VCFMW in Chicago was this past weekend!
Flew up with 2 bags, came back with 4 ! Funny thing is, my wife said she
was surprised I didn't come back with anything extra - well, I shipped
those extra 2 bags and they haven't shown up yet. Gives me one day to come
up with a cover story! :)
There is so much going on at the Chicago VCF - I don't think any
individual can cover the whole thing. Instead of a blog, this time I'm
trying a "video photo album" to cover some of the highlights that I was
able to see.
Search
Xiphod's Photo Album of Vintage Computer Fest (no commentary) - VCF Chicago
2025
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld1CXUTusDI
or
https://rumble.com/v6z4aia-xiphods-photo-album-of-vintage-computer-fest-no-…
Mainly my goal was to pick up a POLY-88 that folks have been helping to
restore off-and-on over the past 18 months. They got it going, so that was
one of the shipments back. The other was an Apple TAM at too good a price
to pass up. (and yes, wife already knows they are coming)
If it's any indicator: come Sunday afternoon, merchants were fairly eager
to sell at any offer (some announcing that anything unsold would go
straight to scrap - maybe that's a ploy, but there were some under $10
bargains to be had, a kind of "everything must go" vibe).
- Steve
I just love the PDP11's assembly language. I needed a super-tight
subroutine to print a 16-bit value as 6 octal digits. This is as tight as I
could make it, 16 words (including writing to the serial port, which takes
5 words). Can you beat it?
;*** Subroutine *************************
;Print a 16-bit value as 6 octal digits
;Calling Sequence:
; jsr PC,PROCT6
;On Entry:
; R2 = value to print
;Trashes R1,R2
;****************************************
PROCT6: mov #100030,R1 ;Digit loop ends when '1' lands in C
;..'30' makes it ASCII
sec ;All done when this is in C again
;Extract a digit and convert it to ASCII. Check for done.
1$: rol R2 ;Shift digit out of R2 & into R1
beq 3$ ;Return when done
rol r1 ;Build next octal digit
bcc 1$ ;Done when c = shift pattern bit
;Write digit to the serial port
2$: tstb @#CTXSTA ;Wait for transmitter (clears C)
bpl 2$
movb R1,@#CTXDAT ;Transmit now
;Next digit
mov #020006,R1 ;Digit ends when "2" lands in C.
;Printing ends when "sec" bit
;..leaves R2. '6' makes ASCII
br 1$
3$: rts PC
Martin E.
Crazy long shot.
I just picked up a HMI-200-64180 for $75 shipped. Curious if anyone has
the manual and software for it?
There is some very limited info on bit savers but nothing for the 64180.
I'd also possibly be interested in picking up the 6809 version if anyone
has one they no longer need and the price is fair.
https://web.archive.org/web/19980206071507/http://www.hmi.com/200.html
Thanks
For those of you who run vintage computing-related info sites, have you
noticed all of the LLM scraper activity? AI services are using the LLM
scrapers to populate their knowledge bases.
At any given moment 5-10 of them are active on vintagecomputer.net. It’s
funny, when I ask an AI about something vintage computing-related,
something obscure, I can trick into giving me an answer from my own site.
I have actually had to modify the site code to manage the traffic, to
improve efficiency.
But they’re not going after just my site, these scrapers are absorbing
copies of the entire WWW.
I wonder how long the WWW will remain open, it would be a bummer if I found
copies of my site elsewhere.
Bill
I have a Connectix quick cam. The on ly label says FCC ID LKD1. The
connector is a mini-DIN that looks like a PS-2 mouse or keyboard plug.
Do you need it?
The driver package (B25-PDL_CTOS_Ethernet_Packet_Driver_3.7.0) also has drivers for ACCTON 1660 and 3COM 3C509 - you need to uncomment them in JCL file. I have the Accton card installed and detected in dos (and confirmed IRQ and base address) on SG3000 platform but activating the driver always crashes CTOS to core dump. The only suspect bit “Shared memory” which appears to be boot room address and this is not installed on my card (socket missing). Wonder if anyone had success with the driver?
Free to good home:
I re-found a Magellan Roadmate X11-16302 GPS map in my junk heap. It
appears to have a dead battery, at least it appeared not to charge on
USB. I don't have the AC power cube or the car's cigar-lighter power
adapter.
Send a PDF for a shipping label from
Van Snyder
2229 Shields Street
La Crescenta, CA 91214
Local pick up OK too.
My Olivetti M24 was humming away nicely until I switched it off. It then failed to power on again. The PSU is not outputting any voltages on any of its outputs. The technical manual is here https://bitsavers.org/pdf/olivetti/m21_m24/Olivetti_M21_M24_Theory_of_Opera…. The PSU is described from p188 with an outline schematic on p194. The full schematic is on p274. A schematic useful to anyone with the actual board in front of them has been created in the following forum post https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?t...ower-supply-replacement.1237316/#post…, the schematic is this one: https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?attachments/m24_psu_schematic-jpg.1252584/.
I have done some verification with the scope but I have reached a point where I am not sure what signals I should expect. I have attached a dummy load on the +12V, +5V and +15V outputs to meet the specs for minimum current.
I see a 20KHz square wave on the inputs to the output transformer T438 (pins 1 and 2). The manual says that the diodes on the output rectify a half wave. I assume these are the ones labelled D134 and D136.
The following image shows the signal on the two diodes marked D134 on the schematic for the 12V output, measured from their anodes to 0V output.
https://rjarratt.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/diodes-on-12v-out…
For the other two diodes, labelled D136 for the 5V output I get this:
https://rjarratt.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/diodes-on-5v-outp…
Do these look correct? The peaks seem to be too low to even begin to produce the required output voltage.
Thanks
Rob
I' plan on arriving there between 1 and 2 Friday afternoon. If there is
anything else you want me to bring please email me off list today.
If you have any US/ foreign coins/currency I'm interested in trading or
buying them.
Thanks, Paul
