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Slightly off topic --Places to go in Huntsville

by wrcooke＠wrcooke.net

Next week I will be in the Huntsville, Al, USA area for an entire day with no commitments. Does anyone have recommendations on how to spend my day? I have been to the space and rocket museum several times. Any computer museums or displays, especially of space-related equipment? Any good surplus stores? All suggestions welcome. Thanks, Will You don't understand anything until you learn it more than one way. Marvin Minsky

2 years, 3 months

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PDP 11/24 Unibus Termination and Grant Cards

by Rob Jarratt

The 11/24 System Technical Manual says that the terminator (M9302 or M9312) must be installed in the last slot (slot 9) of the backplane, and that all empty slots must have a grant card. What I am not clear on is what they mean by an "empty" slot. Specifically, if I have the CPU, the M7134 memory map and a memory board installed in slots 1-3 and then nothing else except the terminator in slot 9, does this mean I have to install grant cards in slots 4-8? My guess is that this isn't a requirement because the grant cards go in rows C and D while the terminator is rows A and B, but I am hoping someone can confirm this for me please? Thanks Rob

2 years, 3 months

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Elan/Syncrotech Memory Card Explorer Demo v3.21 and paging Glen Slick

by D. Resor

Syncrotech sent me the demo version of Elan Memory Card Explorer version 3.21 which is matched for use with the Elan P423 PCMCIA Card Reader/Writer and in the Windows XP environment. The demo version has 30 days use to try it in set-up mode, but only 5 "lives" in full function mode. To make it work again I may have to use a backed up version of my Registry, or re-install WinXP, mb drivers, etc. Previously with Ricoh's XP v1.01 incarnate memory block setting of (E8) E800-EBFF, the program would start-up and see the Linear Flash Card. Now with Elan's version 3.21 not only does that memory block not work but none of the other choices listed in Ricoh's manual which states: By default, MCE requires the exclusive use of a block of real mode memory at linear address d0000H to d3fffH. If MCERICOH - XP does not detect the flash memory card with the default memory block settings, this indicates that the default memory block is already in use. Try one of the following settings: (D0) D000-D3FF (default) (E0) E000-E3FF (D4) D400-D7FF (E4) E400-E7FF (D8) D800-DBFF (E8) E800-EBFF (DC) DC00-DFFF (EC) EC00-EFFF In the Elan MCE op guide which is from 1999 and doesn't completely cover up to v3.21 from 2005 it states: "wXX" XX=base memory address for card operations e.g. "wD8" will use D8000h as a base address. XX can be C0 to EF for most PCs. Default is D0. The 4K region from address chosen must be "free". Lastly in the txt file with the MCE v3.21 installation files it is stated: VERSION 3-13 * This function now works in the same way for all versions of Windows * This function should be called before any other (Except MCE_Customisations). It not only checks memory for use it registers the memory for exclusive use by our program. It also allows the library function to initialize ready for card memory accesses. * Failure to initialize successfully using this function will result in NT4 access violation messages during library function calls. * The MCE_CheckWindow function does 2 tasks -It registers the memory window with Windows. A handle to this memory window is saved in MCELIB for MCELIB use. -It tests the memory window allocated to check that it is unused. * Function MCE_ReleaseWindow() can be used to de-allocate the handle. (when multiple MCE_CheckWindow()s calls are made use MCE_ReleaseWindow() before the next MCE_CheckWindow()) * Function MCE_Restore() also deallocates this handle as part of the MCELIB closedown operations. Inputs: DWORD ----- Used to pass in the memory window address for the PCIC card controller to use. The value passed in will be used as the memory address in subsequent card operations. Pass in 00000000H for an automatically allocated memory window. The window it attempts to use is directly above the PC's system SDRAM. To maintain compatibility with earlier MCELIB versions the application software should pass in D0000H instead of 0H to this function call. Note that only 4000H increments should be used. Possible range from C0000H to EC000H or any free address above 100000H. A memory block of size 4000H is reserved with Windows and tested by the MCELIBfunction for suitability. Showing my absolute ignorance here, without a chart showing the blocks of memory I can try I'm lost. I have scoured Synchrotech's website, no answers there. I found the old Elan FAQ pages saved at the Wayback Machine but no answers there. Searching the "web" for memory address block settings in XP didn't seem to turn up what I was looking for either. Thanks for indulging me once again. Don Resor

2 years, 3 months

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Dysan 208-21 alignment disk - what is it for?

by Philip Pemberton

Hi there, Does anyone have the spec sheet for the Dysan 208-21 alignment disk, or know what drive it's intended to be used with? I've got the information sheet which comes with the disk, but it doesn't identify the tracks-per-inch or track count. It's a 5.25in double-sided disk; the info sheet says: FILE: 208-21 PAGE 001 Dysan 208-21 (Configuration #802030) Double Sided Alignment Diskette Track 0 - Full Revolution (both sides) Track 1 - Index Burst (both sides) Track 16 - Index, Azimuth and Catseye (both sides) Track 33 - Full Revolution (both sides) Track 34 - Index and Azimuth (both sides) Full Revolution - recording frequency is 125 kHz Index Burst - 50us in duration and occurs 200us after index. Recording frequency 125 kHz. Azimuth - Four bursts that depicts an azimuth of 12'. Each burst is 1 millisecond in duration with the first burst occurring 500us after index. The recording frequency is 125kHz. Catseye - recording frequency 62.5 kHz Sadly the part number doesn't appear on Accurite's old website (per archive.org), or the Dysan PDFs I've found on Bitsavers. About the only thing I've been able to figure out is that it's an Analog Alignment Disk. Thanks, -- Phil. classiccmp(a)philpem.me.uk https://www.philpem.me.uk/

2 years, 3 months

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Posts Blocked

by Ali

Hello All, Since the new hosting has taken over I am having a ton of issues posting to the list. Anyone else experiencing legit posts being blocked as spam? -Ali

2 years, 3 months

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Connecting a physical terminal via LAN to Serial Port

by Ali

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

2 years, 3 months

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Re: BBS memorabilia (fwd)

by Fred Cisin

The greatest ever video about pre-WWW internet was "Hyperland". a 1991 BBC documentary by Douglas Adams and Ted Nelson, and also starring Tom Baker. A few years BEFORE WWW, it predicted the future of the internet. https://archive.org/details/DouglasAdams-Hyperland If you want subtitles/captions, 5 years ago, I created an .SRT (camptions file of it! https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4hCJm9ZEADCblVSVlBxdmZyREU/view?usp=drive… (400MB video with subtitles burned in) .SRT file: http://www.xenosoft.com/HyperlandCAPS_En_US_0_77.srt

2 years, 3 months

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BBS memorabilia

by Ryan de Laplante

Over the years I have been collecting BBS related memorabilia such as Night Owl shareware CDs, Boardwatch magazine, BBS magazine, books, manuals, original disks, etc. Does anyone have any BBS memorabilia they might be willing to sell to me? I’m particularly interested in PCBoard box/disks/manuals. I know the software can be downloaded from the Internet.. I’m interested in the original box set. I’m also interested in CRS Online pamphlets, receipts, catalogues, etc. Has anyone ever seen promotional videos showing Prodigy, Compuserv, Delphi, GENie, AOL? I've collected disks, but the systems are long gone so archived video is all we have to remember them by. When I was young, I remember seeing disks and pamphlets for these services in the box when upgrading modems. They had serious brand recognition. By the time the Internet was becoming available to the public, I remember being more interested in getting a Compuserv account lol. After getting our first Internet account in 1994, I was confused because I didn’t know where the “file areas”, “message areas” and “chat” were after being so used to BBS menus. Eventually I learned about FTP, USENET, and IRC. We even had a “yellow pages” paper book where you could look up topic specific FTP, USENET, and Gopher sites.

2 years, 3 months

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Searching for software for Tektronix 4970 Cluster Controller

by Alexander Huemer

Hi The Tektronix 4970 does something similar to an IBM 3174 or 3708. It hooks up terminals to an IBM mainframe, in this case Tektronix graphics terminals, see [1], p.36ff. Is anybody here in possession of the software that runs on it? -Alex [1] http://bitsavers.org/pdf/tektronix/tekniques/vol7/Tekniques_Vol_7_No_03.pdf

2 years, 3 months

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Cheap Lantronix Hardware

by Jonathan Chapman

All, Per the LAN-attached serial thread, here's another cheap Lantronix device: https://www.ebay.com/itm/123577635191 This is a LRS-2, which is basically a two-port LRS-1, one of their older models of serial bridges. The LRS-2 is nice not only for the two ports, but because it also has AUI and thinnet. No PSU, but it's a typical 12V 1A center positive supply. Thanks, Jonathan

2 years, 3 months

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