10 Jun
2024
10 Jun
'24
6:37 p.m.
The LINC exhibited at VCF 10.0 was one of two systems
the fine folks of
the
Washington University team who originally designed and
built the LINC
scraped together and got working in time for the Festival, and their
presentation therein. That system went with Bruce Damer to the DigiBarn
(Bruce was instrumental in putting together the presentation for VCF X)
and
then a few years ago went off to the System Source
Museum in Maryland.
I can confirm that it is still on active display at System Source. Although
a bit off topic, I think the readers of the list would be happy to hear it
is more or less still functional. The power supply required some work (caps
and some failed parts on a regulator card as figured out by Dave Gesswein)
as did the LINCtape drives (new bearings, tension adjustments on the
belts), and probably some other things I'm forgetting. Early this year it
was successfully brought into LAP6 and played a game of Pong for the first
time in years :) Unfortunately the LINCtapes themselves have degraded and
started not reliably reading, so it was decided to not mess with them any
further until they could be imaged. I'm not sure if they've made any
progress since - most of this was from my visit back in January.
Regards,
CJ
On Sat, Jun 8, 2024 at 9:53 PM Sellam Abraham via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Sat, Jun 8, 2024 at 7:43 AM Jon Elson via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
wrote:
> On 6/7/24 20:42, Vincent Slyngstad via cctalk wrote:
> > On 6/7/2024 6:19 PM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:
> >> OK, I have to chime in here. I worked for Artronix about
> >> 1972. The LINC computer was developed at MIT for use in
> >> biomedical research labs, and a bunch of people involved
> >> with it later moved to Washington University in St.
> >> Louis. The Biomedical Computer Lab there later added some
> >> features such a a crude memory mapping unit and more
> >> memory, and called this the Programmed Console, so as not
> >> to scare people away. Artronix began building these PC's
> >> and selling them to hospitals for radiation therapy
> >> planning. I have no idea how many were sold. They were
> >> built into a desk, and used 7400-series logic chips. They
> >> etched their own PC boards, drilled them by hand and
> >> soldered in the chips by hand. I wrote a series of
> >> diagnostics for them.
>
> > Do any survive? I've looked for them but never found one.
> An Artronix PC? I seriously doubt it, but it is possible.
> There is at least one LINC that was restored about a decade
> ago, and taken out to VCF 10. If an Artronix PC did evade
> the scrapper, it would not be that hard to get it running again.
> Jon
Is it Artronix or Artronics, out of Plainfield, New Jersey (according to
the label, formally TechArt Systems 2000)? Because if the latter, I have
one right here, though I can't tell you the model number because it is not
displaying one. The serial number seems to indicate it was made in 1984.
Here's a link to an ad in PC World circa 1984 ==>
https://books.google.com/books?id=-C_xVnQCcsEC&pg=PA48&dq=artronics…
The LINC exhibited at VCF 10.0 was one of two systems the fine folks of the
Washington University team who originally designed and built the LINC
scraped together and got working in time for the Festival, and their
presentation therein. That system went with Bruce Damer to the DigiBarn
(Bruce was instrumental in putting together the presentation for VCF X) and
then a few years ago went off to the System Source Museum in Maryland. The
second backup/parts system went with me. I eventually sold my system* to a
private collector. Unfortunately, I never had a chance to do anything with
it.
Sellam
* When my collection was effectively stolen, the console was taken by the
scrappers but I retained the CPU cabinet. I eventually sold the CPU to the
private collector, and I more recently learned he was subsequently able to
recover the console from the said scrappers and reunite the parts to make
the system whole again. In any event, it was due some parts and much
effort to be made working.