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HOTEL BLOCKS EXPIRING Mar. 16 for VCF East 2026 in Wall, NJ

by Jeffrey Brace

HOTEL BLOCKS EXPIRING Mar. 16 for VCF East 2026. VCF East takes place at InfoAge Science and History Museums in Wall, NJ, April 17-19. Hotel blocks: https://vcfed.org/vcf-east-hotel-blocks/ Event information: https://bit.ly/vcfe2026site Jeff Brace VCF East Showrunner

1 hour, 22 minutes

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Tony Hoare (1934-2026)

by Christian Liendo

Turing Award winner and former Oxford professor Tony Hoare passed away last Thursday at the age of 92. https://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2026/03/tony-hoare-1934-2026.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hoare

13 hours, 24 minutes

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Need to fix networking on a dos computer that runs a cnc machine

by Devin D'Amico

Hello all, I am at a bit of a loss. Looking to repair a dos computer that runs a big cnc machine. I need to load some kind of packet driver, so that the pc tcp software from the company "ftp software" can be loaded. Another supporting machine passes data to this machine to drive the machine. Attached are some screenshots. Original card was a pci etherexpress 100. The packet driver used is in the screenshots attached. I no longer have a intel card, is there a way to just drop in any old pci card and make it work with the tcp ip software? I am trying to better understand, as i have not done much work with packet drivers. I will post back with some more info. Any help much appriciated. --Devin D.

13 hours, 56 minutes

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DECnet-RT on OpenSIMH

by johnforecast＠comcast.net

I have been able to bring up the DECnet-RT images, that Jay posted a few weeks ago, on OpenSIMH. Below are my notes on how to get it running. John. Notes for getting DECnet-RT V2.1 running on OpenSIMH NOTE: DECnet-RT is a phase III system so it does not understand Phase IV areas and can only address nodes in the range 1 - 255. If you attach it so a Phase IV router (e.g. PyDECnet) it can be accessed as node nnn in the area that the router is in. If you are bringing it up as part of a larger network (e.g. HECnet) make sure you "own" it's address otherwise you may cause routing problems. I have tried running DECnet on most versions of RT-11 from 5.0 to 5.7. Any version after 5.4D has various problems with file/terminal I/O. The available images will only run on an unmapped system with background/foreground support. This means that everything; monitor, disk driver, DECnet and application must fit in 28KW. Later versions of RT-11 slighly increased the size of the monitor and/or disk drtiver so that NFT and FAL will not fit in memory. DECnet-RT requires features that are not provided in the distributed monitors so you will have to generate a new monitor (See RT-11 System Generation Guide). You can take all of the default answers except: "Do you want the single job monitor?" Answer N "Do you want device time-out support?" Answer Y "How many extra device slots do you want?" Answer 4 Once you are running the new monitor, copy all the files from the 3 RX50 floppy images (RX0808.IMG, RX0809.IMG and RX0810.IMG) to your system device: COPY/SYS DUx:*.* SY: The system is configured to use a DLV-11 (CSR 176500, vector 300, priority 5) for network access. Add the following lines to your OpenSIMH .ini file: SET CPU 11/23 SET DLI ENA LINES=1 SET DLO0 DATASET 8B ATTACH DLI LINE=0,SPEED=115200,CONNECT=<IP ADDR>:<PORT>;NOTELNET If you are attaching to PyDECDnet, the associated configuration line would be: circuit dl-0 DDCMP --mode tcp --local-port <PORT> where <IP ADDR> and <PORT> need to be set according to your network. The network configuration is in a file called "CETAB.MAC". We can use CFE (Configuration File Editor) to change the node name and address (in this case to node name RT11 at address 111): .R CFE File name <SY:CETAB.MAC>: CFE>LIST EXEC Executor permanent characteristics as of 00:00 Identification = ERC PDP-11/23 Name = ERC23, Address = 124 Host = 124, Maximum links = 4 CFE>DEFINE EXECUTOR NAME RT11 ADDRESS 111 HOST 111 IDENT "RT11 11/23" CFE>LIST EXEC Executor permanent characteristics as of 00:01 Identification = RT11 11/23 Name = RT11, Address = 111 Host = 111, Maximum links = 4 CFE>DEFINE NODE 112 NAME REMOTE CFE>EXIT The last DEFINE command defines nodes in your DECnet network so you can connect to them. To load DECnet: .ASSIGN SY NT .R NCP NCP>SET SYSTEM NCP>SET EXECUTOR STATE ON NCP>SHO EXEC Node volatile summary as of 00:00 Executor node = 111 (RT11) State = On, Identification = RT11 11/23 NCP>EXIT If you want to allow incoming connections run NJS (Network Job Spawner): .R NJS ?NJS-I-Network Job Spawner Active and then it will report each program activation. The following programs are available: NCP - Network Control Program NFT - Network File Transfer TLK - Interactive talk with another (remote) terminal RMT - Remote terminal (RSX) RVT - Remote terminal (VMS) CED - Dumps internal DECnet data structures (/AL dumps everything) The following servers are available: NML - Network Management Listener (use with NCP) FAL - File Access Listener (use with NFT) LOOPER - Loop testing (use with NCP LOOP NODE name)

2 days, 2 hours

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Digital or Pulse Electronics with Trigger tubes?

by Holm Tiffe

Hi guys, Since Friedhelm build his Nixie clock with tube electronics in 2005: https://www.jogis-roehrenbude.de/Leserbriefe/Bruegmann-Digital-Roehren-Cloc… I'm more or less trying to build a "tube" Nixie clock with neon lamps and/or trigger tubes/thyratrons instead of vacuum triodes. In 2005 I told Friedhelm that this is a nice clock..but build the wrong way. To tube times one build dividers using monoflops and ring counters with decatrons and so on..not with vacuum tube Flipflops. We've calculated the energy costs for this tube clock of approx. 400 Deutschmarks in 2005, don't really want todo this today..especially for the country with the dumbest and worst energy politics world wide.. green ideology politicans here has blown up the worlds best and safest nuclear power plants to dust... ... Since I've got approx 1000 of small chinese neon bulbs in the meantime, I've tried to build Ring counters out of the neon lamps..it works, but not that good, since the differnece between the Ignition voltage and the Extinguishing voltage is to small on this tubes, the counters are unreliable. A few years ago some russian trigger tubes TX4b got available, that are small pencil tubes with only 3,5mA Ia max. Those tubes have a bad reputation in rossia because they where put in to the vertical deflection circuit of some soviet made black and white TV sets and it was a bad design, the tubes where overloaded and don't lasted for very long. Another type, the MTX-90 was more often suggested and used. After some years the box with the TX4b fell into my hands and I'm searches again in the russian Internet for possible uses of the TX4b in Ring counters..the circuit design depends on the parameters of the tubes and isn't really that simple. I've searched for examples and finally found some morse transmitter device with "digital electronics" build out of the TX4b tubes.. russians wrote that this thing was unreliable :-) Nevertheless I found what I'm searching for, an schematic and a description in russian, english and french. ..so I have an working ring counter here next to me on a breadboard. :-) There is still an MPSA42 used as an pulse former in the clock circuit that I want to change agains a trigger tube. I need an Ide of an circuit that gets triggered on approx. 30-40V and outputs an rectangle pulse of lets say 60V and 10-30µs duration to properly trigger the ring counter, using possibly only one trigger tube. I think no one knows that for now..but I'm very grateful for links to older literature on this topic. approximately in 2000 I'm parted out old hp tube counters, the displays where "thermometer Displays using 10 pcs. of neon lamps, one for each number. The counters used 4 12at7 type "digital" tubes (don't remember the exact type for now) with biquinary output to the neon lamps. Later hp counter modules used the very same schematics and the neons and one hybrid photoresistor module in front of the neons as decoder to drive nixie tubes. I've tried it already in the past with the neon bulb ring counters.. a cheap photoresistor in a balc schrink tube that was put onto the neon lamp can switch a nixie..it works flawlessly. Tried this on the TX4b .. works too. :-) ..other schematics ad an additional trogger tube for each nixie cathode..the effort pretty much explodes... Hope someone can help with some hints or links. Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Goethestrasse 15, 09569 Oederan, USt-Id: DE253710583 info(a)tsht.de Tel +49 37292 709778 Mobil: 0172 8790 741

4 days, 6 hours

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[OT] Free dialup service

by me＠scifidan.com

An acquaintenance of mine, in the BBS world, has a zero-cost dialup service for anyone wishing to use it. Thought I'd spread the word. For dialup details, follow the link. I believe he said there are ninety nodes and may see five used at any given time. Ref: https://2600.network Enjoy, Daniel sysop | Air & Wave BBS finger | calcmandan(a)bbs.erb.pw

4 days, 22 hours

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Re: DECnet-RT

by Robert Armstrong

> Paul Koning <paulkoning(a)comcast.net> wrote: > On the other hand, the even more obscure DECnet/8 was found a couple > of years ago. Its main limitation .... Besides being Phase-I, DECnet/8 is not a "complete" implementation. The only application provided is a console to console talk program that can only talk to other PDP-8 nodes. There's no FAL, CTERM/RTERM, NFT, NCP, or any of the other things you might expect. I think DEC expected customers to write their own RTS/8 and DECnet-8 applications. Bob

1 week, 1 day

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Stolen QBus & Unibus boards

by Doc Shipley

I learned tonight that someone cleaned out my storage unit, and part of their haul was a couple of cartons of DEC boards. I haven't dug up the itemized list but in there were several QBus VAX memory boards, a graphics adapter, a microVAX III board set, a couple of RQDX boards, both QBus and Unibus serial boards, Unibus SDI board sets, a BA123 cabinet, tk70 controllers, a couple of Ethernet boards... And a Mentec/93. If anyone unfamiliar approaches you about selling a big stash of DEC, please get all the info you can and call the police. Thank you. Doc

1 week, 1 day

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Re: Operating system, on punch cards

by Van Snyder

On Mon, 2 Mar 2026, Fred Cisin wrote: > With a couple thousands I mean several thousands. And drawerS and cabinetS > because we got several cabinetS with drawerS with our machine. One drawer > contains three trays that hold about 2000 cards each. > Download our files and count the card yourself! Download from where?

1 week, 2 days

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Re: Operating system, on punch cards?

by Paul McJones

As a student at UC Berkeley (1967-1971), I had a part-time job at the Computer Center, which ran a CDC 6400 under SCOPE. We punched cards, transferred them to magnetic tape, and used UPDATE to maintain logical decks. I personally used this technology while working on CAL SNOBOL and CAL TSS. Once we got CAL TSS far enough along to support development (on a second CDC 6400), we switched to Teletypes (a mixture of Model 33’s and Model 35’s). I still have source code for CAL SNOBOL because of archivists at U. of Arizona and U. of Texas, but most of the source code for CAL TSS was lost (listings survive). Paul McJones https://www.mcjones.org/CAL_SNOBOL/ https://caltss.computerhistory.org/

1 week, 2 days

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