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VCF West 2025 - Tickets - Aug. 1 & 2 at Computer History Museum - Mountain View, California

by Jeffrey Brace

Get your tickets to VCF West 2025 now! https://connect.computerhistory.org/events/1ffceb98-f556-df49-f011-42475680… VCF West takes place August 1 & 2 in Mountain View at the Computer History Museum. More info here: https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-west/

9 months

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VCF Montréal 2025 Jan 25-26

by Jeffrey Brace

VCF Montréal is coming Jan 24-25, 2026. Reserve your hotel now! https://vcfed.org/vcf-montreal/vcf-montreal-2026-hotel/ Show updates here: https://vcfed.org/vcf-montreal/ Le VCF Montréal aura lieu les 24 et 25 janvier 2026. Réservez votre hôtel dès maintenant ! https://vcfed.org/vcf-montreal/vcf-montreal-2026-hotel/ Consultez les mises à jour ici : https://vcfed.org/vcf-montreal/

9 months

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eBay strikes again!!

by Bill Gunshannon

Just when I thought eBay couldn't get much stupider... I went out to see if I could find a current going price for PDP-11 Pedestal Boxes as I have a couple I would like to cull from my collection. I came upon this: DEC PDP 11/23 - BC needs Power Supply Repair, NO cards, Vintage DEC History $900.00 If it has no cards, what makes it a PDP-11/23 other than the paint on the front cover? Dead PSU? Looks like a $900 backplane to me. And that is making the assumption that the backplane is actually usable. :-) bill

9 months

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3 VCF's this weekend! Atlanta, Dallas, Australia

by Jeffrey Brace

Wow! There are 3 VCFs this weekend! VCF SE (Atlanta, GA) : https://vcfed.org/events/otherevents/vintage-computer-festival-southeast/ VCF SW (Dallas, TX): https://www.vcfsw.org/ VCF Down Under (Australia) : https://www.facebook.com/events/s/cvce-vcf-downunder-2025-planni/5904082869… Jeff Brace

9 months

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VCF Midwest 20 Pre-Tabling Announcement Announcement

by Jason T

The table request form for VCF Midwest 20 will open at 19:00 CDT next Friday, June 27th. Read the mailing list announcement here: https://list.vcfmw.org/w/TagW1e4K9x4Rl8wpSnorrA (and join the mailing list, too, if you haven't!) -jt

9 months

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Bill Atkinson

by Murray McCullough

Bill Atkinson, a true early microcomputer pioneer, ca. 1984+, brought drawing on a computer screen and linking to external files a reality. He will be missed. Murray--

9 months, 1 week

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DEC backplanes

by Paul Anderson

I've been digging through a few shelves of backplanes looking for a specific one for a listmember. Along with the DD11-CK and DKs, I found a RK611 and RH11. I probably have the boards for both. Any interest? Also found a few DDV11-D which I think is a 6x9 hex qbus backplane, but it's been a while. If you need any backplanes (11/84, 11/44) or options (DR11-B, etc) now is the time! Also a lot of core memory and backplanes. Please contact me off list. Thanks, Paul

9 months, 1 week

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Tadpole Sparcbook 2

by Andreas Holz

Hi all, by surprise I got a Tadpole Sparcbook 2 some time ago. Sadly there seems to be almost no documentation available in the net for a Sparcbook 2, neither a technical/service nor a user manual, only for Sparcbook 1 and later models. I do have the following issues: - the battery pack is missing. I found two ressources, e.g. the CHM - but none does have any infos about the battery pack - The external power connector requieres 18V - no problem - After connecting the fitting power the Sparcbook does power up, the display is lit and the unit is trying to boot from the internat SCSI disc. Nevertheless the boot process is failing this is a good sign. - after trying to reboot the unit will be almost dead. While pressing the power on button the LEDs on the left upper side of the display will be lit shortly, but nothing else will happen. - trying to reboot an power on the same as above will happen If I'll keep the unit several weeks/months unpowered the unit will power up again - but of course will be stuck again while trying to boot from disk and the same semidead issues as noted above. I'm suspecting the TOD chip/battery is deads or are there any other sugegstions? Up to today I didn't have a look inside of the unit ... Does any have the manuals hidden in theirs shelves? Best Andreas

9 months, 1 week

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Re: Bill Atkinson

by John

In addition to everything already cited, he developed what is still my favorite dithering algorithm. Atkinson dither was probably optimized more for speed than anything, but I've always loved the look of it, and have even implemented it myself for that reason. R.I.P., sir.

9 months, 1 week

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Re: Tadpole Sparcbook 2

by Adrian Godwin

Tadpole were in Cambridge, weren't they ? https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/ have collected a fair bit of Cambridge history. I haven't found them very willing to search their archives but there may be individuals who have more time available, or they may have a resource problem in putting information online. On Fri, Jun 6, 2025 at 8:28 AM erik--- via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > Hi Andreas, > > great that there are still some people looking into the > old SPARCbooks from Tadpole. I have got a 3GX up and running. > > > Sadly there seems to be almost no documentation available > > in the net for a Sparcbook 2 > > Yeah, that is really sad. Also do not have got any information! > Just to report from my work on the 3 series ones (which are > probably not to different from the earlier ones): > > Mine works without battery pack, so there is some intelligence > in the battery pack (for power management), but using a power > supply it is working even without that pack! > > > - after trying to reboot the unit will be almost dead. > > While pressing the power on button the LEDs on the left > > upper side of the display will > > be lit shortly, but nothing else will happen. > > Hmm, that sounds strange and I never observed this due to > lost NVram values. But what I observed is the yellow/orange > Tantalum caps going bad in the small power supply piggy back > PCB inside the unit. A short prevents the notebook from > working (and sometimes even some inductors release smoke and > completely destroyong the PCB depending on which cap went > short). > After a longer time powered off, the faulty cap can recover > explaining your observation. Fortunately I had some spare > PCBs and replaced all caps in my live one which works nicely > now... > > Good luck, > > Erik. >

9 months, 2 weeks

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