- test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org - classiccmp.org

by cctalk＠snarc.net

Several people asked me about archive pages for past Vintage Computer Festival events. Much of the information was lost during a rebuild of the former Festival owner's web site, however, much of the same information was also available at Archive.org. Tonight we posted about 50% of the basic date from past Festivals -- when, where, who -- at http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/archives-show-summaries/. (It would be a HUGE amount of work to post the exact web sites from past Festivals, and there's not much point to saving the logistical information about what time of day people will speak, etc., so what we are posting seems like a good balance.) We hope to get the remaining 50% onto the page soon. PS. You'll notice that the page is being populated from the bottom-up. No particular reason why. ________________________________ Evan Koblentz, director Vintage Computer Federation a 501(c)3 educational non-profit evan at vcfed.org (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org facebook.com/vcfederation twitter.com/vcfederation

9 years, 2 months

1
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7RS110 User's manual and tecnical specifications

by mark.kahrs＠gmail.com

I recently acquired a small box with 14 NIB MIPS 7RS110s. But is the User's manual anywhere to be found? Grazie Mille.

9 years, 2 months

1
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Choosing a shipping carrier -

by j＠ckrubin.us

Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you - http://abcnews.go.com/US/passenger-train-crashes-fedex-truck-shocking-video…

9 years, 2 months

1
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PDP-11: BC11-A cable dress between cabinets

by fritzm＠fritzm.org

Hey folks, I've gotten to the part of a PDP-11/45 restore I?ve been working on where I need to run a Unibus cable between the CPU box in one rack and an RK11-C controller at the top of the next rack over. I'm a bit puzzled about how best to run the bus cable to keep it out of harm's way, e.g. getting it accidentally pinched or crimped while sliding the CPU cabinet in and out for service. I can see there's a nice cable exit at the back of the sliding CPU cabinet, but from there...?? Anybody have a picture or remember how this was usually done around the slide rails etc. to avoid trouble? The RK05 manuals do have recommended dress for drive cables between drives and the controller, but I haven't seen any recommendations for the cabling Unibus between cabinets anywhere yet. cheers, --FritzM.

9 years, 2 months

2
1
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Very Early (Stugart) Apple II Drive!

by r3trohub＠gmail.com

If you're part of the AppleFritters forum you may have seen that I put it up for sale, but if you're not and you're interested, please drive me an email! I'm planning to put it up on eBay later tonight if nobody here is interested :) SN 1718 http://imgur.com/a/Bt2UV -Andy

9 years, 2 months

1
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tu58fs - PDP-11 file sharing with TU58 tape emulator

by j_hoppe＠t-online.de

Guys, I'm working on a special TU58 emulator called "tu58fs". It saves the "tape content" not only in a binary image file, but also as a file set in a shared directory on the host. The content of the "tape" (as seen by the PDP) changes automatically as files are moved in and out of the shared dir. This works in both direction: creating/changing/deleting a file on the "tape" modifies the files in the directory. Today tu58fs passed the tests for standard XXDP tapes, good time to tell the world about it. If you like to have a look (and play beta tester): Docs on http://retrocmp.com/tools/tu58fs C sources and makefile on https://github.com/j-hoppe/tu58fs tu58fs is intended to be a general tool for easy file sharing between a PDP and the modern world. For this as much DEC filesystems as possible should be implemented. We need more than XXDP, but I wasn't able to find documents about the structure of DOS-11, RT-11 or FILES-11/ODS-1. Any links? Joerg

9 years, 3 months

6
8
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Compaq foam rot keyboard SOLVED

by rdawson16＠hotmail.com

I posted yesterday about my attempt to weld a IBM PC keyboard to my Compaq model 1 - the 'luggable'. Well, it did not work, even though I saw clock and data on both Compaq and IBM keyboards that looked the same. I did not dig into the decoding, but somehow they are different. OK so I already cut into the PC keyboard, a BTC 5100. I let my son play with it and a screwdriver, and as he gets it apart, I see capacitive foam pads inside. Well guess what, they are the same size and fit for the Compaq Keytronics keyboard! I popped out all the pads and transplanted them, you push them in and snap the plastic disk in the guides with an exacto, and they work perfectly. I think a lot of these early keyboards before the switch to elastomeric rubber have these foam pads, and they are a standard size. If you are stuck with a Tandy, Lisa, Sun with keyboard foam rot, take a look in you junk bin for a IBM PC compatible keyboard, it worked for me. Randy

9 years, 3 months

3
2
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ISO Altos 586 firmware

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I've been working on documenting the hardware in the early Altos x86 machines and it would be nice to find a copy of the eproms from a 586. I tried asking Dave Dunfield about this, but never got a reply. Has anyone heard anything from him lately? I know Eric Smith was trying to contact him a few months ago about extending the known disk types in Imagedisk (specifically adding M2FM as one of the formats) but I don't think he ever heard anything back.

9 years, 3 months

1
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Transformer part ID please

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Hi folks, Does anyone know what this is? It's obviously a transformer coil(s) but image search and googling those markings produces nothing: http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/la4543.jpg It's taking and giving +5V but I'm sure it should also be producing another voltage... Cheers! -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

9 years, 3 months

5
17
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Books available

by nospam212-cctalk＠yahoo.com

Clearing out a bunch of stuff I have decided I no longer need around. There may not be any interest here but thought I'd check first. I have several books available for the cost of shipping if anyone is interested, otherwise they'll go to my local book reseller this coming weekend.? All are in pretty much like new condition. Inside Visual C++ Version 4 - David KruglinskiVisual C++ 4 Unleashed - Viktor TothEssential Visual C++ 4 - Mickey WilliamsWeb Client Programming with Perl - Clinton WongGIMP for Linux Bible - Stephanie Bryant & Tillman HodgsonMangaging the WIndows NT Registry - Paul RobichauxDeveloping CGI Applications with Perl - John Deep & Peter HolfelderSendmail 2nd Edition - Bryan CostalesCore PHP Programming - Leon Atkinson Also have a Partition Magic 7.0 User guide and Adobe Photoshop 5.5 for Photographers in this stack if anyone is interested. David Williamshttp://www.trailingedge.com/

9 years, 3 months

1
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Attempt at Compaq keybord swap with a PC keyboard (failed)

by rdawson16＠hotmail.com

I have luggable with the famous Keytronics foam kepad rot. I am searching for the foam (have not found it yet), and on a lark, I tried using a PC keyboard. In the PC keyboard, I soldered in a 7805 to take the Compaq 12V to 5V for the PC keyboard. Traced the clock and data lines, hooked it all up and it does not work. The Keytronics (compaq) keyboard either has a different protocol or signals inverted, I have not got that far with the scope yet to see the difference. Has anybody found a source for the Keytronics mylar foam pads? Randy

9 years, 3 months

5
6
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Altair

by sellam.ismail＠gmail.com

Hi Brad. I saw your message on the ClassicCmp mailing list about desiring an Altair. Are you still interested in one? Sellam

9 years, 3 months

3
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heavy stuff -- was: Anyone want an RK11-C manual?

by henk.gooijen＠hotmail.com

Van: Tony Duell<mailto:ard.p850ug1 at gmail.com> Verzonden: vrijdag 16 december 2016 17:54 Aan: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts<mailto:cctalk at classiccmp.org> Onderwerp: Re: Anyone want an RK11-C manual? On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 4:31 PM, Henk Gooijen <henk.gooijen at hotmail.com> wrote: > > But I am not giving up hope ? I recently acquired something I did not think > to be possible to happen ? I ?picked up? an H960 rack with RP11 controller > and *three* RP03 disk drives aand 6 packs. The rack is already moved, the > drives are a separate story. Each drive weighs 415 lbs. ?So what? you might > ask. Well, they are in a cellar and three flights of stairs (10 steps, 6 steps, > and 4 steps) is too much for 3 strong guys to push one drive up the stairs. > We are now looking into another option to get the drives (and a DEC > _line_printer, also very very heavy!) up to the first floor ? Can these units be dismantled without totally losing alignment,etc. At least remove PSUs, spindle motors, etc. I once moved an RA60 (much lighter, but still too heavy for one person to carry easily) downstairs by taking it almost completely apart. Incidentally, it is surprising how much the PCBs in a full cardcage weight, it is often worth pulling them all out. I suspect an RP03 dismantled like that would still be too heavy for one person to move, but with 3 people it might be possible. I hope your upstairs floor is strong enough for them... You do not want them coming back downstairs at 9.81m/s^2 -tony Grin ? I don?t plan to check whether Mother Earth?s acceleration is still working fine. Indeed, the RA60 is heavy. Just like RA81?s, the RA60 is not good for your back, but the RA60 is worse than the RA81. The RA60 is also ?longer? compared to the RA81, and that does not help either when you hav to move an RA60 around. I really do not want to mess with the mechanical construction of the entire RP03 drive. They are too rare. I want to move them ?as is?. The only thing that can be done easily is removing the side panels. However, the ceiling in the cellar has an opening although that is currently welded by a closing lid. The system was installed in the 80ties, and it is not remembered how the system got into the cellar back then. The system has operated in that cellar for almost 20 years (PDP-11/40, RP11, Kennedy 9100 ? 3 H960 rack system). I used wooden planks (shelves) laid on the stairs, and then pushed the racks up. It was heavy, even for 3 strong guys --- OK, 2.5 ? I removed the Kennedy tape drive to make the rack less heavy. The rack with the RP11 controller was also heavy, but I really did not want to pull or dismantle anything of it. We got it out of the cellar. The 11/40 (the 21? version in BA11-F, IIRC) rack had, to my surprise an extra BA11-F with its H742 PSU ? One H742 PSU is already heavy, so two of these beast made the rack way too heavy. I ended up with disconnecting the power harness and move the 11/40 separately. That made it possible to move the rack upstairs (with sweat and some swearing ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H calling in the help of some gods ? We did try moving one RP03 by pushing it upstairs using the ?planks? trick. Three guys asking ?are we pushing?? Yes, but the drive did not move at all. The RP03 is by far the most heavy item I encountered in 20 years! We are now looking into the option to hoist the drives via the hatch in the Ceiling. Needless to say we take all possible precautions ? for people and for RP03?s. To be continued, * Henk, PA8PDP

9 years, 3 months

3
3
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A new life for my LA180.

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

My rt11 sends printer output to a lpt.txt. I have not done much more regarding printing than that. I have an LA180 with serial for my actual pdp8e. B Bill Degnan twitter: billdeg vintagecomputer.net

9 years, 3 months

1
0
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quick omnibus question

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Eugene (W2HX) > Before deleting this, someone ... should double check to make sure I am > right that the file is incorrect. ... But it seems to be backward to me. Well, it is, and it isn't. The board is drawn with the 'bottom' (in DEC nomenclature, for when the board is inserted in a backplane where the slots run vertically) at the top of the drawing, and vice versa. But, other than that, it appears to be correct - based on the keyed slots. (So, the first land, at the bottom of the drawing, which is the 'top' of a DEC board, normally, is AA. And the last - top of the drawing, 'bottom' of the card when it's in vertical slot - is DV. Etc, etc.) Noel

9 years, 3 months

1
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quick omnibus question

by w2hx＠w2hx.com

Hi friends. I am 100% new to my pdp8e and I am troubleshooting a problem. The problem is that whenever address bit 7 I asserted, I also see MD bit 4 asserted. I am hoping there is a simple short somehow between these lines somewhere. I should mention that my setup has known working boards with the exception of M8310 does not work (all of my boards were tested in another machine one by one). So I am hoping the problem noted above might be occurring on the M8310 board itself. I found a document that describes the signals on the bus located here: http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/pdp8/pdp8e/Omnibus_leg… I noticed that B1J (MA7) is directly adjacent to B1K (MD4). Could this be related? So I decided to pull my 8310 and check the resistance between these signals on the edge of the board. However, I cannot seem to square the signals named in the PDF and what I see on the card edge connector on the board. I am wondering if I am not understanding the PDF correctly. I have the board sitting on my table with the components facing up and the omnibus card edge is at the bottom of the card. Going from left to right, do I have connectors ABCD or is it something else? Maybe DCBA? Other than the reference PDF, is there another PDF that has a more detailed description of the bus and the signals? Thanks Eugene

9 years, 3 months

7
8
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DS12887 pcb substitute with battery

by cctalk＠ibm51xx.net

Al, I thought the problem with switching these chips was that part of the ROM code was embedded in them? I.e. it isn't just an issue of battery? Am I wrong? If I am then why not use one of the replacement chips that are available?? Thanks. -Ali -------- Original message -------- From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> Date: 1/21/17 12:12 PM (GMT-08:00) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: DS12887 pcb substitute with battery someone just pointed this out on vcfed https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/qyNfzAMf

9 years, 3 months

4
3
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DS12887 pcb substitute with battery

by Richard.Sheppard＠telus.com

I was hoping someone would make a M48Txx version for the old Suns etc. Richard Sheppard

9 years, 3 months

1
0
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MSCP Qbus port layer doc sought

by mouse＠Rodents-Montreal.ORG

I'm starting to pick up my KA630 emulator again. In particular, I want to give it MSCP disk. I have various MSCP documentation files, but they talk about MSCP proper. None of them describe the Q-bus - nor even Unibus - port drivers in enough detail for me to write an emulator; most of them barely mention either Q-bus or Unibus. I find I wrote a bunch of code, and I'm fairly sure it was based on a doc file, but I cannot now find that doc file. And I find the code disagrees with NetBSD's MSCP support. I tried to use the NetBSD driver as documentation but end up with the response ring doing unexpected things. So, I'm looking for the Qbus port specification. One of the text files I found on bitsavers (a DEC-internal TMSCP document) says "See UNIBUS/QBUS Storage Systems Port Specification for additional detail". I also found a message to a simh mailing list, quoting an RQDX3 document which, in its "Applicable Documents" list, has o UQSSP (Unibus/Qbus Storage Systems Port Specification) Those sound like what I want. Anyone happen to know where I might be able to find such a thing? /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

9 years, 3 months

1
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A new life for my LA180.

by ed＠groenenberg.net

Not so much newsworthy, but 2 weeks ago I stumbled by accident on the serial option for the LA180 (Decprinter I). My offer was accepted and I got the card 2 days ago. I installed it this afternoon and after configuring it and checking the jumpers on the main board, it now works as a serial printer. Tomorrow I'm going to connect it with simh and see if printing jobs will get processed as well. Ed -- Ik email, dus ik besta. BTC : 1Lk6141nvDKPxtCa5erfFyovsoJN2LKqNJ

9 years, 3 months

3
3
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quick omnibus question

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Eugene (W2HX) > I noticed that B1J (MA7) is directly adjacent to B1K (MD4). Could this > be related? "Rule #1: There are no concidences." :-) > I have the board sitting on my table with the components facing up and > the omnibus card edge is at the bottom of the card. Going from left to > right, do I have connectors ABCD or is it something else? Maybe DCBA? I don't know Omnibus, but I expect it follows the DEC connector conventions: http://gunkies.org/wiki/DEC_card_form_factor and in that configuration, Pfrom left to right, the groups should be D to A. Generally one goes from right to left, so A to D in that direction; the pins go from A to V in that direction. Noel

9 years, 3 months

1
0
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FTGH: iMac G3

by fritzm＠fritzm.org

Hey folks, Helping my ex clean out her basement, she had a 1999 tray-loading "lime" iMac G3 that she no longer wanted. The machine is complete w/ original keyboard, mouse, and power cord. Boots and runs MacOS 9.2. CRT is arcing occasionally (probably dust around the flyback?) I'm not a Mac collector, but I scooped it in case anybody here might be interested? Free for pickup in Oakland or Menlo Park CA, or for cost of shipping anywhere else. Drop me a line if interested -- otherwise it'll be off to the local ecycler in a week or two! cheers, --FritzM.

9 years, 3 months

1
0
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8085 IO ports

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Hi folks, STC Executel fun continues and I'm at the point where I'm fairly sure code is running but it's stuck in a tight loop waiting for something to happen. The 8085A reference tells me a non-memory I/O is signalled by IO/M going high while it puts the port number on the address bus (0xE3 to 0xE8 in this case), 8 bits on the data bus and sets S0/S1 to be WRITE. If that's the case then this machine in its current state doesn't do any non-memory I/O - IO/M is the only signal that stays low. It's not a failed CPU since I have 3 different ones and they all do this. I've pondered if one of the 3 chips the IO/M signal goes to is pulling it down; presumably I can test this by lifting the IO/M pin out of its socket then briefly touching a 1Kohm resistor connected to +5V to the 3 inputs and watch what the outputs do while the machine is running? With my little logic analyser on the address bus it's continually active so it's not a stuck bit either, at least not at the CPU. I can watch the repetitive patterns while the code runs through 3 delay loops then the patterns alter while it's off doing....something. All the 4116 RAM chips seem to be OK too. I'm also guessing things would be a lot easier if I had a memory map... Cheers! -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

9 years, 3 months

8
30
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Does anyone have docs for a Ventel brand MD212-plus modem?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, All, A friend of mine just returned a modem he got from me decades ago, a Ventel MD212-plus. It's an early-1980s non-AT-command-set autodialling modem. The settings are adjusted via a pair of 10-pin DIP switches accessible from the back. I've checked the web and bitsavers. So far, all I've found is some old Usenet articles and a couple of pictures, but no manual or jumper guide. One "feature" is that it lacks a modular jack to plug into the phone system. Fortunately, my friend kept the proprietary DA15 cable. I've never seen that choice of connectors on any other modem. Does anyone have any Ventel docs? Thanks, -ethan

9 years, 3 months

1
2
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DS12887 pcb substitute with battery

by aek＠bitsavers.org

someone just pointed this out on vcfed https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/qyNfzAMf

9 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

Imlac PDS-1D

by sellam.ismail＠gmail.com

Hi Josh. I hope you've been well. I noticed you posted recently about have an Imlac PDS-1D. I'm curious how you came across it as there aren't many out there as you observe. I notice you're still trying to get the DPS-6 online. I'm surprised Al Kossow hasn't been able to help with the operating system software at least. Sellam

9 years, 3 months

1
0
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IBM Maintenance Manuals (3203, 3704, 3803, 4341)

by thrashbarg＠kaput.homeunix.org

Hi List, I've had eleven IBM binders with maintenance information in them here for years. They're not doing anything useful so I'm inquiring here if anyone wants them. These are the labels on the spines: 3203-5 MLM , 4 TO 17 , VOLUME 02 3203-5 MLM , 18 TO 28 , VOLUME 03 3704 MLM , VOL 888 [note 1] 3704 ALD , AS CA SB , VOL 4 3704 ALD , YZ , VOL 1 3704 ALD , CC , VOL 2 3704 ALD , MX , VOL 6 3704 ALD , LB , VOL 8 3803 MLM IPC INST GUIDE [note 2] 3803 MLM TAPE SPECS [note 2] 4341 MI P.S. WIRING DIAGRAMS (YE) VOL 41 1: ALD scribbled out and MLM written under it in marker. VOL 888 in pen. 2: Written in pen Obviously not a complete set and I can't guarantee the labels match the contents, but I hope it'll help someone. I'm located in Adelaide, Australia. Feel free to contact me off-list. I can provide photos. Cheers, Alexis.

9 years, 3 months

1
0
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ISO: Honeywell DPS-6 things

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

> > From: jim stephens <jwsmail at jwsss.com> > Subject: Re: ISO: Honeywell DPS-6 things (Josh Dersch) > > On 1/19/2017 5:26 PM, Michael Thompson wrote: > > The RICM has a DPS-6, and another with an Ultimate label on it that may > > have a Pick processor. > I can help with this. Where is there information about this system? > thanks > Jim > There is some information here: http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/equipment/honeywellultimate-level-6 -- Michael Thompson

9 years, 3 months

1
0
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Sparc software on Optical media. (ebay alert)

by jwsmail＠jwsss.com

I post this not so much as an ebay to buy, though if anyplace could be found with the means to use this it is on this list. someone had an optical MO drive at some point and wrote their backup and a Solaris (probably 2.5 or later) software onto two disks. now it's a big oops if you don't have the drives. I figure someone here to pop up and point one out on ebay, or have one. Optical-Disk-128-MB-Fujifilm-230-MB-Maxell-Sparc-Software http://www.ebay.com/itm/172492434487 Just late night chuckle. Oh, he has a cheapo SS20 (compared to others), $49 bucks, but 42 shipping (if it goes that cheap). Sun-SparcStation-20-/ http://www.ebay.com/itm/172490706990 I'll be digging out an Blade 100 and 150 soon. thanks jim

9 years, 3 months

2
1
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TS05AA drives?

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've been offered a DEC TS05AA drive at a pretty good price. Before I agree to the deal, I have a few questions that the DEC people can answer. 1. I understand that this drive is a rebadged Kennedy 9610. Corect? 2. The interface is supposed to be SCSI, but what kind of SCSI? 3. Do all 9610s have 800 NRZI support 4. What's your opinion of these drives in general? Thanks, Chuck

9 years, 3 months

9
20
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Bus and Tag Telex drive listed (Ebay alert)

by jwsmail＠jwsss.com

The same vendor which listed the CDC Keystone drives also has listed a pair of Telex drives with Bus & Tag. I don't recall who has the incoming 4341, but this would be a great and for the mainframe, compact half inch tape subsystem. I would check, but I believe this would have all you need for hooking it up from what the listing says for two drives. Located in Sacramento, Ca, would need freighting & shipping, as auction is marked local pickup only. Hope someone saves them. Probably way more compact and less fuss the 3420's. I doubt anyone will find many 3411's which would be the next most desirable, since it also has a builtin controller if you get the 370 version. With the 3411, you have to watch out for IBM 36 or some such which looked the same, but only had a single Bus cable to the host. But I digress. the 18" x 18" x 18" block of steel you don't have to deal with in the 3803 and probably 900# of just the controller makes a lot of difference. Thanks Jim Telex-8020-Model-266-Controller-with-Tape-Drive-One-additional-Tape-Drive http://www.ebay.com/itm/272516253336

9 years, 3 months

1
0
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How do you clean your vintage computers?

by barythrin＠gmail.com

Am I misremembering or wasn't denatured alchohol the recommended type when cleaning rubber type computer parts (i.e. rollers in laser printers). I thought isopropyl dried them out. ?I don't know the affects on either other than that though.

9 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Compatibility of 1101A and 1101A1

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

Ok. ?I'm assuming they can work together then? ?I have scoured the net and found a couple of pics of mark-8 boards with a mix of 1101a and 1101a1.. or maybe thats why they werent working? :) Sent from my Samsung device -------- Original message -------- From: dstalk at execulink.com Date: 2017-01-20 2:54 PM (GMT-08:00) To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Compatibility of 1101A and 1101A1 On Fri Jan 20 15:19:24 2017 vintagecomputer at bettercomputing.net (Brad H) wrote: > > I have some C1101A RAMs I was planning to use in my Mark-8 project.? I'm > having trouble finding more, as previously mentioned because the price has > shot up so much.? I'm wondering, I'm finding lots of P1101A1 RAMs with the > correct date codes.. are those compatible with C1101A/P1101A?? I don't > understand what the 1 at the end signifies. > According to my TI manual the 1101A is 1500 ns while the A1 is 1000 ns.

9 years, 3 months

2
3
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Compatibility of 1101A and 1101A1

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

I have some C1101A RAMs I was planning to use in my Mark-8 project. I'm having trouble finding more, as previously mentioned because the price has shot up so much. I'm wondering, I'm finding lots of P1101A1 RAMs with the correct date codes.. are those compatible with C1101A/P1101A? I don't understand what the 1 at the end signifies.

9 years, 3 months

4
3
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PDP-6s at MIT

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Lars Brinkhoff >> They expressed some interest in the old MIT-AI KA-10 that you have in >> storage. Can they have it? > So maybe they got it after all! So perhaps my memory is not so bad after all! :-) Or maybe I was just remembering the discussion of them possibly getting it? The real thing to do is check directly with those guys, rather than examining tea entrails. Howwever, if my memory is accurate, there perhaps might be, in those pictures: http://www.stupi.se/Bilder/pdp-10/ some evidence that they did get it: in the row above the bottom, the picture on the left seems to me like it might be a picture of the HIC-memory for AI. But now that I look close, maybe it's just a CADR? The picture to the right of that one shows what looks like a CADR (they had those giant swing-out monolithic bays on the front which are the CPU - the AI Lab build a cool robot to check the wirewrap when they went into production on the CADRs), and so that may be the front of the same rack as that one before (which would therefore be of the back of that CADR). Noel

9 years, 3 months

2
1
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How do you clean your vintage computers?

by r3trohub＠gmail.com

Hey all, So one of my recent acquisitions is looking quite grubby, outside it just looks like surface dirt on the plastic, inside seems dusty/basement dirty. My question comes in two parts: 1. What do you use to clean the exterior plastic and/or metal if applicable? I'm always worried about staining the plastic using strong solvent... could you also include what type of cloth/sponge/anything you use :) 2. You guessed it! What about internally? I've heard isopropyl is really good, but how do you apply it? What do you use to apply it in order to make the board shine as if it was just bought!? :D or if you use anything other than isopropyl... I also have a bonus question, how do you ground yourself to ensure you don't blow a component? Is an ESD wrist strap good enough? I absolutely love this group, really enjoyed your previous answers regarding rarest/unusual machines!! -Andy

9 years, 3 months

11
10
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ISO: Honeywell DPS-6 things

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello, I'm remembering of an old post on vcfed, somebody found in the dump a lot of tapes and floppies related to DPS6. IIRC Al Kossow contacted the man to have the dump of the disks... Maybe he has something? Andrea

9 years, 3 months

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Vector Graphics PROM/RAM Board?

by wheagy＠gmail.com

This was helpful, thanks. Unfortunately, I did not find anything specifically related to the specific PROM/RAM board that I have. There was a pretty good manual related to the VG PROM III. I'm sure there is some overlap with my board. The documentation I have for my board is very sparse. I'm not sure if this is all that is available, but it discusses jumpers on the board but doesn't give details on how they are configured, or a description of setup and operation of the board. I tried what I could decipher from my docs, but I haven't seen any signs of life. It's also possible that the board is not working, but I'd like to be sure I'm actually using it correctly. Any other pointers appreciated. Thanks...Win > Does anyone have experience with the Vector Graphics PROM/RAM > card...like this one. > http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/s100c/vector/promram.jpg > (This is not my card...mine is not jumpered in upper right.) > I have some documentation with mine and two PROMs loaded in A0 and A1 > (VIMON loaded on them), but am having some trouble getting any > response from it. Most likely a config issue or a conflict with other > RAM. Win, There are two resources that might be useful to you: 1. The VECTOR-GRAPHIC mailing list, inhabited by a couple of former Vector employees, among others - http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=vector-graphic 2. The Vector Graphic file archive - http://vector-archive.org/index.php De

9 years, 3 months

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PAL video in the states

by AppleCorey＠optonline.net

So I have a friend who is originally from the U.K. He has his old BBC micro from when he was a kid and wants to be able to use it here in the states. His parents threw out his old TV in the U.K. Is there a way to use a BBC Micro PAL version with a modern US LCD TV? Do some brands of modern TVs support both NTSC and PAL? Let's assume he may need to grab video before the modulator. Thanks, Corey corey cohen u??o? ???o?

9 years, 3 months

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ISO: Honeywell DPS-6 things (Josh Dersch)

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

> > From: Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> > > So I have this DPS-6 taking up space in my basement right now and I thought > I'd put out a call again to see if anyone has anything at all related to > it. I'd like to get the system running but I'm missing: > > - Mass storage controllers (of any type -- floppy, tape, hard drive) > - GCOS 6 operating system media (in any format, any version, etc.) > > If anyone has any hardware lying around, or GCOS 6 media (or knows anyone > who might), drop me a line. > > Alternately, if there's anyone out there who has a need for a DPS-6 parts > machine, let me know... > > Thanks as always! > - Josh > The RICM has a DPS-6, and another with an Ultimate label on it that may have a Pick processor. -- Michael Thompson

9 years, 3 months

2
1
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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item, do you own?

by gkaufman＠the-planet.org

Re: What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own? Probably the rarest computer-related item I have is a 7AD7 flip/flop module from the Whirlwind I Computer. I'm also rather fond of my Intel Intellec4 System. I also have an Intel Intellec 4/40. - Gary

9 years, 3 months

1
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ISO: Honeywell DPS-6 things

by derschjo＠gmail.com

So I have this DPS-6 taking up space in my basement right now and I thought I'd put out a call again to see if anyone has anything at all related to it. I'd like to get the system running but I'm missing: - Mass storage controllers (of any type -- floppy, tape, hard drive) - GCOS 6 operating system media (in any format, any version, etc.) If anyone has any hardware lying around, or GCOS 6 media (or knows anyone who might), drop me a line. Alternately, if there's anyone out there who has a need for a DPS-6 parts machine, let me know... Thanks as always! - Josh

9 years, 3 months

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How do you clean your vintage computers?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Ethan O'Toole > very dry clean air? 'Very dry' is _exactly not_ what you want! Air with decent humidity is less likely to build up static voltage. Dave B. had issues with static destroying components in his workshop in winter-time, when with heating, humidity is low. Noel

9 years, 3 months

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How do you clean your vintage computers?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

hi speed airflow from leaf blower could set static charge and could knock out cmos? Just a wild though... Ed# In a message dated 1/19/2017 10:29:33 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, billdegnan at gmail.com writes: On Thu, Jan 19, 2017 at 12:18 PM, Andy Cloud <r3trohub at gmail.com> wrote: > Hey all, > > So one of my recent acquisitions is looking quite grubby, outside it just > looks like surface dirt on the plastic, inside seems dusty/basement dirty. > > My question comes in two parts: > > 1. What do you use to clean the exterior plastic and/or metal if > applicable? I'm always worried about staining the plastic using strong > solvent... could you also include what type of cloth/sponge/anything you > use :) > > 2. You guessed it! What about internally? I've heard isopropyl is really > good, but how do you apply it? What do you use to apply it in order to make > the board shine as if it was just bought!? :D or if you use anything other > than isopropyl... > > I also have a bonus question, how do you ground yourself to ensure you > don't blow a component? Is an ESD wrist strap good enough? > > I absolutely love this group, really enjoyed your previous answers > regarding rarest/unusual machines!! > > -Andy > You really need a decision tree but there is my process 1. vacuum or blow out debris, outside. I have used a leaf blower before for really nasty machines, or very delicate vacuuming, all depends. Goal - remove all loose dust, particles, anything that would gunk up a cleaning process 2. Soap and water, inside and out. There is nothing wrong with using soap and water on a computer board, hand dish soap. Just dry well. Use a blow dryer or fan, depends on how delicate 3. Windex or glass cleaner for glass surfaces only. 4. Magic Eraser works great for plastic covers after you've washed with soap. Or use that whitening compound everyone uses for yellowed cases. Forget the name. 5. De-oxit for connectors and pins and such 6. Isopropyl alcohol for finishing touches, with a q-tip cotton swab. Use common sense. Teletypes for example would not be the same cleaning process as a surface mount laptop board. b Bill

9 years, 3 months

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Amazon Smile + VCF

by cctalk＠snarc.net

Vintage Computer Federation registered for Amazon Smile, which is a non-profit fundraising program. That means you can shop at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/47-4133714, get all the same things at all the same prices, and a tiny portion of it gets donated to VCF. Please consider helping VCF by using Amazon Smile whenever you can. Thanks, Evan

9 years, 3 months

1
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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own? [Tek 4132]

by rickb＠bensene.com

> From: "Rick Bensene" <rickb at bensene.com> >> - A Tektronix 4132 Unix workstation using a National 32016 CPU and a >> 4.2bsd port called UTek >> Jon wrote: >Gee, how does it perform? I built a clone of a Logical Microcomputer Co. 32016 Multibus system and got it working. >But, it was glacially slow! I did have some memory that was likely a little slower than the stock memory, but it wasn't insanely slow. But, firing up certain things >like editors was just maddening. And, I'm not talking about Emacs, just vi. I eventually got a MicroVAX-II to replace it, and, yes, that DID have a cache to speed >up the memory, but it was quite a difference. Well...considering the era, it wasn't too bad. By today's standards, yeah, it's pretty darned slow. Vi starts up pretty quick, even with a couple of terminals running on it. It runs rogue pretty nicely, quick enough for multiple people to play it at once. The machine has 7MB of RAM, which really helps. Without additional RAM, there's only 1MB on the main board, and running it with just 1MB makes it incredibly slow. There isn't any external cache. It's fun to fire it up and just relive the days when I was on cloud nine to have my own personal Unix workstation that I built myself from parts. -Rick

9 years, 3 months

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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by seefriek＠gmail.com

From: "Rick Bensene" <rickb at bensene.com> > > - A Tektronix 4132 Unix workstation using a National 32016 CPU and a > 4.2bsd port called UTek Those seem quite rare now, especially if it works. You should preserve an image of UTek if possible. Any chance you have the install media? KJ

9 years, 3 months

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First ITS on Arpanet

by lars＠nocrew.org

And the award goes too.... DM! RFC 164 from 19 May 1971 says DM was to have NCP by end of week. RFC 211 certainly lists DMCG among other hosts. RFC 148 seems to imply NFP was working to some extent even earlier. RFC 342 from 15 May 1972 adds AI as a Network User. In RFC 344 is had become a server. RFC 366 from 28 June 1972 says "During this period the MIT Math Lab PDP-10 (Network address 198) became a server."

9 years, 3 months

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WTB - SPARCserver 1000

by other＠oryx.us

Looking for a SPARCserver 1000 or 1000e. Working or not. Top pic here: <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/SS1000-ssa.jpg> I'm located north of Dallas - 75077 Local preferred if possible. TIA, Jerry

9 years, 3 months

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Tested Wyse and IBM terminals and keyboards available

by sales＠elecplus.com

If you are looking for tested working legacy IBM terminals with tested complete M122 keyboards, please contact <mailto:bfloyd at southtexasproducts.com> bfloyd at southtexasproducts.com. He will sell the tested monitors with kbds for $85 plus shipping. Monitors might have slight screen burn, but nothing really bad. He will also do international shipping. He has 3151, 3196, 3197, and similar ones. Email for complete list and pricing. Some older terminals available, but maybe not the matching keyboards. No beam spring terminals or keyboards, no SSK, no unsavers, etc. Just M122 with terminals. Edit: Some Wyse terminals with kbds also available. Cindy Croxton

9 years, 3 months

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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by Flash688＠flying-disk.com

I just joined this list, so I'm not sure which of the items I own would be considered by this group to be rare or unusual, but here goes... Imlac PDS-1D graphics terminal, with the large screen and detached keyboard. Also a second one with the small screen and attached keyboard, but the chassis and cards are suitable only for parts. DEC TU56 dual-DECtape drive (goes with my PDP-11/34) DEC VS60/GT48 graphics display (goes with my PDP-11/34) DEC RKV11D Q-Bus controller for RK05 disks (on my LSI-11/73 system) Originally, it only supported 16-bit addressing, but I added the chip and wires to make it support 18-bit addressing. I have never even heard of another of these controllers, so I assume it is rare. Things that I assume are non-rare include an IBM 82 card sorter, Cardamation keypunch, assorted paper tape gear, and a True Data card reader (on my LSI-11/73 system). All of this was operating here at one time or another, but the clutter has become so bad that it is difficult to get them connected (or even get at them) these days. I recently retired, so my #1 job now is getting rid of all the stuff I accumulated over my almost 50 years in the computer industry. I have three rental storage units full of stuff and the cost is killing me! Is it OK to post ads on this list? Alan Frisbie

9 years, 3 months

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Looking for a Archive Model 2150S (150 MB SCSI tape).

by pete＠petelancashire.com

I'm being help by a fellow member getting a Motorola VME setup put together. I've just started and I'll need a QIC tape drive. The make and model that has been recommended is a Archive Model 2150S Anyone have one they don't need ? Also might be looking for some VME boards, and eventually a smaller cage/chassis. Regards, -pete

9 years, 3 months

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Netronics VID-64 terminal board

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

I was wondering if anyone out there had documentation for this. ?I got one with a homebrew computer I'm trying to revive. ?Netronics documentation seems to be extremely scarce, which is odd given how popular it is. Brad

9 years, 3 months

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New: IBM 5285

by silent700＠gmail.com

My latest acquisition, an IBM 5285 kinda-computer/kinda-terminal: https://goo.gl/photos/pTVhWc7mYukBeQjAA Basically, a System/[34|36] era terminal with a local CPU and a couple 8" floppies crammed in. I received no disks or docs with it, but there are manuals, product releases and other docs for the 5280 line on Bitsavers. What are my chances of finding a bootable disk(s) for this machine? Or failing that, images that could, through whatever wizardry, be written out? The product release doc mentions a number of disk formats used by the line. My drives are the "2D" model, which appear to be the higher density/capacity disks. Beyond that, I don't know what format it would have used. >From the handful of hits I found in Google's trade-magazine scans, I get the idea this line didn't do well. -j

9 years, 3 months

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What is the most prized possession in your collection?

by alexandre.tabajara＠gmail.com

We've talked about the most expensive, the most rare, the less usual... Now lets talk about what you love most <3 For me is the Apple IIe signed by Woz :D What is your most prized and loved possession? :)

9 years, 3 months

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8
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WTB: DEC M8310

by w2hx＠w2hx.com

I am looking to buy a (preferably working) DEC PDP-8/e M8310 board. I have one that isn't working correctly. Mine is repairable, but it will be an easier repair with a working one on hand to compare results and pinpoint the problem. What have you got? Please contact me directly to discuss. Thanks Eugene

9 years, 3 months

1
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Vector Graphics PROM/RAM Board?

by wheagy＠gmail.com

Does anyone have experience with the Vector Graphics PROM/RAM card...like this one. http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/s100c/vector/promram.jpg (This is not my card...mine is not jumpered in upper right.) I have some documentation with mine and two PROMs loaded in A0 and A1 (VIMON loaded on them), but am having some trouble getting any response from it. Most likely a config issue or a conflict with other RAM. Feel free to ping me at wheagy at gmail.com Thanks...Win

9 years, 3 months

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1
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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item

by tsw-cc＠johana.com

Most unusual: I've got a complete card deck of Witran for the IBM 1620. Witran is an interpretive Fortran compiler (not even Fortran II) that was load & go. It was written in 1964. Somewhere I have a listing as well. Yes, it goes back a ways.

9 years, 3 months

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any thoughts where this might be?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Adrian Graham > the island airbase is Johnston Atoll I was thinking that didn't look like Diego Garcia (which is an atoll), but rather Johnston Island. (Well, I guess technically its name is Johnston Atoll, but since it doesn't have the 'circular' above-water of the 'classic' atoll, I think of it as an island.) Cool story of surviving a Cat III typhoon on it here: http://www.travelbughawaii.com/Ioke.htm I wonder if the other pictures in the eBay item are of facilities on the island? I wonder who bought them - some interesting computer pictures in there. Noel

9 years, 3 months

1
0
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MU5 Software

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

With all this talk on the list recently about rare machines, here is a really long shot. I am interested in MU5, a research computer built at the University of Manchester in the 70s, which I know for a fact no longer exists. However, I would like to find any software, in any form, for it. Does anyone here have anything, or know who to ask? I have already been in contact with some of the people most closely associated with MU5 and drawn a blank so far. I am also aware of some documents in the National Archive of the History of Computing which may help and I will be going to consult those soon. Regards Rob

9 years, 3 months

1
0
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any thoughts where this might be?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/rgkAAOSw-0xYfg9p/s-l1600.jpg from www.ebay.com/itm/351959392585

9 years, 3 months

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6
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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item

by mark＠markesystems.com

From: "Jay West" <jwest at classiccmp.org> > -------------------- > Was it possible to configure an Access system with a mix of a 21MX and > 2100? > (I'm not challenging the assertion; it just never occurred to me...) > -------------------- > According to the documentation - specifically "no". Both processors must > be > the same type. > However, after digging in to it year ago, I see no reason that it > shouldn't > work and others on the list said they were fairly certain that it did > work. Thanks for the info! From: Glen Slick <glen.slick at gmail.com> > The L-Series 2103L and the A-Series A400, A600, A600+, A700, A900, > A990 were all called HP 1000 systems. They maintained software > compatibility with previous generation HP 1000 computers, although the > I/O interfaces used by the L-Series and A-Series were incompatible > with the previous generation HP 1000 computers. > I have a couple of A900 boxes that I need to get RTE-A running on them > someday. I used the A-Series quite a bit in the mid-80's. By that time, the operating system of choice had moved on from RTE-6 to RTE-A, which I quite liked in general. For control applications, it had several nice features for priority control, inter-process communication, etc. It also handled a fully hierarchical file system, which was still not a given at that time. However, I wasn't too pleased with the "full screen editor"; it worked by sending a couple of screen-fulls of text to the terminal (must be an HP26xx), then reading it back off the screen after you'd done any editing locally. It worked better than one might think, but one of the first things I did was write a character-at-a-time editor that used the WordStar / Turbo Pascal key mappings (in Fortran-77, BTW). With the A600, and at the end the A400, you could get a whole multi-user computer system, including a smallish disk drive (I think up to 60 MB) all in one 6U rack mount chassis, which I thought was pretty neat at the time. I had one, including two terminals, 7912 disk/tape drive, printer, and all the documentation and system generation media (720k floppy disks!) - I got it all for free when a customer upgraded to PCs, but gave it all away to Goodwill when I got married. On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 07:39:00PM -0500, Michael Thompson wrote: > I have two Sun 386i systems. It has an Intel 386 processor and runs SunOS. > Not exactly a big seller for Sun. I met some of the designers at the > Vintage > Computer Festival East 2.0 in Burlington, MA. I had one of those also, courtesy of a friend with a two-digit employee number at Sun. I really enjoyed it, being able to run multiple copies of DOS on a Unix machine in a windowed environment (this was well (this was at least 5 years before Windows 3.0 came out). Apparently the sales force actively *didn't* sell the unit, presumably because the price - and therefore commission - was too low. Gave that one away, too... ~~ Mark Moulding

9 years, 3 months

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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item

by mark＠markesystems.com

From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> > On 1/15/17 10:02 AM, Jay West wrote: >> I'd have to say my HP-2000 systems that are running are the rarest that >> I'm aware of. >> So I fairly strongly suspect that my running HP-2000's are the only ones >> left, anywhere. > > probably true. > http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102682887 > is probably an Access system, I never looked to see if it has the > interprocessor comm link Was it possible to configure an Access system with a mix of a 21MX and 2100? (I'm not challenging the assertion; it just never occurred to me...) Actually, the thing I'm calling a 21MX is listed in the components list as a "1000". Perhaps this implies that it (or they) was running one of the RTE operating systems. ~~ Mark Moulding

9 years, 3 months

5
5
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Soldapullt original vs III

by AppleCorey＠optonline.net

So I think I need to upgrade to a real Soldapullt instead of the RadioShack special. Is the slimline III model as good as the original bulky one? I don't mind the xtra pressure to push down the plunger on the original, I'm concerned with the effectiveness and ability to get in tight places my Hakko FR gun can't fit easily or when it's not worth changing tips for a single different component. Thanks, Cheers, Corey corey cohen u??o? ???o?

9 years, 3 months

8
10
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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by r3trohub＠gmail.com

Hi Everyone! I thought this would be an interesting question to ask around - What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own? For me, personally, I have a Altair 8800! Looking forward to hearing your answers >_Andy

9 years, 3 months

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Close encounters of the CADR kind

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Lars Brinkhoff > http://i0.wp.com/futurewavewebdevelopment.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/10… That might actually be the CONS Machine (effectively a prototype CADR); Greenblatt looks awfully young in that picture! Also, I don't recall him being super-involved in the CADR work. (You might ask him which it is!) The CONS CPU backplane is apparently now at the CHM: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102647223 My memory of the CONS machine is that, like the Chess Machine, it was a special purpose CPU hung off the AI PDP-10. (Or maybe the Chess Machine was attached to MC? I forget.) However, while that may have been its state early on, in reviewing some CONS documents I discovered that it was eventually given a keyboard and display, although it did remain hooked up to the PDP-10. The CONS machine is described in 3 AI Lab publications: Working Paper #79, Working Paper #80 ("CONS", by Tom Knight), and Memo #444 ("LISP Machine Progress Report"), The first is available here: http://www.textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/mit/cadr/Greenblatt-The_LISP_Machine… but it's just an architecture document. Memo #444 has an extensive "Current Status - August 1977" section, which gives more info about the CONS machine as built. Noel

9 years, 3 months

3
3
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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

I have two Sun 386i systems. It has an Intel 386 processor and runs SunOS. Not exactly a big seller for Sun. I met some of the designers at the Vintage Computer Festival East 2.0 in Burlington, MA. -- Michael Thompson

9 years, 3 months

2
1
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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own? [Tek 4132]

by seefriek＠gmail.com

From: allison <ajp166 at verizon.net> > >The 32016 was not clocked very fast nor did it have any pipelines to >speak of. True. And lots of interesting bugs; some show-stoppers in early steppings. >If the 32016 had a second generation, some tweaks and faster process it >might have had hope but like 68k and Z8000 it was good idea but late. It had 2 additional generations of general purpose procs (32332 & 32532) and a number of embedded iterations (ns32gc, ns32fx). But, yeah, too late relative to to i8086. KJ

9 years, 3 months

2
1
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Macintosh Plus: 31 years old this coming Monday

by cmhanson＠eschatologist.net

I met up with some friends at a coffee shop to get some data off a hard drive that was given to one of them with an old Mac Plus. During the course of this, we looked some things up, and learned that the Mac Plus was released on January 16, 1986: Thirty one years ago, as of this coming Monday. Maybe I?ll take some time out on Monday to finally fit mine with the replacement analog board that I?ve acquired, so I can enjoy that beautiful bluish-white phosphor glow once again. -- Chris

9 years, 3 months

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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own? [Tek 4132]

by seefriek＠gmail.com

From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> > > That reminds me I need to dig out the Genix sources I have. > I'd really like to see that, if it ever came to light. KJ

9 years, 3 months

1
0
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door hinges needed for hp racks

by cctalk＠snarc.net

Vintage Computer Federation just got this: http://vcfed.org/evan/hpmini.jpg We have the left/right cabinet doors, but the cabinets are missing all of the hinges where the door pins sit. Does anybody have spares?

9 years, 3 months

1
0
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Origins of the term 'WYSIWYG?

by ard.p850ug1＠gmail.com

Does anyone have any thoughts as to when that term, or a near equivalent was first used? The reason I ask is that I have been looking in some old photographic books and have turned up a 1954 advert for the Wrayflex (an obscure British single lens reflex camera). The text ends with : ;...through the lens focusing at any distance. No adjustment for paralax. No coupled rangefinder. Just the simple axiom ... "What you see, you get" ' I wonder what predates that usage (if anything) -tony

9 years, 3 months

8
13
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Need serial cabe for pdp 11/34 M7856

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Devin > i need a cable that is wired for serial. You mean EIA, right? (They're both serial... :-) > If no one has the cable, i could make one myself The EIA serial cables that plug into the Berg connectors are pretty much unobtainium. I have a couple that came with an 11/04 I bought, but I've never seen one for sale, individually. So yes, you are going to have to make one. Fortunately, that's not too hard! > i just need the 40 pin connector that goes on the cable. These connector (the individual wire kind, not the flat cable kind) can be found on eBay under the search term "dupont connector housing". Here's a listing for the 2x20 kind you need for a DEC serial cable: http://www.ebay.com/itm/172446135576 The same search terms should provide the pins, too. The quality will be pretty crappy, but I find working with regular electronics suppliers' sites to be too painful (for me, at least). Noel

9 years, 3 months

4
3
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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by geremin＠iprimus.com.au

Greetings from Australia, 'Down Under' and the Australian Computer Museum Society Inc. Congratulations to Jay on his working HP-2000s. I bought my HP-2000f from Liverpool Hospital (NSW) in the early 1980s for either $5,000 or $10,000. A lot of money in those days - I had a crazy idea of setting up some sort of bureau. I got it home (in a terrace in Chippendale) in two trips. Plus heaps of doco. I re-assembled it, put in a switch for selectable baud rate on the console port. Later the power supply for the disk failed and has not been repaired. It now sits in the HP Museum in Melbourne, VIC. See www.HPmuseum.net home page. The HP Museum is a vast store of HP information and artefacts. Sadly, the curator/originator Jon Johnston died last year on Mt Everest. His memorial service will be held next month, contact me for details. Regards, John GEREMIN, info at acms.org.au >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Message: 1 >Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2017 12:02:26 -0600 >From: "Jay West" <jwest at classiccmp.org> >To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >Subject: RE: What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item > do you own? [Tek 4132] >Message-ID: <000201d26f59$87e1cb60$97a56220$(a)classiccmp.org> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > >I'd have to say my HP-2000 systems that are running are the rarest that >I'm aware of. I know of a few folks who have various bits and pieces >towards assembling one, but not complete. I know two collectors who (each) >have most if not all of the parts, but the systems are far from >operational and likely never will be. > >So I fairly strongly suspect that my running HP-2000's are the only ones >left, anywhere. I have one HP-2000/Access system using dual 2100A/S cpus >with HP paper tape readers and punches, another HP-2000/Access system >using dual 21MX/E's, and an HP-2000/E using one 21MX. Each of those have >their own 7900, 7906 disc drives and 7970 (not the 2000/E) tape units. > >I think the most I ever paid for a system at once was $1500 for a >"system", and about $2000 for a pallet of two incomplete systems. But in >order to get the 3 HP-2000 systems mentioned above and running, I'm sure >it's edged uncomfortably into the 5 digit range. > >All the other systems in my collection, while perhaps highly sought >after... there are tens if not hundreds of identical systems in other >collectors hands. > >J --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

9 years, 3 months

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Origins of the term 'WYSIWYG?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Al Kossow > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYG > As it relates to computing, there are multiple claims to first use of > the phrase: > In mid-1975, John W. Seybold .. and researchers at PARC, incorporated > Gypsy software into Bravo to create Bravo 3, which allowed text to be > printed as displayed. Charles Simonyi and the other engineers > appropriated Flip Wilson's popular phrase around that time. I looked in the Bravo section of the Alto User's Manual (September 1979), and in the "Look hardcopy" section (pg. 38), which describes how Bravo can put the text on the screen almost exactly as how it will appear when printed ("by positioning each character on the screen within one-half [pixel] of its position in the final hardcopy"), but I see no reference to WYSIWYG there. So it must have gotten that tag later. Probably the best way to track the etymology on this is to look in NewNews archives. > The phrase was coined in 1982 by Larry Sinclair, an engineer at > ... ("Triple I") to express the idea that what the user sees on the > screen is what the user gets on the printer This exact idea existed in Bravo some years before (see above), and was well known. > From: Tony Duell > a very similar phrase ('What you see, you get') was used by a camera > manufactuer some 15 years earlier (at least) Yes, but I'll bet Flip Wilson never read any of their ads! :-) (And I think one can be pretty safe in saying that it was his use of the phrase that made it popular - at least, in the US. Not sure if the FWS was picked up on any British channels.) Noel

9 years, 3 months

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Close encounters of the CADR kind

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Lars Brinkhoff >> like the Chess Machine, it was a special purpose CPU hung off the AI >> PDP-10. (Or maybe the Chess Machine was attached to MC? I forget.) It's also possible that it was connected to AI at one point, and MC later on. I have this bit set about being told that when it was competing in some chess tournament, they disabled logins (and I have this bit set that it was on MC, since it was the fastest machine) so that they'd get the best performance. But it's all foggy at this point. I'm pretty sure that CHEOPS and CONS were in the same room (not in the raised floor area of the 9th floor) at one point, but again, don't rely too heavily on that memory. And I think the first CADR was in there too, while they were debugging it - I remember one evening watching over Dave Moon's shoulder in the room next door, while they tried to get the first CADR running. > Would that Chess Machine be the one called CHEOPS? Yes, that's it. > I'll take this opportutity to ask what CAIOS was? It seems intimately > related to Chaosnet. Maybe an earlier name for Chaos Yeah, that rings a bell, vaguely. Where did you find a referece too it? I just did a Google search, no luck. Noel

9 years, 3 months

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A compilation of PalmOS versions

by lproven＠gmail.com

This might be a bit new for some folk hereabouts, but I found it interesting. http://www.osnews.com/story/29602/The_elusive_Palm_OS_5_5_Garnet_emulator_f… Trying to collect and run every major version of PalmOS on modern PCs. There's a lot of interesting historic detail, and for once, _do_ read the comments! -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Talk/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn/AIM/Yahoo: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R/WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +420 702 829 053

9 years, 3 months

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ISO Altos 686/886 documentation

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Worked on cleaning up and documenting the 686 and 886 I had over the weekend. Pics and firmware up now on bitsavers, but I don't have any documentation. I'm especially interested in the 8274 diagnostic serial port, which isn't installed on either of my boards. I'll have a hard disk image of Concurrent CP/M 4.1 for it up under bits/Altos/686 later today, just installing it now. Also, the Xenix image from a 886 will boot on a 686. Turns out the disk in the 686 had a bad head, which is a drag because the image I made of it is missing heads 4 and 5. I'm also still trying to figure out if there is any way to do an inital format since at least the CP/M tools expect a config block on disk before you can partition it, which optionally will format the disk (chicken and egg).

9 years, 3 months

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Close encounters of the CADR kind

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Al Kossow > I assume that CONS ww panel we had on display in Boston was there > because it was wired by a robot they built. I don't know for sure about the CONS, but I'm pretty sure no CADR's were wired at the AI Lab; ISTR that some outside fabricator did them. (Probably a place with tape-controlled wire-wrap machines.) The robot that the AI Lab _did_ build, that was used in the production of CADR's, was a wire-wrap testing machine, used to verify the huge CPU panels immediately upon arrival. It was this large frame (made out of Dexion, IIRC) in which the CPU panel was laid horizontally. It had two 'test heads' (not sure of their exact name) which were moveable (details below), each of which had a little arm with a little round solid test probe sticking down. The test head would roll up to where the pin it wanted to continuity check was, and lower the little arm (it moved about 1/2", or so, IIRC). If the probe wasn't centered exactly on the pin, the test probe would slide off the pin, and go further down, and the machine could sense that. So it would raise the probe, and hunt around a bit in a trial-and-error process until it landed on the pin. Then the other test head did the same thing, and then it could do the test (dunno if it checked for shorts, as well as pin-pin continuity per the wire list); repeat ad nauseam. The two test heads were supported on beams (supported at both ends, IIRC) which could run back and forth on tracks, with the heads moving up and down the beams, all driven by a pair of plastic chains (which looked like miniature rope ladders), one each for X and Y axis motion. Those were driven off a couple of stepper motors attached to the frame, IIRC. I don't recall how it was done so that the two heads and their support beams didn't interfere with each other - possibly there was one on each end, and each had half of the panel to itself? (I think probably that, now that I think about it.) It was the most amazing Rube Goldberg device, and a blast to watch running, but it did the job. Noel

9 years, 3 months

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Close encounters of the CADR kind

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Alfred M. Szmidt > How do you figure that? Umm, because I saw them every day, for several years? :-) (They were scattered all over the 9th floor at Tech Sq.) Admittedly, it's hard to tell a picture (from the front, where one can only see a giant wire-wrapped assembly) of the CONS machine from a picture of a CADR, but that one also has the CADR header-plate. Also, from a previous message: > these pictures are of a CONS, or a very early CADR prototype There were no CADR prototypes, other than the CONS. The first CADR built was, I am fairly certain, put into service as a general user machine; it likely had fixes applied during the bring-up process that were built in from the start on later machines, so they were all identical (i.e. no special software for that one machine), but there was no 'prototype CADR' left lying around gathering dust, unused. Noel

9 years, 3 months

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Caldisk 8" drive (also ebay warning)

by jwsmail＠jwsss.com

I'm not sure I've heard of Caldisk, though it was in Anaheim apparently. Maybe a Calcomp brand or spinoff? Here is an ad also for the Matchdisk operation who pasted their info all over the drive. https://books.google.com/books?id=iD4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT33&lpg=PT33&dq=caldisk+… 8" double sided drive, 479 bucks in the 1981 Infoworld ad. CalDisk-142M-17652-111-Pragmatix-I-8-Inch-Internal-Floppy-Disk-Drive-VINTAGE/ http://www.ebay.com/itm/192031318942 Also I'm wondering if the "Matchmakers match of the month" system which they can't tell you about is in fact NoName systems generic CPM system. I never heard of this operation in all the things going on in that time frame (Matchmaker) but they seemed to be marketing to people who were less skilled at fitting things like third party floppy drives to systems, yet this offering is clearly for someone with advanced skills at doing so. thanks Jim

9 years, 3 months

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Close encounters of the CADR kind

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Alfred M. Szmidt > The closest to a picture of a CADR that I have seen The picture posted earlier of the machine in the MIT Archives: http://questier.com/Photos/200907_USA/20090731-150406_USA_Massachusetts_MIT… is _definitely_ a CADR. Noel

9 years, 3 months

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SunoS 4.1.4 and Open Windows 3 on an IPX?

by mattislind＠gmail.com

I have installed SunoS 4.1.4 on a an IPX and then tried to start Open Windows 3 from the command line. I get a garbled screen that looks like this: http://i.imgur.com/jWcbqYO.jpg?1 It looks like there is a mismatch between what resolution Open WIndows is using and how the frame buffer is configured. My screen reports that the framebuffer is outputting 1280x1024 at 76Hz. How can this be adjusted? I have read this manual: http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/sun/openWindows/Open_Windo… and various FAQs trying to modify EEPROM settings etc but it won't work. I understand that the 13W3 cable includes a number of sense lines so that the framebuffer can adjust to the monitor used. I haven't checked how 13W3 to VGA cable is configured but I assume it tells the FB to use 1280x1024 at 76Hz since it is what the screen reports. On the other hand, when SunOS boots it finds the cgsix0 and reports that the resolution is 1000x1022!? Any idea on how to set different resolutions in Open Windows? What I am not understanding here? The word resolution is not even mentioned in the Installation manual for Open Windows above... /Mattis

9 years, 3 months

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Close encounters of the CADR kind

by ams＠gnu.org

Does anyone have close up pictures of the MIT CADR? Boards, the maintaince indicator display, anything interesting and close up. LM-2 and and Lambda would also be of curiosity.

9 years, 3 months

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Microscope for Soldering and Inspection Work

by kspt.tor＠gmail.com

On 16 January 2017 at 00:51, Jon Elson <elson at pico-systems.com> wrote: > Also, flux smoke gets all over the lenses. That is one downside on my > Olympus, the bottom is not sealed. I made up some card stock and glued it > in place to try to prevent the smoke getting inside. But, it still gets on > the lenses requiring periodic cleaning. I use a fan and a flexible tube (for easy positioning) to suck the smoke away. It removes most of the smoke (from my nose as well).

9 years, 3 months

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Microscope for Soldering and Inspection Work

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

OK! here goes...well the B and L stereo zoom has a screw in place over the optics underneath... it is for attaching close up lenses or reduction in power lenses etc. you can also screw in a clear cover. the cover will also screw in our the aux lens if my brain remembers right. Many other stereo microscopes also have this provision to add a clear filter or aux booster or de-creaser in power lens. always best to keep active optics covered with some protection to save from solder splash, sharp things sticking up from scratching etc etc... Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 1/14/2017 10:52:08 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cclist at sydex.com writes: On 01/14/2017 09:36 AM, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > Be sure your stereo-zoom has a cover thing screwed into the > front of it. always good to protect the active optics. > > We have a rework station with a sliding X Y table on it.... and a > scope mounted on it... but... my hands are not steady as when > young..( need to find technology to assist with that!) Ditto on the second paragraph. But I'm not sure what you mean by a "cover thing". Care to elaborate? Thanks, Chuck

9 years, 3 months

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dual-wide dec extender cards

by aek＠bitsavers.org

fyi more common, but it has the correct depth connector on it thought I'd post since the description isn't at all obvious what it is http://www.ebay.com/itm/361530436227 http://www.ebay.com/itm/361530436651

9 years, 3 months

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DEC G500 Module

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

We are still fiddling with the TU56 drive on the PDP-12 at the RICM. We followed the head skew procedure, but it calls for a G500 module to amplify the signals from the tape head. We cobbled together a pair if G888 modules as the amplifier, and it worked OK. The G500 schematics are in the skew procedure so we could make one, but we don't know anything about the physical layout. Has anyone ever seen a DEC G500 module? -- Michael Thompson

9 years, 3 months

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Need serial cabe for pdp 11/34 M7856

by lyokoboy0＠gmail.com

The cable that came with my 11/34 is for current loop, i need a cable that is wired for serial. If no one has the cable, i could make one myself, i just need the 40 pin connector that goes on the cable. I have been unable to find the connector. Oddly ebay appears to have the side of the connector that goes on the M7856 board itself, but i need the other end, that goes on the wire. Any help is much appreciated. Lots of setbacks with this thing. I just want to see it running already. --Devin

9 years, 3 months

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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Eric Smith > I have a computer of the type that Gates and Allen used for that early > development. :-) > I don't have it running, though. Really? Which model processor; KA, KI, KL? Noel PS: Apparently Gates and Allen at one point rented time on a commercial service in Boston to do development; anyone know who that was, and what machine/OS is was?

9 years, 3 months

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Kenbaks in Nova Scotia

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

-------- Original message -------- From: jos <jos.dreesen at greenmail.ch> Date: 2017-01-15 12:33 AM (GMT-08:00) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Kenbaks in Nova Scotia >?? And how a tiny museum in a tiny province could afford them.? Kind of a head scratcher! They were not always 30K+... I visited the museum &? talked to the (very friendly ) owner. ? While this museum in itself may not warrant a trip to Nova Scotia, the area is >well worth a visit. >Jos Cool. ?Unfortunately I'm way over on the other side of the country so it's unlikely I'll get there. ?I just wonder why the previous owner, who seems concerned with getting the Kenbak's story out to the world, elected to send so many to one rather isolated place. ?Interesting.

9 years, 3 months

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EWD37

by pbirkel＠gmail.com

Priceless product review! (The infamous CADET, aka IBM 1620.) ROFL :->. http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD00xx/EWD37.html\ <http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD00xx/EWD37.html/> -----

9 years, 3 months

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DG Nova extender board on eBay

by aek＠bitsavers.org

fyi www.ebay.com/itm/252724692683

9 years, 3 months

3
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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

I have a Sun VME to Pixar interface board somewhere in my collection. -- Michael Thompson

9 years, 3 months

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PAL video in the states

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: William Degnan > some are made to handle both pal and ntsc automatically. ... not sure > if they still do all that for LCD tv's but why not? Well, one thing most LCD's don't handle is interlaced video, so that could be an issue. Noel

9 years, 3 months

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Kenbaks in Nova Scotia

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

Never know what you'll find googling around. ?I'm kind of curious about this. ?There is a 'museum' (barely.. they have less stuff than I do) in Nova Scotia that has 7 Kenbak-1s. ?I read how they got them.. from a gentleman in South Carolina. ?In his own write up, he said he would only sell them for a 'substantial price'. ?Since I know one sold not too long ago for $30k+.. I'm wondering what the museum paid and why he sold 7 them. ?And how a tiny museum in a tiny province could afford them. ?Kind of a head scratcher! I think this link will give you the story.. the gentleman that sold them asked to have it posted. ?I'm sure this must have been covered at some point in the past.. it's an interesting read though for those lioe me that have never seen it before. ?I didn't expect one Kenbak to be in Canada let alone 7. http://www.computermuseum.20m.com/cgi-bin/framed/3129/KENBAK-1BACKGROUND.htm

9 years, 3 months

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Microscope for Soldering and Inspection Work

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

check look at this listing they mention 38 mm? _http://www.ebay.com/itm/BAUSCH-amp-LOMB-STEREO-ZOOM-MICROSCOPE-38mm-RING-LI GHT-ADAPTER-with-Protect-Glass-/181679683562?nma=true&si=xIQtOD6q2mVWI24DK0x J%252B9hZoak%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557_ (http://www.ebay.com/itm/BAUSCH-amp-LOMB-STEREO-ZOOM-MICROSCOPE-38mm-RING-LI… ith-Protect-Glass-/181679683562?nma=true&si=xIQtOD6q2mVWI24DK0xJ%2B9hZoak%3D &orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557) In a message dated 1/14/2017 12:54:49 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cclist at sydex.com writes: On 01/14/2017 11:12 AM, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > Many other stereo microscopes also have this provision to add a > clear filter or aux booster or de-creaser in power lens. always > best to keep active optics covered with some protection to save > from solder splash, sharp things sticking up from scratching etc > etc... Oh, okay, looking at my unit, I see what you mean. Does this threaded fitting have any compatibility with a standard camera lens filter thread? (i.e. Can I buy a standard lens filter and expect it to fit?) --Chuck

9 years, 3 months

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What is the most amount of money you've spent on a computer or computer-related item?

by r3trohub＠gmail.com

Hi Everyone! I know this is a bit of a personal question, so please feel free to ignore this email! If you're willing to answer it would also be interesting to know what drove you to spend as much as you did on that particular computer? For me, the most I've spent on a single computer is $2,000 for a Rev 0 Apple II around 3 years ago, I spent that much because I had wanted an original Apple II for so long (not plus or E) and this one was so clean and perfect! I cannot think of a time when I will sell it! Can't wait to hear your answers :) :) _>Andy

9 years, 3 months

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KA-10 desirability [was RE: What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?]

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Rich Alderson >>> If he had a KA, I would have tracked him down and beaten him to a pulp >>> to lay hands on it > A KA-10 based PDP-10 is the Holy Grail So, how many KA10's _are_ there still in existence? Does anyone know? And I think all the PDP-6's are gone, right? Noel

9 years, 3 months

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Microscope for Soldering and Inspection Work

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

might be but I do not remember the size! http://www.science-info.net/docs/b-l/BL_Stereozoom.pdf the large articulating arm is the monster we have... it is cool but a desk hop hog see in manual was looking for filter dia specs and do not see... in the manual In a message dated 1/14/2017 12:54:49 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cclist at sydex.com writes: On 01/14/2017 11:12 AM, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > Many other stereo microscopes also have this provision to add a > clear filter or aux booster or de-creaser in power lens. always > best to keep active optics covered with some protection to save > from solder splash, sharp things sticking up from scratching etc > etc... Oh, okay, looking at my unit, I see what you mean. Does this threaded fitting have any compatibility with a standard camera lens filter thread? (i.e. Can I buy a standard lens filter and expect it to fit?) --Chuck

9 years, 3 months

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What is the most amount of money you've spent on a computer or computer-related item?

by sieler＠allegro.com

Interesting question ... brings back good and bad memories :) Probably $5,800 for an HP 3000 Corporate Business System (a 12-processor HP 3000/997). it was a million dollar machine when new. I bought it for $300, paid about $500 for delivery, and $5000 to get the three-phase power installed for it. I reinstalled MPE/iX (the disks had been scrubbed), and discovered that MPE wouldn't boot with more than 10 CPUs active ... due to licensing constraints. All of the HP documentation I could find said that the 3000 version of the hardware was limited to 10 CPUs (the 9000 version, running HP-UX, allowed up to 12). Turns out HP had apparently done an under-the-table sale of a 12-CPU system to someone, and patched (probably one byte of code change) the original copy of the OS to disregard the 10 CPU limit. (Under the table sales, and support, wasn't unusual with HP near the end of the HP 3000's lifetime.) The machine was in a spare room at our office in Cupertino. When we had to move, I donated it to Paul Allen's Living Computers Museum, in Seattle. Stan

9 years, 3 months

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Microscope for Soldering and Inspection Work

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

Has anyone had experience of using an item like this for soldering and PCB inspection work? https://www.amazon.co.uk/AmScope-Widefield-Binocular-Inspection-Microscope/d p/B005C75IVM/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8 <https://www.amazon.co.uk/AmScope-Widefield-Binocular-Inspection-Microscope/ dp/B005C75IVM/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484294314&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords= AmScope+sm-3bx> &qid=1484294314&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=AmScope+sm-3bx At the moment I have one of these: http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/22w-fluorescent-magnifying-craft-lamp-a29ff which I find OK, but sometimes it gets in the way of the soldering iron and it isn't that easy to move it to a position and have it actually stay there. Regards Rob

9 years, 3 months

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What is the most prized possession in your collection?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Alan! Neat! I like this arm you have! I also have an articulating monster B & L arm and it is amazing.... but it takes up space on the desk with a monster base. Ed# In a message dated 1/14/2017 10:58:57 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, alan at alanlee.org writes: I have high 5 figures invested into a home soldering lab. I use a digital video scope now, however for 5-6 years before that, I used this scope nearly every day for mostly 0402/.5 mm pitch soldering and repair: http://www.amscope.com/3-5x-90x-simul-focal-articulating-zoom-stereo-microsc ope-with-3mp-digital-camera.html?gclid=CI6Dxb_D4sECFc1Z7AodUx8AiQ [1] Along with these eye pieces: http://www.amscope.com/pair-of-super-widefield-20x-microscope-eyepieces-30mm .html?gclid=CNr-3bXD4sECFQ0Q7AodzjsAeQ [2] The combination with swing arm allows me to move the scope anywhere on my work bench and gives a use-able work height of up to 18 inches underneath. I highly recommend it. -Alan P.S. Disregard the camera. I thought it would be useful when I bought it, but never once used it. On 2017-01-13 06:02, Alexandre Souza wrote: > We've talked about the most expensive, the most rare, the less usual... > > Now lets talk about what you love most <3 > > For me is the Apple IIe signed by Woz :D > > What is your most prized and loved possession? :) Links: ------ [1] http://www.amscope.com/3-5x-90x-simul-focal-articulating-zoom-stereo-microsc ope-with-3mp-digital-camera.html?gclid=CI6Dxb_D4sECFc1Z7AodUx8AiQ [2] http://www.amscope.com/pair-of-super-widefield-20x-microscope-eyepieces-30mm .html?gclid=CNr-3bXD4sECFQ0Q7AodzjsAeQ

9 years, 3 months

1
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What is the most prized possession in your collection?

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

That's a hard one. ?I feel like the answer should be 'my Mark-8 boards!', because they are so rare. ?But they're just boards.. they don't do anything. ?I find the computer I keep coming back to is my Digital Group z80. ?Digital Group just has that personality factor. ?

9 years, 3 months

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Microscope for Soldering and Inspection Work

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Be sure your stereo-zoom has a cover thing screwed into the front of it. always good to protect the active optics. We have a rework station with a sliding X Y table on it.... and a scope mounted on it... but... my hands are not steady as when young..( need to find technology to assist with that!) Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 1/14/2017 9:20:05 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cclist at sydex.com writes: On 01/14/2017 12:48 AM, Rob Jarratt wrote: > Has anyone had experience of using an item like this for soldering > and PCB inspection work? I use a B&L stereo zoom microscope for inspection, but have never used it for soldering. That is, after soldering in, say, a TQFP, I'll use it to examine for misregistration and solder bridges. But I can't imagine soldering under it. For that, where normal vision doesn't suffice, I use a head-mounted binocular loupe. Seems to work just fine. --Chuck

9 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

Anyone have one of these? QDP-300

by jwsmail＠jwsss.com

This looks like a very nice system. I'm not sure I ever heard of it, but today's Sharktank (computerworld) has a fun story about it. Even better extra points if you have the said system in your collection. System (from link in article): http://blog.modernmechanix.com/qdp-300-the-peace-of-mind-computer/ Quasar Data Products http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=616 Shark Tank Column, 1/13/2017 (yes Friday the 13th). For future reference if the link fails. http://www.computerworld.com/article/3157097/it-industry/it-its-not-just-a-… The QDP had a hard drive and 8" floppies. Z80 x 64K memory. Thanks Jim

9 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

What is the most prized possession in your collection?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Mine is the HP-2000 ... it was a game changer for me in the used computer business as it gave me a one company direction... from dealing in parts to keep it alive to having HP-3000 systems being an indy new HP dealer on PC products in the 80s into the 90s. On a more personal level, the Classic PDP-8 with the plexi top covers we have here in the SMECC museum project I have given them. I wanted one ion 1965 and finally got one in the 80s! Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 1/13/2017 4:03:03 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com writes: We've talked about the most expensive, the most rare, the less usual... Now lets talk about what you love most <3 For me is the Apple IIe signed by Woz :D What is your most prized and loved possession? :)

9 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

What's the rarest or most unusual software item do you own?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Lars Brinkhoff > Is there a list? What's on it? I think he meant the mailing list. > I guess the PDP-11 operating system TRANTOR ... I recently found a copy > and sent it to the original authors. Oh, wow, neat. Where did you find it, if I may ask - I'm curious! Did a copy go to bitsavers, too (I hope)? Noel

9 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

Looking for Dr. Dobb's Developer Library DVD 6

by classiccmp＠crash.com

Greetings all, I always figured I'd order one of the compilations of Dr. Dobb's Journal on CD/DVD One Of These Days... Then they went and stopped publication. While a lot of DDJ content is still online at drdobbs.com, I'd still like to pick up that DVD. So like the Subject says, I'm looking to acquire a copy of this last version of said compilation. Thanks, --Steve.

9 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

What's the rarest or most unusual software item do you own?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Leif Johansson > Me and peter recently discovered he saved the rest of the box. Is that the one I saw in the 'MIT-MC in Sweden' pictures a while back? > Paul Koning > A listing of RSTS-11 V0 If that's not already online in machine-readable form, we should get it scanned and OCR'd. I have a _very_ soft spot for RSTS-11 - I learned to program on a PDP-11/20 running RSTS-11. (Actually, I learned to program from reading a BASIC-PLUS language manual, borrowed from Matthew Weinstein, over my first weekend at boarding school!) Being able to run on it an actual PDP-11 (using Guy's MEM-11 card) would be so far beyond super-cool that it would be below absolute zero... Noel

9 years, 3 months

4
4
0 0

OT: Germany: Looking for transport opportunity Cologne -> VCFe or Nuremberg or Offenburg

by Arno_1983＠gmx.de

Hello dear listmembers, sorry for the off-topic request. I have a chance to get two beautiful optomechanical Mettler lab scales from a gentleman in Cologne for a very nice price, but the seller states outright that he won't ship them (which probably wouldn't end nicely for the goods anyway!). So I'm looking for someone able to collect those (approx. 20*40*40cm and <10kg each) in Cologne sometime soonish (payment would be effected independently by bank transfer, there is one externally accessible transport safety screw on each device which would have to be checked/tightened) and deliver (timing for this step is largely uncritical) to either my home near Nuremberg BY, hand them over at VCFe in Munich BY on April 29th to May 1st, or meet me at a field day near Offenburg BW on April 7th to 9th (additional opportunities may appear). Compensation for fuel and time will be paid, please enclose your asking amount. Thanks in advance, yours sincerely Arno Kletzander // DO 4 NAK

9 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Unknown 8085 opcodes

by shadoooo＠gmail.com

Hello Adrian, not sure if 8085 is supported, but try to analyze your dump with IDA Disassembler. It's really amazing in analyzing the code, and reconstruct automatically, or with small effort, a readable trace of functions jumps, strings, symbols, etc Andrea

9 years, 3 months

11
28
0 0

Aliens film set equipment identification

by barythrin＠gmail.com

http://www.starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=728 Not the system she seems to be looking at but one item noted by some collector out there were grid compass laptops.

9 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

Re: What is the most amount of money you've spent on a computer or computer-related item?

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

I rarely go above $1000.. I spent $1500 for my Mark-8 boards. ?And I considered that a bargain considering what they were.

9 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Re: What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

-------- Original message -------- From: Rick Bensene <rickb at bensene.com> Date: 2017-01-12 11:49 AM (GMT-08:00) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you   own? A selection of some of my more unusual computer-related stuff: - A Tektronix 4132 Unix workstation? using a National 32016 CPU and a 4.2bsd port called UTek - A Digital Equipment PDP 8/e system with 2 RK05 drives, high speed paper tape reader/punch, RX01 Dual 8" floppy drives, 16K of DEC core memory(commonly runs with a 32K NVRAM board), 2 serial ports, EAE, RTC, Memory Extension/Timeshare board, Diode boot board (RK05 boot) - Wang 300-series calculator field service parts kit (two wooden briefcases) - Friden 6010 Computyper Diagnostic Console - Friden Electronics Training Course manuals (1960s) - Wyle Laboratories WS-02 punched card programmable electronic calculator (1964) - Busicom 207 punched card programmable electronic calculator - Altair 8800 with Altair dual 8" disk drives - IMSAI 8080 kit built in high school as a school project in 1976/1977 - Televideo Personal Terminal - GE transistorised current loop acoustic coupler modem (110 baud) - Hewlett Packard 9100A and 9100B programmable electronic calculators - Tektronix mini-Board Bucket computer and many boards for it (EPROM Blaster, TI TMS9918-Based Video Board w/RTC, SASI Interface, 6809 CPU, 6809 ICE CPU. 32K Static and 64K Dynamic RAM Boards, 300-Baud Modem Board, 5 1/4" Floppy Controller - SWTPC TV Typewriter - A large format (4'x5') Summagraphics digitizing tablet with GPIB interface - A Tektronix 4052 desktop computer (bit-slice implementation of Motorola 6800 CPU) with very rare RAM Disk module installed under keyboard - Wang Laboratories dual-cassette drive for 700 series calculator - An old fluorescent-lighted, two sided sign advertising Denon electronic calculators - Some original Digital Equipment System Modules (Used by DEC for making some of their early computers) --- Rick Bensene >The Old Calculator Museum >http://oldcalculatormuseum.com Nice! ?Rick is your TV Typewriter the Don Lancaster design or the CT1024?

9 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

EAI also made drum memories too I believe... ANYTHING EAI is cool! Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 1/12/2017 2:26:08 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at snarc.net writes: > Given the topic, I have this rather *unique* punch card reader, if you want > to call it that. It is marked EAI but that's where the trail turns cold. EAI is Electronic Associates Inc. based here on the NJ shore. They made analog computers.

9 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Re: What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by barythrin＠gmail.com

https://www.flickr.com/photos/85127208 at N05/7799377360/in/photostream Not sure if this URL will share properly but this is one item I'd love to hear if anyone knows about. Definitely one of my most unusual prices however I bought it from a fellow collector and he got it from a friend's pawn shop find so not much on the true origin other than speculation. I haven't had time to fix it, but even the molecular connectors for the power are a but unusual. I brought it to our VCF South/Southwest a few times for showing early Portable computers.

9 years, 3 months

3
2
0 0

LCM+L [was RE: What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?]

by RichA＠livingcomputers.org

From: Lyle Bickley Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2017 8:30 PM > On Wed, 11 Jan 2017 17:34:51 -0800 > Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote: >> On 1/11/17 4:45 PM, Brad H wrote: >>> I wasn't even aware of the LCM until this thread I'm hurt. :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) >> You mean "Living Computer: Museum + Labs" ? >> http://www.livingcomputers.org/ >> They just changed their name. > Thanks - didn't know that... > Good for them!!! Their website has really improved as well. Thanks, Lyle! I've passed that comment on to the head of the internal team that spearheaded the improvements as we worked on the rebranding, because she knows who everyone involved was and I don't. (The previous sites, both LCM and PDPplanet, were done by an expert team--they really are good--who were external and also not answerable to us.) This was part of expanding from a single floor of our three-story building onto the 1st (ground) floor, where we have educational labs, exhibits on modern developments from the vintage machines on the 2nd, a real gift shop and book store, and a small cantina. Rich Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Living Computers: Museum + Labs 2245 1st Avenue S Seattle, WA 98134 mailto:RichA at LivingComputers.org http://www.LivingComputers.org/

9 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

KA-10 desirability [was RE: What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?]

by RichA＠livingcomputers.org

From: Lars Brinkhoff Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2017 10:53 PM > Rich Alderson wrote: >> Eric's got a KL. If he had a KA, I would have tracked him down and >> beaten him to a pulp to lay hands on it--and we're friends. > This is the third time in a few weeks that I've seen people eagerly > looking for a KA10. The founder of LCM+L is Paul Allen. A KA-10 based PDP-10 is the Holy Grail, since it's the kind of system on which he and his friends (not just Bill Gates, but four others from the same school) all learned serious programming. (They started, of course, with Dartmouth BASIC on a dialup >from GE Information Systems.) > Is someone pulling strings behind the scenes? CIA wants an upgrade for > their PDP-3? NSA, whose existence itself was classified Top Secret at the time of the PDP-3 build. Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2017 11:00 PM > Eric Smith wrote: >> The only part of a KA that I have is the main console switch and light >> panel. The leadperson for the film Swordfish wanted to rent it from me, >> but we weren't able to reach an agreement. I have yet to see the film. > I think there's only about ten seconds worth of PDP-10 goodness. Some of the funniest dialog written, though. "Cal Tech", forsooth! :-) > For a greater boost, check out the "Arpanet" episode of The Americans. Hmm. I'll have to look for that. Rich Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Living Computers: Museum + Labs 2245 1st Avenue S Seattle, WA 98134 mailto:RichA at LivingComputers.org http://www.LivingComputers.org/

9 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Sol Terminal Color Photo, and PROMs

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

-------- Original message -------- From: Corey Cohen <AppleCorey at optonline.net> Date: 2017-01-12 3:25 AM (GMT-08:00) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts" <cctech at classiccmp.org> Cc: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Sol Terminal Color Photo, and PROMs The keyboard looks like a variant of the keyboard on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London right now attached to the Apple-1.?? It was a giant pain to get it working correctly.? I didn't have good schematics so had to create a ton of notes and pseudo schematics using a ohm meter, scope and logic analyzer.? It was very satisfying to get it working :-) The V&A keyboard is KTC-065-01466. There is a story on the sol-20 prototype proms, if I recall correctly, in the book "Fire in the valley".??? Cheers, Corey corey cohen u??o? ???o? > On Jan 12, 2017, at 12:50 AM, Brad H <vintagecomputer at bettercomputing.net> wrote: > > Hey guys, > > > > Does anyone know if any color photos exist of the Sol 'Intelligent Terminal' > that appeared on the cover of Popular Electronics, July 1976?? I just > discovered that that Keytronics keyboard I bought on ebay (the one parted > out from a mystery 8080 terminal of some sort) is the same one they used for > the PE cover unit.? I found the artwork tonight on sol20.org for the > original PCB.? If I could find a color photo it'd at least be possible to > build a replica of that unit someday. > > > > I was curious too if anyone knew the story behind the four optional PROM ICs > that could be installed on the board.? The article only says 'Optional, > write in for details'.? Can't find any more info than that anywhere.? I > understand Processor Technology sort of dodged around PE's reluctance to > publish any more computer articles, and I'm wondering if the terminal could > be turned into a full blown computer with the aid of those PROMs. > > > > To refresh - this is the keyboard I bought. > https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4pq0-BHd2x6eHNhTWVGZkhxRFk/view?usp=sharin > g > > > > Definitely seems to be the same one - just different colors and legends on > the keys themselves. > > > > Brad > Thanks Corey! >From what I've read around about this terminal.. PE didn't want to do any more articles on computers so Processor Tech sort of stripped down what was to become their Terminal Computer, calling it just a terminal for the article, although apparently the motherboard design changed to what's in the Sol 20. ?I'll look for that book. ?It's interesting that this first terminal isn't better documented. ?Or that PE didn't take one color photo of the first unit. Was the output on the keyboard you worked on ASCII at least?

9 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

Were C64's used in editing video like the Amigas - also need Amiga keyboa...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

We will dig around for come images...ok if you have any links to good large scans let us know thx.... Ed# In a message dated 1/12/2017 8:35:35 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, sbolton at bfree.on.ca writes: > Syd! thanks,,.. is the Toaster Flyer a board inside the Amiga? it > may be > there... > > Did you save any promotional material etc? Thins like that look > good in > a display with the gear. > > We also need to scrounge a keyboard and a mouse It was a card inside, yes.....but you didn't typically have a Toaster & and Flyer in the same machine---you had one of each. I have lots of material still from the day and there is of course good examples of it online. Keyboard & mouse are tougher....we have them at the museum, but not really any extras. It is one of the most common requests I get from people - there are adapters to use PC keyboards (and mice) on the Amiga but of course that's not authentic :) eBay may be the only route for getting that - at least if you need to do so quickly. Also you can try http://www.jppbm.com/ - he carries a lot of hard to find Commodore stuff. http://www.pcmuseum.ca

9 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

DEC LCG cable...BC10K?

by useddec＠gmail.com

I found what I remember to be a DEC10 memory cable . It looks like a BC10K in the 1980 cables handbook. It looks to be a 5 footer or so. Any interest? Please contact me off list. Thanks, Paul

9 years, 3 months

3
2
0 0

Were C64's used in editing video like the Amigas - also need Amiga keyboa...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Syd! thanks,,.. is the Toaster Flyer a board inside the Amiga? it may be there... Did you save any promotional material etc? Thins like that look good in a display with the gear. We also need to scrounge a keyboard and a mouse . thanks Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 1/11/2017 7:38:46 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, sbolton at bfree.on.ca writes: No, C64's were too limited (8-bit) to do anything video related. However, video production was actually possible with the Amiga 1000 as you could get the Amiga 1300 Genlock, and the Amiga itself always natively produced composite video ....real true non-linear editing with the computer itself however was really only done with the Toaster Flyer unit (the Video Toaster itself just produced video effects/titling and came bundled with LightWave 3D). I used to be a Commodore dealer, and the NewTek (Video Toaster) distributor in Canada, so if you need any info hit me up! Syd Bolton Personal Computer Museum http://www.pcmuseum.ca On Wed, 11 Jan 2017 16:14:19 -0500, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote: > Were C64's used in editing video like the Amigas - also need Amiga > keyboard? > > Were Commodore 64's used in editing video like the Amigas were to > any > extent? > > Looking to figure if there is an overlap area in yet another > area of > our displays we can do between computing and video production. > > We have a Amiga, 2000 desk top type, with a video toaster in it that > needs a keyboard and factory mouse! > Can anyone help? > Thanks Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org)

9 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

Were C64's used in editing video like the Amigas - also need Amiga keyboard?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Were C64's used in editing video like the Amigas - also need Amiga keyboard? Were Commodore 64's used in editing video like the Amigas were to any extent? Looking to figure if there is an overlap area in yet another area of our displays we can do between computing and video production. We have a Amiga, 2000 desk top type, with a video toaster in it that needs a keyboard and factory mouse! Can anyone help? Thanks Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org)

9 years, 3 months

5
7
0 0

Banner Panels

by rodsmallwood52＠btinternet.com

Hi Guys I have had a quick word with the girls down at the silk screen shop. Banner panels 18 1/2 by 3 5/16 silk screened on 1mm Aluminum look to be doable I don't know how many different types there were. Regardless of if you need a replacement and you have not sent me picture a head on shot would really help Rod (Panelman) Smallwood -- PDP-8/e PDP-8/f PDP-8/m PDP-8/i Front Panels ex Stock - Order Now

9 years, 3 months

3
11
0 0

Sol Terminal Color Photo, and PROMs

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

Hey guys, Does anyone know if any color photos exist of the Sol 'Intelligent Terminal' that appeared on the cover of Popular Electronics, July 1976? I just discovered that that Keytronics keyboard I bought on ebay (the one parted out from a mystery 8080 terminal of some sort) is the same one they used for the PE cover unit. I found the artwork tonight on sol20.org for the original PCB. If I could find a color photo it'd at least be possible to build a replica of that unit someday. I was curious too if anyone knew the story behind the four optional PROM ICs that could be installed on the board. The article only says 'Optional, write in for details'. Can't find any more info than that anywhere. I understand Processor Technology sort of dodged around PE's reluctance to publish any more computer articles, and I'm wondering if the terminal could be turned into a full blown computer with the aid of those PROMs. To refresh - this is the keyboard I bought. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4pq0-BHd2x6eHNhTWVGZkhxRFk/view?usp=sharin g Definitely seems to be the same one - just different colors and legends on the keys themselves. Brad

9 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

Aliens film set equipment identification

by curiousmarc3＠gmail.com

Can you ID the following equipment? Melissa, a digital artist who has to reconstruct the set of the movie Aliens (a 1986 James Cameron sequel to the seminal 1979 Alien from Scott Ridley, has asked me to identify the large computer props that were used in the original set. She identified an Alto cabinet: that's how she originally contacted me, to get the exact dimensions. But for the rest shown here we came up empty. The only thing I could see is an upside down industrial CRT terminal and a keyboard that appears fake. The only clue I have is that this was filmed in the UK in 1985 and Melissa believes part of the equipment came from British Airways "Boadicea" ticket reservation system. You can browse all the pictures at once here on Goolge Photos: https://goo.gl/photos/dZHzWM5ArvHjV9AN7 Or view the original full res pictures individually from my DropBox: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32371244/Aliens%20Set%20Equipment%20ID/… https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32371244/Aliens%20Set%20Equipment%20ID/… https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32371244/Aliens%20Set%20Equipment%20ID/… https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32371244/Aliens%20Set%20Equipment%20ID/… https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32371244/Aliens%20Set%20Equipment%20ID/… https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32371244/Aliens%20Set%20Equipment%20ID/… https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32371244/Aliens%20Set%20Equipment%20ID/… https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32371244/Aliens%20Set%20Equipment%20ID/… https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32371244/Aliens%20Set%20Equipment%20ID/… https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32371244/Aliens%20Set%20Equipment%20ID/… https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32371244/Aliens%20Set%20Equipment%20ID/… https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32371244/Aliens%20Set%20Equipment%20ID/… Here are Melissa's original comments on the screen shots: "- Hypersleep-Ops Unkown Unit: I am unsure what exactly this is. It appears to be similar in size to the Alto cabinet. - Unknown Ops Console keyboards: I had talked to Richard Thomson who I found through a Google search and he suggested maybe this isn't really a keyboard, but blank keys stuck on a sheet of metal, as it doesn't look to him like there's travel distance for the keys. - Unknown Ops PC Terminal: Richard also suggested that to him, it looks like a monitor placed upside down. He thinks the grid and circle pattern on the "top" is where rubber feet would have been. Also paired with this monitor appears to be a flat keypanel about the size of a standard keyboard. The surface is shiny. If I can find some better images I will include them in a reply. You may be able to make it out in a couple of these clippings Pictured in these photos are large units. I've brightened them up and removed the colour from some because they had a harsh red lighting that was hard on the eyes and washed out any colour anyway. The actress running alongside the units is Sigourney Weaver who stands about 5'11 tall. That should give an approximate size. It's been stated that somewhere in this scene, the setbuilders had used British Airways' old ticketing computer system as set dressing when they upgraded and were discarding the old units. They were called "Boadicea" but when I google search that, All I get for results is one black and white photo from the 1960s and nothing in that image is recognizable. So I have no idea which units these "Boadicea" units are. In the last image attached (Ops Standing units 9) I have boxed in the best shot of the opposite sides of the units that I have. Note the other units on the right side of that image. If you can help with these as well that would be so cool. It's possible these could be part of the Boadicea units too. I have NO idea what any of these are, so anything you can tell me is appreciated!" Marc

9 years, 3 months

4
3
0 0

Unknown 8085 opcodes

by bygg＠cafax.se

> I built a disassembler years ago to pick apart captured malware. By > now it handles about a dozen ISAs. While 8080 and 8085 are not on the > list, Z-80 is; adding 8080 would be a relatively simple thing. I've > added that to my to-do list; if someone can point me to 8080/8085 > machine language documentation that would save me some searching (which > is something I'm not much good at in these days when frickin' > *everything* is shoehorned into a Web page). You mean something like this, from another disassembler project: /* ---- Intel opcode table ---- */ static dispblock inteldisp[256] = { { 0x00, 1, inst, 0, "nop" }, { 0x01, 3, inst, 0, "lxi b,%2" }, { 0x02, 1, inst, 0, "stax b" }, { 0x03, 1, inst, 0, "inx b" }, { 0x04, 1, inst, 0, "inr b" }, { 0x05, 1, inst, 0, "dcr b" }, { 0x06, 2, inst, 0, "mvi b,%1" }, { 0x07, 1, inst, 0, "rlc" }, { 0x08, 1, unused, 0, 0 }, { 0x09, 1, inst, 0, "dad b" }, { 0x0A, 1, inst, 0, "ldax b" }, { 0x0B, 1, inst, 0, "dcx b" }, { 0x0C, 1, inst, 0, "inr c" }, { 0x0D, 1, inst, 0, "dcr c" }, { 0x0E, 2, inst, 0, "mvi c,%1" }, { 0x0F, 1, inst, 0, "rrc" }, { 0x10, 2, unused, 0, 0 }, { 0x11, 3, inst, 0, "lxi d,%2" }, { 0x12, 1, inst, 0, "stax d" }, { 0x13, 1, inst, 0, "inx d" }, { 0x14, 1, inst, 0, "inr d" }, { 0x15, 1, inst, 0, "dcr d" }, { 0x16, 2, inst, 0, "mvi d,%1" }, { 0x17, 1, inst, 0, "ral" }, { 0x18, 2, unused, 0, 0 }, { 0x19, 1, inst, 0, "dad d" }, { 0x1A, 1, inst, 0, "ldax d" }, { 0x1B, 1, inst, 0, "dcx d" }, { 0x1C, 1, inst, 0, "inr e" }, { 0x1D, 1, inst, 0, "dcr e" }, { 0x1E, 2, inst, 0, "mvi e,%1" }, { 0x1F, 1, inst, 0, "rar" }, { 0x20, 1, inst, I85, "rim" }, { 0x21, 3, inst, 0, "lxi h,%2" }, { 0x22, 3, instw, 0, "shld %a" }, { 0x23, 1, inst, 0, "inx h" }, { 0x24, 1, inst, 0, "inr h" }, { 0x25, 1, inst, 0, "dcr h" }, { 0x26, 2, inst, 0, "mvi h,%1" }, { 0x27, 1, inst, 0, "daa" }, { 0x28, 2, unused, 0, 0 }, { 0x29, 1, inst, 0, "dad h" }, { 0x2A, 3, instw, 0, "lhld %a" }, { 0x2B, 1, inst, 0, "dcx h" }, { 0x2C, 1, inst, 0, "inr l" }, { 0x2D, 1, inst, 0, "dcr l" }, { 0x2E, 2, inst, 0, "mvi l,%1" }, { 0x2F, 1, inst, 0, "cma" }, { 0x30, 1, inst, I85, "sim" }, { 0x31, 3, inst, 0, "lxi sp,%2" }, { 0x32, 3, instb, 0, "sta %a" }, { 0x33, 1, inst, 0, "inx sp" }, { 0x34, 1, inst, 0, "inr m" }, { 0x35, 1, inst, 0, "dcr m" }, { 0x36, 2, inst, 0, "mvi m,%1" }, { 0x37, 1, inst, 0, "stc" }, { 0x38, 2, unused, 0, 0 }, { 0x39, 1, inst, 0, "dad sp" }, { 0x3A, 3, instb, 0, "lda %a" }, { 0x3B, 1, inst, 0, "dcr sp" }, { 0x3C, 1, inst, 0, "inr a" }, { 0x3D, 1, inst, 0, "dcr a" }, { 0x3E, 2, inst, 0, "mvi a,%1" }, { 0x3F, 1, inst, 0, "cmc" }, { 0x40, 1, inst, 0, "mov b,b" }, { 0x41, 1, inst, 0, "mov b,c" }, { 0x42, 1, inst, 0, "mov b,d" }, { 0x43, 1, inst, 0, "mov b,e" }, { 0x44, 1, inst, 0, "mov b,h" }, { 0x45, 1, inst, 0, "mov b,l" }, { 0x46, 1, inst, 0, "mov b,m" }, { 0x47, 1, inst, 0, "mov b,a" }, { 0x48, 1, inst, 0, "mov c,b" }, { 0x49, 1, inst, 0, "mov c,c" }, { 0x4A, 1, inst, 0, "mov c,d" }, { 0x4B, 1, inst, 0, "mov c,e" }, { 0x4C, 1, inst, 0, "mov c,h" }, { 0x4D, 1, inst, 0, "mov c,l" }, { 0x4E, 1, inst, 0, "mov c,m" }, { 0x4F, 1, inst, 0, "mov c,a" }, { 0x50, 1, inst, 0, "mov d,b" }, { 0x51, 1, inst, 0, "mov d,c" }, { 0x52, 1, inst, 0, "mov d,d" }, { 0x53, 1, inst, 0, "mov d,e" }, { 0x54, 1, inst, 0, "mov d,h" }, { 0x55, 1, inst, 0, "mov d,l" }, { 0x56, 1, inst, 0, "mov d,m" }, { 0x57, 1, inst, 0, "mov d,a" }, { 0x58, 1, inst, 0, "mov e,b" }, { 0x59, 1, inst, 0, "mov e,c" }, { 0x5A, 1, inst, 0, "mov e,d" }, { 0x5B, 1, inst, 0, "mov e,e" }, { 0x5C, 1, inst, 0, "mov e,h" }, { 0x5D, 1, inst, 0, "mov e,l" }, { 0x5E, 1, inst, 0, "mov e,m" }, { 0x5F, 1, inst, 0, "mov e,a" }, { 0x60, 1, inst, 0, "mov h,b" }, { 0x61, 1, inst, 0, "mov h,c" }, { 0x62, 1, inst, 0, "mov h,d" }, { 0x63, 1, inst, 0, "mov h,e" }, { 0x64, 1, inst, 0, "mov h,h" }, { 0x65, 1, inst, 0, "mov h,l" }, { 0x66, 1, inst, 0, "mov h,m" }, { 0x67, 1, inst, 0, "mov h,a" }, { 0x68, 1, inst, 0, "mov l,b" }, { 0x69, 1, inst, 0, "mov l,c" }, { 0x6A, 1, inst, 0, "mov l,d" }, { 0x6B, 1, inst, 0, "mov l,e" }, { 0x6C, 1, inst, 0, "mov l,h" }, { 0x6D, 1, inst, 0, "mov l,l" }, { 0x6E, 1, inst, 0, "mov l,m" }, { 0x6F, 1, inst, 0, "mov l,a" }, { 0x70, 1, inst, 0, "mov m,b" }, { 0x71, 1, inst, 0, "mov m,c" }, { 0x72, 1, inst, 0, "mov m,d" }, { 0x73, 1, inst, 0, "mov m,e" }, { 0x74, 1, inst, 0, "mov m,h" }, { 0x75, 1, inst, 0, "mov m,l" }, { 0x76, 1, inst, 0, "halt" }, { 0x77, 1, inst, 0, "mov m,a" }, { 0x78, 1, inst, 0, "mov a,b" }, { 0x79, 1, inst, 0, "mov a,c" }, { 0x7A, 1, inst, 0, "mov a,d" }, { 0x7B, 1, inst, 0, "mov a,e" }, { 0x7C, 1, inst, 0, "mov a,h" }, { 0x7D, 1, inst, 0, "mov a,l" }, { 0x7E, 1, inst, 0, "mov a,m" }, { 0x7F, 1, inst, 0, "mov a,a" }, { 0x80, 1, inst, 0, "add b" }, { 0x81, 1, inst, 0, "add c" }, { 0x82, 1, inst, 0, "add d" }, { 0x83, 1, inst, 0, "add e" }, { 0x84, 1, inst, 0, "add h" }, { 0x85, 1, inst, 0, "add l" }, { 0x86, 1, inst, 0, "add m" }, { 0x87, 1, inst, 0, "add a" }, { 0x88, 1, inst, 0, "adc b" }, { 0x89, 1, inst, 0, "adc c" }, { 0x8A, 1, inst, 0, "adc d" }, { 0x8B, 1, inst, 0, "adc e" }, { 0x8C, 1, inst, 0, "adc h" }, { 0x8D, 1, inst, 0, "adc l" }, { 0x8E, 1, inst, 0, "adc m" }, { 0x8F, 1, inst, 0, "adc a" }, { 0x90, 1, inst, 0, "sub b" }, { 0x91, 1, inst, 0, "sub c" }, { 0x92, 1, inst, 0, "sub d" }, { 0x93, 1, inst, 0, "sub e" }, { 0x94, 1, inst, 0, "sub h" }, { 0x95, 1, inst, 0, "sub l" }, { 0x96, 1, inst, 0, "sub m" }, { 0x97, 1, inst, 0, "sub a" }, { 0x98, 1, inst, 0, "sbb b" }, { 0x99, 1, inst, 0, "sbb c" }, { 0x9A, 1, inst, 0, "sbb d" }, { 0x9B, 1, inst, 0, "sbb e" }, { 0x9C, 1, inst, 0, "sbb h" }, { 0x9D, 1, inst, 0, "sbb l" }, { 0x9E, 1, inst, 0, "sbb m" }, { 0x9F, 1, inst, 0, "sbb a" }, { 0xA0, 1, inst, 0, "ana b" }, { 0xA1, 1, inst, 0, "ana c" }, { 0xA2, 1, inst, 0, "ana d" }, { 0xA3, 1, inst, 0, "ana e" }, { 0xA4, 1, inst, 0, "ana h" }, { 0xA5, 1, inst, 0, "ana l" }, { 0xA6, 1, inst, 0, "ana m" }, { 0xA7, 1, inst, 0, "ana a" }, { 0xA8, 1, inst, 0, "xra b" }, { 0xA9, 1, inst, 0, "xra c" }, { 0xAA, 1, inst, 0, "xra d" }, { 0xAB, 1, inst, 0, "xra e" }, { 0xAC, 1, inst, 0, "xra h" }, { 0xAD, 1, inst, 0, "xra l" }, { 0xAE, 1, inst, 0, "xra m" }, { 0xAF, 1, inst, 0, "xra a" }, { 0xB0, 1, inst, 0, "ora b" }, { 0xB1, 1, inst, 0, "ora c" }, { 0xB2, 1, inst, 0, "ora d" }, { 0xB3, 1, inst, 0, "ora e" }, { 0xB4, 1, inst, 0, "ora h" }, { 0xB5, 1, inst, 0, "ora l" }, { 0xB6, 1, inst, 0, "ora m" }, { 0xB7, 1, inst, 0, "ora a" }, { 0xB8, 1, inst, 0, "cmp b" }, { 0xB9, 1, inst, 0, "cmp c" }, { 0xBA, 1, inst, 0, "cmp d" }, { 0xBB, 1, inst, 0, "cmp e" }, { 0xBC, 1, inst, 0, "cmp h" }, { 0xBD, 1, inst, 0, "cmp l" }, { 0xBE, 1, inst, 0, "cmp m" }, { 0xBF, 1, inst, 0, "cmp a" }, { 0xC0, 1, inst, 0, "rnz" }, { 0xC1, 1, inst, 0, "pop b" }, { 0xC2, 3, pushj, 0, "jnz %a" }, { 0xC3, 3, jrst, 0, "jmp %a" }, { 0xC4, 3, pushj, 0, "cnz %a" }, { 0xC5, 1, inst, 0, "push b" }, { 0xC6, 2, inst, 0, "adi %1" }, { 0xC7, 1, trap, 0, "rst 0" }, { 0xC8, 1, inst, 0, "rz" }, { 0xC9, 1, popj, 0, "ret" }, { 0xCA, 3, pushj, 0, "jz %a" }, { 0xCB, 0, unused, 0, 0 }, { 0xCC, 3, pushj, 0, "cz %a" }, { 0xCD, 3, pushj, 0, "call %a" }, { 0xCE, 2, inst, 0, "aci %1" }, { 0xCF, 1, trap, 0, "rst 1" }, { 0xD0, 1, inst, 0, "rnc" }, { 0xD1, 1, inst, 0, "pop d" }, { 0xD2, 3, pushj, 0, "jnc %a" }, { 0xD3, 2, inst, 0, "out %1" }, { 0xD4, 3, pushj, 0, "cnc %a" }, { 0xD5, 1, inst, 0, "push d" }, { 0xD6, 2, inst, 0, "sui %1" }, { 0xD7, 1, trap, 0, "rst 2" }, { 0xD8, 1, inst, 0, "rc" }, { 0xD9, 1, unused, 0, 0 }, { 0xDA, 3, pushj, 0, "jc %a" }, { 0xDB, 2, inst, 0, "in %1" }, { 0xDC, 3, pushj, 0, "cc %a" }, { 0xDD, 0, unused, 0, 0 }, { 0xDE, 2, inst, 0, "sbi %1" }, { 0xDF, 1, trap, 0, "rst 3" }, { 0xE0, 1, inst, 0, "rpo" }, { 0xE1, 1, inst, 0, "pop h" }, { 0xE2, 3, pushj, 0, "jpo %a" }, { 0xE3, 1, inst, 0, "xthl" }, { 0xE4, 3, pushj, 0, "cpo %a" }, { 0xE5, 1, inst, 0, "push h" }, { 0xE6, 2, inst, 0, "ani %1" }, { 0xE7, 1, trap, 0, "rst 4" }, { 0xE8, 1, inst, 0, "rpe" }, { 0xE9, 1, popj, 0, "pchl" }, { 0xEA, 3, pushj, 0, "jpe %a" }, { 0xEB, 1, inst, 0, "xchg" }, { 0xEC, 3, pushj, 0, "cpe %a" }, { 0xED, 0, unused, 0, 0 }, { 0xEE, 2, inst, 0, "xri %1" }, { 0xEF, 1, trap, 0, "rst 5" }, { 0xF0, 1, inst, 0, "rp" }, { 0xF1, 1, inst, 0, "pop psw" }, { 0xF2, 3, pushj, 0, "jp %a" }, { 0xF3, 1, inst, 0, "di" }, { 0xF4, 3, pushj, 0, "cp %a" }, { 0xF5, 1, inst, 0, "push psw" }, { 0xF6, 2, inst, 0, "ori %1" }, { 0xF7, 1, trap, 0, "rst 6" }, { 0xF8, 1, inst, 0, "rm" }, { 0xF9, 1, inst, 0, "sphl" }, { 0xFA, 3, pushj, 0, "jm %a" }, { 0xFB, 1, inst, 0, "ei" }, { 0xFC, 3, pushj, 0, "cm %a" }, { 0xFD, 0, unused, 0, 0 }, { 0xFE, 2, inst, 0, "cpi %1" }, { 0xFF, 1, trap, 0, "rst 7" }, }; --Johnny

9 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

Unknown 8085 opcodes

by binarydinosaurs＠gmail.com

Hi folks, Any 8085 assembler geeks in the house? Official Intel docs don't seem to be helping with this one, I have 8085 and D8741A peripheral controller dumps both containing several opcodes that two disassemblers aren't recognising and any docs I've been looking through for either 8085 instructions or the UPI instruction set don't seem to feature them either. The codes are 0x08, 0x10, 0x18, 0x28, 0x38,0xD9, 0xDD and 0xED. 0x08 nearly always follows a 0x01 LXI B instruction, the others don't seem to have an obvious pattern. I've pondered if 0x10 is INC @R0 because the binary for that is 0001 000x where x is either 0 or 1. By the same reasoning 0xD9 could be XRL A,R1 (opcode 11011xxx) and 0xDD could be XRL A,R5 but can't match the others. Also the surrounding code doesn't mention those registers. Example 8085 code fragment: 3440 1792 09 DAD B 3441 1793 01 01 08 LXI B,0801H 3442 1796 08 UNRECOGNIZED 3443 1797 12 STAX D 3444 1798 0D DCR C 3445 1799 54 MOV D,H 3446 179A 65 MOV H,L 3447 179B 6C MOV L,H 3448 179C 65 MOV H,L 3449 179D 70 MOV M,B 3450 179E 68 MOV L,B 3451 179F 6F MOV L,A 3452 17A0 6E MOV L,M 3453 17A1 65 MOV H,L 3454 17A2 20 RIM 3455 17A3 44 MOV B,H 3456 17A4 65 MOV H,L 3457 17A5 74 MOV M,H 3458 17A6 61 MOV H,C 3459 17A7 69 MOV L,C 3460 17A8 6C MOV L,H 3461 17A9 73 MOV M,E 3462 17AA 01 04 05 LXI B,0504H 3463 17AD 08 UNRECOGNIZED 3464 17AE 17 RAL 3465 17AF 53 MOV D,E 3466 17B0 65 MOV H,L 3467 17B1 6C MOV L,H 3468 17B2 65 MOV H,L 3469 17B3 63 MOV H,E 3470 17B4 74 MOV M,H 3471 17B5 20 RIM Cheers! -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk

9 years, 3 months

14
22
0 0

Obscure MIT-spinoff computer (Was: What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Brad H > 4) Videobrain Family Computer So this tickled a question I'd been meaning to ask. Circa 1975, there was an MIT spinoff which designed and built a 'personal computer' (that's effectively what it was, although it wasn't called that). The company had gotten their start building digital (IIRC) capacitance meters (back when capacitance meters were not common). So they then decided that their next product would be a small computer. I don't recall the exact name, but it was something like 'Micro-Brain' (something with 'Brain' in it, IIRC). The computer was not a success (technically), and IIRC, it sank the company. Does this ring any bells for anyone? Noel

9 years, 3 months

4
4
0 0

Obscure MIT-spinoff computer (Was: What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: William Maddox > ECD Micromind That would be the one. Thanks! (A friend of mine worked there, as a tech, but it was aeons ago, and I just could not remember the name!) According to this blog: http://ecdmicromind.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html there is actually one still in existence, and it (sorta) works! Noel

9 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

In a message dated 1/11/2017 2:01:05 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, RichA at livingcomputers.org writes: From: Noel Chiappa Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2017 5:40 AM >> From: Eric Smith >> I have a computer of the type that Gates and Allen used for that early >> development. :-) >> I don't have it running, though. > Really? Which model processor; KA, KI, KL? Eric's got a KL. If he had a KA, I would have tracked him down and beaten him to a pulp to lay hands on it--and we're friends. > PS: Apparently Gates and Allen at one point rented time on a commercial > service in Boston to do development; anyone know who that was, and what > machine/OS is was? Nope. They moved to Albuquerque as soon as the deal with MITS was done. (Ed Roberts hired Paul as his VP of software development on the spot.) They rented time from the Albuquerque school district, whose -10 had unused capacity. (Development of the BASIC interpreter was famously done using the Harvard KA-10.) They went from renting time on others' systems to owning their own when they moved from Albuquerque back to Seattle. Their first was a KS under TOPS-20. I have all this not merely from Paul's book, but from another friend who was Microsoft employee #11 (who appears in the famous picture) and others like David Bunnell at our grand opening. Rich Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Living Computers: Museum + Labs 2245 1st Avenue S Seattle, WA 98134 mailto:RichA at LivingComputers.org http://www.LivingComputers.org/ I had heard Altair code for the roms and stuff was developed on an Intel Intellect 8 system? Is this fact , Fiction or?? Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org)

9 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Boot Loader for 3P+S on IMSAI

by wheagy＠gmail.com

Yes, I was able to run the echo characters test from the solivant site as well as a couple other small upload tests, so I'm thinking it's a delay issue or a configuration problem with the 3P+S and MITS BASIC. Digging back into this on my IMSAI, I'm now remembering the peculiarities of loading MITS BASIC when I was doing it on the Altair. That picture will help. I think I've already spotted something without even having my actual card in front of me. Thanks...Win >Did you verify "echo characters" works? There is a test program in the >solivant site that explains this. If so, then you very well may need to >experiment with character delays when you download BASIC. You can watch >the lights and see when the various loaders load, that might help give you >a clue where the failure point is. >The extra pointers I added were things I found useful, but I was using the >2SIO card. >b

9 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

Fwd: Stinky screwdrivers

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I sent this out to some friends at the end of December -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Stinky screwdrivers Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 08:51:02 -0800 From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> To: Eric Schlaepfer <schlae at gmail.com>, Kenneth Sumrall <ken at scrapheap.net> CC: Hedley Rainnie <luvhed at gmail.com>, Alvaro <apg88zx at gmail.com> http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-153147.html I've been buying a lot of Xcelite tools lately, and was wondering why some of the handles stunk. Sadly, it looks like the good USA made hand tools will all have their plastic handles crumble eventually though I have two Craftsmen nut drivers I bought in 1975 that are still perfect. Xcelite isn't made in the US anymore. Bought a #0 Super-tru Tip (no longer says USA) and it is absolute crap. -- as an addendum, I just bought a new "Made in USA" Xcelite pliers, and the build quality was an embarrassment. now I understand all the interest in used hand tools on eBay

9 years, 3 months

8
9
0 0

Stripping an RA80

by ard.p850ug1＠gmail.com

I am probably going to be flamed for this.... My VAX11/730 has an R80 disk drive as you might expect. I dismantled this many years ago to move it and never reassembled it. Over the years (in particular during a house move), the smaller parts (screws, the brackets and clevis pins for the gas struts, and ribbon cables) have got lost. A friend of mine (Philip) was having a clearout and gave me an RA80 (SDI interface, of course). I don't run SDI drives anywhere (I think I have a UDA50 somewhere), but a lot of parts are the same as in the R80. My first thought is to strip this RA80 (that's why I got it!). This will provide me with most of the missing parts (all that I would have to make is the 26 way ribbon to the controller cable -- the 60 way one is still in the R80 chassis). So after stripping I think I would be left with 4 classes of part : 1) Those I need for the R80 -- brackets, screws cables, etc 2) Those that could be useful spares for the R80 : HDA Spindle Motor Belt Belt Tensioner PSU R/W PCB Servo PCB Microprocessor PCB (the ROMs are different, of course, but the the PCB is the same and could be a source of components. I don't swap boards anyway) AC and DC power harnesses Fans Motor capacitor 3) Those that are of no use in the R80, but are not too hard to store Personality board Control panel SDI cabling 4) Those that I don't need and which are a pain to store Cbassis parts. Is there any reason to keep the bare, stripped, chassis, or should I let it go as scrap metal? Does anyone run an RA80 and think any of the bits in list 3 (certainly) or 2 (I may want to keep these, in particular the HDA if it's good) are useful to them? Of course I don't know if the parts are still good. Or should I preserve the RA80 as it is, and just use it as patterns for the missing bits. Try to find a source of the UNC screws, make up the cables, make up brackets, etc. I would only do that if there is a very good reason. -tony

9 years, 3 months

9
17
0 0

What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by spereira1952＠comcast.net

> On Jan 11, 2017, at 1:00 PM, cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Message: 8 > Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2017 22:09:52 +0000 > From: Andy Cloud <r3trohub at gmail.com <mailto:r3trohub at gmail.com>> > To: "cctalk at classiccmp.org <mailto:cctalk at classiccmp.org>" <cctalk at classiccmp.org <mailto:cctalk at classiccmp.org>> > Subject: What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do > you own? > Message-ID: > <CAGmukzzmPkTx0D98iSPK41=Y4utY1nxiyfhrGwek=v5VdpQz5A at mail.gmail.com <mailto:CAGmukzzmPkTx0D98iSPK41=Y4utY1nxiyfhrGwek=v5VdpQz5A at mail.gmail.com>> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > Hi Everyone! > > I thought this would be an interesting question to ask around - What's the > rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own? > > For me, personally, I have a Altair 8800! > > Looking forward to hearing your answers > >> _Andy I recently acquired my ?holy grail?: an Altair 680b. And, with a bit of troubleshooting, I got it up and running, too. smp -- Stephen M. Pereira Bedford, NH 03110 KB1SXE

9 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

pdp-11 assembly standards

by hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca

> I've never heard of that '&o' bizzaro-stuff - where did you find that? This one: http://mdfs.net/Software/PDP11/Assembler/AsmPDP.txt Reading more closely, the encoding has some relation back to BBC BASIC. I was beginning to wonder if it was some html character-encoding screwup.

9 years, 3 months

1
1
0 0

pdp-11 assembly standards

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Brent Hilpert > This one: > ... > Reading more closely, the encoding has some relation back to BBC BASIC. Given this (from the documentation): Assembler directives -------------------- #include <filename> Includes the specified file. #ifndef <label> Continue assembling if <label> is undefined. #ifdef <label> Continue assembling if <label> is defined. #if <value> Continue assembling if <value> is non-zero. #else Toggle assembly. #endif Continue assembling. which is clearly C-related, I wonder if there is some relationship there (the '%o' looks rather printf()-ish). Although I note the documentation says "any valid value recognised by BBC BASIC" - does BBC basic use the leading '%' notation for constants? Noel

9 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by tmanos＠concursive.com

I just gave away my pride and joy: an AT&T 3B2 1000 in perfect condition with just about every accessory you could want and fully configured. It was a dual processor system, and fully maxed out with RAM and ports. It had an ethernet card and SCSI, I collected boards and documentation for many years and had a complete set of original docs, and many, many spares. I was downsizing and ended up giving it away to another denizen of the list along with a couple Sparc 20's and a bunch of other stuff. It completely filled up a rental SUV and traveled from Virginia to a state way out west. Many hundreds of pounds of stuff. It's happily running now. I miss it, but hopefully it's getting more use than I was giving it. On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 5:09 PM, Andy Cloud <r3trohub at gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Everyone! > > I thought this would be an interesting question to ask around - What's the > rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own? > > For me, personally, I have a Altair 8800! > > Looking forward to hearing your answers > >>_Andy

9 years, 3 months

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pdp-11 assembly standards

by hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca

> I've never heard of that '&o' bizzaro-stuff - where did you find that? This one: http://mdfs.net/Software/PDP11/Assembler/AsmPDP.txt Reading more closely, the encoding has some relation back to BBC BASIC. I was beginning to wonder if it was some html character-encoding screwup.

9 years, 3 months

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Re: What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

-------- Original message -------- From: Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> Date: 2017-01-10 11:24 PM (GMT-08:00) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you   own? On 01/10/2017 09:58 PM, Brad H wrote: > Am envying the Altair guys though.? I want one but they always come > up at just the wrong time. I've still got the 8800 I built (with all those crappy white stranded wires) back in the day.? It's not that great, trust me. I moved to an IMSAI box and finally to an Integrand box.? Don't have the IMSAI any longer, but still have the Integrand. Haven't powered any of them up in 30 years.?? One tends to forget about >such stuff. >--Chuck For me it'd be purely about the history. ? ?Gates and Allen writing the interpreter without an actual Altair to work on. Allen writing the bootstrap on the plane he took to pitch to MITS. ?Gates' first written tirade about piracy. ? An Altair isn't out of my reach.. just.. other stuff (like the Mark-8 boards) keeps coming up just as I've stored enough money to buy one.

9 years, 3 months

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pdp-11 assembly standards

by hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca

> I've never heard of that '&o' bizzaro-stuff - where did you find that? This one: http://mdfs.net/Software/PDP11/Assembler/AsmPDP.txt Reading more closely, the encoding has some relation back to BBC BASIC. I was beginning to wonder if it was some html character-encoding screwup.

9 years, 3 months

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pdp-11 assembly standards

by hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca

On 2017-Jan-10, at 5:03 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> From: Brent Hilpert >>>>> One assembler doc uses a prefix of "&o" >> >> So the answer is, by modern expectations the old standard would be >> ambiguous or misleading. > > Well, the ideas of 'assembler' and 'standard' don't really go together in my > mind... :-) > > But seriously, I don't know how many different PDP-11 assemblers there were, > but the two _main_ ones (DEC's, and Unix's) both use the same numeric > convention (although they differed in other ways, probably because of the > CTSS/Multics erase character convention): a sequence of digits is an octal > number, unless there's a trailing '.', in which case it's decimal. > > (Well, technically, DEC had PAL-11 and MACRO-11, but PAL-11 was basically a > subset of MACRO-11, and used the same number syntax.) > > I've never heard of that '&o' bizzaro-stuff - where did you find that? > > Noel This one: http://mdfs.net/Software/PDP11/Assembler/AsmPDP.txt Reading more closely, the encoding has some relation back to BBC BASIC. I was beginning to wonder if it was some html character-encoding screwup.

9 years, 3 months

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pdp-11 assembly standards

by hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca

On 2017-Jan-10, at 5:03 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> From: Brent Hilpert >>>>> One assembler doc uses a prefix of "&o" >> >> So the answer is, by modern expectations the old standard would be >> ambiguous or misleading. > > Well, the ideas of 'assembler' and 'standard' don't really go together in my > mind... :-) > > But seriously, I don't know how many different PDP-11 assemblers there were, > but the two _main_ ones (DEC's, and Unix's) both use the same numeric > convention (although they differed in other ways, probably because of the > CTSS/Multics erase character convention): a sequence of digits is an octal > number, unless there's a trailing '.', in which case it's decimal. > > (Well, technically, DEC had PAL-11 and MACRO-11, but PAL-11 was basically a > subset of MACRO-11, and used the same number syntax.) > > I've never heard of that '&o' bizzaro-stuff - where did you find that? > > Noel This one: http://mdfs.net/Software/PDP11/Assembler/AsmPDP.txt Reading more closely, the encoding has some relation back to BBC BASIC. I was beginning to wonder if it was some html character-encoding screwup.

9 years, 3 months

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pdp-11 assembly standards

by hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca

On 2017-Jan-10, at 5:03 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: >> From: Brent Hilpert >>>>> One assembler doc uses a prefix of "&o" >> >> So the answer is, by modern expectations the old standard would be >> ambiguous or misleading. > > Well, the ideas of 'assembler' and 'standard' don't really go together in my > mind... :-) > > But seriously, I don't know how many different PDP-11 assemblers there were, > but the two _main_ ones (DEC's, and Unix's) both use the same numeric > convention (although they differed in other ways, probably because of the > CTSS/Multics erase character convention): a sequence of digits is an octal > number, unless there's a trailing '.', in which case it's decimal. > > (Well, technically, DEC had PAL-11 and MACRO-11, but PAL-11 was basically a > subset of MACRO-11, and used the same number syntax.) > > I've never heard of that '&o' bizzaro-stuff - where did you find that? > > Noel This one: http://mdfs.net/Software/PDP11/Assembler/AsmPDP.txt Reading more closely, the encoding has some relation back to BBC BASIC. I was beginning to wonder if it was some html character-encoding screwup.

9 years, 3 months

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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

That is amazing Ian ! - Photo? Wonder what the ticket was for that back in its new day... Ed# In a message dated 1/10/2017 4:27:44 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, isking at uw.edu writes: I'd have to say my VAX 6000-600. It has six processors, and therefore is alternatively known as the VAX 6660 - the Devil's VAX. :-) I've not been able to boot it because I don't have three-phase power to my house. However, I've been informed that the H405 can be rewired to run correctly off dryer power, which I do have. That's one of the (many) projects on my post-dissertation list. With six processors and a half-gigabyte of RAM, I've been told this is probably the most built-out VAX 6600 remaining. -- Ian -- Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate The Information School <http://ischool.uw.edu> Dissertation: "Why the Conversation Mattered: Constructing a Sociotechnical Narrative Through a Design Lens Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal <http://tribunalvoices.org> Value Sensitive Design Research Lab <http://vsdesign.org> University of Washington There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."

9 years, 3 months

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What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

DIGITAL TRAINERS TUBE TYPE - IBM Digital trainer - uses the earliest of IBM plug in tube things that were in their commercial systytems http://www.smecc.org/video/logic_5.gif IF ANYONE CAN SHED LIGHT ON THIS IT WOULD BE FANTASTIC! SOLID STATE - DEC COMPUTER LAB with the pdp-8 I toggles... not RARE but is cool! RELAY - - MINIVAC 601 COMPUTERS for tube computer - - our sage stuff also. for solid state - some of our GE Erma material. for mechanical analog computer -- some kid of weird thing with gears shafts , bellows and I think this weird thing runs off compressed air. details pending for electronic analog computer - Syston Donner with Tubes in it not that RARE but we are proud of it! for calculators - W.W. Salisbury's HP 35 that he used for Spiral Fusion Calculations ACTIVE DEVICES Tubes- - single Plate early Deforest Spherical Audion Transistors - - experimental and Pre-production prototypes ALL Bell Transistors DIGITAL TRAINERS IBM Digital trainer - uses the earliest of IBM plug in tube things that were in their commercial systems http://www.smecc.org/video/logic_5.gif IF ANYONE CAN SHED LIGHT ON THIS IT WOULD BE FANTASTIC! Comes in a fitted wood case with lots of plugable modules with tubes and other parts. But we love all the stuff! Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 1/10/2017 4:42:21 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us writes: On Tue, 10 Jan 2017, Andy Cloud wrote: > I thought this would be an interesting question to ask around - What's the > rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own? 64Kbit core plane from an AN/FSQ-7 (SAGE) computer: http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/SAGE/Coreplane-1L.jpg ...along with other Q7 parts: http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/SAGE/ Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

9 years, 3 months

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Boot Loader for 3P+S on IMSAI

by wheagy＠gmail.com

Took a little digging but I found the thread where you were talking about port 20/21. I was able to configure the 3P+S card and run the test from the solivant site successfully, but I'm not able to upload basic. I have a couple more things to try, including setting a small upload delay as Bill suggests on his page. http://www.vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=318 However, I'm thinking that I may still have a configuration issue on the 3P+S card. But I think I'm getting close. Win -- >The manual pretty much has the exact config for that port 20 is all you >have to remember >Bill Degnan >twitter: billdeg >vintagecomputer.net >On Jan 6, 2017 7:41 PM, "Win Heagy" <wheagy at gmail.com> wrote: > I have an IMSAI that I am restoring. The basics appear to be working > (front panel, CPU and RAM cards). I have a Processor Tech, 3P+S card > that is next on the list for testing. I have the manual, but the card > was not configured for RS-232...not sure what it was configured for > but it doesn't match anything in the manual. I plan to reconfigure it > for RS-232. I'm trying to locate boot loader code for that board to > allow serial uploading of files from a PC to the IMSAI? I have boot > loader code for a 2SIO board on an Altair that I restored awhile back, > and would like to find something similar for the 3P+S. I want to be > able to toggle in a boot loader routine and then initiate an upload > from the PC to IMSAI -- something similar to this > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwC1T9oLK1U&t=212s > (at 1:10s in) but with a 3P+S board on an IMSAI. > > Also, a picture of your RS-232 configured card and wiring of the edge > connectors would be helpful to make sure I get things right. Any help > is appreciated.

9 years, 3 months

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Female Computer

by rickb＠bensene.com

Ben Wrote: > > Where are the Female Computers? > Hal >To which Dave W. replied: >Here they were ... >http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3311/3214242023_ca5f2425a2_o.jpg And, to this I say - BRILLIANT! These ladies were indeed called computers back in those days! -Rick

9 years, 3 months

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Compaq C series 2010c - aka series 2930a posters & Point of sale stuff needed

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Compaq C series 2010c - aka series 2930a posters & Point of sale stuff needed We were given one - apparently not used in box the tab for the what I assume is the config battery next to the main battery compartment never even had its white paper pull tab pulled out to stat the battery up. So anyway want to get other marketing stuff etc to help embellish a display at SMECC project. thanks ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org)

9 years, 3 months

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OT: Female Computer RE: Contacting Jay West

by dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com

Here they were ... http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3311/3214242023_ca5f2425a2_o.jpg Dave > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of ben > Sent: 10 January 2017 06:50 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Contacting Jay West > > On 1/9/2017 3:13 PM, geneb wrote: > > On Mon, 9 Jan 2017, Rob Jarratt wrote: > > > >> > >> No HP-2000 problem, just wasn't HP-2000 sure if I had sent it to the > >> right place HP-2000. > >> > > "Meet single HP-2000 in your area!" > > > > g. > > > > Where are the Female Computers? > Hal

9 years, 3 months

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pdp-11 assembly standards

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Phil Budne > I've always assumed the P in PAL was for paper tape. > The Wikipedia artile for PDP-8 says that PAL-8 assembled from paper > tape into memory, so the A and L could have been for Assembler and > Loader. I have a number of different versions of the "PDP-11 Paper Tape Software" manual, and the earliest one (DEC-11-GGPB-D, March '71) turns out to be for PAL-11A, and it says it stands for "Program Assembly Language for the PDP-11's Absolute Assembler" (pg. 3-1). Amusing factoid: the manual says it takes about 45 minutes to re-assemble PAL-11A from the source tape, and punch a new binary tape (this is using the HSRP). > ISTR PAL-11A was also an "absolute" assembler (did not output REL > files), but there was also a PAL-11R. Yup. PAL-11A took an input an ASCII tape with the program, and produced as output "an absolute binary tape" (pg. 3-23). A later version of the 'Paper Tape Software' manual (DEC-11-ASDB-D, May '71) covers PAL11-R (although it does not, alas, decribe the relocatable output format in detail - although I think it's documented elsewhere), and also Link-11 and Libr-11. PAL11-R require DOS. Noel

9 years, 3 months

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pdp-11 assembly standards

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Paul Koning > Is that the Unix assembler convention? Yup. From "Unix Assembler Reference Manual" (by DMR; no date, but the one I'm looking at came with V6): "An octal constant consists of a sequence of digits ... A decimal constant consists of a sequence of digits terminated by a decimal point '.'." > It certainly isn't the one used by the GNU assemblers, which are modeled > after the old Unix syntax. Except when they gratuitously change things. Noel

9 years, 3 months

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pdp-11 assembly standards

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Brent Hilpert >>>> One assembler doc uses a prefix of "&o" > So the answer is, by modern expectations the old standard would be > ambiguous or misleading. Well, the ideas of 'assembler' and 'standard' don't really go together in my mind... :-) But seriously, I don't know how many different PDP-11 assemblers there were, but the two _main_ ones (DEC's, and Unix's) both use the same numeric convention (although they differed in other ways, probably because of the CTSS/Multics erase character convention): a sequence of digits is an octal number, unless there's a trailing '.', in which case it's decimal. (Well, technically, DEC had PAL-11 and MACRO-11, but PAL-11 was basically a subset of MACRO-11, and used the same number syntax.) I've never heard of that '&o' bizzaro-stuff - where did you find that? Noel

9 years, 3 months

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Contacting Jay West

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

In a message dated 1/9/2017 6:45:32 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, pontus at Update.UU.SE writes: On Mon, Jan 09, 2017 at 01:31:28PM -0000, Rob Jarratt wrote: > I sent a private email to Jay West a few days ago but I have not had a > reply. He may be away or I may have the wrong address for him. What is the > best way to contact him? > A bit of patience I think. He seems quite busy sometimes. /P put hp-2000 in the title? <grin!>

9 years, 3 months

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pdp-11 assembly standards

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Lars Brinkhoff > What's the difference between PAL-11 and MACRO-11? Without going through the manuals at length, basically MACRO-11 supports macros, and PAL-11 doesn't. The syntax is otherwise very similar. > PALX is also the name for a cross assembler targeting PDP-11. I know it was used on ITS (although the PALX source had assembly options for all the main PDP-10 OS's, except TOPS-10), was that where it was written, do you happen to know? It's in MIDAS, so probably... Noel

9 years, 3 months

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Yugoslavian Computer Magazine Cover Girls of the 1980s and 1990s

by lproven＠gmail.com

An image gallery of cheesy -- and cheese-cakey -- magazine covers from what were for me the golden days. But the UK mags weren't ever like this. Some of the names, and the typos, are highly amusing. http://imgur.com/gallery/3Jlqh -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Talk/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn/AIM/Yahoo: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R/WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +420 702 829 053

9 years, 3 months

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pdp-11 assembly standards

by bhilpert＠shaw.ca

OK, what was the standard (if there was one) number-base syntax for PDP-11 assembler? Despite all the PDP-11 assembly info on web sites, this seems to be a buried bit of info. One assembler doc uses a prefix of "&o", another specifies octal as default and prefix of zero for decimal (opposite of the common C-derived standard . . great). Is this for example standard?: BIT #&o200, @#&o177564 ; test 2^7 bit at address octal 177564 (I'm just trying to make some written commentary consistent with common policy.)

9 years, 3 months

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Stinky resistors was Re: Stinky screwdrivers

by chd＠chdickman.com

On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 3:30 PM, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote: > I have some Xcelite tools from the early 1980s. They have been stinky > for over 30 years. Same experience. I have some in a drawer on my work work-bench that were purchased in the early 80s and they still smell. > Definitely a butyrate stink (I used to > run chemistry shows at The Center of Science and Industry - one was on > Esters... we mixed a variety of alcohols with a variety of fatty acids > and let the audience smell the results... it was all fun and games > until I spilled 200ml of Butyric Acid on myself... :-P ) In high school chemistry we did some experiments with that stuff. I think the teacher just liked to stink up the school every year. Now I also have a bunch of drawers filled with Allen-Bradley carbon composition resistors from around 1970. All the leads have a whitish film on them that has a peculiar odor. They've been in the electrical lab at work, in an office environment since that time. I've always been a little curious about what caused it. -chuck

9 years, 3 months

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Sunday brain tickler

by cclist＠sydex.com

I'm looking at a sample of what I see as a directory of sorts and am attempting to decode the file names from it. They're not anything as elegant as Rad50, but the encoding has escaped my weary brain. The system in question is a Lanier 103 word processor. Here are some samples. Can anyone come up with the encoding scheme? It can't be very complex as this was a comparatively brain-dead system: (All values in hex) c4 a3 75 6a ab 52 00 00 5c 25 15 1b 4c 40 00 00 cd 6d 15 7a a6 10 cb 82 a1 7a c1 c0 00 00 00 00 94 2f 38 40 00 00 00 00 d0 7f 9f 12 25 fd 53 28 The recurrence of these strings in what appears to be a block directory in the same position tell me that they must be file names. The file data itself is in ASCII, more or less (special formatting codes). The distribution of values to me suggests some sort of bit-packing algorithm is involved. Thanks for any suggestions. --Chuck

9 years, 3 months

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GMAIL accounts suspended.

by barythrin＠gmail.com

On a side note Dave, incase you hadn't already you should change your password since that was included in the original post.

9 years, 3 months

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Polycorp Poly repair (b)log

by terry＠webweavers.co.nz

A few months ago I picked up some Polycorp Polys, a computer designed specifically for the educational market in New Zealand. One worked and one didn't. The latter is now fixed. As usual I've written it up with lots of pictures. If anyone is interested you can read about it here. http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2017-01-08-second-poly1-fix.htm Cheers Tez

9 years, 3 months

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GMAIL accounts suspended.

by dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com

Folks, Why does this keep on happening? What is google doing to cause this to happen? Is it doing greylisting and mailman ignoring the retry-after time? Dave -----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of cctalk-request at classiccmp.org Sent: 09 January 2017 04:11 To: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Subject: confirm 3a692ae231ea12a659548c4fb64ac8f80c8fe658 Your membership in the mailing list cctalk has been disabled due to excessive bounces The last bounce received from you was dated 08-Jan-2017. You will not get any more messages from this list until you re-enable your membership. You will receive 3 more reminders like this before your membership in the list is deleted. To re-enable your membership, you can simply respond to this message (leaving the Subject: line intact), or visit the confirmation page at http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/confirm/cctalk/ You can also visit your membership page at http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/options/cctalk/ On your membership page, you can change various delivery options such as your email address and whether you get digests or not. As a reminder, your membership password is potter123 If you have any questions or problems, you can contact the list owner at cctalk-owner at classiccmp.org

9 years, 3 months

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Contacting Jay West

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I sent a private email to Jay West a few days ago but I have not had a reply. He may be away or I may have the wrong address for him. What is the best way to contact him? Regards Rob

9 years, 3 months

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Don't put certain tool handles in with artifacts...acetic acid and butyri...

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Yep - - Al I need to separate my Burroughs Xcelite tools somehow form some of the other things. Acetic acid will eat stuff... the Enigma had a green acitate filter in the lid... with the case closed it ate all the metal keytops rings up. It was ghastly! Ed# In a message dated 1/8/2017 9:10:45 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, aek at bitsavers.org writes: > I found this interesting wondering why some tool handles smelled odd. Xcelite is notorious for this

9 years, 3 months

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Don't put certain tool handles in with artifacts...acetic acid and butyric acid

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

Don't put certain tool handles in with artifacts... acetic acid and butyric acid EATS! I found this interesting wondering why some tool handles smelled odd. - Ed Sharpe archivist for SMECC "Tool handles made of Cellulose Acetate Butyrate. A thermoplastic, it offers excellent UV and solvent resistance that cellulose acetate doesn't offer. And it feels in the hand like a natural substance, something that is almost intangible, like a tool that is made by craftsmen, a characteristic that a polyethylene or polypropylene handle does not have. CAB also offers no splinters like the older wood handles. It also can be very clear. And when that plastic begins to degrade, it releases free acetic acid and butyric acid." Read much much more here-> http://dwarmstr.blogspot.com/2013/02/why-toolboxes-and-tool-handles-stink.ht ml

9 years, 3 months

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Unknown keyboard

by kylevowen＠gmail.com

Does anyone have an idea what this keyboard went to? The "here is" key tells me it's likely a terminal, but the hex key pad is throwing me off. Pictures here: http://imgur.com/a/zTgR2 Thanks, Kyle

9 years, 3 months

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Vintage computers for sale

by sellam.ismail＠gmail.com

Hey, I saw your message to the ClassicCmp making list. I believe I have a KIM-1 to sell you but I'd have to dig it out. Also, most of the machines mentioned in this posting are still available: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?51781-Mulitple-and-divers-compute… Let me know if anything I have interests you. Thanks! Sellam

9 years, 3 months

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More circuit help required please

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Evening all, I wish I had the ability to take a board layout and turn it into a logically laid out schematic but as yet I don't. Video sync on my Executel 3910 is still running me round in circles so could one of you fine folk take a look at this board layout drawn as best I can: http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/STCExecutelSyncCircuit.jpg ...and let me know what it does please? The chip on the left is a Plessey MR9735 teletext video driver wired to run permanently in 'off hours' mode - you can see 'Sync In' is just pulled high so the chip doesn't detect any incoming sync and is supposed to generate its own, which it doesn't even though all external clocks are present. Resistor values are correct as far as measuring them with a DMM goes, the diodes aren't actually 1N4001s but I can't read the printing on them. Both transistors are BC548 NPN. The area labelled 'MON' is a 14-way ribbon cable that goes off to the TV driver board. I'm feeling pretty dumb at this point. Logic and truth tables are more my thing, current flow is something I'm learning slowly. Cheers! -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection?

9 years, 3 months

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Drum Computers (Was Cleaning things (was Cleaning RK05 packs (Was: LGP-30 Memory Drum Update)))

by rickb＠bensene.com

Allison wrote; >I envy the chance to restore a LGP-30 or for that fact play with one. >Many of the things I remember >mid sixties on are now gone or were rare then. Like small desk sized drum computers using transistors or first generation IC (RTL and RDTL). I so regret not having rescued an old computer that I played with through all four years of high school. The machine was made by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (aka 3M Corporation). Today, there seems to be no record that 3M ever was in the computer business. But...it was. The system was designed expressly for process control. Kind of makes sense for 3M to develop a system like this, since most of the manufacturing they did needed process controls, and at the time, computers were getting to into that role in place of electromechanical systems. The system was given to our high school by the local Natural Gas public utility that used the system from the mid-1960's through the early-1970's for monitoring and controlling gas flow in pipelines. It was replaced by more modern computer, a PDP-11 of some variety, IIRC. This 3M machine was a dual processor system, with two identical CPUs that could communicate to each other through a common register located in an I/O rack. The original process control software was designed so that both CPUs would operate in tandem, each doing a different part of the job. One CPU mainly did all of the I/O interfacing and data normalization, and the other CPU did the number crunching and processing for the process control, feeding results back to the I/O CPU to control the physical stuff, and generating reports on an IBM typebar-type output typewriter. Operator interaction with the process control system was through a Teletype 33-ASR terminal. The CPUs were transistorized. I recall that the cards were arranged in a U fashion looking at the CPU chassis from the top, some power supply circuitry and relays at the top of the U, the circuit cards making up the sides and bottom of the U, and the drum memory module in the middle.. Each CPU was something like 12RU height, and were in a small desk-high standard 19" equipment rack, with the CPUs stacked one above the other. The CPUs were 24-bit word machines, with an 8K-word magnetic drum as main memory. Instructions had five bits for the opcode, and two address fields, one for operand location (drum address in block/track/sector format) or in the case of some instructions a short constant number), and also a next instruction address (again in block/track/sector format). The I/O rack had the interprocessor communication register, along with registers for reading the time from a transistorized Parabam real-time clock (HH:MM:SS) in 24-hour time (The clock had those wonderful projection-type incandescent displays to show the current time), a Teletype current-loop interface at 110 baud, an interface for communication the IBM wide-carriage output typewriter (which we never we able to get working), and a whole slew of relay outputs, contact closure inputs, digital to analog converters with line drivers, and comparators with counters connected that could act as software-driven analog to digital converters, event counters, etc. One last output interface was a register that was write-only that could enable or disable an old Mallory Sonalert that would generate an ear-splitting shriek when turned on. There were also two banks of decimal thumbwheel switches, one with three digits, and another with 8 digits, that could be read from the CPU 4-bits at a time through an I/O register. When I got to high school in 1974, the drum in one of the CPUs had suffered a bearing failure and crashed hard. The instructor of the computing curriculum looked into seeing if the drum could be repaired, but it would have been prohibitively expensive, so the drum was removed from this CPU and used as a prop for illustrating different types of memory technology to his students. The other CPU ran fine through my years of high school, and I learned a great deal about programming at the machine level from the old 3M (I for the life of me can't remember the model number of the machine). I fondly remember writing an "alarm clock" program where a time in HHMMSS form could be wheeled into the low six digits of the eight-digit thumbwheel register, and when the time there matched the time on the Parabam clock, it'd fire off the Sonalert, and print an arbitrary message on the teletype repeatedly until the program was halted by dialing a stop code read from the three digit thumbwheel switch bank when the program was started. Once the program was started, I'd scramble the three digit thumbwheels, so no one but me would know the code to stop the program. You might think that you could just press the "STOP" button on the console...but there was a Plexiglas cover with a small padlock lock on it that covered the console controls...and I had a key). So, I'd set a time during one of the 1st year computer classes, start the program, and lock the cover over the console. In the middle of the class, the Sonalert would go off, and the teletype would rattle out "HELP, HELP!! I'M TRAPPED IN HERE!!! LET ME OUT!!!" with Control-G (ring the Teletype bell) interspersed amongst the characters). It would cause just a bit of a fuss. After watching the chaos for a few moments, I would calmly walk in and dial the code to stop the program. Needless to say, after I did this a few times, I was kindly asked by the computer instructor not to do that anymore. It was great fun while it lasted. The machine had no index registers. So, indexing meant writing self-modifying code. Never was bounds checking more important than when you were writing self-modifying code. The machine had a hardware loader, which would accept block/track/sector addresses followed by a space, then the 8-digit octal representation of the word to be placed at that drum address. The loader was initiated by pressing a "LOAD" button on the console when the CPU was stopped. The loader was fast enough to be able to take in programs from the tape reader on the 33-ASR Teletype hooked up to the machine. There were four other controls on the console not counting the main power switch. "STOP" (halted the machine), "CLEAR" (initialized the program counter and two accumulators (A & B) to zero), and "START", which started the CPU executing at the current program counter location, which most of the time was 0/0/0 because you'd press CLEAR before START, and have a jump at 0/0/0 to branch to your program. The STOP and START buttons were lighted, so you could tell if the machine was running or halted. The last control was a momentary toggle switch, that would single-step one instruction when the machine was in STOP state. There were five neon lamp indicators on the console that showed the current instruction opcode to be executed. With such minimalistic controls, debugging was interesting, to say the least. When powered up, the machine would have both the START and STOP lights turned off until the drum got up to speed and everything was synchronized, and then the lamp in the stop key would light up to tell you the machine was ready. The machine was completely bit-serial in nature, minimizing the number of flip flops. I recall that the circuit boards in the machine were something like 5x7 inches (give or take), and were not densely packed with components. They were fiberglass boards, with traces only on one side, and jumper wires on the component side. I remember date codes on the transistors as being from the 1963 - 1964 timeframe. I recollect that there were something around 48 circuit boards in each CPU. We occasionally had to scrounge boards out of the decommissioned second CPU to fix faults that developed in the running machine...it was musical board swapping to troubleshoot because we didn't have any schematics or service documentation for the machine. The machine was quite slow, even if you wrote the code to use instruction timing to optimize placement of instructions and operands on the drum to minimize latency. I recall writing a program that I optimized as best as I possibly could, and the machine couldn't output to the Teletype at its full rated speed when typing out text from an arbitrarily located text buffer. It'd do about 9 characters per second. The machine had interrupt capability, but most of the interrupt processing logic was in the I/O rack, and something was amiss with the logic, and we were never able to get it to work properly. So, alll I/O was CPU polling, which explains part of why the I/O was slow. I managed to write a minimal DEC FOCAL interpreter for the machine. IIt was really slow, but it worked. The floating point math routines were the most difficult. I had learned FOCAL on a DEC PDP 8 (straight 8) in a class I took when I was in 8th grade, and it seemed simple enough that I could make it work on the 3M machine. I had thought about trying to do BASIC for the machine, but I decided on FOCAL because it was a lot less complex. Glad I chose FOCAL, because It barely fit, even in somewhat minimalized form, on the 8K drum. It was very slow having to pack/unpack three ASCII characters into 24-bit words, but to make everything fit, I had to do it. And, with only two registers (accumulator A and B), and the interprocessor communication 24-bit register that was accessible through I/O instructions, it was quite a challenge. Anyway, I graduated in 1977. I went back during the 1979 school year to visit, and the whole place had changed. The amazing computer curriculum teacher was gone, promoted to somewhere in the district administration, and some younger new guy was there whom I took a pretty immediate dislike to. This was his first year teaching at the school, and the first thing he did was call a scrap dealer to come take away the 3M machine, along with another old machine that was donated to the school...hardly a computer, more like an accounting machine, made by SCM, called a 7816 Typetronic. They were both gone, and I was really angry that they had gone off to scrap. Also, the IMSAI 8080 microcomputer that a small group of students including myself had built from kit form as a high school project during the end of Junior and first part of Senior year in high school was nowhere to be seen. In their place were a number of shiny new Apple II computers. These, to me, seemed mere toys compared to the "real" computer that had gone off to scrap. Had I known this was going to happen, I would have somehow come up with a way to rescue the 3M machine (it wasn't small, nor lightweight) to some kind of safe storage until I would have the resources to restore them. Fortunately, through pure luck, I did manage to find that old IMSAI that we built....and it is in my collection today, and works great. A story for another time. So, even though I was born a bit late to have been "in the prime time" of the earlier computers, I did get the rare experience for a person my age of working with a machine that used magnetic drum memory as primary memory, and I wouldn't trade what I learned from that old beast for anything. Rick Bensene

9 years, 3 months

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cctalk Digest, Vol 31, Issue 7

by mark＠markesystems.com

Allison wrote; >I envy the chance to restore a LGP-30 or for that fact play with one. >Many of the things I remember >mid sixties on are now gone or were rare then. Like small desk sized drum >computers using transistors or first generation IC (RTL and RDTL). Rick Bensene wrote: >I so regret not having rescued an old computer that I played with through >all four years of high school. >The machine was made by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (aka 3M >Corporation). Today, there seems to be no record that 3M ever was in the >computer business. But...it was. I never saw one of those, but the computer center I worked at in college dumped a Cincinnati Milachron small business computer system - *not* a machine tool controller. I tried to grab it, but that was not to be. Same thing - there's no record anywhere I could find that they were ever in that business. <...> > along with another old machine that was donated to the school...hardly a > computer, more like an accounting machine, made by SCM, called a 7816 > Typetronic. I actually ended up with a complete SCM 7816 system, including: - The I/O Printer, which was a hacked SCM electric typewriter, with diode-matrix encoding for the keyboard, and relay decoding for the printer; it used a row of washers to mechanically ensure that only one key could be pressed at once. It also had a paper tape reader built into the back of the carriage, so that some computation could be triggered by the carriage position, or performed while the carriage was returning. - The main 2816 control unit, with a plug-board "output panel" to route data between the various peripherals; this also had the massive power supply, which used a ferro-resonant transformer to regulate all of the voltages. - The optional (!) 7816 arithmetic processor, which did bit-serial addition, subtraction, or multiplication (no division, but this was simulated by using reciprocal multiplication); there were nine 10-digit registers (no other working memory), all implemented on a fixed-head disk, plus a buffer implemented electronically. Add time was 17ms, multiplication 700ms; this is why the ability to do calculations during the carriage return was valuable. - Two paper tape punches - these were re-branded CDC punches, and were very nice units. 40 characters per second, with a built-in automatic verification; they could also be used to punch on the side of cards, instead of tape. - Two paper tape readers. These were built by SCM, and were pretty nice too; they were optical, would read at 30 characters per second, and could stop from full speed on the next character. - The custom desks, which included a recess for the I/O Printer to sit in, and acted as chasses for the 2816 and 7816. - All of the manuals and schematics for the whole thing. Some of the logic was made using thick-film modules, but most was on the vintage single-sided boards, with obviously hand-drawn traces and jumpers on the component side. Somebody has uploaded some of the manuals and 2816 schematics to bitsavers, but not the schematics for the 7816. With the complete schematics, I was eventually able to get the thing to type and read and punch tape, but I never got the arithmetic unit working. That machine was *really* dumb... I carted the whole thing around for about 15 years, until the new wife decided that she was more important than the space it consumed. That's OK, I guess - I eventually ended up dumping her, too... ~~ Mark Moulding

9 years, 3 months

1
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Friden Auxiliary Reader

by kylevowen＠gmail.com

I guess I'm on a roll, trying to find out what some things are in the collection. Any idea what this paper tape reader could've been connected to? http://imgur.com/a/DjRj7 Thanks, Kyle

9 years, 3 months

4
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Vintage computer keyboards, computers, and other stuff

by sales＠elecplus.com

Some is not so vintage, but most of it is. https://elecshopper.com Yes, I will ship internationally, but the value on the customs forms will reflect the actual price paid, as do the invoices. Look around, maybe find something interesting. The RSS feeds are at https://elecshopper.com/RSS if you want to keep an eye on new additions, sales, etc. More products are usually added every day. Cindy Croxton Electronics Plus 1613 Water Street Kerrville, TX 78028 830-370-3239 cell sales at elecplus.com AOL IM elcpls

9 years, 3 months

1
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Homebrew Z80

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

You might be looking at my TVT project.. sorry. ?The z80 computer is mixed in there. ?Here's a direct shot of its motherboard: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4pq0-BHd2x6WmVQZjctMzFadlk/view?usp=drive… Sent from my Samsung device -------- Original message -------- From: Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> Date: 2017-01-07 6:37 AM (GMT-08:00) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: Homebrew Z80 On 6 January 2017 at 20:52, Brad H <vintagecomputer at bettercomputing.net> wrote: > > > I've put some pics of it here: > https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4pq0-BHd2x6bjY3MTRZbGRCQmM?usp=shar > ing > > > > Thoughts/opinions welcome. The logo is right there on one of the boards. http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/RadioElectronics/TV_Typewriter.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Typewriter -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? Google Mail/Talk/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven ? Skype/LinkedIn/AIM/Yahoo: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R/WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +420 702 829 053

9 years, 3 months

1
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Homebrew Z80

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

Hey guys.. I bought this Homebrew Z80 machine from what I assume is the early 80s (going by the chips). Pretty sure it's a Netronics keyboard but wondering if any of you have seen a design like this one. I'm just curious if it came from a magazine article or something as it goes beyond the typical basic homebrew and even appears to have some ROMs. I'm not sure what the TOS ROM is though. I've put some pics of it here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4pq0-BHd2x6bjY3MTRZbGRCQmM?usp=shar ing Thoughts/opinions welcome.

9 years, 3 months

2
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Does anybody have a KIM-1 for sale?

by r3trohub＠gmail.com

Hi all! Wishing you all a happy new year :) I'm looking for a KIM-1 system and/or any other related hardware, the earlier the better! If you have one you'd like to sell, please drop me a line :) -A

9 years, 3 months

1
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Morrow MD-3P Portable MicroDecision

by aek＠bitsavers.org

www.ebay.com/itm/302178528335 bought for the CHM collection. This is the first one I've ever seen. I don't remember if the Morrow sons auctioned one off when they were selling off George's shop. It's essentially a MicroDecision III and MT-70 terminal according to the notes I scanned.

9 years, 3 months

3
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Boot Loader for 3P+S on IMSAI

by wheagy＠gmail.com

I have an IMSAI that I am restoring. The basics appear to be working (front panel, CPU and RAM cards). I have a Processor Tech, 3P+S card that is next on the list for testing. I have the manual, but the card was not configured for RS-232...not sure what it was configured for but it doesn't match anything in the manual. I plan to reconfigure it for RS-232. I'm trying to locate boot loader code for that board to allow serial uploading of files from a PC to the IMSAI? I have boot loader code for a 2SIO board on an Altair that I restored awhile back, and would like to find something similar for the 3P+S. I want to be able to toggle in a boot loader routine and then initiate an upload >from the PC to IMSAI -- something similar to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwC1T9oLK1U&t=212s (at 1:10s in) but with a 3P+S board on an IMSAI. Also, a picture of your RS-232 configured card and wiring of the edge connectors would be helpful to make sure I get things right. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Win wheagy at gmail.com?

9 years, 3 months

2
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Seeking English version of LGP-30 Maintenance Manual

by coryheisterkamp＠gmail.com

Christian Corti had made available the German version of the LGP-30 Maintenance Manual, copied here: http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/LGP-30MaintenanceManual-German.pdf Ed Thelen had OCR?d and translated some of the pages, but I?m looking for a copy of the complete English version if someone has it available. A search of the CBI archives didn?t turn up anything, either. If only paper copies exist, I would be glad to pay postage, scan, and send back the manual if someone out there has it. Thanks- Cory

9 years, 3 months

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cctech Digest, Vol 30, Issue 15

by tim＠tim-mann.org

For what it's worth, xtrs (http://tim-mann.org/xtrs.html) emulates LD A,R by putting an 8-bit random number in A. Of course that's cheesy and wrong -- especially bit 7 being random instead of retaining a 0 from reset or the last value written to it -- but at least it works OK with Ethan's subroutine. The subroutine may loop a few times due to the value randomly being negative or zero until it escapes the first time the value is randomly positive. xtrs sets the sign and zero flags according to the value, and does something complicated with the other flags that I don't remember the reason for -- but it might be correct; i think I got it from some reference on the web last time I hacked on that instruction. The pointer that someone posted to http://www.worldofspectrum.org/faq/reference/z80reference.htm#RRegister may inspire me to fix the emulation, though it looks like a bit of work to get it exactly right... On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 10:00 AM, <cctech-request at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Message: 10 > Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 17:34:29 -0500 > From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts" <cctech at classiccmp.org> > Subject: Re: Z-80 code question about a loop that depends on the > contents of the refresh register > Message-ID: > <CAALmimm07Bf=fjp70jzMKiV0m94aWxzggjeZuJg=ji > LeLXT+gw at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 4:26 PM, allison <ajp166 at verizon.net> wrote: > >>> On 14/12/2016 09:19, Ethan Dicks wrote: > >>>> > >>>> So far, this loop hangs on all three emulators I've tried - simh's > >>>> altairz80, simcpm010 for AmigaDOS, and EMUZ80 for Raspberry Pi. I'm > >>>> guessing none of these environments emulate specific behavior of the > >>>> Refresh register? > > > The first year of appearance for 64K DRAMS was mid to late 1980 > (expensive > > and scarce) and mostly sampling to the big vendors. For regular users > late 81 > > when the price started down. > > Right. I was a user of 8-bit micros in that exact era. My first > hands-on experience as a user was the memory inside the Commodore 64. > My first engineering experience was in 1984 on a product designed in > 1983 (COMBOARD-II with 128K of 4164 chips and a 74S409 refresh > controller). > > > There were three flavors, 8bit refresh, 7bit refresh, and > > internal refresh came in a bit later by maybe mid 1982. > > I know there were different types but not those details. Thanks. > > > The Z80 could do 8bit refresh with hardware or software or the self > refresh > > (internal). > > I'm also a little fuzzy on this aspect of things because I was never a > Z-80 user back in the day. > > Software Results considered a Z-80 COMBOARD very early on, but > abandonded that approach because it would have likely required 2 hex > Unibus modules and so opted to hold out a few months and go with a > 68000 and SRAM design on a single hex card (my old boss still has an > XC68000 with S/N 424 engraved on the lid). > > > Nominally the R register is a counter that increments from any value to > 7bit > > overflow. > > So I'm learning. > > > I believe most emulators actually do that. > > The first three emulators I tried (simcpm010, altairz80, and EMUZ80) > on three different platforms (AmigaDOS, Linux, and ARM) do not. I now > have a couple of names of DOS/Windows emulators that should. I will > have to run them under Wine since I'm not a Windows user. > > It's funny because I would have tried this on simcpm010 25 years ago > (it was on the Amiga disk I just extracted all these files from) and > it would have failed then just as it fails today, and then, I had *no* > idea why. I've learned a lot since then because it only took me a few > hours of digging to uncover why. > > > Check MyZ80 Simon Crans work (32bit > > dos/ pre-7-winders only or in a 32bit sim/VM). > > I will look that up. > > > Either that or lookup and assemble Grant Searle's low chip count Z80 > system. > > The worry is not running on real hardware. Once I get some time to > clean up my XOR or dig out a Kaypro, I will run it on real hardware. > I want to find/fix an emulator for modern machines so that other > people can just grab and go. Also, this is not _just_ a Z-80 program, > it's a CP/M program, with CP/M BDOS calls to open/close/read/write > files and read-from/write-to the console (F_OPEN, F_CLOSE, F_READ, > F_WRITE, C_READSTR, C_WRITE). > > Right now, I'm leaning towards fixing altairz80 first since that runs > on "everything". I may also work with the author of EMUZ80 so it > works on bare-metal Raspberry Pi (EMUZ80 is a Pascal app that runs in > the Lazarus bare-metal framework, so you need Windows to rebuild the > app). I don't mind putting known-working Windows-based emulators on > a list of "verified environments", but I'm not going to push this to > the public without a Mac and a Linux answer. Telling the world that > they have to build a real Z-80 CP/M machine to play a game isn't going > to hit a large audience. > > Thanks, > > -ethan >

9 years, 3 months

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12 years later sill looking for...

by ajp166＠verizon.net

<<I happen to have a Atlantic Research Inc, serial datascope. It contains <<several boards [std bus z80, rom/ram card, CRT5027 based crt controller Card] <<however no manual. Someday I'll track down at least a schematic and fix <<the CRT. The boards say T-Bar on them so the instrument may even be from <<another company with the ACI label. It would be fun to get it operational. I repaired the CRT and foudn it generally less than useful and repurposed the CRT, Power supply and case for a Embedded ELF system... with disk. So now I have the three STD boards and 4 slot backplane... THey do have T-BAR on them and I can do one of two things with them strip them for the CPU, SIO, RAM, EPROM, SMC5027E CRTC. As is without manuals or other useful info they are junk to be reused. Ideally with far more detailed info like schematics make a dedicated z80 system. So I post it again... Allison

9 years, 3 months

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FOR SALE: Commodore PET 8032 like new in original box

by sellam.ismail＠gmail.com

I have put up for sale on the Vintage Computer Marketplace a near pristine Commodore PET 8032 in its original box. http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?55679-Commodore-PET-8032-Brand-Ne… If interested, please inquire on the VCM or direct to me through e-mail. Thanks! Sellam

9 years, 3 months

1
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Apple //c Prototype, Sphere 1, UniCom 141p for sale (and more)

by sellam.ismail＠gmail.com

Hello All, I have put up for sale on the Vintage Computer Marketplace the following items: Apple //c Prototype http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?55676-Apple-c-Prototype-for-sale Sphere 1 http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?55677-Sphere-1-early-Personal-Com… UniCom 141p http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?55678-Unicom-141p-First-commercia… I also have a lot more machines of all kinds remaining in my collection that I am selling. Most of the machines in this post are still available (though the prices listed are obsolete as this is an old post): http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?51781-Mulitple-and-divers-compute… All prices are negotiable. The intent is to sell these items. Thanks! Sellam

9 years, 3 months

1
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Introduction to DECSYSTEM-20 PDF?

by lists+cctalk＠loomcom.com

I'm looking for a PDF of "Introduction to DECSYSTEM-20 Assembly Language Programming" by Ralph E. Gorin. It used to be hosted on PDPPlanet (xkleten.paulallen.com), but that's been down for a while. Does anyone else have a copy they could send me? Best Wishes, -Seth -- Seth Morabito seth at loomcom.com

9 years, 3 months

4
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LGP-30 Memory Drum Update

by blstuart＠bellsouth.net

On Tue, 1/3/17, Cory Heisterkamp <coryheisterkamp at gmail.com> wrote: > What I?m wondering is if anyone is familiar with the setup/adjustment > procedure for getting the heads set correctly. There *might* be a couple of > unused tracks I can relocate heads to, but my thought is that if half a > dozen heads were already in contact, then the rest may be perilously close > as well (swelled drum?). My odds of setting 71 heads perfectly on a 50 year > old worn drum is?well?not great. A while back I read a procedure (probably in reference to the G-15). Quite frankly, it scared me a little, but I'll pass it on. The idea is to use sound. The tech would use a screwdriver as a sounding bar between the casing and his ear. Then the head was tightened down until you could just hear it start to brush. I don't remember for sure, but I'd have to think that you would then back off just enough for the brushing sound to stop. I don't recall whether the article said that this was done with the motor running or the drum was being turned by hand, but if it were my machine, I'd set the heads turning the drum slowly by hand and then check for any brushing sound when the motor comes up. Whether or not the drum is restorable, I'd still plan on building a drum simulator. That way you can get the rest of the machine up and running without stressing or depending on the drum too much. Plus if the drum does turn out to be unrestorable, you'll still be able to run the rest of the machine. As to how to approach the simulator, I would have to think a C.H.I.P. or a Pi would have plenty of horsepower, especially if you drop Linux and either run on the bare metal or as an in-kernel driver in something lighter weight. BLS

9 years, 3 months

15
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LC8-P (M8365) PDP8 printer interface schematics

by djg＠pdp8online.com

I would also be interested in schematics. I have just started looking at this board to try to use it with a ODEC/Data 100 chain printer. > Looking at the LA180 manual's description of the LC8-P interface, it > is pretty close to Centronics. I expect it is more than just a cable, > though, because there is also an OMNIBUS Centronics printer interface > board (LS8-E). That schematic is on bitsavers. > It looked to me the LA180 protocol is demand and busy high when ok to send character then the data is strobed in with data strobe pulse. Centronics is handshaked with strobe and busy so a little different. The board is simple enough that tracing it out is feasible if needed. Haven't plugged in the board yet to see how the signals behave. Still working on the printer.

9 years, 3 months

2
2
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Docs needed: DEC MXV11-B multi function module

by j_hoppe＠t-online.de

Hi, I've an DEC QBUS multifunction module here. Type is MXV11-B M7195. It does not boot into its ROM menu, despite I compared all the jumpers multiple time against documentation and a reference boards. So it seems something in the ROM address logic is burnt. Somebody has the FPMs schematics? I even can scan micro fiches. Thanks, Joerg

9 years, 3 months

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LGP-30 Memory Drum Update

by coryheisterkamp＠gmail.com

While waiting for the machine, I decided to investigate the stuck drum. This unit has 71 read/write heads plus what appears to be an inductive pickup for the system clock. Upon closer examination I discovered multiple heads in contact with the drum surface preventing rotation. And in the process of removing the mounting bars that secure the heads only then did damage become visible on a couple of tracks (scored oxide under the heads). What I?m wondering is if anyone is familiar with the setup/adjustment procedure for getting the heads set correctly. There *might* be a couple of unused tracks I can relocate heads to, but my thought is that if half a dozen heads were already in contact, then the rest may be perilously close as well (swelled drum?). My odds of setting 71 heads perfectly on a 50 year old worn drum is?well?not great. For kicks, I tried to use a piece of cheap (=thin) (0.004?) notebook paper as a feeler gage to see if I could identify the offending heads prior to support removal. This was a no-go as clearance was too tight. So, is it true these ride 0.001? off the surface? I suspect with temp and humidity changes, and given the age, I would be better off building a solid state drum emulator for the 4KW mem, but retaining the drum for the clock and possibly the 3 fast registers..if I can get those (7) heads set correctly. Any input is welcome. -C

9 years, 3 months

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ISO small quantity of 3M 3418 40 pin pcb to ribbon male connectors

by aek＠bitsavers.org

I need some of these for making Diablo disk drive cables. Mouser/Digikey, etc. have a minimum buy of 500 (at $9 ea). Picture at http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/140452P/ts0005-pcb-connector.jpg Anyone see any at any surplus places? Online searches are pretty much useless because of the extremely common 40 pin male IDC plug, and my searches in the valley have come up empty.

9 years, 3 months

5
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Where are the cctech archives before November 2014 ?

by w.f.j.mueller＠retro11.de

Hi, after I remarked in November last year that the cctech archives have been `lost` Jay West responded > Walter.... > > I think you need to ask a few questions before you toss that kind of nonsense out. > > For your info - this is a hobby. It is done in spare time. The time period you > peak of - the archives have NOT been lost. Because unlike what you intone - we > do care. Those archives are safe and sound, just not in a publicly accessible > format. One of our kind list members has been working for eons to reconstruct > the publicly viewable content from them. > > I will tell him that you are going to volunteer to help him. Well, it is certainly true that the archives visible under http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/ only go back to November 2014. Thanks to the Internet Archive there is a full backup of the older archive sections readily available online. Simply open http://web.archive.org/web/20141025062159/http://www.classiccmp.org/piperma… and one gets all archives from October 2014 back to February 2005. There I found the postings I was looking for, and updated my links to use http://web.archive.org/. That's all. So in a wider sense nothing is lost, one has to search in the right place. With best regards, Walter

9 years, 3 months

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Fix for 4.3BSD-Quasijarus bootstrap on CMD SCSI controllers

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Josh Dersch > Thought I'd share this fix with you all just in case someone in the > future might make use of it. To help disseminate it, I uploaded the fix to the Computer History wiki: http://gunkies.org/wiki/CDU-710/M_disk_controller > From: Lars Brinkhoff > There's no central repository for fixes like these? Well, the CH wiki would be a good place, but creating new accounts on it is proving to be difficult. I'm trying to get ahold of one of the two bureacrats, to make me an admin (I've been one on Wikipedia since the Devonian), so I can create accounts for people, but so far no luck. Noel

9 years, 3 months

5
7
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National Semiconductor IMP mini

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

-------- Original message -------- From: Raymond Wiker <rwiker at gmail.com> Date: 2017-01-02 11:01 PM (GMT-08:00) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: National Semiconductor IMP mini I see he also has an Apple II that he wants $2000 for --- it's listed as "NON WORKING ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS FROM EXTREME AGE", and from date codes and copyright markings it appears to be far from original. In fact, the motherboard seems to be a Rev 7 RFI motherboard, and the processor is (I think) from 1985. If that one is worth $2000, my Apple IIs must be worth at least $6000 each :-) On Tue, Jan 3, 2017 at 5:24 AM, jim stephens <jwsmail at jwsss.com> wrote: > > > On 1/2/2017 8:08 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: > >> On 1/2/17 7:58 PM, Brad H wrote: >> >> >>> -------- Original message -------- >>> From: Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> >>> Date: 2017-01-02? 7:37 PM? (GMT-08:00) >>> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" < >>> cctalk at classiccmp.org> >>> Subject: Re: National Semiconductor IMP mini >>> >>> >>> On 1/2/17 7:22 PM, jim stephens wrote: >>> >>>> This system looks pretty interesting, though pricey. I'm thinking it >>>> is going to be a development machine as all the switches and display >>>> would not probably have been on a production machine. >>>> >>>> I don't think National made many minicomputer format machines, in >>>> their history, someone correct me.? That might make this pretty rare >>>> on that front as well. >>>> >>>> thanks >>>> Jim >>>> >>>> Beautiful-1974-NATIONAL-SEMICONDUCTOR-COMPUTER-model-imp-16p/ >>>> http://www.ebay.com/itm/252700755919 >>>> >>>> Yeah, it's pretty cool but I don't think the seller has reasonable >>> expectations for actually selling it -- the auction started (I believe) >>> at $1500 (which may have been a reasonable price), then the seller >>> raised it to $2500, now it's at $3500 (which is fairly outrageous, in my >>> >>>> opinion).? I'm not sure what his strategy is. >>>> Bitsavers has manuals (of course...) >>>> - Josh >>>> >>> I think he figured toggle switches and lights = $$$$.? He might be >>> correct, given the obscene money I've seen laid out just for a PDP 8/e >>> faceplate. You never know a) what will motivate a collector and b) when >>> just the right collector for a given item will show up.? Every day I thank >>> my lucky stars they didn't, for whatever reason, show up for my Mark-8 >>> boards. >>> >> >> With the "No shipping cash on pickup" proviso the seller provides, I feel >> fairly certain no one's biting.? But I've been surprised before... >> >> - Josh >> > > I also passed on a PDP8/M he had, which was quite rangy then posted this > auction.? I had not come across the listing from before. > > The "Oh it must be worth a fortune", even canceling an auction 2 weeks ago > on me.? I didn't think to pay for it on auction closing, since I'd been > sniping it, or I could have really reamed the seller.? I have not gotten a > straight response from them since then. > > I would not have noted this other than what i think is a rarity. Sad that > the guy is holding it hostage from someone who could get hold of it and run > it.? I think there is one in the CHM collection from what i was told when I > checked on it before sharing here, so there is one preserved.? However > would be interesting to see one in such as Josh's or Ian's hands running. > (or many others, just share a lot with them and they are lighting blink'n > lights more than me right now). > > thanks > Jim > > I brought the RFI thing up with him. ?No response. ?There is a legit Rev 1 there too asking $3500. ?I don't find Apple IIs below Rev 0 that interesting anymore, personally. ?I think even the legit guy would struggle to get much above $1500.

9 years, 3 months

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was: National Semi... is Apple ][ collectability (if any)

by vintagecomputer＠bettercomputing.net

-------- Original message -------- From: "drlegendre ." <drlegendre at gmail.com> Date: 2017-01-03 8:03 PM (GMT-08:00) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: was: National Semi... is Apple ][ collectability (if any) "Vent-less case" - LoL!! Add some RAM, maybe a DISC-II card and those things overheated even +with+ the vents.. that's why the Cider fan became popular, among other things. When I was in high school, we'd pop the case tops open, and run them that way. Otherwise, they'd overheat and start screwing up after the first or second class period. On Tue, Jan 3, 2017 at 10:36 AM, Brad H <vintagecomputer at bettercomputing.net > wrote: > >On 1/2/2017 11:26 PM, Brad H wrote: > > I brought the RFI thing up with him.? No response.? There is a legit Rev > 1 there too asking $3500.? I don't find Apple IIs below Rev 0 that > interesting anymore, personally.? I think even the legit guy would struggle > to get much above $1500. > >The vintagecomputer museum guy on epay is selling mounted and framed > motherboards now for $1500 (might not >work noted). > > >I guess someone would care about low ref Apple 2's but I'm not sure why > there would be any interest.? I've got one >I bought with the original > packing box, which I have picked and moved twice, which is rare for my > collecting, but I >don't know what makes any Apple 2 like that > collectible.? As in why are they collectible with low serials / part > >numbers. > > >is there any documentation as to when they were made with those numbers > that would make them significant?? >The numbers made as Raymond said would > make most of us with Apple 2's millionaires I'd think unless they have > >some other significance. > > >just curious. > >thanks > >Jim > > When I got into collecting an original Apple II was as rare as hen's teeth > on ebay, etc.? Those got huge bucks, regardless of rev.? Then sellers > caught on and stuff started coming out of closets, basements, estate > sales.? I actually track Apple II sales and prices have massively declined > since 15 years ago.? I mean, there's 60000+ out there theoretically, and > II+ shared the same components and production lines for a time.? Only diff > was the ROMs.? Now Rev 0 is where it's at, especially a rare ventless > case.? Oh, and late SNs in the 70000 range for some reason still get > $700-800.? I don't know why. > > The one thing I can tell you is, if an 'expert' tells you something about > original II production, there's a good chance they are wrong.? Some > authoritative sources claimed no Rev 02 boards went into public hands, for > example, but I have one in my SN 16000s machine.? Some would claim that > can't be original, but it is.. the date code on it is the same as the > keyboard and case, all right in the range of other 16000 series machines, > which on either side of mine have Rev 03.? Apple didn't use the same rev > consistently.. sometimes they just grabbed from the pile.? It's kind of a > dogs breakfast after Rev 0. > > My Rev 02 operates no differently, other than Integer BASIC, than my RFI > II+.? More and more I'm not finding IIs to be all that amazing or worth > fighting over.? A Rev 0, just owing to the few truly unique design > features, is the only one I might want now. > > > > Yeah. ?We were on to IIes when I was in grade school and then Commodores and PCs after that.. original IIs and II+ were long gone. ?I have four units and never have any issue but come to think of it I do tend to run them case top off. ?I imagine other users might have run them with the monitor (another massive heat source) sitting right on top. I think the ventless cases also were made of a weaker plastic that melted and warped just from the heat of the innards. ?The few examples I've seen are almost invariably somewhat concave. ?

9 years, 3 months

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Desparately seeking Cromemco chassis (UK)

by james＠attfield.co.uk

Wishing all here a very Happy New Year! Along with some other folks in 2017 I have decided I am going to ripple through all of my vintage systems and warm their beautiful and friendly caches. I won't have a problem with my BBC Micro, Atari 1040ST, Amiga 500's, 2000's, 3000 and 4000 and the PowerMac's but what I really would like is to bring my Cromemco back on line. I have the cards (DPU, 256KZ, 16FDC plus sundry others e.g. Quadart, IOP) and drives (Tandon TM100 5" and dual TM848 8") but although I have a naked Blitz Bus I lack a decent chassis. This is a plea for any kind soul with a spare or unwanted chassis who is prepared to let one go to help me out. Ideally a CS/3 chassis would be preferable however a Z2D, Z2 or even a System 1 chassis would be gratefully given a loving and permanent home. Naturally, given the weight of same, I expect I would have to pick up or arrange transport so regretfully any offers would have to be UK-based. The CS/3, and the Z2/Z2D had power supplies designed to handle a fully loaded bus of 21 S-100 cards (although I never handled one with more than 12 or so) and were one of those rare systems which could pass Navy certification i.e. survive being stood on by a rating in full gear and boots so were quite substantial. I would also be very interested in a 64FDC and any 5Mb or 20Mb IMI drives as I have a WDI-II controller, alternatively an STDC controller. James ---- James Attfield West Midlands, UK G8ZMP

9 years, 3 months

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LGP-30 Memory Drum Update

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

In a message dated 1/3/2017 11:11:54 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, elson at pico-systems.com writes: On 01/03/2017 10:58 AM, Cory Heisterkamp wrote: > While waiting for the machine, I decided to investigate the stuck drum. > This unit has 71 read/write heads plus what appears to be an inductive > pickup for the system clock. Upon closer examination I discovered multiple > heads in contact with the drum surface preventing rotation. And in the > process of removing the mounting bars that secure the heads only then did > damage become visible on a couple of tracks (scored oxide under the heads). Most likely the same issue as the G-15 we had. Dust was allowed to get into the drum area and pack under the heads. Probably if you pull the heads and clean them, it will restore clearance. Of course, the bearings may be bad, or will have to be replaced anyway as the grease may have hardened. > > > What I?m wondering is if anyone is familiar with the setup/adjustment > procedure for getting the heads set correctly. There *might* be a couple of > unused tracks I can relocate heads to, but my thought is that if half a > dozen heads were already in contact, then the rest may be perilously close > as well (swelled drum?). My odds of setting 71 heads perfectly on a 50 year > old worn drum is?well?not great. > If the drum can be set up to run true again (may need attention to bearings) then I think setting the heads up won't be that tough. I suspect it is done with a feeler gauge, this is low-resolution stuff with large gaps in the heads, so the heads probably run with a gap of at least .005" (~ 0.1mm) (I'd think, without actually knowing). > > For kicks, I tried to use a piece of cheap (=thin) (0.004?) notebook paper > as a feeler gage to see if I could identify the offending heads prior to > support removal. This was a no-go as clearance was too tight. So, is it > true these ride 0.001? off the surface? Well, it could be. That sounds really close for the vintage involved. So, maybe the drum or oxide has swelled. Anyway, if there is much damage to the oxide, it may not make sense to try to repair it. if the heads that jammed it left divots in the drum, or the surface is uneven (likely if swelling actually occurred) then it may require extreme efforts to repair. > > I suspect with temp and humidity changes, and given the age, I would be > better off building a solid state drum emulator for the 4KW mem, but > retaining the drum for the clock and possibly the 3 fast registers..if I > can get those (7) heads set correctly. > > > > Why not just replace the whole works? If you are going to replace the long lines with electronic memory, doing the short lines and the clock track should be trivial. I think a mid-sized FPGA could do it all quite easily. My guess is that if the surface is uneven, it may not read back data reliably. The high spots might be fine, the low spots will have dropouts. This is all assuming swelling was the culprit. It is also possible that machined parts suffered stress relief over the years. Wrought metal has stress imparted to it when rolled, and then machining will partially relieve the stresses, causing warpage. The warping continues over time. To eliminate this, critical parts are machined close to size, heat treated to relieve the stress, and then finish ground to exact dimensions. It is possible some of the stress wasn't relieved during manufacture. And, nobody expected a 195x machine to be running in 2017, especially as anybody in the computer business knew those transistors were right around the corner, and would almost certainly replace tubes. Jon Cory - then what holds the oxide to the drum? Horrible thoughts of what happens to binder layers on mag tape... flaking, sticky shed.... ecccshhh! I deal with this problem all the time on some of the historic video tape we have done conversion on out of our media lab.....

9 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

PDP-10 Foonex

by bygg＠cafax.se

> Appeared here: > > http://github.com/PDP-10/FOONEX The web says: "Initial checkin whilst I figure out what format the files are" I took a quick look and guessed a little: #include <stdio.h> typedef unsigned long long w36; void pchar(char c) { c &= 0177; if ((c < ' ') || (c == 0177)) c = ' '; putchar(c); } int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { int wnum = 0; int c1, c2, c3, c4, c5; w36 w; int lh, rh; for (;;) { w = getchar(); w <<= 8; w |= getchar(); w <<= 8; w |= getchar(); w <<= 8; w |= getchar(); w <<= 4; c5 = getchar(); if (c5 == EOF) break; w |= (c5 & 0x0f); lh = w >> 18; rh = w & 0777777; c1 = (w >> 29) & 0177; c2 = (w >> 22) & 0177; c3 = (w >> 15) & 0177; c4 = (w >> 8) & 0177; c5 = (w >> 1) & 0177; printf(" %6o: %9llx %06o,,%06o", wnum, w, lh, rh); printf(" %3o %3o %3o %3o %3o \"", c1, c2, c3, c4, c5); pchar(c1); pchar(c2); pchar(c3); pchar(c4); pchar(c5); printf("\"\n"); wnum += 1; } return 0; } resulted in: 0: 7000037 000700,,000067 0 34 0 0 33 " " 1: 21f30 000000,,417460 0 0 4 37 30 " " 2: 894e5ba78 422471,,335170 104 123 113 72 74 "DSK:<" 3: 8d3e7ce8a 432371,,747212 106 117 117 116 105 "FOONE" 4: b0fa1c882 541750,,344202 130 76 103 110 101 "X>CHA" 5: 9f4d74d82 476465,,646602 117 123 56 115 101 "OS.MA" 6: 86ed9b972 415666,,334562 103 73 63 71 71 "C;399" 7: 0 000000,,000000 0 0 0 0 0 " " [snip] 777: 0 000000,,000000 0 0 0 0 0 " " 1000: 774e94374 356472,,241564 73 123 122 103 72 ";SRC:" 1001: 794ecd35c 362473,,151534 74 123 131 123 56 "<SYS." 1002: 9b3e749a8 466371,,644650 115 117 116 111 124 "MONIT" 1003: 9f49f4390 476447,,641620 117 122 76 103 110 "OR>CH" 1004: 833e9ae9a 406372,,327232 101 117 123 56 115 "AOS.M" 1005: 830d73372 406065,,631562 101 103 56 63 71 "AC.39" 1006: 6e810375a 335004,,033532 67 40 40 67 55 "7 7-" 1007: 9b87cad70 467037,,126560 115 141 171 55 70 "May-8" 1010: 62818b974 305006,,134564 61 40 61 71 72 "1 19:" 1011: 66d5d346c 315527,,232154 63 65 72 64 66 "35:46" 1012: 58822e4d2 261010,,562322 54 40 105 144 151 ", Edi" 1013: e88317940 721014,,274500 164 40 142 171 40 "t by " 1014: 9b361cd1a 466330,,346432 115 115 103 115 15 "MMCM " [and so on] Looks like a tape in core-dump format with a header page. Should be kindof trivial to process these into plain text automagically. --Johnny

9 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

PDP-10 Foonex

by lars＠nocrew.org

Appeared here: http://github.com/PDP-10/FOONEX

9 years, 3 months

3
3
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IA-1010 Z-80 board difficulties!

by Mark＠Misty.com

Hi, On Mon, Jan 02, 2017 at 10:32:28PM -0800, Richard Pope wrote: > Walter, > . . . . I appreciate all of this information. I have a revision 2.0 > board and my info shows U8 as a 96S02 multivibrator chip. I have tried > to find a replacement for this and I have not been successful. I believe this is a suitable replacement. I found it while getting the parts together necessary to build my bare IA-1010 Z-80 board. "AM26S02PC - Schottky Monostable Multivibrator ( 5 pcs ) - 16 Pin DIP Plastic" http://www.ebay.com/itm/261370092245 Mark -- Mark G. Thomas (Mark at Misty.com), KC3DRE

9 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

ISO Compugraphic MCS-10 keyboard

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Pics of what I'm trying to find at http://www.retrocomputing.net/parts/compugraphic/mcs_keyb/ Bought one w/o kb or monitor and managed to locate a few floppies for it. CP/M 86 was available from CG, but I don't think there's much chance of ever finding that. Even just a dump of the microcontroller in the kb would be helpful. I'm not quite sure who the contact would be at retrocomputing.net to ask if they could dump the one in theirs. I have the PALs dumped and disassembled, will have those up on bitsavers later this morning.

9 years, 3 months

1
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Hollerith cars available (ebay warning).

by jwsmail＠jwsss.com

Sorry for posting the National machine w/o an Ebay warning. Anyway anyone that has a home keypunch will possibly be interested in this guy. I have ordered up a pile, as I doubt they will show up this cheap unless someone takes it on themselves to manufacture them as the earlier discussions suggested. Not holding my breath for that. I don't personally care that there is a lot of crap printed on them, rather than the column indexes. The machines don't read that, and the top band is clear for my keypunches to write there with whatever is on the card. thanks Jim Has cases of 2000 and also cases of 5 x 2000 = 10000 cards (look for the 5 case auction separately) http://www.ebay.com/itm/272488557055

9 years, 3 months

2
1
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