Hi folks,
I’ve been picking my way through a PDP-8/L restoration lately. I’ve found that everything in the machine is covered with a uniform layer of dark “soot” (enough to blacken your hands while working with it) which I would like to clean up. Perhaps the “soot” is actually from a decomposed air filter, as I don’t imagine this machine was operated in a smoky environment, and there is no smoke odor.
I usually use 99 IPA and cleanroom wipes for spot cleaning these sorts of things, but in this case there is so much of it that I feel that would just push the soot around rather than clean it off. I think some sort of actual rinse would be needed here.
I’ve been eying the dishwasher, for the subset of flip chips that that are just DIP logic, carbon comp resistors, and ceramic bypass caps, anyway. But I haven’t been brave enough to try that yet... Most of the logic here has date codes to ’68 or ’69, so I’m inclined to treat it gently. Any suggestions for approaches to clean this up?
Follow-on question: the majority of the legs on these old DIPs are showing what I’d call “moderate” corrosion — nothing looks like it is in danger of being eaten all the way through, but the process is underway. I was wondering if something like a light shellac or other inhibitor could be brushed over these pins to at least slow their inevitable demise?
I did purchase and build out one of Vince’s flip chip tester kits, and have found it super useful for this project. Of the large percentage modules that have test vectors supplied, most have tested fine. Three M216 flip-flop modules and one M113 nand module were flagged for repairs this way.
Advice appreciated, as always!
cheers,
—FritzM.
I read today that “Maximum PC” is no longer in print just in digital. Past
issues are available in digitized format but it’s not the same as reading a
magazine while in bed! Our hobby is changing. Well, progress must not be
stopped…
Happy computing.
Murray 🙂
I've checked bitsavers.org (Al does a great job!), and a number of
forums, but no luck finding schematics for my ADM31 that I am trying to
resurrect. The power supply has issues and I need to identify a blown
out resistor - the switching supply is a Boschert model 1001 date code
7943 Revision J.
John :-#)#
--
John's Jukes Ltd.
7 - 3979 Marine Way, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5J 5E3
Call (604)872-5757 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)
flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out"
I think I know the answer to this, but just in case:
Is there a way to image ESDI disks other than to hook them up to their
usual host controller and use the host? E.g. for MFM, I'd grab the MFM
Emulator board.
Cheers,
De
Folks,
A heads up that I've turned on some mail veracity signing functionality
in Mailman. One could hope it would just work, and that I made no
mistakes in the configuration, but... :)
I'm working on this to try to improve deliverability of list traffic.
De
Folks,
A heads up that I've turned on some mail veracity signing functionality
in Mailman. One could hope it would just work, and that I made no
mistakes in the configuration, but... :)
I'm working on this to try to improve deliverability of list traffic.
De
There is a gentlemen in New Jersey willing to sell his HP9825A
I believe he is the original owner. It has 4 ROM cartridges (that go in
the front) and several data cartridges for the slot on the top left.
He is asking $2000 but can probably negotiate (as he didn't find any takers
in VCF East). As far as he knows, everything still works (LED lights came
on when he powered it up a few months ago).
I've met this seller and can vouch for him, but I don't know much about
this particular item.
I have some photos of it at the bottom of this page:
https://voidstar.blog/vcf-east-2023-part-3/
I may try a VCF forum topic about it. Just trying to help him find a good
home for the equipment. E-mail/reply direct and I can provide some contact
info.
(BTW not sure if my cctalk posts are working anymore??)
-Steve / voidstar
Folks,
As I try to track down why various subscribers are getting booted from
the list in the last couple of days, I'm noticing that a number of you
are subscribed from an address that forwards elsewhere.
This works poorly.
TL;DR follows, but basically this is brought to you by the fact that
modern email sucks almost as much because of the anti-spam processes as
because of the spam itself. In the modern world, forwarding is pretty
much dead on arrival. Avoid it where possible. I'll be over here
swearing right along with you.
TL;DR: to be able to deliver any email at all these days, we have to
comply with a couple of schemes designed to make it harder to forge mail
-- DKIM and SPF. The combined effect of making the necessary
declarations in the DNS entries for classiccmp.org is that if you try to
forward mail, you look like you're _impersonating_ classiccmp.org. Many
large providers (google, yahoo, etc.) refuse such mail.
The same anti-spam mechanisms also make it difficult to run a proper RFC
compliant mailing list, because then classiccmp.org would be sending
mail with _your_ From: address, making classiccmp.org look like an
impersonator. Still $w34ring.
Cheers,
De
Glad the photos help. I hope the average general public wasn't too
disappointed or discouraged by the crowd on Saturday - but I tried to think
of the positive side, of there still being interest in vintage computing at
all. A "web cam" preview of the consignment might have helped that line
- some were interested in a specific thing, then to wait 45min in line to
find it's already gone. But I guess that's just part of the experience.
For exhibits, the interior noise/acustics got loud and made hard to engage
and ask questions (since you couldn't even hear them across the table).
I also felt a little guilty of intentionally getting there early to get a
close parking spot. I mean, I don't think there is anything really wrong
with that - but if I know I'm going to be there all day, I wouldn't mind
parking further away and taking a shuttle bus. In my defense, I knew I'd
be getting things from consignment and wanted to drop them back to the car
(I just got some of the laptops).
Sellam, thanks for the note about the geese!! Honkers, yes, that's very
appropriate! But why Honking at 3am!? haha, maybe I don't want to know!?
I'm on travel again for the rest of this week, so kind of rushed to get
notes up today before heading back to the airport.
-Steve
On Mon, Apr 17, 2023 at 1:04 PM Brian L. Stuart <blstuart(a)bellsouth.net>
wrote:
> Thank you very much for posting these pictures. I ended up having to
> cancel my plans at the last minute due to covid. Yeah, I had succeeded
> in avoiding it for 3 years, but it finally caught up to me.
>
> BLS
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Monday, April 17, 2023 at 05:39:04 PM UTC, Steve Lewis via cctalk <
> cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> Videos are nice, but I still like to make a kind of "scrap book" of events
> I've been to. Link is below.
>
> Also, most exhibitors were occupied interacting with the public and maybe
> didn't get a chance to see what else was presented at this VCF. Or, maybe
> they didn't get to see what all else the museum and local area had to
> present - so seeing photos might give them ideas of things to check out
> next time.
>
> Or, in general, for anyone not able to attend, here are some photos also.
>
> https://voidstar.blog/vcf-east-2023/
>
>
> Feel free to use/share, no permission needed.
>
