easiest clean and long-lived fix was to just to do it right, using the long division routine used in the V7 C compiler runtime: http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V7/usr/src/libc/crt/ldiv.s and I vaguely recalled reading a DMR story that talked about that, so just for amusement I decided to re-read it, and looked it up: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/odd.html (the section "Comments I do feel guilty about"), and it's lucky I did, because I found this: Addendum 18 Oct 1998 Amos Shapir of nSOF (and of long memory!) just blackened (or widened) the spot a bit more in a mail message, to wit: 'I gather the "almost" here is because this trick almost worked... It has a nasty bug which I had to find the hard way! The "clever part" relies on the fact that if the "bvc 1f" is not taken, it means that the result could not fit in 16 bits; in that case the long value in r0,r1 is left unchanged. The bug is that this behavior is not documented; in later models (I found this on an 11/34) when the result does fit in 16 bits but not in 15 bits ... which makes this routine provide very strange results!' So this code won't work on an 11/23 either (which bashes the low register of the pair; above). I'd have been groveling in buggy math, again... Caveat Haquur (if you're trying to run stock V7 on a /23 or /34)! Noel From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Mon Mar 19 10:38:53 2018 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 11:38:53 -0400 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <081bdb89-347e-10a3-8d0a-1c3d6e057cec@comcast.net> Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? I have a running; 1000A 4/266 with 384MB Ram an full compliment of Storage Works disks (has redundant power supplies and a nice roll around cabinet) 3000-300 booting from a SCSI2SD disk, (this is nice since it is kind of light and can be picked up and moved easily) 3000-400 booting from a SCSI2SD disk.? (this thing is quite heavy, built with heavy think metal to support a equally heavy monitor placed on top) All running hobbyist OpenVMS 8.4, an one VRC16 DEC color monitor. The only part that failed was in the 3000-400, the I/O module (runs network, serial, SCSI, video, etc) was faulty and kept the power supply from starting up. These 64 bit machines are an interesting compliment to the 32 bit VAXes I have, 4000/400, 3100/M76, MVII, 40000VLC and the 16 bit PDP-11's. Doug From lbickley at bickleywest.com Mon Mar 19 10:57:58 2018 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 08:57:58 -0700 Subject: Four Unibus boards from radiation dose measurement system. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20180319085758.28a69c8c@asrock.bcwi.net> On Mon, 19 Mar 2018 09:15:23 +0100 Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote: > Hello! > > I have four unibus boards that came in a 11/34 which was used for > radiation dose measurement at a hospital. > > Three of them are made by Computer Design & Application inc and is a > three board set interconnected with over the top flat cables. It has > some kind of AMD 29xx based bitslice processor with 2903,2910 and > 2914 chips. One board has some kind of dedicated memory one board has > 4 TRW chips which I think are AD converters. > > https://i.imgur.com/lMvhxOp.jpg?1 > https://i.imgur.com/LEVN5Qp.jpg > https://i.imgur.com/kcSnDRy.jpg > https://i.imgur.com/ZfFrq3j.jpg > > Then there is some kind of serial com board with four UARTs on it. > > https://i.imgur.com/YvnTlxq.jpg > > Is there any interest in these boards? Trade for something > interesting DEC stuff maybe? Or something else? Here's a little more information on where this board set was used (see page 6): http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/19/045/19045468.pdf "After reconstruction, the images are displayed on a colour graphics screen using a CUA MDP-3B graphics processor. Images can be photographed off the screen for further study and can be archived in digital form on disk or magnetic tape." Cheers, Lyle -- 73 AF6WS Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com Mon Mar 19 11:06:03 2018 From: dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com (Doug Ingraham) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 10:06:03 -0600 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles In-Reply-To: <20180319133918.03EFB18C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180319133918.03EFB18C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: The circuit board material of the straight 8 front panel is fragile. The resin used melts at soldering temperatures. As a consequence my front panel was munged up before I got it. Foils lifted kind of thing. I decided when I next took it apart I would replace with LED's. Around 1995 I had some super bright white LED's and I worked out an appropriate current limiting resister value and replaced three bulbs with LEDs. They work but the color temp was far too blue. Also they activate at far too low of current and will trigger from cross talk in the wiring when the cpu is running. They also turn on and off too quickly. The thermal inertia of a filament is missing. If you were a bit crazy you could use a CPU with an 8 bit A/D and drive a color LED to accurately emulate a bulb. Simpler is something like this. Bulb lead | +----+---+ +---+ \ | |LED| / --- +---+ \ --- | / | +----+---+ \ / \ / ----- --- - Parts list is LED, two resistors, and a cap. The resistor on the bottom is to limit the brightness. The resistor in parallel with the LED is to control the LAMP off brightness and cross talk illumination. The cap is used to slow down the on/off time and make it look more like it has some thermal mass. The minimum needed to make this work is the LED and the series resistor. With modern super bright LEDs I would sand off the dome making a flat face which diffuses the output making it unfocused. I am also betting that 1 ma will be too bright but lets shoot for that. In the case of the 8/e with an 8 volt lamp driver (assumption) if you want 1 ma of current and the LED is ~3 volts for the white ones. (8 volts - 3 volts)/0.001 amps gives a resistance of 5000 ohms. I have seen white LEDs with a voltage of 2.7 and up to 3.2 and this gives a range of 4.8 k to 5.3 k for a 1 ma current. Depending on what you get for LED's will determine the value of the resistors needed. My 8/e variant is a DECSet 8000 and the front panel has a red filter so it would look pretty much the same with lamps or period correct red LEDs. Best Wishes! -- Doug Ingraham PDP-8 SN 1175 From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Mon Mar 19 11:22:23 2018 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Rob Jarratt) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 16:22:23 -0000 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: <081bdb89-347e-10a3-8d0a-1c3d6e057cec@comcast.net> References: <081bdb89-347e-10a3-8d0a-1c3d6e057cec@comcast.net> Message-ID: <00cf01d3bf9e$76acf220$6406d660$@ntlworld.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Douglas > Taylor via cctalk > Sent: 19 March 2018 15:39 > To: Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk > Subject: Re: AlphaServers > > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? > I suppose it depends on what you mean by "do". Do you mean is anyone selling them, using them for real work or just using them as a hobbyist? I do the last of these (occasionally). Regards Rob > I have a running; > > 1000A 4/266 with 384MB Ram an full compliment of Storage Works disks (has > redundant power supplies and a nice roll around cabinet) > > 3000-300 booting from a SCSI2SD disk, (this is nice since it is kind of light and > can be picked up and moved easily) > > 3000-400 booting from a SCSI2SD disk. (this thing is quite heavy, built with > heavy think metal to support a equally heavy monitor placed on top) > > All running hobbyist OpenVMS 8.4, an one VRC16 DEC color monitor. > > The only part that failed was in the 3000-400, the I/O module (runs network, > serial, SCSI, video, etc) was faulty and kept the power supply from starting up. > > These 64 bit machines are an interesting compliment to the 32 bit VAXes I > have, 4000/400, 3100/M76, MVII, 40000VLC and the 16 bit PDP-11's. > > Doug From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Mar 19 12:06:11 2018 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 13:06:11 -0400 Subject: Mounting screw threads for VR201? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 12:51 AM, dwight wrote: > 10-32 is the most common rack mount screw. Is it a standard rack rail? No. The VR201 is the small monochrome monitor found on DEC Professional machines (Pro325, Pro350, Pro380), the DEC Rainbow, and later DECmates (II, III, and III+), as well as the monochrome version of the VT240. It is similar in shape to a VT220 but smaller. There are either 1 or 3 metal threaded inserts on the bottom of the case (I don't have one here and I couldn't find a photo of the bottom) as best I can remember. They should be larger than a #10 machine screw, and possibly larger than 1/4". -ethan From spacewar at gmail.com Mon Mar 19 12:30:47 2018 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 11:30:47 -0600 Subject: FS: Early Revision Commodore 64 computers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 12:55 AM, Sellam Ismail via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > In the continuing saga of sorting through a big batch of Commodore stuff > from my collection, I've listed 6 different early revision Commodore 64 > computers for sale. > What?! Don't tell me you've given up on making supercomputing cluster out of C64s? From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Mar 19 12:35:47 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 10:35:47 -0700 Subject: Four Unibus boards from radiation dose measurement system. In-Reply-To: <20180319085758.28a69c8c@asrock.bcwi.net> References: <20180319085758.28a69c8c@asrock.bcwi.net> Message-ID: On 3/19/18 8:57 AM, Lyle Bickley via cctalk wrote: >> 2914 chips. One board has some kind of dedicated memory one board has >> 4 TRW chips which I think are AD converters. >> It's a frame buffer, you can see the 10422 lookup tables behind the TRW video DACs From Flash688 at flying-disk.com Mon Mar 19 13:18:47 2018 From: Flash688 at flying-disk.com (Alan Frisbie) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 11:18:47 -0700 Subject: ounting screw threads for VR201? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5AAFFF07.8090400@flying-disk.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: > I don't happen to have a VR201 here right now to measure directly (or > I would just do that), but IIRC, there's a threaded mounting insert on > the bottom (for the "E.T. Stand", if nothing else), I want to > fabricate a shelf clip for a VR201 and am seeking the diameter/thread > pitch for the insert. Does anyone have that info handy? It's likely > larger than 1/4-20 from what I remember. There are four brass inserts in a trapezoidal pattern, each threaded 1/4-20 (National Coarse). The trapezoid is 7.0" center-to-center for the two nearest the screen, and the rear ones are 5.0" center-to-center. It is 5.0" between the front (screen) pair and the rear pair. This is for a VR201-B -- other dash-variants may be different. If there is a base with a single large threaded insert, it may be an adapter that goes between the VR201 and the stand. Now, could someone please tell me the pinouts for the 15-pin connector? I would like to use it to view RS-170 video, if possible. Alan Frisbie From paulkoning at comcast.net Mon Mar 19 13:33:35 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 14:33:35 -0400 Subject: ounting screw threads for VR201? In-Reply-To: <5AAFFF07.8090400@flying-disk.com> References: <5AAFFF07.8090400@flying-disk.com> Message-ID: <4025E36A-49B7-41C6-974B-CBBB65FCAC27@comcast.net> > On Mar 19, 2018, at 2:18 PM, Alan Frisbie via cctalk wrote: > > ... > Now, could someone please tell me the pinouts for the 15-pin connector? > I would like to use it to view RS-170 video, if possible. It's spelled out in fair detail in the Pro 300 Technical Manual, on Bitsavers. Look at volume 1, page 383 (8-5). There are also VT201 engineering drawings on Bitsavers. One complication is that you have to supply +12v power; the VT201 is powered from the system box. The video is standard monochrome composite video "compatible with EIA RS170 standards". So yes, that should work for what you want to do. paul From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Mar 19 13:39:03 2018 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 14:39:03 -0400 Subject: ounting screw threads for VR201? In-Reply-To: <5AAFFF07.8090400@flying-disk.com> References: <5AAFFF07.8090400@flying-disk.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 2:18 PM, Alan Frisbie wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > >> I don't happen to have a VR201 here right now to measure directly (or >> I would just do that), but IIRC, there's a threaded mounting insert on >> the bottom... > > There are four brass inserts in a trapezoidal pattern, each threaded > 1/4-20 (National Coarse). The trapezoid is 7.0" center-to-center > for the two nearest the screen, and the rear ones are 5.0" center-to-center. > It is 5.0" between the front (screen) pair and the rear pair. Perfect. Thanks, Alan! > Now, could someone please tell me the pinouts for the 15-pin connector? > I would like to use it to view RS-170 video, if possible. >From the Rainbow pinout... http://www.larosse.net/pc100/dec100-vr201-cable.html ... I think the VR201 certainly matches the subset of that. I don't know if the color pins are N.C. on thje VR201 (but I would hope so), but I have wired up a DA15 cable to tap +12V from an Amiga 2000 and display mono video from its mono composite output... 4 | Mono shield ground | Shield ground for composite video coaxial cable 5,6 | Ground | Video, data, and power ground 7,8 | +12 V | + 12 V power to monitor and keyboard 12 | Mono video | Composite B/W video from the video processor on the system module 13 | No Connection | Not used 14 | Keyboard received data | KBD RXD Serial data transmitted (output) to keyboard 15 | Keyboard transmitted | KBD TXD Serial data received data (input) from keyboard -ethan From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Mar 19 14:01:25 2018 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 19:01:25 +0000 Subject: Four Unibus boards from radiation dose measurement system. In-Reply-To: References: <20180319085758.28a69c8c@asrock.bcwi.net>, Message-ID: There is two different kinds of test. One is to give them a fixed dose and then check to see if they are still operational. The other is to zap them until they fail, and then diagnose the failure/s. Dwight ________________________________ From: cctalk on behalf of Al Kossow via cctalk Sent: Monday, March 19, 2018 10:35:47 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Four Unibus boards from radiation dose measurement system. On 3/19/18 8:57 AM, Lyle Bickley via cctalk wrote: >> 2914 chips. One board has some kind of dedicated memory one board has >> 4 TRW chips which I think are AD converters. >> It's a frame buffer, you can see the 10422 lookup tables behind the TRW video DACs From imp at bsdimp.com Mon Mar 19 14:05:45 2018 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 13:05:45 -0600 Subject: ounting screw threads for VR201? In-Reply-To: References: <5AAFFF07.8090400@flying-disk.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 12:39 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 2:18 PM, Alan Frisbie > wrote: > > Ethan Dicks wrote: > > > >> I don't happen to have a VR201 here right now to measure directly (or > >> I would just do that), but IIRC, there's a threaded mounting insert on > >> the bottom... > > > > There are four brass inserts in a trapezoidal pattern, each threaded > > 1/4-20 (National Coarse). The trapezoid is 7.0" center-to-center > > for the two nearest the screen, and the rear ones are 5.0" > center-to-center. > > It is 5.0" between the front (screen) pair and the rear pair. > > Perfect. Thanks, Alan! > > > Now, could someone please tell me the pinouts for the 15-pin connector? > > I would like to use it to view RS-170 video, if possible. > > From the Rainbow pinout... > > http://www.larosse.net/pc100/dec100-vr201-cable.html > > ... I think the VR201 certainly matches the subset of that. I don't > know if the color pins are N.C. on thje VR201 (but I would hope so), > but I have wired up a DA15 cable to tap +12V from an Amiga 2000 and > display mono video from its mono composite output... > > 4 | Mono shield ground | Shield ground for composite video > coaxial cable > 5,6 | Ground | Video, data, and power ground > 7,8 | +12 V | + 12 V power to monitor and > keyboard > 12 | Mono video | Composite B/W video from the > video processor on the system module > 13 | No Connection | Not used > 14 | Keyboard received data | KBD RXD Serial data transmitted > (output) to keyboard > 15 | Keyboard transmitted | KBD TXD Serial data received data > (input) from keyboard > For the Rainbow (and I think the Pro to), there's a DC coupling that's not normal that needs to be removed with a series capacitor: >From 3.5.3 Keyboard/Monitor Connector (J3) Signals of The Rainbow 100 Technical Manual (EK-PC100-TM): Video signals - Similar to EIA RS-170 *NOTE* *The composite video (Mono Video) signal on pin 12 is dc coupled and therefore not in strict agreement with RS-170. To agree with RS-170, the composite video signal would require a 10 microfarad capacitor in series with the output. * I have all the parts needed to drive a modern LCD monitor using the Video Camera to VGA adapter things, but haven't yet had the time to try it out. Warner From mattislind at gmail.com Mon Mar 19 14:45:31 2018 From: mattislind at gmail.com (Mattis Lind) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 20:45:31 +0100 Subject: Four Unibus boards from radiation dose measurement system. In-Reply-To: References: <20180319085758.28a69c8c@asrock.bcwi.net> Message-ID: m?ndag 19 mars 2018 skrev Al Kossow via cctalk : > > > On 3/19/18 8:57 AM, Lyle Bickley via cctalk wrote: > > >> 2914 chips. One board has some kind of dedicated memory one board has > >> 4 TRW chips which I think are AD converters. > >> > > It's a frame buffer, you can see the 10422 lookup tables behind the TRW > video DACs > > > Interesting. A framebuffer. But why four DACs? The framebuffer itself is the 72 16kbit DRAM chips. Slightly more than one megabit. Not much being a color framebuffer. I wonder what the colordepth and resolution was on this one. 256 x 192 and 8 bits per colour perhaps? Anything else known about it except for what Lyle dug out? From paulkoning at comcast.net Mon Mar 19 15:34:39 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 16:34:39 -0400 Subject: ounting screw threads for VR201? In-Reply-To: References: <5AAFFF07.8090400@flying-disk.com> Message-ID: > On Mar 19, 2018, at 3:05 PM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > > ... > For the Rainbow (and I think the Pro to), there's a DC coupling that's not > normal that needs to be removed with a series capacitor: > > From 3.5.3 Keyboard/Monitor Connector (J3) Signals of The Rainbow 100 > Technical Manual (EK-PC100-TM): > > > Video signals - Similar to EIA RS-170 > > > *NOTE* > > *The composite video (Mono Video) signal on pin 12 is dc coupled and > therefore not in strict agreement with RS-170. To agree with RS-170, the > composite video signal would require a 10 microfarad capacitor in series > with the output. * > > I have all the parts needed to drive a modern LCD monitor using the Video > Camera to VGA adapter things, but haven't yet had the time to try it out. Yes, the Pro manual also mentions that it's DC coupled. That probably makes sense, given that computer graphics are likely to have long stretches of constant output, unlike TV type video. Unless the DC coupling causes problems it would make sense to leave it alone. paul From Flash688 at flying-disk.com Mon Mar 19 15:48:10 2018 From: Flash688 at flying-disk.com (Alan Frisbie) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 13:48:10 -0700 Subject: Compaq Storageworks V5.4 kit for SUN Solaris In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5AB0220A.7030608@flying-disk.com> I'm cleaning out my accumulation of "stuff" and there are several things that aren't worth the effort of putting on ebay. If anyone on this list wants them, they are yours for the cost of shipping. The first item is: QB-5JCAG-SA Compaq Storageworks RAID Array 450 V5.4A Platform Software Kit for SUN Solaris Contains: AG-R20SE-BE Software CD "RAID Array 450 V5.4A for SUN Solaris" AE-RBDYB-TE Software Product Description SPD 64.64.05 AA-R20TD-TE Release Notes AA-R20RD-TE RAID Array 450 V5.4 for Solaris 2.x Installation Guide AA-R24LA-TE StorageWorks Command Console (v1.1) User's Guide EK-HSZ50-CG HSZ50 HSOD v5.1 Array Controller Configuration Manual EK-HSZ50-SV HSZ50 HSOD v5.1 Array Controller Service Manual EK-HSCLI-RM HSZ50 HSOD v5.1 Array Controller CLI Reference Manual It weighs just under 5 pounds, so I estimate the shipping cost would be $10 to $20. Send me an email if you want it. If I don't hear from anyone in a few days, it goes into the dumpster. Alan Frisbie From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Mar 19 16:06:35 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 14:06:35 -0700 Subject: Four Unibus boards from radiation dose measurement system. In-Reply-To: <20180319085758.28a69c8c@asrock.bcwi.net> References: <20180319085758.28a69c8c@asrock.bcwi.net> Message-ID: <0146b359-e158-838f-5bd7-7405c4249923@bitsavers.org> another similar paper http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/17/082/17082861.pdf https://books.google.com/books?id=wMbBL8L33Y8C&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=%22Computer+Design+and+Applications%22+pdp-11&source=bl&ots=xXydOl-pic&sig=Sg9AFZT7z5lxtp_qZsvupEeeJdo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwib0pDHpPnZAhXsYN8KHVfpAHUQ6AEIKzAB#v=onepage&q=%22Computer%20Design%20and%20Applications%22%20pdp-11&f=false annoucement of the arrary processor http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a173957.pdf mdp-3 resolution 256x256 > http://www.iaea.org/inis/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/19/045/19045468.pdf > > "After reconstruction, the images are displayed on a colour graphics screen > using a CUA MDP-3B graphics processor. Images can be photographed off the > screen for further study and can be archived in digital form on disk or > magnetic tape." From mark at wickensonline.co.uk Mon Mar 19 17:13:39 2018 From: mark at wickensonline.co.uk (Mark Wickens) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 22:13:39 +0000 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: <00cf01d3bf9e$76acf220$6406d660$@ntlworld.com> References: <081bdb89-347e-10a3-8d0a-1c3d6e057cec@comcast.net> <00cf01d3bf9e$76acf220$6406d660$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: In the Alpha stable I have a 1000A fully loaded with SSB and an external SSB enclosure running VMS 7.3. I also have the desktop 3000/600 which was bought for my PhD work with 2GB external DAT and 24 bit graphics. I have two rackmount 3000/600s and a 3000/800. I've been planning on downsizing for a while, I'll keep the desktop 3000/600 but will be looking to shift the rest. I had a buyer for the 1000A a while back but couldn't get it shipped - he was going to give me ?250 for it. I am willing to give away the 3000/800 but it can't be shipped. The developer of the TB-USB card was earmarked for that one but he is in Germany and it's just very difficult to get a machine with that weight shipped. Regards, Mark. Windermere, UK. On 19 March 2018 at 16:22, Rob Jarratt via cctalk wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Douglas > > Taylor via cctalk > > Sent: 19 March 2018 15:39 > > To: Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk > > Subject: Re: AlphaServers > > > > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? > > > > I suppose it depends on what you mean by "do". Do you mean is anyone > selling them, using them for real work or just using them as a hobbyist? I > do the last of these (occasionally). > > Regards > > Rob > > > > I have a running; > > > > 1000A 4/266 with 384MB Ram an full compliment of Storage Works disks (has > > redundant power supplies and a nice roll around cabinet) > > > > 3000-300 booting from a SCSI2SD disk, (this is nice since it is kind of > light and > > can be picked up and moved easily) > > > > 3000-400 booting from a SCSI2SD disk. (this thing is quite heavy, built > with > > heavy think metal to support a equally heavy monitor placed on top) > > > > All running hobbyist OpenVMS 8.4, an one VRC16 DEC color monitor. > > > > The only part that failed was in the 3000-400, the I/O module (runs > network, > > serial, SCSI, video, etc) was faulty and kept the power supply from > starting up. > > > > These 64 bit machines are an interesting compliment to the 32 bit VAXes I > > have, 4000/400, 3100/M76, MVII, 40000VLC and the 16 bit PDP-11's. > > > > Doug > > From pete at petelancashire.com Mon Mar 19 18:43:17 2018 From: pete at petelancashire.com (Pete Lancashire) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 16:43:17 -0700 Subject: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <081bdb89-347e-10a3-8d0a-1c3d6e057cec@comcast.net> <00cf01d3bf9e$76acf220$6406d660$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: Ran across these https://photos.app.goo.gl/716Mr3cCL7g4uTs62 On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 3:13 PM, Mark Wickens via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > In the Alpha stable I have a 1000A fully loaded with SSB and an external > SSB enclosure running VMS 7.3. I also have the desktop 3000/600 which was > bought for my PhD work with 2GB external DAT and 24 bit graphics. I have > two rackmount 3000/600s and a 3000/800. > > I've been planning on downsizing for a while, I'll keep the desktop > 3000/600 but will be looking to shift the rest. I had a buyer for the 1000A > a while back but couldn't get it shipped - he was going to give me ?250 for > it. I am willing to give away the 3000/800 but it can't be shipped. The > developer of the TB-USB card was earmarked for that one but he is in > Germany and it's just very difficult to get a machine with that weight > shipped. > > Regards, Mark. > Windermere, UK. > > > On 19 March 2018 at 16:22, Rob Jarratt via cctalk > wrote: > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of > Douglas > > > Taylor via cctalk > > > Sent: 19 March 2018 15:39 > > > To: Benjamin Huntsman via cctalk > > > Subject: Re: AlphaServers > > > > > > Anyone out there do Alphas anymore? > > > > > > > I suppose it depends on what you mean by "do". Do you mean is anyone > > selling them, using them for real work or just using them as a hobbyist? > I > > do the last of these (occasionally). > > > > Regards > > > > Rob > > > > > > > I have a running; > > > > > > 1000A 4/266 with 384MB Ram an full compliment of Storage Works disks > (has > > > redundant power supplies and a nice roll around cabinet) > > > > > > 3000-300 booting from a SCSI2SD disk, (this is nice since it is kind of > > light and > > > can be picked up and moved easily) > > > > > > 3000-400 booting from a SCSI2SD disk. (this thing is quite heavy, > built > > with > > > heavy think metal to support a equally heavy monitor placed on top) > > > > > > All running hobbyist OpenVMS 8.4, an one VRC16 DEC color monitor. > > > > > > The only part that failed was in the 3000-400, the I/O module (runs > > network, > > > serial, SCSI, video, etc) was faulty and kept the power supply from > > starting up. > > > > > > These 64 bit machines are an interesting compliment to the 32 bit > VAXes I > > > have, 4000/400, 3100/M76, MVII, 40000VLC and the 16 bit PDP-11's. > > > > > > Doug > > > > > > From chd at chdickman.com Mon Mar 19 21:02:51 2018 From: chd at chdickman.com (Charles Dickman) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 22:02:51 -0400 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles In-Reply-To: <9ae5314a-5f4c-6e51-fb15-4110c24b67c8@gmail.com> References: <9ae5314a-5f4c-6e51-fb15-4110c24b67c8@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 9:59 PM, allison via cctalk wrote: >> Has anyone ever seen a PDP8/i style console for the PDP8/e? Looking at >> the way the PDP8/e console functions, it should be possible to time >> multiplex all the register to the data bus so they are all visible at >> once when the machine is halted. > No and can't! The 8i (nor the 8L) was not omnibus. The boards to make I know the 8/I panel won't work with an 8/e. My question was if there was a special seen in the wild that had all the register values like the 8/i did since the panel interface clearly supports it. > Allison > > >> -chuck > From chd at chdickman.com Mon Mar 19 21:18:26 2018 From: chd at chdickman.com (Charles Dickman) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 22:18:26 -0400 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles In-Reply-To: <9ae5314a-5f4c-6e51-fb15-4110c24b67c8@gmail.com> References: <9ae5314a-5f4c-6e51-fb15-4110c24b67c8@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 9:59 PM, allison via cctalk wrote: > On 03/16/2018 08:28 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: >> So the PDP8/e used the KC8-EA programmers console which has >> incandescent indicator lamps and the PDP8/f used the KC8-FL >> programmers console which has LED indicator lamps. > Wrong. The 8f uses the same as the 8e. It was the 8m that had the > LED console. If memory serves it was date of design that influenced it. My information was based on the maintenance manual. I dug a little deeper and see that the KC8-M is the operator panel that had only one switch and the KC8-ML is a programmers panel and has the same PCB as the KC8-FL that I referenced. Clearly the panels were not rigidly associated with a machine model. > Allison > > >> -chuck > -chuck From chd at chdickman.com Mon Mar 19 21:28:23 2018 From: chd at chdickman.com (Charles Dickman) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 22:28:23 -0400 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles In-Reply-To: References: <9ae5314a-5f4c-6e51-fb15-4110c24b67c8@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 10:31 PM, Kyle Owen via cctalk wrote: > The bulbs are still available on Mouser. I've ordered a bunch for my 8/e > and have been very happy with them. > > http://so-much-stuff.com/pdp8/repair/bulbs.php > I assume you mean the CM7371 not quite but almost the same bulb? That is what I have used as replacement also. >> > Another console question... >> > >> > Has anyone ever seen a PDP8/i style console for the PDP8/e? Looking at >> > the way the PDP8/e console functions, it should be possible to time >> > multiplex all the register to the data bus so they are all visible at >> > once when the machine is halted. >> No and can't! The 8i (nor the 8L) was not omnibus. >> > > I think he's aware (hence "style"). Yep. > Kyle > >> From cctalk at snarc.net Mon Mar 19 21:34:38 2018 From: cctalk at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2018 22:34:38 -0400 Subject: Register your VCF East exhibits soon Message-ID: <8393d6d2-31b1-48b9-f606-6364a3f1ad98@snarc.net> Don't procrastinate. http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/vcf-east-exhibits/ From mattislind at gmail.com Tue Mar 20 06:50:12 2018 From: mattislind at gmail.com (Mattis Lind) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2018 12:50:12 +0100 Subject: UCSD p-system manuals and disks? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: So I have imaged the three disks I found using ImageDisk: http://storage.datormuseum.se/u/96935524/Datormusuem/TEXAS.zip Then I scanned one of the manuals. UCSD Pascal : http://storage.datormuseum.se/u/96935524/Datormusuem/UCSD-Pascal.pdf The problem is that manual has text in red/brown and black. I scanned it in colour. However the actual colour of the scan varies a bit between pages. (Maybe because there are two sensors, one for top side and one for bottom side.) And the scan get very big. Is there a way to create filter this pdf to use three colours and possibly compress it better? What is the best way to deal with scans of documents with coloured text. I know many DEC manuals that has coloured text as well. /Mattis 2018-02-20 17:19 GMT+01:00 Bill Degnan : > These may be uncommon, given they're for the TI 350-era business computer. > They were partially IBM clones, I am guessing the Pascal in particular > would have been incompatible with a regular IBM of the time and these disks > would only work on the TI's. These disks would be greatly appreciated by > someone with a TI 350 who had no other way to get Pascal running. > b > > On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 11:15 AM, Mattis Lind via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> I received these nice binders. >> >> https://i.imgur.com/L80ZGusl.jpg >> >> I think that most of them are already available online. Not sure about the >> UCSD Pascal manual? >> >> One of the binders contained some disks. >> >> https://i.imgur.com/FYIBbmjl.jpg >> >> Are these disks available online already or should I dump them? Bitsavers >> seems to have the Mac version. >> >> /Mattis >> > > From paulkoning at comcast.net Tue Mar 20 08:14:28 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2018 09:14:28 -0400 Subject: UCSD p-system manuals and disks? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <088D5C06-36D6-40C2-A1CD-94E0A55EE079@comcast.net> > On Mar 20, 2018, at 7:50 AM, Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote: > > So I have imaged the three disks I found using ImageDisk: > http://storage.datormuseum.se/u/96935524/Datormusuem/TEXAS.zip > > Then I scanned one of the manuals. UCSD Pascal : > http://storage.datormuseum.se/u/96935524/Datormusuem/UCSD-Pascal.pdf > > The problem is that manual has text in red/brown and black. I scanned it in > colour. However the actual colour of the scan varies a bit between pages. > (Maybe because there are two sensors, one for top side and one for bottom > side.) > And the scan get very big. > > Is there a way to create filter this pdf to use three colours and possibly > compress it better? What is the best way to deal with scans of documents > with coloured text. I know many DEC manuals that has coloured text as well. Yes, you can do that with photo editing programs, which often have scripting ("batch processing") features so you can do it repeatedly. Depending on the quality of the source material it may be hard to get right, though. One technique that's useful in dealing with colors in the way you want to is to convert the images to "Lab" (or "L*a*b") format, as opposed to RGB or CMYK. That separates the brightness information from the red/green and yellow/blue distinctions, and lets you apply curves, or threshold operations, or things like that to emphasize colors or force them to particular values. It will take experimenting with your particular source material to figure out the way. If standard programs don't do the job, an image file manipulation library might be the way to get at this. paul From dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com Tue Mar 20 10:27:06 2018 From: dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com (Doug Ingraham) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2018 09:27:06 -0600 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles In-Reply-To: References: <9ae5314a-5f4c-6e51-fb15-4110c24b67c8@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 8:02 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 9:59 PM, allison via cctalk > wrote: > > >> Has anyone ever seen a PDP8/i style console for the PDP8/e? Looking at > >> the way the PDP8/e console functions, it should be possible to time > >> multiplex all the register to the data bus so they are all visible at > >> once when the machine is halted. > > No and can't! The 8i (nor the 8L) was not omnibus. The boards to make > > I know the 8/I panel won't work with an 8/e. My question was if there > was a special seen in the wild that had all the register values like > the 8/i did since the panel interface clearly supports it. > This would certainly be possible. I discussed exactly this possibility a few years ago with a now departed friend. We did a cursory search at the time and didn't turn up anything. Of course there are lots of smart people out there who do a lot of clever things and never bother to tell the net. My bet would be that nobody has wanted this enough to make their own omnibus front panel when there are still real panels and machines readily available. I guess you can be the first! Best wishes. -- Doug Ingraham PDP-8 SN 1175 From lbickley at bickleywest.com Tue Mar 20 11:28:31 2018 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2018 09:28:31 -0700 Subject: UCSD p-system manuals and disks? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20180320092831.15bd0929@asrock.bcwi.net> On Tue, 20 Mar 2018 12:50:12 +0100 Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote: > So I have imaged the three disks I found using ImageDisk: > http://storage.datormuseum.se/u/96935524/Datormusuem/TEXAS.zip > > Then I scanned one of the manuals. UCSD Pascal : > http://storage.datormuseum.se/u/96935524/Datormusuem/UCSD-Pascal.pdf > > The problem is that manual has text in red/brown and black. I scanned > it in colour. However the actual colour of the scan varies a bit > between pages. (Maybe because there are two sensors, one for top side > and one for bottom side.) > And the scan get very big. > > Is there a way to create filter this pdf to use three colours and > possibly compress it better? What is the best way to deal with scans > of documents with coloured text. I know many DEC manuals that has > coloured text as well. > > /Mattis > --snip-- I use Acrobat Professional to both scan, OCR and optimize PDF's. It works very well. I do this for many vintage manuals that had been previously scanned that I've downloaded that have not been OCRed or optimized. BTW: OCR works best when the manuals are scanned for color or grey scale at 600bpi or better. Cheers, Lyle -- 73 AF6WS Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Mar 20 13:47:29 2018 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2018 14:47:29 -0400 Subject: UCSD p-system manuals and disks? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8fd4309e-ef90-44a8-c83d-6edf389726c6@telegraphics.com.au> On 2018-03-20 7:50 AM, Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote: > So I have imaged the three disks I found using ImageDisk: > http://storage.datormuseum.se/u/96935524/Datormusuem/TEXAS.zip > > Then I scanned one of the manuals. UCSD Pascal : > http://storage.datormuseum.se/u/96935524/Datormusuem/UCSD-Pascal.pdf > > The problem is that manual has text in red/brown and black. I scanned it in > colour. However the actual colour of the scan varies a bit between pages. > (Maybe because there are two sensors, one for top side and one for bottom > side.) > And the scan get very big. > > Is there a way to create filter this pdf to use three colours and possibly > compress it better? What is the best way to deal with scans of documents > with coloured text. I know many DEC manuals that has coloured text as well. Matt Zucker's noteshrink is designed for similar tasks. I've had good results, even on whole books: https://github.com/mzucker/noteshrink Feel free to send me your original files if you'd like me to try things out. > > /Mattis > From sellam.ismail at gmail.com Tue Mar 20 14:49:29 2018 From: sellam.ismail at gmail.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2018 12:49:29 -0700 Subject: FS: More S-100 related hardware from Sellam's collection Message-ID: Hello Folks. I posted more S-100 gear for sale, including several early MITS Altair boards. Please follow the link below if interested. The new Altair listings are right after the update. http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?61192-Sellam-s-S-100-Hardware-Software-and-Peripherals-Sales-Thread&p=506664#post506664 If interested, please do inquire directly to me by e-mail via < sellam.ismail at gmail.com>. Thanks! Sellam From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Mar 20 22:02:31 2018 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 03:02:31 +0000 Subject: More S-100 related hardware from Sellam's collection In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Sellam Can I ask a favor. I have one of those 8K Piiceon boards. There is one part I haven't figured out yet. Between IC19 and IC20 there two jumper holes. There is also a jumper hole just to the bottom right of IC23. Is there any jumper wires connected to any of these three points? If it is not asking too much. I think for what it is, your $40 is a fair price. Most don't have a way to program 2708s and this should be the same as the ByteSaver for that purpose as well as providing EPROM space for code. With the EPROM to use it, it is great. If I didn't already have one and a ByteSaver, I'd buy it. Mine doesn't have all the program control part across the top of the board. Only two sockets are populated. I spent about $10 to fill in the rest of the parts from Anchor. You should mention if it has programming control for all the socket positions. That might sway a buyers choice. Dwight ________________________________ From: cctalk on behalf of Sellam Ismail via cctalk Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2018 12:49:29 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: FS: More S-100 related hardware from Sellam's collection Hello Folks. I posted more S-100 gear for sale, including several early MITS Altair boards. Please follow the link below if interested. The new Altair listings are right after the update. http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?61192-Sellam-s-S-100-Hardware-Software-and-Peripherals-Sales-Thread&p=506664#post506664 If interested, please do inquire directly to me by e-mail via < sellam.ismail at gmail.com>. Thanks! Sellam From derschjo at gmail.com Tue Mar 20 22:55:22 2018 From: derschjo at gmail.com (Josh Dersch) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2018 20:55:22 -0700 Subject: ISO: Harris Micro-12 (HB-61000) docs Message-ID: Hi all -- Got me a Harris Micro-12 (AKA the HB-61000), this is a single-board computer based around the Harris 6100 (PDP-8 on-a-chip) microprocessor.? I'm working on bringing it back to life and I'm trying to find docs and schematics for it. There's a high-level overview starting on page 5-4 of http://bitsavers.org/components/harris/1979_Harris_CMOS_Microprocessor_Volume_1.pdf, but that's the most I've found.? Right now it looks like the FLAG 2 signal on the PIE chip (HD-6101, discussed in the aforementioned manual) is holding the 6100's RUN line low; I don't see anything telling the PIE to do that at reset, nor is anything else attached to that signal that I've been able to find, so I'm wagering that the chip is faulty at the moment.? (If I pull the PIE chip out the CPU appears to be running.)? Schematics and/or docs would make this a lot easier. Anyone have a copy of these? Thanks in advance, Josh From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Mar 20 23:18:12 2018 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 04:18:12 +0000 Subject: More S-100 related hardware from Sellam's collection In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ops, meant that to go to Sellam. Dwight ________________________________ From: cctalk on behalf of Sellam Ismail via cctalk Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2018 12:49:29 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: FS: More S-100 related hardware from Sellam's collection Hello Folks. I posted more S-100 gear for sale, including several early MITS Altair boards. Please follow the link below if interested. The new Altair listings are right after the update. http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?61192-Sellam-s-S-100-Hardware-Software-and-Peripherals-Sales-Thread&p=506664#post506664 If interested, please do inquire directly to me by e-mail via < sellam.ismail at gmail.com>. Thanks! Sellam From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Tue Mar 20 23:35:33 2018 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 00:35:33 -0400 Subject: DEC VR150 montior Message-ID: <96fbf8d8-93b6-2cf6-f036-4e051229219b@comcast.net> Does anyone have a schematic for this DEC monitor?? I have one that has good video but doesn't seem to want to respond to video input. From mattislind at gmail.com Wed Mar 21 06:25:02 2018 From: mattislind at gmail.com (Mattis Lind) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 12:25:02 +0100 Subject: LSP10-NW (printer interface for KI10?) Message-ID: I have received this for a retired DEC service engineer: https://i.imgur.com/pJkcsHe.jpg?1 https://i.imgur.com/zwpSbrg.jpg According to the label it is a LSP10-NW made by DEC CSS. Previous owner claims it is for a KI10. I don't really know. I have no real use for it except for the flip-chips. Anyone has a need for such a thing or just the backplane? /Mattis From malcolm at avitech.com.au Wed Mar 21 02:39:19 2018 From: malcolm at avitech.com.au (malcolm at avitech.com.au) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 18:39:19 +1100 Subject: Vintage computer event - Melbourne Australia - this Sat 24 March Message-ID: <00b601d3c0e7$bc4e1ad0$34ea5070$@avitech.com.au> Melbourne's first Mini Vintage Computer Faire Various vintage microcomputers will be on display in Mooroolbark this weekend More details are available here -> https://www.facebook.com/events/1935562660092538/ The event runs from 10am to 4pm this Saturday (24 March 2018) and is at: Mooroolbark Terrace Shopping Centre 66 Brice Avenue, Mooroolbark 3138 Come along and enjoy (subject to any last-minute changes!): Replica Apple I Microbees TRS-80s Dick Smith Super 80 PDP-8/f with ASR33 Teletype Original Space Invader machine ..... and much, much more. I am not an organiser, but will be there as an exhibitor. If you are within driving distance, please come along and join in. Your support will help to encourage a larger event next year! Malcolm. From gerardcjat at free.fr Wed Mar 21 03:43:16 2018 From: gerardcjat at free.fr (GerardCJAT) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 09:43:16 +0100 Subject: Quad density Pertec Message-ID: Reply to :I note that the Kennedy incremental 7 inch reel drive in the NASA flight case hasn't attracted a lot of interest. That sample tape that I got, however does verify that the parity track on this telemetry stuff is unused. So that explains the 8 data inputs with no parity on the NASA model. --ChuckWell, at least ONE person was interested ... Me .... BUT the vendor does not offerinternational shipping ( to France ), and does not care answering mail :-(Though tape transport is already "packed" ;-)Gerard From gerardcjat at free.fr Wed Mar 21 03:46:23 2018 From: gerardcjat at free.fr (GerardCJAT) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 09:46:23 +0100 Subject: Message Reply with quotation Message-ID: <0BFB445DF82444C499736B31A7C174D1@medion> Hello Guys, It seems that YOU can reply to cctech message(s) with "quoting" the answered message. How do you do that ??? Thanks for your help. Gerard From u.tagge at gmx.de Wed Mar 21 04:37:29 2018 From: u.tagge at gmx.de (Ulrich Tagge) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 10:37:29 +0100 Subject: DEC Field Guide > equivalent available for Data General? Message-ID: Hi all, is there somewhere a list of DG modules which includes also 3rd party/OEM, ... like it is available for DEC? Would be good to know what the following is: 107-000621 02 107-000621 03/11 107-001632-00 107-0016320/02 107-000718-00 107-000181-04 107-000187-16 107-000187-15-30 AB020116-00 107-000621-03 107-001768-02 107-001768-03 107-0017680-1E 107-00053905 Zetaco SCZ-2 >500-453-00 K >500-542-00 K Many Greetings Ulrich From john.h.blake at gmail.com Wed Mar 21 04:49:04 2018 From: john.h.blake at gmail.com (John Blake) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 05:49:04 -0400 Subject: AlphaServers Message-ID: <65eeaa0b-fb7a-e6d8-d026-9aa1e238542d@gmail.com> I've got two, the first being an 3000/400 64mb with two 146 gb SCSI-320 drives running on converters, one with openBSD 6 and the other with openvms 8.4 running headless. I doubt I'll ever be able to find the monitor, much less the needed cables and keyboard/mouse to turn it into the desktop it was supposed to be, so I've got a color turbochannel framebuffer if anyone has any use for it. The second is an alphaserver ds10l with the 617mhz EV67 processor, 1.5 gb ram and a radeon video card on the sole pci port, which runs openvms 8.4 on one hard drive and the most recent available version of unsupported debian linux on the other (I think it's sid?) as a workstation. Nekochan.net is a fair resource for hobbyist knowledge, possibly the only place online where people are still futzing about with Tru64. comp.os.vms on usenet (or the info-vax email gateway) is where all of the latest news and deep tech discussion goes on. vcfed.org has a very healthy DEC forum too. From pontus at Update.UU.SE Wed Mar 21 07:09:40 2018 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 13:09:40 +0100 Subject: Message Reply with quotation In-Reply-To: <0BFB445DF82444C499736B31A7C174D1@medion> References: <0BFB445DF82444C499736B31A7C174D1@medion> Message-ID: <20180321120940.GL27988@Update.UU.SE> On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 09:46:23AM +0100, GerardCJAT via cctalk wrote: > Hello Guys, > > It seems that YOU can reply to cctech message(s) with "quoting" the > answered message. > > How do you do that ??? My mail client does it automatically for me. When I hit reply I get the message I reply to with the character ">" placed in front of each line. It looks like you are using Outlook 6 to send mails and I don't know if quoting can be accomplished in an easy way. Perhaps copy&paste and add ">" manually. /P From pontus at Update.UU.SE Wed Mar 21 07:09:40 2018 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 13:09:40 +0100 Subject: Message Reply with quotation In-Reply-To: <0BFB445DF82444C499736B31A7C174D1@medion> References: <0BFB445DF82444C499736B31A7C174D1@medion> Message-ID: <20180321120940.GL27988@Update.UU.SE> On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 09:46:23AM +0100, GerardCJAT via cctalk wrote: > Hello Guys, > > It seems that YOU can reply to cctech message(s) with "quoting" the > answered message. > > How do you do that ??? My mail client does it automatically for me. When I hit reply I get the message I reply to with the character ">" placed in front of each line. It looks like you are using Outlook 6 to send mails and I don't know if quoting can be accomplished in an easy way. Perhaps copy&paste and add ">" manually. /P From pbirkel at gmail.com Wed Mar 21 07:38:34 2018 From: pbirkel at gmail.com (Paul Birkel) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 08:38:34 -0400 Subject: DEC Field Guide > equivalent available for Data General? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005d01d3c111$87243c20$956cb460$@gmail.com> 107-000187-16 = "DISK CARTRIDGE CONTROL DGC NOVA" -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ulrich Tagge via cctalk Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2018 5:37 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: DEC Field Guide > equivalent available for Data General? Hi all, is there somewhere a list of DG modules which includes also 3rd party/OEM, ... like it is available for DEC? Would be good to know what the following is: 107-000621 02 107-000621 03/11 107-001632-00 107-0016320/02 107-000718-00 107-000181-04 107-000187-16 107-000187-15-30 AB020116-00 107-000621-03 107-001768-02 107-001768-03 107-0017680-1E 107-00053905 Zetaco SCZ-2 >500-453-00 K >500-542-00 K Many Greetings Ulrich From bobsmithofd at gmail.com Wed Mar 21 08:12:41 2018 From: bobsmithofd at gmail.com (Bob Smith) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 09:12:41 -0400 Subject: Message Reply with quotation In-Reply-To: <20180321120940.GL27988@Update.UU.SE> References: <0BFB445DF82444C499736B31A7C174D1@medion> <20180321120940.GL27988@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: It is usually a setting in your email client - include or not include original (more accurately, message one is replying to). Depends on your client. Most IMAP access sysems do it automagically unless you change the setting bb On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 8:09 AM, Pontus Pihlgren via cctalk wrote: > On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 09:46:23AM +0100, GerardCJAT via cctalk wrote: >> Hello Guys, >> >> It seems that YOU can reply to cctech message(s) with "quoting" the >> answered message. >> >> How do you do that ??? > > My mail client does it automatically for me. When I hit reply I get the > message I reply to with the character ">" placed in front of each line. > > It looks like you are using Outlook 6 to send mails and I don't know if > quoting can be accomplished in an easy way. Perhaps copy&paste and add > ">" manually. > > /P From pbirkel at gmail.com Wed Mar 21 08:12:47 2018 From: pbirkel at gmail.com (Paul Birkel) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 09:12:47 -0400 Subject: Message Reply with quotation In-Reply-To: <20180321120940.GL27988@Update.UU.SE> References: <0BFB445DF82444C499736B31A7C174D1@medion> <20180321120940.GL27988@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <007501d3c116$4eabce80$ec036b80$@gmail.com> In Outlook, this behavior is controlled using: Options : Mail : Replies and forwards -----Original Message----- From: cctech [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Pontus Pihlgren via cctech Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2018 8:10 AM To: GerardCJAT; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Cc: cctech at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Message Reply with quotation On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 09:46:23AM +0100, GerardCJAT via cctalk wrote: > Hello Guys, > > It seems that YOU can reply to cctech message(s) with "quoting" the > answered message. > > How do you do that ??? My mail client does it automatically for me. When I hit reply I get the message I reply to with the character ">" placed in front of each line. It looks like you are using Outlook 6 to send mails and I don't know if quoting can be accomplished in an easy way. Perhaps copy&paste and add ">" manually. /P From pbirkel at gmail.com Wed Mar 21 08:12:47 2018 From: pbirkel at gmail.com (Paul Birkel) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 09:12:47 -0400 Subject: Message Reply with quotation In-Reply-To: <20180321120940.GL27988@Update.UU.SE> References: <0BFB445DF82444C499736B31A7C174D1@medion> <20180321120940.GL27988@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <007501d3c116$4eabce80$ec036b80$@gmail.com> In Outlook, this behavior is controlled using: Options : Mail : Replies and forwards -----Original Message----- From: cctech [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Pontus Pihlgren via cctech Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2018 8:10 AM To: GerardCJAT; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Cc: cctech at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Message Reply with quotation On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 09:46:23AM +0100, GerardCJAT via cctalk wrote: > Hello Guys, > > It seems that YOU can reply to cctech message(s) with "quoting" the > answered message. > > How do you do that ??? My mail client does it automatically for me. When I hit reply I get the message I reply to with the character ">" placed in front of each line. It looks like you are using Outlook 6 to send mails and I don't know if quoting can be accomplished in an easy way. Perhaps copy&paste and add ">" manually. /P From cube1 at charter.net Wed Mar 21 08:29:58 2018 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 08:29:58 -0500 Subject: DEC Field Guide > equivalent available for Data General? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3c5e128e-0142-8a23-e52c-e3f39efc3ef4@charter.net> On 3/21/2018 4:37 AM, Ulrich Tagge via cctech wrote: > Hi all, > > is there somewhere a list of DG modules which includes also 3rd > party/OEM, ... like it is available for DEC? > > Would be good to know what the following is: > > 107-000621 02 > 107-000621 03/11 > 107-001632-00 > 107-0016320/02 > 107-000718-00 > 107-000181-04 > 107-000187-16 > 107-000187-15-30 > AB020116-00 > 107-000621-03 > 107-001768-02 > 107-001768-03 > 107-0017680-1E > 107-00053905 > Zetaco SCZ-2 >>500-453-00 K >>500-542-00 K > > > Many Greetings > Ulrich > I have some DG spare parts catalogs, but the numbers in them are all the 005- part numbers, not the 107- board numbers. To translate them, one would have to look through sets of drawings. So, if your boards have the 005-xxxx number, I might be able to help you out. For the most part, the numbers you have listed are newer than the boards I have documented because I actually have them (I go up to 107-001410). I have a 107-000187 and I also have it documented as a disk controller. Your list has some duplication. For example, all the numbers that start out 107-001768 are for the same kind of board - just different revisions. Same for 107-000187, 107-001632 and 107-000621. JRJ From mazzinia at tin.it Wed Mar 21 08:58:57 2018 From: mazzinia at tin.it (Mazzini Alessandro) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 14:58:57 +0100 Subject: R: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: <65eeaa0b-fb7a-e6d8-d026-9aa1e238542d@gmail.com> References: <65eeaa0b-fb7a-e6d8-d026-9aa1e238542d@gmail.com> Message-ID: <00a701d3c11c$c1a49470$44edbd50$@tin.it> Two Digital Pws 500/au, one with vms (8.4), one with vms (8.4) and tru64 (latest version, supposedly) -----Messaggio originale----- Da: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Per conto di John Blake via cctalk Inviato: mercoled? 21 marzo 2018 10:49 A: cctalk at classiccmp.org Oggetto: Re: AlphaServers I've got two, the first being an 3000/400 64mb with two 146 gb SCSI-320 drives running on converters, one with openBSD 6 and the other with openvms 8.4 running headless. I doubt I'll ever be able to find the monitor, much less the needed cables and keyboard/mouse to turn it into the desktop it was supposed to be, so I've got a color turbochannel framebuffer if anyone has any use for it. The second is an alphaserver ds10l with the 617mhz EV67 processor, 1.5 gb ram and a radeon video card on the sole pci port, which runs openvms 8.4 on one hard drive and the most recent available version of unsupported debian linux on the other (I think it's sid?) as a workstation. Nekochan.net is a fair resource for hobbyist knowledge, possibly the only place online where people are still futzing about with Tru64. comp.os.vms on usenet (or the info-vax email gateway) is where all of the latest news and deep tech discussion goes on. vcfed.org has a very healthy DEC forum too. From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Wed Mar 21 12:17:36 2018 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 17:17:36 +0000 Subject: Andromeda Systems DC11 Message-ID: I asked this on USENET, I don't suppose it would hurt to ask here as well. Anybody here remember the Andromeda DC11? More importantly, does anyone still have Andromeda stuff laying around? The module used something called "Personality Cards" which were actually just connection adapters for different kinds of disks. I am trying to find a couple (I'd be happy with one) WPC8F adapters for connecting 8" disks to my modules.? Any chance anyone has these taking up space?? Of course, I would also take other kinds of adapters, well, except for the WPC5FA.? That's for the RX50 and even I don't have any more of them left. bill From kylevowen at gmail.com Wed Mar 21 12:55:26 2018 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 12:55:26 -0500 Subject: Shipping a Flexowriter In-Reply-To: References: <161d8c4a0a9-154c-423ea@webjas-vab035.srv.aolmail.net> <9D2F25B6-0910-4ACF-8B34-C2B0DD17CDF2@gmail.com> Message-ID: I ended up going with PakMail and was not disappointed. It arrived safe and sound yesterday, and though the cost of shipping was almost as much as the unit itself, I felt much better about paying a little more to make sure it arrived without damage. Pictures are here: https://imgur.com/a/xW480 Looking forward to getting it going! Thanks for the suggestions, Kyle From pete at petelancashire.com Wed Mar 21 13:00:26 2018 From: pete at petelancashire.com (Pete Lancashire) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 11:00:26 -0700 Subject: Shipping a Flexowriter In-Reply-To: References: <161d8c4a0a9-154c-423ea@webjas-vab035.srv.aolmail.net> <9D2F25B6-0910-4ACF-8B34-C2B0DD17CDF2@gmail.com> Message-ID: I have used PakMail before, no complaints -pete On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 10:55 AM, Kyle Owen via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > I ended up going with PakMail and was not disappointed. It arrived safe and > sound yesterday, and though the cost of shipping was almost as much as the > unit itself, I felt much better about paying a little more to make sure it > arrived without damage. > > Pictures are here: https://imgur.com/a/xW480 > > Looking forward to getting it going! > > Thanks for the suggestions, > > Kyle > > From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Wed Mar 21 13:17:01 2018 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 14:17:01 -0400 Subject: R: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: <00a701d3c11c$c1a49470$44edbd50$@tin.it> References: <65eeaa0b-fb7a-e6d8-d026-9aa1e238542d@gmail.com> <00a701d3c11c$c1a49470$44edbd50$@tin.it> Message-ID: On 3/21/2018 9:58 AM, Mazzini Alessandro via cctalk wrote: > Two Digital Pws 500/au, one with vms (8.4), one with vms (8.4) and tru64 (latest version, supposedly) > > -----Messaggio originale----- > Da: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Per conto di John Blake via cctalk > Inviato: mercoled? 21 marzo 2018 10:49 > A: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Oggetto: Re: AlphaServers > > I've got two, the first being an 3000/400 64mb with two 146 gb SCSI-320 drives running on converters, one with openBSD 6 and the other with openvms 8.4 running headless. I doubt I'll ever be able to find the monitor, much less the needed cables and keyboard/mouse to turn it into the desktop it was supposed to be, so I've got a color turbochannel framebuffer if anyone has any use for it. The second is an alphaserver ds10l with the 617mhz EV67 processor, 1.5 gb ram and a radeon video card on the sole pci port, which runs openvms 8.4 on one hard drive and the most recent available version of unsupported debian linux on the other (I think it's sid?) as a workstation. > > Nekochan.net is a fair resource for hobbyist knowledge, possibly the only place online where people are still futzing about with Tru64. > comp.os.vms on usenet (or the info-vax email gateway) is where all of the latest news and deep tech discussion goes on. vcfed.org has a very healthy DEC forum too. > > What are the drives and converters are you using? From couryhouse at aol.com Wed Mar 21 13:31:42 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 14:31:42 -0400 Subject: Shipping a Flexowriter In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <16249d4bcd3-c86-adec@webjas-vab171.srv.aolmail.net> Kyle, Really nice ?with the matching ?desk! Lookin good! ? Ed# - www.smecc.org? ? In a message dated 3/21/2018 10:55:36 AM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: ? I ended up going with PakMail and was not disappointed. It arrived safe and sound yesterday, and though the cost of shipping was almost as much as the unit itself, I felt much better about paying a little more to make sure it arrived without damage. Pictures are here: https://imgur.com/a/xW480 Looking forward to getting it going! Thanks for the suggestions, Kyle From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Mar 21 14:09:20 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 12:09:20 -0700 Subject: Andromeda Systems DC11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <46ca1eaf-04aa-8f52-ee78-aa84f1627b20@bitsavers.org> On 3/21/18 10:17 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > Anybody here remember the Andromeda DC11? Isn't that a rebadged AED WINC-05? Does it have a Z8000 on it? From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Wed Mar 21 14:33:25 2018 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 19:33:25 +0000 Subject: Andromeda Systems DC11 In-Reply-To: <46ca1eaf-04aa-8f52-ee78-aa84f1627b20@bitsavers.org> References: <46ca1eaf-04aa-8f52-ee78-aa84f1627b20@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 03/21/2018 03:09 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > On 3/21/18 10:17 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > >> Anybody here remember the Andromeda DC11? > Isn't that a rebadged AED WINC-05? > Does it have a Z8000 on it? > > Don't know what a WINC is but, no, no Z8000.? It uses an AMD 29X305. bill From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 21 14:35:22 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 12:35:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Message Reply with quotation In-Reply-To: <0BFB445DF82444C499736B31A7C174D1@medion> References: <0BFB445DF82444C499736B31A7C174D1@medion> Message-ID: On Wed, 21 Mar 2018, GerardCJAT via cctalk wrote: > It seems that YOU can reply to cctech message(s) with "quoting" the answered message. > How do you do that ??? First, are you doing a "REPLY", or a "create"/"Compose" new message? If you are doing a "REPLY", then you need to either reconfigure your email client program to a different configuration to include message being replied to, OR reconfigure your computer for a different email client. In the days when computers were REAL computers, email "client" programs defaulted to "quoting" and including the message being replied to. Unfortunately, that led to lazy people quoting the message, which quoted the previous message, which quoted the previous message, back through topic drift to include massive amounts of grossly irrelevant material. You had to scroll past the history of the world to get to the new message. The answer is to teach the lUsers to delete the irrelevant portions of the past messages, and trim the quoted content back to only what was needed to provide context. "teach people"??!? canonical example of exercise in futility! Rather than teach people, the makers of the email clients started to put the new content BEFORE the history of the world. Called "top posting". It's like a world of adolescents who don't wash their dishes, and end up using paper plates because every dish is dirty, and piled in the sink. Rather than try to get people to do it right, many "modern" mail clients include the history of the world, but hide it from view when reading mail. A short response, or even a "Me, too" is many KB or even MB long! It is further complicated by the advent of "multimedia", where form is higher priority than content. "Modern" email is more concerned with delivering the massage with "dancing kangaroos and yodelling jellyfish" than what the message says. "The medium is the massage"? In order to facilitate the latest multimedia silliness, with smell-o-vision, dancing kangaroos, and yodelling jellyfish, "modern" email clients encourage sending executable content with the email. Including Trojan Horses with cryptolocker, etc. On THIS list, we are lovers of the classics, and we cling to the concept that people CAN be taught to do things right, and even wash their dishes. We never leave untrimmed quoted content (well, hardly ever), and we bottom post. No attachments. You can post a link to content that won't render in ASCII. (we are, however, updated enough to be using ASCII, instead of Murray/Baudot) I guess that we prefer "the good old days". If John Titor is reading this, my offer still stands: I will come up with a 5100, with both APL AND BASIC, and set up a foundation to fund the entire project, in exchange for a ONE-WAY ride back 55 years. Round-trip only warrants a contribution towards a 5100. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From mazzinia at tin.it Wed Mar 21 15:00:46 2018 From: mazzinia at tin.it (Mazzini Alessandro) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 21:00:46 +0100 Subject: R: R: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: References: <65eeaa0b-fb7a-e6d8-d026-9aa1e238542d@gmail.com> <00a701d3c11c$c1a49470$44edbd50$@tin.it> Message-ID: <011b01d3c14f$4d3962e0$e7ac28a0$@tin.it> No converters, in the vms only box I've 2 original dec branded disks ( rz2cc-kb , 4gb disk ) in the other I swapped out one of them to put a normal scsi 68 hd for tru64. I think an Atlas, 36 or 72gb Added a dvd and a floppy unit in each, too. Each has standard a 2nd dec network card ( 10mb + coax ) , PBXGB-AA, 2nd dec scsi controller. One has a 3rd 10/100 dec network card -----Messaggio originale----- Da: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Per conto di Douglas Taylor via cctalk Inviato: mercoled? 21 marzo 2018 19:17 A: Mazzini Alessandro via cctalk Oggetto: Re: R: AlphaServers On 3/21/2018 9:58 AM, Mazzini Alessandro via cctalk wrote: > Two Digital Pws 500/au, one with vms (8.4), one with vms (8.4) and tru64 (latest version, supposedly) > > -----Messaggio originale----- > Da: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Per conto di John Blake via cctalk > Inviato: mercoled? 21 marzo 2018 10:49 > A: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Oggetto: Re: AlphaServers > > I've got two, the first being an 3000/400 64mb with two 146 gb SCSI-320 drives running on converters, one with openBSD 6 and the other with openvms 8.4 running headless. I doubt I'll ever be able to find the monitor, much less the needed cables and keyboard/mouse to turn it into the desktop it was supposed to be, so I've got a color turbochannel framebuffer if anyone has any use for it. The second is an alphaserver ds10l with the 617mhz EV67 processor, 1.5 gb ram and a radeon video card on the sole pci port, which runs openvms 8.4 on one hard drive and the most recent available version of unsupported debian linux on the other (I think it's sid?) as a workstation. > > Nekochan.net is a fair resource for hobbyist knowledge, possibly the only place online where people are still futzing about with Tru64. > comp.os.vms on usenet (or the info-vax email gateway) is where all of the latest news and deep tech discussion goes on. vcfed.org has a very healthy DEC forum too. > > What are the drives and converters are you using? From Bruce at Wild-Hare.com Wed Mar 21 18:25:19 2018 From: Bruce at Wild-Hare.com (Bruce Ray) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 17:25:19 -0600 Subject: DEC Field Guide > equivalent available for Data General? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Notes on Data General product numbers: Data General gave definitive part numbers for each product it created. The part numbers are usually located on small labels on each board, and have the format of 005-xxxxx-yy where 005 indicates that this is a product number, xxxxxx is the specific product, and yy is the product revision number. In later systems (1980s) the labels sometimes had two 005 numbers on the label: a "T" (Type) number and an "A" (Assembly) number. This was done because a specific PCB, or "Assembly", could actually be used for different products depending upon what chips or PROMs were stuffed on the PCB. In these cases the T 005 number would indicate what specific options were supported by that specific PCB. On PCBs the 005-xxxxxx-yy part number usually exists on a label attached to the 15"x15" board stiffener (the side opposite the finger edge connectors). This PCB label might look something like this (note that this is just an example): T 005-001322-03 A 005-001367-04 In these situations the important number is the "T" (type) number rather than the "A" (assembly) number since it uniquely identifies the particular product and its capability/function. The "107-xxxxxx-yy" type number is a circuit board "artwork" number, not a Data General product number. Similar to an "assembly", a single 107-xxxxxx-yy circuit board artwork may actually be used by multiple 005-xxxxxx-yy parts. Therefore, the part number is the primary (PCB) reference to be used because a single 107-xxxxxx-yy circuit board artwork may actually be used by multiple 005-xxxxxx-yy parts. Schematics are identified with an 001-xxxxxx-yy part number, and may not even have its corresponding "artwork" number listed on the schematic(!). Unfortunately, I do not know of an official cross-reference between product numbers and artwork numbers. ----- Bruce Ray Wild Hare Computer Systems, Inc. Boulder, Colorado USA bkr at WildHareComputers.com ...preserving the Data General legacy: www.NovasAreForever.org On 3/21/2018 3:37 AM, Ulrich Tagge via cctalk wrote: > Hi all, > > is there somewhere a list of DG modules which includes also 3rd > party/OEM, ... like it is available for DEC? > > Would be good to know what the following is: > > 107-000621 02 > 107-000621 03/11 > 107-001632-00 > 107-0016320/02 > 107-000718-00 > 107-000181-04 > 107-000187-16 > 107-000187-15-30 > AB020116-00 > 107-000621-03 > 107-001768-02 > 107-001768-03 > 107-0017680-1E > 107-00053905 > Zetaco SCZ-2 > >500-453-00 K > >500-542-00 K > > > Many Greetings > Ulrich From chd at chdickman.com Wed Mar 21 21:04:20 2018 From: chd at chdickman.com (Charles Dickman) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 22:04:20 -0400 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles In-Reply-To: References: <9ae5314a-5f4c-6e51-fb15-4110c24b67c8@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 11:27 AM, Doug Ingraham via cctalk wrote: > On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 8:02 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 9:59 PM, allison via cctalk >> wrote: >> >> >> Has anyone ever seen a PDP8/i style console for the PDP8/e? >> I know the 8/I panel won't work with an 8/e. My question was if there >> was a special seen in the wild that had all the register values like >> the 8/i did since the panel interface clearly supports it. >> > > This would certainly be possible. I discussed exactly this possibility a > few years > ago with a now departed friend. We did a cursory search at the time and > didn't > turn up anything. Of course there are lots of smart people out there who > do a lot > of clever things and never bother to tell the net. My bet would be that > nobody > has wanted this enough to make their own omnibus front panel when there are > still real panels and machines readily available. > > I guess you can be the first! Best wishes. Not sure I want to go there... If you have ever looked at the DEC part number listing on bitsaver's you will be amazed at all the specials that were done. And that was what I was really interested in. Did DEC ever make a fancy panel that displayed all the registers? The original designer had it in mind since he displays a selected register at runtime during TS1 and when the processor is stopped since that is TS1. > -- > Doug Ingraham > PDP-8 SN 1175 Charles Dickman PDP-8/e SN 2630 From chd at chdickman.com Wed Mar 21 21:19:32 2018 From: chd at chdickman.com (Charles Dickman) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 22:19:32 -0400 Subject: FPGA implementations of DEC processors Message-ID: There are enough pdp8 fpga that they have started to calll themselves YAPDP8FPGA. So what are the really good FPGA DEC processors? -chuck From allisonportable at gmail.com Wed Mar 21 21:42:02 2018 From: allisonportable at gmail.com (allison) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 22:42:02 -0400 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles In-Reply-To: References: <9ae5314a-5f4c-6e51-fb15-4110c24b67c8@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4d95d093-28f7-bb27-5914-32f773c84203@gmail.com> On 03/21/2018 10:04 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 11:27 AM, Doug Ingraham via cctalk > wrote: >> On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 8:02 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk < >> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: >> >>> On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 9:59 PM, allison via cctalk >>> wrote: >>> >>>>> Has anyone ever seen a PDP8/i style console for the PDP8/e? >>> I know the 8/I panel won't work with an 8/e. My question was if there >>> was a special seen in the wild that had all the register values like >>> the 8/i did since the panel interface clearly supports it. >>> >> This would certainly be possible. I discussed exactly this possibility a >> few years >> ago with a now departed friend. We did a cursory search at the time and >> didn't >> turn up anything. Of course there are lots of smart people out there who >> do a lot >> of clever things and never bother to tell the net. My bet would be that >> nobody >> has wanted this enough to make their own omnibus front panel when there are >> still real panels and machines readily available. >> >> I guess you can be the first! Best wishes. > Not sure I want to go there... > > If you have ever looked at the DEC part number listing on bitsaver's > you will be amazed at all the specials that were done. And that was > what I was really interested in. Did DEC ever make a fancy panel that > displayed all the registers? The original designer had it in mind > since he displays a selected register at runtime during TS1 and when > the processor is stopped since that is TS1. > There were versions for Telco, Power, and other industries never minding the typeset 8s. A few were done by CSSS (customer services special systems) for military and other more unique specialized systems. >> -- >> Doug Ingraham >> PDP-8 SN 1175 > Charles Dickman > PDP-8/e SN 2630 Can a panel that displays everything like a 8I be built, yes.? Keep in mind there will be at least? 55-58 lamps/leds and drivers.?? The circuit is simple though repetitive to the max.? More of a mechanical pain than electronic.? It would likely not fit the existing panel space. Allison Parent PDP-8F SN 01030 From useddec at gmail.com Wed Mar 21 22:43:24 2018 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 22:43:24 -0500 Subject: R: AlphaServers In-Reply-To: <011b01d3c14f$4d3962e0$e7ac28a0$@tin.it> References: <65eeaa0b-fb7a-e6d8-d026-9aa1e238542d@gmail.com> <00a701d3c11c$c1a49470$44edbd50$@tin.it> <011b01d3c14f$4d3962e0$e7ac28a0$@tin.it> Message-ID: I have a 3000-300 ( I think ) with cpu and PS, but missing a few pieces. Also a smaller 3000 and a load of memory. Please contact me off list if you have any interest. Anyone need any 5000s? Thanks, Paul On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 3:00 PM, Mazzini Alessandro via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > No converters, > > in the vms only box I've 2 original dec branded disks ( rz2cc-kb , 4gb > disk ) > in the other I swapped out one of them to put a normal scsi 68 hd for > tru64. I think an Atlas, 36 or 72gb > Added a dvd and a floppy unit in each, too. > > Each has standard a 2nd dec network card ( 10mb + coax ) , PBXGB-AA, 2nd > dec scsi controller. One has a 3rd 10/100 dec network card > > -----Messaggio originale----- > Da: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Per conto di Douglas > Taylor via cctalk > Inviato: mercoled? 21 marzo 2018 19:17 > A: Mazzini Alessandro via cctalk > Oggetto: Re: R: AlphaServers > > On 3/21/2018 9:58 AM, Mazzini Alessandro via cctalk wrote: > > Two Digital Pws 500/au, one with vms (8.4), one with vms (8.4) and tru64 > (latest version, supposedly) > > > > -----Messaggio originale----- > > Da: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Per conto di John > Blake via cctalk > > Inviato: mercoled? 21 marzo 2018 10:49 > > A: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > Oggetto: Re: AlphaServers > > > > I've got two, the first being an 3000/400 64mb with two 146 gb SCSI-320 > drives running on converters, one with openBSD 6 and the other with openvms > 8.4 running headless. I doubt I'll ever be able to find the monitor, much > less the needed cables and keyboard/mouse to turn it into the desktop it > was supposed to be, so I've got a color turbochannel framebuffer if anyone > has any use for it. The second is an alphaserver ds10l with the 617mhz > EV67 processor, 1.5 gb ram and a radeon video card on the sole pci port, > which runs openvms 8.4 on one hard drive and the most recent available > version of unsupported debian linux on the other (I think it's sid?) as a > workstation. > > > > Nekochan.net is a fair resource for hobbyist knowledge, possibly the > only place online where people are still futzing about with Tru64. > > comp.os.vms on usenet (or the info-vax email gateway) is where all of > the latest news and deep tech discussion goes on. vcfed.org has a very > healthy DEC forum too. > > > > > What are the drives and converters are you using? > > From healyzh at avanthar.com Wed Mar 21 23:47:20 2018 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2018 21:47:20 -0700 Subject: FPGA implementations of DEC processors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I?ve been working on updating my DEC emulation site, that includes the FPGA section. That might help you find some, I?m sure that I have plenty of gaps. http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/pdp_fpga.html Zane Sent from my iPod > On Mar 21, 2018, at 7:19 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > > There are enough pdp8 fpga that they have started to calll themselves > YAPDP8FPGA. > > So what are the really good FPGA DEC processors? > > -chuck From useddec at gmail.com Thu Mar 22 01:14:04 2018 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2018 01:14:04 -0500 Subject: DEC RL cables, terminator, etc. Message-ID: Several list members have asked me about RL cables, etc. I have finally gone through most of them. If anyone needs any parts, please contact me off list. Thanks, Paul From lars at nocrew.org Thu Mar 22 02:03:48 2018 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2018 07:03:48 +0000 Subject: FPGA implementations of DEC processors In-Reply-To: (Charles Dickman via cctalk's message of "Wed, 21 Mar 2018 22:19:32 -0400") References: Message-ID: <7wy3ikwq0b.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> > So what are the really good FPGA DEC processors? http://www.fpgaretrocomputing.org/pdp10x/ From aap at papnet.eu Thu Mar 22 04:35:33 2018 From: aap at papnet.eu (Angelo Papenhoff) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2018 10:35:33 +0100 Subject: FPGA implementations of DEC processors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20180322093532.GA17826@indra.papnet.eu> On 21/03/18, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > I?ve been working on updating my DEC emulation site, that includes the FPGA section. That might help you find some, I?m sure that I have plenty of gaps. > > http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/pdp_fpga.html > I'd like to add mine to the list: I've done a PDP-6 (not tested very much, but that should change soon): https://github.com/aap/pdp6/tree/master/verilog ...and am currently working on a KA10: https://github.com/aap/pdp10 My goal is to stay as close to the original schematics as possible. That means I'm simulating delay elements with counters and stuff like that. Also note that these two projects are the only experience with HDLs that I have. Don't expect them to be very professional. aap From healyzh at avanthar.com Thu Mar 22 07:36:55 2018 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2018 05:36:55 -0700 Subject: FPGA implementations of DEC processors In-Reply-To: <20180322093532.GA17826@indra.papnet.eu> References: <20180322093532.GA17826@indra.papnet.eu> Message-ID: <0B04484C-E13A-42AB-B236-D7CF3EA81088@avanthar.com> Sent from my iPod > On Mar 22, 2018, at 2:35 AM, Angelo Papenhoff via cctalk wrote: > >> On 21/03/18, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: >> I?ve been working on updating my DEC emulation site, that includes the FPGA section. That might help you find some, I?m sure that I have plenty of gaps. >> >> http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/pdp_fpga.html >> > > I'd like to add mine to the list: > I've done a PDP-6 (not tested very much, but that should change soon): > https://github.com/aap/pdp6/tree/master/verilog > > ...and am currently working on a KA10: > https://github.com/aap/pdp10 > > My goal is to stay as close to the original schematics as possible. > That means I'm simulating delay elements with counters and stuff like > that. Also note that these two projects are the only experience with > HDLs that I have. Don't expect them to be very professional. > > aap Thanks! I?m traveling for work this week so it will take a while to update. Zane From dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com Thu Mar 22 11:30:49 2018 From: dpi at dustyoldcomputers.com (Doug Ingraham) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2018 10:30:49 -0600 Subject: PDP8/e programmers consoles In-Reply-To: References: <9ae5314a-5f4c-6e51-fb15-4110c24b67c8@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 8:04 PM, Charles Dickman wrote: > On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 11:27 AM, Doug Ingraham via cctalk > > I guess you can be the first! Best wishes. > > Not sure I want to go there... > I hear you there. I built a front panel for a box I have been calling the FPG-8. Modeled after the Straight 8 front panel. I probably have 100 hours into it at the point I stalled out. Next step is silk screening the glass face plate. Electrically the panel works. Can do a walking 1's of the LED's Can sense all the switches. Now that I have a 3D printer I am thinking about a redo of the switches. They are just toggle switches right now. If I tilt them down so when on the handle sticks straight out (~20 degrees) and add a plastic handle cover resembling the DEC ones it will look really close. So expect a few hundred man hours in making a PCB front panel for omnibus with all the bells and whistles. Sometimes the things that seem easiest turn out to be difficult. > If you have ever looked at the DEC part number listing on bitsaver's > you will be amazed at all the specials that were done. And that was > what I was really interested in. Did DEC ever make a fancy panel that > displayed all the registers? The original designer had it in mind > since he displays a selected register at runtime during TS1 and when > the processor is stopped since that is TS1. As far as I know there are only 3 front panel variants made for omnibus. 1) lamp 8/e panel. (found on e f m lab-8 and DECSet 8000) 2) LED 8/e panel. (almost the same as 1) (Found on e, f, m, probably Lab-8 and possibly on DECSet 8000.) 3) 7 segment LED panel with keypad on 8/a. (Still only shows one at a time.) Minor variants of these but none that display all registers/states at the same time. Yes you could do this but the panel size would probably have to increase. I am sure part of the reason they did it the way they did was to cut costs. More lamps would have added considerably to the cost. And very little additional gain to functionally. Most of the "specials" were probably just different screens on front panels with the underlying hardware unchanged. That is certainly true of the Lab-8 and DECSet 8k. Best wishes! -- Doug Ingraham PDP-8 SN 1175 From jan at janadelsbach.com Thu Mar 22 11:40:38 2018 From: jan at janadelsbach.com (Jan Adelsbach) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2018 17:40:38 +0100 Subject: FPGA implementations of DEC processors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <66945775-4495-736a-9599-f2f3a758558a@janadelsbach.com> On 03/22/2018 05:47 AM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > I?ve been working on updating my DEC emulation site, that includes the FPGA section. That might help you find some, I?m sure that I have plenty of gaps. > > http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/pdp_fpga.html > > Zane > Here is mine for the list, a PDP-1 (and some optional PDP-1D features) in Verilog: https://github.com/Jside/pdp1 It is a behavioral implementation rather than a gate-by-gate one. So it is easy to read and debug but not accurate in the instruction "pipeline" or timings. - Jan From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Mar 22 11:51:14 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2018 09:51:14 -0700 Subject: FPGA implementations of DEC processors In-Reply-To: <66945775-4495-736a-9599-f2f3a758558a@janadelsbach.com> References: <66945775-4495-736a-9599-f2f3a758558a@janadelsbach.com> Message-ID: On 3/22/18 9:40 AM, Jan Adelsbach via cctalk wrote: > Here is mine for the list, a PDP-1 (and some optional PDP-1D features) in Verilog: > If you want to make your brain hurt, try supporting the MIT PDP-1X From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 22 13:05:21 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2018 11:05:21 -0700 Subject: Remnants of local Commodore Users' Group being offered for free Message-ID: This is in Eugene, OR. I received the following email on the local Freecycle-type list: ---------------------------------------------------------------- I have all of the "Lane County Commodore Users Group" (LCCUG) inventory including (but not limited to) the following : Keyboards, one monitor, transformers, two disc players for 5 1/2 inch floppies, cassette tape player, games, a whole lot of instructions, dozens of empty discs, dozens of full discs, and much more. Plus a 25-plus pound lap top (SX-64) ! More than a regular car trunk can hold . Many items in original boxes. LCCUG is no longer exists. For a classic computer buff this would be a gold mine. It is amazing what this old computer was able to do - 30 years ago! 18th and Chambers area - Eugene. jimsav97405 at yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------------------- I have nothing to do with this offer. FYI --Chuck From u.tagge at gmx.de Thu Mar 22 13:51:53 2018 From: u.tagge at gmx.de (Ulrich Tagge) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2018 19:51:53 +0100 Subject: DEC Field Guide > equivalent available for Data General? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5ed1398f-27c4-ebce-6390-7f5d9dd558fa@gmx.de> Hi all, thanks for your comments. They has helped a lot, to understand the DG numbering schema, and will help identifying the modules. Many Greetings Ulrich From curiousmarc3 at gmail.com Fri Mar 23 01:33:27 2018 From: curiousmarc3 at gmail.com (CuriousMarc) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2018 23:33:27 -0700 Subject: Shipping a Flexowriter In-Reply-To: References: <161d8c4a0a9-154c-423ea@webjas-vab035.srv.aolmail.net> <9D2F25B6-0910-4ACF-8B34-C2B0DD17CDF2@gmail.com> Message-ID: Wow! Complete with the matching desk and in perfect cosmetic condition. What a find. Congratulations! Marc On Mar 21, 2018, at 10:55 AM, Kyle Owen via cctalk wrote: I ended up going with PakMail and was not disappointed. It arrived safe and sound yesterday, and though the cost of shipping was almost as much as the unit itself, I felt much better about paying a little more to make sure it arrived without damage. Pictures are here: https://imgur.com/a/xW480 Looking forward to getting it going! Thanks for the suggestions, Kyle From spacewar at gmail.com Fri Mar 23 03:27:35 2018 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 08:27:35 +0000 Subject: R.I.P. Robert T. "Doc" Suding Message-ID: I just learned from the April 2018 issue of QST that Robert T. "Doc" Suding, W0LMD, has died. Suding cofounded and was chief design engineer of The Digital Group, an early microcomputer company in Denver (1974-1979). From spacewar at gmail.com Fri Mar 23 03:36:03 2018 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 08:36:03 +0000 Subject: R.I.P. Robert T. "Doc" Suding In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: http://m.legacy.com/obituaries/denverpost/obituary.aspx?n=robert-suding&pid=187748166 From billdegnan at gmail.com Fri Mar 23 07:27:01 2018 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 08:27:01 -0400 Subject: R.I.P. Robert T. "Doc" Suding In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here is a photo from bytecollector. I think it was Herb who showed one of these at a VCF East, IIRC. http://bytecollector.com/images/suding_001.jpg On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 4:36 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > http://m.legacy.com/obituaries/denverpost/obituary.aspx?n=robert-suding& > pid=187748166 > From binarydinosaurs at gmail.com Fri Mar 23 08:01:19 2018 From: binarydinosaurs at gmail.com (Adrian Graham) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 13:01:19 +0000 Subject: Help with IC identification Message-ID: Hi folks, I'm looking for info on a few 8 pin DIPs that are in a cache battery module. They're marked thus: 4973 AK W79B 4965 AF W83A Anyone? I've not traced pinouts yet but maybe someone else's google-fu is better than mine today. Cheers, -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? t: @binarydinosaurs f: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk From lbickley at bickleywest.com Fri Mar 23 09:46:11 2018 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 07:46:11 -0700 Subject: R.I.P. Robert T. "Doc" Suding In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20180323074611.6f76dfbd@asrock.bcwi.net> On Fri, 23 Mar 2018 08:27:35 +0000 Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: > I just learned from the April 2018 issue of QST that Robert T. "Doc" > Suding, W0LMD, has died. Suding cofounded and was chief design > engineer of The Digital Group, an early microcomputer company in > Denver (1974-1979). Back in the mid-seventies, when I was COB of "Personal Computer Corporation", The Digital Group product line was our best seller for a couple of years. Our staff often had one-on-one contact with Doc. Suding. Those of us who knew him will miss him for sure... Best, Lyle -- 73 AF6WS Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Mar 23 10:45:16 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 08:45:16 -0700 Subject: R.I.P. Robert T. "Doc" Suding In-Reply-To: <20180323074611.6f76dfbd@asrock.bcwi.net> References: <20180323074611.6f76dfbd@asrock.bcwi.net> Message-ID: On 3/23/18 7:46 AM, Lyle Bickley via cctalk wrote: > Back in the mid-seventies, when I was COB of "Personal Computer > Corporation", The Digital Group product line was our best seller for a > couple of years. Our staff often had one-on-one contact with Doc. > Suding. Those of us who knew him will miss him for sure... He was a good guy. He took the time to come out to Wisconsin back then to demo his system for the Wisconsin Computer Society, back when the Milwaukee Computer Store on North Avenue was the only one around. From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Mar 23 11:07:50 2018 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 11:07:50 -0500 Subject: R.I.P. Robert T. "Doc" Suding In-Reply-To: References: <20180323074611.6f76dfbd@asrock.bcwi.net> Message-ID: <20180323160808.C5D424E7F6@mx2.ezwind.net> At 10:45 AM 3/23/2018, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: >He was a good guy. He took the time to come out to Wisconsin back then >to demo his system for the Wisconsin Computer Society, back when the >Milwaukee Computer Store on North Avenue was the only one around. There was one on Capitol near Maryland Avenue in Shorewood, I know I went there in '75 or so? - John From kylevowen at gmail.com Fri Mar 23 12:43:45 2018 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 17:43:45 +0000 Subject: Shipping a Flexowriter In-Reply-To: References: <161d8c4a0a9-154c-423ea@webjas-vab035.srv.aolmail.net> <9D2F25B6-0910-4ACF-8B34-C2B0DD17CDF2@gmail.com> Message-ID: Thank you for the compliments! I'm looking forward to getting it going. Any idea what the model (FIO) indicates? Trying to locate some repair manuals and tips. Anything else I should look for other than what's on Bitsavers? The unit powers up and types with a few keys slow to act or return. Carriage return doesn't latch when it gets to the left margin. Column 4 of the punch is stuck on. Reader seems to work fine. Thanks, Kyle From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Mar 23 12:49:28 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 10:49:28 -0700 Subject: R.I.P. Robert T. "Doc" Suding In-Reply-To: <20180323160808.C5D424E7F6@mx2.ezwind.net> References: <20180323074611.6f76dfbd@asrock.bcwi.net> <20180323160808.C5D424E7F6@mx2.ezwind.net> Message-ID: Itty Bitty Computers I worked there one summer. The only place I ever saw an Apple I when it was for sale. The Milwaukee Computer Store started before IBC's Milwaukee branch started. Their original store was in Evanston, IL. On 3/23/18 9:07 AM, John Foust via cctalk wrote: > At 10:45 AM 3/23/2018, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: >> He was a good guy. He took the time to come out to Wisconsin back then >> to demo his system for the Wisconsin Computer Society, back when the >> Milwaukee Computer Store on North Avenue was the only one around. > > There was one on Capitol near Maryland Avenue in Shorewood, > I know I went there in '75 or so? > > - John > From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Fri Mar 23 15:00:57 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 16:00:57 -0400 (EDT) Subject: R.I.P. Robert T. "Doc" Suding Message-ID: <20180323200057.5B8AA18C0A3@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Al Kossow > The only place I ever saw an Apple I when it was for sale. Don't you wish you'd bought one - and kept it? :-) Noel From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Fri Mar 23 15:46:01 2018 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 20:46:01 +0000 Subject: Unix-PC Message-ID: Well, I don't know what happened to everybody who wanted it but that Unix-PC is still sitting here and it needs to go.? One more offer before I scrap it.? Needs to be someone who can pick it up real soon. bill From billdegnan at gmail.com Fri Mar 23 16:32:11 2018 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 17:32:11 -0400 Subject: Unix-PC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I will take it if no one else does, but where is it, missed this thread B On Mar 23, 2018 4:46 PM, "Bill Gunshannon via cctalk" wrote: > > Well, I don't know what happened to everybody who wanted it > > but that Unix-PC is still sitting here and it needs to go. One more > > offer before I scrap it. Needs to be someone who can pick it up > > real soon. > > > bill > > > From classiccmp at crash.com Fri Mar 23 17:25:36 2018 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 15:25:36 -0700 Subject: Unix-PC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8f64f4db-79b1-5d78-1f04-efb3f53b565a@crash.com> On 03/23/2018 14:32, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote: > > I will take it if no one else does, but where is it, missed this thread Most recent reference I could find was May 2017: http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2017-May/034691.html Bill appears to be located near Scranton, PA. If I were within a couple hundred miles, I'd be writing to him instead of the list... ;) Good luck, --Steve. From m.zahorik at sbcglobal.net Fri Mar 23 17:37:46 2018 From: m.zahorik at sbcglobal.net (Michael Zahorik) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 22:37:46 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Shipping a Flexowriter In-Reply-To: References: <161d8c4a0a9-154c-423ea@webjas-vab035.srv.aolmail.net> <9D2F25B6-0910-4ACF-8B34-C2B0DD17CDF2@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1122389850.6200078.1521844666399@mail.yahoo.com> Kyle, my Friden is a Model SFD-V, although yours looks similar, apparently it is different. You will find that a lot of the old lube has combined with dust and dirt to make gummy grime. This sticky stuff will cause the relays and lever arms to stick and act sluggishly. I have found that a strip of paper pinched between the relay armature and pole piece then pulled out while pinching will remove a lot of it. So clean and oil, clean and oil. I have found a bunch of stuff on bitsavers and also had some help from the guys on GreenKeys. Good luck. Let me know if I can help. ?Mike Zahorik (414) 254-6768 From: Kyle Owen via cctalk To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Sent: Friday, March 23, 2018 12:44 PM Subject: Re: Shipping a Flexowriter Thank you for the compliments! I'm looking forward to getting it going. Any idea what the model (FIO) indicates? Trying to locate some repair manuals and tips. Anything else I should look for other than what's on Bitsavers? The unit powers up and types with a few keys slow to act or return. Carriage return doesn't latch when it gets to the left margin. Column 4 of the punch is stuck on. Reader seems to work fine. Thanks, Kyle From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Mar 23 18:09:35 2018 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 18:09:35 -0500 Subject: R.I.P. Robert T. "Doc" Suding In-Reply-To: References: <20180323074611.6f76dfbd@asrock.bcwi.net> <20180323160808.C5D424E7F6@mx2.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <20180323232202.2C0724E871@mx2.ezwind.net> At 12:49 PM 3/23/2018, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: >Itty Bitty Computers >I worked there one summer. >The only place I ever saw an Apple I when it was for sale. I was perhaps 13 at the time, living just down the street, learning BASIC via ASR-33 dialup to UW-M from the high school with the Math Club. I don't remember much of what they had on display. I remember the place being kind of bare. I routinely checked the garbage behind a TV repair shop next-door to IBC perhaps, hoping for interesting electronic tidbits. - John From barythrin at gmail.com Fri Mar 23 19:49:44 2018 From: barythrin at gmail.com (Sam O'nella) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 19:49:44 -0500 Subject: Remnants of local Commodore Users' Group being offered for free Message-ID: <5ab5a0aa.0a5aca0a.c0125.3b59@mx.google.com> Whoever or whichever group does get it, i hope if they have any files or interesting info the rest of the clubs can help store. null From derschjo at gmail.com Fri Mar 23 23:00:04 2018 From: derschjo at gmail.com (Josh Dersch) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 21:00:04 -0700 Subject: Somewhat random QBus backplane / chassis question Message-ID: Hi all -- I've got an 11/03 backplane here (designated as an "11/03 EA" originally but marked as "Model changed from EA to AA") inside a small chassis w/power supply, model "OH780-A."? (So it was at some point in its life the front-end to a VAX-11/780.)? As far as I can tell, it has a standard H9270 backplane (4-slot, quad width) in it. The chassis appears to work fine when I have an actual LSI-11 in there (I've been experimenting with an 11/23, but I do have an 11/03 boardset that works in it). What I want to do with the chassis is use it with a UNIBUS->QBus bridge I have, as a Qbus backplane for a SCSI controller (and maybe other things) for my VAX-11/750.? I have encountered an oddity in doing so, and I've looked at the documentation and I remain puzzled.? The oddity is this:? If I don't have an LSI-11 CPU board in place in the chassis, the power supply won't come up properly.? (The +5V appears to pulse, the kind of behavior I'd expect with a shorted or heavily loaded supply rail somewhere). Here's a basic rundown of what I've observed: - If I put an 11/23 or 11/03 CPU in, everything works fine. - Doesn't matter what slot the CPU's in either, as long as there's a CPU board somewhere in the thing, all's well. - Doesn't matter how heavily or lightly loaded the backplane is; I've tried it with just a QBus SCSI controller, I've tried it with the backplane stuffed full of boards. Since I want to use this as a simple QBus backplane, I don't want to have a CPU board in place.? I haven't seen this behavior before (but then, I can't recall trying to run a Qbus backplane without a CPU in it either).? I thought I knew QBus fairly well, so I assume I'm overlooking something obvious.? Or perhaps there is a fault here with the chassis, somehow.? I figure someone here will have the answer immediately and I'll slap my forehead... Thanks as always, Josh From ard.p850ug1 at gmail.com Fri Mar 23 23:55:31 2018 From: ard.p850ug1 at gmail.com (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 04:55:31 +0000 Subject: Somewhat random QBus backplane / chassis question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 24, 2018 at 4:00 AM, Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote: > Hi all -- > > I've got an 11/03 backplane here (designated as an "11/03 EA" originally but > marked as "Model changed from EA to AA") inside a small chassis w/power > supply, model "OH780-A." (So it was at some point in its life the front-end > to a VAX-11/780.) As far as I can tell, it has a standard H9270 backplane > (4-slot, quad width) in it. > > The chassis appears to work fine when I have an actual LSI-11 in there (I've > been experimenting with an 11/23, but I do have an 11/03 boardset that works > in it). > > What I want to do with the chassis is use it with a UNIBUS->QBus bridge I > have, as a Qbus backplane for a SCSI controller (and maybe other things) for > my VAX-11/750. I have encountered an oddity in doing so, and I've looked at > the documentation and I remain puzzled. The oddity is this: If I don't > have an LSI-11 CPU board in place in the chassis, the power supply won't > come up properly. (The +5V appears to pulse, the kind of behavior I'd > expect with a shorted or heavily loaded supply rail somewhere). > > Here's a basic rundown of what I've observed: > > - If I put an 11/23 or 11/03 CPU in, everything works fine. My first thoughts are one of two things : Insufficient load on one of the supply lines (may not be the +5V one), the CPU board does load that line. Lack of pull-ups on ACLO, DCLO. Possibly pulled up (or at least loaded) on the CPU board) I would start with tryng to get the power supply running on its own. Disconnect it from the backplane. Add dummy loads. Put a pull-up from 5V to ACLO and DCLO. Once the PSU will run on its own, connect the backplane and try again. -tony From derschjo at gmail.com Sat Mar 24 00:48:48 2018 From: derschjo at gmail.com (Josh Dersch) Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 22:48:48 -0700 Subject: Somewhat random QBus backplane / chassis question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3/23/2018 9:55 PM, Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: > On Sat, Mar 24, 2018 at 4:00 AM, Josh Dersch via cctalk > wrote: >> Hi all -- >> >> I've got an 11/03 backplane here (designated as an "11/03 EA" originally but >> marked as "Model changed from EA to AA") inside a small chassis w/power >> supply, model "OH780-A." (So it was at some point in its life the front-end >> to a VAX-11/780.) As far as I can tell, it has a standard H9270 backplane >> (4-slot, quad width) in it. >> >> The chassis appears to work fine when I have an actual LSI-11 in there (I've >> been experimenting with an 11/23, but I do have an 11/03 boardset that works >> in it). >> >> What I want to do with the chassis is use it with a UNIBUS->QBus bridge I >> have, as a Qbus backplane for a SCSI controller (and maybe other things) for >> my VAX-11/750. I have encountered an oddity in doing so, and I've looked at >> the documentation and I remain puzzled. The oddity is this: If I don't >> have an LSI-11 CPU board in place in the chassis, the power supply won't >> come up properly. (The +5V appears to pulse, the kind of behavior I'd >> expect with a shorted or heavily loaded supply rail somewhere). >> >> Here's a basic rundown of what I've observed: >> >> - If I put an 11/23 or 11/03 CPU in, everything works fine. > My first thoughts are one of two things : > > Insufficient load on one of the supply lines (may not be the +5V one), > the CPU board does load that line. Ah ha! -- thanks for pointing that out, I'd neglected the +12 in this scenario.? Turns out all of the boards I'd used to load the system use only +5 by some stroke of luck.? I put a DHV11 in the backplane and the supply now works fine without a CPU.? I suppose I could use a few extra serial lines anyway, so I guess I'll leave it in there :). - Josh > > Lack of pull-ups on ACLO, DCLO. Possibly pulled up (or at least loaded) > on the CPU board) > > > I would start with tryng to get the power supply running on its own. > Disconnect it from the backplane. Add dummy loads. Put a pull-up > from 5V to ACLO and DCLO. > > Once the PSU will run on its own, connect the backplane and try > again. > > -tony > From paulkoning at comcast.net Sat Mar 24 07:49:32 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 08:49:32 -0400 Subject: Shipping a Flexowriter In-Reply-To: References: <161d8c4a0a9-154c-423ea@webjas-vab035.srv.aolmail.net> <9D2F25B6-0910-4ACF-8B34-C2B0DD17CDF2@gmail.com> Message-ID: <24C87362-36AE-4DD4-B5CF-245E597D602F@comcast.net> > On Mar 23, 2018, at 1:43 PM, Kyle Owen via cctalk wrote: > > Thank you for the compliments! I'm looking forward to getting it going. > > Any idea what the model (FIO) indicates? I don't know that specific designation and I can't find my reference. But I do know that Friden would make custom variations of the Flexowriter, for example with different characters on the type bars and other features. An example is the Flexowriters used at labs and universities (MC and THE, for example) in Holland for ALGOL programming. Those had _ and | characters that did not advance the carriage, for making keywords (underlined words) and characters like not-equal. They also had a "stop on semicolon" feature on the tape duplication mechanism, so you could edit your programs by copying tape and stopping on a statement boundary. I saw that model code a few months ago. paul From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Mar 24 09:57:42 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 07:57:42 -0700 Subject: Did anyone on the list get these tapes? In-Reply-To: References: <74afad8d-f522-a0ab-9c61-da7460b582c9@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <96eb04ab-f399-e60c-7349-cfedd4325c14@bitsavers.org> On 3/16/18 10:39 AM, Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote: > The LCM+L bought them, we're going to image them when they arrive (and I'll > be sure to send a copy your way). Josh forwarded images and extracted files to me. They are up now under http://bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/dectape/LCM_Early_PDP-11 The BASIC source is an early MUBAS From couryhouse at aol.com Sat Mar 24 14:13:20 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 15:13:20 -0400 Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Re:_R.I.P._Robert_T._"Doc"_S?= =?UTF-8?Q?uding_need_to_=C2=A0buy_=C2=A0or=3F_=C2=A0a_=C2=A0?= =?UTF-8?Q?digital=C2=A0group=C2=A0=C2=A0with_the_scre?= =?UTF-8?Q?en_in_the_=C2=A0front=C2=A0and_floppies?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <162596df021-c8a-1c936@webjas-vae210.srv.aolmail.net> need to ?buy ?or? ?a ?digital?group??with the screen in the ?front?and floppies ? thanks? ed sharpe ? In a message dated 3/23/2018 1:27:52 AM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: ? I just learned from the April 2018 issue of QST that Robert T. "Doc" Suding, W0LMD, has died. Suding cofounded and was chief design engineer of The Digital Group, an early microcomputer company in Denver (1974-1979). From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Sat Mar 24 14:31:32 2018 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 15:31:32 -0400 Subject: LSI11 CPU Microm Message-ID: I was trying to put together a minimal PDP-11/03 using a quad width M7264 CPU and got nothing, no ODT prompt.? I'm not sure the board is working. Searching the internet I came across this page which described a M7264 CPU board with a 'bad' MICROM http://www.datormuseum.se/computers/digital-equipment-corporation/qbus Quoting the page; "Using a logic analyser showed that the MICROM without label is not behaving well." Anyone know how a logic analyser would be used to determine this?? Other hints to debug this board? Doug From mattislind at gmail.com Sat Mar 24 15:40:14 2018 From: mattislind at gmail.com (Mattis Lind) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 21:40:14 +0100 Subject: LSI11 CPU Microm In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: l?rdag 24 mars 2018 skrev Douglas Taylor via cctalk : > I was trying to put together a minimal PDP-11/03 using a quad width M7264 > CPU and got nothing, no ODT prompt. I'm not sure the board is working. > > Searching the internet I came across this page which described a M7264 CPU > board with a 'bad' MICROM > > http://www.datormuseum.se/computers/digital-equipment-corporation/qbus > > Quoting the page; "Using a logic analyser showed that the MICROM without > label is not behaving well." I guess I wrote that a couple of years ago. If I remember correctly the way I did research into this was to attach a 40 pin DIP clip connected to my logic snalyzer on on the various MICROM chips and there were no activity at all when the board got out of RESET. Then I removed one chip at a time to see if there were any difference. This particular chip made a difference. After removing it there were busactivity. I have not yet got around trying with -3.9V Bias chips to see if that make the board run better. If your board is the later E etch then it has 3.9V bias and you could directly use chips from a KD11-HA board. > > Anyone know how a logic analyser would be used to determine this? Other > hints to debug this board? > > Doug /Mattis From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sat Mar 24 15:47:16 2018 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 20:47:16 +0000 Subject: SGI Indy power supply: identify this diode? Message-ID: After a recent power cut and a series of glitches as the power was restored, one of my Indys suffered a PSU failure. It's a Sony APS-81 171W unit, SGI P/N 060-0008-001. I've found half a dozen damaged parts, and I've identified a 150R 1W metal film resistor (R135), two trannies (Q105, a 2SC4304 and Q106, a 2SC2785) and a couple of small diodes. One of them (D116) appears to be a 6.2b2 (6.2V 1/2W) zener. The other one I'm not sure about. On the PCB it's labelled D113, and it's adjacent to the 2SC2785. It's very small, with a green band at the cathode end, and the legend "4B" in green - photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/pnt103/albums/72157667056183978 Oddly, another Sony PSU I looked at had a diode there that looked identical except it's marked "4A". I have an idea what it might be but if anyone actually knows what family or type/value this is, I'd be grateful for any insight. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From bobsmithofd at gmail.com Sat Mar 24 16:23:34 2018 From: bobsmithofd at gmail.com (Bob Smith) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 17:23:34 -0400 Subject: SGI Indy power supply: identify this diode? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 4BSOD-123F MM1Z2V2SemtechZener diode http://www.s-manuals.com/smd/4b On Sat, Mar 24, 2018 at 4:47 PM, Pete Turnbull via cctalk wrote: > After a recent power cut and a series of glitches as the power was > restored, one of my Indys suffered a PSU failure. It's a Sony APS-81 171W > unit, SGI P/N 060-0008-001. I've found half a dozen damaged parts, and I've > identified a 150R 1W metal film resistor (R135), two trannies (Q105, a > 2SC4304 and Q106, a 2SC2785) and a couple of small diodes. One of them > (D116) appears to be a 6.2b2 (6.2V 1/2W) zener. > > The other one I'm not sure about. On the PCB it's labelled D113, and > it's adjacent to the 2SC2785. It's very small, with a green band at the > cathode end, and the legend "4B" in green - photos at > https://www.flickr.com/photos/pnt103/albums/72157667056183978 > > Oddly, another Sony PSU I looked at had a diode there that looked > identical except it's marked "4A". > > I have an idea what it might be but if anyone actually knows what family > or type/value this is, I'd be grateful for any insight. > > -- > Pete > Pete Turnbull From spacewar at gmail.com Sat Mar 24 18:12:56 2018 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 17:12:56 -0600 Subject: LSI11 CPU Microm In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 24, 2018 at 1:31 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > I was trying to put together a minimal PDP-11/03 using a quad width M7264 > CPU and got nothing, no ODT prompt. I'm not sure the board is working. > [...] > Quoting the page; "Using a logic analyser showed that the MICROM without > label is not behaving well." > Anyone know how a logic analyser would be used to determine this? Other > hints to debug this board? > I don't know an easy way. I built a custom MICROM reader a few years ago that I've used to dump the LSI-11, WD16 (Alpha Micro AM100) and WD Pascal Microengine MICROMs. From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Sat Mar 24 18:44:48 2018 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 23:44:48 +0000 Subject: Unix-PC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The Unix-PC has found a new home in the hands of someone I am sure will enjoy and appreciate it.? I would expect him to show up here sometime with questions as he tries to revive it.? I tried booting it and while it booted fine from the diagnostic floppy and things like memory and CPU tested OK it won't boot off the hard disk which means either the hard disk has died (a possibility considering its age) or could just be bit rot.? In any event, he got all the floppies that went with it.? Who knows, might show up at VCF-East some day. bill From imp at bsdimp.com Sat Mar 24 18:58:56 2018 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 17:58:56 -0600 Subject: Unix-PC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 24, 2018 at 5:44 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > The Unix-PC has found a new home in the hands of someone > I am sure will enjoy and appreciate it. I would expect him to > show up here sometime with questions as he tries to revive > it. I tried booting it and while it booted fine from the diagnostic > floppy and things like memory and CPU tested OK it won't boot > off the hard disk which means either the hard disk has died > (a possibility considering its age) or could just be bit rot. In > any event, he got all the floppies that went with it. Who knows, > might show up at VCF-East some day. > At least it has MFM hard drives, which means that it can use the MFM emulator to have near infinite storage (sadly, only ~64MB at a time due to limitations in the controller, it seems). It would be cool if it could run something more modern, but don't those boxes max at at 4MB or 8MB of RAM? Warner From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Sat Mar 24 19:39:26 2018 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 00:39:26 +0000 Subject: Unix-PC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 03/24/2018 07:58 PM, Warner Losh wrote: On Sat, Mar 24, 2018 at 5:44 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk > wrote: The Unix-PC has found a new home in the hands of someone I am sure will enjoy and appreciate it. I would expect him to show up here sometime with questions as he tries to revive it. I tried booting it and while it booted fine from the diagnostic floppy and things like memory and CPU tested OK it won't boot off the hard disk which means either the hard disk has died (a possibility considering its age) or could just be bit rot. In any event, he got all the floppies that went with it. Who knows, might show up at VCF-East some day. At least it has MFM hard drives, which means that it can use the MFM emulator to have near infinite storage (sadly, only ~64MB at a time due to limitations in the controller, it seems). I wondered about that. I heard someone was working on one but I never saw it. Got any pointers? 70M is the limit I think. has something to do with the registers in the controller. But I seem to remember a mod to let it use two disks. That would make it 140M. It would be cool if it could run something more modern, but don't those boxes max at at 4MB or 8MB of RAM? This one has 1 Meg. Amount isn't the problem, finding the expansion boards is. They were rare in its heyday and probably unobtanium today. As for something more modern, I always thought it would be an improvement if it ran BSD. Even with only one meg it should be able to run 2.11BSD if someone could do a port. Then you put NFS on and disk space is no longer a problem. :-) bill From nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com Sat Mar 24 22:23:06 2018 From: nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com (Nigel Williams) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 14:23:06 +1100 Subject: Did anyone on the list get these tapes? In-Reply-To: <96eb04ab-f399-e60c-7349-cfedd4325c14@bitsavers.org> References: <74afad8d-f522-a0ab-9c61-da7460b582c9@bitsavers.org> <96eb04ab-f399-e60c-7349-cfedd4325c14@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 1:57 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > http://bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/dectape/LCM_Early_PDP-11 Thanks everyone for preserving these items. In the unpacked file dectapes-extracted.zip, folder 118655.tu56 has within it BASIC.P11.txt, the filename suggesting it might be a version of BASIC, but the header of the file is this: ;FOCAL-11, VERSION B2 ;BY RICK MERRILL ;COPYRIGHT@ 1970,1971 BY ;DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP, MAYNARD, MASS. overall the file contents suggest it is FOCAL, is there a way to check that this is what was on the original tape? and not a handling problem during the recovery? As an aside there is an early version of TECO-11 there too: TITLE TECO V.21A - 18 AUG 70 - RC CLEMENTS/PMH/CM SUBTTL TEXT EDITOR AND CORRECTOR ;COPYRIGHT DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP., 1969,1970, MAYNARD, MASS. From derschjo at gmail.com Sat Mar 24 22:34:02 2018 From: derschjo at gmail.com (Josh Dersch) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 20:34:02 -0700 Subject: Did anyone on the list get these tapes? In-Reply-To: References: <74afad8d-f522-a0ab-9c61-da7460b582c9@bitsavers.org> <96eb04ab-f399-e60c-7349-cfedd4325c14@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <06626ba1-aae8-c614-1508-9f5ac224870e@gmail.com> On 3/24/2018 8:23 PM, Nigel Williams via cctalk wrote: > On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 1:57 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk > wrote: >> http://bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/dectape/LCM_Early_PDP-11 > Thanks everyone for preserving these items. > > In the unpacked file dectapes-extracted.zip, folder 118655.tu56 has > within it BASIC.P11.txt, the filename suggesting it might be a version > of BASIC, but the header of the file is this: > > ;FOCAL-11, VERSION B2 > > ;BY RICK MERRILL > > ;COPYRIGHT@ 1970,1971 BY > ;DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP, MAYNARD, MASS. > > overall the file contents suggest it is FOCAL, is there a way to check > that this is what was on the original tape? and not a handling problem > during the recovery? I dumped the tapes and can confirm that this is not an error during recovery and is what was on the original tape; each tape had a printed directory listing taped to it and this listing matches the listing I got when extracting the data.? I assume it was misnamed or overwritten at some point back in the day. There is a BASIC.P11 on another tape that has actual BASIC source in it. There's also what looks like some very early RSTS source in there. - Josh > > > As an aside there is an early version of TECO-11 there too: > > TITLE TECO V.21A - 18 AUG 70 - RC CLEMENTS/PMH/CM > SUBTTL TEXT EDITOR AND CORRECTOR > > ;COPYRIGHT DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP., 1969,1970, MAYNARD, MASS. > From mbbrutman at brutman.com Sun Mar 25 00:29:34 2018 From: mbbrutman at brutman.com (Michael Brutman) Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 22:29:34 -0700 Subject: IBM 6094-010 "Dials" protocol? Message-ID: Picture here: https://i.imgur.com/ClCw070.jpg Does anybody know how to talk to this thing? I've got one of these devices but I don't have a reference for the protocol. It's a serial device so it's probably not terribly complicated, but trying to figure it out by throwing random bytes at it might take a few years. SA23-2780-01 - "Option Instructions IBM 6094 010 Dials for AIX" should have the description of the protocol, but I can't find this document anywhere. https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/ssw_aix_71/com.ibm.aix.files/dials.htm gives some hints on how it is programmed - in particular it alludes to "setting granularity" (sensitivity) which would be in addition to reading the dials. Somebody with access to an AIX box and that "special file" might be able to dig up the commands. I know IBM has professional archivists so I can try them for the document referenced above if I can't find it other ways. And I could probably find the micro-controller inside, hope the ROM is readable, and try to disassemble that, but that would be a last ditch effort. Regards, Mike From nf6x at nf6x.net Sun Mar 25 09:11:29 2018 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 07:11:29 -0700 Subject: IBM 6094-010 "Dials" protocol? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <77B2FCA7-E64B-404F-8E47-E7500C2D19E9@nf6x.net> > On Mar 24, 2018, at 22:29, Michael Brutman via cctalk wrote: > > Picture here: https://i.imgur.com/ClCw070.jpg Neat! I haven't seen one of those since 1987, when I briefly played with a workstation that had one of those in an unguarded computer room in college. It was running some sort of CAD demo in which you could rotate, translate, and scale a wireframe model with the dials. I seem to recall that it was propped up diagonally on some sort of stand, but I don't remember if that was a standard feature vs. something cobbled together locally. Good luck learning how to talk to it. I can think of a number of different applications in which a physical interface like that might be nice. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From paulkoning at comcast.net Sun Mar 25 10:30:11 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 11:30:11 -0400 Subject: Did anyone on the list get these tapes? In-Reply-To: <06626ba1-aae8-c614-1508-9f5ac224870e@gmail.com> References: <74afad8d-f522-a0ab-9c61-da7460b582c9@bitsavers.org> <96eb04ab-f399-e60c-7349-cfedd4325c14@bitsavers.org> <06626ba1-aae8-c614-1508-9f5ac224870e@gmail.com> Message-ID: <2D7225E3-93B8-4644-B883-00DD908523D7@comcast.net> > On Mar 24, 2018, at 11:34 PM, Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote: > > ... > There's also what looks like some very early RSTS source in there. The BASIC-PLUS interpreter part, yes. RTS.P11, there are two versions. I'll look at them more closely. I have a 1971 listing of "BTSS" which is clearly an early, possibl pre-release, version of RSTS. Just the kernel; the other parts were stripped out by the University of Illinois team who were experimenting with that code. (How they got it is unclear.) It has been scanned but not OCRed yet. That plus the RTS code might be close to a full RSTS V0.1... The 118600 tape has floating point emulation code in it, it appears to be the 3-word floating point that was reportedly used in RSTS through V3. In V4A, DEC switched to the 2 word and 4 word formats that were used in the 11/45 floating point processor. paul From chrise at pobox.com Sun Mar 25 10:49:00 2018 From: chrise at pobox.com (Chris Elmquist) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 10:49:00 -0500 Subject: IBM 6094-010 "Dials" protocol? In-Reply-To: <77B2FCA7-E64B-404F-8E47-E7500C2D19E9@nf6x.net> References: <77B2FCA7-E64B-404F-8E47-E7500C2D19E9@nf6x.net> Message-ID: <20180325154900.GE4556@n0jcf.net> On Sunday (03/25/2018 at 07:11AM -0700), Mark J. Blair via cctalk wrote: > > > > On Mar 24, 2018, at 22:29, Michael Brutman via cctalk wrote: > > > > Picture here: https://i.imgur.com/ClCw070.jpg > > Neat! I haven't seen one of those since 1987, when I briefly played with a workstation that had one of those in an unguarded computer room in college. It was running some sort of CAD demo in which you could rotate, translate, and scale a wireframe model with the dials. I seem to recall that it was propped up diagonally on some sort of stand, but I don't remember if that was a standard feature vs. something cobbled together locally. > > Good luck learning how to talk to it. I can think of a number of different applications in which a physical interface like that might be nice. Maybe there's some relationship to the SGI dial boxes?? I have an SGI one but don't know anything about the IBM ones. They were built by Danaher and Seiko and both SGI and Sun offered those models... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial_box http://yehar.com/blog/?p=3471 https://github.com/hanshuebner/sgi-dialbox-usb/blob/master/dialbox.py Chris -- Chris Elmquist From cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net Sun Mar 25 11:01:06 2018 From: cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 10:01:06 -0600 Subject: IBM 6094-010 "Dials" protocol? In-Reply-To: <20180325154900.GE4556@n0jcf.net> References: <77B2FCA7-E64B-404F-8E47-E7500C2D19E9@nf6x.net> <20180325154900.GE4556@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: On 03/25/2018 09:49 AM, Chris Elmquist via cctalk wrote: > Maybe there's some relationship to the SGI dial boxes?? I have an SGI > one but don't know anything about the IBM ones. They were built by > Danaher and Seiko and both SGI and Sun offered those models... > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial_box It might be worth updating the Wikipedia article to reflect IBM's dial box, including a picture. -- Grant. . . . unix || die From silent700 at gmail.com Sun Mar 25 11:49:12 2018 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 11:49:12 -0500 Subject: IBM 6094-010 "Dials" protocol? In-Reply-To: <20180325154900.GE4556@n0jcf.net> References: <77B2FCA7-E64B-404F-8E47-E7500C2D19E9@nf6x.net> <20180325154900.GE4556@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 10:49 AM, Chris Elmquist via cctalk wrote: > Maybe there's some relationship to the SGI dial boxes?? I have an SGI > one but don't know anything about the IBM ones. They were built by > Danaher and Seiko and both SGI and Sun offered those models... I have seen the same dial box, as well as the "Button Box" and possibly the CAD puck with the crosshairs, for HP and, IIRC, Sun systems. It's a fair bet they're all based on the same models. "Somewhere" in my overwhelming stacks of IBM docs, I have some sort of guide to I/O devices with pics of each. I don't believe I've ever seen a protocol description in them, unfortunately. j From glen.slick at gmail.com Sun Mar 25 12:14:57 2018 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 10:14:57 -0700 Subject: IBM 6094-010 "Dials" protocol? In-Reply-To: References: <77B2FCA7-E64B-404F-8E47-E7500C2D19E9@nf6x.net> <20180325154900.GE4556@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 9:49 AM, Jason T via cctalk wrote: > On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 10:49 AM, Chris Elmquist via cctalk > wrote: >> Maybe there's some relationship to the SGI dial boxes?? I have an SGI >> one but don't know anything about the IBM ones. They were built by >> Danaher and Seiko and both SGI and Sun offered those models... > > I have seen the same dial box, as well as the "Button Box" and > possibly the CAD puck with the crosshairs, for HP and, IIRC, Sun > systems. It's a fair bet they're all based on the same models. > I have an HP branded dial box, an A4362A. It looks identical front and back to the photos of the SGI DLS80-1022 on Wikipedia. I have the stand for it, but seem to be missing the two brackets that screw on to the back of the case to hold the stand in place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial_box#/media/File:SGI_dialbox_DLS80-1022_front.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial_box#/media/File:SGI_dialbox_DLS80-1022_back.jpg From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Mar 25 12:28:59 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 10:28:59 -0700 Subject: IBM 6094-010 "Dials" protocol? In-Reply-To: <20180325154900.GE4556@n0jcf.net> References: <77B2FCA7-E64B-404F-8E47-E7500C2D19E9@nf6x.net> <20180325154900.GE4556@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: On 3/25/18 8:49 AM, Chris Elmquist via cctalk wrote: > https://github.com/hanshuebner/sgi-dialbox-usb/blob/master/dialbox.py a friend of mine made a MIDI controller out of a E&S dial box, which also has alphanumeric LEDs over each dial. the box looks like the one on the right here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/E%26S_Digistar%27s_parts.jpg From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Mar 25 12:31:26 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 10:31:26 -0700 Subject: IBM 6094-010 "Dials" protocol? In-Reply-To: References: <77B2FCA7-E64B-404F-8E47-E7500C2D19E9@nf6x.net> <20180325154900.GE4556@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: <1d4acbae-ee38-e391-1a3a-b8ec8bea8d6d@bitsavers.org> and if anyone cares, I just listed three SGI IRIS dial boxes on ebay. they are just rotary encoders, the smarts were in the button box, which had a 68008 in it. On 3/25/18 10:28 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > > On 3/25/18 8:49 AM, Chris Elmquist via cctalk wrote: > >> https://github.com/hanshuebner/sgi-dialbox-usb/blob/master/dialbox.py > > a friend of mine made a MIDI controller out of a E&S dial box, which also has alphanumeric LEDs over each dial. > > the box looks like the one on the right here: > https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/E%26S_Digistar%27s_parts.jpg > > > From aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk Sun Mar 25 09:07:50 2018 From: aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk (Aaron Jackson) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 15:07:50 +0100 Subject: RL02 Question Message-ID: <87vadkmeo9.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> Sorry to keep bothering you all with RL02 questions. I think I am nearly there. It seems my head cleaning in a warm bath of isopropyl alcohol was a success. I bought a tested RL02 pack and loaded it - no bad sounds, I can extend the heads all the way. So that's good. I have supposedly a working RL02K pack, and seemingly good heads. After I load a pack however, it goes into fault mode. Checking through the test points on my scope, there is no survo burst data until I push the heads 3-5mm further forward. So it seems to me that the heads are not loading far enough into the pack. I loosened the head alignment screws to move the heads all the way forward, tightened them back up, and tried loading the pack again. It stopped again, 3-5mm short of track 0. So moving the heads forward didn't seem to make any difference. I have tried a different control board, and read/write amplifier board, with no success. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there some sensor which I am not seeing? Thanks, Aaron. -- Aaron Jackson PhD Student, Computer Vision Laboratory, Uni of Nottingham http://aaronsplace.co.uk From kylevowen at gmail.com Sun Mar 25 14:34:18 2018 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 19:34:18 +0000 Subject: Identifying vacuum tube module Message-ID: Anyone knows what these go to? https://imgur.com/a/CpxLs Thanks, Kyle From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Mar 25 14:48:53 2018 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 15:48:53 -0400 Subject: IBM 6094-010 "Dials" protocol? In-Reply-To: <1d4acbae-ee38-e391-1a3a-b8ec8bea8d6d@bitsavers.org> References: <77B2FCA7-E64B-404F-8E47-E7500C2D19E9@nf6x.net> <20180325154900.GE4556@n0jcf.net> <1d4acbae-ee38-e391-1a3a-b8ec8bea8d6d@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 1:31 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > and if anyone cares, I just listed three SGI IRIS dial boxes on ebay. > they are just rotary encoders, the smarts were in the button box, which had a 68008 in it. I went noodling around eBay and found a couple of types - one looked like your auction with what you describe - 8 rotary encoders just piped directly out to what appears to be a DB25 on the back that clearly need an external box with smarts. There's also another variety with two vendors/case styles that appear to take serial and +5V. SN-921 (2.1mm barrel jack for +5V) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Sgi_dialbox_sn-921_front.jpg DANAHER CONTROLS Dials DLS80-1022 (+5V over DE9 serial cable - has special Y-cable for power injection) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/SGI_dialbox_DLS80-1022_front.jpg I've been playing with the LPFK for years and I've been interested in the dialboxes ever since I saw an early one on a VAXstation 8000 on the show floor at DECUS. I decided to pick up one each of the DLS80 and SN-921. Should get to me in a week or so. >>> https://github.com/hanshuebner/sgi-dialbox-usb/blob/master/dialbox.py I'm going to test this code out when I have a dialbox in hand. In the meantime, I'm finding some of the common links to resources are now dead. I did find these on the Internet Archive: eventio.py (quite similar to dialbox.py) https://web.archive.org/web/20070526101234/http://www.ysbl.york.ac.uk/~emsley/coot/mbox-2004-2005/att-0547/eventio.py Configure_Dials_for_OS_X.pdf (from May 2005, mentions OS X 10.3. Has nice pics of the cables) https://web.archive.org/web/20060518153503/http://sbgrid.org/downloads/Configure_Dials_for_OS_X.pdf SGI Dialbox to O2/Octane/etc https://web.archive.org/web/20071011031646/http://www.meadow.net/pinouts.html#sgidbox I have worked with a number of devices that are powered by +5V via their DE9. Routinely, that's done by not connecting Pin 9 (RI) from the host and injecting +5V into the device on its Pin 9. I will be checking my DLS80 for that once it arrives. I've made my own Y-cables from scratch, and I found a brand of USB Serial adapter in a large 2-piece plastic shell and modded those to inject USB +5V over DE9 Pin 9 to keep the cabling simpler. Both methods work. -ethan From nf6x at nf6x.net Sun Mar 25 14:50:31 2018 From: nf6x at nf6x.net (Mark J. Blair) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 12:50:31 -0700 Subject: Identifying vacuum tube module In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On Mar 25, 2018, at 12:34, Kyle Owen via cctalk wrote: > > Anyone knows what these go to? > > https://imgur.com/a/CpxLs If the 5815 is a Federal Supply Classification, then the module would most likely be used in some sort of teletype or facsimile equipment. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/ From djg at pdp8online.com Sun Mar 25 13:29:27 2018 From: djg at pdp8online.com (David Gesswein) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 14:29:27 -0400 Subject: Unix-PC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20180325182927.GA23551@hugin2.pdp8online.com> > > At least it has MFM hard drives, which means that it can use the MFM > emulator to have near infinite storage (sadly, only ~64MB at a time due > to limitations in the controller, it seems). > > I wondered about that. I heard someone was working on one but I never > saw it. Got any pointers? > http://www.pdp8online.com/mfm/. Thats mine and has link to the other unit available. 3b1 faq with info on disk sizes supported. http://unixpc.taronga.com/faq/part2/faq.html And our 3b1. http://www.pdp8online.com/shows/vcfe16/pics/P1090149.shtml Emulator has been tested with it. Some videos online by other of them using it with a 3b1. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Mar 25 17:09:16 2018 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 18:09:16 -0400 Subject: IBM 6094-010 "Dials" protocol? In-Reply-To: References: <77B2FCA7-E64B-404F-8E47-E7500C2D19E9@nf6x.net> <20180325154900.GE4556@n0jcf.net> <1d4acbae-ee38-e391-1a3a-b8ec8bea8d6d@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 3:48 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > I went noodling around eBay and found a couple of types > > SN-921 (2.1mm barrel jack for +5V) > https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Sgi_dialbox_sn-921_front.jpg > > DANAHER CONTROLS Dials DLS80-1022 (+5V over DE9 serial cable - has > special Y-cable for power injection) > https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/SGI_dialbox_DLS80-1022_front.jpg > > I have worked with a number of devices that are powered by +5V via > their DE9. Routinely, that's done by not connecting Pin 9 (RI) from > the host and injecting +5V into the device on its Pin 9... Not even close... http://yehar.com/blog/?p=3471 The (Seiko?) SN-921 can apparently be powered via DE9 or the 2.1mm jack next to it... 1. GND 2. SERIAL OUTPUT (?9 V) 3. SERIAL INPUT 4. POWER IN +5 V 5. POWER IN +5 V 6. NC 7. NC 8. GND 9. NC The Danaher Controls DLS80-1022 has a DIN-5 at the end of its Y-cable for input power. It's +5V and +/-12V (because it does not generate serial voltages internally), I now gather... 1. POWER IN +12 V 2. NC 3. POWER IN +5 V 4. GND 5. SERIAL OUTPUT (?12 V) 6. NC 7. SERIAL INPUT 8. NC 9. POWER IN -12 V Easy enough to feed, but good to know it's got an odd pin/power arrangement. Now I'm really looking forward to unboxing these next month! -ethan From decguy at songdog.eskimo.com Sun Mar 25 21:32:48 2018 From: decguy at songdog.eskimo.com (Guy N.) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 19:32:48 -0700 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? Message-ID: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> The new sysadmin at work is clearing out closets full of junk^H^H^H^H cool old stuff accumulated by the previous sysadmin. There's a big carton full of PATA hard disks. Most of them are in the 4.3 GB - 20 GB range, a few larger, a few smaller. Anyone have any use for these? You can have them for the cost of shipping, or free for local pickup in Bothell, WA. They're going to be recycled as scrap if I don't find a home for them. From tdk.knight at gmail.com Sun Mar 25 22:29:45 2018 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 22:29:45 -0500 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> Message-ID: those are the ibm server ones right? On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 9:32 PM, Guy N. via cctalk wrote: > The new sysadmin at work is clearing out closets full of junk^H^H^H^H > cool old stuff accumulated by the previous sysadmin. There's a big > carton full of PATA hard disks. Most of them are in the 4.3 GB - 20 GB > range, a few larger, a few smaller. > > Anyone have any use for these? You can have them for the cost of > shipping, or free for local pickup in Bothell, WA. They're going to be > recycled as scrap if I don't find a home for them. > > From ball.of.john at gmail.com Sun Mar 25 23:09:02 2018 From: ball.of.john at gmail.com (John Ball) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 21:09:02 -0700 Subject: System/36 Password Cracking In-Reply-To: Message-ID: For those following from the VCFed thread I have been working on an IBM 5363 that I have managed to get running up to the IPL sign on. For everyone else this project is being documented at http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?62860-IBM-5363-IBM-System-36 >From there while I know who last owned the machine (from picking it up at their dock) me and my contact at this company have been unable to dig up the MASTER or administrator login information. I ahve a couple leads that might be either the username or password but so far no comnination has worked. Yes I am aware of the old USENET post regarding cracking the login on a 5362 ( https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.sys.ibm.sys3x.misc/Vi57cbw1ofQ ) however the CE panel on the 5363 is a lot more simplified and I cannot do several of the steps. Also I do not have the system key but I can probably hotwire it Does anyone know of an alternate procedure for recovering or finding a lost MASTER login? -John From cctalk at snarc.net Sun Mar 25 19:05:08 2018 From: cctalk at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2018 20:05:08 -0400 Subject: VCF West exhibit registration is open Message-ID: <855af87a-65ce-c87d-1264-94f81bf17ea5@snarc.net> VCF West XIII will be held August 4-5 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Exhibit registration is open: http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/vcf-west-exhibits/. ________________________________ Evan Koblentz, director Vintage Computer Federation a 501(c)3 educational non-profit evan at vcfed.org (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org facebook.com/vcfederation twitter.com/vcfederation From lproven at gmail.com Mon Mar 26 07:05:44 2018 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 14:05:44 +0200 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> Message-ID: >> On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 9:32 PM, Guy N. via cctalk >> wrote: >> >> The new sysadmin at work is clearing out closets full of junk^H^H^H^H >> cool old stuff accumulated by the previous sysadmin. There's a big >> carton full of PATA hard disks. Most of them are in the 4.3 GB - 20 GB >> range, a few larger, a few smaller. > > On 26 March 2018 at 05:29, Adrian Stoness via cctalk wrote: > > those are the ibm server ones right? No. PATA means parallel ATA, that is, EIDE. It covered all EIDE versions, original 40-wire 16 MB/s and the later 80-wire 33, 66, 100, & 133 MB/sec standards. In theory it also embraces pre-*E* IDE, that is, IDE, the old sub-540MB non-LBA IDE drives. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From decguy at songdog.eskimo.com Mon Mar 26 08:22:04 2018 From: decguy at songdog.eskimo.com (Guy N.) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 06:22:04 -0700 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> Message-ID: <1522070524.22379.659.camel@moondog> I've had more replies to this offer than I expected! I'll make a general reply here, and contact everyone who responded off-list. I think the simplest and most cost-effective way to ship these is a USPS Priority Mail flat rate box. I have to wipe the drives before I ship them -- my word of honor to the sysadmin. I have probably a couple dozen done now that I can ship right away. The rest will trickle out a little bit slower after that. When I said "big carton" I meant it. There are plenty for everyone. From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Mar 26 11:07:41 2018 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 17:07:41 +0100 Subject: SGI Indy power supply: identify this diode? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 26/03/2018 16:08, Camiel Vanderhoeven wrote: > 4B would be a 2.2V zener; 4A would be a 2.0V zener, so that?s odd indeed... That's the idea I had... Except it's not a zener, or at least not anything like those. I took one out of another (working) supply, and I can tell it has a forward voltage of 0.2V, so it's presumably a Schottky diode of some sort. I can also tell it's not a low-voltage zener; the reverse breakdown voltage is more than 35V (the highest my bench supply goes up to). I'm hoping I don't have to breadboard a 1kV supply and find a lot of multi-megohm resistors to try and estimate the breakdown voltage - and then guess at the forward current rating. > On 3/24/18, 9:47 PM, "cctech on behalf of Pete Turnbull via cctech" wrote: > > After a recent power cut and a series of glitches as the power was > restored, one of my Indys suffered a PSU failure. It's a Sony APS-81 > 171W unit, SGI P/N 060-0008-001. I've found half a dozen damaged parts, > and I've identified a 150R 1W metal film resistor (R135), two trannies > (Q105, a 2SC4304 and Q106, a 2SC2785) and a couple of small diodes. One > of them (D116) appears to be a 6.2b2 (6.2V 1/2W) zener. > > The other one I'm not sure about. On the PCB it's labelled D113, and > it's adjacent to the 2SC2785. It's very small, with a green band at the > cathode end, and the legend "4B" in green - photos at > https://www.flickr.com/photos/pnt103/albums/72157667056183978 > > Oddly, another Sony PSU I looked at had a diode there that looked > identical except it's marked "4A". > > I have an idea what it might be but if anyone actually knows what family > or type/value this is, I'd be grateful for any insight. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Mar 26 11:07:41 2018 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 17:07:41 +0100 Subject: SGI Indy power supply: identify this diode? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 26/03/2018 16:08, Camiel Vanderhoeven wrote: > 4B would be a 2.2V zener; 4A would be a 2.0V zener, so that?s odd indeed... That's the idea I had... Except it's not a zener, or at least not anything like those. I took one out of another (working) supply, and I can tell it has a forward voltage of 0.2V, so it's presumably a Schottky diode of some sort. I can also tell it's not a low-voltage zener; the reverse breakdown voltage is more than 35V (the highest my bench supply goes up to). I'm hoping I don't have to breadboard a 1kV supply and find a lot of multi-megohm resistors to try and estimate the breakdown voltage - and then guess at the forward current rating. > On 3/24/18, 9:47 PM, "cctech on behalf of Pete Turnbull via cctech" wrote: > > After a recent power cut and a series of glitches as the power was > restored, one of my Indys suffered a PSU failure. It's a Sony APS-81 > 171W unit, SGI P/N 060-0008-001. I've found half a dozen damaged parts, > and I've identified a 150R 1W metal film resistor (R135), two trannies > (Q105, a 2SC4304 and Q106, a 2SC2785) and a couple of small diodes. One > of them (D116) appears to be a 6.2b2 (6.2V 1/2W) zener. > > The other one I'm not sure about. On the PCB it's labelled D113, and > it's adjacent to the 2SC2785. It's very small, with a green band at the > cathode end, and the legend "4B" in green - photos at > https://www.flickr.com/photos/pnt103/albums/72157667056183978 > > Oddly, another Sony PSU I looked at had a diode there that looked > identical except it's marked "4A". > > I have an idea what it might be but if anyone actually knows what family > or type/value this is, I'd be grateful for any insight. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From j_hoppe at t-online.de Mon Mar 26 11:34:27 2018 From: j_hoppe at t-online.de (=?UTF-8?Q?J=c3=b6rg_Hoppe?=) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 18:34:27 +0200 Subject: set help Message-ID: From ethan at 757.org Mon Mar 26 11:39:12 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 12:39:12 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SGI Indy power supply: identify this diode? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > I'm hoping I don't have to breadboard a 1kV supply and find a lot of > multi-megohm resistors to try and estimate the breakdown voltage - and then > guess at the forward current rating. Is it possible to get the schematics? - Ethan -- : Ethan O'Toole From ethan at 757.org Mon Mar 26 11:39:12 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 12:39:12 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SGI Indy power supply: identify this diode? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > I'm hoping I don't have to breadboard a 1kV supply and find a lot of > multi-megohm resistors to try and estimate the breakdown voltage - and then > guess at the forward current rating. Is it possible to get the schematics? - Ethan -- : Ethan O'Toole From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Mar 26 11:51:53 2018 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 17:51:53 +0100 Subject: SGI Indy power supply: identify this diode? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <82281e61-556e-3d97-1d97-db19ad0709f3@dunnington.plus.com> On 26/03/2018 17:39, ethan at 757.org wrote: >> I'm hoping I don't have to breadboard a 1kV supply and find a lot of >> multi-megohm resistors to try and estimate the breakdown voltage - and >> then guess at the forward current rating. > > Is it possible to get the schematics? If only! That question has been asked many times on SGI forums like nekochan, for the Sony PSU (like this one) and also the Nidec. No-one has ever claimed to have seen one, and the chances are Sony wouldn't ever have released them. I have thought about tracing out the relevant area of the circuit, but it would take a while as the components are fairly densely packed, and I've got several other tasks on the agenda. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From ethan at 757.org Mon Mar 26 12:12:20 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 13:12:20 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SGI Indy power supply: identify this diode? In-Reply-To: <82281e61-556e-3d97-1d97-db19ad0709f3@dunnington.plus.com> References: <82281e61-556e-3d97-1d97-db19ad0709f3@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: > If only! That question has been asked many times on SGI forums like > nekochan, for the Sony PSU (like this one) and also the Nidec. No-one has > ever claimed to have seen one, and the chances are Sony wouldn't ever have > released them. Yea I was looking for the Nidec one for the Indigo, as mine constantly spits out a power lost error on the console of my R4000. IIRC Nidec said no, but Sony might be different. I think there is a private system that Sony repair shops can access that has schematics online. > I have thought about tracing out the relevant area of the circuit, but it > would take a while as the components are fairly densely packed, and I've got > several other tasks on the agenda. I can imagine that would take a ton of time. And the parts list still wouldn't be official. -- : Ethan O'Toole From rtomek at ceti.pl Mon Mar 26 12:34:49 2018 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 19:34:49 +0200 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <1522070524.22379.659.camel@moondog> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <1522070524.22379.659.camel@moondog> Message-ID: <20180326173448.GB31902@tau1.ceti.pl> On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 06:22:04AM -0700, Guy N. via cctalk wrote: [...] > I have to wipe the drives before I ship them -- my word of honor to the > sysadmin. I have probably a couple dozen done now that I can ship right > away. The rest will trickle out a little bit slower after that. > > When I said "big carton" I meant it. There are plenty for everyone. I have heard good things of MHDD diagnostic/repair program in the context of low level format and generally checking health of spinning disks. Strangely, I have never had a chance to use it, so far. It seems like there is freeware version, able to boot from CD? HTH -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From lproven at gmail.com Mon Mar 26 12:44:58 2018 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 19:44:58 +0200 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <20180326173448.GB31902@tau1.ceti.pl> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <1522070524.22379.659.camel@moondog> <20180326173448.GB31902@tau1.ceti.pl> Message-ID: On 26 March 2018 at 19:34, Tomasz Rola via cctalk wrote: > > I have heard good things of MHDD diagnostic/repair program in the > context of low level format and generally checking health of spinning > disks. That's a new one on me. I have occasionally used, and often recommend, DBAN -- Darik's Boot And Nuke. https://dban.org/ -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 26 13:18:08 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 11:18:08 -0700 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> Message-ID: <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> On 03/25/2018 07:32 PM, Guy N. via cctalk wrote: > The new sysadmin at work is clearing out closets full of junk^H^H^H^H > cool old stuff accumulated by the previous sysadmin. There's a big > carton full of PATA hard disks. Most of them are in the 4.3 GB - 20 GB > range, a few larger, a few smaller. > > Anyone have any use for these? You can have them for the cost of > shipping, or free for local pickup in Bothell, WA. They're going to be > recycled as scrap if I don't find a home for them. I'm surprised that your sysadmin is allowing this to happen. Many large outfits have a policy of sending any hard disk, regardless of content to the industrial shredders. --Chuck From shadoooo at gmail.com Mon Mar 26 13:21:37 2018 From: shadoooo at gmail.com (shadoooo) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 20:21:37 +0200 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hello, I'm not an absolute expert, but I successfully fixed a couple of RL02 in the past. Adjustment to the head is only useful for azimuth, I think. The radial position will be adjusted continuously using the servo tracks, so there's no absolute position adjustment at all. If the drive fails during spinup, I would check at least the following: - the presence of spindle sector signal after digital conversion of pulses from analog signal coming from the pickup. - having disabled the servo linear motor (there's some jumper to setup, check the maintenance manual), perform the motor spinup, then load slowly the heads on the disk by hand, until you find the servo tracks. - with an oscilloscope check the presence of analog signal of the servo tracks on both heads, and it's digital counterpart after amplification and threshold detection (expected level values in the manual). If you see something strange, e.g missing or too short pulses, try to adjust the gain with the trimmer on the head board - enable again the servo, then load again My 2 cents. Andrea From mazzinia at tin.it Mon Mar 26 13:23:16 2018 From: mazzinia at tin.it (Mazzini Alessandro) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 20:23:16 +0200 Subject: R: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> Message-ID: <00b101d3c52f$82a36f00$87ea4d00$@tin.it> Well, but with dban and/or other certified software the drives are as well as new. The only issue would be the time/cost to sanitize them in house. -----Messaggio originale----- Da: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Per conto di Chuck Guzis via cctalk Inviato: luned? 26 marzo 2018 20:18 A: Guy N. via cctalk Oggetto: Re: PATA hard disks, anyone? On 03/25/2018 07:32 PM, Guy N. via cctalk wrote: > The new sysadmin at work is clearing out closets full of junk^H^H^H^H > cool old stuff accumulated by the previous sysadmin. There's a big > carton full of PATA hard disks. Most of them are in the 4.3 GB - 20 > GB range, a few larger, a few smaller. > > Anyone have any use for these? You can have them for the cost of > shipping, or free for local pickup in Bothell, WA. They're going to > be recycled as scrap if I don't find a home for them. I'm surprised that your sysadmin is allowing this to happen. Many large outfits have a policy of sending any hard disk, regardless of content to the industrial shredders. --Chuck From camiel.vanderhoeven at vmssoftware.com Mon Mar 26 10:08:12 2018 From: camiel.vanderhoeven at vmssoftware.com (Camiel Vanderhoeven) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 17:08:12 +0200 Subject: SGI Indy power supply: identify this diode? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 4B would be a 2.2V zener; 4A would be a 2.0V zener, so that?s odd indeed... Camiel On 3/24/18, 9:47 PM, "cctech on behalf of Pete Turnbull via cctech" wrote: After a recent power cut and a series of glitches as the power was restored, one of my Indys suffered a PSU failure. It's a Sony APS-81 171W unit, SGI P/N 060-0008-001. I've found half a dozen damaged parts, and I've identified a 150R 1W metal film resistor (R135), two trannies (Q105, a 2SC4304 and Q106, a 2SC2785) and a couple of small diodes. One of them (D116) appears to be a 6.2b2 (6.2V 1/2W) zener. The other one I'm not sure about. On the PCB it's labelled D113, and it's adjacent to the 2SC2785. It's very small, with a green band at the cathode end, and the legend "4B" in green - photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/pnt103/albums/72157667056183978 Oddly, another Sony PSU I looked at had a diode there that looked identical except it's marked "4A". I have an idea what it might be but if anyone actually knows what family or type/value this is, I'd be grateful for any insight. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From camiel.vanderhoeven at vmssoftware.com Mon Mar 26 10:08:12 2018 From: camiel.vanderhoeven at vmssoftware.com (Camiel Vanderhoeven) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 17:08:12 +0200 Subject: SGI Indy power supply: identify this diode? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 4B would be a 2.2V zener; 4A would be a 2.0V zener, so that?s odd indeed... Camiel On 3/24/18, 9:47 PM, "cctech on behalf of Pete Turnbull via cctech" wrote: After a recent power cut and a series of glitches as the power was restored, one of my Indys suffered a PSU failure. It's a Sony APS-81 171W unit, SGI P/N 060-0008-001. I've found half a dozen damaged parts, and I've identified a 150R 1W metal film resistor (R135), two trannies (Q105, a 2SC4304 and Q106, a 2SC2785) and a couple of small diodes. One of them (D116) appears to be a 6.2b2 (6.2V 1/2W) zener. The other one I'm not sure about. On the PCB it's labelled D113, and it's adjacent to the 2SC2785. It's very small, with a green band at the cathode end, and the legend "4B" in green - photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/pnt103/albums/72157667056183978 Oddly, another Sony PSU I looked at had a diode there that looked identical except it's marked "4A". I have an idea what it might be but if anyone actually knows what family or type/value this is, I'd be grateful for any insight. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk Mon Mar 26 13:59:39 2018 From: aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk (Aaron Jackson) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 19:59:39 +0100 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <87r2o6mzms.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> Hi Andrea, Thanks for your suggestions. Checking the amplified output from the r/w heads is one of the first things I did. The voltages are within normal range, but only after I push the head a bit further into the pack. Although, I did not set the jumper to try the other head (I suppose I was always looking at head 0), so I've just tried this now. There does indeed appear to be servo burst data coming from both heads once I've manually loaded them fully. So I am not sure if this is the problem. I'm really hoping that the pack is not bad since I paid for a tested pack. I also checked the sector transducer output last night. The individual waves (i.e. from trough to peak) seem to be twice as fast, but the timings between two peaks is correct. The survo busts are correctly aligned with the sector pulses. So, from what I can see, the drive should spin up correctly, but for some reason it goes into fault mode. I am right in thinking that upon load, the heads should continue moving forward until the first track is found, right? I should not have to perform a seek manually from the PDP? If this is not the case, perhaps there is something else wrong. Thanks again for your input, Aaron. shadoooo via cctalk writes: > Hello, > I'm not an absolute expert, but I successfully fixed a couple of RL02 in > the past. > Adjustment to the head is only useful for azimuth, I think. The radial > position will be adjusted continuously using the servo tracks, so there's > no absolute position adjustment at all. > If the drive fails during spinup, I would check at least the following: > - the presence of spindle sector signal after digital conversion of pulses > from analog signal coming from the pickup. > - having disabled the servo linear motor (there's some jumper to setup, > check the maintenance manual), perform the motor spinup, then load slowly > the heads on the disk by hand, until you find the servo tracks. > - with an oscilloscope check the presence of analog signal of the servo > tracks on both heads, and it's digital counterpart after amplification and > threshold detection (expected level values in the manual). If you see > something strange, e.g missing or too short pulses, try to adjust the gain > with the trimmer on the head board > - enable again the servo, then load again > > My 2 cents. > Andrea -- Aaron Jackson PhD Student, Computer Vision Laboratory, Uni of Nottingham http://aaronsplace.co.uk From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 26 14:05:21 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 12:05:21 -0700 Subject: R: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <00b101d3c52f$82a36f00$87ea4d00$@tin.it> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <00b101d3c52f$82a36f00$87ea4d00$@tin.it> Message-ID: On 03/26/2018 11:23 AM, Mazzini Alessandro wrote: > Well, but with dban and/or other certified software the drives are as well as new. The only issue would be the time/cost to sanitize them in house. Certainly, but it's fruitless to use logic in cases such as these. Chances are that someone once read the paper from the 1990s that said it was possible to recover overwritten data from a drive using, IIRC, an STM--at a rate of what was it? 1 kbit per hour? --Chuck From aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk Mon Mar 26 14:16:11 2018 From: aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk (Aaron Jackson) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 20:16:11 +0100 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <87r2o6mzms.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> References: <87r2o6mzms.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> Message-ID: <87po3qmyv8.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> I have turned up the amplitude just a little higher than I think it should be. Instead of going into fault mode after loading a pack, the READY light flashes about quickly. With the scope hooked up I can see that it hasn't managed to find the first track yet. Not really sure what it thinks it is doing... Aaron Jackson via cctalk writes: > Hi Andrea, > > Thanks for your suggestions. > > Checking the amplified output from the r/w heads is one of the first > things I did. The voltages are within normal range, but only after I > push the head a bit further into the pack. > > Although, I did not set the jumper to try the other head (I suppose I > was always looking at head 0), so I've just tried this now. There does > indeed appear to be servo burst data coming from both heads once I've > manually loaded them fully. So I am not sure if this is the problem. I'm > really hoping that the pack is not bad since I paid for a tested pack. > > I also checked the sector transducer output last night. The individual > waves (i.e. from trough to peak) seem to be twice as fast, but the > timings between two peaks is correct. > > The survo busts are correctly aligned with the sector pulses. > > So, from what I can see, the drive should spin up correctly, but for > some reason it goes into fault mode. I am right in thinking that upon > load, the heads should continue moving forward until the first track is > found, right? I should not have to perform a seek manually from the PDP? > If this is not the case, perhaps there is something else wrong. > > Thanks again for your input, > Aaron. > > > > shadoooo via cctalk writes: > >> Hello, >> I'm not an absolute expert, but I successfully fixed a couple of RL02 in >> the past. >> Adjustment to the head is only useful for azimuth, I think. The radial >> position will be adjusted continuously using the servo tracks, so there's >> no absolute position adjustment at all. >> If the drive fails during spinup, I would check at least the following: >> - the presence of spindle sector signal after digital conversion of pulses >> from analog signal coming from the pickup. >> - having disabled the servo linear motor (there's some jumper to setup, >> check the maintenance manual), perform the motor spinup, then load slowly >> the heads on the disk by hand, until you find the servo tracks. >> - with an oscilloscope check the presence of analog signal of the servo >> tracks on both heads, and it's digital counterpart after amplification and >> threshold detection (expected level values in the manual). If you see >> something strange, e.g missing or too short pulses, try to adjust the gain >> with the trimmer on the head board >> - enable again the servo, then load again >> >> My 2 cents. >> Andrea -- Aaron Jackson PhD Student, Computer Vision Laboratory, Uni of Nottingham http://aaronsplace.co.uk From ethan at 757.org Mon Mar 26 14:26:29 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 15:26:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: R: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <00b101d3c52f$82a36f00$87ea4d00$@tin.it> Message-ID: > Certainly, but it's fruitless to use logic in cases such as these. > Chances are that someone once read the paper from the 1990s that said it > was possible to recover overwritten data from a drive using, IIRC, an > STM--at a rate of what was it? 1 kbit per hour? AFAIK there has been a bounty out to recover data with a single wipe that hasn't been collected. I thought it was all theory and never done in practice? -- : Ethan O'Toole From binarydinosaurs at gmail.com Mon Mar 26 14:37:44 2018 From: binarydinosaurs at gmail.com (Adrian Graham) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 20:37:44 +0100 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <87r2o6mzms.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> References: <87r2o6mzms.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> Message-ID: > > So, from what I can see, the drive should spin up correctly, but for > some reason it goes into fault mode. I am right in thinking that upon > load, the heads should continue moving forward until the first track is > found, right? I should not have to perform a seek manually from the PDP? > If this is not the case, perhaps there is something else wrong. > I?m not an RL02 hardware expert at all, just a daily user back in the day. I?m reading this assuming that at all times the drive is correctly hooked up to an RLV12 in a running PDP with the correct cable and termination present on the drive? If it isn?t you?ll get a fault condition instead of ready after spin up. A From aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk Mon Mar 26 15:08:30 2018 From: aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk (Aaron Jackson) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 21:08:30 +0100 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: References: <87r2o6mzms.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> Message-ID: <87o9jamwg1.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> >> So, from what I can see, the drive should spin up correctly, but for >> some reason it goes into fault mode. I am right in thinking that upon >> load, the heads should continue moving forward until the first track is >> found, right? I should not have to perform a seek manually from the PDP? >> If this is not the case, perhaps there is something else wrong. > > I?m not an RL02 hardware expert at all, just a daily user back in the > day. I?m reading this assuming that at all times the drive is > correctly hooked up to an RLV12 in a running PDP with the correct > cable and termination present on the drive? If it isn?t you?ll get a > fault condition instead of ready after spin up. > > A No worries, your input has been valuable, so thank you. For anyone else who might have an idea: It seems to be hooked up correctly. When it is in the weird flashing ready state, the boot loader says "Read error" or "Device error" randomly. The heads oscillate back and forth very slightly as if it is trying to align itself better on the first track, which doesn't exist because it hasn't moved far enough into the pack. I'm beginning to think the heads are bad which will be far too expensive so I may end up giving up. Thanks, Aaron. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 26 15:08:37 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 13:08:37 -0700 Subject: R: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <00b101d3c52f$82a36f00$87ea4d00$@tin.it> Message-ID: <67c07d0d-c882-4cd9-f2fb-791f38785c33@sydex.com> On 03/26/2018 12:26 PM, ethan at 757.org wrote: > AFAIK there has been a bounty out to recover data with a single wipe > that hasn't been collected. I thought it was all theory and never done > in practice? Here's the Gutmann paper that many people cite: https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedings/sec96/full_papers/gutmann/index.html This may be applicable to early hard drives, but probably not practical with later hard drives. However, like a bad penny, the legend has persisted and IT management has, ever since, been irrationally paranoid. --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Mar 26 15:09:53 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 13:09:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: R: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <00b101d3c52f$82a36f00$87ea4d00$@tin.it> Message-ID: >> Certainly, but it's fruitless to use logic in cases such as these. >> Chances are that someone once read the paper from the 1990s that said it >> was possible to recover overwritten data from a drive using, IIRC, an >> STM--at a rate of what was it? 1 kbit per hour? On Mon, 26 Mar 2018, Ethan via cctalk wrote: > AFAIK there has been a bounty out to recover data with a single wipe that > hasn't been collected. I thought it was all theory and never done in > practice? NSA (No Such Agency) at Fort Meade, Maryland, does not discuss how much success they have had with their extensive research into data recovery. It is hard to make the data unrecoverable. It is easy to make the recovery cost exceed the value of the data. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Mon Mar 26 15:13:08 2018 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 20:13:08 +0000 Subject: R: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <00b101d3c52f$82a36f00$87ea4d00$@tin.it> Message-ID: On 03/26/2018 04:09 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: >>> Certainly, but it's fruitless to use logic in cases such as these. >>> Chances are that someone once read the paper from the 1990s that >>> said it >>> was possible to recover overwritten data from a drive using, IIRC, an >>> STM--at a rate of what was it? 1 kbit per hour? > > On Mon, 26 Mar 2018, Ethan via cctalk wrote: >> AFAIK there has been a bounty out to recover data with a single wipe >> that hasn't been collected. I thought it was all theory and never >> done in practice? > > NSA (No Such Agency) at Fort Meade, Maryland, does not discuss how > much success they have had with their extensive research into data > recovery. > NSA has been successful enough that the concept "DOD Wipe" as was found in programs like Gformat from Ghost no longer exists. bill From teoz at neo.rr.com Mon Mar 26 15:14:54 2018 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (TeoZ) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 16:14:54 -0400 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <00b101d3c52f$82a36f00$87ea4d00$@tin.it> Message-ID: Only somebody working for the NSA would bother trying to do that. Going from theory to practice can be VERY expensive and time consuming. -----Original Message----- From: Ethan via cctalk Sent: Monday, March 26, 2018 3:26 PM To: Chuck Guzis ; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: R: PATA hard disks, anyone? > Certainly, but it's fruitless to use logic in cases such as these. > Chances are that someone once read the paper from the 1990s that said it > was possible to recover overwritten data from a drive using, IIRC, an > STM--at a rate of what was it? 1 kbit per hour? AFAIK there has been a bounty out to recover data with a single wipe that hasn't been collected. I thought it was all theory and never done in practice? -- : Ethan O'Toole --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus From allisonportable at gmail.com Mon Mar 26 15:17:29 2018 From: allisonportable at gmail.com (allison) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 16:17:29 -0400 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <87o9jamwg1.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> References: <87r2o6mzms.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <87o9jamwg1.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> Message-ID: <1254ef82-728d-b304-e424-788c20142f19@gmail.com> On 03/26/2018 04:08 PM, Aaron Jackson via cctalk wrote: >>> So, from what I can see, the drive should spin up correctly, but for >>> some reason it goes into fault mode. I am right in thinking that upon >>> load, the heads should continue moving forward until the first track is >>> found, right? I should not have to perform a seek manually from the PDP? >>> If this is not the case, perhaps there is something else wrong. >> I?m not an RL02 hardware expert at all, just a daily user back in the >> day. I?m reading this assuming that at all times the drive is >> correctly hooked up to an RLV12 in a running PDP with the correct >> cable and termination present on the drive? If it isn?t you?ll get a >> fault condition instead of ready after spin up. >> >> A > No worries, your input has been valuable, so thank you. > > For anyone else who might have an idea: ON fault the heads are retracted and will not load till cleared. Least mine behaves that way. Most common problems are wrong drive address, cable issues, no terminator. Others include head lock not removed or the auto unlock style of headlock has the tab broken. > It seems to be hooked up correctly. When it is in the weird flashing > ready state, the boot loader says "Read error" or "Device error" > randomly. The heads oscillate back and forth very slightly as if it is > trying to align itself better on the first track, which doesn't exist > because it hasn't moved far enough into the pack. IF in fault its resetting to retracted on every try. If not something else is wrong. > I'm beginning to think the heads are bad which will be far too expensive > so I may end up giving up. Heads are not that expensive...? However you could have a wrong pack or one that has been erased and has no servo tracks.?? You must start with a known good pack and cleaned heads. Allison From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Mar 26 15:26:13 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 13:26:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: DTC 3250 Message-ID: I just stumbled on a DTC3250, & "Installation Guide" 8 bit ISA SCSI + 4 floppy Firmware: "GSH53A" The floppy interface MIGHT work for HD on a 5150/5160? (with appropriate software) Condition unknown Anybody need one? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cctalk at ibm51xx.net Mon Mar 26 16:58:46 2018 From: cctalk at ibm51xx.net (Ali) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 14:58:46 -0700 Subject: R: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <00b101d3c52f$82a36f00$87ea4d00$@tin.it> Message-ID: <002d01d3c54d$9e298070$da7c8150$@net> > NSA has been successful enough that the concept "DOD Wipe" as was found > in programs like Gformat from Ghost no longer exists. Bill, Are you saying that the NSA can recover data from a HDD that has been erased and been written over multiple times? -Ali From cclist at sydex.com Mon Mar 26 18:48:13 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 16:48:13 -0700 Subject: DTC 3250 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8a4c8c96-bcfb-87af-f3ef-82344106b22e@sydex.com> On 03/26/2018 01:26 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > I just stumbled on a DTC3250, & "Installation Guide" > 8 bit ISA SCSI + 4 floppy > > Firmware: "GSH53A" > > The floppy interface MIGHT work for HD on a 5150/5160? > (with appropriate software) > > Condition unknown > > Anybody need one? Fred, I used to have one of those--great little cards. If you don't get any takers, let me know and I'll flog it on the vcfed forum for you. --Chuck From cctalk at ibm51xx.net Mon Mar 26 19:11:24 2018 From: cctalk at ibm51xx.net (Ali) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 17:11:24 -0700 Subject: Compaq 9000 Series Rack Screws Message-ID: <001401d3c560$259d3b70$70d7b250$@net> Ok, A bit too new for this list but still hoping someone can help me out: I am in need of at least six (prefer 10) Compaq 9000 Series OEM Rack screws to mount a side panel. I believe these are M6 screws. On the side that had the panel already mounted the OEM screws are star screws approximately 0.5" long. I have looked online and on some of the rack accessory suppliers and have found M6 screws which I believe are from HP racks. Aside from the fact that the OEM is a Philip's head (not a big deal - security is not a huge issue) the HP ones are just a tad bigger. The length of the HP screws should be okay (I think). However, the flange is just a bit too big and it catches on the side panel so you can't screw the screw in all the way (w/o damaging the side panel). The OEM star screws do not do this. If anyone has any spares they can part with or knows where I can order some (and definitely get the OEM ones vs. the after market/HP ones) I would appreciate it. Thank you! BTW pictures and measurements can be found in this thread on VCF: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?62877-WTB-OEM-Compaq-9000-Series-R ack-Screws&p=507884#post507884 -Ali From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Mon Mar 26 19:17:42 2018 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 00:17:42 +0000 Subject: R: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <002d01d3c54d$9e298070$da7c8150$@net> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <00b101d3c52f$82a36f00$87ea4d00$@tin.it> <002d01d3c54d$9e298070$da7c8150$@net> Message-ID: On 03/26/2018 05:58 PM, Ali via cctalk wrote: >> NSA has been successful enough that the concept "DOD Wipe" as was found >> in programs like Gformat from Ghost no longer exists. > Bill, > > Are you saying that the NSA can recover data from a HDD that has been erased and been written over multiple times? > > That's what we were told when I was still with DOD.? No number of overwrites made it impossible.? No disk that ever contained classified information could ever be let out of containment.? Other than melting them down the only method I ever heard of or saw that could truly erase a disk was passing them through the ship deguasser at the Navy Yard.? And, after that the disk was not only clean, it was unusable. bill From rtomek at ceti.pl Mon Mar 26 20:24:05 2018 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 03:24:05 +0200 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <1522070524.22379.659.camel@moondog> <20180326173448.GB31902@tau1.ceti.pl> Message-ID: <20180327012405.GC31902@tau1.ceti.pl> On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 07:44:58PM +0200, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > On 26 March 2018 at 19:34, Tomasz Rola via cctalk wrote: > > > > I have heard good things of MHDD diagnostic/repair program in the > > context of low level format and generally checking health of spinning > > disks. > > That's a new one on me. > > I have occasionally used, and often recommend, DBAN -- Darik's Boot And Nuke. > > https://dban.org/ Interesting. But judging from descriptions, mhdd is very different tool/beast. Not that I can recommend one over another, having no experience (when in trouble, I just ran dd over the disk or parts of it). http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/ -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From decguy at songdog.eskimo.com Mon Mar 26 23:05:34 2018 From: decguy at songdog.eskimo.com (Guy N.) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 21:05:34 -0700 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> Message-ID: <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> On Mon, 2018-03-26 at 11:18 -0700, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > I'm surprised that your sysadmin is allowing this to happen. Many large > outfits have a policy of sending any hard disk, regardless of content to > the industrial shredders. The advantages of working for a small company... the sysadmin is a long-time employee who's just moved into that role, he and I are good buddies. And there's not anything worth $$$ data recovery on them anyway. I hate seeing perfectly good working equipment reduced to low-value scrap, so I'm wiping these drives at home on my own time to prevent that. From rar at syssrc.com Mon Mar 26 16:39:34 2018 From: rar at syssrc.com (rar) Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 21:39:34 +0000 Subject: Identifying vacuum tube module In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9116c795a6034d13a096ad9bd16e09ad@Exch13MB.syssrcad.syssrc.com> I have some very similar (but not identical) tube modules in my IBM 519 Reproducing punch Mine are the same form factor, but the resistors are lengthwise. I'll attach the image which Kyle will get, but I doubt they will make it on to the list Bob Roswell broswell at syssrc.com 410-771-5544 ext 4336 Computer Museum Highlights -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Kyle Owen via cctalk Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2018 3:34 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Identifying vacuum tube module Anyone knows what these go to? https://imgur.com/a/CpxLs Thanks, Kyle From cctalk at ibm51xx.net Tue Mar 27 02:30:09 2018 From: cctalk at ibm51xx.net (Ali) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 00:30:09 -0700 Subject: Compaq 9000 Series Rack Screws In-Reply-To: <6d7e01f9-3b67-3a14-d62e-7b9140197de1@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> References: <001401d3c560$259d3b70$70d7b250$@net> <6d7e01f9-3b67-3a14-d62e-7b9140197de1@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> Message-ID: <001d01d3c59d$709a63e0$51cf2ba0$@net> > F.Y.I. the links to the pictures from the linked to page aren't > publicly accessible. As grant has pointed out the pictures will not show up unless you are a VCF member. However, the screws are very similar to this in shape: https://monsterbolts.com/products/6mm-m6-x-1-0-stainless-steel-button-head-socket-cap-screws-iso-7380-18-8-a2?variant=36156796108 I have done some more digging and I believe the screws are Button Head 10mm M6 screws w/ T30 drive. The problem is that the head diameter needs to be 9.2mm wide. The screws above (and most other one's I have found) are 10mm or wider. The HP screws I mentioned earlier are 10.26mm wide and they of course will not clear the side panels. So again if anyone has OEM Compaq screws they want to part with I am your man. Thank you. -Ali From aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk Tue Mar 27 04:34:36 2018 From: aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk (Aaron Jackson) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 10:34:36 +0100 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <1254ef82-728d-b304-e424-788c20142f19@gmail.com> References: <87o9jamwg1.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <1254ef82-728d-b304-e424-788c20142f19@gmail.com> Message-ID: <87k1txn9oz.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> > On 03/26/2018 04:08 PM, Aaron Jackson via cctalk wrote: >>>> So, from what I can see, the drive should spin up correctly, but for >>>> some reason it goes into fault mode. I am right in thinking that upon >>>> load, the heads should continue moving forward until the first track is >>>> found, right? I should not have to perform a seek manually from the PDP? >>>> If this is not the case, perhaps there is something else wrong. >>> I?m not an RL02 hardware expert at all, just a daily user back in the >>> day. I?m reading this assuming that at all times the drive is >>> correctly hooked up to an RLV12 in a running PDP with the correct >>> cable and termination present on the drive? If it isn?t you?ll get a >>> fault condition instead of ready after spin up. >>> >>> A >> No worries, your input has been valuable, so thank you. >> >> For anyone else who might have an idea: > ON fault the heads are retracted and will not load till cleared. > Least mine behaves that way. > > Most common problems are wrong drive address, cable issues, no terminator. > Others include head lock not removed or the auto unlock style of > headlock has > the tab broken. > >> It seems to be hooked up correctly. When it is in the weird flashing >> ready state, the boot loader says "Read error" or "Device error" >> randomly. The heads oscillate back and forth very slightly as if it is >> trying to align itself better on the first track, which doesn't exist >> because it hasn't moved far enough into the pack. > IF in fault its resetting to retracted on every try. > If not something else is wrong. > >> I'm beginning to think the heads are bad which will be far too expensive >> so I may end up giving up. > > Heads are not that expensive... However you could have a wrong pack > or one that has been erased and has no servo tracks. You must start with > a known good pack and cleaned heads. > > > Allison Thanks for the suggestions, Allison. Given that the pack was tested before it was shipped, I am beginning to come to the conclusion that the heads are bad. I can see the servo burst data if I push the heads on a few mm further into pack, but perhaps the heads produce noise which confuse the logic upon load. Heads are more expensive than what I'd like, from what I have seen on eBay. I believe I have a "working" (i.e. non-crashing) down head (as in the one on top). If this is head 0 (anyone know?) then I might have a chance of getting it working without spending anymore money. Let's see. Thanks again, Aaron. From steven at malikoff.com Tue Mar 27 07:10:43 2018 From: steven at malikoff.com (steven at malikoff.com) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 22:10:43 +1000 Subject: Compaq 9000 Series Rack Screws In-Reply-To: <001d01d3c59d$709a63e0$51cf2ba0$@net> References: <001401d3c560$259d3b70$70d7b250$@net> <6d7e01f9-3b67-3a14-d62e-7b9140197de1@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <001d01d3c59d$709a63e0$51cf2ba0$@net> Message-ID: <8c2a9ee42e8fd23b48a8b92228bab536.squirrel@webmail04.register.com> Ali said >> F.Y.I. the links to the pictures from the linked to page aren't >> publicly accessible. > > As grant has pointed out the pictures will not show up unless you are a VCF member. However, the screws are very similar to this in shape: > > https://monsterbolts.com/products/6mm-m6-x-1-0-stainless-steel-button-head-socket-cap-screws-iso-7380-18-8-a2?variant=36156796108 > > I have done some more digging and I believe the screws are Button Head 10mm M6 screws w/ T30 drive. The problem is that the head diameter needs to be 9.2mm wide. The screws above (and most other one's I have found) are 10mm or wider. The HP screws I mentioned earlier are 10.26mm wide and they of course will not clear the side panels.> > So again if anyone has OEM Compaq screws they want to part with I am your man. I had a similar problem racking up an old Digittronics paper tape reader from the early 70s. The reader faceplate was a fairly thick piece of aluminum plate with recessed holes for the rack screws, and my modern server rack screws and captive nuts were oversize. The screws had to be recessed because the rear face of the stinless steel paper tape input and output hoppers were flush with the faceplate and latched on by sliding downwards to engage two flat-headed pins. In my case it was a simple job to chuck a few of the screws in the lathe and skim the heads down by 1 or 2 mm overall diameter, but it would not have been much more effort to put them in a an electric drill chuck and hold a file against them. If you can't find the correct ones perhaps you could try that approach. Steve. From allisonportable at gmail.com Tue Mar 27 07:32:57 2018 From: allisonportable at gmail.com (allison) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 08:32:57 -0400 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <87k1txn9oz.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> References: <87o9jamwg1.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <1254ef82-728d-b304-e424-788c20142f19@gmail.com> <87k1txn9oz.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> Message-ID: <2760fe91-8fbc-5bd1-e956-ee17861b526c@gmail.com> On 03/27/2018 05:34 AM, Aaron Jackson wrote: >> On 03/26/2018 04:08 PM, Aaron Jackson via cctalk wrote: >>>>> So, from what I can see, the drive should spin up correctly, but for >>>>> some reason it goes into fault mode. I am right in thinking that upon >>>>> load, the heads should continue moving forward until the first track is >>>>> found, right? I should not have to perform a seek manually from the PDP? >>>>> If this is not the case, perhaps there is something else wrong. >>>> I?m not an RL02 hardware expert at all, just a daily user back in the >>>> day. I?m reading this assuming that at all times the drive is >>>> correctly hooked up to an RLV12 in a running PDP with the correct >>>> cable and termination present on the drive? If it isn?t you?ll get a >>>> fault condition instead of ready after spin up. >>>> >>>> A >>> No worries, your input has been valuable, so thank you. >>> >>> For anyone else who might have an idea: >> ON fault the heads are retracted and will not load till cleared. >> Least mine behaves that way. >> >> Most common problems are wrong drive address, cable issues, no terminator. >> Others include head lock not removed or the auto unlock style of >> headlock has >> the tab broken. >> >>> It seems to be hooked up correctly. When it is in the weird flashing >>> ready state, the boot loader says "Read error" or "Device error" >>> randomly. The heads oscillate back and forth very slightly as if it is >>> trying to align itself better on the first track, which doesn't exist >>> because it hasn't moved far enough into the pack. >> IF in fault its resetting to retracted on every try. >> If not something else is wrong. >> >>> I'm beginning to think the heads are bad which will be far too expensive >>> so I may end up giving up. >> Heads are not that expensive... However you could have a wrong pack >> or one that has been erased and has no servo tracks. You must start with >> a known good pack and cleaned heads. >> >> >> Allison > Thanks for the suggestions, Allison. > > Given that the pack was tested before it was shipped, I am beginning to Did it survive shipment?? Common problem. > come to the conclusion that the heads are bad. I can see the servo burst > data if I push the heads on a few mm further into pack, but perhaps the > heads produce noise which confuse the logic upon load. Not likely the heads produce noise they are passive.? If there is a loose or broken wire maybe and thats easily checked with an ohm meter. However... If you push the heads in you see servo burst that suggests a alignment or servo system problem.? Its supposed to seek and find the servo info. Heads fail only a few ways.? Broken wires, crashed with mechanical damage, and open windings.? They are remarkably simple other than mechanically precise. > Heads are more expensive than what I'd like, from what I have seen on > eBay. Cant help that. > I believe I have a "working" (i.e. non-crashing) down head (as in the > one on top). If this is head 0 (anyone know?) then I might have a chance > of getting it working without spending anymore money. Let's see. I'd have to read the RL02 service docs to remember what head is which. I' d suggest diagnosing the problem to see if its a servo/mechanical alignment issue. Long short story.? I got my RL02 directly through DEC while I was a engineer there. It was a pile of parts in the back lab.? The story was it was pulled from a customer site as FS could not make it work at install.? Seems despite being new just about everything that could be swapped apparently was and no one could get it to spin up. ? So I made a deal if I get it working its mine (ok, to be part of the 11/23 in my office, which later would become mine).?? After assembling it and testing it sure enough it didn't spin and would turn slowly for a few moments and quit. ? Drag out the meter and start testing voltages.? I found the motor starting cap (known new) had odd voltages.?? A bit of ohming out later it was the crimped faston connector at the end of the power line going to the capacitor.?? What was wrong was crimped but the wire was never stripped so there was no connection.? The only thing never swapped was the power wiring harness.? The pile of swapped boards and even heads was impressive.? I got the drive and word got around that it was me that solved the riddle.? I troubleshot the problem, and didn't swap it to death. Before you swap out a part that is expensive or unobtainium check to be sure its the problem. Allison From cube1 at charter.net Tue Mar 27 08:26:13 2018 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 08:26:13 -0500 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <87k1txn9oz.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> References: <87o9jamwg1.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <1254ef82-728d-b304-e424-788c20142f19@gmail.com> <87k1txn9oz.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> Message-ID: <36264031-b1f4-7f2f-07d8-66eafba2e5e5@charter.net> My inventory indicates that I have a pair of lower ("UP") heads, part number 70-15637 for an RL02. (I don't have any spare "DOWN" heads as far as I can tell). I think they might even be new old stock, as they are marked "NEW" in my inventory. So maybe we could work something out. You might suggest a price, and we can take it from there. Once we get agreement, I'll open up the box they are in (in my garage) and confirm my inventory. JRJ On 3/27/2018 4:34 AM, Aaron Jackson via cctech wrote: >> On 03/26/2018 04:08 PM, Aaron Jackson via cctalk wrote: >>>>> So, from what I can see, the drive should spin up correctly, but for >>>>> some reason it goes into fault mode. I am right in thinking that upon >>>>> load, the heads should continue moving forward until the first track is >>>>> found, right? I should not have to perform a seek manually from the PDP? >>>>> If this is not the case, perhaps there is something else wrong. >>>> I?m not an RL02 hardware expert at all, just a daily user back in the >>>> day. I?m reading this assuming that at all times the drive is >>>> correctly hooked up to an RLV12 in a running PDP with the correct >>>> cable and termination present on the drive? If it isn?t you?ll get a >>>> fault condition instead of ready after spin up. >>>> >>>> A >>> No worries, your input has been valuable, so thank you. >>> >>> For anyone else who might have an idea: >> ON fault the heads are retracted and will not load till cleared. >> Least mine behaves that way. >> >> Most common problems are wrong drive address, cable issues, no terminator. >> Others include head lock not removed or the auto unlock style of >> headlock has >> the tab broken. >> >>> It seems to be hooked up correctly. When it is in the weird flashing >>> ready state, the boot loader says "Read error" or "Device error" >>> randomly. The heads oscillate back and forth very slightly as if it is >>> trying to align itself better on the first track, which doesn't exist >>> because it hasn't moved far enough into the pack. >> IF in fault its resetting to retracted on every try. >> If not something else is wrong. >> >>> I'm beginning to think the heads are bad which will be far too expensive >>> so I may end up giving up. >> >> Heads are not that expensive... However you could have a wrong pack >> or one that has been erased and has no servo tracks. You must start with >> a known good pack and cleaned heads. >> >> >> Allison > > Thanks for the suggestions, Allison. > > Given that the pack was tested before it was shipped, I am beginning to > come to the conclusion that the heads are bad. I can see the servo burst > data if I push the heads on a few mm further into pack, but perhaps the > heads produce noise which confuse the logic upon load. > > Heads are more expensive than what I'd like, from what I have seen on > eBay. > > I believe I have a "working" (i.e. non-crashing) down head (as in the > one on top). If this is head 0 (anyone know?) then I might have a chance > of getting it working without spending anymore money. Let's see. > > Thanks again, > Aaron. > From binarydinosaurs at gmail.com Tue Mar 27 08:55:30 2018 From: binarydinosaurs at gmail.com (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 14:55:30 +0100 Subject: Wiring Harnesses (was: RL02 Question) Message-ID: Years ago I was troubleshooting an old SuperMicro beast that was running a newspaper printing press. It kept shutting down randomly but if I hit the power button it would come up. Then randomly go down again minutes or an hour later. I spent many hours testing and swapping modules in and out of this thing from a working machine and at one point it would only power up if the front box that contained the power switch module and CDROM/floppy were out of the enclosure and separate on the bench (but still connected to the motherboard by an data/power cables). If I got a long screwdriver and earthed this front box to the main enclosure the machine would go down immediately. Power switch itself tested fine with a meter but I found there was a hidden reset swtich that wasn't in use so I desoldered and swapped them over. All problems went away and the customer practically carried me at shoulder height around the press hall. -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? t: @binarydinosaurs f: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: allison via cctalk Date: 27 March 2018 at 13:32 Subject: Re: RL02 Question To: Aaron Jackson , "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Long short story. I got my RL02 directly through DEC while I was a > engineer there.It was a pile of parts in the back lab. The story was it was pulled > from a customersite as FS could not make it work at install. Seems despite being new > just about everything that could be swapped apparently was and no one could get it > to spin up. So I made a deal if I get it working its mine (ok, to be part of > the 11/23 in my office, which later would become mine). After assembling it and > testing it sure enough it didn't spin and would turn slowly for a few moments and quit. > Drag out the meter and start testing voltages. I found the motor starting > cap (known new) had odd voltages. A bit of ohming out later it was the crimped > faston connector at the end of the power line going to the capacitor. What > was wrong was crimped but the wire was never stripped so there was no connection. > The only thing never swapped was the power wiring harness. The pile of swapped > boards and even heads was impressive. I got the drive and word got around > that it was me that solved the riddle. I troubleshot the problem, and > didn't swap it to death. From ethan at 757.org Tue Mar 27 11:19:36 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 12:19:36 -0400 (EDT) Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> Message-ID: > The advantages of working for a small company... the sysadmin is a > long-time employee who's just moved into that role, he and I are good > buddies. And there's not anything worth $$$ data recovery on them > anyway. > I hate seeing perfectly good working equipment reduced to low-value > scrap, so I'm wiping these drives at home on my own time to prevent > that. Yep! I've watched thousand(s) of pounds of working hard drives get shredded. I have a hook-up to get some older drives from another company (1.5TB, etc) and well... let's just say that "newer" used disks with 4 years on them aren't very reliable. I'd imaigne the older ones hold up much better since they were more expensive and less density. -- : Ethan O'Toole From cramcram at gmail.com Tue Mar 27 11:19:20 2018 From: cramcram at gmail.com (Marc Howard) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 09:19:20 -0700 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <36264031-b1f4-7f2f-07d8-66eafba2e5e5@charter.net> References: <87o9jamwg1.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <1254ef82-728d-b304-e424-788c20142f19@gmail.com> <87k1txn9oz.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <36264031-b1f4-7f2f-07d8-66eafba2e5e5@charter.net> Message-ID: There's another option if you're near Manassas VA (roughly DC area): https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-Digital-DEC-RL02-A-Rack-Mount-PDP-11-Disk-Subsystem-Cartridge-Drive/401453950361?hash=item5d78852599:g:480AAOSwuNBZlG8W Look at the pictures. It's in sad shape but if you look closely it looks like the heads are locked in place for shipping. He's down to $16.49 (+199 shipping). If you can arrange local pickup it would probably be worth risking 3 big Macs just for the parts. Marc On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 6:26 AM, Jay Jaeger via cctech < cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote: > My inventory indicates that I have a pair of lower ("UP") heads, part > number 70-15637 for an RL02. (I don't have any spare "DOWN" heads as > far as I can tell). I think they might even be new old stock, as they > are marked "NEW" in my inventory. So maybe we could work something out. > You might suggest a price, and we can take it from there. Once we get > agreement, I'll open up the box they are in (in my garage) and confirm > my inventory. > > JRJ > > > On 3/27/2018 4:34 AM, Aaron Jackson via cctech wrote: > >> On 03/26/2018 04:08 PM, Aaron Jackson via cctalk wrote: > >>>>> So, from what I can see, the drive should spin up correctly, but for > >>>>> some reason it goes into fault mode. I am right in thinking that upon > >>>>> load, the heads should continue moving forward until the first track > is > >>>>> found, right? I should not have to perform a seek manually from the > PDP? > >>>>> If this is not the case, perhaps there is something else wrong. > >>>> I?m not an RL02 hardware expert at all, just a daily user back in the > >>>> day. I?m reading this assuming that at all times the drive is > >>>> correctly hooked up to an RLV12 in a running PDP with the correct > >>>> cable and termination present on the drive? If it isn?t you?ll get a > >>>> fault condition instead of ready after spin up. > >>>> > >>>> A > >>> No worries, your input has been valuable, so thank you. > >>> > >>> For anyone else who might have an idea: > >> ON fault the heads are retracted and will not load till cleared. > >> Least mine behaves that way. > >> > >> Most common problems are wrong drive address, cable issues, no > terminator. > >> Others include head lock not removed or the auto unlock style of > >> headlock has > >> the tab broken. > >> > >>> It seems to be hooked up correctly. When it is in the weird flashing > >>> ready state, the boot loader says "Read error" or "Device error" > >>> randomly. The heads oscillate back and forth very slightly as if it is > >>> trying to align itself better on the first track, which doesn't exist > >>> because it hasn't moved far enough into the pack. > >> IF in fault its resetting to retracted on every try. > >> If not something else is wrong. > >> > >>> I'm beginning to think the heads are bad which will be far too > expensive > >>> so I may end up giving up. > >> > >> Heads are not that expensive... However you could have a wrong pack > >> or one that has been erased and has no servo tracks. You must start with > >> a known good pack and cleaned heads. > >> > >> > >> Allison > > > > Thanks for the suggestions, Allison. > > > > Given that the pack was tested before it was shipped, I am beginning to > > come to the conclusion that the heads are bad. I can see the servo burst > > data if I push the heads on a few mm further into pack, but perhaps the > > heads produce noise which confuse the logic upon load. > > > > Heads are more expensive than what I'd like, from what I have seen on > > eBay. > > > > I believe I have a "working" (i.e. non-crashing) down head (as in the > > one on top). If this is head 0 (anyone know?) then I might have a chance > > of getting it working without spending anymore money. Let's see. > > > > Thanks again, > > Aaron. > > > From cctalk at ibm51xx.net Tue Mar 27 12:13:46 2018 From: cctalk at ibm51xx.net (Ali) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 10:13:46 -0700 Subject: Compaq 9000 Series Rack Screws In-Reply-To: <8c2a9ee42e8fd23b48a8b92228bab536.squirrel@webmail04.register.com> References: <001401d3c560$259d3b70$70d7b250$@net> <6d7e01f9-3b67-3a14-d62e-7b9140197de1@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <001d01d3c59d$709a63e0$51cf2ba0$@net> <8c2a9ee42e8fd23b48a8b92228bab536.squirrel@webmail04.register.com> Message-ID: <004901d3c5ee$f8e40de0$eaac29a0$@net> > In my case it was a simple job to chuck a few of the screws in the > lathe and skim the heads down by 1 or 2 mm overall diameter, but it > would not have been much more effort to put them in a an electric drill > chuck and hold a file against them. If you can't find the correct ones > perhaps you could try that approach. Steve, That is my backup plan. I am hoping that with all of us hoarders...err I mean conservationists somebody has screws laying around ;). Failing that and if I can't find something new that is suitably sized I would go with the file down route. -Ali From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 27 12:46:42 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 10:46:42 -0700 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> Message-ID: <1648a4f9-7dfd-674f-db34-d35b39fc1dc3@sydex.com> On 03/27/2018 09:19 AM, Ethan via cctalk wrote: > Yep! I've watched thousand(s) of pounds of working hard drives get > shredded. This is nothing new. In the 1970s, the official CDC diktat was to reduce any surplused equipment to scrap. That included taking a sledgehammer to disk drives and other objects. I witnessed lots of functional gear done in this way. Apparently this was to prevent surplus parts finding their way into the supply stream--and then having to service them. --Chuck From tsg at bonedaddy.net Tue Mar 27 12:52:47 2018 From: tsg at bonedaddy.net (Todd Goodman) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 13:52:47 -0400 Subject: DTC 3250 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6e860770-d519-4b0d-9e14-907b16e7c347@bonedaddy.net> Hi Fred, I could use one. Thanks! Todd ?Sent from BlueMail ? On Mar 26, 2018, 4:36 PM, at 4:36 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: >I just stumbled on a DTC3250, & "Installation Guide" >8 bit ISA SCSI + 4 floppy > >Firmware: "GSH53A" > >The floppy interface MIGHT work for HD on a 5150/5160? >(with appropriate software) > >Condition unknown > >Anybody need one? > >-- >Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From spacewar at gmail.com Tue Mar 27 13:48:22 2018 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 12:48:22 -0600 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Ethan via cctalk wrote: > and well... let's just say that "newer" used disks with 4 years on them > aren't very reliable. > If anyone wants some Seagate ST3000DM001 drives (3TB SATA), I've got extras! :-( From mazzinia at tin.it Tue Mar 27 14:19:44 2018 From: mazzinia at tin.it (Mazzini Alessandro) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 21:19:44 +0200 Subject: R: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> Message-ID: <00d401d3c600$90363e50$b0a2baf0$@tin.it> "that" bad ? :S ..... -----Messaggio originale----- Da: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Per conto di Eric Smith via cctalk Inviato: marted? 27 marzo 2018 20:48 A: ethan at 757.org; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Oggetto: Re: PATA hard disks, anyone? On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Ethan via cctalk wrote: > and well... let's just say that "newer" used disks with 4 years on > them aren't very reliable. > If anyone wants some Seagate ST3000DM001 drives (3TB SATA), I've got extras! :-( From turing at shaw.ca Tue Mar 27 14:21:54 2018 From: turing at shaw.ca (Norman Jaffe) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 13:21:54 -0600 (MDT) Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> Message-ID: <1898234058.99627220.1522178514465.JavaMail.zimbra@shaw.ca> Are they functional or decorative? From: "cctalk" To: ethan at 757.org, "cctalk" Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2018 11:48:22 AM Subject: Re: PATA hard disks, anyone? On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Ethan via cctalk wrote: > and well... let's just say that "newer" used disks with 4 years on them > aren't very reliable. > If anyone wants some Seagate ST3000DM001 drives (3TB SATA), I've got extras! :-( From aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk Tue Mar 27 14:22:55 2018 From: aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk (Aaron Jackson) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 20:22:55 +0100 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <1254ef82-728d-b304-e424-788c20142f19@gmail.com> References: <87o9jamwg1.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <1254ef82-728d-b304-e424-788c20142f19@gmail.com> Message-ID: <87a7ut9vcg.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> >>>> So, from what I can see, the drive should spin up correctly, but for >>>> some reason it goes into fault mode. I am right in thinking that upon >>>> load, the heads should continue moving forward until the first track is >>>> found, right? I should not have to perform a seek manually from the PDP? >>>> If this is not the case, perhaps there is something else wrong. >>> I?m not an RL02 hardware expert at all, just a daily user back in the >>> day. I?m reading this assuming that at all times the drive is >>> correctly hooked up to an RLV12 in a running PDP with the correct >>> cable and termination present on the drive? If it isn?t you?ll get a >>> fault condition instead of ready after spin up. >>> >>> A >> No worries, your input has been valuable, so thank you. >> >> For anyone else who might have an idea: > ON fault the heads are retracted and will not load till cleared. > Least mine behaves that way. > > Most common problems are wrong drive address, cable issues, no terminator. > Others include head lock not removed or the auto unlock style of > headlock has > the tab broken. > >> It seems to be hooked up correctly. When it is in the weird flashing >> ready state, the boot loader says "Read error" or "Device error" >> randomly. The heads oscillate back and forth very slightly as if it is >> trying to align itself better on the first track, which doesn't exist >> because it hasn't moved far enough into the pack. > IF in fault its resetting to retracted on every try. > If not something else is wrong. > >> I'm beginning to think the heads are bad which will be far too expensive >> so I may end up giving up. > > Heads are not that expensive... However you could have a wrong pack > or one that has been erased and has no servo tracks. You must start with > a known good pack and cleaned heads. > > > Allison Well, I replaced the DOWN head and adjusted the amplitude on the r/w board. The drive now stays in READY without the FAULT lamp coming on, so this is promising. The heads load onto the first track. Without any r/w operations, should the READY light flash? Mine is flashing a little but not too rapidly. I am guessing this is while it tries to keep the heads positioned over the track. When I try to boot using the MXV11-BF boot roms, it says: ]] ?BOOTROM-F- DL 0 read error The alignment between the two heads looks okay also. Any ideas, anyone? Thanks, Aaron. From geneb at deltasoft.com Tue Mar 27 14:34:27 2018 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 12:34:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <1898234058.99627220.1522178514465.JavaMail.zimbra@shaw.ca> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <1898234058.99627220.1522178514465.JavaMail.zimbra@shaw.ca> Message-ID: > From: "cctalk" > To: ethan at 757.org, "cctalk" > Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2018 11:48:22 AM > Subject: Re: PATA hard disks, anyone? > > On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Ethan via cctalk > wrote: > >> and well... let's just say that "newer" used disks with 4 years on them >> aren't very reliable. >> > > If anyone wants some Seagate ST3000DM001 drives (3TB SATA), I've got extras! > :-( I bet they'd fit great in a clay pidgeon thrower. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 27 14:44:54 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 12:44:54 -0700 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> Message-ID: <4ad7e411-6252-6194-5bf9-29e2802d921e@sydex.com> On 03/27/2018 09:19 AM, Ethan via cctalk wrote: > I have a hook-up to get some older drives from another company (1.5TB, > etc) and well... let's just say that "newer" used disks with 4 years on > them aren't very reliable. I'd imaigne the older ones hold up much > better since they were more expensive and less density. Call it superstition on my part, but for other than a couple of 2TB drives used for backup (i.e. powered and run only occasionally), my working drives are mostly 500GB-1TB SATA models. It's probably foolish and irrational, but I somehow just don't trust the bargain-basement 4TB drives to perform long-term. Am I being silly? --Chuck From geneb at deltasoft.com Tue Mar 27 14:49:29 2018 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 12:49:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <4ad7e411-6252-6194-5bf9-29e2802d921e@sydex.com> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <4ad7e411-6252-6194-5bf9-29e2802d921e@sydex.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 27 Mar 2018, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > It's probably foolish and irrational, but I somehow just don't trust the > bargain-basement 4TB drives to perform long-term. > > Am I being silly? > Not really. Have you looked at the drive statistics published by Backblaze? Here's a report for the 3rd quarter of 2017: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-failure-rates-q3-2017/ Seagate drives are the worst out there, while HGST drives seem to last the longest. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From mtapley at swri.edu Tue Mar 27 15:02:36 2018 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Tapley, Mark) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 20:02:36 +0000 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> Message-ID: <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> Eric, my 17 yo son is building up a gaming computer out of a Mac Pro. If you are serious about getting rid of these, I might encourage him to set up a Raid 5 with 3 of them and 1 or 2 spares. I would think it would read and write pretty fast until it broke, and then he could transition the data to a more robust drive or set of drives. Meantime, if I?m wrong, it?s not very critical data to lose. Let me know if that seems like a reasonable deal, and if so what you?d want above shipping. - Mark 210-522-6025 office 210-379-4635 cell On Mar 27, 2018, at 1:48 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: > On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Ethan via cctalk > wrote: > >> and well... let's just say that "newer" used disks with 4 years on them >> aren't very reliable. >> > > If anyone wants some Seagate ST3000DM001 drives (3TB SATA), I've got extras! > :-( From ethan at 757.org Tue Mar 27 15:05:39 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 16:05:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <1898234058.99627220.1522178514465.JavaMail.zimbra@shaw.ca> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <1898234058.99627220.1522178514465.JavaMail.zimbra@shaw.ca> Message-ID: > > Are they functional or decorative? 3TB Seagate They will likely fail. Defective model. Know someone that doesn't even RMA them, straight to trash. Replaces them with WD. (Note that all Seagate models have the issue, just something wrong with a 3TB model.) - Ethan -- : Ethan O'Toole From allisonportable at gmail.com Tue Mar 27 15:54:22 2018 From: allisonportable at gmail.com (allison) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 16:54:22 -0400 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <87a7ut9vcg.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> References: <87o9jamwg1.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <1254ef82-728d-b304-e424-788c20142f19@gmail.com> <87a7ut9vcg.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> Message-ID: <61b78b0f-3ddb-4858-c83d-2897d213aba8@gmail.com> On 03/27/2018 03:22 PM, Aaron Jackson wrote: >>>>> So, from what I can see, the drive should spin up correctly, but for >>>>> some reason it goes into fault mode. I am right in thinking that upon >>>>> load, the heads should continue moving forward until the first track is >>>>> found, right? I should not have to perform a seek manually from the PDP? >>>>> If this is not the case, perhaps there is something else wrong. >>>> I?m not an RL02 hardware expert at all, just a daily user back in the >>>> day. I?m reading this assuming that at all times the drive is >>>> correctly hooked up to an RLV12 in a running PDP with the correct >>>> cable and termination present on the drive? If it isn?t you?ll get a >>>> fault condition instead of ready after spin up. >>>> >>>> A >>> No worries, your input has been valuable, so thank you. >>> >>> For anyone else who might have an idea: >> ON fault the heads are retracted and will not load till cleared. >> Least mine behaves that way. >> >> Most common problems are wrong drive address, cable issues, no terminator. >> Others include head lock not removed or the auto unlock style of >> headlock has >> the tab broken. >> >>> It seems to be hooked up correctly. When it is in the weird flashing >>> ready state, the boot loader says "Read error" or "Device error" >>> randomly. The heads oscillate back and forth very slightly as if it is >>> trying to align itself better on the first track, which doesn't exist >>> because it hasn't moved far enough into the pack. >> IF in fault its resetting to retracted on every try. >> If not something else is wrong. >> >>> I'm beginning to think the heads are bad which will be far too expensive >>> so I may end up giving up. >> Heads are not that expensive... However you could have a wrong pack >> or one that has been erased and has no servo tracks. You must start with >> a known good pack and cleaned heads. >> >> >> Allison > Well, I replaced the DOWN head and adjusted the amplitude on the r/w > board. The drive now stays in READY without the FAULT lamp coming on, so > this is promising. The heads load onto the first track. > > Without any r/w operations, should the READY light flash? Mine is > flashing a little but not too rapidly. I am guessing this is while it > tries to keep the heads positioned over the track. Yes, normal read/write/seek activity causes that. > When I try to boot using the MXV11-BF boot roms, it says: > MXV-11 boot is not very chatty or informative. > ]] ?BOOTROM-F- DL 0 read error > > The alignment between the two heads looks okay also. > > Any ideas, anyone? Is the OS on it?? IF RT-11 is it configured to boot from DL-nn? IF you have OS on floppy can your do a dir of the devices it knows of? Allison > Thanks, > Aaron. > From aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk Tue Mar 27 16:04:49 2018 From: aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk (Aaron Jackson) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 22:04:49 +0100 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <61b78b0f-3ddb-4858-c83d-2897d213aba8@gmail.com> References: <87a7ut9vcg.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <61b78b0f-3ddb-4858-c83d-2897d213aba8@gmail.com> Message-ID: <877epx9qmm.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> >>>>>> So, from what I can see, the drive should spin up correctly, but for >>>>>> some reason it goes into fault mode. I am right in thinking that upon >>>>>> load, the heads should continue moving forward until the first track is >>>>>> found, right? I should not have to perform a seek manually from the PDP? >>>>>> If this is not the case, perhaps there is something else wrong. >>>>> I?m not an RL02 hardware expert at all, just a daily user back in the >>>>> day. I?m reading this assuming that at all times the drive is >>>>> correctly hooked up to an RLV12 in a running PDP with the correct >>>>> cable and termination present on the drive? If it isn?t you?ll get a >>>>> fault condition instead of ready after spin up. >>>>> >>>>> A >>>> No worries, your input has been valuable, so thank you. >>>> >>>> For anyone else who might have an idea: >>> ON fault the heads are retracted and will not load till cleared. >>> Least mine behaves that way. >>> >>> Most common problems are wrong drive address, cable issues, no terminator. >>> Others include head lock not removed or the auto unlock style of >>> headlock has >>> the tab broken. >>> >>>> It seems to be hooked up correctly. When it is in the weird flashing >>>> ready state, the boot loader says "Read error" or "Device error" >>>> randomly. The heads oscillate back and forth very slightly as if it is >>>> trying to align itself better on the first track, which doesn't exist >>>> because it hasn't moved far enough into the pack. >>> IF in fault its resetting to retracted on every try. >>> If not something else is wrong. >>> >>>> I'm beginning to think the heads are bad which will be far too expensive >>>> so I may end up giving up. >>> Heads are not that expensive... However you could have a wrong pack >>> or one that has been erased and has no servo tracks. You must start with >>> a known good pack and cleaned heads. >>> >>> >>> Allison >> Well, I replaced the DOWN head and adjusted the amplitude on the r/w >> board. The drive now stays in READY without the FAULT lamp coming on, so >> this is promising. The heads load onto the first track. >> >> Without any r/w operations, should the READY light flash? Mine is >> flashing a little but not too rapidly. I am guessing this is while it >> tries to keep the heads positioned over the track. > Yes, normal read/write/seek activity causes that. > >> When I try to boot using the MXV11-BF boot roms, it says: >> > MXV-11 boot is not very chatty or informative. > >> ]] ?BOOTROM-F- DL 0 read error >> >> The alignment between the two heads looks okay also. >> >> Any ideas, anyone? > > Is the OS on it? IF RT-11 is it configured to boot from DL-nn? > IF you have OS on floppy can your do a dir of the devices it knows of? > This occurred to me just after I last replied. Silly me. Ended up booting into 2.11BSD to see if I could run disklabel on it. No such luck. I'll try RT-11 later this week. If that doesn't work I'll boot into XXDP over TU58 and give that ago. Thanks very much for your help, Allison, and others. Best, Aaron. From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Mar 27 18:04:36 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 16:04:36 -0700 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <4ad7e411-6252-6194-5bf9-29e2802d921e@sydex.com> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <4ad7e411-6252-6194-5bf9-29e2802d921e@sydex.com> Message-ID: <7e688471-0dfb-abbb-22f4-7c81ac76cdce@bitsavers.org> On 3/27/18 12:44 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > Am I being silly? Hitachi 3 and 4tb are VERY good, as are the equivalent Toshiba from when WD divested themselves of the Hitachi hi-end line. 1tb was the switchover point to vertical recording, so those (and esp seagate 1.5tb) are terrible I have a few helium-filled drives spinning. They've been fine, but I don't know for how long yet. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 27 18:36:42 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 16:36:42 -0700 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <7e688471-0dfb-abbb-22f4-7c81ac76cdce@bitsavers.org> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <4ad7e411-6252-6194-5bf9-29e2802d921e@sydex.com> <7e688471-0dfb-abbb-22f4-7c81ac76cdce@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <796f1f1b-5461-e6f8-1a83-abee02f56259@sydex.com> On 03/27/2018 04:04 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > Hitachi 3 and 4tb are VERY good, as are the equivalent Toshiba from when WD divested themselves > of the Hitachi hi-end line. Hmmm, I haven't actually installed a 1TB drive in any mission-critical equipment yet--still sitting in original packaging on a shelf. Mostly, I use 500GB drives. Haven't had a failure in years. Maybe I'll leave the drives shelved. I suppose I could donate them to some deserving kid, but that might be cruel. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 27 18:43:15 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 16:43:15 -0700 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> Message-ID: <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> Digging around on the pointer from Al to backblaze, I found this, which, to me is far more meaningful in terms of presentation of data: https://hackernoon.com/applying-medical-statistics-to-the-backblaze-hard-drive-stats-36227cfd5372 --Chuck From stephane.tsacas at gmail.com Tue Mar 27 19:02:14 2018 From: stephane.tsacas at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?St=C3=A9phane_Tsacas?=) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 02:02:14 +0200 Subject: Issues of Communication of the ACM for sale Message-ID: Hi, I'm selling issues of the famous ACM magazine. I don't have a list, but at least from 2010 and up. If you're not in a hurry, shipping cost is quite low, < 6 euros for 2 Kg, < 8 for 3 Kg. Shipping from Paris, France. Note that if you're in France, shipping is more expensive ! If you're interested, make me an offer. Thank you, -- ??phane From cctalk at ibm51xx.net Tue Mar 27 19:04:43 2018 From: cctalk at ibm51xx.net (Ali) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 17:04:43 -0700 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? Message-ID: -------- Original message -------- From: Chuck Guzis via cctalk Date: 3/27/18 4:43 PM (GMT-08:00) To: "Tapley, Mark via cctalk" Subject: Re: PATA hard disks, anyone? Digging around on the pointer from Al to backblaze, I found this, which, to me is far more meaningful in terms of presentation of data: Interesting but consistent with my informal observations. My Hitachi enterprise class 4gb hdd are still going strong after multiple power outages and almost 5 years of 24x7 on time. Granted not much reading and writing occurs but the fact that they are spinning is probably the biggest wear and tear on them. Helium drives? Only if you have the money to replace them yearly and have a RAID 1 set of a RAID 6 volume.... -Ali From stephane.tsacas at gmail.com Tue Mar 27 19:07:59 2018 From: stephane.tsacas at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?St=C3=A9phane_Tsacas?=) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 02:07:59 +0200 Subject: WTB Sun keyboard Message-ID: Hi, My keyboard is dying. I'm looking for a type 7 "UNIX Keyboard" model : 320-1367-02 Picture : https://imgur.com/JUumgkz I'm in Paris, France. Thanks -- ??phane From cclist at sydex.com Tue Mar 27 19:27:32 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 17:27:32 -0700 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43549193-924f-db89-53a7-98133b630a33@sydex.com> > Interesting but consistent with my informal observations. My Hitachi > enterprise class 4gb hdd are still going strong after multiple power > outages and almost 5 years of 24x7 on time. Granted not much reading > and writing occurs but the fact that they are spinning is probably > the biggest wear and tear on them. Helium drives? Only if you have > the money to replace them yearly and have a RAID 1 set of a RAID 6 > volume.... I took a look at my 1TB drive stash. They're branded as Toshiba, which, I believe are really Hitachi. So maybe not so bad. But on those charts, the 3TB Seagate really shows an astonishing failure rate... --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Mar 27 19:51:05 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 17:51:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> Message-ID: Well outside my realm of expertise (as if I had a realm!), . . . How many drives would you need, to be able to set up a RAID, or hot swappable RAUD (Redundant Array of Unreliable Drives), that could give decent reliability with such drives? How many to be able to not have data loss if a second one dies before the first casualty is replaced? How many to be able to avoid data loss if a third one dies before the first two are replaced? How many technicians with shopping carts full of spare drives? (cf. early vaccum tube computers?) From cctalk at ibm51xx.net Tue Mar 27 20:05:29 2018 From: cctalk at ibm51xx.net (Ali) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 18:05:29 -0700 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? Message-ID: -------- Original message -------- From: Fred Cisin via cctalk Date: 3/27/18 5:51 PM (GMT-08:00) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: RAID?  Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? How many drives would you need, to be able to set up a RAID, or hot swappable RAUD (Redundant Array of Unreliable Drives), that could give decent reliability with such drives? 10 - Two sets of 5 drive? RAID 6 volumes in a RAID 1 array. You would then need to lose 5 drives before data failure is imminent. The 6th one will do you in. If you haven't fixed 50 percent failure then you deserve to lose your data.? Disclaimer: this is my totally unscientific unprofessional and biased estimate. My daily activities of life have nothing to do with the IT industry. Proceed at your own peril. Etc. Etc. -Ali From ethan at 757.org Tue Mar 27 20:20:14 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 21:20:14 -0400 (EDT) Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <7e688471-0dfb-abbb-22f4-7c81ac76cdce@bitsavers.org> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <4ad7e411-6252-6194-5bf9-29e2802d921e@sydex.com> <7e688471-0dfb-abbb-22f4-7c81ac76cdce@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: > Hitachi 3 and 4tb are VERY good, as are the equivalent Toshiba from when WD divested themselves > of the Hitachi hi-end line. Been runnning 4 HGST 4TB for a long while now at home and have been really happy. My best disks. > 1tb was the switchover point to vertical recording, so those (and esp seagate 1.5tb) are terrible Ah, have a bunch of used 1.5TB seagates and there was about a 70% failure rate but I assumed it was due to age on disk and going from 24x7 to off for a few months then back on. Hoping to move off of those onto 30TB of WD disks soon if the drives aren't totally dead. > I have a few helium-filled drives spinning. They've been fine, but I don't know for how long yet. Have a few HGST 8TB He drives at $work, out of 50 or so maybe 1 failure in 2 years. Very solid but our most expensive drives until you get into flash storage. I'm interested to hear how the 12TB Seagates perform. A friend I believe got a few hundred in so it will be interesting in a year to hear if they're reliable or not. From phb.hfx at gmail.com Tue Mar 27 20:26:53 2018 From: phb.hfx at gmail.com (Paul Berger) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 22:26:53 -0300 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <175dadcb-15cb-f3cd-496d-c193e41871c5@gmail.com> On 2018-03-27 10:05 PM, Ali via cctalk wrote: > > > > -------- Original message -------- > From: Fred Cisin via cctalk > Date: 3/27/18 5:51 PM (GMT-08:00) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Subject: RAID?  Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? > > How many drives would you need, to be able to set up a RAID, or hot > swappable RAUD (Redundant Array of Unreliable Drives), that could give > decent reliability with such drives? > 10 - > Two sets of 5 drive? RAID 6 volumes in a RAID 1 array. > You would then need to lose 5 drives before data failure is imminent. The 6th one will do you in. If you haven't fixed 50 percent failure then you deserve to lose your data. > Disclaimer: this is my totally unscientific unprofessional and biased estimate. My daily activities of life have nothing to do with the IT industry. Proceed at your own peril. Etc. Etc. > -Ali > > To meet Fred's original criteria you would only need 4 to create a minimal RAID 6 array.? In theory a RAID 1 array (mirrored) of 4 or more disk could also survive a second disk failure as long as one copy of all the pairs in the array survive but you are starting to play the odds, and I know of some cases where people have lost . You can improve the odds by having a hot spare that automatically take over for a failed disk.? One of? the most important things is the array manager has to have some way of notifying you that there has been a failure so that you can take action, however my observations as a hardware support person is that even when there is error notification it is often missed or ignored until subsequent failures kill off the array. ? It also appears to be a fairly common notion that if you have RAID there is no need to ever backup, but I assure you RAID is not foolproof and arrays do fail. ? One of the big problems facing using large disks to build arrays is the number of accesses just to build the array may put a serious dent in the speced number of accesses before error or in some cases even exceed it. Paul. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Mar 27 22:27:32 2018 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 03:27:32 +0000 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <43549193-924f-db89-53a7-98133b630a33@sydex.com> References: , <43549193-924f-db89-53a7-98133b630a33@sydex.com> Message-ID: I recall at one company we used Micropolous ( SP? ) drives. We had almost 100% failure in less than 6 months. It did our company a lot of damage. Dwight ________________________________ From: cctalk on behalf of Chuck Guzis via cctalk Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2018 5:27:32 PM To: Ali via cctalk Subject: Re: PATA hard disks, anyone? > Interesting but consistent with my informal observations. My Hitachi > enterprise class 4gb hdd are still going strong after multiple power > outages and almost 5 years of 24x7 on time. Granted not much reading > and writing occurs but the fact that they are spinning is probably > the biggest wear and tear on them. Helium drives? Only if you have > the money to replace them yearly and have a RAID 1 set of a RAID 6 > volume.... I took a look at my 1TB drive stash. They're branded as Toshiba, which, I believe are really Hitachi. So maybe not so bad. But on those charts, the 3TB Seagate really shows an astonishing failure rate... --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 28 00:04:22 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 22:04:22 -0700 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <43549193-924f-db89-53a7-98133b630a33@sydex.com> Message-ID: <4d51970b-e748-5b63-59c4-c6e18f5ed7b2@sydex.com> On 03/27/2018 08:27 PM, dwight wrote: > I recall at one company we used Micropolous ( SP? ) drives. We had > almost 100% failure in less than 6 months. It did our company a lot of > damage. A lot of outfits (e.g. Sun, HP) used Micropolis drives. Generally, they were good, but expensive. Maybe you're thinking of Miniscribe. --Chuck From abs at absd.org Wed Mar 28 01:11:31 2018 From: abs at absd.org (David Brownlee) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 06:11:31 +0000 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <4d51970b-e748-5b63-59c4-c6e18f5ed7b2@sydex.com> References: <43549193-924f-db89-53a7-98133b630a33@sydex.com> <4d51970b-e748-5b63-59c4-c6e18f5ed7b2@sydex.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 06:04 Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 03/27/2018 08:27 PM, dwight wrote: > > I recall at one company we used Micropolous ( SP? ) drives. We had > > almost 100% failure in less than 6 months. It did our company a lot of > > damage. > > A lot of outfits (e.g. Sun, HP) used Micropolis drives. Generally, they > were good, but expensive. > > Maybe you're thinking of Miniscribe. > Micropolis quality dropped way down towards the end - at Dreamworks we used to refer to it as "Micropolis - for all your data loss needs" From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 28 01:41:46 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 23:41:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <4d51970b-e748-5b63-59c4-c6e18f5ed7b2@sydex.com> References: <43549193-924f-db89-53a7-98133b630a33@sydex.com> <4d51970b-e748-5b63-59c4-c6e18f5ed7b2@sydex.com> Message-ID: I have a couple of applications where I want the largest THIN 2.5" SATA drive. Currently, that is the 2TB Seagate/Samsung. 2TB and up SSDs will be here. Eventually. Comparing "internal"/"external" prices, it seems to cost about $30 to have the external USB3 case removed and discarded. I have found those drives to be even more reliable than an Exatron Stringy Floppy. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From useddec at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 02:59:52 2018 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 02:59:52 -0500 Subject: Looking for opinions... Message-ID: There are probably no perfect answers to this problem. I am looking for opinions, not criticism. I do not want to start arguments, nor get anyone here, especially Jay, pissed off. I found a stack of DEC microfiche a few nights ago. It's probably about 12 inches tall, and contains PM Procedures, IPBs, Manuals, Tech Info, and several type of Logistics, BOMs, vendors, etc which I will deal with later. Most of it is "company confidential", not that it matters anymore. The bulk of my microfiche is still missing. Several months ago there was a discussion here about breaking up sets. this is not a "set". It is made up of bunches found in different places at different times. I'm guessing a "set" of this would be an inch or two thick. My short list of options for disposal are as follows in order of current preference are: 1 Sort to get several sizable sets, sell the rest as partials. A LOT of sorting 2 Take requests to cherry pick, and sell as few smaller sets. Still a LOT of sorting. 3 Call Al. Oh, he gets a crack at whatever he needs anyway. 4 Sell it as a lot 5 Sell on e-pay. 6 Put it back where I found it. The first 3 are going to take a lot of time. Thanks in advance, Paul From huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au Wed Mar 28 03:11:19 2018 From: huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au (Huw Davies) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 19:11:19 +1100 Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2A9BACB0-D85C-4DDF-925A-F5D6EA7FB5FB@kerberos.davies.net.au> > On 28 Mar 2018, at 18:59, Paul Anderson via cctalk wrote: > > There are probably no perfect answers to this problem. I am looking for > opinions, not criticism. I do not want to start arguments, nor get anyone > here, especially Jay, pissed off. I too have a large stack of microfiche. These are mostly DEC KI-10 stuff - I?ve looked at a few of the fiche but there are probably a 1000 or so. I too would like some advice... 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 useddec at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 03:32:19 2018 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 03:32:19 -0500 Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <2A9BACB0-D85C-4DDF-925A-F5D6EA7FB5FB@kerberos.davies.net.au> References: <2A9BACB0-D85C-4DDF-925A-F5D6EA7FB5FB@kerberos.davies.net.au> Message-ID: I have some LCG and VAX, but mostly 8 and 11 items. If I ever find it all I should have a stack 2 meters or so. I wish there was an easy way to sort it. I don't want to think about how long it will take. Paul On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 3:11 AM, Huw Davies < huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au> wrote: > > > On 28 Mar 2018, at 18:59, Paul Anderson via cctalk > wrote: > > There are probably no perfect answers to this problem. I am looking for > opinions, not criticism. I do not want to start arguments, nor get anyone > here, especially Jay, pissed off. > > > I too have a large stack of microfiche. These are mostly DEC KI-10 stuff - > I?ve looked at a few of the fiche but there are probably a 1000 or so. > > I too would like some advice... > > 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 lproven at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 05:57:04 2018 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 12:57:04 +0200 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> Message-ID: On 28 March 2018 at 02:51, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > Well outside my realm of expertise (as if I had a realm!), . . . > > How many drives would you need, to be able to set up a RAID, or hot > swappable RAUD (Redundant Array of Unreliable Drives), that could give > decent reliability with such drives? For what little it's worth, and little relevance, I had a hardware RAID of 6 ? 80GB UltraIDE drives that ran faultlessly for several years. Not full-time, to be fair, but surviving multiple power cycles. In an old HP Proliant ML110 G1 -- space-heater Pentium 4 version -- with only about 2GB of RAM (because it used some kind of weird expensive ECC RAM) and a hacked copy of Windows Server 2008. It was a box made from free leftovers and proved to be one of my most reliable workhorse PCs ever. Figures, really. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From lproven at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 06:06:26 2018 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 13:06:26 +0200 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> Message-ID: On 28 March 2018 at 01:43, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > Digging around on the pointer from Al to backblaze, I found this, which, > to me is far more meaningful in terms of presentation of data: > > https://hackernoon.com/applying-medical-statistics-to-the-backblaze-hard-drive-stats-36227cfd5372 Remarkable and fascinating. The charts for Seagate are especially reliable. It came as a surprise to me. In 30y in the business, almost anyone involved in selecting, specifying, purchasing, or maintaining hardware inevitably has _strong_ opinions on the reliability, or lack thereof, of certain brands of hard disk. Personally, I've used them _all_. I've seen several-decades-old hard disks working perfectly, I've seen brand new drives fail, I've watched batches of them die progressively. They can _all_ fail. I have no angels or demons -- I have seen random sudden failures of every vendor known to humanity, and superb longevity from every vendor too. But if there's a general trend, it's that the bigger, the more fragile. I have decade-old 300GB drives in routine use that are fine. I've also had multiple failures of new multi-terabyte-class drives, to my personal cost. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From j_hoppe at t-online.de Wed Mar 28 06:06:06 2018 From: j_hoppe at t-online.de (=?UTF-8?Q?J=c3=b6rg_Hoppe?=) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 13:06:06 +0200 Subject: Photorealistic frontpanels for DEC PDP simulations under SimH Message-ID: Guys, there are updates to the photorealistic PDP-8/10/11/15 panel simulations for SimH, code name "BlinkenBone". * Added bigger images for 3000 pixel width screens. * made PDP-11/70 panel behaviour compatible with the real machine ? (after tests performed at the PDP-11/70 "Miss Piggy" at LCM in Seattle, ? thanks to Rich Alderson & Josh Dersch). ? Oscar Vermeulen's upcoming PiDP1170 replica will also benefit. * Added Mike Hill's BLINKY animation as PDP-11/70 application. * Optically enhanced the PDP-10KI10 panel: ? Added rack background of the real KI10 at LCM. * Merged with SimH code base from march 2018 * Some people want to reanimate a physical panel with "BlinkenBone" too, or did already. http://retrocmp.com/projects/blinkenbone/setting-up-a-blinkenbone-project ? Finally I can supply the hardware, a tested set of BeagleBone Black, BlinkenCape and BlinkenBoard. ? I can't get the price below 200?, there's this penalty for manual small batch production (including some self-exploit). Doc root page: http://www.retrocmp.com/projects/blinkenbone Download: https://github.com/j-hoppe/BlinkenBone/releases As usual, there are precompiled distributions for Win32, Ubuntu x86 & x64, Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone. Just unzip and start some of the shell scripts. Enjoy, Joerg From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Wed Mar 28 07:03:55 2018 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 12:03:55 +0000 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <4d51970b-e748-5b63-59c4-c6e18f5ed7b2@sydex.com> References: <43549193-924f-db89-53a7-98133b630a33@sydex.com> <4d51970b-e748-5b63-59c4-c6e18f5ed7b2@sydex.com> Message-ID: On 03/28/2018 01:04 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 03/27/2018 08:27 PM, dwight wrote: >> I recall at one company we used Micropolous ( SP? ) drives. We had >> almost 100% failure in less than 6 months. It did our company a lot of >> damage. > A lot of outfits (e.g. Sun, HP) used Micropolis drives. Generally, they > were good, but expensive. > > Maybe you're thinking of Miniscribe. > > I have ancient Micropolis and Miniscribe disks here that still work great.? Seems every company went thru at least one model that was trash.? The worst from my experience were IBM disks made in Thailand. bill From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 28 07:19:41 2018 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Rob Jarratt) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 13:19:41 +0100 Subject: Photorealistic frontpanels for DEC PDP simulations under SimH In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <032701d3c68f$0d58e930$280abb90$@ntlworld.com> Hello Joerg, I am looking to do a graphical front panel simulation of a machine I am in the process of building an emulator for. I am not very good on the graphical side and would love to understand how this was done. Can you point me at the area of the code that does this simulation, and can you offer any tips? For instance do you use photos of each button/switch etc or do you draw them in code? Thanks Rob > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of J?rg Hoppe > via cctalk > Sent: 28 March 2018 12:06 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts > Subject: Photorealistic frontpanels for DEC PDP simulations under SimH > > Guys, > > there are updates to the photorealistic PDP-8/10/11/15 panel simulations for > SimH, code name "BlinkenBone". > > * Added bigger images for 3000 pixel width screens. > > * made PDP-11/70 panel behaviour compatible with the real machine > (after tests performed at the PDP-11/70 "Miss Piggy" at LCM in Seattle, > thanks to Rich Alderson & Josh Dersch). > Oscar Vermeulen's upcoming PiDP1170 replica will also benefit. > > * Added Mike Hill's BLINKY animation as PDP-11/70 application. > > * Optically enhanced the PDP-10KI10 panel: > Added rack background of the real KI10 at LCM. > > * Merged with SimH code base from march 2018 > > * Some people want to reanimate a physical panel with "BlinkenBone" too, or > did already. > http://retrocmp.com/projects/blinkenbone/setting-up-a-blinkenbone-project > Finally I can supply the hardware, a tested set of BeagleBone Black, > BlinkenCape and BlinkenBoard. > I can't get the price below 200?, there's this penalty for manual small batch > production (including some self-exploit). > > > > Doc root page: http://www.retrocmp.com/projects/blinkenbone > > Download: https://github.com/j-hoppe/BlinkenBone/releases > As usual, there are precompiled distributions for Win32, Ubuntu x86 & x64, > Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone. > Just unzip and start some of the shell scripts. > > > > > Enjoy, > > Joerg > > From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Wed Mar 28 07:19:41 2018 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Rob Jarratt) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 13:19:41 +0100 Subject: Photorealistic frontpanels for DEC PDP simulations under SimH In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <032701d3c68f$0d58e930$280abb90$@ntlworld.com> Hello Joerg, I am looking to do a graphical front panel simulation of a machine I am in the process of building an emulator for. I am not very good on the graphical side and would love to understand how this was done. Can you point me at the area of the code that does this simulation, and can you offer any tips? For instance do you use photos of each button/switch etc or do you draw them in code? Thanks Rob > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of J?rg Hoppe > via cctalk > Sent: 28 March 2018 12:06 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts > Subject: Photorealistic frontpanels for DEC PDP simulations under SimH > > Guys, > > there are updates to the photorealistic PDP-8/10/11/15 panel simulations for > SimH, code name "BlinkenBone". > > * Added bigger images for 3000 pixel width screens. > > * made PDP-11/70 panel behaviour compatible with the real machine > (after tests performed at the PDP-11/70 "Miss Piggy" at LCM in Seattle, > thanks to Rich Alderson & Josh Dersch). > Oscar Vermeulen's upcoming PiDP1170 replica will also benefit. > > * Added Mike Hill's BLINKY animation as PDP-11/70 application. > > * Optically enhanced the PDP-10KI10 panel: > Added rack background of the real KI10 at LCM. > > * Merged with SimH code base from march 2018 > > * Some people want to reanimate a physical panel with "BlinkenBone" too, or > did already. > http://retrocmp.com/projects/blinkenbone/setting-up-a-blinkenbone-project > Finally I can supply the hardware, a tested set of BeagleBone Black, > BlinkenCape and BlinkenBoard. > I can't get the price below 200?, there's this penalty for manual small batch > production (including some self-exploit). > > > > Doc root page: http://www.retrocmp.com/projects/blinkenbone > > Download: https://github.com/j-hoppe/BlinkenBone/releases > As usual, there are precompiled distributions for Win32, Ubuntu x86 & x64, > Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone. > Just unzip and start some of the shell scripts. > > > > > Enjoy, > > Joerg > > From j_hoppe at t-online.de Wed Mar 28 08:33:26 2018 From: j_hoppe at t-online.de (=?UTF-8?Q?J=c3=b6rg_Hoppe?=) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 15:33:26 +0200 Subject: Photorealistic frontpanels for DEC PDP simulations under SimH In-Reply-To: <032701d3c68f$0d58e930$280abb90$@ntlworld.com> References: <032701d3c68f$0d58e930$280abb90$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <89ddb085-b82e-dbdf-582b-4e121cf47c49@t-online.de> Hi Rob, See here http://retrocmp.com/projects/blinkenbone/169-blinkenbone-architecture-overview and adjactent pages. I use photos of each button and each lamp, in every state. So first operation is taking picture of a real panel. Then I use Photoshop, to cut out all the lamps & switches into separate layers - a photoshop script scales them to different screen reloutions, and names the resulting images with __ - Photoshop generates also a text file with coordinates of each control, so they can be painted at right position later. I tried other approaches, but this has best quality. Even scaling the images at run time was not as perfect as scaling with Photoshop. To get a clickable image of the panel I use a Java program. It paints the current control states onto screen, and decodes mouse-click positions into activated switches. I choose Java with the old AWT framework, because graphic is relatively easy there, and it is platform independent. The graphic should follow SimH onto as much different platforms as possible. So I have a simulator written in C (SimH) and a Java display. Both communicate over an network interface, written with RPC (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Procedure_Call) RPC is a 1990's technic, so very fast on today machines. if you look at https://github.com/j-hoppe/BlinkenBone you find the Java sources at projects/09_javapanelsim, and the image directories (example for the PDP-11/70) at projects/09_javapanelsim/resources/blinkenbone/panelsim/panelsim1170/images The extensions on SimH-side reside in projects/02.3_simh/4.x+realcons/src/REALCONS/ and as small extensions in scp.c and the *_cpu.c sources of the simulated machines. Every change is marked with "#if USE_REALCONS", so I know what to merge into new SimHs. I do not use the "frontpanel" interface of SimH, as my project was ready before this was introduced. I confess my approach is maximal over-engineered, but I want to be as good as possible, and I'm enhancing it since years. best regards, Joerg Am 28.03.2018 um 14:19 schrieb Rob Jarratt: > Hello Joerg, > > I am looking to do a graphical front panel simulation of a machine I am in the process of building an emulator for. I am not very good on the graphical side and would love to understand how this was done. Can you point me at the area of the code that does this simulation, and can you offer any tips? For instance do you use photos of each button/switch etc or do you draw them in code? > > Thanks > > Rob > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of J?rg Hoppe >> via cctalk >> Sent: 28 March 2018 12:06 >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts >> Subject: Photorealistic frontpanels for DEC PDP simulations under SimH >> >> Guys, >> >> there are updates to the photorealistic PDP-8/10/11/15 panel simulations for >> SimH, code name "BlinkenBone". >> >> * Added bigger images for 3000 pixel width screens. >> >> * made PDP-11/70 panel behaviour compatible with the real machine >> (after tests performed at the PDP-11/70 "Miss Piggy" at LCM in Seattle, >> thanks to Rich Alderson & Josh Dersch). >> Oscar Vermeulen's upcoming PiDP1170 replica will also benefit. >> >> * Added Mike Hill's BLINKY animation as PDP-11/70 application. >> >> * Optically enhanced the PDP-10KI10 panel: >> Added rack background of the real KI10 at LCM. >> >> * Merged with SimH code base from march 2018 >> >> * Some people want to reanimate a physical panel with "BlinkenBone" too, or >> did already. >> http://retrocmp.com/projects/blinkenbone/setting-up-a-blinkenbone-project >> Finally I can supply the hardware, a tested set of BeagleBone Black, >> BlinkenCape and BlinkenBoard. >> I can't get the price below 200?, there's this penalty for manual small batch >> production (including some self-exploit). >> >> >> >> Doc root page: http://www.retrocmp.com/projects/blinkenbone >> >> Download: https://github.com/j-hoppe/BlinkenBone/releases >> As usual, there are precompiled distributions for Win32, Ubuntu x86 & x64, >> Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone. >> Just unzip and start some of the shell scripts. >> >> >> >> >> Enjoy, >> >> Joerg >> >> > > > From j_hoppe at t-online.de Wed Mar 28 08:33:26 2018 From: j_hoppe at t-online.de (=?UTF-8?Q?J=c3=b6rg_Hoppe?=) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 15:33:26 +0200 Subject: Photorealistic frontpanels for DEC PDP simulations under SimH In-Reply-To: <032701d3c68f$0d58e930$280abb90$@ntlworld.com> References: <032701d3c68f$0d58e930$280abb90$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <89ddb085-b82e-dbdf-582b-4e121cf47c49@t-online.de> Hi Rob, See here http://retrocmp.com/projects/blinkenbone/169-blinkenbone-architecture-overview and adjactent pages. I use photos of each button and each lamp, in every state. So first operation is taking picture of a real panel. Then I use Photoshop, to cut out all the lamps & switches into separate layers - a photoshop script scales them to different screen reloutions, and names the resulting images with __ - Photoshop generates also a text file with coordinates of each control, so they can be painted at right position later. I tried other approaches, but this has best quality. Even scaling the images at run time was not as perfect as scaling with Photoshop. To get a clickable image of the panel I use a Java program. It paints the current control states onto screen, and decodes mouse-click positions into activated switches. I choose Java with the old AWT framework, because graphic is relatively easy there, and it is platform independent. The graphic should follow SimH onto as much different platforms as possible. So I have a simulator written in C (SimH) and a Java display. Both communicate over an network interface, written with RPC (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Procedure_Call) RPC is a 1990's technic, so very fast on today machines. if you look at https://github.com/j-hoppe/BlinkenBone you find the Java sources at projects/09_javapanelsim, and the image directories (example for the PDP-11/70) at projects/09_javapanelsim/resources/blinkenbone/panelsim/panelsim1170/images The extensions on SimH-side reside in projects/02.3_simh/4.x+realcons/src/REALCONS/ and as small extensions in scp.c and the *_cpu.c sources of the simulated machines. Every change is marked with "#if USE_REALCONS", so I know what to merge into new SimHs. I do not use the "frontpanel" interface of SimH, as my project was ready before this was introduced. I confess my approach is maximal over-engineered, but I want to be as good as possible, and I'm enhancing it since years. best regards, Joerg Am 28.03.2018 um 14:19 schrieb Rob Jarratt: > Hello Joerg, > > I am looking to do a graphical front panel simulation of a machine I am in the process of building an emulator for. I am not very good on the graphical side and would love to understand how this was done. Can you point me at the area of the code that does this simulation, and can you offer any tips? For instance do you use photos of each button/switch etc or do you draw them in code? > > Thanks > > Rob > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of J?rg Hoppe >> via cctalk >> Sent: 28 March 2018 12:06 >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts >> Subject: Photorealistic frontpanels for DEC PDP simulations under SimH >> >> Guys, >> >> there are updates to the photorealistic PDP-8/10/11/15 panel simulations for >> SimH, code name "BlinkenBone". >> >> * Added bigger images for 3000 pixel width screens. >> >> * made PDP-11/70 panel behaviour compatible with the real machine >> (after tests performed at the PDP-11/70 "Miss Piggy" at LCM in Seattle, >> thanks to Rich Alderson & Josh Dersch). >> Oscar Vermeulen's upcoming PiDP1170 replica will also benefit. >> >> * Added Mike Hill's BLINKY animation as PDP-11/70 application. >> >> * Optically enhanced the PDP-10KI10 panel: >> Added rack background of the real KI10 at LCM. >> >> * Merged with SimH code base from march 2018 >> >> * Some people want to reanimate a physical panel with "BlinkenBone" too, or >> did already. >> http://retrocmp.com/projects/blinkenbone/setting-up-a-blinkenbone-project >> Finally I can supply the hardware, a tested set of BeagleBone Black, >> BlinkenCape and BlinkenBoard. >> I can't get the price below 200?, there's this penalty for manual small batch >> production (including some self-exploit). >> >> >> >> Doc root page: http://www.retrocmp.com/projects/blinkenbone >> >> Download: https://github.com/j-hoppe/BlinkenBone/releases >> As usual, there are precompiled distributions for Win32, Ubuntu x86 & x64, >> Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone. >> Just unzip and start some of the shell scripts. >> >> >> >> >> Enjoy, >> >> Joerg >> >> > > > From paulkoning at comcast.net Wed Mar 28 08:33:38 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 09:33:38 -0400 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> Message-ID: > On Mar 27, 2018, at 8:51 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > Well outside my realm of expertise (as if I had a realm!), . . . > > How many drives would you need, to be able to set up a RAID, or hot swappable RAUD (Redundant Array of Unreliable Drives), that could give decent reliability with such drives? > > How many to be able to not have data loss if a second one dies before the first casualty is replaced? > How many to be able to avoid data loss if a third one dies before the first two are replaced? These are straightforward questions of probability math, but it takes some time to get the details right. For one thing, you need believable numbers for the underlying error probabilities. And you have to analyze the cases carefully. The basic assumption is that failures are "fail stop", i.e., a drive refuses to deliver data. (In particular, it doesn't lie -- deliver wrong data. You can build systems that deal with lying drives but RAID is not such a system.) The failure may be the whole drive ("it's a door-stop") or individual blocks (hard read errors). In either case, RAID-1 and RAID-5 handle single faults. RAID-6 isn't a single well-defined thing but as normally defined it is a system that handles double faults. So a RAID-1 system with a double fault may fail to give you your data. (It may also be ok -- it depends on where the faults are.) RAID-5 ditto. The tricky part is what happens when a drive breaks. Consider RAID-5 with a single dead drive, and the others are 100% ok. Your data is still good. When the broken drive is replaced, RAID rebuilds the bits that belong on that drive. Once that rebuild finishes, you're once again fault tolerant. But a second failure prior to rebuild completion means loss of data. So one way to look at it: given the MTBF, calculate the probability of two drives failing within N hours (where N is the time required to replace the failed drive and then rebuild the data onto the new drive). But that is not the whole story. The other part of the story is that drives have a non-zero probability of a hard read error. So during rebuild, you may encounter a sector on one of the remaining drives that can't be read. If so, that sector is lost. The probability of hard read error varies with drive technology. And of course, the larger the drive, the greater the probability (all else being equal) of having SOME sector be unreadable. For drives small enough to have PATA interfaces, the probability of hard read error is probably low enough that you can *usually* read the whole drive without error. That translates to: RAID-1 and RAID-5 are generally adequate for PATA disks. On the very large drives currently available, it's a different story, and the published drive specs make this quite clear. This is why RAID-6 is much more popular now than it was earlier. It isn't the probability of two nearly simultaneous drive failures, but rather the probability of a hard sector read error while a drive has failed, that argues for the use of RAID-6 in modern storage systems. paul From ethan at 757.org Wed Mar 28 10:20:37 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 11:20:37 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > I found a stack of DEC microfiche a few nights ago. It's probably about 12 > inches tall, and contains PM Procedures, IPBs, Manuals, Tech Info, and > several type of Logistics, BOMs, vendors, etc which I will deal with > later. Most of it is "company confidential", not that it matters anymore. The > bulk of my microfiche is still missing. Has all this data been converted to digital formats and posted online? Can a flatbed scanner with high resolution (1200dpi) scan these directly or does it require using a lens setup? -- : Ethan O'Toole From paulkoning at comcast.net Wed Mar 28 11:29:06 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 12:29:06 -0400 Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3734C440-FCED-481C-B04D-34EBF10A531E@comcast.net> > On Mar 28, 2018, at 11:20 AM, Ethan via cctalk wrote: > >> I found a stack of DEC microfiche a few nights ago. It's probably about 12 >> inches tall, and contains PM Procedures, IPBs, Manuals, Tech Info, and >> several type of Logistics, BOMs, vendors, etc which I will deal with >> later. Most of it is "company confidential", not that it matters anymore. The >> bulk of my microfiche is still missing. > > Has all this data been converted to digital formats and posted online? > > Can a flatbed scanner with high resolution (1200dpi) scan these directly or does it require using a lens setup? You need a lot better than 1200 dpi. A transparency scanner at 9600 dpi (real, not "interpolated") might be good enough, but such things are not all that common. paul From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 28 11:46:42 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 09:46:42 -0700 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <43549193-924f-db89-53a7-98133b630a33@sydex.com> <4d51970b-e748-5b63-59c4-c6e18f5ed7b2@sydex.com> Message-ID: <0ea51752-b5b4-465d-89de-da3bd9abf8eb@sydex.com> On 03/28/2018 05:03 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > I have ancient Micropolis and Miniscribe disks here that still > work great.? Seems every company went thru at least one > model that was trash.? The worst from my experience were > IBM disks made in Thailand. Were there ever any *good* JTS PATA drives? --Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Mar 28 11:59:38 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 09:59:38 -0700 Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Can a flatbed scanner with high resolution (1200dpi) scan these directly or does it require using a lens setup? sigh.. The rock has been lifted (again) DOES ANYONE READ OLD POSTS HERE?????? Do the math. Scanning all of that fiche is man-centuries of work with all but the most expensive equipment. That's why it hasn't been done. Paul, sell it off however you see fit. I don't want any more of it, I have thousands of sheets already, and can't even get enough cycles to deal with the mountain of easy to scan paper filling my office, much less have time to set up the fiche scanner I bought two years ago. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 28 12:02:40 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 10:02:40 -0700 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> Message-ID: <30f2c246-a584-1b0c-9f18-5f5544b4dbad@sydex.com> On 03/28/2018 06:33 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > These are straightforward questions of probability math, but it takes > some time to get the details right. For one thing, you need > believable numbers for the underlying error probabilities. And you > have to analyze the cases carefully. A great discussion, Paul! My biggest danger to data loss is--me. I've modified my working procedures as much as possible and keep backups, but every once in a while, I'll do something stupid, such as "rm -rf *", in the mistaken assumption that the system I'm on contains a .bashrc file with "alias rm='rm -i'" in it somewhere. I know of no RAID setup that can save me from stupid. --Chuck From cctalk at ibm51xx.net Wed Mar 28 12:09:58 2018 From: cctalk at ibm51xx.net (Ali) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 10:09:58 -0700 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? Message-ID: <6kyqc5hxs1k2hnhq5n2mm2jp.1522256997889@email.android.com> -------- Original message -------- From: Chuck Guzis via cctalk Date: 3/28/18 10:02 AM (GMT-08:00) To: Paul Koning via cctalk Subject: Re: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? >I know of no RAID setup that can save me >from stupid. Chuck, As we say in my day job "there is no curing stupid" ;) -Ali From ethan at 757.org Wed Mar 28 12:14:02 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 13:14:02 -0400 (EDT) Subject: WTD: Dell ML6000 (or similar) LTO library, Mid-Atlantic East Coast Message-ID: While this slightly deviates from classic computers, I've been on the hunt for a surplus LTO library around the mid-atlantic East Coast for a bit. The Dell ML6000 which is made by someone else is what has my eye. We have one at work, lame robot that is very slow at changing tapes and looks sad compared to the STK machines I used to work around. But the density of the tape carts stored in the cabinet just can't be beat. I love some of the larger IBM fridge sized LTO units but the tape density given cabinet size just isn't there, but the scale out by adding cabinets side by side is cool -- if I only had a basement. Say 280 carts for huge IBM box versus 133 carts in the Dell unit at 15 rack units high. No brainer. The Dell ML6000 is also known as Quantum i500, and there is a super sexy IBM version and also a HP badged version. A few have popped up down in Florida and AZ for ~$100 or so with LTO3 drives which is ideal. But not proper timing. I have a LTO5 drive or two for these that came from a trash bin, so in my case I can upgrade the drives. Tapes don't generate heat or use electricity when sitting idle, so it seems ideal to backup my home NAS boxes and hoards of software for classic computers, arcade / video games and laser show 8 and 16 channel digital audio tape dumps. -- : Ethan O'Toole From ethan at 757.org Wed Mar 28 12:17:08 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 13:17:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <6kyqc5hxs1k2hnhq5n2mm2jp.1522256997889@email.android.com> References: <6kyqc5hxs1k2hnhq5n2mm2jp.1522256997889@email.android.com> Message-ID: >I know of no RAID setup that can save me >from stupid. I use rsync. I manually rsync the working disks to the backup disks every week or two. Working disks have the shares to other hosts. If something happens to that data, deleted by accident or encrypted by malware. Meh. Hardware like netapp and maybe filesystems in open source have those awesome snapshot systems with there is directory tree that has past time version of data. A directory of 15 minutes ago, one of 6 hours ago, etc is what we had setup at a prior gig. -- : Ethan O'Toole From phb.hfx at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 12:17:24 2018 From: phb.hfx at gmail.com (Paul Berger) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 14:17:24 -0300 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <6kyqc5hxs1k2hnhq5n2mm2jp.1522256997889@email.android.com> References: <6kyqc5hxs1k2hnhq5n2mm2jp.1522256997889@email.android.com> Message-ID: On 2018-03-28 2:09 PM, Ali via cctalk wrote: > > > > -------- Original message -------- > From: Chuck Guzis via cctalk > Date: 3/28/18 10:02 AM (GMT-08:00) > To: Paul Koning via cctalk > Subject: Re: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? > >> I know of no RAID setup that can save me >from stupid. > Chuck, > > As we say in my day job "there is no curing stupid" ;) > -Ali You mean something like someone who writes a script that does blind cd to the directory and then proceeds to delete the contents? Customer's system started crashing at noon every day after they did an OS update that eliminated the target directory.? The script was kicked of by cron and the cd would fail and since they where not checking if it succeeded or if they ended up in the right place the script proceed to delete everything from its current directory, which unfortunately was where all the libraries live... oopps... Paul. From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Mar 28 12:17:34 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 10:17:34 -0700 Subject: WTD: Dell ML6000 (or similar) LTO library, Mid-Atlantic East Coast In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3/28/18 10:14 AM, Ethan via cctalk wrote: > Tapes don't generate heat or use electricity when sitting idle, so it seems ideal to backup my home NAS boxes and hoards > of software for classic computers, arcade / video games and laser show 8 and 16 channel digital audio tape dumps. Until you try to restore them and discover the tape drive you saved to recover your backups no longer works. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 12:51:17 2018 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 13:51:17 -0400 Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 12:59 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > The rock has been lifted (again) > > DOES ANYONE READ OLD POSTS HERE?????? Some of us... > Do the math. Scanning all of that fiche is man-centuries of work with all but the most expensive equipment. Quite. Maybe someday 9600 dpi scan heads will be cheap, but not soon enough for most of us here today to care. > That's why it hasn't been done. Indeed. I too have a quantity of fiche - some IBM from the 1980s and lots of DEC (70s and 80s hardware - mostly Qbus and Unibus but some VMS source). I doubt I have anything unique, but it's possible a handful of items are not easily found. For myself, it would be an enormous accomplishment just to make an index of the titles. At least it fits in a couple of shoeboxes and takes up less room than paper. The manual fiche reader itself is much larger than my pile of fiche, so there's that. -ethan From abs at absd.org Wed Mar 28 12:51:55 2018 From: abs at absd.org (David Brownlee) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 18:51:55 +0100 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <6kyqc5hxs1k2hnhq5n2mm2jp.1522256997889@email.android.com> Message-ID: On 28 March 2018 at 18:17, Ethan via cctalk wrote: > I know of no RAID setup that can save me >from stupid. >> > > I use rsync. I manually rsync the working disks to the backup disks every > week or two. Working disks have the shares to other hosts. If something > happens to that data, deleted by accident or encrypted by malware. Meh. > > Hardware like netapp and maybe filesystems in open source have those > awesome snapshot systems with there is directory tree that has past time > version of data. A directory of 15 minutes ago, one of 6 hours ago, etc is > what we had setup at a prior gig. > Possible helpful note on the off chance anyone wasn't already aware (apologies for those who already know) A step up from rsync can be dirvish - it uses rsync, but before each backup it creates a hardlink tree of the previous backup, then rsyncs over it. The net effect is you only pay the block cost of one copy of unchanged files, plus an inode per copy. Can be very handy :) David From cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net Wed Mar 28 12:53:10 2018 From: cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 11:53:10 -0600 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <6kyqc5hxs1k2hnhq5n2mm2jp.1522256997889@email.android.com> Message-ID: On 03/28/2018 11:17 AM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote: > You mean something like someone who writes a script that does blind cd > to the directory and then proceeds to delete the contents? This is one of the primary reasons that I prefer to see the full path specified on the rm command. -- Grant. . . . unix || die From cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net Wed Mar 28 12:55:17 2018 From: cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 11:55:17 -0600 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <6kyqc5hxs1k2hnhq5n2mm2jp.1522256997889@email.android.com> Message-ID: On 03/28/2018 11:51 AM, David Brownlee via cctalk wrote: > A step up from rsync can be dirvish - it uses rsync, but before each > backup it creates a hardlink tree of the previous backup, then rsyncs > over it. The net effect is you only pay the block cost of one copy of > unchanged files, plus an inode per copy. Can be very handy I've used something like that with great success. - This is commonly known as "Single Instance Store". The only down side is that there is a single copy of the file, and if something happens to it, the entire backup set is impacted. This is easy to get around by periodically creating a new set backup set that future days are hard linked against. (Play with the numbers to match your preference.) -- Grant. . . . unix || die From cclist at sydex.com Wed Mar 28 12:57:50 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 10:57:50 -0700 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <6kyqc5hxs1k2hnhq5n2mm2jp.1522256997889@email.android.com> Message-ID: On 03/28/2018 10:17 AM, Ethan via cctalk wrote: >> I know of no RAID setup that can save me >from stupid. > > I use rsync. I manually rsync the working disks to the backup disks > every week or two. Working disks have the shares to other hosts. If > something happens to that data, deleted by accident or encrypted by > malware. Meh. I don't even use rsync. I have a duplicate system just off to my left installed with the same software. Every time I reach a "good enough" point, I simply do a "tar czf ..." on my work area and ftp the resulting code to the other machine. i.e., it's basically a "rolling" backup. The second system is always one set of system updates behind the current one, which provides some insurance. Should disaster strike, I need only use my other system with the latest backup and I'm back up and running in a matter minutes. But that still doesn't save me from stupid. A second cup of coffee could do that... --Chuck From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Mar 28 12:58:01 2018 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 13:58:01 -0400 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <6kyqc5hxs1k2hnhq5n2mm2jp.1522256997889@email.android.com> Message-ID: On 2018-03-28 1:17 PM, Ethan via cctalk wrote: >> I know of no RAID setup that can save me >from stupid. > > I use rsync. I manually rsync the working disks to the backup disks > every week or two. Working disks have the shares to other hosts. If > something happens to that data, deleted by accident or encrypted by > malware. Meh. > > Hardware like netapp and maybe filesystems in open source have those > awesome snapshot systems with there is directory tree that has past time > version of data. A directory of 15 minutes ago, one of 6 hours ago, etc > is what we had setup at a prior gig. > Yeah was wondering when the discussion might bring up ZFS... > > -- > : Ethan O'Toole > > > From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 28 13:32:10 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 11:32:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> Message-ID: >> How many drives would you need, to be able to set up a RAID, or hot swappable RAUD (Redundant Array of Unreliable Drives), that could give decent reliability with such drives? >> How many to be able to not have data loss if a second one dies before the first casualty is replaced? >> How many to be able to avoid data loss if a third one dies before the first two are replaced? On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Paul Koning wrote: > These are straightforward questions of probability math, but it takes > some time to get the details right. For one thing, you need believable > numbers for the underlying error probabilities. And you have to analyze > the cases carefully. THANK YOU for the detailed explanation! > The basic assumption is that failures are "fail stop", i.e., a drive > refuses to deliver data. (In particular, it doesn't lie -- deliver > wrong data. You can build systems that deal with lying drives but RAID > is not such a system.) The failure may be the whole drive ("it's a > door-stop") or individual blocks (hard read errors). So, in addition to the "RAID" configuration, you would also need additional redundancy to compare multiple reads for error detection. At the simplest level, if the reads don't match, then there is an error. If a retry produces different dataa, then that drive has an error. If two drives agree against a third, then there is a high probability that the variant drive is in error. > In either case, RAID-1 and RAID-5 handle single faults. RAID-6 isn't a > single well-defined thing but as normally defined it is a system that > handles double faults. So a RAID-1 system with a double fault may fail > to give you your data. (It may also be ok -- it depends on where the > faults are.) RAID-5 ditto. > > The tricky part is what happens when a drive breaks. Consider RAID-5 > with a single dead drive, and the others are 100% ok. Your data is > still good. When the broken drive is replaced, RAID rebuilds the bits > that belong on that drive. Once that rebuild finishes, you're once > again fault tolerant. But a second failure prior to rebuild completion > means loss of data. With very unreliable drives, that isn't acceptable. If each "drive" within the RAID were itself a RAID, . . . Getting to be a complicated controller, or cascading controllers, . . . > So one way to look at it: given the MTBF, calculate the probability of > two drives failing within N hours (where N is the time required to > replace the failed drive and then rebuild the data onto the new drive). > But that is not the whole story. 'course not. Besides MTBF for calculating the probability of a second drive failing within N hours, must also consider other factors, such as external influences causing more than one drive to go, and the essentially non-linear aspect of a failure rate curve. > The other part of the story is that drives have a non-zero probability > of a hard read error. So during rebuild, you may encounter a sector on > one of the remaining drives that can't be read. If so, that sector is > lost. If we consider that to be a "drive failure", then we are back to designing around multiple failures. > The probability of hard read error varies with drive technology. And of > course, the larger the drive, the greater the probability (all else > being equal) of having SOME sector be unreadable. For drives small > enough to have PATA interfaces, the probability of hard read error is > probably low enough that you can *usually* read the whole drive without > error. That translates to: RAID-1 and RAID-5 are generally adequate for > PATA disks. "generally". The original thought behind this silly suggestion was whether it would be possible to make use of MANY very unreliable drives. > On the very large drives currently available, it's a different story, > and the published drive specs make this quite clear. This is why RAID-6 > is much more popular now than it was earlier. It isn't the probability > of two nearly simultaneous drive failures, but rather the probability of > a hard sector read error while a drive has failed, that argues for the > use of RAID-6 in modern storage systems. From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Mar 28 13:39:49 2018 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 14:39:49 -0400 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> On 2018-03-28 1:51 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: > On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 12:59 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk > wrote: >> The rock has been lifted (again) >> >> DOES ANYONE READ OLD POSTS HERE?????? > > Some of us... > >> Do the math. Scanning all of that fiche is man-centuries of work with all but the most expensive equipment. > > Quite. Maybe someday 9600 dpi scan heads will be cheap, but not soon > enough for most of us here today to care. > >> That's why it hasn't been done. > > Indeed. Topical issue. Dennis Tillman just posted this on TekScopes: https://groups.io/g/TekScopes/message/146035 > > I too have a quantity of fiche - some IBM from the 1980s and lots of > DEC (70s and 80s hardware - mostly Qbus and Unibus but some VMS > source). I doubt I have anything unique, but it's possible a handful > of items are not easily found. > > For myself, it would be an enormous accomplishment just to make an > index of the titles. At least it fits in a couple of shoeboxes and > takes up less room than paper. The manual fiche reader itself is > much larger than my pile of fiche, so there's that. > > -ethan > From oltmansg at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 14:00:45 2018 From: oltmansg at gmail.com (Geoffrey Oltmans) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 14:00:45 -0500 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 1:39 PM, Toby Thain via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 2018-03-28 1:51 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: > > On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 12:59 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk > > wrote: > >> The rock has been lifted (again) > >> > >> DOES ANYONE READ OLD POSTS HERE?????? > > > > Some of us... > > > >> Do the math. Scanning all of that fiche is man-centuries of work with > all but the most expensive equipment. > > > > Quite. Maybe someday 9600 dpi scan heads will be cheap, but not soon > > enough for most of us here today to care. > > > >> That's why it hasn't been done. > > > > Indeed. > > I wonder if you could use a photographic enlarger and a flatbed scanner to > do this. > > > > From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 28 14:14:17 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 12:14:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Ethan via cctalk wrote: > Has all this data been converted to digital formats and posted online? A lot, but almost certainly not all. > Can a flatbed scanner with high resolution (1200dpi) scan these directly or > does it require using a lens setup? For microfiche, 1200dpi is NOT high resolution. If we assume that each frame represents an 8.5x11 page, . . . if the frame were an inch wide, that would be 1200 pixels for the width of the page, or the eguivalent of about 150dpi Half inch frames would be the equivalent of 75dpi. Better than nothing, but far from ideal. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 14:24:47 2018 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 15:24:47 -0400 Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 3:14 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Ethan via cctalk wrote: >> >> Has all this data been converted to digital formats and posted online? >> >> Can a flatbed scanner with high resolution (1200dpi) scan these directly >> or does it require using a lens setup? These are not my questions. I already know the answer to these. -ethan From ethan at 757.org Wed Mar 28 14:37:33 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 15:37:33 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: >>> DOES ANYONE READ OLD POSTS HERE?????? >> >> Some of us... >>> Do the math. Scanning all of that fiche is man-centuries of work with all but the most expensive equipment. >> >> Quite. Maybe someday 9600 dpi scan heads will be cheap, but not soon >> enough for most of us here today to care. We are like engineers or something. I think there is open source software for rebuilding images from shredded documents.Slide projector lens, LED array and diffuser and a digital camera. Stepper motors to move the thing around and load next fiche? Let the robot do it? >> source). I doubt I have anything unique, but it's possible a handful >> of items are not easily found. >> >> For myself, it would be an enormous accomplishment just to make an >> index of the titles. At least it fits in a couple of shoeboxes and >> takes up less room than paper. The manual fiche reader itself is >> much larger than my pile of fiche, so there's that. >> >> -ethan >> > > -- : Ethan O'Toole From healyzh at avanthar.com Wed Mar 28 14:39:50 2018 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 12:39:50 -0700 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: > On Mar 28, 2018, at 12:00 PM, Geoffrey Oltmans via cctalk wrote: > >> I wonder if you could use a photographic enlarger and a flatbed scanner to >> do this. This is a rather interesting question, it?s highly impractical, BUT, it might be a way for someone like me to get copies of single pages. A slightly more practical solution would be a DSLR setup with a bellows for Macro Photography. Realistically someone with a proper setup (which would mean creating a holder for the film), could probably photograph the sheets quite quickly. Zane From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 28 14:46:31 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 12:46:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Ethan via cctalk wrote: >>> Has all this data been converted to digital formats and posted online? >>> Can a flatbed scanner with high resolution (1200dpi) scan these directly >>> or does it require using a lens setup? On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Ethan Dicks wrote: > These are not my questions. I already know the answer to these. > -ethan Ah, but we now have TWO Ethans on this list. THOSE questions were from "Ethan via cctalk" aka: : Ethan O'Toole ethan at 757.org -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From mike_t_norris at hotmail.com Wed Mar 28 14:53:52 2018 From: mike_t_norris at hotmail.com (Mike Norris) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 19:53:52 +0000 Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Paul, I did have a go at scanning, but I could not get a good image. Zane came up with the idea of using a DSLR, I have tried this with a very quick and dirty test and I think it could work, I used an original DEC microfiche viewer, which as it happens I am looking for a home for! So if you wants the viewer it's yours for the shipping - I am in UK (which might be the down side). Regards Mike Norris >>I found a stack of DEC microfiche a few nights ago. It's probably about 12 >>inches tall, and contains PM Procedures, IPBs, Manuals, Tech Info, and >>several type of Logistics, BOMs, vendors, etc which I will deal with >>later. Most of it is "company confidential", not that it matters anymore. The >>bulk of my microfiche is still missing. >>Thanks in advance, Paul From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 15:04:56 2018 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 16:04:56 -0400 Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 3:46 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>> On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Ethan via cctalk wrote: > On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> >> These are not my questions. I already know the answer to these. > > Ah, but we now have TWO Ethans on this list. > > THOSE questions were from > "Ethan via cctalk" > aka: > : Ethan O'Toole > ethan at 757.org Ah, yes. Quite true. I was a bit confused because we both had responded on the same thread but the order of arrival made me think it your response was trimmed from my reply. Normally I catch it because we don't intertwine our responses on the same topics. My bad for getting befuddled here. Cheers, -ethan From mazzinia at tin.it Wed Mar 28 15:26:45 2018 From: mazzinia at tin.it (Mazzini Alessandro) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 22:26:45 +0200 Subject: R: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00d001d3c6d3$17b6c750$472455f0$@tin.it> Uh.. now the big question.. how big/heavy is a microfiche viewer ? -----Messaggio originale----- Da: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Per conto di Mike Norris via cctalk Inviato: mercoled? 28 marzo 2018 21:54 A: Paul Anderson; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Oggetto: Re: Looking for opinions... Hi Paul, I did have a go at scanning, but I could not get a good image. Zane came up with the idea of using a DSLR, I have tried this with a very quick and dirty test and I think it could work, I used an original DEC microfiche viewer, which as it happens I am looking for a home for! So if you wants the viewer it's yours for the shipping - I am in UK (which might be the down side). Regards Mike Norris >>I found a stack of DEC microfiche a few nights ago. It's probably >>about 12 inches tall, and contains PM Procedures, IPBs, Manuals, Tech >>Info, and several type of Logistics, BOMs, vendors, etc which I will >>deal with later. Most of it is "company confidential", not that it >>matters anymore. The bulk of my microfiche is still missing. >>Thanks in advance, Paul From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 28 15:35:56 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 13:35:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Ethan via cctalk wrote: > We are like engineers or something. I think there is open source software for > rebuilding images from shredded documents.Slide projector lens, LED array and > diffuser and a digital camera. Stepper motors to move the thing around and > load next fiche? > Let the robot do it? In other words, a homemade fiche scanner. If you start with a fiche viewer, then a lot of the mechanical parts, such as the fiche holder, are well under way. You need to modify the card movement mechanism to be able to automate it, but you could put that part off until you confirm that the optical portion is satisfactory. But, even when you put in the stepper motors to handle card motion for scanning, you still need to manually load each card into it, and THAT is one helluva lot of cards. Enough to even discourage Al! I s'pose there exists auto-feed fiche scanners, but prob'ly not cheap. You would need to replace much of the optics with a short focal length flat-field lens with a lot of extension. 25mm enlarger lenses, which are usually the cheapest flat-field lenses, are usually pretty available. Most are L39/M39/Leica screw mount (39mm diameter by 26tpi Whitworth. YES, Oscar Barnack really did go metric for diameter but not thread pitch!) which is REAL easy to find adapters to almost any interchangeable lens camera. Some enlarger lenses, however, are the Schneider mount which is 25mm x 0.5mm; those adapters used to be readily available, both for enlarger lenses and Compur 00 shutter. Now it takes a little more looking. Added extension shortens the distance from lens to subject. An added extension equivalent to the focal length of the lens will change the focus from infinity down to twice the focal length from the lens, which will give you one-to-one. In other words, adding 2 inches of extension to a 50mm lens will bring the focus to 4 inches from the lens. You want a fair amount more than that. If you will be doing a wide mix of frame sizes, then a bellows would be the right way to go. Otherwise, extension tubes. Both are available very cheap on eBay from China for most cameras with interchangeable lenses. For a non-interchangeable lens camera (NOT RECOMMENDED!), you can add what uest to be called "Portra lens" that attaches like a filter, with added diopters. They are additive, and you will need more than one. They also further reduce the image quality. If you want help with the formulas for extension, just ask. My favorite source for that kind of information is a 1936 edition of "The Leica Manual" by Morgan & Lester. Most important formula is that distance from lens (focal node, not surface of front element) is equal to distance of lens from "film" multiplied by focal length divided by amount of extension. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 28 15:40:17 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 13:40:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: R: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <00d001d3c6d3$17b6c750$472455f0$@tin.it> References: <00d001d3c6d3$17b6c750$472455f0$@tin.it> Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Mazzini Alessandro via cctalk wrote: > Uh.. now the big question.. how big/heavy is a microfiche viewer ? They vary. I have one that fits in a pocket! Usually, they are a tabletop box a few feet square. Some used to have a printer in them. Most tend not to be very extremely heavy, since a lot of that size is empty space between a projection lens and a screen. BUT, there are some monstrous ones! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From paulkoning at comcast.net Wed Mar 28 15:57:39 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 16:57:39 -0400 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> Message-ID: <4E87F004-8393-4F95-90E5-1FED8489BD89@comcast.net> > On Mar 28, 2018, at 2:32 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > >>> How many drives would you need, to be able to set up a RAID, or hot swappable RAUD (Redundant Array of Unreliable Drives), that could give decent reliability with such drives? >>> How many to be able to not have data loss if a second one dies before the first casualty is replaced? >>> How many to be able to avoid data loss if a third one dies before the first two are replaced? > > On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Paul Koning wrote: > ... >> The basic assumption is that failures are "fail stop", i.e., a drive refuses to deliver data. (In particular, it doesn't lie -- deliver wrong data. You can build systems that deal with lying drives but RAID is not such a system.) The failure may be the whole drive ("it's a door-stop") or individual blocks (hard read errors). > > So, in addition to the "RAID" configuration, you would also need additional redundancy to compare multiple reads for error detection. > At the simplest level, if the reads don't match, then there is an error. > If a retry produces different dataa, then that drive has an error. > If two drives agree against a third, then there is a high probability that the variant drive is in error. If you don't trust drives to deliver correct data often enough, you need your own error detection. Comparing redundant copies is possible. More efficient is various EDC or ECC codes. Some file systems used hashes like SHA-1 to detect data corruption with extremely high probability. > ... >> So one way to look at it: given the MTBF, calculate the probability of two drives failing within N hours (where N is the time required to replace the failed drive and then rebuild the data onto the new drive). But that is not the whole story. > > 'course not. Besides MTBF for calculating the probability of a second drive failing within N hours, must also consider other factors, such as external influences causing more than one drive to go, and the essentially non-linear aspect of a failure rate curve. Yes, RAID has an underlying assumption that drive failures are independent random events. If that isn't valid then you have a big problem. This occasionally happens; there have been drive enclosures with inadequate mechanical design, resulting in excessive vibration which caused rapid and correlated drive failure. The answer to that is "test it properly and don't ship stuff like that". >> The other part of the story is that drives have a non-zero probability of a hard read error. So during rebuild, you may encounter a sector on one of the remaining drives that can't be read. If so, that sector is lost. > > If we consider that to be a "drive failure", then we are back to designing around multiple failures. Correct, and that is why RAID-6 is prevalent now that drives are large enough that there is a nontrivial error of getting a sector read error if you read the whole drive (as RAID-1 rebuild does) and especially if you read multiple whole drives (as in RAID-5). > >> The probability of hard read error varies with drive technology. And of course, the larger the drive, the greater the probability (all else being equal) of having SOME sector be unreadable. For drives small enough to have PATA interfaces, the probability of hard read error is probably low enough that you can *usually* read the whole drive without error. That translates to: RAID-1 and RAID-5 are generally adequate for PATA disks. > > "generally". > The original thought behind this silly suggestion was whether it would be possible to make use of MANY very unreliable drives. Definitely. You'd have to analyze the model just as I described. If things are bad enough, you may find that RAID-6 is inadequate and you instead need a N-fault redundant code with N>2. Such things are mathematically straightforward but compute intensive. I've seen this done in the "Self-star" distributed storage research system at Carnegie-Mellon about a decade ago. Partly the reason was to deal with cheap unreliable devices, and partly was as an intellectual exercise "because we can". paul From paulkoning at comcast.net Wed Mar 28 16:02:26 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 17:02:26 -0400 Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <00d001d3c6d3$17b6c750$472455f0$@tin.it> Message-ID: <08F4168A-CC9D-4CBF-BD0D-3464656A7507@comcast.net> > On Mar 28, 2018, at 4:40 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Mazzini Alessandro via cctalk wrote: >> Uh.. now the big question.. how big/heavy is a microfiche viewer ? > > They vary. I have one that fits in a pocket! > Usually, they are a tabletop box a few feet square. Some used to have a printer in them. > Most tend not to be very extremely heavy, since a lot of that size is empty space between a projection lens and a screen. I've seen some that are built into a field service tool case. paul From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Mar 28 16:04:10 2018 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 17:04:10 -0400 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <8c61b2d1-e885-4eb5-c0b5-208fa04c444e@telegraphics.com.au> On 2018-03-28 3:37 PM, ethan at 757.org wrote: >>>> DOES ANYONE READ OLD POSTS HERE?????? >>> > ????>> Some of us... >>>> Do the math. Scanning all of that fiche is man-centuries of work >>>> with all but the most expensive equipment. >>> >>> Quite.? Maybe someday 9600 dpi scan heads will be cheap, but not soon >>> enough for most of us here today to care. > > We are like engineers or something. I think there is open source > software for rebuilding images from shredded documents.Slide projector > lens, LED array and diffuser and a digital camera. Stepper motors to > move the thing around and load next fiche? > > Let the robot do it? > The problem with engineers is they sometimes reach to build something from scratch (even if you have the tools and skill, who has the time, really?) when off the shelf equipment can do this, and better. Communalise that equipment. (See also: Book scanning.) --T > > > > > >>> source).? I doubt I have anything unique, but it's possible a handful >>> of items are not easily found. >>> >>> For myself, it would be an enormous accomplishment just to make an >>> index of the titles.? At least it fits in a couple of shoeboxes and >>> takes up less room than paper.?? The manual fiche reader itself is >>> much larger than my pile of fiche, so there's that. >>> >>> -ethan >>> >> >> > > -- > : Ethan O'Toole > > > From geneb at deltasoft.com Wed Mar 28 16:08:20 2018 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 14:08:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: >> >>> I wonder if you could use a photographic enlarger and a flatbed >>> scanner to do this. > > This is a rather interesting question, it?s highly impractical, BUT, it > might be a way for someone like me to get copies of single pages. A > slightly more practical solution would be a DSLR setup with a bellows > for Macro Photography. Realistically someone with a proper setup (which > would mean creating a holder for the film), could probably photograph > the sheets quite quickly. You figure if a couple of college kids can build a robot that can solve a Rubik's Cube in 380ms, a bunch of really smart old guys should be able to cobble together a DIY microfiche scanner. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From abuse at cabal.org.uk Wed Mar 28 16:22:18 2018 From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 23:22:18 +0200 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> Message-ID: <20180328212218.2kcv5vo7snxq4pa4@mooli.org.uk> On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 09:33:38AM -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: [...] > The basic assumption is that failures are "fail stop", i.e., a drive refuses > to deliver data. (In particular, it doesn't lie -- deliver wrong data. You > can build systems that deal with lying drives but RAID is not such a system.) > The failure may be the whole drive ("it's a door-stop") or individual blocks > (hard read errors). The assumption that disks don't lie is demonstrably false, and anybody who still designs or sells a system in 2018 which makes that assumption is a charlatan. I have hardware which proves it. Sun's ZFS filesystem applies an extra "trust but verify" layer of protection using strong checksums. I have a server with a pair of mirrored 3TB enterprise disks which are "zfs scrub"bed (surface-scanned and checksums verified) weekly. Every few months, the scrub will hit a bad checksum which shows that the disk read back different data to that which was written, even though the disk claimed the read was OK. At best (and most likely) the problem was a single bit flip, i.e. roughly a 1 in 1.8e13 error rate. So much for the manufacturer's claim of less than 1 in 1e15 for that model of disk. A workstation with a pair of 512GB consumer-grade SSDs has a half-dozen bad stripes in every scrub performed after the machine has been powered down for a week or so. The SSDs have just a few hundred hours on the clock and perhaps three full drive writes. I love the performance of SSDs, but they are appallingly unreliable for even medium-term storage. Fortunately, ZFS can tell from the checksums which half of the mirror is lying, and thus rewrite the stripe based on the known-good copy. It even handles the case where both disks have some errors. Traditional RAID just cannot self-heal like that. From Flash688 at flying-disk.com Wed Mar 28 16:45:29 2018 From: Flash688 at flying-disk.com (Alan Frisbie) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 14:45:29 -0700 Subject: Many thanks to Glen's Vintage Computer Info In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5ABC0CF9.5020801@flying-disk.com> I don't know if Glen Slick is on this list, but I owe him one! I am working on an elderly PDP-11/23 system running RSX-11M v3.2 -- too old to know about MSCP disk controllers like the RQDX1/2/3 and compatibles. It is only sysgened for RK05, RL01/2, and an incompatible 3rd-party disk, but neither the RK05 or RL01/2 controllers are present. To do my work, I thus need an RL02 and controller... OR something that emulates an RL02. I had planned to post a note here today, asking for recommendations for RL01/2 (RLV11) emulators, but got distracted. Instead, I set about making an inventory of several boxes of Q-Bus cards I had accumulated over the years. Most were DEC, but a bunch were weird 3rd-party controllers, one of which was a TD Systems TDL-12. What the hell is a TDL-12? My Google searching led me eventually to Glen's Vintage Computer Info https://sites.google.com/site/glensvintagecomputerinfo/home and his page on the TD Systems TDL-12: https://sites.google.com/site/glensvintagecomputerinfo/td-systems/tdl-12 The TDL-12 turns out to be a Q-Bus SCSI controller, emulating up to four RL01/2 drives -- exactly what I needed! Glen's web page even includes a PDF of the original TD Systems manual for the board. So, Glen, whoever and wherever you are, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for creating and maintaining a web page about this orphan controller. You have saved me a lot of time, effort, and probably a bit of money as well. As an added bonus, Glen also has a page for an obscure HP Q-Bus logic analyzer card, which I also have. But that's a project for another day. Thanks, Alan Frisbie From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 17:06:03 2018 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 15:06:03 -0700 Subject: Many thanks to Glen's Vintage Computer Info In-Reply-To: <5ABC0CF9.5020801@flying-disk.com> References: <5ABC0CF9.5020801@flying-disk.com> Message-ID: > > The TDL-12 turns out to be a Q-Bus SCSI controller, emulating up to > four RL01/2 drives -- exactly what I needed! Glen's web page even > includes a PDF of the original TD Systems manual for the board. > > So, Glen, whoever and wherever you are, I thank you from the bottom of > my heart for creating and maintaining a web page about this orphan > controller. You have saved me a lot of time, effort, and probably > a bit of money as well. > Glad you found it helpful. I forget where I got the TDL-12 manual, probably from someone who responded to questions about it on the www.vcfed.org forum. -Glen From cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net Wed Mar 28 17:06:36 2018 From: cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 16:06:36 -0600 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> Message-ID: On 03/28/2018 12:32 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > With very unreliable drives, that isn't acceptable. If each "drive" > within the RAID were itself a RAID, . . . Getting to be a complicated > controller, or cascading controllers, . . . Many of the SCSI / SAS RAID controllers that I've worked with over the last 10+ years have this cascading controller functionality. Most of the RAID controlelrs that I've worked with would let you build a mirror or stripe across some sort of underlying RAID. Typical examples are striping (RAID 0) across mirrors (RAID 1) or multiple RAID 5 arrays. > 'course not.? Besides MTBF for calculating the probability of a second > drive failing within N hours, must also consider other factors, such as > external influences causing more than one drive to go, and the > essentially non-linear aspect of a failure rate curve. You also need to take into account the additional I/O load imposed on the remaining drives during a rebuild. I usedto routinely run into software (Solstice Disk Suite?) RAID 1 mirrors on Solaris boxen for the OS (/) where different parts of each drive would fail. So we'd end up with a situation where we had a decent RAID, but we couldn't replace either disk. This usually involved taking an entire backup of the machine, replacing both disks, and restoring the data. -- Grant. . . . unix || die From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Wed Mar 28 15:17:17 2018 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 21:17:17 +0100 (WET-DST) Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding Message-ID: <01QQORR9WN720000GP@beyondthepale.ie> I've got a DEC 3000 model 300 and a couple of DEC 3000 model 600 alphas which failed some time ago and the recent Alphaservers thread has rekindled my interest in getting them working again. A couple of years ago, there was another thread "AlphaStation 200 NVRAM Problem" where the Alpha SROM mini console and various items of useful documentation were mentioned. I have now made up an adapter (cable and MAX232 line driver / receiver) as described in that thread to allow me to to talk to the the SROM mini console in my alphas and I am please to find they are all responsive at this level. I also found: "DEC 3000 300/400/500/600/700/800/900 AXP Models System Programmer's Manual Order Number: EK-D3SYS-PM. B01" (d3syspmb.pdf) which describes some of the internals of the machines in question. The mini console commands available on the model 300 are very limited compared to those in the documentation which targets a much later machine. However, it does have mt (memory test) which is not present on the model 600 for some reason. Results from this suggests that all 6 SIMMs present are bad in pretty much all locations. This seems a bit unlikely to me. Perhaps there is a failure in logic which causes the memory not to be accessed at all? Unfortunately, the manual does not seem to give any leads on how to diagnose this further. The em (examine memory) and dm (deposit memory) commands only accept 32 bit addresses meaning they cannot to be used to access input/output areas which require at least 33 bit addresses. However, a little experimentation led me to the existance of ei and di commands which can do this on the DEC 3000 machines and I found I can use di to update the diagnostic LEDs on the machines. The DEC 3000 600 machines both (usually) count down to F0 on their diagnostic LEDs and hang without producting any output on the main console. They do however produce output on the mini console - for example: DEC 3000 - M600 SROM 6.1 Powerup Sequence ff.fd.fb.fa.f9.f8.f7.f6.f5.f4.f3.f2.f1.f0. sysROM 00000033.000006f1 ioROM 00000033.00000162 MCRstat 11111111.808011c0 bnkSize 00000300.00000c01 memSize 000000c0.000000c0 However, they do not provide the SROM> prompt or accept mini console commands unless a I engineer another fault condition such as by pulling out one of the memory risers. I wonder if there is a jumper to enable mini console commands to be accepted without doing this? Looking around the system board, I see a pair of jumper pins labelled J9 hidden under the I/O board which looks like it could do this. Unfortunately, while there is legend on the PCB indicating the function of all other jumpers, there is none for J9 and it is not mentioned in the manual either. On the I/O board, there is one three pin jumper labelled simply "Off" and "On" and it is jumpered to the "On" side. It is close to the SCSI connector so I suspect it is more likely to be something to do with termination or termpwr than the mini console. One of the model 600s sometimes generates a machine check, like this: DEC 3000 - M600 SROM 6.1 Powerup Sequence ff.fd.fb.fa.f9.20. MCHK exc_addr 00000000.00001484 biu_stat 00000000.000022d8 dc_stat 00000000.00000007 fill_adr 00000001.f0080050 fill_syn 00000000.00000000 DataExp aaaaaaaa.aaaaaaaa DataRec aaaaaaaa.aaaaaaaa MCRstat 11111111.808011c0 bnkSize 00000300.00000c01 memSize 000000c0.000000c0 SROM> While this can be useful because it gets me to the SROM> prompt, I can't find anything in the manual which helps me diagnose what might be causing this. The meaning of the contents of biu_stat might be a useful start. The 600 machines have a socketed 27C512 EPROM. I assume this must be the SROM (although I can't see what is serial about it) as the machines fail to update the diagnostic LEDs or write to the mini console if it is removed. I dumped the two EPROMs and compared them and they are identical. However, I can't see any ASCII strings in them. Perhaps the bits are not used in the standard order? The manual suggests that there are 8 different 8KB SROM images present and those other than the "standard" one may be used for testing and diagnostics by setting jumpers. Unfortunatly, there is no further information about these images. The manual hints that the System ROM (SYSROM) (actually an FEPROM) is located at 1 E000 0000 to 1 E003 FFFF, however, looking at the beginning of this area with ei suggests it is in fact the IOROM (also an FEPROM). Hunting around some more, it seems that setting bit 9 of the System Support Register at 1 E004 0100 brings in the SYSROM instead (although the manual suggests bit 7 is also involved which seems unlikely as this bit is one of the diagnostic LEDs). The format of the headers in the SYSROM and IOROM do not exactly match the format given in the manual but they are "close". I wonder if this might be my problem or if the manual is incorrect. If anyone else has a 3000 600, could they take a peek at their SYSROM and maybe we could compare notes? It may be possible to map the SYSROM from a running operating system but as none of my 3000 machines run right now, I am not in a position to try this myself. Regards, Peter Coghlan. From ethan at 757.org Wed Mar 28 17:18:29 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 18:18:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: > You figure if a couple of college kids can build a robot that can solve a > Rubik's Cube in 380ms, a bunch of really smart old guys should be able to > cobble together a DIY microfiche scanner. > g. Mentioned it in an IRC channel. Friends started talking about it. The open source hughin software is what the people scanning microchip photos to reverse engineer them are using. Looks like it could handle that part. http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ Friend was saying new Sony mirrorless (Sony has been a huge player in digital mirrorless cameras recently) have 42MP sensors. His approach was image the whole thing at once but I'm not sure the resolution would be good enough. I was thinking more along the lines of something mirrorless and moving the film around capturing areas, pile the images in a dir for each fische, then stich and save. - Ethan > > > -- > Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 > http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. > http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. > Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. > > ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment > A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. > http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! > -- : Ethan O'Toole From mechanic_2 at charter.net Wed Mar 28 19:40:29 2018 From: mechanic_2 at charter.net (Richard Pope) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 17:40:29 -0700 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> Message-ID: <5ABC35FD.6050100@charter.net> Hello all, I have been kind of following this thread. I have a question about MTBF. I have four HGST UltraStar Enterprise 2TB drives setup in a Hardware RAID 10 configuration. If the the MTBF is 100,000 Hrs for each drive does this mean that the total MTBF is 25,000 Hrs? GOD Bless and Thanks, rich! On 3/28/2018 6:33 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > >> On Mar 27, 2018, at 8:51 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: >> >> Well outside my realm of expertise (as if I had a realm!), . . . >> >> How many drives would you need, to be able to set up a RAID, or hot swappable RAUD (Redundant Array of Unreliable Drives), that could give decent reliability with such drives? >> >> How many to be able to not have data loss if a second one dies before the first casualty is replaced? >> How many to be able to avoid data loss if a third one dies before the first two are replaced? > These are straightforward questions of probability math, but it takes some time to get the details right. For one thing, you need believable numbers for the underlying error probabilities. And you have to analyze the cases carefully. > > The basic assumption is that failures are "fail stop", i.e., a drive refuses to deliver data. (In particular, it doesn't lie -- deliver wrong data. You can build systems that deal with lying drives but RAID is not such a system.) The failure may be the whole drive ("it's a door-stop") or individual blocks (hard read errors). > > In either case, RAID-1 and RAID-5 handle single faults. RAID-6 isn't a single well-defined thing but as normally defined it is a system that handles double faults. So a RAID-1 system with a double fault may fail to give you your data. (It may also be ok -- it depends on where the faults are.) RAID-5 ditto. > > The tricky part is what happens when a drive breaks. Consider RAID-5 with a single dead drive, and the others are 100% ok. Your data is still good. When the broken drive is replaced, RAID rebuilds the bits that belong on that drive. Once that rebuild finishes, you're once again fault tolerant. But a second failure prior to rebuild completion means loss of data. > > So one way to look at it: given the MTBF, calculate the probability of two drives failing within N hours (where N is the time required to replace the failed drive and then rebuild the data onto the new drive). But that is not the whole story. > > The other part of the story is that drives have a non-zero probability of a hard read error. So during rebuild, you may encounter a sector on one of the remaining drives that can't be read. If so, that sector is lost. > > The probability of hard read error varies with drive technology. And of course, the larger the drive, the greater the probability (all else being equal) of having SOME sector be unreadable. For drives small enough to have PATA interfaces, the probability of hard read error is probably low enough that you can *usually* read the whole drive without error. That translates to: RAID-1 and RAID-5 are generally adequate for PATA disks. > > On the very large drives currently available, it's a different story, and the published drive specs make this quite clear. This is why RAID-6 is much more popular now than it was earlier. It isn't the probability of two nearly simultaneous drive failures, but rather the probability of a hard sector read error while a drive has failed, that argues for the use of RAID-6 in modern storage systems. > > paul > > > From macro at linux-mips.org Wed Mar 28 17:59:08 2018 From: macro at linux-mips.org (Maciej W. Rozycki) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 23:59:08 +0100 (BST) Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding In-Reply-To: <01QQORR9WN720000GP@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01QQORR9WN720000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: Hi Peter, > However, they do not provide the SROM> prompt or accept mini console commands > unless a I engineer another fault condition such as by pulling out one of the > memory risers. I wonder if there is a jumper to enable mini console commands > to be accepted without doing this? Looking around the system board, I see a > pair of jumper pins labelled J9 hidden under the I/O board which looks like it > could do this. Unfortunately, while there is legend on the PCB indicating the > function of all other jumpers, there is none for J9 and it is not mentioned in > the manual either. "DEC 3000 Models 600/600S AXP and 800/800S AXP Service Information", Order Number: EK-FLSPC-SV. A01 (flspcsva.pdf) seems to indicate on page 2-2 that the SROM console jumper is one in position 0 among the SROM jumpers whose location is shown in the figure on that page. I have checked my /700 (which is the same as the /600 except for a faster CPU) and this is also marked J8 on the PCB. > The 600 machines have a socketed 27C512 EPROM. I assume this must be the SROM > (although I can't see what is serial about it) as the machines fail to update > the diagnostic LEDs or write to the mini console if it is removed. I dumped > the two EPROMs and compared them and they are identical. However, I can't see > any ASCII strings in them. Perhaps the bits are not used in the standard > order? The manual suggests that there are 8 different 8KB SROM images present > and those other than the "standard" one may be used for testing and diagnostics > by setting jumpers. Unfortunatly, there is no further information about these > images. The location of the SROM chip is also shown in the figure on page 2-2. > The format of the headers in the SYSROM and IOROM do not exactly match the > format given in the manual but they are "close". I wonder if this might > be my problem or if the manual is incorrect. If anyone else has a 3000 600, > could they take a peek at their SYSROM and maybe we could compare notes? I could check my /700 with SRM. What would you like me to look at? Hope this helps. Good luck with your fault debugging. Maciej From mechanic_2 at charter.net Wed Mar 28 20:08:05 2018 From: mechanic_2 at charter.net (Richard Pope) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 18:08:05 -0700 Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <43549193-924f-db89-53a7-98133b630a33@sydex.com> <4d51970b-e748-5b63-59c4-c6e18f5ed7b2@sydex.com> Message-ID: <5ABC3C75.1030801@charter.net> Bill, I have a 30 year old IBM SCSI drive that still works great. Yes, every company has had good drives and bad drives. I have had Quantum drives that have lasted for decades and I have had ones that died in a year. :) GOD Bless and Thanks, rich! On 3/28/2018 5:03 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > > On 03/28/2018 01:04 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: >> On 03/27/2018 08:27 PM, dwight wrote: >>> I recall at one company we used Micropolous ( SP? ) drives. We had >>> almost 100% failure in less than 6 months. It did our company a lot of >>> damage. >> A lot of outfits (e.g. Sun, HP) used Micropolis drives. Generally, they >> were good, but expensive. >> >> Maybe you're thinking of Miniscribe. >> >> > I have ancient Micropolis and Miniscribe disks here that still > work great. Seems every company went thru at least one > model that was trash. The worst from my experience were > IBM disks made in Thailand. > > bill > > From healyzh at avanthar.com Wed Mar 28 18:19:46 2018 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 16:19:46 -0700 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> > On Mar 28, 2018, at 1:35 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Ethan via cctalk wrote: >> We are like engineers or something. I think there is open source software for rebuilding images from shredded documents.Slide projector lens, LED array and diffuser and a digital camera. Stepper motors to move the thing around and load next fiche? >> Let the robot do it? > > In other words, a homemade fiche scanner. > > If you start with a fiche viewer, then a lot of the mechanical parts, such as the fiche holder, are well under way. You need to modify the card movement mechanism to be able to automate it, but you could put that part off until you confirm that the optical portion is satisfactory. This is the part I?m having trouble wrapping my brain around, but then I?ve not messed with that many fiche readers. I?m far more familiar with film holders. Too bad it isn?t a question a running 35mm film through, as Beseler Negatrans would work for that. If you can take a fiche reader, and modify the fiche holder mechanism to handle this, then you?d be most of the way to doing this manually. Realistically a manual setup with a shutter release cable would still let you fly through the fiche pretty fast. > Added extension shortens the distance from lens to subject. An added extension equivalent to the focal length of the lens will change the focus from infinity down to twice the focal length from the lens, which will give you one-to-one. In other words, adding 2 inches of extension to a 50mm lens will bring the focus to 4 inches from the lens. You want a fair amount more than that. I think Bellows would be the only sane way to approach this. You could do it with extension tubes, but they?re a pain. Another thing to consider is a light source. You?re going to need a fair amount of light, given the necessary extension to get the magnification. > If you want help with the formulas for extension, just ask. > My favorite source for that kind of information is a 1936 edition of "The Leica Manual" by Morgan & Lester. One of my favorite books, I think I?m up to 5 editions of it. :-) You?d be hard pressed to find a photography book with more data in it! Zane From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 28 18:43:43 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 16:43:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <5ABC35FD.6050100@charter.net> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> <5ABC35FD.6050100@charter.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Richard Pope via cctalk wrote: > I have been kind of following this thread. I have a question about MTBF. > I have four HGST UltraStar Enterprise 2TB drives setup in a Hardware RAID 10 > configuration. If the the MTBF is 100,000 Hrs for each drive does this mean > that the total MTBF is 25,000 Hrs? Probably NOT. It depends extremely heavily on the shape of the curve of failure times. MEAN Time Before Failure, of course, means that for a large enough sample, half the drives fail before 100,000 hours, and half after. Thus, at 100,000 hours, half are dead. But, how evenly distributed are the failures? Besides the MTBF, it would help to know the variance or standard deviation. It is unlikely that the failures follow a "normal distribution" (or "Laplace-Gauss") bell curve. And, other distributions are certainly not ABnormal :-) If the curve is symmetrical, then the mean, median, and mode will all be the same. If it is not symmetrical, then they won't be. Hence the use of MEDIAN - at that point half are dead, half are still alive. In toxicology, there is a concept of an LD-50 dosage - the dosage that will kill half, since for example, antibiotic resistant bacteria might require an incredibly large dosage to get that last one, but LD-50 provides a convenient way to get a single number. 100,000 hours is the LD-50 of those drives. If it turns out that the drives last 100,000 hours, plus or minus 10%, then you have a curve with a very steep slope. It is still half dead at 100,000, but maybe hardly any dead until 90,000, hardly any left alive at 110,000. OTOH, if the failures were evenly distributed throughout a life of 0 to 200,000 hours, with the same number going every day, then that also would have a MTBF of 100,000. In THAT case, then yes, the MTBF of first failure may well be 25,000. They rarely work that way. Often our devices will have what is sometimes called a "bathtub curve". There are a few failures IMMEDIATELY ("infant mortality") falling off rapidly, and then few failures for quite a while, and then, as random parts start to wear out, the failures rise. In fact, with the same MTBF of 100,000, it could be that once the early demise ones are discarded, that the MTBF of the REMAINDER might be 200,000. IFF you are willing to deal with the DOA and infant mortality cases, then by discarding or ignoring those outlying numbers, you might get a more realistic evaluation of what to expect. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From mechanic_2 at charter.net Wed Mar 28 20:57:58 2018 From: mechanic_2 at charter.net (Richard Pope) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 18:57:58 -0700 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> <5ABC35FD.6050100@charter.net> Message-ID: <5ABC4826.2050607@charter.net> Fred, I appreciate the explanation. So with out a 1,000, 10,000, or even 100,000 drives there is no way to know how long my drives in the RAID will last. All I know for sure is that I can lose anyone drive and the RAID can be rebuilt. GOD Bless and Thanks, rich! On 3/28/2018 4:43 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Richard Pope via cctalk wrote: >> I have been kind of following this thread. I have a question about >> MTBF. I have four HGST UltraStar Enterprise 2TB drives setup in a >> Hardware RAID 10 configuration. If the the MTBF is 100,000 Hrs for >> each drive does this mean that the total MTBF is 25,000 Hrs? > > > Probably NOT. > It depends extremely heavily on the shape of the curve of failure times. > MEAN Time Before Failure, of course, means that for a large enough > sample, half the drives fail before 100,000 hours, and half after. > Thus, at 100,000 hours, half are dead. > > But, how evenly distributed are the failures? > Besides the MTBF, it would help to know the variance or standard > deviation. > It is unlikely that the failures follow a "normal distribution" (or > "Laplace-Gauss") bell curve. And, other distributions are certainly > not ABnormal :-) > > If the curve is symmetrical, then the mean, median, and mode will all > be the same. If it is not symmetrical, then they won't be. Hence the > use of MEDIAN - at that point half are dead, half are still alive. > In toxicology, there is a concept of an LD-50 dosage - the dosage that > will kill half, since for example, antibiotic resistant bacteria might > require an incredibly large dosage to get that last one, but LD-50 > provides a convenient way to get a single number. > 100,000 hours is the LD-50 of those drives. > > > If it turns out that the drives last 100,000 hours, plus or minus 10%, > then you have a curve with a very steep slope. It is still half dead > at 100,000, but maybe hardly any dead until 90,000, hardly any left > alive at 110,000. > > OTOH, if the failures were evenly distributed throughout a life of 0 > to 200,000 hours, with the same number going every day, then that also > would have a MTBF of 100,000. In THAT case, then yes, the MTBF of > first failure may well be 25,000. > > > They rarely work that way. Often our devices will have what is > sometimes called a "bathtub curve". There are a few failures > IMMEDIATELY ("infant mortality") falling off rapidly, and then few > failures for quite a while, and then, as random parts start to wear > out, the failures rise. In fact, with the same MTBF of 100,000, it > could be that once the early demise ones are discarded, that the MTBF > of the REMAINDER might be 200,000. > > IFF you are willing to deal with the DOA and infant mortality cases, > then by discarding or ignoring those outlying numbers, you might get a > more realistic evaluation of what to expect. > > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Wed Mar 28 19:05:39 2018 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 00:05:39 +0000 Subject: Many thanks to Glen's Vintage Computer Info In-Reply-To: References: <5ABC0CF9.5020801@flying-disk.com> Message-ID: Wish I? had one of them things.? :-) bill On 03/28/2018 06:06 PM, Glen Slick via cctalk wrote: >> The TDL-12 turns out to be a Q-Bus SCSI controller, emulating up to >> four RL01/2 drives -- exactly what I needed! Glen's web page even >> includes a PDF of the original TD Systems manual for the board. >> >> So, Glen, whoever and wherever you are, I thank you from the bottom of >> my heart for creating and maintaining a web page about this orphan >> controller. You have saved me a lot of time, effort, and probably >> a bit of money as well. >> > Glad you found it helpful. I forget where I got the TDL-12 manual, > probably from someone who responded to questions about it on the > www.vcfed.org forum. > > -Glen From paulkoning at comcast.net Wed Mar 28 19:11:13 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 20:11:13 -0400 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <5ABC4826.2050607@charter.net> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> <5ABC35FD.6050100@charter.net> <5ABC4826.2050607@charter.net> Message-ID: <6DCDEC47-4480-478A-B016-770E705BAFF4@comcast.net> It's not quite that bad. The answer is that the MTBF of four drives is probably not simply the MTBF of one drive divided by four. If you have a good description of the probability of failure as a function of drive age (i.e., a picture of its particular "bathtub curve") you can then work out the corresponding curve for multiple drives. I like to leave the details of how to do this to appropriate mathematicians. If all you have is a data sheet that says "MTBF is 1M hours" then you don't have enough information. You can assume some distribution and figure accordingly, but if the actual distribution is sufficiently different from the guess then the answers you calculated may be significantly off. BTW, specified MTBF for modern drives is a whole lot higher than 100k hours. Real MTBF may differ from specified, and derating the manufacturer's number according to your preferred level of pessimism is probably a good idea. paul > On Mar 28, 2018, at 9:57 PM, Richard Pope via cctalk wrote: > > Fred, > I appreciate the explanation. So with out a 1,000, 10,000, or even 100,000 drives there is no way to know how long my drives in the RAID will last. All I know for sure is that I can lose anyone drive and the RAID can be rebuilt. > GOD Bless and Thanks, > rich! > > On 3/28/2018 4:43 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: >> On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Richard Pope via cctalk wrote: >>> I have been kind of following this thread. I have a question about MTBF. I have four HGST UltraStar Enterprise 2TB drives setup in a Hardware RAID 10 configuration. If the the MTBF is 100,000 Hrs for each drive does this mean that the total MTBF is 25,000 Hrs? >> >> >> Probably NOT. >> It depends extremely heavily on the shape of the curve of failure times. >> MEAN Time Before Failure, of course, means that for a large enough sample, half the drives fail before 100,000 hours, and half after. Thus, at 100,000 hours, half are dead. >> >> But, how evenly distributed are the failures? ... From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 28 20:00:50 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 18:00:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> Message-ID: >> If you start with a fiche viewer, then a lot of the mechanical parts, >> such as the fiche holder, are well under way. You need to modify the >> card movement mechanism to be able to automate it, but you could put >> that part off until you confirm that the optical portion is >> satisfactory. On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Zane Healy wrote: > This is the part I?m having trouble wrapping my brain around, but then > I?ve not messed with that many fiche readers. I?m far more familiar > with film holders. Too bad it isn?t a question a running 35mm film > through, as Beseler Negatrans would work for that. Or gate of a filmstrip projector, movie projector (I used to deal with 16mm microfilm, as well as 35mm), or just sprocket spindle from camera, etc. > If you can take a fiche reader, and modify the fiche holder mechanism to > handle this, then you?d be most of the way to doing this manually. > Realistically a manual setup with a shutter release cable would still > let you fly through the fiche pretty fast. BUT, are we talking about a single exposure for the whole card, and then isolating pages/frames later? That is certainly EASIER, but needs relatively hig resolution imaging device. OR, are we talking about a servo/stepper controlled device that maneuvers the card around, to shoot a separate exposure for each frame/page? Excellent resolution, but lots of mechanical work to make the positioner. I was suggesting getting the camera and optics working while manually positioning the fiche card. THEN deciding whether to put in steppers. Don't tell anybody :-), but if I were to do it, I'd probably use head positioner mechanisms from floppy drives. > I think Bellows would be the only sane way to approach this. You could > do it with extension tubes, but they?re a pain. Another thing to > consider is a light source. You?re going to need a fair amount of > light, given the necessary extension to get the magnification. I disagree. Or maybe I don't quite qualify as "sane" :-) If this is a bespoke device sitting on a table, with a permanently mounted digital camera in it, then I would definitely go with extension tubes. Yes, you would need a way to handle fine focusing, but that could be a rack and pinion rail moving the camera. I do occasionally set the focus on the camera, particularly if it is "closest" focus, and then move camera in and out to find the focus. Extension tubes, once properly configured require no maintenance, re-adjustment, etc., and are available in even fairly thin forms. My first use of a lathe (half a century ago) was to shorten an extension tube 1.5mm Bellows go bad with age; the leather rots, pinholes develop, ... I need to do a thorough checkout before I use my view cameras or bellows. Or find some Ubik. OTOH, if this is not a dedicated device, and is going to be used for a lot of other stuff, then bellows has versatility. The minimum extension for a bellows is substantial, but well within range for THIS, so that isn't meant as an argument against for THIS. I have a FULL MOVEMENTS Kenlock/Hama bellows, similar to: http://forum.mflenses.com/spiratone-aka-hama-bellows-master-sst-with-bellows-lens-t76002.html that I am trying to setup to play with. I have a 47mm Super-Angulon that will cover 3.25x4.25 that will have PLENTY of image circle for exaggerated movements on a digital camera. But, I need to machine some thnner adapters. Yes, a "technical" view camera made with a Sony Nex is not "sane". >> My favorite source for that kind of information is a 1936 edition of "The Leica Manual" by Morgan & Lester. > One of my favorite books, I think I?m up to 5 editions of it. :-) > You?d be hard pressed to find a photography book with more data in it! It's not quite the information density of Knuth, but half a century ago, it handled all of my photographic reference needs other than film. 20? years ago, an early 1950s edition reinforced my suspicion that Vannevar Bush's claim for readable stopped motion of fast streaming microfilm was NOT feasible with the hardware that Bush "used" when he implied/claimed to have built his memex. Sure was handy that the library was stingy about updating their collection. Munchausen learned from him. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From pete at dunnington.plus.com Wed Mar 28 20:23:42 2018 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 02:23:42 +0100 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> Message-ID: <016b06c4-ecad-d55d-7f34-50153446a12f@dunnington.plus.com> On 29/03/2018 00:19, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > I think Bellows would be the only sane way to approach this. You > could do it with extension tubes, but they?re a pain. Another thing > to consider is a light source. You?re going to need a fair amount of > light, given the necessary extension to get the magnification. I was going to suggest a Bowens Illumitran (which I have) but that sort of exercise wouldn't be kind to the flash tube. LEDs would be my preferred solution; given the small area you might only need one bright white 5mm LED. The Illumitran uses bellows, but for a lot of DEC fiche, the page size is constant so extension tubes might actually be better - they won't slip. > One of my favorite books, I think I?m up to 5 editions of it. :-) > You?d be hard pressed to find a photography book with more data in > it! My favourite is L.P.Clerc "Photography" (six volumes), but second is either M.J.Langford's 3-volume "Photography" set, mainly because I got it for college, or the "Ilford Photography Manual". -- Pete Pete Turnbull From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 28 20:52:04 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 18:52:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <08b601d3c6f6$1e13e0b0$5a3ba210$@internode.on.net> References: <08b601d3c6f6$1e13e0b0$5a3ba210$@internode.on.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, Kevin Parker via cctech wrote: > I previously worked for an insurance company and a very old issue reared > its ugly head. Trouble was all the claim and policy info was on > literally a truckload of microfiche and to find anything took three days > (seriously) so ICT had them all scanned to PDF and OCR'd - it worked a > treat but of course an expensive option depending on volume of course. If only that were 16mm or 35mm continuous rolls, instead of microfiche! In 1931, Emanuel Goldberg, then a chief engineer at Zeiss built the "Statistical Machine". By recording bits optically in the margins of microfilm, and reading them with photocells, it could find appropriate frames! For use in soundtrack for films, Mauer puts up to 8 parallel variable area optical tracks in the margin! 8 bit parallel! Goldberg was also apparently responsible for the Contax camera. BUT, in the days leading up to World War Two, he fled Dresden and Zeiss could not afford to have mention of a Jew in a high profile position, and by the time the war ended, they had systematically erased most clues that he had existed! http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/goldberg.html A decade later, Vannevar Bush stole the idea, and without credit, claimed it as his own, as the foundation for his Memex device. Bush did not successfully build his machine. Bush's Atlantic Monthly article, "As We May Think" is sometimes considered the foundation of modern information science. Bush did not understand nor accept the concepts of index nor hierarchical organization, so he pushed for linkage to go from one topic into another. Ted Nelson credits it as the inspiration for Hypertext, and Cern credits Ted nelson. Alas, the volume of data involved precludes reels of microfilm, and the only hope for access is manually cataloging titles of the cards, followed eventually by linking to images on the web, and eventual OCR of the text portions. How many page images will fit on a 3TB drive? How many can we store and retrieve in the MTBF? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Wed Mar 28 21:14:29 2018 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 22:14:29 -0400 Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding In-Reply-To: <01QQORR9WN720000GP@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01QQORR9WN720000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <018bcadc-48e0-ec68-0a44-bcd1a5493d12@comcast.net> I have a functioning Alpha 3000 300, perhaps it can help with some of the questions you have. Doug On 3/28/2018 4:17 PM, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote: > I've got a DEC 3000 model 300 and a couple of DEC 3000 model 600 alphas which > failed some time ago and the recent Alphaservers thread has rekindled my > interest in getting them working again. > > A couple of years ago, there was another thread "AlphaStation 200 NVRAM Problem" > where the Alpha SROM mini console and various items of useful documentation > were mentioned. I have now made up an adapter (cable and MAX232 line driver / > receiver) as described in that thread to allow me to to talk to the the SROM > mini console in my alphas and I am please to find they are all responsive at > this level. I also found: "DEC 3000 300/400/500/600/700/800/900 AXP Models > System Programmer's Manual Order Number: EK-D3SYS-PM. B01" (d3syspmb.pdf) > which describes some of the internals of the machines in question. > > The mini console commands available on the model 300 are very limited compared > to those in the documentation which targets a much later machine. However, it > does have mt (memory test) which is not present on the model 600 for some > reason. Results from this suggests that all 6 SIMMs present are bad in pretty > much all locations. This seems a bit unlikely to me. Perhaps there is a > failure in logic which causes the memory not to be accessed at all? > Unfortunately, the manual does not seem to give any leads on how to diagnose > this further. > > The em (examine memory) and dm (deposit memory) commands only accept 32 bit > addresses meaning they cannot to be used to access input/output areas which > require at least 33 bit addresses. However, a little experimentation led me > to the existance of ei and di commands which can do this on the DEC 3000 > machines and I found I can use di to update the diagnostic LEDs on the machines. > > The DEC 3000 600 machines both (usually) count down to F0 on their diagnostic > LEDs and hang without producting any output on the main console. They do > however produce output on the mini console - for example: > > DEC 3000 - M600 SROM 6.1 > Powerup Sequence > ff.fd.fb.fa.f9.f8.f7.f6.f5.f4.f3.f2.f1.f0. > sysROM 00000033.000006f1 > ioROM 00000033.00000162 > MCRstat 11111111.808011c0 > bnkSize 00000300.00000c01 > memSize 000000c0.000000c0 > > However, they do not provide the SROM> prompt or accept mini console commands > unless a I engineer another fault condition such as by pulling out one of the > memory risers. I wonder if there is a jumper to enable mini console commands > to be accepted without doing this? Looking around the system board, I see a > pair of jumper pins labelled J9 hidden under the I/O board which looks like it > could do this. Unfortunately, while there is legend on the PCB indicating the > function of all other jumpers, there is none for J9 and it is not mentioned in > the manual either. > > On the I/O board, there is one three pin jumper labelled simply "Off" and "On" > and it is jumpered to the "On" side. It is close to the SCSI connector so I > suspect it is more likely to be something to do with termination or termpwr > than the mini console. > > One of the model 600s sometimes generates a machine check, like this: > > DEC 3000 - M600 SROM 6.1 > Powerup Sequence > ff.fd.fb.fa.f9.20. > MCHK > exc_addr 00000000.00001484 > biu_stat 00000000.000022d8 > dc_stat 00000000.00000007 > fill_adr 00000001.f0080050 > fill_syn 00000000.00000000 > DataExp aaaaaaaa.aaaaaaaa > DataRec aaaaaaaa.aaaaaaaa > MCRstat 11111111.808011c0 > bnkSize 00000300.00000c01 > memSize 000000c0.000000c0 > > > SROM> > > While this can be useful because it gets me to the SROM> prompt, I can't > find anything in the manual which helps me diagnose what might be causing > this. The meaning of the contents of biu_stat might be a useful start. > > The 600 machines have a socketed 27C512 EPROM. I assume this must be the SROM > (although I can't see what is serial about it) as the machines fail to update > the diagnostic LEDs or write to the mini console if it is removed. I dumped > the two EPROMs and compared them and they are identical. However, I can't see > any ASCII strings in them. Perhaps the bits are not used in the standard > order? The manual suggests that there are 8 different 8KB SROM images present > and those other than the "standard" one may be used for testing and diagnostics > by setting jumpers. Unfortunatly, there is no further information about these > images. > > The manual hints that the System ROM (SYSROM) (actually an FEPROM) is located > at 1 E000 0000 to 1 E003 FFFF, however, looking at the beginning of this area > with ei suggests it is in fact the IOROM (also an FEPROM). Hunting around > some more, it seems that setting bit 9 of the System Support Register at > 1 E004 0100 brings in the SYSROM instead (although the manual suggests bit 7 > is also involved which seems unlikely as this bit is one of the diagnostic > LEDs). > > The format of the headers in the SYSROM and IOROM do not exactly match the > format given in the manual but they are "close". I wonder if this might > be my problem or if the manual is incorrect. If anyone else has a 3000 600, > could they take a peek at their SYSROM and maybe we could compare notes? > It may be possible to map the SYSROM from a running operating system but as > none of my 3000 machines run right now, I am not in a position to try this > myself. > > Regards, > Peter Coghlan. From healyzh at avanthar.com Wed Mar 28 21:15:12 2018 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 19:15:12 -0700 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <016b06c4-ecad-d55d-7f34-50153446a12f@dunnington.plus.com> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <016b06c4-ecad-d55d-7f34-50153446a12f@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <42E3923A-4301-45CE-85F5-4625CF18DA24@avanthar.com> > On Mar 28, 2018, at 6:23 PM, Pete Turnbull via cctalk wrote: > > On 29/03/2018 00:19, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > >> I think Bellows would be the only sane way to approach this. You >> could do it with extension tubes, but they?re a pain. Another thing >> to consider is a light source. You?re going to need a fair amount of >> light, given the necessary extension to get the magnification. > > I was going to suggest a Bowens Illumitran (which I have) but that sort of exercise wouldn't be kind to the flash tube. LEDs would be my preferred solution; given the small area you might only need one bright white 5mm LED. > > The Illumitran uses bellows, but for a lot of DEC fiche, the page size is constant so extension tubes might actually be better - they won't slip. Initially I was going to suggest an Illumitran, but I don?t think it would work that well with trying to move the fiche around. You might have a point on the DEC fiche, though the bellows will allow you to maximize your page size. Of course that may not be the greatest idea, as the more you maximize the size, the more attention you?ll have to pay to positioning each frame. >> One of my favorite books, I think I?m up to 5 editions of it. :-) >> You?d be hard pressed to find a photography book with more data in >> it! > > My favourite is L.P.Clerc "Photography" (six volumes), but second is > either M.J.Langford's 3-volume "Photography" set, mainly because I got it for college, or the "Ilford Photography Manual". > > -- > Pete > Pete Turnbull My Circa 1945 copy of the ?Ilford Manual of Photography? is another really useful book. I have a newer version of the ?Manual of Photography?, which superseded it, and I don?t find it as useful due to the quality of the troubleshooting photo?s. I?ve not run across the two sets you mention. Another favorite of mine is Fred Picker?s "Zone VI Workshop?, I?ve read it, cover to cover, a couple times. More and more, I view my Classic Computer collection as a hinderance to building a proper darkroom. Oddly enough, the main purpose of my PDP-11/44 these days is to hold a couple old enlargers that I don?t use. Zane From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 21:23:36 2018 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 22:23:36 -0400 Subject: IBM 6094-010 "Dials" protocol? In-Reply-To: References: <77B2FCA7-E64B-404F-8E47-E7500C2D19E9@nf6x.net> <20180325154900.GE4556@n0jcf.net> <1d4acbae-ee38-e391-1a3a-b8ec8bea8d6d@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 6:09 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > Now I'm really looking forward to unboxing these next month! My dialboxes showed up today. The Seiko unit was advertised as having a PS/2 adapter. They were mistaken. It's a DE9-MiniDIN8 adapter, presumably for newer SGI or Sun machines. I'll have to check the pinout. It also came with an external PSU so I don't need to make a power-and-serial cable. The Danaher Controls DLS80-1022 did not come with the DE9-DIN5 power-and-serial cable so I'll have to make one of those. -ethan From phb.hfx at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 21:47:11 2018 From: phb.hfx at gmail.com (Paul Berger) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 23:47:11 -0300 Subject: IBM 6094-010 "Dials" protocol? In-Reply-To: References: <77B2FCA7-E64B-404F-8E47-E7500C2D19E9@nf6x.net> <20180325154900.GE4556@n0jcf.net> <1d4acbae-ee38-e391-1a3a-b8ec8bea8d6d@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 2018-03-28 11:23 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: > On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 6:09 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> Now I'm really looking forward to unboxing these next month! > My dialboxes showed up today. The Seiko unit was advertised as having > a PS/2 adapter. They were mistaken. It's a DE9-MiniDIN8 adapter, > presumably for newer SGI or Sun machines. I'll have to check the > pinout. It also came with an external PSU so I don't need to make a > power-and-serial cable. The Danaher Controls DLS80-1022 did not come > with the DE9-DIN5 power-and-serial cable so I'll have to make one of > those. > > -ethan IBM Dials used a connector like that it has the serial in and out and +5V power on the connector.? You can find the pinout in the old "Adapters Devices and Cabling Information for Microchannel Systems"?? I have seen this manual on the web, back in the microchannel days there was an adapter with 2 mini-din connectors on it for devices like this the adapter had 2 async adapter chips and fuses for the +5V power.? I seem to remember that the adapter was called "Graphics Device Adapter"?? Most of these IBM devices like dials, LPHK (Lighted PF Keys) and tablet date back to the IBM 5080 graphics workstations that where initially driven by mainframes but where later adapted to run off first RT system and then later RS/6000, but where also used on RS/6000 with with internal graphics adapters to support CAD programs like Catia. Paul. From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Wed Mar 28 21:59:47 2018 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 19:59:47 -0700 Subject: OT: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> Message-ID: <8378d98c-e997-d732-7cb9-4e11536f619d@sbcglobal.net> On 3/28/2018 6:00 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: >>> If you start with a fiche viewer, then a lot of the mechanical >>> parts, such as the fiche holder, are well under way.? You need to >>> modify the card movement mechanism to be able to automate it, but >>> you could put that part off until you confirm that the optical >>> portion is satisfactory. ...snip This thread reminded me of a DYI scanner I had read about. Found it with google: http://retrocmp.com/projects/scanning-micro-fiches/235-the-homebuild-automatic-micro-fiche-scanner Bob -- Vintage computers and electronics www.dvq.com www.tekmuseum.com www.decmuseum.org From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 22:03:06 2018 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 20:03:06 -0700 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: Is Joerg still active on this list? In this thread in 2015 he said he scanned over 400 DEC sheets using a digital camera to capture the image projected on a sheet reader. Don't know how long that took. http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?24206-Digital-Equipment-Corporation-MicroFiche-Underground&p=346165#post346165 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCRr9sbHBnM From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 22:17:10 2018 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 20:17:10 -0700 Subject: Many thanks to Glen's Vintage Computer Info In-Reply-To: References: <5ABC0CF9.5020801@flying-disk.com> Message-ID: Wow, it was over 5 years ago already that I started trying to figure out how to use a TDL-12. Doesn't seem that long ago. There is a thread about it here, and that is where someone eventually responded with a copy of the manual. http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?34859-TD-Systems-TDL-12-QBus-SCSI-controller-information From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Mar 28 22:39:57 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 20:39:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <8378d98c-e997-d732-7cb9-4e11536f619d@sbcglobal.net> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <8378d98c-e997-d732-7cb9-4e11536f619d@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Bob Rosenbloom via cctalk wrote: > This thread reminded me of a DYI scanner I had read about. Found it with > google: > http://retrocmp.com/projects/scanning-micro-fiches/235-the-homebuild-automatic-micro-fiche-scanner I like his enthusiasm and the fact that he actually got it together and DID it. Hmmm. If you gut the reader, and photograph the illuminated portion of the fiche, rather than project and photograph the screen, image quality will be a lot better. Ambient light will cease to be a significant issue. I don't think that ANY of them are color, so with bitonal, noise should not be that much of a problem, unless that is being compounded by the long exposure? Steadiness for a 3 second exposure seems like more of an issue. Although I generally agree with stopping down the lens, the midpoint of the aperture range is not necessarily the sharpest (often over-simplified to "2 steps down from wide open"), and the difference between f10 and f5.6 is not likely to be as significant as other issues. THAT would drop the exposure to less than a second. I don't know the sensitivity of the CCDs to long exposure, an exposure as long as 3 seconds gets into the "reciprocity failure" range. If it can be set up to let the PC monitor the image, rather than create a JPG and transfer that, then it should be possible to make some software on the PC to find the edges of the frames and move the positioner to center them. I'm not familiar with an "Isel" CNC positioner. We're not talking much mass to need something heavy enough that it disturbs everybody in the house, and requires a 5 second settle time. I'm thinking more in terms of floppy head positioners. BUT, he built one and made it work. I haven't done that. From shaunhalstead at gmail.com Wed Mar 28 23:26:36 2018 From: shaunhalstead at gmail.com (Shaun Halstead) Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2018 23:26:36 -0500 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> Message-ID: [I'm intentionally not quoting anyone here] Disclaimer: I own a small company which provides microfilm and microfiche scanning. A couple of problems anyone building a fiche scanner is going to run into have already been addressed: Moving film around to capture images and resolution. I use a Mekel M565 scanner. It's roughly 3 feet long, 1.5 feet tall, and 2 feet deep, weighs around 80 pounds, and cost, used with greyscale interface, $15k (ca 2007). The length is to accommodate both the internal control boards and the lenses required. Image capture is accomplished via a single-pixel-wide scan element, which is (from memory) about a foot long. The entire unit weighs around like 80 pounds. While running, it moves the desk it's sitting on. It also uses (as I recall) a 65W lamp, which is also lensed, and all of the glass (lenses and film carrier/platen) are photo-perfect, with zero defects. The lamp itself is interesting, as there are two versions available under the same ANSI designation, one with a vertical filament, the other with a horizontal filament. Using the wrong filament orientation can cause some weird artifacts to appear on scanned images, because of the high magnification. I strongly suspect that an attempt using an LED source would face similar (and possibly worse) issues. The system uses a dedicated interface card, with multiple FPGA's. Typical scan times range from two to five seconds per frame, (including 0.5 to 1 second to reposition the platen). The M565 has an auto-loader, though I've seldom used it. The auto-loader takes the form of an arm over the platen, with a vacuum head and a solenoid to extend the head down to the work table under the platen, pick up a fiche, hold it in place while the platen is positioned and emptied (via pneumatic system), then drop the new fiche onto the platen. 35mm images scanned at 300dpi equivalent are just a hair over 40MP. 16mm images are, of course, smaller. A few issues that come to mind: How to detect where the frames are on the microfilm sheet. Some fiche have a very consistent grid layout, which is nice, because you can work out the math then feed the grid information into the scanner software. In my experience, most fiche will have a grid layout, but not a consistent one. There will be blank frames, skew, even frame size changes from column to column or row to row. Film quality. You're working with duplicate film, at least second, probably 3rd, possibly even 4th generation, so quality was already an issue 20+ years ago, and it's an even bigger issue now. All of the DEC film I have (which I believe is already available) is diazo duplicates, which are susceptible to fading over time, even when stored in proper conditions. (In particular prolonged exposure to strong light, including sunlight and the light from microfilm readers, accelerates fading of diazo films.) Light source. Due to lensing requirements, LED's are probably out, unless a way can be found to suitably diffuse or blend the source without losing significant light. This requires a very strong light source. In short, this is no small task. I've been looking for newer alternatives, but the resolution requirement is a killer on its own, and then when you factor in other challenges like platen movement, frame detection, light source, etc, it's very easy to be overwhelmed. I would love to see a viable alternative produced, but the efforts I've seen over the years all had significant problems in terms of quality and/or speed of operation. --Shaun From trash80 at internode.on.net Wed Mar 28 19:37:28 2018 From: trash80 at internode.on.net (Kevin Parker) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 11:37:28 +1100 Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <08b601d3c6f6$1e13e0b0$5a3ba210$@internode.on.net> I previously worked for an insurance company and a very old issue reared its ugly head. Trouble was all the claim and policy info was on literally a truckload of microfiche and to find anything took three days (seriously) so ICT had them all scanned to PDF and OCR'd - it worked a treat but of course an expensive option depending on volume of course. Kevin Parker -----Original Message----- From: cctech On Behalf Of Paul Anderson via cctech Sent: Wednesday, 28 March 2018 19:00 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Looking for opinions... There are probably no perfect answers to this problem. I am looking for opinions, not criticism. I do not want to start arguments, nor get anyone here, especially Jay, pissed off. I found a stack of DEC microfiche a few nights ago. It's probably about 12 inches tall, and contains PM Procedures, IPBs, Manuals, Tech Info, and several type of Logistics, BOMs, vendors, etc which I will deal with later. Most of it is "company confidential", not that it matters anymore. The bulk of my microfiche is still missing. Several months ago there was a discussion here about breaking up sets. this is not a "set". It is made up of bunches found in different places at different times. I'm guessing a "set" of this would be an inch or two thick. My short list of options for disposal are as follows in order of current preference are: 1 Sort to get several sizable sets, sell the rest as partials. A LOT of sorting 2 Take requests to cherry pick, and sell as few smaller sets. Still a LOT of sorting. 3 Call Al. Oh, he gets a crack at whatever he needs anyway. 4 Sell it as a lot 5 Sell on e-pay. 6 Put it back where I found it. The first 3 are going to take a lot of time. Thanks in advance, Paul From lproven at gmail.com Thu Mar 29 00:18:16 2018 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 07:18:16 +0200 Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <08b601d3c6f6$1e13e0b0$5a3ba210$@internode.on.net> Message-ID: On 29 March 2018 at 03:52, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > > If only that were 16mm or 35mm continuous rolls, instead of microfiche! > > In 1931, Emanuel Goldberg, then a chief engineer at Zeiss built the > "Statistical Machine". By recording bits optically in the margins of > microfilm, and reading them with photocells, it could find appropriate > frames! > > For use in soundtrack for films, Mauer puts up to 8 parallel variable area > optical tracks in the margin! > 8 bit parallel! > Goldberg was also apparently responsible for the Contax camera. > BUT, in the days leading up to World War Two, he fled Dresden and Zeiss > could not afford to have mention of a Jew in a high profile position, and by > the time the war ended, they had systematically erased most clues that he > had existed! > http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/goldberg.html > > > A decade later, Vannevar Bush stole the idea, and without credit, claimed it > as his own, as the foundation for his Memex device. > Bush did not successfully build his machine. > Bush's Atlantic Monthly article, "As We May Think" is sometimes considered > the foundation of modern information science. > Bush did not understand nor accept the concepts of index nor hierarchical > organization, so he pushed for linkage to go from one topic into another. > Ted Nelson credits it as the inspiration for Hypertext, and Cern credits Ted > nelson. This is astonishing. What a tragic loss to the world. And yet, 3 generations later, Fascist and Neo-Nazi thought is rising again. From Brexit to "All lives matter" or "Blue lives matter", or the marches in the US, the spectre of the Third Reich is rising again. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From emu at e-bbes.com Thu Mar 29 06:02:45 2018 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 05:02:45 -0600 Subject: OT: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <8378d98c-e997-d732-7cb9-4e11536f619d@sbcglobal.net> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <8378d98c-e997-d732-7cb9-4e11536f619d@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <27912a4c-e7bb-c162-fa6c-2234bd2a7f92@e-bbes.com> On 2018-03-28 20:59, Bob Rosenbloom via cctalk wrote: > On 3/28/2018 6:00 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: >>>> If you start with a fiche viewer, then a lot of the mechanical >>>> parts, such as the fiche holder, are well under way.? You need to >>>> modify the card movement mechanism to be able to automate it, but >>>> you could put that part off until you confirm that the optical >>>> portion is satisfactory. > ...snip > This thread reminded me of a DYI scanner I had read about. Found it with > google: > http://retrocmp.com/projects/scanning-micro-fiches/235-the-homebuild-automatic-micro-fiche-scanner The last sentence says it all: "And I'll think twice before I scan another batch of fiches!" From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Mar 29 06:09:13 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 07:09:13 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Looking for opinions... Message-ID: <20180329110913.B3CB318C086@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Liam Proven > And yet, 3 generations later Can we please keep _all_ politics off the list? It didn't go so well last time. Noel From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Mar 29 06:20:00 2018 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 12:20:00 +0100 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <42E3923A-4301-45CE-85F5-4625CF18DA24@avanthar.com> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <016b06c4-ecad-d55d-7f34-50153446a12f@dunnington.plus.com> <42E3923A-4301-45CE-85F5-4625CF18DA24@avanthar.com> Message-ID: On 29/03/2018 03:15, Zane Healy wrote: > More and more, I view my Classic Computer collection as a hinderance > to building a proper darkroom. Oddly enough, the main purpose of my > PDP-11/44 these days is to hold a couple old enlargers that I don?t > use. LOL! I wish I still had my De Vere 5x4 enlarger, but I've nowhere to put such a thing. Anyway, although I have access to some 5x4 Sinar equipment, the largest format I still have of my own is a couple of Mamiya 645s. OT anecdote: Some years ago a colleague asked if I'd take her wedding photos. I used to dislike doing that in the 70s and 80s so I wasn't keen on taking the hundreds of shots that seem to be the modern fashion. She persisted, so I said I would if she bought me the 22 megapixel digital back for my Mamiya 645 Pro. OK, she said, so I suggested she ought to check the price, after which she declined :-) -- Pete Pete Turnbull From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Mar 29 06:25:27 2018 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 12:25:27 +0100 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> Message-ID: <7536fc97-3988-020e-8479-6e87516858c4@dunnington.plus.com> On 29/03/2018 05:26, Shaun Halstead via cctalk wrote: > Using the wrong filament orientation can cause some weird artifacts > to appear on scanned images, because of the high magnification. I > strongly suspect that an attempt using an LED source would face > similar (and possibly worse) issues. > Light source. Due to lensing requirements, LED's are probably out, > unless a way can be found to suitably diffuse or blend the source > without losing significant light. This requires a very strong light > source. Yet there are plenty of LED light sources used in photomicroscopy so I don't believe it's that hard to do,which is why I suggested it. I've seen it done with a high-brightness 5mm LED, but if a bit more "oomph" or a larger emitting area is required, there are inexpensive 1W and 3W LEDs that look like they'd work. I'm no expert, but the biggest problem in photomicroscopy seems to be the spectrum, which isn't really an issue for monochrome microfiche. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From abuse at cabal.org.uk Thu Mar 29 07:21:32 2018 From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 14:21:32 +0200 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <5ABC35FD.6050100@charter.net> References: <1522031568.17667.769.camel@moondog> <3e500df9-595f-38f6-912e-68302471ac6e@sydex.com> <1522123535.28633.20.camel@moondog> <5FC2A9F3-3F47-4744-BCD7-E327F63C1BC3@swri.edu> <1c6a5189-e0d4-1444-93cc-a444a8201daa@sydex.com> <5ABC35FD.6050100@charter.net> Message-ID: <20180329122132.drgdrmja65znp6es@mooli.org.uk> On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 05:40:29PM -0700, Richard Pope via cctalk wrote: > I have been kind of following this thread. I have a question about MTBF. I > have four HGST UltraStar Enterprise 2TB drives setup in a Hardware RAID 10 > configuration. If the the MTBF is 100,000 Hrs for each drive does this mean > that the total MTBF is 25,000 Hrs? That's the mean time before any one disk fails, but not the MTBF for the array as a whole because failure of an individual disk doesn't cause the array to fail. There needs to be at least one more disk failure for that to happen. MTBF is also an overly simple measure which fails to account for the bathtub curve and correlated failures. Attempts to compute the MTBF of an array from the MTBF of the individual components will come up with a plausible number which is technically correct yet bears no relation to the real world. In practice, the only numbers on a typical hard disk datasheet which aren't fantasy marketing puff are the physical dimensions and the number of sectors, and even that is because those are industry-wide standards that disks must conform to. From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Thu Mar 29 07:12:02 2018 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 13:12:02 +0100 (WET-DST) Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding In-Reply-To: References: <01QQORR9WN720000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <01QQPM5MJJLY0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Hi Maciej, > > "DEC 3000 Models 600/600S AXP and 800/800S AXP Service Information", > Order Number: EK-FLSPC-SV. A01 (flspcsva.pdf) seems to indicate on page > 2-2 that the SROM console jumper is one in position 0 among the SROM > jumpers whose location is shown in the figure on that page. I have > checked my /700 (which is the same as the /600 except for a faster CPU) > and this is also marked J8 on the PCB. > Many thanks for the pointer to EK-FLSPC-SV - I had not come across this manual and it contains lots of useful information that is not in EK-D3SYS-PM. I have some reading to do. Interestingly, there are significant differences in the descriptions of the diagnostic LED codes between the two manuals and neither of them seems to describe exactly what I am seeing. J8 (position 0) is where the jumper already is on both my 3000 600 machines. It is possible that this is where it normally is, however, it is also possible that I moved it there some time ago in an attempt to diagnose the problem and I have since forgotten. Which position is the jumper at in your system? Anyway, you spurred me on to try moving it to some of the other positions. When I place it at J3 (position 5), I get this: DEC 3000 - M600 SROM 6.1 Mfg Test ff.fd.fb.f0. MCRstat 11111111.808011c0 bnkSize 00000300.00000c01 memSize 000000c0.000000c0 memTest (no-cache) LongWord Memory Test ....done. ....done. ....done. The last line repeats approximately every minute or so, possibly indefinately. However, when I place the jumper at J2 (position 6), I get this: DEC 3000 - M600 SROM 6.1 Mfg Test ff.fd.fb.f0. MCRstat 11111111.808011c0 bnkSize 00000300.00000c01 memSize 000000c0.000000c0 memTestCacheOn LongWord Memory Test address:0bf7dad8 wrote:ffffffff read:ffffddee address:0bf7da58 wrote:ffffffff read:ffffddee address:0bf7d8d8 wrote:ffffffff read:ffffddee address:0bf7d858 wrote:ffffffff read:ffffddee address:0bf7d2d8 wrote:ffffffff read:ffffddee address:0bf7d258 wrote:ffffffff read:ffffddee address:0bf7d0d8 wrote:ffffffff read:ffffddee ... followed by many many similar lines. It looks like I have cache problems. Maybe there is a way to disable the various caches and see if it works then. This reminds me of my Alphaserver 1000A machines and their cache failures :-( > >> The 600 machines have a socketed 27C512 EPROM. I assume this must be the SROM >> (although I can't see what is serial about it) as the machines fail to update >> the diagnostic LEDs or write to the mini console if it is removed. I dumped >> the two EPROMs and compared them and they are identical. However, I can't see >> any ASCII strings in them. Perhaps the bits are not used in the standard >> order? The manual suggests that there are 8 different 8KB SROM images present >> and those other than the "standard" one may be used for testing and diagnostics >> by setting jumpers. Unfortunatly, there is no further information about these >> images. > > The location of the SROM chip is also shown in the figure on page 2-2. > This show the location of the 27C512 EPROM in my systems so I guess it must be the SROM. > >> The format of the headers in the SYSROM and IOROM do not exactly match the >> format given in the manual but they are "close". I wonder if this might >> be my problem or if the manual is incorrect. If anyone else has a 3000 600, >> could they take a peek at their SYSROM and maybe we could compare notes? > > I could check my /700 with SRM. What would you like me to look at? > Thanks but in light of my cache problems, it looks like I need to deal with those first. Perhaps the SYSROM is getting copied into main memory but when the in-memory copy is read for execution, garbage is returned due to the cache errors, leading to the system hanging with F0 on the diagnostic LEDs? However, according to one of the manuals (but not the other!), cache errors should have been detected before the LEDs counted down as far as F0. > > Hope this helps. Good luck with your fault debugging. > It was very helpful. Many thanks. Regards, Peter Coghlan. > > Maciej > From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Thu Mar 29 07:27:13 2018 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 13:27:13 +0100 (WET-DST) Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding In-Reply-To: <018bcadc-48e0-ec68-0a44-bcd1a5493d12@comcast.net> References: <01QQORR9WN720000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <01QQPMSHL5PY0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> > > I have a functioning Alpha 3000 300, perhaps it can help with some of > the questions you have. > Doug > Many thanks for the offer Doug. However, I can't think of anything I can ask you to do right now. On my machine, the mini console memory test reports that all the memory is bad in pretty much all locations and the errors are different each time I run the test. I think it is extremely unlikely that all the memory has gone bad simultaneously so I think I should investigate other possible causes. In light of the cache errors uncovered on my 600, I wonder if bad cache could be the culprit here too. Or maybe there is no power to the SIMM slots or something else silly like that. I think I need to do some further digging. Regards, Peter Coghlan. From emu at e-bbes.com Thu Mar 29 08:16:25 2018 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 07:16:25 -0600 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: Stupid question on the side, as I know/have DEC fiche only. Are there any fiche out there, which are bigger than 8x6 inches? From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Mar 29 09:38:38 2018 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 07:38:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <42E3923A-4301-45CE-85F5-4625CF18DA24@avanthar.com> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <016b06c4-ecad-d55d-7f34-50153446a12f@dunnington.plus.com> <42E3923A-4301-45CE-85F5-4625CF18DA24@avanthar.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: >> The Illumitran uses bellows, but for a lot of DEC fiche, the page size is constant so extension tubes might actually be better - they won't slip. > > Initially I was going to suggest an Illumitran, but I don?t think it > would work that well with trying to move the fiche around. You might > have a point on the DEC fiche, though the bellows will allow you to > maximize your page size. Of course that may not be the greatest idea, > as the more you maximize the size, the more attention you?ll have to pay > to positioning each frame. > I'm probably WAY over simplifying this because I don't have a grasp of the optics involved, but wouldn't it be possible to get a good image of individual pages on a microfiche by using a DSLR with the right lens and a CNC X/Y table made from one of the large (8x10) LED illuminators used to treat SAD? The lights are pretty bright and are under $50. The X/Y table build would be very simple and cheap to build. The only "real" expense would be the right lens on the camera. The process could be automated by using a cheap SMD part vacuum (the little hand-held one I have ran about $10) attached to an arm that was run by some R/C servos. You could use a webcam to image the whole sheet in order to obtain the title of the sheet and that image along with the individual page images could be stored together. The webcam could also be used in conjunction with OpenCL to ensure that the fiche positioner got it right every time. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From emu at e-bbes.com Thu Mar 29 09:54:48 2018 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 08:54:48 -0600 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> Message-ID: <1b6aea54-1347-62d4-4b12-82d4187a3230@e-bbes.com> On 2018-03-28 22:26, Shaun Halstead via cctalk wrote: > All of the DEC film I > have (which I believe is already available) is diazo duplicates, which are > susceptible to fading over time, even when stored in proper conditions. That's why we should do it now, not later ;-) From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Mar 29 09:56:27 2018 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 10:56:27 -0400 Subject: SGI SN-921 dial box (978-0804) (was Re: IBM 6094-010 "Dials" protocol?) Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 6:09 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> SN-921 (2.1mm barrel jack for +5V) >> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Sgi_dialbox_sn-921_front.jpg > > http://yehar.com/blog/?p=3471 > > The (Seiko?) SN-921 can apparently be powered via DE9 or the 2.1mm > jack next to it... > > 1. GND > 2. SERIAL OUTPUT (?9 V) > 3. SERIAL INPUT > 4. POWER IN +5 V > 5. POWER IN +5 V > 6. NC > 7. NC > 8. GND > 9. NC Now that I've poked around in the innards, I can say that this pinout has a slight mistake in it. It should be: 1. GND 2. SERIAL OUTPUT (?9 V) 3. SERIAL INPUT 4. POWER IN +5 V 5. POWER IN +5 V 6. NC 7. GND 8. NC 9. NC There are mentions here and there about how to hook up this dial box using the +5V power jack and DE9 pins 2, 3, and 7. I can confirm from direct examination that pin 7 is a ground and 8 is NC on the PCB (and that 4 and 5 are connected directly to the center pin of the 2.1mm power jack). -ethan From paulkoning at comcast.net Thu Mar 29 10:05:06 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 11:05:06 -0400 Subject: OT: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <8378d98c-e997-d732-7cb9-4e11536f619d@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <27F8A1DE-65C7-42BA-9C4F-34406B050BA2@comcast.net> > On Mar 28, 2018, at 11:39 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Bob Rosenbloom via cctalk wrote: >> This thread reminded me of a DYI scanner I had read about. Found it with google: >> http://retrocmp.com/projects/scanning-micro-fiches/235-the-homebuild-automatic-micro-fiche-scanner > > I like his enthusiasm and the fact that he actually got it together and DID it. > > Hmmm. If you gut the reader, and photograph the illuminated portion of the fiche, rather than project and photograph the screen, image quality will be a lot better. Ambient light will cease to be a significant issue. > > I don't think that ANY of them are color, so with bitonal, noise should not be that much of a problem, unless that is being compounded by the long exposure? That sounds right for documentation microfiche such as the DEC ones. I've run into microfiche that is somewhat similar but for a very different purpose: the rear-projection microfiche used in PLATO terminals. Those have square images, 256 of them (16 by 16). And they often are in color. They were used to provide photo images to go with the bitonal (orange/black) PLATO screens, for applications such as teaching botany. paul From ethan at 757.org Thu Mar 29 10:06:14 2018 From: ethan at 757.org (ethan at 757.org) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 11:06:14 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <016b06c4-ecad-d55d-7f34-50153446a12f@dunnington.plus.com> <42E3923A-4301-45CE-85F5-4625CF18DA24@avanthar.com> Message-ID: > I'm probably WAY over simplifying this because I don't have a grasp of the > optics involved, but wouldn't it be possible to get a good image of > individual pages on a microfiche by using a DSLR with the right lens and a > CNC X/Y table made from one of the large (8x10) LED illuminators used to > treat SAD? The lights are pretty bright and are under $50. The X/Y table > build would be very simple and cheap to build. The only "real" expense would > be the right lens on the camera. Yep. That is what I was thinking originally. I wasn't against the idea of projecting the slide to a surface then capturing that. There is a Canon 300 something or other Microfiche machine on eBay. They're like $200-300. It's a viewer that supports computer capture via what looks like SCSI and Twain driver. 5.5 seconds per grab: Oh look here is a DIY one that is good enough to center it on each page. Impressive. I think he is scanning DEC information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCRr9sbHBnM Here is the Canon 300II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro1pO5Zd9hI I'm not sure how person from unit #1 centers it, but unit #2 with a autoloader and steppers to do X/Y I think might provide sexy output. > The process could be automated by using a cheap SMD part vacuum (the little > hand-held one I have ran about $10) attached to an arm that was run by some > R/C servos. That is what I was thinking, but there might be cases where the slide sticks to the top of the glass holder. I think the holder is important for focus. -- : Ethan O'Toole From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Mar 29 10:15:17 2018 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 08:15:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <016b06c4-ecad-d55d-7f34-50153446a12f@dunnington.plus.com> <42E3923A-4301-45CE-85F5-4625CF18DA24@avanthar.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, ethan at 757.org wrote: >> I'm probably WAY over simplifying this because I don't have a grasp of the >> optics involved, but wouldn't it be possible to get a good image of >> individual pages on a microfiche by using a DSLR with the right lens and a >> CNC X/Y table made from one of the large (8x10) LED illuminators used to >> treat SAD? The lights are pretty bright and are under $50. The X/Y table >> build would be very simple and cheap to build. The only "real" expense >> would be the right lens on the camera. > > Yep. That is what I was thinking originally. I wasn't against the idea of > projecting the slide to a surface then capturing that. > I wasn't thinking about projecting it, I was referring to direct imaging using a macro(?) lens on the camera. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Mar 29 10:49:38 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 08:49:38 -0700 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: yes, IBM fiche is the size of a punched card In theory, the scanner I bought should be able to handle it if I can make custom carriers for it. On 3/29/18 6:16 AM, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: > Stupid question on the side, as I know/have DEC fiche only. > Are there any fiche out there, which are bigger than 8x6 inches? > From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Mar 29 10:51:42 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 08:51:42 -0700 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: also aperture cards, which are punched cards with a single 35mm image on them On 3/29/18 8:49 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > yes, IBM fiche is the size of a punched card > > In theory, the scanner I bought should be able to handle it if I > can make custom carriers for it. > > On 3/29/18 6:16 AM, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: >> Stupid question on the side, as I know/have DEC fiche only. >> Are there any fiche out there, which are bigger than 8x6 inches? >> > From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Thu Mar 29 10:52:41 2018 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 11:52:41 -0400 Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding In-Reply-To: <01QQPMSHL5PY0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01QQORR9WN720000GP@beyondthepale.ie> <01QQPMSHL5PY0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <0cab3014-ce1d-a501-4b9f-b47e6b95707c@comcast.net> On 3/29/2018 8:27 AM, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote: >> >> I have a functioning Alpha 3000 300, perhaps it can help with some of >> the questions you have. >> Doug >> > > Many thanks for the offer Doug.? However, I can't think of anything I can > ask you to do right now. > > On my machine, the mini console memory test reports that all the > memory is > bad in pretty much all locations and the errors are different each time I > run the test.? I think it is extremely unlikely that all the memory > has gone > bad simultaneously so I think I should investigate other possible > causes.? In > light of the cache errors uncovered on my 600, I wonder if bad cache > could > be the culprit here too.? Or maybe there is no power to the SIMM slots or > something else silly like that.? I think I need to do some further > digging. > > Regards, > Peter Coghlan. I enjoy eavesdropping on this conversation, it has made me aware of something I didn't know about the machines I have in my collection. Doug From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Mar 29 10:55:41 2018 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 08:55:41 -0700 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <1b6aea54-1347-62d4-4b12-82d4187a3230@e-bbes.com> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <1b6aea54-1347-62d4-4b12-82d4187a3230@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: On 3/29/18 7:54 AM, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: > That's why we should do it now, not later ;-) > If people in the Bay Area has the time to work on this, they can have access to my scanners in my lab. I brought one up a couple of years ago. The problem with any micrographics equipment is that the documentation (esp harware) sucks and the real service manuals are impossible to get. It is going to be a SERIOUS time commitment, though. I will put some pictures of them up on bitsavers.org/projects/microfiche later today. From macro at linux-mips.org Thu Mar 29 11:13:03 2018 From: macro at linux-mips.org (Maciej W. Rozycki) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 17:13:03 +0100 (BST) Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding In-Reply-To: <01QQPM5MJJLY0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01QQORR9WN720000GP@beyondthepale.ie> <01QQPM5MJJLY0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: Hi Peter, > J8 (position 0) is where the jumper already is on both my 3000 600 machines. > It is possible that this is where it normally is, however, it is also possible > that I moved it there some time ago in an attempt to diagnose the problem and > I have since forgotten. Which position is the jumper at in your system? It's in at position 0 (J8), as per documentation. > Anyway, you spurred me on to try moving it to some of the other positions. > When I place it at J3 (position 5), I get this: > > DEC 3000 - M600 SROM 6.1 > Mfg Test > ff.fd.fb.f0. > MCRstat 11111111.808011c0 > bnkSize 00000300.00000c01 > memSize 000000c0.000000c0 > > memTest (no-cache) > LongWord Memory Test > > ....done. > ....done. > ....done. > > The last line repeats approximately every minute or so, possibly indefinately. > > However, when I place the jumper at J2 (position 6), I get this: > > DEC 3000 - M600 SROM 6.1 > Mfg Test > ff.fd.fb.f0. > MCRstat 11111111.808011c0 > bnkSize 00000300.00000c01 > memSize 000000c0.000000c0 > > memTestCacheOn > LongWord Memory Test > > address:0bf7dad8 wrote:ffffffff read:ffffddee > address:0bf7da58 wrote:ffffffff read:ffffddee > address:0bf7d8d8 wrote:ffffffff read:ffffddee > address:0bf7d858 wrote:ffffffff read:ffffddee > address:0bf7d2d8 wrote:ffffffff read:ffffddee > address:0bf7d258 wrote:ffffffff read:ffffddee > address:0bf7d0d8 wrote:ffffffff read:ffffddee > > ... followed by many many similar lines. It looks like I have cache problems. These must be the alternative diagnostic routines mentioned the system programmer's manual: "A DECchip 21064-AA CPU, including on-chip 8-KB instruction and 8-KB data caches, and a 64-KB serial boot ROM. A 64-KB stream holds the primitive boot code for booting the operating system. Jumpers provide for the selection of up to seven other streams for diagnostic and other purposes. (The entire UVPROM is 64 K x 8.)" > Thanks but in light of my cache problems, it looks like I need to deal with > those first. Perhaps the SYSROM is getting copied into main memory but when > the in-memory copy is read for execution, garbage is returned due to the cache > errors, leading to the system hanging with F0 on the diagnostic LEDs? However, > according to one of the manuals (but not the other!), cache errors should have > been detected before the LEDs counted down as far as F0. I take it F0 is the last output from SROM before handing control over to SRM. Now that you've got a way to see SROM diagnostic output directly I would expect these codes not to matter as much anymore. Maciej From emu at e-bbes.com Thu Mar 29 11:13:55 2018 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 10:13:55 -0600 Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding In-Reply-To: <01QQPMSHL5PY0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01QQORR9WN720000GP@beyondthepale.ie> <01QQPMSHL5PY0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: On 2018-03-29 06:27, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote: > On my machine, the mini console memory test reports that all the memory is > bad in pretty much all locations and the errors are different each time I > run the test.? I think it is extremely unlikely that all the memory has > gone > bad simultaneously so I think I should investigate other possible > causes.? In light of the cache errors uncovered on my 600, > I wonder if bad cache could be the culprit here too.? It would defeat the purpose of a RAM test, using the caches ;-) > Or maybe there is no power to the SIMM slots or > something else silly like that.? I think I need to do some further digging. Reseat them, test one by one, ... Drivers gone, power to the modules From c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com Thu Mar 29 11:20:52 2018 From: c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com (Murray McCullough) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 12:20:52 -0400 Subject: Speed now & then Message-ID: I?m not trying to date myself but have things truly sped up? In 1970?s Toronto I had a classic computer, sorry can?t recall what it was, connected to a 300 baud modem; by early 80?s had ?zoomed? to 9600 baud. Oh, my! [ A typical file size to download was probably 1 MB. ] Speed indeed! Yet now, here in rural Ontario, Canada, I?m at 5MB/s. Yikes! (Friends in Toronto are at 50MB/s.) We can do the math but content, particularly multimedia, has swollen in size.[ 1 GB is not unheard of. ] Were classic computing days that much slower? Happy computing. Murray -:) Virus-free. www.avg.com <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> From elson at pico-systems.com Thu Mar 29 11:22:00 2018 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 11:22:00 -0500 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <7536fc97-3988-020e-8479-6e87516858c4@dunnington.plus.com> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <7536fc97-3988-020e-8479-6e87516858c4@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <5ABD12A8.5090402@pico-systems.com> On 03/29/2018 06:25 AM, Pete Turnbull via cctalk wrote: > On 29/03/2018 05:26, Shaun Halstead via cctalk wrote: > >> Using the wrong filament orientation can cause some weird >> artifacts >> to appear on scanned images, because of the high >> magnification. I >> strongly suspect that an attempt using an LED source >> would face >> similar (and possibly worse) issues. > >> Light source. Due to lensing requirements, LED's are >> probably out, unless a way can be found to suitably >> diffuse or blend the source without losing significant >> light. This requires a very strong light source. > > Yet there are plenty of LED light sources used in > photomicroscopy so I > don't believe it's that hard to do,which is why I > suggested it. I've seen it done with a high-brightness 5mm > LED, but if a bit more "oomph" or a larger emitting area > is required, there are inexpensive 1W and 3W LEDs that > look like they'd work. I'm no expert, but the biggest > problem in photomicroscopy seems to be the spectrum, which > isn't really an issue for monochrome microfiche. > I built a laser photoplotter (see http://pico-systems.com/photoplot.html ) to make PC board master artwork. it does very accurate plotting at 1000 x 1000 DPI. The writing head uses a 5 mW red laser, and can focus to a spot smaller than .001". I actually defocus it slightly so the raster lines blend together. It uses a microfiche objective lens plus a double-meniscus lens and a 2mm sphere lens right against the laser. Similar optics could be used for a read head. It would not be real hard to make a version like this to scan microfiche, scanning the entire card at once. Not sure that LEDs would work, but red lasers are just a couple $ now. Jon From elson at pico-systems.com Thu Mar 29 11:29:26 2018 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 11:29:26 -0500 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <1b6aea54-1347-62d4-4b12-82d4187a3230@e-bbes.com> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <1b6aea54-1347-62d4-4b12-82d4187a3230@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: <5ABD1466.6010607@pico-systems.com> On 03/29/2018 09:54 AM, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: > On 2018-03-28 22:26, Shaun Halstead via cctalk wrote: >> All of the DEC film I >> have (which I believe is already available) is diazo duplicates, which are >> susceptible to fading over time, even when stored in proper conditions. > That's why we should do it now, not later ;-) > Huh? DEC service and software listings on Diazo? Hmmm, you are right! I always thought these were silver film, but just took a look and they are very dark blue Diazo. On the other hand, these are VMS 4.2 fiche, so QUITE old, and look totally brand-new. So, we have a few years yet to find a way to read them. I am familiar with that frosty Diazo fiche that are very pale blue color, wouldn't be surprised if those faded. They were never intended for archival storage. Jon From couryhouse at aol.com Thu Mar 29 11:39:06 2018 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 12:39:06 -0400 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <16272a08a5a-17a1-645a@webjas-vad044.srv.aolmail.net> still have ? 5x7 ?durst ?amazing enlarger 8 feet ?tall ?with vacuum?register ? easel... ?before ?I ?owned it... it was ?used for ?making color separations? 500w ?agfa ? condenser color head... ?what a machine.... I ?kept it just ?cuz.... ?Ed# ?www.smecc.org ? ? In a message dated 3/29/2018 4:26:59 AM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: ? LOL! I wish I still had my De Vere 5x4 enlarger, but I've nowhere to put such a thing. Anyway, although I have access to some 5x4 Sinar equipment, the largest format I still have of my own is a couple of Mamiya 645s. From shaunhalstead at gmail.com Thu Mar 29 12:36:01 2018 From: shaunhalstead at gmail.com (Shaun Halstead) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 12:36:01 -0500 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <5ABD1466.6010607@pico-systems.com> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <1b6aea54-1347-62d4-4b12-82d4187a3230@e-bbes.com> <5ABD1466.6010607@pico-systems.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 11:29 AM, Jon Elson via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > Huh? DEC service and software listings on Diazo? Hmmm, you are right! I > always thought these were silver film, but just took a look and they are > very dark blue Diazo. On the other hand, these are VMS 4.2 fiche, so QUITE > old, and look totally brand-new. So, we have a few years yet to find a way > to read them. > Diazo duplicating film comes in a variety of dye colors. Most of what we used at my old shop was black, or the typical, recognizable blue. Silver duplicating film is far more resistant to fading, but is usually considered to be too expensive for regular use, though some customers did specify silver working copies. Silver duplicating film is a little different from silver original film, and it isn't always easy to tell whether a piece of silver film is original or silver duplicate. As for diazo fade, there are several variables involved beginning before the duplicates are ever created. Age and storage conditions of the raw film, light contamination (diazo is considered light-safe, but unprocessed film will fade), heat and ammonia exposure prior to use and during processing, storage conditions (heat, light, handling, humidity) after processing. > I am familiar with that frosty Diazo fiche that are very pale blue color, > wouldn't be surprised if those faded. They were never intended for > archival storage. > This is could be faded film, or it could have been a bad copy to start with. Insufficient ammonia during processing will cause a thin or pale appearance. Another duplicate media I've encountered, though never in service manuals, is vesicular. It has a very distinctive appearance and texture, and can be very difficult to scan, due to a low contrast. --Shaun From paulkoning at comcast.net Thu Mar 29 12:53:04 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 13:53:04 -0400 Subject: Speed now & then In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On Mar 29, 2018, at 12:20 PM, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote: > > I?m not trying to date myself but have things truly sped up? In 1970?s > Toronto I had a classic computer, sorry can?t recall what it was, connected > to a 300 baud modem; by early 80?s had ?zoomed? to 9600 baud. Oh, my! [ A > typical file size to download was probably 1 MB. ] Speed indeed! Yet now, > here in rural Ontario, Canada, I?m at 5MB/s. Yikes! (Friends in Toronto are > at 50MB/s.) We can do the math but content, particularly multimedia, has > swollen in size.[ 1 GB is not unheard of. ] Were classic computing days > that much slower? Happy computing. Murray -:) I remember downloading the GCC release kit over a 56k dialup line, in 2000. Took a while. The ARPAnet in its early days had "high speed backbone" links which were 56k bps. Terminal links presumably 110 bps, that being the speed of ASCII teletypes. And back in the late 1970s you could still find even slower links in some places, such as 6 bit links connecting teletype machines for newspaper "wire service" feeds. It would be fun to do a "generalized Moore's Law" chart, showing not just transistor count growth (Moore's subject) but also the many other scaling changes of computing: disk capacity, recording density, disk IOPS, disk bandwidth, ditto those for tape, CPU MIPS, memory size, memory bandwidth, network bandwidth... All these have grown dramatically, but very clearly not in the same proportion, for some of these the changes are smooth while others are jumps, and the rate of change sometimes varies dramatically over the decades. paul From bhilpert at shaw.ca Thu Mar 29 14:11:21 2018 From: bhilpert at shaw.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 12:11:21 -0700 Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <08b601d3c6f6$1e13e0b0$5a3ba210$@internode.on.net> Message-ID: On 2018-Mar-28, at 6:52 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: [...] > If only that were 16mm or 35mm continuous rolls, instead of microfiche! > > In 1931, Emanuel Goldberg, then a chief engineer at Zeiss built the "Statistical Machine". By recording bits optically in the margins of microfilm, and reading them with photocells, it could find appropriate frames! > > For use in soundtrack for films, Mauer puts up to 8 parallel variable area optical tracks in the margin! > 8 bit parallel! > Goldberg was also apparently responsible for the Contax camera. > BUT, in the days leading up to World War Two, he fled Dresden and Zeiss could not afford to have mention of a Jew in a high profile position, and by the time the war ended, they had systematically erased most clues that he had existed! > > http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/goldberg.html > > A decade later, Vannevar Bush stole the idea, and without credit, claimed it as his own, as the foundation for his Memex device. An article ( http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/goldbush.html ) on your referenced site assesses the state of the art in between Goldberg and Bush (1931-1938). Near the end the writer states: " Three considerations suggest that he [Bush] was unaware of the detail of Goldberg's work when he [Bush] built his prototype in 1938-40: [. . .] " and makes no conclusion of conscious influence (on Bush by Goldberg). So when you say Bush "stole", and "claimed it as his own", etc., do you have some other reference or is this merely your pejorative accusation and hyperbole? > Bush did not successfully build his machine. (Not the Memex you mention, but, as discussed in the article, he did build the predecessor 'microfilm rapid selector'.) > Bush's Atlantic Monthly article, "As We May Think" is sometimes considered the foundation of modern information science. > Bush did not understand nor accept the concepts of index nor hierarchical organization, so he pushed for linkage to go from one topic into another. > Ted Nelson credits it as the inspiration for Hypertext, and Cern credits Ted nelson. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Mar 29 14:12:36 2018 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 15:12:36 -0400 Subject: Speed now & then In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 12:20 PM, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote: > I?m not trying to date myself but have things truly sped up? In 1970?s > ... 300 baud modem; by early 80?s had ?zoomed? to 9600 baud. What hasn't changed is people. Back when we had 300 baud, we only had so many hours a night for eyeballs-on-slow text, so one could only expect so much content to be transmitted. File transfers were hands-off, but even the graphic machines of the time had low-res screens so a mono-graphic didn't take so long to pull down, unlike 640x480x8bit stuff that was common by the mid-90s. As telecom speeds (modem then ISDN then DSL, etc, etc) ramped up, what one could do in 60 seconds or even a 3-second attention span grew. It's true that webpages have gotten really fat and the amount of media one pulls down from a single click is staggering, but nobody would have sat and waited that long for pages to load at dial-up speeds. More bandwidth enables more to get pulled in the same amount of time, it doesn't mean that anyone will stand still and load the same quantity as before but faster. It's like fixed purchase points for PCs or digital cameras or whatever. Each year, the new models cost about the same as the old models but with more features. The price points are set and as technology gets cheaper, they just pack more in the box and leave the price alone. Same with telecom - more content, faster lines, same time in chair. -ethan From cruff at ruffspot.net Thu Mar 29 13:24:56 2018 From: cruff at ruffspot.net (Craig Ruff) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 12:24:56 -0600 Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding Message-ID: On the AXPpci33 board, the SROM is also an 8 bit device. What happens is that the CPU reads in a bit stream into cache at power up reset, where the specific bit stream is selected by the jumper position on the board. In effect the SROM can contain up to 8 bit streams. Some of them will make use of the SROM console port. From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Mar 29 14:35:42 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 12:35:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Speed now & then (Space and time?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote: > I?m not trying to date myself but have things truly sped up? In 1970?s > Toronto I had a classic computer, sorry can?t recall what it was, connected > to a 300 baud modem; by early 80?s had ?zoomed? to 9600 baud. Oh, my! [ A > typical file size to download was probably 1 MB. ] Speed indeed! Yet now, > here in rural Ontario, Canada, I?m at 5MB/s. Yikes! (Friends in Toronto are > at 50MB/s.) We can do the math but content, particularly multimedia, has > swollen in size.[ 1 GB is not unheard of. ] Were classic computing days > that much slower? Happy computing. Murray -:) Application of "Moore's Law" calls for a logarithmic increase in speed, such as doubling every 18 months. Yes, the rate, in terms of bits per second has grown a lot. Similarly storage capacity has grown. HOWEVER, a variant of "Boyle's Law" warns that software and content will expand to fit all available space and speed. Once, if your handwriting is bad enough, you could type your grocery shopping list into Electric Pencil. Took a few seconds. later WordStar. Scripsit. WordPervert. Microsoft Weird. Does Clippy have a template for it? (PC-Write was a welcome respite in that growing bloat!) It's kinda like: the plane flight is half an hour shorter, but the airport pre-processing in an hour longer. Once, the operating system, such as PC-DOS 1.00, fit on a single sided MFM 160K floppy disk. Now, much software comes on DVD, because CD-ROM (2/3 GB) isn't large enough! A memo announcing change of room and time for a meeting is a very short paragraph. That used to be about half a kilobyte. Now, it tends to be a few MB. It seems that some serious effort has to go into wasting so much capacity! HTML has helped that along. One college administrator managed that with ease. He created the memo in his word processor, printed it on his color printer, signed it, SCANNED it, and attached the 24bit-color picture as an attachment to an email. The subject line of the email was: "FYI". The text, other than the attachment was: "See attachment". The attachment was an uncompressed picture of a line of text in the middle of a full sheet of paper: "The curriculum committee has been moved to room D-233 at 2:oo" But, in the memo, there was a horizontal rule that was not quite horizontal; one end was a few pixels higher than the other! - scanning with the paper not quite aligned may well be the easiest way to accomplish THAT! But, that was almost a decade ago. I wonder whether he is now attaching MP4s? MP4s mean that now, not only does it take MUCH longer to create the document, we can now waste MUCH more of the reader's time! I find it very annoying that when GOOGLE'ing to find a simple answer, many of the first hits are YouTube. A few seconds glance at a text document will likely tell me whether the answer to my question is there. Or a sketch and maybe a photograph of somebody's hardware setup. Instead, sit through minutes of talking heads. With background music to make it hard to make out what is being said! Youtube's "auto-generated CC" is a poor substitute for text. Dancing kangaroos and yodelling jellyfish has let form triumph over content! When will we finally have smell-o-vision? Yes, certainly, the hardware is much faster, and has more storage space. Yet, the task takes longer, and storage space runs out just as quickly. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From allisonportable at gmail.com Thu Mar 29 14:58:17 2018 From: allisonportable at gmail.com (allison) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 15:58:17 -0400 Subject: Speed now & then (Space and time?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 03/29/2018 03:35 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote: >> I?m not trying to date myself but have things truly sped up? In 1970?s >> Toronto I had a classic computer, sorry can?t recall what it was, >> connected >> to a 300 baud modem; by early 80?s had ?zoomed? to 9600 baud. Oh, my! >> [ A >> typical file size to download was probably 1 MB. ] Speed indeed! Yet >> now, >> here in rural Ontario, Canada, I?m at 5MB/s. Yikes! (Friends in >> Toronto are >> at 50MB/s.) We can do the math but content, particularly multimedia, has >> swollen in size.[ 1 GB is not unheard of. ] Were classic computing days >> that much slower? Happy computing. Murray? -:) > > Application of "Moore's Law" calls for a logarithmic increase in > speed, such as doubling every 18 months.? Yes, the rate, in terms of > bits per second has grown a lot. > Similarly storage capacity has grown. > > > HOWEVER, a variant of "Boyle's Law" warns that software and content > will expand to fit all available space and speed. > We have proof and it is us. > > Once, if your handwriting is bad enough, you could type your grocery > shopping list into Electric Pencil.? Took a few seconds.?? later > WordStar. Scripsit.? WordPervert.? Microsoft Weird. Does Clippy have a > template for it? > (PC-Write was a welcome respite in that growing bloat!) > I posited that 2 decades ago in a wired article.? My CP/M machine booted in seconds while waiting for the winders box to decide if it would/could. > It's kinda like: the plane flight is half an hour shorter, but the > airport pre-processing in an hour longer. > I fly a Cessna150, cruse speed of 110mph, I could fly to Ohio in six hours with one fuel stop. Commercial flight is easily 4x faster and it still takes 6 hours door to door.? > Once, the operating system, such as PC-DOS 1.00, fit on a single sided > MFM 160K floppy disk.? Now, much software comes on DVD, because CD-ROM > (2/3 GB) isn't large enough! > Back when 160k was space, now it's a small entry in a table. > A memo announcing change of room and time for a meeting is a very > short paragraph.? That used to be about half a kilobyte. > Now, it tends to be a few MB. > It seems that some serious effort has to go into wasting so much > capacity! It is hideous.?? But you need the picture. > HTML has helped that along. > HTML is not nearly so bad its slightly bigger than runoff only wordier. However that we need HTML for a screen of text is, yes, bad! I blame WYSISWYG, and Postscript!? WYGINS? (for those that forgot, What You Get Is No Surprise) from the days before high resolution printers. > One college administrator managed that with ease.? He created the memo > in his word processor, printed it on his color printer, signed it, > SCANNED it, and attached the 24bit-color picture as an attachment to > an email. The subject line of the email was: "FYI".? The text, other > than the attachment was: "See attachment".? The attachment was an > uncompressed picture of a line of text in the middle of a full sheet > of paper: > "The curriculum committee has been moved to room D-233 at 2:oo" > But, in the memo, there was a horizontal rule that was not quite > horizontal; one end was a few pixels higher than the other! - scanning > with the paper not quite aligned may well be the easiest way to > accomplish THAT! > But, that was almost a decade ago.? I wonder whether he is now > attaching MP4s? > Eep, the man is batty. > MP4s mean that now, not only does it take MUCH longer to create the > document, we can now waste MUCH more of the reader's time! > I find it very annoying that when GOOGLE'ing to find a simple answer, > many of the first hits are YouTube. > A few seconds glance at a text document will likely tell me whether > the answer to my question is there.? Or a sketch and maybe a > photograph of somebody's hardware setup.? Instead, sit through minutes > of talking heads. > With background music to make it hard to make out what is being said! > Youtube's "auto-generated CC" is a poor substitute for text. > > > Dancing kangaroos and yodelling jellyfish has let form triumph over > content!?? When will we finally have smell-o-vision? > Please no, smell-o-vision.? I can see the hackers going for the cross between skunk, pepperspray, and some toxic chemical mess. ? Obviously a Blacktooth perpiheral. ?I will nominally run without that peripheral.? Come to think of it I did that for a decades regarding sound.??? Most of my favorite modern Linux machines can't squawk, peep, hear, or see me. > Yes, certainly, the hardware is much faster, and has more storage space. > Yet, the task takes longer, and storage space runs out just as quickly. Thats the whole sad story.?? It is why I still run CP/M, RT-11 and even a DECMate!? All hail fanfold! Allison From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Mar 29 15:50:13 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 13:50:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <016b06c4-ecad-d55d-7f34-50153446a12f@dunnington.plus.com> <42E3923A-4301-45CE-85F5-4625CF18DA24@avanthar.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, geneb via cctalk wrote: > I'm probably WAY over simplifying this because I don't have a grasp of the > optics involved, but wouldn't it be possible to get a good image of > individual pages on a microfiche by using a DSLR with the right lens and a > CNC X/Y table made from one of the large (8x10) LED illuminators used to > treat SAD? The lights are pretty bright and are under $50. Getting EVEN illumination throughout the frame will still be an issue. BIG issue for photographic images, but still a minor issue for bitonal text and schematics. Theoretical ideal is a point source with collimating "condenser" lenses (like the top half of an enlarger). BUT, for this, a diffuse light source or an added diffuser MIGHT be adequate. Particularly for bitonal, where half-tone density, or color balance, is not significant. > The X/Y table build would be very simple and cheap to build. For you, maybe. I'm a little overwhelmed contemplating that part of the project. Even the film holder is a little work. Which is why I was suggesting gutting a fiche reader for those mechanical parts, and then adding positioning mechanisms. > The only "real" expense would be the right lens on the camera. That's the part thet I consider cheap and simple. Start out with a camera with interchangeable lenses. I'm partial to "Micro-Four-Thirds" and Sony Nex E-mount. There's enough different ones that you can start cheap, and upgrade later, if you need to, without starting over. Accesory items, such as extension tubes and lens mount adapters, are VERY available and cheap. Start with the lens that comes with it. You will need more extension for close focussing. Crappy, but usually USABLE, extension tubes are available on eBay "cheaper than postage". Bellows are not common for digital cameras, but used film camera bellows are readily available cheap, and adapters for mounting to the camera are cheap. If you're not sure what to get, simplest are "Pentax M42" (42mm x 1.0) or "Leica Screw Mount" (39mm x 26tpi). Exacta bellows are extremely cheap, but the adapter is a little harder to find. It costs a LOT extra to get extension tubes that will keep the auto-focus, so don't plan on that. Some cameras hava a semi-auto "focus assist", that will simply have the camera TELL you when it thinks that the image is in focus. Calculate the extension distance lens to subject = (extension+focallength)*focallength/extension or make a guess and then move back and forth until you find how close your guess was. Remember that an extension equal to the focal length will give you 1:1, with the back of the camera about 4 times the focal length from the subject. Once you've tried that out with the lens that came with, . . . Do a few frames manually to see how the quality is. I want "FLAT-FIELD" lenses for this kind of stuff. The cheapest are enlarger lenses. Those are usually L39/M39/Leica screw mount (39mm x 26tpi). SOME are Schneider (25mm x 0.5mm), in which case you need to find the adapter between that and L39. You want a relatively SHORT lens! The 100mm used in the recently discussed DIY scanner will require 4 inches of additional extension to get 1:1, so you are looking at a LONG bellows combination. 35mm or 25mm would be easier, although better lenses are available in 50mm. If you use a lens that was not for that kind of camera, you may need to experiment. Leica camera lenses were intended for 28.8mm lens mount to film. Enlarger lenses, inspite of same mount are not, and you will need to play with it to get a starting point for extension/focus. Find a bright outdoor scene, which we will call "infinity". Holding a sheet of paper, move it around to find the focus. (NOT sun, or the paper may ignite). THAT is your mount to image infinity distance, and will help you calculate how much you need to add on to the calculated extension. If you really need to "cheap-out", and not go with even an interchangeable lens camera, . . . There are cheap used attachments for slide duplication that fit on the front of a lens for 1:1. If you zoom the lens in further, you may get enough to work. Or at least let you capture 24x36mm in each exposure. If you really want to undertand this stuff, find an OLD edition of The Leica Manual by Morgan & Lester. > The process could be automated by using a cheap SMD part vacuum (the little > hand-held one I have ran about $10) attached to an arm that was run by some > R/C servos. > You could use a webcam to image the whole sheet in order to obtain the title > of the sheet and that image along with the individual page images could be > stored together. The webcam could also be used in conjunction with OpenCL to > ensure that the fiche positioner got it right every time. I would, of course, play with doing a few frames manually. At least to get any idea of what SIZE the whole thing will need to be. But, once that's working acceptably, a good mechanical system is essential. There are SO many cards to scan that an auto-loader becomes worthwhile. Otherwise, you are looking at MONTHS to scan a few hundred cards. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Mar 29 16:24:29 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 14:24:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Speed now & then (Space and time?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> HOWEVER, a variant of "Boyle's Law" warns that software and content >> will expand to fit all available space and speed. On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, allison via cctalk wrote: > We have proof and it is us. Or, as Walt Kelly ("Pogo") said, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." > I posited that 2 decades ago in a wired article.? My CP/M machine booted > in seconds while waiting for > the winders box to decide if it would/could. "The new machine is so much faster, that it can almost get out of its own way!" > It is hideous.?? But you need the picture. How should I react to the college administator who told me, "You're not seeing the big picture"? :-) I was considering defenestration. >> HTML has helped that along. > HTML is not nearly so bad its slightly bigger than runoff only wordier. > However that we need HTML for a screen of text is, yes, bad! > I blame WYSISWYG, and Postscript!? WYGINS? (for those that forgot, What > You Get Is No Surprise) > from the days before high resolution printers. Nothing wrong with a markup language. It's the application to inappropriate uses. WYSIWYG was touted as being professional approach. But the typesetter who I used to use never needed, nor wanted, a PICTURE of how a line of text would look with the fonts he chose. I did a lot of my early work in YAFIYGI (You Asked For It, You Got IT) systems, such as manually embedding Cordata or PCL font commands in my text. >> One college administrator managed that with ease.? He created the memo >> . . . >> But, that was almost a decade ago.? I wonder whether he is now >> attaching MP4s? > Eep, the man is batty. I feel guilty about not having defenestrated the college administration. >> Dancing kangaroos and yodelling jellyfish has let form triumph over >> content!?? When will we finally have smell-o-vision? > Please no, smell-o-vision.? I can see the hackers going for the cross > between skunk, pepperspray, > and some toxic chemical mess. ? Obviously a Blacktooth perpiheral. It will need a Fart virus. >> Yes, certainly, the hardware is much faster, and has more storage space. >> Yet, the task takes longer, and storage space runs out just as quickly. > Thats the whole sad story.?? It is why I still run CP/M, RT-11 and even > a DECMate!? All hail fanfold! > Allison Allison is wonderful! Somebody who understands what I've been ranting about! "So, THIS is 'progress'?" -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From glen.slick at gmail.com Thu Mar 29 17:03:44 2018 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 15:03:44 -0700 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: In other vintage microfiche scanning news: The Vintage Tek Museum (www.vintagetek.org) has in its possession a treasure trove of over 3 Million pages of microfiche... https://www.youcaring.com/vintagetekmuseum-1085244 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AToH0P9D2IE From als at thangorodrim.ch Thu Mar 29 17:17:41 2018 From: als at thangorodrim.ch (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 00:17:41 +0200 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <175dadcb-15cb-f3cd-496d-c193e41871c5@gmail.com> References: <175dadcb-15cb-f3cd-496d-c193e41871c5@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20180329221741.b6fobhzkykna5m4k@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:26:53PM -0300, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote: > > > On 2018-03-27 10:05 PM, Ali via cctalk wrote: > > > > > > -------- Original message -------- > > From: Fred Cisin via cctalk > > Date: 3/27/18 5:51 PM (GMT-08:00) > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Subject: RAID?  Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? > > > > How many drives would you need, to be able to set up a RAID, or hot > > swappable RAUD (Redundant Array of Unreliable Drives), that could give > > decent reliability with such drives? > > 10 - > > Two sets of 5 drive? RAID 6 volumes in a RAID 1 array. > > You would then need to lose 5 drives before data failure is imminent. The 6th one will do you in. If you haven't fixed 50 percent failure then you deserve to lose your data. > > Disclaimer: this is my totally unscientific unprofessional and biased estimate. My daily activities of life have nothing to do with the IT industry. Proceed at your own peril. Etc. Etc. > > -Ali > > > > > To meet Fred's original criteria you would only need 4 to create a minimal > RAID 6 array.? In theory a RAID 1 array (mirrored) of 4 or more disk could > also survive a second disk failure as long as one copy of all the pairs in > the array survive but you are starting to play the odds, and I know of some > cases where people have lost . You can improve the odds by having a hot > spare that automatically take over for a failed disk.? One of? the most > important things is the array manager has to have some way of notifying you > that there has been a failure so that you can take action, however my > observations as a hardware support person is that even when there is error > notification it is often missed or ignored until subsequent failures kill > off the array. ? It also appears to be a fairly common notion that if you > have RAID there is no need to ever backup, but I assure you RAID is not > foolproof and arrays do fail. Repeat 10 times after me: "RAID is NOT backup". If you only have online backup, you don't have backup, you have easy to erase/corrupt copies. If you don't have offline offsite backup, you don't have backup, you have copies that will die when your facility/house/datacenter burns down/gets flooded/broken into and looted. And yes, in a previous job I did data recovery from a machine that sat in a flooded store. Was nicely light-brown (from the muck in the water) until about 2cm below the tape drive, so the last backup tape survived. It missed about 24h of store sales data - which _did_ exist as paper copies, but typing those in by hand ... yuck. So we shipped the machine to the head office, removed the covers, put it into a room together with some space heaters and fans blowing directly on it and left if for two weeks to dry out. Then fired it up and managed to scrape all the database data off it while hearing and seeing (in the system logs) the disks dying. Why didn't they have offsite backups? Well, that was about 12 years ago and at that time, having sufficiently fat datalinks between every store (lots of them) and the head office was deemed just way too [obscenity] expensive. We did have datalinks to all of them, so at least we got realtime monitoring. There are good reasons why part of my private backup strategy is tapes sitting in a bank vault. I'm also currently dumping a it-would-massively-suck-to-lose-this dataset to mdisc BD media. There I'm reasonably confident about the long term survival of the media, what worries me is the long term availability of the _drives_. Ah well, if you care about the data, you'll eternally have to forward-copy anyway. > ? One of the big problems facing using large > disks to build arrays is the number of accesses just to build the array may > put a serious dent in the speced number of accesses before error or in some > cases even exceed it. That is actually becoming a problem, yes. Moreso, for rebuild - with RAID5, you might encounter a second disk failure during rebuild, at which point you are ... in a bad place. Forget about RAID5, go straight to RAID6. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From als at thangorodrim.ch Thu Mar 29 17:48:55 2018 From: als at thangorodrim.ch (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 00:48:55 +0200 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <6kyqc5hxs1k2hnhq5n2mm2jp.1522256997889@email.android.com> Message-ID: <20180329224855.7cvvdbvq3znov6ee@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 01:17:08PM -0400, Ethan via cctalk wrote: > > I know of no RAID setup that can save me >from stupid. > > I use rsync. I manually rsync the working disks to the backup disks every > week or two. Working disks have the shares to other hosts. If something > happens to that data, deleted by accident or encrypted by malware. Meh. > > Hardware like netapp and maybe filesystems in open source have those awesome > snapshot systems with there is directory tree that has past time version of > data. A directory of 15 minutes ago, one of 6 hours ago, etc is what we had > setup at a prior gig. At a prior job, I replaced the standard NFS+Samba filesharing mess (with the regular "I need you to twiddle permissions" fun) with an AFS server. Native clients for both Linux and Windows2000. With access to the ACLs built right into the native interfaces, so that regular call went away. Also, AFS is built around volumes (think "virtual disks") and you have the concept of a r/w volume with (potentially) a pile of r/o volumes snapshotted from it. So one thing I did was that every (r/w) volume had a directory .backup in its root where there was mounted a r/o volume snapshooted from the r/w volume around midnight every day. That killed about 95% of the "I accidently deleted $FILE, can you please dig it out of the backup" calls. Plus, it made backups darn easy. Last I heard, after I left that place, they setup a second AFS server. Oh, AFS as in: the Andrew File System Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 29 18:05:10 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 16:05:10 -0700 Subject: Speed now & then (Space and time?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3d844a57-5010-e1d2-817e-22faba967161@sydex.com> On 03/29/2018 02:24 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: >>> HOWEVER, a variant of "Boyle's Law" warns that software and content >>> will expand to fit all available space and speed. > > On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, allison via cctalk wrote: >> We have proof and it is us. > > Or, as Walt Kelly ("Pogo") said, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." > >> I posited that 2 decades ago in a wired article.? My CP/M machine booted >> in seconds while waiting for >> the winders box to decide if it would/could. > > "The new machine is so much faster, that it can almost get out of its > own way!" As a real contrast, consider, say, the IBM 1620. Go look up the cycle times on that beast. And yet, productive work was performed on it. Indeed the industrial variant, the 1710 was used for early process control. Now that I don't need to work on the bleeding edge, I prefer to see how much can be done with the least. It's fun. --Chuck From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Thu Mar 29 16:49:00 2018 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 22:49:00 +0100 (WET-DST) Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding In-Reply-To: References: <01QQORR9WN720000GP@beyondthepale.ie> <01QQPM5MJJLY0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <01QQQ9W94O940000GP@beyondthepale.ie> > > > J8 (position 0) is where the jumper already is on both my 3000 600 machines. > > It is possible that this is where it normally is, however, it is also possible > > that I moved it there some time ago in an attempt to diagnose the problem and > > I have since forgotten. Which position is the jumper at in your system? > > It's in at position 0 (J8), as per documentation. > It looks like position 0 (J8) is the normal operating position for the jumper then and I did not move mine previously. With the jumper in this position, I get some mini console output on power up but I do not get an SROM> prompt and I cannot enter mini console commands unless a machine check happens or I force an error by removing a memory riser or doing something else to cause an error. If I put the jumper in position 3 (J6), I get this: DEC 3000 - M600 SROM 6.1 Mini-Console ff.fd.fb.fa.f9.f8.f7.f6.f5.f4.f3.f2.f1.f0. sysROM 00000033.000006f1 ioROM 00000033.00000162 MCRstat 11111111.808011c0 bnkSize 00000300.00000c01 memSize 000000c0.000000c0 SROM> which seems on first glance like what I am looking for. However, commands are not accepted or echoed which is strange! Even more strange, if I put the jumper in position 2 (J7), I get exactly the same output and the same lack of response to commands but at 19200 bps while pretty much every other setting talks at 9600 bps (except for position 7 (J1) which doesn't seem to do anything). The remaining settings perform some cache tests and produce lots of failures. It looks I can only enter mini console commands with the jumper in position 0 (J8) after some error has happened. (I do not get anything on the MMJ console port under any cirumstances.) > > These must be the alternative diagnostic routines mentioned the system > programmer's manual: > > "A DECchip 21064-AA CPU, including on-chip 8-KB instruction and 8-KB data > caches, and a 64-KB serial boot ROM. A 64-KB stream holds the primitive > boot code for booting the operating system. Jumpers provide for the > selection of up to seven other streams for diagnostic and other purposes. > (The entire UVPROM is 64 K x 8.)" > Yes. I didn't bother trying these jumpers earlier as not having description of the the diagnostics, I thought their operation might be rather obscure. Happily some of them at least are pretty simple and obvious. > > I take it F0 is the last output from SROM before handing control over to > SRM. Now that you've got a way to see SROM diagnostic output directly I > would expect these codes not to matter as much anymore. > It appears I was confused. In chapter 14 of flspcsva, table 14-1 "Power-Up Test Serial ROM Codes" seemingly applies to the DEC 3000 800 only, despite being in the part III "Common System Information" section of the manual. Regards, Peter Coghlan. > > Maciej > From cclist at sydex.com Thu Mar 29 18:45:46 2018 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 16:45:46 -0700 Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? In-Reply-To: <20180329224855.7cvvdbvq3znov6ee@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> References: <6kyqc5hxs1k2hnhq5n2mm2jp.1522256997889@email.android.com> <20180329224855.7cvvdbvq3znov6ee@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> Message-ID: <3afc371e-aacd-57d6-cc60-010a66a6063d@sydex.com> On 03/29/2018 03:48 PM, Alexander Schreiber via cctalk wrote: > Also, AFS is built around volumes (think "virtual disks") and you have > the concept of a r/w volume with (potentially) a pile of r/o volumes > snapshotted from it. So one thing I did was that every (r/w) volume > had a directory .backup in its root where there was mounted a r/o > volume snapshooted from the r/w volume around midnight every day. CDC 6000 SCOPE 3.3 and later implemented permanent files with file "cycles". That is, earlier versions of a file were kept around. The approach was a little different. You initially started a job or session with no files, but for INPUT (wherever it came from) OUTPUT (display or print output) and optionally PUNCH (obvious meaning). A dayfile was also maintained, but the individual user could only add to it, not otherwise manipulate it. To do real work on an ongoing project involved ATTACH-ing a permanent file that had been CATALOG-ed. Paswords (up to 3) and permissions needed to be specified to ATTACH a file. This, IIRC, created a local copy of the file. If you mistakenly deleted the local copy, you still had the permanent copy. If you saved the local copy after modifying it, it was saved as a new cycle. A user could PURGE old permanent file cycles. The beauty of this was that a user had access to the files that were needed for a session. A user could, of course, create as many local files as desired, but these were all disposed of at the end of the job/session, so there wasn't a lot of garbage floating around in the system. A side benefit was that permanent files could be archived to tape, so when an ATTACH was issued for an archived file, the job was suspended until the relevant tape was located and read. I suspect that modern users would consider the system to be too restrictive for today's tastes, but it was fine back then. --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Mar 29 18:45:53 2018 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 16:45:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <08b601d3c6f6$1e13e0b0$5a3ba210$@internode.on.net> Message-ID: >> If only that were 16mm or 35mm continuous rolls, instead of microfiche! >> In 1931, Emanuel Goldberg, then a chief engineer at Zeiss built the "Statistical Machine". By recording bits optically in the margins of microfilm, and reading them with photocells, it could find appropriate frames! >> For use in soundtrack for films, Mauer puts up to 8 parallel variable area optical tracks in the margin! >> 8 bit parallel! >> Goldberg was also apparently responsible for the Contax camera. >> BUT, in the days leading up to World War Two, he fled Dresden and Zeiss could not afford to have mention of a Jew in a high profile position, and by the time the war ended, they had systematically erased most clues that he had existed! >> http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/goldberg.html >> A decade later, Vannevar Bush stole the idea, and without credit, claimed it as his own, as the foundation for his Memex device. > [...] On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, Brent Hilpert via cctalk wrote: > An article ( http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/goldbush.html ) on your referenced site assesses the state of the art in between Goldberg and Bush (1931-1938). > Near the end the writer states: > " Three considerations suggest that he [Bush] was unaware of the detail > of Goldberg's work when he [Bush] built his prototype in 1938-40: [. . .] " > and makes no conclusion of conscious influence (on Bush by Goldberg). > So when you say Bush "stole", and "claimed it as his own", etc., do you have some other reference or is this merely your pejorative accusation and hyperbole? >> Bush did not successfully build his machine. > (Not the Memex you mention, but, as discussed in the article, he did build the predecessor 'microfilm rapid selector'.) Yes, my statement was overy harsh. Yes, I knew Buckland's research well. He was my PhD advisor. No, there is no smoking gun. (cf. no Gary Kildall easter egg in MS-DOS) During the early stages, over 20 years ago, ran into a few references to others in the field who felt slighted over not being credited by Bush, including one who had met personally with Bush, and who made mention in passing of having discussed the prior work (inc. Goldberg) with Bush. >> Bush's Atlantic Monthly article, "As We May Think" is sometimes considered the foundation of modern information science. >> Bush did not understand nor accept the concepts of index nor hierarchical organization, so he pushed for linkage to go from one topic into another. >> Ted Nelson credits it as the inspiration for Hypertext, and Cern credits Ted nelson. Bush did do some important stuff. Nobody else accomplished as much towards raising consciousness of the whole idea of Information Science. Ted Nelson, when he coined the term "Hypertext", explicitly credits Bush with the concept. He is far from the only person who prefer to think in terms of chained links rather than hierarchical structures for information. There's a decent example of casual "surfing" in "Hyperland" (BBC; Douglas Adams, Ted Nelson, and Tom Baker in 1990 talking about the future of the internet. I have made an SRT file for it.) From paulkoning at comcast.net Thu Mar 29 18:50:27 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 19:50:27 -0400 Subject: Speed now & then (Space and time?) In-Reply-To: <3d844a57-5010-e1d2-817e-22faba967161@sydex.com> References: <3d844a57-5010-e1d2-817e-22faba967161@sydex.com> Message-ID: > On Mar 29, 2018, at 7:05 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > On 03/29/2018 02:24 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: >>>> HOWEVER, a variant of "Boyle's Law" warns that software and content >>>> will expand to fit all available space and speed. >> >> On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, allison via cctalk wrote: >>> We have proof and it is us. >> >> Or, as Walt Kelly ("Pogo") said, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." >> >>> I posited that 2 decades ago in a wired article. My CP/M machine booted >>> in seconds while waiting for >>> the winders box to decide if it would/could. >> >> "The new machine is so much faster, that it can almost get out of its >> own way!" > > As a real contrast, consider, say, the IBM 1620. Go look up the cycle > times on that beast. > > And yet, productive work was performed on it. Indeed the industrial > variant, the 1710 was used for early process control. Or drum machines. Dutch airplane maker Fokker used one (FERTA) for airplane design. And its successor ARMAC was where the Internet routing algorithm (shortest path algorithm) was first run. paul From paulkoning at comcast.net Thu Mar 29 18:54:48 2018 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 19:54:48 -0400 Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <08b601d3c6f6$1e13e0b0$5a3ba210$@internode.on.net> Message-ID: <4A0B4134-FDC1-40D7-80BF-0B698D3142D0@comcast.net> >>> ... >> " Three considerations suggest that he [Bush] was unaware of the detail >> of Goldberg's work when he [Bush] built his prototype in 1938-40: [. . .] " >> and makes no conclusion of conscious influence (on Bush by Goldberg). >> So when you say Bush "stole", and "claimed it as his own", etc., do you have some other reference or is this merely your pejorative accusation and hyperbole? >>> Bush did not successfully build his machine. >> (Not the Memex you mention, but, as discussed in the article, he did build the predecessor 'microfilm rapid selector'.) > > Yes, my statement was overy harsh. Maybe relevant here, maybe not, but it's worth keeping in mind that history is full of things that were "discovered" several times. The name that is remembered tends to be the name associated with the instance that took hold, not necessarily the first one. Examples include America, frequency modulation, telegraphy, and many others. paul From fritzm at fritzm.org Thu Mar 29 20:46:34 2018 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 18:46:34 -0700 Subject: RT-11 V4 MU-BASIC help Message-ID: Hello all, I would like to try and get MU-BASIC working on my PDP-11/45, under RT-11 V4. The best bits I've been able to find to work with so far are the RK05 image here: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/DEC/pdp11/discimages/rk05/rt11v4-mubasicv2.rk.gz ...but I've not had much success getting this to work under simh. Using the 1USER.CNF configuration file in this image, no matter how I configure the machine, I get either traps, halts, or stack violations when issuing the first command in basic. Trying to rebuild MU-BASIC using the indirect files in the image results in a linker barf on some undefined symbols. Has anybody else here had much luck getting MU-BASIC up and running under RT-11 V4? Is there an alternate image or distribution kit somewhere that I could try to work with? thanks much, --FritzM. From elson at pico-systems.com Thu Mar 29 21:00:35 2018 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 21:00:35 -0500 Subject: Speed now & then (Space and time?) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5ABD9A43.4010208@pico-systems.com> On 03/29/2018 04:24 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > >> I posited that 2 decades ago in a wired article. My CP/M >> machine booted >> in seconds while waiting for >> the winders box to decide if it would/could. > > "The new machine is so much faster, that it can almost get > out of its own way!" > > From 1978 or so, I had a Z-80 CP/M system running on the S-100 bus. In about 1980, I got a Memorex Winchester drive on it. It really made CP/M fly. In 1982-1984 or so, I was trying to build a 32-bit machine very loosely patterned after an IBM 360, but would have used a 360 user-level instruction set. It became obvious that it would take years to have an OS, compilers, utilities, etc. (I did not know about Unix 360, which I almost certainly could have gotten a copy of, we had a PDP-11 Unix license at the university.) So, I cloned a Logical Microcomputer Co. Genix system with the Nat. Semi 16032 chip. It was an absolute DOG! It took several minutes for Emacs to load. Even vi (which I detest!) was horribly slow, like 10X slower than the CP/M editor. Then, in 1986, I bought a MicroVAX-II CPU board from a broker, and a bunch of 3rd party peripherals, and made a copy of VMS 4.7 (Might have used something earlier for a time.) I was in 7th heaven! A REAL computer at LAST! Jon From linimon at lonesome.com Thu Mar 29 22:07:27 2018 From: linimon at lonesome.com (Mark Linimon) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 22:07:27 -0500 Subject: Speed now & then (Space and time?) In-Reply-To: <5ABD9A43.4010208@pico-systems.com> References: <5ABD9A43.4010208@pico-systems.com> Message-ID: <20180330030727.GB15201@lonesome.com> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 09:00:35PM -0500, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: > It was an absolute DOG! It took several minutes for Emacs to load. So, uh, I hate to tell you about the state of the art these days ... mcl From linimon at lonesome.com Thu Mar 29 22:11:03 2018 From: linimon at lonesome.com (Mark Linimon) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 22:11:03 -0500 Subject: Speed now & then (Space and time?) In-Reply-To: <3d844a57-5010-e1d2-817e-22faba967161@sydex.com> References: <3d844a57-5010-e1d2-817e-22faba967161@sydex.com> Message-ID: <20180330031103.GC15201@lonesome.com> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 04:05:10PM -0700, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > And yet, productive work was performed on it. Indeed the industrial > variant, the 1710 was used for early process control. There were a lot of highway improvements made in the US in the 1950s/ 1960s using Bendix G-15s. That particular branch of civil engineering was probably that machine's biggest customer. (OTOH, disclaimer: the one I used in high school had previously been owned by an oil company.) mcl From healyzh at avanthar.com Thu Mar 29 23:45:05 2018 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 21:45:05 -0700 Subject: Speed now & then (Space and time?) In-Reply-To: <5ABD9A43.4010208@pico-systems.com> References: <5ABD9A43.4010208@pico-systems.com> Message-ID: > On Mar 29, 2018, at 7:00 PM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: > > Then, in 1986, I bought a MicroVAX-II CPU board from a broker, and a bunch of 3rd party peripherals, and made a copy of VMS 4.7 (Might have used something earlier for a time.) > I was in 7th heaven! A REAL computer at LAST! And now a Raspberry Pi running SIMH can emulate a faster VAX system than that MicroVAX II. I?m slowly getting my VMS cluster back up and running, but through emulation. My goal is to power down my Alpha, except when I need a couple programs that won?t run on a VAX. My fastest VAX (beating my VAXstation 4000/60) is SIMH running on an ESXI server. Zane From mattislind at gmail.com Thu Mar 29 23:53:11 2018 From: mattislind at gmail.com (Mattis Lind) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 06:53:11 +0200 Subject: RT-11 V4 MU-BASIC help In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: fredag 30 mars 2018 skrev Fritz Mueller via cctalk : > Hello all, > > I would like to try and get MU-BASIC working on my PDP-11/45, under RT-11 > V4. The best bits I've been able to find to work with so far are the RK05 > image here: > > http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/DEC/pdp11/ > discimages/rk05/rt11v4-mubasicv2.rk.gz > > ...but I've not had much success getting this to work under simh. Using > the 1USER.CNF configuration file in this image, no matter how I configure > the machine, I get either traps, halts, or stack violations when issuing > the first command in basic. > > Trying to rebuild MU-BASIC using the indirect files in the image results > in a linker barf on some undefined symbols. > > Has anybody else here had much luck getting MU-BASIC up and running under > RT-11 V4? Is there an alternate image or distribution kit somewhere that I > could try to work with? I have imaged some RX01 and RX02 floppy disks with RT11 V3B and MU Basic. http://www.datormuseum.se/documentation-software/rx01-and-rx02-floppy-disks Not tested getting them running though. /Mattis > thanks much, > --FritzM. > > > From fritzm at fritzm.org Fri Mar 30 00:37:08 2018 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 22:37:08 -0700 Subject: RT-11 V4 MU-BASIC help In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2EBDC9E2-B85B-4D3F-B8EF-F5525D09821B@fritzm.org> > On Mar 29, 2018, at 9:53 PM, Mattis Lind wrote: > > I have imaged some RX01 and RX02 floppy disks with RT11 V3B and MU Basic. http://www.datormuseum.se/documentation-software/rx01-and-rx02-floppy-disks Hi Mattis, I did find your page above while googling, but the links seem dead (returns a 404 page from dropbox?) thanks much, --FritzM. From mattislind at gmail.com Fri Mar 30 00:54:39 2018 From: mattislind at gmail.com (Mattis Lind) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 07:54:39 +0200 Subject: RT-11 V4 MU-BASIC help In-Reply-To: <2EBDC9E2-B85B-4D3F-B8EF-F5525D09821B@fritzm.org> References: <2EBDC9E2-B85B-4D3F-B8EF-F5525D09821B@fritzm.org> Message-ID: fredag 30 mars 2018 skrev Fritz Mueller via cctalk : > > > On Mar 29, 2018, at 9:53 PM, Mattis Lind wrote: > > > > I have imaged some RX01 and RX02 floppy disks with RT11 V3B and MU > Basic. http://www.datormuseum.se/documentation-software/rx01- > and-rx02-floppy-disks documentation-software/rx01-and-rx02-floppy-disks> > > Hi Mattis, > > I did find your page above while googling, but the links seem dead > (returns a 404 page from dropbox?) Oops! Sorry. Dropbox removed deeplinking to dropbox files and I started to move files to new storage solution. But many files are still on the todo list. I fix those files asap.. I'll get back soon. /Mattis > > thanks much, > --FritzM. > > > > From mattislind at gmail.com Fri Mar 30 01:01:58 2018 From: mattislind at gmail.com (Mattis Lind) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 08:01:58 +0200 Subject: RT-11 V4 MU-BASIC help In-Reply-To: References: <2EBDC9E2-B85B-4D3F-B8EF-F5525D09821B@fritzm.org> Message-ID: > Oops! Sorry. Dropbox removed deeplinking to dropbox files and I started to > move files to new storage solution. But many files are still on the todo > list. I fix those files asap.. > > I'll get back soon. > Fixed now (I hope). > > /Mattis > > >> >> thanks much, >> --FritzM. >> >> >> >> From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Thu Mar 29 18:40:00 2018 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 00:40:00 +0100 (WET-DST) Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <01QQQAHVXA1E0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> > > On the AXPpci33 board, the SROM is also an 8 bit device. What happens is > that the CPU reads in a bit stream into cache at power up reset, where the > specific bit stream is selected by the jumper position on the board. In > effect the SROM can contain up to 8 bit streams. Some of them will make use > of the SROM console port. > Thanks. The light bulb has gone on over my head at last! Each of the 8 bits in the EPROM is a separate serial data stream. My ohmmeter confirms that the data out pins on the 27C512 EPROM are connected directly to one side of the bank of jumpers J1-J8. In light of this, I've tried making sense of the EPROM data again but I still don't see any ASCII strings (like "SROM" or "Powerup Sequence" for example) jumping out at me. Maybe the word size in the serial streams is not a multiple of 8 bits or something odd like that or maybe I'm just making a mess of assembling the bitstreams. Regards, Peter Coghlan. From fritzm at fritzm.org Fri Mar 30 01:46:11 2018 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2018 23:46:11 -0700 Subject: RT-11 V4 MU-BASIC help In-Reply-To: References: <2EBDC9E2-B85B-4D3F-B8EF-F5525D09821B@fritzm.org> Message-ID: > On Mar 29, 2018, at 11:01 PM, Mattis Lind wrote: > > Fixed now (I hope). Yes, I was able to get these now, I will give them a go -- thanks again! I also see that there's a paper tape distribution up on bitsavers, but it looks like it might be v1? --FritzM. From abuse at cabal.org.uk Fri Mar 30 06:32:46 2018 From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 13:32:46 +0200 Subject: Speed now & then (Space and time?) In-Reply-To: <20180330030727.GB15201@lonesome.com> References: <5ABD9A43.4010208@pico-systems.com> <20180330030727.GB15201@lonesome.com> Message-ID: <20180330113246.fogqwhztye7quxee@mooli.org.uk> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 10:07:27PM -0500, Mark Linimon via cctalk wrote: > On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 09:00:35PM -0500, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: >> It was an absolute DOG! It took several minutes for Emacs to load. > So, uh, I hate to tell you about the state of the art these days ... It starts up within half a second or so on my development box, even though my .emacs pulls in all sorts of weird and wonderful packages. On my remote servers, it can take a few seconds if the box is overloaded, but is otherwise instant. A lot of traditional software has *not* encountered the kind of bloat needed to counteract Moore's Law, and so performs beautifully. What *is* bloating is Windows software -- mercifully I don't run Windows -- half-jobbed ports of said Windows software to other platforms (Firefox, mainly), and web-based stuff. The latter includes various phoned-it-in apps which are basically written in Javascript and embed an invisible web browser, which includes Slack, Spotify, and a few other bits and pieces. The obvious answer is to not use that bloated crapware and find something else that does the same job. From emu at e-bbes.com Fri Mar 30 08:21:02 2018 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 07:21:02 -0600 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <016b06c4-ecad-d55d-7f34-50153446a12f@dunnington.plus.com> <42E3923A-4301-45CE-85F5-4625CF18DA24@avanthar.com> Message-ID: <88c1f104-2e19-5ca0-7b91-fd90c33be5c3@e-bbes.com> On 2018-03-29 14:50, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > I would, of course, play with doing a few frames manually. > At least to get any idea of what SIZE the whole thing will need to be. > But, once that's working acceptably, a good mechanical system is > essential.? There are SO many cards to scan that an auto-loader becomes > worthwhile.? Otherwise, you are looking at MONTHS to scan a few hundred > cards. Just as we talk about scanning hundreds of them. How do you guys clean the fiche before scanning? Some of mine spent some life in garages, boxes wherever, and definitely have dust & dirt on them ... From aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk Fri Mar 30 08:26:33 2018 From: aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk (Aaron Jackson) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 14:26:33 +0100 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <87vadkmeo9.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> References: <87vadkmeo9.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> Message-ID: <87vadd8zjq.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> I think I have made some progress. I bought a new scope (TDS420A) and now I can actually measure things. My old scope was far too slow. It turns out the radial alignment was *very* off, so I have corrected this. If I disable the seek timeout error, the heads load onto track 0 and the READY lamp is stable. This is as opposed to before, where the READY lamp would flash while the heads try to remain locked onto track. So, that's good. However, the drive will not accept commands while the seek timeout error is disabled. And without SKTO the heads don't load even make it to the outer guard track. Since this is a timeout error, I am beginning to wonder if the heads are failing load fast enough. Is it possible (or even likely) that the carriage survo is a bit sticky? I have a couple of these survos spare, but don't really want to mess with the carriage unless I have to. If anyone is interested, I have screen caps of some of the alignments and checks from the manual here: http://aaronsplace.co.uk/blog/2018-03-29-rl02-possible-problem.html Thanks, Aaron. Aaron Jackson via cctalk writes: > Sorry to keep bothering you all with RL02 questions. I think I am nearly > there. > > It seems my head cleaning in a warm bath of isopropyl alcohol was a > success. I bought a tested RL02 pack and loaded it - no bad sounds, I > can extend the heads all the way. So that's good. I have supposedly a > working RL02K pack, and seemingly good heads. > > After I load a pack however, it goes into fault mode. Checking through > the test points on my scope, there is no survo burst data until I push > the heads 3-5mm further forward. So it seems to me that the heads are > not loading far enough into the pack. > > I loosened the head alignment screws to move the heads all the way > forward, tightened them back up, and tried loading the pack again. It > stopped again, 3-5mm short of track 0. So moving the heads forward > didn't seem to make any difference. > > I have tried a different control board, and read/write amplifier board, > with no success. > > Has anyone else experienced this? Is there some sensor which I am not > seeing? > > Thanks, > Aaron. -- Aaron Jackson PhD Student, Computer Vision Laboratory, Uni of Nottingham http://aaronsplace.co.uk From toby at telegraphics.com.au Fri Mar 30 09:17:05 2018 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 10:17:05 -0400 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <88c1f104-2e19-5ca0-7b91-fd90c33be5c3@e-bbes.com> References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <016b06c4-ecad-d55d-7f34-50153446a12f@dunnington.plus.com> <42E3923A-4301-45CE-85F5-4625CF18DA24@avanthar.com> <88c1f104-2e19-5ca0-7b91-fd90c33be5c3@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: On 2018-03-30 9:21 AM, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: > On 2018-03-29 14:50, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > >> I would, of course, play with doing a few frames manually. >> At least to get any idea of what SIZE the whole thing will need to be. >> But, once that's working acceptably, a good mechanical system is >> essential.? There are SO many cards to scan that an auto-loader becomes >> worthwhile.? Otherwise, you are looking at MONTHS to scan a few hundred >> cards. > > Just as we talk about scanning hundreds of them. How do you guys clean > the fiche before scanning? Some of mine spent some life in garages, > boxes wherever, and definitely have dust & dirt on them ... It should be possible to clean in the same way that oil-mounted film is cleaned after scanning - often IPA (with minimal water content, say 99%!) There are also some specialised products I found in a quick google: * Kami http://www.aztek.net/kami-rc2001-film-cleaner-1-liter/ * Varn https://www.baypressservices.com/acatalog/Film-Cleaner-Varn.html * Anchor https://www.fujifilmdirect.com/index.php/offset-printing/prepress-1/film-chemistry/film-kleen-7065-anti-stat-5-gallon-pail.html * https://www.rbpchemical.com/product/special-film-cleaner/ etc --Toby From cclist at sytse.net Fri Mar 30 10:25:08 2018 From: cclist at sytse.net (Sytse van Slooten) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 17:25:08 +0200 Subject: RT-11 V4 MU-BASIC help In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1620761.EBYXH4cNRo@atom4.sytse.net> I've used that image quite a bit for testing my vhdl pdp11. So it should work. >From a quick test, it appears as if the lpt device in the default simh config conflicts. If I disable that, mubas works fine for me. Like so: sim> set cpu 11/45 sim> set lpt disable sim> att rk0 rt11v4-mubasicv2.rk sim> boot rk0 RT-11FB (S) V04.00E .SET TT QUIET ?KMON-W-No date 00:00:00 ?KMON-F-Illegal device LP: .R MUBAS WARNING: DATE NOT SET MU BASIC-11/RT-11 V2.00R CONFIGURATION FILE : *1USER MU BASIC-11/RT-11 IS OPERATIONAL. PLEASE TYPE IN "HELLO". Cheers, Sytse On Thursday, March 29, 2018 06:46:34 PM Fritz Mueller via cctalk wrote: > Hello all, > > I would like to try and get MU-BASIC working on my PDP-11/45, under RT-11 > V4. The best bits I've been able to find to work with so far are the RK05 > image here: > > http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/DEC/pdp11/discimages/rk05/rt11v4-mu > basicv2.rk.gz > > ...but I've not had much success getting this to work under simh. Using the > 1USER.CNF configuration file in this image, no matter how I configure the > machine, I get either traps, halts, or stack violations when issuing the > first command in basic. > > Trying to rebuild MU-BASIC using the indirect files in the image results in > a linker barf on some undefined symbols. > > Has anybody else here had much luck getting MU-BASIC up and running under > RT-11 V4? Is there an alternate image or distribution kit somewhere that I > could try to work with? > > thanks much, > --FritzM. From cclist at sytse.net Fri Mar 30 10:46:14 2018 From: cclist at sytse.net (Sytse van Slooten) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 17:46:14 +0200 Subject: break on pdp11 serial ports Message-ID: <2940205.UshNuJencc@atom4.sytse.net> Hello all, I've been playing around with some ideas for designing some hardware to connect peripherals to an fpga for my vhdl pdp-11. One of the things that should definitely be on there, next to sd cards and leds... are some serial ports for console terminals etc. I've spent some time to create a prototype usb to serial thing that handles more than one port. Works kind of neat. While doing that, I stumbled on the concept of break. Up to now in all of the pdp2011 history I have ignored it, the serial port that sits at the pdp-11 side of things is about the most minimum that does the job. And that is good enough for a lot of things, actually - I didn't really miss a break signal so far. Anyway, digging through the documentation of KL-11 and DL-11 I did find references to generating a break (bit 0 in the XCSR). But not on how it would be received. That's where the questions start. How did a DL-11 like interface signal the reception of a break? And how did the operating systems and software deal with it? Was it actually used at all? I think to remember several occasions of impatiently banging the break key back in the day, but it is a bit fuzzy why (and if it had any result). anyway, I'm trying to judge whether it makes any sense to put effort into making the break thing work on my serial converter thing... any kind of input is greatly appreciated! cheers Sytse From elson at pico-systems.com Fri Mar 30 10:59:48 2018 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 10:59:48 -0500 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <87vadd8zjq.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> References: <87vadkmeo9.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <87vadd8zjq.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> Message-ID: <5ABE5EF4.5050909@pico-systems.com> On 03/30/2018 08:26 AM, Aaron Jackson via cctalk wrote: > > Is it possible (or even likely) that the carriage survo is a bit sticky? > I have a couple of these survos spare, but don't really want to mess > with the carriage unless I have to. > > It is also possible that a capacitor has deteriorated in the timeout one-shot and is timing out too fast. Jon From wilson at dbit.com Fri Mar 30 11:10:02 2018 From: wilson at dbit.com (John Wilson) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 12:10:02 -0400 Subject: break on pdp11 serial ports In-Reply-To: <2940205.UshNuJencc@atom4.sytse.net> References: <2940205.UshNuJencc@atom4.sytse.net> Message-ID: <20180330161002.GA26640@dbit.dbit.com> On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 05:46:14PM +0200, Sytse van Slooten via cctalk wrote: >That's where the questions start. How did a DL-11 like interface signal the >reception of a break? NUL with a framing error. >And how did the operating systems and software deal with it? However it wanted! In some cases it was interpreted as a ^C. >Was it actually used at all? It's pretty rare to care about receiving them (except for bringing up MicroODT on TT0:, but that's not what you're talking about). You'll want to be able to send them if you're going to support TU58s though. John Wilson D Bit From aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk Fri Mar 30 11:10:38 2018 From: aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk (Aaron Jackson) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 17:10:38 +0100 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <5ABE5EF4.5050909@pico-systems.com> References: <87vadkmeo9.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <87vadd8zjq.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <5ABE5EF4.5050909@pico-systems.com> Message-ID: <87r2o18ry9.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> > On 03/30/2018 08:26 AM, Aaron Jackson via cctalk wrote: >> >> Is it possible (or even likely) that the carriage survo is a bit sticky? >> I have a couple of these survos spare, but don't really want to mess >> with the carriage unless I have to. >> >> > It is also possible that a capacitor has deteriorated in the > timeout one-shot and is timing out too fast. > > Jon I was beginning to wonder if it was a capacitor. I ended up trying a different carriage (and servo motor) with no improvement. I'll try to figure out which cap it is and check it. Thanks! Aaron From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Fri Mar 30 11:45:50 2018 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 16:45:50 +0000 Subject: TRS-80 Siting Message-ID: I hate to suggest that people actually watch the garbage, but a recent Safe Auto Insurance commercial features a girl typing on a TRS-80 Model 4 with the badges removed. It's the one that starts out with a Disco skit.? The TRS-80 shows up in the very last part. bill Don't shoot me, I'm only the messenger. :-) From fritzm at fritzm.org Fri Mar 30 12:00:23 2018 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 10:00:23 -0700 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <87r2o18ry9.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> References: <87vadkmeo9.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <87vadd8zjq.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <5ABE5EF4.5050909@pico-systems.com> <87r2o18ry9.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> Message-ID: >> It is also possible that a capacitor has deteriorated in the >> timeout one-shot > > I was beginning to wonder if it was a capacitor FWIW, while restoring my 11/45 and its RK11-C, I found several failed 74LS123 dual one-shots in various places. Haven?t looked at the RL02 drawings yet, but it seems it was a popular part in DEC designs; if you have one there it might be a more likely fail than the associated small-value timing caps which tend to be fairly robust ceramics? They are pretty easy to diagnose with a chipclip and a logic analyzer. ?FritzM. From aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk Fri Mar 30 12:05:41 2018 From: aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk (Aaron Jackson) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 18:05:41 +0100 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: References: <87vadkmeo9.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <87vadd8zjq.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <5ABE5EF4.5050909@pico-systems.com> <87r2o18ry9.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> Message-ID: <87po3l8pei.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> >>> It is also possible that a capacitor has deteriorated in the >>> timeout one-shot >> >> I was beginning to wonder if it was a capacitor > > FWIW, while restoring my 11/45 and its RK11-C, I found several failed 74LS123 dual one-shots in various places. > > Haven?t looked at the RL02 drawings yet, but it seems it was a popular part in DEC designs; if you have one there it might be a more likely fail than the associated small-value timing caps which tend to be fairly robust ceramics? > > They are pretty easy to diagnose with a chipclip and a logic analyzer. > > ?FritzM. Excellent to know about! Thanks From shaunhalstead at gmail.com Fri Mar 30 12:16:11 2018 From: shaunhalstead at gmail.com (Shaun Halstead) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 12:16:11 -0500 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <016b06c4-ecad-d55d-7f34-50153446a12f@dunnington.plus.com> <42E3923A-4301-45CE-85F5-4625CF18DA24@avanthar.com> <88c1f104-2e19-5ca0-7b91-fd90c33be5c3@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 9:17 AM, Toby Thain via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 2018-03-30 9:21 AM, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: > > On 2018-03-29 14:50, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > > > Just as we talk about scanning hundreds of them. How do you guys clean > > the fiche before scanning? Some of mine spent some life in garages, > > boxes wherever, and definitely have dust & dirt on them ... > It is virtually guaranteed that what you have are diazo duplicates. This is fairly easy to determine. First, are they blue or translucent black in color? (Or, is there a colored stripe behind the title?) Second, are both sides of the film relatively shiny, or is one side obviously dull? If both sides have a shine to them, this is diazo film. If one side is dull, is it black, or colored? If it's black, you have silver film, which may be cleaned with 99% isopropyl alcohol and air dried. If it has color to it, but is dull, it's probably vesicular film, which should be carefully cleaned the same as diazo film. I would exercise extreme caution when cleaning duplicate film. Diazo film is not as stable as silver film in the presence of solvents. Distilled water is much safer, and is what we used on diazo in the lab. Also, you don't want to wipe film (dry or wet), as diazo duplicates are fairly easy to scratch. Wash with water, air dry. (Source: >20 years in the microfilm industry.) --Shaun From fritzm at fritzm.org Fri Mar 30 12:20:18 2018 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 10:20:18 -0700 Subject: RT-11 V4 MU-BASIC help In-Reply-To: <1911353.cUSDXDX9MH@atom4.sytse.net> References: <1911353.cUSDXDX9MH@atom4.sytse.net> Message-ID: > On Mar 30, 2018, at 8:25 AM, Sytse van Slooten wrote: > > I've used that image quite a bit for testing my vhdl pdp11. So it should work. Thanks, Sytse. In my case, I kept running up against traps and halts after that point, while interacting with MU-BASIC after the "say hello" prompt. I may re-download that image and start fresh one more time just to check. I'm using pre-release V4 simh, built from the latest master in GitHub. OTOH, I was able to get going last night using the RX01 images that Mattis provided. I started from a fresh RTRKV4.00, then sysgen'd for multi-terminal and the hardware config for my 11/45 and built a new bootable image. Copied on the contents of Mattis' RX01 MU-BASIC distro floppies, edited the default 1USER.CNF for RK instead of RL, and it worked right out of the box. I was even able then to RUN MUCNFG, create a new 2USER.CNF, and run with both the console terminal and a simulated DZ11 in simh. So that's encouraging! I haven't tried re-linking yet with Mattis' distro bits to see of the missing symbol problem is also gone, but its on the list of things to try. cheers, --FritzM. From macro at linux-mips.org Fri Mar 30 12:31:51 2018 From: macro at linux-mips.org (Maciej W. Rozycki) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 18:31:51 +0100 (BST) Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding In-Reply-To: <01QQQ9W94O940000GP@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01QQORR9WN720000GP@beyondthepale.ie> <01QQPM5MJJLY0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> <01QQQ9W94O940000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote: > It looks like position 0 (J8) is the normal operating position for the jumper > then and I did not move mine previously. With the jumper in this position, > I get some mini console output on power up but I do not get an SROM> prompt > and I cannot enter mini console commands unless a machine check happens or I > force an error by removing a memory riser or doing something else to cause > an error. I thought you'd get the SROM firmware to halt and wait for a command after POST if J8 was removed and none of the other positions shorted. Have you tried running with all positions open? > (I do not get anything on the MMJ console port under any cirumstances.) SROM code runs from the processor's cache and it's too small for fancy stuff like getting through to the regular Zilog serial ports, which are far down on an I/O ASIC bus and require a lot of mainboard hardware to initialise before they can be accessed. It's also meant to work in system bringup or in the presence of problems with system components, so the fewer pieces of logic it relies on the better. It's only main firmware that initialises the regular console. Maciej From aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk Fri Mar 30 12:32:28 2018 From: aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk (Aaron Jackson) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 18:32:28 +0100 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: References: <87vadkmeo9.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <87vadd8zjq.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> <5ABE5EF4.5050909@pico-systems.com> <87r2o18ry9.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> Message-ID: <87muyp8o5v.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> >>> It is also possible that a capacitor has deteriorated in the >>> timeout one-shot >> >> I was beginning to wonder if it was a capacitor > > FWIW, while restoring my 11/45 and its RK11-C, I found several failed 74LS123 dual one-shots in various places. > > Haven?t looked at the RL02 drawings yet, but it seems it was a popular part in DEC designs; if you have one there it might be a more likely fail than the associated small-value timing caps which tend to be fairly robust ceramics? > > They are pretty easy to diagnose with a chipclip and a logic analyzer. > > ?FritzM. Hmm, thinking about this a bit more though... I have tried three controllers, two r/w modules and two servo controllers. I'm beginning to think the drive is fine and there is a problem with the RLV21 controller. I measured the frequency of its pulses and they seemed to be within spec. From fritzm at fritzm.org Fri Mar 30 12:37:47 2018 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 10:37:47 -0700 Subject: How to set DZ11 line speeds under RT-11 V4? Message-ID: <73A84B63-1B48-4A64-B34A-69B25834835A@fritzm.org> Hi all, I've now had some success getting MU-BASIC configured and running on multiple terminals under RT-11 V4 in simh, with a hardware configuration similar to that in my real PDP-11/45. I have a serial console + DZ11 in both configurations. When SYSGEN-ing RT-11 V4, the only speed initialization options offered for the DZ11 lines are 110 or 300 baud. Is there a utility or incantation which will allow me to reconfigure these after RT-11 is booted? I scanned the RT-11 V4 docs last night, but came up empty (there is an "unsupported" SPEED.SAV in the distribution, but it looks like it only works with PDTs, and I couldn't find anything tucked away in the SET command or other places either). It looks like I could write some MACRO code to try and set this using the .MTGET/.MTSET programmed requests, but I thought I'd ask here in case there is some known prefab way to do this that I missed looking through the docs? cheers, --FritzM. From bob at jfcl.com Fri Mar 30 09:25:42 2018 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 07:25:42 -0700 Subject: CXY08 and DELQA compatible with 2.11bsd? In-Reply-To: <6c57dd02-cfe5-06ff-6438-26ea5dc3f548@gmail.com> References: <002401d3bcd6$0f9591c0$2ec0b540$@com> <0cfd3bb3-2700-07ca-0bd7-9007a91654a3@gmail.com> <6c57dd02-cfe5-06ff-6438-26ea5dc3f548@gmail.com> Message-ID: <002701d3c832$fc7cbe70$f5763b50$@com> > Josh Dersch derschjo at gmail.com wrote: >Correction: it's the "qt" driver for the DELQA. FWIW, looks like the CXY08 in DHV mode works find with 2.11bsd. The qt driver, however only works if you have the very late model DELQA that has "turbo" mode. I think that was called the DETQA, but I'm not sure about that. If you have an earlier DELQA then the qt driver simply says "qt0: !Turbo" and quits. Gotta love those terse Un*x error messages! The older non-turbo DELQAs and the DESQA (M3127, which is what I have) only seem to work with the qe driver. It correctly recognizes and identifies them as a DELQA. I believe the DESQA was identical to the DELQA but with S-box handles and a built in thinwire transceiver. Bob From cclist at sytse.org Fri Mar 30 10:12:35 2018 From: cclist at sytse.org (Sytse van Slooten) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 17:12:35 +0200 Subject: RT-11 V4 MU-BASIC help In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1911353.cUSDXDX9MH@atom4.sytse.net> I've used that image quite a bit for testing my vhdl pdp11. So it should work. >From a quick test, it appears as if the lpt device in the default simh config conflicts. If I disable that, mubas works fine for me. Like so: sim> set cpu 11/45 sim> set lpt disable sim> att rk0 rt11v4-mubasicv2.rk sim> boot rk0 RT-11FB (S) V04.00E .SET TT QUIET ?KMON-W-No date 00:00:00 ?KMON-F-Illegal device LP: .R MUBAS WARNING: DATE NOT SET MU BASIC-11/RT-11 V2.00R CONFIGURATION FILE : *1USER MU BASIC-11/RT-11 IS OPERATIONAL. PLEASE TYPE IN "HELLO". Cheers, Sytse On Thursday, March 29, 2018 06:46:34 PM Fritz Mueller via cctalk wrote: > Hello all, > > I would like to try and get MU-BASIC working on my PDP-11/45, under RT-11 > V4. The best bits I've been able to find to work with so far are the RK05 > image here: > > http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/DEC/pdp11/discimages/rk05/rt11v4-mu > basicv2.rk.gz > > ...but I've not had much success getting this to work under simh. Using the > 1USER.CNF configuration file in this image, no matter how I configure the > machine, I get either traps, halts, or stack violations when issuing the > first command in basic. > > Trying to rebuild MU-BASIC using the indirect files in the image results in > a linker barf on some undefined symbols. > > Has anybody else here had much luck getting MU-BASIC up and running under > RT-11 V4? Is there an alternate image or distribution kit somewhere that I > could try to work with? > > thanks much, > --FritzM. From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Fri Mar 30 13:03:44 2018 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 19:03:44 +0100 Subject: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: <08F4168A-CC9D-4CBF-BD0D-3464656A7507@comcast.net> References: <00d001d3c6d3$17b6c750$472455f0$@tin.it> <08F4168A-CC9D-4CBF-BD0D-3464656A7507@comcast.net> Message-ID: <2fd49555-dc14-95aa-8b86-52e64e84776a@ntlworld.com> On 28/03/18 22:02, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > On Mar 28, 2018, at 4:40 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk > wrote: >> On Wed, 28 Mar 2018, Mazzini Alessandro via cctalk wrote: >>> Uh.. now the big question.. how big/heavy is a microfiche viewer ? >> They vary. I have one that fits in a pocket! >> Usually, they are a tabletop box a few feet square. Some used to have a printer in them. >> Most tend not to be very extremely heavy, since a lot of that size is empty space between a projection lens and a screen. > I've seen some that are built into a field service tool case. Mine's in the garage and it's raining otherwise I'd go and measure it, but that's exactly what mine is. A small case that opens up to reveal a fiche reader. There's enough room for a box or two of fiche too. Antonio -- Antonio Carlini arcarlini at iee.org From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Mar 30 14:08:19 2018 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 12:08:19 -0700 Subject: CXY08 and DELQA compatible with 2.11bsd? In-Reply-To: <002701d3c832$fc7cbe70$f5763b50$@com> References: <002401d3bcd6$0f9591c0$2ec0b540$@com> <0cfd3bb3-2700-07ca-0bd7-9007a91654a3@gmail.com> <6c57dd02-cfe5-06ff-6438-26ea5dc3f548@gmail.com> <002701d3c832$fc7cbe70$f5763b50$@com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 7:25 AM, Robert Armstrong via cctalk wrote: > > The qt driver, however only works if you have the very late model DELQA that has "turbo" mode. I think that was called the DETQA, but I'm not sure about that. If you have an earlier DELQA then the qt driver simply says "qt0: !Turbo" and quits. Gotta love those terse Un*x error messages! > > The older non-turbo DELQAs and the DESQA (M3127, which is what I have) only seem to work with the qe driver. It correctly recognizes and identifies them as a DELQA. I believe the DESQA was identical to the DELQA but with S-box handles and a built in thinwire transceiver. > > Bob > Are there any hardware differences between the M7516 non-turbo and the M7516-YM turbo versions of the DELQA, or only firmware differences? Can you convert a non-turbo version into a turbo version just be replacing the firmware EPROM? I just checked and I have at least two M3127 DESQA. The M3127-PA Rev B02 has 23-334E5 / 23-335E5 firmware EPROMs, the M3127-PA Rev D03 has 23-365E5 / 23-366E5 EPROMs. Pete's DECROMs collection says the 23-365E5 / 23-366E5 set is the DELQA-Plus aka Turbo DELQA Ver.2.0.0 set which replaces the 23-334E5 / 23-335E5 set. If you have some spare 27C128 EPROMs you could try burning a 23-365E5 / 23-366E5 set to install in your M3127 DESQA and see if the qt driver is happy with it. I might try that myself eventually when time permits. For the curious about the 2.11BSD "qt0: !Turbo" error message: src\sys\pdpif\if_qt.c: qtturbo(sc) register struct qt_softc *sc; { register int i; register struct qtdevice *addr = sc->addr; struct qt_init *iniblk = (struct qt_init *)SEG5; segm seg5; /* * Issue the software reset. Delay 150us. The board should now be in * DELQA-Normal mode. Set ITB and DEQTA select. If both bits do not * stay turned on then the board is not a DELQA-YM. */ addr->arqr = ARQR_SR; addr->arqr = 0; delay(150L); addr->srr = 0x8001; /* MS | ITB */ i = addr->srr; addr->srr = 0x8000; /* Turn off ITB, set DELQA select */ if (i != 0x8001) { printf("qt@%o !-YM\n", addr); return(0); } /* * Board is a DELQA-YM. Send the commands to enable Turbo mode. Delay * 1 second, testing the SRR register every millisecond to see if the * board has shifted to Turbo mode. */ addr->xcr0 = 0x0baf; addr->xcr1 = 0xff00; for (i = 0; i < 1000; i++) { if ((addr->srr & SRR_RESP) == 1) break; delay(1000L); } if (i >= 1000) { printf("qt@%o !Turbo\n", addr); return(0); } From spacewar at gmail.com Fri Mar 30 14:14:48 2018 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 13:14:48 -0600 Subject: CXY08 and DELQA compatible with 2.11bsd? In-Reply-To: References: <002401d3bcd6$0f9591c0$2ec0b540$@com> <0cfd3bb3-2700-07ca-0bd7-9007a91654a3@gmail.com> <6c57dd02-cfe5-06ff-6438-26ea5dc3f548@gmail.com> <002701d3c832$fc7cbe70$f5763b50$@com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 1:08 PM, Glen Slick via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Are there any hardware differences between the M7516 non-turbo and the > M7516-YM turbo versions of the DELQA, or only firmware differences? > Can you convert a non-turbo version into a turbo version just be > replacing the firmware EPROM? > The non-turbo I've seen use an AMD Lance ethernet chip (Am7990), while the turbo I've seen use a DEC chip in its place. Could be important, or could be coincidence. From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Mar 30 14:43:32 2018 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 12:43:32 -0700 Subject: CXY08 and DELQA compatible with 2.11bsd? In-Reply-To: References: <002401d3bcd6$0f9591c0$2ec0b540$@com> <0cfd3bb3-2700-07ca-0bd7-9007a91654a3@gmail.com> <6c57dd02-cfe5-06ff-6438-26ea5dc3f548@gmail.com> <002701d3c832$fc7cbe70$f5763b50$@com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 12:14 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: > On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 1:08 PM, Glen Slick via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> Are there any hardware differences between the M7516 non-turbo and the >> M7516-YM turbo versions of the DELQA, or only firmware differences? >> Can you convert a non-turbo version into a turbo version just be >> replacing the firmware EPROM? >> > > The non-turbo I've seen use an AMD Lance ethernet chip (Am7990), while the > turbo I've seen use a DEC chip in its place. Could be important, or could > be coincidence. I just took another look at the two M3127 DESQA I have handy. The M3127-PA Rev B02 with 23-334E5 / 23-335E5 firmware EPROMs and the M3127-PA Rev D03 with 23-365E5 / 23-366E5 firmware EPROMs both have AM7990DC/80 chips, with DEC 21-21672-09 part numbers. (The main obvious difference between the B02 and D03 revisions is header block jumpers vs push-button switch transceiver selection). Found this thread on the subject from back in 2011. Doesn't seem to include actual results of attempting a firmware only swap. http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?27062-DELQA-vs-DELQA-YM-(Turbo) From cruff at ruffspot.net Fri Mar 30 13:33:23 2018 From: cruff at ruffspot.net (Craig Ruff) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 12:33:23 -0600 Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9A389799-F981-44E8-918E-101E5641781F@ruffspot.net> According to the 21066 HRM, the processor loads its initial I-stream from the SROM. All Icache bits are loaded from the SROM, including the cache block metadata. The blocks are loaded in sequential order starting with block 0 and ending with block 255. For the 20166, the Icache is loaded LSB first filling from left to right (i.e. bit 0 of LW0 will be the first bit loaded). This is the resulting order of each cache block: BHT LW7 LW5 LW3 LW1 V ASM ASN TAG LW6 LW4 LW2 LW0 I thought I had some code do unmultiplex each bit stream from an SROM image and then reconstruct the resulting memory image, but I can't find it or I just thought about doing that. From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Fri Mar 30 15:09:03 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 16:09:03 -0400 (EDT) Subject: break on pdp11 serial ports Message-ID: <20180330200903.7C0C518C079@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Sytse van Slooten > digging through the documentation of KL-11 and DL-11 I did find > references to generating a break (bit 0 in the XCSR). But not on how it > would be received. ... How did a DL-11 like interface signal the > reception of a break? As JohnW says, framing error. FWIW, the UART chips used back then actually produce a 'framing error' output, which is sent straight into that bit in the RCSR. > And how did the operating systems and software deal with it? Was it > actually used at all? Different systems used it for different things. Unix V6 used 'break' on dial-up lines as the signal to switch speeds when you first connected up - it would try 110, then 150, then 300. (Later this got extended, I expect - too lazy to check.) I see the hacked PWB1 Unix at MIT used it to send an interrupt: if (c & FRERR) { signal(tp->t_pgrp, SIGINT); return; } That's as far as my knowledge extends, others may know of more uses. Noel From kylevowen at gmail.com Fri Mar 30 20:32:03 2018 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 01:32:03 +0000 Subject: Identifying an aluminum panel Message-ID: I feel like I should know what this panel goes to...I found it in my garage when cleaning up. Any ideas? http://i.imgur.com/u4LMNqE.jpg Thanks, Kyle From useddec at gmail.com Fri Mar 30 21:08:46 2018 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 21:08:46 -0500 Subject: Identifying an aluminum panel In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: a cover from a UPS? On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 8:32 PM, Kyle Owen via cctalk wrote: > I feel like I should know what this panel goes to...I found it in my garage > when cleaning up. Any ideas? > > http://i.imgur.com/u4LMNqE.jpg > > Thanks, > > Kyle > From tdk.knight at gmail.com Fri Mar 30 21:13:30 2018 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 21:13:30 -0500 Subject: Identifying an aluminum panel In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ups would weigh more then that i would think On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 9:08 PM, Paul Anderson via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > a cover from a UPS? > > On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 8:32 PM, Kyle Owen via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org > > wrote: > > > I feel like I should know what this panel goes to...I found it in my > garage > > when cleaning up. Any ideas? > > > > http://i.imgur.com/u4LMNqE.jpg > > > > Thanks, > > > > Kyle > > > From pete at dunnington.plus.com Fri Mar 30 21:20:57 2018 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 03:20:57 +0100 Subject: Identifying an aluminum panel In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <602b1185-ee63-a971-94d5-2f7101b05026@dunnington.plus.com> On 31/03/2018 02:32, Kyle Owen via cctalk wrote: > I feel like I should know what this panel goes to...I found it in my garage > when cleaning up. Any ideas? > > http://i.imgur.com/u4LMNqE.jpg The shape, apparent size, and the bends and screw holes make it look remarkably like the bottom panel of my PDP-8/L, except that an 8/L doesn't weigh 80lb and the panel would be yellow passivated zinc-plated rather than silvery. So I guess that's not much help ;-) -- Pete Pete Turnbull From rickb at bensene.com Fri Mar 30 21:22:41 2018 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 19:22:41 -0700 Subject: Identifying an aluminum panel In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <923A614D09D64B4D94D588FCAFD04C170107B129@mail.bensene.com> Not knowing what the size actually is, it looks familiar. Given the bootprints on it, it looks like it's a pretty good-sized chunk of aluminum. It reminds me of the back panel of some of the Sun 3/2xx and 4/2xx server chassis. Large, heavy switching power supply and backplane inside. Even when devoid of circuit cards, the chassis was pretty heavy, and by the time you added CPU, memory and I/O interface cards, it'd get even heavier. I figure that the weight on the warning tag is "empty" weight, which seems about right based on my memory. I could be completely wrong, though, as I am not at a place where I can look at the old Sun 4/280 system I have to compare the covers with the photo - and there were lots of machines in the '90's that were physically large and heavy that used similar chassis materials. -Rick -- Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Kyle Owen via cctalk Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 6:32 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Identifying an aluminum panel I feel like I should know what this panel goes to...I found it in my garage when cleaning up. Any ideas? http://i.imgur.com/u4LMNqE.jpg Thanks, Kyle From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sat Mar 31 00:14:14 2018 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 01:14:14 -0400 Subject: DEC BA213 and BA213 S-boxes? Message-ID: Hi, All, Watching some of the recent traffic about what newer Qbus boards will and won't work with 2.11BSD, I've remembered a thing I was once looking for. Back when I did DEC hardware for a living, we stopped buying new stuff after we got a MicroVAX-II. As such, I have plenty of LSI-11 to KA630 parts but very little from after that era. I do happen to have 2-3 boards with S-box handles including a KDF-11 CPU and a SCSI card, a great start to a system. What I don't have is the enclosure. I have a BA123 "World Box" and it's great. I know a BA213 is roughly the same size, but I've never had one. The BA215 looks more interesting to me as a match for size and power requirements (1 PSU and 6 slots, half the BA213) but I've never even seen a BA215. Anyone here have much experience with the BA215? Any "gotchas"? So far, from my looking on eBay, I think I spotted one loaded as a VAX. I'm more interested in setting mine up as a PDP-11, so the VAX end of one is not exactly a selling point to me. An empty box would do just as nicely. I'd say 80% of my Qbus work has been with two boxes, the BA-11N and the BA-23, thus all the S-box questions. Thanks for any tips, tidbits and stories. -ethan From glen.slick at gmail.com Sat Mar 31 01:16:16 2018 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2018 23:16:16 -0700 Subject: DEC BA213 and BA213 S-boxes? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 30, 2018 at 10:14 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: > > I have a BA123 "World Box" and it's great. I know a BA213 is roughly > the same size, but I've never had one. The BA215 looks more > interesting to me as a match for size and power requirements (1 PSU > and 6 slots, half the BA213) but I've never even seen a BA215. > > Anyone here have much experience with the BA215? Any "gotchas"? So > far, from my looking on eBay, I think I spotted one loaded as a VAX. > I'm more interested in setting mine up as a PDP-11, so the VAX end of > one is not exactly a selling point to me. An empty box would do just > as nicely. I have a BA215 box that was configured as a MicroVAX 3300 when I got it with an M7624 KA640 CPU. Currently I have it configured as a VAX 4000-200 with an M7626 KA660 CPU and maxed out with 64MB with a 3rd party Camintonn CMX-4200-48 48MB board and an M7622 16MB board. With DSSI and Ethernet controllers built in with the KA660 that leaves 3 of the 6 slots free for an S-handle M5976 KZQSA to attach a SCSI CD-ROM and an S-handle M3119 CXY08 for 8 async lines. Loaded up the BA215 is certainly not light, but you can easily wheel it around, and if necessary I can pick it up and carry it a short distance by myself. I won't try to move a BA123 or BA215 / BA430 / BA440 box by myself beyond just rolling them without stripping them down to completely empty boxes. If you want to set up a BA215 as a PDP-11 a nice way to go is with an S-handle M7554 KDJ11-D DECserver 550 CPU, the 18MHz version with 1.5MB. Sometimes good deals on those can be found. Then add either a 2MB M7551 MSV11-Q or a 2MB M8637 MSV11-J for 3.5MB. Add an S-handle M3127 DESQA Ethernet controller, and an M3119 CXY08 if you want more than the 2 async lines on the M7554 KDJ11-D. If the BA215 box came with any DSSI drives installed add an M7769 KFQSA. The KFQSA is MSCP compatible so later PDP-11 software should be able to use it. If you can find a decent deal on a BA215 box it is worth grabbing one. Most of the time I would rather work on a BA215 box than a BA23 / BA123 or BA215 / BA430 / BA440 box (ok, the BA440 VAX will be much faster). In some cases only 6 slots might be limiting if you wanted to use something like a 3 board set M7168 / M7169 VCB02 or a 2 board set M7164 / M7165 KDA50-Q. From kylevowen at gmail.com Sat Mar 31 06:31:41 2018 From: kylevowen at gmail.com (Kyle Owen) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 11:31:41 +0000 Subject: Identifying an aluminum panel In-Reply-To: <923A614D09D64B4D94D588FCAFD04C170107B129@mail.bensene.com> References: <923A614D09D64B4D94D588FCAFD04C170107B129@mail.bensene.com> Message-ID: The size is just large enough to fit in a 19" rack. It's also possible that I don't have what it goes to. Here are more panels to puzzle over: http://imgur.com/a/8nJ5I In related news, I am missing the bottom panels for an RK05J. Never got it with the unit I picked up, nor the cards. I've been slowly accumulating cards, but I'm not quite there yet. It's in otherwise nice shape. Not sure what happened in its former life. Kyle From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sat Mar 31 10:04:11 2018 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 11:04:11 -0400 (EDT) Subject: RL02 Question Message-ID: <20180331150411.5D16B18C075@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Aaron Jackson > I have tried three controllers, two r/w modules and two servo > controllers. I'm beginning to think the drive is fine and there is a > problem with the RLV21 controller. Err, think you mean RLV12 QBUS controller board, right? Anyway, you've already tried ("three controllers") swapping that out? If you have, perhaps there's a problem with a cable and/or the terminator? However, at this point, sub-system swapping is probably not going to be the best way to make progress. I think you're going to have to actually debug the problem; i.e. dive in and work out what's happening wrong, and why, and trace it back to the origin. Luckily, for this generation (and before), DEC produced wonderful technical manuals, which go into full detail of how the thing works. With that in hand, the investigative process is a lot easier; you don't have to work out how the thihg works by looking at the prints, it's all laid out in detail. And tech manuals for both the RL02 drive and RLV12 controller (EK-RLV12-TD-001) are available online, as are the prints (MP01282 for the RLV12). So, I'd sit down with the RLV12 tech man and read through the section on the drive<->controller bus (section 3.3). Then start looking at what the two are saying to each other on the bus, and figure out what's actually going wrong. >From there, you'll know where the source of the problem is, and can chase it further. I know this sounds like it would be time-consuming, but when you think about the time/energy you've already put into swapping things around, chasing this problem, it won't be. Noel From p.gebhardt at ymail.com Sat Mar 31 10:23:44 2018 From: p.gebhardt at ymail.com (P Gebhardt) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 15:23:44 +0000 (UTC) Subject: towards a working PDP: Anyone has a PDP 11/35 or PDP11/40 panel for $$$ to offer? References: <507135774.200860.1522509824868.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <507135774.200860.1522509824868@mail.yahoo.com> Hello all, As I never came across a complete unit of an early PDP-11 with lights-and-switches console, I decided 5-6 years ago to figure out, if I can't build one of out of different parts. It seemed possible to get there if I focus on parts for a 11/35 or 11/40. 5 years ago, I came accross a backplane for such as system. Two years later, I was lucky to purchase an almost complete board set (one board missing, the M7232) from another classic computer enthusiast. Last year, I got a BA11-F chassis with the power supply. Over all those years, I looked out for a 11/35 or 11/40 panel (KY11-D), but I never was lucky to come accross one.On epay US, somebody is offering the plain PCB, but the seller says that he cannot ship to Europe :-( My frustation pushes me now to ask, if anybody on this list has such a panel with the electronics board that he would consider to offer me for some $$$ to help me building a complete machine? I don't mind the panel color, e.g., if it's from a front-end PDP-11 of some bigger DEC system, or if the silkscreen is damaged or even missing. It would be great for me to get an early PDP-11 up and running and connect it to peripherals such as an RK07 that are in my collection.? I am located in Germany. Contact me off-list, if you have something to offer, please.? Best regards,Pierre ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pierre's collection of classic computers moved to: http://www.digitalheritage.de From billdegnan at gmail.com Sat Mar 31 10:28:02 2018 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 11:28:02 -0400 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <20180331150411.5D16B18C075@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180331150411.5D16B18C075@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 11:04 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > From: Aaron Jackson > > > I have tried three controllers, two r/w modules and two servo > > controllers. I'm beginning to think the drive is fine and there is a > > problem with the RLV21 controller. > > Err, think you mean RLV12 QBUS controller board, right? > > Anyway, you've already tried ("three controllers") swapping that out? > > If you have, perhaps there's a problem with a cable and/or the terminator? > > > However, at this point, sub-system swapping is probably not going to be the > best way to make progress. I think you're going to have to actually debug > the > problem; i.e. dive in and work out what's happening wrong, and why, and > trace > it back to the origin. > > I remember spending a great deal of time on my RL02 problem until I finally figured out the problem source was the backplane. I have a UNIBUS system and I had a miswired DD11C. I took a DD11B and removed the NPG jumper in slot 2 as an experiment. It caused my RL02 to be functional, exposing the DD11C as the issue. I know that this will not help you directly, but given you have (probably) one working RL controller of the three I'd test the QBUS itself, power etc. Perhaps this was already discussed I am just catching up to this thread. I also assume this RL02 has been proven to work somewhere else with same cables. If not I'd try that experiment too. Bill From aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk Sat Mar 31 10:58:21 2018 From: aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk (Aaron Jackson) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 16:58:21 +0100 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: References: <20180331150411.5D16B18C075@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <87fu4g8cf6.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> > On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 11:04 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> > From: Aaron Jackson >> >> > I have tried three controllers, two r/w modules and two servo >> > controllers. I'm beginning to think the drive is fine and there is a >> > problem with the RLV21 controller. >> >> Err, think you mean RLV12 QBUS controller board, right? >> >> Anyway, you've already tried ("three controllers") swapping that out? >> >> If you have, perhaps there's a problem with a cable and/or the terminator? >> >> >> However, at this point, sub-system swapping is probably not going to be the >> best way to make progress. I think you're going to have to actually debug >> the >> problem; i.e. dive in and work out what's happening wrong, and why, and >> trace >> it back to the origin. >> >> > > > I remember spending a great deal of time on my RL02 problem until I finally > figured out the problem source was the backplane. I have a UNIBUS system > and I had a miswired DD11C. I took a DD11B and removed the NPG jumper in > slot 2 as an experiment. It caused my RL02 to be functional, exposing the > DD11C as the issue. > > I know that this will not help you directly, but given you have (probably) > one working RL controller of the three I'd test the QBUS itself, power > etc. Perhaps this was already discussed I am just catching up to this > thread. I also assume this RL02 has been proven to work somewhere else > with same cables. If not I'd try that experiment too. > > Bill Thanks for the tip Bill. I have run out ideas for debugging on the drive - everything looks fine! I have starting turning my eyes towards my RLV12 controller. A friend has recently bought an RLV12, so I can test it with his in the near future. Although, studying the technical description manual, I am not seeing that any communication, other than 4.1MHz clock, is required when loading the heads. I have been assuming that all of this logic is handled by the drive only. Thanks again, Aaron. From aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk Sat Mar 31 11:18:09 2018 From: aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk (Aaron Jackson) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 17:18:09 +0100 Subject: RL02 Question In-Reply-To: <20180331150411.5D16B18C075@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20180331150411.5D16B18C075@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <87efk08bi6.fsf@walrus.rhwyd.co.uk> > > From: Aaron Jackson > > > I have tried three controllers, two r/w modules and two servo > > controllers. I'm beginning to think the drive is fine and there is a > > problem with the RLV21 controller. > > Err, think you mean RLV12 QBUS controller board, right? Woops, yes! I get mixed up with the RXV21. > Anyway, you've already tried ("three controllers") swapping that out? As in the logic controller inside the drive. I only have one RLV12 unfortunately. Although a friend has recently purchased one, so hopefully I can test with that soon. > If you have, perhaps there's a problem with a cable and/or the terminator? > > > However, at this point, sub-system swapping is probably not going to be the > best way to make progress. I think you're going to have to actually debug the > problem; i.e. dive in and work out what's happening wrong, and why, and trace > it back to the origin. > > Luckily, for this generation (and before), DEC produced wonderful technical > manuals, which go into full detail of how the thing works. With that in hand, > the investigative process is a lot easier; you don't have to work out how the > thihg works by looking at the prints, it's all laid out in detail. And tech > manuals for both the RL02 drive and RLV12 controller (EK-RLV12-TD-001) are > available online, as are the prints (MP01282 for the RLV12). > > So, I'd sit down with the RLV12 tech man and read through the section on the > drive<->controller bus (section 3.3). Then start looking at what the two are > saying to each other on the bus, and figure out what's actually going wrong. > From there, you'll know where the source of the problem is, and can chase it > further. > > I know this sounds like it would be time-consuming, but when you think about > the time/energy you've already put into swapping things around, chasing this > problem, it won't be. > > Noel I have been studying the technical description manual, and the schematics in quite some detail. I think it is time I hook up a logic analyser to the cable between the RLV12 controller and the drive to try and see what is going on during the initial seek. I have already checked to see if there is a 4.1MHz clock signal (there is). Thanks, Aaron. From ed at groenenberg.net Sat Mar 31 07:46:07 2018 From: ed at groenenberg.net (E. Groenenberg) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 14:46:07 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Instruction video on laserdisk Message-ID: <46250.10.10.10.2.1522500367.squirrel@www.groenenberg.net> Today I received a PDP-11 instruction video on a laser disk, part 3 & 4. The disk partno. is EY-5537E-V2-0001, the title says 'Introduction to the PDP-11, Internal use Only, (c) 1988' Besides that, no indication if the video stream is NTSC or PAL. Anybody have a clou? I want to have the disk read and put the video on youtube eventually. Ed -- Ik email, dus ik besta. From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Sat Mar 31 10:45:47 2018 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 11:45:47 -0400 Subject: DEC BA213 and BA213 S-boxes? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0cfd38df-c5b9-bd66-3bc2-531faa88f80f@comcast.net> Ethan; I have owned both BA213 and BA215 microvaxes.? The one recurring problem I had was with the power supplies, H7868 I think the number is. Luckily, I picked up a couple of Dec Serv 550's which gave me spares and a PDP11/53 S box CPU. I was able to run the PDP11 in one of the VAX based BA boxes, the BA215 would make a good choice based on size and weight. If I remember correctly, the BA215 had space for one full height drive and a tape drive. Maybe someone else knows, but I think both boxes could use ordinary power cords, not like the VAX 4000-400 series which has that 20 amp cord. Doug On 3/31/2018 1:14 AM, Ethan Dicks via cctech wrote: > Hi, All, > > Watching some of the recent traffic about what newer Qbus boards will > and won't work with 2.11BSD, I've remembered a thing I was once > looking for. Back when I did DEC hardware for a living, we stopped > buying new stuff after we got a MicroVAX-II. As such, I have plenty > of LSI-11 to KA630 parts but very little from after that era. I do > happen to have 2-3 boards with S-box handles including a KDF-11 CPU > and a SCSI card, a great start to a system. What I don't have is the > enclosure. > > I have a BA123 "World Box" and it's great. I know a BA213 is roughly > the same size, but I've never had one. The BA215 looks more > interesting to me as a match for size and power requirements (1 PSU > and 6 slots, half the BA213) but I've never even seen a BA215. > > Anyone here have much experience with the BA215? Any "gotchas"? So > far, from my looking on eBay, I think I spotted one loaded as a VAX. > I'm more interested in setting mine up as a PDP-11, so the VAX end of > one is not exactly a selling point to me. An empty box would do just > as nicely. > > I'd say 80% of my Qbus work has been with two boxes, the BA-11N and > the BA-23, thus all the S-box questions. > > Thanks for any tips, tidbits and stories. > > -ethan From billdegnan at gmail.com Sat Mar 31 11:04:48 2018 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 12:04:48 -0400 Subject: DEC BA213 and BA213 S-boxes? In-Reply-To: <0cfd38df-c5b9-bd66-3bc2-531faa88f80f@comcast.net> References: <0cfd38df-c5b9-bd66-3bc2-531faa88f80f@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 11:45 AM, Douglas Taylor via cctech < cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Ethan; > > I have owned both BA213 and BA215 microvaxes. The one recurring problem I > had was with the power supplies, H7868 I think the number is. > Luckily, I picked up a couple of Dec Serv 550's which gave me spares and a > PDP11/53 S box CPU. > I was able to run the PDP11 in one of the VAX based BA boxes, the BA215 > would make a good choice based on size and weight. > If I remember correctly, the BA215 had space for one full height drive and > a tape drive. > Maybe someone else knows, but I think both boxes could use ordinary power > cords, not like the VAX 4000-400 series which has that 20 amp cord. > > Doug > > > FYI - Not sure if I mentioned this but I too am working on setting up a DECServer 550 to be an 11/83. Useful tips recently, thanks all. b From geneb at deltasoft.com Sat Mar 31 11:36:06 2018 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 09:36:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <016b06c4-ecad-d55d-7f34-50153446a12f@dunnington.plus.com> <42E3923A-4301-45CE-85F5-4625CF18DA24@avanthar.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > On Thu, 29 Mar 2018, geneb via cctalk wrote: >> I'm probably WAY over simplifying this because I don't have a grasp of the >> optics involved, but wouldn't it be possible to get a good image of >> individual pages on a microfiche by using a DSLR with the right lens and a >> CNC X/Y table made from one of the large (8x10) LED illuminators used to >> treat SAD? The lights are pretty bright and are under $50. > > Getting EVEN illumination throughout the frame will still be an issue. BIG > issue for photographic images, but still a minor issue for bitonal text and > schematics. > Theoretical ideal is a point source with collimating "condenser" lenses (like > the top half of an enlarger). BUT, for this, a diffuse light source or an > added diffuser MIGHT be adequate. Particularly for bitonal, where half-tone > density, or color balance, is not significant. > The unit I saw last week was very even. The person that owned it uses it for studio lighting for video production. > >> The X/Y table build would be very simple and cheap to build. > > For you, maybe. I'm a little overwhelmed contemplating that part of the > project. Even the film holder is a little work. > Which is why I was suggesting gutting a fiche reader for those mechanical > parts, and then adding positioning mechanisms. > The X/Y table is probably the simplest part of the build - every part of it is a solved problem, from the motion gantry to the controller. It could be driven by an Arduino Uno and a pair of Pololu Stepper Drivers connected to a pair of 1.8 degree NEMA17 steppers. The gantry could be made from 3D printed carriages equipped with 608 skate bearings riding atop rails made from 1/2" EMT conduit. The camera system is WAY outside my wheelhouse, but I'd be happy to work with someone to get an X/Y gantry built. I've got plenty of idle 3D printers and tons of unused skate bearings. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From emu at e-bbes.com Sat Mar 31 12:15:00 2018 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 11:15:00 -0600 Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <016b06c4-ecad-d55d-7f34-50153446a12f@dunnington.plus.com> <42E3923A-4301-45CE-85F5-4625CF18DA24@avanthar.com> Message-ID: On 2018-03-31 10:36, geneb via cctalk wrote: > The X/Y table is probably the simplest part of the build - every part of > it is a solved problem, from the motion gantry to the controller.? It > could be driven by an Arduino Uno and a pair of Pololu Stepper Drivers > connected to a pair of 1.8 degree NEMA17 steppers.? The gantry could be > made from 3D printed carriages equipped with 608 skate bearings riding > atop rails made from 1/2" EMT conduit. > > The camera system is WAY outside my wheelhouse, but I'd be happy to work > with someone to get an X/Y gantry built.? I've got plenty of idle 3D > printers and tons of unused skate bearings. :) If you're serious about it, we probably should talk in the future. At the moment, I'm moving my household, so not to much time to play, but the x/y gantry I have no clue about, the camera part I'm a little better ;-) Cheers, emanuel From fritzm at fritzm.org Sat Mar 31 12:24:58 2018 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 10:24:58 -0700 Subject: How to set DZ11 line speeds under RT-11 V4? In-Reply-To: <73A84B63-1B48-4A64-B34A-69B25834835A@fritzm.org> References: <73A84B63-1B48-4A64-B34A-69B25834835A@fritzm.org> Message-ID: <11D0BBE2-079D-4527-BEFC-4EEC28517893@fritzm.org> > On Mar 30, 2018, at 10:37 AM, Fritz Mueller wrote: > > When SYSGEN-ing RT-11 V4, the only speed initialization options offered for the DZ11 lines are 110 or 300 baud. Is there a utility or incantation which will allow me to reconfigure these after RT-11 is booted? So I found that the sysgen process is just setting the value for the DZSP$D macro in SYCND.MAC; I can edit this to an appropriate value (7000, taken from the .MTGET programed request docs) by hand after sysgen and before assembling the monitor and, all the DZ11 lines come up configured at 9600 baud now. Still haven't found anything that comes out of the box with RT-11 V4 to allow tailoring the terminal lines once up and running. I guess if you want to do that you need to write your own small utility. cheers, --FritzM. From commodorejohn at gmail.com Sat Mar 31 12:28:22 2018 From: commodorejohn at gmail.com (John Ames) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 10:28:22 -0700 Subject: Instruction video on laserdisk Message-ID: I don't know where you're located, but I'm in the US and have an NTSC Laserdisc player. If someone can hook me up with a video capture card, I'd be happy to copy the video for you. From aperry at snowmoose.com Sat Mar 31 12:35:37 2018 From: aperry at snowmoose.com (Alan Perry) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 10:35:37 -0700 Subject: Instruction video on laserdisk In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <365f94da-a959-a70f-fb3b-181bd5d491f6@snowmoose.com> I have a NTSC LD player AND a video capture device (or two). Located in the Seattle area. I recently picked up some Prisoner LDs and confirmed that LD player is still working. It did involve opening it up and blowing dust off of the optical sensors inside of it. alan On 3/31/18 10:28 AM, John Ames via cctalk wrote: > I don't know where you're located, but I'm in the US and have an NTSC > Laserdisc player. If someone can hook me up with a video capture card, > I'd be happy to copy the video for you. From geneb at deltasoft.com Sat Mar 31 14:48:45 2018 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 12:48:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Digitising collections of microfiche - Re: Looking for opinions... In-Reply-To: References: <25e8869f-8400-711d-c634-9a3e54696a38@telegraphics.com.au> <80FE0A82-AE47-45AD-9A95-2139506A7C15@avanthar.com> <016b06c4-ecad-d55d-7f34-50153446a12f@dunnington.plus.com> <42E3923A-4301-45CE-85F5-4625CF18DA24@avanthar.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 31 Mar 2018, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: > On 2018-03-31 10:36, geneb via cctalk wrote: > >> The X/Y table is probably the simplest part of the build - every part of >> it is a solved problem, from the motion gantry to the controller.? It >> could be driven by an Arduino Uno and a pair of Pololu Stepper Drivers >> connected to a pair of 1.8 degree NEMA17 steppers.? The gantry could be >> made from 3D printed carriages equipped with 608 skate bearings riding >> atop rails made from 1/2" EMT conduit. >> >> The camera system is WAY outside my wheelhouse, but I'd be happy to work >> with someone to get an X/Y gantry built.? I've got plenty of idle 3D >> printers and tons of unused skate bearings. :) > > If you're serious about it, we probably should talk in the future. > At the moment, I'm moving my household, so not to much time to play, > but the x/y gantry I have no clue about, the camera part I'm a little > better ;-) > Works for me. :) FYI, a $40 3D printer controller would provide all the brains needed. They can grok standard M and G codes and easily support four axes of motion. The firmware and hardware design is open source too. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From glen.slick at gmail.com Sat Mar 31 13:50:04 2018 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 11:50:04 -0700 Subject: DEC BA213 and BA213 S-boxes? In-Reply-To: References: <0cfd38df-c5b9-bd66-3bc2-531faa88f80f@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:04 AM, Bill Degnan via cctech wrote: > > FYI - Not sure if I mentioned this but I too am working on setting up a > DECServer 550 to be an 11/83. Useful tips recently, thanks all. > b Using an M7554 KDJ11-D DECserver 550 CPU (in which case it would be an 11/53), or with an M8190 KDJ11-B CPU? Using an M7554 KDJ11-D DECserver 550 CPU is nice in that you get 1.5MB of RAM on board and the two MMJ async ports on the S-handle bracket, but of course it is slower than an M8190 KDJ11-B CPU because it has no cache, no support for adding an FPJ11 FPA, and no support for PMI memory. With an M8190 KDJ11-B CPU you would have to hack up some sort of bracket for the console async port, and for the diagnostic LED display if you wanted that too. If DEC ever made an S-handle console panel for the M8190 KDJ11-B CPU I have never seen one. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Mar 31 17:26:44 2018 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 16:26:44 -0600 Subject: Speed now & then (Space and time?) In-Reply-To: <20180330113246.fogqwhztye7quxee@mooli.org.uk> References: <5ABD9A43.4010208@pico-systems.com> <20180330030727.GB15201@lonesome.com> <20180330113246.fogqwhztye7quxee@mooli.org.uk> Message-ID: On 3/30/2018 5:32 AM, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote: > On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 10:07:27PM -0500, Mark Linimon via cctalk wrote: >> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 09:00:35PM -0500, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: >>> It was an absolute DOG! It took several minutes for Emacs to load. >> So, uh, I hate to tell you about the state of the art these days ... > > It starts up within half a second or so on my development box, even though my > .emacs pulls in all sorts of weird and wonderful packages. On my remote > servers, it can take a few seconds if the box is overloaded, but is otherwise > instant. > > A lot of traditional software has *not* encountered the kind of bloat needed to > counteract Moore's Law, and so performs beautifully. What *is* bloating is > Windows software -- mercifully I don't run Windows -- half-jobbed ports of said > Windows software to other platforms (Firefox, mainly), and web-based stuff. The > latter includes various phoned-it-in apps which are basically written in > Javascript and embed an invisible web browser, which includes Slack, Spotify, > and a few other bits and pieces. > > The obvious answer is to not use that bloated crapware and find something else > that does the same job. But that is the old fly in the ointment, other software may not be avilable. I do run windows and real text screen UNIX is not aviable anymore. All I know it is same $$$ cycle as always, BUY the new machine for faster software, but you need buy the software that has bug fixes and patches for the new system and the software slows down again. GUI's gave us 8x bloat and streaming media another 8x bloat. It is about time NEW notebook computers to come out to let you use them to take NOTEs rather than some ap for your phone for notes. Ben. PS: Do I need a VALVE computer for the best sounding digital music? PPS: Notice how records are selling again. From jfoust at threedee.com Sat Mar 31 17:57:46 2018 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 17:57:46 -0500 Subject: Instruction video on laserdisk In-Reply-To: <46250.10.10.10.2.1522500367.squirrel@www.groenenberg.net> References: <46250.10.10.10.2.1522500367.squirrel@www.groenenberg.net> Message-ID: <20180331225753.6308F4E740@mx2.ezwind.net> At 07:46 AM 3/31/2018, E. Groenenberg via cctalk wrote: >Today I received a PDP-11 instruction video on a laser disk, part 3 & 4. >The disk partno. is EY-5537E-V2-0001, the title says >'Introduction to the PDP-11, Internal use Only, (c) 1988' This one? https://www.marktplaats.nl/a/cd-s-en-dvd-s/vinyl-overige/m1261283993-laser-videodisc-introduction-to-the-pdp-11.html?c=3c1f5dcc18d02a99040ca8de656940d2&previousPage=lr I have LD player, digitizer, and abilities. Midwest USA. IVIS was a DEC Pro 350 system for interactive learning: https://books.google.com/books?id=wi8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=%22digital+equipment%22+%22ivis%22&source=bl&ots=k9_3BUKTrJ&sig=lHcIslE5v9hWZ8YxAoWWFxaYnao&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiGwpaj1JfaAhUl74MKHcwVAfEQ6AEIOzAC#v=onepage&q=%22digital%20equipment%22%20%22ivis%22&f=false - John From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Sat Mar 31 17:17:01 2018 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 23:17:01 +0100 (WET-DST) Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding In-Reply-To: References: <01QQORR9WN720000GP@beyondthepale.ie> <01QQPM5MJJLY0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> <01QQQ9W94O940000GP@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <01QQT1KMS9D40000GP@beyondthepale.ie> > > I thought you'd get the SROM firmware to halt and wait for a command > after POST if J8 was removed and none of the other positions shorted. > Have you tried running with all positions open? > It turns out that jumpers J8-J1 select one of the d0-d7 outputs from the 27C512 which contains the eight SROM images, one per data line. One of the positions must be jumpered or no SROM image is loaded and nothing happens. (Nothing much seems to happen with the jumper in the J1 position either. Maybe there is no image on the d7 bit or maybe the there is an image there that doesn't drive the either the mini console port or the diagnostic LEDs.) It also turns out that I had an intermittent bad connection in my hacked up mini console interface. This is why I was not able to enter commands with the jumper in position 1 (J7) or position 2 (J6). With this fixed, I can enter mini console commands with either of those positions jumpered, so they seem to be the ways to access the mini console on the 3000 600 machines anyway. I ran the various tests provided by the different jumper settings on my second 3000 600 and I found that the memTest (no-cache) LongWord Memory Test (position 5, J3) failed as well as the tests involving the cache. In an attempt to find which memory was failing, I swapped around the memory risers. Bizarrely, the (no-cache) failures went away completely when I swapped around the front two risers. The failures returned when I swapped them back. This is very odd as the two risers appear to be identical and seem to be populated with identical SIMMs. Regards, Peter Coghlan. > > Maciej > From cctalk at beyondthepale.ie Sat Mar 31 18:42:03 2018 From: cctalk at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2018 00:42:03 +0100 (WET-DST) Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding In-Reply-To: <9A389799-F981-44E8-918E-101E5641781F@ruffspot.net> References: Message-ID: <01QQT2Q1K2N40000GP@beyondthepale.ie> > > According to the 21066 HRM, the processor loads its initial I-stream from the > SROM. All Icache bits are loaded from the SROM, including the cache block > metadata. The blocks are loaded in sequential order starting with block 0 > and ending with block 255. For the 20166, the Icache is loaded LSB first > filling from left to right (i.e. bit 0 of LW0 will be the first bit loaded). > This is the resulting order of each cache block: > > BHT LW7 LW5 LW3 LW1 V ASM ASN TAG LW6 LW4 LW2 LW0 > No wonder I am not making sense of the image! > > I thought I had some code do unmultiplex each bit stream from an SROM image > and then reconstruct the resulting memory image, but I can't find it or I > just thought about doing that. If it turns up and it works for a 21064, I'd be very interested in a copy. It looks like I may have to program a new SROM image in order to disable the cache at startup to see if that works around the issues my machines are having (assuming I can figure out how to disable the cache). Regards, Peter Coghlan. From silent700 at gmail.com Sat Mar 31 22:29:54 2018 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 22:29:54 -0500 Subject: Instruction video on laserdisk In-Reply-To: <20180331225753.6308F4E740@mx2.ezwind.net> References: <46250.10.10.10.2.1522500367.squirrel@www.groenenberg.net> <20180331225753.6308F4E740@mx2.ezwind.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 5:57 PM, John Foust via cctalk wrote: > I have LD player, digitizer, and abilities. Midwest USA. > > IVIS was a DEC Pro 350 system for interactive learning: I don't think this is an IVIS disc. I've only seen one, once, and it was in a photo of a Russian museum exhibit. I have a Pro 350 IVIS machine and the DEC-branded LD player. But I have never encountered anything to run on it. Three offers so far to (re)-digitize this LD. Hope someone can do it! (And where's Part 1 & 2??) -j From PETER at beyondthepale.ie Sat Mar 31 18:24:46 2018 From: PETER at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2018 00:24:46 +0100 (WET-DST) Subject: DEC 3000 (alpha) faultfinding In-Reply-To: <9A389799-F981-44E8-918E-101E5641781F@ruffspot.net> References: Message-ID: <01QQT2N0XWUY0000GP@beyondthepale.ie> > > According to the 21066 HRM, the processor loads its initial I-stream from > the SROM. All Icache bits are loaded from the SROM, including the cache > block metadata. The blocks are loaded in sequential order starting with > block 0 and ending with block 255. For the 20166, the Icache is loaded > LSB first filling from left to right (i.e. bit 0 of LW0 will be the first > bit loaded). This is the resulting order of each cache block: > > BHT LW7 LW5 LW3 LW1 V ASM ASN TAG LW6 LW4 LW2 LW0 > No wonder I am not making sense of the image! > > I thought I had some code do unmultiplex each bit stream from an SROM image > and then reconstruct the resulting memory image, but I can't find it or I > just thought about doing that. > If it turns up and it works on a 21064, I'd be very interested in a copy. It looks like I may have to program a new SROM image in order to disable the cache at startup to see if that works around the issues my machines are having (assuming I can figure out how to disable the cache). Regards, Peter Coghlan. From billdegnan at gmail.com Sat Mar 31 19:28:56 2018 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2018 00:28:56 +0000 Subject: DEC BA213 and BA213 S-boxes? In-Reply-To: References: <0cfd38df-c5b9-bd66-3bc2-531faa88f80f@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 4:26 PM Glen Slick via cctech wrote: > On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 9:04 AM, Bill Degnan via cctech > wrote: > > > > FYI - Not sure if I mentioned this but I too am working on setting up a > > DECServer 550 to be an 11/83. Useful tips recently, thanks all. > > b > > Using an M7554 KDJ11-D DECserver 550 CPU (in which case it would be an > 11/53), or with an M8190 KDJ11-B CPU? > > Using an M7554 KDJ11-D DECserver 550 CPU is nice in that you get 1.5MB > of RAM on board and the two MMJ async ports on the S-handle bracket, > but of course it is slower than an M8190 KDJ11-B CPU because it has no > cache, no support for adding an FPJ11 FPA, and no support for PMI > memory. > > With an M8190 KDJ11-B CPU you would have to hack up some sort of > bracket for the console async port, and for the diagnostic LED display > if you wanted that too. If DEC ever made an S-handle console panel for > the M8190 KDJ11-B CPU I have never seen one. > I am starting with the M8190 AE (CPU) M8637 EH (or EA?) RAM M8637 EH RAM I have other cards here: http://vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=715 With these I should be able to get started, thanks all for the info. Bill >