- cctalk - classiccmp.org

by Steve Lewis

I have a pair of IBM 8" disk drives - they are from an 1980 IBM 5120 I simply won't have the time to give them the attention they deserve for many years. They seem mechanically ok (they spin) but I don't know much more about them, or how "universal" they might be as 8" floppy disk drives. I think I do have to cut them from the transformer they are connected to (couple thick red wires), but otherwise they have all the original power harness stuff as well. Thinking just cost of shipping plus rounded to nearest $10 or $100. They are about 20lbs (together, and I would like to keep them together - there is a pin/clip that is used to latch them together, but I do think they can be separated fairly easily). Message me if any interest. If you do need/want them for another 5120 project, I can probably include some adapter cards. -Steve

2 years

2
2
0 0

ICL / Digico

by Christian Corti

So, I was trying to contact "Pete" at vintage-icl-computers.com several times during the last years. Obiously, the site and/or the person is dead, no reaction whatever. I'm hoping that someone on this list might be able to help me: I still have a Digico Micro 16V computer that, one day, I'd like to restore. On the ICL site above I can see that they have (had?) the service manual/schematics for the system, and I would really love to get a scan (or at least high resolution photos) of these. Does anyone here maybe have them or can provide me with some pointers? Oh BTW, software (e.g. papertape images) would be great, too :-) Christian

2 years

5
6
0 0

IMSAI SIO 8080 Comm Program?

by Bill Degnan

I am looking for a basic or commercial IMSAI SIO 8080 Comm Program that uses SIO serial connector 2 for modem communications. Something I can start from a ROM monitor running from the console running through serial connector 1. My system is using the original 8080, I want to avoid the cp/m z80 route. Bill

2 years

2
1
0 0

xerox viewboard

by r.stricklin

Looking for information on how to set the jumpers/dip switches on the Xerox ViewBoard (AWPI Bounty) and ViewBoard II. Apparently there’s one or more hardware installation manuals for these boards, which were also sold as part of the “Network Services for PC” product, so the hardware installation manual for that would presumably also contain this information. Bitsavers has the Network Services for PC software installation manual, which mentions the separate hardware manual(s), but I haven’t yet been able to locate any copies of anything that describes the jumpers/switches. ok bear.

2 years

4
4
0 0

Can't access

by Murray McCullough

Dear sir; I can't access your site. Not sure why! It mat be due to the email address I employ. Many thanks, Murray 🙂

2 years

3
2
0 0

Re: Death of Mitnick

by John Foust

At 02:05 AM 7/20/2023, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote: >On Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 8:35 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> >wrote: >> Too bad, but on the other hand, John Draper turned 80 this year. >> Probably a better role model. >> >> --Chuck > >Oh, god, no. Chuck's only saying that because he wasn't invited to "work out." - John

2 years

7
11
0 0

Death of Mitnick

by Murray McCullough

Maybe this note is off topic but I don't think so: The death of Kevin Mitnick. His book "Ghost in the Wire" is a classic. Too bad he was a criminal! Murray 🙂

2 years

12
11
0 0

VT100: Datasheet for Intel 8228

by Rob Jarratt

Hello, I have a non-functioning VT100. I think I may have isolated the problem to an Intel 8228 chip (or 88228, the schematic says 8228, the part is marked 88228C). Certainly, the part gets a bit hot and it doesn't seem to be outputting anything on the I/O W pin (pin 27) despite activity on STSTB (pin 1), DBIN (pin 4) and WR (Pin 3). There is no activity on the HLDA input though, but I am not sure if that is required because I think the firmware is just trying to send its status to the keyboard LEDs. I can find a brief datasheet for the 8228 but it doesn't tell me the logic for producing the I/O W signal, so I am not sure if it is behaving as it should. Does anyone have more comprehensive information on how the 8228 is supposed to work? I have dumped the ROMs and been able to capture the ROM reads and they match the disassembled code, so I think the 8080 CPU itself is working. Thanks Rob

2 years

3
6
0 0

VCF and System Source Computer Museum swap meet this weekend

by Mark G Thomas

Hi, I am curious if anyone here might be planning on attending. https://museum.syssrc.com/artifact/events/3000/ The Vintage Computer Federation and the System Source Computer Museum are hosting a vintage computer repair workshop on Saturday July 22nd and Sunday July 23rd 2023 ... Mark -- Mark G. Thomas <Mark(a)Misty.com>, KC3DRE

2 years

11
13
0 0

OLD ftp.compaq.com Mirror?

by Ali

Hello All, I am wondering if anyone has a private or knows of a mirror for ftp.compaq.com that is older than 2014? All the ones I have found online, including the file at archive.org, are from 2014. By then a number of files and directories had been purged e.g. "/pub/supportinformation/techpubs" and "softlib1". I am looking for some old documentation and firmware for Compaq switches and Tape Libraries but if anyone has a full set of files I am happy to add them to a mirror. TIA! -Ali

2 years

5
10
0 0

Restoring Ultrix-32m 1.2 Floppies

by Henry Bent

Hi all, I just noticed that images of a full RX50 floppy set for Ultrix-32m 1.2 was posted on Bitsavers ( http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/DEC/vax/ultrix/1.2/ULTRIX-32M_V1.2_… ). I am having difficulty parsing these images into a usable raw format for SIMH. As a reference, TUHS has a set of 1.0 floppies ( https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-32M/ ) that are usable for installation purposes. (You can ignore the 1.2 floppies in that archive, they aren't actually a full set). The first disk of that installer, 32m-1.0-bin/01, has a bootloader that starts at byte zero as we would expect. This should be approximately equivalent to disk 1 in the Bitsavers set. Oddly though, in the "raw" dump the bootloader doesn't start until 0x1400, and a number of the other disks I looked at appear to have odd holes/zeroes in them. IMD format dumps of the 1.2 disks are provided but when I converted the IMD format to a raw image I got the same issue. I'm almost thoroughly unfamiliar with IMD - is there some obvious extraction/conversion option that I am missing here? Were these disks actually imaged correctly? I would appreciate any suggestions. -Henry

2 years

7
18
0 0

How to archive floppies

by Warner Losh

OK. I have about 500 DEC Ranibow floppy images that I've ripped over the years. I also have a number of .td0 images as well as other oddballs. Other than Lotus 123 needing to have funky sectors on one of its bigger tracks for copy protection, I think having the raw images suffice. I have some disks that I have multiple copies of (MS-DOS, CP/M, Winchester Utilities, DEC Rainbow diagnostics etc).I have a few copies of some software packages. I have a few disks that are clearly personal. And some of the variations of MS-DOS have different patches applied by various install programs (or debug scripts published in different trade rags of the time). And at least one has a special driver installed that overwrites the DEC Winchester for things like Univation). So, what I'd like to do is to is somehow organize all this. I wrote some software to extract files from the filesystem.So I'd like to have a separate copy of the expanded files. Lots of moving parts for 40-year-old floppies. I'm struggling with how to organize all this, how to keep track of this, and how to allow others to contribute their disk images and allow things to be studied and run. I'd like to keep the raw images (to mine them for drivers like the univation one I discovered). I'd like to keep the busted apart files to access them more easily, etc. Is there some book, website, paper, etc that I can use to to help me organize all this so I can share it with others? Is this even the right place to ask? There's got to be several people that have solved this issue before.... Warner

2 years

3
2
0 0

10 types of people

by Paul Koning

Seen on the GCC bugzilla: "actually, there are 10 types of people: those who understand ternary, those who dont, and those who thought this was going to be a binary joke" :-) paul

2 years

3
2
0 0

Don Lancaster has passed away at 83

by Sellam Abraham

Don Lancaster passed away on June 7. https://gilaherald.com/obituary-for-don-lancaster/ I hope his website is well preserved: https://tinaja.com/ Sellam

2 years

10
10
0 0

Shot In the Dark: Compaq System Manager Facility

by Ali

Really long shot, and I have asked here before without much luck, but anyone have a copy of the Compaq System Manager Facility 1.10 or 1.11 (or any version for that matter). This would have been released in 1994/95 time frame and is necessary for the use of the Compaq Server Manager/R EISA board. This is a very early EISA RILO board for the System Pro and Proliant line of servers. Please note this is not the same as the System Management Agents nor the Insight Manager. TIA! -Ali

2 years

2
2
0 0

WTB XVR-4000

by silcreval

Hi everyone, I recently dug out my V880 and all seems to be working brilliantly. I've always liked these machines and it would be nice to upgrade this to the V880z spec, ie by adding the mighty XVR-4000 graphics module. I know the XVR-4000 is a bit of a mixed bag, but would be fun to play around with this and also who can not be impressed with the shear size of the module. Must be one of the biggest Sun graphics 'cards'? Does anyone have one of these boards they would be willing to part with. Happy to pay a reasonable amount as I know these are not easy to find. PM me if you have anything. Ian.

2 years

2
1
0 0

IBM 1410 FPGA Status

by Jay Jaeger

Over the past couple of months I have been working on my FPGA implementation of the IBM 1410 1960's era pre System/360 system again. I am pleased to share that the CPU now passes a significant diagnostic, CU01, which tests almost all of the instructions, and also tests I/O with overlap and the priority feature (interrupts). Also, it runs at generally the same speed as the original machine (comparing the IBM estimates for 1000 passes), using the same logic as the original machine (though no doubt optimized by the process of taking in VHDL logic statements and turning combinatorial logic into lookup tables (LUTs), and some additions of "D" flip flops to avoid race conditions in latches and logic loops.) (The speed is the same because its "oscillator" - crystal controlled in the original - is now a clock divider/counter off of the FPGA chip clock.) For more details, see https://www.computercollection.net/index.php/ibm-1410-fpga-implementation/ Mostly the ALD (Automated Logic Diagram) data capture seems to have been very accurate. I really only had to do four things this year to get it to this point: - Make the necessary logic gate deletions / changes for configuration option S40/$40 - 40K of core - Add the ability to transfer a core image from the PC support program to the FPGA. - Fix some issues in the Assembly Channel because while almost all of the ALDs are for a 1410 with the Accelerator feature, several pages of the very important Assembly channel were for the base 1410 model. - Deal with a race condition during overlapped I/O These are generally discussed in individual blog posts off the above link. I really was quite happily surprised that when capturing the data on over two hundred ALDs with over 10,000 logic gates, over 4,200 individual unique signals, more than 12,000 signal names on individual ALDs, and more than 32,000 interconnections that there were not a lot more problems than these. (I may run into some as yet undiscovered errors involving the channels as I add I/O devices, though). I suppose that there were not more problems because for most of the individual sheets and in many cases groups of sheets I wrote VHDL test benches using the Intermediate Logic Diagrams (ILDs) as a guide, and of course took considerable care during the data entry process from the ALDs, checking connection counts on each logic block, for example. The last post ("Off to the Races") on the aforementioned web page also discusses the next expected steps: some more work on the PC/Console support program, more diagnostic tests, other support program enhancements, and figuring out how to go about I/O, especially since I don't have ALDs for the 1414 I/O Synchronizers. But I no longer have any doubts about the viability of this process, so long as the FPGA logic clock is somewhere around 10x the logic clock of the simulated machine. (I expect to try and "push it" by speeding up the 1410 logic clock to see at what ratio of the FPGA clock to the CPU clock things break down, as well). JRJ

2 years

4
6
0 0

Talking PDP11

by Douglas Taylor

I have a PDP-11/53 and have just started playing with an AAV11-C D/A board. It is a 4 channel D/A convertor with 12 bit resolution. Can it be used to play an audio bit stream? Here is simple code used to see if the thing was actually working: .title AAV11 D/A test ; .asect dbr0 = 170440 .=1000 start: mov #7777,r0 4096 value to R0 mov #dbr0,r1 first D/A buffer out loop: mov r0,(r1) transfer value in r0 to D/A out dec r0 subtract 1 from D/A value bne loop br start loop back to start I was surprised to see that it took ~34 ms to run through all the numbers from 0-7777, that is about 34 Hz. The manual says the 'settling time' is 6 microseconds. Is this fast enough for audio? How would you convert a modern audio file into 12 bit integers? Doug

2 years

14
30
0 0

A from-scratch PDP 11 OS - ruos

by Alan Kirby

A friend suggested that some in this group may have an interest in this. ruos stands for Retro Useless Operating System ruos is an OS for the long-obsolete PDP11/70 from Digital Equipment Corporation. ruos runs on the simh simulator for that machine. It was written completely from scratch in C and assembler. On a modern machine, the kernel and user code builds in a few seconds. Overview: It can run something less than 64 processes simultaneously with one user on the console and others on other serial ports. Equal priority CPU-bound tasks share the CPU. The user program API includes a number of stdio-like C functions ruos was built using the gcc toolchain for the PDP11 (Thanks for those toolchain bug fixes Paul Koning!) Each user process is given exactly 64kB for code, data, heap, and stack and is (mostly) isolated from other processes Users access the OS using a very simple unix-like shell for command execution with pipes allowed It does not have its own file system but uses a proxy for file IO. The proxy code (Python 3) is included. Communication between the OS and the proxy is via UDP/IPv4/Ethernet. Familiar user binaries include: cat, ps, echo, grep. Device status is provided by ds If a user tries to run a program that is not native to ruos, an attempt is made to run it on the proxy. Using this mechanism, users can edit files or build new programs (assuming the gcc toolchain is installed on the proxy and the proxy is on the same machine as simh). It is accessible here: https://ajco...@bitbucket.org/ajcorbeil/ruos.git <https://ajcorbeil@bitbucket.org/ajcorbeil/ruos.git> Regards, Alan Kirby

2 years

1
0
0 0

BEWARE: Phishing

by Chuck Guzis

Just got the following message in the account that I use to receive cctalk email: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello cclist, The passwогd to your mailbox (cclist(a)sydex.com) expires in 24 hrs time. Following this prompt, your webmail will log you out and generate a new passwогd. Alternatively, you can retain and continue using your cuггent passwогd, by using the user secured button below; Keep Cuггent Passwогd (link goes to cloudflare-ipfs.com) This email is generated by sydex.com's mail server for cclist(a)sydex.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FYI Chuck

2 years

13
21
0 0

Problems with getting your newslatter

by Murray McCullough

Hello sir, I used to get your newsletter but no longer...I understand there are problems... I would be most interested in getting your newsletter again. Many thanks, Murray 🙂

2 years

1
0
0 0

OT: Ham Radio

by Bill Gunshannon

I know this is off topic, but I think there are a number of hams here. Looking to get back into it but have some questions. Now that the a**holes have completely trashed all the USENET ham radio groups where do hams go for the kinds of discussions that used to be there? bill

2 years

9
8
0 0

FOSBIC Compiler

by Veit, Holger

Hi all, maybe someone here is interested in the FOSBIC (FORTRAN Simulated BASIC Interpretive Compiler) system. Background: This was developed, oder rather ported from UWBIC (University of Washington, Prog. W.H. Sharpe) in the mid 70s, by Prof Weber et al. at the German University of Gießen, for the purpose of teaching BASIC on their CDC3300 batch system. It is written in FORTRAN IV, and knows most of Dartmouth BASIC, including MAT statements and basic sequential/ISAM file handling. I have ported that, with the help to GNU gfortran, to modern Windows (mingw/cygwin) and Linux, so anyone may play with it. It is still a batch system, i.e. on has to provide the BASIC program as a file (formerly it had to be a card deck), and feed it into the program through stdin, as in "./fosbic < hello.bas | ./asa" The code with many examples is available at https://github.com/hveit01/FOSBIC, and has also found its way to bitsavers.org/pdf/uni-giessen. -- Regards Holger

2 years

3
3
0 0

1974 No Name Terminal

by brad＠techtimetraveller.com

Hi there - not sure how much overlap there is with vcfed's forum, but thought I would reach out here in case. I have a terminal from 1974 (based on date codes I've found on the motherboard). I'm unable to determine manufacturer and that would be handy for diagnostic purposes. The terminal casing is made out of foam, and although there are some serial numbers stamped around, nothing really lines up. The fans inside have zero dust or dirt, so I'm thinking this may not have seen much use, or may be a prototype or pilot for something. It does have RS232 capability. Interestingly the screen is set down below the keyboard so that only half of it is visible. My main issue right now is the PSU - I am trying to determine if I'm safe to attempt powering up the board (the PSU so far seems to be ok, although some voltages on a couple of pins are mysterious). Anyway, on the extremely off chance anyone has ever seen one of these or something like it.. any tips would be appreciated. If I can find a manual I'll feel a lot safer about turning it on. Some pics here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-2uEFbi3OKBYr06y6yHnygDiLMtw2Qkj?usp =sharing Brad brad(a)techtimetraveller.com

2 years

8
12
0 0

VCF Southwest 2023 some highlights

by Steve Lewis

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

2 years

8
10
0 0

Is the list broken again?

by Bill Gunshannon

I doubt this will go thru either but other attempts to send to the list are now getting rejected as SPAM. Doesn't the list check addresses to see if the poster is a member? bill

2 years

6
5
0 0

Re: DEC VT180 "Robin" Maintenance Prints?

by Robert Armstrong

>Rob Jarratt <robert.jarratt(a)ntlworld.com> wrote: >Have you checked here: http://9track.net/roms/ ... Hey, thank you! I didn't know about this particular collection, and he does have the ROM dumps for the VT180 Z80 board. I'd still like to find a schematic, though! Thanks again, Bob

2 years

1
0
0 0

DEC VT180 "Robin" Maintenance Prints?

by Robert Armstrong

Does anybody have the maintenance prints for the DEC VT180? The VT180, aka "Robin" was DEC's CP/M machine in a VT100 chassis. The terminal part is just a standard VT100 and maintenance prints for that are easy to find, but I need a schematic for the actual Z80 CP/M Robin option card. Can't seem to find that anywhere. Bitsavers and Manx have the technical manual which has some information (although it wastes way too many pages explaining how a VT100 works!) but no actual schematics. On the same topic, has anybody dumped the ROMs for this machine? Again, not the VT100 ROMs, but the CP/M boot/POST ROMs that are on the VT180 Z80 card. Thanks, Bob

2 years

1
0
0 0

KIM-1 debug board RAM test: *zero* flashes

by Cameron Kaiser

I assembled Dwight Elvey's KIM-1 debug board (thank you, Gary!) and have now certified two of my KIMs with it, so I'm very confident the harness operates properly. Unfortunately, the one I *want* to repair, my original KIM-1, won't start up at all after replacing the 2102 RAM I was pretty sure was bad. I checked my soldering and found a couple spots without continuity that should according to the schematic, but fixing those didn't fix it. I also buzzed out the socket and found no obvious shorts, and a second 2102 equivalent from a second manufacturer has the same symptoms. I connected the debug harness and test 0, the initial "dead board" test, does show CPU accesses on the red LED and slowly flashes the green LED, so the CPU at least is alive and can access the test EPROM. However, test 1, the RAM test, should show long flashes of the green LED if RAM is bad. I was prepared to see all long flashes which might implicate the buffers or address decoder, but instead it won't blink the LED at all in that or any of the other tests. The red LED remains lit and appropriately extinguishes when the RS button is down. Again, the board works correctly and fully certifies the other two KIMs. What would cause it to hang (?) in the RAM test on the defective one? -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser(a)floodgap.com -- Roger Waters to moving crew: "Hey! Careful with those racks, Eugene!" ------

2 years

1
1
0 0

Irix 5.3 ntpdate

by Jonathan Katz

Hi everyone! I'm having a horrible time trying to find ntpdate pre-compiled for Irix 5.3 anywhere. Does anyone have a package/tardist? -- -Jon +44 7792 149029

2 years, 1 month

2
1
0 0

IBM 5120/5110-3 casual notes / 8" disks question

by Steve Lewis

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.

2 years, 1 month

3
5
0 0

Found the DSM orange manual

by Chris Zach

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

2 years, 1 month

6
10
0 0

Any RSX-11 fans able to identify file types?

by Chuck Guzis

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

2 years, 1 month

17
46
0 0

Oh Q-Bus, you can be a fickle mistress at times....

by Chris Zach

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

2 years, 1 month

1
0
0 0

IMSAI BASIC PROM set?

by Bill Degnan

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

2 years, 1 month

5
12
0 0

PCs Limited XT

by Bill Degnan

I am getting an error message when I boot up a recently donated PCs Limited XT clone. The error is ARC Turbo Board X Turbo System Error # 04 Does anyone have one of these boards, I believe the error means the board has been removed, and the system can't find it/bad board. If so, please advise the $$. I don't think the board is specific to PCs Limted, I found a general manual called "Turbo-XT Main Board" that seems to be the OEM of the PCs Limited-branded motherboard. I assume there is a separate daughterboard the the "Turbo" part. Yes? Thanks Bill

2 years, 1 month

8
18
0 0

Did Bill Gates Really Say That?

by Ali

So I had always heard the quote "640KB is enough memory" being attributed to Bill Gates. However, recently I was watching Dave Plummer on YT and he said that it is not true: https://youtu.be/bikbJPI-7Kg?t=372 And apparently the man himself has denied it as well but it just will not go away... https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/PCWorld/story?id=5214635 So I guess like the napkin/disk story and the DR/IBM story this is another one of those vintage myths and folk lore with no real basis in reality.... -Ali

2 years, 1 month

19
24
0 0

Rainbow H7842 PSU Fault

by Rob Jarratt

As some of you may be aware I am trying to find a fault in a Rainbow H7842 PSU. I am using Tony Duell's schematic from here http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/rainbow/duell_schematics/psu.pdf. I have been testing the Control Module by using a bench PSU to supply 15VDC to the input of the 7812 regulator (p2, PSU Sheet 1). My diagnosis shows that the control module is shutting down the PWM (p6, Control Module Sheet 2) because it is detecting an overcurrent in the -12V side (E3d on Control Module sheet 1, although I have determined that it is actually E3c). This seems to be because I measure a steady 0.6V on pin 6 of the transformer (p4, PSU Sheet 3). I just can't imagine where it might be coming from as the chopper won't be running. I had previously removed the transformer and there are no shorts between the pin 5-pin 6 winding and any of the other pins on the transformer. I checked all the DC outputs of the PSU when powering the 7812 from the bench, both on a working PSU and the non-working one. They are all at zero except the -12V output on the non-working PSU, which is +0.6V. But the voltage can't come out of nowhere. I am stumped and would appreciate any suggestions. Thanks Rob

2 years, 1 month

11
55
0 0

HP2100A available

by William Donzelli

This is on Discord. I have an HP 2100A with a paper tape punch (a HP labelled Facit), tape punch (HP), and an 7900A disc. The thing is in decent shape - full of cards. The keyswitch is out of the thing, but I am pretty sure I still have it. Right now, I have me hands on the 2100A and Facit paper tape punch (with bracket) - can I get $1000 for this combo? When I get my hands on the reader and 7900A ( I think they are just buried!), we can deal with them later, as I do not like to sell what my hands are not on. Located around Kingston NY. Oh, I have a 5 foot rack for this thing, still back at the old house. -- Will

2 years, 1 month

1
1
0 0

Re: Found the DSM orange manual

by Fred Cisin

>> DSM-IV is "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual" for mental disorders, >> and is On Wed, 28 Jun 2023, Ali wrote: > Fred, > You are showing your age ;). The DSM-V has been out for a while now and the > first revision (DSM V-TR TR=Text Revision, gotta love the Psych guys...) is > coming out (is out?) soon My age is getting quite difficult to hide. The "new" (now 10? years old) edition (DSM-V) is not without controversy, such as grief/depression; there are actually some who still prefer to use the DSM-IV. When we put the DSM-V on the shelf in Reference, we had some patrons asking us to bring back the DSM-IV. But yes, my joke should probably have been worded DSM-V

2 years, 1 month

1
0
0 0

Need AUI cable

by Chris Zach

Anyone in MD got an AUI cable (few feet long) I can steal so I don't have to remove the bolts from the Pro/380's Ethernet socket or the pins on my 10bt ethernet MAU? Friendly note: If you try to boot a Pro/380 running POS 3.2 with Decnet installed and don't have the loopback plug the system will crash hard with a numeric error on the display. Noted. CZ

2 years, 1 month

12
28
0 0

Need AUI cable

by Chris Zach

Anyone in MD got an AUI cable (few feet long) I can steal so I don't have to remove the bolts from the Pro/380's Ethernet socket or the pins on my 10bt ethernet MAU? Friendly note: If you try to boot a Pro/380 running POS 3.2 with Decnet installed and don't have the loopback plug the system will crash hard with a numeric error on the display. Noted. CZ

2 years, 1 month

3
2
0 0

IBM/RT help

by Jonathan Katz

Hey folks, Now that I'm done moving house I have time to wrench on the 6150. Before moving it worked; you'd power it on, the LCD status countdown would get to an OK value, but the CRT wasn't legible. I figured I'd be wrenching on the CRT. Instead, now when I power it on, it powers on for a second or two and then shuts off. I'm assuming this indicates a short or power-draw somewhere. I've reseated the CPU and RAM cards, the peripherals, and unplugged the hard drives (2x ESDI) and floppy in case they had a fault that was drawing too many amps and causing the power supply to shut-down. I noticed nothing on the CPU or RAM boards (exploded caps, etc.) What should I look at next? -- -Jon +44 7792 149029

2 years, 1 month

3
2
0 0

H7819-AA / VAXstation 4000/90 and 4000/96

by Jan-Benedict Glaw

Hi! As I'm preparing to setup my old hardware, I fetched two VAXstations (4000/90 and /96) from storage and cleaned one of them throughoutly. Then I gave power (to both of them), but both won't really start: all 8 diag LEDs are on (--> power available but CPU didn't start executing instructions.) I took the PSU (from the cleaned /90), a DEC H7819-AA, and measured it. Unfortunately I didn't find pinouts or schematics at a first search. The plate states that there should be 3.3V, 5V, 12V, -12V and -9V. I found most of that: +------------------------------------------------------------------+ | o | | DEC H7819-AA PSU 10 +---+ 1 | | (view at the bottom side) | | | | | | | | | | | | 18 +---+ 9 | | o | | +-------+ +-------+ | | | Fan | | Fan | | +----------------+-------+----+-------+----------------------------+ With above pin numbering, this is what I could find / measure / deduce: 3V3 brown 10 1 blue 12V 3V3 brown 11 2 black GND GND black 12 3 red 5V GND black 13 4 red 5V GND black 14 5 black GND 5V red 15 6 black GND 5V red 16 7 white -12V 5V red 17 8 blue (0.78V) (4.91V) lilac 18 9 brown (-1.65V) Most values look plausible, except those three in parentheses. At least one of them should probably be -9V wrt. GND I guess, but that's totally absent. And what's the other two? (If I got the colors wrong: Please forgive, I'm red-green blind.) That could be some "power-okay" indicator, or external switch-off? Maybe anybody has faced these issues and can point me to some docs or "well known to be failing" capacitors? I'd be quite grateful for any hints! :) ...and hope that maybe the above drawing/measurements will be helpful for anybody else later on. Thanks, Jan-Benedict --

2 years, 1 month

2
3
0 0

Floppy recovery

by Warner Losh

OK. I have just read in a bunch of Rainbow disks. Most of them read fine on the first, second or third try. Some have a sector or three amiss (I've not yet checked to see if those sectors are mapped to the filesystem or not). Some appear to be 'unformatted' though sometimes they read with errors. These disks have what appears to be some kind of grime/mold/??? on their surface. Is there a good way to read these diskettes? To clean the grime off and allow the floppy to spin (they all are super loud)... At the rate things are going, there will be 5-10 of these... Warner

2 years, 1 month

4
4
0 0

Looking for Tape Control Software TFORMAT for Irwin 110/125 Floppy Tape Drives

by Lothar Schröder

Hello, I have a number of DC1000 tape cartridges, with and without relevant data on them. I have 2 questions: 1. Has anybody the IRWIN TFORMAT software? 2. I want to make images from the cartridges. Has anybody done this? We tried with Linux Mint, but the drive is unknown. Thanks in advance Lothar

2 years, 1 month

5
9
0 0

Dwight Elvey's KIM diagnostics board

by Cameron Kaiser

Does anyone have one of Dwight Elvey's KIM-1 diagnostics boards out there who would be willing to let me borrow it (I'm in southern California)? I would be happy to pay shipping and a rental cost, provide a deposit, etc. Please contact me off list if you're willing and the arrangements you'd prefer. Yes, I'm aware schematics exist, but I was hoping not to place my ability to fix this unit entirely upon my ability to assemble a board if a working one is already out there. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser(a)floodgap.com -- I went to San Francisco. I found someone's heart. Now what? ----------------

2 years, 1 month

1
0
0 0

Bob Applegate passed away

by Jeffrey Brace

Just letting everyone know that Bob Applegate passed away a few days ago. He had been battling cancer for some time. He was involved with vintage computing for some time. Here is his website: http://www.corshamtech.com/ This is the website for his memorial: https://everloved.com/life-of/robert-applegate/ Take care, Jeff Brace VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President Vintage Computer Festival East Showrunner VCF Mid-Atlantic Event Manager Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity https://vcfed.org/ <http://www.vcfed.org/> jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

2 years, 1 month

4
3
0 0

Linotype and other printing machines available

by Bill Degnan

Contact me off list if interested: Https://www.vintagecomputer.net/temp <Https://www.vintagecomputer.net/temp/linotype/>/KAP/ Items located in Kennett Square, PA USA. Bill Https://www.vintagecomputer.net/contact.cfm

2 years, 1 month

3
3
0 0

Re: Did Bill Gates Really Say That?

by John Ball

Along the same lines as the 640K quote, I vaguely remember reading a book that quoted Bill Gates when asked about developing any software for NeXTSTEP (Probably porting Microsoft Office to compete against Lotus Improv and Word Perfect) where his reply was "Develop for it? I'll piss on it!" It's been 20 years since I saw that book and I have never been able to confirm that was something he was quoted as saying, but it would then explain why Microsoft entirely ignored NeXTSTEP (or they were just too busy working on Windows and other unix ports). -John

2 years, 1 month

1
0
0 0

CPT Phoenix Jr system unit? Monitor and Keyboard

by Rich

Hello Chris, I saw this old post while searching for stuff related to the CPT Phoenix word processors. I was an engineer at CPT Corp. from 1978 thru 1989 and helped design the CPT 8100, 8500, 9000, and Phoenix systems. The original monitor that I have has burned-out and I am searching for a replacement. You seem to have found/acquired the exact monitor that I have been looking for! Would you care to sell the monitor, and keyboard too, to me? I would be most appreciative. It would certainly find welcome home, back with one of its original designers. Best regards, Rich Jones Metasoft, Inc.

2 years, 1 month

2
2
0 0

How much memory?

by Adam Thornton

> 640K was maybe "enough for anyone" > > Weird but I even seem to remember someone saying "who woukd been more than > 64k" > Ed# SMECC > > > And let's not forget "what's the hardest part about emulating Gerald Ford on a PDP-8? Figuring out what to do with the other 3K."

2 years, 1 month

12
21
0 0

Looking for Itanium systems

by vivianne＠chinstrap.org

Hi all, I'm looking for various Itanium systems: IBM eServer xSeries 380 IBM IntelliStation Z Pro Type 6894 Fujitsu Celsius 880 Silicon Graphics 750 HP i2000 HP Integrity rx4610 Dell Precision Workstation 730 Dell PowerEdge 7150 If you have a system you want off your hands, I'll pay! Thanks, Vivianne

2 years, 1 month

1
0
0 0

Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

by Robert Feldman

>Message: 21 >Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2023 04:35:28 +0100 >From: Tony Duell <ard.p850ug1(a)gmail.com> >Subject: [cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks. > >On Sun, Jun 4, 2023 at 10:57 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk ><cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote: >> >> On Sun, 4 Jun 2023, Rick Bensene via cctalk wrote: <> > an example of early "mobile computing". (Tongue firmly in cheek). >> >> The original Osborne 1 had a 12V power input! > >Actually it's +12.6V and +5.6V and you have to supply both voltages. >It's one diode drop to the +5V (logic supply) and +12V (DRAM, disk >motors, monitor supply), the -5V for the DRAM is produced on the logic >board. > >I am told it was never used and that the Osborne battery pack came >with an inverter to provide 110V AC. > >-tony It (the Osborne Powr-Pac (tm) ) has a what the manual says is a DC-DC inverter that plugged into a Gould lead-acid battery (or the cigarette-lighter socket in a car) at one end and the AC input of the Osborne 1 at the other. I have read on this list that Lee denies that OCC ever sold them, but I have one that I bought for $50 at Compumat in Chicago on October 10, 1983 -- I still have the unit, receipt, and User Registration card. It came with a glossy-printed grey-and-blue manual, like other contemporary OCC products. If anyone wants a copy, I can email you a PDF scan of the user manual. Bob

2 years, 1 month

5
6
0 0

Source for NEW (unused) punch tape

by robotguy＠gmail.com

For various reasons (including, but not limited to, insanity and obsessiveness*) I am building a diode laser based tape punch. It's not specifically for a classic comp, but I'd like to stick with standard format so that it'd be useful for making custom tapes for members in the future. I will probably need to make dozens of tapes so using actual, vintage rolls is out of the question. Does anyone know if 1" tape is used for anything else and where I might find some new? Otherwise I may have to add paper-slitter to my project list and make my own. *I've had the idea of a lost-media ARG stuck in my head for years.

2 years, 1 month

14
26
0 0

Looking for information on Data General 602X magtape drive

by Bjoren Davis

Hello CCtalk, I recently bought the mortal remains of a Data General 602X magtape drive on craigslist. Apparently it had been stored outside. When I got it it had mudwasp nests and mud all over it and everything that could rust had. When it was decomissioned it was just cut out, so it's missing its chassis, hinges, controller board, power supplies, vacuum blower, vacuum pressure limit switches, etc. The cables to the heads are just cut (no connectors). But boy does it look cool, and it *does* have all three of its transport motors and its console PCB. There's very little identifying information on the drive. The front of the drive has a label "9 TRACK 800 BPI". The console PCB says "COPYRIGHT © 1973 BY DATA GENERAL CORP" "CONTROL BOARD FOR 75 I.P.S. DRIVE DGC NOVA 107-000275-17 /16" and has a sticker on the back "DRAWING NO. REV. 005-005-525-02 005-001-743-11". The date codes on the few chips I can read place it from 1976. I think all of this adds up to this being a model 6021 or 6023. I've been slowly disassembling, cleaning, and repairing it. The DG documentation at bitsavers is really good, but, sadly, the schematics are not available there. Does anyone have such schematics? I'm especially interested in the analog portion that connects to the heads, the connection to the BOT/EOT sensor, and a schematic for the console board I actually do have. My goal is to replace all of the missing controller parts with some SOC boards (e.g., a Teensy 4.1), ultimately to be able to use this drive to read and write tapes. I'd love to reuse the console board as it is. I've already replaced the vacuum blower with a $30 Bosch vacuum cleaner I also bought on craigslist. Thanks. --Bjoren

2 years, 1 month

4
3
0 0

IBM RT Graphics

by Jonathan Katz

Hello! I have an IBM 6152 aka IBM RT system I rescued. (It may be a 6151?) I'm 90% sure it has colour graphics. The system does seem to POST correctly (according to the LED on the front) but the CRT is dead. I'm wondering if anyone has built an adapter to hook this to a VGA monitor. I'm a bit confused by the pinout. It has high and low bits for the RGB (and associated grounds for each colour.) So I'm not sure how that would work hooking to a more modern monitor. http://bio.gsi.de/DOCS/IBM/615x/faqshard.html Otherwise I need a crash course in fixing CRTs. -- -Jon +44 7792 149029

2 years, 1 month

10
11
0 0

First non-IBM PC-DOS Compatible PC

by Tom Gardner

Hi: Doing some research for historical purposed – no litigation at all – trying to identify the first “legal” PC-DOS compatible PC, “legal” in the sense that it’s BIOS was not a copy of an IBM BIOS. Eagle gets the honor of being first MS-DOS compatible and getting sued for copying IBM’s BIOS 😊 The Compaq Portable which shipped in November 1982 is generally credited with the first legal MS-DOS compatible PC. AFAIK it could not run PC-DOS and those applications which depended upon certain IBM BIOS commands would fail. The first “legal” BIOS is generally considered to be from Phoenix which was announced in May 1984 and so far I have been unable to determine its first system deployments. FWIW Wikipedia points to HP, Tandy and AT&T as some time adopters of a Phoenix BIOS but my research so far is that Tandy’s T1000 family announced in October and November of 1984 was the first system to be PC-DOS compatible and it did not use a Phoenix BIOS! Such PC-DOS compatible HP and AT&T systems were much later and the Tandy BIOS was written by programmers of Tandon Corporation, the OEM supplier of the first Tandy T1000s. Can anyone identify a PC-DOS compatible PC announced earlier than October 1984? Citations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Tom

2 years, 1 month

17
55
0 0

Fwd: [TUHS] Pixel 100/AP UNIX Computer

by David Barto

> Begin forwarded message: > > From: segaloco via TUHS <tuhs(a)tuhs.org> > Subject: [TUHS] Pixel 100/AP UNIX Computer > Date: June 7, 2023 at 12:17:14 AM PDT > To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs(a)tuhs.org> > > After talking with the folks I bought the recent documents from, they let me know they are also selling a piece of hardware: https://www.ebay.com/itm/125714380860 > > After the link is an auction for an Instrumentation Laboratory Pixel 100/AP. A small booklet included with the many documents I received indicates as of 1982 the Pixel 100/AP ran a System III derivative. The booklet goes on to present a summary of user commands and options. Despite the System III basis, included among these are the C shell and ex/vi. > > I have no room for hardware or honestly at that price point it'd be worth the preservation effort. Hopefully it finds a good home, it includes an almost complete documentation set save for the small booklet I've got (which could be separate promo material for all I know) > > In any case, there were a few letters amongst the documents suggesting the original owner was involved in the production of this system, particularly in the area of OS details. If I find any noteworthy information I'll pass it along. > > - Matt G. > > P.S. If anyone knows of a preservation effort accepting new machines I can pass this along. This was originally posted to “The Unix Historical Society” email list and I asked the original author for permission to forward it here. If anyone is interested in such equipment. David There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third works. --Alan J. Perlis David Barto barto(a)kdbarto.org

2 years, 1 month

1
0
0 0

The Colony source

by Hugh Pyle

David A. Smith has posted the source code for The Colony (for Mac, PC and Amiga) - the first realtime 3d adventure game. https://github.com/Croquetx/thecolony

2 years, 1 month

2
1
0 0

Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

by Robert Feldman

>Message: 7 >Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2023 02:41:56 +0000 >From: John Floren <john(a)jfloren.net> >Subject: [cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks. >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> > >It's funny that luggable power packs come up here as I'm trying to revive my Otrona >Attache... The power supply does nothing on AC input, even after a recapping, so I >thought I'd investigate the "DC Power Option" described in the manual. Unfortunately I >can't find any record that Otrona ever actually *sold* a "DC Power Option", which >would plug into an unpopulated 6-pin Molex connector on the back of the device. >Interestingly, the header inside the power supply labeled "DC Option" is a 7-pin >header, so I'm not sure which pin was "optional" for the external connector! > >I'd just replace the power supply wholesale with a little ATX supply or something, but >the machine needs 5V, 12V, -12V, and 15V; the latter is used to power the CRT and >represents a real challenge! I've yet to find anything that outputs all 4 levels at a >reasonable price. > >john > I have an Otrona Attache 8:16 with the DC option, so it was sold. (I used both the Osborne and the Otrona in Peru, so having a battery option was an advantage.) However, my Attache has the disk drives that both spin up at the same time, and the DC option does not supply enough power to properly spin both drives, so the computer will reboot if you try to read or write anything to disk while on DC! I’m traveling now, but will open up my Attache and take some pictures for you in a couple of weeks. Bob

2 years, 1 month

3
2
0 0

Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

by Tony Duell

As you know I've recently restored a couple of CP/M luggable computers. I also have many other machines with floppy disk drives, 3", 3.5", 5.25" and 8" The machine I connect to the internet with is a more modern laptop runnng Windows 8.1. Essentially its only interfaces are USB ports. I would like to be able to : Download disk images (I assume in .IMD or .TD0 format) and write them to real floppy disks to use in my old machnes If possble, for the more common filesystems like MS-DOS or CP/M, be able to work with these images on the modern PC at the file level. For example, if I download a CP/M progam as a .COM file I'd like to be able to put it into a disk image of a Philips P2000C disk, then transfer that image to a real floppy and put it in a drive on the Philips machine. I understand there are designed based on a modern microcontroller that connecct to a USB port and a disk drive. Software on the PC translates between the disk image and the accurately-timed pulses corresponding to flux transitions on the disk. This unit links to a real disk drive, you run the software and it reads/writes a real disk in said disk drive. Now... I can handle a 'scope. I can handle a logic analyser. I can handle a soldering iron. I can handle an engineer's lathe. I can rebuld and align floppy disk drives. I can program most 8-bit micros along with PERQ microcode, PDP11 mahine code, etc BUT I don't have a clue when it comes to modern PCs, modern microcontrollers or USB ports. So what I am asking is for people to describe what to do as in : Buy this microcontroller board Buy this blank PCB and solder the components given in the BOM to it. Download this software and install it by doing this. Connect a standard floppy drive to this connector Run the software, specify the disk image file and sit back. -tony

2 years, 1 month

44
171
0 0

Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

by Fred Cisin

>>> Doubtful that VW Bug was on the Autobahn at the time, and, while the >>> . . . >>> Now, if the Bug had a trailer hitch, it could tow a trailer behind it with >>> a gasoline or diesel powered generator with sufficient capacity to run the PDP-8. >> Are you suggesting some kind of, say, portable computer? >> Runs, dodging and weaving. > I'm not sure that you could fit a complete Model 33-ASR Teletype in the > passenger seat of the Bug. I suppose if the Teletype was removed from > its stand, it might be able to sit on the seat, and be powered by the > same generator that runs the Straight-8. It is truly easy to remove the passenger seat. Just unlatch the adjuster and slide it forward off of the tracks. Then make brackets (out of the bottom of an old seat) to mount the base of the teletype to the brackets. I have known people who mounted equipment that way. Many/most VW owners did not clean and lube the tracks, so it was often difficult to slide the seat, and the latch spring did not re-engage. Ralph Nader mis-represented that as "Of VWs in accidents, 60%? had the seat come off of the track." The CORRECT statistic was, "Of VWs in accidents, IN WHICH THERE WAS SEAT DAMAGE, 60%? were the seat came off of the track." Which was, while still disconcerting and dangerous, trivial to repair by sliding it back on, and cleaning and lubing the track and latch, with no other damage. Removing the bottom of the back seat, and replacing it with a piece of plywood also provides a roomier and more secure base for the payload. Possibly even with enough room for a portable generator? (I don't know the power requirements for the machine, but I do know that VW bugs are not very amenable to trailering.) Be careful about putting weight on the back seat! VW had the battery under the back seat, and many owners did not have a cover over the battery to protect against shorting by the seat springs! A type 2 VW bus/van, preferably model 215 (with freight doors on both sides), would be far more suitable. Or one with sunroof? In some jurisdictions, the DMV would classify ones with any seats in addition to the driver's seat, as "Station Wagon"! To get commercial (lower cost) plates for my type 2 VW in Maryland, I had to submit pictures showing that there were no other seats, and they even kicked those back until I also included one showing that it did have a driver's seat. > It'd be really hard to operate the machine while driving, for sure. It'd be > far worse than messing with a smartphone while driving :-/. But, once > stopped somewhere pleasant, you could > actually develop programs using the punched tape reader/punch on the 33ASR. > It'd definitely be > an example of early "mobile computing". (Tongue firmly in cheek). . . . and, if you caravaned/carpooled, other vehicles could carry peripherals. No reason why we couldn't eventually have mobile computing! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com

2 years, 1 month

1
0
0 0

Tips on VME board access

by Kurt Nowak

Hi all, I have a Sun 3/110 with a faulty video section (hangs at boot when it polls the FB) and I want to be able to probe and troubleshoot the board. Does anyone have any tips on how to get at it since it's buried in the VME chassis. I was thinking of having an extension card made but thought I'd ask here and see what others have done first. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks -Kurt

2 years, 1 month

4
3
0 0

VT180

by John Floren

Anyone on the list have a VT-180 a.k.a "Robin"? I got one for free a while back, but no disks. Wondering if anyone's in a position to make copies of their working disks and mail them to me -- I could have blanks sent, of course. I'm in the SF bay area. john

2 years, 2 months

5
6
0 0

Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

by Ali

>AH! NUTS! :)>Runs and ducks...That's actually pretty funny and much milder then what I was screaming...-Ali

2 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Identify these drive read heads pdp11 related?

by devin davison

I picked up boxes of these disk heads when i picked up a warehouse stockpile of pdp 11 computers. Any idea what they are to? I want to say floppy? I have 2 different types of heads, in boxes. Please see pics, and if anyone needs heads, im the guy that has a bunch to part with now. Let me know what kind of drive they are for if you can, i have no clue. https://i.postimg.cc/nrHTdwcV/20230528-182840.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/y8JjrRBR/20230528-182834.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/sfcTBywM/20230528-182821.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/2y2GgFVQ/20230528-182809.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/4N2w5PCZ/20230528-182617.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/W1Q8R4bH/20230528-182614.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/28S2hJK2/20230528-182606.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/25hwCf18/20230528-182555.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/DZ3xGw9X/20230528-182543.jpg

2 years, 2 months

5
7
0 0

Anyone in or near Spain that can read 6250 GCR 9-track tape?

by Chuck Guzis

List, I'd rather not put a customer through the throes of sending a 10.5" reel of tape written on a S/370 mainframe through international shipping. Anyone in the Barcelona area with the equipment and ability to handle reading this thing? Besides, I'm up to my ears in work. Thanks, Chuck

2 years, 2 months

3
4
0 0

Continental 50 Pin connector vs. AMP 200276 50 pin connector - same?

by Jay Jaeger

I have an HP 2875B paper tape drive that I want to interface to. It has a 50 pin block connector (using well under 1/2 the pins). The connector manufacturer was Continental. I have already discovered, the hard way, that it is not a winchester connector - the pins on the 50 pin Winchester connector I just obtained via ePay that otherwise fits are too small in diameter and won't make contact. I *could* increase their diameter using solder - but -- yuck. The other connectors of this sort I am familiar with that have the same general overall size and pinout were made by AMP. Does any one know if the AMP connectors and the Continental connectors would be compatible? Thanks. JRJ

2 years, 2 months

2
3
0 0

Gb Ethernet and 10Mb links

by Craig Ruff

FYI: The Ethernet standards dropped support for half duplex connections a few years back, so that if you have something that depends on half duplex links a recent Ethernet switch might not support it.

2 years, 2 months

6
7
0 0

Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.

by Chuck Guzis

On 5/28/23 09:17, Tony Duell wrote: > I've come across the former and have the datasheets. From what I > recall it was common to use it a control store sequencer and have > microcode ROMs wider than the 8X300 needed, the extra bits were used > to directly control hardware. Power hog (well, it was bipolar) with a 3-bit opcode and a somewhat strange programming model. You could usually spot one by the 50 pin cerDIP and the external pass transistor. I think I still have a loose one in my hellbox--and at least two in old systems. --Chuck

2 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Recovering floppies attacked by mould

by Tom Stepleton

Greetings, Amidst all the floppy archiving discussion, here's a slightly different question: The weather is warmer now where I live, so it's starting to be a good time to do messy work outdoors. I have some mouldy floppy diskettes that I'd like to try to read (mostly 5.25"), plus a good flux reader. What is the best way to attempt to image these floppies? My thinking right now is that for each floppy I can attempt this procedure: - remove the mouldy cookie from the infected disk jacket; discard the latter - give the cookie the best clean I can (how?) and allow to dry - place the cookie in a clean disk jacket - attempt to image - clean floppy drive heads Does this seem like a sensible plan? If so, what would be the best way to clean as much mould off the cookie as I can? Tools that come to mind are distilled water (tap water here is full of chalk), dish soap, cyclomethicone, and of course more fearsome solvents. I have kimwipes, microfibre cloths, and... 200-grit sandpaper, I guess :-) Thanks for any advice, --Tom

2 years, 2 months

5
4
0 0

Rexon 30 aka CMC 7030 information needed

by Harten

Recently i digged out a system called Rexon 30, which was sold in germany/europe as a CMC 7030. The OS called RECAP BB was stored on a combined hard/removeable disk drive. There is no floppy or tapedrive at all. BB stands for a version of Business-Basic. The removeable pack got lost but there is a little hope that the OS is still on the fixed disc. There will be a lot of work for me before i can try to power up this system again. Maybe it never will. If anyone has information and/or software stored for this system, i would be glad if he/she can part it with me. Rolf --

2 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Super I/O chips and Getting floppy images to/from real disks

by Joshua Rice

Interestingly, i'm looking at procuring a reasonably vintage laptop for a computer festival i'm planning to attend soon. It seems that many laptops of the PIII era use SuperIO chips, but i'm rather confused as to how "low level" they get. Some of you may remember my RCA MS2000. I've had great luck writing bootable images from a PIII machine with a "standard" 1.44mb floppy drive, despite the format being 70-track, SSDD. The machine's floppy controller uses a bona-fide NEC uPD765 though, so no surprises it worked fine... ( Here's a video of me playing around with it for the curious... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdKkaf-77dE ) I'm really asking if anyone has any recommendations for a laptop that is reasonably powerful, fairly modern (has USB), but also has a direct-connection floppy drive that can do device level shenanigans (via Omniflop) to allow me to write floppies in obscure formats. Bonus points if it can use it with a serial terminal emulator, and run the Emma02 RCA 1802 emulator on it as well. I, like Tony, don't drive, so i need something compact and portable for public transport travel. I've been eyeing up a Dell Latitude C series (C600?) But the whole SuperIO-over-parallel thing makes me think there might be proprietary drivers involved, preventing device level access of the floppy drives... Hopefully some of you might be a bit more wise. Cheers, Josh

2 years, 2 months

2
2
0 0

HP 1000 A400, A600, A700, A900, A990 Servers, parts, & accessories

by Jesse Dougherty

Hi all, we are getting overstocked on the 1000 series stuff and wanted to see if anyone needed anything. We have most everything you could have in the 1000 A-series hardware. If anyone needs any loaded up A990 boxes we have a bunch of them configured below for $1,400.00 A990 Server 14-slot Micro 1000 Server 1 x 12990x A990 CPU 1 x 12221B 8MB Memory 1 x C2247A 1GB SE SCSI Internal disk drive 1 x C150xx DDS DAT Internal Tape Drive 1 x 12016A SCSI Controller board 1 x 12009A HP-IB Interface board 1 x 12005A Serial Interface board 1 x 12006A Parallel interface board 1 x 12040A Asynchronous Multiplexer Interface (MUX) board 1 x 02430x Voltage Jumper Board 1 x 12230A Front-plane memory connector (CPU to memory connector) Feel free to email if you need any HP 1000 hardware. Thanks Jesse Dougherty Cypress Technology Inc jesse(a)cypress-tech.com

2 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Super I/O chips

by emanuel stiebler

Anybody out here, still in business using them? Which ones are still easily available? (I look for something which has 2 UARTs, FDC and IDE?) Thanks

2 years, 2 months

4
3
0 0

ST-251 Data Recovery for Glenside Color Computer Club (GCCC)

by Jim Brain

At the most recent CoCoFEST!, I brought home the old Glenside Club Computer Hard Drive. The mechanism is an ST-251, and I was wondering if someone on-list would be willing to attempt to pull data off the drive. I have no ability to configure to read this drive type, and the data is not precious or anything, I just though we should try to pull it off for historical sake. I was not in the club when teh drive was in use, so I do not know what could be on it. I assume BBS data, but it could be anything. Happy to post to someone who wants to give it a go. If the drive needs to be destroyed to get the data, or if attempting to read the data destroys the drive, I will not hold anyone responsible. I don't even need the drive back, just data if it is recoverable. Jim -- Jim Brain brain(a)jbrain.com www.jbrain.com

2 years, 2 months

18
50
0 0

Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks

by Robert Feldman

>Message: 6 >Date: Sat, 20 May 2023 07:25:39 -0700 >From: Chuck Guzis <cclist(a)sydex.com> >Subject: [cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks. > >On 5/20/23 04:21, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > >> I was startled to discover my (long gone) Athlon XP box could only >> handle a single floppy drive. The BIOS has no option for a 2nd. >> >> I can't imagine that was a significant cost saving. > >It's a matter of pins. I believe that it started when the "SuperIO" >chip started packing in more support for various peripheral functions >and the 2 pins for drive select and motor control of an extra drive were >viewed as least important. Earlier versions of the chip often allowed >re-purposing the pins used for the parallel port as an interface for an >extra floppy--you saw this on laptop systems, which often had only one >floppy drive in any case. cf. Intel's PCISet chip sets. > >--Chuck My main computer is a 15-year old Dell Precision T3400 (Core 2 Duo). It can handle multiple floppy drives, but the BIOS does not allow 360KB 5.25" disks, only 1.2MB in that size. Bob

2 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

VCF Swap Meet June 10, 2023. Wall, NJ.

by Jeffrey Brace

VCF will be having another Swap Meet this coming June 10 from 8AM to 2PM for the general public and 7AM for vendors. Signup here to reserve a spot. <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeLdDjGN1TtOjPxNq38VA43p36oW5HXuX0…> Same place as the previous swap meets in the big parking lot on Monmouth Boulevard in Wall, NJ <https://www.google.com/maps/place/40%C2%B011'05.5%22N+74%C2%B003'47.9%22W/@40.1848619,-74.0643212,350m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m13!1m6!3m5!1s0x89c228394afc24b3:0x793045909b6e8fba!2sInfoAge+Science+and+History+Museums!8m2!3d40.1857343!4d-74.0593097!3m5!1s0x0:0xbe14db9783fe1872!7e2!8m2!3d40.18486!4d-74.0633081> . A change for this year is that we will have some food being sold by the South Monmouth Fire Museum. This will be a fundraiser for them and a welcome service for our attendees. All the information that you need is here: https://vcfed.org/vcf-swap-meet/ Take care, Jeff Brace VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President Vintage Computer Festival East Showrunner VCF Mid-Atlantic Event Manager Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity https://vcfed.org/ <http://www.vcfed.org/>

2 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Paper Tape Reader Needed

by Mike Katz

I have just acquired a number of PDP-8 paper tapes. My reader/punch is not working at the moment (neither is my PDP-8 but that's another story). I am looking to beg, borrow or buy a paper tape reader or reader/punch (stand alone or PC04) so that I can archive these tapes as they are getting more and more rare. I would prefer a serial (RS-232) reader or reader/punch but I could deal with a parallel and create my own parallel to serial converter or get some kind of USB to parallel adapter. There are several "hand pull" types of readers out there (like the OP-80A) but I am afraid of damaging the very old fanfold paper tape by using my inconsistent hand rather than some kind of motor driven mechanism which is designed for smooth paper tape flow. Does anyone have any ideas or something they have to sell or donate? Please contact me by email directly. Note: This is also being posted to the VCF DEC Forum. Thank you, Mike Katz bitwiz@12bitsbe

2 years, 2 months

5
6
0 0

Re: ST-251 Data Recovery for Glenside Color Computer Club (GCCC)

by Robert Feldman

>Message: 23 >Date: Thu, 18 May 2023 17:32:00 +0100 >From: Tony Duell <ard.p850ug1(a)gmail.com> >Subject: [cctalk] > <snip> <But that's a minor issue. The loss of RS232 communications is a lot <more serious. < <-tony Can you fix it using MODE.com from a DOS prompt? Bob

2 years, 2 months

3
3
0 0

Re: ST-251 Data Recovery for Glenside Color Computer Club (GCCC)

by Robert Feldman

>Message: 21 >Date: Wed, 17 May 2023 04:56:05 +0100 >From: Tony Duell <ard.p850ug1(a)gmail.com> >Subject: [cctalk] Re: ST-251 Data Recovery for Glenside Color Computer > Club (GCCC) <snip> >As for the target machine having a serial port, one of the machines I >want to get stuff onto is an Osborne 1A. The serial port on that is >horrible. <snip> >-tony For CP/M computers such as the Osborne, you can read and write their diskettes on an MS-DOS computer with a program like Media Master. KayPro disks are harder, as there are problems formatting them on an MS-DOS computer. Bob

2 years, 2 months

4
6
0 0

Using Teledisk 2.16 to read old RX50 images

by Chris Zach

Hi! Well, after a good bit of work I have finally gotten my Compaq XE4000 up and running with Windows 98, the BIOS all set, a new battery, and of course a 1.2mb 5.25 floppy that seems to be working. I'd now like to start sucking the rare images I have here on RX50 into a TD0 format which can be converted to a .IMG format which can then be used on the mighty GoTek's to allow people to run such operating systems as: Micro RSTS 2.1 Micro RSX (I forget the exact version) Micro-11 Maint disks Ultrix 11 Version 2.0 (all 30 disks) Before I start popping these in I have a question: I just did a test using an XXDP floppy and the message I got included Single sided, double density Interleave 1:1 Sector Size is 512 And then for each track from 1 to 82 (?) it said "Data, No ID adding sector 110" Is this right? Something else I might need to do for reading RX50's? Thanks! CZ

2 years, 2 months

7
8
0 0

Are there any useful OCR programs for scanning old listings and producing text with proper formatting

by Marc Howard

Marc Howard <cramcram(a)gmail.com> [image: Attachments]May 10, 2023, 8:58 PM (15 hours ago) to cctalk-owner I have some listings I want to convert to ASCII. They're line printer output from a computer that existed from the mid-sixties to the early 70's (Agage AGT series). I can't find any OCR package that can take scanner output (either PDF or JPEG) and convert it to text with roughly the same number of spaces between words as was there originally. Seems like it would be an easy task. The input is non-proportional text from line printer output (actually it might have been printed on a Diablo hytype). And yet all I get is most of the characters with either no or single spacing between words. And it misses quite a bit of scanned characters at that. Anyone have any good experiences trying to do this? I've attached a PDF scan if you have a way to do a test run. Thanks, Marc Howard

2 years, 2 months

3
3
0 0

KIM-1 stuck bits from $280 to $29f

by Cameron Kaiser

Odd fault on my Rev D KIM-1 popped up while writing code this afternoon (initially I thought I had a bug in my paper tape transmitter) - between $0280 and $029f, the upper 5 bits are stuck at zero. The rest of the address range seems fine. In particular, $0080-$009f, $0180-$019f and $0380-$039f work correctly. This doesn't smell like a bad RAM chip to me or I would think there would be a bad bit throughout the entire 1K, so I suspect this is a data bus problem but I'm not sure where to start looking. Any guesses from the group? -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser(a)floodgap.com -- require "std_disclaimer.pl"; -----------------------------------------------

2 years, 2 months

5
9
0 0

Altair 8800 question

by Mike Douglas

I have a reproduction of the metal nameplate strip that looks very close to the original if you want one. $10 plus shipping. Mike D

2 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Did Intel's Insite User Program Library survive?

by Veit, Holger

Hi all, The PDF at https://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/intel/insite/1983_Insite_Users_Program_Librar… lists various old user submitted software which could have been ordered from Intel those days. Is there anything of that archived and downloadable somewhere? Regards Holger

2 years, 2 months

3
2
0 0

OT: A list member in Japan?

by William Sudbrink

Is there a list member in Japan or soon traveling to Japan? I want to acquire something (not really vintage computer related) and the seller does not take paypal and I can't get funds to them. Thanks, Bill Sudbrink -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. www.avast.com

2 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Altair 8800 question

by W2HX

I see some altairs have a metal escutcheon on the bottom with the stylized words "MITS ALTAIR 8800 COMPUTER" whereas others, the front panel is just the dark faceplate top to bottom. What is the difference? Would one have been a kit and the other sold fully assembled? Or maybe later units vs earlier units? 73 Eugene W2HX Check out my Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@w2hx/videos

2 years, 2 months

10
12
0 0

Kennett Classic May 20th hack-a-thon and Swap

by Bill Degnan

Kennett Classic May 20th hack-a-thon and Swap May 20th, 2023 | 9AM – 11PM 115 S. Union St. Kennett Square, PA (Hack-a-thon is in our large workspace "The Garage" across the street from the museum) Plenty of room for everyone, tables, chairs and power supplied. REGISTER NOW TO ENSURE YOUR SPACE Here is the URL for the EVENT REGISTRATION: https://www.kennettclassic.com/spring-hack-a-thon-may-20th-2023/ $5 / person (family) $10 / vendor Kids free. HACK-A-THON Any vintage computers (older than 20 years) you wish to restore, demo or sell during the day Hacking? Bring Your Tools (power strip, soldering irons, volt meters, screw drivers, spare parts) Dolly or cart to bring items in from the parking lot area. VENDORS Spaces for people who want to sell their items or exhibit/demo their projects. EXHIBITORS / DEMOS welcome! GENERAL PUBLIC There will be a pretty steady stream of visitors from the local community too. We have a growing vintage computing community in the South Eastern PA / North Delaware / North MD area. Saturdays are usually the busiest days at the museum, and downtown in Kennett. The museum will be open as usual for a Saturday, 12-5. Visit our event page for more details, contact, directions https://www.kennettclassic.com/spring-hack-a-thon-may-20th-2023/ EVENT MAILING LIST https://www.kennettclassic.com/contact.cfm Bring the Family! Things to do in Kennett Square https://www.kennettclassic.com/while-at-kennett-classic-food/ We're Nearby Longwood Gardens https://www.longwoodgardens.org Thank you. Bill Degnan Kennett Classic 484 732 741 https://www.kennettclassic.com Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/6130337163716721

2 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

do you have any western electric 498a diodes or know where I can get? Thanks ed sharpe

by ED SHARPE

do you have any western electric 498a diodes or know where I can get? Thanks ed sharpe Sent from AOL on Android

2 years, 2 months

3
2
0 0

Current Loop Schematics

by Jonathan Katz

Hi everyone! I'm working on a project where I need to build an RS-232 to Current Loop adapter. I've seen some schematics on-line and the parts list seems pretty small, but does anyone have a specific set of instructions and schematics that they trust? Or does anyone in the UK have a spare adapter they'd like to send me? :D Thanks! -- -Jon +44 7792 149029

2 years, 2 months

5
4
0 0

Re: Current Loop Schematics

by Mike Douglas

If it’s specifically to interface to a model 33 Teletype, here’s a design that works well and is pretty simple. https://altairclone.com/teletype.html Mike

2 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

3D Printing

by Bill Gunshannon

Are there any 3D printing experts hanging around here? I need help. I want to print things like a bracket to mount my FreHD in a disk bay. Some other things, too. The problem is the STL file wants to print these items vertically instead of laying flat on the table. Needless to say by the time it gets to the part where it wants to print the faceplate the object is unstable or, in some cases, completely tipped over. Is there any way to change the orientation of an object on the table using just the STL file? I have a Creality Ender 3 printer and their slicer software. bill

2 years, 3 months

4
4
0 0

DEC RL device

by W2HX

Can anyone tell me what I picked up at a NH hamfest this weekend for $20? I see it says RL01/RL02. I have two RL02 drives and some platters. None of which I have gotten around to trying. Other than a copious amount of pine needles, what can this be used for? Or maybe the right question is, should I not use it for fear of destroying an RL platter? https://w2hx.com/?prefix=x/VintageComp/Platter-Device/ 73 Eugene W2HX Subscribe to my Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@w2hx/videos

2 years, 3 months

7
7
0 0

Looking for datasheet of RTC M3001 ...

by Bernd Kopriva

Hi, a friend of mine is currently working on a FPGA implementation of the CERES-3 workstation (cpu-ns32k.net/TRIPUTER.html#Ceres). He currently lacks of information of the RTC chip M3001 which was manufactored by Swiss company Microelectronic-Marin. Does anyone have a pointer to the datasheet ? Thanks Bernd

2 years, 3 months

6
9
0 0

Re 516s

by -Gary

I have at least 5 in my stock. I could easily part with one or two. I would rather trade rather than get cash. Do you have anything to offer in trade? -Gary

2 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Anyone have an sn74s516?

by Ken Seefried

I'm interested in recreating MMI application note AN-114 which describes adding an sn74s516 mult/div/acc chip to a 68000. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find an sn74s516 in the couple of years I've been looking. Does anyone have some they'd be willing to part with? KJ

2 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

Media permanence

by Chuck Guzis

I saw a clip of this project on DW News: https://www.memory-of-mankind.com/ They're recording works for posterity on ceramic tiles. How's that for preservation? --Chuck

2 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

websites as subdomains under classiccmp.org

by Tarek Hoteit

I learned today about Dave’s Old Computer website http://dunfield.classiccmp.org/ which is listed as a subdomain under classiccmp.org. I wasn’t aware of subdomain sites. Can any one list any other ones or is a list of sites available ? Regards, Tarek Hoteit

2 years, 3 months

2
2
0 0

2025

2024

2023

2022

cctalk