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by Christian Corti

I guess not many have survived but I want to ask if someone/some place has software (papertapes, ...) for the Texas Instruments 960 minicomputers. We have a 960B but at the moment, it is pretty much useless. I could toggle in a small program, but would appreciate something like FORTRAN or an assembler. Christian

1 year, 9 months

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Walter Shawlee of Sphere, RIP

by Lyle Bickley

I purchased several items from Walter at Sphere over the years. I suspect many others of you Tek and HP fans on this list have, too. He was always helpful and kind. Walter has been ill for some time and passed away yesterday. It's good that his wife, Susan, will continue to run the business (I got an email from Susan before Walter passed so stating). Here is a link to Walter's obituary: https://bit.ly/3qZ2lBX Regards, Lyle -- 73 NM6Y Bickley Consulting West https://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

1 year, 9 months

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VCFMW

by Paul Anderson

I plan on arriving around noon, and leaving around 6ish. I have most Q-bus and MicroVAX CPU and memory boards along with options and non-DEC boards. In UNI-BUS, I have MOS and core sets plus most options. I can't take everything with me, and whatever doesn't sell at VCFMW can be shipped (small items) after I return. If you are looking for any DEC product, feel free to contact me. Thanks, Paul

1 year, 10 months

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Key to Disk Terminal Video

by Eric Moore

https://youtu.be/jkOsvQpNmio I hope yall enjoy!

1 year, 10 months

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Language Creators Charity Fundraiser (Seattle Sept 19th)

by Gavin Scott

This sounds kinda fun (via the Adafruit weekly Python on microcontrollers newsletter): https://pydata.org/language-creator-fundraiser/ Panelists: Adele Goldberg - Smalltalk Guido Van Rossum - Python Anders Hejlsberg - Turbo Pascal, C#, TypeScript James Gosling - Java "PyData Seattle presents its inaugural charity event. The event will feature the creators of C#, Java, Perl, Python, TypeScript, and Smalltalk in a conversation about programming language design. The charity event brings together this unique group of computer science pioneers, unlike any event held before. These great minds come together for what will surely be a fantastic night of discussion as the panel delves into the past and future of programming language creation. The event will attract innovators and engineers from Seattle, the nation’s fastest-growing technology hub. The event is a benefit for Last Mile Education Fund and NUMFOCUS." General admission $229, Students $75. 12:00 - 4:00 PM September 19th, 2023 Cinemark Lincoln Square, Cinemas and IMAX 700 Bellevue Way NE, Suite 310 Bellevue WA 98004

1 year, 10 months

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Silly question about S-100 and video monitors

by W2HX

Hi all, I recently acquired an S-100 computer, and it came with a video card and a keyboard (3rd party products, not originally equipped with these). I am trying to figure out the benefits of having a video card and keyboard vs just using a serial port and terminal. Certainly if the video card supported graphics, that would be a reason to go that route over a terminal. As for the keyboard, ok-maybe you need specific keys for a specific application. But I don't understand the video monitor. I could understand maybe if there was an RF modulator so that you could use a standard TV. That would save the builder some money. But this computer just provides composite. Other than graphics (and maybe some special function keys for an application on a keyboard), why would an S-100 builder in those days opt to buy a video card instead of a terminal? Thanks for the bandwidth. 73 Eugene W2HX Subscribe to my Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@w2hx/videos

1 year, 10 months

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Re: Friden (was Silly question about S-100 and video monitors)

by Rick Bensene

Just to add, interestingly, Singer also purchased General Precision from Librascope. Librascope/General Precision were the folks that had earlier acquired Royal-McBee. Royal-McBee developed the wonderful (some consider the first "personal" computer) LGP-30 vacuum-tube, magnetic drum computer that was designed by Manhattan Project theoretical physicist Stanley Frankel. Frankel had quite a legacy in the world of computing, having contributed to the design of the delay-line-based Packard Bell PB-250(with Max Palevsky), and development of a custom high-speed computer for Continental Oil Company called CONAC (used for data reduction of sounding operations search for oil deposits). Frankel also developed an early electronic calculator design that was purchased by Smith Corona/Marchant (SCM) and produced as the CRT-display SCM Cogito 240 calculator, augmented with Square Root as to Cogito 240SR. Frankel also collaborated with SCM on the development of the logic for the first set of LSI integrated circuits that were used in the later Nixie-tube display Cogito calculators. He also developed a very interesting calculator, based somewhat on the principles of the LGP-30 computer for Diehl in West Germany. The machine was fully transistorized and used only 142 transistors in its logic. It was based on magnetostrictive delay lines (two of them), and was a fully microcoded architecture, I believe the first electronic calculator to be completely microcoded. Since read-only memory (for the microcode) was either physically very large, or complex and expensive to build at the time (diode ROM, wire rope ROM), the microcode was loaded into the calculator at power-up time from a two channel punched metal tape. One channel provided the clocking, and the other channel provided the bits. It took just under a minute from when the calculator was powered on until the microcode was loaded into a delay line, and from there, all operations of the machine were controlled by the microcode in the delay line. The machine was able to be implemented with so few transistors because the microcode word was quite wide, and was designed so that it was sequentially interpreted as the bits streamed out of the delay line, so not all that many flip flops were needed. Working registers were stored in the other delay line, along with program steps (yes, the machine was programmable). The design was very elegant. The machine debuted as the Diehl Combitron, and the cool thing about its design was that it was really easy to augment by just changing the microcode tape (which was quite easily done...bugfixes could be easly installed even by end-users, though such was discouraged). Soon after the Combitron was introduced, an augmented version was introduced called the Combitron-S that added a small amount of I/O circuitry and additional microcode to implement operations to allow the addition of an external punched paper tape reader/punch. An interesting aspect of electronic calculator history is that there are a number of people whose names pop up at various points in time during the evolution of the technology. Frankel was one of those, along with a cast of a few others, all of whom had major impacts in the realm of electronic calculator (and the eventual evolution of the electronic calculator into what became the microcontroller/microprocessor that spurred the development of the personal computer).

1 year, 10 months

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Re: VCFMW Anybody got an Emulex QD21?

by Mark Matlock

Jon, I have an Emulex QD21 that I could part with. I was hoping to attend VCF MW but it looks very doubtful at this point. I also have a spare DEQNA or DELQA. I have not tested these boards to verify that they work although I could test the ethernet boards on a PDP-11. Hans-Ulrich Hölscher mentioned work he did testing MicroVAX II transfers with Lee Gleason’s MicroVAX I project to transfer disk images on bare metal (no-OS) MicroVAX systems. I think that would be your best bet to recover your ESDI disk. If you don’t have any luck at the VCCF MW getting what you need, send me an email and we can work something out. Best, Mark

1 year, 10 months

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SDF Interim Computer Festival

by Tarek Hoteit

FYI, SDF retro computing and home brew exhibition is scheduled for September 30 to October 1 in Seattle WA . Link to the exhibit is at https://sdf.org/icf/ and https://icm.museum/ - - - - Tarek Hoteit tarek(a)infocom.ai +1 360-838-3675 https://infocom.ai

1 year, 10 months

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Little Databases

by Adam Thornton

Have you considered sqlite3? It's a SQL engine, but the backend is just a file. So it doesn't support concurrent access by multiple users, but if that's not a concern, it gives you the ability to do real SQL queries without the bother of setting up an RDBMS. Adam

1 year, 10 months

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