Hello,
I'm an employee with the National radio astronomy observatory here in Socorro New Mexico.
As part of our NGVLA upgrades, we are seeking to get rid of old data tapes from the tape reel days of Computing. These contain things such as the boot loaders, OS, specific collection programs and antenna movement programs.
I personally would hate to see these just wind up in the literal dumpster and would like to see them sent out to a museum or an archiving body that can preserve them and keep them safe as a dynamic part of history.
If anyone is interested or knows someone who would be interested in the VLAs data tape library please let me know.
V/R
Danielle Werts
Front end engineer
VLA Socorro New Mexico
Well, I've got the Greaseweazle software to run, but I don't know why,
which is hardly encouraging.
Installing various Windows updates, downloading .dlls, and puting the
latter in various directories changed the error messages but it never
actually worked. But downloading the latest Greaseweazle software did,
it ran first time. So no idea what I was doing wrong (maybe 32 bit
.vs. 64 bit Windows applications?)
I can now get the list of commands when I run gw.exe. And can get help
on them using the -h option. I've not tried connecting a drive yet,
but the software can find and talk to the board (the green 'activity'
LED turns on). For example 'gw rpm' which is used to check the drive
speed by timing the index pulses times out and gives a 'no index'
error which seems entrely reasonable.
However I am not sure if I'll be able to use it. There is one very
important thing missing : DOCUMENTATION. The 'wikii' on github is
ridiculously incomplete. There is no user manual or man pages. The
software source in python (a language I've never used) has very few
comments and is not clear at all.
It's not clear to me exactly what all the options are for, and when to use them.
-tony
Hi all,
I just came across pictures on the LCM website about their SDS Sigma installation there.
On the pictures, one can see 10-platter disk packs in the corner and stored on the disk drives.
Did the LCM ever had these in operation, either for data retrieval or even demo purposes?
I know of the Jim Austin Computer museum where they fixed a CDC 9766 drive but it suffered
a head crash after a few hours according to their description which led to giving up the operation
of these drives.
Greetings,
Pierre
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http://www.digitalheritage.de
VCF SW was this past weekend near Dallas, Texas.
Here are some highlights from my perspective.
https://voidstar.blog/vcf-southwest-2023/
Most photos you can click to enlarge (Edge has bugs with WordPress, you may
need to scroll up/down a little bit to get the click thing working)
Cheers,
Steve
I finally got an IBM 5120 earlier this month, to complement the 5100 and
5110 that I already have.
It had a few issues, but I did manage to get it to "boot" to BASIC.
I put together a few notes about it here. Nothing too exciting, but two
things I've learned: (1) the 5120 does actually still have the video
REVERSE feature. (2) the 5120 has both an external (red power switch) and
internal power switch (internal one is at rear below disk drives).
Notes here:
https://voidstar.blog/ibm-5120-aka-ibm-5110-3/
IBM 5120 (aka IBM 5110-3) — voidstar
<https://voidstar.blog/ibm-5120-aka-ibm-5110-3/>
My only question is: how "universal" are 8" disk? This 5120 only came with
a single IBM 8" Diagnostics disk. It looks to be in fine condition, but
I've no idea about the data.
So far I haven't been able to read it - it's probably more hardware/drive
issues, I'm still investigating. But I'm wondering if I had other 8"
disks (3M SS/SD), should I be able to format/MARK them?
I've used old tape decks and 5.25" drives - but 8" drives is all new
territory for me.
Also, I'll be talking about the 5100/5110 at VCF next Sunday on the 25th of
this month, June.
While looking for my RSX11 DECNET manual (because the online version
doesn't have any examples of commands which is why you look in the
manual in the first place) I found a copy of the DSM binder AA-K676B-TK
and ilk.
Is this online or does anyone else have it?
CZ
I've got a few backup sets (potentially incomplete) done on MicroRSX
that were created with BRU on RX50 media. I've cranked out some code to
itemize the contents, but the file types are a mystery. I suppose that
one has to live in that world to know (e.g. MSL)
The sets appear to be (parts) of an incremental backup scheme; I think
I've got at least one copy of the complete set.
Would anyone be willing to have a look at the (ASCII) file catalog and
suggest the application that may have created the files?
Email me offlist if interested.
--Chuck
So I had a fellow list member show up and trade me an AUI cable for
reading some of his old RX01/02 disks to see if there was anything on
them. Not a big deal, TALOS (my 11/83) has pretty much everything:
11/83 CPU board with FPJ11
MSV11-QD card with 4mb memory (lots o' disk cache)
RXV21 plus RX02 drive
RLV12 plus two RL02 drives (and an RL01 in a pinch)
TQK70 and TK70 tape drive
DELQA Ethernet
DZQ11 4 port serial board
And the MTI ESDI disk controller with a 330mb half height ESDI disk
Overall it's a pretty fast and solid system. I have RT11 on DU4:, RSXM+
on DU0:, and plenty of power to do anything.
However when we fired it up we got nothing on the terminal. Great. So I
went to TITAN, which is another BA23 equipped 11/73 with:
11/73-B board wo FPJ11
2mb memory (Datamation)
TQK70+TK50 (my other TK70 doesn't write properly for some God unknown
reason)
DEQNA Ethernet (it works)
DHV11 8 port serial board
That odd little 3016 real time clock board I never seem to get around to
loading drivers for
RQDX3 jumpered for RD54 running RSX11M+ (not bad with cache)
20mb HH drive with XXDP+ utils
40mb HH drive with RT11 5.4 all drivers (last version that supports the
TU58)
That worked, we were able to move over the RXV21 and read the disks, but
I was wondering what was wrong with my main system. So after he left I
pulled it apart.
Problem seems to be the MTI card was not booting up properly, and since
it holds the Q bus in a frozen state until the disk spins to ready it
was blocking the system. Pulled it, cleaned the pins with 1500 grit
sandpaper, put it back in, it now works. Great.
So every once in awhile I guess I have to check the pins on these old
11's. They run well and are starting to be used more, but they still
have weird problems from time to time.
CZ
Anyone have the 2716 ePROM listing for IMSAI Basic. Version 1.4 or
whatever. I once had it, can't find my copy. If not 2716, I'll take any
listing that I can convert somehow.
Thanks
Bill
