July 2022 - cctalk - classiccmp.org

by Dennis Boone

Friends, The process of migrating the cctalk and cctech mailing lists to a new host in Chicago is underway. This evening, I've moved the list mail handling to the new server, and this message will be the first live test. Assuming this works, you shouldn't have to change anything to post to the list. The green web pages, the old "pipermail" list archives, and web access to archives of new postings from this point still require a little work, which I hope to complete in the next day or two. I will eventually import the old pipermail archives into the new posting archive, but that may take a little longer. The new hosting is provided by the Chicago Classic Computing group. Many thanks to Jay West for hosting the lists for 20 years! /Dennis Boone

1 year, 1 month

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Re: MicroVAX CTI (DEC Professional) card

by Lee Gleason

> Message: 6 > Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2022 19:32:47 -0500 > From: Chris Zach <cz(a)alembic.crystel.com> > Subject: Re: MicroVAX CTI (DEC Professional) card > To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org > Message-ID: <448ec9e0-a5df-7dd2-65f4-6294e6ebec82(a)alembic.crystel.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed > > Well, auction is over, I didn't bid on it, and I hope someone here got it. > > That said, the more I look at it, and the more I look at a true MVII > card the more I wonder just what was missing on this card. A true MVII > has a pair of rather large custom ASICs in the center of the board and I > can't believe the 80186 (or whatever that chip is on the top center of > the board) could emulate it all. > > So it would be interesting to see what this thing was and what it did. > > I bought it. I know it's long odds that I can get it to do anything, especially without that daughter card, but, waddahell, it's an interesting DEC PRO collectible. I reckon I'll plug it into a PRO and see if it responds to attempted accesses. If the ROM contains PDP11 or VAX code, I'll disassemble it and see if there are any clues there. -- Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR Control-G Consultants lee.gleason(a)comcast.net

1 year, 7 months

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Connecting a physical terminal via LAN to Serial Port

by Ali

I am looking for some advice and recommendations on how to best go about accomplishing the following: I have recently come into possession of an actual physical terminal that can be connected to a device via a standard RS232 (serial) port, so far so good. I have a number of devices that can be connected to for maintenance (e.g. FW updates, configuration, etc.) via a serial port. Currently I have been using an old laptop with a terminal program (Procomm Plus) whenever I want to connected to one of these devices. This involves crawling around connecting the serial cable, doing what needs to be done, crawling back disconnecting, rinse and repeat. I can connect the physical terminal to one device at a time and have a permanent connection to that one device, great for one device but not so useful. So I was thinking if it would be possible to do this over the LAN. I know about console servers where I could connect multiple serial devices to the server and then access each device over LAN via a telnet client on a modern system using an IP:port schema. This works great except I don't get to play with my shiny, new to me, authentic experience terminal device. So I am wondering if there is a box that provides a telnet CLIENT to a serial port device? I.E. a box smart enough that handles the telnet client, LAN functions, and terminal emulations internally and then provides a text based interface through a serial port that is compatible with my physical terminal? That way my physical terminal would be connected to the RS232/LAN bridge all the time and I could connected to not only the serial ports connected to the console server but other telnet accessible services as all the heavy lifting would be done on the bridge. I am ideally looking for a ready to go, low power device, I can hide away as opposed to setting up a PC of my own running some *nix flavor that I know can do this but is way over kill. Oh yeah and if it is super cheap even better. Thanks! -Ali

1 year, 8 months

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How to reproduce the DEC cabinets' grey colour paint?

by P Gebhardt

Hello list, does anybody of you know colour codes or the mixture to obtain the grey paint that DEC used for their early H960 cabinet side panels as well as for their later cabinet from the 80s and 90s like the H9A10 or H9A15? Some of my cabinets have scratches and I would like to cosmetically fix this. I thought I remember some discussions about DEC paint some years ago but I couldn't find anything helpful in my archives except for discussions about colours for DEC's classic front panels. Any pointers are very much appreciated. Thanks, Pierre ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.digitalheritage.de

1 year, 8 months

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Re: HP 3000 system w/ Printers, Terminals, all working, for sale on eBay (or privately...) Possible Free Delivery!

by mark＠markesystems.com

From: <mark(a)markesystems.com> Subject: [cctalk] HP 3000 system w/ Printers, Terminals, all working, for sale on eBay (or privately...) Possible Free Delivery! > I've just listed my complete HP-3000 system on eBay here. This is an > HP-3000 917LX system with: Silly me - the link of course got stripped out in this text-only email. It's: https://www.ebay.com/itm/325286539219 ~~ Mark Moulding

1 year, 8 months

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Re: Connecting a physical terminal via LAN to Serial Port (Ali)

by mark＠markesystems.com

> I have recently come into possession of an actual physical terminal that > can > be connected to a device via a standard RS232 (serial) port, so far so > good. <...> > connected to one of these devices. This involves crawling around > connecting > the serial cable, doing what needs to be done, crawling back > disconnecting, > rinse and repeat. <..> > connected to the console server but other telnet accessible services as > all > the heavy lifting would be done on the bridge. I am ideally looking for a > ready to go, low power device, I can hide away as opposed to setting up a > PC > of my own running some *nix flavor that I know can do this but is way over > kill. Oh yeah and if it is super cheap even better. Thanks! What about one of these? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DWLS7DP $11.38, and provides four ports. If that's not enough, you could do a bi-level multiplex arrangement; 5 of these ($56.90) would provide 16 ports. Zero power requirements, no software configuration. If it were me, I might consider buying a two-pole rotary switch with enough positions and solder one up, but for less than 12 bucks, it's hard to beat this... ~~ Mark Moulding

1 year, 8 months

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HP 3000 system w/ Printers, Terminals, all working, for sale on eBay (or privately...) Possible Free Delivery!

by mark＠markesystems.com

I've just listed my complete HP-3000 system on eBay here. This is an HP-3000 917LX system with: Disks: (2) 2GB drive (possibly RAID, but I'm not sure) Tape: (2) DAT (built-in and external) 16-port terminal concentrator 12-port Ethernet hub Terminals (2) HP 700/96 + one 700/92 that probably doesn't work Line-printer 300 LPM with stand, ribbons, and paper Dot-matrix printers (2) with ribbons All cables MPE/iX, ASK/ManMan, QUERY, TurboIMAGE FORTRAN Documentation (50+ pounds, including all service and upgrade records) It all works perfectly (as of two days ago). There's a possibility that I might deliver it if you're near Portland OR or the San Francisco Bay area, or off the I-5 in between; otherwise it's local pickup only (in either location). It's listed for $2600 buy-it-now, or a starting bid of $2000, but if you're really interested email with an offer and we'll see what can be worked out... ~~ Mark Moulding

1 year, 8 months

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Dec pdp 11 ultrix

by devin davison

Hello, Been a while since i last posted here. I have a few pdp 11/34 systems. The drives i am using are RL02 drives. Is it possible to install Ultrix on a 34? I have been testing out Ultrix in the simh emulator. I see during the install the 34 mentioned as a recognized cpu type, but later in the install the system hangs. This hang does not occur if i emulate a later cpu system like the 11/83. Not sure if ultrix can be installed due to the memory limitation, if not, rsx will be my second choice. Hoping to have some real hardware running soon! Thanks, Devin D.

1 year, 8 months

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Odd Unix computer Bio-Rad SRC 3200

by Douglas Taylor

I have a Bio-Rad SRC 3200, which is a workstation that operated a Bio-Rad FTS-40 FTIR spectrometer. A few years ago I got it to power on and it runs Unix variant, their product name was Idris. I have 16 floppies (dated 1992) that came with the system, but the hard disk has died. It is based on a 68030 CPU and has a floppy and SCSI disk and QIC tape drive. Is it possible to run some flavor of BSD on this hardware? What are the minimum requirements for BSD? Doug

1 year, 8 months

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Ethernet Transceivers....

by D. Resor

I was looking at this page on DigiBarn, https://www.digibarn.com/collections/parts/ethernet-taps/index.html and the old Ethernet transceivers. For the life of me I cannot remember what the transceivers used with the Xerox 6085 (Daybreak) looked like in 1989. There was wall to wall Xerox 8000 servers mixed in with 6085-Is at the software testing lab, in El Segundo, California, DSBU (Documenter Systems Business Unit) but that is now mostly a faded memory. Don Resor

1 year, 8 months

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cctalk July 2022